Life at 210 km/h..

Digital Mall midnight sales carnival

2008-01-26T03:43:00.000+08:00

There will be a shop-to-midnight sales carnival tomorrow (26th of January 2008) at Digital Mall for all the geeky people who can't get enough of IT products during proper working/shopping hours!

Digital Mall is having this event to celebrate their (and ours too) 1st Year Anniversary. So do come if you have nothing better to do. The mall will be open from 11a.m. until 12a.m..

Computer accessories (e.g: thumbdrive, external harddisk, etc..) prices is going to get really rediculously low. Everyone is barely earning 2%, so it's a really great time for end users to buy stuffs!!

Anyway below is the promotions that I'm having at my outlet..do have a peek to get a hint on how low prices will be.. =))

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Next up.. (When I'm finally free)

A laptop installed with Windows XP Pro SP2, IE7, WMP11, VLC Media Player, Photoshop CS2, full MS Office 2007, Adobe Reader 8, Live Messenger, GTalk, and more and small enough to fit into a ??waist pouch??

Full review of it will come soon follow by many tips and buying guide.

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Just for laughs..
The most valuable cheque I've ever seen.

See you at KLCC PC Fair, 7th-9th December!

2007-12-06T01:36:00.000+08:00

Sorry for the fact that I've abandoned my blog for almost a month now. Been pretty hectic for the past 3 weeks. Alot of things going on and I can't seem to organise my time properly

Will fill in after PC Fair, and camp.

Anyway see you at KLCC PC Fair from the 7th to the 9th of December. I'll be in Hall 5, booth 545! =)

Click to see super duper promotions!!

My ideal mate?

2007-11-14T01:17:00.000+08:00

I normally dislike doing tags. Because it means I've to normally reveal more personal things about myself, or actually, it is beacause I don't have really much interesting thing to share about and most of the time I can't think of enough things to answer or do a particular tag.

However, I recently noticed there are quite a few people doing this and sadly enough I got tagged, by quite a number of people. Anyway I think this tag is worth doing, quite interesting. So here goes..

Rules:
1. Tag victim has to come out with 8 different points about his/her ideal mate.
2. Gender of his/her ideal mate has to be mentioned.
3. Tag 8 other people and leave a comment on their blog.

Good communication & the ability to "click".
I think the most important basic ingredient you need to form a good and lasting relationship, especially in the early years, is communication. Both parties can be very much in love with each other but if they can't communicate and talk with each other comfortably and naturally, then this relationship will definitely not last. I can't imagine living the rest of my life with someone whom I could barely talked too, or worst, feel awkward everytime we are alone together.

Trust
Trust is also very imporant, both ways. I need to be with someone I'm able to trust and vice versa. I'm a very insecure person and my imagination would run wild if you know what I mean. I can't live with someone whom I'll be asking myself: "Where is she going? What is she doing? Who is she with?" everytime she goes out late. And I certainly wouldn't want her to think that of me too when I'm out and not with her. At the end I think this should be linked back to good communication. There wouldn't be any insecurities like these if they can read each other like a book.

Appreciative
I would certainly want someone whom is appreciative for every single thing I do for her. I would definitely try my best to provide her with everything in the world if I could, but it would be pointless and heartbreaking if she doesn't appreciate anything and take things for granted. Would be nice to be with someone who'll even appreciate even if you give her the smallest and cheapest gift and doesn't judge you or starts gossiping to her girlfriends about how cheap you are.

Dependant
I would love to be with someone who will be dependant on me, with moderation. Dependant, but not sticky. Because I'm the type of guy who believe in supporting for my wife, and kids. Yes of course I would want her to be independant too, but ultimately I would want her to depend on me for as much things as possible. To depend on me from financial issues, to the smallest things in life - like picking out what kind or what color flowers we should buy for our wedding reception =).
Don't misunderstand here to think that I am some control freak. Of course I would want her to also have a good occupation, to have her own group of friends to have fun with and also have a stand on her own opinion. Just saying that I would be there for her for anything and everything, and that she can come to me and lean on me for anything at all.

Beautiful. Where it really matters.
For those who know me well enough, I'm not the type of person who will be with a girl just because of her looks or assets. She can be the most beautiful and prettiest looking girl in the world with the best, most perfectly shaped body you've ever set your eyes on (e.g.: Jessica Alba); but seriously, how long do you think these will last? Sure she may look like nothing you've ever seen before when she's at her ripest age, but when she starts reaching her 40s, she'll literally become nothing you've ever seen before.
Beauty is only skin deep. What really matters is who she is inside. And if she's really the most beautiful person inside, than I would still definitely and certainly continue loving her even if she's unfortunate enough to get into a accident and scar her face for life. Because, after all, when you really truly love someone, just the scent of her hair, the touch of her skin and the smile on her lips is more than enough to experienced heaven's blessing...even if she's about to take her last breathe.

Understanding, patient and reasonable.
I would really need to be with someone who is understanding and reasonable. All my life I live with someone who is very unreasonable and everything BUT understanding. Imagine coming home from a tiring and stressful day of work only to find your wife nagging you on and on and on about every single thing that she think is wrong about you, and totally ignoring the fact that you are totally exhausted and would just need a little peace and quiet - that would definitely be a living hell and I wouldn't want to return home after work!
To add to that, I'm a person who handle stress very badly. Especially when things need to get done in a insanely short time, I am capable of losing myself and start scolding and screwing everyone around me who can't do what I asked perfectly. And I am extremely ashamed and embarassed and I really hate myself for this. So when all hell breaks lose for me and when everything I'm trying to do around me seem to be falling apart when my time is almost up, it would be nice to have someone who can be understanding enough to stand by me to let me know that everything is going to be ok and to also encouraged me.

Good in...bed
I may seem abit too young to add this but to be very honest, this is very VERY important in every relationship, especially in marriages. You have to admit it that most marriages turned sour because later on in their marriage, their sex life turns sour too. And this is when one person who needs more, will be tempted to go out to find more, and things will start falling apart. So yes, having a good and healthy sex life is very imporant, would even be better if my partner is adventurous - why confined sex only in the bedroom??

"To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish 'till death do us part."
But ultimately, this IS the most important. I would really hope that my ideal mate can hold on to: "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish 'till death do us part". In the end when we're old and living out our few final years of our lifes, we will have no one else but each other to hold on too. =)

*Editted*:
A little something I missed out.
There are some people who asked me whether I would date a non-christian girl or not, since I didn't state that above.

Well, the reason why I didn't state it above is because it didn't even cross my mind to ever date a non-christian girl! It's really impossible to picture myself to share my entire life with a non-christian partner. Even being together with a weaker christian partner will also eventually pull you down to self destruction. So...no, I will never date a non-christian girl. At least that's what I say now and I hope I'll stick to it because I'm really afraid of this phrase: "Love is blind".

Something funny..

2007-11-13T02:32:00.000+08:00

Got this from Top Gear season 10 episode 5.

Jeremy Clarkson:
"The police in Hampshire are running an advert of a jolly policemen, in his tall helmet and putting him in the back of a bus.
It's fine, except for where the bus's exhaust pipe is."

Hahahaha...

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*EDIT!!!*

I ask Tiffany to check out this update and this was the MSN conversation..

Tiff: what so funny about it ?
Me: =.=""
Me: have u even seen it
Tiff: yeah
Me: or..did u READ
Tiff: yes
Me: =.=""
Me: errr. my blog u know
Me: the new post
Tiff: VHEH@ (I don't know what does it mean..)
Me: got a pic of a bus there
Tiff: I refresh it
Tiff: pulak it's bus's exhaust pipe
Me: u dun find anything wrooong with the pic?
Me: or more like the advert
Tiff: cap?
Me: huuh?
Me: omg
Me: can u please read that short sentence ah?
Tiff: whose making ur neighbourhood safer
Me: =.=""""""""""
Me: nooooooooooooooo
Tiff: Whawts wrong?!
Me: Read what Jeremy Clarkson said there.....
Tiff: I READ ALREADY!!!
Me: =.=""
Me: Seriously??
Me: SERIOUSLY???
Me: DON'T U THINK THE EXHAUST PIPE IS WHERE HIS DIC* SHOULD BE????
Tiff: LOL !!!!
Tiff: EYAH
Tiff: Didn't think about that
Tiff: I'm not smart as you ok

I wonder which is funnier. The advert on the bus or me trying to get Tiffany to understand what's wrong with it. Is she really sooo "innocent" or insanely blur?? Hahaha..

Some meaningful quotes I want to share..

2007-11-11T02:25:00.000+08:00

Here are some of my most favourite quotes I've kept over the years watching TV shows (specifically, One Tree Hill), reading novels (YES I DO READ!!) and so on. I want to share it with everyone, and at the same time I can also have a place to archive it for the future. Because when I read these, it will really help take my mind of things. =)

In no particular order..
But the bold ones are my more favourite ones.

1. Truth is still absolute. Believe that. Even when that truth is hard and cold, and more painful than you've ever imagined. And even when truth is more cruel than any lie.

2. There comes a time when every life goes off course. In this desperate moment you must choose your direction. Will you fight to stay on the path while others tell you who you are? Or will you label yourself? Will you be honored by your choice? Or will you embrace your new path? Each morning you choose to move forward or to simply give up.

3. You ever look a picture of yourself, and see a stranger in the background?. It makes you wonder how many strangers have pictures of you. How many moments of other peoples life have we been in. Were we a part of someone's life when their dream came true or were we there when their dream died. Did we keep trying to get in? As if we were somehow destined to be there or did the shot take us by surprise. Just think, you could be a big part of someone elses life, and not even know it.

4. Every song has an ending, but is that any reason not to enjoy the music?

5. Every once in a while people step up, they rise above themselves. Sometimes they surprise you, and sometimes they fall short. Life is funny sometimes, it can push pretty hard, but if you look close enough you find hope in the words of children, in the bars of a song and in the eyes of someone you love. And if you're lucky, and if you're the luckiest person on this entire planet, the person you love decides to love you back.

6. "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote: 'All are architects of fate... living in these walls of time.'" "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote: 'All are architects of fate... so look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again.'"

7. It Is Better To Have Loved And Lost Than To Never Have Loved At All.

8. Lives better---money, popularity, fame---we ignore what truly matter--the simple things-- like friendship, family, love--the things we probably already had.

9. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: Many people die with their music still in them. Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.

10. Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically to those who hardly think about us in return. - T.H. White

11. "You hide at home all the time, study like a good boy. When a golden opportunity comes your way, you don't want to admit it. You choose to believe you're just not that lucky."

12. Feels like, just when everything has fallen into place, something always comes along and changes everything.

13. People buy things, make friends, not for love. But just to be a little happier in their lifes.

14. That one moment, just before anything happened. Everything is perfect.

15. "Happiness doesn't come cheap. Hell if it did we would all be smiling."

16. Sometimes pain becomes such a huge part of your life that you expect it to always be there, because you can't remember a time in your life when it wasn't. But then one day you feel something else, something that feels wrong, only because it's so unfamiliar. And in that moment you realize you're happy.

17. At this moment, there are six billion, five hundred two million, eight hundred sixty seven thousand, one hundred and twenty people in the world. Give or take a few. And sometimes all you need is one. For better or for worse.

18. George Eliot once wrote: "There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and recovered hope."

19. "There are two tragedies in life: one is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it". - George Bernard Shaw

20. "Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone. And do not be troubled about the future, for it has yet to come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering." - Ida Scott Taylor

21. "Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not. Time takes it all, time bears it away. And in the end, there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometime we lose them there again." - Stephen King

22. "What a frightening thing is the human, a mass of gages and dials and registers. And we can read only a few. And those perhaps not accurately." - John Steinbeck's The Winter Of Our Discontent

23. "Regret comes in all shapes and sizes. Some are small like when we do a bad thing for a good reason. Some are bigger like when we let down a friend. Some of us escape the pangs of regret by making the right choice. Some of us have little time for regret because we're looking forward to the future. Sometimes we have to fight to come to terms with the past and sometimes we bury our regret by promising to change our ways. But our biggest regrets are not for the things we did, but for the things we didn’t do, things we didn’t say that could save someone we cared about especially when we can see the dark storm that's headed their way"

24. Because it´s only when you´re tested that you truly discover who you are. And it´s only when you´re tested that you discover who you can be. The person that you want to be does exist, somewhere in the other side of hard work and faith, and belief and beyond the HEARTACHE and fear of what life has.

25. Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold. - Zelda Fitzgerald

GayVPN

2007-11-07T02:06:00.000+08:00

Last week, I finally managed to sign up for a VPN (Virtual Private Network! Still don't know what is it? Wiki it, lazy to explain here) slot after months and months of waiting. And full credit goes to Ben Lee for helping me to get my slot.

Now, VPN is a MUST for people who just loveeees to ~~support piracy~~ download TV series, movies, music albums, ~~p0rn~~, or anything you can get from Torrents of the internet!

So why is it a MUST? Let this picture speaks for itself...

Click for BIGGER view, la!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I'm actually connected through my Nokia N95 on 3.5G HSDPA network.

p/s: Okay laa, to be honest it wasn't 255.5 KB/sec all the way. It was actually fluctuating constantly between 230KB/s - 280KB/s. =)

p/p/s: The max I can get with Streamyx so far is only about 196 KB/sec. But that was using my company's 512Kbits account. Haven't tried it with my personal 1Mbits account yet, still no time to settle my outstanding bill. xD

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*EDIT* UPDATE
So about 15 minutes after I submit this post, I started blog hopping when I suddenly noticed this..

It became ~~WORST~~ MORE GAY!!

A very gay speed of 330KB/sec !

At first I thought this is just burst speeds which last a few seconds. But then it got even faster and now it is constantly between 345KB/s - 360KB/s. Oh mann..feels so good seeing speeds like these =p.

New toy = Geek post

2007-10-30T23:35:00.000+08:00

Yesterday I was at Sunway Pyramid. For those who haven't been there lately and haven't seen Sunway Pyramid's new wing, please do make an effort to go there. It is really amazing, haven't seen a mall with this type of finishing. I don't know how to describe it, but they actually try to make it feel as though you're shopping in Venice or some similiar city. With all the nice old fashion lighting, and with the fake sky, it's really very unique. Makes you feel...happy.

Like all the newer malls, the new wing of Sunway Pyramid is actually a higher end shopping arcade. You can find all your really expensive brands there, but still not as much as Pavillion or Mid Valley "Gardens" though. But it was more than sufficient for me, because, someone told me that "Machines" opened another outlet there, and it is even more complete than the "Machines" in MidValley. By "complete", I mean they even brought in earphones like the great and almighty rediculously expensive Shure SE530! Even "Epicentre" of Pavillion don't have that model.

The great and beautiful Shure SE530, available at Sunway Pyramid new wing - "Machines". They have limited stock, if you're interested, prepare RM3k!

So, stupid me decided to take a drive all the way to Sunway Pyramid after I heard that they actually have a demo unit available for people to test it out!!

And when I say stupid, I'm really stupid. After auditioning it for a good 30 minutes...or more, well, let's just say that I'm now about RM2.6k+ poorer.

Oh so beautiful..

Yes, I bought the great and almighty Shure SE530!! It really wasn't a hard decision after listening to it, because; if you read my earlier review on my Shure SE210, I said: "This earphone (Shure SE210) sounds better than sex", well, this Shure SE530 literally made what I said earlier an understatement! This was beyond that, and to pay this amount for something this...magnificent...it was reaaaly worth it!! There goes my budget and the money I was putting aside for the new Nokia N95 8GB, but like I said, this is worth it!

Let's move on with a review..

Aesthetics..

Nice, proper metal box.

Unlike the Shure SE210 which I've to use a scissors meant to cut up bones to open up the pacakaging, the Shure SE530 was packaged much more sensibly! Just open up the outer plastic box and I'm greeted with this really nice metal box, which looks more like a covered Memo Pad from the side. Don't believe me? See this..

Looks like a memo pad box. No?

Open it up, and I'm greeted with this beauty..

Beautiful..

For this model, Shure throw in abit more stuff compared to the SE210.

You get the same semi-hard casing; 40cm extension cable; and the packet of different sizes of sleeves.
The extra stuffs are the in-line volume control; a short 8cm extension cable; 3.5mm to 1/4" converter and a aeroplane adapter.

Shure SE210 and Shure SE530

Compare the Shure SE530 to the SE210, the SE530 seems to be abit too big for standard earphone size, and abit too heavy too. But I guess that's the trade off for getting high quality sounds from a small package. Even though it's quite heavy, it is still very comfortable to wear; just make sure you get the proper size sleeves, or else it will not only be uncomfortable, but will also sound terrible.

Sound quality..
So how does this really expensive set of earphone sound? Well, do I even need to say it again? Really, no words can describe it.

The Shure SE210 is a earphone with amazing clarity. One problem with it is, because it only uses a single driver to try to reproduce frequency all the way from the low 25hz all the way to the high 18.5khz, it's only natural for it to be weaker on the mid to lower frequency. But like I said on my last review, the earphone sounds very natural and non bias to any frequency, it just does everything well. Well...but nothing more.

Now, in the case of the SE530, it uses not 1, but 3 drivers to reproduce frequency from 18hz to 19khz.
"Optimized for listening to high-quality recordings and lossless formats, the SE530 utilizes three balanced armature drivers—one dedicated tweeter and dual woofers. Additionally, integrated passive crossovers ensure that high and low frequencies remain distinct and defined. The result is an incredibly wide and detailed soundstage, distinguished by precision highs and robust bass. This innovative triple driver configuration is first in class for universal fit, sound isolating earphones."

The bass produced by this earphones are really a experienced to be felt. Yes, felt, not listen. Listening to the same "Dave Weckle, Vinnie Colaiuta & Steve Gadd" Drum solo battle on this earphone gave an totally different experienced compared to listening to it with the Shure SE210 or my AE Aego M speakers. This earphone can really really pump deep rumbling bass out, and it does it with incredible detailed too! Most earphones that can produce this kind of bass will lose out on it's high end clarity, but not for this earphone, as it have another driver to take care of it.

In the end, this earphone is so much more detailed compared to the SE210. I didn't know it was possible for the SE530 to unleash more hidden sounds from the same songs. Take "Photograph" by Jamie Cullum as an example; did you know on the 14th second, you can actually hear a chair creaking in the background while he in-haled after singging the first verse? It sounded so obvious and like "right-there" with my SE530, but when I try to listen out for it through my Aego M, it was barely anything. Another one I discovered, is "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap. Between 2:26 and 2:27, you can hear a guy in the background saying a two syllabes word which I believe it to be: "Slow-ly". Even the Shure SE210 couldn't pick this up, this is how much more detailed the SE530 is.

This may sound funny, but to be honest, the song which made me decide that I must have this earphone when I was auditioning it was "Cartoon Heroes" by Aqua. I actually accidentally stumbled upon that track and it sounded so so good, especially when they add in all the sound effects in the background, like the sound of space ships attacking each other, or the sound of the submarines and the underwater sound, it really suck me into the music.

However, there's one drawback by using this earphone on your iPod, or any other portable mp3 player. Because it uses 3 drivers and it's rated a high 36ohms impedance at 1khz, most built in amp on most mp3 player will suffer to power this earphone. You still can listen to it, infact my iPod Touch could power it to ear-shattering volume, but the problem is you can actually hear it straining, and will sort of strain the sound quality together. Hence, many people recommend to get a head-phone amplifier when using with the Shure SE530. So, I decided to get the very popular "Little Dot" headphone amp. I ordered the Little Dot Mark 1 amp, now I just need to patiently wait for it to arrive. Till then, just have to listen at a softer level.

Little Dot Mark 1 amp to power my Shure SE530

To sum up, this is really a incredible earphone and you really get what you paid for. I truly say this earphone will sound astonishing for ANY type of genre, and it will even satisfies those bass head people. So if you're like me, who wants the best clartiy and detail possible from a earphone, but at the same time also want it to pump out deep and solid and powerful bass for the slightly more lala self in you, then there will be no other earphone in the market which can beat this!

Solid and powerful lows with warm sounding mids paired together with smooth, crisps and detailed highs. There you have it, the Shure SE530.

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If you think the Shure SE530 is crazy, then you should take a look at this...

Sennheiser Orpheus with Sennheiser HE-90 headphones. USD$20,000.00. The world's most expensive headphone set, and perhaps the best sounding too??
One thing for sure, it really really looks too good to be worn on your head!

A walk through memory lane..

2007-10-30T00:42:00.000+08:00

Lately I've been posting nothing else but geek posts. After receiving numerous complains, I decide to pause my geek post, for one post only that is.

A walk through memory lane, my memory lane that is. I'm writing this post in response to Tiffany's most reason post, which is a (very very old) picture of me.

Yes, that's me at my very first SSGC Youth camp back in the year 2001! That's 6+1 years ago! Looking at this picture, honestly, I feel more frighten than anything else. It seems like it was just yesterday that I used to be this boy in the picture - Running, with a 500ml bottle of 100 plus on my right hand; which is still my favourite drink until now. And looking at who I am today, I'm shocked and amazed how time flies. Where did the past 6 years went too? What happened to those days where I only worry about waking up the next morning so I won't be late for school? What happened to the days when all I need to worry about is doing well for my exams? What happened to the days when I didn't have so much pressure to be someone, to be successful, to achieve something. What happened to the days when I don't have to think 10, 20, 30, or even 50 years down the road?? What happened to the days when I could genuinely smile and be happy??...

Here are a few pictures of me from year 2003 (can't find any picture of me in year 2002), to the most recent picture of myself I could find, which is taken at Cameron Highland's on the 21st of January 2007.

2003

A picture of me with Melissa and Catherine back in 26th November 2003. Taken at HCC Cameron Highlands, year end YF camp.

2004

A picture of me with..quite alot of people. At the peak of Mount Berembun. Taken somewhere in Nov/Dec 2004 at our year end YF camp.

A picture of me with fatz..eh no..I meant WaiYee. Taken during the same camp as the above picture.

A picture of me with mommy in New Zealand. Taken on the 29th of October 2004.

A priceless picture of me in white. Standing on the steepest road in the world in some city in New Zealand.

2005

Here's a picture of my with Melissa. This was taken at LOST YF camp, on the 12th of December 2005.

2006

Who Am I YF Camp picture. This is taken on the 8th of December 2006. I'm sitting on the floor on the right side.

Picture of me with Yee Meng and Eugene at 2006 New Year's eve dinner.

2007

The most recent picture of myself, even though it is 10 months ago. But this is all I could find. This was taken at Cameron Highlands on the 21st of January 2007.

Looking at all this pictures just make me realise that life is actually very very short. Think about it, before you know it, it will be time for camp, then Christmas, then new year. For this year RBS students, before you realise it, you'll be leaving for RBS and you'll be back before you know it. Time flies amazingly fast, so fast that I'm really really afraid of it. Before I know it, I'll be breathing my last breathe. It could be 70 years from now, or it could be tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe I'll get involved in a fatal car accident. Or get run over by a car while corssing the road - the point is, no one will know when he or she will leave this earth, hence, life is very very short!

This year has been especially fast for me. Mainly because I'm trying to occupy as much of time as possible by working, and also, I'm trying to run away from something, or someone. Time seems to past very slowly, but at the same time seem to past way too fast, can't decide which is more evident, but I think the fact that Christmas is just around the corner - with malls starting to put up Christmas decoration, speaks for itself. Think back abit, didn't it feels like it was just a few days ago when all of us exchanged Christmas gifts in SSGC? Or when all of us went to Cineleisure, 1 Utama and Palace of the Golden Horses to sing of God's word!?

Right now, I'm typing this while listening to Christmas songs. Before we know it...it'll be time for Christmas.

Sometimes..I really wish time would slow down..just for a few moments. Just so I can appreciate the last second that just past. Or how nice, if only, IF only someone could invent a time machine, I would give everthing I have to go back in time, and just stay in that time for eternity; That time when everything seem to fall into place, when..when everything is...perfect.

I need a favor..

2007-10-27T23:36:00.000+08:00

I've been planning to buy a good set of 3.5mm to RCA stereo interconnects to use for connecting my laptop to my speakers, my iPod to my speakers and my iPod with my Church mixer. But after going through alot of different brands, I can't seem to be satisfied with any of it.

Recently I just got the idea of DIY-ing one myself, using multiple shielded almost pure 99.98% silver cable strands to build myself a interconnect with the least internal signal resistance possible.

I have the budget and actually ready to order and purchase all the necessary connectors and also the cables already. But there's only one thing stopping me, is that I have totally no idea how to braid the cables.

So, if anyone out there knows how to braid, and if you're very skillfull at it, then do you know how to braid 12 strands of cables together?? Must be of equal lengths, and must be flat like a ribbon cable. There's a picture below..

Can you braid like this? If you can, please contact me!

IF anyone thinks they can braid the cables like the one in the picture. PLEASE do leave me a comment or contact me. And I'll be more than happy to pay you RM50 for your effort.

p/s: Anyway, the GUY who braid this managed to finish it in less than one hour.

Seriously...not another geek update again?!?!

2007-10-26T01:36:00.000+08:00

FOR SALE!!

For Sale! My (used) Edifier S2.1M

Like what the HUGE words on top says, I'm selling my Edifier S2.1M speaker system! I've only used it for no more than 3 months, and I can assure you that it is in pristine condition! Not a single scratch, and definitely haven't dropped any of the satelites before!

The reason why I'm selling it is because I've already replaced it with something better, so their just sitting at a corner collecting dust. For those who know me well, I change speakers more often than changing the jeans I wear!! I actually bought this to "test" it out, but I soon got attached to it and sold of my Edifier R1900TIII and Edifier C2 instead, as this S2.1M was the best speaker I ever had for music playback.

Anyway, I'm selling this not more than 3 months old speaker system for only RM300!! And trust me, this is a STEAL!! A brand new unit cost anywhere from RM399 to RM429!! Don't believe? Head on over to LowYat and see for yourself! Mine is almost as good as new, It's full box, even with all the original cable ties and plastic bags that came with it. Pictures below..

So if you're interested, PM me or call me at 012-6322252 to let me know. Or if you're too shy, can even e-mail me at jefflim65@gmail.com. Or if you're lonely and need a companion (apply to girls only!!), add me in MSN at jeffrey_lim65@hotmail.com.

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New speakers..

For those who bothered to read what I have to say on top, you will be wondering right about now what on earth did I buy this time?? Another, newer Edifier model? Or maybe I've changed to another brand? Or did I really get that SonicGear APOCALYPX valve speaker system I was very interested in??

SonicGear APOCALYPX A10

Well, the answer is no, yes and no!

After many uncountable sleepless nights, and after many thoughts and consideration put into this, and after reading about 123456789 reviews for around 987654321 different type of speakers (of course exagerating la!!),
I finally decided to get this....

The Acoustic Energy Aego M music system. Ohh..sexy betul!!

If you're asking yourself: "What on earth is this brand and where on earth is it from??", then don't worry, you're not the only one! Honestly I'm also not very familiar with this brand. I heard of this brand before from a high-end Hi-Fi magazine for it's Reference series speakers, but only last year did I found out they also make iPod speaker system.

Acoustic Energy or better known as "AE" is a speaker brand all the way from UK. It's not very popular here mainly because of its high price, and also because there are other more popular and afordable Hi-Fi brands like Marantz, KEF, B&O, and etc.. I first heard of this Aego M speaker system from some website I stumbled across last year. I read the review for it and it gave a very goood rating, but I didn't really follow up with it cause I thought it would be too expensive to get it here in Malaysia. Then, a few months back when I was browsing through LowYat forum audio section, I found a thread dedicated to this speaker system! To my surprise there are actually a number of users for this model here in Malaysia. Again, I didn't really pay much attention as I thought maybe they import in themselves or something, and was too lazy to find out where they got it from.

But when I was flipping through this month's "Stuff" magazine. I realised they were testing and voting for the best speakers for your PC. And to my surprise, they also featured this AE Aego M speaker system, and also voted it the best system among all others on review!! Now when "Stuff" says that a product is good, it normally is! So I start researching a little and to my surprise, this speaker have won an unbelievable amount of awards from different magazines and reviews since last year! "WHAT HI-FI?" even vote it as the Best Desktop Speaker last year! I was sold instantly, I knew I have to get this, especially after reading more reviews over the internet. There were literally only good and positive comments on this product! So I contacted a friend who deals with professional audio products, and he managed to find one unit for me, at a very very good price!

HUGE and heavy box!

So after waiting only 3 days, I got this. I was shock when I first saw the box, as it was even bigger than my old Logitech 4.1 THX certified speaker system with a 550Watts RMS rating subwoofer!

What's in the box.

AE is definitely very generous with their cables. Unlike other China brands speaker system *coughEDIFIERcough*, AE bother to supply their customers with high quality (and also very very long) speaker cables, and also high quality RCA interconnects. Making it a truly out of the box, everything you need and simple to set up Hi-Fi system for your desktop!

While setting it up, I was quite skeptical about how it would sound. The satelite speaker are really way too small, even though their heavy and feel's very solid, but it seems really too small to deliver any good sounds.

Mini satelite speakers. My Surefire torchlight looks like some mafia next to it!

From my past experienced, small satelite speakers with single drivers normally sound VERY disappointing. What's worst, I discovered that the mini drivers behind the cloth cover are oval shape speakers!! Not your normal perfectly round speaker drivers. Again, I once owned a pair of B&O bookshelf speakers which uses oval speaker drivers, and if I remembered clearly, it sounded...normal!

But another thing I realised is the size, or more like the height of the subwoofer! It's tall!! Very tall!! It's about three quarter the size of your average plastic chair!! And you can see very clearly, again, it also uses oval shape speaker driver for it's subwoofer.

TALL subwoofer!

After spending about 30 minutes to set this up and aligning my satelite speakers properly, I sat myself comfortably down at the centre, and was (honestly) preparing for the worst.

So, how did this RM899-weird-looking-speaker-barely-anyone-heard-of-before-with-very-small-oval-shape-satelite-speakers sounded??

Three words..eh no..I mean letters...

O-M-G!!!

Even before letting it run-in or even warm up, the first song I played on this speaker was "Me And Mrs. Jones" by Michael Buble, and for that whole 4 minute and 34 seconds of that song, I was stunned and speechless and just stared at the speaker in disbelief. First thing that struck me was this speaker really sounded STUPIDLY huge! If I were to let someone audition this speaker with a blind-fold on, I can guarantee they will guess that the sound is coming from a much larger speaker, at least of bookshelf size! Another thing that struck me was it's amazing sound stage, it's almost sound as though I was sitting right in the middle of the hall of Michael Buble's concert. I definitely did not expect the sound stage to be this good, since the speaker is aiming up towards the ceiling.

As the days past and after running in and warming up, it gradually gotten "warmer", and now it is so comfortable to listen too. I'm really in shock. Trying to figure out how they managed to get the crossover point so perfect between the satelite and subwoofer is beyond my knowledge. This 2.1 speaker system doesn't sound anywhere close to a 2.1 system, it sounded like a proper bookshelf speaker with the ability to recreate bass notes really really low and deep!

It's really hard to find any fault with this speaker, no matter how hard I try. Just like the Shure earphones, this speaker system is all about clarity. It's not bias in any-way to any frequencies! The overall sound produce by this speaker is very very smooth. It's almost like cutting through butter with a razor sharp surgical knife. It's very comfortable to listen too and it doesn't caused fatique even after listening to it for long periods of time at high volumes. Everything is there at the right level, even the bass, it can reach amazingly low notes. It's not loud or boomy, it's..just right..perfect! It goes very low and attacks really fast, so you feel it more than actually hearing it, which is what a subwoofer should really do! However, I did realize there's a very SLIGHT minor flaw when I was playing back "Dave Weckl, Vinnie Colaiuta & Steve Gadd" drum solo battle, I noticed that the subwoofer didn't really keep up with the satelites when all three drummers keep on constantly doing double bass, hence it sounded quite messy and all over the place. But then again, like I said, it's just a minor flaw and you've to listen very closely to noticed it, and to be honest I'm sort of comparing it with my single driver Shure SE210 earphones.

Throw any kind of music to it, and I can guarantee you'll fall in love with this set! From heavy metal to slow instrumental music, it does everything well, infact, too well for it's asking price of only RM899!! It may seem alot considering the average PC speaker nowadays is only about RM200-RM300. And for RM500, you can get quite a good and powerful 5.1 speaker for your PC. But please do realise that you can't compare the RM300 speakers with this. This is for people who uses their PC as their main source of music, like I do, this is actually almost entering to the Hi-Fi category already.

So if you're planning to change your PC speaker soon, and want something really good and comfortable to listen too and also make it worth every cent of your hard-earned money (or to some people, their parents hard-earned money), then I highly recommend that you consider this. Search "Acoustic Energy Aego M" on Google and read some of the too many good reviews all over the internet. And then when you're finally convinced that you should get one and already very tempted to buy, give me a call and I can let you audition my set, and then let me convinced you some-more by telling you that I'm selling a brand new unit for only RM7XX!!

The Shure SE210 review

2007-10-18T01:59:00.000+08:00

I'm going to make two confession right now.

First: The reason why I never update my blog for some time is because I was too pre-occupied with the "peanuts" you see above.

and Second: I did not blog because I really want to write a proper review on this earphones. But I soon realise that it is really not possible for me to actually write a review on this earphones because no matter what I say, or no matter what kind of words I used from any language at all, I absolutely CANNOT describe and put it in any form of words to let my readers know how BLOODY GOOD this is!!

-----

Shure SE210 (and optional Shure in-line volume control on the left)

Shure SE210 is actually the second entry-level in-ear earphones by Shure's new line of SE series earphone, so this is actually the second best of their "budget" series earphones. The high-end series of Shure SE line up are the Shure SE420 and SE530, where they have 2 and 3 seperate drivers in the earphone itself respectively. But most websites will consider even the Shure SE110 to be "high-end" earphones already, as even the Shure SE110 already doesn't come cheap, costing as much as RM350 in Malaysia, with the SE210 almost doubling that, followed by the SE310 doubling the SE210 price tag. And if you're curious, the top of the line Shure SE530 cost as much as RM2299!!

So you see, these are not your average earphones originally supplied by your mp3 player when you bought it, they mean business!!
(Btw, for those who are curious. The supposedly cost RM129 Apple Earphones which is so kindly supplied by Apple with every iPod is actually made in China, by a seperate factory. And I've learned that the cost of this RM129 Apple Earphones actually only costs RM5+ each for them to manufacture! So, for those who bought this RM129 Apple Earphones to replace their original one which is spoiled, well, I hate to say this but you are really quite S _ _ _ _ _!!)

So, after spending a good frustrating 5 minutes trying to cut open the box with a razor sharp kitchen scissors meant to even cut up bones, this is what you get in the box. 4 sizes of sponge plugs, 3 sizes of silicon plugs, triple-flange tip plugs, ear wax cleaner, extension cord, a high quality semi-hard earphone case and the Shure SE210 itself. Everything screams "quality", especially the cables and the case that comes with it. The cables for the earphones, and even the extension cable is much thicker than your normal earphone cables and it can never get tangled up! But seriously, who cares even if the casing is made out of carbon fiber (of course is not la!!)?? The main reason why you would want to spend your hard-earned money on this is of course for it's sound quality.

And how did it sound?? Didn't you read my second "confession"???
NO words can describe how BLOODY GOOD it is.

I'm serious. This is the BEST sounding earphones I've ever heard. I thought my previous RM180 Philips earphones was really good. I thought my previous previous Sennheiser MX51 was good. I thought my Sennheiser HD212pro headphones was quite impressive. I thought the new Sennheiser HDsomething headphones that I bought for Church is amazing in delivering fine details. However, after listening to this Shure SE210, ALL the previous earphones and headphones I've used are TOTAL RUBBISH!!

After letting it "run-in" for some time. I start having a proper listening session with this earphone and the sound quality is really beyond words. The first time I playback "I'll be home for Christmas" by "Michael Buble" on it, it sounded so good I actually teared. It gives the listeners a whole new experience listening to their music. It's like, this earphones somehow magically revealed a "hidden" layer of sounds that can never be heard through cheapo earphones. There was one time I said that music can transport you away to your own world, well, listening to music through this is something like that.

One of the main reason why it is so good is probably because of the sound isolation. After choosing the correct ear plugs for your ears, stuff the earphone tip into your ear canal and instantly - it is as though the whole world soften down..ALOT! Switch on any of your favourite music and even at a below average volume, it is good enough to totally shut-off the outside world. I tested this in a full-house Blitzone a few days ago. If you don't know Blitzone, I think it is one of the noisiest cyber cafe around, as everyone is killing people at full volume! So, I plug in my Shure SE210, stuff it into my ear - mmm..still can hear abit of gun sounds. Then I switched on "Norah Jones" and put it at 50% volume (my "normal" listening volume is around 60-70%), and it was more than enough to totally cut out ALL outside noise!!

iPod Touch to Shure in-line volume control to Shure SE210

Even though this Shure SE210 have only one full range driver inside, it can really reproduce sounds all the way from the lowest frequency right to the high end frequency with amazing clarity and detail. This earphone is all about details. Suddenly it is like someone "overhaul" your ears, all the defects and nuances of a poor quality track that were not apparent before seems to surfaced. Play back all your songs again, even if you heard it a hundred time, listening to it again through this earphone will make you feel as though you were listening to it with your ear close last time. I can't really put it in words, but the amount of details this earphone recreate is very impressive.

If you are the type of person who likes thumping bass, then this earphone is definitely not for you. Don't get me wrong though, personally I think the level of bass is more than sufficient when you have on a proper fitting ear plug. It certainly won't make your heart skips-a-beat, but what it does give you is a very detailed and refine bass sound. Listening to "Dave Weckl, Vinnie Colaiuta & Steve Gadd" drum battle with this earphone is - Intoxicating! Again, becase the detail and clarity delivered by this earphone is so great, you can really listen to every single sound in detail, even the slightest ring from the smallest cymbal or the soft retract echo sound after everytime they hit the kick drum becomes so obvious. You can easily differentiate each level of the frequencies very easily and it's really a feat. Any imperfection at the live recording stage can be heard way too easily. Heck, even the sound of Diana Krall wetting her mouth after she sings a long sentence sounds so darn obvious and evident through this earphone!! Replay it with my Edifier speakers or with any of my old earphones and it is impossible to hear those details already.

Honestly I can go on and on and on telling you about every fine, little but perfect details about this earphone and how good it sounds, but like I said earlier, I can try to describe it, but there's really no way to actually let anyone how good it is, until they actually hear it properly themselves.

So to end, this is what I personally think and feel about this earphone in not-geek language:
This is no doubt the best thing I've ever bought in my 19 years alive on this earth. Yes, even better than a car. Call me crazy but give me a chance to buy a Shure SE530 or a iMac/Nikon D300/iPhone/Nokia N95 8GB/Mac Book Pro/Surefire U2 now, I'll go for the Shure SE530 without batting an eye. This earphones are so good that they really sound better than sex!!! And I'm not the only one saying that this is better than "sex", get a copy of this month "Stuff" magazine and a interview with an expert said exactly the same thing too. Play your most favourite song on this earphone; if the recording is excellent, with good high quality encoding, then the pleasure you'll get is not much different then an o r _ _ s m!!

So for those of you who really enjoys listening to music, you should really consider this. If you're calling me crazy right about now, then I ask you..Why is it really insane to spend RM600-700, or even up to RM2k on a earphone? Some of you spend easily at least RM200-500 or more on jeans, shirts, shoes; or close to RM1k on sunglass; or RM700+ just for the Oakley spectacle frame; or wastes alot of money to mod car (I'm guilty of this too); or buy a PSP, or Nintendo DS, or even Xbox 360 or PS3?? If you spend money on those, then why not earphones? I bet you'll even use it more and much longer than most of your other stuffs, and best of all, you'll experienced a make-shift "heaven" here on earth everytime you listen to your favourite tracks.

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NEXT...
Look out for the next geek update on the NEW, long awaited, and successor to the Dopod 838pro: HTC TyTN II.

The long awaited HTC TyTN II!! Successor to my previous Dopod 838pro.

Updates..pictures..nothing much.

2007-10-17T00:52:00.000+08:00

First up, although I know this is a little bit overdue, would just want to wish Henry a very Happy Birthday, he turned 19 years old on the 12th of October. Celebrated his Birthday at Char Chan Teng.

Henry with his free giant "teh ais" at Char Chan Teng.

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Pavilion KL

Went to KL last Thursday with Thomas and Wai Yee to search for something. Started off at Lowyat and Sungei Wang and at the end couldn't find what I was looking for, so we decided to pay a visit to the brand new, high-end shopping mall - Pavilion. I actually walked all the way from LowYat to Pavilion!! Which is quite a feat for me. Don't think I ever walked this much just to get something.

Main entrance of Pavilion. Nice. Didn't feel quite comfortable entering at first, looks too expensive.

Expensive..

Expensive..

Expensive..

Ok I know by now you're getting quite annoyed with me saying expensive. But this place is really expensive, everything sold here supposed to be at least 30% more expensive than other places. It's a really high-end shopping mall. Even the fine is expensive, no joke, check this out..

Expensive!!!

SEE!! Told you!! This is really insane man, RM10,000 fine for throwing rubbish there. Man, if this was Digital Mall, most of the tenants will be bankrupt by now as we all just throw our boxes next to the loading escalator. Hehe.

Anyway, the main reason why I (and also Thomas and WaiYee) walked all the way to Pavilion is because I heard there is a new HUGE Apple centre in Pavilion called "epiCentre". If you haven't heard of this company before, they are actually the premium reseller for Apple in Singapore also, and they have a really huge outlet there carrying ALL SORTS of Apple accessories. So I figured if this place don't have the something I'm looking for, then there's no way I can get it anywhere else in Malaysia.

And I was right, they really have what I was looking for!!...

The wall of high-end earphones in "epiCentre". Never seen anything more..beautiful than this!!

"epiCentre" was indeed a geek heaven. Ok so the something I was searching for is high-end earphones. Was looking all over the place for the new Shure "SE" series and also the "Bose" in-ear headphones. The stupid "Pod Station" at LowYat told me that it is not possible to get the new Shure "SE" series earphone in Malaysia yet...yeahh right.."epiCentre" carry ALL of it!!

They really do have almost ALL the high-end earphones you could ever dream of buying..and all under one convenient roof! They carry brands like Bose, Sennheiser, Vmoda and Shure. Best thing is they just don't carry one or 2 models for each brands, they bother to bring in ALL, really spoilt for choice there! I was really shocked to see the "Bose Triport IE" there, as it is really really hard to get in Malaysia. But still, nothing beats seeing the brand new Shure "SE" series earphones hangging there; And really, what a beautiful sight it was.

So after spending about half an hour there testing out the earphones and at the same time "torturing" the really really friendly and fun sales dood, I was more than happy to leave the place with a epiCentre plastic bag on my right hand, even though I know I easily paid 30% or more buying from them at Pavilion. But it really didn't matter to me, the customer service and the wide product range available really made me a truly satisfied customer, leaving the place with one of the widest smile I had in a long long time.

My precious. My new geek toy. My new (temporary) happiness. Shure SE210 in-ear sound isolationg earphones and Shure in-line volume control.

Will write a review on these babies soon. Currently still "testing" it with a variety of music. Check back in a day or two for the geek post of this...

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Random pictures..

The jam in KL last Thursday. Which is one day before the first day of Hari Raya. This was about one hour before the breaking of their fast. When I left LowYat at around 7.20p.m., the road became clear! Thank God all the Malays rush home or to a restaurant.

Look closer.

Again, look closer. No-wonder the standard of english in primary and secondary schools are dropping.

Very very bad storm this afternoon. Was on the way back from Cheras when I experienced this. I think this is one of the worst storm this year.

iInvented..iBack!

2007-10-09T20:21:00.000+08:00

Since I got my iPod Touch last Tuesday, I've been DESPERATELY trying to find some kind of screen protector for the back of my iPod; because Apple choose to be ignorant fools and continue producing iPods with the oh-my-goodness-that's-so-beautiful-reflective-aluminium-back-surface even though they received numerous, no wait, MASSIVE complains and feedbacks from their customers that the surface scratches TOO easily.

I agree that it is really beautiful and you could use the back surface as a vanity mirror when you're feeling a tad too vain, but in terms of practicality, you can't even put it down on your desk without fearing you'll leave a scratch on the oh-my-goodness-that's-so-beautiful-reflective-aluminium-back-surface!!

So, back to the screen protector. Like I said, I was really desperate to find something to protect the back, I searched high and low for it. All the way from Midvalley, to 1 Utama, to Lowyat, to Sungei Wang, but no where is selling anything like these for the iPod Touch yet. So in the end I just got myself the iPod Socks to keep my iPod in it. I could do the iPod Gella Skin, where they stick those design stickers onto your iPod surface, but that would completely cover the reflective surface and defeats the purpose of it.

Now, that was last week. But today, when I was digging through the store-room at my HQ, I found a stack of old LCD camera screen protector!!

When I saw this, I asked myself why can't I use something like this and stick it onto the back of my iPod? It could work, since these kind of screen protector sticks onto any smooth and clean surface, so I decide to "steal" a stack of this LCD screen protector for 3.5" LCD screens (since my iPod Touch screen is 3.5", so the width should be about the same).

After cleaning and polishing the back of my iPod surface thoroughly..
After measuring, adjusting, and cutting the film properly...
Carefully peeling out the protective film layer....
Slowly stick a small area first, and then force out air bubbles as I stick down more of the film...

After about 5 minutes of careful sticking....

Voila!!
My very own DIY screen protector for the back surface of my iPod Touch!!

DIY screen protector!! For the back of my iPod Touch. I shall call it..iBack!

If you noticed, I've to use 2 piece of the 3.5" film. 1 full piece, and another cut half, and then cut according to the WiFi antenna as the film can't stick to non-smooth surfaces.

So it is not as nice as the original iPod protective film. But hey!! At least it will do what I want it to do, I saved at least RM50, and a whole lot more of scratches if I choose to wait until iPod finally come out with their own one!!

For those of you who want me to help you do something like this on your iPod, do contact me! I don't mind doing it for you..(when I have free time).

iPod Touch review and the ultimate football fan..

2007-10-07T22:42:00.000+08:00

"SET FREE" by wong fu productions

Updated a new video at the side,
No. 12) "SET FREE" (The one days HK) by Wong fu productions.

For blog readers who actually READS my blog, then you would remember I featured this video from Wongfuproductions last month. But I forgot to add it to MyVideoVault..so here it is again.
I really like this video. It's very calming and peaceful..

And for those who watched the video already, the song featured in the video is "Streamside" by "The Album leaf".

To be honest, the reason why I featured this video again is because I finally found the song that is featured in this video! I fall in love with it the moment I heard it but I thought that it was self composed because the quality was very bad in the video and most of wongfu shorts feature their own soundtrack.

Anyway, yesterday night I asked Adeline to recommend me a few indie songs to download and one of it was this very song itself. At first I've totally no idea when I was searching for the song, but the moment it download finish and I play it, I instantly know that this is the song from this short video...and..oh my..did it really made my day. Infact, it made my month!! Yes..this song even matters more than getting the iPod itself..haha. Thanks Adeline!!

One of the most calming and peaceful song I've ever heard... =)

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iPod Touch..review!

So, I was supposed to give a review on my new little toy about 3 days ago, but I actually couldn't think of anything to review about it, because there are already thousands of websites out there which give very detailed review on it already.

So I shall just write about the things and features that seperates this from all other iPods.

One of the MAIN reason that attracted me to buy this iPod Touch on the spot was it's incredibly THIN size. How thin? Only 8mm to be exact. That's not even a centimeter thick!

As you can see, it is only as thick as 4 of your normal CDs stack together! Compared too the iPod Classic 160GB, this iPod Touch is only 1/3 it's size! So even though it has 10x/20x less memory space than the iPod Touch, I really think this is the best portable iPod. At least it doesn't seem like I have a third leg or a second ______ when I put it in my jeans pocket.

Thickness comparison. Left is iPhone. Middle is iPod Touch. And on the right is 3rd gen iPod, a.k.a. Ben Yue's antique iPod!

Next, for those who doesn't know, iPod Touch is actually a iPhone, without the phone function, thinner, and twice the memory.

When the iPhone first launched, I was almost stupid enough to buy the iPhone ONLY because of the iPod function which it's in the iPhone. Thank God those people who privately import the iPhone slap on a very rediculous price tag on it which is 2 to 3 times more than it's recommended retail price in the US. And luckily, a few months later they came out with this iPod Touch!! Save me alot of money.

So like I said, iPod Touch is actually a iPhone without the phone function. Like the iPhone, it uses the same multi-touch screen, apparently runs a scaled down version of OS X that runs Safari and a YouTube application, uses WiFi, has an accelerometer that allows the display to shift based on physical orientation, and uses the same “SpringBoard” interface to launch its applications.

But there are also some important difference between the two:
- There is no email client on the iPod Touch
- There is no Maps application on the iPod Touch
- There are no Stocks or Weather widgets on the iPod Touch
- There is no built-in camera for the iPod Touch
- There are no Blutooth capabilities for the iPod Touch
- The iPod Touch has a differently styled “Dock,” with a reflective surface — akin to the Dock that will debut with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

- While the iPod Touch is sleeping, the user can tap the home button twice to bring up touch controls on the screen — a feature the iPhone currently lacks
- The iPod Touch has a separate Contacts app — it’s built into the Phone application on the iPhone
- The iPod Touch has separate Video and Music apps, whereas the iPhone has a single “iPod” app that contains these functions
- There is apparently (and obviously) no microphone on the iPod Touch, though it will be interesting to see if such audio-in capabilities could be enabled via a third-party device.
- The iPod touch’s headphone jack is on the bottom of the device
- The iPod touch lacks a built-in external speaker
- The iPod touch’s screen appears to be of a slightly higher quality than the iPhone, with 163 pixels per inch to the iPhone’s 160 pixels per inch.

iPod Touch home screen.

The built in YouTube. Streams directly through WiFi.

Haha. Naruto loaded from YouTube.

Safari web browser with my blog loaded.
The BEST web browser on ANY portable device I've used so far.
Just found out the Safari web browser also supports viewing of quicktime videos on websites, so you can visit Apple Trailer websites and watch trailers directly with the Touch.
*Boo to you Windows pocket PC IE!*

The famous cover flow view.

The "Now playing" screen on the Touch.

Another cool feature I should mention is the on board iTunes Music Store which is accessible through WiFi in the iPod Touch itself.

You can browse, search and listen to 30 second clips of music all on the iPod Touch itself. If only I have an iTunes account, then I can directly purchase any music I want after I listened to it's clip. Don't mind paying $0.99 rather than going through the hassle of searching and downloading the songs I want from Ares. Most of the time it's either fake or worst, virus! Have to always waste time checking for the track time to determine the real file. Tedious!

While using it, I discover that the BEST use for this iPod is actually the Photo viewer. This is a true "iPod Photo", unlike the 4th gen iPod. The size, clarity and resolution of the 3.5" screen makes this the best portable viewer there is in the market! And the pinch-zoom function also works like a gem. Actually enjoy viewing photos on it more than on my monitor!!

That's about all for my review on the iPod Touch. I'm still getting used to it and still playing around with it. Currently trying to find third party hacks and software so I can squeeze out more feature on this aneroxic iPod. Yesterday I managed to run MSN Live and also Bejeweled on it, but it's website based though! So still have to rely on WiFi to access it.

Will update again if I have something worthy to update about this gadget.

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Last but certainly not least, I present you with...
The ULTIMATE football - MU fan!!

Scroll down to find out WHO is the ULTIMATE football - MU fan!!...
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and later at home he tells me that "I was bored out of my mind...so I want to rest my eyes a little bit.."

Sure..

iHave iTouch = iHappy (temporary..but good enough)

2007-10-04T01:10:00.000+08:00

The story..

I remember, it was a Tuesday morning (actually that's only 2 days ago). I was awaken by a phone call, at 8.34a.m.!! The first thing that came through my mind was something like this:
#@$@#%@%@#&^*&#!%$&*!@@!%*$!@#$^#@#@^#%^&@#$$##

In a half asleep state, I search around for my handphone with my eye close, when I got hold of it, I took a peak and it was "Dad"!!

Straight away, what came into my mind was this:

For those who don't know, or didn't read my last few post, I actually asked my dad to ask his friend to help me buy an iPod Classic 160GB when he returned from Hong Kong, the price for it there is only about RM1.2k+, while it is RM1499 here in Malaysia. And my dad's friend is schedule to reach KL on Tuesday...

So back to the story. I sat up straight and answered the call:

Dad: Wah, did I woke you up? Or are you awake already?

Me: Yeah yeah..awake already.

Dad: Ok anyway I'm calling about your iPod Classic. Joseph (my dad's friend) is back in KL already......

Me: *Interrupts* Wah so fast? Ok ok *getting excited and hyped up already*..what time you free today? Can meet up to pass it to me??

Dad: Errr..actually what I wanted to say is that the iPod Classic 160GB is sold out in Hong Kong. They're only taking pre-orders at the moment. My other friend will be going there and will be coming back in 2 or 3 weeks..so..I call someone else there to book for you first ok?

Me: ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....*#@$@*(#^$*(&#^$&@%@#%&!@)*)$^*@#@%^#%$@*&$%#@$^$#$^%@#^@%@^$&^&#....*

Me: Sigh..like that never mind la..I'll just get it locally only la. Wake me up so early for nothing..blahh..

Dad: HAHAHA..eh..I thought you say you're awake already?

Me: Nvm..thanks..bye..

Wah..I tell you..at that moment my heart went like: "Doosh.."..like the sound you get when something big droped into the ocean..those kind of sound. I was actually very excited and looking forward to getting it, but, as usual, things like this always happened to me.

So, feeling quite down that morning, when mom asked me whether I want to go to Midvalley to check out the new "Gardens", I just agreed cause was not in the mood to argue with her. So when I was there, I decided to check out "Machines" in Midvalley, hoping to get hold of a demo unit to play around with it but wasn't planning to buy it yet as I can get it from my supplier for only RM1335.

The minute I entered "Machines", I spotted it!! 1 and a half rows full of iPod Touch!!

Omg omg omg. I was acting like a little kid that is deprived of sweets, and seeing a whole mountain of sweets right infront of him! I straight away asked one of the "Apple Genius" when did their stocks arrived, and he told me yesterday evening!! WOW..next thing I ask was do they have a demo unit??

And after that things sort of happened too quickly and I couldn't remembered much. Only remembered that I literally emptied out my whole wallet..and just nice I had enough for the 8GB Ipod Touch, and RM3 left for parking and toll. I knew I could save at least RM100 or more IF I could wait and get it from my supplier..but...

HOW LA CAN A GADGET FREAK WAIT FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS??
Next thing I know..I'm at home with..

The long awaited and my FIRST iPod - iPod Touch. On my desk!

Funny thing is, from the moment I read about the launch of this new iPod, I was trying so hard to convinced myself that iPod Touch is a ABSOLUTE WASTE OF MONEY because for almost the same price, I could get at least 20x more memory space AND I can use the iPod Classic as a external hard-disk, while I'll only get a MP3 player with a bigger screen and 20x less memory with the iPod Touch. So I was promising myself that I WILL NOT buy an iPod Touch. Infact I was so sure that I don't want one anymore, that I even ask my dad to confirmed a unit of the iPod Classic from Hong Kong for me!

But somehow, by coincidence I guess, Hong Kong was out of stock for the iPod Classic. My dad called on the same day I decided to go MidValley after not going there for months, and also one day after iPod Touch arrived in our shores. And also stupid me go ask to play with their demo unit, after seeing that it is only 1/3 the thickness of the Classic 160GB..I'm sold.

See..temptation is a DANGEROUS thing!!
(Like sex, smoking, and gambling!! These are really BAD temptations!! If you don't know your limit..don't mess around with it!!)

But like most temptation..I'm loving and enjoying mine right now...HEHEHE.
*MY temptation here is only an iPod Touch ok. Don't say I'm contradicting or whatever nonsense!!*

BUT I'm SO NOT ENJOYING ITUNES RIGHT NOW. IS SERIOUSLY THE WORLD'S MOST STUPIDEST AND MOST UNFRIENDLY AND MOST IDIOTIC MUSIC SOFTWARE...EVER!!!!!!!!!
Will go into detail on that on the next post..

Next..will update more on iPod Touch features!! So check back tomorrow night/early morning for the GEEK update!!!

The dominating "i"Generation..

2007-10-02T01:56:00.000+08:00

I hate Apple, seriously, I really really hate this stupid company!
Because it keeps on out with products that is so so damn irresistable. This is what I call temptation, pure lust - for gadget freaks!

Lately I've been taking a "closer look" at the iMac, checking out all it's practical features, it's getting harder not to WANT an iMac. I already got succumbed into this "darkness" by deciding to purchase as iPod Classic 160GB, and switching over to iTunes (which I'm still getting used too).

Hate to admit it but Apple is really doing a better job than everyone else in the computing world (in terms of computer hardware, overall no one could beat Google). They really take and put REAL dedicated and committed effort into all their products. From their plain, beautiful white-themed products to things like the magnetic power cord for the MacBooks. Like one of their ad said: "Everything is sorta thought out with Apple" - and I couldn't agree more.

How could you NOT want something as beautiful as an iMac??

So if you're wondering: "What got into Jeffrey? I thought he is a hardcore PC person, since he himself is dealing with PC hardware and all. Why his sudden craze for Apple stuffs??"

Let me show you the answer..

Insane iMac opening more than 15 programs consecutively..

In less than 10 second, this guy open up more than 15 programs (I counted 18) consecutively on the new iMac 24", including programs like "Garage Band", "Dashboard", iTunes, Quicktime, and etc which takes almost forever to load on a PC (for iTunes). This show how much more effective and efficient are the new iMac hardware architecture. Coupled with it's killer Mac OS X, seriously, how could you not want a computer which can perform this fast? Imagine..opening up Adobe Photoshop CS2 in less than 2 seconds, and able to drag in 100 photos and open all at the same time in Photoshop, and your computer still can do all the fancy file movement animation as though you just switched on "Notepad" or some simple program on a PC - now only a Mac is able to do that!

Best of all, you get all this computing power for less than RM10k! If you're looking for this kind of performance on a PC, you would easily need to spend RM10k on quad cores, top of the line motherboards and graphic card, loads of rams and a couple of really fast raptor hard-disc to compensate the slow slow speed of our stupid Windows! You could get a iMac 20" from as low as RM4499! Ok that's quite expensive for a computer nowadays, but hey, remember this can be considered as a performance computer!! But if you can afford it, the iMac 24" are really DE bomb! It starts from RM6699 for the 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo version and I think it's really more than sufficient...for me..hehe.

My most favourite iMac apple ad. "Windows Vista security"
"You're coming to a sad realization - Cancel or allow?!" Hahahahaha..

My SECOND most favourite iMac apple ad. "Apple Gennius"
"On a scale 1 to 10 how much do I love Mac?"
"11!"
"Oo..she's good..very good!" Hahaha..

For more FUNNY Mac ads by Apple, head on over to "Apple - Get a Mac" to watch the rest of their official TV ads.

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My first two videos I uploaded onto YouTube.

For my blog readers who don't know about the i-Transform camp blog, here are the 2 videos I posted over there. Watch it if you haven't, it's funny!

Michael Loo and Bryan's audition video for iTransform camp promo video.

Benjamin Yue's audition video.

Yes, believe it or not, this is my first time posting up videos on YouTube. And surprisingly, it was so much easier than I always thought. All I need to do was just use Windows Movie Maker to do a little editting, save it as a 320x240 WMV file and then upload it onto YouTube. Incredibly simple, nowonder YouTube grow so fast in such a short time.

Anyway this 2 videos was shot with my Nokia N95. Yes, it's from a camera phone!! Have you ever seen any other camera phone shot video this good? It could almost comparable to some dedicated point and shoot camera out there! - I know it's certainly better than my mom's Sony DSC-8500 camera. And one more thing, I actually shot these videos in low quality mode cause I was short of memory, and I also used the wrong resolution settings; AND then I actually made it worst by converting the H.264 file into MPEG1 format so I can edit it in Windows Movie Maker -- BIG mistake, made everything so grainy and dark. So imagine what it could do if I got everything right?? Nowonder Nokia organise so many amateur film-making competition, encouraging people to make a whole movie using the N95 only! Anyway they have everything they need on the phone itself, there's even an on board video editting software which is just like a smaller version of Windows Movie Maker.

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Back to my
10 Random facts about everything..

1) Wohoo..now I'm officially a Nuffnang-er. They finally start a advert campaign on my humble blog!! - And I made RM1.50 from last week's ads! Now I'm RM1.50 closer to getting a iMac 24" and a new car.. "yippeee..."

2) Did you know: That even though "Carlos Slim Helú" is currently the richest person on earth at the moment with an estimate Net worth of US$67.8 billion, which just over-took Bill Gate's Net worth of US$59 billion (Bill Gates was the richest person on earth from 1995-2007), they're actually no where close to "John D. Rockefeller", who is the world's richest man and regarded as the "richest person in history". When he died in 1937, his net worth peaked at $ 1.4 billion! At that time, the total national wealth of US is only $101 billion, means John D. wealth was worth 1.386% of his country total GDP at that time, (Bill Gates and even Sam Walton family fortune is no where close) making him the richest person ever in history. His wealth would be worth USD$ 305.5 billion if it's today currency, which is about 4.5 times MORE than Carlos Slim!!

3) The estimate GDP for USA in 2006 is $13,244,550 million. Which mean Bill Gates wealth is "only" 0.4228% of his country GDP; and Carlos Slim wealth is "only" 0.5119% of USA GDP. So "poor" compare to John D. Rockefeller.

4) Google is BIG. How big? Here's an idea:
"Two years ago (that will be 2003) Google had one data center. Today (2005) they are reported to have 64. Two years from now (2007), they will have 300-plus." - Taken from Weekly Column, November 17, 2005.
So, what's the big deal of Google data center you ask??
Here is a more detail look:
- Up to 2000 PCs in a cluster
- Over 30 clusters in a data center
- 104 interface languages including Klingon and Tagalog
- One petabyte (that's one step above Terabyte. So One Petabyte is 1,000,000 Gigabyte) of data in a cluster -- so much that hard disk error rates of 10^15 begin to be a real issue
- Sustained transfer rates of 2Gbps in a cluster

5) Did you know: One of the founder (Ian Norman) of Harvey Norman was a drop out from college? He tried taking up business subjects in college but he quit a short time later simply beacause "It doesn't interest him".

6) Thinking of buying an iPhone from the US, and then bring it back here and hopefully able to find someone to unlock it for you so you can pop in your cheap Hotlink/Digi simcard? Well..hope no more. Because Apple will be updating all their new iPhones with a new 1.1.1 firmware which make unlocked iPhones..locked up! Permanently..
Those cheap smart white Apple ba$tard$!!

7) Getting married is really REALLY getting VERY INSANELY expensive. IF I don't have at least RM100k sitting in my bank account "collecting dust", it is almost impossible for me to get married. Nowadays people are buying RM250k engagement rings for their fiancée. All these stupid people really giving me alot of pressure!! Got to save save save..and save! I should start eating maggie mee everyday from now on..

8) Did you know: That MySpace has more traffic than Google?? Yes..in January 2006, MySpace has more than 15 billion page views per month! That's about 500 million page views a day, or about 20.8 million page view - per hour! And that's in 2006 with "only" 106 million user accounts. As of September 7, 2007, there are over 200 million accounts already. And according to August 2007 statistics, myspace has over 67.7 billion page views!! So for those who argues that Google is the most visitted website in the planet..think again!

9) I still don't know how to use Facebook, which is the 3rd most visitted website on the world wide web! I think I'm getting old..becoming illiterate to newer websites and programs already.

10) For those who don't know, CSI, CSI Miami, CSI NY, The Simpson and Family Guy is all back with their own, new seasons! Now the only shows missing is Lost and One Tree Hill which will only be premiering next year...sighhh.

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HEHEHEHEHeheheheeeeee

Click to ENLARGE IT la..

2 more new video and a little geek update..

2007-09-27T01:41:00.001+08:00

Like my huge black title says so, I've added 2 more videos on MyVideoVault sidebar (which is on the left IF you still don't know!)

Video no. 10) "Seth Green Says Leave Chris Crocker Alone!"
*Before watching this video, please watch video no. 8 - "Leave Britney Alone!!" if you haven't watched it yet.

This is actually a video response by someone named Seth Green for the "Leave Britney Alone!!" video by Chris Crocker (yes that's the name of the [gay] guy in the video). Trying to mock him, quite funny actually..

Video no. 11) "Rowan Atkinson Amazing Jesus"
Disclaimer: This is a skit of Rowan Atkinson (a.k.a Mr Bean) preaching, so of course it's going to be funny, not a serious sermon here. So IF you can't take things like these as humor and watch it with a open-mind and heart and accept it is a joke then PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT watch this. If you choose to watch it and if you can't take it as a joke, well, I've warned you so don't condemned me with comments. I love God and I think even He has a sense of humor too =)

I laughed so hard that I teared..seriously!

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Geek update..

Wheee..ITech launched a brand new model called "iLady", and they also came out with a new batch of their already VERY successful "Clip II Mini" bluetooth headsets. This time, they changed the color scheme to chrome! Yeahh..bling bling! And I just couldn't resist myself and I grab one of each the minute the stock arrived from Singapore!

Itech iLady bluetooth headset - SRP is RM209, but most people retailing it for RM199 (but I selling it for only RM180. Aiya..RM170 for my blog readers la xD)

Itech Clip II Mini "Chrome" bluetooth headset - SRP is RM199, but most people retailing it for RM168 (but I selling it for only RM128. RM120 for my blog reader!)

Out of all the Bluetooth headset I have (8 of it), so far the best I've used is the new ITech iLady. Seriously, the talk quality on this small little..peanut - is amazing! For those who used the Clip II Mini before, if you think that is good, wait till you try the iLady, it is very clear, and loud!! And it fits snugly into your ear canal, so it even filters out ambience noise (for the ear which you stuff it into only la!). Some of my colleague ask me how can the opposite end hear our voices clearly, when the mic is so far away from our mouth? (the mic is actually just below the ear level when you wear it, cause the whole thing is so small). But to my surpise, I found myself speaking much more softer when I'm talking to people, compared to using Clip D or Clip II Mini where the mic is so much nearer to my mouth. Amazing stuff! Oh, and it can even pair to 2 phones, just like the Clip II Mini. The only down-side is it doesn't "beep" when there's an incoming call, so you've to rely on your handphone for notification. But other than that, certainly one of the best wearable in-ear bluetooth headset I've used, even better than my old "Flamingo" which cost RM399!!

My "army" of bluetooth headsets! Didn't realise I have this many until I dug them all out. I actually have one more "Flamingo" bluetooth headset, but I gave that one to my dad.

From left to right. ITech R35 stereo bluetooth headset; TREX BTH 501; ITech Clip II Mini version 1 (piano black finish); ITech Clip II Mini version 2 (black rubber surface finish); ITech Clip II Mini version 3 (chrome finish); Itech Clip D caller ID bluetooth; Itech iLady (black) and Itech iLady (pink)(Yes I also gotten the pink one!)

If you are interested to purchase any of it, I'm selling most of the models you see above and I promise you the lowest price you can find around!
The prices are:

- Itech R35 stereo bluetooth headset = RM190
- TREX BTH 501 = RM85
- Itech Clip II Mini "Chrome edition" = RM120
- Itech Clip D caller ID bluetooth handsfree = RM180
- Itech iLady = RM170

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HEROES SEASON 2 EPISODE 1 IS FINALLY OUT!!
That's if you still don't know about it yet...

I've watched it already..and it's awesomeee!

NO, I'm not falling away from God, I still love Him! But do watch this video..

2007-09-23T23:23:00.000+08:00

I was browsing through Youtube (because I'm bored and lifeless) a few days ago and I came across a video with an interesting title: "10 questions that every intelligent Christian must answer". I didn't expect it to be some sort of a controversial video about Christianity when I clicked on it but it was, and I quite regretted watching it. But then again, it does ask some really good question and it does have some interesting points.

So for all Christians out there, watch this video with an open mind and do tell me what you think about it. Your feedbacks. I recommend that non-Christian to avoid watching this video, or even Christians who are not strong with their walk with God...as it could possibly make you weaker.

To be really honest, what the author says is quite true when it comes to us (Christians) trying to answer these kind of trivial, grey area questions. Many times I also find myself trying to find excuse for God if I'm faced with a question which I really don't know how to answer, or which is not possible to answer at all without contradicting our belives.

Then for his third question: "Why does God demand the death of so many innocent people in the Bible?", I find that it is really a good question. I do agree that some of the bible versus seems quite irrational, like:

[For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death] - Exodus 35:2 (New International Version)). To simplify, God demands that we kill everyone who works on the Sabbath day. Yes I know Sabbath day is a holy day and supposed to be a day for God only, but isn't this abit too...harsh? In this world today, most businesses runs 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Most people find it quite impossible already. Or how about those bigger Church which employs people? - I believe they will also have some people working for them during Sundays, and I believe mostly all their employees will be their own Church member as well. But from another point of view, I also agree that this is caused by the world, it was surely different back then when people has less things to do and less responsibilities..the world became too advanced and fast paced?

and also:

[If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." 21 Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.] - Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (New International Version)
Or to simplify it, God demands that we kill disobedient teenagers. In this case, I believe many of us should be dead by now..right? I have been a stubborn and rebellious son, and I admit I still am sometimes. And I believe many of you too who are reading this right now. Sometimes this kind of verses really really scare you.

and then there's also this one:

[" 'If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.] - Leviticus 20:13 (New International Version)
In other words, God demands the death of homosexuals! We also don't see this happening, infact, there are Gay churches. Sometimes is abit contradicting, on one side people say that God loves everyone, even the homosexuals. But in this verse, God says they must be put to death.

and, for the most scarriest:

[ 13 If a man takes a wife and, after lying with her, dislikes her 14 and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, "I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity," 15 then the girl's father and mother shall bring proof that she was a virgin to the town elders at the gate. 16 The girl's father will say to the elders, "I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. 17 Now he has slandered her and said, 'I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.' But here is the proof of my daughter's virginity." Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, 18 and the elders shall take the man and punish him. 19 They shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver [a] and give them to the girl's father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.
20 If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl's virginity can be found, 21 she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father's house. You must purge the evil from among you.] - Deuteronomy 22:13-21 (New International Version)
Like the video says..does God really demands that we kill girls who are not virgins when they marry? It doesn't say how about those who made a mistake and have already repented...will God still accept them back? I personally belive He will, as He is a loving God, but, this verse doesn't seem to accept that.

I really don't know. What do you all think? Watch the whole video and tell me what you think. There are some really good questions in there to make you ponder, and challenged us as a Christian. So watch it, and do leave a comment or so..

Laughter is a good medicine??

2007-09-21T01:03:00.000+08:00

Posted 2 new videos on my side bar.
*If your internet connection is slow, then I recommend you to watch "Video no. 9" first, would probably lighten up your day.*

Video no. 8) Leave Britney Alone!! LOL!!!

Oh man this guy is seriously hilarious. The first few seconds of this video my expression was really like this: , I couldn't believe it. Then I started laughing out loud, at him. Geez, this guy has serious issue. Check out his uncleanly shaven moustache, cracks me up even more.

Video no. 9) Lifted. A short by PIXAR Animation Studios.

Pixar - Lifted - More bloopers are a click away
Finally, after sooo long! Someone finally uploaded it to the internet! For those who never watched "Ratatouille" in the cinemas, then you've seriously missed out this great animation at the beginning. Is a short animation by PIXAR, and it's one of my favourite so far. The little green monster look so patheticly sad, cute and adorable at the same time. Gave me a good laugh =)

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Britney Spears through the years..

In response to "Video no. 8", I found this picture of "Britney through the years" on dailyhaha.com.

Honestly my heart goes out to her. Look at the centre column of her 1993, 1999, 2004 and 2006 pictures is good enough. It's so sad to see someone so beautiful and famous, changed to someone like in the 2004 and 2006 picture. Compare her 1999 picture and her 2006 picture, it's like a totally different person, the girl in the 1999 picture is so pretty (and I remember she's quite hot too that time), but the 2006 picture, really look like some...pig.

I remember when I used to buy her original CD back in those days when I'm in primary school. She was like one of the youngest and most innocent looking girls who make it big during that time. Who can forget her famous singles like "...Baby One More Time", "(You Drive Me) Crazy", "Sometimes", "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart", and of course, "Oops!... I Did It Again"! It was playing all over the radio, everyday! She was like some teen idol back then, but now..look at her...

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FUNNY random pictures from the internet..

HAHAHAHAHAHA..

This is what's happening to the younger generation engrish thanks to WoW and Dota!!

And this is what happened when you play too much online poker!

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10 jokes for your pleasure..

10) Cops
Cop coming upon a young couple making out....
Cop: What the hell are you two doing?
Boy: See honey, I told ya cops were stupid.

9) First day of work
A young man, hired by a supermarket, reported for his first day of work. The manager greeted him with a warm handshake and a smile, gave him a broom and said, "Your first job will be to sweep out the store."

"But I'm a college graduate." the young man replied indignantly.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know that," said the manager. "Here, give me the broom, I'll show you how."

8) Husbands Compliments
A man was just coming out of anesthesia after a series of tests in the hospital, and his wife was sitting at his bedside.

His eyes fluttered open, and he murmured, "Youre beautiful."

Flattered, the wife continued her vigil while he drifted back to sleep.

Later, her husband woke up and said, "Youre cute."

Startled, she asked him, "What happened to beautiful?"

"The drugs are wearing off," he replied.

7) Cold Cream
Little Johnny watched, fascinated, as his mother smoothed cold cream on her face.

"Why do you do that, Mommy?"

"To make myself beautiful," said his mother, who then began removing the cream with a tissue.

"What's the matter?" asked Little Johnny. "Giving up?

6) Falling down drunk
A drunk had been at a pub all night. At last call, the drunk stood up to leave and fell flat on his face. He tried to stand one more time, to the same result.

He figured he'd crawl outside to get some fresh air, since maybe that would sober him up. Once outside, he stood up and fell flat on his face. So he decided to crawl the four blocks to his house.

When he arrived at the door he stood up and again fell flat on his face.

He crawled through the door and into his bedroom. When he reached his bed he tried one more time to stand up.

This time he managed to pull himself upright, but he quickly fell right into bed and was sound asleep the second his head hit the pillow.

He was awakened the next morning by his wife shouting, "So you've been out drinking again, have you?!"

"No! What makes you say that?" he asked, putting on his best innocent expression.

"The bar called... you forgot your wheelchair again."

5) Final Exam
An eccentric philosophy professor gave a one question final exam after a semester dealing with a broad array of topics.

The class was already seated and ready to go when the professor picked up his chair, plopped it on his desk and wrote on the board: "Using everything we have learned this semester, prove that this chair does not exist."

Fingers flew, erasers erased, notebooks were filled in furious fashion. Some students wrote over 30 pages in one hour attempting to refute the existence of the chair. One member of the class however, was up and finished in less than a minute.

Weeks later when the grades were posted, the rest of the group wondered how he could have gotten an A when he had barely written anything at all.

His answer consisted of two words: "What chair?"

4) Top Ten Signs You Have A Low IQ
10. You tripped over a cordless phone.

9. You spent 20 minutes looking at the orange juice box because it said "concentrate"

8. You told your buddy to meet you at the corner of "WALK" and "DON'T WALK".

7. You sent a fax with a stamp on it.

6. You think a quarterback is a kind of refund.

5. When you were taking your friend to the airport you saw a sign that said "Airport Left" and you turned around and went home.

4. You sold your car for gas money.

3. They had to burn the school down to get you out of third grade.

2. At the bottom of the application where it says "sign here".. you put "Sagittarius".

1. It takes you two hours to watch 60 Minutes

3) Job Title with Descriptions
1. A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

2. An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didnt happen today.

3. A statistician is someone who is good with numbers but lacks the personality to be an accountant.

4. An actuary is someone who brings a fake bomb on a plane, because that decreases the chances that there will be another bomb on the plane.

5. A programmer is someone who solves a problem you didnt know you had in a way you dont understand.

6. A mathematician is like a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isnt there.

7. A topologist is a someone who doesnt know the difference between a coffee cup and doughnut.

8. A lawyer is a person who writes a 10,000 word document and calls it a "brief."

9. A psychologist is someone who watches everyone else when a beautiful girl enters the room.

10. A professor is one who talks in someone elses sleep.

11. A consultant is someone who takes the watch off your wrist and tells you the time.

12. A committee is a body that keeps minutes and wastes hours.

2) Job Interview
Reaching the end of a job interview, the human resources person asked a young engineer fresh out of MIT, "And what starting salary were you looking for?"

The engineer said, "In the neighborhood of $125,000 a year, depending on the benefits package."

The interviewer said, "Well, what would you say to a package of 5-weeks vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical and dental, company matching retirement fund to 50% of salary, and a company car leased every 2 years - say, a red Corvette?"

The Engineer sat up straight and said, "Wow! Are you kidding?"

And the interviewer replied, "Yeah, but you started it."

1) Pregnant
An anxious woman goes to her doctor. "Doctor," she asks nervously, "can you get pregnant from anal intercourse?"

"Certainly," replies the doctor, "Where do you think lawyers come from?"

"Cintai-lah" Malaysia...

2007-09-19T21:21:00.000+08:00

Was googling up some stuff and I came accross something that really pisses me off, and really makes me hate my country even more. Check this out..

Below are the new National Automotive Policy tax rates, as of 22nd March 2006.

For Completely Knocked Down (CKD) Cars

For Completely Built Up (CBU) Cars

Then I dig a little more, and got lucky. Guess what I found..the Malaysian Customs (Values of Imported Completely Built-Up Motor Vehicles) (New) Order 2006 Pricelist! This is like their cost price-list of all the imported cars in Malaysia.

Take a look and see, I can guarantee you'll feel quite pissed off too, knowing that a supposedly luxurious Audi A8 4.2 Tiptronic Quattro MPV that retails for RM850,000.00 in our Malaysian market, only cost RM196,240!!!

OR, the famous Suzuki Swift 1.5 (A) CBU version, which cost RM89,802.50 in our local market, only cost RM29,057!!

This is shit up right?

So how do they count it? Let's take the Suzukit Swift 1.5 (A) CBU as an example.

Cost price = RM29,057
So according to the tax rate, a passenger car below 1800cc will get:
30% import duty = RM29,057 + 30% = RM37,774.10
then another
75% for excess duty = RM37,774.10 + 75% = RM66,104.675
and then another
10% for sales tax = RM66,104.675 + 10% = RM72,715.14

And remember, this RM72,715.14 is ONLY the local cost price for the distributers!! Distributers will mark up a little, then pass on to the dealers. The dealers will also earn abit, before passing on to the showroom, where they will also earn a little bit more. That's how you end up cars that supposedly worth only RM29,057, cost all the way up to RM89,802.50!!!

This was why Datuk Rafidah was in so much trouble after the PM found out she has been giving away so many Approved Permit (AP). The government easily lose anywhere from RM40k to RM500k, or more for luxury cars - per car! Take a look at Naza showroom..how much money they save on their cars..that is why they can afford to bring in so many insanely expensive cars like Ferrari, Prosche, Maserati, Lexus and even Mitsubishi, because if you have AP, the cars are actually dirt cheap!!

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If you're lazy to check out the price-list, here are some comparison of a few hot, popular cars in Malaysia, their cost price and On The Road price.
*OTR price is base on "On The Road" magazine, Issue 45, car price guide section.
**"Cost after government tax" is Cost + respective tax for that car category.

1) Audi TT 1.8
Cost = RM85,105
Cost after government tax = RM219,975.26
OTR price = RM350,029.00

2) BMW 645Ci Convertible
Cost = RM85,105
Cost after government tax = RM219,975.26
OTR price = RM350,029.00

3) Mini Cooper S Cabrio
Cost = RM87,866
Cost after government tax = RM219,884.67
OTR price = RM223,800.00

4) Mazda 5 2.0L
Cost = RM50,984
Cost after government tax = RM131,232.82
OTR price = RM159,000.00

5) Mercedes-Benz CLS 55 AMG (5.4L)
Cost = RM340,092
Cost after government tax = RM1,094,246.01
OTR price = RM1,291,888.00

6) Mercedes-Benz S 350 L (S) (3.7L)
Cost = RM247,500
Cost after government tax = RM796,331.25
OTR price = RM938,888.00

7) Mitsubishi Evo IX 2.0L
Cost = RM89,132 ARGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!#@$%
Cost after government tax = RM229,425.77
OTR price = RM284,913.90

8) Porsche Cayenne S FL
Cost = RM208,380
Cost after government tax = RM670,462.65
OTR price = RM765,000.00

9) Chevrolet Aveo 1.5 SOHC (A) (STD)
Cost = RM24,961
Cost after government tax = RM62,389.83
OTR price = RM77,047.50

10) Nissan Fairlady 350z 3.5L (A)
Cost = RM105,000
Cost after government tax = RM337,837.50
OTR price = RM557,185.24

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Don't you just "Cintai-lah Malaysia"...??

#@$#%#%@#$%^#@(*&$^#^$*&#%&*#^@*#$

*Do leave a comment..even if it's just on the chatterbox =). Thanks.

LOOSER advert.

2007-09-19T01:27:00.002+08:00

Let me show you what is funnier than Ben Yue's picture (if you haven't see it yet please scroll down to the post after this)...

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

OH MANNN!! I'm literally "LOL"-ing, seriously, I laughed out loud (really loudly) when I saw this. Infact, I almost went "ROFL-MAO"...

Seriously WHAT is the person thinking about when they publish this advertisement? From the moment the photographer took this picture, doesn't he noticed ANYTHING wrong with it?

It's bad enough that the girls expression looks horribly fake, but, can't they AT LEAST plug in the AC power cable to the xBox? I would understand if they forget the video cable, but this is just plain ridiculous!! My as well don't even give them the controllers?? Geez. I hope this advert is not coming directly from Microsoft marketing team, or I can imagine their whole team being kicked off the company!

But WAIT..I found more stupidity like this, and this time, it's from a MOVIE..check this out!!

WAHAHAHAHHA. When I saw this I was actually speechless. If you still don't noticed, check out the microphone. And in this scene the girl is making an announcement with it, and WOW, it has feedback too!! HAHAHAHA, that's a wired dynamic Shure SM58 mic!! Hmmm..wonder how they get the feedback sound..when the mic is not even connected?!? HAHAHAHA.

And then, it got even worst in the following scene...

HAHAHAHAHHA. Check out this nerd singging from that mic!! How stupid does this look man, can even see the XLR pins at the bottom of the mic!! What do they expect?? Fool 5 years old kid with this?? Anyway this scene is taken from the movie "Super Sweet 16". Shocking how MTV, a company filled with musically inclined people who probably uses microphone everyday, make such stupid mistakes!

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Mann..some people just don't care enough to noticed these things. Often many people take all this smaller details for granted, but little do they know that small details like this could actually determined whether whatever they're doing will be successful, or they'll just end up being a laughing stock to everyone, something like the Xbox advertisement.

I'm quite thankful that I'm a person who is very sensitive to minor details, infact, many times people think that my obsession for details are a little bit too..obsessive! People like Thomas would probably agree with what I just said, many times I made him recoil cables which actually "looks" fine, or ask him to tape down cables some more even if it's already taped down properly already, or reroute a cable all over again just to make it slightly neater. Yep, I'm this type of person. At work, people don't understand why I would spend so much time or stressed out over a simple email to send to a client; or why I would redo whole documents, or quotation myself when it is actually presentable enough already; or why the moment I reach my outlet, I would take the cloth and glass cleaner and wipe down the glass cabinets, even if there's little to no finger print on it. As long there is a smudge, I'll wipe it off. I do all this for a simple reason, because every little thing counts, and also because I'm a (over-obsessive) perfectionist. If it's related to me, I can't stand to see things less than perfect, or else I would be very very disappointed at myself.

That's also probably the reason why I don't like to do the things I won't be good in. That's why you don't see me play games like football, simply because I suck at it, and I rather choose not to play at all if I can't excel in it. Call me a quitter if you feel like, but there are certain things I know which I can never do in my life. But for those things which I know it is possible for me to do or to succeed in, I would really fight for it till the end, until I can fight no more.

-----

and now, more of Jeffrey's
10 Random facts..

1) I somehow managed to get a deep and 1 inch long cut at the bottom of my toe earlier in the morning, but only found out about it when I came home and took my bath in the evening. Only then I felt the pain, (and it was REALLY painful), after I saw it. This prove that we can shut out physical pain completely if we want to, it's all in our mind!

2) Today my boss was actually earlier than me!! The first time out of 123456789 times that we hold our informal meeting at our favourite Kopitiam in Seksyen 14. Should ask me mom to buy 4D and Toto...

3) I still can't stop listening to "Everything" by Lifehouse. I've been listening to it everyday, without fail for more than a week already, and I'm still touched by the lyrics when I hear it everytime. Really can apply both ways, in terms of God and also for our loved ones.

4) Did you know: "Petronas had provided gas subsidies close to RM50bil since 1997, and last year alone, it paid out RM14bil in subsidy." And because of this, “Petronas is screaming for an increase.”

5) As of 12th September 2007, Apple oficcially sold 1 million units of their iPhone! Just 74 days after it's launch. No other hand phone to date sold as much, or as fast as the iPhone.

6) Did you know: "In September 2007, Peninsula, an employment law firm, found that British businesses may be losing $260 million a day from employees using social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook [source: BBC News]."

7) Did you know, that it is estimated that by the year 2060, (natural) red-heads will be...extinct! (If you don't know what is a red-head, Archie(the comic) is a red-head!)

8) Wal-Mart, the world's largest retail outlet, has over 1.9 million associates (employees)!!!

9) Grey's Anatomy Season 4 will be premiering on the 27th of September, that's about a week away! For ALL Grey Anatomy's fan, you MUST head on over to Adeline's blog, she's "evil" enough to post up 3 sneak previews from the new season, and it's killing me..

10) Sad for those who don't know, but Prison Break Season 3 episode 1 is already out and can be downloaded from Mininova. I've watched it already and I got to say this is going to be a VERY exciting season!

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And how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

Cause you're all I want, You're all I need
You're everything,everything
You're all I want your all I need
You're everything, everything.

Sigh..
Funny how we can find love from the most unexpected person on earth.
Funny how can one person give you everything, and also take away everything the moment he/she walks away from your life. Really scary...
Funny how we always only learn to appreciate things after it is long gone.

Baptism @ SSGC & some random Pictures. & some random facts.

2007-09-17T00:08:00.000+08:00

Earlier tonight, 5 Youth from SSGC: Audrey Soo, Tan Wen Min, Chin Tun Huang, Lim Yi Shien and Marcus Ong have took the step to proclaim their love for God and walked through the water of baptism, infront of their families and friends.

Just want to congratulate the 5 of you and pray that you all will continue to grow closer with God.

-----
Pictures..

Uncle Eng Aun leading the evening, with Doctor Victor as the mandarin translator.

First candidate of the night, Audrey Soo.

Next, Tan Wen Min. Here is Petra sharing about Wen Min.

Tan Wen Min.

Then, we have Chin Tun Huang.

and followed by Lim Yi Shien.

*Check out his expression!*

and finally..Marcus Ong!

Picture of all the baptist youth for the evening with their parents.

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And now..for some random pictures..

Priceless shot of Ben Yue..

UPDATE!!
I post this picture on the camp blog, and this is what I found from the chatterbox barely less than an hour later..

yue: eh who is that handsome guy? even thomas is trying to kiss him
yue: can i have his number pls? he looks so cute
Jadeline's: It's okay Thomas, everyone makes mistakes

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAH!!

Resemble something..or someone? or..something else?

Jin Fong thought I bang his car!! Actually, at first I also thought I did until I took a closer look.

Some flower I took from the Lilac Salon, with really bright sunlight behind. Have to +4.0 EV to take this.

One of the things I dread most everyday..

You can't really see it. But the road tax price is a staggering RM3280.50. Ouch! What car is this you ask? Aston Martin DB7.

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10 Random facts..
I shall post 10 random facts everytime I post an update. These random facts can be about anything, from facts about myself, or other people, or anything in the world that interest me.

1) I like yellow

2) I like soft toys, if it's possible I would want "Spencer" (from Wong Fu Productions, Give and Take short video)

3) Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Both Co-Founders of Google) are the youngest, self-made billionaire in the world. At only 33 and 34 years old.

4) Bill Gates is no more the richest man on earth. Now the title goes to "Carlos Slim", a Mexican Businessman @ USD$67.8 billion.

5) The sixth richest man on earth, Sheldon Adelson (CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp, which owns The Venetian Macao resort) has the same forename as a SpongeBob Squarepants character - Sheldon J. Plankton.

6) Sheldon Adelson is also the highest paid person on earth at the moment. Earning close to USD $ 1 million per hour. That is around USD $16,666 per minute, Or around RM56,664 per minute. His pay per minute is about the same as most average Malaysian full time employee make in a year!

7) iPod "Product Red" Nano 8GB, which is actually a red color, limited edition version of the brand new Nano 8GB video, supposedly only able to get it in U.S.A.. But guess what, it is already in Malaysia! Infact, there's more stock for "Product Red" in Malaysia compared to the iPod Classic 160GB! *poor Bryan..*

8) I just realised the leading actress in "Honey" is Jessica Alba. And omg she IS so darn pretty. I wonder why everyone say she is hot? Pretty is more like it!

9) I'm voting for "The Stand" by Hillsongs as this year's camp song! Oh yeahh! Now I only hope there is enough musician to actually play this song!

10) My Nikon D50 dSLR is starting to show signs of "old age". Or at least it needs servicing. I can't take pictures at ISO 200 anymore. And the picture produced by my camera seem so dull and "lifeless".

The new "barber"

2007-09-15T02:36:00.000+08:00

First up, geek update..

iPod Nano

iPod Classic

iPod Touch

Are these DE ultimate iPod everyone has been waiting for? I don't know about you, but the iPod touch is certainly something I've been waiting for since the firs iPod photo was reviewed to the world. I've been holding myself back all these years and refrain myself from buying an iPod because I know that sooner or later, Apple will come up with something like the iPod touch...and I'm right...and it's beautiful!

Here is some geek talk.

iPod Nano

The new iPod nano comes in 4GB and 8GB variations. It's shorter, wider and thinner than it's predecessor. And the best thing about this new and revamped nano, is that it now sports a 2-inch, 320x240 color screen with LED backlight to push our human eyes to the limit - watching movies on it's miserable small screen. Claimed battery life is up to 24 hours for music playback, and up to 5 hours for video playback, of course this is only for people who will leave their player alone and don't keep changing tracks only after 30 seconds into every song. Anyway this little gems are already out and selling in Malaysia, and the price for this is RM619 for the 4GB version, which only comes in silver color; and RM829 for the 8GB version, which comes in silver, green, blue and black.

iPod Classic

Next up we have the iPod Classic, and it now comes in 80GB or 160GB variations. Like the name suggest, it is still iPod Classic, not much notable difference (externally) here just that it is sleeker and they bumped up the memory. But something worth mentioning, Apple has enhanced the iPod user interface and it seems much more cooler now, and they also added the funky cover flow interface, so you can (almost-literally) "flip" your album and search for what you want.

iPod Classic, Cover Flow.

The selling price for iPod Classic is (surprisingly) cheap. Suggested price for the 80GB version is only RM1099, while the 160GB version is going at RM1499. This is actually very cheap when you compare it to the last generation iPod Video, where the 80GB one is already RM1599. For those who are interested to get this, I highly recommend paying the extra RM400 for the 160GB version. This is seriously the thinnest and sexiest 160GB external hard-disk you can find so far.

iPod Touch - the ultimate iPod?

And finally, we have the brand new iPod, the iPod Touch. Is this what I've been waiting for all this while? The ultimate MP3 player to boil my geek blood? Honestly, I don't think so. From my point of view it's just a iPhone without the GSM phone functions in it. It has the same beautiful 3.5" 480x320 wide-screen; the same multi-touch display where you can pinch your pictures to zoom in and out; and also the same interface as the iPhone; and also Wi-Fi, Safari internet browser and also YouTube support at your disposal. The biggest drawback about all this is it's memory, it only comes in (a VERY VERY pathetic) 8GB and 16GB variations. I think they were too concentrated on making this iPod (very) thin, rather than usable or practical. It's not cheap either, selling price for the 8GB version is USD $299 while the 16GB version is USD $399. The selling price for iPod touch in Malaysia won't be announced until next month, but I got a feeling the 16GB version will set you back at least RM1599. But then again, I wonder could I even help myself from buying this even though I know it's absolutely not worth it, compared to the iPod Classic 160GB which I can also use as a handy external hard-disk, with 160GB to my disposal.

Damned, stupid Apple with their stupid clad-in-white products which is really tempting me to spend my hard-earned money on unpractical things which I probably won't use all the time. Shall see how when I finally get a chance to touch, the touch!

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The new line of "barbers"..

For those who don't know, the company I'm working for also has a magazine devision publishing fashion lifestyle magazine once a month around KL area. So, this week I got pulled along to see 2 new hair salon that has just recently open and they're interested to advertise in our magazine.

Now I'm not really a salon person, and I don't really see much of it around my area, what's more enter to one. So I don't know is this a new "normal" trend or not, but I'm amazed how these new Salons are like. What happened to those good ol' barber with that authentic look?

After all, it's all the same (right?), just go in to get your hair cut. But these Salons really bring the hair-cutting business up a notch.

This is "Inn Hair Salon", the first salon we visitted.

When I first walk in to this one, I was like.."whoah!!". I know I know I might sound like a jakun, but seriously, how many salon's do you see having chandelier?? And it looks so different from the normal barber shop I'm used to seeing outside my house there.

The cement block "table", the cement floor, the "floating" mirrors that is lighted up from behind, everything looks so cool and modern. Certainly something new for me.

Next up, we went to "Lilac Salon".

My goodness man, just when I thought the Inn Hair Salon was already something else, this is really really something else! I'll let the picture do the talking..

The area where people get their hair cut. Actually give you a proper sofa to seat on!

They even zheng the toilet..

Even their instrument/equipment cart..it's so..class!

Man..time has certainly changed man. Nowadays everything is getting either very very big (like huge shopping malls and retail outlets); or it must be really different than the rest. Looks like the word for all the newer business nowadays is "modernisation" and "(VERY) expensive".

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I really hope God can give me a reason to live..soon! It's really getting (very VERY) hard to continue living when you're living in a absolutely meaningless life.
I just need a reason..any reason at all to live will be good enough.
Or at least a sign that You are still there? That it would eventually (hopefully) be worth it, to be patient.
I just hope and pray things will eventually get better. Especially my life, I'm really desperate to get out of my shoes. I would trade shoes with anyone on earth right now, without any hesitation. Better still if I could trade shoes with the dead, or the mentally retarded. At least they don't have to think about anything, don't have to worry about anything, and most importantly, don't have to remember or think about any painful experiences and hurts.

Sad to say this, but sometimes, or actually most of the time, I actually envy that mentally ill guy that is always coming around our Church and the field...

Yet another geek update..

2007-09-10T19:23:00.000+08:00

A "short" rant on the IT hardware retail business (in Digital Mall)

I think out of ALL the other 123456789 industry there is in this world, the only industry that can have a huge impact on a measly RM1 difference in pricing between competitors is the end-user IT hardware business.

I'm serious, selling your thumb-drive at RM39 or RM40 can either mean a day without any sales at all, or a sold-out on that day. Sometime it can get very frustrating as all the products you're selling must be competitively priced, or else you'll definitely lose out in terms of sales. I'm surprise end-users shopping for such high end product (computer hardware are considered high end right? Most of the things is not cheap!) can be so, insanely kiam siap!

And because of this, the IT hardware business in Malaysia is actually getting very very terrible (compared to Singapore, US, Australia, even Thailand!), simply because there are too much competition, and everyone out there is trying to grab hold of your customers, and the customers themselves are very kiam siap. Many times I lost customer to competitors just because they're selling their stuff RM0.10 cheaper! YES, I'm serious, just because of 10 cents they rather walk up another floor, is like RM399.90 and RM400.00 can save them ALOT. Geez.

But I also very kiasu one la, normally I try to be cheapest. If they put RM399.90, I would normally change my price to RM395 or even RM390 straight away if I can. Please bear in mind that because of all these terrible competition, the gross profit margin (gross profit devided by cost, times 100 percent) in this business has drop way below the average level. Normally retail business (buy and sell, exclude food) you should be able to get around 20-30% gross profit margin, manufacturing business can get about 35-50% and of course higher for trading and food industry. Now, for the IT hardware retail business, you're considered very lucky if you can even get 15% gross profit margin!! That's if you sell mostly computer accessories like blank CDs, USB hub, mouse, keyboard, laptop bags (those stuff u can import in bulk from China). But if it comes to computer hardware, you're looking from as low as 0.8% to the most 10% only! Yes guys, believe it, it's THAT bad, why?? Cause you all love to bargain so much!

So when you see my prices to the right and you start to think: "Hmm, how much cheaper would Jeffrey give me leh??", hold that thought and let me tell you the truth now, for thumbdrive (the 1gb and 2gb), I'm earning not more then RM2 each! And for the 4GB, not more then RM5. If you look at the external hard-disk, let me just tell you my cost straight; for the RM178 - 80GB 2.5" external hard-disk, my cost is RM174.50!! Yesss..I only earn RM3.50 from a capital of RM174.50, my profit margin is only 2%. And I'm only able to get such low price on my hard-disk (is considered low) is because I've to commit to order 650 units a month from my suppliers. So..still want to bargain?

But I love this business. It's very challenging and it's very fun trying to beat all those bigger outlets in terms of sales volume, and even profit margin! I always like to compare my 96 sq ft kiosk with outlets which are at least 6 times my size, challenge myself to do things which is way past it's limit.

Like Sam Walton said: "Not much happens without a dream. And for something great to happen, there must be a great dream. Much more than a dreamer is required to bring in to reality; but the dream must be there first."

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Temptation

Today after having our usual weekly Monday meeting at office, I decided to stop by Digital Mall again before I go home (or normally I'll go straight home to sleep). After checking up on my little outlet and made sure operations is going smoothly, I did my usual surveying routine around Digital Mall on all my competitors, checking up on prices (to make sure I'm still the lowest on the hot selling products) and also try to see and learn from them. If you pay attention to every shop you enter, there are actually alot of things you can learn from each one of them. Their people, customer service, how they run their operations, product marketing, pricing, even how they arrange their products and even to the smallest detail, like what they write/draw on those small promotion tags and stick on their product to entice you to buy it. After all, a great idea must come from somewhere right? And most ideas out there are actually base on existing ideas, is just up to you to gather it, and improve on it.

Anyway..I was walking in ALL IT and then suddenly I saw a promotion tag that says: "50% discount!!". And if you read what I said above, you should know that this mean they're selling stuff under-cost (Since most you can earn is also only 15%)!!, at least I did and I went over to the next isle where the sign was. And the next thing I know..I'm at home with this..

Logitech diNovo Cordless Desktop keyboard set

Argh..I'm a sucker when it comes to geek stuff like this. But I always wanted to get this set and I always told myself that it is way too expensive for a measly keyboard
(<>even though it is omg so darn sexy and beautiful and the keys are like so nice to type and some-more the numerical keypad is seperated with it's own calculator function and media keys and everything is wireless, oh and did I say it looks darn sexy? <>)
, SRP is RM429 and I think that's abit too over-rated. BUT now they're having a 50% off on it, how can I miss out on a chance like this?? A quick check with my supplier and he confirmed that they're definitely selling under-cost, so now I've a new uber sexy keyboard.

Logitech diNovo Cordless Desktop keyboard set with my Logitech MX610 laser mouse. My perfect desktop combo!

My desktop

Closer look on the diNovo keyboard

Closer look on the wireless numerical keypad cum calculator.

I love my new keyboard. MSN me more people!! So I can type more on my new keyboard.. =p

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Something not-so-geeky

Went to Fraser's Hill last weekend to "crash" Agape family camp for one night. It was a great getaway, even though it was only for a night, but it sure is good to take some time off from work, and to finally stop thinking about work (although I still did at night).

How can you blame me? I'm a young businessmen trying to be successful, I've to eat, sleep, drink and play - work...if you get what I mean.
"What you think about most of the time is what you become. If you think about achieving your goals and put your time, energy, and effort behind achieving them, what you think about most of the time is what you will become." - Sam Walton (again).

Sorry side tracked again, anyway the main point of this section is to post something funny about the camp..

Beautiful, quiet, peaceful, green and small little town-centre of Fraser's Hill.

But right behind me..

Hahaha, check out all the Agape-ians swarming the marble stone which describe a little of Fraser's Hill background. I'm sure this stone is quite important to this little town, and the Agape-ians are all over it..literally!

Lifehouse Everything Skit

2007-09-08T02:36:00.000+08:00

A few weeks back someone sent me this link and ask me to "watch it now", but unfourtunately I was too busy, I didn't have time to even reply and I just close the MSN window thinking it was just some other funny video.

But today, I receive a Email from Markus and I realise that the link is quite similiar to what my friend sent me earlier..so I finally watched it..

Lifehouse "Everything" Skit. PLEASE watch it, you WON'T regret!! Trust me!!

Like what Markus said in his email, this is a really great video that I really want to share with everyone, and just like him, I was indeed moved to tears. It is one of the most touching video I've ever watched.

The way the video portray it, it's so true. We always turn our back onto Jesus, we fall into sins and temptation and we totally forget about Him when everything is going our way, when our life is "perfect" and care-free, we'll be totally ignorant to God...at least until when things goes really bad and we are in desperate need of help and there's no where else to turn to. Sad to say, only then will we desperately seek after God's love. And the incredible thing is, God will ALWAYS be there to accept us back with open arms. As long as we repent, He'll wash away all our sins. As long as we commit and surrender our live to Him, He'll cast all our problems, and enemies aside and come to us. Just like what the video shows..which is so true.

I hope those of you who watched this video will be blessed, as I am..

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"Everything" by Lifehouse (the song in the video above)

Find Me Here
Speak To Me
I want to feel you
I need to hear you
You are the light
That's leading me
To the place where I find peace again.

You are the strength, that keeps me walking.
You are the hope, that keeps me trusting.
You are the light to my soul.
You are my purpose...you're everything.

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

You calm the storms, and you give me rest.
You hold me in your hands, you won't let me fall.
You steal my heart, and you take my breath away.
Would you take me in? Take me deeper now?

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?
And how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

Cause you're all I want, You're all I need
You're everything,everything
You're all I want your all I need
You're everything, everything.
You're all I want you're all I need.
You're everything, everything
You're all I want you're all I need, you're everything, everything.

And How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?
How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

That one moment, right before anything happens, everything is perfect.

2007-09-07T03:16:00.000+08:00

Another Birthday..

Today is the 7th of September 2007. And 19 years ago on this day, my very dear sister in christ, Grace Wong was born.

One of God's little blessings on earth..

Happy 19th Birthday Grace! It is really a blessing that I get to know you back then in that very cramped kitchen of that add maths tuition teacher's house. At first I thought you were kind of stuck up (sorry la..no offense), but I was totally wrong when I get to know you. Like I said, you are a blessing in my life. Somehow you always tend to "pop" out at the right time to ask me: "Are you ok?", and to give me encouragement and also bible versus to help me stand up again whenever my life starts crumbling down, and you never mind listening to all my ramblings, and I'm really grateful for that.

Thank you for who you are and continue being a beacon for God as I believe you are a blessing in many other people's life as well, and no doubt that they'll see God's love in you.

"In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:16

-----
Wong Fu Productions

For those of you who visit Ben Lee's blog and have watched some of the YouTube videos he posts on his blog before, most probably you came across a video entitled "Yellow Fever". (If you haven't then please click on the link and watch it!)

Anyway if you heard of it before, the guys who are actually responsible for that video is Wong Fu Productions, and I'm one of their many esteem fans!
So actually who are they? They're Philip Wang, Wesley Chan and Ted Fu who are college class mates and share the same eye for film making. And together they've made quite alot of impressive videos (one of it is Yellow Fever, and they have ALOT more on their website). Last year, they released their own full length movie entitled "A Moment With You". Now, the amazing thing is they're not much older then me, but their film making and camera skills are really amazing. They filmed and edit this whole movie in only 6 months! If you think that's quite long, think again. It's all done by only the 3 of them, and with only 1 camera! I have no chance to watched the movie yet (since it can't be downloaded and I only can buy the original DVD from U.S.), but judging it base on the trailer, from my opinion, is really good! Looks like a good plot, and I really hope I can order the DVD soon.

Here is the trailer, watch it, it's worth your time! Remember, this is done by 3 teenagers not much older then me, or you. I really support and admire them.

A Moment with You trailer

Here is some of their other videos which are my favourites.

1)SET FREE (The One Days HK)

Their newest short video, one of my personal favourites!

2) Just a Nice Guy

Just a Nice Guy (Part 1)

Just a Nice Guy (Part 2)

Just a Nice Guy (Part 3)

3)Yellow Fever

Yellow Fever

The other pervert Lim..

2007-09-05T11:34:00.000+08:00

I shall dedicate this post to the other pervert Lim - Bryan Lim because it (was) his birthday and he was being very LOA and emo and all.

Actually this post should've came earlier since his B'day was on the 3rd of September, but the server that is hosting my pictures (compliments of Eric Cheong) was down for a few days and it's finally back up and running today.

So here it is, his top 24 pictures I could find from my collection of over 30,000 pictures I have over the years from YF. So this is a 24,000 words explanation and proof that Bryan is the most gayest, emo, and poser guy I ever know. Happy 20th Birthday iEmo Lim.

-----

Oh mann..

Unspoken words from an unopened letter.

2007-08-27T21:22:00.000+08:00

Once in awhile, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairy tale, and you were the one who turned my life into this fairy tale. When I was younger, I thought I knew what love was, and I was confident I was right. However, when you came along, you proved me wrong otherwise. There is no doubt that if I know what love is, it is because of you, and no one else.

You complained I always tell you that I love you, and you say that I do not actually know what I am saying hence that I could repeat these three words to you all the time. But the truth is, I tell you I love you every day for fear that tomorrow isn’t another. I always ask myself, “Could this be real? Is she the ONE for me?” The answer to my questions was always within you, in that beautiful smile of yours.

I cannot exist without you. I am forgetful of everything but seeing you again. My life seems to stop there, I see no further, and I see no hope. You have absorbed me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I were dissolving. I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion..I have shuddered at it..I shudder no more. I could be martyred for my religion: Love is my religion. I could die for that. I could die for you. My creed is love, and you are its only tenet. You have ravished me away by a power I cannot resist.

There is this place in me where your fingerprints still rest, your kisses still linger, and your whispers softly echo. It is the place where a part of you will forever be a part of me..

I love you..

Geek post

2007-08-27T00:32:00.000+08:00

I'm a geek. I get simple joy/happiness (but not happYness though) through little simple things, or more specifically, "little" gadgets ;p.

For those who know me well enough, I'm the type of person who will never spend money on things like shoes, clothes, jeans, sun-glasses, or actually, any fashion accessories. I only have 1 shoe and 1 slipper, and I will only change it if it becomes un-wearable anymore. I also don't have much things to wear, open up my closet and you'll see only a few measly T-shirt, shirt and short pants. Wait, infact I only have less then 5 short pants, and only 2 jeans! Haha. Basically, I've no fashion sense, or I don't really care that much. For me, spending RM300+ on a jeans, or RM800+ on a sun-glass would be like "OH-MY-GOSH-WHAT-THE-HELL-SO-FRIGGIN-EXPENSIVE!!!!".

But I don't mind spending money on gadgets! I'm totally a gadget head! I don't mind spending RM1k on a torch light, RM3k on a handphone, RM10k on a sound system and so on, infact I prefer to spend on all these instead of anything else. I myself also don't understand why, but probably is because of all this daily changing gadget which make me enjoy my job so much. And this is the plus point that I'm in this IT hardware business, I get to purchase the newest gadgets for the cheapest price!, but not such a plus point for my bank account though.

Anyway I've been planning to change my router for quite some time already. Currently using a D-Link DSL-G604T.

It's a OKAY router with build in modem, if you're a mediocre user and if you're not as picky as me. Lately it's been irritating me alot, mainly because it takes forever (actually forever is only around 5 minutes) to connect to my laptop!

Nowadays I take my laptop out from my house so often, when I come home everytime, I've to wait for it to slowly establish a connection with my router all over again! It keeps on scanning for the IP address and only after several minute I can finally get connected!

Sometime it gets even stupid-er, the connection status will show "Limited Connectivity" after it finally finish taking forever to get the IP address. Then I've to restart my router and wait all over again!!

Another thing that always bug me is the stupid D-Link router homepage takes FOREVER to load! To load such a simple setting page from the router itself takes FOREVER! Bloody irritating I tell you. Have to refresh several times before the page will appear. I thought the connection from the router to the PC should be 54Mbps? Stupid!
Then when the settings page does finally load and if you make any changes, you have to restart the whole stupid router to save the new changes, which means I'll have to wait FOREVER again to get it connected to my PC!

It might seem like I'm making a huge fuss over a small issue, but seriously it is very irritating if this happens a few times a day. Time is priceless ok! So, today I finally found the time (or more like remembered) to get a new router when I stopped by Digital Mall.

Ta-dah!

Got myself a nice new Belkin ADSL2+ Modem with Wireless 802.11g Router. First time getting this brand, I think is one of the most expensive brand in the market for routers, a similiar spec router from Aztech is almost RM100 cheaper, but I wanted to try this brand out, want to know what all the fuss is about, why they can charge a premium for their routers and still there are so many stupid people (like me) buying it!, other then the fact the design looks good, oh, and it comes with LIFE-TIME warranty! Now that really gave me confidence on their product!

Flat, rounded, clean and nice. Me like!

Actually I wanted to get the Belkin N1 version which looks seriously darn sexy, glossy black and all with all the status icon on the unit itself, but after seeing the price, I refrained myself. Anyway my laptop only supports up to Wireless G speed, so getting this will be kind of waste of money, can't unleash it's full potential. Bah, what am I thinking anyway, I just remembered Streamyx is "Stream-X", if someone were to be so blur enough now to invent a router with 56Kbps capabilities it would also be more than sufficient most of the time.

Sexiest router around!

But I just found out there is a NEW model from Belkin, the N1 Vision, and omg, did I regret buying my router so soon. If I knew this was coming out I should've wait..

"The N1 Vision wireless router offers an easy way for you to view your network's broadband speed, computer bandwidth usage, and the status of your connected devices - all from an easy-to-read display." Darn!

Ok, I'm straying away. Main thing I want to say is that this Belkin router is GOOD, worth every cent of it. Setting up is a breeze, easiest I've experienced for ANY router. And it is incredibly fast, it connects to my laptop in no more than 5 seconds! Best of all, it already comes with all the ports for Warcraft (if I happened to play), MSN messenger, Ares and etc, don't have to slowly search and enter youself. Oh ya, and this router doesn't reset when you make any changes, excellent! So for those planning to change router or planning to get one, I highly recommend this one! Is goood!

Can't see? Click on it for a bigger view. Creative SSID name yea?

p/s: I'm selling my D-Link DSL G604T modem router. It's in perfect condition and it still looks like new and it's actually working perfectly fine, just that I wasn't too satisfied with it's performance. If you're a mediocre user and if your modem just got struck by lightning, or if you're finding for a spare unit, I'm letting go this one for ONLY RM100! Yes...

~-~-~-~-~~-~-~-~-~~-~-~-~-~~-~-~-~-~~-~-~-~-~~-~-~-~-~

Did you know, that, the opposite of "Paul Frank" is...

"Foll Planky"??

Don't believe me? Check this out..

See! Foll Planky!! Man, nowonder China is taking over the world!

Anyway,
This is ONE fashion accessory I'm planning to get soon, which is a watch! Actually does it consider as a fashion accessory? I think it only counts as a fashion accessory if you have like dozens of it in your drawer. But I only need one practical and good watch to help keep track of my time a LITTLE bit better.

Anyone has any suggestion what to get? At first I'm really interested in getting this..

Sony Ericsson MBW-100 Bluetooth watch
I first saw this in Digital Mall, in one of the handphone shop. Actually I know about this a few months back, I read somewhere that Sony Ericsson and Fossil is going to come out with a bluetooth watch. And now, it's finally out, and it's beautiful, limited edition too! When I saw it, I straight away ask for the price and lucky me, it was within my budget, infact I wanted to get it there and then, I had enough cash with me. Then after I touch it, I knew I must have it. I was about to reach for my wallet to take out my money when the stupid sales guy so kindly tell me SOOO last minute that THIS WATCH ONLY SUPPORTS SONY ERICSON PHONE!! Great...for once...STUPID Nokia N95!

Then I did a little research, and not surprising, Fossil did make another bluetooth watch (this time not associated with S.E.) which can support Nokia phones! Happy me!

Fossil - Bluetooth FX6001

But the problem is, does ANYONE know where I can get this watch in Malaysia? Or does anyone know is there any authorised Fossil watch shop around? Cause I can't seem to find any. If you happened to see one, PLEASE let me know!

~-~-~-~-~~-~-~-~-~~-~-~-~-~~-~-~-~-~~-~-~-~-~~-~-~-~-~

There are many beautiful, sexy, powerful, really nice sounding and perfect cars in the world. When ask what is your ultimate dream car (one you would probably can never own in this life time, hence it's call a dream car!), probably cars that come through your mind would be...

BMW M3 2007

BMW M5 2007

BMW M6 2007

A rare RM2.5 million (or more?) Aston Martin DB9?

Aston Martin DBS?

Ferarri F430

Ferarri F50

A extremely rare (only ONE in the world), USD$ 4 million Ferarri P4/5, also known as Ferarri Pininfarina.

Lamborghini LP640 roadster

Koenigsegg CCX

Bentley Continental GT a.k.a. Bentley Flying Spur

Brabus Rocket CLS. The most powerful Mercedes. Has over 1,000lb per foot of torque, and over 700hp from the V12 engine! (Satria GTi only 112lb per foot of torque!)

Mercedes SLR

There is actually so much more "dream cars", and I don't think I can ever post finish all the cars tonight. But, now let me show you what a DREAM CAR should really be!

Introducing.. Mercedes-Benz Ocean Drive concept! Actually it's not really a concept car already, there are people reviewing this car on the road already. But anyway, just enjoy this car...

Mercedes Ocean Drive convertible

Seriously this car is really really sexy! I don't know how to describe it, but what Top-Gear said is right to the dot, "It's status up front, sex at the back!"

-----

Living without a reason and a purpose is seriously so darn meaningless. And lately I really do not have a reason to be on earth also, is like, I'm here cause I have to be, God placed me here, I've no choice. Makes life so meaningless. The days seem to be passing faster and faster nowadays (I know it cause it is already the end of August), but somehow it still feels as though time never pass at all, like I'm stuck in a time warp, if you know what I mean.

Let Jadeline lighten your day too.

2007-08-22T02:10:00.000+08:00

Been pretty stressed up lately with work. Alot of things happening at the same time and 24 hours a day is really NOT enough to cater for a young aspiring "businessman" like me. But no matter what, I'll strive to be what I aimed to be, even if it kills me.

Just submit a quoatation that I've been stressed out with to my client, finally can have a sigh of relieve. At least until tomorrow when I've to meet with them to finalize things. I'm sure I'll have alot of questions by them and have to justify why this and that cost so much. Hate doing business with people who don't understand the situation, too many people take too many things for granted. Rich people only want things fast, and perfect, sometimes they want it the cheapest too. Can't the M'sian market and consumers be more like the foreigners? Or even the new generation of Malays? They just accept the price you give them and won't bother to waste time negotiating price for hours on end.

Anyway I'm taking this few hours to finally settle down and relax abit. Was REALLY stressed out earlier today chasing suppliers whole day to reply all me quotation! Bloody hell all of them take their own sweet time..#@$%. But enough of work. The point of this post is, I want to share with the world the "lame-ness"?? of Jadeline.

She has some really good mama jokes here man, wonder where she got it from..enjoy!

"Ur mama is so stupid, that she sold her car to buy petrol!"

J'delinee says:
ur mama so poor, that she went to KFC to lick everyone's finger

J'delinee says:
ur mama so stupid , she noticed a sign reading 'Wet Floor'...so she just did!

J'delinee says:
ur mama so fat
J'delinee says:
then when she stands infront of the HOLYWOOD sign
J'delinee says:
u could only see H and D

J'delinee says:
ur mama so poor
J'delinee says:
that burglars break in to leave her money

J'delinee says:
HAHA THIS IS FUNNY...
J'delinee says:
your mama so poor, that she cant even afford to pay attention

J'delinee says:
ur mama so poor, she hangs the toilet paper out dry..

J'delinee says:
ur mama so old.. that when a kid ask her to act her age, she died

J'delinee says:
ur mama so fat.. that she made olympic sumo wrestlers look like aneroxic

J'delinee says:
ur mama so fat
J'delinee says:
that when she steps on the weight scale
J'delinee says:
it says '' to be continue ''

J'delinee says:
ur mama so fat, when she fell into grand canyon.. she got stuck

J'delinee says:
ur mama so fat.. that when she bungee jump, she went straight to hell

J'delinee says:
ur mama so ugly, her shadow gave up

J'delinee says:
UR MAMA SO UGLY
J'delinee says:
THAT WHEN UR GRANDMAMA GAVE BIRTH TO HER
J'delinee says:
THE DOCTOR SHOLVE HER BACK IN AGAIN

J'delinee says:
ur mama so ugly, that her middle name was ' accident '

J'delinee says:
ur mama so fat
J'delinee says:
that when she wears a blue shirt
J'delinee says:
a kid go "look ma! the sky is falling"

And here is a pic of our comedian. Interested to know her? PM me ;p
(Click on her pic to go to her blog)

The BIG headache I'm glad to have.

2007-08-19T01:46:00.000+08:00

Remember the BIG project I said that is currently going on my last, last, last, last post?

Well, today I finally have the chance to view the proper project site, and the first thought that ran through my mind when I saw this was:

"Toooooooooooooooooooooooooot!"

At first glance the building in the picture doesn't look that big. But compare to the tallest structure behind, and the structure at the centre right. The centre right structure is already a 2 story ware-house type office building, check out the comparison! The tall structure behind will be a 34 meter (roughly 11 story high)!

Before this I was working and planning it only through architectural designs and drawings. Which is NOTHING compared to seeing it in real life. Sure, on paper I know the building will be up to 34 meters high, and will be about 2 city block wide, but seeing it in real life infront of me is, "toooooot"

I don't want to go into details cause I'm not sure am I even allowed to put this picture on my blog as there are many P&C grey areas about the site. But my involvement in this is to install CCTV for them (and actually a few more things, but haven't confirmed yet), will be doing it in 2 or 3 phases. But 1st phase alone there will be as much as 30 cameras. Doesn't sound like much, but it is much when you have to consider that the cameras will be about 10 stories above, that you need to pull FEW kilometers of cabling, and the only way we can access it is nothing less than cranes! BIG headache. But it sure is a good one to have, and I'm lucky enough to superwise this project. Really want it to be nothing less than perfect for my client.

-----
Another update,

This time is geek post. Bought a new toy. A new speaker. Actually is a travelling size speaker, for, well, travelling! At the same time I'm also using it as a bed-side speaker, lazy to stick earphone into my ear when I'm sleeping.

SonicGear Uforia 2 Travelling edition. "Micro Hi-Fi class speakers"

I got not much to say about this speaker, as it is small. But for RM150, it sure is a very affordable mini speakers for travelling. Finally don't have to really sacrifice sound quality for size. Overall is good considering it's size, so I can't really complain much about it. Satisfied!

-----
Expensive mamak!

Ok this is actually a finished plate of Rosemary beef ordered in Williams. I think this is one of the MOST expensive meal I've seen or even heard off from a place like this. RM30 for this plate..ouch!

My take on the new Proton Persona

2007-08-16T18:13:00.000+08:00

Went over to Cineleisure today to check out our spanking new national car for year 2007, the Proton Persona.

This car is a very special car. It's the car that "promises to set off a snowball effect of recovery at Proton". Visit Proton Malaysia official website and it is written on it's main page: "Persona, Permata Hatiku, Our pride and joy". The Chairman of PROTON Holdings Berhad said: “We are extremely proud of this new product as it was built in accordance with PROTON’s new philosophy of producing the right car for the right market at the right price,”. They even advertised that: "Bookings exceeding 2,200 units have been received for the PROTON Persona, even before it was officially unveiled by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, with 350 cars already registered and delivered to customers nationwide upon launching.". Heck, they love their new car so much they even call the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to launch it!

So, everyone (or at least myself) expects this car to really turn heads, to be some kind of a milestone compared to all our previous models, to be so good that everyone would run out and purchase this car when they set eyes on it. Afterall, the marketing they did seems so impressive, purposely keep everyone in suspense, giving us little "teasers" on how the car look like. To sum it up, I expect it to be...competitive, new, to finally have a more foreign design and styling and quality!!

But on 15th August 2007, when they finally revealed the car, I was wrong.

I MEAN SERIOUSLY..WTH?? CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME IF THERE IS ANY OBVIOUS DIFFERENCE AT ALL COMPARED TO PROTON GEN-2??!!

Here is another look (the "live" unit)

!!

Even the back looks the same!!

Impressive? No, I'm being sarcastic. Let me tell you WHAT Proton actually did. All they did was add a chrome strip at the front intake grill, add yet another chrome strip to the back, add a boot space, change the layout to sedan style, and then RENAMED it to "Proton Persona"...and there you have it, a BRAND NEW NATIONAL CAR for year 2007, our nation's "Pride and Joy".

Fine, they add a boot in, wow!

Our nation's pride and joy? Oh my goodness! But I have to give them some credit, they have the cheek to advertised it as a brand new car. Yeah, new name more like it! Is there seriously no originality in our national car company? I wonder are there ANY Creative Designers or Engineers working in Proton, or has the directors neglect to hire quality desginers and engineers so that they can save cost, and at the end pocket more money for themselves?? Heck man, even the name itself is not even new, is actually used in the UK market to represent Proton Wira!! And I expected something more, new, nice, different..made with quality..to at least be competitive to even Kia or Hyundai!

Seriously speaking, HOW ON EARTH can this car "promises to set off a snowball effect of recovery at Proton"?? Is just an improved version of Proton Gen-2, with boot! The only customers I think it can attract is those people who are interested to buy the Gen-2, but thinking twice because of such small boot space and low roof line.

Personally I have nothing against the car itself, I think it's above average for it's given price tag of only RM44,999! It's cheaper and an improvement over the Proton Gen-2. My problem is only with the people behind this car. If they want to improve the Gen-2, then just do that and then remain it as the same name, or maybe just give it a code to show it is the newer sedan version! Or just call it "Gen-2 Sedan", what's wrong with it?? Don't go and rename the whole damn car and advertised it as though you're coming out with a whole brand spanking new car!! Absolutely misleading!

In conclusion, what Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson commented on Proton last time is true. He said that "It looks like it is made in the middle of a jungle clearing by people who doesn't care at all.". And he commented this on the original Proton Gen-2 when it first launched back in 2004!
-----

Anyway here are the remaining pictures I took of the car:

Same interior, but now with glove compartment.

Same Campro 1.6 engine

Same steering wheel. Same instrument panel. Same pillar A means same problem with blind spots. Oh, and same crap CD player, Air-Cond vent and Air-cond controls. How original.

Everybody loves Bryan.

2007-08-15T13:21:00.000+08:00

han li says:
dunno wat is 3 door

han li says:
2 door

han li says:
only sports car

han li says:
HAHAHA

JL says:
like all the other m'sian say is 4 door sedan

han li says:
sedan is not hatch ma

han li says:
boot is not open all the way

han li says:
the gen 2 ur mom is 5 door

JL says:
same la. proper count is also 5 door la. boot no door ah

han li says:
the sedan is 4 door

JL says:
lazy to start another pointless argument with u

han li says:
as long is hatch back mean got way into the seat

han li says:
bet with u!

han li says:
100rm

han li says:
dun bliv me

han li says:
CIS

JL says:
sure sure. name badge..name tag

JL says:
HAHAHA

han li says:
no la but seriously

han li says:
u go askshow room

han li says:
hatchback like my kelisa also 5 door

han li says:
as long as open the boot can access seats they call 5

han li says:
cuz last time i ask showroom

han li says:
i so bloor

han li says:
i wonder where the 5th door is

han li says:
i count only four

han li says:
that time i damn small

han li says:
hahah

han li says:
NAH

han li says:
The European Civic has a different appearance and is offered primarily as 5-door and 3-door hatchbacks. In the UK

han li says:
LOLZ!

han li says:
ok la i shaddap

han li says:
JL tulan me

JL is ignoring Bryan Lim says:
i knew u were bound to find that if u were reading wiki

han li says:
LOL

A stroll through memory lane.

2007-08-11T02:26:00.000+08:00

Can't sleep again, and I've been reading through all my older post on blogspot since I first started blogging (in Blogspot) back in February 2006. And, wow, time sure really flies. I barely noticed that it is already the 3rd quarter of year 2007. Lately been doing alot of reflection on my life, am I getting too old for my age?

Reading my older post really refresh my memory on how my life was back in 2006. I was in Sunway College doing MUFY, I remembered I hated it, and I still hate it till now. But then again, I guess it was still fun. I know life was certainly much better for me back in 2006, much, happier (hate to admit it)! Although most of the time I keep bitching about college life, but at least my life, at least those parts that matters most was there, and that's what made it good.

Since I've been working whole of this year, I'm not saying that work is affecting me, affecting my overall life, my happiness. Is just, something else. Is those things that matters most, it's not around this year anymore, not around to keep me sane, to help me smile and pick me up when I fall into the deepest and darkest possible hole in life.

Most nights I come home and just force myself to find more work to do. Just to find ANY possible things to do to fill up my time, and my mind. Or if there is mamak or movie plans late at night, then it is a bonus. As long as I don't get anytime to relax and spend some alone time with myself, then it's good enough for me, cause there are seriously TOO much things going on in my mind that if I stop to think about it longer than a few seconds, I'm definitely going to break down. And this is where my work plays an important role, ironicly, work is currently the only thing keeping me sane.

Anyway, the (past) post which trigger me to spill all these out now is this one..Posted back in October 8, 2006, entitled "A few things I've Learnt".

Reading that post, it seems that I've learnt so many things already in that year and I thought I would be smart enough to repeat the same mistakes again. But, oh well, it's life.
Anyway, here are some of the things I posted in that old post that really struck me and would like to remind myself again..

2) Many times when we think that no one else will be better then us in the things we do best, well, there will always be someone else out there better than us.

3) I've learnt, the hard way, that life move on and doesn't pause even for a second to wait for you, so is either you "stay put" and rot, or pick yourself up and move on, continue in life.

6) I've learnt, again the very hard way, that no one can keep true to their promises, even promises made by people whom we think love us most.

10) I realise, to achieve success, you must go through pain and suffering first.

11) I've learnt, that falling in love might be the most beautiful experience, but will also be the most painful experience ever in our lifes.

12) I've realise that, not all the time, it is better to give than to recieve. Because in reality, many people will take you for granted if you're too kind.

22) I realise that people always leave, especially people that we love most.

23) I realise that life will never turn out to be what we always hoped for, because it is reality, not a dream.

24) I've learnt that the phrase: "The grass will always be greener on the other side" is actually trying to say that man will never be contended with what they have. One may spend their whole life trying to get to the other side of the fence, and when they finally get over, they'll start thinking, "I think the grass on the other side IS actually greener!", and this is evident for all of us.

and lastly

27) I've learnt that, all people need most of the time is a second chance. Even a lame can run again, IF he gives himself a second chance.

So it seems I was already aware of all this since last year, and somehow along the way, I must've totally forget about all this "I've learnt".

Now I hope I'll remember No. 3 everyday when I wake up and try to apply it.

Bryan drew me

-----
Some old, but still beautiful quotes from OTH I found from my older post.

"Life is funny sometimes, can push pretty hard. Like when you fall in love with someone and they forget to love you back. Like when your best friend and your boyfriend/girlfriend leave you alone. Like when you pull the trigger and light the flame and can never take it back. If you look close enough, you'll find hope. And the words of children, and the bars of the song, and in the eye of someone you love, and if you're lucky, I mean if you're the luckiest person on this entire planet, the person you love decides to love you back... "

and

Henry James once wrote : "Be not afraid to live, believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact!"

Some pictures..

2007-08-09T17:17:00.000+08:00

Question:
I took and posted a few pictures below. Out of all these pictures, some are taken with my Nikon D50 SLR camera and some are taken with...my new toy!

So..guess which picture is taken by which camera as you view them.

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My new Edifier S2.1M speaker system volume control knob. (Focus is on the cable la, not the Edifier word!)

Some flower I found in my garden.

Same flower again but different angle.

Adorable doggies given by Wai Yee.

Cute doggies again.

Water tap from SSGC toilet.

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Answer:

Ok I lied. NONE of the pictures above is taken with my Nikon D50 SLR camera.
BTW, the PC fair pictures below are also from this fella.

Finally an update on (my) life since 18th February 2007

2007-08-09T03:17:00.000+08:00

Hi!

Ok this is weird, I don't really know/remembered how to blog.

Hi everyone, I finally found the time to update my humble blog. Ok, to be honest, I'm actually too bored, I've no work to do, I run out of technology websites and blogs to visit and I can't sleep at all thanks to my favourite teh tarik!

Anyway, I think I'll start blogging (regularly) again, I'll try to find some time in my life to rant about all my life's misery right here for the world to read.

So, a little (Q&A) update on what I've been up too since 18/2/2007. (These are the few questions people tend to ask me once in awhile)

What have you been doing since February?
Nothing much. Only..working.

Where?
I work for a company called NAND Digital Sdn Bhd. The office is in Cheras and JB.

And what are you working as?
Currently I'm managing and supervising the IT retail devision, "Supercom IT House" for this company.

Exactly what do you do?
Everything. I more or less have multiple positions for now. I'm like the marketing cum sales executive cum operations cum technician cum technical advisor, and many many more. But main thing is I've to manage the IT Retail devision and make sure is making money!

You're only 19. Not many company will let a 19 year old manage a whole devision. What made them choose you?
When I started off, It was only supposed to be a part-time job to fill my time before University starts in July. I started off only as a retail sales person cum technician, base in Digital Mall. But after the first month, I improved total sales by 437%, and the second month up to 514%. I turned the whole devision around and started making profit for them. After that I was asked to join them and take over and lead the retail devision.

So what are your plans then?
Currently we only have one retail outlet, a 96 sq ft kiosk in Digital Mall. Everything else we are more or less doing wholesale or corporate sales. We're planning to open more outlets around to get higher sales volume. Currently we already found a new shop-lot in Taman Maluri, Cheras and going to start renovation soon, hopefully this will open by end of this month. Planning to open around 2 to 3 more kiosk outlets by end of this year. Other things in store is we are also planning to start a whole new CCTV devision, which will also be under me, but will be starting small and only targeting homes or smaller shop lots, the idea is to bring cheap CCTV systems to everyone homes. Also in discussion is to open a cyber cafe, but this will most probably be pushed to next year unless we have exceptional response in our new outlet.

Kiosk? Can you actually do IT hardware business with a kiosk outlet?! There are so many hardware and keeping stocks would be a nightmare!
You'll be surprise. I myself laugh at the idea too, I couldn't believe IT hardware business in a kiosk can be profittable until I actually got involve. The things we sell in our kiosk outlet are of course smaller items, mostly computer accessories like thumbdrive, external hard-disk, webcams, blank CDs/DVDs, mouse, hubs, memory cards, MP3 player and etc. I have actually more then 100 different products in my kiosk alone, and surprisingly these things are very sellable! But of course we will also start selling motherboards, graphic cards, monitors and etc when we open our shop lot in Tmn Maluri. At least there we have much more space to do PC sales.

So do you enjoy your work? Wait, how about studying? Now is already August!
Yes, I love my work. I love it because I'm good at it and I'm always interested in computer and technical stuff since young.
About studies, I plan to take a break from studying this year and continue with my work. Currently 30% of Supercom is mine and so I hope to build it up, is like my baby. We'll see how later on, I might go back to studying if things doesn't turn out the way I want it to be.

Why do you want to stop studying and start working at such a young age? Don't you think getting a degree first is much more important? Are you in desperate need of money?
I agree that getting a degree is important. Yes it will give you security and with this degree certificate, you can at least get a decent job with a minimum pay starting from around RM2-3k the moment you start working. And most probably your pay will increase only to as much as the market are willing to pay you for the studies you took, unless, you are exceptional in your field or you have alot of contacts.
For me, is abit different. Firstly, I really hate studying. More than your normal teenager-hate-studying type of person. I hate it because no matter how hard I try, I can't be good at it. And now when I'm presented with what it seems to be a better option, I'm willing to risk it and take this oppurtunity. But the main thing is, I HAVE this oppurtunity. Another thing is, I can't accept the idea of only starting from scratch at the age of 25 years old, by the time I earn enough and have a comfortable life most probably I'll be in my mid 30s already, how to earn enough money to get married and start a family in 5-10 years?? I don't know about you, but I can't. So I rather start now if I have the chance.
And no, I'm not in desperate need of money. I actually don't need the money, not yet at least. Now I work because I love my job, and I'm trying my best to be as successful as I can, and to make my business successful.

So currently what's going on at work?
PC Fair just finished and I must say I'm quite satisfied at that. First time I've ever been involve in PC Fair and I've to sort of handle everything already. It was an unbelievable experienced, it was really good. The response was good too. Sold out many things by the second day, couldn't believe it! Anyway will do it bigger and better for year end, can't wait for it. Other then that, current project on going is a CCTV security system + magnetic door access + 150 computers + networking for SAE new office and aeroplane hanger in KLIA itself. All I can say is this is HUGE and involve alot and alot of money. How big? Office block itself is already 46k+ sq ft! Indoor hanger can fit 8 Airbus aeroplanes, and a much bigger outdoor aeroplane parking area, all have to be "seen". Stress!

So that's all for now, finally sleepy. Will update some more again soon! Here are some pictures of my booth at PC Fair =).

First & second day

Last day

Amazing amount of rubbish after PC Fair.

Forever

2007-05-30T23:02:00.000+08:00

Forever, have I lost you?
You’re fading from my sight.
Can you not see we’re falling?
We’re dying in the night.
My heart is yours, Forever,
I’ll never turn away.
I’ll wait for you to find me.
I’ll try to make you stay.

You promised me, Forever,
To make our hearts as one.
Did you forget, Forever,
To tell me we were done?
Forever, will you hold me,
And sooth my heart to sleep?
Tell me again, Forever,
That I’m the one you’ll keep.

My heart will beat, Forever,
Until you bid it rest.
I’ll live for you, Forever.
I’ll try to pass this test.
Forever, I feel empty,
My heart has told a lie.
Forever, can you promise
That you won’t start to cry?

This wound will bleed, Forever,
But pain is worth the prize.
I’ll sing for you, Forever,
An angel for your eyes.
I’m leaving you, Forever,
But, Forever, I will wait.
I promise that I’ll meet you
At heaven’s golden gate.

Forever, I will hold you,
I’ll never let you go.
Forever, I will love you,
Though you may never know.
I want to stay, Forever,
But God has called me home.
My soul will stay, Forever,
And follow where you roam.

My death may hurt, Forever,
But know it’s not your fault.
I know you tried to save me.
The car just wouldn’t halt.
I know this loss will hurt you,
But please promise me this:
I want you to remember
The times when we would kiss.

I want you to remember
The girl the pictures show,
And please try to remember
The woman that you know.
Remember this, Forever,
I’m watching from above.
Remember me, Forever.
Remember I’m your love.

Some thoughts

2007-02-18T02:04:00.000+08:00

One thing I really dislike about the holiday is the air around me seems fresher, the road is less congested, there are less people around, it seems more quiet and relaxing. All this simple means it makes my mind think much more compared to when I'm stressed out or busy doing something. And I hate it cause I'm too young to be thinking too much.

Oh well, Happy Chinese New Year to those who are celebrating!

Was having a conversation with Adeline 2 nights back and she asked me a question which is always been on my mind, well, almost every night of my life. And coincidently, when I was watching One Tree Hill after my chat with her, Lucas ask/say the almost exact same thing as what she asked me.

"If you could go back and change just one thing of your life. Would you? But if you did, would that change make your life better? Or will that change ultimately change your heart? Or break the heart of another?"

For me, if I were to have that chance to change that certain situation, I would certainly do it. The problem is, I have too many things I would want to change from my past. This few days, thinking back of my whole life, I'm shocked by the amount of "bad" steps and choices I took. Basically, I screwed up my teenage life. I could have been alot happier now. I could've have a more "perfect" life. I could have avoided all those sleepless nights. I could've avoided hurting all those people whom I love and care about.

The thing is, these bad choices I made in my past is what made me who I am today. The sooner I realise I can't change any of my past, the sooner I will be able to move on. There are things I pray every night I would be able to let go off, and there are also things that I'm too afraid to ask God to take away, and that's what I'm afraid off.

Anyway here is a new song that I absolutely CAN'T stop listening to it every day and night. It is "Burn and fade away" by "Vega4". From what I think, it is a very, very beautiful song..

I believe we could have had it all
we could have shone like stars
we lost our way
everything has got to end sometime
we were satellites
drifting off into space
i'm alone in the rain
with a movie in my head
about a dream you were in
where we lost ourselves
burn and fade away again
burn and fade away again
burn and fade away again
for all time
we wished too hard on that
shooting star
that burned a hole in us
but left a trail in our eyes
i don't need anything
but to know you'll be alright
chase a dream, don't look back
where we lost ourselves
burn and fade away again
burn and fade away again
burn and fade away again
for all time x2

I'm afraid that I would stop loving you one day..my little miracle. Because I'm not ready to do so...

Funny advertisement by updated FOUR car giant.

2007-02-05T03:12:00.000+08:00

The marketing manager of BMW sure has one hell of a sense of humour. When they decide to print an ad in the newspaper to "congratulate" their "good friends", and at the same time advertise themselves, and also "cha" them abit...this is what they came up!

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I can imagine how the CEO of Audi feels when he sees this in the newspaper while trying to have his cup of coffee early in the morning.

And then, he calls up his marketing manager, which has also almost the same amount of sense of humour in him, but just a little bit more!

And they came up with this...

OWNAGE!!!

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*Updated on 06/02/07*
Thanks to Fazil, I have now 2 more advertisement to add in this post.

While those 2 jokers up there were fighting with each other, Subaru felt very left out. So to join in the fun, they created this advertisement:

Now we have BMW, Audi and Subaru participating in this "fight" of theirs, Bentley came up with a very "minimalist" and "subtle" advertisement to shut them all up once and for all...

Ouch..

There is only so much I could love you, but my heart for you, is infinite.

AYA Festival, featuring SONICFLOOd

2007-02-03T02:47:00.000+08:00

AYA Festival, 2nd - 3rd February at Bukil Jalil Indoor Stadium. Featuring SONICFLOOd and Altered Frequency

Yes, for those who don't know, there is AYA festival again this year from 2nd to 3rd February. For those who went to last year's AYA festival, they only have it for one day and they featured Delirious! Last year's one was amazing, it was simply one of the best concert I've been to in Malaysia. From the sound quality, to the lightings to the music, it was simply AMAZING! But that was last year, and last year they featured Delirious.

So, since this is their second year, of course they have to improve from last year. So they made it bigger, and better, and they called...SONICFLOOd all the way from USA!! This time they're having it for 2 days, 2nd and 3rd February, and there's a conference starting from 9a.m. tomorrow (3rd February). I'm lucky enough to be able to go tonight.

SONICFLOOd as expected, is very very good! They're music is good, they're lyrics is nice, and the musician is, well, what you expect from a US band, amazing! I thoroughly enjoyed myself, both the music and the chance to make use of my camera! But sadly, they're sound engineer isn't as good compared to Delirious, didn't really like how they do their live mixing. BUT, don't get me wrong, is still good. For me, this is the second best concert I've been too after Delirious. Forget Planet Shakers or even Hillsongs, go and listen to SONICFLOOd, they're differently...good!

So for those who haven't go yet and reading this before 6.00p.m., Saturday, 3rd February. You still have time to start making your way down to Bukit Jalil indoor stadium! Doors open at 6.30p.m. and will start at around 7.00p.m.. Ticket is RM30, and it is WORTH IT!

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48 channel of Allen & Health goodness. For those more geeky people, this is the Allen & Health ML3000 with 48+2 channel frame (Yes I counted), with 15 busses to play with with 8 VCA group. This is one huge arse live mixer!

Camera crew from ACTS Church. All their video equipments belongs to them, looks like they have a video/TV ministry in their Church call "ACTS TV", so rich! But they're much more professional compared to last year's video crew, which is from outside rental company.

Opening act, worship team from ACTS Church called ACTSTREAM. Hate to admit it but they're good. First song performed by them is "The Time Has Come" by Hillsong United, United we Stand album, they sound almost as good as Hillsong! Amazing!

Next up we have Altered Frequency, they performed songs from their new album. Sad to say they're disappointing, too rock-ish already, sounds very messy. But I still like them nonetheless.

Next we have Mia Palencia, a new local christian artist. Her version of the Sunday School song "Jesus Love me This I Know" is very very good!

And finally, we have SONICFLOOd!!!

Believe it or not, he has some chronic sickness which is slowly taking his life away. And he can still stand infront of so many people to Praise and Worship the Lord!! Such great love for God..

Yes, that IS a Apple Mac Book Pro. Hooked up to his Keyboard, probably to have about a million more effects and sounds plugin?!

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If you complain all the pictures look the same, yes I may agree, but I like each one of them. May look the same but I like the different colors and effect from the fog machine and moving heads in each picture.

As usual, please leave your comments, hopefully constructive comments. If you love it, let me know!; but if you hate it, well, if nothing nice to say, don't say la, unless you really hate me. But I really appreciate constructive criticism, and tips to help me improve! Anyway I'm just a noobbie.. =)

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God has been very gracious to me this whole week, and the last. Never before have I felt His presence this strong and this close to my heart. All the while He is right beside me, giving me strength to help me go on, keep on encouraging me and help me look at the brighter sides of things. No doubt God is awesome, and I learn from all this that only God is my backbone, only God can help me through ANY adversities in life! He is too real to be denied!

Anyway someone asked me: "So you really do love her don't you?"
My answer: "Of course I do, I love her with all my heart!!; and I say this without a single doubt."

Internet speed record!

2007-01-31T01:45:00.000+08:00

This is what happens with a little bit of luck, and when everything is in the right place.

My Prison Break download summary = "Average download rate: 507kB/s within 11 minutes 47 seconds"

Hard to believe? Me either. But this is not the first time I suddenly get insane burst speeds from Streamyx, the last highest I achieved was 318kB/s. Last only about 5 minutes or so, totally forgot to take a screen shot.

But this is the first time I achieved such insane speed, over 500 kBytes! It just proves that Streamyx HAS the ability to supply us with fast 10 Mbps connection if they don't concentrate too much on trying to cut out throats. But for this download, I also have my 3G connected at the same time, so it is downloading through Streamyx and Maxis 3G. AND I was also using a local tracker, yes, the tracker server is IN M'sia itself.

Nothing seems right since 2007 started..

2007-01-26T04:10:00.000+08:00

A new year, a new beginning?! For me, is more like a bad beginning, infact a VERY bad beginning.

This whole week has been a very dark and hard time for me. Infact, I think it is one of the worst period of time ever -- as far as I can remember. Everyday, I only get more and more bad news, or more and more bad things happening to me. And when I always thought it will only get better the next day when I wake up, well, I'm totally wrong, it only kept getting worst, and worst.

If you actually bother to read the post below about my jinxed trip to Cameron and not only view the pictures, you got a glimpse of what happened over my weekend. I forgot to also add a few more things. That weekend I also found out that someone whom I love and care about alot started smoking. Now she is the last person on earth I would expect to fall like this, and it really tore my heart apart to learn about this. Beside this, my wisdom tooth, which actually stopped growing for half a year already and never gave me any problem so far, decided to start growing again out of the blues. And amazingly, it grew so darn fast in just 3 days, pushed out from my gum almost 2mm! And yes, it is giving me lots of pain!

Below I mentioned that the mechanic couldn't fixed my car at the end, and I had to drive back all the way to KL without air cond. I had no choice but I still had to pay him, since he already order that part. To be fair he did install it, but only found out it is more major and I couldn't wait anymore. So yeah, I wasted almost RM1000 on that 3 day trip to Cameron. And the drive back to KL was one hell of a experience I can never forget. Worst thing is I can't really put down my window all the time, because the rain decided to come the moment I start the journey. So at times, I've to put the windows all the way up and suffer with hot air blowing through the air cond vent. Imagine this, you're in a car, your air cond is dead, you can't wind down the window cause is raining. Only hot air is blowing through your air cond vent and if you turn if off, you would probably die of suffocation. So it's stuffy, extremely hot, and the air is polluted with carbon monoxide...all this...plus the fact that you are so sleepy you can knock out the moment you touch the bed. That's how I suffered for almost 2 hours!! Only thing that kept my awake and alive -- I kept praying and praying and praying all the way. And I can honestly say I totally relied on God strength to take me back safely!

When I thought it's all over, and when I thought things can only get better, the following days only bring me nothing but more bad news and bad things. If the week is not bad enough, I got rejected by 3 Universities, all in a single day. Followed by screwing up a client's computer, and because of me, lost a few important documents for my him. Have to run a very tedious process of file recovery so I hopefully can save my ass.

Well, that was only this week.

As I think back, the first few weeks of 2007 wasn't great either. I found out my dad has a growth growing in his leg, and his practically limping all over the place until he has time to go for surgery. My dad business here in M'sia is also going down the drain, thanks to our wonderful PM who cancels so many projects. Now my dad has to keep on travelling overseas to set up a new overseas export devision.

As for me, I spent the first 2 and a half weeks of 2007 with a very bad flu. I couldn't taste, couldn't smell and my hearing was so bad I had to kept on using the word "pardon" when I'm talking to people. I also recieved my wonderful MUFY results, and as expected, I failed. Currently wasting so much time trying to appeal to get a university to accept me, did I mentioned I just got rejected by 3 Uni in a single day?? In financial terms, nothing is right for me either. I got myself into a RM1.5k debt in this first week of 2007 because of a business deal that went bad. I had not much new projects and have been turned down by a few very interested and potential customers, well, at least they were, last year. I also lost more money here and there, losing alot of money that I painstakingly earned last year. All this and is only January, infact is not even the end of January yet!

You think all this is bad enough? Well... My r'ship with her just ended as fast as it started. The only thing, the only one, the only person that kept me sane all this while. The only thing I kept thanking God for after any discouraging things happened, is gone. She was the only one that helped me cope with all the stress and pressure during times when I've to organise and handle the logistics, like Caroling. All I needed that time was just a glimpse of her face and I'll have renewed strength from beyond this world. And when I get to see her smile, is at that very moment, it seems like everything in the world is at it's right place. For a second, everything would be perfect! But now, is like my support column for everything has been taken away. It was only because of her I could still go through days like these..and now...I'm all alone again. Is amazing how can someone fall for another person so deeply and so much in such a short time. And another amazing thing is how fast a person could learn to love another person so deeply in such a short time. Even though it couldn't worked out, even though it was only for such a short period, but it was all worth it. Like what Seth said in "City of Angels" -- "I would rather had one breath of her hair, one kiss on her lips, one touch of her hand, then and eternity without it". I thank God He has blessed me with her, even for such a short time. And I thank God for the memories that is left with me.
The only good thing of 2007, is, I had the chance the spent the new year with her. =)

Satan can poke at and take everything that I love and care about away. I don't care, because I know God is in control, and I know He will help me through this time. Satan can torture Job, take totally everything away from him, give him sickness from head to toe, but Job still managed to bow down and give praise to the Lord. That is who I want to be. It says in Jeremiah 29:11: For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

I loved her..more then I ever thought I possibly could..and it was beautiful.

Cameron trip...

2007-01-23T14:49:00.000+08:00

*Update:
(1) I know alot of people couldn't load all the pictures on this blog, that is because photobucket.com is not very happy with the fact I have 738 pictures uploaded on to their site.
(2) So I got a proper webspace by a proper server to host my pictures. So now everyone will be able to load all my pictures in a much shorter time. And all this is thanks to Eric Cheong. You've no idea how much I appreciate this!! =))

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This is one of the worst weekend getaway/retreat/holiday ever in my whole 19 years on this earth! It is as though I have walked under a ladder just before I start my journey up to Cameron on Saturday evening! Since then, nothing seems right and I've never been so unlucky and jinxed before.

A day before the trip I suddenly lost all interest to go because I found out some things from someone which is personal and I shall not talk about it here. But at the end I decided to go mainly for 4 reasons:
1) Driving up Cameron road at night
2) For the cold air
3) Pancake, Apple pie and jambu (Tapah)
4) Photography

At the end I really regretted going, ok maybe not really regret that much, but it would be alot better and I could have saved alot of hassle, time and money if I chose not to go. Here's a summary of my sad story:

1) It was pouring all the way as I drove from DJ to Cameron.
2) Almost got chase by police in Perdana, "lucky" I was going too fast.
3) About 3km before reaching Tanah Rata, suddenly noticed that there's a very weird smell, but we ignored it and thought it was the surrounding smell.
4) Then noticed loud and sharp scratching noises from the front left of my car, but we ignored it again and thought is the sound of my tires running over water (sounds exactly the same).
5) When we're 1km away from Tanah Rata, rain became too heavy, so I put up my windows and turn back on my air cond and noticed the smell became worst, and my air cond wasn't cold at all. I suspect something wrong, so turn it back off.
6) When finally reached Tanah Rata and park my car at the steamboat where everyone else is, only then we realised the loud scratching noise is from my engine, and my car smell like one huge charcoal!
7) Turned off my engine, and then tried starting it again, but engine couldn't cranked. Panic!
8) Ben ask me to chill first and sit down and rest first, let my engine cool off first then try later.
9) After awhile, pop my hood to check my engine and found the problem. The ball bearing of my air cond compressor moved out from it's original position and it scratching against the side wall of my engine chasis. Can see melted metal shavings everywhere. Realised I can't do much then. Prayed that I could start my car again and drive back to the hotel and only find a mechanic the next day.
10) After makan, surprisingly my car managed to start and made it back to the hotel.
11) Next day, found a mechanic in Tanah Rata, and later he tells me that he only can fix tomorrow (Monday) because he doesn't have the parts. So I got Henry and Ben Yue to teman me stay another night.
12) Got a room in Pines resort. Room is nice but I feel really cheated, for the price I'm paying, is not even close to a average 4 star hotel service. Don't even have Astro or WiFi compared to the RM300 pent-house apartment we stayed in the night before.
13) On Monday, the mechanic only got the parts at 1.30pm, said he only need half an hour to install, but knowing mechanics, I gave him more time and only go at 3pm. As expected, haven't fixed finish so have to wait there.
14) Waited for another 2 hours there, having alot of complications. At the end he couldn't fixed for me, because only realised that the whole compressor is spoiled. So he just removed the ball bearing coil for me, so at least the belt can spin through it without running the compressor. Means, no air cond all the way back to KL! (you've NO idea how suffering it is until u tried it, especially when u're sleepy! There are a few times I couldn't even wind down my window cause it was raining heavily!!)
15) Start my journey back to KL around 5pm+, and...yes, it started to rain!
16) Finally reached home 2 hour 45 minutes later, so slow cause I couldn't really speed and I've to put my window down.
17) When I thought it was all over, the moment I reached home and enter my house...poof..electricity went off! Hallelujah!

So that's my wonderful weekend. Seriously I felt like I was being jinxed, through out the 3 days other smaller things also happened to really irritate me. Kept stepping into pool of water and mud and my stupid slippers with holes didn't help much as I walk around when it's raining!

But despite all this, I also have many things to thank God for...

1) I thank God that my car didn't die half way when I'm coming up Cameron. Or else things will be much worst if I got stranded on the hill, with the rain and fog.
2) I thank God that my car managed to start again and was able to drive to the hotel and to a mechanic.
3) I thank God there was a mechanic in Cameron, even though he charged me abit too expensive, but at least I could drive back safely.
4) I thank God that it only rained when I have my car and it didn't rain when we've to walk around Tanah Rata for food and etc.
5) I thank God I was secure financially in Cameron and my dad managed to transfer money to me even on a Sunday.
6) I thank God I found a comfortable place to stay the extra night even though it is expensive.
7) I thank God for Henry and Ben Yue for teman-ing me for the extra night.

And also I did experience all the things I wanted that I came up for. I did have a very fun time driving up Cameron on Saturday night. It was one of the best driving experience ever! With the rain, dark road and foggy weather, made every turning so much more challenging! I also really enjoy the cold weather there. I managed to eat pancake and the Apple pie ice cream thanks to the extra night and I also bought 3kg of jambu on the way home! And lastly, I did have fun with photography and I've a few satisfying shots which ALMOST make the trip worthwhile. =)

And so..here are the pictures I want to share with everyone..

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p/s: There are 62 pictures, so please be patient for it to load. If some pictures doesn't show, just right click on that empty slot and click on "Show picture".
p/p/s: Some pictures (not all, only pics like group photo or landscape pics) can be enlarged to 640x426. Just click on the image.

This dood spend a long time on his hair!

18 of us excluding me.

Husband and wife enjoying the scenery.

This is what happened when you let a real amateur use a SLR camera with a large aperture lens. Poor Ben is totally out of focus. I shall spare the embarassment and shall not announce who took this pic. (Please, not me!)

Who's that woman??

Our rock star!

Wern Eik, amazed with my lens blower!

You won't get a prize if you can guess who's car is this.

Range rover!

Henry's dream.

A classic mini cooper's engine.

Poser.

And more poser.

Oh man..

Oh mann..

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And now for my favourite shots..
p/s: There are 3 pictures of cats (the real animal cat, not Catherine), so for those who are afraid of cats like Melissa, scroll down at your own risk.

Sungei Pilas in Berinchang.

Ben Yue took this pic on the way back. Cropped already.

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This is the stupid ball bearing coil that caused all the problem.

This is a brand new coil.

And this was mine!

Thanks for viewing. Please leave your comments, would really appreciate tips, critism, or anything that can help me improve =)

No Black Tie, KL

2007-01-19T02:05:00.000+08:00

Tagged along with Yee Meng to No Black Tie (KL, not HCC Cameron) yesterday to watch Az Samad and Shelley Leong, and also Yee Meng himself performed. All of them were great, Az Samad has a cool guitar playing style on his even cooler acoustic guitar that has 2 line-out jacks (and also full of scratches!)! It seems there's 2 different type of pick-ups in his guitar, a mic and another normal guitar pick up, which gives a very interesting sound.

Anyway I went there to actually play around with my new f/1.8 lens, and of course to also support Yeem and enjoy some nice local, non metal/rock music.

BTW, I LOVE my lens although I'm only just starting to get used to it. Don't have to rely on ISO 1600 anymore in dark places!

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My favourite picture, Mr. Frankenstein twin brother??

He tried to tell a joke while Jon settle his ass..err..I mean chair problem, but no one laugh..sad.

If u're wondering why everything is so yellow-ish. It is caused their spot lights are yellow, and the brownish/yellowish wood panelling around also helps even more!

Godesh, the bassist that played with Yee Meng.

His bass guitar has a little pet companion for those lonely trip in the guitar casing..

Jon, the drummer that played for Yee Meng.

Shelley Leong on piano.

Az Samad tuning his guitar.

This harmonica playing dood is darn cool!

f/1.8 goodness!

Love this lamp

This is Albert, very interesting photographer with a very interesting website. Does even more interesting experiments with photography and lenses. (He modded a Fujifilm Q1 digital camera with interchangeable SLR lenses!)

New lens makes me a happy man!

2007-01-15T17:52:00.000+08:00

Before I start blogging anything..

just want to wish Catherine Happy Birthday!

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Anyway, I don't really know what to blog about, so I decide to just blog about my new "toy".

On the last post I said "All I want for Christmas is a AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens..xD ", obviously no one actually did get that for me for Christmas, and unfortunately my dad did not visit my blog either. So I decide to go and buy it myself, with my OWN money and treat it as a Christmas gift from...myself!

Oh yes, this is a beauty! Always wanted this lens since I played with Uncle Jeff's one during VBS, but always gave myself reason NOT to buy the lens everytime when I'm close to buying it, until now.

A little about this lens, it is a fixed 50mm lens, with a maximum aperture of f/1.8. And this is the newest version with a "D" marking there, this new version gives distance information to my speedlight so the speedlight can make adjustments more accurately. 50mm lens is also known as "prime lens" or "normal" lens. Why "normal"? It is because it has a 46 degree "view", which is roughly the same as a human eye. And why prime lens? It is because the first lens every created was also 50mm lens. So this kind of lens is around for ages and people judge the quality of the manufacture lens through their 50mm lens. 50mm lens are simply the sharpest lens you can get from any manufacturer, and with a added bonus, 50mm lens comes wit huge appertures, all the way down to f/1.0, but that will cost a bomb!

Huge aperture lens are great for depth of field photography, and also portrait shots. And they are also very useful for low light photography, because more light can enter the sensor. I totally love this lens, every pic u take with it is simply beautiful. But sometimes it gets very irritating when it focus wrongly, cause there's too little room for error. At the largest aperture, you focus on someone's nose, their cheeks and ears will be out of focus already!

Anyway I shall stop talking like a geek...and here are a few sample shots from my new found "toy"...
(The picture above of Catherine is also taken by this lens)

Christmas 2006 & Caroling pics...and a few candid portrait shots

2006-12-26T16:15:00.000+08:00

Merry Christmas to everyone!! Hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas, cause I sure did.

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Anyway, all the caroling event is FINALLY OVER! After weeks of hard and tiring work of packing, setting up, doing live mixing and tear down, it is finally over! It is indeed tiring and stressful, but overall, it was fun and also it was worth it because all this is for God and only Him alone.

I would like to really thank, especially Thomas for faithfully helping me out in every event, and also for being so patient to take in all my crap when my stress level goes up. Would really want to appologise to you, when I raised my voice or lost my temper and show frustration when I'm stressed out. Is still something that I can't control very well. But just want you to know you're an excellent helper and appreciate all your help, without you all the events will be much harder to handle.

Beside Thomas, I would also like to thank Yee Meng, Jason, Eugene, Ben Lee, Wei Hong and also everyone else who helped me transport equipments and also, to a certain extent, helped me set up. Without you all, there was no way I can move equipments to any event, especially to the Palace of The Golden Horses.

Ok, I think that's all I have to say, below I've uploaded 133 pictures of our carolings, Christmas parties, and also a "few" portrait shots of our YFers...enjoy!

* All I want for Christmas is a AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens..xD
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That's all, hope everyone have a blessed Christmas!!

Just another tag..

2006-12-19T00:13:00.000+08:00

Just noticed I've been tagged by a few people..and this tag looks QUITE interesting..so my as well just do for fun, since I have the time now.

**I think Eric's FTP site hates me, all the pics that I've uploaded can't be opened. So for those who are eagerly waiting for the camp pics, sorry but you've to wait somemore due to technical error. At least the camp Photo CD will be out by the next caroling practise (Friday) as promised..

p/s: Camp pics will be uploaded onto the camp blog, not here.

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Layer ONE : On the Outside
Name : Jeffrey Lim Yee Seng
Birth Date : 16th July 1988
Current Status : Attached
Eye color : Black?
Hair Color: Black?
Righty or Lefty : Righty
Zodiac Sign : Cancer

Layer TWO : On the inside
Your Heritage: Chinese
Your Fears : Being rejected and failing.
Your Weaknesses : Can't cope when I'm over stressed.
Your Perfect Pizza : Hawaian

Layer THREE : Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
Your thoughts first waking up : Wonder what's my baby doing today..
Your Bedtime : 1a.m. - 4a.m.
Your most missed memory : Secondary school?

Layer FOUR : Your Pick
Pepsi or Coke : Coke
McDonald's or Burger King :McDonald's
Single or group dates :Single
Adidas or Nike : Nike
Lipton tea or Nestea: Lipton
Chocolate or vanilla: Vanilla
Cappuccino or coffee: Teh ais can??

Layer FIVE : Do you
Smoke : No
Curse : Yes and totally not proud of it

Layer SIX : In the Past Month
Drank alcohol: Maybe
Gone to the mall: Yes
Been on stage: No
Eaten sushi: Never, allergic to something in it.
Dyed your hair: No way!

Layer SEVEN: Have You Ever?
Played a stripping game: Nope
Changed who you were to fit in: Yes, and it is the most stupid thing to do.

Layer EIGHT
Age you're hoping to be married : Between 21-30? Or at least when I have a steady income and settled down with working life. (Bryan, I don't understand why you put "abuden" here!!)

Layer NINE: In a Girl/Guy.
Best eye colour: Black
Best hair colour: Natural, hate girls who dye their hair.
Short or long hair: Long

Layer TEN: What Were You Doing.
1 minute ago : SMSing my baby and being frustrated over the FTP site.
1 hour ago : Uploading pics to FTP site.
4.5 hours ago : Choosing and resizing pics to upload to camp blog.
1 month ago : Suffering with MUFY finals
1 year ago : Busy with caroling events

Layer ELEVEN : Finish The Sentence
I love: God, and Esther.
I feel: Blessed, although I'm stressed and frustrated right now.
I hate: Being rejected, I hate failing in the things I do, I hate it when I stray away from God.
I hide: different masks
I miss: Esther
I need: a reason to live

Layer TWELVE : Tag 5 people
1) Anyone who is reading this
2) Anyone who is reading this again
3) Anyone who is reading this again and again
4) Anyone who is reading this again and again and again
5) Anyone who is STILL reading this SHOULD do this tag..

No time for Christmas?

2006-12-18T23:06:00.000+08:00

It has been awhile since I last updated my blog, simply because I'm just too busy. It just hit me yesterday that Christmas is just next Monday, is only right around the corner and I've totally no time to even think about it, at least until Yesterday.

Since I came back from camp, I've been slaving myself everyday over all the camp photos, filtering, editting and resizing every single one of it, only finally finished all up yesterday. And that is only for the Photo CD. Now I'm currently doing another batch for the camp blog, uploading pics now to Eric's ftp site (Thanks Eric for letting me use your webspace + bandiwidth) as I'm typing this out.

*Oh great..server timeout..hallelujah..have to re-upload all again!!

Anyway, other than being busy with the camp photo, have been very busy with Church caroling events too. I am totally not looking forward for this Friday till Sunday caroling in 1 Utama and Palace Of The Golden Horses. This is just a rough idea on what I'll be doing. Friday (22nd Dec), go to Church early, pack up equipments, load equipments into our cars, go to 1 Utama early, unload equipments, carry equipments to stage, set up equipments, sound check. When caroling is over, pack up equipments, load back into our cars, go back to SSGC, unload equipments. And I've to repeat this for Saturday for our caroling in Palace of the Golden Horses and also Sunday for caroling in 1 Utama again. Honestly really not looking forward for the caroling in Palace of the Golden Horses, as we will be performing twice, in 2 different areas in the Hotel, means I've to set up, sound check, tear down...move equipments to another place..set up, sound check and tear down again all in a short period of time, and everyone knows I'm bad when it comes to controlling my stress level, and it will get worst especially when I've to rush. So please pray for me.

For those who doesn't know what kind of equipments I'm talking about..this is roughly what I've to bring and set up for all the caroling events. A Mackie 14 channel mid format or 24 channel large format mixer, Peavey 8 point amp, Peavey 6 point amp, stage monitor speaker, PA speakers for Front of House, a 100 Watts Marshall electric amp which weigh around 10-15kg, a Ibanez bass amp which is around 5-10kg, guitars, keyboard, full drum set, a whole lot of mic cables, instrument cables, speaker cables, power cables, extension cords, stands, etc etc...

So yes, is very stressful and tiring just to pack up, set up, sound check and tear down one event, usually takes me an hour to pack up..almost 2 hours to set up and sound check and almost another 2 hour to tear down, that is not including taking everything back to Church and setting up everything nicely back in Church.

What a busy Christmas this year, at least from today till Thursday I'm quite free, but still, can't find the time for Christmas shopping and etc...

Is this how you should prepare for Christmas??

Pictures, VBS 2006 @ Agape Chapel

2006-11-29T19:41:00.000+08:00

Here are the pictures from VBS held in Agape Chapel from the 24th to 25th November. Only took my camera there on the second day of VBS, which is the 25th of November, and took a total of 700 pictures. Uploaded 110 pictures here, hope you all enjoy it.

p.s.: Pictures here are not in order, screwed up abit when I renamed the files, and special thanks to Uncle Jeff for loaning me his beautiful Nikon F1.4, 50mm fixed lens.

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Other pics, the beauty of F1.4 Aperture lens..

I'm very grateful to God...

2006-11-19T00:37:00.000+08:00

Wrong..is not a picture of my car with the passenger window wind down..

Yes I'm grateful to God that I have a chance to own my dream car since standard 3, a Satria GTi. But I'm more grateful for something else...

Here's a closer look..

Yes, my car got broken into earlier this morning, 18th of November, Saturday. This probably happened after 4.00a.m., because I was playing NFS Carbon until 4.00a.m., and only after that I went to bed.

Now if you all ask what about my uber expensive alarm? My alarm DID go off (means the alarm sounded la) for at least a good 5 minutes, as this is a full trigger already, and my remote itself also DID beep continuosly to let me know that my car alarm has been triggered, and my remote was right next to me. So, how did the guy get away with it? Simple, that's because I was too busy dreaming on my soft comfortable bed...ahaha.

I remember half way through one of my dreams I heard the alarm sound + beeping sound. But I was too tired, and at that time I thought it was part of my dream (yes it sounds stupid!), so I totally ignored it. Until the remote beeping sound wake me up again MUCH later, at around 10a.m. plus, and only I noticed that someone did broke into my car and triggered my alarm.

So what did they take? They only managed to take my Apexi SAFC, they ripped the whole thing out, totally leaving the connectors and cables behind. Thank God they didn't steal my CD player, mainly because I took the faceplate out and brought it in with me. So there's really nothing left to steal.

Anyway..here's more photos of the "crime scene"..

Make a mess in my car, and I just vacuumed my whole car few days before!

So sweet of them, left the SAFC cables behind for me..

I'm very grateful to God:

1) That they didn't steal my whole car.
2) That they didn't steal my speakers and amplifier.
3) That they never dent my car or leave any major damage.
4) That they never take my CD player out, even though the faceplate wasn't there.
5) That they didn't come straight up to me and threaten my life when I came home late last night.
6) That I have the money to replace a new window, although I can't afford to replace my SAFC.

Geek talk: Maxis 3G review

2006-11-05T19:58:00.000+08:00

Nowadays, for those who is trying to make voice call to me and you find yourself hearing a "fast" version of a engaged tone, this most probably means I'm using my HP as a modem to connect to the Internet. But you can SMS me and I will recieve straight away.
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Remember those days when you use these things..

Yes, that's a 56k dial up modem if you remember one of these!

to connect to the internet. And if you remember, these things, which are called 56k dial up modem, have a maximum bandwidth of only a pathetic, 56 kbps (Kilo BITS per second)! That is like only 7 kBps (Kilo BYTE per second)!! Ah yes, those good old days, and somemore, we all know how our STUPID local ISP TM NET is, most of the time I was only able to connect to their network at ONLY 9.6 kbps!! Yes, 9.6 kilo BITS per second!! That is barely even more then 1 kilo BYTE per second!!

But I still love the internet back then, I was willing to wait like a stupid idiot infront of the computer screen, sometimes for up to 10 minutes just to wait for a page to load.

Fast forward abit to when I was in form 2, or when I'm 14 years old, finally broadband was introduced to Malaysia, by our most favourite local ISP again, TM NET, but this time they named their broadband devision Streamyx. But no matter, it is still from the same company!

When it first started off, they only offered 512 kbps connection, unlimited usage for the same RM88 a month without modem, then a few months later they automatically upgrade all the RM88 users to 1 Mbps connection. Of course, being me, I bugged my dad day and night until he finally convinced to sign up for me. And I remember the first time I used Streamyx, I was in love with it. Finally I don't have to wait 15 minutes or more to download a song, I don't have to wait 10 minutes plus to load a webpage, I don't have to fight with my mom everytime I use the internet because the stupid dial up modem will engaged the phone line and prevent anyone from calling, and I don't have to worry about controlling how long I can stay online as there is no limit! This is amazing, and it gets even better when I learn you can download your favourie TV shows online!

But until recently, people start noticing that Streamyx is crap. Their connection is not consistent; some people can't even connect to Streamyx for long before being disconnected again, most of the time they can't even come close to their promised 75% of the advertised bandwidth, which is around 750 kbps or 93 kBps (Actual 1 Mbps connection should get about 125 kBps). And to make things worst, most of the time Streamyx are having problems either with their servers, or with their under-sea cables connection to overseas, which explains why overseas website sometime take years to load! For example, our favourite torrent website, "TV Torrents", many times it wouldn't load at all! And that is why you have bandwidth results like these when you use a overseas bandwidth tester...

A result I've gotten a few times when I run a ADSL bandwidth test on Bandwidth Test Place

The result I get when I repeat the test with a DIAL-UP bandwidth test on Bandwidth Test Place

Okay maybe is not all that bad, if you're loading a webpage which it's servers are located in Malaysia, and also connected to Streamyx, at least you get a more reasonable speed..

Results from Streamyx bandwidth test.

But then again, how many of the web page we normally visit which their servers are located in Malaysia? Not many that I know off, and the most important: Bitcomet, Ares, Limewire are all overseas connection!

Maxis 3G
When I thought all hope is lost and I've to suffer with Streamyx for probably another half a decade or so before a good competitor comes up, I discovered:

Yes, the new Maxis 3G. Actually it is not a broadband provider, it is more for people with 3G handphones to have access to fast data connection. How fast? As fast as 1.8 Mbps with HSPDA, 3.5G! So since my new Dopod 838 Pro supports up to 3.5G, again, I bugged my dad until he finally sign up for the 3G unlimited package for me. For RM120 a month, I get to connect to 3G network for unlimited usage! So now, I have a 1.8 Mbps connection on my handphone, and I can go online practically anywhere which has Maxis signal! Perfect, exactly what I always wanted!

So, how good is it really is? Since it is wireless and all, and run off the same handphone GSM network, and again, it is wireless!! I've only 2 words to say: "Very good!". Here is my new connection speeds with Maxis 3G...

Same overseas bandwidth test, now with Maxis 3G. 527.7 kbps or 64.4 kBps. Good good. Already faster then Streamyx!

Let's see how it does on our very own Streamyx bandwidth tester..

Woohoo! 1.32 Mbps or 165.34 kBps!! This IS GOOD!! It totally whoop Streamyx ass in their own home..

But how good is it when it comes to downloading stuff on Bitcomet?? Here's the result:

130 kB/s?? Not enough you say?? You want more??

145 Kb/s!! This is really good!

So, for "only" RM120 a month, I can access internet through my handphone as fast as 1.8 Mbps anywhere in Malaysia, as long there's Maxis signal. And these test shows that it IS better then Streamyx, much better! So much better that I finally don't have to wait a good 10-20 minutes for my Naruto to stream enough data first on Youtube before I can watch it, now the moment I click, the video starts playing, and it streams fast enough so that it never have to stop and buffer my video!

Cons
BUT WAIT!!, is not all that good actually! For such a new and amazing technology, there are sure a few bugs somewhere right?! Of course I'm right!!

First of all, you can't get 3G connection ALL over M'sia. 3G coverage is only limited to KL area, Johor, and Penang! The rest are either only EDGE or GPRS connection. I'm able to connect to all 3, but my phone will automatically choose which is the fastest I can connect too. Obviously 3G is the fastes, follow by EDGE and GPRS. At GPRS speed, I'm only getting less than 20 kBps. So how did I get those results above? This kind of speed was only attainable in MY HOUSE! Yes, I'm lucky to have such a perfect 3G network in my house, all thanks to the Maxis radio tower right on top KDU college, which I'm not more then 100 meters away!

Second, it is possible to surf your internet in your car, if let's say you're in the backseat of a nice big car going outstation. But if your nice big car goes anywhere faster than 60 km/h, or sometimes even slower then that, the data connection to Maxis will be broken, or it will really slow down and break eventually, even if connection is excellent.

Third, to connect to Maxis 3G. Obviously it has to be through your handphone. Your handphone has to have a modem function only you can connect your laptop or computer to your phone. And this is problem. Once you activate the modem mode, your whole phone will be like a modem. So when you're connected, people who tries to make voice call to you won't be able to get through!! But fortunately, SMS is still able to come in, so is not that bad. And if you want to make a voice call out, the connection will be disconnected first.

Fourth, because I'm only using the HP as a modem, and it is not a router, that means I can't forward any ports I want. So which means I can't create Dota games. Only can join.

Fifth (not Maxis fault though), if are a geek and noticed all this stuff, then you should know that there's alot of saying around that you can use your HP as a modem and connect to your laptop through bluetooth. So you can leave your HP in your pocket or briefcase. But in reality, this is not true. Once you connect your laptop to your HP through bluetooth, the maximum connection speed is only 115.2 kbps! And bandiwdth test results shows that the speed drop to below 30 kBps! Why is this so? It is because bluetooth technology is not meant to transfer this much data, so bluetooth bandwidth is very slow. And another thing is, if you put your HP more then 2 meter away from your laptop, even if it is line of sight, your surfing speed will drop even more!! This actually means Bluetooth is quite useless to transfer large amount of data in a fast time. So, you're tied with connecting your HP to your computer with USB cable! Well, at least it charges your HP at the same time.

So, in conclusion, even though there are so many flaws, and it is not perfect yet. But the idea of having internet access, no matter fast or slow, ANYWHERE you go already justify for all it's flaws. For now, I really enjoy using it as I move around, I can always be connected to MSN on my HP itself. Or even when I connect it to my laptop. But when I'm at home, I definitely use it for general website browsing, video streaming and so on. But I'll still keep Streamyx to download movies over a long period of time.

Ghost? Alien? What ON EARTH is it?

2006-11-03T00:46:00.000+08:00

Ok. I'm totally NOT a person who believe in ghost or aliens or out of the norm, and I still don't. But after what happened tonight, or more like after what I've taken from my camera, I'm thinking twice do they really exist or not.

If you're a person who can't stand this kind of things, than I suggest you click on the "X" button on the top right corner of your browser now.

Here's the story..

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Earlier tonight, I went to Benjamin house because I was supposed to help them out in filming the year end camp teaser video. Cut a long story short, we decide to shoot the first scene at Taman Tun park cause there are area in the park which is lighted up until quite late at night. So while they were shooting the video, I was trying to take some photos of the park surroundings...

First picture I took

I took the above picture first, then I noticed it was too noisy, only noticed my ISO level was set at 1600 which wasn't really necessary, as I was using a tripod. So I lower my ISO again, and retook the shot almost instantly. At most 10-20 seconds apart. And below is the second picture I took...

Second picture, retook with lower ISO almost right after the first shot

Ok. Can you spot the difference in the first and second photo? If not...look closer again at the second photo...

Noticed this?

Below is a cropped image of the second picture...of the image in the red box..

A cropped image of the image in the red box, and increased the brightness and the contrast.

Ok, now can SOMEONE tell me WHAT on earth is THAT?? (p/s: You can click on the image for a larger view.)
Ok, if you argue that it might just be someone who is passing by. Let me tell you this, it is almost impossible. First, my camera was on a tripod, and after framing the picture throught the viewfinder, I look up at the actual scene and only depress the shutter button. Mean I was not looking through the viewfinder when I press the shutter button. And I can promise you there was NO ONE. If there was someone walking past, I wouldn't even snapped it.

Second, those 2 picture I took almost consecutively (I've prove below), they are only maybe a 10-20 seconds apart. And there is no way anyone could've walk that distance in such a short time. Because it is much longer than you think it is. And there are no path way at any sides. And again, I was looking at the whole area infront of my camera with my own eyes, not through the camera viewfinder, and IF there was someone, I won't snapped it!

Noticed the time taken on the first picture.

Time on the second picture.

(If you're wondering why the time is 11.21 in the morning of the year 2005, ignore that, this is because I did not set the correct time and date on my camera. So it recorded wrongly. But the point is, it is taken at the same time!! Both at 11.21a.m. in my camera clock!)

If you argue that maybe is just a reflection or whatever, or my lens is dirty...this is also very not likely! As I remember clearly I wiped my lens clean with a proper expensive lens cleaner cloth before I took this picture.

Look at the picture properly, you can noticed some things. It has a figure of a woman, look closely at how thin "her" waist is, the whole body is totally unproportion. What's more "her" "hands" is so long that she could probably just touch her knees without bending. And if you noticed something else, this person/image/thing doesn't cast any shadow at all. The figure is "standing" near the lamp post, and it should cast a shadow on the floor behind her.

So..is there any other logical explanation? Is it possible for someone to walk until there in such a short span of time? Is it possible for someone to be there and I accidentally didn't see he/she? Or..is it possible to be a _ _ _ _ _?

Updated: A friend of my, Zac Han, who cycles there all the time just told me that there is a rumour going around that there is a "ghost" there one. And there is a woman, who died at that area after she got run over by a cyclist.

Final starts tomorrow, and here I am still blogging!

2006-10-30T18:46:00.000+08:00

My MUFY finals is starting tomorrow, with the first paper, English, followed by Math A paper on Wednesday and then a week break before Physics and Math B paper. So, what ON EARTH am I doing blogging now when my paper is slightly more then 12 hours away only?! I don't know....you tell me.

At this point of time, I've really have no more mood to study, and that feeling of fear of exams is virtually non existence in me, because, that feeling has been numbed thanks to all the test I've to take every week throughout the year. So how am I feeling now? I don't feel anything! I don't feel scared, nervous...I only feel...sleepy, and hungry! Ahaha.

But come to think of it...can anyone actually prepare for a english paper?? All I need to do is to sleep early tonight so my brain is *hopefully* working tomorrow, AND I MUST, FOR ONCE remember to bring my Dictionary or else I'll be in trouble.

Is too late now for me to do anything anyway, so I'll just try to do my best, and hope for the best. I would need a miracle for me to pass, but then again, everyone know miracles only exist in TV shows, Movies and fairy tales.

Notes scattered all over my table, after trying to answer ONE Math B question.

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The Weekend and Xbox 360 and PS3

Totally didn't study at all, watched "Stormbreaker" on Saturday, which is a totally stupid and horrible movie, nothing more than a Agent Cody Banks wanna-be. Trust Esther and you'll lose RM10. On Sunday, wasted the whole day hangging around after Church, and then later watched "The Covanent", Jin Fong would definitely love this show! Watch this only if you...errr...have RM10 to waste? Again..thanks to Esther. When the movie ended, found out that Henry and Eugene fall asleep during the movie, and even have to wake Eugene up when it ends.

On Sunday before our movie starts, we managed to get a chance to play the brand new Xbox 360 console in "The Gamers Hidout" at Cineleisure, located at the lowest floor (LG), for free! They set up 4 Xbox 360 consoles there, and each of them connected to a 24", widescreen LG gaming LCD monitor with DVI connectors, and let me tell you this, the graphics is nothing short of spectacular! You've to see it for yourself to only understand what I mean. I immidiately got hooked onto a racing game, entitled "Burnout". Graphics of the cars are fantastic, but still not good enough as another racing game I saw which is going to be on PS3. This shows how much gaming consoles have developed through the years, can you remember back then when you're playing Mario on your ugly Nintendo machines and using catridges to load the games? And then there was Nintendo 64 where the graphics was supposedly be amazing back then? Now, it looks like crap compared to Xbox 360, and soon PS3. Back then gaming consoles barely have any processing power and barely have any internal memory at all and it can't do anything else but load the games that is in the game catridge. Now with the soon to launch PS3, it will have no less then EIGHT, 3.2Ghz codename "Core-cell" processors in it (each of this Core cell processor has 234 million transistors, while the Pentium Prcessor Extreme Edition has barely 200 million transistors), all 7 will be used at any one time, and the last one will be for back up if any one processors fail (Xbox 360 only has 3 processors). The graphic processor in PS3, designed by Nvidia, code-named "RSX" (550 Mhz chip with 300 million transistors) will equivalent to Nvidia FX6800, not one FX6800, but TWO FX6800 in SLI mode! It will also boast a 60Gb HDD, Wi-Fi, bluetooth (for wireless controllers, up to 6), Gigabit LAN connection, 4 USB connection and get this, TWO HDMI output. Yes, you can connect up to TWO Plasma/LCD screens onto your PS3 play games up to 1080p resolution!. It will also serve as a entertainment hub for your home and also plays back Blu-ray disc! For sound system, PS3 supports and output Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS, same as what you get in a cinema!

This is not a real picture, is a graphic scene from "The Gateway 3", a PS3 game. Just shows how good the grahpics will be.

So people out there who are tempted to buy the Xbox 360, trust me, hold still and be patient!! When PS3 launch soon next year, PS3 will be so much better then Xbox 360, in terms of graphics and processing power and features! Yes it will be more expensive (in the range of RM2k +), but think again, it is also a entertainment centre, you can play back DVD, Blu-Ray DVDs (when it ever reach M'sia), stream music and videos straight from you computer through Ethernet! And to top it all, wouldn't it be cool that you have a game console in your house, that has as much processing power as all of the computers they used to make "Shrek" the movie?!

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Anyway here are some random pictures..

Saw this poster in Cineleisure, The beaver from Open Season, with a chainsaw!

Can't see their faces, but try to spot Bryan and Eugene. (Hint: Look right at the middle)

Remember that time Esther beat Jin Fong in Marvel vs. Capcom in Church? This picture probably explains why she was able too..

I think Sarah should be able to win him too..

21st October, Saturday...

2006-10-24T01:23:00.000+08:00

My previous post, "Must Watch Movies and MUFY Finals", the post supposedly to be below this one has been erased because it was making my blog hay-wire thanks to a broken html code. For those who never read the last post, well, just go and watch "The Prestige"!!

And here's a adorable picture of the beavers from Open Season if you've missed out..

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At first I wanted to post this up before posting my previous post up, but then I decided I was too lazy, but then again, it is something funny I want to share to everyone...hope no one else is as forgetful or blur as me.

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All this take place on the 21st of October 2006, Saturday, the time stated here is not really accurate, is only roughly around that time.

1.45 p.m. - Henry finally reach my house, supposed to go out for lunch together. Wanted to go Lotus, but it was close. So we headed to The Curve. First time driving Henry's car, only noticed it is possible to "forget" how to drive an auto car.

2.00 p.m. - Reached The Curve. Suggested to Henry that we call the YFers to watch The Prestige that night, so we headed to Cineleisure and check out what time is available, wanted to watch the 11.55p.m. show but it was too late, so we decide on the the 9.20p.m. one.

2.05 p.m. - Sat down and started calling everyone. I told Henry to call Agape people and I'll call SSGC people. At the end, I asked Henry how much he got, and I told him I managed to call 3 poeple, Eugene, Michelle and Amenda. So Henry told me we buy 10 tickets, and we proceed to purchase it.

2.30 p.m. - Proceed to Kenny Roggers to eat lunch. Noticed I left my wallet in Henry's car..great. Wai Yee finally returned my call, and asking whether she could still join us for movie. So I told her I tried to buy another ticket next to us.

3.00 p.m. - I went back to Cineleisure to buy Wai Yee's movie ticket while Henry went to Rock corner to buy CD's. Managed to get her ticket, so now there's 11 of us.

4.00 p.m. - Went to Agape for YF since SSGC canceled their YF due to Deepavali.

7.00 p.m. - After YF, proceed to Burger King for dinner. While on the way there, when I was exitting North-South highway back to Damansara toll, a stupid motorbike took it's own sweet time to cut into my lane...and then ride in the middle of the road, on my lane!! And it was downhill and I was going at almost 150 km/hr. Immediately brake as hard as possible without causing my front wheels to lock. Managed to avoid crashing into him while he happily continues to ride in the middle of the highway!! Idiot!!! Anyway, when we reached Burger King, ordered double whooper double cheese. Bill came up to RM16.56. I gave the cashier RM57, and gave the coins to Wai Yee, and got back 4 pieces of RM10 bill.

9.00 p.m. - Reach cineleisure, hanging around waiting for movie to start when Henry called me to ask me to buy one more ticket for Shaun's friend, told him it would almost be impossible to get a ticket which is next to us by now. Tried anyway, managed to get, same row but seperated by a couple. Means we almost have one whole row to ourselves. When paying for ticket, suddenly noticed the RM40 change I get from Burger King is missing!! Asked Michael to pay first while I check where my money is, but is no where to be found. (By now there are 12 of us watching The Prestige). Spent the next 15 minutes figuring out what happened to the RM40, but my head was totally blank.

9.20 p.m. - 13 of us entered the cinema together, plus Jin Fong which bought another ticket at the very last minute. When we entered, I directed them to their seat and told them we are taking the whole row except for the second and third last seats. So I let everyone go in first hoping to seat right at the corner. When everyone is seated down...only then I noticed..there is no more place for me!!!! The whole row is filled. Wtheck?? Something is wrong, I started counting the poeple, and the number match up to the total tickets we bought. Wanted to check all their tickets, but the movie is starting already and it would be too much of a hassle. So I went to the first row and sat down..trying to figure out what happened.

9.40 p.m. onwards - Movie started already, still keep on thinking why is there short of one seat. Keep turning around doing head count, and remembering the number of people we called...matched up again!!Still Couldn't understand why. Then suddenly I remember, my side, I only counted 3, and Henry told me he got 7, so we buy 10 tickets. Then only I realised Henry did not include me into his list, he only counted himself!! (Earlier on at that time I really thought Henry counted me in together with his 7 people because I sort of misunderstood him when I asked him how many people we have already). So finally after thinking so long, and by now, half of the movie has past, only managed to discover all along I forgot to count myself in!!! Oh mann... and to think, I kept turning behind and count all of them, but keep on forgetting to count myself!! Of course the number match perfectly, that's because I keep on forgetting to count myself in!!! Champion..

12.00 a.m. + - Movie finished, with a sore neck caused by sitting in the first row. Still disturbed over my missing 40 bucks, still trying to figure it out what happened to the money, asked everyone do they remember anything, but no one see me left the money anywhere.

Then it was time to leave, so 7 of us walked to my car. Only thing I remembered is I came up from the other end of Curve, near Borders book store...great, Curve is already close by now. So we have to walk down through the escalator nearest to Cineleisure and walk all the way to the other end through the car park.

When we finally walked to the other end, my car is nowhere to be found, only realised I've totally no memory of where I actually parked my car. Great!! So 7 of us walk around and around, until only I suddenly remembered I parked at basement 2!!
But that's all I remembered, still couldn't remembered where I parked. So we asked the rest to wait in basement 1 while Michael and I run down to find my car. Thanks to my long range remote and the ability to indicate when it is in range..I was able to find my car finally with the help of the alarm sound.

Most of the autopay station at the mall escalators exits is locked by now. So I drove straight to the parking exit hoping to be able to pay my ticket there. Normally I would be able too, but on that night, their machine was spoiled!! Great!! And there was already like 5 cars behind me, so I can't reverse. Poor Michael have to run out and pay at a autopay station at one of the mall exits, while causing a long jam behind me and recieving alot of curses by other people.

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At the end, I managed to arrive home safely, not before almost getting into an accident under the fly-over near my house thanks to 2 REALLY STUPID modified Proton Wira drivers racing with each other!! Probably another inch before they slam into my front bumper.

What a day, one of the worst day I experienced this year...

Sony Cyber-shot S500

2006-10-12T18:11:00.000+08:00

My mom asked me to help her buy a digital camera, and knowing her, it has to meet a list of her requirements:

1) Budget of RM600.
2) Must be not bulky so can fit in her handbag.
3) Must be very friendly to use.
4) Must be a new unit, so no second hand.
5) Must have good picture quality, equivalent to Canon Ixus V3 or better. (She compared to V3 because I owned one before about 3 years ago and she likes the picture quality of that camera.)

So as you can see, the first requirement alone almost make it impossible to meet the rest. At first I wanted her to get the Canon I Zoom, one of the best sub RM1k camera already, but then she said is too expensive, so I recommended her Canon A430, with 1Gb SD card it is only RM590, great deal! BUT, she complain it is too bulky, too fat for her liking, and then she saw the new Sony Cyer-shot S-500, and from then on everything went wrong...

To be honest, it is a really nice looking camera, it looks really well built, very handsome, have that solid built which make you think you're using a RM1k+ camera. What's more, this camera has 6.0 Megapixel, 3x Optical zoom and a big juicy 2.4" LCD monitor. Honestly, I couldn't believe Sony would price this camera at only RM599, infact, it is a surpise itself to see Sony come out with a camera at this price range.

So...everything sounds good right? Price is right, size is right, and the features seems more then adequate. Even I almost liked it, that is until I transfered the pictures taken into the computer.

When I reached home and played with it, first thing, the minute you on the camera, you are greeted by one of the most pathetic LCD monitor ever. Yes, it is big, and looks really good, but it is HORRIBLE at previewing pictures on it. The reso on the screen is so low, is almost as good as my FIRST digital camera by Fujifilm, way back when 640x480 digital camera was considered the best!! So, my lust for it's big juicy screen got turned off already, what's worst, when trying to compose a shot under bright sunlight with the screen, well, you can practically see, nothing!!

Other then the screen, the lens on this camera is ABSOLUTELY horrible. Probably that's why Sony can priced it so cheap, the lens is practically rubbish!! (I'll show you why in a short while). The picture quality is also nothing short of pathetic, even at the highest reso, 6 Megapixel and at "Fine" settings, picture taken at ISO 80 is already NOISY!! The amount of noise taken at ISO 80 on this Sony camera is even more then my Nikon D50 at ISO 1600 (I know is not a fair comparison but still??)

The color reproduction is also terrible, it is either too dull, or too overexposed, there is no balanced. And all this I'm talking about taking outdoor picture, in bright sunlight!! When you come indoors and start using it's flash, well, I've no more comment.

Sample photo, taken at the highest possible settings, looks "quite" good eh?

Now look at this photo cropped out from the above photo:

That is the MAIN and BIGGEST problem!! If you look closely, look how bad the picture quality is on the right side of the picture, especially on the flower pot. Because of the lousy cheap lens Sony is using, ALL the picture taken is out of focused on all the 4 sides!! Don't believe me, click on the full picture of the garden and look closely to all 4 sides, you can see it runs out of focus!!

Another sample photo, taken indoor, with the Sony's highest possible quality setting and at ISO 80.

Now this photo looks quite good? That's probably because the picture you're looking now is so small. Click on it for a bigger sized version, and look at the cupboard, check out the amount of noise evident, and this is taken with the lowest ISO, ISO 80!
Another thing you will notice is this camera has a quite terrible lens barrel effect. Look at the pillar on top, I could've sworn they built that pillar perfectly straight!!

As a comparison, I took the exact same photo with my Nikon D50, to be fairer, I set my camera to the LOWEST possible setting (VGA resolution and "Basic" quality). And I took this picture at ISO 1600.

Taken with a Nikon D50, on the lowest possible quality setting (VGA resolution with "Basic" quality and at ISO 1600.

So, this Sony camera is very cheap, it only cost RM700, together with a 1Gb Memory Stick Duo. It looks good, it has great built quality, and has a big LCD screen, and it is quite pocketable. But do I recommend anyone to buy it?

NO

If you only have a RM600 budget for a camera, go get the Canon A430, it is MUCH better. Or if you can stretch, get a Canon I Zoom (RM850)or a Canon Ixus 40 (RM 1.1k), just stear clear and far away from this...rubbish!

Mind you I never wanted my mother to buy this camera in the first place, but it is the smallest camera she could get for her budget...her choice...a bad choice!

Another boring post, by a boringly bored person..

2006-10-12T02:49:00.000+08:00

My all time favourite movie!

Yes, this IS my all time favorite movie.

(My other favourite movies are "A Walk To Remember", "The Notebook", "Million Dollar Baby", "City of Angel" and of course, "Lord of The Ring")

It was released about 5 years ago, and I've watch it no less then a million times for the first few months, and everytime I watched it, I always get moved by the movie. It is really an inspiring movie, really shows you what courage and passion is all about, and also the will to never give up and to believe in yourself to gain success.

So for those who never watched this movie yet, go grab a original VCD copy from anywhere, and it is selling for quite cheap now because it is a old movie, or you can always visit your favourite torrent websites to download it. Is really one of the BEST movie ever made..and what's more, it is based on a true story!!

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Tropicana New Menu at their Coffee House

Tropicana's Coffee House new temporary (thank God!!) menu due to the Ramadhan buffet

Hmmm...since when on earth is Curry Puff, Rojak Buah, Tauhu Bakar, Fried Wantan, and Touhu goreng considered as western food?? Wonder how stupid they'll feel after noticing their error when their handing out the menu to their customers...

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Haze on Kerinchi Link

Taken this picture on Sunday night while driving along Kerinchi Link at about 11p.m.. The haze was, well, simply amazing!! If I have my Nikon D50 with me then I would just stop at the side of the highway to take photos, the street lights looks so beautiful thanks to the haze...gives me that weird, peaceful feeling when I was driving that night, everything looks so foggy, reminds me of Cameron Highlands, the only difference is that here is hot, humid and really unhealthy.

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A random picture

Was organizing my pictures earlier on, and I came across this picture which I've taken a few months back and forgot to post it up.

Happy 18th Birthday....Hengy!

2006-10-12T02:11:00.000+08:00

Henry Goh Peng Han, finally 18 years old on the 12th of October! Happy Birthday bro..thank you for always being there, you've made a difference in, I believe, many people's life. Indeed is a blessing to know you and may God bless you always.

Photography

2006-10-10T16:49:00.000+08:00

Trying to learn a new photography skill, where you use a slow shutter speed, and trace a speeding car passing by so the car will be in focus while the background will be blured out...unfortunately, I'm QUITE far away from mastering it...

Oh well, it's a start!

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On a totally different matter, I'm on a one week holiday, oh wait a minute, to be more accurate, I'm on a one week STUDY BREAK, and so far, I am really treating it as a study BREAK, yeah..a break from studying! Ahaha...

I'm really bored, anything interesting happening in Malaysia this week??

A few Things I've Learnt

2006-10-08T00:55:00.000+08:00

I've only been alive for just slightly over 18 years, 18 years and 2 months plus to be more exact. Since I've done that tag created by Henry, asking us to write down something memorable for each year in our life, I've begin to reflect more on my life, of who I've been, and who I've become now. Sad to say, I'm really disappointed for who I am today, I've change so much until I don't really know who I am anymore. But for the past few years, I've been through many different difficulties and adversities, and I've come to realize a few things I thought otherwised when I was younger.

1) I come to learn that no one is perfect, even ourselves.

2) Many times when we think that no one else will be better then us in the things we do best, well, there will always be someone else out there better than us.

3) I've learnt, the hard way, that life move on and doesn't pause even for a second to wait for you, so is either you "stay put" and rot, or pick yourself up and move on, continue in life.

4) I've learnt that even the person who love us most will disappoint you when you least expect it.

5) I've also learn that we will disappoint the person we love most in our life when they least expect it.

6) I've learnt, again the very hard way, that no one can keep true to their promises, even promises made by people whom we think love us most.

7) I've learnt to try to avoid making any promises, especially to people we love, as we're not perfect and we will struggle to keep that promise and probably break that promise one day.

8) I realise that Christians are not perfect people, and that many Christians are infact, hypocrites.

9) I've learnt that in every Church, to a certain extend, has it's own inner political issues, and that is what make many Churches fall.

10) I realise, to achieve success, you must go through pain and suffering first.

11) I've learnt, that falling in love might be the most beautiful experience, but will also be the most painful experience ever in our lifes.

12) I've realise that, not all the time, it is better to give than to recieve. Because in reality, many people will take you for granted if you're too kind.

13) I've learnt, through very painful experiences, that when people use the word "Forver" in a r'ship like "I'll love you forever" or "I'll wait for you forever", well, it is just most probably a spur of the moment thing and they'll never actually keep true to it.

14) I've learnt that, many times, the most beautiful thing you see may not be the same on the inside.

15) I've learnt, never to judge someone before getting to know them deeper.

16) I've learnt that when we reach a crossroad in our life, we tend to rely on our own strength, and our ownselves to help us find our way, instead of relying on God. And that's when we will end up choosing the wrong road.

17) I realise that the choices we make when we are met with a crossroad, will effect who and what we are later in the future.

18) I realise that everyone needs a road map, not only a real physical one to get us around KL (thanks Markus), but also God's road map for us in our life.

19) I've learnt that, what most people think to be the most "Incompatible" couples will end up being the most compatible at the end.

20) I've learnt, that it is harder to hate than to love.

21) I've also learnt that it is much harder to hate someone whom you used to love than loving someone whom you used to hate.

22) I realise that people always leave, especially people that we love most.

23) I realise that life will never turn out to be what we always hoped for, because it is reality, not a dream.

24) I've learnt that the phrase: "The grass will always be greener on the other side" is actually trying to say that man will never be contended with what they have. One may spend their whole life trying to get to the other side of the fence, and when they finally get over, they'll start thinking, "I think the grass on the other side IS actually greener!", and this is evident for all of us.

25) I've learnt to appreciate every second of my life I have, as I know God has the power to call me home anytime as He wishes.

26) I've realise how short life really is, time is flying by so fast, and before you know it, you'll be breathing your last breathe, hoping and asking God to give you a lil bit more time.

27) I've learnt that, all people need most of the time is a second chance. Even a lame can run again, IF he gives himself a second chance.

Lowest point of my life..

2006-10-05T01:26:00.000+08:00

A few things in life I've got to learn:
1) Stop procrastinating
2) Don't procrastinate
3) Never procrastinate
4) Avoid procrastinating

Yes..I've to learn how to stop procrastinating..or I'm really going to die later in the future.

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I'm suppose to be having my Physics exam in about 7 hours time..and guess what, here I am blogging this on my HP, on my bed while I should be either studying, or sleeping!

I've a really bad habit of procrastinating every task that is given to me, and cause of this, I barely studied anything for my Physics exam tomorrow. Like I told Henry, how much I studied is equivalent to just watching 1 minute of the whole 3 series of LOTR movie and hoping to understand the whole thing!!

I thought the panic button within me has been pressed after my Math A test earlier today, I guess not. I'm really desperae for God's help right now, where is He when you really need Him? Guess I've took him for granted all this while and He is punishing me..

Really feel like I'm at the lowest point in my life right now. Feel so bitter and sour...and unhappy.

Just need the strength to go through 2 more days, I'm reaching my limit..and this is not even Finals yet.

Please pray for me...

MUFY Trials and Dopod 838Pro

2006-10-02T00:18:00.000+08:00

I'm at it again, only blogging when there's a major test/exam around the corner...

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In about approximately 9 hours and 24 minutes, I'll be seeing this same words right infront of me, on a table, seperated and alone...at least seperated far enough for wandering eyes trying to get some answers from their friends seating around them.

Yep, my MUFY trial finals examination is starting in 9 hours plus time, and for the first time in my life, this is probably the first exam I totally didn't prepare for, and what's worst, I'm not even really worried like I would usually be..yes yes...this is bad!! I'm really aware of it and that's the problem, I'm still not afraid!!
And if you think.."This is only trials, what's the big deal?", the big deal is MUFY love to torture their beloved students, so up to 40% of the marks from our trials will be added into our finals...wonderful!

Dear God..please, please, PLEASE press the "Panic" button within me and wake me up...even though it is abit too late..

TRYING to "study"

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On a brighter note, finally bought my new phone on Friday, in the end, I chose Dopod 838Pro over the rest, even though O2 Atom Exec might be half the size and sexier, or Dopod 900 might have a really beautiful high resolution VGA screen, but personally, Dopod 838Pro is the best among all PDA phones currently in the market. (I say this not because I have it, even reviews also give it 4 to 5 stars, and HWM award it 9 out of 10)

For those who are shopping for a new PDA phone, and finding one with 3G function, or a full keyboard you can type on and chat with your girlfriend and boyfriend, look no further, this is it! This PDA by Dopod is actually the successor of the Dopod 900, some of you may think the Samsung 400 Mhz processor in the Dopod 838Pro is slower then the Intel 520Mhz in the Atom Exec and Dopod 900, but DO NOT be conned over the clock speed, the Samsung 400Mhz chip is actually equivelant to a Intel 600Mhz plus processor! So this is one hell of a zippy PDA.

So how do I find it? It is a vast improvement over the O2 Mini, finally the memory on the phone is not dependent on power supply, so I don't have to worry of my backup battery running out everytime I remove the main battery and having a chance of losing ALL my data stored in the phone. Processor and program response is also much faster then before, for those who uses it, Garmin maps run unbelievably smoothly on the Dopod, compared to O2 mini, you can bump the map details all the way up to "Most" and is still fast enough to draw the map without making you feel frustrated.

SMSing on this phone is a totally different experience, thanks to the full QWERTY slide out keyboard. Before you know it, your supposedly short sms will become 2 or 3 pages long, you'll tend to type all the words in full because the keyboard is just so darn fun to type on. For people who love or always wanted to recieve email on the move, then check this out, the phone actually supports POP3 and IMAP4 email!! So now you can recieve and download all your Hotmail, Gmail, TM-net/Streamyx, Jaring mail straight into it's "Messaging" software, and read it while you're stuck in a traffic jam or whatsorever. If you want to reply your mail, no worries, the slide out QWERTY keyboard will make life so much easier!

But it will be abit too fake if I say this phone doesn't have any flaws. One of the biggest flaws I find with this phone is the allocated RAM memory is too little. Only a total of 50Mb is allocated for program usage, so when the time Windows Mobile OS5 boot up everything, you only left about 30Mb of RAM memory left, which is not really enough. When you start opening up too many programs and when the RAM start running low, you can feel everything starts slowing down, so even though you have a zippy Samsung 400Mhz processor, unfortunately, the RAM is just isn't enough to cope with it.

Another flaw is actually the new Windows Mobile OS5 itself! Because the OS is so new, alot of older programs can't really work properly with the new OS. Programs like SPB Plus will tend to cause the Dopod to crash once in awhile, and a soft-reset is needed to set things right. This is also evident in the Dopod 818Pro PDA phone. Probably give it a few more months, and hopefully more new Windows Mobile programs will be built to support OS5 properly.

Overall the Dopod 838Pro is a good phone. You get almost everything you need for a phone in a package 3 quarter of an inch thick. 3.5G support, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, A2DP to support bluetooth wireless stereo, POP3 and IMAP4 email supports, full QWERTY keyboard and many many more. Oh and did I mention the built in 2.0 Megapixel camera is actually QUITE good(for a handphone camera)!?! All the pictures above were taken with the phone's camera (except for the picture of the Dopod 838Pro la!).

Macro mode with it's LED flash on

Streamyx is bull$hit!!

2006-09-25T21:34:00.000+08:00

One day, a boy pay a visit to www.tvtorrents.com hoping that there are new episodes of his favourite TV shows updated on their website, to his delight, the newest episode of Pimp My Ride is ready for download, so he clicks on the "Download" button and a few seconds later, Bitcomet started up and the download begin. Then, he left his computer and went out for dinner, thinking by the time he comes back, he can watch all the cool pimped out car and inspire him with new ideas on how to modify his Satria GTi, since it would normally take only half an hour to download the 178mb file with his 1Mbps broadband connection by Malaysia's NUMBER 1 BROADBAND PROVIDER.

After about an hour later when he returned home, he rushed to his computer, settle down to his arm chair and clicked open his "TV Shows" folder on his desktop. Something is weird, the file isn't complete, the file icon still shows "Bitcomet Incomplete Download File", so he open up his Bitcomet and to his horror, only 14.6% of the file is downloaded, and to make things worst, the file is only downloading at a pathetic 6kb/s!!

In the end it took 2 whole days to download that half and hour episode of Pimp My Ride. At first he think maybe is just Tvtorrents that is causing the problem, or maybe because his Bitcomet is outdated, but when he tried downloading the newest Bitcomet setup file which is only 3.0mb, it shows that time remaining for download is 54 MINUTES!!! 54 minutes to download a 3.0mb file on a 1Mbps broadband connection?? WTH??

Then this boy went into www.streamyx.com.my and run the bandwidth test...and this is the result he gets...

Now with this sort of results, you say he should be the happiest Streamyx user in Malaysia to get almost 86% of the advertised bandwidth.. but not feeling contended with the results, he now run a test on a overseas server...

So if he can get up to 107kb/s of download speed, then why can't he get it on his Bitcomet, or any other file downloads?? Still not satisfied, he now pays a visit to another well known bandwidth testing website which is located overseas (http://www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/), and start a "ADSL connection test in Asia"...

AND this is the results..

So he retry the test again, and again, and again, but without fail, this error page will appear again and again...

At this point, the boy gets overly extremely irritated and started cursing Streamyx in his mind and at the same time start having all kind of wild plans to bring Streamyx down...

But still wanting to know what on earth is his real connection speed is, he went back to the main page and select "DIAL-UP connection test in Asia"......

And this time, the proper result page actually loaded...

AND this is the SHIT he is getting from M'sia's "NUMBER 1 BROADBAND PROVIDER"!!!

This also prove HOW BULLSHIT is their stupid local bandwidth test provided by them. They should advertised:

"Fast 1Mbps broadband connection only for RM88 per month unlimited usage!!**"
**Only to our local servers which is in Malaysia and our bandwidth test website. Overseas connection are GUARANTEED less then 56Kbps**

COME ON MAN!! 24.1 PATHETIC KILO-BIT-PER-SECOND??? IT IS ALMOST 3 TIMES SLOWER THEN THE TRADITIONAL 56K DIAL UP MODEM!! #@$%#@$#%#@%*%&#%(*@$&%#^%#^$#@%$%$#

P.S.: I took almost 2 hour posting this because I tried to run the test several times in "ADSL Connection in Asia" before I give up and tried the "Dial-Up connection in Asia" and each test takes almost 10 minutes even if it didn't complete!!

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Click HERE to perform a PROPER bandwidth test and let me know your results!!

Mooncake Festival @ SSGC

2006-09-24T01:23:00.000+08:00

Here is some pictures from the Mooncake Festival dinner held in SSGC. This is one of the first time where food is actually allowed in the sanctuary...weird. The church was packed with guest, I think easily more then 200 people. Overall I think the whole dinner went well although you can see people running around at the last minute trying to finalize some stuff. I do hope that the message got through to the newcomers, and hopefully they open up their heart to the good news that God has send His only Son, Jesus Christ to die for us all...

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Baby Zac..

Cannot make it as a waiter..

I'm no paedophile, I don't know who is she..

Unc. Paul creation??

Look at the amount of people infront SSGC!

Experienced waiter from Italianis..

Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond in critical condition

2006-09-23T01:23:00.000+08:00

Richard Hammond a.k.a. Hamster

For those who don't already know, Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond got into a serious 300mph (480km/h) car accident/crash when he was trying to break the British land record on a jet powered drag car at Elvington airfield near York.

Here is the full report by BBC..

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Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond remains seriously ill in hospital after a crash in a jet-powered car while filming for the BBC programme.

The 36-year-old was taken by air ambulance to Leeds General Infirmary's neurological unit on Wednesday.

A hospital spokesman said: "He has seen some improvement overnight, but remains in a serious but stable condition."

Mr Hammond had been in a dragster-style car capable of reaching speeds of about 300mph at Elvington airfield near York.

The hospital said his wife was at his bedside and, at the request of his family, no more information would be released.

The crash will be investigated by the Health and Safety Executive and the BBC.

The BBC said in a statement: "We are looking into all the factors of this accident and it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage until we know the full situation."

The dragster car he was driving was believed to have been travelling at about 300mph when it crashed.

Motoring expert Adam Rayner, of Fast Car magazine, said that at those speeds the driver would experience forces similar to those endured by fighter pilots.

"These cars accelerate at 6G - the force is breathtaking and stopping is a real difficulty," he said.

Former firefighter Dave Ogden, who runs private firm Event Fire Services, was one of the first people at the scene of the crash.

He said: "We were down there with Top Gear who were filming him trying to break the British land speed record.

"On the previous run, the car had just gone over 300mph but I am not sure if it had broken the record.

"They had just done one more run and were planning to finish when it veered off to the right.

"One of the parachutes had deployed but it went on to the grass and spun over and over before coming to a rest about 100 yards from us."

He said his crew and an ambulance that was already on the airfield rushed over and found the car upside down and "dug in" to the grass.

Mr Ogden said he felt for a pulse and heard Mr Hammond breathing before the emergency crews worked together to turn the car the right way up and then cut him free.

He added: "He was regaining consciousness at that point and said he had some lower back pain. But he was drifting in and out of consciousness a little bit."

Former Top Gear presenter Quentin Willson said the presenter was "irreplaceable".

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Hope he gets well soon, it will be a shame if he is unable to make it, to lose another great TV presenter after Steve Irwin.

Happy 18th Birthday..

2006-09-22T00:55:00.000+08:00

to..

Benjamin Tay and Bryan Tan..

AND..

This is Benjamin back in 2004 with his center putting hair style...