This has to be one of the worst designed games I've ever played, because the difficulty and level ramping of wild monster battles was absolutely atrocious. It's like someone went through the original SNES version and decided to multiply monster stats on everything by two - take the final boss, for example, which has 65,000HP in the SNES version and 150,000HP in the DS version. Despite its unfairness, I liked the story and characters, and would have probably even enjoyed the game on the whole if I had played a non-DS version.

I was tasked with the important duty of ensuring everyone was well fed at Bryce's farewell dinner last night at Majestic Cuisine. With my fellow Asian accomplice, Juliann, we decided on Chilli Blue Cod, Grilled Prawns, Crispy Skin Chicken, Pork and Taro, Black Pepper Beef, Roast Duck, Tofu and Seasonal Vegetables. I was fretting the whole night about whether we had ordered enough food, but it seemed everyone was satisfied and full, so mission accomplished and thank goodness for that. There's nothing worse than leaving hungry from a restaurant...

Anyway, a whole bunch of photos from the past month or so have been uploaded, including pictures from Guy Fawke's, BBQ at Charles', Sidhe farewells, random meals, random weather phenomena and Sunni's birthday.

It's December already and it is slowly hitting me that yet another year has almost gone by. Things are already starting to wrap up for Christmas, with farewell parties for people "leaving" work and a few birthday celebrations here and there. I still have photos dating back to Guy Fawke's night, I really should upload them sometime soon... Lately, I've been at Siem Reap (Friday dinner with workmates), Cha (End of year homegroup on Wednesday), Hede (Tyler's farewell), New Kor + Karaoke (Mike's farewell). I feel like going back to sleep but apparently there's some fundraising food at the Indonesian Embassy so I'll be going to that with Surya and Andrew.

Badminton is still going strong with some punishing games today; I've never felt so knackered in my life, and I don't suppose my current state of health helped at all. Even on Thursday, I had chronic hiccups which drove me insane (and probably all the people around me as well). All seems to be on the road to recovery now, so I'll sit tight and take more drugs. Bleh.

Portal is on Steam for free until May 24th, so I took the opportunity to download all 3.8GB of it. I'm still somewhere in the test chambers, but it's a very interesting (yet creepy) game.

Also on the gaming front, I finally gathered enough courage to play my first placement match in Starcraft II. I did a quick build for a banshee, got one out with a few more on the way, and took out all my opponent's SCVs with my lone banshee. When he realised what was happening, he sent some marines over but I had cloaked it and pretty soon after he quit. Victory was mine!

Yesterday I barely spent any time at home. It was an early start with badminton for an hour with Surya, Tyler and Leighton, a quick lunch at home, then the Wellington Food Show at Westpac Stadium with Mel and John. There was a lot of tasty things to sample, including oils, vinaigrettes, pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, cheese, pizza, bacon, sausages, smoked chicken, clams, mussels, ice cream, wine, fruit cider, cocktail mixes... We spent around three hours there, tasting and taking pictures, before heading out and going for dinner at this pub on Tinakori Road. Yum!

Hmm, I haven't blogged in ages. Oh well, here goes:

Firstly, I've made some changes to the gallery, so you can post some comments about the photos I've uploaded. There's a summary of the comments posted so far on the right-hand side, so you can see the most recent ones.

Secondly, I've uploaded photos I took last week, covering events like Heong's Graduation, Jane's Birthday, and the Wellington Food Show. The Food Show was absolutely delicious - a must for next year! There are also three Graduation Photoshop pictures for you to see :3

So I've had a real busy two days. On Friday I went out for dinner with my sister to this Japanese place called Moto on Paramount Drive (It connects Central Park and Lincoln Road) and we ate so much, and it was really good as well. We both had a bento box, except I had beef and she had chicken. The bento came with sashmi, sushi, teriyaki chicken skewers, tempura and some miso. We also shared 8 dumplings and a tofu salad. Of course, my sister couldn't finish some stuff so I had to finish it for her. I think the only thing left on the table were my two sushi, so we did a pretty good job.

After that we went walking around West City for present ideas. We came out empty handed. West City was about to close anyway, so yeah.

Then I went to pick Bobby up and we went to town for Linh's birthday thingy. Her Facebook invite thingy said 9pm, so we were a bit surprised that she was..um..not there when we arrived at 10pm. She was "running late"...haha. Poor Linh. We had a good time though. The music was a bit loud and it was hard to hear people talking, but it was good to catch up and meet new people. Half the time I didn't know the person's name, because you know, you introduce yourself over the loud music and then you spend the rest of the night trying to figure out what they said... and whether you got it right. Oh, we got her a drinks set where you add your favourite alcohol, freeze the mix, and then you have an instant cocktail. She also got this punching bag thingy that swears each time you hit it. O_o

Today, my CS friends went to Wenderholm for a picnic thingy. As usual, Amy organised a huge amount of food, so we were exceptionally well fed. We had fun cooking on the barbeques, and kicking soccer balls around, and lazing about, and catching waves in the water (It was cold, but wasn't unbearable, yet Ted came out shivering like he had hypothermia). Raymond kept washing things. Al and Ted "wrestled" on the grass. There was a turd in the urinal. No one ate the "kerosene sausages". We fail at capturing ducks. Pics and video of Al and Ted at Casey's blog.

In the evening, we had nothing to do, so we made a stop to Plantations in Orewa and had some ice cream before going to Al's house and play PS2 and Mafia. Ah Mafia. I haven't played Mafia in ages. And today I was reminded as to why I hate it so much. Everytime I'm mafia, the sheriff investigates me, then reveals himself and points the finger at me, so I die. Everytime I'm not mafia, the mafia kill me. So that leaves me with two places left - when I'm the doctor, I get to heal myself all the time; also, when I'm the sniper, I get to randomly kill someone. Han also introduced a "Joker" who has a one-per-game ability to either shoot, save or investigate someone. I guess it opens possibilities, but in the end, I suppose people just shoot for fun.

Eh. It was a good day. I'm tired. I'm on piano at church tomorrow so I have to get up early.

Omg. So. Full. Too. Much. To. Eat.

You know when you eat too much, and you have troubles breathing, and you feel lethargic, and you just want to lie down? Yeah, that's me, right now.

I took my auntie and my family out to eat at this Sun World: New Millennium place in Newmarket. Auntie May from Enjoy Inn owns it, or something. We had Peking Duck, steamed oysters, prawn balls and some XO tofu. Omg. It was so good. SO GOOD. All I can think about it how much food I ate and how I'm so full and omg it was soooo good.

Food is so awesome.