Happy New Year!

2009 is coming to an end, how time flies.

2009 is not a particularly nice year for me, mainly because of the economy downturn which put a strain on me financially. After all, number 2 was planned with me having an increment in mind.

It's not all bad, it just could have been better if the economy didn't went kaput. Sadly though it looks as if 2009 is going to end with a not-so-merry tone for me as His Royal Highness King Toddler Hsiang is hospitalised. =(


Here's hoping 2010 will start with a bang and be a much better year, for me and everyone.

So... Happy New Year everyone! May we all have a great year.

And may I get shit load of money to alleviate all those needs and wants and wishes, you know, a nice house fully furnished, a digital SLR *cough*EOS5DMarkII*cough*, a few L series lenses, a super-duper gaming computer, a real broadband service, education funds for my children so they could get higher education based soley on their merits instead of race, oh, and a Porsche Boxster would be swell!

Yea, I can always dream. =P

Kaypo tidbits:

Almost all my entries are written and posted on the date and time shown by the entry, I see no reason to change that fact. Exception to that are those story-based entries under the fictitious fiction category, since some of those were written over a span of time.

That said, I feel I should made it known that this entry is written on 30th of December and scheduled to be posted on 31st of December because I foresee I won't have much time for blogging in the next few days.

Why not schedule to 1st January? Because I want 11 entries per month. ^_^

Congratulations, you have earned one kaypo point! =P

Avatar

Watched my first ever 3D movie in the cinema today, at RM18 a pop I don't think it's something I will be doing often. Not that I go to the cinema all that often nowadays anyway. =P

Avatar is a Sci-Fi action thriller, so if you are hoping for a movie with rich story then you are out of luck. But if you are like me, who just want to enjoy an hour or two of action-filled movie with lots of well made cgi animations, and don't want to bring home any thought provoking idea, then jump on the bandwagon and let the actions bring you much satisfaction!

image source

Put simply, story is about the greedy human going to another planet to mine for mineral, and created these avatars, living bodies made from the DNA of human and the native of the planet, so they can communicate and mingle with the natives and seek diplomatic solution for, *ehem*, stealing their mineral.

Typically, when the natives refused to relocate so the human can mine the rich deposit of mineral under their home, the human gave diplomatic solution the finger, called the native "savages", and forced them to leave their home with brutal military action, you know, detroy their home and kill them if they dare to show defiance.

Sounds familiar doesn't it? Isn't that what the You Ass did in... oh nevermind.

I noticed an oversight in the movie, nearing the end when the crazy military commander guy trying to kill Jake Sully who was in the control pod/bed thingy within the portable lab. Remember the other scientist Norm Spellman who was shocked out of his control pod/bed when his avatar was killed? He was also in that portable lab but where did he go? He did show up at the end when they were sending the human back to Earth, so I am sure he wasn't killed. He could have helped Jake to get the oxygen mask if the director didn't just like, made him disappear. =P

Anyway, nice move, I enjoyed myself immensely. Go watch if you like Sci-Fi action movies, this is one of the highly polished ones.

Ignore the rest of this entry if you are not a gamer, specifically of Blizzard's Starcraft and World of Warcraft.

I can't help but noticed the similarity of some of the stuff in the Avatar movie with the games mentioned above. First of all is of course the title and the whole concept itself, you know, avatar, which is the representation of the gamer within the game world, or our alter ego within the game world. Instead of using the mouse and keyboard to control the avatar as in game, the movie uses the mind while the body suspended in an inactive state to control the living avatar.

The robot suit or whatever it's called, is similar to the marine in Starcraft, go go go!

The planet reminds me of various zones in World of Warcraft, the floating-in-mid-air islands thing reminds me of Nagrand in the Outland. Then there is that tree where the natives live, it's just like the World Tree in World of Warcraft. I can't make up my mind whether the native is closer to the trolls or the night elves of World of Warcraft, probably a mixture of both. And of course, flying mount! That's a cross of a drake and what, butterfly? Does hang onto cliff and trees like a bat though. =)

What are you doing in there?

*ring* *ring*

Hello?

Hi Ju, busy?

Okay lor, but wait huh, Hsiang wants to talk to you.

Papa.

Hi Hsiang Hsiang, how are you?

*ignored my question*

Papa.

Yes Hsiang Hsiang?

What are you doing in there?

Hsiang, papa is not in the phone, papa is at home.

...

冬至

妻儿们在娘家
爸爸几天前回了乡
弟弟和隽小嫂今天刚刚走了
所以只有妈妈和全身汗臭的我一起晚餐
（打球出了一身汗，很爽）

不是很明白为何要庆祝冬至
冬天到了很开心的昧？
马来西亚的冬天和夏天和每一天都是一样的啦
有点不知所谓

吃着甜甜的汤圆，心里有点感触
妻子和那两个小瓜不知是怎么过这一天的呢？
大的那个瓜有没有吃汤圆呢？他喜欢汤圆吗？
小的那个瓜是不是又在呼呼大睡呢?

怎么妻子到了娘家就好像把我忘了一样的？
总是不跟我联络的？
致电给她也总是匆匆几句
我真的那么微不足道？

好可悲…

Not a Movie

Male teacher female student fell in love, overcame age gap, prejudice, obstacles, and finally got married and live happily ever after.

Sounds like the storyline for a romance movie, isn't it?

Except I have just attended a high school friend's wedding and this is exactly their story.

Well, actually I only know they are teacher and student relationship before they become lovers. Their age difference is 8 years.

The prejudice ah, obstacles ah, I made those up. I have no idea what they have been through from teacher and student relationship to husband and wife, and no, I am not busy body enough to want to find out. =P

It was a pleasant evening, good food, nice company. Always nice to meet with old friends. It's a sad fact that it's usually in occasion such as wedding that there would be a gathering of old friends, everyone is busy with their own lives.

Anyway, congratulations to Lean Eng and Siaw Lee, may you live happily ever after! =)

随想

妻儿们在娘家，我有点孤单的感觉

看一看书、玩一玩电脑游戏、看一看戏

好清闲，没有干扰

妻子说翔翔昨晚找我，闹着要回家

心里好感动

平时睬都不睬我的王帝尽然也有想我的时候

当然，他今天天一亮就跟姨姨，外公和外婆到处游玩

连平时紧粘着的妈妈都可以丢在家里

所以不用说都知道早就忘了爸爸了的啦

小瓜已经会认妈妈了

躺在床上会转头看着妈妈

妈妈逗他他就会跟妈妈笑，好可爱

Welcome to the Hood!

Yo yo! Congratulations Hoong Hoong, you da man!

Welcome to the hood*, be cool and chill ya.

It's partay time, yo!

That's sayin' partay time for us and lack-of-sleep time for you, fo' shizzle!

=P

*fatherhood

first look of Hoong Hoong's baby boy here. Since Hoong Hoong loves name repeated, so make sure you sign you name in that way when you leave your congratulations on his blog, e.g. Hoong Hoong, Thing Thing, etc.

Quote

Just started reading The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld, and I like the first three paragraphs a lot so I am going to quote them here, word by word.

[begin quote]

There is no mystery to happiness.

Unhappy men are all alike. Some wound they suffered long ago, some wish denied, some blow to pride, some kindling spark of love put out by scorn - or worse, indifference - cleaves to them, or they to it, and so they live each day within a shroud of yesterdays. The happy man does not look back. He doesn't look ahead. He lives in the present.

But there's the rub. The present can never diliver one thing: meaning. The ways of happiness and meaning are not the same. To find happiness, a man need only live in the moment; he need only live for the moment. But if he wants meaning - the meaning of his dreams, his secrets, his life - a man must reinhabit his past, however dark, and live for the future, however uncertain. Thus nature dangles happiness and meaning before us all, insisting only that we choose between them.

[end quote]

This is the eleventh novel since my last book review a few months back, and no, I still don't feel like writing a book review. Slacker extraordinaire I am.

Me so proud. =P

And while we are on quote, here's another one from the movie Stomp the Yard:

"Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education." - Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.

Like Father Like Son?

Probably heard of the "like father like son" phrase before, so here are two photos:

the father

Let's face it, no matter how hard this guy tries, he is still fugly and will not pull any chics.

On the other hand...

the king! son

This young man doesn't even need to try, he just playfully put on the hat and the flower garland and tada, chic magnet!

Come on, all say "oooow, so cute!" together now.

=)

So, like father like son?

On behalf of my son, I am saying: hell no! Son is 1000000x better than father! =P

Boleh!

Telekom Malaysia just set a new standard and opened my eyes wide for the stark difference between my beloved country, the Boleh-land, and England.

See, in England, when I want to change the ownership of an internet account to my good friend Mr Eg, this is what we would do:

1. go to the service provider with my pal Mr Eg

2. inform the nice and polite person at the customer service desk, say, Ms CS, about our intention

3. provide identification* if needed

4. put down our signatures on the form Ms CS printed from her computer, which is linked to the centralised database from any branch in the U.K.

5. say "nope, that's all, cheers!" when being asked if there's anything else she could help us with

*if photocopy was required, Ms CS would do it for us F.O.C. instead of sending us to the overcharged photocopy service like departments of Malaysia government do

The whole thing would take 10 minutes top and we would never have to fill in our name, birthday, gender, et cetera on multiple forms. Once the information was entered into the database the very first time we registered, we never have to do it again. No stupid entry like asking for your year of birth then ask for your age.

And now, here's what we have been through when my father wanted to transfer the ownership of his Streamyx account to me, basically, we just wanted the bill to be in my name instead of my father's.

1. went to Telekom Malaysia office with my father

2. informed the polite lady at the number/information desk about our intention, first in English then in mixture of English + Malay

3. waited for the polite lady to enquire her superior in rapid Malay

4. took a number and waited while the superior got someone else to handle us

5. the gentleman assigned to handle our request called for us and we repeated our intention, yes, in English then in mixture of English + Malay

6. being told we have to terminate the current Streamyx account in my father's name, wait for 30 days, then sign up again with my name

7. informed them again we just want to change the name of the account holder so that it's billed to me instead of my father, do we really have to go through all the termination and reapplying process, with a 30 days gap without internet?

8. the gentleman asked us to wait while he consulted his colleague (no prize for guessing what language it was in)

9. his colleague consulted the polite lady at the number/information desk, who again consulted her superior

10. no dice, that's the way the system is, they said

11. thanked them and "no thank you" them, just keep it as it is

Whole thing took 25 minutes, achieved nothing except being truely amazed by the ridiculousness. Wah lau, seriously boleh!

Think I will just apply for a new broadband** account, and terminate my father's when the new one is ready.

**or whatever the service provider tries to pass as broadband in this country. I had fibre optic connected straight into my modem while I was in England, the real broadband

Only thing is to decide which service provider and package to go with, not that I have many choices in this country.

Figures

I have the strange habit of recording things, not just the usual expenses but things like the hours I spent playing computer game in a month, quotes from the books I read, the number of days my wireless keyboard's batteries can last, et cetera.

The following figures are commuting related. They are based on 3 months of data I recorded because I wanted to find out a few things:

1. just how damn far is my home from ulu place?

2. just how damn long does it take to drive to ulu place and back?

3. any difference between using ron97 and ron95?

I drive a first generation MyVi 1.3 litre automatic transmission. Whenever possible, I drive at speed limit +/-5 km/h (okay okay, +10/-0 km/h) on highway, and on the bridge it's whatever speed the vehicle in front of me is driving at (I keep a safe and non-threatening distance, of course). I fill up petrol at Shell when I have about 25% left in the tank. I pump my tires every second or third time I fill up the petrol.

These are the figures from 3 months of data:

average commute time - house to work: 0 hour 52 minutes, stdev: 4 minutes

average commute time - work to house: 1 hour 05 minutes, stdev: 8 minutes

average distance - house to work: 51.2 km, stdev: 0.3 km

average distance - work to house: 51.1 km, stdev: 0.6 km

average mileage: 15.9 km/litre, stdev: 0.641 km/litre (ron97)

average petrol cost: 0.13 RM/km, stdev: 0.005 RM/km (RM2.05 per litre ron97)

stdev = standard deviation

So, on average it costs me RM13.3 petrol money to go to work and back, just petrol money, not including the tolls, the vehicle maintenance, et cetera.

I switched to ron95 today, so wait for a few months for me to collect the data and I will share them here.