Experimenting With Remote BitTorrent

After realizing that many of the TV shows I want to see is being shown again in US summer season.

Since I sometimes would not be home when the shows would be uploaded to the BitTorrent, I would like to know how to remotely add the one I wants to download when I am not home. I figured I could use my phone to access internet and did what I wants from it.

I use utorrent as my BitTorrent client. It has WebGUI function which allow you to remotely access your client through internet with an addon and a bit of know-how. It was pretty easy actually. Here is the instruction I use to do it.

http://lifehacker.com/software/hack-attack/remote-control-your-torrents-with-utorrents-webui-260393.php

I also learn how to create domain name since my ISP will disconnect my connection every 24 hours, thus, shifting my IP address.

It was all pretty simple and easy really. The difficult part is to find a free WiFi spot that I can use near my office. There is one WiFi spot but you have ot pay to get their WEP code.

I am looking forward to test this and see if I can work it when I am on my trip as well :)

Charming Wombat

I am a big fan of comics, although I am not familiar with Web Comic. I have been a fan of a few like 8-Bit theater and the now defunt Flintlock Adventure. I recently reading up and following a Web Comic of Ursula Vernon "Digger".

It is quite an unusual story, as the pretext at the top of the page said, "A wombat, a dead god, a very peculair epic". This is the story of "Digger", a female wombat who accidentally thrust into an epic adventure by chance. I would not say more, but would recommend you read from the start. While the art looks nice, the dialogues are pure gold. There are many great lines in this comic. I really love the dialogues :)

Ursula Vernon has always been a very entertaining writer, as you can see from reading her blog, and the same goes for many of her works as well.

I would highly recommend reading Digger, especially now that it is free to read.

Questionable Object

I have found this... thing , in Ursula's blog comment.

Click here to see it. I will not post the image directly because of what it is.

It is a dildo on a harness strap on the chest... The sight of it boggle my mind quite thoroughly and make me exclaim, in my head, how did the person who make this came up with this idea...

I suppose there must be market for it, after all, it still being sold.

The Smile in The Sky

On Monday, as I walked to a near by shopping mall to eat, I noticed some people were milling about with their mobile phone taking photograph of something upward. I looked up and saw a smiley face in the sky.

I did not take this photo, I tried with my mobile phone but I don't think it would work :) The news said this is because of Jupiter and Venus are at the right angle, along with the crescent moon. It could only be seen in early evening around 19:00 onward. It was certainly cute :)

The World Ends With You

Here is a brand new Action-RPG DS game review that I currently play (although it was not so new for Japan... it's been first release by Square-Enix a while ago in Japanese language)

Our main protagonist, Neku, find hihmself in the middle of Shibuya district when he was attacked by strange creatures. Then a young girl grab him and ask him to make a pact so they can fight off the creatures. Although he still daze by the situation, he accept the girl's request and began to fight off the attacking parties. Afterward, Neku realize that he has no recollection of his past, other than his name. He is more of a loner and tend to shut other people off, saying they are dragging him down.

The girl, Shiki, then informed Neku that they are in a 'Reaper's Game'. The objective is to survive for a week or face being erase of existance. A mission will issue each day, the players must complete the objection or face erasion.

This game is very unique in that you actually fight in both screens on DS. You control the upper screen with either D-pad or buttons and the touch screen with stylus. It was quite overwhelming at first but you will get used to it after a while. There is also an auto setting to let the upper screen fight automatically as well (or manual mode if you can Really multitask ;P). Neku fight with a variety of pins. Each pin represent a psych, each with a different way to stroke or touch the screen with stylus to execute. There are a total of 304 pins to collect and each pin has cool design as well :) Click here to download the pins images.

The soundtrack of the game are J-Pop style and modern music, which set it apart from the usual orchestra music found in most RPG game.

It is a really good game, with surprising story and characters growth. The fight sequence are fun and fractic. There are many things to collect and 'New Game +' mode to replay the game with all your stat and inventory intact, which added the the replayabilities.

If you have DS, this is certainly a game to have :)

Over the Rooftop Came a Hidden Blade

I have been playing Assassin's Creed for a few days and I must say... It is FUN to play. Despite it's keep crashing randomly for some reason...

The graphic is beautiful plain and simple. The whole town is your playground and you can climb up the roof, splinting and jumping between buildings, climbing the tower and taking a 'Leap of Faith' into the stack or cart of hay below. All of these activities were presented with fast pace and large map to roam in. It is strangely gratifying when your character jump on top of a guard and impale him with the hidden blade. I particularly like the 'View Point' where you have to climb on top of particular tower or guard post to overlook the area. The scene of the character perching on the ledge like eagle overlooking the city is gorgeous, as well as the 'Leap of Faith' to come back down :) It should be applauded that it take rather short load time for the size of the map.

Now the cons, while it is believable that there will be beggars in the city. It is not fun to have them keep cutting in front of you while you try to go about your business, especially when you about to stab someone in the neck. While the horse riding is quite easy to maneuver, it is rather boring when you have to make the horse 'Walk' to avoid alert all the guards. I still have not been able to find how to turn on the subtitle, which lead me to believe there is none. Plus you cannot skip *Any* cutscene, no matter which button you press. There is also no manual save function, only an obscured automatic one which give you no clue as to when it happen. This annoy me quite a lot when combine with the random crash which lead me to keep slaying the target again with no time saving to skip the cutscene.

All in all, it is a fun game to play, and I am looking forward to finishing it soon.

Comedic Game Review

Recently, I have became a fan of Zero Punctuation: An animated Game Review video by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw the maker of a famous indie adventure game '5 Days a Stranger'

I came across his review video while browsing on Kotaku.com. I have to stop myself from laughting out loud since I was in my office at the time :p

The reviews are very funny and cleverly pierce through the flaw and boring part of the game, peppered with harsh language and funny visual que.

Eventhough most of you readers are probably not a gamer, it might worth a looksie :)

Life Lesson from Madea

I was browsing for random stuff on Youtube a few days ago and I came across this clip of Madea from the play 'Madea Goes to Jail'. In this particular clip Madea's advice to her nephew is very deep and insightful. The sort of thing that Kitjar needs to instill in his mind to overcome his grieve.

I first saw Madea in 'Madea's Family Reunion' and I like the character quite a lot. It's like Big Mama with no censer in her thoughts and behaviors :P

The Last of Office Christmas Party

It finally happen last night, at a near by restaurant/pub. It seems fortunate that we postponed it to last night because it was their five years anniversary and they have complimentary foods (Yeah for me) and boozes (Yeah for the teachers :P).

Some of the foods were quite alright, although I think they were less generous with the rice in the bowl. I wants to leave around 22:30 but was met with some light-hearted taunt from the manager whether he should call my mom to tell her I am being out late :p But I was finally able to leave around midnight. It was a nice time except for the smokings and the bad seat that seems to cause me back ache. The maid is also there, I don't mind her being there, but she basically complaining to me how the guards are not helpful and a bunch of lazy asses type. She also told me to be more assertive to them, to basically act more like a boss toward them. I guess she made some valid point, after all I do have the authorities to order them around.

Anyhow I am looking forward to my long holiday :D Eventhough it will not be as long as Torn's five weeks off but it still be a long eleven days off, starting today :D Officially anyway... because my line-manager had made an appointment to talk to me today at 2pm. Plus the new access point still need to be configured and the tech from the supplier still working on it for the pass couple of days. Hopefully it will works today... So I will not have to go again tomorrow...

Progess on my head and The Truth Reader

My wound has closed and seems to heal up nicely. I apply the scar care gel that my doctor had prescribed a few times a day in addition I also use Vitamin E oil as well.

Although I was the doctor mention that the stitches did not look beautiful enough it seems to be healing nicely.

I went to see The Golden Compass recently. It was quite a good movie eventhough it was a bit on the short side. The story was interesting enough. The main protagonist was establish, soon after the movie beings, that she has silver tongue and a good head on her shoulder. I have read that some catholic figures were protesting against the movie, since the villain portrayed in the book.

As quoted from Wiki 'Several key themes of the novels, the rejection of organized religion and the abuse of power in a fictionalized Catholic Church, were diluted in the adaptation. Director Weitz said "in the books the Magisterium is a version of the Catholic Church gone wildly astray from its roots"'

What I find interesting about this, is that the protesters' behavior seems to goes along with what the villain in the movie, as those who would try do anything to stop people from thinking for themselves in order to maintain their power. At least the movie is able to show that people should not just blindly trusted the authorities despite how it diluted the anti-religion idea from the book. I guess money is everything :p

The visual were nice to look at but not on the 'spectacular' scale as Lord of the Rings. I would put it as on the same level as Narnia. Pretty but nothing epic (I guess Lord of the Rings really set the bar real high).

Also the weather in Bangkok started to warm up again. I guess I will go back to wear tank top to bed again.

Pleonchit Fair

I was excited about going to Pleonchit Fair this year since I lost track of it a few years back and completely forgot about it. My main reason is to get my hands on some fish and chips :P

I arrived there via a shuttle boat from the pier near Sapantaksin BTS station. Once I arrived at the school where the fair is, I paid for my ticket and began searching for the F&C. However, this year they have meat pie and mash, baked potatoes with cheese, and other foods instead. No fish and chips though :((. I settled for some nice looking Duit Thani buffet but it just only eatable.

My main attraction became thsis grand sales by Boots. When I arrived they were selling good stuff in 2 for 100 baht, 3 for 100 baht and 5 for 100 baht price. After an hour or so it became 3 for 200 baht and eventually 5 for 100 baht.

I think I ended up spending 800 baht in total there buying facial creams, lotions and soaps :pp I was able to score some nice day and night cream as well.

I also spend a bit of money on chocolate fountain fruit dip as seen below. The chocolate was quite delicious :dd

XKCD

I found this wonderful webcomic from an article on cnet.com about geeky webcomics :P I like it quite a lot, the site also have "random" button which will randomly show you the strip. This one is one of my favorite.

Collecting Double-Takes

Although I think this might gain a knowing looks or interesting glance, if you do it in West Hollywood or San Francisco :P

And this one hit pretty close to home :P

Insomnia

My room at night resemble the above strip, except that I do not use digital alarm clock. I just utilize the alarm function on my mobile phone ;)

And this one just crack me up XD

Fight

I hope you will visit the comics page, hit random buttons and have a good laugh. ;D

PS: If you can't read any of the comics please click on the strip or the name below to see it in full size.

Hellgate: London and Viva Pinata

So... I know I have been slacking off on blogging a bit. My reasons are these two games.

Hellgate: London

I am glad to had upgraded my graphic card (along with my computer as a whole) otherwise I would have motion sickness playing this. For me, this game is simply on a so so level... I think mainly because I am not that into FPS style of game anymore. It also employ the random item generator, just like Diablo. I do not really like this method because it make really good stuff hard to come by. Even when I use trainer to get lots of money to upgrade my gears. Graphically it is to be expected of new game, also with my choice of class, Summoner, it means I do not go upclose to the monster. The weirdest part of this game are the speech. The NPCs all have only greeting lines but not for the dialogs. I find this slightly odd but maybe because it is meant to play MMORPG as well. Personally I just play it when I want a bit of from Viva Pinata or a change of pace.

Viva Pinata

The process of *acquiring* this game was quite stressful for me. It look me a fair few days to get it. I am glad that I finally got to install and play it on Monday morning before I went to work. I was a bit anxious about playing the game because quite a few people post on gamespot.com forum that they experience crash and glitch. Luckily, that never happens to me.

So, what I can say about this game? It bright, vibrant, colorful, cute, fun, and a breath of fresh air that have not really been gracing the PC world since... maybe ever. The game shows a vibrant green garden, colorful and stylish designs in all the visual aspect of the game. While this game excel in both visual and audio it fail quite miserably in control. With the game being directly ported from Xbox360, therefore game's control is quite clunky and inconvenient. The zoom function work in short distant, no mini map to help track your garden, to sell things in your garden required a few odd select and click process. Overall I agreed that they should have do a better job of making patch and bug cleaning before releasing the game. So far I found a couple of glitch namely stuck camera and missing menu bar (which actually stop you from doing things in the game).

The final verdict? This one game that Worth playing regardless. It is fun to play even just to observe your garden grow and thriving.

Loosen Pants, Daidomon and Esplanade

When I put on my slack pants for work yesterday, I felt that it is slightly loosen than usual. That Is a good thing, because the pant has 34" waist :p Although the tightness came back when I put on my belt...

Nevertheless, it seems that the protein shake is working. However, I had this urge to stuff my face full of food. I have a choice of either go to Kuroda or Daidomon. The thing is... I do not like the idea of going to Kuroda alone. For that price, I need someone to be there to talk to and order something different so I can have a taste as well. The friend whom I went to Kuroda with the last times has found new love and now moved to HK, Damn him :pp

So I decided to go to Daidomon, the one in the shopping mall next to Rama 9 MTR station. That shopping mall also have IT Mall section so I also went and bought the two-headed monitor cable for the office.

It is not very far from the new Cineplex+Department Store, Esplanade. This place was advertised as the Cineplex with the 'artsy' decor and style. I have not been to that place yet so I give it a try today.

The place is rather spacious with a lot of room to walk around, with the design of a high-class venue. Everything is white and shiny, the exterior are glasses windows, similar to the new airport. The food area, somehow, is on the basement floor. There were a few interesting eateries there, the price was rather on the expensive side.

I also found Sony Ericsson shop with firmware update service. So I finally update my phone today for the first times after I bought it :P

The Fabulous Mr. Charles Pierce

I first heard of Mr. Charles Pierce from HBO documentary 'Dragtime'. I read up on him a bit later on and learned that he is one of the first female impersonator. His acts are standup comedy in the contexts and guise of famous actress from the golden era like Bette Davis, Katerine Hepburn and Mae West. I have been searching for his performance from the one they shown in Dragtime without success. I recently found out that someone post one part of that act on youtube. And here are the clips:

Part One

Part Two

Please let me know if you have this whole performance.

Cooking with Paula Dean

Another one of my finding from browsing on Youtube. This is the clip from Oprah show with guest Paula Dean who is famous for American southern cooking. It is one of the funniest thing I have ever seen. She certainly have great sense of humour :) Check out the clip ;)

My Daemon

I saw this at Paul's blog, since I am a suckers for this sort of things I have to tried it for myself and below is the result.



I guess the person who should help assess myself would be Nordic... But I am not sure how regularly he check out my blog :p

On another news, British Council call me again today to set up the interview appointment for IT assistance position. Too bad it will not be on the same day as the Customer Relation job... Now I will have to ask for two days leave... At least I will go on the later half of the day...

I also asked them about the working hour and working days. Since BC is an language institute, they work 7 days a week but each employees will work 5 days a week. For CS position, working hours will be 10:00-19:00 which is not bad in my case, since I live near by. They was not sure yet about the working hours of IT position but I can ask that in the interview.

Here comes CA

CA arrive late last night, he sent me SMS to notify me of his arrival and ask if we can meet on Tuesday. I call him after I sent reply SMS and we chat a bit. He said that he will be quite busy on Monday with his business and going to Pantip plaza.

So our initial plan was to meet at BTS station near MBK mall, but as I call him today to tell him to look for Flash drive as they are quite cheap now. He said he already got three of those :P and said that he would like to visit Pantip plaza again. So now the plan is to meet him at Pantip plaza, do a quick tour then went to MBK mall, browse around a bit, go to eat at Daidomon and perhaps persuade him to come back to place so I can try to have my way with him :P

Blogging from Krabi

Just a short one because the internet cafe charge here is crazy (1 baht per minute)

It was fun, I took some photos with my w810i since my mom still take holds of my digital camera :P It's my third day here, I had been to islands, sunburned, and slightly sleepless night because of my snoring younger bro. whom I share the room with...

I will upload some photos tomorrow when I got home and more details of my times later.

Sweet Sacrifice

I had been a fan of Evanescence ever since I heard their first single a few years ago. It is one of those songs that I have said that it required a body size speakers to listen to the song with your whole body.

With their new album "Open Door", I fell in love with the first song 'Sweet Sacrifice' the moment I heard it. Such an uplifting song for me indeed :P

So today I saw on Yahoo that the band finally release their third single (meaning making music video for it nowadays) and it is 'Sweet Sacrifice'.

Sweet Sacrifice (mpeg)

I love the looks of the whole video, which match my feelings when I listen to the song, as it has the slightly mental and rage filled looks to the whole thing.

This release has lifted my spirit quite a bit from what happen earlier...

PS: I had post this MV from Dailymotion and not the usual YouTube due to the feud brought on by YouTube initial refusal to remove the offensive clip toward our King on their site. As a results the Thai government has ban the whole website YouTube from Thailand, which might prove to be successful tactic as YouTube later removed the clip. However, the ban is still in action as although the clip has been remove, the still images of the clip is still there.