Little Litterbugs

"Keep Malaysia Clean"
"Think before you throw"

There is a never-ending barrage of the above channeled to us through our government sponsored television adverts and campaign posters about 'keeping Malaysia spick and span', yet it seems that the efficacy of the abovementioned remains somewhat of a mixed bag.

What I find more disturbing is the sight of school-going children dumping their garbage around their school yard and around the bus-stops.

I sometimes wonder what they ever learn in school, or more mind-boggling, what kind of values their parents have been instilling in their kids.

Unfortunately, it's not just the little ones guilty of this, but even educated adults as well. I was once told of a lawyer who even declared that is his 'right to dump his rubbish wherever he pleases' as we pay taxes to have the council clean up our streets. I don't see this as doing justice to our road sweepers.

While Kuching can certainly claim the spot for being one of the cleanest cities in the country, this habit is becoming entrenched. All too often, I see drivers who wind down their car window and dump their rubbish onto the streets, with a carload of kids. So much for homegrown values.

After Four on One

Sorry, I couldn’t resist writing such an apparently misleading title, but I like how the numbers ‘four’ and ‘one’ come together.

The first day of the year had a rather unusual opening.

I woke up at 11.45pm, just in time for lunch.

It was also the day Leonard, my twin, was due to fly back to Penang after a week long holiday back here in Kuching. Was I sad that he had to leave so soon? Not at all, he’ll be back for Chinese New Year.

To kick off with the celebration, we had lunch at this new joint called ‘After Four’, a place known for its cozy atmosphere, good food (huge variety, they claim to have ‘more than a hundred’), free wireless internet, and of course, its distinctive orange-coloured theme, making After Four really stand out of the crowd.

Speaking about variety, you’ll be spoilt for choice the moment you flip through the menu. Unlike other food joints here in Kuching, which are either ‘too cheap or too expensive’, you’ll always get something here that is ‘just right’.

I had a bowl of Cantonese Noodles, which, for only RM 5.50, is indeed deserving of praise, due to it’s generous serving.

Cantonese Noodles

The picture above doesn’t do justice to the actual size of the bowl. Aaron, on the other hand, had the Cantonese Rice in Basket (shown below).

The Four ‘No’s

In church, we are often reminded of the Ten Commandments, but at After Four, you will see the ‘Four No’s’ prominently displayed on the outside. That comes as no surprise, as After Four has obviously set their sights on the Muslim market.

Huh? What’s this?

Haha, maybe they should have added a ‘No Cats and Dogs’ to their list of ‘no’s.

===END===

Welcoming the year of the Tiger

The time now is exactly 12:02 am, 1st January 2010. As I am sitting here writing this article, I am overwhelmed by the very thought that time has passed so quickly. Only less than five minutes ago, my computer’s clock read ‘11.57pm, 31st December 2009’. That was the last time I would ever see the ‘2009’ in the date column of the date-time display.

Last year was the most eventful year in my life, as it marked an important milestone in my life as I emerge from academia, and enter into the world as a working adult. 2009 was perhaps a year of many oddities; a year than began with a rough ride, from the moment I was ‘struggling’ with my thesis, till the joyful and unforgettable family moments during the Christmas season of 2009.

As I gaze with bleary eyes at my computer screen, working tirelessly to complete this brief article, amidst the thunderous claps of fireworks seen illuminating the sky, I am consumed by one stark reality; the year of the tiger has come. My year, so it spells a certain significance to a tiger like me, but not so much as an excuse to excel only once every twelve years!

The year of the tiger holds many mysteries, uncertainties and to those who are willing to work hard for a better future, the year does hold many promises. My resolutions, my life, my future. Perhaps, in another 12 years, when the next tiger comes by, I will have a word to say about the tiger of today.

 

===END===

Now Everyone Can Eat, and Ride?

“Now Everyone Can Fly!” (Yeehaa!)

How right they are. It used to cost so much more to fly around the country, and even more to fly out of Malaysia.

Then came Air Asia, and the rest became history.

The coming of Air Asia solved the problem of air-travel, which for many Malaysians like me, was rather expensive at times.

Then came another company, that for obvious reasons, gave me an impression that it wants to help prepare us Malaysians for some kind of impending famine or something.

With the wordings ‘Food Asia’ so prominently emblazoned on the red awnings shown above, it’s hard not to imagine that we might soon witness the rise of Malaysia’s (and the world’s?) first ‘low-cost’ food eatery, right? Hmmm, let’s find out…

A quick look at their website (www.FoodAsia.net, duh!) reveals an assortment of mouth-watering delights, from our local Sarawakian Apam Balik to the not-so-local Philippines Mee Hoon. I think they’re quite right about the pricing though; you can get just about any dish for RM 4.00 and below, and dessert for RM 3.00 or less. Finally, a place to get some decent food without burning a hole in your wallet. “Now Everyone Can Eat!”

And if that wasn’t enough, wait till you see this…

“Now Everyone Can Ride!”

===END===

Sawing your way to fame

Joshua Bell plays the violin.

So does Itzhak Perlman.

Both men are world-class musicians, with world-class reputations. Joining this list is Takako Nishizaki of Japan. I just love the way she plays The Butterfly Lovers.

These musicians are known the world over for their amazing virtuosity, as the violin is not an easy instrument to play, let alone master.

Just two days ago, I was convinced that you can make good music out of just about anything. Be amazed. Be enlightened. See the video below!

Now imagine getting that thing on the plane. Sheesh….

===END===

‘Define: Google’

It’s hard to believe that it just happened. In fact, it’s so hard to believe, that only after years of ‘Googling’, I had just ‘discovered’ one of Google’s most powerful search operators: ‘define:’.

Go ahead and try it! It works like a charm… =)

Now, I am not writing this article to tell you what late bloomer I am. It’s just that instead of scouring the web, conducting dictionary searches and performing cross-searching across multiple sites, I found that a way to get the ‘best of both worlds’, was to simply use the search operator ‘define:’. In short, Google gets to do the dirty work (nearly all of it), with sleeves rolled up.

The result can be seen below.

Too good to be true right? It’s no wonder Google has such immense sticking power.

Let’s just try another keyword to define….

 

Heck, no harm trying anyway…

And what do I get?

Hmm…sad, obviously nothing to shout about, except that my name being popular among the folks in Britain at one time.

 

And another…

  
Hmm..nothing very interesting, looks like Google hasn’t exactly moved with the times…

So we need to be a little more specific with Mr. G (Google!)…

Ahhh…that’s better. Have fun defining!    

 

☺☺END ☺☺

Bill Gates Giving Away His $$$?

What a load of rubbish! This email is more ‘$#&%’ than ‘$$$’!

This is a bloody hoax. And it is, as it had been circulating around the internet for a good 10 years or more.

It is so very annoying. Bill Gates giving away his fortune? If that is true, he would now probably be sleeping in the streets or under some bridge. I am very sure many of you have received an email that looks like the one shown below.

*****

Dear Friends,

Please do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates is sharing his fortune. If you ignore this you will repent later. Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet comp ani es and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program, Microsoft and AOL are running an e-mail beta test.

When you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft can and will track it (if you are a Microsoft Windows user) for a two week time period.

For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00, for every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives it, you will be paid $241.00. Within two weeks!, Microsoft will contact you for your address and then send you a cheque.

*****

There may be some variations in the above version, but the stories are fundamentally similar. I admit to having fallen victim to this notorious hoax many years ago, but who can blame a 13-year-old who had just gotten his first computer? The problem is that many a times I usually receive this email from friends who usually belong (apparently) to the right portion of a intelligence distribution curve.

There are people who are supposedly mature (and intelligent) enough yet fail to understand that in there is no free lunch in this world.

Even if Bill Gates did intend to pay that amount of money for every email sent and received, there are some nagging issues as to why this fact cannot possibly hold water:

1. The world population currently stands at close to 7 billion people. The global average internet penetration rate, as of March 2009 is 23.8 percent (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm), and that accounts for some 1.6 billion people. If 2 in every 10 persons of these1.6 billion people forward the email to an additional 5 persons (they usually forward to everyone in their address books anyway), that accounts for some 320,000,000 persons forward that email to 5 times that amount, assuming that every one of these 5 persons are unique. This is further compounded by the fact that this email has been (and still is) in circulation for more than a decade, almost guaranteeing that every single internet-user on earth has seen this email at least once. If say, a ‘modest’ number of people, 50 million, for instance, actually did receive a check of USD 200  from Bill Gates for forwarding this mail in the time-span of 1 year, that makes a total of 10 billion dollars to give away every year, and that is a huge chunk of Microsoft’s annual revenues. This is also one reason why Ponzi schemes eventually fail.

2. The second reason is a total no-brainer: Isn’t it easier to just give it away the good old-fashioned way? For that reason, there is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Simple and convenient, and it certainly beats forwarding spam and wasting server resources.

Identifying Spam

Spam is relatively easy to identify. More often that not, spam is often characterized by three common traits:

1. Email that you don’t want (d-uh).
2. Usually ends with a note encouraging it’s circulation, either with a ‘bad luck’ note (like saying that you’ll die tomorrow if you don’t forward the mail) or with one promising reward (as in the example above).
3. Email from an unknown sender, or from a person not known personally by you.

It always pays to have good email habits. What then do you do when you encounter spam? My uncle’s 3-step ‘Guaranteed-To-Eliminate-Spam’ technique would suit most people. The steps are:

1. Open mail.
2. Read (Optional: Have a good laugh).
3. Delete.

Additionally, be careful with whom you share your email with. If you have to provide your email address, like signing up for email newsletters, make sure there is an option to unsubscribe in the future.

Thou Shall Not Forward Spam…

If there was room for another commandment, it ought to a top reason for making frequent trips to the confessional. Churches and places of worship around the world would be packed with ‘sinners’ and the religious would be droning on and on with their sermons as to why spam is ‘evil’.

But spam is evil.

I have had to deal with enough spam to make it my full-time job.

Forwarding emails indiscriminately  makes your inbox a highly susceptible target of spammers as the chain of email addresses usually accumulated as inline text can be harvested by unscrupulous individuals for marketing (or rather, spamming) purposes.

Don’t want to see spam? Then think before you hit that forward button.

Additional Reading:

http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2003/07/va_billgates.html

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blmsaol.htm

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/microsoft-aol.asp

______________________________________

===END===

All Joy Food? No Joy, only Pain…

I made a complaint to the NCCC (National Consumer Complaints Centre). It reads as follows (adapted for reading on this site):

______________________________________________________________________________________

Just today, I my brother and I went to Wisma Saberkas to meet up with a friend over tea. My friend suggested we meet up at a place called All Joy Good Food, which is located at Wisma Saberkas, Upper Ground Floor. The company was very disappointing in that they didn't offer a replacement for the order we placed as they had presented to us food that we didn’t order. When the waiter delivered the food to our table, we told her that it was not our order, as we had ordered something different (Kolo Mee, RM 3.90 per dish). The three of us had placed order for the same dish, and all three of us received the wrong order (Noodle with sesame chicken, RM 5.50 each). After negotiating with the boss, the she agreed to have only one of our order replaced, meaning that the other two orders remained unchanged. I was unhappy with this proposal and went to see the boss again. Yes, I had to storm into the kitchen, very embarrassing. This time, she blackmailed us, saying that she could choose not to have that one order replaced, hinting to us that it was a take it or leave it proposition. I was infuriated as the boss gave a very rude reply. I was forced to accept the order that was presented to me, which costs an extra RM 1.60 each, bringing my loss to RM 3.20 (two orders).  Furthermore, the receipt was not issued immediately and my friend's order (the dish that was changed) was delivered very late. To add insult to injury, when I told the waiter that I would like to have a word with the boss over this issue, she told me that she (the boss) would not wish to come to my table, and instead, I had to walk right into the kitchen to see her. This is indeed a very degrading experience and if I was in a better position, this event could have warranted a lawsuit. I told the boss that this was the last time I would ever step into her shop, and all I got from her was a curt and rude reply: "I'm sorry to hear that.". The amount I loss during this experience may seem negligible to some, but this should never have happened in the first place. On behalf of the three of us who are affected by this unfortunate incident, I implore the NCCC to look into this matter so that it does not have to happen to anyone else. Please do not hesitate to contact me for more details.

______________________________________________________________________________________

It is very surprising to see such rude antics coming from a person I presume to be decently educated. I will never set foot into that shop again, ever.

===END===

The Garden Tour – In Pictures…

In my previous post, I mentioned that I was becoming a stranger to my own garden. I decided that it was a good time to spend strolling around the garden. I noticed some subtle changes to my garden since I left for Johor late December last year. I decided to share my ‘findings’ in this blog posting. There’ll be less talking, and more pictures. After all, a picture equals a thousand words right? Haha…

Here’s my dog, Dicky. In case you’re wondering, I decided to post my doggy’s photo because he’s the only ‘farm animal’ here.

My mom’s a pretty good gardener. It wasn’t too long ago that these potted aloe veras were still soft and tiny. Now, they’re huge and prickly.

Close up view of the potted aloe veras.

Here is all that remains of my longan tree. Further proof of my brother’s doing. I heard he’s learning how to use a chainsaw now…

My mom’s mini herb garden. Creative use of polystyrene crates and a twist of green magic (or should I say ‘green fingers’) is all that’s needed.

Here’s my mom’s early attempt at planting herbs in the garden. Not very successful, as Dicky occasionally squashes the plants. At the right of the picture is my brother Leonard's terrarium; home to three turtles (one of them just died last December :-( …..)

Herb patch and terrarium, viewed from another angle.

That’s just about all I’d like to share for now. In Part 2, I will showcase some of plants that can be found in my garden. Please return for updates soon. :-)

______________________________________________________________________________________

===END===

Coconut…Still There…

I could hardly believe it.

I had been home for about a week, and I just realized…that my coconut tree was still standing.

So what is all the fuss about then?

It’s like this actually. I arrived home from the airport on a very hot Wednesday afternoon, after being away from home for about four months, realizing that I lost two rambutan trees and a guava tree to my notorious brother (he loves chopping down trees by the way).

Needless to say, the front porch of the house was unusually bright and sunny when it was usually well shaded by the green leafy canopies that used to cover the front portion of the garden.

It took me more than a whole week to realize that the coconut tree was still standing! Oh my goodness, what on earth happened to my keen sense of observation? It must have been the heat. I had probably been staying indoors for too long.

Hmm…it’s probably high time I mowed the lawn, and got a better view of the garden anyway.

 

===END===

Home Sweet Home

That’s it! I’m back home, and as I’m writing this, I’m enjoying my mug of hot milk. I had never eaten so much in so long, and just to think of it, I have all the time in the world to do whatever I wanted to do, and that includes putting on a kilo or two. I guess I’ll be looking a little more plump by the time I have my graduation portrait taken!

So am I feeling relaxed? A definite yes, after months of toiling and working like a donkey! Am I happy? Not quite. Why? I’M BORED!!!!

 
If you wondering what this photo is all about, then I have succeeded in drawing your attention, and wasting 5 seconds of your ‘precious’ life! I got bored, so I decided to put up a peculiar photo here…

Holiday Resort Syndrome

In case you’re wondering, I came up with the above-mentioned term, so it wasn’t coined by any doctor. Just come to think of it, insanity is a by-product of immobility! Two days have gone by and I have done nothing productive, save for the moments I glanced at my calendar. Instead of torturing myself mentally, I have decided to take a week off relaxing and chilling out with close friends. Speaking about chilling out with friends, the weather in Kuching has been unbearably hot, and I often find myself dragging my feet in the sweltering heat of the day. I can hardly disagree with Lee Kuan Yew that one of man’s greatest achievements is the invention of the air-conditioner. Air-cond is king! After all, imagine me turning on both my computers (computer’s produce heat….duhhh) in my bedroom on an especially humid day. That is tantamount to suicide…

 

This is how my bed office looks like. I work here from 9 to 5, daily…

 

My To-do List

Time is short. Life is short. Boredom is eternal. Here’s a list of some stuff to be done this long holiday season:

1. Get married to a part-time job.
2. Get my business rolling.
3. Set up my home network and get 3 of my computers connected to the internet (this will turn my home into an oven…computers are hot!!)
4. Tour around Kuching, and pretend to be a tourist from KL or Singapore.

 

 
Ah…my beloved kampung….

Hmmm…or did I mention blogging? I guess I’ll be spending more time writing about my hometown. Do check back for more info. ;-)

 

====END====

Multitasking

It’s 3.00 AM in the morning. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t stop working. It’s ‘early’ in the morning and I have a paper in the coming few hours. Big risk? Yes.

I found myself, yet again, doing something that I had been doing (quite successfully) over the past few months. I had been working day-in and day-out not knowing when that I would finally come to that light at the end of that proverbial tunnel.

I had been multitasking, not the kind of multitasking that managers learn how to do, but rather, in a fashion similar to that of my laptop’s CPU. Fascinating? Confusing? That’s me spewing out all that computer-related jargon. Don’t fret, you’ll get used to it.

I do multitasking ‘round robin style’. My task description is as follows:

for (int i=0; i < (amount of work to be done); i++)

{

10 minutes: Facebooking

15 minutes:  Thesis correction

5 minutes: Checking the news

3 minutes: Googling

} //process iterates (amount of work to be done) number of times.

Total time per cycle: 35 minutes.

Work efficiency: 15/35 minutes = 42.86%

 

Works well at times no?

When the workload grows, I even work in sync with my computer. Here’s how I do it:

1. Starts Microsoft Word (4 seconds to load)

2. While waiting for Word to load (during the 4 seconds), I start the Google Chrome browser. (Takes 1.5 seconds to load)

3. Once the browser has loaded, Word still has 2.5 seconds more to load into memory.

4. Remainder 2.5 seconds is used to load Facebook, takes 5 seconds to load.

Total time taken to do tasks 1 to 4: 6.5 seconds.

Not bad at all…that’s three CPU cores at work (including my head).

==END==

Happy Birthday to Me!

I never thought so many people would remember my birthday!

After all, the last time I had a cake was nearly 8 years ago. I can’t even remember what it looked liked. How sad…

No cake? No problem. At least that was what some of my best pals thought.

Here’s how the cake looked like.

Yummy, certainly knows my taste huh? (Thanks to Hsyiang Lung and Rachel for the lovely gift).

And here’s a bit of something more local….

 

The ‘curry puff guy’ came calling and the rest became history.

Dang, now the whole world would know that I have a weakness for curry puffs.

Lovely birthday. Thanks to all for the lovely wishes. All the best to you all too!

 

=== END ===

So what if I’m not Chinese?

Being a Malaysian, I take pride in the very fact that we Malaysians have something that the rest of the world does not have: ethnic diversity.

That’s about it I think, just diversity. For crying out loud.

The reason for writing this is to express my lack of understanding, or rather, failure to fully comprehend the meaning of racial unity (as we all see it) in the context of Malaysian racial pluralism. Before I continue, I would like to first express my stand on this issue: I do not condone racism. It is an evil that lurks in the dark corridors of Malaysian politics.

While the Malaysian education system is recognized as an important platform for fostering racial unity, the recent spate of racist outbursts and the spouting of provocative and slanderous statements by certain quarters have triggered a lot of commotion throughout the country prompting certain parties to call for the enforcement of stricter anti-sedition laws. I will be writing about this on account of some of my experiences as well as that of those who are close to me.

As I am an East Malaysian, I find it quite awkward that this spirit of racial unity and sense of mutual respect and tolerance is quite absent in West Malaysia, when one compares this to that of in East Malaysia. Those who grew up in places like Kuching would agree with me on this point. As I see it, the Chinese would mingle among the Chinese, the Malays among the Malays, and the Indians among the Indians. Socializing among the various ethnic groups do happen, but often on a ‘need’ basis, rather than a ‘want’ basis. I admit that part of this is human nature at work, but I think upbringing has a lot to do with it as well.

The purpose of writing this is not to tell of what I have read in the news, but rather, to express my utter disgust at how race relations have developed so far in Malaysia, from my own personal experiences.

Are you Chinese?

It was a long and tiring day after classes in the morning and I decided to spend a little bit of time catching up with friends online when a fellow course mate approached me for some help with her USB flash drive. This young lady, whom I believe to be my junior, timidly asked, “Are you Chinese? I need some help with my work here…”. Her words hit me like a strong jab in the ribs. Of course I’m Chinese, I thought to myself, but what if I’m not? This is definitely not the first time that I have heard this, and I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last. My question to her is, if I was a Malay, or Indian, or Iban, would you still approach me for help? As I could not ascertain if this had anything to do with her upbringing, I decided to withhold my judgment towards her and put this matter to rest. No point swatting a small fly when you have bigger fish to catch.

On a separate occasion, I was walking back to my hostel during the evening, after an exhaustive day at the faculty when a lady pulled up by the roadside to ask for directions. She began like this (translated from Chinese): “Hi! Are you Chinese? Could you please…”. My friend, who was with me at the time could not contain his discomfort over her statement, despite the fact that he is Chinese.

 

In a Nutshell…

To place the blame on the other ethnic groups for being ‘clannish’ is totally out of the question. It is the prerogative of the Chinese Malaysian community to be more proactive in promoting racial unity instead of playing the blame game.

==END==

The Easiest Thing To Say…

The easiest thing to say is…’I don’t know’…

I decided that, of all the useless things I can write about in a single day, I would like to say a bit about the sentence ‘I don’t know’. I hear it pretty often from persons with whom I try to engage in a simple conversation, usually by starting a question.

When a person says ‘I don’t know’, he or she may be implying one or more of the following:

1. He/She really doesn’t know the answer to a question that you are asking.
2. He/She is too lazy to think of the answer or think of a less curt reply.
3. He/She is trying to say, “I’m don’t know how to answer your question, so just shut up because I’m not interested to talk to you now…”

 

In Aubrey C. Daniels’ book, ‘Bringing Out the Best in People’, he mentioned of something called ‘extinction burst’.

I won’t go much deeper into explaining the technicalities, but I could give you a simple example of what ‘extinction burst’ is.

Example:

1. You press a button in the elevator and it doesn’t work.
2. Because you notice that it doesn’t work, you decide to press the button a little harder.
3. It still doesn’t work, so you start hammering away at the button, pressing it many times, repeatedly, but to no avail.
4. You lose your temper and kick the elevator door, then you give up.

It’s the simple case with people giving you that curt reply, “I don’t know”.

After a while, you tend to ‘give up’ engaging with such persons. Have you been saying “I don’t know” too many times before? Have people stopped talking to you as a result? Go figure.

==End==

Being helpful hurts…sometimes…

It’s that time of the year when students over here at UTM are struggling to finish their assignments and final year projects. It’s also one of those times when I wish I had more in common with instant messaging software like Live Messenger; I really wish I can walk around carrying a ‘busy’ or ‘no entry’ sign around my neck to urge people to stop bugging me! Arghhh!!!

I believe in the power of ‘word-of-mouth’ marketing. I also believe that helping people would result in getting showered with blessings from high above. But I also believe that when people ‘promote your services’ (oh boy, and you do get the phone ringing that way…) and that your own final year project is starting to feel lonely, it’s time to put on that ‘busy’ sign, again. That is one of the main reasons why I appear offline pretty often on Live Messenger. Instead of blessings, I’m just starting to feel that the time spent helping people would have been better spent trying to untangle the mess and iron out all the kinks in my own final year project.

Gosh!

I have to admit, I’m starting to feel like a celebrity being hounded by hordes of paparazzi. So what can I do to ward off all these distractions?

I could:-

1. Fake my death. (Ouch! I’d be missed by loved ones in the process…)
2. Assume a new identity.
3. Buy an island, then assume the tales and adventures of Robinson Crusoe.
4. Becoming a secret agent, withholding my identity and current location.
5. Wear a disguise. Change disguise as often as required.
6. Speak in a foreign language and pretend that I’ve lost my ability to speak English and Malay.
7. Wear a ‘busy’ sign, and look like a lunatic for the rest of the semester.
8. Rendering myself incommunicado to the outside world.

Getting ‘lost’ in your own island paradise…hmm…

I’m seriously considering the 7th option, but I would risk getting stoned to death or burned at the stake. The 8th option is the preferred. So if you’re trying to call me and find a sweet female voice on the other end saying “I’m sorry, the….[I-can’t-remember-this-part]”,then you’ve caught me at the wrong time. It’s a moment of glory and courage. The sanctity of war, fighting for one’s survival in academia, is justified. It’s time to prepare for battle!

 

==END==

Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th was ‘supposed’ to be a bad day for everyone, at least that was what most people would have thought. I wouldn’t be surprised if the superstitious among us would have made sure they got up from the right side of the bed in the morning (or is it the left?) or even took care not to spill even a grain of salt on the breakfast table.

What the heck.

Bad luck for all? Don’t know about other people, but things went pretty well for me on that day. A little better for me on that day than on the average day.

The night before, a friend walked into my room and asked me if I knew anything about the myths and mysteries surrounding the much ‘feared’ Friday the 13th. A quick visit to Wikipedia revealed that while some people become magnets for ‘all doom and gloom’ for the day, some people attract the good stuff. Wow! I think that fits my case pretty well.

Why?

I had a presentation that morning, which I was not prepared for, and I scored with flying colours. During the afternoon, I had to present to my supervisor what I’ve done so far for my final year project, and he was quite pleased with my work. Lucky? Yeah, lucky.

So what’s the punch line here then? Friday the 13th is just like any other day. Days which brought about more bad luck then any other day in Malaysia are like the Chinese New Year, Hari Raya Aidilfitri and those big festivities. How come? Here’s how come:

1. Road accidents have been found to increase in numbers during these seasons.
2. ‘Over-indulgence’ at the dinner table.
3. Blood sugar level rising.
4. Tendency to overspend.
5. [Fill-In-The-Blank] (I’m not a pessimist)

So much for Friday the 13th…

==END==

LionelLam.com is back! :-)

Whoa!

What happened here?

I woke up on a sunny Tuesday afternoon soaked in my own sweat.

Whew!

I just woke up from a nightmare, and if that was bad, I thought I would feel better if I did a round of checks on my blog, and to do some editing as well. Lo and behold! I was totally shocked by what I saw: pictures of blue, red and white splashed across my site’s homepage in a grid-like fashion.

I was shocked. I was surprised. I was a little dazzled….and of course, a little groggy.

I thought my site was hacked. Still reeling from the ‘shock’, I decided that there was something with those funny pictures. Upon closer inspection, I saw the words:

“Upgrade to Pro today!”

“Bandwidth Exceeded”

“Photobucket”

Whoa! Photobucket! What the heck…

I should have known that this was coming. I actually anticipated that something like would happen one day, but I never thought that ‘one day’ would be ‘today’. The bandwidth usage of the theme designer’s hosting account on Photobucket had just hit the ceiling and I’m pretty sure sites around the world using this theme would be crying for more server juice, and looking like you-know-what…

I decided that one day of ‘downtime’ would be enough. My friends joked that my site had just received a facelift. More of a ‘face off’ if you ask me. Final year project aside. It’s time to save my ego…

I immediately went on a prowl for a solution. I decided that if the pictures were missing, it had something to do with a URL (Uniform Resource Locater, the jargon that fills your browser’s address bar, if you’re not exactly the tech-savvy kind…) pointing to an image that no longer exists. I went under the hood and voila! I made some changes to the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets, for more info, just do a Google search) and pointed the scripts to the theme images hosted on my Photobucket account.  It’s a good thing the theme’s designers included the pictures in the download package.

It’s simple really, I just changed the designated address in the CSS script and had the blog point to the images hosted on a Photobucket account under a different username.

Ah…and it has all ended well for me tonight.

Heyho!…heyho! It’s back to work I go!

==END==

Working 24-7

I used to wonder, and I am still wondering even today, how long can you keep a computer running without switching it off. It’s not difficult to imagine how much we use computers today, with the advent of the internet as the ‘in’ thing. Computer addiction is a real problem these days, with kids spending more time in front of the monitor than they see daylight. I’m a seasoned (and hopeless) addict; I’ve been there, done that.

Tsk tsk! Messy right? I know I know…

You don’t have to tell that I’m seriously low on desktop real estate. Look at the top right corner.

Yup, my computer has been working (and it’s still working, otherwise you won’t be reading this post…chuckles…) harder than a bank’s server. I’ve also got that stupid final year project to do, so what can I do? I think it’s going to be up for another 24 hours.

 

Needless to say, here’s the culprit…

Moan…the facade of iniquity. The unnecessary pain and suffering. The nemesis that is keeping me awake, buried in miles of jargon and code. But I can’t sleep. I just had coffee…damn.

Goodnight to you all anyway, looks like I’ll be alone again. Sigh….