Just Like Any Other Day

After an exhausting day at school, John is eager for the final bell to ring. Eager to be "Saved by the Bell" from daily imprisonment and forced learning. Working from 7:20 till the end of the school day, the bell never fails to go off at a regulated interval to indicate the beginning or the end of classes. And today is no different than any other day, the bell went off at 2:11 p.m. Saving John once more.


Today, like any other day, John had everything packed and ready to go. Ready to crowd the already crowed hallway with him and his overfilled backpack. His friends always jokes about how they can feel the gravity from his backpack and feeling themselves being pulled towards it. And like always, he pushes through the crowd in hopes of getting his usual spot on the school bus before someone else does.


Once again, the bus is separated into two part. One consists of kids from the low middle class in the back and one consists of kids from the middle middle class in the front. John's usual seat is the 3rd one behind the driver, located on the left side of the bus. No one on the bus minds where they are seated, but that is how it usually turns out.


Likewise, John is early enough to claim the seat that is unofficially his. After the bus is almost full, Steven stumbles onto the bus and sits next to John relieving John of his biggest fear. John always hated to not have someone to talk to on the home-bound school bus. "I feel like a dumb ass," the way he puts it.


John and Steven don't have much in common except for the way they both think. They have known each other for 4 years now, their friendship developed from the simple "hey what's up" type of friends to a now deeper and more sincere "if you die, I'll try to be sad" type of friends. There are no limits to what they bring up in their conversation, it can be anything from "you are like a triangle" to "flying school buses".


***


After hours of nothing but homework, John feels a little down. And ironically the radio station is playing Mother's Little Helper, out of all songs. Frustrated by the amount of homework, John throws his homework at the wall, disturbing the normally neat room, and lies down on his bed in a desperate attempt to calm himself down. When he does that, it usually means that when the homework is handed back, it will be shredded into fine particles of dust or burned. But something is now flickering in John mind, something that happened on the bus earlier today.


"Is my watch made in China? I bet it is."
"Taiwan."
"How do you know?"
"It said so on the back, let me point it out to you."
"Where? I don't see it."
"There!"
"STOP IT YOU PIECE OF SHIT! Stop trying to spin the stupid compass on my watch!"
"Blah blah blah blah, blah."
"Are you straight?"
"Yea? Well, what kinda"
"Well, if you are, you wouldn't be spinning things around like you are right now."


John got up and start walking out of his room, humming his favorite song.

That Trip to Canada

We woke up at 4 in the morning that day. It was an unusually hot night and none of us had gotten much sleep. We had some "just add hot water and it will be done in 3 minutes" breakfast and fussed about how to arrange things in the car. After about 40 minutes of that we left home and filled up at an uncomfortably friendly nearby gas station. We were finally off to Kingston, Canada, where my many of my mom's former classmates were said to meet.

The road that led us towards Kingston was a hideous one. A long stretch of highway in such good condition that no driver can resist the temptation of going over the speed limit(110 kph(60 mph), blah). Throughout the whole way I was nagged constantly by my mother to slow back down to the speed limit. The highway divided the vast landscape populated only by the few lonely farmers and their animals. The farmers were busy harvesting their crops, all of which were golden and bending under their own weight. The animals were allowed to litter themselves around the field and a few cows even mooed as we drove by(a friendly gesture, right?). It was beautiful, though the blinding sunlight prevented us from indulging ourselves in the scenery more.

We were finally knocking on the doorstep of Toronto after hours of driving through nothing but trees and farmlands. Soon after we entered the city limit, I caught sight of high-rises, the one thing that can clearly slap the word HUMANITY in your face. There they stood, in unity, sparkling under the sunlight(like a Christmas tree? now that I think of it). It gave me an uneasy feeling as we drove pass them, the same feeling that I would get when driving next to a semi. As we were leaving the city limit, a corroded iron bridge spanning the whole width of the highway hung there in midair. It sprinkled rust on whoever drove under it(would that be considered a thank you gift for visiting Toronto?).


Ironically, when we arrived, we were the first one there.

My Own Recipe - Preserved Bean Sauce

This recipe requires that you have preserved beans, if you don't you either have to go buy it in an Asian market or ask for some from your Asian friends. Those things lasts for a long time, so unless you want a whole box of preserved beans that is going to sit in your kitchen forever, I say you should just get a few from your Asian friends.

Yang Jiang(a place in China) Preserved Beans
(they come in a cardboard-ish container)

If you don't know how to open it, tear off the outer piece of paper, you will find a lid hidden inside near the top of the container. You can feel for it with your fingers if you don't want to have an ugly looking container sitting around in your kitchen.

Disclaimer: I won't be held responsible if you set your house on fire whether by accident or intent and/or whatever you've done.


---------------------------------------------


Ingredients:


1 clove of garlic(more if you like, 2 cloves would constitute a strong garlic flavor for me)


about 10 preserved beans(unless you like your food with an odd flavor, I don't recommend more. Oh also, a question, how do you count beans? You don't say 10 piece of beans...)


Sausage, bacon or ham(as much or as little as you like, any flavor that you wish)


Oil


---------------------------------------------


Steps:


1. Chop the garlic into fine pieces, or you can smear it using the salt and clever method. For those of you who watch those cooking shows, you know what I'm talking about. You can also use a blender, but I think that is just way too much clean afterward.


2. Hold the beans under running water for a few seconds, no need to use a brush here. Then chop the preserved beans into fine pieces. Don't worry if they aren't chopped finely, because they usually smear unless you have a sharp enough knife.


3. Cut sausage into pieces of at least the sizes of your chopped garlic. Spend sometime on this step, chop it as finely as you can to taste specks of saltiness exploding inside your mouth. Feel the sensation.


4. Place all the chopped stuff into a pile and mix it well. You can mix it by chopping into the pile or by hand.


5. Dump enough oil into a pot and throw this weird looking pile of things into it. By enough oil I mean enough to dress your pasta, noodle, or whatever you are trying this  with.


6. At this point you can add whatever spices into the oil with those things, just so that it doesn't over power the garlic and preserved beans. After the Preserved Bean and garlic are the star, and you are not making spice infused oil.


7. Turn the stove on to high and sizzle this whole thing until the bits of sausages are golden. Most importantly, keep the mixture moving so that you won't burn it especially if you have it very finely chopped. If you burn it, I guarantee that it wouldn't taste good. Also since the pot is going to get very hot, I recommend you to stir the mixture with a metal spoon. Unless of course if you like to have melted plastic in your food.


8. After the sausages are golden you pour this whole thing on top of whatever or the other way around.


------------------------


After the sausages are golden I pour this sauce(or dressing, not knowing the exact definition for either) over my noodle and mix to coat most of the noodles. You can add sesame oil to the noodle if you like, I did.


This is the kitchen, be creative!


I've only tried this recipe once with noodles, since I just thought of it yesterday, if you find it good with other things, please do tell me.


Enjoy.

Some Pointy Pointers

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;


int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{

     int i = 5;
     int *ptr = &i;
     int **ptr2 = &ptr;
     int ***ptr3 = &ptr2;


     cout<<"&i: "<<&i<<endl
            <<"&ptr: "<<&ptr<<endl
            <<"&ptr2: "<<&ptr2<<endl
            <<"&ptr3: "<<&ptr3<<endl<<endl;


     cout<<"*ptr3: "<<*ptr3<<endl
            <<"**ptr3: "<<**ptr3<<endl
            <<"***ptr3: "<<***ptr3<<endl;
     printf("\n%d\n",***ptr3);
     return 0;


}


=====================Disassembled===========================


int i = 5;
003D35BE  mov         dword ptr [i],5
;at this point, we are putting the value of 5 into the address of the variable i


int *ptr = &i;
003D35C5  lea            eax,[i] 
003D35C8  mov         dword ptr [ptr],eax
;now we get the address of i, and store it at address ptr


int **ptr2 = &ptr;
003D35CB  lea            eax,[ptr]
003D35CE  mov         dword ptr [ptr2],eax
;now we get the address of ptr and store it at address ptr2


int ***ptr3 = &ptr2
003D35D1  lea            eax,[ptr2]
003D35D4  mov         dword ptr [ptr3],eax
;getting address of ptr2 and storing it at address ptr3


... ;skipping the cout part.



printf("%d\n",***ptr3);
01081739  mov         eax,dword ptr [ptr3] 
;moving the ptr2's address out of address at ptr3 and store it in eax
;eax is now equal to the address of ptr2


0108173C  mov         ecx,dword ptr [eax] 
;moving the value in the address of ptr2 and storing it in ecx
;ecx is now the address of ptr, read above if you don't remember


0108173E  mov         edx,dword ptr [ecx] 
;moving the address of i into edx, from address of ptr
;edx is now equal to the address of i, omg finally


01081740  mov         esi,esp 
;doing something


01081742  mov         eax,dword ptr [edx] 
;we are now getting the value stored in the address of edx
;which is the value of i
;eax = i


01081744  push        eax  
01081745  push        offset string "\n%d\n" (1087800h) 
0108174A  call          dword ptr [__imp__printf (108A404h)] 
;printf-ing the string and stuff...


01081750  add         esp,8 
01081753  cmp        esi,esp 
01081755  call         @ILT+430(__RTC_CheckEsp) (10811B3h) 
;doing some more things

=========================================================


Output:

&i:             0044FD74
&ptr:    0044FD68
&ptr2:  0044FD5C
&ptr3:  0044FD50


*ptr3:  0044FD68
**ptr3:  0044FD74
***ptr3:  5


5


Yep, some very very pointy pointers.....

Almost Everything About C.O.T.U

Although I know that my blog probably doesn't get much publicity, more like none, but I would still like to tell you more about the game Call of The Underworld.

The game has been under development for probably two years, exact dates aren't important. Although the game in its early stages are bad, but the game has seen a dramatic improvement.

At first the game was suppose to be campaign driven with survival as a side dish, although the exact reason why Goreblood gave up this idea was not clear, but apparently it was the right choice. Oh um, if you have never played C.O.T.U, it is an Overhead Shooter which you must survive waves after waves of ZOMBIES, similar to the Call of Duty Nazi Zombies.

According to Goreblood C.O.T.U was originally inspired by Call of Duty and that you can see a lot of similarities between CoD and C.O.T.U.

Enough with CoD. The original story is about a guy, Calvin(if I remembered correctly), who had fought in the European theater(I think that is it, Goreblood never told where it was) of WW2, who had contacts(or some kind of experiences) with zombies that emerged after a nuke went off during a battle. Of course this is all fictional, unless... Anyway it is now the 50's(or is it the 60's), years after the war had ended. One day Calvin was driving down a road towards a cemetery at night with Sparky, his dog.

That night the moon was full, and when Calvin was close to the cemetery, he drove into something that resembles the shape of a human. He got off to see if the person he has hit was ok he notices loud moaning(zombie moaning that is) coming from the cemetery. Calvin grabs the m1911 from the car he uses for self defense and proceeded into the cemetery to investigate, leaving Sparky in the car.

And that's where the campaign mission begins. I'm certain that most of what I wrote was true for the story, there are probably some elements from my story of the campaign.

The game now revolves around Calvin trying to survive wave after waves of zombies. There is a offline-coop for the standard map, I personally recommend the coop if you are new to the game.  In addition to the standard map, Goreblood also has made some extra maps for additional fun. Background sounds are also different for each map, some even comes with musics that make you feel lonely and helpless.

Goreblood is now working on the online-coop for the standard map and you have to look at his blog for updates and stuff.

http://cotublog.blogspot.com/