My sentiments exactly...

An early gift to other bloggers out there...

Civilization IV

Behold! After months, weeks and days of waiting and searching game stores in town, I've finally found THE game of the year! (at least in my book) And how close to the end of the year it is too! Anyways....

To our left right now lies a box shot of Civilization 4 created by Sid Meier, one of the best game makers out there. He's been making the Civilization series for early a decade and eversince I played Civilization 2, I've been hooked!

Some say, it's one of the most addictive games EVER made. It features you leading one of 18 civilizations (Greeks, Romans, English, Chinese, etc, etc) and taking it from its humble beginnings of a single kampung (village in Bahasa Malaysia) to a major trumpets-blowin', missile-hurlin', nuke-bombin' nation big enough to wipe out other less note-worthy opponents (a'la the US with Iraq perhaps?) over a 3,000 year span.

This game scored a 9.4 / 10 rating in Gamespot recently: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civilizationiv/review.html

Excited? I know I am...

Here comes the bad news....

I went out to buy the copy earlier today, tried to install it just and guess what? At about 41% during installation, I get an error message that says "Read Error (blahblahblah)" and something else about some cyclic redundancy check crap.....

SIGH.

I don't know which is worse: going back to the store and having to face some arrogant ah beng again to change the CD or the nagging suspicion that (based on past purchase experience) most of the current copies could have the same problem.

One more thing. Unlike the other older versions of the game, I think I'd need a better graphic card to handle this one. Now, if only I can dig up RM300 from somewhere....

tenjewberrymuds

One of the funniest things I have ever read.... Actually I first saw it in a book titled "A Hotel is a Funny Place" but I can't remember the author's name. Read on...

To get the full effect, this should be read aloud. You will understand what 'tenjewberrymuds' means by the end of the conversation. This has been nominated for the best email of 2005.

The following is a telephone exchange between a hotel guest and room-service, at a hotel in Asia, which was recorded and published in the Far East Economic Review:

Room Service (RS): "Morrin. Roon sirbees."
Guest (G): "Sorry, I thought I dialed room-service."

RS: "Rye..Roon sirbees..morrin! Jewish to oddorsunteen??"
G: "Uh..yes..I'd like some bacon and eggs."

RS: "Ow July den?"
G: "What??"

RS: "Ow July den?...pryed, boyud, poochd?"
G : "Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry, scrambled please."

RS: "Ow July dee baykem? Crease?"
G: "Crisp will be fine."

RS : "Hokay. An Sahn toes?"
G: "What?"

RS:"An toes. July Sahn toes?"
G: "I don't think so."

RS: "No? Judo wan sahn toes??"
G: "I feel really bad about this, but I don't know what 'judo wan sahn toes' means."

RS: "Toes! toes!...Why jew don juan toes? Ow bow Anglish moppin we bodder?"
G: "English muffin!! I've got it! You were saying 'Toast.' Fine. Yes, an English muffin will be fine."

RS: "We bodder?"
G: "No...just put the bodder on the side."

RS: "Wad?"
G: "I mean butter...just put it on the side."

RS: "Copy?"
G: "Excuse me?"

RS: "Copy...tea...meel?"
G: "Yes. Coffee, please, and that's all."

RS: "One Minnie. Scramah egg, crease baykem, Anglish moppin we bodder on sigh and copy....rye??"
G: "Whatever you say."

RS: "Tenjewberrymuds."
G : "You're very welcome."

So Long Ago....

WOW! I just realised after posting my Nguyen article that the last one was nearly a year ago! My my, how time flies....

I Pray For Him

Van Tuong Nguyen (Vietnamese: Nguyễn Tường Vân, baptised Caleb [1], August 17, 1980) was a Vietnamese Australian convicted of drug trafficking in Singapore. Such offences carry a mandatory death sentence under the Misuse of Drugs Act, and despite pleas for clemency from the Australian government and others, he was executed by hanging at 6:07 am SGT (9 am AEDT or 10 pm UTC December 1) on December 2, 2005.

I got that blurb from Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) and after reading so much about his execution and its accompanying stories, I can't help but feel regretful about the whole mess.

In essence, although I feel capital punishment (aka. hanging) is wrong and that we mere humans should NOT take the life of another, I'm thinking more about the lives of the other 26,000 people who could have gotten into drugs and become victims if Van actually brought all 400+ grammes of the heroin home. (Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that much heroin is equal to more than 26,000 DOSES).

At the same time, couldn't both governments take advantage of this 'drug runner' and obtain more info from him to nab both the Cambodian and Australian drug trafficking rings? Reading the judgment note on his case, this Van guy was just a middle-man running drugs for both sides to help out his twin brother who was full of debts resulting from his drug-abuse (oh, the irony!).

Gee, imagine how Khou, his bro must feel right now.

Guys, check out the judgement on the case: www.geocities.com/law4u2003/nguyentuongyan.htm

And, you can read ALL about it without the nitty-gritty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguyen_Tuong_Van

I guess its pretty obvious... Don't do drugs.