My initial impressions after a few days with Tochii:
Wii
The Good:
- Wii Sports - Tennis rocks. Boxing is tiring, but a KO is awesome.
- Fast startup time - 2 seconds to boot up, 5 seconds into channel menu.
- Channel Menu is simple and intuitive
- Controllers
- Internet channel is cumbersome. If you have trouble connecting to their "site", your Wii takes forever to time out. You cannot "cancel" midway (Wii Menu button is disabled!).
- Long updates - 40 minutes to update my Wii "software".
- Download times are very slow. Took 5 minutes to download the Wii Opera browser. It maybe be some sub-optimal router or wii settings, but as customer, it's annoying.
The Good:
- Air Hockey and shooting ducks is pretty cool.
- All the other games are crap.
Zelda - Twilight Princess
The Good:
- Hyrule Field isn't as big as in OoT!
- Aim with the Wii-mote is so cool. You get the boomerang so early in the game. :)
- It's Zelda, non-cartoon version.
- Perhaps it's FF influence, but the lack of voice-overs really stands out. The "AHH"s and "Hey"'s just don't cut it.
- The fighting controls could have been tuned a bit better. I'm just waving both controllers, and I'm still winning.
I've only been limited to the single player missions. Will give the party games a try very soon.
The Good:
- Very intuitive gameplay.
- The ability to "jump" makes going off the edge so much easier :-)
- That banana collecting mini-game during game credits is way too long.. 400 bananas!?!! My arm was sore afterwards.
Gonna keep this short and sweet. Tochi got his Wii, fittingly nicknamed Tochii! Got up at 5:30AM, found out there were at least 40 people who got to the local Toys R Us before me (only 20 Wii's) Drove 20 minutes to Newmarket (another township), and found only a little kid in line. Tochi was #2. Waited till 9am to get my hands on the Wii (which ironically, was 30 minutes BEFORE my local Toys R Us store opened). Also picked up another nunchuk, Zelda and Super Monkey Balls.
Stupid Amazon decided to ship my Wii Play, at the last possible minute - last night at 11:29pm. I could have just brought my Wii Play along with the system today. However, since I can't cancel my Amazon order now that they've shipped.... I won't have a second controller until Monday... sigh.
Tochii is really taking its time to update. Reminds me of FFXI days. -_-;
UPDATE: The reason why Newmarket's line was so much shorter is their lack of Asian population... The entire line had 3 asians including myself. Those crazy asians who get up before 5:30AM for a Wii....
Last night, I was chatting with a couple friends from Seattle area, where they apparently got 3" of snow yesterday. We were making fun of how the west coast is so poorly equipped such that "the smallest snowstorm would paralyze the whole area." Even if Seattle doesn't use salt on the roads, I'd say de-icing fluid as a replacement is pretty nifty. Canadian taxpayers can never afford such a luxurious solution.
Anyway, a day after making fun of our west-coast friends, I found it really ironic that Toronto got slammed with a pretty bad snowstorm this afternoon. I came out of a meeting, looked outside and saw only a white WALL of blowing snow. I could barely see 10m out the window. The wind must have been 50+km/h. "OMG" "Holy Crap" "I'm going home now!!"
Driving home was essentially sitting in traffic and moving 5m per traffic light. Took 1 hour to travel 1 major intersection block. After the long trek home, Tochi mobile was able to make it up the driveway and into the garage. Unfortunately, I then spent the next 30 minutes shovelling the driveway. Better now when the snow is fresh and light.
Man, I admit defeat. I'm sick of these storms. I'm really looking forward to getting away from this cold weather now.
UPDATE:: Right after I finished this post, I heard some loud sounds outside my house. The freaking city snowploughs paid a visit and left behind this:
They really need to give me a break. If you are wondering how tall that bank is, let's just say it's above my knee cap. I am amazed at how quickly the city got to my street, which is probably the least important street in the neighbourhood. At least the drive tomorrow should be pretty good. My back is so sore right now. I have no idea how I'm gonna survive four games of badminton tomorrow.
ETAA: Don't let this scare you from Toronto.
ETAAA: Nothing beats the sense of accomplishment when you have one of the few cleared driveways on your street. The sore back is worthy price to pay... until the next morning.
The Toronto Star reported some guy's quest to find the location the following default Windows XP background titled 'Serenity' was shot. After an exhaustive search, he found it in Burlington, a stone throw from Toronto.
While the $300 Windows XP background is certainly a nice picture, I didn't have to go all the way to Burlington to find 'serenity'. Just last week, the most beautiful snowstorm swept through Toronto. The snowflakes were so big and fluffy. They just floated down slowly from the sky and settled. A stark reminder of how how beautiful winter can be. The following 'serenity' photo was shot from Tochi's street.
TOCHI PHOTORound 1 of a badminton tournament I've been participating in is over. The preliminary round featured everyone into groups of 4, playing round robin style within the group. Ranking in your group determines your respective pool for next round, with top 3 advancing.
In singles action, I managed to finish with a respectable 2-1 record, good enough for Pool B in Round 2! Given the limited number of courts, I hardly ever play singles matches. Man, playing three sets without any breaks is quite draining. My first match was against the group favourite. The guy has a deadly drop shot, which effectively took care of me. Dueling drop shots isn't my forte, and clearing behind him == setting him up for a smash. My second match-up was against someone who is technically more skilled than me. However, my stamina was better, so I manage to tire him out and take the game. The extra weekly squash regiment is finally yielding some benefits. One thing I need to improve on is the ability to finish a person off when I'm ahead. That last point takes so much effort for some reason. Last game was against a weaker opponent, so I didn't have much trouble.
Doubles action didn't go as well, as I lost both my matches. The pairs I went up against were very skilled players, so my partner and I didn't stand much of a chance. It's pretty amazing when some people can play on a totally different level. My third match-up was defaulted, since the other team didn't show up. Team Tochi advances to Pool C of round 2. :)
Overall, I'm really enjoying the competition. Playing where points matter is a different pressure, especially when you are dead tired but have to play on. Round 2's competition looks very stiff, but hopefully I'll be able to pull off some upsets. :)