SIONG'S LIFE

TradeLet

2011-04-20T09:48:00.000+08:00

Double-back again! Been out of the scene for quite a while.
I just started my own website, trying to some small business you might say. It's called TradeLet or Trade Outlet here. It's a site where I let people post their items for sale . classified adverts where I charge them only RM1.50 or USD$0.5 per post which is permanent for as long as they want. Here in this blog maybe I would start chronicling my progress and steps I've taken to get publicity, adverts etc so that other people may learn from it and may one day be more successful than I did? or maybe they have things to advice me? Anyways will start tomorrow with a post on it!

玫瑰香 Rose Incense

2010-12-27T19:52:00.000+08:00

I used to be looking for this song until I recently heard in on Superstar.

It's called 玫瑰香 or Rose Incense I think (Google translates it Muscat).

I wonder what's the name of the original Orchestral (Russian?) version name?

Ramblings - 24th Dec

2010-12-24T09:59:00.000+08:00

First, I'm going to congratulate a friend of mine on her 26th Birthday!
Happy Birthday Elaine!
Life is short, with so much suffering around the world, natural disasters, war, hunger, flooding, earthquakes, crimes happening every other day...so every birthday is definitely worth congratulating.

Now to the main point.
Life is short, sometimes I wonder, are humans born to be selfish? Taking care of our own priorities first before anyone else even people closest to you? Are there actually people who care about others first before themselves? Some crave popularity and neglect people on their side, not realizing that sometimes those on their side get hurt? I've seen a lot of these happening lately and I wonder if myself is to blame? It makes you reflect back but I guess these things are part of the world / part of life and as long as one is happy with his own life and actions, the rest doesn't matter. Maybe the last sentence actually and totally envelopes the concept of human selfishness?

The Singhsons

2010-12-20T10:55:00.001+08:00

This is funny. An Indian version of the Simpsons called the Singhsons..
I hope no one is offended as it was intended to be humorous...

It's nearly X'mas - 22nd Dec

2010-12-20T10:38:00.000+08:00

Ah. It's nearly X'mas again. (Christmas is an archaic language in the year 2999, see Futurama S2E17). Anyways it's the time of the year where everyone gives or receives gifts and maybe just give but no one gives back, but anyways I've started to make resolutions for next year, hopefully they'll be achieved.

Even though it was supposed to be a time for joy and merriment, but it saddens me though that some of my fellow bloggers have abandoned their blogs. Some cannot be blamed due to political pressure, some due to lack of time, some due to lack of interest from the community, hence lack of readers. To many it was hoped that the blog can help them generate money, but to me, I just write whenever I like without caring for money or anything.

But well, this year has been tough and I hope next year would be better. One of the first resolutions I have in my mind now would be to update this blog with anything, at least twice a week. Hopefully everything will run smooth and readers will increase!

Back from Oblivion - 21st Nov

2010-11-21T10:12:00.000+08:00

Well, I'm back!

After such a long time missing, I guess it's time to revive back this blog. All this while, work has rendered my time filled with all sorts of activities from work to my Masters studies. There are a lot to catch up especially my gaming and other crazy things happening all this while. I'm actually wondering, up to now, there isn't actually much readers, and I guess it won't increase anytime soon either but heck, I'm doing this for the fun of it, not for other reasons, so, well, here we go again, hopefully with more vibrant content!

Happy Fathers' Day !

2010-06-20T09:54:00.001+08:00

Happy Father's Day to my Dad!

May everything go smoothly for you!
And be happy always.

HAPPY FATHERS' DAY!

BFBC2 Review - 12th May

2010-05-12T10:16:00.000+08:00

By: [MBT[UltimaWeapon

The sound of explosions, of rifles ejecting bullets, of your teammates shouting away from a distance, people running from one corner to the other, of cannons blasting away with echoes of sniper rifles being shot in the background and of buildings crumbling, those were the objects of fascination and usually associated with heroism, excitement, action, leadership, teamwork and maybe fear for some. It was, one of the things that most people have often tried to imagine themselves to be in. In the midst of a battlefield, the feel of covering for your squad, planning ahead the path to thread and threats to eliminate next, has made a great deal of excitement in a lot of people. It was a wonder, how would it feel like to be in the situation of a war? With immersive sounds supported by Dolby Surround, and believable graphics, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 makes explosions right next to you. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was developed by DICE, a Swedish company well-known for its Battlefield series, and published by Electronic Arts. DICE was the company which revolutionized the multiplayer component of gaming, where 32 players can play in the same field where previously, it was limited up to 8 players only on other games. In this game, although the single-player component is not the main selling point, but the game play was very well worth the money paid.

Battlefield:Bad Company 2 single player campaign focuses on a squad known as Bad Comapany, consisting of Sarge, Marlowe, Sweetwater, and Haggard which were characters from the original Battlefield:Bad Company 1. First mission starts off during WWII which serves as a background to the story and tells of a weapon of mass destruction developed by the Japanese during WWII. The weapon was then acquired again in the modern day and threatens to unnerve worldwide safety. With your squad of four, and armed with modern day variety of weapons and rifles such as the M16A4 assault rifle, AKS-74u, M95-Barrett sniper rifle, M60 Light Machinegun and UMP-45 sub-machinegun, your mission is to prevent the destruction of the world and recover this weapon. The excellent sound design further enforces your sense of place. Though there are some blurry textures, occasional screen tearing, and awkward moments caused by the pervasive environmental destructibility, these are mere blemishes on the ambitious look and immersive sound of Bad Company 2. Environments range from lush and dense forest with even mosquitoes buzzing to snowy locales which the howling winds could literally chill your ears.

With the new Destruction 2.0, every building, every nook and corner can be used to your advantage or disadvantage, working like a double edge-sword. Almost every building and structure can be leveled to the ground and many a time, this has been used to achieve objectives, either by killing enemies or crushing your objective. Any object you find in the environment can either be your worst enemy or your best ally depending on situation. Often, you would find yourselves running for a new cover when your previous cover was blown to bits, maybe from a cannon shell or making new cover for yourselves by blowing up the walls of a nearby building. This adds to the unpredictability and often you would find that you will never stay in the same place even in different rounds of the same map. Never are two games the same, even the way objectives are achieved or places which you used for cover, which promotes for creative thinking such as hiding a tank in a building or even using a C4-rigged UAV to blow up buildings. When the building starts creaking, it’s either run or risk being crushed.

Multiplayer wise, depending on your preference, there are four kits available which are: Assault, Medic, Engineer and Recon. Main tasks of the assault would be the main attack force in the front, pushing enemy lines back with a number of rifles, while the medic provides first-aid healing and reviving fallen teammates armed with his light machineguns. Destroying objects are the specialty of the engineer and his arsenal of rocket launchers and mine. Lastly the recon scouts and spot enemies for his teammates while providing the quick elimination of sniper rifles. The sensation of getting a sniper headshot after a careful target lining up while compensating for bullet drop is very satisfying is also part of the war-stories told after having played the game. Balance is not a question as even snipers requires two shots to kill unless it’s a headshot, which is an instant death for the target. With ACOG and RDS as unlockable options, accuracy is no longer an excuse for missing targets.

With over 51 weapons and 16 vehicles such as Abrams, Bradley, Bakhcha, Hind and Apache, there are almost countless ways to do what you wish in the game, and achieving the objectives of the 4 available games mode including: Rush, Conquest, Squad Deathmatch and Squad Rush. Each game modes play distinctively from each other, being Rush having to either defend or destroy stations situated across the maps and conquest to capture and defend flags for points. In terms of multiplayer experience, the main concern was of lag issues. Lag or latency is the way how a game compares the timing difference between you and other people. This is important to determine the hit rate and whether does your firing actually hit a moving target which either results in your target surviving or meeting his fate. Even for countries far apart, such as between the United States and Malaysia, the lag was very much playable due to the dedicated servers available for the game with a large number of locations for each region. This ensures that there are no arguments on who has the latency advantage as everyone is tuned to the player with the highest latency.

In Malaysia particularly, the Battlefield community was spearheaded by the Malaysian Battlefield Team (MBT, www.mbtcentral.net). MBT was established in 15th September 2006 by four gaming enthusiast with the sole intention of creating a dedicated, well managed and reputable organization of gamers. MBT focuses on First Person Shooter genre game the Battlefield series from Electronic Arts and other titles which emphasize teamwork play. Since then, with limited means of advert MBT has grown steadily over the months and the number of members has increased from a mere 8 to currently a total of 51 and still counting. Anyone from Malaysia is free to apply for membership which is only given after a week of trial playing with current MBT administrative personnel. Members are then divided into divisions according to their preference, such as the Alpha ( α ) division for frontal assault and Borneo Head-Hunters ( B[H]2 ) division for reconnaissance and sniping. Although each player is free to switch between kits, each division they belong are expected to perform tasks provided over the VOIP system, Teamspeak 3 which promotes teamwork and tactics. For best gaming experience, MBT has started their own dedicated servers based in Singapore which guarantees a much lower latency for players in the region. To play in MBT servers, search for MBTCENTRAL.NET and you’re in for a blast!

Having being said, the Battlefield Bad Company 2 game is indeed a well-worth for money game to get. There are no further doubts about this and could easily be one of the better FPS games out at the moment. With the unpredictable single-player and action oriented multiplayer, coupled with the dedicated servers, especially the MBT servers in Malaysia, it’s time to blow things up. Excuse me while I see an enemy in my 12x scope, I have a bullet here with his name on it.

Pros: - Destruction 2.0, Balanced Weapons, Vehicles, Large maps

Cons: - Not much variety in game modes, Very addictive

Thanks to Gest, Guardian77, Mobster, Wallydragon, Apam_Savior

No Thanks to Schizodroid

Happy Mother's Day!

2010-05-09T09:02:00.001+08:00

It's Mother's Day again this year!

Wishing all Mothers of the world, a happy:-
HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY!

Infinity Ward Mass Resignations - 18th April

2010-04-18T09:26:00.000+08:00

With the firing of Vince Zampella and Jason West from Infinity Ward by Activision over an issue which the gaming community calls as a abomination, the chaos was created by Activision so that they will not have to pay Vince and Jason the royalties that they deserve for the sales of Modern Warfare 2, many other staff of Infinity Ward are now currently in the process of leaving Infinity Ward and more are possibly coming. The video shows people who are currently not in the company anymore.

Video Games | | Who's left Infinity Ward so far?

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

As a summary, people who have already left:-
Directed By:- Jason West
Engineering Leads:- Francesco Gigliotti
Engineering:- Jon Shirling, Rayme E.Vinson
Design Leads:- Todd Alderman, Steve Fukida, Mackey Macandlish, Zied Rieke
Art Leads:- Christopher Cherubini
Animation Leads:- Mark Gringsby, Paul Messerly
Story By:- Jason West, Todd Alderman, Steve Fukida, Mackey Macandlish, Zied Rieke
CEO:- Vince Zampella

Qing Ming Festival - April 6th

2010-04-08T10:09:00.001+08:00

Qing Ming Festival is celebrated every year where the living descendants of the departed visit the graves to pay their respects. It is time of year where it is considered to be the Chinese New Year for the departed and the living visit the "homes" of the departed. Last year, Qing Ming was on 4th April, and this year was supposed to be on the 5th of April but made early due to the weekends. My article on last years Qing Ming Festival can be found HERE

The view of the hill from my grandparents' grave

But anyways, in comparison from last years difficulty, it wasn't so hard this year, which I'm thankful for. At least, the workouts has been paying off and didn't felt the same tiredness like year but still my thigh muscles still hurt with the extra effort required to scale the non-standard staircases. Well, with prayers done, mountain scaled, and grandparents visited, hopefully this year would bring me again: someone, and new business opportunities and excellent health all-round for everyone!

My cousin sister placing candles on the altar.

A view of my grandparents' grave

Starcraft 2 Beta Review - 6th April

2010-04-06T11:42:00.000+08:00

Although the beta has been opened for quite a while, I'm doing the review only now as this review must be not be messed up and actually conveys what I actually think of the game from the beta experience only. Due to the fact that this game is widely anticipated, expectations were rather high and being helmed by Blizzard made the game on of the more "must-haves" of the times.

As this game is only in its beta, much of the story is not yet known but the basics is that it starts after the end of Starcraft: Broodwar and the first installment of a 3-part series focuses on the Marines or humans of the game in "Wings of Liberty". Therefore, story is out and the general idea for the beta would be on the balancing issues if the units and also bugs and glitches, whether graphical or the system itself. This review would focus on the graphics, sounds, gameplay and overall of the beta so far.

In terms of graphics, I was not too impressed with what I was looking at. It seems to look like and upgraded version of the Warcraft 3 graphics with some improvements and in space. With addition that the graphics seems so much darker and gloomy. Although the unit graphics have been changed over from 2d to 3d, they, in my opinion do not reflect the older units that most gamers are familiar with. This also goes for the structures as well where they've lost their grandness of design and even the futuristic look has been eliminated by a large amount. I'm not sure if it is a result of being unfamiliar with the new graphics, but due to the graphical changes, unit control felt very unresponsive. Even some of the units look particularly downgraded at this point, and I would like to stress one of the more obvious: why does the Zergling now have wings? They sure do look like small flies now.

I've actually one issue with the sounds department, which is:- Give Me Back the Old Sounds! The truth is, the current sounds for units and structures is very much annoying and not satisfactory. The old coarse sound of the overmind, the human voice of the Marines and the templar sounds of the Protoss bases is being wiped by the annoying Kerrigan sounds for the Zergs, electronic sound of the Marines and weak sound of the Protoss in the new game. Unit response sounds are no longer familiar and sounds like they've been running for ages and so feels so tired. Unit deaths sounds are toned down and felt like "just another unit dead" and not a part of your army. In whole, the game environment just became less lively and more monotonous.

Overall, I would say the experience felt tedious and some what unexpected for a high-profiled game. In fact, even with effort of trying to like the game, there just isn't any mood or excitement of playing it. The whole experience felt forced and pointless. Seriously, I wonder why some games these days felt repetitive and lack of quality. I used to think that Blizzard has a reputation to make addictive and polished games, but now, no longer. Hopefully, the actual game wouldn't be as bad as this game has degraded into in the beta.

Bioshock 2 Review - 28th March

2010-03-28T23:16:00.000+08:00

The world of Rapture, in theory, it is an utopia but indeed the human nature is unpredictable and bound to it's true instinct: destruction and rebellious. It's been 10 in-game years since the days of Bioshock and Bioshock 2 now tells of another story. Instead of the human you played in Bioshock, you now are what you've feared the most in Bioshock, a Big Daddy. Actually, I've finished this game a couple of days ago and only today I've decided to write an article about it. As usual, this review will talk briefly about the game on overall, the graphics, and also the gameplay.

The main backbone of the story is on you as the Big Daddy trying to locate back the child under your care, the Little Sister. Earlier in the story, the main antagonist, Sofia Lamb instructed the main character to shoot himself but revived 10 years later with the Bio-Tube. Throughout the game, there will be decisions to be made but most of them involves either saving or killing someone, which will affect the ending. Some of the story elements in the game are pretty standard after Bioshock 1 with someone taking over the helm of the administration of Rapture and the citizens themselves making a mess of everything, although there are small surprises here and there. On the story, I wouldn't say that it is marvelous but rather mediocre, in fact, I had to look up online for the actual story as from the conversations littered throughout the game, I couldn't get the big picture only rough sketches of what was happening in Rapture.

Graphically, the game does portray the city of Rapture rather realistically in the sense of the setting and mood. The timeline of the game which is in the 70's can be felt from the decor, the way the enemies dress and also the furniture. Lights and shadows are well made and sometimes you might look behind you for fear of an enemy due to some shadow of someone running behind you. Although this, I'm not too sure if it is intentional, but the citizens of Rapture has been portrayed to look rather less "spliced" than 10 years ago? In Bioshock 1, the enemies looks much more hideous, grim and of course, much more prone to attacking you but they look like they've become better after 10 years? Not sure on this though. But well, there's no complaints from me on other graphical elements. The underwater scene looks very believable and water looks like water.

It's good that Bioshock 2 did manage to change the gameplay from a human point of view to the Big Daddy. It sure did play differently in the second game. Although this, some of the game elements are seriously not fun, well at least not for me. Getting ADAM now means that you've to snatch the Little Sisters from their respective Big Daddies which is a routine, but what's with the extra ADAM which you've to defend the Little Sisters from the citizens of Rapture? I've seen Little Sisters (un-snatched yet) plunging their needles into any of the corpses while in serenity and no one disturbing but "our" Little Sisters are so selective with the corpse they get the ADAM from and is a sure-fire way of getting the attention of the citizens of Rapture? Hacking the different machines in Rapture requires for you to click with precision, having to click once the needle reaches the green / blue zone which was much simpler than the pipe-mania of Bioshock 1. The other thing of concern would be the lack of sounds of the machines makes me wonder if the machines' sound boxes actually got spoilt after 10 years that they don't make their distinctive sounds anymore. Bioshock 1 machines' each makes memorable sounds that make them somewhat in contrast to the environment which is an experience by itself which is lacking in Bioshock 2.

It is not fair to say that Bioshock 2 is a bad game, it is not too bad but in comparison to its prequel, it does not match up in terms of quality and gameplay. There are spooky elements in Bioshock 1 that just doesn't cut it Bioshock 2 which results in a rather tad plain experience and not the kind of awe generated by Bioshock 1. My score for this game:- 8/10

HD 5850 With NF-M2PV motherboard - 26th March

2010-03-26T10:55:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since I last posted on this blog and so, I've decided today to make a couple of postings to continue the life of this blog (although I doubt that many people actually read it) but anyways, changing to a HD 5850 is relatively easy but in a mother board like NF-M2PV, there maybe problems arising.

The Sapphire HD 5850 looks like the image below:-

It is a great card actually, running at approximately 50C when idle and 60+C when on load. BFBC2 is nor playable with High settings without a lot of lags. The thing is that, the installation process was not smooth at first considering that the motherboard is a Abit NF-M2PV where the PCI-e slot is being blocked by the chipset cooler at the rear of the card slot. The Abit NF-M2PV board looks like the image below:-

As you can see, the horizontal orange slot is the PCI-e slot, and in the right (black passive cooler) is for the chipset. The cooler was too high and was blocking the GPU's rear. The solution was indeed fairly simple, replacement of the cooler. Fortunately, all you need is to obtain another chipset cooler which was having a lower depth than the one shown, recommended is a Abit Fatal1ty board chipset cooler like the one shown in the image below which solves the problem:-

Having done so, the Power Supply Unit would then have to be replaced. The PSU that can be used is the Cooler Master Extreme Power Plus 650W. In contrary to what most reviews say, the Cooler Master PSU is quite a moderate unit and it is able to power a HD 5850 unlike what most people on the Net say. Although, I would complain on the low 120mm PSU fan speed which does not do much in transferring heat from the case to the external areas.

Straw Pudding - 1st March

2010-03-01T22:10:00.000+08:00

I found this in a coffee shop / eating place in my kampung, Jerantut.
(Credits: My Brother who took this photo)

Who wants some "Straw Pudding"? (Actual:- Strawberry Pudding)

Chap Goh Meh - 1st March

2010-03-01T20:05:00.001+08:00

Yesterday marks the end of Chinese New Year celebrations for the year 2010. I'm sure after yesterday (meaning today), Chinese around the world would have made resolutions to continue working hard and hopefully this year would bring them lots of wealth and better health. This year, for me, bring lots of hopes and wishes (which I won't reveal here) and of course, I hope all or maybe some of them would be fulfilled. In terms of angpows (red packets), this year everyone has been very nice and the amount was almost double of last years, even from the latest recession, which is good to know that Malaysia was not that bad....

Anyways, what marks the end of CNY is the Lantern Festival (not associated with Mid-Autumn Festival) where lanterns and lights are all lit up and temples are usually full with decorations. I remember watching in a Stephen Chow movie on ancient Chinese times where there will be sort of a night festival in the nearest city square where there will be games and such. The husbands would "compete" among themselves to earn lanterns for their wives. Accordingly, husbands who get the biggest and most beautiful lantern for their wives would generally mean that he loves his wife very much. Not too sure how much of that is true.

Which reminds me of a another customs today in the modern world. Not sure whether is it practiced anywhere else, but here in Malaysia, on Chap Goh Meh day, the single-ladies would go to a place where there's water which is where she will throw mandarin oranges with their contact and names written on it in hopes that some nice guy would pick it up. It is hoped then that would turn into a happy ending story.

Come to think of it, I sure won't mind any of these 'oranges'
come floating to me in form of comments for this article. I think it's about time.

Well, anyways, Happy belated CHAP GOH MEH and wishes for a great year ahead!

Mass Effect 2 Review - 28th Feb

2010-02-28T11:54:00.000+08:00

Mass Effect 1 was a great experience as it was utterly new system where no other RPGs have gone before and on 26th January, Bioware released the sequel for this game, Mass Effect 2 and I've just finished it once yesterday with a clock time of exactly 24 hours. In this review, we'll talk about the story, gameplay, graphics and the whole game on the overall.

Now, lets start with the story. As with the prequel, Cmd.Shepard (whether male or female) has to fight against the Reapers, a race of sentient machines which are extremely large as seen as the Sovereign in the first Mass Effect series and this time, a new enemy has emerged, but in fact not entirely new as the sequel would reveal (Play the game to find out) and this new enemy is also working for the Reapers, The Collectors. The new enemy is abducting colonies of humans and Shepard intends to stop them. At the start of the game, Shepard is attacked and considered dead but resurrected again by Cerberus which just a minor excuse for you to have an entirely new team. In general, ii's all about you and your team saving the universe again.

In my opinion, although the story is about you and your team trying to save the universe's humans from abduction and probably are racing against time, the feeling of the urgency does not exist and there's nothing that's pushing you to do anything. As long as you choose to, you may progress your story at any time. Other than that, you may spent all day leisuring around, scanning planets for resources and there won't be any consequences. There whole story actually revolves in 4 stages which would be recruiting stage, know enemy location stage, prepare to get there stage and lastly assault stage. Overall I would say that the story is nothing special and not too memorable and pales in comparison for maybe say: Final Fantasy 7?

In terms of gameplay, in comparison with the prequel, this game has a much better mechanics and much simplified Upgrades to a better weapon is done automatically and you'll find weapons on the field instead of buying them. What you can buy is the upgrades for the weapons, such as accuracy, damage and ammo upgrades. There is no longer any add-ons for your weapons etc. Missions vary from diplomacy, search and a court case or just plain fighting. The side missions are not much to be bothered as they provided only 40 exp which minuscule to what you have to do sometimes, simply not worth it. Overall, I would say that although the current new system is quite good, but I miss the old times where you can purchase better weapons in shops instead of finding them in the field which you may miss sometimes, which I'm not sure will or will not make it much harder for you at later stages. Firefights are relatively easy and the chances of dying is particularly low unless you don't take cover from enemy fire. What I don't like is that taking cover involves only one button, while it may be useful during intense fights, but sometimes I like a little bit of customization on how I'm taking cover and when. At times, holding (space key) to run puts me in the nearest side cover, e.g facing right which is directly in the path of a frontal enemy fire. Besides that, I also miss the vast space to explore in Mass Effect, think Citadel, and is now confined to small spaces and only a couple of minor forgettable places. Instead of overheating, you now have thermal clips which act as a sort of ammo and not to worry, its abundant, although at times, you're forced to conserve as sometimes it becomes rare.

In terms of graphics, there is nothing much to brag about, although it is a little bit nicer than Mass Effect 2. There isn't much to complain about in terms of performance as I did not even touch any of the settings and yet still displays nicely, unlike Mass Effect 1 where there are sometimes some lag issues at certain parts of the game Graphical glitches are quite a common sight at times where what shouldn't be there is there. Scope zoom images are still clear and detailed which is particularly great for me. Overall, the feel of the different planets and locales are very convincing and atmospherically right although the vast awe I had in the first game no longer exists.

The game on the whole, I had a great time, but it could tedious especially on the planet scanning for resources part. Couldn't they make it simpler or more fun? But well, for those who liked mass effect 1, should definitely buy this while for those who never like mass effect 1 due to its complexity, should try this. In conclusion, the score for this game according to my opinion, would be:-

Story:- 6/10 (Plain)
Graphics:- 8/10
Gameplay:- 9/10
Overall:- 8/10

Battlefield Bad Company 2 - 27th Feb

2010-02-27T09:31:00.002+08:00

I've ordered battlefield Bad Company 2 from The Software Boutique yesterday for RM129. Well, I'm not too sure on how the whole process is, so maybe I'll post it up here!

Kind of excited too as, truthfully, it's very rare of me to buy original games and I think that Bad Company 2 is an awesome game to support. It's also a step for me to show how much IW.net for Modern Warfare 2 really is terrible and degrading.

Call me a Modern Warfare 2 traitor all you want, but Infinity Ward got a kick from my gaming list quite a while ago with all the insanity they've commited. Well, come back for more updates on this!

Update:- 2nd March
I've already got the game and playing it. Seriously, it was so much fun, at least it does feel like you're shooting something in comparison to Modern Warfare 2, where you're not even sure if you actually hit or miss. Anyway, with the destructible environments, anything can happen which makes it more suspenseful and makes you feel like you're actively participating even for the single-player. Well, the reviews would come soon but here's two pictures of what I bought.

The un-opened box.
The case was basic with nothing special.

The Opened Box.
There wasn't much in the case itself, some manuals,
some redeem codes and the DVD itself. Can't complain as they're selling it for RM129 here which much less compared to the exchange rate in the United States.

The Freebies
You get: A poster, a T-Shirt and the DVD.

Well, order yours now from TSB!

Update:- 12th May
Made a review on the game. Read it: Here

Boom De Ya Da - 26th Feb

2010-02-26T09:37:00.000+08:00

Suddenly felt like posting this song up:-
Boom De Ya Da song from Discovery Channel

I Love the Whole World!

Possible Cancer Treatment? - 23rd Feb

2010-02-23T09:56:00.001+08:00

Got this from an email on possible cancer treatment, and thought I might share it with anyone interested (The English is not too perfect though, but understandable) :-

============================================
Actual case studies, very important, please read patiently and pass this on..

Even if you have read this before, you should re-read this, especially the list of acidic and alkaline foodstuff , best to read several times and remember..

Please read this article in full patiently, it will be helpful to your health.More than 30 years ago, a Mr Zhang who worked in the public sales department of a Taipei Brewery, participated in the brewery overseas study selection examination, and passed with flying colours.Before going overseas during the physical examination at a public hospital, it was discovered that he had a lung tumour the size of a child's fist, and therefore was unable to go overseas to study.

The greatly disappointed Mr Zhang had always been suspicious that the diagnosis was wrong.. So he went to another hospital for a check-up, the result confirm that previous diagnosis was not in error.For the youthful and healthy Mr Zhang to be stricken down with such a terminal illness, in his despair, he rang his old classmate who at the time was Taidong County Government, Huangsun County Mayor's secretary, Mr Wei.Mr Wei rushed to Taipei during his rest day on a Sunday to see Mr Zhang..Mr Zhang discussed with Mr Wei in detail his despair and pessimism, and entrusted his friend regarding his affairs after his death. Coincidentally, Mr Wei was a good friend of Dr Lu Geling, who was in charge of the Maijie Hospital, 1945-55, and specialized in the clinical research into cancer cases.
He immediately suggested that Mr Zhang go to see Dr Lu for treatment. At first, Mr Zhang said he preferred not to see anymore doctors, so as not to add further to his misery. But Mr Wei told him that he had telephoned Dr Lu before to seek his advice and arranged an appointment. Mr Zhang felt obligated and went with Mr Wei to meet Dr Lu..

When Dr Lu met with Mr Zhang, Dr Lu said: ' Mr Wei is a friend and introduced you and I to get to know each other. This is destiny. Thank you. Let me ask you do you know why is cancer referred to as terminal illness? Both Mr Zhang and Mr Wei did not know how to answer.

Dr Lu explained: 'There are only two approaches taken by humans to treat cancer to-date. The first is to destroy the source of the disease. The second is to increase the capability to fight the disease.
But the strange thing is that, whether we use Cobalt 60 or other drugs to destroy the cancer cells, before the cancer cells are killed, the good cells are destroyed first..On the other hand, no matter what nutrients or supplements we use, before the good cells have a chance to absorb them, the cancer cells have taken them up and it simply speeds up the growth of cancer..

Therefore both approaches are doomed to failure, that is why cancer is terminal.

Dr Lu continues: 'Human beings are most clever, they have successfully landed on the moon. But why is it no one ever questioned the above two approaches for treating cancer which are nothing but self defeating dead-ends, and try to seek a third avenue?

When I was conducting clinical research in Majie Hospital , I had many opportunities to work with and being helped by many colleagues in the Hospital. I discovered that the blood tests of 100% of the cancer patients showed that the blood samples are acidic.

Those Buddhist monks and nuns who are long term vegetarians and live very close to Nature, their blood are prevalently weakly alkaline and amongst them, there has yet to discover any cancer cases.

Therefore, I boldly concluded that under weakly alkaline condition, cancer cells are not able to grow, or even to survive.Mr Zhang, I would suggest that starting from now you reduce your intake of the acidic meaty dishes..Take more of the alkaline food. In addition you can take green algae and soup made from water chestnuts with skin, modify your physical condition, and try seriously to have a regular life style which is close to Nature;

If you can manage to stay alive for five years, you should have no further problem. I wish you the best of luck.'Mr Zhang followed Dr Lu's suggestion and seriously altered his eating habits.
Every day, he ate green algae, drank chestnut soup, be optimistic and did an appropriate amount of exercise, and went back to the same public hospital for a check up. It was discovered that not only that the tumour did not increase in size, on the contrary it showed signs of shrinking, and surprised the hospital staff conducting the check-up as a miracle.. Five years later, the tumour had shrunk to such a state as to almost disappear..

After almost 40 years, presently Mr Zhang's health is totally normal, and living a very pleasant life. Following Mr Zhang, a Mr Chen Tianshou, who was previously Head of the General Administration of the Taidong Provincial Hospital , was similarly diagnosed with lung cancer.

When Mr Wei heard of this, he told Mr Chen of the experience of Mr Zhang, and Mr Chen started to follow the instructions of Dr Lu to change his physical condition. The outcome was that he was able to recover fully from the cancer, just like Mr Zhang.

At that time, Mr Lu and his family have emigrated to the United States . After the two cases, he returned to Taiwan and met up with Mr Wei.Mr Wei told Dr Lu about the experiences of Mr Zhang and Mr Chen, and suggested that let the two of them detailed their experiences to Dr Lu in person, so that Dr Lu could publish a report on his self cure body conditioning method.

Dr Lu very humbly replied:
'I am too old, besides, I do not have any clinical records of the outcomes. I would ask that you tell your friends and relatives, if they are agreeable, then please continue this experience and spread the words

One should take care of oneself but should also be caring about others, 85% of cancer patients have acidic in their physical condition.
***      Blood of healthy persons is weakly alkaline in nature, with a pH of about 7.35 to 7.45
***      Babies' blood is also weakly acidic
***      As adults mature their blood becomes more acidic in nature
According to a study of 600 cancer patients, of their bodily fluid, 85% of the patients are acidic Therefore, how to maintain the weakly acidic nature of our body is the first step for moving far away from diseases.

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Acidic physical conditions manifest itself in:
1. Skin without lustre2. Athlete's foot
3. Feeling tire even with very little exercise, and feeling sleep the moment one gets on to public buses
4. Easily out of breath going up and down stairs
5. Fat and with lower stomach protruding,
6. Move slowly and movement lethargic
〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜

Why does the body physical condition turn acidic?

1. Excessive intake of dairy acidic food

a) meat, dairy products, eggs, beef, ham, etc are acidic foodb) taking too much acidic food will cause the blood to become acidic and viscous, difficult to flow to the end of blood vessels, leading to cold feet or knee, stiff shoulders and insomnia.c) When one is young and strong, taking suitable quantity of meat is appropriate, but older people it more suitable to have a diet which are primarily vegetables ...

2.. Irregularity in the pace of life will cause the body physical condition to become acidic

a) Irregular pace in life will lead to mental and physical stressb) According to statistics, people who sleep late are more likely to have cancer than normal persons, by as much as 5 times.
c) Human beings originally lead a life with regular tempo in this world, it is not possible to store up sleep or food and not possible to change the order of living by mixing up days and nights.
d) Human organs are controlled by the autonomic nerves, and during day time it is mainly sympathetic nerves activities, and at night it is mainly the parasympathetic nerves which are functioning, If this order is disturbed and reversed, then diseases will result.

3. Emotion over tensed
a) Civilised society brings stresses
b) Job related or mental stressesc) A person suffers mental stress, when the stress is removed and the person relaxes, sometimes this may lead to death, referred to as the syndrome of imperfect adrenal cortex function.

4. Physical Stress
a) Before any operation it would be necessary to check to see if the renal cortex does function normally. If the adrenal cortex is lacking, or if the stress imposed by the operation exceeded the ability of adrenal cortex to cope, it could lead to death or other undesirable impacts.

b) If it noted that patient's face is puffy, it would be necessary to inquire in detail the patient's medical history and medication status, for patients taking adrenal cortical hormone, extra care should be exercise when administering acupuncture.

c) Stress due to physical labour or exercise in excess, whole night card games, driving etc should be avoided as much as possible

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Appendix: Acidity/alkalinity of Common food stuff

1. Strongly acidic food: egg yolk, cheese, cake make with white sugar or persimmon, mullet fish roe, dried cod.
2. Mildly acidic food: ham, bacon, chicken meat, squid, pork, eel, beef, bread, wheat, butter, horse meat etc
3. Weakly acidic food: white rice, peanut, , oil fried tofu, sea weed, clam,
weakly alkaline food: red bean, radish, apple , cabbage, , tofu etc.
5. Mildly alkaline food: dried radish, soya bean, carrot, tomato, banana, orange, pumpkin strawberry, egg white, dried plum, lemon, spinach, etc.
6. Strongly alkaline food: grape, tea leave, grape wine, kelp sprout, kelp, etc. Especially natural green algae which contain rich quantity of chlorophyll are very good alkaline health food, but tea should not be drunk in excess, and best to drink in the morning.

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Hope the article helps!

Chinese New Year - 17th Feb

2010-02-17T14:06:00.000+08:00

I hope it's still not too late,
Wishing everyone a
GONG XI FA CAI!

Chinese New Year this year was last Sunday, and today is the 4th day of CNY. I'm not sure if anyone else feels the same, but, as we grwo up, the mood of the holidays season seem to have slowly and slowly diminish over the years. This year and this tine around, it feels the same like every other year. Although this, it should still be celebrated as to not forget our roots and traditition of the culture. Anyways, here's what happened in these few days, at kampung (village):

14th Feb
It's CNY and Valentine's Day at the same time today. Most of us were at home and none of my relatives celebrated Valentine's Day. Went to the temple early in the morning and prayed to Gods. On this day, meals were strictly vegetarian and no meat. Rice was even served during breakfast. Got angpaus (red packets) and went to Mentakab in the afternoon to get more angpaus from the relatives of my cousin's in-laws. There was lion dance performance later in the evening.

15th Feb
Today is the 2nd of CNY which was supposedly the day for fanilies to visit relatives on the wife's side. (1st day is usually with relatives of the husband's side). A couple of cousins with their own families came today. No other visits were planned today, so we just sat around, watching people play Mahjong, Cards, Gin Rummy or just sitting around chatting, catching up with each other on the current issues and going-ons.

16th Feb
Went to Termeloh in the afternoon with my nephew as there was nothing much to do today. I realized that Termeloh had much better development than Jerantut. They even had McDonalds, Secret Recipe, Pizza Hut, Old Town White Coffee and The Store shopping complex while what we have in Jerantut is just a measly Kentucky Fried Chicken. Meanwhile, in the night, we had a jackpot lucky draw among ourselves where everyone who wished to join had to sponsor RM10 each which is gathered and given to the winner of the lucky draw. My niece won the lucky draw and she decided to spend the lot for fried noodles which was then our supper. The amount was quite a lot: RM230.

Well, that's what happened to me during CNY so far!

Valentine's Day - 13th Feb

2010-02-13T19:41:00.001+08:00

Valentines's Day, a day supposedly to love all things, which includes for family and friends and whoever or whatever that you actually care about. A day to show your love for them as St.Valentine is supposedly the deity of love and care. But living in a world of commercialization and media dominance, how can one not associate it with the lovey-dovey feeling associated with lovers and coupling relationship between a male and female (or some other variation which I wouldn't mention here.) ? Indeed, I've got the same bug too.

Well, in fact, it's actually tomorrow but coincidently, this year, Valentine's Day falls in the exact sane day as the first day of Chinese New Year, so, tomorrow has been reserved for anything CNY. MSN once asked in a poll: "Were you secretly glad that this year Valentine's Day falls on CNY?"...Well, truthfully, I answered: Yes, I am.....at least I didn't have to call every other friend and listening to their plans on how they're gonna spend it with their other or how there's a couples' discount in this restaurant or that....

And yes, you would've already guess that I don't have someone to share Valentine's Day...yet. (Many people, my relatives actually, have already been enquiring about it but I've always tried avoidng answering them...) I know some people who knows me would say: "You're really sad case". The thing is, I don't care. Even if I've to live my whole life alone and miserable, until I've found a perfect one, there won't be one and that's final. No More Questions....Some of my friends and closest relatives, with some even younger than I am, have either been married or in a great relationship with another significant other...which somehow makes it feels even worse for myself...

Maybe one day, I might find someone to share this with (I know that I've said this last year too).....
Life is full about maybe's. Well, I'm gonna go think about tomorrow's Chinese New Years Day....
The Road remains traveled alone...

Oh, to whoever relevant:
Happy Valentine's Day!

Realization - Part 3 - 11th Feb

2010-02-11T09:52:00.002+08:00

Chinese New Year is just around the corner and at this moment, it's only a couple (3) days away. Before today, I'm sure many Chinese have been sending festive cards to their relatives, friends, business relations, long-lost related people, neighbors, and of course, loved ones. While we send these cards, rarely do realize the importance of a society, a society or group we sometimes take for granted and instead we scold and question their effectiveness when our cards don't arrive to their designated destinations.

This group of people is also known as the Postman.
Well, look at the picture below and I'll tell you why:-

Imagine that you've to deal with twice or triple or quadruple of this amount of cards every day.
( thestar.com.my says that the Postal service has to deal with about 1.2 mil cards each day)

We sometimes forget that they're also human too, can get tired, can make mistakes and can be frustrated with the seemingly endless amount of work over a couple of days. Well, my point is that, let us all think about the things that we took for granted all this while and think of it and cherish them during Chinese New Year!

Disciples 3 - A Review - 31st Jan

2010-01-31T23:46:00.000+08:00

It's been awhile since I last written a game review. I think it has been almost 2 months already. In fact, I've also finished and not-finished some games already on probably would be nice to have some reviews which I planned to post soon. Anyways, I've just recently played Disciples 3: Renaissance lately and here's my two cents on the game.

Well, first of all, I didn't bother about the story. Why? Let me illustrate why.
I started the game with the tutorial section, supposedly teaches on how to play. Seeing that I've got experience in Disciples 2, I skipped all the tutorial messages as I was fairly sure that I could manage without them. As expected, I breezed through for a while.Suddenly I realize, what happen to all the game mechanics that most players have grown to love? Graphics-wise, I talk about that later in the article, but in terms of combat-wise, it was one my main gripes at the moment. I'm not too sure as to why the developers would change a system that differentiates itself from the similar "Heroes" series.

Now, here I have is a screen-shot of one of the combat scenes:-

In combat, you can now move your units to hexagonal spaces, which means, you can move units around behind enemies etc. Now, I don't really find this to be fun. If I would, I could have played the Heroes series.

Before this combat, my hopes were still high, trying to adapt to the strange new 3d view, revamped graphics, new system of gathering resources etc. While the combat is running, my interest in this game straight went down to zero and down the drain. My first thoughts were that I'm going back to Disciples 2. It's not that it's unplayable but the overall design has changed and degraded into a "Heroes" type clone instead of being in its own class. When the Heroes series degraded from the high-quality of Heroes 3 to Heroes 4 and the much much lower Heroes 5, I've switched to Disciples 2 and stuck to it since, but it looks like the series is also on another trip to the dark-store room.

Graphically, I'm not impressed either, the Gothic feel of the previous game has been reduced by quite a large amount. Disciples 2 made the lords and warriors look utterly "uber" even when they're actually at a low level. But in Disciples 3, the game just made a low-level warrior just puny and weak and from some images on various websites, a high-level one isn't any better. And I was wondering, what actually happened to all the "cool" looking attacks? Here's a comparison picture for both games for the hero.

Let me ask: Who looks and feels more a Hero?

Disciples 3 - Hero

Disciples 2 - Hero (The one on the Pegasus like Horse)

Well, I think I just straight give this game an overall score:- 3/10. Some points scored are awarded to the fact that the devs are able to maintain some moods of the game and not totally make it a new series. But well, I really don't like what they have done with the rest of the in-game systems.

University Students These Days - 29th Jan

2010-01-29T17:54:00.004+08:00

In UM, there is a rule of conduct on how to dress for lectures and classes in the university, as the same with most public universities in the country. Among them includes that there will be no short pants allowed. In my class today there was a student wearing short pants, so, as class demonstrator or in fact the "lecturer" in-charge of the tutorial class, I notified him of this at the end of class with this conversation:-

(Note:- That's not me in the picture, neither am I female)

Me:- Hey, do you know what are you wearing today?
Student: No, what? (Acting Innocent)
Me:- Well, you're wearing shorts...I don't want to see it again next week ok?
Student:- Ummm (With that "Huh?" Look)....Ok.
Me:- You got any reasons for wearing shorts?
Student:- Well, I got no reason to wear long pants as well......
Me:- Rules are rules....(Inside:- What The? No reason?!?!)

It just occurs maybe the guy thinks he's studying in UM, makes him the top of the world, kinda like a snobbish kid with no respect for the institution. Well, if he knows what to do, so do I......