VGMQ - Basics Part 2 - harder x5

Welcome to another edition of VGMQ - the basics! This one's still easy, but it's 5x harder - just to show you how messy it can be. It's not like I tried to make it 5x harder - but see, David was barely getting these 5. Like, he got them, but they were pretty guessful like, while Alan's answers were more confident.

I'll post 5 songs now, and on Tuesday I'll post another 5 songs.

54 = Alan 0.4, David 0.7
57 = Alan 0.6, David 0.3
172 = Alan 0.9, David 0.3
213 = Alan 0.7, David 0.4
9 = Alan 0.4, David 0.1

Song #9 is one of my favourite videogame musics of all time, so here's the full midi version:

Bao likes this midi

Also, on another note, Ambrose was here listening to the songs, and he know #57 but couldn't recall it off the top of his head. Explain how! Anyway, once again, experts should get these pretty nicely.

So, adding all the prediction totals, I predict Alan would get 3/5, and David would get 1.8/5 . But not really - that's the level of sureness and probability that they will get it, so if you guys want to do the math for me, maybe you can tell me what my predictions are. I'm actually thinking Alan might get 2/5, and David can possibly get 2/5. Once again, these are my predictions based on what I know of you guys - like, I know Alan has played Starcraft for sure, and I'm pretty certain David has never played Quake 2 - for example (neither of the games above (or next week) are Starcraft or Quake 2). Also note that the first song, #54, David has a higher prediction than Alan. I hope I'm right!

And for those like Ambrose that think they forgot #57, you can try the thing too! So - prediction for Duy - 4.9/5, which really means 5/5 except one song will take a couple seconds longer than the rest. heh.

(for me: nextime: 271 47 163 55 40)

Videogame Music - Basics

Since the vgmq clips are pretty popular, I'll have a section here, although this isn't so much trivia as it is cannon fodder, or maybe even a tutorial. So here are this week's first five songs:

119 | 28 | 6 | 111 | 120 |

If you're a pro, you can get each of these by listening to each for less than 1 second. Well, #6 might take 2 seconds. But if you're not a pro, like David or Alan, then they might take a bit longer. So this is like... a familiarity tutorial for people like David and Alan.

Truth be told, I have no idea what I want to accomplish. But maybe what I'm saying is that, if you like videogames, you should know these 5 songs. Maybe you've played the game, maybe you just heard it somewhere before, but in any case, you should know the song and its source.

So take a guess, and finalize your answers before posting. And Duy, Hawk, Ambrose, etc... don't guess unless you really don't know :P haha...

I predict that Alan will get 5/5. I predict that David will get... hmm, this is tough, but I'm leaning toward 5/5.

Join us next week, when I'll post 5 easy, yet harder, songs.

$90USD down the hole

Okay, so at the end of April, I got World of Warcraft so I can experience the terror that has captured all of my friends. I figured I should give it a chance… and I also wanted to be lured by the temptation. So I tried it out.

They give you one month-free to play, but for that you have to still pay for one month. So on the subscription page, they ask you if you want to pay for 1 month ($14.99), 3 months (something less, like $14/mth), or 6 months ($13/mth). So I subscribe for a month.

So, fast forward to about 1.9 months later – I didn’t like the game, so I logged in for one last time, gained a level, and then stopped playing.

Fast forward to a few days ago – I check my credit card statement, and notice that Blizzard was charging me twice – once for Duy’s account, and one more time after that. I ask Duy, and he doesn’t know what it’s about, and then… uh oh.

Turns out they were charging me since May. And I didn’t notice it before. I check my credit card statements, of course, but I just didn’t notice it. It’s like, I look for the Blizzard statement (so that eventually I can get Duy to pay me back lotsamoney), and then I don’t look for another because I’m not expecting it.

And it’s kinda weird, because on other statements, one of the earlier charges would be Blizzard, and then the other Blizzard charge would apparently appear near the bottom. Until recently, when both Blizzard charges were pretty much next to each other, which is when I noticed.

So, I e-mail Blizzard to see if there’s any refund I can get, or if I can, somehow, transfer my payments to Duy, so that he gets the next 6 months free or something. Of course, like most things, I can’t get a refund, so I was down $90 USD.

So that sucks. First, it sucks since I didn’t notice it, and somehow I don’t think Blizzard made it clear that I would continue to be charged. The payment was for ONE-MONTH, which basically means I should pay for ONE-MONTH, right? But no, it’s recurring, like most things, which I should’ve noticed.

But the thing that also bugs me is that on the account page, it says I last logged in at the end of June. So both I and Blizzard knows that I haven’t used my account for 6 months, so when Blizzard told me they don’t give refunds, they basically said “you just wasted $90 USD”. Like, they know I wasted $90.

Argh. I told myself if I got this refund, then it’s like… well, no, but it’s kinda like getting money back that I “shouldn’t” get back, because I expected that they wouldn’t give me a refund. So if I got it back, it’ll be like a bonus – then I would’ve bought Bookworm Adventures. Hahaha. I was so looking forward to getting the refund so I can get BWA. But alas… I can’t. So now I want BWA though… but… it’s… money…

Duplication (REAL POST!)

(cancel post! ... ^o) )

oath to bookworms

If I get the $90USD refunded, I will buy Bookworm Adventures. I promise. More on that tomorrow.

feedback.eyereturn.com

Every now and then I'll be browsing websites, and then the status bar at the bottom (the one that currently says "transferring data from www.blogger.com..." will say "transfering data from feedback.eyereturn.com..." - which means an ad from my old company (where I worked at) is on the page. A few weeks ago it was some clothing ad, now I think it's the president's choice ad or the vonage ad, on the page where I'm on...

So, whenever you see that, you can think of me! And I can think of boiling hatred... just kidding, heh.

3 hours well used

Guess what I did today, for about 3 hours and 15 minutes?



And there's a thing you can press to make the fire glow. It's cool. (the picture is actually much cooler than the actual effect - camera's not so good under low-light conditions)




Ahh, after all these years, LEGO is still awesome. It's not thaat expensive, but it's still fun. The instruction booklets are really well done - so simplistic, yet very helpful. It makes you feel like a little kid again. First, you have to look through all your pieces to find the pieces you need - sure, you can sort them beforehand, but that takes away some of the fun, heh.

And then you follow the instructions and you build something big, but piece by piece. There's a sense of accomplishment after finishing each "chapter"... and the sound of pieces interlocking is always satisfying.

I like how lego has pretty much stuck to its roots. Every set has a few unique pieces, which make them unique, yet they're still compatible with other legos. They're still lego pieces, most of them - some pieces really don't fit into any other place, but most do, and this whole robustness and flexibility thing is pretty cool.

That was a good use of some money and some time. I didn't expect it would take so long... but now that it's done, it's gonna be a while before I decide to take it apart and build something different. I like how the sets have instructions to build many different things - either the main thing, or the other main thing, or a bunch of tiny other things. It's so... flexible!

And fun! Maybe I should buy more legos for christmas presents...

Cymectbo

Guess what I bought today? (Click on the picture for a better look)





(picture is 1.1 mb, but worth checking out)

In retrospect, I thought I was going to walk by the store on the way back to buy more of these, maybe make them simple christmas presents. Anyway, the store is in Toronto, called 401games, and their prices are better than Untouchables. Too bad it's much farther away...

http://www.401games.ca/home.html

Hookworm Adventures

Tycho from Penny Arcade both recommended this game and made a comic about it, so I downloaded the trial. I tried the original bookworm, which looks like an okay game, except it's one of those puzzle games where you don't die... actually, you do die, because eventually they introduce new dangerous blocks and whatever...

But Bookworm Adventures is a bit different. It now translates to an RPG type game, where you still make words, to destroy enemies. The longer the word, the more damage it deals - and then there are bonus tiles which have special powers, and you get equipment and level up on your quest to save the girl, and the equipment helps you, like in the penny arcade comic.

It's a good game. But it's just the trial version. The full game is a whopping $30, which is quite a lot for those small games; most are $20. But damn, this game is fun. It's pretty much what Tycho says - it's addicting, and since it's in the form of an action RPG, it just feels like more fun to play than a regular puzzle. Getting combos and scoring 2x or 3x points doesn't feel like much, but dealing 2x or 3x damage feels much better.

Wow, I'm actually considering buying this game. With the way I play games nowadays, this sorta fits into the lifestyle. I can easily alt-tab and whatever while talking on MSN, so it's good. I think I'll actually play through the whole thing and it'll last me sometime. I'll think about it.

(on a totally unrelated note, Happy Birthday Britney Spears :P )