the notes and notions

A pack indeed

2010-07-09T23:47:00.004+08:00

I made a phone delivery order from the cafe below my condominium. And since they have a mini-mart attached to the cafe, I spoke to the lady that I would want a pack of Maggi mee. How naive was I where I thought you when you buy off the shelves of superstore, you usually have 5-in-1 pack.

But upon they delivering the food to me, I was quite puzzled why the plastic bag was so small. And when I opened it up, the one pack of Maggi mee indeed is JUST ONE PACK. I rest my case.

The best is yet to come

2010-07-03T02:04:00.005+08:00

Based on the Chinese calendar, this year will be a fruitful and a good year for me. In fact I do believe that this will be the best year ever in terms of lifestyle improvements and money-making.

But after half of the Year of Tiger passed with mostly unpleasant lives and empty days, I am beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, I kept saying this to myself that 'the best is yet to come'. Only better, never worse. Call me an optimistic or over confident, but the former verse will drive me to a much better life. Like Frank Sinatra sang: The best is yet to come, come a day you're mine!

Listen to the lovely song while reading and singing the lyrics below:
Out of the tree of life, I just picked me a plum
You came along and everything started to hum
Still its a real good bet, the best is yet to come

The best is yet to come, and baby wont it be fine
You think you've seen the sun, but you aint seen it shine

Wait till the warm-up's underway
Wait till our lips have met
Wait till you see that sunshine day
You aint seen nothin yet

The best is yet to come, and baby wont it be fine
The best is yet to come, come the day your mine

The best is yet to come
Come the day your mine
Oh come the day your mine
I'm gonna teach you to fly
We've only tasted the wine
We're gonna drain that cup dry

Wait till your charms are right, for the arms to surround
You think you've flown before, but you aint left the ground

Wait till you're locked in my embrace
Wait till I hold you near
Wait till you see that sunshine place
There ain't nothin like it here

The best is yet to come, and baby wont it be fine
The best is yet to come, come the day your mine
Come the day your mine
I've got plans for you baby
And baby you're gonna fly

A pat on my back

2010-07-01T01:13:00.003+08:00

Finally, after hours of cramping my eyes and fingers muscles googling, I managed to restore all my previous SMSes to my restored iPhone. The internet connection gave up on me again last night. And after another round of complete restoration, the phone is as snappy as new ones. Just that all my SMSes are not loaded even though I've backed up on iTunes.

Standard backups on iTunes are only for Calendars, Contacts, Mail and data settings. So I have to manually search for the files on my Macbook. The process did not go as smoothly as I thought. But after further searches, trials and errors restarting my phone numerous times... all previous SMSes magically appeared!

The files that have to be copied to the 'new backup' folder:
1. 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d2.mddata/mdinfo
2. Info.plist
3. Manifest.mbdb
4. Manifest.mbdx
5. Manifest.plist
6. Status.plist

Do not question me on the list above. I have no idea what are those files. What I only care is that the SMSes appear on my iPhone, and that matters most.

iPhone iOS4

2010-06-30T02:05:00.008+08:00

Being an avid Apple fan, I wouldn't miss reading at least few pages of their news daily. But upon the release of the awaited iOS4, I was still sitting on the fence, whether to proceed with the update. The reason that had been holding me back is that I have Jailbreak my iPhone. Ah, you have so much freedom with Jailbroken phone, yet upon updating the OS, you're back to that so-called cage again. Very much restricted.

Months back, I could not wait patiently knowing that multitasking and folders are officially coming. I took the plunge, and so called 'hack' my phone to see the iPhone's true limits. But... but... my hands are itchy at times. I reversed the Jailbreak phone to iOS4 last night and resulting in me restoring the phone back to previous factory settings.

Ok, these are my findings:
1. Yes, speed is definitely better in loading and running apps.
2. Less heat especially running certain memory gulping apps for long time
3. Love the Folders, where you can organize 12 apps in one folder. Touch the folder, and you see your apps zooming out from the folder. The downside of this is only 12 per folder.
4. Multitasking. Rather than the older OS3, you only run one app at a time. You have to close one app in order to open another. Multitasking is doing the otherwise.

Then, the cons:
1. Loss of my internet connection. Both 3G and EDGE. Very frustrating and have been calling the service provider, googling to find solutions but ended up clicking the restore button. And magically things are back and even EDGE surfs smoothly.
2. SBSettings. No longer have this Jailbreak app. With one swipe, you can toggle on/off the frequently used settings ie; 3G, bluetooth, open SSH, etc.
3. biteSMS. Another sacrificed Jailbreak app where customized shortcuts are possible with this app. Tap on the volume button and you can SMS directly, and able to reply instantly on incoming SMSes without leaving other running apps. Cool!

However, I'm glad that I did update the phone to the newer OS. Have been eye opening, and left me sleep soundly at nights knowing that I am using official Apple's OS. Well it could be only for some time before the Jailbreak for iOS4 is out, and that might make my hands itchy again. Tons of things to be learned out there. Life's too short, so keep learning.

WWDC 2010

2010-06-08T02:41:00.002+08:00

I cannot believe this. I am staying this late at almost 3am sticking my nose in front of my MacBook screen. Yes WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) 2010 is live. Exciting moments, especially updates on the iPhone 4, with lots of new features. You can follow my tweets here. More to come though, but up till now, the FaceTime is still making these late-night-blogging worthwhile.

I'm back!

2010-06-04T19:52:00.002+08:00

Here I am, after got myself lost in my realms. Will do bit of works to keep this blog alive, though I've read reports that popularity of blogging is going downhill lately. Perhaps twitter is the 'in' thing now. Let's see how. But anyway, do welcome me back !

The ABCs of Federer

2009-07-06T08:55:00.001+08:00

I was never into tennis, and have never thought that the sport could be one thrilling art to watch until recently. The 2-week long Wimbledon 2009 have just ended last night, where Roger Federer defeated Andy Roddick in the 4-hour thrilling battle. Every stroke is well crafted, extending the game to the fifth set.

Both players were waiting for their opponent to commit errors, but yet the psychological and physical strength were the factors that defines a champion. Federer served effortlessly, having 50 aces in the match and you don't see this many aces that often.The moment of the final came where Federer have his first break and that was where Roddick handed the World No.1 the points and the trophy.

The entire battle lasted for 4 hours 17 minutes, one of the longest final ever played. The win made Federer the first player with 15 Grand Slams writing himself in the history book with more chapters to come. And not to mention that he's gained back the top spot in world ranking back from Rafael Nadal, whom have been holding since last Wimbledon.

It is more of an art displayed by Federer, that made me stick in front of my TV and having interest in this sport. This is one helluva player, and one flawless artist.

Technorati Tags: Roger Federer, Wimbledon 2009

Trying out with the offline editor: ScribeFire

2009-05-26T20:27:00.004+08:00

The name of this program sounds pleasant. Firey! C'mon, it is related to FireFox, just another of the add-ons.

I have been searching for free offline editors with Mac enabled for so long, and finally found this! Although I do not blog that often, but hey, you still need some 'nice' interfaced program to keep you having a good head-start.

Let's see if ScribeFire is able to capture my heart, to keep me constantly blogging more frequently. Till again, see you

Tags: ScribeFire, offline, Mac

My first pimp session

2009-05-13T20:59:00.008+08:00

I stumbled onto this page in photokaki.com. where the post is titled: Pimp this leng lui!
I find this quite interesting. Hence I tried to do some pimping works with my novice skills in photoshop.

This is how the image looks like before the editing:

The image below is after some adjustments on the white balance, insertion of some light renderings, skewing and enlarging the eyes, distort the nose and smallen the mouth. Hmm, I'm kinda happy to achieve this end result, just that I can't do much on the puffy mouth! The photo frame and the watermarks for more of magazine-cover feel.

Remember that this is just the works of a very beginner Photoshop CS user. Imagine what the professional designers or users can do. Welcome to the wonders of digital age. I do hope that the real-life model will feel glad, knowing that she can be prettier with some 'touchup' works. Don't you think she has a bit of Jolin Chai's eyes?

Scuderias, time to prance your horses!

2009-05-10T23:17:00.000+08:00

What an expected finale at the Sunday's Catalunya F1 Grand Prix. The Brawn GP have done it again, another 1-2 finish led by Jenson and Rubens. 4 wins out of 5 starts for the Briton is quite an achievements since the Schuey era.

Talking about Ferraris in which I still have some faith left in the team, they are not making huge progress since Melbourne. The only step they've taken, is the introduction to the KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems). Yet it doesn't seem to work too well for Kimi. He retired at lap 17 with hydraulics failures, in which is KERS related. It's quite disheartening looking at it, although knowing that Ferraris won't make huge leaps in such a short frame of time.

Another of the prancing horse, Massa had a better car than of Kimi's. The car was doing quite well, the strategy worked good for him (just that Webber's worked better!). But the problems came 6 or 7 laps from the checkered flag. Massa received a transmission from his technical engineer, ordered him to save fuel... a.k.a. not to push the car to the max, and to SLOW DOWN! Well, they cleverly 'miscalculated' on his fuel consumptions, or could it be Massa who had been pushing too hard since the previous pit stop, and to drain off his fuel?

What an error. Massa just had to give way to both Vettel and Alonso, in order to finish in points.. Pity pity pity. Wake up you horses! Time to start running! Only 4 points from 5 races?! Could it be the flop after Ross Brawn left the Scuderia team? Or was it Jean Todt? Something to ponder on.

Triumph over the mind, but not body

2009-05-07T22:43:00.000+08:00

It's the time of the year again. The INFLUENZA spree! I was down with very bad flu since a week earlier. Yet, it dragged on and on, and I was hoping that I would get better. But not by a single chance. The flu made my body tired, sore my throat, pushed up my body temperature to 38. Not too high, but it's good enough to knock me out.

I had to revisit my doctor, getting heavier dosage of medication. Then I popped this question jokingly to the doctor. "My 10-day flu would not have any relation with the worldwide-pandemic-swine-flu eh?" Then she replied, "If you are the suspected ones, we need to do some tests, and the result will only be out in 2 weeks time"

I was thinking... 2 weeks! I could be dead-pork by then! Well, that's how efficient on how this lovely country deals with W.H.O.'s Level 6 worldwide outbreak. Thankfully there has yet to be any case of infection reported here.

What could I do next? Well, it's time to keep my mind alive. The body is sick, but just not let the mind be the same. With the iTunes running with 2670 songs, I really do not know what songs shall I listen to. Ended up with Air-Supply's. It brought back some wonderful memories back to the late 80s. Hopefully I will have more air in me, to guide me through this sickly period of time, and to finish this posting!

To be frank, I think my mind is only operating at 75% of it's capacity the most. Good enough to have few paragraphs for you readers to glance on. It's just an exercise in which I kept reminding myself... triumph over your mind, although the body lets you down sometimes.

Twitter vs. Blog, Snacks vs. Main dish

2009-05-07T19:22:00.000+08:00

I wonder why it is easier to punch the keyboard, using short paragraphs, with limits of 140 characters and post it via twitter.com. As compared to sitting down with the proper mindset, proper issues/subjects to talk about, carefully selecting the proper usage of words, and to finally post it to the blog.

See the disparity for the two above? For me, I call it: Snacks vs Main dish. When you snack, you just grab whatever that is in front of you, regardless whether it suits your appetite. You just want to munch. You just want to move your mouth muscles and tendons.

But when you select the main dish, ahaa... this is where you take your brain out, carefully select and screen thru your head what you would like to meet to your palate's requirements.

Erm... I think I'm kinda snacking right now, just munch without thinking.

LUST

2009-03-18T19:55:00.000+08:00

I received the news that my long waited lover, the iPhone-3G has arrived in Malaysia few days ago. Legally. In fact I’ve got sources that it will be here weeks before even Maxis announced it, thanks to the ‘insiders’.

Upon seeing the phone is launched in Maxis’ site, I plunged my fingers onto the keyboard, booking myself a unit of the long-awaited gadget. After halfway thru placing my order, I only realized that ‘LUST’ has blinded both my head and eyes! Scary ha! It has gained full control over my fingers, eventually.

What a powerful brain reprogramming tool! Could this be the basics of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic-Programming). Or basics of simple hypnotism. Much to explore from here onwards, after this bizarre incident, that almost ate a chunk of my pocket. A near purchase without brain usage!

The history of the Middle Finger

2009-02-24T21:14:00.002+08:00

Well, now… here’s something I never knew before. And now that I know it, I feel compelled to let others aware in the hope that they too will feel edified. Isn’t history more fun when you know something about it?

Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English soldiers. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore they would be incapable of fighting in the future.

This famous English longbow was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as “plucking the yew” or “pluck yew”.

Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying “See, we can still pluck yew!”.

Since “pluck yew” is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodentals fricative “F” and thus the words often used in conjunction with the one-finger-salute!

It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows used with the longbow that the symbolic gesture is know as “giving the bird”. It is STILL an appropriate salute to the French today.

And yew thought yew knew every plucking thing!

Technorati Tags: Agincourt, English, French, history, middle finger, pluck, yew

Stupidity vs. Asininity

2009-01-23T19:31:00.000+08:00

The dictionary defines STUPID |ˈst(y)oōpid| as a term that implies a sluggish, slow-witted, lack of intelligence or common sense person.

Perhaps I should apply the term ASININE |ˈasəˌnīn|. A harsher word, implying asslike or foolish behavior rather than slow-wittedness.

I was seeing a supplier since the whole morning, trying to loosen up some works before my Chinese New Year long break. Then I was summoned by my-already-on-leave colleague back to my office. The main reason being that the one and only colleague at office is already hungry! And no one is there to either buy lunch for her or standby for her to go out for lunch. What a stupid reason! I’ll rephrase that. What an asinine remark!

Hence, I need to weave my way back through the lunch traffic, just to show my face and my presence there (together with my temper of course). I need to be on the run again to continue my works in a short while.

What really puzzled me is that there is still such person in existence. We are in the business of meeting and socializing with people, seeing tons of characters which means there plentiful ways to enhance and carve one’s attitudes and characters but yet the asinine behavior can still be in continuation.

Well I can never change the world, not even change someone. But I can always change myself, my perception and have some paradigm shifts on certain aspects, if not on certain people. Yeah, Steven Covey’s 7 Habits. Seems like I need to revisit the book, or perhaps move on to the 8th Habit!

Technorati Tags: asinine, existence, hungry, paradigm shift, stupid

Yet to tweel, but got a brand new set of rubber !

2009-01-12T19:31:00.000+08:00

I realized that I am not contributing to the save-the-earth programme. I did a few sins after changing a brand new set of tyres last Saturday.

For the tyres productions, the rubber tappers have to slice the rubber trees, reducing the trees lifetime, leaving them to die off faster. That means lesser trees. Then the raw rubber will be sent to the processing house, where it will be burnt before another step of tyre processing is taken. The smoke created and the smell of the burning rubber will pollute the air taking one step closer to thinning the atmosphere, making more UV and sunlight to enter earth, melting the icebergs of North Pole, increase the sea level to flood cities and villages, and finally end of human race a.k.a Armageddon. Not that gigantic meteor that wiped out the earth. Nor the ice-storm that froze us to the Ice-Age. It is due to the global warming, or global ‘heating’ to be exact. And that is caused mainly by me… just by changing the tyres! One thing leads to another, and I am part of the cycle in destroying earth. Gosh!

Ok, I’m no Nostradamus, and I’ll cut the crap that will make myself sleepless during the night. Apart from the guilt, I am enjoying my new set of tyres! As stated in my earlier blog, the driving sensation has improved. Pros of changing from 185/55 to 195/50 are:
1. Trying out a new make, Bridgestone. Maneuverability is still better, and the car is steadier when taking corners at a higher speed. Thanks to the increase of tyres width from 185mm to 195mm. No wonder Formula-1 are all on Bridgestone.

2. By reducing the thickness of it from 55mm to 50mm, it lowered my high-bodied car, enhancing the gripping ability to the road surface. The car has lesser bumpy movements now.

3. Quieter and smoother ride, as the noise is reduced noticeably from the racers' tyres choice.

4. Better riding comfort, softer feel when going through the potholes in KL streets! It could be the right air pressure for the tyres. Will increase from 300kPa to 320kPa later to compare the acceleration and the riding comfort.

Cons using the racer’s brand:
1. The car seems heavier, needs more push on the gas to move it. The RPM is revving higher, and will increase the fuel consumption as you need to burn more to keep the car moving.

2. With the higher RPM the engine sounded louder. As it is working more, I believe wear and tear too will be greater than of the earlier easy-going tyres.

Although just few days of testing out this new set of tyres, I already got one of it injected with a metal spike! Thanks to those people who simply throw their nails and screws after finishing their renovation works. Damn! Not a bad thing though, the tyre is not deflated yet after 2 days. Looks quite durable eh :)

A sheer driving pleasure for me up till now. As Bridgestone have done a lot in their R&D, to be used by all racers in Formula-1, and to invent the “TWEEL” (the revolutionary Tyres + Wheel, uses no air therefore cannot be burst), this is one hell of a trusted brand.

Technorati Tags: 185/50, 195/50, armageddon, Bridgetone, cons, consumption, formula-1, heavier, noise, nostradamus, pros, quieter, rubber, save-the-earth, thickness, tweel, tyres, width

Driving an 'expired' car

2009-01-11T13:31:00.000+08:00

My car is already due for maintenance weeks ago. Since I was quite free last Saturday, I drove to Honda service center but ended up in another workshop and with a brand new set of tyres. The Honda showroom is packed with people that day! It could be the launch of their new model but hey, they have launched it weeks and weeks ago. Therefore, I failed to get my car oil changed. I should have listened to my wifey's instinct, asking me to call before going all the way to the service center. Ladies instincts are quite precise at times.

Driving my car around in her sick and expired condition, will in turn incur all sorts of costs to me, in time costs, financial costs, physically and mentally costs too! If the car breaks down half way from KL to Penang, these are likely to happen:

1. I will be stopping at the emergency lane with the hazard light on, safety triangle some 50m away but still risking myself and others of being run-down again and again by the I-am-Michael-Schumacher or I-am-Zig-Zagler lorry and bus drivers!

2. While waiting for the tow truck to come and pick us up, we'll either be sitting and sweating inside my car, or on the grass picnicking while enjoying the clouds of exhaust fumes of the speeding vehicles,

3. Due to the sweaty sessions, wifey will be annoyed, kids will start to cry, and their angry-ometer will start to rise,

4. I will be annoyed because all others are annoyed,

5. When the tow truck is here, I am pissed off for the long waiting period. We would exchange words loudly, and could end up fighting each other,

6. They towed my car away, leaving me with my family and lots of baggages stranded, hoping to catch a bus to continue our journey back from this god-knows-where place,

7. Reaching Penang, thinking about how to get my car back later, how much it will cost, how to get back to KL , and all of these will make me more agitated, I need to pop more pills to maintain the blood pressure, thus making my entire holidays filled with nothing lesser than upsets and upsets.

Thankfully I have got all the 4 tyres changed and although they cost quite a bomb, but it is well worth it. At least I have taken one step ahead to avoid the scenarios above. The handling is better now, the car gripped more on the road surface, lesser movements of body when cornering, lesser vibrations caused by the earlier worn out tyres, and other undescribed words by me-the-layman driver.

What is stil pending now is to get my oil and filter changed, some tweakings in the engine, and voila… I will be having the sensation and the sheer driving experience of a PlayStation-simulated Bentley Flying Spur or a Bugatti Veyron. Vroom vroom !

Technorati Tags: car, cornering, costly, driver, expired, grip, handling, maintenance, tyres, vibration

Hearing is believing

2009-01-02T15:56:00.000+08:00

What is the one eeriest and spine-chilling moment that you'll ever imagine when picking up a phone call? Someone shouted vulgarly at the other end of line? A ghostly soprano singing, with sounds of wind gushing at background? Freddy Krueger scratching his metaled-fingers on the wall, whilst singing: One, two... Freddy'll come to you? Obscene sounds of male breathing... hush... hush....?
Not that I've read and watched too much of horror movies, but sometimes these things will just freak you up!

I picked up a call moments ago in the office. It was just after lunch. The phone was ringing (supposedly this extension should NOT ring) for some time, but no one heard it. When I placed the handset next to my ear, I instantly stood still with my eyes opened wide. There was a girl crying and wailing in high pitch sound on the other end of the line! She sounded very much in grief. She continued squealing for few more seconds.

Oikk! Stop it. My spine was already tingling the moment I picked up that call. Can you please stop for a moment and 'talk' to me! Thoughts kept running through my head. Shall I put the phone down? What is this ghost doing in broad daylight, calling the sales gallery? Could this be real with me with this paranormal encounter?

I kept holding on the handset. Then only I realized that she was trying to talk, but I could not hear a single word. After I repeated few times of hello hello... then only she murmured in Chinese: "Papa, papa, khuai lai jiu wo" (Papa, quick come and rescue me!). She kept repeating these words a few more times. Only then I realized that this 'might' not be a ghostly encounter.

I asked her where she was? She replied she does not know. Then I asked what is her phone number twice... then she silent herself, but still with slight humming of cries in her voice. Suddenly a thud was heard. And another man got hold of the phone and helloed for twice before hanging up the call himself.

After the short moments of the so-called ghostly encounter, it turned out to be a kidnapped kind of call. What could I do to help the little girl who spoke to me earlier? The phone was a land line and I'm thinking of how can I track back the caller. What would you do if you were me? Knowing that the girl sounded so pitiful, wanting so much to escape from whoever is with her. I could have been experiencing a real-life situation where seeing someone is kidnapped but unable to think of what can be done to help her. Will she be alive days from now on? Will she be able to contact her actual papa? Will she continue to live one happy life as other small cute kids do?

These questions will linger in my head for days I'm sure. My prayers will go for this small little girl and her family. May she be free from whatever situation that can endanger her life at this moment.

Technorati Tags: eeriest, ghost, grief, hearing, kidnap, papa, phone, spine-chilling, wailing

a NEW year instead

2009-01-02T14:32:00.000+08:00

Everything seems to turn NEW lately. Lately as of the past few hours of this NEW year of 2009. Most people got new haircut, wearing new clothes, got new resolutions (as the past years' does not seemed to work) and not to forget the new working style.

Most of the workforce fellas are still partying. The new year party-drug is has not really relieved off these people, and that include myself. I did not party on the eve of 2008. Just that I kinda miss the long stretch of non-working days till weekend, like I've had during the Christmas no-work marathon. Ahh, I can snuggle myself on bed till sun starting to fall, then only roll myself up for the early breakfast at 2:30pm!

The NEW working patterns of these people are shown on the second day of this year. Everyone is still on leave! No one picking up calls. Not many people moving around. You will see clearer roads, as compared to seeing red braking lights covering entire traffic. The environment is so quiet, the city is empty and quite dead at this point. What a good way to welcome the year. But if you take a day off today, well you will have 4-non-working and late-snuggling days.

Usually during the rush-hour to work, there are tons of cars barricading your ways. But ambulances always find their way through, of course with their wailing sirens. Not fair! I wished I have my own 'screamer' too: "Get outta my way! I'm late for work!"

Not today though. This old-style of greeting for millions of motorists did not happen this morning, it is good enough to start my day. This is new. Could it be people prioritize life more than work at this time round? If not, then why do so many people are not working to welcome and greet this very new year? I know. I'm jealous as I do not have more leave to clear. Ack, I'm missing my 4-day no-work-marathon during Christmas. The same old me at this very new year.

The U.S are looking very forward to 2009 though, perhaps even more on 2010. They wanted to bury 2008 so badly till the very last drop of sand. What a year that crashed Wall Street since 30's Great Depression, tumbling giant companies, collapsing the peak oil price at US$147 in July to US$40 currently etc. You take the calculators and punch on the red numbers.

Not too much of words now. I too have 2 New resolutions this year.

1. Not to include that many words in one post. Some might say I'm long winded. Some might fall asleep while reading it. I'm trying to apply some marketing psychology here see if it works:
Expensive = good, cheap = bad.
A long posting = boring post, a short posting = exciting ones!

2. To write down my resolutions physically. Well, I have not really thought of WHAT to be written down, but I'm sure by writing down you are really committed to yourself and will move towards achieving it, consciously or sub-consciously.

Technorati Tags: 2009, motorists, new, New Year, resolutions, snuggle, working

6 Major truths of life

2009-01-01T01:13:00.000+08:00

6 statements to kick start this new year of 2009:

1. You cannot touch all your teeth with your tongue.
2. All idiots, after reading the first truth, will try it.
3. And discover that the first truth is a lie.
4. You’re smiling now because you realized that you're an idiot.
5. You soon will forward this to another idiot.
6. There’s still a stupid smile on your face.

I apologize about this. I found out that I was an idiot too and I needed company! :P

Technorati Tags: 2009, 6 statements, idiot, lie, teeth, truth

He's one step slower, I'm one Coke lesser

2008-12-31T15:33:00.000+08:00

I just had my dosage of Coke earlier on. What a fix! *sniff* *sniff* I always liked the bubbling effects and the burning sensations when the liquid lingered between my palate and tongue. That is why I am addicted to 'Coking' ignoring what are the after-effects of consuming too much of gas drinks. Hmm, at least it kept me sober and more awake after the whole session.

I should have intoxicated myself with more Coke that day. At least I could be more energetic with the higher level of sugar and caffeine, and I would have floored the pedal when I drove through the long dusty, straight road.

It was a sunny Saturday morning, just a day after Boxing Day. My relatives were here, and I was driving them in my uncle's few-months-old 2.0L sedan. Yes, you can feel the difference in those better built cars, the quality of the interior, the engine has lesser noise, suspensions are soft yet solid when going through the humps, ample of space... etc etc etc.

We drove down to Klang, to somewhere near my in-laws place. Not sure whether it's in the Penang people's blood, but hell we love to eat Bah Kut Teh! This time round, we went to our favourite place for the dried 'version'. Yummy, one would say. It comes with sorts of thickness of the pork (we do not consume the intestines, not for me!) cooked and stirred in the hot pot, with mixture of herbs, sauce, dried chillies, the delicious dried cuttlefish, and their other unseen 'secret' ingredients of course. Imagine the pork is so tenderly soft, the blend of the sauce is not too salty or nor too sweet.

Ahh, I'm not the king of food, so some descriptions of the taste are lost here. Hey, don't give me that look. I am no gourmet or Jamie Oliver. Well, okay Jamie Oliver is the celebrity chef, but I bet he has got better 'culinary vocab' than me. I am just an ordinary eater, I eat to live, that's it :)

After the stomachful session, we headed back to KL. We reached a roundabout and I was able to overtake a huge container before entering to this long and dusty road. Moments later I looked at the rear mirror, and gleefully said to myself " Phew, that container slow, too bad he's behind me"

I was driving at a tortoise speed, approximately 50 to 60kph. The road was clear, no vehicles ahead of me, just that bicycle around 30 metres in front. He was riding slowly by the side of the road, and he looked back for a moment, together with his bicycle inching rightwards. Then again, he swerved back to the side. As I was approaching him, I honked him continuously. He turned his head to the back to peep, and turned back cycling. I thought "Ah, this fella 'saw' and 'heard' me".

As I was nearing him, I veered my car outwards to overtake him. Out of a sudden, when I was 2 to 3 metres behind him, he made a right turn to the middle of the road! Yes, I can see the entire of his face, together with the full view of his 2-wheel vehicle. He was indeed trying to make a U-turn on the so called 'traffic free road' and his eye-hand coordination worked TOO WELL (not!), knowing me honking and approaching from behind.

Err... Hello, are you telling me that your skin is stronger than the metal of my car? I turned my steering wheel even more rightwards, but to no avail, the stunt-man was already in-action by rolling past the side of my car together with his bicycle. From the very front left corner, blacking out the sunlight as he reaches the left side windows with his body all the way till the end of the car.

After the process of 'running' over him, I looked back at the rear mirror, only to see him bouncing a few times before landing on the road. I pulled over to the shoulder immediately, open my door and started shouting and cursing and barking like a mad dog. A dark colored skin man was sitting on the middle of the road, with the truck I overtook earlier stopped at a distance before him. He scrambled his way up and moved to the other side of the road.

Blood seemed to gush to my head. I can feel the heat. I wanted to kick his ass! Damn this fella! If he wanted to kill himself, better do it elsewhere, not on me and my passengers on board. Use a bit of brain please, not on the middle of the road. As I was crossing over the road, I was still pointing my finger at him, and still shouting words in Malay like 'Oik, lu buta ka? Lu tarak dengar wa punya hon ka? Tak tau kayuh basikal ah?? Erm, I do not speak Indian, but Indians here normally can speak Malay. Standing in front of him, although the words were still firing at him, I started to observe him as well. He's still alive in the first place. He managed to stand on his 2 feet. Both hands are still moving, although one hand kept on scrubbing his head. I bet he's got a knock after falling of from the 'run-over' session.

I was quite puzzled on how can this tough guy survive the crash. Reports said that if you were to have a head-on collision with a person at speed of 40-50kph, it always turns out to be a fatal one. The force and impact to the person is too great, almost 4 times of his weight. If you're 75kg, then it will be like 300kg of weight crushing onto you. Or you weighing 300 kg crushing to the ground. Hmm, you still die anyway.

Then I started toning down my voice, asking how he was doing, any major injuries. Seemed like he only bled on the finger, some scratches on his hands and elbows, and the head with a bump. He doesn't seemed to respond to my questions. I wondered whether the fall had slowed down his reactions, affected signals from his brain to his mouth. Then he started to talk: "So, how's your car?" Ah, he replied me... in English. Only then I realized that, hey this guy must be fresh from India. No wonder he did not reply me when I was talking to him earlier on. He did not understand a single word out from my mouth. He can only see a ferocious dog that kept barking as if wanting to tear his flesh apart.

He's okay, still alive and standing, and he continued his journey. At least he managed to cross over the other side of the road now. I walked back to the car. The collision was quite impactful to the car. Multiple dents and scratches from the front of the car, continuing to the sides of both doors till nearing the back bumper of the car.

He missed the front lamps though, as the crash only hit on the side of the car. No frontal collision in this scenario. No wonder this English-speaking crash-test-dummy able to survive this exercise. Good news for him, as he's still alive and walking. Good news for us as well. I won't dare to imagine what would happen if he was lying on the middle of the road, not moving a single bit. Gosh. Then you won't see me blogging here at this moment of time, not until the next few months or years.

Thankfully he wasn't pedaling one step more. Thankfully I wasn't driving single bit slower, as by that time he would have exposed more of him to the middle of the road. Damn, I should have driven faster, so that I would drove past him even before he started to peep to the back. Who said driving fast, can't save lives? At least it will save some pocket burns and heartaches (of my uncle) looking at this condition of his few-months-old car!

Breathing a sigh of relief, our journey to shopping continued that day, although the dents affected my uncle's heart and can be seen on his face too. But things always happen for a reason. He cycled one step slower. I drank one lesser can of Coke. And you get to see a stunt show in the middle of the road. Hopefully this will break the 'unlucky charm' for this year, and I'll pray hard for next year to be a smooth sailing one. Fingers crossed!

Technorati Tags: bah kut teh, basikal, bicycle, boxing day, coke, collision, malay, run over, shouting, truck

Stop and look at the trails

2008-12-24T15:44:00.001+08:00

Yippee! In the next few hours, it's going to be... HOLIDAY! And Christmas of course. You can hear Christmas carols being played almost everywhere. Go to all the malls, and you will go: 'whoaa' here and 'whoaa' there. Not just how they decorate the malls, with all sorts of themes; White Christmas, Fantasy Christmas, Jolly and Colorful Christmas etc.

And the 'whoaa' doesn't stop here, because you will be swamped away by the seas of people! Not too sure where they come from, but if you were to enter the malls in the past 1 or 2 weeks, you are always greeted with the long stretches of cars. And not to mention it will take you forever to look for one car parking space! Talking about the world financial crises? With these excited shoppers visiting the malls? Sounds a bit contradictory eh?

And in a week's time, we will be ushering another new year. Gosh, how time flies. You take few blinks and tadaa... everyone is wishing one another "Happy New Year" and continue partying with their booze.

Hmm, since the year end is approaching, I think this is the good reason for me to review and look back on what has been going on for the past, well 359 days.

It hasn't been a good year though. Amidst the U.S. crisis, the entire global is affected. Even with the news of the Mr. President-elect's plan to inject a stimulus package that costs US$850 billions to excite U.S. economy, stock markets at other countries are still plunging downwards. Japan, Europe, Singapore are all plagued with recession. The new global leaders, China and India are seeing lesser growth on their economy.

How about Malaysia? Hmm, seems like it is getting onto our skin. Companies have already starting to retrench workers, electronic plants are shutting down one by one, plunging stock markets, property prices have gone sideways etc. Yet we still hear comments like "We are not in recession!", by of the ministers. And few days earlier the government revised and lower the growth rate to 3.5% next year. With these unpleasant news swirling around, seems like Malaysia is still in the state of denial. Are we to naive to deny things? Or are we able to sustain our economy that other developed countries can't do? We'll see what happens in the next few months time.

But for the past months, volumes of property sales have been going quite slow. No sales means more time. And no sales = lesser income. Not that with more time = more income. Sighzz...
In fact throughout this year, there are quite a fair bit of funds flowing to me. It's more like a "touch n' go" concept. All the funds left me even before I realized that it was in my bank! Only then I found out that all my fingers are jumbled up. I could not manage my money this time around. Could be too many things happening, and I lost touch on certain things. Seems like there are quite a lot of holes to be patched up next year.

For all the losses, there are some gains too. Not too sure whether those moneys are well spent, but I'm sure I won't regret, not a single bit. And it seems like most of it are spent on vacations and travels! What an expensive hobby I just picked on.

January 08
Early this year, I found a wife. Lucky me :)
And we had our wedding dinner both in Penang and KL. Although with the restricted time that both of us have for the planning, we managed to make the night an eventful one. People were singing and dancing, wine and liquor were flowing all night long, and I was as drunk as a lord! I remembered I was talking lots of nonsense moments before I flopped to bed. What a feeling.
Then back to work again and planning and planning. Again, with all the hectic timelines!

February 08
We purchased this small little poodle, and called her: Mollie. Too cute for us to resist from bringing her back to home. What a dog! As 'pudel' (German) is the top-5 most intelligent dogs, she indeed is one! Show her how to do certain action twice, and she can perform it the next time (provided that you have her treats in your hand). Wait till you see how she play dead (bang-bang)

April 08
Time for a breakaway. Went to Langkawi with a bunch of ex-college mates. A short trip though, and the price of beer there is far cheaper than drinking water. We don't bother to consume H2Os, so we boozed all night long

*mind you, the one in this photo is not me! look carefully :p

May 08
Honeymoon time! A longer trip this time, and after months of consideration, we finally decided to fly to Maldives. In this country of close to 1200 islands, some of it will no longer exist come the next 30-50 years. Thanks to global warming and rising sea levels, or should we say global 'heating'?

No mere words to describe the views and the clarity of the water here. Fabuloso! We chose this resort named: Anantara which consists of 3 islands. We stayed at 2 different water-bungalows, one is closer to the reefs and another looking out to the Indian Ocean, where we snorkeled and canoed most of the time. For snacks in the evening, we canoed back to the water bungalow, parked our canoe there, and stepped up to our room. Not to mention of the spa and massages and dolphins & baby shark-feeding, and rolling around as what can be seen in Bollywood films.
5-fastly-winded-days gone by and we are back to reality again.

[caption id="attachment_223" align="alignnone" width="510" caption="Canoe-ing session! Take note of the steps leading to the overwater bungalow"][/caption]

June 08
Company outing! Again, a super short ones, traveling to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Looking at the stones and remains of Angkor Wat, and other wats wats, with history dating 1200 years back. Kinda amazing that these stones are still in existence today.

September to October 08
Busy designing and planning and sourcing items for our house renovation! Ack, the contractors can't really understand simple drawings. Basically you have to supervise him most of the time, to make sure they do simple things right. But luckily it came out quite as close to my drawings, just that some shoddy workmanship at certain areas are compromised, looking at the price that we managed to squeeze out of him :)

November 08
Not a good way to end the year, with a passing away of wifey's dad, due to illness. He was a jovial and kind hearted person, most of the people liked him. But looking at the brighter side, the timeline of his suffering is quite short before he left. May his soul rests in peace.

Excerpt from Cat's Memory:
"Daylight, I must wait for the sunrise, I must think of a new life, and I musn't give in.
When the dawn comes, tonight will be a memory too, and a new day will begin"

Another year has passed, and another one will emerge. It is always a good thing to look forward for a better year, a better week and a better tomorrow. I believe that things will be more settled down next year, and we are getting really excited as the time to welcoming someone to our family gets closer and closer and closer. Joy to the world... !!!

Technorati Tags: Christmas, event, New Year, review

Bonjour blogging world !

2008-12-22T17:37:00.001+08:00

Welcome me to this new chapter of mine, putting myself in the blogging world. Well, this is my first post after some moments of procrastinating, it is the time to fire my fingers on the keyboard.

There are lots of thoughts going through my head most of the time. Some rather rational and useful, some not. I believe myself as a dreamer, day-dreamer to be precise, so once my imaginations start to take off, i will let it wander by itself. But again there are words and questions and they will keep repeating in my head, asking myself to put them at to the outer world either to shout them out loud, or the subtle way is to blog. I believe this will help me to lessen my sleepless nights and to maintain a healthier blood pressure level :)

I trust that this will not be a long post, as I am trying to accustom myself to believing that after this long long months of delaying, I am into blogging. I have not really realized the sensation of blogging as yet, but I am such a keen reader to good blogs. How they put their feelings and thoughts and screaming their way in the pages. It's quite amusing at times.

Well, since I am unable to spend much time at this moment (I'm at my work-desk), I think this is the time I bid adios to my first blog. Til then, see you

Technorati Tags: blogging, first blog, thoughts