What color is your car?

The color of my car is champagne. I don't actually know what color that is meant to be but that is how the dealer described it. In practice, its kind of like a mix between a very light grey color and a very light gold color. Furthermore, I make sure that the car is clean (the maid washes it once a week).

Which, according to this website, means that I am careful and pay attention to detail while wanting people to know that I am wealthy and independent.

However, my favourite car would be a red Ferrari which I unfortunately can't afford. So does this mean that I want to be a wild person? When I purchased my car, I also seriously considered a black or light blue car. Which indicates that I'm in control and peaceful.

So - does that sound like the Jokemeister you know?

Badminton racquet

When I first started playing badminton, I used to prefer a head-heavy racquet - mainly because I liked to whack the ball. The problem is that I'm not a very good badminton player and my smashes were never particularly dangerous. In fact, most of the time, the opposing player would very easily knock the ball to the back of my court.

Another problem is that my reaction times aren't particularly great so that whenever someone smashed the ball at me, I would never be able to return the ball. The fact that I had a head-heavy racquet also didn't help much! So in summary, I wasn't able to win many points by smashing and I couldn't return the ball when smashed either. :(

As a result of this, many years ago, I decided to switch to a more defensive style racquet - one which wasn't as head-heavy and hence quicker for me to play with. My thinking was that I would prefer to have a chance to return a smash (as I wasn't very good at smashing anyway). And this has been the case now for many years.

Anyway, while playing badminton last night, the strings on my racquet broke (a Yonex Isometric Swing Power 900). As far as I can recall, this has been the first time that the strings on my racquet broke as a result of play (normally, I replace them either due to age or because the tension has leaked). Luckily, my friend had a spare racquet. He lent me his old Yonex MP100 (which is a head-heavy racquet) and we restarted the match.

Now, bear in mind that our opponents for that match weren't particularly good (don't get me wrong, they were much better than me - but just not someone which I would classify as good). Having said that, they were still good enough to return most of my normal smashes relatively easily. However, after I switched to the MP100, the extra velocity on my smashes was very noticeable. In fact, I even won quite a few points just by smashing the ball at them - which for me is a very rare circumstance.

After playing a couple of games last night using the MP100 and predominantly smashing the ball, I'm just wondering now whether I should rethink my decision to use a defensive racquet. To be honest, I had a lot of fun last night just whacking the ball as hard as I could. I'm under no illusion as to my skill - I know that if I had been up against some good players, then the extra power on the MP100 wouldn't have been enough to make up for my lack of skill. Having said that, I really had a lot of fun last night whacking the ball as hard as I could!

I really like my ISO900. It has a very flexible shaft and feels very light in nature (I bought the defense variant). However, maybe its time to retire my old racquet to the bench and get a new one.

Halo 3 comic

Recently, I talked about creating a Halo comic. Unfortunately, this is going to be a lot harder than I thought.

You may recall that I was going to do my first comic based on the Halo 3 storyline. However, the problem is that the story part of the game mainly occurs during cutscenes - which aren't recorded by the game. Unfortunately, I don't have a capture card so I can't capture the video to my PC either.

This means that all of the exposition explaining the story will somehow have to be ported into the game engine. And not just ported into the game engine but during the limited control that I have during the campaign.

So what problems does this actually create?

Firstly, unlike the Red vs Blue machinima, I am limited to 1 person. Which means that I can only control 1 person. Which means that it is very hard to setup the scene so that I have people talking to each other.

Secondly, as I'm creating a comic of the story portion of the game, it means that I will have to take screenshots from the campaign mode. Which makes it even harder for me to setup the scene. In case you don't understand why - you have to remember that while I'm positioning my guy for the best shot or best pose etc, I'm also being attacked by the AI covenant forces!

Even if I can get around all these, due to the requirement to put all the cutscene scripts into the comic, it means that I am going to have to spend a lot of time storyboarding the comic so I know what it is I'm trying to do. And all this is before I even start playing the video looking for screenshots!

Which leads me to the last and also possibly biggest hurdle. The camera in the campaign save games isn't as good as in the multiplayer games. Although I can control the camera placement, I can't rewind. This means that if I accidentally move past the shot I'm looking for, I have to exit the video and reload it from the beginning. Which is a huge pain in the ass when you consider that the first level took me 51 minutes to complete (which also means I have a 51 minute video to review!).

All in all, a lot of problems. Having said that, it might still be doable. However, I think I will need a lot more experience with storyboarding and graphic layout before I can tackle making a comic of the Halo 3 campaign. Which is why I have gone back to the idea of creating a comic based on one of my multiplayer games. Anyway, not sure how long it will take me - but I will let you know if there are any significant developments.

Gerry and Doraemon

Okay - after 2 posts about Halo 3 - I'm going to try to get back in gear and do a blog post that contains no video game references (other than this line!).

Anyway, Gerry loves playing with all of his various teddy bears etc. Although not his favourite, he has a big stuffed Doraemon teddy which is just slightly bigger than he is. During one of his "play" sessions with Doraemon, I grabbed the camera and took a quick video of him and Doraemon.

As you can see from the video - they are BFF!
:D

Halo 3 (again!)

At this time, I really should apologise to my regular blog readers. As you can tell from the title, this is going to be another game related post. Unfortunately for you, the only thing I can think about at this moment is Halo 3 so you will have to just bear with me until the thril passes. Don't worry, I'm sure it won't be longer than a week ... or two. :)

Anyway, one of the things about Halo 3 that has really impressed me is the video function. All games are automatically recorded by the game as you play. After you finish playing, you can then play back the video and watch what you did. Whats great about it is that you have full control over the camera in this video and you can take film clips or screenshots to show off what you have done. Its really a very cool idea and I've spent an inordinate amount of time playing around inside the video instead of actually playing the game.

You can also refer to my gaming blog if you wanna check out some screenshots from the game. I intend to post ongoing screenshots of my gaming sessions in there. However, this has gotten me to thinking. What else can I do with this function?

The obvious thing is to create a Halo comic strip. To do that, all I would need is some decent screenshots, Photoshop (or an equivalent) and a healthy dose of imagination. I can get the screenshots from the game and I have a photo editor. The question is whether I have enough imagination to script an actual comic.

Maybe as a test run, I could create a comic based on the Halo 3 storyline. By following the storyline, I already have an idea of what dialogue to include so my imagination won't be stretched too hard! Also, it will give me an idea of how feasible the project is (viz a viz time and my limited ability with a photo editor!).

Halo 3

Halo 3 gets released tomorrow. At this point, I guess I should apologise for another gaming related post. However, at this moment in time, Halo 3 is the only thing that occupies my mind - so I guess you'll have to bear with me.

I say it gets released tomorrow - however, it would probably be fairer to say that it gets released tonight. Toys R Us in Harbour City is having a midnight opening tonight so that eager Halo fans can buy the game at the stroke of midnight (and hence technically 25 September) and then rush home to play. Which is actually the first time I've heard of this kind of thing in HK.

You see, midnight openings are very common in the US and in the UK for big games. However, I've never heard of it happening in HK before. To be honest, I wonder how many people will show up at Toys R Us tonight to buy Halo 3. Maybe I'm being harsh on HK people here but the impression I have of the HK market is that there aren't that many people who buy originals (I'm one of the few) as most will buy or download pirate games.

What do you think? Am I being harsh on HK people or is the place really a pirate haven?

Time to buy a new razor

I don't know why but this video really resonates with me.

Maybe its time to buy a new razor.