My Housemate

I have a friend. His name is Hubert. He is also my housemate. As well my colleague. But most importantly, he’s my friend.

Hubert and I, we’ve been housemates for more than 3 years. I didn’t know him at all at first, it was another housemate of mine who suggested that I should rent out a room to him. Which I did. And I’m glad I did.

Hubert’s a peculiar person sometimes. Well, for one, he only drinks bottled water. Secondly, his choice of food is almost a routine. He goes to the same eateries and have the same food so often that waiters and waitresses know him well. He goes to the same bakery so often enough that once, the cashier told him that he can pay for his purchases the next day because the store didn’t had change at that time. He refuses to try the food I make. Haha. He doesn’t think I’m a bad cook (I hope), rather he’s just particular about his food.

At home, when it comes to college assignments, he does them with such intensity and focus it’s scary. He would toil over his assignments day after day without the slightest bit of slacking off. He outpaces every single one when it comes work. His results outclasses everyone by a mile. His productivity is more than 3 people combined. Unknowingly, he keeps my own work in check because I feel like I have to do something, anything, whenever I see him while he’s on the frightening superhuman-work-mode. He works hard, but never loses his composure. I swear he emits some kind of aura that would frighten even Superman. Kryptonite is nothing.

The phrase “work hard, play hard” can’t be used any more accurately to describe Hubert. Because he plays as hard as he works. He sure does know how to enjoy himself, going places, getting good food and stuff like that. One day you see him typing code for 10 hours straight, the next day you never see him at all because he’s spending the same amount of time hanging out. It takes a little time to get used to when you have a housemate like him.

Beyond the superhuman character, you’ll find a Friend. In caps.

He offers help whenever you may need it, and rarely ever asks for favours and never for a milisecond shows a single bit of hesitation. He can go out of his way to help a lot of people, who at the end wouldn’t realise it but he’ll still be all cool.

We spent quite some time working together in the earlier years when we were classmates. We worked on the same assignments as group members, we hold “meetings” at home by staring at each other say “you do this and I do this” and carry on with our own work the next minute because neither of us believe in the typical formal-meetings-which-never-get-anything-done idea. The next “meeting” would be to report our progress and if all goes well, we’ll do the customary “you do this and I do this” again. And before long, taa-dah. All done. Assignments have never been easier. Sadly, as we progressed further into our courses, we no longer had the same classes as we were into different specialisms.

Outside of work, we play badminton together. He demolishes me all the time. Dang.

Once, he had the nerve to not warn me about his (awesomely gorgeous) girlfriend coming over and introduced me to her the minute after I woke up with a look as presentable as an ape. Sheesh.

He’s also what I would call as my hall-mate. Unlike most common home arrangements, our computers (a.k.a lifelines) are placed in the hall. We practically live, breathe, and eat in the hall together. With the exception of sleeping. Our silence is often accompanied by the very rapid tippity-tappity sounds from our keyboard and we take turns to switch on our music player. Sometimes, I watch him code and sometimes he watches me game. We talked and we laughed, right there in the hall with no one else (considering my other housemate is almost never at home). It’s a joy talking to him because we tend to agree with each other and have similar levels of understanding on a lot of things. Except software architecture because I would look like an idiot compared to him.

He buys me yummy stuff when he goes for holidays. When I was hospitalised that once, he brought his friends whom I do not know to visit me. It was a surprise under rather unpleasant circumstances, but he made it less unpleasant. He totally surprised me with a birthday cake which he sneaked into the house during my birthday when everyone else was working their butts off (including myself).

He is leaving tomorrow for Indonesia. He’s going back for good. He made me sadder today by buying me half a dozen J.Co donuts while he was hanging out at The Pavilion. Because I didn’t manage to get anything for him.

So, this is for you, Hubert.

I wish you all the very best in all your undertakings, and in the event you return to Malaysia one day, you know who to call.

Thank you for being my housemate, hall-mate, colleague, badminton sparring partner, transport minister, programming partner, lunch-mate, Indonesian culture advisor, imported yummies supplier, emitter of tension-causing-aura-to-keep-my-work-in-check and most of all -

- Thank you for being my friend.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

This is a lovely song. A medley of two timeless oldies - Somewhere Over The Rainbow and What A Wonderful World by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, a Hawaiian musician.

I like the two original songs, but I have to say, I like this one better.

Dreams

I had a dream last night.

I was stuck on an island. With a bunch of people. We were hiding from something. I don’t remember what, but it was something frightful. The people in my dreams seemed alive. The fear we had seemed real. The despair we had was crushing.

It was a dream. A very different dream.

My dreams usually depict me running away from something. Often zombies. When I’m on the run, I sometimes meet people I know a long the way. But they almost never acknowledge me when I call for help. It’s as though I’m invisible to them. I had no choice but to continue running. However, I don’t usually feel fear. Not despair too. Not the way I felt last night.

I believe dreams mean something. It’s hard to ignore the unlikelihood of having same dreams day after day. Yet it happened.

But the question is, what do they really mean? And why the sudden change of dreams?

(No, I don’t watch Lost)

Vote now or else…

 Loading ...

I’m retiring the previous poll of which continent you’d like to go. It’s been a while, but more importantly, it’s because there’s a need for a new one.

 Loading ...

Yes, I know it’s ridiculous. But I need to know this. Zhongy insists that people would prefer fried cockroaches over iguanas, but I think otherwise. So tell me, which would you prefer?

Crysis

Crysis is undoubtedly one of the most hyped games of 2007. As well as 2006. It has been in development by Crytek for quite a while, occasionally having its videos and images shown in game expos and published on the net which often resulted in anxious gamers having to pick their jaws up from the floor.

At first, I was worried that it would end up a turkey. Nothing more than a graphical powerhouse and a showcase of technology. I did play the demo, it thoroughly impressed me with its technical accomplishment but the gameplay found in demo was only the tip of the iceberg. I wanted more.

And I got more. A whole lot more. Having completed the demo several times, including on Delta mode (hardest difficulty), I got cocky and thought that I could handle Hard mode throughout the game. Oh boy, I was in for bumpy ride. I got my ass kicked by Korean soldiers and some mean-looking aliens.

Sure you have the awesome Nanosuit which looks uber cool, lets you jump onto rooftops, gives you strength to punch jeeps away, lets you run faster than a speeding bullet (not really), allows you to cloak yourself and stalk people like the Predator and stops bullets with your chest. It sounds all cool. It IS cool.

But when you take into account that the Korean soldiers in the game seem to be able to absorb a few bullets too many before they would bite the dust and that they too have the Nanosuit (albeit the Petaling Street version), your own suit doesn’t seem so cool anymore. Powerful, but definitely not invincible, as I’ve been reminded so many times by the not-so-friendly soldiers. And tanks. And gunship helicopters. And screechy aliens. And freeze-ray-spouting flying-robotic-octopuses.

The flow of the game was amazing. I was constantly on the edge of my seat (sometimes out of frustration from dying too many times) and you just feel like going on and on to find out what’s going to happen next. Gameplay is based on quite standard mechanics but brilliantly executed. Not one scene or task felt repetitive and there’s always just enough of gunfights to keep things exciting, but not too many that it felt like Serious Sam. New weaponry are introduced at appropriate intervals to keep gun battles fresh with something new to try. Enemies are varied enough to not make you think that there’s a cloning farm somewhere.

The technical aspects of the game is nothing short of mind-blowing. That’s where Crysis got all the hype in the first place. Featuring the next-gen CryEngine2 which eats graphics cards and processors for breakfast, it produces almost photo-realistic graphics. If you have a machine Spartan enough to handle it, that is. To date, I suppose no practical consumer-level machines can handle it in its full glory. If you don’t have a garden, the jungle in Crysis is the next best thing you can have.

If you do, however, have a garden please go out and enjoy it once in a while. Catch some caterpillars or something.

All the technical excellence aside, I suppose the next best thing Crysis has to offer is its open-ended gameplay. Often, you’ll come across First-Person Shooters which would tell you precisely what to do, where to go, and how you going about doing it. In Crysis, the storyline remains linear, but the how you achieve the given objectives may vary greatly depending on how you prefer to do it. Asked to disable a GPS Jammer? You can either switch on your cloak mode and sneak into the enemy base, turn off the device, and sneak out. Not a single bullet fired - objective achieved. Or, you could go into with guns ablazing, mowing down everything you see, and then turn it off. Still all good. OR, you could just climb up a hill, hide in the bushes, and fire a laser-guided rocket at the device and be done with it. OR, you could switch to Speedy Gonzales mode, run into the base, hack the device, and run off leaving your enemies dumbfounded. Such a variety of ways to tackle a mission opens up for great replayability as sometimes you wouldn’t mind dying as you get to try different tactics the next time.

Overall, I’d say Crysis has met, and even exceeded all my expectations. A simply remarkable game which has definitely earned its place among the greatest games ever made.