Hamster is making "good" progress

Richard Hammond has been downgraded from a "serious but stable" to "stable" condition, indicating that the doctors are satisfied with the recovery that he is making. He reportedly has had "significant brain injury" during the accident in which his rocket-powered vehicle veered off the track at about 482km/h.

Let's hope he doesn't lose his wit and his courage. More at the BBC.

The Hamster is in critical condition =[

Just got this piece of news. Richard Hammond, better known as The Hamster from BBC's Top Gear series has been critically injured while filming. Top Gear was apparently trying to break the landspeed record. More details at BBC and The Age.

I'll be one of them praying for his safety. Top Gear will not be complete without him.

Project aquarium... stage 1

Finally got off my lazy ass during the weekend to start work on my aquarium. Here's what it looks like:

Ermm... I mean this is what I'd want it to look like when its done. In actual fact it currently looks like this:


*ahem* It's a hand-me-down 170L tank from my cousin. Right now it has about 40-50kgs of fine gravel, some fertilizer and a piece of driftfood. Yeah I'm rearing driftwood and mosquitoes now. Hope to get stage 2 started soon, which is the lighting. Currently only has one fluorescent tube which is not enough to grow a jungle.

p.s. Sorry for grainy pics. A70 will be out of the Canon hospital by this week, all fixed up for free! Yay!

Nintendo Wii

Nintendo's next-gen console is close at hand. The official launch date is November 19. I'm sure everyone has fond memories of Nintendo gaming systems, whether it'd be the 8-bit NES, 16-bit SNES, Nintendo-64, all variations of the Game Boy and probably the Gamecube and Nintendo DS to a lesser scale. Nintendo has also brought some of the most loveable characters to the gaming world; the plumbers Mario and Luigi, the adventurer Link (from the Zelda series) and the hairy ape Donkey Kong.

On September 16, Nintendo diarrhea'd the world with a press event that provides more juicy details about their Wii system. The ones I find most interesting are the US$249.99 price tag at launch and the 101 launch titles that have been confirmed. In contrast, the XBOX360 cost US$299 for the barebones and US$399 for a fully loaded system. The PS3 will launch at an even higher price of US$499 barebones and US$599 fully loaded. Of the 101 confirmed launch titles, the most interesting would be a new Mario game and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Nintendo also have a few "weird" games lined up like one called Cooking Mama... *huh?*

Looks like Nintendo is going the Apple path in terms of design and usage models. The unit itself screams APPLE APPLE APPLE! It looks sleek and would fit right at home in a ultra-chic modern living room. Continuing with the Apple theme, Nintendo is also a major proponent of the "less is more" way of doing things. As such, Wii doesn't boast the 6-core CPU of the XBOX360 or the HDMI output of the PS3. It runs with one CPU and Nintendo proprietary 12cm discs and is backward compatible with Gamecube discs. Heck, if it keeps the prices down I don't mind. One look at released screenshots is enough to tell me its sufficient!


The most interesting feature of the Wii are the nunchaku-type controllers which are a world away from the traditional console gamepad. Nintendo have always tried to be the oddball in the console family and this really shows it. Even the name "Wii" is a bit of an oddball. The controllers are Bluetooth wireless controllers and each console can have up to 4 Wii controllers. The controllers have motion sensors in them so you can wave them around in games that support them. I can just imagine 4 guys, standing in a living room playing lightsaber battles with each other. Or golf. Or dragon dance drums. Interesting, but oddball for sure, which may affect take-up rates in Malaysia. One look at it and I go "Where are all the buttons??!"

There will also be an online service called Virtual Console that will have, among other things, a download service for gamers to download Nintendo games of yesterday to their consoles to play. Big names like Contra and Mario Bros are in the list. It does come at a price of US$10 per game though...

When will the unit be available in Malaysia is unknown at the moment. I do hope someone in my company decides to send me to the States in November for training or whatever so I can try out this funky little console! No money to buy lah!

Check out Nintendo and Gamespot for more on Wii.

Oh how you have been misunderstood!

Check this out. The UMNO youth has struck again, declaring Mat Rempits as one of Malaysia's biggest assets and they have been sorely misunderstood. All they need is a chance to prove themselves. I'm sure we all have experienced situations where bikers run like mad on the roads, beat the traffic lights and my current favourite, pretend like they're pedestrians by riding on the wrong side of the road.

But wait! They're misunderstood! They need to prove themselves!

Proof: HERE

Gee... way to go!

How low can you go?

*warning... geeko moment approaching*

So yesterday I realised that my Touch N Go card's balance was pretty low. But after careful calculations (repeated 3 times so that I don't embarass myself at a toll plaza), I realised that even after the day's usage, I'd still have some balance left in my card. How much you ask?



How low can you go babeh? =]

*geeko moment over*

edit: After my ego-geeko stunt, I was left driving around for about 15 mins trying to find an ATM machine to top up my Touch N Go at. HAHAHAH!