In am in the mood for a long entry, hey so what word processors and spellcheck for right? they just invite you to spew out “text” so easily… This is gonna be quite a long entry, mind my blabbering…

And so there was me, pretty much cracked yesterday whether onto getting the Garmin 12XL GPS ($330 ouch!) to “illegally aid” my outfield topo exercise next week, or close one eye and turn the other to a Gameboy Advanced SP (GBA SP). The lowest priced GBA SP unit retailing in Simlim Square for $160SGD without games (and I wonder how can other stores sell them at $180 in other stores in the same shopping center, makes me super paranoid esp towards the cheaper versions). In the end, whew, just walked off the stores with just Need for Speed Underground ($49.90) trying to ignore and not regret my buying impulses later on…

Opinion- NFS Underground
Need for speed underground is not a bad game altogether, and I believe this is not the best EA can push the gameplay and car modification ablities to- would be looking forward to that in the next successor of NFS. Visual-wise, I can say its either me or my Ti4600, but the track details, lighting and reflections are indeed the best we can see in racing games presently- with high polygonal worlds, authentic signboards and advertisments, all finished with real time rendered reflections to the car and surroundings. Though the reflection-update rate can be faster (even when if the settings are maxed) for a more fluid feel. The interface is definatey more crappy than the previous NFS series, partly being a multi-platform game (supporting xbox, ps2, GBA), therefore getting around menus require more of cursor movements on PC than mouse. But of course the game’s different gameplays (circuit, sprint, drag, timetrail, drop(lap)out, drift) do offer (and cover) the various aspects one would desire of street racing, not to mention the rockin ingame music (which is kinda repetitous with a small collection though) and extreme customisation (with real manufacturer names) I say, its a game recommended for NFS fans, anyone itching for the underground feel or still riding on the fever of the fast and furious.
Verdict (Good, 3.5/5) Test Machine P4 2.5GHz, 1GB DDR333, GF4 Ti4600, MSI sis648 Max Mobo, 2×80GB IBM 120GXP, SB AudigyDE, all settings maxed @ 1024×768x32.

Back to blog
Ok now to Incamp stuffs, one of my bunkmates, CG brought a DVD player last week with tons of anime DVDs (Full metal panic, Slayers, etc…) Anime mecha… I like.

This pretty much woken me up from my “inventive freak sleep” few years ago after several failled attempts to create a mech (don’t laugh). I just feel that given the freedom, a reasonable budget and building space here in sunny Singapore, I would try building a mech in my backyard. Its no joke and I am no fanboy either, just feel that how neat it would be to have mechs roaming around it would be just something the world could do with. (even when if T3 skynet bots or matrix “creatures” were to come after me) Considering all my “day-dream design”, experiments with mechcanial locomotion and programming with lego mindstorms robotics, than maybe a few parts from a dumped segway for gyroscopes, scrap metal, decent engine and a hydraulic pump and pistons from maybe, an excavator, then we can see things start coming together. Minus the tedious need to write an operating system for it later… *crapload grin*

Physical training-wise, succesfully completed 2×6km runs within 31mins during the week (so thats about 5mins for 1km). Just wondering that since I had been training for long distance runs these few weeks, I have yet to test my short burst runs for 2.4km nafa tests, hope I can get at least 9m30s during the next run.

And yea, not to forget the boring car driving theory lesson I attended yesterday.. ZZzzzz. highway code lessons had never been so boring ever since I took the test for my bike license. I think I would be jumping straight in evaluation and BT Test sometime next week. On the practicals, lucky for me, my dad knows an old friend who heads a private driving school by the name of Boon (thats his name btw) he guarantees a faster route, at the same time saving more $ by not learning thru BBDC’s own instructors. That I have yet to see for myself. However, since all my elder cousins who were recommended to Boon for lessons and all passed on their first driving test, we will see, we will see….

Oh well, outfield glory and nitemare coming up next mon… argh!

Currently Listening: Linkin Park – PaperCut (3:05)