I've been terribly negligent Re: the yearbook project, my webpage and this blog, thanks to Civ III and Baldur's Gate II, Throne Of Bhaal (completed today after shameless cheating). I am presently trying to engage Yaoi Girl and Xephyris to help me pad the last.
I actually haven't been playing games much since I got Cable. In fact, only good old Alpha Centauri, since last November.
Points about Civ III:
They hid many commands, from the toolbar at the screen's bottom, that were incredibly useful in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (SMAC). Like Ctrl + R, to build Road to a place. In fact, much has been dumbed down since SMAC. Less customisation is possible.
I keep forgetting you need fresh water to irrigate lands. !@#$%^&*(). 2 badly placed cities, 1 on a continent I spent some time sending Settlers to.
The split between Settlers and Workers a la Master of Magic (MOM) is an interesting concept.
Chieftain level is no longer ridiculously easy.
And 1024 x 768 gives me a headache. Then when I exit back to Windows, 800 x 640 looks horrible. Why must they force us to play at such a high resolution?
Prom post:
NB: Julian has sent me the pictures which I ran around taking with his new SCV-subsidised digital camera, unobtrusively and surreptitiously or otherwise. Many of them are rotten (with chopped off heads, blurry images and such), but I did get some good pictures. A few of the Named people, yes. Of course, I will keep these for my personal use.
Apologies to those whom I wanted to take photographs with but didn't (Yes, I did bring a camera unlike on Farewell Assembly!). I wasn't zealous enough in running around looking for you lot :)
Post proper:
Because I am lazy, the following post is not guaranteed to flow very well.
Security was ridiculous, and we all were stamped ignominiously on our hands, with the words "RJC Graduation Night" (I took a picture with Julian's digital, but it didn't come out right).
The guys' outfits were boring. Variations on black, and almost everyone had a suit or jacket (except me, Edwin and assorted others). Many borrowed their fathers', and it showed, as I ran around asking people, "Is that your father's?". For me, the utility of not wearing a tie and jacket more than outweighed the disutility of any discomfit I may or may not have suffered. Julian conned me - he said he was going in geeky clothes - white shirt and khakis. In the end he went in a Mao-esque long sleeved blue shirt and black pants. Chin Xiang didn't realise that his earring on the right ear meant that he was gay. Pity, for his homophobia.
As predicted, 99.5% of the girls wore skirts or gowns. I couldn't recognise a lot of people (Probably Francesca and Felicia looked the most different), and Tong [whose skirt I kept stepping on and who poked me until I realised] and Felicia looked especially different. The girl that Shawn calls "Man Mountain" was wearing a crumpled (like mine) long sleeved white shirt and pants. Natalie Morris also was wearing pants, as were about 4 other girls. That is 394 of about 400, which works out to 98.5% of girls who wore skirts/dresses/gowns. Wow, below average!
This PRC girl was wearing a bathrobe-type outfit (of which I have a picture of the backview).
It was very amusing to see all the white lines on people's backs. They should either wear less, or much more. A lot of people took the opportunity to imprint tattoos on their skin, as well as the various star shapes and such, traced out with crystal or stones.
Lots of people had glitter in their hair. Erk.
Chris (Lin) was wearing one of the outfits with a black suit and a coloured shirt inside, opened wide. He shaved his chest hair!
Almost everyone looked quite different (except for me), even Engineer (who informed me that He2 Gu3 Zhong1 Xue2 aka Li Hua Secondary School has no Prom Night, not even a "Graduation Night") and Huihui.
The waiters were quite young, some were even our age.
I'd thought I saw Foreign Blood, but on closer inspection, it turned out to be Mrs Olivia Ang. Ah well. Even Ms Ho Poh Fun was there, and she had quite a fresh look (though she still had her bun, to...).
This A03-ish (and if I remember correctly, A03) girl had a tiara on top of her dyed hair. Perhaps a not-so-subtle assertion that she should have been nominated for Prom Queen?
2 or 3 girls were wearing outifts that reminded me of a wedding dress. Hrm.
Michael on the J1 Councillor whom I think looks like a horse (though not as bad as Horse herself) - 'a bit'.
They got us to clap for the first course, which arrived complete with a laser show, loud music and dry ice.
As with the RGS Alma Mater Night 2001, "Masquerade", I only saw 1 person with a mask - Minhui.
#5 won the "Xena" award. Yeh! She was in a gown too.
Most people were running around taking photographs, so many of the lucky draw winners forfeited their prizes. Julian's sharksfin got taken away. Oh well.
This person, Zoe, had "Pornstar" spelled out on her chest with crystals. Julian took a photo, but it didn't come out well (It was too far away).
The Principal Mr Hodge asked me to "take care" in Slavery. How sweet of him :)
Trust the Council to come up with awards like Ms Wheatie, Master Maize & The Messenger. Maybe it's because they have a bad sense of humour (read: corny) too. See what Orientation comes out as every year? One Red team, one Blue team, the former with a Lion as the symbol and the latter with the Eagle as a mascot, with a corny skit, which both unite towards the end. David Liew gave out the first 2 awards - how appropriate.
Dumb questions they wrote for the Prom King/Queen nominees - the worst was "If you were walking down the road and a duck bit your toes, what would you do?". And the stupid answers given - "What do you like most about yourself and why ?". Answer - "I like my height because I'm tall".
Suggested requirements for MCs:
Ability to tell dumb, unfunny and corny jokes. An irritating and loud voice. A lack of a sense of shame. A love of shouting into the mic.
"We have not 1, not 2 but *3* DJs" - The MC. Too many cooks spoil the broth. Why on earth do we need 3 DJs?.
Looking at the pictures with me inside, I notice that I have a tendency to narrow my eyes while I smile my dumb smile. Bleah.
Most of the people who were nominated for the awards were Engin people (if my estimations are correct). "Only Engin people are bored enough [to fill out the forms]" - Eugene Ng (I believe).
One of the lucky draw prizes was a Coffee Maker with 10 kg of Coffee Beans. How helpful of them - I wonder if the poor person lugged them home himself.
All 3 nominees for Lady of the Dance were in Flesh Parade, but only 1 of the 3 for Lord of the Dance was.
Walking around after the Dinner ended, taking frivolous pictures with Julian's digital camera, I realised that Red Jacket looks uncannily like... Zhuomin. Gasp. And he wasn't wearing a Red Jacket. I tried to stalk him and get a good shot, but he escaped me.
Snapping happily away, I ran out of batteries, and missed a shot of 2A01A! #1-#7 (or #6, I think #7 might not have been there), as well the other Named ones.
Post Prom:
Lucky for us, we got upgraded, so we got nice big rooms. There was an attempt to segregate the 2 rooms by gender, but it didn't work out since by the time the majority returned from their pubbing, the "Loser Crowd" of Katie, Luther, Me, Julian, Chin Xiang, Minrui and Wang Shuo [who was asleep the whole time next door] which had stayed behind since we didn't dance or drink, having moved to the "girl" room because it was cooler, was sleeping (rather, pretending to). We had a view of Raffles Guys School (RGS) from our windows. Nice stained glass.
Apparently the girls were jumping on their beds prior to the Prom, but Luther and I were discouraged from doing likewise. So much for female maturity (I'd actually have a picture of Shuyu and Tong hitting each other with files in 1-10 the Thursday before Promos, but it didn't come out because the Flash was off).
Julian and Chin Xiang fulfilled their fantasies of prancing around in Japanese bathrobes ("Yukata"). I actually have 2 "uprobe" pictures, but they're totally dark, and anyway they were wearing pants underneath. The latter fulfilled yet another desire by trying Felicia's Mother's Red Shoes, and found out firsthand the joys of female footwear.
I realised, when Julian took his glasses off, that from an angle, he looks a bit like a Joel Koh with more pimples!
Luther was the first to pretend to sleep, and Katie was on the bed beside him, but they looked like a divorced couple because they kept facing opposite directions.
Somehow everyone was amused when I hid underneath the comforter, remarking that I'd "gunnysacked" myself, and people started whacking me with pillows.
Further showing how sad we were, we started watching nature documentaries, switching from the Discovery Channel to Vision 4. Ligers to Deer rescue ("The World's Greatest Animal Rescues"?!, with a deer being pulled from a swamp and slipping. And slipping. And slipping again.) to Lions to Sharks (with a mad Gordon guy swimming with them), with intermittent checks on RTM2 to check on their 3 hour praying marathon.
Since the room was occupied already, the Disco group was forced to all crowd into the other room, together with the people watching the English Premier League. Muaha. There was some jostling for sleeping positions, with Katie and Luther one one bed, me on another, Minrui on the floor and Julian on the big chair, with Chin Xiang coming in intermittently saying "I'm bored".
In the end, I held out till 5 am. Ah well, not bad for someone who doesn't play cards.