Happiness Now

"The greatest pain of all is the fear that happiness might somehow elude us forever; the greatest joy of all is the realization that the potential for happiness is available to us now and always."

...

"How ironic it is that when we're happy we immmediately fear that it can't last; but when we're unhappy, we instantly 'know' it will last forever."

"Do you want to be "Right" or be "Happy"?

The more you want to be Right, the less Happy you'll be.

You'll become more and more defensive, stubborn, resentful, bitter, petty, suspicious, vicious and small.

Love is big; pride is small."

...

"Can you remember a time in your life when you were happy for no reason at all?

Children are often happy without reason - it is part of their charm. Often you can catch a child laughing for the sheer joy of it, smiling for the sake of smiling, playing happily with happiness.

It both amuses and saddens me to think that when a child laughs for no reason at all, we think it's wonderful, but when an adult laughs for no reason at all, we immediately fear for his or her health. The point is - who ever said happiness needs a reason?"

I Am A Small Small Bird (Ding Dang)

Woo, this is really HOT from the oven.

I'm sure everyone still remembers Ding Dang's spectacular rendition of this song few months back.

It was, and still is one of the most impressive performance to ever grace to "Super Starlight Walkway" IMO.

I was quite surprised to hear this song over the radio today.

Turned out the company had her did a full release for this song!

Wooo!!!

Can A Game Be Too Addictive?

*The interview at 2 min 15 sec Ending = Epic

Master Violinist

...

Object Of Desire

I think I'm about to receive something that will change my lifestyle dramatically.

An item that will have a great effect on many decisions I will make in the future.

Haha.

I will get to enjoy many benefits.

The bad side: It also means more responsibility.

I will have less excuses next time. :P

...

I don't know when will I acquire it.

It may be a month or 2, maybe 6 months.

But well... I can't wait!

Big Book Of Blackjack

This is another book I borrowed.


Big Book of Blackjack

The following is an excerpt from the book:

"
When the dealer show a 7 upcard and you have a stiff hand (12 to 16)...

Many players think: If I hit this 14, I risk busting my hand right here and now. But maybe the dealer will bust. If I don't take a hit, my hand still has a chance.

Every player is afraid that he will be responsible for his own loss, but that 14 you are holding is already in dire jeopardy when the dealer shows a 10 up. You must fight for the hand's survival by taking a hit, and giving it a chance of becoming a stronger hand.

People stand on 16 thought: any 6 to 10s will bust my hand, and that's 8 out of 13 cards. So stand, because you'll bust 8 out of 13 times.

This is wrong because It fails to consider the probability that our 16 is already beaten. We have to take our logic a bit further and realize that if the dealer shows a 10 and has any 7 - King, our 16 is already a goner!

So, 7 out of 13 cards, we're already dead. Furthermore, even if the dealer has a 2 to 6, he's not dead yet. He has to take a hit and he gets another shot to beat our 16.
"

---

Probability tells that you stand a higher chance of survival if you hit 16, so don't be afraid to do it in your game!

8 Parts Of Speech

Nothing much to do lately.

Once in a while will visit the library.

And maybe borrow a book like this:



An Idiot's Guide To Grammar

Every sentence is made up of the following 8 elements.

1. Nouns: Person, Place or Thing.

E.g: Anna, America, Apple

2. Verbs: Action, Condition or State of being.

E.g: jump, run, do, sleep

3. Conjunctions: Connect words or group of words.

E.g: for, and, but, or, yet, so, nor

4. Prepositions: Link a noun or pronoun to another word.

E.g: about, above, across, against, around, at, on, near, upon, with, within...

5. Adjectives: Describe nouns and pronouns.

E.g: beautiful, careful

6. Adverb: Describe verbs, adjectives or other adverbs.

E.g: beautifully, carefully

7. Pronoun: Used in place of another noun or pronoun.

E.g: it, his, her

8. Interjections: Express emotion!

E.g: wow!

No Games To Play!!!

Argh!!!

So Siannn~~~

Why aren't ANY of the games I want out?!

ZZZ...

So bored.



Elemental War of Magic - Turn-based strategy gameplay with role-playing elements in a high fantasy world.







Civilization V - Greatest Turn Based Strategy (TBS) series ever. Fall 2010.






Disciples III - This has been in development since like what... 2006? When on earth is it going to come out!!!  Hopefully will be release 2010 Sep...





King Bounty: Crossworld - Third game in the series! Can't wait~ Q3 2010 for Russian version.

Stronghold 3 - The first was one of my favourite game! I thought the series died with the failure of Stronghold 2! So happy they decide to continue this!

Exam (2010)

No point recommending those blockbusters everyone already knows.

So for now I'll try to recommend some of those "lesser-known" movies (not shown in local cinemas) if I happen to come across one.

This is a psychological thriller film... shall not spoil it for you too much.



Basically, eight talented candidates have reached the final stage of selection to join the ranks of a mysterious and powerful corporation.

Entering a windowless room, the invilgilator gives them 80 minutes to answer one simple question. He outlines three rules they must obey or be disqualified:
1)Don't talk to him or the armed guard by the door,
2)Don't spoil their papers,
3)Don't leave the room.

He starts the clock and leaves. The candidates turn over their question papers, only to find they're completely blank.

---

Got you interested?

Haha.

The movie is REALLY good at the start. You'll definitely like it if you like stuff like Deathnote and Liar's Game.

It kind of go downhill after the first 30 minutes though, as they shifted to focus more on the interaction between the characters.

It got better towards the end, and as for the ending where they reveal the "answer" to the "question"... well, it's is really up to individual preference.. Some will like it and some will hate it. Haha.

Clue: It is something planted very early and very subtly in the movie. Haha.

Overall, nice way to spend 90 minutes.

Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Blah Blah Blah

Just finished one of favourite series and I am seriously disappointed.

What a waste of my time.

Really don't understand why authors/writers have to ruin something that was so darn good.

Look at all those movies "trilogies". Look at all those drama with multiple seasons (some even 7 or more which is ridiculous IMO)

80% of the time, it's always the first movie or season that's regarded as the best. After that, it just goes downhill.

That's exactly what's happening here.

You've built up something from scratch with awesome plot and characters, everything is just fantastic. Great plot, great fighting scenes, great villians, great heroes. Lot of twists and spectacular moments. It already got the perfect ending, everything is resolved. Characters live happily ever and peace reigns over the lands.

So, why not just end it there?

For goodness sake; start a new series.

Why do they "die die" want to continue something that's already "completed"?

It makes me damn piss off to see some of my favourite series reduced to a pile of junk; With ridiculous, luckluster plot + some of the most cliche and dumbest new characters ever.

Sometimes you just refused to acknowledge their presence. You refused to believe such BAD SEQUELS actually exists.

---

Let me cite this example from 1 particular martial art series.

In season 1, there's this 2 legendary characters regarded as godly throughout the entire story. They are regarded from the start till the end as the most powerful 2 persons in the entire "world". Unmatched & unequalled. At the end, these 2 greatest force of good and evil had a great battle and ended their dispute.


...


Then in season 2, these 2 supposedly "invincible" characters got THRASHED like flies.

Suddenly, you've got "mysterious guy from the mountain", "abbot from some faraway temple", "100 year old guy breaking out of his tomb" etc etc... all appearing from out of nowhere that is much more powerful.

WTF. It not only makes no sense, it makes Season 1 look ridiculous. It just overthrow any form of logic + sense of relative strength in the story's world.



And it's not over. The characters got more and more powerful. From a "wuxia" series that should be limited to swordplay and internal energy, it got more and more "extraordinary".

It seem like the authors started having problems coming up with "powerful enough villians" for the protangonisst who are already so strong.

Therefore, randomly immensely powerful villians start appearing (with no mention whatsoever beforehand that such person exists) out of nowhere.

And the villians got more and more powerful.

Soon, they are able to use elemental powers like fire and lightning.

Then, blows and exchanges between pugilists can generate force and wreck enough havoc to tear apart mountains.

And no, it doesn't stop there.

The villians are now able to summon typhoons and lightnings.

They are able to "teleport", create halluncinations or even "real space under their control".

They can also revive the death, communicate with someone from the nether world and "see the future".

It's grown from some Martial Art series to Dragonball to some futuristic genre set in ancient world with characters becoming so powerful that they become "demigods".


...


It is so absurd.


It is just so lame.


So frigging lame.

When Emotion Is High, Intelligence Will Be Low

And it holds true for all emotions, both positive and negative ones.

Greed makes people believe emails saying "you've won $1,000,000 USD".

Fear makes old people believe some stupid stone will cure all diseases.

Anger makes people resort to violence without thinking of the consequences.

Depression causes people to commit suicide.

Desperation cause people to do illogical things (thinking paper wouldn't soak water for example)

Love can cause people to do dumb things as well obviously.

Absolute Loyalty cause Japanese Soldiers to "Kamikaze".

Anytime you're under a some intense emotional state, your intelligence drops tremendously.

It's not necessarily a bad thing all the time though.

Sometimes, you just need to get into an intense state to help you make difficult decisions.

Casino!

Today is the first time I've been inside a casino. Heh.

Didn't made much "killings" though, cause I don't really know how all the games are played. (even the most basic ones have many variations and "house rules")

So I actually spent most of the time observing and learning how the games are played instead of actually playing. Haha.


Blackjack

This is not the standard kind Blackjack we all play during Chinese New Year where AJ pays double and AA pays triple. There's no "Past 5 cards double" either.

Instead, this is the one where we have stuff like "split" and "double down", and of course "buying insurance" and "fighting" the dealer even with a Blackjack hand.

Oh, and there's this special bonus extra wager you can bet; In the case where you are dealt a pair hand, you get paid 11 times the bet.

I actually find this game involves much more strategy than the "commoner's" blackjack, because you can see one of the dealer's card.

For example, if you have a 11 hand, you might consider to "double down", but this is not a good choice if the player have a picture face-up card.


Texas Hold'Em Poker

And of course, how can I miss out my favourite facebook game.

Unfortunately, this is one of the "coldest" game in the hall with barely any players all day long, so didn't get to see exactly how it works.

Basically, Instead of fighting against each other, the player goes up against the dealer. There's no "raise" or "call" or stuff like that.

Player first play a "ante" (which is the big blind). After seeing his 2 cards, he can decide whether to play. To play, he must bet 2 times the big blind. After the flop, he can choose to check or bet the ante.

Once again, they have lot of bonuses bets you can make but I'm not really sure how it works. Basically, you get extra sums of money depending on the quality of your hand at the end. If you get a full house, you get extra $20. If you get four of a kind, $120. Something like that.


Others

There's other stuff like "Three Hand Poker" which is basically the same thing, "Caribbean Stud Poker" which I don't really understand (it has some Jackpot thingy with very high payout). And all the complicated things like Baccarat and Three Pictures which I don't know how to play. Haha, Surprising, there's actually "SKP game" here. (the one played with 4 cards with 2 in front and 2 at the back)

Note: This is not the casino where you have to pay $100 to get in.