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I haven't blogged in some time, but I have a really good reason: Maple Story. A friend of mine suggested I check it out. Not having much else to do, I did. Maple story is what the enthusiast would call an MMORPG, an adventure game where people from all over play together online. The charming thing about it is that it's bright and colourful, and in 2D. It's simple but deep... and that's what caught me about it. Here I am, taking on a King Slime all by myself. And that's also what has push me back into reality. Loneliness. The odd here is that I typically don't enjoy playing adventure games with other people, but with Maple Story comes a strange but strong sense of community play. Aside from the rare event when I'd be partied up with someone, I was never really part of anything. Yeah I got into guilds early on, but I was never a high enough level for that to mean much. So instead of futilely leveling to no end (or trying to recruit friends to play), it's p...

A lot of people think of me as a gamer. I have game systems and a fairly robust library of software. I know where the warp pipes are in Super Mario Bros., I know how to get not-guilty verdicts in Phoenix Wright, and I can make it to level 20 (well, once) in Tetris DS. But for a gamer, I don't play too many games. Or rather, I don't play very often. Usually, I'm more into the industry itself, who's working on what, when things are coming out, industry events, that kinda thing. Who doesn't love a hero in green? My Wii, which I got on launch day, hasn't been getting a steady workout at all. Only recently have I been playing the one meaty game that I own: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Sure, I played it a lot when I got it, but as time went on, Link saw less and less of Hyrule. Only lately have I been getting back into the adventure, partly because of a certain someone wanting to watch me play. But all this Zeldaness culminated into two or three days of hea...

Oh, the Game Boy Printer. You gotta love technology that is so ahead of its time that it's practically useless. Somehow, it got added to the Doctor Who TARDIS design. And I love it. There's been talk about that production wrapping up for the summer seeing that time is fairly constrained. I guess that means that I'm going to have to burn all of my lovely behind-the-scenes stuff and tuck it away somewhere until then. It surely is pretty amazing how quickly time can fly if given the opportunity. Speaking of technology, it's the time to be cell phone shopping. Because I'm more into looking at those little miracles of portability, I've noticed that the newest lines of phones are pretty terrible. Razrs (well, Motorola's whole line), sliding phones, double-sided phones... they're all ugly. No one phone is a stand out for me. The exception to this rule is the Sony Ericsson line of things. And I don't know if I'm necessarily attracted to them rather than ...

Last Tuesday started early. Incredibly early. But I used Mississauga Transit and Go Transit all by my lonesome to make it to downtown Toronto to catch my train. I had only seen the GO Transit side of the Union Station, and was disappointed that it wasn't all international train station-style... but the I walked into the actual station in slight awe. Union Station is really pretty. I love all the little details all over the place. I was only disappointed that the lighting within was a bit hard to work with - plus my only battery had started to flash red. I was early enough that I could walk around and take a few more pictures - luckily my battery survived. There was some construction happening outside, which really sucked. Plus I didn't want to go too far with my heavy bag. I just noticed in this picture that there's a sign to Toronto City Hall. Had I known, I would have went to check it out - one of two landmarks I've seen before (the other being the Chum building). Wal...

Previously on Ben's Blog: Ben was stuck in Toronto, so he did his best to have fun, including a slumber party at Janet's. Janet lives high up. People look smaller than ants from that high. After waking up, the lot of us eventually made it down to a restaurant for lunch. Along the way, there was this mascot-girl advertising soup or something tasty, so we sampled. The place we ended up is called Soban, it's in Koreatown (supposedly). The place was very clean and simple, very Asian. Every table is equipped with a doorbell-like ringer that you use when you're ready to order, of if you need the waiters. I thought that was pretty cool. While deciding what to order, Janet started taking pictures with my camera. Then Prashanta pressed the doorbell-like button and the waitress came, so we hurried up and ordered. Shortly after we ordered, the waitress brought us appetizers. Free appetizers. It was a nice collection of potatoes, cabbage, noodley things, and tofu. I didn't eat ...

One of the most satisfying moments in life when visiting others is finding out that they have the same shampoo that you use back home. One of the saddest moments that follows is the realisation that the bottle of shampoo is effectively empty. I would describe Saturday as a pretty awesome day. It's the day that Ben took on the city of Toronto. Only before I could take on T-Dot, I had to warm up at a picnic event going on in the Brampton side of things. There was badminton and barbecue - but the barbecue was really strange. We thought that it was for lunch, but turns out that they were planning to have it much later... there was a lunch, but the main awesomeness that is chicken - was to be served after Prashanta and I were to leave. There was badminton, egg relay races, and other fun kinds of activities. Prashanta was climbing trees like a monkey. He's pretty monkey-like. Finally, the time ticked down, and it was time to go to the big city. It was interesting to get a ticket into...