Lenten Season…

February 21st, 2010 The author

The last Wednesday marked the beginning of lent in the Church’s liturgical calender ; a season where we prepare our hearts and minds for the passion, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior. Lent is typically marked by a season of penance, where recall our thoughts and minds of all the misdeeds we have done and we also prepare our hearts to celebrate God’s gift to us (his son and the Resurrection) by offering up sacrifices.

Sacrifices typically can come in all ways, mostly people opt to fast and abstain from meat or food. For me, what I’m doing for lent is quite simple ; I am going to plan to say the Rosary on my knees for the next 40 days.  This exercise will not only help build up my spiritual stamina, but it will also give me that much needed time of prayer. I am also planning to go for daily mass, at least once or twice a week.  This is actually the first time I am making a conscious effort to do something during lent. Usually, lent for me basically means more activity in Church – i.e Way of the Cross. 

So far it has been rewarding. The fact that I make it an effort to say the rosary on my knees helps me focus more on God, and less on earthly things. The pain I get from my legs help me in a small way offer up my sacrifice to Christ. Like I said, this is the first time I am perfoming any sort of mortification  (Don’t get hung up by  THAT word, even a simple fast or abstaining from sugar in your coffee is also considered mortification!) and it has been really good.

Anyway I just hope and pray I can continue this on until Easter

Posted in Church, God, Life, me | No Comments »

Playing sins of the solar empire

February 14th, 2010 The author

Alright alright, I spent the entire morning trying to figure out how to properly instal this game. I had downloaded the whole 1.13 GB file last night, so today morning, upon installing, I got a rude awakening from the system saying that I needed to enter the Activation key!

And if you notice, there is no activation key in the folder of the 1.13 GB file. Therefore you would need to download the patch. Now, if you’re a nut like me and you don’t know exactly which patch to download, just follow my steps below:

1. Download Sins of the Solar Empire Trinity (It covers the full game, the Diplomacy Upgrade and the Entrenchment upgrade – hence Trinity )

You can download it off from here:

http://torrentz.com/dadf68e89ea0551bf95d35a049707ddc7800d62c

(There is another file you need to download, refer to step 4).

2. Once the download has finished, go ahead and mount the game (the file is an ISO file, so you need to either mount of burn) . Just search for some ISO mount software on google. There are plenty free ones out there.

3. Once you’ve mounted the game, then just run the ISO file. The installation process should start. Just install it to your hard drive.

4. Once the installation process is completed, then you need to download another file. This file is the patch which allows you to bypass the stupid activation key.

http://torrentz.com/7e7678e66f94576cfaedf51f2f0980ec72d0b0f1

5. Once you’ve gotten both the files, just extract the 2nd file and proceed with the installation. Make sure you install the patch file into the same directory…otherwise it won’t work! The file contains two folders, one for the game itself the other for the Entrenchment update. I’ve only tried for the one with the game only. I didn’t try the other one yet cuz I am halfway through a session and installing the upgrade will wipe out my existing save game files, but I’m sure it will work as well.

Anyway this is all…it’s an amazing game, if you’re into those sci-fi shows

Posted in stuff | No Comments »

The beauty of this country…

February 14th, 2010 The author

Having the opportunity to study abroad really does have its benefits. One of them is that it  allows you to evaluate and then decide on the things that you can come to appreciate about  your native country.  I have to admit, I’m not the most patriotic person when it comes to my  home country.  The only thing that I DO care about in this country is it’s social and economic    issues, especially on employment, education, healthcare and society.

Today, being the auspicious festive season for the chinese, it has made me realize how beautiful this country is. If you’ve gone to other countries, festivals are usually concentrated to a specific ethnic group.  It’s not a cause for a national holiday or major celebration.  However, I am impressed and somewhat taken up by how my country celebrates these holidays. Be it whether it’s the chinese who are celebrating the Lunar new year, or the Malays with their Hari Raya or even the Hindus and the Christians with their Diwalis and Christmases, there is always a sense of unity when the holidays come around. Everyone is in a cheerful mood, even though they are not celebrating the holidays… and I think this is what makes Malaysia truly a beautiful and wonderful country.

Now if we can only do something about the heat…

Posted in People, me | No Comments »