The Evil Chill comes and gone

It's been quite sometime since I post anything... Mostly it is because there is nothing news worthy to post... Although this might made me looks like a hardcore gamer I just have no other interesting news to tell :pp

The third game post in the row and this one is of 'Evil Genius' *insert evil laugh track here* :))
Like the name suggested in this game you will take on a role of an evil genius set out to conquer the world. You will first select your avatar each with their own perks and looks. The whole game seems to be influence by the Austin Power movie. Or perhaps by the 60s looks in the costume, the style and in just about everything.

The game play will be more about managing your base and your global evil activities. Your minions (the staffs :)) will run around doing their things automatically. Also when you send them on the mission or just to steal money they will do so by time count and without micro management.

When you look pass the facade of planning world conquering and so on, this game is more or less your typical management simulation game with an evil twist.

On to the Chilling part... The cold had comes and gone from Bangkok, not quite in record time but somewhat expected. Either it was less cold than a few years back or I became more tolerated since I did not have to pull out my jacket this year :) It was quite cold for about a week in which I have no need to turn on Any fan on my room as well as gotten myself under 2 blankets and a quilt just to keep warm.

All that is almost gone now... The night time is still quite chilly but not as much. I wish I have a hunk to hold on to at night instead of my long pillow...

And then there were...

None :) This is of cause about one of Agatha's classic 'And then there were none' and no I am not talking about the book but the game :)

I guess I would just skip the story part. You can find the book to read I am sure so I will just get into reviewing the game.

This game is done in traditional adventure game with static 2D pre-rendered background and 3D characters. The background scenes are typical quality stuffs, nicely rendered to pictured the moody British weather quite well. The same could not be said for the characters... All the character looks rather rough and did not blend well with the background. It is that bad that at one scene one of the character place both hands on a table and I have to look twice just to make sure that both palms are faced down :ppp

The voice of characters were mediocre and rather inconsistance. Sometimes the character talk in a rather calm voice in not so calm situations... I think the overall voice did not help built up the tension that well...

The game seems mostly stable until it crash on me when I tried to examined an item... I have yet to replicate the crash as I haven't reach that point again yet but we will see... The character also suffers (well not quite) from the 'is that a ladder in yoour pocket' syndrome of adventure games. You got to pick up a Lot of stuffs in this game, some of which are rather sizable such as blownup raft with oars and even full size ladder!!. It would surely looks rather ridiculous in real when you see this guy walking around with a bunch of books, ladder, raft+oars, wheel of cheese, and two buckets of apples.

My Final Words: It is a good story, and the makers add a good plot twist with player as the 11th person stranded on the island. I think it would have been better if more experienced studio produce this game... At least the whole package would be prettier and perhaps looks more professional. Still the game's saving grace is the story itself. Which still make the game playable and quite enjoyable. This game is probabaly the testament that Adventure games are define by being story-driven first and foremost, thus, will stand the test of time and prevail over the mindless FPS games :p

Light! Camera! Action!

Yeap I got a brand spanking new game called 'The Movies' This is another product from the same maker as Fable: The Lost Chapter and Black and White series Lionhead studio.

This game is more or less serve two purposes in one software as a typical business tycoon and a rather immersive movie making software. In game mode you will get to play as movie studio boss beginning from the year 1920. You get to manage from hiring actors and studio crews. You get to assign a movie making process and release them. You get to hire a bunch of scriptwriters to literally churn out movie scripts to be make or sell (you should get the writers to work non-stop as they have do not get tired and they will gain experince from working.) Since pretty early in the game you will get a 'Custom Script Maker' facilities. Which will begin the process of making the move by yourself.

I must handg it to the makers since the process is relatively easy to master. Add this to the 'Post Production Office' and you can add soundtrack, lipsync, and even edit the movie. This section can be pretty extensive... If you dig that kind of thing :)

However, the thing that bug me the most is the complete lag of people to be hired to be the crew. Especially, after the actors became really famous and they want assistance... When you have a big enough lot you cannot get by with just 7 builders to maintain all the set and buildings. And you can not really get by with just 2 janitors :ppp Plus, with the film crew that seems to be available with just 7-8 people as well as the number of stars, you can only make two films at the same time.

I wondered if LH will release a patch to make the people became more available... I know that this is a business tycoon game and resource management is one of the key factor. But it is rather ridiculous to manage the studio and when they asking more and more and more people. All of which you cannot spare... And this is only the year 1965 in my game... Darn it...

The Moving Castle and Strange Passerbys

I had just finish watching Howl's Moving Castle today and boy I like this animation. Besides the well-drawn characters the story is quite intriguing.

The main protagonist, Sophie, a simple girl whose family own a hat shop had a chance encounter and fallen in love with a handsome wizard, Howl. The pursuer of Howl, The Witch of the Wastes, did not like this one bit and put a curse on the girl, turning her into an elderly woman as well as she would not be able to tell anyone that she has been cursed.

Sophie, despite being cursed into elderly state, seems to cope with the situation quite well and set out to see Howl at his moving castle. After found it with the help of a scarecrow that she had rescued, she put herself into the position of cleaning lady of the castle and thus her adventure begins.

All I can say is that this Sophie gal rockss!! She is all heart and solid determination that surely impress not just the people around her but the audience as well :) Perhaps I should looking into getting the previous work of this studio 'Spirited Away' to see...

Recently I get several googled from people looking for information about the game Indiego Prophecy. Or to be more specific, how to play it without the CD or in this case it would be DVD. The fact that these people use 'Indiego Prophecy' in their keyword mean that they get the US version of the game. One thing though... The game industry, just like the movie and the music industry, they love their product protections. But so far it only prove that it did not really working. One person's lock is another person's challenge and I guess, in a way, it work out rather beautifully. Eventually these so called CD protection scheme did not work as a safeguard against illegal copied but rather preventing the game to be play unless they have the legitimate CD in the computer. This also means that you cannot play the same game using one copy in more than one computer.

However, it just a mute point, since the cracker can be found all over the net. The treat by the companies that these sites are littered with dangerous stuffs are no big fuzz to the tech savvy generation.

As I read recently on cnet.com about Sony's invasive tactic of protecting their music has been view as way out of line. The editor put it quite well in the article that if the company keep acting like this people will stop buying their crappy product and just turn to P2P which in my opinion much easier than travelling to record store and spend money on the company that did not care about their customer. And people should be concern with this news since it is 'Rootkit' tech and it installed and run active on your machine just like the spyware and adware (read scumware).

Envy as you have never seen before

I suppose there are many miage depicting the Seven Deadly Sins. I found this particular take of 'Envy' on deviantart.com. I can guaranteed this is Envy as you have never seen before :))

Full view click here

The artist is windy999 at deviantart.com. If you like your comedy subtle British style you will like this guy's sense of humour :) I know I did ;) So be sure to check out his gallery at http://windy999.deviantart.com/ You won't be disappointed.

The Bride with No Pulse

Despite to my tiring condition (just have 15 hrs shift from afternoon till almost dawn), I did went to see Corpse Bride today.

Eventhough it is somewhat too short it is still very good. The animation is definately improve since 'Nightmare Before Christmas' time, the bridal showl move fluidly in the wind just like in real time that made me wondered if it was short seperately. And in the very Tim Burton's way, the underworld folks are much more kind, frinedly, and lively than the living folks. Not to mention a lot more colourful.

I would love to see the overview shorts of the underworld town though... But since it was stop-motion animation it might be too much to ask for such views.

Anyhow, the animation is crisp and very fluid, a big step up compare to Nightmare..., I would highly recommend this movie :)

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...

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 :)

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...

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!!'

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 :)

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

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

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.

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 :)

Futile Attempt

I had made some affort to include my real life friends to visit my blog but so far only a few show some interest.

With the help of StatCounter I am able to see where in the world that my blog has been open. So far I seems to have frequent visit from Malaysia the most :) And most people visit my blog from Paul's Bedtime Stories the most.

Well back to my rant... So far I was able to get two friends to visit my blog. One was Nordic and another was a dutch man whom I befriended over the net sometimes ago. My message on one of my previous post did not yield any result eventhough I had email that person with specific instruction :pp darn...

Now I don't know what else to blog about... Right now I am in my office and getting really hungry and I cannot go fid something to eat... Not in the few minute anyway :ppp

Damn Spammers and My Fable Overdose

I have been somewhat lazy and torns between subjects of rant to be added here... I have a bit of enlightenment ideas for you guys to read so I guess I will just type it down now and explain the meaning of the subject later.

Spam mails, there is no need to explain that word. If you are reading my blog chances are you already know what pain in the ass (and not in the good way) spam mails are. But what you probably did not realize is that You actually PAY your hard earn money for the sending of spam mails.

Why did I say that? I know this for sure when I combine three seemingly unrelated stories that I have read and learned through out the year.

1. About 60%-70% of emails traffic on the internet are spam mails. Yeap it's getting really bad ever since people began warning that it will be a problem and now none of the politicians have the spine to stamp out these spammers.
2. Any ISP (Internet Service Provider) will generally setup their email server with 50% capacity more than the peak traffic just in case (as it's the genereal practise in this business.) And with the epidemic I mention above, ISPs will have to setup their email servers to be much larger than without the spam mails' traffic. Plus not to mention that they have to install spam mail filters and keep it upto dates. All of which cost money.
3. What I learn in business class? Companies will always push their expense to the consumers in the form of the price of their product. Which, in this case, will be the price of your internet service from your ISP.

So what will you get when you combine all the stories above? You ended up paying higher internet cost due to unrealistic email traffic cause by spammers in the form of higher internet cost!! Seriously I think spam issues should be handle by Interpol since internet is global afterall. Company setup in one country can do business in another and avoiding the laws. Too bad the world have other serious issues to focus on this white collar scumbags.

Anyway... I recently got meself a new game called Fable: The Lost Chapters. An Action-RPG game from Lionheads studio of Peter Moleneux the man who concieve Populus, Dungeon Keerpers, Magic Carpet, and Black & White. In this new title you will play as a hero set out to fulfill his destiny and he can choose to be either good or bad in the process. The idea was to allow you to play as good or bad the way you like it. But you end up with just the different look of your character and that's it. It's much easier to play as good guy instead of bad guys since most of the things you have to defeat for experince will add to your good alingment.

Still the game is quite fun :) With the rather unique stat increase method you will see your character grow from a scrawny young man to tall muscular man :) And for magic users you will also get bluish arcane patterns all over your body as well. Click here for bigger picture

There are several hair style, facial hairs and tattoos so u can customize your characters as well. That's my character :) Isn't he look cool??
I have been playing this game for about a week now... My sleep time is totally ruined :p

My soon-to-be new Acquisition

My current mobile phone is... well I could not say crappy because it still works (except for the battery which need to be recharge almost daily and I call out only about once day!).

But as a techono minded person I do like to have new mobile phone, the newer one that can play MP3 and use it as ringtones, have digital camera for discreetly doing candid shot of cute foreigners :dd The one that I have been eyeing for several months is the new Sony Ericsson Walkman phone w800i.

It has enamel white body with metallic orange stripe along the side, 2MPixel CMOS camera , mp3 player with better grade earplug headphone sets with 512MB memory stick included in the pack. Sounds like a dream came true for audiophiles who wants their mobile phone to play mp3 as well :). I almost forgot to mention that the phone can be recharge when connected to computer via USB connector!!

My only problem with SE is that in all their preview and advertising image of the phone, the enamel white (which make the phone looks cheap overall) front and back looks more silvery metallic instead. I was completely shock when I saw the preview image from a mobile phone website that take pictures of the real phone. Like I mention above, the silvery body became enamel white and it did not look nice AT ALL!!!

Anyhow I am still considered this one since I am certain I would use it for all it worths :) However, currently the phone still selling at minimum 18,700 baht which is quite steep for my budget. I am not in a hurry though... And I heard that w550i will began selling in about two weeks. Hopefully, that should help bring the price of this one down a notch or two.

Being gay in Bangkok

Inspired by Paul's comment in my previous post I decided to do this post as a ranting of sort about gay life in general.

When you look at being gay in all aspect, it is Not abnormal behavior or that big of a deal. To think that some people dedicate their life to anti-gay course repulses me , after all there are more serious issues than how some men wants to share their bed with another men.

I hate when people use religions as an excuse of their own bigotry. Talk about blind fate!!

As for life in Bangkok, I would say that there is no better places to be gay than in Thailand. We are mostly tolerated people. You will find ladyboys working as salesperson in many shops in the shopping mall as well as in the perfume section in their long hairs and makeups! . I wondered if this is common in any other countries, if anybody from other countries could tell me in the comment section I would be very appreciated.

I would say that gay people in Bangkok are mostly safe here in most account... However, the newspapers will always add the word 'gay' when the crime was committed by gay or when the victim was gay, I heard some lament about whether this is necessary to put it so blatantly that this happen to or by gay.

Even so, I still think that Bangkok, or even Thailand, is the best place to be gay in the world. Since this is Buddhism country and it's been taught for a long time that what happen in this life is the results of our actions in previous life. So mostly people just left us alone thinking that we pay for our karma in this life as gay or it might be as simply as they just mind their own business.

And really People, what is the big deal about men wanted to have sex with other men?? As per old saying in Thais. It's not like we did it on your head so F*uck off would ya idiot fundamentalists??

Music Man

Thinking back, I seems to began my journey to became the guy who almost always carried some type of music players whenever I was outside in my highschool year.

I remembered that I ask my mom for a double deck cassette player for one of my birthday and I did get it :) I began making complilation tapes on it and then listen to my own complicaton tapes on the walkman. I switch school from the one I have been in since the first grade when I was at 9th grade to another one the uniform codes also change a bit. This leads to the change from my using of carried bag to backpack and I love it! (although it doesn't help toning up my arms :p) My new backpack have side pocket which fit perfectly with walkman in the left and tarot cards in the right. I will mostly be seens walking around with my backpack on my back and earbuds headphones in my ears.

Which leads up one traumatic point in highschool where I was in the teacher lounge for some reason and one teacher ask me if I am a student of deaf people school. I was shock by her words not to mention that I heard it very clearly since eventhough the earbud headphone still in my ears the walkman was not playing. I wish I had said something or make a big scene out of it. Being a good quiet kid that I was I said nothing...

Now back to my main story. After many years of using walkman, I began to record songs from radio station with my first intension of wanted to play it to sales person at record store to identify the songs so I can buy it later. But after sometimes I just keep record songs from radio telling myself that I would only buy what I really need to buy :) Later on I found internet and learn from Nordic that I can download mp3 audio files from internet via IRC which open up a new venue for me. And now the files became more useful since I had replace my walkman for mp3 player :)

My collections and taste are mostly R&B, Pop, Rock, and Classical. I seems to have a special place in my heart for many of 80's R&B singers like Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, and Gladys Knight :)

Sometimes when I play my mp3 collections on my computer I would sing along to the heart breaking tunes of Richard Marx 'Until I Find You Again' or Mariah Carey 'Cry' or Meatloaf 'I'd Lie For You (And That's The Truth') :)