-EasyThoughts- Planning an entertainment on a 24 hour airplane trip

So my whole family and I are planning on long holiday in western civilization. And all I could think off is - how to keep sanity during the 13 + 8 hours airplane trip

I used to own three laptops - one is a children friendly use (for my daughters), one is my wife's work laptop and one is my work laptop. Since we lost all three, so I decided to buy two new laptops for us to use. If you read my previous blog, you know I already own one ROG ASUS laptop - and although it is a gamer oriented laptop, I use it also for work which is quite nice for virtual machine and installing several linux server as cloud server ... but most of the time I use it to fight Raiders and Gunners on Fallout 4.

But that thing weigh too much on my shoulder to carry. It is not that heavy, but with all the stuff I had to carry for my wife and my daughters, it is going to be a sore aching trip to carry that thing around. So I decided to use my other laptop - which is more ... I wanna say sophisticated - it's a New MacBook 12 Retina Display 1.2GHz Intel Core M with 512 Flash storage.

I am not going to promote anything here, just speaking out the fact. So please, before any PC fanboy or Mac fanboy begins to either rant or cheers - let's just read it out.

I am an occasional PC gamer - and I have to tell that using Macbook for gaming is a disastrous experience. At the beginning of my transitioning to use Mac, I find it so confusing and hard - the mice is weird as I can't found secondary button to click, the spec is low for high end gaming, etc. But other than for gaming - like office use for example, this thing is quite comforting. Browsing web, typing stuff, looking at movies and pictures - especially in the new macbook with retina display, it is amazing.

All of that though is not without any disturbance here and there - especially with 12 inch display, though with sharp images and everything, I still find it small to look at even to type at. The USB-C connector, which is one and only connector you have for data transfer and/or power is becoming a nuisance as the reliance on flash disk or external storage is still needed (at least currently).

This and all can be seen at almost every other review - but one concerning me is how well will this macbook work by performing a virtual machine in it. Sharing the processor and memory process might not be great for this mac - so I tried doing the other best thing... is to play games on it :D

I have tried several of my games that I had on my STEAM library, most of them works also in mac, but many others not. Luckily I don't need all games, just some games that will took my thoughts from the flight and into the time consuming entertainment. One of my favorites is Civilization, so I installed Civ V and Civ Beyond Earth. Both runs well and good on this new Mac, but Beyond Earth may be needed more resources to keep the diplomatic animation goes - as it is just stood still as it is during any diplomatic interface.

I looked for other games and decided to install Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. As default, it sets on the lowest setting, but as I pushed it to the highest setting - it runs but not smoothly. But still, 20-30fps is not that bad, as it is just a simulation game - I haven't played it yet, only test running it - the draw distance is not as good, it is borderlining to suckiness. But it still run, the animation and all of it.

I want to say Minecraft next, but instead I install another from my library, which is Cities Skylines - and I gotta say meh... even without any tinkering the setting and all it already run like 10-20fps at most. New landscapes with all car running in the background already consumed the processor and in board GPU - so it may as well not the game of choice for this mac.

And lastly - Borderlands 2, and it runs smooth on lowest setting - and I mean lowest. Still playable, smooth running, 40-50fps, but it is not on a retina display material anymore.

So I guess that is it - macbook for me runs well for you to socialize, browse the web, play movie, write a story. Playing games? still doubtful - but okay enough if you are into low to mid end gaming that requires small amount of your processor memory and gpu process. I am still into Heroes 3 - but not to play repeatedly in a 24 hour flight.

But I am stuck, I had no choice only to make this mac be as much as entertaining to relieve me from boredom. And no, I don't want to write a novel during the flight.

Deadpool : a review

Probably one of the movie to be anticipated in 2016, Deadpool stars Ryan Reynolds in this superhero wacky silly comedy satire dark gory action movie. Pretty much living up to its name in comics and everywhere else, Deadpool movie delivers one quirky yet stunning and full story of the character. With long history of how this character's story had been trying to stay survive from the danger of extinction on the live action movie - as well as the disappointing portrayal in the X-Men Origins Wolverine,  Deadpool survives and delivers to the fans as well as general audience as the Merc with a Mouth. And when I say general audience, I mean 17+ - this movie is totally not for young viewers.

So - SPOILER ALERT - but I'm not trying too much of the story here, because pretty much you see in the trailer sums up the whole action scene of the entire movie. There will be big difference with the trailer of course as the duration of the movie tells a pretty short story. And I think that it is, because this movie delivers as spin-off of the X-Men movie instead of being an independent stand alone anti-hero movie (Thanks whoever owns the license of the X-Men and related franchise).

Originally released on February 15th world-wide, in my place (Indonesia) this movie released on the 8th - I don't know why, but during the first viewing, I find myself in the not so crowded audience. Of course it will changed during this weekend - probably, but watching this movie with audience in a country where cynical and breaking the 4th wall comedy is not common, is not that fun. Many of the jokes that I thought funny and hilarious produce low reaction from the audience. I try keeping myself not to laugh like an idiot, but it is hard to do so especially when most of the jokes actually teases the background of the development of the movie itself.

Probably the point of watching this movie is to see what Deadpool would be like in a live action movie. Have you ever played the Deadpool game? I haven't - but maybe the same reaction can be seen from watching this movie with reading the comic book. At least that is my impression of Deadpool even from the beginning of the title and opening credits - the production staff slipped so many mini jokes that is just easy to spot on.

One downside of watching this movie in theater in my country is there just TOO MANY censors that is done in a weird way (zooming in to specific area too close, that would erase around 80% of the viewing) , which later you can view on the red band trailer on youtube anyway. It doesn't affect much of the plot of the movie - but watching that shocking moment that makes you goes pale, could be the roller coaster effect of watching this movie. Again - it didn't affect the plot at all - because the plot is easy and predictable - a story of a guy gets the girl, guy met bad guy, girl get kidnapped by bad guy, guy kills bad guy, guy saves girl.

I felt not a disappointment of this movie, and I think it is the whole point of my judgement from watching Deadpool movie. You finally see the Deadpool you probably know in the comic book, as fan or just as regular movie go-er. You finally can see what the Merc with a Mouth is all about. Most of all - it can get rid of the stain  of the horrendous portrayal of what "Deadpool" has been in X-Men Origins Wolverine.

There will be a lot of superhero movie up ahead this year - but for now, watching Deadpool will be a great exercise or warm up of the superhero related movie, before we are faced with such a huge and heavy plot and combination of superheroes later this year. For now - I enjoy Deadpool - and I think it will be another great year for comic book superheroes movie.

PS: When you watch, make sure you stay until the end of the credits - because there will be something of a Ferris Bueller kind of thing in the end... but with news update from X-Men productions...

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) - a review

I hit low last year after I sold my notebook and some of my item to pay the bills and all, but now I bounce back. Everything is looking pretty well right now, and I have almost completely paid off all my debt. But I do still require a sort of personal computer to continue with my things - so I am looking for one and decided to buy one. Paid in instalment, and not quite sure how it will turn out, but I am pretty satisfied with my choice.

I might have been missing a lot of PC game-playing just by not having a suitable device from Q4 last year to early this year. That is why I thought I need to purchase one that could fulfil the requirements of the era of Next-Gen Gaming. The launch of MGSV, Fallout 4, Witcher 3, and GTA V on PC - at least these are some games considered of current PC gaming... I think.

ASUS ROG probably one of the lineup I could chose easiest. At least for its class and service in my area (Indonesia - Jakarta), this one can survive quite long. Purchasing the one in the low-mid area of the high-end notebook, ASUS ROG G551JW suffice with the current game testing I need. I'm not going to describe long here or a bit too technical about it, but I have been using it for gaming and it is quite sufficient with my needs.

I am not a hardcore gaming, because let's just say I still am INTO Red Alert 2 Yuri's Revenge. Because let's face it, it is probably the best Red Alert 2 game before EA took over and minced over Westwood studios. But for some current game like Fallout 4 can be set to high setting with no problem - at least on 30-50fps can be achieved during gameplay.

There is however a problem for another game, such as Witcher 2 - yes, the prequel of Witcher 3 - on a high setting it achieve only around 20-35fps (probably) especially during camera turn. Now I said I am not going to be technical around here and I stick to it, because there is still a possibility to tweak the performance of the CPU and GPU - but since I just recently bought it, and with 5 more instalments to go, I am sticking to the vanilla version of my current laptop.

That all being said - I do enjoy this laptop. Due to dual graphics performance that is also supplied in the Intel motherboard, this one still sometimes mixing the performance with Intel GPU. Sometimes the valuation of the gaming performance would recommend you to play on low setting, and that is the only thing that bugs me (other than it is pre-installed with Windows 10 and requires some setting to do for privacy and everything else).

Overall - I am quite happy with this laptop. At least it supplied with my needs for work and gaming. Supplied with oddly 12GB of RAM, I installed VMWare for virtualising network configuration for my work and class and the shared performance still sufficient to both work at the virtual and desktop mode. I just wished at least this would stay suffice to the next 3-4 years :)

Hot Toys' Scarlet Witch from Avengers Age Of Ultron - a preview

It is almost been a full year since the release of Avengers Age Of Ultron in the cinemas, and finally one of the iconic character from the series is released as merchandise part of the franchise. Scarlet Witch may not be always known as part of Avenger's team, since the dispute of her and her twin brother's with Tony Stark's warfare as told in the movies.

With her ability to alter reality, she is later known to even change Vision - the android created by Ultron Prime to revive its vision of a new evolved living kind - into a person she would later marry. But enough with the comic book and movie history, let's talk about the figure which later will be released on mid of Q1 of 2016.

I collect figures, and one of it is from Hot Toys. I don't actually exclusively collect Hot Toys' figure (since it is actually quite a bit higher from my price range), but I do collect some worth collecting for. Hot Toys with now promoting its Movies Masterpiece line, releasing many of their products with the likeliness of what can be compared on motion pictures. With many things released now, the production team of Hot Toys are now releasing more and more products that collectors can place the figure on their shelves and adored them to reminiscence of the movies.

After what I saw on their home page at hottoys.com.hk, one figure that caught my eyes is this Scarlet Witch. Portrayed by Elizabeth Olsen in the movies, this figure generate a superb resemblance of the actress and the character on the movies.

What seen in this facebook fan page account, we can really see the resemblance of the character and the actress, at least about 95-99% at the right angle.

Of course it may not have been a perfect, but this figure is the one that need to be placed in the right angle to see the perfect similarities of the character.

Right now some reviewer might already get a hand of the figure and reviewed it. One of them I follow the review is ShartimusPrime in YouTube. Although there has been some cons of the figure, but overall the likeliness of the character and the range of pose it can made is generating a positive reviews.

This might be another that I will collect when it already released. Adding up to some of my small collections of Hot Toys figure :)