Wii're starting to like this game more. But only in terms of flavour.6 races out to gain rulership of the galaxy. 6 great leaders bent on galactic domination.
Damn. Anyways, the Races and their Great Leaders out to take the mantle of galactic rulers were:
The Federation of Sol, led by Commander-General Wolfx Blue.
The Xxcha Kingdom, advised by Counsel-Ambassador IonStorm Black.
The Universities of Jol-Nar, headed by Provost psike Red.
The Yssaril Tribe, dictated by Rogue aycee Greene.
The Emirates of Hacan, governed by Tradeschief Wong Golde.
The Mentak Coalition, directed by Captain Suraj Violet.
When the galaxy was created, the joint creators saw it fit to scatter resource-rich planets on one half of the galaxy and leave the other half serenely empty with a beautiful landscape. Goes to show that yin-yang affects things at a higher level than anyone expected. The Yssaril, being the most deprived saw it necessary that they maintain good relationships with their neighbours if they were to survive. With the Provost openly mulling on causing general trouble for everyone (and more for himself), the Yssaril Rogue knew their best hope laid with the Hacan. Fly Emirates.
As the races were about to explore the great unknown in search for habitable planets and resources, the Xxcha called for the election of the Minister of Travel, and gained the favour of the Sol to push competitions Jol-Nar and Yssaril aside in achieving the post. Now not only do the Xxcha have planets for picking as well as receive tithes whenever other races gain control of a neutral planet, it is clear that an alliance between the Sol and Xxcha are brewing.
Yssaril immediately opened up trade with the Hacan and the Universities, in a quick attempt to set up the Trade Coalition while denying the Xxcha further resources from their Sol allies. The greedy Mentak kept an eye over our trade goods, waiting to silently smuggle them off under our very noses. The Universities opted to keep everyone out of technological access in a bid to equalize the playing field.
Immediately, the Mentak, following their Manual of War (called the 'Zergling Rush'), made into Hacan space screaming war and spouting taunts of tearing the Hacan to pieces and feeding them to their women. To be feared, indeed, as the Mentak came into battle with their women and children! The Hacan, unfazed (how cool can these cats be?) by the Mentak blockade took the war back to them and wiped the fleet off from the history books. Thus started the War of Free Trade, with the Pirates (Mentak) believing in cheap prices and copied goods against the Merchants (Hacan) who charges exorbitant prices for their limited edition artifacts.The Xxcha called for election (again), this time for the Minister of War. The races with enough political backing were the Xxcha and the Yssaril, and this time the allliances were transparent. The Xxcha turns out to be secretly governed by the Sol! The Trade Coalition needed to work hard at getting a fighting force up quickly - the Yssaril made a pact with the Hacan: the Yssaril will give Hacan the political backing it needs to be the Minister of War in exchange for truce and trade. Once elected, the Hacan were given a free Space Dock to further fuel their efforts against the Mentak.
The Mentak was displeased with the turn of events and warped into Yssaril space to teach them a lesson, but despite their aggressive firepower, they revealed a major flaw in pirated products: lack of quality led to miscalculated aims and weak armour! Even their troops learned of this when they landed in an attempt at planetary takeover. It was evident that the Mentak suffered the BDR-syndrome (Bad Dice Rolls). The Mentak then vowed to visit the temples more often before waging war.
The Sol moved forward into Mecatol Rex untouched throughout all this, seeing no competition. Spies found the secret to their endless breeding when undercover on Mecatol Rex. A Solarian meeting a fellow Solarian of the opposite sex, will use the pick up line, "Do you want a Strategic Counter?" This is followed by a sudden breeding process which results in more Solarians! The other races were appalled when they learned of this but unfortunately have not researched any extermination methods.The Universities continued carving out territory of their own while warily patrolling their borders for Xxchan invasion, who have already begun producing Dreadnoughts. Unfornately for them, their decision on locking everyone out from technology advances early on backfired as no one else decided to pursue knowledge as well, causing stagnation within the Universities. Only once the Yssaril gained a Tech Bubble allowing them to gain 2 technological advances did everyone quest for knowledge, and allowing both Universities and the Yssaril to bring forth their Deep Space Cannons into play. The Hacan's scientists had a breakthrough in War Sun manufacture (without requiring the Deep Space Cannon) but unfortunately was assassinated by the Sol.
On other objectives, Sols, once dug in on Mecatol Rex, begin persuing open intentions at Imperialism at a much further rate compared to Yssaril. The tame Yssarils were worried when Imperialism led to the early military growth of the other races, thus led them putting off chasing the Imperial seat until they were more sure of their standing. In terms of glorious achievements, both the Sol and Yssaril had numerous planets while the Universities of Jon-Nar were about to claim an advanced state of technology. The Xxchas, advised by the Commander-General, started making their way into Jol-Nar space to broaden their territories as well as to claim glory. Despite Deep Space Cannons and the Magen Defense Grid, the Jol-Nar must have purchased their tools and equipment from the Mentak as their faulty Deep Space Cannons did not stop the Xxchas from taking over their planets.Time was closing down...while the Mentak called for a Diplomatic Treaty with the Hacan, the Hacan and Yssaril conferred, discovering a loophole that allowed the Hacan to saunter in into an unoccupied Mentak system, taking over 2 planets! We're not too sure if the Mentak have picked their jaws off the ground from that yet.
In the end, Imperial Eclipse (known as the 6 o'clock) descended unto the galaxy, wiping out both the Hacan and the Mentak by plague and ending the War of Free Trade. Just before annihilation, the Mentak could be heard praying to their mother-god, saying that they will be coming home to paradise soon as they were getting destroyed.
The Xxcha continued to press into the Universities homeworlds, where crippled Jol-Nar fighters could only buzz around like helpless mosquitoes against the Xxchan fleet, as the Universities never did manage to do enough research to give them a fighting chance. The Yssarils were too quiet in both combat and politics, but came out second in line for the throne. The Sol, having captured Mecatol Rex early on, continued to hold Mecatol Rex as the new Rex Imperium. A new dawn of martial rabbit law shall begin.Edit: Read the Solarian's report within here.
Old Town Kopitiam turned out to be quite a happening place, filled full with peeps all the way till closing time. Wii had a table upstairs to fit the 6 of us nicely, plus it was a good view of the upstairs crowd. A small concern Wii had for a while when playing our games was having a waiter come up to us and ask, "Er, cannot gamble here one ya..." but 
Sat night continued with Lad, NJAPF and her housemates, psike and tevets with more boardgames! This time Wii did Balderdash and Cranium. Balderdash turns out to be very fun as what happens is all players take an attempt to 'convince' (read: bull$hit) other players into believing that his or her answer is the real deal to a rather obscure question. Answers were very convincing, some where bizzare, all feasible. The one snag Wii find with the game is that, after a few plays, you'll definitely know the correct answers to most of the stuff as bizzare trivia tend to stick in the brain. Cranium saw NJAPF, Lad and housemate-Cheryl teaming up against tevets, psike and us. Games went well, with no one able to guess the Sideshows (bewildered puppeteering of an arm-flapping tevets for example), everyone save tevets being afraid of getting the Datahead category, no one able to do the Humdingerz category due to the fact of not knowing the songs...good fun.
Sunday saw another full day as what was supposed to be just an afternoon of Twilight Imperium 3 was slotted into second place as an Wii had promised breakfast with Lad, NJAPF and Lemon beforehand - he had a free makan voucher for dim sum buffet at MidValley. Food was surprisingly good (how wrong can you go with dim sum?) but their egg tarts were absolutely good: one bite and it melts in your mouth! At 12.30 and stuffed-full, Wii left MidValley and scraped out of the jam of incoming traffic into MidValley, rushed off to pick psike and head for our TI3 game.
The diplomatic Xxxcha, a turtle race once held in thrall by the tyrannical Barony of Letnev, was led by IonStorm, a puppet leader controlled by Wolfie, who led the Federation of Sol (rabbits, the lot of them). Suraj, the Random Rampager, was felled by bad dice rolls against both Tradeschief Wong of the Hacan and Tame aycee of the Yssaril. Provost psike of the Jol-Nar eyed his neighbours the Xxcha warily as he may have to contend with both Xxxcha and Sol should territories be contested...
Sunday ended with another session of ".A" at AsiaCafe in Subang where Wii acted as feeder *sigh*. Although there's loads of food options, tastewise it failed to please although the place looks to be quite a good hangout spot with the variety of food and the ambience. Being back in Taylor's territory made us feel somewhat old too, looking at all the kids about...
How did the obsession for the Nok7390 started? With our dear sister discussing with us about her wanting to change her phone. Then during the start of the month her mobile carrier gave her a voucher for a phone upgrade at about a hundred bucks off, and she was asking us for our opinions. Somewhen then Wii were thinking of a short change from our Nok7710, as while it's a good phone unfortunately Wii needed some time off from scrawling with a stylus (no, Nintendo DS, you don't get off so easily) and the Nok7390 caught our eye.
Now that that's out of the way. Wii likes the way it's gonna be a Multitouch screen - that's handy if Wii ever do photo resizing on the iPhone. Other than that, using fingers for the screen is much more handier compared to using a stylus for the job, however, Wii needs reassurance that the screens is not gonna get scratched. One thing about text imput though...Wii're back into the QWERTY soft keyboard and Wii guess there'll be no writing input. At times Wii get sick of using the stylus to write already (and eyeing the Nok7390 because of this), plus Wii needs to use both hands and see the screen while Wii do so. With the QWERTY keyboard, would the buttons be big enough to press or do Wii resort to thumbnails? Yes, there be a predictive app to correct mistakes but hey, Wii wants to keep to the 160-letter cap at times yes?
rk posts' new artwork opened our eyes...
It's Morphling, but our minds keep going back to Kabal of Mortal Kombat.
This artwork finally clicked where Wii'd seen it before...
Spirit Link, 9th Edition! And more Kev Walkers (btw his Dragons are awesome)! This one doesn't look out to be a timeshift Wii suspects.
Flavourwise, Wii likes Braids...
In her old mad self. Wiithinks not a timeshift too.
The 'Green Seal' pic and the 'Black Sliver' weren't timeshifted cards, Wii weren't interested in the 'White Crovax' nor in (Green?) Jedit Ojanen. But this pic has us wondering where Wii've seen it before. Wii knows Wii have somewhere.
Not as large as 'Wards' Parkview Apartments but still big nevertheless, with 3 bedrooms able to accomodate 4 peeps each and with their own attached bathrooms, Wii were all comfortably settled in. Asides from 'Ward, Randall has also flown off to the UK, yet bringing down the numbers. But this trips still saw us 10 peeps strong - 'Nic, Vincent, Jun, KE, Ee Lee, Ivan, Unker Ray, Larry, Lynn and us.
Rain was a bit of a hassle in Camland, keeping us indoors for a fair bit but that didn't mean Wii couldn't be entertained.
Hunted Chameleons for their pelts...
And whenever a player got saboh-ed, we'll just say, "That's Life," with a big grin.
One of the highlights of this trip was the food galore - led by the Food God, Ivan. Wii'd already learnt our lesson about eating at any other available place - Wii had weird lunch where the fried rice was tasteless and the kuey teow tasted of pure pepper. So, crowded restaurant = good food. Come dinner Wii had steamboat at this place called Restoran Jew May Yen, which was fairly crowded but thankfully Wii'd managed to get a table.
Highlight 2 - New Year's Eve activities! Our old friend JD paid a visit, bringing his mates Jim Beam and Bicardi along to celebrate as well. Together we yam-seng'd 2007 in, only to be copied by some neighbouring apartment who cannot stick with the usual "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" instead. Memories were tested with the School Song and the School Rally, and even the ex-prefects had their song (what was it called again?). All in good boisterous mood.
Next morning, Wii had Marvel Heroes set up for playtesting...except no one knew how to play the game. 'Nic was appointed rulesmiester and sent off to read up the rulebook while the game, all ready on the mahjong table, was put aside for later. Lunch saw us back at Jew May Yen for a 7-course lunch! Good food. KE and Ee Lee left us after lunch to head back to KL, bringing our numbers down to eight.
So Wii headed off for Highlight 3 - Jungle Trek: The Sam Poh Screw! Pray that you make it out alive!
Vincent prudently sat out of this one, leaving brave lads 'Nic, Ivan, Jun, Larry, Unker Ray and us. Unfortunately, Wii weren't clear about it being a jungle trek and thought that Wii were just off to see the temple. And so there we were, dressed in jeans and a polo-tee, equipped with wallet, phone and Ixus. The designated shorts and tee meant to be worn (and get dirtied) were left wailing in our backpack. Dressed like this spoilt things a bit for us as part of us were then now obsessed with trying to remain as clean as possible.
Last 
Dinnertime saw the Food God leading the eight of us against a 6-course meal led by Gen. Curry Fish Head. Justice was done. More games of Bang! (amidst cries of, "I'm the Vice! I'm the Vice! I'm the Vice!" and much kowtowing to Lynn, the Sheriff) and That's Life followed at night while the rulesmiester continued slogging through the manual.
Was it time to go home? Nope. It was time for Highlight 4 - Gunung Brinchang. Up and up we go, to reach the top and climb the watchtower. The roads were narrow and steep, the scenery breathtaking at times, and Wii were supposed to be put to shame by the angmohs whom hiked all the way up rather than drive.
Next stop was the Sg Palas Boh Tea Centre, simply for a look-see, more photo opportunities and tea-buying. The Tea Centre is quite cozy and aesthetically pleasing.
It started raining as Wii left the Tea Centre, putting a damper on our plans to get fried food (from mushrooms to potato balls) at Kea Farm - just a quick stop for Unker Ray to get his Bharat Tea and the rest of us for snacks. Then began the long drive home.
First, fold clothing nicely and place inside plastic bag - the ones normally supplied by the clothing boutiques are fairly good ones, retaining their shape without getting crumply. Once clothing is placed neatly inside, fold the bag so that there's no empty space.
Next, measure out enough paper to fold over twice width-wise. Leave about an inch on each side.
Use the 2-way tape to stick the edges. Now it can be used as a pillow until opening day.
