The days of calamities

First, the Godfather of Soul died. Yes, the great James Brown died of pneumonia at the age of 73. Even at the end, he was ready to go and sing for the New Year's Eve bash. What a guy. I told my parents about this during dinner on that day and their response was mild to say the least. I was thinking that James Brown was their 'era' and maybe they'd give a little more response. Heh.

Then today came, with a humongous earthquake in Taiwan with a monstrous 7.1 on the Richter scale! 2 people died and some submarine data cables were damaged. Instead of fearing for the lives of the people there, people are whining on why the international links are down due to the earthquake damaging the data cables. The problem is big as this means that Asian countries will have very high pings and packet losses to US and European hosted websites. However, this episode just teaches me how dependable are we on this 'technology'. Reading the forums of Lowyat.net, I can see that most of them are complaining as if the problem was solely on a local internet provider's fault. Not that it is not warranted but fortunately this time, it was not their fault at all. I have always thought that most of the forumers who frequently post at that forum are rather childish and it is even more so now.

The thing that we should learn from this is that technology, no matter how much we depend on it, must never cloud our empathy toward human lives. Times such as theses, we should sit down and pray and hope that tomorrow, we are much better than today. We must always remember that technology is there to aid us ... and never to let it control our lives (which seems to often happen now).

I'm not saying I'm a perfect individual but its something to be aware to be imperfect and strive to be perfect rather than not doing anything at all.

UPDATE: So according to sources, the repairs will take about 3 weeks. Although the ships will reach the point where the cable was damaged in 3 days. Thats the bad news. The good news is that the tsunami alert has been taken down by most countries. Just hoping that there are no more quakes occuring in this timeline. In the meantime, any internet activities is going to be a pain.

Say bye bye to Starbucks Mont Kiara

Heya,
As of this moment, I have officially resigned from Starbucks. All I can say is wow! I have been working there for four years and more. Unfortunately, the hectic working life demands my everyday attention and I have no more time to be a part time barista. Its quite sad for me since the working environment has always been excellent. Sure there were times where I wanted to be anywhere else but Starbucks but the people (partners and customers) were what cheered me up whenever I came for work. Looking back, I have quite a lot of memories in the business. Granted, I was always a barista but I joined when the golden age of Starbucks Mont Kiara started. And I stayed on untill it was overshadowed by other Starbuck outlets. Nevertheless, the company that I was with stayed ever friendly.

As I stopped over tonight to give in my apron and uniform, I am again bombarded with the seemingly calm and cheery outlook of the outlet. Never again will I feel this way (Starbucks was also my first job). I hope to stay in contact with the people whom I know there. Now, all I have to do is look forward and hope that there are similar working places with the same atmosphere out there.

The drow and a human

The second book of the Sellswords series rock! Its continues the story of the partnership between the drow Jarlaxle and the human Artemis Entreri. It took me two days to finish the book while I was manning a booth at a recent children's charity fund event at BSC. Anyway, the story is well written and the storyline is superb. Here again we see different facets to Artemis even though he was a straightforward evil dude. In addition, we get a peak into Jarlaxle's agenda near the end of the book. Everything just hints to something but not answering it fully in this book. I can't wait for the third book to be released in paper back form!

In addition to that I just organized a Guild Wars tournament. Its not easy let me tell you that! Especially when you had to take pictures at the same time! Anyway, it was a random 4 vs 4 mini tournament and I hoped everyone had fun. I had fun randomizing everyone to be in balanced teams and I think I did a pretty good job of it. Anyway, there's another one coming up this weekend which I will be organizing as well. Hopefully I do a better job of it.

Neverwinter Nights 2 rocks! I can't seem to get enough of it. However I am always looking back to think up of better builds that suit my play style. That has always been my weakness. I always end up rerolling my characters that I end up not finishing the game. Nevertheless, I will finish up with my current character (a lawful evil dude) just to see how the story ends.

Nightfall and now, Neverwinter Nights 2

Nightfall came and I got myself a Collector's Edition. It came with goodies inside and I am fine with it. The art book is nice but Factions' one was nicer. However, the making of Nightfall DVD was excellent. I hope someday in the future I get to work in an environment such as the Arenanet office. Anyway, Nightfall itself is very atmospheric. It oozes the mystical Arabian enchantment. I like how the game developers manage to portray Elona. The storyline however is quite longwinded. I am not sure if its me for not getting into character or something along those lines but I think the quests are too numerous. And there are things that you must do in order for the storyline to progress. Although thats normal, its not fun when it borders on grinding. However, on a general scale, Nightfall is an awesome game. The inclusion of heroes gives us more options for playing alone (which is ironically enough, going against the MM in the MMORPG). The bad side of this is that there are even fewer people who wants to play with another human being.

So Nightfall is great and all but I am waiting for the grand-daddy of all RPGs: Neverwinter Nights 2! Woot! I was supposed to get my hands on it yesterday but because of work and family dinner I didn't have the time to actually get it. Although I asked a guild mate of mine to get it but when he reached the shop, it was closed (15 minutes early!). Oh the mockery of it all. Hopefully I will get it by today. Simply because I need something to play in offline mode since tmnet started screwing up again. But whats new right? To quote my Singaporean friend who came up to KL and tried our broadband "Now I know what kind of hell do you guys have to live with."Is he being overly dramatic? I think he hit the nail on the head with that comment.

The way back ...

Heya,

Ok so the Ipoh scene was fun. Everyone was there and I managed to say hi. Ate a lot of food and its all home cooking over there. Thats why it tastes soo good. Yum Yum. Can't say the same thing for the journey back though. Usually it takes us 2 hours for the journey but it started to jam after Tanjung Malim which slowed our journey down by an hour. So it took us 3 hours for the whole journey back. Man ...

This jam sux!

Oh well more bad news. Despite the planning, the event for Nightfall this weekend has been cancelled. I don't know why but I feel hugely responsible for that. Anyway, its being done differently and alot better in my opinion. Oh well, live and learn I guess. One thing to look forward for though, Nightfall will be at my office by tomorrow. Boss has confirmed it so will be looking forward to that. Wowwers!

Hari Raya time

Heya,
So today is the second day of Aidilfitri and I am filled to the gills with food! Every house you go you'd say ok I won't eat alot and then you spot something unique and you find yourself eating it. Bah.

Anyway today I am leaving for Ipoh for visiting for a day. Hopefully the traffic is ok since I am working tomorrow. Argh and this weekend is going to be busy. Supposedly Nightfall is suppose to reach on Thursday. Hmmmmmm.

What my sis was having at my house.

Chocolate cake is awesome for Raya! This one was anyway.

Silent Hill or Haze?

The haze ...

Heya,
The haze has been quite bad this year. The thought of it being a yearly occurence is rather troubling. Anyway, the pic above depicts how bad the haze is and that pic was taken right after it rained. Usually the haze disappears completely after it rains but nowadays it doesn't. Our neighbours gotta tackle this problem seriously as it happens year after year.

Anyway, tomorrow is Deepavali and on Tuesday is going to be Hari Raya Aidilfitri. So, happy holidays to those that celebrate the two momentous occasions. Hopefully the roads are clear by then.

Posters yeah!

Da posterz! The Factions Box is for size reference

Heya,
Awesome news today. My boss decides to award me for my efforts by giving me this two cool Guild Wars posters. One features the Factions assassin while the other one has the Nightfall dervish plastered all over it. The posters are awesome! Never have I seen something printed that big with the character filling most of it. The detail is superb.
This just brings up my poster collection to 4. One of the other two is a Guild Wars poster thats medium size and the other is a poster of the anime movie Akira.
Despite that though, I haven't hung those posters up yet simply because my room is in a state of chaos. Time and time again I have told myself to arrange and clean the place up to at least have a sense of order about. Unfortunately I can't seem to bring myself to it. Being the last child in the family, your room sort of becomes the store room for your other siblings to throw their stuff in.

Time to cast resurrection!

Heya!
Long time no see. This blog has been pretty dead for months now. Its not that I didn't have anything to add but more that I'm lazy. Anyway things to bring us up to speed.

I'm working right now. Yeah, kinda cool. Working in a gaming company. They are the sole provided for the license of a certain game company in South East Asia. In addition to that, the company also promotes e-sports amongst Malaysians. So its kinda fun so far. However its only been 2 weeks.

Been playing Guildwars less and less this days. Been busy with life and also work. But more importantly been playing Neverwinter Nights more. Neverwinter Nights 2 is coming out at the end of this month and I am playing the first one to keep my hunger quenched till then. However, there are a number of games coming out this month that looks awesome. First there's Neverwinter Nights 2, then Gothic 3, there's also Battlefield 2142 and lastly, Guildwars: Nightfall is coming out as well. Hmmm, gotta start counting the money. And here I was thinking that I wanted to upgrade my PC by the end of this month. Oh well ...

Hopefully I will have the will power and time to write on my blog for the days to come. Just a place to note my days and also to speak my mind.

Traffic Jams and Olympics

Rain and jam goes hand in hand.

The mechanics of a traffic jam escapes me. Sure, its usually a case of a particular time of day, versus the amount of people on the road at that time. So its quite normal that jams normally occur at mainly used roads and in the morning and afternoon (times when people go to work and go home from work). The funny thing is though, when jams occur on highways, everything goes whacked. Firstly, the speed lane is not supposed to be the slowest lane. Heck, its called the speed lane for something. Instead, what I notice is that its either the slowest lane or it just plain not moving. And then you go through the decision of whether to change lanes or not and wondering if you just wait for a while and hope that it will move back to speed soon. The worst is when you do make the decision to change lanes and just after you do that, the new lane that you are in stops and the lane that you just vacated from, moves. Secondly, there's something of an invisible line. This invisible line marks the spot where the jam magically is gone. There's no explaining it. At one moment you are grumbling because its so slow and suddenly cars are speeding off in front of you and there isn't a jam no more. ITS MAGIC I TELL YOU!

Ah its that time again. The time where athletes from around the world compete with each other to see who owns who. Sure, you get the global friend thing but in the end, its just a case of seeing who are the better athletes and which records are going to be broken. As usual, Malaysia is chock full of positive reports even before the event starts. Although I do hope that it doesn't end in our usual manner. Usually what happens is our athletes fail to garner medals that were targeted and the usual finger pointing ensues. Nevermind the highly positive views and articles the day before. Personally though, I think this year we will bag more medals but I digress. What can be sure of though, is that our attitude of being an 'emtpy can' is highly expected of us (Concerning our news reports before the games).

The Weather Man ...

I just watched The Weather Man starring Nicholas Cage. You can read the review and details about it on the link I provided on the movie name. Its one of those frustrating to watch kind of movies because you know its one of those things that has a big chance to happen to you in the future. Typically, Cage is an average Joe who has a dysfunctional family. He tries to get it to work though. Everyday he moves through his days with things he planned to make right but as usual (like most of us), situations and things happen that derail you off course. It’s this kind of small failures that make us less and less the ideal person of what we want us to be. In the end, you just have to go through life one step at a time and try to make the best of each situation even though it might get you nothing but grief. I find this movie very true to life and scary to the point that it’s going to reflect your life someday. I rate this movie a 4 out of 5 stars.

Had my first taste of a Starwars mini (SWM) tournament last night and I must say that I need more minis. There were seven of us of which one had to leave mid game because he had a family emergency. He was winning too. I on the other hand, had 3 losses to my record of my first DCI tournament. Apparently the famous pieces of the day were Han Solo (rebel hero), R2-D2 (both flavours) and Aura Sing. In this 100 point squad tournament, I concentrated on my first and third game. Something happened while I was playing my second game and I lost my concentration simply because the guys around me were talking too much. It’s hard to think about tactics and what’s your next move is when there are people around you giving hints to what moves you should take and pressuring you to do the right thing. Anyway, the whole night wasn’t wasted as I managed to get 3 common minis at the end of the tourney. For some reason I dislike playing swm because my dice rolls go out of whack and the game usually revolves around ranged attacks. I prefer ddm as there is more going on behind the lines and melee gets centre stage. You really get punished severely for bad dice rolls in swm but in ddm there’s always a fallback. Or maybe I’m just not playing the tactics right in swm.

Fearless ...

Watch Fearless recently and it was an ok movie. If you are used to Jet Li's movies, this one is a little tame on the action department (as in there were no out of this world moves). However, I love Jet Li movies (not the Hollywood production ones) as it usually ties in to history and there are moral and patriotic messages (which most people lack nowadays). I wouldn't call this movie a cinema kind of movie because it lacks any special effects or audio sounds that truely utilizes cinema viewing. That being said I'd probably give this movie 3 out of 5 stars.

While my friends and I were having our dinner after the movie, we somehow dug up a very funny situation that happened to my friend a long time ago. I remembered that my friend was looking for some porn and he decided to ask the vcd shopkeeper about it. Well, its quite embarrassing to ask someone about that so he decided to ask about it in a non straightforward manner. "Boss, ada cerita panas-panas tak?" was what he said. The shopkeeper looked puzzled at first but then brightened up almost immediately and said enthusiastically "Ada, ada!". The he went to a corner and pointed to a particular movie. I took a look at it and it was the movie Volcano! We looked at it for a second then burst out laughing! One of my friends ran out of the shop to laugh like crazy, while I turned around and laughed quietly. My other friend who asked in the first place didn't know whether to laugh or be frustrated. All in all, it was a funny situation!

The real kicker is that, it has happened to this friend of mine not once, but twice! The second time however, he was looking for hentai games. So he asked the shopkeeper (it was a different store) "Ada game panas-panas tak?". The shopkeeper looked at him quizzically but somehow looked as if he caught on. Then he showed the game ... it was Diablo. LoL, makes you wonder if they are all related or something. Considering the business they are in, you'd think they'd understand the terms people use. Apparently they aren't! This time though, we all laughed like crazy simply because we remembered of the last occasion that was similar to this (which was told above)! Oh god sometimes I think if there were a movie about things that happen in my life, people would laugh like crazy! Just goes to show that whatever it is, going straightforward is better although not funner!

Crash

My GW guild member recommended a movie called Crash. So, I went and watch it. I'm glad he did. It was one of those movies that was released under the public's radar on 2004. Despite that it won alot of accolades. Anyway, its a movie directed by Paul Haggis and it is casted by alot of big names like Sandra Bullock, Matt Dillon, Brendan Fraser, Ryan Philippe and some others. Whats amazing about this film is that it manages to capture its idea and encapsulate it into an intelligent, orderly series of events.

The general outline of this film is that it shows how people react to racial stereotypes. How we, upon seeing a tattooed person, automatically brands him a gangmember. The only problem is, he might be and he might not be. At the same time, the film also shows us how stereotypes were born. Its a thought provoking film and manages to impart its messages. The film also shows us that no matter what people are, they have other things about them. For instance, we all hate bullies at school. But for all we know, he might be a bully but at home he has to care for his elderly parents who can't do squat. Its even more frustrating for him since he doesn't have siblings who can help him and his old folks are demanding people. The film makes us think that there is more to people than what they portray.

I would recommend everyone to watch this film, at least once in their lives. It will open your eyes to people around you.

Crazy weekend ...

GW (thats GuildWars for the uninitiated) has updated with loads of fun stuff yesterday in preparation for the sneak peek pvp event this weekend. What kind of sneak peek? 2 new classes and a number of new skills for the core classes that are coming out for the expansion (Its called GW: Factions). Should be starting at about 4 pm this afternoon. I think its gonna be crazy with the pvp areas being filled to the brim! Anet (the company that made the game) are dangling a carrot right at our noses and if they don't stop it, the number of people who are going to buy the expansion will rise exponentially. The cool thing about the expansion is that its a standalone expansion. Which means you don't have to own the original one to be able to play but like a Magic: The Gathering deck, you have an advantage in owning both to only one.

That being said though, this weekend might be filled. I have a kenduri to attend and help, a friend's wedding to attend and not to mention a look into d&d minis tournament that is happening this weekend at Comic Corner in Atria after lunchtime. In between those? Hopefully playing GW.

Of old times ...

I just remembered how fun it was to play at cybercafés (CC) last time. My friends and I would go there and play loads of games. The earliest of such was Quake. We played at the Java Café in Uptown Damansara. If I remembered correctly that was the time that most of us converted from keyboard play to mouse and keyboard combo. Anyway, it was fun times. We shouted, we screamed threats and we all had fun in the process. Nowadays though, thinking of going to CC are just a hassle. Either its too far or the games that we want to play are not available. Having said that though, there are some of my friends who still frequent Virtual Arena (VA) in Hartamas for a few games of war3’s (warcraft 3) most famous mod, DOTA.

Talking about games though, one cannot deny the fact that you have to come up with a nick to suit the game. My nicks ranged from Slice and Dice all the way to the one I am using now which is Koross. Most of this nicks were thought out seriously and with research while some were made at the spur of the moment. I remembered a nick I used during my Counterstrike (CS) days, it was SayItFast JoeBor with hilarious results! There was this one time that my friend was using that nick for fun and he was racking up the kills. The funny moment came when he was the only one alive in the team and he was killing the other team one by one ala Rambo. The funny moment came when one of the dead guys actually shouted in the CC “You can do it JoeBor!”. Probably its not that funny when you read this but it was funny when you heard that nick voiced out. If anyone else in the game didn’t understand what the nick really meant, it was made apparent when one of the guys actually said “Huh, say it fast? JOEBOR JOEBOR JOEBOR JOE … HAHAHAHAHA!”. Ah yes those were fun days.

The awesome games that came to my mind that my friends and I had loads of fun playing last time was Shogo (Doubt if anyone remembers this game), Rainbow 6, Quake (1,2 and 3), C&C: Red Alert, CS, Battlefield, Rome Total War, Vietcong, Serious Sam, war3, etc. There are probably more but I can’t recall now. Some of my friends were really good in those games too. Most of us were above average in the games we played but there are some exceptional ones that come to mind. I have a friend who is a pilot freak in Battlefield. He was very good piloting the copters in the game that one day he showed me how good he was. He could literally fly the copter sideways into a hangar building, move abit inside and then come back out without it touching the building or crashing. THAT’S FREAKING AWESOME! Till this day I still can’t pilot the copters properly. Another one of those really funny moments in gaming was when my friends and I were playing Rainbow 6 team deathmatch. It was some sort of a highway map where its literally a straight road with each team spawning at each ends. Anyway the funny part was that one of my friends was slow because he was looking around the road and admiring the hills and canyons. Then suddenly, without any gunshots fired, he died. The death music came on and we all went “Eh, macam mana ko mati?”. He was scratching his head and said “Aku tak tahu la. Mungkin kena hempap batu kot”. At this point, everyone literally stopped playing because we all went into fits of laughter. Just imagine, the best SWAT team the world has to offer and a member died because he was crushed by a rock. How the heck that happened in the game, I don’t know but it was funny nonetheless. Ah those were funny moments. Wished that there are more in the future.

Neverwinter Nights and Tribes ...

For some reason I have begun playing Neverwinter Nights (NwN) again. This is because of a certain fascination I have on a character from R.A. Salvatore’s works. I bet most of you are thinking of Drizzt Do’Urden now. Well its not. Its Drizzt’s arch nemesis: Artemis Entreri. He is the total polar opposite of Drizzt. Firstly, he is human. Secondly, he rivals Drizzt in swordplay (him being human and managing to do this is impressive enough) and thirdly, he is a lot more interesting as a character. Being the bad guy and a loner means he must be on his toes all the time (just to make sure that he doesn’t get backstabbed by the ones who he does business with) and he must be cunning and able to take his opportunities whenever or wherever they may come. Oh yes, Artemis has a lot more character than dear old Drizzt.

I just finished reading ‘The Paths of Darkness’, which should explain more my fascination of this character. Don’t get me wrong, Drizzt is an interesting character in his own right but that seems to lessen now ever since he is in a somewhat secure position now. He is among friends and the world doesn’t seem that big and daunting anymore. Whereas Artemis seems to be in a world where there are only enemies and friends are only people who would use you for their own ends and discard you once your uses are gone.

Anyway as I said, I’m replaying through the original chapters (OC) of NwN with this newly made character that’s supposed to be my version of Artemis and for the most part he is rocking. Never mind that I scoured the whole of the official NwN forums for a build that would indeed rock and still be something that would fit Artemis’ character.

In addition to that a friend of mine got me playing Starsiege: Tribes again. For the uninitiated, Tribes is a FPS game with a minor twist: jetpacks. In my opinion it’s a lot more challenging than the standard FPS games because now, you have to take into consideration of the z-axis as well. The most played game type is capture the flag (CTF) and this is where this game shines. Speed play a major role as stealing the enemy’s flag and bringing it back to your own base is something easier said than done. In fact, most people who play Tribes up to this day are addicted to the speed that can only be found in this game. This is the only game I think that a flag steal can occur in the blink of an eye. Just imagine that you are the flag defender of your team and you are standing vigilant. Glancing around trying to see from where would the enemy come from because deep down you know that if the enemy comes, it will be very fast. So you take your eyes off the flag for a second to take a closer look at the hill in front of your base only to be alerted by an onscreen text message: YOUR FLAG HAS BEEN STOLEN!. You quickly turn to the flag stand (just to confirm the message) and look around in panic to see if you can spot the flag stealer. In most cases, the only thing you’ll see is either nothing (which means you totally missed it) or the fleeting image of the flag stealer in the sky with your flag on his back quickly fading into the distance and you know even if you chase, it won’t mean squat unless the flag stealer does something stupid which is rare.

The learning curve for this game is quite steep and the amount of good players in this game would make newbies stop playing fast but if you are patient and master this game, the experience is fun! This game is available as a free download in Fileplanet so give it a try since its only 138 mbs big.