Starting Fresh with August 2013 Gaming Budget

It's the end of the month. Although I've overspent my monthly gaming budget, I was able to survive the Steam Summer Sale; however, I did fall prey to two enticing XBOX sales which made up most of my purchases for the month.

With the start of next month, I will have a fresh budget to spend on some very, very nice game bundles. First up is the Positech Humble Weekly Bundle, 4 games for around $3 and ends tomorrow. The Groupees Adventure RPG bundle has 8 games that I want for $4. The Indie Gala Summertide has 13 games for less than $7. Lastly, the Humble Deep Silver Bundle has 5 very good full commercial games for about $5. Plus, GamersGate's summer sale is on its final week. I hope there are no more sales or bundles as good as these for the rest of the month so my wallet can take a break.

Finally Found Szechuan Restaurants

The BGC bus I ride, passed by a different route and I saw a couple of restaurants near the corner of 28th and 5th Streets at BGC. I noticed one restaurant was called Modern Sichuan Restaurant and I suddenly realized that there was finally a Szechuan restaurant that was accessible to me (meaning not in Makati or Manila).

I found a review of the restaurant on the web but when I looked on ClickTheCity, I couldn't find it; however, I found another Szechuan restaurant closer to my location, Komrad - Mao's Hunan & Sichuan Kitchen in Il Terazzo Mall at Tomas Morato. Wow, I finally found not just one, but two Szechuan restaurants that are accessible.

Szechuan food is my second most sought after food after Thai food. Mao, the young hero chef of the manga and anime Cooking Master Boy is a native of Sichuan province. Cooking Master Boy is my favorite anime of all time but it's only a happy coincidence that there's a connection between my favorite anime and one of my favorite foods.

http://www.philstar.com/food-and-leisure/2013/06/20/955840/spice-right-modern-sichuan

Astrid Task List App Gone in August

When you compare the number of task list management or to-do list management apps on iOS and Android, you'll find Android wins hands down despite the iOS market having many more apps overall. I had a hard time finding a task list app for iOS that I liked and in the end, I settled for an app that came out first on Android, an app called Astrid. Unfortunately for me, Yahoo! bought Astrid last May and announced early this July that they were discontinuing Astrid's service in August. I don't know what will happen to Astrid's apps on the App Store and Google Play so I'll be installing them on all my devices just in case.

Passionate Basketball Fan has Asperger's Syndrome

I saw an article on TrueHoop, which together with HoopsHype are my main sources of NBA news. The article talks about a basketball fan who has attended the Las Vegas NBA Summer League every year since 2004 and he happens to have Asperger's Syndrome. Here is a quote from the article:

"Salap has Asperger's syndrome, which, according to the Mayo Clinic website, is a "developmental disorder that affects a person's ability to socialize and communicate effectively with others," and where the person has "an all-absorbing interest in specific topics."

Does this remind you of anyone? Check out the article:

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/61814/the-voice-of-summer-league

Ikaruga Is Free on the Argentinian XBOX Marketplace

It was reported on the Reddit Game Deals thread that Ikaruga, a shoot em up or shmup game, is free for now on the Argentinian XBOX Marketplace. You need to create and use a free Argentinian account. I already have one which I created to redeem the Borderlands 2 season pass that was free for a short time last year.

Ikaruga has a Metacritic critic score of 87 and a user score of 8.0. It is currently a part of the limited-time XBLA Space Shooter bundle priced at $20. The bundle features two other 80+ Metacritic score shmup games as well as an additional above average shmup game. Radiant Silvergun has Metacritic critic/user scores of 86/8.3. Sine Mora has scores of 83/7.2 while Fusion Genesis has scores of 69/9.0.

Dulce de Leche Bites are Affordable at Cinnabon

We passed by a Cinnabon store and I wasn't in the mood to spend a lot even if Minibons are incredibly delicious. My daughter and I love them so much even though they're somewhat costly. I spied some small treats we hadn't seen before and I wondered how much they were. We were told they were 5 pieces for 85 pesos and I thought that's cheap and also my daughter and I could share them. They were called Dulce de Leche bites and we bought one pack to try out. We really loved them and we can also afford to buy them more often compared to the Minibons and regular Cinnabons. I know what we're going to buy now every time we pass by a Cinnabon store.

KFC Zinger Price Matches McSpicy

I haven't eaten KFC's Zinger in a long time. For its price, it wasn't the best value for a premium fast food sandwich. The KFC Double Down and the later KFC Double Decker were even better values among KFC's menu items. Enter McDonald's McSpicy. Priced at 80 pesos, it was way below the Zinger's price of 112 pesos. KFC had no choice but to respond and consequently they dropped the price to 80 pesos as well. Why couldn't they do this before? How much of a profit did they really need to make with the Zinger? Not very good with your consumers, KFC.

Mr. Choi Kitchen at Robinson's Magnolia

We recently ate at Mr. Choi Kitchen at the 2nd floor of Robinson's Magnolia. The kids liked the Crispy Fried Chicken and Mr. Choi Dimsum Combination. Even the white meat of the chicken was juicy. I like baked rice meals with tomato sauce so I ordered the Baked Porkchop in Tomato Sauce with Rice. I liked it and it was a lot for only 235 pesos. We'll go eat here again after we've eaten at the other restaurants at Robinson's Magnolia.

Got Past the Steam 2013 Summer Sale Intact

The Steam summer sale for 2013 is now over and I have only System Shock 2 to show for it at $2.49. Resistance was worthwhile. However, I wasn't able to resist other deals on other stores during the Steam sale. I got Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare for $2.09 at GOG and Din's Curse for $2.49 at GamersGate. I also bought Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 on the XBOX Marketplace for $7.50. I'm over budget for the month so I hope I don't see any more irresistible deals 'till next month.

Weekly $2.99 Movie Sale on iTunes Asia

Apple's iTunes Store for Asia seems to have a $2.99 sale for one movie each week. Right now it's Apollo 13. A few weeks ago, I bought My Best Friends Wedding for $2.99. Before i got married, we bought a VCD of that movie for triple that price. We also own it on DVD. So, I guess I'll be regularly keeping an eye out for these weekly deals in case we find a movie we like.

The Sims 3 on Sale at Origin's SEA Store

The Sims 3 is currently 9.90 SGD on EA's Origin Southeast Asia store. It's around 340 Pesos or $7.82. It's very tempting, given the fact that the lowest price this was on Steam was $7.50 for the U.S. and $10 for our region. Since I'm already over budget for the month, the only way I would bite on this deal is if the price was at $7. If I wasn't over budget, I'd take this deal right now.

$2.99 per Month for Avast's SecureLine VPN

I'm seriously considering subscribing to Avast's SecureLine VPN offering for iOS. It only costs $2.99 a month. This should allow me to watch movies through Crackle, Netflix, and Amazon Prime, but only through our iOS devices. No problem anyhow because I can use my iPad mini as a hotspot.

I trust Avast since I use its free anti-virus software on nearly all of our computers. I've actually been looking for a way to give money to Avast because I'm so grateful for them providing their excellent and essential anti-virus for free for all the years that I've used it to protect our home computers. Paying for their VPN service is how I can repay them for their beneficial service to me and my family.

An iPad for the Baby

Let's say you had a baby who goes from using an iPad to watch animated songs, nursery rhymes, and fairy tales, to actually using an iPad by himself to play games, and because of this, that baby is competing with the rest of the family for the use of the iPad. Aside from that, because of the way the baby handles the iPad, there's a stronger chance now that the device could be damaged.

Because the rest of the family uses that newer generation iPad, they don't want to put a bulky child proof protective cover on that iPad. What to do? Buy a cheaper, older generation iPad that you can have the baby and another son use, put a child proof protective cover, and if the baby damages the iPad, you won't lose as much. A 16 gb WiFi gen 1 iPad goes for around 6000 pesos at TipidPC.com.

Watched Turbo with the Kids

We were supposed to watch Pacific Rim today but there were no 3 empty seats that were next to each other in the movie house. There were 2 empty seats together and another seat in the row behind but the kids didn't want to sit separately from me, so we watched Turbo in 3D instead.

I thought I'd be bored but it was surprisingly entertaining. The premise of a racing snail that's able to challenge IndyCar racing cars is just so unbelievable, but the character of Tito, owner of the snail, is so endearing, he was able to make me care about what happens to the business he shares with his brother, which therefore made me look forward to the outcome of the race.

Although the outcome was somewhat predictable, the final moments of the race made me laugh because of the absurd, frantic, crazed response of the snail's main opponent. It wasn't a great movie that I'd want to see again, but I did enjoy it, and, more importantly, the kids did too.

The Need for a MAC Address Inventory

I need to inventory the WiFi MAC addresses of all our devices. This not only includes our tablets, phones, and laptops, but also our routers. I just realized then that maintaining these devices is tedious work. It's like I'm the sysad of a small network but now I even have to perform these tasks at home, taking up my free time. I have to take the inventory because it was taking hours for my wife to download her daily work files using our home broadband connections. 

When we use instead mobile broadband connections, what would take hours would now finish in a couple of minutes to half an hour. What my wife noticed was that the slow download speeds would occur starting at 7 PM in the evening. This could be due to any of a number of factors, including overall congestion of the network, but just to make sure, I decided to block any unknown MAC address from connecting to our routers. It could be better to allow only known MAC addresses to connect but I have to weigh both options later.

Sims 2 Digital Download for PC Not Available Anymore

It's disappointing to come to the conclusion that EA is no longer selling The Sims 2 on any online store. Even EA's own Origin store no longer carries the Sims 2 and its expansions. Neither is Amazon, Steam, GOG, or GamersGate. I'm just lucky and glad that I was able to buy The Sims 2 Double Deluxe on sale at GamersGate last year.

I hope EA eventually releases The Sims 2 and its expansions on GOG like it did with some of EA's older titles. Otherwise I have no other choice but to pirate them, same as what I did with the original Sims game. I hope EA releases the original Sims on GOG too. I'd definitely buy that.

7-11 Two Regular Hotdogs for Only 22 Pesos

7-11 has a current promo where you get two regular hotdogs for the price of one. It's cheap, for only 22 pesos. I forgot to avail of this a few days ago when I went down from my office to buy food. I ended up buying my regular single barbecue with one and a half rice for 45 pesos. If I had availed of this promo that time, I could have eaten 4 hotdogs for 44 pesos. I did buy hotdogs yesterday but since I wasn't that hungry, I only bought two for 22. I tried to add chili con carne for 10 pesos for both dogs but the 7-11 branch was all out of stock. Maybe I'll try to get two more hotdogs later this afternoon and add some chili. I hope they'll have them in stock.

JK Rowling Finally Found Good Reviews for Her Adult Novel

JK Rowling was finally outed as the author of The Cuckoo's Calling. It was written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Her first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy, released previously under her own name, received lukewarm reviews, in spite of the massive hype brought on by her fame. Writing under the guise of a first time author, she finally got the critical praise she had been looking for as a writer for adults, although the book did not sell well. The book was also rejected by several publishers, her second book to be rejected after The Sorcerer's Stone.

It looks to me that critics may have unconscious biases against popular authors while publishers and readers are easily swayed by the author's name recognition (see Stephen King for another example). Negative reviews started popping up on the book's Amazon page soon after people learned she was the author, although the book immediately topped Amazon's bestseller charts afterwards. The success of products are decided like this everyday. Keep this in mind if you're thinking of writing a book, making an indie movie, developing a game, inventing some contraption, etc.

Finally Writing More

I've been wanting to write more often on my blog for so long. Problem was, I tended to write lengthy discourses that ramble on and on, so it took too long to write, resulting in only a few articles per year. It took Facebook to show me the ideal length of a post. It was the purchase of my iPad Mini and its unlimited LTE connection that freed me since I could write anytime, anywhere, quickly, and therefore more frequently. It's a confluence of events, a perfect storm, which now allows me to spam people more.

19-Year Old Creates Massive Skyrim Mod

A 19-year old kid was behind the creation of a large mod for Skyrim on the PC. It contains a huge 25 hours of content and the mod is said to be of high quality. It took him a year to finish it. He seems to be aiming for a job with Bethesda. Wow, what a way to show what he's capable of. Epic job application.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/07/16/behind-falskaar-a-massive-new-skyrim-mod-and-the-19-year-old-who-spent-a-year-building-it/

Prince of Persia free on iOS

Prince of Persia Retro is free today on iOS. It works even on old iPhones. The graphics seem similar to the DOS version or the MacOS version. Classic gaming from my youth. I bow down to you Jordan Mechner.

My iPad Mini is Helping Me Write

I love the fact that iOS has sufficient featured apps for Blogger, Google+, and Facebook. I can't seem to download Blogger for Android. It looks to be region restricted. I'm glad I bought my iPad Mini with unlimited LTE from Smart so I can write more often. The iPad Mini is so comfortable to use because of its small size and light weight. Smart also has much better reception than Sun in my workplace. Sun wins out at home though and it's not close.

My Social Network Cross-Posting Conclusion

I researched and tried a few methods to attempt automation of cross-posting to Blogger, Google+, and Facebook. The process was not that much quicker or easier than manually copying, pasting, and posting to each of the sites. I've decided to post initially to my blog, then copy, paste, and post to Google+ and Facebook. Blogger and Google+ makes this easier to do than with Facebook.