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Hard Drive 5-Year Warranty

Seagate logo So as I mentioned one of my hdds failed in my RAID5 array. I’ve got to say the quality of this batch of Seagate hdds (Barracuda 7200.7 160GB) were pretty flaky. One died early on in the process (had it RMAed) and the remaining 2 that are still working pass the scan test really slowly.

I decided it’d be fun to see if this hdd was still under warranty. When I couldn’t lookup the warranty status via Seagate’s website, I shot them an email. Their reply:

Unfortunately, it looks like your drive is outside the warranty period.

Serial 4MT0****
Model Number ST3160827AS-RK
Part Number 9W2984-557
Warranty Status Out of Warranty
Warranty End Date 06/10/2010

I swear they time these things. ;p

Then again, do I really have a need for another spare 160GB hdd?

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Windows Home Server

Windows Home Server

So I finally got around to upgrading my second file server. I had upgraded my Linux file server from 6x500GB to 6x1TB (RAID5) when Windows 7 got released. I remember taking 2 of the 500GBs and using them in my main desktop (RAID0). However, I had a 2nd file server (original file server before I built the Linux one). The 2nd file server was running Windows Server 2003 and had 4x160GB (RAID5).

Jeremy had asked if I had any spare hdds because he needed one to diagnose his computer issues. I did have the 4 spare 500GBs, but I figured I could probably swap them out from my Windows file server and give Jeremy a 160GB instead. So the first thing I had to do was to copy all the files off the old file server (there was about 400GB worth of data and my Linux file server had about 600GB of free space). While copying the files, my Windows RAID5 array fails. I decided to run it in degraded mode and just copy the remaining files. I was glad the attempt was successful.

So I’ve been meaning to upgrade to Windows Home Server for some time since I’ve heard there were some good user experiences with computer backups and media center. I got my copy off MSDN and began installing it. I was shocked when after the 1st reboot, it showed that it was booting/installing Windows Server 2003. I found out later that Windows Home Server was built on top of Windows Server 2003. I had always assumed it was built on top of Windows Server 2008 for some reason.

Do note this is a pretty slow machine (AMD Athlon XP 2400+ with like 1GB of RAM), so the OS installation took some time. Everything went through pretty smoothly, but I had some questions about setting it up. Thanks to Matt for providing some tips on how to use it. I wasn’t sure what anti-virus/malware software I should use. Microsoft Security Essentials doesn’t run on Windows Server and there’s no free version of AV software that runs on Windows Server either. A search online had people recommending avast! Windows Home Server Edition, but I decided to run it without anti-virus protection for now since people wouldn’t t be using the machine directly.

I also wasn’t sure if I should be adding the hdds as Storage or Backup drives. I had enabled duplication on certain folders, but Matt confirmed that the Storage drive option is what I want for everything. Duplication will still occur. Backup drives are apparently for a different purpose. And there’s no need to RAID these hdds and you only need to backup what you really care about. Even though Windows sees them as separate hdds, to the user it’s treated as 1 giant partition as Windows does all the magic behind the scenes, so there’s no hassle of trying to decide which drive to put what.

Another good thing about Windows Home Server is that there is no complicated process if you want to upgrade the hdds. It uses everything you can throw at it, including external drives. Though I did read somewhere that you probably want to wait a day or 2 between drive upgrades to allow all the duplication to occur correctly.

Now it comes to the fun part!

Backups

Windows Home Server comes with a client connection software, which registers your machine with Windows Home Server and it’ll automatically backup your machine during the specified time. You can configure it to ignore particular folders and it already has a default set of files/folders to ignore. It even has the ability to wake up the machine for backup purposes if the machine is asleep. By default it keeps the last 3 daily backups, the last 3 weekly backups, and the last 3 monthly backups.

Sharing Media Files

Any computer that registers with with the server automatically adds a certain set of shared folders (e.g. Photos, Music, Videos, etc.) to its library, making sharing media content extremely easy. Previously you would have to manually map network shares and so on.

Media Center Integration

There’s even media center integration which allows you to not only view TV recordings that are on the server, but also automatically archive (compression optional) to the media server, which I found really spiffy.

All in all, I’m really happy with Windows Home Server.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-22

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New Music

If you don’t see any embedded videos, you can visit the original blog post.

fancy string musical instrument

I’ve really only been listening to the Inception soundtrack for the past week, but today I’ve returned to my regular music. It was time to clean up my Current Favorites playlist, so I wanted to blog about some of the new music I’ve been enjoying before they disappear into my 1600+ song rotation.

Side Note: I never understood why some music videos can’t be embedded. Then again I never understood the concept of purchasing music videos since they’re really just advertisements for the music. It’ll be like purchasing a movie trailer. Shoot, did I just give movie studios a horrible idea? Maybe if the music video came with the song, it might be worth the extra cost. But nope, I have to purchase that separately.

I’m also trying out YouTube’s new iframe embedding so not quite sure how it’ll turn up in RSS feeds and so on. But goddamnit, their new iframe embedding code is still not XHTML compliant!

The following songs aren’t in any particular order. If anything, they’re probably in the order they were added to my playlist.

Timbaland – If We Ever Meet Again ft. Katy Perry

Timbaland is usually a hit or miss for me. This song with Katy Perry was definitely a hit.

Mayday Parade – Kids In Love

A Rocket To The Moon – Like We Used To

I found these 2 songs to be very similar for some reason. I guess I originally confused them to be the same song when I was listening to it on the radio. I think if you like one, you’ll like the other too.

Red Hot Chili Peppers – The Zephyr Song

I forget if I saw this song on Rock Band first or if I heard it on the radio first and then purchased it for Rock Band. But this song is just awesome!

B.o.B – Airplanes (Feat. Hayley Williams of Paramore)

This is probably my favorite song out of this list. It was so good that it’s the only song that was due for removal from the playlist that I actually kept. For some reason the chorus is just so catchy. I wonder if the clapping has anything to do with it. Or it could be the fact that it’s the vocalist from Paramore that is singing the chorus.

Black Eyed Peas – Rock That Body

I originally didn’t like this song, but after hearing it on the radio several times, I just started to dig the beat.

Eminem – Love The Way You Lie ft. Rihanna

This is the 1st song from Eminem’s new album that I really like. You’ll notice a catchy female chorus in a rap song is a good formula for getting me to like the song. This music video also features Megan Fox and that Simon guy from FlashForward. I think he was also Charlie in Lost.

OneRepublic – Secrets

My sister introduced me to this song a long time ago when I told her that there was a new OneRepublic song that I liked. She asked if it was Secrets, but it was actually All The Right Moves. However, after hearing Secrets on the radio several times, I’ve begun to like it more and more.

Ne-Yo – Beautiful Monster

Song is definitely very fun and the term beautiful monster just conjured up images in my head. The music video on the other hand is very weird. I’m not quite sure why he’s fighting some random yakuza.

Enrique Iglesias – I Like It

Another really fun song. I didn’t even know Enrique Iglesias still made music. The beats just makes you want to dance.

Drake – Find Your Love

I think the Hey Hey Hey sold me on this song. Haha. ;p

David Guetta & Chris Willis ft Fergie & LMFAO – Gettin’ Over You

I didn’t realize Fergie and LMFAO were part of this song until I saw the music video. But the beats in this song are definitely rocking.

Eminem – Not Afraid

I first heard the parody song done by the Key of Awesome: EMINEM Not Afraid Parody: Key of Awesome #26 and it was just hilariously awesome. The song/melody wasn’t bad either, so I decided to check the original out.

3OH!3 – Double Vision

For the longest time I thought this was a Timbaland song (when the guy sings I’m thinking maybe I can have relationships), but after searching for it, it turns out it’s 3OH!3 instead. They’ve released a couple good songs, but this song sounds nothing like their other ones.

Linkin Park – The Catalyst

Very typical Linkin Park. Just catchy repetitive shouting.

The new Medal of Honor game also has a trailer out featuring this song in the background: Medal of Honor / Linkin Park – “The Catalyst” Trailer

Bruno Mars – Just The Way You Are

I’ve never heard of Bruno Mars until my sister told me about this song. We were talking about Miranda Cosgrove’s Kissin U and she said she was also listening to Just The Way You Are. After a few listens, I really began to dug it. This song has been playing on repeat for some time today.

I also didn’t know that Bruno Mars was part of B.o.B – Nothin’ On You (Beautiful girls, all over the world) and Travie McCoy – Billionaire

I’ll end this post with a small random treat.

Ore Ska Band – Jitensha

So I first heard this song on Naruto Shippuden as their 13th ED and found the animation really cool and cute. I initially thought it was really weird how this ED has nothing to do with Naruto, but someone else later pointed out that the girl in the ED is Hinata and then it sort of made sense. But 自転車 (Jitensha) just translates to bicycle and it just seem really fun to shout Jitensha over and over again. You can download the ED here.

Also how can you go wrong with adding trumpets and sax to a pop song! 😀

You can also see the original PV on YouTube.

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Friendships

lucky plant Several days ago, Ryan shared this interesting article: America: Land of Loners? It was definitely a very interesting read, though the 1st half of the article I thought was much more well written than the latter half. I don’t fully agree with every point, but it’s definitely good discussion material. The overall point of the story stroke a chord close to home.

The article is a bit long, but very inspirational. Several commentators said they called up good friends which they’ve lost touch with. Two passages that I liked particularly are:

Aristotle, who saw friendship as essential to human flourishing, shrewdly observed that it comes in three distinct flavors: those based on usefulness (contacts), on pleasure (drinking buddies), and on a shared pursuit of virtue—the highest form of all. True friends, he contended, are simply drawn to the goodness in one another, goodness that today we might define in terms of common passions and sensibilities.

[…] convinced that more Americans are lonely—not because we have fewer social contacts, but because the ones we have are more harried and less meaningful.

Valerie also shared an interesting letter that Hong Kong TV host Michael Leung wrote to his son: 下輩子，無論愛與不愛，都不會再見 (Doesn’t Matter If We Love Each Other Or Not, We Will Not Meet In The Next Life). Unfortunately the letter is Chinese and although very touching and insightful, all the online translation tools are doing a rather horrible job translating it into English. However, I did find someone who has already spent the time translating so I don’t have to: English Translation.

The 2 passages that I wanted to share are:

（一）對你不好的人，你不要太介懷，在你一生中，沒有人有義務要對你好，除了我和你媽媽。至於那些對你好的人，你除了要珍惜、感恩外，也請多防備一點，因為，每個人做每件事，總有一個原因，他對你好，未必真的是因為喜歡你，請你必須搞清楚，而不必太快將對方看作真朋友。

(1) Don’t mind people who aren’t nice to you. In your life, no one has the obligation to be nice to you, besides your mother and I. In regards to people who are nice to you, besides treasuring and appreciating them, please also be careful. Because there’s always a reason for anyone to do anything. Being nice to you might not mean they like you. Please make sure of that and don’t be too quick in trusting people as true friends.

（七）你可以要求自己守信，但不能要求別人守信，你可以要求自己對人好，但不能期待人家對你。你怎樣對人，並不代表人家就會怎樣對你，如果看不透這一點，你只會徒添不必要的煩惱。

(7) You can demand yourself to be trustworthy, but you can’t make others be trustworthy. You can demand yourself to treat others well, but not make others. How you treat other people, doesn’t represent how others will treat you. If you can’t see through this point, you’ll just become frustrated.

So now that I’ve set up my post, it’s time for me to tell you my story. I really like how Aristotle bucketed friends into the 3 categories: utility, pleasure, and true friends. I’m pretty sure I don’t have to explain what friends of utility and pleasure are, but true friends are hard to describe. Not all friends need to fit into 1 single category. They can easily overlap multiple. And no one starts out as a true friend.

Just a few days ago, I forget how this topic came up, but I was describing to Chris how I would determine if someone is really a true friend. I told him if a true friend came up to me and asked if he could borrow (undisclosed amount) of money, I wouldn’t hesitate to give it to them. If a true friend needed a kidney or a liver transplant and mine matched, I would not hesitate to give it to them. As the Chinese saying goes: 赴湯蹈火 (willing to go through water and fire to help). I understand this is a very romanticized view and I haven’t really been put to the test, but I honestly think there are a few people that I’d be willing to go to all extents to help.

In the first article, Daniel Akst brings up the point that our friendships these days are less meaningful, and I agree with that. Besides the courtesy hello I say to my neighbors when I bump into them, I never really talk to them. I did bake cookies for some neighbors some time ago, but that was because they had helped me during the snow storm. Thinking back when I was a kid, I knew practically every family up and down my street. The concept of community and family is not as meaningful anymore nor the bonds as tight as before. Chris told me he knew of a co-worker that worked in the bay area, but his wife lives on the east coast with their child and they meet once a month. Dave and I were surprised a family could even work that way.

In the past, the place you were born was the place you died. The people you grew up around were always the same people, so forming strong bonds were simple. These days, we’re very mobile. We go far away for college, for careers, and the more you move around, the harder it becomes to make strong bonds with people. It’s just human nature to form stronger friendships with people you see frequently and friends you hardly see anymore slowly become more and more distant. That was what happened after I went to college, then again when I moved up to Seattle for work.

However, I think technology and Facebook has made staying connected much more easier. I disagree that having a ton of friends on Facebook has diluted friendships. Not all Facebook friends are equal, just like in real life. I have many acquaintances, but only a few true friends. In effect, technology has removed the physical distance which was a huge barrier for developing strong friendships.

With that said, it wasn’t until very recently which I’ve been pro-active in trying to build and rebuild friendships. In the past, I was very passive. Friends would come and go, and I would never really pursue them. It was never hard for me to make new friends as my personality is generally cheerful and helpful. However, I’ve realized that there are friendships I want to maintain and not lose. It may be cliché to say friendship is a 2-way street, but it really requires both sides to put in an effort. When one side doesn’t really care (me in the past), it’s hard to make it strong and that’s when something as silly as distance can easily break it.

I hope my post has been interesting, if not inspirational. And good luck! (^_^x)

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Back to the Bay

First I’d like to thank Chris for being such a great host. Next I’d like to thank Dave and Lexie for showing us around Monterey Bay.

It looks like I was able to escape part of the Seattle heat wave this weekend. I flew down to the bay area to visit Chris and Dave. I’ve been meaning to visit Chris and the bay area for some time. When I went back to LA in May, Dave had mentioned he had a hapkido tournament in Berkeley sometime in August and I thought it’d be great to meet up then. After some coordination, the trip was set.

I flew into SJC. The airport was really nice and apparently I was in the new terminal because Chris didn’t even know the terminal I was at existed. On my way back, there was also a lady standing in front of my gate telling people getting off the plane that this was the new terminal and they should definitely check out the bathroom. A bit weird, but okay… It was also awesome that SJC had free wi-fi.

Ryowa

The only thing I wanted to check out in Berkeley was Ryowa, a really good ramen place. When Chris mentioned that there was a Ryowa in Mountain View, we knew we had to go there for lunch on Friday. The ramen was awesome as expected, but I was sad that the special fried chicken was only offered during dinner on weekdays. Mmmmm, special fried chicken. Next time!

Update: Forgot to mention that while eating ramen, I get an unexpected call from Derek C. Apparently he’ll be in town the same weekend Darryl and Heang are coming up. Sweet!

Santana Row

Dave and I hung out at the Valley Fair mall and Santana Row while we waited for Chris to get off work. Santana Row looked very familiar and when I saw the Maggiano’s, memories of eating there came back. It wasn’t until I saw the Ramada Inn next to Mercado that I began to piece things together. The memory is still a bit fuzzy, but Carol, Dave, and I apparently took a trip to visit the Monterey Bay aquarium a few years ago. Along the way, we thought it’d be nice to visit Chris, but it turned out he was out of town. Apparently the hotel we stayed at is literally just ~5 mins from Chris’ current apartment.

Getting Chris Drunk

The highlight of this trip was getting Chris drunk.

We had dinner at this really good Indian place in Santana Row called Amber India. After dinner, we tried looking for a quiet bar where we could sit and chat, but was unsuccessful in locating one. We opted to pick up some stuff at the supermarket and chill at Chris’ place. We picked up some rum and coke and went back to watch Role Models on Dave’s laptop. It was like back in our old college days.

Halfway through the movie, we got the munchies. Since none of us were in the condition to drive, we decided to walk to Safeway. We all took another shot before leaving. The stuff was pretty gross. I believe it was Southern Comfort. Turns out Chris is also a happy drunk and the walk to Safeway and back was filled with very fun stories. After getting back, we decided to do another round of shots. Apparently I suck at measuring shots, which turned out more like 2 shots each. I guess it didn’t help that we took shots out of mugs. ;p

I don’t think we ever finished the movie, as chatting and catching up was so much more fun. Dave passed out on the couch and after a bit more chatting, we all hit the sack.

Monterey Bay

There were originally plans to drive up to San Francisco, but being unable to decide what we wanted to do in the city, we opted instead to go down to Monterey Bay and check out Point Lobos and the Purple Beach. We met up with Lexie and she was an awesome guide! We learnt really interesting tidbits about the area, why there were currently so many seals and sea lions around the area, how to spot whales from land, what the difference between a seal and sea lion was, and so on.

Seals

Did you know that seal’s pectoral fins (flippers) are less developed compared to a sea lion? As Dave would say, seals are like sausages in the sea, flopping around. Also apparently seals don’t make much noise if any, and if you hear barking, it’s most likely from a sea lion.

Lexie’s also about to begin training sea lions and dolphins to tag sea mines which sounds so cool!

China Beach

I didn’t take any pictures on this trip so I’ve decided to steal a couple from Dave. Plus he has the nicer camera. ;p

I was sad I wasn’t able to try out Lexie’s Banana Chocolate Chip Walnut bread that Chris and Dave praised so highly about.

Before leaving Monterey, Lexie and Dave recommended Turtle Bay Taqueria for dinner. They had some really good Mexican seafood dishes. Their salsa was awesome too. They had this really hot salsa called X’nipec (meaning dog’s nose or something like that) and you just can’t stop eating that salsa, because it’ll burn like crazy.

Inception

We didn’t get back to San Jose till later in the evening. Since neither Chris nor I could ever decide on anything, I suggested watching Inception. Chris hasn’t seen it yet and I had wanted to rewatch it for some time. I also got Chris to invite his friend who had also wanted to see Inception and she joined us on the adventure.

It was just as awesome as the first time and this time I picked up on the several new parts which I had missed. I still couldn’t make out what Mal said during the train scene. I swear to god I still hear her shout, “You’re the devil.” Guess I’ll have to wait for the DVD/Blu-ray.

Things definitely close way too early in San Jose. We were trying to find a coffee shop or boba place after the movie, since how can you not have discussions about the movie after something this epic. Both Yelp and Urbanspoon failed us. Everything close by appears to be closed by 10, even on a Saturday night. Unfortunately, we had to part ways after the movie.

Half-Moon Bay

On my last day down in the bay area, I requested we go to In-n-Out for lunch. Mmmmm. It’s been years since I had In-n-Out and the burger was awesome. Zagat just released that Five Guys beat In-n-Out, taking the crown for the best fast food burger. There’s actually a couple Five Guys here in Seattle. Should definitely check them out sometime.

After lunch, we drove to Half-Moon Bay and hung out at the beach for some time. In retrospect, it would’ve been awesome to have brought a football with us or anything to throw around.

Finally it was time for me to go home. I wasn’t looking forward to returning to 90F+ weather after being in the bay area which was 78F and sunny. Look what happened to the soda can I left in my car! When I got back to my house, my thermostat registered 89F (this was at 9PM). After opening all my windows and waiting half an hour, it dropped back down to ~80F.

Final Thoughts

Listening to the Inception soundtrack and falling asleep on the plane is awesome, especially when there’s a screaming kid sitting across the aisle. According to my Zune, I’ve listened to the entire album 50+ times already.

After switching to my messenger bag, I had opt to leave out a bunch of things since there was less space compared to my backpack. However, during this trip, I realized I needed to add the following back:

  • Zune charger
  • Ethernet cable
  • USB Jump Drive

I got a bit sunburnt again, but not too bad, just a reddish hint.

It looks like I found some new travel buddies. One of the many conversations we had that night was about traveling. There’s a lot of places I would like to visit, but I hate traveling alone. Traveling with companion(s) is so much more fun as you get to share the experience. So Chris, Dave and I were talking over places we’d like to visit. (Side note: For some reason I thought Dubai was in Africa, but it’s really in the Middle East.) Anyway, we decided to start small, with places in the US (New York, D.C., Chicago, Boston, etc.) and then move onto far away lands (Australia, Asia, Europe, etc.). On a similar but unrelated note, we’re trying to plan a snowboarding trip up to Whistler in December or January.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-15

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Alice in Wonderland – Review

Alice in Wonderland Poster So I finally got to watch Alice in Wonderland this past weekend. It’s been in my Netflix queue for who knows how long (at least a couple months). I guess the Blu-ray version was much more popular than the DVD version since Chad got to watch his pretty much immediately after adding to his queue. Anyway, I’ve been hearing bad reviews about this movie, but it’s a Tim Burton film and I’m a big Tim Burton fan, so I had to watch it.

I LOVED IT! The movie was really fun. My memory of the original film is a bit fuzzy, but it looks like a retelling of the story with Alice grown up as a teenager now. Some of the names were familiar, but I did not recall that the caterpillar’s name was Absolutem nor that there was a dragon named Jabberwocky. Was there even a dragon in the original? I just remember the Red Queen’s soldiers were like playing cards and they fell down like dominoes. And you’ve gotta love the Futterwacken dancing, despite the fact I learnt that it wasn’t Johnny Depp who actually did it.

Anyway, there’s no real surprises in the movie, but just a retelling of a very similar story in a very beautiful and imaginative world.

White Queen What I wanted to talk about now is the Red Queen vs White Queen. In this movie, they made the White Queen seem a bit evil. She seems nice and pretty on the outside, but you could tell she has an evil heart. In an interview, Anne Hathaway says she portrayed the White Queen as if there were desires to be repressed, but when I was watching the movie, I took it in a different way. They were desires that she did not reveal in public. I wonder if anyone’s ever retold this story from the Red Queen’s point of view. It would definitely make for a very interesting story in my opinion.

Since the original story puts the White Queen in the good light, I’m going to assume that certain details could’ve been added/removed to put her in a better light.

Early on, you find out that the Red Queen is the eldest of the 2 siblings and that she had killed her parents and stolen the crown which they were planning on passing to the White Queen (her younger sister). However, what if the White Queen had tricked the parents into passing her the crown by acting all nice and proper? The default rule was that the eldest would become the next ruler, but the White Queen was able to use deception and trick her parents into passing the kingdom to her. The Red Queen couldn’t bear the fact that her parents were deceived by her younger sister and got into a big argument with them. In moment of passion and anger, she killed them. It could also be the fact that the parents were actually killed by the White Queen and the blame was put on the Red Queen, but that’s a much more twisted scenario.

One thing about the Red Queen is even though she is evil, she’s honest about it. Everyone knows she’s evil. She doesn’t try to hide it or wrap it up in pure white goodness. What you see is what you get. On the other hand, the White Queen may seem nice and good on the outside, but she definitely has some dark secrets repressed. The fact that she can come up with such a evil plan to chain both the Red Queen and the Red Queen’s servant (that had just tried to kill the Red Queen) and ban them for life shows you that she’s not that simple.

What about Alice? Why would she help the White Queen if she isn’t good? That comes down to the fact that Alice came into the story neutral, but were persuaded/tricked by the Mad Hatter and the White Queen herself into helping them. If you recall correctly, the Red Queen actually showed some really good hospitality to Alice, and it wasn’t until Alice tried stealing from her that she got angry and sent the dogs after her. Also the White Queen keeps telling her she doesn’t have to fight, but that’s just her trying to use reverse psychology. The Red Queen would never used such underhanded methods.

Do note, despite the fact that the Red Queen was ruler and in power for so long, she let her sister live in peace in her White Palace. Once the White Queen came into power, she banned her sister from the kingdom. Who’s the evil one here?

White Queen

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-08

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Machinarium

If you’ve been following me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ve probably seen me praising Limbo to no end. It’s part of Xbox Live’s Summer of Arcade and it’s an awesome puzzle side-scrolling game with very stylistic art. People have complained that the game’s too short for its 1200pt cost (~$15) and I do agree the game’s a bit short. It took me about 4 hours to complete, but this is probably one of the first games I’ve completed in years and the sense of accomplishment is awesome. The best part of the game was actually dying and seeing it’s death animation sequences. Those were so cool!

Machinarium

But this blog post is really to talk about a new game I recently heard about. Ars Technica had an article earlier this week: Machinarium suffers 90% piracy rate, offers $5 amnesty sale. I decided to check out what the game’s about and it turns out to be a clicking puzzle game containing very beautiful artwork and music. You can play a couple levels via their demo on their website: Machinarium Demo.

For $5, this is an awesome deal and I’m pretty sure I can get $5 worth of entertainment from it. Heck, I probably already got it from the demo. Plus I didn’t realize it also came with the game soundtrack and as I mentioned earlier, the music for the game is beautiful!

However due to my recent acquirement of StarCraft II (belated birthday gift from Perry – thanks!), I’m afraid I have to choose SC2 over Machinarium at the moment. I’ll definitely come back to it at a later time. 🙂