Flash Game: Grow Island.

Now if you’re a regular visitor here, you would probably guess I liked games a lot. Just between you, me and the rest of bloggers around the world, if I were a cheap junkie living in Money-land suburbia, I’ll whore myself to the industry indefinitely. Give me your number and I’ll give you my virginity in exchange for your Xbox 360.

No, not really, not for games.
I’m still saving my soul for the perfect sex partner.

Passing over the subject before you start touching yourself, I made a point of playing around the internet looking for hosted Flash Games. You know those nice small programs with more graphic than game features but also get you these instant amateur gamers’ high (which I call quick-gasm). For today’s model I present Grow Island.

It’s not much to look at, the style is simplistic and the interface comes in only two languages (japanese and japanglish). But I liked it mostly because it’s very cute.

What? I’m a girl, dammit. Let me be cute-conscious.

The objective of the game is to click the little square boxes at the bottom of the screen in the correct order. Each box represents a department of development, like architecture or engineering or computer science. Damn nerdy japfags.



You get a different ending depending on your order of choice but there’s only 2 true ending. One is the maximum levels for all the departments and you get the happy ending. The other true ending is when you ignore certain things like the natural environment and engineering progression.



When that happens, aliens take over your island and proceed to screw up your island better than you did. Little green men kidnapped your alpha-male and multiply with your woman before they do a jig-jig-jiggity around their crop-circle.

Cute factor aside, it was a great fun if you’re looking for something that doesn’t take too much of your time. I particularly liked the robots of mechanical engineering (it evolves as your upgrade your other departments). Took me a week to finally get both 'true' endings.

If you’re looking for the game, link is here: http://www.gamegecko.com/growisland.php

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go take a cold shower. Because my next Flash Game segment is about a girl and all her potential boyfriends as her sweet 16th birthday present.

We’re a very sick team.

The folks who said that laughter is the best medicine probably didn’t mean it was for the PC. My computer just had an attack of pop-up ad-ware, all proclaiming sites to either ‘Have a Joke a Day’, ‘Click for a Smiley’ or ‘Malays Can Laugh’ or ‘How to Enlarge Your Penis for Your Girlfriend’.

Between you and me, I think the latter over-sickens all the formers. Which is probably why my PC is having a bough of coughing up pop-up those kinds of advertising every 10 seconds of so.

Come type in my computer and I assure you that you’ll going to have sore throats and be feverish in just two days. Hey, not kidding; my PC had been sick for a very long time and only now I’ve decided to update my anti-virus. Check it out.

Once you can distract yourself from the freaking bright, red words, notice I had to turn off my connection to keep the pop-ups at bay (but not away though). It’s more annoying than malicious and I can still run non-porn programs and stuff.

But hey, 85 sick files. And an ungodly number of them are in my backup hard drive too. I hadn’t updated my anti-virus since November so it shouldn’t be a surprise. And so why the renewed interest in care and concern?

It’s because I’m sick too.



Duh. Did you you think I got sore throats and turn feverish from my PC? Puh-lez. I must have got it from my little brother, *Genius (we shared a cup of juice before he told me that he was bio-hazardous). He’s home for his long holidays and like the nerd he is, spends time watching the History Channel and the Numbers series on AXN and not a lots of sun and fresh air.

All that indoor activity must have been strenuous to his immune system. At least he could have told me so I could have armed MY system with Vitamin C. But hey, if I hadn’t been sick, I probably would have left my anti-virus the way it was.

I don’t have an internet connection (I update this blog from cyber-café) because I don’t have a fixed line (poor housing renovations some years back by my father, the other ‘Genius’) and my cellphone’s Celcom charges an arm and a leg per hour. Updates had to be done folder-ly and the reminder just passed me by like a Post-It-Note in the wind.

Now I did get around updating my anti-virus, it took me a full night to get AVG run through all the junk in my trunk, looking for every piece of file you stick a red-coloured tag on. At pretty much the same time, I’m popping in Panadols and gurgling salty water, standing in front of the bathroom mirror.

It’s not that I have an aversion to clinic doctors, it’s just them quacks wants to rake in the most money by sticking high-performance anti-biotics and 3 different kinds of cough syrup and I can’t afford all that.

But at least my PC is clean now. Slow as ever, no internet connection, but the ‘Happy-Happy Super-size My Manhood’ pop-up (oh God, the last 8 words, taken out of context, just sounded... so wrong) don’t pop-up anymore. I don’t know why people think it’s funny. It’s not even medicinal. Funny is a cheap Malay joke I’ve heard on the radio recently.

“What do you call... a very happy burger?”
“Ber-gembira...”

Haha, okay, that joke wasn’t medicinal either. I’m still sick, but for myself, I do feel a bit better. It’s healthy to be easily amused...

Eccentricity Galore.

The thing about having that empty period between the last class of the semester and the day of the exams (note to self; 22 December at 2pm) is that you suddenly found the freedom to do something you’ve been planning forever to want to do.

Like driving to Borders and read the books for free for hours. Play computer games until your eyes bleed. Or, I don’t know. Get naked. Hide under the bed covers in the middle of the day. Turn the air-conditioning at full blast. Use your-, er, wait, don’t use your imagination.

Instead, feast eyes on this pretty image this week.

Heh, I cheated. I’ve presented two images. Step up two character images of which I’ve found and fell in love with. The first one is from the artist Michelle Chuang for the book, Legend of the Vampire. I found this beautiful work of hers in, yes, CGSociety.

The second is a work titled Winter Wolf by Heise, which you can tell since the artist stamped his name right in the middle of the picture (oh gee, I can only guess why...). His was discovered during a random browsing of DeviantArt.

The What’s-The-Deal-And-Why I liked them is because they both match very perfectly in the Imaginary-World-Ideas I had floating in me for some years. In fact, these two I’ve unofficially chosen as character art for this novella I was working on for the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) two years back (failed to complete by the way) called The Wolf and The Wildflower.

The female is character Roberta Warrens, Countess of Knightley. She had humble beginnings as an armourer’s daughter but now lives in a bustling capital city of a magical nation and holds a high position in the echelons of society.

She had worked hard for her position but she holds many secrets; most of them concern her late husband, Earl of Knightley himself. She has much skill in dual-armed combat with her tri-metal swords.

The male character would be the real main character of the story. His name is Cedric, one part mercenary, one part secret servant to the controversial foreigner, Duke of Sagecrest and all other parts soon to be revealed in the story.

He’s trying to secret a package across the border and he needed Lady Knightley’s illegal smuggling operation to do it since he himself as a foreigner was unused to the nation’s environment. He’s really a ice-mage and a political agent to boot.

And I’ll let you fill in the blanks yourself. I will tell you this though; The Wolf and The Wildflower story is the prologue to this project. Maybe once I build enough skill points in ‘Time Management’, I’ll complete the story and post it up here. Oh and this doesn’t mean I’m backing out on next week’s image, no worries.

Just to let you guys know, if I ever do have problems updating this blog for any reason (such as busy, on leave, death in the family, eating pizza...), I'll post this image:



On another note, I have not yet started on composing a story for the December’s Dream image. The week has been either incredibly hectic or absolutely boring. You know... the feeling you get when every mental capability is just too blocked to function properly. Kind of like writer’s block, on the life-sized scale which encompasses your, er, life.

And attitude. I think. Whatever.

I plan to start on it as soon as I’m done working on my assignments, which can take between two days to never. I just have the full complete idea in my head but trying to put it down into a structured composition needs some oiling on the old creativity door in my brain.

I had to have it locked shut for duration of project-making, for a good reason. There a monster in that part of me I need to keep it down; most difficult was during NaNoWriMo last month, which I sadly have to decline participation.

But, hey! Since I could hardly keep things in my own head anyway, what do I know? I’m hiding naked under the bed covers in the middle of the day with the air-con at full blast. Make up your own stories about me then we’ll talk about the eccentricity to exchange in ribbon-wrapped idea boxes.

Trying to understand the HINDRAF

Now I’m not one for politics. Never had. Nope. No sir-ee. I’m practically mindset on the stuff that I just went Country-Leader?-Whatever during any kind of elections.

In fact, the only thing about politics I’ve ever come close to is this really cute and sophisticated guy I had a major crush on in secondary school; at 17 and already had aims for a high position in Barisan Nasional (that’s a political party for you non-my-countrymen).

And no, I’ve never heard from him since I left school so there’s no sudden re-acquaintanceship that might had invoked this new interest in the current political events. I suppose I’m just like every other sheep in the flock that just grouped together in the currents of a moving force.

It’s the HINDRAF movement.

So far I’ve only got a mildly half-hearted sense of curiosity on the What’s-The-Big-Deal, but I feel like it’s really something I should know about. Really, really know about. I’m neither politically-minded nor Hindu (nor being anti-Hindu for that matter). But I do support, steadfastly support, the right to freedom of speech.

Because I believe that suppression to freedom of speech leads to suppression of the individual mind. If you don’t say something (say an opinion), you loose your right to voice your ideas, your support. Thus, loosing your chance to make your life as part of your nation.

But the HINDRAF confuses me. Sure, I got the idea behind it. A race of people which the nation’s former colonial paleskins had brought over from India to turn into part-slaves as the paleskins suck the money-milk out of the rubber trees, laboured studiously by the part-slaves.

Now the descendents wants their money back from... the English? At least around 8 figures too. And they did a street protest last November 25th, even though their permit to protest peacefully had been rejected. It ended bloodily but not in a bloodbath. From what I’ve heard, it seemed that riot the police got the most injuries.

But then again, it’s probably hard for the newspaper reporters to interview members of the HINDRAF when they’re still running all over Kuala Lumpur, throwing sticks and stones. I was working on my thesis report during that riot event (it was due the following Monday, all 120+ pages of it) so I didn’t read the news fresh-of-the-press.

What interest me were the ones the newspaper did not report. There were no physical damages to the surrounding shops other than business having a slight down-time. The only vehicles damages were the police cars themselves. Nobody set anything on fire.

And Newton’s Law said that for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction; thus the police had reported injuries but the newspaper didn’t report the injuries of HINDRAF members though. Maybe soaking wet and tear-bombed but that was just it.

More evidence that our newspapers are biased. Of course, if I were a really prejudiced girl, I’ll say that the government is completely controlling the hardcopy media, just as they did for years and years in Tun Dr. M’s reign of supremacy. In some ways that are subtle, I believe it so.

So now that the HINDRAF are claiming ethic cleansing of many, many of their people and they’re taking that matter to international level. The government then counters by saying the HINDRAF has links with the terrorist groups in India and Sri Lanka. And maybe that’s why New Delhi refuses to meet the HINDRAF leader. It’s turning into an ugly spitting, scratching contest.

Beyond the Fight Club agenda, I’m trying to get more information, for myself, about the group, its objectives and the motivation behind it. I want to know why they’re doing this, how peaceful or violent can they be. I want to hear more about it beyond the newspapers and the blogs that were full of strong words that’s actually more euphemistic than informative.

Most of all, I wanted to be in the Know, right Now. I don’t want to keep to the old stupid Malay attitude - since it doesn’t affect you, there’s no need to think about it. I want to know how the current interactions between HINDARF and the government might affect me as a Malay and a student.

In retrospect, I suppose my old crush had something to do about it. He was in the popular student’s category, way, waaaaaay out of my league. But he was passionate and likes to express strong but concrete views. He cited facts not coloured by opinions. He was open-minded and loved being so.

It was the kind of attitude I liked in a guy, and he made me think more about myself and the advantage of freely expressing the individual voice, having the power of the individual mind. Where ever he is right now, he’s probably collecting every kind of resource about the HINDRAF he could get his hands on (between getting his law degree). Thanks Ibrahim (yes, that’s his real name, by the way).

Friends just made it all better...

You can tell from the not-so quick update that my presentation of my project was a dud. I’m still recovering from the devastating assault from the *Super-supervisor. I was at a disadvantage, as I had not briefed my own supervisor on plan of attack. All worked up to protect my system but he got sneaky and struck at my documentation. Foiled by a graph technicality. Already on my downside and the worse thing happened.

My support died.

The backbone of my system, my support, experienced some difficulties on their own and so I cannot give Super-supervisor what’s getting to him with full power. Which is a veritable b**ching problem. So I had to make do with my backup system and my secondary support but the effect just wasn’t the same.

In the end, I think, was a draw. He liked the system, asked for a copy and I gave him the location of my backup. He’s cool, rated my report as ‘Acceptable’ but the system’s true fate has yet to be determined. As for my dead main support, well, that’s screwed. I’m never going to use that server-hosting provider ever again.

Between writing this blog and bolstering my (fortress) second system, I’m going to put all my feelings in a nutshell.

Okay so it’s not a nutshell. Google images didn’t have a visually appropriate graphical content so I had to make my own. By hand and cellphone camera. Geez, don’t get confused. Internally, I’m very grateful. Beyond Happy-Days-jig-jiggity kind of grateful. I got my system to work, be presented and set for approval.

But what made it even better is the company support. In fact, 3 of them. *LingTwitch, *ZuBest and *ShellGal. Yes, again, names had been changed. It’s not protecting their privacy. It’s just that I’m weird that way. We all met on a group project way back and had stuck together for a year now.

LingTwitch is taking up the same thesis project as I am and she completely forgot about the presentation and thus, wasn’t ready at all. She got approved for extension for next semester so she’s cool.

ZuBest had already taken the thesis paper and knows the whole load of crap that took to make hers work. She and I will be taking the second thesis project. ShellGal had just done all her projects and will be taking her job-training next semester, a whole new (and bigger) load of crap.

So what did we do to cheer up? Well, we could hand out at that new coffee shop, Old Town, which just opened right across the street. Instead, we did what a lot of single, unattached female computer nerds do. We hung out at the workstation and downloaded every pretty games we can stick an illegal keygen program and cracked full versions out of them.

Considering that my future is now something I can’t change (unless, maybe I’ll lace sleeping pills in Super-supervisor’s milo-drink and hypnotize him to give me an ‘A’), I’ll take my quick-euphoria dose anyway I could. And some things are just more fun when doing it in a group. Like downloading cracked games software.

Since LingTwitch is extending her thesis to next semester, it’ll just be ZuBest and me to take the next thesis project (along with about 3+ majoring courses). I need to graduate as soon as possible since I’m running out of money.

And hell no I’m going to take up PTPTN’s money (it’s a student loan program, for you non-my-countrymen out there). ShellGal is still looking for a job that could pay her loans back in the quickest method.

That’s even if I do get a passing grade at my current thesis paper. But I’m trying not to think about that now since I don’t have control over it anymore. What I do have control is downloading that new game, Depths of Peril, and cracking it to full version (us nerdy girls are looking for the crack software as we speak). It’s an rpg-based game, which I as the character get to save the world.

Generic maybe, but there’s a whole load of baddies to kick-a** at and to me, they all as ugly as the Super-supervisor.

AWIL: Absent With Leave

Hello, here’s how to tell if you would be late for work, Malaysian style:

One: If you left early and there’s traffic jam on the roads, you’re going to be late.
Two: If you’ve overslept and there’s a traffic jam on the road, you’re going to be so late that you’ll better call in sick.
Three: If you’ve overslept and there’s no traffic jam on the road, you’re still going to be late because you’ve overslept and while you were speeding, the speed camera caught you.
Four: If you left early and there’s no traffic jam on the road, that’s because you’ve completely forgot that today was a public holiday. Congratulations, you petrol-wasting genius.

Well, maybe not Malaysian style but it is kind of my (sad-to-say) style. I never kept track of dates. Days yes, just not dates. Monday is this-this-this, Tuesday is this-and-that, Wednesday-Thursday-Friday-Happy-Days! The weekend comes, my cycle hums; ready to race to you!

Urg, why did I ever thought that show was funny...

Anyway, in this case, it wasn’t traffic jam or bandwidth jam or any kind of overly congested networking system that stalled me to my blog. It’s work jam. Here are the headlines:-

Just to let you know, I don’t work during the day. That’s when I sleep. Starting at 2pm. Even with that in mind, I still managed to get stuck in Kelana Jaya traffic (my next project paper is titled: Why the World is Always Against Undergraduates).

But my first (actual) thesis paper went through! I had been approved for presentation. It was good news turn slightly sour as since I had prepared for a rejection and worked my indignity the round of 1001-Reason-Why-I’m-Bad-Student. I had to prepare a two nights’ work to prepare my wording to my supervisor’s supervisor. The Super-supervisor.

Da-da-da-dum...

His theme song is ‘utter silence’. His favourite weapon is the red ballpoint pen. His special attack is the D- mark. Devastation effects include remedial classes, exam cramps and striking fear in everything that speaks in a monotonous British accent (and a baritone voice that always sounds as if his nose is snot-blocked).

But hey, I’ve been approved. A tiny, teeny, itsy, bitsy part of me is now sacrificing the metaphorical soul to the Fates and power that be (along with a jiggy Happy-Days themed victory dance). If you're so interested in my boring life, check this blog later today for an update. In fact, all I need to do is just re-write the diagrams and the appendixes. And pass them up in basic form in... oh crap. Two hours. What the hell am I writing this blog for?!

See what I mean about being late for work? One soldier-girl going through Boot-Your-Project Camp is busting out of this workstation, ASAP and AWIL. See news at Berita Terkini.