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.

Random Thoughts

The slacker month is coming to an end, here's a collection of thoughts and/or one liners I noted down throughout November (the slacker month).

-----

name and shame

To the idiotic driver of Mazda6 PJF5510, this rant is dedicated to your utterly lack of driving skill and your non-existent road manner.

No thanks to your retarded, irresponsible and fooking rude cut into my lane without any indication on the 5th of November 2009, at 18:12 hours, in front of GMC, I had to execute an emergency brake and anti-collision manoeuvre. Good thing there wasn't another vehicle in the other lane that I had to swivel into to avoid your piece of junk car that has those non-functional indication lights.

Congratulations for being one of those bastards that got an unhealthy dose of my swearing, you should be proud since I reserve the vulgar language to true brainless dickheads.

I understand that it will need a miracle for you to grow a brain and learn to drive responsibly, so I suggest you go shaft those "for decoration only" indication lights up your arse and pray hard for the miracle. That is, assuming an arsehole like you have an arse.

Seriously, I have no problem whatsoever if you want to kill yourself on the road, that's just one less vermin wasting oxygen, just don't endanger the other road users, compreendo?

-----

cover mountain cover sea

Thermal simulation is my strength, but I spent most of my work time in the lab nowadays doing stuff that nobody wants to do.

-----

need a breather

There is no peace around Hsiang.

-----

everything not enough

Time not enough. Money not enough. Energy not enough.

-----

something is missing...

I have a loving wife and two sons, so why do I feel so empty, with depression hovering within a stone throw?

Sorry to have woken you up wifey, I just wanted to look at you and our sons sleeping. I find in that peace and contentment that I couldn't find within myself.

-----

rich son poor dad

Young's wealth increases while mine decreases. Having a baby sure is expensive!

-----

human nature

Attendance for session 1: 9

Attendance for session 2: 4

Attendance for session 3: 13

Attendance for session 4: 4

Attendance for session 5: 7

Attendance for session 6: 8

Attendance for session 7: 9

Attendance for session 8: 7

Human beings are unpredictable.

-----

cheap

Big anniversary coming up, the atas people want something grand and invited those higher than atas people, but when it comes to budget, there's nothing extra, just the usual allocation for quarterly teambuilding.

I am one of the committee members for this annual dinner (I didn't volunteer, I just got roped in >_< ), and I have dubbed this event the "el cheapo" version of our various plans, basically the cheapest of all our plans that pretty much D.I.Y. everything, including entertainment. And yea, no lucky draw.

How I envy our sister department, who hired professional event planner to sort out everything for their annual dinner.

I am in a cheap department, but the management still wants face, of course.

-----

peace

Just lying there beside my baby boy, watching him sleeps, instilled me with peace.

-----

slacker extraordinaire

As of the time of writing this entry and since the last review in August, I have read 8 novels, plus the one I am currently reading which will either be finished by tonight or tomorrow. So 9 books that I want to put into a review, but it's still slacker month so I will just procrastinate it further to December. =P

Anniversary

This is for my dearest wifey.

Happy 5th anniversary!

Thank you for being you.

And thanks for accepting me as I am.

Here's to the many more years to come, cheers!

Lots of love from your bald, ugly, and silly hubby.