Male versus Female Perspective

Gentle reminder: Earth Hour tomorrow 20:30 to 21:30 hours, remember to turn off all non-essential lights and electrical appliances. =)



Instant messaging a few days ago...

Eh, are you okay? Haven't seen you for a while liao

Okay ah, still alive. You?

Busy, and fat liao, how ah?

Come play badminton with us lor

Er... wah so hot today, I go take shower, bye!

...



Met up with the friend the day after...



Fat? What fat? Exactly the same as before.

Eat more lar!

随言随语

就知道没有那么简单，凡事还是靠自己稳重点。 -_-

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小瓜越来越皮，真叫人头疼。 >_<

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晚上九点我的 Live Messenger 竟然只有四人 online，破纪录！ o_0

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有人的“肥了”和在她还没有“肥了”之前是一模一样的。 *汗*

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王八蛋！竟然抢了我们一贯打羽球的时间。 *气*

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小瓜有时真的很像小时的大瓜。 ^_^

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LabVIEW 还是没有进展，真是的，时间不够用！ =(

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大瓜要和爷爷奶奶去古晋。 *无奈*

M.I.A. no more

Back from three days two nights business trip to Singapore.

The business part of the trip was fruitful, the two things in my mind are: more challenges ahead and good grief we are running out of time!

I hope I am wrong.

Not much to say about the trip since work is work and it's not to be shared on a personal blog. =)

While I brought along my compact camera, I only managed to take photos of the food I had for dinners, since you know, that's the non-work time of the trip.



Japanese food for the first day dinner at Kamado in one of the many shopping complexes along Orchard Road. Had an unagi set with ice lemon tea.



Yea, I started eating before I thought of taking a photo. =P

Had Thai for dinner on the second night at Siam Kitchen in one of the shopping complexes around City Hall.



We ordered a few a la carte dishes and I had an ice blended mango for drink, which is nothing to write home about. For a tasty ice blended mango drink, I recommend Xuan Xin Restaurant (炫升) in Gurney Plaza, Penang.



Besides eating, I went about to find out the prices for DSLR and gaming mouse from several shops in several locations.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II body only is selling for SGD3200 (RM7680 with 2.4 exchange rate), that's the lowest quoted price from all the shops I asked, perhaps bargaining would bring it down. I am not sure since I didn't bargain, not that I am any good at bargaining anyway.

Lowest listed Logitech MX518 Optical Gaming Mouse I managed to find is SGD48, that's more expensive than the cheapest listed price I managed to find in Penang, assuming 2.4 exchange rate. I checked the prices for a few other Logitech gaming mouse (G5, G500, G9X) as well but thanks to my goldfish memory, I cannot remember them liao. =P

Another thing worth mentioning is the irony of the autogate system at the Penang Airport immigration, manual processing of the passport by immigration officer was faster than the autogate by a significant amount. That's just sad.

Well, not that anyone care, but I am home and resumed blogging. =)

Depression

Without apparent reason or trigger, it struck me.

Was perfectly fine the moment before, chatting, surfing the net, reading various fora.

Then it reared its ugly head, grasped me with its horrid claws, and dragged me down to that foul, gloomy hellhole.

Just like that, I am a goner before I could even do anything.

I hate this.

I bloody hate this.

Reading is Good (March 2010, part I)

There should be no dispute about my slacker extraordinaire status, my last supposedly monthly book review was in August last year, hehe. =P

To date, read 21 novels since last review, and as usual, I have forgotten most of them. ^_^

Decided to use a scoring system, out of ten, for the novels I read so people can judge for themselves whether of not a certain novel is worth their time. But of course, as with all reviews, it's purely subjective so unless you happen to have same taste as I do, take these scores with a pinch of salt.

On second thought, make that a tablespoonful of salt. =P

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The Adromeda Strain by Michael Crichton told a story about organism brought back from outer space that wiped out the population of an entire town. The only survivors, an old man and a baby, were put in maximum contamination control centre that has automated atomic self-destruction mechanism should leakage happened.


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The story unfolds how the experts studied the toxic extraterrestrial agent in order to find a way to control and destroy it.

Very entertaining and gripping: 8.5/10

Quotes from The Adromeda Strain:

"Like many intelligent men, Stone took a rather suspicious attitude toward his own brain, which he saw as a precise and skilled but temperamental machine. He was never surprised when the machine failed to perform, though he feared those moments, and hated them."

"Scientific research was much like prospecting: you went out and you hunted, armed with your maps and your instruments, but in the end your preperations did not matter, or even your intuition. You needed your luck, and whatever benefits accured to the diligent, through sheer, grinding hard work."

Sir Winston Churchill once said that "true genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazaedous, and conflicting information."

Montaigne's acerbic comment: "Men under stress are fools, and fool themselves."

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By my own reckoning, The War of Souls trilogy is the third trilogy for Dragonlance New Age, and I reread them because I wanted to read the new novel I bought, the last book in the fourth New Age trilogy.

Two of my all time favorite authors Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman wrote the trilogy, which consists of Dragons of a Fallen Sun, Dragons of a Lost Star and Dragons of a Vanished Moon.


image sources: vol. 1, vol. 2, and vol. 3

The trilogy described the New Age of Krynn under the rule of the dragon overlords, as well as the coming of Mina and the One God. This trilogy concluded the lives of all remaining Heroes of the Lance, as well as the demises of many famous characters in Dragonlance. New characters were introduced, for example Sir Gerard, Marshal Medan, Odila, The Lioness, Gilthas, Silvanoshei, et cetera, and not all of them survived by the end of the trilogy.

There were love, betrayal, war, magic, dragons, which were woven into a captivating storyline. The fall of the elven nations, the return and then the final demise of Tas, the deaths of Caramon, Laurana, Goldmoon. The true identity of the One God, the return of the Gods and even the demise of God! My favorite character Raistlin made a brief return as well.

This is the must read trilogy for Dragonlance New Age. Actually, it's a must read for all Dragonlance fans: 8.5/10

Quotes from Dragons of a Fallen Sun:

"Silvanoshei was young, and the young know they will live forever."

"A promise isn't something you make with your mouth. You make a promise with your heart. Every time you break a promise, your heart breaks a little until pretty soon you have cracks running all through it."


Quotes from Dragons of a Lost Star:

"It is a sad truism that the misfortunes of others, no matter how terrible, always pale in comparison to our own."

"This notion was completely irrational, but when one is in love, all things are possible."

"For the dreams and secrets of our heart may be spoken, but words are poor handmaidens. Words can never fully say what we want them to say, for they fumble, stammer, and break the best porcelain. The best one can hope is to find along the way someone to share the path, content to walk in silence, for the heart communes best when it does not try to speak."

"Death is inevitable, a part of life. We defeat death by living, by doing something with our lives that will last beyond the grave."

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The Dark Disciple, written by Margaret Weis, is a trilogy about the enigmatic Mina introduced in The War of Souls trilogy. The Dark Disciple consists of Amber and Ashes, Amber and Iron and Amber and Blood.


image sources: vol. 1, vol. 2, and vol. 3

With the return of Gods and magic to Krynn, and in the wake of the monumental event that occurred in The War of Souls, the Gods were vying for supremacy and Mina became the disciple of choice for the Gods.

Mina sided with the God of Death, Chemosh, which led to the rise of undeads. A monk of the God Mejere named Rhys, along with his faithful dog Atta and the kender Nightshade who could communicate with the dead, set out to stop Chemosh followers. The story told of the plots and schemes of the various Gods and the lives of the mortals trapped between Gods' battle.

In the centre of everything was Mina and the rediscovering of herself. "Mina is a what?!?!!" was my reaction when it was revealed at the end of volumn 2, and thanks to my goldfish memory, it was my reaction again when I reread that volumn.

While not as good as the other Dragonlance stories by Margaret, it's a good one nevertheless: 7/10

Quote from Amber and Ashes:

"Patience. That was the key. Haste makes waste."


Quotes from Amber and Iron:

"...promises made under duress or from fear of punishment are empty of meaning."

"What we believe is not important." "That we believe is."

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The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton is just that, a story of a great train robbery.


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The planning and execution of the train robbery was described, with many criminal jargons and slangs so it was heavy reading at times unless you understand all those criminal talks. Nevertheless, the story reads like a movie, it's another page-turner from Crichton: 8/10

Quotes from The Great Train Robbery:

"The peoples of London may despise some eyesore until it is demolished, whereupon by magick the replacement is deemed inferior to the former edifice, now eulogized in high and glowing reference."

"There is often, in the course of this wayward and bewildered life, exterior opposition, and sincere and even violent condemnation, between persons and bodies who are nevertheless profoundly associated by ties and relations that they know not of."

"...did you never feel, at any time, some sense of impropriety, some recognition of misconduct, some comprehension of unlawful behavings, some moral misgivings, in the performance of these various criminal acts?"

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First Among Equals by Jeffrey Archer talks about politics, urgh!


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It's about the story of four politicians going after the prime minister post, since it's politics (urgh!), there are naturally only evil and lesser evil.

Archer is a skillful author so I didn't burn the novel straight away when I found out it's about politics, it's not a bad read but since it's about politics (urgh!), it gets 6.5/10

Quotes from First Among Equals:

"Women are for vearing children and ensuring a continuation of the male line."

"Struggle on but never sacrifice your integrity."

"Perhaps he's going to be a politician after all," concluded Louise, staring down at her son.
"What has changed your mind?" asked Andrew.
"He never stops shouting at everyone, he's totally preoccupied with himself and he falls asleep as soon as someone else offers an opinion," she replied.

"You're the best thing that's happened to me in my whole life."

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Without Fail by Lee Child is an entertaining read.


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Story is about an ex-military police, Jack Reacher, being asked to test the protection of American's vice president. A typical American super hero who cannot die and always right kind of story. Could easily visualise into a movie, the storyline is gripping and fast-pased: 7/10

Quotes from Without Fail:

"A problem shared is a problem halved."

"Cowards are bullies, bullies are cowards."

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The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld is a tad confusing for my simple mind.


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The story involves the murder of a young pretty girl and the investigation of said murder with plots like missing body, framing, sex, and betrayal. Psychoanalysis, or psychology, is the meat of the book but I find the logic confusing: 6/10

Quote from The Interpretation of Murder:

"We are not responsible for our feelings; therefore no feeling can cause us shame."

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Slackerdom kicked in, so I will just split this into two parts. =P

It's all Psychology!

In our badminton sessions, there are usually some trash-talks and psychological warfare like calling someone in a funny tone, violent smashing action before the opponent serves, trying to intimidate the opponent by poising in the serve stance for a long time, making menacing sound, snide remarks like "enough handicap given?" i.e. let water or put hand in Hokkien, et cetera.

All in good nature, of course. Well, at least I think so. =P

In yesterday's session, those present were introduced to a new one. Just before my teammate served, she made eye contact with her opponent, a guy, and said:

"Don't you love me anymore?"

It was said in Mandarin that's slightly off but the meaning was loud and clear, proven by the effect it caused...

...total silence and inactivity, it stunned not just the opponents but teammate alike, plus the players on the other court!

Then the "wah lau!" and laughters erupted.

Don't think I have managed to capture the full impact of the moment with my words, one gotta be there to experience it first hand. =)

I love my badminton sessions, truely I do. =D

International Women's Day

Shamefully I didn't know that today's the International Women's Day until I saw the card thingy my company put on our desks.

The card says "International Women's Day - Stop Violence Against Women", plus some small prints.

Now I know, 8th of March every year is the International Women's Day. Let's all wear wigs and skirts and shout "girl power!"

Okay, maybe that's not the idea. =P

Stop violence against women? Hell yea!

Personally, my believe is that a REAL man does not beat the ladies. Only bully does that, and bullies are cowards, they only pick on people weaker than they are. Shame shame SHAME!

Too bad I am physically small and weak, so if I stood up to a bully, I would probably end up in the hospital, or worse. Like ended up six feet under. =\

It's time like this I wish I was Superman, then I could go be a hero and rescue ladies from bullies and said: "why don't you pick on someone your own size!"

But then hor, really don't want to wear underwear outside leh, red colour one tim! >_<

I think technology and gadget based hero better, like Ironman. Ooh, I would love to be Ironman!

Okay okay, enough geeky day-dreaming.

Here's my suggestion to the ladies, if a scumbag was beating you, just grab a solid hard object like the leg of a stool, a baseball bat, or better yet a spiked club (preferably with rusty nails), and smashed the balls of that scumbag with all your might, he doesn't deserve them anyway. Don't worry, it's called self-defense and you are doing the society good.

Sorry sorry, I don't really believe in solving violence with violence. Just the thought of those scumbags made my blood boils. =(

Anyway, on a related note, is there an International Men's Day ah?

Gender equality leh, we men also victims of violence from the ladies.

Or is it just me? I get bullied by my female friends and colleagues one, probably because I am too weak nice. Not just that, my female colleagues even bully my office plant! Poor innocent plant!

We men need loves too!

Oh, and our plants also. =P

On a totally unrelated note:

Heard from MyFM today that since 26th of February, British government no longer provide their excellent social benefits and care to foreigners. Guess UK is no longer as appealing a country to live in as it used to be, for foreigners. I loved the social benefits, public transport, and so much more when I was living there. I pity the students studying there now, they have to fork out a medical insurance now then?