a dota post

What a way to start today! At about 12.40am on a dark Wednesday morning, Sampson, Sampson's brother, Bernard, Matthew and I won our draft game!!! WOOHOO!!! Well, you could say that it was pretty memorable because I saved the replay of the game. No, seriously apart from that, it was a highlight of how far Matthew and I have come as DotA players.

Well, Matthew played Tidehunter and I played Tormented Soul <--- some caster which I haven't played for a long time. We went to the bottom lane and encountered our worthy opponents in the Mirana and Zeus. Oh my, did we have a tough time! Anyway, our team got the first blood but the first to die in our team was err... me. Following that, I died like 2 more times to the Akasha who then got pretty fat. And um Matthew died a few times too to the Akasha but some of those were my fault because I failed my stuns.

So anyways, I was the weakest link in the team (for a while) until I farmed my 2 bracers, boots and bottle while the 4 of them fail-ganked. At that point in time, Sampson kept forcing me to join the ganks instead of farming. And I was so sure Matthew and Sampson (and maybe Bernard to a lesser extent) would blame me if we lost the game. Thus, I UPPED MY GAME!!!

And I joined all their ganks. Alright, I admit that I miss the EASIEST stuns but I did manage to pull off a few imbalanced ones too, right? Hah, so that sort of atones for my mistakes. Well, evidently my presence in the ganks made a difference (dont know if its big or small) and we managed to teamwipe them not once, not twice, but thrice! Alright, Matthew did his job too by just pressing V to unleash his ulti. And my farming from then on sped up to a frightening pace!!! WOOHOO!!! And I got a fair bit of double kills to bring my KD around to positive. And in so doing, our team turned a lost cause around to attain victory!

To Lawis if you're reading this: Sorry Lawis never invite you because you already logged off Garena lol

Then came a short sleep, waking up, dawdling about, going to school and the dreaded return of exam scripts. I guess my results for Mathematics and SS could be deemed barely satisfactory but my History (I got lowest in class, along with Bernard) and English let me down. But overall I have attained a GPA of 3.6. So I guess I shouldn't complain...

Moving on, ten of us skipped Assembly in the afternoon to embark on a LAN expedition at City Hall, whereby many memorable things happen. Well, we played DotA (what else?) and the first game was pretty horrendous. I will admit that my Shadow Fiend skillz aren't up to scratch. As for the second game... I played Rogue Knight and oh my, did I play a huge role!

Okay initially, I laned with James's Nerubian Weaver and I just instructed him to try to get radiance asap. We laned with a Viper and it was partly my fault because I ran around fail-ganking with runes and a bottle instead of helping James to fight the Viper. As we all should know, James has pretty bad lane control. But anyways, with the help of God's Strength and a good decision on my part to farm BoT first, me and Matthew (Shadow Fiend) managed to make many good kills with great synergy. We were later joined by David (Slardar), James and Mark (Jakiro) when they got fatter (since they're pretty item-dependant) and we managed to pull of nice stuffs in ganks to overcome the fat oppositions. With the exception of Lawis (Furion) who was still about as fat as all of us, or even fatter.

Third game was pretty boring... David owned with Luna... yada yada... Fourth game was the most memorable, not because of teamwork or anything, but because of our Man of the Moment, Mr James Kwong. Well he played Rikimaru and laned with me (Huskar) and Joel (Shadow Fiend) and he just kept complaining. And he was more or less being stupid. Here are a few quotes:

"How the HELL do you expect a RIKIMARU to solo mid? Huh? Huh? Huh?"
-Kwong, expressing his frustration

"HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH"
-Kwong, when he smoke screened me for no reason AT ALL

Well as the game wore on... we realise James got too pro because he had all the nice items and stuff. So Lawis had to buy Gem to kill him. Unfortunately, Lawis died and the Gem was dropped. Here's an excerpt from the conversation:

Matthew (Medusa): "JAMES! Take the Gem! Take the Gem!"
James (Rikimaru): "What? Why? So I can see myself ar?"

For all of you that don't get the joke... try to appreciate it. And then there was this point in time when we spotted James with ONE BOOTS OF SPEED AND ONE POWER TREADS!!! LOL!!! That seriously made me explode with laughter because it was just so funny.

James: "Don't stack meh?"
Lawis: "You wear one for each leg ar?"

LOL now that's about all for the day. I practically blew close to 20 dollars in one day, no thanks to Subway and LAN. So maybe it is time to do something more productive, such as watch High School Musical 3.

Ah well...

a sad figure

Today, I got back my Physics, Chemistry and Biology papers and truth to be told, I can't complain much because I guess it truly reflects the amount of effort which I have put in. Or maybe slightly more. Well, I haven't actually studied very very hard for any subjects at all so maybe my results would be what I deserve. So I think I will let this post serve as a reminder for me to work harder for EVERY SINGLE TEST next year so that I can get into groove by A-levels.

To be honest, I just aimed to scrape 70 overall for all of the three sciences and that's why I slacked off alot during the EOY period and ended up reaping what I had sown. I calculated that I only needed 60/100 for Biology, and about 50/80 and 46/80 for Physics and Chemistry respectively. Physics and Chemistry... I managed to pull off my stunt, though not spectacularly but as for Biology, I would prefer not to talk about it...

On the bright side, though, I could have gotten like 10+ marks more for both Chemistry and Physics (which I shall not reveal my marks) had I been more careful and remembered the formula E=Pt properly. So that's a plus. My Physics and Chemistry aren't that bad.

As for Biology, I am happy that I won't have to do it next year because it's really a stupid subject. All you do is just memorise all the stupid facts for the stupid exams. Although I might not be in a position to say this, studying for Biology is actually not "real studying" at all. "Real studying" is when you retain the knowledge you have acquired but as for Biology, I dare say 95% of the people who study for it forget everything immediately after the test.

Another thing about this hardcore memory thing that Biology offers is that memorising isn't all that important at all if one really DOES become a biologist or whatever that requires knowledge in the field of Biology. Consider this scenario: There's two guys with extreme contrasting results in Biology tests (one fails, the other aces) and they are faced with a tough Biology question in their laboratory or whatever. The point here is, they encounter a tough Biology question in their everyday life and not in the examination hall.

Guy who aces Biology: Hmmm... a MONOsaccharide... is it a sugar? Let me try to remember what I have learnt and studied 3 years ago...

Guy who fails Biology: Oh, a monosaccharide... I might not know what this is but why not we check A BOOK? Or GOOGLE for the answer?

Now kids, which is the clever-er response? And tell me, what's the use of Biology examinations again?

on a wet cold friday morning...

First of all, allow me express my sincere disgust at the consistency of rainfall these few days. You know what this means? This basically means that I can't play football every Sunday anymore. And it also means that I can't go back to school to play football anymore even when there's no school. You know why? Cos rain sucks. Both of them, if you know what I mean. Stupid shampoo commercial that makes no sense and, well, rain as in rainfall.

At least something to look forward to nowadays is 4.30pm, whereby the new CPU will be delivered with super good RAM and the super cool graphics card featured in digital life this tuesday. WOOHOO! That means that I get to play PES09 and beat Matthew today. And it also means that I can uninstall MSN already due to the following reasons:

a) no one talks anyway, and
b) I will be probably playing all the time anyway

And for now, I play DotA with Mark and Matthew... at 9.50am on a wet cold friday morning.

Wow.

mind, body, heart and soul

Okay now I have this plaster wrapped around my left index finger (which is next to the thumb) and it hurts really bad because somehow it's swollen and I don't know how it got swollen. As a result, I can't use my index finger to type and I can only use the other three of my five fingers which makes my typing slow and also, I don't know how I'm going to play DotA later. Moving on...

Today was a cool day which kicked off with Manchester United FC beating Celtic 3-0. Get it? Kick-off? Football? Then at 10am, met Matthew at Dhoby Ghaut MRT Station before setting off to Paradiz (is that the place) Evolution Square LAN centre for 3 good games of DotA with the rest of the usual people. Good, fun but unsuccessful. Moving on again...

Then we (Matthew, James and I) left at about 2.30pm to meet Lawis at Bishan MRT Station to watch the prestigious movie 20th Century Boys, which had Lawis and Matthew swooning over on MSN the previous night. Well, we had Subway for lunch and I came to the fortunate realisation that Subway is indeed nice even though it was my second time eating there. I definitely will eat there again. Italian BMT and Chocolate Chip Cookies woahhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Then, came the movie which basically kicked off with this really great trailer of an upcoming movie which looks very cool to a large extent. Okay, I think this movie is titled The Day The Earth Stands Still and it stars Keanu Reeves, I think... Then there was this funny VISA commercial starring an indian couple, though I strongly believe we mistook the meaning in the commercial. Indians and banks don't make a good commercial for ironic reasons and that was capped by this funny line when they sung "mind, body, heart and soul". Hahahahahahaha.

But that, unfortunately, was about the best parts of the movie. Yeah, the movie hadn't even started then. At first glance, I thought the movie had a nice plot whereby this group of guys drew this book which dictates the destruction of the world before some heroes (themselves) pop up to save the world. As it turns out, one guy defected from the group who made this book and eventually made the destruction come true. The rest is just nonsense. All four of us had high hopes for this movie as it had the "highest production cost" and it was the "#1 box office" thingy. But as soon as the movie ended, our disappointment was most evident when James clutched his head in agony, Matthew wailing loudly in the cinema and Lawis apologising frantically. Me, on the other hand, felt we should wait for the after-credits which we didn't, of course.

Then, it was time to go home and on the way to the train station and on board the train, everyone should have heard James complain about the movie in typical Kwong fashion.

"Screw it la, 20th century boys my ass lor, what has that got to do with the movie? It's damn stupid."
-James, on the movie in general

"Fuck Kenji la, fuck the movie la, fuck them all la. Fuck la..."
-James, in response to my comment that the protagonist (Kenji) was stupid

"Damn stupid lor, they show some erotica scene, then the woman and the guy never even have sex or anything, so lame... Only showing the woman for fun only lor, I don't even know what she's for, seriously"
-James, raining heavy criticism on the movie

"I thought the movie was Taiwanese, cos I heard on radio this Taiwanese movie topped Dark Knight. Then I realised this movie wasn't Taiwanese, it's Japanese..."
-James, mistaking Taiwanese for Japanese

"See, this is why I only watch English movies."
-James, upholding his preference of movies

Ta-dah, that's about all for today and I hope the subsequent days will be more fun.

a weird post

Now, as you can see, I'm feeling rather depressed at the moment (cos I blogged twice in a row).

This is because a long time ago (yesterday, actually), I bought this really cool game entitled Pro Evolution Soccer 2009. But unfortunately, my computer has been unable to run the game. Why? THE GRAPHICS CARD IS TOO LOUSY!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

And this also means that I will have to purchase a new graphics card for the CPU which would probably cost up to 100 dollars. Oh dear... I hope I get it by the end of today cos I really want to play...

On a lighter note, there's no school for 5 days in a row for me because of marking days and Deepavali (is that how you spell it?) so hurray! And it looks like the sun is shining brightly now so perhaps I can play football later as well.

I guess the day I look forward to most in the week would have to be Sundays because that's when I get to play up to two and a half hours of football at the big field near my house with James Kwong (Alessandro Nesta) and many other people - some of them slightly older than me and some of them slightly older than those slightly older than me. And that's when I get to unleash my professional Bergkamp/Pires/Hleb/Rosicky/Zidane-esque attacking midfielding skills on all of them and create tons of goals (which I did) and create tons of magical dribbles (which James can testify to) and tons of chances (which James can also testify to) and tons of magical touches (which James can testify to).

Now, moving away from the minor self-advertisement, notice why I didn't mention Paul Scholes who wears number 18 for Manchester United FC? You really want to know why? It's because he is WAY TOO GOOD for ANYONE IN THE WORLD to emulate him. Heh heh heh.

Not to mention that I will have to improve on my shooting as well because it is way too wayward as many many people can testify to.

Sorry to bore everyone with an irrelevant post. I have a confession to make. I just woke up about an hour ago.

holiday resolutions

This post would basically sum up the things that I want to do now that there is no more studying to do for the rest of the year.

Football
This means that I will need to play more football within the next 2 months. I play every Sunday or Saturday or both and I would definitely like to play 11v11 or 5v5 on a field or street soccer court any time. So anyone wants to take up the challenge?

Defence of the Ancients
Pretty much self-explanatory, play more DotA, win WCG next year.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2009
Pretty self-explanatory again, play more PES09, be the top worldwide player online, win WCG next year. And beat Matthew's Liverpool.

Sleep more
Self-explanatory again, sleep more.

Go out and do stuffs
Such as football, LAN or movies.

Miscellaneous
Run, swim and do other stuffs like badminton, probably.

Move house
Some time in November.

David's professional party
Some time this week.

Grad night
Some time next month.

That's about it
For now...

ups and downs

Well, it has had been a rather taxing two weeks but it has all come to an end. On a whole, I felt that the EOYs were rather manageable and I think I can pass all of them. So that's one good thing - freedom at long, long, long, long, long, very long, long last.

Another good thing is that the new channel OKTO is already out this OKTOber!!! (hahaha...) Now we get to watch kewlz shows like Schoolhouse Rockz ALL DAY LONG MANZ!!!

Every cloud has its silver lining. Similarly, every rainbow has its (something bad), or whatever. On a relatively sad note, I didn't get to LAN today... *aww* As I don't know what else to say, allow me to narrate my day in typical boring "teen blogger" fashion.

Mark, our hero, left straightaway after the Math EOY ended, evading that long-winded reminder on post-EOY activities in order to book seats for all 18 of us at the LAN shop. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, he was unable to do so and it was now up to all of us to rush there ahead of the rest. Sadly, we couldn't accomplish that too. Bla bla bla, fast forward... Due to more unforeseen circumstances, 5 of us arrived late at the LAN shop and eventually there were no more seats left for us. :(

Being depressed and such, the 5 of us joined up with roughly 11 other people to go to Dhoby Ghaut to find a place to LAN without 9 of the originally planned friends who didn't wait for me. FRIEND LA! Fast forward again... Dhoby Ghaut LAN failed as well because some of us were not over 16 (WeiXiang turns 16 tomorrow) and so some of us went home whilst others trudged off to pool. I didn't play pool either as the pool shop was too crowded and i'm too bad at pool. As such, I called Cheng, one of the afored mentioned three^2 musketeers who failed to wait for me, to come over Plaza Singapura with me and dear James. Which he did. So I guess his sins are erased by half.

So, without beating about the bush, Cheng and I bought our PRO EVOLUTION SOCCER 2009 computer games which we're going to try out later, at dear James's expense. Next, KFC and following that, home sweet home.

I feel that there are lessons I can take away when it comes to organising LAN trips:
a) too many cooks spoil the broth
b) it's good to be selfish and not wait for your friends
c) and on a side-note, I learnt some things about WeiXiang which I never knew... he never told me... FRIEND LA!

something retarded

While studying Chemistry at the prestigious Bishan Library a few days ago with the honorable company of Lawis, James, Jie Hao, Mark, David and Cheng Jian Wei Matthew, we (Lawis, James, Cheng Jian Wei and I only, actually) encountered a fatal question posed to our already overloaded brains by *who else?* Cheng Jian Wei Matthew.

It was a question which required extremely Higher Order Thinking (HOT) and it is truly reflective of the world-class education which our beloved Raffles Institution has bestowed upon us lowly mortals.

Without further ado, allow me to unveil the question...

Matthew: Eh, teach me salts preparation leh...
Alvan: Okay, what do you want to know?
Matthew: Salts preparation, how to make soluble salts and insoluble salts?
Alvan: Okay, come I teach you... *recites the methods (titration, precipitation, excess reactants)
Matthew: Huh? Can go slower?
Alvan: Okay... *reduces speed by a factor of 2*
Matthew: Oi! What talking you? Why have titration and excess...?
Alvan: ... *reduces speed by a factor of 3*
Matthew: Wait!!! Why must have excess?
Alvan: .................................. *reduces speed by a factor of 4*
Matthew: Oh...... Okay okay I get it already...

WAIT! That's not all!!!

Alvan: Okay now let's try a few examples...
Lawis: I give some salts for you to try out
Matthew: No wait! I come up with the question myself!
Lawis & Alvan: Okay then faster
Matthew: *thinks for about 2 minutes*
Alvan: OI WHAT YOU DOING?
Matthew: Wait, I'm thinking...
Alvan: What?
Matthew: Can you help me think of an acid with a Sodium ion in it?
Everyone: ............................................................................................................

AHAHAHAHAHA