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| The Green Hill. |
| 07.31.04 (6:29 am) [edit] |
Woke up real early again this weekend. It rained quite a bit last night but my colleagues and I decided to go ahead with the short hiking trip we planned. The hill was called Bukit Hijau (loosely translated which is Green Hill). It's only a stone's throw away from where I live so I could afford an additional 15 minutes of shut eye. Was a simple hike and we were done before 10am. The sights weren't exactly spectacular... but I'll post some anyway ^_^
[i]A snapshot when we reached the peak.[/i]
[i]A view of the town from the hilltop.[/i]
[i]Another view of the town from a different perspective.[/i]
Juz realized I totally forgot to take any pic of myself since I was too busy taking pics of everyone else... haha... forgetful me...
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| Ode to sugar... |
| 07.30.04 (1:36 am) [edit] |
Oh thy mighty soda gods... I brings thanks for providing me sustenance to last me throughout the week... praise... praise...
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| Dirtbag society. |
| 07.29.04 (11:49 pm) [edit] |
I've always viewed my country as one which is relatively tolerant and safe. I have this mentality ingrained into my gray mass which tells me ppl in a developing third world country are warm, friendly and hardly the violent type. Must be all the brain-washing we were subjected to during our primary school years. Morale education... bah... whole load of crap.
Lady succumbs to head injury after assault by snatch thief! Man slashed while trying to apprehend robber! Guard shot during daylight bank robbery! These are some of the headlines which grace the newspapers for the past few months. Ain't that safe after all eh? I never gave this much thought... since I didn't give shit bout it.
Not till I came into the office yesterday. Saw my cubicle neighbour wiv a glum look on his face. Asked him wassup? Turns out some damn S.O.B. smashed the window of his car, ripped out his one month old CD player and totally wreaking the center console in the process. The idiot even had the cheek to lay the broken window nicely pieced together next to the car as though to add insult. Guess it's gonna cost him a bomb to get everything fixed. Bummer.
Came back during the evening. Got a call from an unknowned number. Turns out to be my little sis. She was calling via a payphone. Told me some bastard of a pickpocket stole her handphone while she was on the monorail. She all alone down south and losing your handphone is a bloody hassle when u're workin there. Immediately called the telco hotline to terminate the number since it's a post-paid. Will try and get her a replacement SIM card hopefully real soon.
Damn... what kinda society am I living in at the moment? On the surface, everyone seems to be this warm friendly fuzzy ppl living our so called carefree lives. What pretentious whores we all are. There's way too much scum in my society...
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| What's spinning? |
| 07.27.04 (5:27 pm) [edit] |
Currently listening to :
ATB's [i]Addicted to Music[/i]. Fantastic CD packed with ATB's brand of ambient trance. Roberta Carter Harrison's (of The Wild Strawberries) vocals added a nice emotional touch to a number of tracks.
Paul Van Dyk's [i]Out There and Back.[/i] As usual, the trance maestro could do no wrong. Double CD packed with ambient, spacey, tripped out tracks... amazing music experience.
I can listen to this all day :wink:
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| My Personal Sunday... ^_^ |
| 07.25.04 (3:59 am) [edit] |
I've gotta thank the doc. Whatever he gave me on Friday, it sure packed one heck of a wallop. Knocked me out cold till 11am this morning. Sufficient sleep... that's the good news. The bad news is... I don't feel any better. Sheeesh.
Read my horoscope. "You should spend the weekend with the one person most important in your life... yourself". Great, more solid confirmation of my stagnating social life. Bleh...
Anyway, first thing I decided to do was to get rid of the mess of hair on my head. A quick visit to the barber and 3 and a half inch worth of hair fell to the ground. Feeling kinda light headed after that... haha. Later, spent the day doing some groceries and re-stocking my toiletries. Also bought some comfort food as I was planning to do some vegetating in front of the TV later today. Came across this Pepsi Light thingy.
I never was a fan of diet fad drinks. I prefer my sodas packed with at least 12 spoonfuls of sugar and carbonated to the max. That's why I haven't tried them in my life. But this one was pretty interesting. Emblazoned across the aluminium facia, it stated, "0 calories!" and "All the same great taste!". Was really curious about these claims so I popped it into my grocery basket.
As soon as I got home, I plopped myself onto the lazy chair and popped opened the can. A sip confirmed my suspicion. This diet cola SUCKS... BIG TIME. Somehow, it taste like flat cola... but it's carbonated. Sounds like an oxymoron statement but that's exactly how I find the taste. There's also a slight bitter aftertaste but I'm pretty sure that's due to the presence of aspartame... the artificial sweetener. I came to one conclusion. Zero calories = ZERO TASTE! This is definitely going into my banned drinks list. Should have just bought Vanilla Coke instead.
But all is forgotten as I turned on the idiot box. I used to be a big fan of Japanese Doramas (Japanese Serial Dramas) during my college years and there was this new series called "Mukodono 2003" showing this evening. I had no expectation of this one since the actors and actresses were practically unknowned to me (this is a pretty recent series).
What a plesant suprise it was. It turned out to be a light hearted romantic comedy revolving around the double life of this rising pop-star called Sakuraba Yuichiro. The acting was natural and the comic antics of the cast were hilarious. As usual, there's a healthy dose of heart wrenching drama thrown in as well and the whole concoction worked suprisingly well. An added bonus was the female cast were really *kawaii! (Hey... the main actor said that himself... hehehe ^_^)
An hour slipped by fast, and I found myself very eager to catch the next episode. I haven't had this much fun watching a Japanese serial since 4 years ago when I last saw "Overtime". I totally forgot bout the loneliness which was haunting me during those 60 minutes. I'm definitely gonna follow this series to the end.
* 'cute' in Japanese.
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| Sunrise. |
| 07.24.04 (5:15 am) [edit] |
The influenza bug hit me hard several days ago. But somehow, I decided to wake up at 6am this morning to go hiking wiv my colleagues. With no lights to guide us, the 6 of us depended on one measly penlight to bring us up to the hilltop. I decided to show them a new trail instead of the usual track. Not many knows about this one but it's a little tougher. It took me double the effort than usual to get to the top (I was wheezing all the way... damn flu), but it was well worth it. We waited at the resthouse for the sunrise. What do I think of it? I'll let the pics do the talking ^_^
Taken bout 10 minutes after we reached the top. Red filter on.
Another shot taken from ground level. Fooling around wiv the settings... which explains the blue tint...
A shot of the Penang bridge linkin the island I'm on to the mainland, some 14km away.
The sun was still mostly covered by wispy clouds. But the rays which managed to break thru were delightfully warming.
Juz a pic of the morning dew on the petals of a flower.
There's probably a tonne of stuff I really want to blog about. But right now, I need to swallow my medication and get some shut eye :wink:
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| Little wisps of wind. |
| 07.20.04 (2:45 am) [edit] |
A nice cute pick me up for a lazy Tuesday afternoon :lol:
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| Mmmmmmzzzzzzzz... |
| 07.15.04 (9:19 pm) [edit] |
That's exactly how I feel at the moment. Keep dozing off. Lucky I didn't cream the monitor with my forehead. It's a miracle I managed to drive to work today. Hmmm... uh.... zzzzzzzzzzzzz... wha? Oh... whateva...
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| What do u do? |
| 07.13.04 (6:10 am) [edit] |
I'm pretty sure everyone have times when they're feeling down, moody, easily irritated or just plain bored. Sure... you can go out and have a riot wiv your frens, but how bout the times when u just don't feel like facing the sunshine (or maybe moonlight for you nocturnal party animals)? What do u do to divert your attention from the merry-go-round which is spinning merrily in your head?
I'm not sure what others do... but these are some of the crap which I can think of at the moment.
1. Overload your mind with tonnes of useless but amusing facts. I get mine from the mountain of auto-magazines I purchase each month. 0-60 in 3.2secs! Whoa! 550 horses. Awesome! More torque than a 8ft tall Russian grizzly bear! Totally rad! Not that it matters much to me since my old klunker does 0-60 in 3.2 hours. Not everyone's cup of tea, but it works for me.
2. Sinfully rich food. I once heard someone say the fastest way to nirvana is thru the stomach. Uh... at least I think it sounds something like this. Either that, or my hearing have deteriorated far worse than I have expected. My latest gold mine of a discovery... a huge jar of hazelnut spread. Every mouthfull is like a mini mardi-gras parade on your tongue. I've been eating huge spoonfuls of this while vegetating in front of the idiot box. To hell with healthy eating. Why bother when pleasure come in such sinfully delightful spoonfuls? (Ok... it looks kinda gross in the below pic. I'm a pig. But trust me on the taste k... hehe)
3. Do something which totally consumes your mind. In my case, some mindless doodling. All I need is a clipboard, some pieces of paper, a pencil or two and an eraser. And of course, a subject to draw. Time really flies when u're doing something like this. Btw, the pokemon thingy... it's a pencil sharpener. I inherited it from my 7 year old nephew who upgraded to digimons. Or whatever 'mons' they call it nowadays. I only 'mon' I know is this one Pablo Montoya.
4. If all fails... there's always the trusty 6 string to fall back to. Not that I play well... but I can always pretend that I'm some faux-Hendrix or something. Imagination is a very precious thing to waste. Now if only my fingers can move as fast as my mind... bleh...
Nite :)
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| Boredom is killing me!!! |
| 07.11.04 (11:12 pm) [edit] |
Long weekend. Did nothing. I'm bored to wit's end. I've nothing to blog about... so here's a sketch I did out of boredom to take the place of a proper blog entry. I'll think of something to write soon.
I'm still bored though... :(
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| Long night. |
| 07.10.04 (8:16 am) [edit] |
I was looking forward to a quiet night yesterday after a long day at the workplace. Yeah, my days are pretty mundane nowadays but I’m getting used to the laid back feel of it. Being single affords me the right to do whatever hell I want... hehe. Anyways, I had a simple dinner, and then headed off to the bathroom for a nice long warm shower to de-stress.
As I came out from my shower, I found an sms on my cell. It was Chan, my highschool mate. We’ve been meeting up pretty frequently lately since we’re pretty much in the same boat in many aspects of life, so we have plenty to talk about. Decided to have supper at one of the late night roadside eateries, which are abundant around his neighborhood. As usual, he and I will take this opportunity to bitch about anything that crosses our minds. It’s pretty effective way to preserve our sanity. Doesn’t matter if it’s about work, misfortunes, girls or relationships… anything goes. But we mostly bitched about work related issues that night. Seems that the blooming management idiots in his company decided to scrap annual increments and replace it with performance-based incentives. Bummer. Lucky me :twisted: Yeah... I bitch a lot lately... muahahahaa...
After a heavy supper, I got home at around 15 past midnight. Switched on the idiot box and started flipping thru the channels. I pretty much zoned out after that. It’s a guy thing… difficult to explain. The cell suddenly buzzed again. I glanced at the clock. It was bout 1 in the morning. Wondered who would call me at this kinda freakin hour. Picked up the cell and answered the call. “Hello?” It was CL, a friend who’s working on the mainland. “Hey… how r ya?” I asked. “Cmos… u really gotta do me a favor.” She sounded pretty freaked out. “Sure. But… eh… aren’t u supposed to be on your way to a company trip this weekend?” I asked. “Yup… but I ran into some complications… tell u later… could you pls pick me up at Sungai Bakap highway rest area?”
WTF?!?! I’m dumb-f**ked coz I have absolutely no idea where the heck the place was. Like I said in my previous blogs… I have the directional sense of a gerbil. But after getting some vague directions out of her, I more or less figured out the place is located somewhere after the Juru area on the mainland. Throughout the conversion, I used a mixture of English, a smattering of Mandarin and a little Hokkien to get thru what I wanted to say. I couldn’t really speak Mandarin while her command of Hokkien wasn’t great. But we always managed to understand what the other is saying… somehow. I estimated it would take at least half an hour to get there from my place on the island. “Ok… hang in there… I’ll try and pick you up asap” I told her as I grabbed the keys to my car.
So here I was, driving to the mainland at 1.15am in the morning wondering what the hell was going on. I had my hands-free on throughout the drive to get me thru a few unfamiliar turns. Damn it was dark, could hardly see the road signs. Eventually, I managed to find my way to the place. CL opened the door and plopped herself onto the passenger seat. “Hi”. I was surprised to see the sides of her eyes were swollen up and she could hardly see thru her eyelids. Turns out that she had a rash earlier in the day. She went to see a doc, who gave her some jab on the arm and some medications to be taken orally. Unfortunately, later during the night, she must have been allergic to either the jab or one of the medications the doc gave her and started ballooning up. Luckily, she noticed the swelling and decided to abort the trip she was about to take to Malacca with her colleagues. No point going when u can’t enjoy yourself. The bus driver dropped her off at the rest-stop and that was when she called.
I shaked my head when I saw her. “Woi… peng you, u think I want one meh?” she asked. “Haha… no-lar… funny that out of so many thousand medications in the world… u have to be allergic to this one” I joked. I asked her where the nearest clinic was. We decided to drive to Chai Leng Park to look for one coz the swelling was getting pretty bad. Eventually found one and we went in there pronto. I waited outside for bout 15 minutes while the doc examined her. After what felt like an eternity, she came out wiv a pained expression on her face. “So… what did the doc say… huh… huh?” I asked impatiently. “Isk… don’t ask-lar… suffice to say that I got another jab… and it hurts like hell… the doc must have hit a nerve… oww…” I think the doc gave her an anti-histamine jab. “Wah-lau-eh… one day kena jab so many times… u should buy lottery ticket tomorrow eh?” I shaked my head again. “Ah… shut up-lar…” she snapped.
Anyways, it was getting pretty late. She picked up her prescription and we drove off. I dropped her at her place, which wasn’t really that far away. She got off, said thanks and hurried back into her rented apartment to apply the eye drops the doc gave her. I backed up my car and started the long drive back home. Along the way, I reflected on what just happened over the past 2 hours or so. I smiled to myself… wondering if the same thing happened to me… whom should I call? Honestly, I’ve absolutely no idea who I would call. Damn. I got home at around 3.30 in the morning. Didn’t bother to change. Hit the bed and can’t remember anything after that.
What a weird night...
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| Black gold. |
| 07.09.04 (12:47 am) [edit] |
I've been sustaining myself with nothing but coffee for the past few days. Feeling lethargic as hell, and that black liquid is the only thing which gets me thru the working day.
I used to enjoy my cuppa with loads of creamer or condensed milk. The intoxicating aroma of fresh coffee powder will go very well with the creamy taste. Simply heavenly. Nowadays... I take it black. Not out of choice... but it seems to have a more potent kick this way. Especially when u heap on the sugar to obtain a temporary sugar high.
I'm pretty sure this vile concoction could keep an elephant awake for weeks. Which really isn't a bad thing when u're working in the engineering field. The more alert u are, the faster u get things done. Whoopeee!
Now... if only I can get the dang tremor out of my hands... :P
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| Rat race woopee. |
| 07.07.04 (7:52 am) [edit] |
It’s that time of the year again. The annual performance review. It’s kinda weird having to listen to what my bosses have to say over the past two days. The structure of my department underwent a major overhaul; which left more questions than answers. Several years back, due to the massive influx of employees, three new positions were created to ensure that the employees have a better opportunity for career advancement since the workforce will be spread out more thinly over the larger hierarchical tree. A couple of years down the road, the management finally saw the weakness in this system as it lead to countless protocol issues and also non-conformity to the standard system other companies have adopted all along. However, by now, the employees have already firmly established their footing on their respective positions.
So it was with great pleasure that the big-wigs of the dept decided to announce the abolishment of the above said 3 positions. This was accomplished by merging 2 categories for each technical level. The gap between each level were pretty wide. Which lead to major dissatisfaction among many factions amongst colleagues. Old hands were disappointed that they will be lumped up with fresh blood. Others were pissed by the fact that the position they worked so hard to obtain was abolished by a single swoop. My personal thoughts? I’m kinda caught in between.
It’s been 3 years since my last promotion. I wasn’t exactly thrilled when I heard about the new system. Imagine my bewilderment when I heard what my boss had prepared for me later that day. “Cmos, I’m pleased to inform you that your performance has been good over the previous year”. “Whoa… this could lead to something…” I thought and grinned impishly to myself. He continued, “However, as you have heard, due to the abolishment of several titles, I’m afraid we’re unable to grant you an official promotion since the position no longer exist”. “WTF?!?! Am I being screwed again here?!?!” crossed my mind.
“You are actually due for one this year. However, fear not. In recognition of your efforts over the past year, we will try and compensate you via a little monetary rewards. Think of it as a form of pseudo promotion ok?” he added. At this point, I’m not sure whether to feel glad or feel insulted. On one hand, I’m glad that I finally managed to prove to my bosses that I’m not the bum most ppl think I am. Besides, I heard that some of my colleagues were presented with even worse crap than I did. However, on the other hand, I’m absolutely disappointed that after 5 years, I’m back at square one since the title I’ve targeting for have been abolished and replaced with some generic sounding position. This places me back into the same category as my juniors. Major bummer.
Things ain’t that bad actually. I’m just amused by how easily decisions were being made by the big-wigs, without taking into consideration the potential impact on the morale of the workforce. Guess I’ll like to make a toast. A toast… to being stuck with the same job title after working for 5 long years.
Woohoo… I’m the luckiest guy in the world.
Mabbe I should rename my blog to “The Never-ending Misfortunes of a Blur Sotong”. Has a nice ring to it.
Nite :)
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| And we have a winner... |
| 07.05.04 (3:59 am) [edit] |
Spiderman 2.
3 words.
GO CATCH IT!
Easily one of the better movies this year. Fantastic script, awesome cast and a nice blend of drama with action. Now this is what a proper comic adaptation is supposed to be like!
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| Weekend hike. |
| 07.04.04 (6:24 am) [edit] |
The week went by extremely fast. Next thing I knew, it's only another couple of hours before I hit the sack and prepare for another day at work.
My mind was pretty much like a bird's nest for most of last week, so when a bunch of colleagues suggested a hike up one of the more secluded beaches in Penang, I jumped at the offer. This is my third trip to this beach but it’s still one of my favorite trails. Saturday morning. 3 frens followed my car as I drove down to meet the rest at the place we agree upon. We were early so we each ordered a glass of milk tea near a small little coffee-shop (um… more like a hut) while waiting for the latecomers.
Laughed our heads off when we spotted an advert poster promoting "Kopi Jantan" which literally translated from Malay, is "Male Coffee". It wasn't the name that intrigued us as much as the 'models' that promoted the drink. They were a bunch of grandpas' who swore by the potency of the coffee. FYI, this coffee was infused with tongkat ali... a local medicinal root which locals use as an aphrodisiac. How well it work… I’ll leave that to imagination. Should have taken a snapshot of it… hilarious.
9.45am. Everyone arrived and we were raring to go. I’m the one with the huge smile on my round yellow face. You can't miss my mug even by a mile...
After a brief introduction session (some of us have never met before), we were surprised to find 16 ppl for this trip instead of the initial 11. Great ^_^ The more the merrier. So off we went into the jungle trail. The weather is really fantastic as it wasn’t too hot and the humidity wasn’t that bad. We decided on a leisurely pace to better appreciate the scenery.
Halfway thru the hike, we came across this narrow path, which reminded us of a certain scene from LOTR. You could imagine the amount of puns being hurled at this point. “Master Frodo… dun leave me…” or “Sam… I love you” followed by loads of, “Woi… walk-lar” and “Yeah... I love you too… now shut up”. These ppl really crack me up.
An hour passed. The group started getting weary. “Are we there yet?” were heard every 15 seconds. I’m really glad to have gotten one of those hiking sandals as it was so much more comfortable than wearing shoes. Took random pics every now and then.
Finally, after a further 20 minutes, we spotted the bridge across the lake (which meets the sea; called a meromatic lake or something like that. It’s a combination of both fresh and sea water. Only 2 are found throughout the world.). We knew the beach was close.
10 minutes later, we found ourselves gazing at the beautiful sandy beach called Pantai Kerachut. The sand here isn’t as fine as in beaches in other parts of Penang, but it sure made up for it with a really magnificient view of the ocean. Most of the group went for a dip in the sea. I decided to drop my backpack and just laze under one of the many shady trees by the beach.
I lost track of time whilst at the beach. I later climbed up one of the rock formations close to the sea and just sat there watching the waves crash onto the rocks, sending foamy mist of seawater into the air. I don’t know what the rest thought about it but the two hours we were there, was the most peaceful 120 minutes I had in a long time.
After gathering around, getting to know each other better and having a light snack, it’s time for the trip back home. We took an alternative route and surprisingly, it only took us 40 minutes to reach the starting point of our journey. The hike back was rather uneventful; since probably almost everyone were pretty pooped by then. But still... loads of smiles. We gathered around for one last group photo.
I had a nice time :)
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Blogs By My Everyday Buddies
Blogs I Start My Day
With
cmos
Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor. A process that uses both N- and P-channel devices in a complimentary fashion to achieve small geometries and low power consumption.
Also
coincidently the online nick of a very average bloke who at times can be a totally spaced-out blur sotong. Armed with his limited knowledge and talents, he embarks on a personal quest to understand, and hopefully survive this thingy called 'life'.
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