Well, ladies and gents, it’s been a good ride. Through thick and thin, you’ve successfully managed to ignore the vast majority of my posts on here, so I guess this is it. I am, of course, referring to the imminent demise of the Facebook Notes importer that works via RSS. If you’re reading this on Facebook, then this is probably the last post you’ll see from me for a long, long time — but if you’re reading this on my, you know, actual blog (www.bennylingbling.com for those playing at home), then you’re guaranteed the same sporadic posts that you’ve always had, with a money back guarantee! Okay, maybe not that last part. But still, random sporadic posts should be good enough for anyone, right?

What follows is a post that has had to be written for a while now…

Primary School

The year is 2001, and the Benny Ling you know is just 10 years old and in Year 5. He’s sitting in class, when suddenly, the teacher plonks down the marked copy of a previous maths test. He looks down, incredulous, at that red lettering: 100%. The perfect score.

I remember it like it was ten years ago. Sitting in class, when my teacher at the time hands back that maths test. It was on the decimal system, as I recall, fractions and that sort of stuff, and I managed to get 100% on it. The teacher exclaimed to the whole class that she had checked it thoroughly, twice, and that I had actually gotten 100% on a maths test. One of my favourite memories, and yet, my report for that year reads something like so:

“He is a very capable in all aspects of language and test results confirm this, yet work is sometimes presented at a standard below his best.”

“Benny’s work on his German project was most disappointing, far below the standard of which he is capable.”

I still have that maths test, somewhere.

Year 6 is perhaps even more eye opening, at least in terms of reports:

“In SOSE, which requires him to do research and put in considerable effort for a good result, he does not achieve as well as in other areas.”

And perhaps the most scathing comment of all:

“He is a very capable student, but often only does the minimum necessary, and homework is frequently not completed or of a standard well below his capabilities.” … “He is able to write for specific purposes but often does as little as possible.”

I was one of those students that always strived to finish first. One of those students that strived to be the best — but only at things I knew I could actually be the best at.

Secondary School

Fast forward a few years. The year is now 2004, and the Benny Ling you know is now a few years older, and perhaps even a few years wiser. He gets his Year 8 interim report, and that’s when it all starts to fall apart…

Inconsistent application.

That’s what it says, in the teacher comments section of the Year 8 Humanities interim report.

I didn’t quite understand it at the time, and to a degree I still don’t, but I brought that report home, my parents read it, and they, uh, weren’t very happy. (Probably an understatement.)

It’s surreal to see two words carry so much weight. One means that things aren’t always the same, the other can mean anything from effort to programs that run on computers, but together, they’ll mean the beginning of an entirely new chapter of your life. (Perhaps a bit melodramatic, but hey.)

Uni

A few more years pass. A few more years of just doing what Benny Ling does. The year is 2011, and the day is today. The Benny Ling you know is an avid gamer, general technology enthusiast, and all-round good guy who keeps making the same mistakes, the same bad decisions.

He’s sitting at home, waiting for his third year Uni results to be released — even when he is already pretty confident of his failures — passing the time with bouts of Battlefield 3, Minecraft, and LA Noire.

He’s working Saturdays. Buying replica military weapons from shady overseas merchants. Contemplating pulling the trigger on a shiny new digital SLR, or perhaps a new graphics card.

He’s hanging out on virtual internet forums, playing with various webOS devices, contemplating what to write about in his super-epic HP TouchPad software write-up, and watching as many CSI: Miami episodes he can get his virtual hands on.

What’s he’s not doing is even more telling: he’s not learning to drive, nor making decisions about his future. He’s not considering whether to continue with this thing called “Uni” for yet another year. He’s not sure what he wants to do with his life, he’s not sure how much of it actually matters; his career, his purpose in life, what he wants to accomplish.

But most of all, he’s not sure how to get back on the right track.

Depressive post quota for the month: fulfilled.

You’ve seen Mulan, right? That one scene where Mushu dons a scary costume, jumps into a fireworks box, and asks the attendants for some serious firepower?

One of my many (varied) vices is that I’m a bit of a Nerf enthusiast. Only a little bit, mind you, but that’s enough.

I now own the vast majority of dart-firing Nerf N-Strike toy guns, and I can count the models of same that I don’t own on one hand. I’ve imported Nerf toy guns from the US (thanks Amazon!) to get them just that little bit earlier, and when I saw that Nerf had introduced some new, disc-firing weapons (the Vortex series), my curiosity was piqued.

That being that, and having just started holidays, I decided to acquire some of these disc-based toy guns. My usual source (Target) didn’t have any of the new disc-firing Vortex series, much to my disappointment, so I decided to venture out to Toyworld.

Bear in mind the last time I went out to Toyworld was easily 10+ years ago, back when I was a young ‘un. My church was not too far from there, and sometimes, after the service on Sundays, a friend and I would venture down and explore the sheer excitement that was the huge, massive assortment of toys.

I went back to Toyworld today, and it was like nothing had changed. Every wall was packed full of toys. LEGO. Assorted water and sporting goods. Model cars. Model trains. Toys for girls, toys for boys — and most of all, Nerf toys.

I picked up all three Nerf toys Ben Kuchera recommended in his piece for Ars: the Vortex Praxis, the Vortex Vigilon, and the Vortex Proton. I might have even picked up the full-auto Nitron, but Toyworld didn’t have stock. That particular model will just have to wait.

Vortex Praxis: love the shotgun action. Pump-action handle better and more comfortable than the similar style on the N-Stike Alpha Trooper, and the 10-disc clip ejects like the magazine of a real assault rifle. Totally my style, and very fun to use. Only downside is the slightly non-too-sturdy stock — two thin arms are all that support the buttstock.

Vortex Vigilon: five round, with the same cocking action as the N-Strike Maverick. Instead of a rotating barrel, the Vigilon has a sort of “chamber” where you slot discs in. It’s not bad, but I probably wouldn’t trade my modded Maverick for it.

Vortex Proton: single shot, single disc. I absolutely adore the loading mechanism on this: pull the tab, slot a disc into the slot that appears, then hit one of the “slide return levers”, which retracts the tab you pulled out, and readies the gun for firing, all with a satisfying noise and action. Yeah, it’s only single shot, but it’s really, really cool to use. Plus, it’s the most compact of the new Vortex series — perfect for execution-style killings.

Range on all three disc-firing Vortex blasters was much improved over their dart-based cousins. Where the darts have pretty severe “bullet drop”, the discs kind of “catch” the air. The downside of their epic range (roughly 1.5x that of my best N-Strike blaster, the Maverick) is that because the discs are spinning, their accuracy isn’t as great as the darts (and they don’t whistle, or glow in the dark, or stick to things). You could probably expect to (accurately) hit a human-sized target about 12, perhaps even up to 15 meters away, but then again, a dart could do that kind of distance as well.

My only other gripe with the new Vortex series is that they’re pretty darn bulky. I’m not quite sure if it’s a mechanism thing for the discs, or whether Hasbro are just going for a new style, but seriously, although some of the space in front of the trigger is where the discs are loaded, pretty much everything below the Vigilon text is empty. There’s no way the Vigilon needs all of the bulk in front of the trigger, and neither does the Proton. The width I get — the discs are about 5-6cm in diameter — but otherwise, I’m pretty sure all that bulk could be cut down a little.

Overall, these new disc-based Vortex blasters aren’t bad.

Now I have to hunt down some of those clip-based water pistols… but that’s for another time.

Almost exactly five years ago, a few kids posed in front of some giant guitar in the middle of NSW.

Almost exactly five years ago, a few kids participated in something known as the Science and Engineering Challenge.

Almost exactly five years ago, a few kids from a tiny school in a small suburb in the equally-tiny state of Tasmania came fourth in the country,

Almost exactly five years ago to the day, a few kids had an absolute blast.

A few days ago, a different set of kids, to be sure, but with perhaps one or two of the same teachers, made their reprise in the Science and Engineering Challenge.

A few days ago, a few kids from the tiny school from a little suburb in the equally small state of Tasmania, managed to place fourth in the country.

A few days ago, a few kids may or may not have posed in front some giant guitar…

…but one thing’s for sure: they probably had just as much fun as we did.

The past few days have sucked completely because I’ve been very unproductive (and that will have some consequences I’ll face some other day), and for a moment there, it was almost funny — I’d think about how much work I had to do, do completely none of it, then think about the consequences of not doing so. This led into a spiral of doom which me feeling pretty sucky; getting angry at myself for not doing any work, knowing any consequences I would have to bear would be all my fault, writing semi-depressive blog posts on the subject under the guise of unanswered questions, questioning all sorts of things.

Yeah, it kinda sucked.

But the thing is, now those deadlines have come and gone, I got a whole heap done today. There’s no hugely pressing deadline per se, but I did have to get a few things done by tomorrow or the end of the week — and today, I pretty much ticked off every single thing on my list. Weird, right?

It’s not that I can’t work under pressure  — arguably some of my best work is when I’m thrown into the deep end. So what is it? The pressure of doing my best work knowing that someone is looking over my shoulder every step of the way? I used to say that I did my best work alone, but now I’m not so sure. Perhaps I need that pressure of being accountable, that pressure of knowing that I’ll have to answer to someone for my work— someone other than myself.

You know what? I’m actually not sure what it is. Perhaps it’s the fact that when faced with a million seemingly-insurmountable tasks and the lure of a good game, I’ll choose the game every time. Or perhaps it’s the fact that sometimes I just can’t be bothered — I could do the work if I was bothered, but man, sometimes I just don’t see the point.

In any case, I got a few things done today that I’m pretty proud of. Unfortunately, I’ve also made some pretty poor decisions in the past week — the consequences of which I’ll face some other day. No sense getting dragged down by the past now, is there?

Over and out.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I have many questions. Many, many questions, and too few answers.

Sometimes, stupid little questions, like: why did that girl stare at me? Is my fly undone? Do I have something unpleasant coming out of my nose? Is there something wrong with my face? Did I say the right thing? Did I act the right way?

These questions don’t really matter. I usually forget them after a few minutes, and then I move on to some of the more important stuff.

More important stuff, like: what kind of message do I want to convey when writing? What do I want to write about? Should I hit publish on this piece, knowing that it might not be my best work yet? Or should I publish that piece anyway, and just throw caution to the wind?

These questions matter a little more. They don’t really affect anyone apart from myself, and even then they’re usually forgotten the next day, or a few days later. There’s nothing wrong with these questions, per se, and sometimes they should definitely be asked, but the real, life changing questions are where it’s at.

Questions like: what should I be doing with my life? Am I really happy doing this Uni degree? Why can’t I seem to get the right work done? Why does the reward always seem to dictate the amount of effort I put into things? Where is the light at the end of the tunnel? How am I supposed to feel about various things? What kind of an effect does that have on my life? Where do I want to be in 5 years? Where do I want to be in 10 years? What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?

If only I could answer all these questions. I know no-one has all the answers to everything, but why are there so many unanswered questions anyway? Where do I get the answers from? How do I get out of this rut?

And finally, the most important question of all: what graphics card should I get for Battlefield 3?

I, of course, haven’t started either.

It’s not that I find the content boring (okay, maybe the Java one isn’t all that appealing) — heck, just today we were making a super basic read-only version of Twitter (but without actual tweets). The spec called for a normal UIButton to be placed somewhere in the interface that would link to a map view of the “tweets” on a map (I think the idea was that we were playing around with CoreLocation and MapKit). After trying a few different things and deciding that looked like crap, I stuck a UIBarButtonItem in the UINavigationBar, which made it look much cooler. A tiny, ten-second version of going above and beyond, but my interest was definitely piqued.

Like I said, it’s not that I find the content boring. Most of my Uni subjects have been interesting enough, but try as I might, I just can’t find the motivation to get things done (and by things, I mean super-huge-mega-assignments that always seem to get left to the last minute).

It’s not that I’m lazy, either — at least, I don’t think it is. I’m definitely very un-lazy about some things, recent examples including staying up for Apple keynotes, and downloading and installing the Battlefield 3 beta so I can play — and later this month, I plan to go to the midnight launch of Battlefield 3 at my local games store. That’s not lazy, right?

So what is it?

What’s the word for that moment when you realise that the work you do is appreciated by many, many people all across Australia?

Yeah, that.

This weekend was nothing short of amazing, all thanks to a little site called MacTalk.

Back in 2007, I joined a little site called MacTalk. Fast forward a couple of years, a few thousand posts, and many internet arguments later, and I come across a little post by then-overseer and hater of pants, decryption, asking for volunteer writers for some news posts. I put my hand up.

The rest is turtles all the way down.

This weekend was basically the culmination of all that; a dinner with most of the people who have contributed to MacTalk in some way, those who have silently decimated the not-so-silent spam, those who have kept things ticking over behind the scenes, and those who have written articles, reviewed products, or gotten on their perennial soapbox and given a few thousand listeners an earful about how non-developers shouldn’t be using beta releases on the podcast, past and present.

There were a few people missing, but by and large, most of the big players where there and a fantastic time was had by all. Putting faces to online personas is always good fun, even if it can be a little daunting at first. Once you get over that initial awkwardness of “hey, do I follow you on Twitter? What’s your name on the forums?”, then it’s apples, ladies and gentlemen, apples — which is lucky, because that’s pretty much what MacTalk is about (Apple, Inc).

At some point during the night, there was a thing where had to go around the table and tell everyone about ourselves — our Twitter or MacTalk usernames, what we did, and so on.

Some people were known simply by name or by reputation, others had to describe their role in MacTalk a little more. When it came around to me, I simply said “I’m Benny, and I write the news”.

Cue thunderous applause.

In all seriousness, I was kind of taken aback. Stunned, that people recognised me, just from what I had done. Little did I realise how far my daily news posts reached. Little did I know that people actually recognised —nay, applauded — my work.

This isn’t just me being naive, it’s a genuine realisation of the culmination of hours of early morning (and some not-so-early) news posts over last two years. It’s me realising that podcast topics which were formed off the words I had written, it’s about me realising that “whoa, people actually read this stuff — and they like it!” Me realising that the words I type into one of those new-fangled computers actually has some sort of impact.

One comment (from Chrome, I believe): “everyone sets their clock from Greenwich Mean Time, but Greenwich set their time from [me]“.

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of being appreciated and recognised for your work, which, I guess, was really the whole point of that night; everyone in that room had contributed in some way, shape, or form to MacTalk over the past few years.

This morning I considered writing a piece on Steve Jobs (you know, seeing as he stepped down as CEO) as a sort of editorial on MacTalk (like all the cool kids are doing), but as I thought about what I would write about, I couldn’t think of anything. Seriously, not a thing — not because there wasn’t anything to say, but because anything I wrote about would be so, so, insubstantial compared to the big picture.

And yet it’s times like the above, when I was applauded for simply saying my name and what I do, that make it all worth it.

Thanks guys

When I first started playing Medal of Honor, it wasn’t very compelling. The main appeal of this particular triple-A shooter for me wasn’t that it was an alternative to the Call of Duty juggernaut, but that it featured guns. Like a druggie looking for his next hit, I was chasing the feeling of looking down the sights (preferably ACOG, but I’ll take whatever the developers choose to throw at me) and taking down some enemy combatant at range with a well-timed headshot. As cliche as that may sound, I was in it for the gunplay — how the guns “felt” within the context of the game, in different situations, and so on — and Medal of Honour (MoH) has that in spades.

In the beginning, it feels a little like you’re a nameless, faceless grunt fighting someone else’s war — because you are. It’s a little “go here, shoot those guys, rescue this dude”, and it feels like we’ve already been here before in every other big name, A-grade FPS — because we have. The enemies pop up at predictable locations, you advance through different scenarios with your squad in a predictable manner, and it’s all very predictable, even nice, but doesn’t make for very compelling gameplay (even the gunplay is average and just doesn’t feel good).

I don’t know whether it was because I had taken some mind-alterating substances that day or whether I was just in a different state of mind, but I recently re-visited the single player campaign, and, well, everything was different. The good different, not the bad kind. Somewhere between taking out snipers in a tower and lasing targets for laser-guided missile strikes or strafing runs I started to enjoy the game. I was no longer a nameless faceless soldier fighting someone else’s war, I was Rabbit, a Tier 1 Operator part of AFO Neptune, lasing targets with SOFLAM for Predator air strikes under the cover of darkness, or taking out the bad guys at 1000 meters with the Barrett. All I know is, at some point Medal of Honor started being compelling and sucked me right in.

The pacing of the game is fantastic. The action scenes are truly hectic at times, and yet there’s always parts where you never feel overwhelmed by enemies — unless that’s exactly what the developers intended, as they do in one particular scene. Like I said, the story starts out pretty slowly with you saving some guy and then just clearing out the same old enemies in the same old locations, but soon you’re on ATVs assaulting enemy compounds at night, or planting locator beacons on enemy transports, or blasting away at enemy RPG positions from the safety of the skies in an Apache. Some sections leave you truly exhausted, but you’re a SEAL; you just get back up and ask for more.

All that stuff is truly enjoyable, don’t get me wrong. It’s exciting, the gunplay at that point is incredible (oh selective fire, how I’ve missed you), and everything is as you would expect for a shooter of this calibre (pun not intended). It isn’t until about the last third or last quarter of the game that the whole story element comes into play and you start to feel that all this might actually be real. I won’t lie; I felt real relief after playing through one particular section where the position you’re holding for extraction is quickly becoming overrun by enemies who are almost constantly firing RPGs and all manner of rounds are whizzing past you, and just when you’re about to throw in the towel (your companion tech specialist even tells the brass to hold off the support troops he called in earlier), the calvary comes and saves the day. From the desperate calls over comms to having to put down guys left right and centre while running pretty low on ammo, that feels real.

And it only gets more real from that point on.

As a game, the model animations are as good as any. When you’re huddling with three other soldiers behind a wall talking about how you’re going to smoke the enemy position for an air strike, things seem real.

When you’re falling out of a friendly chopper, things seem real.

When you have to choose between bullets and broken bones, things seem real.

When you’re falling off a cliff (broken bones heal), things seem real.

While I have huge respect for people that serve I’ve never gotten into the whole military aspect of life that Americans seem to have. All that cliche gung-ho, trigger-happy, shoot now attitude just seemed too far fetched, a little too removed from reality to actually be. After playing Medal of Honor, I’m convinced that is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s games like this that demonstrate what war is like, how people like Rabbit live, and how they die.

Hoo-ah.

Medal of Honor is easily the best military FPS I have played in a while. While I do enjoy the sheer excitement and pure action of the Call of Duty series, there’s nothing quite like a good plot to keep the story going, and Medal of Honor delivers on all fronts. The multiplayer uses a different engine to the single player, but is still quite enjoyable (although perhaps not as much as Bad Company 2). Medal of Honor keeps it real while delivering everything a military shooter enthusaist would want, which means it’s a pretty damn good game indeed.

Enthusiast gamers are a peculiar bunch. Shunned from society for owning and regularly using all the major game platforms, enthusiast gamers possess every console platform if only to play the largest variety of games possible.  Enthusiast gamers prefer PC; some say the keyboard and mouse combo feels more natural, others still channel Steve Jobs and say “it just works”.

Enthusiast gamers — not to be confused with euthanasiast gamers —  are currently an endangered species. Their highly coveted skills in all forms of video games are desired by many a casual gamer, but what separates an enthusiast gamer from the rest of their gaming brethren is the fact that they innately understand games. They understand how the graphics of any game are supposed to complement and add to the overall gameplay, and they understand how the game mechanics in good games make the game balanced for all players. Above all, enthusiast gamers enjoy games in a way that sets them apart from others who also game.

Enthusiast gamers can usually be found holed up in the corner of your nearest LAN gathering, or doing the odd job here and there; most enthusiast gamers are familiar with many technical aspects of computers, and that comes in handy when new games have to be purchased. New games don’t grow on trees, you know. Enthusiast gamers are usually aged between 17 an 28; old enough to play and really enjoy games, mature enough not to care about real world things like full time jobs or other meagre things. Indeed, the amount of time spent refining twitch reflexes in a first-person shooter or levelling their chaos blood mage in the latest massively multiplayer online role playing game means that enthusiast gamers really don’t have time for such things.

Enthusiast gamers are strongly opinionated. If prompted, they won’t hesitate to speak about games they’re currently playing, but be warned — some enthusiast gamers take such opportunities too far and launch into epic tirades on the state of the gaming industry today, occasionally slipping into “bitter old man” mode and lamenting how game development studios don’t cater to their niche; indeed, it is for this very reason that game developers see enthusiast gamers as the loyal manservant — they’ll happily buy whatever the game development studios are selling, but might post a ranty blog post about it later. However, most enthusiast gamers are kind, gentle folk, provided you don’t knife them in the back in Bad Company 2.

Enthusiast gamers don’t necessarily live and breathe games, but when they’re not playing games, they’re reading about games, and when they’re not reading about games, they’re thinking about how they would improve existing games, or even dreaming up new and exciting games. Enthusiast gamers read gaming literature from a variety of sources, and aren’t particularly swayed by any opinion — if a game receives bad reviews, enthusiast gamers usually play the game and decide for themselves rather than letting someone else tell them what any given game is like.

Gamerscore: somewhere in the vicinity of 55,000

As a general rule, on-again, off-again gamers can be found in their natural habitat, whatever that may be. You see, on-again, off-again gamers come in all shapes and sizes. Some are teenagers, lured into an occasional Team Fortress game by friends, or even the small round of Left For Dead versus here and there. Others still play exclusively on consoles, shunning the cumbersome keyboard and mouse for the humble joystick and trigger combo preferred by on-again, off-again gamers everywhere. Many on-again, off-again gamers have normal jobs and lead normal lives, even with spouses, and in some cases, children.

The thing that characterises on-again off-again gamers in the wild is that generally, they will have heard of most mainstream titles, that is, anything that has been picked up by the mass media or heavily marketed. The on-again, off-again gamer is easily persuaded by whatever the media says is good (or bad), and will usually stick to one or two sources for gaming-related information.

The on-again, off-again gamer has a modest library of games. Perhaps nothing that stands out, but definitely all the popular ones. If questioned about his gaming library, the on-again, off-again gamer will respond with an all-encompassing statement about how he doesn’t have time to play a lot of games, or what precious time he does have for games that are, you know, actually worth his time.

On-again, off-again gamers are almost exclusively male, although some have been known to be androgenous.

The one thing that sets on-again, off-again gamers from the rest of the gaming community is simple: they very rarely finish a game. Sure, the on-again, off-again gamer will be more than happy to quote you all the famous lines such as “the cake is a lie”, but the on-again, off-again gamer very rarely finishes games, instead preferring to drag games out into year-long epics that would send any other type of gamer around the bend.

Don’t get me wrong, on-again off-again gamers enjoy the games they play — it’s just that they’re very rarely in it for the story; to the on-again, off-again gamer, any game (that has received suitable reviews from all the big gaming publications) is a game, and that’s usually good enough for them.

Gamerscore: 3752

Alas, there was an amazing title for this post which seems to gave escaped my line completely. Perhaps I should have written it down at the time, but such is life.

Amazing! A blog post about an event less than a week after the actual event itself! Either this isn’t really Benny Ling typing here or he’s procrastinating some other task in between epic Bad Company 2 rounds (probably the latter).

Originally this post started out as a pretty basic recount of my time in Brisbane. Then I realised that almost no-one would want to read such cruft, so I scrapped almost everything and started again.

Another year, another train-the-trainer meetup in Brisbane. I’m yet to fill out the expense forms, but I spent a little more on transport this time around. I don’t drive, so the variety of transport options from getting from A to B appealed to me. The first night I actually ended up catching the bus to town to wander around the CBD a bit, and then catch up with some people from the internets at a small bar in the Valley.

I was in the CBD at one point and realised I had to get to the Valley at some stage. Having passed it on the bus on the way in, I knew it wasn’t too far — two, perhaps three, train stops away. I decided to give the train system a go as that worked fairly well last time around (catching it from Albion to Central). I get to the station and realise I have to buy a ticket. This is immediately followed by the realisation that I have no idea how to do so — the ticket thing is screaming “pick a zone, pick a zone!” at me and I’m all like “I don’t know which one to pick!”, so I just tell it where I am and where I want to go (King George Square, and Fortitude Valley respectively). That darn ticket machine then proceeds to call me fat as it mockingly points out that the Valley is only some 500m from where I am.

I decide to walk.

Brisbane is a pretty cool place. The mall is impressive, and I saw all the popular places — the flagship Commonwealth Bank branch, Breadtop, Crumpler, EB Games, a fairly large Officeworks, and a few others.

I’ve was pretty glad for my iPhone and its tethering abilities during my stay in Brisbane. Rather than pay the exorbitant hotel internet fees I simply used my iPhone internet connection — speeds were more than adequate for normal HTTP browsing, and I managed to chew through about 200MB while I was there, so my usage wasn’t too over-the-top or anything.

I’ve also never appreciated my iPhone compass + GPS as much as I have as when I was in Brisbane; stuck in pretty much a foreign city with only a basic sense of direction, I relied upon Maps quite a bit. At one stage I was walking the completely wrong way, and iPhone managed to correct me. Much love for iPhone.

Apart from those little observations, I didn’t get up to much. Spent a little time wandering about the CBD on the first day, chatting with a few people on the internets in real life that night. The next day was all about work — which I then managed to catch up with a mate from another Next Byte store over dinner. I managed to discover that much of our working experiences are the same, which is kinda weird — somehow I had this weird notion that other stores had completely different ways of doing things, but apparently not. It’s good to see there’s at least a little consistency in what goes on in other Next Byte stores, and not just in regards to training.

Of course, I also managed to hit up the Pancake Parlour on the second night, just like the last time I was in town. By that stage I had already eaten a pretty massive burger (if you’re ever in Southbank I can recommend Beastie Burgers — generous servings, decently priced [IMHO]), but there was no way in hell I was going to miss out on a delicious waffle.

It was, in two words, pretty amazing.

The next morning was pretty uneventful. Early morning flights are like that. Taxi to airport (some $40, along with our ears — the taxi driver had been to over 130 countries and worked in over 80 of those), really quick breakfast (the guy at Subway liked my wallet so much he asked me where I got it, I said dynomightydesign.com but that’s not strictly correct), grabbing the obligatory Krispy Kreme donuts to take back (strangely, none for me this time around — I already had two pieces of carry-on luggage and didn’t want to take up more than I was allowed), and that, ladies and gentlemen, was pretty much that.

So, double-barrelled questions? Kinda where you ask a question, then immediately follow it up with another question before giving someone else the opportunity to answer your question. String a couple of these together (which can happen if you’re trying to get a lot of information quickly), and whoever you’re asking the questions to can feel a little bombarded. See? I did learn something!

More than ten years have passed since the original Pokémon games (generation I)  came out, and I can safely say with some confidence that we have now entered the period of the Pokémon renaissance, a period where Pokémon culture is seen as popular and accepted, rather than just something that those nerdy kids at school play.

I guess you could say that there have been multiple renaissance periods, one surrounding every new game release, but my own Pokémon renaissance starts around the release of Pokémon Black and White.
The way I see it, everyone between the ages of say, 10 and 25 knows about Pokemon. Perhaps they’re a little less enthusiastic about it these days (if enthusiastic is indeed the right word), and perhaps they don’t show the anime on TV anymore, but the point is, everyone knows about Pokémon.

You could definitely say my own Pokémon renaissance was spurred on by my desire to play Pokémon, restrained only for my disapproval of the direction Pokémon had taken since generation I and II. I understand Nintendo can’t simply let the Pokémon franchise stagnate, but alienating existing Pokémon fans by adding (in my mind) unnecessary game mechanics and modifications only serves to curb enthusiasm, not increase it.

Which is exactly why I chose to play Pokémon once again — wait, what? I guess in the end my desire to relive old-school memories won out, or something. I saddled up with a (comparatively old-school) DS Lite (for GBA compatibility, more on this in a sec) and purchased a copy of SoulSilver and White, along with the strategy guide for White.

Forget the fact that there are now umpteen hundred Pokémon to catch, or that you can now grow berries, and that Kurt can now make up to 99 Pokéballs out of apricorns each day, forget all the game mechanics that Nintendo have added that either make the game more complex or untrue to the core Pokémon experience — for me, my personal Pokémon renaissance is all about reliving those old school days, regardless of whatever changes they’ve made since.

See, I don’t think you quite understand how much I enjoyed spending untold hours training and battling Pokémon. It’s pretty addictive once you get into it — combine that with a desire to finish the game and then catching ‘em all, and you’ve got a pretty good recipe for success in the game market.

What’s the plan from here on out? Well, it’s pretty simple: play as much Pokémon as I need to. Starting with SoulSilver, as it’s a generation IV remake of the generation II Silver seems like a good a place as any to start, since Pokémon Gold was the very first Pokémon game I ever played. Once that is all done and dusted I think I’ll go back to generation III with LeafGreen, a remake of the generation I Green that started it all. From there, Emerald, also from generation III, brings the best out of generation III games, and then Platinum, also the best of the generation IV games. Finally, Pokémon White. Or maybe I’ll play Pokémon White while playing all of those. I’m not quite sure yet.

And so, with my DS Lite in hand and quite a lot of Pokémon ahead of me (I’ve sunk rougly 35 hours into SoulSilver already, and am probably about 25% though), I begin a journey of my very own — call it what you want, but it’s my very own Pokémon renaissance.

I am of the Pokémon generation.

Kids these days just don’t get it. I grew up with the original 151 in Red, Green, and Yellow, and later the 251 introduced with Gold, Silver, and Crystal (Generations one and two, respectively.)

Now there’s over 600 Pokémon to catch in generation five, and I’m really not sure how people are actually expected to catch all 649. Current generations actually go as far as encouraging players to only catch a small selection of Pokémon, but doing so is child’s play — not for Pokémon masters like myself.

My own Pokémon story starts way back in the 20th century, at the cusp of the millennium. The very first game I was exposed to was Pokémon Yellow, as one of my childhood friends had a copy along with his original Game Boy. Countless hours were spent at his house playing that game.

Then suddenly it was 1999 and Pokémon Gold and Silver came out alongside the Game Boy Color, and thus I entered the golden age of Pokémon. Those were the glory days — many, many hours were spent playing Pokémon, and many more hours spent training, honing my Pokémon to be fighting fit.

That year I remember my family went back to Malaysia, where even more Pokémon was played. One of my childhood friends there also played Pokémon, and as a present him and his family bought me a guide to catch ‘em all, the Prima Official Strategy Guide for Pokémon Gold and Silver. I remember spending entire afternoons pouring through every detail, committing large sections of it to memory in order to apply it to game scenarios later on. I’m sure that if I look hard enough, it will still be around here somewhere…

People even complimented me on my Pokémon and how strong they were. I remember grinding through countless battles with the Elite Four, levelling up Dragonites to level 100 and then blowing away other Pokémon with the Hyper Beam move. Those were the days.

At the time, there also existed a set of “exploits”. Such exploits leveraged the use of bugs in the game to produce favourable results for the exploiter, such as the bug that allowed the duplication of Pokémon. It was this very bug that allowed trainers to gain access to Pokémon they normally wouldn’t have received otherwise. Legendary Pokémon were devalued somewhat with this bug, but that didn’t really matter, because catching them all was the main priority for a lot of trainers, myself included.

It was this duplication bug that allowed me to get such rare Pokémon such as Mewtwo, Mew, and Celebi through trading with other Pokémon players who weren’t afraid to trade away their legendary Pokémon as they had other copies.

Once upon a time I was also an avid swimmer, going a couple of times a week after school to swim for a couple of hours. It was during these swim sessions that I met a guy, and it just so happened that he was into Pokémon too. I can distinctly remember being in the change rooms one time — both of us had our Game Boys out, linked with the trade cable, and were swapping Pokémon. Looking back on it now such a scene just seems nothing short of ridiculous, but at the time it made perfect sense (we didn’t see each other at any time besides those swim sessions), and was perfectly normal for kids of our generation — the Pokémon generation.

Hey, look, it’s been almost a year since this happened, but I am fantastic at procrastinating such tasks like these that involve a recount of a particular event. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), I have a couple of ideas for things that need to be written, but those things depend on the very existence of this post (maybe not quite that much, but this post does play an important part). If this doesn’t make sense, read on anyway. I promise things will become clear by the time you reach the end.

Like I said, it’s about a year now since Brisbane 2010 happened — around this time last year I was in sunny Queensland, doing secret things with not-so-secret people. The fact that this is only being written now is testament to the fact that I am, if nothing else, a brilliant procrastinator.

In any case, Brisbane 2010 was mostly about doing a training course with work. That’s probably about all I’ll say about the purpose of the trip, suffice to say it was exciting and pretty awesome to go to Brisbane for a work-related thing (and ALL BY MYSELF) rather than with friends or family. Considering the last time I was in Brisbane was when my family  decided to drive to Brisbane all the way from Tasmania, I felt really grown up, and it was great.

During one of the sessions, as part of the introductory-type, get-to-know-you things, the leader guy asked why we had chosen to participate in the program that we had been selected to participate in. If that reads like we were chosen, it sort of does — it was opt-in for sure in that we had to do a basic application for the position, but we were chosen on the basis of our applications. I think, anyway. I kinda got in by default, but that is neither here nor there.

Anyway, the leader guy posed the question of why we had elected to become a “learning academy” trainer. Everyone else gave pretty serious answers; for the job security that the position offered, because they saw it as a viable career opportunity, because it directly correlated to their Uni studies, because they saw it as a valuable skillset, and so on and so forth. I say serious answers because when I answered the question, my answer was anything but. My answer? “Because I couldn’t become a Pokémon master”. Thankfully, it got a few laughs… (not to mention also solidifying my position within the group, as up until then I had spoken little and contributed less. It could even be said that my act of brevity established my position as “one of the guys”. No women here, I’m afraid.)
Such was the first major highlight of my time in the Sunshine State. The second happened later that evening, which I will attempt to detail now.

After catching a Queensland-Rail powered train into the city (that was, er, entertaining to say the least) and enjoying an excellent dinner at an upper-class restaurant with a beautiful lass (and by that it might have been pretty standard McDonalds fare with only my iPhone to keep me company, I don’t quite remember) and walking the equivalent of several gargantuan city blocks (spotting a Bang and Olfusen store, a Mac1 store, and a Bose store on the same street) before catching a cab back to my hotel, I was chillin’ in my hotel room that evening when the phone rang.

As it turns out, my Dad, I believe, had contacted his brother who lives in Brisbane with his family (his sons are my cousins, obviously). While I was aware of this fact, I was never planning any sort of meetup shenanigans as I was on a pretty tight schedule as it was — my cousins would have none of that, however, and I soon found myself in the middle of the CBD with one of my cousins and his mother.

With no real idea of where we going, and it being a Saturday night, we headed to a place I had only heard about through the interwebs — the Pancake Manor (or Pancakes at the Manor, as it is officially called)! After a short wait in the holding area we were in, and I ordered something that had WAFFLES. It was DELICIOUS, and I’ve been somewhat addicted to waffles ever since (I had a few in M’sia 2011).

On the way back to the car I saw the spot in the mall where yet another internet acquaintance had filmed a video all the way back in 2008 on iPhone 3G launch night, just outside the Optus store, I believe. Good times.

Early the next morning I flew out, and that was that — Brisbane 2010 was over.

Overall, not a bad trip. Not a bad trip at all.

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! Bonus points if you can tell me where the photo above was taken from (I put it together with Pano for iPhone, although I’ve recently fallen in love with AutoStitch). Hint: it was taken facing towards the Brisbane CBD. I think.

In somewhat chronological order:

• Buying 12 donuts to take to Malaysia from Melbourne airport.
• Playing DoTA with cousins in some random internet cafe/gaming lounge.
• Riding a bike (sans helmet) across the streets of Sitiawan, both with a cousin and alone, to another cousin’s house to steal borrow his internets.
• Having a bus breakdown in the middle of nowhere, and being stuck there for hours. Having a greasemonkey (in the purest sense of the word, literally covered in grease from head to toe) climb into the engine bay and fix it for us some three hours later.
• Eating copious amounts of food in restaurants packed to the brim with people also celebrating Chinese New Year.
• Buying four decks of cards for a couple of Australian dollars in order to play such games like Warlords and Scumbags, Cheat, Hold Em’ poker, Blackjack, and other assorted games for which there are no english translations for.
• Finding out that two of the most popular shopping centres have seemingly shed a complete level of floor space, but also discovering that there’s now a whopping great big Tesco where there definitely wasn’t one before.
• Marvelling at how awesome battery life is on the iPhone 4 when you don’t have to be connected to mobile networks.
• Tasting the local KFC, finding it definitely isn’t as good as it is back home, but at the same time appreciating the cheesy wedges which aren’t available back home either.
• Consuming many slices of bread for lunch while at the same cousin’s house. Pretty sure I cleaned them out, but they had such an exquisite collection of spreads it was hard not to.
• Watching episodes of Nip/Tuck before sleeping.
• Playing and reviewing iOS games before actually going to sleep.
• Realising that the whole experience was infinitely better with almost all of my cousins there as well. I suspect it would have been quite boring otherwise.
• Finding and commenting on all the broken English spotted in department stores, printed text, and everywhere.
• Taking special trips to speciality cake shops to buy speciality foods with a special cousin.
• Packing a serious amount of activities into one and a half days in Penang.
• Walking across a four lane highway in order to get to the newly almost-completely-abandoned shopping mall on the other side, only to realise that sitting at the Starbucks would be a far more productive use of my time while waiting for my sister to get her hair done.
• Paying a visit to every Toys’R'Us in every shopping mall to see what the stock of Nerf guns was like.
• Occasionally buying a Nerf gun from Toys’R'Us.
• Spending a large majority of the trip thinking about getting a local SIM card for mobile data only to end up never actually getting one and spending the entirety of the trip constantly worrying about where and when my next Wi-Fi hit would be like the internet-addicted druggie I am.
• Obsessively unlocking my iPhone, tapping Settings, Wi-Fi, and looking for unlocked Wi-Fi networks to steal bandwidth from.
• Taking photos. Of everything. Occasionally wishing I had some more serious hardware than just an iPhone 4.
• Enduring hours of car travel on the way to Kuala Lumpur.
• Paying the equivalent of $20 Australian dollars for wireless internet access for three devices — MacBook, iPhone, iPod touch.
• Walking the entire Mid Valley Megamall in an afternoon. Going back the next day to check things out a little more thoroughly.
• Checking out the new Garden Mall. Being impressed at all the super-upper-class stores there, how clean the whole place was, how cool the touch-screen maps were, how old-school the Gap logo looked at the Gap store…
• Stuffing a million things into shopping baskets to take back home. Being unsure if any of it would actually make it back. Consuming half of it in the hotel.
• Breaking down over the fact that we never got to catch the KLIA train that takes you between terminals. Maintenance, apparently. On the plus side, we did travel to KLIA on the KLIA Express, supposedly the fastest train in South-East Asia.
• Watching movies on the plane on the way back.
• Arriving in Melbourne somewhat tired due to the red-eye the night before. Being immensely cranky at everything.
• Buying 36 Krispy Kreme donuts to bring back to Hobart.

Realised I should probably write about epic stuff more often. Malaysia 2011 falls into that category, but so does Brisbane 2010. That’s for another time.