Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I am really so glad it is Christmas day again! This Christmas fervor has been the greatest always. Although we have no white Christmas here, by just listening to Christmas carols and receiving wish cards from friends afar have been truly awesome. I ate so much of mutton and turkey even when I am having a fever! Lol. I just love the food. Great blessings. Magic of Christmas.

From tomorrow onwards, I will be staying in a hotel for 9 days for the Worlds Universities Debating Championship 2005. I have been on and off from campus for the past week and that was why I didn't write anything. In the coming week too, there will be nothing unless I find something really-must-write kind of thing. Usually, none. For more information on the Worlds, please direct your browser to http://www.mmuworlds2005.com

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

USD 44m ( I can afford USD44 only)

It is now 12 noon and I have just gotten out of bed. Turned on my computer, connected to my wifi and the usual thing - surfing.

Pointed my browser at BBC News for some latest news (I don't really fancy CNN's layout.) And, this piece of news caught my attention. Some close friends of mine knew that I am a NY-boy fanatic. I adore NY more than any places in the world. Ah well, thanks to Home Alone, that 15 years ago movie. Don't see the link? Never mind. Lol.

The news excerpt mentioned mainly about a media mogul, Rupert Murdoch who controls News Corp, and he bought a property in downtown NY for a staggering sum of 44 million US dollar (equivalent to MYR167.2m)


I don't what's the name of this apartment. Lol. Sourced from BBC News.

Quoted from BBC News:

"So buying up floors 14-16 of Number 834 Fifth Avenue is an unobtainable dream for most - even to those who consider themselves among the city's super rich.
According to the New York Times, the Australian-born billionaire offered $44m, a sum which is staggering even by Manhattan standards.
For his money, Mr Murdoch will get 20 rooms, plenty of terrace space and panoramic views across Central Park and beyond."

Lol, do you get where I am heading to? Heading no where actually. Lol. I am just fascinated by events happening in NY. Nothing impressive about this news. Just enjoyed sharing "something-NY" in my blog. And you could get pictures of Central Park by googling it. That park is really...humongous. Nothing like those in KL, KL doesn't really have a "Central Park" anyway. (Enlighten me if there is/are any.)

Sorry la, just got up, please don't expect me to write anything interesting. I am just trying to get this blog going. Lol. Please give me something interesting to write about so that I will not kill your interest. Gotta brush my teeth and start work, ciao.

I got a job!

Man, this could be my luckiest day in any holidays I have ever had. I just got hired today to do some data entry for a company! The final 3rd day of my holidays! I thought I would have spent the entire holiday spending money and not earning a single cent, and God is good (Amen!), I got a job. A 2-days job.

Well, data entry is never a hard task just that you will probably need to learn your ways through spreadsheet programs such as the hotkeys and techniques to produce a chart/graph - in simple terms, organized the data given into a presentable format.

Although it is only a 2-days thing, I could at least earn something and jam it into my wallet. But honestly, the life I lived during this holidays have been wonderful. I lived like a royalty. I ate, slept, watched TV, and played games the same style as Queen Elizabeth II did in her suite in Buckingham palace. It was totally a help-yourself kind of lifestyle. I could get out of bed as late as 2pm and go to bed as early as 6am, take an afternoon nap and by the time I got up, my dog was whinning for someone to bring him out for a pee. Simply relaxing. Ahh, Utopia!

Anyway, a job or no job doesn't change the fact that I will be back for my new academic trimester on Monday. I'm looking forward for Monday since Christmas is approaching in less than 10 days time. The best time of the year. Syiok!

Dominant intelligence

My Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language.
You explain yourself well.
An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly.
You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view.
A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary.
You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

Awwh...I'm so...anyway, this is the URL to that intelligence quiz. Try it.

http://www.blogthings.com/intelligencequiz.html

Christmas season has arrived!

Read today's Star Section 2 and you will know why! Clay Aiken's Christmas Album - Merry Christmas With Love has finally hit Malaysian shores. Finally. After almost a month on Amazon.com, finally we have it on our local CD stores.



I can't say how awesome this album is as I've only heard of only one song from that album. Also, I'm not here to recommend his Christmas album. Just here to post something up again actually.

There are many Christmas albums out there by various artists which I think they are really good and easy listening. If you don't plan to spend a single penny on Christmas album CDs and yet still enjoyed listening to Christmas chorals, you can always tune in to Yahoo! Launchcast radio. They have these 'Christmas holiday-mood' channels like Traditional Christmas and also Gospel Holiday with really good songs. Check that out.

Till then, hope you guys will enjoy your Christmas day. A time to remember and a season of hope for everyone around us. Merry Christmas to all of you (just in case I can't make it on Christmas Eve to post an article.) Have a blessed Christmas!

Campus at 4

I knew this day will come, eventually it will. Finally, today's the day when I have to bring all the receipts and invoices to campus. Sigh. I rather die than going to campus during the holidays - like those geeks who get campus-sick during trimester breaks.

And so, I went to campus in the afternoon about 4pm. Appointment with Student Affairs officer was at 4pm, so I arrived at about 3.30pm. Thinking that I have an extra 30 mins to shake my legs around the campus with no one around, I was shocked when I was told by Pam that I have to stick those receipts and invoices on plain sheet of papers and not just bundle them in their own categories. Shit! There are so damn many receipts and I am supposed to stick them one-by-one to plain sheet of papers in 30 mins? God speed, dude.

Did I manage to complete everything within 30 mins? LOL, sorry to disappoint you miracle-believers out there. I couldn't complete my task by 4pm as I have to xerox every sheets of claims for our own documentation purposes. No choice but to postpone the appointment to the next working day. Guess what time I finished everything? EIGHT! Yes, 8pm!



Reached home at about 9pm. Took my dinner. Watched TV. Bathed. Blogging. Here I am! No life.

Trip to the town

Went downtown today with CB kid, thought of getting some CDs and books as Christmas presents. Sadly, I couldn't even find the CD I wanted for myself. So, I wanted everybody to suffer along. I bought no presents and instead I bought myself a novel and a dumb mag. LOL.

By da way, the whole journey wasn't quite as interesting as anticipated. Firstly, we got free parking (Yay!) This is something that we ought to boast about since one can hardly get free parking in KL. The first item on our itinerary was - books. So we went Kinokuniya and lepak.



I really enjoyed browsing in Kinokuniya. Almost bought 3 novels - The Opposite of Fate, 5 people you meet in heaven and Brick Lane. Luckily CB kid has a Times bookstore member card which we could get a 15% discount off each novels. Couldn't get all 3 books there, so I ended up with Monica Ali's Brick Lane and one stupid T3 magazine (stupid magazine. Really.)


The pic above is the Petronas Art Gallery that we went after Kinokuniya. Unimpressive.

After Kinokuniya, Times, and Tower Records, we went to Avenue K and again, unimpressive. The entire day was quite monotonous except the time at Kinokuniya. (and the free parking.)

*The term - 'CB' carries no vulgarity in its meaning. It is meant to cover up his/her identity. It sounds something like this - "che bi"

My Wish List - Da Vinci Code (Illustrated Edition)

13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5
O, Draconian Devil!
Oh, lame saint!

"The scrambled Fibonacci sequence is a clue," Langdon said, taking the printout. "The numbers are a hint as to how to decipher the rest of the message. He wrote the sequence out of order to tell us to apply the same concept to the text. O, Draconian devli? Oh, lame saint? Those lines mean nothing. They are simply letters written out of order."

I had read this novel twice. Just couldn't get enough of it. Hardcore addiction.

Since then, the publisher has come out with the latest illustrated edition which also meant to be a collector's edition, and this shall be in my Christmas wish list. The latest illustrated edition comes with all the pictures described in the novel. At least some of them like The Louvre and Mona Lisa. Saving up all the hassle of browsing the internet for these pictures. I would say this is a good buy for Da Vinci Code fans out there. I have been reading other books of Dan Brown as well. This guy is really a writer. Below is the front cover of the latest illustrated edition. I've seen it in major bookstores around KL already. SRP is RM119, I think.



By the way, Da Vinci Code is in the process of being made into a movie. Tom Hanks is playing the role of Robert Langdon. Appalling. But never mind, the story line is more than just interesting to keep your eyes glued to the screen. Hopefully they make it well.

Max

Eureka! Finally, I have found out how I could actually publish/attach a picture on my post without much hassle like Hello/Picasa. Prolly I was just not used to that hello bot crap. Since Chris suggested that I crap something about my dog, lol, I will crap about him then. The picture below is Max, the dog whom I've been taking care of for the past 8 years which is equivalent to 56 years old for human age. You would have probably noticed his imbalance ears. That was due to the surgery he had due to some veins that burst and bloated his entire ear with blood - like a water balloon. It was really nice to play with, but he was in pain so I had to get rid of it.





He's an autistic dog. That is what I think. Although he's pretty extended in his age, but he's far worse than a puppy when it comes to fireworks, thunders, loud thuds..etc. He has to sit under an umbrella - a false sense of security I planted in him since he was 1 month old. He follows the umbrella whenever there is one. Else he will whine for one. Nonstop. And when strong wind blows the umbrella into the heavy downpour beyond the shelter of the porch, he will follow that umbrella instead of staying under the porch. Stupid eh?

Premium coffee

Believe it or not, I wasted RM30 plainly on coffee today. Wasn't exactly part of my plan prior to my "Wireless Lifestyle" posting. I went to campus early today along with my big brother since he's working in Cyberjaya as well. Went to campus to retrieve receipts which I was supposed to compile, categorise, calculate and tabulate appropriately for the Finance Department, eh no, Student Affairs Department first. Getting the receipts probably took me less than 15 minutes, but I have an appointment with KL Tower which was after lunch hours - 3pm.

I couldn't stay in the campus as the library was closed for their annual stock check. No where with air-conditioning that bundles along with wireless internet. So I've decided to go downtown and make full use of the wireless internet there. And I went. Stayed at The Weld until 3pm and went up to KL Tower. Never thought the meeting would fetch for less than 10 minutes. I expected it to last for hours. After getting the proposed event across the table, Billy was so busy that he couldn't stop glancing at his watch and yes, waiting to kick me off the tower. So I left. Like a loser. :(





Not knowing what to do, I have 5 more hours to spend until 8pm. Big bro finishes work at 8pm. Don't ask why he wasn't driving...I did something to his car. Don't ask why. Don't think why. While I kept on figuring on ways to spend the remaining 5 hours, I have decided to go to another Starbucks, but definitely not the same one. So I went to The Summit, USJ. Here I am, typing like an idiot with another cup of hot cappucino. I bet most of you will never plan such stupid itinerary for your day, ever. And I just did. Only me. LOL idiota!

Happy Birthday FANCHEONG~!

It is our dear Miss Fancheong Lo Swee Won's 20th, yes TWENTIETH, birthday. She's no more that 19 yrs old Miss World wannabe anymore. I was so mesmerised while watching Miss World until I forgot that this alien's birthday is on the 5th of December. Luckily I was late by only an hour :P else she would be telling the whole world how many Starbucks cheesecakes I owe her. Her calculation mechanism is rather odd, she enjoys blurting out huge numbers, like 1000 cakes. So, it goes like "you..you owe me 1000 Starbucks cheesecakes!"

Since it is her birthday, and also our holidays, Swee Won our dear fancheong, there will be no party for you and no present also since Christmas is approaching. I will buy you some fried kuey teow from KL. You must taste some KL food. You've been too kind and generous for treating us your Sarawak royalty cuisine - Kolok Mee.

See? She just sent me an sms again. Let me quote:

"Haha 38 oh...promoting blog eh? Want publicity? Organize LD again. Hahah I got 1 whole cheese cake oh. yummy yum yum. You want? Haha no cakes go sleep. shoo! blek"

Clearly, she has some personal attitude when it comes to cakes. Please forgive her.

Let's just hope she finds true happiness in holding the director post. She loves that post. Everyone sees that fire glowing in her eyes. She has that capability, leadership and charisma(after spa-ing in the hostel toilette.) She could be our next Prime Minister if she is given the chance to crap on the stage with no time limit.

She loves dreaming that she is Sauron or Dobby and according to her, the combination of both creates the world's most powerful, evil and peculiar creature - herself.

Ok, I've better not continue complimenting her on her birthday. Later people smack me with her new iPod. Well, at here, I would like to wish her Happy 20th Birthday again. Hope she grows old faster, taller faster, hair grows faster (she said it's too short), and finally continue to be a good director.


p/s: "You cannot relinquish that post." - Pamela

Happy Birthday Miss Sauronby.

Miss Peru!

It was really out of my expectations that Miss Peru would win the Miss World 2004 title. I think she ain't that bad actually. But Miss USA was really a magnet..you know like Magneto? I was so captivated by her huge mouth, huge smile, huge eyes, huge hair, and u-know-where.



Pic: Miss Peru, Maria Julia Mantilla Garcia was crowned Miss World 2004

Initially, I was so sceptical with the new method of how a Miss World would be chosen among the many gorgeous ladies. They implemented that sms-to-vote thing and I expected China would flood their sms-es for the sake of their Miss China to win the pageant. The event was held in China anyway, not surprising if they won the title. They are the host and they have the most mobiles in the world. What does Malaysia have? Yes, Miss Gloria Ting. LOL. Anyway, I was glad that Miss Peru won. She's gorgeous with great character, no?

Make Love Not Spam

Spammers are getting spammed now, isn't it great to know that "what goes around, comes around" is still applicable, even on the web. These spammers must have had their glorious days when they sent us million mails of porns, viagra (they go v-i-a-g-r-a), penis enlargement pills, online degrees and etc? Thanks to Lycos Europe's brilliant bunch of people who created a screen saver for the world to download. This screensaver uses the idle time of your computer to send out a huge amount of data to these spammers' bandwidth - yes, a DoS kind of thing. Since it is a distributed one, so DDoS. And the remaining part of the story, you can read it online.



The sad thing is, these supermen and women were criticised by certain groups. Catch this:

"You can't break into a thief's house just because he breaks into yours. We don't support this or recommend this practice. Directing traffic is part of the degradation of the Internet we are trying to stop," said Steve Linford, director of Spamhaus, a nonprofit antispam organization.

Morally, I think Spamhaus is right. Very righteous. Practically, I think it should be done. Some people must just have to taste their own medicine to know the bitterness out of it. Couldn't help it but they must get a taste of being spammed and even greater, they have to pay for the bandwidth traffic. Not trying to be mean, or revengeful, just trying to help people to learn about ethics. Let's hope that Lycos Europe resurrects that site up for a mass download. Btw, the site is http://www.makelovenotspam.com

The attack of the virtual STDs

Just the other day, we were laughing at my neighbor who was slapped by a big fat telephone bill. IDD calls made to Papua New Guinea costing up to thousands. Cute thing was, he doesn't know who made these 'calls'. He suspected his dear poor Indonesian maid, and was asking my dad to check things out for him at Telekom. Little did he know that these 'calls' were made due to his own sweet yet careless internet surfings. Maybe the chinese dailies did not publish this issue in their daily papers. So we can't blame him anyway.

So that was it. We were laughing at the consequences some people had to face because they wanted to have some 'fun' online. That was my neighbor's story. Back to my family's. I brought back my desktop for my dad to use since I had a notebook already. In just 1 week, my dad told me his PC was infested with spywares and worms. Huh? One week? Fine, I will give it a check during my holidays. Gawd! His PC was so infested that the entire OS crashed the moment it finished booting up. I was wondering then, what sites on earth did my dad surf? Hehe, you guys should know better where to contract these 'diseases'...I would call it the virtual STDs. Dad didn't install any antivirus so, his PC had AIDS. No cure. Have to reformat.

There I was reinstalling the entire OS for him and with no warning, the entire PC shut down by itself. Not knowing why, I tried switching on the power button again, and then a sweet Roti Boy aroma of burned plastic plus some soft hissing sound (like marjerin being tossed onto a hot plate.) Hah? Damn.

Not my fault. Please. I was just a 'doctor' trying to diagnose that damn computer and it gave up on me. So I handed my dad an invoice on what spare parts have to be bought with the (hiked up) price. Maybe he would want to get a new PC. I don't know. Moral of the story, don't be a pervert. Stay loyal. No STDs. No virtual STDs too and you save your wallet from greedy doctors like me.

Online music portal?

Just received this sms from Maxis recommending this Christmas album to me at http://www.musiccanteen.com

I was still in wonderland, couldn't even open up my eyes properly and there, Music Canteen? Oh well, a blend of music and food, perfect scene for the Malaysians' nocturnal lifestyle. I was wondering if an online purchasing of a CD could be done, at least, that was what initially came to my mind. An online CD store. Just like CDnow.com.

I downloaded some sample tracks and listened to them and was still browsing...where the hell is the online store? Then only I realised how stupid I have been. It is an online music download portal. The basic mechanism is, you pay RM3 and you get to download a song of the local artists that you like. The artist could be pretty established or could be some newbie posting their tracks online. But RM3 per song? Thanks but no thanks. I rather hit my ass off to the Tower Records or something.

Although I may not be supportive (financially), I still hope this site thrives with more enthusiastic fans who are willing to fork out RM3 to support their home-brewed idols. I will cross my fingers and wait for a serious local online music store which sells CDs and delivers them to my house (not my mp3 player or ipod.) As for now, I will continue making trips to the bricks and mortar music store downtown.

Regrets - lost count?

Remember those Miss World TV programmes? Ok, follow me to the part where the emcee asks the finalists this question - "If there was one thing in life that you regret, what would it be?"
And certainly, their common answer would be - "I have no regrets at all, I love my life."?

I wasn't going to criticise their answers. Just that I saw the advertisement on Miss World which will be on the 4th December, 9pm on StarWorld (yeah this serves as a reminder to all of us here too.) Let's put us as people who are very optimistic about life. Do we really have no regrets at all? Yes I know the bad decisions, stupid actions might have contributed so much to your learnings in life but, but will you not hope that certain things just never happened before?

Although I am grateful for the events in my life that shaped me into who I am today, there are regrets, lots of them. Worst thing is, I could never make up to these regrets anymore. They're history. If they never happened, I wouldn't have learned. Sometimes I learned too late, when things went astray then only I realised, ah damn, I shouldn't have done that.

Which would you prefer? A life of innocence with butterflies around daisies with no regrets or rather a life stained with tears, bitterness and regrets? I know it's a question of whether the glass is half full or half filled but there ought to be a choice where some of us rather, ok let's take an example, should war break out among nations so that more advance technology could be invented? (Bear in mind that, the world wars contributed so much to technology like your internet and computers.)

This log was composed on 2nd Dec, 3:57am. Pardon me if it sounded stupid. Just trying to fulfill my earlier said 10 blogs in this 3 weeks. I have 3 now. Cheers :P

Wireless Lifestyle??

Some time ago, most coffee houses like Starbucks are just some high-street lepak spots for people who are willing to fork out that much of cash for a cup of latte. Starbucks, after all, is one part caffeine and nine parts cachet. Yet today, it is very common to find out that these coffee houses are providing high-speed internet, most importantly, it is free. And you can see corporate figures and tertiary students typing on their notebooks vigorously, business conducted through presentations, etc. It is very nice to have these cosmopolitan attitudes brewing in our own country.

Come to think of it, these coffee houses are producing some kind of character. Instead of sitting there sipping that cup of ice blended mocha with that slice of cheesecake, isn't it more productive or rather, enjoyable if you could hook online and do what you always used doing online? For instance, emails, blogging, music, real time data processing...etc. It is undeniably true that you will see more students/corporate figures in the coffee houses with their earphones up and notebooks on in the near future. Of course there will still be chatters in the coffee houses. They are the regulars, should they 'perish' off, the coffee house should be converted into a library instead.

The pitfall however, is that these ppl who came with their full gears preparing to backpack in their cosy seats are going to sit there for quite some time. You know how comfortable it is with good ambiance, temperature and coffee. Since Starbucks will charge you a premium on these services through your cup of latte, you might as well just fully utilise their services, to the max.


p/s: Not all Starbucks outlets are providing free broadband services. Just a majority of them. And only Starbucks is providing it free. Thanks to Time's ZONE broadband service. Other coffee houses might charge a premium on these services.