Blazing Red DS

The Nintendo DS Lite is probably one of the least sturdy portable game machines in the market. I broke my DS a few months ago after too many violet gaming sessions. The hinges between the top and bottom part of the DS just broke into two.

After trying to play the DS for a while by supporting the hinges with one of my hand, I decided I should get it repaired. I just got it back today, and now my DS is blazing RED! Hopefully it is faster by 3 times :P

Classical Music Etiquette for Dummies

As being in many classical music concerts, I somewhat get irritated when seeing a few members in the audience who haven't followed proper etiquette during the concert. Thinking about it, I thought it might be a good time to write a few things I've learnt over the years in simple words :P

1) Turn off your mobile phones (easy, but why can't people do it?)
2) Don't talk during the performance.
3) Don't applaud until the whole house does (so that you don't have to know the difference between movement and pieces)
4) Wear warm clothes (As most concert halls are cold this is recommended)
5) Don't make too much noise (e.g. eating)

Hmm.. well I hope I didn't forget to mention, enjoy the performance :P

Too Dedicated

I have a slight problem that I think that I need to fix. I have this nasty habit of working extremely hard in binges. When the going gets tough, and things need to get done, I find it very gratifying to roll up the sleeves of my shirt and press through the project until it is done with little regard of things around me. The problem is after being so dedicated to work, it is easy to get burnt out. After finishing work under such circumstances, somehow I like to revert to sleeping binges - in other words sleeping too much, before trying to get myself entertained - in some times, gaming binges that aren't that good for the health. It isn't easy to find an equilibrium where things don't get too crazy on one aspect of life, but at least I know I have to try and start sometime.

Maybe I'll start by sleeping early today :P

Gambling for Fun

A few days ago, I went to Vik's home for a party. Vikram and his extended family has just finished building their 8 story building that houses their family and relatives, and he wanted to invite a few close friends over to celebrate the occasion. Our group that went there were people who played sports together - namely we are on the same basketball league on Wednesday evenings.

During the party, we happen to meet up with Sumitr, Vik's elder brother who was a classmate of mines. What ended up was that we had a gambling game for laughs, each game was 10 baht which was a puny sum. After nearly 3 hours of playing, I ended up gaining nothing and losing nothing.

The point that I want to raise is that gambling isn't bad if you know how to control yourself. It is also pretty fun! For those who think they don't have the luck in these games, try to take classes on statistics. I will really help you out well here making you more aware of decisions you have to make. To be exact, I got much better in statistics when computing all the odds of popular games in the casino :P

Wired for Speech

I've just borrowed a very interesting book a few days back called "Wired for Speech - How Voice Activates and Advances the Human-Computer Relationships" by Clifford Nass and Scott Brave. This book basically explores how people react to voices both real and virtual people in different social circumstances. Though the book touches mainly on human/computer interaction, it does raises alot of ingrained social prejudice that is prevalent amoung lots of humans.

One of the issues that it raised was that people are generally quite evident on racial characteristics. If you have a face like a eastern asian, and have a western voice, it makes people view you in confused manner - as the conflict between the expected accent based on the facial features and the accent to be completely different. This can invoke either a suspicious, curious, or a bewildered response based on typical human behavior. Talking about it, I've noticed I belong to this category. Kind of interesting, I have to agree.

Mobile Phones?

I've just bought a new mobile phone a few weeks back. The reason for that was that my old phone, a 5 year old NGage was broken after all the years of abuse. The new phone I got was a lowend stupid mobile phone. After using the mobile phone for a while, I ended up using only the voice mail services and I can't figure a reason why I should spend more money on a gadget that I hardly use any specific features. Mobile Phones are awful platform for games. That is where a Sony PSP or a Nintendo DS come in. It is also awful for music and MP3 as there are many different MP3 players that can do the job way better. Internet browsing is kind of overated, as why would I want to browse the internet in such small resolution, and have trouble with the input (unless I really buy hi-end mobile phones).

It might sound very unfashionable, but I essentially downgraded my mobile phone. On an interesting scan, even market vendors have better mobile phones than I do :P

I'm not much into fashion, so I guess it isn't a big deal.

Anyway before I end it, I would like to say that the biggest reason for buying a cheap phone is that I'm kind of a heavy handed person. One of the huge worry is repair cost. In my case, I don't have to worry a single bit :P

Games I'm playing at the Moment

Games that I'm playing at the moment are Starcraft and Company of Hero. Just got back to retro gaming with starcraft as a hobby in our company. The other game I play alot is Company of Hero, which I personally think is one of the interesting and new RTS in the market :) If you happen to stumble here and want to play a few games, poke here, and we can have a quick friendly match :P

Inspiration

I wonder if there is can inspiration to eat. I'm seriously lacking it at this moment. I guess too much work is causing a drop in inspiration level. Must do something...