No brainer, part deux

Life with a 8MB/s fibre optic internet line is really quite nice, no complaints thus far. =)

What I didn't mention in the previous entry is that the service also comes with a 30 hours per month speed boost to 50MB/s. It's self-managed through the website and can be selected in 1, 2, or 8 hours segment.

I tried it out on Monday, just for the heck of it. =P

after boost speed test from service provider site

Woohoo, 50MB/s!

Of course, that's only on speed test site, what matters is the real application speed, so....

824KB/s eh? Not as dramatic an increase as I anticipated

And I noticed the speed fluctuated quite a bit, so I noted the time. It took about 38 minutes to download a 1.33GB file, so that worked out to be about 583KB/s, hmm...

Not too impressed with the boost.

Of course it could be the site I was downloading from, but can't say I wasn't disappointed that day.

That said, still a happy bunny with the 8MB/s line. ^_^

心的频道：主宰情绪

同事朋友诉说工作上的无奈纳闷

说有个某某光会说

却没有任何实际行动

其他的同事又没有为她撑腰

是了解明白她的懊恼气愤

和那一肚子的怨气的

毕竟自己也有同样的经历

甚至有个是只是想想都会有点心理不平衡那种

啊～ 记忆先生…

经典的「空罐特别响」

如果我知道报应是会碰到他

或许我就不是这样邪恶了…

工作上难免会碰到这样的人

可以远离就远离吧！

不幸的无法逃脱被牵连

可要学会划清界限和保护自己

我也活了超过半辈子了吧？

慢慢领悟和学会看开和放下

世界是不公平的

人生下来是不平等的

八字，因缘，性格，什么都好

生命里就是有些人是会和我们相冲的

有些人就是不值得我们的时间和精神的

不要让这些人左右我们的情绪

要有可以陪你发泄减压的朋友

要有可以无拘倾谈闲聊的朋友

要有在一起就开心快乐的朋友

一位，一群，或很多群

花多点时间和这些人在一起

心的频道 |系列|

  

Guns & Cupcakes

What can we use the inner cardboard tube of a toilet roll for?

Well, I use a number of them to tidy up my cables, it's amazing the difference it makes just getting the various cables through a few strategically placed toilet roll tubes.

But that's really not the main usage of the toilet roll tubes my family accumulated throughout the years. They are good material for art and craft session with the children. ^_^

Scissors, stapler, tape and some imagination are all we needed.

I have made guns, then swords and shields, and was thinking of making a small hut or hideout place for the kids but the amount needed is a bit daunting so we went for guns again this weekend.

Cheap toys for the little monsters, and they love it. The time spent together making the guns was precious, and it's one of those rare instances when they listen and do what I told them to.

I would say two weeks max before they detroy the guns, maybe can get an additional month if we reinforced the guns with glue and paper as initially planned.

*****

Wifey was busy baking cupcakes today.

Order of 100 for a wedding, to be done in an afternoon, baked and packed.

Turned out the packing part was more labour intensive and time consuming.

But that's the only part I could chip in, and the kids too when they were done with the computer game, television, and dinner.

Good time though, the whole family packing the cupcakes. ^_^

All told, a pretty meaningful weekend, for the quality time spent with the family.

Still hate it that the weekend is over and tomorrow's Monday, meh!

Crap, no crab masala!

Many years ago, wifey and I have decided we will stop celebrating Valentine's Day on 14th of February due to it being over-commercialised, the businessmen taking it too far in their greed.

So we celebrate Valentine's Day every day except 14th of February, specifically, we do not buy gift, flower or go out for meal on the 14th of February.

Any other day but 14th of February.

This year though, I had an urge to go try out the newly opened Indian restaurant near to my house, the crab masala picture on the banner kept on calling out to me everyday I drove pass that restaurant.

So wifey and I decided that if they inflate the price or put together some "special", "romantic" set meal and charge an arm for it, we would leave immediately and go to the hawker centre nearby.

Good thing they handed us the usual menu. Wifey had been there, so she knows.

drinks come in cup this size

It's my first time there, and I am ashamed to admit that I did the silly 'take photo of each dish to post online before eating' thing.

*hang head in shame*

the tandoori was nice

To my absolute disappointment, they do not have crab masala, but... but... the banner hanging outside the restaurant said...

Bollocks! =(

I ordered chicken tandoori with plain naan instead, which turned out quite nice.

the curry chicken of the banana leaf set was nice too

Elder son ordered the chicken banana leaf set after the waiter assured us that it's not spicy. Younger son went for chicken fried rice, and wifey decided to not order anything but to finish up whatever leftover from the kids. I ordered another maggi goreng, thinking to share with wifey.

maggi goreng with chicken pieces

The chicken from the banana leaf set turned out to be the spiciest of all the dishes we ordered, my elder son couldn't take it, so I gave him half my tandoori chicken instead. No thanks to you, waiter! =\

The maggi goreng was a huge let-down. HUGE. It probably has more chicken pieces in it than noodle, and the chicken pieces were like salted fish, only in chicken form.

Subaidah mamak restaurant, please come back, I miss your maggi goreng...

chicken fried rice

After the tandoori, the curry chicken from the banana leaf set, and most of the maggi goreng, there wasn't any space left to try the chicken fried rice. But according to wifey, it's salty.

I guess the restaurant gets really good deal on their salt purchase or something.

Anyway, I would only recommend the tandoori, definitely not the maggi goreng, and not the fried rice. Banana leaf set is okay if you like spicy food, just okay.

Haven't tried the other food offered there, wifey and younger son had tried the roti canai, not the best they had, but okay. The price was alright, not hawker centre cheap but not too expensive, slightly more than average.

Will probably go there for convenience sake, like when I was left home alone, but will probably not go there otherwise.

As for crab masala, found another place in the neighbourhood that has it, will go and try it one of the days. ^_^

随想

这几天得知几位朋友怀孕的喜讯。

有的过几个月就要生了，我现在才知道，还是通过朋友的朋友转告才知道的。

都不知是朋友喜讯没有外扬分享，还是就只是我没有收到消息？

都是中学时期最常在一起的死党嘞…

至少有一位是我自己第一手察觉得知的，稍微庆幸。

怎么都好，恭喜你们！

希望你们都顺顺利利的生下可爱的宝宝啦！ ^_^

随兴随想 |系列|

Weird puzzling move

Idiot drivers, they come in all shapes and sizes. Mixture of rude, selfish, ridiculous, and stupid people.

Met one who is more on the ridiculous side today, a motorcyclist who thinks it's either his way or the highway.

So I was on the middle lane in a slow moving traffic, and on my right came a motorcyclist on one of those super-bike-wannabe fat motorcycles trying to squeeze pass between my car and the car on my right.

Seems like a foolhardy sort I thought, I better just let him pass instead of him scratching either the right side of my car, or the left side of the other car.

So I slowed to almost a halt to let it overtake.

But then sensing opportunity, a taxi driver on the right lane slightly in front of me turned on his signal indicating he wanted to change into my lane.

Nothing wrong about that really, I usually will give way to those who use their signal in a timely manner anyway.

Only the me-me-me-all-me motorcyclist didn't think so, he probably think it's his space. It's a battle of getting in front of my car between him and the taxi driver.

Taxi driver, well, being a taxi driver, doesn't really give a damn what the motorcyclist thought. Honestly, to me, the taxi driver using the signal was already like, wow miracle!

Suffice it to say that the taxi got in front of me, leaving a rather pissed motorcyclist still beside me on the right, who started gesturing to me.

From what I could gather, I think he was trying to say I should have kept going and not let the taxi change into my lane.

Not sure what to reply (what? I can't let someone who wanted to change lane, change lane?) I simply gestured to him to just go on ahead and get in front and stop staying so close on my right.

He either couldn't get it or was bent on venting his frustration, since the taxi driver has changed again to the innermost lane and went on his merry way.

Seeing the motorcyclist was more interested in giving his thought on how the traffic should go the way he wanted it to instead of actually moving his fat motorcycle, I decided not to waste time with the fool and just went ahead moving forward to catch up with the vehicle in front.

The motorcyclist went behind my car, overtook me on the left, slowed down, and continued to give his piece of mind.

Halted by the traffic again, I watched him with equal part amusement and sense of ridiculousness.

The passenger, probably his wife, finally got enough of this foolishness and slapped the motorcyclist on the arm to get him going.

I couldn't help but shook my head the rest of the way home, and a thought came to me.

I know we shouldn't argue with idiots, they will only drag us down to their level and beat us with their years of experience. But I was wondering instead of just giving no response with a nonplussed expression, maybe I can come up with some funky and weird hand gesture or move sequence.

You know, something not as rude as the middle finger but which can relay the message "I think you are an idiot and I can be ridiculous too if I want to".

Maybe do a little dance or something?

Anyway, some people really should be taken off the road.

No brainer

When you are paying RM110 per month for a 1MB/s internet line with no upgrade option, while you really need at least 2MB/s line for online conference (unless you want to wake up at 5a.m. to go to work in time for the 7a.m. meetings), and another service provider is giving 8MB/s line for RM129 per month, well, it's really a no brainer for me.

speed test from service provider site

Alrighty, so I am getting the 8MB/s line I am subscribing to, at least that's what the speed test from the service provider is saying. =)

Before going into some actual application speed tests, let's talk about the cons first. For me, this switch has two downsides, the first being the drilling of holes and installation of the fibre optic cable along the walls.

entry point of the fibre optic cable into my wet kitchen

It's a necessary evil for getting the true fibre optic performance all the way to the modem, instead of some rip off that switch to copper phone line at some stage.

through my dish and laundry washing area

Some people may not like it, but I am fine with it, most of the cable length is at areas guests don't frequent anyway. =P

the last leg of the cable prior to connecting to the modem is at a more visible area

The second downside is that we have to change phone number, and it's an internet phone, not the conventional copper wire phone. This carries more weight for me and if the original service provider has upgrade option with comparable price, I might just have gone with it to save the hassle of changing phone number.

Oh well, too bad the original service provider sucks left me with no choice.

So heads up to those who have my home phone number, please contact me to get the new number, the current number will be terminated in about two weeks time.

Alrighty, speed test from the service provider site is all good and dandy, but what I care is what is the actual speed I get for applications I use, so I did some checks.

woot! ~940KB/s for connection to Blizzard!

Looks like I will be a happy gamer once again, no more disadvantage in PvP or bastards stealing my nodes. MY nodes, you hear! =P

hmm... ~260KB/s for a random online movie

Not sure if 260KB/s is good enough for uninterrupted streaming, but it sure is better than ~30KB/s.

Anyway, random movie is not as important as Running Man download, so...

woohoo! connection to Running Man download site is better at ~690KB/s

Alrighty, I am happy. ^_^

生活点滴：IBS 和 NSS

警告：儿童不宜，心智不成熟的成人不宜，对夫妻间的情趣敏感，觉得恶心的人不宜。

*****

那天晚间肚子不适，频上厕所大号。

如厕完苦着脸对老婆仔说：

“唉，已经是今晚第三次了。” -_-

“你 IBS 又来了是吗？”

IBS = irritable bowel syndrome

“不知道喔…”

“你很 stress 是吗？做么每个月都会肚子不舒服的？好像月经这样。”

“哈哈，什么月经啦！你来月经就是真的。应该是你来月经我很 stress 呱？” =P

“应该是咯，因为没有得做爱所以很 stress。” =P

“哈哈哈！ No sex stress 导致的 IBS。 哇，很 stress 啊！！” =P

生活点滴 |系列|

Frankenstein versus RoboCop

With some family members back for Chinese New Year, I managed to go for two movies while ditching the little monsters to them, hehe. =P

Watched I, Frankenstein with wifey.

image source

It's a good take on the Frankenstein monster as well as the function of gargoyle. I was aware of gargoyles as decorative water channels for buildings, the movie took a fancy twist on the belief that gargoyles guard the building they are on from evil spirits.

It's the story of the Frankenstein monster assuming it exists and survives till modern era, and some fantasy stuff about gargoyle and demon fighting over human, one to protect, one to possess.

The story can get a bit confusing and the flow a bit fragmented, but plenty of computer generated graphics and actions.

The Frankenstein monster is a tad too pretty (stitched from eigth corpses, really?) while the gargoyles a tad too ugly. =P

Watched RoboCop with my eldest brother.

image source

RoboCop is a really well made movie. It captured all the classic RoboCop elements and made it a very believable movie.

Police officer critically injured and revived as a cyborg, came back to uphold justice, to settle unfinished business, and while doing so unearthed some corruption in the force and went ahead to kick some butts that needed kicking.

All done in a fast, smooth pace. The story flow is good and clear, the actions are nice.

The only smudge, for me, is the movie ends with a typical arrogant American statement. Oh well.

Anyway, I would give I, Frankenstein a 6.5 and RoboCop a 8.5 out of 10. Remember, all reviews are subjective. =)

Dream versus reality

Took a longish break for Chinese New Year, and it's coming to an end. 

Will resume work tomorrow, with much reluctance.

I envisioned returning to work fresh and healthy, well rested and full of vigour to take on the challenges. You know, a good start on a new year, that kind of thing.

But reality is such a far cry from the vision.

You see, I have been plagued by sore throat and coughing since two weeks prior to Chinese New Year, it's part of the reason I took a long break, hoping to get well.

I finally got better a few days ago, so I celebrated with digging in to the various new year cookies that I had been holding off.

But I guess I should have held off a while longer, for I am down with sore throat again. Bollocks.

Couldn't indulge and enjoy any of those yummy cookies, such a sad new year. =(

The coughing was keeping me up at night so I am perpetually tired, so much for a fresh and well rested start, bah!

Oh well, it's not all bad. Spent a few days at the inlaws, played some mahjong. Spent some evenings with the kids playing fireworks and watched a movie with wifey. Eldest brother came home, a good catch up, I have totally forgotten about a loan he said I gave him.

I suppose I have always believe that if I was to lend money, it's to be done with not expecting to get the money back.

Anyway, here's hoping by some miracle, I will get a good night sleep tonight and be fully recovered tomorrow for a brand new start.

One can dream.

立春

根据这网页，今年立春的准确时间是今天早上六时零三分十五秒。

立春既是马年正式开始，立春后出世的小孩才是属相马。

每年立春总会看到鸡蛋竖立的照片，觉得好神奇，但总是没有要自己试试的冲动。

农历新年拿了好几天假，只希望可以好好休息和完全痊愈。

新年前两个星期开始生病至今，真是的。

过了本命年，今年我不再犯太岁，希望可以有好的一年。

随兴随想 |系列|