Yes!!! I finally got my japanese driving licence. Yippee!

Alhamdulillah (Praised be to Allah)

But I felt a bit disappointed that I got beginner license because I already have 10 years of driving experience but never mind as long as I get one.  Actually few years ago I already had a Japanese MT license but after doing some bad stuff it was taken away. This time, it took me 4 times to actually pass an automatic car driving test.

4 times is really pain in your pocket and time but those few days, I meet new people from other countries. A guy name Travis from Texas who is working at Toyota, an Indonesian name Dadi who is working and studying part time and a very nice fellow from Ukbekhistan (I wonder if this spelling is right?) name Yahya. I also met a lady from Columbia and a nice young Japanese lady who got her license in America.

After meeting soo many people from different countries I felt how interesting the world is. I'm glad I came to Japan. I'm sure if I were in Malaysia, I wouldn't be interested to make international friends and would be close minded.

Now that I've got my driving license, yoshh... I going to speed up my next plan, InsyaAllah (If God willing).

You can check out my entry in Japanese

Thank you anonymous…

"You may meet some who doubt along the way, people who warn not to reach so high. There may even be times when you tell yourself you can’t do it…But You Can! You see, you don’t need money or connections to get ahead; all you need is a dream to believe in and hope to fire it up…You already have both!"

Regrets

Writing about regrets can help you understand the circumstances that led to the regret and hopefully provide you with some insight. Regrets are inevitable but take some comfort in knowing that we've all made some major blunders in our life, so you're not alone.

In his book No Regrets, Dr. Hamilton Beazley, lists 10 steps to letting go of regrets and the very first step is to write them down.

Exercise: In your ethical will notebook, find a blank page and at the top write the heading "Regrets". As you look back on your life make a list of your regrets. Don't worry if some are seemingly insignificant - put them down anyway. For example, one of my regrets is that I never learned to swim. Now this isn't huge and if I really wanted to, I could enroll in a swimming class for adults. What's important is that you just begin the process of listing regrets.

Look at your list and select one or two regrets that you consider to be significant. Write about this regret and what you've learned and attempt to put it in some perspective. As an example, in my ethical will I wrote,

One of my regrets in life is that I never pursued my belief that I had the potential to be a television or radio host. I'm a natural in front of an audience and my publicity appearances on TV and radio have always been fun. I loved the energy involved. What I know though is that had I pursued that avenue so many other doors would have been closed. I would never have made the films I have and most likely wouldn't be a personal historian, something I truly love. Besides, if I still have the "bug" I can find avenues to satisfy my interest. Who knows, maybe I'll host a Community Radio or Television program on "Life after 50."

Achievements

The Miriam-Webster Dictionary defines achievement as a result gained by effort. The result can be big or small. It's the effort that counts. What I want you to consider in this section are your achievements. Our lives may have been filled with prominent achievements or unheralded ones. This is an opportunity to write about what you consider important. My mother believed her main achievements were running a well organized home, being a loving wife and mother and producing the best pastries in the neighborhood.

Exercise:Turn to another blank page in your notebook and write the heading, "Achievements." To help you reflect on your most important achievements, try answering this question. If you were to be honored for one thing in your life, what would it be? Another way of looking at achievements is to look at what you hope your obituary will one day say about you.

Hopes

One of my favorite quotes about hope is by American writer Barbara Kingsolver. "The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope.”

Exercise: Find a blank page in your ethical will notebook and at the top write, "Hopes." What is it that you hope for? How have you lived inside your hope? What do you hope for your loved ones?

Some books you might find helpful:

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda: Overcoming Regrets, Mistakes, and Missed Opportunities

Finding Hope: Ways to See Life in a Brighter Light

Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed

Next week the conclusion of our Ethical Will series, Part Seven ~ Putting It All Together

Photo by woodleywonderworks

Rockstar Games appear to have caught George Lucas Syndrome: they've been so successful in the past that no-one is willing to call them out on stupid, stupid decisions in their new products.

For example, GTA 4 was riddled with poor design decisions that should have been obvious, if anyone had play-tested the thing and been honest about it:

• Unnecessarily irritating prolonged loading times placed at stupid moments, such as when you've just died and want to reload a save (you have to wait till it loads you back at the hospital before you can do that, as they suddenly and pointlessly disable the start menu), and when you are trying to find a multiplayer game (it loads for thirty seconds and then tells you you've been disconnected, and spends another thirty seconds loading you back into the singleplayer before you can try again).

• The staggeringly clumsy multiplayer interface. The multiplayer game is amazing. It's just that to get to it you have to wait patiently while GTA IV loads, tries, loads, loads, tries, loads etc. Then, unlike say COD4, it doesn't let you know which other player is speaking into your headset - so if you get an irritating person just singing or making other disruptive noises, you can't figure out which one they are so you can mute them. And there's no quick way to check your online stats while you're waiting for a match.
• The fact they're still making us endure imprecise third person controls in an era where precise control is available - the now well-established first person two-analog-stick system. Forcing you to use old-school controls means you regularly die because of Nico's frustrating inability to change direction quickly, and as you wait for the camera to catch up. Niko can only run forward and backward: if you want him to step back and to the left, for example, he has to actually turn before he can do it. Getting him to climb a ladder can be an exercise in frustration. You can't hold the camera in place so you can look to the side while running, either - it keeps automatically moving behind your character. It's annoying! They've built this amazing virtual city but you can't explore it like you would any other 3D environment, with proper 3D FPS controls. (Which would be extremely easy for any halfway decent programmer to implement, by the way.)
• Counterproductive xbox "achievements" that punish you for playing the game the way they claim it's supposed to be played - one of the major unlockable achievements for GTA on the xbox is completing the game in under 30 (real time) hours. This is not particularly challenging - unless you've actually been playing the game the way they've suggested you play it, as an experience to be explored, before you actually get around to tackling the missions seriously - in which case you'll miss the deadline. And have to start from scratch.
• Poorly-designed missions where the goal is confusing until you've tried and failed - for example, missions where you've got to chase and kill a character will sometimes require you to actually shoot them down on the road before they can escape; others expect you to just tail them until a pre-arranged scene occurs and they can be easily dispatched, for example on foot after they crash. You won't know which this
• Long missions with no mid-mission savepoints or checkpoints - you can find yourself playing a ten or fifteen minute mission, something going unpredictably wrong stupidly at the end and having to do it all over again. Given how slow the game is to reload, and how long it takes to just drive back to the mission start point (if you use the "instant restart" selection after dying it takes more time out of your 30 hour deadline), that's extremely annoying.

The upshot of which is that half a year later, I still haven't had the patience to finish the thing. Or play it for months.

WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009 Achievement list revealed total worth of 1000 points.

• Congrats are in order (10 points) - Win an Exhibition match
• Smokin' (20 points) - Defeat Kane in an Inferno Match
• Create A Finisher (10 points) - Defeat an opponent using a Created Finisher in a match
• A brawl to end them all (30 points) - Win in both a Locker Room Brawl and Backstage Brawl
• Cena Story (20 points) - Complete Cena's story in Road to WrestleMania mode
• Triple H Story (40 points) - Complete Triple H's DX and Evolution route in Road to WrestleMania mode
• Undertaker Story (20 points) - Complete Undertaker's story in Road to WrestleMania mode
• Chris Jericho Story (20 points) - Complete Chris Jericho's story in Road to WrestleMania mode
• Mysterio & Batista Story (40 points) - Complete Mysterio & Batista's story in Road to WrestleMania mode using both Superstars
• Bonus Collector (150 points) - Obtain all bonuses in Road to WrestleMania mode
• Gold Rush (60 points) - In Career mode, win every WWE Championship at least once
• A year in the life (100 points) - Complete 1 year of Career Mode playing each match
• Unstoppable (60 points) - Use a created Superstar and obtain 6 abilities in Career Mode
• 5 Hall of Famers (100 points) - In Career mode, induct 5 Superstars to the Hall of Fame
• Secret Achievement (30 points) - Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement
• Secret Achievement (30 points) - Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement
• Secret Achievement (200 points) - Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement
• Secret Achievement (60 points) - Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement

Source

Today's the only day of the month that fans of Halo can go into Matchmaking, Get to 7 Exp, and Get this Vidmaster Achievement.

It even has its very own play list if you have went over 7EXP in all the other play lists. If you don't try this today you will have to wait until next month on the 7th.

I will be on Halo tonight like the millions of other achievement whores in an attempt to grab this achievement. : )

//edit: I got it. :D

So, at long last, Halo 3's fileshare has finally been sorted out. It seemed a lot like my desk. It has been messy for a long ass time but was functional enough to stop me from clearing it. However, one day it was too much and now my desk has tags and related files. Well, not exactly. Anyway, the fileshare has been made a lot more functional and actually works well for people who want to upload and also for those who want to download. It is the 7th of October tomorrow which means that a whole mess of people will be going for their 7 on 7 achievement on Halo 3 as it is the first chance to do so. I have to watch a Charlie Chaplin film after my day in the studio and won't be back to the flat til 7.30 at the earliest. So, Loz, if you're reading this, I'll be on from 8 onwards. I'm gonna have to bring food to the studio with me, because 7 hours on camera can take it out of me. Read the full story on what was updated on the fileshare here.

Yes. University is treating me well and I went round to Ro Si's flat and him and Lu Si cooked up some pasta and Dolmio. We cooked way too much pasta but we had to eat it all because we didn't want to waste any. We also leaned out of the kitchen window and a girl in the flat below was eating a Cornetto and kept getting text messages. Naturally, we asked if her texts were any good and what flavour the Cornetto was. Turns out that they weren't that interesting and it was toffee flavoured. I didn't even know they made toffee ones.

Tomorrow will be a long day but I can't wait to go on the cameras and then it will feel like this course has started properly. I'm pretty tired now so I'm gonna head off. I'll see all of you on Halo tomorrow getting your 7 on 7 achievements.