The Shortcut Life

Bookfest @ Malaysia, September 2010

2010-09-24T11:27:00.000+08:00

After more than two sleepless weeks of preparing for a midterm AND a group assignment (completed), I think I'm back at full strength. Enough strength for me to write about the Bookfest @ Malaysia 2010, held from 4th - 12th September at the KL Convention Center. If it wasn't for my dad, I wouldn't know about the event. So, we went there on the first day, and I took a few shots with my humble 3.2MP cameraphone. Quite a tough thing to do, considering the hellishly large crowds barging throughout the BookFest...the place was literally SWARMING with people.

A brochure and a wrist band. These are what you need before entering.

Managed to catch Amir Muhammad's session at 2.30 pm. He talked about the book "Yasmin Ahmad's Films" (which, from what I know previously, was written around 1 month after Yasmin Ahmad's death from stroke in 2009), and it was followed by a preview of one of her movies. I bought one of his books titled 'Rojak' and had it signed after that. :-) Unfortunately, I forgot to take the book back from my brother, who borrowed it to read during the Singapore trip one week after the Bookfest. Noooo!!!

My one greatest regret is that I couldn't catch Russell Lee's sessions, at 11 a.m. - 12 p.m., and 7 - 8 p.m. I've been reading his compilation of True Singapore Ghost Stories books since primary school, how long has it been, 12 years I think? Though I do doubt the authenticity of some of the stories in there, I love to read Mr. Lee's remarks (often witty and sarcastic) at the end of each story. Noooo (for the second time)!!!

A few more shots here.

This is only part of the queuing lines to the cashiers.

And now I end this post with a picture of the chicken bowls often used for 'mi kolok' in Sarawak. *Big smile*

Malaysia Day 2010

2010-09-16T14:25:00.003+08:00

It's Malaysia Day today. 16th September has always been Malaysia Day for the past 46 years, but it took 47 years to actually have the first celebration. It somehow reminds me of my download speed. Starting from the year 2010, it has become another notch in my public holidays list (and on other peoples' lists too).

16th September 2010, 47 years since the formation of Malaysia (and 4 days since I returned from Singapore). How have we progressed?

Some West Malaysians still fear the idea that the people of Sarawak and Sabah live on trees and that headhunting is still rampant. Some East Malaysians always get pissed off when reading those stereotypes, but yet fail to improve their own knowledge of West Malaysia. It's been 47 years.

We still call ourselves 'Melayu, Cina, India' (Malay, Chinese, Indian). As someone who is neither one of those three, I am called a 'Lain-lain' (Other). It's been 47 years.

A West Malaysian who has been brought up his/her whole life in Malay-Chinese-Indian West Malaysia will usually be unable to fathom the 30+ tribes/races (and more) of Sabah and Sarawak. And neither will an East Malaysian usually be able to get used to living in another part of Malaysia with three main races, after a lifetime of living and studying side by side with Ibans, Kayans, Kelabits, Melanaus, Malays, Kadazans, Muruts, Dusuns, et cetera.

So maybe our main problem here is not racism. Misunderstandings between West and East Malaysians seem to be the more obvious one. I keep seeing pages popping up on Facebook, for example "Jangan Hina Orang Sarawak" and the like. And whenever a West/East Malaysian makes demeaning comments about East or West Malaysia, people go around attacking the said person on his/her profile, to the point of spreading links here and there. So the second lesson here is ALWAYS BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU PUT ON THE INTERNET. What you say to a person in real life can be forgiven and forgotten, but what you put on Facebook/Friendster/Myspace etc. will NEVER be forgotten.

Back to racism...it will always be around, no matter where we are. Tell me of any country that has zero racism/xenophobic tendencies. Put that matter at rest for now.

If we can enjoy the different tastes of nasi lemak, mi kolok, sirap bandung, char kuey teow, roti canai, manok pansoh, satay ayam, tebaloi, umai, keropok lekor, ice cendol, roti kahwin and dodol, why can't we all look past our differences and even just for once, ACKNOWLEDGE the idea that these differences actually contribute to making Malaysia a very colorful and multicultural nation.

But do we acknowledge this on only Malaysia Day/National Day? What about the other 364 days of the year?

Signing off for now, in order to meditate on the wonders of Malaysian cuisine.

Kuey teow at Pappa Rich, Dataran Sunway

Beef rendang rice, somewhere in 1Utama

Brunei Pontianak Video

2010-09-08T00:33:00.000+08:00

Last month, I blogged about the so-called [CLICK HERE TO READ] 'pontianak' of KM 42 Bukit Tinggi, a Youtube video that has been circulating around the Malaysian websphere and Facebook (and goodness knows elsewhere). If you forgot (or don't know) what it is, a 'pontianak' is something like a Southeast Asian vampire. To celebrate the one-month anniversary of that post, I now introduce to you the Malaysian pontianak's sister, the BRUNEIAN pontianak. Watch the video below.

To those of you who don't understand Bruneian Malay dialect, here's the story: Two friends were deep in conversation outside at 4.05 a.m. Another friend (let's call him 'The Narrator'), was bored to death and started filming things around them, complaining the whole time(boring eh! boring eh! surely you understand this part *wink*). After greeting random footwear (hai selipar!), he interrupted the conversation to ask where Boy was ('Boy' is a common nickname here). Turned out that Boy was already asleep somewhere inside the house. The Narrator then continued filming before pausing when he saw a hovering white figure in the background, a few metres away from the conversing friends. At this point he began muttering uncontrollably, even uttering a few religious words before urging his friends to enter the house as fast as they could. When awareness kicked in, the three of them ran with all their might. None of them had enough courage to close the door, and The Narrator still continued filming everything. The video ended with a shot of Boy, soundly sleeping throughout the whole event.

VERDICT: FAKE FAKE FAKE. The whole video looks very innocent when you watch it for the first time, as if the three friends were all caught unawares, sending them into a frenzy. But the thing that alerted me was the fact that The Narrator STARTED his filming from somewhere near the spot the pontianak supposedly appeared. Go ahead and re-watch the whole thing. That means he, possibly with the help of another friend (maybe Boy), had the white figure all set up. And the second thing that alerted me was that The Narrator seemed to be 'expecting' something while filming. You can just feel it.

Language aside, I find the video to be kinda funny, in a sort of dark comedy manner (can't think of any other classification). I love it! This video is actually far older than the video I posted previously, probably three or four years old if I'm not mistaken. Perhaps older. The person who posted this video on Youtube has a disclaimer on the page saying that this is not his video.

Thumbs up for the non-existence of sparkles or glitter.

Burgers galore!!!

2010-09-04T09:37:00.005+08:00

OK, I am finally back in Petaling Jaya to visit my parents and brother because of the tuition-free week. Celebrated my fifth day here by having my car get hit from behind last night. The bad part is that it wasn't actually my car...it was my dad's car, which I borrow to drive around every time I come back here. Enough about that though, I'm not here to rant about accidents. I'm here to rant about BURGERS.

One particular evening, a friend and I somehow decided to talk about food. I don't remember the whole conversation but I'm glad he broached the subject of burgers. The McDonald's Grilled Chicken Burger (GCB) was 'released' just a few weeks ago, and sometimes, rumours abound about the local McD running out of GCB burgers until new stock arrives. Fellow blogger/"brother in engineering" Dzim is one of the few people I know who tried it earlier that week.

Above is a picture of it unwrapped. I won't say it's the tastiest burger around, but it was OK. But in the future, I'd rather order my usual double cheeseburger combo meal rather than the GCB, largely due to the price. Double cheeseburger combo is approximately RM 7++(around USD $2.50), compared to RM 9+(around USD $3.50) of a GCB a la carte. You can call me thrifty or whatever, but I prefer to get more at a lower price, compared to a single meal at a higher price.

And then there is the Kinky Fat Chef Kitchen (KFCK) in Piasau. The weird part is that I can draw maps and tell people the directions to get there, but I had never tried anything from that particular eatery. My friend joked about wanting to punch me for admitting that Thank goodness I finally had the chance to try something from there last week, thanks to Dzim once again (I think I might forever associate you with burgers). So, along with our geologist sister Zura, we went to KFCK to order burgers.

KFCK, blurry pic taken by my cellphone

I think KFCK has no problem with advertisements and all that, because in Miri, word of mouth is still the best method of spreading news. When it comes to food, I trust my fellow Mirians *big smile*. Ordered a grilled beef burger with homemade special sauce (don't know what it's made of, but it has a kinda sweet taste to it), and I must say, YUM! The patty is homemade, not the typical bought-from-a-store patties used by several burger stalls in Miri. A few friends advised against ordering the black pepper sauce, but it's probably more to preference. I might try it in the future. Anyway, do check out KFCK's Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/KinkyFatChefKitchen . Support the Miri food industry. *bigger smile*

The final burger on my list is from Burger King, something with "XL" and "Supreme" in it, I've forgotten its full name. Tried out the beef version at Desa Sri Hartamas a few days ago.

OK...so it's not as long as they claim it to be (I used to think that only guys do that *cough*). Too bad I forgot to take a snapshot of this burger. The taste was just alright, though I felt that it had too much onion in it, so I had to scrape most of them aside. Had to 'rinse out' the onion-y taste by drinking lots of Coke, quite a bad decision.

But the most traumatic aspect of this experience is, I believe, shown in the advertisement below:

GOOD GRIEF! *faints*

Pontianak at KM 42 Bukit Tinggi, towards Kuantan

2010-08-08T04:57:00.003+08:00

Recently, there's this video of a 'pontianak' circulating around the Malaysian web sphere, especially (where else?) Facebook. A 'pontianak' is, according to local folklore, the restless spirit of a woman who died in childbirth. She is usually depicted with long, flowing hair and a white robe...kind of a typical garb for most restless spirits/creatures around the world, eh? Go ahead and research if you wish to. I've heard enough stories of pontianaks while growing up in good old Malaysia.

Skeptical me watched the video at 3 a.m. today, and below is the video, for your viewing pleasure.

Apparently the pontianak was affected by the laws of gravity. The pontianak was also limited to flying a certain height, at which it attained maximum potential energy before slowly coming down to the ground, in order to decrease the effects of friction. That may be hard though, since the pontianak landed on tarmac surface (they DID mention KM 42 Bukit Tinggi, didn't they? That's somewhere along the interstate highway). But I'll give credit to her, because she didn't sparkle in the light like some vampires do. Ewwwww.

What a faaaaaaake video.........

A sparkly 'pontianak' that unfortunately reduces people (and werewolves) to laughter instead of fear.

Websites of the Late 90s/Early 00s

2010-07-27T05:34:00.003+08:00

I joined the Internet world in 1999, when I was just a 9-year-old kid. It was the Y2K scare era, waaaay before Facebook existed. I also benefited from the rise in website-making tutorials, back when 'normal' people were just starting to get involved with creating websites. In case you can't imagine what it was like back then, here are a few things:

...there was no such thing as broadband. THIS was what I knew: [CLICK HERE] to visit the 56K modem emulator

...HTML was the lingua franca. No CSS, no DHTML or whatever we have today

...what the hell was Google?

You get the drift now?

Today's websites are flooded with 'Share to' links to Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, tumblr, and various websites. Youtube is one of the main channels for becoming famous. Google is...well, everyone knows what Google is. Your social life is judged through your Facebook profile (at one point in history, it used to be Myspace), and the news feed is littered by mostly narcissistic kids (long gone are the days when Facebook was for ages 18 and above).

Let me take you down memory lane, from the point of view of a user/webmaster of the late 90's/early 00's era...

General website layouts...

Once upon a time, most websites were hosted by Angelfire, Geocities (R.I.P.), Bravenet, Homestead, Tripod, and a few others I can't remember. A main website used to link to several smaller webpages. The first thing you saw when coming across a website was a splash page, which gave you several choices such as (1)preferred language, (2)site statistics such as visitor count and affiliations, (3)and in case the website is in only one language, an 'Enter' sign. Splash pages also occasionally served as 'Under Construction' or 'Hiatus' pages.

At one point, websites consisted of bulky frames. Below is a thumbnail of a website from 2002; it utilizes three frames, the top frame as a header (in blogging jargon, that's the header image), the left frame as a navigation panel, and the right frame as the main frame. I've linked to the actual website, so just click the thumbnail to go there.

(Marleen's Mary-Kate & Ashley Courier)

And below is an example of a splash page, though in this case, it was more of a 'moved to a different server' situation. Note the ultra-bright background; for those of you shrieking about suitable color palettes, ultra-bright backgrounds were the NORM in those days. The thumbnail is also linked to the original website.

(Unique Individuals - Olsen twins fanpage)

Website peripherals

No website of the late 90's/early 00's was complete without at least a guestbook, a visitor counter, and a marquee. A guestbook is what I'll dub the 'ancestor' of today's Comments section available in all blogs worldwide. Visitors come and leave comments such as 'great site!', 'keep up the good work!', 'I'd love to see more of bla bla bla', and so on. Back then, people were more polite and they THOUGHT before they wrote. Today's people tend to leave behind @#$%^& comments and suffer consequences in the end (see LameBook and FailBlog for good examples). Most guestbooks were powered by Lycos' HTMLGear and Bravenet.

Webmasters who were more active would often provide a messageboard for their guests to debate and just discuss whatever issues they wished to discuss. For those of you who are too young to know what a messageboard was, I'll just say it's a bit like an older version of forums. Below is an example of a message board currently in use:

(The Old Scout)

What's a marquee, by the way? A marquee is scrolling text, something like the ticker tape you see on CNN, BBC, etc. CLICK HERE to read up about it, I find marquees to be really annoying and I don't wish to put one in this post.

Webrings, Banners, etc.

How did websites link to each other? We had webrings and banners back then (banners still survive today). I don't really see webrings around today, except when stumbling across the occasional website from the 90's. When it comes to banners, the usual standard was 468 pixels by 60 pixels. Below are a few examples:

(website no longer exists)

Some websites still use banners with the 468x60 format, so it's wrong for me to say that they're outright obsolete. And now, moving on to webrings. A webring is like a group of similarly-themed websites linked together, and if you get to be part of a webring, you have to put a certain HTML code on your website. You'll have to CLICK on the image below to go to the actual webring, because the HTML code is only available for members, so I can't post an example on my blog.

(The Happy Valentine's Day Webring)

More Examples...

(BillyBear4Kids.com)

This was my favorite website when I was a kid. I'm glad to see that it's still around after all these years.

(Jodie Sweetin Fan Club)

A website dedicated to Jodie Sweetin, famous for her Stephanie Tanner role in Full House.

The examples given below are some of the few I can actually find on the Internet (with probably more than a third of 90's websites killed off when Yahoo! decided to close Geocities down).

Halloween Village 2002
HTML 2.0 Materials
Thinkquest: Mythology [There is no indication there about when the website was created, but since it has frames and 'Sign our Guestbook' there, I assume it's from the late 90's]
Just Cows [This is a catalog of the word 'cow' in several languages. It's been around since 1996]

Ending Comments...

So it's not really a post about what's 'missing'...let's just treat this as a 'down memory lane' post. Seeing all those websites somehow made me feel old. And in case you were wondering about the constant referencing of the Olsen twins and Full House, it's because I used to have a website dedicated to the Olsen twins AND also Full House. And uh...salute to the long-gone days of Frontpage Express.

More Links/Resources/News

Popular Search Engines in the 90's : Then and Now
90s Web Design: A Nostalgic Look Back [I have no idea who originally wrote this; seems that lots of websites keep copy-pasting this article]
Oldies but Goodies - 90s Webdesign - Top 5 websites
xkcd says goodbye Geocities, hello '90s web design
Gorgeous websites from the late 90's to inspire you if you have no taste
Bland Canyon: Internet in the 90s - yeah, it was crap
Cybertelecom: Internet History, 1990s

The links above do not necessarily reflect my personal opinion.

If, for some reason, you wish to experience a website-making software from the 90s, [CLICK HERE] to download Frontpage Express. Apparently it works on Vista and Windows 7. Satisfy your inner 90s geekiness!

TOP 3 FREAKY STUFF from my childhood (and probably yours too)

2010-07-08T21:57:00.000+08:00

My mom said that when I was a kid, I was the type who questioned everything. Obstinate and always rebelling against authority (in this case, older family members). When we were 3 years old, I shoved my cousin into a nearby drain for goodness knows what reason, and he wasn't my only victim. At annual family gatherings, the stories of my childhood badassery are a staple feature. Not something to be proud of, eh? But despite being the Cruella De Vil of the family, these are the TOP 3 things that freaked me out as a kid.

3. ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK?

I bet this show spooked millions of you guys out there too. This show was once aired on Disney Channel, contributing towards the nightmares of those growing up in the '90s. Each episode kicks off with a group of kids called the Midnight Society gathering around a campfire, telling ghost stories and urban legends.

One particular episode that puts me off any human-looking dolls, including Barbie (until today) is one which involved a missing girl slowly turning into a doll. I don't really remember the full details, but I officially hate human-looking dolls. Chucky only added to the injury.

2. WOODPECKERS DRILLING THROUGH WINDOWS

I grew up watching a lot of classic cartoons such as Tom & Jerry, Looney Tunes, Silly Symphonies, and the like. Woody Woodpecker was one of them. For some reason, I decided to believe that birds are able to drill through glass windows and concrete walls, many thanks to Woody Woodpecker. Back then, my parents bought a house with a compound full of fruit trees, somewhere near a Malay village. I remember a starfruit tree, a rambutan tree, and a mango tree; the mango tree most of all, because sometimes pythons hang out there. And not to forget, cobras also roamed freely in the small field next to our house.

But yes, Mr Woody Woodpecker, you were the scariest of them all. You just had to run around the TV screen, laughing "ha-ha-ha-HA-ha" in an insane manner. Snakes, cats, and dogs don't do that. Woodpeckers are NUMBER 2 on this list.

And now, for the NUMBER ONE SPOT...

1. MICHAEL JACKSON

I still don't get it to this day. Why would I be afraid of the King of Pop? My mom said that I used to run out of the living room sobbing uncontrollably, every time Michael Jackson appeared on TV. What was it about him that spooked me out?

Do you guys have any ideas? Wanna help me brainstorm a bit?

Anybody out there? Anyone??

*All images from Wikipedia unless if stated otherwise.
Pictures of Michael Jackson are from Museum of Hoaxes[Source 1] and Extracine[Source 2]

TOP 3 THINGS TO DO with an invisibility cloak

2010-07-05T17:51:00.004+08:00

I love the idea of invisibility cloaks. To be able to put on one like Harry Potter did, and roam around Hogwarts unseen, wouldn't that be fun? But I don't live at Hogwarts (grrr), so I'll have to make do with roaming around Miri, if I DO get the chance to own a cloak. If. If. If. So many 'ifs'.

So if I do get the cloak:

TOP 3 THINGS TO DO

1. Visit the Korean DMZ

I want to go there to stand at the Military Demarcation Line. This idea came around a few months ago, while my brother and I were having a chat about North Korean politics. If I can't be seen, no one can shoot me or accuse me of being a defector of some sort.

2. Go to a graveyard at night

We are often afraid of things that we can't see; we play upon this fear by spreading ghost stories and other creepy tales. They say that spirits are roused from slumber if they know we're there, trespassing their resting places. But what's gonna happen if I'm there, wearing an invisibility cloak? Maybe it's payback time *evil laughter* Here's to YOU GHOSTS for spooking the hell out of us.

3. Enter the Playboy Mansion
Just out of plain curiosity.

All images are from Wikipedia, unless if stated otherwise.

Indie-fy your iPod! - Tiny edition

2010-02-02T23:33:00.009+08:00

No, this is not Part 3 of the Indie-fy your iPod! series. It's a 'mini review' and a hint of what I'm planning to post in Part 3.

Recently, someone asked me what I meant by the 'indie' part in the series' name. 'Indie' as in
1) genre-wise: indie rock(example) or 2) catch-all phrase : generally all independent? Here, I wish to point out that it is the 2nd definition. I do not believe in extreme categorization of music into uber-specific genres, because it seems kind of restrictive. Confusing, too.

IT'S VERY HARD POSTING ABOUT A BAND IN THE ROCK GENRE, ONLY TO HAVE PEOPLE FLAMING ME SAYING THAT THAT BAND SHOULD BELONG IN THE EMO GENRE BECAUSE IT'S TOO GAY TO BE CATEGORIZED AS 'ROCK'. That kind of sh*t. And by 'gay', they meant 'lame' gay, not 'homosexual' gay (need to emphasize this before everyone starts quoting human rights stuff and flames me further for 'being insensitive and offensive').

Moving on. Who's on today's menu?:

SCARRED BY BEAUTY

Scarred By Beauty (2009)

Scarred By Beauty is a Danish metal band, formed in 2006. They're currently on tour throughout Europe. Next stop is Kafe Kafka in Horice, Czech Republic. In 2009, their EP 'We Swim' won in the 'Talent of the Year' category at the Danish Metal Awards; this EP is available for free online, just CLICK HERE to go to their Myspace page. And last I checked, it's also available as a torrent on Mininova.org. I downloaded 'We Swim' last month, but I totally forgot about it until today. It was lodged somewhere inside my Downloads folder, a folder full of other stuff which I've also forgotten about. I have until the end of this month to reorganize and delete unwanted files on my laptop (new semester starting in March).

Scarred By Beauty (2009)
(This pic is part of the free download of 'We Swim')

Free/paid download?: At Myspace, it's the free EP download and a few Youtube vids.

My favorite song(s): I've only listened to 3 songs, all from 'We Swim'. Haven't decided upon one yet.

Websites/webpages:
Facebook fan page
Myspace Page
It's A Trap! Scandinavian Music Journal - We Swim
Rockfreaks.net - Album Review - Scarred By Beauty - We Swim EP

Comments: Only 3 songs! It's not fair for me to judge after having listened to only three! They're coming up with a debut album soon, so I better wait. I'd like to listen to more of Scarred By Beauty's stuff!

Hello 2010, scary start eh?

2010-01-12T15:57:00.005+08:00

It's 2010. Great.

I am now...

...technically old enough to buy cigarettes and alcohol, but NOT old enough to vote. I'm turning 20 this year, gee. Bye-bye to my '10s' era, hello to my early twenties. 2.5 more years to graduation, if I don't slip up. 1 more month till I leave Damansara for approximately 14 weeks in Miri, to continue my studies.

Do I miss 2009?

Absolutely not. It's the year I believe I suffered the most, mostly due to financial and personal problems. Those problems affected my studies quite badly; hopefully 2010 won't be that evil. I must return to my 'eternal honor roll student' days. I'm not sure how, but I have to. 2009 is probably an 'obstacle year' for gaining experience and becoming wiser, though I'm still not sure how that experience is going to help me. God's ways are mysterious. Maybe I won't know yet now, maybe I'll only find out some time in the future.

December is probably the only thing I miss about 2009. Been meeting up with my old friends from my Foundation days; basically, I feel as if all the problems I suffered in the first 11 months of 2009 were balanced by the amount of fun I had in December. You COULD say that I suffered from too much fun last month, hahah. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for 2009, finally.

The start of 2010 is a bit weird for me. Recently, I went to the doctor because of some mysterious bleeding in my eye. I was told to monitor my health for the next few weeks (not again!), and hopefully it will improve. Besides that health scare issue, this was how I ushered in the New Year: saw 1Utama's fireworks from my living room, heard the fireworks from The Curve@Mutiara Damansara, but watched the countdown at Dataran Merdeka live on TV.

What else is weird about 2010? Don't let me get started on that Allah/church-bombing issue. There are some (unfortunately) evil opportunists out there, trying to fan some flames. As I mentioned on my Facebook profile recently...I left the Middle East because of the bombings, to return to what I thought was a safer Malaysia. Turns out I was wrong. Fellow Malaysians, this is a time of great testing. No matter what religion/race/gender/etc. you are, we HAVE to be strong. [Spent part of my life in the Middle East. And no, don't get me wrong, this does NOT mean that bombings occur in every part of it.]

Happy New Year everyone, logging off for now.

Book 1 of the Godspeaker Trilogy : Empress, by Karen Miller

2009-12-14T00:16:00.006+08:00

Amazon.com

I've just finished reading the first book of Karen Miller's Godspeaker Trilogy, titled 'Empress'. With the tag line 'Her name is Hekat - And she will be slave to no man', it gave the idea that this girl Hekat will rise to be an empress eventually. To tell the truth, this is also the first time I've read any of Karen Miller's books. I saw 'Empress' at 1Utama's Popular Bookstore, and what drew my attention was the art on the cover. A chained, feral-looking child in robes, and if you noticed, the buildings behind her resemble mosques. Domes and minarets and the like.

And so we have Hekat, born into a poverty-stricken family, whose mother was often abused because she failed to provide the demanded amount of sons. Hekat, who was unnamed and simply referred to as 'she-brat' in the first few pages, was sold to two Traders named Abajai and Yagji. Abajai believes that Hekat is 'in the god's eye', an idea that Yagji doubts, but Hekat quickly adheres to it. She is, after all, 'precious and beautiful'. She is separated from the other slaves and treated differently, leading her to believe that she was not a slave. The Traders and their slaves then journey on to Et-Raklion, and bought other slaves along the way. Hekat's 'godchosen' status was later confirmed through a simple test in another town, and one other slave had to be let off because of the same reason.

Hekat only finds out later that Abajai was primping her up to sell at a higher price. She runs away and manages to join the warlord's barracks. Hekat's burning desire to fight for the god does not escape the warlord Raklion's attentions, and she is later sent to do her knife-dance training. At the time of Hekat joining the barracks, Raklion is busy with plans to bring his warhost against Et-Nogolor, while heeding the advice of the high godspeaker Nagarak and beloved warleader Hanochek. Raklion fears that the Daughter of Et-Nogolor, who has been promised to him, will not be sent by her father. He also fears that Et-Nogolor's warlord and another warlord may be planning to attack his city. It is hard for Raklion to trust in times like these.

Summary ends here. I'll go ahead with my opinion of this book. I do not plan on 'introducing' the characters, because I assume that you have read it. If you have not read / finished the book, I strongly suggest that you do not scroll down past this sentence. Spoilers ahead.

Spoilers.

You have been warned.

Twice.

The god's eye?

Never in my life have I prayed for the death of a book's main protagonist(s) with every page I turn. Rather than call Hekat evil, I'd rather call her 'hubris incarnate'. I forgave her for the first few chapters, thinking that her arrogance may have rose from Abajai constantly referring to her as the god's chosen one right after plucking her out of nowhere. But as she aged, not only has she grown to be ruthless and uncaring; she has grown into an excessively prideful woman who looks down upon everyone, enslaving or killing those who dare speak against her. Or as she says, 'the god desires it'. Hekat rose from being a slave to a psychopathic empress who arrogantly believes that 'the god' chose her to do its will no matter what. One regret I have is that she is still alive at the end of the book. But I have to admit, it is refreshing to see a main protagonist in a different light (I don't know, should I still call her 'protagonist'? I think I should just call her 'main character'). Rather than rising to fame of Obama-like proportions, Hekat became a 'Idi Amin'-like figure. More atrocious though.

At first glance, the other characters in the book seem to be weak and feeble-minded, merely following orders even though they were manipulated into doing so. In my opinion, that description is quite unfair. Don't forget, the characters live in a land where 'the god' communicates directly to certain people like the godspeakers, and to disbelieve is to bring harm to oneself. 'The god' accepts sacrifices directly, and has been shown to act accordingly when its powers are summoned for different reasons. This includes direct killing. Characters like Raklion and Hanochek were manipulated needlessly by Hekat, in order to further her goals. One of it is to bring forth a son who will be the god's hammer, and this goal is accomplished with the birth of Zandakar.

I love reading about the cultures in 'Empress'. I imagined the cultures as a fusion of Middle Eastern and Far East cultures. The animal sacrifices remind me of the Muslim Qurban day, where cows and goats are slaughtered and the meat donated to the poor and needy. Having grown up in two countries with Muslim-majority populations, 'Qurban' was the first thing that came to mind. Next, the godposts remind me of the altars that I've seen in some traditional Chinese homes, shops, and temples. To those who have never seen these altars, I shall describe them here, briefly: the altars are usually red in color, and they house deities like the goddess Guan Yin, and sometimes figures of the Buddha. Joss sticks are placed and burnt at the altar, and sometimes you can see food (e.g. Mandarin oranges) placed as offerings.

Example of Chinese altar

The book is extremely graphic in descriptions of warfare and violence. I have to admit feeling quite queasy when reading explicit details of events like the scorpion god-wheel punishments and 'godsmiting' of cities. The timeline of this book is quite confusing, because sometimes the years are mentioned very briefly (sometimes in only one sentence) before moving on to another part of the story. I thought I wasn't paying attention to the timeline when I suddenly came across the part where Hekat becomes Raklion's consort, because I had just finished reading about her training in the barracks. A second example of this 'jumping' timeline is when Zandakar and Dmitrak lead the warhost out of Mijak to conquer other lands. And suddenly, Zandakar is 25 seasons old and six seasons have passed since they rode out of Mijak.

To conclude it all, I rate this book 2.5 out of 5 stars. If I were to only take into account my hate of Hekat, the incessant killing throughout the book, occasionally jumping plot and timeline, and minimal character development (save for Hanochek; I was pleased to find out about him leading a warhost against Hekat, despite his failure later), I feel indifferent towards this book. I actually contemplated against finishing it. But I'd love to know what will happen to Zandakar, who is now 'dead' to Hekat, so I'll go ahead and buy the other two books in the trilogy. Oh, and I hope to know how Hekat will be as the books progress.

Spoilers end.

Yes, spoilers have ended.

I have read quite a lot of good comments about Karen Miller's 'Kingmaker, Kingbreaker' series, planning to find them after completing the Godspeaker trilogy. Went to the Book Warehouse at the Atria Shopping Centre in Damansara Jaya earlier today, just in case I can find the next two books, but couldn't find them. Looks like I'll have to return to 1Utama's Popular Bookstore within the next few weeks before the onslaught of Christmas sales. It's tough enough joining the shopping crowds during normal weekends; with Christmas coming, it's just going to get worse.

11 days to Christmas.

Another iPhone Worm...

2009-11-23T19:49:00.005+08:00

Not the iPhone worm

There's news spreading about another iPhone worm out in the 'wild'. It specially targets users in the Netherlands, who do internet banking with ING Direct with their iPhones. Read more by CLICKING HERE [BBC].

First, Rickrolled iPhones...second, this case...and I wonder what's next...

Other source(s):
XS4ALL --> where it was first reported
Security.nl --> in Dutch, use Google Translate or Babelfish or something
TheRegister.co.uk
Engadget.com

Najib on Facebook

2009-11-21T17:53:00.006+08:00

Woooo. I remembered a few days back, a headline caught my eye: Najib joins Facebook.

Eyes grew larger.

LARGER.

Wow. Cool to know that our PM is using Facebook to reach out to us. Even though it's a fan page (instead of a normal profile like yours and mine), but it's cool. And uh, at least PM doesn't have to deal with friend requests from weird stalkers and hundreds of game requests like Mafia Wars, Ghost Trappers, Mousehunt and the like (somehow, the image of our PM Superpoking his ministers doesn't seem right.....).

Sooo...if you're a fan...go check out his fan page --> Facebook - Najib Razak

Morning on Miri River

2009-10-17T23:20:00.005+08:00

Very funny how I found solace and peace this week. I found them at the jetty in Kampung Pengkalan this morning, while participating in a boat handling course organized by VAD-57. Handling a boat on the Miri River was a very interesting experience, plus the weather was OK, except for the early morning rain. There was an instructor from Malaysia Red Crescent, who taught us the basic parts of the speed boat engine (30 horsepower, 5000 rpm); later on, everyone took turns maneuvering the boat in groups. I was in the same group with Eleena, Peter, and Amin - we were the second group. I think our group was the loudest one, because EVERYONE kept screaming every time the boat seemed as if it was about to tip over (naughty, naughty boat). No worries, we had life vests on =)

The last time I sat in a boat, it was a 'sampan' with an engine attached to it, like the one shown in the picture below. We travelled across the Batang Ai dam on it, WITHOUT life jackets. Yes, sometimes if you travel upriver to settlements in rural Sarawak, there may be no life jackets provided. As we worry about life and death, the guy who controlled the boat looked as if he cares about nothing going on in the world.

(Tourism Malaysia)

Back to the story about solace and peace. We were sitting under a hut while watching the others having their turns on the boat, one group after the other. The wind was blowing softly, though too bad it carried the smell of a polluted river with it (Miri River is unfortunately recorded as one of the most polluted rivers of Sarawak, according to 1 State 1 River). You could see plastic bags and debris floating on the water, and these things pose a problem because they can get entangled in the engine's propeller. While joking around with the others, I realized that I have not visited Kampung Pengkalan for quite a number of years. Ten years maybe? It reminded me of a village near the neighborhood where I used to live. Life was so much peaceful in that area. My parents bought another house in another neighborhood a few years ago, so my brother and I had to move with them. Maybe that's why I find it peaceful in Kampung Pengkalan. It gave me something I had not experienced for a few years - the atmosphere of village life. The sounds of cockerels crowing in the morning, the sight of kids playing traditional games, old men riding old motorcycles...the sound of the school bus honking to fetch the village's children.

May this peace stay with me for now. I need it to survive the next few weeks.

Alia Sabur: Positive Inspiration!

2009-10-11T16:22:00.008+08:00

With Week 9 officially ending today, and Week 10 starting tomorrow, we are now in full-blown project mode. Our comrades in Perth are equally stressed out, as we tackle the remaining three weeks with topics ranging from energy balances, welding, reaction engineering all the way to taxation and mineralogy. Let's hope the final weeks end in good spirits; there's been quite some negativity tossed around these days.

Dedicated to Dollah and Dzim

While we mere students grumble and spend our nights guzzling coffee to complete projects and prepare for our exams, this 20-year-old girl probably spends her nights making exam questions.

(MSNBC 2008)

This is Alia Sabur, a 20-year-old New Yorker who made headlines for being the youngest professor at the age of 19. And she's not just any professor, she even taught four maths/physics units at New Orleans' Southern University (Voice of America 2008). At the same age, I was busy praying about not failing my midterms for the same units, oh the horror! Come to think of it...I only entered university at 16 years old, but when she was 16, she was already studying for a doctorate in mechanical and electrical engineering *faints* (Drexel University).

Whoever who said that girls are not as good at guys in maths and science, let's rub this story in your face(s).

Let's make her an inspiration to get on with our studies =)

References:
1. Voice of America 2008 - 18-year-old is world's youngest college professor
2. MSNBC 2008 - Woman, 19, becomes youngest college professor
3. Drexel University - At 14, Nation's Youngest PhD student to enroll at Drexel University to study engineering

Stephen Gately dead at 33

2009-10-11T11:34:00.002+08:00

Oh dear, they said that Stephen Gately has died. RIP. I only found out after randomly landing on a page about Boyzone at Wikipedia (I have this obsession of clicking the 'Random Page' there).

LINKS
1) http://www.towleroad.com/2009/10/boyzone-singer-stephen-gately-found-dead.html

2) http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Showbiz-News/Boyzone-Star-Stephen-Gately-Dies-Aged-33-While-On-Holiday-In-Majorca-Reports-News-Of-The-World/Article/200910215403550?f=rss

Trust? Kepercayaan?

2009-10-05T00:53:00.006+08:00

How do you kno who you should trust? Seriously, I have no idea, because I myself am having problems trusting people nowadays. One moment people may be 'smile and laugh', the next moment they'll kill you from behind. Well, the 'doing things from behind' is a human behavior after all...not much we can do about that...except that I'm turning into a skeptical cynic (or is it cynical skeptic?) because of the turn of events. And I have somehow lost the ability to feel emotions. I don't know how long it will last because at the moment, I don't even know whether I should laugh or cry or be angry, because things just fly past me. The only thing I can do now is to pray that I can survive a few more weeks of the semester, since it's now Week 9 and we have a few more weeks to go. Feels really empty, and my health is deteriorating more and more. And for the enemy or double-faced friend I gained, I've also gained a few more friends in the process.

I rase cam tak dapat tahan lah plak kengkadang. Memang hati ni yang sakit dan pedih giler, tapi kena gak tahan pasal I pun tak tau ape nak buat pas nih. Camner lah I nak teruskan semester ni dlm keadaan yang cam nih...yang difikirkan kawan, rupe-rupenyer menikam dari belakang. Kalo nak sangat kutuk orang...baik kutuk kat depan jer lah...takyah berselindung. Bukan main cakap pasal nak berbincang secara 'open', tapi sendiri tak 'practice what you preach'. Kawan konon. I pun satu gak, asyik2 nak complain kat sini jer, hahah. Besok pagi kena bangun awal nak pi kelas...bye bye...

CartoonStock.com - Maybe I should try the method above???

Infamous Fish Sticks

2009-09-14T20:58:00.004+08:00

Once upon a time, there was an actor who jumped on the couch on Oprah's show, proclaiming his love for his girl. You thought that was crazy? Try watching the video below.

FISH STICKS!!

No, there's no connection between 'pulling a Tom Cruise' and 'doing a Kanye West'. I decided to include Tom Cruise just for fun.

Airport Ambience

2009-09-13T01:31:00.004+08:00

There's something about airports and flights that continue to amaze me. I used to be a frequent flyer, both international and domestic flights. Locations are not that important to me, it's the background noise that stands out. One example: I have no idea why I find flight announcements interesting...especially the chimes that play before the announcement. Not sure what they call those chimes though. Another interesting part about flight announcements are the languages they use. At the KLIA airport, they use different languages (besides English) in different terminals. For Dubai International Airport, they were Arabic and English, can't recall if there were other languages used. Partly because I kept going crazy at the music section of the airport's duty-free area.

And when we get on a plane, my brother and I love keeping our ears open for announcements from the pilot and the cabin crew. There are days when the pilot sounds cheerful, you can 'hear' his smile. There are days when the pilot sounds as if reporting about sunny weather is something so 'bleh'. The sound of the wheels of the trolley indicates the arrival of food. And the sound of the toilet flushing in a plane is certainly different from the toilet at home (OK, this is a weird thing to talk about).

Inflight entertainment is, of course, the first thing we check whenever boarding a flight. Some planes have the screens attached to the back of the seats, while some have them stowed away inside the seats themselves. I remembered this one time when I was frantically pressing all sorts of buttons trying to find the screen, when it suddenly popped up and smacked me right in the middle of my forehead...I ended up becoming inflight entertainment for my mom and brother after that incident. =(

Brian Eno (yeah, the Microsoft sound) released an album called 'Ambient 1:Music for Airports' in 1978. Still can't find it here in Malaysia, and I'm curious to know how 'music for airports' sounds like.

Special kind of uhm...ringtone

2009-09-05T21:34:00.004+08:00

Found this ad on a website recently:

I'm as clueless as you are. Hey, I hope it includes chicken breasts because I'm darn hungry right now.

Recreating the Sarawak flag

2009-08-30T23:52:00.005+08:00

Ahahah. Attempted to recreate Sarawak's flag using Hasbro's Lite-Brite emulator. Below is the result:

The confused spider in the middle is supposed to be the 9-pointed star that respresents the original 9 divisions in Sarawak (we have 11 today). And I found out that this flag is only 2 years older than I am, which means it will be 21 years old this year. Waaaaaweeeewoooo the flag is old enough to vote during elections...

Recorder in jazz

2009-08-22T22:12:00.003+08:00

Long time no...post...

Just started the new semester and it's been seven weeks since I've had some rest. Having my tuition-free week at the moment, but it feels more like torture-filled week instead. And it's also been quite some time since I've played the guitar, finally picked it up and strummed a bit last night. I need a new guitar, hahah. Mine's six years old this year. Won't be targetting a Yamaha because a lot of our instruments are at home are by Yamaha. Targetting a Fender acoustic, have to see the price first. Need a new recorder as well. Yes, the same recorder that we played in elementary school. I still play the recorder today.

Recorders are interesting. Play them the right way, and you get a sweet melody. Play them the wrong way and you get an almost medieval torturing experience. Aaannyway...if you're a recorder player who happens to love jazz, check out the website below:

The Recorder and Jazz: Jazzing Up the Recorder

I haven't browsed through the blog though, but I enjoyed watching a few vids here. With this...have a good day, logging off for now.

Let's Look East

2009-07-10T21:00:00.006+08:00

Amazon.com 2009: T-Square's 33

Once upon a time, our former prime minister Tun Dr. Mahathir told us to Look East (long before I was born). Tun Mahathir believed that Japan's success and development '...lies in its labor ethics, morale, and management capability...'. Malaysian students were sent to Japan to study their methods, in the hope that these people can in return contribute to Malaysia's development. This was something that my Development Studies syllabus would call 'transfer of technology', but I won't be touching on this. Since we've been talking about looking east, let's Look East for jazz!

There's this Japanese jazz fusion called T-Square, and they've been around since 1976. I found recordings of their performances on Youtube a few years back, uploaded by fans, but there was no official channel for T-Square. I visited their official website but unfortunately, it's all in Japanese and the only words I could read were 'T-Square' here and 'T-Square' there. Below is a video of one of their performances:

Official website [in Japanese]
T-Square Fansite [in English]
Facebook page

Games Soundtracks

2009-07-06T23:28:00.011+08:00

Recently, fellow blogger/classmate Dzim blogged about graphic improvements in games, do [CLICK HERE] to read about it. And while Dzim talks about graphics, I talk about what I know best...music!

Yes, sound experience is extremely important for me when playing computer games. Good music makes the experience even better. Graphics is less of a concern for me, partly because images overwhelm me (I'm a visual person, it hurts). I remember games more because of the music/sound effects.

One good example would be the 'Fire in the hole!' warning from games like Call of Duty and Counter-Strike. At one point, I even had the 'Fire in the hole!' clip as my message tone (I have since replaced that with a, uh, default tone). The sound of the bots through the hissing walkie-talkies sounded cool back then (still does today), it added to the realness of the game. So now, on to my favorite soundtracks/sound experience (in no particular order).

1. Grand Theft Auto Vice City OST

Thumbs up for a great selection of music from the 1980's, which are played in the form of radio stations throughout the game. No, I did not grow in the 80's, though I love pretending I did. GTA Vice City helped to introduce several tracks which I have since added to my playlist. I remembered making Tommy Vercetti go for a free roam just to listen to the music. Favorite 'stations' are Radio Espantoso, Emotion 98.3 and Flash FM. To those of you who can actually recall this, Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' is the FIRST SONG you hear when you enter your first car, waaaaay early in the game.

2. Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

Sad to say, Warcraft III is the only one in the Warcraft series that I had actually played. I love the background music created for every race in Warcraft III (Night Elves, Humans, Orcs, Undead), but my personal favorites are the ones for the Night Elves and the Undead. The Night Elves' music has that kind of 'eastern' quality to them, it gives the music a 'meditation before going to war' feeling. The Undead's music is fast-paced and has haunting bass beats, suitable for creating anxiety and increasing my blood pressure. Thumbs up to Tracy W. Bush for the great music.

'Summoning is Complete!' is my favorite line throughout the whole game. Oh, and in case you didn't notice, clicking on a character repeatedly will reveal lots of funny-sounding captions. Clicking on the Humans will make them shoot off Monty Python phrases (a good reason for insanely clicking away on them).

3. Left 4 Dead: the Sound Experience

I love horror movies because they scare the hell out of those around me. No, I'm not kidding. I don't really get spooked out that easily, though I do have my goosebump moments. And what about Left 4 Dead's sound experience? Zombies screaming and running towards you, music suddenly peaking up at the crucial moments, the Witch crying...enough said. Creepy. Yes, this coming from a girl who scares the hell out of other people.

4. Konami's Silent Hill series

Konami's Silent Hill series music is amongst the best, in my opinion, composed music for games. The songs are mostly instrumental, and are hellishly minimalistic. Less is best when it comes to music for scary games. Silent Hill songs have that dark feel to them, something like evoking haunted memories that were not meant to be disturbed. How do the songs affect me? Once, I was driving home late at night. Just a few minutes after starting up the car, I plugged a pen drive into my car's FM modulator, without realizing what songs were in it. When I drove past a certain bridge where some people claimed to have seen 'things' at midnight, the 'Lost Carol' song suddenly played and I quickly switched to the nearest radio station. Weird but funny experience, come to think of it.

And before I sign off, I just want to announce that my iTunes player is playing Linda Ronstadt's rendition of 'Blue Bayou'. Really needed that to push off scary thoughts that manifest in my mind while I typed stuff for this post.

Music in the Rainforest: Rainforest World Music Festival 2009

2009-07-05T22:58:00.005+08:00

Coming up this month is the 12th Rainforest World Music Festival, to be held at the Sarawak Cultural Village, Kuching. It will be held from the 10th to 12th of July 2009. Unfortunately I won't be going, neither as spectator nor volunteer. Tonnes of my friends will be leaving for Kuching soon; some of them are volunteering, some will be watching. Guess I'll have to just sit and wait here in Miri, and settle some stuff while they're away (which means a portion of my Windows Live contacts will be offline).

And just last month, the 4th Miri International Jazz Festival was held from the 9th to 10th at Park City Everly Hotel. I was a spectator this time around; last year, I was with the other volunteers working for the event (an experience I will never forget, for various good reasons). The next MIJF will be 14th - 15th May 2010, see you there!

Screenshots: MJ online

2009-06-27T18:14:00.008+08:00

PrintScreen shots I made of Michael Jackson-related stuff online. Celebrating the life of a music legend...who, sadly, was mocked when he was alive. He died and the whole world cried for him. I bet he's having the last laugh now, long live MJ!

Michael Jackson's official website, few hours after his death was announced.

Top-selling albums on Amazon as of 27th June 2009, screen-printed at 6:20 pm. I'm in a GMT+8 zone, by the way.

dailymail.co.uk

RIP Michael Jackson & Farrah Fawcett

2009-06-26T09:09:00.002+08:00

I still can't believe it. Both gone...at the same time. I mean, we've heard about how Farrah's battle with cancer, and Michael's health problems...but who would've thought they'd depart this fast?

RIP Farrah Fawcett & Michael Jackson

Ancient Engineering

2009-06-22T12:08:00.006+08:00

Being a student engineer, every semester, I attend lectures that deal with kinematics, fluid mechanics, statics, dynamics, and the like. There has to be at least one unit that deals with finding reaction forces on a beam or a cantilever, or finding out the output speed of something.

And then, there's that saying about 'looking towards history to learn from mankind's mistakes'...something along those lines. Say, what if we have a subject called Ancient Engineering 101? Wouldn't that be great? At least we can crack our heads on how people built great wonders like the pyramids in Egypt and the like. *thumbs up*

Been reading up on ancient monuments and unsolved mysteries lately, besides researching about medieval life (of course, I HAVE to do something else besides talking about music all the time, right?). In fact, I've been interested in studying all these stuff since primary school. I love to research and think about the possibilities...the 'what, how, why, when' of ancient things. Keeps my mind going.

Coral Castle, World-Mysteries.com

One of my favorite mysteries is Coral Castle, which is actually not really ancient in terms of it being built in the early 1920s-1950s. But it's the method behind it that is so mysterious, as in, the engineering behind it. It was built by a Latvian immigrant named Ed Leedskalnin, who was unfortunately jilted by his fiancee Agnes Scuffs one day before the wedding (Runaway Bride???). It was said that he built the whole thing all by himself, out of coral stone. How did he lift them? Some say that he would stop working every time someone approached his working site; some teenagers who did some peeping said that the coral blocks looked as if they were moved like hydrogen balloons.

Khufu's pyramid, Historylink101.net

I used to live one country away from Egypt, but I've never visited even one pyramid. The picture above shows the Great Pyramid of Giza (courtesy of Historylink101.net), the pyramid of King Khufu. 4000 years later, we are still researching methods of how the pyramids were built (I suddenly have a vision of the Ancient Egyptian ghosts laughing at us as we desperately try to recreate and apply said methods). I remembered 'conquering' the TV whenever there were documentaries about Ancient Egypt on National Geographic or Discovery Channel. I still do so nowadays, hahah. At one point in my childhood, I dreamt of having a job like Dr. Zahi Hawass (famous Egyptologist and archaelogist), who was appointed as Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities in 2002 (DrHawass.com).

'Cheers' to our ancestors for leaving behind mysteries for us to study in the 21st century.

Links to my sources (external webpages/websites):
Building the Great Pyramid
Coral Castle of Ed Leedskalnin
Edward Leedskalnin's Coral Castle
The Mystery of Edward Leedskalnin - Coral Castle
The UPUAUT Project

For the Pyramid image: Images Copyrighted by Historylink101.com & found at Egyptian Picture Gallery.

Indie-fy your iPod! Part 2

2009-06-20T22:29:00.009+08:00

OK, so you've all got your iPhone 3.0 software updates. Congrats to all of you. My dad received his update CD from Maxis this morning, so my bro's helping him update his iPhone. Anyway, welcome to Indie-fy your iPod! Part 2.

I have to admit, I had quite some fun blogging about indie-fying your iPod/Creative Zen/mp3 player last week. I'm back with more links now, but this time around, I'll focus on the downtempo /ambient / trip hop / electronica stuff. Good for chilling out after a long, hard day's work or right after I finish my exams.

ARTIST/BAND/MUSICIAN #1

First up is Sel-P, from Russia. I stumbled upon his (I assume Sel-P's a guy because of his display pic) page a few years back, while searching for...yes, indie stuff. I have not even the slightest idea of what's mentioned on his website because it's all in Russian, but I decided to play around and see if I could download stuff. Random clicking was all it took, and I was downloading his songs the next moment. There's a mixture of ambient, jazz, and downtempo over there...so, just download what you want to listen to, right?

Free/paid download?: Both available

My favorite song: BY MY SIDE
- It has some sort of late 1980's/early 1990's feel to it, I'm not sure why I think that way...probably because the 2nd and 4th beats in this song are stronger. The backbeats somehow remind me of Duran Duran. I'm not comparing, I'm just saying.

Websites/Webpages
Sel-P's page at PROMODJ.ru

Author's notes:
I just remembered that I can use Google Translate to help me a bit. Stupid me.

ARTIST/BAND/MUSICIAN #2

OK, so it's not really 'artist/musician/band' now, but a collection of several musicians and bands. According to their Myspace page, Ultimae Recordings was founded "...with the aim to create a portal for all ambient music lovers..." in 2000, by Vincent Villuis and Sandrine Gryson. I haven't had the time to really browse through the website, but I discovered New Age and Electronica during my brief browsing a few days ago (yay to New Age and Electronica lovers).

Free/paid download?: You need to pay for the tracks, but you can preview them by selecting low or high stream quality on every band's page.

My favorite song: None yet in particular, but I'm currently streaming the Fahrenheit Project Part 3. I might consider buying one of the Fahrenheit Projects.

Websites/Webpages:
MYSPACE: Ultimae Recordings
Ultimae.com

Author's notes:
Yay! Headbanging time!

Music: Mash-up, bootlegs...or bastard pop?

2009-06-18T15:03:00.010+08:00

Wax Audio's 'Weapons Of Mass Destruction'

Recently, I talked about how today's pop music standards are rather 'meh', and how I turn to indie music. Well, along the way, I visit mashup websites from time to time. Mashed up music, not mashup apps.

What's a mashup, or a bootleg? I'd define it as: at least two completely different songs (in a capella, instrumental, or full form) being 'mashed'-up into one single song. Or, to put it simply, a 'remix'. Some have even called it 'bastard pop', but I'll stick to calling it 'mashup' because 'bastard pop' doesn't...well, would you want to describe your favorite music genre as 'bastard pop' to other people? (fine, call it what you want, but I don't think Grandma is too keen about her grandchildren listening to something called bastard pop)

Bootlegging/mashups have been around for actually quite some time; I've included a few links at the end of this post, if you're interested to read about the history behind them. I'm not gonna talk about the history here, because 1)I make history sound impossibly boring and 2)I make impossibly boring history sound worse.

Anyway, one reason I love listening to mashed up songs is because they have a different 'spin' to them, compared to the original songs. One of my favorite mash-ups is a mash of NERD's 'She Wants To Move'(vocal/a capella track) vs. Muse's 'Supermassive Black Hole'(instrumental track). I've forgotten where I found it, so you'll have to go find it yourself if you're interested in listening to it. Whenever I hear the original songs nowadays, my brain keeps switching to the mash-up version, which I've gotten quite familiar to.

Another interesting version of mash-ups are ones where they take audio snippets of speeches of famous people (for example, Martin Luther King's 'I Have A Dream') and added them to a background tracking. One Australian website, Wax Audio, has quite a number of examples; CLICK HERE to go visit the website.

Maxxhitts Bootlegs

Besides the good stuff, I've also encountered weird-sounding(to me) mashups. One example is a mashup between Flo-rida's 'Low' feat. T-Pain, and Madonna's 'Like A Prayer'. The mashup was quite...how should I say this...tough for me to digest. I've also forgotten where I found this particular mashup, but I think it is better for me to forget it. Enough said.

Bootlegs/mashups have also come under fire due to legal issues, mostly along the lines of unauthorized use of copyrighted tracks for mixing. You'll see disclaimers on several mashup websites stating that the mixers themselves do mashups for personal purposes, and not for money-making purposes. Complicated legal stuff.

And now, behold the list of mash-up websites, and mash-up-related websites.

Mashup/bootleg MP3s
Bootie - the biggest bootleg mashup party in the world
DJ Fac - Mashup madness from Switzerland
DJ MaxenTropy - Max Entertainment
Fissunix.com - Bootlegs/Mashups (in French)
Mashuptown.com
Maxxhitts Bootlegs (in French)
Promo DJ (in Russian)
WaxAudio.com.au

History of bootlegs
A History of Beatles Bootlegs
Bootleg Music: the collector's obsession
Bootlegs, and insight into the shady side of music collecting

Legal issues in the bootlegging world
An examination of the bootleg record industry and its impact upon popular musical consumption
Bootleg recordings and fair use
eBay policy on bootleg recordings

Jazz: Candy Dulfer

2009-06-16T19:24:00.004+08:00

Hey all,

Back to talk about Candy Dulfer this time. Hailing from the Netherlands, she's a jazz saxophonist who debuted with the album Saxuality in 1990. Sad to say, I've never heard her name being mentioned here in Malaysia. OK, let me narrow down 'Malaysia' to the Sarawak region, because I'm not sure about how it is in Sabah and West Malaysia. Come to think of it, it would be cool to actually watch Candy Dulfer and the Funky Stuff perform at Miri International Jazz Festival in the future. =)

Do CLICK HERE to visit her Myspace page, go check out some songs posted there (last I checked, there were Youtube videos as well).

Other links to visit:

Official Website

Youtube page

Indie-fy your iPod!

2009-06-14T00:25:00.008+08:00

Dear iPod-ers, fellow Creative Zen-ers and other music aficionados,

Sometimes, you can find better stuff that is NOT mainstream and (sometimes) for free. All this yadda-yadda-yadda talk about copyrighted music and DRM in the music industry today (which, sad to say, produces rather crappy music nowadays) AND also the nature of 'produced' pop music is forcing me to move towards the independent industry. And I'm glad I did that. Today's 'mass consumer' music has truly degraded to such a standard that I no longer miss waiting for new songs to play on the radio/videos to watch on MTV (You know, that channel that plays equally crappy reality TV shows. The one that used to play good music back when we were younger).

I keep finding stuff I call 'treasure' on independent music sites, which usually offer free MP3s (the legally free ones) or free music previews. I used to go to music.download.com to download them, but since March 2009, the website has been closed down and I keep getting redirected to Last.fm's website (their sister site apparently). Thank goodness there are other websites out there.

Yeah, I can hear you saying "What?? Yeah, I know it's legally free but it's gonna take me a looooong time to preview and search for good songs!" My answer to that: so what? That's part of your journey. You want good music, so you better search for it. Nothing comes easy. Basically, IMHO, the more stuff you listen to, the wider your music selection will be.

Take your pick. Listed below are a few websites I usually chill out at. :

For something a little closer to home, check out the following:

Junk

The Wknd

A few of the websites lean more towards electronica, nu jazz, backbeat, and downtempo, but besides that, there are also other genres to check out. Second thing, you may need to pay in order to download a song or two. Soundclick is one of them, but of course, there's always the link for previewing songs. Happy surfing!

Selamat Ari Gawai Dayak

2009-06-02T17:27:00.005+08:00

Nyadi aku tu deka nyebut...

Selamat Ari Gawai Dayak, Gayu Guru Gerai Nyamai,

Enti ulih, anang enda pulai,

Anang enda ngabas apai indai...

Sad to say, my Iban fluency ends there. Greeting's late by one day, but still...it's gonna be a looooong month of festivities for the Iban people.

No Gawai celebration for us this year, because paternal grandfather just passed away in February. By coincidence, my final exams are coming up next week (the first one being Fluid Mechanics) so I might as well use the 1 week for extra studies. Plus, my mother's relatives are coming over tomorrow morning, so at least we have company for Gawai, hahah. My aunt (mother's sister) went to visit my maternal grandparents in Kaki Wong, Saratok, so there are only the four of us (bro, me, parents) here in Miri.

Once again, Selamat Ngintu Ari Gawai.

Lesson of the Day

2009-05-24T13:00:00.003+08:00

Lesson AND Quote of the Day: Help someone who can't return the favor. ~ Author unknown.

Source: http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/6664283.html

Playhouse Disney...no, Playhouse Pujut

2009-05-17T19:20:00.004+08:00

A few weeks ago, my mother and I went to the Pujut wet market to buy food. While strolling around, I noticed a couple of kids 'playing house' in one section of the market. They were also 'playing school' in the same area. One of the girls, approximately 7 years old and probably the eldest kid, was teaching her friends how to read. A boy around 5 years old was the constant victim of the children's laughing, because he never paid attention during the 'lesson'. While a lot of today's kids lull their time away with PS3 and Nintendo and Facebook (yes, Facebook), the kids in the picture above had to make do with an old Panasonic box and create their own playing space.

It looked kinda fun though; it reminded me of the good old days of playing with my neighbours-cum-friends Sam and Kim more than 10 years ago. We used to pretend we were hunting for aliens in our backyards, and would come screaming and running to our 'base'. We even carried around a basket full of food during our hunting. Now, come to think of it, who would carry food while hunting for aliens?

Recap of Previous Week

2009-05-15T23:53:00.007+08:00

WARNING: LOTS OF PHOTOS UP AHEAD!!

Fluid Mechanics lab, as demonstrated by Asfan (no wonder our lab results were messed up, heheheheh). It involved measuring the pressures of Channels 1 - 19, and it was kinda fun watching the oil as laminar or turbulent flow. Need to hand up the lab report this coming Thursday.

And then, below are pictures of one of our weekly Sunset Chill-Out Sessions at the Curtin Lake. Time for having fun with friends and eating some Big Apple doughnuts at the same time.

Next event was the Kids Carnival at Kelab Rekreasi Petroliam, 9th May 2009; was one of the volunteers at the Games booths. Pictures below.

How bout a slot for Research of the week? 'Survival of the fastest' theory at Curtin Uni has been proven for the 106,098,293,000,234,345th time. Once again, Izzat and I (and a couple of other people) had to brave the wilderness of the Curtin Cafe to hunt for leftover food.

The problem with Big Apple doughnuts...

2009-05-04T08:34:00.005+08:00

Big Apple just opened at the Bintang Plaza new extension in Miri recently. Big Apple = doughnuts = I want them! But a friend mentioned that she doesn't want to eat those doughnuts because they're fattening. That same friend used to work at a doughnut shop in Perth, so you can say that she's bored of doughnuts.

Somehow, I managed to find another reason for her to NOT eat doughnuts.

They can HARM your computer.

Beware the invasion... *evil laughter*

Life's GG!

2009-04-27T09:18:00.003+08:00

Recently, a few friends and I were tagged by Bro Ham on Facebook...we got tagged on the LG logo. Yeah, Life's Good. I guess it was partly because Ham was having fun listening to the Mech students torture themselves with assignments.

Ouch there Ham, life's not good. Life's GG!

[Sad to say, only GGClient people can understand this, hahah]

Random Shot: Unidentified Sleeping Organism

2009-04-23T21:49:00.008+08:00

The creature in the photo above was spotted in the G3 building this evening, during break time. Said creature resembles the Hunter from Left 4 Dead, with the exception of energy levels; this creature prefers to sleep instead. All humans may morph into something like this creature, and some known reasons include assignments (known to reduce hit points) and super-long hours spent in class.

The Hunter, Left 4 Dead

(http://www.left4dead.be/)

(For the 'scientists' who I hung out with at the ICT a few nights ago, you should be able to recognize this creature instantly. It is the exact same one that quoted 'Intersection C ln D' in its sleep recently)

A Letter: Dear Firefox 3

2009-04-18T00:41:00.005+08:00

Oh, it hurts!

Dear Firefox 3,

You suck. You keep breaking my heart by crashing at the most inconvenient moments. Oh how my temper rises whenever you persist on crashing. I tried so hard to mend our relationship by reinstalling you several times, checking your plugins and add-ons, and checking which profiles may cause those moody crashes. I fought against Kaspersky and Norton to 'mess up' the firewall settings for your sake. It seems that nothing works. You even kick up a fuss whenever I open sites with embedded Flash files. If this is how it's meant to be, I'm afraid I'll have to rethink our relationship. Plus I'm starting to get to know Google Chrome.

Sincerely,

Dissatisfied Firefox 2 (yes, Firefox 2) user.

Nikon D5000?

2009-04-14T16:49:00.005+08:00

Nikon D5000?
(crunchgear.com 2009)

Woot woot! I can hear something flying in the air! Last year it was the D90 (refer to my display picture, hahah), and my brother now owns one...so...it's the D5000 next?

I've been reading about how some people were wondering about the swivel-y LCD screen on the D5000. If the design above is the final design (based on pictures leaked on the Net), oh well, it will appeal to even more ~~camwhores~~ professional self-taking photographers.

So when will it be hitting Malaysian markets?

Other articles/news
Gizmodo: Nikon D5000 DSLR: 12.3 MP, 720p HD video and Swivel screen for $850
CrunchGear: Nikon D5000 pictures officially leaked
Nikon Rumors: Nikon D5000 picture
PC Magazine: Nikon Announces Second HD video-capable SLR

Come to think about it, if its base price is approximately $850...that would be approximately RM3000 in Malaysian ringgit. Ouch, that's equivalent to a basic-end laptop. This leaves another question for me: a new laptop or a new DSLR? Hahah!!

Floods in Miri

2009-04-13T20:56:00.008+08:00

Falling asleep while doing my Maths assignment yesterday evening, I almost missed photographing the floods. The floods in my neighbourhood clearly show how bad the rains were this time around (so far, I've NEVER seen flood waters in our part of Miri). Pictures below, taken using a 1.3MP(unfortunately) SE W550i cameraphone.

A lagoon in our backyard. Taken from my balcony.

Yet another view of the 'lagoon-y' mess in the backyard

My usual parking spot has been 'submerged'...

Another rainy night tonight. So far so good.

Random Shot: First Aid Training

2009-04-12T16:06:00.002+08:00

Attended Day 1 of the First Aid Training yesterday, Day 2 will be this coming Saturday. Picture above shows CPR and Vincent, during practical for scalp bandaging.

Stupid piece of news

2009-04-10T17:45:00.003+08:00

I read the UK's Daily Mail online occasionally. Today, this particular news item caught my attention:

Mother who smacked son, 8, with hairbrush in 'moment of madness' is forced to give him up to social services

Jeez. Seems that children have become 'untouchables' now. I've been disciplined with a rattan rod (remember those days when teachers used The Rod to discipline unruly kids?) and I'm pretty much still alive today. So now, mother and child are separated just because of a whack with a hairbrush? I hope the headline above helps to explain the increase of juvenile crime cases in the UK.

Overreacting bastards.

(Another news headline from the Daily Mail, youth violence 'at it's best' : 'My kid plays with Lego... they play with knives': Father of 'torture' boy blasts his 'attackers')

Random Shot: Open Day

2009-04-06T21:32:00.003+08:00

Rowie and Ophe

Seriously, it was a random shot. Curtin Open Day, 4th April 2009. Ahaha, I have the feeling that both girls will hunt me down once the Tuition-Free Weeks are over.

What's up with Batang Ai?

2009-04-02T09:15:00.009+08:00

Welcome to Lubok Antu, Batang Ai. Or, as reported by TV3, 'Batang Air' (why 'Batang Air'?).

As everyone can very well see, the Batang Ai area is a political battlefield at the moment. The almost-idyllic Lubok Antu has been transformed into a playground of politics. The MP for our area died in February, just a few days after my grandfather died (I was in Lubok Antu around that time for my grandfather's funeral). Time to elect a new MP.

The people in Lubok Antu are really into politics. Sometimes, I can 'feel' politics in conversations during Gawai and Christmas (which happen to be the only times I can visit Lubok Antu).

Die-hard BN supporter.
(Photo courtesy of brother Wayne, February 2009)

Even the dead dabble in politics.

If not for the triple elections (Bukit Gantang, Bukit Selambau, Batang Ai), I don't think I'll ever get to see Lubok Antu a lot on TV. It's the timing of the three elections that makes this whole thing interesting. My brother and I excitedly pointed out familiar places whenever footages of the political scene in Lubok Antu were shown on TV this past week.

"That's where we always have kolok mee!" (note to Hisham: yes, they have kampua mee too, but of course, kampua mee is best eaten in Sibu)

"Those are Jumpa's and Jumui's shops!" 'Jumpa' and 'Jumui' are 'Iban'-ized pronunciations of two Chinese traders' actual names, possibly Joon Fah and Joo Moi. I keep forgetting to read their shop signs for their actual names. One has a hardware store (which also sells electrical goods), and the other sells food stuff like smoked fish - 'salai ikan' - and the like. My cousins and I used to walk from SK Lubok Antu to that shop to buy ice cream.

Police headquarters under construction, taken from across the Lubok Antu post office.

See that body of water? That's the 'Lubok Antu', apparently. Shot taken from Fort Arundell. That building is the Immigration office (we're near the Sarawak-Kalimantan border).

I'm still too young to vote though, according to Malaysian law. I need to be at least 21 years old to vote. I'm only 18 (turning 19).

Once again, welcome to Lubok Antu.

Youtube's fooling around

2009-04-01T22:12:00.004+08:00

Hahahahahahahahahaha, first it was the Rickroll incident, and now this:

I was searching for videos of the Cossack dance and found this one. Somehow it's very interesting to watch the dance being performed upside down. Thanks to Youtube's April Fool joke.

Snapshots of the Stressed Ones

2009-03-27T00:02:00.007+08:00

My Engineering Graphics weekly activities

Bapak Nadzim, masih bisa senyum membikin research!

Izzat doing his Engineering Graphics activities.

George and Asweny in heavy discussion.

Muka stress karena nggak cukup tidur semalaman.

Dinner Conversation

2009-03-15T13:19:00.006+08:00

Last night was one of the most interesting/laidback nights I've ever had with a group of friends. After the CV! gathering, three of us (the 'Campus Tour' gang) went to chill out by the Curtin Lake, and we ended up singing the Australian national anthem. Asfan, Ophe, and Rowena joined us around 20 minutes later, and the six of us watched the sunset. Hahah, it does sound cheesy, but it's one of those extremely rare days where we could just sit down and forget about studies and club events for a bit. After the sunset, somehow it started to drizzle and so we decided to leave. While walking back to our cars, we did some random singing again (what's up with the singing, I have no idea how it started).

Dinner was another crazy affair. We decided to eat in Senadin (everyone else was probably downtown or something) and just spent the whole time chatting about various topics, ranging all the way from American politics to a medical case (uh, too 'ouch-y' to talk about, it involved the stories of jealous wives cutting off their husbands' private parts, though on a medical level) and ended with the Dodgeball incident at a previous Orientation Nite last year.

It was a very interesting night for me, because we didn't have to talk about work this time around (my usual dinners with other friends did involve quite a lot of talk about work and studies and all that). We were just spilling out as many things as we could, and talk about whatever that was on our minds at that time. Plus, this is the first time I've ever had dinner with everyone of them this year. And probably the first time I've ever had fun in goodness knows how many weeks. 'Cheers' to another semester of being together. :-)

Logging off for now.

Tonight's entertainment is....spam!!

2009-02-28T21:10:00.005+08:00

Enjoy it 'EEvery' day?

Ah, spam mail. Throughout my goodness-knows-how-many-years of life on the Internet, I'm probably close to deleting my billionth spam mail (I'm being modest here, I've probably deleted more. Hah!). Spam mail is just like a dandruff problem.

I find spam mail amusing though, especially their titles. Because today is a weekend, how about looking at a couple of the ones I have in my junk mail box...(a couple of them are NSFW, so if you're reading this at work, I advise you to read it later on your own laptop or something)

Still need my number?
Only if it's your bank account number. Don't forget to include the password.

Grow your organ longer than ever
Oh. I was hoping you'd be able to make it bigger instead. So that more people can play with it. Hey, which organ did you think I was talking about?

I found you a new job
Someone kept insisting that he found me a new job...I got this mail a couple of times. If only he could help me find the cheapest noodles in town.

Where to buy [insert name of sexual health product here] online?
I thought you were supposed to spam me about that? Poor spammers, even they can get confused at times.

Hell yeah, I've even received spam mail from myself a couple of times.

Hantu Bungkus is on Wikipedia

2009-02-13T23:10:00.006+08:00

Malay Wikipedia

Was just playing around with Wikipedia a while ago, and decided to visit the Malay version of the website. Out of curiosity, I checked out articles of local Malay ghosts...we have the Pontianak, commonly described as a lady with really long hair and white robes. Some sort of a Malay vampire, said to die during childbirth. She's also available at the main Wikipedia, just Search for her (go use the search engine, I don't recommend searching in the jungles at midnight).

There was also mention of the Toyol, a tiny creature kept for stealing stuff, and the Hantu Galah (literally The Bamboo Stilts Ghost?), who is so uber-tall till your neck hurts when you look at it. And the Hantu Galah can actually trap victims using its scissor-like legs. Scissors chokeslam move...wrestling, anyone? I bet even The Undertaker will tremble at its feet.

My favorite article is the Hantu Bungkus article. The Hantu Bungkus is some kind of jumping wrapped corpse, almost like the ones you see in those older Hong Kong movies from the 70's and 80's. Below is proof of why I love the article.

Some dude decided to write about how you can run away from the Hantu Bungkus in a zig-zag manner, because the creature only moves in a straight line.

This really made my day *smiles*.

No, this post was not intended for mocking. It's just talking about taking a peek at local Malay beliefs, and reading what other people wrote about that on the Net.

Logging off for now.

The IC and Driving License Story

2009-02-08T13:51:00.006+08:00

Being a rather absent-minded person, I have this bad habit of forgetting things, including my purse. How about solving it with an item that most people don't usually think about (or don't even know exists)? This item only costs RM 1.00 and can be found at stores nearby, or at airports.

Introducing/re-introducing...the 'Kad Pengenalan dan Lesen' holder. Identity Card and License(driving) holder, literally.

+ Lightweight, fits two cards (some versions can fit more than two)

+ Compact and handy if you don't like carrying tonnes of membership cards in bulky purses/wallets, but unwilling to part with your Visa or Mastercard.

+ Useful for situations where you don't really feel like fumbling around with your purse/wallet, just in case stuff drops out. Which means it's useful for travellers who are rushing to check-in counters.

- Doesn't hold money, unless if you somehow manage to squeeze it in the holder. You'll have to place the money somewhere.

- Ironically, you might forget the holder inside the pocket of your pants, especially if your pants are made of rather thick material. Do check the pockets before you send your laundry to the shop across the street or before you toss your pants into the washing machine at home.

Yeah right, as if you can even see to steal my ID number. This pic deliberately taken using a 1.3MP cameraphone to reduce quality and sharpness of intended image.

Apple and the scratched iPod Nanos: HUH??

2009-01-24T14:13:00.007+08:00

The iPod Nano today (Apple 2009)

So apparently, Apple "..reaches $22.5 million settlement for scratched iPod Nanos..." (Engadget 2009). Reported on 23rd of January 2008, but on my side of the world, it's already the 24th by then. Long long time ago, a lawsuit was filed against Apple in October '05, saying that the 1st generation Nanos got scratched too easily. Something like that. So now, Apple has agreed to compensate 1st-gen iPod Nano owners a sum of $25. And if your Nano came with its own slip case, you get around $15.

I had no idea that Apple is responsible for the scratches on those Nanos. So let's say, one day, I leave my Nano lying in the middle of the living room. My cat comes by and starts toying with it. I freak out and blame Apple for not protecting my lovable Nano from my cat's claws. End of story. But I think I should file a lawsuit against my cat too, because it apparently collaborated with Apple in the scratching of my poor poor Nano.

Sheesh, the absurdity of it all. I've been reading the comments that readers posted concerning the matter on various websites, links are provided below.

Though if you'd like to take advantage of it, you can visit http://www.ipodnanosettlement.com to claim your money.

Apple nano Owners Gettin' a Little Extra 'Scratch'
Apple reaches $22.5 million settlement in Nano scratch suit
Apple settles 1st generation iPod Nano 'scratch' suit for $22.5 million

Picture source :http://store.apple.com

'Almost Montage' Desktop Wallpapers?

2009-01-23T22:34:00.008+08:00

Desktop wallpapers are those backgrounds that, well, literally decorate your desktop. There are tonnes of pictures you can use as wallpapers. Examples include family photos, landscapes, patterns, the Windows logo (gee!), your favorite animals, favorite bands, all the way to tombstones for the downright morbid people. And not forgetting the *ehem* NSFW ones.

I've been concentrating on creating wallpapers these days for my personal use. Below are thumbnails and descriptions of my favorite wallpapers:

1. The Friend Reminder Wallpaper

- a collection of several objects or living things that represent some of my friends. For example, I used the Liverpool logo to represent Kah Wai. And then, I used a picture of a kitten who looks as if it doesn't care about anything to represent Kevin (whose daily facial expression looks like the kitten's) - no offense intended there Kevin. My favorite is the orange skull at the top right; it represents Eleena, who is somehow able to 'cause danger' to herself or anyone around her (OK, I'll buy you a drink when you come back to Miri, hahah).

2. The favorite movies/singles/albums wallpaper

This wallpaper took me two hours just to search for individual components in that wallpaper. Reason being so that the colors can fit together. Among the components included in this wallpaper are I Am Legend, Nightmare Before Christmas, Hillsong's Mighty To Save, and Men In Black (the first one).

You can try making wallpapers such as those mentioned above, or you can make your own collections...favorite actors/actresses on one wallpaper perhaps, or maybe your favorite buildings. It's all up to you.

Panoramic shot gone wrong

2009-01-21T01:33:00.006+08:00

A good example of a panoramic shot gone wrong:

Yi-Hah-Hai Seafood is now Yi-Hah-Hah-Hai Seafood restaurant, thanks to this picture. I shot it a while ago, using my SE W550i's 1.3MP camera, so the pic's kinda grainy. I never noticed the mistake until after I uploaded this 'masterpiece' into my hard drive.

Logging off.
'May-May-May'

Revival

2009-01-20T23:47:00.003+08:00

Hell yeah, I'm reviving this blog. This used to be the mirror of my original blog at http://dontstopme.blogdrive.com/

I left this blog in 2007, and I'm back again. Kinda creepy reading my posts from the past, sort of revealed a younger, more naive me. What have I been through during the time period I left this place? And what did the world go through?

...Was part of volunteers for painting the Kenyalang Mental Health Association building,
...helped out at the Miri Jazz Fest '08,
...went to prom for the first time since entering Uni (not really a prom, more like a grand ball),
...helped out in fundraising for Darfur, started my Second Year in Degree (it's been three years since I entered Uni now),
...had changes in my taste for music (yeah, I still rock out to Linkin Park and Papa Roach sometimes, especially when Hisham's around coz we get to twist the lyrics) coz I was starting to listening to people like Amy Winehouse, Duffy, Katy Perry (oh yeah, Girl Power ^_^),
...learnt C programming,
...part of the John Curtin Weekend '08 volunteers to longhouses in Northern Sarawak (we went to Tatau),
...made new friends like Gerain, Michelle, Janis, Raymond, George, Karen, and everyone else,
...price of petrol went up to RM 2.70/liter (or should I say, the gov't lessened subsidies), but now it's RM 1.80/liter,
...Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to be elected to become the President of the United States, breaking a 200-year tradition of white Presidents,
...Eartha Kitt died, God bless her soul. Michael Crichton and Heath Ledger died too, God bless their souls,
...I got past the 4-year mark of being with Neopets, and now we have Neohome 2.0,
...Watched reruns of V for Vendetta and I'm still not bored of it,
...It's been three years since Gwen Araujo was murdered, RIP Gwen,
...Zack, Angeline, Bal and the gang are graduating,
...got hooked on Facebook but am no longer Superpoking everyone, haven't done so for one year now,
...the Large Hadron Collider was activated in late 2008, but now it's under repair because of some sort of meltdown,
...the Szechuan earthquake disaster that killed a heck of a lot of ppl, may they RIP,
...the Beijing Olympics 2008, which happened after that, and Lee Chong Wei brought home a silver medal for M'sia (which happens to be the one and only medal we got),
...finally found Alison Croggon's 'The Riddle' and 'The Crow' after a nationwide search,
...joined SparkPeople.com , and loving it there coz everyone's so motivating and that's what i need, lol,
...watched reruns of The Nanny non-stop...I'm watching it as I'm typing this list,
...Kenny Sia is still as funny as hell, and I'm still a loyal reader,
...my brother is afraid of 2012, and is now freaked out at any mention of 2012,
...the Altantuya Sharibuu case is still going on,
...the Bukit Antarabangsa tragedy killed a number of people when a landslide occurred,
...Terengganu elections were held on 17th Jan 2009, and PAS won,
...the opposition are called 'Pakatan Rakyat', and Penang is now under Lim Guan Eng,
...I still enjoy reading Garfield,
...Lehrmann Brothers got it bad in 2008, going down in history as the worst case of bankruptcy in American history, they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy,
...the Israel vs. Gaza wars,

...and there's more. I still blog at my original blog though, but I'll be re-blogging here. Here's to a new year.

Tuition-free week...

2007-08-30T23:45:00.000+08:00

Wow. Tuition-free week(not without assignments) is coming to an end. And tomorrow is Hari Merdeka. Wow. Time sure flies fast...makes you appreciate time even more. Yeah, it's true that we all have a fair share of 24 hours a day...it depends on how you use your time. So far, during this tuition-free week...I'm a lil ashamed to admit that I didnt read more on Engineering Mechanics, even though I'm supposed to do so. I drew some mind maps for Engineering Materials...and that's about it. I finished my EMaths online quiz, thank goodness. And the EFPC project...all I can say is that it's going along fine.

The Pre-U camp ended around 2 weeks ago...wow, that's quite an experience. I wasn't a participant in the camp...I was only a mentor. The first night, we patrolled the campsite for a few hours. Quite a funny and interesting experience; we were sitting near the GP1 toilets, eating some snacks while waiting for our shifts. My shift was with Aileen and Irwin...and then JJ, Michelle, and Hisham joined us. I only went to sleep at around 4 am or something like that...and that was after waking Dzim up for his shift. Hisham didnt sleep at all, and Ian slept for probably 40 minutes only. I woke up around 6 am, because Ian(or maybe Zack) used the hailer to wake us up...haiz...

I'm looking forward to the Longhouse Outreach program(OC: 4 seniors) in October...hopefully there's no exam on that day. All I know is that I have a Module 1 Eng. Materials exam a few days before that.OK, logging off for now...
SELAMAT HARI MERDEKA!!

The ending of week 2

2007-08-12T23:45:00.000+08:00

Week 2 of Semester 2 has now ended...(Week 4 for me, actually, because I was involved in the O-Week). Homeworks are piling up...I haven't even started making notes. Wow...haha. There is no day in which I don't think about school stuff - it's either the projects, the discussions, the homework, tutorial questions, or CV! . Last week was the gathering-cum-election for Curtin Volunteers; this week, I guess nothing happened. Had lunch with Aileen and Irwin in Senadin today...basically, I'm just feeling weary at the moment. Extremely tired, but not tired enough to reach the 'exhausted' stage. To recap this week's events...had my first tutorial and lab session for every unit I'm studying (taking 4 units this semester). Hung out with friends at the cafeteria as usual...except that this time, we belong to different groups. Everyone's separated according to surname...so basically, our troop of friends from Foundation are split everywhere. Most of them are in Group C (I'm not). We'll be splitted again in second year, according to our different engineering disciplines. Kind of weird this time, because we're not in the same tutorials or lab sessions. Another friend is in Geology...feels kinda weird because she's rarely with us now. Part of life eh. Make more new friends, but remember your old friends :D .Man...I feel old...haha. It's 2:20 a.m. now...can't go to sleep yet. Probably used to late-night conversations with friends on MSN...last week, I chatted with Angeline, Zack, Mea, and Hisham until 3 a.m....wahlau...wakakaka! OK, logging off for now...

transition into degree... ^__^

2007-07-14T23:41:00.000+08:00

DARN!! No wonder Nadzim couldn't run my Ubuntu 7.04 Live CD on his laptop...turns out that I forgot to make it bootable before burning the .iso into a CD. After the few weeks of relaxation, I decided to try running the Live CD on my laptop...and it couldn't run. Aaarghh! I only realized the problem after noticing the 'Bootable CD' checkbox in the NTI CD & DVD-maker program, because I was preparing to burn Ubuntu 6.06 LTS. Haih...I'll have to re-download the Ubuntu 7.04 image...gonna burn it again...and hopefully everything turns out well later. But then again, I don't know if it will really boot after I restart my laptop. Will have to wait and see.

And so...my foundation semester 2 results came out two days ago. I'm rather relieved because I passed all seven of my subjects (I took two LAN subjects last semester, compared to 1 LAN subject that everyone takes). This has confirmed my journey into the degree world...wow, can't believe it. Going to enter my first year of degree soon. It's going to be Engineering Foundation Year(EFY) for me and my friends..I'll have to worry about 4 units this coming semester...two of them are Engineering Mechanics 100, Engineering Materials 100, and two more...I've forgotten what they are. Better check my invoice later...O-Week's coming soon...gonna be busy again...OK, logging off for now...

results out tomorrow...

2007-07-12T23:42:00.000+08:00

Darn. Tomorrow my exam results are coming out. And if you've noticed, 'exams' is the main theme of my posts since 2005. Maybe I should change this blog's name from Poetic Tomb to Exam Tomb, because I don't feel Poetic at the moment. Huh. Time to face the music tomorrow. Pass or fail, whatever. All I know is that I'm not on the supp exam/deferred list.

Went to driving class today...whew, tiring day. Panicked at the roundabout...thank goodness I stopped in time. And thank goodness the weather was OK...sort of cloudy. After driving class, I went home...went out for an evening walk with my aunt and brother Ah Chai. And I've been online since I think 7 pm, and since it's 1:30 pm now, it's been 4.5 hours. Chatted with some friends...Hisham shocked me by sending the list of supp/deferred students, and I was wondering, huh? how did he get it? And then he said it was from L Shin...and L Shin got it from the Curtin website. Haiya. Haven't been to the Curtin website today...no wonder I didn't know the existence of the list. Ekeke. My student ID isn't on the list...which means, I have only one of two results now : PASS or FAIL.

Congrats to my degree friends who passed their units :-) . Angeline called me a few hours ago to ask bout my results...but yah, too bad it's coming out tomorrow and not today. I don't want to spend yet another day worrying bout exam results.

who is that?

2007-07-05T16:39:00.000+08:00

Remember Wilson Phillips? 'Release me, will you release me'. Back when I was a toddler, I used to think Wilson Phillips was a guy; at the same time I was puzzled to hear 'Release Me' being sung by women. Yah, Wilson Phillips...consists of two Wilson sisters, Carnie and Wendy, and Chynna Phillips (Wikipedia 2007). I only remembered about them while roaming around on Wikipedia. I started out looking for info about Def Leppard. Jumping here and there...I landed on a page about Wilson Phillips. Wow. Quite a far journey.Ish...I'm real bored here. My 'L' license will be finished probably next week. Exam results will be out next Thursday...I shudder to think of it. I'm waiting patiently at the moment. While clearing up my room...I found something I never thought I'd find soon - the Death Note. Yes, seriously, I found my Death Note. It was in a box at the bottom of my bed; I'm surprised to find it so near me, because I've been looking for it for a few months. The book was actually a free gift that came along with Kreko's bumper edition around two years ago (Kreko is a Malaysian magazine that caters to manga and anime fans, and Death Note was printed in it 2-3 years ago).OK, that's all for today. Logging off for now..

Chronicles...of aquatic animals...

2007-07-01T12:33:00.000+08:00

Spider crabs. Hmmm. I remembered, I almost screamed when I saw the spider crab - the Japanese one if I'm not mistaken - a few years ago. It was either at Kuala Lumpur's Aquaria or Bangkok's Siam Ocean World. The sight of the crab...it has long legs, and well, its name really describes its appearance. It's my least favourite aquatic creature, because it creeps me out. No offense, spider crab lovers, I mean no harm; it's just that my fear of spiders is....well...

My favourite fish is the arowana, a freshwater fish. It has elegance, and its scales are beautiful...they seem to glisten in the light, arranged neatly like floor tiles. That's not the best comparison though...you have to actually see an arowana, and only then you'll understand what I mean.

Anyway...i've been reading about marine life lately. I found a few websites/pages/articles with photos and descriptions of several different species, and I'd like to share them with all of you... ^__^

Monterey Bay Aquarium
University of Michigan Museum of Zoology - Animal Diversity Web (search for Arapaima)
Siphonophores.org
Oceanlink - Hagfish (really slimy!)
Sarawak Forestry website - Green Arowana

WARNING : These websites are not made by me, nor are they owned by me. I am not responsible for the content on any of the websites stated above.

My 'Computer' History

2007-06-27T23:40:00.000+08:00

A friend and I recently chatted about computer games of the olden days. Or more precisely, the games we played in our early childhood. And there you have it, we were talking about Pacman, Tetris, and the like. Super Mario was also part of the chat; it was back in those days where our consoles were the tape ones. I remembered playing Super Mario at around 6 or 7 years old. Wow, it was more than a decade ago. My younger brother, born in 1995, was introduced to the gaming and computer world far earlier than I had been. Nostalgia, nostalgia...

My first computer game was probably the skiing game, which can be found in the Windows before Windows 95. Windows 3.1, if I'm not mistaken. You had to control a guy who would ski downwards, trying to avoid trees and some kind of snow monsters at the same time. There was another game I played, but I just can't remember what game it was. Being a child of only a few years of age, the only thing I could do was to maneuver the ski guy, and to gape in admiration at the aquatic screensaver.

The year 1999 came. My father bought a new personal computer for the family. In those days, a PC was around RM 4000+. Pentium II was the best in those days. The first game my brother and I played on that PC was Crayola Art Studio 2. And another game was Duke Nukem...in 2D, if I'm not mistaken. Now, imagine how long ago that was. Almost 10 years ago. It was also the same year I started exploring the Internet - with filters - and a few months shy of my 10th bithday, I managed to acquire knowledge of HTML. My dear readers, that was in the days before CSS was well-known. DHTML was 'the thing' back then. Frontpage Express and Notepad were my favourite programs in those days(too bad Microsoft Frontpage no longer exists in Office 2007).

My first image editing program was Paint Shop Pro, can't recall what version it was but it was the late 90's as well. I remember how I used to put borders around family photos, and I would always lament about the lack of a scanner (scanners were darn expensive in those days; today, you can find scanners as cheap as RM 150). Waiting for printed material was even more tough; thank goodness laser printers exist today. Bubblejet printers are quite slow...those who have experienced this will surely nod with me.

Then came the early 2000's (2000, 2001). By now I was already maintaining stuff on the PC, for example defragmenting and the like. Still quite attached to using floppy disks (when was the last time I saw drive A:/ ? Hehe); it was still the norm in those days. A pendrive with 128MB storage was worth RM 100+ in those days (today, 2GB pendrives are sold at around RM 70). And the Playstation 2 had just been released; everyone was excited. I remembered seeing my little brother trying his best not to scratch any disk's surface everytime he placed it into the PS 2's CD tray (what a different scenario it was back then. Today, his anger has caused quite a few destroyed controllers.)

And today...the XBox 360, PS 3 and Nintendo Wii have all been released, 2 GB pendrives are sold at around RM 75, the fastest processing speed so far is 4.7 GHz (Newsfactor.com 2007), almost everyone I know owns an external hard drive (well, me included; you can't live without one), and Adobe CS3 Suite is 'the thing'. Warcraft: DotA Allstars, Generals, Voyage Century Online, Last Chaos...it seems that there are endless possibilities. Once upon a time, storage limit for e-mails is around 2 MB. Today, we have companies like Google, offering 2 GB (and increasing) worth of e-mail space. Once upon a time, all these sounded impossible.

Enough about computer technology talk. Back to reality now. Oh yes, I passed my driving theory test. Woohoo! But well...1 down, 6 more to go. I still don't know the results of my other exams...I'll have to 'suffer' until the 12th of July. Less than 3 weeks, eh? Now that the holidays are here, I suddenly feel as if I have nothing to do. I remembered one time, Alvin, Asfan and I had a conversation during Chemistry tutorial break. We were discussing about what to do during the holidays. We were even talking about College Saga(Mark Leung y'all) and stop-motion animation got thrown into the talk as well. But ya...holidays finally here and there's nothing to do.

Hmmm...

2007-06-08T14:29:00.000+08:00

Do you know that feeling, the one where you wish as if you could turn back time? So that you can change everything? If only you were firmer with your decisions. If only you could rewind all those memories again. If only you kept track of time, and if only you didn't pretend that it wasn't coming. If only you could erase all those carelessness and mistakes. If only you had paid more attention, so that you'd see it coming. If only you could change, just to make everything run smoothly. If only you could get that one chance...

Aha. What did you think those words were about?

Sorry to destroy your mood, but that's how I feel about the dreaded word : EXAMS.

My exams are coming up soon...the degree students will start having their exams next week, while we foundation kids will have ours on the last week of exams. I was on campus a few days ago for a meeting, and well, there were lots of students (of course that was expected). The library was open, so Aileen and I went there to borrow some Chemistry textbooks to revise for the exam. Because I am what I am, I haven't opened any of the books. Before the tuition-free week, I borrowed a few books for Moral Studies...and yes, I also haven't opened those books. No, it wasn't Gawai fever that made me like this. It was...PROCRASTINATION FEVER. After going to the library, I met Angeline and we had a drink at the cafe...and then Irwin and Ian came along. I remembered this conversation we had...

Irwin to Ian : "Can you say something to motivate studying?"

Ian : (after pausing for a while, with a serious face) "Study, or you fail."

Ekekeke...the scene is actually funnier in reality. After the cafe, Angeline and I went to Alvin's...Dollah was also there. Nadzim joined us later. The initial plan to hold a group study was transformed into Voyage Century Online tutorial (the one about chopping logs...dum dum dum) and movie-anime criticism. Had dinner at Yummy Yummy, and we went home after that.

Heard that Evan's aunt was recently called home to be with the Lord. Evan, takziah diucapkan to you and your family. God bless your aunt.

Back from Gawai...

2007-06-06T23:22:00.001+08:00

Finally, my laptop has come home...few days before the end of the semester. Thank goodness it's before Gawai, otherwise I would have been stuck in Saratok without a laptop. And yeah, just in time for me to do last minute touch-ups for my group's Visual Basic .NET project. Thank goodness. The whole weekend last week, we had to stay up until midnight to finish our project...at least the interview's over now. I'm happy because we have no more assignments, projects, or reports to hand in;the only problems I have now are my exams. The final exam timetable came out on the Curtin website around 1 week before the end of the semester...I have Physics, Chemistry, and Moral Studies on Tuesday. Wow, 3 exams in one day...and each paper will be 2 hours long. I've read all my notes and textbooks, but I haven't started my tutorial revision. Better do it within these 2 weeks...at the moment, I'm still puzzling over the 5 articles for the Research & Writing 062 unit. I've been rereading them over and over, but unfortunately, the powers of those articles are larger than the power of a sleeping pill...I found myself dozing off from time to time. I tried reading the articles on the journey from Miri to Saratok last Thursday, but well...even a glass of kopi peng gao couldn't keep me awake.

Went to Saratok for Hari Gawai...we left on Thursday, after my final class in the afternoon. We reached my grandparents' house near midnight, around a few minutes before 12 a.m. of the 1st of June. Just in time to 'ngirup ai pengayu', as my grandmother puts it; no, the kids weren't allowed to consume alcoholic drinks, mind you. I didn't go with my cousins to the Sungai Engkabang longhouse on Gawai morning; instead, I stayed home to wait for the guests to arrive. And yes, the Sungai Engkabang people came in the afternoon. The men joked and laughed loudly outside, while the women gossiped and reminisced quietly inside the house. Hmmm...I took some pictures of the occasion..will upload them some day. Gawai in my family is nothing like the loud loud loud loud Gawai celebrations you see on TV. Well yeah, it's merry, but it's nothing like the ones in documentaries. No spearing pigs, no ngajat sessions...nope, it's more like the 'open house' sessions you can find in the city.

Sunday morning, we left Saratok to visit my paternal grandparents in Lubok Antu; we went to the town first before visiting them. 2 of my cousins joined us. Ate mi kolok at the open-air food court, and yes, I never forget teh o peng. Oh ya, there's a new food shop in Lubok Antu, too bad I can't remember its name. The people even sell kampua mee there (how far is it from Sibu to Lubok Antu?). Visited my grandparents in the afternoon, and somewhere in the evening, we went to the Batang Ai hydroelectric dam...took a few more pictures there. My brother Ah Chai and our cousins were only too happy to become models for the pictures. Too bad, it started raining around 10 minutes after we arrived. Very well...logging off for now...

Post number...goodness knows...

2007-05-21T15:26:00.000+08:00

Turns out my laptop never had a problem with its RAM. It's the screen. And I'm still waiting...and I have been waiting since goodness knows when. The laptop hasn't been fixed...it looks like the semester will end BEFORE the laptop's fixed. The laptop's condition is now more of a joke, and I'm starting not to miss it, despite being stuck with my old laptop (the one that Ah Chai kicked last summer). Ish ish ish...I've been thinking of putting Ubuntu Linux into the newer laptop, few weeks before it had its problem. But whatever. I should get a new laptop - wanna try Dell or Compaq. Don't think I'll be getting a Mac, because that means I'll have to fly to Kuching - eventhough Dzim's and Mea's Macbooks look tempting.

I attended my first driving course this month. It was a bit torturing, having to sit for 6 hours inside the classroom - sort of like an unending lecture. The chairs were rather uncomfortable, and the tables were rather weird - I had a problem with the tables because I'm mostly left-handed. I'll take my computer test after the final exams (they're coming in a few more weeks).

Whew...now that the SOARs interview session and Chemistry presentation are over, I will now concentrate on my RSW final draft, Moral Studies individual report, the last Phys 062 + Chem 062 Lab reports, 2 final Engineering Maths tutorial sheets, Visual Basic .NET project, and Phys 062 presentation. Wow. They have to be finished before 1st of June, which is Hari Gawai. OK, logging off for now...it's 2:12 am in the morning, and I'm done for the day. Jia you and ganbatte for all of us tomorrow.

Currently Reminiscing

2007-04-10T23:25:00.000+08:00

Wow, it's been 1 month and 5 days since I last blogged in this particular blog. I'm using Multiply right now, but mostly for photo sharing. How can I leave this blog behind in disuse? It's my oldest blog so far...wah lau eh...*forgive my language*...

I was going through my old posts, starting from the first one published on the 27th of April, 2005. 17 more days and this blog will be 2 years old...it's been a long, long way. I consider it a great achievement because I usually don't stay with a particular blog for more than a few months...whew! Reading my old posts was like looking back in time - revisiting a past that seemed as if it never existed. I've forgotten lots of stuff that happened in the past 2 years, because I'm preoccupied with my current state as a pre-U student, CV! member, beginner photographer, and soon-to-be driver(gonna be getting my driving license in a few months). It's amazing how time passes real fast - and it's amazing how friends come and go in the blink of an eye. Sounds rather cliche, but that's how the situation feels like at the moment.

Once upon a time, somewhere on the other side of the world, I was either ranting about my exams or getting mad when Manchester United lost a game. Once upon a time, life seemed as if it goes this way : exams come, exams go, hang out with friends, nothing much happened. If I compare the situation in the last 6 months with my 2005-mid 2006 activities, I believe I've experienced a thousand more new beginnings than what I've experienced the past 2 years. Nothing much happened in high school, seriously.

Currently, it is Week 6 of the first semester of 2007. Yesterday, Alvin, Jeff, Jared and I went to the Human Life Service centre in downtown Miri, somewhere near AmBank(Alvin drove). We borrowed some materials for our coming exhibition, which will be somewhere between 7-11 May. 1 month to go. This semester is quite short compared to last semester's 21 weeks...this semester is 14 weeks long. This Saturday, I will be having my Engineering Maths 062 Test 1 in the Lecture Theater. Sounds scary. Well, I did do some revision, so at least I shouldn't worry too much.

Besides going downtown, I went for the CV! dance class in the evening, at the multi-purpose hall. I'm feeling aches here and there...not because of the dancing, but because of playing around with push-ups. Aileen and Angeline were talking about push-ups, and we ended up trying those push-ups during our break. I can only feel the effect today...my shoulders are horribly aching. It's been quite a while since I've done a push-up...I remembered, once upon a time, the punishment for behaving badly in taekwondo class was to do push-ups. We also had them for warming up, but I think that the push-ups were used only when there was a substistute Master.

My laptop's got a problem with its RAM. Kind of weird, I bought it only 6 months ago and memory size is 1 GB...the problem occurred while my brother was using it to surf the Internet. The problem is that I can't find a recovery disk because...well, it never existed. Mine's an Acer laptop that uses the Empowering Technology thing.
I DO NOT look forward to knowing that my laptop will be formatted if it can't be saved. That's like...putting it into euthanasia. The word 'euthanasia' may be inappropriate at the moment considering its controversial situation, but that's how I feel if my laptop has to be formatted. I've customized quite a lot of stuff...I changed my Start Menu so that it looks like the Windows Vista one(I'm using Windows XP), the desktop background is one of the best Gensomaden Saiyuki wallpapers I've found on the net, and I'm in the middle of replaying Warcraft III and The Movies. Once the laptop has been formatted...all is lost. I believe the customization can't really affect the RAM, because it's been months since I've customized my desktop. And it can't be the customization because RAM size is 1 GB...nooooooo....

OK, logging off for now. I'm looking forward to a busy day tomorrow...I'll be having Chemistry lecture, Visual Basic .NET labwork, Engineering Maths, and some experiments for my group's chemistry project.

Tired today...

2007-03-05T23:23:00.000+08:00

Gua is really tired today. Eventhough O-Nite was 2 nights ago, my body still aches. All the tug-of-wars and swimming around in the sea has, well, leaked the energy out of me. Gua just want to relax for quite a while. Funnily, all the excitement at fun we had at the Piasau Boat Club seemed like long ago - I don't know why. Did not take lots of pictures during O-Nite compared to the amount I took during every day of O-Week; in fact, I lost around 40+ photos of Friday's O-Week, and all recordings I took of the 'Death Number' game. KY and Ian took lots of pictures/videos, but these few weeks, I don't think I'll have the time to ask them. Maybe sometime later. I really want the pictures of the SOARs and CVs falling backwards into sea water. Talking about tiredness...I wonder how tired everyone else is, because they went clubbing at the Thai Bar.

The new semester at Curtin starts today, but I don't have any class(no labs during the first week). Dzimmo's in our group now; he phoned me early this morning to ask if we've got class today. Nope, we've got no class. Yesterday evening I was re-reading the whole timetable to make sure my eyes were correct. I even messaged Asf to get his confirmation that we've got no class today, and thank goodness my eyes are correct. Even if we had class today, I don't think I'll be able to pay attention. Too tired to concentrate. And Evan's not feeling well at the moment; I was up all night chatting with her on MSN.

OK...logging off for now. What an exhausting but fun week.

Kingdom Of Loathing

2007-02-12T23:21:00.000+08:00

Tired of battle RPGs? Tired of leading your soldiers to war with other teammates? Having problems trying to feed your virtual pet? Let me introduce you to a RPG site which is, 'loathingly', humorous and clever. You just can't get enough of it.

I found Kingdom of Loathing(KoL) while I was browsing through a website which lists thousands of RPG websites(I'm registered on goodness knows how many of them). I was not expecting anything different, so I just clicked on the link. And voila, I came to a homepage showing stick figures. This had better be good.

KoL is what I'd call a parody of RPG websites, and an interesting one. The currency used, instead of gold or silver or coins, is meat. Yup, meat...you gain points and all that through adventures. There's stuff called Mana points, Moxie points, Mysticality, et cetera. Even the names of the places in KoL are just...undescribable. In Seaside Town, one of the places in KoL, you have 'Right Side of the Tracks' and 'Wrong Side of the Tracks'.

New players would visit the Toot Oriole bird in Mt. Noob of the Big Mountains(Toot Oriole = tutorial, if you don't get it). I chose to be a Saucemancer or something like that, and my weapon is the saucepan. My skill is called 'Saucemastery'. Yeah, sounds stupid but it doesn't mean that the site's boring. Just go check it out, rather than rely on my summary to form an opinion about the site.

Kingdom of Loathing

2007-02-03T14:45:00.000+08:00

Hmm, so what about the global warming report that was revealed recently? Rather disturbing.
I watched BBC and CNN yesterday evening, anxious to hear the findings. Here, I quote from BBC about the consequences(from Working Group I Summary for Policymakers, Fourth Assessment Report of IPCC) :

"Probable temperature rise between 1.8C and 4C...

Possible temperature rise between 1.1C and 6.4C...

Sea level most likely to rise by 28-43cm...

Arctic summer sea ice disappears in second half of century...

Increase in heatwaves very likely...

Increase in tropical storm intensity likely..."
(source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6326667.stm, 3rd February 2007)

From what I've observed, the global warming issue is not only debated in the scientific community; it has become part of politics as well. I found this page on Livescience, containing different views some experts have on global warming and climate change. It's at http://www.livescience.com/environment/060713_global_warming.html(13th July 2006).

Anyway, you can download the IPCC report online; I downloaded mine from the BBC website. The report is 21 pages long, and is in PDF format. Working Group II and III will be released in April and May respectively(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report)

Now let's look at a topic on the local level, after all the hype about the global warming : yet another kampung was demolished, this time in Selangor.I visited the Aliran.com website and stumbled upon the article, dated 2nd February 2007, click on the link below to visit it.

Kampong demolition opens villagers' eyes

What to do?

2007-01-31T00:49:00.000+08:00

Finally found something to do during my semester break : improve my Mandarin and Iban grammar and vocab. So far, I'm doing OK. I'm trying my best to learn more Chinese characters, both traditional and simplified; getting the hang of it right now. I need to know more characters because I have to depend on pinyin most of the time.

My Iban grammar and vocab? I'm not even qualified to compare my vocab to that of a 7-year-old Iban longhouse dweller. My accent isn't even OK and my pronunciation is wrong most of the time - sometimes, my mum has to phone our relatives to make sure I passed on the right message(like, for example, inviting them to dinner). Suddenly this reminds me of the first line of 'New York, New York'...'...start spreadin' the news...'

Exam results will come out on the 9th of February...I can't hope for anything much right now, because it was my first exam. Hopefully I'll do better in second semester...my problems in first semester were largely due to bad time management. I wasted my free time between lessons just for hanging out with friends. Hmm, I'll have to look up to the Group C students for inspiration. Group C contains lots of super-smart people; gonna have them as my role models.

OK, logging off for now...

Is speech free?

2007-01-22T21:33:00.000+08:00

While other people anticipate stuff such as the latest hits on MTV or the Akademi Fantasia auditions(just for example), I am right now trying to keep up with the latest happenings in the Malaysian blogsphere. Those of you who are regular readers of well-known Malaysian blogs will know what I'm talking about : the NST lawsuit. At the same time, I'm keeping up with the latest of the Altantuyaa Sharibuu murder case. It's been quite a while since I've read about it.

The lawsuit. What will its impact be on our blogsphere? The issue of 'freedom of speech' is so sensitive in our country that sometimes, I let myself believe that it doesn't exist(actually our situation in the past few years has grown better - people are freer now in expressing opinions). Below are a few links that will lead you to other pages talking about the lawsuit(some pages allow readers to leave comments, so at least you'll be able to read the many different opinions people have of the lawsuit).

SEAPA concerned by first libel suit against bloggers

Aliran - Blocking Bloggers

Bloggers Fight Back!

Malaysia Today - Case revives debate of freedom of speech versus the right to redress

International Herald Tribune - Media watchdog criticize Malaysian newspaper's lawsuit against bloggers

'Malaysia Boleh'?

Logging off for now...

Report

2006-10-10T20:41:00.000+08:00

Woohoo...so today is Car's 19th birthday...we(jim, yo, jef, jar, and me) spent the evening of 2 days ago at Boulevard Hypermarket looking for a gift for her. It was also HHsia's b-day, so we bought a present for her too. We gave the present, a necklace, to car before class this afternoon...if we weren't in the G2 building, I bet everyone would be singing 'happy birthday' real loud. hehe...

hmmm...tomorrow i'll be busy from 12-3 pm...gonna be at the CV! booth, helping CM and other CV members for the used clothes campaign. IT lab's gonna start 1 hour after that, so i'm not gonna be going wif jim to get the T-shirts we ordered last week(those t-shirts are for the upcoming malaysian studies campaign in november).

oh dear, time flies real fast. it's almost the middle of october now...i started foundation in august, and now it's almost the middle of october! i am DISSATISFIED with my results for engineering maths...lots of careless mistakes(is the square root of 4, 4?well, that's what I wrote. geram betul...careless me). and goodness knows what i scored for physics...probably flunked it. i'll have to be better in semester 2(foundation studies is only 2 semesters). another lesson learnt...OK, logging off for now...

Curtin Carnival

2006-10-08T04:13:00.000+08:00

Just got back from the Curtin Carnival tonight...too bad I didn't win the PSP or iPod Nano from the lucky draw, hehe...this year's theme is the 'Sunset'. Anyway, the funny part was the Ghost House which was staged at the GP 402(G2) building. Instead of screaming at the 'ghosts' and 'creatures', we were screaming at each other. Because I was walking at the front of the group in the second room, I think I set a chain reaction when I screamed. CM was screaming and laughing until he dropped to the floor, and the rest were freaked out. We were almost grabbing each other and forcing ourselves to get out, ekekeke...And then, there was the 'spooky butcher' part. There was this guy who was acting as a creepy butcher, and he kept chopping stuff in a weird slow-motion manner. But then, in the end, we took pictures with the people who were acting in the ghost house. Ah, at least the scares ended. The bad thing was that there were hundreds of mosquitoes wanting to 'attack' us while we were waiting for our turn to enter the 'Ghost House'...I heard that people were fogging somewhere on Curtin the previous day, so maybe that's why the mosquitoes fled. Well, maybe.

Lots of booths being set up...Varsity Christian Fellowship(christian-themed books,CDs,stuff), Curtin Islamic Society(if I'm not mistaken, the Keropok Lekor stall is under this society),Otaku Club(imported chocolates, posters),Rotaract Club(not sure how many stalls/booths they had), et cetera and et cetera(forgive my grammar). My favourite one was the City Booth(forgot the full name of the booth, correct me if I'm wrong) - they had upbeat songs playing, and I've got a few friends there. We even checked out the moon through a telescope - there was a telescope placed somewhere near the stall where people were making hotdogs and burgers(full moon tonight, Mooncake Festival maaaa...). To tell the truth, I missed the opening ceremony - I really wanted to watch a few friends performing a dance for that ceremony. But it was because me,Car,Nad,and a friend of theirs Nek went hanging out at the Mall and Parkson after Physics test ended at noon. I also missed the dance performance by the Curtin Volunteers because I had to go home for a while(bedau mandi').

There were some bands performing at the Lecture Theatre Foyer...my two favourite songs, The Cranberries' "Zombie" and Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life" were also performed. Besides reminiscing the past by hearing those two songs, I met an old friend of mine at the Carnival. We were classmates in Form 1. Can't remember what he was doing there(he's not a Curtin student; he hopes to be one)eventhough he told me earlier, but he was with his family. Hmmmmm...what other things did I do? Bought 2 Curtin Carnival T-shirts, ate some tom yam fishballs, joined a 'guess the amount' contest organized by one of the booths, going round and round in circles to look for my friends, ate ice cream...oh yeah, watched fireworks. Just right before the firework show ended, we ran to Jim's car; we wanted to leave before everyone else started leaving(to avoid some sort of traffic jam).Reached home at a quarter past 10 pm...and I posted this entry...OK, logging off for now...

the first week

2006-08-25T00:02:00.000+08:00

this is my first week of classes, and it will end on friday. i was supposed to finish a question of the inverse of a matrix of order 3x3 using the gauss elimination method, but i never did(i should have sent it in during engineering maths tutorial yesterday).which means i have to pass it in the next class. i have to attend a forum and two lectures tomorrow...but i will have to be on campus earlier because i have to discuss with my group about one of our little projects...teeheehee.

today i spent a few hours at the library...i thought the group discussion was going to be held today, but instead i met with friends of mine from another group(OK, actually we're all in the same group, but we were further divided into smaller groups for this particular discussion).had lunch with them at the cafeteria...and the usual la de da...went home at around 10 minutes past 5 pm, after having my hair cut at a saloon in pujut 2. oh well...that's all for today...logging off for now...

renovation woes

2006-08-01T17:38:00.000+08:00

Things these past few months were, well, hellish. Yeah, we're finally in Miri, but we had to repair and add a lot of stuff in my parents' house. We had to replace most of the doors, change some of the wiring, put new tiles in the rooms, buy a new water tank and putting it in place, and goodness knows what else...the constant hammering and drilling is irritating. We're still going through this kind of phase...I don't even know if they're ever going to finish. OK, so I was lying. Let me see...our cargo has not arrived(probably still in Port Klang or maybe at the port in Bintulu or wherever), my brother just started schooling in a Malaysian primary school after three years(right now, he still has problems adjusting to the system, because Maths and Science are in Malay for his year group). But anyway, the good news is that I'm gonna be studying Foundation in Engineering in a few weeks' time...hooray for that I guess...

Not much to say right now...I'm still being haunted by disembodies sounds of drilling inside my head...this brings me back to the time when renovation was going on in our home almost five years back...ugh...

sweet freedom?

2006-06-03T21:22:00.000+08:00

Ahhh...the dreaded exams are finally over. My (almost)freedom started at the stroke of 9 o'clock in the morning - the end of our IGCSE Economics paper 1. 1 hour of 'torture' in the exam hall. After the exams, I sent the last of my textbooks(GCSE Economics and Additional Maths)back to the library; I wasn't the only one there because some of my schoolmates were returning theirs too. Sent my receipt to Mr E. to be signed; my dad will use it to collect my certificate after the IGCSE results come out(as far as I know, I'm not gonna be returning to Sudan). After that one long month of sleuthing(not really), I suddenly found myself without anything to do yesterday morning. Feeling idle, I switched the computer on just to find that the Internet connection wasn't really good that day. Felt like eternity. Played a few ping pong games with my brother for one hour, but the boredom crept back. Never knew that life after exams could turn into a boring one(eh, I might be wrong).

Today was better though. The cargo guys came back to pack the last of our stuff, which will be loaded into a container tomorrow morning. From what I've heard, the ship that will carry our stuff will stop in Jeddah for a while before continuing its way to its destination(last stop : MIRI, SARAWAK). And so I watched them pack everything; the second living room is now half-filled with boxes and the storeroom(used to be my dressing room)is totally filled with packed kitchenware and goodness knows what else. Everything has been packed; I'm also packing a few stuff for that trip to Bangkok, Thailand. The flight from Dubai to Bangkok should be shorter than the flight to Kuala Lumpur(around 6-and-a-half hours), but I might be wrong. We'll just have to wait and see.

Went out to dinner at Aspawa this evening with my mom, my brother, and Aunt Et and her family. It was quite an interesting dinner because you've got to make sure that 5 kids --aged between 2 and 9 years old-- do not try to get into trouble. It was quite a noisy affair, but it was funny. We ordered shawarma and a dish that was somewhat like cheese-and-vegetable pizza; the pizza later became 'Pepsi pizza' after the eldest kid accidentally knocked down a bottle of Pepsi. Took a few snapshots of the dinner. Next, we stopped over at Ozone to buy some ice cream. Everyone had fist-sized proportions of chocolate and vanilla ice cream on cones. Pure delight!

Well...if I'm stopping in Dubai for a few hours, I WILL visit the Dubai Airport Duty Free Zone. It's a must for every visit to Dubai. Gonna be buying a few music CD's over there; my brother, as usual, will check out the video games section. Oh yeah, this reminds me that I've got to buy a few souvenirs for some friends back in Malaysia. It's been a long time since I've met them, ever since I moved away during 7th grade(I started 8th grade in August 2003, before moving to another school in 2004 which I graduated from this year). Time passes when you don't expect it to -- it still feels as if I had just attended the last day of 6th grade, and went on to middle school. And now, I have just finished my IGCSEs and am currently waiting for my results to come out in August. Probably going to college in January 2007 -- still unsure whether I want to take the Cambridge A-levels or Pre-U. Oh yeah, I'm going out with Neb and her boyfriend tomorrow afternoon. Texted Urna but he hasn't replied yet. It's either the three of us or four. Just wait and see...

let's talk about something

2006-05-19T16:04:00.000+08:00

Ho-hum...my third week of IGCSEs(the international form of the GCSE, if you don't get what I mean)has ended. The only ones I have finished are First Language English, Chemistry, and Biology. Chemistry was OK...at least I understood around 70% of the questions on the Extended paper. I believe my Biology Extended paper is messed up...I messed up the matching question(Question 1),can you believe it? My mind was totally frenzied and I believe I'm not gonna get an 'A' for Biology. First Language English was...OK...yesterday morning, I did not have the chance to make a good ending for my second question(I did question 3a) because I spent too much time trying to figure out what to write for the first question. And well, I believe that the examiner may think that I'm such a weird writer...let's not talk about exams for now.

Heard that something called Akademi Fantasia 4 is gonna start in Malaysia. Don't really know much about it, except that people are gonna be interested in watching TV again. At what time does the show start, anyway? I don't want to miss a World Cup match just because my girl cousins want to watch that show. Oh yeah, I might have to watch the first match(Germany vs Costa Rica, 9th June 2006) in an airport lounge. I will be flying to Dubai from Khartoum on the 6th of June; a few hours after midnight I'm gonna fly to Bangkok, Thailand. Goodness knows how many days I'm gonna be staying there(my dad makes the decision, of course) but we'll be flying to Kuala Lumpur from Bangkok. This will be my first visit to Thailand. Before coming up with the decision to visit Thailand, my dad had originally decided to take us to Genting Highlands for a few days. We were in Genting Highlands during last year's summer, and we thought that we would be visiting the place again(it was quite fun riding the cable cars). But well...Thailand, here we come!

I am still frustrated because Chris Daughtry had to leave American Idol. He was one of my favorite contestants...America, what have you done? *sobs* Anyway, Taylor Hicks and Katherine McPhee are staying for the finals. I wonder who will win this year? Taylor and Katherine are both talented...but me, I'm voting for Taylor. I've been a fan of his eversince I watched his audition on TV a few months back. He's a good singer, entertainer, and performer...I don't care whether people diss him or whatever.

Heard about the Sarawak elections. The last time the elections were held was five years ago, in 2001. Back then I was only 11; I can remember the banners they put by the roadsides, at roundabouts, and at anywhere possible. Politics?A serious business for Sarawak. The older I get, the more I know...hehehe...Unfortunately, I don't really know a lot about Malaysian politics. I know more about American politics because I used to study in an American school, and back then, my favourite subject was American History(I was even addicted to CNN back in the days of the American presidential election, the one between George W. Bush and John Kerry ). Hey, since we're talking about education, maybe I should just continue. Well, I'm in my last year at a British school...we graduated before the IGCSEs start. But I believe that the graduation was held in that way because everyone has a different IGCSE timetable...some of us end before the 1st of June, and as far as I know, 9 of us(including me) have our last paper on the 1st of June. And anyway, everyone would return to his or her country right after the IGCSEs...some to Egypt, some to Turkey, some to Russia...and to whichever country we come from. The results will be out in August. I'm probably starting pre-university courses or A-levels by then.

Hmmm...should I start blogging in other languages? So far, I've been blogging in English. The only time I used other languages is for code-switching; I've used a bit of Bidayuh, Malay, Iban, Arabic, and French in some of my posts. Problem is that I'm not really able to express myself in those five languages, if compared to English, which is my first language. The good thing about growing up with lots of different languages is...well, you can code-switch while dissing people, so they don't really understand what you're trying to say. Ah, what a weird topic...

Anyway, I'm really happy because Barcelona won the UEFA final. It was a good match, and there were two beautiful goals by Eto'o and Belleti. I was worried during the first half of the match--my dad was happy at that time, because he supported Arsenal. But the second half was better; thanks to Eto'o, Barcelona and Arsenal became equal with 1-1. It got even better when Belleti scored the second goal, so tipping the balance to help Barcelona win by 2 goals to 1. The next day in school, we were all arguing about the match. Ah, the joy of the spirit of football. It reminds me of one of Emirates' ads on TV a few days ago : We all speak one language. Football.

studying is hazardous...

2006-05-11T14:26:00.000+08:00

The exams and all the studying have taken their tolls on me. I can't look at something without thinking of anything 'scientific'...for example, the sight of an electric kettle makes me think about specific heat capacity and the boiling point of water. Second example : the sight of a bottle of Coca-Cola makes me think about coke; coke is one of the ingredients used in a blast furnace for extracting iron from its ores. I must have been mentally disturbed these past few weeks. Why can't I think of something else besides all these 'scientific ideas'? Generally speaking, when seeing an electric kettle, one would think about boiling water in it for making a cup of coffee or something like that. No one would be thinking about latent heat or convection.

Ah...I have just returned from some sort of brunch from Aunt Et's. My mom was there too, but my brother and I went home earlier because we wanted to play some new games on our PS2(but of course, you would not say this to your host, right?such a lame excuse). A few hours ago, I sat for my IGCSE Physics Paper 3(Extended). I can only say that I did OK; at least my knowledge in Physics is better than my knowledge of Chemistry and Biology. Yesterday was First Language English paper 2, and two days ago it was Biology Paper 6, Alternative to Practical. For me, my second week of exams has ended. Next week, I will have more exams...

that ambition of flying

2006-05-08T12:03:00.000+08:00

Despite all my posts about my dreams of having jobs connected to the business world, my original ambition was to be a commercial airline pilot. I have always been fascinated at how planes work, and how people are able to manoeuvre them. How does it feel like to fly a plane non-stop for 13 hours, for example from Cairo to Kuala Lumpur? How does it feel like to have the skill of flying a plane, a skill which only a few possess? I have to admit that I do have some fear of flying, but that feeling is always quickly overridden by that excitement of flying everytime I have to fly from one place to another. When I was younger, probably around thirteen years old or so, I often visited websites of major airlines to check the minimum requirements for applying to be a cadet pilot. Most airlines need a minimum height that is over five feet tall; for example, Malaysia Airlines requires the applicant to be at least 163 cm and Singapore Airlines requires the applicant to be at least 165 cm. I am not even 160 cm. As far as I know, there is no minimum height requirement to join the Qantas Cadet Pilot programme, but you need to have Australian Permanent Resident Status. Something which I do not have.

For you guys out there who aspire to be pilots, check this website out. It's one of my favourite websites : AskCaptainLim.com

slackin' off, ain't yer?

2006-04-29T12:40:00.000+08:00

Howzit going everyone?Yep, I've been busy these few days. It's all about studying. 4 more days till the IGCSEs...I believe I should receive the award of 'Most Unprepared Idiot'...Well, frankly speaking, I am prepared. But my mind isn't. Half of me is struggling with topics such as the Haber process, Contact process, alpha/beta/gamma radiation and the other half wants to slack off and watch MTV the whole day(it's Madonna Weekend on MTV Europe this week). I even sacrificed around three hours of valuable studying time(something I shouldn't have done) just to watch the 2nd day of the cricket test between South Africa and New Zealand this afternoon. Oh yes, I received my mock exam results on the night of the graduation dinner. The funny thing is that my Add Maths marks are much higher than my Maths marks(I do not wish to mention my marks, no apologies for that).

Oh well. I will be returning to Malaysia in early June; we'll be flying to Dubai first before flying to Kuala Lumpur. The flight from Dubai to KL usually takes around 6-and-a-half hours; it depends on the type of aircraft used. After a few days in KL, we'll be flying to Kuching. Gonna be travelling by road to Saratok/Lubok Antu. I'm not sure when we'll fly to Miri. This is gonna be one hell of a hectic summer; a summer for career-thinking and 'tertiary education' talks. I'm kind of stuck between choices right now because I don't know which college or university to attend. One of my choices is to study in Aberdeen, Scotland. I've heard my grandfather talk about it a lot(he used to study there) and I want to know how the place is like. Second choice is Johannesburg, South Africa. I've been watching SABC Africa and MNet channels for years, and I got to know a bit about South African culture through the documentaries and the adverts shown on TV. Third choice is England; I want to study for my A-levels over there. Plus, some of my friends will be studying there. Not only that, I can visit Old Trafford during the holidays. Fourth choice is Malaysia. Home sweet home. Sometimes, you just have to make a choice.

joget tayung dingan babeh...just kidding...

2006-04-26T16:15:00.000+08:00

Say hello ngagai cermin mata aku...mata kanan aku enda entu ulih meda and it started 5 weeks ago. The frame was made in Italy and overall, ungkus kena ngaga lens enggau nyambung lens ngagai cermin mata tok = 16000 dinars(RM100+). Mata kanan aku 100 degrees, mata kiba nadai ngawa-ngawa. I'm just lamenting the fact that I am not able to see as clearly as I used to.

Indai apai aku benong sibuk ngemas barang ti dibai pulai ngagai Malaysia...pagila bala sida packers datai nulong pack barang ke dalam kotak. Bala buku enda entu ulih disimpan laban I'm using most of the books for my IGCSE study...as far as my studying is concerned, I did not do well on the mocks. I had C's for my Additional Maths and Chemistry(not sure of the actual marks) and I had 76% for both my Biology and Physics, something I did not expect. I expected to get C's for both those subjects, by the way. My only A* was for Religious Studies(Bible Knowledge), and I haven't checked my Maths and First Language English marks.

Study, study, study. That's the only activity I seem to be doing. It goes like this : 5 minutes of reading about organic chemistry, yawned, dozed off for 10 minutes, woke up, continued reading chemistry for 10 minutes, dozed off again. Yep, that's my kind of studying. Something a student should NOT be proud off. Peace y'all.

spitting out mah thoughts

2006-04-12T23:01:00.000+08:00

Hey yo. I've been stuck in my books for goodness knows how long(a friend even joked that my brains would fry by the time I was done). Plan for this week : I ain't gonna be studying no more. I'ma chilling for a few days before starting my revision. Malay(as a Foreign Language) orals gonna be on Tuesday...haven't decided which topic to use. Nothing unusual happened this whole week, except for the fact that today's Additional Mathematics Paper 2 was my last paper. Everyday since last week, I've been staying in school longer than I should be(mostly two exams in one day; hometime is 1:50 pm) because I hung out with my friends. But well, there was no school on Monday because it was Prophet Muhammad's birthday that day. Thought for today : Is there a connection between the Sarawak Township(Canada) and the state of Sarawak(Malaysia)?

R.I.P. Proof D12.
R.I.P. a 5th cousin of mine who died two days ago in a car accident. I only found out recently that he's related to me through both my mom's and dad's lines. The last time I saw him was probably two or three years ago.

my taekwondo days

2006-04-05T19:14:00.000+08:00

Daydreaming certainly brings back lots of old memories. While I was daydreaming in the exam hall this morning, I suddenly remembered about Taekwondo lessons back in primary school. Believe me, it has been more than two years since I last performed a Taegeuk or upgraded my belt. We would have Taekwondo classes every Saturday evening, and there were around twenty of us(Year 1-Year 6 students). I started Taekwondo when I was 10 years old, and I remembered how I freaked out during my first lesson just because I did not have a proper uniform. Luckily, my Taekwondo instructor(we either called her Master or Lao Tze)calmed me down and told me that it was OK. It was only my first lesson. Three weeks after that, I received the uniform that I had ordered. A good friend of mine, Emma, started studying Taekwondo at the same time I did, so every time our belts were upgraded, we would be on the same level. I also had a membership card which showed that I was a member of the Sarawak Taekwondo Association.
My first upgrading experience was quite frightening. It was held at the assembly hall of Lutong Secondary School(SMK), and the upgradings for the Primary School and Secondary School were held on the same day. After running around the gym, warming up, and listening to Lao Tze's instructions on what to do, we sat on the benches and tried to 'look cool'. After one hour of waiting(we came really early), the upgrading people came. Everyone was organized into lines; we then bowed to the instructors. So, who were the first people to undergo upgrading that day? The white belt kids -- me, Emma, Angelina, Tiqah, and some other kids. We stood a few metres away from each other, all in line;my palms were sweaty and I tried to stop fidgeting. The rest were told to sit down and observe. Everyone's attention was on us.
"Attention!" Everyone stopped moving, stood straight, and tried to stop smiling.
"Bow!" Heads bowed down; butterflies in stomach.
"Chunji!" Get into position.
The white-belt-to-yellow-belt upgrading was over in ten minutes. When we returned to our sitting places, Lao Tze shot warning looks at us, trying to stop us from giggling nervously. The instructors did not notice our giggles; they were too busy marking our grading papers. This time, it was my turn to observe the others. The yellow belt kids were next; one part of their upgrading evoked curiosity in me. They performed a set of patterns, probably around 18-20 patterns. I later discovered that the name of that pattern is Taegeuk, which I started performing when I upgraded to the yellow belt.
The last people to undergo the upgrading that day were the brown belt students; they were all secondary school students. After everyone had been through the upgrading, one of the instructors(probably had the highest rank among them) called for our attention. He explained what he thought about each upgrading; he was quite satisfied with what he saw. I did not really pay attention to what he was saying. Did I pass mine?
A few weeks later, Lao Tze told us that we all passed the upgradings. Finally! Before we started our lesson, she handed out our upgrading certificates. I was thrilled to receive my first upgrading certificate, and at the same time I was eager to start the lesson as a yellow belt student. I was constantly thinking about the patterns the yellow belt students performed during the upgrading, the one that they call 'Taegeuk'. As a yellow belt student, I would study Taegeuk 1.
Unfortunately, I had to stop my Taekwondo studies when I had to follow my parents to North Africa three years ago. Back then I was a 12-year-old blue belt student who was just starting to learn Tageuk Oh Jang(Taegeuk 5). I was quite disappointed at that time, because I would have received my junior black belt by the time I turn 13(any black belt student below 16 years of age wears a red-black striped belt). I never continued upgrading my belt or taking further studies of Taekwondo; I practiced my skills and Taegeuk at home. But as I become older, I realize that it doesn't matter what colour your belt is or what rank you are; Taekwondo is an art to be appreciated and it helps to discipline you. Do not haste; you will not gain enough appreciation for the art if you try to get to black belt status in the fastest way possible. Some people I know continued Taekwondo until the first black belt; they never upgraded to 2nd Dan black belt or higher, because they believed that "...the first black belt is enough...". Believe me, there is no end to knowledge. I am planning to continue my Taekwondo studies when I return to Malaysia this year. Oh well, I hope my Taekwondo uniform still fits me...

swadesh list of iban words

2006-03-30T15:51:00.000+08:00

I've been reading the Swadesh lists for Malagasy and Tagalog...if you do not know what a Swadesh list is, click here to read more about it. So well...I decided to put a list of Iban words here, according to the Swadesh list. And please...pardon me if the words are spelt wrongly. Never been to a formal Iban language class...so I'll just spell the words according to how I hear them. I did not translate certain words because I'm not sure of the actual Iban translation. For certain words, I have to include more than one translation. Man...it's really hard being a kid with one parent speaking the Saratok Iban dialect and the other parent speaking the Iban dialect of Lubok Antu. This list is incomplete...You're welcome to correct any of my mistakes or add translated words to the list...

I >aku
you (singular)> dek/nuan
he > iya
we > kami
you (plural)> kitak
they > sida
this > nya'
that > nyin
here > ditu'
there > din
who > sapa
what > nama
where > dini
when > kemaia
how >
not > enda/ukai
all > depends on how you use the word...either 'semua' or described with the word 'magang'
many > maioh
some > sekeda
few > mimit
other >
one > satu
two > dua
three > tiga
four > empat
five > lima. Today, Iban numbers are the same as Malay numbers. I'm sure the Ibans used to have their own number system, but I do not know what it is.
big > besai
long > panjai
wide
thick > tebal
heavy > berat
small > mit
short > pandak
narrow
thin > kurus
woman > indu
man (adult male) > laki
man (human being) > orang
child > anak
wife > bini
husband > laki
mother > indai
father > apai
animal > jelu
fish > ikan
bird > burung
dog > ukoi/udok(I usually hear 'udok' in the Lubok Antu area...not sure about other areas using this word)
louse > kutu
snake > ular / ural(another Lubok Antu pronunciation)
worm
tree > pun kayu
forest > kampung
stick > kayu
fruit > buah
seed > igi
leaf > daun
root > urat
bark
flower > bungai
grass > rumput
rope > tali
skin > kulit
meat > dagin
blood > darah
bone > tulang
fat (n.) > lemak
egg > telu
horn
tail > iko'
feather
hair > bok
head > pala
ear > pending
eye > mata
nose > idong
mouth > mulut
tooth > ngeli'
tongue > dilah
fingernail > kukut
foot
leg
knee > patong(or pala patong)
hand
wing
belly
guts
neck > rekong
back
breast > tusu
heart
liver
drink > irup (translation of action words is a bit complicated, because in the Iban language there are no tenses e.g. past tense, present tense, future tense. In this case, I use the root words here. Some of the translations have the prefix 'be-'; the closest equivalent in English would be '-ing'. As in, the action of doing an action. Mind you, not all action words use 'be-'.)
eat > makai
bite > gigit
suck
spit
vomit > mutah
blow
breathe
laugh >
see > peda/meda
hear > dinga
know > nemu
think
smell
fear > takut
sleep > tindok
live > idup
die > mati
kill > bunoh
fight > belaya'
hunt > ngasu
hit > palu
cut > potong
split
stab
scratch > garu'
dig
swim > nyemerai
fly (v.)
walk > bejalai
come > datai
lie > gali'
sit > dudok
stand > bediri
turn > bekalih
fall > laboh
give > beri'
hold > pegai
squeeze
rub
wash > basu
wipe > lap
pull > tarit
push
throw > tikau(to throw stuff away, for example rubbish, you use the word 'buai')
tie
sew - jait
count - itong
say - sebut
sing - belagu
play - bemain
float - melepung
flow
freeze - meku
swell - kembai
sun - mata panas
moon - bulan
star - bintang
water - ai'
rain - ujan
river - sungai, ai'
lake - tasik(sounds more like 'tasiek)
sea
salt - garam
stone - batu
sand - pasir
dust - debu
earth - tanah
cloud
fog
sky - langit
wind - angin
snow
ice
smoke - asap
fire - api
ashes
burn - tunu
road - jalai
mountain - gunung
red - mirah
green - gadong
yellow - kuning
white - putih
black - chelum
night - malam
day - siang ari
year - taun
warm - angat
cold - chelap
full - penoh
new - baru
old - tuai
good - manah
bad - jai'
rotten
dirty - kotor
straight
round
sharp - tajam
dull
smooth
wet - basah
dry - rangkai
correct - betul
near - semak
far - jauh
right - kanan
left - kiba'
at - ba'/da
in
with
and
if - enti'
because - laban
name - nama

If you compare these words to the Malay language, you will find lots of similarities. Whether the Ibans took Malay words into the Iban language, or the Malays took Iban words into their language, the similarities are obvious.

tusah amai ati

2006-03-25T17:32:00.000+08:00

Guten Tag. I have survived five papers so far...First Language English Paper 1, Religious Studies(Bible Knowledge) Paper 1, Extended Maths Paper 2, Physics Paper 1, and Physics Paper 6 - Alternative to Practical. Feels like the real thing...I remembered feeling stressed when we did the IGCSE Development Studies exam last October. Five papers down, seventeen to go...sometimes, I believe that an exam is the worst type of torture in the history of mankind. All for the sake of education, I take those words back. I'm going to need my results to enter pre-U...well, who doesn't?*smirks*
I still feel as if it was just yesterday my friends and I played 'Capture The Flag'...three years have passed since then. Ah, those days...
Plans for the summer holidays :

1.Kick back and relax...the World Cup starts in June
2.Concentrate on my guitar and piano playing skills...train my listening skills as well.
3.Table tennis + Pool
4.Concentrate on studying the German and French language...

Those are only plans. You never know what might really happen...sometimes I change my mind in the middle of doing something. Hmmm...we have just returned from some sort of function at a new Malaysian apartment. Sometimes I believe this city is polluted by us Malaysians...hehe...I can remember how I used to remember the names of almost all the Malaysian kids three years back. There were so few of us back then...around 70 kids or so. Now, I don't even know anyone. Three years ago, Blocks A, B, C, D, and E were the only ones that existed. Now we have apartments all the way to Block K. And well...we have a new driver now....Hmmmmmmmm....

all in a week

2006-03-22T19:20:00.000+08:00

One of my greatest fears will start tomorrow : my mock exams. Another of my greatest fears was realised yesterday : Bad connection to the Internet. A fearful week, eh? Doesn't sound like a good topic. Anyway...I have been swotting up(sort of) for my mocks these few weeks. My first paper tomorrow is English...well, I now have my statement of entry for the real exams. I don't know when those statements arrived, but I collected mine from the office on my way to Economics class a few days ago. Another thing I collected was my German Club certificate...met my German teacher while a friend and I were copying our mock exam timetable in a class nearby.

Went to a Malaysian-Thai-Sudanese-Western restaurant last night. I drank 2 glasses of teh tarik and ended up 'unsleepy'(bad English, forgive me)the whole night. The movie 'Pendekar Bujang Lapok' was being shown last night, but I didn't watch the movie till the end. I watched it up to the part where Pendekar Mustar found out that the three men didn't know how to read or write...we left at around 10:00 pm. Lots of Malaysians there...I guess there were some UN people dining there too, because I saw some UN vehicles outside(I 'guessed' because I wasn't really paying attention to who the customers were).

Spamming, phishing...whatever you call it...those types of email keep ending up in my junk folder. Unsurprisingly, some of them managed to find their way to my inbox. Around 40% of e-mails I receive each week are pure, useless junk. Nothing new about that. Nope, nothing new.

pasal tusut iban...again...

2006-03-17T00:34:00.000+08:00

Firstly, please forgive me for Iban grammatical mistakes I made in this post. I never studied formal Iban language in school(I've repeated this many times before), so I guess you'll just have to try to read this post.

While I was surfing the Internet, looking for stuff about the Iban people(as I always do), aku tetemuka blog siti ti bisi....

Fine, I'll just type in English. I found a blog with family trees of some Iban families...Click here to visit the blog. It's called 'Tusun Peturun, Ripih Tusut'. The problem is that I can't translate the title directly into English. It means something like 'arrangement of generations', though I could be wrong.

I will continue my family tree project this summer, after I complete my IGCSEs. So far, I the furthest I can trace back is..

1. Me >> My Mother >> My Grandmother >> Great-grandfather(Grandma's dad) >> Great-great-grandmother(great-granddad's mom) >> Great-great-great-grandfather(great-great-grandma's dad) >> Great-great-great-great-grandfather(great-great-great-granddad's dad)

2. Me >> My Mother >> My Grandmother >> Great-grandfather(Grandma's dad) >> Great-great-grandfather(great-granddad's dad) >> Great-great-great-grandfather(great-great-granddad's dad)

3. Me >> My Mother >> My Grandmother >> Great-grandmother(Grandma's mom) >> Great-great-grandfather + mother(great-grandma's parents)

Agi bisi tusut lain dalam bup tusut aku, but I'd like to have a look at my late great-grandfather's genealogy records...so far, no one has found those records yet. But they do exist. Sayau endar nembiak Iban diatu enda entu ka nemu pasal tusut diri...

not creative right now

2006-03-16T23:25:00.000+08:00

Just returned from Chemistry class...we started at 8:00 am in the morning. I shall repeat again that all of us are under stress because of the mock exams(and well, the real exams too). My first paper is English, this Thursday...last paper is Additional Maths which is next month. So far, I've been revising Chemistry, Biology, Economics, and Gen. Maths...I haven't started revising for Physics, Religion, and Additional Maths. I need to cover lots of stuff in Physics, and I am having some problems with calculus in Additional Maths.

Talking about phones...I have changed the covers of my Sony Ericsson W550i...it is now white-and-silver, not orange-and-silver. I'll stick with white right now, because it looks more stylish.

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6 days of school

2006-02-26T14:40:00.000+08:00

Today is Sunday and I have just returned from school. We used Tuesday's timetable to compensate for a Tuesday somewhere in January...there was no school on that day; I think it was because of the African Union event or something. I might be wrong though. The mock exams are coming soon...well, what have I been doing these days?

Firstly, I am happy to announce that I have finished my summary about Rasputin and an essay from a past paper of English As A First Language. Secondly, I received an 88% for my mid-year Economics Exam. Thirdly, I now have the May/June 2006 timetable for my IGCSEs. Fourthly, a graduation party is coming up and if I'm not mistaken, everyone has to pay 4500 dinars. Fifthly, we will be having six schooling days this week. Sixthly, I have a German test coming up. Seventhly, I have not finished any of my Physics homework. Eightly, I am ashamed of myself for not knowing a lot about Sarawak's history and the White Rajahs(James Brooke, Charles Brooke, Charles Vyner Brooke).

Thought for today : Headhunting is outlawed in Sarawak(Borneo Island). It has been that way for, I guess, more than 100 years. I've been surfing the Internet for information about the culture of the Ibans, and I am quite amused to read some blogs where the owners are still scared of the Ibans(Sea Dayaks) because they used to be headhunters. I assure you, there are no headhunters in Sarawak. That was a looooooooooong time ago....Dude, if my people are still headhunters, you wouldn't be reading this blog now, wouldn't you? Just kidding...*evil laughter*

Manchester United will play against Wigan Athletic today. Can't wait to watch it!

2006-02-07T21:14:00.000+08:00

Finally...the third in the Poetic Tomb blog series...welcome again. It's Hilda again, bringing you...arts and sciences under one roof as usual. More talks about the Iban culture, music, and science. This is my latest blog.