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This is The Weekend Eve

• Listening to: Robbie Williams - Millennium

Friday evening, back from work. Heh, will recount yesterday’s experience buying Oblivion, the new Elder Scrolls game.

I was at EB games in the city just along Elizabeth St. There was a queue of working guys, maybe older than me, geekish looking, all having picked up a copy of Oblivion and standing in front of the cashier. Yesterday was the release of Oblivion, the fourth Elder Scrolls game to be churned out by Bethesda Studios. Their games have always had rave reviews and the thing to like about their RPGs is the open endedness of how you want to proceed with the game. With most other RPGs, things happen in a linear fashion, meaning events trigger off other things. In Oblivion, you explore a rich and vast world that does not limit you to what you can do. There are like a whole array of classes to choose from, customisations for your character, and things that would make your playing experience unique to everyone elses. Like they put it, the possibilities are endless.

So I’m at the counter and the store staff were talking among themselves. Heh, I then asked how many copies of the game were left. They started with 90 copies, and I was holding the fourth last one. The clock had not even touched 1pm yet and I think the store only opens around 10am. It’s amazing how fast this game sold out on the opening day, like hot cakes. I can imagine the lines of kids in Japan coming all the way from the countryside just to pick up the latest version of Gameboy so they can immerse themselves in their own fantasy world.

I managed to run through the game a bit and so far I’m quite impressed. It runs pretty smoothly on my system (well, not many current games wouldn’t anyway *smirk*) and the interface is quite smooth, as the game was also ported as an opening title for the Xbox 360. Not quite as intuitive as Guild Wars, but there’s definitely more fun to it.

Heh, the weekend is here but I don’t think I’ll play the new game very much. Friends and studying are still the priority. Studying, I thought I smoked that word after I left university. Heh, the subjects are interesting but not fascinating enough to keep me too interested for more than 20 minutes at a time.

Study boy! Study!

After I unwind and play first.

Lost in a Dream

Saw the most beautiful lightning and effects laden atmospheric event in my dream. There was a cyclone and the air was moving according to whatever physics model my brain was using. Turned around to calibrate my D70 to take the shot. Set this, and set that. Turn back around and the sky was calm again. Darn it!

Heh, slept a little too much last night. Although it happens when I’ve exercised too much and have creaky bones. Bed feels so comfortable then and you can sleep on and on and on. Like Rip van Winkle.

Impromptu Weekend

Heh, was a slightly different weekend to what I deem normal.

Had a BBQ on Saturday night and we had it with only mobile phone lights illuminating the scene. That was until I brought my flashlight (the one I use for computer assembly) and my ultra powerful SB-600 flash on my camera. Heh, I had complaints I was blinding the crowd with that flash.

Sunday I met up with my cousins who cooked lunch and was then invited to play squash. I’ve never been a sports person and as a kid, and was the nerdy kind who sat in the classroom gorging down Enid Blyton books while my friends played robbers and police on the basketball courts. My only lament from that is that my hand/eye coordination is totally hopeless. Throw something at me and I’m nore likely to fumble it before catching it (if I catch it at all).

So I had a first go at squash. The rules are fairly simple (as with most ball sports) and I picked up the game quite quickly. It’s a little funny playing as I wasn’t too comfortable using backhands to deflect the ball (wasn’t too sure how and I didn’t want to break my hand in the process). So I would “switch” hands while playing. It’s one of those amazing sights where I move the racquet from my right to my left and return the serve via a normal hit. It’s slow and cumbersome, but when I pull it off, it looks quite impressive. Heh.

Two hours of squash was more cardiovascularly challenging than the evening jog I had planned. Heh, now my butt and joints are creaky from all that fluid motion of body parts that normally don’t extend that far out.

* * *

Watched a little of the Commonwealth games again. The highlights have so far been the women’s Clean and Jerk category (weightlifting). It’s amazing how people can do logic defying stunts and carry nearly twice their weight. Heh, you cheer on the participants just so that they can move on to the next round. A few records have been broken in these games. Would just like to see the tally of medals when all of it is over.