Sony TX-1 TV Commercial - 28th Nov

I'm sure most of us here in Asia would have seen the new Sony TV Commercial for the digital camera: The Sony Cybershot TX-1. Although the advertisement was not much amazing or different than any other, the song was quite interesting and somewhat has a beautiful melody. Well, here's the advetisment and for info the name of the song is:- Firefly by Emma Pask.

Now, don't bother looking for the song as it is not a full song, but created specially for the advert. But anyways you can stll download it HERE. Go to -> Download Ringtone. Enjoy!

Iranian Meal - 26th Nov

I had a authentic Iranian meal yesterday, it was prepared by an Iranian couple and even served by an Iranian waiter. The Iranian stall was at the Mid-valley Gardens and i assumed for it to be quite famous and popular among Iranians in Malaysia. Well, the types of food available includes rice, noodles, and steaks. My Iranian friends recommended me to try the kebab rice set which includes salad, soup and drinks. Overall, I would say the meal is very satisfying and filling. Taste-wise is quite interesting, but at least better than the one we have in our university. My friend also tells me that there are even better ones but this one is the closest to Universiti Malaya which is why we went there. Anyways here are some pictures of the meal:-

The Soup - Barley and Vegetables Soup

The Salad - Cucumbers and Tomatoes with Herbs

The Rice itself - (Left) Kebab Lamb and Chicken (Right) Saffron Rice with Tomatoes

It has been my life dream to be able to eat and try all the foods from around the world and this is definitely a part of the journey and I'm enjoying it a lot!

Iranian Food - 25th Nov

Due to the numerous Iranian students here in University Malaya, the cafeteria at the Student Complex recently had a new addition, an Iranian food stall. And recently, I had the opportunity to try them. My first meal consist of rice with vegetables. tomato-chicken, cucumber-tomato chicken and thick soup (I'm sorry but I've not been told of the names of these dishes). I'm not really too sure about the names but it sure is a different cuisine experience altogether for me. Comparatively, Malaysian food tend to be more spicy with all the extra chili and hot-stuffs and therefore, maybe I got used to eating really really spicy and flavorful stuff that made me not able to thoroughly enjoy the food available

Anyways, the rice with vegetables was like the "Nasi Beriyani" that we have here in Malaysia which was quite nice, while the tomato-chicken was a bit bland where the taste of the tomatoes was just not there. Meanwhile, the so-called soup was not anything like the Malaysian used to eat, but was more like a porridge, which is probably a chowder, it was rather interesting as they have added lots of dried mint and spices to it. I particularly like the salad. The salad was very fragrant with hints of herbs and spices and somewhat tasted like the tomatoes and cucumbers sometimes found in Mediterranean style pizzas. It was very interesting actually to be able to taste food from Iran, but I'm sure that the food provided in the cafeteria wasn't the best that Iranian food can offer. I'm definitely looking forward to see the better Iranian cooks out there. And my enthusiasm has lead one of my Iranian friend here to send me some pictures of Iranian food.

MW2 Multiplayer - 17th Nov

Yesterday I had my first shot at Modern Warfare 2 Multi-player. Public games were working while the private Matches were not, and it confirmed a lot of my theories on the servers having a lot of issues that makes the experience a lot less fun compared to Modern Warfare. Among them:-

•  You can't kick players

During matches, there are bound to be hackers / cheaters or players who are downright annoying with their tubing or grenadier tendencies and there are also players who actually camp tonnes of time. Well, I don't actually mind the camping issue and all as it is part of the game but irritable players are the main concern here. Some players, from their kill cams, you can see clearly that they're cheating / hacking but there doesn't seem to be anything done on them, which means that the VAC fails and Steam actually fails. Infinity Ward says that the system will work, but this proves that it doesn't.

• Matchmaking

Infinity Ward also mentioned that this system would match you up with players that have the same skill and relatively similar pings (which is about 100ms), but I'm not sure why that I'm experiencing lags like no other before. Furthermore, even that no player is known to be the host, but the relative advantage is still there. You see people slower than they do see you. Not only that, I was also wondering why lvl 40~50 guys are also playing in the same game and the thing is that they're always on the same team / side (Team Deathmatch). Often the other team is paired with people with the same skills and therefore, usually got beaten by the team with higher lvl 40~50 player numbers? Is this the fair match-making provided by Infinity Ward? Total failure! This would have been solved if the dedicated server support was retained!

Battlefield Bad Company 2 - 16th Nov

With Modern Warfare 2 being a rather disappointing failure lately, I'm turning my head at the moment towards another modern warfare game: Battlefield Bad Company 2. Hopefully this game does not follow the suit of Modern Warfare 2 by making bad publicity.So, here therefore, I have a few videos which shows the multiplayer gameplay aspect of Battlefield Bad Company 2. Enjoy and hopefully there will be tonnes of people playing this game as it is massive!







I've bought the game! Read HERE !

No Original Modern Warfare for Me - 16th Nov

The latest Call of Duty Series called the Modern Warfare 2 has been recently released and a large number of reasons has prompted me to avoid getting this game original. In fact, as of, now, I'm so pissed of by the ruse created by Infinity Ward of their recent crazy behavior, I've decided not to even write a review for them. The reasons as of why I'm not supporting the company by buying original would include:

1> Features in the original game itself

•  Lack of dedicated servers and also LAN support

[ They say that it will all be done by match-making by selecting the best server for you, in other words, totally random matching. It will also match you with people of the same skill levels. I mean, if I want to play with my friend who has a higher ping but considered playable to us, how is that possible? How bout Private Match? It's not like there can be a spectator, therefore, the host would have the greater advantage which means connections trump skill]

• Single-Player requires Steamworks to play

[ If I'm traveling, lets say on a bus to a destination which is far away, and I might play a mission or two on my laptop, am I supposed to bring also all my Internet connection pephirals just to login into Steam? Won't it be more viable to exempt Single-Player from Steam? or Maybe, login to Steam once to authenticate the game, in which later Steam is no longer required for Single-Player. The greatest selling point of the series was the multiplayer aspect of the game (which they had ruined it now), so why so much trouble with the single-player? Furthermore, why would get Steam anyway when it delays the game for an additional day compared to people who had bought the game in DVD format?]

• Multiplayer Issues
  

[ It is said that you can customize your game to your liking when you host a Private Match. Well, I personally won't mind this as I'm more of a casual gamer although theprofessional gaming community would surely blast away this issue, but the thing is that without the console, how the heck am I supposed to customize it properly to my liking, following my own rules and whatever else that tickles my fancy when the customization aspect is limited? And the thing is you can't even kick players. IW guys actually gave a subpar answer to that issue by saying that you can simply mute foul-mouthing players and the kicking part would be handled by Steam VAC. Why can't we kick manually? If the player is using hacks that are able to bypass VAC, what the heck can the other players do? Quit game and hope the player doesn't join the same game? ]


2> Bobby Kotnick and Activision
I'm not interested into delving into more issues of this guy as he's not really interested in making games but making more mone only. The reason why, I guess, that Infinity Ward is churning up this load of rubbish (MW2) is that they were being pushed by Activision, their publishers. Bob here wants to make loads of money and tehrefore, any game that does not have much sequel potential is being shelved. And the fact that we have to pay USD$60 for a substandard game is also his decision. Bob here did mention before: "If it was up to me, I would've raised it to USD$100". This guy has no idea on gaming and isn't even gamer. Sometimes, you ever wonder why Starcraft 3 has an additional 2-sequels? Activision decided that this would help them make even more money as they know that gamers would gladly lap up all the crap they throw.

With this, Teknogods HERE have my full support! Go Teknogods!

The Last Supper - 13th Nov

I think I would be doing some snooping around Leonardo's work often soon as his works are incredible and I'm particularly interested in knowing more details about them (especially on the conspiracies and probable hidden meanings behind his works). Therefore, today, I've decided to find out more on one of his more famous paintings today which would be:

THE LAST SUPPER

There are in fact a few renderings of: The Last Supper, but the one by Leonardo da Vinci looks like:-

It is actually the depiction of Jesus Christ sitting and having a meal with his 12 disciples. This is also when Jesus decides to reveal that he will be betrayed by one of them, which he does not name. In my opinion, this scene is when the whole group is discussing after Jesus breaks the news to everyone. As you can see, some of the disciples think its absurd while some are trying to console Jesus. There are also some shocked reactions. Overall you would say that this painting has a lot of emotions and engraves deeply into the viewer.

And so, here are some of the theories on this painting:-

1> Jesus Is not supposed to be as depicted
Well, according HERE, Jesus was a Jew from the middle eastern side and therefore, should not have fair skin as depicted. Besides that, the long flowing hair style actually belong to the Italians during the Rennaisance age, thus, this was not the original looks of Jesus Christ. This is in fact just a matter of style and in the painting, in this scene, there is no argument that it is indeed Jesus Christ and therefore it was only a matter of artist interpretation.

2> Mary Magdalene

Some say the figure at the right hand side of Jesus, with long hair and feminine features is actually Mary Magdalene while a number also claims that it is not. Either way it is actually John the Apostle or Mary Magdalene. Some say that John appears to look like a female as leonardo has a fascniation for "beautiful" men like Leonardo's male disciple depicted in his painting: Salai. Eventhough Salai was a male, Leonardo often paint this student of his to be effiminate which therefore this matter is still in dispute.




I think I'll stop here at the moment.
You can in fact view the high-resolution image of the original painting HERE

Modern Warfare 2 Out Now - 12th Nov

The game that most of the population of the gaming world has been released recently on the 10th of Nov. Now I should probably be excited and quickly go buy the game, but I'm not at the moment and still a little hestitant. Why? Well, the guys at Activision and Infinity Ward has sure made the whole "Undergraound' scene nervous with all the Steam protection systems and no dedicated servers ruse. Even I have been thinking of getting an original copy just for the multiplayer as it surely looks fun to me and will probably last for a very long time after the release date which is well worth the money. But heck, I think I'll just wait for the scene to release some sort of workaround! Anyways, here are some videos of other people playing this game already:

Big Bang Theory (Sitcom) - 2nd Nov

A couple of weeks back (or multiplications of month), my friend (a.k.a Darkness) came over to my house and introduced me to this great TV sitcom entitled "The Big Bang Theory". I think that anyone watching this sitcom would no longer be ashamed to be called a geek or nerd anymore as the characters makes things like games, physics, science and geniuses look really great, although it sure does potray the stereotype of this group of people. Like the slogan for this sitcom says: "Smart is the new Sexy" and I totally agree with that!

The main characters of the sitcom includes: Sheldon Cooper (Phd Physiscs, IQ:174), Leonard Hofstadter (Phd Physics), Rajesh Koothrapali (Girl-Shy), Howard Wolowitz (playboy Wannabe), Penny (Girl next door) and the ocassional Leslie Winkle (Girl Nerd). These guys often get involved in various scenarios ranging from going to a party without any form of costume contest to Sheldon's OCD. The thing is that most people say that Sheldon and his quircky dialouge is the main pillar of the show, but I say that without any one of them, the show wouldnt run  properly. And due to the extra complex scientific dialogue sometimes used, I have to sometimes search the Internet for its meanings if I want to satisfy the phycisist in me. The jokes are pretty clever sometimes but some jokes you will only get it after a while, and well, here's one:-

Sheldon: What type of Computer do you have? And please don't say a white one.