Monthly Archives: October 2003

Virtually Yours

Once again I shall write about the bandwidth-stealing killer application, Friendster. Major office-productivity-decreaser. I’d know, most of my friendster friends there were, at first, in the same room, breathing the same cold air.

One of its major hits is the Testimonials function. Yes, so you can suck up to your boss. (I haven’t written a testimonial for him, eep!) You can write something for your buddy’s profile, and he/she can’t edit it but can choose to approve it.

It’s also fun to read other peoples’ testimonials… until they start getting impersonal. Like:

“Oh she’s so nice, she’s so caring and such a great person… look forward to meeting her.”

Call me a conservative grape but I don’t think testimonials should be written so soon. At least you could omit the part about never meeting them in real life before. I dunno, I guess those testimonials seem cheap to me. I pity people whose testimonials consist only of that.

Yes, that’s right, people on my Friendster list! Don’t ever admit that we’re just chatting online late till our eyebags touch our toes. We’re good buddies, we’re cute and have admirers (though we are obviously donut-laden), we listen to each other, etc… don’t ever reveal that I (or perhaps we) have no real-life friends!

What would make an interesting Bulletin Board post? A survey which requires real effort to count. Like how you know these people on your Friendster list. At the moment I have 112 friends. :O

Met from work (43/112 or 35%)
Met online, then in real life (32/112 or 29%)
Met anywhere else (19/112 or 17%)
Met from school (8/112 or 7%)
Met online, but never in real life (6/112 or 5%)
He/she added me so I wouldn’t know (4/112 or 4%)

Pardon my math if the percentages add up to 97%. I rounded them up and down. 😛

If in doubt just what category to put your friends in, call them! Oh, what if you don’t have their number? Then choose whichever one makes you look more balanced.

I won’t be posting this in the Bulletin Board just yet since mine itself is already flooded with personality quizzes. I wonder how long it’ll take to circulate, though. 🙂 You read it here first!

Rolling With The Times

It was holiday bonanza at Berjaya Times Square‘s Cosmo World Theme Park. I hopped in line, happy to have RM10 off the usual RM30. One of the gang stayed behind, walking stick in hand.

Note: As I have never rode a rollercoaster before, I shall warn you that I will give my account of the rides very excitedly and positively.

Six of us (Ayman, Jerry, Calvin, Brian, Brian’s friend and I) queued up for the rollercoaster. I went through the technicalities of it with the physics expert Ayman. Well, we didn’t sign a consent form, so we could still sue. 🙂

It started off slow, and I just shouted some nonsense for the fun of it. It wasn’t as scary as expected… the force was stronger, and the air crashing into my face was more apparent.

It could only be scary when the rollercoaster went through two railings, rolling sideways. (From standing below, you could see the support beams vibrating!)

Even the loop wasn’t so bad, since our heads were thrown forward to stare at our shoes. At most times I leaned on the bracing padded thingy so my head wasn’t bouncing about.

Verdict? Jerry said: “My Honda can go faster than this.”

I walked out straight, without any swagger. 🙂

Next!

We went on the magic carpet clone. This was a bit scarier since the thing would hold you upside down… and you would slide in your seat a bit. It seemed to go on forever too! I saw a poor fellow lose a 20 sen coin. It fell down oh so gracefully, apparently in slow motion.

At this point the young ones (well, 15 years old) were feeling headaches.

There was the DNA Mixer. This one looked very promising. Two rows of seats would be doing backward rolls and forward rolls real quick. I felt my stomach go up and down during the spins, but that was it… I couldn’t remember what the ride was about after that. 🙁

Then came the kid’s play turning thingy. I wouldn’t know how to describe it, but it was a counter-clockwise movement in a clockwise-moving set of arms attached to a huge pole that extended almost to the balcony. It wasn’t so fun as I wasn’t afraid of those heights. 😛

We then headed for lunch. On the way out, the guard marked an ‘M‘ (presumably for makan/eat) so we had one more free entry on our unlimited ride pass.

McDonalds there was packed, and there were no ATMs in the place, so we had to walk to Low Yat Plaza for that. We headed to McDonalds in Sungei Wang, and the 3 young ones had to leave. They were tired from walking from Berjaya Times Square to Sungei Wang!

Ayman: “Kids these days get tired just walking a bit.”

Ironic how it should be the old geezers (Jerry, Ayman and I) who should get tired. Bintang Walk was never really for kids anyway… the walking and purchasing power is different from your average family shopping mall. 🙂

Dide made her grand entrance at the Bintang Walk/Lot 10 corner McDonalds. Nope, not to be confused with the Sungei Wang one. (She told us to meet her there.) Shaz also met us there. After that I followed her and her boyfriend to Bentley, while Shaz, Ayman and Jerry went back to Berjaya Times Square.

Bentley was crowded, presumably because two local axemen were showcasing Fenders. My butterscotch Ibanez-to-be was out of stock! Grrr. Not like I had the money just yet anyway.

We then met up with Shaz, Nabila, Johnson and Michelle for dinner. Secret Recipe was at a desolate corner in the planned-to-be 80% full Berjaya Times Square! After that, Nabila, Shaz, Johnson and I went to Starbucks. Again, there wasn’t much crowd to see around there. Maybe it was the wrong time.

Heck, Bintang Walk was surprisingly less crowded than usual, although it was a Saturday and it was holiday season.

As I am writing this, I am having a happy relapse of the day’s rides. I feel dizzy. I feel like I’m in the DNA Mixer again, rolling backwards! WHEEE!!!

Indulge In Happiness

I feel secure. I’m not broke any more!

I hopped by college after the shortest fever ever (2 days on an overdose of 2 pills 4 times one fine day) only to find a lone collegemate and a holiday. Freedom! I headed down to the ATM for my bundle of joy. The numbers would make my fingers rub my eyes again and again.

The day was still young, and I decided to head to Bintang Walk again. Window shopping and all would not feel so painful. Taxi! Taxis would be cheaper than taking the monorail and LRT there. Really. I’d have walked otherwise.

I walked into Bentley. Shaun wasn’t there so I didn’t get to watch him do his speedy licks under the pretense of showing off how good a guitar was to a potential customer. Neither was the yummy lickable butterscotch Ibanez Gio I wanted to get. Then again, I hadn’t the full amount to get it just yet. 🙁

A quick ring to Shaz my conveniently-so lepak buddy revealed that he was heading towards my area. He was there to meet his cousins at Ezone for some cybercafe action. It had been a while for me too, so I figured, why not?

We bummed around in the cybercafe lounge for about half an hour, catching up on the grandfather story and half. He got a call from his cousin, who so conveniently was in Ezone… in Midvalley Megamall. Saved money that was!

I used the Starbucks voucher, and we had that jelly frappucino drink. Or was it jelly with icing on top? It got pretty irritating trying to not finish with just jelly. Thankfully this time they gave the correct straw, with the spoon end like on 7 Eleven Slurpees.

There wasn’t much crowd to watch, and the Berjaya Times Square Starbucks wasn’t packed with lookers. Alas! Isis, if you read this, the legend is not true!

My sentences are coming out funny. Maybe it’s the absurdly unnecessary happiness. Maybe it’s caffeine. Maybe it’s time for me to don the purple costume. Ho ho ho!

Oh yes. Learn the ways of the lazybum’s smiley!

=]

I haven’t used it in quite a while. It’s the equal sign, the close square bracket sign, and the Enter key.

Yes, that’s right. Press the equal key, then slide it down and to the right till you reach the Enter key. Try it!

=]
=]
=]

Look at the little happy faces! It’s therapy for you! All in one graceful slide of the finger! I prefer using my right middle finger, though you can try using any other.

Lazy Smiley - how it's done! (lazysmiley.jpg, 3
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Flat Tires And Sharp Turns

I got to One Utama on a sunny Saturday. It was 8 am, and there was a car parked in the open car park, playing some techno music, and a guy and a girl were practicing some solo dance moves. Another car came along, and out hopped another couple. That was something I hadn’t seen before.

A free ride to Genting Highlands is why I would be at such a place. I can’t remember the last time I went there. The sharp turns reminded me of some Tibetian Need For Speed map, with roads curling like noodles. An interesting sight near the top was the Mushroom Farm. The connotation to drugs (namely magic mushrooms) was amusing.

Stepping out, I felt very much jakun-ish, as I walked through the misty air of the highland resort. The wind blew like a thousand Starbucks mist fans. Oh yeah.

My colleagues from Xfresh and I walked through the indoor area in circles, tunnel to tunnel, escalator up and down. We finally found the skydiving simulator where Xfresh TV was going to shoot. I eyed the pricey training and ride. Thank goodness for this company perk, then, as I donned the jumpsuit for free! 🙂

It looked just like a wind tunnel from your average first-person-shooter. However, this differed from the virtual factories I had visited. I looked at the grille below and saw no fan! It was then explained that the fan was on top. I wondered which was worse – falling into a fan or getting sucked up into one. 🙁

After the short but exhilirating ride, the instructors told us to throw away the foam earplugs. I kept them anyway. Some funky gadget it was – a peanut-shell-shaped foam earplug. I’d have to squeeze the pink end of it till it become sharp, then insert it into my ear, making a crackling sound as it slowly expanded. It wasn’t entirely noise-reducing though, as the fan could still be heard, though at dramatically lower levels.

We then headed over to Lake View Seafood Restaurant. The regular crew sat at one table, while the TV crew and the stars sat on the other. As the expensive-looking fish and crab came, we greedily gobbled. We were all hungry teens anyway, and there weren’t any prim and proper adults at our table, so sauce could freely drip, and we didn’t have to bother with fancy sitting or other niceties. Then again, it wasn’t exactly a top class setting – a red cloth covering the table was missing, the napkins were not folded into fancy 3D swans, and we didn’t get any sharksfin soup!

The crab was probably the messiest, but not to say that we didn’t grab the earlier servings in gluttony. I sat and stared, knowing how I would burst into red rashes upon eating the expensive shelled meat. No biggie, though I missed the distant relatives going “Wah so tall already! So handsome already your son! What form is he studying ah?” to my parents. Of course, I’m not tall, and they’re asking out of courtesy. I’m still in college. 🙁

We then headed over to the rock climbing area for another shoot. I wasn’t eager, having contents almost worth their weight in gold in my intestines. I wouldn’t have minded the fastest indoor rollercoaster though. It was too misty outside by then so nobody was allowed out for the real thing. However, the queues made me thankful I only wasted my money on a 4 Ringgit ticket instead of a 16 Ringgit unlimited all-access tag. Every ride had a long queue.

As the crew waited for some lost souls to come downstairs, I finally got a chance to start a flash mob. I was staring at this plaster monkey in the tree decor above, and told them about the plan. One would check if anybody was looking. People looked indeed! However, nobody stopped in their tracks. My plan may have failed because:

1) Although we were a huge crowd, we didn’t obstruct people.
2) They saw the monkey. If I stared at something less obvious, or stared at nothing, they might just slow down.

We went to a hillside Coffee Bean only to find it closed for stock clearance. Stock clearance? What, was this some shopping complex sale? Fine, so I got some chocolate buns from the nearby convenience store and munched them on their tables.

The immense fog showed no signs of vanishing, so we decided to get down (the hill) before it got worse. The jockey brought in the car drove by my boss. We got in. Fortunately, the jockey noticed a flat rear left tire. He had to drive down quite a bit before finding a flat surface to jack the car up. There was some sort of fridge or kitchen of some sort to the right, while a car park and a garbage dump was on the left. It was only when looking outwards that we saw a sign that said “helipad”, complete with helicopter illustration.

Of course, there was no big square, circle and cross in yellow, no blinking red lights, and it was covered. It looked more like a garage.

Upon jacking the car up, we found the nuts impossible to unscrew. Screwed nuts indeed. (In case you’re wondering, no, the tire wasn’t off the floor yet.)

So we plodded slowly and steadily down the foggy hill till we reached a petrol station, where we pumped air. Some confusion arose as to whether we should have higher or lower pressure in the tires, since we were however many kilometers above sea level. Heck, I didn’t bother thinking about it even though I got an A1 for SPM Physics by fluke. Anybody care to answer?

It was even scarier going down the bends in the fog. It was already past 8 pm then, and the boss, being the cautious driver he was, took it carefully. We hogged at least 8 cars in sight behind. Yeah, the fog was bad, but we could see them, heh. 🙂

Oh, and we saw a lady in white standing by the side of the road. :O A poor lady who lost all her money gambling and trying to hitch a ride, perhaps, or something else?

Another interesting sign caught my attention – “Engage Low Gear“. That just cracked me up.

We reached the Klang Valley safe and sound, albeit late, what with the flat tire and the sharp turns and the fog.

As I pondered what an accident-free day it was on the bus home, a silver Proton Wira clipped the right-side front part of the bus. It wasn’t a swerve; more like a drunken swagger. I didn’t feel the impact, but the clink was there. The car continued on its merry path on the road ahead, like it was Daytona or something.

Ada Apa Dengan Cerita?

My sister borrowed her friend’s Ada Apa Dengan Cinta? VCD. Yeah, the famed teenage love movie from Indonesia. Of course, me being the never-got-a-credit-for-SPM-Malay, could not understand what they were talking about in their thick Indonesian accents, and it didn’t help that this was so original it did not have subtitles.

The gist of the story that I got was that Cinta liked Rangga’s poetry or something. However, she has a boyfriend, who we named ‘Angelo’ because he looked like our cousin of the same name. 😛

Rangga mopes around, talks to her, and gets beaten up. She comes over to his house for lunch and suddenly molotov cocktails get thrown in. I didn’t get that part… Angelo’s revenge perhaps?

Then, Rangga leaves for someplace so far he has to take a plane. Somehow it reminded me of one Gilmore Girls episode where the antihero Jess sulks on a bus, with Rory being oblivious to the fact that he’s leaving town.

At the starting of the movie I could not tell her girl clique apart. In different scenes I’d have to ask my sister which one that one was. The crying one? The one with glasses?

Oh yes, in late response to Lionel‘s claim, I’m not exactly a Rangga as he’d say when we met.

Stingy Poker

That is what I am. I was eating near college when this lady from some shelter comes to sell these gifts, in the name of charity. They even produced a photocopy of the police document that lets them go around asking.

Of course, I had my earphones on. She was doing the introduction and I pretended to be unable to hear her. I took out one earphone and then after a while, the other. Yeah, you gotta love those conversation-stalling devices. (Uh, I use them at work too, hehe…)

Suddenly, the voice of my dead grandfather played back in my head.

“Don’t donate to these people. You should go to the place itself, because you can never tell who is real.”

So I told her that I had only 5 Ringgit and I had to pay for food, drinks and the bus fare home. Wrong timing, I said. I was broke.

Evil I was. I lied.

I went to college, and I had time to burn before heading to Midvalley, so I decided to get some Vitamin D. I headed over to the KLCC side of Ampang Park, and I met the WWF.

The lady sort of stood in my way. She was better looking than the earlier volunteer, so my conversation-stallers came off sooner.

She: Do you know about the WWF? Or you think it’s the wrestling one?
Me: Yeah I know… it’s the one with the pandas in shopping malls with holes in their heads.
She: *opens leaflet* Have you seen this man? (Some Indian dude who’s been some WWF superstar since 1974 or something.)
Me: Nope…
She: Anyway, the WWF needs RM2xx

Rock, Paper, and uh… Shirts?

Got on the bus home yesterday. A Chinese lady on my right was smiling, flipping through some photos of some rock concert. Being the Malaysian busybody, I looked towards my right, pretending not to stare too obviously. I could make out some guitars, but they looked blonde. I couldn’t figure out who they were, as rock groups don’t drop by Malaysia often (Linkin Park would be surprising.) I took out the ROTTW rock magazine I just bought at a newsstand, on purpose.

Lady: (In Chinese) Do you want to see it?
Me: Er, who is it?
Lady: Beyond. (Beyond is a Hong Kong rock band.)
Me: Er, no thanks. (I knew who they were but I’ve never heard their stuff.)

I continued reading my magazine. Then somebody just had to call, asking about a local underground band. (I didn’t intend to rub it in that much!) I didn’t even know she had my number.

To add to that, I just had to be in a advice-dispensing conversation with a concerned friend of a friend of a friend. Dangit, don’t worry about the exam next year during the school holidays. It’s just irritating. “But… but… Exams are in nine months!” Don’t gimme that line. To me, it brings the same urgency as “Exams are in one month.” Which is practically no urgency to me. So I’m a lazy slacker, but at least I don’t use that line to avoid going out, or at least, going online.

Oh yes, I went through my shirts today. I didn’t know I had so many free black T-shirts. Alas, the sun pours her love on me.

Above The E Mark Yet?

A refreshing break. Yay. After feeling the life of a scholarship student awaiting his next payment (well, this is true in a different context) I got lucky. I got my money back. Well, some of it. I am no longer running around town with less than 10 bucks, munching on 30 sen Mamee Monster packets and walking from station to station to save money.

So cursed it be that the company bus wasn’t here this morning. Thankfully, there was the PUTRA Line bus from the Bukit Jalil STAR LRT. Yes, PUTRA Line bus from the Bukit Jalil STAR LRT, not a PUTRA station! Odd odd, but I took it anyway, as it said it was going to ASTRO. Yay. 50 sen for that short ride.

If only it would be as easy to catch the same bus back (I’m writing this at the office.) Getting out of ASTRO has always been a pain when it’s one of those self-appointed public-holiday Saturdays. Rightfully, the first and third Saturdays should be holidays. This was a second Saturday! There should have been a company bus!

Not to mention that there are no cabs passing ASTRO. Well, at least people have credited my athletic looking legs. Perhaps if I am lucky, I shall catch the bus. If not, it shall be a 20 minute stroll past the Bukit Jalil school and stadium.

I am cursing the inability of the office burner to overburn CD-Rs. Dangit. I bought 10 800MB CDs to burn a few things, like:

– Counter-Strike 1.6 Steam full installer, 723MB
– Spinal Tap DVD rip, still far away from 701MB (I can only hope it can fit a 700MB one)

* Disclaimer for friends, family and like-minded people of the RIAA: I’d buy the Spinal Tap VCD if I could find it here.

It is hoped that the extremely detached style of writing this post will portray my gender correctly. Go paste some stuff in The Gender Genie! My earlier blog entries may be male or female, depending on the style. Creepy.

New Strings Attached

My last big spending spree was on a set of electric guitar strings. Because I wasn’t intending on changing it anytime soon, and it was the first time I changed it since my mum and I got the acoustic guitar for my sister (who rarely plays it) I picked the most expensive Gibson Brite Wires. (0.09 to 0.42 gauge.)

The damage was RM25.

I slowly dropped each string by one whole step, starting with the lowest (so after the first string was dropped it would be a Drop D shape.) I dropped everything till it was one octave lower and it felt just like a bass guitar, just with smaller frets. It was just as slippery. (I don’t know about the sound, since I don’t have a bass guitar.)

I dropped it another octave and it was still playable, though the low E could barely be heard. Another octave and the strings were sliding off the fretboard! I soon got fedup of unwinding it slowly. At this point the strings were so loose I wouldn’t fear them slapping me in the face.

I took a pair of pliers and tried hard to pull out the white stubs at the bridge. I then put in the new wires.

As I wound in the low E string, I realized that I shouldn’t have put in the other strings just yet. Also, I needed to cut off a whole lot of string. Why they provide such long wires escapes me. The ideal length, I guessed, would be from the bridge to the nut plus the distance between two adjacent nuts.

I tuned everything into place, and it was a wonder to play! It was thinner, brighter, and it was easier to play barre chords! It was pretty, too, as all the strings were the same silver color, compared to the chrome/nickel-colored strings before. The best thing about this upgrade was that I could do full bends now! Before this I was playing half bends (while imagining it was a full bend in my head.)

However, a full bend on the G string, second fret, made it out of tune, repeatedly. I suppose when winding it in, I gave it too much slack at the nut’s hole. Something like this:

e|---------
B|---------
G|-2b4r2p0-
D|---------
A|---------
E|---------

Of course, I’d rather play it like this, if not for sonic accuracy:

e|---------
B|---------
G|---------
D|-7b9r7p5-
A|---------
E|---------

This was taken from Jimi Hendrix – Foxy Lady.

Why did I go out and get strings? Perhaps, it would be a consolation to failing two subjects and not being able to afford an electric guitar for the moment.

Inadequacy

I’ll never be enough
Never be full
Too smooth or too rough
To push or pull

I will not stand out
Even with my hands raised high
Till a strong gust comes about
I shall never fly

Oh bones please extend within
Darkness please scar my skin

Potential energy has never been so wasted
As I have hoarded profusely
Chemical energy is better off rewarded
To another holding body