International Man of Geekery

Posted December 9, 2004 at 12:59 am in General Nonsense

Went into the office yesterday to submit a report on the Brunei assignment, it was well received, which is nice. It looks like Colombo is definately delayed, until when I’m not sure, I’m petitioning to have it postponed ’til 2005, then at least I can spend Xmas and NYE even in the big smoke with my loved and cherished faggots and various others. Gonna be a big Xmas party aswell, with some sexy santa action, lots of alchohol, dancing and fun if I have anything to do with it.

Caught up with the faggot trio last night, went for dinner with God and his Saint, had some great La-La, gai juk (chicken congee), Satay and tried the Perak style Asam Laksa, was pretty ok. The La-La was really good! No pictures to make you all salivate though, will remember my camera next time..

My trusty Canon A70[/url] is still under Warranty thankfully as it’s developing the dreaded E18 error..

Got rid of the chicks and God, then picked up TheGreatFaggot and had some boys talk and beers. It was schweet, missed those guys and talking about weird stuff like Teabagging in a public place 😀

Went home and worked on some stuff…having an off day tommorow to get my appt sorted, so have a few things to catch up with. Had supper at some bizarre time. Still feeling pretty crappy today, need to buy some multi-vits and get some Lemsip!

Made a massive list of stuff I have to do…and buy, first on the list still curtains, looks like I’ll have time to get it done though before I leave again which will be nice..might go and see how long the sofa would take too, and I’ll go and get the TV cabinet sorted tommorow, perhaps move my TV across too 🙂

Downloading some Christmas albums now, awesome!

Get that xmas spirit on the go..

It’s gonna be a great week any which way, thanks.

Suan went to see a play last night too, so she wasn’t there, you can check her post about it[/url].

Btw Suan, congrats on your 100th post 😀

Am listening to BBC Radio 1 right now, if you wanna be cool like me listen to it. (Favourite shows Fabio & Grooverider of course, Chris Moyles, Sunday Surgery and Radio 1 Rap Show with Tim Westwood the original Wigga).

Continue Reading · 2 Comments · General Nonsense

Maxis service…..good!

Posted December 8, 2004 at 4:12 am in General Nonsense

Ok I got a new SIM card today, it’s all good…am back in the office.

Boss has deigned fit to give me Friday off to sort out my shit..

Managed to buy a mattress last night, went for some uber Coconut Fibre thing with a bit of foam so it’s not SOO hard, the pure King Koil coconut fibre deal was like lying on marble. They delivered it promptly too, which was nice. Bought some el-cheapo bedsheets too so at least I have something to lie on. Also grabbed a broom, mop, bucket and associated smelly cleaning liquids to sort the place out.

After inspection of the appt, dead cockroach count = 2, so not too bad.

Went to get some quotations for curtains last night with ‘Blackout’ curtains for the bedroom as my room faces the carpark, pretty expensive stuff.

Some a nice sofa too within my budget, might go and check it out again..

My TV cabinet never arrived…so I’ll have to go and chase that fella up.

Had dinner with the FAGGOTS, my partner in crime was absent though, just getting back from Miri before I departed, so I’ll catch up with him tonight. Good to see you guys, shame Misai wasn’t there though (was his off day), but I grabbed a burger and it was awesome and had 3 teh-o-ais-limau’s..

For the uninformed and uneducated, Misai means moustache in Malay, he’s a mamakian Indian guy at our favourite hang out place in SS2, Petaling Jaya..His drinks are good, the place is happening and it’s just a really nice place to hang out chat and eat good down to earth food. It’s my first home pretty much, along with Horus there the local cybercafe and DOTA marathon place.

If you want to find me, go to Misai in SS2 and look for the tall hairy, ham sup, ahbeng gwailoh 🙂

Looks like I’m consigned to the desert tommorow (Cyberjaya the *cough* intelligent city).

Will take some pics of the appartment in it’s various states of transformation with all my kinky furniture.

Ok am gonna run out now and get some more quotations for curtains, will catch up with the faggots and perhaps GOD[/url] later for dinner.

Sorry nothing deep and meaningful today 😀 And no pics, cos am in the office 🙁

So droll I know, my sincere apologies.

Continue Reading · 3 Comments · General Nonsense

Intermittent Service

Posted December 7, 2004 at 3:04 am in General Nonsense

Ok Shaolins blog gems will be intermittent for a while..

I am lounging in the Mon’t Kiara office now in the heart of civilisation! Awesome!

I have shifted my stuff to my new appartment, which is a complete mess right now but it’s somewhere to sleep….I think I am ill…I am sneezing and snuffling and I feel like I’m burning up…it’s always the same though, when I don’t have to go to work I fall sick..

A great case of murphies law, when I have work to do…I don’t get sick, I stay healthy…the day I get off…I fall sick bleh and magically recover perfectly in time for work to start again.

Anyway I am rambling off topic, my new appartment has no phone line….my SIM card is burnt so I am totally incommunicado..I can’t even get my phone numbers out without a SIM card.

I might just try and grab a Prepaid first, I should get a replacement Maxis SIM tommorow…

Also I’ll be very busy trying to grab some stuff for my appartment, tidy things up a bit, get my stuff washed, clean up a bit and wonder WHY THE FUCK MY BACK CAR SEAT HAS A HUGE BURN MARK ON IT..

Other than car seems to be a reasonable condition still, although terribly dirty, I washed it just now when I was grabbing lunch, looks 100x better.

Had an awesome dinner last night, some malay food in my area, sadly the chicken wings weren’t there last night, but I had some other stuff that more than made up for that.

Gonna go shopping now…hope to catch you guys in SS2 later, will give you all a call if I managed to get a prepaid.

I am off to Colombo on Sunday I think, so this week I’m not sure when I’ll be blogging…also next week the same can be said 😀

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Food, movies and even MORE food!

Posted December 5, 2004 at 1:55 am in Brunei, Food/Eating, Movies, Trips & Travel

Friday was a big blur, all day watching presentations..*yawn* Was a long and tiring day, 13 30 minute presentations with Q and A’s too, I managed to ask everyone a question they couldn’t answer though, so that was my job done 🙂 Friday night just had dinner, went online to chat for a while and went to bed.

Well Saturday was cool, went into class early and watched the final presentation, yay, all work now complete! After class went to lunch with everyone at a resturant called Nyonya:

The food looked great, but didn’t taste all that fantastic:

It was pretty edible though, and the drinks were great! We had a cool time laughing and joking and eating rather too much….I even managed another Shaolins Legendary Gay Pose in their honor…

Ya ya ya…go ahead laugh, I don’t give a shit 😀

After that we headed to The Mall for a movie marathon, thriller, comedy then HORROR!

Here’s a rundown:

The Forgotten[/url]

Decent thriller type movie with some emotional angst, decent acting and a couple of shocks, a bit reminscent of The Outer Limits at times, but worth a watch.

Bridget Jones 2: The Edge of Reason[/url]

As I’ve read both the books I pretty much knew what was going to happen and was mostly waiting for the trip to Thailand which is a much larger part of the book than it is of the film, the prison was much nastier and longer…it was a all a bit jolly and easy in the film..

It was ok though, I laughed a lot through-out the film, it didn’t seem as cleverly made as the first one though, it was a lot more banal and dumbed down, perhaps for the American audience…seemed almost slapstick at times. I still enjoyed it nevertheless but the first one was definately better.

Shutter

Fairly routine Asian horror movie, not really ‘scary’ as such, but lots of shocking moments, really nicely directed and can make you jump 3 feet out of your seat…I enjoyed it, I went to get scared and I did 🙂 The Ringu/Ju-On images of chicks with long hair, white faces and blah blah is all getting a bit much though (The Phone, One Missed Call, Shutter etc).

Worth a watch though, at least a bit of originality was shown in the plot and the acting was fairly good. The movie website is HERE.

After that we went for some food nearby then to the stadium to check out Max Power Brunei style, but sadly the police got there before us so there was a mass exodus and everyone was on the way out. So came home and crashed.

Just went to lunch at Pizza hut and I’m waiting for my gay buddy to pick me up so we can all go bowling then perhaps for dinner after that.

Oh yeah I managed to sneak a picture of my spot in Coffee Bean too, so you can check out the most happening place in Brunei, look at all those people! Oh yeah…only me there LOL

Other than that back to KL tommorow, so looking forward to it, it’s gonna be cool. Being away makes you appreciate what you have and there’s some things I’m REALLY looking forwards to eating and doing 🙂

See you all there! *hugs*

Continue Reading · 6 Comments · Brunei, Food/Eating, Movies, Trips & Travel

Blogging….it’s the pwn!

Posted December 3, 2004 at 5:10 am in Food/Eating, General Nonsense
‘Blog’ picked as word of the year

The term “blog” has been chosen as the top word of 2004 by a US dictionary publisher.

Merriam-Webster said “blog” headed the list of most looked-up terms on its site during the last twelve months.

During 2004 blogs, or web logs, have become hugely popular and some have started to influence mainstream media.

Source: BBC News

On a similar note, Google is already blogging[/url] and Microsoft has just started.

As for me I did another stupid test haha…

Your Brain Usage Profile:

Auditory : 27%
Visual : 72%
Left : 50%
Right : 50%

Shaolin, you exhibit an even balance between left- and right- hemisphere dominance and a slight preference for visual over auditory processing. With a score this balanced, it is likely that you would have slightly different results each time you complete this self-assessment quiz.

You are a well-rounded person, distinctly individualistic and artistic, an active and multidimensional learner. At the same time, you are logical and disciplined, can operate well within an organization, and are sensitive towards others without losing objectivity.

You are organized and goal-directed. Although a “thinking” individual, you “take in” entire situations readily and can act on intuition.

You sometimes tend to vacillate in your learning styles. Learning might take you longer than someone of equal intellect, but you will tend to be more thorough and retain the material longer than those other individuals. You will alternate between logic and impulse.

This vacillation will not normally be intentional or deliberate, so you may experience anxiety in situations where you are not certain which aspect of yourself will be called on.

With a slight preference for visual processing, you tend to be encompassing in your perceptions, process along multidimensional paths and be active in your attacking of situations or learning.

You too can take the test HERE.

Other than that…have been watching students final presentations all day…damn sleepy now. Had some good food last night, deep fried Brie with cranberry sauce followed by a 360g steak! Woah, yeah you heard it right, check the beauty out (slightly bloody as it should be)..

Here is me demolishing what is left of the Brie..

The pics are a bit blur because it was a dim, candle lit kinda place full of gwailohs drinking wine (ang moh cha), *rolls his eyes*.

Other than that not much, apart from the torture I gave the students today with my super hard questions *evil grin* and the fact they don’t believe I am no good at anything any more…

They asked me if I want to go bowling, I’m like..yeah but I’m not very good..they said “Are you SURE? You said that about pool…”

Laters!

Continue Reading · 3 Comments · Food/Eating, General Nonsense

More salty Indian food, yay…NOT

Posted December 2, 2004 at 5:04 am in General Nonsense

Ok so what’s been up since the hacking comp, nothing much as per usual haha

I gave the students some feedback forms, got pretty much what I expected, for some reason people always rate my Knowledge – Excellent..the rest I know not so great, like presentation skills.

The main comment through-out though was more practical demonstration…which means more hand holding, as I’ve discussed previousl, am not really into this and I explained it to them and why I tried to do things that way. They seemed to understand. I basically said I wanted to teach them how to learn, not teach them how to do a, b & c exactly like this..because the tools and exploits will be different in 6 months so the only common ground is the methodology and the concepts behind it. Oh well, I hope they appreciate my intent, I’m trying to make them think and really learn…not just be another set of robots that can only do a limited set of tasks. By learning to learn they will overcome new problems and embrace new technology, not get totally stuck when something out of the ‘norm’ occurs.

So following that I did some practical demonstrations today, one penetrating and taking over Windows and one for Linux, lot’s of “Woo” “Awww “Ahhh” and “Wows” as expected hehe. Hopefully they learnt something.

Last night went to the company Raya thing, had some makan, some prize draw, the students and staff singing some songs (I managed to escape thankfully), some speeches, normal kinda thing…exactly those kind of things I don’t want to go but have to hehe, oh well it’s not like I have much else to do here 🙂

After that went home and went online till far too late, slept till noon today, feel great today thanks!

I have to give Brunei one thing though, their free Wireless coverage is awesome, shopping centre food court, most coffee shops, small cafes etc all have Wireless. I mean it’s not that great a claim as the country is so small, it’s population is probably like one suburb of KL. I will have to start abusing free wireless more often in KL until I get my StimX..Makes me feel so cosmopolitan too, sitting in a cafe, drinking a pansy yuppy coffee and surfing the web on my laptop.

My friend MSN’ed me when I was in Kopi Bin and asked me where I was, what was going on etc…so I dutifully told him..it went down something like this:

Friend: “Woah, you are so part of the International business man set now”
ST: “Yup, I spend most of my time sitting in Coffee Bean in various sunny locations around the world ogling pretty girls and surfing on my laptop”
Friend: “OMG you fucking bastard”

LOL!

Went to the crappy, salty Indian place again for lunch today…man I’ll be glad to see the back of that place, REAL GLAD. Also more and more people have been telling me how nice Sri Lanka is, the beaches etc and the food is really awesome apparently…sounds like a half holiday 🙂

Have enjoyed my time with the students, they are a jovial, playful bunch so it’s been cool, just the times outside of class and especially the weekends have been tough. It wasn’t so bad after Ramadan was over, at least they could take me out and we went for cinema and dinner and stuff. The past couple of weeks I’ve found something else to amuse myself with too. Will miss them, especially those that made my life here more bearable, thanks guys. Hope to see you in KL!

Oh yeah got another random e-mail from a blog stalker about the Life..pain..hurt[/url] post and he sent me this, which is nice so I thought I’d post it here:

A message for life….

If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you think you dare not, you don’t.
If you like to win, but think you can’t,
It is almost certain that you wont.

If you think you will lose, you are lost.
For out of this World we find,
Success begins with a fellow’s will,
It’s all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are.
You’ve got to think high to rise.
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go to
The stronger or faster man,
But sooner or later the man,
Who wins is the man,
Who thinks he can…

Bruce Lee

Continue Reading · 7 Comments · General Nonsense

Face thy devil or he getteth stronger..

Posted November 30, 2004 at 10:43 pm in Deep Thoughts

Being here has given me a lot of time for contemplating my life and self discovery, in a way I’ve worked out it’s actually a good thing, kind of a revelation I guess.

The problem is when you are ‘home’ or in a familiar place, when you feel down, depressed or a little lacking in sunshine you go out, find your friends, find something to do and avoid the feelings, replace them with happy feelings. For most cases this is fine…but when the depressing or bad feelings are caused by a more serious root problem you really can’t afford to keep avoiding it.

Here I didn’t have those options, so just sat on the step a lot of time, smoking and thinking, exploring myself, something like self-discovery..I think this is an important activity for everyone, I guess some people would classify it as meditation..Looking inside rather than out, exploring yourself rather than blaming others, you have to beat your own devils before you can take on the world. It’s important for everyone to truly understandand and love themselves, be at peace, know what makes you tick, what you desire and what it is exactly that is making you feel bad about yourself. Don’t just avoid it as it will only get stronger.

Something like fighting those inner devils, we all have them, some times they are bigger than others, sometimes they are just passing ripples of something unimportant, sometimes they are ripples caused by something bigger and deeper…self doubt, self hate, self blame. Don’t let such things consume you, address them, work them out, face thy devil..

As I always tell everyone, communication is always the key, in relationships, at work and with friends. I am blessed, I can communicate. This post is about communication too, but in a way most people don’t consider, learning to communicate with yourself. I guess for women it’s not so bad, but a lot of guys are not in touch with their own feelings and they end up getting all fucked inside and being bastards…or getting horribly depressed and doing terrible things..just from what I’ve seen anyway.

I guess the lesson for today is, be there a problem at work, in your relationship or with yourself…deal with it, face it and own it. Don’t let it dictate how you life your life, problems are obstacles to be conquered, not issues to be avoided as this just feeds them and causes them to swell…like an ice berg, 1/6th of the problem could be above the surface…the rest you have to explore yourself. Don’t be afraid to open up bigger issues, as they need to be addressed too.

Anyway hope you don’t feel like I am preaching or something…just wanted to express what I have to say 🙂 Hope it’s understood..

Other than that things have been normal here, am sitting here in Coffee Bean, Gadong having a Black Forest ice blended mocha. We held a Capture the Flag type of hacking competition yesterday which was fun. My students did pretty well, so I guess perhaps they learnt something after all 🙂

Half day today as they are rehearsing for the Raya celebration tonight, so I am here doing some marking and preparing for the Colombo assignment!

Looks like I’ll be off to Colombo December 11th, 6 days a week, 21 working days…so gonna JUST miss NYE by the looks of it.

Oh well!

Back to KL soon anyway, really looking forward to it and getting excited about arriving back already.

Cooked some bizarre psuedo-Indian Mediteranean vegetable thing last night, I didn’t take pics as it didn’t look so good, but it tasted pretty fine. I manage ok, give me any number of weird items and I’ll concoct something edible (some other people have this talent too I guess).

Anyway got some mails to reply, so laters!

Continue Reading · 2 Comments · Deep Thoughts

You are from Mercury

Posted November 30, 2004 at 4:07 am in General Nonsense

You Are From Mercury

You are talkative, clever, and knowledgeable – and it shows.
You probably never leave home without your cell phone!
You’re witty, expressive, and aware of everything going on around you.
You love learning, playing, and taking in all of what life has to offer.
Be careful not to talk your friends’ ears off, and temper your need to know everything.
Continue Reading · 9 Comments · General Nonsense

Sun, Sand, Sea and Smiles…

Posted November 28, 2004 at 7:17 pm in Brunei, Food/Eating, Trips & Travel

Ok I meant to write this yesterday but I was busy writing the stupid question paper hehe..Oh well I finally finished it at 2.30am…so I’m kind of tired now *yawn*

Warning photo heavy post.

Was in an excellent mood again yesterday and had a good nights sleep with some nice peaceful dreams, which makes a change hahaha..

Went out around to lunch time to Kuala Belait for an open house, Kuala Belait is almost on the border of Brunei next to Miri, it’s really very quiet. It’s around 90km from where I stay.

We had some good food

Some company and some laughs

Man this guys house was seriously nice

Check out the looks, he’s got it done up something like I would like it

After that we drove around a bit and checked out the scenes, Kuala Belait has a beach so we went there and saw the 1 billion barrel monument

The beach is fairly nice

I also managed to kick off my Beautiful Skies photo gallery with a couple of nice shots yesterday, I have loads of these on the fried PC so look forwards to seeing the whole collection.

There are more photos in the Brunei Trip album in the Gallery.

On a different note it’s nice to finally be in an actual good mood again, I got the feeling back to entertain people and was making everyone laugh…I think the funk is clearing 🙂 Thanks. Things don’t look so dark and dismal anymore, there is a sunshine after the rain and I’ve only got 7 more days left here woooo, 28 gone already! Am SO looking forwards to going back!

So back to KL, fix up my appartment and off to Colombo I go by the looks of it. I think it’s pretty much confirmed now.

Ok am going to have breakfast now so catch you all laters.

Continue Reading · 4 Comments · Brunei, Food/Eating, Trips & Travel

Drunk, drunk and happy?!?

Posted November 27, 2004 at 5:34 am in Brunei, Malaysia, Trips & Travel

OMG…I sniffed a beer and got dizzy..

No really I’m actually drunk and I feel good, I’m in a great mood..partially because of unleashing my fury in that weird post last night (weight off my shoulders), partially because I’m drunk for the first time in almost a month (woo-fucking-hoo) and partially because of some other things..

WOW, what happened?? Did it rain beer in that godforsaken place? No my dears..it was all an evil plot to get me intoxicated. I was meant to go to KK if you recall, but I didn’t as my passport was with immigration, after all they didn’t extend my visa, they asked me to go out and come back anyway…bastards so my trip to KK was ruined for nothing. Anyway I was planning to go out, maybe to Miri, but one of the guys said why so far? Just go to Limbang, it’s near by..so today, dutifully after class of we went.

Sunny hot day, awesome time for drinking lots of beers, woo!

Look I don’t care what you say, ANY OF YOU, I am popular really look at all my buddies…

Wooohahaha (yes this is officially a drunken post..)

What’s more we had some pretty good chicken wings, beer….chicken wings, smoking and talking nonsense, what more can you ask for in life? (Not much obviously..whilst I’m here anyway, although there is definately something else I want). And yes I am a happy drunk, I dont get all angry and shit, I just get more crazy, dance a lot and say a lot of funny shit..

The guy I was with was really cool, even though I felt a bit bad, he’s a Muslim local so he can’t drink, but he dutifully sat by and watched me and another chinese guy get a little tipsy. Thanks man, appreciate that a lot. I bought a few cans back and a carton of smokes, pretty cheap over there. Rumours are though Labuan is even cheaper, 70 bucks for a bottle of Chivas, schweeeet!

Anyway I am developing a slight headache now…I haven’t eaten properly since breakfast and I think I need some food and water..so off I go. Don’t worry no drunken rambling in this post, I got it all out last night 🙂

Thank you human beings for creating alchohol, it’s a wonderful thing.

Continue Reading · 8 Comments · Brunei, Malaysia, Trips & Travel