Wednesday, July 03, 2002

Things to do while you're an hour early for Fr. Dacanay's Theology class: count the number of seconds it takes for latecomers to come out of the room after entering.

I was finally able to visit the two museums we're required to make a reaction paper on for history. Of course since I'm usually afraid to go alone, I was able to drag one of my blockmates along, Eva.

Of course Eva happens to be the nerdy type who takes down notes, observes every little detail, and has a keen interest in the arts. It was annoying me when I already finished looking at all the pottery and Eva was in one corner, taking down notes and writing all the details. Can't she just appreciate the stuff for what it is? I mean we're being asked to write a reaction paper, not a comprehensive report.

By the time we got to the Spolarium, I was very exhausted from all the walking (and the standing waiting for Eva to finish). It was a miracle we were done by 3 pm. And then, I rushed to Glorietta to check out if there were any good books at A Different Bookstore. And then made another rush to Datablitz Megamall.

When I got to Datablitz, the first thing I saw was the huge stand of Warcraft 3 that had empty boxes saying "coming soon". The salesladies were all in Warcraft 3 shirts and there was a short line. In front was a girl with presumably her boyfriend. The girl (not the guy) was buying the Warcraft 3 Collector's Edition, which had the artbook, soundtrack, DVD, and 8 x 10 character cards in addition to the regular stuff. The guy in front of me saved the task of asking the price. The saleslady replied it was around P4500. My heart stopped. I only had P3000 in my wallet and I had other plans for my stash at home. Perhaps I'd even purchase Never Winter Nights and Warcraft 3 instead of buying the limited Collector's Edition.

Of course Datablitz in Megamall ran out of the Collector's Edition. The guy in front of me kept on asking the saleslady if there were any more in stock on their other branches. I quickly skipped him and asked the price of the "regular" Warcraft 3. It was P1700 and a few hundred bucks cheaper than Never Winter Nights. Paid for it, grabbed it, and hurried home.

Well, the problem with Taiwanese video cards is the fact that there's not much software support. Mine wasn't even plug and play, as I soon found out after "accidentally" uninstalling my video driver. Oh wow, I have a 64 MB video card... which I can't use to play games!!! Maybe if I cross my fingers, someone would loan me a spare video card or something. All I need is around 16 MB worth if video memory, or even 8 MB will do. Looks like my Warcraft 3 will go the way of my Diablo 2: unable to be played on my computer.

Everything on the Warcraft menu works well. It's just the fact that certain images are silhouettes. Like the game map and the units. Oh wow. I'm playing in the dark. Now I have to guess where the gold mines and the trees are. How nice. Interestingly, I was able to hook up to battle.net and register my account (a lot of good that will do me). Interestingly enough, there were three games currently available. Once was labeled 2 on 2. Another was Newbies vs. Computer. I nearly laughed at that. For one thing, the computer in Warcraft 3 is quite difficult. Yes, it has its flaws (which I know quite well) but even I lose to the computer and I'm an experienced player. How good is the computer? Two friends of mine fought against one computer. One friend was experienced and the other was a newbie. Well, they lost. What's more, the map they chose were full of high level monsters, the ones that need an entire army to take out. The newbies probably didn't stand a chance. But then again, there's no better way to learn than through defeat. I should know. That's how I got so good.

After trying to fix my PC since I didn't even know what model my video card was and the driver disk given wasn't much of a help, I went to Neutral Grounds to rendezvous with my new gaming group. To make a long story short, we met at Galleria, hitched a ride to Pasig, made our character, and went our separate ways. Of course my separate way involved walking from Kapitolyo to the Meralco building since that was where my companion's car was. Of course since it was almost eleven, the gates were closed and we found that out the hard way. And I didn't even get to play Never Winter Nights or Warcraft 3 the entire day.

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