As the topic says, do you enjoy watching birds? I know that some people might think that it's stupid to just sit down and waste our time watching a bird, but to be honest, bird watching is actually considered a hobby, and some people enjoy doing it on a daily bases!

Some people enjoy this hobby because, as you could guess, it makes them feel comfortable and peaceful by just watching them. Some people do it for educational purposes. At home, we don't feed birds for obvious reasons, but we do put a bowl of cold water for them. What encouraged us to do that is because sometimes we see some scenes like the one below.....

What does this picture tell you? I took this picture back in July so it's clear that they are suffering from the heat and thus they probably came here under the shade to cool down, and thus, it does indicate that they are thirsty in some way, right? So giving them water will not only make them happier, but it also makes us feel better from inside as well, psychologically speaking. Some people have parrots or other types of birds as pets at their homes due to this reason, in order to reduce stress and feel better about themselves, especially for those who love nature.

Do you like watching birds even if it were for a minute? Do you think that watching them does reduce stress and possibly make people overall happier by watching them everyday?

"It's surprising how many persons go through life without ever recognizing that their feelings toward other people are largely determined by their feelings toward themselves, and if you're not comfortable within yourself, you can't be comfortable with others." -- Sydney J. Harris

Hey everyone,

I hope all of you are doing well. Checking back into my last blog, I've realized that I haven't written anything new in 5 months :o Well that's a lot even though university has been killing me with exams, assignments, projects....etc. Not to mention that I had a 5-week summer semester, as well.

So lately I've been spending some time trying to check all the updates that I have missed during the last several months (and still checking), along with trying to read any of your blogs which I haven't read yet.

Anyways, I haven't even made the 7-year account anniversary blog last month, such a shame :( So I'll try to be more active next time. Plus, for gaming updates, the latest game I got is as you can see it below, which I got it on the same day of release (27th July).

I've been looking forward to this game since its announcement at May 2007, so I'm glad that I've finally got it after such a loooong wait :)

How was your summer? I hope none of you had a terrible busy summer like I did, as in my opinion it's a time for people to relax, rather than work harder. Anyways, take care and I'll try to be more active here on GS :)

Before I start with my main topic, I'd like to show you a picture of a game that I've got last Friday (19th of March) which was the second most demanding game on my wishlist and also marked the 6th numbered title from the series in my collection. It's still sealed as you can see :)

Now for the real thing...
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Caution: Before you proceed with reading, let me remind you all that what you are about to read are all just opinions. Also, I'm just hoping to hear your opinions in return for a curious question that I had in mind for some time now. Most important of all, I'm not trying to offend anyone, though if you do feel that I'm being offensive in some way, then I ask you to forgive me about that, since offense is nowhere near my intention here :)
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Well, thing is that as we all walk around the streets, malls....etc, we usually see people dressed in clothings that might reflect their personalities or their nature. Especially when you go somewhere where there are people from different cultures, you can easily notice how their clothings are different from each other.

Also, when a person wants to attract someone from the opposite gender, he or she might sometimes wear some attractive cloths and also try to look attractive by shape as well, not just clothings, though there is something in this case about women that I haven't figured out yet. Read on to know what it is......

Things like these didn't exist in our culture before, but due to globalization and other stuffs, this thing is starting to become more common here. Through TV, articles, real world and some other sources, sometimes we happen to see a woman dressed in very attractive clothes, yet at the same time, she doesn't like people getting attracted to her!

Yups, you've read it correctly, they wear things that make them look attractive, but they don't like being stared at or even talked about in the background. I've realized about this fact through many sources, mostly from talks on the TV.

Now at the university, there are some women in which they wear attractive clothes and from their movements and attitudes, you could simply guess that some of them aren't coming in the university primarily to learn, but mainly hoping to find herself a boyfriend. Some of these women even tried to develop an in-direct friendship with me, in which they failed to do so since I'm not the type who goes after the women's looks :P

Some people get attracted like a magnet

I'm sure some of you might have seen or at least heard of such women, so my question here is, why do some women wear such attractive cloths if they don't like being stared at or generally attract the attention of people? I myself aren't the type who gets attracted to women because of their looks (As far as I could tell :P ), though I do know that some men out there just can't take their eyes off them when they see the "Invisible" magnet on them.

If you ask this question to some of those, they might give you a logical answer (In which I haven't heard of so far), but if they don't have the proper answer, they might just say "I wear what I want". I personally think this is not a logical answer since she is fueling people's attention to her with her clothes, whether she likes it or not, she is still attracting their attentions with it while at the same time she doesn't want them to get attracted.

It's like you see a bald guy walking around and he complains that he doesn't like people staring at his bald head. If you ask him why he is keeping his head bald instead of growing some hair, putting a wig or a cap, you hear him tell you "No, I like being bald". It just doesn't make any sense. Either she should stop wearing attractive clothes to solve her problem, or she shouldn't complain about people staring at her.

A popular bald guy who doesn't mind being stared at :P

I myself don't like it when I see a woman in the university wearing attractive clothes and walking between men since it just makes me wonder that perhaps she is trying to hide her true nature and is using beauty instead in hopes of getting people to come to her side, no offense.

So, have you wondered about this question at any point in life? Or at least, did you get to the answer of the question at some time? Let us hear your thoughts :D

I hope that all of the dear readers are doing well. I know that I was supposed to post this on Thursday 11th of February because that was the day when I bought the 3 games as you can see below, but regardless, the spring semester has started just this week so studies have been resumed again. I only have like a year and a half left before finishing all of my courses so there isn't a long way left to go :D

Don't mind the quality :P

So finally, the forth most anticipated game on my wishlist has finally been released and so far, bioshock 2 feels really awesome. I'm at the forth mission so far and I can see that the game just keeps getting better as I progress through, just like how it was in the first bioshock, though I hope that the same thing applies to the upcoming missions :P

I bought Infamous and Dragon Age for my bros to keep them occupied while I play BS2 in peace. Some people say that Infamous is better than Prototype, while others say the other way around, so not sure which one he enjoyed more so far. As for Dragon Age, well, I've heard lots of praises for it, and many people have been posting blogs saying how great the game is. While I'm watching my bro playing it, it does look like an awesome game. It's very similar to Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic combined, which I like it. Perhaps I might play DAO sometime in the future :)

So what about you? Have you played any of these 3 games? And how's your latest gaming update going?

Well, as you can see from the picture below, I've got 3 new PS3 games on Friday 20th of November, and of course, the one at the top isn't a game but rather a popular movie (I believe most of you dear readers are fimiliar with it), gotten it on Friday 13th of November. I was highely looking forward to the DVD version after enjoying the movie at the cinema, I guess that's why it took so long for the DVD to arrive at the shops when compared to other movies.

I've chosen to play Tekken 6 since I was looking forward to know further of what happens in the story, plus the new scenario campaign is indeed a big improvement to the Tekken story mode and I love it.....so far :P

I've left Assassin's Creed 2 and SW for my bros to play them since I wasn't much interested in SW anyways and I need to play the first AC before starting with AC2. Though after playing Soul Calibur 4, I started growing some interest in SW (After playing with the Apprentice character :P ).

So anyways, I hope all who are reading this blog are doing well. It's been 4 months since my last blog due to..... well, the usual excuse of many people..... I've been busy a lot with University work as I started taking my core third-year specialization subjects, so projects and study pressures have increased, but thankfully my PS3 gaming time hasn't been affected and I still have time to come in here and hang around the updates. I'm still reading your blogs so don't worry if you see me not replying to them, if I was making a speed update check (As I'm mostly doing nowadays) then you won't see my reply, but I still read what you're writting in your blog so don't worry ;)

Wow! Time runs so fast it feels like yesterday was the day when I posted my fifth anniversary at GS! Well, I guess 1 year isn't considered such a long time after all.

I hope everyone is having a good time and I would like to hear your membership anniversaries as well so that we don't forget the day that we were, well, born at Gamespot :P

Looking forward to the day when I post the seventh anniversary, if I were alive and healthy that is :)

I've always hated working in groups for something that I can do on my own. Whenever I have to deal with a team to get a job done, I just seem to lose my energy, despite that the work is being done by more than one person. However, there is only 1 condition that can make me enjoy working in teams and gain extra benefits, and that's if all the people in the group (or most) are on the same level of thinking and understanding :D

I understand that there are many tasks that a Human being can't do on his or her own and needs to do it in a team in order to succeed, however, what if the team you want to work with have completely 360 degree different views than what the team leader is asking them to do and they never listen to the orders? Do you think it's better for the leader to do things on his or her own way than dealing with a team whom never listen to the group organizer and do completely different tasks like they care? Let me tell you a story of what happened in the university in this very month (May).

The story:

The story goes that our instructor asked us to create a research paper for a topic of choice and thus present it to the students of what we have learned. Cool, I couldn't wait to do that. BUT...when the teacher said "You can also work in groups if you want", a wave of people came to me and said that they wanted to participate in the project as well. I never had the intention of doing the project in a group, but there were 2 reasons why I accepted them in the group. First because I can't just tell them "Sorry, I work alone, I don't want you in my group", that's just too rude, secondly, one of these guys who wanted to participate (Ahmade88) did have a nice interest in the project, so I trusted that he will help me cover things up if the other group members mess things up. Unfortunatly, Ahmade88 dropped the course later on because he felt that his GPA might get lowered due to his marks in the quizes. So I was left alone with the rest of the group members whom didn't seem to care much about the project :P

2 weeks later:

2 weeks passed, I've sent them e-mails of the updates regarding the research paper and our powerpoint presentation. One of the group members did give some replies indicating that he has read my mails, but what about the rest of the group members? Well, I've recieved only 1 reply from one of the group members and 0 replies from the other through the 2 weeks, even though I've sent them around 6 mails as far as I remember :P

1 week later (9th of May 2009):

On the same day that we had to make the presentation (Saturday 9th of May), one of the group members just called and said "Ok, what should I talk about in the presentation today?" Great, it seemed like the group members were only planning to read from a paper and claim it as a "Presentation", very nice. I asked the instructor to delay our presentation 1 more week and he was kind enough to do so. BUT, I told the team members that they should be really prepared this time and avoid reading from a paper, they should present in their own words, not read from a paper. They said "Ok, we will make sure of that". We will see, time has passed, again I've sent them several mails through this week to ensure that they are prepared, yet again, one of them responded to 1/3 of the mails I've sent and the other 0/3 :P

1 week later (16th of May 2009):

The presentation day has arrived (Yesterday, 16th of May). I arrived at the university and told the team members "Ok, are you all prepared?". Guess what, they said "Yes" and showed me a paper in their hands where they have summerized some stuffs from the research paper I made! So much for "We will explain in our own words, don't worry". The presentation started, I explained the slides that I had to explain (Which took me like 10 mins explanation of a single slide) and it seemed like the students were paying attention, it was the only presentation in the course where the teacher was interested to ask questions to learn from us, thank god. But now, the time came for the group members to explain their parts.....

The first guy rised his paper and started reading. Clearly he was reading slowly as if he hasn't read the paper before, and even some words on the paper made him stop and focus a little on that word and then said it slowly. Guess that was enough indication to the students that he wasn't prepared but rather he was more like a "Reader" than a "Presenter". I could be wrong, but I felt bored over his explanation before any of the students did. The second guy came in, same thing, read from a paper and finished a single slide in within 2 mins (Even though it requires at least 10 mins explanation to make the students understand that slide). Phew! At least the teacher did not evaluate the marks on the presentation but rather on the student's performance. Which indicated that I would likely get good marks for it :D

Conclusion:

But thankfully, the presentation was a success, it could have been better if there were more qualified group members or at least if I did it on my own. It's embarresing to say that because when you're working in a group, the efforts must be at least doubled, but due to having group members who don't co-operate with the team organizer, grouping has only weakened something that could have been stronger if 1 person did it, but at least the students did show some positive views and most importantly, they seemed excited to ask questions plus the teacher himself, which they didn't do for other presentations.

So the lesson that I have learned in here is. Whenever you want to lead a team, make sure that the people with you are on the same level (or almost the same level) of thinking and understand as you are, otherwise you will notice that team work will only make things weaker, just like how it happened with our project yesterday. Maybe that's why I always prefer playing single player games and don't enjoy multiplayer much, because if you're playing with or against another player who has complete different gaming views that you do, problems will arrise in the middle of the game and thus cause some stresses. Better to work alone and fail than work in a team and get an outcome that you don't disserve ;)

I usually surf around gamespot for 30 minutes almost on a daily routine in order to check for news and updates....etc. Throughout my experience of checking out forums, blogs, unions....etc, I have realized that some people have a habit of getting angry while playing. Well ok, I feel angry at times as well when there is a specific annoying part in a game or a bug/glitch, but some people get angry to a limit which I can't believe how they rush to such a situation just for a game.

I'm talking about some people who quit the game when their character dies or can't accomplish a specific goal, or even hit their keyboard or throw stuffs here and there. I've been playing video games since 1991 and thankfully I've NEVER reached to a limit where I got angry enough to hit or throw something, I've always felt a minor anger which only lasted for less than a minute and it was minor enough that no one else around me was able to know it except of me. More like an angry-from-inside as some people call it.

So my question here is, what use will they get from breaking something when they get angry over a game? It's not like the game is going to become easier when they do that. What point would they get from hitting the keyboard or mouse when the game is freezing and lagging? It's not like the lags will disppear if you threaten your keyboard or even the system itself. It's just a machine after all, not a person.

Besides, doing such nonsense is going to cost the person to pay money for his/her anger, how? Well, when someone hits the keyboard because of a 2 minutes anger and risks damaging or even breaking the keyboard, he/she has to pay money to buy another keyboard. Same goes with the monitor, gamepad, mouse or anything that the person has damaged due to being incapable of controlling his/her nerve.I remember someone in WoW who got angry because his character died in the game and he ended up uninstalling the game. Of course the next day, he had to sit for hours in order to reinstall the game and wait for the patch downloads. What use did he get from his anger over his character's death other than having to wait hours without WoW that could have been easily avoided by not reinstalling the game?

There are some people out there who couldn't afford buying a computer or a game console and they haven't enjoyed gaming as much as we did. We should be grateful that we were given the wealth and capability to afford these assets and we should respect and take a good care of what we have. Imagine how much money and time these people could have saved if they were patient enough to hold out their anger.

So let go of this habit if you're on one of those people. Be thankful for what you have, even if it's not working well. Learn that anger over a game is temporary and a shame if you can't old on to such anger. Learn how to control your anger, that's where your true toughness and wisdom can be judged! :)

Here is also a video for you to watch, not off topic of course:P

First of all, I would like to wish to everyone who celebrated christmas a wonderful holiday and never forget to visit your family and friends, they need it :)

As for me, well, we don't celebrate christmas in here, but that doesn't mean that I didn't have any fun this month. Besides, this month seemed like one of the most rewarding months to me in the whole year of 2008! Here we go:

First of all, I have received my final exam results last Tuesday (23rd December), thanks to the help of one of my colleagues, I've gotten marks higher than what I've expected. I still remember when I threw myself on the bed the moment that I came back home after the last exam :P

Secondly, last Friday (26th December) me and my bro stopped by the gas station and planned to enter its mart since we were a bit hungry. As I payed for the cashier, I saw the box of this movie on the shelf.....

I haven't watched Batman Begins, nor this one, so I said "Why not get it when it's here?" since I've heard positive reviews from many sources on the movie. We've watched it after we came back home and it was really great! Although I liked the Transformers movie more, but it depends on your taste and interest. Some people prefer the Dark Knight over Transformers.

Lastly, do you see the picture of the electronic potato below? Well, this is, or was my phone.

I had it since August 2004 and I was really happy with it. I don't like changing phones much, I like keeping the phone with me until it starts getting old, when defects start rising from it. This year, however, I felt that my good ol electronic potato has started aging as I was sometimes experiencing problems hearing people during calls. So I thought that it was time for me to get a new one, and this is what I got last week.....

Now I wonder, how long would it take before the N95 starts aging? God knows, but anyways, hope that you have a wonderful holiday and enjoy the goodies of the month as much as I did :D

A video that I wanted to share with every brother and sister who is reading this blog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPQObH8gAL8