Don't fix what ain't broke.
One good example is reinstalling windows in your computer. Don't do it, unless it is really broke. I keep on forgetting this rule, and reinstaling windows is a huge grief for me :(
Monday, October 23, 2006
Lady's Day for Me?
Yesterday I received a letter from my credit card company. As usual, most mailings form my credit card company usually include only advertisement for services and new products. What irks me though is that yesterday, the latest package I've received was called - Lady's Day Special and it includes lots of products and services that might be interesting for the other gender. On a short note, would I be interested in them? Hmm... Talk about misguided marketing.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
A Story
Just a story I got in my mail dedicated to one broken hearted friend...
นานมาแล้วชั้นเคยถูกจับให้ไปเล่นเกมๆ นึงแบบที่ชั้นไม่เต็มใจ แต่พอเล่นไปแล้วก้อประทับใจมากเลยทีเดียว มันเป็นเกมเกี่ยวกับความรัก...
...มีคนตั้งขึ้นมาว่า จะมีสะพานไม้เล็กๆ อยู่ ให้เดินไปจนถึงโดยที่หลับตา ถ้าใครสามารถเดินไปถึงได้โดยไม่ตกลงมา คุณและคู่รักของคุณจะเป็นเนื้อคู่กันตลอดไป...
ทุกคนจึงพยายามเดินแล้วหลายรอบ แต่ก้อตกลงมาทุกที บางคนถึงกับคิดว่าชั้นคงไม่มีเนื้อคู่แล้วล่ะสิ
จนมีคนๆ นึงเดินไปถึง และไม่ตกลงมา ทุกคนก้อถามว่าเดินยังไงหละถึงไม่ตก..พอคนๆ นั้นตอบทุกคนก้อเงียบไปเลย
เค้าบอกว่า "ชั้นแอบลืมตาเดินไง"...
ลองคิดดูดิ
เพื่อความรัก ทุกคนยอมหลับตา.. และยอมปฏิเสธสิ่งต่างๆ ที่ทุกคนผ่านมัน โดยไม่มองอะไรเลย.. เค้าสั่งให้หลับตาเดินก้อยอม แล้วมันจะไปถึงได้อย่างไร.. ในเมื่อตาเรามองไม่เห็นทาง.. เวลามีความรักลองเปิดตามองให้ไกล.. อย่าปล่อยให้ความรักทำให้ตาบอด.. ถึงแม้ลืมตาเดินแล้วยังตกลงมาอีกก้อคงไม่เจ็บเท่าตกลงมาเพราะหลับตาเดิน.. เพราะเราจะรู้ว่าต้องตกท่าไหนจึงจะเจ็บน้อยที่สุด..........
Monday, September 25, 2006
Rain, Rain, Go Away!
Last week, I had a football match scheduled against an Indian football team. Just as I was ready and rearing to go along with the rest of my squad, we have received a short phone call that the Football match was cancelled because there was rain, and the pitch was too soft and wet for playing football.
That really took the wind out of our team, and we spent the remaining of the team excessively bored out of our minds before putting our misery to rest by going out to eat some japanese barbecue buffet. For our opponent, I heard that the night before the scheduled competition, our opponent were on a crazy mode trying to assemble a team to compete with our team that many in their team cancelled their planned vacation.
Anyway, for the next weekend, we were planning to reschedule our match. Hopefully it won't be rained out this time :P
On related news, I've finally got my DSLite. Thanks Bic for getting it for me from Japan :)
That really took the wind out of our team, and we spent the remaining of the team excessively bored out of our minds before putting our misery to rest by going out to eat some japanese barbecue buffet. For our opponent, I heard that the night before the scheduled competition, our opponent were on a crazy mode trying to assemble a team to compete with our team that many in their team cancelled their planned vacation.
Anyway, for the next weekend, we were planning to reschedule our match. Hopefully it won't be rained out this time :P
On related news, I've finally got my DSLite. Thanks Bic for getting it for me from Japan :)
Monday, September 18, 2006
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Reverse Engineering a Song
During my younger years, I remember that a number of musically talented friends have this uncanny ability to be able to transcribe music after hearing it a few times. Some of them were more proficient, being able to play sections of the music immediately after the first few listens. Some of them take some time to slowly extract note by note for the whole song. For myself since I'm lazy and not really confident of my ear, I usually use the internet to find MIDI songs and get the sheet music from there.
I used to have this joke that when we are trying to get the song back without the notes it becomes the process of reverse engineering. If you are in a computer program development field, you know that reverse engineering is the closest you can get to that process in Music - in which I don't know what it is called exactly. To me, I find using the computer is the easiest way :P
During the last month at my music class, my saxophone instructor told me that he wanted me to join one of the bands in the school and play a song at the annual "end of the year talent show". I was kind of relunctant to accept that considering that I started to play the saxophone just as a relaxing hobby and I didn't have time to schedule practice with other people considering my rather loaded workload.
Since my instructor said that there isn't any need to join a band, I decided it might be possible to play a simple piece. Initially I thought about finding a midi/music backing track, turn off the saxophone part and play over it. That would be simple as the notes are already there, so basically I had the sheet music of the song.
After taking some more to decide, I wanted to play a minimum piece in which had the fewest instruments on it. After deciding for a while, I got stuck on a piece called Forgotten Saga from the fusion jazz band called T-Square. A video is embedded below:
After a few listen, I wanted to play that piece. The bad news is that I don't have the sheet music. I decided then to start extracting the notes by ear. After a few hours of frustration, I managed to extract nearly the whole song (some slight mistakes there nad here), though I excluded the whole ending improvising session which I plan to end the piece before that part in my new simplified version.
If I ever happen to record the piece, I'll place it back here again.
I used to have this joke that when we are trying to get the song back without the notes it becomes the process of reverse engineering. If you are in a computer program development field, you know that reverse engineering is the closest you can get to that process in Music - in which I don't know what it is called exactly. To me, I find using the computer is the easiest way :P
During the last month at my music class, my saxophone instructor told me that he wanted me to join one of the bands in the school and play a song at the annual "end of the year talent show". I was kind of relunctant to accept that considering that I started to play the saxophone just as a relaxing hobby and I didn't have time to schedule practice with other people considering my rather loaded workload.
Since my instructor said that there isn't any need to join a band, I decided it might be possible to play a simple piece. Initially I thought about finding a midi/music backing track, turn off the saxophone part and play over it. That would be simple as the notes are already there, so basically I had the sheet music of the song.
After taking some more to decide, I wanted to play a minimum piece in which had the fewest instruments on it. After deciding for a while, I got stuck on a piece called Forgotten Saga from the fusion jazz band called T-Square. A video is embedded below:
After a few listen, I wanted to play that piece. The bad news is that I don't have the sheet music. I decided then to start extracting the notes by ear. After a few hours of frustration, I managed to extract nearly the whole song (some slight mistakes there nad here), though I excluded the whole ending improvising session which I plan to end the piece before that part in my new simplified version.
If I ever happen to record the piece, I'll place it back here again.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Which do you prefer?
I was pondering on a few things the last few days and I can't seem to get it out of my head. I was wondering what would be better to do. If given the choice would you prefer to do as many job as possible (get the most money but have the least time), or simply just do nothing and enjoy the peace and free time?
Can't make a decision yet, but at the moment, I'm trying to load balance my schedules better.
Can't make a decision yet, but at the moment, I'm trying to load balance my schedules better.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
I want an EWI :P
One of the instruments I want to buy at the moment is called an EWI or Electronic Wind Instrument
Why do I want to buy one? Well you could check a few videos from the following link - awesomeness :P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIceng7XaFs
Why do I want to buy one? Well you could check a few videos from the following link - awesomeness :P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIceng7XaFs
Monday, August 28, 2006
Malta!?
When I was studying, one of my favorite hobbies was that me and a group of friends would go off for a drive to different parts around the vicinity of Bangkok to find interesting places to eat. One of the things you have to check out before hopping on any car for an extended period of time is to figure out the driver's musical taste. Luckily the designated driver is a jazz fan, and it turns out that most of us in the car are also jazz fans. During our drives, we managed to exchange a few albums and recommendations since Jazz didn't have that much airtime in the past.
Anyway, one of our favorite album was from a artist called Malta who plays fusion jazz with his saxophone. The only thing other than that was that we know he is Japanese, and that is probably it. In all of his albums that we had, (we had about 5 of them) a strange note is that there was never a picture of the artist nor anything explaining about the album. As most artists are quite vain, you would see their pictures adorned every possible place in the album. On a strange note, you won't see anything on Malta's album O_o
I thought about decoding that point, and our group tried to find more information with the use of the WWW. However, with such a typical name as Malta, googling didn't really turn up with anything useful also.
I just thought a few minutes ago that I was bored of work and needed something else to think about. After opening a few Malta songs from the Best of Malta Album I couldn't help wonder but figure that if after a few years, maybe I could find some more information. After a short googling session, I finally found it:
http://www.platinum.co.th/artistinfo.aspx?artistcode=AR00044&LocalID=2
Now I finally figured the 8 year old mystery :P
Anyway, one of our favorite album was from a artist called Malta who plays fusion jazz with his saxophone. The only thing other than that was that we know he is Japanese, and that is probably it. In all of his albums that we had, (we had about 5 of them) a strange note is that there was never a picture of the artist nor anything explaining about the album. As most artists are quite vain, you would see their pictures adorned every possible place in the album. On a strange note, you won't see anything on Malta's album O_o
I thought about decoding that point, and our group tried to find more information with the use of the WWW. However, with such a typical name as Malta, googling didn't really turn up with anything useful also.
I just thought a few minutes ago that I was bored of work and needed something else to think about. After opening a few Malta songs from the Best of Malta Album I couldn't help wonder but figure that if after a few years, maybe I could find some more information. After a short googling session, I finally found it:
http://www.platinum.co.th/artistinfo.aspx?artistcode=AR00044&LocalID=2
Now I finally figured the 8 year old mystery :P
Monday, August 21, 2006
Two Friends
I got this tale from one of my friends. I liked it alot and wanted to share it.
TWO FRIENDS
This is a story about two friends who were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other in the face.
The one who got slapped was hurt but, without saying anything, wrote in the sand:
TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE.
They kept on walking until they found an oasis where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone:
TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE.
The friend who slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand, and now you write on a stone. Why?"
The other friend replied, "When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."
LEARN TO WRITE YOUR HURTS IN THE SAND AND TO CARVE YOUR BENEFITS IN STONE.
They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate him/her, a day to love but then an entire life to forget him/her.
TWO FRIENDS
This is a story about two friends who were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other in the face.
The one who got slapped was hurt but, without saying anything, wrote in the sand:
TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE.
They kept on walking until they found an oasis where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone:
TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE.
The friend who slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand, and now you write on a stone. Why?"
The other friend replied, "When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."
LEARN TO WRITE YOUR HURTS IN THE SAND AND TO CARVE YOUR BENEFITS IN STONE.
They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate him/her, a day to love but then an entire life to forget him/her.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Cruising in the Office
During the last few days, I was completely bored out of my mind in my office working on my projects. Though my office is one of the most hip office in the campus, the major drawback is that it is rather isolated and far from most other people. At times it can get alittle lonely considering the lack of human interaction here, so I usually have a huge stack of CDs around my office just to make sure the days aren't too dreary.
It was just that I was extremely bored with the CD selection at my office, I just thought about listening to the Internet Radio, and I did a little googling. I found one site that suites my tastes well, which was FM98.5. Might want to take that station for a ride :)
It was just that I was extremely bored with the CD selection at my office, I just thought about listening to the Internet Radio, and I did a little googling. I found one site that suites my tastes well, which was FM98.5. Might want to take that station for a ride :)
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
7 Days of Work Per Work
During the next few months or so, I'm going to be in a 7 days a week work-cycle. That means working all day and night. As being a rather dedicated person, I just have to make some sacrifices to make the schedule fit. One of the first fixes I used was to stop playing video games. The next thing that dropped was TV. With a little more time management, things should turn out well :)
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Rules Kids Won't Learn in School
I liked the following quotes from the book Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't Read, Write, Or Add. by
Charles J. Sykes which is somewhat oddly miscredited to various sources.
Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase "It's not fair" 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.
Rule No. 2: The real world won't care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It'll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain that it's not fair. (See Rule No. 1)
Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won't make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won't be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn't have a Gap label.
Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he's not going to ask you how you feel about it.
Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren't embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.
Rule No. 6: It's not your parents' fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of "It's my life," and "You're not the boss of me," and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it's on your dime. Don't whine about it, or you'll sound like a baby boomer.
Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.
Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn't. In some schools, they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone's feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2 and Rule No. 4.)
Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don't get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we're at it, very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)
Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.
Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.
Rule No. 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you're out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That's what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for "expressing yourself" with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.
Rule No. 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven't seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.
Rule No. 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school's a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you'll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now. You're welcome.
Charles J. Sykes which is somewhat oddly miscredited to various sources.
Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase "It's not fair" 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.
Rule No. 2: The real world won't care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It'll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain that it's not fair. (See Rule No. 1)
Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won't make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won't be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn't have a Gap label.
Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he's not going to ask you how you feel about it.
Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren't embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.
Rule No. 6: It's not your parents' fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of "It's my life," and "You're not the boss of me," and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it's on your dime. Don't whine about it, or you'll sound like a baby boomer.
Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.
Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn't. In some schools, they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone's feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2 and Rule No. 4.)
Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don't get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we're at it, very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)
Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.
Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.
Rule No. 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you're out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That's what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for "expressing yourself" with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.
Rule No. 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven't seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.
Rule No. 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school's a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you'll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now. You're welcome.
Attitude
After donating blood yesterday, I found myself to be feeling good about doing another good deed, but the lack of blood is kind of hindering me at the moment. It gives me this mood swings that usually end with a downcast aftertaste.
When thinking about this topic over and over again in this unproductive weekend, I happen to associate it that with two factors that can sway a country's mood.
1) Economy
2) Political Atmosphere
If the country's economy is strong and the political atmosphere is stable, that country is extremely happy. If the country has good economy but bad political atmosphere, at least people can spend and be happy. If the country is weak in economics but stable in politics, people will also be happy because they know that the economy can easily turn back up based on good goverance.
What makes a country ill is bad economy and political atmosphere. What worriese me at this moment is that our country is suffering from that.
Anyway, since I'm been diagnosed to have a rather high blood pressure at this moment, I think its a good time to just enjoy life and take it easy for another while.
When thinking about this topic over and over again in this unproductive weekend, I happen to associate it that with two factors that can sway a country's mood.
1) Economy
2) Political Atmosphere
If the country's economy is strong and the political atmosphere is stable, that country is extremely happy. If the country has good economy but bad political atmosphere, at least people can spend and be happy. If the country is weak in economics but stable in politics, people will also be happy because they know that the economy can easily turn back up based on good goverance.
What makes a country ill is bad economy and political atmosphere. What worriese me at this moment is that our country is suffering from that.
Anyway, since I'm been diagnosed to have a rather high blood pressure at this moment, I think its a good time to just enjoy life and take it easy for another while.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Post World Cup Reactions
During the last month, life has been pretty monotonous. The routine was simple. Watch football from 21:00 to 4:00. I'm not surprised when people like to say, the World Cup is one month disease where people come to work like a zombie. I have to admit that I would also be guilty of the same crime...
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Recommended Internet Text Based Game - Travian
I just thought about mentioning about a new game I'm playing right now. It is a simple text based game called Travian(http://www.travian.com). We basically build up a town, try to make it a triving town, and go out to conquer weaker towns in the vinicity.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Strange Story of a Rampage
I found a strange story about a person rampage through the town. If you read through the story, it provides mixed emotions. Try reading about it:
http://www.geocities.com/Northstarzone/BULLDOZER.html
http://forums.starkingdoms.com/viewtopic.php?t=38163&start=0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Heemeyer
http://www.geocities.com/Northstarzone/BULLDOZER.html
http://forums.starkingdoms.com/viewtopic.php?t=38163&start=0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Heemeyer
Monday, June 19, 2006
Fixed Glow Effect in my Game
After some more tinkering with my game, I've managed to finish the glow effect properly. After implementing with my game, the below picture should show it well:
If you noticed, the picture is still rather alittle two glowish, but based on the specification this is what we planned in the start, making the character alittle unreal by adding the aura. However I still find it to be alittle too excessive, so I might change some of the factors in the combination part to make this better.
Anyway for those who don't really know what the glow effect does, I'll show you another two screenshots from a testbed app, in which the first picture is the original picture, and the picture after that is when I implemented the glow system inside. Makes a pretty huge difference doesn't it?
If you noticed, the picture is still rather alittle two glowish, but based on the specification this is what we planned in the start, making the character alittle unreal by adding the aura. However I still find it to be alittle too excessive, so I might change some of the factors in the combination part to make this better.
Anyway for those who don't really know what the glow effect does, I'll show you another two screenshots from a testbed app, in which the first picture is the original picture, and the picture after that is when I implemented the glow system inside. Makes a pretty huge difference doesn't it?
Pictures from the Past
I was just purging my harddisk when I noticed I found a few misplaced pictures lying in a strange directory on my computer. Let me post it here:
In this picture, the Luigi Wonderer Football Club is spending some of their off-season time to visit Bobby's (Who is our CenterBack) new coffee shop. As noted we had a smashing time there :)
In this picture, the Luigi Wonderer Football Club is spending some of their off-season time to visit Bobby's (Who is our CenterBack) new coffee shop. As noted we had a smashing time there :)
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