Soooo cold...

Winter has come very suddenly here in Perth. Whilst there has been hardly any rain, the clear skies have made nights very cold. Over last weekend, overnight minimums were near freezing. This was snapped on Saturday 26 June, at 8AM, after I hung out the washing. It was probably warmer in my fridge .. hahaha...

Just finished Final Fantasy XIII

.....that's over 40 hours I will never get back. This disk is never going back into my PS3 .. what a croc of shite that was....

Sick of Driving

I thought I'd never say it, but I am finally sick of driving. The past few days have been very testing on the roads, I've probably spent at least 3 hours driving to and from work in the last few days.

Perth roads and its drivers are fucked. We have no population and the freeways and highways still end up as car parks. The people who designed these roads have had no foresight into the amount of traffic they now carry. WTF is with highways and traffic lights? Drivers can't seem to handle a little bit of rain and drive 20km/h under the speed limit. They pussyfoot off the lights like their powerful 4 cylinder will be a handful from a standstill.

Main Roads and their traffic information are useless. Check it before leaving for home and everything is peachy. Like fuck it is. The Kwinana Fwy northbound was backed up and putting along from before Canning Hwy heaps of times. No mention on their website. Their freeway speed signs aren't turned on. Big fucking help that is. The radio stations and their traffic report must get the same information cos they didn't help one bit.

Getting to work is a shit because of the amount of boats which have docked. It's taken over half an hour to get past a security checkpoint. Some speedhumps have also been erected to make it safer for motorcyclists. If they actually stayed in line instead of overtaking everyone in line, then they wouldn't have a fucking issue.

All this, along with a lousy salary review after working 2 years for a promotion is surely a sign to move on.

Got Metallica tickets

Got tickets to see them October 22nd here in Perth. Whilst the above is not the Metallica of today, this is the Metallica I wish to remember. Ah well, here's hoping they play mostly old stuff. Fuck yeah!

Edguy and Metallica in one year .. can we tempt Gamma Ray to come back down? I doubt it, but my fingers are secretly crossed.

Early Birthday Present

MetallicA have given me a birthday present. They are coming to Perth the day before my birthday! Whilst I now listen to other types of metal, they were once my favourite band and I will still go, and secretly hope they play all their old stuff and magically forget their new stuff (although their latest album isn't bad).

First Impressions of Final Fantasy XIII

Pros

• Looks pretty

Cons

• No random battles. FF is not FF without random battles. (FF12 sucks too)
  
• The story is told through the datalog and not through the cutscenes/dialog.
• You only control 1 character in battle. The others are NPCs.
• If you get KO'ed in battle, then game over. Pheonix Downs are to revive NPCs only.
• Hard to keep track of how much damage opponents take. Numbers are flying everywhere.
• Battles are boring atm. It's just spamming "auto" mode.
• No towns to explore/loot.. wtf is with that?

It really seems like Square Enix have dumbed down the FF franchise, trying to open it up to a wider audience. But I don't think it has worked. It's too complex for non Japanese RPG gamers, but too basic/shite for "hardcore" players.

If Square Enix keep this up, they are going to lose their throne in JRPGs very quickly. Mark my words.

I wish I had these knife skills

...but I don't cook anywhere near as much siu yuk/char siu/siu ngaap to get the proficiency...