WarioWare

One of my favourite games on Gameboy (emulator) is WarioWare. If you haven't tried it, I recommend you download it and try it out for you GBA emulator (just search on the internet to find it). WarioWare is hard to describe...it's an insane mix of minigames that try to encapsulate the essence of games. They have one coming out for Wii, and that's a must buy for me. There will be plenty of chances to use the Wiimote in new and interesting ways. Also, it uses Miis in the game as well as up to 12 player multiplayer mode! Sounds fun!

Wii Party

I had a really fun weekend, thanks to good friends and the Wii. As I blogged about before, I had people over for a Wii party on Saturday. I was expecting a few more people to show up, but I think in the end the numbers worked out, with everyone getting a lot's of chances to play. I bought a little too much food, but extra food means I get to bring it back to Waterloo with me :) At the supermarket where I bought the meat, I had ordered a small tray of shaved meats, but they only had large trays left, so I got that instead for the price of a small tray. sweet.

Anyway, here's some pics of us playing. In all the excitement, I forgot to take pictures myself.


Vince and I boxing...boxing is my favourite Wii Sports game.



Cary's Mii....I think one of my better creations



Tim nonchalantly plays tennis.



Chobodude/Victor getting his ass handed to him by a girl hanging on for a boxing win.

Also, Cary recorded a video of Vince getting out-boxed by a girl.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a good time and ate their fill...thanks for coming!




Turns out my cuz dropped in later that night (while I was still out for dinner) and also enjoyed playing. From what I hear, he also got his ass handed to him by his gf.

Then the next day, I brought it up to Kitty's house and a bunch of her friends & family came over to play. They had fun too, especially with boxing. I, of course, didn't let any girls beat me at boxing ;)

Well it was a fun-filled wiikend. Mike is coming back next weekend...anyone up for some more Wii? Or is everyone wiied out and I should find another topic to blog about?

PS I've been playing Rayman Raving Rabbids this week and that game is a lot of fun...plus it's funny as well. At first I thought maybe it was a mistake buying it, but I have no regrets now.

Please don't eat before you come...

Wii Party Update

When: 12:00PM to 6:00PM Saturday Nov 25th
Where: Nelson's house (in TO)...email me if you need directions
What: I will be providing a make-your-own sandwich bar, to accommodate late-comers/drop-ins
How: drop in when you feel like, eat, play and leave when you feel like it
Why: To have fun!

So far I have only 2 wii-motes...and everywhere else I've check has been sold-out. I am constantly scouring stores in the KW area for them though. I also can't get my hands on component cable either, so unless I make my own, I'm SOL and we are stuck with 480i instead of 480p.

So far, I am expecting at least 11 people (that's why I'm looking for extra wii-motes)), with no responses from half the invited, so I'm not sure what to expect. If you're the type that likes seeing who else is going, the easiest way (read: least effort from me) is for people to leave comments indicating that they are attending. Thanks.

PS I have tried creating Miis, but it's really really hard. I have a crude ones of Matt and Cary so far; I tried Pandemic a few times and gave up; then I tried Jo and Janet, but also gave up. So do me a favour and make your own save it as an image and send it to me (I'll make it at home)! I readily admit to having no artistic skill :(

Wedding + Gaming =

Yeah, what a geeky couple...but their friends are even geekier! High marks for creativity though!

Even Sam J of Daily Dose of Imagery is blogging about the Wii!

Looks like he lined up and picked one up for himself. And this is what I've been looking at for the last 2 days.

Wii First Impression

So after 10 hours of gameplay yesterday...I'm tired. Actually physically tired and I don't think it's just from the long gaming session, but some is probably from the physical movements involved.

The Wii actually keeps track of how long you play each game, so I know that I played 10 hours yesterday. I spent about 2 hours playing Zelda, 3 hours playing multiplayer Monkeyball and 3-4 hours playing Wii Sports. The other time was spent on the shopping channel and Mii creation.

Zelda --> Seems like it's going to be a great game. The sound coming from the remote is really low quality and kinda annoying, but that's the only complaint so far. I hope they come out with later Wii-motes where that is improved. I got stuck near the beginning, because I didn't know how to fish...in real life. They give you a fishing rod with a bob and hook to begin. I sat around waiting for fish to get on the hook with no success. What I forgot was that when the bob is sinking/moving in the water, it means the fish are biting. You're suppose to yank on the rod to hook the fish and then just pull it out. Of course, in Zelda, you just yank on the remote when the bob is moving and you'll get a fish on. Thankfully Mike walked in and told me how to fish...I'm a retard.

Monkeyball --> It has 50 party games, and they are all unlocked. I tried about 40-45 of them so far, and they seem like fun. Some are really crappy, and other seem like a lot of fun. The toughest ones are the ones where you have to use the remote in a 2D plane (like wack-a-mole), because it's tough to get a sense of how far to move the remote. Should be fun in a multiplayer setting though.

Wii Sports --> The control scheme is quite good for this game and makes use of it the best IMO. I think this was the game that got me tired the most and making full motions to correspond with the on screen actions made the experience more enjoyable. We managed to bash some furniture and walls, but no serious damage. One time, I lost my grip on the controller and the remote would have went flying if not for the wrist strap...thanks goodness. I think my arms are a little sore as well.

Mii This is really fun, and I've posted about this before. The one that I linked to before had a couple more options to customize than the actual one included on the Wii, but it's still quite good. I attempt to create Mii Avatars of all the people that are coming over on Saturday before they arrive. I'll see how it goes. So far I have ten people coming. And surprisingly, the first to respond was a girl (not named Kitty). That's good though, because hopefully the Wii will be able to attract all types of people!

PS Can't wait to go home and add Edmond as my Wii Friend.

Wii [update 5]

No time for words, must unpack and play!

[update 1] I successfully connected WiFi to the Wii and I'm now waiting for the firmware update to complete.

My MSN name is currently "Playing with my Wii"
Tim's is "Jealous of Nelson's Wii"
Keith's is "Should I play with Nelson's Wii"

Now if you didn't know what a Wii is, that could sound bad...

[update 2] Played Wii Sports with Mike and Gary. It was fun. I like boxing the best so far, followed closely by bowling and golf. We already hit a bunch of furniture, and walls with our remotes due to large swings. That's an indication of how fun it is!

Tried out Zelda as well, and it looks quite good graphically. I was looking all over for component cables, but no store is selling them. I want to get it for this weekend, just so I can have 480p instead of 480i (component), but I'll have to see. My local EB is getting some on tuesday, but they cost $45!!!! Is it worth it?

[update 3] Part of the reason for getting the Wii was for the awesome multiplayer gameplay. I think playing games with friends is the most fun, because there is a social component to gaming. So far, Wii Sports doesn't look like it benefits much from having more than 2 players. The only game that would be good for is Tennis.

I had reserved one extra remote and nunchuk and it was a good thing I did. I went around everywhere looking for more, but everywhere was completely sold out. For example, Best Buy had 60 units, but only 20 extra remotes. EB had 40 units, but only 10 or so remotes and 4 nunchuks, etc. Best Buy even had all their Wii Points cards sold out!

I think I'm going to start on Monkeyball soon. It has 50 party games!!! If I have to unlock them all, like the previous monkeyball games, I better start now and work quickly. I think that's the only game that the extra remotes would be truly worthwhile. So I'll check in at the retailers later in the week and see if I can pick up some more remotes...

PS I am going to return Red Steel due to craptacular reviews.

[update 4] Turns out that all the party games are unlocked already. Excellent! They are pretty fun too, for a party type of game. 4 player should be even more fun!

[update 5] I'm disappointed that my local EB Games didn't get this T-shirt . That's a cool T-shirt.

Wii on Xanga

Head on over to any Xanga page and check out the comments. A Wii ad is overlaid on all user pics in the comments section. Never seen that before, but I try to stay away from Xanga as much as I can...I kinda dislike that site, with their closed system and such.

I guess this is where part of the Nintendo's$200 million advertising campaign goes toward. Part of that includes getting the Director of Syrianna and Traffic to direct TV commercials about the Wii.

Wii Play Wii

I just sent out this email, but if I missed you, please read below:

Hey,

As some of you may know, I've had a recent obsession about Nintendo's new console coming out named the Wii. I've been blogging about it constantly in the last little while. For a quick introduction, check out the video at http://nelsonhu.blogspot.com/2006/10/another-wii-trailer_31.html or watch video of people playing it for the first time: http://nelsonhu.blogspot.com/2006/11/more-wii-videos.html. Fortunately,I have managed to secure a preorder for the Wii through EB Games and will be picking it up on the weekend.

More importantly, playing games is so much more fun when you can play with friends!

Therefore, I'm planning to have a get together in Etobicoke on the afternoon of Saturday Nov 25, where everyone will be invited to try out the Wii. I even have a new TV and depending on numbers, I may even provide foodlunch and/or dinner. Even if you are not the type that plays games, I encourage you to come over and give it a try. Hope to see you then!

I will be emailing/blogging further details soon and I just wanted to gauge interest, so please email me back.

Thanks,
Nelson

PS feel free to extend the invite to others you think will be interested...even non-gamers!

So email me, or leave a comment. Thanks!

Math Ability

Sometimes I take for granted my math ability. For example, I often get frustrated at cashiers that have trouble giving me change. After I read this Slate Human Guinea Pig article, I realized that not all people can do 8 + 3. The article is hilariously written and I've always enjoyed her columns. It's too bad, her Dear Prudence columns don't match up with Dear Margo.

Freakonomics Quiz

The Freakonomics blog, which I promoted to my regular RSS rotation without a probation period had a mini-contest/quiz on their site recently. The following was the quiz question:

"Before a recent lecture, I got to shake hands with one of the most famous and beloved nearly-octogenarians in the world."

My first guess was Alan Greenspan, but according to Wikipedia he just turned 80 earlier this year. I couldn't think of anyone else, so I didn't submit a guess.

The only reason I'm posting this is because someone posted Larry Smith as their answer! Scroll down to line 39:

39. Larry Smith. Well, he's well-known and beloved on the University of Waterloo's campus, and he's an economist…

LOL. I think Larry Smith is one of the best profs on campus and I even attended his lecture after I graduated by sneaking into his class. The post is funny because I don't think he's close to 80. Also, I wouldn't say he's one of the most famous or beloved in the world, although, he is both famous and beloved on campus.

Anyway, read the site for the true answer.

Victor's Birthday

Kevin has a good summary of the weekend events surrounding Victor's birthday celebration. Read that first, and the following are just some extra comments.

Re: Victor's Bday => We planned it earlier in the week, with a million emails - which was fun in itself because the topic was Victor. In University we spent half our time talking about finding Victor a girl (the other half was spent playing Warcraft, Smash and Mariokart), and sometimes it seems like we do it more for our own entertainment, but thankfully he's a good sport about it. We mean well Victor :)

Re: Condo Show => It was fortunate that we were able to preview the Condo Show before paying to enter. I wonder if the design of the Toronto Convention Center actually discourages some people from attending shows, because you can see the displays before going in. As to why there weren't any builders, in my opinion it's because one of the show's main sponsors was Monarch, a builder themselves and probably didn't want competition. Oh well, now we know better.

Re: Bday card shopping => Picking out a card for Victor seriously took 3 hours. We couldn't find anything we liked, so in the end we picked one that is suppose to be for a young (4-8 year old) girl. The card starts out describing a girl with good qualities, and there's a possibility as you're reading it, you might think it's about a girl we are setting Victor up with, but the last line says "she's you". Like Kevin mentioned, it is quite disturbing that all these cards have to boost the self-esteem of little girls. Little boy cards are not like that at all. Which also got me thinking about how card makers determine what type of card they will write. Do they have sales feedback on the most popular types/styles of cards and try to emulate them as much as possible? It's obvious someone somewhere thought all these cards about telling little girls all their good qualities and boosting their self-esteem were successful.

Re: small portions at Italian restuarnts => When I was in Italy dining at Italian restaurants, I figured out that you're suppose to order multiple courses. Usually the menu is setup with antipasto, primo and secondo options and you're suppose to order more than one dish for yourself. I took a quote from the following website if you wanted more details:

Italian Menus

In trattorias and ristorantes, a menu typically has five categories of food:

* Antipasti, which serve as appetizers.
* Primo (primi is the plural), the first course. Typical primi are pasta dishes and risotto dishes.
* Secondo (secondi is the plural), the second course. Secondi consist of a serving of meat or fish or poultry. Sometimes, a vegetarian secondo is offered.
* Contorno (contorni is the plural). Contorni are vegetable side dishes. Vegetables are rarely served with a secondo; you must order them separately.
* Dolce (dolci is the plural). Dolci are sweets - dessert. Typical desserts include tortas (cake), crostata (tart, usually filled with a fruit jam), and panna cotta (vanilla custard type dessert that is eggless and often served with a drizzle of fruit puree or chocolate or caramel sauce).

Primi and secondi portions are generally smaller than what you might expect. However, in Italy, both are considered part of a meal rather than two separate main courses. Contorni portions are generally large.

Re: rockclimbing => I've only been rockclimbing once so far and it was fun. Victorx2, Aaron and Janet go every week! They bought all the equipment as well, so now I'm also considering it. It will depend on how often I go.

Re: Maddy's => Was fun. Good job Charlie and Ben with bringing some girls over for Victor. Unfortunately his game is a little weak.....needs more french/mandarin speaking :) We also managed to sing Happy Birthday to him at both the rock climbing movie and the bar in front of large groups of strangers. Good times!

Re: bbt => Kitty/Janet ended up in Aaron's car and I was suppose to meet them at the Finch station parking lot, but they ended up going to Fairview first to drop Ben off. Then they missed the exit and went to drop chobo off. D'oh. It was ok, cause Richard and I ended up chatting.

Anyway, it was a really fun day and I am already looking forward to next year! I uploaded my limited pics to here. Browsable or Downloadable. Everyone else please upload them as well please. Thanks.

Midterm Elections

So the United States just had their midterm elections and the Democrats have the majorities in both the House of Representatives AND the Senate! Donald Rumsfeld also stepped down (finally). Blah, blah, blah. More important, is what Kayne West thinks of George Bush:



Yeah, he's blabbering like a fool...but it's hilarious. It sounds like Mike Myers is reading off a teleprompter, but Kayne is obviously ad libbing it. Now, watch it again for Mike Myer's reaction. :)

South Park + Wii = goodness

So if any of you are bored this weekend and have 44 minutes to kill, check out the latest two part episodes of South Park, featuring the Wii and satire on Atheists.

South Park Part 1 (s10e12)

South Park Part 2 (s10e13)

BTW what I found that on an awesome website: quicksilverscreen.com. I wonder how long they'll be up before they are shut down. Who needs a TV when you can watch all your shows here!

Do You Care About Webpage Load Times?

Christmas season is quickly approaching and lot's of consumers will be hitting up the web for online shopping. There was a recent (biased) study about the the tolerance for web page load times. This recent study concluded that if your website takes longer than 4 seconds to load , consumers will leave the site and have a 75% chance of "likely" never returning again. I find it extremely annoying when websites are slow...I get impatient very quickly. I have no doubt that long load times will discourage customers from using a particular site.
        But how did they determine the 4 second benchmark? They give no details on how they collected their data (I didn't leave my contact information to get the full report, but it is available if anyone were to bother signing up), and the only evidence of data collection is surveys. So they used surveys to determine a precise number like 4 seconds? Sounds a little fishy....but it's something that could be calculated quite acurately if researched correctly (maybe they did, but I can't tell from the press statement). The reason the report is biased is because it is sponsored by Akami, who is in the business of "accelerating content and business processes online".

So what can YOU do to optimize page load times? There was a recent article about what can be done to improve webpage load times. This is how I like data presented - discussion of experimental procedures used, graphs of relevant data and insightful results analysis/discussion.
        Anyway, the biggest tip was enabling HTTP pipelining. To do this in Firefox, type "about:config" into the address bar and search for "pipelining" (The actual field is "network.http.pipelining" or "network.http.proxy.pipelining if you are using a proxy server). Doubleclick it to become true. Unfortunately, a lot of the advice depends on implementation done by the website designers/administrators. I haven't had pipelining enabled for too long now, but so far it doesn't seem to break anything...

And last, but not least is the Saga of Friendster. I loved the idea behind the Friendster website when it came out. But how is Friendster related to the rest of this post? Well, I stopped using Friendster because it was slow. Like glacially slow. Like glacially ass slow. In the article they mention wait times of 45 seconds! Damn.
        It is so unpopular now that it is "ranked 14th among all social networking sites tracked by comScore Media Metrix, trailing even myYearbook.com, a site started last year by a 16-year-old high school student". But I have to give it props to being the precursor to sites such as www.myspace.com and www.facebook.com, which happens to be my current drug of choice. With that horrible ranking in mind, I'm thinking some people (for example Joanne & Robert) should ditch Friendster for something more, uh, contemporary. BTW I just uploaded some new pics to Facebook, so go check it out.


P.S. The article I linked to about Friendster was actually from The New York Times, and it is currently in their pain-in-the-ass pay-for-access Archives. I saved it and hosted it on my University webspace - just for you - so go read it! It's well written and the even the Friendster VC's admit to their slow ass website. Hopefully The New York Times doesn't send me a C&D letter though!

I need a new phone

I've had my phone for over 4 years now. That is a hella long time for a cell phone. At the time I bought it for a large chunck of change and now I think it's time to get a new one, because it is literally falling apart.

Exhibit A:



The yellow outline is where there use to be a metal covering. That piece broke off and now the hinge is exposed. The pink outline is where my antenna used to be. You know what? That's an important part of the phone.

Can you see the scratches on the silver paint around the black or the numerous scratches on the silver body frame?

Exhibit B:



Yes it gets better.

The pink arrow is pointing to where I cracked the frame, so that it can bend backwards more than it's suppose to.

The yellow arrow indicates the places where the buttons from the bottom have dug into the screen area and chipped away at the paint and left large scratches in the screen.

The worst part of it is the inside screen doesn't always work. I have to open the clamshell phone very slowly or else the screen just goes blank. Definitely makes it difficult to use.

So, for obvious reasons, I was thinking of getting a new phone. The one I am seriously considering is the Blackberry Pearl.

It's has a lot of features and looks pretty decent too. And most importantly, the form factor is slim enough to slip in my pocket, wherever I go. I typically prefer clamshell designs, but I think I'll try this style and see if I like it. The innnovative part is the interface: they got rid of the popular scroll wheel in favour of a trackball (aka "the pearl"), that allows horizontal as well as vertical navigation. It also has a 1.3 megapixel camera, good battery life and can play mp3s. I don't plan to get data services though, but apps like this sound appealing to try out. It should also satisfy the PDA functions that I desire as well since my PDA (which are all obsolete now) died a long time ago.

For the cons, the reviewers said the call quality was not the best, there is no video recording, the SureType has it's fans and not-fans, and the music/video playback interface is clunky.

Something has also changed in the way I view purchases. I think of purchases as votes of approval for products I want to encourage. Like with the Wii - I think they are taking on risk to release an innovative product and I encourage that behaviour by buying their product. I like that RIM has released a consumer version of their wildly successful product and I approve of their work. Not to mention they are a big employer of Waterloo students and huge backers of the University. Maybe it's because I'm a workign stiff now, or maybe because I have a better perspective now that I'm not only a consumer, but also a producer (in a limited way). I appreciate it when the customers are discerning and buy quality products. Or maybe I'm just dumb.

Anyway, what do you think of this phone? Should I get it? Does anybody at RIM want to hook me up?

Also, anyone else make such a big fuss when deciding on where to spend your hard-earned money?

Distorted Beauty

When I was thinking of what link to put in for "beautiful" in my previous post I came across this "revealing" clip about beauty. Or rather how beauty is manufactured for mass consumption and how distorted it can get. Another application of technology at work...

Window Backgrounds

I got up really late today, and can't fall asleep now. I went to the gym yesterday for weights and as a result, I'm really sore now. But I like the soreness...I haven't had a good workout in a long time. I'm so cheap though, because I still go to CIF, Waterloo's nice and new gym facility. My roomate Aaron came along too so I don't feel so bad. Anway I feel like writing about something now....even if it is boring to almost everyone.

Did you ever wonder why the background for Windows always had to be a bitmap? In the past, when you wanted to use a jpg, you'd have to turn on Web Desktop and I think the IE engine would render the picture. In more recent version, you could select jpgs, but Windows would always create a bmp copy and display that as the background.

(If you don't believe me check out the directory: C:\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft Where %Username% is your Windows username. There should be a bitmap image there called Wallpaper1 or something. Each time you change to a different jpg background this file should also change.)

Anyway, for Microsoft's new version of Windows, named Vista, they decided to allow jpgs as the native format for desktop wallpaers. It turns out there is a bug when they resize the picture for your monitor's resolution (they use a linear interpolation technique) which results in pictures with ass quality.

Check out the link to see the difference. There's a good description of the problem and various ways they came up with to fix it. At the last minute before release, they decided to insert this cosmetic fix, and this blog post outlines the difficulties encountered. It's a good account of the process that happens when you try to rush a last minute fix in. Even though this fix is purely cosmetic, it adds a lot to the overall quality of the product. Now, if Linux made itself beautiful and more functional, I'd consider trying it out!

Cooking Mama!

Who likes Iron Chef? Who likes video game? If you answered yes to the above questions, Cooking Mama is for you! Check out the vids below.

More videos of some n00bs playing Cooking Mama.

Also on an unrelated topic, when I was going through some coop student resumes at work, I noticed my classmate Ian Leung's picture featured right on the front page of Jobmine (our coop program application, all Waterloo students love to hate)! He doesn't look so happy...

Micro$oft forgot Poland

Look up the timezone map on your Windows PC (doubleclick the clock in the bottom righthand corner and select the timezone tab).

Look at Poland (map of Europe here) on the timezone map...it may appear to be a body of water! It depends on which version of Windows you have, but the two computers I checked have this "bug".

There's a good technical explanation for the cause. Basically, the programmers didn't take into account the fact that timezones may change. After reading the article, you begin to realize how complex something as simple as a time zone map can be!

More Wii Videos

Sorry for posting more about the Wii. I came across these hilarious videos of people using the Wii for the first time.

I'm going to rank the funniest ones.

1) Old Japanese couple playing golf and reacting so apprehensively
2) Black Lady bowling. She's so expressive
3) Old man bowling....he thinks he is actually bowling haha
4) Black man...he is blown away
5) Japanese family playing baseball...b/c his very young kids kick his ass
6) Japanese girls...the giggling.
7) American girl...cause she's hot

What do you think?