Yikes! Are we lagging behind or what?

This is bizarre man!
I was manning my sales booth which was selling PC games.
Every now & then I had to demo my wares to the crowd.

Of course being a good serviceman, I had to let potential customers have a go at the games.

Here's the suprising part: A Korean boy about 10 yrs of age (Expatriate family, I guess) took about 10 mins to understand the controls of a PC game and was able to handle with competency in the game. He was having fun and laughing away.
After that he thanked me for letting him play, I said: "No problem."

A local boy took over him (same age from the looks of it). He didn't bother to read the controls or understand what the PC game is all about.
3 mins into game, he was frustrated and angry.
I told him gently to read the instructions. He gave me a pissed look, hammered the keyboard and stormed off.
That's wasn't very nice.

The next kid joined in. This time, an older one about 11 years old.
Also the same behavior, didn't read the instructions and was also struggling with the game.
He asked me help him play. I did and sometime later, he asked me hand over the controls to him. So I did.
When he ran into something he can't handle, he asked me intervene again.
This went on until I went to handle a customer service issue.

But this incident left me something: Local kids on the whole aren't just on par with the kids from Korea, Japan or USA. Maybe I am wrong.
A small minority like the ones from Well-to-do Families and the wealthy elites most probably can handle them.
My niece and nephew who has a wealthy dad can handle more maybe just as well as myself when it comes to competition.

I thanked my mom & dad for giving a good education & teaching me to value education above all.

Which an event like WCG or CPL comes in mind; How can anyone field a credible team that can take on formidable ones like UK or USA if the common man can't even handle a simple PC game?

Look for the elites? Elites are minority for goodness sake!
They are too few in IMHO to for a decent player.

Plus this is compounded by the fact that many are PC tech challenged.
"My PC is XP wan!" "XP can work always!"
This is most common answer I get when I asked for the PC configuration from some customers.

Windows XP is the OS (Operating System)
It is not the CPU or the speed or the graphics card in your PC.
BTW PC means Personal Computer.
If you don't even know your PC config, can it be called Personal?

Also I got cases like customers buying the one & only PC of their lives.
Again I got railed by them for selling too advanced games.

Man, I can go on and on.
As any guy would have told you it's bad biz to bad month your customers.
So I would just stop from here.

The point is that the common citizenry is so tech challenge that many think that a PC is a just fancy entertainment tool.
In reality, it is not.
It's better than an X Box or PS2 because one can cutomised it or upgrade it when the invoilved parts is old.
Every1 know that you can't do that with the X Box or PS2.

What's more I feel that Counterstrike has poisoned my nation's people mind.
What I meant is the CS as it is called; has its poularity attributed to the game's ease of playing and low system requirement.
Resulting hundreds of LAN shops that specialises in CS only opening up in 1999. Most of them closed in 2003 when the boom busted.
But the game left an indelible mark in the nation's youth's psyche.

They play only CS and nothing else. Everything is nonsense except CS.
Even when the game is outdated in the fast moving world of PC gaming, people still clung onto CS like it's the anchor of their lives.

Till today, I get people asking: "Do you sell CS?"

Yes, I do play CS. But after the better games has been produced, I moved on to other games.
I owned CS my skill, tactics and strategies.
I used what I learned and apply it to other games. (Which I think is the way to go)
Not just spend your life perfecting CS, only to find out it's a game of the Bygones era.

Then there's Warcraft 3, again the whole thing / shebang starts............
Why not? It also have low system requirements plus the ever popular mod, DOTA.

I just do not understand why people would play and stake their time in winning this outdated game.
I need some1 to enlighten me on this. Anyone?

Here's the problem our country faced on the whole: (The majority not minority)
1.) PC tech challenged (Don't know your PC systen configuration)
2.) PC Gaming skill challenged (Narrow point of view and thinks winning is everything)
3.) No drive to improve oneself (The PC you buy is the 1 and only you need in your whole life)

More to come in the next entry!

Ladies and Gentelmen,Something Different!

Allow me to introduce this book:
Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World.

This book when I read it first in 2001 blew me away.
It shows science as a light in the mental darkness of one's mind.
Things that cannot be explained by science is considered to be miracle or simply magic to many.

But it explains how people shouldn't do that. Because ignorance is not bliss at all.
It make people's mind shallow and unable to seek a better life for themselves.
No, I am not talking about money making.

I am not a rich guy at all.
(The Rich can have ignorant people in their ranks too. What makes anyone think the Rich are smart as well as savvy?)
Money doesn't solve at all problems. It make things done easier.

The book also says about the Basis of Founding a credible country which I liked and why I at times being an amatuer scientist takes some time off being a political historian.
(Ah ha! I don't certainly denounce my government for a bunch of piss ants!)

Remember my fellow country men: "Real Patriots ask questions."

It is sad part of us that we have a habit of tendency repeat the same mistakes again & again.
We are afraid of people who's a little different from us.
When scared, we start pushing people around
That's not important part here.
We Can Be Manipulated into Utter senselessness by clever politicians.
Like a hypnotist, Give us the right leader and we'll gladly do anything he wants including thing we know to be wrong.
( So my countrymen, it is important to go to school, studying and understand what you studying about. Rather then just get the grades and don't know what heck you're here for!)

History has taught us that the powerful and well to do will steal and oppress if given the chance.
The olde government of Europe (in the 1700s to 1800s) under the pretense of Goverment divided their nation into 2 classes: the Wolves and Sheep or (The Eater and the Eatee!)
Thomas Jefferson when serving as an ambassdor in Europe had observed the goverment under the kings and royalty degenerates when it is left to the rules alone. Because rulers by the acts of ruling- misuse public trust.
The citizen/people are the only prudent depository of power. And the people's minds must be improved to know that.

English philosopher, John Stuart Mills reasoned that "Silencing an Opinion" is a peculiar evil.
If the opinion is right, then people are robbed of the "chance of exchanging the error for the truth" & if it is wrong, people are deprived of a deeper understanding of the truth in "its collusion with error".

Mills also states: "If society lets any considerable number of its member grow as mere children, incapable of being acted on by rational consideration of distant motives, society has itself to blame."
Jefferson made the same point with a punch: " If any nation expects to both igonrant and free in a state of civilization, it expect what never was & never will be."
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both & deserve neither." He added.

Therefore when permitted to listen to alternative opinions & engage in subtantive debate, people have known to change their minds. It does happen.

My Mom wanted 2 of us to be in the big 3 jobs: Engineer, Accountant & Doctors.
Well, I didn't make it and winded as a PC games guy and my brother as a psychologist.
She accepts that times have changed.

So what? The big 3 jobs are for the bygones era in the 1980s Boom period.
Stop dreaming about the big 3 jobs! Find your own future and carve a destiny out!

(Excerpts taken from The Demon Haunted World)
Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, I thank you for teaching me and showing me the wonders of science and education

Gamers Gamers Gamers

Why is my country's gamer culture so backward? Or is it?
Just what is the crazy obsession with Counterstrike and Warcraft 3?

These games are sooo yesterday!
I have some pretty cool games like Dawn of War, Battlefield: Modern Battles,.

Yet, they have reached popularity levels no where as CS or WC.
What is wrong with people these days?

I am back from Reservist! I am married and other rants....

Oh yeah!
I am married officially (in documents) to Jean.

The sad thing is that my gramps joined the Choir Invisible in Feb 2006.
What can I say?
The guy's a stubborn man.
When I tried to send him to a doc.

He would delcared: "It's nothing! I am feeling better! I am taking a walk!"
My ass. 6 mths later, I sent him to the hospital and the doc asked me: " Is he a smoker?"
"Yes! He smokes when he was a teenager and quitted when I was kid."
"That explains the 5 cm tumour in his lung."
"I am not suprised, doc. I know I know, he's gonna be no more."

"Bingo on that." say the doc.
"1 week and he will go." He said.
"That's fast."
" What? You want him to suffer another 6 mths?"

"Not really."
"Got any will?"
"Nope. He's not well off."
" Well, he comes in with nothing and goes with nothing. Swell." The Doc said.

Anyway, he lasped in a coma and joined the Heavenly Host after that.
I am not really sad for him not since I lost my old man.
After all, no one lives forever........

I was grateful for him playing my surrogate dad for my teenage years.
He told me that he also lost his dad (great grand pa) when he was a baby.
Life was hard in the 1930s Singapore. It's a bit better now, I think.
He had join secret society (chinese gang) in his youth.
Singapore back then was a rough place to grow up.
1 in 3 children never lived to see adulthood due to BADDD sanitary conditions.

Just then he has seen all it, WW2 came and 3 yrs 8 mouths of Japanese occupation follows.
2 of my grand uncles were "Sayonaraed" by the Operation Sook Ching.
And he became the sole survivor.

After the war, he became a "pirate cab" (Unlicensed taxi) owner, operate a book store and got to know my grand ma.
He told me about then the concept of free love was alien in the 1950s Singapore. Most couples are match made. He did just that (free love) that is to look for life mate actively.

Grandma is illiterate. Gals back than don't go to school (mostly) on ground that they just grow and marry off. So to most really traditional (Backwards in today's terms) Chinese familes, boys are educated and gals......don't get that.
But Grandma's streetwise plus Grandpa's rough upbringing in the streets made it an ideal match.

One of Grandpa ideas in making money in 1950s was selling of Porn!
Yes! Porn existed back then. But it was not titilating as today's.
He sold Porno mags from Europe to the Brits community.

Enough of him;
I married Jean after 3 yrs of courtship.
Now I am arranging for the wedding dinner to held in a hotel.

Reservist!
365 days, 14 days a year.
That sums up reservists duties in my country.

This time, it was army evaluation time.
The brass put up a 2 weeks training regime of costal crossing via boat, marches inland and digging in for defense.

I wasn't exactly the fittest guy around.
But this time, I drew a lot of strength from my mental will and dicovered things I don't normally do.
For a start, the coastal landing was boring but there're guys who puked in the rocky waters.
Then the long march inland..........Helmet, rifle plus a 10kg radio set with 8 mags of ammo is Heavy when one marches kilometers to reach a military objective.
Normally I would kneel over after 1 hrs of marching. But this time, I went on and on. Then it rained at 3 am. Great! A company of men huddled under a shelter to avoid the rain.
"This is soooo Brokeback Mountain." One guys remarked.

After the rain, the march resumed until daylight.
At daylight, it was breaktime. I got everything off and took a long sleep until late afternoon.

The 2nd mission, another march to a grassy knoll in the jungle.
This time it was a wild adventure.
I and an another guy was scouting for "enemies" when we took a wrong turn ran into a mob of "enemies"; with jeeps and trucks.
We fired wildly at them and ran back to our outfit.

They followed naturally. But our outfit was waiting for them........plus we had artillery support in our hands.
What happened was a barrage of gunfire (blanks shots) with a dose of rocket fire left and right.
The witnessing officer screamed: "Enough! Enough! You win! They lost! Ok?"

"Ok. Guys, you can go back to camp. You are all "killed" "He told the enemies' In charge.

My Outfit's officer asked: " Can we take break now? "
"Sure."

We took a break until 5 am & resumed the march to the knoll.
At 7 am, we reached the knoll and waited for rest of the unit to arrive.

The final mission, my unit was to dig in and hold the position.
We have 3 battalions of hostiles laying siege to our position.
My CO came up with a daring plan; he will lead our 3 companies to harass them.
1 company will hold the position.
I was left behind to monitor radio comms;
The fighting was intense. 30min in the fight, there was chaos in the radio net.
Then this guy was injured (simulated) and that guy was dead (simulated) or which squad was wipe out.

Our reserve company was being readied to move in when the brass declared:
"OK, Exercise cut!"

Yes, finally the whole thing had ended.
After that, it is back to camp and go home time.