Monthly Archives: February 2004

So You’all Want A Single

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Well hello. I didn’t expect so much attention for being Featured Blog, so hello! Yes so I submitted my site so yeah. “Poet and a prophet” is a line from Red Hot Chili Peppers – Give It Away. No man I’m no Bob Marley but I like telling people to woke smeed. Go figure.

I’d love to write something really long, but hey, I’m just filling up to cover my last posting. I shall attempt a mainstream blog post for now.

The SPM results was a bummer. Most people I know got 6-7 A’s! During my time (SPM 2000) my friends and I got 4-5 A’s. People who took it the next year got 1-2 A’s. Perhaps it’s an unjust observation, but I found it ironic. Maybe I just knew some very unacademic people from SPM 2001. Maybe I just knew some very academic people from SPM 2003.

Does it really matter how many A’s you have when you’re applying for a job?

Would it make a difference whether you get 4A’s or 6A’s? I’d think you’d only make some impact if you waltzed in an interview with 12A’s. Of course, the more A’s, the better the chances of you getting a scholarship, but that’s a very subjective political issue.

Really, I can’t stand the thought that grades are all that matter. I know very successful people who have positions of power not because of grades but because of their excellent people skills. Their ability to convince. Remember Dewey Finn of School Of Rock? He sweet-talked his way into getting his way somewhat. Having that skill will get you… loads of free stuff, and a few contacts that matter. (I even wrote a poem about a very unorthodox method of convincing a reluctant date!)

Oh yeah, what do I think of School Of Rock? I liked it! Rock on! Stick it to the man! I walked in, being a classic rock fan and all, expecting to know every musical reference, but alas! That was not the case. I hadn’t listened to The Doors, The Velvet Underground, The Pixies, The Ramones (though I’ve heard of all of them!) A bit contradictory was how Dewey could like punk and heavy metal at the same time. (Well I only liked British classic heavy metal so yeah.)

Still, I could go around telling people how I know the first song Dewey played to Zack was Black Sabbath – Iron Man and not Deep Purple – Smoke On The Water. Right after watching it I walked with a guitar geek all over town to every guitar store, admiring the lickable Gibson SG. Yes, I have an obsession with butterscotch-colored guitars.

Speaking of food, I wanna go try cheese naan because of all that hype. However I always go eat Indian food with friends so they know what to order. My friend who suggested it however didn’t know what it tasted like though so we’d go jakun together over its flavor! However, nobody really knew (or agreed upon) which way to fold a Banana Leaf Rice banana leaf…

De Weedy

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I got myself a DVD burner.

I think the first sentence warns you already. Geek Alert!

Yessir, I got myself one of those newfangled all-formats-supported burners. The LG DVDRAM GSA-4040B, or HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4040B. (A joint venture between LG and Hitachi.)

I plugged it in on my secondary IDE cable, as the slave to my Sony CRX104E 8x4x32 CD burner. Both drives were set to Cable Select mode. BIOS detection took extra long, and its name was some weird characters. Later I found there was only one drive in Windows XP, and although a CD-ROM was placed in both drives, nothing appeared.

I then swapped it so the DVD burner was master and CD burner slave, with the appropriate manual jumper settings. It worked! Of course, Ahead Nero was already registered to the CD burner only, so I used Pinnacle’s InstantDVD+CD software for the DVD burner.

I burnt one CD-R with the DVD burner, and it worked well. I have yet to buy any blank DVD media. 🙁

As a CD burner it’s rated 24x12x32, reading DVDs at 12x. It writes DVD-RAMs at 3x, DVD+RWs at 2.4x, DVD-RWs at 2x and DVD-Rs and DVD+Rs at 4x. Of course, a DVD’s 4x is different from a CD’s 4x… a DVD’s 1x is 1385 Kilobytes per second, while a CD’s 1x is a mere 150 Kilobytes per second. Hence, burning a DVD-R at 4x would be 5540 Kilobytes per second. Divide that by 150 Kilobytes per second, and it’s equivalent to burning a CD at 37x.

I don’t really have any practical use for a DVD burner… I got it cheap just for the heck of it, and as a status symbol. 🙂 I had a few DVDs to play anyway, and I’d probably back up my huge MP3 collection on two DVD+RWs.

Oh, and I used DVD Region Free to circumvent the possible regional problems related to DVDs. Sweet. However, playing Metallica – St. Anger original DVD had some problems – at quieter parts, the sound would disappear halfway, as if the sound moved to another channel. (I have 2 cheap speakers on a Creative SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 soundcard.) Even choosing stereo Dolby Digital in the menu made no difference.

Why not be happy with my CD burner? Well, a blank DVD-R still costs less than 7 CD-Rs of the same capacity. 🙂

On a side note, my dad’s Relisys 1569 15″ CRT monitor is FANTASTIC. I never knew until I was reinstalling Windows 98 SE on it. It could go 1024×768 at 85 Hertz and 1280×1024 at 60 Hertz, or a maximum of 69 Kilohertz! Such high frequency ratings are only supported on 17″ CRTs! I personally can’t stand anything below 85 Hertz so this was really neat. I wonder if their 17″ and 19″ CRT monitors have high frequencies too. (Anybody know any monitor that can do at least a 102 Kilohertz vertical refresh?)

Studying Networking

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A long-lost friend of mine called me up.

She: Would you like to make money?
Me: Er… yeah, but that sounds kinda dodgy and shifty.
She: Oh nothing, just if you wanna make some extra income. You free tomorrow?
Me: I guess so.

I walked about Low Yat Plaza first hunting for cheap RAM but didn’t find it. As I walked to the appointed 7:45pm at San Francisco Coffee at Citibank, Ampang Park, where we were supposed to meet, she called up. “I’m stuck in a traffic jam, so can you meet my associate who’s waiting there?”

Associate: Do you want to make money?
Me: Well I want money, but if you put it that way, it sounds so pyramid-schemeish. I want to work! Oh wait, that doesn’t sound right.

She brought me two doors away to Wisma MCA, where there was this group of formal, professional-dressed people with the average age of 40. I even saw DJ Fuzz of the Teh Tarik Crew there!

She then asked if I brought RM6. “What? Well my friend didn’t say anything about that…” She took out her own vouchers and it let us in.

And so the speech began. There are many ways of making money etc. It came to a predictable point when they said of this thing called Network Marketing. “Do not confuse this with Direct Selling”, they said.

A few slides later, the suspect reared its infamous head. Amway. (Yessir they have a legal license to do Direct Selling in Malaysia. 😛 )

They demonstrated their alarm system, with amusing blunders. 🙂

Then came the amusing self-bashing testimonials. “I once got into it when I was young, did it for one year, and swore never to touch it again. Much later my wife got interested and now I am successful and not working for anybody!”

My friend finally came. It ended at 9:30pm. I greeted DJ Fuzz and asked him what he was doing there. “What do you think?” I saw the badge! Well then. He wasn’t a first-timer.

I then ran off to catch the bus. I wasn’t into their product range anyway. At the Ampang Park PUTRA LRT there was already some confusion as some lady was saying the train would stop at only KLCC and go directly to Kelana Jaya after that. Call me busybody but I like controlled chaos.

I got off at KLCC and walked back to Bintang Walk. I ate McDonalds there and took the bus home. That ends my day folks.

Disjointed Paragraphs

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I went to the Xgames and bought myself a Pantera – Reinventing Hell: The Best Of Pantera CD for RM10. Yes, an original CD, from Warner Music’s booth. Syefri and I put RM10 each on Dream Theater – Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence. Neat!

Syefri and I rode to Alda‘s birthday party. Ah! Joy was to be found in regular seats that do not paralyse the thighs.

Being alone can be good or bad… sure you won’t have anybody to listen to you, but you don’t need to listen to anybody!

I then bunked at his place and played his housemate’s electric guitar. Maxed compressor and gain on a British classic amp setting rocks!

Life has a funny way of throwing things at you when you have an uncomfortable amount of money in your wallet.

Disjointed unrelated paragraphs help to add to the flashbacked dramaticness associated with thriller movies. I blame the Gollum-lookalike for this style. It makes any “I brushed my teeth” entry look good!

Joy and Irritance

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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

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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.

We Deyyy

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Oh yes, what an interesting Saturday indeed.

I saw a friend of a friend who owed me money get on the Kelana Jaya LRT! I walked towards my money-owing friend and whistled, hovering over her, irritating her on purpose. She settled her debt. Interestingly enough, I asked her the night before if she was free for lunch on Saturday. She said “sure if you treat me”. I *ahemed*. She didn’t reply.

I then met Aznin at PJ A&W Drive In, Amcorp Mall. Yessir the girlfriend of Syefri.

The A&W bear land, once the premier playground of my childhood and many other kids, was now a sad-looking place. It was just one small construction with one tunnel slide, a monkey bar, and a few springed-seat rides. Before this, it was a grand, tall, long slide, loads of tunnels, and the rollercoasterish climax – a slide leading to a huge maze! The only thing that stayed? The original hand-painted sign that said “A&W bear land”.

We got a cab from Kelana Jaya LRT. Not any regular cabbie. He, as usual, asked if I could speak Chinese, to which I said I could understand Cantonese but not speak it with the proper intonation. However, other things cracked me up:

He: Eh you know ah today is the taling day?
Me: Taling day?
He: You know, taling day!
Me: (Pretending to know) OHHH taling day!
He: You know that day if girl kiss you you extra happy…
Me: Oh…

(Later he waves at a cabbie to his right.)

Me: You know him ah?
He: Yeah, actually they all know me.
Me: How ah?
He: I’m the chairman of the taxi drivers association lah! I so handsome, go on TV and talk, complain to the government…
Me: Wah, so they let you pass all the time ah?
He: Nolah, I keep low profile.

(Later still.)

He: You know actually I can speak Tamil.
Me: Really? Wah! Can hear ah?
He: (Rattles on in Tamil.) Yeah… last time I love this Indian girl.
Me: Last time? What happened? Did you pick her up from the same spot all the time?
He: 3 years ago lah. I love this Indian girl and she love me. So I learn Tamil from her.
Me: And then what happened?
He: She left me! She left me for some other Chinese fella and married him! Until now I am still single… I say lah. Must be damn bad luck one. If not means I won’t drive taxi any more.

I was swept with true pity. This Chinese dude was old (in his sixties) and balding! I paid the fare and asked him to keep the change. We then got out and laughed like hell. It was better than Kerpal (you know, that hit Jerky Boys – You Kicked My Dog MP3 being forwarded around?)

We went to Ikano Power Center and went jakun over everything! The corridors were wide and the tunnels were skinny and long!

The Euphonics music store was stocked with different brands of guitars (Fender, Ibanez, ESP LTD) you don’t usually see in one shop (with a very informed salesman, to add!) The Popular bookstore had a cheap RM3.90 Rubik’s Cube imitation by the same brand (but each time I find one, it’s distinctly different – in this case, it was 133% the size of a regular one, and it felt as spring-loaded as an original, but a bit smoother…)

We terrorized kids in Ikea’s playpen and went around trying to open those darned doors to nowhere. We then ran through the maze that was Ikea to meet a unnameable supposed-to-be-my-date friend for dinner at Ikano’s food court. I looked around for the fancy fountain tap that I heard my mom telling me about, and found it at the back. It was in one tiny room instead of being the center of attraction!

As we left to walk to One Utama (cab drivers would charge crazily to go to Kelana Jaya) I realized what taling day meant. Darling day! Darling day!

Aznin (in jilted sobby voice): “Why didn’t you get me a real, red rose instead of this pink clump of leaves which I picked, gave to you, to give to me?”
Me (in agitated Indian voice): “Aiyah I tell you lady, I am dressed in red already and I am biiigger than any red rose you can fiiind on the overpriced florist! Whaaat more could I be haaa? Selfless that’s iiit! To give myselllf to you!”

One Utama 2 was huge as we walked past it, but we didn’t go in, since we were rushing to the taxi stand.

She asked me to pick up a fallen rose from an exhibition in One Utama’s main hall. I told her “I’d pick up a RM5 note from Taman Bahagia LRT but not a rose, shy lah…” What would they do with those anyway? (You know, roses around a arched top between two pillars…)

Hmmph. I got her a 4D puzzle from Jaya Jusco One Utama, much like those I have made Hannna fall in collectible love with. I got myself an apatosaurus (long-necked 4-legger) and for her, a hedgehog with its spikes combed down. Damned cute and round! She loved it. (My brother has one too, but he’d never let me touch it since it was too damn round and cute to be pulled apart.)

While lining up at the cashier, I said to her, “You know why I like you so much? I don’t need to learn a new language to be with you!”

We walked, talked and laughed until we had to stop for thirst-quenchers every 15 minutes.

We managed to hitch a taxi at the first point where taxis turn in to One Utama. What luck! This taxi driver was quiet though. At Kelana Jaya they did some fancy switcheroos since the earlier taxi wanted to go where she was going, LOL! The passengers were asked to get out and take the taxi behind it!

How about Sunday? I have always dubbed Sunday the day of rest, and rightly so, I slept till dinner, waking up only for lunch.

Oh, and dead blogs have been removed from the links of my About Me! page. Irma and Ed are relinked. “Broken links” is a funny oxymoron.

And So I Ask. How?

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I’m not ready to tell her.

What would she say? Would she let me stay?

I’m lazy and she knows it.

Sometimes the truth is best hidden or at least held back.

Serves me right, she’d say. Not like I was one for concentrating anyway, but it would make her happy.

I need a change. I don’t want to be staring and working on it all night. Sometimes even a goodnight is hushed or forgotten. Would we instantly forgive and forget? She would, and I take that for granted that sometimes she just will not forget.

She loves me more than I would like to recount or measure, but her concern becomes my loss. My loss of freedom. My loss of income.

I shall tell her someday, on the ever so rare fair-weathered day.

And Then What Ah

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I was showing my friend this tunnel which led from Planet Hollywood to the hotel opposite it, going under Bintang Walk.

She asked if I was afraid I would get robbed when I walked there alone. I said I never thought of it, since I don’t think about these kinda things alone. If I was in the tunnel and I wasn’t alone, I wouldn’t think of being robbed and so…

Ah well, that didn’t make sense when I typed out the premise here now.

Things don’t seem to be as confidently coherent anymore, hence my lack of thought-provoking blogs. Even when reporting the most happening Urbanscapes I just kept procrastinating.