Pokemon Diamond.

During this glorious holiday of mine, I have finished my Pokemon game by seeing all 150 pokemon in the Sinnoh Region and obtaining the National Pokedex!! It wasn't easy though, I had to trade a few pokemon, which were Riolu and Cherrim in order to complete 2 of the final 4 pokemon needed. Then, I went to Route 221, I think, maybe it's wrong, but anyway, yeah, I went there and caught a Tentacool. That completed the final 3 then went on to Celestic Town and talked to the Town Elder and she showed me a picture of Palkia, which completed the Sinnoh Region Pokedex. Yeah, the League was really hard, even when my pokemon were 10 levels away from their's, so if you want an easy battle go for 20 levels away, at least all your pokemon are at level 75 if you want to insure an easy battle.


Now, as you can see in the picture above, that is a Charizard, but don't you think there's something different? No, its not the size, no,no, no, its, hmmm, let me think, the eyes, Nah, well, duh, its the colour!! There's even a star at the far right corner to comfirm it. No, that is not my Charizard, apparently I tried taking a picture of it in the DS but it didn't turn out so well, so I googled it an found a picture. Now, the above pokemon is under the category of an ultra rare breed, well, more than ULTRA maybe, MEGA ULTRA rare because it is a starter and it is a Shiny pokemon. The thing about this breed is that it is the ultimate pokefan's collectible. Any pokefan would want a Black Charizard or shiny pokemon, its so COOL!!

But in order to obtain this pokemon, your chances of getting one, based on a few sites are 1 in 8000 pokemon, not 800 but 8000. I obtained my Charizard when it was a Charmander at level 3, I traded it with someone and mine likes sour food. I checked a few sites and some of them did mention that getting a shiny pokemon from hatching an egg is harder than to catch it in the wild. To tell you the truth, it really is. My elder bro told me that if I wanted to get a shiny pokemon, I should save before the egg hatches, try and save 1 step before hatching, and when it hatches, see if it is a shiny pokemon, if it isn't then turn the DS off and hatch it until you get a shiny pokemon. I actually DID try that and I lost my patience after the 25th time, I was hatching a Riolu.

I didn't get the shiny Riolu...

I searched the net and found a website that showed how to catch a shiny pokemon. I mentioned that you can obtain shiny pokemon with the pokeradar and the chance increases as you chain the pokemon higher. Chaining means that you encounter the same pokemon with the radar over and over again. This is the important part if you want to get shiny pokemon so read on carefully.

First, you obtain the radar by completing the Sinnoh Pokedex, 150 pokemon on your seen list, you don't have to catch them. Then, after you get it from Professor Rowan, you can start your shiny pokemon search!! The easiest place to get shiny pokemon is your home town, Twinleaf. Go to the grassy areas there, that's where I started anyway. Now, you have to prepare a lot of repels, max repels or super repels do just fine. Then use them before you start your pokeradar.

When you activated the pokeradar, you must do so in the grass, not in caves or while surfing, it won't work. Then, you will see patches of grass shaking, pick one and you will encounter a pokemon, even with your repel on. The reason for the repel is so that other wild pokemon will not interfere with your progress because when you encounter the same pokemon when walking into the patches of grass that was shaking, you start a chain and meeting a wild pokemon not be using the radar, breaks your chain, which is very heartbreaking. You must encounter the same pokemon, using the radar, up to maybe 40 times in order to easily get shiny pokemon. The patches of grass that shake are divided to 3 types:

1) It shakes with its normal colour.
2) It shakes with a small shine to it.
3) It shakes with 2 flashes of bright white shines.

The 3rd ensures your shiny pokemon, the 2nd ensures a rare pokemon, the first... maybe the normal kind. You can get advice from Lucas/Dawn, he/she tells you that the grass that shakes farthest from you ensures you meet the same pokemon again, and this is the most important advice he/she gives you. And you must also defeat the same pokemon you encounter to continue your chain. You must also pay attention to the upper screen after you defeat the same pokemon to see which patch of grass shakes next.

Example, you encounter a Bidoof when walking to the shaking patch of grass, then after defeating it you see 3 (there can be a maximum of 4 patches of grass shaking in one time) patches of grass shaking scattered around the field, pick the farthest one and there's a high chance of meeting a Bidoof again. You must not leave the grassy area because it will break you current chain, you cannot switch off the DS, it to will break your chain, and never use your bicycle, it will break your chain. Always keep your repel on and have a high level pokemon with false swipe and a lot of PP to help you. Once you encounter a different type of pokemon, your chain is broken and you have to start all over again.

Of course, it is a very hard task even to get 1 shiny pokemon. I stayed up till 1,30am to get one but I didn't. The current chain kept on breaking at around the 5th one. Oh, but I obtained a shiny pokemon from the most unexpected place, from hatching an egg, I hatched 3 eevee eggs and the 3rd one was a shiny eevee. That time I was surfing when it hatched. Ahhh, SOOOOO COOOLLLL!!!! And this Eevee is not for trading. Well that's all, you should search the net for a much better guide to catching and obtaining SHINY POKEMON!!!! (Background changes to a galaxy background while I point to the Sky...)



Farid

The Problem Is...

Wow! And you might be asking, why did I start my new post with 'wow'. So, to explain it all, 'wow', in this case is me saying 'wow' because of how fast time passed by and how I played Yu-Gi-Oh and I have worked on my gundam.Wow! See! Now to the main topic, "What might be the problem Mister Farid? You didn't mention what the problem was." You might be asking that, well to put it in a better way it is quite hard to understand the Yu-Gi-Oh cards' effects with the language translation problems. I have a Yu-Gi-Oh deck and several of them too, most in japanese but I have enough english translated ones to fit a 40 card deck. When I read the effects of some of the cards I couldn't understand the effect, therefore I can not play it properly.


Example 1. (Above)

The effect :
(Winged Beast/Effect)
If you tribute summon this card by tributing a WIND monster, return all Spell and Trap Cards on the field to the owners' hands.

Don't get me wrong, this is the correct version, everything is perfect, and this is how the card should read. But, the version I have reads :

(Name) Speedy Bird Man- Joe

(Bird/Effect)
Sacrifice with Wind tribute monsters and successfully summon this card, all magic/trap cards on the field will be back to the owner.

Now what do you understand? What I understand from the correct one is if you tribute a wind monster to summon the card, all magic and trap cards will return to their owners' hand.

But from the one I have, it says that it seems you have to tribute a wind monster to summon and send all magic and trap cards back to their owners hand.

Big difference right? Well not really, but if you follow the instructions for the wrong one you would waste a lot of time trying to get a wind monster. So on to the next card, I'm showing only 2 cards anyway.


Example 2. (Above)

The effect :
(Fairy/Effect)
You can Normal Summon this card without Tributing a monster. If you do, it is sent to the Graveyard during the End Phase.

This is also a correct version, this also happens to be one of my favourite cards!! But the version I have reads :

(Name) Lightening Gear- Cherry Fire

(Fairy/Effect)
Summon by sacrifice only and will be sent to graveyard at the ending phase.

Now what do you understand?? Really big difference right?!

That is all, finish!!!



Farid

A Day of... Stuff To Do.

How long has it been since I post a new post on my blog. Well, nothing came to my mind so I didn't have anything to post about. I have hardly worked on my Gundam models because of the computer, yeah, I was really into playing Warcraft III again. So far the three military units I was working on was never touched these few weeks. Better start today and work on them!!! Oh, and of course I have downloaded a new game for the NDS or Nintendo DS. The game is Yu-Gi-Oh World Championship. I downloaded 3 actually but then 2 could not be played so I played the third one. Yu-Gi-Oh World Championship 2008. The other I couldn't play were Yu-Gi-Oh World Championship 2009 Stardust Accelerator and Yu-Gi-Oh World Championship 2010 Reverse of Arcadia. So I just played it and the game is really enjoyable, the only thing boring about it is when you select cards for your deck other than that its good anyone should try and play it. Even my younger bro started playing it. And that's about the DS.

Now, recently I have been working on a comic named MFR Super Robot Fighter, which is about miniature robots MPCRs which are upgraded and used for battles. I have completely finished the story line. And now all that it needs is the drawing. I have also designed the robots and the characters that should appear in the story. You can see one of my drawings at the side column the one that reads MFR, I just drew it again with Adobe Illustrator to make it look cleaner compared to the original drawing. That was my first half-half drawing anyway.

The Gundam Report. As I have said, I have hardly worked on my gundam models but will get to it after this. I have also planned on cleaning up my Unicorn Gundam and taking pictures of it to post on the blog but it will take a while. I haven't started working on my Garazoo or my Shiba-I Sazabi. But I have tried customizing a model. The original model was Choko Zaku III but now I have changed it to Shiro Oni Zaku III, Shiro Oni meaning White Ogre. About the Military Unit I don't think I am going to continue with cleaning up like I have said in the previous post but that doesn't mean I might do it. I all depends on the mood right now so, yeah, better get to work. That's all, finished.



Farid

Military Unit (Cutting and Painting)

Now the model I am using as the example is the Military Unit. This is an SD model or super deformed model, and I think based on RGM. This model is suitable because you have a lot of parts to paint and it is quite cheap compared to the other models plus it gives you three Military Units to work with instead of one. One from each group, Dragon, Phoenix and Tiger.
(Above) Military Unit.

Now, first of all the basic tools for putting the model together are a nail file, cutters, a pen knife and sand paper the very fine ones. The reason for these items to be used are quite simple. The cutter for cutting, the nail file for cleaning the place where the parts are cut out. The pen knife is used also for cleaning cut marks that are hard to clean with the nail file. The sand paper is for making it really smooth and clean. The pen knife will be used more when you decide to paint your models but used only sometime when you just want to put the model together.


(Above) A part cut from the runner. And the part before and after it is cleaned.

This is the head, body and legs of the Military Unit. This model has only 4 movable points, the arms and feet. Now to clean up the cut mark with a pen knife, you can either scrape it off of cut away the cut mark. I think it is quite hard to see the difference but there is.

That would be all if you were to just put the model together. It would take less that half an hour to finish all the models. But, I guess I'll show a few steps for painting the model. First of all, decide the colours. Look at the side of the box and check out the colours to be painted. You can practice painting on SD or FG models because most of the parts require painting. All the colours will be painted on with brush and marker, instead of spray paint.

Before painting the model there are a few things that you should have prepared. First of all, a good and well-lit work space for you to spend your long hours of gundam making fun!! Second, prepare the stuff needed to clean the brushes if you are using any. Third, make sure you have all the colours for the parts you want to paint and also in advance plan the colours for the part you want to paint in you plan on making a few changes to the colours. With all those done, right before painting, make sure you rub the parts you want to paint with sand paper to give the paint a better grip on the plastic. This also makes it easier for you paint on light colours. And also make sure the parts are clean from dust, wipe the parts with a cloth and try not to touch the parts meant to be painted too much because the oil from your skin might make the painting job bad.


First of all, you should paint on the silver, for this I used Crome Silver. To paint it nicely, take a little bit of paint not too much and paint on, then slowly brush it. The reason for the little paint is that it will look more shiny rather then putting a lot of paint which will be darker I suppose. Then, you paint on the metallic green for the visor. I used a marker for this one. If there are certain spots where it is hard to paint with the marker, put some of the metallic paint from the marker somewhere so that you can take the paint with your brush and paint it. It almost impossible to not make mistakes so if you make some don't give up. You can still clean it up. As shown above I have painted the helmet silver, very shiny, the visor. You can see a little over painting at the corner of the visor.

(Above) Crome Silver paint. Enamel paint.

After you finish painting, clean the brush with turpentine if you are using enamel paint. Then, you paint on the gold. You can paint with the gold marker for an easier job plus, the gold marker gives a nice shiny finish if the painting is done properly. However, just for the fun of it, I used titanium gold enamel paint. Meaning I have to use a brush. As you can see, the front body and back body have already been painted, and clearly, a lot of sloppy mistakes. The difference between titanium gold and gold from the marker is that it is lighter compared to the darker gold paint from the marker.

Well, that's all. I'll post another post to continue from this. The next one will include the cleaning process and about painting on the colour white.




Farid

Street Fighter 4 Review!!!

So far, Street Fighter has been my favourite fighting game, maybe since I was a kid. Back then I used to play Street Fighter Zero 2 or Alpha 2 as I have said in one of my previous posts. Why is it my favourite? Well, maybe because it was the first I have played and the best one I am at too. I have tried other fighting games, like Soul Calibur, Bloody Roar, Digimon Rumble Arena, Pocket Fighter, or Guilty Gear. But most of these were introduced to me by my cousins, they had a Play Station 2, I, however, don't. So, I couldn't spend time playing those games.




Well, I brother downloaded the new Street Fighter 4. I could say I was both impressed and a little disappointed with the game. The graphics were really, really good compared to the previous ones, and the special effects were really good too. But they limited the super combos for each player to 1 and 1 ultra too. While in the previous ones they had at least 2 super combos. But the game was good and hard. So far my favourite characters are Akuma (still very strong) and Fei Long.


(Above) Akuma. My favourite character since when I first played Street Fighter Zero 2. After that I tried other characters like Charlie.

(Above) Fei Long. So far, I have only tried using him when playing Street Fighter 4. There's something cool about him.

Well, just to sum it all up, you should try playing Street Fighter 4. I requires a lot of graphics and RAM I guess. That's all, now back to using Akuma in Street Fighter 4. Dang you Rufus!! Arghhh!! I'm gonna beat ya up!!!




Farid

The Recent News

Hello and hi. Good day today for the Recent News Report. Congratulations to my cat Inai, who has given birth to a cute baby kitten. It is the first time I have seen a cat who has given birth to only one kitten instead of five or four. But anyway it is super cute and grey in colour. And yes I will post pictures of this kitten on my blog soon when it has finally opened it's eyes, cause really young kittens are temporarily blind. So yes it is a very happy day today. I also thought the kitten was gone this morning because I couldn't find it at the usual place. But, later I found out that the kitten was moved by her mother, Inai, to the living room, first it was in my elder bro's room. So, congratulations to Inai, super cute kitten and a happy 2nd day of Chinese New Year.

Now moving on to news about Gundam Models. I have recently finished fixing my Crossbone Gundam. Yes, it took quite a while but I finished panel lining all those joints and stuff, painting some of the parts but still needs finishing touches and I managed to finish my Tyouhi Gundam BB-senshi as shown in the picture below. It looks so cool!!!



(Above) Tyouhi Gundam

Right now still working on my Chouryou Gerugugu as shown in the picture below. So far it took me two days of work to complete the shoulder armour, chest armour and all other parts except the helmet because of all the gold colouring needed.

(Above) Chouryou Gerugugu.

So well that's it not really much of a long post today, I jumped straight to making my gundam instead of taking pictures of how I finished it so I am not able to show my work. I really wanted to but I was so excited. Anyway, right now I am trying out spray painting my gundam models. I is really hard because I need to mask the parts I don't want to turn that colour with masking tape so it is going to take quite a while to finish the model. That's all for the recent news.



Farid

Kamen Rider (Infectious Disease)

Beware, beware, and maybe watch out for the infectious disease of the Kamen Rider Disease!!

Widespread:
A wide spread of this show is broadcasted all maybe all over the world through the media, merchandise and maybe other hings that are related to it in anyway. A "person" who continuously poses as a Kamen Rider and does all their transformation (henshin) movement may also spread this disease.

Symptoms:

Early Stage:
The person maybe enjoying the show, watching it continuously sometimes or maybe keeps on looking at the television when is is shown and pretends not to like it (like me, yes, I am infected). Person may also start buying things related and this means that he is going to the medium stage.

Medium Stage:
Starts finding ways of speaking japanese text of transformation (before transformation, after transformation phrases). Also loses sense of embarrassment and does it in front of people without the feeling of shame. Buys toy-like weaponry of the Kamen Rider such as the swords and guns.

Critical Stage:
Starts fighting other people, two usually each person taking the role of a Kamen Rider and shouting out phrases as they weakly punch each other (even though their punches look strong), such as "Shoulder Fang", "Wake Up Fever", "Heato, Metaru", " or "Final Attack Rider, Di,Di,Di, Decade".

Recently we have also discovered some people being infected by this disease by just walking pass an infected person or breathing the same air. I has also been discovered that wearing face masks will only make the effect worse because they are partially fulfilling the "Kamen" or "Masked" phrase meaning face masks don't work. To avoid infection stay in isolation from the infected people.

Healing:
So far there is no cure for this disease because apparently the scientists involved in finding the cure have either been infected and are posing as Kamen Rider as we speak or they are paying attention to more severe diseases such H1N1. The easiest cure lies in the person itself. They must choose to ignore the disease and focus on maybe non-discriminatory language, their work and studies.

Side Effects:
The side effects of this disease is clear, making the infected person unable to stop watching Kamen Rider series. But, there were also some positive side effects of the disease. They apparently boost knowledge and memory span. One case was a teenager who was infected with this disease scored 8As in his PMR by watching more Kamen Rider and studying less.

Finally, by concentrating on ignoring the diseases' effects, we will be able to remove this disease from this world. Don't let the spread continue!!

This message was brought to you by:
The Masked Rider Disease Curing Centre.




Farid