Life Outside PLT1

Musings: North Korea

Whilst paruzing through the internetz I came across a discussion on North Korea at GP Forums that can be found here. In amongst the jib jab came a link to quite an interesting documentary.

http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/vice-guide-to-north-korea-1-of-3
http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/vice-guide-to-north-korea-2-of-3
http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/vice-guide-to-north-korea-3-of-3

A vbs.tv presenter, citing that “no one knows anything about North Korea”, ventures into North Korea and embarks on one of their ‘tours’ to see their sites and sounds. What’s interesting is the fact that you get to see what North Korea is like through a video camera. I’ve seen photos taken of people who have been on these ‘tours’ and read articles on them but never actually seen moving images of one of the most secret places in the world. It’s very well presented showing how entrenched the nation and just your joe average citizen is into Kim Jong Il’s behind. This got me thinking, how would you integrate North Korea to the rest of the world?
Continue reading Musings: North Korea…

Movies: Surrogates

Went and saw Surrogates Tuesday (10/11/2009) evening with Alex Mason and Steve Biggins. Was looking forward to this movie as people of my outlook then to be people sitting on a comfy chair typing into a computer and being something more than their real life selves can be. Or maybe that’s just me. I can, however, say that this movie’s premise would appeal to all your WoW players out there and anyone that ever has ever donned an avatar persona. The trailer to the movie can be seen here.

Pros:
Interesting premise of exploring people’s fears of going outside
Properly paced story
Decent action

Cons:
Story was interesting but predictable and fell short
Continue reading Movies: Surrogates…

Cooking: Deconstruting a McChicken Burger

As some of you might be aware, I like cooking. I even have a gallery of dishes I’ve cooked (and deemed worthy to be photographed and put on the Internet) here. Last week when I was watching Top Chef they had an elimination challenge of deconstructing a well known dish. From what they explained on the show was, you take a dish that everyone knows (like fish and chips or sweet and sour pork), break the dish down and remake the dish so that it is different but when the diner eats it can figure out that this is that well known dish. I thought that was quite an interesting idea and today I tried my hands on deconstructing something simple, a McChicken Burger. Continue reading Cooking: Deconstruting a McChicken Burger…

Gaming: World of Goo

World of Goo, developed by 2D Boy is a physic based game involving goo balls which you interconnect to reach a pipe. Essentially it is a puzzle game with that will test how well you know how things lean and what clever constructs you can build with these balls to reach the suction pipe. Yeah that’s right.

Pros:
Interesting gaming design
Colourful cartoony visuals
Un-intrusive music
Simple controls

Cons:
Game seems short
No save replay
Continue reading Gaming: World of Goo…

Events: Armageddon 2009

Armageddon 2009. A gathering of pulp culture - whatever that means - has happened again. This year they shifted the venue from the Aotea Centre in central Auckland to a bigger venue at Greenlane event centre. The rumour I heard was that the Aotea was over flowing with people that they needed a bigger place to contain all the fan boys/girls. This indicated to me that Armageddon has finally got better and it is finally time for me to return to the event that has disappointed me after years and years. Continue reading Events: Armageddon 2009…

Musings: What she’s really thinking

Towards the end of September http://xkcd.com posted this comic:

Steven K Wang commented on facebook and I quote: “ha, so unrealistic, his imagination seems to be more probable…oh wait, that actually depend on if he is good looking, damn.” And I thought to myself yeah that is quite unrealistic in the modern world so I thought I’d do a comic of my own to illustrate how in a situation like this, what she would be actually thinking…

I am come on, other guys would be way more interesting than thou no?

Gaming: Golden Axe Warrior on Sega Master System

No, not the side scroller of fame but the birds eye, top down, action adventure version that maybe a lot of people haven’t heard of released in 1991 called Golden Axe Warrior. A simple way to explain it is, it looks like the original Legend of Zelda on the Nintendo Entertainment System. In fact, I have read from places it was Sega’s way of competing with the NES at the time. If you put a play the games side by side you can see they are nearly identical.

Pros:
Quite colourful and good use of colour.
Music match mood of game.
Easy to pick up and play.

Cons:
Repetitive.
Lack of world map.
Frustrating secrets.
Unimaginative monsters.
Continue reading Gaming: Golden Axe Warrior on Sega Master System…

Dining: At Butter Bank on Bank Street Whangarei

With me today was Kirsty Williams. I first saw this place open a few weeks ago but I’ve been told that it’s been there a little longer than that. When it was open it doesn’t matter, it’s a restaurant that I haven’t been to yet. Continue reading Dining: At Butter Bank on Bank Street Whangarei…

The School Girl Uniform

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