//beconfused

Now I have been spending some time in front of my computer playing Ragnarok Online on a private server so I have been blogging a little lesser. It’s quite fun to play with friends. I didn’t really have a lot of time to train my character though. I log on to the game when I am free.

(We are surrounding a pet right now!)

It’s one of the nicer online games that has private servers and there is no need to pay unless you wish to contribute a donation. Most of my friends are playing Maple Story or WarCraft III. I tried Maple Story in the past but stop after the South East Asia servers are created. I used to play in Maple Story Global. I played WarCraft III, I didn’t like the dark graphics. I like things to be bright so that didn’t attract me too much I guess. [On a side note, WarCraft III is really fun to compete with your friends.]

Check out the Ragnarok Online advertisement that Stefanie Sun (Sun Yanzi �?�??姿) did for them.

Stefanie Sun advertisement for Ragnarok Online

[Direct link]

I can pay for that official Ragnarok Online of course but I heard you train really slow there and I just don’t have the time. It’s crazy. The server I train in is a 5x/5x/3x server I think. It’s experience points are gained 5 times faster and the monster you kill shits out items 3 times faster than the official servers. I would be happier with a 10x server actually.

And now the Koreans came out with Ragnarok Online 2 which looks like a realy nice upgrade.

Take a look at Ragnarok Online 2

[Direct link]

Ragnarok Online 2 is a beautiful upgrade. Private servers, are you ready?

Note that Fresh Comments 1.2.1 is out.

I’ve been slightly because this couple of weeks so you see my posts are lacking these days. I’ve been busy but the times are quite fun. I’ve been meeting and talking to quite a lot of people recently. Mostly are my pals in camp, I haven’t seen them for quite some time.

There are surprises as I walk around my neighborhood too. I’ve been meeting long lost friends – okay, not that long – basically just secondary school friends and stuff.

Also has occupied me is my Fresh Comments plugin. I lost touch so fast. I don’t know what I coded already. I revisited my code a couple of days ago and just literally shut my text processor off to play Ragnarok Online. But this afternoon I really went on to try to understand my codes.

I’ve been listening and I implemented a couple of extras to the existing plugin, notably:

# Ability to display fresh comments from static and published pages.
# Allows you to include the date or time of the posted comment in whichever format you wish so long as it follows the PHP date format.
# It is also neater. Yes, it’s quite neat already, but it just got neater again. The whole HTML portion is rewritten from a scratch so the structures are prettier. I use tables when necessary.
# Also, you can select if you want pingbacks or trackbacks to be listed. Okay, I got to be honest – I haven’t coded that part fully. It’s half-written and I had to rush off to a friend’s birthday.

I am aware that some users request for these:

* Cached Fresh Comments.
* Show fresh comments in categories.
* Private post’s comments are not shown to people who logged in.

The above 3 features are not implemented in the coming release (version 1.1). Fresh comments in categories are kinda hard. I mean it’s not hard to code but it’s just not that worth the trouble. I have to query MySQL too much to get that done. I have yet to figure out how to do caching too. And private posts… Well, I haven’t figured that one out too.

I’ll be releasing the plugin after more tests. Probably coming Monday or Tuesday if possible.

Once in a while, I’ll just dig out statistics and view keyphrases. Keyphrases are what people are searching this the search engines to get to my blog. So I wondered how my blog can be connected to the world.

But this time, I found that some men are searching for the strangest things! In no particular order:

* singapore girls wearing bikini
* ericia lee maxim
* fiona xie in own bikini
* zoe tay wearing bikini
* ann kok in bikini
* archive of fhm singapore

See, it’s all about the bikini’s. And I don’t have search things, the nearest is probably Ann Kok stripping to her bra. It’s quite funny to see what local people are searching. Most people include Fiona Xie into their searches because she’s the hotter one and she once ran in bikini in Orchard Road for a drama series about bikini swimming.

Then there are people who seem to be searching for some sex-related videos of Singaporean women:

* singapore college student caught in act
* singapore phone video clip student
* sex singapore bukit batok
* polytechnic student caught in video
* singapore student video

This is probably with regards to the now famous Tammy incident. Tammy is a 17 year old polytechnic girl who lost her phone with video clips of herself having oral, normal and anal sex with her boyfriend. I didn’t even want to talk about it when the outrageous video clip got the attention of our media on Febuary, I’m tired of the news so you didn’t see any news in my blog on this. And trust me, I don’t have the Tammy video, perhaps you guys can try other web sites instead.

And finally, some men just prefer artwork:

* ragnarok cute female pictures

I do have Ragnarok pictures that I thought was quite cute – ones that my friend gave me when he married a character in the game.

_(My friend Daniel’s online wedding images in the game. I thought that’s a pretty cute feature. Image used with Daniel’s permission.)_

[Apologies to the crazy pingbacks in my blog, some scripts of mine went wrong.]

My internship is over. I have many plans but too little time to fulfil. Unfortunately, even before I go into fulfilling these tasks during my holiday. I need to finish some stuff from my internship. I have lots of files and need to do housekeeping and return them to my company. It’s a responsibility kinda thing. I am willing to help out my supervisor to do this.

Anyway, my plans are quite ambitious and I doubt that I have to time to fulfil. First of all, it’s something to do with my blog. I plan to roll out an update in the design. I plan to code my own custom plugin to fit a particular function that I shan’t mention at the moment. I can’t find it anywhere you see.

And I agreed to help my friend put up a web site, it’s joint project. I won’t give the details on that though. Not that it is supposed to be a secret – well, nothing is finalized in the project. I can’t speak much except that it is a portal for Ragnarok Online and is likely to use ASP.NET engine and coded in Visual Basic .NET.

I’ll talk about Excel and share a good news with you guy soon. I am probably going to share experiences regarding Excel with some of my polytechnic’s lecturers. It would be done with Desmond if it is agreed upon. I really have no idea how to do this, frankly speaking.

I am going to learn Java. I haven’t gotten the compiler and stuff but I’ll be getting it soon. The reason why I choose to learn Java is due to it’s popularity. I heard much about it and wish to understand more about Java. I hope it’d be beneficial for my work in future too.

And of course, needless to mention, it’s anime. I am going to watch anime. I have quite a lot of anime to watch. I borrowed some DVDs too. I gotten myself Mary Poppins which I’ll watch tomorrow (that’s not an anime by the way).

An update on what I am doing nowadays.

As for now, I am typing a report. A report that took long to type due to various distractions and the fact that, well, I just dislike typing reports.

My industrial training programme is coming to a close. I am going to graduate from Singapore Polytechnic soon. After that it would be National Service for me.

I hope to study more on the computer stuff. I developed a liking to web development. I’ll be participating in developing a web site that is to do with Ragnarok Online. I have no idea what the game does but I participated in this joint project with 2 other guys to create a Ragnarok Online portal. It would probably be powered by ASP.NET. All 3 of us hope to gain experience in web development while creating this web portal.

That aside, I plan to look into Java applications development. I can’t code in Java at all. I don’t understand it basically but I am willing to learn. I gotten hold of several books to help me with it.

I come from a Visual Basic .NET and ASP .NET background. If any of you know of any good books that can help me with my transition, please tell me about them.

And, well, remember the Excel certificate that I mentioned? I actually topped my school for that test and now I have to give a bloody three-minute speech. And I suck badly at speeches.

I really got to congratulate my colleague – Daniel – who recently got married in this nice little church. The love birds received blessings from some red cape guy who wears a crown.

(Daniel got married; friends attended to give their blessings.)

Daniel just told me today that he just got married. I was puzzled – trying to recall since when he gotten a girlfriend. He then promised pictures. Looking at the images in awe, I was convinced – Daniel’s hair color is incorrectly pigmented.

Well asides that, it looks great. A virtual wedding from the online game Ragnarok Online. [By the way, can anyone tell me what has this game got to do with 'Ragnarok'?]

In Singapore, to get married, you need to be of a certain age. You need money. You need a girl.

And in Ragnarok Online, to get married, you need the expansion pack I think. Yes, you need to pay a subscription fee. And yes, you need a girl. [In San Francisco however, to get married, the criteria is similar to Singapore's, just that your target can be a guy.]

(The little thing above them says they’re kissing, pretty cute huh.)

My friend got married. Congratulations, Daniel.

Anyway, Ragnarok Online is a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). I tried the game before, I don’t know what the hell am I doing there. My friends introduce me to it and told me it’s free. Yes, it’s free, it’s a private server that crashes every fifteen minutes.

Still, I gotten a taste of how the game is like. I wouldn’t say it’s one game that appeals me. I like games like SimCity-type of games, strategy games. I like Role Playing Games (RPG) too, but I figured that I’m a miser because I simply refuse to spend any money. I keep having that thought, “if I bought an item later, I’ll get a better one.” Sure I’ll get a better one – at the end of the game.

I guess RPG’s not really for me. Still, congratulations Daniel, I shall await your kid. Have a nice online honeymoon. Read the rest of this entry »