If you guys are achievement whores, like me, then you would not want to miss out on the Midsummer Fire Festival, which starts today! Those who want their Violet Proto-Drakes by the end of this year should also start doing the achievements now. And it’s not gonna be as easy as Easter or Children’s Week. The potential problematic achievements I see would be to desecrate the other faction’s fires in all of their home cities. You have a week to do it, so get cracking!

On an unrelated note, this strategy of celebrating festivals are quite a good way to sustain the WoW population. I mean, I’ve stopped raiding just before the Ulduar patch and now, just log in to ‘celebrate festivals’. All just to get some achievement points and that epic flying mount, and I’m sure there are many players out there doing the same. Great strategy Blizzard.

Hetalia Axis Powers is the creation of mangaka; Hidekaz Himaruya and currently adapted into a 5 minute long 26 episodic series.  Each episode fully employs satire and comedy to teach the audience less well known historical facts from the creation, separation of countries to the stereotypes of the world.

America are very proactive first, England is horrible at cooking and China likes to eat. Sounds strange? It sure does. Himaruya presents the different countries as human characters with their unique charm to capture your heart. Thus, people, put down your history textbook and enjoy this for a mere 5 minutes.  There is nothing to lose and much more to gain.

Below are some of my favourite apartments, though they’re not really places I would call home.

Oh my gosh! I'm very certain I've played this ski-game on my aunt's desktop 10 years back. Does anyone know the name of it?

This is seriously LOL! There's even a UPS guy delivering an endless supply of barrels for Donkey Kong to steamroll Mario with.

Hopefully the picture above will give you a better understanding for those who are totally lost on my earlier post.

Or take a trip underground and meet Ragnaros in Molten Core. Ahhhh the good old days of vanilla World of Warcraft Raiding. I couldn't help but feel a rush of nostalgic pleasure.

And if you aren’t satisfied with the mouse-wheeling action Goon Tower is giving you, then hop over to Mr Wong’s Soup’Partments.

The artwork is categorised on each side of the uber-cool Idea Cube and once clicked on, it transforms into a flat cube. Fans of the pink, round and foes-devouring blob can then thumb through their collection of art, and possibly unravel more mysteries for those already with a good grasp of Japanese.

via GoNintendo.

This is the best one yet. It not only looks physically similar, but its OS, right down to the individual app icons look alike! The video shows a rather responsive keyboard despite the fact that it’s pirated in some dark corner of the planet. However, it only has 4GB of storage and GSM only. No Wi-Fi or 3G. The price? USD$180.

via PMP Today via clonedinchina

According to a survey done by Strategy Analytics, Singapore ranked 2nd in household broadband penetration with 88%. Not far behind are Netherlands, Denmark, Taiwan, all of which are above 80%. The top spot belongs to South Korea where a staggering 95% of households have broadband.

The US, home of Silicon Valley, had only 60%, putting it at number 20, lagging behind even Japan with 64%. This should not be too surprising though, considering the top 5 countries are all relatively densely populated and much smaller compared to the States. This makes establishing a broadband network much easier.

via Straits Times online

There is a total of 21 volumes and each with a particular theme such as a cool classmate or a Tsundere character. Each cd has one Seiyuu first count 1 to 200 sheep in 1 track and the next track of another Seiyuu count 201 to 400.

As a lullaby, I doubt its effectiveness in putting the person to sleep. However, since it is boring just listening to the seiyuu just counting sheep, it may have some sedative effects!

Having just hit the FCC, the Disney Netpal would be available at US stores (namely Toy ‘R’ Us) soon for USD$350. This netbook is a collaboration between Asus and Disney to create a laptop suitable for children. It has the following ‘children friendly’ features:

• Enhanced parental controls. Parents can control online surfing as well as email for their children.
• Disney themed everything, from browsers to wallpapers to email.
• Easy to set up. Just ‘4 simple steps’.
• A ‘gadget tray’ for easy access to applications.
• A more rugged mechanical design.
• Spill proof keyboard.

On a somewhat related note, I once did a research project to determine a laptop suitable for children. I compared 5 different netbooks, one of them from Asus. Interestingly enough, a brand called Axioo (Singapore based brand) actually won, largely because of its price and an excellent warranty. Now, if I had tested the Axioo against the Netpal, I wonder which would emerge the victor?

via gadgetmix via eeepc

via gadgetreview

Now onto the benchmark!

The main menu greets you at the start, offering you the option to tweak the graphics settings. This can lead to varying results at the end of the benchmark test if you do not have a high-end system.

The test itself brings you to the fight match-up between Ryu vs Sakura, followed by Cammy vs C.Viper and Chun-Li vs Gen. So far so smooth…

Lastly, watch as the camera rotates around and around the classic Street Fighter II characters as they pose in their fighting stance in full 3D glory. *Dizzy*

I got an A! My Lenovo Y450 lappy did reasonably well I suppose. Even though I had cheated by setting the model quality from high to medium (initially a “D” on high). Nevertheless, it’s still fit for Street Fighter 4! What about yours?