Sick About FPS Games...

I used to be a big fan of first person shooters, with slight preference towards arena games like Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament. I've spent hundreds of hours playing Q3A and UT since these games came out more than a decade ago, and recently I played through the Q3A (not team arena, the original game) single player campaign once again to reinvigorate my interest in FPS (first person shooter) games. I enjoyed every minute of playing Q3A; the final confrontation with Xaero was as good as ever, but unfortunately, that's as much as I could get my teeth in to FPSs.

I thought after replaying Q3A, I'd feel more interested to play through some modern FPS games like Battlefield Bad Company 2, Duke Nukem Forever, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, etc., but I couldn't really bring myself to playing any of these games. I did install and play DNF for a while, but even the new age Duke could not interest me much. I have been reading a lot of good stuff about MW3, and I also went to the store to buy it, but as soon as I picked up the DVD box, a silent alarm started ringing in my head which said "Don't waste your money, you'll never end up playing this!".

Instead of buying MW3, I came back home, dug my classics collection and re-installed a couple of old real time strategy games that I really enjoy(ed) playing. These are: Age of Mythology (AOM) and Lord of The Rings: Battle for Middle Earth (LOTR: BFME). I already finished AOM and AOM Titan's campaigns and I started playing the evil campaign in BFME, which I've always wanted to beat but never ended up doing.

I had a blast playing AOM and AOMT as I'm now an experienced gamer. When these games first came out, my primary objective was to beat them as soon as possible so that I could move on to other games. That was when I was still in my 20s. But now, at this point of time in my life, instead of having a rushed lunch, I wanted to try a relaxed meal with starters, 2nd dishes, desserts and even coffee, which resulted in a bigger and better playing experience.

I discovered a lot of optional quests, previously unseen areas, eccentricities and new ways of winning the same battles. The memory of my last gameplay was quite vague, as it's at least 8 years old, but still glimpses came back to me while I was playing, and I found some of the rather tough and irritations missions to be quite intriguing and innovative. Instead of rush based battles, I followed more turtling, and only attacked the enemies when I had a sizeable force, which means upgraded units with all sorts of armors and weapons. Previously I solely concentrated on the mythological units, but this time around, my armies were balanced and often the human units played a better part in the battles.

Both of the above mentioned games are quite old. AOM was released in 2002 and BFME in 2006. I played AOM campaign twice before (I did not finish the 2nd playthrough) and BFME good campaign twice. When I was playing BFME, memories of the movie was fresh in my mind and I just couldn't force myself to be on the evil side and watch the hobbits and the members of the fellowship die helplessly.

However, this time around, I am happily killing the good people and having a blast trying out the different unit combinations of Isengard and Mordor army. BFME was built upon a modified C&C: Generals engine, which has served Electronic Arts (EA) quite well. In fact, versions of this engine was used as recently as in the expansion for Red Alert 3, which is still a relatively new game.

Before getting in to the RTS games again, I've spent a significant time playing only RPG games. I believe I've spent the better part of years 2009 to 2011 Q2 playing Neverwinter Nights, Witcher, Mass Effect, Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2. I am still playing DA2, and even after 5-6 playthroughs, I still enjoy the battles. Albeit the story has become stale and nowadays I skip most dialogues. The new expansions (Mark of The Assassins and Legacy) are quite interesting, though.

Especially, Mark of The Assassins was a welcome change of pace and I look forward to playing it again. However, it is pretty much frustrating in one aspect--you need a high lever player character before attempting the expansion, or else you will keep on dying. Even with a healer character, all my companions died in my very first battle when I tried beating MAO at around level 5 or 6.

Unlike DA:O expansions, MAO can't be played after beating the main game. That is, you can't play it with your previous save games. Thus even if you've beaten the game with a two handed warrior before, you can't use him to play MAO--you need to start a new game with a new incarnation of a two handed warrrior in order to play it, and which also means you have to level up this new character up to at least 10-15 levels (beating Act 2 will take you there) until you get a feel of Talis, the new female companion available in MAO.

I've also bought and installed Stronghold 3, the new version of an old castle building game, and I am finding it quite frustrating. There are two types of campaigns in the game, military and economic. I started off with the economic campaign, and I had to leave the game within 15 minutes--cause a rogue bear massacred my whole city! I thought this was the "economic" campaign where I was supposed to focus on resource gathering and building, but I didn't realise that the poor villagers needed protection, too. I had the poor excuse of a lone soldier; a settler with a weird looking pike (which actually resembled a rake rather than a pike) who was killed by a solitary pawing attack from the rabid bear! Even the apple farmers were tougher, they ran for their lives and took a couple of blows before going down.

I am yet to read a review of Stronghold 3; I just bought the game because I wanted to play a new RTS game. I also bought Cities XL 2011 sometime ago, but that game didn't really interest me much due to the sub-par graphics and complicated gameplay. I found the learning curve for Cities XL to be a bit higher than my current patience level.

As for SH3, I just read the wiki and found out that the game is heavily bugged and there's already a number of patches out. I guess I should apply the patches before attempting it again.

So I guess that's the current gaming update from me. It's been a while since I wrote anything like this, and I am feeling good after getting this done.

My Short, Corporate Biography

Md. Ishtiaque Khan has been working in the product and value added services area of the telecommunications industry since 2003. He loves to work on varied and challenging areas, and he also hates to confine his work by rules.

He has spent 2 years in GrameenPhone Ltd., the leading operator in Bangladesh and co-managed all the prepaid product offerings and related service extensions. In 2005, he took up a new challenge and moved to banglalink, which was the smallest operator of in the industry.

He joined banglalink's Value Added Services department, and played a pivotal part in the emergence of banglalink in Bangladesh as the number two operator. Before OTH (Orascom Telecom Bangladesh Ltd.) acquired banglalink, the organization was known as Sheba Telecom, which was struggling from their inception.

As a VAS Senior executive and later on, Assistant Manager, Ishtiaque has launched and managed several key services like electronic topup, GPRS, customized ring back tone, fax and data, various voice and SMS related services, etc. He also launched a few low impact, low cost mobile email services which did not require the end user to have smartphones.

After successfully completing 3 years in VAS, in 2008 he went back to his original area of work--product development. Initially, he looked after the Medium enterprises segment in the post paid products area. Within this short time span, he launched a new customized tariff option for the enterprise market, which was highly praised and proved its long term effectiveness.

Eventually he took over the responsibility of heading the prepaid product development team. In the last 3 years, he and his team has revolutionized the prepaid offerings of the company with ground breaking revenue enhancement activities, usage and retention driven campaigns and micro segment based offerings.

He made sure all key performance areas like acquisition, revenue enhancement and ARPU maximization, retention and churn management was taken care of by utilizing both above the line and below the line promotions to get the maximum output at minimum input. The available resources were overstretched and excellent results were produced. As prepaid customers consist 95% of the company's customer base, it can be safely said that Ishtiaque and his team has great contribution in banglalink's positive EBITDA achievement.

He looks forward to expanding the prepaid segmentation model and getting higher market share for the company through clearly devised strategies and action plans in the coming years.

He is a good team player, and he has expertise in managing cross-functional work groups. He has great working knowledge of both prepaid and postpaid platforms, and he like designing new products and services and tailoring them according to Bangladesh market.

Blog Statistics

I have been blogging since 2004. This year I'll be celebrating my 7th year as a blogger. Looking back, I found out that I wrote the most number of blogs in 2005--averaging 6 entries per month. However, as work pressure multiplied, free time for writing blogs went down like anything. I thought I'd hit the absolute downhill when I got married, but luckily, I still get the odd hours or minutes to jot down something in blogger.

This graph makes me nostalgic. It's the combined result of all 4 of my significant blogs. I couldn't add the stats for Amadergaan blogs as I did not store those entries in any other location. Due to AG server crash sometime this decade, those entries are lost forever. They weren't too special anyway. Those entries were mostly centered around life in AG--the people, the events, the little cat fights and the not so subtle "politics"!

Song of the moment should be "We've come a long, long way together....through the hard times and the good...I have to celebrate you baby...I have to praise you like I should".

So today I praise my blogs, and my blogging career. My blogs will leave a lasting mark of myself on this earth. Perhaps this is the only way for an insignificant soul like myself to leave something behind.

I hope Google will be smarter than AG, and these writings will not get lost in oblivion.

My Favorite Bands

A not so comprehensive list of my favorite bands and artists:

• Acoustic Alchemy, A-Ha, Aerosmith, Astrud Gilberto
• Beatles, Bob Marley, B.B King, Bob Dylan, Black Sabbath, Bee Gees, Bryan Adams 
• Coldplay, Chris Rea, Carlos Antonio Jobim 
• The Doors, Deep Purple, Dire Straits, Dio, Def Leppard
• Eric Clapton, Eric Johnson, Elvis Presley, Ennio Morricone, Eminem
• Frank Sinatra, Francis Goya
• George Harrison, Garbage, Guns'N Roses, Gypsy Kings
• Iron Maiden
• John Lennon, Jennifer Paige, Jennifer Lopez, John Denver, Julian Lennon, Joe Satriani,
• Leigh Nash, Lionel Richie
• Metallica, Megadeth, Michelle Branch, Mark Knopfler, Marc Antoine, Michael Jackson, Michael Learns to Rock
• Nirvana
• Ozzy Osbourne
• Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney
• Queen
• Rainbow, Rufus Wainwright, Ringo Starr, Ritchie Blackmore, Rahul Sharma, Richard Clayderman, Robbie Williams
• Scorpions, Sixpence None The Richer, Shakira, Santana, Sheryl Crow, Sean Lennon, Steve Vai, Simply Red, Spyro Gyra, Stevie Wonder
• Travis, Take That, Todd Rundgren
• Utopia
• Will Smith

Greeting, not Gritting, Please!

Greeting, not Gritting, Please!

Wrote this article on a lazy afternoon.

Nova Hotel Reviewed

This review is about Nova Hotel; situated in Jalan Alor--the brightly lit food street of Bukit Bintang district in Kualalumpur. Whenever I am traveling abroad, I try to book my hotel through Agoda. However, this time around, despite of rummaging through the seemingly unlimited number of accommodation options available in Agoda, me and my wife could not agree upon a hotel.

So what happened is that I kind of gave up the pursuit and my wife took over. She Googled "KL Hotels" and found out about Nova hotel from a website called Asiawebdirect. After looking at the impressive photographs of the hotel exterior, room interior and the toilet, we both agreed that this is the best option within our budget. I tried booking through Agoda but although the hotel was listed there were no free rooms during our traveling time.

We booked the hotel for 2+2 nights. We wanted to do an early check in on 21st July, 2011. We were supposed to reach Kualalumpur at around 5 AM and we wanted to move in to the hotel by 9 AM. When booking the hotel, we mentioned our special requirement. For such cases, Agoda would always give us a specific reply. Usually someone from the hotel in question is contacted by Agoda and the hotel directly replies back to the person who booked the rooms. On such an occasion, I booked a hotel for my in laws and asked Agoda whether there's any refrigerator inside the rooms as my father in law has to keep some medicine inside his room.

The hotel gave a courteous reply that although they don't have refrigerators inside the rooms, they can store any medicine inside their own refrigerators if it is handed over at the reception.

However, in our case, we arrived at the hotel at 8 AM and was told that we cannot check in early. in fact, we could not check in before 2 PM, or even later. We arrived in KLIA (KL International airport) at around 4:30 AM, and could not sleep. We waited till there was some sunlight and took a taxi to reach Bukit Bintang at 8. Me and my wife both were really tired and desperate for some rest. The receptionist at Nova hotel realized our situation and instead of helping us out, took full advantage of our vulnerable state.

She instantly conjured a brilliant(!) solution. I have deep suspicion that these people get a share of the rooms they book. She told me that we cannot check in to our booked room now, but instead she can give us an unoccupied "family room". She will not charge any extra money despite of the fact that we are checking in early. Instead, she will just take the extra amount, i.e. the price difference between the room I originally booked (superior room) and this new one. Sounds like a good deal, right? Read on.

This so called family room was actually for 3 persons, or more. The room was big with a double and a single bed, but nothing more. The air conditioning was good (which we realized later) and we got 3 breakfast coupons (useless as it's a buffet breakfast anyway). However, the fare was exorbitant. It was almost double of what I was paying for the superior room. The deal was almost like blackmailing. The receptionist lady was arrogant enough to say that "you can take this deal or come back after 2 PM". She even refused to allow us to keep our baggage inside the hotel.

Had I been a solo traveler, I'd piss on their so called deal and walk away from there. However, I was with my wife who was damn tired, and our luggage was also huge. So I decided to take the "deal" and check in to the room. We took a good 4 hour nap. After waking up recharged and refreshed, we went out to explore the amenities of KL.

Sleep was pleasant at night. The air conditioning was really good and the bed was comfortable. We woke up a bit late and went down for breakfast at around 9:30 AM. The cafe is ingeniously named "Cassanova Cafe". I have read a few morose comments regarding the average quality of the buffet breakfast in travel websites, but what I personally experienced was way below "average".

The menu was poorly designed with very little variety and irrelevant and cumbersome items. Few people would prefer to have rice as a breakfast item; no matter how tasty or famous "Nasi Lemak" is. There was no proper labeling on the food, so I skipped "cocktail sausage" suspecting it could contain pork. Refilling was done very casually, too. During my short stay of about 30 minutes, a particular dish or two was not refilled at all. The cooking was dubious and some familiar foods tasted different.

We checked out after staying for a couple of days. We were allowed to leave behind some of our baggage in their store room. They only agreed to keep the baggage when I told them that I have another booking and will get back after returning from Langkawi. However, the receptionist insisted that even though I have an internet booking, I should ensure the room's availability by paying the entire amount beforehand.

Now this was a ridiculous and outrageous proposition. The website Asiawebdirect collected 10% of the total room fare and gave me a booking voucher that guarantees a room on the mentioned dates. This voucher should have been good enough for guaranteeing me the room.

Another point to remind--the website and my confirmation slip mentioned free Wi-Fi in the room, but in actuality wi-fi was only available at the lobby. When I inquired about this mismatch, the hotel staff informed me that the information in the website is backdated; i.e. they used to have wi-fi in all rooms before they "renovated", but it is no longer available

The best things about this hotel can be viewed from outside--literally. Location is the best or perhaps the only selling point for Nova hotel. It is situated at the very end of the illustrious food street Jalan Alor. In order to get to the hotel from Bukit Bintang, you have to enter this street which remains lively until the late hours of the night with roadside food stalls and restaurants. One day we had our dinner at 2:30 AM and still there were no lack of customers in the stores.

These restaurants sell mostly Chinese and Thai dishes. Traditional Malaysian food is also available, and so are a few Indian and continental items. So it is always a better option to have your lunch and dinner in these comparatively cheaper restaurants. Even if you book Nova hotel, you can safely skip the breakfast option and save some of your precious money. You can spend it elsewhere. KFC, McDonalds, Starbucks and Subway are all less than 5 minutes walking distance away from the hotel.

As the hotel is in Bukit Bintang, a number of shopping malls are also within walking distance. These are BB Plaza, Low Yat Plaza, Berjaya Times Square, Sungei Wang Plaza, etc.

Overall, I had a memorable stay in the hotel, but it was not because of the hotel--it was due to the proximity of nice places and the presence of my dearest wife.

I have some photographs taken by my camera which I will add here later.

Tales of Dhaka City Roads

Please check out  my article in


Here's the link

or you can read it here, too:

I observed a very unusual incident a few days ago. A young guy was talking on the cellphone while riding his bike. One cannot really imagine how this feat can be achieved unless seen by own eyes. To make things more incredible, he was actually using his one hand to attach the cell phone with his right ear while trying to maintain balance with his solitary unoccupied hand. Result—he stumbled in front of a car and almost got hit by the rickshaw I was riding. The guy had a minor fall and I gave him a friendly advice – “Brother please don’t use the cellphone while driving”. My words did not register in his ears; he did not even look at me. He simply got up, set his cycle on the street, gave a meek smile and within no time, I saw him repeating the same activity. Soon he had to slow down again to avoid getting hit by another speeding vehicle.

This is an extreme example of the roadside hazards that we face everyday in our beloved Dhaka city.  Thanks to the bread earning job, everyday I have to make two mandatory travels—one in the morning and the other after sunset. Apart from these, I also have to do those small strolls and extended rides to satisfy various needs during the day time.

In my opinion, pedestrians and rickshawpullers are the prime reason behind traffic jams and accidents in Dhaka city. Almost everyday, we have to exercise rock’ n roll dance moves in our car in order to save the lives of a pedestrian or two.

Let me paint an everyday picture for a better understanding. Imagine you are driving your car at normal speed on a typical Dhaka evening. Car movement is slow due to dense traffic. Suddenly you notice that there is a significant gap between you and the next car ahead. Naturally, you would want to speed up to cover the distance. However, it is almost biblical that a stray pedestrian will want to utilize the gap and run to cross the road. So what happens is that you have to break hard, make some deafening tire screeching noise and stop the car “just” before hitting the adventurous jaywalker.

Now you just stopped yourself from killing an innocent. Innocent, is he? No, he is not.

He did not assess the traffic situation before attempting to cross the road. He failed to notice the incoming, speeding cars. He is totally irresponsible to both himself, his family and everyone around. He nearly killed himself, and it is only because of your extraordinary braking skill and driving finesse he can still glare at you unharmed. It is only natural that he will shout out obscenities at you for being a “mad, people killing” driver while you will be in a bewildered state.
The pedestrian walks away unharmed, but you, the driver, continue to remain grumpy and shaken. He just “unmade” your day. For the remainder of the journey, you tend to be over cautious and slow. This causes you severe annoyance to the other drivers on the road. They get impatient by your slow driving and make it a holy quest to show you the way “it is done”. For the remainder of your journey, all you hear is deafening honking of varied horns at the back. 

According to everyone’s trusted friend Wikipedia, a vehicle horn is a sound-making device used to warn others of the approach of the vehicle or of its presence. However, I am quite sure that once overused, the “warning” part of the definition turns in to “annoying”. Actually a vehicle horn becomes a sound making device that is used to annoy others.

It seems that drivers are always keeping a hand on the horns just to annoy pedestrians and other drivers on the roads. The relentless honking of several kinds of horns (ranging from hare krishna hare raam type sounds to vuvuzela imitators) will make even the most ardent heavy metal fan’s ears revolt. It is a mystery how we, the Dhaka city dwellers are still eluding deafness. Or are we? Maybe there is some unpublished statistic that shows that on average, 80% of the city dwellers are already suffering from some kind of hearing imparity.

And these are just a few examples of what goes on in the streets of Dhaka....

Life's Little Updates

It's been a long time since I just "blogged away". Most of my recent attempts at blogging centered around a particular topic or theme, and naturally, most of those entries are rotting in the drafts section. You can call it a writer's block or a publisher's nightmare, but the reality is--I haven't been able to finish them and it is most likely that they won't get published anytime soon. But then again, does anyone really care to read my blog anymore? I had a circle of blog friends some time back. They'd write, I'd read and vice-versa. But most of them, just like me, have become really busy with life and they just gave up writing. I used to know some really promising writers. It's a pity now that they can't find any time for blogging.

So what's been going on with my life? 

I have a very involved social life now. Since getting married in 2009, most of my weekends are now occupied with visits to the in laws or attending some social event. I have a huge extended family. My wife has numerous uncles, aunts and a plethora of cousins. My own is not little, too. Almost every month someone has a birthday, marriage anniversary, or some other memorable event where anybody and everybody belonging to the social cohort needs to attend. These just can't be avoided. And, oh, by the way, the toughest of all are the full fledged wedding ceremonies. The cousins have started to get married, and each occasion yields 3-5 invitations on different days!

While I am not averse to enjoying these occasions, it becomes a bit painful when they fall during weekdays. To make things worse, sometimes the venues are too far away and sometimes I need to spend too much time attending them. I can't complain about an event where I have to show up in time, mingle with a lot of people, have a mouthful and return home peacefully. However, the ones where I need to actively participate, arrive long before anyone is even dressed up and stay till the last guest has left and a little bit more really bores me and wears me out. I am just not that social. 

I always prefer a quiet day at home or a lovely evening with just my wife against meeting a hell load of people in a cramped space with inadequate air conditioning. Summer in Bangladesh is getting bad to worse. The other day the temperature inside the car (before turning on the AC and after it had been parked under the open sky for an hour) was as high as 45 degrees (centigrade). Spending a significant portion of the day in a highly comfortable environment has accustomed me to disliking any hot place. 

Yes, I am talking about my office. The air conditioning works really well, and we are hardly warm--even during the winter. So any deviance from the comfort zone just irritates the hell out of me, and survival with a sane mind gets challenging.

So today I have another invitation, and it is after work. I still have an hour or two to go before getting out of work. Despite of having a heavy lunch "oh so typical" of Bangladeshi peoples, I am feeling hungry. But going out to grab a bite is not really possible right now and I don't think I will be doing that.

I have become quite regular on twitter now. I used to have a gadget added in my blog which shows my latest tweets. But unfortunately it is no longer there. When I had the gadget, I'd hardly use twitter. Actually, I totally missed the point of twitter back then. Now I use it as a weapon of mass ranting. All my rants, whines and complains against life gets dumped in twitter.

I have 583 tweets, and I am sure at least 550 of them are rants. Hehe, no, it's not that bad. But it is still worth a laugh reading all of it.

Right now I am chewing a piece of minty gum and waiting for the time to come. The time to get out of office, that is. A new album from Andrea Corr is coming up and I can't wait to hear it. I really miss the band Corrs and Andrea's first solo album hardly filled the void.

Lifelines is the upcoming CD. I hope I will be able to get it as soon as it comes out.

Ten feet high was a good album, but nothing exceptional. She tried to sing like a popstar in this album, but she should realize by now that her fans are more accustomed to listening to her voice the usual celtic arrangements of her band. Instead of violins and cellos, this album utilizes rock guitar riffs, pop drum beats and electronic sounds. While it works in a few tracks, overall the album was not great.

However, the album blue on blue by Leigh Nash was actually a great album. Leigh is relevant because both Andrea and Leigh started their solo careers after their well known bands went in to hiatus. The song kiss me is still one of my all time favorite songs by Sixpence None The Richer. 

Good news for all, Sixpence None The Richer is active again and they will soon bring out a new album. 

 

Anyway, enough of random writing for the day. Will resume some other day. 

The skin jumps opposite the impersonal convenience.

The skin jumps opposite the impersonal convenience.