Baby-Chipmunk Girl!

Without wanting to turn this blog into an online version of "America's funniest home videos", there's another video I need to share with the world: the amazing Baby-Chipmunk Girl! Luckily for us she auditioned for American Idol. Unfortunately, only a few very short seconds of her greatness are available.... She's the second one to "sing" on the video below, right after the obviously deaf woman. Honourable mention goes to the Michael Jackson impersonator, a huge display of talent indeed! And hello Mr. Zebra, yikes!!

Wii're coming!!

Wii-remote waggling and masturbation jokes have been around pretty much ever since the Wii was launched - been there, done that (the jokes that is!). On the other hand (pun intended), watching Alec Baldwin - who is hilarious in 30 Rock - being the butt of the joke in this SNL clip somehow brings it to a whole other level. "Oh trust me, you're mother's gonna be a natural!" HA!

Survivor: Valentine's edition

Friday the 13th... Nah, doesn't really bother me. Saturday the 14th of February - now that's scary! Basically another Valentine's being single. This year I decided to check if the infinite wisdom of the internet had some good advice for me for facing yet another V-day alone. It didn't. I even to went to Wikihow (very good site, lots of funny guides there - How to look busy at work or even How to hide an erection!), but all it had was the usual crap: Go to a spa, organise a party, imagine about your dream date... bla bla bla!

So, over the last couple of days I have been giving this some a lot of thought and here's my humble attempt on giving some tips to survive Valentine's day being single:

Money, money, money! Think of Valentine's as just another excuse for companies to attempt to get you to buy large quantities of overpriced, badly made and tacky goods (which are also usually pink and heart-shaped). Single people everywhere can console themselves by knowing that they are saving money, time and hassle when all around the world, people are struggling to get overpriced tacky gifts.

Shut Your Eyes Tight... ... And ignore the whole thing. Try not to expose yourself to something that will make those negative emotions surface - sappy movies, people out on dinner dates. You can't forget that the day happens, but you can remove yourself from situations that might make you feel bad. Maybe the best to succeed is to involve yourself so completely in something that has nothing to do with Valentine's that you don't have time to realise that it's Valentine's day until it's already over. Maybe your house could do with some vaccuming? Finally go through all the pointless funny e-mails you receive everyday but never really open? Maybe create a blog?! ;) Hours of fun!!

Celebrate Being Single Sometimes it seems that if we don't have an opportunity to sit opposite someone in a nice restaurant looking all giddy with love (or generally lust, and possibly nerves and wind) then we feel bad, like something's missing in life or in us. Some people spend all of our single life wishing to be in a couple, and then, ironically, when they do find someone, they start thinking how cool it would be to have some of their single life back - they do right?

Self-indulgence Nothing wrong with a little bit of self-indulgence. Buy something you normally wouldn't buy - maybe something you've been wishing for, something luxurious, something completely unnecessary and pointless that will somehow fill the void.

One last thing: Why should love only be celebrated between couples? In some countries Valentine cards and gifts are not only exchanged by couples, but also between close friends. So send a card or a nice message to a close (and preferebly also single) friend!

Hmm, I think all of the above makes a lot a sense, don't you? Unfortunately, like what I found on the internet, is also a load of crap.... Oh well I tried! Here's to Valentines 2010!

Note: If you just read that and you are in a happy relationship, sorry about that! Go out, do something special and enjoy being with your loved one :) Maybe next year I'll join the club. To all the happy couples, here's a little something from me:

Answers for Layton

Here are the solutions for the Prof. Layton puzzles I posted a few days ago. Internet fame goes to... Sara!! She got the 3 answers right, as you can see in the comments of the original post. Bornsleepy also deserves an nonourable mention, as he had 2 right answers (and 1 lazy answer...). So, the answers then:


Question: You have only one match left. You want to light the room with an oil lamp, start a fire to warm the room, and heat your bathwater. In order to complete all of the above actions, which of these should you light first?

Answer: Only one possible answer for this one, regardless of what you might think: You must light the match first!


Question: A boy and his big sister are sitting around the kitchen table chatting. "You know, Sis, if I took away two years from my age and gave them to you, you'd be twice my age, huh!" "Well, why don't you just give me one more on top of that? Then I'll be three times your age."
So just how old is each sibling?

Answer: Maybe you're really clever and just find the answer to this one, but I had to use maths! So, if x=age of brother and y=age of sister we have:
From statement 1: 2(x-2)=y+2
From statement 2: 3(x-3)=y+3 then solve: 2(x-2)=3(x-3)-1 => x=6, y=6! They are both 6!


Question: Alfred and Roland have been hired by a farm to sow flower seeds. They've been assigned a 10-acre plot of land and split it in half so they can work independently. Roland starts from the east and Alfred from the west. Alfred can plow the land at a rate of 20 minutes per acre. Roland takes 40 minutes to plow, but sows seeds at three times the speed Alfred does. If sowing seeds on the 10-acre plot pays $100, how much of that money should go to Roland?

Answer: All that talk is just to confuse you - since they split the land evenly, pay should also be split evenly regardless of how long it took. The answer is therefore $50.

New Wallpaper

Just a quick post today, I've been really busy at work so really tired now. Anyway, after years of having a (very nice) photo of my cat Mao - and the obligatory Mariah Carey Xmas wallpaper during the festive season - I decided it was time for a change! Many were the options, but this was The Chosen One: It's a Sark wallpaper! I'm loving it :)

Anyway, while I was searching for my wallpaper found one (well, actually two...) which is perfect for my friend Sara: here it is, enjoy (but remember, it's only a desktop wallpaper, ok?)!

.

More puzzles from Prof. Layton

Professor Layton: needs no introduction anymore. So, here are 3 new puzzles for you to solve. As usual, write your answer in the comments, although if you're correct I'll only post when I provide the solutions. Internet fame can be yours! Good luck :)

1) We start off easy, with a clasic puzzle: You have only one match left. You want to light the room with an oil lamp, start a fire to warm the room, and heat your bathwater.

In order to complete all of the above actions, which of these should you light first?

2) A boy and his big sister are sitting around the kitchen table chatting. "You know, Sis, if I took away two years from my age and gave them to you, you'd be twice my age, huh!" "Well, why don't you just give me one more on top of that? Then I'll be three times your age."

So just how old is each sibling?

3) Alfred and Roland have been hired by a farm to sow flower seeds. They've been assigned a 10-acre plot of land and split it in half so they can work independently. Roland starts from the east and Alfred from the west. Alfred can plow the land at a rate of 20 minutes per acre. Roland takes 40 minutes to plow, but sows seeds at three times the speed Alfred does.

If sowing seeds on the 10-acre plot pays $100, how much of that money should go to Roland?

Snowed In 2: The Fall

It was inevitable... I did say so on this post. As you may not know, in certain areas of England chaos returned today due to the heavy snow. Here in Basingstoke it snowed all night and then rained during the morning. Around lunchtime it started snowing. A lot. It lasted for about 4 hours, to the point that we were told (I was in the office) to go home as things were really bad and roads either closed or very dangerous. As we were about to leave, the lady from our office building told us that it was almost impossible to get the cars out of the car park and even if we did, the it was complete chaos on the roads. We finally realized that walking home was the best option... So two work colleagues and I decided to just go for it and face the snow! Bear in mind I didn't even have gloves... and we had a 1 hour walk (at least) ahead of us. As we leave the office and come outside, this was the scenario....

Mine is the red one (in my dreams....)

We decide to take a shortcut through the woods. Of course as you can see I was always a bit behind them, just trying my best not to fall.

Then we reach the main road, and it was indeed chaos: cars everywhere, the roads were covered in ice, people outside their cars, etc... But we continued, happily along. It was all a bit exciting to be honest and we were laughing, and they were laughing, mostly at me and my lack of balance. Basingstoke is not the what I'd call a very nice city, especially for pedestrians. We then reach a place where there was no sidewalks, or footpaths, nothing.

For some reason, unknown to men, instead of focusing on not falling, I continue to take photos to document the "adventure". As I take another photo, while still walking, I slip, lose my balance and fell flat on the floor! The image photo below is from that priceless moment, a true Kodak moment, capture forever:

Going down.......

I fell flat of my back, and because was full of grocery shopping it did hurt (quite) a bit... and my leg was also complaining. Obviously my ego was even more hurt, as everyone in their cars or walking the people walking behind me were laughing.... I got up and I was a mess, with snow and slush and salt all over my clothes. I knew it, it's becoming a tradition: it snows and I have to fall at least once! I'll surely be sore tomorrow, so this weekend I've already decided, I'll be hibernating!

Super Smash Brothers OST!

Super Smash Brothers: great series of games, fulfilling legions of Nintendo fans' dreams of battles between countless classic characters. On the latest game we can even have Mario vs Sonic - if had a pence for how many times i had this argument during my childhood years. Really, if someone from the future went back in time a la Terminator and told me that Sonic would be in a Nintendo game, on a Nintendo console with Mario my head would probably explode!!

Anyway I bought Super Smash Brothers Brawl for my Wii recently and it's a really fun fighting game, if a bit too similar to its predecessors. For me, a self-proclaimed Nintendo fan, the best about it is how it constitutes an archive of Nintendo wonderment. The iconography of Nintendo is cemented in the characters, the stages, the collectible trophies (hundreds!), the stickers and even playable demos of retro games.

The intro movie is epic!

And the soundtrack? Amazing - pure aural pleasure! I cannot even imagine the effort that must have gone into creating the soundtrack: experimental compositions of classic themes, orchestral revivals of old tunes (finally orchestral Zelda tune!) and songs that I never even knew existed. And all these new versions or remixes were actually made by the original composers! So, how many songs are in this game? 314. Obviously, you might wanna enjoy these songs outside the game, or even have them as ringtones (I certainly did). Luckily then it's the Internet age! Below are the links to download the OST, ripped from the game (thanks to whoever did this!), in high quality:

[001 - 025] Part 1: Mario & Donkey Kong

[025 - 091] Part 2: Zelda, Metroid & Yoshi
[092 - 125] Part 3: Kirby, Starfox, Pokemon & F-Zero.
[126 - 176] Part 4: Fire Emblem, Mother, Pikmin & Wario Ware
[177 - 201] Part 5: Animal Crossing, Kid Icarus & NES tunes

[202 - 247] Part 6: Wii/DS games, Metal Gear & Sonic
[248 - 314] Part 7: SSB Melee and Brawl original songs

The choice is so overwhelming I still haven't decided which ones to have as my ringtone. But I've already chosen my alarm song, to which I wake up to everyday - it's perfect:

"A good-morning ringtone!"

A couple of my favourite Nintendo tunes, remixed for Brawl:

Super Mario Bros Remix



The Legend of Zelda

P.S. Please Mr. Nintendo lawyer don't sue me! I don't think it's illegal to have these files for download, as you can't buy them *i suppose*. Anyway, one word and I'll remove them.

Snowed in

Today felt a little bit in the movies: waking up, looking through the window and seeing everything covered in snow. As you may know, this was Britain's biggest snowfall in 20 years, so there was a lot of snow!

How is this so special to warrant a post here? You see, in Porto, where I'm from it never snows (although it snowed just a little bit earlier this year it seems). I check my work email and most people already sent emails saying how they're snowed in and won't be able to make it to work. Could this really be like in movies, where kids have a day off from school? Not for me, the ever dedicated worker (oh, and I'll be having my yearly review soon...).

So I decide to venture outside, where it's snowing a lot - to me it looked like a blizzard! My first question was "Do I take an umbrella or not?". Relating to the movies again, I don't remember anyone ever wearing an umbrella in the snow, but it makes sense to wear one right? And so I did. Boy, was it cold outside, and as expected, I was pretty much the only one with an umbrella. I might not be used to this snow business but I'm glad I took the umbrella - soon enough all my clothes were covered with but not my face and head!! Who's the dumb one huh? I mean just because it's fluffy and white, it's still water (albeit frozen) falling from the sky!

But I digress... Buses weren't running so came back home and only went to the office in the afternoon, after it stopped snowing so much. Even though all this was slightly annoying, everything looked so lovely in white! And other thing I noticed is how everything seemed so peaceful. Broad daylight, people on the streets, but maybe because there were so few cars on the roads, there was almost complete silence. And still you see all the snow falling but unlike rain, it doesn't make one sound. Ah... maybe the next time it snows like today, I won't notice any of this, but it's good to be a "snow virgin" and be able to appreciate all this :)

Here's a couple of photos from today, where I live - you've all seen the Big Ben covered in snow, too ordinary... but where else are you going to see photos of the snow in Basingstoke? :)

"Yay, we finally have hair!!"

Slightly worried about tomorrow though with the hardened snow and slippery floors... The most balanced person I am not!

***UPDATE***: Just a couple of (impressive) numbers regarding yesterday: According to the British government, roughly six million people stayed at home today, forcing 3,000 firms to close at a cost of approximately £1.2 billion!!! Glad I only stayed home in the morning otherwise it could have been £1.3 billion!