Eyes on Final Fantasy Forums - Blogs - Mo-Nercy http://home.eyesonff.com/blog.php/5339-Mo-Nercy The Eyes on Final Fantasy Forums are the premier place for Final Fantasy fans to meet and discuss this classic video game series. Join our community today. en Thu, 14 May 2026 00:55:28 GMT vBulletin 60 http://home.eyesonff.com/images/images_neoclassic/misc/rss.jpg Eyes on Final Fantasy Forums - Blogs - Mo-Nercy http://home.eyesonff.com/blog.php/5339-Mo-Nercy I Love You, Man http://home.eyesonff.com/entry.php/351-I-Love-You-Man Sun, 22 May 2011 15:49:59 GMT After watching this film featuring Paul Rudd and Jason Segel about a guy who struggles to find a best man for his wedding because he'd fallen out with all his male friends and had become more a "girlfriend guy", I've realised that I am going to be this guy when I get engaged.

I had a big group of high school friends I used to catch up with quite regularly, but in the 5 years since high school's finished, the big groups kind of broken up into smaller groups or pairs and since I'm the guy who's always been in the long-term relationship, I rarely caught up with anyone and haven't done so in a year or so. I've got a few workmates from a previous job I see regularly, but they're looking to move back to their home countries after getting their degrees pretty soon. My uni friends are all female. There were only nine blokes studying social work and I didn't get to know any of them.

I'm not really bothered by this, by the way. The film just got me thinking...

Anyone else in the same boat? ]]> Mo-Nercy http://home.eyesonff.com/entry.php/351-I-Love-You-Man Formula One - As of Korea http://home.eyesonff.com/entry.php/151-Formula-One-As-of-Korea Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:18:43 GMT I can't believe the crap I'm reading on the F1 forums/websites I frequent. Almost everyone seems to be of the opinion that Red Bull should:
a) promote Vettel to the status of "number 1 driver" and back him to win
b) let their two drivers race it out

Either option would be stupid and it would be practically giving the driver's title to Alonso. Vettel is on 206 points, compared to Webber's 220 and Alonso's 231. With only 50 points left to go to the winners of the last two races, supporting Vettel would be a massive risk. You'd have to pretty much cross your fingers and hope Alonso crashes out or doesn't finish in the points (neither is very likely given his ability). Sitting on the fence and not giving out equal status to either is equally daft. The team would then run the risk of having their drivers take valuable points from each other and letting Alonso cruise to the silverware. This is same mistake McLaren made in 2007 to let Kimi Raikkonen win his one and only F1 title. Red Bull seriously can not entertain the notion of being the laughing stock of F1 only 3 years after the perfect case study of what not to do was demonstrated for the world to behold.

I'm just going to paste something I just posted in reply to someone who said the team should support Vettel on one of the aforementioned websites I visit.

@manu : Whilst what you've said is true, remember that Webber had outclassed Vettel and the rest of the field for a handful of races mid-season. Those 14 points he had over Vettel and Alonso prior to Korea weren't there by sheer coincidence and luck. Yes, okay, a bit of luck, but any victor of a closely fought world championship can attribute some luck to their success. My point is that Webber had earned that advantage. Never mind that Vettel wasn't at his best at the time, that's not his problem. Nor should it be the team's. You can't expect Red Bull to say "oh well, Vettel's better than you on paper, so we'll back him." All Mark Webber would hear out of that is "well, you might as well have not tried to win at all." If, at Interlagos, Vettel led Webber to a 1-2 Red Bull finish with Alonso in third (which, you'd agree isn't an impossibility at all). Vettel would still be 15 points behind Alonso with a race to go, which would be hard to pull back with a single race left. Webber would be 8 points behind, meaning the gap between 1st and 2nd wouldn't be enough to give him the title. Both drivers would thus be at a huge disadvantage going in Abu Dhabi following such a result. If Red Bull wants one of theirs to win the title, they need to back Webber. End of story. This isn't the time to be using Vettel's speed as an excuse to sit on the fence and let the two race it out. They need to make the decision to back Webber, and frankly, they should've done it before now.
I don't think I'm being overly patriotic here. Yes, I'd much rather see Mark Webber lift the trophy than any of the other contenders, but my opinion boils down to simple mathematics. It doesn't matter now that Sebastian Vettel is a better overall driver and that Mark Webber's been lucky with his points finishes. What matters is that Webber drove better than Vettel when it counted and earned a points advantage over him that he still holds right now. Red Bull can't afford to do option (a) or (b) just because Vettel's been unlucky and has suddenly decided to start driving well in the last few races.

If Webber wins the last two races and Alonso finishes 2nd in both, it would be a 14 point turnaround and Red Bull would have their first driver's champion.

If Vettel wins the last two races and Alonso finishes 2nd in both, Alonso would still claim his third driver's title by a single point. Yeah, yeah fairytale finish and all that :bou::bou::bou::bou:, but it'd go down in history just like Raikkonen's 2007 championship - the other team pussyfooted around too much and handed it to him on a silver platter. ]]> Mo-Nercy http://home.eyesonff.com/entry.php/151-Formula-One-As-of-Korea Late on the bandwagon! http://home.eyesonff.com/entry.php/128-Late-on-the-bandwagon! Mon, 18 Oct 2010 03:23:57 GMT Just passed the halfway point of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. I've never read it before and I didn't go see the film so it's all a new experience for me. I was inspired to do it after I saw it on sale for $4.95 at a random bookstall thingo and after recently re-reading Matthew Reilly's The Seven Ancient Wonders / The Six Sacred Stones / The Five Greatest Warriors trilogy (he pays a bit of homage to Brown as the protagonist Jack West goes around doing things like finding the tomb of Christ and raiding Hatchepsut's mortuary temple for Alexander the Great's treasure).

Oh, the book's pretty good, I might as well say. The paperback itself is of pretty poor quality. The words are printed so close to the edges of the page, I pretty much have to break the spine to read the words closest to the inside of the book.

Do read Matthew Reilly btw if you're a fan of the action-thriller genre when it comes to the mindless airport novel. The aforementioned trilogy is great if you love your Dan Brown. ]]> Mo-Nercy http://home.eyesonff.com/entry.php/128-Late-on-the-bandwagon! I am going to pimp my ride http://home.eyesonff.com/entry.php/106-I-am-going-to-pimp-my-ride Mon, 11 Oct 2010 22:51:26 GMT I just have to. Otherwise I'd have absolutely zero motivation to start looking for work. I finish uni in three weeks and everyone else seems to be either going for interviews or kicking back because they're already working as social workers. I've only applied for one job as a case worker at a youth centre and gotten turned down.

So I'm setting myself a new goal. I'm gonna turn my car into something my girlfriend will be ashamed to sit in and call me a douche for wasting money on xD. And to do that, I'll need more than the $84 I've got in my bank account. These Modellista kits look really good compared to some of the other Auris kits I'd previously looked at. They look somewhat more dignified and less showboaty. I don't want to be one of those drivers that has to take speed humps at quirky angles to avoid bottoming out. I just want a car that looks nice.

New wheels, new paint scheme, new seats... So many ideas! I can't wait to start working and put them all into action.
*goes to tidy up CV* ]]> Mo-Nercy http://home.eyesonff.com/entry.php/106-I-am-going-to-pimp-my-ride Formula One - As of Japan http://home.eyesonff.com/entry.php/105-Formula-One-As-of-Japan Mon, 11 Oct 2010 22:26:47 GMT Looks like my tips for last race were wrong again. Formula One used to be a lot easier to call back in the days of the Red Baron. It'd almost always be Michael Schumacher, Rubens Barrichello and a McLaren/Renault/Honda driver.

But my much earlier, broader guess that it'd come down to the Red Bulls and Fernando Alonso seems to be spot-on. Mark Webber's not very far ahead of Vettel and Alonso so the final three races will come down to whether he has the nous to continue defending his lead or whether the more recent form of Vettel or Alonso can snatch it from him. As an Aussie, I'm saddened to say that F1 gods in the recent past have favoured the chaser when the lead is this small. Hopefully he can prove me wrong.

Suzuka is normally an exciting race. 2005 was a great year for it with Raikkonen coming from 17th on the grid to win and Fernando Alonso passing Michael Schumacher through 130R. But this year it was made boring by the Red Bulls who were just too good up against everyone else. Even if Button's strategy (qualifying on the prime tyre and saving the grippier options for later in the race when the track would be truly rubbered in) had worked and Hamilton's gearbox survived the race, Mark Webber's and Sebastian Vettel's last few laps (when they were both chasing the fastest lap record) showed that the Red Bulls had been coasting throughout most of the race anyway. If they needed the speed, they had it.

Kamui Kobayashi ought to get drive of the race in Japan. It was a great display of overtaking ability in front of a home crowd. He went for a strategy similar to Button's and he made it work (admittantly, he was racing against Force India and Toro Rosso, not Ferrari and Red Bull). Good drive by his new teammate Nick Heidfeld too, a person who really deserves to be in F1. Two or three years ago, no one would've said Nick Heidfeld is any worse an F1 driver than Mark Webber or Jenson Button, but now one's leading the championship and the other's the defending world champ. I still hope to see the day when Quick Nick wins his first race.

MO'S PODIUM TIP FOR KOREA
It's a new track, so it'll favour the more naturally-gifted drivers on the grid like Lewis, Sebastian and Fernando. Then again, Suzuka showed that no amount of skill can outdo a well-set up car. I recently won the world championship on my copy of F1 2010 on PS3 and I'm still not sure what sort of track Yeongnam is. It's got some pretty long straights which will favour the McLarens and their F-duct, but the middle part of the track, from memory, is mostly slow to medium speed corners, which should spell win for Red Bull. I'm confusing myself so I'll just go with my gut and take a stab at it xD.

1. Lewis Hamilton
2. Mark Webber
3. Sebastian Vettel ]]> Mo-Nercy http://home.eyesonff.com/entry.php/105-Formula-One-As-of-Japan Formula One - As of Singapore http://home.eyesonff.com/entry.php/60-Formula-One-As-of-Singapore Mon, 27 Sep 2010 13:45:51 GMT Last fortnight's podium tips were a big fail. I got two of them right, but in the wrong places. And Lewis Hamilton ended up not finishing at all.

Which I suppose, is the big talking point this week in F1 - the circumstances behind Hamilton's crash with Mark Webber. People could be forgiven for thinking by now that Mark Webber is a great big crash magnet. In his early years in F1, he built a reputation for qualifying well but not finishing due to carelessness, poor car realibility and rotten luck. Earlier this year, he catapulted himself off Heikki Kovalainen's Lotus and people were very quick to condemn him before getting all the facts (Heikki had braked unnaturally early while Webber was still in the slipstream). But this most recent incident should be thought of exactly as what the race stewards decided - a racing incident.

Hamilton was undoubtedly faster at the time. Coming out of the safety car period, Webber had been on his prime tyres for much longer than Hamilton and that he was down on grip relative to him as a result. Webber drove defensively in response and covered off the inside line. Hamilton does what he does best and tried to go around the outside of the turn (I don't know it's name, or number.. but it's one of the few in Singapore with a slight run-off area to accommodate wide passing manuevers). Because Webber was forced off line briefly and therefore, made to brake earlier, Hamilton actually passed him before the turn in. However, Webber still had half a car length in Hamilton's space when the touch occurred and Hamilton had no right to turn in on the apex and shut him out there. This isn't a wide circuit with big rumble strips and astroturf lining the inside. Webber was being forced into a wall. He couldn't just make his car disappear. Hamilton would've probably come out in front if he'd given him more room anyway, so he really doesn't have anyone else to blame but himself.

Besides, although the consequences of the crash were that Hamilton had to retire and Webber proceeded to take third place, it could've easily been the other way around, so it would've been unfair to give Webber a penalty for defending his line and then just happening to have the stronger car.

Anyway, it was a good win by Alonso. I would've liked to have seen Vettel stay out for a few more laps after Alonso pitted to try and overtake him. Either Red Bull were a) stupid, b) opting for the safe 2nd place, c) concerned about the state of Vettel's tyres or d) secretly manuevering Mark Webber into the Number 1 driver role and preventing Sebastian from scoring too many points.

d)'s pretty out there, I admit. It's hard to imagine the Austrian-run Red Bull team backing Webber to win the title when Sebastian Vettel is a) German and b) a product of their young driver's program. Then again, Webber is out on top of the table and with four races to go... Red Bull wouldn't want to make the same mistake McLaren did in 2007 when they let Hamilton and Alonso race each other for points till the end (Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen nicked the title by a single point that year). Although Vettel's lifted his game since the first half of the season, Webber's still the best mathematical possibility to win. Tough position for Red Bull to be in, I'm sure.

MO'S PODIUM TIP FOR JAPAN
Suzuka next fortnight. One of the best F1 tracks of all time. It's going to be a really good race, I think, with all five championship contenders with a good chance to win the race.
1. Mark Webber (He's been in a slight slump the last few races and he's due for a good performance. He's still the driver who's won the more GPs and has been on the podiums the most times this year. He knows it won't look good for him to win the title with less wins than someone else, and there's no better place to grab a fifth victory than Suzuka, one of the favourites for many drivers)
2. Fernando Alonso (Two wins in a row and his first season at Ferrari is starting to look a lot like Raikkonen's in '07 - poor first half of the year, but a strong finish. I'm just vibeing that he won't win the Japanese GP though.. the competition this year is just too good for someone, even of Alonso's abilities, to dominate for too long)
3. Jenson Button (The defending champion really needs to stamp his authority. There's no better time to do so than when your teammate is struggling to finish a race contact-free and probably getting more and more frustrated with each DNF) ]]> Mo-Nercy http://home.eyesonff.com/entry.php/60-Formula-One-As-of-Singapore Formula One Chat - As of Italy http://home.eyesonff.com/entry.php/23-Formula-One-Chat-As-of-Italy Mon, 20 Sep 2010 15:10:45 GMT I really need a place to splurge about Formula One. Most people on F1 forums are hyped-up motorhead fanboys who'll support there favourite driver no matter how he ridiculously he may have driven and it's just about impossible to get my point across without being flamed. Even though the season's already down to it's 14th race out of 19 and even though to my knowledge, no one of EoFF follows Formula One, I'm going to push on with this anyway. It doesn't matter if no one reads this - I'm doing this for me! xD

2010 is the best Formula One season I've ever seen since I began actively following the sport back in 2004. Critics have been panning the rule changes in the last few years, saying that the problems of the past (e.g. it's too easy for one team to dominate a season, it's too difficult for individual drivers to overtake one another due to the complex aerodynamics of the cars) aren't being addressed, but it's hard to accept their arguments now. Slowly but surely, F1 has become more and more entertaining since 2005. Fernando Alonso finally ended Michael Schumacher's five-year Driver's Championship streak with the help of a well-timed rule change for the year, banning tyre changes over a race distance (unless it rained). The season was a nail-biter and went down the penultimate race. It was a viewer's dream - years of Schumacher-Ferrari dominance and fortnight after fortnight of boring processional Ferrari-dominated races had come to an end. At the time, we didn't think it could get any better, but then Ferrari hit back in 2006 and we had another great year-long fight played out before us. The winner of the 2007 Driver's Championship wasn't decided till the final race. The winner in 2008 wasn't decided till the final corner of the year. Jenson Button won the first six of seven races in 2009, but the fight between him and Sebastian Vettel went right down to the final races. Again, we all thought it couldn't get any better, but now in 2010, with five races to go, there are five drivers with a good chance of winning the title. I don't even know how far back I'd have to go to recall the last time something like this had happened. If you've never been a fan of Formula One in the past - now's the time to get into it.

Of the five drivers - Mark Webber, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel, it's hard to pick one out. After the most recent race at Monza though, it's clear that Ferrari have stepped it up and are now challenging the Red Bulls and McLarens for pace instead of lagging behind. Fernando Alonso, though some 20 points or so behind Webber and Hamilton at the moment, is the only driver to not have his teammate in contention. He has the advantage of being the Ferrari team's one and only option for winning the driver's title, whereas the Red Bull and McLaren drivers are competing against each other for points. In 2007, Kimi Raikkonen won his maiden title by a single point because Alonso and Hamilton had spent the latter half of the year nabbing valuable points from each other. It's not impossible to see it happening again.

Then again, with slow-cornered tracks like Singapore, Abu Dhabi and Korea coming up - Red Bull are at a clear advantage. They've shown all year that their cars operate better than the rest in high downforce situations. It's hard to split the two drivers. Though Vettel is probably the better natural driver of an F1 car, Webber is in the form of his career, whilst Vettel is cracking under the pressure. I reckon Webber's the pick of the two at the moment.

I'm ruling out the McLaren drivers. I don't think their cars will suit the final five tracks, even with Button and Hamilton behind the wheel, so I'm tipping that the title will be fought between Webber, Alonso and Vettel.

In other news, my hero Kimi Raikkonen is reportedly interested in coming back from the World Rally Championship to Formula One. He's allegedly in discussions with Renault, who are likely looking for a replacement for Vitaly Petrov. I love Kimi, but I'm doubtful about his chances. He's a quality driver so he'd probably be asking for a fairly big salary. To my best knowledge, Petrov is a pay-driver. Renault F1 are under a bit of financial stress at the moment. The parent company is probably still weighing up the pros and cons of pulling out of F1 altogether like BMW did this year. I don't know if it's financially viable for them to pay for a driver of Raikkonen's calibre unless he takes a big pay cut.

MO'S PODIUM TIP FOR SINGAPORE:
1. Mark Webber
2. Fernando Alonso
3. Lewis Hamilton ]]> Mo-Nercy http://home.eyesonff.com/entry.php/23-Formula-One-Chat-As-of-Italy