Now with 100% more mirror doodle

Its sunny outside, but im stuck indoors having to revise :<
Mad depresso.

Also, bought some whiteboard pens today....



And now for a clever new method losing weight. Shame you have to be a white chick to use it.



Then again, if i was put on that method, id probably lose weight too @_@

City of God (2002)

So the girls (well.. 2 of them anyway) came over last night to watch a film, one of them being a film student so we obviously HAD to watch something at least somewhat artsy...

So City of god is the story about some black people in Brazil who basically go around and be black. The whole film is more or less about getting laid, paid and shootin busta's. It is divided into a few sub-stories, all linked together and in the same world, and all somewhat revolving around a guy called Rocket caught between an honest living, and the ghetto side of drugs, guns and bitches.

The film felt like it went on forever, it truly is an epic, spreading over a large time period and even multiple story arcs. I think the actual running time is just over 2 hours, but my god did it feel alot longer.
Its hard to compare or contrast it to anything else ive seen, but it did remind me somewhat of 'Slumdog millionaire' in the way that it tells a very long and dramatic story following a kids life all the way through til the end.

I rarely watch serious films like this, but it did have a good story (and one would really hope so considering the running time). The film is all in spoken portugese so expect to have to do some reading if you watch it, and there is a clear lack of brazillian "HUAEHUAEHAUEHAUEHAUE"s, but overall its a good film, just make sure you're in the right mood for something serious and somewhat depressing.

5/7 Lil Ze's

The men who stare at goats (2009)

Just saw this film tonight on a whim (after an awesome day of paintballing i might add.)

It was.. very odd.
Im not entirely sure if it was supposed to be a comedy or what, but it I found it pretty funny.
The film is based on psy-ops and the users of said powers, supersoldiers (supposedly) [and not like the marathon/light/commando supersoldier type] , and.... okay tbh, im not even sure what the film was about, it was really weird. The humour in the film wasn't really 'in your face', like a teen movie or something, but rather a subtle well thought out, well scripted wittiness - It was a nice change from the usual films we seem to watch in this house, although you may need an odd sense of humour to appreciate alot of it (if you don't laugh at the 'fork in the road' bit, this film is a lost cause for you)

Worth a watch - 8/10
(unlike this stupid 'gap yah' thing that everyone has been going on about, I saw it for the first time earlier, it was fucking terrible and really unfunny. What the fuck is wrong with people nowadays.)

Liquid Mountaineering (wut?)

Walking on water is now apparently a sport.

Starcraft 2 beta(aka. Zerg rush kekekeke HD)

Its pretty good, and mostly faithful to the original.
The game is pretty different though, certain things have (supposedly) been balanced, a fair amount of new units, changes to old units, no selection cap (eg. guy in the screenshot who is controlling 100+ units at a time) and probably a ton of other stuff which i havent noticed because i didnt play the original much.

Ive been playing a little , but tbh... hasnt really been going my way.
I reckon partially because ive been playing people way better than me, and partially because im fucking terrible at RTS. I really wish i was better at them but i can never get my head around controlling stuff on multiple fronts.

The game does look really pretty though, It almost dont recognise the units because the original starcraft stuff was like... 10x10 sprites or something.



On an intresting note, when you beat the CPU it'll say gg

Will be intresting to see if they make any major changes between now and the final release. Not that i'll know since i probably wont buy it, infact this beta is pretty much the only time i'll ever play an RTS online since i normally dont bother on account of my being terrible.

A random night

So there i was, Playing the halo reach beta when I hear a knock at the window, followed by the door, followed by screaming in the corridor.
The neighbors were there (the good ones), "COME TO OUR FUCKING PARTY YOU PRICKS WE CAME TO YOURS" We were then practically kidnapped and forced to go to their houseparty, which pretty much ended up with our house in one corner laughing at everybody else.

Few cool things happened, there was free pringles and....


^A paddling pool filled with punch, it was alot more full before we got there. Apparently there was like 20L worth lemonade and various spirits and stuff in there at the start of the night.

Someone also decided to try and make a bonfire, with some wet logs, paper, cardboard and a lighter and aerosol can.



Needlesss to say, the fire almost made the can explode and the logs didnt catch fire at all, the paper and cardboard burned nicely though.

After the party they all went to Smack (nightclub), which we decided not to go to. Instead we decided to play in-the-dark swingball (for non-UK fags, its 'tetherball' but with a tennis ball and rackets) out in our garden, at which point we had a wave of innovation.



We cracked some glowsticks and put the luminous liquid onto the ball, there are unfortunately no pictures of it in action because it was pretty much pitch black outside, but it looked really awesome. Like a glowing planet orbiting or something as it got hit round the pole.

Iron Man 2 (2010)

So, just came back from watching Iron Man 2, we actually got pretty fuckin terrible seats since we rolled in a little bit late (on a friday, at prime time) so we got lumped towards the front and to the side, which i HATE.

Nonetheless, I found the film to be really enjoyable, the film focuses more on the characters relationships with each other and shit than the first film (which consisted mainly of blowing shit up) but the film makes up for this with good amounts of comedy and corny one-liners (which may not be to everyones tastes). Thats not to say the film is short of explosions, theres some very impressive CGI and special effects at work throughout lots of the film and the climax is pretty damn awesome to watch. Film felt alot shorter than it actually was, which i suppose is a good thing? I think it is actually around 2 hours but it felt more like 1.5 - always better than a film which is 1.5hrs long but feels like it goes on forever. Oh. also, Samuel L jackson plays a black cyclops.

tldr; Good film. good special effects, lots of one liners, Sammy J, watch it.

6/6 Nick furys

Little to report.

Little to report this week, its basically just been me trying desperately to stay awake in lectures and failing to do much revision.

We had 2 barbeques which was pretty nice, the weather has been pretty hit and miss, for example it rains and then an hour later its clear blue skies and sun.

We did SDS Electrophoresis this week for labs, which was boring as fuck but the results were kind of cool


Basically electricity runs through the board thing inside the box, and the samples (little blue squres at the top) seperate out into bands based on their molecular weight. Ends up looking like ...



Pretty neat.

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Gaming front : Just been playing Lost Saga, not much time for anything else. I have a real urge to play trauma centre right now though



Also, proof that leetfella is a scrub and just runs to his mommies (check the chat)



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Anime front : Catching up on fairy tail and Durarara. 'A Certain magical index' really doesnt seem as intresting as 'A Certain scientific railgun', maybe i just need to give it more time.

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Oh, one more thing. If you havent already, check out the front page to register your flag on the counter. I basically remade it since the only link which ever got clicked was 'blog' anyway and only a select few actually know the password to my file uploader (and the link to that is on the right of this page anyway..)

http://www.mengsbizarreadventure.com

Playtime is over

Moved back into my uni accomadation yesterday, which basically means the end of my 5 week holiday and the start of a horrible horrible 8 weeks of intense revision, lectures and labs.

Heres the pile of notes I managed to summarise over the course of the holiday:

Thats about 3 inches high, although its hard to tell from the picture.

Heres the stuff I didnt manage to summarise in time

Mainly due to lots of Lost Saga.

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As mentioned in my facebook, weeds pretty much dominated our uni house garden over our 5 week period of absence, our garden is now just a fuckin' field of dandelions.

Shit is not nice.

On an unrelated topic, a week ago or so I went to london for dim sum with family for a wedding celebration thing, afterwards we ended up going to covent garden for a while where we saw a chinese pole (australian born, half chinese, half polish) guy on a large chinese pole (.. literal)
He was doing all sorts of crazy chinese acrobatic stuff, pretty fuckin impressive.

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I fucking love this comic.

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On a final note, i finished 'Great Teacher Onizuka' (G.T.O), really good anime series, funny at the right times balanced with just enough seriousness to keep it from going to shit. 43 episodes but tbh the cliffhanger endings during certain mini-arcs will have you watching 5-10 episodes in one sitting. Definately worth a watch though.

Lost Saga / Beat Hazard

Lost Saga

Pretty fun game that cross introduced us all to, its somewhat similar to rumble fighter but better.
Lots of classes to pick from and you can switch between classes on the fly which is pretty nice.





I also got Beat Hazard yesterday, which is kind of geometry wars meets audiosurf in that you can put your own music in and the game reacts to it, the intensity of the music determines how powerful your ship lazer is and how many enemies are trying to kill you.
Unfortunately, the game went a LITLE BIT OVERBOARD with the graphics effects, your lazer shoots glowing particles, the enemy bullets are flashing glowing particles, everything explodes into glowing particles... The end result is something like this.



When you're not doing so well on the other hand, you can sometimes sort of make out whats going on...

One more week...

Been a week since my last update, and although nothing has happened, i feel obliged to post something.

University Bit:

Ive finished writing up condensed notes on 8/10 modules and am currently working on the 9th.
Its a long and boring process but unfortunately it has to be done, this year counts for 30% and i flopped last year pretty hard so i gotta make up for it.

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Music Bit:

Have been listening to a fair amount of touhou music recently, I found some violin/classical arrangements by TAmusic which are very nice and relaxing.

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Gaming Bit:

After modding my wii, have downloaded a few games for that, including Red Steel 2, Trauma Centre: New blood and Tatsunoko VS Capcom

Red steel 2 is alot of fun, the artstyle and visual effects remind me alot of borderlands. The swordfighting doesnt always work as well as id like it to, but theres a very satisfying feeling when you take out a gang of guys with an array of cool techniques. Knock an enemy into the air, juggle him for abit and then drop down from the air and stab him in the chest , or maybe slash at him a few times before running up to him and putting your gun to the bottom of his chin and shooting him...

Tatsunoko VS Capcom has been played alot recently, me and my brother have both gotten pretty good at the game - good enough to know how to air juggle , cancel into ultras, cancel ultras into ultras into ultimates... etc.
I used to think the game was really bland and standard, then after a discussion on sows i thought i should give it another try, they explained the game mechanics to me and i ended up watching an instructional video going through advanced game mechanics, showed it to my brother and Since then we've been having a blast with it - playing for an hour or so with the same characters each time sometimes.
If you have the game but havent really played it much, you should check this video out and maybe you'll GET HYPE - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2iyi2pEwSY

On the xbox front ive been playing Army of two TFD (finished it on hardest recently) and trying to finish up Beautiful Katamari, ive got about 24 more items to find to get a full collection. Havent played any MW2 for a while, not really sure why.

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Anime bit :

Still watching Great Teacher Onizuka, dropped 'kimi no todoke' because it was too srs and just not very fun to watch
My latest find is 'A certain scientific Railgun' , set in a world where people have abilities and stuff. Feels abit like a japanese take on the lives of students in Xaviers school (x-men), except the school is an entire city. The anime itself is a nice blend of action and comedy, totally worth a watch.

Seriously?

University bit:

So, making some revision notes atm whilst listening to the remixed Wii Cave Story OST. Came across this prime example of why being a biology student sucks dick.

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"Pol III Accessory factors:-
Assembly factors:
- TF IIIA – Binds to C box
- TF IIIC – Binds to B Box, large subunit complex
Transcription factor:
- TF IIIB – Binds to A Box, multi subunit protein, composed of the TATA binding protein, TBP and other polypeptides."

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What the fuck is wrong with you people! if it binds to 'C Box' , why not call that fucker ' TFIII C' !
12 Exams coming, FML.

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Gaming bit:

In other news, Army of two 40th Day came today, pretty reasonable game - nothing mind blowing but its some good fun in split screen co-op, Which - aside from abit of anime or films, is the main way we bond.

I Hacked my Wii the other day with a little help from some online guides and a friend, one of my housemates has already hacked his wii so I had a little bit of what to expect and really basic stuff which i think helped somewhat. It was actually pretty easy to do, dump a bunch of stuff onto an SD card and then follow instructions. I still dont really understand A LOT of things about it though, there are tons of options and files which I dont really get, but im sure i'll work it out eventually. Ive managed to get NSMBwii running off my USB stick for now, my brother went out and bought a wii motion plus and we ordered an external HDD which will hopefully be compatible with the console. With any luck we'll be able to stick all the games on the HDD and everything will be dandy.

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Anime bit:

Started watching 'G.T.O' or Great Teacher Onizuka yesterday, didnt expect to end up getting a little carried away and watching 1/4 of the series (and its a 40something episode series too). Funny anime, although it has its fair share of serious bits too.

If you can think it up, theres probably a website for it.

Case in point.

http://gifsofpopularrappers.tumblr.com

Why does such a website exist? Who knows.

however if you ever need an animated gif of a popular rapper...

Recent Anime Overload

Really no idea why but ive recently gotten really into anime again, Anything to avoid revision I suppose (pretty much run out of games to play on 360 as well until Army of Two 40th Day gets here )

I 'recently' (as in, past 2 weeks) finished Nodame Final and Lovely Complex, both are pretty good watches.

And in the past few days or so ive started watching about 4 more series, literally spoilt for choice.
Ive picked up...

Eden of the East - Some guy wakes up in a park with his memory erased and is naked and holding a gun, he also has like 8billion yen.

Nyan Koi! - Guy allergic to cats becomes cursed by the cat god and can then understand what cats are saying, he must help 100 cats or turn into one. Theres also some form of harem situation going on because fuckin' urryone wants his cock apparently.

Kimi no Todoke - Have only watched the first episode so far but it looks like its going to be a love story, not sure if i'll keep watching.

Cromartie high school - Which is... odd. Im watching the dub version but it doesnt actually seem to be that bad. Its a very odd anime about a normal guy who gets put in the roughest school in town, check the youtube video below to maybe understand a little more. Not sure why freddie mercury is involved.

Clash of the Titans (2010)

So went to see Clash of the titans today, opening day, in 3d.
Ticket prices were ridiculous and tbh, it just wasnt worth it.

The film seemed awfully slow, which is odd considering the type of film it is, the film plods along fairly slowly the whole way through, throwing in some fights here and there however only 1 of them (the scorpion encounter) was any good to watch, even the final battle - that against hades and the kraken seemed over way too fast and... just not very entertaining, it was like that bit in indiana jones where the martial arts guy is going crazy and he just pulls out a pistol and kills him. Perseus pretty much just 1shots every enemy in the film (aside from the scorpions, which is probably why that battle was the best).
I went with some people who had seen the original, and they all seemed to agree that the original was far superior, I cant really comment on this because i havent seen the original but thought id throw it out there.

The 3d effects on this film were pretty pathetic, it seemed 3d in the same sense that 'New super mario bros' is 3d, all 3d but only on 1 plane.. sorta thing. As opposed to a film like Avatar where watching it in 3d really enhanced the experience by clearly having stuff in the foreground and background and overlays and stuff. Its really NOT worth seeing this one in 3D at all unless you enjoy straining your eyes and having the screen darkened by the glasses.

Dont really know what else to say, I could say abit more but id spoil.... fuckit, half the plot is given in the trailer anyway.
I did like the bit where he cuts off medusa's head and uses it, Pretty sure that was in God of war 2 or something.

Disapointingly, the only good parts in this film was the CGI - which was impressive. The rest just seemed like the same plot points being fed to the audience again and again, 'im going to kill hades', 'im going to kill hades' , 'did i mention im going to kill hades?'.

2/7 angry perseus's