Bluurrrgggghhhh

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Steamed Fish

So, have played DoW2 through to the end.
There is only one campaign, space marines. No Eldar, Ork, or Tyrannid campaigns.
Major minus!

I am not really sure if I think that much of it, I tend to think that I prefer SoulStorm. Sure the graphics are good, but the gameplay, whilst different, is not better. The much vaunted strategic focus I read so much about is a major disappointment; it is not really any improvement, and no big difference, to SoulStorm and Dark Crusade.

Sure, I like what I can do with some of the units; building the assault troop up in skill so that their drop onto an enemy unit scatters and stuns them, building all my other units up to terminators (the commander is in terminator armour with a teleport pack). (I seem not to be bothering with my scout squad or the dreadnought - the dreadnought dies too easily and can't be healed 'cos he's a machine so needs the scouts to fix him {there are no work units, the scouts have absorbed the repair machine function}.)

But there is no sense of 'empire building' anymore; all of the management side of the game is gone. Now it is just drop in and fight. Maybe that is more realistic for a marine company, but it is not what I want in a game.

Bought UT3 (Unreal Tournament III). Yes, I already have it in AU, but that disc is in AU and it was only US$11.99 on Steam.
Yes, I bought it via Steam. How did I do that? I have been whinging for so long about how I couldn't buy things from Steam since I came to SG.

Ivy wanted me to install Yahoo msgr, since it is easier to use video with than skype and she doesn't have Microsoft msgr (msngr?). Since I was going to have it on my laptop and auto starting every boot and letting me know if there was any mail in my yahoo account, it wasn't going to be an issue that I would have to be checking multiple webmail accounts anymore, they would do the checking themselves.

So I used my yahoo account to open a new PayPal account in SG.
Then I transferred US$12.00 from my AU paypal account to my SG paypal account.
Then I tried to buy UT3 from steam.
No go!
Not enough money in account.
So I transferred another US$10 and then successfully bought UT3 from steam.
Which left my SG paypal account with US$10.01????? Go figure.
$0.00 is okay, but $0.01 is not?

Haven't had time to play it yet since I was finishing DoW2. The ending of which was quite a letdown.


When I opened this blog I couldn't use Kai Shan 'cos some kid had started a KaiShan.BlogSpot account, made two or three entries, then left it for three years. But the name was still taken. So I used KaiShan-SG.

When installing DoW2 you have to start by installing steam (I had to uninstall steam, download the newest version, reinstall, then restore my steamapps remember 'cos my steam account wasn't connecting 'cos steam had gone AWOL as it so frequently does), then you have to install Games for Windows Live and then open a GFWL account (called a 'gametag', huh? why? is 'username' not adequate? do the people at microsoft have to invent new words for everything?), and only then do you get to actually install the game. From disc.
Anyhow, 'KaiShan' was unavailable!!!
How many people are there in the world using this?
Naturally the wonderful microsoft windows product offers some suggestions; InscrutableKai etc. You know the sort of stuff.
So I used KaiShanIV, as in 'Kai Shan the 4th'. Sounded regal at the time.
You shouldn't be able to see it 'cos I restricted the account to my contacts list.

So now I have yet another Kai Shan type name floating around.
My steam account wouldn't take KaiShan and had to have a numeric ending attached as well. I won't tell you that one 'cos I don't remember if steam let me lock it to my friends list.

Anyhow, in amongst all of this I got into my windows live profile details and decided to change my surname to Shan, since I had locked my account to my contacts list only, and they are (nearly) all gamers that know my moniker. (As do my family, since my skype account is another KaiShan### account.)

Now my hotmail mails are being tagged "Kai Shan sent this on..."

That was not intended.
It should not have been a problem, but amongst all of this I also got in contact with Replay, the distributors of DoW2 in SG. Initially I was just visiting their website to see if the 'win a life-sized space marine statue' competition was still alive before I actually posted the form in. But since I was there, and since it seemed to be an easy to use site, and since they turned out to be the local distributors for another game that I have been playing and enjoying (Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI) I decided to mail their support team and let them know about the process I used to resolve my DoW2 installation problems. Their support page had a flier on DoW2 steam connection issues, so I figured that they had been hassled by buyers already. This lead to a friendly exchange of half a dozen emails before I noticed that I was being called "Mr Kai Shan".

Scroll down last email.
Sure enough: "Kai Shan sent this on..."

I have had 30 unique visitor this month!!!
This where I used to scream ("AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"), go see previous posts on the subject.
Oh, the day I noticed that I had received my first two or three visitors. I seem to remember writing in large caps asking them all to go away.
And now that number has increased tenfold.
My private little space is being invaded.

Most from SG, some from US, Canada, UK, and then a smattering of countries with one.
I am betting that most are still just floating in after that spat on Mr Wang Says So.
Get ready, 'cos here I say something controversial again.

Was reading the Straits Times this weekend (got it to look for a job, found one possible). Noticed an article on an upcoming election in SG, there was a map with some electorates highlighted for discussion.

Strange map.

Maybe not complete, but I did not like what I saw.

There appeared to be electorates of rather inappropriate shapes.

You know, the sort that come under the term 'gerrymander'.

If you are not familiar with this term; it derives from some american, can't remember whether it was at state or county level - if you are that interested try wiki, but beware of that it is full of left-wing propaganda, anyhow, from some american called 'Gerry' or his surname started with 'Gerry' and he had drawn up his electorates to maximise his parties votes, and one was shaped like a salamander; namely a long thin body, with four corridors coming off that connected to four townships. The point is that electorates are meant to be as close to circular or square as you can get them, a bit of rectangularity is okay, but a bent shape with a bit that arches off on one side like a tennis racquet is not okay. That is drawing an electoral boundary so as to ensure that the benefits are maximised for one particular political party.

I do not like to see such things in Singapore.
They shatter my illusions.

The ones that particularly got my attention were, in order; Jurong GRC, Marine Parade GRC, and Jalan Besar GRC

On the positive side I seemed to read into this article (remember my innocence of SG politics) that SG has multi-member electorates! What a wonderful idea! And I don't just say that because I have been arguing for so many years that AU should do that. Well, okay, I probably do say that just because it is something that I have been saying for years that AU should do. I think that all electorates should have four or five members (all should be the same). This would give minor parties much better chances to get members into parliament. It would also mean (in the AU context) that whatever electorate you lived in you would (if you voted for one of the major parties) have a member representing you. And further it would mean that senior members such as ministers would not be leaving their constituents unattended by their being focussed on ministerial duties as there would be other electorate members to attend to constituent enquiries.

Also I couldn't help but notice that all of the opposition parties named, listed, and with their logos presented all appeared to be some form of socialist party. Given my views on the PAP being inspired by the BUF I think that this means that there is no representation of true right-wing politics in SG; lots of left-wing and the ruling party is third way - which, one could argue, as the synthesis of left and right transcends both.

Still, as my own personal politics are definitively third way (synthetic in the Hegelian manner) I don't find this latter to bother me too much. However, when these odd-shaped electorates are added to the banners flying everywhere advertising individual politician at public expense I do get a little concerned.

It is my own personal illusion, I know, but I want Singapore to be better than this.

Unmitigated Evil

My immediate steam issues have been resolved. By me, not with any help or even input from valve. It is late, as in one in the morning, but I want to close this thread off.

The necessary action turned out to be to reinstall steam.
This required copying the steamapps folder to somewhere safe, then uninstalling steam, then going to steampowered and downloading the current copy of steam.msi, then reinstalling it, then loading the Dawn of War 2 disc, then letting it do its steam thing, then its windows live thing, then copying back the steamapps, then through steam reinstalling all of my existing games, then letting DoW2 do the actual install of the game.

A total of SIX HOURS to install a freaking game from a disc!!!!

Along the way both my main gaming account in steam and my backup account used to get support when my main account gets frozen, got frozen, as in steampowered doesn't recognise the passwords and does not acknowledge that there is an account with my email address. So I created another account and lo and behold it defaults to showing me my own issues list because all three accounts share the same email address. You know, the one that ten minutes before it was refusing to acknowledge as existing.

Anyhow, solved.

So far I am finding the games, Fear 2 and DoW2, so so. They are no quantum leap over their first incarnations. Graphics is a lot better in both, you could probably masturbate to the graphics of the female lieutenant in Fear2 they are so good. But playability is not noticeably better. Fear2 is not terrifying as Fear 1.1 was. I haven't played as much of DoW2 yet, strategically it seems to be an improvement, but I wonder if it will be much better than Dark Crusade and SoulStorm, there are a few tactical tweaks that are nice, AI intuitive taking cover is a lot better than Company of Fools (sorry, Heroes). You can carry an extra weapon in F2, and they have improved the guns a bit. I like the ability to level up squads in DoW2 and to be able to add equipment to them, but these are things that have been in other games for some time now.

They were both about $60 in SG, whereas they would have been about $80 in AU.

Anyhow, main issue solved for now. Probably re-occur in a month or two since valve refuses to provide sufficient servers for steam yet requires your install of steam to log onto the internet to validate itself regularly and frequently - even if all you want to do is play single player offline.

Will Star Dock succeed in their concept to counter steam?

Remember Star Dock?
They did Master of Orion.
It came out in 1, 2, & 3. And then Sin of a Solar Empire; kind of a MoO 4, but not as good.
MoO 2 was their pinnacle, 3 was total crap (like Dune; God Emperor, Dune 2 was good, Dune 2000 was the expected graphic improvement, but no game play change, God Emperor was crap).

I to bed now.

Steam is Still Evil

The problems of the previous entry are continuing. Namely steam is not connecting to its server and so I can't play half of my games. Add to this that I bought Dawn of War 2 this arvo and it turns out to be chained to steam as well, it won't even start the install process until it makes a connection to a steam server.

Naturally there has been no response from valve yet; it is only one day, they need several weeks to get their heads out of their arses and reply to anything. So I searched the forums; lots of people have the same issues and most are complaining that valve does not bother responding, let alone fixing the problem. I read through four threads on similar sorts of issues, all were full of these three things; lots of people complaining that steam wasn't working and that valve was not responding, lots of people offering solutions, lots of people saying that they had tried those solutions and they did not fix the problem. Yes, it is true that some people were saying thanks and the prob was fixed for them, but more were in the negative. And yes, I did try all the solutions offered, none worked for me.

Nowhere on either the Fear 2 or Dawn of War 2 boxes did it state that the game would be locked to making an online connection to a steam server. In other words I was sold two games uninformed of the high risk that they would not play. And, as it turns out, neither of them will play, and this problem apparently exists for many people and has been in existence since early 2007 and is still unresolved.

Now for the bits that would be funny if they weren't so infuriating.

Steampowered.com wouldn't let me log on, it said that my password and username did not match what was in their database, this after being logged on this morning. Every time that I log a problem with steam it locks out my password.

I logged on with a second account that I keep just for when it does this. It used to be that you could not report that your password was buggered and needed resetting without logging on - that is how stupid the staff at valve are. I opened my issues list and it seems that valve have connected my two logons, I could access the list for my other logon.

I searched and read the forums then tried to post. Strangely being logged on to steampowered does not mean that you are logged into the forums which run in steampowered. I could not logon, it would not accept either of my logons. I tried to make a new logon just to get into the forums to comment on needing a second logon to get into steampowered because steam had locked out my main logon. It would not let me open a new account.

More FEAR

Good news and bad news; terrible, terrible news.

F.E.A.R. 2 is out

This is good news. Fear was the most frightening game that I have ever experienced. It was simply awesome. The first expansion lacked a bit, and the second lacked more, but they were still better than most games.

Fear 2 promises to be the years best shooter simply by its existence.

But there is bad.
The people who own it, Monolith, have sold their souls to the most pure evil.
That evil has a name; it is Steam.

My copy cannot be installed without locking it to steam. This would be okay if steam worked, unfortunately steam is far, far more trouble than it is ever worth.

Yes, the idea was good, and it was good that I can come to SG and buy a new computer and log onto my steam account and have half a dozen games download and install and be able to play without the discs. But so often steam refuses to work, it randomly requires me to log onto the internet, and then it will just lock up.

I can still visit steampowered.com, but steam will not connect to my steam account.

So today I cannot play my Fear 2 (as I spent most of yesterday playing it), because today steam, as it is so often want to, will not work.

(This is all on top of my usual rant about steam and how they will not let me buy anything in SG because my VISA and PayPal accounts are registered in AU - they are so totally 20th century and cannot deal with the concept of a global economy or people moving outside of their little boxes.)

Why, oh why, Lith did you have to marry Satan incarnate?

A New Week, A New Month

This week I start cold calling. Nothing from applying for jobs advertised, so I start calling on the agencies again and getting in their faces, and also approaching consultancies, to start with. My finances can handle another three months, as in this month, March, and then two more.

Remember my tale about the Chinese temple in Chinatown that broke my heart because it had been subsumed totally by Buddhism? Well, since then I took a walk around the nearby area between Changi Rd and East Coast Rd, Telok Kurau Rd and the Siglap Canal. There were three temples in the area that I visited, one had insignia - a Chinese character, and people's portraits, but no other iconography, the other two were both totally Buddhist. So absolutely no luck there.

I have tried out my Thoth deck, Aleister Crowley's deck, but found the pictures too 'busy' and hard to respond to. Also the booklet that came with them was next to useless. I did see a book at Kinokuniya on the Thoth deck, I might buy it, or I might not - I can't say that I am that impressed with the deck. I was told when I was a young student of the arts that it was a very powerful deck, that many were scared to use it because of what happened to Crowley, but that the cards had been designed before he went bad, but still to be wary of them as they were so powerful. This is not my experience now that I have tried them; confusing and convoluted, but so far not powerful.

I also tried out the manga deck my sister got me for xmas. They are a little odd in some ways, the artist has reversed the genders; i.e. everywhere there is a man in the Rider Waite deck he has used a woman and vice versa, so the Hanged Man becomes the Hanged Woman, the Kings become Queens and the Queens become Kings. Why? Because of this reversal I did not want to risk using a standard Rider Waite interpretation and relied upon the booklet that came with the deck for explanations, unfortunately it contained no interpretations for reversed cards, so I ensured that I shuffled the deck without reversing any. I did not use the standard Celtic cross layout that I almost always rely on, but the booklet had a nice little six card layout it said was good for relationships. So naturally I did one on Jazreel :)

Come on, what else would you expect of me?

Anyhow, same as always; [Relationship as Now] got the Two of Cups, [Relationship as Future] got the Ten of Cups, the usual sort of stuff, and yes, the Tower was in there as well. It was also in my Thoth deck reading, but I couldn't make sense out of most of that one.

Hard to believe, but it appears that my comments posted on Mr Wang Says So are still drawing attention. I got another comment posted here; not supportive this time, rather along the lines of "I read something bad about Singapore, therefore Singapore is bad, therefore everywhere else is better" sort of reasoning. There are poor people suffering in SG therefore it cannot be a better place than AU; I am sorry to have to burst a few illusions, but there are poor and homeless in Australia, and far more than I have seen here in SG. My statement stands; in my view SG is a better place for me to live in.

What I can't understand is the difficulty some people seem to have with the bits "in my view" and "for me"; it is as though because their view is different (and I stress the apparent lack of experiencing AU that these people exhibit) then it seems to follow logically for them that my view is flawed.

Wish I could remember the name of that guy that was on the Channel 10 "X-Files in Australia" type documentary back in the early days of the X Files. His partner (business and research) had been murdered, yet he was still demonstrating his technology on national television. One year later and he was murdered, shot through the head, it got four or five lines in one column on something like page fifteen of the Murdoch press, but I am guessing that they went onto thin ice to publish that much. These examples of government sanctioned murders would open up the discussion a bit. It is not easy to get names of people gaoled or certified because of their political activity because the mainstream media never carries such info, so you have to rely on underground sources and your circle of acquaintances; and, of course, in any discussion these will be challenged by people that will only believe something published in the state controlled media. How can you argue with such a mindset?

I will only believe that my God does not exist if you can show me my God saying that He does not exist.

It is, after all, a religious debate. Which is to say that it is defined by emotions and 'faith' and not by intelligence, logic, or facts. Just as 'religious' people need to believe in a better place, one that is found after death for the faithful, so these individuals need to believe in a better place; they just transfer this myth to the physical world by saying it is some other country where all social ills have been solved. They then contrast this with wherever they are residing to highlight everything that they do not like about their own country.

In a way I felt that Singapore was the ideal country. Now that I am living here some of the gloss has worn off; but I still think that, for me, it is a better place, for me, to be living. If some Singaporeans have difficulty with this and insist upon insisting that their country is some sort of Hell on Earth then that is their problem. One that will not be solved by emigrating to Australia or America, trust me. You will find some things better, some things worse, and some things just different. Also you will find many of the locals complaining about all of these Asians that the government is letting in, and why are they doing that? they don't add anything to the country or the economy, they just lower our standard of living blah, blah, blah. Oh, and don't forget the 'they are corrupting our women' sort of thing. You know, exactly the same stuff that a lot of 'angry Ah Phets' say about Ang Mohs.

Same stuff, everywhere in the world that you go; Germans complaining about non-Germans living in Germany, Scots complaining about non-Scots living in Scotland, Thais complaining about farangs in Thailand, Australians bemoaning the end of the White Australia policy. Same stuff, everywhere. Small surprise, therefore, that there are Singaporeans that say the same stuff, that have exactly the same feelings and make exactly the same comments that racists and xenophobes everywhere do. That they are so definitely a minority is shown simply by the constant election results in Singapore, but that they are so vocal a minority is a bit different; such comments would get you before the Federal Court in Australia. I know this; I have a friend that has a website that is operating under a Federal Court order, prohibiting him from saying some of the things he used to say and limiting the things that he says in the future. I seriously believe that some of the things said at me on the Mr Wang Says So site would have been grounds for lodging a complaint in Oz.

Perhaps I should investigate the Racial Harmony laws in SG?
Maybe they offer Whites some protection from vilification? Unlike Australia, where the Racial Vilification Act and other, state level, anti-racist laws do not provide any real protection for Whites, only for non-Whites. That being the definition of racial equality in Australia; just as the definition of gender equality is that the wife gets 70% of the assets in any divorce - mine did too, and I counted myself lucky that I got what I got. And that was with no children, otherwise I would have been lucky to get 10%.

And now the new Socialist government is considering allowing 'mistresses' to sue for 'divorce'; they are considering a law that would allow a woman that had been in a relationship with a man for two years or more, but not living with him, to be able to sue him for a share of his assets. End result? Australian men will be terrified of starting any sort of sexual relationship with a woman; they will go for casual sex only. When they want children and marriage they will leave the country to marry somewhere safer. So add 'matrimonial' refugees to the list of political refugees, economic refugees, social refugees.

Now a mass of SGers will complain about that statement; for your info I saw some programme on SBS once that stated in the voice-over at the end that over 300 Australians had been granted political refugee status by the US. But then again, I have friends that are 'economic refugees' from the US and are doing quite well in Australia. So that one goes both ways. But then again again I don't know but have read a fair bit about SGers emigrating to Oz to escape the work focus and to enjoy a more relaxed lifestyle in Australia. I don't know about that one; most business professionals that I know, myself included, regularly worked 50 hour weeks in AU, even though the law is that the standard week is 38 hours (40 hours per week, or 5 days of 8 hours, with a rostered day off every 4 weeks). By law any work over 38 hours is overtime and must be paid accordingly, the Federal Court does not recognise that 'salaried' employees are not entitled to overtime as many employers try to argue. But most people work those hours unpaid out of desperation to keep their jobs. So my personal experience of Australia is not quite the easy going place that so many SG blog flamers would have me believe. I would routinely work 8am to 6:30pm on some contracts. Eating at my desk whilst I crunched data.