In Soviet Thailand, Internet Blpcks You!

Over the past few nights I have been experiencing serious internet blockades from the Thai Government. How do I know that it is a blockade from the government and not a simple case of me having a shitty connection? Well guess what? I was unable to access any websites other than those by google and the THAI GOVERNMENT BODY... Well whaddayakno~

I wonder how these people actually thought that blocking access from within would be a good idea...

Was it to make sure that the people can't get information from foreign sources?

Do they even think it would be possible given the complexity of today's technology? Not to mention the fact that it would be impossible to permanently block out lest they wanna fall into the same category as China in the book of human rights.

Maybe they wanna do a sweep of the internet for websites that are deemed offensive and illegal? That can't be true either, Singapore does that all too regularly but we don't get downtimes anyways? Unless you're telling me their ISP's are that bad... In that case I guess that's the other reason why they call it ThaiLANd... hmmm

I've also published another article.

Anyways, 3 days left! Get those red carpets ready now! hehe...

Tetritical Aeroacrophobia

Many may already know how crazy I am about Tetris.

While many of my friends play the game for pure entertainment purposes, I find entertainment in hearing the sound of the blocks clearing.

Something so simple, yet so technical, the game is one of the few that really shows the score difference between a trained professional and a leisure player!

Therefore, I have decided to impart 4 basic pointers to anyone who wishes to attain Tetris Euphoria.

Rule 1: 4-in-1

While many people prefer to clear the blocks one line at a time, which seems like the quickest way of clearing, it would actually be a better option to stack them up and clear them with the long blocks. Reason why doing so and sacrificing the lines per minute and going for big ones is that clearing 4 lines yield a lot more points than single combos. Back-to-Back tetrises(4 liners) also give more scores.

Rule 2: To the Left, To the Left (or right)

The idea of this rule is to push all your blocks to one side of playing field. This is done so for 2 main purposes, to maximize block space for better arrangement as well as to leave the other side for easy access of the long blocks.

Rule 3: Go High!

Tetritical Aeroacrophobia is what I refer to as the fear of speeds at high places in a tetris playing field. Many people tend to panic when the blocks get high, but that is actually a beneficial position for a good player. By having a long column, players can consecutively insert the long blocks for quick scores!

Rule 4: Close the gap

While it might be a good idea to be ambitious, sometimes it would be wiser to just close the pit and start clearing junk. Estimate the situation and bid for time while you wait for the long ones to lower your stacks significantly.

On a side note, today marks the 5-day countdown for my return to Singapore, a countdown marked by me falling off my bed this morning and knocking my knee against a cup! I suppose the Bruce will disappear from Thailand along with the Bruise on his knee...

Buddies at work, Strangers in life?

NO NEED TO THINK ABOUT IT! THIS IS BRUCE'S BLOG ALRIGHT!
Yes it is, I'm just using this template in the meantime while i figure out and learn about how to make my very own template.
Most of you may have noticed that my blogroll has shrunk significantly, that's because i forgot to save before changing to classic... Please leave a tag so that i can link you back thank you.

Anyways, I found out something about my favourite comedy duo a month ago. The group comprises of Hamada Masatoshi and Matsumoto Hitoshi, and calls themselves 'Downtown'. This group masterminded the crazy shows that has been popping up on youtube every now and then, namely silent library and the no laughing punishments, slapstick material for the mindless blokes. But what I really like about the duo is their standup acts. 100% ad-lib, 100% un-scripted.



A little bit of background on the two of them. Matsumoto and Hamada both grew up in the same region of Japan and even went to high school together, so you can pretty much call them childhood friends. You can even see them talking about their childhood in this item.



Now here's what I found out the other day... Apparently, while they appear very close on air, Matsumoto and Hamada never spend time together outside of work. They even made arrangements such that they will never meet each other. Matsumoto doesn't even have Hamada's number! All these despite the great chemistry they have on stage!

I am truly stumped... Would it be that these guys had been best friends before going into the industry, and their personal relationship got bad after? If that's the case, what exactly happened between the two? Now that I know about their relationship, it just makes watching their standups kinda awkward at times...

If you have the chance to go into a successful business with your bestest buddy knowing that you'll lose that relationship, would you still go ahead with it? I prolly wouldn't...

Why do people say TGIF?

Anyways it doesn't seem like everyone is happy about it...

What a crazy week of blogging absence for me.

While I have been busy following up with writing articles, I found the time to do some quick checks on camera prices and found out that the A200 costs about SG$800! Alright man! Khob Khun Kap ah~

And yes, here's another article which published recently. 

I've also changed my blog song to Seikima II's Tatakau Nihonjin, which translates to Fighting Japanese! This was during the time of Japan's rising economy, as well as the time when the only japanese words people knew were brand names and such.

お楽しみして下さい〜*Yes I know this is a rather short post... Writer's block!*

I Remember... I Wonder...

I remember...

I remember a time when I was a skinny little boy.

Injuries and illnesses seemed to like me a lot, and

Mom seemed to like bitter Chinese medicine a lot.

Am I stronger now because of these herbs? Or

Could I have been stronger without?

I wonder...

I remember...

I remember growing up in a gambling den.

People from all sides of the law gathered, and

Put their money and luck on mahjong and poker.

Did I learn the wrongdoings from them? Or

Did I learn to protect myself from these evils?

I wonder...

I remember...

I remember spending weekends on power rangers.

An asian women played the yellow ranger, and

An African American played the black ranger.

Was the show trying to display racial harmony? Or

Was it more of racial colour discrimination?

I wonder...

I remember...

I remember watching education shows.

Sesame street and Pee Wee's Playhouse, to

Barney and Lamb Chop's Play-Along.

Learning to count and spell? Or

Learning to follow orders and signs?

I wonder...

I remember...

I remember being an avid gamer.

Mario on the Nintendo, to

Sonic on the Sega Genesis.

A form of entertainment? Or

A fuel for the techno-hungry?

I wonder...

There are many things that we often wonder about. Could the present be any better had something in the past been changed? I think that many would love to travel back in time to amend their mistakes, but I wouldn't; things happen for a reason, it is through this reason that we should accept these events for what they are. Rather than crying over spilt milk, it would be better to understand why it happened and prevent a second time from happening.

PS: This is my first time writing something sophisticated, or what I think it is... Don't be harsh on the style please!

i now pronounce you MAN and woMAN

Congratulations to Thomas Beattie on giving birth to his baby girl, making him the first man to ever get pregnant.

With that done, lets move on to the main point shall we?

Living in Thailand, it is pretty easy to understand why this beautiful land has been labelled both the land of a thousand smiles as well as the land of a few thousand Ah Guas. If you're not careful you might find yourself looking up the skirt of a ladyboy (never happened to me, I don't go for upskirts).

Here are some tips to determining if they are of the third gender, stage of development doesn't really matter:

1. Size of their hands

2. Shoulder width

3. A manly face

4. They tend to wear very little in broad daylight

5. Their voice (last resort as it might get your balls grabbed, again this has never happened to me)

But come to think of it, I don't really have a problem with these people. I don't have problems being around them, but of course I'll send them to the death hotel if they try anything funny with me.

Let's suppose that there is no third gender, and we must put them into a specific gender: male or female. If that's the case, how would you determine one's gender?

Thomas Beattie's case was interesting. His ID shows that he is a man, he certainly looks like a man. But he does have a womb and has developed ovaries, but after going through breast reduction and testosterone treatment, he is now a married man despite the fact that he chose to keep the reproductive organs.

You do know that we are all born females and it was the testosterone that cause our bodies to develop from female to males, right?

So lets take a look, Beattie is a human with a functioning womb, possibly a functioning set of ovaries, fully functioning male body with facial hair and all. Most interestingly, the testosterone has enlarged his clitoris into what looks like a penis (happens to male babies in the womb). Is this what categorises him as a male? I think that it's fair enough to call him a man now. It doesn't really matter if he was born a woman.

If you put it in the legal standpoint, rape requires forced penetration from a man to a woman. If a man, who is no longer a man since missing his reproductive organ, he wouldn't be viable for rape now would he?

I'm beginning to talk nonsense so I should stop here. Do take note that I've taken down ads as I found them troublesome and pointless. Also note that I am 24 days away from coming home, ROLL OUT THE RED CARPETS!

EVERYBODY DIES

Duri introduced me a game yesterday. When I heard the title 'DEFCON', I thought of Defense Readiness Condition and that it might have something to do with real time strategies.

How right I was, he later told me the website was www.everybody-dies.com.

So I tried playing the game, and I actually enjoyed the style of this game. Basically you look at a 80's inspired war map and your units basically appear as symbols. This polished look on your LCDs really bring you into the feeling of being a military commander but brings you away from something which I will touch on later.

You take control of defense and offense for your region, such as North America and the USSR. And the aim of the game is to kill as much of your opponent's civilian population as possible. Of course, it will never be possible to shoot down all the nukes that are aimed at your cities so the key is to balance offense and defense priorities.

However, this game slowly brought me to an understanding, that there is no such thing as an 'absolute win' when it comes to wars. Much like the movie 'war games' which inspired much of the game, there will always be losses on both sides and justification should not even be thought of; the numbers are too big - ''A strange game, the only move is not to play.''

There is no way to win a thermo-nuclear war. When you think about it, how sure are you that you can attack a country and have them not be able to fight back? Are you really that capable of disarming ALL of their retaliation capabilities instantly? What if they fight back and kill millions of your people? It's like playing a game of russian roulette, with 5 bullets instead of 1.

It is always easy to try to justify the deaths of soldiers, that they have fought with honour, that they at least contributed to the attack. But what happens when you find that innocent civilians are blown up because they are there? This brings me to what the game DEFCON brings you away from - the ability to see the consequences of nuking a city. Images of people simply disintegrating from the blast, bodies cooked from the boiling rivers and lives in misery and illness from the fallout.

And then there are those that are thrown into the battlefield despite their unwillingness to. Given a uniform and a rifle, these people are told to 'make the nation proud'? I would make my nation proud by steering it out of trouble's way!

When we look into past conflicts, we often see that the longer they take, the more negative the views on the attackers get. Just ask yourself why there are still people throwing stones at the US army, when what they did was 'liberate' the people. Well, lets just hope these stones don't turn into grenades if they continue staying there.

With far more serious issues at hand such as dwindling resources, pollution and failing economy, I think it would be a better choice to stop the fighting and start on the preparation because our future is a dark one.

War, War Never Changes. - Quote from the Fallout series.