Thought Overflow

November 16, 2008, 3:02 PM. Just about a couple of hours after having written the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2008. Where am I? A bit in a daze, perhaps. What are my thoughts on the paper and how well do I think I’ve written? I don’t think I would like to say anything at this moment. I’d rather not say anything at all. I can shed some light on one or two things for now, though. I was thankfully way more tense after the exam than I was before it. Did I say “thankfully”? Why yes, I did. Let me explain.

Had I been tense or nervous before the exam started, I would have ended up being a twitchy wreck while writing the exam. My concentration would have fallen, and the various pressures (of time, expectation, difficulty and the obvious “OMIGOD, THIS IS IT, THIS IS CAT!!!!!“) would have weighed heavily on my mind, preventing me from fully employing my thinking faculties. So, it’s a good thing I was not nervous nor nauseous before entering the hall, or even while sitting in the not uncomfortable chair, waiting for the question papers to be handed out.

As for being tense after the exam, let me guide you through my thoughts and feelings right after the test. Shortly after the test, the first few thoughts that developed were along the lines of “Dear God, please help me clear the cut-offs.” All I could think about was the answers I wrote, how many questions I attempted, and how desperately I need my accuracy to be high. I was also thinking about the chaos soon to follow. Career Launcher, among the many other CAT training institutes, is going to put the Answer Key, post estimates of likely cut-off marks, and let you enter your answers and calculate your likely percentile. THAT is not good. The CAT’s been sitting on our heads for the last few months, and it’s finally done and over with, and to have even more stress dealing with the “How did you do?!?!!”s and to figure out whether you’re qualifying for an IIM call or not is just not what should come after the big test is over. To top it off, I have a semester exam tomorrow as well.

So, what am I going to do about it? I’ve decided that as far as today is concerned, I’m not going to deliberate any more on the CAT. I’m going to chill out for a while and then prepare for tomorrow’s test. I know it’s inevitable that I will end up checking my marks and projected percentile, but I would rather not do it any time soon. You can also rest assured that until the result is formally declared in January, I’m not going to post my projected marks or percentile on my blog.

And to close this post, I’d like to just say thank you to everyone who’s wished me luck, and thanks if you’re still wishing me luck. I really hope I’ve done well, and perhaps with the right amount of goodwill, luck and perseverence, I just might.

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Anybody who’s ever played video games should probably have heard of this title. The original “Prince of Persia” game, released in the late 1980’s set a benchmark for video games. Like I’ve said multiple times, the primary reason some games are memorable is that they focus on all the right things, and at the top of the list of right things is the gameplay. Prince of Persia differed from other games of its time in many ways. Firstly, unlike the characters in the other 2D left-right-top-bottom scrolling video games (think Dave or Duke Nukem), the prince could more than walk and jump. He could jump up to reach higher platforms and pull himself up, or slow down to a snail’s pace so as not to set of a spiky trap, etc. Also, unlike the other standard platformers and shooters that were released for the DOS at that time, POP offered challenges in terms of finding the right path and having to complete the entire game in less than an hour, a core gameplay feature that fit in with the story. If you’ve played the game, you’ll probably agree with me when I wonder what came first…the gameplay decision to impose the extremely challenging one hour time limit, or the story or the reason why it was implemented.

Perhaps this question can be answered by the creator of the game, a certain Mr. Jordan Mechner. In the twenty-first century (2003, to be precise), a new trilogy for Prince of Persia began with a game called Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Obviously, the series had a lot to live up to. Since 1989, the original Prince of Persia has achieved legendary status and is often called one of the best games ever released for the PC. Jordan Mechner, the architect of the original trilogy, joined the developers of the game, initially as a consultant and later as a writer and game-designer. Needless to say, the game was a tremendously enjoyable affair. Its successor, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, to which the only thing Jordan Mechner gave was permission to use his trademark, was, in my opinion, nowhere near as fun as Sands of Time. This is not to say, however, that anything Mechner touches is gold. Case in point is a game called “The Last Express“, which received some outstanding reviews for some of its gameplay concepts, but also wasn’t particularly successful due to certain shortcomings (which included glitches and some gameplay ideas that took away from some of the fun of the game). Anyway, I’m beginning to digress. Just in case you’re curious as to what goes on behind the scenes of the development of a wonderful video-game, here’s an article written by Jordan Mechner, which highlights the creative and technical decision making processes during the game’s development:

The Sands of Time: Crafting a Video Game Story

I have recently completed the second game in this current trilogy, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, and am set to begin the final game in the trilogy, Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. However, considering I have exams around the corner, I think I’m going to put it off for a couple of weeks. The primary reason for writing this post was just to highlight how much thought and passion goes into making video games, and how it pays off in the form of a game that is truly an immersive, magical journey.

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Seriously, don’t.

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First off, wow! No post for almost 2 months. I would have posted earlier, but for some strange reason, I just felt like keeping October post-free. I’m just crazy that way. Anyway, I hereby expect that I have probably lost a lot of readers and/or search engine hits because of the near complete lack of activity (I worked behind the scenes to upgrade my Wordpress from 2.6.0 to 2.6.2, and now it’s telling me to upgrade to 2.6.3, which I don’t particularly intend to do anytime soon. Don’t worry, I checked the upgrade and it’s not a major issue). From now on, I’m considering posting a little more regularly.

And now, we return to today’s post. I was driving back home today from class, at about 9:30 PM. I generally dislike driving at night. The car’s windshield isn’t always squeaky clean, especially as far as oil is concerned, and headlights from the oncoming traffic can make it a little hard to see. Today, I was on the scooter, and I had the same problem, particularly from motorists who refuse to dim their lights. For your information, high-beam should only be used when you’re driving in a particularly dark area and when there’s no oncoming traffic. That is something I generally do, switching on my high-beam only when the idiot coming from the opposite side is driving on high-beam. Normally, I switch it back “low-beam” once I pass the offending driver. Today, however, there were about three or four such drivers, and I didn’t quite bother lowering my headlights till I drove all the way back home.

Now see, the thing is…it would normally be something I’d consider myself above to drive with my high-beam on. But on the other hand, there’s the “Give people a taste of their own medicine, particularly if it tastes bad” ideology. Hmm…thoughts?

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Well, this post is obviously filler. But I found this picture amusing enough to share. Basically, Steve’s a pretty big fan of Metallica, and is pretty excited about their new album, Death Magnetic, which is receiving some pretty good reviews. So, he invited me to join the group “Metallica” on facebook. And this is the result of accepting that invitation. So now you know who’s doing the background vocals on Metallica :P.

Since I’ve already spoken about Metallica’s new album, I suppose I might as well go ahead and comment a little bit on the album,which I’ve heard (not in its entirety though). My initial comments are:

• Kirk Hammett returns with his impressive guitar solos/leads (I’ve never really understood the difference between a guitar solo and a guitar lead…someone might be able to explain this).
• It does NOT sound like St. Anger or any of their last few albums actually.
• But it doesn’t quite sound like Master of Puppets either. Perhaps that’s partially because MoP has become a legend in my head to the point of where I know and love every note of every song (almost).
• “The Unforgiven III” is absolutely awesome and I’m likely to like it for a very long time; at least, I certainly hope so. I have a bad tendency to get bored of songs (as does everyone else, no?).
• The sound appears to be a little dirty. In fact, I’d say it’s probably their dirtiest sounding record yet (not counting St. Anger). It makes the sound rougher, but it’s not quite an effect I like too much. Then again, it could just be that I got a bad version or something.

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I’ve very recently finished playing a game called Metal Gear Solid. This game was initially released for the Sony Playstation in 1998, where it quickly achieved cult status. Even now, it’s widely regarded as one of the best games ever, on any platform. The game was revolutionary in terms of graphics and gameplay at the time of its release, but as with all games, these things have very little importance as time passes. What endures is the core gameplay and the story or the effect the game has on you. It’s pretty much the same with this game. Most games have cutscenes that are interspersed between long periods of gameplay to advance the story. This game, however, has lengthy cutscenes that are truly magnificent even today. The graphics are horrendous by modern standards, but the story just drags you into it, and the entire game is wonderfully character-driven. In fact, the characters are done so wonderfully that even the portions of the game that feel cliched are wonderful to experience.

Anyway, I’m rambling. The point I wanted to make is that after I finished the game, all I could do for a few hours was remain in the aftermath of the game. I looked up the storyline of the prequels and sequels and even considered downloading the 4.5 GB sequel, which is the only other game in this line that is playable on the PC.

But this is not the only game to have had such an effect. I can rattle off a list of absolutely amazing games that make you wish that they were never-ending games that you could play on and on forever…pOrtaL, GTA: San Andreas and Bioshock come to mind immediately, and I’m sure that if I think for a little bit longer, I’ll be able to come up with more. The mark of a truly amazing game is how much it makes you wish for it NOT to end, I suppose. Note that despite the horrible graphics of GTA: San Andreas, it still ranks right up there among the most fun games I’ve ever played.

What is the purpose of this post? Nothing, really. In one way, it’s an attempt to explain to people who don’t understand why people like gaming so much why exactly gaming can be so fun (and sometimes addictive). It’s also a tribute to some of the greatest games I’ve played. Gaming, like movies or music, can be as much an art form when done right, and these are just some examples.

Oh, and to end this post, I’m going to quote an extract from a story. Here it is:

“The truth is… when I play a game, I lose track of who I am. I became the character I control. I can forget about the real world. The game becomes my reality. I can fly at will, kill people to exact revenge. I own cars and have money. I have everything I couldn’t possibly dream of getting in real life. I am invincible…

“Games don’t ask for much. They don’t even care if you play them or not. They won’t ask you questions if you shelve them for months. They don’t expect you to love them. They don’t expect you to score higher than seventy percent in your studies. They don’t care if you pick your nose in public. You can play a game whenever you want, and then switch it off whenever you want, and it will never feel bad that you did. And the best part is… when you get bored of one, you can always put it aside and play another.

“Life should be like a game, you know? Life should allow you to make mistakes and then go back and restart from a checkpoint when you fuck up. Life should let you save your best moments and play them or review them again whenever you feel like…”

(post-published)

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I’ve caught a cold and I might catch a fever too, because every now and then I feel like I’m getting very slightly feverish. Hmm…maybe I’m hoping that I’ll get fever too. I’m not looking forward to going to college tomorrow, and the strange thing is that there’s no reason not to, really. Sure, there’s no real reason to look forward to going to college, but throughout the last three years, there rarely ever has been. So why now, after three years at college, am I suddenly waiting for it to be over?

I wonder if I’ll miss college life when I pass out. I’m sure I’ll miss the people, my friends mostly. I’ll miss my classmates and the other weird creatures that inhabit the college from about 9:30 AM to 4:30 PM everyday. I’m sure I’ll miss the bus ride to and fro, the 1+ hour I spend listening to music, sitting beside people I consider friends, people I genuinely like. Heck, I might even miss the specimens we have come to call lecturers. Will I miss the walls, the atmosphere, the dress codes, the management faux pas, the shambolic administration, the hilariously late announcements from the library, etc?

Then again, I think that college life is like life itself. It’s unfair, it’s got its share of days which make you feel like you just want to stay in bed, and its share of phases when you can’t wait for tomorrow to arrive. Its got more than its share of injustice, trials and obstacles, heartache, pain, sorrow, but in the end, it’s all worth living. At every transitory point of life, I’ve looked back on what I’m leaving behind, mostly with the fondest memories. I used to think that the human brain has an amazing capacity to remember the best of memories and forget the hurtful ones. Now I’m not so sure what to think. I’ve seen people remember nothing but the worst of their past. Oh well, I’m rambling now, and since this is my blog, it’s my right to. You’re just unlucky that you’re reading it.

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I was replying to a thread on a website just a short while ago. Some dude started a blog and wanted to know how to promote it. He apparently writes one post a week and started the blog pretty recently. I gave him the following advice:

1. Blog more often…twice or thrice a week.
2. Find blogs with high traffic and high PRs and post comments on them. Backlinks improve your own pages’ rating.
3. Find and exchange links with other sites/blogs that deal with the same topics or subject matter that you’re writing about.
4. Love your blog.

The irony of this is that with the possibly exception of point 4, I don’t follow any of these other points :P. In my defense, though, I’ve got the following replies to those 4 points:

1. This is just a simple personal blog, more like a journal in online form. If there’s nothing of interest to report about life, then there’s not much to write about. However, I think I should write more often at least to improve my writing.
2. Meh, I’m not really very bothered with my site rankings or my PR. I don’t plan to sell links here any time soon.
3. Yeah, I suppose I should go around looking for bloggers who write about…nothing in particular. That shouldn’t be too hard to do, but I’ll tell you something…I just can’t be bothered to do it.
4. I do…more or less.

And that’s it for today, folks.

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I think I’m in that phase again when nothing seems to matter much. There’s not much to look forward to at college, and there’s not much to look forward to at home either. Somehow, either everything’s faded or I’m jaded. I seem to be drifting.

That doesn’t mean I have nothing on my mind though. In fact, I have a lot on my mind constantly these days, from worrying about how I do in my CAT to the various things around the house I need to do myself now that mum’s not here for some time.

This is just another random update. It’s been twelve days since I last posted.

Oh, and I might as well mention… I watched “The Dark Knight” a couple of days back. It was really good, though I missed the first ten minutes or so. One of the better superhero movies in a long, long time. It’s not only very well done in a commercial sense, but it manages to remain arty and critically pleasing, unlike the Spiderman series. There are plenty of other superhero movies I can name or compare this to, like Daredevil, but they’re so bad that their names should never be mentioned in civilized society. Example : Daredevil.

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Living in India, I hear a lot about the stars not being aligned right, the days being bad (or good), and a whole lot of other supersticious beliefs. I am not imprudent enough to dismiss them outright, but I personally don’t believe much in that kind of stuff…at least I didn’t until what happened today (and the last few days).

For the last three to five days, I’ve not been able to receive some emails sent to @gurdit.com email IDs. I haven’t been able to figure out the problem, but I tried a lot of things. I signed up at EveryDNS to manage my DNS settings and do all sorts of things. As things generally happen when I try to fix technical issues, I made the problem worse, and it took Yunheng (again, the saviour) to finally do some magic and make things right again. He did that today. As of now, I think I should receive any and all mails you send to my @gurdit.com email addresses.

As for the superstition, here’s why I alluded to it in my opening paragraph. I got the strangest error on my cell phone today morning. I had no signal strength even though I was in the heart of the city. Upon switching my phone off and back on again, it gave me a “Unable to register SIM” error. I’ve never seen that before. Just to make doubly sure that the error’s not on my phone, I put my SIM into my friend’s phone, and what do I behold? I get the same error on her phone, except that it was … *Drumroll* … in Hindi!. So, I decided to just give up. In the evening, another friend of mine had to make a call. When I gave him the phone and told him the problem, he restarted it and imagine my surprise when it just caught a signal and started working. Maybe phones have feelings of rebellion sometimes too…

Anyway, see the link? Tech issues, both solved by someone other than me, who pretty much did the same thing I tried to do to fix the issues. Or maybe it’s just me seeing patterns everywhere.

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