How to Spot a Game That You Should Not Play

Now that I'm back in high spirits again. Let's continue our journey through my rambling and potentially misleading opinions that are (personally) still a lot better than the recent news media activities. Today I want to talk about video games, but not in why would people play one. Most importantly, why people wouldn't want to instead. A lot of game makers got too focused on the things that they should be doing for the game, but forgetting about the things that they should avoid in the process.

Let's start with the basics, shall we. First, let's discuss the simple question: what is a "video game"? I'm going to go ahead and politely steal from wikipedia because I don't have the talent on describing things: A video game is an electronic game that involves human interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. The word video in video game traditionally referred to a raster display device, but it now implies any type of display device that can produce two- or three-dimensional images.

So why would people play video games? If you're honestly asking that question because you actually don't know the answer, then I'll asume you got hit in the head so bad that you lost half of your common sense. It is obviously to have fun, why else would you waste your precious time staring at a screen pressing buttons and not getting any notable reward for it?

Seriously, why?

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Tank Scorned

Finally free from my Technology Infrastructure take-home exam. It was probably the worst exam I had experienced yet ever since I took my Master degree. We were tasked to form a company strategy from a scratch for an imaginary airline company regarding the Information Technology department. The test required a lot of stuffs to explain, such as the current status of the industry, the application to be used and why, the structure for the IT department that we would create, and a Gantt chart that we never have learned at all before.

I was so proud of my work that I would love to share it to you guys, but I know you don't want to read seven-pages long of something that doesn't interest you nor do I want to write them all over again, so I'm going to summarize it in one picture. Because, you know, they said a picture is worth a thousand words.

Here you go

Sharing is Caring... Depending on What You're Actually Sharing

I had a brief nightmare last night. It's not something that I want to remember, ever, but I did anyway. Let's just say that it's about alien infestation and dead cats, and that's it. I know that some of my readers are cat lovers like myself, and the internet practically worships them, so I'm going to spare everyone the details.

Not to mention that they are watching, from everywhere, everytime

Give Us More Good News Please

Hey guys, did you know that Indonesian people are actually smart?

Yeah, I know, suprising right?

No, I mean it. Aside from the famous people - like Mr. Habibie, our aeronautics expert, or Mr. Anwar, the 4G inventor - which are pretty much known around the world, we also got the young ones coming out on top of the intellectual race and they're pretty much nobody compared to the big shots out there before they managed to came up with something awesome.

Seeing is Not Believing for Some People

One day, my friend asked me this: "Have you ever felt so annoyed you feel like stabbing someone?"

Boy, you have no idea

I told him I'd just write it off whenever that kind of thing happens, since I could rant however I want without actually hurting anyone. Although most of the times I would just go on a virtual killing spree to ease that bloodlust.

Another Serious Post

I went to another Jumu'ah last Friday, as usual. With the difference being that this is the fasting month of Ramadhan, which means that school kids are on the holiday, so it was a lot more crowded than usual.

Of course I tried to go to sleep after I found a spot to sit somewhere around the stairs on the back entrance. But it's not because I got sleepy, my body halready had its revenge this morning. It's mainly because I don't really want to hear the khutbah because, well, it bugs me. It was mostly about the law made by God vs the law made by humans, and the content along with the deliverance method felt too extreme for me.

The khatib stated that the law made by God is absolute, which is kinda true when we (us muslims) think about it since they're stated in the holy Qur'an and all. But the other thing he pointed out is that everything else can suck satan's dick.

So basically, everyone else is Saddam Hussein

"Me Dissapointed! Me Angry! Grimlock Hate Human Bay!"

I was a real fan of Transformers back in my childhood, I enjoyed the G1 cartoons and I even endure the poorly dubbed animated Beast Wars series, just because. I used to have a lot of Transformers toys, from the small ones up to the almighty Devastator himself. They are all no longer with me, sadly. The last one I had fell over the window of my crib back on my first year of college.

And even now that I have forgotten most important parts from the series, I am still a fan, albeit not as enthusiast as the other real hardcore fans out there. As I grew older, and the technology kept advancing, there was one thought that keeps popping in my head: "Why haven't we got a Transformers movie yet?"

My wish came true back in 2007, a Transformers movie was finally released, and I was overjoyed beyond words. I immediately asked my girlfriend (yes, I had one real, flesh-and-blood girlfriend before, now close that gaping mouth) to watch it with me.

It was astounding. All the scenes with the vehicles transforming into giant robots completely enchanted me. I didn't even care that the acting were so mediocre and the jokes were bad; it was a Transformers movie for crying out loud. I even clapped along with some other fans in the studio to the point we almost did a standing ovation when Optimus Prime finally showed up.

'Almost', because otherwise we would expose our boner from this one scene

Dark Side, Light Side, Whatever

I've talked about how I never liked politics before. If I have to rank it in my most hated conversation topics, it's right there below 'Sports' and slightly above 'Religion debate'. Because just like the latter, no matter what you say won't sway the other party to your side - and just like the former, no matter how much you're in love with it doesn't mean that you need to express it thoroughly to every single person in your life. Really, how would YOU feel when us gamers start blabbering to no end about our world?

"So get this, the guy went 1v2 and then he pulled out a combo from his Q and W and finish them up with his ult, so awesome!! Right? Right?! Hey, are you listening?"

And these days, as if spreading black campaigns and made up articles were not enough, people in the social media have been putting up their profile picture with a clear statement of who they are supporting for the next presidential election, and claiming that their choice is "the right one". Since someone already went all-out grammar nazi about this phenomenon, I'm going to talk about it from other perspectives.

It Was All Me, Sorry

I realized I haven't posted anything recently, and I would like to apologize - especially to myself. Well, it's not like I can help it, really. Surely I can give some other reason for not updating, but I think it would be futile because why should I lie anyway.

Especially since I learned I can't exactly hide everything

The Internet is (Not Just) for Porn

Okay, I've been holding this one back up for a while even though one of my best friend urged me to do it quite a while ago, because despite the topic is an interesting one to discuss, it's still something quite dangerous to talk about because it involves some privacy and different point of views. But then this son of a bitch came along and decided to do yet another retarded thing for reasons that doesn't make any goddamn sense, I just have to do this after all.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls; I'm going to talk about porn.

And then there was much rejoicing

Let's Meet Up... Somewhere

Hello there, gorgeous beings. Today I'm going to expose the shame (pride?) that most of us Indonesian people have in common. I'm going to talk about how we arrange appointments.

How appoinments are supposed to be made?

Let's see the ideal conditions in an appointment, I'm going to use an "unofficial group meet up" situation as an example. First thing first, the time and location of the meeting must be arranged and decided beforehand, surely no one wants to go blindly with no idea when or where they should be for the appointment.

Not all of us can fast travel, you know

Next is the list of people that will come, participants should let everyone else know whether they are available on the said time, and of course whether they are familiar or at least know the location of where the meeting will take place.

Finally, before the appointed day comes, or at least several hours before the meet up time, make sure you tell anyone attending should it turns out that you can't come after all. Your prescence might not be important for the whole thing, but at least it shows that you are a responsible person.

Election? More Like Gambling

I've never liked politics, not even once. Even when I was a child I could see a lot of things that are wrong about it; First we had a president (God rest his soul, for he's still a human being) that never gave up his seat for more than 30 years, and then we had an "obvious winner" political party and two other background players that are there just for the sake for democracy but they'll never win the elections anyway, finally we had people willing to give up their humanity and sees anyone else with different allegiance as an enemy to the point that they would use violence.

And then there was a turning point, called the New Order, which happened after the legendary economic crisis back in 1998 forced the late president to step down and thus began an era where freedom of speech can finally be made reality without anyone saying the wrong things about the goverment would suddenly disappear without a trace (thus explains why I'm still here after those previous sentences). Which means the dominating party will no longer have their own way because the poeple were finally free to make their own choice. So it's a happy ending, right? I mean, it's not like everyone will just go and try to claim the leadership seats now that they are available for anyone-

Well, shit

Since I'm pretty sure you can't read that because I had to zoom out for quite a lot to get a full list in print screen, that was the result of the 7 June 1999 Indonesian People's Representative Council election results. And those are not names of people; those are the names of the political parties that participated in the election, all 48 of them. Bloody hell, it's like looking at the list of The Idolm@ster - Million Live characters, with the lack of cute girls.

I mean, seriously? All of a sudden we got freaking 48 parties from the usual three? I understand that we gained the right to voice our opinion freely, and the best seats are no longer reserved for that "winner" party and instead open for any qualified people. But that doesn't mean we had to go full retard like that, especially with the haunting fact that.... there were no qualified people in the end.

No, really, the majority of them were people who either faked their diploma(s), using their relatives name to gain sympathy from people, put their whole goddamn curriculum vitae on their election banner, celebrities, or just there for the ride to fame and money. If you thought I was exaggerating, well tough luck to you guys, that's what really happened. There were (and still are) representatives who frequently absent from the job, sleeping in council meetings, and sometimes fighting as in throwing fists at each other. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them decided to get smart and watch porn instead... Oh wait, that happened too.

At least he's at peace with his mind

And those are still a trend up until now, and I was only talking about the candidates, the campaign methods are even worse. Violent campaigns are still around, even though it has been reduced greatly compared to 10 years ago. The ever-so-effective money politics method is still at large. Candidates pretending to pay attention to the lower class people and giving them the middle finger after they got elected are also unavoidable, I am aware that this is a global trend in political activities. There are still parties who do their campaign by giving out performance by erotic dangdut dancers. Faking pictures and videos of celebrities supporting their party, for a more high-tech ones. And of course, the mixing of  humanitarian act for people who suffered from natural disaster with personal gain to get elected by the people they "helped".

"What? At least I gave you a biscuit to eat during the flood, don't be a whiner and vote for me"

The new booming trend however, are the black campaign to make other parties look so bad in the media while making their own party look so holy and pure, making propaganda websites and fake newstories, and bringing up racial subjects and/or religion to the campaigns in order to easily snatch dumb "religious" people and bigots to their side, because apparently there are a lot of them here as well. It might sound stupid and dangerous at the same time to mix them up in political campaign, but it actually worked. Just ask my religious parents who support a certain party so much that they got so angry and literally cried when me and my brother refused to listen their recommendation to vote for it, saying things like we're ungrateful kids who never listened to them and whatnot.

Just what's going to happen here, are we really going for the road of racist extremists who would promote our own religion while subtlety (or blatantly) condemn another? Are we going back to the era where we unconditionally hate the people who were not born with local genes? How about they just start a new kind of KKK or Neo-Nazi here, because I don't know what's what anymore. I've discussed the topic of leadership*religion before, and it's really sad to know that the majority of people involved in politics seem to care about your belief/race first, and everything else comes later on.

Actually worshipping her would make more sense, really

Today, we had another election period for the representative council, and later on, the President. With 15 policital parties to choose from (from the original 34), and with up to 7 candidates for each party. And honestly, with all those bullshits concerning the politics around here, I just have no faith in any one of the candidates, especially since there are no data about the candidates' qualities at all.

Blind-picking like this for the sake of the candidates instead of having enough information for us voters feels even worse than playing League of Legends in solo queue (at least there is still a chance you get a good team, or the enemy team got that retard you don't want in yours). I did picked one that looked like Morgan Freeman, but that's it. I'm starting to think that having Kuroko as the president later on wouldn't be such a bad idea

Her leadership qualities would still make up for the unavoidable amount of missing panties

Suddenly Serious Post

Today is one of the rare cases that I didn't fell into a deep slumber during the Jumu'ah (Friday prayer) khutbah (preaching) like the majority of other people, mostly because there are kids sitting next to me that were playing whatever kids these days do and kept talking through the rest of the khutbah.

I did fell asleep, but not to the extent I completely forgot where I was and what I was doing. However, I do notice that I have been developing the ability of still paying attention while taking a light nap, although the required condition is that I shouldn't be too tired to begin with.

Not as good as this girl, but it's a start

That being said, I managed to catch some of the contents, which is the importance of having a muslim leader. Now this is something that I still have a problem to accept, even though it is true that having a leader with the same belief as you do will make tolerance and harmony within the group/organization easier, the fact remains that A LOT of muslim people took that concept literally and with no further comprehension, just like most of other concepts out there.

The khutbah gave an example about a town led by a christian because no muslim dared to step up and be the leader (this is most likely just a story). The non-muslim leader was unable to hold proper funeral rites when a citizen died because he has no clue of how to do it in islamic way, especially since he don't know how to read arabic. However, since he's dedicated to his job he managed to do so with whatever resources and options he has access to.

The morale of the story was supposed to be that "we should be ashamed if a non-muslim can pull it off while other muslims can only sit back and watch him do leadership stuffs while eating popcorn and listening to religious speeches", but many would also translate the story to "a muslim should stand up and be a leader, doesn't matter if he's the worst candidate there is, as long as he's a muslim". This is a serious mistranslation because we already know how bad it would be if a country or an organization is led by a 'muslim' with the worst method of leadership point of view.

"Hi"

And this is an opinion of mine that might get me flamed by islamic extremists; I think the current Pope is a lot more muslim than the we do. Many of the things he did for the people, save the religious practices, are the things that were actually taught by Islamic teachings. You know, like being nice to people whatever their background and religion is, being humble and not a hedonist, accepting the fact that people are different with each other and we should live together in harmony and not judging them simply because of who and what they are, remember all that?

I'm not exactly a proper muslim myself, far from it, really. But at least I know what should be expected from someone who is supposed to be an example for the rest of us despite whatever belief he has. The point is having the proper quality to be a leader is a lot more important compared to the religious 'requirements' for it. If the leader is doing a good job, then support them and help them keep up the good work. If the leader sucks at their job, then they should be replaced by whomever that are more qualified to do so.

Unless, of course, the other candidates are also full of crap

That being said, I believe that every religion's teaching is supposed to make people be good to themselves and those around them as well. And, yes, even though my belief in religion is around the grey area (which mostly involved eroticism ideals), there are rules that I do follow. As a human being, we'd love to live in a world where all people can share the world together despite whatever beliefs they have, because it is something that we can all look forward to.

Your religion is yours, and mine is mine, but when we are interacting please put whatever concept we have aside and let's treat each other like a normal person would wanted to be treated like.