Monthly Archives: December 2003

What I Need

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I could never handle your curves
Or your many no-entry signs
You are one of my many loves
But you won’t let me off the lines
And as I hit the walls nearby
I ignored gravity and flew
Dancing aimlessly in the sky
Before getting reborn anew
I wanted to be in control
To have a grip and not lose it
I wanted to just reach my goal
With a boost, just a little bit
I’ll be on magazine covers
So give me a day around town
I’ve been in circles for hours
In endless pursuit underground

A Tale Of Shiny Discs

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And as I shriveled my tongue to Carolyn’s “McDonald’s never puts enough salt on their fries” fries, I said:

“Beware my brother’s legion of ‘4D puzzle’ animals!”

A puzzled Hanna then asked, while sipping through her balloon-stick-made-into-straw straw, if she could buy it from me.

I said no, and drank my Vanilla Coke merrily.

Santa Was A Telekom Engineer

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I woke up late on a Tuesday, and as my mom was sending me to the LRT station, she asked what present I wanted for my birthday.

“A haircut?”

She was heading to Midvalley anyway, and I got my haircut. It wasn’t worth it – for every Ringgit spent all he did was rewind it a day. The colleagues couldn’t tell the difference! (It was, of course, much lighter… so maybe he did some hairstyling magic to cut off loads but keep the volume?)

The Streamyx (ADSL broadband) installer called me when I was in Tower Records listening to CDs. I told him we’d be home at 8pm. Of course, I later realized that my lovably-bullyable colleague Kay-Li was in a play (Me, Myself and Pulau Belakang Buaya) that night, and it was the only screening, at 8:30pm!

My parents could handle the installer, I thought. Or not. My mom assumed that the Alcatel Speed Touch 510 ADSL broadband modem/router box in the plastic bag near the computer was for my friend. The phone line was dead anyway, so the installer couldn’t do anything.

My delightful enjoyment of the play poking fun of Malaysia was marred by a stern mother saying the installer needed to speak on the phone. I reached home for some parental frying pan.

On Wednesday, an appointment was set at 3pm, but he came at 2pm. Santa he was indeed.

As he checked the cables, Santa asked for the filter thingy, and I took it out of the box, revealing the old Lantech 5-port 10/100 Fast Ethernet switch. He asked how much it was, and I said it was RM105 when I bought it, but PC Fair was selling such at RM75, so I’d sell it at RM50. He bought it.

The night before, I set the ADSL modem’s mode to PPPoA (which could give me 2Mbps if they forget to uncap my bandwidth) instead of PPPoE. However, it refused to connect until I switched it back to PPPoE, at a stable 384kbps.

The best part was, the router passed every test in Gibson Research Corporation‘s ShieldsUP! tool.

I just hope I can maintain such enthusiasm (jakun!) It’s not like I haven’t tasted broadband at the office before…

Regretfully, DJ Phuturecybersonique told me of a Linksys wireless router/modem going for RM220… with wireless networks, the chances of the modem getting struck by lightning and passing the current to the computers are virtually nil.

Flush The Evils

Me and my family were in the family van, coming home from my grandma’s. I wound the window down to reach out to the toll system’s Touch N Go.

We were just looking out for signs to home. Soon, the two lanes converged into a highway, and at that point, there was a huge puddle. My dad slowed down, on the deeper end, the left side.

An idiot zoomed past on the right.

I wanted to wind the windows up, but I just closed my eyes and winced.

The huge wave splashed on my sister, mother and I.

I felt like horning at that fella, but all we could do was laugh loudly. What more from a van window that was higher than usual!

Seasons Greetings

Oh yes, Merry Christmas. I hate typing it because my fingers go all over the keyboard. So don’t be offended if I type “Same to you” instead. 😛

Five Years Now

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Friday

Jing dragged me to Kelana Jaya for a birthday dinner. The place had plenty of funky curry servings, but to be safe, I would pick a less stomach-contorting fish and chip meal. Turns out the coleslaw was cold and funky.

Later at Midvalley, Syefri and I queued for entry into the Lord Of The Rings Marathon at 11pm. Nope, there were no pajama-clad people trying to win free stuff. However, before the movie started, some dude said the Subaru ticket winners would have a free buffet… Supper? Clap! Hooray!

What say me?

I stayed well awake for the interesting Fellowship Of The Ring (3 hours 30 minutes), anticipating each scene with just the right amount of enthusiasm. (No ARWEN!!! giggly screams…) I read attentively up to the part where the hobbits bump into a Nazgul, and read somewhat until they meet Strider, so it wasn’t so bad.

The Two Towers (3 hours 44 minutes) was a bit too subdued at the beginning, and I was waiting for the scene to change. Syefri snored. Hear that, Ed!

Proud to have stayed awake so far, I bought Teh Tarik, having the sleepless dragging torture of the second.

That did not help. Figuring I’d be able to see it again soon, Return Of The King (3 hours 20 minutes) had me sleeping during the starting war (and preparing-for-war) scenes. I didn’t know who or where or what anymore. Some dude would just take a horse to this kingdom/country/place and call for reinforcements, and he would be the heir. I’d even confuse Eowyn for Galadriel.

I’d catch some winks when I hear whooshes, and open my eyes when the sound changed. Gollum and gang would still be in the same place, so I knew I didn’t miss anything!

What about the ending? Why would ghost pirates suddenly come out so conveniently? (Orlando Bloom was in Pirates Of The Caribbean too… coincidence?) Why didn’t they just call upon them and wipe out the KISS-inspired Uruk-hai?

Someone said the war scenes were emotionally draining, but alas, they were all too fast for my eyes. All that motion blur! All that registered in my head were the whooshes.

It wasn’t butt-numbing, it was leg-cramping. I wished I had more leg room. This, coming from a vertically-challenged person.

Please don’t convince me to watch any part of the trilogy again. It was too daunting in one seating! (Okay, so maybe a Gold Class ticket might convince me…)

At 10:20am, I walked out, a free man, welcomed by the huge queue for the movie I just watched. Syefri and I complimented each other loudly and proudly about our 680 minute adventure.

I went home, slept like 15 minutes, and headed off to SAITO to meet Dustyhawk. We bummed around a bit before I went to KLCC Park for Rock The World 4.

The ticket-less crowd hovered over the barricades, toppling it over impatiently. We waited until their technical difficulties were over, and I greeted Hassan the All-Access-Pass-bearer. “Hassan! Shaz was in Pangkor so he didn’t get us media passes!”

Pan Global Insurance gave out bright neon-colored T-shirts for the moshers, but I took a blue one nevertheless to add to my free-T-shirt wardrobe.

There was no noticeable problem with the sound throughout the show. Fantastic! OAG’s show, starting with the must-jump 60’s TV, ended right after that song as the front stage barricade crashed.

Syefri, Aznin, Michelle and I ate a long dinner at KLCC, to come back much later to discover that the show was still on hold.

Highlights? Prana having the jumpiest funk mosh-core, causing some poor dude to twist his leg. Butterfingers, for something new. Of course there were many other notables, but that shall be reserved for a proper review.

Sunday

I bought an Alcatel SpeedTouch 510 ADSL modem and router with 4 ports for RM300 at PC Fair 2003, PWTC. No comment on it, since I had yet to test it. 🙁

Monday

Er, I blogged about my weekend.

Smiles!

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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. 😉

Octave B Tuning Experiment

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*enters guitar geek mode*

After my first string (high E4) broke from tuning it back from an Open D tuning, I decided to play around with the tunings. What about a guitar that had the chord sound of a piano? A regular guitar chord can span 3 octaves in open position.

I removed both E strings, and took the original set of strings from New Strings Attached, and arranged them like so:

DGBDAB (from 6th to 1st)

The underlined strings were from the old, thick set.

I then tuned them to regular B, or regular E up a fifth, taking the octaves of certain strings, so it became:

B2 E3 A3 D3 F#2 B3

To tune the guitar, the following chords should have the same note, same octave:

b |---------0-
F#|-5---------
D |-------0---
A |-----0-5---
E |---0-5---2-
B |-0-5-------

It feels funny, because the 2nd and 3rd strings are now wound, and the 4th and 5th ones are not. It makes low power chords sound airy and twangy, while high-pitched solos sound low, and unison bends on the 1st two strings will sound (somewhat) like 12-string guitars.

Regular open position chords, like the D major, sounds less high now.

And now, for the compulsory sound demo, with the song every guitar store despises, because every beginner plays it when testing their guitar:

Octave B Tuning Test, octavebtuning.zip, 365 KB (I don’t know what else to call it…)

Perhaps, when I get a new set, I’ll string it like EADGBe (where the EAD strings are dropped GBE’s, respectively.)

Oh, and I was walking past Central Market yesterday, to see two brilliant buskers – one with a regular green cheap Kapok with chipped off pickguard, and a Morris 12-string! Now I wouldn’t know the price of a 12-string Morris, but I’d think it would be beyond the range of a busker…

Joe’s Addiction

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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?