slosh down the pepper!

Get reel.

I have been playing Restaurant City in Facebook for a number of weeks. This game is easy; get ingredients on a daily basis, upgrade the menu, build a productive and effective workforce, increase the popularity, expand the restaurant, and repeat the cycle again and again.. Very simple but pretty addictive. I could spend a few hours a day just feeding my team of 7 employees, actively trading with fellow restaurateurs, and half the time staring at the cartoon characters moving abouts doing their everyday chores and duties.



Tempest, on seeing my enthusiasm in the flash game, offered to download a copy of Sims 2 as soon as I got my Sony Vaio VGN-FW35G last week. He convinced me that I will grow to like the relatively complicated bundle. Indeed, in the first hour, I couldn't manoeuvre my characters fast enough or as smoothly as Tempest would like it, and we got into quite a bit of squabbles, further causing me to dislike the game.

Heh, that didn't make him give up. He silently copied the game from his PC to a portable hard disk and transferred it to my laptop. He booted up the game, inviting me to start building my own family and slowly hooking me onto the game.

I don't have a good sense of spaces and directions. But the game locates the family in a 3D house and allows the player multiple angles to view the members at work. In fact, being able to shift the camera angle agilely aids in quicker decision-making, and possibly a more joyful experience when one is able to zoom in and out of the characters whenever wanted. He tried to teach me to use the shortcut keys on the keyboard, but I couldn't get used to it and reverted to moving the mouse around furiously. The only key i frequently use is "P", to pause the game and input the actions for each character before resuming the time factor in the game.

It is such a delight to see them getting promoted, achieving new levels of skills, and buying new items in the house! I derive joy from watching the family progress onto new stages of life. But for Tempest, I believe he is having more fun designing and building the house. The distinct differences between an INTJ and INTP!



Hours of gaming from 11am to 2am (today), with intermittent breaks for lunch, dinner, toilet breaks, drinks etc is proof of my addiction. Somehow the game caught onto my emotions as I imagined myself and Tempest living out the dreams and motivations of those characters. In the game, I was Sling who took up the 'slacker' career path that sees me moving on to different jobs with odd hours. This is akin to the real life now as I do the London shift at work. There are few opportunities for me to interact with Tempest unless he sacrificed his sleep and waits for him to come online at 1 am, resulting in him sleeping at unearthly hours. I do feel guilty for messing up his biological clock, but it is a compulsory evil... Let's hope this won't last beyond 9 months...

If I really exist in The Sims, I probably will be quite happy. Sling doesn't have a problem in studying hard or working diligently to achieve the next level of competence in skills like creativity, cooking, cleaning or repairing stuffs. It's taken for granted that you will learn it once you spend the stipulated amount of time practicising or reading up on the relevant materials. No such thing as 'talent' or 'stupidity'. There may be fire hazards, but strangely, toddlers that roamed around the house at night don't drown in bathtubs, knock against the furniture, or drop into the toilet bowl. People don't get sick either. :-) Or maybe that's in another expansion pack. Till then.

posted by slingwoof @ 5/26/2009 02:45:00 AM 1 comments

Back, with a vengeance!

After a hiatus of almost a year (well, with a few posts intermittenly), I was toying with the idea of restarting my blog yesterday. I relish those moments when I had to search within myself for the rationale behind my behavior or thoughts, those times when I googled and wikipdia-ed just so to ensure that I got the right facts, and those days when I ran through my posts to remember the events that happened in the past.

It brings back a smile as I scroll down to the entries that detailed our travels to Bangkok, Hanoi, and recently Ho Chi Minh (which I didn't have the stamina to progress past Day 2), elaborate birthday surprises, and even little things like cutting Tempest's hair for the first time, eating a specially-prepared-for-me breakfast etc. With a blog to immortalise memories, those good times spent with loved ones are made even better :)

Anyway, the strongest motivation to restart blogging on a regular basis results from my rotation to another team at work. We refer that to the 'London Shift', working from 3pm to 12mn. Following the GMT wasn't too bad since I get to sleep late and wake up late (something that I always do during the weekends), save for the cruel fact that I shall never meet my friends on a week-day evening. I can't go to the gym after work cos it closes at 11pm, and I don't feel like going in the mornings simply because I don't feel like it.

Sigh.. In the end, I spent most of my free time in front of my laptop, staring at Restaurant City and aimlessly net surfing to kill time. It took 3 weeks of repeatedly doing this before I feel motivated enough to do something else, something more constructive and exercises the brain. Thence, the thought of blogging again. I'll see how long I can sustain this habit. For now, welcome me back :)

posted by slingwoof @ 5/21/2009 11:47:00 AM 1 comments