Category Archives: General

Boneless Chicken

I went to KFC today and discovered their latest innovation – boneless chicken.

Well not really. I ordered a set meal that had 2 pieces of chicken, of either wings or drumsticks or both. I couldn’t remember what I had. The first one was rather crispy, and by the time I got to the second one, my colleagues asked me what happened to my other chicken. I told them I ate it!

They then noticed that my plate had no bones. Had I accidentally ate the oh-so-crispy bones? Had the chicken no bones?

I guess I was really hungry, as I finished my meal before the 4 colleagues who ordered before me. I wasn’t a bone eater (and I can’t eat bones anyway) so I’m convinced that yes – I was lucky. I got a boneless chicken! This was even though I didn’t order a fillet/boneless-chicken-style thing.

And no, neither pieces looked like Crispy Strips before I ate them.

Speaking of fillet/boneless-chicken-style things, I don’t know what KFC’s next reincarnation will be, but I hope it’s not wrapped in healthy-tasting salad.

Lopsided Observations

Female colleague, writing testimonial, asks: How come your testimonials all by girls one?
Me: Simple. Don’t approve testimonials by guys!

Of course, it’s not true – guys just don’t write me testimonials for no particular reason.

I wonder, too, if the nosey people walking in my hall (yes, I am related to them and inherit their nosey traits) wonder why whenever I’m on MSN, it’s always in a conversation with somebody with a female MSN display picture.

I calculated the ratio and found that females are more likely to put their real pictures. Yessir, statistical proof on my side that girls are vain! Of course, many things factor in to this, like:

– guys who are anime freaks and put irritating Japanese characters
– guys who are into Korean/Japanese chicks
– guys who put guitars as their pictures
– photography-loving guys

Surprisingly, the factors against girls putting pictures didn’t stop them from winning the vanity contest, like:

– not having the technical knowledge to getting their picture in the computer
– being into anime and putting irritating Japanese characters
– putting cutesy bears, flowers and other horridly adorable imagery
– putting a picture of a handsome footballer

I may not have that many MSN contacts, but let it be assured that I had an almost equal amount of males and females in my contact list when I counted.

Oh yes! Last Saturday I went for Meesh‘s blog meet and hadn’t a clue who was who and what their URLs were. Heck anyway, I still wanted to blog in the category of “teenager” and not “matured adult political musing“. One memorable dude was the owner of not just any major tech enthusiast community. If you’re reading this dude, my dual channel DDR RAM is working after moving the sticks around!

And now for the guitar geek side. I have a cheap Dunlop capo. I cut it using a sharp pair of pliers 25% through, making it a Drop D capo! Since the tubing was now in two parts, the long one could be applied to the 2nd fret (but not covering the low E string). Strumming the 6th, 5th and 4th strings would get a E5 chord. Forming a movable barre G chord on the 6th string would also work!

Okay, that’s not anywhere near layman terms, so I’ll use a diagram.

   X Y Z
d|-2-2-0
A|-2-2-2
F|-2-2-2
C|-2-2-2
G|-2-2-0
D|-0-2-0

The Drop D capo would effectively fret the X form. The regular capo would fret the Y form. Of course, I could remove the tubing and slide the metal rod through the tubing, so the capo could be 3 different combinations. The shorter tube could be used to fret 3 strings, like the Z form. With this, I could be free to chug a G major chord and do something with my left hand! Of course, I could also fret to the left of the capo where the capo did not press the strings.

Credits go to Johann Pachelbel’s Canon In D, that made me learn the X form. Nifty indeed, being able to play regular tuning forms and yet reach down to the low D!

I’m still looking for the tab for the alleged funktified aggro-palm-muted Michael Hedges version of that song.

Oh yes, what better way to end a blog entry by updating the links in my About Me! page.

Joy and Irritance

Joy is when you go around college and find you only need to take one subject to finish the generalized advanced diploma. Not 3 subjects, and not the project.

I feel like an Orang Kaya Baru again. I can almost taste the butterscotch guitar. But first, I have other things to get, like DDR RAM memory sticks and DVD+-R/RW burner drives. Oh, and a UHF antenna.

Irritance is when somebody looks over your shoulder at your computer screen. I don’t mind, since it’s not personal most of the time (well not at the office anyway) but please don’t ask me “What is this about?” I’d be too lazy to, for example, point out the obvious Incubus Discography in big letters.

I Told Her

I told her the truth.

She took it as soberly as I presented it, and she told me to tell him.

I waited a day to tell him, as he was asleep. I woke him from his light sleep and told him. I waited around for an extended lecture.

It’s been a while since my last exam. I actually got the results quite some time back but hesitated telling.

Yessir, I failed my Interactive Multimedia (Director Shockwave) Project again. I passed my Advanced Java though. 🙂

Perhaps Mutlimedia just isn’t my thing. Like I told my parents, it was probably like choosing between Arts and Science streams in secondary school. I told them that I was paying so there goes my Orang Kaya Baru (New Rich Guy) mood. 🙁

I went to see the lecturer to ask if it was worth appealing for it to be remarked. Alas, he wasn’t honest, and so I shall be changing majors to Networking instead. New subjects, fresh faces, no more staring at the computer screen in disgust of Director 8.5’s user-unfriendliness. No more 3-day sleeplessness. Just mugging on 3 textbooks.

So yes! I’ll be bumming out of college until the next semester that would run from May to August.

Which Powerpuff Girl Are You?


You resemble the leader of the pack Blossom!

Find out which Powerpuff Girl are you!

Yes, I don’t usually post survey/quiz results, but I had to make an exception after coding it. 🙂 Uh, I didn’t write the content of the quiz though… Davina did. After watching the end part of the movie at the office, I then realized where she got all those cartoonish expressions from!

Pardon the sloppy image, as I didn’t have time to do all that fancy Photoshopping. Heck, the quiz isn’t even public to Xfreshers yet.

I don’t watch Powerpuff Girls, so tell me if the images are mismatched or something.

Jakunism

I believe in Jakunism.

Jakun. A person who is easily and overly impressed with something, as if he or she has never seen it before.

Jakunism. The act of being a Jakun.

Ooo! Look! A Nokia 6100! Wah! Color screen! Can change the color schemes somemore!” – me, looking at Dide‘s mobile phone.

The secret to happiness is in Jakunism. Live life in awe, in wonder! For example, it has been over 10 days that I have had Streamyx, Malaysia’s cutting edge blazing fast consumer end broadband solution! Everytime I go online, I go “wah damn fast lah!” No, really! Paul may be having problems, but I have none!

Same applies for the new things hitting Malaysia. Vanilla Coke. McDonalds becomes a luxury now.

5 sen and one sen coins! As of the 5% government tax, we are going to start collecting those little pocket-weighteners.

Edited at 1:00am, 5th January 2004, +0800GMT: Gamespy’s Half-Life 2 preview is another whoa. Tractor beams in the Havok engine, anyone?

I am happy.

Oh yes Crappo is the true Einstein. Not I. He knows the connection between By The Way and Universally Speaking (Red Hot Chili Peppers music videos).

Smiles!

Many things make me smile.

1) Winning a Lord Of The Rings Marathon ticket, which was screening on my birthday night, was one of them.

2) Getting the 19″ Princeton monitor back, and finding it does 1600×1200 at 85 Hertz more healthily than before.

3) Checking the ATM machine to find a long overdue payment was one of them. I could now get myself an electric guitar! Of course, I’d have to get a router/broadband modem and DVD writer first…

4) Finishing the final exam, and coming out on 30 minutes. Hopefully, no more reruns of subjects.

5) Going for more addictive tangy goodness, in a half-chicken flaming hot peri-peri Nando’s set. Yesterday, PY caught me on a moment of self-expression in the KLCC tunnel to the LRT station. What can I say? I wanted to do something stupid on the last day before turning 20.

6) Updating my About Me! page with updated links. Neatness!

7) Presents. Oh wait, I haven’t gotten any. 😉

Joe’s Addiction

I have learnt many things the hard way. Like how you do not use the same porportions for making Milo, for making coffee!

I usually make myself a cup of Milo at the office pantry, but the Milo was finished, so I tried to make coffee instead. I unassumingly put in 4 scoops of coffee (just like for Milo.) I then doused it with some sinful condensed milk.

I thought the flavor was a bit too thick, so heck, I poured in more condensed milk. That didn’t help. Sugar? Nope, still as black as ever. (I’m fine with black coffee, but this hadn’t reached the sweet spot of white coffee, so it was icky.)

I drank halfway before giving up. It was too thick-flavored.

Water never tasted so good. I went to the toilet, and smelt the caffeine in the stream!

I was as sleepy as usual, though. Odd odd. I wasn’t even jittery or anything.

It was still in the stream this morning. How do you detoxify yourself of caffeine?

Lend Me An Ear

I miss you Patrick. The guy who wouldn’t mind movie spoilers (well, he spoils movies for me!) He would spoil X-Men 2 by sitting next to me and pointing out which parts happen in the book adaptation of the movie.

Yes, I watched The Matrix: Revolutions yesterday at a press screening, and the fact that I can’t tell anybody is killing me. If you watched the second one, this trilogy ender is a must. If not you’ll probably be misguided by the idea of a Matrix in a Matrix and whatever other stories you’ve read on the Internet.

I cannot wait till it opens in the cinemas so I can fairly debate my points. In the meantime, I shall play Enter The Matrix again for more clues.

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!