But after the last crash the sight of the Desktop reminded me to check my emails and stuff, so I did.
It was while waiting for the pages to load that I decided to redeem my Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam expansion just for the heck of it. I had no use for just an expansion but it came with my graphics card and the offer was ending in June. Not to mention I had registered the graphics card last night just to see what freebies I could get.
It turned out that I had missed one promotion that was giving away a free programme for Gold members, which I am since I spent money on their product. There's also the Silver membership probably for people who haven't bought their stuff, but I'm not sure. Wasn't too concerned with that or the details of free stuff I missed since the only thing I was interested in when I visited that website was to get free stuff. Didn't want to look too hard and get persuaded into wanting to spend more money.
So I followed the instructions I found for this offer, thinking maybe I could sell the code on Ebay or something and get a small refund for the graphics card that can be considered a discount.
I had to sign up to be a member of the EA store thing and the necessity to enter my address and phone number raised my mental alarms slightly, but that was lowered when I remembered that EA is a big company, which naturally means they're more careful. Plus they will need these info if new customers like me order a game in physical (ie DVD) form.
All the while I was thinking: Just give me the code and let me get back to Fallout.
Then I arrived at the page where I could see my basket containing my free gift.
Holy cow! There were THREE free gifts there, including the Vietnam expansion. WHY? Did I read anything wrong? I didn't think so. All that was mentioned was the Bad Company 2: Vietnam. Nothing suggested I was also getting Bad Company 2 too!
If you think that was supposed to be obvious, it's not! It could easily have been a marketing ploy to get people to buy Bad Company 2 just to play this supposedly rather exclusive expansion only available online. That was what I was assuming before.
Yet here I am at 51.98% completion for the download of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Digital Deluxe Edition which costs over S$70 if I had bought it from the EA store. And that's not including the expansion which is priced at S$19.90. As for the third item, it's the "Unlock Codes for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Limited Edition". The "Limited Edition" is the term for "pre-order edition" and these codes will give me a larger selection of weapons and perks (ingame abilities).
According to my proof of "purchase", my total discount for these is S$96.70.
If I enjoy this game, it can be regarded as a 17.4% discount for a graphics card that cost me $555 ($589 if buying without the rest of the PC).
82.28% complete now.
Finally, something good after a shitty Saturday.
But just when I was trying out the game, I was informed that the draft I printed yesterday was not satisfactory. Now I have to make more changes to it and redraw some parts.
To make life more confusing, I just received the Encyclopaedia Britannica DVD which was supposed to be delivered to one of my aunts (for her kids ie my nephews). This likely means though she was supposed to get both the book set and DVD, she only received the former and while store mailed the latter to us.
WHY? EVEN THE CONFIRMATION EMAIL STATED ONLY ONE "DELIVER TO" ADDRESS!
I've emailed her to confirm that she did not get the DVD and now I'm awaiting her reply. In the meantime, I don't think I should jump to conclusions and email the online EB store yet.
And it's dinnertime.
Took me 2 hours to make it look better. I drew the jacket too wide, had to narrow it down. Then added more stuff to specify more stuff. Trade secrets lol. I wonder if I'll stay in this business. It's not a matter of better career options after graduation in my case. It's more like whether I have any trace of artistic talent to enable me to design clothes.
Also, if I go on with this, I'll need an iPad. Same as drawing on paper but easier to erase/edit.
Tried Bad Company 2 for a few hours. Initially wanted to jump straight into multiplayer by joining some random server with decent pings. Didn't have any populated servers in Singapore, so I joined the closest one... in Taiwan. 200ms ping, bad impression.
Then I realized I had no idea what to do.
So I left and started on the singleplayer campaign instead. After reading about all those Battlefield games, this is actually the first time I'm playing one. Not particularly impressed, really. It was nice that they used the blood-on-screen effect similar to that of Metro 2033 instead of HP to indicate injury though.
Some parts were as exciting as I expected but others were duller than they were designed to be. An example of the former was the part soon after the prologue where you try to escape on a vehicle and you have to shoot down the vehicles chasing you. Near the end of the chase I shot down a frickin helicopter with a grenade launcher. That was really a WTF moment. As for the latter, it was the same part but during the chase when I kept killing the armoured vehicles so quickly (since they were big targets) that there were long quiet intervals in between.
Later, the game got easy when they gave me a sniper rifle. Sniper rifles aren't inherently the I-WIN buttons of FPS games but in Bad Company 2, the crosshair doesn't move randomly when looking through the scope. This makes it just too easy to aim with. The developers seemed to have attempted to balance this by disabling the crosshair when not using the scope but the centre of the screen is easy to estimate.
Anyway although this game was only released in March last year, it isn't exactly a new game, not when Bad Company 3 is available for pre-orders.
I don't believe I'll be buying it.
Comparing FNV and BC2, I still prefer FNV. FNV is more of an RPG with FPS combat, while BC2 is mostly FPS with RPG elements (since you play the role of some guy). It's not that BC2 is bad. Far from it. BC2 has much better graphics, animation and combat, but FNV has the better missions ( at the very least, the final battle is just the most epic one ever) and perks every 2 levels. And customizable boobs on the women (with mods).
Finally, an article that explains what an "online addiction" really is.
"The actual hours is not a tell-tale sign whether it is an addiction.They will skip school so they can stay home, so they play the game or whether they will play computer games over night. So it's more of whether you are spending the time that you can afford or not, rather than the actual hours," said Dr Tan.
A person can spend 12 hours a day online and not be considered an addict. Seriously. If it's an addiction, then the symptoms has to be similar to a drug addiction. If you actually skip the necessary stuff in life to stay at the computer, like lessons, work and even food, then it's an addiction. If you just forgot to eat once in a while, it's not an addiction.
I'm actually describing myself here :P
Honestly, I'd be eating a lot less if not for my neighbours. I'm sure there's actually just one family nearby with a very good cook because I often smell really nice cooking (and they sometimes repeat on some days) from the kitchens. Whenever he/she cooks, I get a persistent reminder to eat. In fact, there have been occasions when I drank coffee in the morning just because I smelled theirs.
Alright, let's not get sidetracked too much.
The thought of checking my emails didn't cross my mind throughout the Malaysia trip last year, and IMO that's proof that I'm definitely not an addict despite spending like 90% of my time at the computer normally. From that experience I can conclude that I really can quit any time I want. There's only the issue of why I should do so and, presently, I see no reason to.
But I do understand what it's like to be addicted due to my time in WoW. If not for the fact that I was still in the army back then, I'd probably do anything to stay online. Nobody is insane enough to go AWOL to play WoW... right?
Furthermore, I do notice that I "play games overnight" when I find some that I really like. On the other hand, these are always temporary as the addiction, if it is that at all, only lasts as long as my initial runs. Once I've completed a game, I never feel as enthusiastic about it as before, which I'm sure is pretty obvious.
If you plan on living long, get tested early. It's not just the cancer in this article but also anything else. And if it's serious, don't just trust your own doctor. My late father's first doctor diagnosed a bad cough and later, pneumonia. He had to go to a second doctor much later when the first doctor's treatment didn't work and got a diagnosis for lung cancer, but soon after the surgery they found that it had already spread to his brain.
Sometimes, it's better to be too careful.
Unless you can't afford it, that is. A full-body MRI costs S$4000 per session. CT scan, $4000. Then there's the most important part - chemo, priced at $8000 per session. Let's not forget to take into account GST and inflation too.
In contrast, a funeral at a void deck costs a mere $3000.
Read a bit of the linked blog, mostly from her final months. It's so much more painful than my father's. But I think she understated the suffering she was going through, which is normal since nobody likes to dwell on bad memories.
Sucking fluid from your lungs isn't simple. I remember seeing blood on the tube when the nurses took it out every time. It's bad but better than drowning. Then there's the part where you might lose bowel control and be bedridden at the same time.
After it got really bad, they put him in an artificial coma from which he sometimes woke for a minute or two. He didn't seem truly lucid during those times, never even asked me what was happening. Once he woke up to ask me what the nurse was doing (I think she was checking his stats on the screen) and told me to ask her when I told him I didn't know. Then he became unconscious again.
Nobody ever told him about his condition. He never knew why he died, how he died and maybe even that he had died. After the doctor explained to her about his brain scans, my mum was hoping for a miracle by making him stay ignorant of the fact that his cancer was inoperable.
That blog explained why he was put in that coma. I wouldn't want to go through what would have occurred otherwise, what she went through.
In both 2008 and 2009, 29.3% of all deaths in Singapore were due to cancer. If we zoom out and look at the global population, it's 13% of all deaths in 2008. This can probably be translated to "of all the ways you can possibly die, there's a 29.3% chance you're going to die from some form of cancer if you're Singaporean, or generally a 13% chance no matter where you are."
Personally I think everyone should read about how cancer patients die and be prepared for it. After all, even kids can get cancer. I bet euthanasia will get a lot more support when that happens.
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