Chatter Of The Squirrel

Downloading Family Guy

WHY IS IT SO SLOW?? 5-digit seeds and leechers! Should be a LOT FASTER!

Boardgame: Agricola

Not a reference to the Roman general.

Agricola is also latin for farmer.

It’s also a VERY hot new boardgame published by Z-Man games. It’s topping the charts for best boardgame, and the English translation was eagerly anticipated. That first run is already sold out. The second run will release this week.

I managed to play a game of Agricola last week. Someone was keen enough to fork over RM340 to purchase the thing from eBay, and lent the box to Mage Cafe. Jefri & I showed up JUST to play Agricola. Triona dropped by too. So, that’s 3 of us newbies, Rob tutoring us, and Wong kicking our asses.

I’m impressed by how easy anyone can pick up the game. I think learning it will only take slightly longer than Settler’s of Catan. It’s easier on the newbie than Puerto Rico, where the new player almost always inadvertantly become the king-maker where his random decisions let the player next to him win. It has more variability and much better replay value. And challenging enough even for a power-gamer. It’s got a friendly theme (being a farmer), that will easily draw players new to boardgames. Instead of themes with galactic conquest or dungeon crawl that screams “Power GEEK!”

In fact, it’s a boardgame that I’m seriously contemplating buying. For the first time since I bought MAD the Boardgame 20yrs ago.

You start the game with a farmer, his wife, a shack with 2 rooms, and 13 empty fields. The game is played in 14 turns, during which you have to build more rooms to expand your family, build fences to create pastures to keep sheep, boars or cattle, plow the land and plant grain or vegetables, upgrade your house, build a fireplace so you can cook your animals etc.

Every few turns, you make sure your farm is producing enough to feed your family. Every turn, new actions are made available. Each action can only be taken once per turn, so you’ll be competing for the actions you want with other players. And the more family members you’ve got, the more actions you can take, but also the more mouths you have to feed. In the full game, you’ll also draw from a deck of Occupation and Minor Improvements cards, which will give each player randomised advantages to help make every game different.

But I was only able to try out the basic tutorial game with my friends. A squatter was dropping by my house that night, so I had to take off to pick him up.

And I can’t go back to Mage Cafe to play the game cos some guy has already bought up that one and only set. I’ll have to wait for the second run, and Wolf to bring in a shipment direct from ZMan. Sadly, the second run won’t have Animeeples… Only little white / black / brown cubes to represent sheep / boar /cattle.

Old Acquaintances

Met up with a bunch of old classmates.

Really old classmates.

Like, from the mid 80’s.

The year. Not the age.

Faces I never thought I would ever see again, if it were’t for MSN and FaceBook. Faces from my primary school in Brunei.

Dinner at this HK restaurant at One Utama, specialising in Cantonese roasted meats.

And VERY good roasted pork. It’s simply the BEST char siew I’ve EVER eaten!! Instead of using lean meat, it uses a special cut from either the flank or somewhere near the belly. Cos there’s a fair bit of fat in the meat that makes it deliciously sweet. So what if we paid RM30 per person. It was worth it.

That was followed by hours of chit-chat at the nearest Starbucks.

Catching up on who’s married. How many kids. When we saw each other last. Etc. I didn’t have much to contribute cos I left Chung Hwa after 88. Have only been back to that old alma mater once in 1991, representing another school, and thrashed my old school very soundly at the district level finals of the national science quiz.

Good times…

Talk also wandered to the state of our country. One fella is in the construction business, and he had a LOT to add. Being in a business that makes a lot of money very visibly, he has to deal with a LOT of gangsters.

Just about every project, in any area, there will be a local triad that he has to pay tribute to. It’s actually a necessary service and an unavoidable expense. Instead of being hassled daily by the schools of random shrimps who might cause trouble, it’s more convenient, and there’s more accountability, if one just pays off one big shark. And this is on top of the various ‘legitimate’ harrassment from health inspectors, safety inspectors, etc.

This doesn’t stop at construction projects. Another friend who’s in the renovation business, also has to deal with these unpleasant societies when his company gets the renovation deal for a project. To the point that the company practically supports a small army of characters to ‘police’ what’s theirs.

The stories got more troubling when we started talking about robberies. Cases that never made it into the papers.

Guns are available in the black market for about a grand. And that’s an investment that can reap good dividends. Stories of friends of friends who got robbed at gun-point. They don’t take just the cash. They’ll also get your ATM cards and your PIN number. And don’t be smart and give them a fake PIN. Did you think you’ll be released before they attempt to make a withdrawal with your PIN? Heaven help you if you tried to be clever.

Another story of 3 friends who made a large withdrawal at a bank. Too often, you just need to make certain payments with no paper trail, thus such cash withdrawals are unavoidable it seems. So, the 3 guys split their money before leaving the bank. 2 guys got on the same car and was held up. The robber counted the cash and said, “I know you took out 190k, where’s the missing 50 thousand ?”

He obviously had spies in the bank. He then proceeded to drive the 2 victims to a highway, left them off by the roadside, and told them to catch up on foot. The 2 guys found their vehicle parked by the roadside 2-3km ahead.

That’s the cool thing about Chinese robbers. They’ll only go after the big fish. And are only sensibly interested in your money, and nothing more.

Another incident that happened to this friend: big withdrawal, 3 persons went in 3 separate cars. While a colleague was filling out the withdrawal slip (for a big amount), he noted another bank ‘customer’ beside him that was glancing his way. When he picked up a queue number, this customer did the same.

When they’ve done their transaction and left the bank, the customer followed, despite the counter calling out his number next. That colleague is an old salt, so he was very alert. When he stopped mid-walk and turned around, the ‘customer’ averted eye contact suspiciously. Further confirming that they’ve been marked.

So all 3 of them piled into one car and waited. They watched the customer go behind a tree to make a phone call. Likely to give the description of the car to his accomplices waiting in ambush somewhere. They waited till the customer walked away, before they quickly left the car and piled into another car and drove off.

Then more stories of car-jackers, that made me glad that I’m driving a clunky little Charade.

What happens when the economy slows down? More will take to crime.

Malaysia has so much to look forward to.

Movie: Mirrors

Mr. 24 acting in a horror film.

Mirrors at a burnt down department store showing spooky ghostly images.

Ex-cop sees spookiness. But estranged wife is a bitch and disbelieves him in typical Hollywood stereotype until she sees it for herself.

Spookiness begins to extend to Mr 24’s family, and the mirror kills his sister. Gruesomely.

Spookiness traced to a fire. Traced to an inhumane mental institute. Traced to a patient that should be dead but isn’t dead.

In the end, the source of the spookiness is attributed to a demon trapped in the mirrors, and a young girl who was possesed by said demon in her youth, who is now an aged nun living at a monestery away from mirrors. (Shouldn’t it be a convent? Who’s writing this script?)

Mr 24 pulls out a gun and drags the poor nun back to the demon, to her death. Who cares if she had suffered unspeakable pain and anguish for years at the hands of this demon. His family is in danger, so that makes it right to feed the old woman to the demon who wants to come back to the material plane.

Ending with a scene that TRIED SO HARD to emulate Father Merrin’s sacrifice. But lands flat of course. In modern Hollywood fashion, the climax of the movie devolved into a Thing-That-Wouldn’t-Die scene, with Mr 24 being thrown through walls, an explosion, and a lame twist ending.

Not really disappointing. Never had high hopes for it anyway. But it didn’t suck too bad. Still, it won’t be something I would recommend.

Safe Cracking

The weirdest topics fascinate me.

My office is in the process of moving to new premises. And I’ve been digging around the storage area to look for cool junk. Like maybe comb-binders. To bind up printed copies of home-grown gaming rule books. A German made aquarium pump. Obsolete computer components that can be salvaged, etc.

I also found 2 safes. Those really cool old-school dial combination safes. The kind that’s obviously too difficult for aged aunties to use, which has since been replaced with boring new electronic safes.

If no one wants these abandoned relics, I’ld love to cart them home and play with them.

Yarr… I’m amused by the strangest toys.

Since watching Yosemite Sam cracking a safe, I’ve wanted a stethoscope for its criminal potential. I already have a stethoscope. But a combi safe will complete my 20yr old dream.

So from this discovery, I digress into reading about safe engineering and history. Fun read.