vBloga collection of my notes and thoughts…

I am a Level 24 Poké Hunter. Over the past few weeks, I have spent more time than I should on the Pokémon GO app. For me, it is about collecting ’em all. And on top of that, to have the most powerful version of each that I can afford. My Pokédex is currently just over two-thirds complete.

It all started with a curious thought, what does the Pokémon world look like? As I travel quite a bit, it is reasonably easy to find out. Turns out, it is quite an interesting place. For instance, there are a lot of rocky Pokémons in the Middle East.

While it is fun to collect the little creatures, part of the satisfaction comes from unravelling the design of the game. Countless hours spent exploring a virtual world through a tiny window that is my phone, and a bit of online research, has led to a deeper understanding of the rules that govern it and appreciation of the thoughts that went into its design. For instance, Pokémons will only appear at fixed spawn points, which are distributed based on mobile usage. Wandering through remote places is not the way to find rare Pokémons. Instead, you will be lucky to find any at all. When staying put in one location, there is no need to constantly monitor the app, as any Pokémons that do appear will remain in place for several minutes. If you are trying to walk your eggs, avoid looping back on your track, as the distance is calculated based on your positions, which are only registered every 4 minutes or so.

To make the most of the limited resources available, primarily time, I find it necessary to play smart. I find time on the bus is great for restocking the bag. When on my runs, I hatch eggs instead. I save the candies, and perform mass evolutions while using a Lucky Egg to level up quicker.

If there is a sorting hat, I will almost definitely end up in Team Mystic.

The recent 10 Cloverfield Lane release brought back interesting memories from 8 years ago, and it’s not the good kind. I managed to dig out the following blog post, which I posted on my previous blog.

Warning: This blog post contains spoiler. But, let’s face it. This is probably more interesting than seeing the actual movie.

I can already see the headline. Cloverfield – the absolute Worst Movie of 2008. And this is just the start of the year. The movie lacked a storyline, is nauseating to watch, and the sound is so loud at times that it feels like you’re in the middle of a bombing in Afghanistan. I would not recommend this to anyone unless you are trying to do penance for some really serious wrong doings.

27 Jan. 2008 21:35 hours – I made the most regrettable decision in my entire life when I decided to see Cloverfield. We were originally at the cinema wanting to watch The Golden Compass… that had screened 12 hours earlier. I could have sworn that the paper listed 9:35 pm. For some reason, it didn’t click that no cinema is going to screen a kids’ show that late in the evening. My bad.

The movie started out horribly but promising. The point-of-view style of filming could only be described as nauseating. Admittedly, it does add quite an interesting effect and I would only have to put up with this till the intro finishes. Additionally, a guy in an apartment, alone with a girl whose parents’ are away, and a digital camera… that’s promising right?

10 minutes into the movie and I’m starting to feel a bit nauseous from all the camera shakes. It turns out a guy and a girl alone in an empty apartment with a digital camera isn’t all that interesting after all. After another 10 minutes, I thought to myself—Whoa, this is a really long intro. I wonder when it’s going to switch out of this sickening point-of-view style of filming.

Suddenly, the whole city shook, the power went out, and the head of the Statue of Liberty came off with some rather impressive CGI. Yeah! We are finally going to finish with this point-of-view crap. Or… maybe not. It turns out the entire movie is done in a point-of-view style. I reckon, the film industry should introduce a new classification N – This movie may cause nausea and is not suitable for those with weak stomach. Motion-sickness pill is recommended.

There were a few moments in the film when I thought to myself, maybe the guy with the camera will get killed now or the camera will get irrepairably damaged and we will switch out of point-of-view. The first being the time when they were attacked in the subway tunnel by a bunch of the weird creatures. Unfortunately, he got away alive. The camera looked a bit stuffed but it turns out that the lens has just gotten a bit dirty. Nothing that a quick wipe can’t fix. Darn it. Then, he had to cross from one high-rise building to the roof of another, which has collapsed and is now leaning, but he made it through alright as well. Later, the helicopter crashed with him in it and I thought, this is it. The camera was still for a while. But, our superhero camera guy just would not die. What on earth is his kryptonite? Note to self: Find out what video camera he’s using.

The camera guy finally met his fate as he was filming the mother of the weird creatures face-to-face. Thank god. The camera survived but I can live with that.

Unfortunately, a friend of the camera guy picked up the camera and started filming with it. The movie finally ends with the guy, the girl from the apartment, and the camera being buried under a pile of rubble after the place they were hiding in collapsed.

When the light finally came back on in the cinema, everyone had a look of disbelief on their faces with a giant question mark floating above their heads. I myself wondered, what the hell had happened in the past 90 minutes. Surprisingly, no one left the movie before it ended. Halfway through the show, a guy did get up and left the cinema. Presumably, to take a piss or throw up. But, he was dumb enough to come back for more.

As I was leaving the cinema, there was a line of movie-goers all queueing up to buy their tickets to… hopefully not Cloverfield. Should I warn them? Nah. The look on their faces after the show is classic.

One thing I find myself spending too much time on is branding. I have been reinventing myself every few years. In the past, I tried to keep my online persona separate from my real life. That is beneficial from a security perspective as it provides anonymity, but I find it hard to maintain a clean separation. The real life always seem to spill over into the digital world somehow, revealing my real identity. Therefore, I have decided to embrace my real identity, which makes things much easier to maintain.

I love the simplicity of the red italic lowercase Georgia v.

Being a typical programmer, I decided Hello world! is not a bad way to start off my new blog. After years of writing under a different nickname on another site, it is finally time for me to start afresh.

I am a simple minded guy who loves life, food, music, photography, tech, travel, and some other random things. So, that’s just what I’ll write about.

Now, bookmark this site and come back another day when I’ve got more content for you. Bonjourné!