Happy Halloween to all my friends and freak of natures out there! TRICK or TREAT! Give me some candy. I wish I was still a kid coz I love candies but then again, when you’re in Malaysia, not that many people celebrate Halloween which is a pity really. It’ll look a bit silly to go trick a treating when people don’t bother buying or storing any treats! Now why is this so? It must be an American kind of thing but then again… I could be wrong…
Here’s some interesting History and Origin of Halloween which I got off the net previously but I can’t remember where!
Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in).
The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.
To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.
During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.
By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.
The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of “bobbing” for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.
By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints’ Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints’, All Saints’, and All Souls’, were called Hallowmas.
Nintendo is now including the Wii Remote Jacket for the Wii Remotes in all new hardware being shipped. For Wii owners who purchased their systems prior to this addition, they are offering to send free Wii Remote Jackets for their existing Wii Remotes. If you would like to request a Wii Remote Jacket, please proceed to their website at http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/jacket/jacketrequest.jsp
Check Marie Digby out… She’s mixed Japanese & Irish (I believe) and she’s one hell of a looker and singer! Have placed her here on my blog so that I can just refer to it without searching and hear her belt out her version of Rihanna’s Umbrella song. Other cool songs can be heard at http://www.youtube.com/user/MarieDigby . Best of Luck from Malaysia!
Here’s a funny story again from May Lee. She never fails to entertain I tell you.
There was this one day when after her shower, she decided to put on some Body Shop moisteriser which was a gift from a friend. 20 minutes after of putting it on, she complained to me that it still felt sticky and wondered whether the moisteriser has expired hence the stickiness! A closer examination of the bottle to check on the expiry date revealed that it was not body moisteriser but rather shower cream! Now that would explain why it felt sticky!
A quick hop into the shower and out comes another funny comment… Hey there’s plenty of bubbles! *LOL* Hmm… what can I say? Perhaps the pink color had something to do with her little boo boo.
Wedding Committee Meeting at Starbucks @ The Gardens. Am so glad everyone managed to take the time off during their Hari Raya break to meet us for some last minute briefing. Hope you all enjoyed the coffee too!
Are you a Transformer fan? I’m sure if you are then you would have caught the latest movie on the big screen and I’m sure you would have loved every bit of it. Many of my friends have watched the show at least a couple of times. For me, I’ve only watched it once but have spent many hours on the Wii playing the Transformers Game.
The game closely follows the story line from the movie but you can either play the good Autobots or the bad Decepticons. For me, I have yet to try the Decepticons but I heard its almost a direct opposite than if you were to play the Autobots. The actions are pretty good and the scenes are always time based so you’ve got to be pretty good at aiming at things, bashing things, throwing things like lamp posts at your opponents as well as transforming from a robot to a car to speed away to somewhere & vice-versa.
Needless to say the overall game play is wonderful and immersive. The perfect combination of speeding to a location, then transforming and bashing up your enemies and transforming back again to rush elsewhere just makes you feel as though you are really into the character. You will really need to experience it for yourself to understand what I mean. The graphics are pretty good for the Wii and I would recommend this game to anyone out there who is a Transformer fan. If you’re not a fan then this game could feel repetitive as most of it, albeit the different locations and scenarios, entails you bashing or defending something (in this case… ultimately the ALL SPARK)
I was told by my friend Lim Fong the other day that she tried leaving a comment on the Wii Party Pool article but was greeted by an error message. Well true enough when I tried it just now, I got the dreaded error. However after downloading the source codes and re-FTPing it over to the server, the problem seems to have been fixed. I seriously wonder what’s wrong with my FTP program. Perhaps its till to change to a less buggy one. The files don’t seem to be transferring properly and sometimes require another upload just to ensure the files are properly uploaded… So wordpress is not busted after all… its my FTP program.
I also wonder if my Wordbook Plugin functions properly now that I have updated it to the latest version. The older version caused errors to be displayed when I posted any articles here but even with that, my postings are showing up properly on my Facebook Account. Cool Plugin
 Are you a pool or snooker buff? If so then this game would keep you occupied for a good number of hours. Unless you are one of those rich boy or girl who has a private table at home, this is the next best thing to having your own table. Besides, it’s been saving us lots of money playing pool at home rather than at the Pool Parlor which is at least a whooping RM18.00 (approx USD5.30) per hr! Now that’s a rip off!
Back to the game, as with any pool game, you are able to play against a second player or a computer with two Wii Controllers possible without having to pass the controller back and forth. You can either play the game with either the Wii Controller alone or together with the nunchuck. With the nunchuck you have slightly better control of the views and angles (though not mandatory). The action of hitting the ball with the pool stick can simply be achieved with a simple wave of the wii remote. You don’t even need to do a pool action push towards the screen. Overall the controls could be refined for a better playing experience. A few other problems with the game would be the lack of camera angles, sometimes making it hard to anticipate the correct angle to hit the ball. The music sucks but it can be switched off and you could replace it with your own background music through your own CD player if you wish. There are various environments, tables, opponents, ball sets, cue stick, music tracks as well as game modes ranging from 8,9,15, etc balls to play.
Overall a good game for those who wish to play pool at home but could be improved somewhat.
Is visiting the carnival your cup of tea? Have you always had fun playing with games in the Carnival but later on found out that they get too costly? Well… you can enjoy this fun but brainless game from the comfort of your home, albeit without the smell of popcorns and cotton candy. There are approximately 25 games to choose from: Alley Ball (like bowling), Day The Races (Horse Race), Popping Balloons with darts, Sledge Hammer to test your strength, throwing balls to knock down milk bottles, Dunking a midget, Shooting ducks, Coin Pushing Machine, Prize Picking Machine, shooting water guns to pop balloons, throwing rings onto bottle necks, Wishing Machine & loads more.
As with most Wii games, the throwing, tossing and aiming actions make full use of the Wii remote IR and Motion Sensor capabilities. The game control could have been better programmed as reported by some other players but to me, its supposed to be a fun brainless game… and that it is. This is a good game with cute mini games to occupy your time.
For most people, this game might seem like a waste of time but for people like my wife, countless hours can be spent playing virtual carnival games to accumulate virtual ticket/coupons to redeem virtual gifts. Well one thing good is that the games on the Wii are free. If we had to pay for every game that she has played like in a real carnival, I think we’d be broke. Yes dear, the sombrero hat and scuba tank with the clown nose looks good on you Can we go to sleep yet?
Happy Halloween to all my friends and freak of natures out there! TRICK or TREAT! Give me some candy. I wish I was still a kid coz I love candies but then again, when you’re in Malaysia, not that many people celebrate Halloween which is a pity really. It’ll look a bit silly to go trick a treating when people don’t bother buying or storing any treats! Now why is this so? It must be an American kind of thing but then again… I could be wrong…
Here’s a funny story again from May Lee. She never fails to entertain I tell you.
Are you a Transformer fan? I’m sure if you are then you would have caught the latest movie on the big screen and I’m sure you would have loved every bit of it. Many of my friends have watched the show at least a couple of times. For me, I’ve only watched it once but have spent many hours on the Wii playing the Transformers Game.
 Are you a pool or snooker buff? If so then this game would keep you occupied for a good number of hours. Unless you are one of those rich boy or girl who has a private table at home, this is the next best thing to having your own table. Besides, it’s been saving us lots of money playing pool at home rather than at the Pool Parlor which is at least a whooping RM18.00 (approx USD5.30) per hr! Now that’s a rip off!
Is visiting the carnival your cup of tea? Have you always had fun playing with games in the Carnival but later on found out that they get too costly? Well… you can enjoy this fun but brainless game from the comfort of your home, albeit without the smell of popcorns and cotton candy. There are approximately 25 games to choose from: Alley Ball (like bowling), Day The Races (Horse Race), Popping Balloons with darts, Sledge Hammer to test your strength, throwing balls to knock down milk bottles, Dunking a midget, Shooting ducks, Coin Pushing Machine, Prize Picking Machine, shooting water guns to pop balloons, throwing rings onto bottle necks, Wishing Machine & loads more.
Can we go to sleep yet?
