MMORPGs

I hate MMORPGs. For their unfair biasness. In MMORPGs, there is no skill. There is no intelligence. There is just mindless grinding. The one who plays the most is the most powerful. And again, is there any meaning to that power? That power does not grant one any advantage over any other person except the monsters.

ZOMG, I'm like lvl 100, and i can defeat Crimson Balrog!!!!
Erm... so what?? You're just pressing the attack key over and over again. Nothing special. And doesn't show that you're any more better than I am. Just that you've wasted a lot a lot of time on the game.

Hard work and toil bear fruit in the long run. Not in MMORPGs. There is no fruit. There is only an endless foray for nirvana, for pwnage, but there is none. That level does not prove any worth at all.

Yes, there is the fun of discovering new lands, of a new combat system, of strange monsters and such. But the game wasn't built to be about discovery, no matter how much the developers say otherwise. It's about level grinding. Repetitive hand motions that quickly escalate to psychotic levels.

So why am I playing MapleStory?

I just have to do something. Anything. I'm just rotting away without a goal or passion for anything at all! Something fun to do. Or at least mildly entertaining. Something that can occupy my mind.

I want to believe that post-A levels is a very fun period to enjoy and relax in. But i'm not relaxed or having fun at all! I'm so stressed up, don't know what to do with my time. But i can't just do anything, it must be something fun and worthwhile, something that i can look back and not regret having wasted away. I tried to get COD4, what i imagine would be an exhilarating sniping and submachine-gunning experience. Of roaming around on a deserted landscape watching for heads peeking around windows, bushes, doorways.

But I couldn't find the game. It's out of stock. =|

Battlefield 2142 is a game of skill, unlike MMORPGs. But it's a truly tiring game. You feel drained after three or more rounds, even less if the game is intense. Sometimes things don't work out quite right either: there's an imbalance of pro and noob players on different teams or that BF 2142 has that titan glitching bug that completely throws the game off-track.

Sims... the game just doesn't feel like it's going anywhere.

Tiberium Wars I hate the unit mass producing and sometimes impregnable uber base defenses [Storm Columns and the Tower of NOD].

Need for Speed: Underground 2 for having raced enough crap cars around the city too many times. I would love to find NFS: Most Wanted at the library's game section though; they have police pursuits there. I haven't raced a Ferrari or a Lamborghini in NFS of late.

This is turning out to be a terrible post-exam period.

Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.

Console...

Times like this, I wished I had a XBox 360. 'Cause that has to be one of the most interesting anime games ever and the best Naruto game yet! It's more adventure than fighting game, but the visuals are awesome. Fighting seems pretty static [aka taijutsu close combat] but it makes up for that with pretty unique combo move executions. It's not just activate combo and watch. Most of the time, it's an active combo, so you'll enter a mini-game state where you'll have to be fast to be able to actually land a hit and not waste your chakra usage. Ubisoft really does make good games, no matter if it's fps mercenary action, team co-op, or anime franchise games. Now, if only Avatar: Burning Earth was done by Ubisoft as well.. some of the game play is very sad and non-dynamic.

Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.

21 days

A levels are over!!!! The last paper, H3, was rather depressing. The school was so completely empty, before and after the paper.

Day after Phy P1 MCQ, i was pretty pumped up to mug H3 like siao. Day before H3, I was very very stressed at not being able to finish on time. On the day itself, I was so irate and tired; the ppl who designed the syllabus seemed to live on an entirely different planet. We were using equations we've never seen before to derive another new equation, and in the syllabus guidelines, they say "Recall and use it to derive ". Recall!?!?!!? Like, crazy. I just felt like giving up. H3 H3 less worth than a H1 but so much more tougher.

Well in the end I still tried my best.

Now i can start throwing away all the stuff that i don't need. Gwah, i so hate Chem! 5 whole stacks of Chem notes, all attempts to achieve Chem enlightenment. When i threw them out, i was like, yay!!!! I released ~10^-11 J of gravitational potential energy!!!

At first I thought ending the A's wouldn't be much fun at all - still pretty much everyday life just like always. But it's different. Way different. Now i can do more of everything else!!! No more doing stuff and feeling regrets over neglecting work!!! No more guilty conscious!!! And i managed to get back to programming too! Programming felt like a chore, a really unproductive and meaningless chore during the mugging days. Now, I can just let my mind wander over the schematics of the programming API without worrying about forgetting some formulas or chemical equations in return.

Originally i thought of getting COD 4 to kick off celebrations, but after a while i thought it was really silly, i mean, unproductive game! Plus, the store had no more stocks left.

Well, i'm still gonna get it tomorrow anyways at Funan. (EDIT: Scrap that, 20 days and counting, it's not worth getting it) =P Battlefield 2142 is getting a bit repetitive. Running around the map securing control points, but what can 1 little infantry do against an army of APCs, tanks, gunships and mechs?? And being a commander got a bit tiring sometimes. People don't really listen to the commander. And worse still, it's pretty embarrassing when later on it becomes apparent that the commander isn't really that good, but he's commandering everyone around??!

21 days. Pretty rushed. And it makes me wonder why I'm learning Japanese when I'm probably going to forget all of it in 2 years. Halfway there though; i can pronounce Hiragana now; i just don't know what I'm pronouncing.

Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.

Shattering

There existed a post here that shouldn't have existed. Blogs are such a tempting invitation to be egoistic, overly depressing, mercilessly critical and logically incoherent.

Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.

牛仔很忙

Looking through the Jay Chou cds I bought, and looking at the Wikipedia track listing, i just realised that i had a really weird MTV special of 霍元甲, when there wasn't such a track in the first place.

No wonder Ｉwas wondering where the heck were the MTVs in the newer tracks 依然范特西 and 牛仔很忙. The 霍元甲 track was some special track that was actually 11月的萧邦 plus additional track 霍元甲.

Hm... there's a DVD track called 滿城盡帶黃金甲 or 不能說的祕密 too, i wonder if that's where the MTVs are.

牛仔很忙 is pretty nice, but it sounds quite weird at first. I don't believe there's a Wild West Chinese song before, or anything that was even remotely similar. The lyrics are ... in one way, kinda self-depreciating (something about riding a donkey instead of a horse), but it's meant to be interpreted in the comical way.

Update: 青色的陶瓷 sounds quite Chinese, similar to 菊花台, but the chorus is quite catchy in its own way.

When i first heard 阳光宅男, i thought, that's rock, like Simple Plan or something. Then his voice was like ... country. And it sounds so much like something 5566 or boy bands would sing. But it's nice. Very catchy. A very obvious chorus, and i just love the electric guitar here.

甜甜的's intro is so cheery, instant fave. Though it isn't the most catchy tune around , but it's just so light-hearted, so it's in.

The others are not mentioned because they're not worth mentioning, yet. It's a bit disappointing i guess, imo. I got 9 faves out of the 霍元甲 track, 5 faves out of the 依然范特西 track, and only 3 faves currently out of the 牛仔很忙 track. But I tend to backtrack and try to listen to them again, so ... hm, the number might increase.

On the whole, the track [or at least the songs I've faved] give off a very unique feel, not exotic as do 夜曲 or 七里香 do, but it's good in that it borrows styles from over all genres, and is thus very refreshing to listen to. Variety.

Final updated conclusion:
霍元甲 > 牛仔很忙 > 依然范特西
阳光宅男 > 甜甜的 > 牛仔很忙 > 青色的陶瓷

Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.

Site popularity

According to Google Analytics from the Great Big Evil Uncaring Google Corporation, this blog gets the same amount of hits, as do my other site regarding ODE and C#.

Let's see,
this one here is about random, incoherent ramblings that, for a long time, fail to make any kind of mentally stimulating arguments or suggestions.

The other one talks about ODE.NET, C#, as well as using ODE.NET in Irrlicht NET CP. It comes in on Yahoo's top 5 rankings for ODE.NET tutorials. On Google, well, it's about on the 4th results page.

But surprisingly, more people come here, looking for stuff like, Timcampy [from D.Gray Man], Battlefield 2142 no-cd cracks, and H2 Physics notes.

I'm just kinda upset that no one's really caring about ODE.NET, or game physics programming on C#, or for ODE in Irrlicht, or that I spent a few weeks looking hard at ODE's syntax, and sprucing up programming tutorials in a newbie friendly style.

=(

Don't they know that game programming is the number one way to get rid of competition, by engaging swaths of youth and distracting them from productive activities??

My Question Mark key isn't working well...

Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.

Book Store

My dad purchased 本草纲目 at the bookstore[s] near Bras Basah todae... which was originally only supposed to be a trip to the National Library..

Did you know it's not just grass and herbs inside there? They got bugs, fishes, birds, amphibians, and animals [tiger, deer, antelope, cow...] inside that book too.. Nyah, I dunno if it's the original version, but i think not, otherwise that title 李时珍 thought up of would be so contradictory, lolz. Must be an adapted version. But then.... if it's an adapted modern version.... why the heck are there endangered animals inside?!?!?

Ah, but maybe it's only Singapore TCM shops that don't [mostly] stock endangered stuff.. they have this little stick-in ad that says they don't stock on endangered animal parts, kinda like the visa post-it add that says "we support visa/american express".

I would have gotten a book myself if i wasn't studying. =( There was a Jap-Chi-Eng dictionary...

Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.