Sunday, February 28, 2010

Weekend Non Gym Session 28/02/2010

Weekend Non Gym Session 28/02/2010

I woke up fairly early today to bring my dog for a walk. It was around 9:00 am and it was somewhat cooling.

The stats of the walk is as follows:

Sunday, 28/02/2010, medium cardio session
40 mins walking Little Foot around the part for 5 times
* Resulted in 120 calories burned and about 3.0km walked(estimated)

Also, I have recently completed Mass Effect 1 which I purchased from forumer almost a year ago . Here is a short review of the game. The game length was quite decent around 25-30 hours.

Here are some screenshots of the game:

1. Mass Effect 1 main title shot
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2. The stats of my main character
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3. My first initial team with Kaidan and Ashley
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4. Weird dreams after the encounter with the beacon in Eden Prime
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5. My main pilot, Joker
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6. My frigate, the Normandy
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7. First battle on Eden Prime
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8. My first encounter with husks created from Dragon Teeth
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9. The main villain in the game, or is he?
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10. Arriving at the citadel, guess what is that in the end?
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11. The citadel, sort of like our current United Nations
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12. Scary Geth stalker
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13. Mako, an in-game vehicle used to travel on different planets
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14. Didn't the Krogan hunt these to extinction? (ie. Rachni)
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15. An ally in one of the major in game battle
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16. An old Virtual Intelligent ("VI") of an ancient civilization
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17. The rogue Spectre, Saren
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18. Sovereign, the ship of Saren, or someone else?
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19. Saren going thru some upgrades?
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20. The ending or to be continued?
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*For Mass Effect which played like 3rd person shooter, I have used the usual keyboard and mouse combo.

Pros:
1. Very engaging story, well written from the beginning to the end, there were many unexpected plot twist.
2. Decent graphics, great sound effects and excellent voice over.
3. Even the back story of each alien species are well documented. Therefore, there is quite a bit of replayability in this game.
4. The game length was decent, around 27 to 30 hours or so (depending whether if you rush the main quest or do all the sidequests.

Cons:
1. Sometimes, I won't know what to do next
2. Navigation was a bitch within the system and also in different planets
3. Mako portion of the game was the least entertaining.
4. Quite buggy, a lot of crashes every now and then.

My verdict for this game is 8.5 out of 10. I definitely would recommend anybody who is a fan of 3rd Person Shooter and Role Playing Game ("RPG"). This is one of the rare excellent sci-fi RPG developed and definitely deserved some attention. Upon completing this, I immediately went out and bought the 2nd installment which I will be reviewing shortly.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Work Day Gym Session 22/02/2010

Work Day Gym Session 22/02/2010

I got off work pretty early today around 6:30 pm as I was feeling quite unwell yet again. Nonetheless, I decided to hit the gym.

I got into the gym around 7:00 pm and got off gym around 8:30 pm, total time spent in the gym = 1 hour and 30 mins.

My workout routine as follows:

3 mins on the treadmill @ speed = 8.0 kmph and gradient = 0.0%
7 mins on the treadmill @ speed = 8.5 kmph and gradient = 0.0%
45 mins on the treadmill @ speed = 8.0 kmph and gradient = 0.0%
10 mins on the treadmill @ speed = 6.0 kmph and gradient = 0.0% for cool-down
* Resulted in 8.30km brisked walked and jogged, around 725 calories burned.

Towards the end of the jog, I felt relieved and was looking forward to the next gym session which probably be on Wednesday, I hope.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Annual Leave Non Gym Session 17/02/2010 to 18/02/2010

Annual Leave Non Gym Session 17/02/2010 to 18/02/2010

I was unable sleep longer than 8 hours during my Chinese New Year holiday. I woke up around 8 am for those two days. Due to the fact that I woke up so early, I decided to bring Little Foot for a walk for those two days.

Here are the stats for the said walks:

Wednesday, 17/02/2010, light cardio session
45 mins walking Little Foot around the part for 6 times
* Resulted in 150 calories burned and about 3.6km walked(estimated)

Thursday, 18/02/2010, light cardio session
45 mins walking Little Foot around the part for 6 times
* Resulted in 150 calories burned and about 3.6km walked(estimated)

On Thursday dated 18/02/2010, I followed my cousin to the batting range in 1Utama for some baseballs and softballs practice. The cost for 10 balls were RM5 and the cost for playing 30 minutes were RM40. We opt for 20 balls first and then a shared 30 minutes non stop session.

Here are the stats for that exercise:

Thursday, 18/02/2010, medium cardio session
5 mins hitting baseballs with a baseball bat
20 mins hitting softballs with a softball bat

Towards the end of the ordeal my body was very tired. However, I felt a lot better in terms of releasing stress when hitting those balls and I am looking forward for another session to participate in such event sometime in the future.

Also, I have recently completed Bioshock 2 which I purchased from Steam during its preordered sale . Here is a short review of the game. The game length was at as short as the first one which is around 10 hours or so. Fortunately, this game was just as good as the first one. Good voice acting, great visuals and gave quite a lot of freedom to the player how to tackle a situation.

Here are some screenshots of the game:

1. Main menu of Bioshock 2
Bioshock 2 Menu Screen

2. Loading screen
Sample loading screen

3. In-game encyclopedia
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4. A familiar place from Bioshock 1, except this was towards the end.
Familiar tower?

5. Starting the game with a huge drill as an arm, awesome.
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6. Again with all the photos and conspiracies
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7. This is what happens when you are outside of Rapture.
Outside of Rapture

8. In-game water effects are awesome, haven't seen any game that does it that well.
Water effects are awesome

9. My first in-game Little Sister mission
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10. Big Daddy prototype (me) versus Big Daddy
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11. Nice collection of butterflies in an apartment
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12. My favourite weapon, 50 caliber chain gun (seems a bit weak before upgrading)
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13. Keying codes for secured doors, like the olden days.
Keying in codes

14. The coward who you can choose to spare or kill later
The coward

15. Big brain in the tube, failed experiment
Big brain

16. Last opposition in the game
Lamb is more insane than Ryan

17. My in game daughter
My in-game daughter

18. This happens when my in-game daughter tries to communicate with me.
Daughter in my brain

19. My daughter's in game shrine
Her shrine

20. My daughter transformed herself into a Big Sister
My daughter is a big sister

21. I finally get to look at myself in the end of the game
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*Similar to Bioshock 1, I have used the usual keyboard and mouse combo for this first person shooter game as intended.

Pros:
1. Very engaging story, well written from the beginning to the end, there was an expected but pleasant plot twist.
2. Great graphics, great sound effects and excellent voice over.
3. Using plasmids and weapons for fights simultaneously enhance the experience in fights compared to Bioshock 1.

Cons:
1. Sometimes, I won't know what to do next
2. Multiplayer is very iffy, don't have enough people to play online.
3. The game length was far too short around 8-9 hours only.

My verdict for this game is 9.0 out of 10. I definitely would recommend anybody who is a fan of First Person Shooter with an excellent story. This is one of the rare sequel to FPS games that is as good as the first one in terms of story and presentation.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Work Day Gym Session 12/02/2010

Work Day Gym Session 12/02/2010

I got off work pretty early today around 5:45 pm as I was reluctant to hit the gym and was on the verge of skipping gym. However, due to my snacking habits (especially on Chinese New Year) I decided to hit the gym.

I got into the gym around 6:00 pm and got off gym around 7:30 pm, total time spent in the gym = 1 hour and 30 mins.

My workout routine as follows:

55 mins on the treadmill @ speed = 8.0 kmph and gradient = 0.0 to 3.0%
5 mins on the treadmill @ speed = 6.5 kmph and gradient = 0 to 1.6%
5 mins on the treadmill @ speed = 6.0 and gradient = 0 to 1.0% for cool-down
* Resulted in 8.35km brisked walked and jogged, around 730 calories burned.

This gym session was quite unexpected out of myself. I thought I would have definitely skip this session. Thanks to the L-Cartinine taken this morning, I find myself with more energy and more drive to hit the gym today.


Work Day Gym Session 09/02/2010

Work Day Gym Session 09/02/2010

I got off work pretty late today around 7:00 pm as I was quite busy and on the verge of skipping gym. Nonetheless, I decided to hit the gym.

I got into the gym around 7:15 pm and got off gym around 8:30 pm, total time spent in the gym = 1 hour and 15 mins.

My workout routine as follows:

50 mins on the treadmill @ speed = 8.0 kmph and gradient = 0.0%
10 mins on the treadmill @ speed = 6.5 kmph and gradient = 0 to 0.0%
5 mins on the treadmill @ speed = 5.0 to 6.5 and gradient = 0 to 1.0% for cool-down
* Resulted in 8.01km brisked walked and jogged, around 675 calories burned.

I have to pull another gym session before my Chinese New Year holiday as I won't be in here for two days. I hope I have done enough to offset calories gain from eating snacks during Chinese New Year.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Weekend Non Gym Session 07/02/2010

Weekend Non Gym Session 07/02/2010

I woke up quite early today to bring my dog for a walk. It was around 8:00 am and it was quite cooling.

The stats of the walk is as follows:

Sunday, 07/02/2010, light cardio session
40 mins walking Little Foot around the part for 5 times
* Resulted in 120 calories burned and about 3.0km walked(estimated)

On Saturday dated 06/02/2010, I dismantled her double decked bed and I carried two mattress and the old bed frame downstairs. After that, I carried her new bed frames and two mattresses (which include mine up stairs). We bought the 5litres worth of Jotun's arctic blue paint and some brushes. We then proceed to paint her entire room blue (previously slightly pinkish white).

Here are some of the photos showing me and my dad doing the painting:

1. Lee Fen's room prior to painting with Little Foot on the bed
Little Foot and my sister's room

2. Windows with out curtain
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3. Newspaper all over the floor to protect the floor from the paint
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4. Me painting by crouching
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5. Me dipping into some paint while my dad's paint with a brush
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6. Me painting with a longer stick to reach those corners
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After painting the whole room arctic blue prior to assembling her new bed, here are some photos of the end result:

1. Arctic blue near the air-conditioner's remote
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2. Near the windows and the air-conditioner
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On Sunday dated 07/02/2010, we assembled her new bed which was bought from Ikea during the week. This ordeal took around 2 hours. Fortunately the instructions were very clear and all the parts fit and did not require any further work on.

Here are some photos of the new bed:

1. Front view of her bed
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2. Side view of her bed near the door
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3. Alternate side view of her bed near the windows
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As such, I spent my entire weekend painting my sister's room, carrying old mattress downstairs, carrying new mattress up and fixing up her new bed. There goes my valuable weekend helping someone else.