Discovery

I had never been to WellyCon before, but others had told me about it a few years ago. Only three weeks before the event, I saw it advertised in the ComicCon New Zealand flyer. Apparently all the big NZ geek events were running on the same weekend: Queen’s Birthday weekend.

The bigger, more well-known geek event, also running Queen’s Birthday weekend was Armageddon Expo, the annual entertainment and pop culture event. I’ve been to Armageddon many times (even cosplaying as Gordon Freeman and Axe Cop), but found it less and less to my liking, as it focussed on cartoons, television and cinema, and less about video games and board games.

I asked my lovely wife for the privilege of going to just the Saturday of WellyCon, leaving her with our daughter. Lucky is the man whose wife lets him go to WellyCon without her!

A Community Mindset

Because I was going by myself, I wondered how games got started at WellyCon. It turns out that there’s a very large game library at WellyCon. It’s full of games brought along by other attendees and left to be played by others. You can rustle up a group, choose a game, claim a table, set up and start playing.

I wasn’t expecting to know many people there, and I wasn’t going as part of a group, so I decided to only join games looking for extra players. As it turns out, they have these big signs you can put on your table to make it easy for players like me to find your table.

Turning Up

There was plenty of parking at Wellington Girls in Thorndon, if you knew where to find it. I circled around before I found the tiny WellyCon sign leading in to the parking field.

Once through the door, I walked around the busy atrium, admiring the magnificent stack of board games, and spotting one of the signs, and jumping into a game of Star Wars Carcassonne.

Star Wars Carcassonne is a lighter version of the original Carcassonne where cities are asteroid fields, roads are trade routes, no farms (space is empty) and cloisters are planets, and a fun planet-conquering mechanic which lets you roll battle dice to steal them. None of us had played this variant, and one of us had never played a Carcassonne. We read the rules, and learned how to play, and enjoyed ourselves very much. And I won, which is nice.

Family Jewels

Half-way through the first game, I got a text message from Adrianne, one of the organisers of WellyCon informing me that I had won a spot prize. After my game, I went to claim my prize.

Choosing from almost 90 prizes, I selected a set of plastic gems and gold nuggets for playing Splendor with. They are beautiful and decadent, and must add a further tactile experience to the game. I should not that at this point, I have played a lot of Splendor on my mobile phone, but did not own a physical copy of Splendor.

Much Game. Very Lose. Wow.

I ended up playing Shadows over Camelot with the same two people (Caleb and Fiona) and two other people. The traitor won by sabotaging too many quests, then falsely accusing another player to end the game. We didn’t complete a single quest. Fun game though!

Shadows of Camelot! #wellycon pic.twitter.com/CE9dYMlcxm

— Brett Taylor (@Glutnix) June 4, 2016

After publically not collecting my lunch, and then correcting, and consuming it, I played a game of Splendor with some older gamers (not revealing my gem stash), and was thoroughly trounced. I got locked out of the ruby market, losing a lot of tempo in the process. I did, however, remind all those players that you can reserve a face-down card from any of the three stocks.

Trading Post

I had brought with me a selection of my least played games, hoping to trade them for slightly better games. WellyCon hosts a trading corner, where you can leave your games on a silent auction or for sale. I missed the (seemingly non-existent) face to face trading session at 12:30, but put all my games in a box marked “Offers” and waited for calls. Maybe not a great strategy, but I did get a call or two, settling one deal that day.

For the Hoard

I finally got a copy to go with the plastic gems I won

Walking around I spotted a demo table with Cheeky Parrot Games showing off their Kickstarter card game Hoard, which I had already seen online. I sat down and played a full game with Tim Kings-Lynne, one of the game’s designers, and Julia Schiller, Director of Cheeky Parrot Games. They’re lovely people, and maybe they let me beat them at their own game. I got to talking to Tim and his exploits on the Miramar Peninsula working at Weta Digital, how the game has developed, and thoroughly enjoyed myself for a good while there.

After this I hung out with my old buddy Chris and Mel for a while, catching up on old games and old times. He also convinced me to put my games on silent auction. We then sat down and they introduced me to Codenames. Being the code master is hard! We played three games before I had to leave for the night and rejoin my family.

Last Dash for Cash

Before I left, I closed a trade! I traded a copy of Power Grid along with the China/Korea map expansion for $40. And on the way out, I passed by the Cerberus Games booth and spotted a copy of Splendor that had not been there all day, which I swiftly secured and took home.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself that day. Playing five different games, most of which I had never played before. I made new friends, won prizes, sold games at auction, caught up with old friends, and bought a game I have wanted for a while.

You should go to WellyCon!

Will I return for WellyCon 10 next year? ABSOLUTELY. My wife is supremely sore she missed out.

Should you? If you have enjoy learning and playing new and interesting board games, Definitely! And I learned there is a Mini-WellyCon coming up, maybe Labour Weekend? See you there?

This video is pretty spoiler-heavy, so if you’ve not played Cave Story, there’s a freeware version that’s been ported to almost everything, and if you want it on Steam, Nintendo 3DS, or other shops, you can pay for it too. The freeware version along with the fan translation is still the best choice though.

Kero Blaster is an excellent game, extremely fun and rewarding, and doesn’t artificially lengthen playtime. For those who still couldn’t get enough, a New Game+ mode made it harder.

The iOS version of Pink Heaven will be released on October 11. Pixel is also giving Kero Blaster an update on the same day, adding ZANGYOU MODE (‘Overtime’ Mode). 

2015年10月11日2DアクションゲームKeroBlasterに「残業モード」が追加、アップデートされます｜ #ケロブラスター #KeroBlaster pic.twitter.com/oKy07SzoPe

— studiopixel.jp (@StudioPixelJP) September 18, 2015

Because of the update, Studio Pixel is bumping the prices of the game up a buck or two, so go get the game while you still can!

• Pink Hour for Windows – Free
• Pink Hour for iOS – Free
• Pink Heaven for Windows – Free
• Pink Heaven for iOS – coming soon
• Kero Blaster for Windows – USD $7.99 until 11 Oct 2015
• Kero Blaster for iOS – USD $4.99 / NZD $6.49 until 11 Oct 2015

I think the Venusian gangster rap in GUN GODZ, like most people, is pretty flippin fantastic. I couldn’t find the lyrics for the main theme anywhere, so I did my best to figure out what these G’s are saying, and post it here as a thank you to Vlambeer. You guys are awesome.

GUN GODZ Main Theme – Kozilek feat. Doseone

[“snoop”]
i got-
i got guns

[the man nun]
i got gun for picnic
it’s gun that send texts
it’s gun that make breakfast
gun that sign breasts
it’s gun that straight faced
gun with six senses
it’s gun that hate texas
gun that wear vests

two clips of hollow tip
‘pon glock and ‘pon hip
ka-click your flesh rip
my clique been rooted
pull pin and then hold this
black out this horseshit
brains blow and whole tits
these cats can get fixed
(pop) shoot you know dick (pop pop pop)
with authentic gun from my sock (pop pop pop)
it meanted somebody got shot (pop pop pop pop pop)
by the nun man who run with the godz of the gunz

[“snoop”]
g-guns for fake necklaces
guns that send texts
it’s guns that make breakfast
guns that sign breasts
it’s guns that straight faced
guns with six senses
guns that hate texas
guns that wear vests

[the man nun]
i got gun for picnic
it’s gun that send texts
it’s gun that make breakfast
gun that sign breasts
it’s gun that straight faced
gun with six senses
gun that hate texas
gun that wear vests

[“snoop”]
i got guns for fake necklaces
guns that send texts
it’s guns that make breakfast
guns that sign breasts
it’s guns that straight faced
guns with six senses
guns that hate texas
guns that wear vests

[instrumental]

[the man nun]
we’ve got proof and then shoot
we bull proof then pull chute
we knife-proof and nine-shoot
we bomb-proof
your mom’s shot by a gun of the god

[breakdown]

we’ve got proof and then shoot
we bull proof and pull chute
we knife-proof and nine-shoot
we bomb-proof
your mom’s shot

[“snoop”]
one for the money
two’s for the crew
three’s for shooting anything i want to

[reggae break]

[“snoop”]
ash-a clack clack
bullet

bulletproof
yeah one two
you never shouldn’t shoot
a hundred-one hole-in-the-roof
ventilating your new god z suit
you midget doo-doo
we’ve the fittin’ ta mash you
bitchin’ the fat, little kids in the back
you on my pisslist like white girl rhymes
your mighty ducks hat
you’re rockin’, you’re mad
with a chest strapped
clack clack

There are two distinct voices on this track, so I’m calling the one that features on the rest of the album the rapper Doseone, and the one that sounds like Snoop Dogg/Lion “Snoop”, though I’m starting to think that Doseone and Kozilek have a gun for fake guest rappers.

After a twitter conversation with doseone, the “character” rapping first is “theNunMan”, confirmed by his (“Mr.One”) post on Venus Patrol.

Games released in 2012

1. Waking Mars
2. Beat Sneak Bandit
3. Punch Quest
4. WarGames: WOPR
5. Spell Rift
6. Letterpress / PuzzleJuice / SpellTower / Wordament – 2012 turned out to be Year of Reinvention of the Word Game.
7. 10000000
8. Super Hexagon
9. Kingdom Rush
10. Pudding Monsters
11. Super Monsters Ate My Condo
12. OLO
13. Spaceteam
14. Squids Wild West
15. Where’s My Perry?
16. Toybox
17. Super Crate Box
18. Blockwick / Blockwick 101
19. Rune Raiders
20. Bad Piggies

Oldies but Continued Goodies

1. Gesundheit
2. Contre Jour
3. Where’s My Water?
4. Cut the Rope / Cut the Rope: Experiments
5. Squids
6. Gauge
7. Frotz
8. Carcassonne
9. ASYNC Corp.
10. Trainyard

Honourable Mentions

1. McPixel
2. Whale Trail
3. Mole Escape
4. Polymer
5. Lost Cities

• Jamestown
• Bit.Trip Runner
• Super Meat Boy
• Shank
• NightSky HD

Pay more than the current average to get Gratuitous Space Battles and Cave Story+!

Cave Story+ and Super Meat Boy are seriously good games, and each on their own is worth the price of admission. And you get to decide that price! I’m not kidding. Go buy these great video games NOW, even if you don’t have time to play them right now. Support some really good charities while you do.

UPDATE: five extra games were added this morning: VVVVVV, And Yet It Moves, Hammerfight, Crayon Physics Deluxe, and Cogs. And every game in the bundle also now comes with its soundtrack for you to add to your music collection. Only seven days left

Well if it was snowing, I sure wouldn’t be inside; Snow in Wellington? EPIC. I’d be out there enjoying it!

If it snowed so hard I couldn’t leave the house? Alright.

1. Video Games
I’d be all up playing any combination of Minecraft, DoomRL, Weird Worlds, Team Fortress 2, or Spelunky, or whatever! If my girl was with me, I’d probably Wii Bowl for a while.

2. Catch up on my bible reading
I’ll be honest, I’m currently more than a few days behind on Arise’s One Year Bible plan (M’Cheyne’s Classic). I probably should be reading up now as is.

Bible reading is pretty interesting when you have it in context, so I like to use a commentary like the ESV Study Bible. The Bible’s books, especially the New Testament was originally written by their authors with specific audiences in mind, which usually aren’t explictly me. For example, Paul’s letters were to fledgling churches around the Mediterranean: I think context helps a lot for understanding what’s actually going on and why the figures in the Bible wrote what they did. The ESV Study Bible has lots of great insight in its commentary.

3. Internet
I’d be online consuming past issues of every video on The Escapist, especially the Loading Ready Run stuff, catching up on my RSS feeds (though I do have that almost down to a science).

4. Read or listen to a book or podcast
I love to read, or listen to, science fiction. It gives me a chance to see inside other (fictitious) people’s lives and how they would react to crazy circumstances. Science fiction isn’t so much about the explaination about how futuristic technology might work, but rather how we as human beings might react to it, and how we as a race might change because of it.

What would you do on a snow-day?

Want more details on this? Check out Brett’s Arduino Reaction Game in the projects section.

EDGE – NZ$6.49

EDGE is an platformer where you are a cube trying to navigate an isometric landscape in search of the tiny glowing cubes. Some levels are really easy, some require timing, some have cubes hidden away in secret areas. Here though, the music shines, so much that Mobigame released the soundtrack for free! KAKKOI!

Canabalt – NZ$4.19

Canabalt is a free flash game gone iPhone: a one-button ‘daring escape’ platformer. No story up front, but the game has one to tell! Addictive, try the free web version first.

Hook Champ – NZ$4.19

You’re a Jake T. Hooker, an Indiana Jones style tomb-raider stealing idols from dangerous caves and escaping with your amazing grappling hook styles! Easy to learn, hard to master, harder to put down! Try the lite version first, and then buy the full version with more maps and achievements!

Zen Bound – NZ$4.19

A strange game in which you are to bind up a wooden figurine with string. This is meditative gaming at its best: no time limit, but you do eventually run out of string. Again, amazing soundtrack here, with a free download when you buy the game! Get the lite version first to try it out.

Eliss – NZ$4.19

Eliss is a multi-touch puzzler. Gather same coloured circles together, enough so they fit into the ‘squeezars’ to score points. Don’t let different colours touch or it’ll soon be game over. You’ll need all your fingers to play this one, maybe both hands at some points. Lite version also available.

Flight Control – NZ$1.29

A simplified air-traffic control game: draw flight paths for aircraft so they can land on the appropriate runway or landing pad, but don’t let them collide! Harder than it sounds, but quite addicting!

More to come!

If you’ve ever played Advance Wars on the Game Boy Advance or Nintendo DS, then you’ll be instantly familiar with Weewar. Weewar is a web-based turn-based hex-based pixel-art war game what you play in your browser. Lots of fun and works quite well. Go check it out!

1. I sucked at tag. Primary school was pretty hellish for me — I was unfit, I had no friends, and I could never catch anyone. It’s a part of my life that I like to forget. Because I had no-one who liked me or understood me (my parents admit to not really understanding me and my interests when I was young) I turned to reading books and learning. If I had to pick someone who I think understood me when I was young, I’d probably have to say my grandmother on my mother’s side, Lois, who unfortunately passed away while I was at Intermediate, or just starting, I can’t remember. She would buy books for me all the time, and it was her who I credit for getting me into computers and specifically programming. An Osbourne book on Basic for various computers like the Commodore 64 and the TRS-80, and the really simple game listings within it. I would spend hours staring at that code, trying to figure out what the game would do. I wouldn’t get any kind of computer until after she passed away, and then it was a 286 and no-one told me where GW-Basic was.

   Gosh, there’s a bit there. Does that count as only one?

2. I love computer games, but in reality, I’m not a hardcore gamer. I like the games that I can pick up, play for 15 minutes, and then put to one side. To this end, I rarely finish a game. A mild case of ADD? It’s certainly not AD&D I can count on one hand the games I’ve clocked without cheats:
   • Half-Life (PC)
   • Half-Life 2 (PC)
   • Half-Life 2: Episode 1 (PC) (but that barely counts)
   • Phoenix Wright (Nintendo DS) (but it’s mostly trial-and-error. Heh, trial, law game)
   • Doukutsu Monogatari (aka Cave Story) (PC)

   Yet recently I’ve bought so many DS and GBA games for my Nintendo DS Lite, and haven’t clocked any others

3. I’m not allergic to anything, but I have had cancer. I have a giant scar on my back from where they removed a melanoma (skin cancer). Luckily it came back from the labs that it hadn’t spread, but I can’t give blood anymore. If they’d let me, I’d go every six months. So if you’re reading this, and you are able to give blood, you should go do it — it helps so many people out there, and only inconveniences you for a few hours; heck, most workplaces will let you go give blood on work time!
4. When I want to chill out, the forest is my chill out space. I love to just go somewhere and listen, relax. Rivers are also very awesome. I was baby sitting a couple of my mum’s friend’s kids for the weekend one time in the middle of summer, and they had some really large inner tubes, so we took them out on the river out the back of their house, and had a ball and we all got so tired, we walked back, packed stuff away, and we all fell asleep in the lounge where we were sitting, totally unexpectedly. It was probably the quietest they ever were!
5. I like chiptunes. Music made on old retro hardware that sounds like it could have come out of an old GameBoy or C64. I especially like the stuff that comes out of 8bitpeoples
6. Bonus Fact: I don’t like peas. But that said, they are tolerable when mixed with other vegetables. But by themselves, blargh.

Bob Brown (Confessions of a Guru), Hamish MacEwan (self titled), Hillary (Kiwirose in Canada), Dan Milward (Mind of Mufasa) (fix your feeds, they’re broken), and Unbounded (self-titled), even though Unbounded is the kind of guy who would abhor this kinda meme; TAG – You’re it!

Quinn is an implementation of a popular falling-blocks game which, according to the Tetris Company, must not be named here.

ROFL. You got served, Tetris Co.

Seriously, Quinn is a really good implementation of that unnameable game for Mac OSX.

I had a short problem upgrading the firmware to 2.0; it ‘bricked’ the device. After a bit of wiki reading and obtaining advice from djwillis on efnet#gp2xdev my SD card wasn’t playing well with the firmware upgrade software. I’m now the happy owner of a Linux-powered entertainment device! HUZZAH!

I’ve installed Quake 1, a Sega Master System emulator, a Mega Drive (Genesis) emulator, and can’t wait to see what else I can get running on this thing!

Everyone in my department (apart from the course co-ordinator) owns a PSP. So I figured I should make the most of it and bite the bullet myself. Mind you, it wasn’t cheap :/ Anyway, I got the PSP value pack, a USB cable, a 1GB Memory Stick Duo and the game Mercury, and I have GTA Liberty City Stories preordered.

I also bought a UMD Movie of Steamboy, which is a great anime film — you should see it if you get the chance. But I don’t think that the PSP is a great delivery platform for a two-hour movie, unless you’re stuck on a plane and are sick of playing video games.

Also, hooray for Homebrew! After upgrading from 1.52 to 2.0 and then downgrading to 1.50, I got a Genesis/Megadrive emulator running on there!

And OMG PHEAR LUMINES. That game, once you get into it, is intense. You go into it all relaxed and you come out of it all tense and powered up. I love that game.

As mentioned in previous posts, I’m a huge fan of this game. It will probably go down as my most favorite video game of all time.

For those who haven’t read the post on Webfroot about this game, , Doukutsu Monogatari (Japanese for “Story of the Cavern”) was developed in 2004 in Japan. It’s probably the most fun freeware game I’ve ever played and finished to some degree (more on that later). Now, I’ve played the english fan-translated version, and thoroughly enjoyed it — it’s got a great start, the gameplay is superb, and the plot is intriguing and fun.

The Hook
You start the game with a cut scene of some dude in a room with what seems to be a broken teleporter trying to chat to someone through a computer who isn’t there. The game starts. You’re in a room, weaponless, and there’s a door, and you know nothing else. You soon find a weapon and then more of this dude chatting away. You eventually figure out what to do next and you’re dropped into a village of cute sentient rabbit-like ‘Mimigas’, or what’s left of them, and the conflict is revealed. The sheer mystery of everything in this game is a fascinating start, and draws you in like a good first chapter of a book, and doesn’t stop.

The Line
Cave Story is a platformer game that looks distinctly like a game you’d expect to see on a NES, except this game is for the PC, and was made in 2004. It’s got instant retro charm. Even though the graphics are all really beautiful, cute 2d sprites, all the characters, monsters and scenery graphics are highly polished, and definitely draw you in.

You start with a simple pistol, and as you kill things, orange triangles drop charging the weapon’s power bar up, with it eventually levelling up into a more powerful variation. Each of the weapons in the game levels up three times, with the different weapons forming a powerful arsenal, which feels out of place with the cutesy retro graphics. Some weapons (like the secret ‘Bubbler’) are crap until you get them to level 3, but I found myself sticking to the machine gun and the missile launcher when I really needed it.

The sheer number of monsters keeps the game fresh the whole way through. Some of the monsters reappear on each new level — initially you think you’re up against the same monsters you faced in the previous level, they’re just a different colour. But no, they either move differently or shoot or fly or something unexpected, which really keeps you on your toes. Some non-boss monsters only appear once or rarely, like the haunted door at the end of the first level and the eye-bricks that crush you, which is adds strangely to the mystery of this game.

There are some good fun puzzles sprinkled through the game that you have to solve to proceed; these help grow the plot and game universe, but are standard adventure-platform fare, ranging from “figure out how to open this door” to “find components for >npc< to build you >plot advancing item<. You have a small inventory which you can use to change weapons while pausing, but it mostly serves little purpose save for activating a few important items.

As you progress in the game, more details are revealed about the character you’re playing, where you are, what is actually happening with all these Mimigas being abducted by an evil doctor and his minions.

The relationship between the powerful #2 Misery and her incompetent sidekick Balrog is entertaining; the conflict between Sue and the other Mimigas is mysterious; the strange presence of a handful of humans who look nothing like you; and the strange qualitys of — the game is one huge mystery! The sheer number of truly interesting and charming characters who you will care about are all interwoven in a great tapestry of a story, which will keep you trying to defeat that next tough boss. The plot, along with the gameplay, are the best parts of this game.

The music is also really neat, with a distinctly chip-tune feel to it. Looking and listening to the game, people will ask if you’re playing an emulator

Oh and the BOSSES! This game has enough bosses to challenge even the mightest of small corporations! They do start out easy, but by the end of the game, you’re wondering if the boss after boss after multiple bosses will ever end, and you’re praying for a savepoint!

The Sinker
According to the translators, the game has three distinct endings, two of which I have found. After reading a walkthrough of what I just did, apparently the third way is the true hero’s ending to the game, which thankfully the walkthrough tells you how to activate the plotline switches, but doesn’t guide you through the true ending. The two endings I have found feel downright disappointing and like finishing a Sonic game without the Chaos Emeralds, respectively, so I’m probably gonna play through the entire game again.

The game has a single save slot, which sucks because I can’t just go back to that plot switchpoint. Also, this means you sholudn’t save the game when showing the start of the game to your friends (not that I got bitten by this one).

The Verdict
Cave Story takes the best parts of the old and now-dying 2d platformer genre, injects a heafty dose of original challenging gameplay into it, showers it in fascinating characters, weaves into it an immensely intriguing story, while still staying true to it’s console inspiration to create an incredibly fun game to play and conquer, one you’ll want to be playing again in a few years time to relive the story.

The game is freeware, but puts many of the modern shareware games I can think of to shame. 10 years earlier and released on the NES or Mega Drive and I believe this would have been a mainstream classic.

I recommend this to anyone who misses the Commander Keens, Metroids and Castlevanias of yesteryear, and enjoys a good story.

Doukutsu Monogatari weaved it’s way into my heart. An underground independant gaming classic. A Must Play.

Vitals:

• Windows 98, 2000, XP
• Requires DirectX 5.0 or better
• Also available for Mac
• 6MB when installed
• Download Windows English 1.0.0.5 from the Doukutsu Monogatari page on Home of the Underdogs

More Information:

• Studio Pixel — authors of the original Japanese game (see Doukutsu Monogatari page)
• Aeon Genesis – the translators of the game (see Doukutsu Monogatari page)
• Doukutsu Monogatari on Webfroot
• Doukutsu Monogatari on 1up.com
• Google Search for “Doukutsu Monogatari”

My Aunty and Uncle were in town for (Rosie’s Mum) Leslie’s 70th birthday party the next day. My cousins Abby and Sam were there too — man they’ve grown and look so different! Abby is now married(?) and has had two kids, one of which was adopted out, but they were both there. My goodness, they look so much like the younger Abby I remember.

I also talked to Leslie herself, and she told me about her trip around South America, and off hand she mentioned going to Easter Island, so I asked her a bit about that… she was only there for two days, but she saw most of the island — remembering that you can probably bike around the island in less than a day.

Mum was crashing at my place, so before we went to bed, we tried to watch Napolean Dynamite, but my computer was having issues and we were both tired; Mum doubly so after a 4 hour drive from Napier.

The next day was Church, and after an ordeal missing late buses back into town, I made it back in time to go to Leslie’s 70th party. It was at the Kingsgate Hotel in Oriental Bay, which is a great venue! After eating many club sandwiches, mini-croissants and drinking glasses of orange juice, talking to the whanau, we got to hear speeches from Leslie’s children telling the attendees about Leslies life. It was really interesting — she used to be in the Lighthouse service, which involved living in and running lighthouses for 18 months at a time. Fascinating!

After the party, Stuart, Mum and myself returned to my place where we relaxed, then we fetched some supplies including popcorn, beer and food for dinner, and Mum cooked up a feast of Potato, Cauliflower and cheese sauce and Porterhouse Steak — YUMMM. Then we retired and watched Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie, drinking beers and eating microwave popcorn. Mum had bought a few fruit-and-nut chocolate bars and said you gotta try this: Put a chunk of the chocolate in your mouth, then grab a small handful of popcorn and put that in there too. I did, and it was great! The chocolate melts from the heat of the popcorn and it tastes great

Monday morning I wake up and Mum and Stuart are buzzing the apartment, so I quickly get dressed and we all go to Fidel’s for breakfast. They had a FIFTEEN PERCENT SURCHARGE for a public holiday! SCREW THAT! Well, we ended up ordering and paying for the meal before we realised there was a surcharge, and the food was REALLY GOOD… and we had a good time, so that was good

After that we walked to Te Papa where Mum wanted to check out the Holbein to Hockney exhibition of pictures from the Royal Collection, which featured some pieces from Leonardo de Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael, along with many others. I think the other Ninja Turtle was in there too

After that, Mum was on her way back to the Hawkes Bay and we said our farewells. Overall it was good sharing the city with Mum, and having a real good time. Love you lots Mum!

Oh, and I scored a full copy of Duke Nukem 3D from the Gamesman for NZD$1.00… pity I can’t get it to run in any screen size bigger than 320×240 under Windows XP. I tried a few HOWTOs but they didn’t help

CPU Type: AMD Athlon XP, 1250 MHz (6.25 x 200)
Motherboard Name: Asus A7V333 (5 PCI, 1 AGP Pro, 3 DIMM)
Motherboard Chipset: VIA VT8367 Apollo KT333
System Memory: 512 MB (DDR SDRAM)
Video Adapter: nVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 (Leadtek WinFast A250 LE) (64 MB) (DirectX 8.1)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2
Game: Half-Life 2 Retail Collectors Edition

So the game suggested:
800×600
Model Detail: Medium
Texture Detail: Medium
Water: Simple Reflection
Shadow Detail: High
AA: None
Filtering: Trilinear
Shader Detail: High
Wait for Vertical Sync: Disabled

This game kicks serious ass. This is one game you will have to play! Kick ass! I know my setup isn’t the best around, but it’s extremely playable at recommended settings And it’s mightily more playable than Doom 3 I’ll try and run a benchmark sometime and see how I get on.

The story is great The character animation is phenomenal! The gameplay so far has been exciting! And Headshots with the pistol! Headcrabs! Airboats! And so much more!

Yay!

Anyway, last week Smileychris, Kodiak and I hooked up with a couple of friends from Napier and went and had coffee at a cafe, then we went to an arcade. Chris and I were pretty keen to hop on a DDR machine — Chris hadn’t been on one before, and I’d only tried one time before. It’s much easier with friends. And if you think it’s stupid, you haven’t tried it… it’s quite fun.

Anyway, 3 days ago Chris bought a Dance Mat for NZD$30 and a Playstation to USB adaptor so he could step at home, and he’s really enjoying it. I really like it too, but I haven’t had much of an opportunity to go hard for a session — Chris is always on it

Anyway, it seems to be the #1 geek way to lose weight!

Back when we were living together and he was still at intermediate/high school, he had a mega drive, and we used to play Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and we’d beat each other up. My favorite character was Liu Kang, so I’d be all like “Bicycle Kick Bicycle Kick Fireball Fireball Upper-Cut” and he’d be Kabal and he’d be all like “Mincey Mincey Mincey Mincey” and he’d kick my ass So re-living that last night was real cool.

We also played some Star Control 2 Ur-Quan Masters : Super Melee and he kicked my ass, again… So I burnt it to CD for him… I know he’ll enjoy it

Saturday I slept in and then Chris and Mark gave me a present. It was Lazy Sunday 3, which is what I wanted for my birthday (cheers guys!). But even better was the card they gave me – Mark, it seemed, had spent two days making a birthday card featuring a fake letter sent to Strong Bad asking him to send me an email saying Happy Birthday – LMAO! Excellent, guys!

Later that night a few of my friends (Mark L, Jaron, Ben and Steph) came over and we played xbox for a little while, then got Hells and watched Jackass The Movie. That is one classic movie… if you’ve never seen a Jackass, and are not squeemish, you will be after the end of this movie.

Anyway, the birthday was overall the best birthday I’ve ever had, and caps off the fact that this is the best era i’ve had in my life (new job, girlfriend, overall happy to be alive motif). I don’t things could get worse but we’ll see

20th Dec:
Said goodbye to Mel at the airport – she was flying to Christchurch. Caught the train to Paraparamu, Dad picked me up and we went to Otaki.

25th:
Xmas Day – saw my cousins at my grandparents place – was cool. Dinner was late because my cousins were late, and Dad got completely trashed from drinking and not eating.

29th December:
Dad and I drove to Napier. Went to the cricket with Stuart, my brother. Was pretty neat. Dad stays the night, leaves the next day.

New Years Eve:
Mum and I went up town for a drink. Bumped into Wayne, an aquantance of mine from my NCMT days. Fireworks, was a very good night!

2nd:
Caught up with Guru Bob at his place. Beer and burgers (thanks Linda!) and a GeneRally tourney. Bought GTA3 for PC from Bob for Stuart’s Birthday.

4th:
Saw Harry Potter with my Brother – was pretty cool.

5th: Stuart and I get a ride to Palmerston North with my Mum, meet up with Dad, we buy clothes, and drive on to Otaki.

7th: Dad, Stuart and I drive to Wellington, go to Te Papa for an hour or so, lunch, my house, I discover Chris has bought a giant TV and DVD 5.1 surround sound system for his room, and Mark has bought an Xbox. Wow. Dad and Stuart depart back to Otaki. 7pm I get picked up by Mel’s flatmate Andrew (thanks Andy!) and we go to the airport to pick up Mel, we go to her place have dinner with her flatmates.

First game was 5 players, SmileyChris, Jeremie, Bert, Joel(?), and myself. Joel won with the mission to Destroy Green… which was me. Damnit. My mission was Destroy Red (Bert), but I spread myself too thin. I need practice

Second game was the next night, Smiley, Jeremie, Gareth, Paul and myself. Gareth is a seasoned risk player, and completed his Destroy Blue mission, with SmileyChris manning the blue pieces. My mission was Take Asia and Africa. I started with three of the four countries in Australasia, and went on to hold most of asia for the rest of the game, not actually holding the continent at any point though. Also, I have never seen a Secret Mission game with more than 1 cannon on a country. I think on Gareth’s winning turn he cashed in his risk cards for a whopping 55+3 units. I had 4 cannons on one of my countries, Jeremie had maybe 5 or 6 in western europe, and Gareth had a huge army in the middle east, which was preventing me trying to take Africa. But I’m happy I held most of Asia for so long.

If you’re in Wellington sometime, give me an IM or something and we’ll organise a game sometime…