A new element is about to enter the periodic table. Anyone who has memorised the periodic table will have a new symbol to remember. Good thing mechanical engineers have no need for the whole table. All we need is to learn the different ingredients in the different types of steel and aluminum alloys.
The next book of A Song of Ice and Fire still isn't out yet. What is taking George so long?? Is he really going to do the same as Robert Jordan and die before finishing the finale of the series???
Just tried to toast bacon on bread. What I mean is I put a slice of bacon on a slice of bread and baked it in the oven. Unfortunately that bacon was raw and I couldn't cook it thoroughly before the bread got burnt. I had the take it out when the uncovered parts of the bread began to brown. The bacon was mostly cooked but not completely. There were still some tough bits that needed chewing. So here I am typing this with a mild stomachache which I hope won't get any worse.
Sudanese tribesmen attacked a convoy bringing food aids. I'm pretty sure I'm speaking not just for myself when I say, " I TOLD YOU SO!" So now the innocent are suffering. If they had stopped giving them free food, there would have been fewer innocents left alive to suffer now! But no, the WFP has to keep feeding them and help spawn more brainless brutes hellbent on making killing each other.
Great! So now, not only did the world lose at least 40 good people, but also the 735 tonnes of precious food that could have been put to better use in my mouth. What a waste! Given that any food that doesn't go into my digestive system should be considered as a waste, to dump it into the river is even worse! It's like using wine to rinse my dishes! Think of all the sweat and effort that went into growing and harvesting all the crops!
So I say this again: stop feeding them! This way, sooner or later the real warmongers among them are going to run out of minions to fight with.
FFS this is an oil-producing country we're looking at here! It's disgusting to see that they don't seem to understand how they can make use of what nature has provided them with!
With so much natural resources that many African countries have, if they would only learn to use all that wisely they can easily become part of the First World. Maybe they will, 100 years into the future, after China gets its second Golden Age. Maybe 150 years from now they will talk about an African nation the same way we speak of China today.
Eureka Seven has a new movie that was released in Japan back in April. At first I was excited. Then I saw a review an employee of Bandai who watched the sample DVD posted in a forum. After that, I lost interest completely.
The movie was basically an unrelated movie using the characters and names from the Eureka Seven series. Which sucks. Maybe I'll download it someday, but it's more likely that I'll just forget about it.
I don't know if it's just me, but why is it that the last two printers that my family bought didn't come with freaking power cords??? One was bought in Sim Lim Square, the other was bought at the PC Show 2009. Neither had a power cord. According to the manual that came with the printer from the PC Show, it was supposed to include a telephone cord too. Which is also missing.
It's bloody irritating because I feel too lazy to go to out just to buy a lousy wire. Maybe I'll buy it together with my computer...
My next computer better come with a power cord!
Just tried playing as commander in Empires. Usually I wouldn't do that but there weren't many players on at that time (around 25 only). Larger number of players = more action everywhere = very hard to manage everything. Smaller teams of 10-15 are much easier to manage because the flow of the game is much slower.
In the game before each round starts, the server is given 60-180 seconds to vote for a commander and prepare for the game (join squads, pick class, etc). Each player is allowed to "opt in" to the list of commander candidates during this period of time.
Whenever I consider trying to comm, I always make sure the list is filled with either newbies (ie names I really don't recognize) or nobody. Usually nobody. Then when I sit in the commander vehicle when the round begins, I always announce that I'm noob and ask if anyone wants to comm. Really, I don't mind if someone wants to take my seat. It's important that I learn to comm, true, but I also understand that some people may be having a bad day and need to win to lighten up their mood, and having an experienced comm really helps.
I've commed 5 times so far, all in small games. My record so far is 3:2, no stalemates. In 2 of the 3 wins, my team won because they were really helpful in telling me what to do, eg what needs to be researched and when and where to place certain structures.
In the other 1 round, my team won because a few guys in my team were just plain 1337. In that particular game there were one flag for each faction. Capturing and holding that flag for around 3mins would give victory to the campers.
When I joined, I really didn't feel like shooting and joined the Spectators to watch the game while listening to the other guys discussing the upcoming major patch for the game. After a few minutes one of the comms announced that the CV was bugged because he couldn't access the commander's interface (ie bird's eye view of the game). After a minute of repeating that, either no one tried to help or everyone was encountering the same problem.
Either way, I ended up deciding to try to help him. I spawned, got in (the comm readily gave up his seat when he saw me) and voila! I saw no problem and he told me to continue to be the comm because no one else could do it.
I really couldn't do anything because the team didn't do anything to gain resource nodes (previous commander didn't build resource nodes to gain $$). When I was in Specs, I'd seen that the other team already had the whole map except for this team's main base (where my flag was), so I expected a loss. We would try, but I did not expect triumph, just a good fight.
Half a minute after looking around, an enemy light tank invaded my base. I was totally helpless because I didn't have any resource aka $$. Fortunately some guy managed to sticky the tank and bought us some time.
Another half a minute after, I managed to save enough $$ for a Vehicle Factory. Seeing that my opponents are driving tanks, I thought that this may be the only way to give us a slim chance of victory. I didn't even bother to build the structure necessary for research, ie Radar, and just let my team build the weakest tank of my faction, the AFV, and jeeps.
Surprisingly enough, despite all the $$ the enemy is earning from all the nodes they control, they didn't sent 10 tanks like I expected them to. In fact, they only sent 2, which were miraculously repelled by my AFVs and grenadiers. All I did was watch and announce which of my structures need urgent repairs.
Soon, they managed to push out a little and helped me secure a resource node. I began to say the necessary "gj team" and stuff to give them some encouragement because I was seeing a real chance of winning there, maybe 10% or 20%. The other 80% of expected failure is there because if the enemy team is saving so much $$, they must be planning something big, like a heavy tank rush. Throughout most of the game, I was telling myself," Anytime now, the tanks are coming."
Anyway after I got the 2nd resource node (the first was provided when the game began), one guy told me to research Heavy Caliber Machine Gun (for tanks). Coincidentally I was already researching the tech which led to it. Actually I was planning to get the Reflective Armour after so that my AFVs would last longer, but if my team wanted it and I'm a noob comm, I thought I should listen to them.
Meanwhile, my team was beginning to buy failjeeps as I had expected. I was expecting a loss, so I didnt stop them. But one guy seemed to drive very well and didn't lose his jeep. In fact he was like a crazed drunk driver, killing people by the dozens with his wheels. Throughout the entire game he needed only 2 jeeps.
A couple minutes of hit-and-runs later, I spotted him driving straight into the enemy's main base. He and his partner alighted quickly and killed the surprised players guarding the flag.
Before I go on, I need to mention that each flag is protected by low defensive walls and thus are very easy to defend.
Those players must have been very surprised because both the guards were killed. Then my two guys stayed there, captured and held the flag. One of them was an Engineer, so he dropped an ammo box to allow them both to camp there indefinitely. Their great accuracy also helped a lot.
By this time, I didn't even bother to research anymore. I'd already given them the Machine Gun and Reflective Armour, which is a pretty good armour. Given the resources that I have, this is the best I can do. All the $$ I earn now is spent by my team on tanks, which have gotten more expensive due to the improvements I researched.
The enemies were pushing into my base with medium tanks that probably have very good armour and weapons. So the best way to win in that situation was to get that flag while my opponents tried to raze my base down. My base became a decoy.
After a minute however, my camping duo was killed, but my team's luck was excellent and two AFVs managed to sneak into the base and to the flag. There they killed the guy before he could capture the flag and took over the camping position.
From then on, I only glanced at my base a few more times, not caring if the enemies took over my base and flag. Both teams need to hold the flag for the same amount of time continuously in order to win, so if my guys could hold on to the enemy's flag, we would win even if the enemies took mine.
For some reason, none in the opposing team had thought of getting a medium tank to save their own flag. If they did, my team would have been screwed. But they didn't and only some of them tried to run to the flag to kill my guys. Obviously they were killed.
Eventually, I almost lost my base but won the game. Without doing much, really. It was all my team's work and skill.
I've also learnt a little from my losses. It was from the other players' rather unflattering comments that I learnt not to build a Vehicle Factory before I get a second refinery (structure I build on resource nodes to get $$). After the third, if possible. Only after the VF should I place a Radar.
As for techs, I still don't know much after Reflective Armour. Small games don't usually last long enough for nukes and heavy tanks. It's also hard to observe the sequence of researches by the commanders when I'm busy killing people.
So for now, I'm still a noob comm, but I'm definitely not atrocious. Even today there are still people who dare to opt in during large games and then sit in the CV and ask everyone ( in allchat, not teamchat!) which key to press to access the commander's interface.
No I already knew which key to press before I first tried to comm because I read a list of "Do's and Don'ts" in the Empires Wiki.After the idea was raised so long ago, a few companies finally tries to use this idea of proving unlimited music downloads with a monthly flat fee. This service is provided by an ISP, Virgin Media, together with Universal and will cost around 10-15 pounds.
But then again, they're probably already too late because there are free music streaming sites that are legal and surviving on donations and ads. These sites are not available in Singapore though.
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