This little life of mine.... thus far~

Look around me... Look at these friends (and maybe a few friends of  friends) of mine... Maybe it's just jealousy. Yeah, most likely it is. When I look back on these 4 1/2 years of secondary school, I open my eyes to realise what high-achievers, what big-players, what great lives they get to live, and how they get to develop themselves to be such capable, talented, noteworthy people and get to take part in big scale events only most people can dream of.

They get to take part in the Citrawarna cultural concert-display-thingamajig

They get to take part in royal concert performances

They get to take part in national level camps and conferences

They get to reach national level competitions (be it sports or quizzes or whatever)

They get their names in the newspapers

They have mouth-dropping vocabulary and fluency

They get to be the top student in school, and then those who are top students in the country

They get to have ang-mo-langs to asses their piano exams

They get to wow people with their musical and artistic talent

Et cetera, et cetera, et ce-te-ra......

And what do I have?

Err, I play badminton, but didn't even get to enter MSSD.

Err, I went for a state level science competition but made a mess of ourselves (and by the way the following year's school representative went all the way to wining national level)

Err, I went for national debate (Pfft I didn't even win the round I entered), and even that, was just a one time thing. And I actually went just as a reserve.
Music? Err.............................

Camps? Errr............. Do school-level camps count?

And that's about all.

So apart from 2 competitions, most of my teen/school life has been quite blank. I suppose that's living in a small town. Even a nationwide BSMM body doesnt have any events for us in this teeny weeny little Sitiawan. Haiz~

Study study study. Homework homework homework. I mean yeah sure at least I got hobbies, but I've never been able to put them to good use other than just playing with friends and working up a sweat. And oogling on the internet about cars.

And seeing how mum and dad dont earn big wads of cash, even if I wanted to start a a new hobby like say music, how could I possibly put the extra burden on them for the instruments and lessons?

Speaking of mum and dad, they never earned much in their working days. And now with dad retired except for part time work in his Puchong workshop, mum a housewife, we have to live on dad's EPF funds (excluding my brother with his own job now). So that means we have to stretch our ringgits as far as we can. No overseas vacations, no Iphones and Ipads and ipods, no DSLRs like what the kids have these days, no 1080p HD Sony Vaio or Blu Ray player, we dont have Nokia Xs or Blackberries for handphones, we dont have Beemers and Mercs, and just taking a tour of our house clearly would show that we live in the lower-middle class. Everything around here goes on the basis of "Dont need it? Dont spend on it". So yeah, if your parents have RM100 notes spilling out from their pockets, never take them for granted. Be thankful and grateful for the social status head start you already have. But of course, dont get carried away and be stuck-up, show-offy arrogant either~

I know, I know, "It's only school. You still have so much of life ahead waiting for you" and "Work hard, later on when you get a big job you'll earn lots of money". But c'mon, seeing how other friends get to make such good use of their time, and already developing themselves and their talents or skills, and from a young age already living such a posh life, I just feel...... haiz~

But what's the point right? 4 1/2 years have already passed by. I didnt get to really make the most of it. And its not the most grand of lives I've lived as a teenager. What else can I do? No matter, ahead of me, with a giant lump of effort and determination, I sure do hope that:

If I become a mechanic, I'd be wearing a shirt, snazzy black pants and shiny leather black shoes, working for some professional race team and the garage is spotless

If I were to work in an office, this would be the working attire

I'd get to experience the joy of victory, not necessarily as the driver, but just being a part of the team.

If I were to work in a factory, it'll be like this one.

Of course, it's not the posh and luxurious life I'm after, however I do suppose that working in the automotive/motorsports sector should be rather, I suppose, rewarding.

But most importantly, above all, the one thing which was lacking throughout my schooling life, I'd get to share the automotive passion with lots of other people just like me. Although there wouldnt be that many girls and ladies....

Supercars Vs. SUVs

Initially, this was meant to be an entry entirely to bombard SUVs and their sheer wastefulness and polluting traits. But then it struck me, many people reading would be asking me:

What about your beloved supercars? Aren't they wasteful and polluting too?

Admittedly, yes they are and in fact, far worse than SUVs and 4x4s. For example, http://www.carpages.co.uk/co2/ shows that the UK's 5 worst CO2 emitters  includes 2 Ferraris and a Bentley GTC. These 3 are supercars. And guess what, no SUVs.

And the Lamborghini Murcielago LP640, it has a fuel mileage of around 8-10 miles per gallon. A Toyota Hilux does 30 miles per gallon. That's 3 times the fuel economy of an LP640.

Things dont look good for supercars then. And as such, I can't possibly slam SUVs without getting even worse criticism about our favourite Enzo or Carrera GT. But after I gave it deep thought, there is actually something relating to this issue that I can aim at:
 

SUV owners.


As we know, supercars cost a bomb to buy and maintain. 4x4s however, are not, as you can see on Malaysian roads alone be it in my hometown here or in the big city the roads are teeming with these behemoths. You see, if your job site looks something like this

or if your hobby is going to places like this

or you go to places where your car would usually look like this

then yes, owning a 4x4 is perfectly understandable.



However, that's not what most people (Malaysians at least) use these for. They're always clean, parked outside office buildings, driven alone without carrying anything and worst of all, used to send children to school. I mean, there are good reasons why these things are equipped with all wheel drive, have big fat tires and the space at the back to put stuff that otherwise wont fit in your normal family car. But I must say, I'm nothing but appalled when I see these things on the road, driven by men in office suits and with their cute little 12-year-old daughter alone in the passenger seat. I mean, where's the common sense in this? I have a friend you see, her parents are doctors, and undeniably, she's filthy stinking rich. And yet, she only goes to school or tuition or whatever in this:

A Perodua Kelisa






or this

A Chevrolet Aveo



See? Even though her parents are loaded with cash they can think sensibly when buying a car and not waste the money on a truck because they never go off road in the first place. That's what I'm trying to stress here. You may have the monetary rights to buy as you please, but if you have the money to buy a Toyota Hilux or a Mitsubishi Triton, why not at least spend it on something more sensible like a Toyota Vios or a Honda City if you never need to go off road anyway? It's pure retarded-ness. Why is it that you need a freaking truck or a Honda CRV just to transport a human being no more than 1.6 meters tall and not weighing more than 50 kilograms? Why is it you need to drive an Isuzu D-Max when your job only requires you to sit in an air-conditioned office? And more so when your commute to work is nothing but smoothly paved roads which any normal family car could handle. It's uber retardation I say. It's not only Malaysians however, as you can see:

Hilary Duff and her Mercedes G Class SUV

Denise Richards and her Mercedes GL SUV

Brooke Shields and her Mercedes G Class

Matthew McConaughey and his GMC Yukon Denali

Will Smith with another Merc GL






*smacks forehead*




And mind you, people dont use Lamborghinis and Ferraris to go to work or send their kids to school or go to the shops on a daily basis. Take that.

Need For Speed World Update 2

This "Disconnected from server" issue really is not doing me any favours at all with playing this game. I can never play for more than 10 minutes before I get cut off.... Hopefully the guys from EA have a solution to this. But anyways today I've managed to try out pursuit chases. In NFSW you engage in one by hitting any police car that might be patrolling around the game, and the rest is pretty much the same as in Undercover, Carbon and Most Wanted. No glitches at all so far, runs well on windowed mood, is stable with Firefox in the background and the recording tool I used to take these photos (as well as a sample video) which is FRAPS does not seem to interfere with the game at all. Vinyl editing has also become extremely easy and I'm sure the easiest since Carbon. So in a nutshell, it's a good, visually impressive game, simple to use interface, but the main drawback thus far is the unstable connection...

Need For Speed World Update 1

I'll be effectively be in Twitter mode with this game, keep your eyes peeled for the updates to pile on as I make my way through the game (that is if you bother). So here's my first update batch:



After a few times of being unable to connect to the servers to start last night, I finally managed to log in. Controls are smooth, overall appearance looks nice. Nice collection of cars to start with (Me choosing the Nissan Silvia S15. Other cars in higher classes include the Cayman S, GTR and Gallardo LP560.)  I had to set my resolution to 800 x 600 and medium graphics details if to play smoothly, with the default 1024 x 768 and High details being slightly choppy for my Nvidia GeForce 8400GS @ 512MB to handle. After trying my first race in Single Player mode, I (again) got disconnected from the server and the game closed. Tried again, this time with a Multiplayer Race, but I get a network error (see the last pic). So I decided to customise my Nissan Silvia and (again......) disconnected from server. Wait, before you point the finger at Streamyx, I'd clarify that other players around the world are having this issue too. Well, I'll just keep playing and giving feedback to EA so that this game runs better.

Note the error message in the box at bottom left

Need For Speed World

*aherm* Did anyone see that last entry on Sunday?  No? Ok good. *sweeps under the rug*


Aaaaanyway  I'm back after having finished exams today (actually Friday but who cares about Sivik and PJ?) and to start off.... Jeng jeng jeng....

As any Need For Speed fan would know, the gaming series is currently developing its next release called World for the PC, and is the first Massive Multiplayer Online Racing Game (MMORG) since Motor City Online (which frankly I never knew existed), but for me, this will be my first time playing any online game of any sort (Oh wow I'm coming out of my entertainment shell, yay). Having missed out on Shift (now when I think about it, I dont know why I didnt buy the game), I couldnt wait to rejoin the series since Undercover (which wasnt exactly a wow game, but not bad either) and after following each game starting from the Playstation 1with NFS 2:

NFS III, 

NFS 4 (High Stakes),

NFS 5 aka Porsche Unleashed, 

then on the PS2 with NFS Hot Pursuit 2, 

Underground, 

Underground 2,

Most Wanted, 

Carbon,

and Prostreet (which frankly was a letdown)

Okay fine, I didnt play the very first NFS game (boo) but hey, 11 out of 12 isnt bad right? And now with NFS World on the way, make that 12 out of 13. Wooo~ =D

Anyways back to NFS:W, so the guys at EA decided to let the public be the ones to test the beta version of the game (you can too, its not too late) by signing up at http://world.needforspeed.com/, apply for the beta, follow some procedures which are pretty simple, and just wait. Myself, I've been waiting for 1 1/2 months, and finally today (such great timing) I got the confirmation email from EA notifying I've been picked for this beta testing session which runs till Sunday, 13th June. Now I got SOMETHING really worth doing for the first half of the holidays~ *squeals* Of course, being a loyal follower of the series I am, I was euphoric, since out of the (probable) millions who applied, this beta consists of only over 150,000 people. That's a freaking small chance of actually getting chosen, and I'm one of them! *Light shines form above* But not to worry, with each beta the number of participants increases as well so that more and more people will have a chance of testing this brand new game. And when NFS World IS released, and it (very hopefully) becomes a major success (hopefully knocking DoTa or WoW or Maple off their thrones, although unlikely) there wont be any better feeling than being part of the contribution in developing this game. *Light shines down again* Buuuuuut of course before I can start.....

I'll try to get pictures and maybe even a video or two, so stick around if you don't wanna miss those~