Charlatan. Tuesday, Jul 22 2008

… Saw this from Li-Ou’s Blog

Leave a Response »

 

Some nice local songs Tuesday, Jul 22 2008

SAVE OUR SOULS – ELECTRICO

(website: www.myspace.com/electricomusic)

I’ve been hearing this on radio while traveling to and from my workplace. It sounds really damn cool – kind of like Muse, which, in my opinion, is the best band in the world. Actually I think the style and the pseudo-drawling voice they probably drew inspiration from Muse, but they did it really really well! It’s easily one of my favourite songs now.

Other recent noteworthy local songs (imho) are

River Song – Plainsunset

Desperate – Daphne Khoo

One Response »

 

Cardboard Testimonies Sunday, Jul 20 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvDDc5RB6FQ

This is a video made by a church, showing people of various backgrounds, giving their testimonies to how God has changed their lives. From a royal mess to God’s mess. This is soooo touching. Indeed the best way to bear witness is not to throw in all the 30 arguments against evolution and proving Charles Darwin is a nutjob (oh but if anyone wants to ask me why evolution is just not correct, or any other intellectual issues for that matter, I’m happy to give middle/beginner-level arguments for that).

Bearing witness is to be an example yourself, and show how God has changed you.

Here’s my testimony.

Before:

- Hardcore agnostic

- Hard to believe intellectually that there is a God

- Anti-Christian

- Anti-Church

- Anti-Evangelizers

- Emo

- Fear of Losing Family

- Great Sinner

After:

- Undeserved Christian

- Hard to believe intellectually that there is no God

- Grateful

- In God’s Family

- Still a great sinner (hey, but I’m trying!)

Well, this might not seem like a spectacular change like those in the video, but I really think the Holy Spirit has done a lot here already. In the past I was really blinded by my intelligence. I don’t mean to say I’m intelligent, which I’m not, but rather I just cannot believe in anything to do with religion in general. I believed religion is a psychological concept made up by ancient people who need assurance and guidance, and who do not know enough science to prove all the so-called phenomena.

So from where I came from, when i started going to church, of course I had so many doubts. I can’t just snap my fingers and hey presto, I believe! My walk hasn’t been a smooth-sailing one. I spent days thinking, struggling, and doubting and thinking whether I have placed my faith in an assured place? Or will I just really become worm food when I die (quote from Joey Tribbiani from Friends) ? And I keep thinking of such issues during term time, during lectures, on bus trips back and from home etc.

I did readings on whether the Bible is really inerrant, accurate, and not simply fiction written by ancient people who then buried it under the sand to be discovered by later people. I read up on whether Jesus really rose from the dead, or was He never resurrected and His followers, devastated, started worshipping Him as a good teacher that He is. I read up on heinous lies like the Jesus Family Tomb, parallels between Christianity and the ancient Egyptian pagan religions, the infamous Gospel of Judas (Da Vinci Code), the supposed “evolution” of the Bible between when it was first written and now.

Because, if God really doesn’t exist, if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then it’s an utter waste of time spending Sunday mornings in church. Better off sleeping in, heck, better off attending some self-worth seminars or lectures on how to be a successful leader in replacement. Christianity will then be totally pointless. I just cannot read the Bible, go to church, but don’t really believe in God, or just fabricate some imaginary God who is protecting me. That is really wasting my time.

Fortunately, God has blessed me with enough evidence to prove His existence and that He loves each and every one of us! Truly, seek and you shall find! God will show Himself to seekers and hide Himself from those who don’t. Previously, I wasn’t a very emotional person, now I’m glad I love God. Emotions aren’t a good gauge on the stage of my faith, but I’d rather be emotional than not! So, yes, this transformation is really amazing. And it’s really all thanks to God here.

Hence, I urge anyone who is in the same boat as I was in, to give Christianity a try. You won’t regret it. Placing your trust in Jesus is probably the wisest thing you will make in your entire life. It may take time, but don’t give up. It’s ok to doubt, because when the doubts are cleared, your faith will be much stronger than before.

Anyway…..

Today, Pastor talked about Grace of God. There is Grace of God in relevance to salvation, and there is Grace of God in relevance to ministry. Shit i don’t know what’s wrong with me. As much as I want to spread the Gospel, honestly, (and ashamedly) I still somewhat baulk at the idea of having to clean the church on Saturdays, and sacrificing my time in computer games. So I call myself a child of God but I feel lazy to serve Him, to give like some small thing back? Computer games are more important than God? I dunno what’s my priority actually. I mean, though I really hope it won’t happen cuz I’m afraid of pain, I am quite sure now that I will die for my faith. Or so I claim now la. But play say 5 hours less of Team Fortress 2? Or less 5 hours of slacking on my bed? No? Zzzz.

This is very very wrong. The problem of too much idolatry in my life. And while I’m so grateful that God has given me a gift in music, I don’t volunteer to be a pianist in my church either. That is because I’m scared I play wrongly. Oh, who am I kidding, the bigger reason is because I know pianist needs a lot of time to practise. What a useless worldly Christian. And I’m not even thinking of how I’m going to change myself! Ah well..

This year in our Sunday School our theme is on Outreach. So I tried myself. First time I tried to evangelize to a colleague of mine, FAILED TERRIBLY. I actually could identify with her, all the points she brought out are exactly the stumbling blocks of mine when I first started going to church. Why don’t we just be a good person, be sincere, have good intentions, what kind of God is that who send people to Hell, all Christians are hypocrites. But I screwed up by throwing in all the intellectual arguments.

However, I have at least changed some of her impressions of us trying to reach out to her. Christians bear witness because of the Great Commission given to them by our Lord Jesus Christ before he ascended to heaven. But a big secondary reason why we want to , to put it crudely, convert our friends, is because of what we believe. And we appreciate the friends of ours so much that we want to see him/her in heaven with us when we are called home. It’s not because we think that we Christians are holier, superior, and we look down on non-Christians blah blah blah, which was what I used to think. C’mon we are all in the same boat. We are all sinners. Why should we feel that we are better at all? I was just telling my colleague I probably sinned much more than she did in my life. Oh, It’s also not because we have MLM scouting mentality.

Unfortunately, I’m such a bloody coward, who has no courage to bear witness to many of my friends, for fear of losing friendship, and for fear of rejection. I remembered zhongyang saying if I become such a pesky Christian he will stop talking to me. HAHA.

But really don’t worry, we’re not in the position to force people. We are not salesmen. We are just to say what we believe in, and it is the Holy Spirit who convicts. If you don’t buy what we say, we won’t say more. At least, not in the same occasion lol.

On a side note, I’m supremely addicted to Team Fortress 2. Because I like playing the soldier, I NEED HELP ON HOW TO BE BETTER AT AIMING! Now that I finally know how to strafe properly (half-properly actually). And as an engineer, 8 kills within a single sentry gun!!! I know it’s not impressive but considering all my previous sentry guns get destroyed within 1 or 2 minutes, and that my previous record was 2 kills, I’m rather impressed with myself.

Leave a Response »

 

Why (Most) Girls Don't Play Team Fortress 2 Tuesday, Jul 15 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCjVV843nFw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aykj047vGKM

Some guy recorded his girlfriend play TF2, and uploaded it on youtube. According to him, his girlfriend has never played TF2 before, or any FPS for that matter, so he was observing her figuring out how this game actually works.

She makes really funny comments! Some people say she talks too much… I mean, DUH, if your boyfriend is beside you and you are playing the game for the first time, obviously you will make lots of comments right?!

And I’m ashamed to say that just because I’m an atrocious TF2 player, I can identify with her on several situations. Such as halfway through the game and suffering from an identity crisis (Am I red or blue?) or being a medic and not able to catch up with a heavy cuz I missed the stairs and fall to the ground level.

Some classic words that got me burst out laughing:

“Hey, where’s the intelligence? Oh no, where’s our base?” “Who has the intelligence?” (after getting killed) “Oh I guess I had the intelligence”

(Being a spy, running to capture point) “Wait! Am I red or blue?”

(Being an engineer, attempting to build a sentry gun, trying to walk through a wall) “How do you get past this.. Hmm.”

(Being a sniper) “Is the sniper wear high heels?”

“They spelled BLU wrong”

“I know you guys are in here! I can’t see you, but I can, erm, hear you guys shooting.”

“Oh shit, I think I killed him!… Sorry!”

Leave a Response »

 

Upon Hibernation… Saturday, Jul 5 2008

Wow it’s been quite long since I last wrote any entry. It’s been almost a month!

In any case, there isn’t much updates actually…

1) Sick for the whole of this week.

It’s all double-o’s fault. Ok not really; it’s more like a result of a series of unwise decisions made by me. Firstly, I went to double-o on saturday night. And discovered a very nice drink! Jagermeister + Red bull! But that’s not the point… I had to wake up early for Sunday School and service. And obviously I would be tired after that.

So I went home, thinking of bathing quickly, eating quickly and go and sleep. Then I bathed, and had a spicy lunch, and so I sweated a bit. Without thinking, I went straight to bathe again, and I think I did dry myself but I knew I was still wet, but I couldn’t care less. I turned on the air-con and slept. When I woke up two hours later, I knew that’s it… I am going to be sick. After disturbing my colleagues with my cough and sneezes for one week, it’s finally subsiding now, though there is still a lot of phlegm in my throat.

2) More than half way through my internship

Well what can I say about this… This is one internship where my supervisors assign us to uncharted territories, that is making us do experiments that they are also unsure what the results are. Although many studies have been done on the nature of my work, none of them work in our company, so ya. We are supposed to read the journals, and figure out what to do. On our own!!

And that sucks, because for the past three weeks there have been no progress! We’re really just like rookie “scientists” trying out different conditions for our experiment to work.

To put things simple, we are supposed to make several layers of molecules of stearic acid to stick onto a quartz slide. We have been *moderately* successful in making ONE layer of molecule onto a quartz slide but subsequent depositions have failed. We have no idea why, only until two days ago, when instead of stearic acid, we used ferric stearate as the base layer onto the slide and it finally worked. Apparently ferric stearate sticks onto quartz better than stearic acid. That is damn basic knowledge, but everyone we consulted didn’t seem to know that! They kept saying something along the lines of “stearic acid SHOULD STICK WHAT! did you clean your equipment properly?” Sigh.

Yea. And so now we managed to make a first step, with several more (difficult) steps on the way, I don’t see why I can look forward much to work, particularly now that my partner is away for a 2-week reservist and so my workload has automatically doubled starting next Monday.

But apart from the kind of “bleak” nature of my work, I guess the work environment is still quite good. I have good supervisors, who are naturally funny. The nus undergraduate interns also clique quite well. At least a few of us would meet to have lunch together and have extended lunch breaks consistently. And today we just ordered pizza into our research center haha. Quite a number of us knew Cantonese, so I figured it would be a good opportunity for me to be exposed to more cantonese, but unfortunately the only exposure I got was their laughter. So I guess i should just stick to bilingual.

3) Completed Grand Theft Auto IV and Metal Gear Solid 4

YES! The ONLY two games that scored a 10 on Gamespot, for PS3, I completed them. Grand Theft Auto IV was, needless to say, fantastic, although the final quest really spoilt it all. It’s fun really but imagine having to do a car chase on the wrong side of the road, involve in a big shootout, more chase, more shootout, chase a speedboat on a bike along the coastline without damaging the bike, perform a stunt jump off the bike onto a helicopter, continue chasing the speedboat and shooting it, further shootouts when helicopter collapses…. you get the picture. ALL THESE WITHOUT A CHECKPOINT MEANING YOU FAIL YOU VIRTUALLY RESTART EVERYTHING.

But at least I’ve completed it and now I’m free to do the “extra” stuffs in GTA, like side missions (i.e. assassinations, drug laundering, carjacking, car racing etc.), watch tv and shows, listen to radio, and play those mini games like pool and bowling, and of course multiplayer.

Metal Gear solid 4 wasn’t as enjoyable as GTA IV, in my opinion, but I still enjoyed the game. I didn’t really like the painfully long cut scenes in between checkpoints. Considering I have NEVER played metal gear solid until now, understandably I will get confused when the characters start explaining all the technical jargon as to why is this and why is that. The later cut scenes involve less explanation and more fightings etc. which were ok, only they’re every bit as unrealistic as cloud strife shooting up the sky in Advent Children. And the worst part is the final cut scene. Where [minor spoiler] Old Snake meets a *dying main character*. And then there is like more than an hour worth of explanations, and FOR GOODNESS SAKE HE IS DYING. And he can still spout so much philosophical stuff. Countless times he fell down and coughed and Snake graciously held him up to make him live just a while longer. Countless times his head seemingly dropped down and you want to shout hooray then it suddenly rose up again and began another lecture. Countless times I was almost yelling “PLEASE DIE ALREADY” but no he didn’t… just kept talking on and on…

Ok, but MGS4 the gameplay itself is still nice. And I now understand why it has so much replayability value even though the storyline is the same somewhat. Because there is so many different ways to get past the missions. So far I’ve been on the “stealth” mode, which was open inverted commas because I UTTERLY FAILED at stealth mode. For the first 30 minutes I could crawl past enemy soldiers undetected, good job, but the moment I had in my possession an empty oil can I decided to hide in it and roll down the hill to see if they’re stupid enough to think it’s just an empty can. I was dead wrong, and since I had triggered my first alert and had my first kill.. may as well “gun and run” from then on, which I did, unless it’s perfect condition for me to stealth. Yup, there are other ways of completing the game. Hostage, interrogation, different weapons, Close Quarter Combats, and of course, playing at a higher difficulty level.

It’s interesting, because like Team Fortress 2, MGS 4 has it’s own “achievement” after you complete a game. For me I have the “tarantula” and “inchworm” achievement – tarantula meaning i didn’t get that many alerts but I killed many many people , “inchworm” meaning I spend a lot of time crawling on the floor like a worm. My friend got a “pig” achievement, because he ate a lot of rations to heal his hit points. lol..

I first got acquainted with MGS via the soundtrack, composed by Harry Gregson Williams, and of course I never failed to notice whenever tunes obviously bearing his style come up, and I must say they sound great!

4) Watched finished my first complete tvb drama.

I’m not a tvb fanatic, but Forensic Heroes 2 is really quite nice! At least, the first half of the show. Second half of the show is still not bad but kind of lose pace a little. And I know people who watched FH1 lamented about different characters being in the spotlight now, but since I have never watched FH1 I have no complaints.

Yup that’s about what I’ve done for the past 3 weeks or so. It’s kind of enjoyable actually, just doing the stuff you like. Playing TF2 from time to time (including the past 2 hours). Time passes by relatively quickly at work too, since I am busy most of the time. Enjoy pre Year 3 holiday while it lasts!!!!

3 Responses »