I remember this French woman in the documentary Super Size Me saying something like “What they call a small size here, is the largest size back in France”. I think she was talking about the fastfood soft drinks. Or the people in this country…

(fun fact: a regular coke + popcorn at the movies is 5-6 GBP. Expensive, but then again, a regular coke contains 1 liter)

Yes we have some weird friends. But weird friends that make amazing videos when they get drunk. Their last work cracked me up like all the others, so let me just post them all for you to enjoy!

Ha! How do you like that! Not one, not two,… but three sets of pictures (although small sets but still).

First up, a few shots of the fireworks in our little town, dating from last year though. Always very impressive what they do with our tax money. Worth checking out each time though.

Next up, Christmas 2006! It’d be called London 2006 if we’d have taken more pictures during our 2 day shopping spree, but hey, we were in a hurry!

And finally, our trip to Barcelona, where we met up with Franky, a fellow Orphan from World of Warcraft and crazy New-Zealander, together with his girlfriend Iwona!

And again, a serious lack of updates. Lazy or busy, guess it should be a bit of both…

Work is extremely busy lately, so finding time to do a quick post from here isn’t that easy anymore. Hell I just got interupted writing these few lines… As for life at home, it seems every weekend we’ve got to go somewhere. Traffic is hell so evenings during the week get uber short (shop for food, eat, dishes and maybe get 3 hours of free time in). We do still manage to get some hours of WoW in, but usually at the cost of sleep.

Still promised to visit friends, invite friends for dinner etc but we can’t get around to it. I promise you all we’ll get that fixed BEFORE the summer!

Not much new on the non-WoW side. Just some Killer7 on PS2 (actually playing it on the PS3), watched Casino Royale on Blu-ray (Lady in the Water in HD was pretty, but this… damn), Finaly Fantasy VII on dvd again (looks aweful after being spoiled with Blu-ray) and .. err.. that’s it?

Before I forget, yes, we went to Barcelona! I was sure to post about that.. *sigh*. Anyway, planning on putting some pictures on Flickr soon, so keep an eye out!

Back to work and more gaming than ever!

/played
Donkey Kong Jungle Beats (gc)
Got this from Wim and it really is awesome. Hitting those bongos like crazy to make Donkey Kong run, jump, clap etc, exhausting but fun. Boss fights can get complicated, you’ll clap when you’re supposed to drum, but there is no frustration since you’ll be laughing all the way through. It really makes you look forward to the Wii though.

New Super Mario Bros (ds)
Finally picked it up again and rushed 3 worlds, making me appreciate it more. It’s more of a tribute to the old Mario games than it is a new great game, but worth it if you loved the original.

Psychonauts (ps2)
Haven’t got far yet, but if there’s one thing that’s amazing about this game, it’s the voice acting. Every single NPC will have something to say and most of them are even funny while doing it. The level design is just craaaazy. Still lovin’ it ^^

Ninety-Nine Nights Demo (360)
Beautiful music, amazing graphics, but soooo poorly executed. We’ve come to expect quality from Q! Entertainment, but they should’ve stuck to their Lumines, Rez, Meteos, etc. I’ve had high hopes, but I guess I’ll skip.

Table Tennis Demo (360)
Talking about failures, this game isn’t even worth its budget price. 10 minutes of demo play made me yawn and fall asleep. The fact that it’s based on one of the most boring sports doesn’t help a lot of course.

/watched
Madagascar
I never liked Shrek but this movie wasn’t too bad. The best are still the psychotic penguins, who have their own movie on the bonus dvd. They make you LOL :P

Scary Movie 4
Not great, but entertaining none the less. Makes me want to watch War of the Worlds again. And The Grudge (NOT the US version thank you very much).

The Hot Chick
While checking what our crappy cable tv had to offer, we ran into a movie with Rob Shneider! You either love or hate this guy, and we’re more in the love camp. A silly film, nothing special, but funnier than Scary Movie 4. Worth a watch.

/irl
Drinking
Went out for dinner to celebrate my bday, got drunk, saw people fight in the restaurant. Good times ^^

/played
LocoRoco (PSP)
Animal Crossing DS (DS)
Trauma Center: Under The Knife (DS)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (DS)
New Super Mario Brothers (DS)
Brain Age (DS)

/listened to
Guns n’ Roses
Freezepop
…more podcasts

/IRL
Inline skating!
Golf!

I don’t want to know how much money I spent on games these last two weeks, but I’m all set for the summer! Wednesday I got my hands on Mario, which is just about the best tribute to the old Mario game ever. Sure brings back memories, with the first worlds being sort of a remake of the original Super Mario Bros on the NES.

Yesterday I managed to get the only copy of LocoRoco available in our shopping mall, quite expensive (54 Euro!!) but really worth it. It’s the happiest game ever made! Every few minutes the LocoRoco surprise you with another one of their cute actions making you go “OOOoooooh” all the way ^^.

Trauma Center is damn hard, I’ll really have to fight my way through the next operation. My patient seems to prefer dying over and over again :/ Phoenix Wright however isn’t really hard, but very entertaining. It’s been a while since I took a console with me to bed, but you can’t just quit in the middle of a court session now can you?

And soon you’ll be able to visit me in my own little town, Kyoto, where little suibne is hanging out paying off his mortgage to Tom Nook. Yes, the Gamecube version of Animal Crossing got me hooked a few years ago, now the addiction is all back… in portable format! Ideal for lunch breaks at work :D

And yes, there’s the real life activities, this time… golf! No I didn’t turn into a snob just yet, this was an event with our colleagues, organized by our good friend Denis. I must say, it was pretty good. Driving 140km to go just go play golf might sound crazy, but it was worth it. I forgot how pretty the south of Belgium can be, with its incredible nature showing the most beautiful views. As for the sport itself, I prefer putting as crazy as that may sound ^^. Swinging that club and hitting far wasn’t all that. Although I reached something of a 150m, my ball never went straight, left the training area and ended up near hole 6 all the time. No one got hurt (as far as I know) … :D

Fresh air, hot sun, not so good food, … good times :P Check out the pictures here.

Last night the gang got together to max our electricity bill and game for 8 hours straight. There was some mainstream, a bit alternative, some retro and… a train simulator. Yes, it was Wim’s…

Anyway, except for the insane temperatures reached in the appartment (god damn summer), I guess we can say it was a pretty fun evening. Tnx to ya’ll for showing up and bringing all those great toys along, a big tnx to Elke for the snacks and tnx to Denis for taking some great pictures (we forgot to take one of you damn it ;)).

Go check the gallery here!

Crap. Another MMO has gotten me in its grip. Although, this time, it’s not really pointless grinding and questing, reaching useless goals and playing with 12 year olds. Nope, it really is a second life, oddly enough. Just, this life is a bit less limited ;)

The great thing about Second Life is its user-created content. Everything is created by the residents, the players in the game. You have access to a 3D modeling tool, allowing you to create anything you like. Adding your own textures and writing your own scripts, lets you build your own furniture, cars, pets,… anything really. All limited by just your imagination.

Of course, you don’t have to. You can just visit the shopping malls and buy your stuff instead of being creative yourself. What brings us to money issue. The world of SL has its own currency, the Linden Dollar, which has an exchange rate with real life money. So you can exchange it in two directions, meaning you can spend real life cash, but also make it! If you are succesful and have the skills to create great items, you might be able to get some extra pocket money out of it… or even get loaded! (google for some success stories of SL residents)

But the main activity is the networking, meeting people and going out to visit places. There are clubs of all sorts, fun parks, malls,… someone even recreated the town of the Flinstones! The live music streams add to the realism, giving that extra touch to each place you visit. Clubs even have live DJs interacting with the avatars dancing in the club. It’s a crazy new world, but one really worth a visit.

The first day I logged in I was lucky enough to run into a girl named Alyssa, who was kind enough to show me around the world of SL. Together with a guy named Quidam (or kiwi as we call him), we’re now living on this beautiful piece of country land (small island included!) owned by her. Now I got my own little Irish cottage on there. Took me 2 days to find furniture and get the interior right (it’s been a while since I saw 4am and 5am pass by two days in a row), but it’s looking sweet ^^ lol.

I suggest you check it out, as the basic account is free. Just download the 30+mb client, create an avatar and look me up, Suibne Goodnight. I even got white wine in the house ^^. And a drunk cat… walks a bit funny (whoever wrote that script is a retard lol). In the mean time, check out a few screenshots.

/played
Me & My Katamari (psp)
Metal Gear Ac!d 2 (psp)
Second Life (pc/mac)

/listened to
Podcasts…

Okay, no Lost this week. Those 3 episodes of Season 2 sort of made me want to take a break… I’ll get back to it soon I hope.

Me & My Katamari is still keeping me busy. I don’t know whether the game is longer than its PS2 versions, but it sure feels like it. Which is a good thing though, since they were really too short. Also couldn’t resist buying Metal Gear Ac!d 2, the card-based stealth game. And I seriously have stealth problems, even when it’s turn-based, so I end up having to kill every enemy on the field anyway.

And yes, there’s a PC game on the list! *Shock! .. I know I banned MMORPGs from my life, but I blame Adam Curry’s podcast. Hearing about Second Life over and over again and seeing as it is free, I finally got around installing it. And it ended up wasting all my precious weekend time. It’s like an MMO, but without the grinding, questing, annoying parties, etc. Just the good things! :D Chilling, talking, shopping, building, etc. The entire world is completely customizable and just about everything you want to do is possible. The place is only limited by your own imagination.

I’m planning on doing a seperate post on the game a bit later on though and won’t go into too much detail here. I’ll try to get some nice screenshots and some fun stories to tell ;) In the mean time, if you are interested, head over to their site and give it a try!

It is a painful and expensive hobby, trying to collect every single Studio Ghibli movie, not to mention when they start playing them at the theaters. But we managed to own a couple of them now: Princess Mononoke, Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away, Raccoon Wars and our all time favourite, My Neighbour Totoro. And at 50 US dollars each, plus the costs to see some of them a couple of times on the big screen,… well, Studio Ghibli is turning me into a broke man.

They do make amazing movies and their new addition to the Ghibli family, Hauru No Ugoku Shiro / Howl’s Moving Castle, would even kick My Neighbour Totoro from our number one spot, if it wasn’t for its high cuteness factor. Based on a British story written by Diane Wynne Jones, the movie tells about a young girl who’s cursed by a witch and turns into an old lady. She runs away from home and meets the most interesting, colourful and strangest characters. Vague huh? I hate it when people spoil a movie by giving away too much information, so this will do.

It is almost a typical Ghibli, although it shows that the story isn’t Japanese. Again we have a tale about a strong independant girl and a bunch of characters who are not black or white, good or evil, like your typical Disney movie, but who are quite unpredictable and complicated. But there’s a shortage of Japanese gods, myths and believes, which gave all other Ghibli movies that magical Japanese touch. Nonetheless, they have done it again, bringing us a moving, touching story that is most wordy of your precious money.

We’re checking it out again at the Metropolis at Antwerp. I suggest you do the same!