Trying time

Progress in Suikoden has not been good due to time constraints at the moment. However, starting from next month onwards, there will be PLENTY of playing time for me, and the playing time that will be available is in fact comes in excess. It is scary to think that I have an approximate of 3 hours of playing day at least everyday. Even more so on the weekend, I keep my fingers crossed that I will have a sufficient number of games to sustain me until November, but I doubt that will happen considering the amount of playing time I will be having from October to the end of November.

Many people would congratulate me and some people have even urged me to be thankful for the “luck” that I have for having plenty of playing time. However, I am far from happy as instead of blessing in disguise, in this particular case, there’s actually a curse in disguise. On the surface, it seems really awesome to be having plenty of playing time to boot, but it is actually not that great after all.

First and foremost, those three hours or more each day designated for playing is actually not a leisure time. Those hours are actually the waiting time between two demanding activities of the day. Secondly, on these days for the two months period (from October to November) I must wake up before the rooster even gets to the REM sleep, which is in the unholy hour of 5am and from that time onwards, I will be kept really busy like a prisoner in a concentration camp until at least 8pm before I could feel the comfort of my home. Even then, nothing could be done as it would be so late to do anything and the next day, the cycle starts again. Thirdly, during the long hours of waiting, it is not that as if I will be getting a very comfortable place to play Suikoden or any other games I might be playing. Instead, I will be playing in the worst of all places with so many disturbances and irritants alike constantly bugging me. This is compounded with the fact that I would not be at 100% due to the early time I have to wake up at and the demanding and sometimes ridiculous activities that I have to go through on the day.

So I am just praying to God, god, goddess, deity, Zeus or whoever is up there listening that I will get through this trying time in one piece. The whole struggle will start from 8^th October 2007 and will stretch all the way until 25^th October 2007 if I am lucky or if I am unlucky, it will last until 22^nd November 2007.

A weapons peddler and a wise man

Once upon time, there was a weapons peddler selling his goods in the streets. On that particular day, he was selling his best shields and swords. In an attempt to grab the attention of the public in the bustling streets, he promoted his weapons by shouting out loud the best features that his shields and swords possessed.

“My swords are the best! It is able to slice through anything in this world!” He went on promoting about the greatness of his swords.

“My shields are second to none! It is able to withstand any weapons in this world!” He continued to promote his shields.

A wise man happened to walk by him at that time. The wise man turned to the peddler and asked, “Young man, if I may, I would like to ask you just one question regarding your fine weapons.”

The peddler, visibly happy as he managed to secure the attention of somebody replied, “Hohoho, go ahead, sir. My weapons are the best! You won’t regret purchasing them!”

The wise man then went on to ask his question, “Young man, what would happen if you use your sword to slice your shield, since your sword is able to slice through anything while your shield is impervious to any attacks?”

The peddler’s face turned pale as he was at a loss for words. Furthermore, the question was asked in front of a very large crowd…

What is the moral of the story? Post your answers!

Chinese undead

Have you ever wondered why Chinese undead are all wearing that particular type of dress while moving about by hopping around with their arms stretched out in front of them?

The reason dates back to when the Japanese started to invade China. During this time, the Japanese slaughtered so many Chinese military officers (The dress is actually that of a military officer of China at that era) that there are too many corpses all around in the cities of China for the people to handle. To be efficient, the people devised a special method to clean up these corpses perhaps for identification purposes or just a part of the ceremony being held to treat these corpses as they should be treated. The method to line up these corpses was to tie their hands onto the trees by using ropes in standing position. This explains why the hands of these corpses are positioned as such.

On why they are moving around in hops, it is because of one very simple reason. All of us know that corpses are stiff in nature, and thus, they are not able to move swiftly and with relative ease like what we living people are doing. This is why they are moving about that way.

If any of you readers are wondering why I am suddenly bringing up this topic, this is because a friend of mine was talking about this in his website and I would also like to convey this message across.

Suikoden V

Progress in Suikoden so far

The current game being played by me is Suikoden 1. Suikoden, the very first installment of the Suikoden series can be considered as a very short and simple game. Many gamers are saying that Suikoden is a merely a warming up compared to playing other RPG games such as the Final Fantasy series or even Xenogears. Nevertheless, Suikoden is one of the best games around despite its 2D nature. In terms of audio, it boasts one of the best sound systems and the quality of the audio in the game can be compared to some of not most of the modern games.

To cut the long story short, I am currently approaching the half-way point of the game, and for those who have played the game, I am now at the Scarleticia Castle, right after the Liberation Army failed miserably in attacking Milich Oppenheimer’s Scarleticia Castle due to the giant and poisonous rose pollen which protects the castle.

2008 Olympics Qualifier AFC Region standings

This is the latest standing of the 2008 Olympic qualifiers for AFC region as of the posting is written.

Group A

Iraq 4pts 2games

Australia 4pts 2games

Lebanon 3pts 2games

North Korea 0pt 2games

Group B

South Korea 6pts 2games

Bahrain 3pts 2games

Syria 1pt 2games

Uzbekistan 1pt 2games

Group C

Qatar 4pts 2games

Japan 4pts 2games

Vietnam 1pt 2games

Saudi Arabia 1pt 2games

There are three vacancies left for AFC in the 2008 summer Olympics. By looking at the tables, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that only the teams which come out on top of their respective groups will join China, the host country and qualify for the actual tournament next year.


On paper, and based on the current standings, many people would have predicted that Australia, South Korea, and Japan will qualify for the actual tournament. However, as it has always been, anything can happen in the world of football and teams that are languishing at the bottom of their groups can even rise in the remaining 4 games and come out top. All eyes will particularly be fixed to Vietnam, which is the only South East Asian country in this round of qualification as well as North Korea, which is an isolated country and is the only communist country left in this world. It would be a major shock if both teams can qualify from their respective groups. Keep your fingers crossed. Anything can happen in football and we could even see Vietnam or North Korea hogging the medals next year!

England 3-0 Israel

Many wouldn’t have guessed an injury-ravaged England team with morale at an all-time low would have beaten Israel 3-0 with relative ease. This is true even when it is taken into account the fact that Israel did not play to win but they simply defended like there is no tomorrow to grind out a goalless draw, a feat which they were able to pull off in the earlier encounter with England at home in Israel.

The goals came from Shaun Wright Phillips, Michael Owen, and Micah Richards. This victory is significant to England as firstly, it saved Steve McClaren’s job as England manager, for now at least. Secondly, it boosted the morale of the English team significantly and they couldn’t ask for more prior to another vital home game against Russia next Wednesday. Last but not least, a victory means that England obtained another 3 points and a step closer towards qualification to Euro 2008 which will be co-hosted in Switzerland and Austria. Also, this victory was also meaningful as it is the first victory of England in the new Wembley Stadium.

Vietnam 1-1 Qatar

A great match between Vietnam and Qatar has just finished. This is one of the matches of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics qualifier. On paper, it looks like Qatar is going to be the outright winner in the match and Vietnam will have to settle as the whipping boys. However, that was not the case. It was an entertaining and swashbuckling football on offer live from Hanoi.

As could be seen in the title, the match ended with the two teams sharing the spoils at 1-1. Both of the goals in the match came at the first 13 minutes of the match. At the 10^th minute, Qatar capitalized on a terrible defensive error made by a Vietnamese defender who slipped and a Qatar striker got the ball and simply just passed the ball into the back of the net. A very beautiful goal and from this goal, many people would have thought that it is the start of a heavy thrashing of Vietnam by Qatar.

However, it was not to be. Just 3 minutes after Qatar had taken the lead, Vietnam got a free-kick in a very dangerous position just outside Qatar’s penalty box. There were several players standing around the ball. One of them was number 9, Le Cong Vinh, the golden boy of Vietnam football. There was one other player besides him. Le Cong Vinh made the run-up to hit the ball, but just before he hit the ball, to everyone’s surprise, he kicked the ball softly in front of him just for Vu Phong, number 17 who had been lurking from behind to hit the ball. The ball flew like a rocket and hit the back of the net for Vietnam’s equalizer. Game on.

From here on, it erased all earlier predictions that Qatar would thrash Vietnam heavily. Thoughts of Vietnam scoring at least one more goal and win this match even surfaced as Qatar’s goalkeeper, whose handling was clearly bad made some schoolboy errors, only for his defenders to spare his blushes by making last ditch and desperate clearances. Having said this, it does not mean that Qatar defenders were excellent in the game. They were in fact quite slow and clumsy. They allowed many free headers. This is of significance as Qatar’s defenders are all at least 180cm tall while Vietnam’s strikers are 160-170cm. It is shameful for the Qatari defenders to give free headers to shorter players. However, Qatar didn’t concede any goal due to luck. From here on, this match resembled an English Premier League match. It was a swashbuckling attacking football spiced up with high physical elements. Pure entertainment. The only thing lacking was of course more goals as the scoreline stayed 1-1 until the end of the match.

In terms of fair play, we could not say that this match was a match with fair-play. There were moments of madness as well. One notable incident was when a Vietnam goal was rightfully disallowed. In a confusion in front of Qatari goal, Anh Duc, one of the Vietnamese strikers sensed an opportunity and stuck his arm out to get the ball into the net. He succeeded, however, he was not to be crowned Vietnam’s Maradona. The referee spotted this and immediately disallowed the goal. He even booked Anh Duc for deliberately using his arm to have an attempt towards goal.

All in all, I believe the intensity and the level of entertainment were remarkable for an Asian football match, especially for a South East Asian side, which is in this case, Vietnam. We could see that Vietnam football is rising and they are catching up with the big boys in Asian football. For an information, almost all who played against Qatar were also involved in the 2007 Asian Cup in which Vietnam was the only one who go through from the Group Stage. They were eliminated by eventual champions Iraq. From here on, Vietnam has to build on from this great match to win the subsequent matches. It will be remarkable if they could finish on top of this group which includes Japan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. The team which finish on top of the group will get a berth on the 2008 Olympics soccer tournament and have a shot for the gold medal as well as rubbing shoulders with many wonderful talents worldwide.

Suikoden II

Waiting time of 3 solid hours can be reduced to a mere 3 minutes by playing Suikoden II.

"Negarakuku"

I think I have to update to appease a little cute girl known as Gwendolyn ^^, and to appease her, this update must NOT related in any ways to soccer.

Have you ever imagined that your national anthem is a rap song? Well, under normal circumstances, I do not really think that anybody has ever thought of this on their respective national anthems. However, this has already happened in a very beautiful country which is located in South East Asia. This wonderful country that I am talking about is none other than Malaysia, the country which is “truly asia”, according to their tourism promotional campaigns to the people worldwide. That’s beside the point. The point for today is the alternation of the national anthem of Malaysia into a rap song. This alternation of the Malaysian national anthem is done by a Malaysian citizen of the ethnic Chinese who is studying in a university in the Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), and the world got to know about this as he posted his well-decorated video of himself singing the song into Youtube, the video sharing website. The video, besides featuring him singing with the Malaysian flag as the background, also features some clips from the Malaysian tourism promotional campaigns as well as an assortment of pictures with regards to Malaysia. The purpose of him doing this is simply to highlight to the world about the biasness in Malaysia (such as racial and religious segregation in the country) as well as to highlight about the rampant corruption within the country. The message is being conveyed through, of course, the lyrics of the song which is in a mixture of Mandarin, Chinese dialects as well as some extracts from the original version of Negaraku.

As all of us have known, the title of Malaysia’s national anthem is “Negaraku”. In the song conjured up by this Malaysian student, the title is “negarakuku”. This title is obviously derived from Negaraku.

Regarding to the reactions in his native Malaysia, there have been mixed reactions there. The government is of course upset with the act that this boy has done, however, they could not sue and penalize this student whatsoever as there is no evident of treason in his video/song. This is basically due to the fact that the student conveys his messages in the song in a careful and smart manner so that it does not suggest anything about him criticizing the country with his own opinions, however, he tried, and succeeded in creating the impression that the message is basically neutral and based on what are really happening in the country.

On the other hand, the Chinese ethnic in Malaysia have been supportive of his actions as someone who dares and has the guts to bring out these problems in Malaysia to the world in this manner has finally emerged out of nowhere. Therefore, he is being a hero and a zero at the same time here. Nevertheless, the student’s family did make an apology to the government on behalf of their son and since his video attracted overwhelming public attention, the student has since removed the video from Youtube. But, the videos are still available in the site as people have been uploading the copies of the videos into the website.

My comments on this? I have no comments on this. I am sorry… (No freedom of speech here and anywhere else^^)

New boys in their debuts

After a long and enduring wait, football has finally come back to entertain us. Yesterday marked the start of the new football season, for English Premier League and German Bundesliga at least (among the top four European football leagues). There was one interesting pattern on the first day of the new footballing season. The pattern which is valid for both leagues was that the new boys (debutants in their respective clubs) flourished.

In the German Bundesliga, Luca Toni scored in his first ever appearance for FC Bayern Munich. In that match, FC Bayern won comfortably by the scoreline 3-0.

In the English Premier League, it was more interesting. First one would be Michael Chopra, who scored the winning goal for the newly-promoted Sunderland at the very last minute against Tottenham. By scoring that goal, he became an instant hero or perhaps he is a fan favorite already, for the moment at least. At Blackburn Rovers, Roque Santa Cruz also managed to score in his first ever appearance for Blackburn. In that match, Blackburn won 2-1 against Middlesbrough. Also, not forgetting Portsmouth’s new boy John Utaka who managed to score in their thrilling 2-2 draw against the Premiership new boys Derby County.

Probably the most interesting is Manchester City. Most of the players in the squad, including the team manager was appearing on their first ever appearance for Manchester City as well as in English Premier League. However, everyone in Manchester City excelled. In the goalkeeping department, Kasper Schmeichel kept a clean sheet. He was mostly covered by the solid defensive backline led by Vedran Corluka and Javier Garrido, also debutants. In the midfield department, Stilian Petrov and Elano exceeded all expectations by zipping through West Ham defences. Finally, in the striking department. Both debutants Rolando Bianchi and Geovanni scored to condemn West Ham to a 2-0 defeat.

Even though most of the new boys excelled last night. It was not the case for some. Just look at West Ham. They do have new boys in Craig Bellamy and Fredrik Ljungberg. However, they did not meet the expectations on their shoulders. Perhaps, it is safe to say that Lady Luck was smiling at the new boys who are new in the English football, not new boys who transferred from another English club. For Michael Chopra, it was an exception, but at least he is new to the English Premier Division.

First day of EPL

Rolando Bianchi and Roque Santa Cruz do not need to take too long before scoring their maiden goals in the Premiership!

A follow up will be written tomorrow.

Exhaustion of Ideas

Billions are being set aside each year by people around the globe just for watching movies in the cinemas. The rationale for doing so varies. Some of them go to watch movies in the cinemas as they want to enjoy their favorite movies on a huge screen, some of them go to the cinemas as they do not have a VCD or more recently DVD-player at home. Another group of these people go to the cinemas simply because they want to socialize with friends, family members or with their loved ones. Whatever the reason is, these people are spending a huge amount of money per year.

Well, the reason why this article is written is not to blabber about people who go to the cinemas and splurge their money, making the owners of the cinemas richer and richer in the process of course. It is people’s right to spend their hard-earned money in whichever way that they like. They can even choose to throw their month’s salary into the ocean, it is their choice. Who am I to control them? That’s beside the point. So, the purpose of the writing of this article is actually to assess the quality as well as the worthiness to spend those dollars/pounds/rubles or whatever currency it may be for the movies.

First and foremost, people in many generations have witnessed lots and lots of movies. There have been any types of the movies that are produced. From love stories to violence story about war. It has been incredible to see how the media has been flourishing since the first movie was created in the world.

However, ideas that can be generated by human brains are limited. In fact, ideas for good movies have run out. This is evident in the 21^st century. We could easily see that the movies that are emerging in this century lack creativity and innovation. There is simply no new stories being created whatsoever. Every movie that comes out is either a sequel to an already existing movie (such as Spiderman 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, to infinity :P) , a movie adaptation of novels (such as the infamous Harry Potter. Infamous!), or simply a spin-off to a successful movie (such as Star Wars).

This is really disappointing as people are longing for new things, not the same thing over and over again. It is good to see Spiderman flying around with his web for once or twice, but thrice? Beat it! Furthermore, the third sequel for Spiderman was not up to standard and many people came out of the cinema frowning. This is so disappointing. It seems that Hollywood has run out of ideas to create new movies, but to generate profit and to sustain their image, movies must still be generated and as a result of this, combined with the lack of new ideas, sequels after sequels are and will be created.

Again, using Spiderman as a gage, I am not really surprised of in 10 years time, we could still see Spiderman 8, Spiderman 9, Spiderman 10 being screened in the cinemas. If this is the case, going to the cinema will no longer be an option, at least for me. This also makes me realize that everything in this world is limited, not only fossil fuels are limited. But simply everything…

Suikoden II

Another game which contributes to my learning in English language has been secured. The game is none other than Suikoden 2. This classic game not only laid a solid foundation for my English language but it also contributed to my social life.

As primary school students, my friends and I without a doubt were die-hard PSX addict and one of our favorite games was Suikoden 2. To cut the story short, Suikoden 2 catalyzed the friendship among us all.

Now that I have reached a decent level in English language, I am going to play this game for one more time. The purpose is simply to really understand the plot and storyline this time.

EPL 07-08

Tomorrow will be the start of the new English Premier League season. 20 teams in the top division of the English football will be in the contention for the much coveted trophy. (Although in reality, only 4 teams namely Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool that will really be chasing for the title, but technically, there are 20 teams fighting for the title).

The big four have completed many signings and have spent millions of pounds to bolster their already great squad to grab not only the Premier League title, but also the cups available (FA Cup and League Cup, as well as the ultimate prize in European football, if not the world, the UEFA Champions League trophy). Besides the big four, the rest of the teams have purchased many players of their own, and most of them are superstars. This will be explained below.

Looking at the transfers that have been done so far among the Premier League teams, I could see many interesting transfers going on. It is also important to note that during the off-season, there was an influx of superstars from other European top football leagues coming in to the Premier League. Despite the critics who claim that these stars won’t be able to shine in their debut season in the Premier League as they will have to adjust to the physical demand of the “toughest league in the world”, I am certain that these superstars will add another dimension to the already star-studded league. This may also mean that there will be more teams challenging for the title and the competition at the foot of the table to avoid relegation to the lower division will be interesting and entertaining as well due to the fact that the signings of the superstars from other leagues not only done by the top teams, but also the rest of the teams. Such signings include the transfer of Claudio Pizarro and Roque Santa Cruz to Chelsea and Blackburn respectively. (Both of them were from FC Bayern Munich of the German Bundesliga as well as other signings like Florent Malouda from Lyon to Chelsea). There are many others, especially in Manchester City. But there are simply too many of them to be mentioned here and for Manchester City’s signings, it will be explained in the next section.

Besides transfer dealings aforementioned above, another interesting thing that occurred in English Football is of course the acquisitions of clubs by foreign billionaires. These takeovers without a doubt strengthen the teams concerned considerably, most notably in the financial area. The most recent acquisition and perhaps the most interesting one is the takeover of Manchester City by Thaksin Sinawatra, the controversial former prime minister of Thailand. Even the takeover itself was really complicated with many issues such as frozen assets and many others (too detailed to be mentioned here yet again…).

Since the takeover, Manchester City have undergone a lot of changes. (For your information, I have been supporting Manchester City from 2003 as I wanted to deviate from the norm of supporting Manchester United). First and foremost, Sven Goran Eriksson, the very famous former England manager has been installed as the manager of the club. For the players, Manchester City have finally gotten rid of the wasted talent in Joey Barton and they have bought many superstars from overseas. Most notable ones are Elano from Shakhtar Donetsk, Valeri Emilov Bojinov from Juventus, and Rolando Bianchi from Reggina. (One interesting note: These 3 players are really good in Football Manager 2007. It seems that Sven Goran Eriksson signed them based on the game. Hehe).

With the takeover, Manchester City have finally joined the league of giants in the Premier League and let’s hope that the blue side of Manchester will finally rise from the shadows of the red side of Manchester, that is Manchester United. Perhaps, they could even challenge for the title this year! My apologies for being bias, since my other favorite team in the English Premier League is Chelsea. But nevertheless, I am pretty sure that the future of the English football is really BLUE! Onwards Chelsea and Manchester City!

The biased statement aside, let us all hope that the 2007-2008 English Premier League season will be a great one and of course, the season where fair-play dominates the scene hand in hand with the swashbuckling attacking football that all of us football fans yearn every week! Onwards English football!

Xenogears

Xenogears is secured. More games to be played, and thus more time to be killed. Those 3 hour long of waiting I have to endure every Friday will be nothing more than an extra playing time. Perhaps, 3 hours is not enough when it is spent playing your favorite games.

Legend of Legaia

I have said before that my life will be filled with GBA. Not entirely true. To be exact, PSX will also be a part of my life.

I have just gotten a privilege to get hold onto and play Legend of Legaia, one of the games which I played in my childhood. This is one of the games which contribute to my learning process of English Language.

GBA

This is the follow up to the previous posting about my life with the GBA!

However, this post will be something of a bad news.

Life has not been so nice to the owner of this site and ultimately, he has yet to have a sufficient amount of time to sit down and play the GBA games. It has to be understood as the owner of this site is a very busy man whose life is packed with many interesting as well as not-so-interesting stuff.

To cap it all off, I have promised myself to set aside one day, which is the day after tomorrow (as tomorrow will be hell as well for the whole day) to play GBA and enjoy myself. I suppose, Thursday will be a well deserved rest for me.

Anyways, if you have any questions, comments, or even something to share about GBA and its games, feel free to contact me or do so in the chatbox.

Regards

Golden Sun

First and foremost, I would like to thank CK and AJ for helping me through a difficult period in my journalistic career. Whatever little support you two have given me are really appreciated. I love you guys! Muuuack!

When we are talking about nintendo nowadays, many people would say "Nintendo DS". No longer will people talk about older consoles from the company such as gameboy advance.

However, I, being the typical outdated dude have just started (for the second spell) playing Golden Sun. I have obtained the two series of Golden Sun, the first one as well as the second installment (The Lost Age).

I will get on with the games starting with the first one very soon as I am currently very busy with many works now.

I will keep you guys updated on Golden Sun in the near future. I also have a plan afoot to play pokemon fire red and emerald once again after I have finished Golden Sun. Perhaps, Tales of Phantasia and Sword of Mana will soon follow.

If you guys are playing or have played the games aforementioned above, please contact me and if possible give me some tips regarding those games.

My GBA filled life starts today!

Regards,

Alvinbeo

Dear Spammers

Spammers,

It seems that all of you have won a battle. Congratulations. I admit my defeat. Oh man... It cost me my chatbox...

But it is alright. I reckon that the spamming was done by people who know me. I am not against anybody and everybody is my friend. However, many people are against me and I assume that the reason for being against me is because they are simply jealous of me. They see something really good in me that they try to demoralize me and try to bring me down. Dream on, this spurs me to write even more. Thank you guys

For you guys, I swear in the name of Saturn's ring or whatever that you guys will develop a severe cancer. *pop*, the mutations of your proto-oncogenes have started. Congratulations.

people who are jealous of me or against me will die very soon.

People who are against me, if you hate me so much, tell me right in front of my face, I am okay with that. But please, just leave me alone and let me mind my own business. You are wasting your time and my time if you are disturbing me. It is useless, trust me.

I hope you guys enjoy your life with cancer.

I love you guys, (spammers and people who are jealous of me and try to bring me down)

Alvinbeo