I FaceTimed Piers today so he could watch me eat my dinner at Burger King.

It was after my Alienware launch event and I thought I was going to have to eat alone. Luckily, he was able to get on FaceTime so I had company!

I managed to get a corner table and propped my iPad 2 on it. I’m using a Viva hard case so it’s able to stand up both lengthwise and heightwise.

Piers had woken up not so long ago and was still in bed with bed hair. Haha.

I wasn’t able to hear him very well cos of the ambient noise around me and had to occasionally put my ear at the speaker and make him repeat what he said. Otherwise, we were able to have a decent conversation while I munched on my burger and fries.

No one arrested me for insanity, talking and giggling at a gadget for 20 minutes.

The only annoying thing about FaceTime is that it requires Wifi to work (not 3G) and you need a pretty strong signal.

It also works if you have a 3G phone that can act as a hotspot. I tethered my iPhone 4 to the iPad and got a really good connection. Very smooth, no lag at all.

The sharpness of the picture is inconsistent. Sometimes it feels almost HD clear, sometimes it gets pixelated, especially if your partner moves around too much.

Here’s a screenshot taken on the iPad:

On the whole, I think it’s really great being able to video chat on the go. Of course, you do want to find a pretty private space to conduct your video chats, which is quite tough in Singapore, but I don’t think it’s a huge issue.

The Alienware event was great but I’ll blog about it next week.

Gonna be there again tomorrow (1 pm to 4 pm) so go check it out. At Suntec City.

15% off Alienware machines this weekend!! It’s too good to miss!!!!!!

Exactly two weeks from now, I will be on a plane to England to meet the love of my life, who will probably blush and fall off his chair when he reads what I just called him.

I love posting blogs about him when I’ve got him on video chat because I get to see his expressions when he reads them.

The moment he realises that he’s the subject of my current blog, he sort of goes bug-eyed and jumps in his seat so that he almost falls over. Then he grabs at his hair and makes traumatised faces as he laments, “What is this!!!!!”

Haven’t got a picture of his traumatised face but here’s his “Why are you photographing me?!” face.

So, the restless excitment in me made me do two very uncharacteristic things today.

First, I went online and read party manifestos for the Singapore General Elections 2011.

Despite having been apathetic about politics all my life, I can’t help but feel at least mildly excited about the current elections because of the crazy number of contested seats. The number of eligible voters has jumped from 1.2 million in the last elections (2006) to 2.3 million this year.

But, to be honest, I’m stressed about voting because I hate making decisions.

On the whole, I’m quite happy with what the ruling government has done for Singapore since 1965. I feel safe and comfortable and have a high level of self-worth directly proportional to my country’s standing against the rest of the world.

There are good and bad things in Singapore and that’s normal, isn’t it? I doubt any government in the world can eradicate all bad things in a country. So, even if we had a different government, we would still have both good and bad.

On the other hand, I would be quite excited to see change in the country. If the opposition were to win more seats, there would be gradual changes that would be interesting to observe and I love change, for better or for worse.

But, in any case, I don’t like having the responsibility of deciding a person’s future in the next five years. I’ll just feel so bad for whomever didn’t win because, personal profits aside, I’m sure elected MPs do strive, in their own ways, to make Singapore a better country.

Okay, make that the second uncharacteristic thing I did today, which is blog about politics and risk the wrath of rabid political followers from both camps who would declare I don’t know what I’m talking about (and they would be right).

The third uncharacteristic thing I did today was watch the British Royal Wedding on YouTube and BBC Online. (Had to watch on two channels because both video streams were unreliable and would freeze or lag or suddenly go dead.)

I’ve never been one to bother about other people’s affairs, much less the affairs of foreigners. But, several months back, I chanced upon an online article about Prince William and Kate Middleton and got a little intrigued because it was like a fairy tale, featuring a good-looking, intelligent couple and a commoner-turned-royal angle.

I was in England when I found out the wedding date.

I wasn’t particularly interested in joining the hysterical masses in celebrating the wedding but I was a bit tempted to stay on in England to witness it in person since I was already there, and thought it would be something fun to blog about.

But that would have meant extending my stay for another whole month, making my total stay three months.

Would have been too crazy. And my Nuffnang manager would kill me for being away for so long because she keeps having to tell sponsors that I can’t meet them or test their service or whatever because I’m out of the country.

So, this afternoon, I woke Piers up (I was being his alarm clock) and we got on video chat. It was 8 am his time and a public holiday since it’s the Royal Wedding. He turned on his TV and it was showing guests arriving at the Westminster Abbey to wait for the wedding service which would be happening three hours later.

Why do they need to go sit at the church for hours and hours before the ceremony starts?

Anyway, since Piers had that on TV, I also wanted to watch it, so went searching for online broadcasts.

Turned out to be quite exciting seeing a handsome prince marry a beautiful princess-to-be. Made me a bit teary, even.

Kate’s wedding dress is gorgeous, which is really saying a lot coming from me because I dislike about 85% of wedding dresses I see. And I like how she wore her hair down, unlike 95% of brides who wear them up.

I used to have this stress about getting married and having to wear my hair up, wondering if people would think I was being disrespectful or radical if I wore it down.

Anyway, here are some screenshots I took off the YouTube live broadcast, fed by BBC, I think.

Oh, more excitement: Apparently, the iPad 2 launched today. Funny I’m not seeing much hooha about that online.

No one cares about the iPad 2?

It’s really great. I love mine so much. And Piers got his three days ago and he takes it everywhere with him.

We can Facetime on it! Tried to FaceTime on it yesterday when I was out in Bugis. But I think Wireless@SG sucks or something cos our call would connect but then the video would freeze and we wouldn’t be able to communicate.

Using FaceTime on my home wifi is fine and the video is smooth and clear.

Will try to get a screenshot of it next time we FaceTime.

Okay, last exciting thing I want to talk about.

A new concept store by Dell for the Alienware launched today at Suntec City. Before this, you could only get Alienware machines online, so this is awesome!

I will be attending the launch events as the official Alienware blogger, tomorrow and Sunday. Hope to see some familiar faces there.

Alienware is so very cool!

Two weeks from now. Sounds so soon but yet an eternity away. So excited to be taking a direct flight this time. Will only take 13 hours compared to 17-19 hours the last time.

My flight is at 11 pm. Don’t think I’ll be able to sleep!!

Too much excitement. So torturous.

I have been gaming too much lately, so my mind is swimming in games, so I don’t want to blog about anything else.

lol sorry.

The good news is that I’m getting bored with The Sims Medieval already because I feel stressed having to level up all my 10 heroes so that my kingdom has good people to serve everyone’s needs.

It’s not fun having to learn how to play so many different characters. I’m the kind of gamer who likes to focus on one character and make her very good.

So I will now finish up the story of Piers’ courtship of Sheylara. =D

I’ve built the church in my kingdom so all that’s left to do is have the wedding!

So, one afternoon, after Sheylara had finished up her royal duties of governing the kingdom, she went searching for Piers and said, “Let’s go have our wedding now!”

He said okay and started walking to the church ahead of her.

Quite rude!

He got to the church and stood at the pulpit waiting.

It was a small, humble church. Nothing fancy. And the bride and groom didn’t have wedding clothes. Quite pathetic, really. Nothing like what a Royal Wedding should look like.

But there was a cheap special effect of the crazy priest beaming down from the ceiling in a shaft of sparkly light.

He started mumbling what priests are supposed to mumble at weddings while the guests stood around not paying attention, instead chatting with one another. Piers and Sheylara waited impatiently.

Then it was time to exchange rings and seal it with a kiss.

Married! =)

After the very unceremonious wedding, it was woohoo time!

For those who don’t play The Sims, “woohoo” is the term used for, um, consummating a marriage. Or a relationship.

So that it’s safe for kids to play and they don’t learn words they’re not supposed to.

Woohooing:

And… done!

Two days later, Sheylara got pregnant!

Yeah, you do have to move things along in a game. Can’t have everything happen real-time or the game would be obsolete by the time anything significant happens.

A village child feeling her tummy:

One day later, the child was ready to be born!

Sheylara stood in the throne room of the castle yelling in pain while her servants stared at her in shock.

Piers was training at the training yard and totally oblivious to even the fact that his wife was pregnant.

The baby was born right there and then.

It’s a boy!

Aww.

After cuddling and feeding the baby, Sheylara went upstairs to sleep.

Piers came home while she was sleeping.

He saw the baby in the throne room and said, “Oh! What a cute baby! Who left it here?!”

Then he picked it up and instinctively knew that it was his baby.

Aww.

He played with the baby for a few hours then went to bed.

Two days later, baby Anthony grew up and became, like, eight years old or something.

Children in The Sims are randomly generated by the game, so it’s funny that Piers’ boy looks like Piers did when he was a boy himself. Haha. Got the same hair colour and style!

While all this was happening in the game, I was giving real-life Piers a running commentary. He was at the time playing Grand Theft Auto on the Xbox.

He managed to get excited about it even though his game was probably more exciting since it involved car chases and helicopter shootouts.

He said, “Woohoo again so we can have a girl next!”

Stupid men! You think giving birth is so easy meh!

Okay, I suppose it is, in games.

In games, you can do stuff that you can’t just do in real life without first stressing about the consequences.

And that’s why I play games!

My body is slowly reverting back to England time again.

Went to sleep at 6:30 am this morning, which is 11:30 pm in England.

Nothing remarkable in that. All my life, I’ve been battling my mind’s stubborn refusal to sleep when its supposed to. It’s not because I’ve been chatting with Piers too much or playing games too much.

I had tried to sleep early. About 2:30 am. Couldn’t.

So I played a bit on my iPad 2, then tried again. Worse.

Mind started thinking all kinds of things. Happy things, sad things, angry things, game things.

At about 4:30 am, I Gtalked Piers and told him I couldn’t sleep, so he called me on the phone to chat.

After chatting about random things for an hour, I asked him to tell me a bedtime story because I still wasn’t getting sleepy enough to sleep.

Always be careful what you wish for.

I got a 20-minute made-up-on-the-spot story which I regretted having asked for.

It started:

“Once upon a time, there lived a frog on a nice lily pad in a pretty little pond.

“The frog was called…”

Here, he paused to think of a name. He umm-ed and mm-ed for a minute before I got tired of waiting and suggested: “Piers?”

He took my suggestion.

“Ah, yes. The frog’s name was Piers.”

Then he spent like 10 minutes describing the pond and telling me about Piers’ pond friends (Peter the Newt and Sam the Water Boatman).

(I had to interrupt him at this point to ask him what a water boatman was. It’s a pond insect!)

Anyway, finally, the story moved along.

“One day, along came a beautiful girl to the pond. Her name was Sheylara and she was the most beautiful girl in the kingdom.”

Then he spent a few minutes describing Sheylara and how Piers the Frog thought she was great.

Next:

“Sheylara saw Piers the frog and said, ‘Oh! What a cute little frog!’ and then ran back home to get her camera.”

To cut his long, rambling story short, what happened next was Sheylara took a picture of Piers, but Piers was camera shy so dived into the pond, then a catfish saw him and ate him up.

(It was originally a shark, but I protested that sharks didn’t live in ponds.)

At this point I said, “What a horrible story!!!!!!”

He said, “Wait! It’s not over yet!”

He continued:

“Sheylara felt really bad to have caused Piers the Frog to be eaten by a catfish, so she dived into the pond to save him. Alas, the catfish ate her up also. The end.”

WHAT A STUPID IDIOTIC STORY.

It reminded me of when I was still in England one night and I stupidly asked him for a bedtime story and he told me a similary retarded one.

I should have remembered that sooner.

Piers says the frog story teaches how karma works. Since Sheylara made Piers get eaten by a catfish, karma says she should also get eaten by a catfish.

I say it teaches me never to ask him for a bedtime story ever again.

After this, I was more awake than ever.

In the end, we both went to sleep at the same time (6:30 am / 11:30 pm). He said that’s good cos it means I won’t get jetlagged when I visit him next month.

Less than three weeks’ time! =D

When I first started playing The Sims Medieval, where I made myself Queen of England, I decided to make Piers a knight because I thought it would be amusing to see a knight court a queen.

Not that I have visions of grandeur or anything, but the game forces you to be a monarch when you start, so you either have to be a king or queen, okay?

Because I bought the Collector’s Edition, I get a variety of castle themes to choose from: Barbarian Stronghold, Princess Dream Castle and Sorceror’s Lair.

No prizes for guessing which one I chose. =D

This is the default castle for the normal edition:

Quite nice, too.

The Sims Medieval is different from other Sims games, being quest-based rather than freestyle. You start off playing the monarch but, as the game progresses, you create other professions (knight, physician, spy, priest, blacksmith, etc) and you control a different sim depending on what quest you choose to embark on.

All the sims you create live in the same kingdom and can interact with one another.

Anyway, Piers was the first sim I created after myself. We were on Gtalk video while I was creating him.

(I’ve got Gtalk video on my Macbook while I play on my PC, so he can watch me play while watching TV, and I can watch him watch TV while I play, etc. In this way, we feel like we’re doing stuff together.)

Anyway, I told him to look straight in the camera so I could compare and make his character look exactly like him.

He said, “You mean you can make sims that ugly?”

Haha. So annoyingly modest!

Once I got it as near his likeness as possible, I excitedly MSNed him the screenshot:

The first thing he said was, “This dude is far better looking than me!”

Then, he said, “Show me you, show me you!”

I hesistantly MSNed him a screenshot of me.

I could see his face change from excited to disbelief as the picture loaded up on his MSN.

“Why are you blonde?!!!” he cried.

LOL.

I really wanted this hairstyle and it looked better blonde than dark brown!

Anyway, I started up another quest in the game.

As I was doing my rounds and gossiping with a villager to socialise with my citizens, the villager shared a piece of juicy gossip with me:

“I heard that Sir Piers has been courting two maidens at the palace and neither of them know about each other!”

So mean! My character hadn’t even met him in the game yet!

I yelled into the Gtalk camera at Piers, “You are two-timing!! And I’m not even one of them!”

“What, what?!” he said bewilderedly.

But before I could get really mad at him, I realised that it was probably my fault because I had given him the trait of Courtly Love when I made him, and that probably made him a bit flirtatious.

(I had also given myself that same trait and had noticed my character making eyes at handsome strangers, lol.)

So I deleted the whole game and started over, recreating myself and him. =P

I sacrificed my favourite hairstyle so I could have hair colour closer to my actual colour, but she still doesn’t look too much like me since the models are all Caucasian.

Piers looks a bit different now. I think maybe the previous one looks more like him.

The real Piers:

Once that was done, I started a new quest for a knight so I could control Piers and make him court me.

Heh.

He was very good at it, winning my affections in no time.

So fun making him be nice to me and all. =P

Piers pays homage to me:

That was our first introduction!

I had given him the trait “Family Love” this time (not very useful for a knight, but who cares) so he’s always thinking about having a family and stuff, lol.

First private chat where he praises my beauty:

Awwwwwwww.

Both of us got along really well really quickly and I didn’t waste time developing a friendship. After a few friendly greetings, I made Piers move into romancing, heh.

So, it was that simple.

Seems a lot easier to form relationships in here than in previous Sims games!

I decided not to go any further just to draw out the suspense a little bit.

Anyway it was nearing night and Piers was tired.

I made him sneak into the royal bed once Sheylara was already sleeping, lol.

And then the next day…

First kiss!

And then….

The proposal!!

Oooh.

LOL so fast right?

That’s all for now.

We’re not going to get married yet because I haven’t built a church in the kingdom.

So we’re just betrothed for now.

Okay, a brief comment about the game.

I hated it at first because when I first started, the game made me do all sorts of stupid things like collect wood, cook my own meals, fight off a bandit and send a town bully to the stocks and throw eggs at him.

That was nuts because I thought I was a queen. Since when did queens have to do all these things themselves?

Plus the game wouldn’t allow me to save when I was in the middle of the quest and a quest could be like half an hour or two hours long, depending on how well you want to do it.

And the new gameplay format confused me, and I didn’t like having to use different sims for different quests

But after playing more hours, it started growing on me. Once I understood how the game operated, I started having fun.

The game did crash once while I was playing (lots of complaints online about crashes and bugs for this game) but otherwise, everything is great.

Now Piers wants to play, too.

He says HE wants to be king and not just a knight, so he needs his own game.

So silly!

But he should be receiving his iPad soon, so I don’t think he’ll have time for anything else!

Oh, I’m going make all the other sim professions people I know.

I’ve already made Minou the physician.

Looks like her or not?

Piers has to keep going to see her because his knightly duties always make him injured.

Here is Minou operating on Piers. LOL.

If you scroll up to see the third picture in this post, that’s Minou applying first aid on Piers. It’s very funny first time you see it in the game!

Other professions left to be created: Merchant, Bard, Jacoban Priest, Peteran Priest, Spy, Wizard, Blacksmith.

Hmm, wonder who of my friends to put into which roles!

=P