Monday, October 31, 2005

Tough time ahead

My current job (been doing this for almost 9 years... when I want to switch to something else ever since I graduated 3 years ago T^T) is tied to the account dept. so every first week of the month is the time with long work hours and lack of sleep... Although I could not fully complain since I got paid by hours...

However, this month is different, my co-worker who has the same job as I do (the job is daily regardless of weekends so we alternate the days) has to go home which is in the south of Thailand for the Muslim New Years which is at the end of the fasting month. So not only do I have to work for extra long hours this week. He will be gone for the whole week next week also!!!
Oh.. boy... I already felt like staying in bed just thinking about it or rather when I look at the time table of this month that has been newly printed today...

I think I will be needing another face stuffing time after the crunch week is over...

Saturday, October 29, 2005

D. Gray Man

I am an avid manga fan (bought and read about roughly 3-5 comic books per week ^^;; (the regular three were weekly release)) And one of my recent favorite is D. Gray Man.

It is the story of Allen Walker, a young man of 15 y/o with red left arm, black nail, and a cross embedded into the back of his left hand. He is an exorcist: an apostle of god destined to fight against the evil of the world which in this particular universe is a mysterious figure Millenium Earl and Noah family. Like any epic type story Millenium Earl have a grande plan to destory humanity and his method is quite evil indeed. The Earl will went to the person who just lost their love ones and offer to reunite them. But in fact it was a ploy to have the grieving person call their love ones' soul into the Earl's skeletal contraption which will captured the soul and only obey the command of the Earl. The Earl will then proceed to order the soul to kill the person, taking over that body which will then became weapon of the dark side called 'Akuma' (A Japanese word I think... I am not sure what it means but I suppose it could means demon)

The main protagonist, Allen Walker, has Innocence: An Anti-Akuma weapon embedded into his left handever since he could remember. He was an orphan and has been raise by a man name Mana whom he considered his father. At the age of five, Mana died, and The Earl came to Allen. He fall for the ploy call Mana's soul into the contrapment. The soul became enrage and leave a cursed scar on his left eye (which have special ability that if you wanna know you better read the series :)) Allen's Innocence invoke by itself and destory the contrapment which also release Mana's soul back to the afterworld. This event leave emotional scar to Allen and lead him to became determine to kill Millenium Earl to avenge for his deception and to save the world.

The illustration itself is quite unique. The design is very interesting, the setting start in Europe and now move to Chinaand now going over to Japan. But what set it apart from other manga is its uniquely dark story line. Eventhough it did have comedy part from time to time as most manga do, some of the storylines can be quite heart-wrenching (at least to me anyway :P).

My favorite page is the first page of episode 24: The story line is about a young woman who was never good at anything in her life. The image of this particular episode show the young woman's as a child, in a dark scene with one spotlight shining down on her. In the foreground and in her hand spot badly mended dolls. And also in the last frame showing her crying, with needle and tread in bandaged hands badly mending her doll. With the line "Eventhough I was never good at anything I can't stop trying. Eventhough I had given up on it but I end up regretting and try to do it again. After all, I can't do anything right, it's better if I just don't try at all. How stupid of me" The author/illustrator succeed in sums up the whole psyche of this person in one page that almost brought tears in my eye :)

The serie is still on going and show no sign of weakening. I would highly recommend it :) You can download it from this link http://www.stoptazmo.com/d.gray-man Also make sure to check out their main page http://www.stoptazmo.com/d.gray-man as there are a lot other manga for you to read :)

Thursday, October 27, 2005

The Chill and God on the run

Since I have got a brand spanking new DVD-RW drive I has been playing my new game that seems to only available in DVD: Fahrenheit aka Indigo Prophecy and Black & White 2. And here are my takes on the game.

Fahrenheit aka Indigo Prophecy, was promised to be new generation Adventure game with grippin' story telling, intuitive puzzle and strong narrative. They also throw in the controlling method that at times can be downright frustrating rather than the supposed *fun* and engaging feeling type. In the game when you character 'interact' with the hotspot there will be movement gesture for you to imitate with either your mouse or controller, alright I am no problem with this and it does make things more interesting than just click away at the options. If the action was more physical then you have to alternately and repeatedly pressing either Left and Right arrow on your keyboard or L R button on the controller, I kinda get the idea of this one but sometimes there is no telling if it's working until it's too late, plus it is kinda tiring after replaying the sequence several times... And the controlling that I hate the most PAR system. What you will get are two circles with four colours to indicate up, down, left, and right movement of both your keyboard and mouse Or both side of the analog stick. Some of these sequences are just too fast to follow... Plus my right analog doesn't seems to work properly... I seems to get better results by using keyboard and mouse...

The game also promise that the story will be slightly altered by the way you play it. The company call this 'rubber band' affect, as in you can stretch the game or bend it around according to your game play. However, it did not really affects the game that much only in some minor areas. And multiple endings will be determine by how you play the last chapter (which is good in a way, afterwise you would have to replay a considerable amount of game just to see it all)

Anyway the story part is more interesting. It involve murder, conspiracy, grand scheme of secret rulers, and a prophet child. Although I must agreed with others in some forum I have read that the story began to loosen it's focus after the two thirds of the game with some added plot that just doesn't addup on what we been playing so far. But all-in-all this game is a commendable afforts by the company Quantic Dreams in delivered an enjoyable experinces for this game.

Black & White 2. Just like the first one, you can play as Good God or Evil God at you will and you will also get a Creature which will aided you quest to became the ruling god. Unlike the first one, you are no longer a nameless god of some tribe but of Roman empire which has been pillage by Aztec force in the beginning of the game. Thus, began your quest to restore the power of your people and destroy or convert the Aztec according to your play style.

In order to win each mission, you can either 'capture' each town by military force or by building an 'impressive' city so the people from other cities will be migrating to yours. Quite an impressive idea really... You actually get to play two style in one game. As you can either play it as RTS game by storming your troop to crush everything in sights or play as Sim City by keep building, and sometimes protecting, your city to impress the people of the whole island. I have not play far into the game yet as I restarted it because I wanna have Lion instead of Wolf as my creature :p

PS: I am kinda disappointed that no one leave comments on my previous post... I wondered why no one post comments...

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

When Friend became Ex-Friend

I considered myself as the kind of guy who will maintain the friendship until the other person said otherwise. And what do you know it had happened once along with another type of incident...

The First one I would mention is a French man I met from somewhere. He was and ok guy I suppose and then the fall out happen when we was chatting on MSN. I said something and he corrected me, I laugh it off (type hehe back) and I think said something like it's not fun to right all the time. De seems to take offended by that, argument ensued and it end up with him said he did not want to keep in touch with me anymore. Thinking back sometime later, I think that he seems to be quite smitten with me at first and thought of me as some clean cut cutey with no edgy side (How Wrong was that impression :ppp) I guess I am a Leo with Cancer's shell. The guy with calm, serene look with temper that shot up instantly when provoke the right (or rather wrong) way. Plus I tend to be more subtle but nasty chatter on the net when I got offended (as oppose to in real life since I seems to lost my train of thought in the heat of anger.) So there goes Ex-Friend no. 1

The Second Ones is an American whom I chat with on gay.com and then move on to AOL chat. It was after Thanksgiving, and it seems mandatory to crack a joke about face stuffing on Thanksgiving. So I ask him if he stuffing his face on Thanksgiving and boy he did not like that, not At ALL!!. He manage to tell me that his mom think he's too thin (and I had seen him naked he definitely DID NOT need to thicken up, he need to work out more than anything else) and wanted him to gain more weight. I thought geez... This guy must has some issues and obviously did not seems to be aware of it. As an American, if he cannot take a pot shot about overeating during Thanksgiving then I have no intension to keep chatting him up. And that was the last times I chat with this guy.

There is another guy that recently became an Ex-Friend upon his request and I am not sure if I want to blog about it... But since I seems to be on a roll so where I go...

This guy is an old friend of mine. I have know him for about 9 years now. He is a doctor in NY with both MD. and engineer degree (just to establish that this is quite a smart guy). He told me that he recently wanna take up C programming lesson and told me he wants me to buy him some software from Pantip (pirate version) for him. I said sure and told him to go ask his tutor/teacher which software he need and email me.

Two days later he email me saying he wants C/C++ Compiler for XP. However, that is just a category of software. Eventhough I know nothing about programming, I do know that it is important for the student and teacher to be using the same tool to smoothen the learning process. Especially when you learn to produce something like programming. So the next times I saw him online I ask him which compiler he really want. He reply just any would do. So I point him to some free stuffs at download.com . He questioned me why would there be any free version when there are one that sold for $500. The more I keep pressing him about which software he wants, he became more agitated and upset for some reason. Eventually he cuss me off (not literally but close), accuse me of not wanted to help him and log off.

He later emailed me that he tried the free compiler and said that it only gave him ads and popups. After I investigate this issue I learn that that compiler is sort of barebone software: Came in ZIP file, No install module, just several EXE files and sample code to use in DOS mode. So there is no way he get spyware from this... After several more argument with me keep asking him which one he want and him saying I am trying to get out of helping him. He seems to finally have a breakdown, calling me an idiot and saying he would block my message from now on.

So now I would like to ask my readers to vioce their opinions regarding the above incident. I know that if I told this to Nordic or Mr. American they would just say 'Good Riddance!!'

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Into DVD era!

I suppose it is a sort of personal indulging cause by taking advantage of a chance happening... Oh... heck it just that my mom wanted to go to Pantip Plaza (the First Computer shopping mall in TH: Five floors of computer softwares (pirated mostly :p), hardwares, accessories, etc. a pure heaven for techno junkies) so I decided to tag along to replace my CD-RW drive with DVD-RW so I can play PC games that came out in DVD :ppp

I got LG 16x according to the salesgirl's recommendation despite the fact that most people in my webboard seems to be using Lite-On - -;; Oh.. well... this one is a bit more expensive but it also give 10 LG DVD+R as well. I hope I didn't make the wrong choice :p

And I also add another 512MB DDR-RAM as well. so now I have total of 1GB RAM :)

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Me the Bachalor??


The Bachelor
Deliberate Gentle Sex Master (DGSMm)

Straight-up. Studly. Congratulations, you are The Bachelor.

You're an honest, good-thinking guy, and though you're very sexually active, people don't perceive you as a male-slut or man-whore or guy-dick-putter-inner or whatever. You have a sterling reputation.

You're a careful person, perhaps too much so for your friends' tastes, but guys like that in you. You probably don't kiss & tell. And you definitely don't brag. You know you don't have to prove anything to anyone. It's as if you believe in monogamy, so long as it's with lots of different people.

Our guess is that you've got some kind of word-of-mouth going with the boys out there, and that in the future, your sex partners will get even more plentiful, and more attractive, too.

Your exact opposite:
The Manchild

Random Brutal Love Dreamer
You will settle down eventually, and make an excellent husband. You seem like the type who is into the idea of making copies of yourself, so you'll probably adopt lots of kids. Bear in mind, meanwhile, this can get expensive.

ALTERNATE ENDING: You will die broke and alone. Vermin will feast on your ragged body for five days before the groundskeeper notices. The thing is, when somebody dies in a public restroom, the natural odor of his decomposing flesh is often masked by the feces smell.


ALWAYS AVOID: The Manchild

CONSIDER: The Bachelor, The Backrubber


Link: The 32-Type Dating Test by OkCupid - Free Online Dating

I saw this test from Brett Cajun blog. I suppose it describe me somewhat fairly :ppp The thing is that I have never been in serious relation before... Despite the fact that part of me wanted to be in one quite desperately but it was barred by my standards as well... Heck I would have to have an ISO like Paul's already T^T

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Fully Loaded: Redux

Boy I Am Fulled!!

I went to a buffet today. And it's not your typical buffet, it's Cake buffet :) All Cake and pastries with drinks include refillable Coffee, various kind of tea, chocolate, and coke.

It's good that I went with a friend (from my webboard) since it's better that we alsotalk about this and that and not stuffing our face. Afterall it's not really sensible to eat that much cake...



The above are part of I have eat :dd In total I think I must have about 6 cakes and 3 pastries. It taste alright :P They weren't Great so to speak. But at the cause of 150 baht per person, it's worth it :) It's not really fulled though afterall it's all carb. and sugar and not really healthy :p This is not the kind of buffet that you would do every week anyhow...

Plus my mom made some dinner afterward so I am now really really full :PP

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Homeworld

The first 3D Real-Time Space Strategy game that dare to go beyond the common ground and able to delivered.

It was the first game that have you play in complete 3D space environment and I did not mean just graphic but also in terms of combat :) You get to fight in real 3D space as in 360 degrees with real ups and downs. You also get to controlling an entier armada. Plus the game manage to look better while playing than in screenshots. I had first played this game extensively on demo since I was afraid that the machine we have back then won't be up for it until I finally bough the CD (pirate version of cause.) And boy was it WORTH IT!!!

The story itself was quite powerful, not to mention the graphic, the superb sound affects that really give you the feeling of being in space. The beauty of commanding an entire fleet of spaceships that ranging from minute star fighter class to the giant carrier and battle cruiser and one I love the most 'Salvage Corvette'

For more comprehensive infomation check out this site http://www.rakrent.com/rtsc/rtsc_homeworld.htm .

One downside of this game is that it seems to have too good of a CD-Security... The no-cd crack I tried does not work on it. Good thing I still kept the CD though :)

Even so this is a great one of a kind game. A must for gamers everywhere :) Even more so if you like RTS (Real-Time Strategy) game.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Three Times CSIs

I have been a fan of the show ever since around third season of the first CSI :)

Thinking back I seems to heard of this show sometimes ago in some sort of program about how Jerry Bruckenheimer was about come out with a show named with three letters and that it would be his second attempt in producing this sort of shows.

In one of Dennis Miller show, one of his guest was the man who actually came up with the idea to do this TV series. Anthony B. Zuiker was trams (did I type that right?) driver in Las Vegas, he said one night he was watching a show on Discovery Channel 'The New Detective' (I actually like this show too as well) which is a document where they show how forensic science help police track down and show who's the victim and who's the perp. Zuiker said when he saw this show he thinks it would be make good TV series. So he call B.'s company to pitch the show. I must say this now that Jerry B. mention this in particular that thsi Zuiker guy is a real salesman at heart, as his pitch is very good and convincing that he convinced Jerry B. to make this show (in contrast of let's say... Me :p I have no salesperson personallity no t he drive to be one either (which is lucky for me I suppose))

Also I should added that the writing of the show is very good. I like how the use the various sub-cultures to be involve in the crime scene. I suppose they first push the envelope with the little people first, then the S&M brothel episode, then the furry group, the transexuals, and the chubby chasers scene.

If there is anything I learn from these shows... Is that murder in general Is VERY Messy :)