Lost in Life

China National Day present!

2009-10-02T00:13:00.004+08:00

Jojo's brother got a really neat dinner present in this festive season of China.

A dead cockroach in the bread!

Now that looks like a raisin to me!

It was purchased from a store near Nanjing University.

A closer look, that's a pretty nasty cockroach!

Quoted from him "When I was cutting my bread half, suddenly I found something INTERESTING in it.. Guess what it is.. Iz COCKROACH..."

Poor guy, there goes his dinner.

DO NOT Kart Racing with your iphone!

2009-07-19T23:15:00.003+08:00

DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT go Kart Racing with your iphone! Otherwise, it might end up like this:

This is how Simpson's iphone looks like after came back from a karting session

You have been warned.

Blue Alert!

2008-08-30T16:19:00.003+08:00

Approximately 1 year after the Red Alert incident, history repeats itself again.

I think this is the 3rd day of "Paint Your Life campaign", started by no other than our infamous loan shark, yeah, you read it right, loan shark, my neighbour and paint of course.

But this time the loan shark decided to go colourful, adding blue for a change, and unfortunately, yeah, again, my car hit by some of it. 4 large drops, flowed down like a blue stripe, which looked kinda artistic from a certain angle.

2 stripes of the blue paint.

Despite my neighbour cleaned and repainted, it just happen too frequent to do anything. They even put some cover to minimize the damage.

The other neighbour next to this house, was unfortunately suffered some splashes, on his wall as well as his motorcycle. He has already put up a plastic cover over the fence, to prevent unwanted "artifacts" from their "campaign". I put one too over my car, but unfortunately, I was too late yesterday.

Soon it will be everywhere, I guess.

According to my source (my mum again), the husband has been missing for 2 weeks, leaving the wife and children to suffer this kind of threat. And the reason for borrowing money from loan shark is the classic gamble addiction issue.

The medieval town, Tallinn, Estonia

2008-08-25T05:24:00.001+08:00

We took a cruise from Helsinki, traveled south, to Tallinn, capital of Estonia. It took approximately 2 hours by Tallink, 39 euros for a round trip ticket, plus 5 euros service charge, for a Sunday trip.

The Tallink cruise.

It was not a good start, because it started to rain after we boarded the cruise.

2 hours later, we landed on the soil of Estonia. We exchanged 20 euros of Kroon, bought a 6 hours Tallinn Card to freely access the museums and other scenery in Tallinn, and began to explore this foreign land.

The plan is to visit the old town.

The entrance we took to enter the old town.

Street along the town.

Seriously, I can't really name all these buildings.

With strong chilling wind and rain, the excitement was starting to die out.

Took from the top of the highest tower in the town.

Another shot of the town.

Old building structures in the town.

Some memorial stone I guess?

We had our lunch in a restaurant at the middle square area, the price is comparable with Helsinki, but the portion is definitely smaller.

Chicken pasta.

Pork chop with wedges.

Another church in the town.

The city wall.

Walking in this chilling weather, with most of your shirt wet, and tired, it's really not something pleasant.

Tallinn was a Russian city, so there's resemblance in their building structure.

Another tower in the town.

The town is awesome and unique, but with this kind of weather and temperature, nothing seems to be catching your eyes, and can't get any enjoyment which we suppose to have.

A country side weekend, Finnish style

2008-08-24T04:32:00.015+08:00

We had a local Finnish country side weekend at Pavel's house, food, sauna, snacks and lots of chit chating.

Trains at the station.

Boarded train H at the Central Railway Station, traveling at a speed of average 138km/h, we reached Jokela around 40 minutes.

Houses in the country side.

Infront of Pavel's house.

There were crackers, hot dogs, pizza, red wine and cola served. While chatting away the Finnish culture, we barbecued the hot dogs, drinking and eating.

A feast.

Under the bright sun, it was not burning hot at all, breeze and breeze of cold wind made the environment just nice, you can't do it in Malaysia I must say.

Hot dogs, I know it doesn't look good, but it's yummy, trust me.

We were playing darts, Frisbee, balls, nothing exciting, it just shows how simple life could be in the country side of the country.

The dart board, we played the famous "Killer" game.

Then Pavel prepared the sauna, and we had a mild Finnish style sauna. Finnish sauna, basically you are cooked in a smoky and steaming room at temperature 80 degree Celsius, after that, you run out of the room, jump into the icy lake, or roll on the snow, then you go back to the hot steaming room again.

For us, we just got it till 60+ degree, and there's no icy lake or snow, but icy cold water from the shower. Cooking at 60+ degree, steam and sweat had mixed together, you can feel your eyes like popping, you begin to can't feel your limbs, feeling numb, and your heart is pounding! It's such an amazing experience.

The sauna, photo posing courtesy of SumWai.

We jumped out here for cold shower.

After the sauna, it's tea time with pizza, different kind of German and Finnish cakes and food. We talked about the life in the country, and all sorts of interesting stories.

Tea time with local cakes.

Going back late.

We had such a wonderful day, thanks to Pavel and Olga! By the way, Pavel is Russian, and he likes Malaysia so much, for him, it's paradise, what do you think?

Trombone Show, Helsinki Central Railway Station

2008-08-23T02:08:00.008+08:00

Helsingin rautatieasema, or Helsinki Central Railway Station, we went there to check out the routes, and bumped into an open performance, at the entrance of the train platform.

With the words "Trombone Show" on their t-shirt, the Finnish were entertaining the passenger and passerby with continuous great peformance.

The peformance is at the entrance to the platform.

Great performance.

Wave and wave of soothing music were presented.

Expert in music.

The crowd surrounded the area.

After several songs, the vocal came in, living up the performance.

The vocalist, entertaining the crowd with his unique voice.

Some video I recorded:

Video 1 - Prelude performance

Video 2 - Musical

Video 3 - Performance recorded from the side

Video 4 - Vocal performance

The most expensive mixed rice, yet

2008-08-19T03:48:00.002+08:00

This is actually a buffet style Chinese food restaurant. But for us, it looks more like our local mixed rice cuisine rather than a buffet.

Sze Siong has being out of the country for more than 2 weeks now, and his urge for home style food has gone to a new height, so we decided to fulfill his urge by eating here.

First round, black pepper beef, sweet and sour fish, mixed vegetable, with rice. Doesn't it looks exactly like mixed rice?

Layout of the restaurant.

Trays of dishes, I just can't get the mixed rice image out of me when I see this.

Soup, and salad on the other side.

The shop, Hang Zhou Chinese Restaurant. Notice the small note on the yellow notice at the left side of the door.

How much was it? 7.5 Euro, that's approximately equivalent to RM37.5. Hang Zhou Chinese Restaurant is located at Itäkeskus Shopping Center, next to Itäkeskus metro station, Helsinki, Finland.

Anabolic Diet

2008-07-07T10:26:00.002+08:00

Starting my Anabolic Diet today. Hop over here to see my daily journal, mental and physical status, the tears and sweat, the joy and hope, the bad and good, the.. well, everything related to it!

Let's ride!

Even mobile phone wears condom!

2008-04-10T23:48:00.004+08:00

Yesh, you saw it right! Condom like mobile phone protection wrapper.

Amazing, they even roll it exactly like a condom initial ring shape!

When Jerome showed me this(that's his handphone), me too, was stunned like you!

We had a water rafting activity last week, apparently, these wrappers were bought and given to those that wanna carry their mobile phone during the all time wet activity.

Working in the freezer!

2008-04-08T16:24:00.000+08:00

20.5°C, look at the temperature next to the date.

The current temperature in my office is 20.5 degree Celsius, although it's no where near a freezer temperature, but imagine staying here for whole day with strong wind blowing from the vent...

As quoted by one of my colleague: "When will the winter stops?"

Happy Chinese New "RAT" Year

2008-02-07T00:01:00.000+08:00

Happy Chinese New Year!

Year of the rat!

I wish my family, all my friends and their family, and everyone else a very wonderful, amazing, healthy, lucky, prosperous, happy Chinese New Year!

Some decorations.

Some of the things I notice which is different than before (when we were young) during Chinese New Year:

Ang Pao (Red packet), you feel not so excited anymore, even lost of the excitement, when you started to contribute money to the family, parents, etc.
Reunion dinner becomes less merrier, the night getting quieter, because children has grown up, firecrackers has been banned (although most people still illegally lighting them), tradition is fading...

Some good fortune phrases decoration.

Anyway, lets the party begins!

Near extinct honesty

2008-02-01T19:11:00.000+08:00

That day while I was walking toward to pick up my car, after a tired working day, from far I saw a paper note lying on my windshield, secured by one of my wiper. "Sheessh, not one of of those flyers again! Huh? Or is it summon, but I park at a legal parking lot, how could I get summon?" Some of the thought flying around my head.

Oh, it turned out to be a hand written note, it started with a date, and "Dear WNU XXXX owner, I accidentally broke your car wiper arm..." By the time I read this line, I was like WTF?! And only then saw my broken wiper lying on the windshield! "Please contact me at XXX XXX@XXX.com" "So that I can pay for the damages" I read on, and somehow felt unbelievable, most of my anger gone, but overwhelmed by "this is just not my day" kind of feeling...

The hand written note.

The wiper arm broken into 2 pieces

I SMSed him, a guy named Safrul, when I reached home. He called me back straight after received my SMS, he apologized, but that time there was no anger in me anymore, just thankful that there's still such honest people around. I suggested to check with the local Perodua Service Center for the wiper price, and he could do the same.

Look at the broken section, it was so thin! It becomes more vulnerable when it gets harden.

Frankly, I was skeptical that he would actually pay for the damage, probably just half of it. If he really did that, I wouldn't blame him, because if I was in his shoes, I would most likely run away and that's it, nothing happens! But he chose to be honest, accept the fact, and boldly face the consequences.

It took us a while to get the actual price for the wiper arm, because the people in Perodua Service Center was not really helpful, most likely they are not familiar with the accessories price. They told Safrul the price is around RM40-50, but not sure about the actual amount. OK, sounds reasonable enough, so during weekends, I called again, but they said RM150+! This is outrageous! I contacted Safrul, told him that probably he could check again the price, cause what I got is a crazy amount!

Finally he found out from Glenmarie's SC, that the price for only the arm (without the wiper) is RM51.70, and he could go and buy it then pass it to me after. I was really thankful that he had made so much hassles for all these, so I did not make any further follow up but completely trusted him.

Brand new wiper arm straight from Glenmarie Perodua Service Center!

2 days ago, I finally got my wiper arm replacement! And met this honest young man, a chubby casual Malay fella, with a lively smile!

First, removed the old one. Safrul did tell me to let him know if any installation charges needed, but it shouldn't be that hard to install it myself, right?

Taadaaaaa! Brand new arm with the old wiper! Notice the bumper kinda wet? I tried it first before fully secure it with the screw. Works perfectly!

Safrul, you are the man, dude!

A grandma from Macau

2008-01-25T23:48:00.000+08:00

Friday, which everyone unofficially entitles a long lunch break, therefore, we took the opportunity to visit the library at Japan Foundation.

When we came back, it's almost passed 2 hours, but only found out that our LRT ticket was under value - we mistakenly bought previous station ticket. So we quickly walked toward the counter to top up our ticket value. We saw the staff waving at us when we were approaching, "Can you ask her what she wants?" Pointing at an elder woman, in front of the counter.

I turned and looked at her, an old lady, around her 70s, spoke softly in mandarin "I just want to submit my flight ticket, so that I could goto the airport, but he couldn't understand me. I came from Macau". Apparently she mistaken this as the check in counter. I tried to find out which LRT station she came from, but perhaps she couldn't understand my rusted mandarin. So we decided to bring her to the ERL counter.

While we were walking toward the ERL counter, only I found out that she was taking AirAsia flight, how silly was I. ERL connects to KLIA, but not LCCT. To go there, you have to take bus or taxi. So we decided to bring her to LCCT bus station instead. "When is your flight?" I asked, "3 something" she answered. But it's already 10 passed 2! She was unlikely able to make it. So I asked for her flight ticket and itinerary, to confirm the time.

"RETURN: 18 February 2008" Huh? But today is 25 JAN, she must has mistaken the return date! So I told her about it, "Oohh, I want to go back earlier." She replied. "Are you sure you can change your flight date earlier? Who told you that?" I asked. After few rounds of questioning, I found out that apparently she came here with a friend, but due to some reason, she wanted to go back earlier, while her friend decided to stay. And she was told by the hotel employee that she could change her flight date, but unlikely they have given her any details. This is getting complicated, it's better we check it out first at the AirAsia counter here. So we brought her there.

And that's the time we bumped into our big big big boss! Our R&D director, with others! We smiled, and was thinking, "SHIT, GREAT!"

"1270", that's the queuing number we got, "1257", and that's the current number. Swarm of people already gathered there! Pressure already forcing on us, we took a peek at the counter employees, make sure there is Chinese that could help her, we gave her advice to talk with the Chinese staff there, and with no choice, we left her there... Her words of thankful still non stop replaying in my head when I walked back to the office...

Back at office, I told Jerome about this, he had this totally huge reaction! "Old lady in this age wouldn't travel alone! They usually travel with tour! Must be her son in law or son, or daughter, treat her badly, she cannot stand it so wanted to go back! Come, lets go back and check on her!" "You serious?" I was surprised "YES!" Due to guilt, so we went back to look for her. But she was no where to be found, we looked around a while, not there. Hoping she's alright, we went back to office...

I still feel somewhat guilty that I didn't help her all the way, due to selfish and afraid to get into trouble, I left a helpless elder in a place that's totally alien to her! I am such a bad person!! Sigh... I really hope that she is safe, and got her way back to Macau... I'm sorry grandma...

Canned drink frenzy!

2008-01-20T16:11:00.000+08:00

I remember that day we received an email from our APAC Managing Director (we are a small company establishment here, so sometimes our MD also handles minor cases), the content is somewhat like this:

"...due to we can't meet the 500 can per month requirement, the distributor is planning to remove our vending machine. Therefore, after some consideration and negotiation, we have decided to subsidize more for the canned drinks, to 50 cent a can..."

It's 50 cent! Oh yeah baby!

And guess what, from a previous mere 200 cans a month, till a fast depletion of 500 cans in 2 weeks! Sheessh! All these people! Even one of the manager said "Great, can buy some back home and sell now!" Malaysia BOLEH!

Nippon Tei @ KLCC

2008-01-19T15:02:00.000+08:00

Back on August 2007, we visited Nippon Tei Japanese Restaurant, located at KLCC. We were between the choice of Nippon Tei, and the next door Genki Sushi. Wanting to try out something different (we were kinda being regular to Sushi King those days), we picked Nippon Tei, for its quite grand, and Japanese style decorated layout, we went in, hope to seek a more Japanese cuisine taste and feel.

"Yes, how many person?" Hhmm... I would expect a "Irasshaimashita" or "Irasshaimase" (welcome in english), because we use to get that in Japanese restaurant, even in Sushi King.

After we sat down, we were asked what drink we would like to have. "Hot ocha please". "Ohh, hot green tea rite?" OK, even basic food and beverage term also they were not familiarized, this has given me another bad impression.

I am not being arrogant of what, but in my opinion, there's some most basic things you must do to qualify yourself as a "Japanese" restaurant.

Unagi Maki, Softshell Crab Temaki, Salmon Temaki

We ordered 3 items, unagi maki (grilled eel roll), 1 softshell crab handroll and 1 salmon hand roll.

The texture of the Unagi doesn't look that nice, but still OKlah...

The unagi maki still up to the par, but the handrolls were definitely too "skinny", nothing much in them but some tiny slices of vege, salmon and softshell crab!

My goodness, look at that tiny little salmon...

At the price of 1 level above normal chain Japanese restaurant like Sushi King, but serving somewhat average food, and without much Japanese style (other than the decoration), Nippon Tei is not really a Japanese food fan's choice, at least not for me.

Programming

2007-11-21T23:37:00.000+08:00

Life is like programming, how's that?

First, you write your program with a particular language, that's your family. You start developing everything from scratch, you are building your life.

As you continue to write more and more code, your program gets larger, more complex, and depends on your programming experience, your understanding in how things work in the platform you are programming, that leads to the quality of your program. Just like your life, as you grow older, the knowledge, the wealth, and everything you hold, both physically and mentally, dictates the quality of your life.

Every now and then, we created bug in our program. If we fixed it earlier, the damage is minor. Some bugs are not discovered immediately, it stays there for a long time, but anyhow, it will haunt you back, when you are least expected. Just like so many unexpected things happen around in our life. Some of the time, the bug is so nasty, it takes us a while to fix it, where in life, sometimes we are so stubborn and doesn't realize and accept our mistakes, until one day, we were knocked on our head, and there we starting to change.

Of course, we can't write everything by ourselves, because there are lots of libraries, frameworks, plugins, that we could use, we don't reinvent the wheel. Just like our friends, we need their help, we count on them, we live with them. But nothing is perfect, all these tools are bound to have bugs, it's either we get a newer bug fixed version or we have to deal with it ourselves. It's either your friends give in or you compromise.

During the development of your program, you might discover the limitations of the programming language you are using, or even bugs. We often have to create something of our own to overcome these limitations, deal with the bugs, or even support the programming language by fixing these bugs, giving feedbacks, suggestions, etc. Because your program dependent on it, it's the root of your program. And family is something you couldn't abandon, like it or not, you have to support it, it's who you are, and it makes what you are. Some people sees it as a burden, but some people sees it as treasure.

It looks like you have all the control over your program, but then again, there's no perfect program.

My little space

2007-08-28T23:32:00.000+08:00

This is my little space: Inside my car!

Inside my little baby.

The meaning of little space here is, a place that you feel safe, feel relax and feel free to do things that you normally wouldn't do: cursing bad words where a gentleman never does; sing like crazy where a shy person or bad vocal always avoid to do; talk to yourself where you normally think only insane people does that; play your mobile phone games; get a peace of mind; sleep; cry.. well, you get what I mean.

It is a place you think so safe that you could actually do anything you want, without anyone bothering you and stop worrying what people will think of you. It just you, and you alone.

Yeah, I did all of those mentioned above in my car, especially singing and talking to myself, hahaha! And another little space I have is the toilet! It's a place so private that you would not even want to share it with anyone, thus, it's one of the place that you truly found yourself alone but safe.

So where's your little space?

Disfigured, my beloved

2007-08-27T19:31:00.000+08:00

I still remember just recently, I was still glad and told myself how fortunate I haven't got into any accident, for the past 1 and a half year, and no major damage and scratches inflicted, at least.

And there, not too long after, I fucked up my baby.

Distraction kills, that's the golden word you must always bear in mind if you are a driver.

Quite noticeable spot if you look from front.

I was driving back from breakfast at the local bazaar, with my family. As usual, for no reason, my niece got into this berserk mode, crying and shouting for some unreasonable matter, kids these days... It was really getting into my nerves, and my phone was no where to be found in my pocket, overly annoyed, I looked down at my seat to search for it. And all of a sudden, "Caaaaaarrrr aaahhh!!", my father who at the passenger seat, yelled. It was too late when I saw a reversing car in front my me. Squeaking and banging sound was heard from the front left side of my car. You can imagine what sort of cursing words I had in mind that time...

Large area of scratches, but I guess can somewhat be partially removed with some cleaning

Life always giving us signals, signals that guide us through our lives, that alarm us we are about to get into trouble, if we ignore them, stronger and more serious signals will continue to bug us, until we learn our lesson. I guess I was too confident in driving until I started to become careless, and this is what I get to learn that.

You can see it was concaved at head light side.

Wonder what happened to the car I smashed into? A somewhat unexpected event, but quite typical. The driver was an Indian, his name is Siva. After some "discussion", to my surprise, he told me to take my car to his usual workshop, and he would pay for the repairs. After sent my family back, I went looking for this workshop of his known as "Kim Sang", which has a mechanic name "Ah Seng". But his description was so blur that I couldn't figure out where is this workshop, eventually he agreed to guide me there the next day.

Even more noticeable at this angle, my poor baby...

Unfortunately, "The number you have dialed is not in service" was what I get when trying to call his mobile number the next day, which was still contactable yesterday. Baahh, if he was willing to go into the troubles of terminating his phone number just because a mere hundred ringgit or so, I might just forget his offer. After all, I actually felt more guilty than him...

Flood zone, in a parking lot?

2007-07-29T23:12:00.000+08:00

That day went to have dinner at Hard Rock Cafe. It was sort of a team dinner, because our product manager was here from HQ, and also another developer was here too to conduct knowledge transfer on an existing project. Of course, everyone in the R&D was welcome to join the dinner.

Hard Rock Cafe KL is located at Wisma Concorde, just next to Concorde Hotel. We parked our car at Concorde Hotel, and walked our way through Wisma Concorde's parking lot to enter the building.

And I noticed an interesting sign painted on the column in the parking lot. It is labeled "FLOOD ZONE".

This parking area is a FLOOD ZONE, oh great!

It was quite hilarious to see this sign. It probably means your car might end up in water if you park here, so park at your own risk!

Kuala Lumpur is famous for its flash flood, thanks to Klang river and unwell city planning around the area, roads, parking lots and others will be under water if heavy rain continues for over 2 hours. Although billions has been spent to fix it, especially the SMART project, but the problem still persists. Like the flood water, everything the government spent is just down to drain...

The traffic jam curse

2007-07-25T21:04:00.000+08:00

What people usually do when they are in a hurry, but trapped in a traffic jam?

Use the emergency lane (A proud Malaysian heritage!)
Keep on honking so that the vehicle in front, and every other 100+ more ahead will move faster, brilliant! (Another proud Malaysian habit!)
Choose the faster moving lane, cut left and right (I guess this is the typical solution)

This is the story of me using the typical solution, choosing the faster lane to queue while trapped in a traffic jam.

I can't help to think that there's a traffic jam curse casted on me. What say so? Apparently, whenever I encounter a traffic jam, if I tried to cut between lanes and choose the faster moving side, usually ends up where the chosen one becomes the slowest moving lane... It happens so frequent until I started to notice this strange phenomenon! I always tell myself I have made a mistake or take the action too late, and other cars already jam up that lane. But frankly, this strange behavior sometimes really makes me think twice before making the decision to switch lane.

So, am I being paranoid or I'm just lack of experience of choosing the right lane, or it just plain damn bad luck?

Da original Chili Pan Mee?

2007-07-21T23:35:00.000+08:00

This noon went to eat this chili pan mee, which supposed to be the original first stall to introduce pan mee with chili recipe. It is known as Kin Kee Chili Pan Mee(健记辣椒板面), located around the area between Sogo and The Mall(sorry, I'm not good at places). The essence of the whole deal is the chili seasoning, it's a kind of fried chili chunks, you add them into your normal pan mee, stir them thoroughly, voila, the chili pan mee. So I guess most people go there craves for the special made chili seasoning, pan mee becomes the supporting role.

Full house!

Like any famous stuffs, it usual draws lots of people flocking into it. By the time we arrived there, it was already full house. Of course, with this crowd of people, you couldn't really get any responsive service, so it took a while for us to make order, and get our drinks.

But the boss's memory quite impressed me, he has this ability to recognize which table of customer comes first, and which comes later, so he wouldn't mess up the sequence of orders.

We waited around 1 hour to get our pan mees.

The original dried pan mee, without adding the chili seasoning, looks yummy?

Added 2 spoons of chili now... they call their chili as "Gun Powder"

We had ordered 4 bowls for 3 people, me, Chean and Karen, because the mee size looks small from what we saw in other customers'. Me and Chean shared the extra one, and we poured around 4 spoons of chili chunks into the pan mee, without even try how hot is the chili first... it was a big mistake!

It looks quite nice isn't it?

It was hot at the beginning, and it's getting worse later. And finally our tongue almost become numb due to the chili hotness.

Fully loaded with chili seasoning, not a good idea...

Chean suffering from chili burning and sweat like hell...

The "Gun Powder", and it's very hot!

Mission accomplished!

So, what's the verdict?
For me, I think it's overrated. I expect a better, special, very delicious pan mee for a waiting of 1 hour. The chili seasoning was a bit salty, not really fragrant enough, the mee in the other hand, a bit soft due to overcook, and it tastes like any other pan mee, nothing special. But overall, it still taste not bad, worth a try, but I prefer Face to Face Noodle House pan mee in Damansara, and my mum's homemade pan mee more!

Strange fever, and persisting!

2007-07-08T17:13:00.000+08:00

Having this sick since 4 days ago, Thursday. I already started to feel hot and cold symptom when I woke up, but I can't take a day off, because my demo is that day, and my demo video just half finished.

Upon reaching the office, the effect starting to get worse, my body was actually hot but I can feel the coldness shivering from my fingers and toes, to my spine! I was trembling in hot body temperature. Also having this sore throat and some muscle pain and headache. Well, this doesn't look strange to me, I was telling myself, "Got tonsillitis again huh?" So I quickly finished my video , took my leave and dashed to the clinic to see the doctor. But to my surprise, the doctor told me my tonsils didn't enlarge, it was the palate or something, generally the throat inflamed. This was kinda relief for me. So I just went back home and let the sleeping took over whole day...

The next day morning, Friday, the situation seemed under control, my throat was not that pain, the fever was gone that time. So I drove to work as usual, although with million unwilling... Since the fever had gone, so I purposely delayed 1-2 hours of the medicine intake time, coz I never really like fever or pain killer medicine, due to some bad experiences other people has. I took it at 930am, just before our team retrospective meeting begun. After around 10 minutes, the nightmare started again, hot and cold. Although not as bad as yesterday, but it was still quite unbearable, and the damn fever medicine effect still hadn't kick in! I have to walk out the room few times, hug myself with my arms, and doing anything that unnoticed to others but can give me warmth. Finally I decided to take the anti-biotic 1 hours earlier. I don't know it was due to the anti-biotic or fever medicine, situation got stabilized. I managed to stand till the meeting over and once more, dashed to the clinic!

The doctor said she told me yesterday I can take the fever medicine 4 hours interval if it is coming back so frequent, well, I was too blur yesterday and I missed that part. Anyway, it's weekend ahead, things should be better with more rest right?

But that Friday night, was really hell time for me. The fever still persisted, sometimes not even 3 hours after taking the medicine it came back! My room is so hot, and my body was so hot, some more I have to cover myself in blanket coz the shiver feeling was coming along with the fever! All this made up a new record of body temperature at WHOPPING 40.3°C! I felt my face gonna get roasted, fortunately still not till the unconscious status.

This persisting fever leads many people to 1 conclusion: Dengue! So the next day, Saturday, my sis fetched me to Pantai Hospital Cheras, to get a blood test. After all the hassles till 1pm, and I got 1 answer: Viral infection. Oh great, I asked the doctor what's the cause, he was mumbling away saying "running nose, flu..." So I assume the infection got into the blood or something.

So I found a bit relief from the doctor because it was not dengue(doctor seems like to hold the key of comforting patient more than curing them...), and went back to continue my sick life with his prescribed medicine.

So, today, Sunday, what now?
This morning till noon, the fever had not come back, just the head felt heavy and stomach a bit upset, most probably due to those "powerful" medicine. So I decided to skip the fever medicine, once more, which should be taken at 2pm. Then later, my place rained, and the temperature started to get down pretty fast, perhaps not that fast, but my fingers and toes starting to get cold, and well, as you can guess, so is the body temperature starting to rise. Great, then for the past few hours, I was like lying dead around, weak, hot, cold and others...

I decided to wash my hair coz they were like beggar's hair, smelly, sticky, and hard. Perhaps the warm water has cleared my mind.

I starting to tell myself, I cannot be like this weak and waiting to die situation, weak because I didn't eat enough, so what if the temperature goes up, I can't control it, only the medicine, as long as I take them in time, my immune system will do the job, I must give my body any support it needs, mental, medicine, nutrients, to fight this sickness! I won't loose it! Dammit!

So, should I take leave tomorrow? Hehehe!

Langkawi, chocolate hunt!

2007-07-05T21:56:00.000+08:00

Went for our R&D department team building trip in Langkawi island, few days after back from KK.

Really exhausted, but still, the trip was quite OK.

The hanging bridge at the cable car, Bukit Machinchang

Went to the cable car, checking out the newly (well, not so new I guess, but for me it is) constructed cliff hanging bridge there.

Tasik Dayang Bunting (Lake of The Pregnant Maide)

Also island hoping, the word speaks it all, that means hoping from 1 island to another around Langkawi. Kinda nice experience visiting around on a boat.

And of course some team events building back to the hotel.

Got 8 flavors of Ritter Sport chocolate!

Last but not least, the duty free shopping mania! I'm no alcoholic nor smoker, but I have the urge for chocolates! Got to know this brand, Ritter Sport, when I was in KK. Small packet, with acceptable price, and plenty of flavors, got me into this hunt! Apparently, different shops selling different flavors, and no single shop sells all of them. So I have to visit shop by shop to get all available flavors. Not too hard job coz most of the shops are near to each other. I guess my collector urge took over that time.

Can't fit the baggage size box, still OK to treat as hand carry? Hehehe!

A 3 days 2 night trip, exhausted, but meaningful.

What happened to Mount Kinabalu Expedition?

2007-07-05T20:34:00.000+08:00

What started must have an end, but I'm not really in the mood to write the end. Partly because it's a failure for me, and the journey is not really pleasant, but Chean's description speaks it all: Unforgettable!

Peaks that I never reached...

OK, what's the deal with failure? My knees started to pain on 2/3 journey to the rest house. Thanks to the knee support, I managed to get to the rest house without much hassles. But I was starting to crawl in pain. At this point, the golden question popped up, to continue with the peak or not to? There's some things to consider, the next day gonna be another 5+ hours journey down hill, if I busted my knees for going to the peak, how am I gonna get down? I don't want to drag slow the whole party again. This reminds me of the Nuang incident, I was like a total crippled after coming back, I can't sleep well at night coz whenever I moved, my knees was killing pain. You should see how I got up and down from stairs! The question of will I get disabled for the rest of my life did pop up that time, and so was the question do I need surgery to get recover. And I told myself that time, I should have stopped, I should have made that decision, and I will not do something that stupid again. So I had made a decision to stop and not continue with the peak.

But that hard decision starting to haunt me back, whenever I saw the photos they took at the peak, and other things relating to it. Should I have just continue with the peak, and care less about the consequences later? Was I considered too much? As a teenager, well, sort of, we need to dare to face whatever challenges, without that much consideration. I am really in dilemma, even after the trip.

I couldn't care less about others saying me fail to reach the top, and giving insulting remarks, just that I couldn't stop myself diving into this dilemma situation again and again...

But as long as I'm alive, there is still chances to do it again right?

To Mount Kinabalu!

2007-06-17T23:41:00.000+08:00

I'm going to land my feet on the nature ground of Sabah, the very east island of Malaysia, on 19th June 2007. And from there, I'm heading to Mount Kinabalu on the next day, it's another will bashing, body and mental torturing, shit hard journey of my life.

The stuffs I've bought for this trip! Holy shit!

The two backpacks I'm bringing, left: The North Face Terra 40, right: Deuter Hokus Pokus (approximately 20 liter)

The green stick, Coleman Walking stick, and the knee supports, as well as the rain cover for my TNF backpack. (Deuter rain cover for TNF backpack, how ironically funny! Hahaha!)

The North Face trekking/hiking shoes, and the MUND socks for trekking. You gonna feel quick dry coolness in those sweating condition, well, that's what I was being told...

My food and energy supplies, sort of...

We started this plan like last year November, and things got heated up during last 2 months. Especially after the Nuang incident. We starting to seek equipments for the trip, preparing ourselves with information as well as items. From backpacks to wind breakers, from powerbars to training(mostly gals who went for the training, shame on us guys), we were looking at every details!

For me, I spent quite a lot on equipments, coz I don't really have most of them, backpack, shoes, etc. Fortunately, most of them can be used after this, and also I was able to get some cold weather wears from family and friends.

KK Rough Expenses:

The list excluded some minor expenses, like foods, toiletries, etc, those that small and hard to calculate, and also many intangible expenses, for example, petrol, parking and others you spent during your research time. And don't forget the time we have spent for those.

So, am I ready for the great challenge? The answer is a definite NO. With my injured knees that doesn't seem to recover, lack of training, and I can't even stuck all my stuffs into my backpacks! Dang, I'm so not ready! Hiking Mount Kinabalu?! What have I got myself into?!

UPDATED:
This is how my backpack looks like after I forced all my stuffs into it. The 2 rocket canon like thingy is sleeping bags. Holy shiet!

This is not rocket launcher!

What the hell is this WGA trying to do?

2007-05-30T23:03:00.000+08:00

That day I tried to browse using Firefox with my laptop, then my F-Secure Client Security popped up this alert on an unauthorized attempt to connect some site. After reading the alert, I was puzzled, it said that WgaTray.exe was trying to act as an Internet Server, WGA, which is the short form for Microsoft's notorious Windows Genuine Advantage. No doubt my laptop is using an original, genuine, licensed, whatever you call it, copy of Windows XP Professional Edition. So I'm not getting this due to what piracy issue, or anything related to it.

First, I was trying to access Maybank2u.com.

Then I tried Google. Notice Maybank2u.com went timeout when I chose to deny its access.

Same goes with Dictionary.com.

YouTube anyone? Dictionary timed out too after I clicked Deny.

And finally it showed me this, it's an UDP protocol, notice the IP address, Any IP address?! You gotta be kidding...

The interesting part is, which ever site I tried to browse using Firefox, WgaTray.exe will try to connect that site too. If I choose allow, it will load the site, if I clicked deny, the page will eventually went timed out, what the? WGA prevents Firefox to access internet in this case? At first I thought those sites has what affiliation with Microsoft, which to help them verify the genuineness of the user's copy of Windows, but soon I gave up that idea, because when I tried to browse the same site with Internet Explorer, nothing happens. I didn't get any alert from my client security, and the site loaded perfectly. This is indeed strange...

It works like wonder when using IE!

Time for some video... Eerrr.. with IE? No way!

What the hell is this WGA trying to achieve here? I googled around, but couldn't find any info on this, perhaps my well known poor searching skill failed to obtain any result... So any experts out there has any idea?

I have auto update turned on, and Windows will automatically install what ever updates for me, who knows what the hell it installed for me that causing this! Dang!

My Yahoo! Mail Beta layout screwed up!

2007-05-30T22:49:00.001+08:00

That day I accidentally dragged the border of the left frame in my Yahoo! Mail Beta, and it expanded wider. I tried to drag it back to the original size, but no prevails.

Then another day, I accidentally double click the border of the mail listing frame, again, it expanded longer to the bottom, then this itchy hand of mine tried to double click it few more times, it continued to expand until it reached the bottom and can't expand anymore. As you can guess, no matter what and how I tried, I can't make it back to the original height.

Oh yeah, the fat and the tall... sheeshh!

And there, my main Yahoo! Mail layout now completely ruined and screwed. I can no longer previewing the mail at the bottom, only able to read them from a new tab.

Any expert out there has any idea how to fix it? Ya, it happens only in my workstation Firefox, no problem on my laptop or other browsers. Probably clear the cache or the browser settings or something can help? I am thinking to revert back classic version then change back to this Beta one, no idea whether it works or not though...

UPDATED:
Solution found! I discovered that Yahoo! kept the layout info in your cookie! So, clear or delete your Yahoo! Mail cookie will restore back the original layout!

Look at the Content field of my mail.yahoo.com cookie, that should be my layout info.

I deleted the cookie and everything back to normal! HOORAY!

Monday blue

2007-05-28T23:40:00.000+08:00

Today supposed to be the first day of school holiday, which will last for 2 weeks, and what it means to working people like us? Free from that day to day horrible traffic jam nightmare, it won't completely go away, but at least the jam won't be that serious.

But I guess I was wrong. Upon reaching the East-West Link toll (or some of you call it the Connaught Highway), it started to jam, trains of cars, queuing to pay their "blackmail money". We were suppose to pay for a better and faster route to the city, and yet, we still suffer traffic jam after that, only in Bolehland I must say!

Started to jam before toll.

Continue to jam after toll.

Started to rain some more, great!

After paid my toll fee, it started to rain, then I was slowly moving in snail tempo for almost 30 minutes, and finally discovered the reason behind this terrible jam. Apparently the rain already started in the area after the toll, it was heavy, and whenever there is heavy rain, the motorcyclist suffers. They have to find shelter for cover. And that's what happened, motorcyclist were all taking shelter under the flyover along the highway, and believe me, it was a huge crowd! My rough estimation, at least 100 motorcyclists cover both side of the road, and completely taken the left lane! That was why it so jam because it created a bottleneck there.

What a way to start my Monday!

My sister new house

2007-05-27T23:32:00.000+08:00

Went to my sister new house after our breakfast. It is a 3 storey town house, where each storey is an unit by itself. My sis bought the lowest one, which doesn't require to climb any stairs, this is good for the elders to visit, easier for kids, and with your private court yard, it somehow makes your house like a house, but it actually a shared 3 storeys building.

The front gate.

The kitchen and dining room, the first thing you see when you go in.

The living room.

Master bedroom.

Master bedroom toilet.

View from master bedroom windows.

One of the room.

The shared toilet.

The other room.

3 rooms, 2 toilets, not too big, not too small, very suitable for a small family, don't know when can I get mine?

Scratches, scratches, I hate you!

2007-05-26T22:20:00.000+08:00

Added another wound to my baby today. This is no small unnoticeable scratch, it's a near 2cm wide, 7cm long, almost chipped off my car paint, blacky scratch. Starting from my car's rear signal light, and extending toward the rear passenger door!

That's a long scar I must say...

I was waiting in front of Chean's house, with Loong. We were going to Yanny's house for our usual Saturday morning swimming session. Then suddenly "bang", a sound coming from my back, although it's not very loud, but it was absolutely stunning, because I knew it was something which hit my car that had made this sound. Then this truck, drove by, and we can see its back compartment door, swinging back and forth! Apparently this guy had not close the door properly, or it was broken and went loose open!

At that moment, I was totally speechless. This incident had just made my day because how often you can get so "lucky" where an accident happened in front of you, and you were just parking on the street?

The truck continued to hit another car further in front, and eventually the driver behind, honed to notify him. Then started this quarrel, argument and whatever negotiation between the victim and the careless driver, while me just sat there, still in speechless mode. Frankly, what can I do? Join the club and fuck the guy? He is an aged uncle, and I don't think I can gain anything from him, scold him in the face just to release my anger and frustration? It's just pure pointless act, I'm way better than that.

Just hope I can somehow make the scratch fade a bit.. speaking of which, I has not washed my baby for like... 2 months? Shit...

I want to believe

2007-05-24T21:06:00.000+08:00

I want to believe that,

I am a decent, caring and good person.
But no. I'm not.
I started a stupid campaign few weeks back, where I told myself, whenever I was driving on the road, as long as a vehicle turn on its signal, I would let them pass, at any junctions, I would give way to the other cars. I want to educate the Malaysian drivers about driving manners. At first it was pretty easy, but soon after few days, I started to ignore them, sometimes even curse them. Indeed, I'm an impatient person, although I tried, temper still strikes, I starting to believe I have low EQ also.
I want to care for others, but I just can't get it out spontaneously from my heart, most of the time I only realize I should do this or that, after it happened, where it's too late. Even if I managed to do it, it seems so fake, and did it horribly, to my family, to my friends, to anyone I know. Ya, I'm indeed a hypocrite.

I have a successful and secure career.
I can buy many things, I can treat my friends drinks, foods, entertainment, so what? Look at my age, and look at other people around that is same age with me, what do you see? Manager? Shop owner? Married and owning cars and houses? I have nothing compare to them.

I am smart and knowledgeable.
Yeah right, I'm lazy and that's the one thing which get you to no where! I don't read I don't study, I don't improve myself and I'm ignorance to the changes of the world, even my own working field. I'm becoming more stupid everyday, my memory sucks, my logic analysis sucks. I look at those labor workers, they work so hard everyday, using their body to earn money, while me, the lazy pig, just stick my butt on the chair, and I get that shit load of money, what the hell is this?

I am healthy and fit.
Fat ass with tummy, and can't even get rid of it no matter how hard I tried. Fragile body, others can get going after one day rest, where I just busted my knees and cripple for almost 2 weeks. Not good in any sports, in fact, I suck at all of them.

I am positive and optimistic.
Don't make me laugh. A whiner that hide inside his useless and meaningless blog, I only see coward, nothing else.

I can't get things done properly, I feel so helpless, you know the feeling when you want to do something but you just couldn't? As if your life has just deserted you...

And it took me so damn long to write a post like this, until I can't even remember what kind of shits I wanna express here. Fuck it, I will just stop here...

I want to believe what I'm not... too bad, it just ain't happening...

P/S: Don't mind me, ignore this post, I don't know what happened, but I just lost it, emotional pitfall I guess...

The Queen of Fruits is in the town!

2007-05-05T19:25:00.000+08:00

I don't know about your place, but here, we call Durian, the King of Fruits. And the Queen? Mangosteen! It's one of my favorite fruit!

3KG for RM10, around 30 mangosteens inside.

This morning, on the way for breakfast at the bazaar with mum, saw bags of mangosteen hanging by the fruit stall, and it immediately catches my eyes!

The white and juicy flesh!

RM10 for 3KG, standard price I guess, probably can get cheaper elsewhere, but I just can't resist it, and eventually bought a bag.

Oh, over ripen? Starting to have yellowish flesh...

The verdict? For me, I think 3 out of 5, that's average. There are around 30 mangosteens in the bag. After tasted severals, some of them were sweet and juicy, while others were a bit sour, and there were also some with hard flesh, probably not fully ripen yet. Nonetheless, I still get quite a satisfaction out of it.

Oh yeah! It's mine, all mine!

Share a little fact with you guys, if you have eaten a mangosteen before, probably you have heard this from your elders or friends. Extracted from Wikipedia:

The number of aril pods is directly related to the number of petals on the bottom of the pericarp.

That means if there are 5 petals at the bottom of a mangosteen, you should find also 5 pieces of flesh inside. Prove? Here you go:

5 petals!

5 fleshes (or arils)! Sorry for the deformed flesh, I peeled it instead of using a knife to cut it open.

I'm going to get some mangosteen again! Yummy!

Red Alert!

2007-05-05T18:33:00.000+08:00

Don't mess with loan shark (aka dai yi loong), otherwise, this is what will you get!

Red hot paint!

This was what happened to the neighbour next to my house. Unfortunately, this is not the first time. If I'm not mistaken, they have been "warned" (pouring paint) by the loan shark at least 4 times since they moved in several years ago. According to my sources (in this case, my mum), this time, was due to my neighbour has not completely settled the debt in time. My guess is, probably delaying the debt payment or something. Fortunately, this loan shark still consider mild, not so violent type, pouring paint is just small potato, compare to those cases we read in newspaper, lock the gate, pour gasoline, beat them up, kidnap, even murder!

3 drops here!

1 drop on the body!

And what's my role in this disaster? An innocent victim due to their paint pouring action! My car, being so unlucky, had caught in the action, several paint drops, splashed on my windshield, car body and side mirror! Oh man, talk about bad luck, the day before this, my car caught a bird dropping, an extra large pile of shit, and now, it's paint! Duuuhhh!

The windshield also! OKlah, it just a few drops, but still bad enough...

Side mirror and signal, fortunately it can be easily removed by my wonder sponge!

The funny thing is, that Jojo asked me to put a sign board on my front gate, with words asking those dai yi loong to pour their paint precisely and carefully next time, me almost laughed my ass off, what if those loan shark get offended and think that I'm such a busy body, they decided to give my baby a "paint shower" also?? Gosh...

Fungus-ize Oral-B Toothbrush

2007-04-30T22:03:00.000+08:00

I don't know whether the word "fungusize" exists or not, or can I use it that way, but I'm sure you know what I'm trying to say. Yupe, an Oral-B toothbrush that has fungus on it.

I'm sure it's nothing new, because Kong's Colgate toothbrush also suffer the same symptom, black color fungus grow on the handle.

Yupe, it's an Oral-B® CrossAction® Vitalizer® . Check out the white color area...

I was shocked when I saw there was black color thingy on the handle after around 1 month usage, worse still, even on the side of the brushes! As first I thought it was some kind of design or pattern because I never really look at the toothbrush in detail. Soon I gave up that naive thought because I was able to peel it off a little, using my finger nail!

Even the back is infected, and the side of the brushes, holy shit!

Did I do something wrong in taking care of the toothbrush? I tried to find any product handle and care instructions on the Oral-B website, nothing. But then again, it's kinda irrelevant don't you think? You don't expect user would "Place them in cool and dry places", do you? It's a toothbrush for goodness's sake, of course it will be put in humid and wet places, where all these cleaning and washing occurs!

Bought it for RM20+, and what I get is "brushing with fungus"!

The most amazing thing is, even with fungus on it, I was still using it like 6 months, don't ask me how I did it, and I don't wanna think about it either. Eeewwwwwwww~! Gross~!

Screwed up my N73 ME hands free.

2007-04-29T23:40:00.000+08:00

I brought my N73 ME hands free out to use for the first time, since I got the phone few months ago. The cable is so troublesome, and bothering, so I just put it on my steering wheel, partially rolled over it. I think it's more distracting when call comes and you are trying to crank all those cables and put the ear phone on, compare to you holding your phone to talk.

After our usual swimming session on Saturday, we decided to went for lunch at the itallian restaurant in SS2 again. We were there last week, also after swimming, today that Chean was like crazily crave for the food, so again we went.

The meal was good, with stuffed stomach, we went to take my car and prepare to head back home. Got in the car, while trying to reverse, I noticed the hands free cable was really bothering at that steering location, so I decided to take it out and put it elsewhere. To my surprise, the cable somehow rolled inside the steering gap, and part of it stuck inside. I was trying to loosen it but no prevail, the gap is too small and we can't really see how it stuck. After 20 minutes of pulling and stretching, I gave up and decided to go home only try figure out a way to get it off.

Great, it's inside the gap!

You think you can pull it out like that, but no...

Although it looked like it's possible to get it off, the fact is, it can't. Somehow the cable hooked on some part of the steering inner structure, and after another 20 minutes of trying, at home, nothing seems to be working. I was really pissed, went to get myself a scissor, and cut the damn thing to half! So there goes an original N73 Music Edition hands free with volume and playback control, I put an end to it, all thanks to my MyVi Steering wheel! Fuck it!

Pulling here and there, non is working!

There goes the cable, cut into half!

Now I'm thinking to get myself a Jabra bluetooth hands free device, screw the cable!

Where you want to pee today?

2007-04-29T23:36:00.000+08:00

I was having Saturday breakfast at my usual meehoon stall located near Suntex pasar (bazaar in Malay). Believe it or not, I started visiting that stall since kindergarten. My mum first brought us there, and after all these years, we still occasionally eat there, during weekends morning. What makes us keep on coming back? Its delicious, unique belacan sambal chilly. Not too hot and spicy, with a little sweetness, when added with some soya sauce, it is really irresistible and makes you wanna get more.

The circled area, that's a big pile of pee I have to say...

When I was about to finish my meehoon. A kid with his mum walked pass in front of me. "Mum, I wanna pee", "Oohh, OK, come, pee there, ya, there". The innocent kid just followed his mum's instruction and start shooting out his essence. And where the hell was this "there"? In front of my table, just 2 steps ahead! OMFG, I was speechless looking at that kid doing his "small business"!

Probably you would wondering why on earth the kid can pee everywhere? As I mentioned previously, it is the bazaar, and in small town like this, people care less for their environment cleanliness. Spitting, rubbish everywhere, it's common around here. So don't be surprised if some kid did the same to you, hahaha!

Food stalls near the Suntex pasar.

MAS has done it again!

2007-04-29T01:31:00.000+08:00

Friday night, I fetched my sis and her daughter, my niece, to KLIA. She's getting a flight to meet her hubby in Shanghai, my bro in law, who's working there, for a long 1 week vacation (thanks to the 2 consecutive coming holidays).

She booked a Malaysia Airlines flight, it was suppose to be 140am, so we got our ass there near 12am. After arrived at the departure hall, we proceeded to the checking counter. Then the receptionist gave my sis a weird look, "They didn't call you?" "Your flight has been delayed, miss". OK, fine, if didn't call us should be just 1 or half an hour, we thought. "It has changed to 640am". WTF?! This long delay and they don't even bother to contact their passengers?! Apparently nobody gets any notice, because there's other passengers queuing behind us, were also boarding the same flight, and showing the surprise look too.

"Your flight has been delayed, miss", oh great!

Well, this is not a new story. It happens before, our bolehland's Malaysia Airlines, on the same flight, same destination (Pudong, Shanghai), sometimes ago, but those people were even more unlucky, it was delayed till 8am+! Suposed to be earlier, but then another ironic reason got in the way: There was no pilot available! Duuuhh...

So we had no choice but to wait. They gave my sis 2 compensation meal voucher, which worth RM25 each. I had to get a cappuccino to make myself awake. We bought some cakes and drinks, coffees to be exact. The kid was the most suffer one, it was way past her sleeping time, and yet, she's awake. We lied her down on the waiting couch, and tried to make her sleep, while me, mum and dad trying to stay longer to accompany them.

The medicine to keep me awake, and sometimes abnormal heart pumping.

At 130am, my eye lids were getting really heavy, so I sounded the going home alarm. We left my sis and my niece there, while we headed home, and reached around 230am.

All these hassles, thanks to our "great" national airline.

Ooppss, not enough clamp?

2007-04-26T19:39:00.000+08:00

That day when I was heading to KL Sentral, on my way for lunch, saw this hilarious shit: A car was tied to a metal sign stand with a chain, that has the word "FULL", beside the road in front of Plaza Sentral!

You can't get to see this everyday... d -_-" b

Security measure? Just like we used to tie our bicycle with a chain to prevent theft when we were young? Or?

Later found out that you only can stay there for 30 minutes, if you park your car at those parking box beside the road, longer than that will result your car being clamped by the authority. Apparently there were quite many offenders that day, until all of the clamping device had been occupied, and ended up with such a "brilliant" idea!

White color rim? Or not...

2007-04-20T19:42:00.000+08:00

When I heading toward to get my car in the open parking ground. Suddenly something eye catching stopped me, a white color wheel rim. I have to say a rim with white color is something unique, special, combine with a suitable and matching car body color, it's really a beauty.

Ozzy orange body with white wheel cap, what ya think?

When I first saw it, looked OK to me, then... Wait, wait a minute, the car is a Perodua MyVi, after taking closer look at the rims, I laughed. MyVi has 2 displacement (cc) model, one is the 1.0SR, and others are 1.3 variants. And the difference between them, in terms of wheel outlook, 1.0 is just wheel cap, while 1.3 is alloy rim (or sport rim some people like to say).

Rear spoiler some more, I'm speechless...

Self painted white wheel cap, give the guy a big hand... d -_-|||

And the one I saw is definitely a wheel cap, but white color wheel cap? Get out of here! The original wheel cap is silver color, any other color should be those people painted or sprayed their own. Oh man, just go and buy a real white rim for god's sake, I bet a few hundred bucks you can get a 14", if you want to do it, please do it the right way. Spraying the color is just pure humiliating, both yourself and the MyVi community!

What stands in your way?

2007-04-20T00:43:00.000+08:00

How many times you wanted to do something, you wish to do it, but in the end, you couldn't, you lost the chances, you missed it, you failed.

And then you starting to give excuses, saying things like, it's not fair... if only I could... why it happens to me? I wanted to but something get in the way... All those craps... Think carefully, what you gain from saying all that? Unless you tell me: I don't want to do it, in the first place, stop giving yourself excuses. Accept it and move on.

Remember, true to yourself, don't think too much, especially approaching people, ya, girls, more than 5 seconds of consideration, your confidence will left less than 50%, and the chances are even slimmer.

Why the fuck I'm giving all these shits? I dunno, just in the mood. OK, time to sleep.

So You Think You Can DANCE?

2007-04-19T23:46:00.000+08:00

So You Think You Can Dance, a reality TV show, or the dance reality show, was a hit in United States, similar to the famous American Idol, people get to perform on stage, they get selected, eliminated, mentally and physically tortured, some becomes a laughing material, some eventually becomes the jewel of the crowd, fame and well, wealth of course, follows, blah blah blah, ya, that's the thing.

And like everything in Bolehland, we also brought in this show. With the slogan "We are looking for the BEST dancers in Malaysia", it shows on 8TV, 930pm every Thursday.

I watched the first episode, and the 3rd just now. It's a pretty interesting show, for me, it's better than watching that boring American.. err.. Malaysian Idol, and other singing reality show. Because I can see people actually perform, physically, dance with the rhythm, it's easier to see how well they perform, by their moves, their poses, their everything, where as for singing, I have to admit I'm not really good in music, I even have trouble following rhythm (thanks to the GBA game Rhythm Tengoku, I know), everyone seems like sings pretty good (especially near final stage), unless occasionally, those that had bad form and sang terribly, that I can differentiate.

OK, OK, I have to admit it was for the chics at first, girl dancing is really something quite enjoyable to watch. Then eventually, the dancing part, it's amazing to see some people has such a passion towards something they like, and they put full effort into it. Notice some of them are amateurs, that means they have a daily job, which probably has nothing to do with dancing, but they still put so much time to the things they love. And so I started to think of myself, do I have such a hobby? Or anything that I really passionate to spend lots of time to do it? Sigh, I can't answer, it just like work work work, then rest rest rest, dunno do what after that, and kinda like wasting my life, with no purpose...

Anyway, the show is not bad, try and see.

Here's some link to the show:
Malaysia 8TV So You Think You Can Dance
US Fox channel original version

FU-YOH!

2007-04-19T23:17:00.000+08:00

See the latest Digi prepaid package before? Its campaign is extremely hot in town. The new package is known as FU-YOH! With attractive rewards and low call and SMS rate, everyone is talking about it. Well, for me, I think its the big title that really gets everyone's attention: FU-YOH! Originated don't know from cantonese, mandarin, hakka or even hokkien, it's kinda like a local Malaysian daily dialect, which has the meaning of "Wow!" or "OMG!" or "Holy shit!", ya, you get the idea.

A speaker made out of a catalog given along with the Star newspaper.

I don't know about you, but having a branding same as my everyday word is really interesting, the guys are talking about it everyday, making fun with the word, it's really get into our mind now, our daily life, which I think the campaign is really a success.

Will I change? Nah, if I wanna get another number, Digi will be my first choice, but then again, I'm not, having this number for a while now and it's troublesome to switch and let everybody informed, furthermore, it's my dad's sub-line, which I don't really need to pay a single cent, wahahaha!

Interesting road sign.

2007-04-16T21:54:00.000+08:00

Spotted this interesting sign when having my lunch around Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur.

Drive carefully when you see this sign.

It's written: AWAS ORANG BUTA MELINTAS (Be careful, blind people passing)

According to my colleague, apparently there's a blind man massage center around that area, so I guess those signs (ya, there are several of them) are for drivers to be careful when driving in that area. Never knew we have such a caring authority here.

Kow Po Ice Cream @ Bentung

2007-04-02T23:10:00.000+08:00

Ching Ming festival is at the corner, but we usually go back hometown (my father's hometown to be exact) early (weekends) to perform our duty as a grand children, grand grand children, the descendants of the passed away relatives, what duty are we talking about here? Oh, just to clean up the graves, burn some offerings, those paper made items like clothes, money, or hell money, anything, you name it, even cars and buildings.

OK, we are not gonna talk about that in this post, that might deserve a whole story of its own. Don't forget, it's Eat Eat Eat this post about.

On the way back to KL, father brought us to a famous ice cream store in Bentong. My uncle and aunt actually wanted to bring us here last time, when we went back to attend a relative wedding dinner, but it was closed that time. It is the Kow Po ice cream store. Located at the block next to petrol station (Petronas I think), just before The Store shopping mall (which looks like already closed shop), in Bentong, this shop only sells icy cold stuffs, ABC, ice cream, cendol, etc. and it's all time favorite, mixing 3 of the above!

The Kow Po ice cream!

According to dad, this shop has over 10 years of history, and looks like it's still the favorite of the locals.

When we reached there, I couldn't believe my eyes, people was waiting, queuing at the entrance. And when I went in, full house, every tables has been seated, what the, they are just here for the ice cream? Is it that good?

Look at the crowd!

We finally managed to get a seat and sat ourselves down. I was not sure what to order because it doesn't seem to have menu or something, so I just let dad do the job. "3 glasses", dad told the waitress. 3 glasses of what? I started to look around, some of them having ice cream, drinks, and most having this cup thingy, with ice cream on top, I guess that's what we are getting.

Back of the shop.

Few minutes later, the waitress delivered our stuffs. To my surprise, it's cendol, no, cendol with ice cream on top, eerr.. no, cendol with ABC and ice cream on top? After taking several spoons, I found out there were lots more in that cup, cendol, sweetcorn, peach, jelly, pineapple, and of course, ice cream, and the mixture tasted quite good!

Cendol + ABC + Ice Cream + etc. Special kind of dessert.

And how much for each? RM3. For me, I think still worth it, the size is adequate enough to clear your thirst, and the taste was not bad for a dessert.

And ya, before we leave, we managed to check out how they make that cup of mixtures, apparently those fruit punch thingy, all those jelly and fruits, were from those canned mixed fruit, which can get it from most supermarkets, so next time we can try to make it ourself?

Front of the shop, where they make their ice cream and such.

Calabria @ Belakong

2007-03-31T23:46:00.000+08:00

We went to a western restaurant known as Calabria for dinner.

The place is in Belakong, you can see it at the right side of the road if you are coming from Sungai Long direction, after the traffic light, around 500 meters distance, just next to the Milwaukee Steakhouse if you are familiar with it.

This is my second time there. Before that, have been passing it numerous time, just to get to Milwaukee Steakhouse, hehehe. From the look of it, you will think it is a rather high class restaurant, or probably its dim lighting, which is not attractive enough compare to Milwaukee's bright and big entrance.

First time I went, the dish I ordered was tasty enough, the service was good, and the environment was delighting, thus, we decided to pay another visit.

Restaurant at the Look Out Point. Pardon me for the blur photo, just managed to zap it when we about to drive down hill. Taken with K800i.

Originally, that Yen Han was bugging me this noon and asking whether wanna goto a place known as Look Out Point at Ulu Langat, along the road connecting Ampang and Ulu Langat, which is a place where people able to see the KL view from there, hence, how the name comes by. We did go there, me, Kong and Yen Han, but turned back upon reaching there, that place was damn cramp and small, the small area was congested with cars, getting in and out of that place was really a pain. The restaurant looks promising, but this is just not our day.

Calabria Cafe & Restaurant. Taken with N73 ME.

Inside Calabria. Taken with K800i.

Outside view from inside. Taken with K800i.

Yen Han was really like possessed by hungry ghost, he kept on mumbling: "Ahh.. damn hungry..." With no surprise, he ordered dozen of foods! This guy is well known for his big appetite, he always boasting his recent achievement, where he managed to finish a regular size pizza with side dishes. -_-|||

My Spaghetti Carbonara and Ice Cappuccino. Taken with K800i.

Kong's Oyster & Mussel with cheese, but no oyster that time, so mussels only. Taken with K800i.

Yen Han's Calabria Spaghetti. Taken with K800i.

Yet, another Yen Han's order, the Hawaiian Pizza.

And tonight, he's gonna go beyond that, a plate of spaghetti, a regular pizza, fries, a cup of coffee.

Half way of his attempt. Taken with K800i.

Last piece of the pizza, look at that face! Duuhh... Taken with N73 ME. Don't ask me why the color tone is like that, I have no idea myself... Still learning to use my N73 ME.

After this accomplishment, his pet phrase now is: "1 spaghetti, 1 pizza", oh man, he's gonna drive us nut for a while...

The big A! Apparently, this is a certificate of some kind, awarded by the authority. The little words underneath there is basically saying something like "This premise has been awarded grade A for its cleanness and so on, which having a score > 75%." Taken with K800i.

Testing my N73 ME macro mode. Nice angle huh? Hehehe!

My thought about Calabria is, I like it. They provide good food and the quantity is worth it with that price, I had all my spaghetti finished while there's still ham and mushroom left! I will definitely go back there again.

That's how much we paid. Worth it?

P/S: Why all the remarks on which camera was used to take those photos? As you know, there are lots of debates on the photo quality between Nokia N73 and Sony Ericsson K800i, I was using both phones to capture those photos, so judge it yourself now which one is better?

My new gadget!

2007-01-30T20:02:00.000+08:00

My mobile phone rang when I just hopped on my bed, around 1230am. That's Kong's name showed on the phone display, this "early" in the morning? I wonder. I picked up the call with question marks in my head, "Already slept?", He asked. "About to", I answered. Then there was this wicked smile coming from him, suddenly the light bulb light up in my head, somehow I knew what's going. Of course I still ask whazzup at this late, we bullshit a bit but actually almost read each other's mind. Then he told me, just now when he went up stairs shower, saw a big parcel box on the living room table. I laughed in excitement and said: "Finally came?" Of course I can't wait to lay my hand on the "thing", but it was so late and I was kinda sleepy, so I just told him to hand over me tomorrow. "You don't want to open it together?" Kong asked in excitement, well.... Ahhh... finally the desire surpassed the sleepiness, "I'll bring it over now, wait for me ya", then Kong hung up, and I just went down stairs, and wait...

After unpacked the parcel, and there, 2 boxes.

Slide open the cover and the actual box shown.

About 3 weeks ago, when we were heading to bukit jalil for our swimming session, Kong asked me when I'm gonna buy it? Then I think a bit, and answered now kinda out of cash, coz chinese new year is coming, time to pay the roadtax, car installment, and others, money is pouring out like water, only out, nothing in. OK, OK, now you probably wondering, BUY WHAT?! Oh yeah, the one thing that I always talking about, a new mobile phone, the Nokia N73 Music Edition! I've been planning to buy this baby like, eerr... since 6 months ago, originally it was just the N73, then later they came out a Music Edition which is black in color, looks more stylist and cool! But pulling out around RM2K will instantly KO my financial status, which I don't really wanna do that. But I always have this idea in mind, how good if I can buy things by installment, and I told this to Kong that time, then he said there's an installment plan for that phone from Maybank credit card offer, and he's very interested, yupe, this guy has also been thinking to buy that baby about the same time I was. Well, I will be damned, I told myself that time.

Displaying both phone with accessories come with the phone. The green screen is the default theme, while the blue one was just set it by me.

Why izzit that hard to decide whether wanna buy it by installment or not? Most credit card does offer those 0% interest rate plan, but why still hesitate? Frankly, buying things with installment usually those Malay style, doing that myself will like grouping with them, make us feel like a ma chan!!

Side view of the phone.

Another front view.

Kong finally got here and brought the parcel along. Like little children excited over their presents, we started to take photos, talking craps, laugh like children and slowly get the phone out of the parcels, exploring it and so on...

Back view of the phone.

Finally I got myself a new gadget!

P/S: This post had been in the draft for 2 months, so now I just quickly ended it with conclusion, hahaha, kinda irresponsible huh?

Satsuma Shabu Shabu!

2007-01-29T23:28:00.000+08:00

After the company annual staff camp, we went back to KL on Saturday, and reached Damansara around 7pm. While journey back here, we had decided to try the Japanese style steamboat mentioned by Ryan, so, to the restaurant we went!

The restaurant, known as Satsuma Shabu Shabu, is located at LG floor of Cineleisure, a cine-complex next to The Curve shopping mall. When approaching the restaurant, we stopped with hesitation, because there were no customer dinning inside! But since it's already decided, so we just walk in boldly, and greeted by the very cold air inside.

Its structure is similar to Sushi King or Genki Sushi, where foods are rotated along a conveyor belt, the difference is, they are mostly raw food, for your steamboat. And the table has several cooking stove, each for a single customer. So basically the idea is, you order a set of steamboat material from the menu, cook at your own stove, and get any extra food you like from the conveyor belt. It has 4 varieties of soup to choose from, Dashi, according to the waiter, this is a plain soup with little seasoning and taste, Miso, Kimchi and Sukiyaki, which is a soup with sweet taste, kinda taste like Teriyaki.

Beef set (around RM23++)

Seafood set (around RM20++)

Chicken set (around RM15++)

So I ordered a beef set, and chosen the miso soup. Our soups came first, and we turned on our own stove, with the switches at the side of the table, and started to boil them. Then each of our order came and we started to chow down the food! Only now we realized why it was so cold when we came, apparently the air condition was set to a low temperature so that when people started to steamboat, everyone won't feel so hot.

Miso soup

Kimchi soup

Sukiyaki soup

My beef set had around 5 slices of beef, 2 tofus, 2 types of mushroom, and some vegetable. It's not much, but still able to get my stomach full. The conveyor belt item priced at RM1.90, RM2.90, RM3.90 and RM4.90 if I'm not mistaken, the cheapest of course are those vegetable stuffs, meat is the most expensive. The longer I eat, the more salty the miso soup becomes! Should have chosen the dashi instead. Our kimchi soup was also getting spicier.

The food and price are still OK if you wanna have a small steamboat meal with friends. The shabu shabu style is quite popular in Japan and I think most of us teenagers will like it.

The cheating coupon!

One thing to mention, when entering the parking lot, we were given a coupon that suppose to have 20% discount on every conveyor belt item. We ordered 3 of it, and also showed them the coupon when paying, but somehow we just didn't get the discount as stated, dang, what kind of dirty trick is this? I don't really mind the 20%, but if you don't plan to give that discount, please don't even show them. What a cheap cheating tactic!

Bukit Tambun Seafood!

2007-01-29T23:01:00.000+08:00

The night we arrived Penang for the company boot camp, we went to Bukit Tambun to have our dinner. This place is famous for its cheap seafood in the Penang area, heard lots of people talking about it, but never tried before. According to those that went before, the food still quite good consider its price range at this level.

Right after turn into the Bukit Tambun entrance, passed the toll, turn right after the first junction, then go straight until end of the road, it's quite straight forward. We arrived at a harbor like restaurant, it's already crowded with people, and we had to parallel parked our cars.

All 7 of us already starving, so we quickly place order, for,
1) Fried sotong (squid),
2) Gung bou lai liu har (1 kind of spicy prawn),
3) Spicy zuk tan (1 kind of clam),
4) Steam pou yu (stingray)
5) Spicy crab and a
6) Vegetable

Left: Gai lan (vege); Middle: Gung bou lai liu har; Right: Spicy zuk tan

The food came quite fast, and the quantity was large enough for 7 people. The fish was very fresh, coz you can taste the natural sweetness of the meat, and it doesn't stink. But the prawn was not that good, not really crunchy anymore when served, and so was the crabs, they were too skinny, little meat and it was sticking to the shell, not fresh perhaps? Other dishes were not bad.

The stingray!

And how much all of these cost? RM117+, inclusive rice and drinks. From my experience, it's quite cheap provided you have that many dishes and quantity. We were all expecting around RM150+, but turned out that price instead, a good deal indeed!

P/S: According to CY, which I call him the "Gourmet" (coz he knows lots of good eating places!), we can actually order fried soft shell crab in the restaurant, but not sure whether it's seasonal, dang, missed it!

Company boot camp

2007-01-29T22:51:00.000+08:00

Last Thursday and Friday was the company Annual Staff Camp, or so called Team Building Camp, but I rather call it as the company boot camp.

We moved out on Wednesday evening, around 5pm, after our lunch, thanks to those nasty bugs and patches we needed to finish before departure. This is my 2nd time driving to Penang, all 5 of us packed inside my little baby, while our bags fully stuffed into the small boot of my car.

Driving at 90-110km/h, and keeping those reminders as told by bro Loong last time when we went to Penang in mind, like take notice of the speed limit, be careful of those bright places, speed trap usually there, and other funny funny but useful tips, the journey was still OK. Just that occasionally, my windshield will have "piat" sound, looks like bird droppings splashed on it... duuuhh... because it's already dark, couldn't see it clearly, so I just assume they were bird droppings. But it turns out that those were insects! And my front bumper had insect corpses sticked on them everywhere! Oh man, what a good time for kamekaze suicide!

This is no bird shit, it's insects!

Half way along the journey, we already called Ryan and Darren, two of our Penang branch colleagues, to bring us to Bukit Tambun, for a big seafood dinner feast! We arrived there around 830pm, ate till almost 10pm, then went for the next stop, Batu Feringgi! This is my favorite place, not because of its cheap *ahem* stuffs, but the road structure, you need to drive quite long distance uphill, and those twists and turns along the way, wow, really testing your driving skill and having an near drifting experience!

We were being arranged to stay at the YMCA hostel, coz most of our activities will be held in the rented meeting board room there. The room is just like standard hotel room, 3 beds, air cond, hot water, TV, well, not bad.

The first day of the camp, we was having some outdoor team building games at the Kebun Bunga park in the morning. And noon we had a debate event, where we were separated into 2 teams, and debate over 2 topics. Then at last the problem sharing session, where we wrote down problems that the company facing and suggested solutions. All meals were provided. Not very fun, but still some quite good activities.

The 2nd day had some topics discussion, a 1 1/2 talk on "Managing Yourself", and some indoor activities, I can't deny that sometimes it's quite boring. We ended up earlier than yesterday, so this time, we finally had time to go out around Penang.

After dinner, we went back our room, rest and shower, then to Halo Cafe in Bayan Lepas, just few lots next to our office. It was totally crowded, we waited a while to get a place to sit down, but our orders were processed quite slow, sat there around 1 hour only get our drinks, it was just too many people! The singers were OK, I still prefer the Halo Cafe in Connaught we always go more!

The next day, Saturday morning, we went out to eat some local Penang food, bought some Him Heang biscuits, then drove to the Kek Lok Temple, because this is Har lui, one of my colleague first time in Penang! It's really not fun touring around under that burning sun!

We departed Penang around 325pm, and back in Damansara near 7pm, had our dinner at The Curve, a restaurant known as Satsuma Shabu Shabu, a japanese style steamboat meal. Then I had to drive all of them home one by one, from the nearest Damansara till Jingjang, Selayang! My eyes were already damn tired and blurred when arrived home!

Whatcha looking at?!

2007-01-20T22:34:00.000+08:00

Super saiyan, Naruto, and Cloud Strife, what are they in common? Apart from strong and powerful, yupe, they all have yellow colored hair, and I have just joined their club!

Yeah, I've dyed my hair today, not till as yellowish as Naruto, but it's still quite brownish toward golden color, with some highlights.

OK, OK, what's wrong with me you would ask? Have been thinking to dye it quite a while, ever since working and frequently cracking my brain, grey and white has been invading my hair color. I'm not a fashionable person before, but now I'm willing to make a change to my outlook, dyeing hair is part of it, not to mention it can hide away those grey and white spots in your hair.

Went to the Wood Saloon as usual, after came back from half day work and lunch. It's damn crowded with people, people who came here dyeing their hair, rebonding, change of style, because Chinese New Year is around the corner, everyone is putting an effort to change their hair style for this festive season. Waited around 2 hours to get my turn, as usual, wash and cut. I always thought that dyeing hair would take like 2 hours and more, I'm really not a patient person and Yen Han was with me too, so dyeing hair was not really in my mind, until the stylist told me, for guy, it just required around 15 minutes. Ahh, what the hell, just do it! So I started to choose color, was thinking to dye a darker color, nothing fancy and moderate, then how about doing some highlighting? So I just asked the stylist, Brenda's opinion. She's chosen 2 colors and I just said go ahead with them. Hahaha, beautiful women always has this advantage, irresistible persuasion! It took me around half an hour more for the dyeing process to complete, poor Yen Han just waited like crazy.

So, what's the result of this brave attempt?
Surprised, shocked, regret! OK, OK, sounds too over. I admit I do regret when I saw the color, it's almost a gangster style, la la zai, the bad boy figure, which I believe it's kinda out of trend now. But they did a great job, even and properly colored, but I'm not really sure it's gold based and brown highlighted, or vice versa? But I think this change of color does attract unnecessary "attention", which I do not wish for.

Sigh, I'm gonna have to stuck with this for around 3 or 4 months, or more, so I better get use to it. Hope this doesn't have any impact towards what people think of me! Hahaha!

Motul H-Tech 100 Plus

2007-01-19T22:53:00.000+08:00

Did my 15K mileage car service this Monday, oh, correction, it's already 18K when I went for service, because I always late for every car services, accumulated till now, it's approximately 3K over the actual service mileage, hahaha!

Of course, this time I was late again, by the time I realized, it's already almost 500KM over the stated mileage. Did the first 3 free workmanship services at Perodua Service Center, and this is the 4th, which I will be charged, so was thinking to change to another workshop for service, mostly because I prefer to be able to observe what the mechanic is doing, which I can't if it's the Perodua SC I used to go, and the ridiculous booking ahead, a 2 weeks early if you wanna do it on weekends.

But in the end, I went back to P2 SC, partly due to neither me nor the guys know any good workshop around, and the car is still under warranty, so better do it with P2. So I've no choice to book on Monday because I need to drive to Penang next week, can't wait for another week so that I can service on weekends. Going to work a bit late shouldn't be a problem.

But I'm definitely not gonna use cheap Perodua engine oil to feed my baby this time. Chean is using Q8 for his Kelisa, which is a quite famous brand and recommended by some car forums. But the performance degraded after 2 months usage, according to him. So I was thinking to go for another recommended brand, Motul. So I went to dig some forums, and thanks to Chean, I was able to find out that Motul has an entry level fully synthetic engine oil, Motul H-Tech 100 Plus, which the price is reasonable and affordable for me. But where to buy? Previously, Chean dug out something from a forum, it was about a workshop helped to tune a Kelisa and won a racing event, and the engine oil they were using is Motul, and it's also part of the reason I've decided to try this engine oil. The workshop is known as Trial, and coincidentally it's near Chean's place! After some findings, Trial also a distributor for Motul engine oil, so, need to say more?

We went to Trial on Saturday, before our swimming session. The people there are quite friendly, we talked a bit on engine oil and other stuffs. I got my Motul H-Tech Plus for RM140, well, a bit higher from what stated in the forum, but still acceptable. Hhmm, probably next time can come here for service.

I was right on time for the service, 850am, on Monday. But after registered, I was told that only 10am+ I can get my car, dang! So I explicitly sit outside, and watched them doing my car service, from far. They really had taken their own sweet time and I only able to leave that place around 1020am. When I walked to my car, I was like WTF!!?? My hood was not closed properly, some engine oil spilled on top of it, some white substance near my wiper, get into the car, the paper they used to protect my car mat when they were working was still there, dammit, they had done a really bad job and poor service, I will think twice to go back there again!!

So, after almost 1 week on Motul H-Tech 100 Plus, the verdict?
Probably it's just my imagination, probably it's the effect of after car service (changed engine oil, etc), probably that's how it goes with fully synthetic oil, here are the differences I felt:

Improved engine kick in, eerrr, OK, OK, I have no idea what's engine kick it, just that my baby can pick up faster, can push up speed faster.
Smooth, engine sounds smoother, this probably due to change of engine oil, not limited to Motul.
Improved fuel consumption, eerrr.. lower I mean, it's so coincident that my fuel empty signal was blinking after service, so I pumped full tank. Looks like it's quite fuel saving.

Overall, I'm satisfied, what more can you expect?

RM1 Pan Mee!

2007-01-08T13:39:00.000+08:00

There's a shop lot down stairs, next to the shop beneath my office, previously was deserted, and starting to have renovation few weeks back. It was really a painful experience for tenants surrounding it, due to the continuous drilling and hammering.

After 2 weeks of suffering, things got cool down, and the shop finally reveal its identity. It turns out to be a noodle shop, selling mostly pan mee, known as Face to Face Noodle House Promotion banners started to hang outside the shop, and the attracting part is, on the opening first day, each mee sells at RM1 per bowl, and on the second day each for RM2! Talking about marketing tactics, this one at its best!

And today is its grand openning day, RM1 per bowl of mee, stingy people like me sure go and check it out!

The magical banner.

Still has some renovation going on.

Front view inside.

Back view inside.

All sort of chilies and seasoning with your pan mee.

Lok mei, with cincau?! This is odd, cincau taste covers the herb taste, and it's too weak, taste not strong enough, put too much water to cut down cost maybe?

Normal dried pan mee, with egg?

Normal soup pan mee, with egg too...

And my order, special pan mee! The fried thingy looks like fried pig intestines to me, but not really taste like it, fried fu zuk? Not really, Forgot the check out menu what is it, but it's crunchy and taste good! (Updated, the fried thingy is actually fried fish cake!)

When we left, it's already crowded and people are waiting to get served. Fortunately we went there early!

Bottom line, the food is not bad, with price of RM4.30-5.00, its size and toppings are up to the price. Drinks cost you around RM1.80-2.50 if I'm not mistaken, which is quite standard. My current personal favorite is the one I ordered just now, gonna try other taste next time, and the variety of chilies are a bless to spicy lover!

Updated at 5:30pm:
Guess what, we just went to the noodle house and have another bowl of cheap RM1 pan mee! Wahahaha! This time ate a dried pan mee, with pork and fried fish cake, with the dried chili, it sure taste good! Well, tomorrow will go there again, RM2 per bowl pan mee, anyone?

Ho ho, the train is back!

2007-01-08T11:42:00.000+08:00

Train? What train, the train of cars of course!

Monday is known to be traffic jam day, the reason? I dunno, probably tired weekend, everyone wakes up late, craps, just everyone coincidentally ended up going to office about the same time, thus, choking the traffics.

I was dragging my tired body and drove to work this morning, but right after my car went down the slope and reaching the end, train of cars! Thanks to the useless traffic light at the end of the road leading to the main road! It's really becoming worse since the toll down there hiked the fee, because my housing area happens to be an alternative to avoid paying toll! Ironically, it took me around 15 minutes just to get out of my own place!

As usual, traffic jam again at East-Wesk Link right after the Connaught toll, although not the worst but it's bad enough to waste lots of my life there. Frankly, anything leads to the Federal Highway in the morning is a mess, guaranteed jam for you!

And there's the jam again in SPRINT Highway, this one of course caused by the exit towards Phileo Damansara and SS17, well, and also because it's an alternative road to avoid the SPRINT highway toll too, bad design indeed. Don't even try to drive here, toward the Damansara direction, when it's off office hour on weekdays, the jam always amaze me when I driving home in the opposite direction.

Another nice way to start a new week and day, rite?
Aahh.. had a rough weekend, sleepy and tired, see if I had time to talk about it later.

The cripple meal.

2007-01-01T23:51:00.000+08:00

Just came back from my mum side relative wedding dinner, at the Nikko Hotel. As you know wedding dinner is a very profitable business, with so many competitors, these restaurants, hotels, are always putting in new ideas in their wedding packages.

In recent years, there's an idea, a new wedding dinner trend emerges out of no where and quickly adapted by almost all restaurants as well as hotels, probably people likes it, probably it's a way to show how in style, how good your dinner is, I dunno - It is, the first dish ritual/ceremony. Nowadays, the first dish of a wedding dinner is presented in a royal style, where by ceremonial music, along with dim light and spot light focusing, food is brought out by waiters/waitresses, wearing smart and formal attires, sometimes with chinese traditional costumes, in a well practiced sequence and order. Frankly, sometimes I really can't help myself and laugh out when I saw it presented in an overly manner. Like it or not, everyone is doing it, "That guy did that, why shouldn't I?" Probably that's why it's spreading like wild fire.

Anyway, other than that, service is getting better. What I mean getting better here is, food is served, and also divided for you, the server changes your dirty plate, fill up your drinks, lay the dining cloth for you, serve each dish to your plate, etc... All these, it's just like a meal for the disability/cripple, we are served until we don't really need to do anything, except open our mouth and eat (err.. almost, you still have to use your hand to delivery the food to your mouth). The cripple meal, which I got it from some TVB dramas dialog, best describe this odd wedding dinner trend...

SLI in da house!

2007-01-01T14:09:00.000+08:00

Setting up a SLI system has always been most gamers' dream, ever since the original version 3dfx Voodoo series. After nVidia acquires 3dfx, they recreate this dream a couple of years back in their famous GeForce line graphic card.

Eerrr.. what's a SLI? Simply put, it's just a technology to let user uses 2 similar graphic cards as 1. Imagine having 2 engines in a car, how fast can this baby goes? Hahaha! Wouldn't it be expensive? Yupe, like everything else in the world, this is just another using money to buy time/performance idea, a luxury toy, that's why I call it a dream in the first place.

When I bought my rig around 2 years ago, I already have this idea to setup a SLI, of course I'm that loaded, couldn't straight get 2 graphic cards in 1 go, but the system specs were definitely toward this idea. The card I bought is Leadtek Winfast PX6600 GT TDH, best affordable mid range card at that time. Around 2 years later, I got myself another one, second hand, which cost almost 4 times cheaper when I first bought it. Sigh, everyday things obsolete, and computer stuffs are the most significant of them.

I got the other card plugged in, and connected them with the SLI bridge. After booted into Windows, it detected the extra card and setting up the driver, but when I tried to go in the Display properties, it doesn't show any SLI thingy, that's odd. A quick check to the motherboard manual, found out that I need to adjust some jumpers so enable it, hahaha, should have check thoroughly first.

SLI in da house!

Notice the copper fan underneath the graphic card, that's the troublesome heatsink fan.

After restarted, things seem to be in order now, there's a SLI menu to enable the setup, so far so good. Now of course time to test out the performance, I loaded up 3DMark05, a 3D graphic benchmarking program, and proceed to the tests. Wow, the frame rate showed almost 80% increment, which is really good! And when I was excited and satisfied with the result, suddenly a "beep beep beep" sound snapped me awake. It was from my motherboard, sound like this usually means there's something wrong with your hardware. I quickly canceled the test and jump back to Windows, and the screen was showing my motherboard chipset, the nForce 4 SLI, having a whopping temperature of 71 degrees celcius!!

Previously the heatsink fan on this chip was dead, and I had to replace it with another one as recommended in the motherboard forum. The temperature after I installed the new heatsink fan was not much different with the dead one. Now it proves I did a bad job installing it. The heatsink is not really designed for the motherboard so it's kinda loose. Sigh, now I had to redo the whole process again, and this involves taking out the motherboard from the case, remove the heatsink, clean it and attach it again, which is damn troublesome!!

This time I stick the thing in a different position, which seems quite secure even after the graphic card plugged in above it. The temperature monitor shows a figure of around 60 degrees, good, acceptable temperature after CPU overclocked and SLI enabled.

Finally I can proceed to test my baby in action! Here's some result I've got:

How many people has the chance to setup a SLI? Most of them just thinking better upgrade to a better card instead of spend more on obsolete model. But frankly, it's really cool when seeing 2 cards in action, I've experienced it, I've done it, and that's what matters.

Play hard now, sick later!

2006-12-27T21:35:00.000+08:00

Oh yeah, sick again, when was it I last sick? Ya, approximate 1 month ago! Wow, what a weakling I am!

I guess last few days of late night fun and joy has finally see its affect, total immune system collapsed! The body was too weak to "refuse" any bacterias or viruses?

Hhmm... think again, it was all started after I ate that pile of big plate mee goreng, which was suppose to be indomee goreng, which that mamak guy outside of my house misheard and placed order. Then 2 half boiled eggs, and an ice lemon tea. Then my stomach was starting to feel upset. After 2 hours of resting, 1+ hour of workout, and further few hours of DotA-ing, my head was started to crack. Ya, and my stomach upset was never gone away. Part of the reason, been having this running nose, swelling inside, and stuck all the way till hard to breathe through nose.

The next day went to office was almost a zombie, my head was warm, headache, nose totally unbreathable, lost of appetite, tired, eyes pain, you name it! Somehow I was still able to hold it till off work and straight went to clinic. Oh man, I really hate seeing the doctor in the evening, it's sure damn crowded. Especially when you are half dead!

The doctor look at my nose and shocked with the swelling, and she also shocked me with that facial expression. If it doesn't subside the next few days, she would like to refer me to a specialist! Wow, izzit that serious? Anyway, I got my medicine and my pass to a whole day rest - a MC!!

So, here I am, resting at home, my stomach is still like many air inside, and can't really swallow many food, flu and fever and others were not that severe now. I guess bread for whole day... Think again, was I food poisoned? Dang, I remembered I was once had a similar case after I ate at the same old mamak stall last time! Go figure!

A waste of time.

2006-12-24T14:22:00.000+08:00

After hours of editing a post in Blogger, finally satisfied with the Preview layout, and published it, only to find out it was totally different from what I saw in the Preview page. Craps! Editing the post with image already a headache, need to adjust here and there, preview again and again to confirm the layout is correct, and now ended like this, shit, this is definitely not user friendly at all!!

Sigh, I have to edit the post again, what the hell, do it after I get back from shopping and later Christmas party! DUUUHH!

What troubles you today?

2006-12-18T17:54:00.000+08:00

Let me ask you a question, what troubles you the most? Izzit your low salary that makes you always worry every bits of spending? Or izzit your another half, girlfriend/boyfriend, wife/husband that keeps on nagging you everyday? Or that pile of works which almost choke you to death? Whatever the reason, it's your life, be glad that you have something to trouble with.

Eerrr, enough talk, and what troubles me the most recently? Guess what, FOOD! Yupe, our essential surviving fuel! Even now I'm working I'm thinking about this. OK, OK, I know it's pathetic to be troubled by something this minor, but because mum is not around, no one cooks for me, "What for dinner?" has become my number one question of the day! Why it troubles me so much? Frankly speaking, I'm quite a choosy guy, I mean in terms of eating, in my pathetic mind, eating is not only to fill your tummy and chase away the hunger, but it's a way of enjoying too. Of course I can still stuck anything in my mouth just to fulfill my hunger, but when you have the choice, aahh, yes, the keyword, CHOICE. Choices are the most troubling thing in our life, you love it, you hate it, you wanna make the right choice, you scare you make the wrong one, blah blah blah, it's all in one decision.

Previously, I only need to think where to have our lunch, now even dinner I have to crack my head! It's already 3 days in a row I settled my dinner by packing from the restaurant near my house, ya, I don't like to eat alone, somehow you will feel pity and lonely, so I rather order take away and eat along with my TV show, hahaha! Hhhmmm... today I think I will just settle with KFC!

Home Alone

2006-12-14T01:28:00.000+08:00

Theoretically I am home alone for the next 2 weeks. Mum, dad, sis and my niece is taking the 130am flight to Shanghai. Mum and dad is on a vacation tour to visit Shanghai and other surrounding cities, for 1 week. And later meet up with my sis and bro in law in Shanghai city, for another week, then only come back. Although my bro is still here, but you can't really see him before 12am, coz he always back home late.

I am not joining due to the fact that I just came back from my Hong Kong trip, which is kinda impossible for me to take another 10 days leave, and most of all, kinda short of cash now after the holiday frenzy in Hong Kong.

Now practically I have to do everything by myself, hope I won't starve till death in this 2 weeks, hahaha!

Dog shit luck!

2006-12-11T21:14:00.000+08:00

Today is Selangor holiday, went to pasar with mum and my niece, had my favorite meehoon soup there, and went back around 11am something.

My internet was still in that half working condition, unable to access some web sites, and can't login to MSN. Damn, by that time, I was certain it's my router modem fault, which caused by the new firmware I updated. With nothing better to do, again, I started to working on all the settings in the web interface of my router, hoping to solve the problem.

After an hour of trials and errors, it seemed nothing much I can do with this firmware, I have to accept the fact that it's not working, at least for me. With no other choice, I turned to the Solwise's router firmware. After flashed, the familiar web interface displayed once again when login to the router. I tried to load the websites that I was not able to get in when using the RouterTech's firmware. Great, everything seemed back to normal, I can access them as well as login to MSN messenger. Suddenly, this stubborn and greedy thought came to my mine: "Probably now if I flashed back to the RouterTech's firmware, it will work too?" Thinking of if it couldn't work also, I can still use back this working Solwise's firmware, I flashed my router, again.

Did I succeed? No, I still can't access some websites and can't login using that stupid MSN messenger. So, I guess that's bye bye to this great firmware. For the 3rd time today, I updated my router's firmware again. Hhmmm... why the login page still the orange, yellowish RouterTech's layout? Dang, why was it still remained the same firmware? I was sure the flashing process was successful! OK, OK, maybe some glitches, flash again should clear things up, so I flashed, and flashed, and flashed! 3 times in a row, but I still getting this bugger page! I was started to get frustrated, I turned to an application that is found on the RouterTech forum, developed by the router chip maker, Texas Instrument, the TI Remote Application, a Windows program that interacts directly to the router, which has options to update the router's firmware, settings, etc.

This app has quite confusing UI, I tried to setup the environment again, but nothing happened. Without any info and help, I was on trials and errors again. My frustration had reached a new high, with clouded mind, I just simply chose a firmware file that came along with this app, which I was not exactly sure whether it's working for my router or not. And suddenly the program collapsed, showing the Windows exception message. My heart dropped along with it, I went to check the router, all lights were on, OMFG! I screwed the damn router! I tried to switch off and on again, same. Fortunately I can still access the router with that TI Remote Application, but now I was getting this "Flash erase failed" message! Wow, did I somehow screwed the flash memory?? I tried and tried and tried, the switch network function was still there coz I can access my sis's PC, just that the router and modem function totally gone due to corrupted firmware.

"I screwed up, now no choice but to buy a new router and modem. The Linksys combo Chean just bought is my first choice. But dang, gonna spend few hundred bucks again!" This was what in my mind over and over again at that time. I was tired and frustrated, I just stopped everything and went to play a few hours game. Hahaha! After that, I decided to try one more time. First, I accidentally uploaded the settings I backup when I first tried to flash the firmware, then I was like what the heck, try the RouterTech firmware and see. To my surprise, I didn't get the "Flash erase failed" message, it proceeded with the erase and flashing process. Successful! My eyes almost popped out when I saw this, and quickly went to check the modem, restart it, oh yeah, everything back to normal!

I was so glad!

Somemore with bonus, now I am using the RouterTech 3rd party firmware with enhanced features + I was able to access all websites and MSN again, everything is working fine now! HOORAY!!

P/S: Probably I will write a step by step firmware upgrade guide for the Aztech 600ER router modem later...

Upgrading my Aztech 600ER router modem firmware

2006-12-10T22:12:00.000+08:00

On Saturday, because all alone at home and nothing better to do, I went to google and searched for any firmware update for my router modem, the Aztech 600ER. This bugger has giving me nothing but disappointment, slow auto connection, sluggish web interface, sometimes can't even load the page out after switch it on for few days. All these even makes me wondering my BT so slow whether because its uneffective routing/load balancing or the damn TMnut!

This was not the first time I tried to search the firmware, but this time, I decided to be more patient, and browsed those results one by one. To my surprise, I found something in Lowyat.NET forum that has something about this modem firmware. It appears that there's a company known as Solwise, has a router modem, with the same model code, as my Aztech, the Solwise SAR-600ER. Both of them using the same chipset, technologies, specs, even the design is exactly the same! Damn you Aztech, can't even come out an unique model of your own?!

One of the forumer suggested to upgrade the Solwise's firmware, which is exactly same as the Aztech, except it's newer and should be better. OK, sounds good, when trying to download the firmware, there's a link to another website, it turns out to be a 3rd party made firmware! Wow, 3rd party firmware always provides more features and frequent bug fixes! Without hesitation, I ventured to RouterTech.com, a site that provides updates, infos and self made firmwares for the AR7WRD and AR7RD type router. It appears that many company is using 2 of these chips for their router modem, including my Aztech 600ER, which is an AR7RD type, and the firmware should be suitable for routers of these types.

So I read through some related articles and posts, until I think I have enough knowledge to flash the firmware and rescue infos in case anything went wrong. OK, the deciding moment, I started the flashing procedure... Well, so far so good. After rebooting the router, it showed the RouterTech screen at the login page! And this was the starting of my nightmare. I continued to struggle at guessing the username and password, both in the web interface, and telnet terminal, it was really a frustrating process! The environment settings that suppose to be there were not there, I need to telnet to the router back and forth, restarting again and again to make things work!

With hours of struggling, finally everything seemed to be what it supposed to be. Now time to MSN and report my successful adventure to my friends... WTF?! I can't login to MSN messenger, try MSN.com, it just forever waiting, and some of the websites too, including RouterTech.com, which means I can't get any further info for my problem. I can connect using GAIM, but not MSN Messenger. Probably TMnut issue? Coz I did experience similar case before. So I decided to wait for another day...

Whole day has passed, and I yet to able to load those websites, nor login to MSN using MSN Messenger, this doesn't look good...

Traffics

2006-12-08T21:35:00.000+08:00

I'm really have enough of Klang valley traffics, I can't stand it anymore! It's a hell experience whenever I drive to work or drive back home, no matter it's 8am in the morning or 8pm at night, one word describes it best: JAM! No no, it's FUCKING JAM!

Traffic jam is not really a true factor of annoyance, the attitude of drivers shown in traffic jam that really pisses me off, because of their selfish attitude, the jam even get worsen.

God dammit, you really think taking the emergency lane can get you faster? Or cut any line that seems moving faster will make you ahead of everyone? And if you decided to take the fast lane, please, step on your paddle and drive FAST! It's not like you own the road for god sake! Brake when necessary, don't step on the damn thing as if the more you do the faster you can go!

Yeah, yeah, I'm a whinner, I'm a loser that complains, but I think I'm gonna loose my mind if I continue to suffer this without some place to release it!

There... feeling better now, I think I'm gonna die faster coz going through this process everyday.

Seafood at Sekinchan

2006-10-24T19:11:00.000+08:00

Today is Hari Raya, new year for fellow muslim, holiday for everyone else, so is tommorow.

My sis had this planning to have seafood at Sekinchan, since last week, on today. So it's a family day for me, where as the guys, had their own activities, movie, shopping for stuffs that needed for our HK trip 2 weeks later, etc. Frankly, I'm not happy they ditched me to shop themselves, but you can't make everyone wait for you and go along with you, can you? So I guess I have to learn up the shopping alone skill now.

Anyway, we move out around 12pm, traffics were smooth, except, when we reached Jalan Istana, cars were piling up beside the road, and police officers were there to direct the traffics. Oh ya, this time every year, during Hari Raya, Yang Di-Pertuan Agong will have open house for fellow citizen and guests in the palace. So a little bit jam there.
Other than that, upon arrived at Kuala Selangor, the traffics started to go bad. Apparently the traffic lights installed along the main road were more favor to red color, only like 3 or 4 cars can go through everytime green light. For each traffic light we encountered, we have to spend at least 10 minutes to get passed. I think the local authority really have to look into this issue.

After passing Kuala Selangor, we were now heading to Sekinchan. There were Padi fields along the road, it's been quite some time since I last saw it, when I was still a child perhaps?

Some photos I took when we walked to the restaurant.

We took a turn at the traffic light, where there's sign board showing Bagan at that direction, after drive a little further, we were at a small fishing village, and the restaurant was already crowded. We managed to find a parking space a bit far from the restaurant.

There you go, Restaurant Guan Seng Loong.

Ginny, my niece was getting moody cause it's way passed her nap time. We quickly settle down and ordered some dishes. With so many people dining here, slow service was expected, but we never thought it would that SLOW! We waited like 1 hour to get our food ready! Gosh, and frankly, the food is not that tasty too! We were charged around RM65+, doesn't look cheap to me.

Inside the restaurant.

Tofu stew with fish.

Fried oyster with egg.

Meehoon with crab.

Chili shrimp.

Filled up the tummy, we began our long journey home. Once again, we passed the padi field, dad stopped by a fruit stalk beside the road infront of the padi field, I quickly took the chance to snap some photos. We bought some mangoes. Little rain drops began to fall down.

Nice padi field sceneries.

And soon, the rain gone very heavy, until the view ahead was blur and hard to see even with the help of wiper. We had to drive slowly and it took quite a while got home.

Padi field with coconut trees.

It's quite a good holiday getaway for the family!

Bah, I've got another summon!

2006-10-23T17:44:00.000+08:00

My 3rd summons today! Hooah!

1st one was in Ipoh, during our Penang trip last time, while we stopped at Ipoh for some dim sum feats, was illegal parking, this one thanks to the local municipal council.

2nd one was speeding violation, doing 95km/h on a 80km/h at East West Link, caught red handed by a speed trap camera, and stopped at a road block. As usual, was indirectly asked for a bribe by our respectful policeman, nah, I was too proud to give in like that, so I just asked him to issue the summon. But this one still yet to confirm, the policeman didn't give the summon to me on the spot, and just asked me to go. According to Kong's experience, they will issue to me later, but it has been a while after the incident, and everytime I check online, it gives me 0 result, bah, fuck it, only worry about it when I renew my road tax.

3rd and fresh, hot, new one, courtesy of Majilis Perbandaraan Petaling Jaya (MPPJ), which is the Petaling Jaya Municipal Council! Today was supposingly a holiday for our government servant, which usually day like this, we need not pay the parking machine anywhere in the country. But I still tried to make sure by checking out the machine, hhhmm, it shows the normal message, not the "Tidak perlu dibayar" (Not required to pay) message. I was sceptical, and told this to my collegue, what I got in return was a laugh and jeer from her. OK, since she was so confident, I will just follow along.
But when we was having lunch, and almost done, at the food stall near by, we saw a coucil enforcer inspecting the cars. "Bummer" was what I had in mind. We went back to check out our cars, yupe, there it was, a fresh summon, at a fine of RM100, happily secured on windshield by the wiper.

I think I'm gonna start a collection of all the country municipal/city coucils' summon! I have 2 now, still... errr... many more to go!

P/S: Oh ya, start to blog again, I feel like it's easier to talk to myself than others. Am I sick or what?!

2nd Car Service - Done

2006-06-10T11:56:00.000+08:00

Woke up quite early, and wondering around till half an hour before the car service appointment time. Mum told me she was having fever early morning, this sudden fever made her kinda worry because there's dengue cases in our area recently, but I think probably due to the hot weather and drank not enough water. So I drove her to the clinic first, and dad will pick her up after doctor check up.

Wow, almost 9pm! I quickly rushed to the service center, well, speeding again... Although it's quite near, but I still arrived 5 minutes late. I registered myself on my appointment time, and waited there. Aisks, and I was starting to get hungry. Did not eat anything the whole morning, coz planning to eat my favourite soup fish ball meehoon at the pasar near my place, after I finish this. And now started to feel weak and no energy...

"WNU XXXX" The receptionist shouted. That's my car plate number, so I went up to meet with her, and she showed me the things they gonna change in this 2nd service. From the lesson I learnt in last service, these people will generally assume your car has no other problem if you didn't tell them, duuhh! Yupe, there's some problems I wanna report.
First and most important, the clutch. Sometimes when I clutch out, or release clutch, I can't do it smoothly, as in slowly and constantly release the pedal. Because at certain point, you can feel as if it got stuck, and needs to release more force then it will only bulge, and this will cause a sudden jerk when you clutch in and clutch out. I don't think this is natural because other manual transmission car I drove before never has this problem!
Second, the audio player. This bugger starting to act weird for the past month. The buttons do not function properly, and gone haywire! When I press on, nothing happens, but have to press play to activate it. Sometimes the on off button will becomes the mute button instead, where the mute button strangely becomes the audio setting buttons, and also other werid cases. It's totally short circuited! But the problem is, once in a while, it will back to normal...
Third, the windshield. My car has this resistant watermarks that can't even get it off during my car wash, or even using glass cleaner material. My collegue told me her car was having this too, and the workshop people told her it can't be removed! WTF?! You kidding me?! New car like mine already had this problem?! This I must ask them to confirm!
Forth, of course is the fuel consumption. I can't really get the optimum fuel consumption as reported by most MyVians as they mentioned in the forum. Full tank 31L can only run around 420KM, where most can reach around 450+KM. No no no, I am comparing this with the records before I changed my rims. The FC is far more higher after I changed my rims, I have lost around 20-30KM due to this larger rim size! Hahaha, sacrifice performance for beauty, that's the price you have to pay!

But I had just reported the first 3 problems. Because new car FC will slowly improve after a few services, so I might just wait and see how first. For my windshield problem, she told me I could do it on weekdays, where there's not much workload like the weekends and they will check for me and it's probably the oily stuffs on it. So, there's still chances to get it fixed? Baaahh, like I'm always free on weekdays!

So I waited again, and my hungriness was getting stronger and stronger, fortunately I do not have gastric problem, otherwise I was really gonna suffer...

"WNU XXXX", my car plate number again? This time was the mechanic, and I followed him to the work floor. He asked me about the problems I reported, the audio player first. Dang! Just as I afraid, the bugger worked complete fine now! I explained several times again to him what's the problems, he seemed puzzled and didn't really believe what I said, and asked whether I know each button functions. Hahaha! Great... Then the clutch problem, just as I expected, he told me he can't feel any difference and it looked fine, but if I felt the clutch is positioned too high, he can adjust it for me. Once again, I explained to him but he seemed can't get it, was it my explanation that bad? Finally I asked him to do a test drive to check. Then I back to waiting again.

And guess what, after a few minutes, I was led to the cashier already! Dang! WTF?! These people don't even care what we reported, not even try to simulate and help us! I was really dissapointed, probably they were out of hand, fully scheduled, or anyhting, I dunno, but they gave me another bad impression about their service!

So I just drove away and went to ate my breakfast...

Learn to swim - Day 2

2006-06-04T22:41:00.000+08:00

Today we were a bit late, furthermore, I accidentally missed the entrance of the center, so have to do 2 U turns to get to the place. Arrived at the diving center around 210pm, Mr. Lim was already there waiting.

We parked the car and went meet up with him, as usual, we head into the center to change. This time, there were already 3 scuba divers, 2 were the trainees, probably preparing to start their lesson. Me and Kong went together in a fitting room to change, then we took out the sunblock we bought yesterday in Watson at Leisure Mall. It's not that I scare to get dark, but the killing sun is really unbearable, you probably won't feel anything while in the water, but when you get out, and the time after, you will start to get burning feeling from your skin, sometimes even pain. So applying sunblock is a must under this burning sun! Then we took a little water shower, did some warm up, and straight to the pool.

"Splash!" All of us jumped into the pool. The water was warm, great! With no delay, I quickly tried to get myself ready, by submerging into the water! Of course, the first time you will sure breath in water and drink some. This is what I meant by get ready, to get usual of the painfulness first! Hahaha!

Then Mr. Lim approached me, wow, I'm the first one this time? He asked me to do the floating again, oh man, I was still not yet ready! No choice, just had to force myself now... Float... gooloo.. gooloo... dang! Again, gooloo.. gooloo... great... The 3rd time, I finally can hold on a bit, and float while splashing the water. I think Mr. Lim also noticed I had problem to do it straight like that, so he led me to the staircase, and asked me to practice floating and flapping my legs there. Phew~ Now I can relax a bit and do it step by step.

Ya, I know I'm a slow learner, and not even a regular sportman, but I believe determination is everything! So I started to practice there, 1 time... 2 times... 3 times..., and counting, until I almost out of breathe, wow, now I finally realize how swimming can build up your stamina! With only splashing water with my legs, I already felt tired and out of breathe! Probably I was doing it too frequent, so I just slowly catch my breathe first before the next go, into the water and flap.

Mr. Lim finally had done teaching both Kong and Chean for the moment, and came back to me. I was told to swim across the swallow pool, this should be OK, and I did a few rounds just as he asked. Then he told me to swing my hand and try to use both hands and legs, the beginning of free style swimming. Whenever I tried to swing my hands, I lost control of my legs, hahaha! I had a weak hands legs co-ordination! "Try to raise your hand like riding a bicycle!" Mr. Lim instructed, eerrr... Huh? Frankly, most of the time I can't really interprete what he wants me to do, probably I was still felt overwhelmed by the water, trying to adjust myself to it... But not that sporting genie Chean, he can catch up very fast and knew what to do from Mr. Lim's words. I am kinda like a pictorial message receiver guy, I prefer demonstrations than words, hahaha!

After a few tries, and so was Kong, Mr. Lim probably felt that we were still quite stiff and tense, not relax enough. So he pointed at me and told me to relax and tried sleep on the water, where his hand holding my head. Gosh, I did what he told, and slowly flap my legs, with relax body, due to the sun was directly shinning from above, I just closed my eyes, and flapped myself away. "Hold on on the wall" Mr. Lim told me. Eerr.. where am I? When I opened my eyes and checked around, WTF?! He led me swim across the 8 feet area!! I almost stunned at this point! What he was trying to tell us, if we calm and relax our body, we can actually float naturally and swim like that...

Saturday

2006-06-03T22:36:00.000+08:00

Woke up at 10+am, and still didn't feel like getting up, yesterday slept really late, because we went for movies, 845pm, The Da Vinci Code, and 1220am, X-Men: The Last Stand. Ya, 2 shows, it's really one after another, but at different places. We travelled to Sunway Pyramid for The Vinci Code, then rushed back to Mid Valley for X-Men, damn tired! Fortunately the 1220am show was an action movie, if it was DVC, I think I'm gonna fall at sleep in the cinema...

Cut my hair
Planning to get my hair cut, so was Kong and Chean. Called Kong up, he was ready and Chean gonna bring his sister along, so might be late. 11am, time to move, suddenly my sis called. Today is her birthday, so his hubby sent her a bouquet of flower, and the flourist gonna be here any moment, dduuhh.. good timing! OK, wait a few minutes doesn't hurt. But as the time ticking away, no one came. After a few calls back and forth with my sis, found out that the flourist gone to the wrong place, darn! It's 1230pm, and I was hungry and yet to know need to wait how long. Just as I was starting to get dark face, my dad came back! Phew~ I quickly told him about the situation, and rushed out to fetch Kong.

I had my brunch at Maideen, nasi lemak ayam goreng, dunno why, it looked much larger compare to usual one where we ate at night. After that, we just drove to Leisure Mall, parked my car there, and walked to the hair saloon opposite of the building. Aisks, it's crowded, but we still get to the queue right after we sat down.

After some hassle with the hair, it's done. Dang, my scalp was almost numb due to the excessive hair blowing, with hot air and too close to the scalp! I let the hair stylist did the decision, I just told her "short and easy to take care". Hahaha, ditched the old hair style that has been with me like 10+ years, to this, common among teenagers, those hair standing kind. Looks better? I dunno, just some hairstyle to me, nothing special...

Swimmng at Yanny's place
That day yum cha, Yanny invited us to his place for some swimming fun, Chean seemed quite interested, so we called him up to see whether today wanna go, and asked him to arrange with Yanny. The time was set on 4pm. Me and Kong went loitering a bit in Leisure Mall after the hair cut, and then only went back home.

We arrived Yanny's place around 5pm, changed, warmed up a bit then straight to the water. Gosh, the water was quite cold, probably due to weather was quite cloudy and windy too. Fuck, at that moment, I really didn't feel like wanna swim at all, trying to get myself ready by submerge and hold my breath in the water, goolooo... goolooo... fuck, drinking water with my nose again, at this point, I was really no mood already. Probably scared, probably doesn't want the bad feeling of stuffing my whole nose till throat with water, I dunno... So I just flapped around the pool side and watched 3 of them have fun. Hahaha, they were funny, trying to do backstroke, butterfly, etc. and ended up with whale like splashing. There was a guy, seems quite expert, doing all sort of swimming styles there. We were very amazed and impressed! But the most funny part was, he did some tai chi movements in the water, what the? Kung fu master or something? Hahaha!

We played in the water till around 730pm, where the darkness came. After cleaned up ourselves, we went back. Before that, I called Loong to check whether OK to have a movie party in his house later, no problem from him, great, then we head back.

Movies at Loong's house
Mum was not cooking coz she and sis went out, and had a sort of birthday lunch for my sis, and they were still full. So I will just settle by eating at the restaurant near my house. Before that, I was quite dissapointed with what I did in the pool at Yanny's place, which was exactly did nothing at all! I filled up the bath tub with water, and pushed myself in it to practice my breath holding! Hahaha, stupid me!

Ate my dinner with mum outside, hokkien mee and canto fried mee, 2 of my favourite! Yummy! Went home and it was almost time to go Loong's place, but I was damn tired! Called up Kong and Chean to check whether they were ready to go, no problem. So I moved out. About this movie party at Loong's place, it's almost a weekly activity for us last time! Last time? Yupe, Loong went to US furthering his study and he is now back for summer break. So it's like back to the old time, great and fun!

Cheely was already there at Loong's house, as usual, playing PS2 Winning Eleven with him, dduuhh... After a few game, I interupted them and said wanna play my favourite boxing game, Fight Night! And wow, it turns out episode 3 was out and Loong already bought it! Great! We played a few rounds and it was exciting and satisfying! Finally, Chean came, all members ready, so we started the show. First movie, Shinobi, hhhmmm... some story about hidden clans in the Japan's samurai age, which possesed the art of shinobi, eerrr, beats me what the hell is that.. hahaha! That Kong and Chean looked very tired and almost half sleep half awake through out the shows. Had another movie, canto movie, Bet of Basic. A comedy with lowclass funny storylines and acts, still OK for killing time.

We went back around 330am with zombie like mind and body, another great Saturday, right?

Car service

2006-05-31T22:45:00.000+08:00

The sound of my baby's engine is getting rougher and noisier, gear shifting also not as smooth as usual, sometimes can even hear the sound of gear clutching, all this only leads to one conclusion: It's time for a car service!

Frankly, I have been pushing my baby quite hard, dragging her in high rev, rough gear shifting, speeding, went through potholes and bumps like there are not there. Almost torturing her to every bit, my poor baby...

Last week was planning to go for my 2nd car service on Saturday, which is at 5K mileage. During my 1st service, I was so n00b that didn't even know an appointment is needed with the service center for any car repairings and services, luckily that time the receptionist was kind enough to slot me in!

So this time, I called the service center on Thursday, 2 days before my planned service date, and thought that this should secure me a nice morning slot. Well, I was wrong! I made the call after lunch, with several tries, finally someone picked up the phone. So I told her I wanna make an appointment for car service on Saturday, she just blah blah blah away, asking me my details, "10th of June ya, right?" She asked again, and I said yes and hung up after that. Then I was like what the?! I wanted on that coming Saturday, which is 27th May, not 2 weeks after! So I called again and told her she got it wrong, and I wanna book on 27th May. "Oh, fully booked, 2 weekends also fully booked." She replied me. I was really shocked! What the fuck with this high service demands? And I was told if I want to have any business with the service center on weekends, better make appointment 2 weeks advance! Darn!

So, what should I do? Wait for 2 weeks? By then my mileage will be around 6K, 1K over, will there be any problem? Try other service center? It just like trying luck, I bet most of them are the same. Take one day leave and do it on weekdays? Although I have many leaves left, but wasting it like this is really not something I want... Sigh, after thinking a bit, finally I choose to wait for 2 more weeks...

This recent rough engine sound really get me worried, although most probably won't really kill my baby, but who knows what impact it will cause? Lets cross my finger and hope that 10th of June will come faster!

Learn to swim - The beginning

2006-05-28T17:01:00.000+08:00

Breath in water from your nose is not something you wanna do everyday...

Finally, we started our first swimming class with Mr. Lim today, 2pm just now.

As usual, I fetched both Kong and Chean to the designated swimming pool, it is actually a scuba diving learning pool, where one side is a 5 feet deep area, and another side is 8 feet deep. We arrived there half an hour early, so we were joking and talking nonsense, while waiting, probably to chase away the nervousness, at least for me it was.

Waited for a while, Mr. Lim shown up, and we went meet up with him, and followed him into the diving learning center. The pool was just next to the gate, well, it's really just a tiny swimming pool, if you are good enough, one breaststroke you can swim across the bugger already. We changed our clothes and prepared to take a warm up shower, where Mr. Lim shown up again ready. Chean asked him how about a warm up excercise, this really hit his button and started to talk all kind of things! He led us to a open space behind the center, and started teaching us his so called warm up excercise. Practically just repeating what he shown us in his house last time, we followed his act, hahaha, and we can't stop laughing, not the obvious one, but it's really funny!

Phew~ finally, to the pool. The water is quite warm due to the hot sun. I was still wondering what would install for me in this lesson. First, Mr. Lim asked both Kong and Chean to perform the swimming style they know, Kong is freestyle, whereas Chean is breaststroke. He spent some time with them to correct their style and gave them some tips, and I was just waiting there, wondering...

"Come", Mr. Lim said. My time had arrived!
Beginner lesson one: Hold your breath in the water!
Well, looks easy enough, but no, not really. You are wearing goggle, and when you submerge into the water, all your senses become numb and silence to the world, but you still can see ahead, that pale blue water sight, and this is where panic strikes! Although you still holding your breath, your lung would tell you to breathe, with this move, eventhough you have closed your nose, the sucking power of the lung still somehow suck water from your nose, and there you go, water from the nose! This painfulness struck me several times, and finally I can calm myself down a bit.

Beginner lesson two: Float!
After overcome your fear of holding breath in the water, it's time to float, make yourself float horizontal on the water. This part was the easy one, as long as your head look down on the floor and relax your body, voila, there you go, floating. But at this point, if panic struck, you will have a hell time sucking water from your nose again, and dunno how to stand straight up without help, and yeah, took me a few time to get myself used to the position.

Beginner lesson three: Move out soldier! Flap like you never flap before!
Flap your legs until you are moving forward! If floating has no problem for you, flapping forward will be as easy as that. As least you can move slowly, and don't expect you can swim like you can really swim.

And the problem comes, what if half way, panic strikes or out of breath, and nothing and no one for you to hold, how would you stand up?

Safety swimming lesson one: Stand up in the water!
When in horizontal position, flap your hand hard down to the water, and bend your abs and knees, hold your head up, straighten up your leg, and there you go, standing position, at least at the depth where you still can stand and your head is outside of the water...

There were many other tips and guides shown by Mr. Lim, how you flap correctly with your legs with using thighs only, the hand position, body movement, etc. Well, my head and nose and mouth was really overwhelmed by pool water, untill I can't really absorb what he said, I dunno about Chean and Kong, they probably also felt fatique due to practice to correct their style back and forth.

And the finale, swim across the 8 feet area, Kong and Chean did that without any problem, whereas me, a bit nervous from the beginning, still managed to pull it out, at least with a helping hand pull from Mr. Lim, hahaha, useless shit...
Only 1+ hour, our skin already has burning dark sign, and the weather was still cloudy, imagine what will happen if under a shinning hot sun! Kong had fully paid the fees, where Chean half, I wanted to pay half first, coz didn't bring much, but Mr. Lim insisted me to pay 200 first coz I have it there, dang, is this guy so desparate for money? We wonder...

And there ended our first swimming lesson. Not bad, something has been learnt, if you ask me is this consider swimming at the first class, well, not entire true, but it's still quite an achievement I can say. I think conquering fear and panic is very important here, coz that's what cause you to loose control in both your breathing and movement, which is lethal in water...

I've screwed my new rim!

2006-05-26T09:24:00.000+08:00

2 weeks ago I bought a new set of rims, 2 weeks later, just now, I screwed it by hitting the side of the road. Dammit!

The place where I usually park my car is a parking space next to a shop lot beside the main road, so I have to turn left and drive into the parking space there. But just right ahead of the turn, there's a drain like pothole, not deep, but you still can feel the bumpiness when drive through.

The deepest part was at the right side, so me, the smart ass was trying to avoid it, to reduce much impact by turn closely at the left side. Then "bump"! A thundering sound of hitting something from my left rear tyre. "Fuck, I've done it", that's the first thing came into my mind! I quickly park my car and went to check it out.

OMFG! If it's a small scratch I still can accept it, but it is a small crack off at the ring side of the rim! The size of the crack is around 0.5cm wide, 0.1cm deep! And the tyre also peeled off a bit! Darn it! From far probably can't notice it, but when you come near, it's quite clear and noticeable! Oh gosh, heart ache pain! I'm gonna hate myself for a long time coz of this! Stupid mistake! I'm indeed a moron!

Tonsillitis - My dead spot

2006-05-21T12:17:00.000+08:00

What is Tonsillitis? Info From KidsHealth:

Tonsillitis is an inflammation of the tonsils, the fleshy clusters of tissue on both sides of the back of the throat that fight off germs that enter the body through the mouth. The tonsils become enlarged and red, and can be coated with a yellow, gray, or white substance. An affected child typically has a sore throat, fever, swollen glands in the neck, and trouble swallowing. Read it more.

I get this very often, I guess it's in the gene, my dad, at his younger age, also had this troubling him now and then.

The cause of it, most info you found will say infection of bacterial, and the best prevention is to follow basic health and hygiene precautions, etc. You can read some prevention guide here. But for my case, cold, is the cause. Cold drinks, bath in cold water, etc. I guess the immune system becomes weak in this condition, and hence, the bacterial has a better chance. But how can one don't drink any cold water, take cold shower at all? So this is truely my dead spot, when the body is in its lowest form, and with this as catalyst, that's it, bingo!

Got this 6 days ago, lying dead on bed for 2 days, till today, the fever is gone, the pain is getting worse. Eating is really a suffering process for me, especially solid food, you are not only feeling painful when swallowing, but also chewing! It's a nightmare!

Probably the medicine, typically just anti-biotic, was not prescribed at a frequent rate by the doctor. So I went to see the doctor again yesterday night, coz the medicine almost finish, but the pain is the other way around, increasingly painful. Got myself somemore anti-biotic, well, hope it will heal fast, at least for now.

P/S: Some scary facts here

Drag

2006-05-15T22:43:00.000+08:00

From Wikipedia:

Drag racing is a form of auto racing in which cars or motorcycles attempt to complete a fairly short, straight and level course in the shortest amount of time, starting from a dead stop. Read it more

Don't get me wrong, I'm not into any kind of racing, yet. But dragging, yes, I'm doing it, very often, and loving it! Driving alone in this long distance back and forth from working is really boring and dull, music alone can't always help, so I have to find a little excitement, to chase away the sleepiness, to kill time, to stir some joy in my boring life, and yes, to get some satisfaction!

If you ask me to race with others on the street, no, sorry, I'm a chicken, I'm afraid, I'm scared. It's probably the side effect from last year accident, not lethal, but the front of the car was almost a goner, although no significant injuries, only some bruises, but the mental impact was huge.
Whereas dragging, safer on the other hand, it's not only about speed and boldness, but skill and concentration. The driver has to be very accurate with gear shift and throttle modulation. Perfect shift as we always say, shifting without (or slightly) dropping of RPM, and no jerking in the process, is a very satisfying style to perform, and this is what makes me attracted to it.

My usual dragging place, hahaha, shame to say, mostly at tolls and traffic lights. The feeling is great when you start from stationary, gaining up and dropped those cars behind you one by one! Sweeeeeeet~!

Of course, safety is still my top priority, there's so many things waiting for me to do, and I have not yet done, I wouldn't risk my life in this momentary satisfaction and proud.

Happy mother's day!

2006-05-14T22:47:00.000+08:00

2 days ago, Friday, mum and sis already started to plan how we gonna celebrate mother's day. Our term of celebration, is usually having a big feast, good food for lunch or dinner, although it's nothing special, but we do enjoy this kind of gathering around and eat together, it makes the family closer. Their conclusion, dinner outside on both Saturday and Sunday. I was planning to get my new rim and tyre on Saturday, and probably have a Klang 1 day trip till night and have a seafood feast with friends. So I told them I might not be available on Saturday, and I got shot by them straight, hahaha, no choice, so my Klang trip was short.

We ate at the usual restaurant, doesn't seem to be crowded that night, probably most families were waiting for the big Sunday night. We ordered all our favourite foods and it was a delighted dinner!

Then this morning, as suggested by dad yesterday night, we went to the dim sum restaurant near the housing area below ours. It was newly opened, so attracted many people to check it out. The dim sums are OK, service was not that good probably the waiters/waitresses are new or temporary staffs. One of them was so clumsy and poured all the dim sums on the floor right next to me! Hahaha! Poor guy...

And just now, we brought mum to Leisure Mall's Vietnam Kitchen for dinner, as suggested by mum. It's a rare case that she would give suggestion, so no matter what we will fulfill her wish! Hehehe! There were a few mother's day dinner sets, and we ordered one of them, 1 set with 4 dishes. Then we ordered another dunno what beef varieties meal, it let us boil the raw beef in a steamboat style, and also it has some already cooked beef dishes too. Looks vietnamese to me.
We underestimated the size of all these foods, and over estimate our stomach capacity from not having lunch, ended up we were all extremely full! Phew~! Now I know pure vietnamese foods were not really my cup of tea...

2 days of feasts and they were wonderful. Although it's small, but I'm really thankful for your kindness and taking care of me all these years, I love you mum!

The shoes

2006-05-14T10:51:00.000+08:00

Here's some photos of my new rims and tyres.

Front to back view.

Another closer front to back view.

Front rim and tyre.

Back rim and tyre.

Close-up view of the rim and tyre. Mugen GP huh, was thinking to get rid of the Mugen logo cap coz I don't like having things that is not intended for the car, in this case, Mugen is not for Perodua lah, it's Honda stuffs. Hhmm.. probably do it later.

Finally, the spare tyre! I was really stunned when took it out from the car's boot, pulling my baby with this tiny sucka? NO WAY!!

Look at the size compare to my new rim! Dang!

WTF?! It's almost like a motorcycle tyre thickness!

Gosh, I'm gonna faint...

"Temporary use only"
Duuhh.. Like I'm really gonna use this sucka on my baby for a long time...

Learn to swim - The preparation

2006-05-13T20:02:00.000+08:00

It has been a while since our met up with Mr. Lim, and the class starting date was being delayed and delayed again due to many unexpected incidence.

Nonetheless, we still need to buy our equipments for the class, swimming goggles and pants. So we went to Mid Valley right after we came back from Klang.

After having lunch, we went to Studio R to check out those swimming equipments. Me and Kong each bought an optical swimming goggles and pants. "Look at those fats!" I fucked myself with these words when trying on the swimming pants, dang, I really needed some exercise! I'm a fat ugly ass! Sigh... Frankly, I never expected them to be so expensive. Fortunately DIGI has this promotion thingy going on, which offer 20% discount on Speedo items, and Kong is using a DIGI line! Lucky or not, we still paid a hefty amount for these items. After that, as usual, we strolled around Mid Valley and checking the chics out! Muahahahahaha!

We have now equiped ourselves with the necessaries, there's no turning back, and it's gonna happen next week...

P/S:
It's not end of the story yet, after fetched Chean back home, I brought Kong to see the regular doctor I always see when I am sick. This kid was sick since last night, flu and sorethroat, he claimed that the Ah Yip restaurant foods causing the sickness, but I think it was because his unhealthy life in the past few weeks which he usually slept around 3-4am. He didn't go for his regular clinic at Taman Segar there cause he wanted to use his company given ING employee benefit card, and the clinic doesn't included this panel.
Hope this kid get well soon!

My mistress's new shoes

2006-05-13T19:36:00.000+08:00

My PC is my beloved wife, and my cutie mistress is my car, a Perodua MyVi 1.3 SXi.

This model is by far the hottest in the country for middle-lower range class car, and the number of people owning it is growing at an incredible rate, you can see lots of it cruising around the streets now.
So to make a difference, you need to mod it. Was thinking to do alot of modifications on her when I bought the car, well, think is think, to really do it is another question. The easiest mod is changing the shoes - the rim and tyre. Has been talking/thinking to change it from day 1, and today I finally did it.

This early morning, me, Kong and Chean, after took our breakfast at Chean's area, we straight cruised up to Klang, to a well known shop for rims, tyres and other lower body parts related, Hin Leong Tyre Services, aka Kedai Papan (wooden shop). This shop is famous among local car forums of all kinds, its fame probably came from its varieties of rim selections, which also at an affordable and reasonable price. Chean previously bought his rim there, so he's like a guide for this whole expedition. Hehehe!

We reached there around 10am+. It was really an amazing view when you step into the shop, it has 2 shop lots, in each lot, 1 side of the wall, is fill with all kind of rims! It's over 100 kinds of rim for you to choose! I was planning to get a 16" one, so we went to the 16" section. Oh man, the hardest thing in life is to choose, and it's even harder when you have so many choices! I spent around 1 hour trying to choose among these goodies, I guess I'm really suck at this, and came out with no conclusion, but still managed to filter most of them, and left a few to choose. Then we decided to ask whether we could drive my car inside for a direct rim to car comparison, and we've got a yes. Hahaha! This made things easier, we just grabbed those we like and place them over my car's rim to check how it "looks" when it is installed.

Finally, one was chosen, and now of course proceed to the price negotiation. The trade in price for my original rim and tyre was way below expected, dang, they sure know how to use your disadvantages for their advantage. Because it's quite impossible for me to not trade in my original rim and tyre, and bring it back to KL and ask for better price. I have no choice but to agree with his offer.

And they started to install my new rim and tyre. While they are doing it, items which were not in the purchase list were added, wow, hidden cost huh, we were all thinking. So I ended up getting these:
1. 4 Mugen GP rims (eerr... imitation of course, hehehe)
2. 4 Bridgestone MY01 205/45/R16 tyres.
3. 1 set 16 pieces nuts.
4. 1 set 4 pieces unique key nuts.
5. 1 set 4 pieces tyre air pump hose.
6. 1 set 4 pieces center cone hub holder (for holding the rim tider to provide more stability)

Got my baby a pair of new shoes sure have to test it out. Hahaha! I was doing 120km/h on the way back to KL (dang, hard to pass over that, really have to complain to Perodua service center when doing my 2nd car service!). Compare to the time we came to Klang, this time it was way more stable, good result, and I'm satisfied with it. Although you do feel the power lost when you try to accelerate. I will post some photos of my new rims later.

And ya, heard MyVi's spare tyre is a bloody small and thin 13" bugger, I am gonna check it out tomorrow and post some photos too. Can't imagine how am I gonna run my baby on this fucker...

Here goes my weekends...

2006-05-08T01:23:00.000+08:00

I'm so tired, worked until 1130pm+, sleepy, hungry, exhausted and can't think much anymore...

No matter how energetic you are, working till this late is absolutely torment to your mind and soul. Your mind is blank and you will start talking/thinking in slow-mo, nonsense. Unless your work is routine job or doesn't require to crack much of the juice in your head, productivity is a total drop down in this kind of situation. I wonder how others do it? I would just sit there and blank, null, empty...

Baahh... Going to sleep, once again, no life is good life huh?

A Bug's Life

2006-05-06T23:58:00.000+08:00

Bugs! Bugs! Bugs!
For weeks, or months, I can't even recall, I am only doing bugs fixing, nothing more. Fix this, break the other one, fix the other one, after merging, it breaks again, I'm really tired of this .

Why it's so buggy you asked?

We are maintaining and developing a ready made product, those that already there, most of the time, we assume it works correctly, well, at least in the usual ways. But when the unexpected strikes, you are gonna have a hell lot of time to trace, debug, fix, patch data! Why wasn't it tested thoroughly in the first place? First of all, time, schedule, it's all packed, you just can't say I'm wasting few days to test the bugs I've fixed, even QAs are at hands full. You delay, clients shoot you, it's all about time to market, and you sacrifice the stability of your system. Second, it's already there, and was working fine, who still gonna bother to test it again? When the bugs finally discovered, you are eating your old and dirty shits!

Bugs fixing is nothing more than changing some codes, data patching is the actual main course, from incorrect to correct, corrupted to fixed, without affecting the others problem-free one, arrrggghhh!! I hate doing this! All of these are really killing my morale, my confidence, my mood, everything!

Tomorrow gonna work again, damn it! No life is really good life!

Learn to swim - The prelude

2006-04-28T22:47:00.000+08:00

We were planning to learn swimming like months ago, Chean even did some digging around online advertisements and called a few to ask about it. Among all of them, he seemed quite interested in one instructor known as Mr. Lim, due to his quite detailed explanations over the phone and his enthusiasm to teach. He even asked Chean to go over his house and take some brochures and testimonials.

Well, we did, last night.

After picking up Yanny, we, Chean, CK and me went straight to Mr. Lim's house, it is located around Yanny's place, sort of, don't ask me where it is, coz I'm definitely a road blind. With Mr. Lim's instructions over the phone, we managed to find his house and we finally met him.

First impression, OMFG! We knew he is an aged elder, and thought he's around 40 or a bit more, but not at that age! In front of us, was a definitely over 50s elder, looked almost reaching his 60s, you gotta be kidding! Frankly, I was stunned, and lost myself in stiff smile, and for sure, I was indeed sceptical.

Without much choice, we went into his house. His TV was on, and he handed over a pile of papers put inside a plastic holder, with a name card pinned at the upper corner. Then he started to talk, introducing himself, and other stuffs along. We didn't even have the chance to check out the documents, testimonials he gave us. "Wei, stop reading first, this is important, pay attention a bit ah". This was what he shot at Yanny when he caught him reading the documents, hahaha, damn funny! He talked alot, about his past students, his experience, yadda, yadda, he had begun to convincing us. Sometimes I just turned to the TV shows and pulled myself away from his talks, coz his words almost repeating over and over again.

Then all of the sudden, he stood up, placing his hands on the button of his shirt, I was like WTF?! Then he took off his clothes, stunned again, I was. Not because of his muscles of course, coz he has none, but this sudden moves are really out of our comprehension! "Look at me, my body is so flexible and soft" He was doing some silat-like moves to demonstrate his "flexible" body!! Oh god, just kill me already! I was trying so hard to hold my laugh! So did others! Hahahahahahaha!
But honestly, at his age of 65, he still has a young-looking body, although not fit like a body builder, with dark color skin tone, proves that he is a regular swimmer.

Believe it or not, he started asking us to test on his body. First, we were asked to poke his fore arm, before and after style! Before, when his muscle was relaxed, after, when he pumped up his muscle. Poor CK was sitting next to him, and he became Mr. Lim's body strength tester! CK was asked to punch at him, hold his fist to feel Mr. Lim's strength force, pushed here and there by him, oh man, we almost laugh the hell out of it!! Hahaha! Then Mr. Lim came up with yet another weird move and stunned all of us again. He searched through his drawer, guess what, he took out a chain and told us that's the item he uses for training! Oh brother! Then he began to whack his body with the big pile of chain! This had really made my day!

Despite of Mr. Lim's weird acts. His words and experience seemed convincing. And his "Mother of all exercise" method is somewhat interesting (hopefully not required us to dance in his silat-like moves, oh man...) We probably would give it a go and try it out, Yanny and others wouldn't be any problem coz they already know some basics of swimming, but for me, I'm a total n00b, and they are looking forward to see me learn to swim across a 8 feet deep pool on the first day of the lessons, as advertised by Mr. Lim... Dang!

Lunch - The aftermath

2006-04-26T14:02:00.000+08:00

Guess what, we went to eat bakuteh today!

It's probably due to the incident yesterday, was I acting childish? Until they feel like need to somehow fulfill my wish? I did complain to 2 of my collegues though... Baahhh, I knew I have bad attitude and temper, spoiled kid...

Anyway, great lunch guys! Thanks!

Lunch

2006-04-25T13:51:00.000+08:00

Just came back from lunch, and my stomach is not only filled with food, but also fire!

Before we went out office, some of us was discussing what and where to eat, and I suggested bakuteh, don't know why but just suddenly thought of this, probably the tasty soup and meat. Do understand that the restaurant is not near our office, it's one of the collegue's parents store, and we will need to drive there. For this kind of lunch planning, we will need at least 1 1/2 hours, which way over our 1 hour lunch time. Some of them seemed interested, and we decided to go earlier for lunch since the boss just left for lunch too.

I was preparing to drive and slowly walked to my car which is quite far down a slope from our office. But 1 car is not enough for around 10 persons right? Soon after I walked a while, notice there's no second driver coming, I walked back to check who's gonna drive, other than me. Then suddenly this fuss going around, talking about the bosses are here, not too good to spend such long hour lunch time, yadda yadda... Hhmm... a sudden change huh, so I asked aren't we already
decided to go there? Well, as usual, silence. Great, no need to ask second time, nobody dare to say anything coz probably most of them afraid to bear the blame if we were to blame for long lunch hour. I dunno.

OK, fine, then lets decide where to eat now. And again, silence. Sorry to say that, I'm not a very good temper human being, and this really hit my button! Fuck! I had enough of this, everytime we are to stand there and decide where to eat, and I will be repeatedly asking again and again, I feel like a moron. What ya all afraid to suggest? Aren't we adult enough to speak out for open discussion?

So from now on, I have decided to just go for lunch with 1 or 2 colleagues. More doesn't always means better, and I realized it again.

Happy birthday CK! Part II

2006-04-24T01:02:00.000+08:00

It was around 10pm when I went to fetch CK. The cake was next to me at the front passenger seat, when he opened the door, he was kinda stunned, hahaha, and said: "No need ler gua...". Good surprise huh? I can't remember whether I had this kind of surprise before, probably no, but it's sure fun to make this kind of surprise to others!

Our birthday party was at Station 1 cafe.

We went to fetch Karen, CK's friend, and after arrived there, we asked Yanny and Chean to fetch the other friend of CK, MY, hahaha, we were like pushing the errand to both of them, the 2 shy boys were quite reluctant. It's a good opportunity what! So the attendees include: CK, me, Yanny, Chean, Siong, Elaine (Siong's GF), Jet, Cheely, Karen and MY.
We were just chit chat around, drinking, eating, having fun and waiting the clock to tick till 12 midnight. Right after past 12 midnight, we asked the waitress to take out the cake, to our surprise, the shop was suddenly blackout, the lights were out, and one dude just shouted and sang the birthday song, then all of us followed, hahaha, we were a bit embarassed, but it was fun! CK made his wish, finishing it with a blow of candle, and all of us clapped in joy! For the cake slicing part, I was not really good at it, and clumsily sliced them unevenly, hahaha!

It was a joyful night, we enjoyed ourselves very much, and hope for more similiar happy nights to come!

Happy birthday CK!

2006-04-24T00:51:00.000+08:00

Today is CK's birthday, he's my younger cousin buddy. Happy birthday man!

I was aware of the occasion few days back, but was almost slipped through my mind on Sunday. Probably because nobody was saying anything, and the big day is on Monday, we still have sufficient time to plan it out.

At evening, suddenly received a SMS from Teng Teng, asking about this, then I was thinking, probably we can arrange it on Sunday, and Yanny also will be coming to pick up the AC adapter I promised to borrow him later. Aisks, what the heck, lets do it tonight! Then I started making calls. Also met Chean in MSN, I told him about it and we started discussing who should we call, birthday cake... Ya, the cake! It was 8pm and we had not even get the cake yet! Where should we get it? Secret Receipe? This bugger selling all cakes in one single size, which is too big for just the few of us, the one we bought for Yanny's birthday last 2 weeks was way too over for our appetite! King's Bakery? At least it has different sizes of cakes for us to choose. Without delaying more, I hopped in the bathroom, took my shower, and drove straight to King's Bakery.

The first thing that catched my eyes when I stepped into King's was a colourful cake displayed there, a fruit cake, yummy! Huh? Chocolate Mousse cake? A cake with all kinds of fruit toppings, and they called it a Chocolate Mousse cake, come on, can't you guys be more creative? OK, I'm gonna get this one, with 26 candles.. hhmm.. or izzit 25? I called up Chean to confirm, although I'm quite sure it's 26, but better make sure. That guy just told me to get 27 candles, hahaha, better more than less, right? I bought the cake and went back home. Got a call from CK, and I told him yum cha at 10pm, without telling him the planning, hehe, and now we wait for the big surprise!

Wonder sponge!

2006-04-23T22:02:00.000+08:00

Here's the photos I promised. Wonder sponge, get it today!

I'm a cleaner today!

2006-04-23T18:09:00.000+08:00

After had enough with the blogging thingy, it's time to do some cleaning. I need to clean up the 2nd camping tent that has been in dirty shit for the last 2 weeks. Ya, me and my friends had a little camping trip last 2 weeks, brought 2 tents along, thanks to the rainy weather, both of them in dirt mode. You can read up a little bit on the camping trip here. As usual, camping is the fun part, cleaning up the mess is the shit part. I've already cleaned up the 1st tent the next day we back from camping, and due to the rainy season, ton of job loads and usual hang-outs, today only I'm free to take care of it.

My mum was helping me to clean up the mess, was thinking of asking CK to help, but didn't see him around in MSN, so most probably he already had plan, and not at home. Suddenly the sun fade away and it looks cloudy! Dang! With the help of my great mum, we managed to clean it up in an hour, although the sky was still cloudy.

Next, time to take care my baby - my car. I had not bath her for hhmm.. around 1 month I guess, she was almost cover in dust and dirt all over. Hahaha, poor thing! Again, mum was there to help out, gosh, I am a mummy boy, and I gladly accept it, how many people has this chance huh? Hehehe! After finished washing my car, time to do some thorough cleaning, small dirt spots were gathered around at the lower part of the car body, with normal sponge, it's almost impossible to wipe this suckers off. Thanks to a special kind of sponge, a Japanese made sponge, which my good pal recommended to me, I can easily but still with some work and time, remove those stubborn suckers! I'm not advertising here, but good things are meant to share right? I will upload a photo of this wonder sponge later.
Now I only realized my baby was in bad condition, so, time to do some waxing! My brother bought alot of gadgets for his new Honda City, so I will just, well, borrow some of his stuffs to use, hehehe! Human waxing was not fun at all, I was like doing a full workout! Phew!

All these cleanings took me around 3 1/2 hours, and by the time finished the waxing, my hands were shaking, I was so hungry!! I quickly grabbed some fries and tong yuin prepared by mum, and also some rojak which dad bought. And sis was starting to clean her car too.

I went up stairs to check on the net, nothing special. Feeling tired, so I just hopped on the bed and trying to get some sleep. Nah, I just rolled here and there but couldn't get myself into sleep, really envy CK's ability to sleep anywhere, anytime! Hahaha! Went back outside to check on my sis's progress, she's starting to vaccum her car, aisks, what the hell, I will just vaccum my car as well!

After cleaning all the stuffs, I'm here and blogging today's activities, and that's about it, my Sunday! Probably later gonna ask CK yum cha.

Well, mum's calling, time for dinner!
Later~

About this blog

2006-04-23T11:16:00.000+08:00

This is actually my second blog, this will cover what I do, the other one will cover what I think.

What I do as in what I do in my life, my daily activities so on.
What I think is what/how I feel towards my life and the things happen around me, some inner stuffs you may call.

2 blogs? Do I have the time? Of course no, so don't expect this to be daily.

I give up!

2006-04-23T10:59:00.000+08:00

OK OK, I have finally given up! Was trying to change my blog address and username to those I preferred, but ended up getting all not available! After few hours of head cracking and server bombarding (coz I kept on submitting requests of all kinds to verify), I felt really fed up and shoot it with my name, and voila, it's available, fuck it! I am done with this! Waste of life indeed!

Originally was using Index Out Of Bounds as blog name and address as well, but found out there's already a blog with the similiar name, nah, I don't wanna confuse people with it, so I just changed to others instead.

But here's what I wrote for my previous description of the blog, I think worth a thought or two, so I will just post it here again:

Index Out Of Bounds

IndexOutOfBoundsException - Thrown to indicate that an index of some sort (such as to an array, to a string, or to a vector) is out of range.

How good if life can be always Index Out Of Bounds, where we are not tide to the boundaries of our limitations, for being poor, weak and every ways that we dislike.