Here is the new link to my website involving comics. Hope you enjoy it.
www.limkiatcomicals.blogspot.com
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Going to Hong Kong (Part 1)
There is always that terrible hassle when going overseas. Whether it is Malaysia, England, Australia, Brazil, Hong Kong or Afghanistan, people will always be eternally worrying what to bring there. Should they bring sunblock, or snacks, or a supply of hot chocolate? Then, there will always be the money exchanging that goes on. Besides the money that they keep in their budget, there will always be some extra 'emergency' money. Of course, it is always good to be safe, but on top of the emergency money, they will also bring some of their local money as 'emergency emergency' money, just in case their shopping brings their budget to an all-time low. This was one of the things that annoyed me. However, I suppose I must not complain, the supply of hot chocolate did come in useful.
Another thing that annoys me is the number of photos taken throughout the trip. Supposedly photos are there as memories, but I have doubts that I want to know what I ate for breakfast
bts whether I want to remember what I had for breakfast:
Then, a second photo is taken:
Then a third one:
Sometimes they are boring...and to think that we never took a picture of the airport!
Waiting time was also fairly boring. It took 1 hour for all the checking in, immigration, and so on so forth to be done. The plane that we flew on was okay. It was the Singapore Airlines, each seat equipped with a television, that could be used for watching television, listening to radio channels, or gaming. It also came in with catering. This was probably the part that I liked least. While the entertainment was okay, the food was probably something like 3/10. I suppose that it was because the food was stored inside the plane in a freezer for a long time. Hopefully, the food that I ate had not expired yet.
After 3 hours we finally reached Hong Kong. We got lost a number of times trying to look for a taxi ride, but we finally found one in the end. There, my parents chatted quite a bit with the taxi driver about the life in Hong Kong before entering the hotel. My mother said that she would give a recommendation to the taxi driver because of his friendliness. (She has not done that yet) Anyway, we were surprised to find that there was a queue along the hotel check-in counter. It was probably the longest one we seen. In our past experiences, hotel queues were something like 3cm long. it probably took a whole half-hour to get our room card.
Guess what we did after that:
Another thing that annoys me is the number of photos taken throughout the trip. Supposedly photos are there as memories, but I have doubts that I want to know what I ate for breakfast
bts whether I want to remember what I had for breakfast:
Then, a second photo is taken:
Then a third one:
Sometimes they are boring...and to think that we never took a picture of the airport!Waiting time was also fairly boring. It took 1 hour for all the checking in, immigration, and so on so forth to be done. The plane that we flew on was okay. It was the Singapore Airlines, each seat equipped with a television, that could be used for watching television, listening to radio channels, or gaming. It also came in with catering. This was probably the part that I liked least. While the entertainment was okay, the food was probably something like 3/10. I suppose that it was because the food was stored inside the plane in a freezer for a long time. Hopefully, the food that I ate had not expired yet.
After 3 hours we finally reached Hong Kong. We got lost a number of times trying to look for a taxi ride, but we finally found one in the end. There, my parents chatted quite a bit with the taxi driver about the life in Hong Kong before entering the hotel. My mother said that she would give a recommendation to the taxi driver because of his friendliness. (She has not done that yet) Anyway, we were surprised to find that there was a queue along the hotel check-in counter. It was probably the longest one we seen. In our past experiences, hotel queues were something like 3cm long. it probably took a whole half-hour to get our room card.
Guess what we did after that:
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Angry Birds
Almost everybody knows Angry Birds. It is currently rated on the Number 1 app and almost everyone who plays it ends up loving it.
Honestly, Angry Birds has come a long way. 75 million people play it everyday. Altogether, users spend over 200 million minutes wasting their life away playing Angry Birds. It has taken over 50 million dollars, making over 500 times profit (do the maths yourself). Celebrities including Justin Bieber and David Cameron say they are fans.
So how did this wondorous game start out?
Well, you probably noticed that on the introduction pages there is one that says 'Rovio'. Well, this might come to your great surprise, but Rovio is the creator of Angry Birds! What a shock! No one would have guessed that.
Anyway, Rovio (which is bonfire in Finnish) was founded by Niklas Hed, and co-founded by Vesterbacka and Mikael in 2003 with 50 employees. But in 2009, that number had dropped to 12, and Rovio was close to bankruptcy, what's more, one of the co-founders Mikael, had quit, due to a conflict with his father, Kaj. They soon realised that they had to create their own sensational game (they were working for other companies for hire), but they had no ways of distribution and marketing.
One day Niklas said to Kaj that they needed Mikael. It tooke a while, Kaj eventually agreed. Suddenly, everything shot up for Rovio, the iphone was created and the App-Store emerged. This had quickly solved their distribution problem as there was now a common market for apps. Niklas said," The iphone opened up the whole world, you had one contact and worldwide distribution." But even after that, they still needed a sensational game.
Rovio had already created 51 other moderately sucessful games before Angry Birds, but they knew that none of them could save the company. They needed a bestseller, something that would go beyond the normal amount of money for an ordinary app. They knew if that they could conquer the app store, they could move on to smartphones, then PC, console and more. They had to create the perfect game, and continue adding sequels to it. Niklas himself admits, "We thought we needed to do 10 to 15 titles before we got the right one.
But it turned out, they had no need to wait for a dozen failed apps to get a bestseller, because the next day, Jaakko Iisalo, an employee who had worked for Rovio for 6 years came to Mikael and showed him a screenshot of very angry, very colourful birds moving towards a pile of multi-coloured blocks. Mikael started to wonder what the birds were doing, and why they were so angry doing it. "For such simple characters, they made us think so much." he said,"There was some magic to it."
At the start, the game was completely different from what it is now. There was a colourful fortress with different colours (example. red. blue.) and birds that matched the colours. Tap the block and the similar coloured bird would go out to destroy it. You would collect birds to keep in your own flock and eggs were used as power-ups. After a while, they decided on flinging the birds towards the fortress, but there was nothing to shoot it from, instead you threw the birds across the screen with your fingers, and people would be greatly confused at what to do with the feathered fowl staring angrily at them.
Today's Angry Birds game uses a giant slingshot to shoot birds across the screen towards fortresses holding sickly green pigs. Their demand has hit more than 7 times of a normal app, and they have expanded Angry Birds to PC, smartphones, tablets, and now they have plans to make a televsion series, a movie, and Facebook version of Angry Birds
Even then, they didn't stop. Around Janurary 2011, they announced thay they would be partnering with the US movie Rio in creating a new angry birds game. It would be called Angry Birds Rio and it would be based in the land Rio, where the angry birds would have to save other birds from the animal smugglers. The pigs would be replaced with monkeys, and they would introduce boss fights to angry birds.
So for Angry Birds, it has been a very long journey. And it won't end here. "It'll be like Disney 2.0" said Mikael. "Except instead of having to wait years to gain recognition, we've done it in a year." However, Angry Birds could fall much, much faster. "In a hundred years, we would still likely be talking about Disney, but not Angry Birds" said McQuivey. So how long will Rovio's Angry Birds survive until it goes out? The modern world is extremely risky, after all, with all the companies racing to get their products out."I'm super paranoid," says Niklas. "I feel at the moment we are walking, we should be running." Michael quickly checks him, "We are not trying to take over the world in one giant leap."
Honestly, Angry Birds has come a long way. 75 million people play it everyday. Altogether, users spend over 200 million minutes wasting their life away playing Angry Birds. It has taken over 50 million dollars, making over 500 times profit (do the maths yourself). Celebrities including Justin Bieber and David Cameron say they are fans.
So how did this wondorous game start out?
Well, you probably noticed that on the introduction pages there is one that says 'Rovio'. Well, this might come to your great surprise, but Rovio is the creator of Angry Birds! What a shock! No one would have guessed that.
Anyway, Rovio (which is bonfire in Finnish) was founded by Niklas Hed, and co-founded by Vesterbacka and Mikael in 2003 with 50 employees. But in 2009, that number had dropped to 12, and Rovio was close to bankruptcy, what's more, one of the co-founders Mikael, had quit, due to a conflict with his father, Kaj. They soon realised that they had to create their own sensational game (they were working for other companies for hire), but they had no ways of distribution and marketing.
One day Niklas said to Kaj that they needed Mikael. It tooke a while, Kaj eventually agreed. Suddenly, everything shot up for Rovio, the iphone was created and the App-Store emerged. This had quickly solved their distribution problem as there was now a common market for apps. Niklas said," The iphone opened up the whole world, you had one contact and worldwide distribution." But even after that, they still needed a sensational game.
Rovio had already created 51 other moderately sucessful games before Angry Birds, but they knew that none of them could save the company. They needed a bestseller, something that would go beyond the normal amount of money for an ordinary app. They knew if that they could conquer the app store, they could move on to smartphones, then PC, console and more. They had to create the perfect game, and continue adding sequels to it. Niklas himself admits, "We thought we needed to do 10 to 15 titles before we got the right one.
But it turned out, they had no need to wait for a dozen failed apps to get a bestseller, because the next day, Jaakko Iisalo, an employee who had worked for Rovio for 6 years came to Mikael and showed him a screenshot of very angry, very colourful birds moving towards a pile of multi-coloured blocks. Mikael started to wonder what the birds were doing, and why they were so angry doing it. "For such simple characters, they made us think so much." he said,"There was some magic to it."
At the start, the game was completely different from what it is now. There was a colourful fortress with different colours (example. red. blue.) and birds that matched the colours. Tap the block and the similar coloured bird would go out to destroy it. You would collect birds to keep in your own flock and eggs were used as power-ups. After a while, they decided on flinging the birds towards the fortress, but there was nothing to shoot it from, instead you threw the birds across the screen with your fingers, and people would be greatly confused at what to do with the feathered fowl staring angrily at them.
Today's Angry Birds game uses a giant slingshot to shoot birds across the screen towards fortresses holding sickly green pigs. Their demand has hit more than 7 times of a normal app, and they have expanded Angry Birds to PC, smartphones, tablets, and now they have plans to make a televsion series, a movie, and Facebook version of Angry Birds
Even then, they didn't stop. Around Janurary 2011, they announced thay they would be partnering with the US movie Rio in creating a new angry birds game. It would be called Angry Birds Rio and it would be based in the land Rio, where the angry birds would have to save other birds from the animal smugglers. The pigs would be replaced with monkeys, and they would introduce boss fights to angry birds.
So for Angry Birds, it has been a very long journey. And it won't end here. "It'll be like Disney 2.0" said Mikael. "Except instead of having to wait years to gain recognition, we've done it in a year." However, Angry Birds could fall much, much faster. "In a hundred years, we would still likely be talking about Disney, but not Angry Birds" said McQuivey. So how long will Rovio's Angry Birds survive until it goes out? The modern world is extremely risky, after all, with all the companies racing to get their products out."I'm super paranoid," says Niklas. "I feel at the moment we are walking, we should be running." Michael quickly checks him, "We are not trying to take over the world in one giant leap."
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Father's Day
Hello and to all fathers, grandfathers, uncles, grandfather's unlces, uncle's grandfathers, father's cousions, distant niece's uncles thrice removed. etc Happy Fathers Day. Happy Father's Day is a day of passison and love for together with your father. Of course, does that mean, you have to search your family tree for your great aunt's cousion's son and visit him? Er...well no. Father's Day is a day for fathers around the world to celebrate being fathers and just spend some time with their sons and daughters. But the big question remains 'What is Father's Day?' To answer that question, it is time we move back to June 19 1910 when Mother's day was recently created. However, there was no Father's day yet and for some reason, nobody wanted to add it in, well, nobody except Sonora Smart Dodd. And it is thanks to her that Fathers could be reconginised with their own day. After hearing about the newly created Mother's Day, she strongly felt that fathers should have their own day, because of her father, William Smart, who was left to take care of the family after his wife died giving birth to the sixth child of the family. From then on, Father's Day was spread around the world. With the support of YWCA and YMCA, the day was started on June 19, the birthday of her father, where they went around carrying gifts to ill fathers while their children looked jealously. Of course, there had to be someone against the idea but as usual I will not go into the details, what I will mention to help you get a rough idea is that it includes laughing at calenders, joke making newspapers and mindless promotions. In the end, Father's day was recognised by the government, but the question remains 'What is Father's Day?' 'What is Father's Day?' What is Father's Day?' Sorry for the typo error, there seems to be some sort of binary virus hacking into the blog creating echoes. -creating echoes- -creating echoes-. Oi! I'm calling the Computer Security System. Sorry, for the disruptions, but they should arrive any moment now, so what is father's day? Well, Father's day means different things. To some, Father's day might be time to reconnect with the father. To others Father's day may be to honour fathers everywhere. Like our friend Sonora Smarts, Father's day can be to tell how much you appreciate your father or just something to say that you want to make up for the times you misjudged or blamed them. For me, these are my two reasons and daddy, if you are reading this, I want you to know that I love you and I want to say sorry for all the times I misjudged you.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Battle English
I am going to write a blog... there I've written it haven't I, so there. I guess I should write something more blog-ish but I am not in the mood.
Apparently, however if I don't write the blog, something horrible will happen. It was so horrible I immediately surrendered waving a white hankerchief. For all curious people, this horrible thing includes dangerous mines, computer games, and 20 or more sharpeners so you can pretty much guess what happened.
So in the end I decided to write about 'BATTLE ENGLISH', an OK game I created (which is slightly lower than average) Anyway I am going to write about my trip about showcasing my game in the 'LANGUAGE ARTS FESTIVAL' Looks pretty cool dosen't it, well I pretty much hoped that it would be a great place, but it just turned out to be a complete, utter girl school. Aw, man, I was hoping an air conditioned, orchestra shaped, collesum, I reminded myself to talk to my imaginary agent about this.
It was hot, sweaty, and it was filled with people. Seriously, people come every minute, and it took a while for us to find each other and collect our thoughts. Our? We? Oh, yeah, I forgot, those were part of my Battle English team, Jian Cheng and Andres. Don't ask me why, but nobody seemed to want Jian Cheng, and Andres and I were just hanging around waiting for money to fall from the sky so in the end we got stuck together. (BUT I try not to think about it)
So we started the day in a happy tone by deciding who got the box with the pink cards, and then suddenly...drum roll...kerching!...Our first Battle English player came. We started teaching them how to play, demostrating and collecting MILO at the same time, then we decided we could not do it, so we split the duties up. The day continued on like that, and then when it was time to come home. We got a certificate and a 20 dollars Borders Book Vouchers. I argued that the something at the end of the handwritten voucher looked like a 1 but in the end I was outargued. We decided to split the boxes into 3, so that everyone gets their fair share. (Mind you, I meant that we gave each person 1 box, we did not split each box into 3) So, after I came home and talked to my imaginary agent. I was going to end the blog with "I wish I could go there again" which I always do, but it turns out I can't so I instead I will end with " I hope I can sell Battle English and make some profit soon...bwa ha ha ha ha....ha ha."
Apparently, however if I don't write the blog, something horrible will happen. It was so horrible I immediately surrendered waving a white hankerchief. For all curious people, this horrible thing includes dangerous mines, computer games, and 20 or more sharpeners so you can pretty much guess what happened.
So in the end I decided to write about 'BATTLE ENGLISH', an OK game I created (which is slightly lower than average) Anyway I am going to write about my trip about showcasing my game in the 'LANGUAGE ARTS FESTIVAL' Looks pretty cool dosen't it, well I pretty much hoped that it would be a great place, but it just turned out to be a complete, utter girl school. Aw, man, I was hoping an air conditioned, orchestra shaped, collesum, I reminded myself to talk to my imaginary agent about this.
It was hot, sweaty, and it was filled with people. Seriously, people come every minute, and it took a while for us to find each other and collect our thoughts. Our? We? Oh, yeah, I forgot, those were part of my Battle English team, Jian Cheng and Andres. Don't ask me why, but nobody seemed to want Jian Cheng, and Andres and I were just hanging around waiting for money to fall from the sky so in the end we got stuck together. (BUT I try not to think about it)
So we started the day in a happy tone by deciding who got the box with the pink cards, and then suddenly...drum roll...kerching!...Our first Battle English player came. We started teaching them how to play, demostrating and collecting MILO at the same time, then we decided we could not do it, so we split the duties up. The day continued on like that, and then when it was time to come home. We got a certificate and a 20 dollars Borders Book Vouchers. I argued that the something at the end of the handwritten voucher looked like a 1 but in the end I was outargued. We decided to split the boxes into 3, so that everyone gets their fair share. (Mind you, I meant that we gave each person 1 box, we did not split each box into 3) So, after I came home and talked to my imaginary agent. I was going to end the blog with "I wish I could go there again" which I always do, but it turns out I can't so I instead I will end with " I hope I can sell Battle English and make some profit soon...bwa ha ha ha ha....ha ha."
Friday, June 18, 2010
Mind Cafe
Another day, another page of the textbook, after a while it could get a bit tedious. Thankfully, we decided to go to mind cafe at Funan centre.
It all started with a satisfying bowl of steamboat, and then we headed down to the second floor, where Mind Cafe was. The occupants of Mind Cafe were all playing board games.We took a table near the board games. But I guess that every table is near the board games. After started settling down and ordering our food and drinks, we picked out a card game, monopoly cards. In the end, we decided that altogether GQ (Game Quotient) of 15 was not enough to comprehend the game, we switched to something simpler, Scrabble.
Soon everyone were hurling pieces, chewing the board, and stealing letters from each other. (OK, so I made that up) It turns out that although Scrabble only needs a total GQ of 3 but we lost a whole GQ point thinking of words. Once the game started doing some serious brain damage, we switched to a game without any lost of brain cells, Slapegories.
The idea was that you had a letter and a topic and you had to make something about the topic that started with that letter, then you would slam the table as a signal. I guessed that means that if I got 'F' and 'does not act his age' then I would say 'Fleming' There wasn't much control of the game, so after a while it started to hilarious. People started banging the table for no reason, they played scissors paper stone, and we started giving strange answers. (I did not make this up)
Then it was time to go back home, so we started to pack up and take pictures (as usual) Naturaly, something more exciting had to happen, so it turns out to be a broken shoe. I will not go into the details, but I can tell anyone who is not my family that it concerned walking barefooted, standing like a flammingo, and a shoe made of tissue. After a few days, life started to change dramatically, it was another day, another textbook. So, I hope that we can go back soon, I'm starting to wonder if they have any cards marked 'F' and 'does not act his age'
It all started with a satisfying bowl of steamboat, and then we headed down to the second floor, where Mind Cafe was. The occupants of Mind Cafe were all playing board games.We took a table near the board games. But I guess that every table is near the board games. After started settling down and ordering our food and drinks, we picked out a card game, monopoly cards. In the end, we decided that altogether GQ (Game Quotient) of 15 was not enough to comprehend the game, we switched to something simpler, Scrabble.
Soon everyone were hurling pieces, chewing the board, and stealing letters from each other. (OK, so I made that up) It turns out that although Scrabble only needs a total GQ of 3 but we lost a whole GQ point thinking of words. Once the game started doing some serious brain damage, we switched to a game without any lost of brain cells, Slapegories.
The idea was that you had a letter and a topic and you had to make something about the topic that started with that letter, then you would slam the table as a signal. I guessed that means that if I got 'F' and 'does not act his age' then I would say 'Fleming' There wasn't much control of the game, so after a while it started to hilarious. People started banging the table for no reason, they played scissors paper stone, and we started giving strange answers. (I did not make this up)
Then it was time to go back home, so we started to pack up and take pictures (as usual) Naturaly, something more exciting had to happen, so it turns out to be a broken shoe. I will not go into the details, but I can tell anyone who is not my family that it concerned walking barefooted, standing like a flammingo, and a shoe made of tissue. After a few days, life started to change dramatically, it was another day, another textbook. So, I hope that we can go back soon, I'm starting to wonder if they have any cards marked 'F' and 'does not act his age'
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