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This game is just.. wow. Definitely not for the faint of heart. To be honest I’m still getting it handed to me, but oh man is this game ever fun. I’ll keep it kinda short, which is hard since there’s just so many cool things about the game.

Where to even start! This is a far cry from a clean cut, accurate, solid feeling shooter like Team Fortress 2. This is gritty, unsure feeling, all-out chaotic war. The main mode I’ve been playing in multiplayer is Rush: one team attacks, one defends. It starts with two active checkpoints (called Alpha and Bravo) and the attacking team has to blow up both (by setting an explosive charge) and once that’s done, the map unlocks a new area, and two more checkpoints become active. The attacking team has a finite number of lives per checkpoint and so to win as defenders.. you just kill.

The maps are BIG, and a lot of “extra” space for you to go find sniping spots as well as to flank. When you start and each time you die you have a choice of picking which class you want to be (Assault, Engineer, Medic, Recon (aka Sniper)) as well as choosing what weapons/items you want to use. Additional weapons/gadgets unlock as you gain experience, and some weapons can be used across all classes (like the one shotgun and a couple of submachine guns that I have).

Recon is my most played class, but I now realize that I’ve been playing it too much: It is NOT a good idea (as a noob) to play sniper when you’re either on defense, or your team sucks. You’ll either just get rocked by some close combat guy, or picked off by an offensive sniper. My kit for the sniper has the mortar call.. with it you can use your binoculars to call down mortar strikes on specific targets. It’s awesome to do on a checkpoint that the other team needs to defused, since all of them tend to rush there to defuse. Usually end up with at least one kill.

One awesome thing in BC2 you can do as recon (and as any class, but usually more as recon) is to spot people. What you do is hit the spot button and it calls them out, it puts a little red triangle over their head and also shows them on the mini map to your entire team for a little period of time. It’s amazingly useful because close combat is usually in little alleys and in general you have very little visibility.

In general it’s very chaotic.. lots of dust flies up. If someone throws a grenade.. as a sniper you’re waiting patiently for the dust to clear. Almost every wall can be shot down, buildings collapse, trees can be destroyed (I saw one guy take a tank and clear out all the nearby trees/bushes so no-one could use it as cover). It feels a lot like paintball when you see someone run from one building to another and then you lose sight of them.. no idea where they’ll pop up from. You also can only sprint forwards.. you can’t move at sprinting speed while strafing left and right, so it’s less free looking around. A lot of seeing people is based on movement.. especially in jungle/snow maps and the one night map (which is insane).. so a lot of the time you’re in your own hiding spot.. watching to see when something moves. Everyones wearing camo gear, so everyone blends into the environment.

Very cool game.. I’ve only been in a couple of squads that actually communicate.. and there’s SO much potential in an organized squad.. with all the roles you could play. Vehicles are super fun too and can be devastating if used properly. (EXTREMELY hard to pilot a helicopter)

So on Monday night I had the urge to go find these deck tiles. Back up a day, on Sunday, I had the urge to go find these deck tiles. Sam and I went to go find these snap-together deck tiles at the Canadian Tire on Major Mac (website said they had stock) but couldn’t find them in store, we left and I was kind of disappointed.

On Monday after work, we were supposed to go grocery shopping but I decided to quickly check the CT on Highway 7 (also had stock) but we found nothing there either. We asked the guy to check the computer and while he said there were 2 in stock (we needed 9 packs of 4 tiles each), he found a few other stores with stock. Now quite driven in the hunt, we ended up at CT at Yonge + Steeles and finally found a stack of the tiles. We debated on them for a little while, and eventually were on our way home, extremely hungry, with no groceries, and a trunk full of plastic deck tiles.

I started installing them at around 7:30pm and the first 31 tiles went down in about 20 minutes. The last 5 took about 2 1/2 hours, after a dinner break. We had to cut them with a handsaw and also used a dremel to cut the plastic underneath which is used to keep the tiles off the ground to allow for drainage.

By around 11pm I was pretty cranky at these tiles and all the little things which cropped up, like the side of the building at the edge of the balcony required extra modification, and then the drain comes in about a half inch so I needed to cut a little slit in one tile to allow for that. Eventually I jammed the last tile in (it could probably use 1-2mm clearance) and was done with it. After all was said and done, I vowed the first thing I buy if and when we get a house, is a table saw. It would have cut down the whole install into under an hour for sure.

Anyway, fairly happy with the end result, makes it walkable and a little more pleasant. A good, fairly cheap investment which upgrades the balcony from “tiny concrete-slab-write-off” to “tiny-balcony-garden”.

It was also actually fun to pick up a camera again.

Ingredients (serves maybe 4-6 people)
1 lb. pork bones (neck, ribs, doesn’t really matter)
2 lb. winter melon
6-10 thin slices of ginger
1/2 cube beef/chicken stock (or hon dashi might be interesting)
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Blanch the pork bones for 2 minutes.
2. Add pork bones and ginger to 14 cups of water and bring to boil, then simmer for 60 mins (or longer for more taste)
3. While it’s simmer, remove skin, seeds etc. from winter melon, cut into cubes
4. After 60 minutes, add stock and salt to taste.
5. Add winter melon, cook for additional 20 minutes.
6. Done!

I used to drink this soup almost everyday in Hong Kong.. and miss drinking chinese soup in general, so I’ve been looking for some simple recipes.

This was the first time I’ve tried making it.. and it came out decent. I made it with the quantity of ingredients shown above, but next time I will probably try reducing the amount of stock and increasing the pork bone boil time (or quantity of pork bone). Does anyone know if using maybe fattier parts would be tastier? or does it not matter and only make it oilier?

Went to watch Legally Blonde in the last week of its 3 week run in Seattle. A number of people have seen it by now already and all the feedback I’ve heard is positive, so I went to see it with some expectations. I switched my season ticket and got a better seat – Seat F5 Left! 6th row from the stage, a little off center but that’s OK – only until the show started did I realize I’m right in front of the left rack of speakers and subs so the music was super loud for me :|.

Anyhow, when the musical opened I was a little worried, cuz the singing was rather weak for the opening number – but to my relief that was just the ensemble and none of the girls in the opening song was the lead (Elle Woods). The singing was generally well done, though none of the songs seem particularly challenging (nothing like Defying Gravity). The acting/staging and choreography was the more impressive part – there were quite a number of group dances, some of them looking quite difficult (like doing a workout routine with jumping ropes while singing).

The show was very well written – in terms of witty lyrics and throwing in additional humour (more than the movie), but at the same time cramming a lot of complex plot into musical numbers. It follows the movie’s plot line quite closely (which I find surprising, I was expecting a lot of watering down since I couldn’t imagine how you’d pack the movie into the musical), but the musical did run quite long (I think 2h 45 min with intermission). Also, the composer/librettist/book writer does a good job in moving the plot in song. A gripe I have with many modern musicals (e.g. Catch Me If You Can) is all too often the actors talk to advance the plot, and then break into song just to convey emotion – which to me misses the mark of a good musical. But Legally Blonde doesn’t fall into this “cop out” and includes a fair bit of action in its songs, making the musical more fun.

The excitement does taper off towards the end of Act 1, but picks up strongly throughout Act 2. Overall its a fun and festive musical that reminds me a bit of Hairspray in terms of style. Unfortunately no super memorable song from the musical that I can hum the morning after, so I’ll give it 3.5 stars… or adopting sadd3j’s new rating system, 3.5 rolls:

I’ve been holding off on posting this since Burton was at the top and he was too cute to bump down :P, but its OK now!
This week’s recommendation is Starfield’s new album, “The Saving One”. Starfield has went more mainstream alternative (compared to their more acoustic/indie sounding debut album) over the years, but IMO this has been their best album since Tumbling After.

My favourite track from the album is “Something to Say” – one of their softer acoustic songs, and simply arranged and carried vocally. Love the simplicity and the rawness – link below.

I’ve got something to say
It’s been one of those days
When I’m finding it hard to believe in You

I’ve got something to say
Right now it feels like You are slipping away
Like I am drowning in a crisis of faith
Like I was found, but now I’m lost in the fray

Other noteworthy tracks on the CD include: The Saving One, Rediscover You, No Other Saviour… actually the other tracks aren’t bad either :P.