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I had the worst new year of my life. I spent it alone, drinking Cuba libres, beer and gin on the side, at top speed until it became time to be sick.

I did other things too, but I won't mention those here.

I think I'll play MGS3 again.

I wish all my gamespot friends a very merry Christmas.

I've suffered from insomnia for most of my life, but it has progressively gotten much worse over the past few years. Having insomnia is the worst thing you could imagine, almost like a torture, your not constantly full of energy and thus unable to sleep. In fact it's the complete contrary, I'm always tired, totally sleep deprived beyond rhyme or reason, however I only manage to sleep two or three hours a night. This was made much worse three nights ago.

I awoke suddenly and I immediately knew something was wrong. From the second I opened my eyes I was filled with fear, it was unlike any fear I have ever felt in my life, my heart was going a mile a minute and suddenly I realised the full extent of the situation. I was paralyzed, totally and completely helpless, unable to move even my toes. There was a pressure on my chest and I realised that somebody was holding my arms down and I could clearly hear helpless screams of fear and panic coming from the room next door. The screams were coming from my parents.

Allow me to try and put this slightly in perspective. You wake up in the middle of the night -- you are clearly awake, it's not a vivid dream, your 100% awake -- your totally paralyzed. There is somebody sitting on your chest holding you down while you can hear the screams of your parents coming from the other room.

As this madness reached it's peak, suddenly it stopped. I could move fine and the room was totally silent, but the fear was still there. I thought I was dreaming, I must have, right? What else could it have been? I sat there and the first thing I did was turn on the tv, it calmed me immediately, however it took me three hours before I could try and go back to sleep.

Sleep Paralysis

"Sleep paralysis usually happens when someone is just entering or leaving sleep, and lasts from a few seconds to a couple of minutes. Most research has linked it with REM, or rapid eye movement, sleep which indicates dreaming. When the body and brain enter REM sleep, the muscles relax and the brain blocks signals that would normally allow the limbs to move, so preventing the body from acting out its dreams. One suggestion for the cause of sleep paralysis is that the firewall between sleeping and wakefulness temporarily drops, so that some sleep phenomena, of which paralysis is one, breaks into wakefulness."

Thank god it has a name!

"Nintendo...Will not do nearly as well with the Wii once third parties try to skirt the control issue the same way they're trying to skirt the DS touchpad/microphone/second screen issue. They'll treat the Wiimote as Right Analog, the Nunchuck as Left Analog and call it a day, circumventing any actual opportunity for innovation. (I predict that 90% of the Wii's third-party games will end up needing the Nunchuck. While we're at it, I seriously doubt that most third parties would want to replace their game characters with Miis, either!) Nintendo's only hopes are the promise of the $1750 devkit and the possibility of indie development through WiiWare. They've drawn in new talent with Fund Q in the past; they just need to spread the net out a bit. I'm not sure that they will, however, because this is the company who isn't even supporting recent video standards. Hell, VGA output would work! (Sure, some say Component's good enough. That may be so if the cable were easier to find--)

Yeah, many of us thought Nintendo would tear MS and Sony apart with the Wii because, you know, "OMG NINTENDO HAS TO WIN THIS TIME." No, it isn't the case at all--now that the Wii has been seen and messed with, harsh reality sets in and we have to sit down and say "yeah, the gamble isn't going to get them as far as they'd hoped." Just because you believe in Nintendo with all your heart isn't going to make them win."

There are some very interesting points made here. Especially about the Wiimote
as Right Analog, the Nunchuck as Left Analog, I can certainly see that happening in lots of games, if hasn't happened already. This really isn't a dig at Nintendo though, they've tried something new and are just counting on developers being as 'innovative' as they are, I hope it works, but developers are lazy.

rest in peace liksang