A review of some of the games that I recently played

Some time ago, I went to the city library to vote and I noticed that they even lend out video games. You can borrow games for a week free of charge and you can renew your loan as long as you want to provided that you go there: yet again another proof of the library being the pathetic government funded kid who despite having good toys no one wants to play with, but that's totally another story. Anyway, I started to try out some games and here's what I think:

Call of Duty Black Ops

The very start of the campaign mode is very intense fighting in late 80's which I thought, apart from being quite realistic, was very heavy and exhausting. Later on the story line shifts to future and gradually loses its coherence and attraction which is quite opposite to first Black Ops. Overall, it felt like the writers didn't have much to offer and the game developers focused their efforts on the action instead. I also tried the Zombie mission which were obviously much better than the first one but they tend to be pointless as there is not much advancement in these missions. Overall, the actions were improved but not to an enjoyable level ad the story sucked.

Heavy rain

I have never played any game like this which brings us to the fact that if Heavy Rain can be regarded as a game or not. It's more like watching a thriller e.g. The silence of the lambs with a good amount of suspense elements: The story of a serial killer dubbed as Origami killer and we follow a couple of characters who are chasing him. The player has the possibility of changing the course of the game by the decisions that he makes. That's all as far as playing is concerned and at the very end, the killer is someone who we least suspect. I read later that they are actually four alternative endings to the game and I just happened to see one (which was actually a downer) and since the identity of the killer of revealed, I really didn't felt like to going back and changing some of the choices to see the other endings. It was a good interactive movie to watch because of its story but the graphics have to be developed to a large extent. So if Activision had taken this story and made it instead of COD Black Ops II it would have been awesome.

Dark Souls I and II

I went for Dark Souls II since it swept a bunch of gaming awards but then I was advised to start from the first one so I got the box which had both of the in it. One the first one, I was directly pt off by how primitive and low level the graphics are so I dropped it quite quickly.






On the Dark Souls II, I found it very difficult to get going as the tutorial were not that good and it jumped directly to the difficult parts which was kind of frustrating. Also I had problem following the game direction as it was not clear which direction/mission you should go in somewhat indefinite space. Given all these, I didn't bother to challenge myself and try to finish the game which I'm sure would have taken much more than what I expected. Disappointing is the right word to express my experience with these two games.

Assassin's Creed II

In contrast to Dark Souls, this game is very straight forward and gradually grows on you and you get hooked up. The graphics despite being a couple of years old is amazing and the get to like your character little by little as it develops and gets better. The drawback is the whole thing can be easily cut into half and almost after half of the story, it gets repetitive and somewhat pointless. You have to basically the same thing over and over again. Some of the missions that are to challenge your jumping skills get very frustrating  specially toward the end when you are running against the time and you can simply get stuck at one point for a good while. Perhaps if you don't have time constraints as I did and if you plan to plan one short mission at a time or something, you wouldn't feel about it as I did but that strategy keeps you busy for a very good while, I promise you that, this game is very long but like I said, it is addictive. Well, I guess, there are worse addictions, right?

Battlefield 4

Surprisingly, BF4 didn't have much of small irritating issues that you normally see with EA games and much effort has been put in making fights as realistic as possible which was good. But unfortunately, like other BF games, the story was really bad, so bad that it discouraged me totally from finishing the game. Like other BF games, you get to ride different vehicles which is very cool but again, it can get so difficult at times at leads to frustration. The choice of weapons (some unlocked!) seems pointless as you really have much time to test the rifles and what not. The use of tactical weaponry such as land mine and C4s, despite being a nice idea per se, is at times very difficult and tricky. I didn't finish the game but as far as I played, the story sucked. I guess after all, it did not disappoint in being yet again another disappointing product by one of the most hated companies in the world.

My 2014 lesson

Scene from the movie "The Fan" by Tony Scott (1996).

Gil and Bobby playing baseball on the beach.

Gil Renard: How did you get out of that slump, Bob?

Bobby Rayburn: Say what?

Gil Renard: Got any idea what got you out of that slump?

Bobby Rayburn: You know Curly, I just stopped caring, man.

Gil Renard: What?

Bobby Rayburn: I just stopped caring.

Gil Renard: You stopped caring? What do you mean?

Bobby Rayburn: All my life, I've been working to be the best. You know? Trying to be perfectionist. And I thought about it. That's probably where I made my mistake. And when Juan Primo died, man, that completely changed the perspective. I mean...I mean, come on man, let's be real here man. What are we doing? We're not curing cancer, you know? We're playing a game. That's all it is. It's just a game. So I stopped caring and relaxed...and I started hitting again.

Gil Renard: Stopped caring. So that's your f---ing insight into life?

Bobby Rayburn: Yeah.

The Last Leaf

Inspired by a short story of the same title by O. Henry, many thanks to KG for reminding me this.

Father's day presents

Rotring 800+ mechanical pencil black

Rotring refill 0.50 mm HB leads

Rotring Tikky spare erasers

I can not be happier!:-)

Cykel Vasa 90: الكريم اذا وعد وفى

1. Last year, after the CV45, I said somewhere that I will go for CV90 next year. I almost forgot about my promise specially after what happened at Lida. But somehow I remembered it and it just struck me what Saadi once said:"A man always keeps his word..." which left me with a rather simple choice. 

2. In the aftermath of Lida, there was only one thought that was daunting on me:"I just can't go out as a loser, I just CAN'T!" So I had to pull myself together and get back on that horse. If it ain't working, come back to fight another day, it is very important to choose those days wisely.

3. I fixed a solid plan of mental and physical preparation for CV90, none of them held due to factors mostly outside my power. On the day that me and my riding buddy decided to go for a long ride to simulate the 90 Km stretch, I got a puncture while riding on asphalt! A short while after changing my tube while were trying to bounce back from the downer, he got a puncture too and it turned out that his reserve tube which was brand new has a puncture in it as well! So we had to call up my guardian angel to come and pick us up in the middle of nowhere (details can be seen in here). In order to avoid such unpleasant surprises during the event, I handed in my bike to the local bike shop so that they can sort this thing out and I have been getting a little too much of punctures since I got my bike. The guy claimed that there was something wrong with my tires and suggested to get a new package of tire and tube which they had a special offer for Cykel Vasa. While I really didn't buy his argument and believed that there was nothing wrong with my Bontrager tires, I reluctantly accepted and went for the Continental package. The day after, I saw that I have a puncture again while the bike was standing in balcony! I always suspected that the rim tapes were to blame and have to be replaced as they really seemed low quality and badly placed to my great surprise having the quality of Trek in mind. So he did it this time and it held. This somehow proved that I was right all along and that tire change was really unnecessary imposed cost. Yet another bummer but I couldn't afford to lose my mind on that and tried to look at in a positive way: I would be riding with brand new tires and tubes and it felt quite safe. Two nights before the event, I came out of shower and was about to sit down to drink some water, BAAAAM! My back started to nag loudly. Jesus H. Christ! Why? Why now? The idea of this nagging blowing to a full scale back pain, which grounded me badly for two weeks last year, was not a pretty sight. I had to bite my way through.

4. On the mental strategy during the race, I decided to divide the whole thing in three parts, each of 30 Km: 1st would be the warm-up which turned out to be quite useful given that the weather that day was chilly, 2nd would be the struggle and I just have to fight my way through and 3rd would be just trying to get to the finish line and get over with it. This worked actually well with only one flaw which I had totally missed: The length is actually 95 Km and not 90! So when I reached 90, I still had 5 Km to go but I had ran out of mental energy, my body could surprisingly hold up for a good while or at least for the extra 5. This meant that I ran somewhat empty those last kilometers and this had a negative effect on my overall time despite my efforts down the stretch. 

5. On the night before CV90 (staying in a hotel in Tällberg) and the on the bus ride to Sälen on the day of CV, I was feeling very sad and down. I guess there were many reason: the uncertainty of how it will go during the ride, the bad weather ahead of us (cold and heavy on and off showers), how my bloody back would react, the long distance of ride ahead, not being able to sleep enough and comfortably the night before and waking up very early in the morning (there is nothing in this world that I LOATHE more than waking up early in the morning and head out to somewhere, I really really hate that!) and many many more. I faced a dilemma of what clothing I should wear and I went for light version i.e. cycling jersey and a tight base layer without arms which resulted in me feeling very cold at times but I think it was a good decision overall. My back started to nag again in the beginning but when it realized that I don't give a damn about it, it just went away!  

6. In the end, it went very much better than what I expected. I had very good time half way through and I could have finished under 4:30 if I had dared to push harder in some places but I was very unsure of my back and was a bit afraid of possible crash or something. On top of that was the mental factor that I mentioned earlier. But I did reach my highest speed ever recorded, 47.5 Km/hr! And it was sort of easier and a very fine trail to ride on, I really like that trail. Looking back now the CV 45 seems really short compared to this one. However in CV90, we skipped a very difficult hill which in CV45 caused me some problems last year. 

7. I was slightly put off by the organisation of the race though. Now that there are such a large number of  participants, the organisation has to be raised to another level compared to CV45 but it, in my personal opinion, didn't. Well, they claim that they had applied some improvements in the trail, but they could do much much better. For example, the showers and changing area were not really satisfactory for this number of people: few showers, cold water running at times, dirty changing area, not enough hooks/places for clothes and not enough toilets in the start. You had to stand in long queues for everything, from getting the food (which we gave up on when we got a sight of that) to picking up your race diploma and stuff. The Shimano Café which was the only alternative for food charged quite much for a very salty and quite bad buffet. The food offered from the race was not that eye catching neither. That in general was a bit disappointing given the relatively high entrance fee. I heard later from someone who takes part for a race called Giro dell Dolomiti in Italy which is a 7-day event on road bikes that they pay the same entrance fee except for getting warm food and much more for a whole week! Also, the giveaways were very shabby and little. We got almost nothing except and small plastic wrist band courtesy of Merida. The finish medal can be easily replaced with a more classy one. There are so much to improve in many aspects.

All in all, I am kind of happy with my performance, 4:35.43 was my official time. I got really euphoric when I got myself in the last stretch that is a couple of hundred meters from finish line and I was really happy as I passed that famous sign which reads:"I faders spår för framtida segrar" which means "In father's (i.e. Gustaf Vasa) track for future victories". I would have loved to see some familiar faces right there at the finish line but I didn't!:-( On the hand, I did get some good photos instead courtesy of happymtb.org. The whole adventure can be seen in here with additional data.

As for the next year, no promises right now! ;-)

Somewhere near Eldris

Religious

Scene from the episode "The Burning" of season 9 of TV series Seinfeld.

Elaine and Puddy are at Puddy's apartment.

Elaine: So where do you wanna eat?
Puddy: Feels like an Arby's night.
Elaine: Arby's. Beef and cheese and do you believe in god?
Puddy: Yes.
Elaine: Oh! So, you're pretty religious?
Puddy: That's right.
Elaine: So is it a problem that I'm not really religious?
Puddy: Not for me.
Elaine: Why not?
Puddy: I'm not the one going to hell.

Pearl Jam on June 28, 2014

Playlist XX.

1. "Release"
2. "Sometimes"
3. "Elderly woman behind the counter in a small town"
4. "Small Town"
5. "Black"
6. "Go"
7. "Animal"
8. "Mind Your Manners"
9. "Why Go"
10. "Corduroy"
11. "Lightning Bolt"
12. "Red Mosquito" 
13. "My Father's Son"
14. "Given To Fly"
15. "Daughter"
16. "W.M.A"
17."U"
18. "Sirens"
19. "Even Flow"

20. "Green Disease"

21. "Jeremy"

22. "Spin The Black Circles" 

23. "Rearviewmirror"

24. "Just Breath"

25. "Oceans"

26. "Mother" (Pink Floyd cover)

27. "Once"

28. "Supersonic" 

29. "Sonic Reducer"

30. "Porch"

31. "Do The Evolution"
32. "Better Man"
33. "Alive"
34."Baba O'Riley"
35. "Indifference"

A tribute

"I want to say a little something that's long overdue
The disrespect to women has got to be through
To all the mothers and sisters and wives and friends
I want offer my love and respect to the end"

- MCA

عص

Source: behzadgolpayegani.com

A side note to Lida

1. We started to work with our bikes to adjust a few things prior to heading down there, check the tire pressure and etc. I asked my friend if he could adjust my back derailleur slightly as I had felt that it didn't shift properly between some gears. He started to change a few settings and things got worse. One hour later, we couldn't find our initial position neither and got frustrated. he went home to pack his stuff as we were about to leave in one hour and I headed to a local bike store/shop (which by the way is a official retailer of Trek) to see if I could get that fixed. They said that we don't have any mechanic working on Saturdays and I thought: "Gee, that must be a highly paid job that you don't need to work any extra on weekends, a bike mechanic!" Then they said, we provide service for the bikes that we have sold here in the first hand which I thought was pure bull s%#t, because if they are for Trek, then they should provide service for all Trek products regardless of where they have been bought from. Anyway, I left that place empty handed and disappointed but I thought I will manage my ride with those gears, no real biggie. Fortunately, I managed to take care of that plus other things when we got there to pick up our numbers at a tent that one of the sponsors had set up...free of charge of course! And they were very nice and friendly as well!

2. On the drive to there, one of the bikes on the rack in the back of the car got loose in the middle of highway. Fortunately it didn't fall off but we had to stop to fix this while all the cars were passing by us at a minimum 110 Km/hr speed. This happened twice (!) and got us delayed for picking up our numbers so we had to drive like crazy in order to get there. In the end, we made it at the by a minute in time. 

3. Before leaving home, I had put all the stuff that I needed to take with me by the door. I took everything with me except my helmet and I realized it when I was 200 Km away from home...on a late Saturday evening with little possibility to buy a new one. Fortunately, I managed to borrow my friend's which fitted me quite tightly but it worked. For the record, it is prohibited to participate in the race without authorized helmet.

4. The day after the race, I was on my way on a short drive to buy ice cream for my daughter. I left my wallet on the roof of the car and drove away with it! I realized it immediately but it was nowhere to be found. I started to block all my credit cards and everything and as soon as I was done with it, someone called me and said that they have found my wallet...come on man!

Lida Loop: The nightmare in Botkyrka

This is a MTB race held in Botkyrka in Sweden that consists of three loops, each of ca. 22 Km which adds up to the total of 66 Km. One can choose to ride one or two or all three loops. Given how it went for me in CV45 last year, in which I started to feel much better in the second half of it and I somehow felt that I could continue for at least a good 10 Km or so, I thought that maybe 66 is not that far out of reach so I signed up for three loops WITHOUT having a clear knowledge of what is actually waiting for me. 

It turned out to be the most difficult track that I have EVER ridden (or even seen for that matter!) and it was by far the toughest thing that I have been through, I have never ever felt so bad during and after the ordeal. The track was a lot of long and never ending uphills and very steep at times (which got you very exhausted even if you just wanted to walk with the bike) and if it wasn't that, it was highly technical parts or very steep downhill on a very rough and uneven surface. Put on top of that, a distance of 66 Km (well actually it turned out to be 65 Km, who cares at this stage, huh?) which something of its own per se.

In the middle of second loop (which is the most difficult loop of the three), I was totally spent. I got muscle cramps on both quadriceps which made it a hell if I wanted to stand to rest or walk slowly. Somehow I managed to finish that loop and came to a cross road where I had to quit right there and finish after 2nd or continue to 3rd, which (undoubtedly given my natural stupidity!) I did and it was a big big mistake. The 3rd, not being as difficult as 2nd, drained me of ALL my energy and whatever I had left in me. The last 10 Km or so I was feeling very sick but fortunately since I had nothing in stomach so I did not throw up. I had barely any energy to drink or swallow anything. The slightest of uphills turned to a massive project for me and besides, I felt mentally drained.

About 4.5 Km into the race, one of the girls in the elite group who started ahead of us had a massive crash on a quite narrow and sandy part of the track and made a massive jam right there because people stopped for helping out and being early in the race, there were a lot of riders trying to pass by. She was hurt pretty bad from what I could see and I heard afterwards that she hurt her neck badly and was transported to Karolinska hospital (the best and the most famous hospital in the country), that was NOT a pretty sight. That haunted me throughout the whole thing and got me thinking that, in the middle of all these problems that I am having now, I should absolutely avoid any stupid risks that can lead to injury because that would have made my misery at least 100 times higher. At the very end, I passed the finish line without any injuries except for immense fatigue beyond imagination.

I rode with a friend of mine and we held up together for a couple of kilometers in the beginning but he escaped away and I couldn't catch up with him. In the peak of my misery, I was desperately hoping that he had decided to quit after the 2nd loop and was standing right there at the finish and notifying me of his decision and urging me to do the same. I would have stopped in a heartbeat. But he wasn't there and later he told me that he was somehow hoping that I urged him to stop after 2nd but I don't know how I could have done that since I was trailing and he was ahead?!? He finished half an hour earlier than me.

The GPS data of the track, the lines indicate my heartbeat along the track with colours showing its level

At the end, I learned my lesson and most importantly, I realized my boundaries. If I assume that my physical and mental condition, remain the same or get better to some extent, I think I should never ever go beyond anything that is more than 40-50 Km or takes more than 4-4.5 hours. Anything above this leads to unnecessary suffering and pain, I was very lucky that in the peak of exhaustion, I didn't lose control and injure myself (mostly thanks to my new brakes), that could have had a catastrophic outcome. If we had ridden 1st or 2nd loop maximum, it would have been a good challenging workout and we would have been happy with ourselves specially that I had a very descent time after 1st, so riding the 1st loop only would have been perfect given the difficulties of the track and would have been more than enough. Riding all three of them, given our condition and bad preparation, was not a good decision.

I passed the finish line in 5 hours and 40 minutes, almost one hour later than what I had aimed for, which given the circumstances, is not that bad but (in the voice of Col. Kurtz from Apocalypse Now):

The fatigue...the fatigue...

Detailed information of my ride can be found here.

Metallica BY REQUEST on 30 May 2014

Playlist XIX.

1. "The Ecstasy of Gold" Ennio Morricone

2. "Battery" 

3. "Master of Puppets"

4. "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" 

5. "Harvester of Sorrow"
6. "The Unforgiven"
7. "Lords of Summer"  

8. "Ride The Lightning"

9. "Sad But True" 

10. "Fade To Black"

11. "...And Justice For All"

12. "One"

13. "For Whom the Bell Tolls" 

14. "Blackened" 

15. "Nothing Else Matters"
16. "Enter Sandman"

17."Creeping Death" 

18. "Whisky In The Jar" 

19. "Seek & Destroy"

Lesson I learned from my father

Scene from the episode "Más" of season 3 of TV series Breaking Bad.

Walter White: I have made a series of very bad decisions, I cannot make another one.
Gus Fring: Why did you make these decisions?
Walter White: For the good of my family.
Gus Fring: Then they weren't bad decisions. What does a man do, Walter? A man provides for his family.
Walter White: This cost me my family!
Gus Fring: When you have children, you'll always have family. They'll always be your priority, your responsibility. And a man, a man provides. And he does it even when he's not appreciated, or respected or even loved. He simply bears up and he does it. Because he is a man.

Through heart

"Adieu, dit le renard. Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur, l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux."

- From Le petit prince

And then...

I fell.

...almost after 48 hours, I just fell.

"I can feel it comin' back again
Like a rollin' thunder chasing the wind
Forces pullin' from the centre of the Earth again

I can feel it..."

Next thing I knew

I was back here...and you were there!

As if I was never there...just like a faint dream that one can barely remember...