History and Militarism: My Favourite Subjects.

People! It is undoubtedly true that these 2 are my favourite topics. Why? Haha.. many people especially my friends and my colleagues might wonder why I love these 2 so much, right? Haha.. they maybe consider me as weird person or some sort of freaking people. Haha.. just let them to say whatever they want. Judgment from first impression doesn’t mean anything or the real thing. By then, let me tell my reasons of why I love these 2 subjects so much till to this day.

Hmm… I realize that many people dislike history because they claim history is boring as it just consists of collection of old stories and facts alongside with important dates and years. Because of this many people dislike history. Even during my schooling era, many of my fellow friends had claimed of disliking history subject. Same reason as I mentioned before, history requires memorization in order to master it well. However since they already dislike history and to certain extend that some of them may even hate it, imagine how can they are going to understand and master it well? Remember, in Malay phrase, “ tak kenal maka tak cinta” or in English if we don’t know something how can we are going to love it? What I mean here is that they don’t know what actually history is. In contrast, that is not the case. They know what history is. By then, what is the tiptoeing problem? The real problem here is mindset. They always think that history is a boring thing and they often reinforce their mind with that. They often consider history subject as difficult and they never even try at least to view it positively. That’s the main reason why many people dislike history subject and often failed on it. Another thing to note is many history teachers in school don’t know how to improve their way of teaching the subject. They often teach the subject by the same lame way every time causing the decrease interest of their students on it. They just read the fact from textbook every time causing students to feel bored and sleepy at the end. What is needed here is they need to find interesting way how to teach history interactively so that students will like it. For example, they simply can tell the fact by storytelling method instead of reading it directly from textbook. This, at least can break the linear way of teaching history.

Enough with the discussion. Back to the main topic. I like history because I think history is like a story. Yeah, story of the past. And I like reading story since child because it is interesting. I like to imagine that I’m there in the story. I like to imagine how the world would be in the story. So as history. I like to imagine how the world was in the past. The world of the past is totally different from today. Imagine how was our country would be 100 years ago? Surely 100 percent different from today. Even 10 years ago our country was different from nowadays. That difference is the interested part for me. I don’t know since when I started to like history but I think it is when I was in Primary 4, when I learnt “Kajian Tempatan” subject. I don’t sure what the subject is called in English. (Maybe, it can be called as ‘Local Study’) In this subject, there is a brief element of history. When the first time I read about the history of Malacca Sultanate, I quickly fall in love in history. That moment when I was around 10 years old. Since that moment on, I love history subject. When I was in secondary school, from form 1 to form 5, I never fail in history subject even once. Usually, I got A and sometimes B. While I scored well in the subject, most of my fellow friends were struggling themselves with it. Alhamdulillah, I simply got no problem at all with history subject except that it needs more revision and a little bit of memorization.

Regarding since when I like war and militarism, I simply can’t remember that. What I know, I like history about war. I don’t know why. I like to read encyclopedia especially about history of war. In school, whenever I’ve chance of entering library, I will always seek for encyclopedia and history related books. I’m truly interested about that subject. Even today, when I enters library, I still do the same except that sometimes I also will seek religious books. My interest in history especially in war plus with my interest of playing war related games (Red Alert & Call of Duty for instance) causing me to like militarism as well. Call of Duty & Medal of Honor brought me an interest toward weaponry especially the small arms (Pistol, Rifle, SMG & MG). All these caused me to fall in love with the art of war. However, I ‘m not war monger person as I dislike violence. Hey, I’m not such aggressive minded people though I love the art of war. I just like the art of it but I simply hate its negative consequences (devastation, man-slaughter, war attrition and massacre). Who likes war? Nobody likes war except those who are greed of power, wealth and glory. War brings more bad than good. Alhamdulillah, I born and live in a peaceful country. No conflict, no violence, no discrimination and no injustice.

Even though I like militarism, but in reality I’m not that fanatic. Some people even told me “why don’t you involve in military or police if you like militarism? Hahaha..the answer is I simply not that fit to become a soldier or police. I’m not that sporty person. Plus, I hate military discipline and marching in the open of blazing sun. In addition, in military the religious aspect is somehow not stressed at all. I’ve heard that soldiers in duty (especially in jungle) rarely got chance to perform solat (I’m not that sure about this. But I heard this from other people). Furthermore, I also heard that soldiers sometimes take alcoholic drinks during duty (to relief stress I think) and these drinks are also served in formal military occasion. For your information, our military is influenced by Western military culture. Thus, no wonder the religious aspect is somehow viewed less in the military. (However I don’t know whether this situation already changed or not) Due to these reasons, I’m not interested at all to join the military.

In my point of view, war and history can’t be separated. Why? Without war no peace or justice can be achieved. (You have right to disagree this) In war, there must be 2 factions, the good and the bad. Either the good or the bad will win, that matter relies in God’s hand. Eventually, the good will win at last no matter how strong the bad is because ALLAH always supports the good. People may think what the heck people like to wage war against each other? Why don’t just live in peace together as we humans are just the same one to another? Why? If the Satan and demon still exist, there still will be jealousy, greed (of power, wealth, status, glory) and hatred. These 3 things are the main cause of rivalry and rivalry is the main trigger of all wars (mostly). By then people may ask, “Why must these 3 evil things do exist in the world though they just bring badness and destruction to humankind?” The answer is that is God’s wish. Don’t question that. That’s the work of ALLAH. There must be reason why war exists in humankind. Eh, I think I should discuss this in my another blog! No matter, just a piece of extra knowledge.

Wah, I think I talked too much already for this post. Enough by then. Ok people, in later posts I will include and discuss about history (mainly about war), militarism and weaponry of my favourites. That’s all for now. Until we meet again, I hope everybody will be in good condition. If ALLAH allows me, then more I will include later on. Insya-ALLAH.

The Story of My Gaming Interest.

As I said before, one of my interests is gaming. Why? Simple, I like to play games. What type of games I play? I love playing PC games. When reviewing back to my old times when I was 8 years old (1998), that was my first time ever in touch with computer because during that time my mother bought a computer. Well, you simply can imagine how primitive computer during that era. My computer was a local clone model as that time there were so many clone computers. If I’m not mistaken, the brand of my computer was Amija. I don’t know what sort of brand like that. Well, as I said before local clone computer. According to what I could remember, my mother bought it from her office colleague named Amin. No wonder the brand of the PC is Amija! (Amin=Amija) . Haha.. his own clone product!! The PC uses an old chipset, the IDT C6 processor at around 70 MHz like that. I’m quite sure nobody ever heard this kind of chipset. It is somehow at the same par with the Pentium MMX processor (the first well known Pentium processor by Intel during the time). I hardly remember how much RAM on that PC. I think maybe less than 100MB while the hard disk is less or exactly IGB. You see? How primitive that PC! When it was bought, it used the Windows 95. Haha… the first time I use PC I just meddled with the Paint program and a program which can pronounce whatever word we type in. In the Paint, I like to just messing around (draw something, put colour and spray) and after that I like to erase everything I‘ve messed using the bomb option (the most interesting feature I liked most). That bomb feature will explode and erase everything on the space. Haha.. I liked the sound and animation of the bomb. It just fun…. Haha, I was a kid during that time. Sadly, such bomb option no longer exists in later Paint program of Windows 98 and so on. Regarding the sound program, I like it so much as it is able to pronounce whatever word we type in. Haha.. I was used to type in funny words in Malay. Hilariously, the program pronounces the funny Malay words in a very amusing way. Hahaha… I still can remember that. It was very fun. In addition, that program features several type of sounds ranging from sound of a kid to sound of an old woman. Hahahaha, it was very humorous you know to hear each type of sound pronouncing Malay words! Again, sadly such program mysteriously disappeared in later Windows versions. I don’t know why. The Paint and the sound pronouncing program I mentioned were only existed in the old Windows 95. Both of these disappeared in later Windows 98. Sad enough, they bring good old memories to me……

That was my very early experience of playing with computer. Then, my PC was infected by a virus ( a year after the PC was bought) and it was formatted with Windows 98. I hardly recount back when I started to play true games but I think maybe around when I was 9 or 10 years old, my father suddenly brought home a cd which contains 200 games. Well, most of the games inside are of arcade type ( e.g: platformer like Mario) . I kept playing that games for a period until came a day I visited my uncle in Sungai Buloh. Surprisingly, the son of my uncle, my cousin unexpectedly introduced me into the real world Of PC gaming. That day, my cousin whom at the time was around 4-5 years old introduced me the real time strategy (RTS) game. He like a pro gamer, was playing Command & Conquer Red Alert in front of me. Shockingly, he could play the game well though he was just a little boy! Imagine how clever he was to understand a strategy game at a very young age like that, even not yet enter school! Amazing! When he was playing, I was very fascinated with the gameplay. I was quickly fall in love with the expanding bases, harvesting trucks as well as assaulting soldiers and tanks. Wah, such gameplay is very interesting as I can play a role of a general to manage a base and control an army. Hmm, I was keen on it. That moment was a new turn in my gaming interest. It brought me a new era in gaming. However, after that I didn’t know how to acquire such game. Then, came the turning point. When I was in primary 4, I was befriend with this guy, Fitri Nasir. Hahaha, interesting about him was that he shares the same interests like me. Luckily enough, he got a great deal of games as his father is a hardcore gamer. Thanks to him, I got the chance to play RTS game at last as he lent me Warcraft 2: The Tides of Darkness. That was the first RTS game I ever played. Then, after several persuasions he at last lent me the Command & Conquer Red Alert, the first RTS game I fall in love with. Starting from that point on, I was used to only play RTS games as I was too keen on it. Later, I was introduced with other Command & Conquer series such as Tiberian Dawn, Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 as well as other series such as Age of Empires 1 and 2. When entering secondary level (2003), Command & Conquer Generals and Rise of Nations appeared. Then, in 2005 Age of Empires 3 was unveiled and it became my top favourite RTS game until today.


First Red Alert game is the classic RTS game which still best being played today. Warcraft 2 gave me good old memories of my first time with RTS genre.

My first touch with First Person Shooter games started around 2006 when I was actively searched for DOS games via the Internet. Hahaha, somehow on that time I suddenly wanted to change my taste to play something different from RTS games which I were keen on since before. During the searching process, I hovered to a website which provides plenty of good old school DOS games. As I was searching, I went to the shooting type category and suddenly I was interested with this game entitled Quest of Hussein. In the description, the game features players to hunt down Saddam Hussein in several levels. Hahaha… that game is very amusing! It contains several levels where the last one we will be able to shoot Saddam himself as the final boss. Hahaha.. funny to see the figure of Saddam in game with big real head but small cartoony body wielding an AK-47. Amazingly, it is not easy to shoot this ‘Saddam’ because he is somehow invulnerable and even can dodge bazooka shells like an acrobat. The funniest part is that this ‘Saddam’ bubbling like a kid while he fires his AK-47. So tough to be defeated, around hundred of machine gun fires and several bazooka hits are needed to put him down. Hahaha.. I couldn’t stop laughing when playing that game. Very humorous! But remember people, in reality I don’t offend Saddam at all and I think he was being treated and judged unfairly by the Americans. His death was unfair as his trial was unfair and just puppet of the Americans. That game on the other hand, just a mere of fun and I simply didn’t relate it with Saddam Hussein in reality. I don’t hate him. Back to the main story, I think that game was my first FPS game I ever played.

Quest of Hussein. Dos FPS game. Fun because of its humorous style. Surprisingly, this one was my first experience with FPS genre.

Next, I played Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Redneck Rampage and Doom as well as the grand daddy to all FPS games, Wolfenstein 3D. If you notice all that games are old DOS games. Hmm… my first intro phase with FPS genre was the DOS games. Then, came the next phase where in 2007 when I was started liking to go to cybercafé to play games. Initially, I often went to CC to play RTS games and somehow came the moment when I was playing the guy sitting beside me was playing something that is very hardcore and extreme. I learnt from my friend that the guy was playing Call of Duty 2. Wah, I somehow fascinated with the intensity and authenticity of the game. Other day later on, I tried to play Call of Duty 2 and surprisingly that game is not that difficult to what I’ve thought earlier. After that moment, I quickly became pro to that game and I love it so much. Since at home I didn’t have yet a powerful PC, I often went to PC to play that game. I even play it by LAN and I became one of the top players among my gaming friends. After that, my friend Nas introduced me to Medal of Honor series. He lent me Medal of Honor Allied Assault as that game is compatible with my low tech PC at home. From that moment on, I love the Call of Duty and Medal of Honor series. Starting from that point, I became a serious gamer till this day. I prefer mostly RTS and FPS games. I also play 3rd person games but only a little bit. For RTS games, I prefer authenticity and reality things and somehow I dislike Warcraft series starting from Warcraft 3 The Reign of Chaos. I dislike RTS games which include fantasy and heroes elements with magic power because they are out of reality.( I dislike fantasy and excessive fiction). I like RTS with real strategy where we become general to manage a base and command an army. I like to think of military strategy and tactics in games as that make me like a general and I like that. Yes, if we can’t be true general we still can be armchair general in RTS games, isn’t it? Hahaha.. joking. For FPS games, I prefer mostly WW2 theme but I still can accept modern theme as well. To date, I had played all Medal of Honor series and Call of Duty series including the latest Call of Duty 6 Modern Warfare2. For Brothers in Arms series, I had played all but one, The Road to Hill 30. I also played Far Cry 1 & 2 and Stalker series. However, it must be noted that I somehow dislike Counter Strike though that is the prime FPS game since ever among FPS fans. I’m somehow crap on that game and I don’t know why. For me, for modern theme FPS, I prefer Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare over Counter Strike. Counter Strike is aging right now (appeared since I was in primary school) and its gameplay is unrealistic and old fashion based on today standard FPS. Hahaha.. if somebody invite me to play it by LAN, I will be the most lame player in the server! I don’t know why I can’t master Counter Strike. Usually, people who know how to play CS will be able to play Call of Duty series. However, such mindset is wrong. Most CS fans when I asked they said they don’t dare to play Call of Duty. Hmm.. a kind of weird . Call of Duty shares the same basic like CS but people still claim that Call of Duty is tougher and more difficult. I don’t understand this. I’m pro in Call of Duty and Medal of Honor series but I feel they are not that complicated at all. In contrast, I’m crap in CS though I’m expert in Call of Duty. Hmm.. what to say? Hahaha.. That’s weird but it is me! Anyway that’s all for my intro of my gaming habit. Later on in games section, I will include if possible my view on all of my favourite games I’ve had played. Stay tune comrade. There will be more to come soon, Insya-ALLAH.

3 great FPS series with one theme, World War 2.

Welcome people!

Assalamualaikum & welcome to everybody! Thanks because dropping by at my new blog. This blog, Din BIitzsturm my new spin off site to discuss something that is different from my usual discussion ( especially religious matter ). Thus, here I will be discussing topics of my own personal interests of course. Among the topics of my favorite are games, history, military & weaponry, critical issues and several others that might be in planning soon. For sure, the first three mentioned are the prime ones to be included and discussed widely later on. The main aim of this blog is to share my interests and a little bit of extra knowledge that I know with all of you. Feel free to give any comment or critic. Any suggestion or idea is truly welcomed in order to improve this blog. Again, if you are interested in religious matter or want to search something that can enlighten your soul visit my main blog, Light of Enlightenment. Anyway, enjoy reading this blog. Insya-ALLAH, there will be more to come soon.