Saturday, October 20, 2007

Of Willingness of Sacrifices

那天跟几个女人去吃午餐, 无意间谈到孩子和事业的话题。群中,有两个刚怀孕,一个刚生,一个就要结婚。我蛮惊讶四位都异口同声说明不会自己带孩子,所以都在烦着找保姆的事情。

Anyway, 故事重点是在于当她们知道我老婆是full time mommy时,都有很矛盾的反应。有少许羡慕,有“舍得meh?!”的反应,也有多少妒嫉(她们以为我薪水很多)。最好笑的一点就是,她们越讲,就越矛盾。“全职保姆很贵啦!我的工钱都给完她,等于白做。。” “一整天都对着baby会变黄脸婆的。。” “会没有朋友了的。。” 等等self contradicting的话。

饭后,我突然间感觉到很感激Jo.

以前我都铁定认为在我们夫妻俩中我牺牲比较大,因为为了这个arrangement我必须离开我很喜欢很喜欢的公司,必须一个人承担家庭负担,必须独自承担在外的压力。

现在我才明白,原来她付出更大。因为full time mommy不是每一个人都做得起。也不是每一个人都要做。而且先今社会,绝大多数妇女都不肯做

所以,我要在这里炫耀。。。

我的老婆真的真的很棒!!!

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Lost...

As part of my (non-existence) series of getting Lost... The "dude! where's my car" syndrome had been hitting me pretty hard nowadays.... so I have learn that the best way to combat it is using my Phone.

Some of the examples, see whether you can guess where are they all from:

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Thursday, October 11, 2007

Signboard Obsession

The customer that I am working at had recently received some high priority customer visit. Which is great for their fledging business, but, for some reason, some special "preparation" was done prior to the visit. And, it's circled around the toilet. Hmm. Does the VIP really such a small bladder that they cannot hold it in for just an hour?

Anyway, here are the overkill of signboards that I found.

Specimen 1: Watch your step. It's an actual picture taken of the bathroom floor! Talk about originality.

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Specimen 2: Urinal. As you can see, no automated flushing system.

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Specimen 3: Another one just in case you are using the bowl.

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Specimen 4: Just to let you know where to find all the other signboards...

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There are actually more, but these are the only ones that I managed to snap without being seen as too weird. So, I guess an overkill of signboards with different color scheme and design does really help to bring awareness huh (and to bring value to the company..hmm)?

So Hard to Get People Out for Dinner

Shucks. It used to be:

Me: Ooi. Dinner.
He/She/Something: OK. Where? (No need to ask what time la idiot. When else would you eat dinner? 12pm ar? or 12am ar?)
Me: 1 Utama.
He/She/Something: OK, call you when I reach.

Nowwwww-a-days har.... (with a lot of sarcasm)

Me: Wanna catch dinner?
(You, yes you who are reading this!): Ahh... when/where/who/(eat)what? (Lucky minus How to go niah.)
Me: Ah... 1 Utama, Saturday? (BTW, this conversation took place a FEW days ahead ar!)
You: Hai yah. What to eat in 1 Utama? Sian la. Parking susah oso. Many ppl oso. Expensive but not good food.
Me: Er.... like that ar. Go to xxx (as in some fantasy place not in any shopping mall one), very cheap and good. OK?
You: Har? How to go? Need to check with my BF/GF/Mom/Doggie first. Come back to you later OK?
Me: Grrrr... sure....

So there you have it folks. But I do have theories on why this is happening:

  1. More people are eating in nowadays (due to many reasons, i.e. $, traffic, health),
  2. Most people are sick of seeing other people in real life. IM-ing is much easier, less commitment,
  3. People are getting more attached to a small set of people/family. Scare of getting to know new people.

Don't you agree?

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Episode Oakley

Following chleong.net's Targus Saga, I am running into some warranty issues with Oakley myself. Anyway, a year plus back me and Juls bought a pair of Oakley each after being sick and tired of wearing other brand of frame that kept getting crooked or broken all the time.

So we both went to this shop at Sg. Wang, which seem to have much better Oakley prices than anyone else. While Juls manage to find the frame he wanted pretty quick (he more leng chai ma... any frame also look shock...), I could not find one that suits me there. Jo wanted me to get a pair of Rayban frames...but... being the pussy that I am, I ....I ....*also* wanted an Oakley.

So we went shopping in other shops around Sg. Wang. And finally I found one that looked good on me. It was the Box Spring 4.0 (Rust). But the 2nd shop that had stock was selling way too expensive and was reluctant to reduce the price citing that "Oakley have controlled price, we cannot give discount lah!". So we went back to the first shop, pointed to the model that I wanted on a catalogue, and we both paid for our frames and prescriptions.

Anyway, 3 months down the road, the paint on my Oaks started to chip. First it was a small dent. Then the coating on the Oakley logo came off. Dan old me that Sydney Optical SS2 is one of the Premier Oakley Reseller and they handles warranty on behalf of Oakley, so I dropped my frame with them. Since it was within one year of purchase, 3 days later I got a brand new frame! Yay! (It even looked "newer" then the unit I bought, especially on the rubber parts....hmm...)

Then another few more months down the road, the same thing happened. More or less same places got the same paint chip, and again the Oakley logo coating is gone. Unfortunately it happened during one of the busiest period of my life (NextG+Iz), and up until last couple of weeks I had a chance to pay Sydney Optical a visit again.

The guy Marcus, apparently still remembers me (from the free service he *had* to render the last round) and this time around, he told me that the old policy of RM60 for frame replacement (post 1 year warranty) is no longer available, and I had to leave my frame with them to send back to Oakley to "value" the damages and cost of repair. Normally would be at least "RM100 plus plus".

Wa lao eh. Oakley is like car repair on insurance meh??

Anyway, I declined, because I smell something fishy.

So just now I manage to call up the official representative in Malaysia, which is Revelstoke Sdn. Bhd. The helpful lady June, explained to me why the policy change, and the transition period (which ended at 1 Jan 2007), and assure me that it's a fix price of RM175 (with original warranty card) and RM225 without for wired frame (non Titanium). I gave her the model number and color, and she said they are out of stock for that color, but she is more than happy to change to another color, which she has stock on hand. And the best thing is, I just need to drop by the office and she will give me the new one on the spot! No waiting!

So guys... Which of the 2 color should I go with?

Black Ice, ...or

Pewter?

And just to compare, here is my old Rust:

I'll update how it goes when I had a chance to go back to KLCC. And in case you need the contact, it's:

Revelstoke Sdn. Bhd.
A-3-1, Block A, Megan Avenue 1
189 Jalan Tun Razak
50400 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: 603.2166 1799
Fax: 603.2171 2799
info@oakley.com.my
Hours: Monday - Friday:  9:30am - 1:00pm, 2:00pm - 6:00pm

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Missing Virtual PC Console? You can bring it back!

This had happened to me on two occasions on two separate lappies, so I think it's worth of a mention.

Anyway, it's when for some reason down the road, Virtual PC 2004 and 2007 Console will go missing after a while. Although you can still use the VPC icon on the taskbar to manage it, who wants that?!

So I came across the post from http://msmvps.com/blogs/benwalters/archive/2007/09/04/missing-virtual-pc-console.aspx

In case the post gets missing, the steps are:

  1. Close Virtual PC 2004/2007,
  2. Using Notepad, open up %appdata%\Microsoft\Virtual PC\Options.xml
  3. Find the section <console>, and modify the following sections to 0 (as in Zero):
    <left_position type="integer">474</left_position>
    <top_position type="integer">325</top_position>
  4. Save, and exit Notepad.
  5. Run Virtual PC and voila!

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Back to the living.

Anyway, it seem that for some reason the position type properties got screwy, and ended up with a crazy value of 8348387783, 298348343, which means that VPC didn't know where to draw it on the screen.

So there you have it folks, hope you'd never had this problem, but just in case....

Slowing Down?

Seems like the few blogs that I had been following lately has grown a bit more quiet than usual. I normally follow around 10-ish lists, which I open via Firefox's "Opan All in Tabs" feature... (thank FF for that..)

Anyway, there are generally three categories of blogs I visit. There are the friend's blogs, friend's friend's blog which I found interesting, and then random blogs that came across. The later usually has a more stronger "flavor" to them... (aka political oriented).

So a couple of reasons that I can think of why the bloggers are slowing down are:

  1. Genuinely busy. Like day and night busy.
  2. Lost interest. More probably not getting sufficient feedback. Hey, we are all beasts that crave for attention, OK?
  3. Recent focus on bloggers. Like the news where a student wrote about a classmate who cheated in class, and now got sued by the cheating student's parents. Or our recent government scare of clamp down.
  4. So fed up that nothing changes, so just gave up trying to inspire worms (with no spine) to stand up for themselves.

So, something to ponder about.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Belkin n52te SpeedPad

I so want this one! URGH! As some of you would have known, I have bought the n52 not too long ago. Some more if was one of the only two units which have been sitting on the racks in IT Supermart in Low Yat for ages.

At least its good to know Belkin is still serious about FPS gaming accessories, and this time around they have partnered with Razer for the superb software.

Now...I just need to find an good excuse... :P

 

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College Days

I had always wanted to write about my college days, and as of lately the urge has been stronger. Why? Maybe is because I realize that the older I get, the more forgetful I become. Great memories are slipping past in a rate that it starts to trouble my soul...

Enough with the rumbling.

My college days started in KDU, circa Jan 1997. Those were the days when dial up was still 33.6kbps, the concept of IM is widely introduced by ICQ, and everyone was on IRC. I was staying with my brother at a house somewhere near KDU, and I did not come with any of my hometown friends.

Gush, for some odd reason, I still remember how I looked like then. (Actually, I had a video to remind myself that, but more of that later.) Gold rim glasses with oversized lens, Brycream gel-ed hair, thick jacket (to fight against the extreme cold in Lecture Hall 1), loose jeans which are way too blue, and Spalding basketball shoes. Oh yeah, not forgetting my Aiwa walkman and my 2o bucks Sony headphones, which hung around my neck idly most of the time.

Despite all that, I managed to make a couple of friends at week 1. Mei Ling, who was slightly older than us because she studied Form 6 (which none of us did). Yuen Ling, the first Ipoh girl that I ever know, and who I had a crush on. And Pao Ling, the other "Ling" girl who always had a smile on her, and had an optimistic view on everything, and as far as I remember, she was the only other Christian in our little group.

Week 1 was pretty interesting overall, with two things that happened which I can still recall today. First, was Orientation. Erm, actually, I only remembered the last part of the session, which ended at a bar at 1 Utama, where a couple of seniors brought us for "socializing". To be honest, we were to new to the concept of clubbing (at least it was a first for me, the true blue Kampung Boy from Bintulu), and we were so awkward that I ended up ordering a weird bottle of "coke" (which I found out to be my first alcoholic pussy drink) and went home before midnight, which my brother was waiting for me, and first thing he noticed was my extreme bad breath. What a way to start day 1...

Oh yeah, the second thing was that Mei Ling, the only local, brought us up to Gasing Hill at night. Don't ask me why. Definitely not to make out. But I did remember that we all wanted to peek into parked cars, but was too chickened out...

There are many more stories involving our extended group of friends, including Chee Kong, Joe Tan, Ben Tan, Raymond, Stephanie, Wan Hwa, Annie, Foo Thye Cher, Alexi and others. I'll try my best to recall the story as true as possible... for my own entertainment.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Of latest Live goodies...

I have recently discovered (albeit being late) a few new goodies from Live services.

1. Make your own cartoon face! http://cartoon.msn.com.cn/ ==> Here is what I got...

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2. Windows Live Writer, which helps to upload pics and make posts from one single location! Even works with Picasaweb+Blogspot.

3. Live Messenger 2008... aka 8.5. I think still in Beta. Very Vista-ish look...so far so good, no major crashes yet.

So guys, go ahead and try them out at http://get.live.com/betas/writer_betas. The new WLInstaller will actually get you both the Live Writer and Live Messenger 2008. Have fun!