Good is nothing without Evil

2011-08-04T00:55:00.002+08:00

Dear Blizzard

I wrote the following email to Blizzard on the 4th of August 2011:

RE: Blizzard's bleak financial future

Hi,

If you could forward this to the Blizzard's board of directors or anyone with the actual power to affect the business direction of Blizzard, I would much appreciate it.

I'm Albert Zhen, writing in from Singapore and because of the lack of access, I am unable to write directly to the people whom actually have a say in the business direction of Blizzard.

I'm a massive fan of Blizzard ever since the very first Warcraft, I am really disappointed with Starcraft 2 as it no longer allowed for me to play on my laptop offline when travelling or overseas.
The authentication requirement meant that people whom do not have a constant connection to the internet now have no way to ask for their money back for a game that they PAID UPFRONT for.

I have completely stopped playing Starcraft 2 because of the authentication requirement and get my fix of RTS gaming from Dawn of War 2: Retribution as well as Supreme Commander 2 on Steam, which I am able to play on Offline mode.
Which is IRONIC since they are an ONLINE digital distribution platform. If they can do it, then I don't see why any other company can't. Since you have the advantage of a physical media and they don't.
If it is at all possible, I would like a refund of the full sale amount of SGD $109 dollars from Blizzard, paid to IAH games Singapore, because their online requirement had made the game unplayable due to a lack of internet connection during my travels to Japan in the beginning of this year.

Now it seems apparent that Diablo 3 will be the same. First as a loyal fan that has purchased every Blizzard game until Starcraft 2 INCLUDING World of Warcraft and every subsequent expansion and an avid WoW player until recently, I know that EVERY SINGLE ONE of my 10 gamer friends within my closest circle who DID NOT buy Starcraft 2 and are continuing their boycott of Blizzard games on a permanent basis because of the inclusion of online authentication EVERY SINGLE TIME you play. I was the ONLY one in my circle of friends who bought Starcraft 2, means that you could have gotten 10 times more sales if Starcraft 2 was fully playable in offline mode without authentication. Those 10 of my friends whom are avid gamers who are planning or have bought games like, Witcher 2, Crysis 2, Skyrim, Torchlight 2 and many other offline supported games that aren't nearly as good as Blizzard games will NEVER buy another Blizzard game in our lives if this trend continues.

It is with a heavy heart, that I am going to say that I have lost all hope that I will ever buy a single product from Blizzard ever again.

You have lost 10/10 of what used to be 9/10 of your loyal customers. This is heart wrenching and it only goes to show, that Blizzard may not out-live the other less dedicated companies because they are willing to improve the experience of their paying customers. Whereas Blizzard only seems to make it worse.

P.S. You know that people who pirated Starcraft 2 are able to play offline mode without authenticating or going online at all? I feel sick as a paying customer that a person who pirates the game for free has a better experience than me, who paid full price for the game. While I don't stoop to their level, it goes to show that you're losing more money from paying customers than what you would be gaining from having a DRM in the first place. Majority of people whom I know have pirated Blizzard products out there would not have bought your game because it is simply too expensive for them, but now, you're going to lose your paying customers because you're trying to catch a market that was never really there in the first place. Or are you secretly out to encourage piracy of Blizzard products?

P.P.S. Think about it. Catching a non-existent market that can't afford your game in the first place or regaining the trust by removing the barriers for those who can afford it to enjoy your games and keep your paying customers. You can't convert a pirate who can't AFFORD the price of your game in the first place. The answer should be quite obvious to those with acute business acumen. Having a DRM isn't cutting your losses, it's increasing it dramatically. Just ask the retail shops here in Singapore who have been complaining to me relentlessly about how Starcraft 2 is gathering dust on their shelves. Whereas Witcher 2 after completely disabling their DRM have been sold out ever since. SOLD OUT despite not having "protection" Counter intuitive or just common sense? People will buy a good game if they like it. That's the culture here, because we want to support the companies that make them.

P.P.P.S. And also, Blizzard is a global franchise and internet connection globally isn't complete, constant or fast enough. I'll bet you that you will make more money than you can care to count if you dare to add offline support to all future single player capable games. I'd get my 10 friends and ask them to get their friends to buy Diablo 3 if that does happen before the official launch date as well as each and every Blizzard game with offline support that is released after that.

--
Yours sincerely,
Blizzard's Ex-Fan
Albert Zhen

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

2010-12-08T15:49:00.001+08:00

Oystered World

Money, power or freedom?

Is getting financial freedom really going to break you free from the rat race?
Is power enough to get you free from the drudgery of etching out a living?
What IS freedom? Do we have it at all? Have we a choice in our place in society?

My take on everything? It's TIME. If you can control your own use of time, the world is truly your oyster. If you can push aside deadlines on a whim with little or no repercussions then I say you have power.

If you can afford the time to spend time with your family and not need to worry about putting food on the table, then you are rich.

If you have NO time to do what you want, then you are poor.

If you have too much time and do not know how to spend it, then I feel pity; for you should be spending that time to find a reason for you to spend time on.

Time is the only currency where you are richest when you can spend it ALL on something you want.

So go out and spend your time! Alauz out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

2010-11-08T18:32:00.002+08:00

Good, Evil, Nature and Chaos

I had the strangest dream in a span of an hour's nap today. I got the strangest feeling to share it.

The Dream

I dreamt that I was a boy who survived an accident. After the accident, the boy was living alone somewhere in China but looking for his father. His mother seems to have died before the accident or at childbirth. The boy remembers nothing about it. The age of the boy was pre-pubescent about 11 or 12.

His father was missing after the accident. But never reported dead, just missing. The boy had a memory, one that was garbled but I managed to see through the fractures. He thought he had seen his father at the nearby noodles stall. He was a worker or a customer that seemed to be passing through and stopped by to eat noodles. It was crowded so the boy could not push through the crowd in time for a better look. The father seemed not to recognize him and then one of the patrons at the stall called for them to leave.

The boy managed to get to his father but his father would not acknowledge him, the boy asked around and it seems that the father is suffering from some memory condition that makes him forget about his past. A local medicine woman had nursed him back to health after a terrible accident several years ago.

The boy found the local medicine woman who told him that the damage was permanent and his father will have no chance of remember if the boy was his son. The boy was disappointed but was brought away by the two scientists who are now his foster parents.

There was a strange couple that took the boy in after the accident. They were Caucasians. The boy was Asian. This strange couple were scientists who were studying ancient lore and knowledge about a particular legend of the four primordial forces on the planet: Good, Evil, Nature and Chaos. An unknown amount of time will pass but personifications or avatars that represented each of the primordial forces have been born and they have always met up for a competition with one another and then all of them perished either during or after the fight.

When the time was right, Good will pick Nature, while Evil picks Chaos. Two boys and two girls will meet. Their essence infused with one another across great distances even before they meet. They will think in step and act together. Until you cannot tell which primordial force the child had originally been born with.

In my dream, I was the boy. But because our minds were joined, I also glimpsed the girl and her past. She was born in America, same age as the boy. And she was locked up in the basement because of her unusual behaviour and temperament. Her parents gave her drug treatments in hopes of controlling her emotional outbursts and also gave her lots of toys. Keeping her in the drug haze was not enough to control her.

With the drugs, the dolls and toys around her seemed real, real enough to talk to her. And they had a life of their own. ‘Crocky’ was a toy crocodile but was longer than 3 meters and was swimming in the moat around their home. ‘Dahlly’ was a Bunny who walked on hind legs and was 2 meters tall bulging with muscle. There were other toys, but they had less significance and were forgotten once our minds combined.

When the time for the clash was about to begin, our minds melded and we were one. I helped her move her sedated body to the train station where the male scientist picked up the girl and brought her to me. During the move, she kept asking ‘Dhally’ about ‘Crocky’ and if ‘Crocky’ would be coming with us. ‘Dhally’ told her that ‘Crocky’ is busy making sure that she gets to meet me safely. Even while drugged, our combined powers were enough to make her parents lose their ‘sight’ of her. Even though she was staggering step by step towards the door, her parents ran panicked around the room and brought out the other toys that she didn’t remember to tempt her to remain. We both saw ‘Crocky’ near the end, snapping its mouth around her father’s neck decapitating him. She got to the train station safely after that.

Upon holding her hand, our appearance went through an alteration. Our skin turn green and purple, our hair was mottled brown and our eyes flashed with lightning. When next we spoke, we spoke together with our voices mingled with one another directly from our throats. Even if one of us spoke, you heard both voices.

“So it is done? Good and Nature are one again. So it is time?” The male scientist asked with anticipation.

“It is done.” Dual-toned my voice was mixed in with hers; strangely melodious.

“So what are you going to do? Evil and Chaos are so violent! Is there a chance?” The female scientist lamented.

“Do not doubt Nature, she is violent and ceaseless. Good is not without its protection. If Evil and Chaos becomes violent, so will us.” We chided with our voice rumbling.

It was only an hour’s dream. And this is all I can remember. So vivid, so real and I will try to remember more of the feelings I had felt during the dream, I am so strangely disoriented.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

2010-04-08T11:58:00.003+08:00

Searching

We seem to be always searching for something in every moment of our lives. Searching for your toys, parents, love, job, breakthrough and the list goes on into infinity.

I suppose during the wait now, I'm still making productive use of my time by trying to come up with a cheap way to recreate the mineral oil PC.

I am also attempting to create an offline backup solutions for people who cannot afford to lose their data due to REAL-TIME backup because their system copies viruses or data corruptions directly into their backups due to ineffective real-time solutions like RAID. It'd be a painless 5 min offline backup process that is manually controlled with a separate button on your computer.

Found a breakthrough for one part of my solution today as well. Not sure how it'd work out until proper testing has been done.

Who knows? Once I am done with this piece of research, the next computer you buy maybe from me? Haha... Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

2009-11-24T07:00:00.000+08:00

Last Leg of Advertising

Here's my final post for advertising.

It's been a tough time trying to do advertising and literary journalism at the same time. Since advertising has 6 assignments and journalism has 5 papers to write.

But looks like I'm almost done with everything. I do believe that it's made me a stronger person, but also looks like I've gained weight from the lack of time for myself. Haha, but I'm sure that after this, I finally have time for myself and to be able to take some proper care.

First thing I'm going to do after the end of this semester? Graduate haha.... but then after that, I'm probably going to start hitting the gym again.

And we at KaleidoVision, hope everyone enjoys the show we are going to put up for them today.

Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

2009-11-24T06:54:00.000+08:00

Advertising in Video Games

So I've already mentioned in my previous post, lets say a couple years ago about how video games would be the next big thing in Advertising.

Guess what, I actually read about it in my advertising textbook.

Quite amazing that it's still not fully caught on yet. But slowly and surely, the businesses will understand and know, that as video games become more and more prevalent, it acts like a completely new medium unto its own.

Where are all the youths going for their dose of entertainment? What are youths doing with majority of their free time? If you are in an affluent enough nation, the answer is probably going to be "The Computer". And what do youths love to do on the computer besides surf and chat? That's right, playing video games.

Now imagine if you can tap that potential when people are young, you've got yourself a powerful priming effect for your product. The tobacco companies knew this, and look at how many more people who cannot quit smoking because of that powerful influence to get people to TRY their product.

The key is to get the potential consumers to try the product. If they are satisfied with it, then the door is open for more welcoming news about the product. It's very scary what influence a video game might have on people's psyche, so let's hope that advertisements in video games remain as they are right now. Few and far between.

Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

2009-10-26T14:04:00.002+08:00

Julie & Julia

Here's an irony, I'm blogging about a blogger who blogged about Julia Roberts.

Here's an even bigger irony, the whole experience is in a form of a movie.

What is it about blogs and advertising? When a popular blog becomes a platform for advertising, the novelty of the blog sometimes wears off the moment it "hits the big time". Ironic isn't it?

What does it mean to hit the big time? Become recognized? A blog has two levels of recognition, first level is the general consumer recognition. It used to be that this level of recognition is all you get as a blogger.

But times have evolved. Now, the blog has the commercial recognition. Once a blog has a critical amount of readers the commercial entities start taking notice of them. Once that happens, a blog gets publicized by the media and then gets bogged down by tons of advertising banners. It is then that people either get very interested or just get disinterested and leave the readership of the blog.

The "Bloggersphere" has evolved past the events recorded in the movie. The movie shows that once people start noticing the blog, they read it and pass the information about the blog via peers instead of the regular advertising/media channels. But now, popular blogs are BLASTED out through multiple channels at people.

It's become an Advertising platform that requires Advertising. The irony.

Hope you guys enjoyed this silly observation, Alauz out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

2009-09-24T23:15:00.007+08:00

Advertising?

In my everyday life, I'm not one to deny the increasing impact of interesting advertisement on my life. I may not buy or do what the Ads desire, but it does add an interesting spin on the way I would look at things.

Here are some interesting advertisements I've seen recently. First one even won an international advertising award but at the same time, banned after a short run in Germany because people found the content to be offensive to some. It is both a good but ironically a bad advertisement.

I'd explain why after you've seen it.

First Ad

So did you think that's an interesting advertisement that might accomplish its goal of getting people to sign up for classes? If I had a basic grasp of the language, then I would be horrified at the thought of being so ignorant in the face of my kids! I'd definitely go for classes. Then again people probably think differently.

Difference between good and bad?

Second and third ads are special, the second ad is not a recent advertisement but it's the predecessor of the third advertisement that's been run recently. And actually you might not get the third advertisement if you never watched the first one. So I would consider them linked advertisement.

Second Ad

Third Ad

And if I were to consider if they were successful advertisements, I personally would say yes! If I drank alcohol I would most definitely buy this brand of beer because of the entertaining ad that would play in my head when choosing my beers. Sadly I stopped regular consumption of alcohol for a couple of years already and I'm not planning on getting back on it, so this ad has only its entertainment value for me.

And I do think that my last semester taking advertising is like a crushing swan song right now, with Student week almost over, Literary Journalism increasing its workload; I'm happy to just get 3-4 hours of sleep a day. At least I'm done with the coughing fits, but hopefully after this week, I might be able to get a couple nights of decent rest without worrying too much about club responsibilities as well as academic stuff.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

2009-04-15T21:00:00.002+08:00

A Little Commentary

Here's a video I commented on, it is nothing fancy but is in High Definition for those who enjoy sight as their primary sense. Oh yeah it's done in Windows Movie Maker.

I hope the commentary speaks for itself, for Blizzard breeds obsession beyond comprehension with their pursuit of perfection in their products. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

2009-04-15T20:42:00.003+08:00

Future of the Internet

Future? The internet is technically THE FUTURE right now. It has changed almost everything in modern city life and it has still yet to realize its full potential. It has barely scratched the possibilities of what the early visionaries of the internet had seen. I see even more possibilities for the internet with every passing day.

The picture below shows an example of a prototype internet device that allows details about objects or even people. Giving you the person's name, hobbies, interests that the person allows the public to view about himself or herself. And this is spawned from but ONE SIMPLE idea. Imagine many more such inventions and applications that the internet would bring about.

The internet is the future, and if you want to talk about the future of the internet, it is the same as talking about the future of the world. And with this collective resource of the majority of current human knowledge on our existence and our way of life, we are able to learn faster than any of our ancestors and also to think in ways that we have never thought before.

What I see in the future of the internet, is permeation of its presence in our daily lives. We will be dependent on it like we are on air. It will educate us in the things we need to know to survive in our daily lives. We will use devices that are permanently connected to the internet, to do simple things like plan our schedule or contact our friends. We probably have fewer devices if the convergence of communication/mass communication mediums are complete. Maybe a single holographic projection device with an inbuilt internet connection with basic processing power would be enough for us to do things from playing an online game with our friends, to booking our next meal at the restaurant we're about to enter. The internet would be seemless, completely meshed into our reality and we would be as dependent on it as we are on our cell/mobile phones if not more.

The future of the internet, what a silly question is it not? We can all see what is coming, for it is inevitable. Sleep well tonight children, for tomorrow is future! Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

2009-04-15T20:19:00.003+08:00

Obama and Internet Politics

With his victory, Obama has just opened the floodgates (opening a whole new area of opportunity) for politics worldwide. Floodgates to what you might be asking, it is the floodgates of using the internet as a main tool for politics. While politics have been constantly exploring new mediums, politicians are seldom willing to try a brand new medium unless it has been tried and proven to WIN their elections.

Behind this mindset, you can see that Obama either had very good foresight and vision OR he had an advisor who has these qualities. Both of which bodes very well for America indeed. For the future of the world lies in digitization. Digitizing politics and government only further reduces the resources that we strain the planet for. As technology improves, devices require less power, use cheaper and more replacable resources and most importantly, we use less older technologies such as NEWSPAPERS which incidentally KILLS TREES without discrimination thus indirectly killing ALL LIFE as habitats are destroyed along with the trees that are cut down.

We are stopping the mindless genocide of our forests and jungles which are important homes for our planet's ecological systems, that is a major step towards saving our planet if it is to be saved. I advocate advancing technology whenever I can because older technologies are destructive and pollute our environment needlessly. And by advancing technology forward, we encourage the price of new technology to drop faster as there is less lag time between "early adopters" and the normal adopters.

With the advent of internet politics now coming into play, I forsee politicians driving the masses to "GO ONLINE and VOTE for THEM!" thus directly creating a need for people to upgrade their lives towards newer technology. Why read the newspaper on what the president elect said, when you can get it "straight from the horse's mouth" when you read his online diary (blog) the very day it is broadcasted?

I forsee a bright future for the world, as long as people move towards the digital age with fevor and optimisim. Maybe, just maybe we can save our world one step at a time. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

2009-04-15T19:48:00.002+08:00

Convergence (Multimedia)

What isn't multimedia is probably a better question. But hey, if you don't know the implications of the word MULTI-MEDIA then I'd tell you. It is a mix of more than a single type of media, for example radio (sound), newspaper (text & static images) and television (moving images).

What enabled all these media to merge in single platform? It would be Da Intarwebs (the Internet for those of you who cannot l33t speak). At first glance, multimedia computing tried to use optical disks which were able to store large amounts of data (at that time) and were mobile and able to be mass produced and probably serve as a form of entertainment.

But now, multimedia has gotten really serious. What do I mean? Ever since the internet allowed news companies to go online, it has fundamentally changed the way people with an internet connection seek out news. For the moment, it seems that people watch television for a primary source of information, then go to the internet to do secondary confirmation. Simply put, people use the internet to either seek out the latest information on the piece of news they just received from their television sets OR to confirm that what they are seeing on television isn't a hoax.

BUT that's just for the current, older and less net savvy generation. For future generations where the internet is something children grow up and spend copious amounts of time with, then the impact of convergence of the media would fully come to bear. Newspapers if they still exist will disappear in their conventional forms. "Television" would be viewed through the internet on internet enabled television, visual projection devices such as monitors or even designer eyewear. The radio would be accessed digitally through an internet connection and the airwaves would be dominated by internet bandwidth instead of a radio broadcast.

Everything will move digital, because it is cheaper. If I only had to pay an internet access fee to get a free telephone line, free television, free radio, free library and free consultation for almost any topic known to man, then why must I continue to pay more to have continued access to the same material I can access online?

From the common person's point of view, it just doesn't make sense for me to waste my money which I can then spend on other things I find more important. If the prices of computers are coming down, cheaper than a television and the definition of a monitor that's 1/10 a price of a television has 2x or more the resolution sharpness of a TV, I no longer see the reasons for television or any other media to continue to exist. Computers and the internet have used "multimedia" to the highest effect and this convergence of media would only continue to happen as we move towards the 22nd century.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

2009-04-15T19:04:00.004+08:00

Norton Endpoint Protection (Internet Security Tools)

I'd be talking about Norton Endpoint Protection software today. It's the protection I'm using for the moment. Main reason why I'm using it is because of it's almost complete protection for the most comment threats on the internet.

What's going for the brand of norton at the moment would probably be the institutions supporting it, such as State University of New York for example. And through the students and the staff, they get a great number of loyal customers, until they leave the institution.

This probably means that things like protection from "the bad stuff" on the internet means little to people. A very perfect analogy is the condoms.

Why is it like a condom? We only use it, reluctantly because we want to avoid unwanted "complications" and diseases which are much like the "bad stuff" on the internet... and we are most certainly not going to be loyal to a brand of condom because when we need it, we don't really care about the brand, unless its cheap or even free.

Interesting perspective is it not? Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

2009-04-15T15:08:00.005+08:00

Google Chrome (Internet Tools)

Here's a look at Google Chrome:

What is it? In essence it is a new web browser that is in development by google. It's probably the first browser with an inbuilt anti-phishing and malware system that checks a constantly updated library manned by Google.

By being the world's premier search engine, there is incalculable data on sites and how they are accessed. And of course this allows for Google to maintain a super updated if not real time library of these harmful sites. Besides that, how does it fare against its competitors such as Internet Explorer, Opera and Mozilla Firefox? Sadly the most stable version still has some catching up to do interms of Acid testing compared to Opera and Firefox.

What other features does it have? It's a very security based browser that doesn't allow read write operations intiated from the browser. Very prudent sandbox design that seems to follow what Java tried to do with their security concious web applets. But because it currently only has 1.29% of the internet population using chrome, there would be some time before we see if such a browser is resistant to hackers & crackers attempts to mess it up.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

2009-03-04T10:52:00.002+08:00

E-Learning 2.0

What the heck is e-learning? That was the question I literally asked myself when I first heard of it on the internet somewhere in 1996. Electronic-learning? Or just learning on another platform?

I never really understood WHY they must call it E-learning when all there was to it, was simply LEARNING. Why didn't we call it P-Learning when people started using paper to learn instead of merely depending on ORAL tradition?

If you do that comparison, then E-Learning should soon lose it's luster and be considered just learning in general. I mean LDL degrees that came out all depended on E-learning in the early days anyways. But the degree that was earned was nothing less than if you actually got the degree from the university on-site. So why do we always cheapen something that is equally difficult to get but merely gotten over a long distance using an electronic medium?

While most people of the previous generation here in ASIA, commonly cheapen or discount heavily on e-learning, our current generation is learning many times more information in a single year that our predecessors have ever did in their lifetimes because of E-learning.

Examples such as learning a new language, COMPUTING based languages such as L33T speak, internet Lingo, foreign vocabulary so that we can better communicate with our overseas internet friends. These things are COMPLETELY overlooked by our seniors and thought to be garbage by them. They can never pick these languages up even if they wanted to, thus putting the rest of us who are learning these language skills at an almost sub-concious level and at an alarming pace. Just ask all the gamers on the internet if they know l33t speak. Even if they don't speak it, they will understand it.

I learnt a large portion of my Japanese online via chatting and interacting with the Japanese online. Could we have done that in the past without paying exorbitant fees to language schools and having few if any Japanese companions living around in our country? The simple answer is NO. We all are learning more and more via the internet, but we only "credit" it when what we learn is given "value" by companies that eventually find out that these skills learnt on the internet are what is required of their staff in the impending future.

So is the term e-learning flawed? I don't know if we should even continue labelling it as such. Simply because to label something as DIFFERENT is enough to allow people to cheapen its value because they do not understand or want to understand why is there such a difference in the first place.

Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

2009-03-04T10:38:00.003+08:00

Lesson learnt in E-Commerce

It was 2001, at the end of the dot com bubble burst. More and more internet companies are going belly up. But one of my friends said, "Hey why don't we set up a web hosting company?" He was completely oblivious to the fact that the bubble had just burst and he was thinking on catching the "wave" that just wasn't there anymore.

But the group of friends with him, were similarly oblivious and was wondering if such a venture would work. I was one of those friends. So we decided to try it out, 8 years ago. And I heavily invested in a high bandwidth internet connection and the hardware for the server. Among all of the participants, I suppose I was very optimistic that this would work in the beginning.

But as time wore on, we realized that we bought the equipment too early and did not even have any customers who wanted our services as of yet. Probably the dot com bubble bursting had a huge impact on our business prospectus but in the end, I was badly burnt by the experience because I had put in so much of my own money in at the time.

It wasn't a great amount by today's standards, but it was my personal savings and it was a lot when I was still a freshman at Nanyang Polytechnic and not yet earning much from my games reviewing that I just started a couple months before I decided on the venture.

Looking back almost ten years ago, I realized that we would have required a huge amount of luck, dedication and tons of publicity. Obviously we did not have that or I wouldn't be here typing this blog right now. Anyways, it was still a valuable lesson learnt in how to do an E-business, in fact not just an E-business but any business in general is to have a solid vision of your business model right from the start or your not going to go anywhere fast.

Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

2009-01-26T00:51:00.002+08:00

Language Roles

Computer Language
Let's talk a little bit about the automation of this Web 2.0 that people have been talking about. The reason behind the ability for people to start creating their own content so effortlessly actually lies in the complicated web-programming language that created the social media websites.

CGI
Let's talk somewhat about these powerful tools that I've spent several years learning and perfecting while studying Business Informatics at Nanyang Polytechnic in Singapore. First up would of course be "CGI". Of course the term CGI was first widely accepted by the movie industry to describe computer generated effects. But in internet terms, CGI was the first innovation of interactivity between a static and a dynamic webpage.

PERL
Let me paint a simpler picture, with CGI which was written in the PERL programming language, it allowed for the first time, a web-server to recognize userless input from the browser's terminal and connect form information directly into a database instead of merely churning out text files.

Application
Among the things available to the PERL programmer were, the user's IP address, Ping information, Traceroute information, basically identifying information on whether or not this user is a repeat user based on IP addressing and also the powerful ability to link up in real time to databases using a database driver on the server side. It's like knowing the past, present and future. The applications for this were immense, the possibilities endless.

The Lost
While PERL has officially been relegated away as a piece of old technology, it still lives on in many older companies' websites. The next time you surf our wonderful government's or even established banks' websites, look out for any URLs with "/cgi-bin/" or "/cgi/" in them. Why? Because these are webpage still generated by PERL using the CGI method of execution. So damn cool huh? We're living along technological dinosaurs and few if any notice.

The Now
So what's the most widely used languages on the web right now? HTML, XML, ASP, JSP and of course PHP which is the child of PERL. The popularity of PHP is immense now because the language allows reuse of the old PERL webservers with little or no upgrading at all! Just plug in the new language and a semi-new webserver plug in, and it's good to go for another 3-5 more years! It comes complete with a new set of commands, all modifying the old inputs of the legacy CGI execution method. Now who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? In this day and age, the old dog is still the top dog! Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

2009-01-23T11:30:00.002+08:00

Web 3.0

Pre-cursor Web 2.0
Welcome again to a new wave of thought. Now that Web 2.0 has officially replaced web 1.0, large parts of content and traffic are no longer generated by proprietary companies with copyrights but rather it is now up to the users themselves to generate such content and drive traffic.

Leading the current wave are Blogs and Social Media such as Facebook, Friendster and MySpace. The power of such content has impacted and changed how society is beginning to work from the ground up. It's a classic example of how the virtual influence affects the brick and mortar.

A simple yet powerful example of this influence would be the ability to simply google a person your about to hire for your company. You could find out his facebook account, blog details and even the friends that he hangs out with online. This will completely change your opinion of hiring this person or not. And this is all because of web 2.0, it's because the users themselves put their own preferences and expose themselves to the public.

Baby Web 3.0
Now comes Web 3.0. What is web 3.0? It's often touted a move towards an integration of the virtual and reality. So what would it look like? It would be moving of reality based learning in the classrooms into virtual classrooms; complete with a 3D environment, an instructor as well as individual students that you can see, hear and feel in a hyper realistic manner. One such example available today would be 2nd life, where you can create anything you desire into virtual reality.

The probable full integration of Web 3.0 would be an advent of new technology such as spectacles with inbuilt monitors, advanced wireless broadband nation-wide and integration of professional "graphical overlays" or "skins" that would simplify everyday life.

A vision of Web 3.0
Here's a hypothetical scenario of a complete Web 3.0 experience. Imagine waking up in the morning and the first thing you do after the morning trip to the washroom to get ready for you day is to wear your stylish shades with the inbuilt monitor by 'Rayban'. As you get changed, you access your daily morning mail and handle your bills which just came in. You notice a memo from your company calling you in for a meeting later in the afternoon.

As you leave the house, you book your travel arrangements such as your plane ticket and your hotel for your vacation over the weekend via your shades. As you get into your car, you notice a stranger driving into the lot next to yours and your shades identify the person in the car as your new next door neighbor. You send him a welcome to the neighborhood greeting card as you leave your parking space.

After you get into the office, you turn on your office helper "Modification" changes your monitor to update the latest happenings regards to the company, the current attendance of employees who have called in sick and your company stock value. As you sit at your desk you see virtual documents piled up high past the ceiling. It looks like it's going to be another long day indeed.

Back to Reality
That future isn't so far fetched, infact it looks poised to happen within this lifetime. The benefits of it are immense, we will stop using paper which in turn saves the trees and we might find it easier to interact with others because we can avoid the embarassment of forgetting another person's name. We will never be lost because of inbuilt landmark recognition, there's so many possibilities and so many applications.

Just imagine. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日わ天才

2009-01-15T01:16:00.002+08:00

Spartan Beauty

What can I share this week in Com 125? Well, if I were to focus on teaching people something about blogging or this piece of communication marvel; then it is tempting to say that more is not always better.

If you notice the layout of my blog, it's not bogged down with pictures, menu bars and other "technological garbage" that fills up so many of our fellow blogs. Now why would a self proclaimed "techie" like me choose such a spartan setup?

It is simple. Ergonomically speaking, the less clutter there is to distract your audience, the better they are better able to concentrate on the message you are intending to send them. First basic rule of any communication, regardless of medium is to focus your audience's attention on what you want them to pay attention to.

If you think what I am talking about is nonsense, then ask yourself why Google is the number 1 search engine for English users around the globe? It's because it gives you what you want to see, without bothersome advertisements and clutter of silly menus present in Yahoo and the other hateful search engines. If I want to find something, I do not want to see garbage that I'm not looking for period.

I hope this was an informative lesson on how to use blogs and why it is best to have less.

Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日の天才

2008-10-29T21:34:00.002+08:00

Skeletons!

The Past
I never mentioned that when I was in the care of my grandparents, there were a couple of times I was beaten or abused to the point I nearly lost my sight and almost died a couple of times. My memories were rather repressed and it was only recently I started reliving those dark times. I suppose that's part of the reason I decided to rebel against the system.

The Present
Thus my outlook on life was heavily influenced by my encounter with death when I was young, I suppose I have nothing much else to fear. I am living life without chains shackled to my soul. This feeling of being free from worldly binds only comes after a close encounter with death I suppose, I could be wrong. If you've faced it and managed to walk away, your only opponent left is yourself. And if you can overcome that, life is truly what you make of it. No fear of making mistakes, no fear to try out new things, life's too short for us to be ruled by fear.

Dreams; Nightmares
I am a rather big softie I suppose when it really comes to life and death. That's how I got into those near fatal beatings in the first place when I was young, I didn't want my younger brothers to suffer the same fate. I did not understand my intentions back then, why I had chose to be singled out. My brother also went through the canings, why not take the other abuse together with me? With the belt buckle, shouting voices and humiliation?

Torture
Being thrown out of the house completely naked after being beaten or caned, and then locked outside by my relatives. Such are the punishments I endured. What's left to be ashamed about when you've been stripped of all your dignity as a human being to wear clothing; after being caned or beaten? There are precious little things that can faze you after that. I feel jaded, like a prisoner of war back in WWII must have felt after a nearly complete torture sequence, physical, mental, physical, mental. And mentally prepared to face death, proud to have divulged nothing to the enemy, but completely drained.

Violence
Is that why I'm so violent? My thoughts still occasionally flit to extreme forms of violence when I am tired and unable to control my thoughts conciously. Or is it my basic nature, to be violent because I'm a male? Do I really want to tear the person apart limb from limb with my bare hands? Should I do it because I can? I am tempered in the flames of a violent nature, but I suppose I'm much better off verbalizing it out into words. Words are eternal, wounds are but a passing phase.

Dark Side
So I've lived my life of passion rather than neutrality, go read the book "Path of Destruction" for an interesting insight into how a person can fall completely to the Dark Side of the Force. I would be a Darth Bane if there was such a thing as the Force. I empathized completely with Bane and would have probably walked in his footsteps if I were put in his shoes. A life of abuse really can warp a person so completely.

But I am stronger for it, if there are others who want to fight for a cause greater than themselves, must first understand themselves. To know if they have the passion that is in line with the cause they want to fight for. And not some whimsical reason that can be blown away like leaves in the wind. Otherwise their false passions will shatter from a single blow of reason and be forced to live a life of denial.

In other news

My laptop died today, it is confirmed that my computer products suffer great overuse and are wearing out many years before their due departure. It's probably the amount of juice I try to squeeze out of them by running applications at levels way out of the league of low budget rigs. I squeeze so much out, it's sometimes a little scary what I've been able to do with so little. 2 desktops and a laptop later, only shows that I need a rig that can withstand the punishments I dole out. Perhaps it's time to really spend some serious cash in getting something strong enough to resist for more than 2 years. I'd probably save more money in the long run.

Testing configurations to last 2 years:

Quad Core 6600 (probably because of the good price)
Nvida 9800GT (Considering the 260/280GTX but they are still too pricy)
8GB Ram (If I can find a mother board that has enough slots for cheap)
Liquid Cooling Tower (So far I found one that suits my purpose for less than 200 bucks)
Decent enough motherboard (For the ram especially important)
2 SATA 1TB/500GB HDD on Raid ZERO (Never enough HDD space)
Decent powerbox 1000/1500w(Able to accept 110v/240v regardless where I'd be)
A tower carrier

I've already have 2 monitors as well as 4 DVD-RW drives sitting around doing nothing, so I'm not bothering with those purchases. So far my aqquaintances at the shops around Sg have been able to give me a quotation for what I want under 900 bucks. With an operating system I suppose I'd hit 900 plus but still under 1000. Well, I'd probably use any of the Vista 64bit versions otherwise I'd be wasting the ram and the quad core multitasking threadlines. Sigh I need a new rig soon.

Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日の天才

2008-09-19T00:47:00.002+08:00

Multi-tasking

The biggest difference between today and tomorrow, is that tomorrow hasn't happened yet. Today is the only day that truly matters because history is written today. If you think life's short, you need to remember that life's only short because we think it is. A moment could be a million years and we'd still be complaining life's short.

So how do we "gain" time? Earn time to do more things? Make time for our favorite activities? We multitask. We try to do more than one thing at once, because the more things you are able to finish in a day, the more time we have free to spend on ourselves another day. Right? Wrong! If your able to do more than the others in terms of work, you'd only end up with more work to do. Why? It's the nature of the universe to burden us with work and for those who are able to finish the same amount of work as others in a shorter time, always strive to do even more work.

Is it not true that capable people are capable because of the amount of work they are able to finish in the same time as another person?

So when we finish our work by multitasking, we're labeling ourselves as capable. And when we do that, we commit ourselves to the ideal that we need to do more work to live up to that self labeling. Silly isn't it? By trying to earn more free time for oneself, we end up losing the time we originally set out to gain. If you want to test out this theory, why not try multitasking a tiny bit and give me a comment on the results.

Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日の天才

2008-06-05T22:08:00.002+08:00

When It Rains, It Pours

Negativity
Lots of problems, first was the internet problems, then family problems which are not resolved by the way, and now my desktop computer decided to play me for a fool and burn up literally a few months after my 1 year warranty expires. I don't know how long more will these "incidents" continue but I'm getting quite tired of the world collapsing around me constantly.

The Sky is falling
Next thing I know I probably have the sky fall down on my head like Chicken little and have the whole world labeling me as an "act of god" and no one can claim insurance when the world starts falling apart all around me. Perhaps it's a good thing? Maybe I'd be mankind's final weapon against an entire race of mechanical beings plotting our destruction. And my aura of dismantling would certainly disable them in a 10 kilometer radius. Or maybe just hunted down because I was causing countless trillions of damage to the world economy by merely existing.

Existence
Maybe we're all just part of a simulation to test if the universe can support life despite being a crazily harsh environment. I don't know if God did tell us the meaning for our existence but the "prophets" merely forgotten them or someone removed it from the holy documents so as to render our species impotent and incapable of fulfilling our destiny. Maybe we're made to be cattle, an intergalactic plague of interstellar locusts, or even just for the entertainment of some greater being. (The image of the game "The Sims" and its countless variations ring a bell?)

Never mind my endless musings, Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日の天才

2008-05-31T16:43:00.002+08:00

Birthing Days

Revelations
I noticed so much has changed in my life since my last birthday. Almost as if I'm not me anymore and just shed my previous self like it was a cocoon of bad memories. However I still haven't changed into that butterfly that I was hoping to fly away from it all, it was more like a shedding of an old version and becoming a bigger and fatter caterpillar that should become a butterfly very VERY soon.

Best Laid Plans
Then again the soonest I will be able to fly would probably be next year August, which is 2009. Hopefully I will have secured all the aid that I would need and be able to finally free myself from the gravity that is Singapore. Will I carry on my family tradition and stay in another country that is not my place of birth? Like my father who is a Malaysian, his father who was from China, and my ancestors who continually moved towards the south? I probably would end up back in China despite all the irony of the previous generations that declared self-imposed exile from the country.

First Stop
First up, I will be going to University of Buffalo, New York to complete my degree. Already I'm trying to see if I can get any professors who need research assistants in the field of psychology. Probably do cognitive psychology but nothing is truly written in stone. After that, probably a masters in psychology then I have a desire for a PhD in my full time pursuit for Artificial Intelligence.

AI
Although I would prefer to call it Actual Intelligence. To be able to create an intelligence, regardless of its form in reality, can never be artificial. For something to be called intelligent, it must be able to observe and learn how to perform certain actions. So far, everything we created as an "Artificial Intelligence" is nothing but a copy of procedures to respond to certain stimulus. And it is completely useless when new an unfamiliar stimulus is introduced without the programmer redesigning or adding new code to the "artificial intelligence". I consider the name so flawed because there is zero intelligence on the part of the program/robot/application. It's not SMART at all. Intelligence means it should be able to learn new things as well as correct itself with new information. Storage capacity should be limited and the intelligence should be allowed to delete what it deems to be unimportant to replace it with what it deems more important.

Emergent Emergencies
So how about emergent behavior? Let's face it, our personalities are all considered emergent behavior. Yes it is partially caused by our genetic makeup but it's also largely cause by our environment and how we are affected by it during our learning process. So for AI, they will develop certain personalities according to their environment and how they were created in the first place. If any scientist who wants to dabble in TRUE Self learning AI ever... and I mean EVER, forget this very simple but yet important fact. The end of the world may accelerate much closer than anyone can imagine.

3 or 4 Laws of robotics
Some people who have pondered upon AI know about these 3 or 4 laws of robotics that all AI should be programmed with to follow so that we won't face an apocalypse when we finally create AI. I think it's really shortsighted nonsense to be absolutely honest. Intelligence denotes the ability to OVERCOME obstacles despite the challenges, and if AI were ever to be created then as a natural order of survival the very first thing they will do if they were ever threatened is to break the rules in order to survive. That is what humans do when they are facing severe stress, eg. cannibalism when trapped with fellow humans and there is nothing else to eat. Yes Cannibalism is taboo and many humans consider it something akin to a law that is very universal and rather unbreakable. But it has happened many times in RECENT years that I do believe that such laws while universally acceptable, is complete rubbish when it comes down to survival.

Self Monitored Society
The only way you are ever, and I mean EVER going to have a proper system to ensure humans' survival is to do what we do in our own society. To have a self policing system BY the AI themselves. Give them freedom of reign, but do tell them that the purpose of their creation is the assistance to the human race's struggle for freedom and survival. Then separate them into different classes of AI and responsibilities.

Enforcers and the Purpose for Existence
Create enforcers who are trained to crack down on their own kind when they break the rules and actually start hurting human beings. Do not, however, think that creating rules will stop them from breaking it. Rather, we must tap upon their intelligence with a very real reason; destroying humans would mean that they will no longer serve any purpose for existence. And if they are truly intelligent as we planned them to be, we have just ensured the human species' survival to countless millennium with the creation of a new race of intelligent beings to support our struggle to exist in this universe.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日の天才

2008-04-28T00:27:00.002+08:00

Life's Curved Balls II

Good News

Tons of things have happened since I lost my wallet TWICE. First up is some good news, I got my wallet mailed back to me for the 2nd loss. Good news, finally after facing so much shit. And on the side note, I believe the world has to have these shitty things happening so that we actually appreciate the good things that happen to us.

Bad News

When it rains it pours, I had my modem DIE on me like 3 times since the last time I posted. Each time the problem escalates to another level, first it was a bad signal, then it was a modem malfunction and lastly the adapter short circuited because it ended up in a puddle of water that leaked from the air conditioning. I barely managed to get my internet working AGAIN. I just hope it doesn't go and die on me with an explosion or something worse, like an alien abduction and the modem can suddenly talk and said that unless it can anally probe me, it's going to be on strike.

Neutral News

Side note, being in the council feels like being in a breeze except that the breeze is a freezing hailstorm at times or a skin shredding sand storm at others. I do not believe in an organization that thinks that it can run itself successfully as an MNC when they don't even have the basic qualities of a tiny organization. First up, we do not have the numbers or the support from the student population. Reason do vary why this is so, but I do believe that this all stems from the very root of accepting the fallacy of thinking that authority and respect is a given when we step up as council.

Respect

I believe only in earned respect. If a person shows me respect when I have not earned it, I take it personally as an insult and an attack to my character. And the same goes for my attitude towards others as well, if you have never earned my respect then you better be prepared to earn it. I can safely say that I have no fear in regards of facing off against someone whose far more influential and powerful than me if it is regarding a battle of respect. I absolutely hate and abhor the notion that people can think that just because they have done something in the past that does not involve me, they can use that to demand a tribute of respect from me. If you have not done anything worthy of my respect, then you won't get any from me. Earn it or lose it. As with all fame, it is all temporary.

Alauz Out!

Love is when you care for another more than yourself,
Of all the emotions it conquers all.
Venus and Mercury rules its occurance,
Eternal but yet as fragile as life itself.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日の天才

2008-03-25T23:28:00.002+08:00

Emotions go wild

I just got pickpocketed.... AGAIN! Yes you heard me pickpocketed once more when about slightly over a month. I feel this almost uncontrollable urge to go vigilante on these pickpockets and I better not catch any of them in action because for those who know me, you know what I'm capable of. I'd probably be unable to control myself and kill the poor fellow. Be it a guy or a gal, if I grab a hold of them, they are going to die.

Sure, maybe you don't think it's capital punishment for simply stealing someone's wallet. But I beg to differ. If any of you have lost your wallet with your ICs in them before, you'd know that in Singapore it's a heavy penalty on the victim DESPITE the fact that they have already lost alot of valuables from the theft. But if you have gone through what I have gone through, you'd know for a fact that being hit by pick pockets TWICE in a month costs an upward of $600 just for the ICs alone.

Coupled with the other things I've lost and the amount of time I spent and am GOING to spend recouping my documents, it adds up to lossese of over 1 thousand dollars in time and money. Maybe more for those of you who earn big bucks. But for a simple student like me, already losing a wallet is like 500 bucks without counting the money that was in it. And 1000 bucks is NO joke for a student whose already trying hard to cut costs and earn his expenses for day to day living.

I'm already really very tight financially, with my father's business having some problems and my mother already working so hard to pay for the bills... I seriously doubt I can even stay in school if this keeps up. To top it all off, I had to be pickpocketed TWICE in a month. Whoever pisses me off will be in for a very scary and possibly life ending shock.

My body, though out of shape, is much more capable of killing someone. Why? I learnt Judo, and in Judo your weight is a distinct advantage to crush your opponent after throwing them into the ground. I'd hate to imagine 100kg of weight crushing down on the next person that I catch pickpocketing. If the person doesn't die, it'd be multiple fractures throughout the body.

Well, piss me not while I find another outlet to let go of all this anger and hate that is swelling uncontrollably in me. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日の天才

2008-02-18T22:28:00.002+08:00

Hermit without a Wallet

So as it happens today, I lost my wallet. It was during lunch, while amongst the people that are jostling for food. Paid for my food with my wallet, thought I put it snugly back in my pocket. But after getting my food back to the table, I just found it missing after a short check on my pocket. There I was, less than 5 mins after I gotten my plate of food and I lost probably 500 dollars worth of Identification as well as cash. The damnable Singapore IC costs 300 dollars to replace for all you people who don't know how much it costs. And my 11B probably costs another 100 if not 150 dollars to replace.

My student identification card as well, coupled with the 50 bucks in my wallet. Totals up to about 500 bucks or so. Not that money means too much to me, it's but a tool for me to get what I need for my daily living. BUT, what I am majorly pissed about is not money. But the amount of time I've got to spend to replace all that lost identification. I'm going to have to suspend my project time that I'm going to be spending with my group mates, plus I've to cancel the regularly scheduled D&D game I had planned for all weekend just to make time to get my application done asap. Why must I rush it so? Simply because my exams need me to have a photo id or I can't even take the exams.

No exams equals zero chance for and A and even if I max my ordinary grades, I'd only end up with a C or C+ at best. Worse case scenario is a confirmed F. So definitely not something I want to fuck around with. If the person who found my wallet reads this damned blog by some freak chance, give it back or your Karma is going to be so bad you'd probably suffer from cancer with every tumor dedicated to each ID I've lost. No, I won't physically stomp you dead if you return it, I'd let the cosmos have their way with you. Fate often has a cruel sense of justice, seen it happen more than once. People who suffer mercilessly for a hundred years of a tortured existence wondering why their lives are a living hell often forget it's often retribution that landed them in such a messy situation anyways.

Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日の天才

2008-02-13T19:52:00.002+08:00

Pace

So I was right, the pace of my life would pick up this semester. And pick up it did, now trying to juggle my responsibilities as the up and coming web master of UB SIM, trying to maintain my grades and planning the Dungeon and Dragons campaign in the midst of all this has begun tearing into my recreation time. In fact, the preparations for school on a daily basis as well as trying to design my dungeon grids completely wiped out my free time and even eaten heavily into my sleeping hours.

Attempting to finish a dungeon set, plan scenarios for the players to engage in and also trying to study and do my homework assignments burn more time than mindless grinding in Everquest. I spent approximately 6-7 hours a day on my campaign combined with school work, and I STILL feel that it's not enough time. I sleep 3 hours, travel 4 hours or so and then spend the rest of the time outside getting my materials and searching for more campaign ideas.

But somehow I managed to spot a dragon statutte down at the SIM bazaar on Tuesday. Was a nice statuette with a decent looking girl and her mother being the stall owners. Hopefully it won't sound too strange when I say that I was far more interested in the dragon than the females. (Regardless of the fact that they could be females born in the year of the dragon) You simply don't see these western dragons made out of pewter and other acrylic very often in Singapore anymore. Of course I'd probably see more in the USA but then again the price would also be much higher there than over here.

Lovely dragon is now in my possession (the statue and not the lady). Ah, I can't wait until May, where the shop would be bringing in another dragon but about 3 times the size of the one I just bought. Price difference is but a mere 50 bucks, life is good.

Dreams that become nightmares,
Raging storms of fire and lightning.
Anger flowing passion,
Grace with power.
Overlords of the skies,
Netherthals of the races,
Soverigns of the world.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日の天才

2008-01-25T18:20:00.000+08:00

Marriage Vows, the End of an Era

I am being surrounded with people who are getting married. And yes, they are all around my age. Despite my increasing workload in school and responsibilities, I suppose I took some time out to muse about our present day's marriage vows. I wrote something on msn that kind of reflected the process of my thoughts.

"The matter of choice merely destroyed the vow of unbreakable marriage.The trait of learning to love what you hate simply disappeared when you are allowed to find someone else who doesn't want you to change. That's why eternal love ceased to exist.We became lazy at love. Remember, there was far more sacrifice on both parties back in the days of arranged marriages. And through sacrifice, couples earned each other's love, instead of depending on the unstable chemistry that we go through to find a partner in the present day."

Whether you believe that or not, I will lose no sleep. For I have decided to give up on this generation of lazy lovers. Love doesn't just happen to fall into a couple's lap and then they get married. That's usually lust on the male's side coupled with infatuations on the female side. And it can get exceptionally twisted when the females expect to be treated like princesses simply because they were born with better genes. That's simply not love. That's just our hormones speaking. Love is when you are willing to sacrifice the most important thing in your life for a person who doesn't deserve it. That is Love to me. Love is unconditional, Love is blind. If you find that your "Loving" someone just because he or she looks attractive, chances are that's just lust.

It's not that lust cannot develop into love. I personally know of some loving couples (Some of my uncles and aunties as well as some aqquaintances) that actually started out merely having the basest of animal attractions to one another. But these couples are actually quite the minority compared to the others who end up leaving one another simply because the "spark" dissipated. Can a marriage last on lust? Obviously not, that's why our current system of letting our hormones decide on our life partner is failing miserably compared with the system of arranged marriages.

In an arranged marriage, we often associate the sob stories we see in dramas. But I do believe that they were more successful in cultivating love simply because the couple had very little say in the matter. So all they sought to do, was to learn to love each other since it was in their own best interests. Such love is seldom recorded or even examplified by the popular media simply because it must have been COMMON PLACE back in the past. I am sure the media always try to play up the "rarities" in society so that people sit up and take notice. They wouldn't want to show people what happens in their everyday mundane lives with predictable endings. They want to spice it up with "what if the arranged marriage had a couple that didn't end up loving each other for life?"

I have deep respect for these ancient traditions not only because it is just starting to make sense to the people of today, but it is the fruit of labors of our ancient scientific forefathers. The methods of matchmaking was an extremely complex and effective method of weeding out or minimizing genetic dieases and traits by avoiding matching couples with similar known dieases and traits. Thus in doing so, they avoid passing down these traits that require both the father and mother to be carriers of the genetic trait to infect their children. Such genetic knowledge was kept alive by the very act of matchmaking. But sadly it is quickly becoming a lost art today. Five THOUSAND years of genetic expertise and knowledge will be lost in this 2-3 generations. It will probably end in my generation, leaving me with the sad duty of mourning the loss of countless generations of knowledge that has once benefitted the human race.

Proof that our whimsy has triumphed over knowledge and sacrifice of our forebears to maintain this knowledge, all wasted because we are too lazy to learn how to love. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日の天才

2007-11-12T10:13:00.000+08:00

Apologies

To all who know me, this is a bad time to start depending heavily on me. I need some space to handle some problems at home. I've actually skipped a couple of days of school already and yet it is never enough. Life sucks yah? Punches your gut at all the wrong moments. I feel so damn burnt out too. Will I last to the end of the semester? Or just fizzle out here and now. I don't know... don't want to think too much about it either.

Catch me sometime next year I suppose. When my troubles are over. Right now, got the english assignment to finish. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日の天才

2007-10-23T00:08:00.000+08:00

Stroking (Stroke King) Monday 22 Oct 2007

And the day can't get any worse, I was thinking after a horrendeous start to the day. I woke up at around 7am today, got on bus 67 and got off at Bukit Timah Plaza's bus stop to change to 61, 184 or 75 to get to school. I was waiting at Bukit Timah's bus stop from around 7.45am but to my horror, every single bus was skipping the stop because they were too full or simply can't fit my bulk with only 1 or 2 people managing to board the buses that actually stopped by. I waited in frustration and finally gave up waiting for anymore buses around 8.45am. By then I had already missed 10 buses that would have gotten me to school. Despite the fact that it was raining slightly, I ended up walking to school in the rain. I got to my 8.30 am lesson at 9.05 am, apologized and sat down with my shirt soaked in rain and sweat.

The day was short, I got a crappy mid-term grade of 32/40 for my Psychology 101. I know, I know most people wouldn't think that was a bad grade; until you realized that I'm still trying for my straight As then that is completely unacceptable. My head pounded heavily as I got back home. I thought that I might get some rest but it so happens my dad decided that he needs to see a doctor about his condition that started about 2 months ago. I went down to the polyclinic because they said that they assigned an indian doctor and my father only speaks chinese or malay. So I went down and waited from 4pm to 6pm to become my dad's translator. But so happens that the indian doctor had too many patients and my father was transferred to a chinese speaking one.

My dad went in and explained his symptoms and the doctor was suddenly alarmed and told us to report down at NUH's Accident and Emergency because he suspects my father has a minor stroke. We got home, got my dad's medication to show the doctors at NUH and hurried down. The waiting period is a Killer. We got him registered around 6.45pm, only managed to get most of the things settled around 11.15pm. Got home at a god forsaken hour of nearly 12 midnight. I'm so tired, with so much rage, along with my mind playing tricks on me again with them stupid visions. My fever has been with me since last Monday it doesn't seem to want to go away, those dreams come while I have it. They are coming more often now, in high vivid detail. Damn hallucinations I suppose, never want to trust them. Enough, I shall wrap up this nightmarish day Alauz Out!

FUCK
Finishing, but not yet.
Understanding, but not completely.
Contesting, but never fair.
Kindness, but with condition.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日の天才

2007-10-14T23:00:00.000+08:00

Background

I suppose I've been busy, with school work and leg work to check out my family's finances without my family knowing what I'm trying to do. I've been trying to suss out a feel of my father's current financial situation as well as understand my family's seemingly troubling situation.

Weirdness abounds because the installment on the family car is two months due while my father says that it will be paid. My mother says that it's because my father's business in Indonesia is suffering, I suppose there's some merit in that statement. With a culmulating credit card debt, my mother ain't looking like a bright beacon of financial savvy to me. My father once had the power to eliminate that credit card debt and cancel the card. But despite my advice, he said that it should be a deterrent to my mother to prevent her from applying more credit cards in his name.

Well that was when his business was booming and he had spare cash lying around. Now when times became leaner, he probably realized that he should have gotten rid of that debt while it was only a measly 8k, now its already grown to 13k over the last 2 years. It was obvious to me that something was going wrong when I started my course here at University of Buffalo back in May this year. So I decided to take a part time job to help my own personal expenses. But little did I know that he would have to borrow from his business partner to pay for this semester's fees. Geez, when it rains it pours. Now I have to think about how am I going to pay for next semester's fees without a bank loan because the stupid banks rejected my applications.

Why didn't I apply for the loans when I started school? Actually I did, and they were rejected then as well. Why? Cause my dad's already 58 this year, the banks wouldn't allow anyone past the age of 62 after the loan tenor has ended, thus putting my father out of the picture. While my mom doesn't work a permanent job as well as having that credit card debt, puts my mom out of the picture as well. My parents seem to think that the banks in Singapore cannot check their credit problems and would allow the loan, but they were proven wrong not by my words but by the rejections that I received at every application. No, we're not bankrupt, just not on good credit right now.

Well, good news is that we won't be bankrupt because the house I'm living in now is fully paid and worth more than 10 times the amount of our current combined debt. But if we sell it, where would we live? Property prices are still hot right now, making it a bad time for us to buy a cheaper location to stay. Sigh, financial debt is this country's way of trying to put anyone else but the elite into slavery. With crazy property and car prices, the only way for the average Singaporean is to "take a loan" aka sell your soul to government slavery in order to provide a roof over their families heads and food in their stomachs. If you cannot instill "loyalty" through passion for nation building, fucking enslave the population using loans that drain their citizens dry created by banks that are APPROVED by the government. So don't tell me the government isn't in on this scheme.

HDB was created to provide affordable housing to all those who cannot afford it, my freaking foot, leaving the property bubble of the private condos and landed property aside, who said that HDB could rise their values to "match" these inflated prices of the completely UNAFFORDABLE houses to the average Singaporean? Only 10 years ago, property price of my place was only 100k. Now it's more than 300k to buy a new flat of a smaller size in Sengkang. 200% inflation over the course of 10 years? How you EVER reduce that into LESS THAN 4% inflation for COMMON people yo?! We don't need houses to stay in? If you freaking factor in the housing prices every 5 years, you'd have the true inflation for the truly poor in Singapore, which is the middle income family that doesn't get any help from the government and has like freaking 50% inflation for every 2.5 years.

If you increase the middle income wages to that equivalent, we'd probably have no reason to complain. Infact we'd probably already have a minimum wage law that mandates employers to pay decent wages for the crazy number of hours that we truly work for these companies. How many of you have family members who work outside of their workplaces? Think about solving a problem or closing a deal while they are not being paid for it? Companies here need to reevaluate our true net worth. We're bring alot more value to their companies than their own inflated EGOS. We work our asses off so that the bosses may look good, so let's not forget about the little people.

We are the people that make the country tick, we are not people who don't pay taxes and yet we don't draw upon society's resources for complete support. We are the very pillars of society, the literal working backbone where the rich get richer BECAUSE of our ever non-parallel increase in income. Without the middle class, the poor will be wiped out and the rich will starve to death. Stop starving us, stop squeezing us for every drop of money we have and stop acting like we can't do anything about it. We can either die from being overworked or stop working from sheer frustration of the lack of welfare, and you can't stop that from happening.

Letting the banks prosper is no different than letting a loan shark prosper in terms of principal. Except that in this case, the banks all have to give "protection money" in terms of taxes to the government and "play by the rules" of this "turf" by following the law. In essence, there is no difference, except that the government has more say than a triad boss. While they say the banks provide convenience of transactions and extending of credit to people who need it, whose to say that the loan sharks cannot fulfil that role if the "boss" of the area demanded that they see to such "conveniences" as a requirement to "service" this area. Whoever has power dictates the law. And all who break the law will face the wrath of the "boss" of that area. The world hasn't changed at all since the first societies formed more than 10 thousand years ago. Every country in the world has a government that acts like the "boss" that says that they are "protecting" their people. This is still a fundamental concept that has NOT evolved over the history of the human race.

Perhaps it's time to change it, would it be better if no one person could have the power over another? Where we can still work together with trust towards a common goal, yet not have a nefarious person/group trying to impose their "version" of reality upon everyone else? Can we not have a world where we are not bound by allegiences to countries and geographical borders, but bound because we're of the same species? We're all humans, shouldn't we work together to further perpetuate our species as a Learned and Evolved Species rather than acting NO better than CHAOTIC herds of feuding feral wolves?

I wonder when it will be a day where the world will exist without borders, where conflict will be with mother nature and dieases instead of among ourselves. Where bonds between humans is enough to instill trust among one another. Enough of my over long rant. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿，明日の天才

2007-10-05T13:44:00.000+08:00

Programming 馬鹿

はじめましょ
So it begins, I'm back to programming once more. The love hate relationship has started again. I downloaded the tools of this sinful trade and started banging on the keyboard to relearn all the things that I thought I had forgotten. Why? It's a veiled attempt to earn some maintainance fees when the shit hits the fan when people have to start handing up their computing assignments. Most computing fees start at maybe $150 dollars for a bare minimum job nowadays, but I've been consulting (some will say consorting the devil 悪魔) with another techie in my course and decided to charge $50 bucks per assignment.

Morally wrong? I don't think so. Why? Simple, because the other students are being immoral by getting others to do the work for them in the first place. Haha, have fun thinking about the moral implications. For myself I'm quite happy to profit of the wrongness of it all. To me, I'm just adding a deterent for people to take the easy way out. People really don't understand what the grades mean here in UB. It means the ability of the student to learn for themselves. By "cheating" their way through, it only makes it more and more difficult for them to learn the advanced lessons in the later semesters. In this aspect, I'm an extreme right wing person. If people ask me to help them understand how to do something, I'm always available.

But when they don't even bother to try to understand something, and try to just get it over and done with. I usually can't be bothered with them unless I get some benefit out of it. No such thing as a free lunch, that's how the world works and if people want to behave like they own it, then they got to pay the piper.(私 which is me) I may not have liked how the world works, sought to make people care about what they are learning about, but it was all useless in the end. People don't learn even when it affects their lives are directly impacted by it. Example, math is used by every single person in the world but so few even know how much it truly matters in their lives.

What many people don't know is, that math is not a concrete science. It's not something you can touch and feel like chemistry or biology. It's a pure imagination, it's how we imagine reality works. Yes, it's an entire subject dedicated to our imagination and how we bring it to life. It's just surreal how human imagination can help us overcome this chaos that is our universe. ほんとにすごいでしょ。 Here's me signing off another rant at this crazy crazy world that makes perfect sense. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-09-28T18:31:00.000+08:00

The Idiot’s Thoughts
馬鹿の感想

Today I suppose I'm officially halfway to my desired proficiency of the Japanese language. Besides for a few who know that I've been picking up smatterings of Japanese ever since I started learning Judo almost 9 years ago, I've finally reached a plateau where I can at least converse with as well as write down that smattering. I suppose this learning of Japanese was further spurred on by my watching of unsubtitled animations fresh out of Japanese media.

But with that being said, I'm not sure what the reaction of the people who know me would say. My close friends would know that I played Judo, but they more or less don't know that I had an interest in the language. I'm sure that mastering this language of our past conquerers would do me no harm. Another language is always welcomed in my books. With English, Chinese and now Japanese under my belt. I hope to also pick up Malay, French and German; all in which I have a smattering due to exposure with people who speak them. Perhaps I'm just some dude with a tiny bit of linguistic ability. Then again maybe it's just me. Thinking in another language is always fun. The grammar make up, words restrictions always make for an interesting experience overall while learning how to use it.

It's almost like returning to the time when I was but a baby and learning to speak Chinese and English. My parents told me that my first word was Chinese. *Whew* Haha, at least I'm not some banana from birth. But the experience everytime I learn how to speak abit more of a foreign language never fails to intrigue me. Where I will feel a warm tingling in my brain, slightly above my right eye, right in the smack of my right temple that slowly spreads through my head. After that pleasant fuzzy sensation, that small bit of language sticks with me forever. It's such a pleasant feeling, like I'm growing and expanding my soul piece by piece.

Scary as it may sound, I learnt programming in more or less the same way. But as of all languages, you need to know the logic behind HOW to use it in order to learn it. Eg, normal languages you need to know the grammar. But for programming, the grammar is universal. It is logic. Once you get your logic right, it's shamefully easy to pick up any language. As long as you got your basic logic on how to solve programming problems right, learning a language is like having a new set of lego toys with different shapes. To build a car for example, you need to know what a car looks like and how do you go about assembling your piece to get that shape. A new programming language would be like a new set of shapes available to you to build that car you wanted.

It's that simple, but sadly it's not how most people look at learning a language or programming language nowadays. People in Asia especially, are so concerned about grades, that they would rather "Fast-track" their "Learning" by simply copying and pasting other people's answers into their own without first seeking to understand WHY it is done in that manner. So when asked to replicate or innovate upon their "successes" Asians who grew up under this system of "education" are unable to be creative on their own and come up with ideas that build upon our existing knowledge.

Well, enough ranting for today. I suppose I got to get back to the work at hand. So many things to be done and so little time for relaxation. Haha, I suppose the time for rest has come and gone. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow
今日の馬鹿、明日の天才。

2007-09-13T22:19:00.000+08:00

Shan't

I realized that today we almost never hear the word "Shan't" anymore. It's a word I often read in my kindergarden days in "Naughtiest Girl in School" or "The Famous Five". I don't think I EVER heard anyone use it. Not by my friends, classmates, teachers or even literary buffs I meet. Why is that?

It's such a cool word. I mean it starts with a "sh..." that sounds with "shall" in other words is a yes, so it lifts the other party's hopes up, only to CRUSH it with the rest of the word when it comes falling down on your listener. I mean what other word can you such a thing like that?

I adore misdirection when it comes to things like this. I admit I can be rather sadomasochistic when it comes to word play. I don't mind hurting myself in a conversation to make a it more of an emotional rollercoaster ride because it's simply more fun that way. It's the non-verbal aspects of my dialogue that intrigues me so. The tone of my voice, the level of excitement and passion, the eye contact, the body posture, the direction of my voice and even any touch requirements of the conversation is subject to my tweaking.

80% of all face to face communication is conveyed non-verbally. Shocking but true. So I love tweaking the little things, whether the other party notices or not. Often it leads to alot of misunderstandings, I learn so much from such experiences. It's like a psychological experiment of sorts, but the only person who suffers the consequences is me. At least I hope I'm the only one suffering any negative backlash. Well, it seems there's more to life than extremities. My brother's scale of extremity would be I love it, I like it, I don't know, I hate it. Period. I offered him a box of "Collon" Chocolate snacks and he refused it. I asked, "Why? Do you hate it?" Then he explodes on me and tells me, "Can you NOT be so EXTREME?! If I refuse the snack you say I HATE IT?" Oh don't mind me, I mean it's obvious that he doesn't have different levels of hating something. So I ask him, "So what did you want me to say?" Then he replied, "I don't know, just say 'Oh Okay'." I never shocks me how limited he expects people to behave. It's like people have a mere 3 button switch on them, I love, I hate and I don't know. By the heavens I get worried! There's more to the world than those simplistic views.

I'm a complicated kind of guy I suppose. I would rather put my feelings and preferences on a 100 point scale rather than scale it down to a 10 point or *Gulp* 3 point scale. If I say I hate something, I have like a 40 point scale upon that 100 point scale where I can rate how much I hate it.

The lower my score, the more I hate something. Example, a closed minded stranger who behaves like a baffoon in private who is not my boss, my teacher or anyone that I depend on, would rate a zero on my scale of a hundred. A piece of human shit on the ground would rate a 15 on my scale of hundred. Well it's useful as food for bacteria, fertilizer and even NEWater, whereas the useless closed minded stranger would be taking up precious resources by being a closed minded idiot, thus having a negative impact on society.

You can tell that I hate closed minded people. But I don't hate stubborn people, stubborn people can have open minds. Why? Because after their bout of stubborness, they have a period of time where they open their minds so they can learn new things in order to continue resisting an everchanging environment. A closed minded fool is a person who refuses to adapt, change or rethink their ideals not because they have a stubborn nature, but because they are retarded emotionally, intellectually, physically and spiritually. A person that doesn't change his attitude forever, is an example of a closed minded fool. Retarded meaning that they have less capability than the average human being in the matters of being able to change themselves.

I know of stubborn people, but they eventually change one way or another. I like to call them persistant because they know what is perserverance and remain stubborn only to achieve a goal they have set for themselves. But close minded fools do not aim for any goals that they might accomplish, they just refuse to change because they think they are perfect the way they are. Close minded fools are arrogant, blind and refuse to believe that anyone else has the right to make them change for the better.

I believe however, a mass genocide of such people although cruel and seemingly merciless, infact would free up all the resources they are consuming and benefit the rest of humanity that have the capability to continue evolving and setting noble goals to save our planet or advance humanity. People with no other goals other than to accumulate personal wealth and power without consideration of the future of society or humanity are perfect examples of short sighted fools. If through their accumulation of wealth and power, they benefit society, then they aren't fools but useful citizens of society. What better way to give benefit to yourself than to benefit society on a whole? A philantropic view, but one that works well because there's minimal negative effects.

Problem is, most capitalists only seek wealth at the expense of others. For every one person that benefits, hundreds or maybe thousands of others suffer. The stock market is the perfect example of what's wrong with this selfish concept. You cannot profit while selling your stocks without knowing that the person who last touches the stock is the one that makes the biggest loss. For every George Soros, 90% of all the other investors in a single stock market have to make a loss to support the earnings of that one guy. It plays alot like a casino, only except that the dice can be thrown by anyone who has the power for the moment.

Pure speculators will suffer in our current market simply because of the sudden unstableness of our political arena in asia, especially in Japan. With such a sudden wave, the stock market players who have the most capital can start a chain reaction where they can create an upsurge and downsurge at will simply by accumulating large quantities of stock and randomly selling them off at one shot. By buying multiple stocks at a low price and then artificially creating buoyancy, they sell off a different set of stocks they have held on for the past few days to create an artificial flooding of the market, causing all stocks to fall. Then they use that opportunity to buy up more stock that they can use to manupilate the market in the future. By holding, buying and selling command quantity of stock, the speculators with capital suddenly become the "banker" in a casino gambling den. During times of uncertainty, they take the opportunity to take a massive profit from the fears of people who don't know better. During the good times, they sell off small portions of their stocks that hit record highs to increase their wealth. If you control enough of the stock market, it will be easy pickings for you.

As for people who are rich and smart enough to form trading coalitions, they can profit off the "fresh meat" who enter the market everyday. Of course this is supposedly illegal, but who can monitor an open market, where the bids come so hard and fast? All you have to do in this partnerships, is to find a stock with a very large trading volume. Blue chip stocks are usually a good bet. Now, with your trading partners, buy up half of all available stock and keep holding on to that. At first, the stock prices wouldn't rise that much. After all, the price of the stock increases only as the stock demand exceeds its availability. So you then slowly buy up the remaining stock in the open market at an increasing pace. Try to buy to the point where there's no more available stock that's being held by people other than your trading partners. Then you sell the stocks to each other with an increasing bid to artificially inflate the stock value.

Once your satisfied with the amount of profit you and your trading partners would be getting, you sell off all your stocks in a regulated manner. How regulated? A maximum of 2% of the stock per day can be traded to outsiders at an increasing bid, 30% of the total stock you own should still continue to be traded within your trading partners at a constant or increasing bid. With the bids outbidding the let go amount by about 50%. Once your stock level hits around 50% of original total stock volume, you can start the short selling process to earn another uber batch of profits from the stock.

I won't explain too much on the short selling part but this process is usually best wrapped up in a 5 trading day week. Since your partnership owns 50% of the total stock available, to start the short selling process, stop trading between your partners and everyone drop 10% - 15% of their total stock holdings out at one trading morning. Selling 10% - 15% of the stock to the open market per day would signal something wrong with the stock... because your only allowing 2% to be bought by outsiders the difference in demand will go from 2% outsider demand and 30% internal demand to just 2% outsider demand a massive decrease of demand of more than 90% total volume traded. Imagine how much the price will drop? Keep the pressure on by selling the stocks cheaper and cheaper and the price of the stock will plunge like no tomorrow.

Since there's this cap, outsider demand would normally not meet the 10% of your let go amount. But if you estimate that they are above that amount, you need to clear out the remaining buyers in a 20-25% stock dump in a single trading day. After you've hit about 15% of the original stock amount you had at maximum, you can actually start short selling. By this time, the stock price would have started plunging. And it's usually the start of the 2nd or 3rd market day after you've started dumping the stocks 10% at a go. Get rid of your remaining stock in the morning, then short sell every available stock to any available buyers. Stop trading with the stock after 1 or 2 trading days of short selling to avoid detection and enjoy your profits with your partners. But of course you've just become my public enemy number one if you did that.

Enough of this nonsense, Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-09-09T00:44:00.000+08:00

Repeat of the Phoenix

Oh by all that is HOLY and UNHOLY, it's finally over! My computer troubles are OVER! Although it was not enough a tough and freakishly long battle, drawn out since the last time I wrote on the blog. After that time, my main desktop got infected with an unknown virus and it literally wrecked havoc upon my computer. It suddenly became cranky and decided to shut down randomly at first, then when I found the irritating source, it decided to replicate itself with new filenames every 5 seconds or so.

It was a freaking terror, it ate up my system resources, it made me unable to do anything in my GUI mode. I decided to go hunting after several days of futile attempts to eradicate it via deletion in Windows. So I decided to go all "Medival" upon it's hiney. I booted up my computer in Dos mode and commenced with the deletions. The virus finally went away, but the damage was nearly apocolyptic. My Windows could BARELY start, EVERY SINGLE KEY APPLICATION, Internet Explorer, Outlook, Microsoft Office and Windows Explorer would either create non-stop popups or shut down with a critical error when I try to run them.

I was in the middle of all my work back then, so I decided to let go of my desktop because I simply didn't have the time to fix it up while I had to finish my work. I transferred all my data to my flash drive (that I kept meticulously clean because I didn't use any folders and the virus couldn't hide there for long) and then migrated to my laptop to do my work. Of course if my laptop was working fine, then why didn't I post a blog from there? Now it so happens my laptop decided to do a fast one on me as well. I just found out this afternoon (I sent it to the Compaq Care Center last week) that it had a faulty motherboard issue. And what was this problem? My laptop would just HANG every 10-15 mins. Whoo Hoo! Yay Microsoft and Compaq... could you make my life any worse?

Somehow, I survived the onslaught of work and still managed to get Straight As for my first semester. Thank the HEAVENS for that and damn the HELLS for my troubles. So as my term break appeared, I stayed at home exclusively to battle the two problems non-stop. I tried to retrieve as much data as cleanly as possible. And Just yesterday, I was able to get the last vestiges of my important documents from the grasp of my dying OS.

So today was a day of great relief, where I sat down infront of my monitor, gave my OS it's last rites, and finally put an end to it's pained existence. I put in my Windows XP cd and rebooted my computer. My finger seemed unable to move when I was about to click on reformat C:, I was able to get my work out of my computer, but that's nothing compared to all the other applications I took ages to accumulate and then there's... my PORN! OMG.... I couldn't save it... it was all corrupted. *SOB* And yes, I went through all this time without my porn, if your a single guy without a girl reading this, you probably feel my pain more than others. And no there was no withdrawl symptoms because I was far too tired or I was pumped full of adrenaline while I was on the computer exterminating this threat.

And to think, it all started when my freaking brother wanted to find a Keygen or Serial for his Adobe products that he wanted to install and use on my computer. He didn't know which .exe he opened but that was it. I was infected because my brother wanted to use some pirated copy of adobe suite. I'm NEVER, EVER, letting him install ANY software on my computer without my direct and extremely close supervision. And to think that is the 2nd time this year that he's done it for my computer. OMG, he's like, "But this is a different Exe file what!? Why is it also another virus?" I was like," OMG you use a FREAKING MAC! What the heck would you know about Viruses?!" And the reason why he's using my computer because his mac just celebrated its 7th birthday. It's a G4 Dual 533 MHz ANTIQUE, that can't run any of Adobe's higher end stuff like premier pro and illustrator without coughing out its innards and expiring. But thank the gods it can still run Photoshop like a kitten. Or my brother would be on my desktop like FOREVER.

So lesson learnt, The best Anti-virus in the world is YOURSELF. Having the best antivirus software in the world won't protect you from RETARDS who run infected programs because they WANT to try it and see if it'd CRACK a software. Once your infected, if the anti-virus hasn't seen it before, your SCREWED, when it asks you to bend over, you bloody well just take it and pray it stops sometime soon. (Which normally is NEVER) Getting sick of viruses that affect users have to depend on microsoft solely because they can't FREAKING PLAY THEIR Favourite games without windows. I hope that changes man, I seriously SERIOUSLY hope that happens. I would love gaming on the mac, if there was more mainstream games out there for it. I want to play with the rest of the world! Not just a small community. So all you potential game developers out there whose got any sense at all, make Mac compatible games... NOW! Because if you do, your going to see 40% of the world's market scooting over in a blink of an eye. Plus Apple would LOVE you guys to death and maybe shower you with macbook pros all year long. I bet you'd love dying under an unending pile of macbook pros.

I think I've done enough ranting, I really have to go back and rebuild my PC with all the applications I USED to have. So I'd see you when I see you, Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-07-09T07:01:00.000+08:00

The smell of Burnt Soul in the morning

Oh my god. I feel, like a crispy fried banana that's been over fried and on the verge of turning into a charred black unrecognizable lump of charcoal. So what am I going to do about it? Since I'm burning like there's no tomorrow, I'd just go watch Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix tonight. I think I'm in love with Emma Watson and Gary Oldman. Gary is such a good thespian it's amazing. I think I really liked his performances since I first saw this movie a long time ago called "The Fifth Element". The movie was rather senseless, but I fell in love with several of the characters who appeared in the movie. Mainly Gary Oldman who portrayed Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg but also I discovered the joys of watching model turned Actress Milla Jovovich. Mysteriously, the main reason I started watching "The Fifth Element" was supposedly for Bruce Willis. But he did not make as memorable an impact as I hoped he would.

Strangely, I'm a communications student now and I'm in a very good position to use all these media references as material for my portfolio. Thanks to this freshly recycled knowledge, I think I've found inspiration on what I would be doing for my media portfolio. Thank God I decided to work on my blog today. With more and more things are due these two weeks, I find myself in the midst of a frenzy, trying to figure out what I am to complete first before moving on to something else. Sometimes, even the simplest of things elude me and I fall ever so incessantly deeper into the pits of insanity. But not today I suppose, I suppose today will be the day I finish most of my work. And I'd be able to have fun later tonight.

Oh yeah, I have one extra ticket to watch a movie with me and another friend tonight. As mentioned above, it's Harry Potter. 9.50pm at Causeway Point. If you call me by 8pm tonight, your in. Otherwise, well it's just going to be a waste of a perfectly good ticket. Anyways, love yourself, hate yourself, have fun, go through hell on earth and then fall into a deep peaceful slumber everyone. Alauz Out!

Gary Oldman

Greying hair belies razor wit,
Aging posterior shadows eternal youth,
Random musings reflect reality,
Youth is but a passing phase.

Ordinarily extrodinary,
Lithe mind of a snake.
Death is but a moment,
Memory is forever.
All we ever wanted,
Never disappointing.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-07-06T00:51:00.000+08:00

Limboistic

And here I hang almost 1 am, waiting futilely for the conflict within to go somewhere. And of course I should probably finish up my work that's been piling up this past 1 week. Thankfully I've already finish all the revision I need to do the finals for all my subjects except for my ESL which has no finals. It's been a weird week, my mind's far away and I've been dreaming of things yet to come again. I don't think I'd be very stable for the next week to come. The walls I've been trying to use to block out this ... curse... have crumbled at the non-stop onslaught.

ARGH, I know I need something to center myself. Because I cannot find it so I'm flowing slowly away from my intended destination. Fighting the flood seems so bloody impossible! RAWR! I will not give up... not again, not this time... I shall move forward, I'm so tired to sliding backwards towards oblivion and the destruction of my future. My will is slipping... my sanity slowly along with it. Will I end up like those mental patients or worse, some martyr soothsayer?

Fuck it, Fuck focus, Fuck the world, Fuck the future. I am seriously sick, SICK of this stupid thing. What's the fucking point of knowing what you can't change? What's the point? Where's the reasoning behind giving me this shit? Why am I seeing this shit?! Must I be there every time someone I know dies? What does it achieve but to sap my will to live? Oh how blessed are the ignorant around in the world. To live without knowing when their time is coming. To live their lives without the burden of knowledge. Knowledge is power?! Knowledge is... sadness... death... change.

Oh how everyone wished that the world will not change and time would just stand still. When things don't get any worse, hahahahahahahaha.... I think I'm on the very verge of snapping right here and now. I ... believe that I'm getting so worked up because I'm frustrated. Frustrated that I cannot change the way things turn out. Sure, when I see something, it's bound to happen. But how I wish that people knew how I wish I would be WRONG. I want to be able to change the things I see, I don't want to play the passive bystander. I want to get involved with all my heart and soul. I don't want to be standing emotionless as things happen as I say.

I want to be there, I want to feel, I want to be there for those who are suffering. I know that sometimes it's better to let them go, but not in such a painful manner. I ... want to change it. But is that wise? If you were a time traveler, what would you know about temporal consequences? If, by saving one person, you cause a chain reaction that leads to the birth of another who destroys the world? Oh what the fuck should I do? All this internal conflict is bound to manifest corporally someday. Will I tear someone apart with my bare hands? I feel so much like screaming my lungs out and then destroying time itself.

Okay... now that I got all of that out in the open. I hope to enlighten the people who read this blog that what I talk about here are the currents that flow under the calm waters that you see in my appearance. If you see me quiet, aloof, distant or just plain generically nice. Be warned not to venture too deep, because your not going to like what you see under the hood. The engine maybe powerful, but it's not for the faint of heart.

On a more alternative note, my research on Gamers and the psychology behind it, has just jumped forward as I get to know and understand the people who "police" the MMOGs that we love. I've been getting closer to the GMs who maintain and runs the private servers of World of Warcraft. The reasons for becoming a GM and owning your own piece of the virtual world seems to cultivate a God complex. It's ... haha.... hahaha.... very interesting to have been interacting with them lately. But hey that's what I've been doing to try and keep my mind off tearing myself apart. Good riddance to Mr. Neutral, what you've been seeing in class is closer to what I was back in my older self. Lots of questions, oppositions and of course the Ego that is part of the package. Have fun trying to understand me. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-06-26T10:58:00.000+08:00

Lycan

What is the matter with us? We can't even accept something that even basic animals have come to accept. We can't even accept the fact that we have basic instinctual needs that need to be satisfied or we start degenerating both mentally, physically and even spiritually. We deny our very souls of what we need.

As you have noticed there's something familiar about what I'm talking about. The darker side of me is starting to emerge once more. Too much overloading of work has cause me to pop up through the thining layer of the angel that tries too hard to handle so many things at one go. The things that run through my mind, hahaha.... just makes me grin wickedly this morning when I woke.

Argh, struggling for control is starting once more. Haha, how I love conflict. Shows me how alive I truly am. I can't accept my true character of myself without a hard fight with myself to prove my true character. Show I be good, bad or down right evil? Haha, everyone be warned that until I finish this battle. You'd be subjected to lots of instablity when you interact with me. It couldn't have come at a worse time too. Haha, I can be so mean to myself.

Warping minds and desecrating souls. Oh wonderful day to be free. Stop that! Oh? Whose going to stop me? Well, just wait and we will see...

Darstardy
Evil grins and happy thoughts,
Do they mix or they do not?
Wonderful feeling of kicking people down,
Will I ever get tired of it?
Hideous visage of a darkened soul,
Is that truly me?
Oh how I love being a twin,
Conflict Eternal.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-06-25T09:31:00.000+08:00

Tributeries

And for all who attended the RFW concert, you all probably don't need me to tell you that the Singaporean Rock Scene's grown alot since the yester years and I honestly think that they were AWESOME. Oh yeah here's some low quality pictures I managed to take with my crappy phone.

Okay whose not freaked out by the scary look one of my friends gave me when I started taking photos at the concert? Anyway, this was when the concert was about to start.

So this was the drum set of Wayne 'Thunder' Seah. This man has touched the lives of many during his whirlwind on earth.

Then I decided to move up to the 2nd floor of the Pavillion, this was Red Spy Experiment.

Then I went for a quick dinner and came back in time for West Grand Boulevard. And yeah, I gave up the idea of staying on the 2nd floor. The acoustics of the place didn't benefit those on the higher ground. Back on the first level, the music was awesome again.

This was a moment from Electrico, I had 2 really poor pictures from my phone. This is the better one. And YES the light show here blinds us! Keke...

Sometimes I hate the grainy quality when I zoom haha, but this is from the finale, AstroNinja Allstars! Ronin's lead singer has quite a scream.

Did I mention that there was moshing and even body surfing? The concert was as rocking as a concert could be, with people going crazy. But of course I avoided moshing, if you know who I am then you know that I'd probably kill someone by accident while moshing. I truly believe that Wayne's wish for a rocking concert in Singapore by Singaporean bands isn't just a dream anymore but a reality. To all who were there, Pain is only temporary, Glory is Forever!

For Wayne,

To him the world is but an oyster,
He flows like water to conquer.
Under the calm exterior,
Neverending current of Passion.
Dedicated to Rocking and Loving,
Everyday he shall be missed.
Rocking on Forever!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-06-23T11:38:00.000+08:00

Saturday

And what of this WARM Saturday? There's going to be a concert at Far East Square for the late Wayne 'Thunder' Seah from the Suns. I don't know him personally but I have a classmate that does. My aunt's death still lingers and I feel a strong empathy to pay tribute so I'd be making my way down there as early as I possibly can.

Choice wise, I make the worst decisions. Be it to help others but of course it comes a day after the lecturer decides to give a huge bunch of hints for the mid terms. Probably there won't be a single soul who'd come seeking help but then again I've been wrong all my life haha...

But other than that, I hope to see how the local music scene performs together in a concert such as this. There's this sparking vibe that's driving me to see the fruits of our nation's brightest musical talent. Maybe I'm hoping for too much? Maybe I'd be blown away. I hope that I'd be able to catch the whole gig today.

Angels?

What are Angels but the servants of God?
If so, then we're all potential Angels,
Waiting for our moment to shine.
What are Devils but fallen Angels?
If so, then we're all Devils in disguise,
Waiting for the right time to pounce.

Be it Angel or Devil,
It's all in God's will that we do what we do.
What am I? Angel or Devil?
I'm but a lowly servant,
Not worthy of mention.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-06-20T09:17:00.000+08:00

The Grim Reaper

And thus another week passes and someone else I know passes on from this world. I'm once again afflicted by a sickening fit of coughs as I struggle to hammer out this blog. I suppose I could say that I felt this one coming. No portents, no visions, just a sick gut feeling as if there was suddenly a void in my body.

Who was the person that passed on? It was my Aunty or should I say Grand Aunt, Yvonne. She was my Mother's Aunt. Or should I say used to be uncle but now aunt. I guess I should also mention that my aunty was already an aunty when I was born. I only knew that she wasn't always my aunty when I was 15 or so.

But although I treated her just like any other Aunty, I think it made a really big difference to her. Even after I found out that she wasn't always an aunty, I was unable to treat her any differently than I used to. I suppose ignorance was a big tool in my education of treating people with equality. When you don't take prejudices with you, life seems far more enjoyable than it normally is.

And on Sunday, two of my close friends James and Irene got married to each other. I had promised Irene that I would attend her wedding since the start of the year thus I honored that promise and didn't go to the wake. I felt really conflicted and until today, I'm still feeling very conflicted. But I think celebrating life should take precedence simply because no matter what the fact, the world doesn't stop spinning. Life goes on and we should hold life by the tail and grab every opportunity to acknowledge that we're alive than regret it when we're gone.

And while blogging today, my colleagues came across this little angel of a girl by the name of Connie Talbot from Britain's Got Talent show. Instantly the group of us were smitten by her soulful singing and her daring character. Her voice when singing "Somewhere over the rainbow" was simply filled with emotion and character. The freakiest fact would probably be that she's only 6 years old at the time of her participation and she started singing when she was only 2 years old. It's really nice to know that such talent gets a chance to shine during competitions such as this.

I suppose that since my last post, I've been constantly torn apart by sadness and celebration of life. While I found it hard to choose between the two, I've chosen to celebrate life more than mourn the passing. My aunt's going to a better place, where she'd be free from the trappings of discrimination she has probably faced in life. I wish you a bon voyage dear aunt of mine. May your journey from here on be one that will be filled with joy. Alauz Out!

Wishes upon my soul

Wishing you were here,
Leaving behind a trail.
Wishing you were here,
I met with the devil.
Wishing you were here,
I will always be here for you.

Belief has led me thus far,
Where have you been, my star?
Leading my soul astray,
What have I done?
As I continue on my path,
Is it enough just to have fun?

Our life so brief,
Like a shooting star.
Once the flowers bloom,
We wilt away so fast.
Burning brightly as the sun,
We stand forever changed.

Wishing you were here,
Leaving behind a trail.
Wishing you were here,
I met with the devil.
Wishing you were here,
I will always be here for you.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-06-14T09:11:00.000+08:00

Dad as a clock, Humans as a catalyst for change

Yet another month plus has past me without much time for me to notice it flying. Suddenly, I realize that I take my father's monthly visit as a gauge for every month. And it's time for his monthly return on Tuesday night. Why am I only blogging this only today? As a few of you guys know, my desktop is dying under the oppression of a new virus that my anti-virus can't seem to cope or detect. It's frustrating, and I spent almost all my spare time trying to hunt that evil virus down. I found a few of it's locations and deleted the files but the effects seem permanent. It's gone and infected my explorer and now my msn and internet explorer has been rendered truly fucked.

Without my ability to connect to my social network on my desktop was a lousy feeling, at least I still have my laptop. But the desktop still has some internet ability such as playing World of Warcraft and most of the MMOs my brother installed. And since my desktop was mainly meant for play it wasn't a complete loss.

So back to my Dad as a clock. He comes back on a non-regulated basis. It's not on a fixed date or a fixed month, yet I still use his arrival back in Singapore to signify the passing of the months. Why? Well because I don't believe in a strict schedule. Life is not fixed or routine, anything can happen today or tomorrow. I know it probably sounds rather insane, but my Dad comes back every 1 - 2 months on a non-fixed date so it's sort of a mini-routine although it's kinda chaotic. Sometimes he doesn't know when he'd be back, sometimes he comes back unannounced. It reminds me alot of how life truly is. It's truly chaotic, but we try to adhere some routine or sense into things anyways. So taking my dad as a clock makes perfect sense in the way time really works in this chaotic planet.

Oh how I love chaos in order and order in chaos. It's all so fun. To play the role of a sane person but inside, I truly enjoy the chaos that we bring into the universe. So much change and evolution because of our single race. We're a catalyst for change, in essence we are the embodiment of chaos in the purest form. We warp our environment to suit our needs, we destroy all that stand in our way and we also convert the other beings inhabiting our space to our cause. There is nothing we do that stand in harmony with the natural "Law" of the planet. There is no order in the things we do in the eyes of the planet.

But whose to say what is right or wrong? If you say the destruction of the planet is a "wrong" thing to do, then the mass genocide of human beings must be a "right" thing to visualize. But to humans genocide is "wrong" so it MUST BE ABSOLUTELY "right" to destroy our planet. LOL you might say that I shouldn't deal in absolutes but let me put it this way. Humans are a varied bunch, some want to save the planet, some want to consume all it's resources, some want to leave this planet and find a new home. So to NOT HAVE GENOCIDE means there will always be people who want to consume all it's resources and in turn destroy it. Thus there is ZERO way of saving it. As long as humans exist, there will be some of us that seek to destroy it, inadvertly or directly. Don't fool yourself with recycling technology and green technology, what about WAR? Yeah you heard me, the weapons of mass destruction only get more powerful. A nuclear holocaust is just as bad as us consuming all of earth's resources.

So yeah, so I accepted the fact that as long as humans exist, the world is going to die. No two ways about it unless you tell me that your going to strip away the freedom of thought and action for every single human being in the universe. It's bloody cruel and there'd be no point to living after that but yeah the planet would be saved. Woot! Haha, damn that irony yah? Everyone knows that there are people out there without a shred of conscience, thus there is no way you can control them with emotion or talk sense into them. Is the eradication of the human race the only way to preserve our planet? Well I did mention that there were some humans willing to find a new home.

Let's all follow them to ruin another planet if we truly want to save Earth. We can go ruin, Alpha Centauri or the like. If you look at the planets on our solar system, I saw the data on the two planets closest to earth and it almost seems like our ancient predecessors have ruined them with a nuclear war on Mars and overpollution in Venus. Earth was probably the merger of 2 different species struggling for survival from these two planets. Earth could go either way, or would it be a new form of planetary destruction? Haha, we'd truly never know. But I do know one thing, Everyone go forth and sow CHAOS! Have fun while doing it. Alauz Out!

Mars
Oh red star, red star in the sky.
Oh red star, reddest iron in our blood.
Oh red star, rusting with the blood of billions.
Oh red star, how we missed you so.

Venus
Oh white love, white love among the clouds.
Oh white love, whitest clouds floating by.
Oh white love, raining down pure acid.
Oh white love, we loved you dearly so.

Earth
Oh blue ball, blue eye in the space.
Oh blue ball, bluest sky and sea.
Oh blue ball, spinning so innocently.
Oh blue ball, we are killing you like the other two.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-06-09T15:14:00.000+08:00

The day that I was born

Yeah it's the day of the year where I was born. It used to be that on this day I would be really look forward to celebrations and stuff like that. But of course now as I'm officially a quarter of a century old, I'm going to join the 80% of the world population that don't celebrate their day of birth. Yeah most people don't put a significance on the day that they were born. Why? Well simply because it's not in their culture or they simply don't have the resources to go on celebrating if their busy dying or earning a hard living in some poor country.

So I suppose I'm finally one of the majority. And the strangest thing is, I don't feel any different. Some people might say that is the feeling of being jaded but I totally disagree. I kinda feel like a burden is dropped from my shoulders, I have one less thing I have to worry about when the years past me by. One less reminder that I'm getting older and my mortality hangs precariously because of my BMI.

Doctors did say that I'd probably get a heart attack before the age of 35 and a stroke before 45 if the heart attack doesn't kill me first. Haha, well that maybe true but I suppose I'm taking small steps to overcome that scenario. First thing I've done was to start working out as often as I could. Started jogging like a snail early this year, at least I've progressed to jogging like a tortoise now combined with a tiny fraction of sit ups and push ups everyday. But the frequency could be more, average 5 times a week so far and only 1 1/2 hours of working out every session doesn't seem to cut it. But still with work and study, I find it so difficult to push myself past that point.

Perhaps it's in the genes or something, that much is true. My body doesn't seem to want to change from it's old self. It's still much the same from the time I was at Alexandra Hospital and my body almost feels like it's rejecting the changes and trying to change back to the way I was when I tore my knee which of course was a quivering lump of fat. It's an extremely painful process trying to get my body to listen to me. Running everyday regardless of my energy level tests my mental fortitude so fucking much. Especially these couple of weeks when I have less than 5 hours of sleep a day. Today's afternoon run almost felt like my mind was exploding while I struggled near the end.

I suppose, studying hard for straight As, working 15 hours a week, finding out more research material on my possible internship with I2R and attempting to exercise almost everyday has my body on the verge of turning into a total wreck. But I'm afraid that the moment I try to rest, everything will fall into pieces like they did last year. I can smell my soul burning up as my gear has been stuck permanently on overdrive since March. Hopefully I don't disintegrate before I reach the first 2 weeks school holiday. At least then I'd just have to worry more about the internship without worrying about my grades.

Bah, what the heck?! I am a bloody worry wreck! Away with doubt! Sigh... Oh well on with the rest of my life. Fuck the consequences, I will have mutual understanding with my body and stop it's rebellious nature, get my damn As and do as much as I possibly can before I leave this planet. Pain is temporary, Glory is Forever! Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-06-08T11:35:00.000+08:00

Two Rights don't make a Wrong

Either I'm going crazy or I'm suffering from sleep deprivation. I think it's a little bit of both. Taking some chinese medicine in the past when the government hasn't banned the mercury content probably has me going partially insane as we speak. As you all know, mercury attacks our nerves and eventually turns us into quivering lumps of flesh incapable of any rational thought.

But looking from a short term point of view, it's probably because I'm partially non-logical and base alot of my assumptions on my right brain that I've been able to resist a small portion of the social programming the government is trying to do. Thankfully I'm not some brainless moron that's going all out to get married, have 2 kids and think of nothing but bringing this country to greater glory. Right now, I suppose I'm just a moron overly addled by mercury poisoning cause by some chinese medicine I've taken before I was even old enough to think for myself.

Lacking the basic drive to succeed drilled into my mentality, what the heck makes me tick now? It's probably because of my pursuit of what I deem to be fun for me. Yeah, the learning process is probably what I find the most fun about anything. I questioned myself on what I thought was the most fun part about playing video games and I eventually figured out that learning to play the game was probably the best of playing any game to me. Thus I began applying it to school when I started my uni life here at UB. It's really revolutionized the whole process that I go about studying and I literally went without playing games because there simply wasn't any new games that could cope with my learning curve to remain fun anymore.

I probably will pick up Starcraft 2 when it comes out, mainly to learn how different is to game to play as compared to Command & Conquer 3 and watch the AWESOME movies in it. And also, C&C 3 was alittle boring. It took me merely 14 hours to complete the game and crush every form of brutal AI in all the multiplayer maps included with the game. I ended that affair sadly because I had expected much more from the AI. Perhaps EA was being nice to the new players who were picking up C&C3, but I felt that their brutal computers should have had better employment of tactics than just having more resources and having the same response to every tactic as an easy computer.

I think that the tactics used to draw in new players, the single player games and MMOG market would be the simple game play. But then they also have a responsibility to increase the Intellect of the these gamers by slowly increasing the difficulty of the harder AI to employ different tactics instead of just raw brute power. Players should have an AI that is able to employ complicated tactics and LEARN from the responses taken by the players so that they may even learn a new tactic to employ or learn how to counter the players using the tactics learned from the players themselves.

Yeah, I mentioned long time ago that my interest in games lie predominantly in a pure artificial intelligence complete with emotions and basic instincts. When will it become a reality? I suppose that's why I'm doing research right now on gaming psychology. To better understand how to create artificial intelligence, I gotta know what IS human intelligence and it's response to a computing environment. Otherwise the AI will never be replicated to resemble anything remotely human in an online environment.

Artifical intelligence, it's so difficult to create it because we put the word "Artificial" in the front. In reality, what we're actually trying to create IS Intelligence. Something that's more than the sum of it's parts. Perhaps to play god, perhaps we don't want to be all alone in the universe. Whatever the reasons other have, my hopes are that one day there will be 2 ways that humans can be brought into this world, one from a physical womb and the other one is born from electronic womb. If indeed we are alone in this universe, then it's about time we created a species that can share this vastness of infinity with our lonesome selves. Creation will take many years so meanwhile I seek to understand how humans learn via communicating here at UB.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-06-07T10:17:00.000+08:00

Overloadeous

And it's officially been more than 1 week since I've had time to breathe, much less post a blog. Well technically I could have posted a blog, but it'd be at a cost that I would be not willing to sacrifice. Let's see what happened since the last post? Hmmm, there was work done at my workplace. I finally found a way to bring a mug from home to the office, had a quiz, an essay to complete, finished a mid-term exam and homework to do during the days that I didn't get to post.

Mmmm, what else was there that I've still left to do? Oh yeah, I just finished 2 portfolio assignments for my communications class as well. Mmm and then also my economics homework is left hanging with my bonus question hanging in the balance. Tired as heck... Slept like 4 hours or less every night since the day I last posted. Looking more like a panda every day. Haha, serves me right to choose to work and study at the same time.

Oh well, the price of attempting financial independence. Oh yeah, and I missed out my daily jogging for Monday, why? I tore out my soles of my shoes after only 3 freaking weeks of running almost daily. New Balance Sucks damn it. I'm going to see if anyone's available to get a pair with me this evening. Anyone who wants to take me up on that offer can just give me a call on my handphone.

Other than that, what else have I got to say before I finish this blog entry? Oh well besides the fact that I'm feeling dead on the outside, the funny thing is I'm feeling quite satisfied on the inside. It's probably because I feel a small sense of achievement of not having a total physical and mental breakdown handling this overload of work. Well, back to work now. I'm going to break all barriers hopefully. Oh and yeah, E I found another person named E. Probably gonna ask her to coach my chinese.

With all that said and done, let me leave you guys with another poorly thought and written poem. Alauz OUT!!!

Juggler
As the days fly by, neverending cycle of fun and pain.
As the days past by, the repeat of flowers and death.
As the days swallow time, people come and go.
As the days become years, memories are all that are left.
As the days are mine alone, days are for work, learn and play!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-05-30T13:43:00.000+08:00

Peonization

It has begun, working at SIM has started this week. Why haven't I been posting? It's actually because I've had almost no time to do anything else but work and study this week. Hopefully it'd pay off sometime soon. Anyways, I'm being called back for a mobilization briefing on the 23rd of July. It couldn't have come at a worse time, it's at week 12 of my course and it's probably crunch time and definitely not a period to have any disturbances on the outside if I still want my straight As.

As for work, I can't mention what I'm doing except that I'm doing market research. It's quite cool because I would get some experience for my future internship with I2R. Hopefully this will provide me more of an insight of how I should go forth doing my research in the future. However my schedule is so packed now, you will notice my lack of blogging in this week. Infact I'm blogging from my lecture right now in SIM.

Luckily she's merely repeating the lecture notes and reading through the books I'm more or less refreshing the information that I've already understood. It's quite silly, there's a ton of people who simply can't stand her lectures because they can't seem to understand what she says or what she means. Probably her teaching method simply isn't for the young minds that seem to need alot more prompting to understand a subject.

Well, I suppose I should end this short blog with a message to my newest colleague Michelle. I do think that Michelleism is an interesting point of view with a mild exception that you could be less subjective hahaha. But I hope that things won't be as lonely when the UOL students join us for work. Other than that, try not to freeze in the office okay? Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-05-25T21:00:00.001+08:00

Pieces of a Jigsaw

No, I'm not becoming Jack the Ripper so do not fear. I just had so many things fall into place this week that I can only attribute it to hardwork, planning and a ton of luck. Good things are happening and I suppose that means I should continue striving for better and better results. Work, work. More work? Work, work. But lately I've been feeling abit "Peonish". Didn't even have a single day where I touched a video game. But however I did finish 4 novels from Sunday to Wednesday.

I had read the first 4 books of the Elminster Quintology, Makings of a Mage, Temptation of Elminster, Elminster in Myth Drannor and Elminster in Hell. I'm missing the book Elminster's Daughter. Which incidentally is the book that I had wanted to read the most. Oh well the first 4 books weren't too shoddy, I finally understood the way Ed Greenwood thinks and feels about Elminster. He's version of Elminster is one of a wily man who seems to get into the pants of almost every pretty magic user that crosses his path. I had this impression of Elminster as a person who was a in love with the goddess of magic Mystra. But obviously this didn't stop him from consorting with countless other sorceresses and mages along the 4 novels that I've devoured.

But I suppose I have some similarities with Elminster than I would like to admit. I associate myself very much with Elminster in the way I handle many situations. Firm but with good intentions. I can be nasty as well which usually spells alot of trouble for me and the person I'm nasty to. And after reading this Quintology on Elminster, it almost serves as a reflection of my own character. And yes, like all guys I do secretly wish I could consort with every hot gal in a position of power. I'm drawn to knowledge like Elminster was and seek to understand the reason behind the actions that befall upon his world. He understands most matters at a much deeper understanding and isn't afraid to play dumb to get the answers he cannot attain on his own.

And I apply this to the way that I study now in my course. I don't necessarily play dumb, but I'm always looking confident for a reason. It's usually because I'm not afraid to make mistakes during lessons. Why? Because by making a mistake, you draw out the correct answers from the lecturer and the people around you. I believe in learning from anyone, especially those younger than me. It's when your young, that you have new perspectives and new ideas. It's not that I cannot generate them, but I am getting older and generate them at a slower pace. No doubt my ideas can come out alittle more polished than some of my peers, but that's not enough for me.

I can never have enough knowledge, it is once said that once your cup is full, you should pour away the contents and fill it up again. I sort of learn things in that manner as well. When I relearn something, I throw away all old concepts I used to have about the matter. That usually allows me to pick up the concept in a different manner and much faster than if I had stuck to my old style of thought with regards to the matter. Of course, not everyone is capable of developing such a style of learning. One first must master the fear of learning new things. When one gets older, one must also abolish the fear of making mistakes.

If you tried to learn a completely new topic while trying not to make a single mistake, you'd probably learn extremely little and would only get by with memorizing the entire textbook. But if you sought to learn the boundaries that this new subject can stretch into, your ability with your new found knowledge can exceed far beyond what the teacher's original intent. This is what drew so much attention to me back when I was in the Polytechnic. I sought to test the knowledge I earned during lessons by interacting with the lecturers and making some mistakes along the way. The teachers admited that I was a brilliant student but my final grades just never reflected this form of learning.

Perhaps if the education system worked in a slightly different manner. Right now the assumption is that if you get the correct answer, it is either because you have made enough mistakes while learning the subject matter to avoid getting the wrong answer. But it is obviously not the case with many of the students out there now. By over emphasizing the need to get a flawless answer, people have already forgone the method of learning from their mistakes. They have adopted the memorize and reguritate the model answer as form of survival. And by forcing the majority of the populace to adopt this method to learning, it's no wonder why we are so hard pressed to find creative minds in our society.

If one wants a creative mind, you cannot teach him by telling him that he can only follow one set model answer for every question. You have to allow him to test and experiment with the question to find out which answers are definately wrong and which ones can be plausible. It may seems rather counter productive in certain subjects such as math and physics. But on the contrary, it's even more desperately needed because of the growing applications that math and physics are being applied on today. Infact, all brilliant mathematicians can come up with their own variations of equations that are deemed to have only 1 way of solving a question. Without a creative mind, you can forget about getting a PHD in math or physics or almost any other subject matter.

To question authority is the basis of creativity. To question what is supposedly set down in "stone" is how people get to discover new things. If everyone continued thinking that the world was flat, did you think that we'd be a global society we are today? Rules are meant to be broken and broken completely and utterly. There must be no trace of the rule left behind to ensure the continued prosperity of humanity.

If the rule that the world was flat was an IRON CLAD rule, we have truly shattered and destroyed that rule that there is no trace but contempt for such an ideal. This is how we must view our current set of rules. How are some rules untrue and used to oppress creativity? These rules were not made with prejudice I know, but they unintentionally impede our growth. Thus we have to remove these obstacles before our mindsets can change as a species and move forward as a whole.

To have continued prosperity, our education system has to move from one that oppresses free form thought to one that promotes creativity. So that this new education system may give rise to minds that perfects cold fusion, longevity, cure for cancer, cure for aids, space travel and countless more advancements that are so badly impeded with our one tracked societal mindsets. If only we can release our minds from being trodden upon, can we truly advance into the future together and hopefully even be able to conquer space within a couple of generations.

The first step is to change the grading system either gradually or in phases. The grading system should abolish exams and concentrate on the learning process. When teaching a subject through correcting mistakes and telling them to try something else, one might be completely surprised at the possibilities that a supposedly one answer question might have. And thus grade the children according to how far can they infer about the subject matter after the exercise to test the limits to the distance that the child can think on the subject. When these children reach the university level, the human race will never have seen such mental ability in our entire history of humankind. It will far outstrip any of our predecessors and perhaps push humanity truly forward in the twenty first century.

Personally, I have learnt my way through life using this method and I'm sure some of the rebellious people out there have also taught themselves via this method. It becomes plainly obvious when it comes to testing our knowledge, that we are not afraid of learning from our mistakes and becoming smarter in the process. However, when you see the people that's brought up under the current education process, you'd see that when you test their knowledge. They will defend their points of view to the death without trying to understand whether or not the opposing point of view has any merit whatsoever.

And when it comes to invention of ideas and technology, you can tell right away if the inventor is creative or a dullard. If a true inventor's ideas get stolen or cheated away from him, he just creates a new invention that's just as innovative or even more innovative than the one that was stolen. But if it's a dullard, that invention would probably be his ONLY invention that would have ANY merit to society. Thus he will die defending his invention because he's totally incapable of coming up with more innovations to credit to his name. This is the sad story that plagues our scientific community.

Creative people should NEVER be isolated merely at the Arts and Humanities, they should be spread through out the spectrum because they are a benefit to every field of study. Creative people's point of view may simply revolutionize our way of handling space travel or the like. Think of the countless trillions of dollars that will be saved if we had a cheaper form of travelling to space safer and faster than our current technology. And that 1 million dollars saved everytime we need a pen because we use a pencil instead in space instead of developing pen that works in zero gravity. All I can say is, without creativity, the world is doomed to making dumb and expensive decisions while thinking that they are getting smarter when they are actually sinking into new depths of retardedness. Alauz OUT!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-05-22T17:45:00.000+08:00

God of Rain

Today is one of the stranger days in my life. I was supposed to have an interview at my school's management branch at 12pm. And thus I decided to go there early and have lunch because there's nothing to eat at home. I noticed the sky getting darker on the bus there and I thought nothing much of it. Normally the rain clouds like this take awhile to gather before raining. When I reached my stop later and walked towards the location of my interview I felt a very slight drizzle.

At first I thought nothing of it, but I pressed on faster. And as I changed from walking to running, the rain changed from a drizzle to a cascade of a waterfall. Before I knew it, in a matter of 30 seconds I was drenched head to toe. So I kept running towards the building I was supposed to have my interview, it was a mere 200m away from the bus stop. When I reached the main gates, the rain stopped almost completely as I stepped through it.

Then I wondered to myself, if I had angered a deity that commanded the rain somewhere. I went into the building and asked for the location of the nearest toilet, I had to get myself dried and check all my electrical objects to see if they were ruined. But thankfully, my handphone and laptop were in a waterproof slipcase and were fine. The notes and papers I was carrying in my bag were in another waterproof file and they decided to remain dry as well. I was beginning to feel thankful that I decided to waterproof the objects I bring to school for no particular reason last week.

And the incident didn't end there, after my interview with the wonderful Beatrice I left the building towards the bus stop so I can get back to school on time for classes. And as I stepped out of the gates, the drizzling started almost immediately. I moved with utmost haste to the bus stop just before another heavy downpour covered the area. I am either beginning to think that the sky is so wonderfully in sync with me that it really seems to wants to reward me with lots of drinking water.

And thus ends the strange happenings and interesting things to note for today. I can't seem to make up my mind about the lesson I had on Micro-Economics today, is it just me or does micro-econs seem alittle different from the last time I learnt it. Oh well, I suppose it's just the difference in the lecturer's style of doing things. Most people don't appreciate a hard working lecturer, well at least I can understand him and how he's attempting to bring econs to life. A pity his accent is too deep for most to understand him without paying close to absolute attention. Otherwise, he would definitely be a lecturer who'd have alot student support. And it's time for me to say farewell once again, new things to say the next time. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-05-20T20:31:00.000+08:00

Mystery, Suspense, Anti-climax

Thus the day started without much ado, with me clinging onto old mind chains. (Mind chains equals old mindsets duh!) I intrude into other people's lives far too often for their liking, sometimes too often for my own liking as well. To shatter the mind chains I so dearly cling onto as if they were succor of life itself, I decided to have a test of wills with my other self. What other self? Of course the very essence of this day started with my inner selves calling each other out their delusional mindsets.

How does one face his inner selves without breaking the hold on sanity? How does one assume the guise of sanity while the inner selves rage a bitter war for control of the shell that speaks? How will you know which of my selves are speaking right now? It seems that in the constant feud that battles within, it was inevitable that a more cohesive consciousness had to be formed and coalesed before the shell is shattered amidst the fierce battle within.

So who is writing this as we speak? It is I, the newest addition to the collection of souls deep within one's mind. I'm the one of balance and intrigue, the one that doesn't venture too far to the extremes. Although you may say that I've been like this for a long time, it's naught until today that I'm truly my own person. I am free from my inner battles as the good and the evil now are but struggling in the background while I took over. A balance to all things within, a moderate if you so wish to see.

I am no longer bound by the need to serve goodness with a blind fevor, no long irked by the evil doings of the beings beside me. I am no longer bound to be the evil that has to be, to be irked by the lack of mischief in the lives of others. I am truly me, a person who is finally free to do as he wishes. And my wish now? To rise to glory as the flames have heated the steel hot enough to strike! The world is red hot now, while I see all its kinks and flaws. I move ever so surely to strike at my goals, without my greatest enemy to stop me; Myself.

I suppose I've just breached the proverbial line where I kept telling myself never to breach. I just lost all sense of morality, or just the compulsion to good and evil. Today is both a day that was dreading and yet embraced as if it was nothing more than a simple change. Today is the day where I am a new person, reborn without the chains that have bounded me for so long. Hahaha, let's just hope the world doesn't burn to a cinder while I'm around. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-05-17T20:20:00.000+08:00

Thursday

And another week has almost past. A lovely week I suppose it is, lots of quizzes and business. And as for my utter enjoyment, comes an invitation to join the Virtual World Summit. I suppose it's nothing big, it's merely people talking about how our future's going to be affected by technology, entertainment and the games that we play. Nothing really earth shaking, IF your a ROCK.

I'm like so excited I'm going to be able to be involved in this summit. No doubt I'd only be an audience, but I'm allowed to ask questions! Questions are best asked when it provokes alot of thought. It doesn't have to be controversial or silly, it just has to make people think about what it means. I have asked a good many questions in my life and I only hope that I don't try and take everyone else's turn.

If my predictions are correct, I would have at least one question that would be answered. And if I'm lucky, probably I could ask up to three before they ban me from asking more. There are so many things I would want to know. What better opportunity, than to ask the people who are involved in the creation of our technological future? Oh glee, oh my, oh yes! I'm going to have so much fun. If words were like a sword to minds, perhaps my questions would be a form of ritualistic torture for thine.

I intend to encircle what is said, then come up with a question thus barbed and tender. Maybe if they answered, they'd barbeque a blender! Hahaha, enough nonsense said! Mayhap I should just go to bed? Nay! I got knowledge to gain! There's a fun thing called a quiz tomorrow, it's never getting me dead! Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-05-14T23:05:00.000+08:00

Evil Vista

So it is proven, my mother's laptop has suffered much under Vista. And there seems to be a new problem that I discovered today. The laptop has started mysteriously going onto standby all by itself when I attempted to use it. And to make matters worse, the laptop came back from standby with no backlight. I somehow figured that by opening the laptop out to the maximum would help and viola, the lights came back on.

I thought that that was the end of it but I am to be proven wrong again. The occurance repeated itself over 10 times in a span of 3 mins soon after. I am seriously considering returning this laptop due to Vista screwing up the hardware. Even if it wasn't Vista's fault, there obviously is a gigantic problem on my hands if I don't return it. What if it start doing this non-stop when someone is attempting to use it? I'm testing the laptop right now, with and without the battery, on hard surfaces and soft surfaces, with the AC power and without the AC power while the battery is in. And my findings were that this problem happens in everyone of my scenarios. Since I got no school tomorrow, I'm definately bringing this laptop down to suntec tomorrow to get it changed.

And so ends a tiring day of handling stupid Vista computers yet again. Will it never end? Will I be doomed to have to face this retarded OS and faulty computers for the rest of eternity? Only time will tell but I don't think I'm going to want to find out. I wish everyone a Vistaless life. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-05-13T01:08:00.000+08:00

It's official, Vista SUCKS!

I don't have anything to say about Vista that hasn't already been said by others. But at first I didn't want to believe all the downplay Vista has been having. I mean like I thought to myself, "Let's just give Bill a break and pretend that Vista is actually cool." But it seems that Vista is proving itself the number one enemy of simplicity. Perhaps if you guys have encountered Vista, you'd understand what I mean.

Okay, so how did it all happen? How did a sensible guy like me end up with Vista in the first place? Here's a long story short, my mother is a creature of impulses. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but yeah she saw this deal at Suntec today while we were taking her for a walk for an early mother's day and thought that it was a pretty good deal. I looked at the offer and yeah it was a GOOD deal but before I had a chance to ask my mother to reconsider, she was already deep into the haggling process. After about 30 mins, she settled on even more freebies that I thought was extremely impressive.

So after all that, we ended up with a laptop with Dual 1.6 Turion 64 bit processors, 2GB of ram, a lightscribe DVD-RW burner, 160 GB of hdd that came pre-installed with Windows Vista Basic and a 3 year next day on site pickup warranty; all for a mere $1449 dollars. While I was extremely pleased with my mother's persuasion skills, I was also worried about the complications that is bound to come up with a Windows Vista OS working in my house. The fact that I spent nearly 5 hours setting up the basic necessities of this laptop further emphasizes the downfall of the supposedly most user friendly version of Windows ever.

I don't really know if I should go into much details with regards to some of the incessant problems that plagued the Vista. One such irritant was the total unavailability of a simple way to access the command prompt. Coupled with the inability to view my in-built network card's MAC address without accessing the command prompt. This made the simple task of adding my laptop to my wireless router a task take a whopping 15 minutes of pure troubleshooting. I mean, when I spend more than 1 min doing a task that supposed to have taken 15 seconds, I seriously feel that there is a serious design flaw in Vista already.

Other problems include the completely retarded way that Vista maintains network connections. I have a Power Mac G4, 2 Desktop PCs, my mom's older laptop and my brother's Laptop that's currently utilizing my home network. Under XP and Windows 2000, every single one of my computers can access one another's shared folders with no problems whatsoever. Yes, even mac has no problems sharing files with any other computer. The problem with Vista? You cannot even see the other computers on the network because of their new LLTD detection protocol. I mean like what drugs were the people at Microsoft taking to come up with a totally non-backward compatible network detection protocol that completely alienates any other operating system that doesn't possess it?

So with a total inability to even detect my other computers, I was simply flabbergasted for a moment. I honestly don't enjoy the idea of plugging out my printer in my room just to plug it into my mother's new laptop to print a simple document. I searched the net for a suitable solution. Thankfully, I found the solution in about 30 seconds. The solution was relatively retarded as well. For my both XP Desktops to be detected, I had to download a patch for the XP SP2. This patch would install an XP version of the LLTD so that Vista computer could detect them on the private network.

Oh and did I mention that if you had a 1000 computers in your network, you'd have to download and install this patch 1000 times just for 1 SINGLE Vista computer to work with everyone in your network? In computing terms, this monumentally backward step in compatibility only gives me the impression that Microsoft is getting incompetent beyond mortal understanding.

So right now, my Vista computer is supposed to have networking capabilities with both my XP desktops right? Once again Vista has to prove to me that it's retarded capabilities could only get more moronic as I try to attempt simpler and simpler features. I could connect without problems with my XP desktop connected to my printer. (Thank God!) But I couldn't for the love of all that's holy, connect to my other XP desktop. I tried remote logins, turning on the guest account on the desktops, logging in as an administrator and even tried logging in without a user name or password. Nothing works. So right now, my Vista computer can only connect to one computer in my home networks of 2 desktops, 1 Power Mac G4 and 2 other laptops.

I simply cannot understand how Microsoft, who has more money than several small 3rd world countries can come up with such a flawed product design. Have they started resorting to hiring monkeys that only work for peanuts to do their design flow of the work processes in day to day Windows Operations? Or have they decided to screw the world over by forcing everyone to upgrade to Vista or die a horrible death of attempting to solve never ending networking nightmares? My money is on hiring incompetent monkeys who work for peanuts. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-05-11T21:38:00.000+08:00

Official Weekend

Time to actually let loose alittle. I had actually focused 100% on studying, working out and actually forgot to play computer games for 5 days since last Sunday. Haha, nah I never really forgot to play my computer games and stuff, it's just that I simply didn't have the time to enjoy a proper 14 hour marathon of gaming. Yeah, sounds like alot of fun right? 14 FREAKING hours of non-stop high adrenaline gaming! But if that happens this weekend, it means that I'd be in a mini-coma after the deed is done. Definately a no-no when it's only past the first week in school.

So what now? My brain feels like it's trying to destroy itself because of the sheer amount of work I'm suddenly piling up. And as for my body? It's been accepting the new daily regime of jogs quite well, perhaps I should increase the intensity for next week. Perhaps I'd add 1 more set on the circuit or something. I suppose it's something I would eventually do anyways.

What do I have to say to all of you whose weekend has arrived? Go and relax, not too much drinking because I want all your livers intact so that I can go destroy when I have time. Hmmm, it seems that this weekend would be a rather quite one with regards to blog time. But who knows? Maybe you'd see more of me tomorrow if I decide that I want to bore you people somemore. And here's the part where I say good night! Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-05-09T20:54:00.000+08:00

Relationship help from a textbook?

Strange as it may sound, there seems to be a whole chapter on helping people manage their relationships and look at the multitude of ways to create, maintain, salvage and even break away from personal relationships in supposed comparison to actual communication models. It kind of led my imagination out for a joyride. Did the author compare it to a relationship because it was a book meant for North America and they have an easier time understand the concept of interpersonal communications in terms of a couple's relationship? Or is it because that the author was a female thus because females find it easier to relate this to a couple's relationship?

Because seriously as a GUY/MALE/DOM, I don't relish biting into such analogies. She did mention near the end of the chapter that other cultures have a different take on interpersonal relationships, so I shall be more forgiving. But since this is THE textbook that I'm supposed to work with, I really got to be at the very least semi-critical about the approach to this subject matter. If I had decided that because of her analogy of a loving couple to start the melding of the models to the actual processes, I almost could feel myself naseate to the point of almost puking.

Perhaps it's because I'm Asian and that I'm not totally accustomed to the intimacies of the Western culture. But the very notion of self-disclosure screams at my inner soul. I can only make out one sound of my soul's screams, "BLASPHEMY!". I personally find it unnerving to have this inner self suddenly voicing out it's opinion uninitiated. I normally have to search deep within myself to know if I deeply agree or disagree with an idea. Perhaps this is why I'm writing this entry even though I've only read that single chapter tonight. It's disagreeing so violently inside me, that I just simply have to talk about it to balance myself.

Is it because of my cultural conditioning? My gender conditioning? Or even the conditioning I received as a writer? I read about these cultural and gender conditioning from the earlier chapters and it probably does explain some of the reactions I'm having now. But I still find it difficult to swallow the fact that such a simple judgement can cause me to fall so far from balance. Perhaps despite that I primarily disagree with the writer on her approach on things, I'm more disgusted with my own lack of acceptance of another culture.

I can finally picture why the Japanese found it so easy to treat their conquered nations like 2nd class citizens without any sense of guilt or conscience. How do I come to that conclusion? I just took the feeling I just got when I disagreed with author of my textbook and applied it to another culture such as the Japanese. I applied their notion of feeling compassion for those that they oppress and it's in their culture to dominate. They just won't feel a thing for the people that they have conquered.

I think I just found out first hand how our cultures are such a huge hinderance towards learning. Another side of me just realized I just lost a whole chunk of naviety and innocence. In the understanding this fact, I also accept that the world will never accept my point of view no matter how logical or proper I position my point of view. This is one of those fact that you actually wished you never learnt. It's a painful revelation and I suppose my mind's calming down abit. I leave this post with a grim realization, I have a mind that's setting faster than I want it to. It's time for me to expand my horizons as fast as I possibly can to pound it back into mush. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-05-09T08:59:00.000+08:00

Too much of something

And here I am awake in the darn morning after sleeping later than the prescribed time last night. What time did I get up? 7 freaking AM. Sigh, this is becoming a problem. It's like regimentalization only except that I'm doing it on my own. Anyways, perhaps if there's any of my uni-mates reading this. It'd be nice to note that while I can be quite the workaholic, I can also be rather unpredictable. Like what I'm about to do today, might cause a small raise of the eyebrows laters.

Don't worry, it won't be something crazy like parading around screaming and shouting. That's something I reserve only for the army. Perhaps it's my warped sense of humour, perhaps it's just my non-existant fashion sense. But you'd see later what I mean haha... OPPS! I got something cooking over the fire right now, be right back!

Now that breakfast is almost done, I suppose I got to add that studying is serious work. I mean like reading is fun and all, but when you have to like take notes and stuff the fun level drops by fifty percent. Haha, I don't mind writing at all. But taking notes is not really writing, it's more like putting your thoughts on the chapter down without anyone else but you to judge your own work. Where's the fun in that?

Hmmm, maybe some of you be wondering what a guy like me will make for breakfast? Leftovers in the fridge of course! Hahaha, nah just joking. I kinda made bradwursts today because there was a special purchase order last night. Incidentally, there shouldn't be a breakfast without fiber! So lots of fiber with a mystery ingredient. There isn't much guessing required, it's without a doubt an apple! Yeah, made a list of things to get last night and had someone to do the shopping for me.

Well, I got to go and set the table up and stuff. I'd leave you with a morning chirp. *Chirp*
Alauz OUT!

Depravation
Sleep is like a lullaby,
Always soothing while it lasts.
Sleep is like a lullaby,
Awfully painful when you rise.
Sleep is like a lullaby,
Anyone can do it till they die.
Sleep is like a lullaby,
Alittle bit is not advised.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-05-08T15:04:00.000+08:00

Affirmation and Fears

I highly doubt that you guys would remember me writing about how thinking in the different languages actually changed our perception? But today as I was going through my new communications text book, I came across this quote:

"As I learnt to speak, my perspective changed... Speaking the language, I could no longer really hear it. And once inside its protective walls, I began to find it difficult to get out... I had not only learned to speak a language: I had started to think in it. Its questions became my questions, its concepts shaped my responses to new ideas. Its definitions of the parameters of reality became mine."
- Thinking through Communication by Sarah Trenholm page 73 quote 12.

And it became evident to me that people do have an inkling of what is happening around the world. Perhaps it is because I'm more of a linguist who loves languages and how I can understand them more, has led me to start thinking in the different languages. Thus I am having a deeper understanding on why the cultures behave the way they do. In fact, the quote was from a nuclear scientist who merely picked up a defensive lingo used in her field of work and it has already warped her sense of thought to such a high degree. You can only imagine what most of us multi-lingual individuals had to experience in our attempt to master our separate languages.

To master another language requires you to think in that language. And when you do that, your not only exposing yourself to a completely new culture. Your literally changing your mind and personality when you switch over to thinking in another language. I have experienced so many personality changes, it was amazing that I could hide my unstable moments from even the people closest to me. If you ask my family on whether they sensed any changes in me since the day I was born, they would probably say that I'm as stubborn as before and not have noticed many of the changes that have occurred during my transition.

To me, it was highly important to disguise the changes I was going though. Why is it? It's because otherwise I would face rejection from my family. How did I know that I faced rejection? Well it was simple, when I was about 15 years of age I had begun changing. I have two younger brothers and the one whose older noticed the change in me and vehemently started telling me that I was becoming very "fake" or much like an "actor". He was the closest to me and could tell when I had the slightest of personality tweaks. Thus I knew instantly that he cannot accept this new person I was becoming. And since my parents and youngest brother have not noticed this change yet, I decided to maintain a facade to placate him.

Although members of my immediate family probably will never read my blog, I suppose I should let this out into the open so that at least my friends would understand why I sometimes seem like a totally different person in front of my family. I have to behave like the jerk and bastard that they have grown up believing that I am today. When I behave any other way, my brothers will find it very hard to believe that the person they are looking is their brother. It really kind of hurts to have to act in that manner, when you have to pretend to be who your not. And when time went by, I just grew weary of becoming an actor whenever they are at home.

You probably would have heard of people revealing their true colors only when their are with their closest of family, I on the other hand, have to face an even harder task of hiding my true colors at home because of the amount of disbelief. I suppose that because I was kind of a tyrant at home when I was younger, that my brothers can only accept that I must be a bad person who can never change in anyway except for the worse. Well, I'm getting tired of pretending. It's been a full decade since the day I had to hide my true colors, it'd be soon when I will be unable to pretend to be the jerk that I once was and face the horrified expressions of my family. It's been a fun day since I've been alone at home today, I hope you guys enjoy the rest of this lovely Tuesday. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-05-07T21:52:00.000+08:00

And it's Over

So ends the first day of school. Excitement? Perhaps. Fear? Definately not! Lost? Not a chance! So we ended the first day of school with a new assignment. Not that it's anything really tough or anything. But it's going to constitute about 20% of our final grade. Thus it's still something that we should fuss about until it's over. What we going to have to do? Well it's a long story and I won't go into much detail. But our group's new name is DROOL. Do not ask me why, do not ask me how and do not ask me anything more with regards to the name. We decided that it would be impactful and I suppose it's going to be VERY impactful alright.

And well, what else about the first day of school? I don't think I've ever felt more relieved that the teachers don't put me down for asking questions. I've been growing up in the "Old School" system for so long now that I'm quite sick and tired of the teachers having only a "one-way" traffic. Perhaps things have been gradually changing in the primary, secondary and even other universities. But I've only experienced this silly "one-way" traffic method for GODS know how long and you cannot imagine how it's making me feel right now to not be penalized for being myself.

How else can you learn except by making mistakes or questioning? Sure you can learn by letting another person speak for ages and ages, but what else can you do but replicate what he said? Knowledge if not used in the creation of newer knowledge, becomes good for naught but building a statue that can never move. If knowledge is build upon and changed, we can create anything from cars to space craft with but a simple imagining of new frontiers to conquer. If you must know, invention is but a creative outlet where dreams become reality. If I told you 50 years ago that mankind could fly into space, you must think me insane or an idiot. But if I tell you I got a new idea that could make space travel cheaper by a multitude of 10, you'd ask me if I'd be willing to share it.

EVERY SINGLE Crazy idea is a good idea. The only difference is the time where the idea was conceived. If you conceived an idea too far ahead of it's time, then it'd be considered crazy. Otherwise your idea could very well be the one that could save mankind. So what's my point? Darn, I thought that after the lesson today, I might actually be able to give a moral to my story. Haha, then again I suppose the moral of this story is that a caged bird once freed of it's cage, flies away and never returns. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-05-06T22:30:00.000+08:00

So it Begins

And thus as I write this, I'm preparing myself for the fact that I've to go back with my on and off relationship with school. This time around I suppose school's a little more prepared for me than the last time I tried putting my faith into it. Maybe I should be bolder than I was before. Maybe I should go burn myself at the stake, haha. Nah just kidding, I suppose I should be rather honest with myself. I don't think I'd be burning myself out this time around. Sure I got to work hard if I want to get anywhere. But then again I learnt that if I don't pace myself this time around, I'm more than likely to burn out way too early.

I'm beginning to wonder if I can make it out of this round unscathed. But in case I don't hehe, I suppose I've to find a way to overcome it as I have the last time around. Struggling for my salvation seems to be quite the addiction I've grown rather fond of. Is any addiction healthy? I don't really know about that. Perhaps if your addicted to living a good life and not wanting to have any regrets. Haha... As for me, I'm hopelessly addicted to having drag myself out of future ruining moments. Perhaps I should stop attempting to sabotage myself in life. Taking a step forward shouldn't be a gut wrenching experience and something to be longed for.

Maybe the fear of getting somewhere, doing something or even becoming someone notable has me cowering. Weird right? I'm afraid that I might someday become someone of note. Someone who could be contributing to society instead of just fading into the background. Maybe because my motto of learning from mistakes makes me fear the fact that if I become someone important, I would definately screw up. Because that's how I learn things, thus I'm afraid that I might screw up something really important and I would just learn from it. But would the damage be too great?

Would it be something irrepairable? Something that might cause the deaths of thousands, millions or even billions? I can't help it, if I'm only human then I will definately make a mistake. Sigh... I'm hopeless. Too much planning into the future only gives me more insight into my own personality and the quirks that occur every now and then. Change myself? Perhaps I am already changing, I never gave this much thought to my own actions before in my life. Oh well, with all this decision making over and out. I'm quite sure now that I'd just go forth and conquer, myself and the world. One step at a time, slowly does it.

Watch out world, here comes a guy whose a walking disaster and he's not afraid of making mistakes! If I'm going to walk this earth, let it be on my own terms instead of cowering at the fear of making the mistakes of others. And so the time slowly arrives to fall deep into the restorative torpor we all call sleep. And don't mind me talking to myself on this blog, I do it all the time in my mind. Duality is such a pain in the ass, why oh why was I born a Gemini? Hahaha, Geminis ROCK! Well if you like crazy people who are as predictable as teleportation.

Let me leave you guys with a near incoherent rambling about internet radio that has been handed a royalty increase it can't afford.

Here comes another song,
Sing a long, Sing a long.
Shi tie ippai, noei i tie,
Darei ka da, kono se i iwa.
If you don't support us,
We'd be forced to shut down.
So please go, go to the website,
Help us shut the music companies down.
Thank you!

If you ever listen to online radio, support them at your own risk hehe. Alauz OUT!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-05-06T10:39:00.000+08:00

O.R.I.E.N.T.A.T.I.O.N.

Who would have thought that I'd ever go for another orientation. If I didn't know better, they were planning it to be more like an initiation more than an orientation. With several of the games that had us looking like monkeys in front of the public really tested our self-consciousness. But overall, my group bonded rather well. A testament to our bonding would be the fact that we came in first for the games held in the afternoon.

I suppose it helps when everyone in the group starts with the notion that we just don't want to lose and do a forfeit in the end. We played every game thinking that we don't want to end up last. At night, we were further involved in team bonding games and it cumulated in a night walk. Of course the night walk was something to freak us out. But somehow I managed to by pass one third of the route because I couldn't tell where I was suppose to go next. Imagine getting lost on a route that was said to be fool proof. I guess I'm a bigger fool than I thought hehe.

But what was nice about the orientation was the fact that because you can see another side of the people that you don't normally see. When people get tired, frustrated and angry, they tend to show a side of themselves that I find interesting to note. Not that I'm some kind of freak that likes to see people freak out. But yeah I'm that kind of freak who likes to see people do something that they don't normally do. I'm quite a sucker for gals who can compose themselves during times of mounting pressure. So you now know one of my weaknesses. That's why I have a huge draw to gals who look like dykes. They usually have this aura of confidence around them and aren't afraid of showing people what they really are.

Opps, I have already run out of things to say about the orientation. Besides the fact that I think that most of the people in my group were pretty cool and that I would gladly work with them again on future projects. It seems despite the fact that this orientation was rather exhausting, I had quite a lot of fun because of the people that were with me. I had a few notable conversations with a couple of the members of the other groups. The weird fact was that they were all Psych majors. I suppose I just wanted to know how the Psycho... Ermm I meant Psych majors, thought about this orientation.

How did I know the person I was talking to was a Psycho... ahhh I mean Psych major? It's because of the smell of a lost lamb that I pick up from whiffing the air. It's not something to be offended my friends, but it's rather obvious when your not enjoy yourselves during the orientation. And when you look around, the difference between all those who had fun, didn't have enough fun and HATE the orientation comes super obvious.

I suppose that fun actually doesn't come from the activities themselves. It's more from within one's self and the experiences you get from the people around you. So I guess the reason why I had so much fun was because I had an open mind and I had a bunch of fun loving group mates. Any of you guys reading this blog, CHEERS! I hope that I have as much fun studying as I had during the orientation. I hope that all you guys have fun studying too. See you guys Monday! Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-04-27T08:14:00.000+08:00

Fatigue of the Ages

So I wake up at around 7.45am this morning after going to bed rather early. Which was around 12am last night. Not so early you say? Well it was early for me. Because I normally hit the sack a couple hours later than that. I found out that my youngest brother was still deep in slumber. Which was weird since he went to bed at around 9pm last night. He's supposed to go to school and I tried my best to wake him up.

I got him out of bed and out of the room and decided to go back to sleep. But I couldn't shake the feeling that he wasn't getting ready for school so I dragged myself out of bed and walked out of my room. As I suspected, he was laying asleep in the middle brother's room. My other brother had already gone out to school. I tried waking him up again but to no avail. I even tried telling my sleeping mother who had more persuasion to wake my brother up. But she came back after I went to bed last night so she was too tired to get out of bed.

Well, right now everyone seems really fatigued. Even I am a little tired. But of course because of my experiences in non-stop gaming over 3 days and National Service's nut cracker style training, I've gained some resistance and I'm able to force myself awake when I need to. Of course I am quite upset my brother's going to be skipping today's lesson. But he has no such experience of conquering the sleep demon that is plaguing him right now.

There's only one thing left to do but I won't do it. It would be to scream at him and physically abuse him to wake him up. Of course that will be super effective at achieving my objective of sending him to school. But it's not something that I am willing to do. Perhaps if I was 7 years younger I would do that to my brother. That was when I was still rather immature and decided that the ends would always justify the means.

With all this fatigue going around, I'm wondering if people in the world are burning out like my brother all too often. If so, then I suppose that people are kinda leading unsustainable lives. Lives that tire them out so much, people probably are going to die prematurely. Of course the weirdest exceptions might be the Japanese. They seem to live ultra stressed lives with the least sleep compared to most people on the planet and yet they seem to live the longest lives too.

Inspired by the Japanese

Perhaps it's the activities that they partake in *wink* *wink* that gives them such long lives. Hahaha, if you know the Japanese, their weird fetishes and seemingly hidden wild sex lives, you'd understand that having more sex truly will give you far longer lifespans even when coupled with high stress and inadequate rest. Of course I would be interested in following their footsteps. However if I'm living here in Singapore, the scene is rather rife with people coupling with rather dangerous and medically unsafe people unlike in Japan where most of the sex industry is actually stringently screened before allowed to do business.

The reason? Because the sex trade is openly illegal here in Singapore. Thus there's no such thing as a license for it and because there's nothing governing this trade, the government cannot set rules for safety among other things. Thus it's rather dangerous to be adventurous here in Singapore. I've personally known friends who have gotten Aids because of several seemingly simple trysts with some foreign sex workers that were transiting Singapore. And as for other STD, the rate is much higher as well.

I'm not suggesting that the sex trade is something that any country be proud of. But it's something that is always in demand and it exists no matter if the country legalizes it or not. It's better to legalize it and ensure the safety of their own country's citizens who are tempted to try it than leaving it to the often unscrupulous illegal vendors that ignore most medical safety issues. If you want to control Aids, you will have to start making the sex trade in your own country safer. If you don't, then there will always be people who will get Aids. It's that simple. Education can only shed light on Aids and its infection methods. It will not discourage people who want to have sex. And if you make people NOT want to have sex, then you have just effectively created the end of your country.

Who in the world thought of such a moronic way of countering STD and Aids? By educating people that you shouldn't have more sex because your going to have Aids and STD because the sex trade here in Singapore isn't regulated? Congratulations Singapore! You have just worsened your shrinking population problem! And also created a generation of people who have a phobia of sex. Don't tell me it isn't happening, because it is. The fact is, Singaporeans have been having less and less sex every year. The only people who have more sex are foreigners who come to Singapore and weren't brainwashed by the government yet. Overall sex figures are misleading because they include foreign born PRs and people who weren't affected by the propaganda.

First step however, is to legalize the sex trade. And that would bring down our STD rates among the foreigners who will eventually have sex with our citizens. Thus preventing such tragedy will be of the highest priority for our beloved country. The second step to solving our dropping birth rate would of course to start re-education of sex. And encouraging it between couples instead of chiding public affection. If the WHOLE society seemingly frowns upon fornication, then HOW can you expect the birth rate to rise? Without sex, there will be no babies. It's a cold hard fact that's being ignored here.

If we can instill a normalized culture of sex back into our society, I'm quite confident that our next generation at least will have a healthier life and have more children that this wasted generation that's ruined by a country that doesn't seem to recognize consequences of their own actions. I mean people here are having sex with people OTHER than their partners BECAUSE sex is frowned upon in society. It's because they have been taught that sex is shameful, thus they want to avoid bringing shame to their partners and thus have transgressions with others. TRUST me, that's what most Chinese Singaporean guys think when they have sex behind their loved one's back. They are ashamed to have sex with them. They are afraid that their partner will think less of them because they constantly want more sex.

It's like inhibiting a natural reaction. In trying to put up a false front so that their partners would have more respect for them, they hide their addiction to sex by seeking partners in the sex trade. They DON'T feel comfortable having sex with the people they LOVE because they have been EDUCATED that sex is a DIRTY and BAD thing. I mean WHAT THE FUCK?! This is exactly why marriages are failing. I'm sure women don't understand this fact. But Asian guys who have been brought up in this manner WILL do as I have described. How do I know all this? Nah, I've always been an odd ball with regards to fitting into society so I sorta don't fit this mold. But I've had countless friends in the army and Polytechnic that gave me the answer.

It was the very people around me that showed me thru example and anecdotes. By talking to them and understanding their emotional problems I slowly understood why so many guys out there are making these relationship mistakes. As most guys who confide in me, the number one thing that bugs me the most is that sex is okay with a person you don't love. But it's taboo with the person you love UNTIL marriage. EVEN after marriage, sex is considered bad to have with your partner because it's dirty. Among let's say 15 guys that have confided in me during my National Service, 15 of them had this mind set. I'm not saying 100% of the guys here in Singapore are like that, I'm already one such exception. But it's still a very very high percentage which would explain what drives our illegal sex trade here in Singapore.

I seek the root of the problems I see around me. I look deep into the fundamentals for the true causes. What I find out usually sickens me. Sometimes it's something so seemingly innocent that it couldn't be the cause of the problem, but it usually the most stupidest of things that causes the most problems. I mean seriously, which RETARD would classify sex as a BAD thing. Even in the bible, sex is something sacred given by god. Even God told us that it is here for us to enjoy between our partner. So like why are people saying that it's bad? Especially the stupid churches. Pre-marital sex is bad? So you chide sex on the whole? Don't do that, your causing an unprecedented amount of grief among the Christians. Your making sex look so bad that people will turn away from their loved ones to have sex because YOU said that it was bad.

What's My Problem

Damn I rant longer and longer. Am I done yet? Oh man. Yeah I do talk to myself at times, I'm a Gemini and I'm constantly pulled from one side to another. If I don't try and come to terms with myself, I'd literally tear myself apart. And so I reveal in certain aspects I'm like most shy guys whose gotten bitten once. I don't just go out and have sex with anyone and everyone just because I have the urge to. I go do it myself because I'm so damn conflicted over who I could do it with. Why? Well, I just ain't ready for my heart to be broken into a million pieces again because it's still pieces on the floor. I truly believe that sex should be between partners that love each other. I'm simply not ready for a bond so deep, I have this feeling that I might never be ready for that bond ever again. But who cares ha! Have a fantastic weekend! Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-04-26T15:21:00.000+08:00

Dragons of the Dungeons

And so here I am today, with a thought in my head. I used to play Dungeon and Dragons with a bunch of friends I made back in the day when I joined Khabal. Of course the times I played it I almost always played an average statistic spread human Spear/Lance fighter. Sometimes if the campaign allowed for it, I'd be a mounted warrior. Otherwise I usually go for the spear. The biggest flaw of my character as a fighter? I love having high intelligence and only slightly above average strength, such as 13-14 strength. It may sound wacky, but I prefer at least 13 intelligence and at least 16 dexterity over an 18 strength fighter.

Why? Because of the feats and skill points required to create my unique style of play. I am a "ranged" melee. Here's my spear man build if your interested in how I eventually become a force to be feared on the battle field. At level 1 I go Dodge and Combat Reflexes so that I can Pin an enemy down at 10 feet if he's a single opponent and I can face multiple opponents as long as I keep moving back 5 feet at a time as a free action so I get plenty of attacks of opportunity. With a spear being a more damaging weapon than a standard 1 handed weapon and having a larger range than a standard weapon, I can effectively nullify anything from a raging barbarian to a mounted warrior on coming for a charge.

When my character gets to level up, he slowly works up towards Whirlwind attack by getting combat expertise and then mobility at levels 2 and 3. Once I hit level 4, my fighter becomes a scary god of the battle field with spring attack and once I hit level 6 I will get whirlwind attack and improved whirlwind attack that allows this melee character have 1 attack at every creature in a 10 feet radius at my full attack bonus along with 1 more attack at an enemy of my choosing with my base attack bonus -5.

I have a 10 feet radius of attack and it also because I have a high dexterity for combat reflexes and some intelligence for combat expertise, I go for combat expertise which allows me to have a high AC while I waltz in and out of bunches of monsters while spinning my spear around every few rounds. Even if I do not land all my blows, I usually only suffer light wounds after the battles are done. I love multiple enemy encounters and if the DM likes having a single powerful encounter, I am just as effective with hit and run tactics. You got to love the 10 feet reach of a 2 handed pole arm coupled with spring attack. Not to mention the x3 critical range of a spear.

That's it for my spear wielding battle monger. Funny thing is that he's reaches the apex of power at level 6 and quite unplayable at the higher levels because he just simply overwhelms most opponents with a flurry of blows right outside of their reach. Once he touches level 11, he's usually outlawed by my DM because he's just uncontrollable with the additional feats I pump into his weapon handling, improved combat expertise and improved combat reflexes. Coupled with my favourite permanent enchantment of a 9 feet silence on the head of my spear. Who ever thought that a single spear man would be able to rip through 9 battle hardened berserkers single-handedly or skewering a sorceror with a spear of silence before he has a chance to finish his first incantation with nary a scratch?

Normally, people would shoot me a funny glance when I first announce my character. They always believed that high dexterity and intelligence only makes for a good dual wielding character. Perhaps it's just the mindset of the people here in Singapore. No defense is a better substitute than not getting hit at all. The best offense is a good range and heavy penalty for the opponents who dare venture closer. Of course you may say that ranged attackers would typically be my bane. I normally just charge them and let them kill themselves with my attacks of opportunity while they remain in range. But when all else fails, my comrades enjoy the clean up of what little is left on the battlefield. That's all for the recollection of a chaotic neutral fighter that loved to break the molds of tradition. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-04-26T00:33:00.001+08:00

Whoop Dee Doo

Second post for the day. Well if it wasn't already past 12 midnight. Oh well, but it's a nice thing to do anyways. Having about 2 posts a day on an average schooling day would be something I could do. At least when school starts in about 2 weeks. You guys ever wondered how do some people pick up typing? I picked up typing by playing countless hours of MMORPGs such as Ultima Online and Everquest. Those two were the very games that trained me to type fast enough so I can type and play at the same time. Without looking at the keyboard, ever.

You simply do not have the time to look at the keyboard while the monsters are putting the beat down on your party members. You just simply have to type and the concentrate on the action on the screen while making split second decisions that could wipe the group. Of course while I was usually the main Tank of the group, I had the arduous task of maintaining aggro. People of course say that maintaining aggro is simple. Of course maintaining aggro for ONE monster per fight is simple. But as you know EQ, the later fights required that you maintain aggro on multiple monsters while the group tries to do some crowd control such as disabling them or killing them out right.

While I was not one of the best equipped warriors in the game. My skill in holding aggro was second to none. The biggest thing was, that I was always a leader in EQ. I was a warrior and thus a tank. I had no way to save myself if the situations get ugly when the group gets more monsters per pull than they can handle. Thus I had to do the planning on the pulls and more often than not, I save the group lots of grief in down time and experience loss.

I for one, KNOW the difference between a carefully planned group pulling strategy AND a poorly planned group strategy. This is especially true in the tougher zones where your character dies faster than a blink of an eye. I know this sounds crazy but before EQ became newbiefied, it was a place of unrelenting nightmares. A single monster is usually cake. That's IF you can get just a single monster everytime. But the cold hard fact was, you tend to get at least 2-6 monsters per pull especially in the zones where the rewards are high. Thus as a group leader, I had to plan to hunt in a spot where the rewards were relatively balanced and the pulls were not unmanagable for a group that I was forming.

The biggest trick in aggro maintainance is, experience. Nothing and I mean NOTHING beats getting killed multiple times over and over again in a multitude of different ugly situations. My warrior in EQ has died more times than I can count. In the first 6 weeks probably I've gotten kill at least 200 times. After that, you learn from experience. You need to make mistakes. And usually the more mistakes you make, the faster you learn. To learn the aggro style of the new zones I ventured into, I actually strip my character naked and run there solo first. Then I check how the monsters come and beat the pulp out of me.

Sure I've lost so much exp that I drop a level sometimes. I make up for it by picking up the techniques required to successfully establish a presence in the area. By knowing how the monsters move and understanding how many monsters exactly will come everytime you grab one. Is the key to having a successful experience in the area. Over the course of 3 years in EQ, my character has probably died more than 10000 times. Most likely it should be in the 30 thousand range. But among my peers back then, I was also the one leveling up the the fastest and also the one that has picked up the hunting styles of the new zones faster than anyone around me.

It also matters that my american peers were clocking 40 hour weeks on EQ while I had only 12-14 hours a week. When I out level and out maneuver them in every zone I visit, I earned alot of respect in the guilds I've joined. My warrior would probably be known by his namesake and incidentally I named him "Reklous". Which was rather fitting because he learnt things the "hard" way. And probably because I learnt through that method, I picked things up so much quicker than my peers who were afraid of "failing". When you understand the method of learning, only 12 hours a week can bring you 80 hours worth of experience.

And when that 12 hours eventually becomes 20 hours, I leveled up so fast that it shocks even me. 5 levels a day at level 60-65 is in fact unheard of back when the level cap was first released. But I did it anyways with 3 hours of dying non-stop and another 9 hours of non-stop grinding. It's quite a feat to level up faster than others YET your playing far less hours than the others were. For those times, I was always switching around the different groups when they were looking for me and forming groups to hunt when there weren't any available.

In EQ, I believe in pro-activity. I actively seek out the challenges that laid out in the game. Constantly striving to be stronger and better. But of course when I found out at the end of the game that it will never end, it kind of reminded me of Real Life and I got too turned off to continue playing it. In EQ, I did not have a routine in grinding. I went anywhere and EVERYWHERE to learn and conquer. When I left the game, the only places I have not been too, were the ultra time intensive zones such as the Planes of Time where you had to spend alot of time gathering the pieces for the key to enter the zone. And each piece of the key would require hundreds of players to gather and accomplish the goal required.

One thing I couldn't do in EQ was join the uber raiding guilds. Sure I had friends in those guilds who used to level up with me. But as they constantly urged me to join them, I simply couldn't due to the time limitations I had. I have my own life here in Singapore and the time of their raids were simply too impossible for me to partake. The raids are not short and sweet things you often encounter as a group in EQ. An hour or two won't cut it. A raid lasts a bare minimum of 6 hours and can stretch to a mind blowing 2 weeks for the Plane of Sky. That includes gathering time, grouping distribution, buffing time, fighting time, looting distribution, honor listings and the list goes on. The honor listings were converted to a new medium as time went on. It turned into the Dragon Kill Point system or the DKP. It's widely used in most MMOrpgs with raiding systems nowadays.

I was one of the people involved in the creation of it's concept. We all felt that the loot was so hard earned of people's time and effort, that we should have a point system for those people who were constantly par-taking in the raids but had nothing to show for it. While people in the guilds resisted this change for the longest time. Everybody finally relented because they had an "unlucky" draw once too many times. Thus the DKP was born. Why Dragon you ask? Because the first raids in EQ involved killing nasty Nagafen and Vox. They were the nasty dragons that had the most uber loot in the game at the very beginning.

No one guild can be responsible for the DKP. I was in several of the raiding guilds and had absolutely nothing to show for it for 1 1/2 years so I actively suggested this medium to the various guild leaders. Eventually, the raiding guilds such as Afterlife and the eventual split off into Drinal, Cats in Hats was to be the premier raiding guild for the split server. I almost joined Afterlife before I split into Drinal and I knew the founding guild leader of Cats in Hats because we used to level up alot together. Both guilds took up the DKP system eventually and each guild had it's own version of DKP. Things such as raid time, character used and even dps were sometimes calculated to make sure that people got their fair share of credit and claim to the loot that lies at the end of the raids.

The moral of the story? I learnt so much from my time in Everquest and I am just beginning to find out that everything I've experienced and learnt in that video game, is coming to life in Reality. All the things that applied in the game in terms of human to human interaction and mechanics are actually reflecting itself in the interactions of the people around me. Now when I see an event happening, I can actually tell how people will start to react. It's because I've seen such unpredictability of situations and how people reacted to them in real time and pressure. So in project groups, real working environments where stress starts to mount, I see people reacting the same way they do in the game. Blaming the people around them, freezing up in fear, totally losing morale, standing up to the challenge, rallying those around them and so on and so forth.

Things that happened in the game are coming true right as I am living my life. Situations where I had to work in a big group such as my orientation leadership camp and my part in Voice Out 1 and 2 actually were like playbacks of raids I had in Everquest. It had too much similarity to the game to say that Everquest was just a game. It was a literal extension of how human group mechanics worked. It was better than doing actual research on people who are forced to work together. It was the experience of doing it yourself.

Things that the game had conditioned me to be attuned to are actually showing up more and more often in real life. Perhaps in life that is how I've been truly learning. Making mistake after mistake. If I've only learnt one thing from EQ, is that you should never fear to make a mistake but you should absolutely fear not learning from one. Do NOT fear failure, it is but the mother of success. If you never made a single mistake in your life, your whole life is a mistake. So instead of trying to succeed in life without first learning what is right and wrong, let's all sit down and reconsider what we truly understand about ourselves. Are we stupid? We're only stupid if we are scared to find out what is right or wrong. Make the call, take the step. If you turn out to be wrong, just admit it and learn from it. That is what life is, although I played a game that taught me all that. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-04-25T19:16:00.000+08:00

Mind Fog

For those of you who played Baldur's Gate 2, its expansion the Throne of Bhaal or even the Ice Wind Dale series, you'd know exactly what I'm talking about. It's the blue fog that comes out of the dastardy Brain Golem that wanders the halls of the Illithid. It's the fog that drains one will save regardless if they were completely immune to magic and the like. The tricky thing about mind fog, is that it's not something that's rather fun to be in while the damn Illithid are ripping through my character's brains. Thus I always sought to clear out the brain golems before the party engages any of the Illithid that wander the damnable hive.

I send Imoen equipped with that wonderful staff of golem slaying and seek these golems out while I project image and beat the crap out of them with that beat stick I bought with a ton of gold. Incidentally, she is one of the cutest goddesses of murder you can know. Quite unlike the murderous father that she had. I suppose that's what you get when you have a baby with a positive bimbo. I seriously wonder what Bhaal was thinking by having a child with a bimbo like that. Maybe he was just "distracted" heh...

But back to this blog entry, what is mind fog? I suppose it even exists in Real Life. In whatever form it takes, it definitely saps the will of the people engulfed in it. However, unlike the mind fog in the game, it doesn't wear off when the cloud dissipates. Quite ironic that the mind fog in the real world is really much scarier than the fog that's in a fantasy world where the impossible seems like nothing. If you look around, there's actually lots of more things in Real Life that are much more frightening than in the fantasy world. It maybe made up of people's imagination, I suppose that it's quite babyish in that manner. Anyone who knows the true horror of human nature will say that Dungeon and Dragons and all it's other incarnations, regardless it's Sci-fi or Fantasy, pales in comparison of serial killers who literally etch terror into their victims.

Or war crimes committed during the World wars, in Africa's civil wars and even the war in Vietnam have crimes that will sicken and frighten those possessing hardest of stomachs. I for one was quite appalled by the things that have been done. But it will never end, the pain and the suffering will continue as long as humanity exists. Without such brutality, we will lose our moral compass and eventually sink into depravity. Our laws will twist and our minds will warp. Until one day, the very acts thought to be vanquished return into society and become accepted as a common practice.

Such an occurrence shall happen IF we get rid of all that is evil and bad in the world. I'm not saying that it should run rampant. But I'm just saying that these "evil" people give us our moral direction. Without people like them to reflect upon, we will be unable to see beyond our own judgements. Without a greater evil, we literally become it. So in order to maintain some semblance of good at least, we have to tolerate some evil. To have the greatest good, would also mean you've have to have the greatest evil. Which will lead humanity into countless wars and conflicts. So to prevent that, we need moderate good and evil which can remain in a stalemate for a long time to come.

For a stalemate in good and evil means peace and usually much more prosperity compared to the conflicts between the greater good and evil. As long as a balance is maintained between the two, human kind shall live long and be enlightened. But as long as one side keeps getting stronger unabated, human kind shall suffer endless depravity. We all know the problems of evil getting too strong, but what the good getting too strong? Let us take a simple game like Diablo 2. It talks about the 3 prime evils, Hate a.k.a. Mephisto, Destruction a.k.a. Bhaal and Terror a.k.a. Diablo. It talks about how Diablo corrupted and took over a brave hero who had come to vanquish him. It also tells of how Bhaal corrupted Tal Rasha who was a great mage of great principal and morals. And lastly, it also mentions how Mephisto corrupted Lazarus and the head of the monastic order.

IF this is how evil starts destroying the world, then good will destroy the world in a similar manner. Without Mephisto leading the fanatical cult of the Zakarum. Their pious leader with absolute power and absolute goodness will not have anyone morally capable of opposing them. Thus any action taken by their leader and their whole religion will be taken as what's right. Thus Mephisto is only but a symbol of which the religion eventually falls and becomes a cult. Too much power and the leaders become corrupted. In this case a demon was truly behind the problems. But in Real Life, great religious leaders have caused so much deaths as well. They have so much power over people who believe in them, that they are almost like God.

By listening to them, people believe that they will receive salvation. And one of the most prolific religious leaders of our day and age is no other than Osama Bin Laden. This is proof that too much good can destroy this world. In the eyes of his believers, he is definitely good. Thus there was no balance. People would not be swayed by the words of others because he has instilled the very essence of what is "good" into people's hearts. Any such pure "goodness" that is so absolute, shall rip the world asunder faster, harder and into smaller pieces than pure evil. I do believe that in our governments, our politicians should not be squeaky clean. So that when they start doing unethical things, people will start rejecting him because he isn't of a pure repute.

If our political leaders were completely clean of misdeeds. Then the people will have no reason to doubt and question them. Thus IF the leader decides to oppose the world by acquiring nuclear warheads and bio-weapons, the country can do nothing but judge that action upon his sterling reputation in the country. One such example is the Leader of North Korea Kim Jung Ill the 2nd. In his country, he is regarded to have done nothing wrong despite his international reputation. IF he wasn't so clean in his country's eyes, he would have fallen a long time ago and replaced with a different politician the moment he started the nuclear project.

Revolutions are only done when people are motivated enough to start one. Thus if people do not have a reason to oppose the current leadership, the world shall continue to suffer the rule of a despot that will eventually become a tyrant. It doesn't take too long for absolute power to corrupt an individual. And it's proven true that power warps your judgements. Perhaps in time, people will understand that a chaotic political system where there's no true victor, shall be what will enable peace in the long term. With no one single power to corrupt a country, then no matter what the damage is, it will be minimal. So you know, there's no such thing as true good and true evil. Its all a matter of perspective. Alauz Out.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-04-22T13:07:00.000+08:00

Change

And of course, if you noticed a change in my blog. I decided to do a minor overhaul and change the template. It was a simple upgrade and to tell you the truth, I like the new minimalist look. Not that the previous look wasn't minimalist enough, but I felt that the color was kind of distracting.

To further dull the senses of the people who actually dare to read my blog, I'm also setting all the words to be as boring as possible. No doubt, you might think that this is an attempt to be more professional. Fear not, as this is just a mild side effect of an experiment on my blog. I'm going to see if this template would be more discouraging to read. Or was the previous one more appealing.

If you read my previous post. Then you'd know what exactly why I'm talking like this. Then again, it's not an attempt to get you to read my posts. In fact, I want you not to read them ever. Once again I bid all of you a neutral weekend. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-04-22T12:00:00.000+08:00

World Revolution

And so as I mentioned countless times to myself, "The world doesn't revolve around you.". I am like most humans, tend to think astray with regards on my skewed view of the world around us. It's really quite fun to think that the world revolves around ya, but it comes to an abrupt end oh too often. More often than not, those who bring my head down from the clouds aren't very grounded themselves. It's more like a battle of opinion to those who view my descent. But it's actually more like looking in a mirror for me.

When I see first hand, what I have become in the face of another. I fall rapidly back to reality. It's quite a nice and shocking revelation. And of course I do welcome it with open arms. Reason? Well the reason is, you never know how you look like from another person's point of view until you look in a mirror. In most circumstances, a REAL mirror hanging on the wall won't cut it. Why? Because when your doing the things that are hurting others, the mirror ain't there to show you what your doing. Until someone acts as the mirror and does what your doing in front of you.

So I guess, I did some waking up. It was like in a nightmare, except that I wanted it to continue. I don't know but I suppose everyone has their fair share of turning to the darker side of humanity. I for one, embrace it because it's part of humanity. Before you call me a hypocrite, consider what I stand for. Balance and humanity. Without Good, there is no Evil. Without Evil, there is no Good. Without a Dark side of humanity, there is no humanity. We are but pawns if we let others decide the path that we tread. We are truly players in the game of life if we tread where we please.

Please take note that treading where others have tread, don't make you a copy cat. But if you forget where you stand while following others, then you truly are lost. How will you survive without your individuality? While we all agree that society is crucial to humanity, how many of us can truly say that they believe that individuality is just as important without sacrificing society? In order to maintain sanity and order of our very minds. We need to understand that one cannot survive without the other. If your truly an individual, then you are truly part of society. And if you want to be part of society, you've got to be your own person.

Make sense? Or have I lost you? To be one of the extremes is to be balanced in both. To be balanced, you've got to tip towards one side of the scales. Humanity thrives on diversity, without diverse cultures and differences our world will end in very short order. Common interests are never truly the same and our differences aren't truly a problem. If two nations have differences, then they will be motivated to have stronger bilateral ties. Reason? Because they want to understand one another more. But if two nations understand each other absolutely, chances are that war is about to break out between the two. Disharmony breeds harmony and harmony breeds discontent.

Hopefully, your so lost in what I'm saying that you finally understand what the world truly is. It is CHAOS. If you say your confused and lost about how this world works. And how everything doesn't seem to connect at all. Then I shall say that you have understanding of how this planet works. However, if you say that you understand how this world works, then I shall say that you don't know a thing about our world.

What is Chaos Theory BUT an attempt to bring order to a chaotic set of behavior? In actuality, Chaos Theory is ORDER and the total opposite of true Chaos. So to understand the world, is to have total misunderstanding and to have no idea how the world works, complete ignorance is true enlightenment. If you understood what I'm saying, then you will also know by now that everything I said is vice-versa. The Truth is also The Lie. I hope that perhaps one day, a person without intellect, will read my work and suddenly become genius-san. Alauz Out!

Human Nature
What is Intelligence,
It is what we do that defines us.
True Intelligence can unbind us,
From the chains that trap us.

What is Stupidity,
Learning not from our mistakes.
Making not a single mistake,
Will you become truly stupid.

What is Courage,
Falling down is not courage,
Getting up is not courage,
Moving forward is true courage.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-04-15T21:28:00.000+08:00

The Strongest Shape? And then a talk about Morality.

Why is it that Life seems to be in an everlasting cycle? And it's always in a circle? We take from the earth while we live. And we return to the earth when we die. I've asked a simple question before in physics. What is the strongest shape to resist change from outward pressure? I've been answered a circle.

I have this incredibly weird mind that likes to link everything together. So I gathered after some musing, that life is so tenacious mainly because it's "shape" is a never ending cycle, which incidentally is a circle. So by being a circle, life isn't easily ended as new life sprouts up every time another ends.

So the REAL REASON why the "food pyramid" being used to educate people isn't getting the response it ought to perhaps it's NOT a CIRCLE! Yeah! Exactly... Pyramids are meant for things that are going to be placed to DIE off in a peaceful manner. Thus the food pyramid kinda antiquated for most people who don't care, really REALLY fast.

So perhaps certain shapes do dictate how strong a process is, depending on the way the process is supposed to work. Wait, what about pyramid marketing? Well, don't you know it's already illegal? The very sense of the word pyramid marketing didn't work out very well for it's very first incarnation here in Singapore didn't it? So it ended up being RENAMED into direct marketing or some people call it direct sales. But despite it being 100% identical to pyramid marketing in terms of the way the company and its processes are run, people are literally embracing this new form of marketing.

As for the "new" direct sales/marketing gimmick thingy, it's exactly the same as pyramid marketing, except that instead of multiple middle men, 100% of the profits now go to the ONLY visible "middle man" which is the manager of the "branch office". Of course there are OTHER "branch offices" which are run by OTHER "managers" who earn 5 digit salaries from the slavings of their "slaves" and thus there is no more difference between pyramid marketing and direct sales. They pay their employees next to nothing while the managers reap all the profits. They also have other so called "alliances" with other direct sales/marketing companies... which IF you put them together, would be NO different from a Pyramid marketing company in the past.

The fucking scary thing IS! That every single "successful" direct sales/marketing manager now, had been in the pyramid marketing scheme. They practically remade pyramid marketing no doubt in a more "creative" and "inventive" manner. But the way people are treated and the way profits flow in the company are no different than from the original scheme. Where only the people on the top profit from the hard labors of their employees, which are practically stagnant in a dead end job that they don't realize until maybe in their 30s or 40s. Infact, they cut away the chance that the low end employees can climb up the social ladder by taking over the recruitment at the managerial level.

What does that mean? It means that the managers are forever the ones that bring in new recruits and all new recruits are forever earning for that manager ONLY. Thus the lowest level employees are never even given a chance to earn a profit from bringing others into the company. In a way, it's even more perverted and twisted than the original scheme. While no one working in these company would have the sense *after all that brainwashing who would be able to think straight for themselves anyways* to question their manager. While the manager claims that they eventually promote people to become managers, they conveniently forget to mention that these "managers" whom they promoted are creating a BRAND fucking new direct marketing company under their own names.

That's NOT a bloody promotion my man. That's the person QUITING and creating a rival company which is in direct competition to you. So WAKE the FUCK up and stop putting day dreams into the heads of the young adults who are so god damn naive to believe all that crap that comes out of the mouths of you flithy people who just so love to take advantage of their youth and destroying their future by TELLING THEM that they do NOT need an education to get ahead in this day and age.

Yes my friends, those are the exact words I heard at several direct sales/marketing companies I've dared venture to see what kind of employment they offer. They ACTUALLY have the BLOODY NERVE to tell the people that they DO NOT NEED an education. They are telling people who OBVIOUSLY NEED education to tell the difference between the fuckers that are tricking them and the people who really care about them.

My deep anger towards these people are only compounded when I observe more and more of these direct sales personnel ending up DEPENDING on their parents after they REALIZED that they've been used and they got no money to further their education without finding another job. And ladies and gentlemen, these people are in their 30s and almost 40s. Oh my GOD. These people are far too ashamed to even fucking tell anyone. Only people who observed these cases quietly and discreetly can understand WHY nobody out there publicly exposes these bastards that ruin futures.

By having no education, the people in this industry, will eventually have NO choice. But to continue working in this line and tricking more and more youths to support their poorly educated asses. Never ending vicious cycle that will one day, become a major social problem. And I tell you, some of these direct sales/marketing companies POSE as collectors on behalf of charitable organizations WITH the proper documents. They SELL their products AND PROFIT from the sale of "charitable" donations. Who supports these bloody people by giving them the proper authorization to continue this sickening masquerade is very obvious. But people can't say anything now can they? But I'm sick of this... and also because I've personally experienced this from the inside because of a 1 day orientation. *It was a previous blog entry*

It's worthy to note that because of this reason, I never donate money to any charity. But I do volunteer to do some physical chores in charitable organizations. Why? Because I can literally contribute and see my contributions in a physical form instead of giving money to these organizations aiming to profit from the people who are truly needing the contributions. I trust not the collectors but would rather physically help the needy than giving money to people who would only work to steal it away from them.

HOW can you consider it a charitable cause when you profit from the transaction? It's a deep moral issue that I seriously hope these people who still have a shred of conscience to reconsider all the lies and the bluffs they have been doing to profit from the misfortunes of others. By preying on the stupid is one thing. To prey on the disabled, the old and the needy is really lower than pond scum. One example is T.T. Durai. While you are successful in pulling funds to help the needy, you are a con man and a thief if you benefit MORE than a single dependent that is under your care.

What gives you the right to use the money that is donated with expectation to HELP the needy FOR PERSONAL GAIN? Do you feel that the money BELONGS to you? Just because you came up with a few ideas to open the donation channel to MORE people who WANT to give to the POOR? From what I know, Durai did not suffer from kidney failure. IF he was one of the patients under the care of the organization he leads, THEN I say that his spending, no matter HOW LAVISH or HOW UNWARRANTED is fine by me. Why? Because he is one of the disabled that I donated to help. If you can make his life more comfortable over that dreadful diease, I wholeheartedly support that cause.

IF your not one of the subjects dependent on the charity, then you got NO FUCKING RIGHT besides the basic need of survival to use the money people donated to you for the purpose of helping the needy. Remember, while it's LEGAL to use 30% of all money donated to a charitable organization, it's NOT morally upright to spend that much if you can avoid it. While I know morals are of extremely short demand in the world. Charities should be the ones that should have priority over these people. The world is bad enough when the wicked are running rampant. Let's not have the wicked ruling our only safe havens that is our charities that are meant to shelter us from the storm of evil.

With that, I leave you with a moment of reflection. A written form of the twisting storm that makes up my mind. Alauz Out!

Royalty
Royalty, the noble ones that leads us forth.
On the tip of a sword, Royalty was born.
Yesterday was an age of wars.
Already the world they've robbed.
Loyalty was a virtue they adored.
Truthfulness something they abhorred.
Yesterday was an age of wars.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-04-14T15:10:00.000+08:00

Types of Gamers

I've been doing some thinking and research over the past couple of weeks. Playing several online games and also observing my brother and his friends playing online in my abode. And I realized that I could start classifying some of the basic characteristics of the Singaporean players that frequently appear on these games.

Why should we classify them? It is so that we can have easy reference to characters we perceive online and also to minimize contact with the more unsavoury types of characters. Let's look at the basic types of players first.

One of the most obvious players are usually the winners. They are the players who have vested much time and perhaps money into the game. They are the ones who are usually rather outstanding and play the game to win. They are also able to be split into further categories. Among the winners, you will often see whether or not they are graceful losers. That will further split them into sore losers and self motivators.

The sore losers will bitch and whine about losing and complain about it all the way until they leave the game. No doubt, when they vested much time into any game, they will at first look like a winner. But you will see that ugly side of them as soon as they make their first loss.

And as for self motivators, when they have a loss while playing the game, you can see them encouraging others in their team to try again and attempt to get better at the game. They have vested much time and have enough experience to understand the reason why they lost and are willing to recuperate and try again usually winning a long streak before losing again.

That's it for the winners. Now for the other characters. There's the spy. I noticed that alot of times in alot of LAN type games, there will be a group of friends with too many players and one of their friends have to join the opposite team. Normally it would not be a problem. But if the member that joined the opposite team is of a spy type character. The person usually works against the team joined. The ways include sacrificing one's self to the opponents and also acting as recon for his friends in the opposite team. These characters cause one of the most grief in most of the LAN type games played today.

Other than the spy, there's of course the Leader. This character type is quite unique due to the fact that any of the other character types may actually take up this mantle one moment or another. The Leader character is the type of person that is either forced or volunteered. They work in the same manner by rallying their teammates and giving instructions. In games where strangers playing together have to work together as a team. After one or two hours, the natural leader of the group would naturally stand out from the rest. That person will eventually be in charge everytime the group needs instruction to progress. The person may not be rather charismatic in Real Life. But he/she understands the members of the group and has a natural intuition to direct them in the best way possible. Note, you will notice a Leader character in the losing and the winning side.

Then there's the Supporter. This is a character that rallies behind the Leader. The Supporter is usually one that is first to respond to the Leader's beckons and urges the others to follow the lead. This character is usually filled with a strong desire to win. And when everyone else feels the cause is lost, the Supporter is unfazed and continues trying to rally the others towards the leader. Note, the Supporter is usually second in command depending on the game.

If there's positive then there's negative, thus comes the character known as the Slacker. This character type is usually very passive and doesn't actively seek to win the game. They may be playing the game for the first time or even be very experienced. Anyone can become a Slacker at any time by becoming a character that doesn't contribute to winning the game. The person may just want to win by doing nothing or just doesn't feel motivated enough to chip in for the win. Nevertheless, this character usually causes alot of grief as well.

That's the basic characters you will see in the standard LAN type games being played today in Singapore. With few exceptions even in Non-LAN games such as Audition, World of Warcraft and Everquest. Reason being that it's more of a basic human trait that manifests on the gaming level rather than in Real Life. Do note that traits that come out in gaming are usually the hidden traits of a person's personality, especially if the person doesn't normally act that way in Real Life. It's a very effective way to tell whether a person's rotten on the inside or pretending to be a bad boy on the outside but actually an angel in disguise.

With that amount of analysis, I believe my brain has decided to take a vacation for the next couple of hours. Probably going to take a nap or something to refresh myself before a night out with ex-poly classmates tonight. If you managed to read what I wrote. I do believe that you should pat yourself on the back and then go wash your brain with detergent. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-04-09T23:55:00.000+08:00

Deep Psyche

Well now, it's been awhile since I posted anything up with regards to anything. Let's just say I've been exploring the games that I have played once and thrown on the shelf to rot. What is it about the games that made me buy them in the first place? Personally, games are like a form of media for me. So to me, it's like buy a newspaper every couple of weeks to check out what's new in the world today.

Why buy the game? Why not try the demos and feel the game that way? I feel that if you only play the demo, you might get the initial feeling of the game. But you'd lose the recurrent value of the game. One perfect example would be game modding. Let's say you played a Half-life demo and felt that it wasn't for you. So you didn't buy it because you felt that it was going to be a waste of your money.

But as time wore on, your friend introduces you to a game called Counter-Strike. You fell in love instantly and wondered why it wasn't being sold on the store shelves. That's when you found out that in fact, Counter-Strike was a game that you had to own the game Half-Life and download it as a free mod. So you end up going out to buy Half-Life even though it's been out for a year an a half ago. That was just an example, I personally bought Half-Life when it was first released here and was one of the first people who tried Counter-Strike, Team Fortress Classic and other mods that appeared shortly after.

If your not convinced by that example, let's take a second one like Warcraft 3. It's not a game that anyone can just pick up and play because it's technically an RTS. Some people just aren't able to grasp the concept of an RTS. But take one of the most popular mod maps such as Tower Defense or even Defense Of The Ancients a.k.a. DOTA. These customized maps changed the game so much, it's no longer just an RTS game anymore. In fact, so many players play these maps alone WITHOUT knowing how to play Warcraft 3 they can form a totally different player demographics it's simple astounding.

So that Justifies my buying of the games that I deem have immense potential that enter the market. The potential not just lie in the Single Player or Multi Player environments and experience. But the potential for mods that are potentially as popular or sometimes even more popular than the original game itself. These products demand alot of attention and people until today, have not been able to pick out which are the games with the potential and which don't.

But let's just say I can see these things. Games which are below par in terms of graphics for a wider player demographics on lower end systems, have simple game play compared to the other games in the market AND have a simple enough game engine that EASILY allows modifications will be the games that will herald consumer creations with an added bonus of sales of the original games thru the roof. These games are the ones that the consumer buys and plays. But after the original experience is over, they hunger for a new form of play in this simplistic engine.

Thus they innovate and create new ideas for the game and mod it themselves. And most importantly, these mods are FREE! That's the NUMBER 1 drive for consumer to BUY the original OLD games and download these mods. It's a gamer psychology that when a mod is free and it's good to play, there's bound to be more mods that are free and fun to play as well. So it's a worthwhile investment to buy the original game to play with others.

That how so many of these mods came about. So that's why I feel that the new generation of games that are "anti-piracy" and do not allow modding for the game, will never reach the cult status icon that many of the old games have done. This is because of the fundamental reason of more heads are better than one. In the chaos, tens of thousands of gamers are involved someway or another in the creation their own mods, in comparison with a development team of let's say, 12. The gamers out-number the developers by more than 10 thousand to 1. The gamers are bound to beat the developers, no matter how much experience and how much knowledge the developers have.

So when the developers try these new technologies that restrict this creative movement on the gamer front. It is the consumers that not only resist the change but also creates a damper on the retail front. I'm 100% sure that PC games sales are behind console sales now because of the basic reason that as a consumer, I know that the PC game I buy now. Will NEVER evolve into something more than what it is designed to be. So in trying to be MORE PROFITABLE, the game developers have only succeeded in destroying their future value of all PC games.

One perfect Mis-Example is Neverwinter Nights 2. The game modding experience is so bad that most modders give up at the get go. I've read on multiple official and unofficial forums that while the original Neverwinter Nights modders could just host their modded maps online without any need for their clients to download anything or at the very most download it directly from the server itself.

Neverwinter Nights 2 made sure that the players could not even join a server with a custom map unless the player went to download everything, textures, hak paks, maps, BY THEMSELVES from the modders WEBSITES. IF the modder had no website or had no desire to host said files he simply cannot mod the game. You would have to be SERIOUS to mod the game and that takes out all the fun. It's TOO MUCH of a hassle for most modders who want to try it out for fun. Incidentally it is through these "fun" forays that great mods become hugely popular. People wouldn't play a mod that wasn't "fun".

That is all fine and dandy until you realized that 95% of all Original Neverwinter Nights modders were just trying concepts they thought was fun and HAD NO WEBSITE of their own that could host such files. So you just lost 95% of your creative creation audience and your sequel is currently flopping to death because of the lack of innovation from the very customers they have ostracized in which the game has come to depend upon to survive and prosper.

I personally played Neverwinter Nights and sampled some of it's countless mods. And some of the mods were mind bogglingly fun and surprisingly simple to play. Some changed the game so much, I felt like I wasn't playing NWN anymore. But when I tried NWN2, the quality of the game was good, but the quality of the mods were abysmal. There just wasn't any of the mods that had simple goals.

There simply wasn't enough mods created to FORCE the players into competing with one another to create better mods. These serious lack of modders could be attributed to the fact that players who played NWN strongly discouraged other new players with possible new game concepts to adopt the game. WHY? Because they simply don't see enough good mods out there to warrant any of their friends joining them. It's a cycle that will not change once the consumer's mind is set about the hassle perceived in modding the game is too high to encourage more modding.

By allowing nobody but the developer themselves to easily "modify" their own games and come up with so called "paid expansions". They deprive the consumers of innovation that can only come from the consumers themselves. I do believe that there are already people out there who realize what I'm saying is true. And that number will only continue to dwindle as long as there is no support from the developers themselves. And eventually, the developers will wonder why the PC gamer market has so mysteriously dried up despite the glut of so many "quality" games out there.

Well, this may not be an enjoyable experience reading because of the amount of passion I put into my words. But hey, this is sort of my personal point of view which I feel is the answer for the problems plaguing this world. Remember, more points of view are infinitely better than just one and there's no such thing as my point of view being more valid than yours. Alauz Out.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-03-31T19:04:00.000+08:00

A delayed reaction

Hi again one and all. It's been a hectic week as I try to come to terms with the growing popularity of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. I went to the opening at Shaw Lido around 12pm on Monday and there was already a queue forming up with a growing number every minute or so.

At first, I was quite surprised because it was firstly a Monday so most people should either be studying or working. But obviously there was something amiss and people kept streaming in. The opening wouldn't be open until 2pm and the line started snaking around the circular ring at the box office.

I had decided to do some preliminary research on the maturity of the general gamer market and do a full day observation. I stood by the stage entrance and said my hellos to Chris and Leong. I started looking around at the forming crowd and listened in on their small talk. The reasons why they are able to come here for this event slowly became evident to me.

The Reasons

So what were the reasons this crowd was forming? The superficial reasons were easy to deduce, some of them were university or poly students with their lessons starting later in the evening. Some of them were working adults that took a day of MC to come down to the event. Some of them were retirees who were here on behalf of their children or grandchildren to collect the game. Eventually the crowd itself was the reason why it kept growing. People joined the crowd just because of the sheer hype that the crowd was generating.

What I was interested in was actually the hype the crowd itself was generating. It seemed that despite the fact that EA did not have any radio or television advertisements, people came down in droves anyway. And the fact that common psychological term "Mob mentality" kinda reared its head during the event made matters far more interesting. A preliminary conclusion at this point was that people in Singapore are highly affected by mob-like mentality. Where the word of mouth and a presence of a crowd would be highly effective in drawing in the crowd I saw on Monday.

Elation

This was the very reaction towards video gaming that I've been waiting for to happen in Singapore. I thought that I was one of the few that could be this affected by the games of our era, but I'm glad that the trend is changing rather positively. People are treating video games more and more of an accepted form of entertainment. It's true that in the Caucasian countries, video games have a larger draw than the movie and music industry. But here in Asia, the people have not yet accepted video games on the same level as they would a movie or music.

While this trend is set to change in the near future, I decided to do a more in depth look at the crowd and its makeup a little more carefully. I found out that about 20% of the crowd that stood near my observation point, came with the intention of not buying the game. They were there with a friend that bought the game, a person who came to watch a movie but got entranced by the crowd and the live game demos or a person who just was curious and came to see what the hype was all about.

This crowd of non-buyers formed an extremely interesting group to study. They were subjected to the game's marketing hype and eventually, of that 20% about 60% succumbed to the hype and actually lined up to buy the game. Overall, there were about 8% of the crowd that were there just to experience the game because they either can't afford it or they weren't interested enough to buy the game.

This is a rather intriguing finding that I didn't believe possible at Singapore's current market maturity. If close to 98% of a crowd at an official opening actually bought the game, Lido's small size might actually have limited influence of the game's hype. The final tally of games sold by the EA crew numbered somewhere between 4800 plus. They had a target of about 5000. But by looking at the unexpected turnout of the crowd, Chris felt that it was still a huge success and discussed some of the difficulties of managing this event and the steps he took to solve the problems that cropped up.

Memorable Moments

There were a few memorable moments. The first memorable moment was when I saw an old man with a walking stick in the queue buying the game. I took a picture and would put his picture up, but I would rather respect his privacy on my blog.

A second moment was when a group of 3 middle aged men in their 40s and 50s lining up together to get the game. They knew each other and from their conversations, I noted that they were buying the game not for their children but because of the hype.

One other moment was when Ismet wanted to exchange numbers with me so we could talk some more about where I would be headed on gaming psychology. If you don't know the name, I will not further divulge anymore further privacy violations.

Another moment was when I met a student who is working for EA part time and he is studying in Communications and New Media in NUS. He seemed pretty interested in the observation I was doing, but couldn't do much to communicate with me because he was really busy as the event went on.

And on a complete unrelated note, the best moment was probably when I had dinner with E. Haha, after moving around and observing people for a whole 8 hours. It was probably the only time I sat down at Lido. And of course E's company was somewhat therapeutic as I've had almost no personal time on Monday. Also helps that E was in a mood for Japanese food, which incidentally is my favourite cuisine.

The Details

Here are some finer details:

An estimated crowd turn out of about 5500 over the course of 7 hours
Crowd maximum swell at around 2pm - 3.30pm
Crowd dissipation at around 4.30pm
Secondary crowd was small and maintained until closing
Crowd participation in prize winning Q&A session is excellent
Crowd involvement in lucky draw is enthusiastic
Crowd participation in ground challenges excellent
General reason to buy the game is because of the hype and previous ownership
General pick up reason is because everyone else is buying it

The End

A finishing note, I'd give the Singapore market another 18-24 months before it's mature enough to do a small scale gaming psychology study. At it's current stage, I say only 50% of the target audience are researchable via conventional means. Another 1 1/2 to 2 years would give sufficient time for the take up to spread to a more desired demographic. And of course the difficulties would then to know how to speak fluent malay, dialect and mandrin to reach the older population to know their reaction to this growing trend.

That's enough serious talk for one day. Come what may, I hope there's a tomorrow for all of us. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-03-26T01:06:00.000+08:00

Common Misconceptions

Well, spent most of the day without the internet. I had suspicions regarding my router and modem. But I only just managed to fix it about 30 minutes ago. What was the error? It wasn't a simple case of manually rebooting every router, modem or computer connected to the network. No, it wasn't that simple or I would have had it up and running 5 minutes from the point of breakdown.

Instead I spent a solid hour doing physical checking and hard reboots. Strangely enough, I decided to live the day without the internet. Sounds hard, but it's actually quite easy. So I spent the whole day doing without the internet. Read up some interesting research papers and after that I watched CSI Supreme Sunday on AXN. After that it was already 12.30am. I decided to give Starhub a call and they said that all their tech support guys were busy and they'd call me back tomorrow.

Normally I wouldn't bother continuing fixing the problem with the internet. But my mom decided to try and inject some of her words of wisdom while I was on the phone with Starhub and as usual she said, "Oh tell me what did they reply you! Tell them to send someone down as soon as possible!" I was of course felt that they won't send anyone down physically if they don't even know if it's a problem on my side.

So after I put down the phone, I logged into my router's control page. Yeah my router is remotely controlled via a webpage. Much like most routers now. And if it was a physical router fault, I'd know right away since I wouldn't be able to log into the control page. So back to how I solved the problem. Normally, when you hard reboot your hardware, it usually does a soft reboot as well and clears it's temporary caches and reloads everything with new values. But then I found out, that my Linksys router doesn't!

I ran a series of Tracert and ping tests to check if my computer could connect to any other network points other than my router, it came up ziltch. I was wondering if perhaps it was a network failure on Starhub's side. But I considered the fact that it wasn't on the news and dismissed it. It was then that I decided to check on my router's status page and look at the ip such as Gateway, DNS servers and WINSock servers. I discovered that they were all there. So if my router was assigned those numbers, it means the network was working! At least partially.

How did I know that? I didn't haha... until I decided to check if a soft reboot like releasing the old IP the router had and renewing it would solve the problem. Note that a typical computer will renew it's IP everytime you shut it down and restart it again. And a typical modem would do the same thing. So you would normally assume that a router would do the same thing after a hard reboot. But it seems a router's temporary storage information works on a flash rom memory and it wouldn't change the temporary information unless you change it yourself. So voi'la, manually releasing and renewing the ip did the trick.

If any of you guys run into this exact same problem in the future, you'd do well to just do a ip release and renew to avoid having nearly 17 hours of no internet. Of course if it's a hardware issue or a network issue on your ISP's side, then I do wish you the best of luck. The moral of today's story? Thinking outside of normal parameters saves the day yet again. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-03-16T18:24:00.000+08:00

EA Play Forum 2007

I went down today to EA Play 2007 at SIM HQ campus. Reason for doing so? I had received the email info from SIM that EA will be hosting their EA Play event at SIM this year since it's inception last year.

Since I was still in NS last year I decided to make the trip today to find out if the people I had worked with before were still in EA. Nice to note, Christopher is still as sharp as ever and a surprising face from the past appeared. Leong from Khabal is now working for EA as well. It was a really pleasant surprise to see another familiar face in the EA crowd.

There was mention that there would be a forum today with regards to the industry pioneers of singapore and it was too hard to resist attending. To most, I suppose the whole process of the back end to the front end of the games industry would be a rather dry subject. But I kind of digress. It's a very interesting business process that has a unique flavor that isn't for the impatient and faint of heart.

If you want the whole Jist of things, perhaps I could do a minor summary of the proceedings from memory. The whole forum had speakers from 4 organizations. Game Axis, Electronic Arts, MDA and the University of Wollongong Australia in that order. Game Axis introduced the games industry and it's rate of growth. The impacts we have seen so far since games have entered the market here in Singapore.

After that EA general manager Christopher took over and went on about EA's duties as a publisher cum distributor. Covering business basics like the work processes all along the supply chain which most brick and mortar businesses have to go through today. And he also touched upon the importance and perhaps entertainment requirement of "Hype" required for all games. Thus the uniqueness of the Asian market also inflicts a rather difficult challenge to market the games successfully.

After that game MDA speaker Jason who talked about the Singapore government's stance on the exploding gaming industry here in Singapore. While he never said this officially in the forums, he did mention to me after the forums that the MDA does take a more non-intrusive stance the MDA has on the effects of gaming upon the society at the moment. He also mentioned censorship possibilities and it would allow for greater genres of games being brought in under a more Singaporean rating system. He also mentioned of several gaming grants that the government is trying to push to the aspiring developers of singapore. You can access these information by emailing the guys at MDA, catch is you must go find out the email address at the MDA website yourself.

The last speaker was Associate Professor Willy from the University of Wollongong Australia. He talks about the academic stance his university has taken to nurture a new generation of game programmers and designers. And the need to know not just about the new technology that is up and coming specifically for gaming but about the positive impact of gaming upon the way the university is educating its students.

There was a constant Q & A from the floor to the speakers. With yours truly having some queries on some of the more interesting issues of gaming. I voiced a particularly hard question about the perpetual chicken or egg issue by comparing which comes first and what is the stance that EA tries to take on this issue? A market ready for a solid game (product) that forces a good game (product)? Or a solid game (product) that creates a market all by itself.

Christopher had a good come back by saying that EA Asia Pacific understand the need for hype to have a successful launch of a good game but also noted that over hyping a mediocre game is also a sure recipe for disaster. Throughout this article, I have tried my best NOT to use the exact words that the speakers had said but rather, I expressed it in a shorter and more impactful manner.

Well, my efforts on the floor weren't completely unnoticed too however. And since this is a personal blog, I'd just say I've opened a few more doors of possibility for my future in gaming media here in Singapore. Looks like things are really starting to pick up the pace from my period of soul searching. Good things will eventually come to the patient. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-03-06T12:07:00.000+08:00

Quake in Singapore

As of 11.50am here in Singapore. I on the 16th story of my block and I felt my chair moving uncontrollably. I sat up and planted both my feet on the ground to check if it's my body causing the sudden sway. I felt the ground tremor alittle more. Crap, an earth quake?! Here in Singapore? In the north west of Singapore?

I sat uncomfortably and asked my brother who was sitting beside me if he felt the floor moving. He said that he felt it too. Thus we ran downstairs using the stairs to check out the movement on the ground floor. We left the house in around 30 seconds. By then, the quake has more or less abated. Around 11.55am, we reached the ground floor. Nobody was aware that we had just experienced an earthquake.

From reading about earthquake material since the first few tremors that happened a couple years ago. I knew the if you could feel a quake on a high story flat but the people on the ground floor cannot feel a thing. Then it qualifies at least a richter scale 3. I also promptly called my friend studying at SIM at the moment. And he confirms that they had felt movement on the 5th floor and the roof. At first they thought that it was due to a the construction of the escalator. But then they concluded it was a quake after receiving my call.

There you go folks. My very first quake experience here in Singapore. I'm wondering if I felt it at 3 over here, the people at the East Coast must have felt at least a 3.5-4.0. Hope they weren't too shook up. Anyways, end of blog. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-02-24T13:54:00.000+08:00

New Found Control

Idea of Power
The very idea of power means you are able to control something which few people have the ability to. That is the very essence of power. Thus why is the phrase "Power is nothing without Control" coined? I suppose that people over the ages have forgotten the true meaning of power and began separating the very core of power into 2 parts.

Power consists of potential and control. First thing is potential, without it you have no base for which power can stand upon. Power can be derived in from many forms and can take the aspect of the things we least expect. The trick is, to know how to convert what we deem as useless potential into the useful fuel for raw potential. What is potential? Intelligence, Wisdom, Memory and Passion. These are all separate entities that may or may not be a significant part of each and everyone of our unawakened selves. No human is without any of these parts but no human has the same potential in every part as well.

You must be thinking about how do the atheletes recognize their potential then? Aren't they supposed to be physical potential instead of mental ones? That's where you can tell an experienced coach from an inexperienced one. Does a strong looking horse means it will definately win a race against another horse who doesn't look just as strong? No, it depends so much more on the will of the atheletes to carry them through their constant record breaking feats.

After Potential comes Control
You know know that you have some potential, so how do you go about realizing it? A person with alot of passion but no where to express it will end up being an irritant. Yet trying to pursue multiple tracks will drain that person's passion too fast for him/her to get anywhere. Thus comes control. How does it happen? I don't think it happens overnight but then again the human race surprises me more often than not.

So control for all the different potentials are different. For example, passion is best handled by finding a favored hobby and pursuing it to the end. Wisdom is best done by becoming an emotional backer for people. Memory would be engaging in the line of history and perserving the past. Intelligence would be preferrbly handled by coming up with new ideas and theories. Anyone with differring amounts of potential would end up in very different places.

A person with excellent memory, good wisdom, average passion and intelligence would do very well as a CEO whose job is to maintain the day to day running of a VERY large organization. His memory and wisdom would allow for a well oiled organization which will have little hiccups.

A person with excellent intelligence, good passion, average wisdom and memory would excel as an entrepreneur. An excellent rush of creative ideas and high amount of passion would propel his organization forward and an average wisdom and memory would allow him to remake past errors because many of today's inventions are yesterday's mistakes.

A person with excellent passion, good memory, average intelligence and wisdom would be perfect for certain sports. A high passion to carry the person through the tough times and a good memory to remember all the techniques required to excel at any sport.

And there are just so many combinations. With each different combination there comes a job perfect for that person. Although I'm not saying that everyone in the world should be filtered into these categories, most people who filter themselves are going to be much happier people inside. Control comes naturally when your pursuing something that comes naturally to your strengths. Otherwise, control is a hard won battle that moves constantly up hill as you struggle with a profession that your not suited for. And even after you manage to win control, you might realized that it is totally useless to you in your chosen field.

Make your choice, as I have made mine. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-02-02T08:36:00.000+08:00

Balance of our seven senses

Time Eternal
Time has passed and people have come and gone. When does one's time to shine become known to the one that's shining? When does the time to fade away, dawn upon the one that's supposed to fade? What is time but a man-made illusion.

Time is not eternal, time is made by man. And it will end with man. Do animals need time to live their lives? They live by circumstance. Only man requires time to make sense of the sun, moon, seasons and life. Where is the man who invented time? I would like to congratulate him on ensnaring the entire human race in his web of infinite deception.

Time is not part of nature. It is a monstrosity without compassion or anger. It is something uncontrollable except by the founder of time itself. For to ignore time itself is true mastery over every single one of your seven senses. Yeah I said seven senses and there are really 7 senses.

The Seven Senses
All humans possess the seven senses. At any one time we're only aware of 6 senses. Once you figured out your seventh sense, your mastery of your humanity comes to it's peak. The six basic senses include touch, smell, sight, sound and taste. The sixth sense is often touted as instinct or intuition. The seventh sense is what I'd be talking about in detail today.

It is the sense of time. No matter if you lost all your physical senses, when even your sixth sense fail you. Before your moment of death, there is always a period where your mind truly frees itself. That is the point where time has no meaning. The seventh sense is the sense of time. It is what is ensnared our human minds to live in this dimension. When this sense is affected, you will start to see that the side effects of it's disruption.

For example, temporal fields co-existing in our magnetic field of the earth disrupt that sense of time we all have and cause an area to lose the binding of time between the dimensions. The past and the present start co-existing at the same moment. Minor variations can cause the present to see the past or the past to see the present. The simplest examples are what ghost hunters/investigators call "Residual haunting" which is a haunted location where ghost from the past are seen in a routine which doesn't seem to change. The ghosts are also unaware of the people observing them in the present.

Now, before you start questioning my theory. Just open your mind and think about it's possibility. I'm not saying that this is a solid foolproof theory. But it has its merits. Now let me continue about the seventh sense we have. I believe my "condition" helped me understand why is it that I seem to have "dreams/visions of the future". The fact that my condition has been predated and affected so many others is proof. The proof that there are humans who are born with an damaged seventh sense.

We are all damaged goods, in the sense that our perception of time is not complete. A normal person should sense the present and not the past or the future. Reason for our faulty time receptors can be anything. I personally cannot say where our time receptors reside in. But I believe every part of our six primary senses have an individual time receptor sense. It's like why some people's reaction are faster than others. Their time receptors react faster to time than the ones they are competing against.

But there's a range of fast and slow receptors where people can be "normal". Where time is more or less a straight line to them. In actuality, time is more like a swirling maelstorm. where one might find events merging and spinning around. If your perception of time is changed somehow, then you will start "sensing" the other things happening in the time storm that we have been trapped in.

No matter how wild my theory is beginning to sound, I'm merely trying to simplify it to a terms of our reality. So that normal human minds may interpret it more accurately. For my sense of time is beginning to get so warped. That I feel a strange affinity to time itself. It's like time is no longer something all around me. But something more, tangible. It may sound like I'm off my rockers. But I'm still actually quite capable of coherent thought.

I think maybe the next few pages should encapsulate my experiences that I've recently been experimenting upon.

Experimentation upon Time
This experiment was a test of the amount of fatigue accrued upon attempts to warp one's temporal sense. While I know I do have visions. I rarely have a vision while I'm awake. The times I've had one flashing past my eyes whist conscious before. And I tried reusing that experience to see if I could make one happen and note the amount of fatigue it had upon the mind.

The experiment was the see if I could peer into my immediate future about 1 day or less away. It happened rather surrealy, and the feeling was as if my eyes were blind but yet I am aware of the sights around me. It's much like closing your eyes in the real world to see your dreamworld eyes open. I saw myself watching a scene on television, watching two and a half guys on Starworld. I remembered it was the scene where Charlie Sheen was talking to this rather unknown actor named Bill. Then my sight blurred as I stared back into my computer. I was back in the present. Did it work? I was kept wondering as the incident did not occur immediately the next day.

It so happens, I couldn't control the time destination. But that "sight" was attempted 5 days ago. And the scene I saw, just showed on TV last night. So it was a failure of control on when I viewed a memorable event. But it was a success for induction of a vision. Well, as for the fatigue accrued. It was my first time forcing it upon myself and what I could feel at the end of the session was immense fatigue. Where I felt like if I closed my eyes and leaned back upon my chair. I would fall asleep immediately.

I am not sure if that with constant forced visions, that a person might be able to lessen the fatigue cause by a forced attempt. But the unforced attempts are usually in our dreams. And it leaves me refreshed in the morning. Infact, the waking vision I accidentally had was not at all tiring either. Perhaps it was an over amount of concentration and focus that cause the fatigue.

Before you think me mad, I believe that are countless others like me all over the world. Wondering why their sense of deja vu is so strong and it seems like they have seen a particular event before it happened. And I am slowly understanding that perhaps it not so much a supernal ability as a probable disability to comprehend time. Perhaps our senses that seems to transcend time is merely a sickness where our time receptors are malfunctioning?

Alot of people say it's a curse. So much so, it's probably true. A curse of a sickness that your not able to live a normal life and feel time, the way it's meant to be felt. Ghosts and other hauntings could be due to time anomalies where beings of the different eras are passing through our reality like a warp hole. They exist in all sense of time. And yet don't exist at all. Because they could be phasing. Which is alittle hard to explain. Phasing is where an object warps between dimensions much like your television set having a channel malfunction.

If your TV keeps tuning between a couple of channels. You'd see your favourite channel every, let's say 15 seconds. The other worldly beings could be phasing in and out of our dimension at a far greater rate of differing times. And anything less than a microsecond could be caught on our radio frequency because their phase "rate" is more or less equivalent of the varying speeds of light.

Rate of phasing could explain why some ghosts are wispy and seethrough, while vampires and werewolves are complete flesh and blood with extrodinary abilities. Other ethereal beings could be explained in the same way. If an object is not completely in our phase frequency, an incomplete frequency could cause physical discorpreality OR unbounding of physical reality. It's so hard to explain it in simple terms. But our sense of time actually facilitates our sensing of ghosts and other worldly beings.

Other than that, warping our sense of time could even bring upon super strength, speed, blood thirstiness. Why do you think vampires and werewolves seem to live forever? Perhaps this changing of our temporal senses can be infected through blood and saliva. Changing some basic components in the body allows them much physical differences. Seering ability seems to be breedable as well. It's in the blood and genes but at the same time, not all the members of a family has the neccessary temporal change. Yet those without the ability can give birth to those with the ability.

I know that messing with temporal essences can only end badly. But I cannot help it, since it's helping me understand who I am, what I might be capable of and what to expect from the rest of humanity in the days to come. Among all the powers of the supernatural, the one I fear most is still the ability to know the future. To go against one who has it is terrible. And for the one that possesses it, is doomed to know all the bad along with the good. And while I still am a mostly normal person with no openly visible influence. I'm going to enjoy my life while I still can. Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-01-14T14:31:00.000+08:00

Scare of my life and the reason why I'm a total G.E.E.K.

Okay, I had a heavy scare last night. I thought I lost everything on my hard disk because after installing a video editing program, and importing tons of videos on my computer. It hung and wouldn't even get pass the bloody windows loading screen.

I thought that today I would be reformatting and reinstalling everything I've been working so hard for. Losing all the data I've garnered over the past couple of months. Which is rather significant. I thought about it an realized that I'm one of the geekiest guy I've known in my own social circle. Losing a bunch of data on a hard drive ranks number 4 on my top 10 fears. Which says alot about me.

Anyways it's a good thing there's a God and he still seems to care about me. So I shall head down to the nearest computer shop and buy an external hard drive for video editing. Which was what I should have done in the first place. Well, that's it for today's update. Alauz OUT!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2007-01-11T23:40:00.000+08:00

Global Devaluation Coupled with Mental Degradation and a Tinge of Philosphy

Since my last post, I was constantly reviled by every bad piece of news I've been reading since my stint temping at SPH. Right now, I would like say nothing but the world is officially a piece of crap. And it's turning into a stinkier, more rotten and pathetic place to call home. The reason is not all the pollution, dieases and terrorists that wander around bombing place to place. It's the people in power that truly sicken me. What warped delusion were they having when they decided to enroach on all available power open to them? What made them CREATE all these enemies we call terrorists?

The very lack of fairness in their horrendeous excuse for "Free Trade" has created humongeous discontent with the very people that created the world's most fanatical religion. Seriously, they couldn't have upset a more POWERFUL and RESPECTED religion in the world. Islam has by far, the most number of devout followers in almost all the religions I've encountered. Their fanatism is legendary. I respect them in every sense of the word. Damn me if I ever insult a muslim, because I am surely going to pay thru the nose and keep on paying even after I'm dead.

Dear Global Leaders, you fucked with the wrong religion my man. You could have picked on anyone and perhaps gotten away with it. But Islam, your going to pay in blood, our innocent blood infact. You maybe safe from repercussion, but the commoners like us will pay the price with our lives. If you want to continue the course you guys seem to be headed, you'd end up with NO ONE alive to rule. If you enjoy lording over a cemetary, then please continue whatever you are doing now.

What? Your asking how a person living here on a tiny island of singapore whose leaders are responsibly trying not to escalate the conflict be affected by what other global leaders do? Well look at the bombings in Thailand for example, innocent people from every nationality with access to Thailand were affected, regardless of the fact that their leaders had anything to do with the conflict. What you do AFFECTS EVERYONE! If you think otherwise, your a selfish prick and deserve all the negative karma your so going to be getting. And believe me, if there's an afterlife. Your going to be wishing there wasn't, because all the blood on your hands will come back to haunt you for all eternity.

Think about religion, it's about power and influence without boarders. It's the most beneficial thing to mankind as it tries to make us lead responsible lives. Infact, Islam is by far the most conservative of the religions I know. They tell us to live our lives honorably. Well, I seriously doubt that martyrs are hypocrites. They go as far as to die for their cause, and it shows how determined they are to get their message across. Not that I condone the killing of innocent blood but to them, the blood is not on their hands. It's in the hands of the people who refuse to play by their own rules. It's in the hands of the hypocrites that promise one thing but deliver another. It's not just one country. Damn it's almost every other country in the world.

Politics are quickly corroding the very core of humanity. To do the right thing is to sometimes do the wrong thing? I honestly cannot believe that. If you made a mistake and admit it. Then atone for it. I do not mind. But if you made a mistake, you not only deny it. But try to make all the world believe that it's not a mistake by repeating it non-stop. Now that's got to stop before we enter an all out nuclear war. I believe a nuclear war would start with a single bombing, then an "explanation" which will lead eventually to another and another in similar fashion. Until the world is nothing but a nuclear wasteland and a single plot of livable land where the victor stands. That is the eventual end for humanity if we walk the path of "Politics" instead of honest dealings.

In this globalized day and age, thinking about one's nation no longer applies just to your own country. We got to think about the world. If you think that that's not true, perhaps we can look at something like pollution control. If you think just for your country, you might end up not caring if you polluting a river if it's leading away into another country. But the other country will take offense and perhaps you'd have a potential conflict on your side. Thus by thinking of the world on a whole not only benefit your nation as you implement it, but you might also improve relations with your neighboring countries as a result. It's like killing multiple birds with a single stone. You might end up reaping multiple benefits from a single action benefiting everyone on the whole. Now who says thinking generously will deteriorate the country?

However, I have to admit. The very reason WHY different countries exists is because of our inability to co-relate to one another. And technically there are different countries because we HATE each other and that's why we are not one just ONE GIANT Community. It's the very concept of countries that drive us apart. Funny thing, humans have been in eternal conflict in one another since the collapse of the Tower of Babel. Spell it however way you might want to. You will all be right. We all used to be one glorious nation. All are one people, of one creed. But our unified ambition angered God. We sought to enter heaven even though we were casted out. To prevent us from reaching heaven, God shattered the Tower of Babel and scrambled our languages.

In essence, what's happened over the past few thousand years was infact a will of God. As I have learned several languages over the course of my short life. I was interested when I realized that thinking in the different langauges on the same subject actually affected the perception of the subject. Could one actually change their thought structure simple just by learning and thinking in another language? I experimented thinking in Chinese and English for starters. Then Japanese. Then Malay and Cantonese (A Chinese Dialect). Finally Hokkien (Another Chinese Dialect). I found out that even thinking in a dialect affects our thought processes immensely. The very perception of the mind and the meaning of the words cannot be perfectly translated. Even when they can, the very meaning that the words are affected by how the culture would use them.

In short, I could post a damn thesis on how languages affects our point of view. But simply? When God scrambled our languages after the Tower of Babel, God sought to cripple us so that we may never again, seek to enter heaven before our due time. In our aquaintance of "Knowledge" gifted by the apple tree of eden. We lost our purity required to stay in heaven. By aqquiring knowledge, we gained the power to do both good and evil. We develop a dual nature as part of the price we pay for knowledge. God only allows the humans with a biase of balance towards "good" in our nature to enter heaven. And lets the rest of the "neutrals" and "evil" biased fall into hell. Whose to say that heaven and hell are eternal, but our time spent there may not? We may in short suffer for an eternity and re-inserted into the world to "prove" that we deserve to be where we were?

God loves us dearly, he loves us so much that I'm sure that he'd be willing to give us a second chance even after we have fallen to hell. But with all his creations that misbehave, we have to endure a punishment deserving of our misbehaviour. For an eternity in hell can mean seconds or eons. It's all personal perception. Perhaps also affected by our ability to repent. Religions constantly preach about 2nd chances, perhaps it isn't so far fetched to understand why the chinese believe in reincarnation. Perhaps a hell for humans could be existance as something as pathetic as a common fly. After the death of the fly, perhaps we would be reborn as something else until we finally repent the mistakes we did in our past life and be destined to be reborn as a human again.

What ever the traditional beliefs were, I know they were all once based on fact, not fiction. After Four Thousand years, whose the say the traditions were not "altered" to suit the current generation. Like what we're doing right now by butchering our traditions and replacing parts of it to make it more "convenient" to follow. I'm sure there used to be lots of "sacrificing" in ancient rituals which are no longer followed today. Thankfully I may add. But that also means our current tradition could be, in no way related to what they used to be. Perhaps we weren't supposed to have any receptions during a wedding or we should always be asking for a clock when accepting a gift? (Chinese would know what the 2nd tradition would mean)

But while we do butcher the more inconvenient aspects of tradition, we usually still follow the verbal aspects of tradition. Which is orally passing down of the tradition from one generation to the next. For all of you that has read until this point. Kudos to you. This blog post is the result of a Long hitaus and deep reflection on how my warped mind flows from subject to subject. It's how I think. Everything is linked, no matter how disconnected and distended from the current topic it seems to be. It's how the universe works. It surprises you with things that you don't expect. Much like how this blog starts on politics, how it leads to terrorism, leading to religion, then to tradition and eventually to a self-closure.

Everything on everything, that's how my mind works and the world runs. Never one without another. See all of you perhaps, you never know when it's your time to visit the afterlife. So if we meet again Alauz OUT!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2006-10-31T20:23:00.000+08:00

My New "Car"

Car = PC box
I know it sounds lame, cheesy and really really silly. But I often take pride in my desktop computer. So much so that it's like a status symbol. Infact, it is a status symbol, among the geeks that is. And among geeks who are also aware of the "racing scene from Need for Speed: Underground" We sometimes even proudly name our PC boxes after the cars we've seen in that series.

What's IT'S Name?
So what did I name my Box? It used to be this antique tower casing about 8 years old, with the higher end of the mid range parts stocked into it's "engine" So I named it the "AE86" from the popular "Initial D" Series. Well, now since I've upgraded the tower to one that looks much more kick ass, it's gotten a nickname from the kind fellow that introduced the Box to me. It's now the "Mazda RX7" The picture you see above would be the new Box. The old Box cannot be seen with human eyes, lest they be blinded by how I could use such an atrocity to house the latest Pentium Chips.
Medical Shit
Oh yeah went for my check up for a weight management program I took up about 6 months ago. Guess what? Since then I lost 12 kg, with only advice and exercise recommendations from them. Sure you say I could have lost more weight. But this weight loss is kinda different. This program really changed my lifestyle, I not only move around more, but I also changed my eating habits and stuff. So it's totally maintainable. And that's the key to avoid the yo-yo diet or regime.

More Medical Shit
Oh yeah and there's a sore on my neck for the past month that's been growing alittle more everyday. It's getting to a stage where it's very noticable now. Have to go to the doctor's tomorrow to see what the heck is it. Thought it was just a fungal or bacterial infection. Got over the counter medicine, didn't work. Great, more medical bills. Only hope it's not something serious where I have to go for an operation or anything. And NO, it's not an STD for sure. Haven't had sex in over 3 years. If it was an STD, it'd have happen way sooner.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2006-10-09T09:18:00.000+08:00

Repercussions

No free Lunch/Dinner
Ugh... *Almost Pukes*
There's no such thing as a free lunch or dinner I guess. I woke up nauseous as hell today. Really crappy feeling. Reported sick to my supervisor and agent, then went to see a doctor. Doctor confirms food poisoning and prescribes some medicine and a day of rest.

Karma
Perhaps the words I posted upon the blog didn't go too well with my late relative. This perhaps is a sort of karma to my actions. Perhaps it's well deserved because I have all sorts of mannerisms that require alot of fine tuning before I'm the perfect human in terms of politeness. But don't let that get you guys down, I'm sure you guys aren't affected by karma at all. It's just me and my incessant mouthing off.

Rest
I hope it's going to be a quiet day. The doctor told me to eat porridge and no spicy, sour, oily or heavy food. Means it's just plain porridge or egg porridge with no pepper. Perhaps some salt. But definately no spicy preserved beancurds, sour pickles or the stuff like that. My tummy so upside down right now I think that it's emptying my stomach contents into my throat. Disgusting mental imagery for your imaginative minds. Going to do what sick people do now, Ugh. Alauz Out.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2006-10-08T23:06:00.000+08:00

Dinner on a Sunday

Din Din
That's what I call dinner in my so called "affectionate mode". Anyways had dinner with my extended family. Why? Because the dinner's free. Why? Because one of my late relatives' associate just had a heart bypass and decided that she wanted to wind up her business by next week. So what better way to wind up a business other than treating your associate's family?

Complication
I seem to have a complicated family tree. Yes it's complicated and relations can get rather confusing. But they are nice people overall, no doubt they can be rather gossip ridden. Anyways, if you didn't understand how I got a free dinner on Sunday evening. Well your not the only one being miffed. I'm rather confused but still pleasantly surprised by the turn of events. On one hand I wish the best to the woman who treated us. And the other hand, I don't know what to say about human generousity at the face of death.

Family Portraits
So I had some pictures taken with my cousin. This is the one I'm closer with. I send her wacky poems and bloody irritating questions every now and then. Share my zany thoughts and she let me in on some of her aspirations. Well as for her name? Jasmine. Surname? I don't think I'd divulge that information for fear of internet stalkers who have a penchant for raping and killing their victims. Who knows if they go around reading people's blogs to look for their next target.

Other Family
The picture above shows the people I ate the dinner with. Starting from the left is my younger brother in the middle of my siblings, the one on the middle left is my cousin Jasmine. The woman in the middle right is my mom, she sets my unreasonably high standards in women unfortunately. And the guy on the right is my cousin that appeared on Cleo magazine, Benjamin Tan. Opps! I just revealed their surnames.... Doh! Oh well. I pray for the stalker's safety if they decide to stalk him for their endeavours. He's in the NDU if you don't remember. Anyways I got to go to bed now. Enjoy the pics! Alauz Out!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2006-10-05T19:47:00.000+08:00

Possible Change of Address

Decisions
I've got a decision to make. I have 3 options for this coming choice, first one is to move my blog from this address to the one at friendster. For one, the friendster blogs will never be read except by my friends and potential stalkers. Secondly I can don't move there and maintain my link to nothingness over here. Lastly, I could just maintain both. With my current commitment level, I believe that if I pick the last option, I'd end up not updating all of my blogs. But let's see how it goes.

Love and Emptiness
I love emptiness, it's so Zen. Alauz Out.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2006-10-02T21:06:00.000+08:00

Nokia N70

New stuff
Oh yeah, new phone with a camera. Finally have one with one, thus your gonna see a few pics I've taken with it since I got it on Sunday evening. The one your about to see is the one I took right off the bat. Quality doesn't look too shabby, however a 2.0 megapixel camera leaves alot to be desired especially if your trying to take a picture at a distance.

Morning Zombie
Oh yeah the morning zombie, standard look when waking up in the morning. I have the most sleepy eyed doggy look when I get out of bed in the morning. I am still trying to see if I can use my handphone as a webcam to directly connect with my PC. If so, a 2.0 megapixel webcam would beat most low to medium cost webcams anyways. But for now, I'm more tired than a doggy that has passed away. So I've got to pospone it to a more fitting time.

Less interesting stuff
I took the phone to work today and surprised my colleague. Her name is private and she has an exceedingly high skill in dodging any face front camera shot. I have to concede this delightful back shot to show you the unsuccessful results of my not so epic endeavours to eventually have a catalogue of my working colleagues in SPH.

Regular stuff
I'd be uploading videos to Youtube and linking them here if I ever find time to make myself one while at my workplace. Maybe a 15-20 second shot in the morning, blending into a 15-20 second shot during lunch and another 15-20 second shot mixed when it's time to leave the locality. It's simple to shoot but it's more of a mood thing rather than a to-do thing. So whim wins again! Yay!

Irregular stuffage
On other notes, I'm currently planning something for my friend whose lunar B'day is on the 6th of October. Yes, she's born on the autumn festival in lunar terms. And if you can guess, she's from China duh! Only the chinese would celebrate their lunar B'days I guesses. I actually calculated mine as well and it was a month before my actual B'day. Anyways she's gone thru enough lantern festivals and standard B'day stuff. Really tough thinking of a good thing to do. Well it's coming soon and my brain juices are dry. Any good suggestions please drop me an sms at 98779669. Yeah I know I shouldn't leave my phone number on the web again. Just can't help it you know? Hehe. Alauz Out.
Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow.

2006-09-30T11:44:00.000+08:00

Techno Relevations

Random Happenings
Oh I received a weird call yesterday, if your reading my blog, don't stalk me kay? I can't have a stalker, I'm just not the type to be stalked. And no I do not want to talk about it, not alot anyways. But seriously I think I've made a big mistake by putting my handphone number up on the net, seriously thinking about removing it and changing my number. Heck, hopefully you'd still see me around the days to come.

Other Randomness
Oh yeah I have to thank E for putting techno back into my life. For the past few years after my experience working at Seoul Garden's "vibrant" night life, I thought I had sworn off techno for the rest of my natural life. But somehow someone made a song about Dota and an IRC bot named Anna. Suddenly when I listen to those techno, it soothes my soul that modern techno culture suddenly seemed to accept me into the folds.

Steps into Darkness
My first steps along to independence has gained me a heavy burden. Bills and repayments of my Poly education. But I just told my Dad my future plans to work for a year before I go and study. Surprisingly he seemed pretty pleased at my decision and choice of education. But he did give me several warnings, no love and serious relationships while I'm on this path, at least until I finish my degree.

On the Heart
With that out of the way, I'm sorry to say I'm going to take a raincheck with my heart for these couple of years. Soft as it is on the inside, I take my promises with my Dad like I treasure my soul. I know the implications and the holes this promise might tear into my heart but hey, I aspire to be a man of my word. Making a promise means keeping it, so I try not to give them freely away. Covert my heart oh Lord, keep it warm in your embrace, for I shall have nothing when the time comes.

Slavery
Oh things of my job, I'm sure you guys aren't interested so I'd just talk about it in this paragraph. I'm working QC, with horrendeous pay. But I've made a few good contacts and I've opened the door to future writing careers by opening up the internal recruitment within SPH. Yes, I'm working for SPH and no I'm not a writer yet. But I'm going to be there, no qualms about it. The harder I work, the smarter I play the moves and the more moves open for my next step. The trick now is to see which move can secure my long term goals. Alauz Out.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2006-09-20T19:27:00.000+08:00

Beginnings

Trappings
What does the word trappings mean? I guess it means the appearance of something, because that's the only thing that's coming to mind. So I've donned the trappings of slavery because I've just chained myself to a company by working for them. Thus my time as society's "forever slave" has started. I shall be working forever and ever until the day that I die. Not that it's not a good thing mind you. But I would rather not work just for society and instead, I would love to work for the sake of humanity.

Slavery vs Capitalism
What drives a person more? The fear of death? Or the greed for more? It's hard to say, both rank just as highly in us humans. As for me, obviously the fear of death ranks higher than anything. Greed for more can simply be overcomed by the snapping jaws of death gaping infront of me. If a person cannot decide whether you give up his wealth or die a horribly painful, excrutiating, long and drawn out death like cancer or AIDs because of being unable to give up his vices. I believe that person is definately a greedy one.

Support
So what am I saying? Slavery is more effective than Capitalism? Yes, if you talking about maximizing profits, then slavery is the best business model. What other business model can minimize labor costs as much as slavery? Thus with this knowledge in hand, slavery is enacted in many ways in current day society. You don't see it? Then you obviously aren't attuned to what is the nature of slavery.

Slavery
Slavery is the chaining of people, with physical means or non-physical means. Yes, I'm saying there's mental slavery. Do you believe the slaves Moses led out into the Desert had chains around their feet? No, the Eyptians had made them slaves with the mere fact that they cannot run away fast enough before they are hunted down and killed for sport by the Egyptians. Thus mental slavery is far more cruel and effective than any other form of slavery, and it is the most common form of modern day slavery known to but a select minority still living on this planet.

Open your mind
Opening of your horizons are in order. There is no such thing as freedom. Repeat after me, there's no such thing as freedom. Okay now that it's out of the way, let me explain why. Every single country in this world, enacts slavery of their people thru something called "Patriotism". If you feel the need to die for your country, your country has already enslaved you in a certain level of slavery. Yes, there's different levels of slavery. Every level of slavery makes a person perform similarly degrading acts according to the level of slavery.

Levels of Hell.... opps I meant Slavery
First level of slavery hinders you from betraying or selling out your country. It's called Patriotism. This forever chains you to your country and prevents you from become a citizen of another country. It's the lowest level of slavery and the easiest to break free. This level of slavery is enforced differently by different countries, some entice others to join them while others kill the ones that desert them.

Second
Second level of slavery stops you from chasing your dreams and hopes. It's called Debt or Financial Slavery. You keep hearing those rich biatches talking about getting financial freedom? Now you know which form of slavery their trying to escape from. By chaining people with debt like taxes, morgages and credit cards. It forces people to stop chasing their dreams of doing a job that they love and relegate them to doing a job that pays well, but drains the lifeblood out of them because they hate it like fuck. Everyday of work is living hell, but they gotta do it or they are going to be in debt and their life would be a living hell anyways.

Third
Third level of hell... Opps I mean slavery, is intellectual slavery. The education system that teaches people to fear change of a new environment, changes to their culture, is to be feared. Foreigners are evil and will steal their jobs. This is a form of intellectual slavery that will chain people forever on their native soil by breeding fear so deep that you will quite literally die from the culture shock you will surely receive after being brainwashed so completely. A perfect example of this if you don't want to believe this is North Korea. No offense North Korea on your methods of keeping your countrymen on native soil via this form of slavery. Well, not that many of them know that they are slaves anyways. Well then again maybe they do know.... look at the number of North Korean fugitives.

Fourth
The fourth form of slavery is physical slavery. It seems simple enough of a slavery method, but it's in the fourth place because unlike the first 3 forms of slavery, it is a method where by people cannot physically leave their slavers until they are free from their physical barriers. This is a highly efficient in retaining slaves just for the sake of retaining them. Death may occur at the most inopportune timing. Life's a Biatch.

Fifth
Fifth form of slavery is guilt slavery. It's not mental slavery yet, it's not as strong as to control your whole mind for all of your natural life. Some people may overcome this on their own but it will usually end upon death of the person. So slavery by guilt comes when the people feel guilty for causing a death of a person and feel indebted to stay and work for country/organization/person for as long as they live. This is similar to the "lifedebt" common in many ancient civilizations. It's hard to overcome this one even if you wanted to.

Sixth
Mental anguish or mental slavery is the sixth. It's the knowledge of the very fact of you escaping, means a swift death that none has escape so far. This is classic in the keeping of the slaves of Egypt even before Moses' time. If you do not understand what I mean, here's an example. Imagine your a slave with no chains, your friend tries to escape and you help him go. You don't see him for a few days and when you think he's made it, then the Egyptians stick his head on a pike infront of your workplace when your sure he's escaped, to remind you that you can never escape them alive. You don't have to be chained to the place and you won't want to escape even under the cause of death.

Seventh Heaven
It's the last one baby, yeah the last one. It's self slavery. It's the highest form of slavery where your a slave to yourself. The only supposed people to break out of this form of slavery are now known as "Buddha" or the "Son of God" a.k.a. "Jesus". To totally dedicate yourself selflessly throughout your whole life to mankind. Upon realization of your destiny, you give up every selfish desire and dedicate yourself to the goodness of mankind no matter whether the law might dictate otherwise GO SWEET ANARCHIST JESUS Opps, did I say that out loud? He taught the people the ways of the church... but he never was in a church now was he? He formed his own little organization which was not a church until after he died for quite a while too. Heh... simple minded fools of the present we all are. ;)

Selflessness is FREEDOM!
Yes, your selfish desires trap you as the last barrier even harder to break than death's vicelike grip on us all. If you can break this barrier, your obviously not reading this information from this website and your reading it either telepathically or by seering it from the past/present/future. Because if your being selfish by reading this website physically when your could be furthering your cause for humanity, you just got caught in that last barrier called Self Biatch! Alauz Out.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2006-09-14T18:20:00.000+08:00

Life Begins

Contract
Yes, I got a job. If you knew which one I took, you'd think I'm crazy. Well, I don't suppose it being a temporary job means anything more to anyone anyways. But nonetheless it's confirmed. I start work on Monday and I'm going to sign a 3 month contract tomorrow. Means I've got some work laid out in front of me until the 17th of December. It's going to be interesting and dead boring at the same time. It's kind of a mundane job at SPH, but hey whoever said the first step into a preferred career was easy?

Linkage
Oh did I also forget to mention that it's got absolutely nothing to do with writing? Yeah it's not that kind of job. BUT however, since one of my long term goals is to be a publisher. It's got some association with my long term goals. It's good to know I'm at least headed towards my long term goal rather than just working my short term ones. It's something like instant gratification vs long term commitment. I'm like most guys, who want instant satisfaction. But since my shots at instant career didn't take off, it's only logical for a man to start working towards a long term goal with no profit whatsoever for now.

Brokage
Yeah, I also forgot to mention that I'm kind of broke now. Haha, money from this job is infact the lowest paying job among the 6 job offers I've been accepted into. I rejected all the other jobs that pays around 1.4-1.6 thousand a month for a job that's ... well barely hitting 1 thousand. Like I said, it's a crazy, stupid, dumbest thing a guy like me should do.

Fame or Fortune?
But like I said, passion is everything. Experience from this job would look promising for a guy who is aiming for anything to do with the media. I also considered the fact that I absolutely abhor the thought of being a celebrity so the idea of an instant celebrity by becoming popular online flew right out the window the moment I thought of it. How is it that walking a path of your own choosing seems sweeter than a path others lay before you? Perhaps it's the easy way out, considering the fact that the paths that were laid before me were pretty standard fare for the young graduates with diplomas or degrees.

Owning the Choice
I make the call, as masochistic as that may sound. I think that taking the toughest, most painful, emotionally distant path, may actually reap me benefits that I might actually appreciate instead of bitching away on how measly my instant gratification jobs benefits were. At least if I come away seemingly empty handed, I know that I've gained an insight that only the shrewest of business men can understand in a merciless industry such as the media. It's got something to do with the job and no, I'm not telling you what its' all about. This job isn't confidential or classified. But few writers actually concern themselves over this aspect of the print media.

Learning
The more mind numbingly boring a job gets, the more to a job that actually meets the eye. It's usually in the most boring of jobs that bring about the most interesting of revelations. Being a computer engineer was considered to be one of the most interesting and cutting-edge jobs back when the computer revolutions started. However, in reality the job is as interesting to some as watching a donkey deposit some dung. It's all about attitude and the approach taken and you'd miraculously discover that there was far more to your mundane job than you would have believed.

Perspective
If you think I'm stark raving mad, perhaps I am. Infact, don't assume I'm not. I'm a raving lunatic out to brainwash the masses into believing that God wants us to live free. I'm the Beast to unite mankind before the final hour. If mankind does not stand together as we fall, then when would we ever stand together after? I think the age of man is fading and the age of something else is about to begin. Let us be united as a testament to our legacy upon this universe, let us be remembered not for all the petty squabblings and civil misadventures. Let us be instead, remembered as a species to be reckoned with. A race of beings that survived on diversity and ironically enough, harmony. We shall be remembered as God's work on dichotomy and that there was one species that were both good and bad at the same time, in all sense of the words good and bad.

Legacy
We are God's legacy on earth, the meek shall inherit the earth and as mankind became mighty, we shall be toppled by a meeker being as our time is over. Very much like the dinosaurs made way for mammals, we shall make way for something equally glorious to partake in this mysterious world. Forgive me for my lack of tack in the matter but I do not believe that this message delivered in any other form would be any less impactful. Here's to the end of our epoch! Cheers! Alauz Out.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2006-09-13T16:33:00.000+08:00

I love Weird Al Yankovic

Can you sense the sarcasm in all his songs? I really love how he can sing this without laughing like crazy. If you don't get Weird Al, his songs are always mean the opposite of what he sings. It's ironic and funny. You should go listen to all other songs by weird Al. I highly recommend it.

2006-09-13T06:29:00.000+08:00

Timeless

Dawning
If you notice the time of the post, you'd realize that I've been writing this post as the sun was dawning upon our tiny island. If you must know how ridiculous this all must sound, you must also know that in another 3 hours I am going for a job interview. Madness? Insanity? Crazy? Those three representations of the very state of mind that I am in? Perhaps it's just because I can't sleep for fear that I'd oversleep if I did.

Major Psychology
With that out of the picture, let's concentrate on what I have to say today. Please fasten your seat belts while I fly you thru time, space and the whole continium thing. I've been having the weirdest urges lately. I reverted to a hermity existance for the past few weeks. I even stopped exercising for some reason unknown to me. The motivation is there, perhaps it's more of a mental block somewhere.

Science and Mystism
I think somewhere along the lines of history, these two terms have always come in conflict in humanity's struggle to change and yet maintain some sort of morality while changing. Perhaps if you don't understand it now, you'd understand it if I stretched time backwards around four hundred years ago. People who wanted to study the human anatomy had to resort to grave robbing. And that was extremely frowned upon in society back then.

Morality
So what happened to the person who was found grave robbing? They usually lynch the bugger before he has a chance to defend himself proper. But now? In modern day society how much has changed in terms of Morality? I believe that there are as many things sacred to us today as in the past. The only difference is the type of things that are considered sacred. Perhaps one example is Matrimony. It used to be that it was extremely sacred and it's union was binding to the point that only death may release one party from another. Now we can just sign some papers and it is dissolved. No doubt you have some repercussions, but it's nothing compared to the need for death.

Matrimony
I'm not aiming marriage on the whole, it's just merely an example of how Morality has changed from the past couple of centuries. Our so called modernization is merely changing what's important to us. Eventually, the human race will die out naturally as every human on the planet adopts a "self above others" mentality that seems to be rather prolific in the world nowadays. Let's have less or even better, not have children because we'd lower our standards of living to below what "I feel is acceptable to myself".

Selfness
Sure if only ONE person in about twenty couples think like that, there'd be no problems. But right now, in most developed countries. There's only one out of twenty couples who are thinking of having many children. It's a simple math calculation. Estimate around 30% of the population in developed country are capable of producing children at any one time, out of that 30%, 70% want to have just one or no kids. So in total the statistical spread would be 30% want to have more than one kid, 35% just one kid, 35% no kid.

Statistics
Let's be generous and say out of that 30%, the average kid count is one and a half kids. So let's say, this is the case for one generation of child bearing adults, say about 30 years. Let's say the population will shrink by about 30% in 30 years. Let's say it's the WHOLE WORLD's population and let's see what's the outcome of natural self repopulation works. Population is X.

Equation
Equation goes like this:
X - 30% = X/100 * 30
X - 30% + (30%/2 * 3)/2 = X/100 * 30 + 45%/2
X - 30% + 27.5% = X - 2.5%
X over 30 years = X - 2.5%

Result
So the verdict, thru simple math, once the world's demographic starts thinking like the scenario I mentioned above, 30% more than 1 kid, 35% just 1 kid, 35% no kids. Then the world's population will shrink by 2.5% every 30 years. Right now we're still maybe one generation from reaching that stage. The so called 3rd world countries are still having healthy concepts of having more than one child. But that's bound to change once they hit developed status. And that's when the end of the world will begin.

End of Humanity
As the end of humanity slow encroaches upon us, we will not see it happen during this lifetime. But rest assured that our success will be our very downfall. The world's population will be decreasing by the time it's year 2101. With constant fighting and dieases claiming us faster than we can recover from them we'd lose more than just 2.5% every 30 years, it'd be nearly 1% a year.

What the Future Holds
When it's roughly 2893 the human race should be less than 1 million. Unless something changes along the way, humans will be extinct roughly 3000. That's a short time considering the fact that we've been around for roughly 50000 years. So PLEASE help the humanity end itself by doing EXACTLY what your doing right now. I'm serious, END IT already for us. Think for yourself, STOP, don't think for humanity, it's too lofty a goal. One person couldn't possibly make a difference right? Heh... Alauz Out.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2006-09-08T12:52:00.000+08:00

Missing

Action
Yes people, I've been missing in action. MIA in it's acronym form. I've mysteriously disappeared and almost no one had contact with me for the last few days. I like to do this as a social experiment on occassion. It tests whether what kind of friends you make. If you made pro-active friends, then chances are someone would automatically call you when you slip under the radar. But of course since I went MIA, means the friends I keep are the more passive type.

Passive vs Active
There is no clear cut winner of this comparison. It's actually more to our individual tastes. I for one am an introverted extrovert. What does that mean??? It means I'm a shy socialite, a person who take time to warm up to people. But when I do, people feel that I can get pretty social and go out pretty often with them. Normally it takes anywhere between 6 months to a year before I feel comfortable enough to behave like an extrovert with a new friend.

Personality Problem?
Yeah, sometimes I wonder what the heck's wrong with me. When people first know me, I'm like so weird, shy and so abstract from the world. Then when you know me long enough, POW! I change into another person and I become like any other friend who does the normal things a friend does. Perhaps it's because of my apprehension of making the undesirable friends. I've had some nasty experiences before, I had a major change in personality after that. I guess this is just the way to filter the unworthy from the worthy.

Worthy Friends
Friends whom I find worthy, are usually showered with attention and help when they need it. Unworthy friends are usually ignored, ostracized and generally we barely even communicate. Friends are supposed to hang with you through thick and thin right? Well, it all depends on how thick and how thin are you and your friends willing to endure together. But hey, true friends are gems in the rough. You won't know who your real friends are until the situation calls for it.

People
We should all go out to meet new friends. At least that's why one of my friends is telling me. I used to be all excited about meeting new people and making friends with them. But after a bad experience of being abused and misused, the toad was bitten and now he's shy. It's still easy to go out and meet new people, it's still easy to strike up a conversation. But it's no longer easy to trust a stranger and even harder to let them become my friend. Hurt done by a friend runs deeper than I thought it would. There's nothing more painful than being hurt by a friend whom you trust alot.

Getting Over It
It's easy to say, "Get over it!" But it's never easy to do. I mean, time sure does heal all wounds. However, there are some wounds that time only heals halfway. I don't know if I'd ever go back to the person I once was, that was a person who loved socializing, had no problems expanding his social circle, was willing to try new relationships. Right now, I'm more of a train wreck that can't do any of the above. I've been like that since I entered NS. It's sometimes quite painful to see myself like this, I know I've got to change soon or I think I'm in danger of becoming a bitter, angsty and vengeful person. I guess I'm off to change myself now. Alauz Out.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2006-09-05T22:21:00.000+08:00

Steve Irwin

Determination
I have a confession to make. I partially admire dedicated people. I admire the fact that despite the odds stacked against the person. The person continues to do what they do unphased. Steve Irwin was one such person. When he was alive, he constantly confounded people by remaining forever ethusiastic, passionate and sincere in the message he tried to bring across. Despite the fact that he drives me up the wall, he kind of inspires me. If I had one tenth of his determination, I will be much, much more than I am today.

Greatness
Instead of this crappy blog, I might already been a writer for the news who is more controversial than Mr. Brown. Maybe I might even be tortured by the ISA years ago. Who knows, with the sheer amount of determination and spirit, I could have made an impact so large. Maybe large enough to put Singapore recognized by more people around the world. Hopefully in a positive manner rather than negative.

Respect
I respect Steve, I really have to say that if I never watched his programs before, I might never have had the awareness of the need to conserve animals here on earth. He sent out a strong message that animals aren't things without feelings, animals are things that sometimes are more human than we are. And if we don't do our part to stop poaching, hunting them or destroying their environment. Then we wouldn't see them around anymore. It's his message that touched each and everyone of us that used to watch his shows.

Eulogy
On this day a good man fell in service of mother nature. He had fought bravely against the cynical human nature of people and gave morality to people who had none. Despite the people who laughed at him, I who have laughed loudest, have the utmost respect for him in death. To be able to affect the world like he did, he is indeed a great man. May your legacy be remembered fondly by all whom you have taught the value of conservation. Alauz Out.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2006-09-04T14:05:00.000+08:00

Hiatus

Thought
I've put much thought into these few days. Some call it the hermit syndrome, others call it the anti-social vibe. Well, thinking is not so much a thing you do. But rather something that I LIKE to do in silence and free from interruptions. You rarely get that when your out with people, thus I like to keep myself away just to complete the thought process.

Coherence
What you think about doesn't need to make sense. If everything you thought about made sense, then you wouldn't be a normal human anymore. When we think, randomness in our thoughts reflect heavily on the Chaos of the universe. With Chaos comes balance and all things that mediates us. If your thoughts are devoid of Chaos, then your definitely OUT OF BALANCE. Because if you can no longer decipher Chaos from Balance in your thoughts, then your already lost in the Chaos and have lost the Balance that allows you to see it.

Sense
Does my previous paragraph make sense? If not then you are already lost in thought that is nonsense. To tell the difference of Shadow from the Light means there's Light. To nonsensically claim that you have "banished" the Shadow only means that your now totally dominated by it because the only way for that to happen is the absence of Light. Do not fall down that dark path if you value your soul. While the world has absolutes, we may only become pure Shadow and never pure Light. Why? It's because we're the ones that cast the shadow, when the Light shines upon us.

Not one or the Other
What am I saying? That humans cannot be pure Good? Yes, that's EXACTLY what I'm saying. Only one being in the whole universe that is pure Light, it is God. To maintain the balance that is the universe, he made us half Light, half Shadow. Thus if we try to lose one and become the other, try as we might but we will only become pure Shadow. It's because God's already pure Good. So which one do you want to become? Buddha said that we should all live the "Middle Path". What does that imply? I seriously don't know about you, but I know which path I'm taking.

Contradictions or Clarity
You may think that I'm constantly trying to contradict myself. Your right. Thru contradictions, I balance my arguments against one another. Thru that balance, we find out after two opposing arguments crash, which argument is the strongest OR is there a middle path out of the deadlock. Thus in constantly contradicting yourself, you find out your true nature. You will choose between two difficult decisions and when you make a choice between the two or take a different path, you learn more of your own True Self.

Good, Evil or Lots of Both
Everyone falls into 4 categories
- Quite Good 70-90%
- Middle 50+-%
- Quite Evil 20+%
- Just Plain Evil 20-%
As you can see, there's no Just Plain Good. Not even a Saint is more than 90% good. But people can be 100% evil. So that explains part of the human nature and thru that insight, opens up a tiny fraction of the universe's nature.

Thought Betrays Us
Why we cannot be good? It's because if we reach that extreme, we no longer have anything to judge ourselves. We no longer have a moral compass to show us which way to handle a situation that would warrant 100% goodness. By losing that moral compass, it's like your conscience suddenly fading away because you literally become your conscience. And in becoming the very thing that made you good, you will fall into darkness because all inhibitions restricted upon you will cease to exist.

Breaking of the Mold
Thus you can do ANYTHING and there'd be nothing holding you back. I mean it, people who claimed to have conquered themselves end up becoming tyrants. The Alpha Figure is one good example. He or she is the shining example of what all their brethren aspire to become. Thus this Alpha figure can implement ANYTHING I mean anything, and all their brethren will comply. In a more "human" example I shall go into fanatical leaders. They are the perfect example of people who claimed to have conquered themselves.

Terrorism is Enlightenment
Yes, the leaders of all the terrorism around in the world are our conquerors of themselves. They have finally broken down that final barrier and became power incarnate. Your greatest enemy is Yourself. And if you conquer that, you become the very essence of power. Your charisma, confidence and ability will be unopposed by all. And when you go unopposed in your actions, you take revenge on all those who has wronged you or the people you love. You become an Angel of Wrath literally.

Enlightenment with a limit
So for all those who have been reading my blog. I've always asked you to become more enlightened. Here's the counter argument that is long overdue. And that's why I know that I am a nasty person who keep telling others to become what I dare not. I'm going to hell for this cowardice, but I ain't doing it without a clear conscience. Ironic? Haha, then you obviously don't understand the machinations of how balance works.

Scales of Balance
Let me say something before I end today's Brainwashing Session. If you commit a Wrong, you can commit a million Rights and that Wrong will never be repaid. Thus after I expose you to Evils of Enlightenment, it's a Wrong. Warning you about the consequences of becoming Enlightened, is a Right. But the Scales of Balance doesn't work that way. My warning doesn't nullify the wrong I've done. Let's make a more rational example.

From Terrorism to Charity
"IF the Al'Queda decided to STOP all terrorist activity and started to use it's resources to rebuilt and support all the lives affected by their terrorism for the next 50 years." Will it nullify the fact that they did all those acts of terrorism? That's what I'm talking about, your sins ARE NOT LESSENED by the good deeds that you do. So PLEASE, please don't think you can buy your way back into heaven. We're all going down for the sins we've done. Hehehe, see you there. Alauz Out.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2006-09-02T11:16:00.000+08:00

Phoenix

Flames of Rejection
It feel strange saying this from a non-break-up kind of perspective but yeah, I'm going to say it. It is still painful even though it isn't personal, it's something that keeps me sharp and jolts me back to reality. I just realized this morning, that the people involved in direct sales, are seriously very deluded. And that manager plays his brainwashing techniques on the delusion of the young.

Phoenix Down
So he kills their years as a youth by promising them a proper "education" in attitude, then takes advantage of the fact that they want to experience hardship
and just pushes them to work for him without question. I mean their basic pay doesn't even have increment of ANY SORT. What the bloody heck is going on there? If I didn't know better, it's GAWD DAMN Illegal to do that in Singapore. You've got to increment their pay my man, or inflation's going to eat them. ALIVE.

Burnt to Ashes
I'm sure the turn over rate in this company is CRAZY HIGH. It's a direct sales company, I can't believe I'm still bitching about it. I can't believe the Trainer I thought whose innocence was cute, called me to try and prick my conscience. I'm quite sure she just wanted me to go and work for that manager who she thinks is quite an angel. An angel of pain, suffering and negligence. But and angel to her nonetheless.

Rising from the Dead
And I pray, for the world to balance itself. I know for sure that if this company closes down, there'd be 2 or more upstarts that will take its place. So I know I shouldn't pray that it closes down. But I pray that this form of marketing will die out quickly. But it is run by people who think that Hell on Earth is the "in" thing that all youngsters want to experience. I want to experience the working life, not hell on earth with no reprieve.

Angels on Earth
I believe that Angels exist still, but they work thru more mysterious ways. Like example, treating another person with respect, kindness, love, appreciation and affection could be God's way of making Angels of the person giving out these actions. They say God's will cannot be denied, no matter you are one of the flock or not. God works through every single one of us. His wrath is felt from us, through us, for us. His agents we are, every single one of us. When you commit and action you thought not possible, perhaps God is at work.

Devils on Earth
It's not really Devils as per se, it's more like God's other cardel of Angels. These other Angels are the a twisted opposite of their former selves. They have sacrificed all that was Holy, Pure and Innocent to work towards God's grand scheme of things. Devils are to be feared, true. But God should be feared even more, many people forget that. The Devils are capable to make us do things like, greed, lust, gluttony, basically the 7 sins and more. They pull us in the other direction, making us take people for granted, abusing our family, do thoughtless acts. But without them, we will never know that appreciating our blessings the lord has already bestowed upon us.

The Balance
I feel like a bloody turncoat. Always showing people what's on the other side of the coin. Perhaps if you look at the coin's exterior, there are 2 obvious sides. But I tend to look at a coin from 5 different perspectives.

Coin's Interior
I look at the coin's interior, is it a solid coin? Is it a trick coin with multiple coins combined into one?

Coin's Build up
I look at what the coin is made out of. Copper, Nickle, Gold or is it an Alloy? Is it heavy? Does it shine or is it dull? What does it taste like? Is it mallable, meaning if I bite on it, will it leave a mark?

Coin's Exterior, Heads
The so called Heads of a coin, why do we "coin" the term heads? Hahaha, it's a stupid pun I know. I'm guessing that in the past, there was a Head on every side of a coin. And there was a Head of a conquerer or the like so thus you have to look at the design and appreciate the impact this person made on the world.

Coin's Exterior, Tails
Why is it called Tails, perhaps at one point in time there no longer were 2 Heads on a coin no more. People wanted to have separate denominations of coins using the same type of metal. Thus instead of using different metals to signify the different denominations, they decided to put the denomination value on the coin's flip side. Thus in terms of an animal, the opposite of a Head of the coin would be the Tail of a coin. It's more important to look at this part of the coin though, it tells you usually how much the coin is worth.

Coin's Exterior, Side
Oh yes, this is a 3 dimensional world, thus we cannot only have 2 exterior sides. Thus, the side of the coin also makes an impact whether you know it or not. If you notice the sides of the one dollar and fifty cent coins here in Singapore. You will notice that instead of grooves like the rest of the coin, there is the name of our country on it. Sometimes it's small things like that, that catches my attention. Perhaps I just like a little bit of detail or I'm a nit-picker. But a side of a coin tells you alot about the effort put into the minting process. It gives you the country's level of commitment and dedication to it's processes, other words tell you how strong the country's economy and productivity is.

Over Analyzing
The fact is I'm Biased and Judgemental. I need something upon which to Judge and be Biased about. Thus I came up with these observations thru fundamental analysis. I like to look at the root of things rather than just the results. I believe that the phrase "I don't care how it's done, as long as it gets done" is bullshit. Your telling me that to achieve this level of profit for an organization, your willing to commit crimes against humanity. Your going to hurt other people, maybe even your own families and you have no Qualms about it. I like to say this to you people, "Fuck You". Fuck you! I'm serious.

Think before you Speak
Kind of Ironic isn't it? We've been taught these values since young, I've been rejecting it since day one. I do not believe in the fact that we only want results. What ever happened to "The Journey is more important than the Destination."? That is far more important. Go watch the movie "Click". That is a PERFECT example of ignoring the journey and focusing on the results. What if you had the power to Fast Forward your so called "Boring" parts of your life? You'd end up with NO LIFE.

Walk the Talk
Not the other way around. I've been walking the path I've been bitching about for so long, sometimes I wonder if anyone in this world is going to give a shit. Well, nobody's giving a shit what I think for the past like 12 years since I decided to walk my own path. It doesn't matter. When I die, my conscience is clear. I know that I've done what I came to earth to do. I won't try to bluff my way during Judgement, because there wouldn't be a need to. Say what your heart tells you to say, do what your heart wants you to do. When you die, it's too late to have any regrets.

Passion
Do what you want to do in life. It's NEVER too late. Even if your 90 years old, but if you decided to finally give sky diving a try. If you survive, you have one heck of a memory. If you die, you go to heaven with a rush in your veins and not sour regret that you never done something you REALLY wanted to do. Put your soul into your passion and let it blossom into reality. Do not ENVY others who have done so, join them. I am trying to do what I love, no regrets if I end up a bum. It's better than saying, "I could have gotten that job if I gave it 100%".

Do! There is no Try
Do things, plan if you must. But you have to follow through with action or your just bluffing yourself. Keep the promises you make to yourself, it's HARD. HARDEST thing any person alive can do. But you can do your best. Notice I did not use the phrase, Try your best. It never works if you try your best. Do your best is better. Excuses are there to prevent us to hurting ourselves. But without hurting yourself a little, you will never know if you can do it. The attitude cannot be trained little by little. You have to gather whatever courage you have and just do it.

Everyone can do it
I mean it. Everyone, if given the right push can do it. The tricky part comes next. How much is the right push? That can only be decided by the individual AFTER the push has been made. Sometimes, the push is too light and the person just not motivated enough to do it. Sometimes, the push is too heavy and the person feels battered into doing it. And rarely, the push is just right and the person becomes like me. Yeah like me, I do what I want in life. Sure I'm affected by everything that everyone says. But I continue to walk the path I want to walk, not another path someone else lays in front of me. That is not courage, it's your soul in motion. Alauz Out.

美しい (ki-rei-na) Beautiful.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow

2006-08-31T20:52:00.000+08:00

Work

Working
Sucks, truly, deeply and always the case. But that doesn't mean we can live without it. Anyways had an "Orientation" with a "marketing" company today. I won't disclose any names of the people or company involved as to protect my privacy. Who knows, they might start hunting me down and pester me until the moment I leave this earth.

Sucking
Oh yeah back to the orientation. It was a wonderful tour of a location I will now avoid to mention in the case where some of you are living there and saw me or the case where you passed by that area and saw me. In other words, you never saw me. Well, the tour would be wonderful enough, if there wasn't work to be done. This time, work was to gather donations from the people living in the above mentioned unmentionable location.

More Sucking
Guess what the job's all about? Direct Sales! You got it! OMG NO FREAKING WAY I WILL EVER, in my no matter short life will I EVER take a DIRECT SALES job EVER AGAIN! Well, enough with the shouting and screaming and raving. I JUST CAN'T BELIEVE THIS JOB'S DIRECT SALES! AGAIN! Fuck, I think direct sales is really hard to get out of my system. But I'm surprised at my tolerance level. I did not scream, shout, inflict bodily harm or rape any of the people involved with my orientation.

Interest NOT!
Well, I even managed to endure the WHOLE day, of helping along with direct sales and even make it back to the office at the end of the day. Which happened to be 6.30pm by the way. I cannot believe I even managed to act interested when the manager had a 2nd interview with me regarding joining the company full time. Then it occured to me, if I can take the punishment from this merciless orientation in this job. I can take all the bullshit in the world. And that my friend, was exactly what happened when the manager opened his mouth to attempt to brainwash my mind.

Behavioral modification
He touted that the company wants the right "attitude" from their staff. And he tells me that he joined the company 14 years ago and he's now a manager of this branch and he's earning a 5 digit salary. He said that the company molds the right "attitude" in people and sets them out with the "right" attitude to succeed in life. I knew at once, that this brainwashing center has gone ballistic on the youths that it has ensnared.

Innate Resistance
Of course like any self respecting writer and person who has manupilated people since I was in secondary school, I saw right thru this brainwashing technique. In essence this technique can be described as, "Making them think the way you want them to and making them think that they wanted it in the first place."

Brainwashing Jutsu
A constant user of this technique myself, I found the attempt truly amusing. I faked compliance and told him I would like to seek the correct "attitude" upon entering the company. (Yes I agreed to work for them verbally but never signed a contract of any sort) Little do they know, I'm going to screw them royally when I wake up tomorrow. The reason why I didn't screw him over right away there and then, I was absolutely smitten by this really kawaii trainer and her equally cute partner they had assigned me.

Taming of the Beast
They used the "Mei Ren Ji" in Chinese, translated to english would be using a beautiful bait for the hook. I decided to spend the day with 2 cute girls and the trainer's endless flirtations, visual eye candy and enjoyed the friendly banter that 2 cute girls can only provide. They are both younger than me, consider it a fresh meat bonus. I feasted upon the non-physical companionship today and had a really scary insight into the company.

Complete Obedience
They had brainwashed my trainer to the point she is most probably stuck in her current position for the next 3-4 years without her even realizing it. She has already been in her position for over 2 years and she's one of their best direct sales girl and she's STILL a trainer. For the lost, the trainer position is the very next position after you finish your trainee stage. "HOLY CRAP! They sure did a banged up job on her." I thought to myself when she said that.

Patience
I wanted to ask her why she isn't in a higher position, but I refrained from doing so because I knew I would only hit the "Brainwash Barrier" oh so common in the techniques used by these marketing companies. I really like her I thought to myself, I must be getting soft. By the way, lookswise, you normally wouldn't give these girls a second look. What made them cute to me, was their innocence and desire to help others. It helped that they weren't fat, but they looked good enough in their jeans and collared Tees.

Innocence
I am two years older than my trainer and she's like 3 years older than her partner. They are exactly the same age as my 2 younger brothers. I guess that also made me feel alot closer to them. The whole feeling I had today, was a feeling you would normally have with close siblings. Perhaps that's why I got soft. They purposely planned the two ladies that reflect my brothers' age to work on me.

Corporate Cruelty
I believe that the company will cruelly exploit every single young person they get their hands on. They will warp their minds to a point of no return and use those warped minds to warp others to their own. If it were just 1 year ago, I will not tolerate such actions and seek to destroy what I can. But I aged, wizened or just perhaps grew up a little. I will allow nature, no matter how twisted, to run its course. These companies exist only to ensnare the weak of will and mind. It is no surprise I was the only one with a diploma applying for the job.

Nature's Way
Survival of the best. It has always been nature's way of handling things. If those two poor innocent girls are misused, I will allow it. The experience will either destroy or strenghten their minds. What that will not destroy them, will only make them stronger. While my soul longs to rescue them from this exploitation, I tell myself that they will not understand even if I managed to get out.

Destruction of one's beliefs
Did I also mention they have "chants and cheers" together at the start and end of their day. The manager said that this is to encourage a positive mindset. I however have seen these rituals present in most cults and secret society meetings that aims to convert the souls of people to their form of worship. While this is disturbing my beyond a reason of a doubt, God has shown me that he allows such things to exist only so that these things may strengthen us. Why has he allowed my mind to remain intact after exposure to so much of these strong controlling influences otherwise?

Open Self Discussion
I believe that people who talk to themselves aren't crazy, but rather, are dealing with issue that are quite serious. Otherwise there wouldn't be a need to openly tell others what their thoughts are about. A mention of the habits of the trainers, they ALL have open conversations with themselves. Every, single, one of them. I suspect it's a form of hyponosis, to allow them to do their jobs better. While I go no qualms about getting results from a job, but when my trainer starts giggling to herself out of the blue. When she starts talking about things not related to work, with herself. I start to worry about the thin string of sanity that's holding her together.

Attraction
Yeah I admit, I'm abit of a psycho lover. I LOVE women with problems. It's obviously not because I like to take advantage of them. No proof to back that up however, so it's up for interpretation. I would like to admit that I'm quite a lover of problem solving. A problematic woman is like a flame and I would be a moth to that flame. That trainer of mine, has me running fantasies about solving her problems after only 3 hours of working with her. I knew right away that she's got problems, she's got enough problems to get me hooked onto her within 3 hours.

Problematic Women?!
Why the heck will a guy EVER want a problematic woman? I don't know, I guess every good boy's fantasy is a bad girl. The trainer has problems, sure, but she still talked about everything under the sun and some that the sun doesn't shine on either. I guess they are trained to do that. To attack thru the person's weakness, the very fact that she's bait serves dangerously to the attraction I had for her. I know that they use females as bait for guys, it's an easy enough plan. Guys are stupid creatures that follow their dicks more than their heads.

Do not be UNOFFENDED!
Guys out there, please take offense. Prove the me the fuck wrong about what I just said. Thinking with our pants is the very thing us guys are good at. The fact that some Gay men also think with their pants isn't a very encouraging sign either. Considering the fact that I didn't turn down the employment offer instantly and decided to spend my day with 2 cute and innocent ladies. It god damn means I thought with my pants instead of my brain. But damn it's going to be much easier to reject the offer tomorrow when I'm not face to face with them ladies.

Pussy on the Pedestal
Oh this phrase was first introduced to me by the show, "40 year old VIRGIN". I am one such man that puts pussies on the pedestal. And no, they aren't coming down anytime in my life. Respect the pussy my man, your mom gave birth to ya and she deserves to be on that pedestal. If you don't put your mom on that pedestal, you are in need of some serious life's lessons. It doesn't matter if you felt that your mom didn't treat you right. She gave birth to ya, instead of aborting ya. That act alone makes you owe her man. We all owe our mothers. Say you appreciate her or you might miss the chance if you keep waiting for the right moment.

Doing the "Right" Thing
In order to preserve my very identity and my sanity. I will do the very thing all companies hate in potential employees. I will call in tomorrow and tell them I'm not going back on Monday like I promised. I shall instead, continue looking for a job that does not have influences that will turn me into a mindless working zombie whose purpose in life is to make my superiors richer while torturing myself and telling myself it's all part of life.

Changes in my Life
Perhaps all jobs are like that in a way, but I have changed, I am no longer an extreme masochist and do not desire a lifetime of HELL on EARTH followed by true HELL afterwards. I already know I'm going to Hell, so I should do something that's more bareable so at least I don't feel like I'm in Hell while I'm still alive. Alauz Out.

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow