MyKad Rush

It's always us Malaysians that have the "Last Minute Syndrome", don't we? If you give us plenty of time, there's no urgency and eventually it'll slip out of your mind until the 11th hour.

Actually me and the rest of my family are sorta guilty of it too, since we were among the droves of people that flocked to the National Registration Department to get our old ICs changed for free before the deadline. I was there on Tuesday and was surprised to get number 1725 (dad and mom two number ahead) even at 9am, and eventually our applications got processed at 5pm. It took an amazing 8 hours of waiting! We didn't even bother to wait the whole 8 hours, so we went elsewhere to enquire about a new apartment block and later had lunch, only to be back at 2pm. Needless to say, the 3 hours spent waiting there was as long as eternity.

But heck, if I were to compare Tuesday's visit to the Department and the news that I've seen from Wednesday onwards, I think we may have actually got the better end of the stick. Lines snaking from early in the morning from the clerk's desk until the elevators and right out on the street, just to get their numbers! And now there's people even willing to pay RM50 just to get a good number. Are they seriously whacked out insane?

Though I very much think that there should at least be some explanation on the price charged for the applicants after the Dec. 31 deadline. When I was there my mom kept hearing rumours that it's gonna be a RM100 or RM200 fine, and hence I suppose the urgency now. And it's not even gonna be a fine, just an application fee.

You know what? I'm willing to bet that after the deadline's passed, you're going to see another batch of people who don't even want to bother changing their ICs, the so-called "tidak apa" ones.

And gah, have to make another trip to the Department again. Blame it on dad, who didn't notice that the person processing his application left out a section of the address. But then I think we'd have to wait until January, lest we get trampled by the crowds.

External links:
- The MyKad that we're gonna get, if nothing goes wrong.
- News from The Star on Dec. 29. (More links and pics at the end of that article)

Warming Up!

Yeah, I do seriously need to do a little warming up in order to blog, since my mind's sorta messed up at the moment. There's some topics that I'm itching to blog about, and now I sorta am in the mood to progress on my almost forgotten 2004 NaNo novel. Some interesting thoughts and ideas popped into my mind recently. It's just that I'm easily distracted and generally my willpower is rather weak. :)

Something just hit me just now, I'm very much adjusted to my headphones but I still want an mp3 player so badly before Chinese New Year. Plus, I think I've already built up a collection of songs and albums, so it'll squash the boredom that I'll have to endure in my aunt's house for hours on end. Ergh.

Drunk and Racist Idiots

For those in the dark, some drunk and idiotic Australians have been inciting trouble right in their own back yard, but apparently it's been taken over into cyberspace. Don't get me wrong about Aussies, I love you guys but I'm 100% for the extermination of pure-bred idiots and racists, whatever nationality they may be.

Okay, so what does that piece of breaking news got to do with this blog and by extention to me? Well, a very nice and very polite moron by the name of Frank Sykes left this comment on one of my blog posts. Instead of being pissed and shocked, I'm going to take it one step further and dedicate an entire blog post about your brainless comment as a perfect example of a racist idiot. I can be very nice, but it's been long since I had a good reason to flame.

Look away if you can't tolerate bad words. This website will not be held responsible for whatever comment this moron made. If you're angry, go and find him.

You Malaysian are SO fucking ugly,it's unbelievable!! I visited your Third World country last Christmas,and I was truly gobsmacked (if you don't know what that means,look it up in the dictionary) to discover just how smelly and ugly you motherfuckers are. You people are so short,dark,and dumb. With your flat noses and brown skin,you wankers look far more than monkeys than proper human beings. We all have one life to live,and I'm SO glad that I was born an Australian instead of a fucking chimpanzee lookalike!! Nevertheless,I want to fuck a Malay moslem bitch,because I have been told that Malay bitches give EXCELLENT blow-jobs. Any offers?
Frank Sykes, at 11:35 PM

Here's a Google search on Mr. Frank Sykes who has the balls to drop a random insult into a blog but has no balls to provide a website or at least a puny e-mail. It might not be entirely accurate, so don't go and drop off another random flame e-mail into the wrong inbox.

Here's an analysis of the above comment:

Without stooping to the level of "Yo Momma is so ugly" jokes, I can say that Mr. Frank Sykes is obviously as blind as a bat and ought to find a random cow for an eyeball transplant. What, you've heard of Lina Teoh before? You've never heard of Michelle Yeoh before? Oh wait, I'm sorry, you're too trapped into your own egoist world to ever venture out of own cocoon. Oh wait again, I'm so sorry, you were in Malaysia before? You were in Malaysia before so you can have a "holier than thou" attitude? Burned by the local taxi conmen? Boo hoo. You'd better not be back in Malaysia for a second time or else I'll be hoping somebody strips you to your underpants and tosses you into the middle of the Straits of Malacca. But I'll be merciful and pray that you get tossed into the sea with a life preserver and eventually float into Indonesia's pirate infested waters. They love you so much. Oh wait, they don't actually love you, they love your touri$t dollar$.

Now, you want to tell us how we smell? Either you have the sense of smell as keen as Superman, or you have a one nasty fetish of getting close to people in order smell them. Don't even talk about Malaysians, I'd be willing to bet that if you'd be keeping this up, the Australian police would be knocking on your door so they can arrest you for being one heck of a creep. Darn, that's too kind. I should be saying being shoved onto the gravel with your arms twisted and a knee jabbed into your back. That's more comfy, isn't it?

And here we have a classic case of resorting to using expletives such as the four lettered f-word, targeting people who wipe their willies too much and lastly wrapping up with a desire to copulate with somebody. Yawn. Seriously, if you said all of these in front of your mother, she'd smack your face until it was ugly and shove a giant bar of soap into your mouth to clean that filth. Four lettered insults are for immature kiddies who have a limited vocabulary. And dude, HAVE YOU EVEN HEARD ABOUT SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES BEFORE?

GROW UP YOU HORNY BASTARD.

Besides, by his definition, he'd also rather mate with a chimpanzee, monkeys and very ugly people. If you happen to like bananas and live at the zoo, you'd better be very careful. Mr. Sykes is coming for yooooooou...

You think being racist is fun? You think being like the Nazis is fun? You think oppressing other races is fun? You think damaging cars and other people's property is fun? If that's the case let the one who is without sin, cast the first stone onto his/her own car. Yeah, that's right. Since you're so pissed, why don't you make an awesome statement by wrecking your own car! Yeah, that's the way to go! Because destroying your own property is as sensible as destroying other peoples' property which they paid with their own money. Bloody idiots.

You can't get it through your thick skulls, can you? It's idiot racists like you who bring shame to their country. Acting like hooligans and arseholes with no shame. We'd all breathe a little easier if people like you were packed into a spaceship and sent off into the sun. This isn't aimed at people of Australia, but as a matter of fact idiocity spreads far and wide beyond boundaries. Whereever there's people, there's idiocity, and there's also stupidity.

As the insect repellent commercial goes, I can tolerate a lot of things, but the only thing I can't tolerate is friggin idiots. Ah well, it's been nice flaming your arse off. Have a nice day.

And oh, by the way, this first insult in this blog will be perpetually be immortalised in this blog for being a classic insult with zero substance. Any more insults I receive will be promptly deleted.

Somebody Took My Name...

YOU HAVE TO GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!

Somebody from Panama registered the domain "wittysquirrel dot com" JUST ONLY YESTERDAY!!!

There's only just a placeholder website there at the moment, but I think I've unfortunately gotten myself into a perfect cybersquatting case. Just don't expect me to pay US$50,000 to get it back.

[Edit @ Dec. 12, 2005]: Strange, the domain name is now available again, and the Whois registry for the domain name is wiped clean, and even the placeholder website isn't there anymore. What the heck happened?

Food Poisoning is Nasty...

Nasty, nasty, nasty, nasty. I can't describe how the bad the day was for me.

Most likely due to food poisoning (think it was the bad orange juice), I made at least 12 trips to the toilet, 7 or 8 during 4am to 6am the night before and 4 times during the afternoon. Scheduling a trip to the clinic would be out of the question because I couldn't even manage to hold my bowels for 10 minutes before erupting. Okay, enough before I manage to gross out anyone who's reading this post. I'm very much better now.

As far as I know, this case of food poisoning was my second since mid-2001. During that time, it was the mid-year school holidays, I had a bowl of cendol the day before, a cup of yogurt the night before, a chess competition the following day, and eventually 3 days leave from school. Boy, that was nasty too.

And people wonder why I'm so freaked out about cleanliness sometimes.

Edit: My day also sucks for the fact that I have only been able to eat dry crackers and porridge with soya sauce lest anything else will make this volcano explode. For what it's worth, no milk for me either. Looks like it'll take at least another day before I can resume to a normal diet.

SPM Jottings...

I'm half-way done with the SPM exams! The first half of the exams started on November 10 and lasted straight until November 16, with breaks on Friday, Saturday and Sunday of course. I'm just somewhat tense about the subjects that I've taken previously, I didn't really stumble with the questions, but I'm a bit worried if the examiner might disagree with my answers and there goes down the grades.

Anyways, the Form 5 students in my school were taking their exams, some in the hall and some in normal classes. Luckily I was in the hall, and luckily my seat was the closest to the windows when the power switch in the hall tripped. Luckily it was just for 10 minutes or so, and I wasn't disrupted in any way. :P Anyways, the school has recently installed 4 floodlights and numerous other fans that sprinkle vapoury water.

About the subjects, I'm really crossing my fingers for Chinese and Malay, but English seemed to be very easy. w00t! Other easier subjects were modern maths and history. I was sorta panicking before the history paper started, since the topics covered in the textbook is so freaking huge, but thankfully the main topics for the second paper (structured section) was about the economic situation in British Malaya, the hijrah of the Muslims during Prophet Muhammad and Western imperialism in South-East Asia. The only surprise was the questions about the Roman empire's laws. o__O In the essay parts, the paper quizzed about the examination system in China (I think), something about culture in South-East Asia, the response of Sabah, Sarawak, Singapore and Brunei towards Malaysia's formation and Indonesia's opposition, Western imperialism again, and the communist and capitalist blocks after World War II. I answered the last three questions but my memory (or should I say knowledge) of the previous two questions aren't that good. :/

Modern maths were as simple as π! It's just that I had no time to check my answers. :/ English was simple again, though I'm not telling what I wrote for my essay... Only Edmund and a few others know about it! :P

The next paper starts on Tuesday, the first two general science papers and then moral studies in the afternoon. Both additional maths papers on Wednesday. >_< Two more subjects in the week after that, but I'll talk about it later.


By the way, for those thinking about entering Form 6 next year, here's a glimpse of what you'll be facing in the school and STMP examinations. Read it closely, it might be useful. Thanks to Rajan for the link.

"Hello and Welcome" Video Released!

The music video for the latest Enigma single, "Hello and Welcome" has been released first on Yahoo! Music's German division.

Click here to watch it!

News first came through the EnigmaMusic.com staff. Thanks guys. :)


My two cents:

The opening starts with Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, first appeared on the opening of "The Rivers of Belief" and the ending of "Modern Crusaders", and launches immediately into thumping beats and electric guitars. I'm guessing the guitar is played by Jens Gad, it's as good as Mike Oldfield but unfortunately no arse-kicking guitar solo in the middle of the song.

It's supposed to be the entering music for Felix Sturm, who is a German boxer, and as cool as it seems, the crowd chants keeps reminding me of a football match rather than a boxing ring. The beat is somewhat hip-hop-ish, and Andru Donalds' voice is pretty darn good too, I'd have to say. Nothing to gripe about.

Mixed reviews as usual on the Enigma Message Board, some folks are unable to accept Enigma's evolution and changing with every new album. I posted this post at the message board, in response of some posts I've seen in the thread. My point is you can't really expect Enigma to keep producing the same albums for the next 30 years can you? The musical group, Gregorian has harped on from the success of the first Enigma album and they just keep producing songs with Gregorian chants on and on and on and on. If you have a keen ear, you can literally hear the change from one album to the next. Yes it's changed a whole lot, but in essence the spirit, the core, it's still there and always will be there. Anyways, I'd always preferred some variety, and variety is what Michael Cretu does best. :D

Anyways, I was lucky to have been able to snag up a Windows Media audio copy of the song due to a linking mistake between the Spanish and English versions of the websites. Lucky me. :D

Apartment Hunting, Post-SPM Thoughts and NaNo-ers

Just came back from visiting my third aunt and looking around her brand new apartment unit, which was also completed just recently. Renovations and other construction stuff was going on, many units were still empty, and apparently there was a furniture sale going on at the ground floor. o__O

"Dusty" is one word I can describe the apartment block, or blocks rather, since it's made out of two seperate blocks complete with its own entrances, guards and multi-story car park. My aunt was lucky to have a unit at the first floor, with the entrance facing empty space instead of rows of units from that floor upwards. Windy, definitely cool and shaded. Man, she's lucky indeed.

She led me and dad up the a small brigde/corridor along the third floor that connects the apartment block to the nearby car park. What we found was that the top floor of the car park was as wide and as empty as err... well it was basically just blank, with concrete floors and just two fire escapes on the sides. Great place for tai-chi practitioners or as my dad suggested, a swimming pool!!! :D

So, my parents are considering getting a unit at the same place since it has its own advantages. The high house rent that we pay every month actually goes to the house owner's mortgage, and we've been living here for almost two years already. It'd be a waste of money if we stay anymore further, though frankly the place where I stay is pleasant enough. So, either this or another apartment project currently in construction near the Sunshine Jelutong supermarket. The showroom definitely shows the possibility of the house can be renovated and decorated to perfection. Keyword: Possbility. Another gripe is that the new unit is way too small. If you place a sofa and a television cabinet in the living room and you don't have enough space to walk through it. Other gripes are that both units don't have balconies and that uhhh... it's new! Change is inevitable, but I'm not sure about whether sooner or later would be better.

* * * * *

After the SPM exams, I'm planning on taking up a job, part time first I guess. It'd be great if I could get some extra income for the family, and the more money the merrier again! :D I know nuts about jobs out there, but it'd be great if I could get a job in book or music stores, since I occasionally see those job advertisements over at the Popular book store at Prangin Mall. Anyone care to help me out on that part? :P

Another post-SPM planning is to learn driving! :D I'm not allowed to grip the handlebars of a motorbike while speeding down the highway at 90km/h while doing a one-handed wheelie without a helmet. Anyways, bro-in-law was nice enough to lend his Proton Saga to the family and though it really isn't in the best of shape, it's usable and seems to be alright enough. Hoping to get my driving lessons through dad, bypassing some expenses not really needed. Driving exams on as usual. :)

* * * * *

Looks like NaNoWriMo has begun! So far the bloggers that I know who are participating in it are, Glassy, 5xmom, thescarfer, viewtru and Chet! I'll be standing aside here cheering you guys in your NaNo novels! :D

My last year's novel was err... still unfinished, still undirected and still unedited. Man, someday I've gotta rewrite that from scratch. Don't know why but the month of November seems to give me so much inspiration in those writing and arting stuff. Tough luck that it clashes with the SPM exams, and I can't even be sure if I can participate in any more future editions if it always clashes with the month of writing. :
Anyways, good luck and "add oil" (加油) to everyone slogging their guts out in the name of literature, writing and one giant dose of self-gratification when it's all finally over!

* * * * *

Anyways, have a Happy Deepavali tonight, Hari Raya in two days time, and Happy Holidays for those with no more school worries!

Regression

Just when I thought I've got the blogging business all figured it out, turns out I was somewhat wrong... err... again.

Regression has hit me this time round, not possible you say? Usually I hesitate to take a stroll back memory lane and browse through all of my past posts. And you know what? Each and every single blog post back then is 10 or 20 times better than the ones that I'm typing now.

Thinking about it, back then what I had was passion and just one heck of an urge to express it out. I could've definitely produced more blog posts when I had the urge but apathy and laziness struck again. And this time I've lapsed back worse into what I am now before all of this blogging started. "Emotionally void" is indeed true.

Now my mind is just one messy pile of thoughts with no way of straighting it out, and straightening just usually leads to "political correctness", and that's just plain stiff to begin with. I've always thought I was looking forward to progression and self-improvement, but in reality what I didn't manage to handle or cover properly lead me to regression instead.

Eh, I've always thought sometimes short blog posts would be good, you know, short so that you wouldn't have to waste your time looking through all of it. But what I've found out is that it basically means yeilding yourself to commercialism, making yourself to be even more materialistic in the attempt to get more readers to stop by and boosting traffic in the end. This just feels plain wrong. Quality and quantity (interlinked) shouldn't ever be sacrificed for any good reason. What I've previously thought to be correct turns out to be utterly wrong, irony at it's finest. I'm scrapping all preconceptions and misconceptions from now on.

Commercialism? It isn't really supposed to be a good thing. It just hit me that the idea that some websites, blogs and various other stuff that reek of commercialism in essence really do turn me off, and what I'd done subconciously or not, was unacceptable.


This part of this blog post is dedicated to Jin, who I am now keeping my promise to deliver you this piece of information to complete the puzzle. =)

I've been keeping part of my internet life under wraps, and part of that internet life would be hanging around Wikipedia. It's an obsession that I know, but it wasn't until an encounter with another Wikipedian that made me thinking about ejecting myself from the encyclopedia.

You see, even though with its semi-fool-proof policies, as in having a neutral point-of-view, treating other members of Wikipedia with respect and accepting their edits as in good faith, sadly during an immersed discussion these policies would buckle at times under provocation, disagreements and arguements. Yeah, you have those policy so that you can keep a reign on the members, but you certainly can't expect to control their attitude or point-of-view, can't you?

First of all, there is the ego factor. During disagreements basically it means that one party would not admit his or her mistake due to the person's inflated ego. "You're always wrong, I'm always right and I can back up that statement!!!" If it's black and white cases the admins could certainly know whose the offender and deal the appropriate measures or punishment to the offender. Though if the person is a slippery eel or perhaps an admin him/herself, it's getting away scot-free, baby.

Next is the personal attitude of other Wikipedians. Now I've met other nice and welcoming members of the encyclopedia and they've certainly opened up their arms and forgiveness, but sadly people can change over time, and so my perception of them has also changed. I've had disputes before during those course of disputes, I was involved due being blinded by pettyness, and not seeing the tree instead of the forest. If you know me, any problems that I encounter usually can be fixed (because of its simpleness), but the problems that I can't fix are the problems that even the technical experts would have a tough time solving. An example being my computer (rewind back to November and December 2004 archives please).

Anyways, pettyness led me to two seperate disputes on the renouned encyclopedia. Both involving a single word, can you even believe it??? Neither do I actually, in most cases I would most likely close an eyelid and let most edits pass under my watch. But somehow I can't be sure what came over me, the most likely explanation is that I've been inciting those discussion before I had my nap – the time when I'd most likely be twitchy. I do remember myself almost dragging myself into deep shit one time because of my twitchyness, thankfully I accidentally clicked the close button and erased my whole page of accusations and evidence. Man, and I used to thought I was self-controlling but apparently I'm not, again.

Okay, latest incident was involving the dispute with a local Wikipedian. So this person made some edits which I disagreed with, and I promptly sent a message in this person's talk page. I had a nagging feeling with this one actually, and an earlier observation about another person leads me to believe that sometimes I can't get along well with some kinds of people. Probably the ones that seem to rub your fur the wrong way and vice-versa. My problem here is that my comment had an opening which the person could certainly exploit and take advantage of if he had the capability to, and he did.

Now, the course of the discussion itself was alright, but I seemed to notice that we were getting nowhere actually. This person had excuses for every single thing he edited, and evidence to back up with! It's the equilavent of killing a person in cold blood and having a good excuse to to back it up! What I think is that a humbler person would say "I might be wrong, but..." but a person with tons of excuses would say "I might be right". And to talk about going nowhere, the important issues that needed to be ironed out was not settled at all. Seems that this person was more intent on having a debate about the person rather than the person's edits.

That didn't go down well with me, and on seeing the turmulous episodes and adventures that some have went through on the encyclopedia that might even bent or drive a person stark raving mad, I'm now making my decision to leave Wikipedia for the time being. I'm by definition on a "Wikiholiday" as mentioned in my user page, but I might or might not be returning to the encyclopedia to help out anymore. I'm far more statisfied starting and editing articles with me as the main editor as opposed to seeing the pain and suffering that one has to go through during harsh edit conflicts and debates that surround the article.

I've felt humiliated, though I didn't mention this to anyone at all. There isn't really a need to do so. I mean, there were some good times that I had while going through Wikipedia, but I never reached the levels that those considered to be excellent, and in short the bad times didn't really eclipsed the good times, but it sure left a bad feeling inside my mouth for a long time.

You know, I even think that quitting the encyclopedia would do me good. I guess I could've been constricted by the policy of Wikipedia in using the neutral point-of-view policy that led to the "voidness" you've seen around recently in this blog. There's no smoke without fire. Yes, it's all related in one way or another. I'm not confirming myself to their policy anymore (except while editing on their site), and though I keep seeing Wikipedia's growth and expantion of publicity of the encyclopedia on news articles, I hope that every person new to the idea of the encyclopedia to not to be turned off by this blog post. Through some policy updating, streamlining and some attitude adjustment of some members, the concept of an open-encyclopedia is definitely a feasible idea but apparently I've lost the fizzle to keep myself going on it anymore.

Gah, it's now 2:55 in the morning and my fingers are starting to ache now from all of that typing. Will be going to bed now, somewhat satisfied from this immensely long blog post that's been keeping up inside me for a long time, sigh... Goodnight.



[Edit]: I noticed there's many typos in this post, I can't get the spell checker to work correctly, and I don't think I'd like to be an ultra-perfectionist, so I'm closing an eye and letting this one slide through again.

^__^

I'm feeling glad... though not really happy... because of something...

But I'm not planning on revealing it...


Normal updates will resume as normal tomorrow. :)

The Passing of Malaysia's First Lady

Deepest condolences to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and the closest relatives of his wife, Datin Seri Endon Mahmood. May she rest in peace.

Links:
Jeff Ooi
The Star

2005 Yearbook and Graduation Rehearsal

:P

I've my name or pic in at least 4 sections of the 2005 yearbook, class photo, class of 2005 summary, graduation section and lastly the advetorial section (it costed RM60 for a quarter-page ad) which contained my regards to erm... everybody?

Am still mulling about my sleepy-eyed look in the photos. I know that I'm sleepy most of the time, but why the heck do I look sleepy even though I'm awake??? Anyways, I still think I look weird with glasses, but I look even weider without glasses. At least, at least I got myself in the class photo, thank heavens for that.

Is anyone interested if I scan and put a few pages from the yearbook up on this blog?


Rehearsal for this year's graduation ceremony went underway this morning. I can't tell you how sleepy and exhausted I was from getting less than 4 hours sleep the night before. (Irony alert: I'm typing this at over 1 in the morning) Gotta sleep now, I'll continue tomorrow morning. =___=

Glasses!

I was supposed to collect my glasses from the optometrist last Saturday but I went there on Monday instead. The lack of transportation really bungles everything up sometimes. Anyways, I've now a pair of new frameless and lightweight glasses! :D This new pair made my old ones look like gigantic boulders, as normal metal it rusted a little over time.

As expected, vision in my left eye was even more blurry than ever (think it was because of the weird angle that I used to sit at while on my computer) and so the lens were much thicker than the right lens. Though everything seems much much clearer, I need to get adjusted to the change, it's... different now. The only thing that makes me concern right now is that the whole thing seems to fragile and so darn easy to break apart if you try to take it off too quickly.

Lastly, the guy at the optometrists bugs me a little. Sometimes I get a little disturbed at some of the people that I see around me. He reminds me a bit of the unresponsive lady at the stall during the time I was going vegetarian a month ago. When I told her what I wanted to order, I wasn't really sure if she heard me at all. Just... no response, and that seriously irks me. In the end, I got what I ordered for, but apparently she didn't fully listen and I got one packet wrongly. I'd expected it anyways.

Back to the optometrist, I suppose he could be considered as alright, considering my last optometrist literally was sweating heavily (nervous, him?) during the last consultation 3 years ago. My mom accompanied with me back then, it's normal for people to get nervous at the sight of her anyways. :P

RM270, man they're making big bucks from this I think. The more people start to fumble up their vision, the more money these guys earn. Anyways, I sure as heck hope it's worth every single penny. First it was lightweight headphones, now it's lightweight spectacles, seems to me that perception enchancement is really getting to me now.

Am not rambling any further more. I'll just keep this entry short and sweet. :)

Music/School/Glasses/Wikipedia

They usually say that chillout music is perfect to listen after a whole night of thumping and loud music.

But what do you turn to if you get too much chillout?

The answer is switching back to radio to good 'ol vocals.


Amidst the most of the ear-jamming songs and sounds that I've heard recently, I think I'm embracing the Bee Gees again.

I had a four-album marathon with Kraftwerk from 11pm till 4am last night, now I'm rediscovering Their Greatest Hits: The Record. Old can sometimes be gold. :)

*****

SPM exams is in less than a month, quick dammit, I have to PANIC!!! Or else I won't be able to get everything else done that way. :
Friday seems to be a public holiday, that means there's only four schooling days left for me. Graduation day is on Saturday.

*****

I went to the optometrist on Wednesday, took an eye test and apparently my left eye seems to have worsen a bit since my last exam.

Picked a new pair of frameless glasses with rectangle lenses, supposed to take them today but I haven't went to the shop yet.

Y'know, even with the eye tests and everything, I still have a bit of concern about whether I fumbled the eye test and am gonna screw up the end result of my prescription glasses. :|

*****

You know you've been in Wikipedia too much when you attempt to make text appear with italics by typing like ''this''.

Cover and Release Date of Enigma's New Single, "Hello and Welcome"!

I think everyone whose been an Enigma fan (a.k.a. Enigmatics, or Enigmaniacs :P) has been waiting for this news with bated breath. The latest news from EnigmaMusic.com is that the single's cover has now been made public!

Ladies and gentleman, this is the single cover of "Hello and Welcome", by Enigma!



I'm slightly thankful that the cover uses the E4-style font, and am presuming that it'll share less resemblance to the E5 album. About the boxing glove on the cover, the song is also supposed to be the walk-in music for the boxer, Felix Sturm. Mr. Cretu seems to be changing his taste in sports from football to boxing. :)

Anyways, the single's release date in Germany is on November 25th, and everyone is now waiting eagerly for a sample of the song. Here's to hoping that the E6 album, which is scheduled to be released in late 2006, would be a massive success for Enigma!

Meanwhile, the Enigma collector's box set which has 8 CDs is priced at €128.99 from Amazon Germany, which when converted to Malaysian ringgit, would be equilavent to RM581.25! Egad, that's more than enough to pay a month's house rent. I'll just be contented with admiring this box set in the music store. :|

[Edit]: The Enigma article on Wikipedia is slowly building up over the past year and that's a good thing, though much much much effort is still needed to be able to edit it to perfection.

Review: Philips HL140 Headphones

My three-year old speakers have been acting weird recently, and sometimes I wondered if some of the songs I've been listening would've made the eyebrows of my parents rise a little. o_O

So, I bought this pair of Philips headphones last Saturday at Popular Book Store. Now I know it isn't as fancy or famous as Sennheiser or Sony but eh, the sound quality is alright for me and it gets the job done. So, not much complaints from me.

The only thing I regret now is not choosing one with a longer cable, this pair only has 1 metre of cable and apparently the front headphone jack on my computer isn't working, so I shoved the whole computer out a bit to get to the jack on the back.

As you can see, it supposed to be lightweight and the headband is made out of metal. Just hoping my brain wouldn't become an antenna or something. ;) The whole headphone is light and comfortable enough once you wear it the right way.

Apparently also I noticed that some albums seems to be made to be listened through headphones, while some shouldn't even come near each other! Songs in Enigma's Voyageur album seem to be somewhat "disjointed" through headphones. Anyways, Kraftwerk and Mike Oldfield never sounded better compared to a crummy pair of speakers. :)

Overall at just RM21.99, it should be better than those tinny little earphones, just remember to note the little "L" and "R" on both sides of the headphones. :P

[Edit]: Check this site for more detailed info.

Desktop Screenshot...

Just showing off my Tubular Bells III wallpaper and desktop. :)

Two Weeks...

To think about it, in two weeks time, I would've considered to have been graduated from secondary (or high) school! Graduation ceremony is scheduled to be on October 22nd, and...

Two weeks after that, I'm taking my SPM examinations!

I've managed to not flunk any single subject for last month's trials, but I can't say that the numbers in the report book are good enough to shout out to. It's a small consolation, sadly. So, during this one month before the exam begins, I will resolve to dedicate as much of my effort as possible into ensuring I don't manage to screw it up horribly (very possible).

So, that also means I'll be less obsessive online nowadays. Though I probably might continue blogging here, no real reason why blogging shouldn't be a hurdle right? Most probably I'll be cutting down on the reading/commenting on others' blogs (that also means things will go on as usual) until after the end of the big one.

But then, what comes next after the SPMs? STPM or collage? Looking at myself here, I don't think I'm in a position to decide my own fate yet. Most likely I'll decide later after the results.

RM2,211.68 Telekom Bill???

RM117.00 for rental (seems that I subscribed for the same telephone line and number AGAIN)
RM14.36 for calls (eh, that's alright)
RM101.60 for taxes???

... and the whopper is...
RM1,900.80 for the Streamyx broadband bill!

O_O

What the...

The itemised statement said that the Streamyx bill was left unpaid from DECEMBER 2003 until this month! Leave a bill unpaid for 3 months and connection will promptly be snipped off... Almost unpaid for 2 years? Yeah, right...


A month ago I received a phone call from Telekom, saying that there was a mistake in the bill, and told me to ignore it... Now I also received another bill for RM660 because the earlier mistake WASN'T CORRECTED and it continued to be added every month...


I sense a tiny little tinge of incompetentcy here...

Do the Kraftwerk Robot Dance!

The thought of this keeps flashing in my mind everytime I listen to Kraftwerk and noticed I hadn't blogged it out yet. Is this guy awesome or what? Btw, the song is a bit unclear but it is indeed "Expo 2000".

On another (but Kraftwerk-related) note, I managed to get myself a virtual copy of their Minimum-Maximum live album. Call me batshit insane and whack me silly, but I keep noticing that certain songs and tunes on TV could also be found from Kraftwerk's songs. Thing is, most of their albums were created in the 1970s. In 1971, ABBA, Evlis Presley and Elton John were all the rage but Kraftwerk stuck out like a sore thumb in the scene and started creating music way ahead of their time. They even have been credited for single-handedly creating the entire eletronic music genre, and one of the few bands to have weilded as much influence in the music scene as The Beatles. Could you imagine that thirty-odd years old songs could sound that futuristic even today? They truly are teh bomb.

I haven't been able to get my hands on any of their albums (but one did manage to pass through a local music store), but until I own an actual copy of the album, then I only truly consider to have own it. Oh what the heck, there's no pride in downloading from a torrent. Therefore I'm not really a pirate (according to Edmund). :P

Related links:
Everything you need to know about Kraftwerk.
Listen to the first disc of Minimum-Maximum at mp3.com through streaming here.
Kraftwerk at their record label's website (additional streaming audio and video available).

Exams...

Just another short update here, I'm currently having my SPM trials.

The last day of exams would be on the 22nd.

National Geographic predicted Hurricane Katrina

From Ocotober 2004's edition of National Geographic's magazine:

"It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.

"But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however—the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.

"The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet below in places—so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.

"Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

"When did this calamity happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great."

Read the rest of the article here.

I don't think I have that edition of the magazine in my hands, but still it's a chilling thought that a prediction came out so true in reality.

Late Night Musings...

Somehow, I usually end up staying real late up on weekend nights and waking up at 1 or even 2 on the afternoon. I can rattle off a list of reasons why late nights can really be that good some times... Just smell the cool midnight air, listen to the silence of the surroundings (this can be especially good when I'm listening to songs, the sound seems clear and crisp where there's no other distractions around the house), and basically the night seems to be so darn good.

For all of these while, I believe I'm very much by nature a night-owl. I can easily stay up till 5 or 6am but it's a heck of a challenge for me to stay awake at 8:10am without either doses of adrenaline or caffeine. I was without caffeine for two days at school and I felt like shit in class. Before that I took Nescafe 3-in-1 and while I felt good at school, I felt like shit when I reached back home. So, neither options really sounds good enough, so I'm sticking to those coffee bags and just adding in some condensed milk.

This week, it rained continously for a series of days, then it turned scorching hot for these past few days, and I'm thanking the Big Guy up there for sending everyone on this island some rain while we sleep. On Monday, it rained 5 minutes after I reached school and it rained again 5 minutes before school ended. Me and my classmate had a meal in the school canteen to wait for the rain to stop and when we were walking back home, the Big Man unleashed a torrent of rain on us. Damn, my bag, textbooks and papers were freaking wet from it.

Lately, the weather here is just plain unpredictable, except for my mom who seems to be able to predict rainy weather. I once suggested to her that the government take down all of its shitty satellites who can't predict weather even accurately and just install my mom as the national weather forecaster (it rained EVERYDAY at that time and it wasn't as depicted as a warm and sunny spot on the news, dammit!) By the way, it's starting to rain here already, w00t!

Of Gurney Plaza, Bookstores and CD-Hunting...

During the previous meetup with the Penang Bloggers recently, I also had the oppourtunity to do a bit of shopping around Gurney Plaza. The last time I was there, chunks of the shopping complex was closed for renovations. Now I know what they eventually did to the place. The people who made some of these changes are freaking geniouses I tell you!

Big Bookstore was relocated to another part of the same floor but sadly, MPH Bookstores are no longer with us on Gurney Plaza anymore. It is now replaced by Popular Bookstore on the other end of the floor. What used to be Big and MPH bookstores are now just a big blank of space waiting to be rented out. When I first visited Popular on August 21, the outlet was just newly opened for 5 days only and yet still some racks were covered up and the workers still painting the ceiling and setting things up. I was back there 2 days later and everyone's still cleaning up (wiping, mopping and polishing just everything) in anticipation of a Penang big-shot VIP to open the store formally with a press conference, speech, journalist and all of those things.

One thing I noticed is that the new CD shops (Popular's CD RAMA section and Artists Gallery) have better CD stock if compared to Tower Records and the small (but two) Speedy Entertainment shops. I managed to pick up the first Gorillaz album and Enigma's Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi! album, and Maksim's The Piano Player album. Currently listening to all three on rotational basis and I'll pretty much come up with a review or two after this. :)

Here's some useless info unless you frequently hunt for albums: Let's say if you want to buy an album but they the shop doesn't have any stock, for Popular you have to pay a RM20 deposit and pay off the remainder when the stock arrives and they'll give you a phone call. Deposit is refundable after a month but I'm not sure how they'll deduct the 10% discount by then though. For Artists Gallery a deposit is not necessary, just leave a phone number with the artist's name and/or album title and they'll just give you a call, simple as that.

Edit: So it seems that MPH really will remain at Gurney! Thanks to 5xmom for the news. :)

Slacker?

Here's to a bit of blogging with substance. I didn't really put in most of my effort on blogging nowadays. For what reason, I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps it's a sign that I'm getting lazier and lazier by the day (note to self: NO, I MUST NOT SLACK OFF).

Without going through my old archives, I can believe that my writing style when I was starting off blogging was better than what I usually write now. For all of these while I've been struggling on what topic to focus on maybe (I haven't thought about it during 1 and a half years of blogging, strangely), so it's time to set my mind of blogging in topics which are of are interest to me (and hopefully a couple others). I don't think I would explain it right now, as I usually regarding speaking about something and ending up not doing it later to be an eventual jinx, so I'm letting myself be as flexible as I can without losing sight of my initial target.

If you don't really understand what I was talking about, don't worry. Neither do I. :)

Penang Bloggers Meetup

Whoo, has it really been that song since I blogged? Gah, time flies really too fast for me to catch up, I could've sworn I already had stopped somewhere in 2003. Please do let me know if you find that my English language skills have dropped down several notches. :)

Anyways, here's to recap some recent stuff:

I attended a recent Penang bloggers meetup two weeks ago in Gurney Plaza. 'Twas my third meeting with Penang blog-folks. There were some... no, make that lots of camera potshots being taken. I felt like I was repeatedly hit with crossfire from shooters from one end of the table to the other end. :P

And about pics, I do noticed that I looked HORRIBLE is some of the pics they've taken but some seemed to turn out alright. And lastly, thank you very much for the big glass of hot chocolate, 5xmom!

Click on these links to read about what they've blogged about the meetup.

Cmos
5xmom
Mr Kiasi
Byran
n305er
kljs
Ong
Peter
Lucia
Mistyeiz
Kstang
Really Bites

Tell me if I'm missing any links here... :)

Independence Day!

Just a short blog post here (while I try to find a good time to blog more).

Happy 48th Independence Day, Malaysia!

At Last!

At last, no more haze in Penang! Call me insane, but I can feel it! :P

Yesterday was a day filled with smog and as you can guess it, the day was eventually dull. But today, the day seemed to be a little clearer and the air cooler. I heard that it rained over there in the central part, driving and nailing the last nail in the haze's coffin, hope it rains more here though...

I'm stuck at home ever since Friday due to the haze... and I've been left to ponder why I wait so eagerly for the weekends to come when it would be wrecked. I have a bad itch to head to Prangin Mall or Gurney Plaza to take a stroll there...

It's DARE!

And on to brighter stuff...

It's coming up
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's DARE! (ooh!)

Following their first single, "Feel Good Inc.", the second Gorillaz single from their second album, Demon Days has been announced for quite some time already, it will be released on this August 29. Now if anyone could be kind enough to point me to any music stores that sell singles, all I see here is just albums album albums... @_@

Anyways, the song from the album is called "DARE", which features Shaun Ryder (the giant singing decapitated head) as a guest vocalist (actually I've never heard of him before this song). Same with "Feel Good Inc.", it's a very catchy song and eh, at least it just shaves 5 minutes off any free time that you have... :P

Click here to watch both videos in streaming version, while the audio version can be heard on the official fansite.

Next up: A review of Demon Days! (I needed something to blog about... xD)

Rest In Peace...

This isn't probably really isn't an interesting for anyone glancing through this blog post, but eh, I needed to unload it here...


After over two and a half years in my care, my flowerhorn fish fell seriously sick from several ailments for two weeks, and on a Sunday morning, two weeks ago, two minutes before noon, he laid down on his side, and slept forever.

From the last day of 2002 right until that single day, I thank you for being a loyal companion, for staying with me all of these while and for bringing in plenty of smiles and sunshine to everyone here. The only thing I regret is that I think I could've done better for you.

To my pet who was not named throughout this time (December 31, 2002 - July 24, 2005; 11:58am), though your soul may have departed from this world, you'll be missed.

Rest in peace.

Education Fair and Measles Shot

Another update here, and yes I do know that I probably need to update more, but I'm beginning to think that those blog drafts would never see the light of day.

There was a education fair at my school's hall yesterday morning, roughly 20 to 25 local collages and universities (i.e. LimKokWing University, The One Academy, Nilai International Collage, INTI Penang, KDU Collage and Disted, just to name a few) had set up booths in the hall to pull in as many of the 800+ soon-to-be graduates into their institutions.

I got hold of many flyers and booklets but heading onwards to Form 6 seems like a better option for the moment. By the way, everyone was sort of a bit surprised to see our school's former headmaster manning the Disted booth and explaining their courses to the students. It was a weird sight, to say the least. o.O

Finally, after waiting two and a half freakin weeks to get our measles shots, it's over and done with now. No more wondering when it's the class' turn to get the shot, how it's going to feel like, how many people in the room will cry and how many people will faint. Egad, this is a class of Form 5 students, but it's still possible.

Anyways, the education fair was held before recess while the measles shot session was held after recess thankfully, they earlier had advised everyone to get their breakfasts first before getting the shot.

My last vaccine shot was in Standard 6, and I didn't take the anti-tetanus shot during Form 3, so I think it should be natural that I'd be getting cold feet standing outside the room. Getting accidentally hit in the groin moments before getting in didn't help the situation either.

Before the shot, the nurse asked some mandatory questions (do you have asthma, have you had epileptic seizures before, have you taken any medications in the past 24 hours, etc) and then opened a little booklet with pictures of one of those coloured dots and numbers that's supposed to test if you're colour-blind or not. Call me dense but I don't really understand what's that got to do with taking the measles shot.

I was instructed to take a seat at a nearby chair, behind the chair was a table and a metallic tray with 6 to 7 medium-sized syringes. Another nurse dabbed the spot with a piece of alcohol-soaked cotton and then I just simply turned my head to the other side and closed my eyes. Then there was something like an ant bite as the needle pierced through the skin, there was a slight pain, and then it was over.

I do blame my parents of making me freak out at the mention of injections when I was little. It really wasn't that bad in reality. Everyone who took the injection was then told to sit down on the floor and wait, the head nurse mention that this was to avoid students suffer a concussion if they fall down and hit their head when they black out.

Some of us joked around as the teacher in charge told us that someone just vomited in the room the day before and they poured red sand on the floor to clean it up. The classmate (who happened to be the annoying one) asked where was the spot and the teacher said it was the same place he was currently sitting on. Grossed-out expressions came next. xD

To summarise what happened next, a girl classmate and the same annoying student were immediately sick after the shot, but the annoying student started to hyperventilate and man. Basically, he became stiff, hands trembling and had problems breathing, so it was code red for the nurses. Both were better within an hour though.

I don't think this was a good blog post, but if you've read until this paragraph, thank you anyway for reading this piece of blogorrhea. Blogging when you're not really in a mood for it kinda leads to this piece of blog post. Gah.

To Blog or Not to Blog?

... That is the question...

I'm feeling a bit aimless without blogging. :|

Train of thought (crosspost)

I really want to write a coherent LJ post about some personal stuff that happened lately at the moment, but I really can't. My train of thought keeps slipping and ends up branching into multiple and different issues. It's like before I should write this, perhaps I should explain further how it came about, and before writing about how it came about, I should write about before that, and so on...

Is it maybe I keep seeing the big picture that's so hard for me to explain? But then I've been a lousy narrator in most of what I write. So far, the only related thought I could say is that my attention and memory span is so short that I usually forgot the last sentence that I wrote after I've deleted it. It really is out of sight, out of mind, no?

So far the only interesting thing I can mention now is that during a bit of people-watching on the side of the main road (while I was waiting for my mom), I saw some foreign tourists walking around, and then there was a (bit) little old lady who was wearing a pink shirt and carried a pink umbrella. She got up where she was sitting (presumely waiting for the bus), walked up to a lamp post and started to argue with it, as indicated by the gestures of her arms and mouth yapping wide open. That was somewhat weird.

Ah well, I also picked up Gorillaz's second album, Demon Days at Popular Book Store. "Feel Good Inc." and a few other tracks were quite good, but overall the whole album can't really get break through the "just okay" level. I need a few more listens before I can judge with a certain degree of confirmation on this album.

Though at the first listen, I was sort of regretting not getting Maroon 5's album, Songs about Jane instead. Perhaps I might be wrong too.

Here is my list of albums to get, in no order of urgency... :P

Kraftwerk - Minimum-Maximum (don't think it's available in Malaysia yet)
Gorillaz - Gorillaz (saw a version with a bonus AVCD disc, looks good)
Gorillaz - Demon Days (got that, I can safely strike this off now)
Maksim - The Piano Player (saw only Variations Part I&II, I'm getting this one first)
Maroon 5 - Songs about Jane (listened to it through their official site and man, the songs are indeed good)
Enigma - The Cross of Changes (for the first time, I think Enigma has to take the back seat for the moment)
Enigma - Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi! (ditto here, I'm interested in unheard/unfamiliar stuff for me ears)

And guess what was lurking on the top right hand corner of a CD rack on the wall, and being sold for RM16?

It was the Axel F Crazy Frog single. There were even commercials about it on TV.

Yes, the whole world is doomed now.

(Yes, this post was originally written in LJ, but I'm too lazy to change that sentence. :P)

Sidenote: Blogger's dashboard interface seems to be screwed up for quite some time already. Does someone care???

[Edit: When posting at 2 or 3 in the morning, remember to re-read and use teh spellcheck.]

Obnoxious Classmate

In Form 4 and 5 (or Secondary 4 and 5), I think the most of the folks in my class are really quite close with each other, the only ones who I don't usually mix around and get to know are the girls in this year's class. But then, being neutral and not very familiar is at least way better than getting infamous for being the one person in class who everyone loves to hate.

From the top of my mind, out of the many people that I've met in school, there is only one person who I would gladly kick his ass down a flight of stairs.

Now, this person in class is obviously obnoxious, has the ego the size of a hot air ballon, and is sorely lacking in the friendliness section. In class, he's very nice to the girls, hangs around them quite a lot, but I noticed that he gave me the cold shoulder very often. He acts gay-ish (not that there's any problems with that) and his very high-pitched laughs really makes my skin crawl and have goosebumps. It's that serious.

He inflates his ego by acting as a smart-ass, asks questions that would imply that he's capable in finishing homeworks way faster than the rest of the class, and egad, that laugh, that freaking "scratching nails on a blackboard" laugh that's enough to shatter glass and cause brain haemorrhage. I cringe everytime I hear it.

I don't think it's me who has the problems, since I keep hearing my classmates utter "I hate him" out of annoyance in class. They've mentioned before how annoying he can get in class. I guess that some people really have an aura that makes people like them, and some have an aura that makes people HATE them. Anyways, it's not my business to tell him what to do, start an arguement and blah blah blah. I've got better things to do than to waste my breath talking to him.

I thought I've seen people worse than this, but this really brings the definition for the word "obnoxious" to a brand new level.

When...

When I'm online, my mind is blank.
When I'm offline, the thoughts start to spew in.

Note to self: Keep in mind subjects to blog on, and have some self-motivation.

Past two school days...

Another brief summary of recent events, I hope you haven't passed out from holding your breath waiting for me to get this posted. :P

Last Friday:
- In the first lesson, made a passing remark to my classmate that I hope I wouldn't get called in to get my teeth drilled, seeing the dentist and nurses from the Ministry of Health came to my school.
- Two lessons later, I get called in to get one of my tooth drilled and filled.
- The Malay nurse was quite friendly, she game me a little mirror to hold on and see how it was being drilled and later filled. I gripped the armrest of the chair until it turned white.
- Ended within around 20 minutes, it wasn't so bad after all.
- Proceeded to accidentally bump into at least 3 people that same day. >_<
[- ETA: And my class beat the neighbouring class (5M2) 3-2 at football, even though we had fewer people than them... :P]

Monday:
- Everyone in my class, and the top three pure science classes skipped the last four lessons because we attended a talk being given on the SPM 1119 English paper. The speaker was actually funny, and he talked about how to NOT fail the paper to getting an A for the paper. It was then I realised that the SPM English paper had a quite low passing mark.
- Talk lasted later than scheduled, everyone rushed back to our classes since the afternoon classes were starting at that moment. During the midst of frantic packing, I realised that my accountings textbook is now missing. >_<
- Another talk is being given tomorrow morning before recess, will be skipping three lessons. :D

The Joys of Attending to a Blackboard

Every Monday, it's my turn to clean the blackboard. I've been cleaning blackboards ever since the primary school days all the way up to Form 5 now, all because of my height.

The frigging chalk dust lands on my head, glasses, arms, shoulders and face each and everyime the teacher says "please clean the board!!!" I hate it when it gets into my eyes and stings it. I hate the rough feeling of it in my fingers. I hate having dusting my hands off my trousers and leaving behind these white streaks. There's also this lingering suspicion that my life span might be shorter from inhaling all of these chalk dust.

But anyways, there are good sides to having this duty too I guess. It's the only duty that decreases my chance of getting yelled at by the teachers, since it's usually clean at the end of every period. If the blackboard was a pet, I was scraping up its poop every Monday morning.

Hello??? The year is currently 2005, whiteboards should be in widespread use by now. Though if it were cleaning whiteboards, I might be complaining of the toxic fumes from those markers. Ahhh, nothing's ever perfect.


So, I'm down again with a cold (or flu, I dunno either), and I'm supposed to clean the blackboard again today. I blame it again on my classmate who's usually sick but he seems healthy today. My nose is leaking and dripping frequently and I've watery eyes.

And stumbling upon this article doesn't help the situation at all.

School Concert...

All I can say about last night's school concert was that it was it was very very very interesting, though it could've been better.

Though the tickets said it starts at 7pm, we arrived at 7:20pm (darn taxi) and got into it about 10 minutes later. Good part was that me and my mom got the RM20 seat with RM10 tickets since we were almost late and that Dewan Sri Pinang was crowded and packed like sardines. Talk about a full house. o.O

Right at the beginning, I heard two of Maksim's songs, "Flight of the Bumblebee" and "Exodus", and Gregorian's "So Sad" came in after that. I've the latter song and I'd definitely am gonna get Maksim's CD. "Exodus" is really sweet.

The brass band and Chinese orchestra played quite well, the former playing pieces of "La Bamba", "How High the Moon", "The Stars and Stripes Forever" and "Pirates of the Carribean" while the Chinese orchestra had a fantastic "erhu" and "yang qin" duet, and a full orchestral performance near the end of the concert. The dance troupe did well but they could've practised more with their coordination. Good job nontheless. :)

The drama club's performance impressed most of the audience with their acting and eye-catching props and stage backgroud. They surely live up to their recent acheivements of winning 10 awards in an inter-school competition for the whole Nothern Malaysia. The smoothly and wittily done "Xiang Sheng" act from the duo on stage almost left everyone in stiches. :)

They even had a magician (who was also a fellow student) who preformed tricks in between, while the groups were setting up equipment, chairs and bla bla bla behind the curtains. The whole thing ended before 11pm and me and my mom felt that it was a concert worth watching.

Snapped around 12 or so pics with the camera, but the lighting and suitation wasn't suitable for moblogging. :\ Anyway, I think that a VCD copy of the event should be available after a month.

Haze in Penang?

Is it just me, or has a shroud of haze descended on Penang island?

It was there the morning (or rather close to afternoon) when I woke up. Visibility is only like what, 1 or 2 km only? And it's rather stuffy at the moment.

If the haze is really that serious, I hope school's cancelled for the upcoming week... :P

[Edit]: Here's how it looks like at the moment:

School Concert...

My tickets for tonight's school concert at Dewan Sri Pinang! :P

Stay tuned to this space as I'll be blogging about it soon...

Which Malaysian Blogger Are You?

Congratulations WittySquirrel, you are...

Kenny Sia of kennysia.com

You have it all, or so you think. Big balls, big bird, big everything. Also a big heart and ever-ready big hug to give out to everybody who needs one. But you didn't know this. You're the one who need a hug the most. So hugs to you!

Which Malaysian Blogger Are You?

My comments:
I credit this blog post to teh supreme blogger, Kenny himself... :P

Me? National Service?

Almost everyone in class wanted to know if they were chosen for the third season (gee, that sounds like being in a reality show) of National Service.

Here's how it goes: Your freedom as a teenager gets suspended by the government for three months, and you get random goodies and RM300 (after you serve NS) and the chance to live life the tough way. There's also a proposal for the particpants to receive training for handling M-16 rifles. It's a cool idea for teens who had their dose of first-person shooter (FPS) games, but not a good idea unless Malaysia's actually preparing for war sometime in the future. *Touch wood*

And guess what? Yours truly was... NOT CHOSEN!!! WOO HOO! :D

Excuse the celebration, but I know the pros and cons of NS, I just don't think it's worth it.

Although the list is only expected to be finalised tomorrow, me and most of my classmates found out that they weren't chosen for NS. That's good of course, since accepting the huge number of teenagers born in 1988 might make the government bankrupt. :P

Now to think of it, making a reality TV show about NS trainees does sound like a better idea than having them handle M-16 rifles. It's definitely dangerous if they decide to own one for themselves after having some experiences with it. And as the basic laws of economics says that if there's demand, there's always supply.

Plus, have you seen that friggin thing??? You could poke an eye out with that barrel! xD Just kidding there.

Hmmm... What I wrote in the first sentence of this blog post made me thinking. I really don't mind the TV reality show idea:

- Cameras tag the progress of 10 or 20 trainees in one three-month season, each season located in a different state.
- Elimination from the show, not from NS, can be based on their performance in the show
- Special judges from the Royal Malaysian Army (RMA), Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) or Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN).
- And the winner winning a car or a cash prize around RM10,000 or something like that.

It'll surely help boost the image of NS in lieu of the Malaysian Idol fever, remove the veils covering what's going on in the daily life of an NS trainee, bring more awareness of the activities of NS to the TV-and-reality-show-hungry public, and heck, it could even decrease the cases of problems within trainers, trainees or between trainers and trainees, because of the presence of the cameras there. Win-win idea, am I right?

On the other hand, it's also probably an insane idea, but it's not impossible that it'll really come true one day. :P

LA Times Wiki Shut Down

Oh great.

While I was glancing around Wikinews, an article about the recently launched wiki section of the LA Times was there, I glanced it through but apparently I forgot to check out the wiki. I went there again just now and it turns out that it was shut down for the time being because of some disruptive contrbutors. I friggin never got to see how it looked like, dammit.

Whatever it is, I'm glad that although there were such inappropriate contributions to Wikipedia, at least it usually gets reverted or content removed within the shortest possible time (especially if it's in my watchlist). Free information for the masses, from the masses, and patrolled by the masses.

Ramblings related to the above:
Is it just human behaviour to automagically switch to disruptive mode as a default whenever it's possible? Or are they just lacking in maturity and common sense? Everywhere I see, there are numerous examples of childish, disruptive and destructive behaviour occuring. A few months ago on the National Geographic magazine, an ancient piece of cave art was defaced and vandalised by stupid idiots. All for what? All for what???

It's sure as heck to say that to destroy is a thousand times more easier than creation. Anything and everything good, useful or informative takes effort and blood and sweat in some instances (barring lucky flukes). But then, why is the urge to disrupt and destroy so powerful in these people?

Lust, greed, apathy, sloth, gluttony, vanity, envy, wrath, and these kind of traits are understandable for me (because I was afflicted with it at one time, but that's another story) but I just do not understand the virtues of being destructive when in short, you're just another tiny grain in the universe. A Malay proverb goes something like this "Harimau mati meninggalkan belang, manusia mati meninggalkan nama", it means that when a tiger dies, it leaves behind its stripes in the form of its fur, but when a person dies, he/she only leaves behind his/her name in the form of the person's reputation and acheivements in life. One could spend a lifetime building that reputation and acheivement, but all it takes is a moment to shatter all of it and flush it down the toilet bowl.

Malaysian Bloggers in The Star!

And the Malaysian blogosphere continues to expand its presence after another article on Malaysian bloggers made its way to the front page of The Star's Section Two section.

It's great to see PPS and Peter, Suanie, Kenny and Minishorts having gigantic pics of themselves and their blogs in the article. xD Best article I've seen in a long time! Kudos!

Read all about it at The Star Online. :)

Lethargic...

I can't help but feel lethargic in a weekend where there's school for five straight consecutive days. I'm looking and feeling like a zombie currently, and guess what, I bet I'll even be in a worse shape if I was working six days a week. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I keep finding myself skipping school every once in a while.

From now on, that's no reason not to blog. Thoughts tied up in knots? That's not a reason either (and I can untie real knots relative well). Whatever the reason, I'm not who am I am if I don't blog. I don't have a direction in life if I don't blog. I simply don't function well if I don't even blog.

Now that I think about it, it just takes around 30 minutes to an hour to type a decent blog post. But most of the stuff that I usually do depends on the mood that I have at that moment. And that also means I'm very prone to procrastination, unfinished work and in the end, damage control. It's sorta like do it quick, do it now or it'll never get done unless you're deperate. I don't think I'm a very reliable person, though I'll try my best if I've promised my word to someone. I just simply can't keep honours to myself.

I need to restrategise myself and rearrange my priorities, probably cutting off and sacrificing some things in order to improve myself and my reputation. That's one of the down points of having most of the same classmates as the previous year - almost everyone know how you are already, and it's definitely harder to change other people's impression than it is to change your impression on others. If things really get that bad sometimes, I'd really really really wish to start all over again on a brand new page, but usually it makes no difference in the long run because of what I've done. Besides, how many chances do one gets in a lifetime? Use it all up at once and you're doomed when you're old?

I'm not sure if I just dug my own grave by saying that. Heck, if you don't understand what I'm saying, don't fret, it's understandable. I'm not known to be clear when I don't even have a clear mind. I'll try anyway. :)

InWeDay meetup in Penang

Just a heads up to any other bloggers in Penang who are reading this blog, there is a meetup planned for tomorrow in conjunction with the InWeDay (or International Webloggers Day), at Prangin Mall. So, if you have the time and are able to make it, please attend the meetup. =)

Date: June 14, 2005
Time: 6:30pm
Place: 5th floor food court at Prangin Mall, Penang

Last year I remembered that InWeDay was on June the 6th, and if it was the same date again, it would've been at the school holidays too. So, it's a weekday, and you'll have to do without me, guys. =)

Aik, and that really reminds me, I didn't really blog about the last two meetups a few months ago. Ah nevermind, at least I think I'll just upload a few pics from there.

Link to Lucia's post.

4'33"

In front of an audience, a pianist opens the lid of a piano, a little later without playing any notes, he closes the lid.

The same pianist opens the lid again, sits calmly and looking at his wristwatch, and closes the lid without playing.

And he does it again, for the third time in a row. What is the world is this piece of music called?

4'33"

Apparently, it's a real piece of music, and someone has been sued before for crediting John Cage with his music in a minute of silence.

Absurd? Obviously.

And even weirder, you can listen to 4'33" here.

Not good enough!!!

I sat back, looked at this blog and said "I'm still not satisfied with this thing".

Perhaps changing another layout again? Or just tweaking the colours? We'll see how it goes from here...

Storm brewing in a teapot...

Here's something interesting on the front page of today's The Star:



It's due to be demolished, along with the vase, umbrella and other weird giant objects in the compund...

Frankly, I think it's a bit of a waste, as I feel that the teapot has at least 10 times more artistic quality than the "obscene" ones we have over here at a roundabout in Penang... :P

[Edit]: More pics at the New Straits Times article.

Happy Birthday GC!

Before the day is over and gone, I'd like to say something:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE MOST HILARIOUS, AND INSANELY CRAZIEST FRIEND I EVER MET, GC!!!!!!!

School-related rant...

Warning: nasty words ahead in this post, I'm very pissed off, don't say I didn't warn you...

Why am I pissed off? Two reasons...

Number one:

F--king Form 4 morons who never knew how to SHUT THE DAMN UP! Because their exams schedules were different than us, they made a huge racket in the class next door to us in the MIDDLE OF THE CHINESE PAPER! I was sorely tempted to leave my desk in the middle of the paper, step out of the class and holler "CAN'T YOU SEE THAT WE'RE TAKING OUR EXAMS, YOU INSENSITIVE BUNCH OF M-----F--KING MORONS???"

Number two:

F---ing idiot assholes who don't bother to FLUSH THE SCHOOL TOILETS AFTER TAKING A DAMN DUMP IN IT! Thanks to these idiots in TWO SEPERATE CUBICLES (WITH NO DOORS, to top it off), I can imagine the appetites of over a hundred students being wrecked... IS IT SO DAMN HARD TO PULL THE HANDLE AND FLUSH YOUR OWN DAMN CRAP???

I think I've just ruptured a blood vessel.

It's times like that when I can understand the headmaster/discipline teacher when he yells at classes.

[/colourful selection of words]

Less infuriating stuff:
Exam papers with objective questions does not mean that the questions are bound to be easy. It's just an illusion.

Chinese paper was alright, not really too tough, hope for the best.

Economics (both papers) - ditto.

History (2) - ditto.

Moral Studies - ditto.

General Science (both) - ditto.

Modern Maths (1) - illusion.

Modern Maths (2) - alright.

Accountings (both) - I badly need some divine help to pass this one.

Two days, four papers left. Those two things are standing in my way of the midyear holidays.

Surviving the onslaught...

The first wave - 3 papers 2 days ago. I managed to survive it, at least I think so.

The second wave - 8 papers within 4 days, and ditto for the third wave. Someone throw a lifesaver before I drown is this sea of exam papers! xD

Well, Malay essay paper was alright enough, for the first essay question, we were presented with 4 illustrated panels depicting traditional Malay games and we were supposed to write an essay about it. I believe that that the chances that anyone in my class who has touched a living dinosaur before has gotta be higher than anyone who has played either wau (kite-flying), gasing (spinning tops), congkak (marbles in a wooden-thingy) or sepaktakraw (no-hands volleyball). 200-250 word limit and just 30 marks up for grabs. Everyone was pretty much screwed in that part. I'm just crossing my fingers and hope that I got decent marks for that one.

Next section was another essay and there's a choice between writing 5 topics. I chose the one about the cases of violence being reported in today's society, people are saying it's because of the mass media, and in your opinions, why does this situation happen? Well, if it's my opinion, I expect to get a full 100% for that one, but that's just a dream, unfortunately. :P Many students got confused at what the last section of the question referred to - violence in society, or the mass media? *Shrugs* I played it safe and wrote it safe. Wondered how this will turn out. 100 marks for this question, so that's 130 marks for this entire paper.

I think I am so dead for the Chinese essay paper. I got stuck on writing many characters and barely managed to pass the 400 word limit. Letter writing part was sorta okay.

No problems with the second English paper, bungled a bit on the format of the summary, and left blank almost an entire page because I wasn't sure how much space I'd needed. xD Literature questions all came from a workbook exercise that I bought in the school's book fair a few months ago. Wrote 2 full pages on question about the novel, The Pearl. Am happy about that. :)

Must not panic...

I'd like to say thank you very much for all of the wishes I've received for my birthday a few days ago.. When you don't really celebrate your birthday in real life, wishes are the only thing that's important... Thanks again guys... =)

What's up next:

10 days.

10 subjects.

19 papers.

Exams starts on this Wednesday.

Must not panic... @_@

Turned 17 today!

*Blows away the thick dust covering the blog*

Well, I really have to apologise to everyone for not updating this blog for quite some time now. I've probbaly left some posts practically hanging half way in the sky, unfinished, but I'll be sure that it gets blogged down eventually. :)

So, just wanted to note down on this blog that today is the day when I turn 17 years old! :D It's my birthday! Though the day wasn't especially nice (or smooth either), I got through it, and here I am.

Nah, no birthday party here, but big thanks to everyone who've wished me Happy Birthday today. It really means a lot for me. :)

Apologies again to everyone for not updating recently, I'll promise that I'll go on a blog-visiting spree (or marathon, take your pick) this weekend! :P

That fuzzy feeling...

Sometimes I get this fuzzy and nice feeling whenever I finish an IM conversation with some people in partiular... and call me numb and probably dumb, I've only felt that feeling a while ago, after completing a chat on Yahoo! Messenger... I used to feel it quite a lot during when I started chatting until about half a year ago, when everyone has their own stuff to do, and late night chats were very few till now, none... =/

I sorta believe in the "click" factor in meeting with people, online or offline... And some people have a different attitude of themselves online compared to in real life and then there are people who maintain that slightly insane and obviously fun versions of themselves online... I like the latter part... :P

So far, my MSN, Y!IM, ICQ and AIM buddy list is completely untouched since what, midle of 2002? xD Man, that's long... And I don't plan on cleaning it up either... Gone are the days when you'd just had to ask everyone what your screenname on ICQ/MSN/Y!IM/AIM was, though it surfaced a few months ago (don't ask why)...

And now while we're slowly going off on a tangent, I do notice that sometimes during quiet IMs, there's a lack of interest, or a subject to talk about that the conversation slowly drifts into silence (but defitely not boredom), and in the most extreme cases, end after both parties say "hi"... xD I'm talking about you (yes you, one of the people on my blog list and has me on MSN), hope you notice that... I just find it sorta funny... :P

So, back to blogging and reading blogs... I've an update to do on what happened recently... Dad's off to Kuala Lumpur for Ching Ming/Cheng Beng and be back in a day or so... Me and mom will be seeing him off in Komtar around noon...


Music playing currently: Beyond The Invisible by Enigma

Streamyx laggy

Whatever is going on at Telekom Malaysia I hope they solve it soon. It's not much different than surfing on a 56Kbps connection if Streamyx keeps on being like this.

On a related note: I've noticed that TMNet's banners that say "Streamyx is now available in your area!" has been popping up quite frequently around our area.


Music currently playing: Age of Loneliness (Carly's Song) by Enigma

Wikimedia to be hosted by Yahoo!

Although a month ago, Google has made an offer to host Wikimedia, the site which manages Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, it has been announced that it is now Yahoo! instead of Google which will be hosting Wikipedia following an agreement with each other.

To be honest, I'd prefer if Google was hosting Wikimedia, but now Yahoo! seems to be fighting back strongly against Google with this, and it's acquisition of Flickr recently.

Initial offer by Google on Slashdot
Press release from Wikimedia
Jimmy Wales at Yahoo! Search Blog


Music currently playing: Push The Limits by Enigma.

Blog Traffic and Linking...

From my Site Meter:



Hehe, nice to see more people visiting this blog after the blog marathon. By the way, I'm linking to blog marathoners who stopped by here on that day and anyone else if you're interested. Just leave a comment if I added a link wrongly (somehow) or if you just want to be linked. :)

Cyborg Name Generator

From The Cyborg Name Generator

Brought to you via Vivian... :P

MSSPP chess tournament on day 2...

So, this year's edition of the MSSPP chess tournament is held at Penang Free School, which I think is a very bad decision... The hall isn't big enough for that many players in it, so the seating arrangement in the hall was very crowded... the hall is just 1/4 of last year hall in Penang Chinese Girls' High School... The hall there is air-conditioned, the place clean and nice, and you've got some pretty gals there of course... :P But anyway, after seeing around a bit of FPS, I think I'd change my mind and go back to Heng Ee if I wanted to study Form 6...



^ Teammates just before the first round starts...



^ Pic of the tiny Penang Free School hall...

You can see the larger pics at my LifeLogger and if only you're using IE, it only gives you a whole bunch of gibberish if you attempt to look at it using Firefox...

Actually, I was wondering if they had placed handphone signal jammers there... For the first time since I remember using DiGi, this is the first time that I've seen no reception signal for my handphone! (except during in underground carparks of course) Sending MMSes was very hard, so don't even talk about phone calls...

By the way, they've said that it's a new FIDE rule that if a player's handphone rings during a competitive match, the player is immediately disqualified... I've checked this with Google and it seems that it's true... o_O

----------------

>_O

Still a bit sore over the last game of today...

But anyway, let's start from the beginning... The first match was against Tan Yik Ping, one of those uber-strong players that manages to get the top three during every MSSPP outing... Naturally, I lost... =\ Will be posting up the notations of my game eventually...

Second match was an easy one, I played against a rookie (no pun intended, he said it himself) and won easily... But then he's a swell fella, would be interesting to see what happens in the next MSSPP outing...

Third match was also an easy one because...



Damiano Defence (above) = dead meat

After this position, I played out:
3. Nxe5 f6xN
4. Qh6+ Ke7
5. Qxe5+ Kf7
6. Bc4+ Kg6
7. Qf5+ Kh6
8. d3+ g5
9. h4 Be7
10. h4xg5+ Kg7
11. Qf7++ (checkmate!)

End position looks like this:


On another note: I met Randytsx from Wikipedia... We've been chatting online for quite some time now, and so it was nice meeting him... :)

Second day started off in a blur mode... Although I was in a clear and prepared state of mind, somehow I managed to mix up my opponent's number (which was 18) and my table number (which was 16) for the fourth match... So I sat at table 18 and we started playing a bit, I didn't notice something was wrong, he didn't notice it either until one of the arbiter's assistants came to the table and about the seating stuff and all (because table 16 for black was empty), realised I was playing against the wrong player, I rushed back to the correct table and played there...

He was a Penang Free School player, obviously strong, he attacked me well and sacrified a knight but his attack failed, we kept on exchanging pieces until he resigned... :P

Fifth match was against (hell, whaddaya know?) a SXI (St. Xavier's Institution) player, the same one I mistakenly played earlier... xD He's also strong but I made no mistakes until I got forked in the middle of the match (>_<), but got a knight and a bishop in return for a rook, and I later got the upper hand, 2 bishops against one, 4 pawns against 6, after the exchange... Grabbed most of his pawns and threatened to queen either one of my pawn in the left, middle or right side of the chessboard... He resigned... :P

Six match was against a Chung Ling (Penang) player, and I was way up on the ninth table... o_O Both of us played cautiously until he moved his bishop to attack my rook and yet uncovered an attack on my queen on the same time! Moved the queen besides his to exchange it on the next move, and his bishop took my rook, I recaptured it... >_O

The action of the match was right on the centre of the board and we both had pawns that seem to have the potential to be queened... (See below)

Here is the position in the midgame:


White to move, here's how I played (me black):
1. Rf1 c6
2. Kh2 Kg8
3. Rc1 Rd4
4. Rc3 Bc7
5. KRc1 Bxe5+
6. Kf1 Rd2 (and I've already considered lost there... T_T)

After the match, my opponent told me that I should move like this:
1. Rf1 c3
2. e6 c2
3. QRc1 Bxf2!+
4. RxB Rd1+
5. RxR c2xR(Q) (and I would've won!)

Dammit... >_< So anyways, last 2 matches tomorrow and I hope to win them both, and probably have a chance to get into the top 20 rankings...

Edit: I just remembered more stuff... While we were walking from PFS back to our school after the fourth match to have breakfast (both schools are pretty close to each other, don't make much sense doesn't it?), one of my friends walked with his eyes looking at the ground (because he was talking) and subsequently banged his head onto the sawed off end of a billboard on a corner of the road... Ouch... >_< He bled pretty badly for a while, but it stopped eventually... Who in the world would place one of these things so low???

MSSPP chess competition

Yep, it's tomorrow, or rather later today morning... I've only a few hours left to sleep... o_O Will have details once I return from it...

I'll also be using my cameraphone there, so watch out for my LifeLogger... ;)

By the way, I think my blogathon has also scared away my usual readers... Look, almost no comments! xD

Voyageur

I've also made a playlist for my RealPlayer of Enigma's songs from their album, Voyageur... You can listen 8 songs out of 11 from the album at EnigmaMusic.com's jukebox, but I felt that only these 3 songs really kick arse... :P

Voyageur
Page of Cups
Boum-Boum

Streaming music, needs RealPlayer...