My Table is Clean - There's a Reason for That

This is a response to this post: My Desk at Chewxy's Blog Some of you might have come from Chewxy's blog to see my 'rather' neat table. Just so you don't think I'm as neat as I appear to me, there's something you need to know about my table. My table is pretty small. I can't have it messy since it would be quite difficult to study since I'd have to stack stuff up pretty high. I'll give you a picture of where my stuff actually is.

So as you can see, it is actually above my head where I usually sit. I consider a part of my table, since I tend to grab stuff from there like it is my table. Now, one picture isn't sufficient to show you the whole thing, so I'll have to start slow. Here's view 1.

1 - Ubuntu Linux CDs - 1 x86, 2 x PowerPC and 1 64-bit (not visible) set of CDs. Used sometimes. 2 - A box that used to house no.9. Now it houses another mess of memory sticks, DVI-to-VGA converter, S-Video-to-Composite converter, staplers, staples, and a whole lot of cabling. 3 - My calculator. Always falls down, always still works. Heh. 4 - My PDA. Doesn't fall down, obviously still works and play Duke Nukem 3D. 5 - Sellotape. If you squint, you can see another roll behind it. 6 - Executive Marble Run. Great desktop diversion. Only reason it's not on my desk is because I keep hitting the desk and everything falls apart. 7 - A Magic deck. Yes, you heard me right - a Magic deck. 8 - PSP travel case. Currently holds 2 UMDs, my music players, 2 sets of earphones, 1 PSP remote. 9 - Desktop Organiser. Obviously not on my main desk since I can reach it when I sit at my desk. It may look neat, but the truth is a lot of the stuff that used to be on it, no longer is. :(

Onwards to view 2!

Nothing much new here. But you can more clearly see - another PSP game case. And I bet you must be wondering what the cable around my PDA is - that's my USB hub power cable. Currently not in use. You can also see the small stack of mail at the back (barely) and some bags of Lindor that you saw from before.

Here, you can also see a very important thing - my PSP strap. So yes, my PSP is actually there under the stack of paper. No, I'm not going to neaten it up for you to see my PSP. The point is to see it as it usually is, so you won't be seeing my PSP. Maybe another angle. :)

1 - HDD music player charger. Oh yeah, you guys haven't seen it yet. (on my blog at least) 2 - A pack of batteries. 3 - A wad of paper. The point of interest is that cabling near the wad of paper. See it? Those are the stock Walkman earphones with an extension cable. I used that once while using Shockrave's PS2 to play .hack//G.U. Part 1.

OK. And that conclude the overview of the top side of the shelf.

Yes - there is a bottom side to this story. And the bottom photo isn't complete. I'm doing this in a rush since I have an exam tomorrow to study for.

1 - Highlighter. I'm quite sure you know what this is for. I use it regularly, so that means a lot of digging every time. 2 - G2 pen refill. 3 - Bet you can't guess what this is - but it's actually a CD scratch remover. 4 - Cluedo playing cards! 5 - My Wacom graphire3 tablet. 6 - Spare printer cable. 7 - A pack of playing cards. 8 - My palmone Universal Wireless Keyboard. 9 - A kinetic energy powered calculator. (I know 8 and 9 look like the same thing in the photo, but I assure you it's not.) 10 - Barely visible, DS carrying case strap. 11 - CD lens cleaner. I spilled soup into my SuperDrive once. This fixed it. Heh. 12 - Sunday Saver Metcard. 13 - To the right of the number, is actually a small plastic bag to make the occasional temporary rubbish bin.

Note that a lot of stuff has been omitted hidden by the papers that I refused to move. I don't have the time to index what's underneath those papers, but I'll tell you what's there - a wireless mouse, a PSP, a USB cable, two more decks of playing cards, a roll of cloth tape, a FireWire 6-pin to 6-pin cable, a 1 metre Ethernet cable and a puncher. And don't get me started on the dresser and minitable I made that's behind me.

The Last Exam Paper is the Most Annoying

I'm completely annoyed by this last paper I have. It's Intermediate Macroeconomics. I'm not going to talk much. Just felt like ranting. You know what's the problem I have with this subject? It's feels wrongly broad. It's like no matter what happens, something is bound go wrong. I don't have the feeling of impending doom like I did with Business Finance, but I'm certain that there is some feeling of some not-very-nice thing that is going to happen. :(

DS vs PSP: My Thoughts

I'm quite sure that I've blogged about it before. The two portable consoles. My stand then was simple: they were obviously not catered to the same markets. It just so happens that quite a number of gamers are actually in both markets. Now, as we draw to a close to 2006, and I've had both consoles in my ownership for a while, I think I can make a pretty good guess as to which is the better console. I don't a DS Lite. But I'm not here to go compare specs toe-to-toe. We know who loses in the end, and that doesn't help me trying to be objective.

For one, let's talk controls in general. The DS has a great touchscreen. However, it has really lousy feeling buttons. In my opinion, the DS buttons are worse than the original Game Boy's buttons. Yes - you heard me - WORSE than the ORIGINAL GAME BOY's buttons. We're talking about a really really old console. One I owned and cherished for a long long time. One I didn't give up playing, even when my Game Boy Color came along. I don't know about the DS Lite, but if memory serves me correctly, it didn't feel any better when I tried it. The buttons are soft, lacking tactile feedback. Sometimes, I can't tell if I pressed it or not. For one, buttons are still important even if the touchscreen is there. I know the shoulder buttons are like those from the original GBA. I didn't like those. Imagine who suffers while playing stuff like Yoshi's Island, Super Mario which don't work with the touchscreen?

Of course, the PSP buttons are one hell of a pampering. They absolutely rock for puzzle gaming. While I feel constricted in Tetris DS, I don't feel such thing in Koloomn (Ultimate Block Party) or Lumines (be it 1 or 2). The fairest comparison would be Puyo Pop Fever. I'm quite sure that if you pit two average players of the same skill, the one with the PSP will win. Why? Because he can control better. That's all.

Then, we come to my main gripe. The DS has a touchscreen. Wow - that's cool and all. BUT - we come to how many games use it. You don't need to touchscreen to play Gyakuten Saiban 1 and 2 bar the fifth case of game 1. That's fine, they were ported from GBA after all. Then, we have Yoshi's Island - I have no clue why they had to make it for the DS. I haven't played much, but it doesn't look like I'll be using the touchscreen any time soon. Then, we have stuff like Yoshi Touch 'n Go. It WAS a tech demo. It IS a tech demo. I don't know how wrong that feels to you, but I sure ain't forking out the cash for that, or any tech demo like game (Warioware and Feel the Magic XY/XX immediately come to mind).

Then we have the issue of having two screens. I don't know about most people, but I for the most part haven't found many games which use both screens well. A lot of games could've gone 1 screen and that would have been fine. (Yes, Yoshi's Island DS I'm looking at you.) I honestly don't mind having that second screen, but often I feel like I need that fucking screen off so I can stretch my battery life longer. I don't call the second screen a significant advantage over the PSP - I call it a disadvantage. More often than not, I'm finding that the second screen is not only often not needed, sometimes an effort to put it to use is more distracting than it is useful.

That being said, why are those my gripes? It's because I believe they are hindering people from developing great games for the DS. Why do we buy consoles? Games. I believe this second screen with touchscreen capability is beginning to seriously hinder creativity and what nots from DS games. We have Elite Beat Agents - which I admit is pretty cool. We have Kirby Canvas Curse - also pretty fun use of the stylus. However, as time passes, we find ourselves going further and further towards the obvious. You have a touchscreen. There isn't much you can use it for. Often times when you do need to use it, it's really really just annoying. I can't think of a particular example right now not because I don't have any, it's just that they get so annoying that I delete them and wipe them off my memory. I remember this particular RPG that needed you to use the stylus to move. I just can't remember the name of that RPG.

Games that are mediocre on the DS are just purely mediocre. You don't remember them, you don't care much about them, and you try to ebay them off ASAP. I just think that sometimes it feels like they could have done so much better had they not had care about the touchscreen (or there being a second screen).

That being said - the DS is a good console with plenty of great games. Now, we come to another problem I have with the DS: battery life. Often, I find myself running out of battery. Is it because the battery sucks? Is it because I played it longer than the PSP? Well, I'll give you this. If it says the battery life is 6 hours, it is 6 hours. Regardless what damn game you play. This is usually a good thing - except that I love puzzle games. I won't survive having the recharge every damn time I decide that 6 hours of Meteos or Puyo Pop is needed. In this respect, I disagree that the DS has better battery life than the PSP. True, maybe I can't play 6 hours of Wipeout Pure or Killzone Liberation straight, but I sure can push a long time out of my Koloomn and Lumines. And so far, I find the DS sleep mode less than useful. In fact, I wouldn't rely on it. Somehow, it doesn't feel as battery-saving as the PSP's sleep mode. Don't ask me how - it just feels that way.

And then we come to the ultimatum: which do I play more at the end of, let's say, a month? The PSP. Why? I have no damn clue. I suppose part of it is that the PSP has better puzzle games than the DS. Yes, I like the big powerhouse for PUZZLE games. OK that's fine - I should ignore those. Those are like 100 hours of nonstop same thing kind of games. Not really fair. Then, I look at games like Ace Combat X, Killzone Liberation, GTA: Vice City Stories and Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2. And then I compare them to Gyakuten Saiban 2, Yoshi's Island DS, Elite Beat Agents, Cooking Mama, Mario Kart DS, New Super Mario Bros. Out of some fairness, I'll put in Children of Mana and Magical Starsign. Two probably reasonable RPGs. Arguably, that's not the most favourable lineup for the DS, but a lot of what I named are new stuff. It doesn't take a genius to guess which console got more attention from me the last month or two. It's the PSP.

I've given up being fair to both consoles. It's just not possible. This post completely bashes the DS in front of the PSP. It's obvious I'm not completely in both markets. The PSP owns. It's beginning to kinda dawn on me that if I were to buy games new, chances are, the PSP will give me more per dollar/ringgit I have to fork out compared to a new DS game. Come on - let's face it. You are more likely to spend more hours on GTA: VCS than you are... on let's say... Yoshi's Island DS. OK, that's an unfair comparison. Let's try something else... Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime against... against... hmm... Valkyrie Profile would be unfair... so... (ah ha! snag! not enough good PSP RPGs!). That being said, it's not honestly fair to compare them like that. I don't know - I compare how much I tend to spend playing them. I believe that's a very fair comparison. The PSP may not necessarily have better games than the DS, but tendency is that you will play the PSP more. Why? The games are longer. Why are they longer? UMD is waaaaaay larger than the DS cart. We can go on in circles. I won't even compare puzzle games, since I obviously prefer Lumines and Koloomn over Tetris DS and Meteos. I hate Tetris DS. I love Tetris. I play it all the time. I have it on every platform I own - my phone, my PC, my PowerBook, my XBox, my PSP, my DS, my PS2, (I don't have one for GameCube sadly). It's just that I don't find the Tetris DS to be on par. I know personally I've played more Lumines or Koloomn than Tetris DS and Meteos combined. Is it because I got my PSP earlier? No. I enjoy playing Lumines and Koloomn more than Tetris DS and Meteos. I don't know why, but I blame the bias on controls. Somehow, playing puzzle games on the PSP feels so much more... controllable than on the DS. Oh well. I think this post is long overdue to end.

(So much for my hiatus. Oh well, it's not like it's some law or something, it's more like I probably can't post, not that I can't post completely.)

Many Days of Studying Later...

If you recall, I suddenly went on hiatus after day 6 of daily updates. It's not that I didn't prepare those posts after that, I just decided that I could not sustain it if I were to maintain my resolution to study - so they will be put on permanent hold and while it will go on for a while more when I get back to Malaysia, it will end prematurely since I only prepared so much material. In fact, I might never post it and just post the answer to the last one. The reason it will end prematurely is because number 1, I am studying for my exams and have no time to continue it - and number 2, I am probably moving out of Arrow on Swanston next year. That means that I will leave this place, and a lot of the old clues that I had planned to stack up to the more complicated puzzles will no longer be relevant since I can no longer take photos in this current apartment. What it does mean though is that you can expect it to continue in a new stream some time next year when I've moved into the new apartment. (if it is successful)

In the meantime, I'm feeling sick currently, and might have to skip studying to recover from whatever it is I am suffering from, like I did yesterday. As you can see, problems are plaguing me as it is. On that note, this blog will take a hiatus until 12th December. There might be posts here and there, but I shall give a good date to follow. The reason for the hiatus being that I might not have the ability to go online after Nov 26th (a long trip round Australia) and that I might not have the free time to blog after Nov 20th (due to packing and misc. reasons.

(And oh yeah, I've updated WordPress 2.04 to 2.05. Please report any issues you encounter so I can fix them. :D)

Day 6 of Studying!

Here's the answer to yesterday's post. Decided in the end I should just put it here. Here's question number 2: Is I took this photo with my own camera - then what is in that black PSP case (which I use as a camera case)? It's in yesterday's photo. :D