Self sufficiency

It has been 2 weeks since I have moved out. So far so good, I have migrated pretty much all my things across and am being fairly  self sufficient. Cooking for 1 is quite hard actually, since the volume of food I need to buy does not tend to come in single serves, usually in multiple serves of 2-4. That usually means I cook a large amount and have leftovers for the day after. Well buying food for one isn’t too hard but the cost is much higher than buying for 2 so the economies of scale just declines.

I had some troubles setting up my wireless to work but now it is all good; my wireless dongle decided to shit itself after 4 days of use so I had to go and buy a network card to ensure I won’t get dropouts and dodgy connections. Playing online games is terrible on a wireless connection and I am definitely having issues with packet loss which is causing me to rubberband a lot in Bad Company 2. This is especially tragic since I want to play this game competitively and it is a no-go with the sudden spikes and delays I get.

I have also started studying for my CCNA and hopefully plan to sit the exam before the year’s end; preferably before I move back in with my parents. However that is going quite slowly since I was never one for studying, let alone self motivated study.

More news later if I can manage to pull myself from all the other things I am doing.

Moved out

I have recently moved out of home for around 6 months as a trial period to see how well I fare. Very interesting so far, but it is early days and I have yet to get used to it. Right now there is no internet at the place so I am writing this from my parents place. It’s also pretty weird not having any internet since I don’t know what to do with myself when I get home. Hopefully I will have access by Friday when my ISP said they will send someone to install the connection.

I am also missing my music since I only brought my laptop over since there is not much point bringing my desktop when there’s no net access. At least I have an x360 to play around with until Friday when I finally have internet. I also received my set of CCNA textbooks in the mail but they got wet since whichever genius delivered it left it outdoors in the rain. At least drop it off at the post office if nobody is able to collect the bloody thing.

Anyways I will update when there is more news.

FFXIII x360 prelaunch

I had the chance to go to the prelaunch tonight and it was quite fun getting to see the local retail version of the game in action! The graphics were quite amazing and I couldn’t tell that the cutscenes were rendered in 578p. People say that the PS3 version is miles above the x360 but I just don’t really see it, maybe a slight improvement at best but nothing groundbreaking really.

The event started off with the promo video in IMAX which I found to be spectacularly choreographed- too bad I was sitting near the front for some mysterious reason and was about to get whiplash from turning my head around so much. Then the organizers took us through a couple of prepared battles which showed the battle system which is unlike anything else on the market; it is even more streamlined than FFXII! The battles uses the ATB system and it is very very quick, it is pretty much real time battle where you can queue up actions to attack.

The localization is alright as well, the voice overs weren’t too bad at all and are probably one of the best works in a long time. The one issue I have is the facial expressions of the characters, they are sometimes a bit too subdued or too emotional compared to the VO’s. Probably since the script was written in Japanese and some sections are just more pronounced at different times compared to the English VO. I suppose there will always be issues like this, especially in plot and story heavy games with different language tracks. I really wish they kept the ability to listen to the original Japanese audio, the theme song is way better and much more appropriate than Leona Lewis’ song since it was written for the game.

Perhaps my thoughts are a little late considering the Japanese version came out last December and some people have already imported it and finished it, but I reckon it is probably more appropriate talking about the localized release since it is what most people are gonna get.

Cheap stuff and not so cheap stuff

Something that I am not overly familiar with is the process of saving money; I set a certain amount as savings each week but that is really as much as I do. Though I am proud to say that I shopped around and managed to score FFXIII and BF:BC2 for a grand total of $130 (from cdwow) which I am very happy with! Considering everybody is charging $100 for FFXIII alone, I would say that is a fair bargain, the only issue is that I might have to wait for delays in shipping but if it saves me $50 off both items then I am willing to wait, especially when I have a bunch of games in need of completing!

I also realized today that I have never bought an FF game despite my proclaimed love of the series. I remember playing FF7 first, I think that was the first game I had ever finished because the story was so compelling. Then I went backwards and played FF6 which had an even more epic story and I reckon even better gameplay. It wasn’t long until I backtracked the entire FF series to FF4, where I stopped since the original 3 didn’t seem to have the same depth and gameplay. I was even tempted to buy the collectors edition but for $130 you don’t get a lot besides a music CD and some random prints which I would probably never look at save the moment I open the box. Saved once again by frugality, yay.

My friends preordered BF:BC2 for $80 each whilst I got it online for $55, so that is yet another bargain I managed to snap up. Hopefully I will gather enough people to form a casual clan, that way we can get some organized fun going on! The likes of which I haven’t seen since my BF2 days.

I also found out that the HDX-BD1 was recently released and is only $30 more than the HDX1000. Just a FYI, this is a media player where you shove in a hard drive and it will play whatever is on it, very convenient for me since I have a 1TB disk lying around my desk with nothing to put it in and I am also quickly running out of disk space due to my movies and anime, mostly anime. What I have gleaned so far is that the BD1 is fairly glitchy since it is a new product and people have not managed to get a lot of advanced features working properly. Though to be perfectly honest with you, I would be happy if it manages to play all my anime and my music too. Later I could tack on a BD drive since the unit is supposedly compatible with bluray playback. However I might wait until the features are more mature before splurging on this.

If you may have noticed I have been going from a scale of tightass to self indulgent and the most expensive thing I plan to do is to move out, which will happen in the next week or so. I need to prepare myself for the move and I have not planned anything as of yet so it will be very interesting. If anyone has any advice on a first move now is a good time to tell me!