The V Spot

Bahasa Malaysia Class

2007-04-19T06:41:00.000+08:00

I had to take this class while in Malaysia.

Ever Think You're Stupid?

2007-04-17T02:06:00.000+08:00

If you've ever thought of yourself as stupid, or wondered where you are on the intelligence scale, let this guy set the bottom marker.

Licenses are apparently given away here...

2007-04-17T02:05:00.001+08:00

Toronto's driver testing facilities need an upgrade if this guy can emerge as "passed."

Shoot Yourself

2007-04-17T02:03:00.000+08:00

If you ever catch yourself resembling this man, er, thing in the slightest, pull one up to your head and let 'er rip.

One of the BEST chapats ever!

2007-04-16T17:25:00.000+08:00

Try and pay close attention to what he says. I'm trying to provoke him to talk more (by giving him a friendly goodbye) but it doesn't work.

MMU...serving up quality education...or not

2007-04-15T12:47:00.000+08:00

There isn't much to say about this. Just try and see if you can understand what she's trying to say. Look out for the chapat who asks a question. This will either crack you up or have you shaking your head in disgust.

The Malaysian and the Furious

2007-04-15T12:42:00.000+08:00

I rented a car while in Malaysia, and it actually turned out to be a riced-out Accord! These things are hilarious from the point of view of true car enthusiasm, in that they're just wannabes, something like painting your computer case black, installing neon lights and pretending/thinking its a cutting edge supercomputer. Whats really bad is the cheese with which riceboys go about doing things.

Honey, forget the sunblock, I'm gonna take my winter coat instead...

2007-04-15T11:48:00.000+08:00

Its 36 degrees outside. The humidity is nearly 100%. You're under a tropical sun, pretty much right at the equator. What would be your choice of clothes? Shorts? T-shirt? Hawaiian shirt? No shirt? Not in Malaysia. There, you'd wear a winter coat.

Goat, Transported

2007-04-15T11:39:00.000+08:00

I was driving to Mines from Cyberjaya once, and there was a considerable amount of traffic in the other direction. A quick glance later, it looked like some sort of competition. A couple of minutes later... we see a gigantic goat (or whatever the hell it is) being transported. Its just standing in the bed of a pickup truck doing well over 100 km/h, and trying its level best not to fall off. Damn thing looked freaky!

Designer Condo, Cyberjaya, Malaysia

2007-04-15T11:32:00.000+08:00

I was pulling out some old videos to post, and here's a little tour of our friend Mohammad's room.

Anjappar All Over Again

2007-04-10T15:30:00.000+08:00

There's this restaurant I used to go to in Malaysia every once in a while, Anjappar. They have Chettinad cuisine, some sort of South Indian fare, but I would go there for their Chinese food. It was like a getaway from Malaysian food in Malaysia, with vibrant flavours and my favourite reason, deveined and deshelled prawns. Damn all of Malaysia for not deveining and deshelling their prawns! I had gone there thinking seafood would be awesome, and what did I find? Lobster for CAD $60? Prawns that seemed have crawled right out of the ocean and into the wok? I also found prawns there to be very, very inferior to Maritime and US East Coast shrimp, as well as Chinese prawns. They were kinda devoid of flavour, and what bothered me the most was that the delicate texture we all have come to know and love was just not there. More often than not, I found prawns to have a solid butter-like texture; you could just sorta cut right through them. Anyways, Anjappar's prawns for some reason didn't have that consistency, so even though it was expensive by local standards (RM 13 for 4-6 prawns) I really enjoyed their Chili Prawns dish. I usually can't take spicy stuff at all, but I'd put my burning tongue aside cuz in this dish, the prawns was covered in an absolutely delicious .. umm ... paste sorta stuff. That awesome flavour would find its way into the green peppers as well. Since that was one of like three dishes I really liked over there, I decided to give the same resto in Canada a try.

Now, lately, I've been hating our lax immigration policy. There are too many FOBs coming in, and they're starting to mess with society a bit. We have always had good customer service, but since the arrival of the FOBs, it has severely declined. I called Anjappar up and asked them if they have the Chili Prawn dish, and the guy on the other end, obviously an immigrant, said yes. I then proceeded to ask him if it would similar in style and taste to the dish I had in Malaysia, and he said in an Indian accent the size of Yukon, "Of COURRSSSE it is exactly the same style. Heh." His tone also said "For FUCK's sake. How stupid can you be? DUHHHHHH its gonna be exactly the same dish as you had 25,000 kilometers away! What, did you think it would be different???? How stupid are you?

So I almost didn't go, but since my fiancee was really looking forward to the Chili Prawns, I gave it a shot. As I drove up, I noticed that there was no one inside, and chalked that up to being a slow Monday. We went in, and the resto looked decent enough, and we grabbed a nice table on an elevated platform near the window. I placed my order for Masala Dosa (for my mom), and ordered us two Prawn Fried Noodles, Chinese Style, Manchurian Chicken in Gravy, and of course, Chili Prawns. The waiter represented his country to the T, and added to the ambience with his own unshowered and ungroomed presence. He brought out the Masala Dosa first, a good 15-20 minutes before the rest of the food, because he thought that we here in Canada also like to let one person at the table eat first, then let the others eat while the first one watches. Well, we don't. The Dosa was good, for sure, but 6 bucks? We have places specializing in this stuff (like the Dosa Hut) and charging 2-5 bucks, what makes these genuises think that its okay for them to charge 6 bucks? The size was so small we ate it up like an appetizer. These guys really didn't do their homework when they came to Canada. They didn't understand that it takes more than what they had to compete against Toronto's restaurants. Toronto, according to the UN, is the MOST multicultural city IN THE WORLD, and is North America's SECOND BEST city for food after NYC.

Yeah buddy, you serve your little portions and you TEAM that up with your high prices!!! There's a recipe for success!

The Chinese stuff arrived, and the noodles were very overboiled and soggy. They had too much of the overboiled taste, and not much of the Chinese treatment came through. The prawns were breaded and deep-fried then cut into pieces, and tasted alright, although, all they had going was the flavour of the meat itself; they weren't supported by the cooking in the slightest. The Manchurian Chicken and Chili Prawn looked exactly the same, and I make a remark to that effect. Waiter-guy said "you said gravy." I said, "if you remember correctly, I said that in reference to the chicken only." I politely asked him to take it back and bring what we had ordered, and although he was very reluctant, he did it. Since he came back in about 2 minutes, I can only assume he did not recook the dish, only rearrange it. There's no one in your restaurant, don't you think you should be taking care of your ONE CUSTOMER a little more????? The Chili Prawns tasted nothing like they did in Malaysia, and from no angle did it appear to be the same dish. I really hate how FOBS speak with such an ego about stuff (the dish is obvious going to be the same, how stupid are you?) and the fact that they're pretty much ALWAYS WRONG. The fucking bill hit 50 bucks, and for 50 bucks, we could have all had all-you-can-eat ribs at Montana's, the massive buffet at Mandarin with money to spare, or 24 pieces of Broasted Chicken with a good 20 bucks left over. We could have gone to Lucky's and pocketed half the money too.

What those dumb fucks don't understand is that with their ego, stupid service, crappy food and idiotic waiters, no one, including me, is ever going to return. Hence, the empty parking lot.

I have truly arrived...

2007-04-06T14:02:00.000+08:00

After enduring an arduous three years, one month and eight days to complete my formal education in SE Asia, I have returned home. Actually, I returned home almost four months ago, but haven't blogged since December. My experience in South East Asia was, naturally, mixed. There were good times, and there were bad times, and the experience will never go away. I will go into the details of "the experience" as I like to call it sometime later. Since I'm back home, there isn't much adventure to write about, other than the urban adventure we call wining and dining. I'm gonna be talking about some of the hobbies that I've gotten into and will get into.

So I've gotten a place, a condo. Its a one bedroom plus den and solarium, so its quite decent for us. I've gotten pretty much all the AV gear I wanted, which mainly consists of:

-A 61" 1080p DLP Samsung TV. I chose this based on information from the AVS forum and reviews. It was a choice between this and Sony's 60" 1080p SXRD TV, but reports say that after calibration, the Samsung looks much better. Also, the Samsung accepts 1080p over component, and its piece-de-resistance, it allows for overscan to be turned off on HDMI input. This is really useful because I had planned to integrate an HTPC into the setup, and use it as my main computer. To do this, the display would have to be great, and the Samsung fit the bill.

-HDTV PVR cable box (if you don't know what this is, its a digital TV/HDTV tuner box, that allows you to do things like pause live TV, record TV shows, record 2 TV shows while watching a 3rd, scheduling recordings of your favourite TV shows etc.)

-A Harman Kardon AVR 140 reciever. I was originally gonna go for a top-of-the-line Pioneer Elite model than can switch 1080p HDMI sources, but I thought I'd wait until they become more mainstream. Plus, with a reciever like that, I'd feel obliged to pick up some crazy speakers, and then everything just adds up. It turns out I found a brilliant deal on this receiver. Harman/Kardon is one of the premier names in sound, in fact, they INVENTED the reciever! So this was a good addition to the setup. Interesting story - I had at some point thought that I should go cheap and get a HTIB (home theater in a box). I shopped around, and everyone seemed to recommend a particular Sony setup (people recommending Sony? weird...) so I grabbed it. Supposedly pushing 1100 watts, the receiver was outputting to a 10 inch powered sub and 6 satellites, but when I plugged it in and connected the DVD player, I found it to be underpowered and tinny sounding. Not being in Malaysia anymore, I could crank up the volume without others hearing it, and when I did so to the point I thought was umm... enveloping, the reciever was at max volume. Those were some lazy 1100 watts. The speakers sucked too, and seemed to be of the quality of free-in-the-box computer speakers. I returned that shit right away (thank God I'm back home!) and shopped around. It took me a few days to decide, but I finally settled with the HK.

-Harman Kardon 5.1 speaker system. I was originally going to get the Bose Acoustimass sound system, as I liked the demo they had running at Future Shop, but after listening to these speakers, I was sold. They sounded as good for 60% of the cost, and looked better to boot. 10" Harman/Kardon subwoofer? Can. Beautiful, 3-way directional satellites? Can.

-Samsung HD-DV960 DVD Player. I cheaped out in the beginning and bought this over a Toshiba HD DVD player. Later I regretted it, but I wouldn't have had much to play on the HD DVD player anyway. I'm now selling this to pay for the PS3, but basically what this player did was upscale DVDs and output them at 1080p over HDMI. Everybody said there's a significant difference, especially with the Faroudja video processor and all, but I never noticed any difference. I do notice a difference upscaling on my computer though?! I didn't use this much, and it wasn't amazing, AND I got it for much less than the regular price, so I said hey, why not use the PS3 to play DVDs and get rid of this? So it is no longer.

-XBOX 360 Premium Modded. One of the first things I bought, it was supposed to be a rational choice over the PS3 based on number of titles available and yes, price. While the 360 looked decent enough over component at 1080p, it didn't blow me away. I've read some technical articles about the CPU, a 3-core, RISC affair that is pretty far beyond desktop CPUs at the moment, and thought that it would look great. In reality, the graphics look like PC graphics from a few months ago to a few years ago. The only game that had really good graphics was Gears of War, and that too didn't absolutely blow me away. It also made a huge difference if a game was 1080 or 720p, as the latter just sucked. A game I was really looking forward to, Test Drive Unlimited, looks better on the PC, and not so amazing on the 360 IMO. Well, I sold it for the Wii, thinking it'd be a lot more fun.

-Nintendo Wii. Since these are out of stock everywhere, I had to buy one from a "street guy." Price was almost the same though, so it was ok. Wii Sports is a good addition to the console, and its real fun lies in multiplayer. When we first got it, we played tennis quite a bit. All the games are fun, except for golf, which I'm not into much. For some reason, we haven't played the Wii much since we got it, but its a cheap console, and we're looking forward to Super Mario coming out on it, so we're gonna keep it for now.

-PS3. The latest addition to our setup. Used the money leftover from the 360 and combined it with the sale of the DVD player and our Nokia N80 to get it. First I bought it from Future Shop with the intention of returning it to see if I liked it. The first thing I downloaded was Gran Turismo HD 1.1. That just sold me. The graphics are stunning, like nothing else I've ever seen, and the realism of the driving is superb. I got it partially for GT alone. We then downloaded the demos for Motorstorm and a bunch of other games, but Motorstorm stuck out as being a good game. Tried out the browsing, its as good or maybe better than the HTPC in some ways! Now I have gotten used to nice-looking HD broadcasts on TV, and movies in HD on TMN, and from what I've been told, the HD discs (BD/HD DVD) look more or less like that. That is pretty wrong IMO, because even the MP4 trailers I downloaded (NOT in BD quality) looked much better than broadcast HD. That got me thinking, and I said hey, reason #2 to get a PS3... Blu-Ray movies!! So I returned the PS3 from Future Shop and bought one for $250 less from a "street guy."

So now all that's under our TV is the PS3, HD PVR, Wii and reciever.

The Remainder of Stuff For Sale Urgently!!

2006-12-19T17:38:00.000+08:00

Hey guys! Thanks for the quick sales of stuff. The last few things are for urgent sale, so act quickly, as I'm selling them off at basically throwaway prices!!

- The car (Volvo 244 GL)

- The sofa (IKEA Klippan)

- queen size mattress

- HP 3745 Colour Printer

- toaster

- sandwich maker

- kettle

- Sony Ericsson W800i walkman phone

You can find descriptions for most of these things below, or call/yahoo me for more info. But act quick, as of today, only 17 days remain till I leave!

012-976-1649

Shuttle XPC PC System for sale, act quick, this is a beast!

2006-12-04T03:36:00.000+08:00

I'm selling a complete Shuttle XPC computer system. Check out http://www.shuttle.com to see what these bad boys are all about.

Its a small form-factor PC, which is less than 1/3rd the size of a regular PC system. It looks ULTRA COOL, and yet, nothing is compromised. It has more features than a regular PC!

Its made entirely of aluminum alloy, and looks superb with an acrylic glass front panel. Its pretty much the sexiest PC you can find. Its also nearly silent, because it doesn't use a fan on the CPU. There is a fan that turns on only when necessary, and for me, it never turns on. The only sound you'll hear is your hard drive or DVD drive spinning.

It comes with a P4 2.4B CPU running at 2.96 GHz (you can overclock well past 3.0 without adding voltage), and is totally silent.

The CPU is complemented by 1 GB of DDR 400 branded RAM, which can also be run at > 400 MHz without adding voltage.

The hard drive included is a monster 200 GB, 7200 rpm, 8 mb cache, Western Digital Caviar drive.

7.1 speaker-capable onboard sound, onboard LAN, multiple USB 2.0 ports, front AND rear audio outputs/inputs as well as Firewire ports on the front AND back will make sure you're as connected as you can be.

The system also includes a Sony dual-layer 16x DVD+/-RW drive. Its also capable of burning CDs.

The graphics card is an original ATi Radeon 9700 PRO. Don't be fooled by the numbers they use, this card is much more powerful than all the 9600s, 9550s, 9500s, even X1300s and other new ones. This was ATi's flagship card when it came out, and I paid almost RM 2000 for it. If you look at Tom's Hardware or other sites, you'll find that this card still performs in the top 30% of DX9 cards. I can run just about any game at 1920x1200x32bpp with full frame rates.

Now obviously, this here is a cool computer. If you were to go buy this today, it would cost you a lot more than my asking price. Even today, this same case in Low Yat is RM1000+. That is just the case alone! So take a look at what it includes, and give me a reasonable offer, and its yours! I need to go back to my country, and so, need to sell it ASAP.

Plus, if you act now, I'll throw in a FREE (percuma) PCI TV tuner card! So you can watch, and record Astro as you like. No need to pay for Astro max! These PCI cards outperform the USB cards big time, so this is one hell of a deal!

Come test this system out to your heart's desire. I can show you how well it runs Windows Vista, or Flight Simulator, or FEAR, or Half-Life 2, or high-definition video, or whatever you like!

Call me (Loy) at 012-976-1649 before its too late.

Check out my other items for sale below, or at http://www.geocities.com/loybond/

I'm asking RM 1999, but feel free to make a reasonable offer, after all, I do have to sell quick!

FOR SALE: Dell 2405FPW 24" Widescreen Monitor & HDTV

2006-11-14T16:00:00.000+08:00

Hah, can't believe I'm selling my baby. Anyways, too big to take with me. It's a Dell 2405FPW monitor. 24", widescreen, built in 12-in-1 card reader, 4 USB 2.0 ports, DVI and VGA inputs, as well as composite video and component HDTV inputs. You can connect your PS2, or ideally your XBOX 360 or PS3 at a full 1080p! No TV will give you better quality for the high-def consoles! Has multiple picture-in-picture modes. Awesome for movies - your movies will fill the screen, but also for games and work. You can work on 2 pages side by side in Microsoft Word! Guaranteed no dead pixels (I made sure of this when I bought it). Read the reviews, this thing has the best picture quality of any recent large monitor. Better colour, contrast and pixel response time. You can come and demo this thing at my place, I guarantee you will not be dissapointed. I bought it at RM 4360 (I'll give you the necessary documents), but I can't take it with me, so TAKE ADVANTAGE OF MY MISFORTUNE and buy now before someone else does!

FOR SALE: Volvo 244 GL

2006-11-14T15:36:00.000+08:00

This is a 1982 Volvo 244 GL. Its in excellent mechanical condition, no problems in the drivetrain whatsoever. I bought it from the original owner who always serviced it at the dealership. Its smoother riding and the suspension is quieter than the Gen-2 I rented yesterday, LOL.

So, if you're looking for a cheap car that is reliable, look no further, and give me a call ASAP.

012-976-1649

FOR SALE: more shit ...

2006-11-14T13:12:00.000+08:00

HP 3745 colour inkjet printer

Logitech Z-560 4.1 Speaker System (8" subwoofer, 500 watts RMS, THX-certified)

queen-size mattress

IKEA glass & metal decor table (small, round)

Mini-Fridge (2 to choose from) .... ONE SOLD!!!

IKEA cloth & wood wardrobe .... SOLD!!!

IKEA closet-style wardrobe (wood) .... SOLD!!!

IKEA chest of drawers .... SOLD!!!

water heater .... SOLD!!!

Haier 1.5 HP room air conditioner (with remaining 1 year warranty on indoor unit, 4 yrs on outdoor unit)

Samsung microwave oven (850 watts)

convection oven (Malaysian-style)

electric mixer/mixee/food processor/blender (choose your term)

2-slice toaster, white

sandwich maker, with grilling plates

electric kettle, white

Egyptian Sheeshas, authentic, handmade glasswork .... SOLD!!!

1 suitcase, almost new, with extendable metal handle

IKEA kitchen cupboard (2 doors, 1 piece, solid wood)

IKEA bathroom mirror cabinet (2 doors, metal and mirrored glass)

Yamaha acoustic guitar, sounds great

IKEA cool-temperature comforter, no cover included for hygiene reasons (buy ur own style!)

Down-stuffed pillows, 3 pieces

Tesco rug .... SOLD!!!

IKEA lime-green stools (used for decor) .... SOLD!!!

garbage cans

SDIO Wi-Fi Card (for use with O2 Mini or similar)

basket set

Contact me at 012-976-1649 before what you want disappears!!!

FOR SALE: Samsung 172t (17" LCD monitor)

2006-11-12T17:43:00.000+08:00

I'm selling my Samsung 172t 17" LCD monitor as well. This monitor was Samsung's top 17" LCD when I bought it, and was rated very highly in reviews (which led to me buying it). Its got that sexy flat-panel look, and dual inputs (DVI and RGB). You can connect both and switch between the two if you desire. When hooked up via DVI, the monitor is in all-digital mode, and takes care of all the adjustments itself. Perfect colour accuracy in DVI mode, too! Comes with a sturdy height- and angle-adjustable base and required power supply. It uses VERY LITTLE power and emits almost no heat at all. If you're upgrading from a CRT, you'll notice a world of difference. I originally purchased this for (gasp) RM 1700!

Contact me before someone else grabs this... 012-976-1649!

FOR SALE: Computer system!

2006-11-12T16:56:00.000+08:00

Computer System: This personally assembled system has a ton of quality components! Quick specs are P4 2.4b GHz, 512 MB Kingston DDR400 RAM, 80 GB 7200 rpm hard drive, ATi Radeon 9550 graphics card, genuine Sound Blaster Audigy sound card, DVD combo drive (DVD reader + CD-RW capabilities), 48x24x48 CDRW, all in an all-aluminum genuine Lian-Li case! Description below:

A) Lian-Li Case: This case was purchased for approximately RM 925! Still sells for RM 700+! Model number PC60, this case is made entirely of aluminum for strength, light weight, aesthetic appeal, and temperature management (aluminum is a very good conductor of heat). It is hard anodized in silver (nearly impossible to scratch), and features such things as tool-less panels, sliding & removable motherboard tray, easy-install power supply, removable hard drive carriage, and protected edges so you don’t cut yourself. It has two ADDA fans at the front (with 3-level speed control) as well as 1 ADDA fan at the top. The back is capable of yet another fan, which means this is the ultimate solution for heat management. Not even hot and humid Malaysian conditions can bring this bad boy down! Has front-mounted USB 2.0 ports in addition to numerous rear ones for convenience.

B) The motherboard tray, removed.

C) Sliding motherboard tray.

D) This computer features an Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz “B” CPU. The B designates the second update to the P4 line, meaning this CPU runs at a standard FSB speed of 533 MHz. However, given the flexibility of this system, you can choose to run it at a much higher clock speed than its standard 2.4 GHz. With MMX and SSE instructions as well as a generous L2 cache, this CPU has everything you need to attack any computer task!

E) This computer system also features 512 MB of Kingston-branded DDR 400 RAM. Just the right amount for Windows XP computing and gaming!

F) LG DVD combo drive allows you to burn CDs and read DVDs, all in the same drive! LG drives have excellent compatibility with 2nd-rate DVD media (such as that you buy in KL).

G) Lite-On 48x24x48 CDRW drive allows you to burn CDs and CD-RWs at very high speed. Features Burn-PROOF so that you don’t have any more wasted CDs. Combined with the combo drive, you can duplicate CDs TWO AT A TIME!

H) Maxtor 80 GB 7200 rpm hard drive, for maximum speed, space, performance and reliability. 80 GB allows you to install everything you need, and have plenty left over for downloads and such. The 7200 rpm speed ensures no slowdowns in the hard drive department, and Maxtor is a trusted US brand name. It ensures years of reliable service to come.

I) Sound Blaster Audigy, the gold standard in PC audio. With a super low signal-to-noise ratio and 24-bit processing of all audio, not only will this sound card deliver the highest quality audio, it can also decode Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 and output it in either digital or analog! Supports EAX, the standard in 3D gaming audio. No other sound card can reproduce 3D sounds as well as Creative, because they established the standard! All sound processing is done onboardyou’re your CPU doesn’t have to (and you can therefore get faster, smoother gaming). Features gold-plated connectors, a FireWire port and more!

J) This computer also features a 128 MB Radeon 9550 graphics card. What does this mean? It means you can play games at astonishing speeds with breathtaking quality! 128 MB qualifies you to run your games at high resolutions with high frame rates with detailed textures. The R360 core is the same core used in higher-end cards, and in this special-edition 9550 card, has special modified performance-enhancing features (an additional 4 pixel pipelines are opened up). Has dual outputs, so you can use more than one monitor, or even a TV! ATi Radeons can also connect to your high-definition TV (HDTV) in resolutions up to 1080i. ATi’s Catalyst software means you are ready for Windows Vista’s special graphics features!

Contact 012-976-1649 for more information, before its too late!

FOR SALE: Ikea Lamps (2)

2006-11-12T16:52:00.000+08:00

IKEA ceiling uplighter-type lamp: This quality IKEA lamp features sturdy metal construction and can be disassembled for easy transport. It casts light upward so as to reflect off the ceiling, and in doing so, really adds to your room's ambience (get rid of that nasty fluorescent lighting!). Cost me RM 50, but you can have it for less! (Two pieces are available).

FOR SALE: Ikea "Peanut" Desk (Red)

2006-11-12T16:48:00.000+08:00

IKEA peanut-shaped work desk: This solid wood desk is red with black metal legs (not silver like in the picture shown). Purchased for RM 179, but it can be yours for far less! (One piece) Why pay a lot for a cheap desk at Tesco when you can have one that looks good, allows for different configurations (thanks to the peanut shape) and is sturdy?

Contact me at 012-976-1649 before the opportunity passes you by!

FOR SALE: Ikea "Klippan" Sofa

2006-11-12T16:40:00.000+08:00

I've got an Ikea Klippan sofa, about a year old. This sofa shows little, if any signs of wear, so it’s almost like new! It has sturdy, made-in-Sweden construction, and seats 2 or 3. It features removable & washable covers, so you can buy different colours if you like, but it comes with a black one. Sells for RM 699 at IKEA, can be yours for much less!

Ugh, Its been awhile ...

2006-09-10T22:09:00.000+08:00

I realize I haven't blogged in some time. Its because I didn't feel like it. Times are tough. Things suck. I hope that this is a trough in the cosine wave of my life, and both critical points are positive to indicate an upturn soon ... yeah ... I know, enough with the fucking calculus.

I installed Vista on our other computer. I think it sucks. All this development time, delays and MicroHype had me believing it was some kind of revolution. Rather, it reminds me of a stupid hot chick. She looks good, but thinking isn't part of the package. And then I think, she's not even that hot. I've seen hotter. So then, Vista looks good, but not THAT good, and it doesn't seem to do much. Its also got a lot of idiot-proofing type stuff built in. Vista itself asks me if I want to connect to a network, and I hit yes. It then pops up another window asking my permission to open yet another window so that it can connect to the internet. Right.

Superman Returns!

2006-07-05T16:14:00.000+08:00

I saw Superman yesterday, and as some of you may know, I'm a fan. I didn't have huge expectations for the movie, nor did it surpass them. Here are some of my thoughts on Superman Returns.

-Where did Superman get the spaceship to go to where Krypton was?

-It seems strange that Superman, who traditionally has been all-good, forsaking even his own health for the help of others, would abandon the human race for a full 5 years. People have criticized the Superman character for being "too perfect," and while faithful fans say that the genius of the Superman character lies in his ultimate weaknesses (Kryptonite, Lois Lane), this movie has put all debate to rest. Superman now has a selfish side that was never there before.

-What were the producers going for? One one hand we have the original score and cutscenes of Marlon Brando for authenticity, but on the other hand, Superman is a different person. He is most certainly not the Superman everyone has come to love.

-The plot is pretty thin. Superman returns after a 5 year hiatus, saves a couple of people here and there, evaluates his relationship with Lois Lane. Incidentally, this is around the same time Lex Luthor found the Fortress of Solitude and stole the crystals. Isn't that just a little too perfectly timed, even for a superhero movie?

-For a movie that's 2.5 hours long, I don't remember THAT many scenes with Brandon Routh, and even less with Kevin Spacey. It seems that Routh, both as Kent and Superman had very little dialogue. He didn't leave me with any impression, favourable or otherwise. Kal Penn has almost no role or purpose in this movie. Whoever plays Lois Lane is pretty dry as well, totally lacking punch in a characterization that absolutely needs it.

-In the scene where some guy in a bulletproof vest is firing this crazy spinning machine gun at people/stuff, Superman walks into the gunfire for a very cool effect, but I later wondered ... why the hell is that guy firing bullets for no reason? Who does that? How could that possibly benefit him in any way? That scene seems SO planted just to show off the Man of Steel!

-In the scene where there's a shuttle piggybacking on a Boeing 777, the plane looks NOTHING like a 777. You'd think they'd take care of details like this. The 777 model in MS Flight Simulator looks more accurate.

-I love the effects on Superman as he flies. They show moisture building around him as he crosses the sound barrier, and a sonic boom after he breaks it ... wicked cool!

-In the future, I hope someone does a Superman movie more in the style of Batman Begins.

Thats it for now, perhaps more later!

Silver Screen Week

2006-06-12T16:05:00.000+08:00

I'm on a break right now, but sob, sob - there's but a week left. So much chilling to do, such little time. Alas, onward. I watched a few movies during the break, and tried to post my comments on them, but this FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT BLOGGER.COM BULLSHIT LOST MY WORK! Fuck thats frustrating! Yes, onward.

The Da Vinci Code: I had huge expectations for this movie. Tom Hanks, a brilliant actor if there ever was one, a conspiracy plot, foreign locales and hidden meanings. Wicked. Yeah ... umm, no. The movie failed to please on a number of counts, but what pissed me off the most was that in the promos, they have that Magneto-playing guy saying something about this being the greatest coverup of all time and some junk. So I thought that there would be some huge revelation, that would come at great expenses and be bold. Nope, not really. Just the Magneto-playing guy saying the same line he said in the promo. That's it. And the fact that the holy grail was so underwhelming as to be simply a PERSON was just ghetto. She didn't even have any special powers or anything! The painting that is used as the poster for the movie - the Mona Lisa is not even a part of the movie, basically. And one more rant - near the end, when they're in Magneto's plane landing in England, the police are following the plane to the hangar after it lands. When the police arrive at the hangar, they find only Magneto in the plane and he drives off in his car, with Tom Hanks and the French chick hiding in the back. The director then thinks that the audience can understand obscure references and has posed analyses on Da Vinci's work (because they talk about it matter-of-factly), but this same viewer is incapable of deducing that Tom Hanks and the chick got out early and snuck into the car, so he does this recap type of video sequence. That's almost insulting. Overall the movie was underwhelming as a result of my expectations, and just about OK from an unbiased point of view.

X-Men 3: They had this old-school sign outside of the theater that said X-Man 3. Jokes. This movie wasn't bad. It seemed like a continuation of the other two, which you can see as bad or good. That pretty much sums up the movie then, if you liked the first two, you'd like this one too. I gotta say that whatever CG made Magneto and Xavier look younger is cool! Imagine the possibities: Connery as Bond again, David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight again. Aside from the CG though, Captain Jean-Luc Picard barely ages though, wouldn't you agree?

Over The Hedge: Not a bad movie. I went in with no expectations, and came out pleasantly surprised. It seems like they really try to push moral-based stories for animated movies. Why doesn't anyone try something a little more risque, more adult? Its a bigger, richer audience ya know! Those artistic idiots know jack about business. Anyways, the movie - had really nice lighting effects. Certain things were funny too - like their point of view on humans. Not bad.

Cars: Generally, animated movies are for kids and this is no exception. The plot is as thick as Niles - another movie about eschewing the good life and getting back to wholesome hick life. The animation though was fucking wicked. At times, it almost looked like claymation (but really smooth), which is cool. This was an OK movie.

The Omen: I guess this a remake, because I haven't seen the original. They say it is. Whatever. Julia Stiles is too young for her role. Her husband, the main character is DEAD. He is completely devoid of emotion and expression! He really sucked a lot. When you remake a movie, you wanna recreate the essence of it for a whole new generation. It seems to me that most of the shots were an exact copy of the original (because they don't appear modern, and the flow and screenplay is really different from the mainstream). It didn't work that well if you ask me. A couple of shots were downright cheezy - like when the main character sees his photographer friend die, he has a cheesed-out look of horror and the camera shakes violently for some reason. That so doesn't cut it in 2006. The movie itself wasn't that bad, but it didn't scare me either. It didn't effectively build the suspense and terror of the coming of the antichrist, either. I just found out that the movie had the biggest Tuesday opening of all time, bigger even than a Lord of the Rings movie. That's something, for sure, but the movie was just a bit better than OK.

Brace Yourself...

2006-05-28T12:23:00.000+08:00

Get ready to fall onto the floor laughing. Ready? Ok ... get this. There's a Chicago-based company selling SHARIAH-approved leather socks!!! WTF?

http://www.khuffs.com

Sample Size

2006-05-27T04:49:00.000+08:00

Made the mistake of watching "8 Shani" the other day. Seriously, like do these guys have ANY business OR creative sense at all? The film fucking fails on both counts! I mean, how can you fail on both? You can have movies that are stellar at the box office and suck in terms of substance, and you can have movies that are artsy and full of substance that fail at the box office. But what calibre of dumb fuck must a producer (and the whole unit for that matter) be to make shit like this? Here are just some thoughts of mine.

-The movie starts off and says verbatim "It is a work of fiction" as if it's talking about another piece of work. Splendid. I went in assuming it was an astonishing depiction of reality.

-The main guy, a typically fobby looking individual, is for some reason walking around in Matrixy clothing. Of course, everything looks knockoff and cheezy though. And its not a fashion scheme that is found throughout the movie or reflected in its surroundings like the Matrix either.

-The opening scene places the main guy at a fair in England, where he's just looking around until he sees an old man turn a corner. Apparently, this is bad and he chases the old man for quite some time. The old man is SUPPOSED to be a ghost/apparition/scary/Michael Jackson-like but he looks JUST LIKE any other person!

-If the point of view is from the main character's view, shouldn't he see something that distinguishes dead people from living ones? Otherwise how can he tell? And if the point of view is from the audience, then why can we see him at all? HE's the one who is supposed to be special and able to see dead people, not us.

-The entire spectacle at the fair was really about him losing his niece. They barely showed her! And then when he realized he lost her, he went home instead of looking for her!

-The white-guy cops speak with a wicked Indian accent. Charming.

-An apparition of a little boy is visiting the main character for some reason. Another person comes in, and the boy decides to leave, fluttering the curtains on the way out. The other person doesn't notice. How convenient.

-In these wicked movies, the main characters are so stunningly rich you wonder what you've done wrong all your life. This movie is no exception.

-There's an idiotic trend of shooting exterior shots at the real location (e.g. in England, in Southall) and interior shots in India. I can't even begin to tell you what's wrong with that, but I can start by telling you that they spelled Southall "South Hall" inside the Indian interior to the real Southall Police Station exterior.

-Fundamentally, there's something wrong when the main character goes into a church and talks about karma. For a guy who is supposed to be in the know, he doesn't seem to realize that Christianity doesn't include the ideas of karma, karmic retribution and rebirth.

-The church is obviously in India. How ... umm, multicultural.

-What's jokes about movies like this is the attention to detail, or lack thereof. Seriously, not even a little bit of thought goes into anything. All their clothes are straight off the rack, the crease lines are still visible!

-The cops enter the main character's house without a warrant. In many countries, this gives you the right to shoot them. But alas, in this movie, it means move aside, let them come and in and then suck up to them.

-The main character's friend at the library is trying to convince him that the world is powered by numbers and cites two examples of this as enough proof to convince him. She is under the impression that ALL tsunamis and related phenomenon happen on the 8th of the month. Since this idea forms the basis of the story, shouldn't someone have developed it just a little bit? I mean, a little believability can go a long way.

-The Southall-area library has Indian lights, India-like grills on the windows and barely any books on the wall. Very realistic setting!

-The 2006 Lexus IS350 sounds just like a '50s Ambassador. Don't get me started on this.

-The main character has a friend who lives in a castle or something. Judging by the signs on his "house," the building is actually a museum or something.

-The same castle-owning guy has a sister parading around the grounds in an ultra-slutty outfit for no reason in what seems like pretty cold weather. Its ok to have revealing dresses (nipples protruding at times) where the atmosphere is supposed to be scary and dark, but in sex/love scenes they have to be cut/censored and even the kisses are near-misses.

-Why the fuck are random people hanging around talking in the living room when the old man is on his deathbed?

-Of as high a caliber as the idea on which the movie is based, the concept of the main character's main supernatural-measurement device being an everyday compass is to say the least, absurd. The writers/producers (probably the same idiot) don't feel the need to explain this at all to the viewers.

-Why is the main characeter's friend like 20 years older than him? Who has like a 45-year old friend?

-The old man on his deathbed looks just fine. People with acting like that shouldn't be anywhere near the the fucking CITY where movies are shot.

-Dumb fuck main character enter's old guy's room and starts snapping pictures. The old guy is freaking out, but the main character doesn't feel the need to answer any of his questions.

-After visiting his friend's old man on his deathbed, the main character just says "is it alright if I go through your house?" What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Without any explanation or anything, I consider that to be a crazy-person comment. His friend then agrees!

-Who wears shoes in an English house?

-Inside the castle, the decor is exactly like the SET of an Indian hospital. How creative.

-Later on, main character pulls up the pictures he took of the old guy. Based on common ideas, I would have thought an apparition or at least orbs would have been visible. But no, not here. He sees the covers under which the old guy is lying MOVE on his computer screen. Can anyone explain to me how a common JPEG file can take on the properties of a video (with cheezy 3D effects) and then display right from Windows Picture and Fax Viewer?

-The castle-owning friend later decides to tell the main character off by saying that his money can buy the best doctors and "bring them here" in his helicopters and planes. Well firstly, duh ... money buys healthcare. Secondly, the main character is rich too! Thirdly, if you're not in England, chances are ... you'd take a plane to get there! Why does the dialogue of rich people in these movies reflect the dialogue of a person with newly acquired wealth? Like something the average poor Indian would love to say after coming into some cash?

-The main character deduces that there is a spirit haunting the old man, and the only way to get rid of it is a simple apology. I guess it wasn't important to show us how he knows who the spirit is and what the ideology being the apology is.

-No explanation is offered as to why the main character sees what he does. Just as well, why would you want to know structural details of the plot in a movie? Ridiculous concept, that.

-The main character at some point claims that he can see spirits 100s of years old. Why are they so rare then, only occassionally making appearances? Shouldn't he be able to see dino-ghosts as well then, since all the ghosts are present on earth?

-Mercedes S-class also sounds like a '50s Ambassador.

-Main character's friend at library reads really thin childish-looking books to draw her main (crazy) conclusions.

-Its only natural that all the chicks in the movie love the main character, right?

-when they step out into their garden in London, they actually step into a beautiful tropical paradise-looking garden, with swaying palm trees and all. Aw, just like London.

-Who the fuck covers their own ears when they scream?

-Who the fuck calls their sister "babe?"

-The main character is really disturbed about his ability to see dead people. Since that's the case, it really boggles the mind when we see him joking to his new girlfriend about seeing dead people. That makes no sense at all! He got kicked out of his house by his brother for his freaky side, the same one thats been bugging him since childhood, the same one that at times has caused him to consider suicide, and here he is JOKING that some people in a club are dead so that his girlfriend embarasses herself by checking. How realistic. I deal with all my fears in the same way too.

-The girl's ass is as wide as East London.

-Main character's brother's daughter is the worst child actor ever to come in front of a camera. The voice is not lip-synced and she speaks with a crazy Indian accent (presumably being born in Britain, this is impossible).

-According to the main character, you can't trust the weather in England. Ever heard of a forecast, buddy?

-Apparently the beach is RIGHT NEXT TO the London subway AND an inner-city park.

-Chick in red dress has stuffed her bra with either a 1982 Volvo GL or a 1976 Studebaker. The furthest tip of her bra sticks out approximately 8 inches!

-While (oh, its teatime, I shall say "whilst") walking through the park, every sound on the Indian sound guy's soundboard was used including but not limited to birds, cats, growls from lions, explosions, heavy breathing, sexy breathing, and of course 80s synthensis.

-The little girl sleeps on the same bed as her parents? Don't they ever fuck?

-The lights are fluctuating in the Indian interior of the British house always. Trustworthy Indian power supply I suppose. In England.

-In a dream, main guy's sister-in-law tries to poison her husband. However, even before he has drunk the poisoned tea his eyes are red and his skin has a very Indian powder coating. And there's a weird spotlight shining on him.

-Apparently if someone throws tea in your face, you'll have scarring and bleeding just as if it were acid.

-Lamps and things are supposed to be flying around the people, but you can see that they are suspended from a circular structure that is being rotated. And its better that way, lest we forget its a movie and freak out.

-The graphics of the spirits leaving the house is disturbing. Disturbing in that I have personally made better looking effects in my home videos.

-The guy says its "obvious" from the compass that supernatural entities exist. Almost fell onto the floor.

-"He is an evil." Actually rolling around on the floor over this.

-Main guy's monologue in the park has the shittiest lipsync ever (you'd think this industry would be perfect at this by now, lip-syncing regular dialogue and songs). Camera shakes as if Indian cameraman is having reactions to spicy curry eaten earlier.

-Nothing scary about woman in red dress, and nothing distinguishing other than her typically bad Indian acting.

-How come everyone is a FOB?

-Amongst all the hauntings, kicking-outings and generally freaky phenomenon, main character decides to fall in love and focus on that instead. He doesn't have place to live or shower, but he's IN LOVE. Yeah.

-The forests of London look strangely like the jungles of Mumbai.

-Woman in red dress dissapears with a really cool effect, a stop camera. I did this when I was in grade 7, where I had an object on my hand, stopped the camera, removed the object while keeping my hand stationary and then starting the camera again. Mine actually looked better!

-The main guy's GF is supposed to live in London, but they drive up to a house in a steamy, palm tree-infested setting. That must be South London, I guess.

-People are possessed, some have died, and these people find time to sex each other up.

-Do you really need to be naked for a seance? Being a straight guy, how can you NOT get a hardon when sitting next to a naked sexy chick?

-Conviently enough, guy's GF walks in on above-described seance.

-Who keeps saying "8" in a deep voice? The dictionaries should include this specific reference in their definition of cheese.

-Why do they refer to a chateau, or a cottage as a "farmhouse?" You might as well break out the dal and spill it over everything.

-When they go to the African psychic about the possession case, why are dolls floating around? Is supernatural stuff really that common? Man, I must really be dumb to miss it.

-The woman in the red dress, is a spirit, but can't walk through gates, walls or doors. She has to wait for them to open.

-Horses running around is now supernatural phenomena.

-There's a scene when a chick gets possessed and tries to strangle another. During this, why is EVERYONE's voice echoing?

-People flying around (being pushed around by spirits) is wicked ridiculous. A person hits a window, the window breaks, and they bounce FORWARD from this.

-The spirit of the woman is supposed to be on fire, but you can see its a fat, balding stuntman instead.

-Apparently all of the supernatural phenomena could have been stopped with a simple "sorry."

Over the course of the movie, the guy's abilities are of no advantage to anybody. He doesn't actually help in any way. Its amazing how people can invest in such filth but not in more innovative business projects.

The Eye of the Storm?

2006-05-24T02:25:00.000+08:00

Broadband municipal Wi-Fi networks are being deployed across the US, Japan and even (yes, I know ... its unbelievable) parts of Canada. Toronto is working on a blanket Wi-Fi network to be deployed in stages starting in December 2006. Telephone companies have hit on VoIP companies hard in the past, and have aggressively maintained what they reckon is their own turf. Phone companies did draw the line at PC-to-PC telephony (well they couldn't do much about it), but what will they do now that major cities in North America and Japan are adopting city-wide Wi-Fi that will be either cheap or very free?

Combine this municipal Wi-Fi with the advent of Wi-Fi Skype phones, as well as cell phones like mine that have Wi-Fi (and will soon run Skype), and we basically have free telephony! Is there even a need for a Verizon, Cingular, NTT DoCoMo or Rogers AT&T? I sense a huge war coming ... the phone companies vs. the governments (both provincial/state and federal). It'll be interesting to see what happens.

PS3 vs. XBOX 360, Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD

2006-05-11T20:40:00.000+08:00

Competition is usually a good thing, or so they say. However, I think most people agree that in the case of two competing household video formats, it may not be such a good thing. Constantly being compared to VHS vs. Betamax of yesteryear, this war IMO will take a totally different turn. I think people will just not care, and not buy (either one). Isn't that what people are doing now, just waiting for the formats to sort themselves out? Consumers aren't gonna care about which format is technically superior, or which studio is backing which format either. It all comes down to availability, price and testifiable quality. Sony has said that its first Blue-Ray DVDs, or BD-something as they're supposed to be called, won't have the limited-resolution thing in the beginning, which I think may give them another advantage. I've heard people on tech podcasts say that it might come down to the PS3's popularity, but I don't really think a system aimed at 20-30 year olds is gonna affect the entire industry at large. Looking at Sony's dominance in movies, music and electronics, I think I'd bet on Blu-Ray at this point. They're very good with branding, and just because they had one failure in the past (BetaMax), it doesn't mean that it'll necessarily happen again in a showdown. Handycam, Walkman, Playstation, Sony Pictures, Sony Music, WEGA, BRAVIA and Trinitron are just some examples of Sony's incredible power of branding.

Winner: Blu-Ray

Microsoft, in either an attempt to be more competitive or more stupid wants to have an HD-DVD addon device for the XBOX 360. I think its fucking idiotic for them to demand customers spend $500 on a new system that they link will last them some time, only to have an all-new essential HD-DVD addon cost them another $200 or whatever. I smell the putrid odour of rejection, as was smelled when the Sega CD debuted, and other "addon" CD systems. Its unlikely that the addon will improve the XBOX 360's performance in any way, and seems to be more of a "my balls-are-bigger-than-your-balls" attitude towards the PS3. If its mainly for movies, then ... dare I say ... isn't buying a smooth-running standalone player better than a box that connects to your XBOX 360 for clunky video playback? I think that Sony is very smart, over-hyping their products before debut. Just the fact that there are people waiting for the PS3, and talking about its debut shows that the XBOX 360 will be best known as an also-ran.

Winner: Sony PS3

Nokia N80 review!

2006-05-11T17:27:00.000+08:00

I picked up my Nokia N80 a few days ago, and have been playing with it since then. I've been waiting a while to make this purchase, as many others have, because if you go by specs, this is the phone of all phones. The spec sheet read small, sliding form factor, 3.2-megapixel camera (fixed focus), TV-quality video recording, front VGA camera, Symbian 9 3rd edition operating system, and most exciting of all were the connection options ... infrared, bluetooth, GPRS, EDGE, 3G and .... (drum roll) Wi-Fi! That's right, this phone was supposed to have WLAN connectivity built in, so you could use it anywhere a hotspot existed. On top of all that, this was to be one of the few phones to be quadband GSM, covering both the American GSM bands and the rest of the world's. Let's see how it fared...

As exciting as the idea of having Wi-Fi in your pocket was, it wouldn't be very effective unless you had a great browser and a screen that's capable of displaying what you need. Tech geeks will recall that SSR (small screen rendering) made quite a buzz when Opera showed it off proudly in their Opera for Symbian and later Opera Mini browsers, but if you've ever used it, you'd know its not all that effective for a significant portion of the internet. While its true it gives you ease-of-use in that it rearranges given web pages to fit the width of the screen you're using, you can't really do much with sites that use frames, or Java, or Flash, or other plugins. Its basically not good enough to be a desktop replacement. Enter the new Nokia browser, and its dominant partner, the 352x416 screen. Nokia has been very cheap with the screens in their smartphones for some time now - consider that the Nokia N70 (oooh ... an N-series phone!) has the same screen resolution as the original smartphone, the 7650. Now that's not much of a jump for the user, is it? That screen, that has been present on all Nokia Symbian devices until the N90 had just 36,256 pixels to work with. Even if you had Wi-Fi on that (like on the N91, a useless, out-of-date phone if there ever was one) you couldn't really use the 'Net effectively. You'd be scrolling all over the place all day long. And this was while other competitors had much better screens ... my old S700i had a 320x240 screen, as do many Samsungs and other brands. Even Motorola, the most American (read: laziest) of all brands. Finally someone at Nokia woke up and decided to do something. This new screen is 2.1" diagonally, but has an astounding resolution of 352x416, or 146,432 pixels. More than 4 times sharper than the old Nokia screens, this one is unlike any you have ever seen. This is the very first LCD I've seen that you can't see the pixels on, at least with the naked eye. You can try real hard, but you can't see anything. Just crystal clear perfection - the fonts are shown with incredible smoothness. Once you see this screen, you'll wish all the other screens you have around you had the same pixel density, which by the way, is around 10,000 pixels per square centimeter! When you combine this with the new browser, which renders every page as it was originally intended (plugins and all), the internet experience is superb. It has a mouse pointer that, in my opinion, works very well. Better than a touchscreen with stylus, because its more accurate. The mini-map feature is useful on large pages as well. I like this browser so much, I've already started to transfer my bookmarks to it, and being open-source, it will probably get continuous improvement from developers and enthusiasts alike.

A problem I faced with previous smartphones I had was that they were actually pretty ineffective at work. Viewing Word, Excel, Powerpoint or PDF documents was essentially a gimmick, partly because the screen couldn't display the necessary information, and partly because the memory couldn't handle a lot of documents. I found this to be of particularly bad design, because Samsung's D600, while not a smartphone, could load a 20 MB PDF in 2 seconds. And it would be reasonably useful on the 320x240 screen, unlike Nokias. So what were Nokia's smartphones really good for? Bulkier, with crappier battery life than standard phones, I found they didn't do much other than restart all the time. So for everyday use, I made a Sony Ericsson W800i my phone, and it served its purpose very well. Finally, with this iteration, Nokia has improved on all the complaints I had with their previous smartphones. It is now fully capable of using the Word/Excel/Powerpoint viewers, with a PDF viewer on the way. I really hope its capable of loading 20 MB+ PDFs, because most digital magazines are at least that much. The combination of Wi-Fi and the new screen really make it a competent internet device as well. It rendered every page I asked it to without complaint. I frankly wasn't expecting it to load my university's course materials download page, because it wouldn't open with my Windows Mobile-powered O2 Mini, but not only did it load, it looked awesome! I was able to download lecture notes and view them directly on the device - very handy. I also went to pages that had embedded media, which played perfectly as well. I loved how it has an RSS reader built in. If someone can adapt this to automatically download podcasts, then we are SO in motion! Nonetheless, at least I can check when I have new podcasts to download, after which I can just proceed to download them. I noticed something while I was doing that, though - the Wi-Fi on this device is no less than a notebook! It was downloading as fast as my PC would! The range is also quite decent, comparable to a notebook. The interesting thing is that it has a page for SIP VoIP configuration. I put in settings for Gizmo, but I couldn't get it to work - mainly because I don't know how to initiate a VoIP call. If anyone knows how to get this to work, let me know.
Nokia is about to release an AVC codec for S60 3rd edition devices like the N80, so that you can view standard MPEGs and all that. That'll be really good, because someone will be able to do the plugins for the browser (most of it is open source) and then there'll be no difference at all.
S60 3rd edition is a vast improvement on the last version. The way it looks and feels is like Windows XP versus Windows 3.11. It has some good programs built in too, like a music player that works pretty well. The only issue is that there isn't much software for this version yet. I'll be looking forward to Agile Messenger and Skype for sure.
Physically, the device is MUCH smaller than I expected. Its the smallest smartphone I've seen, in fact. Its a little thick looking, but thats excusable when you see the 3.2-megapixel camera at the back. The standard of the slider market is Samsung, and sadly, this phone's slider is not as good. Samsung's are spring-loaded, so when you push up a little bit, it will travel the entire distance. With this, you have to push up all the way, but it at least feels reasonably smooth. I tried playing with the N91's slider, and that was horrendous! Its like forcing it along rails, and the sound it makes will remind you of an old train trying to stop (and you can almost picture sparks from the slider's rails). That thing costs so much and performs so crappy - I don't know what Nokia was thinking releasing that recently. There is a little bit of play horizontally when the slider is closed, but its not enough to bother me (I'm easily bothered by these things). I do think the design itself could have been a little better, because the squarish edges really make it easy for the slider to open in your pocket. Rounded edges would have reduced this a lot, and I suspect this is why Samsung sliders are built that way. Still, its the most attractive smartphone to ever come out of Nokia, and given the capabilities it has, the little niggles I have can be excused.

The camera is a 3.2-megapixel, fixed focus unit with macro mode. Its not as good as your average 3-megapixel digital camera, so it won't replace it totally. Still, the shots are a bit better than the K750i/W800i which was the king of the camera phone hill until now, so in a way, this is one of the best camera phones on the market at the moment. It did win some imaging award from some European company, but who cares about Europe, really (say "really" with a British accent)? The video is quite decent, at 352x288, 15 frames per second. If you don't pan a lot, it looks decent enough on a TV. It has an image stabilizer which I tested out and found to work very well. We're getting closer to eliminating the videocamera, I think. Sony Ericsson has a phone, the W900i that can take video at a full 30 fps thanks to an ATi chip. That is totally decent video, and I can just see Handycam-branded Sony Ericsson models in the future shooting in 720x480 anamorphic video, with a "burn to DVD" button in the SE PC suite.

Although there is a rumoured N83 coming out, with a 5-megapixel autofocus camera and a 4 GB hard disk built in, I don't really see a phone making huge strides over this one for some time. While the hard disk provides additional storage, which is good, considering this phone has 3G, WiFi and can download fast (and Bit Torrent clients are being made), 4 GB is too low for a hard disk that uses a large amount of space and energy and makes the phone susceptible to damage. And the N91's hard disk doesn't work below zero, so my countrymates will probably have an obscenity in response to that. Plus, consider that they already have 2 GB memory cards for this phone, which will probably swell in a few months. They have 8 and 16 GB Sony Memory Sticks (at least in Japan), so a 4 GB HDD won't cut it. The 5 megapixel camera is definitely welcome, though. That's it for now, I'll probably have additional posts about the device as I learn more. Yalla bye-bye!

Lost ...

2006-05-01T12:37:00.000+08:00

I really like watching Lost. I think many North Americans actually like the idea of being "lost" on some remote island. Even more, I think most people love a great mystery. I know I do. Here's a little story: When I was a wee little boy about 14 or so, I went to some event that took place at a high school far away. I was with my cousin, and we took off from the gym (where the event was being held) and found our way to the 2nd floor (to Brits and Asians, the 1st floor). We wanted to feel like we were snooping around or something, as if we were junior Macgyver meets Michael Knight meets James Bond type of guys. I had a paperclip which I was pretending to pick locks with and my cousin was probably trying to do the same (I was the hero from my perspective, so I don't remember much about the background "actors"). We got to the staff room, where I tried my lock-picking skills and magically enough the door opened! Well, I guess somebody forgot to lock it, but in that moment, we just pretended that we were responsible for the unlocking. We went inside, and I guess every kid wants to check out what the staff room is like, so we found it intriguing. There were sofas, a TV, a full kitchen and other stuff too. Our adrenaline was really pumping at this stage, so we decided that the best thing to do was to make ourselves comfortable. We grabbed drinks from the fridge and sat down in front of the TV. Just as we were about to turn it on, somebody was unlocking the door that we had locked behind us. We quickly hid behind a wall, and some teacher walked in!!! We waited until his back was turned and then bolted out as fast as we could, never looking back.

Right, then. Back to Lost. I recently watched the 2nd season finale. It was OK I guess, but I think I was expecting more answers. I watched most of Lost non-stop (Go BitTorrent!) so I was able to detect continuity issues and such easily. The first season of Lost started slowly, didn't develop much until the last few episodes where it really picked up. The second season also started with a bang, and then really slowed down. I think from about halfway the second season has been slow, and has really begun to lose its lustre. I wasn't interested in Ana Lucia at all (I hate the chick who plays
her), and the fact that she and Libby are dead feel like they were a waste of my time.

Some other points:

They have COMPLETELY forgotten about the other hatch where the other survivors of the crash lived, and where Claire was taken when she was pregnant.

The first time Locke experienced lockdown in the hatch, nothing shook and went berserk. What happened to the map that was displayed? Why didn't he try to grab a glimpse of it again?

The "others" didn't care much for the crazy looking sky during the lockdown.

How come nobody noticed the electromagnetic properties at the hatch other than Mr. Eko? Why didn't Eko share that information with Locke, since he was having such a hard time convincing him to push the button?

Yeah, I'm getting bored now, but check out the relationships diagram I have and lemme know if I missed something.

The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-01T12:28:00.000+08:00

Sucked. Tom Hanks didn't get much of a chance to pull off acting, which was a dissapointment. Certain things were SO unnecessary. His fear of elevators - why include this shit in the movie? Also, towards the end, when they arrive in London by plane and the police search the plane and don't find Tom Hanks and the French chick because they're hiding in the getaway car, isn't it obvious that they got out before the police got there? Why did they have to show them getting out early to sneak in the car? On one hand, we have guys who can crack abstract codes which the viewer is supposed to follow, but somehow, this same viewer can't understand how they could have gotten out of the plane before the police got there. Right.

The promos made it seem like there's a huge conspiracy "at foot," which really made me wanna see the movie. You see, I love a good cover-up. But oh, how this movie dissapointed. The big secret was already told in the teaser trailers, and the most dramatic scene, too. The movie didn't have any huge mysteries, nor did it have big action or big dialogues. And why did Silas have those ugly, obvious contact lenses? What was the significance of him injuring himself? I mean, I understand why he did it ... I just don't understand why its relevant to the movie.

And DUH ... it was pretty obvious who was going to be Jesus' last living descendant. I just wanna know how an African-Arab bloodline became French.

Fisher-Price version of the cartoons vs. so-called Muslims

2006-02-19T15:13:00.000+08:00

This guy's got a watered-down, sugar-coated version of what many people believe is the simple and underlying truth. Check it out.

http://ruchador.com/2006/02/17

Toyota is now the world's largest, happiest, and richest carmaker!

2006-02-03T07:58:00.000+08:00

A lot of Americans are pretty pissed off now that Toyota is the world's largest carmaker. A lot of this is due to Toyota owning US roads - the Camry has been the best selling car in the US 8 out of the last 9 years. So what we have is people on TV, radio and internet telling Americans to "buy American." Well, they've been doing this since the Japanese started making a dent in the US market in the 70s, but they're more active now than ever. Know what these people are saying? They're saying that the MEDIA has brainwashed people into buying Toyota. They're saying that GM products are AS GOOD as Toyota and other Japanese brands. Let me clarify reality for these people. Firstly, dump the conspiracy theories. This isn't fucking Enemy of the State. The Japanese are not invading with their video games, electronics and cars. It just so happens that Japan is the world's second largest economy and they excel in the art of manufacturing (anything).

Stupid hicks claim that GM is doing well on current JD Power & Associates studies (they rank initial and long-term quality amongst other things). WRONG. Its true that GM is doing better than it was, but is it doing better than Toyota? No. And how long has Toyota kept its place at the top? How long has GM been at its better-than-before position? Seems like just ... no, wait ... it actually IS yesterday.

I know the American media sucks for a lot of things, like their bias on political and religious things, but they're not biased when it comes to cars. Anyone making this claim really doesn't know cars very well, and probably hasn't driven a non-American car much. Even if they have, their glasses of bias would distort everything. Lets suppose I believe their claim that American media is biased. What about Canadian media? British media? Japanese media? Now the whole world is both biased and brainwashed? Have you ever seen Top Gear, the British TV show that has 250 million viewers worldwide? Are they biased too? What about Fifth Gear? Best Motoring?

Some guy on some page says he doesn't like it when people say that American brands have no resale value. He says that a new Cavalier costs 16k whereas a Corolla costs 23k, and later on the Cavalier is 9k and the Corolla is 16k, and the difference in both is 7k. Well my friend (not), it doesn't work that way. Not only are those resale values horribly biased, but even if it were to be true, 7k is a smaller fraction of 23k than it is of 16k. And if I have to lose the same amount (like he's saying), why wouldn't I go for the higher-quality, quieter, smoother, better-built, more efficient, more intelligent car that also happens to be the best-selling car of all time? If Americans are being brainwashed into buying Toyota, what about the rest of the world? All of Canada, Mexico, Europe, Asia and Africa are being brainwashed too?

So a guy says "there's nothing wrong with my 20k malibu ... it does everything a BMW does on public roads." Now, I know its early, but this may well be THE dumb-fuck comment of 2006. Does this guy really think his car is as safe, as comfortable, as responsive and as intelligent as the BMW? Not much more needs to be said here, except that there's a reason BMW has the highest resale value in North America.

Another guy says that similar-priced GM cars are a "way" better value than their Japanese counterparts, and as an example, he mentions the Pontiac Bonneville GXP vs. the Infiniti G35 because "it has a V8". Idiotic hick perception that a V8 is "better." The GXP has a 4.6-liter, 275 horsepower V8 and does 0-60 in 6.9 seconds. The G35 has a 3.5-liter, 298 horsepower which propels it to 60 in 5.9 seconds, while doing better mileage. So, you say a V8 is better? As definitively as my right ball is superior to my left ball. Oh, and as for the similar price, the G35 is 3 grand less.

Nobody wants to buy American, because American cars suck. Its that simple. For all of their claims that they've improved and gotten better and this and that, its like believing a pathological liar saying that s/he's telling the truth. Fact is, a lot of people in the US have been scarred by buying American at some point in the past. And no one wants to be burned again on the second-most important purchase of their lives. You can't just tell people to move into a crappier house, just because its American and the better house is built by the Japanese. Nobody in the developed world is about to lower their living standard for no justifiable reason.

And just look at what they say is being made better. The Malibu is the car thats supposed to compete with the Camry and Accord. Both the Japanese cars have more powerful, more economical, quieter and freer-revving engines than the American, attached to 5-speed automatics instead of a 4-speed like the Malibu. And how fugly is the Malibu? Have you ever seen an uglier sedan? What have the Americans made that is considered cool? Their "star" car, the Corvette, absolutely blows chunks when compared to European and Japanese sports cars. You say its cheaper? Well, yeah ... like President's Choice Cola is cheaper than real Coke. When have they innovated ... variable valve timing systems (like VTEC), all-aluminum monocoque construction, or anything for that matter?

Some hick said that Toyota was lucky with its timing of the introduction of the hybrid cars. Toyota is dominating hybrid cars, but this idiot says GM was first to the market with hybrid cars. Wrong, actually. It was a fully electric car, the EV1. It could only drive about 20 minutes on a charge. And (to that fucking idiot), in marketing, product positioning and timing (as a part of it) is everything. Its not by accident that Toyota decided to unleash hybrids. As a fact, Toyota spends 3 times more on research and development than the next company - Ferrari, incidentally. So duh - their cars are better.

Just fucking learn to live with it ->the Japanese are better at building just about everything (except steaks ... mmmmmmm ... steak).

Review: Motorola H700 Bluetooth Headset

2006-01-22T17:49:00.000+08:00

I just recieved one of these as a gift from my girlfriend. I gotta say, its pretty cool. Since I've never had a bluetooth headset before, the coolness factor definitely affects the way I see this thing. Its sexy, small and light with a long-lasting battery. It pairs very easily with any bluetooth phone, but I bought it also to use with my computer. Here I encountered a bump. The included manual is incredibly vague and generic, and includes no instructions whatsoever to pair with a PC. I tried everything, and I couldn't get it to actually work. It was paired and everything, but I wouldn't hear sound. This is the kicker ... wanna know why it wasn't working? You have to press the call button on the headset itself. Nowhere in the entire fucking manual or on Motorola's website does it say anything about this. You don't have to press the button when pairing with a phone, so why with a PC? Anyways, hitch aside, it worked well after that. Using the latest version of Skype, conversations with friends from the other side of the world were JUST like using a regular phone. Since this headset is smaller and better looking than others, they charge a bit more for it. The slightly high price, combined with the useless manual afford the H700 an 8.5/10 in my book.

Review: Logitech MX1000 Cordless Laser Mouse

2006-01-22T17:46:00.000+08:00

My old cordless optical mouse, the MX700 was working fine after two years of abuse until it started seeing single-clicks as double-clicks. This, as you can imagine, was annoying. I opened that thing up and cleaned it, but that didn't do jack. Now I know that the MX700 had withstood years of abuse and neglect, being dropped daily an average of 2.6 times, but I couldn't for the life of me see what would make that tiny little sensor under the button register one click as two. Well, I gave up trying and decided to spring for a new mouse. I was thinking I'd try to keep costs down, but once you've gone cordless, you don't really wanna go back, especially when the cordless one you've had makes recharging as easy as dropping the mouse in its cradle. Looking around, I basically saw two choices - Microsoft and Logitech. Generally, Logitech has served me well, but right away the MS mice were disqualified because they didn't include built-in chargers. You have to physically remove the batteries, charge them, and then put them back. For this, I'd need to buy (expensive) rechargeable batteries + a charger. I don't think thats happening, and I don't think I'm gonna be buying AAs on a daily basis either. So I looked at what Logitech had to offer, and it came down to the MX1000 or the G7. Even though the G7 had a better sensor, I didn't need the additional DPI because I'm a very casual gamer, if a gamer at all. It also looked EXACTLY the same as the MX700, something which I wanted a change from. The MX1000 is bigger and wider, and just generally looks better. Therefore, I chose the MX1000. It has much better precision and battery life than the MX700, and looks and feels better. Pricewise, in Malaysia this thing costs way too much, much more than in Canada. Because of this reason alone, I give it a 9/10.

I've been away for a while ...

2006-01-22T17:45:00.000+08:00

I didn't update for a while because I was having exams. Students usually have this excuse to keep them away from certain things, but its as genuine as it gets in my case. You see, the way I study, I uh ... don't. I basically don't study anything all semester long, and then cram like crazy in the few days before the exam. Now, this may seem like a ridiculous, lazy way to do things, but in fact it is quite the opposite. It requires incredible dedication, focus and time management. It is an art, and it requires years of training and hours of meditation. Its almost Zen-like. Seriously. Now, when the exam period has started, I usually take a good look at the order of my exams, and determine an order based on necessity (to study). Once I've done that, the hours of the day as I understand them are forgotten, and the day takes on a new shape. Since studying is something, that, for normal people is both tiring and boring, it must be balanced with something else. Usually I recommend sleep, whether you're sleepy or not. Even if you're not, lying down with your eyes closed relaxes the body, and your mind is free to do whatever it wants. The only rule here is not to worry about studying or exams. You have to predetermine how much time you're spending studying and breaking. Suppose I have an exam tomorrow. I calculate that I have 30 hours till the point where I have to get up to go to the exam. I have fifteen chapters to study. A quick calculation reveals that i have a maximum of two hours per chapter, but this is not really possible given human limitations. See, you don't really wanna be cramming like mad, only to fall asleep in the exam. Trust me, it happens. My best friend fell asleep in his first year CS exam, mouth open, drool dripping and all. Back to the time thing. With 30 hours, what you wanna do is study 15 hours - 1 per chapter, with 1 hour breaks in between. If you're a stamina star, try 2 and 2. If you find that you need more study time, reduce your breaks, but only to a point.

I have found that the biggest problem people face when an exam is near (and they don't know much) is the fear itself. They worry so much about not knowing anything, not having time, and telling themselves they can't learn a whole semester in 72 hours that it ends up being a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Think of it this way ... if you studied an hour a day throughout the semester, how much would it add up to? Its around the same as the cram hours, and thats why you can get away with it. Try it on your next exam, but before you do that, make sure you write down on paper that you don't hold me or my instructions responsible for the consequences of your actions.

Joey pretty much sucks

2006-01-16T06:52:00.000+08:00

Friends had six main characters, and it can be argued that the show had its popularity as a result of the interaction between them, as well as both the inter- and intra-relationships. Joey has just one of these characters, and he's arguable the most fluffed-out, flattest character from Friends. In his own show, the character of Joey is still flat, and has no depth to him at all! We all know guys love food and girls, and this doesn't need to be driven into our head episode after episode, especially since we've seen all this before on Friends. What's worse is the use of some of the same jokes - one of the episodes has Joey's nephew on the phone with his (almost elderly) girlfriend, and he's saying "no, you hang up...you didn't hang up either!" This joke is a straight pull from a 2nd season Friends episode where Ross is talking to Julie. There are more instances of this, but I'm strugglign to come up with specific examples at this precise moment.

Its amazing what's on TV nowadays. Many people, including me, believe that Seinfeld was the best show on TV, and much of what was good on TV is now gone, except for The Simpsons which is still surprisingly fresh and funny. Why is this? Is it because we as a Western civilization have done everything there is to do on TV? History shows us that we do pass through unique phases in our TV-watching, and the sitcom is a very long-running type of show. Reality TV for example, was incredibly short-lived before people moved on (or back).

I used to criticize Indian media for trying to follow a "formula" of success in movies and TV, but it seems American media can have a finger pointed at them for the very same problem. Remember all those cheezy Knight Rider wannabe shows? Viper and Knight Rider: Something are just two that come to mind. I think that Joey too, in its spinoff form is trying to do that too, and due to the lack of availability is doing alright. I really wasn't expecting Joey to last this long. The same goes for The OC, too. This show had some promise in the first few episodes, and then just became a soap opera for people who don't watch soaps.

Prologue from "The field where I died"

2006-01-06T11:43:00.000+08:00

Another cool prologue from the X-files:

At times I almost dream, I too have spent a life this age has wiped, and tread once more familiar paths. Per chance I perished in an arrogant self-reliance an age ago, and in that act of prayer for one more chance went up so earnest. So instinct with better light let in by death, that life was blotted not so completely, but scattered wrecks enough of it to remain dim memories, as now , unseens once more. Once more the goal in sight again.

My take on the Bugatti Veyron 16.4

2006-01-02T06:30:00.000+08:00

The Bugatti Veyron 16.4 has been unleashed on the world, and apparently it has done what it set out to do - dethrone the Mclaren F1 as the fastest production road going model ever. Its been clocked at 253 mph, significantly more than the 241.3 mph served up by the F1. To be honest though, I'm not very impressed with it.

To begin with, I can't figure out why it costs what it does. 1.3 million USD for this car is too much; its being priced at what they think its worth, not as a function of its cost. The engine, a quad-turbocharged W-16 is a variant of other engines offered in the VW family lines, so there's no extra special cost there. They haven't spent money on crazy exotic materials to keep the weight (which there's plenty of) down. So why the big money - for status?

The car doesn't dethrone the mighty F1 in my book for many reasons. The approach to building this car was totally wrong. They added all kinds of shit, used common materials and smack-bang, the weight of the car ended up at just under 4200 lbs. Do you have any idea how much that is? Thats SUV terrority, folks! So to make this car go really fast, they put in an 8-liter 16 cylinder engine, then quad turbocharged it. Fuel economy, as a term, has to be written as fuel burn rate in liters per second to be more accurate. I'm sure a 747-400D, loaded with 568 passengers and their cargo is a bit better on gas.

And for all those turbochargers and cylinders, and all that displacement, they manage a specific output of ... 123 hp/L. The S2000 has a specific output of 120 hp/L without any turbochargers, and the BMW M5 even has 102 hp/L without turbos. So basically, good engine engineering isn't there.

I'll only sorta agree with the decision to go with AWD as well. Its been shown that AWD, at least the AWD that Audi has, isn't that great around the track. It also adds weight and makes the car feel sluggish, and definitely contributes to understeer. Still, the car needs the top speed crown, so I'm guessing the AWD *MIGHT* help stability at that speed. Last I checked though, top fuel dragsters and rocket cars didn't use AWD.

If we compare this car to the Mclaren F1, a clear winner emerges in terms of engineering - the F1. Gordon Murray personally oversaw every design aspect of the car, and when one man with a dream does that ... something special happens. The Mclaren F1 was a whopping 1600 lbs lighter than the Veyron, something accomplished with extensive use of carbon fiber and titanium. The engine was custom built by BMW, a 627 hp unit of 6.1 liters in size. Specific output - 103 hp/L. It used gold heat reflectors all around the engine bay. The custom molded chassis was so safe, 2 customers walked away from 200 mph crashes without a scratch. The engine was bolted directly to the chassis, just like F1 cars. It didn't compromise anything with space for 3, their luggage, a Kenwood sound system and more. The car's computer had a modem that could call up the factory from anywhere in the world and perform diagnostic checks. All this, in 1990.

Am I being told that the difference an additional 1600 lbs, 360 hp, 4 cylinders, 4 turbochargers and 16 years of progress make are an additional 11.7 mph and a helluva lot more fuel being consumed? Shame on you, auto industry.

a DEGREE in digital art? I think not...

2006-01-02T03:49:00.000+08:00

I recently read another blog (it was like cheating on my own blog) blasting Limkok Wing University College. The address is:

http://gnitia.blogspot.com/2005/12/limkokwing-unicoll-what-u-c-is-not.html

This chick blasts it for mediocre construction, but hey, seriously .... like MMU's better? In the lecture rooms (a whopping 5 of them) the roof is lumpy from a leaky ceiling too, and the air conditioning isn't always working. More about MMU in another post.

Some people hate on LKW because it has the status of a university college. The university college designation is one that means different things in different countries, but in England, the country that Malaysia usually tries to imitate, it denotes an institution that has degree-granting power, and may carry out research, but is not recognized as a university. Using the "university college" title requires government approval, and usually the institution tries to lobby for full university status, because of an apparently lower prestige level. That aside, unlike the Brits, we Canadians aren't obsessed with status and prestige. We recognize what should be a university, and what shouldn't, and in some cases, the results may surprise you. In many fields, its much better to go to college because of the hands-on training rather than useless ideologies and theory (mechanic's training is one such field). Similarly, LKW's main programs are art-based, like the faculty of creative multimedia at MMU, and in my opinion should not be degree programs by any stretch of the imagination. I don't think any OECD country would recognize skills training as a degree, and thats precisely what you get with "digital" art. They teach you how to use Photoshop and all the Macromedia junk. I don't see how this "degree" (sarcastic intonation) will actually help much either. The stuff they teach at MMU is ridiculous. In the first year, they teach you that multimedia is made up of text, animation, graphics, sound and video. And then, they INTRODUCE you to the "world of computers." They assume that the students coming in have never seen, heard or touched a computer. When they finish their degree, they'll only be marginally competitive in the Malaysian employee market, and in the international market, they'll be like fish bait to a bloodthirsty great white shark. There's plenty of freelancing individuals who can do stuff waaaaaaaaaaay better than these MMU grads, and they're sitting on their asses because of a lack of jobs. What are these universities doing, having their students believe that there's a big future in "digital art?" I've been told developing countries have more of a market for web designers and the like, but how big can it be? Are there actually any permanent jobs, or just some 1-time jobs? How long can the stream of 1-time jobs last? Whatever the case may be, let a business student explain to you why a market with negative or nil growth is a bad one. Maybe if these "digital artists" had some IT in them, they might stand a chance. Cuz lets say a startup or newish shipping company wants to go online. They can have a company design their website, and then what? They need the IT guys for the backbone, one that needs continuous maintenance and upgrading. The visual shell of the website is such an insignificant portion that I think all these poor souls will have to try and apply for Singaporean immigration so that they can get unemployment insurance.

Welcoming the new year in Malaysia

2006-01-02T03:29:00.000+08:00

I went down to KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Center, the popular name for the Petronas Twin Towers) for new year's day celebrations. I went a bit early to have dinner with my fiancee and catch a movie, so I missed the rush there. All in all, it wasn't bad. An ultra-ostentatious display of fireworks set off the new year with a bang and a lot of smoke, which later led to a pretty mad dash leading away from the tallest buildings in the world. I call the fireworks display ostentatious because it was very impressive, and in a way, over the top. They had massive fireworks going for over 6 minutes in the same spot, most of which were overlapping so that there was no break. It finished off with an incredible high-altitude show that looked like rain made of fire (I know I sound like "little bear" or some other native Indian, but thats the best description I can think of). That was the impressive part, the part they fucked up was reduced visibility due to the single fixed position. Because of all the non-stop fireworks, a massive cloud of smoke developed - to a point where the fireworks were almost not visible from halfway onwards. It was like I was in a plane watching the lighting in the clouds. There was also no huge countdown, or a ball dropping - both of which I expected. Also absent were drunken teenagers and rioting immigrants, although standard immigrants were present, as were guys from Thailand pushing water bottles and shit that lights up (the actual shit lights up, the shit doesn't light YOU up). When I got back home, I found an outdoor rave party going on in a park not far from my condo. While I appreciated the speakers they had (I could hear the bass well over a kilometer away), I didn't appreciate the thumping much while trying to sleep. Happy new year, friends.

Tall buildings & corruption, side by side

2006-01-02T03:01:00.000+08:00

What's up with the Malaysian construction industry? Can someone tell me how a place as new as MMU Cyberjaya can look as old as it does? Why is it that builders insist on building the same way people built shit back in the day? Just a bunch of homemade bricks and concrete, covered up by a bunch of plaster. Not many power ports or phone ports, and no need to conceal anything - be it power cables, pipes, whatever. No hot water at all the taps. What is this, the 11th century? The fabled people of Atlantis even had hot and cold running water. And even though Malaysians see the advantage of central air conditioning in offices and bigger buildings, they refuse to use it in residential housing, and even retail construction to some extent. Why the bloodclot do you wanna spend like 5 times as much electricity to cool the same area? And why are you people okay with vastly differing temperature and humidity levels throughout the house, along with insects and shit? Advantages - cheaper on electricity, guarantees fresh air cycling throughout the whole house, ultimate cleanliness, comfortable temperature and humidity throughout the house, protection from dengue-carrying mosquitoes, lizards and other shit and a lot more. Disadvantages - none, not even cost. Central AC can be integrated for a minimal cost at the time of building.

I think the problem lies in the way Malaysian people, and to an extent Asian people (minus Japan and nowadays Singapore) don't "demand." They're okay if a company pushes them around. They're okay if things aren't done on time, or the way they want. In situations where North Americans would be filing lawsuits, Malaysians gladly accept whatever's coming their way. The whole concept follows to just being okay with whatever is happening. If their's a lizard on the wall inside your house, just kill it. There's no need to think of a better, more permanent solution to prevent it from being there in the first place. The clothes that you hung out to dry aren't dry yet because of the humidity? No problem - just leave them out longer. There's no need for a dryer. As cool as KL looks with its impressive skyline, massive Petronas twin towers and immaculate highways, the idea of progress hasn't yet reached the people.

Don't get me wrong, I love Malaysia and I love lots of things about their culture too. But you're wondering why they have the world's tallest twin towers with hardcore police brutality and prostitution a kilometer away, you need to look deep. The Malaysians have infrastructure nailed, no question there. Social development still has a ways to go.

Mini-Review: Sony Ericsson K600i

2005-12-31T00:37:00.000+08:00

I got my hands on this little number recently when we bought it for my fiancee's parents. Since she has a 3G phone, we figured it'd be good if her parents had one too so that they can video call each other. I chose this model over others because its small, elegant and easy to use compared to Symbian-powered Nokias. Its a steal at RM 900 too, just about $290 CDN.

The appearance of the K600i is wicked. Its plastic, but anyone would be fooled into thinking its metal. Needless to say, the fit and finish is top-notch. Overall, the phone looks very stylish, but for the size of the phone, the display is a bit small. The resolution is 206x176 which is pretty standard these days. Its a little more colourful than most with 262k ability, but the difference is hardly noticeable. Weirdly enough, the screen should be identical to my W800i, but its not. The colours are actually very different. Slightly blue-hinged I think. From what I understand, this is a result of backlight difference rather than LCD. The buttons look real cool too, with the made-of-metal look and all, and because they're flush with the front face. This actually presents a problem though when you use them. Because of their flush mounting, they're a little harder to push than most people are used to. I read about this issue in other reviews, but I didn't realize its this prominent. The K600i uses the older style connectors at the bottom (not the newer ones found on the walkman series), which, in a way is good because you can charge and use the included handsfree at the same time.

The usage of the K600i is more or less just like any other recent Sony Ericsson phone. However, it doesn't have some of the new updates my W800i has. The animation in the menus is toned down a little, somewhere between the K700i and the W800i. I don't think it gives you the option to assign an MP3 as your SMS tone. Minor differences, but since its still sold as a new-ish phone on the market, the firmware should be the same as all the new SE phones. The biggest issue this phone has is that there is no expandable memory. For shame, because otherwise I think this model could have sold quite well. Speaking of sales, I haven't looked at exact number but I think the K600i is selling poorly. I base this on the ever-dropping price. When it first came out, it was about RM 2000 and now its RM 900. Its only been a few months! By comparison, the W800i debuted at RM 1900 and is now like RM 1790.

The camera at the back is a 1.3-megapixel, fixed-focus CMOS unit, and does a so-so job of capturing images. To put it in perspective, its not as good as the 1.3-megapixel unit in the S700i, but its a BIT better than the Nokia 1.3-megapixel cameras. The front camera is a VGA unit, I'm guessing very similar to the camera on the back of the K700i. Its OK for self-portraits to be viewed on mobile phones (not for PC viewing) and ideally suited to its purpose of video calling.

The K600i is a good, solid phone that is low-priced for a full-featured 3G dual-camera phone. Its amazingly simple to use for calling, video calling, SMS, MMS and light browsing, and looks very, very classy with its pseudo-metallic finish. The only real issue with it is the lack of expandable memory, and some minor gripes are the smallish screen (both size and resolution) actually) and flush-mounted buttons that can be difficult to push.

Bottom Line: You can't do 3G on a budget better than this K600i.

XBOX 360s are in stock and so not selling!

2005-12-31T00:31:00.000+08:00

Japan has rejected the XBOX 360 so bad that they've started sending out their stock to other countries. I caught a Japanese XBOX 360 in a store display (it said for sale in Japan only on the side!). Gotta love Malaysians for not giving a shit about American laws! Rumour is they're selling pirated UMD discs for the PSP now!!! Wicked!

Mini-Review: Need for Speed - Most Wanted (PSP)

2005-12-28T16:35:00.000+08:00

The NFS series has become a pretty big franchise for EA, and I can't really see why. The original NFS was groundbreaking and pure in spirit, because it came from a collaboration with Road and Track. All the cars had very distinct engine sounds and handling physics, something which is not evident today. You could even rip off perfect 0-60 times that match with the actual car. The second coming was highly anticipated, and to most, it was a great dissapointment. It paled in comparison with the original. However, graphics were improved signifcantly. The third NFS enjoyed more success, because it was a better racer with better worlds, but to me it really sucked. Can someone me tell how a BMW M5 (which does 0-60 in 4.7 seconds) is slower than a Boxster (which does 0-60 in nearly 7 seconds)? Or why it sounds like a generic engine, and not like an individual-butterfly controlled, hand made BMW Motorsports V8? NFS 4 was almost the same shit, but the one that followed became my favourite. NFS: Porsche Unleashed was in my opinion, the only NFS that was as good as the original. Perfect sounds and handling, perhaps because Porsche themselves had input. Awesome. I still prefer to play PU than any other. The Underground series drove me nuts, because it uses "rice culture" as a basis for a car racing game. "Rice rockets" and their pilots I despise, because they are the exact opposite of us real enthusiasts in every way. I don't think anyone would argue that Porsche and BMW M are enthusiast, driver-oriented brands. Do YOU see them with all the over-the-top cheezy ground effects, annoying exhausts, nasty lights, bigger-than-F1 spoilers and all that junk on a 911 Turbo or the new M5? On top of it, I wasn't much impressed with the way the Underground games played. Now we have this new Most Wanted edition, which is a successor (though not really) to the Underground series. Same shit, different ... no, wait ... its the same toilet too. Read my review of the PC version and you'll know the main reasons why I don't like it. So why review this PSP version then? The PSP version is significantly different than the PC version, thats why. The biggest gripe I have with the PC version is gameplay, and thats precisely whats better about the PSP version. Its still not quite realistic enough to win me over like TOCA 2, but its a lot more fun to play than the PC version. I'm actually moving up the blacklist in this version, while the PC version sits uninstalled.

The graphics aren't the best I've seen on the PSP, but they're not bad. For some reason, everything has this brownish atmosphere to it, which is annoying to me. Its in the PC version too, and I think its in an effort to create some kind of film-like atmosphere, failing like a nerd at being cool. The cars are pretty well done, and the functioning rearview mirror is a nice touch. I like the barriers the police set up. They look realistic and appear at about the same time they would in real life. Roads are way better done on the PC version, with the reflections and all. NFS for PSP doesn't seem to have night/day or rain/sunshine like the PC version, so there's a bit less eye candy. Still, the 3D is incredibly smooth, close to 60 frames per second, and much more so than the PC version. I don't know how much you'd have to spend to get NFS to run smoothly on your PC, but I'd bet it would cost quite a few PSPs.

The sound is pretty impressive, crappy engine sounds notwithstanding. The siren of the police will really capture your attention, and even the doppler effect is well done. The screeching of the tires as they approach their limits is pretty good. You can even distinguish between drifting screeches and tire-hop screeches on take off.

The gameplay in NFS is what saves the game. Using the d-pad, handling is quite responsive, but not so much with the analog stick. Its too sensitive. Overall its pretty fun to rip around obstacles and have "near-misses" with oncoming traffic. There's a nifty feature where it goes into a matrix-mode and time slows down. In this state where the driver's senses are supposedly heightened, you can make your car brake and manouver around obstacles at 200 km/h as if it were at 20 km/h. Not realistic, but fun nonetheless. So far, the game seems pretty easy to beat, and the FMV cutscenes aren't bad. Much more entertaining than the PC version and most other NFS installments.

The Bottom Line: If I were you, I'd download it rather than buy it.

Review: PSP console

2005-12-27T01:41:00.000+08:00

Sony promised a PS2-style gaming experience on the go with the PSP, and they have delivered on that very stylishly. The PSP is essentially a current-generation console made to fit into a sexy handheld format. It has a 4" widescreen LCD that is just gorgeous, and takes up over 80% of the front face. It also has multimedia functionality built into it, but as you'll see later in the review, its somewhat half-baked.
Sony is no stranger to style, and the PSP is definitely no exception to that. A wide-format handheld, its made of glossy hard plastic at the front, with a silver ring dividing its thickness a la Sony Ericsson phones of late, and a matte backside with a metallic PSP ring in the center. The screen is huge, and as I mentioned earlier, takes up most of the front face. This is great, because the huge size combined with the wide aspect ratio makes for a VERY immersive game experience. It feels like you're right in the game, or the movie or TV show or whatever it is you're watching. Holding it in your hands, it will have the same impact as a 57" TV 6 feet away. The stereo speakers are located at the bottom, as the connectors for power and a 3.5 mm jack for audio. I'm glad they included a standard size jack rather than some proprietary bullshit. The USB connector at the top is also a standard type! What's happening to Sony? First CF compatibility in their prosumer cameras and now this?!
Far and away the most impressive aspect of the PSP is the brilliant screen. With decent viewing angles, a 16:9 aspect ratio and barely visible screen mesh, it really does the PSP justice. The d-pad feels excellent, and I'm actually gonna go out on a limb here and say that its the best d-pad I've ever sampled. The analog joystick however, doesn't enjoy the same praise. Its a little too low on the system, which makes for an awkward position and will later cause your thumb to ache. It is relatively responsive, but moves in a plane parallel to the surface, rather than the arc that joysticks typically carve. I have to hand it to Sony for a bit of innovation - it does give 80% of the feel of a good analog joystick without taking up the space of a traditional one. The two buttons at the top are ideally placed and look pretty cool, because they're clear and glassy. The speakers at the bottom sound better than I expected, but don't have the volume or bass that a a hardcore gamer would want for long hours of gaming. Plugging it into speakers, or using good headphones reveals how good the sound actually is. The CPU appears to be similar to the one in the PS2, except that the clock can be adjusted, similar to a mobile Pentium CPU. Its quite capable I'd say, as is the graphics chipset. Its not nearly as powerful as a full-blown PC, but it costs less than a better-than-average video card too. Remember that when the PS2 came out, its "Emotion Engine" CPU had more transistors than the most advanced Pentium at the time. Plus, since all games are designed for the one screen, everything is sharp and smooth, in a way thats better to me than PS2 or XBOX on a TV (I find those too blurry due to the 480i resolution). I'm very happy with the connectivity present in the machine - infrared, USB and wi-fi. Infrared is not that useful, but better to have than not. A direct USB connection is a good choice, especially for those without card readers. I'm most jazzed about the wi-fi. It allows for multiplayer gaming at pretty good distances (up to 60 feet) and allows you to surf the net! And the cool part is, the 2.0 browser lets you check out frames, download files and more! It has more utility than Pocket Internet Explorer (for Windows Mobile devices) which alone makes it super cool to me. Technically, a very competent package.
The PSP has a very slick menu system that will make users of other mobile devices shudder with jealousy. With all the hacks available, you just couldn't have a better looking interface. Especially with the v1.5 firmware, but even with the v2.0+ firmware, a very cool point is the ability to use additional programs. There are viewers for PDF documents floating around, as well as ebook readers and much more. There are applications that bring PDA-style functionality to the PSP, as well as programs that allow you to control IR devices like your TV. I think that Sony could have opened the system up more to developers, but this is a point beaten to death, and plus, big manufacturers never do that kind of stuff. Still, props to all the (mostly Japanese) hackers who have done some crazy stuff on the PSP, like run Linux and Windows95.
The PSP is billed as a multimedia device, and to a large extent it is one. Still, as mentioned earlier these things are a little half-baked. The audio has to be put into the correct directory, and the video needs to have a new directory created by you outside of the PSP directory, with certain names for subfolders and very specific names for video files. On top of that, you can only play MPEG-4 video, limited to 320x240 or some other resolution for widescreen content. You can't actually play video formatted perfectly for the screen resolution, which is a big bummer. Whats good though, is that once you have the correct video settings, video looks awesome on the device. It plays incredibly smooth, and has really nice controls for forwarding or rewinding. When you FF or RW, it does so very smoothly, like Sony's "smoothscan" feature on their DVD players. Looks classy! The MP3 functionality is nice enough, and my only complaint with it is that it shouldn't have to be limited to the music folder but rather should be able to scan the memory stick for songs. Pics looks wicked on the PSP too, and you can view smooth slideshows. Only problem here is that you can't listen to MP3s and view slideshows at the same time. A small point, but extant nonetheless.
The games on the PSP are truly awesome. The majority are of really high quality, and do a great job of pushing you to just have fun. I'm very satisfied that there is a big focus on good gameplay, and just about any title on the device is fun. The graphics are pretty much the same as a PS2, as is the sound - excellent. I'll review games on an individual basis, so keep checking for those.
The PSP is far beyond what I expected it to be. The device's size, look and screen are oh-so-perfect, and pretty much all the games I tried were a lot of fun (enough to get me addicted to games after a number of years). A few minor flaws notwithstanding, the PSP is a must-have device for everybody.

I found a real live elf!! No, wait ... just an Asian guy...

2005-12-26T15:53:00.000+08:00

This little elf, err, Asian guy was doing gift wrapping at Parkson's, a department store in Malaysia. Never before though, have I seen such crappy gift wrapping skills. This guy was actually fashioning bags from sheets of wrapping paper! In the end, everything looked like a cheerful Mcdonald's take away bag! I'm like, "yo, buddy ... don't you have any boxes?" The guy's like they cost RM 22 +. Seriously? More than CDN$7 for a fucking box???? This guy has a career persona totally befitting a Mcdonald's drive-thru guy - he's clearly in the wrong field (I can just picture this guy at a shrink's place ... "your bags are inner cries for salvation and replacement in a healthy Mcdonald's drive-thru environment").

Pink is IN!!

2005-12-26T15:40:00.000+08:00

If this picture is anything to go by, pink for guys is "in."

With glowing hearts, we see thee rise, the true north strong and free...

2005-12-22T12:03:00.000+08:00

Living in Asia for the last couple of years has really been a learning experience for me. While I've seen certain things first-hand, I've also been exposed to certain truths I wouldn't have before. Its quite well known that Indian people are a conservative bunch - that they don't like to publicly display emotion in any way, and in keeping with the rest of Asia, don't like to draw attention to themselves. That's all fine and dandy, but it really bothers me when people decide to become the moral police and try to force their decisions upon others. Everyone in this world has the right to live the way they want, and no one has the right to morally police them. I know there's a bit of a blurred line here dividing what's acceptable and what's not, but for example, in India, police have been cracking down in couples that are simply sitting together in public places. Sitting together is bad, cuddling, holding hands and kissing is criminal. This applies to other countries too, like Malaysia. They don't like unmarried couples doing this stuff, because apparently, this is the turn of the 11th century. Its WRONG for couples to kiss, but its perfectly alright for them to have one of the highest rapes per capita in the world (India) and for most of Asia to have a huge sex trade, straight and gay. Looking at this stuff, truly makes me realize all that I take for granted being Canadian. Growing up, we're given reminders that we're lucky to live in an open, civilized and decent society, but really, no kid understands this. I see now what that's worth. Many Asians are of the opinion that the West is corrupt. In India and Pakistan, near-riots against Valentines Day have crippled poor storeowners, because people think that Valentine's Day is "shameless" and "for the western sex drive." Western sex drive??? Hello people?? We have less crime and FAR less rape than you! Who has open prostitution? Instead of blaming the West, why not look within? Have they not seen what their movies are about? If you're not familiar with what I'm referring to, do take a look at an earlier post of mine (http://enterthevspot.blogspot.com/2005/11/impossible-has-happened.html). An Israeli couple was fined for kissing at their own wedding in India. And yet, its OK for militants to kill people openly, for people to marry underage kids and murder newly-married women if they don't come with enough money from their parents. On top of it all, a lot of these Asian countries don't have any privacy laws and don't give any power to the people. The police are free to do whatever they desire. Which can be negotiated.

Has BMW lost its way?

2005-12-21T15:56:00.000+08:00

A little while back, I was reading a study about prestige rankings in the US, in which Ferrari was 1st, BMW 2nd, Lexus 3rd, Mercedes-Benz 4th, Audi 5th, Jaguar 6th … and I can’t remember the rest. If you look around, you’ll quickly realize that BMW is the brand that everyone wants to own these days(I’m excluding Ferrari and other supercar manufacturers). BMW has been James Bond’s choice (not literally, a huge deal was signed for this to happen) in many of the new movies, and they’re doing well in racing, and of course the “M” cars draw unanimous praise. Yes, its not really difficult to see why they’re doing well – the cars excel in so many categories, where other manufacturers are struggling with just one. Mercedes-Benz for example has had identity crises for some time now. You see, M-B is kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place. Ever since Lexus has been around, its been considered a pinnacle of luxury engineering – they’re very good at coddling their occupants. M-Bs don’t have that type of luxury or comfort, nor do they have the sport flavour inherently built into every BMW. They’re not doing style like Audi is (which is quite the success story, considering Audi had the same problem M-B did), and they’re not even doing imitation well like Infiniti is now. But those brands aren’t the focus of the discussion here, BMW is. BMW has been lucky in a way that it never had to suffer the identity problems other companies did. BMW invented the sports sedan segment, and has basically refined that idea since then. It used to be a very successful niche market manufacturer, but now they’ve moved into the mainstream because its “cool” to have a car thats sporty and more. I have to give them props for developing the cars in other areas while maintaining the essence of what has made BMWs fun. For example, all BMWs have a 50/50 weight distribution for optimum balance, and rear wheel drive for sharp handling. They’ve invented all kinds of systems that will prevent you from getting into trouble, and have been class-leading along with M-B and Lexus in safety. The safest vehicle ever tested by the NHSTA is the BMW X5. Somewhere around 1995, the 7-series surpassed the S-class MB as the top selling large luxury car worldwide, and made BMW realize that there is a huge market outside of their niche. With clever marketing and excellent product development, the entire BMW line became top sellers and then came a time for BMW execs to decide how to proceed. BMW styling was very popular and oft-imitated, but they felt that it was pushed as far as it could while being within the confines of their own styling box. They decided that it must go in another direction, and a promotion from within brought Chris Bangle to the head of the styling/design unit. At the same time, management wanted BMW to continue the high-tech trend that began with the 1995 model 7-series, and push it to another level. This thinking brought about the extremely controversial 2003 model 7-series. Controversial, because of its unusual styling and because of its new iDrive control system. Reviews of the car were mixed; that it was still a great car underneath, but the technology was overkill and difficult for many to use, and mostly the styling was just weird. People started calling the car “bangled” in a parody of the designer, Chris Bangle. This weird style and overkill technology was also found in the new 5-series, 6-series and now the 3-series, although since the 3-series is the major breadwinner in the BMW family, it has less of the Bangle influence. Even though the cars have received flak all over, sales have actually soared, and in a way have accomplished what BMW set out to do – attract new customers, thereby increasing market share. In doing so, they have threatened the loyalty of BMW fans which have been around for decades. Even though the cars are still built in a way that would satisfy enthusiasts and have what top reviewers call “soul,” BMW has sort of alienated its very own. And I personally wonder, was it really a good idea to begin this transformation with the 7-series? I understand it’s the flagship and the technology showcase for the company, but its also the line that is purchased mostly by older folk (well, as old as BMW buyers get … they’re statistically much younger than other brands – avg age of a BMW buyer is 47 vs. 69 for Cadillac! I think its safe to say that repeat buyers are out of the question for them!). Older people are not as comfortable with technology as young people, and something as advanced and potentially difficult as the iDrive system might put them off. 700+ functions of the car are controlled from a force-feedback nickel round knob that sits behind the shifter … Oops! My bad - the new 7 doesn’t have a shifter there, its actually mounted on the steering column, and doesn’t have detents but rather an LCD that shows gear and simulates movement along a plane. I love this kind of stuff, but a guy my dad’s age probably wouldn't. Still its selling like the proverbial hotcakes, and even government types have replaced their S-classes with it. Bollywood (HAH! read my post about this interesting industry) film star types prefer to be seen around in them, too. Back to the point, is the sales boom temporary or long-term, and is the as-good-as-it-can-be prestige position compromised? More importantly, with the increased focus on the loud styling (as compared to elegant previously; the previous-gen 5-series was voted the most elegant sedan) and super high-tech gizmos, is it possible BMW might even give up the characteristics that put them where they are today? Well, for the time being, things haven’t turned in that direction. BMW is still doing what it does best, and this can be seen in their engine development. This year, BMW has won SIX out of twelve awards! Engine of the year, best new engine, best performance engine, winner in the class exceeding 4.0 liters, winner in the 2.5-3.0 liter class, winner in the 3.0-4.0 liter class, and believe it or not, lots more in other subcategories. This is very normal for the company, as BMW is, from its roots, an engine company, and is now recognized as the winningest brand to take part in the competition. As long as they keep coming out with 507-hp V10 M5s that can take to a track like a supercar and seat 4 in ultimate luxury, and 3-series cars that accelerate 0-100 km/h in 5.4 seconds from an inline-6 engine (free of vibration but full of wonderful sounds) while doing combined fuel economy of more than 30 mpg (about the same as my 1.1 liter Proton Tiara), I think they’ll have continually increasing demand.

"Terrorist-wear summer collection, aisle three"

2005-12-20T21:12:00.000+08:00

After much discussion, debate and research, the UN has decided to mandate international travel uniforms for Arabs. The men wear a white t-shirt on faded blue jeans with a subtle stripe across the back of the knee, and for the women the 1-piece black "coverall" with orange shoes underneath. What do you think?

Mulder was right...

2005-12-20T21:08:00.000+08:00

There's some sort of government-funded experiments going on, and I think I may have the proof. Why ELSE would you find a fish and a man that bear a striking resemblance?

The nerds really are taking over!

2005-12-20T20:50:00.000+08:00

Whats up with everyone coming to an exam ridiculously early, bringing an absurd number of writing utensils, and just trying to look all "proper?" Do they actually think that will help them do better on the exam? People often assume that I fail exams miserably because I tend to finish exams unbelievable fast. Often times I'll only be a few minutes, especially with social science type subjects or those that have pure regurgitation and multiple choice questions. My personal best is actually finishing the exam in the 5 minutes at the beginning that they give you to read. I either come with no pen or one pen (I like to borrow a pen from people at exams, because I know they all carry like 15 too many, and they check to make sure they work and everything! Quality and Selection!), and I arrive at the exam just a couple of minutes before it starts. Why come earlier? Just so you can sit there and anticipate how much you'll mess it up? And afterwards ... is there a point to sitting around? Is an answer going to magically descend on you, or will something SUDDENLY make sense? Jokes!

Seekers of truth, beware!

2005-12-20T05:53:00.000+08:00

I heard a great prologue in episode 301 of the X-files .... here it is ...

There is an ancient Indian saying that something lives only as long as the last person who remembers it. My people have come to trust memory over history - memory like fire is radiant and immutable, while history serves only those who seek to control it. Those who douse the flame of memory in order to put out the dangerous fire of truth, beware these men, for they are dangerous themselves, and unwise. Their false history written in the blood of those who might remember, and of those who seek the truth.

Review: Ashoka Matar Paneer & Saag Paneer

2005-12-18T05:31:00.000+08:00

In the past when I've tried packaged mutter paneer or other Indian dishes, I've been severely dissapointed. Just some of the problems are that the paneer is hard and rubbery, the peas are brittle and feel totally old, and the overall consistency is nothing like the dish should be. So you can't blame me for being a little skeptical going in. It turns out that both the mutter paneer and saag paneer are excellent! Its literally just like it came fresh off of the stove, so I gotta hand it to whoever preserves this shit. Plus, its nothing like how these things usually are - it doesn't feel like a plastic meal at all! Its like some old Indian aunty labored over a hot stove cooking this especially for me. Well, knowing India, thats probably not far from the truth (either an old lady or a kid made this). I found that they weren't cheap with the paneer (known in English as cottage cheese), and the sauce was creamy and consistent in taste. The peas seemed really fresh and soft, just like how it should be. And a tear almost came to my eye when I saw the oil collecting at the sides - homemade Indian dishes have a way of doing that. Really, its basically the same as you'd find at the Dixie Guruduara! Pricing is reasonable if a bit on the pricey side at about CAD$1.50, but its worth it for the amount of paneer you get as well as the freshness (or at least the illusion of it). One serious mistake on the box is that they tell you the package is microwaveable. I found out, with blue thunder and lightning in my microwave, that its not. The package looks like metal, and apparently, it is. I really doubted that it could go into my 'wave but the packet illustrates and reads that all you have to do is cut a hole and pop that shit in. A mistake of this scale, and grandeur (cuz the packaging is nice) is unforgivable. Imagine the lawsuits if this company was based in North America. Other than that, all you ABCDs and CBCDs go grab this shit NOW, and fight with your semi-present Asian identity.

Review: Need for Speed Most Wanted: Black Edition (PC)

2005-12-18T04:57:00.000+08:00

Whew, writing that title out was tiring! I'm not much into games, but racing games sometimes light my fire. I'm still a big fan of Need for Speed Porsche Unleashed, and the original NFS that was created in conjunction with Road and Track magazine. I was looking forward to this new title because the promos seemed impressive and this time around there is quite a variety of cars to choose from. I absolutely despise the previous two or three installments where underground "rice boy" racing is the name of the day. Elaborating on that, I'm very much against this "rice boy" culture that's emerged in many parts of the world, but is enormous in North America. Teenaged kids love getting their hands on Hondas (usually, after which come other brands) and "souping" them up. Most of the time, they end up with something that has a lot of show, and no go. This is because they're not real car enthusiasts (like me and a select few I know). They like to add body kits, giant exhausts and dancing lights, spinning surfaces on their wheels and/or anything that will get them seen or heard easily. Being a very good manual transmission driver myself, I find that exactly none of these rice boys I've ever seen in the Toronto area knows how to clutch properly. Strangely enough, they continue buying manual transmissioned cars. When you talk to them about cars (a conversation that will invariably come up amongst guys) they love telling you how they can build a Civic that will smoke an M3 or 911 for half the price. They have no respect for engineering, and their life is a quarter mile. And it stops right there, quite often. Awareness is building up that these rice boys kill themselves and others all the time, because they know nothing about the physics of a car, or how to drive. Moreover, they miss the point that to-the-limit driving is only safe in controlled circumstances, i.e. a track. Much of the world (even 2nd-world countries) have quite a few of these, so there's really no excuse for going crazy on the streets. I hate how in the movies they show people zipping in and around traffic and then going through red lights (miraculously THROUGH a perfectly timed break in traffic in both directions) and somehow make it look like its a result of being a good driver. Nobody in the world, not even our talented friend Michael Schumacher could pull that off. There's a scene in Fast and the Furious 2 where the main guy (whatever his name is) gets into some kind of staring contest while driving, like its a test of courage or something. Movies and games like this are having ill effects on society, because these teenaged kids are actually trying these things out! I know, I've been there! Anyways, back to the game (you're thinking "Finally!" eh?), it fails miserably in my eyes, because it misses the mark in realism. The game is pure eye candy, and on the graphics front it really is spectacular, especially on my 24" widescreen LCD. The lighting from the sun, the reflections on the road when its wet and the 3D houses and buildings really give one the illusion of being there. The sky is done better than many movies (but thats not saying much, really, as I'm sure a child with the ability to hold a crayon to paper could do better). For me, a real car enthusiast, a game should effectively recreate the feel of driving the particular automobile simulated. I've had the pleasure of enthusiastically driving a new Porsche 911, as well as a few other Porsches (minus Tiff Needle-style drifting and power oversteer) and its very important that when I'm playing NFS with manual transmission mode, that the car rev and sound exactly the way the real thing does. When I get to the twistys, it should turn like the real thing, calculated with the correct polar moments of inertia and all. When I brake, it should take the correct time and distance on the type of surface and the weight transfer should be very evident. Strangely enough, only two NFS games have had these remarkable features. The first one, and NFS:PU. The first NFS was a huge feat, because its an old game designed to be run on old systems. While it may not look as good as today's racers, the handling, interior and sounds was totally up to par because Road and Track magazine (an enthusiast's magazine) contributed to that portion of the game. And in PU, a new Boxster will rev exactly the same as in real life. Put it in 2nd and rev it slowly, and you'll hear the turbine-like whine accompanied with the bassy undertones you only find when you rev it that particular way. I can't blame Electronic Arts much for making the game this way, because its intended for those very same rice boys who wouldn't know how the sound of the inline-6 in the Lexus IS300 is, or at what point exactly the 911 has a 50/50 weight distribution (during maximum deceleration when the 911 can bring to a halt in 2.4 seconds from 100 km/h). Ah, the dissapointments of knowing more.

Review: Peter Jackson's King Kong

2005-12-17T07:06:00.000+08:00

The movie that most deserves the "epic" tag in recent months has been released. Peter Jackson's King Kong is a modern day remake of the original classic. For those of you that don't know (like I didn't until earlier today), Peter Jackson is the guy who did Lord of The Rings. Now, as much as people love that trilogy, I'm not a huge fan of it. Whenever I see a movie that relies too heavily on CG, it puts me off - and knowing that the new Kong movie has plenty of CG had me a bit wary going in. Certain aspects of the promos really did catch my attention, like the 1930s New York scenes, the main chick boarding the ship, and the mighty roar of our gorilla friend while Jack Black enthusiastically shoots his heroine screaming atop mysterious black rocks with waves crashing in the background. The film starts out with a scene of Italian immigrant-types huddled around those fire-spewing oil barrels. I'd have to say that even though this may have been the reality, this type of scene seemed a little cliche, as did the outfits. The typical semi-formal clothing of the period accented with berets made the outfits for the men, and that continues the cliche further. It was interesting to see what NY might have looked like at the time, but the vision looked more like NY at the turn of the century than the 1930s. As with every single application, the CG sky looked way too fake to be allowed in a big budget film like this one. Disturbingly, all the cars except the taxi Jack Black rides in are fake, as are the roads and all. I much prefer carefully created sets to this CG nonsense. Its not at the point where it can be used EVERYWHERE! Remember Back to the Future 2? The custom look of the future Hill Valley was created by using creatively designed products and offered an interesting vision of the future. Conceptual products like the overboard were showcased, and really did a lot for the film. This stuff needs to make a comeback. Rantings aside, the first half of the movie does effectively capture the viewer's attention and draws him or her in to the undeniable adventure that will follow. I think Jack Black is very well cast in his role as the director of the movie (within the movie). I know what many of you might be thinking - that seeing him repeatedly in comedy movies will have you wondering whether he's being serious or sarcastic, but its not an issue like it is with Charlie Sheen. Another guy that is well cast is the guy that plays the actor. He really captures the look of those old actors like Carey Grant well. Throughout the movie, his look, his hair and his expressions reflect the character he's playing very well. I'd have to say he has the best old-school accent in the movie as well. Moving on, the journey to SE Asia seems a little rushed, and I was wondering if they had ships back in the day that could go from New York to Singapore non-stop. Well, if this movie is anything to go by, they did. The tension builds up smoothly and constantly until we are introduced to King Kong. The natives, although freaky, are a little overdone, and you can easily see that some of them are artificially painted black! Anyways, I thought natives in the SE Asia look like Indonesian/Malay people, not regular black people! Whats with white people and thinking natives are always black? And in New York, where are all the Italian people? How come everyone is just a regular white person (of Brit descent)? Once we find the cast totally past the wall and into the jungle, the pace slows down quite a bit. I'm also a little surprised that the characters don't find the prehistoric jungle interesting-looking with its massive trees and vines and all. I would have been freaking out at the incredibly cool scenery! One really weird thing throughout the movie is how fast the characters can run over difficult terrain, in some cases barefoot. Slippery rocks, dangerous cliffs and even weirder terrain make up the island but these people are sprinting around like Nike designed the island as a track for running practice. Totally not possible! I realize that this is in essence, a fairytale, but part of the fun in bringing it to the silver screen is making it seem believable. Wasn't the opening of X-Men cool? The way they made the human mutations looks so believable? His fight scenes with the dinosaurs are pretty cool (even though they're CG'ed out), and will have the audience rooting for him within seconds. The action-adventure theme gives way to a different one after our heroine starts interacting with the big K. When the big K starts showing emotion for the leading lady, its a little funny, but more sad than anything else. I find that I felt really bad for the giant ape, mostly because he seems all alone. The dinos are vast in number, but they only show the big K as the lone ape. At one point they show a skeleton of another ape, but that's about it. The pity from the audience continues to grow and grow until the climax of the movie, because they trap him in such an inhumane way and then put him on show in New York, all chained up. All this time, our beloved CG editors are giving our big ape puppy dog eyes so we feel more and more for him. Eventually the movie ends with the big K's demise in a titanic-style fall to the streets from the top of the Empire State building. I guess that's how the story goes, but I'm not really into feeling worse walking out of a movie than I felt walking in. In short, an epic, fallen short by the CG and the pity-me theme in the second half.

The Good, The Bad and The Fugly: cell phone manufacturers

2005-12-15T05:00:00.000+08:00

Nokia
The Finnish giant almost began cell phones, so I feel some sort of obligation to start off with Nokia. No, seriously though, in many parts of the world, Nokia is the standard by which many people judge newer brands. In India, for example, where people are extremely brand-conscious, they didn't warm up to other brands until quite recently. IMO, Nokia has massive presence (they still have the largest piece of the pie worldwide) and technical prowess, but their edge is slipping - and fast. In terms of construction quality, I believe we have witnessed the biggest drop. Nokia phones used to be solid, hefty devices and I think that in their attempt to lighten and miniaturize, or perhaps cut costs, they're slowly cutting their own wrists. Somehow, other manufacturers have been able to create superior quality products (in terms of build and fit/finish) while also maintaining the required size and weight. Have you picked up any Symbian Nokia? Notice all the creaks and crappy plastic? Notice how quickly and easily it scratches? I think part of this happened when Nokia started making Xpress-On covers for the 33xx models. Those models were of incredibly poor build quality, and this carried on all the way to their flagship N-series phones. They make their phones relatively easy to customize, as in change covers etc. and in doing so, create not-so-perfect fitting parts thereby creating those annoying squeaks. And as screen sizes increase along with display quality, its important to build a screen that can't be scratched or damaged easily. Other manufacturers are also clearly superior in this regard as well. Technically speaking, Nokia has led the market along with the significant other, Sony Ericsson. With their firm stake in Symbian, the big N sees a gigantic market for smartphones, and rightly so I believe. Eventually, everything will be a smartphone, or close to it. With the introduction of the 7650, Nokia showed the world that a phone can do all of what a PDA can, and sometimes more. There's quite a bit of 3rd party software out their for S60 (the new official name for Symbian Series 60). It seems though that by bringing about this revolution, Nokia decided to sit on its ass. The execution and user interface has improved steadily with each new S60 phone - NOT! Its exactly the same shit! The 7650, in terms of functionality, loses nothing to the flagship N90, and in certain cases, is more compatible! If Nokia doesn't start improving its OS soon, it'll see its market share for smartphones start dropping drastically, especially with the threat of new entrants (can you say "Windows Mobile for Smartphones" and then name a bunch of rising Korean stars?) . Even, Microsoft, the anti-example of all examples, has shown continuous and notable growth on most increments of the Windows operating system. Windows XP looks and functions much better than Windows 98, which was a revolution and a half over Windows 3.11 and so on. Symbian for S60 version 8.0 is all the same shit as the original, sadly. If you look at it, the whole smartphone overall hasn't improved all that much from its initial concept. If we take the 6600 as the first fully realized smartphone (ignoring the 3650 because it looks too weird), we find it has a 65k TFT LCD with a resolution of 206x176, a VGA camera and expandable memory in the form of MMC cards. Years and years later, we have the N70. Aside from the 3G functionality (itself limited to a data transfer rate of 384k when the spec calls for up to 2.4 megabit), the N70 has a 262k (differentiated from 65k screens by software only, supposedly you can't notice the difference in colour) 206x176 TFT LCD, similar weight and size, and a 2-megapixel camera. The camera, although able to capture larger images, lacks autofocus, a CCD, optical zoom and more. Its basically a similar camera that shoots in higher resolution. Its only with the USD$1000 Nokia N90 that Nokia feels users deserve a better screen than one with the same resolution as the original 7650, years back. Its also the only phone Nokia has that has an autofocus camera and a decent lens (still not the best on the market). And it doesn't vibrate!!! What the hell is that shit about? Isn't this a commonly accepted basic necessity in a phone? On top of it, the size of the device will make many men feel insecure.

The Good: Size, technical prowess, brand recognition and some innovation.
The Bad: Nokia is not afraid to release weird stuff, and sometimes shows incredible stupidity (lack of stereo sound output in many smartphones, crappy displays and no vibration in their top model)
The Fugly: Like a dying Microsoft.

Sony Ericsson

When Sony and Ericsson teamed up, most people were confused at where this Japanese-Swedish union would go, but Sony Ericsson has demonstrated that they have truly merged the best of their individual strengths to create stellar products. Ericsson was big in Europe for making solid business phones with good functionality, and Sony has always been huge in excellent consumer products. Both had the nose-to-the-grindstone attitude before they teamed up, but after doing so this has led to Sony Ericsson becoming the runner-up in most areas. SE began its climb upward with the T68i - the first phone with a camera (well, an attachable one). After they made waves with it, they logically progressed to the T610, a phone classified on the internet as the most attractive phone, ever. Attractive it was, but it showed a good display (for the time), crazy battery life and an integrated QVGA camera in a very lightweight and small candybar device. The good looks came with immaculate construction, including plastic that no one would believe isn't metal. SE is still the only manufacturer in the world who can make plastic look EXACTLY like metal. Overall, SE has the best build quality and fit/finish in the industry. They have their own pseudo-operating system, which has seen continuous improvement. In fact, it would set an example for how to improve with every new release, except that this operating system is not an open one like Symbian for S60. That aside, the polish just gets better and better, just as the screens do with every new wave. With the animated backgrounds and animated themes, the way the phone works makes the user really feel like s/he is holding a polished product. Functionality out-of-the-box ain't bad either, with a built-in e-mail client and excellent MMS application. Everything is so smooth, so slick. The only bad thing is even when you spend a lot and buy a top-end non-P-series phone, you'll use the same interface with the same features as the lower-end models. But I have to give SE props for reviving the Walkman brand and turning it into cult-status so quickly. How does Sony manage to create these must-have items? The way the PS2, PSP and PS3 make waves .... it seems nothing else on the market does, save for some Apple products. Beautiful marketing. SE also has phones that cater directly to the business market, the P-series. They have also seen continuous improvement, and the upcoming P990i is IMO one of the best phones ever to grace the market. And if you know me, you know I'm the most discerning critic of phones, ever! Where I think SE needs drastic improvement is the smartphone category. Between the youth-oriented W-series and for-everybody K-series, there isn't much difference, but comparing them to the P-series we see a huge difference in functionality. For many young tech geeks, the P-series is overkill, in features, and price as well. SE needs to cut it on the market that Nokia has cornered with its 6630/6680/N70/N90. SE also has the bad, bad habit of overpricing new (and very desirable) models to the point of putting them out of the reach of many prospective buyers. Almost everyone I know wants a Walkman phone, and everybody both in Asia and North America love the rotating-slider design found in the now-available W900i. It comes in PSP-sexy white and black, and combined with the crisp QVGA screen, great camera and secondary 3G video calling, this is one of the most desirable products for the youth market, but its estimated USD$750 price tag will make short work of demand.

The Good: Must-have products, sexy looks, build quality, features, Walkman brand.
The Bad: Too-early product announcements, insufficient supply to meet demand, no entrants in the mid-range smartphone class.
The Fugly: The Ego! SE launches some great products with prices that totally say "THIS IS TOO GOOD FOR YOUR GHETTO ASS!"

Samsung

Big props to this company for putting itself where it is today. A brand that everyone looked at the way Hyundais are looked at (even today) is now amongst some seriously good competitors. It seems that David is doing well against the goliaths, and has completely transformed its image in the marketplace. Samsung stuff is now kinda cool to have, whereas it was embarrassing before. Especially in mobile phones, they've made a lot of headway. In Canada, they had the first available WAP phones, and when I was visiting India, I saw an incredible product launch of the Samsung blue-i phone. They had these sexy models walking up and down a runway "wearing" these sexy new phones. The whole thing was awesome. And they've made continuous progress, offering up fresh and new phones on a regular basis with much-improved features. At times, they've been arrogant/stubborn about things like the inclusion of bluetooth or PC-syncing at price ranges that necessitate those features, and the exclusion of removable storage. THAT was totally unacceptable for the world's largest memory maker. Thats all in the past now, and Samsung is showing strong improvement. Since they're one of the 4 LCD panel manufacturers, they should and actually are utilizing this "unfair advantage." The new D600 has a brilliant QVGA screen, great camera, excellent build quality and slider design. It fails in price, though. A phone executed so well shouldn't fall on something so .... ummm ... changeable. What Samsung's doing wrong is not having enough variety, or presence. The build quality is on par with Sony Ericsson, with patented slider designs that work oh-so-smoothly, and the displays are great, so they have nothing to be shy about. What they're not doing is targeting their markets properly. Aiming certain products at the youth market, some at business professionals is textbook, but Samsung marketing and design isn't making this happen very well. They have some innovative products coming out, like a phone running Windows Mobile 5.0 with a 3 GB hard drive, but thats just one phone and awareness for it doesn't exist unless we're talking about tech geeks. Just like Sony Ericsson, Samsung needs to jump into the mid-range smartphone class that Nokia totally dominates (and laughs about), as well as the Sony-dominated Walkman-brand of music phones. Sony Ericsson also has the edge on camera quality, but Samsung has shown that it can deliver this too (in the D600). Samsung needs to overall its user interface though. No themes, only different colours as well as a somewhat unpolished feel really makes Samsung users jealous when they see their friends' Sony Ericssons. The young people market loves this stuff ... themes, music, photos, videos.

The Good: Lovely build quality and fit/finish, great screens, and now with all the functionality of competing models (bluetooth, expandable memory etc.)
The Bad: Marketing is stuck in a rut; they haven't identified and targeted users properly. No entries in the mid-range smartphone class, the music phone class, the imaging phone class or the high-end business class (yet).
The Fugly: Stubborn to stick to their ideology of good-looking products that fall more than little short in other areas.

found another twin of another guy ...

2005-12-13T18:54:00.000+08:00

Finally got a pic of the Numair lookalike. Actually, today he looked much less like Numair for some reason, but still ... look at the pic! From far away, this guy is disturbingly similar!

Those are some HUGE ....

2005-12-13T18:47:00.000+08:00

Check out the size of these mangoes! The fruit, you siccos. Look at the picture. I've put a tuna can there for size reference.

White ppl have a superiority complex for no reason, and it seems Malaysians have an inferiority complex for no reason...

2005-12-13T18:05:00.000+08:00

White people, and by that I mean Brits, Australians and then Americans and Canadians, in that order, seem to think that they're better than the people around them. At least in many parts of Asia. Now, of course, this doesn't apply to all of them, but to an astounding number of them. Why this is the case is a bit of a mystery, and usually this subject is too touchy for anyone to actually find out, but here's my theory. I blame the Brits. The Australians and the white people in the US and Canada originate from the British, and the British have long been known as barbaric, racist people. I was reading a classic novel the other day, "The Lost World" by Sir (don't get me started on the "SIR" prefix) Arthur Conan Doyle, and noticed the style in which it was written. It very explicitly states that the British at the time (early 1920s) considered themselves to be the "finest product of modern European civilization" (a direct quote!) and everyone else, especially those smaller in stature, darker in colour and speaking a language other than English to be "animalistic savages." We saw with the British rule in India, something they happily call "The Raj," literally meaning "the reign," that they loved to make rules and have them apply to people at large, but not to them when the situation dictatated so. We find this in modern-day white-guy US and Canada too, with the overdone parking fines and "you can't park here" and "you can't do that" and "state your business in the US" and "what are you doing in your car at this time of night?" -type of nonsense. They like to live in a fantasy world where they're super civilized to the point of perhaps not being human or having any emotionally-driven tendancies whatsoever. They like to pretend that they live in a results-driven society, when its actually more about "looking busy" than being busy. American businesspeople always tried to be cold and unbiased when selecting whom to do business with, and have long believed this to be "the way business is." Well, Japanese businessmen did business a totally different way, a very wholesome and humane way, a way in which a firm handshake would be stronger than any contract, and a needy man would be prioritized above a wealthy man. Look at where thats gotten them ... bad position, huh? I remember my third grade teacher, Mrs. Hull, who, while scolding me for something ridiculous (presumably, since i don't remember) would every so often say "Young man, don't you dare roll your eyes at me!" I wasn't consciously rolling my eyes at her, in fact, for a while, I had no clue what the hell she was talking about. What does all this ranting mean? It just means that the effect of the Brits hasn't worn off yet ... these people still think they're more civilized than others. Whats interesting is that underneath, society has propelled them to become quite the opposite. The interesting thing is that Malaysian people have the opposite complex. They feel inferior, both about themselves and their country. I really think they are the ones who should be egotistical about their country, not ashamed of it. Growing from humble roots to a fast-paced country in a relatively short time, Malaysia has accomplished what many of its neighbours have not been able to. Generally speaking, Malaysia has excellent infrastructure of all types, for example, the water supply. The water supply in Malaysia is clean enough for anyone to drink from the tap, just like the west, but Malaysians aren't really aware of this. Their highways are better in every way than our Canadian highways, but they're not aware of it. As Mahathir proclaims, the BM language is a bit of a barrier for social development as its very small and restrictive (try saying "double overhead camshafts and variable valve timing" in BM!) and actually this is precisely the area where Malaysia needs to kick it up a notch. When Singapore was formed, they had a love-it-or-hate-it social development plan that, in the end, worked beautifully. Singapore has gone from even more humble roots than Malaysia to a 1st-world, fully developed nation thats ranked #1 for ICT infrastructure and in the top 5 for business competitiveness by the world economic forum. And guess what? Even though Singaporeans have all the money and living standard of the west, they don't have that huge racist ego present in the foundations of the western world. On a lighter note, in Canada at least, they know this, and discrimination is taken very seriously. Racism in Canada is practically nonexistent, something which very few countries can make claim to.

Mirror, mirror on the wall: Who's the darkest of them all?

2005-12-13T17:56:00.000+08:00

LMAO! In some episode of The Simpsons, Wiggum arrests Apu and tells the other cops "Hold him until we find someone darker, boys." Totally LMAO!!!

FOOD POISONED!!!

2005-12-07T05:07:00.000+08:00

I’ve had a really bad case of food poisoning. This was around Saturday morning, and it still hasn’t fully left me yet! I puked, and puked, and then puked some more. And then I started to puke bile. That’s right, the lining of my stomach. Can you say “FUN?” Then … diarrhea. I was having so much fun, that the song “What a Wonderful World” began to emanate from my mouth. Well hopefully I’ll be as good as new when I wake up tomorrow, er, a few hours from now.

They took the ocean and put it in a bottle, and the fish between two halves of a bun...

2005-12-04T15:59:00.000+08:00

I went to McD's the other day and grabbed their "ocean"-something meal. It came with a double filet-o-fish burger and this oceany drink, essentially sprite, some other shit, and bits of pineapple. For North Americans, bits of REAL pineapple sounds like an inviting, and almost impossible (for McD's, anyway) prospect, but its not as cool as it sounds. The bits come into your mouth while you're sucking through the straw and I find it a bit annoying. I think that many Asians would like this drink though, seeing the number of drinks they have with solid stuff in them (faluda, nutty lassi, the Thai and Malaysian drinks with rice noodles etc.). But doesn't the colour of the drink remind you of like ... Koh Phi Phi (Phi Phi Islands) water?

BMW 7-series SPYSHOTS !!!

2005-12-03T02:37:00.000+08:00

I live near BMW Malaysia's new headquarters, and its not so unusual to see either execs or young-looking guys joyriding in new models to and from the building. Usually its in the new X3 small sport utility vehicle, or the newly redesigned 3-series, but today I saw a fleet of black 7-series cars RIPPING around Cyberjaya's excellent roads. When I say fleet, I mean like at least 10 cars. It looked they were doing some sort of back-to-back test. Some were the 2005 model 7-series, and some were "freshened" versions with updated front and rear styling, and from what I understand some mechanical changes as well. The new models had a bit of light disguise and no license plates. Each car had two passengers, and one of the guys in the new models found (my) publicity cool and waved. None of the cars had badges, but my trained ears definitely picked up the sound of an inline-6, a V8 AND a V12! They all sounded melt-on-the-spot sweet.

A Raw Deal: Having your car broken into...

2005-12-03T01:22:00.000+08:00

To each his own; some people consider something to be traumatic, while to others it may be just nothing. I have mixed feelings about having my car being broken into, part of it is being a little rattled that any sort of crime can hit so close to home, and another part is just being happy that it wasn't worse. That latter part of me is also happy because it knows the burglars were quite stupid: a key to my other car was on the dash, parked just 3 cars away. I still don't know how much a new window will cost me, but seeing a huge number of people substitute garbage bags for windows has me believing its kick-in-the-crotch expensive. I've taken a series of pictures, and I'll explain them here in numerological order.
(i) The external shot of the broken window. The window was shattered, but did not break away due to the lamination. It did so only after the door was closed, and I took pictures afterwards. The X marks the spot where an object, or hand was inserted to be able to unlock the door.
(ii) The dirt marks around the window frame suggest that a stone encrusted with the mud found in the immediate area was probably the object used to shatter the window. The rubber seal along the bottom edge of the window, near its right corner is also cut or removed. This might mean that they tried to jimmy the lock with a coat hangar or something unsuccessfully.
(iii) I've circled in red further evidence of the rock or stone as the object that shattered the window. This fresh mud probably fell from the encrusted rock.
(iv) This picture indicates that the thieves most likely came with wire cutters or sharp scissors beforehand. They've cut the wires very cleanly, something that is nearly impossible with a knife.
(v) They came for the stereo head unit, it seems. In a way, the joke's on them, as it doesn't play tapes, only radio. I don't think it functions without its equalizer either. They seem to have had some trouble getting it out, because you can see the bent side panel in the background. The circled object is a clean cut wire.
(vi) They attempted to take the equalizer unit (positioned higher on the dash) as well, by trying to gain access to it by the ... window defroster?
(vii) The equalizer unit is still very much present, although the face has been sorta bent. It looks as if they gave up on this piece.
Whoever broke into my car and stole my head unit, I'd sincerely like to say to you: Fuck you, and FUCK everything you're about.

Forget CAA/AAA. Use a string.

2005-12-03T01:13:00.000+08:00

Why would you call CAA/AAA and all those other towing companies, when you can just a string to attach your dead car to a living one, and pull! No seriously folks, this somehow actually worked. My friend's Proton Tiara, a mechanical twin of the Citroen AX couldn't move because he accidentally filled it up with diesel instead of regular gas. Yeah, I know, eh? So I decided that my 1982 Volvo 244 GL was up to the task of towing his car to the mechanic's place, and we affixed some of that cheap wannabe-rope made out of nylon to both cars. After a bit of jerking and heaving, a lot of clutch slip and some careful navigation we made it out of the carpark. It was a relatively easy affair, although since the cars were so close together I was afraid that he'd either hit me from not braking at the right time, or from the angle during turning. Neither happened, thank God. At one point the line snapped and we had to reattach it, and that was when I took these pictures. No drama though, except for the other drivers who were checking our situation out as if it was two women going at it.

What's the deal with Proton?

2005-12-01T14:54:00.000+08:00

I don't consider myself to be an industry expert by any stretch, but I can't seem to understand the way Proton, one of the two domestic Malaysian automobile manufacturers, works. Proton began sometime in the mid-80s by purchasing "platforms" from Mitsubishi and building cars based on those platforms in Malaysia. This was the way Proton manufactured their cars up until about 2002, when new models were introduced that were supposed to be fully designed by Proton. My issue with this is that Proton did not buy next-gen platforms, they bought then-current platforms and used them for a really long time, made lots of money, and now pretends to have none. To put this concept into perspective, I'd like to explain how manufacturers look at "platforms." Honda and Toyota commonly have 4-year product cycles. Each time they redesign a car, it can be considered a new platform. Therefore, these platforms they design are supposed to both, pay themselves off, and make a significant profit within that 4-year period. Proton has been using a platform it acquired in the 80s from 1987 to, well its still on sale! The exact same car that was on sale in 1987, is still available at your local Proton dealership. They also charge as if they are building cars in a fully industrialized country with a heavy currency and high wages. What do I mean by this? A new Honda Civic can be had in Canada for $16,500 (without taxes), which roughly translates to RM 50,000 (RM is Ringgit Malaysia). The Proton models as of 2005, sell for between RM 32,000 and RM 59,000. That converts to the price of a brand new Japanese car in North America. If Proton is buying heavily discounted old platforms, and selling at Toyota/Honda prices for more than 18 years, wouldn't this mean enormous profits over time? Toyota can develop an expensive platform, one that incomparably greater than the cost that Proton buys at, sell cars for 4 years, and make a huge profit to boot. I know that Toyota is now gonna be the world's largest carmaker, and their volume is a lot greater than Proton's but if we call their difference proportional, that is, the amount of investment in a platform vs. sales volume, then we still have the issue of product cycle. There should be no reason for Proton not to be filthy rich from selling a car for 18 years without change. On top of it, the government has created great barriers to entry for other carmakers, thereby protecting Proton, as well as offering financial assistance. However, "filthy rich" is not Proton's current state, and at the moment, Proton is defiantly trying to avoid bankruptcy. They're also shit scared of what will happen when the import duties will be removed because of their inferior products. ASEAN countries had decided to reduce, or remove import duty a couple of years back, but due to Malaysia's strong position in the ASEAN, they were allowed two more years of protection for their national baby (Proton). Its a well-known fact that even 18 years after their first car, they still can't build cars right. Proton actually owns majority share in Lotus (that's right, of Lotus Esprit and Elise fame), and supposedly gathers engineering input from them. The first car they supposedly made by themselves was the Waja, but was later exposed to be mostly designed by Lotus. The engines are actually old, carburetted Renault engines that are INCREDIBLY inefficient in comparison to today's modern Japanese engines. Then came the Proton Gen-2, the car that was supposedly fully developed by Malaysians. Here's my question to Proton then. If this car was fully engineered and developed by Malaysians, uses 100% Malaysian parts and labour ... then why does it cost RM 57,000 and not RM 20,000? Generally speaking, in Malaysia, what will cost u one Canadian or US dollar in those countries will cost you one Ringgit. If what is being said is true - that the cars are fully Malaysian, where then, is all the revenue going?

The cheese wouldn't cut ...

2005-12-01T01:34:00.000+08:00

It seems like, get ready for an oft overused cliche ... there aren't enough hours in the day! I usually get up kinda late, take some time to adjust myself to my wake-state environment, force myself to go to class or do whatever bullshit chores I have to do (pay a bill, go grocery shopping, that sorta shit) and by the time I get home and start relaxing, it seems that its time I sleep again for fear of not being able to get up for the next day's classes. Something is wrong here. If, as some say, God made day for work, and night for rest, then why is night better to chill in? I got my gas hooked up a couple of days back, but I came home with a gas stove today to connect to it. I figured it should be a relatively painless affair, where I simply connect he tube from the wall outlet to the stove. Ah, but I was so wrong! Some sort of bug came through the pipe along with the gas, as I was able to observe its progress through the translucent tube. It appeared to struggle for life, somehow seeming to know that if it let go it would be pushed up into the burner where a flame would exist. I think it was the bug's lucky day, because the damn burner wouldn't light. I could feel some sort of gas coming through the little wholes on the burner, and I could hear it too, but it just wouldn't light! I even tried a lighter. Now, using the ideas of logical deduction, the burner cannot have a defect, otherwise I would not feel the gas coming through the holes nor would I hear it, and I wouldn't be able to see the spark either. However, the bug's life (no relation to the movie) and said stove did not really seem to follow the rails of logic. Finally it somehow started to catch fire, but the flame was so small that I couldn't cook on it. What a shame, had to make some spaghetti-and-bolognaise in the microwave, which actually turned out great (maybe it was the Parmesan sprinkled over the top!). We were playing with the gas so much, that I was afraid to turn the wheel on the lighter. I wonder if a lot of farting can have the same effect as letting the natural gas run for a while. After all, couldn't fart gas (methane) be considered "natural gas" as well?

You're not small, you just need a "closer fit!"

2005-12-01T01:17:00.000+08:00

You gotta hand it to those marketers over at Durex, the dominant condom company in Malaysia. They don't write "size small" or something to that effect, rather they say "CLOSE FIT." I was LMAO @ that! Now that I have that out of the way, I need to vent a little about Malaysian drivers. What the fuck is with those bastard fucks who are waiting to turn into moving traffic, positioned perpendicular to it, but venture out into the lane far enough to obstruct traffic / cause an accident, AND STILL DON'T TURN! They just fucking sit there, not letting you move, and not moving themselves. Oh man, would people regret it if they gave me some kind of law-making power. BTW, did you notice the awesome macro mode and autofocussed picture of the box? Taken with the W800i, no less!

A white-and-orange specimen, finally in my hands!

2005-12-01T00:27:00.000+08:00

Yesterday I managed to find a W800i, brand new, for more than 300 ringgit less than its current selling price. I have a tendency towards smartphones because of my love of tech stuff/gadgets, a market dominated by Nokia Series 60 phones, but I like Sony Ericsson phones a lot as well. The first "cool" phone I had was an SE T610, and I was very impressed with its camera, menu, screen, size and battery life (outstanding at more than 5 days on standby). I eventually graduated to using Series 60 smartphones from Nokia, which, in some small amount are created by other companies as well, but they don't quite have the execution right yet. My girlfriend just moved to a smartphone as well, a Nokia 6680 - its shining star being 3G and two cameras for video calls. We actually got to try out video calling, and man, I must say it is FUCKING cool. There's no lag or slowdown like with webcams, and its as simple as "normally" calling someone. Eventually, I plan on pushing everyone I care about to have one of these. The last phone I was using was an O2 XDA II Mini, a quite popular phone amongst the trendy-tech and business crowds. The smallest available PDA-phone, it runs Windows Mobile 2nd Edition w/ Media Player 10. Its cool and all, but I lost my wi-fi card, and there's something about having tactile button feedback rather than entering stuff in with a stylus. Plus, I wanted a device that had built-in wi-fi, 3G, a front camera, a very nice rear camera and some more stuff. I looked around, and it turns out what I want isn't available yet. Basically what i want is spot on with the new Sony Ericsson P990i, as well as many new Nokia N-series and E-series phones, all of which will be available or at a reasonable price 5 months down the road. So I was gonna get an N90 as I wrote earlier, but didn't like it all that much, and decided to get a W800i. The phone comes in this awesome packaging, its shown in the pic (the first one from the left). Its kinda tubular-elliptical clear, thick plastic. Its transparent through the center with orange caps at the top and bottom with imprinted "Walkman" logos. Inside, I was expecting a good-looking phone, but man ... this phone turned out incredible looking! I love its ivory and orange color scheme! The orange bits look totally like metal, and the white is smooth and creamy. This phone just screams youth, which I think is what Sony wanted to achieve with the Walkman-branded phones. I was expecting a phone with a 512 mb memory stick and headphones included, but this phone is more of a music player than that. Much to my surprise, they included a standard 3.5 mm jack. As soon as I discovered this, I plugged in my huge studio headphones and started chilling to the sounds of "Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me" by U2. Wicked! And the place where you put the 3.5mm jack into, has an included microphone so you can receive or make calls as well(the voice of my chapat real estate agent in bassy stereo studio headphones is a little startling). Combined with the metallic finish of the piece and the wicked-looking Walkman logo, this cemented the deal for me. The phone itself is very sturdy and of solid construction typical of Sony Ericssons. The thing I like most about SEs is the quality of their materials. They're the only ones in the market who know how to make plastic look EXACTLY like real metal. Other than that, the buttons are well-spaced have excellent tactile feedback, and the screen, though not record-shattering on paper, holds its own in real life. I thought it would be the same as the K700i screen, with the 220x176 resolution, the added brightness of the backlight and 262k colours vs. 65k colours really do make a difference. After seeing the display first hand, I'd give it a 9/10, only because better screens do exist (the Samsung D600, SE S700i and W900i, and on top the N90). The phone is reported to have good battery life, supposedly you can talk for just under 12 hours non-stop. I haven't had the phone long enough to comment on this. Oh, and I forgot the other juicy part of this phone: It has the best camera on the market! YUP! A 2 megapixel, AUTO-FOCUS camera with a wicked bright flash adorns the back of my lovely new W800i, and snaps photos better than the Carl Zeiss-equipped N90. Strangely, the N90 performed well below everyone's expectations for a phone with such a "designer" lens. I too am a fan of Carl Zeiss lenses, hell, the company even designs lenses for space telescopes and shit, but in the N90 something didn't go as planned. Maybe it was the inferior CMOS censor behind the lens, but the N90 has started to shake Carl Zeiss' reputation. In any case, Sony's CMOS-equipped 2MP camera in the W800i, K750i and P990i with autofocus is currently the best on the market.

Proof that cloning of semi-inanimate biological entities exists!

2005-11-30T03:22:00.000+08:00

After waking up hours after I should have, I decided that I must have the newest object of my desire, the Sony Ericsson W800i ... and today, I might add. SO I set out, determined to purchase what appeared to be the lowest-priced brand new W800i in the Kuala Lumpur area, but my desires were arrested by the last unit being sold to someone else, most like a chapat. While at this store, I met an unusually animated and chirpy chapat, by the name of ... ummm ... I'll get back to you on that one. Well anyways, he was one of those guys who are full of hot air; going on about this business and that, with a more-than-implied "been there, done that" attitude towards business. Initially I thought he might be of some benefit to me, perhaps being able to provide me with contacts to open a small business here, but as time went on, I saw that this may not really be possible. I'd love to say I deduced this on the basis of keen intellect and intense observation, but I'd be lying and have to attribute it to his worn-out chappals, his stained and wrinkled t-shirt, his absolutely ghetto Malaysian motorbike and ghetto house. Yes, I somehow ended up at his house in Subang Jaya. He left me with his business card, and some visions of a warehouse in Puchong containing gussied-up Chinese cooking utensils that will apparently set the world on its side. He also thought Canada was a prime destination for said Chinese utensils. I carried on to MINES, as I've bought many phones there at prices that are a little lower than average, but found that the W800i was really expensive compared to the last place I went to. By how much, you say? More than 300 ringgit! Fuck that, eh? We hadn't eaten all day so we dropped a couple of floors down to Nando's, a place we usually like to dine. Today though, the chicken was not the greatest. It seemed like it had been cooked earlier, and had been just warmed over for us. It wasn't BAD, mind you. It just didn't have all the succellent juiciness and tenderness of a fresh-off-the-grill piece. It sufficed however, the caesar salad did not. What pathetic excuse for a salad is that shit? The (not even Romaine lettuce) leaves were literally swimming in an ocean of dressing, itself so strong as to absolutely eliminate any possibility of other tastes. Fuck that too. As I was bitching about the salad, I noticed a peculiar individual sitting not too far away from me, and it quickly dawned on me that this guy was the Malay twin of Gautam Varma, otherwise known as GUTWA to many! The similarities are uncanny, and even his body language and mannerisms were similar. Take a look at the picture, and see if you can see it. For those of you that do know him, I'm sure you're in stiches right now. Hell, I still am! Of all the people in the world you never thought you'd see a twin of, or even an individual with a passing resemblance, this would be the guy.

The Impossible Has Happened...

2005-11-29T02:18:00.000+08:00

Indian movies hit bedrock some time back. But now, they've gone straight through the core of the earth, through that stupid Russian "sounds from hell" place, and broken through on the other side. Typically thought to be China, new satellite footage from Nasa has revealed that its actually Upper Mongolia! (Link ... http://www.nasa.gov/7tstarsat/imagery/new/indianmovies/drilling/otherside/satimage.jpg)
As many of us know, Indian movies are extremely poor quality, filthy pieces of shit that can barely pass for an actual movie. This wasn't always the case, because when the industry was being created, many of the actors came from theater and actually possessed real talent. This of course also goes for creative scriptwriters and directors and all. Over time, however, this industry kept degrading itself further and further to appeal more to the Indian masses. That there, ladies and gents, are the keywords "INDIAN masses." Looking back, say, into the 50s and 60s, there was an abundance of quality filmmaking (at least far more so than today), which proceeded to a focus on action-thriller type movies with romance thrown in for good measure in the 70s, the Amitabh Bachchan age. The Indian public liked, and got used to being entertained in a larger-than-life way, and the 80s brought about fairytale love stories, so-called "chocolate heroes" and the like. Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff and all that made up this era. Remember ek do teen? At this point, Indian filmmakers started relying on the "formula." This would include hiring popular actors and actresses, pairing them against popular or controversial people, and fusing this with a storyline that wouldn't deviate very far from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" (a TRUE masterpiece, if there ever was one). Immensely superstitious producers and directors started believed that the names, or at least the first initials of the actor, actress, or movie title had something to do with their success, and so the age of Madhuri, Mahima (whose real name is actually Renu, but was changed because Subhash Ghai believed that the letter "M" will bring success) and the K's ... we all know Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, and of course, all the TV shows ... KKusum (2 K's !!!), Kyon Ki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Kahin Diya Jale Kahin Jiya, Kutumb, Kamal, Kehta Hai Dil, Kalash, Kohinoor, Khidchi, and of course KOUN BANEGA CROREPATI (and KBC TWOOOO). In this age known as the 90s, filmmakers (if we can call them that) tried to change the formula a little here and there, but it was basically the same. After DDLJ, the formula changed a little to feel-good type movies, and continued on for an unusually long time. This unusually long time that I speak of is common throughout these Indian movies generations that I have mentioned. It is the period is which the formula starts failing over time, and must be reinvented to keep the industry alive. Only this time, the invention has gone wrong. Filmmakers have long known that the Indian audience, of course dominated by men, is a particularly horny one, and as such, has tried to appeal to the Indian phallus in many ways. We all know that women in Indian movies barely play a part other than to provide phallic stimulation. The one or two times they do, like in Kaun or other Urmila movies, they are used as a marketing ploy - "Come look at my movie! I have dared to be different yaar!" (in a heavy Indian accent of course). Like shown in "Bollywood Calling," a particularly good movie that sheds light on this industry, most actors LOVE to say "this movie is umm ... really different. I have played a very different role in this movie." So whats all this come to now? In more and more movies, directors are trying to push the limit of acceptable by the Indian censor board in an attempt to appeal to those Indian masses we talked about earlier. A number of directors are lobbying for nudity in movies in the 21st century, and they might just get it. What will happen then? Will Indian movies turn into full-blown porn? I think that India, like so many other countries, needs to face the music, and realize that it is a nation of horny ass men! Legalize porn, strip clubs and the like, increase literacy, and keep Bollywood separate from the porn industry, cuz its morphing into one at an alarming rate.
I find it both interesting and surprising that people of Indian/Paki/other Desi countries - origin in my country, Canada, and abroad (excluding India) like Indian movies. As should be obvious, Indian movies are geared for the Indian masses, otherwise known as TAPORIs. They don't care about crappy acting, screenplay, direction or anything like that. They just count on entertainment value, which I'll admit, is extant in some movies, but usually not. Its also true that whats entertaining to one group of individuals may not be to another. How many of you guys actually understand those lame jokes in so-called comedy (Indian) movies? Does anyone actually know what a ration card is? TAPORIs can't tell when the "hero" takes off in a 747-400 and lands in a short-range 737-400(designed for short flights , a LOT smaller, VERY different looking) 13 hours later. Nor can they tell when they drive off in a Ferrari F360 and show up in a Miata (just cuz its red), and producers and directors know this! Relatively poor individuals love the idea of escapism and an air-conditioned/heated theater to get away from the daily grind, which might I add, is much worse than the rest of us are used to. You guys in Brampton are complaining about your transit system, try a fucking rickshaw to work! You guys working at Gemma Communications are bitching about the 12 dollar an hour pay? Thats literally a month's earnings to a farmer in UP, Bihar and Bengal! Everyone's talking about the new face of India, the economy boom, Bangalore and greater actual GDP growth than China, but don't forget that India isn't industrialized just yet. India may have the second largest bank in the world, some exceptional educational institutes, booming business and more, but it also has the world's biggest slums, the biggest mafia in the world and the second-biggest sex trade in the world.

Bubbye O2, So Long N90, White Guy-Chapat Hybrids, and a bunch of tolls...

2005-11-29T01:56:00.000+08:00

Yesterday I sold the PDA-phone I had been using for some time, The O2 XDA II Mini. I don't know exactly why I did, it was basically to sell it at a relatively high price while I still could, and perhaps because I lost the SDIO wi-fi card and rendered its best app useless. The guy that had contacted me, was to my surprise, a Malay guy. Usually the guys that deal in tech gadgets are chapats, and it was something of a welcome relief to see someone else. I had expected that the guy, in true Malaysian style would whine and try to bargain further, even though we had already agreed upon the price. However, the guy turned out to be a true gentleman! He didn't create any issues about the product or the pricing! Awesome! Best sale of a used item, ever.
Today I had 2 out of 3 classes cancelled so I chilled at home mostly, but at some point decided to buy a Nokia N90. Absolute top-of-the-line phone, it usually sells for about RM 3000 or so, but I sourced one for about RM 2100. Pretty good deal, right? I went to see the item, and it was sound enough, with a beautifully crisp screen and fancy camera and all. However, there was something about the device that didn't quite win me over ... perhaps the size, perhaps the way it looks fragile, or maybe just its odd style. And it seems, that not only is the N90 a waste, but it has waste revolving all around it ... symbolically or metaphorically or whatever. To get to the place, I took a series of wrong turns, ended up in a different city, and in the process spent more than RM 40 of gas and RM 15 on tolls! Ughhh .... tolls ... they're not that much in absolute value, but they're so frequent that it can start to hurt.
I had my lunch at Subway today. While chomping away on my footlong seafood and crab on parmesan oregano sub, I noticed a white guy buying Milo drinks for his chapat (?) family. And it was at that point that I realized the commonality of this scenario. Has anyone noticed HOW MANY white guys there are in Malaysia who have married local chapats? And that they all look alike? They're all old, 50+, pot-bellied, somewhat tall and balding! Seriously! I started trying to remember how many examples of this I've seen other than Alan Downe and the guy in front of me, and I could actually come up with a few instances. Why do they do this? Is it because women in their home countries reject them, and refuse to bear their children? Or is it because they can't find decent jobs in their home countries and come to Malaysia to try and garner a little respect from suck-up locals? In any case, it seems they come here and try to start life anew ... but the question is ... why? (X-files soundtrack playing). Maybe 50-year old, fat, balding white guys are aliens who are trying to ... never mind.

More Tahini, Less Bandwidth...

2005-11-27T04:04:00.000+08:00

I went to KL today to return that infernal wi-fi usb thingy. Actually, it wasn't the device's fault, but rather my router's, but I've gotta blame something that I can somehow remedy. Mysteriously enough, the chapat at the counter refunded my money without many questions. While at Low Yat, I managed to find the Logitech Rumblepad 2 for my girlfriend. She's been into N64 emulation like crazy lately, and she had wanted this for some time. Its actually really cool, just about identical to a PS2 controller with rumble and all. I can't use it for my FS2004 though, because it doesn't have a throttle. Still, the quality of construction, smooth analog joysticks, 10 buttons, ergonomic shape and the Logitech name which I have come to trust afford the gamepad an 8/10 on the scale.
I had an interesting habibi dinner tonight. I spotted this place called Al-Shami near the Ritz Carlton hotel, so i decided to check it out. I'm tired of Arab restaurants in Malaysia substituting mayonnaise for tahini amongst other nonsense, but to my surprise, I found that this wasn't the case here! We ordered some tabbuleh, hommos with meat (both are so yum) and 2 shawarma sandwiches. The shawarma sandwiches, although good thanks to a proportionally generous portion of meat and tahini, were overall so small that they basically looked like rotis rolled up. They had a diameter of, no joke, 1 inch! So naturally, more food was next. We ordered a couple of grilled meat platters, which were pretty good, but lacked that thoroughly flavoured quality typical of Arab grilled meats. No baklava, and a RM 93 bill afford Al-Shami no greater than 5/10 on my ratings scale.
My streamyx magically started working when I woke up to the call of the technician. Its incorrectly capped at half a megabit, something that is ULTRA common, and will take "24 to 48 hours to process" in the words of a highly-accented Malaysian employee of TMnet. Still, I'm overjoyed to see my bit torrent downloads flying at 52 KB/s, something which was only possible in "special" dreams with MYKRIS. Can't wait to see 104 KB/s!

more on uncapping ...

2005-11-26T03:58:00.000+08:00

If anyone knows anything or anyone that has something to do with uncapping streamyx modems ... DO LET ME KNOW! And no, the connection isn't capped at the DSLAM, and no the connection is not limited to 2 megabits.

gotta uncap ma Streamyx!

2005-11-26T03:48:00.000+08:00

I should be getting my DSL back tomorrow, and it should be a relief from this lackluster connection present freely in my condo. Still, I think its gonna be too slow, so I've scoured the net searching for methods to "uncap" my DSL modem. It turns out that its quite possible. I'm subscribing to a 1 megabit connection, but come on ... 1 megabit is hardly enough for someone who downloads as heavily as I do. Apparently my bit torrent downloads are gonna be at about 100 KB/s, but i want that to be near 180 KB/s. Methods I didn't find, but from what I've read, all I have to do is "motivate" the technician to uncap the modem to about 5 megabits! Lets see if this is true. I'm really trying not to get excited over it, but i can't help it! I know, I'm a computer geek AND A HALF!

PC Stuff

2005-11-26T03:35:00.000+08:00

I made some computer changes today, by adding an additional 512 MB of RAM and attempting a wi-fi USB thingy connection. The RAM worked out fine, but the wi-fi thing ... holy shit ... it worked fine in the beginning, then started disconnecting me big time! I couldn't transfer anything from my girlfriend's PC without a disconnect! Turns out, it was the damn router. It seems I join thousands of people who also own Netgear routers that disconnect them all the time. I'm gonna go and try to return that (now) useless thingy tomorrow. On the plus side, the RAM now adds up to 1 GB and the difference is SO noticeable.
I now have the following configuration: a Shuttle XPC (you know, one of those "small form factor" PCs) containing a 2.4 GHz P4 running at 2.97 GHz, 1 GB of RAM @ 416 MHz, 200 GB HDD, 16x dual layer Sony DVD-RW, Radeon 9700 Pro "putting out" to a Dell 2405FPW 24" widescreen LCD. Sound is pumped through my THX, 400 watt Logitech Z-somethings.
With this setup, it was only natural that I buy a pirated CD of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, to sit back in my lazy boy and enjoy "media" with. It actually looks better than regular XP thanks a shiny looking interface, but the real deal is the Media Center app. With smooth, animated menu changes and a very cool looking way of accessing media from far away, it totally streamlines the movie-watching and music-listening experience.

First Blog EVAAAR!

2005-11-26T03:25:00.000+08:00

I know its getting a little cliche (how do u put the damn accent on the end?), but I had to name the first blog "the first blog." Well what just happened was that I was sitting at my PC, frustrated about the the damn wi-fi (i'll explain another time) and I heard this humongously loud bang, followed by smoke and fire alarms. How often does that happen? Well ... to me ... never! Anyways, it turned out to be just a damn firecracker or something, so no action to report here. Other than those KAALA ANDAS on the floor above me without shirts. Like guy, seriously! Put a shirt on when ur that hairy! You'd think they'd realize that kind of thing on their own, anyway, but no. So why is it KAALA ANDAS sleep without their shirt? I have pondered this question, and if anyone knows the answer, please do share. I think I'm gonna adjust some settings with this blog thingmajig, so this is it for now.