Halloween Party

Okay, so I just came home from an awesome night with friends.  As mentioned in my previous post, we were planning to go to a Halloween party but weren't sure of which one to go to until last night. Choices: Attica, Opus, Republiq, Cubao X, Cream Party.

Costume

It was really difficult to think of a character that I wanted to be for Halloween since I didn't have much time to prepare.  I originally thought of coming as Luigi from the Mario Brothers but then again, I didn't know where I could find a jumper for a 6 ft tall person and I thought it would be a common choice for a lot of geeks. LOL.  I also considered being Timmy Turner since it's pretty easy to accomplish(Pink hat, Pink shirt) then I saw the perfect costume for me while browsing the interent.  I found this Jughead Jones costume (Jughead is a character from the Archie comics) and I thought I looked pretty awesome.  I like Jughead.  He's my favorite character in Archie.  

So with this inspiration, I started looking for stuff that I could use for Jughead's whoppee hat.  I found a tutorial online that involved a fedora hat.  I inverted the fedora hat and started cutting the sides to make it look like a whoppee hat. 

Whoppee!

For Jughead's top I bought a red long sleeve+round neck undershirt worth 200 pesos and cut out the letter S from an old white shirt and voila!

Costume complete!

Party time
I met up with Paul at Glorietta since we had to wait for Kristian (who bleached his hair by the way!).  When he arrived we all walked to Ted's condo and prepared for the Halloween Party.  There we also met Ron. :-)

Anyway, this is what I looked like

Jughead

Attica
At 11pm we decided to go to Attica at A-venue.  It was awkward to see another Jughead at the party and he had an Archie with him too :-|  I really thought that I would be the only one to go as Jughead :-(  We weren't able to take a lot of photos cause Ted accidentally left the memory card of his dSLR at the condo. Anyway, after one round of beer we decided to leave since it was really getting boring there and too crowded.

Ron, Ted, Paul

Highlight of Attica: Seeing that chic in the Tron costume and the 101 dalmatians with Cruella DeVille. Haha.

Cubao X
We then decided to go to Cubao X cause we felt the crowd there would be more fitting for us. Haha.  And indeed, we enjoyed it a lot more than Attica.  Cheap beer, great crowd, good music, and it was really spacious.  I even saw a lot of tumblr/twitter friends there for the first time.  Too bad I wasn't able to get photos with them.

Highlight of Cubao X: People calling me Jughead cause they loved my costume!  LOL Seeing Jon Snow and a lot of online friends. AND!!! Having this photo taken with Adele. Haha.

Jughead, Adele, Danny Phantom, Harry Potter, Pirate Ron!

After Cubao X we headed to Mister Kebab to eat.  Good times.  I should really think of my next halloween costume for next year. :-)

The Detention Pirates!

Last night was yet another fun quiz night at the Capricciosa restaurant at Greenbelt3.



The teams


There were more people than usual probably because everyone wanted to show up wearing awesome costumes.. but I didn't.  I only brought a red bandana and my friends Paul and Kristian created an eye patch for me following the pirates theme we talked about for our group.  Ted was missing cause he had to go to Baguio for work. Boo Ted!  Mia came with Carlo, her boyfriend.  She also tagged along a few friends and they all came ready to conquer the night.   Our group name for this week was The Detention Pirates.  Pirates arrrrrr!  Anyway, the other teams had pretty awesome costumes.  There was a Lara Croft, a slutty version of Snow White with her seven dwarfs, a redneck, a hipster zombie, a deer and others. At the end of the night, the best costumes were awarded.




Superbass!

 So going back to the quiz.  There were ten categories divided in 3 rounds. Each category had 8 questions.  Some of the categories involved killer songs(I owned the Superbass question! Look at the image on the left), candies(we hated this round cause we had to write the name candy given the slogan read out by the host), vampires(we hated this even more..UGH), tv show themes(I remembered Xena: The Warrior Princess!), word puzzles(Kristian owned this), guess that cosplay character(Amaterasu for the win!) and others. We used our joker in the Filipino haunted places round and we did pretty well.  We got 6/8 questions for that round. 

Despite doing pretty well all throughout the quiz, we still couldn't beat the regulars and the previous winners (Though I still believe our time will come.)  At the end of the quiz, we landed on the 4th spot which really isn't that bad.  We were in 3rd place in the first round, 2nd in the second round and 4th on the last round.  The joker really needs to be used wisely cause it can make or break the team score.  Out of the 11 teams who played, Urban Fervor won the quiz night.. again.

The scoreboard

There will be no quiz night next week because of the holidays but it will be back on the 9th of November.

Sorry for not talking much about the categories.  I might be attending a halloween party on Saturday and I still don't have a costume so I'm gonna end the post here and think of the perfect costume for myself. LOL

Good job Detention Group!

Later guys!

Trick-or-Treat

Halloween is just a few days away which means the kids are ready to put on their halloween costumes for the annual trick or treat!

It's amazing how popular this activity has become over the years.  When I was still a kid, people really didn't make a fuss about looking for costumes, candies or even coming up with stuff to scare people like pumpkins, scarecrows and what-not.  Back then, we Filipinos spent more time worrying about what food to bring at the cemetery come the 1st of November.  But now, being huge fans of the Western culture, we eventually turned into a society that spends both time and money to recreate this fun activity.


The mask

Last year at work, we had a trick-or-treat activity for the kids of the employees.  Teams had to put up scary booths and bring lots of candies hoping that in return, they would win the best booth award which was then decided on by the kids who came.  This year, something similar was done but the communication e-mail sent to us specifically mentioned not to scare the kids (Some of the teams became too imaginative last year to the point that it scared some of the kids and made them cry) and that they don't get to say which booth will win cause there are assigned judges to do that.  Anyway, with that instruction, our team decided to use the Smurfs as our theme for this year's trick-or-treat activity. 



So here are some photos of the booth and the team behind it..


Welcome!*

with Giant smurf Kia*

The Smurfs Village

Photobooth+ Mushroom house

Random photo with fence

I really do hope we win cause I'm pretty sure the judges, parents and the kids loved what we came up with. Good job team!


Good job team!*

*Thanks to my teammate Melissa for the photos*

Tomorrow is quiz night again at Capricciosa. See you there if you're coming!

Real Steel

I just got home from watching Real Steel at SM Mall of Asia with my dad and my elder brother.  We watched it on iMax which was a big mistake since it was just on 2D. (1200 pesos down the drain LOL).  The movie stars Hugh Jackman as Charlie Kenton and the story is set in the future where robot boxing is considered as one of the top sports in the world. (Move over, Manny Pacquiao).  The story revolves around a former boxer named Charlie Kenton who really wants to succeed in robot boxing and his son, Max Kenton who stays with him for the summer since his mother passed away.  The story will pretty much cover up all the action you want to see and the family touch that kids and parents would really love.

Anyway, the film was actually pretty good than I expected and here are some reasons why:

• Kids should have a say on things.  This is a kid empowering movie. There were countless scenes where Max made sense more than his father like that time when Charlie got Noisy Boy and decided to take on the main event match even if Max was insisting to take the undercard match.  Also there was that scene where Farra Lemcova wanted to buy Atom; Charlie got blinded by $200k offer while Max walked out and wanted to keep fighting with the robot.  Parents should listen to kids from time to time cause their minds are less f-ed up than what we adults usually have.
• Videogames are cool. The film highlighted that kids who play videogames rock!  In the movie, Max Kenton trained the sparring robot named Atom.  This robot  made a big buzz in robot boxing history at the end of the movie and I'm not gonna say why. So Max took charge of maintaining the robot and even modifying the robot's features. After seeing the movie, parents from now on should totally let their kids have their videogame time cause it might come in handy in the near future like in the movie. LOL
• Technology for the win. Product placement was all over the film.  If you missed the HP logos on-screen then you should get your eyes checked.  But seriously, robots are cool.  We should all get robots to do stuff for us.  We've been seeing these things on many films and I sure hope that there will be real robots that can actually do stuff and not just the once we see in Japan. (like that dancing robot)
• Asians are technogeeks. The creator of the robot Zeus was played by a Japanese character.  Even if he was a bad guy,  I love that Asians are stereotyped as techie and smart people.  (Glee reference: the grade A- is considered as the Asian F.) LOL

I gotta admit, when I saw the trailer of Real Steel a few months back, I thought the film would be a flop.   I love how films prove me wrong when I judge them by the trailer.  Watch Real Steel if you haven't! Cause courage is stronger than steel!

Detention Group Strikes..Out

I just got home from yet another quiz night at Capricciosa, Greenbelt 3.  Went there last week for the first time if you would recall.

The categories varied from songs with the word love in the title, celebrity break-ups, 90's cartoons, fairy tales, popular sidekicks and others.

This time, we wanted to do better so we invited more people to join the group. At the beginning, only Paul, Kristian and myself were playing since Ted was running late due to a meeting.  So we were miserably losing at the first two categories and then Mia tweeted that she wanted to come and join the Detention group.  She arrived during the third category of the first round followed by Czar and Adrian.  Kristian had to leave early since he had to go to work at 11:30. Ted arrived at the third round and we managed to catch up with the scores by perfecting the billboards along EDSA category.

Detention Group (10/19/11) L-R: Adrian, Vinch, Ted, Mia, Paul, Czar

At the end, we scored 46 which was better than last week's 43.  The winning team(Urban Fervor) scored 66.5 if I'm not mistaken (Note: This team was only composed of two people. Yes that's how good they are!)  In fairness, all of the other teams are really good.   It's really hard to compete with a bunch of trivia loving people.

Anyway, I still have work later at 8am.  Just to share, next week is going to be a lot of fun since it will be a Halloween-themed quiz night and everybody has to wear costumes.  We might need a little help in coming up with ideas cause we've been discussing this while playing. LOL

Oh the things I do for trivia.
Maybe I should go as Batman. LOL

*Thanks to Ted for the photo

Bound for Arkham City

I got this text from an unknown number on my way home.

It was from Datablitz! If you could remember my last post about Batman: Arkham City, I reserved a copy of the game so I'll be one of the first people to get it. LOL

Dun dun dun dun..

The game!

I got the game immediately after they texted me. The game is priced at 2195 pesos but if you buy it in cash, you get 95 pesos off. Not a bad deal.

Anyway, you should've expected that I won't waste time blogging about this. I'm gonna start playing now for Arkham City awaits!

I'm Batman!

iPhotography

Mwahaha

Two weeks ago, I purchased something from ebay.com.  The parcel arrived last Thursday and I saw the actual product yesterday when I got home.  The product is supposed to be a lens kit package for my iPhone. I own a digital single lens reflex(dSLR) camera and sure it takes high quality photos but it's just too darn big to carry around all the time especially when going outdoors.  Mobile phone companies do what they can with this concern by incorporating amazing camera hardware into the latest products they release.  Like with iPhone 4, the camera is pretty good at 5 megapixels although when you zoom into something, the quality of the photo usually suck.

So I immediately opened the box and these are the things found inside:

The contents

• 8x zoom lens
• Fish-eye lens
• Macro-lens
• Wide-angle adapter for the Macro lens
• Cleaning cloth
• Black cloth holder
• Mini tripod
• Back Cover

Back cover mounted on tripod

The back cover is used for the 8x zoom lens.  You just have to screw it in and then you're ready to go.   The fish-eye and macro+wide angle lens came with metal rings that you should mount on your iPhone's camera lens.  These lenses have magnetized rings that will stick to the metal ring mounted on your iPhone's camera lens.  You don't have to worry about mounting it cause it's just double sided tape.  What I did with the back cover and metal ring is that I put the ring on the back cover (where the 8x zoom should screwed in) so I won't have to remove the cover just to use the other lenses.  Note that when using the lens kit, the flash will obviously be covered up. So we're kind of limited in using this with light

So here are some test shots that I randomly took before publishing this post.

First, the 8x Zoom lens

Max zoom without the lens

With the 8x zoom lens

As you can see the quality of the photo with the lens is significantly better.  The only thing missing from this lens is the zoom-in and zoom-out capability.

Second, the macro lens

With the macro lens

Now that is just so awesome!  I will have to try this with several more objects.

Third, the wide-angle lens

Without the wide-angle lens

With the wide-angle lens

See the big difference?  This will be useful when taking photos of landscapes.

Lastly, the Fish-eye lens

With the fish-eye lens

This has got to be my favorite lens in the package.  Anything fish-eye is awesome. LOL

If you're wondering where you can get these lenses here in the Philippines, check out CD-R King cause I know they sell the zoom lens there.  As for the others, you might want to check out Greenhills and other places where they sell a lot of mobile phones.  I bought the kit online cause I really don't have the time to go to Greenhills cause it's way too far from where I live. Anyway, I hope that this will be worth the wait and the price (I bought the kit for around 2k together with the shipping).

I know this won't replace my dSLR but I can certainly use this when I'm too lazy to carry around a big camera.

That's all for now geeks!

ayOS5!

It was all over the world wide web when Apple's iOS5 got released this week.  On October 12, millions of iOS gadget-users waited for the iOS5 download to be available.  The iOS5 had several beta versions in the past months which was open only to the developers.  Being the impatient geek that I am, I paid a few dollars so that I could be part of the beta testing of the iOS5.  You might be thinking why I had to pay;  Apple iOS developers pay $99 to be part of the iOS developer program.  Since I didn't have $99 nor the intention to develop apps cause I really don't like programming(LOL), I paid someone who was already part of the program to register my Unique Device Identifier(UDID).  Once registered you can then install iOS5 on your device.  That's how it simple works.

So what's new with iOS5?

We already know about some of the new features of iOS5 like the Notification Center, Reminders, Twitter integration and iMessage but there are more features that we can be excited about.

Here's a video by redmondpie.com about the features you need to know about the latest iOS from Apple.

Pretty awesome!  Too bad Siri is exclusive for iPhone 4S.  Still hopeful that hackers will be able to port Siri to iPhone 4 though it may involve piracy and jailbreaking. (Boo? Yay? LOL)

Together with the release of the iOS5, Apple also now offers iCloud, OS X Lion with iCloud Support, Cards app for iOS, Find my Friends app for iOS, and others!

So are you on iOS5 now? (or as I like to call it ayOS5) If not, then I require you to upgrade! LOL

On a side note:  I'm so glad that a lot of people are on iOS5 now cause I used to have only one contact for iMessage when it was not yet released to the public.  So if you want to tell me something, you can reach me through iMessage at vinch0617@gmail.com

From Definition to Detention

I'm a big fan of trivia games like Jeopardy, Smarty Pants and Trivial Pursuit. I remember playing Jeopardy with my college blockmates during breaks, Smarty Pants on Wii at house get togethers and Trivial Pursuit in my old Windows mobile phone.  Thing is, I've always wanted to experience a quiz night against people I don't personally know.  It finally happened.



Where the geeks meet

My friends Paul and Kristian have been eating at the Capricciosa restaurant in Greenbelt3 for weeks.  This is not your ordinary Italian restaurant cause they hosts quiz nights on Wednesdays.  I got a text from Ted last Monday saying that Kristian and Paul wanted to have dinner with the gang at Capricciosa. When the quiz night came into the picture, I didn't think twice and immediately said yes.  At the back of my mind, I was hoping that playing the Game of Nerds everyday would be a big help and give us an advantage at the quiz night. LOL  I'll get into that later.  So yesterday Paul, Kristian, Ted and myself met up at Greenbelt3 despite the stormy weather to have fun and test our stock knowledge at the Capricciosa quiz night. 

How to join

Basically, you just have to be there 9pm onwards and tell the waiters that you want to join the quiz night.  Also, to be able to participate you would have to consume at least 1000 pesos worth of their food which really isn't bad since it is a restaurant and more often than not, people go there to eat and not participate in quiz nights. LOL

Before game starts the waiter will ask for a group name.  Of course you wanna sound cool and all but it really is a hard thing to decide on.  So Paul got on the internet to look for a random company name generator.  We agreed that the first generated name would be our team name.  Dun dun dun dun... And our team was called "The Definition Group." I know, it's so random!

The waiters will then give you your whiteboard and marker where the answers should be written.  Then the mechanics of the game will be discussed.

Rules and Mechanics

Categories

The game is divided into three rounds.  First round with 3 categories, second round with 4 categories and the last round with another 3 categories.  At the right side, you can see the category board.  Don't be fooled by the names of the categories cause they can be really tricky. Each category has 7 or 8 questions and the type of quiz can be audio, visual or just plain questions.  Also, teams have the option to use the"joker" for one category all throughout the game.  Using the joker means that for a certain category, double points will be given to the team for every correct answer.  So teams must be wise in using the joker since they can only use it once and they should tell the host if they want to use it before proceeding with the quiz.
For each round there will be a winner (there really is a corresponding prize! Teehee).  The overall team winner at the end of the quiz night of course gets bragging rights plus their team name is written in the restaurant's quiz night weekly winners board.  The second placers get to host a category in the quiz night in the coming week.

Game time

Final scores

So it was game time and we were really excited to play since it was our first time there.  There were 6 teams all in all but one team had to leave so 5 teams were left competing.  The other teams are regulars of the quiz night and from what I remember only 2 teams were new including our team.

I guess I won't go into detail on the quiz itself so that you would want to try it out for yourself but what I can tell you is that the questions can sometimes surprise you.  For one category we didn't get any right answers cause it really was difficult(talking about names of mascots of popular brands like Chester Cheetah of Cheetos).  Another funny thing I'd like to share is that the host kept calling our team the Detention group not the Definition group. LOL But hey, the Detention group name sounds cooler than the Definition group name.

At the end, we didn't win, but we were proud of what we were able to accomplish since it was our first time and we didn't finish last.  (LOL consolation and flowery words to console ourselves!) Also, we were the only team with 4 members.  Other teams had more than 5 members so more thinking caps were on.

Overall, the quiz night was an awesome experience.  I'm not a food blog so I won't divulge much on the food that we ate but it was delicious and priced reasonably.  Also during the quiz, everyone was so competitive and smart yet they all seemed very friendly and fun.  For sure, The Definition Detention group (we are going to use this new name) will be back for more and we will be brining more people to play for our team.

The Detention Group! (L-R: Ted, Me, Kristian, Paul)

See you at the next Quiz Night @ Capricciosa Greenbelt3 geeks and nerds!

May the force be with us all and keep those thinking caps on.

**Thanks to Ted and Paul for the photos!

Geekgasm Alert: Avengers Trailer

The new Avengers Trailer is out! No words can express how excited I am for this movie.  Marvel has done a good job in building up the excitement over the years.  Avengers Assembleeee!

Here is the awesome trailer!






The Avengers is the ultimate Marvel superhero movie.  Cinemas will turn into nerd/geek conventions.  This is the culmination of awesomeness.

Here's the synopsis (from trailers.apple.com/trailers/marvel/avengers/)

Synopsis

Marvel Studios presents in association with Paramount Pictures "Marvel's The Avengers"--the Super Hero team up of a lifetime, featuring iconic Marvel Super Heroes Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow. When an unexpected enemy emerges that threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, Director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment effort begins. Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner and Samuel L. Jackson, and directed by Joss Whedon, "Marvel's The Avengers" is based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series "The Avengers," first published in 1963 and a comics institution ever since. Prepare yourself for an exciting event movie, packed with action and spectacular special effects, when "Marvel's The Avengers" assemble in summer 2012. In "Marvel's The Avengers," superheroes team up to pull the world back from the brink of disaster when an unexpected enemy threatens global security.

 For more info about the movie visit http://avengers.marvel.com

God Bless you, Joss Whedon! You are golden. LOL

Vintage!

The dirty and the clean

So today I was rummaging through our shoe rack to find my brown boat shoes that needed some cleaning then I saw my dad's old Sperry top-siders looking dirty and unused.  I got the best idea and I took it out with my boat shoes and started cleaning it too.  I never really liked these kinds of shoes until I realized how awesome they feel when you wear them.  Even if they're really old they still look great and I have my dad to thank for dad for being so caring with stuff. LOL.

I asked my dad if I could have them and he said yes.  Yay new vintage shoes! I wonder how old these shoes are. LOL

Ready to be used again!

And yes geeks are allowed to like fashion too.

Tomorrow, I'll be having dinner with a few of my friends for trivia night. Looking forward to that!  Lightsabers out!

Lightning is missing

You are awesome

Cloud, Aerith, Squall, Ramza, Yuna, Zidane, Tidus, Lightning and others.  You probably recognize these names as the playable characters in the Final Fantasy series by Square Enix.  It’s probably one of the longest running and most popular multi-platform game series there is.  From different settings to different gameplays, the Final Fantasy games for me are the best kind of role-playing games to play.  With creative/well thought of stories and really awesome characters, you could never go wrong and you won’t get disappointed with these games.  Having amazing graphics also helps!

The FF XIII logo

The last Final Fantasy game I played was Final Fantasy 13 in the PS3 platform.  Of course I was amazed by the graphics of the game and I got even more excited about the story.  It’s the second FF game that puts a female as the main character if I’m not mistaken. (The first one was Final Fantasy X-2 where Yuna was the lead character).  If you’ve played the game I’m sure you’re already familiar with the paradigm shifts and how they work.  That’s something that they started with FF XIII.  After finishing the game, I never really thought that there would be continuation of the story or at least I thought it would have to do something with Vanille and Fang who became crystals after saving the world.

So yeah, a new FF XIII game is coming out next year.  We all might have been anticipating the FF XIII Versus game (that's taking forever to get released!) but this new game is actually a continuation of the FF XIII game featuring Lightning. 

What we know so far
FF XIII-2 happens three years after FF XIII and in the previews, everyone thinks Lightning is dead except for Serah, her younger sister.  Then when New Bodhum town gets attacked by monsters, Serah get saved by Noel and the two will set on a journey to find where Lightning is.  New trailers of the game gives us more details about the story.  Here is a video of the new UK trailer of the game released last month.

On a side note:  I'm not a fan of Charice. I don't know how her song got selected for the game. Ugh

So it's nice to see Hope and Snow still in the story but I don't know if they will be playable. As for Lightning, her character is darker than ever.  Speaking of dark,  I have a feeling that this game will have a more serious and darker feel (Probably because there's no Vanille :( yet).

Gameplay
The ATB(Active Time battle) and paradigm shifts are still there but the "Cinematic Action" part of the fight scenes is something we should look forward to.  What will happen if we fail to press the sequence of buttons showing on the screen? LOL We have yet to find out what other changes they have made with the game play.

Square Enix has announced that the game will hit the stores in North America on January 31, 2012 and other countries will follow after that.  The games will be ported into the PS3 and XBOX 360 platforms.

For more info about the game visit http://finalfantasy13-2game.com

So, are you as excited as I am?  (Seriously, I'm still more excited about the Final Fantasy 13 Versus game)

Siri-ously?

So we all know about Apple's new iPhone 4s.  It's an improved version of the iPhone 4 with several upgrades such as the camera, chipset and that voice assistant feature called Siri.

What is Siri?
Siri a pretty rad application that lets you control your iPhone based on what you tell it to do.  More or less it makes you think that your iPhone has a mind of its own and can understand what you're saying.

What can it do?
It's basically your own personal secretary. You can tell it to:

• send messages
• read messages
• schedule appointments
• play songs
• tell you something about the weather
• give you info on the traffic situation
• give you movie scheds
• find the nearest restaurants

and others.  It's on beta right now and will be released with iOS5 on October 12th.

Brief Background of Siri
For people who might not know, Siri used to be available in the App Store for free and it was used to search for nearby restaurants, movie schedules and other useful information you might need.  Apparently, after the announcement of iPhone 4s, Siri disappeared from the App Store.  Here's a video of the old Siri app in action.





And now to compare, here's the promotional video of the new Siri





They've made a lot of improvements, from the UI and the basic functionalities of the application. Pretty cool huh?  It's a nice feature that you may want to have but I don't think people now will need it unless you're handicapped like the blind woman shown in the video.  This really won't make me buy the iPhone 4s because I'm sure iPhone 4 users/developers will do whatever it takes to port the new Siri to iPhone 4.  Let's wait and see for updates.

So the question now is, are you Siri-ously buying the iPhone 4S for this if you're already using an iPhone 4?

Game of Nerds

What's the difference between a geek, nerd, dweeb and a dork?  I think people often can't tell much of the difference especially with geeks and nerds. Plus, I assume everyone has their own definition of each word.

So here's a venn diagram to show the difference between the four.  It's pretty self-explanatory. LOL

Image from here

Point: So as you can see, geeks are not social retards. LOL

Anyway, the reason for this post is to share and ask everyone to play the Game of Nerds  with me.  Basically, Game of Nerds is a website (http://www.gameofnerds.com) where you can test your trivia knowledge on different categories.  You can play with friends and compete with other users.  It's a venue where trivia maniacs meet to prove who the best is.

After logging in

So the categories that you can choose from are:

1. Science fiction movies and TV
2. Fantasy movies and TV
3. Action and cult movies
4. Science fiction literature
5. Fantasy literature
6. Computer and video games
7. Board/card/role-playing games
8. Hardware and gadgets
9. Computer software
10. The internet
11. Biology
12. Chemistry
13. Physics
14. Astronomy
15. Math and numbers

Also, you can contribute to the pool of questions and submit your own trivia.  I've tried playing and it is really fun.  You play with the coins you get and after signing up you get 50 coins.  You consume 3 coins every time you play and I think you get bonuses if you reach certain scores throughout the game.

So what are you waiting for? Add me up and let's play! My username is geekosaur.

You can use this link so that I can get a coin bonus.

www.gameofnerds.com/?ref=b9b16f2

Looking forward to play the Game of Nerds with you!

The Dark Knight in Arkham City

Image from here

Who doesn't know The Dark Knight?  I'm sure every person claiming to be a geek knows who he is cause Batman is one of the most popular comic book/superhero on the DC Comics Franchise.  Also, I'm pretty sure you've seen two of the Batman Trilogy movies starring Christian Bale and directed by  Christopher Nolan.  There was Batman Begins in 2005 and (probably the best Batman movie ever) The Dark Knight in 2008. The third installment of the trilogy will be out in theaters next year and it is entitled The Dark Knight Rises. Random trivia: After the Batman Trilogy, Warner Bros. wants to do a Justice League film. So that's good news for all the DC fans out there. (I'm more of a Marvel kid)

In 2009, Batman: Arkham Asylum was released for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows platforms. It's loosely based on the comic book Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth published in October 1989 where Batman pretty much encountered all the crazies inside Arkham Asylum like The Joker and that annoying Croc.  I just have to say that  I LOVED THAT GAME TO BITS!  It's one of the best games I've played in my PS3 primarily because I got that legit feeling that I'm Batman! (Reading that out loud made me remember a specific Big Bang Theory episode where Sheldon says he's Batman)




Going back to what I was saying, the gameplay is awesome especially those parts where you sneak up on enemies. LOL The 3D glasses that came with the game wasn't bad at all provided that you use it when you turn on the 3D mode of the game.

Last year, the much-awaited sequel of Batman: Arkham Asylum was announced and this time, Batman goes to Arkham City itself.  Here's a teaser of Batman: Arkham City.





What's so good about this new game is that Batman isn't the only playable character. Apparently, Robin and Catwoman are also in for all the action at Arkham City. I suggest you go ahead and Google your way to the video gameplay with Catwoman and Robin as the character.

Release date of Batman: Arkham City is set on October 18th. I've already reserved a copy at Datablitz Mall of Asia. Hopefully, I'll be the first people to get the game and I'm probably gonna update you when I do get the game.

Oh last, here are 17 awesome facts about Batman: Arkham City that you need to know or else you'll miss half of your life.





Geekosaur roars cause he wants this game so badly.  He might not be physically the strongest or most powerful member of the Justice League but his gadgets, brains and money makes up for it. Lol

Rest in peace, Steve

Steve Jobs(1955-2011)
Steve Jobs, the former CEO and co-founder of Apple passed away today. He was 56. This is a sad day for all.

Apple's website put up an image on their homepage and created a tribute page. You can check it out at http://www.apple.com/stevejobs

Rest in peace, Steve. You should be proud of what you've left this world. Thank you.

image of Steve Jobs taken from Apple.com

Game of Thrones

My iPhone's ringtone
I love Game of Thrones. The main theme is my ringtone and it makes me feel that I'm in Westeros playing the game of thrones with all the characters. Also, it's not that obvious that I'm a bit obsessed about GoT judging by my blog's banner. LOL burnnnnn.

Okay so I found out about GoT through my awesome friends from high school, Lee and Jolo(shout out to you two if you're reading!). After watching the first season months ago, I immediately bought the book set (although I still have to buy the final book -Dance with Dragons). It sucks that I haven't finished reading the first book cause I barely have time to read these days although I promised myself that I would finish it and the second book (Clash of Kings) before the HBO series resumes next year.

Based on what I've seen so far, my favorite characters are Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen and Tyrion Lannister. Jon Snow for having the mysterious bastard background meaning he might surprise us sooner or later, Dany for her awesome transformation from princess to fierce Khaleesi and Tyrion for his wit and humor. Obviously, people loathe Joffrey cause he looks like a retard (Add Viserys there too even though he's dead, LOL). My favorite houses so far are House Stark and Targaryen. But if I were to swear allegiance to one house, I'd choose the dragons. Random fact: I keep the Targaryen sigil as my iPhone's wallpaper. Plus I've been really trying to study and speak the Dothraki with the help of the PDF files available online. Google is our friend.

In relation to reading about the Dothraki language, I used to think that Khal Drogo had the easiest role cause he didn't have to memorize anything since nobody really knew that a real language was created for the series. Then again, after reading through the Dothraki language, I'd say that it's a tough job to portray a role where you have to learn a completely different language. Hands down to Jason Momoa for pulling it off! I won't ever forget this awesome scene where he promised that he'd get the throne for the Khaleesi.

What I love about Game of Thrones is that you can choose sides. You can either side with the Starks, Lannisters, Targaryens, and the other houses in the 7 kingdoms. There is no clear "protagonist" and "antagonist" cause they all have rightful and valid claims to the "throne". I hope they somehow find a way to bring Sean Bean back. Haha. He's awesome.

I cannot wait for the next season. For real! George R.R. Martin must feel great to have come up with such a great book series. Anyway, Ser Geekosaur shall end the post with a video of what they claim to be the leaked intro of GoT season 2.

Winter is Coming.

Anha vezhven, Anha khal. (I am great, I am king). Goodnight!

iPhone4S announced, no iPhone5 yet

So I'm a bit disappointed that Apple didn't announce any iPhone 5 on their Let's Talk iPhone event today. Instead, they just announced the iPhone 4s which they are now calling "The most amazing iPhone yet." Sure, it might be the most amazing iPhone yet but we still want to see the iPhone 5. Knowing that something better already exists can't really make us believe that the iPhone 4s is the most amazing iPhone yet. Well that's just what I think, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have the same ideas as me.

So what's new with iPhone 4s compared to iPhone 4?

In the past months, rumors said that a lite version of the iPhone 4 will be released and that it will be called iPhone 4s. If you will look at the phone comparison from Apple's website, it would seem that iPhone 4s is a much powerful version of the iPhone 4. Why?

From this screenshots taken from the comparison of iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s, we will see that the iPhone 4s has the new built in assistant app called Siri. Also, the iPhone 4s has an 8 megapixel camera that has face detection against iPhone 4's 5 megapixel camera. Also, it's video recording can shoot to up to 1080p against iPhone 4's 720p. Another difference is the chip they used for the iPhone 4s. It's running on a dual core A5 chip which means the iPhone 4s is a lot quicker and can handle more graphic intensive applications.

The iPhone4s will be released on October 14th in the US and internal memory varies from 16GB, 32GB and 64GB.


In other iPhone related news, the iOS5 together with the more or less 200 new features will be released to the public on October 12 with the new iCloud. Some of the new features they announced earlier this year were iMessage, Reminders, Notfication Center and the WiFi sync. One feature they mentioned is the "Find my Friends" app which tells you how far your friends (who are also using iPhones) are and Siri their built in voice assistant.

Boohoo, still looking forward to that iPhone 5. Haha People will never be satisfied with technology. The people of Earth are all becoming technogeeks. Hurrah!

The Awesome Sauce of Terra Nova

Are you a fan of Jurassic Park and Avatar? Then you might want to check out this new science fiction television series from Fox called Terra Nova.

Terra Nova begins in the year 2149 when mankind's existence on Earth is threatened by overpopulation and scarce resources such as air. People are only allowed to have two kids in the family and use oxygen masks to breathe well. To address this problem and save all of humanity, scientists discovered a rift in the time-space continuum that can bring people back to prehistoric Earth which is sort of an alternate reality. To be chosen to go to Terra Nova, you are either selected through some sort of lottery or contacted by authorities since you have something to contribute to the new community.

The story focuses on the Shannons, a family of who got caught having five family members instead of four. Jim, the father of the family took the fall and was imprisoned for a couple of years. To make this a tad more complicated, Elizabeth, the mother of the family got selected to go to Terra Nova because of her good reputation as a doctor but the catch is that she can only bring the first two children with her. With this in mind, she managed to create a plan to get her husband out of prison and bring the third child with them to Terra Nova.
The Shannon family starts a new life at Terra Nova and they have to deal with carnivorous dinosaurs and the Sixers, a rebel group of people from the sixth pilgrimage fighting what the people of Terra Nova are trying to accomplish.

What I think of Terra Nova

I've seen the pilot episode of Terra Nova and I really like it. I like the combination of dinosaurs, a little bit of action and of course the rift in the time-space continuum. That's just totally awesome. Also, dinosaurs are just cool and I would want to see them in real life too.

Also, you'll see that bad guy from Avatar playing a similar role in this TV Series. His name is Stephen Lang. He probably loves roles like that too much. Haha. The casting is also good. I'll even mention a tweet by one of my friends which made a lot of sense.


Terra Nova airs every Monday in the US which means, us Filipinos can download it on Tuesdays. ROAR!

Images of Terra Nova were taken from Google Images

Let's Talk iPhone

So another Apple iPhone unveiling event is coming up. All Apple fanboys/girls including myself should be feeling really excited about this event. Yay Apple!

What you can see here in the left part of this post is the promotional ad/invitation to the said event. It's primarily saying that the event will be on Tuesday, October 4th at Apple's Cupertino, California campus and the event will begin at 10am. They threw in the call icon there since the catchphrase is "Let's Talk iPhone." Pretty clever and creative i must say. And I also found out that the map actually points out to the location of the event which is the Apple headquarters.

So what are the things that we should look forward to in the said event?

Tim Cook. The new Apple CEO.

The iPhone5 and iPhone4s. New models of iPhones. What do they look like? What are the specs? Do they match the alleged image leaks that surfaced on the internet like this one?

The iOS5.

I've been using the iOS5 beta for a few months now and I'm pretty happy with it especially with iMessage although I currently have only one contact since not everyone is on the iOS5 Beta. I really want to see what the final features of iOS5 are and I want to confirm if the speech recognition has improved like what the rumors are saying. The Twitter integration and the Notification Center are some of the things that I find useful. Also the wireless syncing to iTunes has been pretty good although it's always faster to sync with the cable.

iCloud

Apple's cloud service which is an over the air repository of your files.

iPods.

What will happen to the iPods? Will there be new ones or will they retire some of them?

These are just some of the things we can expect from the upcoming October 4 event. We may have heard much from the rumor mill but I think Apple can still surprise us in one way or another. (They always do right?)

Next question after the unveiling would be, are you gonna buy the iPhone5 or iPhone4s? If I would answer that question, I'd say no since my iPhone4's pretty new and I believe that when you get an iPhone you should skip the next one since there won't be much difference. I hope that buying philosophy will be applicable!