Blog, Schmog...

Oh Gosh! I just remembered that I have a blog! :p

yeah, that's how busy life has become. From handling ginormous amounts of work, having a baby girl (my wife had the baby, I just fretted a lot) and spending obscene amounts of time on Facebook, I'm just too darn busy to stop a while to write a blog post.

But here's the thing, lets call it the million dollar question, Does writing and keeping a blog updated still figure in our(my) hectic lifestyle? I remember keeping this one updated (well...kinda)

Hmm...plenty has passed by from the last time I wrote. Maybe I'll share some stuff as time goes by. For now, I need to go change that profile bit that says I don't have kids yet...ok...get lost

The price you pay for wanting everything to be convenient

Our walk back from lunch was rudely interrupted by a crowd in front of our Building (HSBC Jln Bukit Bintang) 5 Car accident. Apparently a white Mercedes Benz had crashed into 4 other cars parked illegally in front of the bank. Here's pictures: (taken as usual with my Motorola V3i)









I understand that people want to do their banking and do it fast. But is this worth the price you pay for it? granted that Bukit Bintang is busy but these fellers have been parking, obstructing traffic and causing traffic congestions for years!.. Padan Muka (serves you right!)

On the flip side tho, our Analysisbot MC, had this to say about the whole affair:

"analysis : some butts can earn money, which allows them to own cars. but butts dun have brains attached to it which implies it has no intelligence. butts also have no means of autonomous movement. they must park very near to their destinations in order to decrease the length of movement"

'Nuff said.

The Hipster Nano PDA

Right now in the US, one of the exploding phenomenons (apart from ditching your Mach 3 and picking up a DE shaver) is GTD. What is GTD I hear you ask? Simply put, it stands for Getting Things Done. Very popular among geeks, this is a trend that I have not really seen take off in Malaysia in a magnitude similar to what's happening in the US (found these links in Malaysia tho': Spoonfork, Bernie's Ramblings & the requsite IT Tutor Forum posts ) A better explanation can be found here, the website of the writer of the original GTD book David Allen and from Merlin Mann's site. Part of the premise of GTD is simple, ditch the pda, smartphone, [insert name of electronic gadget that does the same thing here] and move on to a simpler (usually paper-based, DIY'ed) "gadget".

Following this line of thought, Merlin (who has a uber cool site) introduced to us the Hipster PDA. What a brilliant concept!! Cheap, no batteries required and stays on all the time! As time went on tho, some people began to 'mod' their Hipster PDA, adding a hole, covers made out of sailcloth (whatever that is) and securing a pen to the PDA via a small carabiner. Then came the Hipster Mini. This great idea replaced the 3x5 index cards with blank business cards. Merlin's original binder clip made a reappearance (albeit being smaller). Cool for people who hate carry such bulky things in their pockets (like me).

So, here's where I come in. I STILL think that the Hipster Mini is too big. So I came up with something even smaller......The Hipster Nano. The inspiration for the Hipster Nano (yes... i hear G1 StarScream's screechy voice saying "how original") was from a study aid long used by Japanese language students. Called Word Cards or Flash cards, these come with a Green and Red plastic film. Details as to how they work can be found from this link . Mine however came from Isetan (Japanese Shopping joint) near my office.



(this is how mine looks like)



(Pictured with Green and Red check sheets)

I originally bought them for work purposes (not explaining further cos its now become a company trade secret) So when i came across a batch of them in the stationery section, i bought every one of them at RM 4 (thats around USD 1.16) by then I had seen the various Hipster posts and thought "maybe I can make a smaller version" thus, the Hipster Nano was born! Found a smallish Paper Mate Kilometrico Sport Mini pen for RM 1.20 (USD 0.34), which I think is cheaper than buying a Fisher Space Pen (bullet and all that) This serves as my 'Stylus'. I have also extra smaller rings like these

('scuse the sucky photos - myMotorola V3i camera sucks)

so I can make smaller stacks of cards instead of the 111 sheet monster that I carry around these days. I even managed to use the detachable red and green check sheets as my dividers. If you live in Malaysia, hunt around the Isetans for the Flash cards. If you live in the US and other countries, you can always order it from this link. Scroll down till you see the "Kutsuwa Study Flashcards w/Check Sheet". I feel this looks cooler, smaller and cheaper to boot. At the moment I'm using just a simple rubber band to hold my stuff in place but there are plans to make a clasp with some velcro and a lil holder for the pen. Have I become more productive from using my Nano? Err... I just put it together today so look out for an update one of these days. Ok, 'nuff said, here come the pictures



(you can clip the pen on the ring)



(With optional Rubber band securing system)

Update 04072007

It has been a long time hasn't it? er... i have millions of posts to do (ok.. maybe a least 15) about Robotcon 2007, TransMy's 3rd gathering, the long delayed lamb chop post, Philipino Taxi drivers and yes.. those fellas (see picture in previous posts). But here's the thing, I'm NOT doing the Robotcon 2007 post (not until i can lock myself in a dark room and do a 'proper' report) nor am I doing the TransMY one (I think it'll be bundled with the Robotcon one). The lamb chop one needs to be scrapped until I make the next batch (didn't take a picture of the finished product) and i'm scrapping the rest for good cos I've lost interest. There ya go.

Did I hear you ask about the Transformers Movie review? It was mind blowing. Review done.

So back to normal as I'm finding more time to blog (and tumbleblog... hopefully). I'm starting off with a GTD post next featuring the Hipster Nano PDA... watch for it...

Special Wartime Announcement

Yep... other posts will come later but here's the breaking news: After all the months of hoping, planning and scheming in Sukumaran (S14, Subang) its finally here!! Yes!





Robotcon 2007! TransMY's 3rd Gathering ! Awesome goodies, awesome events and yes, we watch the Movie before anyone else!





[picture stolen from Mikey'... :p]

Clickly on the picture to see the full announcement....

100th!

100th Post! Woot!





As I promised, No celebrations. But if you have one of these:





Pour Yourself a glass and feel some love... :p

Offline Blogging with Qumana Blog Manager

While collecting some resources for my next post, I was painfully reminded of the fact that I would eventually attempt to do that post offline. Yep, still no Internet at home (not planning to fix one anytime soon!) So usually I write up my posts in Kewlpad (Alternative to Windows Notepad...yes yes...nothing says geek more than using .txt files, drives my bosses nuts!) and where picture or other media are involved, I use my custom made "[Insert Media Here]" placeholder. Lots of posts have been written that way. But that method of blogging is kinda lame. What I reeally needed was an offline Editor that will prepare my post and upload it when I'm online. Picture uploading was VERY High on my list. Technorati tags were an effort that I gave up using a long time ago so, tagging wasn't really all that important to me.

So I scoured the InnerWeb and came away with Qumana. I had previously tried out w.bloggar but it didn't excite me to even try bloggin with it. Qumana on the other hand was a different experience. First the software made an attempt to connect to my blog and that went rather smoothly. It retrieved my 10 last blog posts and from the looks of it, everything looked ok. Then I fired up a new post (this one) and started typing. I noticed that when I pressed 'Enter' and started a new line, the font went back to 'default' and even changing it back to Helvetica didn't change the 'Default Font' setting. So I had to copy-paste my last line into the new paragraph and overwrite that. Which brings me to my next issue..limited fonts. Only 10 are supported and I like using Verdana or Trebuchet most times in Blogger. Ah well, someone will fix that sometime. I like its linking capabilities in that I can copy a link elsewhere, come back to my Qumana post, highlight the word I want to "urlify" and the link I just copied appears in the box. Magic! Obviously I haven't test driven all of the software yet so look out for more to come in the future.

Meanwhile, this is my 99th post! Whats in store for 100? Nothing. No dancing monkeys, nothing. I'm going to try uploading this post now and maybe I'll assess how good this software is in the next post. Oh by the way, that next post I wanted to do has to do with these guys...

NB: I had to go back to Blogger and upload this image... cus it was in my hard disk and Qumana no do images from my hard disk... :p

Powered by Qumana

Really BIG Nescafe Ais & Coffee Bean Freebie Story

Wifey had cravings for my home made lamb chops the other day (if you're thinking what yer thinkin...you're right...) But it was a weekday and Lamb Chops take time to make. So took her out for some in a nearby shop.

Ordered some Nescafe Ais (Can't have freshly brewed coffee there right?) and man! it was HUGE! Chilli Sauce squeeze bottle pictured for comparison. Yes...I did finish it (I'm a thirsty child..)

Eh? Just came back from buying a bag of Sumatra Dark Roast Beans from Coffee Bean. While I was there looking at what's new, along came the over-zealous staff-behind-counter... "Try the Viennese beans -lah Sir..." told her that I had and I didn't really like it.

Anyways, I went ahead and got the Sumatra Beans when she came up to us (Khalis followed as well.. ) and handed us 2 cups of Vienna coffee.. Nice way to try to push some not-so-great coffee to us "discerning" (;p) coffee drinkers but hey, I'm not one to look at the gift-barrista-in the mouth so thanks indeed... free cup as pictured next to yummy Sumatra Beans below:

Why did I post this?...er..no particular reason... blogspamming on a slow-slow slow day...

coming up next week, Lamb Chops Paul David style!

Evil Paul?

Never knew I was evil....

Wrongly provoked?

LLB students (and previous English law students like me) will note with interest that there's a new movie out soon called Provoked starring the ever-luscious Aishwarya Rai and Naveen Andrews (he of the English Patient and recently, Lost fame).

I won't really spoil the movie that much but its based on an actual case in UK about an abused wife who decides to er..fan the flames of matrimony again. She gets charged for murder and has her sentence mitigated to manslaughter based on a plea of provocation (hence the title of the movie)

[note: the punishment for murder in the UK is life imprisonment and manslaughter, which is a lesser form of the said crime carries a lower prison sentence]

However a veritable hornet's nest has been violently stirred up in the wake of the movie. The Southall Black Sisters who got involved in the actual case of R v Ahluwalia by helping Kiranjit Ahluwalia defend herself have roundly criticised the film. Apparently, the film is full of "factual and legal inaccuracies".

Now I haven't seen the movie yet and have no idea about these "inaccuracies" but tell the truth, she didn't get a reduced sentence based on a plea of provocation. Take a look at the case summary over here and decide for yourself. At the end it was "diminished responsibility" brought on by "battered wife's syndrome" that mitigated the charge from homicide to manslaughter. I can't wait to see the movie and tho it would have "factual and legal inaccuracies", I couldn't be bothered. Its a retelling of a story that is loosely based on the life of Kiranjit Ahluwalia. Its a movie. Get over it!

A Wallet from Keyboard Innards?

http://www.instructables.com/id/EU0DY6QKNCEZ7BHEZ0/?ALLSTEPS

Yeah. So I did what every other geek (yes i admit to being one!) would do. I made my own. Must warn my loyal readers that this wallet won't really hold much but its a good idea when you want make like a secret stash of cash (poetic as usual!) in case ya get robbed in KL.
err.. for some reason I didn't take any pics of me makin it. But here be the final results:



Cool transparent effect dude!



You can do this yerself in a couple of minutes. Not difficult at all. You just need to find a broken/spoilt keyboard. Tune in next time when I discuss a little bit about Dvorak keyboards and how I hacked my own USB keyboard to make me a Dvorak Keyboard. Ta!

Another way of Describing Paul David

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

"Can you please grind that for a French Press?"

Its a tasty world. Made even more tastier thanks to Eyeris. Yes, ever since I read his "Expert Guide", I dragged wifey around looking for Bodum French Presses. Got one late last year for RM 49.90 from Isetan KLCC, looked exactly like the one eyeris has and started of with (Again inspired by Eyeris) Costa Rican Coffee from San Fran. 100 grams for RM10.90. I didn't like it so much cos of the rather strong acidity.(Now i can talk like a coffee expert!)

Another guy who loves coffee in the office, Khalis [that's such a cool name!] suggested that we should start buying beans by the bag load and share. Sounded like a plan...Another colleague joined in and soon we were buying 227 gram coffee bean bags from Coffee Bean (Sorry Eyeris, the San Fran is Bukit Bintang is NOT happening at all!). All in all, we calculated that a single cup of freshly brewed coffee will cost us around RM2.00. That in my opinion is WAY much worth it than crappy take away Nescafe (It tastes horrible!) from the mamak behind the office that costs RM1.50!

So I also got myself a nice insulated Thermos mug (Thanks to my Jusco points!) and we began our exploration into the world of Coffee. Unlike Eyeris, I like my coffee quite naked. Bit O' sugar and I'm good. Same goes for the other 2 in the office. We were aiming to try as many types of blends as possible. After a couple of months, we had gone thru all of these:

We started off with Coffee Bean's Holiday Blend. Not much of body, not too bad aroma but it was unsatisfying. Moved on to Coffee Bean's Viennese and StarBucks' Espresso and we were quite disappointed because it tasted so Nescafe-ish.

In between came a bag of Coffee Bean's Hazelnut infused coffee that smelled really good (the rest of the office was drooling!) and tasted not too bad [3 out of 5 in my books]. Then, we hit the paydirt. Sumatra from Coffee Bean. Wow! great body, fantastic aroma and smooth as HE-double-Hockey-Sticks... what could be better than this? we thought.

Well, Coffee Bean's Kenya AA.

Thats what. Hailed as one of the best in the World, we heartily agreed to its bold strong-ish flavour and aroma. It advertised "wine-like acidity" but our palates failed to pick up that. All in all it made really good drinking coffee and remains our joint favorite with Coffee Bean's Mocha Java. Mocha not as in Coffee with chocolate but a combination of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe (try saying that fast while yer drunk!) Beans and Java Estate Coffee. Its flavour is so ..bright and the smell just makes everyone in the office to just stop whatever their doing and look up. Saw a few dreamy eyes during those brewing sessions as well.

We also discovered that we really didn't like European and South American Coffees. We didn't like Dark roasts cos most of the coffee (oil, essence and all) had been charred off the bean. Now, if only I could find that Balinese Coffee that I had in a small coffee factory in Denpasar.

Speaking of which, I was speaking to a guy from Nestle Indonesia the other day and he claims that Starbucks actually sent their team to villages in Indonesia to find that perfect Sumatran/Javan Coffee. That still won't change our minds about buying from Starbucks cos their beans are expensive and I seem to have found the right Coffee Bean in KL Plaza that actually KNOW how to grind the beans for my French Press. All in all we're having a blast...If you have the inclination, pick up this (some say) art form and feed that inner caffeine addict!

Credits:

All Images by Khalis, All text by me.

The Great Desktop Challenge - Latest

Oh my, I've created a monster! Huge big Kudos goes out to Papa and Mikey for tagging plenty of other people with this challenge who in turn, tagged other people. I looked around, followed the links and found these few. Just a sample of links here, please do visit

Mikey's Tag
Little Miss May
Doctor? Chen

Little Miss May's Tag
kyh
_butt

Dr Chen's Tag
Papercrazy
Pink Cotton
LB
Will
Bernard Chan

Ok ok... I'm stopping here cos its spread like WILDFIRE on the blogsphere!... Interesting that the original instructions have changed along the way....here's the original:

"minimize everything (as in all windows) until you only see your desktop. Now look at yer keyboard and look for the key that says "Print Screen" (Prnt Scrn on some keyboards). Press that once. Open your fav graphics editor (if you can't afford Photoshop CS like me, then go get yourself some GIMP and proceed to paste and create a new jpeg)Post that up on your blog and drop me a line. Lets see the amazing plethora of desktops that you fellers have."

Here's the 'modified' version:

"Instruction :Minimize everything (as in all windows) until you only see your desktop. Now look at your keyboard and search for the “Print Screen” (or Prt Scr) button. Press that once. U can press twice too if your finger is itchy. Tarak masalah. Open your fav graphic editor. Paste and save tu gambar. Post that up on your blog & share your leng picture with the whole world. Dun forget to drop me a line after u hit the publish button."

Hmm...Internet version of the infamous "broken telephone"

Thanks everyone for taking part!

Stalk Me.

Yeah. Relive every word from "Every Breath you Take" (not really cos you can't actually SEE me) ..what am I going on about? Why Twitter of course. What is it? err...another one of those Web 2.0 (Click for definition) websites that allows one person to "stalk"(Not in a scary way of course) their friends, family online.

The site has one large box with a question that never changes, "What are you doing now?" the answer of course will change during the course of the day. Whats the point of all this I hear you ask? Just something to while away the day while you go through the InnerWeb. For some people, thats rather um.. exciting. Sign up at the site and you could add your buddies who are already signed up to Twitter and they can ALL stalk you...

Once you sign up, add me.. :p

Tumblelogs

Omigosh! I must really catch up on blogging..there's so much I've been wanting to post but just cant seem to find time for. Add to that, I now have another blog! Not really a full fledged one like this but its what you call a tumblelog (click to see definition). Lotsa people have mentioned that tumblelogs are stupid blah blah but I kinda like it. Its like a scrapbook that help me collect stuff that I bump across online.

Take a gander on yer right and in the sidebar, after the blog archives, you'll see a web widget. Thats my tumblelog in a widget form. But I much prefer it if you go to the actual one. Widget? er... its from widgetbox (which I will review next post or so)

So much for that, go do your thing and next few posts will be more "tech" flavoured as I'll be looking at Twitter, Fleck, A few technology blogs and hopefully finish the podcast review that I've been putting off for some time. Don't think I'll get any bloggin done after this as I'll be busy with MC'ing (And singing!) in someone's wedding, Entertaining Trainers and event handling all this week and next.

You will NOT believe this guy!

I'll let you guys decide. Look at the video:



For more blender joy, go to www.willitblend.com

'Nuff for now, go have a nice weekend

Sin Nien Quai Ler!

Gong Xi Fa Cai! Sin Nien Quai Ler! Yes, the two of them ARE different. Anyways, hope you fellers have had a good couple of days of rest/relaxation/excitement etc. My Chinese New Year has been rather cool. Wifey and me ran around getting things ready for the reunion dinner. Funny thing was, it was a reunion dinner attended by MY family. So imagine 7 Indians (including me) and one Chinese girl sitting around a fully laden table having a full Chinese New Year reunion dinner. Hilarious!

The menu ran like so: Fried Pacific Clams with leek, A huge steamed Siakap, Chicken Steamed with Chinese Herbs, Pork marinated with preserved beancurd and deep fried to perfection, Mix vegetables stir fried with mushrooms, Eggs, stuffed with chicken, chives and chilli, steamed in a pretty mould and cooked in soup, Sarawak Style Fried Kanpua Noodles packed with prawns and last but not least, fried hand made rice cakes. Phew! suffice to say not everything finished that night. Mid-way thru the meal, dad looked at mom and remarked in Tamil "see how your son runs his family". Guess he liked what he saw on the table. We whacked a bottle of White Wine (Finally get to use my wine glasses.. yay!) opened another bottle of Red (Yunnan Wine the label said) but it had gone bad so my plants benefited from that infusion of vino.

The next day we woke up and ran to church. Went thru a nice Mass and got home to relax. And then it rained. and rained and rained and rained. It flooded all the way up to the porch and frankly i was getting a little bit worried. When it stopped tho' I took a walk around the neighborhood to see if we were the only ones flooded. Nope, most of the drains were pretty much overflowing. I thought it was just a small thing until i saw this flapping around in the middle of the road:



FISH! A live 8 inch fish! I think its time to fix up the house to flood proof it. The roof also is like "Dark Water" in one spot and some of the stuffing just fell on the staircase ... kinda scary. And I've been eating non-stop for the past 4 days. I can already feel the waist line expanding.... Hmm...looks like I'll be taking on a new title soon as well.....more on that one of these days. Meanwhile.. have fun and easy with the oranges...drink plenty O' water. Byeeee....

Valentine - Milk it dry!

Saw this nearby the office.....

Now they even include mistresses...oh my..we're all going to hell in a handbucket...

Go have your overpriced, overinflated dinner...I'm treating the missus to some claypot loh-shue-fun and crispy pork trotters.. ta!

Mudslide

One of these days, I'll write down the comprehensive history of the Malaysian blues/classic rock/pop/Power-Puff-Girls-loving Band Mudslide. Meanwhile, there are 2 videos from the band online for all of youse to watch. Here ya go:




Thats them doing Jimi Hendrix+Stevie Ray Vaughan+The Corrs version of Little Wing



And here they are again, doing the Bishop's version of Chuck Berry's Nadine. The video quality is very very bad but this was a performance done somewhere in March 2004 in the now defunct Titus Blues Avenue. Note that the Bassist (if you can spot him), Mr Tim Brice is now happily working in Bombay. New videos coming soon....

PS. Doesn't that vocalist look awfully familiar? :p

Desktop Challenge Update

We're back true belivers! with the latest news on the desktop challenge. So far, i have seen 4 entries. Nice! very nice indeed! go on to these links to view 'em

Papa, Idham, Konboi Berotot, Cik Anis

Please comment in their blogs and while you're there please aslo click click on their Adsense links and make them some money as well. For the rest, send me your links... or else.....

The great Desktop challenge

I usually never do this tagging thing that is rather rampant among bloggers but i feel like having a little fun this morning and here's how the challenge works:

minimize everything (as in all windows) until you only see your desktop. Now look at yer keyboard and look for the key that says "Print Screen" (Prnt Scrn on some keyboards). Press that once. Open your fav graphics editor (if you can't afford Photoshop CS like me, then go get yourself some GIMP and proceed to paste and create a new jpeg)

Post that up on your blog and drop me a line. Lets see the amazing plethora of desktops that you fellers have.

To start off here's my current screenshot:

So I hereby tag Papa, Miki. MC, Anis, Idham (if your'e still blogging that is), Eyeris, and Ryu.

For the rest of my readers (as if I have millions..........and millions!) you can send me your link to destron74@gmail.com

Winner gets a MISB limited edition NO-Prize. :p

Now, get to it!

Don't you dare laugh

Caught while walking around in the Bukit Bintang area. Lots of you may have seen this restaurant before. So have I but I've never seen it open, even in the late 90's when I was working around this area. To those who don't understand the Malay language, "Jangan Ketawa" means, "Don't Laugh". Wonder what kind of food they served......

PS: No apologies made for the quality of the picture. It was caught on camera phone. 1.2 megapixels. Get over it....

The REAL political power in Thailand...

Disclaimer: This post is written with the view of eliciting some amount of humour from the reader. No implication of any sort is erm... implied, expressly or otherwise. In less than 25 words, its a joke! don't arrest me!

That being said, came across this in the middle of Bangkok,





Takshin? General Sonthi? Thai Rak?

Hah!... Pishtosh!

Facelift - Complete

Finally, after a lil' tinkering , I managed to get the darn thing working. Hope you enjoy the new look (and the pic in the profile!) leave me some feedback as to what you fellers think.

NB: No Ducks were harmed in the writing of this post.

Facelift

Yep, I'm bringing out the scaffolding... cos its time to give this blog a facelift. Please bear with me as I change the outlook yet attempt to retain some functionality of the previous blog. I just migrated to the 'new' Blogger and am still playing around with it.

OK, time to get back to work. laterz

Update 23012007

My apologies to the 2-3 people who read this blog (yes, i know i have wide fan-base). Once again, the demons of work, travel (work-related again!) have taken me off blogging. I will not promise that 2007 will be any better cos I now have a new portfolio at work that is gonna keep me even busier than ever!

In the time that has passed, (as in November till now) I have been on a whirlwind of activities and have successfully travelled between The Philippines, Thailand and Sarawak. I saw many things, ate plenty and experienced a lot as well. I got a new phone and have, quite considerably ...aged.

I will share some of those experiences in the coming days, months blablabla.. keep tuning in from time to time ... nice to have y'all back here... seeya soon!

Why Malaysian Football Sucks

Found this while walking through a playground near my mum's place. Best of all, the playground has a large area where you can actually play football!

Yep. I'm back.