Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

It looks promising. Certainly promising enough to give MMORPGs (Massively Multiple Online Role Playing Game) another shot after a hiatus of a year and a half from WoW, discounting the brief month long stint I returned to WoW for a short while, earlier this year. So I went ahead and pre-ordered it. Even if it was a hefty $129. For one, Warhammer promises to be more varied and less gear oriented than WoW which unfortunately requires one to be in a guild and a serious raider to get the top end gear and maximise your character's full potential.

Not something I have the time or energy for with my current job cum profession and the demands on my time. Grinding for money in real life is tiring enough, having to come back and grind for gear on a game isn't exactly my cup of tea. It's funny how one's perspectives change when one starts working. But for better or worse, it does. So gone are the days and/or nights when I could stay up for 10 hours straight grinding instances or battlegrounds just to get a particular piece of phat lewt. After all, real moola beats bits of pixel anytime.

But Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning promises to be fun and unhurried, no need to join guilds and show up daily at strange times for co-ordinated raids. Just some fun with friends. In terms of variety, there's more classes, all of which are specific to the different races in the two conflicting factions, Order and Destruction.

I did the little quiz which purports to match one with the race best suited for one based on one's answers, even though I was already set on a particular race or two. And the answer wasn't in the least surprising. Nothing like wanton destruction and bloody mayhem to get the blood going.

Of Demons and Fairies

When one watches anime, you don't expect stellar plots or character development. You expect to be entertained either via slapstick jokes or flashy totally out of this world maneuvers or tricks that preferably lead to multiple explosions and entire buildings being levelled. And the respective characters always emerging relatively unscathed other than a few scrapes and superficial cuts who then proceed to level the rest of the city, base, etc. Either that or they're horribly wounded but still find the strength to pull off a spectacular KO move that usually destroys everything in sight.

Anyone who has watched a decent amount of anime, at least of the shounen variety, will be able to confirm the aforesaid. Sure you get the usual 'I'm strong cause I fight for my nakama (friend)' theme and the occasional relationship between different characters where love inevitably blossoms. But nothing more substantial and often nothing very realistic. Though then again many of the activities we do, anime watching included, is often a welcome escape from reality.

You don't expect anti-heroes, a gripping plot and characters who while strong remain vulnerable in that they remain plagued by their inner demons. Or a believable plot where characters are killed or obliterated on an wholly unexpected basis. Code Geass and the sequel, Code Geass R2 - Lelouch of the Rebellion has all that.

In a way, Code Geass is probably in terms of suspense, plot and character development, hands down the best anime I've watched so far. Death note coming in a close second. The characters are not your typical heroes, everyone has their inner demon or motives which drives and torments them. The interaction of the main character, Lelouch, his persona as Zero and his interaction with the characters sets the groundwork for this series which is as captivating as it is unpredictable.

Code Geass is a mecha type of anime, I've never been the mecha sort of anime fan, preferring by far the flashier abilities/magic/jutsu kind of anime which tends towards fantasy. But I never regretted trying out Geass, I'm still not a mecha fan but Geass is just on a whole different level.

I shall be sad after it ends in 5 episodes.

On the manga front, I've demolished Ubel Blatt and started on Fairy Tail which looked very promising and hasn't disappointed so far. Style wise, it's rather similar to One Piece, it even has the occasional over the top slap stick moment but it's flashier and revolves around magic.

Pity it hasn't been adapted into an anime series yet. I like the drawing style which again reminds me of One Piece, cute guys (with the kind of killer abs you'd only find in manga) and hot girls who are highly expressive. A couple of whom (the girls) are dominatrix who make She-Ra look like little Miss Muffet.



Which is probably how most hen pecked husbands view their wives. Though I suspect there's an inner Valkyrie in everyone of us.

On an wholly unrelated note before I run off to catch this week's Geass, I realised to my mild consternation that my dad has taken to watching weepy Korean love dramas with startling alacrity. Which might possibly explain his entirely off the cuff remark when the mother was proclaiming how one could spot young couples a mile off from their 'lovey-dovey ways'; "but old couples can also be lovey dovey what". Dead silence.

Oh that poor man.

The Move

If there's one thing I dislike more than packing, it's moving. Especially when it involves having to uproot oneself from a relatively spacious and decently pleasant surroundings and move to decidedly cramped quarters. Not to mention the fact that it also involves a lot of packing.

We're moving office, the top management says it isn't a downgrade but no matter how you look at it, it is a downgrade. Cramped quarters. Check. Further away from mrt. Check. Old building. Check. Single to shared room. Check. I could go on but at the end of the day we're moving and we're stuck there for the next couple of years or so. No point griping about the inevitable.

Moving office along with the furniture is highly disruptive, which does not bode well when you have a crazy amount of work to be done and a number of upcoming trials and hearings. The doors were the first to go, to be reused for the 'new' workplace. It was a little surreal to be able to stare right across the corridor and into a partner's room. So much so that a colleague joked that for once the firm's 'open door' policy was truly being practiced.

The cupboards and pedestals will be carted out on Monday with the workstations and computers the day before the actual move. In the meantime, all the files have been packed into boxes which means piles of boxes all over the office and the need to dig through boxes for files that we are still working on. Which is a pain in the ass and I'm not talking about the pleasurable kind that involves romping in bed with a hottie. So the entire place is mess, the seccies are still packing while it's supposed to be business as usual. All in all not a very conducive working environment.

On an wholly unrelated note, I've started reading Ubel Blatt , since I've run out of manga to read and waiting for the weekly dosage of Naruto, Bleach, D Gray man, Hitman Reborn and the monthly ones of Claymore and Full Metal Alchemist can be more than a little tiresome. Ubel Blatt is slightly different from the rest so far in that it's catered for men (seinen) rather than for the usual male teenager (Shounen) and there's a whole lot more boobs and gore (because boys will always be boys).

'Pornographic' wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration. But apart from the occasional explicit sex scene and the very graphic gore (more so than claymore), the manga has a decent plot even if it does have a little too many boobs and taut nipples for my liking. The plot certainly fleshes out what would have been mindless slaughter. Though sometimes, some brainless gut spilling gore is appreciated. Especially when one mentally envisages certain individuals at the receiving end.

Back to Reality.

5 days later and it's back to sobering reality, the mundane hustle and bustle of hectic life, of deadlines to meet and affidavits to rush. Back to the wearisome rat race but the one that brings in the bacon, pays the bills and lets one go for such blissful escapades temporal though it may be.

Bangkok certainly lives up to its reputation of cheap and good. The shopping, especially if one is a hard nosed bargain hunter, is good, the food, even better. Where else can you have a complete meal of roast duck, rice, veggies and a drink for 50 bhat (slightly over $2)? And the sheer variety of food and snacks, all of which were ridiculously cheap by local (Singapore) standards, available at the multitude of food stores lining the road proved to be a culinary temptation i was unable to resist.

But short of a brief stomachache on Sunday (which I attribute to the glorious phad thai, tasty but oily with bits of what I took to be char siew but later realised to my abject horror was hardened fat of some sort) and perhaps a few extra kilos, I emerged unscathed from the relentless culinary expedition. Which in a way I guess, is rather surprising, given the stuff I ate. Bugs were however still a big no no.

On the limo ride back to the airport, the sky was overcast, clouds looming omniously, I fancied a hint of rain in the air just before stepping in. Similar to when I first arrived. And that fleeting sense of Deja Vu, that all good things must come to an end just like this short reprieve. Bangkok was good and I shall be back someday. Soon.



First day - on the way from the airport.



The Room- better than I expected.



Where I had most of my Breakfast 'in bed'.



One of the few road side snacks I remembered to take a shot of before demolishing. This one was some grilled spareribs with rice. I just did an awful lot of pointing.



Another lovely tidbit, they were selling this at Siam Paragon, some crisp pancake with doughy batter and corn in the middle. It's not like the crip pancake with cream and coconut. Whatever it was,it was great.



Dick's Cafe. An oasis in the hustle and bustle of neon lights.



Dinner at the still very Decent Fuji Restaurant. Negitoro (chopped up fatty tuna)don, lightly grilled fatty salmon (which was damn good) and some enoki with pork rolls. All for 420 bhat inclusive of green tea. $17 bucks for a decent jap meal like that in a restaurant. Not something you'll ever find here.



On the way back.



Heading back to Singapore. Sun setting over the fluffy cloudscape.

888 in Bangkok.

Today was eventful. Eventful in the sense that it largely involved a concerted shopping blitz of an hour, another couple of hours just strolling round the humongous food section at Siam Paragon, buying various tidbits before settling on what turned out to be disappointingly average Japanese lunch. The delightfully crafted cakes from Visage Patissere more than made up for it though.



Bogged down with the buys and the very perishable cakes, I decided to give MBK a miss for today, which meant the latter half of the afternoon was spent inspecting the buys, demolishing the cakes cum tidbits while surfing the net. In short, a leisurely lazy friday, a luxury that is now sorely missed and all the more cherished. And the best thing, is everything's OTOT, no need to have to accommodate another's idea of a holiday (which we all know varies greatly for different people) and certainly no need to compromise on yours.



To cut to the chase, because it is 3am and I'm waiting for my hair to dry, after an excellent 'normal' traditional Thai massage (which incidentally always involves an awful amount of creaking and body twisting), I went off for my first sojourn at Boy Town after an equally blah dinner at a Thai franchise chain.

Crossing the street is always a hazardous affair, traffic lights (of the pedestrian variety) seem to be relatively rare at Surawong and getting over unscathed to the next side involves a finely timed dash that the most brazen ah ma at ang mo kio would usually not hazard.

So it was when I saw a group of youngsters, either from Singapore or Malaysia from the accent of their Chinese, crossing the road, I followed suit. Besides they certainly looked like they were checking Boys Town out and would serve as a useful distraction from the touting and physical assaults that invariably follows once you step into the zone.

True enough, they were set upon once they stepped in, gawking about at the neon signs and various sights. The touts and doormen closed in for the kill, snapping off their rapid machine gun fire accented chinese, cajoling and pulling various members of the group in different directions. They didn't even last me past the third bar whereupon some hapless sod let himself get dragged into some bar and a panicky member of the group yelled in alarm that so and so had gone into XX bar. And they were led like lambs to the slaughter.

Because the bar I had in mind was still some distance down the street, I had to go through the gauntlet of cajoling, insistent tugging at the arms, sometimes in two different directions and the odd pinch on the butt or nipple. Still I managed to reach Dick's cafe, an oasis in the desert and just opposite Dream Boys, a little tender perhaps but none the worse for the wear.

The cafes are like your glass enclosures in the zoo, you get to observe the action from the relative security of the cafe replete with a cozy ambiance as the entire cafe faces the street but at the same time you get to see others have their turn at being hassled.

Dick's Cafe was nice, dimly lit with a mixed clientele that included Asians and your western men with the smattering of Thai boys. It's always interesting to observe how the other parties interact, something I did while sipping the pleasantly piquant Earl Grey.

Time to end here, off to bed and breakfast at 1.00pm. I love this place where else can you have breakfast 24 hours a day. Perfect for slobs like me.