I couldn’t decide who to give the limited edition UNSC Spartan vest to. I felt everyone was so deserving and I didn’t feel like allowing apathetic Mr Randomiser to pick, so I opened it up for a vote in Club Morte.

I printed the entries out (minus the names of the entrants), showed them to my friends when I met them yesterday, and asked them to pick a winner each. What a cool idea!

And the emerging winner is…

*** Splitz ***

Congratulations!!

Fireworks for you!!!

And a UNSC vest!!

Here’s his winning entry!

Why I need the vest?

1) To add to my collection of Halo collectibles.
2) I love vests~!!!
3) Because its limited edition, and even more so since it belongs to Sherylara.

Why I deserve the vest?

1) I bought XBOX just for HALO, and have been a great fan since then.
2) Completed Halo and Halo 2 four times, Halo3 twice and cant wait for Halo Wars & Halo:ODST.
3) I went to NewYork just to purchase the following:
*Halo 3 Master Chief Field of Batttle Figure Kotobukiya
*Halo 3 LEGO Kubricks MASTER CHIEF 4 Figure Spartan 117
*Halo 3 12″ INCH MASTER CHIEF ACTION FIGURE MCFARLANE
*Halo 3 LEGENDARY COLLECTION “MASTER CHIEF” FIGURE
*Halo 3 LEGENDARY COLLECTION “ARBITER” FIGURE
*Halo 3 LEGENDARY COLLECTION “BRUTE CHIEFTAN” FIGURE

I will be contacting you for the collection of your prize.

See you in GGF next week!

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Woot! I just found my new favourite hangout!

Well, okay, I didn’t find it. It found me. Haha!

I was recently invited to check out Game Haven, an entire building made for gamers and for people who love having fun!

It houses 160 PCs for LAN gaming, six private rooms for console gaming and one function room for gaming parties (as well as a pub and restaurant).

What a gaming haven!

It’s not officially launched yet, although it is already open for business, so me and my friends are one of the first people to preview the place! Yay!

Waiting at the lobby for all my late-coming friends.

We were first shown the function room, which holds 10 PCs and one LCD TV for console gaming.

There was a little kid’s birthday party going on and they looked like they were having the time of their lives.

Guitar Hero World Tour was set up for play on the TV but I think the kids were more interested in the balloons at that point of time.

The Goonfather wanted to crash the party but we all pulled him away before he started traumatising the kids beyond repair.

By the way, the party room (with 10 PCs) is also very suitable for clan training sessions. I envy professional gamers! I want to be really good at FPS, but it’s just not my thing. All I’m good at is being a sitting duck.

We went on to tour the PC floors.

In the background, my friends studying are the PCs intently.

The guys just couldn’t wait to get started on some heavy-duty FPS action.

But we adjourned to our private gaming room first. Our room was called Thunderbluff. All the rooms are named after World of Warcraft zones! There’s, like, Ironforge, Silvermoon, Undercity and so on. Coolness!

Our room had two PCs, as well as one TV set up with a Wii. We decided to play Wii because we don’t have Wii at home.

My friends sitting around gawking at the TV and doing nothing else. Sometimes they do the darnedest things.

Anyway, we finally got started with a round of Wii Sports.

First round: The Goonfather vs. Morte!

Since only four people can play with the Wii at once, two guys parked themselves at the PC table. All the latest and most popular shooters and MMORPGs are installed in all PCs in the building.

So guess what game Unker Kell started up when he commandeered the PC?

None.

He logged in to Facebook.

!!!!!!##$$!!!!

We all yelled at him, “We are in a gaming centre! We have free play of all the games available and you’re checking your Facebook!!”

“What’s wrong with Facebook?” he tried to argue.

“Facebook is not a game!”

“Weeeell….. Facebook has games in it. Sort of.”

Anyway, you’ll have to excuse him. It’s just in his nature to act like a moron sometimes.

We played many more Wii games through the afternoon.

Our favourite (not shown in picture) was Raving Rabbids 2. It’s one of the best party games out there, allowing up to four players to make fools of themselves at once.

You’re a roll of pink toilet paper if you come in last!

We took turns to challenge one another while also taking turns to play Counter-Strike on the PC. It’s kind of a neat arrangement!

Here’s a video of us playing Wii and being very, very noisy (you have been warned):

We were also served snacks from the Honshitsu Japanese Buffet Restaurant (located in the building).

Yummy!

The restaurant serves a special tea-time buffet at only $15++ for adults ($10++ for children) and we were contemplating eating there first before gaming, but that would have compromised two hours of our gaming time, so we decided to just order in. Heheh.

The best parties in the world are when you put food and gaming together!

After a few hours, we decided to abandon the Wii and troop up to the PC floor to indulge in our blood lust.

We were given eight PCs in a cluster so we could physically yell at each other while we fragged each other.

Happening!!

Unker Kell really wanted to play Left 4 Dead, the popular survival horror FPS, but he got severely overruled because we started off with Call of Duty 4 and we all got so hooked on it we couldn’t stop playing it.

We played till 7:50 pm, by which time we had to leave because we had a dinner reservation at 8 pm at Funan, which is just a short walk/drive away.

Even then, the guys, especially The Goonfather, didn’t want to stop playing.

“Can we skip dinner?” he asked.

I would have been happy to oblige, normally, but we were going to lo hei that night and I wasn’t going to miss my yu sheng!

By the way, Game Haven also has a pub called Nova! There are gaming stations inside the pub!!! COOOL!

We were given a tour of the premises. It only opens in the evening, so we had the whole pub to ourselves in the afternoon. Woohoo!

The entrance to the Nova.

A promotional shot of Nova’s gaming corner.

Nova has a section where you’ll be able to enjoy Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 gaming while drinking and partying. Is that cool or what?

There’s also an annex pub on the rooftop of the building which you can access through a staircase on the 6th floor.

Another promotional photo.

Well, we visited the place in the day so it looked like this:

Alfresco area on the rooftop.

The view is quite nice at night!

As we walked out of the building to go for dinner, the guys started saying, “Hey, let’s come back after dinner!”

Honestly, I wouldn’t have minded.

The rates are rather reasonable for LAN gaming — $1.50 an hour for Game Haven + SAFRA members, $1.90 for SAFRA members and $2.50 for guests.

They also have discounted rates and promotions from time to time. Anyway, you can find out more details at the www.gamehaven.sg.

We’re definitely going back again!

Game Haven is located at 29 Carpenter Street, very near Clarke Quay MRT Station. Click here for map and transport directions.

If you ever see me there, come up to me to say hi! Perhaps we could play some games together! ;)

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For the usual gaming news, updates and miscellaneous anecdotes, there’s always here. I will announce contest winner tomorrow. Don’t go away!! (Yes, camp here for 24 hours. lol.)

Happy Friday the 13th!

The following post first appeared on Sheylara.com on August 19, 2004.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

On Monday, I was recording my song when I accidentally kicked my computer.

It wasn’t a violent kick. More like a nudge, really.

Instantly, the computer shut itself down and there was this scary sizzling sound with occasional sparks, sounding like the sparklers children play with during Chinese New Year except much louder.

After 786 hours of very loud sizzling (actually it lasted only about a minute but it felt like a lifetime because I thought the PC was going to explode in my face), it suddenly stopped sizzling and then a smell of burning rubber wafted through the air.

My first reaction was: F**K.

You must excuse my extreme display of emotion because my PC is as precious to me as any of my bodily organs (except my appendix because everyone knows it’s redundant, but, even so, I would still prefer very much to have it intact in my body).

After calming myself down, I tried to boot the computer up again but it just refused to get turned on, no matter how I stroked it or whispered sweet nothings at it.

I thought maybe something had come loose, so I checked all the plugs connected to the back of the CPU. More coaxing didn’t yield favourable results. I thought for sure the machine had gone into early retirement by incinerating itself.

And the following minutes were, like: MY PC IS DEAD! NOOOOOoooooo~!

Being a computer hardware idiot, I didn’t have the inclination to perform an autopsy, preferring instead to rely on the experts.

So I called upon the mighty, fearsome Dragon, who claims to like eating women (possibly more than chicken), but who kindly agreed not to eat me if I promised to introduce him to Selina (of Taiwanese pop trio S.H.E.) when I become famous.

He very nicely agreed to fit me into his very busy schedule of chomping distressed damsels, despite not being able to eat me.

Mission: Ressurect Sheylara’s Comptuer was a total success!

Dragon discovered that the plug had come loose on this power regulator thing which I swear I didn’t even know existed (even though it was probably lying amidst the jungle of snaking cables next to the CPU).

And, suddenly, this mysterious, ethereal voice spoke to me in a very melodramatic manner: “You have come of age, my child. Stand tall and bear your mark of pride well, for, truly, you are now a certified bimbo!”

Well, who cares, anyway.

My PC is not dead and I didn’t get eaten and I am back online! That’s all that matters.

What’s more, I found 10 cents while taking the picture above. Check out the left edge of the picture.

Here’s a closer look.

Blogging pays! Literally!

The audition grind continues (see Part 1)…

The callback audition was a lot easier because I was given a script to learn and it wasn’t a monologue.

Again, I had to wear 70s fashion, so I went and bought myself another dress. I decided not to wear that first dress again because I think I look atrocious in it.

Here’s my new dress:

It costs about $50 or so. Can’t remember exactly. I think it looks a lot better than the first one, although I’m not sure if it’s any more “correct” than the first.

I felt very self-conscious wearing it to the audition and then going home in it. It feels more like a costume than something a normal woman would wear out.

Then again, I’m always wearing “costumes” so what am I talking about?

Next!

The film I auditioned for is called More Than Words or Qian Yan Wan Yu in Mandarin. (The title is a tribute to Teresa Teng, the famous singing diva in that era.)

The second audition was fun. I got to act opposite Louis Wu (a SuperHost finalist and sometime actor in MediaCorp Channel 8 dramas, currently an AI Films artiste). He’s very friendly and humourous in person.

Director Kelvin Sng chatted with me for a bit, then I did my scene with Louis.

When we were done, we both received some directions to modify the flavour of the scene and then we played it once more.

And that was it. I wish there could have been more because I was having fun, but then there were many people waiting for their turn.

We chatted a bit more, with Kelvin giving me some encouraging words but being very non-commital, and then it was the end.

It’s been almost a month now and there’s still no news from the production team, so I’m thinking it’s probably gone to dust.

I didn’t have very high hopes in the first place because the competition is really fierce, but it’s a job I would really like to have gotten because the role sounds like so much fun, and the crew seems very professional and passionate about the film and I have a deep hunger to work with professional, passionate people because we don’t get enough of them in Singapore.

Anyway, I’m glad that I’m now making a living doing something I really enjoy (blogging and playing games), so I can relax a little on the audition grind. I’m still going to the occasional audition, but very selected ones, so the frustration is still manageable.

If I may say it again, auditions are evil.

Advertorial

Thanks to my hectic schedule, I’m always leaving present-shopping till too late! Well, I checked out vPOST‘s Valentine’s Day promotion and am reminded that there are only four days left till Valentine’s Day.

Ack!

Actually, the Goonfather doesn’t expect Valentine’s Day presents from me, but I like buying him stuff.

The problem is, there always isn’t time. I had left Christmas shopping till too late last year and ended up buying a tin of cookies for him on Christmas Day itself.

(I was in Cold Storage with my friends, shopping for last-minute groceries for our Christmas dinner. While we were queueing up to pay for our items, the guys sneaked out to look at girls outside the mall. I chose that moment to grab the giant tin and actually managed to smuggle it back, gift-wrap it and hide it among the presents under our Christmas tree without the Goonfather even noticing, even though he was with us the whole time!)

So, I’ve decided to shop online this time (and all future times – birthday, anniversary, mother’s day, father’s day, teacher’s day, children’s day… um, everything lah) because I doubt I’ll ever have time to go hunting all over Singapore for presents.

Shopping online is a good idea. I found a few things I could get for the Goonfather which I would never have found if I’d randomly gone to some generic shopping mall.

The first one is a Mazda RX-7.

Haha.

Well, okay, it’s a remote control car but it drifts!

The Goonfather loves remote control cars. And drifting. But his remote control cars can’t drift and it’s too expensive to drift his real car, so he only does it in video games.

Now there’s this! Check out the video. It’s very amazing!!

There are six models to choose from. I chose the RX-7 because that’s my favourite car in Initial D (the anime).

You can buy this item here.

Next item. A missile launcher. It’s so geeky I think all guys will love it.

I love the product description.

The latest from the Department of Desktop Warfare

The office arms race continues, and we think this newest escalation could very well lead to mutually assured destruction on all sides! With the ability to connect (and simultaneously control) an almost unlimited number of missile launchers (well, only limited by your system memory and number of USB ports), the USB Laser Guided Missile Launcher will empower you to unleash something akin to total office annihilation. Not only will you achieve strength with the size of your battery of missiles, they will be accurate too. The built-in laser missile aiming system will allow you to aim and fire your weapons with close to pinpoint accuracy! Just point the red laser dot at your target and slowly squeeze your mouse trigger finger.

I can imagine the Goonfather terrorising all his colleagues with this.

ThinkGeek has tons of cool items you can buy your guy (or for geeky girls… like me)!

There’s also this item he’s been eyeing for a long time. The Gene Simmons Axe Guitar (compatible with Rock Band and Guitar Hero games).

Is that the coolest guitar ever or what?

(Ashamedly, I don’t even know who the heck Gene Simmons is. But who cares. The guitar look nice can already.)

Well, I can’t really decide. Maybe I’ll get everything cos they’re all so cool. Of course, I’m using vPOST for my online shopping cos there’s a Valentine’s Day promotion offering 20% off shipping charges till Feb 28, 2009! Yay!

What I like about vPOST is that it allows you to buy items from USA, UK and Japanese websites (over 350,000 of them) even if those sites do not ship to Singapore. That’s really handy, I think.

You will get USA, UK and Japanese shipping addresses to use for your order so that vPOST can receive the items on your behalf and ship it to Singapore within five to eight working days (upon payment of shipping charges).

(By the way, this service is also available for Malaysia, Thailand, Australia and India users, limited to USA shipping addresses.)

((And vPOST shipping charges are at least 20% cheaper than other international shipping providers.))

Nice!

Only three simple steps are required to use vPOST:

I suppose that doesn’t tell you very much. Haha. But you can read the fully detailed guide here.

vPOST also provides a vCONCIERGE service which helps you buy stuff. It’s great for people who don’t have credit cards, or for times when a retailer doesn’t accept your Singapore-issued credit card.

Check out this geeky guy explaining the service:

Well, thank goodness for online shopping. Then again, one of the hazards is that you will find so much great stuff without much effort that you’ll start inventing reasons to buy presents for people.

Or maybe that’s just me.

One of my favourite sites to shop at is JBOX, which has all sorts of crazy Japanese things.

For example, how about this ninja sword ear cleaner?

LOL. The Japanese come up with the craziest stuff.

Speaking of which, if you didn’t watch I Survived a Japanese Game Show, you MUST watch it because the Japanese thought up the most hilarious ways to abuse a bunch of Americans and it’s so entertaining! YouTube has the entire season.

JBOX also has lots of irresistable Hello Kitty merchandise which will cute you to death.

I want all these!

By the way, here’s one tip to avoid paying GST on your online purchases:

You will be charged GST only if your package exceeds S$400. So, if you’re feeling rich and buying a ton of stuff from the same retailer, just split up your purchases so that no single parcel is worth more than S$400. (Don’t forget to work out the currency exchange.)

Well, happy shopping! Don’t forget to buy something for me! =P

Kidding.