A New Phase

Got the final book last Saturday i.e. the release day. But, I didn’t have to queue up like some people did though as I live in a small city. I went to the book store in the afternoon and picked up a copy; god I love living in a small city Finished reading the book on Sunday evening. I have to say it’s a great ending to the story.

Harry, Hermione & Ron go on to fulfill the task Dumbledore left them i.e. to find and destroy the horcruxes; items that hold a fragment of Voldermort’s soul. Voldermort can’t die unless every horcrux is destroyed. The journey is tough as they don’t have a plan and none has any idea where the horcruxes are. Dumbledore left them each an item on his will to aid them in their journey. Those items help them to discover the existence of the Deathly Hallow which consists of three magical items; a wand, a resurrection stone and a invisible cloak. Each of which is the best in its class. Harry now has to decide his priority; find horcruxes or the hallows first. Needless to say, they succeed in their journey. As to which items did Harry prioritise, you have to find it our your own

Harry Potter is highly successful due to its story which progresses nicely. In the earlier books the story was lighter and more about ‘wow magic exists’ as Harry himself was really young. It then becomes darker as Harry grows older and the story captures nicely the ‘insecurity’ of teenagers. Also, the plot becomes more complicated as Harry begins to understand more the situation he has to deal with.

A top notch set of characters sets Harry Potter apart from other series. Harry himself is a flawed hero. He’s far from an exemplary student and he’s gotten through so far due to luck, bravery (or recklessness) as well as the help of his friends. Out of all characters in Harry Potter, Severus Snape is my favourite. His love to Harry’s mother is so pure that he dedicates his life to protect the child of the only woman he loves. He might think of Harry as the child he might have had things worked out with Harry’s mom. His bravery is unquestionable; he has to play both Voldermort and Dumbledore side convincingly. In the process, he willingly take the accusations and blames other make towards him. In a nutshell, he is the definition of ‘gray’ character.

I reckon the most profound impact of the series is that it brings back joy to reading especially to the younger readers. Make no mistake Harry Potter books are not typical children books. The latest volume has 607 of solid pages without any picture in it. Unless I’m very wrong, most kids nowadays prefer to spend time on the Internet; social networking site, surfing web sites, chatting, etc. It’s fair to say that reading is not on top of their list. Harry Potter changes that and hopefully, there will be other books that will have similar impacts

For the most unimportant announcement of the week, I’ve started playing Dragon Quest 8: Journey of The Cursed King again Been playing for about an hour everyday for the last few days. I can’t give a thorough review of it at the moment and I don’t plan to, but I want to say a few things about the game.

Going to start with the most obvious thing, the graphic. It’s simply gorgeous; the characters, the enemies, the landscapes, etc. I’ve been playing games since I was a kid and thus, I can say the game arguably has the best graphics for RPG on PS 2. Seems like it pushes the console graphical power to the limit.

The game has a few tricks on its sleeve that make it more realistic in terms of character movements and physical appearance. The game takes into account the properties of the different terrains / landscapes the characters are in. For example I can see the remnants of the grass when the character runs on grass and similarly I can see the dust coming off when the character runs on dusty path. I can also see changes in the weapons & armor the characters carry when I equip them with new weapons / armors. It’s quite impressive considering other RPGs don’t show these changes. So what’s next? The ability to see changes in the clothes worn

I bet Chen, Jonessy & their army will be pleased to see the graphical changes in the game

As usual, nothing is perfect. There are a few thing that I hope were done differently:

• The game uses the church to save the game and the inn to rest / heal the characters. The inn does both in other RPGs. I know this is the tradition in DQ series, but I feel this should be let go. Sometimes we have to let go something no matter how fond we are of it.
• The menu could have been better especially when it comes to equipping equipment. Each character has his own personal belonging / storage in addition to the group storage. This is fine and in-line with other games. However, when I want to equip new stuffs I have to store the thing I want to equip in the character’s personal belonging. That means I have to transfer the item from the group storage to the character storage. This is too cumbersome as there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to equip the items straight from the group storage.

I can only say this much because I’ve only played for less than 10 hours so far. I just hope that some stuffs I find irritating will be fixed in the next installment of the series. The thing is the next game will be released on Nintendo DS. This is odd because RPG is an intensive game and the DS excels not in that type of games. The DS is amazingly suited to play fun, attractive & short-burst games like Mario Cart, Brain Training, etc. I guess they want to take advantage of the dual screen feature of the DS. But, I wonder how the graphic will look like. PSP would probably a better choice graphic wise if they want to port the series to portable platform, But there’s nothing unique in PSP I guess; no offence to you PSP guys

DQ 8 shows the evolution of games up until recently. In my opinion most games are the prettier, sexier version of the previous ones. If I go back from the days of Atari to PS 3 / XBOX 360, all I can see is games that are better looking than the previous generation with nothing truly new being offered. Then the Wii came along and offers something truly unique with its motion sensing controller. It’s aimed for broader audience including those that were alienated to games previously. I’m really glad that Wii came along because it opens up a whole new playing field. No doubt the others will in one way or another offer unique innovations of their own. That can only be good for all of us

It’s midnight of Saturday 21 July; the release date of the latest Harry Potter book. Kudos to you guys that have been queuing up for the book at this moment. I am just too lazy to do that kind of thing Will get it in the morning / afternoon depending on the weather; a very wet summer over here much to my liking.

It will be a weekend of reading for me and for lots of Harry Potter fans

Our life pretty much follow the same pattern. We go through childhood with lots of scars & memories (I know I did), school times including the university and then get a job, settle in & get married and someday we die. Well the order will slightly vary for different people.

There is one thing that we all will experience i.e. finding our loved one, the person that we will spend the rest of our life with (hopefully) Finding that person is quite tricky as he / she is the source of joy and despair. Some people might go out with lots of them before hitting it off with the right one and some only need a few attempts. Anyway all hell can break loose in the process.

Once I helped my mate to get him out of the messy situation he was in; a situation Victor Navorsky said as “too crowded”. Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy by any means. We are after all an emotional being; we don’t always follow what our head says. Getting our head and heart to agree is one of the arts we have to master in life I read my mate’s blog recently (won’t tell which one it’s a secret ) where he wrote about a time when he fell for the wrong woman. I always believe that not to get involved with someone that is taken is the right thing to do. There are still many fishes in the sea than the one that is already taken Having said that, there are many people that do get involved. I believe it is wrong, but I do wonder how wrong it is. Is this a fight worth fighting at all costs? I don’t know the answer, but I hope I won’t have to do it as like I said it’s wrong.

Just my two cents anyway …

Went to work earlier and surprise, surprise there were lots of leftover food yet again. Apparently there was a graduation ceremony today and the food was provided for those students; last chance to meet up & wrap up arguably the most interesting bit of our life. Too bad not many came judging by the amount of food left. So, I diligently did my duty to reduce the amount of food thrown away I don’t like to waste food because I feel bad about it considering there are still many people that can’t afford to have meal on their plates everyday. The sight of people begging on the roads back home also leaves a bitter taste on my mouth. Sometimes, we just take things for granted; as they say we’re only human. Moreover, I grew up listening to my parents’ stories about how tough life was when they were young as they lived during the turbulent period in our country’s history. Thus, food wasting is a big NO NO.

Speaking about graduation, mine sucked big time. It was boiling in that room & more importantly, the whole occasion was really boring. I was looking forward to that day; the day where I was going to get a stupid piece of paper as a proof that I was clever enough to pass the university hurdle. The only great thing about that day was hearing Sharpy speaking in Welsh – didn’t see that coming

During the last few nights before the last exam, I had mixed feelings. It’s like I couldn’t believe it’s going to end pretty soon. It seemed like yesterday (so cliché) and yet, it had been four years. Four challenging years where I spent countless nights working instead of sleeping. My junior high school times was great; I was old enough to do something, but still too young to do many things. First crush, spending crazy amount of times playing the arcades & video games, football, etc, met lots of friends whom I’m still in touch with (some of them), etc. But, university times was something different. It wasn’t as fun as my junior high school times, but I can’t say it’s inferior to it. I got a part-time job for the first time in my life (don’t count the time when me & my cousins ran the family’s inn & took most of the money when everyone was away ), bought stuffs using my hard earned money, intellectually challenged, etc.

Nothing lasts forever and I am on the next phase of my life which coincidentally why I started writing in this blog. Hope it will be a meaningful one

Haven’t written something in almost a week now. Not so busy & as you guess nothing much have happened. Waiting for next week when the last Harry Potter book is out; I’ve the feeling that both Harry and Voldermort will die. Still facing the day on a daily basis. For some reason, I just don’t plan my days. I guess this is because I think facing the unknown is fun.

Anyway, I’m going to apply for a job at a company. As usual, have to fill in the application form. I feel that I’ve lost my application form (exaggerating the truth) skills because it’s been quite some time since I filled in one I’m still waiting for my mate to check my form; more eye balls the better. Hope I can submit it by end of today or tomorrow at the latest.

On Thursday, I went to work at the University on an empty-ish stomach. Saw lots of food when I got there; guess there was an open day at that time. The food was still there after I finished working. I then just gorged myself on those leftover food – cakes & snacks; ate most of the cakes (that brown one was really good) & lots of garlic bread with cheese on top. It reminded of the times at uni; back then the secretary would come to the lab where the geeks were working to tell us that there were leftover food from the open day. We, the pack of hungry geeks, would finish without a trace any food left. I was the cake master at that time as I ate all the cakes & sweets Speaking of uni, I got a new MSN emoticon recently from my mate. It’s an icon of the smiley guy having a cup of coffee / tea whilst staring at the computer screen. It really reminds me of the days; those long nights spent perfecting the system. It was tough and yet, it was really enjoyable. Really miss those days

I’ve seen some movies this weeks including Four Weddings and A Funeral and Everyone Says I Love You. I’ve finally seen the former after hearing about it in a long time. It’s probably British romantic comedy at its best; certainly it’s better than any of Hugh Grant’s movies I’ve seen to date. Well, About a Boy might be an exception. The latter is a Woody Allen’s movie; it’s full of witty dialog typical of Allen & the last scene where Allen & Hawn dance by the river side is amazing; watch it & you’ll know what I’m talking about I wonder how he did that scene.

Anyway, this is it for now. So long and take care.

ps: I haven’t played Dragon Quest 8

Hit a bottom low on Thursday when I fell asleep at 10 pm for an hour and couldn’t sleep again until around half five in the morning. Felt wobbly and damn sleepy for the whole day & I had to resist the urge to sleep until bed time. Finally, I went to bed at around 1 am & got up at around 10. The strange thing was I was all sweaty when I got up. Really odd considering it’s been quite cold around here. My sleeping pattern is getting better, fingers crossed, it will improve. Attempt to sleep around 2 for now and earlier as time passes.

Went for strawberries picking on Saturday on a farm. The place wasn’t that big, but it was alright. It was a nice break from all the hassle of living in the city; yeah right like I live in a super duper big city The thing I learned about fruit picking is that I have to be patient to find the right fruits. I had to go rows of plants where some of the fruits were not ripe or over ripe. The challenge was in finding the fruit that is just right; my eagle eyes were pretty useful back then

Wimbledon mens’ final was held on Sunday. It was a great match between Federer and Nadal. I believed Federer would win, but Nadal had a great chance to win it when Federer was down 15 – 40 in 2 of the games in the final set. Nadal didn’t take his chances and was punished for it. Federer showed the hallmark of a great champion. Still, it was amazing how far Nadal pushed him. They were in the final last year when Federer won quite comfortably. Federer also won easily during the earlier rounds this year; felt sorry for Juan Carlos Ferrerro who was utterly crushed by Federer after he took a set from the champion.

In all, improved sleeping pattern, fruit picking, tennis, F1 and relaxing make it a great weekend. Too bad I still haven’t played Dragon Quest 8; don’t worry bro I won’t abandon you for too long

Couldn’t sleep again yesterday. Didn’t doze off until about 4 am. It’s around 8 pm now and I’m really sleepy. But, I know I won’t be able to sleep again tonight if I take a nap now. I’m tempted to play Dragon Quest 8 on PS 2 since I’ve abandoned that game for quite some time. I don’t play as much game as I used to.

Watched Sicko today. It’s the new documentary by Michael Moore about the health care in the US where it’s privatised and the comparison again other countries including the UK and Cuba that provide a free (almost) universal health care. I feel sorry for the Americans who were denied the treatment they were entitled to by their insurance companies. I do believe that Education and Health Care should be free or cost as little as possible. Most people back home don’t have a health insurance and most can’t afford to get one. It saddens me when I hear that people can’t afford the treatment they need. I’m one of the lucky people to be born into a family that can afford the basic necessities of life.

May we all someday get the fundamental things (education, health care, etc) we need in life for free or for a reasonable amount of money

Helped my mate to edit his essay yesterday. It was actually quite fun and in some way similar to debugging a program. The similarity is in finding the odd bits and suggesting a way to improve it. It made me relived those times spent debugging my course mates’ codes during university.

Woke up late today for some reason. My biological clock has gone from bad to worse. I can’t seem to sleep before 2 in the morning lately. Plus, I feel sleepy during the day and awake during late evening. Man, I’m turning into some freak bat now. Ah well, hope I can fix my biological clock in time; can’t imagine if I have to do the 9 to 5 routine considering my sleeping pattern.

On a related note, I really admire people who can sleep anywhere and anytime they want. It’s one of the things that I want the most

I finally watched the movie last week after hearing about it for a long time. It is truly a sad movie. I do admired Aya’s determination to live and her positive outlook on live no matter what circumstances she was in.

That movie brought some intriguing questions about euthanasia or assisted suicide. It does make me wonder why some people want to die and some want to live no matter how dire their condition is. This is a gray area with no easy answer. Maybe I’ll write about it someday when I have more answer on this.

As my tribute towards her, I’ll try to have a meaningful live and to cherish the time I have in this world

I have two job rejections in the space of 1 week recently. Felt like shit at that time. The feedback I got for the first job wasn’t that helpful either. Apparently, I showed lack of commercial awareness on the case study. But, what did they mean by that?

Anyway, it seems that my job seeking adventure here is almost over. I’m preparing to go home soon probably in a month or two. I’m starting to make a preparation of looking for a job back home. It will be quite odd since it’s been about 9 years since I left home. I reckon it will take some time to adapt myself to the new surrounding.

I’ll just take any job that I get hopefully one that pays well Although my interest is within the IT & Telecommunication industry, I don’t mind if I have to do a job in other industry. Moreover, I don’t plan on being someone else underling for a long time.