The dreaded day has come. The 5 day-off is now over and work resumes tomorrow. Ho-hum. I am so bloody bored already. I wonder if I'd get through the week still sane, well that is if anyone would actually call me sane to begin with.
For 5 days I have stayed locked up inside the house with not even a foot out the front door. Mind you, it's the front door of the house and not the front gate as we have such a backyard, a hill actually, which I never appreciate. Oh, and I live outside Metro Manila so the two (front door and gate) are completely separate things.
Finished playing Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus yesterday. Played the last few chapters again today just to see the extra scenes at the end of game.
Running through the game again was quite enjoyable and a fast experience as I was not longer conscious about what lies around the corner and knew what to expect. Spent around 3 hours for the additional ending which was quite worth it but does raise a number of questions especially with his one wing. Sephiroth's one wing is on the right and this guy's wing is on the left. Hmmm.
Now that the game is done and over with, I have to say it does feel a little too Devil May Cry-ish especially with all the acrobatic jumping while shooting.
Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus
3 days spent of my 5 day off from work. 2 days to go then am back to work on Friday.
Spent the 3 days playing nothing but Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus. Well, I am not playing it all the time or else I would have finished it by now. I'd say around 5 hours a day.
The rest of the days were spent watching TV, DVDs, browsing the interwebs and staying up until 5 in the morning chatting with someone. Aside from the last one, my life is quite a routine and lifeless.
Heck, I haven't even stepped out the front door in 3 days. Now that's really pathetic.
Anyway, FF VII: Dirge of Cerberus is quite a fun game. It's nice to be back in the Final Fantasy 7 world seeing old friends and locations. Everyone is there, aside from Red XIII.
As for the game itself, it is quite fun and entertaining though it did take sometime for me to get accustomed to the controllers as I am really a huge fun of first-person shooters even on the PC.
The game makes full use of the PS2 controller. D-pad for cycling and using items. The left analog stick for movement. The right analog stick for the camera. The shoulder buttons for primary/secondary attacks. It's quite confusing at first but once you get the feel of things, everything feels natural.
The graphics are quite smooth and impressive plus the CG sequences are spectacular and look like they were pulled out from FF VII: Advent Children.
The gameplay is quite fast paced but you could still take it slow and cautiously but there would be no fun in that. The RPG elements seem to be on the lighter side but that's to be expected as the game is an attempt to mix RPG and first-person shooters.
I am down to the last two chapters in the game and I should be able to wrap it up later on in the day. After this game, we have Lego Star Wars next. Yey!
Now, where is this person am waiting for? Hmmmm.
Two days off really passes by so quickly, even though there was no cable TV. Work resumes tomorrow and thankfully, I only have to go back for two more days and then I am on leave for 3 days. Add the two days off for next week and I have a nice 5 day off.
No plans aside from grabbing a copy of Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus which I'll be playing and hopefully completing in those 5 days. Saw online that the game itself takes less than 20 hours, so that's a lot of time for other things.
Finished playing Beyond Good And Evil the other night. The last boss was tricky in the sense that he would not die even though I keep on hitting him and all. I was frustrated as hell as I was hitting him for more than 15 minutes and he was still standing. Apparently, I needed to hit him 8 consecutive times without getting hit myself before he would die.
It was a good solid game albeit too short. The game did end with a hint of a sequel (which movie/video game does not), sadly though the game did not sell so well, so it's unlikely the sequels would be made as it was originally planned to be a trilogy.
The music played in Akuda Bar was amazing. Real catchy beat which makes me want to stay in the bar a little longer.
Since I did not want to start playing another game until after FFVII: Dirge of Cerberus, I spent the rest of the day watching DVDs. Re-watched Seven and Memento. Thinking about watching Shaun of the Dead for a little zombie love which seems to be all around due to the release of Capcom's Dead Rising on the Xbox 360. Everyone seems to be talking about it. Sadly, I don't own an Xbox 360. Not yet anyway.
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The most ridiculous update notification in Friendster is back!
It seems adding new friends would then allow the Friend Updates portion of your Friendster account to show that you did just update friends.
Nothing screams coolness than telling the whole world (Friendster world) one's new addition in friends. Right?
Anyway, it's Friendster and I guess that's what the site is all about, adding new friends. Still it does strike as a little sad.
Checked Friendster out just this minute and it seems the "Added New Friends" update notification has disappeared once again as it did ages ago when I first thought about blogging about it. Never had the chance to mention it before and after a few days, it disappeared.
It had been back for less than a week and now that I finally have the time to blog about it, the bloody thing disappeared again. Bah!
Never mind this one as it is as boring as Miami Vice.
Connection problems were still present but this time it only took 5 minutes. Good, but still not good enough. Remember reliability.
News at work about the dawn of the opening of the company's branch in Alabang which included some of my teammates being transferred there not because they wanted to but simply they did not make the cut in one metric they used to rank all agents in our program.
A part of me wants to be part of those being forcefully transferred not because I want to work in Alabang as I live on the other side of Laguna De Bay but it would make for the perfect reason to file for a resignation. I don't know what I am doing or waiting for right now, but am looking for a very clear reason or event which would prompt me to resign.
Work itself seems to get more and more boring by the day. I find myself dragging calls making them longer than they are supposed to and taking longer than usual breaks in between each call. July seems to be my off month as it was the only month last year wherein I did not meet the target Handle Time per Call (AHT). Sadly, I can see the trending dragging on into August and who knows until when. Hopefully, things would magically turn around as I never did do anything in the first place in the past year when it comes to meeting the target in the said metric.
Also, while reading up on Lifehacker and BoingBoing, I came across this fun proxy for browsing sites on the Interwebs, WorkFriendly which strips the text in any given website and displays it in a window similar to Word 2003. A perfect tool for browsing unrelated websites which you do not want other people to see as it also removes any pictures.
Additionally, there is a button in the upper left corner dubbed as "Boss Mode!" which changes the whole webpage into a Word document about Time Management. Just find that part extremely hilarious.
Overall, the tool makes reading porn sites at work easier and very discrete.
Wait. Who the hell reads porn sites?
One freaking hour is too long to wait until a successful and decent dial-up connection can be made.
Heck, a dial-up connection should always work as it is the most basic and standard connection of all. At the cost of a super slow connection, it should a very high level of reliability.
More so if the service provider happens to be the biggest telephone company in the freaking country. Not to mention that the price of this dial-up connection is almost the same as of some broadband connections out there.
This is the reason why I am so skeptical about having PLDT DSL at home, not they have called us back to inform us about the availability of the service in our area. It actually scares me especially with my short temper, personal experience with simply PLDT Vibe and the things I have heard about PLDT's DSL service. It's not likely that they would pay us for any of the damages I may inflict on myself or personal property.
Damn you PLDT. Damn you to hell. If only I had options.
Always Keep It Cleaned The Rest Room
The month of July has already ended yet I am still here with no idea of what I want to do from this point on. The 3 year mark is all over but still no clue where to go from here.
Anyway, spent yesterday afternoon with some old friends at work. Only a few made it, but it was still fun and all. Birthday celebration, videoke, then a couple of beers right after.
Left home sometime in the afternoon. Since it was raining, I decided to bring the van along with a driver as I do not know how to drive well enough to drive around by myself. I also do not have a license yet.
When we had the van out of the garage, we noticed one of the tires being flat. We thought all it needed was a little air but apparently, that was not the case.
Passed by a vulcanizing shop to have it checked out and noticed 3 nails embedded in the rubber. It was not cool at all as we were already running a little late since I live so freaking far from everywhere else.
I was so frustrated, anyone who knows me could imagine how I act when am frustrated.
Then I saw this.
Apologies for the sub par picture as I only whipped out my phone and took a shot of it. I wanted to get my digicam in the van, but too much effort would be involved. Also, the action of taking a picture with an actual camera would draw too much attention. A camera phone would more discrete.
When I took the shot, I actually did not have any idea how I would transfer it from the phone to the PC. I don't have a cable for syncing it nor does it have Bluetooth.
Apparently, you can send the picture via email using GPRS. Found it out as it was an option when the picture was saved so I tried to send it, and it pushed through. I was skeptical at first that it actually worked, but when I got home there it was waiting in my Inbox.
I rarely play with my mobile phone. Heck, I haven't even bought myself a new one it years, so I had no idea this was possible. It also did not cost much, I think.