Mini HighSchool Reunion

During Monday evening, I play basketball with a group of friends at EIS. Today, we had quite a number of new people appearing, in which we took the time time to discuss with them about playing rules and regulation. After a short discussion, the more we ask, it seems that we are getting a wider range of old alumnis coming over to play here. Talk about it, 20 basketball players which most graduated from the same school but from different academic years. That was quite a far cry from the early days in which we were split quite down the middle between old alumnis and people from other schools.

How to Judge the Quality of a Japanese Restaurant

For those who don't know (you might find it odd), but if you want to find which Japanese restaurant are really good and authentic, you should count the number of Japanese patrons in the shop. The rationale is easy. Japanese people like to eat Japanese food and are extremely picky. Try that when you plan to eat at your next restaurant the next time and avoid Fuji and Oishi.

Feature in Thai Post edition 23/08/2007

I just noticed that the Thai Computer Game Museum was featured in one of the pages in ThaiPost of edition 23/08/2007. Now I'm even surprised considering its only on beta-phase O_o Oh well, I've just got to find a copy. Where can I find it?

What in the World is This Blog?

There had been a few people who visited this blog and emailed me asking what type of blog is this? They were expecting more of a blog about exciting game development projects I've been up to. What they found was that the blog was long, wordy, lacks pictures (My little brother took my digital camera), and seems to completely lack focus, especially there is hardly anything about game development which is so unlike many of my colleagues in this field who would update their sites regularly with their latest developments.

Is it wrong? Hmm... I guess not. I've just figured that I've done too much about those stuff in my free time, I think I want to keep this blog just a little more personal, and a little more about things that just happened to cross my mind. Its nothing significant. Consider it like graffiti. People do graffiti as an excuse to express themselves. In my own example, I'm doing it the same way, except I don't make much of a nuisance to people in this world :P

Pisal's Secret Parma Ham Pizza

You might find it odd, but I usually cook in my free time, usually on weekends. One of my favorite dishes that I regularly make is pizza in which I make my own dough. After experimenting for a few years, I've finally honed into my favorite pizza that I usually make to impress my first time guests at my home.


The pizza that I make right now is my own dough which is made into extremely thin crust (which I usually do after some flying pizza tricks :P). The topping that I like the most currently is Parma ham. As noted Parma Ham idoesn't come cheap, but its delicious and gives a rather fine salty taste. To cover up the excessive saltiness, there are two things I've used. First is a layer of tomato sauce (could be made but tomato quality here is too low to make good sauce). The second is the layer of mascapone cheese (the one you use in tiramasu) is used below the parma ham to give a smooth cheesy taste after biting.The whole thing is covered up with some classic mozzarella cheese which is standard in any pizza. If you noticed the topics, this pizza isn't cheap, but its great for any home party :)

The only thing at the present that I can think that can help my pizza is a better oven. I fancy a coal driven pizza oven, but that is pretty too expensive, and won't fit a home kitchen that well doesn't it?

Thai Computer Game Museum

Just thought you might be interested in a few things I've been up to. I've just finished the first edition of Thai Computer Game Museum, and you can view it at this address http://museum.thaigamedevx.com

My Own Custom Music Program

I was asked to submit a research paper to a conference by my future PhD advisor. Due to the lack of time, I've decided to pick up a topic closely related with one of my hobbies. As noted, I'm studying music, and have been playing with a number of instruments including the saxophone and the EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument). One of the things that I figured that might be interesting for me is to actually work on a type of application that could be useful when I play with the instruments. As the EWI is an electronic instrument, I selected it as a topic to work on.

If you noticed the following random pictures below, it is actually part of the application I've worked on. If you looked carefully, you can notice the picture are basically extracting information from me playing with the EWI finding which part of the frame in the camera feed I was in. This information is then relayed to the software mixer that could change parameters such as the panning effects.




The application worked out pretty well, and it allowed me as the musician to change panning without having to be at the mixer which could be useful in certain situations. One example would be creating sound effects that uses lots of panning. That is one area that I could save alot of time.

Anyway, after much work on the topic, a a few ideas struck me. If I used two cameras, I could actually plot my position in 3D, which wasn't that difficult to do. Another brilliant idea that popped up my head was using motion sensor tools (e.g. Nintendo WII remote anyone?) to help in music playing.

The lesson I've learnt in the drafting of the paper was quite fun. To be exact, playing musical instruments is fun, and making programs to add to that doubles the fun! You might want to try something like that if you have the time ;)

The Root Cause of a Bad Computer

After struggling with my new computer for a year or so, I've finally found the root cause of the problem that causes unscheduled rebooting on occasional basis and lots of artifacts when playing hi-end games. After fudging around, I removed my Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum sound card (with a front panel) out, and it turned that all the games worked perfectly without the artifacts and the computer stopped rebooting at random intervals.

I believed the problem has to do with the inadequate power supply that came with the case. I reasoned that the power wasn't simply enough to power all the electronic devices installed in the computer. Though I'm not completely sure on the conclusion, it does sound plausible enough.

Thinking about all of it, this is both the joy and the angst of having a PC. You just have to have a little knowledge or that PC is going to make you completely frustrated.