WTF bus hostage by policeman game - why crimes end up in games

Barely a day after the deadly bus hostage killings by estranged policeman Rolando Mendoza, an online game about the event had been released.

The game was definitely done in bad taste, reminding me of the dreadful Atari ET game that destroyed Atari itself. No need to explain why, right?

On the other hand, this game reminds me of the Super Columbine Massacre RPG, wherein two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a massacre, killing 12 students and one teacher. They also injured 21 other students directly, and three people were injured while attempting to escape.

I guess there are a few people who like to take advantage of bad times to make a few bucks.

Watching Starcraft live in Korea - MBC HERO Game Center, Seoul

Being a Starcraft: Brood War fan (and eventually a Starcraft 2 fan), no trip to South Korea would be complete without watching a Starcraft pro-game live. It was the chance to experience physically what I had watched only via Youtube uploads.

August 8, Sunday. I planned to watch this game:

Now getting around Korea without knowing a bit of Korean can be a challenge. Good thing Teamliquid had a write-up (complete with photos!) of how to get there. The game above was broadcasted from the MBC HERO Game Center, which was fortunately just 3 train stations away from the guest house at Hapjeong.

So after walking a few minutes of walking under a hot Korean sun and asking a few Koreans who knew English along my way, I finally got to the MBC Hero Game Center. Free entrance! :)

The view inside. When I got there the event wasn't starting yet.

Players enter the booth. That is to avoid distractions from the spectators, who tend to shout loudly.

The entire thing was televised! So I made my television debut in Korea...

Turns out that the game that day was Woongjin Stars versus Hwaseung Oz - the latter being the team of my favorite SC player, Jaedong. It's a race to 4 wins.

The Woongjin stars bow before the crowd. Hwaseung does too, later.

It's Jaedong vs Free for the first game. Jaedong opens with a 12 pool into gas into hatchery. Free opens with a forge FE.

I'm not going to talk about the plays that happened. But instead, I'm going to talk about what struck me watching the games live.
1. Set is amazing - For a pretty small set (probably 2-3 classrooms big), it had a whopping 12 screens! The big screen, 4 screens each to show the first person view of each player, and 3 screens near the back of the set. It's easy to see what's happening, but it's a bit hard to follow the overall game, since you can look at 3 views.
2. Atmosphere is intense - In a Youtube game, the excitement isn't there. You can see how long a game lasts, and more often that not, you find out who wins beforehand. That's not true when you watch live. The audience screams "player name hwaiting" before every game. The TV camera focuses on people who are doing something weird - like this Korean guy who took a photo of a player and uploaded it into a photosite - the camera zoomed in on the guy's computer!
3. Fangirls - What I found weird was the fact that there are way more girls than guys who watched this game. And they seem to be the highschool-early college type. I was able to talk to one student who told me she's a biomechanical engineering student, and despite busy schedule, she would find time to watch these games. And indeed, after the game, she patiently waited for her favorite player to come out.

Please take a look at the video I took of the place:

Why you shouldn't try robbing Chuck Norris

Have you ever imagined what would happen if one - or two - incredibly stupid men would actually try and rob Chuck Norris? Well, this happened in real life! Thanks to listverse for this funny story. These criminals are so stupid, it's funny.

It happened in 1994. Norris mentions this whole thing in his autobiography, “Against All Odds.” And, by his testimony, this is what happened. Honest to God, it really happened.

In 1994, right at the beginning of his run as Walker, Texas Ranger, Norris was, and still is, living in Dallas, Texas, where the show was filmed. One day he was walking down the street by himself, no entourage, no fans following him, no bodyguards, not even his wife. He turned a commercial block in the downtown skyscraper area and saw two men a little bigger than he coming straight for him from the other end of the block.

They were staring right at him, and he figured they wanted autographs, which he enjoys signing. So he walked up to them and stopped with a smile, whereupon they stood in front of him, whipped out a couple of large pocketknives, and one of them demanded, “Give me your wallet, Chuck! Give it here!”

Norris actually opened his mouth wide and then asked, “Are you insane!?”

“No! We know who you are! And we know you got a lot of money! Now give it up, or you’re dead!”

Now before we go further, let us just go over a few of the particulars. All jokes aside, Chuck Norris truly does have the following black belts: 1st degree in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, 8th Degree Grandmaster in Tae Kwon Do, 9th degree in Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee and Lee’s best student, Dan Inosanto, 10th degree in Shito Ryu Karate, 10th degree in Tang Soo Do, 11th degree in Chun Kuk Do.

Granted, the last art is his own concoction, a hybrid of all the best moves he has learned over the years, all blended for both self-defense and competition, and you are only allowed a 10th degree or better in anything when you found your own dojo. But suffice to say, the muggers didn’t even use guns. From a hundred feet away. They used knives within arm’s reach. What happened next was rather anti-climactic.

The police arrived about 4 minutes later, 3 officers in two cars, and were greeted by the scene of two men with SEVERELY broken arms (the bones had gone through the skin) sitting on the curb, two bloody knives in the gutter, and Chuck Norris, the Almighty Himself, leaning against the wall, wearing his beard, jeans, cowboy boots and a cowboy hat….he shrugged at them. The police started laughing so hard that they bent over, holding their sides, unable to put the handcuffs on the muggers. One of them managed to ask, “Did you not know who he was?!”
One of them said, “Yeah, we knew who he was! We figured all that crap on TV was fake!”