Category: Miscellaneous

How Did My Resolution Go?

Last year I made a post detailing what I felt was an enormous amount of books, games and DVDs on my ‘list’ that I felt I really needed to get through. It became a resolution or sorts, to shrink all lists in 2013. How did I go?

Books

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I made great progress in this category, reading the majority of the approximately 50 volumes that were sitting on my shelf this time last year. The only one I haven’t yet found time for is In The Wake Of The Sea Serpents, the 800+ page magnus-opus by Heuvelmans. In addition to those I had this time last year, I purchased and read many new books during the year, mostly manga and fantasy novels. I try and read every single night before sleep at the least.

However – and to my delight since I love books – I have to admit my ‘to read’ list is hardly smaller than it was last year, replenished as it was by a large variety of other books. Heuvelmans tome is now accompanied by 3 other cryptozoology books, and they share a shelf with about 20 novels (mostly fantasy), a handful of manga (not much I am interested in is released nowadays), and a half-dozen or so RPG manuals such as the one pictured above. Add to this a couple of Doctor Who books, an art book or two and four books on video-game and pinball history and I should have enough to keep me busy well into 2014!

Movies & TV

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As with my books, I made great progress on the DVD ‘watch list’ of February 2013. Ultraseven, Lexx, Claymore – all the box sets have been watched. In fact almost every single item we owned last year has been watched months ago, and many more have now filled their place.

In fact, the ‘watch list’ as of today is actually longer than it was last year. Two items alone: the Inspector Morse DVD box set and the Monkey DVD set sum to over 100 hours! Add to these several other anime DVD sets (Spice & Wolf, Sekai de Ichiban Tsuyoku Naritai!), another Japanese sci-fi set (Ultra-Q) and about a dozen assorted DVD movies (almost all sci-fi/fantasy) and we’ve got our watching cut out for us.

Games

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As with the other two categories, I made bold strides into my piles of unplayed games. As of today I have:

– 8 unplayed PSP games, only one of which was actually purchased in 2013
– 8 unopened 3DS games, most of which are less than 6 months old
– only 1 unopened Wii U game (Pikmin 3, which I may start playing today!)
– 2 unopened PS3 games (both of which I owned last February as well…)

As you may recall from the blog post a month ago, I purchased much less games in 2013 than I usually do, which allowed me to play a lot more games I already owned. I expect during this next year to ‘finish’ the PSP games as well as possible the PS3. Since I currently have no plans to obtain a PS4, I imagine this section of the list will be much reduced this time next year.

Last time I looked at the piles of unopened/unread/unwatched media and thought “Why do I even buy more stuff?!”. Now I look at the smaller piles and think “I’m looking forward to opening that!”.

In other words, I think my resolution was a success 🙂

Dream Gear Showdown!

The legendary tournament was fought, and now I am proud to deliver the results!

The competitors were Adam, Bernard and myself. The field of battle was none other than a $5 plug-and-play TV game system. I present, ‘Dream Gear’:

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The rules were simple:

1) Play every game that had a score
2) A maximum of 2 minutes per player per game
3) The winner of any game went first on the next game

No practice games! No advance warning of systems, controls or scoring. This would be a battle of giants, where experience, know-how and video gaming wizardry would reign supreme!

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Of the 45 games on the Dream Gear, 26 were eligible for the contest. Sadly, such gems as Wonder Rabbit, Mirror Devil World and Goblet Tower lacked scores and were quickly skipped. Of the games played, every possible genre (except for quite a few, actually) were included: jumping games, driving games, sports games, shooters, puzzle games and even simulations.

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We were dazzled by the variety. One moment we were navigating a sprite ripped off from Adventures of Lolo (the classic NES game) through a poorly scrolling background in Forest Adventure, and next we were catching gifts thrown at us by a barbaric Saint Niklaus in Mad Xmas. We even entered the world of criminal evidence collection as we played the role of Police Dog Lasy!

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The tournament took two nights. The games ranged from terrible great (Fish Story) to criminally incompetent simply average (Dune War), and much enjoyment was to be had as we reviled played each and every one. We were in had so much agony fun, it was a merciful release tearful moment when we completed the last game and put the marathon tourney behind us.

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And so, the results! I’ll present two charts before I get to the awards. Firstly, a breakdown of score share per game (click for full size):

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Not bad eh? You can see that some games were higher scoring than others, and some players scored higher than others! Here’s a chart of overall score obtained by adding up the scores from each game played:

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Some Interesting results there. To save you the trouble, and since a tournament deserves a winner, it’s time for the final results and the final scores.

Awards were presented in three categories:

1) Highest number of wins – awarded to the player who obtained the highest score in the most games
2) Highest overall score – awarded to the player who obtained the highest overall score
3) Overall winner – awarded to the person with the greatest tournament score (see below)

On to the awards!

Amanda Seyfried Award for Highest Number of Wins

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And the winner is…. Me! (14 wins in total)

Amanda says: “Yay Robert! You rock! Thanks for watching me in ‘In Time’! xoxo”
I say: “B and A were 100 years too early to beat me this time!”

Mila Kunis Award for Highest Overall Score

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And the winner is… Me! (Overal score: 101981)

Mila says: “As a fellow gamer, I’m impressed! You rock! My next film will be great; please see it! oxox”
I say: “Even Sheng Long stood no chance against me!”

Olivia Wilde Award for Overall Tournament Winner

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This award – the only one that really matters – was calculated as follows: 3 points per game win, 2 points for second and 1 for third. The final results were as follows:

3) Bernard: 46 points (with 7 wins)
2) Adam: 56 points (with 9 wins)
1) Robert: 58 points (with 14 wins)

Therefore the winner is… Me!

Olivia says: “Tron Legacy gets better with repeated viewings! Also, Mila is older than me! And I was also in ‘In Time’! Oh yes, ‘grats Bobby! xxoo”
I say: “What a close result! I had more wins that Adam, but more losses as well. If he’d  made even a single extra jump in Frantic Mouse he would have been the one getting a kiss from Olivia today. I’ll have to keep this in mind for the rematch!”

And so, another legendary game tournament comes to an end. When will the next one be held? What games will be played? And can I defend my title? Only time can tell…

Exxcellent!

This morning we visited a most unusual place indeed…

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It’s called Exxopolis and is an inflatable art exhibit set up for three weeks right next to the Opera House. Here’s what it looks like outside:

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It’s made from transparent plastic which lets the sun through, creating the colours seen when you are inside:

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We were both incredibly impressed with the design, engineering and architecture of the piece. If you ever get the chance, don’t hesitate to visit one!

Since we were there anyway, we had to indulge in some tourist snaps:

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The rest of our last full day in Sydney was spent eating…

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Shopping…

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And packing, before – far too late at night – we completed the game tournament begun yesterday.

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I’m far too tired to give the results the sort of analysis they deserve, so this must wait for a future post.

In fact I’m just exhausted after 3 weeks with very little rest. My batteries are drained and I’m soon going to need a relaxing vacation. Anyone know of a good way to re-energize me?

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