Portal (ポートル)

Portal is (essentially) a bonus game on the Half Life 2 Orange Box thing, on which are 5 games in total. And in my opinion of the disc overall so far, it's also the best game on the Half Life 2 Orange Box thing. It's based on the Portal Technology from Prey, hence the name, and takes it to into a more puzzle-based context (a move that works surprisingly well).

The game begins with GLaDOS, a seemingly innocent (if not slightly quirky) AI, guiding you through some kind of facility. You're taught the basics of the portal physics with pre-placed portals, and over the first couple of levels you gain and upgrade the Portal Gun, enabling you to place your own. From here on in the puzzles get gradually more taxing, and GLaDOS provides you with a range of quirky quotes as you play (such as the fact that the fully upgraded gun is worth more than the organs and combined yearly incomes of those who made it).

The game really begins when it's supposed to end, though. At the end of the last trial you're placed on an 'inescapable' path into a furnace (a fate similar to the Weighted Companion Cube who accompanied you on a previous trial, before being incinerated). Despite the looming certain death, your handy portal gun allows an escape route which puzzles GLaDOS to no end (you think she'd have noticed, considering she'd watched you overcome much trickier puzzles before now). After her futile attempts to capture you ("please lay on the floor with your hands at your side, and an agent will collect you... for your celebratory party; there will even be cake"), you escape into the underbelly of the facility, and have to find your way to GLaDOS (to destroy her!).

Scrawled on the walls are messages, presumably from previous escapees. Most guide you in the right direction, but some notify the player how "the cake is a lie", and are often accompanied by pictures of the Weighted Companion Cube. This probably sounds weird, but along with GLaDOS trying to persuade you that the whole death thing was a joke, the game achieves a great quirky feel that you rarely get from a game.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that I enjoyed it. The ending theme is also amazing.

fashion is retarded (式)

This is another of my (in)famous observation posts:

It struck me recently when thinking about clothes that the design process for fashionable female shoes is somewhat flawed. From what I can work out, the designers choose a historic and/or iconic male shoe, then release it onto the market for female consumption. This is evidenced by two recent crazes; the Ugg Boot and the Gladiator Sandal, both of which started life as a male shoe long ago.

The Ugg Boot has long been associated with surfing, keeping soldiers' feet warm at high altitudes, and sheep shearing, all of which are largely male activities. Then they were bought onto the market and became immediately popular and fashionable.

The Gladiator Sandal originates where the name suggests; it was the preferred footwear for hulky gladiators in ages past. And similarly, it was released to the public and immediately became the shoe of choice for (seemingly) every female.

Weird...

family dynamics (家族)

I believe it was Frank Zappa that once said "we could improve world wide mental health if we acknowledged that parents can make you crazy"; I've seen two things recently that inclined me to agree.

The first was in a local record shop, I was browsing the discount section when I heard a customer talking to the clerk about a family day out to HMV in Charlton, and how their selection of products has declined. At first it sounded like general chit-chat, but then I realised; a day out to HMV?! How dull! I wonder if they took a picnic? Or had a family discussion over which season of The Simpsons was superior?

I can't decide if the second event was better or worse. It was in Greenwich Park shortly after the Race For Life earlier this month; a young girl of around 6 or 7 was jogging ahead of her family, presumably in high spirits about completing the 5km run when her gargantuan father (and that's an understatement) rumbled "hur hur, surprised you managed that, never been the most afletic kid 'ave ya!". This man was to provide the foundations for her upbringing, and insulted her athleticism when he probably couldn't spell the word, let alone embody it.

Chris the food critic (批評家)

"a good performance overall from Pizza Hot 4 You, despite some slightly flaccid onion rings"

that'll teach 'em.