Life's a roller coaster

Its been a long while since i last updated with a much decent write up....everything else has been so random and somewhat meaningless.

Life's a roller coaster. Don't you agree?

We do come across certain ups and downs as we walk down the route of our lives. Sometimes live can be so good, you think that you are at the top of the world, and sometimes you just feel as though your live would just end.

I somewhat broke down on valentines with some unexpected outcome. As the days pass, i got over it and thought that it should not mean the end my world. It hurts at first but by taking my mind of it by doing other things, i somewhat felt better and not dwell in the matter any longer.

I started to frequent to the cyber cafes once again. I have been to cyber cafes at least once a week since that dreaded day; no thanks to Left4Dead. Although the game seem meaningless ( running around and kicking zombie's ass) and short, it was kinda addictive and its great to play some computer games with a couple of friends. Good for relieving stress. :)

I too start to go back to some of my childhood dreams of owning and building Gundam models. Yes, i have child within me to satisfy. Its was very costly back then plus not getting any income albeit some allowance from parents. Now the price has dropped and with a somewhat steady income, i can indulge my inner child to these models.


I was stunned on Monday afternoon after hearing news of the passing of my grandmother. I was devastated as it came quite sudden. I totally lost my mood to work. Fortunately there was nothing much to do, so the effects were that bad, work wise. I spent yesterday and this morning at the funeral paying my finals respects to someone dear whom i will not meet again. May she rest in peace. No, i am not feeling any better now about it and i kinda regretted not spending more time with my grandmother when she is around. These matter is a hard pill to swallow but we all know for fragile life is.

Went back to work today just before lunch time after the funeral service. As i sat down and turn my computer on, my boss invited a bunch of us for a treat at Secret Recipe. Its not a offer that we can turn down easily :D
Great lunch, went back, read some emails and i came across one that said:

"Daniel, your contract has ended."

WTFOMG!!

I did mention to my boss earlier and i immediately got him to start a discussion. After a somewhat long talk, making known what i want to achieve in HP and him letting me know his expectations, good news came. He has planned to extend my contract but just needed time to discuss certain details with me. So i got a contract extension and further chance to advance in my knowledge and career.

Just came back from futsal. Bad game, I did not score any goals.... Was damn tired and almost do not have any motivation to play after what happened the last few days. Nonetheless, it was good exercise and i am damn tired now. My legs hurt. Gonna hit the sack now.

In the end, to sum it all up. There is never really ups or downs in our lives. With exception to certain matters. It still boils down to how we look at things. Its never good to be too optimistic or overly pessimist. We need to look at the greener side of lives to really enjoy it to the fullest. So what if i have a crappy spell. Try being an optimistic pessimist. That being said, it basically means try to look a the brighter side of even the worse of situations, i prefer if that way. That way you won't be overly crushed over your failed high expectations but tend look at the brighter side of things. Life will be uninteresting, it everything goes your way. Its kinda like a coin. Whenever you're experiencing something bad, just a flip ( through some decisions and actions) you might see the brighter side of things :)

Gonna sleep now. Ciao

CNY closing lunch

Alright, the last post was kinda off. I'm just trying to let out as much as i can and this seems to be a great outlet. However I'm still feeling bummed and still very much demotivated to do anything.

On a more cheerful note, as the Lunar Year of the Ox draws near, its almost customary for companies to organize a get together meal, be it for lunch or dinner before we all take off for the Chinese New Year break. We had one today at Loong Foong Restaurant in Paramount. There was a big group of us who joined this gathering, occupying 5 tables.

One dish that is a must-have during the Chinese New Year period is definitely the Yee Sang. Most may know what is in it but its basically a toss-up of chili, ginger, jellyfish, onions, parsley, shredded turnips and carrots, some fried flour, crackers, plum sauce and raw fish marinated with lime, cinnamon and pepper.





Upon lying all the ingredients down, we proceed to toss it about. The belief is that the higher you toss, the better your luck. And from a neatly presented dish, it will become like this...


After that is done, on come the dishes. First came the shark fins soup which was a bit too salty but tasted superb nonetheless.

Next up is one of the restaurant's signature dish. Obviously one of theirs would be their roast ducks but its unavailable in the afternoon. So we had to make do with this.

Its basically a seafood mix which consist of abalone, scallops, fish maw along with some shitake mushrooms and lettuce in thick starchy gravy; served in a pumpkin. From what i had before, a big helping can go up to RM70.

This half eaten dish is the steamed Patin fish teow chew style. I was digging into the pumpkin dish that i forgotten to take an untouched picture of the fish. Its steamed with ginger, salted vegetables and some beancurd.

Up came the fried rice which went superbly with the gravy from the pumpkin dish.

The prawns are next. These prawns are de-shelled and was fried to perfection. So crispy that the little bit of shell left at its tail can be eaten along with the meat. The sauce was a little spicy along with a hint of sourness. Arguably the 2nd best dish after the pumpkin one.

Then came the stir-fried pak-choy with century eggs and fried beancurd topped with minced meat. No pictures here as i went to top up the parking meter and as i returned, its all gone but the little bit helping that was on my plate. Briefly, the pak-choy was so soft that its so easy to chew it and the sauce that came with it was superb. Nothing too spectacular with the beancurd.

On came the deserts with jelly stuffed with red bean paste and iced sea coconut juice with longans. Just what you need on a hot afternoon, a cold drink,


After all the meals, the boss when around for a toast with all the employees, wishing for a great year ahead. Positive thinking despite the bad year that most people expect this year.

Happy Chinese New Year to all reading this space. Hope the year of the Ox brings much prosperity and fortune instead of a whole lot of Bull.


Yuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmm.....seng!!!!

I got a free iPod Nano....

There was some mobile road show going on in HP offering some corporate offers to HP employees. I decided to take this opportunity to finally convert my prepaid line to a post paid line. I took time off from slaving at my cubicle...

and proceed down to the lobby to check things out and register myself a post paid line. In the process i did get some freebies from Maxis upon registering for the post paid plan.

I got a LG phone which i don't think i will use instead of the K810i which i am currently using now



A football player figurine



A Barclay's Premier Leagues 08/09 season diary. This diary actually starts from August 08' till May 09'. Whatever happened to June and July?


A wrist band cum 2Gb pendrive


I also applied for 2 additional supplementary lines and got this as a freebie


Yes. It is an iPod Nano. I always wanted to own an iPod. Although i much prefer the 120gb iPod classic, whos complaining if its given to you for free.

See it is an iPod....
But, as all good things go, there is always a catch. They only give out the silver colored one and it has only a 4Gb capacity. The ones in the market are available at 8GB and 16GB. However the worst downside of free stuff is....
.
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WTF?

Fridays in the office

Its friday, its 4:27pm as i type this.

I'm just counting the minutes till the time comes for me to go home.....

Things has been slow today and yes, im bored. That is why I'm writing this, hopefully to kill some time.

Went out for lunch with some colleagues earlier. Alwyn, Alex and Nicholas to be exact. Was suppose to go to this place at Seapark for those sinfully delicious Char Siew. On the way there, the car air-cond failed ( not my car) a nd we had to send it for repairs. It was so hot that even the spinning fan at the garage felt like air conditioning.

So, Char Siew scrapped as we sent the car to a garage for repairs or parts replacement at Paramount. Nearby there was a restaurant which sells seafood and fried noodles. I'm sure some have heard of the place Restaurant Loong Foong. Yes, the very one which sell those superb roast ducks for dinner. Too bad none were available for lunch. No pictures as the food was grabbed before any photos can be taken.

We ordered kwong-fu ying yong, fried rice and braised pork ribs yeee mee. The first 2 orders were so-so. Nothing spectacular. The braised pork ribs yee mee as the killer. The meat was tender and the noodles were cooked that the taste literally exploded into the mouth as you bite it. We were able to get 2nd helpings with the 1st two dishes but the yee mee was done for in one round. We even use the left over gravy to go with the fried rice....will surely be there for another round of it.

The damages was about RM44 for 3 dishes with serves 3 each and 8 glasses of chinese tea. Thanks to Nicholas who belanja-ed us lunch. If we knew, we would have ordered crab and prawns and.....

So missing those Char Siew weren't all that bad after all. Air-cond fixing damages, RM135...not mine thou...

GOing for some Thai food later at Basil's at Bangsar Village. said to be good and expensive. Only 1 way to find out..

Happy 2009

The clock struck 12 and its 2009....already?
Shit...2008 felt as thought it just flew by....and its 2009...so, whats new?
I can't believe is spent the 1st 30 minutes of 2009 watching 'the Nanny' at a friends place...

Was there earlier for BBQ and as there are not firework displays viewable nearby, we decided to tune into the TV for a firework display. Midnight came, bye 2008, hi 2009, a toast and the fireworks went off from a live telecast from Dataran Merdeka. Not impressive at all and was totally turned off by the lame-if-you-can-consider-it-a-song song.

The BBQ was great. The lamb and chicken wings and cubes were marinated to perfection. Tasted great especially the last bits as they were soaked in the marinate longer. A killer salad as well as a potato salad. Also in the picture were off the shelf sausages and burger patties. No alcohol as most were none drinkers but we did had wine which was good.

about 2008. i had a not bad year. i got a job in a quite established company and i have no complains about the work there.
Got a new car...

A new phone...

A new camera..

A PSP...

A new racquet and new shoes...

I went to Chiang Mai


Went to Penang.


Went to Malacca.



Went to see Daughtry live in Malaysia


I too managed to tone down a bit...just a bit thou...

But there is just one thing that i have not done yet and i'm afraid i have to move it to my 2009 resolution list or my to-do-list for the year..

Some interesting stuff happened the past year too...
Spain winning Euro2008


MU winning the Champions League.


The Beijing Olympics


Usain Bolt did a 100meters in less than 10 seconds.


Fuel prices rose to freaking RM2.70 per litre before dropping to the current price of RM1.80/l...whee


My to-do list for 2009...

Get a promotion or a pay rise.
Be more hardworking.
Get a girlfriend :)
Travel to more places; hopefully Bali
Get a PS3 if its modded.
Watch my eating habits
Save more cash
ICE my car
Try to update the blog more often
Get more people to visit here

Thats it for now i guess. BBQ pictures once i got them...

Add another title here....

Listening now to : Ash Like Snow - The Brilliant Green

Its been a long while since the last post and its been a topsy turvy period of time since then.

Was at the Sean Kingston 'concert' last Friday. I wouldn't really called it a concert as, he blardy performed for only 30 minutes. In fact, I think the opening act by MC Jin was a whole lot more interesting. Sean Kingston aka. FDWKV ( Fat Dude With Kool Voice) came with 2 backup rappers, a DJ who in fact did most of the entertaining with mixing and pre-recorded vocals, as well as some bad-ass dulan looking body guards.

Even all that, the moment that chubby dude opened with " Me love" every girl in the hall literally melted...Its not to say that its a bad 'concert', but a world tour when only dropping by a Zouk and sing and dance for like about 30 minutes? He even showed his emo-ness on stage...haha
Its not a disappointing showcase, but it wasn't that impressive either. Prolly due to the fact that the tickets was free.

After that 'concert' jetted down over to Laundry for some drinks with some friends. They actually did something that i would say ' siao'. Malibu Surf tasted like cough mixture and it was too damn concentrated. So, we MUST add some ice to dilute it a bit, along with some PussyCat and Tequila Sunrise along with some white wine Obviously the outcome wasn't as expected. I thought i tried the Colorado Bulldog. When it arrived, my drink looked like Nescafe Ping' from some higher grade mamak. It wasn't that bad, a concoction of coffee liquor, cola and vodka.

Weeks work came and went. Was out of office the whole week as i need to attend to some stuff coming one after another at our Data Center.

Friday night came again, and i was declared emo for the day. zzz
Some stuff happened la. After work, i went with for some Korean BBQ with some friends. Well, the food was a whole lot tastier and more savory compared to the last one i had. This store passed my taste and it was good. Well worth it.

We then went over to Laundry and started off with the Blue Margarita tower to ' wash' and 'clear' ourselves. Then Eddy ordered this for me....
Obviously thats not the real picture. Its googled. No pictures was taken then unfortunately, but a short video of me downing it was taken -.-.

In case for those who don't know. Its the Flaming Lamborghini. A concoction of, Blue Curacao, Sambuca, some coffee liquor and some Galliano ( or something or rather...don't remember the spelling). Its where several glass for stacked up into a tower like contraption with the coffee liquor+Galliano(?) at the bottom. The Sambuca was set a flamed and was pour over from the top of the 'tower'. As it flowed into the coffee liquor, the Blue Curacao was added into. And that i went i sticked the straw into the liqour and start sipping it dry..Careful not to get hair burned. It was good, but the afters, i felt my throat and the part where the drink flowed into my stomach as thou it was burning. Got really dizzy then after that. Fortunately i can still drive. Thanks to Eddy for tailing my car all the way home.

Was sent this by Kazuki. Apparently he is some Japanese Comedian acting gay, a former wrestler. Dont mind the title, enjoy the video. Its really funny. Hoooooo!



Thats about it i guess.

Song: Feel Like Home - Fort Minor

Sometimes....shit happens

Currently listening to : It Doesn't Matter - Wyclef John feat. The Rock

I am now feeling...

As we know, its all different day, same shit. Was out on site somewhere today. Was suppose to setup or replace a print server. It all started from installing Windows into the system. As the OS was stored within the network, we had to boot from the network. And guess what,

Access Denied!!!

WTF? Its been ongoing since yesterday, and by attempt after attempt, it still shows the dreaded 'blue screen of death' ( BIOS screen is blue wert....). So try and try, and out of the blue (lol) it went through. FINALLY!!!!

Then to install the printers...all in a days work. To add a network printer, we used the IP address. done, tested and it works...yay!! then someone had to change the IP to a name for the printer, causing it to not work..Alright he seems like an IT guy and he does work in the organization, i just let him do his configurations la...And it did not work; screwing up the printer set up. So just let him play around with the settings and configuration, still did not work.

Then its when i got
and told him that if it works with IP address earlier, lets give it a try again. Then it works, try printing from a remote location, and it blardy WORKS TOO!!!!
Then i told him to do the same for the other printer and it WORKS locally as well as from a remote location.

And all that took like 15mins +-. The configuration and settings he did but to no result took almost 2 hours. As i had to be there, i was there looking at him doing his stuff, feeling really TULAN....

Really glad thats over and done with...

On the lighter note, went to Kepong for steamboat on the 1st with Ivan, Alwyn, Fiona and Jason. Did not manage to get an pictures of the food as we are all hungry famished ghost. Once it is boiled and ready, we just dug in. Verdict is, the food is good, lots of variety and quite reasonable too. No, its not a buffet but we did order what we wanted instead of the conventional sets that most steamboat outlets offer.
Tomyam soup, together with their special home made blended red and green chilli, a dash of garlic oil and some fried onions to go along with the fresh ingredients ( cant think of any other word at the moment) was the next best thing to heaven. Yes it was really that good, or im just really hungry to the level that everything tasted good. haha. Seriously is was good.

Champions League yesterday and today...
MU beating Roma at Olympico was kinda expected but 0-2 was quite a flattering scoreline I'd say. Barcelona expectedly shown their class with a 1-0 away win at Schalke. Fenebache with what would be the result of this match day with their 2-1 win over a much favored Chelsea. Arsenal being held by Liverpool at the Emirates for 1-1. OK result for Arsenal i guess, but its rather disappointing because of the possession that Arsenal enjoyed and being denied a blatant penalty when Kuyt dragged Helb down in the penalty box. However, no point dwelling in that matter.

if google's promotion tool was like this
it will be a whole lot more famous...IMO..

and something i stumble upon in a forum...


Thats all for now i guess...
Song playing as i finish this post : Freshman - Verve Pipe

adious

Happenings over the week

Its been awhile since the last post. There are those who go, " your blog 100 years never update", " ur blog die liao?" etc etc..No, not caught up with work, just lazy...
Alright...lets break it down really quick..

Ever since the elections, there are lots of interesting stuff to read in the newspaper as well as in Malaysiakini.com. Reading what the politicians say is rather interesting and i cannot help but actually find some of their comments rather funny, making it wonder do they see the bigger picture before uttering what they did. We can only hope that this new formed government will prosper the country over the years.

In the small world of football, UCL draw was out...since last Friday actually. With 4 english teams in the last 8 teams, the possibility of them facing each other was 3/7. Pretty high i would say.
This is how I would like to see the teams drawn.

• Arsenal - Barcelona
• Chelsea - Liverpool
• MU - Roma
• Fenebache - Schalke04

But as it turns out, its

• Arsenal - Liverpool
• Chelsea - Fenebache
• MU - Roma
• Barcelona - Schalke04

From the draw, we can almost guarentee an english team in the final as the winner of the arsenal - liverpool clash will meet the winner of chelsea - fenebahce; where chelsea are odds on favourites to progress...plus the prospect of a MU - Barcelona semi finals; is really something to look forward to.
Back in the EPL, sad to say, arsenal are close to blowing up their title chance..4 draws in a row is not helping...a recent run of good results for MU, chelsea and even liverpool might have put this years title race into a four horse face, with liverpool ,in 4th only 8 points behind ( need some checking)

Might drop by Bangsar/Hartamas/ Curve for the MU- Liverpool match this weekend.
Work wise, was out on site for 3 days this week..not that im complaining, i much prefer moving about rather than sitting in the office the whole day. and servers are not light...lolz

Went to a friend's birthday celebration over a Neways last wednesday. JD is expensive so we kinda sneaked one bottle in to drink. I was so tired from work, plus getting drunk, i slept there most of the time...lolz.

Over the past week, i have been frequest to kennysia.com. i wonder why i haven't found this page earlier. Loads of crap, funny and interesting blogs are available there. Click here to check it out.

Gaming side, God Of War for PSP came out. I've waiting long for it, and i completed the game in less than 6 hours..swt. My fren warned my;

friend : play this game slowly, many ppl say its short
me : ok, u should have told me before i started playing
friend : lol

when he told me, i was already like 3/4 into the game..lol
Now Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core is out. Finally it came out and the download is causing problems.. the 4th and 5th part, both failing when it reaches 95%. and the same thing happened 2-3 times.. fortunately is finally came through and i am now enjoying the game..

ciao for now, FF7: CC calling....

adious

Much overdue update....

AS the title, this post was much delayed.....nothing coming in the way really, im just lazy..
alright....briefly, election as done and dusted on saturday and the results was confirmed in the early hours of the following day. Will not go into details but for me, the result was kinda expected. Lots of shit happening in the country lately and all i can say is;

" this is democracy. The people have spoken, hopefully sending an loud and clear wake up call to those sitting up there"

All we can do, as Malaysians is to wait and see what the future holds for us as different people take their positions as part of our country leaders. We can only hope that this change will help us spearhead our move towards further modernization as a multi-racial country.

I was really shocked to hear that there was rumors saying that this election was as the previous ones, its not really that transparent. True or not, im not sure. Time may tell but until its really justified or whatever, its best to keep it to ourselves.

OK....on a lighter note, went for 10000BC during election day...haha. The movie was kinda interesting. Briefly, its a bout this mountain tribe who had their villagers kidnapped by Egyptians to work as slaves to build the pyramids. So this fella from the mountain tribe went on a journey to save them as apparently one of those kidnapped was his true love....aint that sweet...lol
So the way, he and his gang of 3 other warriors, 2 of the was kidnapped later too, gathered warriors from other villages, mostly africans, to journey to Egypt to save his people and the other slaves there. ..phew...
Basically thats the story lar...kinda spoilt it for those who did not watch it yet...lol

After the movie, got the football results for that day, MU lost to Pompey...O.O
i was shocked but also happy. Chelsea too lost to BARNSLEY...double O.O
and the next day, Middlesborough lost to Cardiff.... o.o (its not that much of a shock compared to the earlier 2. WBA expectedly beat Bristol 5-1.
Its really the year of the underdogs..
The semis will be cardiff - barnley and pompey - wba
wba is flying high in the Championship but cardiff and barnsley; the last time i checked, they were stuggling in the Championship. now im rooting Barnsley for the cup...come on u Tykes!!! lol
Arsenal, despite the heroics in Milan was helded by Wigan at the JJB sigh....

Work wise, started working last monday at HP as a onsite support engineer. 3 days into the job, i would say, so far so good. i was able to learn something new in the so far short stint there, being exposed to the Data Center. dont know what is it? as Mr. Google...haha
Hopefully i can learn a lot more here and from what i heard or briefed, i will be exposed to a lot more than just the Data Center. Will just have to see how it goes. People there are friendly and i seem to be the youngest one in the team...SWT
Downside here is, parking is expensive, RM7 per day and i nd to walk for about 5 minutes from car to office. On the lighter note, i heard from my boss that is can be subsidized...sweet!!
Food quite limited here too, except for the canteen which is usually packed during lunch hour. Either i dont eat, go for lunch earlier or later...haha. Or just drive out to erm....SS2, seksyen 17 or Bangsar for lunch...

Thats it for not i guess.....

adious

My new toy...

Yup, its been along time since i last blogged, most of is due to my newest toy. I just can't get enough of it..haha.. i totally agree now with Sony PSP owners. haha
This device is fun and at the same time addictive with lots of new mouth watering games coming out this year for it. Namely Final Fantasy 7 Crisis Core ( english version), Kingdom Hearts as well as God of War, just to name a few...

Yea, i got myself a Sony PSP last Friday.





Its been a week and i still cant get enough of it. Its just that addictive. One can listen to songs, watch movies, take pictures ( provided u buy the add-on camera la), play games and in WiFi environment; surf the net. What else can u ask from for something so small. And yea, the images are so sharp its as thou your are playing on a real console on a TV. Games can be downloaded off the net and i can also get some from friends who also own a PSP.
Anyway who could resist downloading when your download speed is like..


lol....i downloaded the 1.6g game in less than 6 hours.

Recently i kinda liked the theme that a MAC will bring. Comparing with the windows appearance, i kinda prefer the looks of a MAC machine. Hence, this is what i did to my work PC, just to customize it look like a MAC



same goes to my PSP, given its availability....haha



on side note, i kinda gonna miss my cubicle when i leave the company, as well as the friends that i made there. they guided me and are nice and fun people to talk with. great company to have and you can just talk about just about anything with them. and there, my work cubicle..or table..or place...whatever..

yes...i blured the screen contents on purpose.
there a white board just behind me, for notice purposes, but whenever i am bored and looking to let go of some stress, i will just doodle over it and this is just ONE of that i have doodled on the board.


adious