Genting doesn't have license to operate IR yet

a quote from Reuters -

... MHA"s statement that Genting has yet to qualify for a licence to operate a casino in the Sentosa IR which it is building... it is possible that the project could be in jeopardy if Genting fails to qualify for the casino licence as the viability of the entire IR project is predicated on using profits from the casino to subsidise other non-profitable parts of the resort.

Possible signs? Anyway the licence in question can only be applied for when "half the proposed gross floor area has been completed and ready to receive visitors". I'm sure the government is on it. The same way they got Mr Lee KY to make a statement abt the entire Shincorp/Temasek deal, currently under investigation on whether it is kosher.

Stocks Have Worst Day Since 9/11 Attacks: Global Mkt Plunge

NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks had their worst day of trading since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks Tuesday, hurtling the Dow Jones industrials down more than 400 points on a worldwide tide of concern that the U.S. and Chinese economies are stumbling and that share prices have become overinflated.

A 9 percent slide in Chinese stocks, which came a day after investors sent Shanghai's benchmark index to a record high close, set the tone for U.S. trading.

"This corrective consolidation phase isn't just going to be one day, but we don't believe this is going to be a bear market," said Bob Doll, BlackRock's global chief investment officer of equities.

Still, traders' dwindling confidence was knocked down further by data showing that the economy may be decelerating more than anticipated.

(excerpts of a report on Yahoo!)

Maybe there was some strange correlation between this and the aforementioned awards blooper. LOL!

The Departed - Awards Blooper

is NOT "based on the JAPANESE film Infernal Affairs"... its a Hong Kong movie for gosh's sake, made by Media Asia Group!

And those who bothered to watch it, should really watch the original Infernal Affairs. I've watched both and by far, the original was better! It was more emotive and gripping, whereas I was tending towards hitting the FORWARD button on the DVD of the American adaptation. Gosh..

Asians aren't all the same!! sigh.. you can't just categorise yellow-skinned "oriental" people as one race! When I was young, i tot all whites were Americans, but I believe that's changed when I grew up and acquired more knowledge. Can I say the same for the uninformed Americans?

Pls join me in..

Wishing Shermaine a Happy Birthday!
She turns 23 this year! Many surprises await you today dear, hope its a great day ahead for you!

Bento Favourite

Shermy made an excellent bento for my dinner yesterday! It was supposed to be Ochazuke, a kind of err.. rice with sauce, but she couldn't find a way to dabao it, so she decided to make Bento instead - rice with food, packed.

It turned out really well! There were 5 succulently fresh prawns in there, boiled veggies (zucchinni, broccoli and carrots - in cute shapes), 2 salmon-flaked onigiri and abalone (leftover from CNY). Prawns were basted with some light terriyaki sauce and cooked in a toaster for abt only 4 mins, but when u bite it, the skin is freshly tense, my teeth sliced it easily, and I enjoyed the perfect cross-section of each tasty bite! Then there were the veggies.. I actually dun like veggies at all, but I really enjoyed these (all the veg tht I would eat, not the stringy/beany/leafy types) as Sherm prepared a light miso soup to pour over them, flavouring them mildly, but complimenting the other food. The rice was the mixed onigiri kind, with salmon flakes tossed in a possibly fried rice, then compressed into onigiri shape and pressed into her bento box, garnished with seaweed strips - YUMMY! And abalone - tho Sherm dislikes this expensive delicacy, she included it into the bento, and it was a great complimentary taste to the other foods, lending its chewy texture and pungent flavour to the taste-balanced bento. Sherm had thought that the food would be less than tasty for my salt-licked palatte, but she was wrong, I thought the delicate balance of everything worked very very well, and I didn't need any of her thousand-island sauce or (was it?) ketchup that she packed together with it.

It was great! One of the best bento so far dear! Looking fwd to the next one hungrily =)

WoW/ CoH comparison

After testing World of Warcraft over the weekend (free trial here), I find that WoW really isn't as good a game as CoH. My previous experience with WoW were the 2 betas that Prit got me into, and I've been CoH-ing for about 15 months.
Both games are MMORPGs, one set in the fantastical, where lush forests, ogres and magic still exist, the other is set in a modern concrete jungle (and some other real jungles) where street punks, evil militaristic factions and super-villains exist.
Here's a look at my impression of WoW with CoH as a comparative base:

What I find not too good in WoW:
- graphics are a little aged, despite WoW being newer than CoH, I like CoH's game-look hands-down. WoW of course has an excellent fantasy-setting tht scores points for it tho.
- gameplay is worse (no strategy really necessary up to lvl 12 so far),
- in-game interface (barring mods, and doing self-binds/macro etc) is worse,
- more a solo-game pre-instances
- leveling grind is a real grind.. kill X number of abc creatures, rinse repeat, the occasional kill boss.
- no click-toggle self-travel - I've been spoilt by CoH's click-toggle travel at lvl 14, apart from druids and other classes that have self-travel, u can only get a mount at... 20? or when u can afford it? and upgrade them if u can afford it.
- lack of depth for character development (both look and err, background story) - you can only customise ur own features so far, you won't noe what clothing/armour looks like until u wear it (and some are soulbound, so it loses value if u use it in the changing room)
- lack of global friends chat/management. ie, if u have a friend in another server, or even another allegiance, u have no way of telling if they're online, or even chat with them.
- the huge frustratingly big cities - I spent a long time travelling around the Stormwind mage quarter looking for an enchanter trainer according to several online maps and up till now, still can't find him/her.
- the inconvenient death respawns - after you clear a whole area and if u happen to die, when u go back to your body, the whole place has respawned and u've no way of rezzing without dying again n again n again, unless u take a 25% hit to your gear.
- inventory management is a killer
- lack of "story arcs", there are some quests that contribute to that I suppose, but it doesn't really build the character I suppose. You can choose contacts/ story arcs in CoH. You can also call them up instead of like in WoW where u have to hoof back to your contact to turn in the quest, 2 area maps away, only to get another that sends u back to where u just came from.

What I find attractive abt the game is this:
1) warcraft setting - its all the past blizzard/warcraft gamers who want to immerse themselves in the fantasy that was created, this game does just tht. I could probably incentivise myself to play just to see the new locations and high-level monsters etc.
2) some of the skills - some classes are downright interesting (warlock), and some are downright boring from the start (priest - still boring at lvl 7, heard abt good shadow priest dmg, but heard abt priest healing necessity too). I'm sure they may get interesting later on, but the thing is, the classes have been set already and u noe wat they can and can't do. Me? I'd like to make dual-sword wielding warrior or rogue just to satisfy my cravings. Solo-able for all classes (I believe)
3) fast load times - I like that if u've hung, u can simply restart the game in a matter of a minute, as opposed to CoH's long startup and inter-city travel load times. Also, there's hardly any loading screens once you're in-game
4) customisable interface - originally it felt clunky, but after accessing the macros menu, I found that customizing the game to play like CoH was actually possible! that made a difference indeed!
5) "resting" doesn't take very long - so long as you're out of combat, ur health/mana fills up fast, u can get into another fight very soon after
6) Many friends playing it - but like i said, without a global friends management ability, which friend's server do u choose to start in?
7) Price has dropped tremendously - only S$37 for the original WoW itself now opposed to S$120 at the start (which led to my defiant refusal to pay/play), pay more for the recent "The Burning Crusade" expansion.



Summary:
So despite the overweight cons, (1) in pros (and mebbe 2) provides a decent counter-balance to keep warcraft fans immersed for a longer time. I'll probably buy the game and subscribe for a while longer just till the buzz fades. CoH subscription takes a hiatus till then.


Disclaimer:
I personally find my interest in CoH dwindling quite a bit, after 15 months, so I'm on a lookout for something else - thus the review. I'm just making a comparative of the 2 games, both released in 2004, with experience in both. I admit I only have lvl 15 toon for Wow (out of 60/70) - yes noob, and I've only played WoW for stretches of 1-2weeks at most, whereas in CoH, I've a 50 (max lvl), and a few copies of every other archetype, with 15mths behind me. I've also played all 3 Warcrafts and Dota Allstars. I'm a fan of comics, and am a male with many super-powered fantasies of flying and beating up baddies with super-punches and what have u.

V-day!

My dear Shermy made me a delicious lunch for Valentine's Day. We were out shopping for the ingredients the day before and she suddenly had an idea to make Hamburg meat patties with sides! So we went around buying minced beef and pork (mincing both into the Hamburg patties gives a better all-round taste), among other things that Shermy wanted to put in it.

Fast fwd to V-day, I left a nice decoration for Shermy to find, her Tofu Plush-chan plushy, some stuffed hearts and a "flower", which she did, and raved abt it!
I met Sherm, after taking a half-day leave, helped with the food preparation, which was looking good.. I later found out, it would look even better! Cos she came up with 2 ways to prepare the patties - a japanese style and a western style! So lunch consisted of 2 seaweed-wrapped patties, 1 larger mushroom n cheese sauced Hamburgh patty, some zucchinni, carrots and green pod thingies, and home-made poteto-mashy! I had 2 great servings and there's still some leftover.
Sherm made the leftover western patty into a sandwich which I had for breakfast2 this morning, OHYEA!

Thank you Shermaine dear for a lovely day with you. I'd not have spent it with anyone else and felt this good =)

Free Game Trial

got this idea off Eastpaw:

City of Heroes: 14-day Free Trial
Check it out here!

Find out more about City of Heroes on Wikipedia here!

I've personally been playing it for over 15 months. Great for real role-players. What do I mean? Well, here's some characters that we've created with the engine (apart from the usual spandex n leather-wearing human superhero types): a fairy, a goat, some cows, a fiery demon, Hard Gay, menagerie of dogs, a penguin and even a kappa! =)

Can I blog in peace pls?

The say bad things come in 3s.. Its true.

Over the weekend:
1) they took my driving license. They said in July that i'm suspended for 12 months. What they didn't say was that 12 months means, you don't get ANY of the licenses back, I have to retake everything. Wow. Took me 1/2 a year to realise that.

2) they threaten to take me to court AGAIN. Cos of 2 supposed letters of license surrender that they sent me that I never received (you would think they'd send a registered mail to prove it was received, this is a serious issue man! "where's your evidence tht you didn't receive it?" "where's your evidence that I did receive it?"). It's still pending, I had an interview with the Investigative Officer on Friday, she says she understands my point of view. Last time I heard that, I still wound up in court.

3) the third thing has hopefully been soothed in a meeting with some people. Apologies once again, and I hope things return to a placable situation, if not normal. Thank you people.