{"id":300,"date":"2004-10-07T12:08:50","date_gmt":"2004-10-07T12:08:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/?p=300"},"modified":"2016-09-19T17:02:00","modified_gmt":"2016-09-19T17:02:00","slug":"many-updates-they-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/?p=300","title":{"rendered":"Many Updates They Come"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Saturday<\/b><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glaringnotebook.com\/zimages\/ahr.jpg\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glaringnotebook.com\/zimages\/itinerary.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>I headed to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.klue.com.my\" target=\"_BLANK\">KLue<\/a> 4th Anniversary at Asian Heritage Row. Those observant would&#8217;ve noticed that the second and third anniversaries weren&#8217;t celebrated. (The <a href=\"http:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/?p=77\">first<\/a> was at Grappa Soho.) Funny thing about Asian Heritage Row was that the only thing really Asian restaurant among those fancily named bistros was <i>La Senja<\/i>. There, I had an excellent vanilla-tainted teh tarik with one of the many celebrities:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glaringnotebook.com\/zimages\/tehtarikruzy.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>The event was a no-event; or rather, we&#8217;d make our own event. A power outage delayed Seven Collar T-shirt&#8217;s album launch at Bar Blonde (Asians, blonde, other than Russians?) I bumped into members of Prana and asked if they were performing. &#8220;<i>Oh we&#8217;re going to perform at One Utama at 10:30pm.<\/i>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That explained the small crowd; everybody was at the ICOM gig there!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glaringnotebook.com\/zimages\/kluecrowd.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>I originally went hoping to WAZZAAAP people there. I did bump into celebrities, yes, but minor ones at that. When I did see four chicks walking past, I wondered if they used RentACrowd as featured in their magazine. Then again, if you can get minor celebrities to come on their own money, why not?<\/p>\n<p><b>Sunday<\/b><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glaringnotebook.com\/zimages\/escalepaker2.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>I hung out at Subang.<\/p>\n<p><b>Monday<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Is there much to say about a Monday?<\/p>\n<p><b>Tuesday<\/b><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glaringnotebook.com\/zimages\/longblackcafe.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>I headed to Long Black Cafe (under Mahogany, SS2) for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gamers.com.my\/campea2004\/\" target=\"_BLANK\">Camp EA 2004<\/a>. I pre-registered online, but I didn&#8217;t expect a sticker saying &#8220;Albert Ng, Astro\/Xfresh&#8221;, with press kits and all. I thought I was going as a nosy gamer, not a journalist. They showcased final builds of FIFA 2005, Armies Of Exigo and personally-anticipated <b>Need For Speed: Underground 2<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glaringnotebook.com\/zimages\/fifachamps.jpg\"><br \/>\nThe Malaysian FIFA champions for World Cybergames 2003 and 2004 duke it out in FIFA 2005.<\/p>\n<p>Need For Speed: Underground 2 was cool. While the game engine looked the same, there were more options; you could have a neat bonnet view:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glaringnotebook.com\/zimages\/nfsu1.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>You could customize more things, like the color of your speedometer dial, the color of the dots, and even the inlay of the gauge!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glaringnotebook.com\/zimages\/nfsu2.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>While I didn&#8217;t have time to explore all the menus, I found the one great option:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glaringnotebook.com\/zimages\/nfsu3.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Oh, and it rains sometimes. The rain dropping on the window made a cool warping effect, refracting the surroundings realistically.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glaringnotebook.com\/zimages\/nfsu4.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>It took quite a while to find the eagerly awaited Free Run mode &#8211; you could just drive around the streets leisurely. If you saw another car, you could engage in a race by kissing its bumper. Then, he&#8217;d try to outrun you. The path for this impromptu race would not be set; the objective was to get as far and out of your sight. The car in the lead would get to choose the route.<\/p>\n<p>After work, I headed to Bangkok Bank to get my bus home; however, the bus was half-hour late, and took another half-hour to crawl to Sultan Ismail. Traffic was unusually bad that day, and so I got off the bus and took the STAR LRT to PWTC, where I took a cab home. Alas, he too was not spared from the day&#8217;s particularly massive traffic. He then relayed stories of the pitiful life of a taxi driver. Once, he was a minibus driver (those death-trap kings of the road!) He then became a PUTRA feeder bus driver at Taman Jaya. There, it was the life &#8211; medical benefits, a booth to hang out and read newspapers at, a decent pay (what a fresh degree holder would get!), being able to take leave, doing the relatively jam-free Taman Jaya area; he got bored after a couple of years and moved to a much more challenging job &#8211; Klang Valley cabbie. Once he paid off the cab, he&#8217;d go back to being a bus driver though.<\/p>\n<p><b>Wednesday<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Oh hey since you probably noticed the unexcited, lethargic delivery of the previous days, there is an explanation.<\/p>\n<p>Sometime last semester, I came late to class and there were questions written on the board. I copied them down, as the lecturer said it was the assignment. I enhanced my eyebags to hand it on time. However, one week before the final exam, she went &#8220;<i>Eh Albert you know ah you failed your assignment? You didn&#8217;t do Part 1.<\/i>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As far as I remembered, I did everything, and even took out the paper where I copied the questions to. Apparently what she copied was just Part 2 as she needed to explain them; all the assignment questions were online.<\/p>\n<p>Dammit, she could&#8217;ve told me earlier that I failed. Okay so it was my fault for not checking, but couldn&#8217;t she give me a chance? She knew that if I knew there was a Part 1, I would do it well and pass.<\/p>\n<p>About a month after the exam, I checked my results online; I found out that my login didn&#8217;t work anymore, so I went to college to ask them to reset my password. I wrote my email address, student ID, and phone number on a piece of paper, and they said they&#8217;d take care of it.<\/p>\n<p>I tried again at the office, and it still didn&#8217;t work; so, I headed to college to ask again. I gave them my student ID, and they went, &#8220;oh we sent you an email already what!&#8221; They even printed it out, with my new password. Problem was, the email was addressed to <i>albnole@hotmail.com<\/i>. Okay I shall remember to write my K&#8217;s properly.<\/p>\n<p>Frustrated, I went to a cybercafe in Ampang Park to check my results with my new password. <b>Fail\/Refer<\/b>, it said. Take the exam again, it meant.<\/p>\n<p>I went to KLCC to get superglue for my Rubik&#8217;s Cube project. I finally figured out how to repair the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.glaringnotebook.com\/?p=206\">oversized ones<\/a> (article will come later) and so, I sat outside Isetan KLCC on a bench, screwing a center piece back on. I then warmed it up, but it popped again! So I screwed it in again, messed it up, and it popped off again. This time, since the cube was already messed up, I had to take everything apart. As I reassembled it, a balding white guy walked past, saying, &#8220;<i>hey that&#8217;s cheating!<\/i>&#8221; I showed him the center piece, going, &#8220;<i>but this part came out! It usually doesn&#8217;t come out!<\/i>&#8221; Without slowing down, he walked off into Isetan, going &#8220;<i>hey that&#8217;s cheating!<\/i>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After all that misfortune, this was something I could laugh at.<\/p>\n<p>Since I was on a roll of bad luck, I decided to take a cab and not risk waiting for\/in an Intrakota. All was fine till I found out I had no money! Out came ancient 1 Ringgit notes from the secret reserves.<\/p>\n<p>How was your day?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saturday I headed to the KLue 4th Anniversary at Asian Heritage Row. Those observant would&#8217;ve noticed that the second and third anniversaries weren&#8217;t celebrated. (The first was at Grappa Soho.) Funny thing about Asian Heritage Row was that the only thing really Asian restaurant among those fancily named bistros was La Senja. There, I had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,18,19,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-music","category-pictures","category-travelling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11708,"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/11708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}