missing

I think i'm sloppy. Maybe i should clean the crockery more.
After I tendered my resignation, realized that i should've done it
later, since that'll enable me to possibly get the year end bonus.
Plus, my old boss called me up yesterday and extended an offer for a
job dealing with VR. Something i would love to do. I probably miss up
on those through my own sloppyness. Or maybe it's just fate.

a new word

solastalgia

33.4, 18.5, 12.4, 7.5, 7.1, 6.5, 5.5, 4.9, 4.2

Reader's Digest, 33.4, 18.5, 12.4, 7.5, 7.1, 6.5, 5.5, 4.9, 4.2

Afigment Blogger

I think the real reason i quit my job is, because i find that my current job is not challenging (in technical terms). Well, no quite accurate, I quit because i'm bored. That boredom came from lack of technical challenge.

a lilttle bit about problems

When you're dealing with it, it will seem unsurmountable. A big boulder on your shoulder. But after you've solved it. It seems so small and so insignificant that you wonder why did you fuss and worry about it in the first place.

It's been long since i put up an entry. So here's one. I've quit my current job. Tendered my resignation yesterday. It's a giddying experience, you should try it. Really.

I think I love making a dramatic exit from my company. When I was with my previous company, I tendered on the day the company's electricity was cut. Now, I tendered the week after I was asked to stay back over the weekends. Kinda like a disgruntled worker's exit, but not really.

So, I'll be in a new place next month. Hope it will be a good place to work. But i'll not build my hope up, because i know, whereever you go, work will always be work. There will be other problems that i'll have to face. Like what cik din used to say "It's better to fight a known enemy". Kinda

that sinking feeling when i've realized that i'm fucked up

As i sat in front of my office PC, here at 7 o'clock in the evening, trying to figure out how to hack together a decent administration page, i discovered that the system i am editing comes with its own extensive administration functionality.

This discovery was late in the development. Very late.

Where did it all go wrong? Was it me? Not asking more questions. Not checking the codes thoroughly? Or was it my collegues? By not informing me of the depth and breath of the system. By not clarifying the specification?

One thing i am sure is that, in the future... in the future? Nobody will ever be sure of the future.

deutsche leistungsfähigkeit

 Aß mit meinem geliebten, gestern zu abend. Glaubt wie das erste datum.

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ahh.. boring boring

sungguh boring. tapi banyak keje nak kene buat. tapi bosan dan boring.

mungkin aku kene jadi lebih lively. MARI! Marilah kita berusaha! MARA!!!!

visitors

the kewl thing about my blog is that, no matter how crappy my entry is, there are bound to be people visiting it. Even if it's just one hit (say, maybe that one hit was mine.. hmm). Anyway, somehow, on the first day of raya, nobody visits my blog. It goes on to say that.. most of you are missusing your company's bandwidth! nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh.

ahhh

it feels good to be able to type on my own keyboard again.

a feign within a feign, within a feign

Howdy boys and gals. Today, me and my family were supposed to be in penang. But alas, fate has other plans for me.

    On the way to penang, we drop by my brother's in law's house, to extend some goodies. We were on our way to my mum's acquaintance when a red iswara took a bend but forgot to follow the dotted line and banged our car smack dab in the middle. Thankfully, nobody was injured.

    At times of crisis, we tend to meditate on the situation. First came the what ifs. What if i was driving? what if we were late? What if I dilly dallied when packing?

    Then there was the observation of human behavior. People become selfish during crisis.

    Any, all accidents sucks. It ruins lives and plans. That was my first thought. Right after we're banged. "How are we supposed to go to penang then!?".

    Another thing that i observe is how calm i was when the car banged us. Really. Usually i'd be sitting at the edge of my seat if my dad barely miss the devider, or he confidently took a turn when there's motorcyclist around. But this time around, I saw it all happen right in front of my eyes, and i was a complete blank. Nothing. No fear. No shock. No "aiiieeeeeeeeeeee~~!". No pedalling the non-existant brake. No nothing. I just sat there and let it happen. Maybe it's my inherent ability to know that things will go fuckedup and no non-existant-brake-pedalling will save us.

    So the car banged us. It was the driver's fault. He was not paying attention to the road. Really. If you look at the collision spot, you'll see that it's riiiiight in the middle of our lane. All the broken glasses are there. In fact, I believe that if we're not there to cushion the collision, he'd end up in the drain or banged a mango tree or something. Maybe we even saved a life. There's a child on board. He's sitting in the passenger seat. Safely buckled.

    Anyhow. There we were. Instead of on our way to penang, we're moping around in the middle of the midday heat during Ramadhan. I'm feeling a deep craving for tebu ais now. Yumm. Maybe i'll scoot over to pasar ramadhan for some before berbuka.

    Anyway. What i was going to say was, if you happen to be in an accident, do this:

1. Get the exact time of the accident.
2. Get the other car's registration number.
3. Get the other car's description. What kinda of car, the color, the brand. etc.
4. Get your car to the police station to show it to the traffic sergent. He'll want to snap some pictures for the insurance.
5. Finally get your car to the workshop.

Everything else is unimportant. You don't really have to know the other driver's name, his number and all. It's handy to have. But unneccessary. It's usefull if you want to cut a deal. But usually, if you want to claim the insurance, those details are not necessary. It will only make things worst. You'll end up discovering that the other driver's daughter in law's nephew is sick and he's in a hurry to get to him. He don't have a legit license. He's penniles. He's got a friend with a workshop that can get you rock bottom prices. Well, things like that might get you in hot water. Well, i might sound a bit harsh.. Too harsh. Too rigid. Maybe you might want to cut a deal or something. And maybe it's handy to deal with it personally.

    Anyway, we did a mistake just now. We sent the car to the workshop first before the police station. Now the sergent can't snap the record photos, so we had to do it all again tommorrow.

    Happy Hari Raya people. Drive safely. But if you fucked up along the way. Dont' worry and remember the magic 4G and an F. Because things will go fucked up. It's just a matter of where, when and how.

chapter 36

The sky is overcast. There's a mild drizzle. Mild enough not to obscure my vision. I can sense the sun shining just behind the dark clouds. No matter. I love overcast skies and mild drizzles. It reminds me of calm lazy days. Days very different from this one.

    I have located myself behind a window, in a building that sat beside a road. My comrades of arms are scattered around the buildings overlooking the road. Our objective for today is to ambush a resupply convoy coming to refit the outpost our small band are harassing. My location provides me with good view of the road that runs between the building, our ambush site.

    After about an hour of waiting, I started to feel a rumble from the ground. The rumble grows louder and louder, like a distant storm that is coming towards us. The rumbling continued to grow until i could feel that it is coming from the entry road that leads to the ambush site. I can see that my comrades are also aware of the loud rumbling and everybody was looking at the entryway. Anticipating. Anticipating what? We are expecting a resupply convoy. Trucks and infantrymens at most. This rumbles feels more like a main battle tank. And like a wish gone wrong, an Abrams main battle tank cornered into the road. My heart raced. The convoy was not supposed to include tanks.

    As the tank moves nearer, i can see that my mates are getting restless. There's a growing confusion amongst the men. Everybody was glancing around at each other, trying to get assurance that nobody was capable of giving. Then, just a surprising as the appearnce of the tank, a room in the building opposite of me erupts in an explosion. Rifle shots can be heard coming from inside of the building. Then a couple of my mates exited the building next to it, into the open road. They ran, but alas they didn't get far, for the ground around them started to erupt with dust and pebbles. They are beind cut down by the main battle tank's anti personnel guns. One by one dropped down like ragged dolls.

    Looking at my mates's cowardice, i wondered, why are they stupid enough to run away from their posts? We could've taken the tanks with RPG's. Then my question was answered when i caught a glimpse of infantrymen storming into the opposite building's rooms. And it dawned on me, we are being ambushed.

    Sitting there helpless, i could only look at my mates being killed one by one. It's either death by the infantry's rifle or the tank's guns. There's is nothing more to be done here, i thought to myself. It it better to run now and fight another day, then dying here in a senseless massacre. As i was turning around to leave my own hiding place, the door behind me burst open, revealing an infantryman wielding M16s. With a sneer and a bemused grin on his face, he said 'Die Infidel' and let loose a barrage onto me. I was thrown back and out of my hideout's window.

    An amusing fact about M16 is that, it was not designed to kill the enemy. Rather, It was design to inflict a decapitating wound. Enough a wound that would make you useless in combat, but not lethal enough to kill you. The rationale of this design was so that wounded soldiers will slow down his company. Furthermore, wounded soldiers could be used to gain intelligence.

    So there i was, laying on the road, looking at the overcast sky with mild drizzle falling softly on my face. In times like these, you want to have people you love close to you. Your mother, if it is possible, your family at the very least. Then, if no family is around, your friends. And so, I reached out my weak arm and pulled my SVD closer, clutching it close to me. I think to myself 'everybody is dead now, it's just you and me now'.

    With my last dying breath, i mumbled "yertzak~ gahh". With that, my mind sputtered its very last comment "Yertzak~ gahh? That's a waste of breath. And a final one at that!"

attention whores

My friend tamin introduced that term to me a couple of days back. Today i looked at www.fotopages.com 's new browse feature. It lists photo pages based on country. Guess what? There are 15103 of malaysian photo pages! The closest is brazil, at 7122 and US at 5688. Even japan, a country parodied to have lots of shutter bugs, lists just about 540.

    Are malaysian attention whores?

some people

Some people are born to be leaders. Most people, followers. And then, there's that tiny number of people that are not meant to be.

    And this is their stroy. Jeng jeng jeng the main movie theme starts. The camera pans, zoom in, out, dolly around a mass of humanity. Every single one of them looks different, red dress, armani suits, mohawks, combat boots and tartan pants, black spiked biker jacket, bling blings, all in multitude of shape, colors and sizes and yet, in that chaotic mass of individuality, they all form a muddied image. A great mass of anonymity. A picture of television static. Hissing with white noise. Unintelligible. Meaningless and mundane.

    The camera zooms out out and out, showing the mass of humanity to look like speckles of fearie dust. Beautiful in numbers, but lingering in the briefest of moments, only to dissipate into the aether.

    Then the camera pans to the right and zooms in in in and in, from the sky, to a city, to a block to a neighbourhood, to a home and into a darkened bedroom, where a boy, no older than 16, sitting in front of a monitor, was jerking off to japanese porn. The chosen ones. They who'll inherit the earth. In darkness and bloodied hands.

hanged

while i was blissfully doing my job. My windows XP froze. It was a first time. It was unthinkable. A strudy system like windows XP could belly up and freeze. What went wrong? I wonder. My wonderment cease when I recall something i quote a couple while back. Indifference to errors. Yes. In light of my recent textual exclaimation, i beg to differ. It wasn't the kind of act to preceive the masculinity of the insipid neanderthals. We strife for our own peace of mind but we forget that what the mind thinks is not really the reality. It is only the by product of chemical imbalance, tring to reach equilibrim in biological sense. We see not what is real. We see only what our body wants us to see. Wait, i've said that a couple of while back. Or did i? maybe i was not. Maybe it was a dream. Was it? Or maybe dream is real and life is the dream of dreams. Where will nightmare fit in then? But of course a nightmare is a bad dream. It is one and the same. But if it so, then why the different names? It suggest a seperate and distinct entity. It is a spatial inconsistency of the neuron cells. The. In conclusion, the questioning phrases suggest an undefined persona of the soliloquist. Undefined or missunderstood of ephemeral in behavioral sense. Contra retrospectly, the dictating dictatee will henceforth mentally oratorate private reckonings in sans quaesitum. Ergo.

perly gates

it is somewhat an eye opener to know that the technology we so rely on are built on shakey grounds. No matter, the internet have taught us to be indifferent to errors. So sayeth some dude. Maybe it's joel. I think not. But i'm sure he's got to do with O'Reilly's perl books.

    Talking about perl. Why perl?

Miss Chief

Dear Miss Suffwind,
lately i've been finding stuff inside my root folder that i can't recall
putting. It's either i'm suffering from mild amnesia, or there's a
dwarf/gnome/hobbit/fairies tinkering with my box when i'm fast asleep or
hard at work.
What should i do? I love my boxes, all three of them, and i hate to lose
them. Especially Mr.F, he's so flexible. And Ms.S she's the epitome of
sturdyness. But last and not least, my D. Oh, the fun we had together. Don't
tell me that someone else have taken them away from me. Please help me, what
should i do? i'm so distressed.
Worried and distressed,
luser_663521

tung tung chiang, tung tung chiang

The thing about working in a chinese company is that, we don't spin raya songs. But is it a sad thing? or a good thing?

Back in my old company, heron the accountant cum dj would've spin the songs. Or maybe that-dude-which-i-can't-recall-his-name. The one that's very good with artsy stuff. Damn. Being forgetfull sucks. I can remember his face, but damn i can't put a name to that face. Something. It's not even a year since i last worked with him.

woe is the forgetfull programmer

I've done it countless times before, but yet, i can't remember the syntax when i'm doing it again.

oh my God!

It's been quite some time since i updated my blog! It's a sign that i'm leading a mundane, quiet life! ahhhh... total nirvana.

A happy man is a man that do not have anything to complain.

 

...

 

Well, i think i need a new chair. The kind that's totally adjustable. I find that i slouch when resting my arms on the armrests. It is too low.

It is always like that. There are numerous things in life that is too low for me, and i ended up lowering myself to fit it.

Maybe that's why a lot of short people are aggressive and successful. They always try to stand taller, sit straighter to fit their small frame to the world. And in the end, the world have to slouch for them. Like napoleon for instance. He's a short man.

But then again. Maybe it's just coincidence. Or that phenomenon that i can't recall the name. That thing when you tend to see patterns when the fact is that there is no pattern, just that you see what you wanted to see.

Did you know that the indians (red indians) could not see columbus's ships when it first reach america? I don't mean that the ship is hidden or anything. Rather, it is said that the indians, having never seen a sea vessel before, could not comprehend the ships and thus their brain kinda dismiss it. Until after this one medicine dude, relizes that something is amiss when he saw the waves are different, like something is messing with it. So he gazed, gazed and gazed towards the sea, untill he finally managed to see the ships. Amazing isn't it. If that is true, think about all the stuff that we unconciosly dismiss. There might be something standing right next to you now, but he is so incomprehensible, that you dismiss his presence. Your own invisible buddy.

Oh and then the medicine dude told his tribe about the ships, and everybody came to gape. Then columbus's men landed to the new world. Bringing horses with them. The red indians call horses 'big dogs' because there's no horse on the american continent and thus they don't have a word to describe it. Fast forward about four hundred years later, we have cowboys and marlboro advertistments, with horses in it, peddling cigaretts 'the american way'. I really thought that horses are indegineous to america. alien nation indeed. Everything in america are imported. The people, the culture, the statue of liberty.

The Man

The Man wasn't a fake afterall

no wonder stevie wonder

I was reading up on disassembly and discovered that a lot of the tools related to cracking are on windows platform. That makes me wonder, why don't crackers prefer linux platform when doing cracking.

Then it hit me. Of course crackers use windows, what is there to crack on linux? most linux stuff comes with source codes.

But I might be wrong though. What do you think? Do crackers crack on linux? It seemed silly though. How'd they observe the apps at run-time if they're cracking it on linux?

Or maybe they've mastered the super duper kewl ability of running software simulation in their own mind by reading hex codes. That's so kewl. But what'll happen if the software hangs? Blue mind of death?

capitalist code, socialist monkeys

did you know that it was Bill Gates that introduces the idea of commercial software?

before personal computers, software are freely shared among users. Most softwares comes free with the hardware. Well, at that time, most hardwares are pretty expensive and are only affordable by big companies. So after forking huge sum of money for hardwares, the vendors are not going to tell the buyers that they'd have to fork some more cash to get the softwares that'll run the big machines rite?

So then in came personal computers. And the buying power is shifted from big companies to the consumers. So then Bill Gates dude convinced the community of developers (most are either working with big ass companies on their big ass machine or are administrating university mainframes and such) that there will be a demand for softwares.

Some of these developers agreed with Bill Gates, and joined the borgish mind cluster we call Micrsoft. The others, they continued to develop codes and share it with the rest of the community, living on the edges of the technological frontier, like scums of the earth. Barely alive, yet not really dead.

Fast forward to the present day. The tables have turned. The conflicts in the frontier have made these frontier code rogues stronger than the assimilated borg beings (living in the center of the technological world, protected and pampered). Now we are seeing cells of these techno rebels are causing mush distress in the borg world.

And the borg beings are realizing that, in the years to come, there might not be anybody else to assimilate. Users are getting savvy enough to write their own codes. The software market as we know it will disintegrate as more and more people are turning to live in the frontier, where adventure abounds.

What the fuck am i talking about here?

life thinggy

I installed Slackware without removing unused/unnecessary components. And
that box started to spew qoutes and advices whenever i log in.

For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in
despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the
implacable grandeur of this life.
-- Albert Camus

Here's one that caught my attention (well most quotes makes me pause a
moment or two, but this one, i don't really get.. or maybe i get it, but am
not sure if that's what its the meaning).

What do you think it meant?

dream

i had a dream just now, it was kinda pleasant. well actually, it was more like scenes in a dream. i think it was from my childhood.

 

one scene was me looking at a mural drawn on a pedestrian walkway bridge thinggy. The other was me using a rustic kampung toilet.

 

The mural drawn on the pedestrian walk was of the kuala lumpur train station. Or maybe part of the building. The parapets and domes. It was drawn in a dark manner so as to make it look like the building at night. And looking at that mural. I recalled the times when I sat at the back of my family car, when we were travelling to the train station. To send off our nanny. It was always at night and I remeber kl back then in a gothic kind of way. Kinda like gotham city. With bats and swallows flying in and out of the street lamps lights.

 

In the toilet scene, i was trying to use a kampung toilet. The toilet's inner wall are covered in mold and cracks and the bowl are overflowing. I felt icky and i remember that when i was little, i often felt icky when using kampung toilets.

 

ahh.. nostalgia.

 

Maybe the dream was due to the anticipation of Aidilfitri. My parents send my nanny home prior to hari raya. And the toilets, is something i had to endure when in the kampung.

 

Selamat Hari Raya people. Its kinda early to wish it though.

its friday

I am happy now. ahhh.. the prospects

 

feels like being rich with cash. cash that you're free to do away as you please.

i'm hungry

the devil's lament

Have you ever listen to eric claption's classical guitar number? well i'm not sure if its eric clapton. but its in classical. Somehow when listening to that, i can't help but imagine a devil strumming the guitar while looking rather melancholy.

 

maybe its because of that tenacious D video clip with dave ghrol acting as a devil.

same shit different day

My boss said that i am his security guru. The marketing guy said that
i am the security guard. I'm feeling insecure

missed a turn

Yesterday and this morning, i had to go to Sony bangi to do a software installation. I am not familiar with the software, it is an inhouse developed software. Hence everything is non-standard.

That is not the only thing i'm not familiar with. I've never drive alone to Sony bangi. The only time i've been there was with a collegue.

Those are a good recipie for disaster. And a disaster, it was. I got lost when on the way to bangi, missed turns here and there and took the wrong highway. In the end, i arrived one hour late for the first day. This morning was an improvement, but only by 30 minutes. I got lost again.

There something about uncertainties that makes me jittery. And the jitters tend to turn everything to disaster.

did i tell you all that my hands and face was sunburnt? The skin on my hands are peeling, and the shade aren't even. It looks pretty ugly. So while i was on my way back to the office from sony, I looked at my hands and realized that I was never good at learning and heeding advice. (You see, my colleague told me to wear sunblock before the fishing trip.) Well, maybe I could learn, but I learn through mistakes. Like being lost on my way to bangi and getting sunburnt.

That makes me wonder, am I worth it? Do having me in your company, with me always making mistakes, will benifit you in the long run? or i will be the person that'll waste resource and cause unnecessary losses?

I will never know. But what I know is, this weekend, I'm going to get myself a thick copy of Klang Valley map. And the next time I'm going fishing, I'll wear sunblock.

waste

Its a waste, when I think about how I have a live broadband connection right in my bedroom, yet I not doing wonderous things with it.

tagged and bagged

I was tagged by dils, so here goes:

Seven things you plan to do before you die:
1) Go fish a marlin or one of them big fishies
2) Sail around the world in a yatch ala Datuk Azhar Mansor (without the glam and pomp)
3) Perform the Hajj
4) become an al-Hafiz
5) have wild sex (well yeah, this one sounds a bit contradicting with the previous two, but hey, al-Hafiz aren't nuns :D. but well, I can't be an al-hafiz with my mind filled with lusty thoughts can i?)
6) Be a father
7) Die (you can't die if you're already dead. Well, maybe not just die. Death for a cause. Syahid!)

Seven things I could do:
1) go without talking to a human being for hours. Days even.
2) eat cold food right out from the fridge
3) live on stale cookies for days
4) wear yesterday's underwear
5) see everything in a negetive point of view
6) turn any situation into a disaster
7) survive (barely) any given situation

Seven celebrity crushes:
1) Natalie Portman
2) Kirsten Dunst
3) Nora Danish
4) The Sorceress of Greyskull
5) Nausicaa
6) Peg in freaky friday
7) Rachael Leigh Cook

Seven often repeated words:
1) uh-huh
2) ok ok ok
3) hmmmm?
4) uhhh..
5) alright
6) dude
7) okie

Seven physical traits I look for in the opposite sex :
1) tall
2) slender body
3) shapely ass
4) pretty face
5) defined waistline
6) slender fingers
7) less-than-handfull breasts

Seven tags go to:
1) naiza
2) iceroll
3) frenchpatisserie
4) suff
5) un
6) pydd

fishing

I went fishing last saturday. Sea fishing. On a 21 foot boat (a sampan is more accurate a description). We spent all day in the 21 foot sampan.

If anyone asks me about how the trip was, the answer will always be 'tiring'. It was indeed tiring, but maybe because i've never really fished that way before. Hell, i've never really fished! It was a good experiance nonetheless. Though I doubt that I'd be jumping to join their next trip. Maybe I might join them if they want to go to a different way of fishing. Deep sea maybe? Marlin fishing? That one sure looks nice in the TV. A fisherman fighting a battle of wills with a big fish. Or maybe a lazy lake fishing.

We caught a lot of fish. 219 of em, but alas, they're no bigger than the palm if my hand. We used the 'appolo' technique. Cast in a line with 4-5 hooks adorned with a little plastic bait, and the small fishes bites. Sounds easy, but it takes getting used to. To know where to cast and how deep and to get the hang of the reeling action. Well, not that hard, really. I brought up 2-3 fishes after about 10 tries.

My regrets are that we didn't catch any bigger fish that day. You know? the ones worthy of a brag or two. And of course, I regret that I spent the whole day at sea! There goes my zohor and asar prayers.

So there you go. No more sea fishing for me. Unless its on a bigger boat. And fishing for marlins and such.

On a 100 foot~ keel,
With a gold plated~ reel,
With loads of fishes on the deck,
Bouncin' Like bitches thirsty for ma peck.
hooeeeeeeeeee~~!

yeah, bad rappin'.

she, he, it

Do I look feminine to you?

Two of my collegue mistakenly called me a 'she'. It was not that obvious and they quickly corrected it. But you see, I sometimes mistakenly call a guy as a she, when the guy seems quite feminine. And of course, I'd quickly correct that mistake. Pretty much like how my collegues did.

So, do I look feminine to you? or is it my childhood phobia resurfacing?

unbidden nostalgia

Just now, while i was lying on the bed, i felt that i miss my old boss. The Man. The image of his face came to my mind and also his hands. Then i felt that feeling of loss. Am I gay?

Well, no, i don't think so. But thats not the point of interest.

Time have this ability to erase bad memories and nurture the good one. Give anything enough time, and you will remember it with fondness. Well almost anything at least.

Like childhood years. Most people remember it as being idylic, playfull and responsibility-free. But we often forget about the constant fear. Fear of the dark, fear of mom and dad's wrath, fear of being ridiculed. Anything.

Maybe that's a blessing. We will always remember those times in good memories.

And I guess, I miss The Man's fatherly demeanor.

And that would probably means that i've forgotten and forgiven his mistakes and short comings.

Now, what about me? Have anyone forgiven me? Do they remember me with good memories?

I wish they do. But that's too much to wish for

whoopss

i changed my mind.

i now declare all my past writings, promises, actions, affirmations and thoughts null and void.

as if, it were that simple.

Mister Gloom

Whats with humans? We are unable to reach total contentment. We are insatiable. Even if people are trying to please us, we would still not be contented.

People often see me as the quite type. Always sitting quietly in the corner by myself, not talking much. Well, there is a good reason for that. I am often paralyzed with fear! yes people. I fear that my actions will bring you harm.

It is a wonder how the things we thought was ok to do, turned out to be our biggest mistakes. Take myself for example. Me in my quiet self, thinks that sitting in the corner by myself is acceptable, but the truth is, people don't really like the silent types.

Don't agree with me? Google out 'witch hunt'.

You see, at around the 19th century, there's this incident where people would hunt for withches. And the usual suspect was of course, old ladies who liked to keep to themselves. People would gather together around a bonfire or something, and somebody would say "I don't like ol' granny hunchback, who knows what she's doing in that shabby hut or hers", and there you go, instant witch. Then everybody will gather up their farming tool and round her up for the bonfire.

Poor ol' granny hunchbacked. She should've tried to be one of those loud obnoxios grannies instead. Maybe people stayed away from ol' granny loudmouth, but at least they don't accuse her of being a witch.

Well, life is unfair indeed. Loudmouthed grannies that's always pester you for gossips, only get curses behind their backs, ol' hunchbacked grannies that don't really want to bother you, get burned alive.

So, people that really know me will probably know by now that I sometimes talk in metaphors. Yes, what with taqi? Talking about witches, fires and all that? Whats with all that?

Well people, I guess the habit comes in a package. Me being the silent type and all.

So whats the point of all this? Why take pains to write up a blog that don't really tell people anything? That weaves the story in cryptic metaphors and hidden agendas?

I think maybe people could start to understand us silent types.
Understand that we don't really need to be understood.

Anyyywaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy........................

Access servers (RADIUS clients)
An access server is a device that provides some level of access to a larger network. An access server using a RADIUS infrastructure is also a RADIUS client, sending connection requests and accounting messages to a RADIUS server. Examples of access servers are:

• Network access servers (NASs) that provide remote access connectivity to an organization network or the Internet. An example is a Windows 2000 computer running the Routing and Remote Access service and providing either traditional dial-up or virtual private network (VPN) remote access services to an organization's intranet.
• Wireless access points that provide physical layer access to an organization's network, using wireless-based transmission and reception technologies.
• Switches that provide physical layer access to an organization's network, using traditional LAN technologies such as Ethernet.

traditional...

the age of unoriginality

We're arrived to the age where originality is extinct. There are no more thoughts that have not been thought off. No more ideas that remains unpondered.

To prove my point, go ahead and click here. Notice how there are alot of ppl that have already thought and talked about this topic.

Thus, this day and age, the most we could do that comes close as being original is to paraphrase old master pieces. Like the movie the matrix for example. It a spin on biblical stuff.

So my readers, forgive me for being unoriginal. Nowadays It's the only way of doing things.

the age of unoriginality

We're arrived to the age where originality is extinct. There are no more thoughts that have not been thought off. No more ideas that remains unpondered.

To prove my point, go ahead and click here. Notice how there are alot of ppl that have already thought and talked about this topic.

Thus, this day and age, the most we could do that comes close as being original is to paraphrase old master pieces. Like the movie the matrix for example. It a spin on biblical stuff.

So my readers, forgive me for being unoriginal. Nowadays It's the only way of doing things.

Tanggal 57, bulan 8, 31

Merdeka! merdeka! hari yang mulia.

Cukup kerap kita dengar ahli-ahli politik dan pihak-pihak yang tertentu mengatakan bahawa anak-anak muda zaman sekarang sudah tidak mempunyai semangat kemerdekaan. Mereka kata bahawa anak muda sekarang sudah lupa akan pahit getir dan keperitan yang dialami oleh mereka yang memperjuangkan kemerdekaan.

Setiap kali saya dengar keluhan tersebut, saya terfikir "Apa yang dimaksudkan oleh mereka, tentang anak muda yang telah lupa erti kemerdekaan?" Apakah caranya untuk membuktikan semangat kemerdekaan? Adakah semanagat kemerdekaan dapat ditunjuk dengan mengibarkan jalur gemilang? Adakah semangat kemerdekaan itu lahir dengan menyanyikan lagu Negaraku dengan keadaan berdiri? Adakah semangat kemerdekaan itu dilambangkan dengan mengikuti kawad hari merdeka? Sampai sekarang saya masih tidak pasti dengan apa yang mereka maksudkan dengan semanagat kemerdekaan.

Bagi saya, pihak pihak yang mengeluh inilah yang telah lupa tentang semangat kemerdekaan. Mereka inilah yang tidak dapat lihat semanagat kemerdekaan yang sedia ada di dalam hati dan sanubari anak-anak muda kita.

Semangat ini dapat dilihat pabila anak-anak muda berdiri tegak mempertahankan cara hidup mereka. Semangat kemerdekaan dapat dilihat apabila mereka menentang apa yang mereka rasa tidak betul. Semangat ini ada dimana-mana sahaja kita lihat.

Dan, semangat kemerdekaan ini tidak akan luput dari jiwa kita. Ianya sebati dalam darah daging kita, bagaikan garam di lautan.

Laut akan tetap masin selagi ombak memukul pantai.

you know what?

Today was a chapter in the 'be carefull of what you wish for' book.

This morning, I was lamenting about how it is monday and about how i was feeling depressed. So when I was on the way to work, my car's engine temperature hit maximum and i can't go to work. Which was both a blessing and an un-blessing. But i think i prefer to see it as a blessing. Maybe it's my optimistic self is doing the typing now.

So my car hit maximum temperature, and I can't risk to get to work with my car in that condition. The scenario gets worse since there was a traffic jam on the way to work. My morning commute rarely jams, but when it does, the traffic backlog could strech for miles. If not for the jam, I think i could reach my office before the car hits maximum.

Taking precautions againts further damage to the engine, I decided to stop and wait it out. That's when i discoved that the radiator is totally empty. So I filled some more water in it, and as soon as the water hits the radiator, It boils.

After some time, I managed to fill the radiator and discovered that there's some coolant leakage. I think some parts of the cooling contraption thinggy ruptured when the temperature reach maximum.

So I phoned my boss and told him that I can't make it to work. Yippie.

Then I send my car to the family mechanic in kampung baru. And, since i am in the middle of KL on a week day, I took this rare oppurtunity to get my MyKad. Hopefully, I'll get the MyVi for the MyKad lucky draw. Then I won't have to worry about my car's radiator fan not functioning.

Oh, and i went to Low Yat to fetch my new hardisk. Now its, giving me more problems. Seems that it can't connect properly to my pc. Sucks.

And also, I took a ride on the monorail. My first time. It was thought provoking.

its monday, and i'm feeling depressed.
i need a goal.
for years before, i have something to work for, something that is real and certain. Those are the big exams such as SPM, PMR and university graduation. Now, there is none. I should be thankfull for that. But, without those, I felt like I am going through life aimlessly.

help me. please.

'and then, at this moment, a much more optimistic taqi came along and offered his hand and says "go and take a bath, I'll have none of this despair and self pity". So he got up, strip naked and notice his pot belly through the vanity mirror. Then he gave his reflection a sneer, which was diligently replied'

the begining, the end, the aftermath, the headache

We went to tronoh last weekend, to join in with our university's convocation celebration. We are tamin, asrol, myself and heron. Heron decided to come along at asrol's coercion (coaxation, to be more accurate). Furthermore, heron wanted to experience UTP culture.

We started the trip to Tronoh from KLCC at around 10 pm. I decided to meetup with the others at KLCC so that we could all meet peed whom was staying around that area to attend a job training course. The original plan was for us to meet at around 7ish before going to tronoh, but through my own sloppyness and lack of foresight, I managed to drag the meeting time to around 8ish. You see, that morning, I forgot that I wont have time to go back home from work before going for the randezvous. So, I didn't pack for the trip before going off to work. Hence, I had to go back home for my clothes before going to KLCC. Sloppy.

Anyway, in KLCC, I parked my car inside klcc's basement parking lot. Normally, I'd ditch my car at the 3 ringgit parking lot beside the KLCC mosque. Not today, since I was in a hurry. But, It seems that parking at the basement do not guarantee speedy arrival to your destination, In fact, it could be more time consuming to hunt for car lots compared to walking the distance from the mosque car park to KLCC.

walked to picnic
met with ming wen
she's talkative
we eat kentucky
tamin asked her if she'd prefer to ride with the smoking or the non-smoking car, with tamin's being the smoking car.
she says that she prefers non-smoking car, but tamin is fun.
i laughed, but i know that its true. so is everybody else
at end of dinner, i pushed ming wen to ride with tamin, taking asrol along with me
the reason being that , i figured ming wen would be more comfortable with heron and tamin
and i am more comfortable with asrol
so after making the arrangements, we went our separate ways to get to the car and randezvous at jalan ampang.
while getting to our car, i managed to lose the car. i pushed the car alarm button and hears the alarm blaring, but i can't seem to find the car. The sound was playing tricks on us. When we walked towards the sound, it diminished, when we turned a corner, we see no car. After quite sometime spent search for the invisible car, i realized that the sound came from the car park's air well. We were on the wrong floor.
after that car park bungle, we managed to get lost in kl's roadways before arriving at the highway entrance. travelling on highway was uneventfull and we managed to arrive to tronoh at around 1 am.
me and asrol went to macai's motel to check in and then we proceeded to mamak for some night cap.
there, we are met with old friends. Aswad turned up out of nowhere, like a ghost from the past. He is one of those fellas that are not really into studying but managed to get by with his life just fine. miraculously.
after the supper, we head back to our motel to end the night.

Next morning, we woke up at 10am. just like how we used to when we were in UTP. we proceeded to the convo fair site, and had AMW burgers for brunch. then we hanged out in the convo fair site till midday. Then everybody went their seperate ways, tamin went to meet up with his hackerish buddies, asrol went off for a some lovey dovey moments with un, i went back to the motel for some rest, tugging heron along. poor heron, stuck with with mr no-fun.

later that day, at around 4 pm, i took heron back to utp for some sight seeing. Of course, i dunno what to see, cept the library, chancellor's hall, the academic complex and chicks. Sadly, the library was closed, the hall was out of bounds, the complex was empty and there were no chicks around. So we went back to the convo fair grounds where the activity is.

Upon arriving there, we met up with macai, arip, mapir and black. We joined them and whiled away our time there.

then i woke up and discovered that i was dreaming. well, no. There's more to tell, but i'm feeling like playing some games now.

stay tuned. in the next entry, there'll be that part where i lost my handphone, go to parit in hopes to recover it, before finally accepted the fact that recovering the phone was wishfull thinking.

eloquintess

A few weeks back, I lost my hard drive, the data inside it and got the news that I failed to get the job I'm applying.

A few days after those thing happened, I managed to recover my lost data, I bought a new hard drive casing, and the company that rejected me called back and offered a 2nd interview.

Now, it seemed to me that I didn't lose anything much since that fatefull day.

I think I am quite religious. Or maybe supersticious. But I prefer the word religious better. Since supersticious seems a bit too un-godly. Why am I am religious? because I believe that the world, our lives, and everything in it, is very much predefined.

Take life on earth for example. There are scientists that says, life on earth begins through some random events, that triggeres organic reaction in earth's primordial soup thinggamajic. That, intelligent beings sprang forth from this simple elemets through some accidental lightning strikes or whatever naturally occuring forces. So by right, if that theory holds true, there should be more planets out there with intelligent life whereby the life was triggered by a random organic reaction in its planet's primordial soup thinggamabob. The logic is that, by sheer force of probability, if say a planet manage to churn out intelligent life at random. Then the probability for another planet to churn life should quite similar with earth's probabilty. Now, multiply that probabily with the infiniteness of the universe, we should have a certainty that the will be other intelligent life in some other planets. The only reason why there will be no other planet like earth in the infinite expanse of our universe, is that earth is crafted. created, with full intention, as a vessel to hold life. life that sprang from water. that which an element our planet earth, have in abundance.

So it was predetermined since the creation of time, space, life, death, black, white, rays of lights and everything it shines upon, that, you my reader, will read my blog, at this exact moment, at this exact place, taking that exact breath, having those specific neurons firing, and such and such. And with it, triggers a chain of events, that may seemed quite insignificant and unconnected, but in reality, it is the thread that weaves the patterns of time, space, life, death, black, white, rays of lights and everything it shines upon.

It is seemed dreadfull to know that everything is predetermined, that every actions we do are enevitable. But It is beautifull and reassuring to know that, everything is laid out as planned. That no matter what happens, the end will come, and everything will turn out as it is supposed to.

p/s: I think i misspelt supersticious. did i? no worries, it's predetermined.

new old stuff

I got a new interest! Firefly!

no, not the those twinkly ass bugs.
Its a tv series from the creator of buffy the vampire slayer and angel.
too bad its kinda short-lived.

but not to worry. The series has already been made into a movie called Serenity.
Will be released come fall.

Anyways, i''ve finally managed to get my gateway up after weeks of pondering about it.
Accidently.

lossless armageddon

Hi all. It's a nice saturday morning here. The sun is shining. My mom is cooking breakfast in the kitchen. My dad is reading the papers in the living room. Our maid sofia is doing the laundry. My neices is doing stuff neices do. I am writing a blog.

So i said earlier before that i'll tell you all about why i'm feeling down and out on my birthday. Here goes.

Earlier on, my boss gave me three tasks to be done. First was to update and debug a web application. Second was to learn and monkey with a new software tools and last was to upgrade a software which is due not until two or three weeks.

On my birthday, I presented the software tool to my collegues. It went horibbly since I didn't have the chance to fully test out the software. Well, not that I don't have the chance actually. I was preoccupied with my other tasks, so I put this one on secondary priority. I presented the best i can and everything went from ok to horrible when people started to ask questions. Yikes.

Then, after fending off questions with 'uh-huh' and 'gee, i wouldn't know', my boss and one other collegue went to a client site to do software installation. The installation went fine. It was the testing after the installation that's sucked. I guess it was wrong of me to assume that the software was in good condition. Thank God i managed to stall the testing by doing some ad-hoc user requirement elicitation. We talked and talked about the system, how it shoud be and then its already lunch hour. Saved by the bell.

We went back to the office. I was feeling quite totally down now. Then my collegue threw me a surprise party! yeay! Normal people would've been ecstatic. It would've cheer them up. Too bad i'm a pure pessimist. The surprise party feels sarcastic. You know what I mean?

Of course not. You all are optimistic, happy-go-lucky friendly types.

Well, it feels sarcastic because not all of my office mates seems eager to celebrate. Most of them just sit in their places and feign a smile.

Feels so fake. Made up. In fact, it IS fake and made up.

Maybe I should have a round of diablo now.

48 more minutes

today is my birthday.

I'm glad that it is almost over.

Maybe I'll write about it tommorrow,
when everything is normal again.

thank God for fridays.

Almost Good

I've managed to recover some of the lost files. The important ones at least. The source codes, and the bulk of ebooks.

Yippeee... all is not lost... yet.

sudah jatuh, ditimpa tangga, tangga pulak patah

I accidently snagged on my portable hard drive's USB cable earlier today. The drive was pulled right from the top of my cpu to the floor. Now, its broken. The PC could not read the drive. It will cost me about RM 450 to get a new drive.

The sad thing about it is that the drive holds my previos C++ projects and source codes. It is something that I value. It is like my personal code repository. My library. Oh, and there's those collections of ebooks.

Another sad thing is that, the day before, I backed up my home PC's storage drive into that portable drive. I am reformating my home PC to reclaim back some lost storage space. So, those data backups are gone too. So. It's like, in an instant, I lost all my previous work.

I got a parking ticket today too. It'll cost me RM 50 to pay for the compound.

When I got back home, I found a letter from mesiniaga addressed to me. Yeps. You guessed it right.

Then, when I got to my room. I realizes that all my home PC drivers was inside my portable hard drive.

Now, I am now bracing for more tragedy.

Maybe it is the jinxed season. My girlfriend had a series of jinx too. So is her friend.

Offal Space

The moment my office PC powers up, my mind goes blank.

bad boys, good boys

A friend of mine says that a recent scientific research founds out that chicks really are attracted to bad boys.

I guess it was an unproven fact until recently.

I am never a bad boy (but i've done bad things tho).

I don't see myself as good.

So that leaves me no other choice...

I am EVIL.

yes.

karma

I was chatting with dude tamin just now. He told me about how he stumbled upon our old collegue from our old company while he was going to get his lunch. This old collegue of ours is the guy I so loath when I was with the old company.

A little bit of back story. This guy I loath, he resigned from the old company after me and a couple of my collegue kicked some of his dirt up. Maybe he resigned because the old company was on the verge of bankruptcy, but I alway attribute his expediate departure with our little conflict there.

Some more elaboration. After a couple of months job hunting, the guy managed to land himself a job with Schlumberger. A big fat multinational company, dealing in oil and gas industry. It is known that his salary falls around the vicinity of 5k. About twice what he's getting in the old company.

I felt rather disappointed in knowing that. Since, the main thing I don't like about him is that he is incompetent in doing his job as a project leader and manager. I even question my own fate. I see myself as somebody that contributes and him as a person that gets a free ride. Yet, the person that gets the free ride, gets the free ride. Of course. But you know what I mean.

Back to the chat with dude tamin. So dude tamin told me some more that the guy told him that he is disappointed with my other coleagues. The ones that he thought was his confidants and cigarette buddies.

Hearing that, I felt a welling hatred for that motherfucker. Yes... motherfucker. I am not sure why I felt angry. Must be because of the fact he is convinced that he is in the right. That he sees the people that accuses him of slacking, as evil spawn of satan. Maybe because, even when meeting dude tamin by chance, he managed to slip in some poison into dude tamin's thoughts. You know? It is the way he accuses those coleague of his of betraying him, in a not so direct manner.

But that is not the point here. I am not going to waste this entry with curses. Nope. This blog is about lies. So, read on.

After chatitng with dude tamin. I went down, and have my dinner with my parents. It was an ordinary dinner. The meal was mostly composed of left overs. I am not too big on left overs, but I am but a guest in my mother's home.

So my mom talked. She told us about her experience when she was teaching at school. This one particular experience. She once have a student, a standard six student whose father was retrenched from his company. Her father, without work, told my mother that his daughter won't be able to attend extra classes held for standard six student facing UPSR that year. The reason being, of course, that he's out of work and can't afford to pay the 10 ringgit per month tuition fees.

My mom, being the compassionate person she is, decides to sponsor his daugther for those classes. And so, she forked out 10 ringgit each month for someone else's daughter, while her youngest son could not enjoy the occasional kam kam, ding dang and sumi. sumi jelly manis. Oh how i yearn for it in those days.

Later on, she told us that, when processing the school's SPBT (skim pinjaman buku teks or text book scheme), she found out that the girl's mother's monthly salary was about 5k.

A little bit on SPBT. SPBT is a book loan scheme targeted to school children from poor to low income families. Parents have to report their total household earning to the school's SPBT board for review. Parents owning more than the target families will not qualify for the book loan.

Back to the SPBT story. The girl's mother alone earns more than enough to support a family, and thus the familiy is not eligible for the book loan.

A while after that, the girl came up to my mother, and told my mother that she needs sports wear. I think her father sends her in hopes that my mother will be kind enough to sponsor her again. This time, knowing that the family was well off, she said something like this (and I can't really recall her exact words) ' to educate a child, parents have to contribute too '. And she never heard anything from them since.

The truth is, after hearing my mother's story, I am reminded of God's test. How everyone of us is being tested. We are given wealth as a test of our humility, gatefullness and a slew of other virtues. We are striken with poverty to test our strength and willfullness.

So here's the lies. That guy I so loath, could fail miserably in his test. bwahahaaha

ok, so its not a happy ending.

Maybe this is a test to see your tolerence to crappy conclusions. So how did you fare? Good? Not so good?

haute arte!

I'd like to share with you all, my friend's latest piece. Behold!

dilla-elara: fblqkjewfnlqkw

Yes, sublime, enigmatic and angsty. It's a sin if i do not share it to the world.

sucks as hell

Neways, lately I don't have much pressing tasks to do. Felt left out.

When I have stuff that need to deliver immediately, I whine about how it is hard to do.

Well, it is impossible to please me.

religious

Just now, I ate one of those premium choc0lates with alcohol. My head hurts. I dunno if it is the alcohol or the weather. Now, I'm feeling a pang of guilt. It makes me somewhat religious.

A little bit of self redeeming: it was an accident. The big CEO dude just got back from overseas and bring along lots of chocs. High end stuff. I didn't think twice when eating it. In fact, my chinese colleague said that it might contain alcohol. Since he could smell the stink. I thought its just the prunes. It is some sort of a choc with prune jelly inside. Seems that the prune jelly was in fact rum or something.

Anyway. It did make me a lil' bit more religious today.

Talking about religion. I watched a movie the other day. Its not really a movie, it more of a documentary with a short background story used to emphasis the message being discussed. The documentary shows a lady tryin to cope with depression and is on the verge of nervous breakdown. Interspersed in the movie/documentary are monolouges by scientist, philosphers and urm.. spiritualist talking about anything related to what the character in the drama is facing. At first it seems to be about science and quantum physics. The universe in a scientific point of view. But, nearing the end, it gets more and more philosophical and religious. At the very last moment, the scientist, philosophers and spiritualist says that... i quote "religion in traditional sense are misleading, God is is all around us and within us, there is no right or wrong".

That makes me wonder. How did they know that? And they sounded like the very people they condemn.

But there are interesting stuff in the documentary though. go here. And there this other one, the scientist talked about one matter existing in two place simultaneously. I can't find anything about that though.

uncanny

I watched the movie casablanca today. The movie reminds me of the english patient. Both movies are set at around world war two, in arabian soil. Both tells the story of forbidden love. Both have the leading male as an outsider living in arabia as a permanent resident. Both have the leading female fall hopelessly in love with the protagonist. Both have a scene where the leading lady are involved with some bazaar haggling and the guy tells her that she's being swindled by the shop keeper.

Maybe the english patient was a remake of casablanca. But that couldn't be, since both have a very different plot line.

I prefer the english patient though.

But the moral of both of the story is that, if you are living in arab countries (dubai for example), you are irresistable to tourist chicks from your own native country. Provided if you could help her haggle for stuff. Preferably some real expensive stuff, like a prada hand bag or manolo blahnik shoes. And you're even more irresistable if she already have a husband/boyfriend (boring ones).

hermit

Ah, I'm feeling a bit claustrophobic here. I think I better get out more.

lazy sunday

I'm sitting in my room alone, listening to coldplay. Through my window i could see the silhouette of my neighbour's maid doing the laundry. The sky is hazy cloudy. The air is calm and chilly. Feel's like its going to drizzle. Maybe not.

Somehow i felt contented. Even more contented when I think about how there are a lot of people out there that wish to be in my position now. Sitting lazily in my room, with no worries.

Ahhhh...

Somewhere in the world at this exact moment, somebody is dying.
Somewhere in the world at this exact moment, somebody is being yelled at by their boss.
Somebody out there is heartbroken.
Somebody out there is stuck in traffic jam.

And I'm here in my room, listening to good music. Had a good breakfast. With no chore to do and errands to run.

A bit bored though.

blogger's block

Hi my name is Taqiyuddin. I've been blogging since December last year. I am now suffering from blogger's block.

Today, I was sent to my company's client site to deliver hardware kits. On top of that, I was given the task of taking the company's projector for a presentation at the client site. Thank God the projector is one of those mini portable ones. I am starting to feel like a dispatch boy.

Lately I've been experiencing absent mindedness. I kept forgetting things that need to be done and things that I need to keep track of. I am starting to feel that my boss is frustrated of me. Maybe thats why I'm getting those low responsibility tasks, like buying goreng pisang and such.

Maybe this absent mindedness is the reason why I'm having the blogger's block.

I think the whole reason I'm having this absent mindedness is because I am not yet comfortable with my work environment. The surrounding. You know? When you have to juggle a lot of unknown variables in your head. Like whats tommorrow going to be like. What's the person next to you is thinking. What's the boss is thinking. How am I supposed to debug that exception thrown. Those kind of things. Little little things that you'd never think about when you are in that comfort zone.

Comfort zones makes me stagnant. The unknown scares me. I like my room. I think i'll be a hermit.

That'd be kewl isn't it? Sitting in front of my PC. Communicating via the internet. Everything is stream onto my pc through open ports. When I feel threatened, I could always close the ports. And there you go, a totally controlled environment.

I got a parking ticket last two days. It was from the ever vigilant MPPJ. Fuckers. Their football club is good though. Did I ever tell you that they probably use the summons money to pay for the club expenses? Well.. I did. Oh, the ticket is worth 30 ringgit. At least it's 20 ringgit cheaper than I anticipated. I've anticipated the ticket though. I know I am going to be fined, yet I let it happen.

Come to think of it, I let a lot of things happen to me. Even though I've already anticipated it. I used to say that to really learn something, I have to experience that thing first-hand. Similarly with behaviors. To change my behavior, I have to experience a life changing event. Like being fined, being dumped. And a host of other things.

I think I'll stop writing now.

I wonder...

How do other people write blogs? Do they write each word as it come to their head? Or do they do the outline, then flesh up paragraphs and review and revise the entry?

I do wonder...

But maybe that depends on individual preferences.

10 minutes late and it saved me 50 ringgit

Yes folks. I came to work 10 minues late today. Its a first for my new company. I woke up at around 7am as usual. Went down to have breakfast and my shower as usual. But unlike the usual day, my sayang wasn't online this morning. So i didn't know what to do with my extra 30 minutes (because usually, i'll chat with her for 15 to 30 minutes before going off to work each morning).

Then i decided to make use of that 30 minutes by napping. Yep, i napped 30 minutes before going off to work. Bad decision. I woke up at 8:45 am. 15 minutes before the official office hours. Yikes.

I drove there as fast as I could and decided to park my car nearer to the office building. Which requires me to pay the parking fee. 60 sen for an hour. Expensive. But I wish not to tarnish my integrity as an ethical worker (plus, its my probationary period, so i have to suck up to my boss. thaaha) so i figured the 60 sen per hour is not that much. I paid for three and a half hours. That'll cover my car untill lunch time, which will allow me to move my car out of the parking area to a less commercial area.

So i did. At lunch time, I moved my car to the T junction in the residency area. And guess what? Well, I think you already guessed it.

Everything happens for a reason. yep...

Well, ok. For those who couldn't guess it. When i arrived to my favorite parking spot, I founf out that every parked car there was slapped with a 50 ringgit fine by the MPPJ, the ever efficient. No wonder their football club is one of the best. They're using our money to fund the club!

Anyways, if i had arrived there on time this morning, i'd be grumbling now.

confessions

I confess! I suck at my job! boo hoo.

Here's the thing. A couple of days ago, I misentered the pin number for the company's one and only sample smart card. The smart card got locked and my boss had to go all the way to the vendor's office to get it unlocked. It was the keyboard's fault! The shift key got stuck when i was typing the pin number. But I felt like a fool nonetheless...

Productivity went down the drain for the last couple of days because of it. My personal productivity. It makes me feel like one of those under performing dude that the company don't bother to fire since they need some bumiputras to comply with business regulations. Dang!

And and and, my work is purely VooDoo! click here if you don't understand voodoo. At least you'll learn something new today. Yeay. If you already knew.. good for you.

VooDoo VooDooooo ummmmm baaaaarghhhhh...

snort snort

Twas a night to remember. The sky is clear, the moon is shining its borrowed rays. The breeze was in my hair. I felt elated. I felt alive. The world, the world, it is all around me. I am right in the center of it all.

Its nearly a month since my last post. not quite nearly a month. but almost nearly a month. But the bottom line is, i've never slacked at posting before, not until lately. I think its my current job. It numbs life. Or maybe I am more inspired with tragedy. And lately tragedy eludes me. How tragic. Hence this entry.

Oh tragis nyeerrrrr tragis nyeeeeerrrrrrrr.

Ok, one of the main reason i blog is to log the stuff that i do for future reference. When i'm old and almost senile, i'd like to be able to log into the internet, surf to my own blog and look at the stuff i did when i was young. The mistakes, the good memories, the sufferings, the boredom, the salt and pepper of life.

So here goes. Today, I went to a job interview for a post in mesiniaga. The interview went well. But in retrospect, I think its a disaster. I might not be the one chosen for the post afterall.

The post requires a person well versed in microsoft products. I said a lot of 'uhhh?' when any MS product was mention. Followed by the interviewer's cringing expression. OOooohh

I went to cameron highlands for the weekend. I've been there three times before. The first one at a spur of the moment. The second, with friends on the way back from utp to kl. The third, with my family, to attend a wedding. This one, with friends for a brief respite from KL.

It was cold. Chilling. We stayed in brincang. Never stayed there before. All three of my previous visit was spent mostly in tanah rata.

Cameron Highlands is just a strech of road on a hilly area. Beside the road are farms, Tea plantations and some various other agriculture related attractions. After my second visit there, I realized that there are nothing much to see there. After my last visit, I realized that it was not the place that matters, It was the company.

A couple more years from now, I'm sure i'll go there again.

it sort off fits in. everything is. dayme. eh.. no.. KEWL.

ok, these past weeks, i've been working. Doing some troubleshooting and configuration and such. It's hard. It's hard because the stuff that i'm doing is new to me. I'm like pushing the envelope. My personal envelope that is. And whats more? I have to do all the troubleshooting, developing, configuring in a limited time frame.

Why did I say that it all fits? Well, let me tell you. The whole of last month, I spent tweaking my old box to run linux and some other extras. My original plan was to spent the month looking at java codes and do some coding. To prepare me for doing java programming. Well, It turns out that java programming is no trouble at all. As long as you've got a good reference materials with you. Souce samples, books, Google. Yes, google is my friend.

Anyways, I find that, after that one month of doing linux configuration, I've grown accustomed with consoles, directory structures, cheats and hacks. And i'm currently being asked to set us up a secure web server thinggy and such. And where will you find a secure web server? it's in linux. yes, the dark side of the force. Why do i call it the dark side? Open up a linux console, you'll come to a prompt with a black background.

So there you go. Well, not quite yet. There's this other thing. I had a chat with heron the other day. Just now in fact. I chatted with him about how my job now is quite demanding. Demanding in terms of the responsibility being put on me. I felt as though i am 110% responsible if the stuff that I do fucks up. I mean, yeah it is supposed to be like that when you are working. But? I'm just a new guy! Well i personally think that the best way to learn in to put oneself in a tight situation, then you'll have no option but to learn. But the thought did came to my mind that i'm carrying to much responsibilies, too early in the job. So i told heron. And he said '*snort*, be you angles?'. haha, no not really. He said 'Didn't SSi harden you? Didn't it makes you strong?'. I am heavily paraphrasing just now, but the gist is all there. So i thought 'yeah.. SSi did that to me. Maybe the fact that SSi hardens me, allows me to go through each working day without cracking under the pressure.

Thanks to The Man for being such an ass. A benevolent, fraudulent ass. Without the experiance i got from him, I don't think I could handle it.

So here comes the part where I'll say that everything fits. Everything fits.

I would like to thank all my readers for their support and understanding. I would like to extend my love to my love. I would like to go to sleep now.

Thank you.

Good nite.

i think..

i think linux users are lazy ass couch potatoes. I find that the effort required to type commands on the console is much much less than it is to work the mouse.

Plus, everything can be done on that linux console. As opposed to windows, where you have to open up lots of windows to do stuff.

it works!

This weekend i laboured to bring up my old pentium 233Mhz box to be a proxy server. After a month of trial and error, I finally managed to accomplish that. The box is now running a slackware, connecting to streamyx with roaring penguin's PPPoE dialer, serving my LAN with web access through squid proxy. Whew~ .

Thats it for now. I'll add the bittorrent client next weekend.

now i'll have to check if the PPP connection will reconnect after disconnection.

I've been a bad bad boy

So i've slacked on updating the blog. I was absorbed with setting up my linux box to connect to streamyx. Sadly success evades me. I think i actually have something worthwhile to say. But I just can't recall what was it.

Anyway. Since i've got nothing better to rant about, i'll just log my almost daily routine onto this piece of html.

I start my day at around 6:30 am. I have my subuh prayers before preparing myself to go to work. Then I proceeded downstairs for breakfast.

whooops... i was so damn tired just now, i fell asleep

1st day 2nd job

Twas a good day. Seems like everybody is nice and friendly. Tiring though. After a month of doing nothing cept browsing the net, watching downloaded movies and chatting.

two nice telekom guys

I've been losing my streamyx connection since the day i started using the service. Fortunately, i've managed to identify two kind of connection loss. One type, happens whenever i set my modem to router mode and starts downloading stuff on azureus. The other happens when i use the phone (i'm sharing the ADSL line with my phone using the splitter that came with the modem). My connection will go out a few seconds after the hand piece is picked up.

The latter problem, was fixed by two nice telekom guys. They look like crooks, with one having a burly build and a shaven head (he looks like a skin head), the other looks like elvis costello with extra bushy beard. But, nonetheless, they're quite a savvy troubleshooter. Upon a first glance at how i set up the router-phone-surge protector wiring, he summarise that the problems lies in the surge protector. It seems that ADSL signal can't go through the surge protector without suffering some sort of a mojo distortion thinggy (I dunno, i'm no telco savvy dude). So the telekom guys rearranged my wiring and lo and behold, trouble is no more. It was a simple solution, but i wouldn't know the surge protector was the fault, if i didn't call them tech support guys. I would have bought another splitter, only to suffer the same problems again. And probably blame the splitter again. vicious cycle.

When the two dudes were leaving, i asked them about how we could protect our routers from power surge. And the elvis costello dude says 'we don't do that, we will replace the modem if it is shocked'. hmmm... but the marketing dudes said that in the event of damage, the client is liable for any hardware replacement. a contradiction.

Anyways, about the connection loss. The other connection problem that i said earlier was that when i set the modem to act as my router, the connection will be interrupted when i run azureus. This boggles me since during my stay in the office, i never had any connection problem when using azureus. For this one, I did a lot of surfing and researching about the problem, and finally found out that the connection got interrupted when there are too many ppl trying to connect to my pc when they're leeching the files seeded by my azureus client.

I think my router did not have enough muscle to manage the traffic volume unlike our office's big ass router. So it bellies up and reboots whenever the traffic got too big. This explains why the connection disrupts after 5-10 minutes running azureus (and whenever i run any other p2p file share). Azureus' default interval for seed polling is 5 minutes. Hence, after 5 minutes connected, the whole world's bittorrent clients might realize that my client got what they're looking for (if the whole world did not change the default polling interval that is).

So the solution is to limit the number of connection that the client could receive at any given time. But of course, thats just my hypothesis. The solution works like a charm though. But i still do not get a 80kBps download speed. :(

p/s: forgot to mention that if i set my router to modem mode, i wouldn't get disconnected when running azureus. I think it was because the traffice was not interpreted by the modem (unlike if it was set as a router), it was passed directly to my pc. So it was able to handle a bigger number of connection. I think.

pp/s: yeah, *yawn*

been doing nothing but configuring stuff

These two three days is quite educational. I've been configuring one of my pc to run slackware and also looking into my streamyx-router-bittorrent settings. I've learnt alot since getting my streamyx connection. yeay.

Here's some site worth looking at if you're a new streamyx subscriber (not necessarily in this order):
constant bitchin: ZTE ZXDSL 831 modem default password
thep2pweblog: How to configure your router to allow fast BitTorrent downloads
portforward.com: What is Port Forwarding?

and some non-technical tips:
if you subscribe to a 1M connection, you might initially get a 512k line. I dunno if its tm.net's scam or its their mismanagement, but this issue could be easily resolved by calling the tech support's 1-300-88-9515 line. Tell them about your slow speed. Oh and to check your speed, you could either check the modem/router's main firmware page (see above sites for info on how to do this) or use tm.net's own speedometer.

Enough tech stuffs.

Yesterday was my last day with my current company. Well, at least i'd like to think that it is. A couple of my colleague and I went to a client's place to conduct a user training session. The session was supposed to run well afternoon, but since the software we are using is quite simple, the session could be finished just before noon. Thank God.

Its time to move on.

real life bum

I'm doing no work now. Just sitting in front of my pc, checking my movie/tv series download progress. I love doing that. Its like working without working. You see something growing, moving to completion right before your eyes, without exerting yourself. You reap the rewards without doing anything constructive. Well, of course you'll eventually have to pay for the bandwidth. But thats for later.

I should be doing something usefull now.

Later kay. I'm gonna check my bittorrent and p2p progress. tata.

i'm living with my mom

Today, I went back to my rented house in puchong to get the stuff that I kept there. There is that pile of freash clothes, the pile of used ones, my guitar (got two of em', same brand, long story), a tall pile of books (heavy hard covered ones, the kind that lecturers love to use as the main texts), my slim mattress, two pillows, a blanket, some miscellaneous loose stuffs, pile of coins and a monitor. Lots of stuff there.

My stuff have been accumulating over the years, more so since i'm working now and got my own funds to splurch on stuff. It makes me wonder; at this rate, how could I manage it all? I still need to move my computer desk, clothes hanger thinggy and carpet from my room in puchong.

How could it become like this? where did all these stuff came from? Do ppl sneak in some of their stuff into my room on purpose, because they too don't know what to do with their stuff? There's this water treatment system box here, I'm I sure didn't buy any water treatment system. At least it makes a good makeshift nightstand.

oh and btw, i got my streamyx up. Boy, was it a chore.

and so I face the final curtain

I tendered my resignation on 25th, or was it 24th of April. It was a typical monday. At least the earlier part of it. I went to work somewhat excited that day. Wrote the letter using one of those online letter template. I finished printing it out at around 10. I felt quite nervous about handing the letter to The Man. Not that I'm afraid of him or anything. It is just the nervousness you have when you're doing something for the first time.

I have to hand it in that day, cause my new job starts one month from that day. And, I have to hand it that morning cause The Man don't usually stick around in the office lately. So there I was, sitting in my cubicle waiting for the right moment to hand in my one month's notice. Feeling quite nervous and all. Another thing, I prefered to hand that letter quietly. I felt like leaving the company as quietly as possible.

Then, heron (our accountant dude) walked past me with an alarmed look on his face. He mention to me that there's technology park technician at our lobby, waiting to cut our electricity off. It seems that the company have failed to pay its electricity bills. Well, it didn't surprise me. A few weeks back there's talk of the possibility the office being locked down by the land lord.

So, heron dude, went about telling us to save up our work and get ready for a power failure. After a 5 minutes grace, the technicians cut the power off. Everything went dark. Bleak, is the future of the company. How fitting. Then The Man came out of his room and said that the power cut will hopefull last for a couple of days, untill the management could sort it out. We think 'yeah right, every time he promises anything to be available in 2-3 days. He meant it 2-3 months'. But, The Man did allow us to pack the office computers for home. We get to do our work at home. Or not.

It was an oppertunity for me to hand in the letter. It seems so fitting. As if everything that happen in the world before this is a preparation for this very moment. As if it was The Momement where i am supposed to hand in my letter. So, I went into his office after his short speech, and handed the letter to him. He was ok with it. Maybe he was numb. With the blackout and all. My letter would've been just a passing nuisance when compared to his office going blackout. But he did asked me if i will be interested to join the company back, if ever the company is able to get back on its feet. At first i declined the offer. But, when he stressed that the company WILL be STRONG, I said that I will think about it because I do not want to throw away an option. Hey, who knows what our future have for us.

The fact that The Man was quite confident with his company (even in this situation), confirms my assumption about him and the fate of the company. Long ago, I believed that the company will go down in flames. That there is a definite end to the company. I used to say to my coleague that I will wait until the very ending before I move on to another company. But, lately, I realized that as long as The Man is living and breathing, the company will be alive. Maybe not kicking. Barely alive, but breathing still.

So I is up to us to chose wether to follow The Man where ever he goes, working on a shakey ground with undefinite future. Or, to draw a line on where it all ends. I drew that line when I got an offer from another company. But I guess Its more dramatic If i say that I drew it when the office went blackout.

Back to the blacked out office. People would have thought that an office in darkness will be moody and sad, but interestingly everybody was a bit jovial the rest of the day. Maybe because it was something new to us. Or maybe because, we get to go home early and not come to work the next day. Or perhaps it was the whole chaos of it all. But for me, I felt happy because I am closing this chapter of my life and going onto the next. These period of change always makes me feel giddy. Moreover, I felt removed from the company after handing the letter.

I was not a part of it anymore. I am merely an observer.

ok, enuff with the whole drama. The real point i'm trying to say is:
Since my office is without electricity, I can't post entries regularly. But, I'm working to put up broadband to my gombak home. So, laters aights. I'm gonna head to the nearest 'kedai telekom'. tata

security

A couple of weeks back, I went to a job interview in Jalan Tun Razak. Its with a small start-up company fully owned by Sepakat. The interview was done by the COO of Sepakat. The interview went well, I was satisfied with the answers I gave and the interviewer seems quite ok with it.

The job offered was a position as software engineer with a renewable one year contract. Now, I would prefer a permanent instead of contract position, because the whole point of me seeking a new job is to be in a company much more secure than my current one. But, since i am currently seeking jobs in full gear, i wouldn't mind a contract stint.

A friend of mine always says that security is an illusion. All this while, I saw that phrase in terms of electronic security. This was probably due to the fact that my friend there is a hacker and whenever he quote that word, I see it in his point of view.

After the interview, I had a new view on security. Like my friend said, it is an illusion. It seems quite true. Take my current job for example. I'm working in a permanent position, yet in less than a year, i am already seeking position. The company is just not stable enough. I might as well have taken a contract position. Hence, contract position don't seem that insecure as before. That feeling of security when you are in a permanent position is indeed an illusion. If ever you did not perform in while in your permanent position, you'll feel some sort of repercussion, pretty much like if you are in a contract position. It is more or less the same.

This illusion extends to everything we do. Be it walking in the park, sitting by the roadside, patting a dog, anything. You feel that you are safe, yet the park might have sink holes, cars might swerve and hit you and the dog might go feral and bite you on the arse.

We can't really do anything about it. But that doesn't mean that you should leave your door unlocked at night or don't give a damn about how secure your job position is. It just means that the best thing you could do is to reduce the risk of things you do, and you have to also know that everything is not permanent. If you happen to lose anything, bear in mind that it was not fully yours in the first place.

At the end of the day, you will have to realize that everything lies in the hand of Allah s.w.t. Pray to Allah s.w.t. For it is with Him that you will find the ultimate security.

I lie to myself, but today, i speak the truth.