Haze and Buka Puasa

They say you have to 'bersabar' a lot during Ramadan. However, one thing that's getting my blood boiling is the damn haze. The Indonesian president may have apologized, but action certainly speaks louder than words. If it wasn't for the Singaporeans writing to them, they wouldn't have said anything.

Let me put it this way, the Indonesians are trying to kill me. I know, it's harsh but for someone with a sinus problem, that's exactly what they're doing. I'm boycotting all Indonesian products from now on until I see positive steps taken to stop the haze.

I when for a walk in the park at Taman Tun, it was quite hazy. I know, was a bad idea but I needed the exercise. I only made it one round around the park. I really need more exercise!

Look at jogging trek. They tore it all up. It turned into an obstacle course half way around the park. I had to avoid tripping while keeping a constant walking speed.

We had a buka puasa for the team at Restoran Seri Melayu. Not really keen on Malay food, but the company was better then the food.

I have no idea what they were talking about, the background noise was just too loud. I must be loosing my hearing.

Shooting & Editing Workshop

I have an idea I've been toying for awhile now. At work, I teach quite a lot of people how to edit and I really enjoy doing it. So I was thinking, why not do workshops on basic editing and shooting?

So here's what I plan to do and see if anyone's interested.

Shooting & Editing Workshop

1 day workshop (9am-5pm), learn the basics of how to shoot great video with a video camera and editing it with software. If you ever wanted to shoot events such weddings, birthday parties and or even your own corporate video, here's where you can get tips.

Course Outline:
- Understanding how your video camera works
- Framing your shots
- Shot continuity
- How to set lighting
- tips on what accessories to get
- Basic editing with computer software (Windows Movie Maker or Adobe Premiere Pro or AVID Express Pro)
- How to put your movies on the internet

Course Pre-requisite
- Must have your own video camera (preferably, the one you would use for what ever project you're going to do)
- Having your own laptop highly recommended. I will help install the demo version of the editing software on your PC.
- Basic computing skills with Windows XP (if you know what is right click, that's good enough)

Anyway, you can e-mail me at luxern@hotmail.com if you're interested, put "Shooting & Editing Workshop" in the e-mail title. The class size will be small, about 5-8 persons. I'm still looking for a venue to do this, most probably somewhere in PJ. As for the date, it would be after Hari Raya and on a weekend. Do e-mail and let me know your preferred date.

The fees is RM50. This is just the introductory rate. I'm using the first workshop more for feedback to see how the course outline can be improved. The money I'll use to cover my cost for all the materials that I will be providing during the workshop.

Tak guna akal

I read this in The Star today:

Ikim: Sack Takaful man

PETALING JAYA: The Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia (Ikim) has called for the sacking of Takaful Malaysia's Syariah Department head for issuing an e-mail banning staff from wishing Hindus Happy Deepavali.
Its director-general, Dr Syed Ali Tawfik Al Attas, said Mohd Fauzi Mustaffa should be sacked because he was not fit to hold the position.

“Fauzi should also repent for his arrogance in thinking that he has the knowledge on the matter,” said Dr Syed Ali in a statement to The Star's Bahasa Malaysia news portal mStar Online yesterday.

He also agreed with Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Dr Abdullah Md Zin who said on Wednesday that the ban imposed by Mohd Fauzi was his personal view and based on a narrow understanding of Islam.

In the e-mail that was sent to the staff of the Islamic insurance company, Mohd Fauzi said wishing “Happy Durga Pooja”, “Happy Lakshmi Pooja” and “Happy Deepavali” was deemed as expressing greetings to the Hindu Gods Durga, Lakshmi and Krishna, which he viewed as going against the Islamic faith.

In the e-mail dated Oct 3, Mohd Fauzi said Takaful Malaysia staff were prohibited from conveying their greetings for the three celebrations and other similar festivities because they could be deemed as blasphemous.

He also said those who had uttered such greetings to Hindus should repent immediately and not repeat them.

Not My Believe

I have to say, this month I've done a lot of things that I didn't like to do but I had to do it as part of the job. I believe in the freedom of religion but I draw the line at having to help promote the views of a religion which is not of my own. It makes me very uncomfortable having to do it, but I understand, it's part of the picture and I do see the bigger picture but I don't know how long I can do that. It's starting to get to me. I try to divert away from it by doing other things or offering alternatives.

This year, there's very little coverage in the media on Deepavali. The size of the Indian population in Malaysia just doesn't attract the media's attention anymore, it's all on Hari Raya. I don't find this fair at all. I'll probably try to find ways in my part to promote Deepavali.

Payola

This year I resolved not to go to any of the Ramadan Buka Puasa functions. Every year I get invites to all these buka puasa functions in hotels thrown by big corporations and government ministries. Not that I'm anti-social, it's just that the amount of free stuff they give out makes me uncomfortable.

Just a few days ago, one of the minister gave out RM100 duit raya to the press that came to his buka puasa functions. I was there last year at a 5 star hotel in KL. At the end of it as we were leaving, I passed by him to shake his hand and he handed me a green raya packet. I thought it was a little odd, since they only give duit raya to the orphans or kids. So I opened to see if it was the 2 ringgit that they give to kids and I was shocked to find RM100 bucks in it. This year, everyone was looking forward to going to his buka puasa function again, only this time I avoided it like the plague. I don't think any of my colleagues have heard of the term 'payola'. It's one of the first few things one learn in any mass communication class in the American education system. Payola is basically one who pays for favours. Below is an excerpt from what I found in Britannica

By the 1950s listener loyalty to disc jockeys was so firmly established that the
success of any record depended on the preferences of the disc jockey. To solicit
their favour, record companies began to shower the disc jockeys with money,
stocks, or gifts (commonly known as payola). This widespread practice of
commercial bribery was given national exposure by a federal investigation in
1959.

In Malaysia, its pretty widespread and a common practice for large organizations to give "door gift's" to the press at functions. From the measly pen to expensive gifts such as portable TV's and handphones. The wierdest gift I got was a bra (it was from a Triumph lingerie fashion show). I have a sizeable collection of free pens and card holders. I draw the line at taking cash. The first time someone ever gave me cash was a few years ago. I covered an assignment in Nilai and me and my crew were the only one there (probably because Nilai was too far away). The guy was so glad he stopped me as we were walking down the hotel to shake my hand. In his handshake, he had a wad of money and slipped it into my hand before I knew what to do and he walked away. I was quite shocked. I counted the money and gave my crew their share but I dropped of the rest of my share in a donation box in the hotel lobby.

I have to say, it's getting harder to say no. I must admit, having kept the money and some valuable items given by people too. However, I still draw the line at going out of the way to ask for anything. I don't expect anything as I already get paid to do my job. I hate it when PR people buy souvenirs, hoping that I'll give them more attention. Shit, I'm not that cheap. If they deserve the attention, they'll get it, regardless of what ever they give me.
I don't expect to hold my colleagues to the same standard, they have a different ethics system and I don't think I'll ever force it on them as they're too used to getting free stuff.

Anyway, today I was at the Ministry of Women's buka puasa function at KL Hilton. It wasn't too extravagant. I when late, after they already buka puasa. I was so sleepy, I when home to take a nap first. They gave us a table up front and we spend most of the time gossiping about work and making fun of our bosses. I saw a few tables away my primary school teacher. She was wearing a green saree. She's with the NCWO now and I didn't quite have the guts to go and say hi to her.

Azizah and Wardinah, a bunch of 'posers'

Anyway, another person I bumped into that night was my old pal from college, Idham. We used to be real tight in college but we just lost touch after I when of to the US. I ran into him a few times in Bangsar. He told me he's divorced now and does freelance music arrangements. The dude's one talented keyboard player. He was at the function tonight with a band. The funny thing was, this chick wrote to me at my office e-mail asking me if I remembered her and that Idham had introduced us and when to mamak with her once. She had an interesting name and I asked if her sister had a name like hers too. She asked me how was Idham and true enough, I bumped into him tonight.

Good old Idham with the holy look

Oh, those silly Australian

More funny stuff from Australia

Outback driver caught in reverse

A man pulled over for driving slowly in the Australian outback has been charged with reckless driving - because police found him driving in reverse.
The man was stopped for driving at a little over 56km/h (35mph) on a highway near the outback town of Kalgoorlie.
But quick police work soon established that the car was in fact heading backwards - all the way to Perth, some 550km (340 miles) across the desert.
The driver, 22, told police he chose to drive in reverse when his gears failed.
Police were left baffled as to why the unnamed driver chose not to call a mechanic from Kalgoorlie, the Western Australia gold mining town where his gearbox "cooked".
Instead they listened as he explained how he set off in reverse gear along the Great Eastern Highway in his 1988 Ford.
He was forced to slow down from his top speed of 80km/h because he found himself swerving wildly across the road, police said.
He had already travelled 20km before he was stopped.
Police breathalysed the man, who was found not to be under the influence of alcohol.

Jelly Melly Scare

I saw this story in the BBC website. Hillarious. I can just imagine the look on the fire fighter's face after discovering what it was, "shit, it's just a pile of @%#^$ jelly!"


Jelly sparks toxic waste alert

A pile of jelly left by a road in Germany caused a major security alert after it was mistaken for toxic waste.

A large area near the town of Halle was cordoned off after a "flabby red, orange and green substance" was found by the road, Reuters reported.

Fire officers in protective suits spent two hours inspecting the substance before concluding it was jelly.
"The fire brigade always has to assume a worst-case scenario," a fire brigade spokesman told the news agency.

"We conducted a variety of tests and figured out it was jelly."
The spillage was traced to a wedding party. The newly-wed groom, who was woken up and informed of the alert, promised to clean up the mess.

Want Less

I know, it's late. It's 5:30am but I felt like writing. I just watched Nacho Libre on DVD. Quite a good movie, I have high expectations of Jack Black and he delivered. There's some really funny and weird songs in the movie, I'll try and see if I can download them.

In the movie, Nacho's sidekick says he doesn't believe in God and he believes in science instead. So Nacho takes a bowl of water and grabs his head and sticks his head in the bowl to baptize him, so that God would bless the both of them before a big fight. That scene made me think of what's been going on in my life lately.

I've been contemplating a lot of things. For one, how I perceive the world. I find that my wanting less in life philosophy is hard for many people to accept. Most people want me to be 'normal' and want more like everyone else. I've been reading philosophy and one of the chapters I've read in the Philosophy for Dummies was about death.

For atheist, they shouldn't fear death because if they came from nothing, we go to nothing. If it didn't hurt when we didn't exist before we were born, then it should be the same when we go to nothing. I know, it's a concept that's hard to accept for anyone who believes in God. For me, that would be Nirvana, to escape from the circle of wanting things.

Everyday, we try to save time, try to get that bigger paycheck. Why do keep wanting more? In the end, when we go... there is nothing. Unless, if you believe in reincarnation or heaven & earth. We should stop and take the time to enjoy the moment now, to take a step back and look around to take a picture in our mind so that a few years from now, we'll remember this day, this is who I am.

Assface

Oh man, this story got me cracking up when I read it in The Star.

Haemorrhoid cream not for the face, drugmaker says

By Thierry Leveque
OSLO (Reuters) - German drugs maker Schering warned consumers on Thursday not to use haemorrhoid cream on their faces.
The warning came after a male stylist said on Norwegian television that many photo models used the cream in the morning to get rid of puffy eyes, which the drug company said seemed to have boosted demand for such products at pharmacies.
"This is a pharmaceutical and not a cosmetic," the group's Norwegian subsidiary Schering Norge AS said in a statement, warning especially to keep haemorrhoid cream out of the eyes.
It said the warning applied to its product, Scheringproct, which it said was "a pharmaceutical that is used on haemorrhoids and around the opening of the large intestine".
Copyright © 2005 Reuters

Cars

Now this is just me taking photos just for the sake of taking photos. There's this life sized model from the animated movie Cars in my office. They put it in the lift lobby of the second floor. It greets you when you the lift door opens. Pretty freaky if you see it for the first time. Now they park this little yellow toy bus from Sesame Street next to it, as if the red car is eyeeing it with 'intentions'.

What is wrong with this poster?


I was walking around Centerpoint in the new wing and there was a travel agency there. I stood outside it to see the posters and I saw this one. Anyone can tell what's wrong with the poster? A bit insensitive isn't it? Must have been an old poster the agency stucked on the wall... false advertising!

Stood Up

Damn it, I got stood up! I got an e-mail a few days ago from my university announcing that they're going to have an Alumni activity at Renaissance Hotel today. I drove over to the hotel and walked around looking for it and didn't see anything. One of the hotel staff asked what I was looking for and he said there was no such event today and the closes thing was the Linden university tour yesterday. Damn it! Those idiots must have got the dates wrong or cancelled the thing and didn't let me know.

Paid RM6 for parking in the hotel. Was bloody expensive. Was driving back and mom called to see if I could change the date of the Butterfly Lovers concert ticket I bought for her on Sunday. Apparently, she forgot all about my nephew's concert on Sunday too. Man, I fuming when I was driving home. When I got home, I called KLPAC and they said I couldn't change the date, so I guess my mom has to skip my nephew's concert now.

She liked the musical so much, she wanted me to take her watch it again. I bought two tickets but I told her to bring someone else so she's bringing my sister-in-law's aunt instead. The musical's great but I wouldn't watch it again anytime soon since I already know what's going to happen.

Complain, complain, complain...

Chui Yan says I complain all the time. Sometimes I don't realize I'm doing it. For me, it's just me commenting about something... it just so happen it's all negative (hehehe). Sometimes, it does come in handy in solving problems at work.

Today was a bitching session hosted by my company's Managing Director. They had a briefing on the Non-Linear Editing (NLE) system status at my company. I totally forgot about it, I had to temp produce the show today. The producer on duty had to go out station and I was supposed to sit in the control room. Kinda like letting everything run on auto-pilot and just make sure we don't accidentally fly into any mountains on the way.

Anyway, the briefing and presentation was done by the Engineering department. They played some AVID video clips about what the system could do and all that time I was smirking and scoffing and feeling really sarcastic. I don't doubt what AVID can do, heck don't get me wrong... I love AVID, it's just implementation is always so different from what's promised.

After the briefing ended, they had a Q&A and there was a few seconds of silence and no one asked any questions. I already had some questions written down and let loose seeing that no one wanted to say anything. I basically told them what I had on my mine and soon everyone else pitched in. Well, I won't go into details, but let's just say we weren't a happy bunch of end-users. Engineering Department had all these idealistic suggestions that weren't pratical.

For example, everyone knows that ideally you should do batch capture but come on... if you're shooting a news program, you wouldn't have time to actually take time codes down while you're on the field and come back and preview the tape. The reporter would want to instantly ingest the whole tape which is so much faster than stopping to note time code and capturing again.

As usual, solutions were offered but I'll wait and see if actually bears fruit.

You call this an apology?

I wonder where politicians learn to do apologies. There must be a school of diplomatic language out there that teaches you how to make apologies but at the same time don't make it sound like you did anything wrong.

Take what the Pope Benedict XVI and Lee Kuan Yew for example. Both international statesman and probably have a team of foreign affairs people to write diplomatic letters for them. Both of them recently put their foot in their mouth and were asked to apologize for their statements.

Let's look at the Pope first. The leader of the Catholic Church made a speech quoting Emperor Manuel II Paleologos of the Orthodox Christian Byzantine Empire. The quote when like this, "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Obviously, the Muslim world wasn't impressed (notice how Muslims are really sensitive nowadays?) and demanded an apology.

Later, he made and 'apology' by saying in a public speech, "I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims,"

These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought.
"I hope this serves to appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with mutual respect."

Now a lot of Muslim leaders were obviously still not happy with the apology. Basically translated, when the guy said, "he was sorry how you reacted" he didn't apologize for his remarks. He just said "I think you over-reacted. What I said was the truth and I'm sorry you can't accept what I said". What kind of dumb apology is that?

Now let's take a look at Singapore's favourite mentor, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. The dude made a remark at a IMF meeting in Singapore about how Chinese are treated in Malaysia. Read on from the report in The Star today:

Lee Kuan Yew says sorry for comments
KUALA LUMPUR: Singapore Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has told Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi that he was sorry for the “discomfort” caused by comments he made about how Malaysia treats its minority Chinese.
Lee said that after a decade of troubled relations with Abdullah's predecessor (Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad) it was the last thing he wanted.
“I am sorry that what I said has caused you a great deal of discomfort. After a decade of troubled relations with your predecessor, it is the last thing I wanted,” he said in a letter dated Sept 29 and forwarded to the Foreign Ministry by Singapore High Commissioner T. Jasudasen yesterday.
“I had no intention to meddle in your politics. Indeed, I do not have the power to influence Malaysia's politics or to incite the feelings of the Chinese in Malaysia.”
A copy of the three-page letter was provided by the Singapore High Commission here last night.
Abdullah had written to Lee on Sept 25 seeking clarification over the latter's controversial remarks that the attitude of Malaysia and Indonesia towards the republic was shaped by the way they treated their Chinese communities.
Lee thanked Abdullah for the letter and said he made the remarks in a free-flowing dialogue session with former US Secretary of Treasury Larry Summers before many foreign delegates attending the IMF/ WB meeting on Sept 15.
He also included in the letter the transcript of the relevant passage as reported by Reuters.
He said that on the bridge and the half bridge to remove the Causeway, Abdullah made the position of the Malaysian government clear that Malaysia respected legally binding agreements and acted in accordance with international law.
“This made unnecessary a reference to ITLOS (International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea) and the International Court of Justice that would otherwise have been unavoidable. This respect for the law is the basis for sound, long-term relations between us,” he said.
Lee said he was explaining to a liberal audience of westerners who wanted to see a stronger opposition in Singapore why the republic needed a strong majority government, not a weak coalition that would hamper it in defending its national interests.
“Singapore needs a strong government to maintain good relations with Indonesia and Malaysia and to interact with Indonesian and Malaysian politicians who consider Singapore to be Chinese and expect Singapore to be 'sensitive' and comply with their requests,” he said.
Lee also pointed out in his letter that Malaysian politicians including Dr Mahathir and many others had publicly warned Malaysian Malays that if they ever lost power, they risked the same fate as Malays in Singapore, whom they alleged were marginalised and discriminated against.
He added that from time to time when Malaysian politicians attacked Singapore fiercely over some bilateral issue but some of them told the republic's politicians privately to just accept that as a part of Malaysian politics and not to react to those attacks.
“Singapore understands the reality of Malaysian politics. We have never protested at these attacks on our multi-racial system or our policies, except to clarify our own position when necessary.
“But we have to explain to our people the root cause of these difficulties in our bilateral relations.
“Otherwise Singaporeans will believe that their own government is doing wrong either to our own people or to Malaysia.
“As for the international audience, with so many foreign embassy staff and foreign correspondents reporting on Singapore and Malaysia, plus tens of thousands of expatriate businessmen working in our two countries, these people will come to their own judgement of the true position regardless of what I say,” he added.
Lee also pointed out that this was not the first time he had made similar remarks and “in fact I had said less than what I had written in my memoirs published in 1998.”
The former Singapore premier said since Abdullah took over as Prime Minister, the relations between the two countries had improved.
Lee also attached a postscript to his letter informing Abdullah that he would be releasing the letter to the media.


Now here's another I'm-sorry-you-over-reacted type of apology when the dude said "I am sorry that what I said has caused you a great deal of discomfort". Why not just say, "I'm sorry that I said that, I shouldn't have done that and it was insensitive of me"?

Probably wanted to save his face. The guy had to explain his remarks by saying, "hey, you also say bad things about my country what and I never complain also! I say a bit only, you make so big noise... okay lar, sorry lar! Nah! Happy?". What lar this Singapore.

Old man shouldn't be allowed to represent countries, they should be shooed out of government and let loose on lecture circuits and represent themselves only.

Grace Park

Okay, today's one of those slow days. I was on Limewire looking for Justice League cartoons and I was browsing someone's server (I like looking up fast connections to see what else they have). I saw some pictures from Maxim and it was of a chick named Grace Park so I thought I'll just grab the whole collection and have a look see.




It was the korean chick from the Battlestar Gallatica series. I've only seen the Pilot episode, but from what I gather she's really cute. Man, she's really hot in the pictures. So I when to look for more of her picture and I came across a publicity shot on wikipedia and man, it was one huge ass picture. I took a look at it and she wasn't wearing any makeup on the picture. She looked totally different from the Maxim photo shoot. I take my hats of to her for daring to do something like that. She's got lots of moles but she's certainly got natural raw beauty.

Anyway, I started up Photoshop and played around with her photo and touched it up. Gave her a more warm glow, hot lips, softer skin. I also tried blue eyes but I guess that was a little too freaky.

Below are the before and after photos. Click on it for the original size.

Butterfly Lovers

I just got back from watching the musical 'Butterfly Lovers' at the KL Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC). I brought my mom and Chui Yan there and met Sim and See Ming there who had bought the tickets earlier.
I must say, I was impressed with the KLPAC. They refurbished an old building and turned into one classy arts centre. Normally, I don't like to go to plays but I make an exception for musicals, they're so much more entertaining.
At first I had my doubts about going to an Chinese Musical. I knew the story before hand already but luckily, they had a projector at the top of the stage with subtitles in English. I wish they had put the projector at the bottom though because I had to quickly read the subtitles then look down at the action again.
Overall, it was a pretty good performance. The two butterflies they had at the end of the show was huge though. If I saw butterflies like that, I would probably make a run for it.

Butterfly Lovers

I just got back from watching the musical 'Butterfly Lovers' at the KL Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC). I brought my mom and Chui Yan there and met Sim and See Ming there who had bought the tickets earlier.

I must say, I was impressed with the KLPAC. They refurbished an old building and turned into one classy arts centre. Normally, I don't like to go to plays but I make an exception for musicals, they're so much more entertaining.

At first I had my doubts about going to an Chinese Musical. I knew the story before hand already but luckily, they had a projector at the top of the stage with subtitles in English. I wish they had put the projector at the bottom though because I had to quickly read the subtitles then look down at the action again.

Overall, it was a pretty good performance. The two butterflies they had at the end of the show was huge though. If I saw butterflies like that, I would probably make a run for it. Janet was in the play too and she was pretty good too. I was impressed with their audio system. At first I thought they were miming their lines but then I saw they all had hidden mic's which was cool. Gotta get me one of those mics.

Looking for a new car

Besides looking for a house, I'm also looking for a new car. Chui Yan's been complaining about my Nissan Sunny 130Y. Okay, it's old but I do have great fun driving it, it's manual and I just love driving manual. I pour a lot of money into this old car maintaining it. Recently, while on my road trip to Ipoh, I got it up to 130 km/ph. The car was basically floating already but the pickup was pretty good. I don't know if it's just me, but I noticed people drive a lot faster in the dark on the highway (maybe because no speed traps at night?).

Anyway, while driving this old car is great fun, it's time to buy a new car. Too much money going into this one already just to keep it in tip-top condition. The current car doesn't have a great suspension system even though I change to a brand new one. Still a bumpy ride even hitting the smallest pothole or uneven patch over job on the road. I've narrowed it down to 3 cars, Inokom Getz, Proton Waja Campro, and Naza Bestari.

All 3 cars have their good and bad points. A few hours ago, the Bestari (also known as 206) was high on my list until I saw a petition complaining about how the 206 engine dies out while driving. So this car is in the bottom of my list now. I like its sporty look but the backseat's and boot is small. No mp3 CD player either. Currently, I fitted a CD player that also has a thumb drive that plays my mp3. No more having to burn mp3's, cool huh? Wish I can transplant my CD player into my new car.

Getz I like simply because of the price RM58,888 and its got lots of carrying space. The Inokom version is cheaper by 10K I think. I haven't seen it in the showroom yet, looking forward to test driving it. I wonder if it has a mp3 CD player too. Doesn't look very sporty though, more like an utility vehicle.

The next option of course and the cheaper option is the waja campro at almost RM60K. It's got a good financing package too. Some complains on forum about its design and pickup but it's got a mp3 player. Not too keen on its leather seats though, kinda hot where I park most of the time. I like the low fuel consumption.

So top of my list, would be be the waja, next is the getz and third the Bestari. Have to see what's my monthly repayment, have to factor in I'll have to get a bank loan to get a house too!

Proton Rally Game

Surf over to Paul Tan's blog and check out the video of a Proton Rally game. It's based on the Half Life 2 engine. The graphic sucks but I'll try to get it for the novelty of the game. They have most of the proton cars from Satria Neo all the way down the line to a Proton Saga! Cracked me up when I saw the Proton Saga in an off-road race in the game video.

Click here to check out the video on Paul Tan's blog.

I hate Ramadan traffic jams

I hate the inconvenience Ramadan brings. For instance, I was stuck for one and a half hour in a jam in KL on Monday. I was driving from Jalan Pasar back to PJ and we started of at 5PM and we were stuck in a massive jam just because everyone was rushing home to break fast. Damn it, good thing I don't work in KL. I don't know how much of this I can take if I had to do it everyday.

Hello

I used to think no one actually reads my rambling, since I didn't bother to tell anyone about my blog. I guess with the power of google, you can find almost anything on the internet now.

Anyway, someone read my blog and complained about my bitching haha. I found it quite amusing that anyone could make any sense of what I wrote. I've been noticing the amount of typo's I've been making, must be the result of blogging half asleep most of the time.

I think I should find a way to start making money of the small amount of traffic coming here. Maybe if I can have google pick up some of the searches and then direct them to my blog.

SEX MELAYU
SEX MELAYU
SEX MELAYU
SEX MELAYU

Now let's see if that actually works hehe.

Audition

Audition
Video sent by luxen

I was at an audition for my company recently. We took turns interviewing people and I tell you, some of those people who were short listed to come for the audition were real jokers. The first guy who turned up did stand-up comedy and impersonations. When he reached for his hat, I was cringing because I wasn't ready for a Michael Jackson impersonation. Okay, it was a smite funny because it was stupid.

I was going to leave at lunch as my shift was ending but the next girl who came for the audition wore this shirt that was one size too small for her and her buttons were going to pop out. So I decided to sit down for just a little while longer and see what she could do. I was going to ask her what's up with the shirt but I guess it wasn't my place to embarass her.

I find it dssapointing that most people didn't even do any research when they came for the auditions. They didn't even watch any TV or research the positions they wanted.

One lady said she wanted to be like Azizah Ariffin and when I asked her why, she said she liked Azizah's style on TV. I told her, that was only 5% of Azizah's job (okay, I'm going overboard here) and the rest are scripting, assignments, etc. I asked her if she liked writing and she replied no, then I asked her how she's going to write scripts and she gave me a meek answer and said she could do it. That just doesn't cut it for me. One needs passion to succeed in this job.

Personally, I'm biased. I studied broadcasting, TV Productions and Broadcast Journalism to be exact and I expect to hold everyone else who wants to join this industry to have adequate training. If you don't even have a basic mass communication degree, you're learning curve is going to be too high for you to succeed. I admit, there are those who did not come from a broadcast journalism background who are well known in the industry now but they would have been better if they had the proper training.

There are 3 reasons why people join this industry... power, money & fame. Those who do it for power want to change something, for example, those who would want to save the environment or want to stand for election one day. Those who do it for money also do it for fame most of the time. There are those who use this as a stepping stone to move on to a career in PR to build a reputation (through gaining fame).

For me, its always been for power. I always wanted to be a gatekeeper, a controller of information. I believe in living for something bigger than yourself and for me, that's helping people. I believe that through what I do at work, I get to reach out and change people's life. So far, it's never been for personal wealth, shit.. this job just isn't paying me enough. Sad to say, I have to admit I'm doing this for the challenge, not the money (sorry Dilbert!).

Anyway, during one of the breaks, Ali the cameraman told us a funny story about a host he wouldn't name. The host came late for a shoot and couldn't remember his/her line and in the end, Ali had to stick the cue card on his forehead and his chest while holding the camera.

Here's Ali telling us the story in the video.

Road Trip

I just finished my road trip with Chui Yan and her family to Genting, Ipoh and Penang Island. We drove up in 3 seperate cars. We headed up to Genting on Thursday and spend the night at Theme Park Hotel. The room was okay, but I've stayed in the Deluxe Room in First World before and it's much better. I bunked with Chui Yan's grandfather. The guy wakes up really early without and an alarm, good thing neither of us snored hehe.

We when to visit the casino and Chui Yan's father gave us some cash to play the slots. If you haven't played the digital slot machines in Genting before, here's how they work in a nutshell. In the old classic slot machine, you try to match all three tumble in a line to win, for example 3 cherries wins you the jackpot. However, the digital slot machines allows you to bet up to ten lines. The lines come in a different combination, top line, bottom line, criss-cross... you get the idea. They have 2 cent, 5 cent and 20 cent machines. So each line you bet is 1 credit.

Chui Yan and her grandfather kept betting the maximum lines, so obviously after awhile, you'll lose out. I told her to stagger her bet, to bet only 1 line out of every 10 times... that's roughly the ratio she was winning at the machine she was sitting. At first, she won about 20 ringgit, but she didn't wanted to quit and ended up losing about 40 ringgit in the end.

Anyway, the next day, we walked around a bit and ended up at the Galleria. It's basically a tribute to Lim Goh Tong and how he build Genting. He's got an amazing story to tell, everyone wants to his grandson/daughter.

He's got a huge picture of him smiling at the Galleria entrance. I think he's smiling and thinking of all the money people are giving him in the casino.

I took a picture of a model of Genting. Most of the resort you see in this picture is in Pahang, lower down the hill where Gotong Jaya is (not in picture) is in the Selangor side. Not sure of this, but this is what the Galleria guide told me.

After that, me and Chui Yan drove to Ipoh on our own instead of going in a convoy with her family. I stopped by the police station to ask for directions and the nice punjabi police officer gave very good directions. We headed to Batang Kali, then passed Kubu Bahru and then to the highway all the way to Ipoh.

Chui Yan wanted to eat Chicken Rice in town and we both didn't remember the shop we ate at once so we spend about 30 minutes driving around in circles until I called my aunt for directions. It was already 3PM by the time we reached the chicken rice shop and there wasn't much left. Anyway, after that we when to visit my grandmother and aunt.

Took a picture of my aunt and my cousin's daugther. My niece (my brother's daughter) and my cousin's kid both have the same smile. Look at their eyes.


After the short time in Ipoh, we drove straight to Penang. We used the new Jelutong Highway and I must say it was a really nice drive though I have to admit I'm not used to people driving at 80 km/ph on it. Maybe Penang people don't drive as fast as Klang valley people.

We stayed at Sunway hotel. Lots of hawker food outside. Most of the time in Penang was spend eating. We visited the Khoo Kongsi and also the Snake temple. I liked the Khoo Kongsi, took some really nice pictures with Chui Yan's camera. Will upload them soon. The Snake Temple wasn't as great as it used to be anymore. Less snakes now. I guess it's because all the land around it is industrial now, so no more snakes coming to the temple for shelter.

Man, I ate so much I put on about 5Kg's. New few days, I'm gonna eat less (I hope). On the way back from Penang, we stopped in Ipoh again and my aunt took us to buy Pomelo's in Penang. if you ever wanted to buy Pomelo's in Penang, head towards Tambun town and about 2-3 kilometers before Tambun town, you'll see this stall on your left with an old chinese man selling Pomelo's. His orchard is right next to the stall. My aunt knows him well because she always buys from him and he's pretty honest in telling you if his pomelo's are good or not.



By the time we drove back, it was getting dark and raining heavily. We were listening to the music CD's we bought in Penang. She bought Korean TV Series soundtrack compilation. I bought chinese oldies song and a Johnny Cash CD. We spend the next 2-3 hours driving back listening to her Korean CD. Didn't understand a single word (except for bits of English in the songs) they were singing. At least it helped me focus on driving.

Monster

I feel partly guilty now for helping in the Lebanon project. Those scientist who created the first nuclear bomb must have felt the same way. There are many reasons why I volunteered to help. One would be because I thought it was a project worthy of my charitable attention and time. I guest I didn't have any money to donate to those poor souls but at least I could help get the word out. Plus I also love editing.

Right after watching the second episode, I realized some idiot out there could be incited to turn himself into a suicide bomber and go of blowing up more innocent people. Damn, what kind of monster did I create this time?

Red Cardigan

I was editing the Lebanon project and Said told me he bought the Tommy Hillfinger red fleece cardigan for real cheap at FOS. So the next day, I when over to check it out. True enough, it was only RM49.90 so I bought one too. Now bought of us have the same cardigan. He was obviously not pleased I bought the same cardigan as him haha.

The funny thing is, a few days later, Said came into the editing room and told me that another guy from the entertainment department bought the same cardigan. Now there's 3 guys walking around in Sri Pentas with the same jacket. The good news is Said is leaving for UK tomorrow so now it's just me and another guy I haven't seen with the cardigan yet.

Looks like guys also the same problem that chicks have about people wearing the same clothes to work. Funny.

AVID Vs. Premiere Pro

After spending almost two weeks of non-stop editing for the Lebanon project, now I have too much time on my times with the project over. I've dropped by Low Yatt Plaza to pick up some training softwares. Found some new versions of AVID. Maybe, I'll re-install the new Media cutter at home. I'm still a fan of Premiere, but I realize that AVID does have it advantages. For a major project with multiple editors working on it, AVID is the way to go. In the office, we had 4 editors working on the first episode for the Lebanon project. It was really messy with files not being named properly but amazingly, we pulled through. Wished the titling system for AVID was much more efficient to support subtitles.

Anyway, I have to go back to Low Yatt, this is the 3rd time I have to go back to change softwares. The first time, I asked to test the DVD and the guy said his laptop wasn't working. I told him I don't want to come back because parking was a bitch. True enough, the second DVD didn't work and the next day I had to fight my way through traffic and find parking. The guy had a smirk on his face and laughed of my request to subsidize my parking ticket. I saw another DVD that I liked but decided not to buy from him since he couldn't test it.

In the end, I found another shop that had a PC to see if the DVD could be read. Should have asked the guy to open the movie file. It's actually a DVD with 4 training videos. I have 4 CD's but this versions had all of them in one DVD. 2 of my CD's wouldn't play the movie finish because they weren't burned properly. I was hoping the DVD version had an okay copy, but I guest it's just a fault of with the master copy. They actually managed to copy a bad file over to the DVD.

I've been thinking of starting an AVID user's forum for my office. There's a lot of things that I've learned by trial and error that I would like to pass on to the others. For example, the damn video cable on the mojo machine is loose and if you get pink visuals, you gotta wiggle the cable around. Maybe I'll start one in blogspot

A Life or Suffer Question

Today I was asked a life or suffer question (oh, death would have been so much less painful). It's one of those questions, a million options would run through your mind in a split second before you made up your mind on what to do or to take no action at all.

I was editing today and in came a colleague of mine who sat behind me and started complaining about our common superior. As I was busy editing and minding the editing machine, I just smiled agreeably while she called our superior unkind names. After 10-15 or so or vicious bile and venom, she looked at me from the corner of my eye and smiled and asked "Do you think I have a bad temper"?

Now here's the catch-22:
A. Tell her she's a bitch who spits venom and bile who can stand no one, even herself or;
B. Lie to her face and tell her the world is so lucky to have her.

Being the idiot I am and after racing through all the options at hand, I choose option A. She looked at me and laughed and asked if I was just saying that to pissed her of or if I meant it. I said, 'you DEFINITELY have an anger management problem!". In all the years I have known her, she certainly does have an uncontrollable rage. She's the SheHulk I tell ya.

However, to be fair, she does come useful most of the time. When people are too diplomatic at times, she can get things done fast as everyone's too afraid to piss her off. She doesn't take shit from anyone and I admire that. However, I sometimes feel that most thing can be done diplomatically.... on the other hand, as the bad guy in "Kiss Of The Dragon" said... 'The time for diplomacy is over!"

Shaba Valley

I spend the whole day today editing. Woke up late and surfed the net a little before heading to work. I tried to avoid the lunch hour traffic by driving the longer way and that was a bad decision, got stuck in traffic even longer because it was jammed everywhere!

Finally reached the office after lunch time and was there till 1:30AM. The amount of work that had to be done wasn't that much. It was all the time wasted waiting to use the editing suite. One of the AVID suites isn't working well. Not sure what they did, but the new software upgrade didn't go well with the PC. They added a new video card but it still isn't working, it lags a lot.

The other AVID suite was hogged by someone I wouldn't mention here. Let's just say not many people like how he hogs the editing suite and treats it like his own personal property. Yesterday I wanted to use it and I found the damn door locked. I when to ask for the key and the guy had the audacity to say he locked it because he wanted to use it, WTF?!!

Anyway, we were supposed to finished everything by today and rush a DVD copy to the CEO before he flies of overseas. We didn't make it in time obviously. Tomorrow we have to lay audio, VO and add the subtitles for the arab translation too. Going to be quite a lot stuff to trow in tomorrow.

Spend some time editing visuals of what the aftermath of the Israeli bombing of a town called Shaba in south eastern Lebanon. The Syrians has broadened their territory into the Lebanon territory. What ever else was on the Lebanese side was flatened by bombs. There was a potato farm and the Israeli's dropped a bomb in the middle of it, blowing up potato all over the field. It was a mix of potato and bits and pieces of steel strewned all over the field. Potato bomb salad.

The producer told me a funny story, he took home some bomb sharpenels and tried to clean it with clorox and it started foaming and that freaked him out so he trew them away. I told him maybe it was irridiated plutonium bombs and now you're going to sterile haha. He says he got some Israeli army souvenir, waiting till tomorrow to see what he has. I'm hoping for something like an Israeli army cap.

In the morning going to see an apartment with Chui Yan. I keep saying house and she keeps reminding me it's an apartment. Symantic error there. What I meant was home hehe.

Ultraman patah kaki. My nephew likes to break the limbs of his toys. Here's two ultraman that came with a pack of a few ultraman's. Even ultraman couldn't defeat my nephew. Kesian Ultraman, kena belasah kau-kau!

I've been meaning to write but I haven't had the time... really, I have. It's just that live has been really hectic. A lot of things have been going on, I sit my ass down in front of the PC everyday thinking 'okay, I should blog this, this would make a good story and something worthy of putting down in writing... but nooo... I look at my desktop and instead of clicking on internet explorer to open my blog, I click on Barbarian Invasion and spend the next 4 hours rampaging across Europe killing pixels. Damn, I think I've probably killed half a million pixelled men by now (that's not including all those dogs, horses and elephants I've killed in the game too!).



Okay, so what really has been going on since I've last blogged that's worthy of mention? Okay, I'll try to list them down:

1. When to Perkampungan Hadhari in Kota Bahru. That was something wierd. A total Islamic village and my boss suggested me, a non-Muslim go instead. So there I was, doing a women's talk show and having a women's booth in a middle of a school field. I must say the Kelantanese are really religous, come prayers time, the whole field was devoid of people. Heck, there were more staff minding the booths than visitors.









I got to see Chui Yan's grandfather too. Her aunt bought turtle egg for dinner. Looked really wierd, tasted like half-boiled egg. Her grandfather says the egg white never gets hardened no matter how long you boil it, only the egg yolk hardens. Took some pictures of Chui Yan's cousin eating it too, so I don't feel so guilty eating the egg of an almost extinct species.



I visited Wakaf Che Yeh, it's this night market that opens from 6PM-6AM. It's quite huge actually, larger than one football size. According to the taxi driver, they just moved to a new location. While walking around with two of my colleagues, Teh and Azean we spotted some of the stall owners wearing face masked. We asked them why the mask, was it because they were afraid of bird flu and they said it was because it was dusty there. Just then, a big gust of wind blew up all the dust on the ground as if to prove a point.

The highlights of the visit was me buying a VCD entitled 'Serangan Tun Dr. Mahathir kepada Pak Lah'. The guy at the stall was selling Nik Aziz's VCD's and I dropped by to have a look and lo and behold, I saw Mahathir's face sticking out among the stack of CD's. Got it for 8 bucks. Heh, cheaper then buying some porno VCD and certainly more entertaining.

Another highlight was meeting Pak Lah at the Hadhari. They asked me if I wanted to line-up to shake hands with him. They put a TV9 cap on my head and stood me next to Spongebob Square Pants and Patrick from the cartoon. Pak Lah came walking down and a I looked around and realized I was the only non-muslim standing there to greet him. I decided I shouldn't deprive Patrick the opportunity to shake the prime minister's hand too, so I tried to stick out Patrick's huge starfish hand for Pak Lah to shake but unfortunately, Pak Lah just walked by. Oh well.

2. Okie, I had to go for another karnival, this time it was Karnival Jomheboh in Bukit Jalil, this time I was lucky and I only had to go on Saturday. Thank goodness it wasn't that hot.

3. I've been shopping for a place with Chui Yan, going to look at apartments around PJ. For our price range, it's a bit challenging but so far we're still looking around. I'm personally afraid of hights. I can't look straight down from high places. It's not so scarry if I actually have a safety harness tied to me, then at least I would know it's okay. What ever apartment we get, I don't think I'll be spending a lot of time looking down the windows.

4. I've been spending a lot of money fixing up my car. It's an old Nissan Sunny. It's actually my mom's car. I'm quite attached to the car, but recently I spend close to 2 thousand just changing the suspensions, had too much rattling and a bumpy ride. Fixed the radio on my own too. Would want to get a new car but would probably put it of till I get a place to stay.

5. It's actually 2am in the morning as I'm writing this. The reason I'm up so late isn't because of Barbarian Invasion, it's actually because of Lebanon Invasion. I've been helping to edit a special project. My colleagues just came back from Lebanon and they are doing a two part series. I offered to volunteer my time to edit the visuals even though I wasn't required too. I kinda felt guilty for not giving any money to the West Asian Humanitarian Fund, so I'll just give them my time and expertize. Even as I write now, they're still editing in the office now. I hope everything goes okay for the first episode. In one part of the show, Norzie actually stumbles upon a dead kitten. It's all flattened and dried up, nothing more than a carpet of fur. I don't know why, but I thought it was really hillarious with Norzie poking it with a pebble. I know, it's really mean of me but maybe it's supposed to be symbolic of the Lebanese's people struggle.

6. Oh yeah, I when to a FHM party with Daphne and Mastura. Met a lot of sexy celebrities there. The wierd thing was, they didn't turn me on. I guess it's because I knew most of them professionally and in my mind I just turned it of. Some of the girls on the stage were cat walking in really skimpy bikinis and shaking their ass at the guys.





7. I'm at a crossroads in my career. There has been many requests from people from 'somewhere' to join them. I can't really decide. On one hand, I would really like to do something new that is English based. However, I hate the early waking hours. I'm just not a morning person and love sleeping in. I wouldn't want to give up my social live for my job, no matter how much I like what I'm doing. Now that I'm looking for a place to stay, I realize I need to get a better paying job. I used to think it wasn't about the money, but now I realize I do need the money so I can get a nice home to stay in on our own. If the other job had more money, that would be great. If it's just going to pay me the same with the twice the amount of stress, I don't think I would want to do it.

It's not that I hate what I'm doing now, I get a long just okay now. It's just that I'm getting burned out and running out of ideas to make what I'm doing now really 'oomph!'.

Anyway... it's time to hit the sack. I got to wake up early to edit again.

Israel Calling

This is scarry, but since its so far away its actually funny. I read this in The Star today.

July 22, 2006
Late night calls from Israel spook jittery Lebanese

BEIRUT (Reuters) - At first, Bushra Khayyat tried to ignore the incessant ringing of the phone at her house in Lebanon's southern port city of Sidon. It was 4 a.m., but she finally got out of bed.
"I said hello and got a recorded message from Israel," she told Reuters.
In clear Arabic, the strong voice on the phone said: "Oh Lebanese people, we tell you not to follow Hizbollah. We will continue to strike and no one will bring your prisoners back from Israel except the Lebanese government."
Other residents of the south have received similar calls.
"My grandmother got two calls at 5 and 6 in the morning saying the Israeli state would not stop the attacks and asking everyone to leave the area south of the Litani," said one woman who is stranded in Sidon. "She slammed the phone down."
Israel has dropped flyers on Lebanon during its 10-day-old conflict with Hizbollah guerrillas, warning people to stay away from the group's strongholds, warning them to evacuate their villages in the south or caricaturing the chief of Hizbollah.
But there was something eerie about the phone calls.
"It was a shock to get a call from Israel," said Khayyat, who has since fled the bombardment to Syria and then France.
"I have caller ID on my landline and when I checked it came up as 'out of area'. It's not that I was scared, I just wished I could talk back to the voice but it was a recorded message."
Khayyat got a similar call two nights later, this time answered by her maid, who, panicking when she heard a voice announce "this is Israel", immediately put down the phone.



Now that's some funny shit. Imagine if people in Johor Bahru got calls from Singapore, "This is Singapore, give us sand and air rights!". Man, that would freak everyone out. The Israeli propoganda department shouldn't have started the recorded voice with 'This is Israel". Most people would have slammed the phone down right after hearing that. They should have started with something like this, "Hi, I am Thomas the former petroleum minister of Nigeria. I need help in getting money out of my country..."

A Teluk Intan Wedding

A Teluk Intan Wedding
Video sent by luxen

Sim and See Ming's Teluk Intan wedding. A lot of chinese karaoke music as entertainment at their wedding. I am trying to upload small parts of the whole DVD onto the net. This is just a test video. Takes a long time to encode them to small windows media file. Still trying to figure out how to get the video converted to make it lighter. All the colours in the dark shadows are too dark to been seen on a computer monitor, if you watch it on a TV monitor it's okay. Not everyone has a TV hooked up to their PC like mine.

Awan Yang Terpilu

Today I was helping a colleague edit a story about convicts in prison. We used a song from a Ning Baizura video clip I haven’t seen before, Awan Terpilu. The story in the video clip was about a young malay village girl growing up wanting to be a singer against her father’s wishes. In the end, her father doesn’t come for her concert but it shows her father secretly compiling a scrap book of her daughter’s pictures from magazines. I suddenly found myself actually tearing up watching the video. Now here’s a great story about unrequited love. One of the best local music videos I’ve seen in a long time. Pretty embarrassing though, I guess I was emotionally drained and mentally tired today.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, actually its been a few months already. I’ve been thinking of a career change. Lately I find that I’ve been mentally burned out. I can’t just keep coming up with new content. I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching. One of the few thoughts that was going through my mine is “is this what I really want to do?” The answer is no. Right now, I’m creating content that isn’t for the demographic I’m in. I used to think, okay this is community service and I’m doing it for the greater good. However, I realize I can also do what I really like to do and still be of service to the community.

Another problem is the language, its just a stumbling block trying to create content in a language that I’m still not comfortable with. With the specialization each station is going into, there’s less opportunity to do what I really want to do now. Been thinking of a move, but I guess what really depresses me is that I am indebted to the company I currently work for which is strange. For the first one year I worked here, I wanted to resign everyday. I wake up in the first six months thinking, ‘okay, maybe today is the day I send in my resignation letter’. Somewhere down the line, I don’t know how but the job grew on me. I think I actually got good at it.

Its hard to want to say good bye to a company that gave you everything. Where to next? I have plans but its all in the clouds right now. One of it is to join a sister company but that depends on a lot of thing. One of it is if the management would let me make the switch. Or if they even want me in the other company.

The other recourse is of course to move out of this country. Something I have been seriously considering a long time ago just after I graduated. Its harder to do that now, now that I have more commitments here.

I haven’t told anyone, but I secretly wish I could continue studying again. It’s a bit of a far reach but I’ve always loved the student life. No money there but, I’ve always been the intellectual type. Would love to take up media studies again or study theology and philosophy.

So many things I wanted to do that didn’t happen. I wanted to shoot a documentary but that didn’t materialize. I wanted to travel but that hasn’t been happening lately too.

I’ve been listening to an audio book, ‘Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus’ by Dr. John Gray. One of the theories about how differently men communicate from women is that men often retreat to their ‘cave’ when troubled while women like to share their problems. Right now, I feel like withdrawing into my ‘cave’ though I find that the cave I used to withdraw too is not the same anymore. It used to be my PC with computer games. However, I actually find it hollow now. I stopped playing Total War and I haven’t even installed the new games I bought. I wonder where I can go to contemplate my future.

I’m not the type who likes to talk about what bothers me at work with others, even those close to me. I like to compartmentalize my life. Work is work, personal life is personal life. They don’t mix. The problem now is, the problems I face at work is not something I want to share with anyone at work.

Listen to slow songs don’t help either. My winamp playlists is full of slow sad songs. I’ve been listening to Norah Jones and Shelley Leong. I know, it’s depressing.

Another thing that’s been bothering me is all the new things I want to buy. For instance, I really want a new laptop badly, a Dell XPS so I can edit on the move; a new video camera, probably a Panasonic GS400; a PDA so I can surf the net on the go. Today I was surfing Dell’s website at work admiring the XPS notebook then I realized what Buddha’s teaching has been about. We suffer because we want things. It became apparent to me, I suffer because I want all these material things. A laptop, video camera, a career change. Finding happiness right now where I am is hard but standing back and looking at it, I do have happiness. I have a woman who loves me, I already have an okay camera and a still pretty kick ass PC. I just fixed my old car so its decent. I don’t have chicken pox anymore! Though, I do have the scars on my body. Have to be grateful for what I have now I guess.

Tsunami Siti Nurhaliza & Datuk K

Biasanya, saya tak suka menulis dalam Bahasa Melayu. Agaknya, sebab saya dah lupa kebanyakan ejaan dalam BM. Tapi kali ini saya cuba menulis dalam BM untuk blog ini sebab ia berkaitan dengan apa yang saya menulis.

Dua hari lepas, semasa menonton Pirates Of the Caribbeans 2: Dead Men's Chest pada 9:15PM , senior producer (SP) saya menelepon saya beberapa kali tapi malas nak jawab, sebab tengah syok tengok Johnny Depp berlakon. Tapi filem itu selepas first half dah mula dragging sikit, so I balas balik dengan SMS, kata saya tengah tengok filem. SP saya pun balas dengan SMS yang di forward kepadanya oleh someone called Datuk Khalid Jiwa dan dia ada pengumuman di The Zon On The Park, Jalan Ampang dan kita kena buat siaran langsung.
Saya pun tak terfikir siapa Datuk ini, sebab tak kenal nama kan. So, lepas tengok ending filem (stupid ending, tak sangka dia orang ada cliffhanger) I call balik my SP, itu pun dah hampir 11 malam. Dia terus terangkan, Datuk Khalid Jiwa ini adalah Datuk K yang berkaitan dengan Siti Nurhaliza.

Manager saya pun SMS I, "please see me in the morning at 7:30". Dari itu, dah tahu something big going on.
Esok, terus bangun pukul 6 pagi, sampai kerja at 7 pagi. Jumpa boss GM I, dia kata dia nak buat life cross over untuk satu jam sebab Datuk K nak buat pengumuman pada pukul 12 petang... tepat-tepat pada mula siaran WHI. Tapi, saya pun dah agak mesti tak start on time. Tahu lah, 'Malaysian Time'.
As expected, kita kena drag sampai 12:40, baru press conference start. Agaknya, event ini mesti bersejarah sebab semua orang duduk dalam bilik control panel... sampai CEO, GM pun turun. CEO I pun dah frust sebab tak start on time... show kita pun sepatutnya habis siaran 12:57 so CEO terus call orang-orang Datuk K, belasah dia orang sebab start lambat dan minta dia orang start sekarang jugak!

Finally, kita start the press conference dan nasib baik CEO kita ada buat keputusan untuk extend masa siaran sampai 1:30PM. Sponsor yang datang untuk sponsored segment pun tak sempat masuk. Kesian juga dia orang, datang dari Seremban dan duduk di luar tapi tak boleh masuk. I pun tak tahu macam mana nak cakap dengan dia orang tak boleh on air. Seminit I duduk di luar pintu terfikir nak buat macam mana.

Nasib baik CEO I ada, untuk terang dengan agency dia orang. Mula-mula CEO janji bagi 5 minit time extra untuk ganti lain kali tapi agency itu terus complain tak habis-habis. In the end, CEO saya bagi dia orang 10 minit free. Apa nak buat, CEO yang bagi. Dia orang terus diam... tu lah, dapat free tak payah bayar.

Press Coference (PC) Datuk K dengan Siti pun penuh kecoh. Begitu banyak orang dalam bilik kecil. Sampai kabel camera kita semua pun pecah kena pijak wartawan. Nak tarik kabel baru pun kena marah orang. Gila betul dia orang ini.

Bukan setiap hari boleh mengambil bahagian dalam sejarah, tapi dalam bidang kerja ini, sekali sekala bolehlah kita tengok benda-benda macam ini. Agaknya, banyak orang yang tak puas hati Siti nak kahwin dengan Datuk K. Mesti semua orang terfikir Siti one of the most successful Malaysian woman dan dia boleh pilih mana-mana lelaki tapi agaknya, kenapa dia pilih this guy?Datuk K pun 20 tahun lagi tua dan dia Duda dengan 3 anak. In my opinion, sesiapa Siti Kahwin pun orang tak akan gembira. Mana boleh bidari kahwin kan? Kesian Siti.

Ratings pun agaknya tinggi. Hampir 8 juta manusia tengok siaran ini. This one is the highest ratings untuk program I pernah terbit. So boleh kata, sejarah untuk saya juga lah.

My mother's birthday

My mother's birthday
Video sent by luxen

My nephew and nieces singing along with my mother for her birthday. The kids treat it more like its their birthday instead. I don't know why, but kids love birthday, cakes and singing 'Happy Birthday'.

PC problems again

This sucks, my PC has problems again. Something wrong with the audio codecs, it's missing the mp3 codecs. I think it's got to do with the damn DVR Card I installed. Its always been sitting in my PC but I reinstalled the software and the drivers to try out the surveillance camera I bought a long time ago. Had problems using it so I uninstalled it. Turns out, it might have knocked out my other drivers. I hope its just a software problem.

I got really pissed, I had to rip the damn DVR card out with a plier. It was really stuck in the ISA slot. Don't really care if the card's damaged now or not anymore.

I'm blogging now while waiting for my files to copy over to my backup drive. I'm backing up everything, just in case I have to re-format. The only problem with reformating is that I can't update this Windows XP anymore. I just might have to go legit and put real money down for the real thing.

I'm gonna try reinstalling some of the adobe softwares first and see what happens.

If that doesn't work, well... it's time to burn everything down and start over again anyway.

I had tea with some of my colleagues, it was someone's birthday. We when to a Ms Read in One Utama's new Wing. They have really good chocolate cake. They top it of with vanilla ice cream and with hot melted chocolate. Sounds gross but man, it taste really good.

Was talking to one of my colleague and I realized that I haven't been talking much since I started work again. Just didn't feel like talking to anyone since I got back because I was so used to not actually have to physically talk to anymore for two weeks since I quarantined myself in my room. Its like physical rehabilitation, having to learn the social skills bit all over again.

Personally, I enjoy not having to talk to people but I can't do that at work because everyone would just think I'm wierd or hard to work with. Being an introvert that I am, I rather keep to myself. Evidence of this is blogging of course, who the hell talks to themselves through a blog that no one reads anyway?

Its all therapy I tell ya.

Superman Returns

Just watched Superman Returns. Loved it. I love how they had a lot of elements from the original Superman I & II. Right from the start, they had Marlon Brando's old lines. I love the fact that they had the old montage titles. Kinda tacky now, because it's just flying blue fonts but for Superman Returns, it works. However, when you hear John William's Superman score with the flying blue fonts with the new outer space voyage montage, was really cool.

I think the only difference is Superman's suite. The guy's got new boots! Looks kinda rugged though, the original Christopher Reeves booths looked more like the comic book boots. Anyway, the best was the new Lex Luthor played by Kevin Spacey. Two of the original cast of Superman I & II aren't around anymore (Christopher Reeves and Marlon Brando) but Gene Hackman who played Lex Luthor in the orignal movie is still around. However, I'm glad they got Kevin Spacey to play Lex.

In some ways, I've always admired Lex Luthor for his tenacity. Here's an average human being, except for his intellect and he gets to beat the shit out of Superman, with super strength. Okay, so Lex loses all the time but he always gets up to kick the shit out of Superman again. No question about Superman surviving getting the shit kicked out of him all the time, hey... he's a superhuman alien after right? But Lex Luthor going up against someone with superpowers... now that's pretty cool (okay, so he's totally evil but I still admire his grit).

I like the 'super heroes' that don't actually have any superpowers. My favourite is the Punisher. In the comic world, he's just a guy with special training who can kick the shit out some of the super heroes with special powers. Although Batman doesn't have any special powers, his technology and unlimited financial strength doesn't quite makes sense.

In Superman Returns, there is a slight mention of Gotham in a news report. So I guess in Superman's world, Batman does exist. So maybe there would be a Justice League movie after all!

Well, I won't spoil the rest of the movie if you haven't watched Superman Returns. If you haven't watched it yet, you should watch Superman I & II first because it takes of 5 years after the two movies.

Superman

I've been watching the old Superman movies with Christopher Reeves. I hardly remember them now and I heard that the new Superman Returns is based on Superman I & II. My brother got Superman I and after watching it, I learned that they shot I & II in a stretch so it’s actually one whole story broken into two movies. So I when out to buy Superman II today.

Although my Medical Leave is up to Friday, I’ve been going to work since yesterday. I never thought I’ll say this, but I had enough of sitting at home. Looks like there was a lot of things to do at work after all. One thing I’ve learned from this experience is learning to let go and let others take over.

Left work early and came back to watch Superman II, felt asleep half way and woke up again in the middle of the night to continue the rest of the movie. I guess the part I enjoy the most about the Superman movies is the John Williams soundtrack. Its so synonymous with Superman. Still, my favourite image of Superman is the old cartoons with the film noire effects. I remember how they had really good art in it. There’s one scene I remember where huge flying robots came to attack Metropolis and they had really nice animation (all hand drawn back then!) flying over Metropolis with the frightened citizens looking up at it.

I’ve realized that I’ve been eating Maggi Mee for two nights as supper. There’s something about that salty MSG taste at night… mmm. Had to put a stop to that, not healthy. Tonight I had instant quaker oats instead with honey. Looks gross but its filling and supposedly healthy.

This weekend’s going to be a movie marathon. I lined up at GSC in One Utama to get tickets for Pirates of the Caribbean 2. After 20 minutes in line, they told me they only had 4th row from the screen so I got tickets for Superman Returns on Friday night instead. I walked over to Jusco and passed TGV and there was no queue at all, so I asked if they had tickets for Pirates of the Caribbean on Sunday night and they had good seats too! Looks like TGV isn’t that popular now.

Speaking of work, man there’s quite a backlog of stuff to do. I have to shoot a pilot for a new show. Its interesting how the company always likes the half baked idea I come up at the spur of the movement and never liked the long carefully planned ideas I have. Anyway, rushing to put things together. Hope it doesn’t turn into a shoddy piece of shit (damn, maybe they’ll like that too).

New photos
Well, besides racing down the streets of Monte Carlo in my Porsche 911 Turbo (okay, its just a game) and downloading stuff, I haven't had much to do since I had this Chicken Pox. Decided to upload some photos instead. Click the bar above to see them.

Oh yeah, I've been playing The Need For Speed 5. It's an old game, year 2000 I think. I was downloading stuff on the net and saw it on someone's server and downloaded it. Normally, I don't like racing games but this one is really fun. They've only got Porsches but my time's getting better and better. Trying to beat the top time on the record now for a lap in Monte Carlo at 1:31. The fastest I got was 1:39. I feel like that dude in the movie Too Fast, Too Furious - Tokyo Drift. Banging up the car while learning how to drift.

Chicken Pox
It’s been a few days now. I have chicken pox. I got it from my father’s shingles. I was in Perlis for the carnival when I started breaking out in spots on Saturday. By Monday it started getting really bad and I had to fly home.

I saw the doctor when I got home, didn’t know I had a fever until the doctor told me. I’m not used to being sick so when I do get sick, its just something weird and odd I hardly experience.

Now I’m totally covered in all this red boils all over me, and I mean every part of me. I sleep most of the time, mostly because of the fever and because I’ve quarantined myself in my room away from my nephew and nieces.

I’ve read that an oatmeal bath helps with the itching, doesn’t itch as much as the first 3 days anymore. I have tried taking cold showers, that helps stops the itching too. Starts to itch a little right after taking a shower when my skin starts to dry. Try to keep my mind of the itching by playing computer games.

Nirvana & the Big Bang
Hey there. Right, I decided “Hola” was kind of a cheesy way to start a blog entry. I was gonna with “What’s up?” but then nobody reads this blog so I don’t think I’ll get a respond… not even an echo me thinks.

I watched Walk The Line over the week. It’s a movie about Johnny Cash and June Carter. Since I’ve been listening to the guy quite often, I thought I’ll see what the hype was all about in the movie. Turns out to be a pretty damn movie I might say, but what can I say, I’m a little bit country (I’m a little bit rock & roll too!). Mr. Cash had quite an interesting life, the ending of the movie ended with him proposing to June Carter. Now that I think about it, there wasn’t much of a plot development, but what made the movie really good was the actor Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon singing their own songs and man, they sound exactly like Johnny Cash and June Carter.

I’ve been contemplating a lot of things over the weekend too. One thing just leads to another. I’m currently preparing to go to the Jomheboh Karnival in Perlis over the weekend. I have to take the bus and they say it’s going to take 8 hours! So I’ve been thinking of things to do in that 8 hours. One of things I’ve been doing is downloading audio books. One of the books I’ve been downloading, “A Short History Of Nearly Everything” (by Bill Bryson) starts of with the history of the cosmos and the Big Bang Theory. I’ve also been downloading lectures of Buddhism, though I don’t have the whole lecture series it does get me contemplating about Nirvana again.

I have this weird theory about Nirvana. The whole objective of being a Buddhist is to escape this rebirth cycle and reach Nirvana, and I tell ya… I don’t think there are many who’ve made it. However, the Buddha says there is a place where there is no birth, re-birth and death. Now cross referencing with what I’ve read about the Big Bang, the universe started out as the Singularity, where there was just 1, everything was just one ‘thing’. It just expanded into this universe and some say it’s slowly collapsing into a singularity again. Now, isn’t that Nirvana? Come from nothing, go back to nothing?

I’ve flipped through the Philosophy for Dummies book in Kinokuniya and read a little about what the Atheist thing about death. Why do we fear death if we came from nothing and there was nothing before us, why fear going back to nothing? It was not painful or sad when we were nothing, we didn’t feel anything at all.

I think it only when we’re alive right now that we fear losing what we have now but in death when we cease to exist (barring the fact of re-birth), we become nothing again. Some theories about the Big Bang also suggest that the singularity expanding into a universe and squeezing back into a singularity again is an endless cycle, and get this… there may be other singularities out there in different dimensions! In Buddhist literature, they explain that there are other different realms where we can reincarnate into too. We do not just exist in this plane of reality that we know… but I hope there’s only one singularity… otherwise, if this Big Bang theory works out and we implode into the singularity again, we would all have finally achieved Nirvana.

Is this too heavy a material for you to read?

Why I like my job
Just a thought, I've been listening to that Anthony Robbins in my car. The guy said I should think positive thoughts. Alright, I thought I'll just list down the first ten thing that comes to my mind why I like job. Here goes...

1. I get to tell 2 chicks to dive with sharks on my command. Now that cracks me up.

2. Inserting easter egg's in the show that only I get. My own personal joke to see if anyone notices it. Sort of like how we scan the radio airwaves in space hoping to find alien lifeform.

3. Attending lingerie shows (okay, it was only once but that was fun).

4. Woman co-workers talk you casually about sex, hey... part of the job. Not that it turns me on but I appreciate them sharing their views normally reserved only for their gender or OBGYN. I'm such a dirty voyuer.

5. Waking up late for work. I admit it, not a morning person.

6. The power to change people's perception of their world... one lie at a time.

7. Meeting famous people... okay, it wears out after awhile. I'm jaded.

8. Occasionally, I get to make the viewers cry or laugh. Controlling someone's emotion... I'm power crazy.

9. Big corporations buy me free meals... yeah!

10. Oh yeah, almost forgot... still doing what I always wanted to do since uni, producing my own show. Feels like being the captain of the Enterprise.

Whatever!
I like the low numbers that visit my blog, seriously, I do. I appreciate the fact that I don't have an audience to write for but myself. I have enough pressure as it is, creating content for viewers at work. Here, it's just for me and who ever happens to stumble across this blog.

I've been downloading and listening to a lot of Country music in my car and at home. Namely, I've been listening to Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and the rest of the guys from that era. Kinda puts me in the nostalgic mood. I used to think I hated country music. My room mate in uni used to listen to it and I thought it was icky. I think it had to do with that song Achky Breaky Heart.

It's embarassing but now I find myself singing along to A Named Sue; Ring Of Fire; and The General Lee. Damnit, I'm turning into a freaking redneck. Like I was saying, all this country's putting me in a nostalgic mood. Was surfing through friendster and saw some pictures of long lost friends and people I used to know. I tell ya, I could feel a tear almost beading in the corner of the eye.

It's a good thing I'm listening to all these country music. My company made me sign some statement saying I'll be a good employee. Other things added was that I would not sue the company without consulting them first. I think they left out the clause that I shouldn't be a card carrying communist and a homosexual also. Dumbass.

Hola Again
Hola!... okay, I thought a nice hello in a language besides English would be a nice introduction after a long hiatus of not writing. I used to read articles by this guy in the Onion who started his articles like that. Anyway, the guy was a total pot head.

So what's my excuse for not writing? Well, like the pot head (not that I'm one!), there was a lot things going on life. First of all, after I got sick, I had a ton of things going on at work and I've started a new campaign in Total War: Barbarian Invasion.

I admit it, I'm addicted to Barbarian Invasion. There's just something about being the overlord of a huge empire killing little pixels. Right now I rule a huge Sassanid Empire (Pre-middle age empire, started the religion Zoroatism). There's just something about having a column of war elephants with a line of heavy armoured calvary marching into battle for you. Like Conan used to say, the meaning of life is to see your enemy crushed!

So there I am spending hours on end killing pixel, living the unexamined life as Socrates say, totally oblivous to the outside world. I stopped playing for a few days now as I now control almost 95% of the known world in the game. Looking back, what did all that acomplishment amount too? Not much in the real world, except that I now wish there was a quick reload button in real life. I do think however, I think of multiple strategies in real life like how I do in the game... only the strategies involve what would happen if I had an army of elephants with me at work instead.

Speaking of work, man, have I been bogged down with work with the recent changes made. There's just so much to do. Not that I don't enjoy the job but spending more than half the day in the office is mentally tiring. I used to think I wasn't doing it for the money, I was doing it as a my responsibility to society. Now my priorities have changed. I want to get married, get a house, a car... I need time and money and a better quality of life. Makes me think back to the Buddhist teaching, life is suffering, we want so we suffer.

I've been downloading audio books from the internet to listen in the car recently. I've been listening to a lot of Philosophy and self-help books. The philosophy because I've always been interested, the self-help because I need information for work. My favourite have been a series of lectures on Greek Philosophies and Mythology. Just imagine, more than 2000 years ago a few guys with no running toilet came up with philosophical ideas that we still refer too today. Makes you wonder, what would we do today that will echo in eternity?

Our actions and in-actions rippples out from us into our surrounding. Some ripples reach out further than others. That's one of the thing I like about my job, the ability to reach out and make a change for the good. In philosophy, there are many definitions of what is good (different societies have different versions of values). My previous experiences define my defintion of what is good, and I used to aim to change the world to my perspective. Now, I think to myself... screw it, can't change the whole world. Maybe I'll just settle for gentle ripples eminating from me you know?

It's football season (World Cup 2006) right now and I tell you, I ain't no soccer fan though I do stay up late, not to watch the game but just because I like it at night when it's peaceful and I listen to oldies. Right now, it's Marty Robbins singing about the town of El Paso. While the whole world is cheering on men chasing a ball in a field, here I am listening to cowboy tunes and blogging... okay, I know, get a life.

How about I get some sleep now instead? See ya later alligator.

FEVER
also called pyrexia abnormally high bodily temperature or a disease of which an abnormally high temperature is characteristic. Although most often associated with infection, fever is also observed in other pathologic states, such as cancer, coronary artery occlusion, and disorders of the blood. It also may result from such physiological stresses as strenuous exercise or ovulation.
Under normal conditions the temperature of deeper portions of the head and trunk does not vary by more than 1°–2° F in a day, and it does not exceed 99° F (37.22° C) in the mouth or 99.6° F (37.55° C) in the rectum. Fever can be defined as any elevation of body temperature above the normal level. Persons with fever may experience daily fluctuations of 5°–9° F above normal; peak levels tend to occur in the late afternoon. Mild or moderate states of fever (up to 105° F [40.55° C]) cause weakness or exhaustion but are not in themselves a serious threat to health. More serious fevers, in which body temperatures rise to 108° F (42.22° C) or more, can result in convulsions and death.
During fever the blood and urine volumes become reduced as a result of loss of water through increased perspiration. Body protein is rapidly broken down, leading to increased excretion of nitrogenous products in the urine. When the body temperature is rising rapidly the affected person may feel chilly, or even have a shaking chill; conversely, when the temperature is declining rapidly the person may feel warm and have a flushed moist skin.
In treating fever, it is important to determine the underlying cause of the condition. Mild and moderate fevers are best treated by aspirin or other antipyretic drugs, which exert their effect on the temperature-regulating areas of the brain.
The mechanism of fever appears to be a defensive reaction by the body against infectious disease. When bacteria or viruses invade the body and cause tissue injury, one of the immune system's responses is to produce pyrogens. These chemicals are carried by the blood to the brain, where they disturb the functioning of the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that regulates body temperature. The pyrogens inhibit heat-sensing neurons and excite cold-sensing ones, and the altering of these temperature sensors deceives the hypothalamus into thinking the body is cooler than it actually is. In response the hypothalamus raises the body's temperature above the normal range, thereby causing a fever. The above-normal temperatures are thought to help defend against microbial invasion because they stimulate the motion, activity, and multiplication of white blood cells and increase the production of antibodies. At the same time, elevated heat levels may directly kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria and viruses that can tolerate only a narrow temperature range.


From the Britannica. So what's with the Fever thing? Well, I'm having a fever. Just thought I read about it. My body things it's cold but I'm burning up! I think sometimes I come up with the wierdest thoughts when my brain's being fried by my body.