Painkiller Talking: A conversation with Pain

Me: Hi Pain, thanks for getting re-acquainted with me. Not to say that I missed you.
Pain: ...
Me: How are you?
Pain: ...
Me: I can tell that you are pretty intense.
Pain: ...
Me: And yeah, your enthusiasm is infectious!
Pain: ...
Me: But you need not reflect that on me...
Pain: ...
Me: Oh? You say you like to share as well. I can feel that vibe coming from you. I don't like it.

I took a painkiller after dinner, for the horrible pain in my shoulder (read my previous post) and I applied a gel as well. The combination worked for the first two hours, but now the pain is back with a vengeance.

Holy Power Surge, Batman!

I have a fear of electricity, 2+ years working in the college lab left me with a habit of touching wood panels before turning metal door knobs to prevent static shock, a habit that I still have to this day. And yes, there's the certain degree of dislike when it comes to turning switches on or off.

My old foe, electricity, decided to throw a curve ball at me today. What appeared to be an early morning power failure to an entire row of office buildings evolved into an IT Techincal Personnel's nightmare, a POWER SURGE.

List of known casualties in the office: 2 PC power supply units, 1 LCD monitor, 1 Server power supply unit, and my PC's hard disk and motherboard (it's acting very weird). I got everything up before 4 p.m., except for my own PC, since it took quite a beating.

According to the TNB guys (that's the Electricity Board), the neighbours were pretty unlucky themselves, the ones next door lost a bunch of PCs, and the office down the row, PCs and apparently a Server, along with their work in it.

That info can't be vouched for but I do know that the sundry shop's fridges were knocked out, no cold Red Bull for me.

And no, to the people who asked, I'm not dead, neither did I get zapped. My shoulder hurts from carrying equipment and servers here and there, but what doesn't kill me, makes me stronger. And also, the surge has created awareness for surge protection, something that I've been advocating for the past 2 years. Now I get to buy voltage regulators.

*Nine Over Ten's game related content will resume after this post. Blame TNB if you absolutely must, but those chaps are trying their best as well.

Notes From A Field Commander, Part One

The night started out pretty simple. I got enemy bases northwest, north, northeast and southeast points of the map. Mah ally was a few clicks east of my base. Mine was conveniently located on the southwest point, his was on the east point. It was all good business having him as a buffer, isn't that why we have allies for in the first place?

The thing about us Gee-Dee-Eye folk, we are pretty straightforward. Got the refinery running and that big fat jallopy known as a harvester was cutting up those green kryptonite (I'm sorry, that's Tiberium) off the patch. Ma always said that power is an important thing to us, without that, we wouldn't have light bulbs to study at night, when I was a wee kid. Us field commanders had to start out somewhere, we weren't born that way ya know? So up went a Power Plant.

Well, base expansion happened very fast. I sent a bunch of my tanks with some of me riflemen up the road escorting a surveyor, apparently there was patch of purpal Tiberium up there. Jackpot! I had a forward outpost along with some of my turrets deployed before ya could say Bonanza!

My esteemed ally decided to strike the nearest enemy base (attaboy!), and decided that I should provide cover for him. Poor boy had the beacon placed wrongly. Mah tanks were where as you said you wanted them to be boy. The tank commander did tell me fighting was taking place a few meters down the road, but I told him to stay put, just incase someone else decided to bushwhack you, or me.

Now, aside from that altruistic (some say it's atrocious, but I'm betting it's a typo since I don't think that word exists) act, I finally got my show running with my Mammoth Tanks along with their shiny new Rail Guns. Now, I swear that I can hear them tank commanders muttering "Are we there yet?" all the time, those tanks are just so slow. Them tech boys should give them tanks a V16 or a V24 in those engine bays. After all, no ad-jective describes the GDI better than fuel-guzzler, and we got the moo-lah for crying out loud!

Tiberium Wars Observations

Tiberium Wars does not run as fast as I would like it to be, but maybe this is the effect of playing a multi-player match. Speaking of the multi-player game, it was a mixed bag.

Having teamed up with Aaron, we took down several enemy AI bases in about 20 minutes. Some observations:

• Enemy AI on Easy tend to spam with a lot of troops, and some basic vehicle types, and they spam frequently too. Like mosquitos in a rainforest jungle.
  
• It took quite awhile before I got to build Mammoth Tanks with the accompanying Rail Gun upgrade.
• The build tabs are there but I prefer the old two column representation of what can be built, ala Red Alert 2.
• Mammoth Tanks seem slower than usual. EA should change the unit acknowledgement to: "Are we there yet?"
• Despite their apparent lack of speed, Mammoth Tanks are my new best friends. Mmmm...firepower.
  
• The Scrin's big flying unit looks really bad-ass, same goes for the superweapon.
• I like dropping troops behind enemy lines.
• Troops are like cannon fodder.
• Silos should come with bigger capacities. It gets a bit inconvenient everytime I find a rich patch of Tiberium.
• To chat, press the Enter key.
• Building more War Factories doesn't equate to faster vehicle production, not that I noticed.
  

The game seems to suffer from the same "slowness" inherited from its series predecessor (Tiberium Sun) and its technological predecessor (Generals). I wonder what happened to the speed and urgency of Red Alert 2.

MKDS Anyone?

The response to the MKDS post was pretty encouraging, so lets take it one step further:

Comments anyone? I betcha we got enough racers to start one.

This is NOT a Nuffnang VS Advertlets Comparison Chart

I was telling a friend earlier this morning that on a personal point of view (read: personal), I find that Advertlets' comparison chart to be a bit childish, and mean-spirited. I've only seen Josh Lim once, during a presentation for one of Microsoft's events and he seems like a nice chap, but this is certainly not a very, well, nice way to present things to people, or to do business.

The problems described in the TenthofMarch blog (here, here) potray a rushed product which would have failed any decent usability test, and the comments do make for a decent read. Honestly, companies, especially fledging ones, shouldn't hide behind the BETA software moniker as an excuse to cover up software bugs and yes, this is a software developer talking from a user's/consumer's point of view.

I'm in favour of closed beta tests, and even if you chose to make your beta software public, be forthcoming with the bugs and be courteous to those who actually find them in the first place. The point where you decided to let your beta software out the door, is the same time where you let your ego die.

A simple: "I'm sorry, I'll go about and fix it. Thank you for your efforts, please help us to better ourselves to service you better", so on and so forth, makes for better PR than the comments in the previously mentioned blog, some of them being very caustic.

Having worked in the CRM/Timeshare industry for several years, the thought of actually comparing SalesForce's or SugarCRM's (both are competitors) logos to that of my company's product has never crossed my mind, nor does it sound like fun. So please, grow up.

MKDS - Malaysia Boleh!

Tonight's result? Malaysia 3 - Japan 2. We won! Altogether there were 5 rounds with 4 races each resulting in a total of 20 races raced earlier tonight.

For the previous MKDS session, look over here.

Final Fantasy III

7 hours, 26 minutes and 22 seconds. That's the amount I've spent so far playing Final Fantasy III for the Nintendo DS, and it's not too shabby actually for a busy guy who was previously adverse to RPGs. In any case, there's nothing much to add on to my first impressions of the game (nice graphics, soundtrack) except that it is an excellent RPG.

Random encounters are abundant around the map and players tend to bump into them, but it's a really good way to level up your characters. The job system complements the leveling up and if you are stuck in a rut (e.g. reduced to mini size vs pain-in-the-ass monsters), try changing jobs! In my opinion, the job system plays an important role in keeping things fresh, and I don't even sense the tedium normally associated with level grinding.

Combat is turn-based and it's pretty clear cut (to me at least), when compared to the series' Playstation counterparts. New players and RPG virgins shouldn't have a problem getting into (or fleeing from) combat, just keep in mind that combat comes along frequently (refer to previous paragraph)

Even with SD Gundam-styled character models, the game has a more mature tone compared to other similar RPGs on the Nintendo DS, such as Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time. And I actually favour this set up compared to that of the later, which had me in candy-coated, gum-drop flavoured anaphylaptic shock (metaphorically speaking) after 20 hours of play.

In any case, Final Fantasy III is a worthy addition to any Nintendo DS owner's library. It pretty much earned its place in mine.

Fancy being a Lego Sculpter?

Ever thought of leaving your job, for a much, well, interesting way to may a living? Well, Nathan Sawaya did, by leaving his career as an attorney in order to sculpt with LEGO blocks full time. Yes, you read right, not plaster of Paris, but LEGO blocks.

CNN has an interview with him, click here. Don't forget to check out photos of his sculptures while you are at it.