Well of Souls

Flea Hill, Kuala Kubu Baru

2011-05-19T01:06:00.002+08:00

Spent the whole Wesak on a whole day trek to Bukit Kutu in Kuala Kubu Baru.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT I swear this is the hardest trek i've ever done, and without training for it at that. It is 3-4 hours of pain to trek up to the peak, and about the same trekking down. Due to the rain yesterday and some light rainfall today, the trail was slippery as well.

It starts off deceptively easy, cross two suspended bridges over some rivers, walk abit through muddy 4WD trails, but the real fun starts at the foot of the hill. From there on in its a steady uphill path, with several areas that are very steep and slippery (expect to have your ass planted on the ground on your trek, especially when coming down).

You will be wishing to see the peak before very long, but it just goes on and on and on and onnnnnn. The summit is 'just' 1100m, but getting up there is a real test of your body and mind thanks to several extremely steep areas. At some parts I was literally going up a few steps at a time. I brought a 1.5 litre of 100 Plus as well as my own 1litre water bottle, and I finished the 100 Plus and 2/3 of my water by the time I reached the peak.

The markers for the trail are not very good, and unless you have someone who knows the way you will go on the wrong path often as there are several forks throughout. It is very easy to get lost so it is crucial to have a handphone with you in case you end up somewhere off the trail.

There's alot to see if you like nature, there are large jungle ants scurrying about the forest floor, and you'll often see smaller ants walking along trails of their own. Wild orchids can also be seen now and then. Roughly halfway up there is a huge rock overhang, which is home to bees, lots of bees. They're not aggressive though, just abit annoying.

At the summit is the remnants of the old British hill station, where stands a tall brick structure of indeterminate utility (some blogs say its a chimney?) and a well which you can use to replenish your bottle, if you don't mind drinking unboiled water.

Going down was naturally not as exhausting, but my feet were aching so bad at that point it felt like they were two whole blisters. And due to the rain and muddy ground, everyone slipped and planted their ass on the ground at least once. Reaching the river and jumping into the cold water felt like the best thing in the world after that experience.

Also, leeches. Did I mention leeches? These bastards are present on the Bukit Kutu trail, and the variety I encountered liked to drop from the leaves overhead, which is how I caught the first one that tried to make a meal out of me as it dropped on my white towel. Alas, two of its brethren managed to find their way to my shins (on both legs) at some point, one apparently got brushed off and left a bleeding circle that kept going hours after.

Still, if you ask me I would do this trek again sometime in the future (when i'm better prepared for it), the view from the peak is quite nice if its not foggy, it would be worth the trek lugging heavy camera equipment up to the large boulders at the top to take a panorama shot. I don't have pictures here as I did not bring my camera, maybe next time.

I went on this trek not knowing what I was in for, as the friend who invited me did not know the exact location nor the difficulty of the trek, and neither did his colleague. The Bukit Kutu trek is not to be taken lightly, nor without proper preparation.

If you're not a seasoned trekker, for your own health and sanity stay away from it. If you still want to try it, just be prepared to be tortured, both in your soul and your soles.

Look Towards The Heavens

2011-02-01T21:28:00.000+08:00

The evening sky today looked so awesome.

The warm glow of the sun somehow blending harmoniously with the cool blue of the air, punctuated by billowy clouds that are cast into sharp contrast of light and shadow.

Sometimes I think that we spend so much time indoors, keeping our heads down or being distracted with other things that we forget to look up and see how beautiful it is.

2010-04-09T15:43:00.002+08:00

Pulau Redang aims to lure the rich with room rates no less than RM1,600

KUALA TERENGGANU: Pulau Redang — rated as one of the world’s most beautiful islands — is set to be turned into a getaway exclusively for the rich and famous.

Terengganu Mentri Besar Datuk Ahmad Said said the state government would no longer approve the construction of chalet-type accommodation on the renowned island, which is much visited by the diving community.

“Only hotels rated five-star and above will be allowed to be built,” he said when met after the state assembly sitting here yesterday.

In future, only wealthy individuals would be able to afford holidays in Pulau Redang as hotel rooms will cost no less than US$500 (RM1,599) a night, Ahmad said.

He that said with the decision to turn the island into a high-end holiday destination, current chalets catering for backpackers would have to upgrade and raise their rates.

Asked if the move would draw criticism from non-governmental organisations, Ahmad said it was the only way to save the surrounding rich marine life and prevent environmental destruction due to pollution and indiscriminate littering.

“Some of the budget accommodation places on the island have no proper sewage system and waste is directed to the sea, and this destroys the corals,” he said.

Apart from that, Pulau Redang is a jewel for Terengganu and the 10th most beautiful island in the world, Ahmad said.

“Efforts must be made to save the island from deteriorating environmentally. Those on budget excursions can visit other islands like Pulau Kapas and Pulau Perhentian that are equally charming.”

Pulau Redang, a popular holiday destination for locals as well as foreigners, attracts about 100,000 visitors annually including many who flock there to visit the marine park.

source

This is typical of the stupidity we've come to expect from people in a certain political party.

Firstly, making it a "exclusive place for rich people" is not going to help tourism, its going to downright kill the business there. Even rich people and foreign tourists will go for the budget accommodations, and even the more expensive ones cost far less than RM1600 A NIGHT.

The corals are already dead due to pollution not just from sewage and litter, but also due to heavy traffic; boats discharge oily, dirty water into the sea generated by the diesel engines, and heavier ships like transport barges bearing construction materials (which sit low in the water due to their load) just plow through coral.

Hey, here's an idea. Why not save the money and further environmental damage that building and maintaining five-star hotels there and, I dunno, enforce anti-littering and sewage dumping activities?

And guess what the implications would be if they did go ahead and make Redang a 'five-star', exclusive locale? The volume of people visiting Redang would shift to Pulau Kapas and Perhentian, thus shifting the environmental impact to those places!

Perhentian is bad enough already, you can see dead coral reefs all around the island, and Perhentian didn't see the heavy commercialisation that Redang did, and doesn't have huge, ugly 5-star hotels sticking out like a sore thumb.

Keep your goddamn hotels on the mainland. Islands, especially ones with fragile marine life surrounding it like those off the coast of Terengganu should only have chalets, which have a much smaller environmental footprint than 5-star hotels both in construction and maintenance.

Pew Pew!

2010-03-22T16:42:00.005+08:00

Went to play paintball at Mudtrekker in Sg. Buloh, with a group I got to know from some forums.

Mudtrekkers has a decent but small obstacle skirmish section, with some structures along one side for a more 'urban' playstyle. The biggest play area is the forest adjacent to this area though, which is fun but even more tiring to move around in due to the lack of relatively comfortable cover.

There were alot of hardcore players replete with camo combat fatigues and boots, facemasks and tac helmets, customised markers and some even had walkie talkies.

Which brings me to the house-rental equipment. The house markers aren't very well maintained. At all. On the first round, after taking a couple of shots the gas tank started leaking and white gas whooshed out of my marker.
In 3 out of 5 times, the markers I got couldn't fire and I had to get a marshal to fiddle with it, while the game was going on and it wasn't just me either.
They also kept jamming during the jungle run, which thankfully was remedied by pulling the rear bolt, but still annoying when you're in the middle of gunning down an opponent.

On to other gear, I'm reminded yet again why I should get some basic gear for it. House-rented masks STINK. They don't really wash the masks with soap or anything to sterilise them, resulting in a gag-inducing odour (from the sponge around the goggles). It doesn't help when you start sweating and the mask's lens starts fogging up badly.

The solution to this is to wear a balaclava under the mask, which will cut out at least some of the smell and reduces the fogging up problem. Of course its always better to buy a mask instead of renting the house mask.

Also, wear long sleeve shirts unless you want to get some nice 'kari kai' on your arms. Here's my 'war injuries':

1st day

Today lulz

Correlation or Causation?

2010-01-12T03:07:00.003+08:00

You decide:

On October 31 2009 PPB Group under the flagship of Robert Kuok issued a statement to the Bursa Malaysia that it decided to dispose of its sugar units along with land used to cultivate sugar cane for RM 1.29 billion to Felda.The sales resulted in a one-off gain for the company.The sugar unit and sugar cane plantation were the second largest business segment upon its grain and feed which were topping the sales.

While under the "Sugar King of Asia", sugar prices were placed under the Supply Control Act 1961 and the Price Control Act 1946.

About 2 months later, after the shares and land are sold to Felda:
Prices of sugar jumps up.

PUTRAJAYA, Dec 31 — Sugar will cost 20 sen more per kg from tomorrow, with the new price being RM1.65 in the peninsula and RM1.75 in Sabah and Sarawak, it is announced today.

Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry secretary-general Datuk Mohd Zain Mohd Dom, who made the announcement, said the government would also withdraw its subsidy on white bread from tomorrow, and remove the commodity from the price control scheme.

Questions arise as to why Robert Kuok would even consider letting go of such a lucrative oligopoly business, for a relatively measly sum of 1.29bil? Also, why only after the acquisition of the assets by Felda, why is sugar 'removed from the price control scheme', resulting in the prices takeing a spike? A coincidence?

Steel Thy Resolve, Marine!

2010-01-04T01:56:00.003+08:00

Yet another year has flown by in the blink of an eye, and yet another set of resolutions. This year's been rather tumultous, what with the economy tanking and various political issues and scandals flying about.

But lets recap and see how I fared with keeping to my resolutions:

Lynx's 2009 Resolutions: Results!

1. Be more responsible.
Yes, over the course of my working experience both full-time and freelancing, i've learned to be more sensitive to both the details in the work I do, as well as how my handling of that work affects other people.

2. Train myself to work faster
Definitely, a vast improvement since posting my resolution. What took me an hour to do now takes only a couple of minutes.

3. Improve 3D skills
Fell behind on this goal, I did become more familiar with normal mapping, but I haven't been arsed to learn rigging and animating.

4. Get a new gf.
Nada, though not for the lack of opportunities. Had many possibles this year, but somehow that vital something didn't spark and nothing really caught fire. Maybe this year something will happen, but ima not gonna worry myself over it.

5. Begin planning and pre-production work on my long term projects.
More or less, i've already set things into motion, though I still need to work more to get my study loan settled before I can finally move ahead. Interestingly though, opportunities have opened which would probably sidetrack my plans, so i'm frankly rather undecided what course of action to take.

6. Work out enough to get at least some abdominal definition.
Yeah, there's 'definition'. A one pack is still definition!

7. Save at least one quarter of my pay every month.
Done, thanks to my freelancing, and thank the God Emperor/Flying Spaghetti Monster/My dog for that, i'm not fond of asking for moolah from my dad.

8. Learn at least 2 new songs on the guitar.
Not sure if done, I learned them early in the year but i've forgotten how to play one of them in full. Facepalm. I'll just call this done.

9. Update blog at least twice a month.
Well, I average more than 2 posts a month, so I guess we can bend the rules abit and call it done. :P

10. Procrastination blah blah blah.
IMPROVED FINALLY YEAH! Still not perfect, but i've gotten shit done in a reasonably posthaste timeframe.

This year hasn't been kind on my resolutions, but I guess its a good thing that i've succeeded where it counts.

The best diet plan in the world.

2009-11-07T18:56:00.001+08:00

It's called the "Alpo Diet." Invite a dozen friends over to your house. Tell them that by the end of the month you're going to lose ten pounds. Tell them that if you don’t, you'll eat the can of Alpo in front of them.

Well, as long as it has gravy…
For the next week, every time you feel the urge to take a piece of chocolate from the cubicle next to you, reread the contents of the Alpo can. If someone offers you something smothered in goo, open the Alpo can and take a good deep sniff.

You see, this is the crux of goal setting: Rarely do people improve because of the pleasure of the goal; rather it's pain that sets them on a goal,

- Dan John

The Pursuit of Happiness, Part 2

2009-10-18T02:24:00.001+08:00

So, how does one find their 'self'?

Unless you have alot of time and space to be alone and contemplate things, without distractions abundantly available in today's society, it is very difficult.

It took my employer more than half his life to even begin to find his 'self', and that was only after an extremely traumatic event.

One step to that path, is confidence. A confident person is less susceptible to external influences on the inner balance of their emotions, and more importantly, reactions.
The more I thought about it, the more I realised that there is indeed a choice of whether I would let something affect me and how.

A simple, everyday example. You are driving to work on a typical day, after a relaxed, happy weekend. A car swerves in from the left and cuts into your path, making you hit the brakes hard.
Anger rises, and you start blasting your horn, and perhaps begin tailgating the car out of indignation. From observation, a common reaction among Malaysian drivers.

What began as a pleasant day, ruined for the rest of it all thanks to one minor incident. Not only that, in the future you might develop a habit of sticking close to the car in front, so as to avoid or at least lessen the possibility of someone cutting into your lane, which needless to say, will sharply increase the chances of your getting into an accident.

You can observe the thread of events that start with a single reaction to a single situation start to have a more widespread affect, like ripples in a pond when a stone is thrown into the water. Now, imagine if you choose NOT to let some rude driver's exploits affect your own driving, and choose not to let your emotions take the wheel.

You choose to drive confidently, and avoid or at least lessen the chances of some insecure driver swerving into your lane, by always maintaining several car's length of road in front of you. Now even if someone swerves into your lane, at least you don't have to hit your brakes as hard (since you're driving slower and have more room to brake), and therefore your feelings will be reduced to just slightly annoyed instead of RRRRAAAAGGGEEEE!!!!!!

Applying this to the previous example, the tailgating behaviour, will affect OTHER drivers as well, believe it or not.

Try experimenting next time when you are stuck in a jam. Try maintaining 2-3 cars' length distance (6-10 metres) in front of you at all times, instead of the usual couple of inches, or at least 3 metres when stopped.
In a matter of minutes, you will usually see OTHER vehicles around you starting to do the same and keeping a larger distance in front instead of sticking bumper to bumper.

A very interesting experiment indeed on human behaviour on the road. It just takes one car to drive confidently to give a sense of assurance to the other vehicles around, and from my view, that little much more of a pleasant drive despite being in a traffic jam which IMO makes all the difference (and easier on your car, as you will be stopping and starting less, hitting your brakes less and therefore reducing the wear and tear on your car, even saving a little petrol in the process).

So, how does this tie into one's pursuit of happiness, you ask? Well, Simple. You certainly cannot choose when, what and where things will disturb and/or upset your feelings, but you can certainly choose HOW these events will affect you and your actions.

I believe insecurity is the root of the majority of problems people face today, and insecurity is caused by the lack of confidence in oneself. Using anything else other than your 'self' to hold your self-esteem up is the path to an unstable sense of self-esteem. Material wealth, friends or other external things are for naught if one does not have self-confidence built upon oneself.

If you can take criticism as a valuable piece of information about your beliefs or personal faults you overlooked (and therefore can fix) and thank the critic, if you can accept and overcome failiure and hardship as challenges that are simply stepping stones to a greater goal in life, then you're already one step toward true happiness.

Chicken Stew!

2009-09-02T00:30:00.003+08:00

Here's another recipe of a dish I made, chicken stew. The baby corn and mushrooms in particular make a good combination for a nice, tasty soup!

1 whole packet of baby carrots, halved and quartered
2 cartons of mushrooms (portabello, oyster, button etc.), sliced
2 trays of chicken fillet, skinless
1 head of broccoli
4 small potatoes
2 medium-sized onions
1 whole garlic bulb, chopped
1 pack of baby corn, halved

For extra flavour (optional):

chicken stock (has MSG, salt and sugar, but I buy the small bottle instead of cubes so can control how much is added)
oregano, ground
thyme, ground

Cooking:
I use a rice cooker pot for all my cooking. First I boil the water, filled about less than a quarter of the pot, and then add chicken stock. Baby carrots go in first, with the baby corn. (5 mins on average)

Once that starts boiling, I add the mushrooms, onions, potatoes and chicken fillets. When the stew is boiling again and i'm sure the chicken is properly cooked, I add the garlic and broccoli (these two last because they become soft and mushy very fast when boiled too long), with the extra condiments. (about 10 mins on average)

After leaving for another 3-5 mins should be ready to eat. This is good for 3-4 meals/persons.

Nice thing about it, is you can use it (minus the soup) for salad as well.

Independence Day!

2009-09-01T03:32:00.003+08:00

While hanging out at Chew's place, the topic of those old patriotic/propaganda songs they used to play quite often on the TV (usually on the RTM channels), and in the spirit of commemorating our country's Independence Day, I did a little searching and dug up some of those classics we used to hear so much of (because they were often strategically slotted in between cartoons :P).

Alas, I couldn't find any trace of the awesome "A.I.D.S, merbahaya, aedes pula, mengancam manusia" video except for various references on blogs.

Keranamu Malaysia

Ella - Standing In The Eyes of The World

Sejahtera Malaysia

Fikirkan Boleh

Tanggal 31

The Pursuit of Happiness Part 1

2009-07-26T23:57:00.008+08:00

What is life, but the pursuit of happiness, really?

I had a long talk with my boss last week, about the things one faces in life, about his dreams for life, the experience in his relationship with his (soon to be ex) wife, and the realisations from the soul-searching he had from experiencing his divorce.

Some things he said to me during this really stood out.

He said that people who have not found their 'self', often seek attributes in others that they themselves lack, in the hope that that person can make up or somehow transfer it to them. In some cases, the balance of temperaments and the exchange of self from both parties do not come into conflict, but very often people are blinded to the obvious until it reaches a critical point.

The conversation itself is too lengthy and details unnecessary to bear repeating, but I make my observations and lessons I learned from it.

I spent quite abit of time divining the crux of this conversation, as usual falling back into introspective mode for several days through the weekend.

To wit, the foundation of a man is not in the material possessions he owns, nor in the people around him, not even in his wealth. Material possessions can be taken away, the people can distance themselves and disconnect, and wealth can dissapear in the blink of an eye.

It is in his values where he finds the bedrock of his psyche, of his self. A man without values builds upon pillars of sand; everything will come crashing down the moment something kicks them in.

A man who has a strong core of values, a solid foundation of principles, and an unwavering sense of self will pull through through sheer force of will.
Unfortunately, the society we live in today puts many distractions and manufactured stumbling blocks to make it that much more difficult to achieve.

The mass media churns out aural and visual stimuli to distract our minds and create artificial value in things, the concept of credit and debt keeps us working to pay off what is essentially an intangible idea, consumerism keeps the ball and chain of credit and debt locked securely around our feet.

“To be truly rich, regardless of his fortune or lack of it, a man must live by his own values. If those values are not personally meaningful, then no amount of money gained can hide the emptiness of life without them.” - John Paul Getty, How to Be Rich (1961)

"When you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty." - Benjamin Franklin

Cameron 2009

2009-07-05T01:37:00.005+08:00

Yah, finally found the initiative to process them! Editing panos are bloody tedious.

+10 points!

2009-05-29T01:38:00.004+08:00

Do they teach basic safety in school anymore? Don't they tell those dumbass kids to look and make sure there are no cars coming before bloody crossing the road?

I was driving to work today, and as I was executing a corner some idiot kid walked right into my car. The kid crossed one side of the road and stepped up onto the divider, and he was looking at the opposite direction from which I was coming.

Pedestrians usually are smart enough to stop on the divider, but this particular one apparently has eyes on the back of his head. Maybe he had some dust in it. But instead of stopping on the divider, he just continued stepping off and onto the road.

Luckily for him, he stepped off just as the front of my car passed him and I wasn't driving very fast since I just turned the corner, and the only injury he sustained was an abrased forearm and maybe some bruised ribs after getting smacked by my sideview mirror.

If he had gotten off sooner and got hit by the front of my car, he'd have been roadkill for sure. He seemed unhurt enough to get back up, so after pointing out the fact that he was a dumbass, I told his friend (who had enough sense of self preservation to have stayed on the divider and NOT get a face-full of car) to take him to the hospital if he feels concussed.

On the bright side, I just earned +10 points for hitting sense into some dumbass kids and a lesson on road safety. If not, sooner or later he'd probably be run over by a truck anyway at the rate he's going.

Meritocracy only worth 20 percent in Malaysia

2009-05-19T01:11:00.003+08:00

PUTRAJAYA, May 18 — Only 20 per cent, or one in five, of Public Service Department (PSD) scholarships are given based on merit while the rest are allocated based on racial quotas.

Source

So let's take a look at the issue in a little more depth than we usually do.

Every year without fail, we hear the hue and cry from parents about the biased allocation of PSD scholarships. As usual, nothing is changed and the wailwagon starts making a ruckus again the next year, but very few people actually look at the bigger picture, and look beyond the "racial" aspect of it.

By causing controversy over the allocation of scholarships, they divert attention from the effects: less citizens who attain higher education.

The better educated people get, the more they will analyse and question the social and political issues occuring in the country.

Let's face it. Politicians like Rakyat who are docile sheep who do what they're told. They prefer unquestioning acceptance and obedience to challenges to their 'authority'. They've more or less succeeded in this goal ever since Independence, at least until last year.

Their actions are proof enough of this; certain politicians have been harping on and on about not questioning issues that they spin into racial issues. Do not question the social contract in the Constitution. Do not question the decisions of our Royalty. Do not question our decisions.

Education is admittedly just one of the tools they've used to maintain control of the Rakyat, but it is also an important one. Tying quotas to racial profiles also has the convenient side effect of inciting racial sentiments, cementing their tried-and-true 'divide and conquer' strategy.

That is why in primary and secondary school, all you're told to do is to shut up and listen to instruction.

That's why those who can get into uni have to unlearn all the "stfu and listen unquestioningly" programming imprinted on every Malaysian student in primary and secondary education.

Make them obey and listen unquestioningly when they're young, make it hard for them to obtain higher education, and the result is a large population of willing drones to work for you and support you.

Such methods are simple and effective instruments of control, and have been used since the feudal ages, and are still being used today in some form or another.

This might not be new to some, but a thought not expressed might as well have been not thought of at all, as the (most likely misquoted) saying goes, and knowing is half the battle.

Set Phazorz To Starn!

2009-05-16T00:31:00.001+08:00

secure: I'm currently simulating the internal multiwave guide to fix the posistron flux, this should allow us to know the stardate by reversing the polarity in the photon dampener of the warp core

Lynx: Remember to set your phasers to stun when jumpstarting the positronic modulation reflex field, or you'll cause a chain reaction in the dilithium stabiliser array, which will cause a flux in the quantum wave particle matrix, and in turn cause a disruption of the tensor emitter resulting in a conical gravitational singularity that will cause the universe to be divided by 0.

And make the water in my tea too hot.

Dude Where's My Car!?

2009-04-12T18:09:00.002+08:00

Oh, still there.

Someone broke into my house and tried to steal my old Toyota station wagon. Here's what happened.

I was blissfully having epic adventures in dreamland when my dad came over in the morning and scolded me for leaving the gate open, as well as my car door.

In a hazy state of mind after having been rudely awakened halfway through saving the world AGAIN, I wondered whether i've become so blur that I forgot to lock the huge ass gate when I came home last night.

It was only when I tried to start my car that I found definite proof that someone had actually pulled open my gate (apparently the steel latch with the bar is easily defeated without even needing any tools), opened my car door and tried to make off with my car.

I found that I couldn't put the key into the ignition, and when I checked I found out why.

Someone had tried to use an old car key to start my car's ignition, but because it was the wrong key the thing refused to turn. The would-be car thief really tried hard though, as I found the broken-off end of the key still in the ignition.

Yes I do keep a dog in the compound, but I had let my dog sleep inside the house yesterday night as it was quite cold outside due to the rain.

In any case, i've added extra security to my gate and planning to add some to my car, and i'm keeping some self-defense items handy just in case the guy makes another try.

Goes to show that these scum are getting more desperate these days, so we must be on our guard and ready to deal with such incidents.

Malaysian Democracy

2009-02-19T02:46:00.004+08:00

YX : doing a folio on democracy in Malaysia at the campus comlab and plagiarising big time...
Lynx : rofl, some lecturers check for plagiarism you know
YX: no one really cares about Malaysian studies
Lynx : yes, stupid crap subject
YX: hence the criminal act of plagiarism
Lynx : LAN loves stuffing useless subjects into out uni syllabus
YX: the end justifies the means
Lynx : hahah
YX: crap can't find an article that's 10 pgs or more on m'sian democracy...
Lynx : can't find it cause there's no such thing :P

I Cook Too!

2009-02-01T02:12:00.005+08:00

Wee!
Decided to learn to cook something *other* than instant mee and telur mata kerbau today, cause eating out all the time is rather expensive and I can't control what goes into the food.

So, I settled for something I really like to eat, that wouldn't require a whole lot of culinary expertise to make: pasta! So first things first, a trip to Jusco in MidValley to shop for ingredients.

What I got:
Pasta sauce (large bottle) - RM11.90
Bay leaves - RM8.90(!!!!!)
Cherry tomatoes - RM 3.90
Spirali pasta - RM4.50
Bag of white garlic - RM1.30
Peeled baby carrots - RM4
Grated parmesan - RM20(!!!!)
Lean chicken fillet - RM10
Small bottle of olive oil - RM6.90
Total RM71.40

Yeah, the bay leaves were quite expensive and the parmesan too, probably not going to use those next time.

Having bought the ingredients, I went home and prepared to cook up a storm! Ok, maybe a drizzle but whatever. I dumped the pasta into some boiling water and put it into the cooker and started getting ready the ingredients for the pasta sauce.

1 whole plate of chicken fillet
1 whole bag of baby carrots
2 whole bulbs of garlic
half a box of cherry tomatoes
about 7 bay leaves
1 whole bottle of pasta sauce

I cut the garlic and carrots into chunky bits so they'd keep some flavor (also because I don't have a chopping board, and I don't fancy chopping my fingers off), put the cherry tomatoes in whole (was not really necessary, will omit next time), and put all the ingredients in when the sauce started boiling.

I waited until the sauce started boiling again and the chicken was cooked, then voila!

The results:

It turned out pretty nice for a first time effort by a complete noob, and the amount is good for 5-6 meals/people. Definitely gonna make more and experiment with other ingredients next time! :D

What I Do

2009-01-07T02:40:00.001+08:00

Yeah, promised to make a post about this, so here it is!

I started working a couple of months ago as a 'digital imaging artist' at a photography studio that mainly handles work for print ads.

I do the post-production work on the jobs that come in, and the requirements vary greatly depending on the job. Usually its doing surgical work such as extracting the 'subject' from the studio's background, sometimes swapping out various body parts, then putting it into a new background image.

Sounds simple, but it really isn't, as every single detail needs to be attended to, every imperfection and elements that cause 'visual noise' which distracts the viewer from the subject.

Working in high-res is highly demanding in terms of attention to detail, as there is scant room to simply leave alone the areas that are difficult to fix or clean up, because even the smallest and most subtle of details really stand out like a sore thumb when it goes into print. Even the deviation of a pixel or two in a line is very visible, which makes it necessary to be very careful and precise.

Every assignment is usually a fresh new challenge, as the problems are individual to the image itself, and quite abit of creative thinking, looking through many tutorials and lots of trial and error are required to solve them. Before being introduced to this job, I really took the amount of work put into ads for granted.

Raw photographs that don't require any digital retouching are very rare, especially since high-end cameras can capture an amazing amount of detail; in fact they capture too much, and its up to the retoucher's job to make it as clean and perfect as possible.

Deadlines are quite insane, as clients generally feel that post-production work is simple compared to photography, which can't really be rushed due to a higher amount of logistics involved, and usually want to see finished work a day after a photoshoot.
Sometimes, the job is so behind schedule, (usually due to too much time wasted on planning) that they want to see finished work an hour or two right after the shoot itself, and before office hours are over. Which of course requires me to go into overdrive mode to try and get the raw photos at least into presentable shape for sending a low-res preview. Some clients even expect you to work over the weekend, giving the job on Friday and wanting results on Monday. Fun.

So, if you are part of the realisation of an ad, keep in mind that the process is like making a cake. Planning, concepting and photographing is preparing the ingredients. Digital retouching and post production is mixing the ingredients together and baking the cake. Try to rush the baking process and the result is poorly baked flour.

There's two sides to every coin, however and I can't deny that it has its advantages, as I get to train myself to work faster, plan faster and make decisions faster instead of spending hours staring at the screen thinking of what to do.

Its a very demanding job, to say the least, but i'm sticking to it for now. I consider the nice work environment, nice colleagues, boss who acts more like a friend than a 'boss' and a place where i'm picking up some skills I need for my long-term goals as a reasonably good compromise for the relatively low pay and unpredictable working hours as well as the occasional insane client.

New Year, New Resolutions!

2009-01-06T22:47:00.000+08:00

So another year passes, and a very eventful one for me it was. But out with the old and in with the new, yay!

[inner voice] So, what happened to your New Year's Resolutions for 2008, huh? AHA! Didn't think i'd forget, did you? DID YOU!? Nuahahahahahha-urk [/mestranglesthatbastard]

Ahem, I was *just* getting to that, tyvm. What of my previous year's resolutions indeed.

Lynx's 2008 Resolutions: Results!

Socialise more

Get the body I want

Improve my 3D skills

Update blog more often

Practice more on my guitar

Improve my photography skills

Focus even more on positive things

Get out of the habit of procrastinating

Make solid plans to make a living overseas

Put more effort into exercising more regularly

All in all, i've been successful at some and not at others. Still, some goals are perpetually in progress, so a new list with some old and new Resolutions are in order!

Be more responsible. Must pay more attention and put importance in taking care of details I am responsible for handling.
Train myself to work faster, take initiative and motivate myself to practice Photoshop even during downtime periods.
Improve 3D skills! Learn and become proficient in normal mapping as well as rigging the models for animating.
Get a new gf. Been long enough since the last, time enough to have gotten over it completely.
Begin planning and pre-production work on my long term projects.
Work out enough to get at least some abdominal definition.
Save at least one quarter of my pay every month.
Learn at least 2 new songs on the guitar.
Update blog at least twice a month.
Procrastination blah blah blah.

So hopefully, i'll be able to achieve at least two-thirds of my resolutions by the end of the year. Now that the talk has been done, time for the walk- part of it! Hope you guys and girls who read my blog are successful at your resolutions as well, if you made them! :D

Pooter Fixxorzed

2008-11-17T00:21:00.010+08:00

Heatsink & Fan

So yeah, my computer abruptly up and died on me a couple of days ago, just shut itself off while i was listening to music and surfing the net. When I tried to turn it on again, it made a loud beeping noise then promptly shut itself off again.

I tried again later to turn it on, and managed to get to the 'select startup mode' screen, where it told me that the computer shut off due to 'thermal events (overheating).

It was quite annoying since I had taken special precautions to keep the CPU well aired, but I resolved to try fixing it myself before taking it to a computer repair shop, because its a waste of money and hassle to lug it all over.

So yesterday night, I unplugged all the cables and took it out to examine the problem. I already suspected it was due to the processor chip's heat-sink, which seemed loose.

Upon closer inspection, my guess was correct; two of the fastening pins on the heat-sink had come loose on the same side, so the heat conducting plate and paste weren't touching the processor chip. Their tips had completely broken off.

Broken fastener ends

Broken & intact ends

I figured out how to solve this problem, but first things first: cleaning 3+years of dirt off the heatsink and fan.

Clean and shiny!

More dirt than you realise could build up in your CPU!

So after cleaning it up, I removed the two broken fasteners.

Dismantled fasteners

And used one of the intact on the other end of the heatsink's anchors.

Switched

All that done, I locked the heatsink back into place (and praying it doesn't need me to replace the thermal conducting paste) and plugged the power back in, and it works fine now. And I got an excuse to practice photography too. :P

The End. :P

Electrifying!

2008-11-16T00:16:00.004+08:00

More high-voltage insanity! Amped-up puns! (post about job later, puntasticness nao!)

Wu: I'd love to sign up for Facebook now if my fingers didn't hurt like an Atlas stomped on them. :S
Lynx: don't worry, you can still use the stumps of your fingers to type!
Wu: And after that my tongue.
Lynx: exactly!
Wu: Yeup ... self electrocution .... what a way to go.
Lynx: a shocking experience
Wu: A hair-raising find for the investigators.
Lynx: electrically-charged case
Wu: Readership surged indicating public interest.
Lynx: they were jolted by currents of excitement
Wu: The electric atmosphere was apparent

More Random Conversations!

2008-10-10T00:49:00.003+08:00

In light of the recent demands for poasts-on-toasts-with-spam,
here's some convo spam, which isn't good for health but sure tastes good!

(updates on current job soon lol)

Wu: eh?
Wu: Oh, read that this morn
Wu: there's one ... kid WALKS BACKWARD INTO CURRY POT
Wu: scalded, but alive
Wu: *backwards
Lynx: came out smelling like curry chicken! MMMMM!
Wu: Actually, t'was beef. :p
Lynx: well, everything that gets involuntarily cooked smells like chicken :P
Wu: Does that mean beef and sheep are voluntarily cooked?
Wu: Hence they smell like ... their natural ... form :p
Lynx: you kidding me? They all are practically screaming (or mooing and baaaing anyway) "EAT MEH! I WANNA GET IN YUOR BELLEH!"
Lynx: :P
Lynx: PS WE DON"T TASTE LIKE CHICKEN
Wu: Yeup ... that's why we process every last bit, bones, hooves etc to tasty soups and sausages ...
Lynx: lol

O HAI

2008-08-09T04:02:00.007+08:00

Very long time no update, and yes my excuse is, as always, the popular 'i've been busy' and 'working hard', but isn't it always. I realise its rather hypocritical especially since I believe in the idea that, "where there is a will, there is a way". So i'll amend my excuse to "I haven't been arsed to make the time to blog".

There, a more accurate and honest assessment.

So, with that aside, a little blogging about my freelancing life. I've grown quite fond of doing work such as this, as I feel it gives me the best of 'both' worlds: income, with a high degree of flexibility.

I've found that people by and large tend to have a dim perspective of freelancing, there's that subtle thing that often shows on their faces when I say I do freelancing, like a bulb shut off, or a slight shifting of their body like they just heard something uncomfortable.
Some gave me the impression that they think freelancing means lazing around, not seriously working and being 'free'. Others project their feelings that its a very unpredictable, unstable choice of career, and not a 'real' job.

I understand why they feel that way; I had my own doubts about it not so very long ago; it seemed to me the anathema of everything a person craved: stable job, stable income, stable life. Or put simply, a predictable, relatively uneventful, familiar job which provides a strong sense of security.

So why have I been doing it? What turned me to the "Dark Side"? Necessity, first and foremost.
Studying in university was rather costly, which meant I had to get additional income so I wouldn't have to live on a diet of instant noodles for 3 years, (like some students I knew in KTAR did, I kid you not).
And as any other university-going youth, other interests and activities usually needed "monetary reconcilliation" as well, so to speak, and I sure as hell wasn't going to dig into my education loan to fund those.

So, I took on part-time work alongside full-time study. I admit that sometimes it affected my studies especially in my second year of university, but I learnt some very valuable lessons from it, got my prioritising straight the following year and I still did reasonably well, IMO, considering how distracting and stressful it was to juggle work and studies.

But you ask, "you've graduated now, isn't it time to find a *real* job? Why continue in this unpredictable, unstable activity?"
For many reasons. Having done freelancing for more than a year now, and doing some basic expenses/income calculations, my net income is actually higher than if I were to get a permanent job. Reduction in travelling expenses alone is enormous as I mostly work from home, especially since petrol prices shot up recently.

Freelancing also gives me a constantly challenging job, usually something different each time, and getting paid, while being able to structure my time to set aside enough for friends and family, with the added bonus of minimising living/travel expenses, and practicing my skills while doing it.
To my mind, a reasonable tradeoff for highly irregular working hours, the constant need to take initiative and find more work when my email's relatively quiet, and a lack of socialising in a professional/office environment.

Still, necessity is ever the mother of invention, and its nearing time for the necessity to 'invent' a permanent job/ Thanks to having a loan to repay, and i'm not keen on explaining how i'm servicing it to the IRB or whatever body of the government tasked with regulations of such matters if i'm technically and officially "grape-ing".

So, i'm preparing to take a long hiatus from freelancing, taking a detour from the road less taken and down the commonly trodded path. Because society is a marvel to behold. It self-regulates, ties strings to your arms and legs and, for good or ill, makes you dance to its tune. And its strings are reinforced in every level of itself, from the highest corridors of power in the society's governance, to the most individual of a society's components.

8 Random Facks

2008-05-22T02:35:00.000+08:00

Tagged by Ee Wah!

I have a wierd sense of humor, and sometimes I let slip some really cold jokes no one understands cause they're too tangential.
I like being by myself as much as I like socialising.
I procrastinate. Alot. Well, until clients start beating my head with deadline reminders anyway.
I can make cracking sounds with my fingers, elbows, neck and knees.
Sometimes I get artistic inspiration as i'm drifting off to sleep (thanks... big help subconsciousness)
Italian food FTW!
Sometimes I really wish I lived in another country where creative people are taken seriously like people in any other profession.
My favourite time of day is late at night.

Eating One's Own Words

2008-04-20T04:10:00.004+08:00

Wow, what an epic about-face.

From this:
Adnan Mansor: "From my understanding, out of 10,000 unemployed bloggers, 8,000 are women. Bloggers like to spread rumours; they do not like national unity."

Khairy: "There are no laws in the cyberworld except for the law of the jungle. As such, action must be taken so that the "monkeys" behave."

To this:

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Some candidates for posts in Malaysia's ruling party will be required to set up blogs, an official said Friday, a turnaround for governing politicians who had derided online politicking.

Abdul Rahman Dahlan, secretary general of the United Malays National Organization party's youth wing, said all those vying for national youth posts must have blogs to introduce themselves and their programs ahead of party elections in December.

[...]

"All candidates must have blogs," Abdul Rahman told The Associated Press. "If not, they are not qualified to be leaders."

Source

So, does this mean that they want to become unemployed, get sex-change operations and use alot of hair-growth tonic now?

Jokes aside, i'm beginning to suspect that they just don't 'get' it.
Requiring party members to set up blogs for the sake of having one is rather pointless. Blogs are merely a single factor among hundreds of others which affected the outcome of the last elections, and hardly the most important.

In retrospect, these 'little things' have been adding up, slowly but surely. As the saying goes, sikit sikit, lama lama, jadi bukit.

Here is but a small list of these 'little things' i'm referring to:

Seditious, racist and sexist comments by ministers and members of parliament.
A "Little Napoleon" who built an illegal bungalow and satay stall then ignores the Sultan's summons.
Threats by component party members to burn down the Chinese Assembly Hall.
Extremely costly and ultimately futile attempt at imposing "Malaysian values" on other countries.
Demolitions of Hindu temples around the country.
The brandishing of weapons in party talks.
The anti-blogger stance held by the ruling party.
Forceful suppression of the BERSIH rally.
The Port Klang Free Zone scandal.
Illegal billboard fiasco in PJ.
The M. Moorthy controversy.
Rampant rent-seeking.
The Hindraf debacle.
Issues of faith.

As far as I can see, this is a case of "You're Doing It Wrong".

To be fair, the Prime Minister made promises and as far as I can see is really interested in implementing change.
But when the body does not heed the head's instructions and only pays lip service and sycophantic fawning, the cracks appear faster than a sloppy contractor's work on low-cost housing projects, which of course resulted in a landslide in the last elections.

If they are really serious about fixing their image, they need to clean up their act, deliver on their promises and do their jobs, which is SERVING THE PUBLIC as government servants like they should be, not acting like feudal lords.

Bubbly

2008-03-27T20:12:00.006+08:00

Yeah, I should blog more often, but freelancing's been keeping me busy so meh.

I went to Colbie Calliat's 'showcase' thing on the 14th of March at The Curve held far opposite Laundry Bar with Siryn.

Right from the start, it was apparent that the organisers didn't do as good a job as they could. Tiny stage, open air, in the middle of rainy season. So you can imagine what happened. Had dinner while waiting for it to start, and when I came out at 8pm it had started raining heavily, and the ~~kiasu~~ eager group of fans who had rushed into the fray were drenched, but still refused to take cover.

It rained for about 20 mins, after which a couple of local personalities (Adam and Natalie from Hitz.fm) 'entertained' the crowd with silly games and gave away signed posters and CDs... zzz. Natalie's overenthusiastic shouting down the mike nearly made me deaf. Just sayin', you know. As it turned out, the showcase ran along the infamous "Malaysian timing" Colbie only made her appearance at 9pm, by which time the rain had stopped.

Was worth it though, she and her band gave a great performance!

The Little Things

Realise

Battle

Out of My Mind

Tied Down

Bubbly

Eva Cassidy

2008-02-28T19:03:00.004+08:00

The first time I heard the cover of "Fields of Gold", I knew it was something special. It was performed with so much emotion, that something instinctually told me that it was sung from the heart, which is a rare thing to find among the masses of manufactured music which float around in the mainstream's consciousness these days.

Strangely enough, I discovered it not on the radio nor from recommendations from friends, but someone's mp3 player with portable speakers, which was playing in the lounge of an island resort where I went for a trip with some friends.

Though I had some trouble finding it as the song was mis-attributed on the mp3 player, I finally discovered it on Youtube, which proved to be a wonderful source for other songs and covers by Eva.

Sadly, she has since passed away over a decade ago due to cancer. I don't usually a sentimental person, but her singing is truly special, so this is my tribute, a collection of her covers I like best.

Fields of Gold

Over The Rainbow

Time After Time

What A Wonderful World

New Year

2008-01-19T21:30:00.000+08:00

This year signals the end of my life as a student and the beginning of working life. I'm still unsure of what to start off with, because I will probably be staying with the career I choose to go into at least for a couple of years.
I'd love to continue studying, but for the lack of funds.

I'm still weighing my priorities, asking myself what is most important to me and what are my goals. I have alot to be thankful for in the past year, so here's to hoping there'll be much more to come!

Also, I was tagged by Bernard to put up a Christmas wishlist, but since its long past Christmas i'm posting my new year's resolutions instead.

Socialise more

Get the body I want

Improve my 3D skills

Update blog more often

Practice more on my guitar

Improve my photography skills

Focus even more on positive things

Get out of the habit of procrastinating

Make solid plans to make a living overseas

Put more effort into exercising more regularly

Been rather busy despite having finished my studies, lots of things I need to organise and some loose knots that need to be tied. Anyway here's a summary of my holiday activities in Dec 2007:

- Attended four Christmas gatherings, one at Bernard's place, one at Siryn's co-worker's place, one at Sharon's place, and one at Ms. Tan's place.

- Celebrated a (rather expensive) new year at Laundry Bar, The Curve. Still, it's probably the best new year's i've had in awhile (at least among those that I celebrated outside).

And we sang a, away, away, away
And the voices rang like the angels sing
And singing a, away, away, away
And we danced on into the night
And we danced on into the night
And we danced on into the night

This pretty much sums up that night. =p

Wish you all a great 2008, after all its a numerically auspicious year (as long as you don't fall into the two '0's on the way that is). =)

More Stuffs!

2007-12-17T11:29:00.000+08:00

Some more of my 3D work:

Star Wars Rebel ULAV

Clan Wolf captured Atlas

Federated Suns Atlas

Discrepancies...

2007-11-05T22:08:00.000+08:00

Looking through the papers recently, I came across two articles that point out some glaring discrepancies in our fair country's management.

Now I usually don't bother posting about stuff like this, but there is only so much bullshit that even I can take in one day.

First up is the guy who (in)famously waved around a weapon at a certain function before kissing it like he means it. And then this article comes out:

Militancy not my style, says Hisham.

He is aware that many perceived him to be lembik (soft) simply because he does not condone excessive and emotional approaches.

Instead of posting a lengthy rant about this, here's a picture instead. After all, its worth a thousand words, no?

The second is this one, its headline boldly proclaims, "Price rises hurting the wallets of Malaysians".

So basically we're f***ed because prices of stuff has apparently shot up worldwide for no apparent reason, or at least we aren't given a real reason. Normally, i'd just grit my teeth and deal with it like everyone else, but this announcement is F***ING REDICULOUS in light of our dear country's SPLURGING on what is essentially a very expensive joyride.

I'm referring to this event, which was as "well justified" as a certain war that was waged in a certain middle-eastern country, which was similarly effective. But of course this was glossed over, and our fair country's government is already thinking of going a second time.

So let me get this straight, we're pouring a shitload of money into this, instead of using it to make living life a little better? WHAT THE FLYING F***!?

Now I don't claim to be a hotshot economist, but in this case, it doesn't take a genius to figure out where the money from our progressively-reducing petrol subsidies and increasing prices is draining into.

And above all that, you tell me to be patriotic? We are not living in bloody dreamland!

To quote a certain prominent blogger, NIAMAH!

Collage compiled using pictures from [here], [here] and [here] through Google.

Toilet Humor

2007-11-04T23:04:00.000+08:00

Just a little collection of funny (in a gross sort of way) anecdotes I found on Craigslist, after Siryn directed me to the site.

And another on Tribes.

Be prepared for some stomach-churning, bowel-emptying action!

"Quick-fire farts stutter out of my ass, as I push the monster log from the Shit Dimension into our reality."

Pic from Losu.org.

Free Rice

2007-11-01T00:03:00.000+08:00

I came across this interesting site called Free Rice while looking through some forums I frequent.

In exchange for guessing the meaning of a word correctly, it claims to donate 'free rice' to the United Nations each time you get it right. Every time you answer, links to 3 sponsors are rotated, which is where they get their money to get the rice.

Costs nothing, and helps improve your grammar too so why not? Its a win-win situation by all accounts.

It also has a "difficulty level" adjustment which automatically scales itself up or down, so you can judge how good your vocabulary is. My best only goes up to 45, but hovers between 38-40.

Here's my score so far, trying to maintain my level at 40+ . :p

EATING SPREE!

2007-10-17T22:40:00.000+08:00

Went on a trip to Malacca with several friends for a one-and-a-half day for foooood on Monday! (15th Oct '07)

First off, we had Chicken Rice Ball for lunch somewhere in Jonkers Street at 12pm, which, there was already a queue outside. As we finally got a table and sat down to order, someone commented, "nowadays the rice balls were now being made using machines, doesn't taste as nice as the 'hand made' ones," to which I jokingly replied, "It tastes better cause got "ka liu" from the restaurant workers hands."

The architecture of the restaurant we went to was quite interesting, which had an outer square structure where customers sat and ate, while the middle was an open air area with a little garden, reminiscient of old Chinese architecture, and the doorways inside didn't have doors as far as I could see, which implied feng shui practices. And they certainly seemed to be doing good business.

After stuffing our faces with the food, we headed to Liang's house to rest and let the food digest abit. He had a really cute, quirky doggy called Lucky. It kept pawing at the grille and anything you put near it (like your hand), and when it was intrigued, it would lift one paw up and stare. Needless to say, we spent quite some
time teasing it. =P

Later at around 4pm, we ventured out again to eat pork satay. The restaurant was located at one end of a row of shophouses, and the strange thing is that the restaurant was the only shop open along that road. Despite this, there were quite alot of people eating there too. Suffice to say, the satays were flying off the grille to keep the customers constantly supplied. The satay itself was pretty nice, I left behind a small pile of fat and charred bits (carcinogens are bad for you). We sampled some of the chicken satay as well, pretty good stuff, tho the pork satay was more "heong". The sauce was really nice as well, and they added sesame seeds in it too. All in all I whacked 19 sticks.

Later, we joined several more friends to have ikan bakar for dinner, which was in some 'ulu' place next to what looked like a freshwater swamp that had some sampans docked at a wooden jetty (and if the selection of fish at the restaurant is any indication).
We had grilled chili siakap, fried squid and stingray there (mmmm!), which was quite cheap as well. The drinks on the other hand were another matter. I had ordered milo ais kosong, and I took a couple of sips before I happened to look into the cup. I noticed some black things floating inside, and at first I thought they were just bits of undissolved milo, but upon closer inspection, they were little black ants.
I *almost* swallowed a whole colony of ants there. -_-;; Amy also blogged about another interesting 'event' there, lol.

After the meal, we proceeded to a cafe (Melaka has TONS of cafes...) called More Cafe to chill out and have fun just chatting and playing "chor dai di", after which we went back to Liang's place for the night, but continued chatting till 3am.

The next morning we went to a coffeeshop for taiwanese noodles, after which we took a walk around the Mahkota Parade shopping complex. Even in Melaka you can see quite alot of "la la" people, aka Walking Fashion Disasters.

To conclude our eating trip, we had laksa and cendol/ais kacang at a quaint little shop. There was so much gula melaka on top of the cendol that I thought it was chocolate at first!
The shop had all sorts of memorabilia and antique stuff for decor. There was even a grimy portrait of Mona Lisa above our table, and a huge poster of Bruce Lee hanging below it, and a display case of antique vases, some replicas.
After stuffing our faces there too, we finally left for KL at around 3pm.

Finally, i'd like to apologise for the lack of pictures, as I forgot to bring my camera along, but i'm planning to make another trip down there again sometime, both to makan again as well as go sightseeing.

CALLING ALL MALAYSIANS

2007-10-03T22:28:00.000+08:00

Solidarity Vigil in Support of Burma's People

Support the Struggle for a Free & Democratic Burma
Name: Solidarity Vigil in Support of Burma's People
Tagline: Support the Struggle for a Free & Democratic Burma
Host: Civil Society in Malaysia
Type: Causes - Rally
Time and Place Date: Friday, October 5, 2007
Time: 8:00pm - 10:00pm
Location: KLCC (entrance nearest to Menara Maxis, opposite Avenue K)
City/Town: Kuala Lumpur

Contact Info
Phone: 037.784.3525
Email: suaram@suaram.net

Description
Please attend the following peaceful solidarity vigil in support of Burma’s people, who are unable to exercise their human rights in their country, and to express our opposition towards the Burma military junta's bloody crackdown on anti-government protests. At least 13 people were killed and hundreds arrested in the crackdown on demonstration of Buddhist monks and Burma’s people.

The vigil is an initiative of civil society organisations, including Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM), Civil Rights Committee of Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (KLSCAH-CRC), Youth For Change (Y4C) and Amnesty International (AI) Malaysia.

Please come to show your solidarity. Please bring candles, candle-holders and banners.

For further information, please contact SUARAM (MoonHui) at 03-77843525 or Amnesty International (K.Shan) at 03-79552680.

LINK TO SOURCE

Who are the Burmese Monks?
________________________________________________________________________

I am planning to attend this peaceful rally, so please attend and show that you protest the brutal actions of the military junta in Burma.

Similar rallies are also being organised all over the world.

“Please use your liberty to promote ours.”
- Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, detained Nobel Peace Laureate.

Relationships

2007-08-30T22:51:00.001+08:00

It is said that a thought never written down and shared might as well have never existed at all (i'm sure I thoroughly butchered that quote...). And without the convenience of a pensieve (really shows what i've been reading lately, ay?), I shall have to settle with a blog entry.

I've been asked several times about my past and present ones, and what I look for, how I choose, and I realised that I haven't really thought about it much.

Throughout my past experiences, i've learned enough to have some things to look out for and consider first, so here are some principles I practice to avoid unhealthy relationships.

I avoid 'relationships' with people who are suffering from post-breakup syndrome (PBS). People who have PBS aren't really interested in you at all except for being a 'stand-in', if you will.
Placing oneself in such a position repeatedly and being used in such a way will earn you the dubious title of "tool", which most people will treat with the philosophy of, "fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
Conversely, if i'm the one feeling the effects of PBS, I won't pursue any relationship until i've got my feelings and mind on the ground again.

Fickle-mindedness is another warning sign, unless its a very short term thing you're interested in, never a good type to get serious with.

If the girl is already involved, its also a no-go. "Do unto others", a maxim I remind myself whenever I face any situation where morals and self-interest come into conflict. I certainly won't react well to another guy trying to chase someone i'm with, especially if he's aware of the fact that she's attached. In any case, having a relationship with someone who'd change lovers like they change their sheets isn't something i'd do; some people might jump at the chance for a fling but that's not the way I roll.

The Emperor's Will

2007-08-29T22:54:00.000+08:00

Low poly STC-pattern Leman Russ main battle tank, texture done by me.

The Capellan Solution

2007-08-23T22:25:00.000+08:00

I just realised I never posted a plug for one of my (almost) completed game modification projects. Duh!

So if you have Command & Conquer: Generals and a PC, and like mechs and explody stuff, play my mod! :D

More information and download here.

A video:

The Spider

2007-08-12T04:40:00.000+08:00

It had just stopped raining, and the cool night air had an earthy smell, occasionally mingling with the oily smoke from the large stove.

The crowd was bigger and noisier than usual tonight. A celebration apparently, their enthusiastic banter and shouts of "yam seng", drawing stares from the other patrons.

A small movement caught my eye as I looked up to shed my slight irritation at the loudness, and noticed it.
Very evidently a large one, as its web sagged and strained under its weight.

Despite looking clumsily heavy, it went up, down, with a graceful ease that made a tightrope walker look unbalanced and ponderous as it deftly went about its business spinning its web. Between checking its recent catch and spinning its new web it went.

Its web barely visible, but for slivery hints where the light fell upon it. Tonight was a bountiful one, as almost a dozen were already stuck on it, with half having been wrapped carefully in a cocoon by the spider.

So much to do..

2007-07-25T21:45:00.000+08:00

... so little time time.

Am knee deep in work, what with uni assignments and my Final Year Project etc. to blog much, though I really want to, so I'll post a quick summary of what i've been up to.

Got an article published in the July 16 issue of R.AGE. Huge ass picture of my face on it too O_o.

Watched Transformers (which was F-in' A), and Harry Potter (a rather average movie).

Attended this year's UTAR Ball, which was really awesome, will blog about this later.

To make up for a lack of meaningful content in this post, here's another Lame Joke Of The Day for you:

Windtalkers were Navajo indians whose language was used by the Americans as a secret code for communications in World War 2, which proved impossible to decode by the Axis.

So, that would make the people assigned to defeat the code were.... Windbreakers? *badabish!*

Guitar

2007-07-05T23:08:00.000+08:00

Been picking up my guitar again lately, haven't touched it in almost two years.

I was inspired to practice again after a visit to a friend's house.
I had some time to kill as we were going to head out later.
A guitar with a blue-coloured soundboard was sitting on the roommate's bed.
I picked it up and played it.
It had a pretty deep resonant tone, which I've heard on often-played guitars, and reminded me that my guitar was sitting in its cover, and that I was neglecting it.

Course, now I remember why I stopped.
My fingers on my left hand hurt like hell.
The skin on the tips of my fingers flaked.
Then the skin hardens.
So it like when I dipped my fingers in candle wax when I was a kid.
Its a peculiar sensation, like having a dampened sense of feel on your fingers.
But the reward of being able to play cool songs is worth the pain.

Fretboard

My guitar

My fingers

Monkey Steals Peach

2007-07-01T15:25:00.000+08:00

Monkey Steals Peach.

Woman jailed for testicle attack

Amanda Monti, 24, flew into a rage when Geoffrey Jones, 37, rejected her advances at the end of a house party, Liverpool Crown Court heard.

She pulled off his left testicle and tried to swallow it, before spitting it out. A friend handed it back to Mr Jones saying: "That's yours."

Monti admitted wounding and was jailed for two-and-a-half years.

Some reactions:

Siryn: omg!!!
Siryn: feck
Siryn: fark
Siryn: fack
Siryn: fook
Siryn: fock
LynX: she is obviously a ninja
Siryn: i thought the article was morbidly funny, but i do pity the poor guy
Siryn: maimed for life cuz he wouldn't give in to her advances
Siryn: "it's just a ball. God saw it fit to bless me with a spare!"
LynX: don't abuse 300 quotes :P
Siryn: hehee :P

Inspirational quotes by Lynx #3

2007-05-30T23:13:00.000+08:00

"Live to learn, and learn to live."

Frou Frou - Let Go

2007-05-30T20:50:00.000+08:00

Drink up, baby down
mmm, are you in or are you out
leave your things behind
'cause it's all going off without you
excuse me, too busy you're writing your tragedy
these mishaps
you bubble wrap
when you've no idea what you're like

So let go, jump in
oh well, whatcha waiting for
it's alright
'cause there's beauty in the breakdown
so let go, just get in
oh, it's so amazing here
it's alright
'cause there's beauty in the breakdown

It gains the more it gives
and then it rises with the fall
so hand me that remote
can't you see that all that stuff's a sideshow

Such boundless pleasure
we've no time for later now
you can't await your own arrival
you've 20 seconds to comply

So let go, jump in
oh well, whatcha waiting for
it's alright
'cause there's beauty in the breakdown
so let go, just get in
oh, it's so amazing here
it's alright
'cause there's beauty in the breakdown

Photolog #1: Perhentian Island

2007-05-18T09:15:00.000+08:00

*NOTE* All images in this post are mine, and if you wish to use any, get my permission first. Thanks!

During my semester holidays in late 2006, I took a trip to the idyllic Perhentian Islands off the coast of Kelantan, Terengganu in Malaysia. After having heard of the enthralling and (relatively) unspoilt beauty of the white, sandy beaches and the clear turquoise water there, it was a place I knew I had to visit.

I decided to go on an unguided trip this time, so I did some research beforehand. I found out that there were actually two islands there, Perhentian Besar and Perhentian Kecil ("besar" means "big" in Malay, and "kecil" means "small").
The smaller of the two is reputedly more lively than Perhentian Besar, and feeling more in the mood for a peaceful, relaxed holiday I chose to go to the bigger, less crowded island.

Soon, the day for departure came, and the night found me at the Putra Bus Terminal near PWTC. With luggage in hand, I boarded the bus bound for Kuala Besut at 10pm.

It is a pity that the Perhentian islands are located so far from the heart of Kuala Lumpur, because the bus journey there is one of the most mind-numbing experiences i've ever had.

Though the Mahligai express service was recommended to me, I found the bus seats to be rather uncomfortable, which made it quite impossible to get any sleep for the entire 8-hour journey.

At around 6am, the bus finally neared the jetty at Kuala Besut, Terengganu. Despite my fatigue after the sleepless journey, I felt my excitement mount as I caught glimpses of the endless sea between the trees and buildings as the bus sped past them.

The jetty at Kuala Besut.

The bus stopped along a narrow, two-lane road lined with shop houses. The sky was still dark, but the tourist information/greeting area was lighted, and a few small groups of tourists, mostly foreigners were already milling around there.

I disembarked and contacted Kak Shikin, my "agent" who would arrange for the speedboat to the island itself. She ran a small shop which sold souvenirs and other items targeted at tourists at the jetty terminal.

She told me that the boat would only come at 7.30am, so I had some time to kill. With my Olympus Camedia C-8080 and tripod in hand, it was time to practice my photography.

Bridge streetlights reflected.

Dawn over Kuala Besut.

I had the opportunity to witness the sunrise over Kuala Besut. Numerous small fishing boats and speedboats were docked all around the jetty. In the morning twilight, some fishermen were already up and about.

All visitors are, however, required to pay a "conservation fee" of RM5 each per entry to the "marine park". I did not know of this "fee" beforehand, so my enthusiasm was a little dampened.

The bridge, in daylight.

Finally, the "water taxi" (glorified name for a speedboat) arrived, and I was on my way.

The speedboat was a fun ride, the wind whistled past my ears and the boat bounced slightly as it cut through the waves.

The ride lasted for about half an hour, after which the boat entered the waters between Perhentian Besar and Perhentian Kecil. Here, another "taxi" came to take passengers to the smaller island, but they were charged a further RM5 for it, apparently because the smaller island lacked a jetty.

At 8.15am, I finally set foot on Perhentian Island.

The first order of business was choosing a place to stay, so I visited the various chalets along the beach. Finally, I decided to lodge at the New Cocohut chalet, which had a nice restaurant overlooking the sea, and a reasonably priced room at RM60 a night, which had 24-hour electricity, two queen-sized double beds and air conditioning. Sadly, it did not have hot water (which the pricier options had), but I figured it didn't really matter as i'd be doing more swimming anyway.

View from the restaurant

Chalet

After settling into the room which would be my home for the next three days, I took a quick shower and made my way down to the chalet's restaurant for lunch. After the meal and a short rest later, I changed into my swimming gear and headed down to the beach for a swim.

Path to the restaurant

Corals and shells

The water was pleasantly warm near the shore, however it was rather painful to walk along the water's edge without slippers, due to the debris consisting of corals and shells lining it. The sand itself was quite fine, and felt cool to the touch when your toes sink a little deeper into it.

Before getting into the water, I went around to familiarise myself with the place. There were quite a few diving centres along that stretch of beach, besides a couple of souvenir shops, and food stalls. A few places offered Internet access, but at exorbitant rates. Having completed my initial observations of the place, I spent the rest of the day messing about in the water, then had dinner and retired for the night.

The second day was exploration and photographing day, so I made sure my camera's main battery and the spare were fully charged. I headed down to the restaurant to have breakfast in the morning. Here, I met the resident cat.

Meow

At first, I couldn't put my finger on it, but there seemed something strange about the cat. After luring it with some food so I could get a closer look, it struck me that it had unusually large paws. It was normal in every other aspect, so I surmised that the paws were evolved to adapt to walking in sand. I must have looked rather "ulu" to be excited about a cat lol, and some of the staff had bemused looks as I was following the cat around and photographing it.

A little while after finishing my breakfast, I was lounging around the restaurant when one of the staff called me excitedly. A monitor lizard had wandered out from the jungle, so it was a good opportunity to get some shots of the big lizard.

Face off

Lo, the cat was already there, eyes locked with the monitor lizard. Despite its small stature, the cat is obviously a territorial creature, hissing and spitting at the lizard, which just silently stood there in obvious disdain of the cat.

Retreat!

Eventually, after a tense moment and a short chase later, the lizard turned and shuffled back into the undergrowth.

I resumed my expedition after this. I took a closer look at the abandoned "Cozy Chalets", which sat on the rocky outcropping at one end of the beach. Quite eerie, even in the day. I did see some monkeys running around the roofs and trees nearby, so they weren't really abandoned after all.

View from the beach

Abandoned

Further along the coast, I found a rather bleak-looking sight. The shallow water was still, filled with rocks and dead coral littering its bottom, all of which was covered in light-greyish stuff.

It looked like a dead zone at first glance, but upon closer inspection, I found that even this place was teeming with life. Crabs of every shape and size hid in the nooks and crannies, while small schools of tiny white/grey fish darted among the rocks.

Tiny crab

Crab with sinister face

Some sort of anemone

Spot the fish

Eventually, my path was blocked by a huge rock outcropping that stretched out into deeper water.
I noticed little insect things running all over the rocks, which, for the lack of a better name nor knowledge of what they are, I christened them "rockroaches".

"Rock cockroach"

I decided not to risk my camera by traversing the deeper waters, so I turned back to explore the other end of the beach.

I passed another chalet which had a concrete jetty. From the looks of it, this one served the fishermen who work around that area, judging from all the fishing boats nearby.

Another small rock outcropping along the way, no 'roaches here, but lots of crabs running about those that*just* break the water's surface.

Rocks

More crabs

At the far end of this beach, an even more massive outcropping of rock stretched right out into the sea, so I decided to rest on the beach for awhile. As I sat down, I noticed a tiny, white creature skittering away at an amazing speed. It literally looked like a small patch of sand had sprouted legs!

Naturally, I followed it around until it got rather tired of running. Upon closer inspection, it was yet another crab, whose shell color masked it very well from would-be predators. It would be quite impossible to spot if it isn't moving.

I returned to the beach in front of my chalet after I had enough of chasing the crab around. Took a couple more pics along the way back, then I relaxed on one of the deck chairs there until the sun went down. Later, as I was heading back to my room, I saw another of the island's fauna eating from an opened coconut.

Beautiful water

Boat

A squirrel

Evening fell, so I headed back to the restaurant for dinner and took the opportunity to experiment with night photography too, before retiring for the night.

New Cocohut's restaurant

The next morning I took a last, leisurely walk around the place.

Afternoon came, and it was time to check out and start my journey back to Kuala Besut. I packed and deposited my room key with the chalet's owners, and boarded the speedboat. On the ride back, we passed another speedboat from Perhentian Kecil which was also fetching holiday-goers back.

Speedboat at starboard

I proceeded to buy my return ticket after arriving in Kuala Besut, and found I still had a couple of hours to kill until the bus arrived, so I passed the time by exploring the nearby town and finding targets to shoot (with my camera).

Three Cats

Row of shops near the jetty

Goats

At last, the bus came and I made my way back home. In closing, i'd say that Perhentian is a really interesting place, and I felt it was well worth the money I spent for the trip there.

My total expenses for the trip:

Bus l-way RM30 x 2
"Conservation fee" RM5
Speedboat 1-way RM20 x 2
Accomodation RM60 a night x 3
Food RM15 a day x 3

Total: RM330

Moo.

2007-04-23T23:30:00.000+08:00

Cow.

Cow *tear*.

Inspirational quotes by Lynx #2

2007-04-19T19:56:00.001+08:00

"Expect nothing, and you will always be pleasantly surprised."

James Blunt, the Much Parodied One

2007-04-04T21:50:00.000+08:00

I don't really know why people seem to hate him, but the number of parodies really speak for themselves. :p

My Cubicle:

You're Pitiful:

Original video:

Hope for broadband?

2007-03-18T01:47:00.002+08:00

People who've been getting less-than-satisfactory broadband services (like me) with current broadband service providers may have a new option to choose from soon.

WiMAX, a new wireless broadband technology is going to be added to Malaysia's wireless broadband services, and the licenses were granted to relatively unknown/new companies as far as I see, instead of the telco giants currently operating in Malaysia.

Sounds pretty encouraging, which means TM and the other big telco companies really have to improve their services to compete with WiMAX service providers.

Here's an excerpt from The Star Online's article on this:

Four get licences to run WiMAX

By STEVEN PATRICK

CYBERJAYA: Malaysians will soon enjoy greater mobility when accessing the Internet – no need to be tied to modems, a WiFi hotspot or a cybercafe.

WiMAX, a technology that enables wireless broadband access, is close to being implemented nationwide after the Government awarded four companies yesterday with licences to operate such networks.

Bizsurf (M) Sdn Bhd, MIB Comm Sdn Bhd, Asiaspace Dotcom Sdn Bhd and Redtone-CNX Broadband Sdn Bhd were given licences to operate WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) networks.

Once these are in operation, Malaysians will be able to surf the Internet at ultra-high speeds from any point in the country, as well as enjoy new or improved Web-based services.

The four beat 13 other companies including telecommunications heavyweights DiGi.Com Bhd, Maxis Communications Bhd and TM Bhd.

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) expects the winners to roll out their WiMAX services to 25% of the population in the areas given to them by year-end.

Also, it expects the Internet access speed to be no less than 1Mbps (megabit per second), which is equivalent to 1,000 kilobits per second. In comparison, Internet access via dial-up service is 56 kilobits per second.

MCMC also stipulated that the wireless 1Mbps service should be at “an affordable price.”

There are still limitations to the technology. According to Wikipedia:

A commonly held misconception is that WiMAX will deliver 70 Mbit/s, over 70 miles (112.6 kilometers). Each of these is true individually, given ideal circumstances, but they are not simultaneously true. In practice this means that in line-of-sight environments you could deliver symmetrical speeds of 10Mbps at 10km but in urban environments it is more likely that 30% of installations may be non-line-of-sight and therefore users may only receive 10Mbps over 2km.

So the quality of the service still boils down to how much infrastructure is set up to handle user capacity.

(Image from The Star Online)

Sources:
1
2
3

SPARTANS! TONIGHT, WE DINE IN HELL!

2007-03-16T02:13:00.000+08:00

300 is awesome. This is one movie i'm going to watch multiple times.

Although 300's story isn't anything revolutionary (based off an actual historical battle as it is), it is solid nonetheless, and has all the elements of a great movie. But what really shines here is its delivery.

The story unfolds as it is retold by the rough, gritty voice of Dilios, one of Leonidas' 300.

The use of foreshadowing and repetition makes the story flow very well, and connects events in the movie together.

Visuals are stunning and visceral, vivid dismemberments, "artistic" blood flying everywhere, swords, spears and shields running people through, set up on a beautiful sky filled with magnificient orange-tinged clouds which seem to be eternally in the evening/night.

I never thought i'd say this, but buff men running around with nothing on save red cloaks, shields and leather underwear never looked so cool(in a completely straight and manly manner of course).

And damn, I want a physique like Leonidas (Gerard Butler).

Here's several wallpapers I made, because frankly, the movie is *that* awesome:

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Inspirational quotes by Lynx #1

2007-01-29T00:20:00.000+08:00

"Life's unfair; it is up to us to make it fair."

Boredom begets...

2007-01-28T17:58:00.000+08:00

..personality tests. :P

Your Body Image is 12% Unhealthy, 88% Healthy

You have a great body image. You know that no one looks perfect, and you're happy the way you are.
Also, you don't judge other people on their looks... and it helps them feel better about their own bodies!

How's Your Body Image?

You Are 24% Sociopath

From time to time, you may be a bit troubled and a bit too charming for your own good.
It's likely that you're not a sociopath... just quite smart and a bit out of the mainstream!

Are You A Sociopath?

Your Seduction Style: Au Natural

You rank up there with your seduction skills, though you might not know it.

That's because you're a natural at seduction. You don't realize your power!

The root of your natural seduction power: your innocence and optimism.

You're the type of person who happily plays around and creates a unique little world.

Little do you know that your personal paradise is so appealing that it sucks people in.

You find joy in everything - so is it any surprise that people find joy in you?

You bring back the inner child in everyone you meet with your sincere and spontaneous ways.

Your childlike (but not childish) behavior also inspires others to care for you.

As a result, those who you befriend and date tend to be incredibly loyal to you.

What Kind of Seducer Are You?

You Are Smokin' Hot

You're a terrible flirt, a sharp dresser, and a party animal.
Of course, you're totally sizzling too. And for you, being hot just comes naturally.

Are You Hot?

You Are 64% Open Minded

You are a very open minded person, but you're also well grounded.
Tolerant and flexible, you appreciate most lifestyles and viewpoints.
But you also know where you stand firm, and you can draw that line.
You're open to considering every possibility - but in the end, you stand true to yourself.

How Open Minded Are You?

300

2007-01-25T22:45:00.000+08:00

Holy crap. OMFG. OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG OH EM GEE.

300 is on my seriously-must-watch list.

It is a movie adaptation of Frank Miller's comic series of the same name, which depicts the Battle of Thermopylae.

For those ignorant of ancient history, Thermopylae is the site of a legendary battle between a handful of Spartans (300 to be exact, hence the title)led by Spartan king Leonidas against a massive army of Persian invaders.

I really liked the style of Sin City, another of Frank Miller's comic-to-movie adaptations, which was given a very artistic treatment that complemented the movie's atmosphere, and 300 looks to be equally good.

First trailer (poorer quality):

Latest hi-quality trailer.
More media here.

The Battle of Thermopylae on Wikipedia.

Photos upped

2007-01-20T20:47:00.001+08:00

I've finished processing the Penang trip photos, you can find them over here!

P1015437
Originally uploaded by ~Lynx~.

Note: you can view bigger versions by clicking on the "View All Sizes" button on the top of the image.

Tower Defense!

2007-01-18T23:28:00.000+08:00

Like playing Tower Defence but can't be arsed to reinstall Warcraft III?

Look here and here.

Here's Another interesting Flash game, where you're a statue that has to shoot down passing birds before they bury you with.... poop.

Blog Maintenance In Progress

2006-12-29T02:13:00.000+08:00

I have been neglecting my blog for a long time, both design and update-wise, so its one of my new year resolutions to construct a really personalised blog, none of this prefab template stuff (except where it will save me time and preserve basic web-design ethic of course).

I'm going to try a themed look, and the first will be probably a Warhammer 40K one, and as you may have already noticed some initial changes are leaning toward that end (but there's a crapload of coding to do, still figuring out CSS and these "widget" things), not to mention graphics.

I'm also trying to make better, more content-orientated posts so there's actually something really *worthwhile* to read.

So an apology for the fuglyness which may occur due to this, i'm getting there.

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-25T21:58:00.000+08:00

Merry Christmas! This year's was one of the better ones i've had, met new friends, got my pay (finally), and made progress in my modding skills.

Not gonna say alot since i'm writing up blog updates and processing a huge backlog of pics I took throughout the past few months, but here's a Christmas wallpaper I made for the occasion. :)

Long Time No See

2006-10-12T22:57:00.000+08:00

Yes, been a month and a half since I updated this; between working, doing the occasional freelance work, modding and travelling, I really haven't had enough time to compose updates.

I wanted to make the most of my month-long holidays, so i've been far from idle, so once again an apology is in order for those who visit this corner of the intarweb.

On the bright side, i've a veritable ton of things to write about, so you can look forward to more content-heavy updates when i've done all the boring processing stuff. ;)

For now, here are sneak peeks of some pictures I took during one of my travels, hope you like them.

Full details on them (and bigger versions) will come with the updates I promised. :)

Flyin' Saucers.....

2006-08-05T01:00:00.000+08:00

This is the story of one of the more interesting assignments i've been sent for.

Initially, I was sent out to investigate a report that hailstones had fallen in Sri Hartamas. While I was interviewing people in the area though, I got another call from an editor telling me to to to Jalan Beruas, which was just off Jalan Beringin where a bad storm had apparently occurred.

When I was on my way to the place, I saw many of the trees along Jalan Beringin had been snapped in half like they were mere matchsticks. One particular area had five of them snapped in a row. As I was nearing the turning to Jalan Beruas, I saw a huge tree opposite a primary school there had fallen across the road and crushed a SUV parked there.

As I progessed further up the hill, the devastation was even more apparent. Pine trees could be seen leaning over walls, mangled pieces of aluminium roofing lying around the place and powerlines brought down by fallen trees.

It looked like a typhoon had struck the place.

In one particular street just at the foot of the hill, huge pine trees had fallen on the houses across the road, crushing walls and blocking access into the place.

I interviewed several residents there, and one in particular had said he’d literally seen Astro dishes (including his own), roof tiles, a brick and water tank covers thrown about by the storm, which is a testament to its fury.

Without a doubt, this has been my most interesting assignment by far, in the time i’ve been working here.

Halfway there...

2006-07-29T23:01:00.000+08:00

Been on the job for almost over one and a half months now, and i've got to say i'll miss being here.

Partly because of the more relaxed work environment, but also because I get sent to interesting events.

Someone said to me that working as a journalist makes you feel that you are living beyond your means; attending big events and socialising with people whom you'd never get to meet otherwise.

Here's a couple of pics of the things I was sent for.

Miss Malaysia/World 2006:

The former Miss Malaysia 2005 with some of the finalists.

The new Miss Malaysia 2006 giving a lansi look to her. j/k

Crane got owned by a hole in the ground:

Auto Assault: Malaysia

2006-06-28T22:21:00.000+08:00

The "highlight" of my week is..... i've been involved in the second road accident of my life, and this time it isn't my fault.

I was driving along Jalan Universiti, from SS2 to get home. Then at the junction at
17/21, a Proton came hurtling out of that road, and hit the front left of my car.
My car pulverised what remained of the (thankfully unresurfaced) island seperating the road, and I vaguely remember steering away from the nice, solid tree in front of me before coming to a stop a little further on.

The engine had some rather alarming sounds coming from it, probably the internal fan but I immediately shut it off to be safe and got out of the car after making sure I still retained all of my extremities.

The road had bits of pulverised plastic and shattered glass strewn all over the place.

I ran over to the car that hit me, and I saw it's front was totalled; bumper completely gone and a hissing sound was coming from the engine so I told the driver (a woman who looked more dazed than I felt) to shut it off after inquiring about her health.

She seemed fine, but her passenger seemed to be a little worse but also had no outwardly visible injuries.

So, after making sure they weren't hurt I took pictures of the scene and got the driver's particulars.

Shortly after the impact, a Satria GTI pulled up and two seemingly good samaritans came out acting as if they were really concerned. But shortly after they revealed themselves to be "towing and car repair" lookouts.

They kept trying to persuade the woman and me to engage their services, saying that they can tow the cars to their workshop and fix our cars quickly, blah blah blah.

Even before 10 minutes passed, several other lookouts sped to the scene, all eager to make a buck off our misfortune.

On hindsight, these people regularly stalk accident-prone areas like this, hoping to capitalise on the accident victim's disorientated mental state.

As I had heard of cases like this, where these "helpful" people charge exorbitant fees for towing and repair (and refuse to return your car if you protest their demands), so I firmly told them that I did not need their services.

So, the lesson for the day is: be prepared for something like this.

Sign up with an automotive association like MAA or AAM, who provide towing services for breakdowns or accidents at reasonable rates (breakdown towing is free in the case of AAM,no idea about MAA).

Say you have friends who can fix your car if they insist.

Training Week 4

2006-06-21T21:18:00.000+08:00

Results are out, and i'm quite pleased to maintain a CGPA of 3, certainly an achievement considering my lack of studying. Its higher, in fact than my previous examination point average for which I DID study for, ironically.

Its almost a month now into my industrial training, and I've found that time really flies when you're on the job. Been on some pretty interesting assignments, and the highlight of my time at my attachment so far was last week, where I went to cover a "press conference" by a former Miss-Malaysia-turned-skydiving event management company owner.
In actual fact, it was a small gathering at her office. But its not the size of the gathering, that counts, its who attended it.
Local celebrities, actors, models, all whom I'd interviewed. Yep, lots of leng lui.

To cut a long story short, was interesting to talk with these people since it gave me more insight into the kinds of people who work in the entertainment industry.
Some of them still reminded me a little of the "airhead" stereotype, but thankfully for them and my sanity they could mostly give satisfactory answers to my (rather simple) questions and a couple of the actresses were a real joy to interview.

And the byline for the story was also welcome, although I had to fork out RM45 for the byline tea. *me is broke* T_T

Been to some landmarks like the National Museum, Agong's Palace (well, ok, in front of the gates anyway) to cover stories, and went to some football party at a club, where I got lots of free beer (though i'm not about to repeat that experience, all it got me was a throbbing headache. Why the hell do people drink beer anyway... hey its not my fault, the people kept putting whole JUGS of them even before the one we had was finished).

Been to cover all sorts of things like interviewing people about the sugar shortage issue (people don't like their picture taken even if its something harmless like this....), went to some press conference which the former health minister Chua Jui Meng was conducting about business opportunities in China, and a prizegiving ceremony at Ampang Park in which our current minister of tourism attended (Ampang Park shopping centre is the first ever in Malaysia?? OMFG I never knew that...).

And now, another installment of the magnificent Lame joke of the day!: All original lame joke from the bullcrapping genius of yours truly, based on a TRUE real life conversation! Keyword "based".

Siryn: "Germany has beaten Poland at every single World Cup."
Me: "Sucks to be them."
Siryn: "Yeah, poor Poles. Wanna hear a joke?"
Me: "Sure."
Siryn: "If people from Poland are called Poles, then shouldn't people from Holland be called Holes?" :p
Me: "ROFL! ....... Hmmm.... so, dancers from Poland are.... Pole Dancers? Bwahaaahahahah!"
Siryn: "...................."

Previous LJOTD:
LynX's Lame Joke of The Day #1

Day Two

2006-05-31T20:47:00.000+08:00

Second day into the job, and i've had my first encounter of people desperate for help with some rather serious problems.

I was sent out with another intern to follow up a story on the bridge at the recently opened (then closed) middle ring road 2 (MRR2) near Batu Caves, all the way at Gombak. After some fruitless queries on several construction workers, it seemed that several different contractors were hired to work on the bridge. At one point, we met an old security guard patrolling one stretch of the repair works. Naturally he was curious about what we were doing there asking for the supervisors. Upon learning that we were journalists (in training anyway....) from a newspaper, he tentatively asked, "how much do you have to pay to get on television?"
For a second there, I was a little confused as to why he'd ask this really unexpected question, right out of the blue. And then he told us his story.

Apparently, he was a Sabahan, and his hometown is in KK. A close relative of his has a family abuse problem. That relative's husband had used a knife to slash and stab their children not once, but twice already. The husband was detained by the police for one night, but was released the next day despite his serious crimes and the security guard was in a quandary as he could not return home personally due to his work commitments in the mainland. And this caused him no small amount of distress and anguish, as the perpetrator was still loose and able to harm others. He asked us if we could take up his case, perhaps like what they did in those tv programs like 999 or Kisah Benar.
I also felt then the frustration of not being able to help the man directly, as all we could do then was sympathise, as the local branch of the newspaper certainly would not cover this man's story and the best we could do was get him into contact with our office and get a number to the Sabah branch of the newspaper, and hope they would pick up this man's case and follow it up.

Industrial Training, Day One

2006-05-30T01:02:00.000+08:00

Monday marked the start of my 3 month long industrial attachment at an established local press. Being that it is the first time working for a press organisation, there is much to learn.

One of the notable things about the place itself was the extent to which they took security. Most rooms in the building required the use of an electronic passcard to open, and CCTV cams were at every floor and in the carpark except in the work rooms themselves. For this reason, I had to follow one of the staff from the parking area under the main building just to get access to the lift to the lobby to save me the long walk up from the parking garage.
At the lobby, I was told that there was nobody in the offices yet(even though the "official" time to arrive at the office was 9am)so I had to wait at the lobby, where I found my other classmate who was assigned there, as well as two PR students from the same batch as I am, so we chatted to occupy ourselves.

20 minutes later, we were met by a HR staffer who took us up to sort us out. We soon got our access cards and IDs, replete with lanyard. At around half-past 10, we were then brought to our respective departments, the PR students to Marketing and my classmate and I to Editorial.
There, we met several other interns from other universities who'd been there for 3 weeks already, one of which took us on a tour of the place, to the amusement of several staffers. One of them wryly said, "I was like that once," lol. The permanent staff were all generally pretty friendly and the atmosphere seemed alot more relaxed than the company that I worked part-time in during some past school holidays; they didn't seem very concerned over the punctuality of the staff, at least in the departments i'd been to and especially the editorial, where less than half the office was occupied at any one time, and there wasn't any strict rule where mealtimes were given time limits, and you could go eat or have a break at any time, but of course there's an unspoken understanding or expectation that you don't take a break that lasts hours.

Later on in the day, I tagged along with one of the other interns to cover a story about a
paraplegic man called David May who's on a charity fundraising tour of the world by trekking, mountain climbing, skydiving and several other physical challenges in various locations around the world. You can find more info if you're interested here.

Back in the office, I was tasked to transcribe some news items from a reporter at the frontlines of the recent quake in Indonesia, which gave a picture of the situation there: no electricity or water, and heavy rains hampered rescue efforts, forcing the journalist to submit the news over the phone.

Stayed around the office till 8pm or so, but no assignments seemed planned for the next day and fatigue was setting in so I headed home to hit the sack.

At Last.

2006-05-10T23:40:00.000+08:00

Exam results are all in, and I am finally free of the tension of uncertainty.
A relief-inducing PASS on each subject, at least it'll give a small amount of respite until the actual results are released, if nothing else.

I also feel I did reasonably well for my Taekwondo evaluation, and although I don't think it warrants a double promotion, I probably passed fine to advance to Blue One grade.

I've been keeping myself busy over the past few weeks over the holidays, got a new computer somewhere just before my exams but I haven't had the time to break it in and run stress tests yet. Its a near top-of-the-line system, specs are:

P4 2.8GHZ DC
1GB DDR2 RAM
200GB SATA HDD
GEFORCE 4 7900GT
Samsung 17' LCD

It runs most of the next-gen games like Oblivion (which has been occupying a large amount of my time) and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter smoothly, but not with everything maxed. Antialiasing and grass took the biggest bite out of the framerates in Oblivion, so I strongly suggest leaving AA to 2X and Grass view to none by dragging the bar all the way to the left in the graphics options. Benchmarking shows it performs well within expected parameters, so i'm not complaining.

I digress. Anyway, I had a small but fun birthday celebration with Bernard, Yen Yen, Joe, and Woon at Pizza Uno last Saturday. I'd thought of inviting more people TBH, but as I evaluated my funds I figured it'd only be enough for treating 5-6 people max considering the cost of a meal at Uno was at an average of RM15, poor bastard that I am. Turns out it was for the best, anyway as the seats at Uno matched our little party.

After that, we headed down to Sunway Pyramid, a rather ill-advised course of action as it was Saturday afternoon. Expectedly, it took us a long time to get there due to the jam, and we were disappointed yet again as the archery range we were looking forward to engage in had either moved or closed down completely, in any event we could not find it. All was not lost, however, as we managed wrap up the day with a session of DoTA later that night. The only thing that irritated me was being held up from having dinner with my family because of bumping into a friend on the way there, which caused me to arrive late.

All it all it was a good day, got more SMSes than cards but then again I don't send cards often anymore, extortionably expensive things they are. Cheaper and more meaningful to send handmade cards anyway.

Easter?

2006-04-19T06:18:00.000+08:00

Easter, the day of chocolate eggs and easter bunnies.

Things, however, aren't really what they seem...

The Dark Side

2006-03-25T15:32:00.000+08:00

Fear leads to anger.
Anger leads to hate.
Hatred leads to power.
Power leads to victory.
Let your anger flow through you.
Your hate will make you strong.
True power is only achieved through
testing the limits of one's anger,
passing through unscathed.
Rage channeled through anger is unstoppable.
The dark side of the force
offers unimaginable power.
The dark side is stronger than the light.
The weak deserve their fate.
–tenets of Sith philosophy

Anger. Anger is something i don't give in to often, nor show. But everyone has a limit, before it becomes impossible to hold back.

Anger is what i feel now.

It is a burning sensation,it burns with a passion.

Self control has let me direct the anger, render it malleable, to channel and use it. Anger provides focus, clarity, strength.

Yet, hot anger is fleeting, its power waxes and wanes as it pleases. Flames are fleeting, fickle things.
Cold, ages-old anger on the other hand, are the most powerful, and rare. Cold is patient, calculating, precise, efficient.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are several distinct kinds of people in this world of group teamwork efforts.

First, is the elite. These are the perfect, productive team members, they participate in discussions and give constructive contributions to it, will try and keep a discussion going by giving ideas and suggestions, use their own initiative to bring up and clarify any ambiguities they have with their tasks as well as doing as much research as possible on the project, and are actually concerned about the project and complete their assignments on time. The team leader is selected based on the required organisational skills, or based on the extent of knowledge he or she has about the assignment topic, and is clearly elected.

Second-in-commands are similar to elites, but are different in the sense that they will only actively contribute to a discussion when the discussion is not making any headway. These types are also reluctant to take on the responsibility of a team leader, but will attempt to do a good job of it if voted to the position.
Second-in-commands are usually also competent in all the things elites can do.

Third, are the followers. These are the drones of the team project world. Followers do exactly that: follow. They will follow any plan that is outlined, regardless of its merit and rarely if ever voice their opinions or contribute anything worthwhile to the project. When doing brainstorming sessions, they will sit quietly and stare at other people or generally be inattentive to the flow of the discussion; letting other people do the thinking for them. When it comes to the time to work on the project, followers will require exact directions on how to conduct their work.

Fourth, are the illusionists. Illusionists are extremely difficult to identify, as fakers love to masquerade as elites. Illusionists are armed with a formidable array of 'important' and 'official' sounding words in their vocabulary, and mimic politians in their speech. Common phrases are "basically,", "practically,", "the fact of the matter is...", "it is imperative that we...", and use such bombastic speech to dazzle others to create an impression of competence. Illusionists will aggressively seek power, and if placed in a position of responsibility, an illusionist will attempt to delegate all the tasks to other members, and routinely request work status reports from them.

Illusionists are only identifiable when asked to explain something in detail or asked a technical question, or confronted with an elite. When this happens, their self-defence mechanism will then activate and make them spew confusing, pointless and fallacy-ridden counter-questions and arguments as well as using misdirection and stalling techniques. When an illusionist is exposed, he or she will attempt to retreat and quit the team.

Fifth are the manipulators. Manipulators are masters of manipulation,and will make every effort to make other group members do their work for them. If left unchecked, manipulators will eventually have someone else to their entire share of the work for them. Usual tactics are asking a question, followed by a request for a demonstration.... and the rest is history.

Summaries schmarmmaries.

2006-02-23T23:56:00.000+08:00

A summary of the past couple of weeks: had a nice "reminiscing the past" with an old friend on the night of the "overly commercialised and overrated filled with overpriced flowers, overcharging restaurants and other shit" day.

Stood around with yet another friend at the Chap Goh Meh proceedings, which began as simple curiosity but what made us stay longer was mostly for the amusement of seeing those desperate people who skip the "orange throwing and fishing" excercise entirely and try to chat up members of the opposite gender (one guy's case was so much more funny that the girl looked him told him to pick the orange hahahahaah! Yes i know im an evil sadistic bastard thankyouverymuch), some "enterprising" people even printed fricking business cards to distribute!

In other news, i did an article with Pei Mei for the Star's R.AGE pullout, you can find it in today's Star newspaper (Thursday, Febuary 24 2006). Apparently its only available in the newspapers that are sent to colleges and universities, so you might want to have a look.
Though i don't claim to be the most prolific or attention whoring *COUGHNardCOUGH* writer, its nice to see something you wrote being published with a minimum of editing.

I've had a couple of very "soap drama"-like misunderstandings with a certain Joanne in the past weeks, first was the "6-10" incident where i misheard her saying that she belanja the meal.... and i was thinking "wah... got people so generous i never see before." But what she really said was "i pay first la, you pay me back later."
I blame it on the noise from the medium that distorted the message. Yes, i've been studying too much. Its bad for my mental wellbeing.

The second one was the setapak gathering thing where due to a mixup in emailing addresses, i did not receive the confirmation email in the place i was expecting it; in fact it ended up in the place i LEAST expected it. Among the dark, dank depths of my Hotmail Junk mail folder, along with all the evil and monstrous creatures that inhabit it, such as the hideous "Interest Free Loans!", the vile "Send this email to 100000 people NOW or DIE!", the absolutely insidious "PENIS ENLARGEMENT PILLS 100% GUARANTEE!!" or the ever pervasive "FreeHotAdultActionRIGHTH ERE!"
By the time the proposed gathering time came, i still hadn't received confirmation, so i called her up and found out that the time was indeed confirmed. While i was on the LRT there, i was told the other people wanted to go back already, which of course caused me to be pretty pissed, since i had parked my car at AMcorp, then i had to use the LRT to get there and the journey there takes about 35 minutes.
To add salt to the wound, the train stayed at one station for a long, long time before finally getting a move on again. Since i wouldn't have been able to make it, i cut my losses and stopped off at KLCC and brought home an armful of new Warhammer 40K books instead.

But after the whole business was cleared up, i owe her a pretty expensive meal and an apology also, since it wasn't really her fault. :p

So,the moral of the story is, as according to the highly respected and regarded sage, Confucioused says: "When someone gives you email address, use it. Other IM email address is portal to watery orfice in bathroom toilet."

And now here's the magnificent Lame joke of the day!: All original lame joke from the bullcrapping genius of yours truly, based on a TRUE real life story! Keyword "based".

Mei, pointing at someone in a photo: "This is my friend, Kate. I haven't seen her in awhile, cause she's abroad."
Nard: "Haha, i can imagine"
A certain spiky haired person: "Haha i agree, she's a broad indeed, and a mighty fine one i might add!"
Nard & ACSHP: "OMFGROFLOLOLOLOLOLOL!"
Mei: -_-;; "Die. Please. BOTH of you."

Completed Wasp

2006-02-12T02:01:00.000+08:00

Finally, after 4 months, the Wasp is done. Next project: a high-detailed ship.

Front

Back

A little preview of things to come.

2006-01-29T05:52:00.000+08:00

Here's a small peek at a few ships i'm developing for my *very* long-term goal: my original sci-fi universe.

Ambitious? Yep. I realise the amount of work required to make even a half-decent one, but i started out early and have a good amount of development completed already.
So far, all the components are all at the "general idea" level, so the framework for further development is already in place.

Who knows. Maybe i'll succeed and make this big, or it will remain a small personal project. Only time will tell.

Ships

Just another modelling roundup

2006-01-23T21:47:00.000+08:00

Chinese weapons:

Gondor Helm Revised:

Wasp WiP 7:

The beginning of the end of the beginning of the end....

2006-01-07T13:31:00.000+08:00

Yep, that's Smashing Pumpkins.

The new semester started on the 3rd, and from the classes i've attended so far it ain't gonna be a cakewalk lol. Still, i welcome the challenge, since i actually get to excercise a little creativity now, unlike the last semester where we only had the *dreadfully* boring hard news writing.

And speaking of writing, let's move on to the topic of today's blog entry: the reasons for the use of proper English on the Internet.

What's the big fuss with proper spelling and grammar on the internet? Well, here's a little open letter for everyone who thinks using proper grammar on the internet is not important.

The internet is a text-based community. People communicate through text. Therefore bad spelling, grammar etc. is rude, and shows a careless, sloppy manner. If you want your opinions heard, the least you can do is make it perfectly readable.

How would you like it if people around IRL you keep

SHOUTING

all the time when they want to say something, o r spe ak in frag ment ed sen tences? Or speak so softly you have to strain your ears to hear what they're saying? Or fucking insert a goddamn expletive in every fucking sentence bitches?
Would you like that? No? Then spellcheck and prove your opinions and comments are worth reading and worth a response.

Since i'm fed up of telling people to at least have the goddamn courtesy of simply checking their grammar and getting comments like "why does it mattr lolur notmy mohter uN00b" or "than dont raed my poast yu shithed", i just ignore any comments or questions that are full of grammar mistakes.
After all, if you're too damn lazy to do something as simple as checking your grammar, whatever you have to say is not even worth reading.

That being said, sometimes mistakes *do* occur, and one or two occasional unintended mistakes is forgiveable. I've made spelling errors myself on several occasions, but i immediately edit it when i see it or someone mentions it to me.

So don't think using good grammar etc. is unimportant; if you want people to respect you and your opinions, taking the trouble to check your grammar is the first prerequisite you need to have. After all, it seperates the wannabe n00bs from the truly 1337.

The End Is Nigh!

2005-12-27T03:15:00.000+08:00

Yep, it really is! So REPENT YE SINNERS! 4 more days till the new year. Hehe.

Long time since i've had a post with any real substance, and for that i apologise. Staying up late nights does that.
I haven't been just sitting around wasting time though, as you my dear reader have noticed, i've been churning out a crapload of skinned models, and trust me, it isn't as easy as it looks... aside from spending hours searching for good reference pictures and textures which usually takes more than 5 hours, modelling and UVW-ing, even low poly ones takes 2-3 hours each and texturing around 2 hours.

I do wish i could do it faster, and handle more complicated models but my skills still aren't up to that level yet, but good thing is i've improved alot and learned some new things.

Anyway, i've a couple of items i'd like to address in this last post of 2005.

First up, another installment of mini movie reviews. Since there's a whole internet full of information about their plot/characters/whatever, i'll give my impressions instead.

+ Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the movie based on the books by JK Rowling, FYI if you somehow lived under a very huge rock in a very deep well for the past few years or so. There have been some changes to it's production, from a new actor to play Dumbledore to a new director. The movie itself is pretty good, much better than the previous movies but has it's share of shortcomings as well. The initial part of the movie is rather abrupt, and the transition isn't really handled very well but it smooths out as the show progresses. A larger portion of the book was cut out, so fans might feel the movie lacks something, but even so the movie runs for around 3 hours, so its something that is really unavoidable and i feel the scriptwriters did a sufficiently good job to cover it, though IMO not as gracefully as the Lord of The Rings' translation from book to movie did.
Still, its worth a watch, and the dragon scene is pretty awesome.

+ The Chronicles of Narnia is another book adaptation from the works of CS Lewis, which is pretty good, i admit i was a little surprised because of some comments about the movie i heard. By far this movie is one of the most faithful book-to-movie adaptations i've ever watched, and is even better than the "imagery" that the book gave. The books reads like a children's book, which in fact is what it is, while the movie makes it more of an epic, even *almost* Lord of The Rings-esque kind of epic. Hell, i could have sworn even Galadriel's evil sister is in the movie lol.(Galadriel is the elven queen of Lothlorien for the ignorant, played by Cate Blanchett). Definitely a good watch, goes to show you can't believe everything you hear until you see it for yourself.

+ The Constant Gardener is a rather depressing movie that stars Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes, but its a good movie nonetheless. The movie is filled with surprises, twists and turns, and uses a flashback-esque style of exposition which turns what would otherwise be a rather unremarkable story (if told in a straightforward manner) into an engaging one, which just shows the skill of those involved with weaving together the story. Top that off with the excellent performances from Rachel and Ralph, and you get a grade A movie. A recommended watch, especially if you're interested in something more than mindless action and no-brainer "plots" in typical hollywood movies.

Next is some random notable things. Last week, i went on a trip to Pangkor island with some of my uni mates. The journey there for me started at 6am, when i woke up to catch a bus to KL, where we got on a coach heading to Lumut. It took us 4 hours to get to Lumut from Puduraya, a long and boring 4 hours so everyone took the opportunity to get some shut eye.

At the ferry station in Lumut, we were met by some very..... loud ferry ticket sellers who vigorously waved at us, apparently asking us to buy the tickets from them instead of their competitor. The ticket booths were right next to each other.
It was pretty.... scary i must say, their aggressive marketing, and i thought they looked like those prisoners who stuck their hands out between the bars waved and jeered at people passing them in the movies.
Thankfully, we already had all the arrangements done for us by Joe prior to the trip lol.

When we arrived, we checked into a beach resort with some moderately-priced rooms (3 room unit for 310 a night), and immediately went for a speedboat tour around the island. And good thing we did too, for it turned out to be a perfect day to be out at sea, low tides, clear blue skies...

I'd have to say the best day of the whole trip was on the first day, and highlight of that trip was the speedboat tour. Its just an awesome experience just sitting on a fast-moving boat, feeling the wind beating over your face, the smell of the sea...
Our "guide" and "driver" was a pleasant chap who cracked alot of jokes to keep us entertained, and pointed out various "creatures" and things that only the imagination can see in the huge rock formations and flora around the island.
Our guide even dived and brought up some aquatic life for us to look at a coral, a sea cucumber and a sea urchin. Of all 3 the most interesting was the urchin, you could actually see it's individual thorns moving as it crawled around the bucket it was put. Reminds me of a porcupine hehe.
We also passed by the Pasir Giam beach, which was a place of interest because at low tide, you could walk over there safely from the main island, but the "path" disappears under the water at high tide, and our guide said that it only gets low enough a few days a year, so anyone who doesn't bring a boat and get's stuck there has to stay for a year until the next year lol.
After "speeding" around abit, we stopped at a cove where shoals of various colourful fishes frequented, attracted by the many bits of bread us tourists tossed into the water, and i got in with a mask and breathing tube.
Several other tour boats were also around there, so the fishes were having a feast. My finger almost became a part of the feast as well when i was waving a big piece of it at the smaller fishes, when this bigger fish came out of nowhere and bit at the bread. Thankfully it had a small mouth so it was just a nip. Anyway I think i had its cousin for dinner hehe.
After awhile, we went to another small beach and just sat around and enjoyed the view before heading back.
That night after dinner, we went down to the beach to see the "blue tears/blue sand", which are actually small crustaceans called Sea-Fireflies
which are bioluminescent creatures. The shores were filled with these blue lights washing up, which was pretty cool, romantic even... for couples lol.

I also got to see a successful catch of a stingray. The removal of it's sting was rather brutal.... it was wrenched out a pair of pliers while the stingray was still alive. But the locals thought nothing of it, having probably done it hundreds of times already...

The other two days consisted of sightseeing the few places of interest around the island, like the Fu Lin Gong temple with it's mini Great Wall, and the *very* small(reconstructed) Dutch Fort.

And with that, here's some more 3D stuff if you're not sick of it already:

Gondor Guard Helm

Evil Sword & Shield

Misc Weapons

Swords

Orc weapons

Axes

Orc Falchion

Cheers, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Politically Correct Non-denominational Holidays!

Work for Angels Fall First

2005-12-09T03:02:00.000+08:00

Another mech i'm modelling for AFF,the Black Knight:

BK-05P Black Knight prototype

BK-05P Black Knight: Space Operations variant

Yet another modelling update

2005-12-02T00:49:00.000+08:00

Head complete:

A little more progress..

2005-11-24T13:56:00.000+08:00

WiP 5

The Great Toils of Man...

2005-11-22T22:24:00.000+08:00

1

2

Evolution of a Work In Progress

2005-11-17T14:44:00.000+08:00

As you may already know, MTS was shut down last month cause the game engine was deemed inadequate for what we wanted to do, namely combined-arms BT since the hardcoded limit for skeletal systems was just one, so mechs and infantry are not possible at the same time, let alone reverse-joint mechs.

So i've been approached by BT-M to do the high-poly Wasp, Unseen version for their animated movie. It sports a medium laser and an SRM-2 rack, which is rather underpowered even for a light mech but that doesn't mean i won't give it any less attention. In fact, its probably going to top my work on the Shadowcat which was my last high-poly project.

MTS may still live with Codename Symbol, where we plan to purcase a whole new commercial stand-alone engine or build our own engine from scratch, but the project still has not started up yet and i'm almost done with the TCS buildings, so i'm doing personal projects like this in the meantime.

The Wasp Battlemech, progress over a span of 20+ hours:

1

2

3

Just for shits and giggles.

2005-11-09T23:53:00.000+08:00

how jedi are you? :: by lawrie malen

Yep, i'm Mandy.

Yet another personality test

2005-11-08T02:30:00.000+08:00

Just did this to take my mind off modelling for awhile:

Advanced Global Personality Test Results

Extraversion	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Stability	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Orderliness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	46%
Accommodation	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Interdependence	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Intellectual	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Mystical	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Artistic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	90%
Religious	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Hedonism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Materialism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Narcissism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Work ethic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Self absorbed	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Conflict seeking	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Need to dominate	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%

Romantic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Avoidant	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Anti-authority	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Wealth	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Dependency	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Change averse	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Cautiousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Individuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Sexuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Peter pan complex	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Physical security	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Physical Fitness	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Histrionic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Paranoia	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Vanity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Hypersensitivity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Female cliche	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Stability results were moderately high which suggests you are relaxed, calm, secure, and optimistic.

Orderliness results were medium which suggests you are moderately organized, hard working, and reliable while still remaining flexible, efficient, and fun.

Extraversion results were low which suggests you are very reclusive, quiet, unassertive, and secretive.

trait snapshot:

introverted, secretive, reclusive, tough, non social, observer, fearless, solitary, libertarian, detached, does not like to lead, outsider, abides the rules, mind over heart, good at saving money, does not like to stand out, does not make friends easily, self sufficient, not aggressive, likes the unknown, unconcerned with external opinion, strong, abstract, independent, very intellectual, analytical, high self control

2 More textured buildings

2005-11-07T08:24:00.000+08:00

Yep, here's the Liao Airfield and CiC:

Liao Airfield

Liao CiC

Only in Malaysia: Bloopers #2

2005-11-05T05:35:00.000+08:00

Yep, simply awesome.

Movie Madness

2005-11-03T01:31:00.000+08:00

Been to see a shitload of movies more than i usually do, thanks to Fredrik and Joseph lol.

Since haven't the patience nor the proper state of mind to write lengthy, in-depth reviews of all the highs and lows of each movie at 2am in the morning (yes, i'm a vampire!!!) , i'll just do a brief summary of each and my recommendations or otherwise (in no particular order):

+ Sky High is a "family" type movie that's about the a superhero couple, who's son is about to go to superhero high school. A surprisingly good movie which ties up it's ends neatly and manages to add in alot of appropriately corny lines amd cheesy humor, recommended watch.

+ Transporter 2 is a no-brainer action flick, complete with tough, gruff and asskicking hero, evil, evil spanish villain who has a lithe girlfriend who is apparently a borderline psycho, likes wearing skimpy attire and likes wielding akimbo submachine-guns, as well as an eeeevil evil (no, i mean really, really evil. Really.) plan that seems like a kidnapping but is something muchas muchas more sinister. If you like alot of mindless no-brainer action and see-thru bras, then transporter 2 is for you or else just wait for the VCD.

+ Zorro 2 is about Zorro, married now and middle aged but still alive and kicking bandito' ass, who has to deal with "asskicking life" and "family life". Things don't get easier for our intrepid black clad hero as his equally asskicking wife, Elena gets involved with some shady characters, which naturally leads to more asskicking. Rated "OK", but did not get that "Excellente Movie" feel from this one.

+ Corpse Bride is a movie made with the painstaking art of stop motion a-la the Wallace and Gromit series (and upcoming movie), and tells the tale of Victor, the naive and rather clumsy son of a wealthy fishmonger family who screws up his wedding vows to Victoria, his bride-to-be and accidentally "married" a corpse bride. The movie has the same dark, twisted and haunting yet beautiful atmosphere we've (or at least i've) come to love in Tim Burton's movies.
Alot of tongue-in-cheek humor lifts the mood a tad and the movie has a nice pace to it, combine to make it a very nice movie which is a little sad, but definitely worth a watch.

+ Doom is a movie-nised version of the popular PC first-person shooter series of the same name, Doom 3. Its.... better than expected, but not an excellent, deep and emotional movie. Not by a long shot. Its a sci-fi version of Transporter 2, just with more mindless action, zombies, wierd-ass creatures and a demented Dr Carmack whose name everyone keeps shouting as if you were partially deaf.
The story itself, (what little of it anyway) has just a passing resemblance with the game's story, but is just adequate if you don't look *too* close. Hovers between "OK" and "Tolerable", probably worth getting on a VCD for the funny one liners alone.

+ A Sound of Thunder i, to quote the official synopsis, "When a hunter sent back to the prehistoric era runs off the path he must not leave, he causes a chain reaction that alters history in disastrous ways." In reality its a pretty sucky adaptation of an excellent short story, the movie only pulls it off at half the quality of the story.
Its a little scifi-ish considering the setting, but all the special effects in the world cannot save this movie from mediocrity. Wanna see monkey lizards? bat-pterodactyls? Big eels and ants? Killer weeds? A poorly disguised attempt at illustrating the "butterfly effect"? A Sound of Thunder is all that. VCD material.

And now, i leave you with this awesome Nirvana song:

Video Code Proudly Provided by FreeVideoCodes

Its been awhile...

2005-10-24T22:48:00.000+08:00

Been some time since i last posted an update, so i have to force myself to stop being lazy lol.

Taking abit of a break from 3d for now, to catch up on other things. Been spending some time watching movies instead, which is what i'm gonna talk about here.

First up is the new Final Fantasy: Advent Children movie. Its a pretty awesome movie that displays Square-Enix's skills at 3d, which sets another goal to aspire to lol. The movie is basically about what happens after FF7, where some uncurable disease called the geostigma is spreading among the planet's populace, which is apparently the planet's self-defence mechanism kicking in(sounds alot like that gaia theory...) and its up to Cloud and his buddies to save the world again when some guy called Kadaj and his brothers seemingly want to destroy it by bringing Sephiroth back from the dead.

While the visuals are top notch, the story is rather confusing since there's little explanation of what is going on; it is meant for fans only after all. Still, even if you don't know wtf is going on, the gravity and physics defying fights and insane motorcycle stunts will keep you satisfied.

I'll get down to the other movies in the next posts.

Winter Assault

2005-10-08T00:27:00.000+08:00

Just finished downloading the Warhammer 40K expansion, Winter Assault which brings the Imperial Guardsmen into the fray as a complete faction.
Its pretty cool, the new Sentinel walkers are fast and pack a mean punch, and the general of the IG army has these nice claws seen in the screenshot below. Took me a few tries but i managed to defeat an IG insane AI, but then again not all the units are in the demo so we'll have a rematch when i get the full game.

Winter Assault demo screen:

Liao Supply Depot

2005-10-06T23:03:00.000+08:00

Presenting my latest finished model, the Liao Supply Depot:

In other news, a snake bites off quite abit too much than it can chew.... Python VS Alligator

Yet another textured model

2005-09-22T07:45:00.000+08:00

Here's the Liao Barracks:

Frankly, i don't enjoy texturing as much as i do modelling, but its a necessary evil i guess. Its in the texturing stage where a blank model gets its character, and most of the time it is where low poly models like this can seem to have more details than it really has. There's a real sense of accomplishment after you finish a texture, and compare it to the untextured model.

I'm trying to texture enough to the point it doesn't feel like a drag at all, then i can produce better texture job.

One of the biggest problems however is finding good, hi-res textures that a suitable for the look i want. I spent at least 3 days looking for texture resources, and i still cannot find exactly the right stuff i want for my texturing projects. Ah well, you can't have everything eh.

Ukulele

2005-09-17T22:53:00.000+08:00

While looking around some guitar resource sites, i stumbled across this interesting instrument called the ukulele. It looks like a small guitar and only has 4 strings, but it has a higher "pitch" than the guitar, that has a strong bass set of strings.

Then after doing a little digging around, i found this nice site that hosts videos of people playing this interesting instrument. In particular, i found Jake Shimabukuro's video. Its awesome. I suggest you check it out. The entire file is about 20mb+ for broadband, but there's also a dialup link for those who have slower connections. This song is "As My Guitar Gently Weeps", originally by George Harrison and it was written for the Beatles:

Jake Shimabukuro

And another one:
Jake @ Concert

*edit* after getting spam comments from spambots, i've decided to turn on word verification. Sorry for that, but i prefer not to have crap like that clogging up the comments.

Image from this site

Liao Bunker

2005-09-14T21:30:00.000+08:00

Yes, yours truly has started his 3D modelling/texturing engine again to bring you the Liao Bunker.

I hope to finish all the Liao buildings by the end of this month and resume my high-poly modelling practice, maybe with original mechs or trying to learn modelling human characters.

Finally...

2005-09-13T17:25:00.000+08:00

My semester finals are over, and i can look forward to 3 months of relative peace instead of tearing my hair out trying to rush assignments or worry about exams.

Guess i'll be getting a part time job for some extra moolah, but i'm gonna focus on improving my 3D design and Photoshop skills.

Working towards that 1337 new PCI-E 3D card, and hopefully a new system!

Hope all you guys and gals have a good holiday!

Advertising

2005-09-10T17:00:00.000+08:00

Yep, just finished my Advertising paper today. Despite spending less than 3 hours actually studying the material instead of agonising over it, i *think* i did okay.

But as interesting as the subject is, i still don't like the actual advertising itself. While it sounds nice in theory, the sheer crap we have today that bears the name "advertisement" is mind boggling.

Stupidity is NOT good advertising.

The types of advertisements i like are those that really show hard work, great creativity and "intelligent".
One of the worst outlets for retarded advertising has to be the radio. People making stupid sounds, talking in cheesy accents and the like are annoying. Wonder why there are so many road rage and road accident cases? Well, wonder no more. Radio ads can raise your blood pressure to impressive levels.

But even i cannot express indignation to crappy advertising as eloquently as the author of "No Logo":

No Logo 1
No Logo 2

Check them out, they're a good read.

Commercialism has oversaturated the collective consciousness of consumers. Many remain oblivious to the fact that the advertising itself is just a face, an image of a product, but does not necessarily reflect a product's value or quality.

Those who do, disregard the advertising until they see concrete proof that this product lives up to its claims.

Only in Malaysia: Bloopers #1

2005-09-10T15:23:00.000+08:00

I've decided that it will be interesting to create a series of funny mistakes from the abundant literary landmines seen in everyday life in our beloved country.

Here's the debut entry:

National Ass Of Women Entrepreneurs Of Malaysia

Proudly displayed in the no. 9 entry

Even the Yellow Pages can't escape it!

Another completed model!

2005-08-31T10:10:00.000+08:00

Yup, yours truly has skinned yet another model, this time the Liao anti-ground turret:

Oh yeah, Happy Independence Day! Merdeka! =p

Bloody fireworks woke me up at 12am while i was sleeping >=(

Finally, an update.

2005-08-29T17:03:00.000+08:00

Firstly, an apology is in order for whoever is bothered to follow this blog; haven't had the motivation nor time to update it due to heavy, heavy assignment work.

Alot has happened since the last post; the haze dissipated overnight after that day and faded completely soon after, and life in KL goes back to normal.

Had a blurry, relatively sleepless period in the weeks where all my semester assignment's deadlines were scheduled, and true to me and my classmate's attitudes, namely LM (Last Minute) only seriously worked on the assignments a week before they were due.

Anyway, found a little time to skin a building or two for the mod i'm working on, learned a few new techniques in making decent looking metal textures in the process. Still not very professional-looking work, but i'm getting there. :P

Actual skinning/texturing time took about 5-8 hours, but it was sourcing for good base materials was what took a long time. In the end i made the majority of the metallic parts made from scratch in photoshop, and a couple of surfaces from external sources.

This is the anti-air turret for the Capellan factions:

Hazy Days

2005-08-11T21:42:00.000+08:00

Yep, its the haze again, courtesy of Indonesia and several local "hotspots". Following up from my previous post on August 2, the haze has gotten much, much worse since then.

The API, only released today by the Department of Environment today despite being the fourth day of this haze, is as follows (as of 5pm today):

0-50 Baik / Good - 3 areas
51-100 Sederhana / Moderate - 35 areas
101-200 Tidak Sihat / Unhealthy - 5 areas
201-300 Sangat Tidak Sihat / Very Unhealthy - 2 areas
>301 Berbahaya / Hazardous - 6 areas

Worst affected areas are:

Gombak, SELANGOR - 305*
Pelabuhan Kelang, SELANGOR - 486*
Petaling Jaya, SELANGOR - 326*
Shah Alam, SELANGOR - 430*
Kuala Selangor, SELANGOR - 527*
Kuala Lumpur, W.PERSEKUTUAN - 295*
Putrajaya, W.PERSEKUTUAN - 354*

Currently in PJ, the haze is pretty damn bad. The acrid smell of smoke-saturated air pervades every corner, except in air-conditioned buildings (for the time being). Hell, you walk out in the open for just 5 minutes and you'll smell like smoke when you get indoors!

Pharmacies are doing brisk business selling surgical masks, some selling them for over RM12 apiece and many opportunists have stocked up on masks and are selling them to people for a profit. The authorities should put a price ceiling on these items.

Schools have been allowed to close due to the severity of the haze, and even the port at Port Klang as well as the Sultan Aziz Shah has been forced to cease operations due to terrible visibility.

One can only imagine how many precious hectares of forest is being destroyed by these almost-annual forest fires by our oh so gracious neighbours who are "kind" enough to share their smoke with us. It has been reported in the news that increasing numbers of respiratory and eye cases have been reported in medical centres across the affected areas.

Source -
Malaysian Department of Environment

Cat and Dog

2005-08-04T19:15:00.000+08:00

Who ever said dogs and cats can't get along? Here's Kitty and Dryad playing in the yard:

WARNING! 20MB video! (.mov file)

I Sense a Foulness In The Air....

2005-08-02T22:30:00.000+08:00

The obligatory smog has returned to Malaysia, as of 5pm today a blanket of noxious smog covered Petaling Jaya and Kuala Lumpur. The cause of this smog is unknown as of this post since all the news sites don't say anything about it.

Speculations are that another major forest fire has broken out somewhere. A picture will be forthcoming.

Drink more water and keep a breath mask on.

Kitty and Doggy

2005-08-02T22:26:00.000+08:00

A long delayed picture of Thunder Kitty and Dryad:

A Taste of Things To Come

2005-08-02T00:39:00.000+08:00

A lot of happenings in the country lately.

Splashed across the headlines are signs of Malaysia's first major social, political and economic shakeup in decades,and how we plan for the future today will drastically shape things to come.

First is the issue of the re-implementation of the NEP in an "enhanced" form which now includes other newer sectors such as biotechnology.

After our country's independence and following the May 19 racial riots, the NEP was put in place so that the Malays could catch up in terms of market share. The government did everything they could to give them a leg up and close the economic disparity between Malays and non-Malay citizens, develop the economy and wipe away hardcore poverty.
And it was successful too. However, greatness can only be achieved through adversity.
A man who works with his bare hands, enduring toil and hardship will be stronger than a man who gets everything without having to lift a finger.

This same principle applies to the NEP; it has had some serious negative effects contrary to what it originally intended to do: put Bumis on equal playing ground with Non-bumis in the economic sector. Getting concessions, favored contracts, deference for stocks and shares, even down to quotas in institutions of higher education which prevent many deserving non-Bumis from entering - these all make a people soft; and far exceeds the individual level.

Should our country's leaders be visionary enough, they would see it is time to remove the diapers off our country and put on some real pants. We cannot become a fully developed country with such policies in place. The international economic arena is unforgiving and extremely competitive, so companies cannot keep looking to the government for aid. Proton is already feeling the pressure as the AFTA goes into force soon, and already the cracks are starting to show with the controversial sacking of it's CEO.

The Approved Permits has also stirred up alot of controversy, which enable dealers to bring in foreign-made cars. Most of them only allow a dealer to bring in a particular carmaker's cars, while another type allows for the import of virtually any foreign car. But, the next issue might have more adverse effects on the automotive industry than expected.

Second, as international oil and gas prices skyrocket, we can expect merchant profiteering to increase. Althought the government threatens to take action, there are just too many businesses to investigate. Already prices of some things such as fast moving consumer goods (read: food & other perishables) have surreptitiously increased.
Which of course translates to higher living costs and making our lives more difficult.
There is an article in today's The Sun which discusses why the government should drop petrol and gas subsidies altogether, and while it presents many good points, we just aren't prepared for such a change now.

Other Breaking News!
Japanese create realistic female android
These people must be really desperate....
10th Planet Discovered
Another step into stellar understanding.

Do Gooders?

2005-07-26T20:24:00.000+08:00

.... Or are they?

Following up my earlier post on the "mismanagement" of donation funds by certain crooked individuals, here's an article by R. Nadeswaran, who is a regular columnist for The Sun newspaper under the Citizen Nades column regarding some... unethical practices of some so-called "do gooders" in regards to the management of donation funds, or lack of it. As he doesn't name names in regards to the Malaysian context, we can speculate that the cuprits must be very rich, and very influential indeed.

Original Article

'Professional' do-gooders must declare their perks

WHEN the saga unfolded in court last week, Singaporeans were not the only ones astounded by revelations of the lavish perks enjoyed by the head of the Singapore Kidney Foundation.

T. T. Durai, who has since resigned, flew first class, drew an annual salary of RM1.3 million and enjoyed annual bonus payments of between 10-12 months' pay.

With that kind of perks, everyone who contributes to a "worthy cause" has every reason to feel betrayed and let down.

Closer to home, the stories of high-salaries, jet-setting and first-class entertainment enjoyed by a privileged few who go by all sorts of names and titles have been subject of the rumour mill.

One day, he is a "consumer advocate". The next day, he is on the boards of 10 government and quasi-government agencies and draws six-figure allowances a month, sometimes more.

One day, he is a "social activist" campaigning for a "better quality of life for the community."

The next day, he becomes a capitalist sitting on the board of public listed companies, and yet keeps on sending statements in the name of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) of which he has managed to get into.

One day, she is a welfare worker, looking into the plight of the down-trodden and the sickly. The next day, she is driven around in a luxury car. Many do-gooders are in circulation for their own interests.

What they earn in the form of salaries and allowances is a secret.

One day, he is an editor. On another day, he is flying to tragedy-struck areas as a member of an NGO - travels first class, stays in five-star hotels, gets a per diem allowance, but far away from where the action is.

He is on a "fact-finding mission. His expenses are borne by the NGO, but where does the money come from?

Annual accounts of NGOs and so-called charitable organisations, if they are made public, lump the remunerations of these officials with those of clerks, drivers and other minor staff.

They are classified as "Salaries and allowances for staff " and no one knows the identities of those who are enjoying better perks than Durai.

So, how much does the ringgit you give for a "good cause" actually end up with the people who deserve it? How much can be used as "administrative" costs?

There are hard and fast rules, but if the chief of a welfare organisation pays himself or herself seven figure annual salaries, who questions such actions?

In this column last year, I raised what was said at a seminar on transparency. Could someone tell us how much the Human Rights Commissioners (who work part-time) are paid and how much allowances they claim and the perks they enjoy. The silence has been deafening.

They go on a country-wide tour extolling the virtues of rights of individuals, but they stop short of telling us that as taxpayers, we have a right to know how they are spending our hard-earned money.

It does not stop at just this group of people.

There are hundreds who work in such organisations, co-operative societies and trade unions. And yet, there is no disclosure.

Before anyone points a finger, let me declare that when I completed my one-year term as the chairman of an inhouse co-operative in 1990, members at the annual general meeting approved an honorarium for the services rendered, of RM2,000, which worked out to RM166.66 a month.

*Abstract from The Sun article*
Copyright© 2004 Sun Media Corporation Sdn. Bhd. All rights reserved.