Dear Mr. Nice Guy,

Since the dawn of time, you have been puzzled by this question: Why do good girls love bad boys? "I'm the good guy," you say. "I do nice stuff, so I am the one who deserves the girl, but why did she choose that bad boy over me?"

Well, here is my answer for you, Mr. Nice Guy. Girls don't love you for who you are. They love you for what you do for them. You put their needs in front of yours. You give them emotional support, and you are always be there for them. Ain't nothing wrong about that, of course. Doing nice to others is wonderful, but by doing that, you instill a mindset that you are lovable for what you do for them, not for who you are. You are known for your good deeds not your own merits.

Now take away those nice things you have done to them. What is left? Nothing. Without your little acts of kindness, you would be remembered for nothing at all.

I am not saying doing nice is bad. It is wonderful. Just, please don't expect people to love you for that. Repeat after me, "they love my acts."

Here is my suggestion to you, Mr. Nice Guy. If you want people to love you for who you are, you should present yourself in such a way that do not just involve doing good deeds. Less of doing nice things to please people, more of presenting your trait and personality, in other words, be yourself, show your individuality. 

Good luck!

Oh more useful information, you should listen to what experts say too.

http://www.wikihow.com/Break-the-%22Nice-Guy%22-Stereotype

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nice_guy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_boy_(archetype)

http://meetyourgreens.com/m/articles/view/Get-the-relationship-you-want-Stop-being-a-nice-guy

http://www.nomoremrniceguy.com/ngs.php

The beautiful isn't a good girl.

The good girl doesn't care.

The caring isn't sophisticated.

The sophisticated isn't beautiful.

They don't come in whole package. Do they?

Two days setting up this beast with 200 apps to download and install, and 2000 GB of data to restore from the old hard disks. More pics later. :) Oh btw, see that disc dropped on the floor? It ain't CD. Hehe... I ripped a hard disk apart, and that disc is a hard disk plate containing like 100 GB of data. :D

I was asked, "What keeps you alive?" and sure enough my answer was, "Foods!" 

WRONG!

It is wrong for me (and for everyone). This epiphany I am having right now, it was the person dearest to the heart who was keeping me alive. Just presence of the person alone made me aware of the directions I should be going to. I had all the motivation in the world to be alive and to pursue the dreams, the goals, short and long. The thought of the future with the person alone made my days. I woke up and I could feel the positive energy in the room. At the end of the all-day work day, I crashed the bed with a smile. The nights were so serene, so peaceful, looking much forward to the day after.

What happens when the person who is everything to you ceases to exist?

Before you read on, Here... 10 seconds for you to pause and answer.

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Everything in your life ceases to exist too.

Slowly you get eaten alive by the mere absence of the person you were living for. You start questioning your day-to-day activities, why doing this, why doing that and for whom. Nothing makes much sense anymore. What you do and what you don't do, don't really matter. You constantly have to remind yourself that you are doing it all for yourself, for the future of a one-man show or perhaps for the many familial others.

You are scrambling to have something to hold on to. You want to hope. You want to be alive and to live.

So yes, last month I gave my long-lost childhood dream a serious thought. It's about making my own electronics and robots.

As a young kid, I was bombarded with all the tech news. When I was like ten, Honda made a headline with "Honda Humaniod Robot Takes Its First Step," and then more headlines on robots, cool electronic gadgets, and more robots. I was awe-inspired by these kind of technological achievements. I was like, "Gee! I want to make one myself." Hehe.. and I remember I couldn't do anything else besides unscrewing my Chinese-made, remote-controlled toy car and looking at the wires. "Gee! So which wires to connect to turn this toy car into a robot?"

Color me stupid but not yet. And so, still as a little kid, I thought, "here is dad's 10kg video camera. Hmm.... how to put this huge thing on this little toy car so it records the video and send back to the TV?" Well, soon eough I discovered I couldn't make a robot out of a cheap Chinese toy, so yeah I crushed the toy and threw it against the walls to vent my anger. I admit, some smashed pieces of it sure looked like tiny plastic robots.

So I moved on, to something else. I soon fell in love with computers. I think I wrote about this back. You can check them out. Yeah so I moved on to the field of computing. After high school, I taught myself computer programming. Fast forwarding many years, I guess now I can create many different kinds of computer software. Software, yes! You can see a lot of buttons on the computer screen but you can't touch it. So this stuff is pretty much intangible. You can see, you can use, you can hear but you can't touch. (Your phone touch-screen display isn't real touch, nah!)

I want to touch my inventions. I want to move them around here in the real world, and I want them to move in real world. And I wonder what my inventions will smell like. I bet plastics and metals.

So there, my long-lost childhood dream came back. I didn't ignore the call this time. I vowed to make it a reality. Oh yes! I am gonna make some robots for real. Considering that I have zero knowledge on electronics, this is a leap of faith. You say, "confidence" is the right word? Darn right. So all these is based on my life-long motto, "You did it. I can do it too!" I always believe anything is possible if enough effort is put into it.

So now I'm buying a lot of tiny parts to begin with. My original budget was gonna be small like 500 bucks or less, but now, I've thrown in three grands, and I'm only seeing a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel. Two weeks of sleepless nights by browsing for the parts, three thousand dollars spent, and it is still asking for more. If the spending goes more out of control, I might have to beg on the streets. If you do see me, just give me a lot of Benjamin Franklins, okie?

Okie...  I'm still waiting for all the parts about four thousand individual parts to arrive here. Well, stay tuned. I'll post unboxing photos when I've got it.

Yes, I want a decent e-book reader that has a large e-paper display. It will save me a lot of money if I read a lot of books, which I do. I have been buying regular paper books at Amazon.com and having them shipped to me here in Cambodia. Each typical paper book ultimately costs me about $35 to reach my hand. This is insanely more expensive than an e-book which will cost me about $10 each, not to mention that there are tons and tons of free e-books on the web. A quick calculation reveals that such device will pay for itself in no-time. Plus, it is not only money that is saved but also trees and the environment. As you know, an e-book is just a digital computer file which could be transferred electronically through the internet in bulk for less than a cent. Thousands of e-books can fit into a small flash memory. On the other hand, if you dissect the actual costs of a paper book, you will see that it costs a lot of harms. Making the papers will need trees cut down for use as raw materials. The machines used for manufacturing, printing and transporting paper books will burn fuel, emit CO2 into the atmosphere, and accelerate the global warming. Now, storing books at home will waste the precious space that you pay in square meters/feet. In all, it is really unnecessary to spend $25 more just to do more harm.More...

I'm currently giving away 14 best-selling books that I have read. These books imported from the US are apparently not sold in Cambodia. Each should costs around $30 if Monuments Book Store has it. I wished I could keep them but that would be pointless and selfish. So, I thought why not give these precious books to my friends as a gift of wisdom? It seems to be a good idea.

Email me to claim a book asap!!! I'm dropping them off at IFL canteen, so that you would be able to pick it up at your schedule. Below is the list of the books. Click on the title to see its details.More...

It was 8 years ago, in year 2000, when I got my first computer. It was a dream came true. Before that I had been watching my neighbor typing his word documents, staring at his shiny computer screen, thinking of what kind of machine it was. I don't know what country you live but here in Cambodia, having a personal computer back in year 2000 was a pride. So... I liked it so much that I was stuck in front of it for hours everyday. My private tutor taught me Word, Excel and Windows 95. It wasn't long until I learnt something useful myself. Dad bought some phone equipments from Hong Kong, and so for a while I played with it *cough* unlocking, flashing and bricking phones *cough*. In 2001 and early 2002, nobody was sending a SMS picture message, since 60% of mobile phones didn't support it. It was totally new when I designed several picture messages in Khmer, my local language. The first one "Eternal Love" ស្នេហ៍អមតៈ was a hit among Cambodian phone users. Apparently, almost every darn phone in Cambodia received it, as people quickly learned to forward to their friends and families, although many old models would see "Message cannot display here" instead of the picture. The funny thing was that I received the picture several times from my friends. Hell no! They didn't believe I was the creator. I guess I played a big role in jumping start the Picture SMS technology here. Subsequently, I created more picture messages in Khmer including "I Love You" and custom-made "My Love" sealed with "Chakrya" my then girlfriend's name, and I guess it played a role to win her heart. You can see those pictures above.

Past is past. Today, years after my first legendary picture SMS, I created a set of three pictures about the upcoming solar eclipse on Friday, August 01 2008 which is visible totally in China and partially across Asia. Will this be my new legacy in which people are mass forwarding my pics? Let's see.

I know some of you are occupied with the Preah Vihear issue, but there's one important event in the next few days you should not miss. Studied and predicted by NASA, it is a very rare Partial Solar Eclipse (So Kreas - សូគ្រាស) on 01/08/2008 from 5:55 PM to 6:30 PM in the evening. While the sun's setting into the horizon, it will be covered partially by the moon that passes in front of it. People in many Asian countries including Cambodia and Thailand will see this magnificent show of nature. It's as if the Universe, God if you're religious, is trying to ease the conflict of our countries. I do hope this is to coincide with a peaceful withdrawal of all troops both Thai and Cambodian along the border. Soldiers and civilians alike should reunion with their family and take time to enjoy this gift. Imagine how romantic it is, taking your special ones to a high ground to watch the once in a lifetime solar eclipse at sunset. Of course, to protect your eyes, you will need a pair of special viewing glasses which is easily made with a roll of undeveloped camera film. You can also look through the LCD screen of a digital camera. Please never attempt to view it with naked eyes, which could make you go blind. I've got some films left. Let me know should you need one.

By the way, we all know the consequences of war: Poverty, loss of lives, broken families, destruction everywhere it touches. Wars made us live in this state of "your horror stories here". War is endless, and there is no winner in this game. Excuse my humble request, please try not to overreact to the border issue. You may have wanted to boycott Thai products or do harm to any Thai you meet, but in doing so, it will probably further isolate Cambodia from the rest of the world. Believe me, they can make us miserable too if we make them miserable. Instead of doing all bad things, why don't we do something good? We scratch their backs. They will scratch our. It's a win-win. There are too many good deeds you can do that I can't list them all here. Make your own good judgment and make a good foreign friend, will you? Well, you might be now saying that I'm nobody to ask you to reconsider your political ideology. Hell yeah, I'm not graduated in Political Science, but I've got common senses.

Enjoy your solar eclipse viewing! On 01/08/2008 from 5:55 PM to 6:30 PM at sunset. And you should let your friends know about this solar eclipse too!

Sopheap - Your Humble Friend

Chakrya, I wish we could become friends some day. Thae rek sa kloun na... Cham besdung bang chea sen.