Cute LEGO portal recreation

Long time no post... but this is so delightful that it deserves a shout-out. It is a LEGO re-creation of the Value game Portal found in The Orange Box. Lovely.

Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon on an Asus Eee PC

The Asus Eee PC actually looks pretty sweet, if not for the low res screen, I'll probably get one. The next few versions will be ones to look out for. Anyway, it'll be a great system to put Ubuntu on. Check out the link to know how to put Gutsy Gibbon on the sweet little computer.

Amazing Metroid Prime Cosplay

Best. Cosplay. Character. Ever. Check out the photos of a Cosplayer donning the Metroid Prime costume and pretending to be Samus. Lovely.

Connecting to XBOX Live via a WinMob cellphone

These guys won't let the lack of an Internet connection stop them from gaming on their 360s. What they did was to hook up their boxes to their Windows Mobile phone to get connected to Xbox Live. I guess they really want to Finish The Fight.

LEGO-shaped cakes

Someone please make this LEGO shaped cake for me? Recipe found on Betty Crocker.com.

PS3 or Wii? This can help you decide

If you can't decide between a PS3 and a Wii, this funny video can help you to make your choice. Hit the link to have a good laugh over how the two consoles are depicted. But what if you want to make a choice between the Xbox360 and a PS3?

Verify Email Address

If for any reason, you want to check if an email addy is working, this tool will come in handy. It is suppose to "actually connects to the mail server and checks that the mailbox exists". Hope that it is not a email spam farm though.

LEGO minimalism

I love LEGO, and I adore these LEGO ads. While the complex structures that LEGO Master Builders build are great, nothing beats simplicity and imagination.

Young DJs in da house

Young DJs with mad skillz. DJ Sara is 8 and DJ Ryusei is only 5.

Amen Brother

Here's the story of a drumbeat that influenced pop culture. Break on, bro.

Halo 3 will change the world

I"m so looking forward to the release of Halo 3. So are the folks at SarcasticGamer.com. Hilarious.

Model Trains Fetish

I've heard of foot fetish, shoe fetish, and I understand that there are just about as many type of fetishes as you can ever think of. However, this has got to be the most unusual fetish that I've heard of. This is Model Trains fetish and this DVD called "Crush by Venus" has a hot chick crushing model trains, cars and buildings. Sort of like Gozilla, except that this Gozilla is a hottie. More details on Hobby Blog.

Games Convention Asia 2007

For the last two days, I was at the Games Convention Asia 2007 (link the my set of picts on Flickr is here). This was suppose to be the E3 of South East Asia with focus on a conference on games development and business, and also an exhibition for the public showcasing new games. Some of the sessions in the conference were excellent. I was most impressed by the keynote given by Alexander Fernandez from Streamline Studios. His speech was inspiring and, if you're a game developer, you'll be certainly stirred by his short but evocative speech.

The showfloor, however, leaves quite a bit to be desired. Not a lot of games were shown. Particularly, I was looking out for the big titles such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero III, but they were missing. Also, Microsoft and Atari, both of whom are present in Singapore, were not even around. However, I would say that it was still a good start and hopefully, future GCA will attract even more developers and publishers to showcase their new games. I'll skip the negativity and highlight some of the good stuff I liked about the show:

• Singapore game developer Mikoishi showcasing their NDS game Dropcast.


• Audio Odyssey: a Wii prototype rhythm game by MIT-GAMBIT Game Lab.


• A Konami battle card game for the NDS. Not sure what the English title is...


• Booth babes...

Marcus Fenix brick

GOW01
Originally uploaded by legohaulic.

This is pretty awesome! Legohaulic has posted his creation of Marcus Fenix from Gears of War using LEGO bricks and it is super rad.

Rescue or harvest Bioshock's little sisters

To kill or not to kill, that is the question. As reported on the Ars Technica site, someone has done some research on whether it is better to harvest or rescue those creepy little sisters in the game Bioshock. The analysis comes complete with a graph for you to compare the cost versus benefit of your action.

One of our forum-goers, twinky, decided to find out. He graphed the difference between killing and saving the sisters in terms of the ADAM you receive, and he found that while at the beginning the bonus for killing is great, towards the middle and end of the game the bonus packages you receive for saving the little girls levels out most of the short-term gain.

From someone who had freelanced for Odex

The Odex saga has brought out many local Otaku's unhappiness with the quality of anime sold by the company. But why is this company producing such poor quality stuff for the fans? The Panegyrist blog gives an insider's view of how Odex thinks and a personal experience of working with a company that is now the "enemy" of anime-lovers.

IP Address is sexy

Never knew that the reading of an IP address can be such a turn-on. MoanMyIP.com is a site where a female will moan and groan out your IP address in a sexy voice. It's just a completely mindless, but funny venture.

Revolution against Odex

The recent case where anime fans have been sending letters threatening to sue anime downloaders has touched a raw nerve amongst online citizens. It seems that the company Odex (who owns the license to distribute a number of anime series in Singapore) is becoming the most hated corporation in the local online world, especially among the vocal anime fans. It is interesting that the seemingly "apolitical" youths of the nation are actually fighting back and becoming "activists" in this backlash.

Update: It appears that this site has gone dark. Maybe the folks doing the site has chickened out. Ah well, the revolution ends here, at least for now.

Office 2.0 Database

Want to experience the goodness of Web 2.0 office apps? Here's a monster list of Office 2.0-type stuff that you can try out.

Guitar Hero axe built from LEGO

I'm now onto the "Hard" songs in Guitar Hero 2 and most of the time, I can only scrape by with 3 stars. Now, if only I have this fully functional guitar made from LEGO bricks to help me do all those hammer-ons and pull-offs, and maybe I'll do better?

Problem with the Xbox360

I love the Xbox360. The games are great and with what's coming on the horizon, I think I'm gonna fall in love with the system even more (just think Halo 3, Mass Effect, Eternal Sonata, Assassin's Creed, GH3, etc). The problem I have with it is the dreaded Red Ring of Death. Seems the more I read, the more it seems like it is something that is sure to happen sooner or later. The sad thing is that it is due to the bad design of the box. You can read the report on the TechOn website done with help from some Thermal Design expert. I just hope that my system will last, and if it does died, Microsoft would have come up with a new box design that'll fix the problem.

Well, so much for a box design that looks like it's "inhaling".

Goodbye pie charts, hello pixel charts

According to a post on Dashes.com, there is a new graphic trend in town. Instead of presenting info in pie charts, it seems that people are doing it using pixel blocks instead.

The Porn Myth

Is porn suppose to turn you on? Yes, but according to Naomi Wolf, the author of The Beauty Myth, it actually turns you off the real thing. On New York magazine, she argues about the negatives of porn.

The young women who talk to me on campuses about the effect of pornography on their intimate lives speak of feeling that they can never measure up, that they can never ask for what they want; and that if they do not offer what porn offers, they cannot expect to hold a guy. The young men talk about what it is like to grow up learning about sex from porn, and how it is not helpful to them in trying to figure out how to be with a real woman.

Interesting read, and convincing points made.

Pimp up Google Reader with 15 Firefox hacks

I've enjoyed using Google Reader ever since I switched from Bloglines. I guess the best thing about Google Reader that I like is that it keeps track of the individual article in the feed rather than a full page of feed. The mobile version which I use on my Palm browser is also quicker.

Anyway, here're 15 things that you can do to make your Google Reader experience even better when you're using Firefox.

No such thing as playing games ironically...

A bad game is just bad. Nothing more nothing less. In fact, that is the argument put forth by Wired writer Clive Thompson that while you can have movies that are "so bad that they're good", the same can't be said for games. Bad games are not fun and they make you want to just hope that you can somehow get back those wasted hours of your life back. I totally agree and in my years of gaming, I've played a few really bad games and I just want to erase those bad experience from my memories.

Essentially, games are for fun, and if it is not, it's worthless.

Guitar Hero III v. Rock Band

Wannabe guitar players are in heaven with the impending release of Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band. Both titles are rhythm-based games where you can play a "fake" guitar. Rock Band, of course, turns the whole thing up a notch by letting players play as a band. So which is better? The linked article is an interesting read as it argues that Rock Band is about the pure music experience while GH3 is aiming for a more "gaming" experience. Regardless, I think I'll be getting both when it comes out. I just wanna rock out.

CodecInstaller-for all those A/V codecs

If you're a media junkie, you'd know that having the right codecs is important, or otherwise your media won't play! Software such as VLC has become must-have media players because they can play many different media format. But if you want more, then CodecInstaller is one that you need to analyze your audio/video files.

History of Zelda in English

If you're a Zelda fan, check this out. A Jap documentary on the History of Zelda is now available with English translation courtesy of the fansub community. Amazing, the power of otakus.

Run Windows apps on Ubuntu

This is for the Ubuntu geeks who still needs some Windows apps. The guide supposedly teaches you to set up the running of Windows apps, running the OS in virtual machine. Minus the time to install Windows, it should only takes up 10 minutes of your time.

iPhone flaws?

On the HowardForums, there's a thread that looks at a list of the failings of the iPhone. Granted, the iPhone hype is enormous, the arrival of the device means that folks can actually try it out and find out the pros and cons of the device. This list certainly gives one an idea of some of the "thumbs down" bit of Apple's "Jesus-phone".

How to build a BitTorrent box

This is another DIY project that you can do with Linux. The article on Nerdica details how you can build a dedicated, headless BitTorrent client computer. Using Ubuntu, Azureus, Hamachi, and Samba, the instructions will let you have a box that you can use for your BT downloads and also share the files after that. Interesting stuff if you want to get some hands-on action over the weekend.

Wii Transfer

I just discovered this interesting software that allows you to transfer movies, music and pictures to your Nintendo Wii. Written for the Mac OS, this one will turn your white console into a multimedia machine. It may not turn your Wii into the wonderful XBMC, but it's still pretty cool, since it uses the Opera browser to let you browse pictures and listen to your tunes.

Read/Write to NTFS drives in OS X

Using Windows formatted NTFS drives is a problem for Mac OS X users. There is read support for NTFS volumes on the Mac but when you want to write to the volumes, you will encounter problems. Thankfully, there's something called MacFUSE that you can use. Seems like using it can be a little complex, but could be useful if you absolutely need to read and write to that Windows partition on your Intel-powered Mac.

Watching Free TV Online

You don't need a TV to watch TV anymore. Listed on the Mashable site are 33 ways you can get your TV fix, ranging from the popular YouTube to the amazing Joost to lesser known stuff like ChannelKing. Not all the options are excellent but at least they're available.

Life in Nintendo Office

Always wonder what it's like to work for Nintendo? This video gives you an idea.

100 Free Games for Download

A quick resource if you're looking for free, legal games download. Click on the link and you can get a list of 100 titles that you can play on your PC. Titles include shooters and MMOs.

News on the game Rock Band

Guitar Hero rocks! So it's with great excitement when I read the new information about the game Rock Band which extends Guitar Hero to a full band. If you love Guitar Hero, and is wondering how the hell a game will handle four players with each playing one instrument, read this post on the NeoGAF forum with info taken from Game Informer. Some of the interesting gameplay elements include:

- Guitars and Bass now have 10 frets. 5 for the regular sections of the game and 5 for the newly designated solo sections.

- Drums are apparently insane. You use actual sticks and hit one of four colored pads in front of you, in addition to a kick pedal attached to the drumming unit. Drummers will also have the ability to do fills etc. in their own little free-form section, do well and you'll trigger the drummers version of star power.

- If all bandmates can reach the end of a song, you'll be greeted with one huge free-form jam session.

Razer Boomslang making a comeback

Until my recent switch to the Razer Copperhead mouse, my weapon of choice has been the Razer Boomslang. This is one of the first mouse made specifically for gamers. I absolutely love this mouse for its precision, weight, and overall feel of it. I'm not a pro gamer but playing FPS with this makes me feels like one. Over the years, I have found that it has actually become a collector's item. Anyway, I've one gripe with this mouse - the ball. This mouse is the product of a time when optical mice were still not as common, hence, I need to clean the "ball" of the mouse every so often.

After I bought the Copperhead, I retired the Boomslang, but I'm glad to say that it gave me plenty of joy over my years of use. It was therefore with great excitement that I found out that Razer is gonna release a collector's edition of the Boomslang. The revamped Boomslang will be optical can glow like the recent Razer mice. Too bad it's going to be only limited to 10,000 units. Don't know if I'll be getting one, or even if I can get my hands on it, but I'm certainly glad to hear that Razer does look back to its roots.

PS1 as audiophile dream?

Seems like the PlayStation 1 can be used as an excellent CD player, at least according to some audiophiles. On the Destructoid site, there is a piece on how some audiophiles treat the PS1 as the "darling of the audio underground". I'm quite skeptical about this as audio quality actually depends on plenty of factors, including the speakers or A/V receivers that you're using. Still, there could be some truth in this when you consider that in eletronics, they don't make things like they used to. So, it may not be entirely be a surprise that the older PS1 does have a better audio output with its RCA jacks. Any audiophiles with an old PS1 in the closet to try this out?

The Secret Lives of Otaku

This set by Flickr user "hypersapiens" called "The Secret Lives of Otaku" made me smile. It's a series of photos of otakus doing what they do best. Plenty of cosplay fun here and my fave is the one with two Miis who escaped from their Mii Plaza to join in the real life fun.

Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007

On the Project Censored site, there's an article on the 25 stories that made the news, but was not extensively covered. Do read some of the stories as some of them are rather shocking. Are there real reasons why these stories are not picked up and have been practically ignored by the media? Number 18 on the list is a story whereby a physics prof challenges the notion that the collapse of the WTC towers on 9-11 is due to the planes. Read it to find out more.

Guitar Hero II for the 360

The time to rock is here! After so much waiting, Guitar Hero 2 for the Xbox 360 is finally available here. It's interesting that the local distributor New Era brought in the game from Australia. The box says that it is the PAL version but it seems like the disc can be played on the local NTSC version of the console. There's even the OFLC (Ozzie's version of the ESRB) rating on the box. Anyway, this region coding thingy is really confusing and everyone should do what the PS3 is doing, which is have region-free titles for all.

Back to GH2. This is what I dreamt of playing for so long. Since I didn't get the PS2 version, I'm so stoke that there's one for the 360. I spent last night playing Nirvana's Heart-Shaped Box, and even my wife got into the game. She even did better than me in the scores! This shows the accessibility factor of the game and is highly, highly recommended. I only wish that I can get another controller on the cheap so that I can play co-op, as the game allows different parts in the co-op play, i.e. one playing lead and the other either rhythm or bass.

Another thing on the wish list is the number and price of the downloadable tracks. I hope there will be more tracks from GH1 that is made available. I really would like to rock out to the riffs of Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water and Cream's Crossroads. These are available on the 1st Guitar Hero but are not available as downloadable tracks. Also, the pricing for the current downloadable tracks is on the steep side. 500 MS Points for 3 tracks works out to be about $3.70 per track. Considering that you can get 47 tunes just by getting the original game, it seems rather expensive. We can only wait to see if Harmonix will revise the price or offer some bulk discount in the future.

Meanwhile, I'm gonna strap on the X-plorer guitar and rock on!

Uncyclopedia: The nonsense encyclopedia wiki

If Wikipedia is the success story of the value of social networking, in particular the Wiki, providing us with a wealth of knowledge, the Uncyclopeia is the flip side. It's a wiki encyclopedia, but instead of facts, it's all inaccurate. So what's the use if it's inaccurate? Well, it's extremely funny, and 100% nonsense. Check out the entry on the iPod.

A deviCe called the iPod Photo iS now on the market, but buyers should note that iT iS not actually an iPod, but just a photo of one.

The Greatest Long Tracking Shots in Films

The Daily Film Dose blog has an excellent piece on long tracking shots in films. If you understand the language of film-making, you'd notice long takes in scenes without any edits. Most of the time, you'd be left amazed at the amount of co-ordination needed to execute such a long, continuous take. The blog looks at various such scenes in cinema and also include clips of these shots. The most impressive in the whole list has to be "The Russian Ark", in which the whole damn movie is done in one single take. When I saw the movie, my jaws just dropped from the start to finish.

Google Reader on the Wii

I don't really use Google Reader to read my RSS feeds. But now that Google has released a version of their reader on the Wii, it may be worthwhile trying it out.

Free Culture on a free disc

I like this. It is an ISO that you can download and burn which shows off the best stuff available in Free Culture. If information wants to be free, then media and content needs to be free too, and this disc is a grand example of the effort to keep info and culture free. Included in this disc are free books, free movies, free audio and free software. You can't beat free.

Video games for adult couples

This is when video games are made for adult usage. By adult, we mean really adult, the kind used to enhance fun under the sheets. Well, in this case, you might be standing while using this, but it's certainly not for kids. Anyway, check out the video showing a new form of controls in a game, known as the "Intimate Videogame Controllers".

CG Night Elf - Not a photo?

The sexy night elf from Warcraft... Is this a photo or a computer-generated work of genius? Check out the link to see how this life-like piece of work is done. Quite amazing.

09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0

09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0

Google it.

12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know

So you blog? Then you need to know these. They may be US laws, but it is always good to know more about these legal things... well, things about Tax Laws may not be too relevant, but issues on deep-linking and copyright is still good to know. Knowledge is good so no harm being aware of these, right?

A real mouse!

Talk about a mouse. Check out the link for a real mouse, hacked into a computer mouse.

Piano Solo based on Pi

Pi is the magical number that goes on and on. Otherwise know as 3.14159..., it is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter and is a "transcendental real number". On the linked page, someone has done the ultimately geeky thing and used the numbers of Pi to play a piano solo. Each number is represented by a note and the whole piece is played up to 1000 decimal places. This is what I call mathematical musicality. Cool!

Create your Mii without the Wii

Want to have one of those Miis that you see on the Wii but can't get your hands on Nintendo's console? Fear not, you can create your own Mii using the Mii Editor. The interface is just like that found on the Wii, and you can also export your creation to be used as your "mugshot". Cool!

Singapore not on World's Cleanest Cities list

We Singaporeans love to pride our city as a "clean and green" place. Streets are spick and span... and all that. Well, apparently it is not so if you refer to Forbes.com's list of the top 25 World's Cleanest Cities. The ranking is based on

the Mercer Human Resources Consulting that cull from 300 cities, identifying overall quality of living as well as special reports on regions. It is interesting to note that size does not appear to be a factor either in terms of size of population or physical size of the city. The most common trait in common to each is a focus on high tech, education and headquartering of national and international companies along with an extensive public transit system.

Cities in the list include Calgary (#1) and Honolulu (#2). Maybe Singapore's not on the list because it is not really a city but a sovereign state?

Pippin sighted

Pippin sighted
Originally uploaded by Gremlink.

Saw this rare sight when I was in Hong Kong. It's a Pippin! It's the first time in my life that I laid my eyes on an actual set of the Apple gaming/multimedia player platform. I found this at a shop selling old tech/mac stuff. Check out this Wikipedia entry if you want to know more about the Pippin. Interestingly, it is also voted as one of the "25 Worst Tech Product" by PC World.

Jack Black is the Computer Man

Jack Black is so funny in this comedic short about a "Computer Man". Hilarious. Part 2 is also available.

Darfur atrocities on Google Earth

Google aims to "Do no evil". To help them achieve their goal, they have teamed up with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to map the carnage in the Darfur region on Google Earth.

Using the high-resolution imagery of Google Earth, users will be able to zoom into the Darfur region for a better understanding of the scope of the destruction.

More than 1,600 damaged and destroyed villages will be visible, as will the remnants of more than 100,000 homes, schools, mosques and other structures destroyed by the Janjaweed militia and Sudanese forces.

Follow the link to CNN's story on this and then go check it out on Google Earth. Be aware of the dangers of genocide, and thank God that we're not in that situation.

Speeding up P2P

If you think that Bittorrent's method of grabbing files from multiple sources is ingenious, the folks at Wired reported that researchers have released code for a file transfer system that can speed up downloads by up to 500%!

The gist: By identifying relevant chunks of files similar - - not just identical - - to a desired file, SET increases the number of potential sources for downloads, which in turn will generally translates into faster P2P downloads.

For more info, read the linked article. This certainly is not gonna help stop the tide of P2P file sharing.

Update: More details on how this SET filesharing system works can be found on Ars Technica.

20 Questions With N'Gai Croal

This is a podcast by the folks from Gamasutra. In this, Tom Kim talks to Newsweek video game/tech writer N'Gai Croal. This is one of the best and most insightful podcast that I've heard on the topic of gaming. Here, Croal talks critically about the game industry and also some more serious issues like the portrayal of minorities in games. Interesting stuff. Essentially listening if you want to keep a pulse on the analytical side of video games.

Chicks dig the DS

I'm a dude, not a chick, but I love the DS too. As mentioned on the CNet opinion piece by David Carnoy, females do love the DS. Can't blame them right? It's a fun handheld!

Zelda Reorchestrated

Zelda's music is so stirring that every time I hear it. It reminds me of the heroics in the game. This is a site that has re-orchestrated music from the various Zelda games and it'll be great if you want to listen to the epic music of Zelda in other ways.

Odds on Fergie successor

I am a Manchester United fan. I've supported them since I started paying attention to football. With Alex Ferguson as the gaffer for the team, we're in great form these days and are still on the way to, perhaps a treble? Anyway, I saw this article on Guardian UK saying that former Man-Yoo striker Mark Hughes is keen to succeed Fergie. What caught my fancy is actually the odds of who will be succeeding the current gaffer when he retires. The odds are provided by William Hill and is as follows:

Odds on the succession

6-1 Mark Hughes, Martin O'Neill

7-1 Roy Keane

8-1 Carlos Queiroz

16-1 Jose Mourinho, Marcello Lippi

20-1 Guus Hiddink, Sam Allardyce, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Sven-Goran Eriksson

25-1 David Moyes

33-1 Fabio Capello, Steve McClaren, Gordon Strachan

66-1 Bryan Robson, Paul Ince, Steve Bruce

100-1 Darren Ferguson

I just find it funny that Mourinho is even on the list.

10 Apple products which flopped

Apple may be the golden boy of tech gadgets these days, but they too have had failures. For those wanting a history, the Newlaunches.com site has listed 10 things that Apple released which, sad to say, flopped. From the Newton to Lisa and the more obscure stuff like Taligent, you can read about them here.

Lego-shaped Sofa

This sofa is shaped like LEGO bricks and is called Bekky. I want these! 'Nuff said.

Streaming from XBox360 using TVersity

While the XBox360 can be used as a media player, it can only stream Windows Media files. So in that regard, a modded original Xbox running the XBMC software is still the best solution out there if you want to have a media player that can play plenty of file formats, and watch those media on your TV.

However, I just found out a software that can perhaps make the XBox360 play more file formats. Granted that some transcoding may be required, it could be a possible solution. The software is called TVersity and it is FREE. Some amount of testing and tweaking is probably required as you need to install some codecs to gain certain file support. Great software nevertheless.

Top Freeware Shmups

Shoot-em' ups, or shmups, are basic gaming staples. These games are the foundation of gaming and in a sense, they are gaming in its purest form. You can't beat the sheer adrenaline rush of shoot and dodging blips on the screen.

The Independent Gaming blog has a list of the top 20 shmups available, and they are all freeware. So forget the retail games. Experience gaming at its rawest with these shooters.

A wee gamer on the Wii

I've just got my paws on the Wii and got my first taste of Wii Tennis. It's quite fun. But maybe I'm just a little old and backwards as I saw this clip of a 22 month old toddler mastering Wii Tennis! Imagine, our future generation is gonna grow up perfectly comfortable with the world of electronic entertainment. Check out our future in the link.

Understanding Games

Games are not that difficult to understand. But in the vein of McCloud's Understanding Comics, the theory of games is something one needs to appreciate. In this series of interactive flash videos (four in all), the basic concepts of computer and video games are presented in an interesting manner. Cool and educational.

Make your own Xbox360 achievements

On XBox360 games, you can get achievement points by doing stuff and completing certain tasks in games. Now, you can generate your own achievements on the linked web page. I've generated one achievement for fun and it is probably one that you will never ever find on any Xbox games.

8 Cool Twitter Tools

Twitter is today's big thing. The tool that lets you blog short "bursts" of text is ultra-cool among the tech set. Wired Blogs has put together a list of 8 "Twitter-rific" tools that can help you to make the most out of your Twitter experience. Twitt on!

A wiki for gaming

Wikis have arrived to the world of gaming. There is now a Wikia wiki for games. So if you're into collaborative writing and contributing to info, opinions, and other stuff about games, head there to contribute. For those of the more silent bent, it can be a treasure trove of gaming info.

Text adventures on DS

If you're into text adventures, you know, the kind like Zork and such, you'd be interested to know that someone called Papafuji has ported them to the Nintendo DS. So if you can run homebrew, you can try out some of them. While some of the stuff on the site are suppose to be given free by their respective authors, the legality of other things here are questionable so do it at your own risk. Great to see the ingenuity of the homebrew scene at work though.

LEGO Nintendo Wii

No, I've not bought a Wii yet. While I'm putting that on my next purchase list, someone on Brickshelf made use of the ever wonderful LEGO bricks to build a replica of the Wii. It even comes with a LEGO Wii-mote, and if you open up the box, there're little minifigs playing Wii Sports. Check it out.

Got my XBox 360

The PlayStation 3 was launched in Singapore last week. But instead of getting the latest console from Sony, I went out to get the Xbox 360 instead. Why not get the latest and greatest, you ask? Well, for the simple reason that for now, the 360 has more games that I want to play, take Gears of War for example. Also, the local version of the Nintendo Wii is still... out there, somewhere, with no news of the release. Anyway, here's my photoset of the unveiling of my 360. The folks that I bought it from threw in a special Gears of War faceplate to sweeten the deal and you can see it on the face of the console. Hoo-ya to my first step into next-gen gaming.

Post your ideas for games

Have an idea for a game? Head over to this site to post one, or just read one of the many crazy and possibly "next big thing" ideas folks have posted there.

If you're a gamer, I'm sure you've had many ideas for games before. Maybe it's just a minor change to an existing game, or an entire new concept for a game. It seems these days there's less creativity in game design. We are overloaded with sequels and poor clones. Most of us are not game designers though, so our "perfect game" will most likely never get made. This site is for publishing your game ideas for the world to see. Maybe someday a game designer will be inspired by something they read on this site, and we can be blessed with something creative and original for a change. That would be cool.

Go ahead, browse the ideas, or even post one.

LEGO goes Massive... Multiplayer

I've not really jumped on the MMOGs bandwagon. I would really love to play World of Warcraft or Guild Wars but it's sometimes hard to find time to play those, especially considering that I need to find time to play some of my other PC games, Nintendo DS games, and Xbox gmaes. Anyway, the LEGO fan that I am heard that my fave brick company is developing a LEGO MMOG. Will that be one MMOG that'll get me started? Imagine the possibilities of building a virtual LEGO world. I'm happily dreaming of my own LEGO home online.

Doing The Impossible Quiz Deluxe

Wanna prove how smart you are? Try doing this quiz, which is dubbed the "Impossible" quiz. This Flash-based quiz takes a while to load but once you're done, get ready to tear out your hair trying to finish this quiz. Maybe we're not so smart after all.

Ubuntu installed... what's next?

You've taken the bold step to install Ubuntu on your desktop. What's next? The LinuxonDesktop blog has a useful tutorial on what are the 13 things that you should do immediately after completing the Ubuntu installation. Certainly useful info to have to make Ubuntu functional for you.

BrikWars! - LEGO wargaming

This may be a bit old, but something as excellent as this is worth mentioning again. BrikWars is a wargaming system that uses the LEGO minifigs and bricks to play. On the site are rules and supplements that lets you have fun with your LEGO in a whole different way. Sweet bricks!

Making comic strips from photos with Comeeko

If you don't have Comic Life but you want to do some Dilbert-like comic fun with photos that you have, you can go to Comeeko to create your own strip. Fun way to display those photos.

LEGO Treo cradle

Gear Diary has posted picts of a Treo cradle made from LEGO bricks. The cradle holds a 680 and even a Bluetooth headset. There's even a minifig guardian protecting the gadget!

Escher's Relativity in Lego

Escher's Relativity in Lego by Andrew Lipson
Originally uploaded by idigit_teddy.

MC Escher's strange world reproduced in LEGO. How mind-blowing is this?

Gates vs. Jobs, Jedi style

The neverending war between Macs and PeeCees. This funny cartoon has a segment where the head honchos of both camps thrashing it out with the ultimate weapon of geeks - the lightsaber, was it the Zune-saber? Hilarious.

Search and play music on SeeqPod

Forget about downloading music. SeeqPod is a music service that lets you search for music online, then lets you add it to a playlist. You can also email the playlist to a friend. Seems like getting music from online sources is a tidal wave that can't be stop by people like RIAA. There seems to be new services coming up on a frequent basis that allows music lovers to get their music online.

Using Google for Getting Things Done

GTD, or Getting Things Done, is a pretty popular set of productivity philosophy to well, get things done. On the One Cranky Coot blog, the author shows us how he uses Google's set of apps to implement the GTD system. Interesting.

Backing up Blogger

One thing you learn when using computer stuff is that backups are essential. When you have a blog, you'd also want to do some backup to save all your memories. This site teaches you how to backup your blog that is on Blogger using the Firefox extension called DownThemAll. Backup before you regret.

New is not always better

New stuff is not always better. Somethings when you upgrade to new software, you realise that the old one is better and you can only sob, since the old version is taken offline. Well, kudos to these folks at Oldversion.com as they are devoted to archiving old software and you can download the old ones there. Another site that you can go to check out old software is File Hippo. This one gives you the new version, but also lets you grab the old ones.

My picts on Moleskinerie

Just a bit of self promotion here. The pictures that I took during my visit to the "My Favourite Moleskine" exhibition at Page One in Vivocity was featured on the Moleskinerie site. Not bad for pictures taken with a Treo.

Mac OS X lists, another one!

Lists and more lists. Give me your lists. This one is just another list of supposedly "essential" apps for the Mac OS. Some of the apps I use that are on this list include Adium (wonderful chat client), Cyberduck (free FTPing for me) and Quicksilver (powerful launcher that is more...).

Movie Ratings with details

The movie rating system with age ratings is under attack. The main grouse against it is that the age in the rating does not tell you much about the content of the film. This is where the website called Kids-in-Mind thinks that they can fill in the gap. Their rating system is based on a content analysis of the film and then a number (from 1 to 10) is given to three areas, namely Sex & Nudity, Violence & Gore, and Profanity. Parents can then make their own decision. Interesting idea and I suppose it only really works when parents are involve.

Making the most of Google Reader

Lifehacker has an excellent piece on how you can make the most of Google Reader with the use of keyboard shortcuts, and also other add-ons. Makes me really want to explore how using Google Reader will make me more productive.

Twitter + Quicksilver = Tweet

There is actually a script that allows you to send your Twitter messages using Quicksilver. Just follow the instructions on the website to get your Quicksilver + Twitter solution called Tweet working. Gotta try it out. Once again, it shows how amazing Quicksilver can be.

The Office parody

The Tech Lab - Part1
Uploaded by Filmguy9688

This is a parody of the US version of The Office by a group of kids in a high school. In fact, as mentioned on TV Squad the producers of The Office was so impressed that they invited the director and the cast to the set, and the director got himself an internship with the show.

7 deadly sins and more

We all know about the seven deadly sins of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. But if you combine them, for example Greed and Wrath, you get Muggings. In fact, you can combine the 7 sins for a combination of 21 secondary sins. Why stop there? A reader on Boing Boing brought that further and suggested that by using binomial coefficient, you can get 127 sins. We are all going to hell?