Category Archives: Rants

The Dead Crow, And Politics

6 Replies

The dead crow.

Bang! Goes the DBKL crow shooter.

My deceased maternal grandfather was an ex-serviceman, and he fought communists in the jungle.

No, that is not my grandfather in the picture. 😀

He retired, and would go on these crow-shooting sessions, and get paid for each crow shot.

And yes, I have seen his shotgun. You don’t see one in the average Malaysian home!

Which brings me to an interesting pontification, a reflection if you will.

Recently, I do not remember how, I came about to read about Che Guevara, who I quote Wikipedia, was an “Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist”. He travelled Latin America, seeing the condition it was in, and formed his ideas then, and it shaped his mission in life.

Some simplify him to being a violent communist.

I’d say my political stance is that I prefer everything to be done for the benefit of living beings (is that wide enough a blanket statement?)

Capitalism is great, yeah – you work more, you earn more, but it does come at the expense of some due to greed.

Egalitarianism is great – equal oppurtunity for all, everyone has the same rights.

I don’t think socialism is all that bad, either. The idea that we all work for the benefit of all is good, though it arguably causes no innovation, and that people not aligned with the idea will not work. I fancy the idea of decentralized power, and less power tiers… but there will always be leaders because followers can’t figure stuff out themselves. (Unless education advances until everyone figures it out… or we become The Borg*).

And isn’t communism ironic, being that there is no higher class, that there is a State that controls everything?

The world’s most famous photo is Guerrillero Heroico, a portrait of Che Guevara when he was at a funeral, looking brave in the face of adversity. The photographer, Alberto Korda, did not claim any royalties or payment for the picture, because he believed that the picture should be shared for the benefit of all, to spread the revolution.

Which brings me to another tangent.

Open source and free for all, versus closed source that you’d have to buy. Or patents, to lock your ideas as money.

So Microsoft and Apple are obviously capitalists.

Google, on the other hand, what are they? Some kind of egalitarian pseudo-socialist entity? They give their services away for free, for the benefit of all, and break borders. Their idea is that information is free and will eventually float in the air.

Of course, they are incentive-driven also – they sell ads in these services. And who pays for these ads? The capitalists!

So I am grateful for the Google model (or the free TV/newspaper model). Though they still need the capitalists until we can figure something out.

While I am not going to install Linux anytime soon (unless you count Android as a Linux system) I do really like the idea of open source. One programmer decides to make a cool program or library, because there isn’t one, and knows his/her efforts will help programmers all around the world. Then somebody else improves on it, and puts the improvements in! This utopian idea allows for collaborative innovation.

Of course, programmers still have to pay for food in a capitalist non-utopian society, so they still have a day job.

I recently helped out by doing unpaid work for a NGO, and have become a bit more charitable than before. Though I’d have to say I could only do so after earning a bit more.

I wonder if Bill Gates just wanted to write some cool programs and ended up being the richest man on Earth. Fortunately with the excess, he has given a load to charity. Unfortunately, Bill isn’t like the coolest dude you’d want to look up to.

What about Steve Jobs? Sure, he could’ve been donating anonymously, but with his cult of personality, could he at least donate some money and make that act known publicly? His followers would follow, inspired by their leader, and that would benefit more people (instead of just having another Starbucks coffee while playing games on their iPads.)

* Footnote – I quite like the idea of The Borg – a fictional society in Star Trek, where the members are humanoids with cybernetic links to a shared network. Which is really quite like Twitter except you see the tweets of everyone on the network!

So imagine you wanted to know where the bus B79 was because you wanted to get to a restaurant. A thought stream could go like this:
You: Where is this B79 bus? I’m craving for an awesome cheeseburger.
Borg on the road: Hey I see it in front of me, at latitude 3 11 2.3 longitude 101 23 6.9.
Borg who travels a lot: Oh, that would take about 15 minutes to get there.
Borg friend: Hey can I join you for a cheeseburger? Oh wait I read your mind already, yes I can.
Borg friend 2: Yes me too!

It’s Twitter in your brain – I see smashpOp lining up to be assimilated already!

I don’t buy the idea of a violent Borg (except unless its shared ideals was to assimilate everyone because they believe it is a good state to be in… “hey why aren’t you on Twitter?” sound familiar?) So a violent Borg would then, after assimilating everyone, become a peaceful Borg, and having shared collective thought, cured cancer and all illnesses so they could live forever. They might just decide to kill themselves, like how the Q (a race in Star Trek which can be anywhere, any time, knows everything) felt that such a life was pointless.

Ah, but how did I get so far from this, the dead crow?

Monkey Thoughts

5 Replies

13th March 2010: I went up to Bukit Malawati, in an outing by Sony Malaysia for Alpha users!

When we reached the hilltop, we were greeted by what I thought were the former four-legged residents.

They were everywhere!

So many, and yet some were lonely and deep in thought.

I found it interesting to observe them – what do animals think about?

What do they fight about? Protection? Ownership? Territory? They are interestingly communal and yet have a mind of their own. They will follow the crowd but also do their own thing.

So I’m not really sure what makes us humans think we are so far apart from other animals. Animals learn and can be trained, and they can assert ownership over territory. We just have it a bit more advanced to throw in barter trade and the concept of currency.

Animals can make tools – we just do it better.

So we’ve invented a few languages. Do you ever wonder if animals talking among themselves, wonder what we humans are saying?

What defines humans as being more advanced, anyway?

Now I ask this in seriousness, and I don’t want an answer spewed out from a book, but an answer that you yourself have thought about.

Ants can communicate by just touching antennae. Isn’t that advanced? Heck they can walk on ceilings!

What about the Vulcans? (A fictitious race from the Star Trek series.) If they can communicate by mind meld (touching one’s temples to transfer thoughts, emotions and memories), doesn’t that make humans distinctively primitive?

Then how about the Borg? Again, a fictitious race from the Star Trek series, who are cyborgs (half human, half machine) who are all connected together via an electronic network. They share information altogether and if one Borg learns something, every other Borg learns the same thing!

Humans are probably the largest species that is not in random danger of being killed by another animal, intentionally, just because we were annoying. We can kill mosquitoes and cockroaches and ants and they won’t know what hit them. What are the chances of anyone being squashed by an elephant, intentionally?

Meanwhile, this was a stealthy ninja!

Monkey on your back?

Like a boss.

Curious monkeys want to reach out for my fisheye!

Obviously, trained.

A random grab shot that worked in so many ways!

I wonder if they wonder why we stick cameras in their faces.

Shot with the Opteka 85mm F1.4.

OOF!

A baby.

Cutting queue.

I observed the monkeys – they initially were all at the bottom of the hill, waiting for us to come by bus.

And yet, as I took pictures of them on the railing, they were slowly travelling up the hill. Some would sit around. Some would steal bananas and hop on humans.

And yet, none of them were going down the hill.

So if the monkeys were following each other, how did they all end up downhill? Who started going down?

Following the group is a survival instinct – if you do what the majority does, you think you will be safe. Though following is also not the smartest thing to do – ever joined a long queue to see an empty lane on the right? And there is a person manning the lane, but nobody goes there, for some reason!

So much for human intelligence and being advanced.

Could it be that we led their exodus up, and we called them to come down with our loud buses?

Perhaps, they were bored with us, and went on up to the trees. Yes, Bukit Malawati is where this picture came from!

Ho with his new sports telephoto.

Apparently, across the sea was Indonesia. (The hazy bit, not the nearer river!)

And then, we were led elsewhere.

A self-portrait for the competition where we’d submit our pictures from the trip.

A New Long Post

9 Replies

Sorry for the sporadic posts, I’ve been busy, and pretty exhausted.

However, I did grow a year older, and I am at least tall enough to reach a bear’s armpits!

A problem with wanting to blog textually, is that I really have so much to say that I don’t know where to start, and what to leave out, because it is really a big long story!

Anyway, 2010 has been a very interesting year for me – I changed my employer, finally, after 4 years of interning (during college) and 5.5 years of full-time employment. In the interest of self-preservation and continued employment, I will leave certain details out, which can be gotten in person.

Outsourcing is a very interesting phenomenon. In short, my job was made obsolete, and the team I was in was to sit at the vendor’s office and learn the system. Then we were called back, and I quit and joined the vendor instead.

Oh well, 5 years in the same position doesn’t give significant increments, but I absolutely loved the ex-company and its perks (then). Now when I say ex-company – I mean that I had been paid by the same company, never needing to go for another interview, but the stuff I worked on was always changing.

Also I had this fear that I had become unable to learn anything new – ASP.NET was just too much of a pain in the OS to install (Microsoft, please un-f— your Windows Installer system – it’s still broke on my home Windows 7 installation). Hence, I was doing classic ASP 3.0 for pretty much my run of service! We tried to get our foot in ASP.NET, going for courses held by lousy instructors who just tell you to go to Page 3 of Chapter 4 and do the exercise while the instructor sits there and asks if we have any problems retyping the code from the book into the machine.

But then I was thrown into deep water at the vendor’s office, learning XSL (which I quite fancy, since XPath is full of win) and then I soon found myself teaching other colleagues, who were thrown into the water at the same time I was.

I was smart again!

I could learn again!

Several other incidents led me to decide to leave the company, but I was surprised that I made the decision in 2 days!

The Xfresh.com domain was registered on the 18th of August 2000, and the team was formed and I started interning on the 18th of December 2000.

Exactly 10 years later, the domain expired.

That was the same day I had the initial sentiment to move on, although I didn’t know the domain expired until a few days later. What a intergalactic coincidence!

And so, I make my first sweepingly public statement – I am no longer just a classic ASP web programmer! I’m doing XSL, a tiny milligram of PHP (but enough to Tweet as an xAuth user, which I’d say is 1337 enough) and the subject many IT students feared – Java.

Web programming makes you stupid. It’s linear, and when you try to introduce object-oriented and reusable, modular components… you get teammates who don’t get it and write stuff like this:

What’s worse is when a teammate defends the practice of excessive forking to avoid accidentally corrupting the source. Except, of course, when you need to patch a security hole, you have to find each fork and patch it, because apparently programmers don’t generally know what SQL Injection is! (Or worse, assuming that just because one .NET component is immune, that you don’t have to sanitize your input and output, or worse, applying the input sanitizing filter to the output and vice versa.)

So where was I, besides getting all worked up about some appalling habits I had to bear with back in the day?

Ah, Java. Reason being that having recently adopted an Android phone, I am also now an Android Developer! It’s not out yet, though I have developed my personal Twitter client just to tweet as Glaring Notebook. No, you don’t need to be a programmer to make your own Twitter vanity plate – I leave that to you to Google. 😉

Java is fantastic! Despite having a very steep learning curve, it is also a very, uh, fascinating language.

So how’s “fragmentation”?

Ah, the only 4-syllable word that iPhone fanboys can pronounce. 😀

It’s only a problem if you don’t know how to write your code to be flexible. I remember the people who would complain that this CSS code would not work in IE. Well they were just making it too complex when simpler CSS would do the trick! I’ve never had to use one of those tags which discriminate browsers.

(I am also a supporter of IE’s logical box model. Padding on the inside doesn’t change box dimensions, it only makes sense!)

That said though, it does have some implications – developing on my HTC Desire on Android 2.2, I didn’t know how much was missing in Android 1.5 until we got a HTC Magic running on Android 1.5. No XPATH? The agony! Performance was slower because it didn’t support Just-In-Time compilation, and it was just slower in spawning new asynchronous threads.

So I had to optimize it for 1.5, which is where I should’ve started in the first place.

This would pose a problem for those developers buying Google Nexus S phones, with Android 2.3, which features concurrent garbage collection (for significantly less lag). So it works fine on a 2.3 device, but will be jerky on a 1.5 device.

Oh, and if the application scrolls jerkily and crashes, it is so totally the programmer’s fault, not the phone’s. I’ve seen smooth, responsive applications in 1.5 – and I look at them in awe and respect.

I’d say that fragmentation is much less of an issue for programmers, than it is for customers, since programmers know how to get around it.

I have another confession to make.

I am on stock Android 2.2 with HTC Sense, South-East Asia version, downloaded from over-the-air. I have not rooted my phone.

I can root and underclock/overclock and do other optimizations, but it will not be reflective of the performance of my application on un-rooted phones, which make the majority. And yes, I will keep the HTC Magic torturously caged by 1.5, instead of the 2.2 that it can update to.

Also, rooting allows access of SQLite and private data to other programs who do not own that data. That’s not something I would like, because I know what I could do with it. 😉

Android 1.5/1.6 is to Android 2.1/2.2/2.3 as what Windows Vista is to Windows 7. A far less glamourous, polished product.

I’ve no idea how to end this blog post, but I’m just mentioning my intent to end this blog post so it doesn’t look like I didn’t copy all the text from Notepad. 😀

Hair Hair

6 Replies

Greetings, earthlings!

I got myself a hairdo which I have always wanted to get ever since I kept my hair long. Guess what it is!

Nope it’s not Mr. T versus a midget lawnmower. I pity the fool who thought that!

Well you could call it a double mohawk. What does this mean?

The above shots were shot by KJ with Azrul’s Canon 1D MkIII and Canon 70-200mm F2.8L USM. Pictures were taken at the fantastic 807 Studio.

We also took some shots with a Hasselblad H4D-50 (50 megapixels!) and a Hasselblad HC 80mm F2.8. I have to say though that the H4D is quite a different experience, with the HC 80mm F2.8 having loud focusing and the H4D having only one AF point in the center. Still, it brings amazing detail and tonality (KJ converted the files in Phocus to 16-bit TIFF.)

A large softbox was above and behind me, with a mirror in front to reflect the light.

Oddly, the 1D MkIII picked up a lot more of the reflection so we tried a honeycomb-snooted light (none of these shots used that.)

Alright, now for the answer – where did I get my inspiration from?

Racing stripes!

When I’m having my mid-life crisis I will buy a sports car and I will deck it out with racing stripes!

I have always wanted to have racing stripes as a hairstyle. Interestingly, I could not find anybody else with this exact hair. I remember telling people I’d want to go through the following phases:

1) Colored hair (bleached highlights and dyed them blue, but it ended up being blue-green and I turned into a peacock.)
2) Long hair (had that for 5 years 5 months)
3) ~~Dreadlocks~~ (but that was shelved because people kept saying that it would stink and they wouldn’t let me in their car and so…)
4) Cornrows (had that for 2 weeks)
5) Bald (did it for charity – plus it’s the only hairstyle you can get after having cornrows!)
6) Flat top (I knew I wanted racing stripes, but I might as well get this first, and then end up with stripes.)
7) Racing stripes

The initial plan was dreadlocks-bald-racing-stripes but it got diverted a fair bit. Man I cannot wait to go to a gig and rock out!

So how much did I pay for this?

RM30.

Sounds cheap, but I went to a barber shop in Dato Keramat village to do this! I asked if they could do it, a special hairstyle, and there were two guys working on it. (The first guy didn’t know how to make the narrow lane in the middle.) So by the time they had finished this accomplishment, I let the guy figure out how much to charge.

To which I am glad that he figured his work was worth it – a regular flat top, which I got there, and a bald cut, which I got there also, was usually about RM10! (This also comes to a recent realization that Malaysians do not know how much their work can be worth.)

A New Cycle

2 Replies

My mom declared that there shall be no reunion dinner this Chinese New Year. Which was very un-Chinese, so I decided to hanker on with one of the traditions anyway – cleaning up the house!

I managed to garner 4 cardboard bags full of old magazines and leaflets. Home alone, I took 4 trips across the neighborhood playground to the recycling bin. On my 3rd trip back, I saw this mom and son carrying old clothes to the bin (which also doubles as a donation box for old clothes.)

On my 4th time there, a car was in my way – a macha had loaded 3 of my bags into his front seat! He asked if I was carrying more books. Yes, I said, and I passed him my last bag.

Bless him for doing his bit, and bless him if he gets money out of it.

I wanted to take a picture of my 4 bags lying near the bin to declare “PAPER IS DEAD TO ME!” but I was a bit too late.

My housemate (if you read my blog, you’d know who he is) came back, and we hauled out 6 more bags to the neighborhood recycling bin! This time an older couple was throwing out their stuff. It’s a nice feeling seeing people recycle.

Seriously though, I don’t see the value to paper anymore. What did I throw out?

– old college books that were outdated and irrelevant even when I got them
– newsletters
– computer price lists
– newspapers
– annual reports (my housemate is a massive hoarder)

I did not throw out my massive stash of:
– Guitar And Bass
– ROTTW (Rhythm Of The Third World)
– TONE (yeah man!)
– KLue

All of this information, is better in digital format. When you have no use for it – delete it!

I have no romantic notion with print. I don’t read books on the bus – instead my mind wanders to a random curiosity and I read Wikipedia on my Nokia N70. (I’ve been doing this long before all you iPhone yuppies!) If you have a stash of annual reports you can bet that finding the information under a big pile, with dust, is not as convenient as a digitized format.

Even if digital formats do die, the information is probably of less relevance by then.

Oh, and Happy Chinese New Year everybody! Happy Valentine’s Day, and Singles Awareness Day. I have to say the SAD nights are more fun because they’re not so expensive.

* the picture above has nothing to do with the recycling bin.

Change Management

2 Replies

I have a system for maintaining a good amount of change in my wallet. I separate it into 3 compartments:

COMPARTMENT #1: The RM50 compartment

I will always have at least one RM50 in my wallet. If I don’t I will feel uneasy and have this look like I need to go to the ATM!

It is very important that the RM50 notes are separated from the RM1 notes, which can be easily confused for each other as they are blue-green.

COMPARTMENT #2: The RM10 or less compartment

I will always have at least one RM10 and a few RM1 notes in this compartment. If I don’t, I will strive to break a RM50 note.

This is vital for taxis and vending machines who may not have change. Don’t expect them to come up with change, seriously.

I get annoyed with 7-11s that don’t have change, but I understand that the kids behind there are just not educated with the idea of maintaining change. Not to be racist, but I do find stalls that are manned by a certain race tend to not have change more often… inability to plan and be prepared is ingrained in their culture, I guess. Who runs Carls Jr. Pavilion so badly that there are no beef or chicken patties on a Sunday at 7pm?

COMPARTMENT #3: The AUXILLARY CHANGE compartment

I keep all my ancient RM1, RM2, RM5 and RM10 notes here. They’re kinda like my collector’s items. I also add at least one modern RM10 note, one RM5 note and 5 RM1 notes in this compartment.

When you’ve got no change in COMPARTMENT #2, which can happen if you’re hit by a strain of having to take a cab, buy a currypuff, buy a KTM ticket and go to a shopping mall toilet… you may need to break into the emergency COMPARTMENT #3.

Sometimes I do run out of change in COMPARTMENT #2 and I try to break a RM50 note with a taxi driver. However he may insist that he really has no change. Sometimes, you take a cab to a place in the middle of the night that has no 7-11, or the 7-11 has no change, and you’re both screwed!

That is when I have to break, uncomfortably, into thy hallowed COMPARTMENT #3. (This is also why I make it a point to replenish COMPARTMENT #2 as soon as possible.)

I may also open COMPARTMENT #3 if forced into a situation where my friend does not have change for parking. I graciously help my friend, who is obviously then giving me a lift.

However, it is the responsibility each car owner to be well prepared with their own Change Management system, to avoid carrying a heavy wallet full of 50 sen coins!

Thus, in total, I would minimally have:
COMPARTMENT #1: RM50
COMPARTMENT #2: RM10 + RM1 (x5) = RM15
COMPARTMENT #3: RM10 + RM5 + RM1 (x5) = RM20

Total carried: RM85

Of course, there is the ATM card as well. I try to keep my COMPARTMENT #1 having anywhere between RM50 and RM200 (any more, and I would look for a Cash Deposit Machine).

This post is dedicated to George Wong, who writes the best thought pieces ever!

SAM Is New

2 Replies

Things I spotted at Sony Style KLCC today!

The bronze Sony Alpha 330! It looks every bit as good in real life, as it looks in the picture. Which is really, really good.

And then, there is the first ever Sony lens with a 67mm filter thread… (say what?)

The much awaited Sony 28-75mm F2.8 SAM! Note that there is a Lock switch to hold it at 28mm, and the focus ring is reverse from most Sony lenses. It is noticeably smaller than the Zeiss 24-70mm F2.8.

Minimum focus distances:
Sony Vario-Sonnar T* Carl Zeiss 24-70mm F2.8 SSM ZA = 34cm
Tamron/Minolta 28-75mm F2.8 = 33cm
Sony 28-75mm F2.8 SAM = 38cm

We all know that the Sony is a rebadged Tamron – it’s obvious from the reverse focus ring and filter size. However, why is the MFD changed from 33cm to 38cm?

The Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 in Canon EF mount comes with a micro-motor since all Canon EOS cameras do not have in-body motors. The Nikon F mount version also has that micro-motor. Both Tamrons can still do 33cm with a micro-motor! So why can’t Sony?

Obviously, because a Sony 28-75mm F2.8 that does 33cm MFD compared to a Zeiss 24-70mm F2.8 that does 34cm MFD looks better on paper!

I have to say this, I absolutely hate SAM for lenses that are meant to be matched on higher-end bodies (A850/A900) which have the AF/MF toggle and DMF functionality, because SAM makes any on-body MF control impossible. It’s not so bad to have SAM on a kit lens but not on a lens that is targeted to full-frame users.

And yet, it is hard to write off this lens – optically, it is superb, even wide open! I didn’t bring my A900 + Minolta 24-105mm F3.5-4.5(D) to compare, but what I shot looks very impressive, with good corners at F2.8. Focusing isn’t very fast though, and it feels a bit slow to draw at macro distances sometimes. I guess it’s best to have a Zeiss 24-70mm owner to compare as the Zeiss 24-70mm has faster SSM (compared to other lenses in its 24-70mm range.)

Its weight is superb – it’s light enough and yet it balances very well on the A850! If the 24-70mm ever felt too heavy, this will feel miraculously matched.

Pixel peeping will come another day!

Pros:
– good balance on the A850/A900
– good optical quality wide open even on the corners
– cameras with a F2.8 sensor (A700/A850/A900) will gain more accuracy

Cons:
– SAM motor implementation makes the very useful AF/MF and DMF functions on the A700/A850/A900 useless
– focus ring turns in the reverse direction of all Sony lenses (like the Sony 18-200mm and 18-250mm)
– 38cm MFD is a downgrade from the Konica Minolta/Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 which focused to 33cm close

Personally, if I could find a good copy of the Konica Minolta/Tamron 28-75mm F2.8, I would pick that over this Sony, only for the AF/MF and DMF functionality.

And finally, some leftover lens pr0n:

Keptwalk

3 Replies

Down on the catwalk, 27th April 2008, at 1 Utama…

…with the Minolta 70-210mm F4 beercan on my A700.

Male models – that is when you hear all the male camera-owners take less pictures.

I really don’t get what’s so great about catwalk photography for most male camera-owners. “Oh it’s so difficult!”

Pfft, the models pause at the front of the catwalk and turn around for all to see. The lighting is consistent. People who say it is difficult should get out more and shoot more genres.

Obviously, the guys are there for the female models, and for a chance for the typically bespectacled engineer/IT support person to use his expensive telephoto lens (which practically can’t be used at home.) You see all these uncles as well, overjoyed that their big lenses finally get some use!

I went with some friends once to shoot. We’d all huddle up in the photographer booth, which was elevated. We’d shoot a half-hour session, and not leave the booth during the intermission, in fear that we’d lose our space.

Yeah I get excited, I like pretty faces. I like how she looks so much like Kristin Kreuk!

However, by 3 to 4 half-hour rounds, I got bored of seeing the same faces! You see the same faces at every catwalk/fashion show. (Everybody loves Andrew’s Models.)

So what can I say? Obviously, the straight guys are not into shooting catwalks for the fashion. I know they don’t care and neither did I for the clothes.

However, I will comment on this outfit – I don’t like it when girls dress up in shape-less gunny sacks.

And now, fast-forward to 7th August 2008, at Twenty-One, for a showcase of Kariza Designs! At least these models were different because they were all friends of the founder/founder’s brother’s girlfriend.

Twenty-One was tight, and no telephoto would’ve been comfortable.

Not that I even brought a telephoto that night – I only had the Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 35mm F2.4 on the A700. Manual focus was a challenge, and there were many spoiled shots!

Sorry Shannon there’s an elbow!

“Ooo, I have feet now.”

Yes, it was real packed!

I’m not sure what was up with my lens that night, but it seemed to have some focus curvature.

I found the concept to be amazingly cool – a colorful batik wrap that can be transformed into many different outfits! Instructional DVD included with every unique design.

Group shot! Argh, again the focus curvature.

Catch a flash.

Getting Dirty With The Thirty

More Random Squibbles About Albert

4 Replies

I have a cup at the office. I wipe it dry and store it at my cubicle every time.

Every time I don’t, and I leave it to dry at the pantry, it will end up at somebody else’s desk. People like my cups! There was one that I won at a Canon Expo, which sat at the cubicle next to mine, for quite a while. I didn’t bother claiming my cup (since I had another free cup at home, so I brought that…)

My second cup made its rounds too. One particular colleague has certain traits, which as of lately, somehow have been noticed in me. It is scary – I wonder if these traits were contagious!

Speaking of contagious, Sunday was not a good day for the flu-fearing like me. I met one too many people who had just gotten off a plane. I don’t know if I am fortunate that we don’t have a complex ghetto hand greeting, or unfortunate that we still shake hands on reflex. Often, I’d find out that they got off a plane after shaking hands.

Nevertheless, I monitor my body temperature – it is interesting to note how you get a bit warmer after waking up, or eating. Or how you can seem rather warm when sitting under a cold air vent and seem alright 30 minutes out of the office.

I bought a book.

I don’t read, really – sure, I buy KLue and ROTTW religiously every month, and read them when I can (possibly, 2-12 months later.) However, I can’t even remember the last book I properly picked up and read. Lord Of The Rings, back in 1998, possibly… I got halfway through the book I think.

I didn’t know I would consume any book until I found this paperback at Borders, Berjaya Times Square – I stood there reading it until almost 10pm. I knew then it was my destiny to buy this book one day. However, I did not cross paths with it again when I started looking – it was not in Borders or MPH! Popular had it… in Penang. I then found it in Times Square, Pavilion.

Scar Tissue, by Anthony Kiedis

His autobiography is pretty much sex, drugs and rock and roll, but written poetically – he is after all a poet. Interestingly, the first half is a lot of Hillel Slovak and a lot of drugs, with probably a quarter of the book for his childhood. A major bonus would be the insights to the lyrics of the songs, and pictures, some of which were uncensored. I’m only up to the point where John Frusciante quit the band, but I know if I pick it up again I will not be able to put it down.

It also helps that the Red Hot Chili Peppers was the first band I ever declared to be my “favorite”. The book realigned my taste for their first three albums – I didn’t pay much attention to the pre-John Frusciante stuff until this book.

And in other news, I am excited about this week’s Moonshine!

What: Moonshine: A Homemade Music Show X Junk Lo-Fideo
When: Thursday 10pm, July 16th 2009
Where: Laundry Bar, The Curve
How Much: Free but buy a drink! Or if you don’t drink, buy me a drink or members of Rhapsody a drink because they have been so gracious to return!
Who: Bite Me Butterfly, The Wongs, Laila, Rhapsody

OMG Rhapsody! I was very sad when this superb jazz/funk/soul/pop group broke up, and now they are back and I feel a bit braver to face the world now that I can pat my favorite Buddha-headed singer and derive spiels of joy from it. Oh and of course Bite Me Butterfly with hot sizzing Sicilian/Malay vocalist Naj! (Laila does not have any hot chicks though, they’re pretty much Laila’s Lounge without the former vocalist.)