Raptor's Untitled Blog

left behind

2011-05-12T23:25:00.000+08:00

ever since end of March, every once in a while, I would get this strangely familiar, sinking feeling of being left behind. since coming to Osaka 4 years ago, a certain group of people have become part of my life, a part that I have perhaps taken for granted. they are the other foreign students who entered Osaka Uni at the same time as me, and graduated at the same time.

only difference is, most of them left after graduation.

the ones who stayed in Japan, almost invariably chose to go to Tokyo Uni. the Korean gang went home to be drafted into the army. a close friend from Singapore went home to work in the government. before I knew it, my social circle has suddenly, abruptly shrunk.

and it's not the end of the story. at least two more people will leave Japan by middle of the year, one whom I've known since the days of studying Japanese in Tokyo, another with whom I've built up a sort of distant yet tangible friendship from frequent meetings at the shabby school gym.

so yeah, come summer, I'll be feeling REALLY alone. can't help thinking that if I hadn't failed those grad school applications, I'll be the one saying goodbye and leaving everyone in Japan behind. it's selfish, I know, but given the choice I'd rather have things that way.

I'm tired of being left behind....

working hard

2010-11-18T10:10:00.004+08:00

just a quick note while im waiting for the post office to re-deliver a package from home before i head to the lab....

so this year, i've been kind of quiet and absent from the online scene. its too distracting and time-consuming, and god knows i've been busy. lab life and work, entrance exams for masters here, GRE and applications for graduate school overseas, and that project that dominated my mind throughout the first three quarters of the year - iGEM.

so i'm back from boston (since last thursday, actually). for all our efforts this year ('our' = mine, n the 4 third-year juniors working hard in the lab; the other members were sort of sleeping till the last moment, but that's japanese customs for u - juniors work, seniors sit back n reap the rewards), we only got a bronze medal. no, not the 'third place; 2nd runner-up' bronze; its the lowest-tiered consolation prize, awarded to teams who fulfilled the most minimum of criteria for participation. 2 steps down from last year, where we got gold, at least.

anyway, during the long plane flights, something sort of just fell into place in my head, a lesson that i have been slowly picking up throughout this year that i realized clearly for the first time.

throughout my high school, japanese language course n early university years, i had always been afraid of trying hard. afraid of working hard towards a goal without any guarantee that i will succeed. afraid of what people might think if i let them know about my lofty ambitions as contrasted with my limited abilities.

so i just realized. since attending iGEM last autumn n getting a clear vision of my future path (or at least, the path i wanted to take) for the first time, i had been working hard. working hard to get good grades to save my borderline GPA, working hard to get my professor's approval so that he will write me a good recommendation, working hard for good scores in GRE; and working hard in iGEM this year.

in retrospect, iGEM had nothing to do with my university application. i admit it, i was secretly hoping to talk to some professors there in MIT, score a few brownie points for my application; but we ended up being so busy with overdue preparation for the presentation that that was out of the question.

so in iGEM, i tried hard but sort of failed. and it doesnt feel too good. my question is this: is trying hard the main point in itself, or do the results matter more? we learn, improve and develop personally when striving to achieve something; but if it all comes down to nothing, was the arduous journey worth it?

'the things we regret most in life are those we did not do'. i hope that applies to reaching out for our dreams, no matter how far out of reach, too.

probably the last post

2010-07-17T02:32:00.002+08:00

ah well, life doesnt always go the way we want it to. and this blog is one proof of that.

the second last entry, posted somewhere around the new year, promised a new start to this blog... as well as a new start to my life. dunno bout the latter, but the former sure fell far short of expectations. the last post was supposed to be a 'temporary placeholder' while promising great blogging things to come. that certainly didnt come to pass.

anyway, the reason im here is, as usual, because of insomnia. i always do stuff like blogging, facebooking (as in non-mafia wars facebooking), photo uploading etc when im either too free n dont really have anything interesting to report on, or when once in a long while i get struck with sleeplessness n decide to turn on my computer after an hour or two of tossing n turning. guess when things r really happening i get too busy, tired or confused to write about them coherently n thus end up postponing indefinitely. anyway, tonight the japanese sake i drank seems to have robbed me of the ability to sleep, the complete opposite of what alcohol usually does to me. so here i am.

a brief update on whats been happening since beginning of this semester. sorry, not gonna go further back even tho last year was arguably THE year that changed me the most. first off, i got 'assigned' (for lack of a better word; even tho we got to list out our choices n i did get my first choice) to a lab, supposed to be Bioresource Lab of the bioengineering faculty but actually focuses on Metabolomics n Analytical Chemistry. got off on the wrong foot with the professor and as a result had to cancel my plans to visit sis's graduation ceremony n trip around the US in apr/may. things seem to have been mended somewhat, can only hope he's gonna keep his end of the bargain n write me a good recommendation for my graduate school application.

throughout the last few months if u ask what ive been doing, i cant really answer very well. on one hand nothing 'spectacular' or 'special' happened; i basically follow a routine of going to lab, doing research n the like, heading off to the gym after 'core time' is over, then spending the rest of the evening in the library. sometimes i go back to the lab for more reading. yup, my research involves lots of article reading n minimal experiments. i like having to think a lot; i just miss doing stuff that involves cell cultures, genes, live organisms n the like (my lab is mostly about chromatography, mass spectrometry etc... chemistry stuff).

anyway, so lab takes up a large part of my life nowadays. another thing that occupies a lot of my 'functional time' is iGEM. short for International Genetically Engineered Machines, its a competition held annually at MIT around november; last year i participated, got a TON of experience not just in research but also in interacting with my japanese teammates as well as getting a glimpse of life over there in the US; the jamboree, the main event held at MIT itself, was a hugely enlightening experience tho also immensely humbling as it brought me to full realization of how far ive been lagging behind other people of my age. so... yeah... meetings, reading articles, attending a workshop in Taiwan, wiki editing.... iGEM's been taking up a large part of my life too.

4th year bioengineering majors basically dont have classes. i have one this semester - Quantum Science. sounds grand doesnt it? its actually extremely basic stuff, totally walk-in-the-park compared to E&E majors' Quantum Mechanics; n the reason im taking it in 4th year is becuz i failed it in the 2nd year. apart from that, lab n lib all the time.

next week shall be the last week we r 'required' to go to the lab. after that its a month-long study break for the entrance exams which come end of august. somewhere around that time im also planning to take the GRE, so i'll b studying double-hard (dont really have to study THAT hard for entrance exam, but then the content is probably similar to what will come out in GRE Biochemistry which im planning to take to supplement my less-than-stellar undergrad results). already tho, it seems like quite a few events have been lined up for summer... i'll hopefully revisit this blog to write about them in the near future (2, 3 months later? :P)

anyway, whats the point of this blog, one might ask? i doubt people read this anymore. my fault, maybe, for not keeping this updated. i guess ive sort of grown detached from my 'online social life' which served to connect me with the people back home n my ex-japanese coursemates who r now mostly in universities around tokyo. i'd like to blame it on my hectic life, but in reality it isnt really that hectic at all. its just dull, dragging, wearisome and tiring in its repetitive, predictable way.

so i guess nobody's gonna stumble across this for a while. i suppose the reason im writing this (besides giving me a way to talk myself to sleep) is because. i need a record, a log, a snapshot of my life. something tells me this year's gonna pass by far too quickly, with many of these little dull things that engage me just enough to tire me out without being special enough to be memorable. so maybe around this time next year i'll be looking back upon this year and wondering what happened with it, where it went. blog posts like this, while seemingly random, disorganized and pointless, can actually serve as anchors for my memory. so hello there, future self.

ok, feeling the beginnings of drowsiness creeping up on me now, its time to turn off the PC, close my eyes n wait for the Sandman. adios.

ps. sorry im not good with photos, blogs with photos take a bit of planning n i tend not to do that with my posts.... i just fire up blogger n spill everything that passes thru my mind on nights like these.

minor setback

2010-02-16T01:02:00.003+08:00

ok i know ive promised myself to start blogging today, but due to 1) there being nothing much to blog about (at least that comes to mind) n 2) a hiking appointment at 7.30am tmr morning plus a primary sch gathering in the evening which i dont wanna look too much like a zombie at, ive decided to drop another one of my famous blogging postponements into this slot.

oh ya, i prob shud blog about the primary sch reunion! there'll b lots of ppl i havent met for YEARS. havent actually hung out wif most of the guys frm sum sun even during my time in clhs, not to mention the girls... there'll b a whole lot of unfamiliar-yet-strangely-familiar faces at the gathering for sure! lets see how well i do at reconnecting wif all those ppl.....

a new year.... time for a new beginning?

2010-02-15T01:42:00.002+08:00

maybe its time i started blogging again. as soon as i get some inspiration. and free time at night WITHOUT being dead tired.

of course, theres also figuring out the solution to my classic problem of not knowing where/how to pick up again after leaving the blog for so long.

seriously, does anyone wanna read my blog anyway? is there any meaning in posting when nobody's gonna see them anyway?

mmmm.... this kind of monologue is kinda fun tho. n besides i suppose this blog's main audience shall be my future self.

so ok, tmr. i'll start blogging again tmr! よっしゃ！！

blog post? not quite....

2009-06-15T23:33:00.003+08:00

i NEED to start blogging again.... too many things happening, time flying by too fast.... i dont want this year to go by without making some record of it......

this week theres no lab experiment, apparently the sensei in charge of the current experiment (biophysics) went off to hawaii with his whole lab staff for a 'conference'.... so suddenly theres like a huge block of free time opened up in the afternoons. should b able 2 catch up on sum of those studying, n completing other tasks. well, theoretically at least.....

need to find a reason to change my password..... this one's been around far too long.....

well mebbe i'll find some time to write a proper post tmr in the library.... thats where i expect to spend this week' afternoons as opposed to the lab. tho the idea of coming straight home after morning classes to spend a warm, sunny afternoon in my room, doesnt sound so bad..... NO! i must persevere, i MUST get things done while theres time! lol

there wont b any shortage of 'warm, sunny afternoons' when mid-summer rolls along by.... even tho i'll b spending 3-4 days a week at sch working on that iGEM project...

sch starts tml....

2009-04-05T21:58:00.002+08:00

...... n i havent done a single thing in preparation for it. in fact, i dun even know wat im supposed 2 prepare..... dun hv the books list or anything yet. n there were sum discrepancies between my syllabus guidebook n the classes schedule published on engineering fac website so i cant even plan my classes n decide wat to take etc. guess im going to sch empty-handed n clueless tml.

well, its been a good spring holidays all in all, compared wif the last few..... last year's summer hols were boring; winter hols were terrible. this time arnd at least i managed 2 go sum places, meet up wif frens (sum of which i havent seen in 2 years or more), n had some fun around osaka... primarily at karaoke... heheh. but still i cant consider these hols completely satisfactory. there were things i planned to do but couldnt make time for, such as: learning korean, learning sum new piano pieces, trying out some cooking/baking experiments, exploring the surrounding areas by bike, going for morning jogs n nightime walks, blogging more, sorting thru n uploading my pics..... the list goes on n on. ive been back frm australia for nearly 2 weeks now, but it still feels like juz yesterday.... simply cuz i didnt do anything noteworthy during these 2 weeks n they juz flew by.

ah yeah, abt the australia trip, hv 2 blog bout it sumtime.... but meanwhile check out d pics on facebook! :P

well, in the last 2 or 3 days temperature's gone up slightly (tho i feel the cold even more for sum reason).... marking the end of winter finally. its not without a twinge of emotion dat i see march roll by. march is always the month of farewells n partings... starting frm the time in gaidai when i parted ways wif my tokyo frens n came 2 osaka.... n every year during march there would b some frens leaving, whether going home to their countries or to continue studies elsewhere in japan. theres even a feeling of regret at winter making its retreat n giving way to spring, cuz it marks the end of the cold days which i love so much.

in japan there r many 'new year's. firstly of course theres the 1st of january new year, which in my opinion is nothing more than a formality brought about by the calendar system. then theres the chinese new year, which always reminds me of home n reunion dinner n new year cookies n fireworks. but cny almost always falls in the middle of exam period, n its not celebrated by most ppl here so i end up hardly noticing it.

some ppl say 'have a good year ahead!' in addition to the standard 'happy birthday' greetings. so i guess each person's birthday marks a personal kind of new year too. but nothing changes during the birthday except that ur formally one year older. in that sense that new year is kind of meaningless too.

so actually the new year thats most 'real' to me is the beginning of the school year in early april. its the time when u feel a difference in the air.... winter going out, spring coming in, annoying sakura blossoming everywhere, u start feeling apprehensive about the study-laden year ahead. its the time for a fresh start, for taking another go at the year; its the best time to be making 'new year resolutions', imho, than either new years day, cny or birthday.

so wat will my resolutions be? ive got some idea but wont be putting them down here yet. guess i'll think them over later b4 sleeping.

anyway, time to end this rambling....

spring holidays

2009-04-01T08:43:00.002+08:00

WOW! time passes so fast. without realizing it its been almost 2 months since the last post..... in that space of time 2nd year semester-end exams came n went, i went to tokyo for a well-deserved (?) vacation, n then flew to australia for ANOTHER well-deserved vacation wif my family. n now here i am at the end of the holidays, as usual thinking back n asking myself: have i made good use of my holidays? hv i done all the things i wanted to, so that i wud b ready to start the new sch year well rested, with all enthusiasm n no regrets?

unfortunately as always the answer is no.... but thats a matter for another post. here i'll juz attempt to summarize briefly what ive been up to during the hols..... no easy task, considering im having trouble remembering things that happened merely 2 weeks, let alone 2 months ago.

so exams came n went. as stated in my last post, my exam performance was NOT good.... at least in my opinion. so it was a surprise when results came out n i found that i did MUCH better than the last semester. no C's, n more importantly no F's.... wont tell u the rest of my results but number of S's n A's reached an unprececdented high (or conversely, number of B's an unprecedented low... heh). i'll chalk that up to big contributions frm attendance marks n mid-sem tests tho, cuz i certainly did NOT do well during the semester final. n its funny how my exam results r always much better in the second semesters, mebbe its becuz 1st sem exams r around the height of summer when i cant study or even sleep properly.

so right after that..... went to karaoke once or twice.... resumed my daily training routine for a while (had to break that off when i went on vacation tho) n oh yeah, there was another food party, i think on the day right b4 we left for tokyo. i tried making roti canai n sum chickpeas curry. the curry turned out fine n was in fact praised by a few.... but the roti canai became.... pancakes? still it was ok tho, the hungry ppl devoured everything i made, so i consider my cooking a success ^^

anyway sumtime around end of feb i went to tokyo, with han yee tagging along. after meeting up wif gaidai frens in tokyo we left for nikko, which was our travel destination.... an ulu-ulu place about 2.5 hrs train ride frm the city, supposedly famous for unesco world heritage designated temples n shrines, n beautiful waterfalls which unfortunately we did not get to see. we did purchase a combination pass to visit 5 of the shrines, but as usual each seemed no different from the other, tho rushanti seemed to find them quite interesting. it started snowing shortly after we arrived n later that evening we checked the weather n discovered that we had been plodding around in -3 degree cold! dat was my 1st experience actually being outside during a full-scale snowfall.... cant say if it was good or bad, but i wud certainly do it again :P

anyway, we spent 3 days 2 nights in that area all in all. on the 2nd day we went to tobu world which was basically a big compound wif miniatures of famous buildings from all over the world. 3rd day was spent in edomura (edo village), a place where employees dress up as edo-period peasants, samurai, nobles, u get the picture. the ninja show wasnt bad, the rest were quite boring. oh n the ninja house was fun... using a combination of optical illusions n sloping floors, walls n ceilings, it induces major headache n dizziness in anyone daring to step in. anyway check out the pics for more info, running out of time here hehe.

the rest of my time in tokyo was spent rather uneventfully, except during the last day where i went to gaidai in the morning to meet ex-teachers n this year's kohai, then rushed to shinjuku for karaoke wif the gaidai gang, n had a huge sumptious cake buffet at night. this restaurant, called Bitter Sweet, was relly good... delicious pasta (which i regret eating too much of), variety of grilled meats n veggies u can order without limit, crepe n pancake bar where u can specify ur own toppings n fillings, n a coffee machine with all the usual suspects like americano, cappucino, latte etc.

ok hv 2 get ready 2 go out, will b blogging about my australia trip in the next post...

sigh..... watever happened 2 'i will blog regularly'? shud hv blogged a little bit at a time right after each event, when memories r still fresh instead of letting them pile up like this >.<

anyway, pics r upcoming in facebook, as soon as i manage to sort everything out (n get time to upload them) so stay tuned!

p.s. just for the record, we had a relli persistent winter last/this year..... nightime temperatures were still reaching 1 or 0 degrees until a few days ago. if only it would last, sigh...

p.s.s. will hopefully b writing another post soon on some of my thoughts on the closing of the year.... it hasnt been a very good year in sum ways, n i shud look thru it n see wat went wrong. juz a reminder to self.

bad start

2009-02-05T08:38:00.002+08:00

yesterday was the first 'real' exam day - 3 subjects. n it turned out.... bad.

to cut a long story short (n i hv to do that cuz there r 2 papers coming up tml, one of which i ve hardly studied for), at some point my mind decided it cudnt take anymore n stopped absorbing information well before i finished clearing my subjects. its like hitting a wall suddenly - your mind juz wanders no matter how hard u try to concentrate. so i was forcing myself to go on for the last 1 or 2 days n yesterday, well, i guess i burnt out.

the papers were not THAT hard, but i juz couldnt think clearly enuf to work my way thru all but the most elementary ones. like the one in bioorganic chem about Ru5P carbon fixation, i didnt memorize the exact mechanism but shud hv been able 2 work it out wif all the hints given in the paper, but sumhow i juz went round in circles n cudnt focus properly to do it. n i kicked myself afterwards to find that one wrong step messed up my whole answer. n there was another reaction mechanism problem which i cudnt work out by trial-n-error cuz i forgot wat the substrate's structure was like.

u noe that shitty feeling u hv when u KNOW a complicated question is actually very easy, but u juz cant focus well enuf to sort thru all the elements? like calculation questions involving many variables... there was one in biophysics that involved a long tedious calculation but if i had the presence of mind to cancel out certain variables i wudnt hv wasted so much time on the relatively straightforward calculation. anyway, i had that several times yesterday n felt like killing ppl when i went thru those questions again this morning n saw juz how easy they were (n juz how wrong my answers were yesterday cuz i wasnt thinking right).

n there was that stupid open book exam for elementary electrical engineering. the teacher's teaching was shit, but i KNEW i worked thru one of the questions b4 by myself, n there was one on operation-amplifiers that sumhow looked familiar (i think we did sumting similar in high sch). n anyway it was an open book exam so i shud hv been able to refer n work out the problems myself but guess what? i didnt bring the textbook. i was gonna depend on the sensei's shitty notes but found that my fogged state of mind didnt allow me to sort thru all the garbage to understand his diagrams.

at lunchtime i spilt miso soup on my jacket n jeans cuz i wasnt concentrating on drinking from the bowl. ok, i duno y exactly i managed to spill half a bowl of soup on myself when i wasnt on a moving vehicle, standing, talking to ppl or anything. its juz one of those days, u noe?

lately (since sunday or so) ive been having difficulty speaking coherently. my sentences tend to break up abruptly while i grope for words, n my articulation has become worse somehow. unlike previous bouts of 'incommunicabilty', this wasnt caused by extended lack of interaction wif ppl, cuz ive been hanging out wif other engineering ppl at the library (which has become our 2nd home). probably another side effect of mental overload.

after this exam im gonna check if theres a medical cause for this poor memory n bad mental stamina of mine. i dont see my frens turning into incoherent, absent-minded, brain-fogged idiots after extended periods of studying. a cursory search online has turned up magnesium deficiency as one of the possible culprits (some other symptoms fit, too). in any case, time to return to the swotting.............

spontaneous bleeding...???!!

2009-01-16T10:40:00.004+08:00

dunno wat we call this condition so i juz labelled it 'spontaenous bleeding'

happened last nite after going out 2 meet a bunch of frens (one of them apparently wanted 2 go karaoke so much he borrowed everyone else's phones n was spamming calls at me)..... unwisely i neglected 2 wear gloves in the -1 degree cold even tho it was only a short period. n when i got home n tried 2 play dota suddenly the mouse felt sticky under my middle finger n it turned out dat thick, sticky blood was oozing out frm the side near the nail. n my toe followed soon, blood welled out of the crease at the joint (see pic) after i took a shower.

wtf is happening?? cold, dryness, over-eating causing my internal volume to swell n strain the skin to bursting point? no time 2 ponder on it but hope its not gonna b a recurring thing....
neways, going 2 sch 2 eat (n use up my surplus meal coupons) then study d....

a new bicycle

2008-12-29T09:28:00.002+08:00

this has to be one of the most wuliao posts i ever put up this year. but then the year is ending, nothing better 2 do, n wat r blogs for but for recording every trivial detail in our life in the hope that, in retrospect they might juz reveal some great hidden truth about our inner selves....eheh

anyways

for over a year n a half, since coming here, i had been putting up wif a lousy piece of junk they call a bicycle. it rusts like nobody's business, needs 2 b fed air into its tyres every 2 weeks or so, n is so notoriously unstable dat if going at a fair speed i need 2 actually come to a near complete stop b4 making a 90 degree turn. wat else. its lamp started flickering 3 months ago n gave out completely last month so i had been riding in the dark (since it gets dark at 5pm here nowadays) whenever i come back frm uni....not 2 mention the fair number of times its suspicious (read: cheap-looking) profile plus lack of functional lamp has caused me 2 b stopped by the ubiquitous traffic policemen 4 'routine checking'. around 2 weeks ago its basket suddenly started ripping down the side n d last time i saw it one side of the basket had almost completely came off. wif the high service costs in japan, it wud probably cost more than the bike itself to hv 2 put back into shape.

oh yea, forgot to mention, it threw me off once, resulting in the loss of 1 pair of jeans (i had 2 pairs at dat time, which meant i went around for almost 2 weeks wearing the same pair). or mebbe i shud blame the slopes for that.

so anyway, i wasnt particularly fazed when i left it at d bicycle park at kita-senri, the nearest train station, n came back 2 find it gone....along wif the other 20+ bikes dat were not inserted into the parking lot's bicycle locks properly. prob management had them all moved 2 some remote location 4 not making use of their locking facilities (which cost 150 yen per lock; tho i wasnt there more than the minimum 2 hrs so i cud hv got off free). if my experiences in tokyo were anything 2 learn frm, it is dat i'll prob hv 2 pay like 1000 yen to get my junky old bike back. so, sayonara bike.... (n thanks, kita-senri management, for taking the problem of bike disposal off my hands :P)

so i went for bout 2 or 3 days without a bike n then went to kohnan yesterday lookin 4 a new one. n the very SAME model i had (by a company called southernport..warning: dont buy any bike frm them) dat cost 9800 yen when i bought it, is now 12800 yen! sheesh...talk about inflation....n shudnt the price hv gone down after the model has aged for nearly 2 years? but anyway i learnt my lesson n picked up another one. the cheapest bike without gears was 8800 but it was real kiddies-type so i took the 10800 yen....wif insurance that came to 11300 yen (insurance, by the way, is the little label on the bike dat tells police 'come stop this rider n check his name, then match it with the 5-digit number printed on me'). so im set back by 11300 yen for a bike without gears. ah well, gears r largely useless in osaka anyway, wat wif all the slopes... but i cant help having a nagging feeling dat ive replaced one piece of junk wif another...heheh.

new bike, u better serve me well or u'll suffer a worse fate than ur predescessor >.<

well anyway so thats the story of my bike, thanks for listening n come back tml for another of Shao Thing's Boring Life Stories ;)

Malaysian English and British English

2008-12-28T11:58:00.003+08:00

(a list shamelessly lifted off wikipedia)

This is a list of words and phrases that have one meaning in British English and another in Malaysian English

Word / Phrase	Malaysian meaning	American / British meaning
last time	previously	on the previous occurrence
a parking lot	a parking space, e.g. "That new shopping mall has five hundred parking lots."	a parking garage (from US English)
an alphabet	a letter of the alphabet, e.g. "The word 'table' has five alphabets."	a set of letters used in a language
bungalow	A mansion for the rich and/or famous; or a fully detached house, regardless of the number of floors it has. Lately, some housing developers have changed the usage of this word further and we now see terms like "a semi-detached bungalow".	A small house or cottage usually having a single storey and sometimes an additional attic storey that is free standing, i.e. not conjoined with another unit.
to follow	to accompany, e.g. "Can I follow you?" meaning "Can I come with you?"	to go after or behind, e.g. "The police car was following me"
to keep	to put away or store, e.g. a parent tells a child "Keep your toys!"	to retain as one's own, e.g. "I must decide which to throw away and which to keep."
to revert	to get back to someone, e.g. in an email: "I will investigate this and revert to you by tomorrow."	to return to a previous edit or state (although this meaning exists in BrE as well.)
to send	to take someone somewhere, e.g. "Can you send me to the airport?"	to cause something to go somewhere without accompanying it, e.g. "I sent this letter to my grandma."

Most Malaysians are adept at switching from Manglish and Malaysian English, but are sometimes unclear as to the differences between Malaysian English and SABE (Standard American-British English). Awareness of these differences would prevent misunderstandings when dealing with people from different English-speaking backgrounds. This evolution in the use of English follows a worldwide trend and is unlikely to disappear.

pictures of autumn

2008-12-06T16:00:00.005+08:00

autumn is my favourite time of the year. its also the shortest season (at least in japan), only displaying its colors for slightly more than a month at best. AND its that time of the semester when mid-term exams come crashing down on helpless students' heads (especially this particular student). dats y, after 3 autumns in japan, i still havent taken a really decent collection of autumn shots. but anyway, this year i was lucky 2 hv the camera handy a couple of times n managed 2 get these:

will post up some descriptions when i feel inclined to do so...rite now hv 2 get back 2 swotting 4 stupid inorganic chem exam on monday. btw, laz 2 pics were taken wif my shitty mobile phone camera, so they naturally look horrible when enlarged :P

cold weather n a piano

2008-11-09T17:55:00.000+08:00

its getting cold lately. last night it dropped to 9 degrees celsius, the 1st time it went under 10 degree this month. feels abit early to be getting so cold, but then ive only been in japan for 2 autumns, who am i to judge.... still it does seem like this is a comparatively cold year, wif winter lasting well into feb (it snowed in mid-feb, remember?) n all traces of summer heat gone by october..... im not complaining, mind u, i prefer cold :D

so wats new. oh yea, after 1 n a half years of waiting/hesistating, ive finally went n got a digital piano! for those interested in knowing, its a Yamaha Arius YDP-160, not one of the famous Clavinova series but still reasonable advanced n well-made. n it costed a mere 85000 yen compared to the cheapest clavinova model which was around 120000 yen (my arius is actually technically superior to some of the lower-end clavinovas cuz its new n technically more advanced, hehe). neways, i'll b posting some pics (n a more complete review) as soon as i get my ass around to copying them over frm my camera.

lately..... bananas r EXPENSIVE. some smarty jap professor or nutritionist apparently published a book extolling the virtues of a 'banana diet' n it seems like half the nation's females jumped on the wagon immediately. anyway bananas r now 200 yen for a bunch i.e. 4 or 5 bananas. dats like RM6-7. n dats the cheapest bananas i can find, cuz sumtimes the 'premium sweet' brands from philipines cost twice that. whew. pisang goreng sellers back in msia wud faint if they heard this.

oh, n there was a discount at a nearby supermarket about a week back n i bought a big bunch of like 15 banans for juz 300 yen. then gorged myself silly on bananas for the next few days until it became apparent dat i wasnt gonna finish eating them b4 they went bad. so wats a resourceful guy like me gonna do? dats right, i made banana pancakes again. n not juz once but on 2 consecutive days (sat n sun). dats a lot of bananas to consume, n i suspect it was the cause of the really er.... fragrant bout of flatulence i had on monday, hahah

speaking of last week, it was like party week. the weekend before that was uni festival, so it was an extended weekend stretching frm last last friday to last tue. so a bunch of us ryuugakusei (international students) got together n had a party at our (me n han yee's) place. we each cooked something frm our respective ountries n it was great (felt guilty afterwards tho, damn im becoming way too diet-conscious). then on friday there was another party organised by the uni's international students association featuring Iranian Food...! n of course a bunch of us went n gorged ourselves again. damn, iranian cuisine is simply delicious... n they prepared ample amounts of it too, unlike the previous parties where all available food is consumed within the first 3 mins of the party n we r left wandering around wif empty plates talking 2 ppl..... anyway, this iranian food party was well worth the 500 yen we paid each, hehe....

i realise im starting to ramble here, so lets keep it short. lets see......

had a really weird dream last night, a half-nightmare, but can only remember one part of it in which i was sent along wif another guy to retrieve something frm an abandoned sch building n we got attacked by a ghost or spirit or something. as usual it feels like there was quite a bit of back-story to that particular scene but its all i can remember.... damn im sure my dreams wud make great adventures if only i can recall n re-experience them :P

oh ya, got stopped by the police AGAIN last sunday. was kinda in a hurry 2 go 2 uni so i cycled across the zebra crossing without noticing dat the pedestrian light was already red. n horror of horrors there was a policeman standing on the opposite side wif a notebook lol. luckily he was juz stationed there to check passing bicycles for their theft-prevention stickers n not to collect duit kopi like in malaysia. he began wif the greeting 'lately theres been a lot of traffic accidents, eh?' n then did his check n i was off wif a slight admonishment. had it been in malaysia i think i wud hv been 5000 yen poorer, lol.....

ok, done my duty again, time to sleep.... wait, i still hv 2 blog in mixi n post pics in facebook. arggh, talk about online obligations......

2008-10-31T14:14:00.002+08:00

i had a weird dream last night. u noe how dreams go.....sometimes u remember only the later half of it n hv no idea wat happened b4 that, or if there was even an earlier part, even tho it feels like there is n wat u CAN remember is actually a continuation of that part. or mebbe its a sequel to a dream u had previously which accounts for the 'familiarity' of the dream, but u cant remember the previous one......

ok i'll stop going around in circles, this is wat i CAN remember frm this particular dream:

(im QUITE sure there was something about a football match or sum event in a stadium, then i was exploring a kinda-old town wif all those stone buildings n stuff....)

then i heard some strange piano music coming from 'above' (i was either inside a building or an enclosure made up of a cluster of buildings) so i look for stairs to go up n check out the piano

it turned out that there were no stairs n i m now outside a tall building wif lots of sloping surfaces on its sides, so i run up those slopes to get up instead

on the way up i pass by groups of ppl who look like university or high sch students, there was an unsually large number of girls :P they looked like they were gathering for club activities here n there

at the top i suddenly find myself among a throng of primary sch students in their morning assembly n a teacher was playing an old, BIG (long) upright piano

i felt this great longing 2 play dat piano so i waited till assembly was over n the students went outside to do watever they do there (outdoor games mebbe?) then i pretended to be a shameless gaijin (foreigner) n sat down to play the piano without permission

the teacher who had been playing the piano previously, an elderly man (sumhow i knew he was the music instructor) seemed impressed when i played rondo alla turca. then another teacher, a young woman came n asked me to play the Yellow River wif her (its actually a piano concerto, but in my dream it was a piano duet, kinda like jay chou's 四手连弹 duet.

unfortunately b4 we can start to play my handphone rang n i was woken up -_-"

ok if anybody feels inclined 2 post sum ideas about wat my dream meant they're welcome to...lol...

btw, sorry (again!) for the long interval between this post n d last....n paiseh i didnt complete my last post like i was supposed to....heheh....lotsa things happening plus im getting lazy....but ive decided not 2 give up bloggin yet! :P so stay tuned for the uh....next post

reminder to self.....

2008-09-30T12:36:00.002+08:00

....that i MUST relly blog sumting tonite! b4 sch reopens....looks like a tough semester ahead lol....
5 consecutive classes every wednesday, wtf who planned our class schedule this year......

list of things to write about:
- summer holidays
- weather in osaka
- recent happenings (very little of these, dun worry.....)
- reflection on my life, past n present

got a stupid class orientation n (maybe) party later on, so cant write much yet...

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (a review)

2008-09-14T15:13:00.003+08:00

this game is great. go get it, if u guys havent already.

omg, my chatterbox died again n i didnt notice...shit dat juz shows how little traffic my blog gets nowadays :(

cant relly write properly, havent been writing anything longer than 2 sentences since 1+ months ago.....i noe wat u guys r thinking, wtf this guy's been back home for over a month n he hasnt blogged at all other than a post to complain about this n that.....well its hard 2 find the time n moo 2 do it lah, blogging needs a period of quiet time alone for reflecting upon stuff b4 writing about it n that juz doesnt seem 2 come along very often.

anyway i guess this hols passed rather mundanely........ didnt go travelling anywhere n dint relly go out much except to Penang Swiming Club to exercise..... wish i had met up wif more ppl la but then, life's a bitch, either ur busy or the other ppl r busy, dun wanna keep bugging ppl to meet up oso lah or else it starts 2 sound like im desperate for company heheh. sigh..... guess times change n frens do, too.......

neways, been playing a couple of rpgs lately, since i managed to cut myself off frm dota 2 weeks after coming home (not by choice but rather becuz shitmyx sucked too much to hv a decent game wif the buddies back in japan).... one was Jade Empire which was not too bad tho imho combat system was repetitive n predictable, tho all those techniques n styles u can pick up looked cool. the other, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodline; originally the review of which was to become the main topic of this post haha. guess my writing skills hv not recovered sufficiently for such an undertaking, so lets juz say, it has 2 b the BEST vampire role-playing game out there. u get to pick from one of 7 vampire 'clans', each of which is played differently....n when i say differently, im talking major differences in gameplay; u can muscle ur way thru the game wif melee weapons, shoot ur way thru fps-style, sneak around like in Thief: Deadly Shadows, blast everyone to shreds if u pick the blood-mage clan, or even go around talking/persuading/seducing everyone to doing ur bidding. theres even an 'insane' clan that makes ur character see talking stoplights, spout shakespearean poetry during normal dialog, n enables u 2 cause enemies to go mad instead of killing or persuading them.....how cool is that??

ok enuf wif the review, as expected i fairly suck at writing stuff like this anyway :P

well....next post will prob b my last in penang this year, stay tuned for a recap/review of my holiday 'exploits' heheh

back home.....with shitmyx

2008-08-16T14:45:00.002+08:00

streamyx is.....damn SLOW! after getting used to downloading songs in under 10 seconds there in japan, having to wait up to 5 minutes for a single song, n spending whole mornings or afternoons downloading one measly anime episode is very.....unsatisfying. not to mention all the lags n disconnects i get when playing dota....

but anyway, main topic: reminder to self, do NOT ever forget driving license again. being stuck at home more than 1 week when holidays r limited to a precious 6 weeks is NOT a good thing. 1stly, cant meet ppl, which was the main reason i came back so early this year (cuz not coming back next year). 2ndly, cant go out for exercise, which means all the hard work put into physical training this last semester is going to waste (its a mystery how u can spend 5+ months training hard n then get flabby abs within one week of coming home). 3rdly...i HATE being dependent on ppl, n being unable to drive means having 2 depend on my mom or bro for transport (n having to face their er...'black faces' lol)

malaysia is - as always - hot, humid, wif a general atmosphere of laziness in the air somehow. its not a bad place to relax during the holidays, but i can see now y ive never managed to change n improve my life by much back when i was studying here. im easily affected by the environment, n malaysian environment is not conducive to progress. the very climate itself contributes to drowsiness n laziness, n the attitudes of ppl around do not do much to stimulate us either. n its hard to make changes when living wif family cuz (in my case at least) we're more or less bound by established patterns n ways of life. we cant simply adjust our life bit by bit to suit our mental, physical n social needs n circumstances. living overseas, alone, i think ive managed to introduce more positive change into my life than i had in all 20 years of being at home. n this may sound really controversial (n corny) but i think dat the seasons over there aid us in change too. when the seasons change we can feel dat a year has passed n the time has come for a fresh start. its so unlike here where the environment remains static n once ur life gets stuck in a rut the prospects of turning things about do not come around so easily.

i suppose one of the only things i relly missed about msia is the food, but then....it has struck me dat every time i come home wif a huge appetite for malaysian food, that appetite vanishes within a few days. why? partly its my fault for gorging myself upon arrival, to the point of overeating....but i think cleanliness n nutrition has sumting to do wif it too. there is a significant difference in my energy levels here n in japan, n its probably to do wif the fact dat food here is not so clean n less nutritionally 'dense' (as EJ pointed out too). i get full here easily, leading to the uncomfortable 'stuffed' feeling, not to mention feeling lethargic after every meal (like a python, for lack of a better analogy lol) whereas in japan i can eat lots after exercise sessions n still be reasonably active n alert. but m i really eating that much, nutritionally? i think no.....cuz if i eat less to avoid this aforementioned 'stuffed' feeling, i exhibit symptoms of lack of nutrition. like getting fatigued easily, loss of strength, n muscular atrophy (well it might juz as well be lack of exercise causing the latter). hopefully this feeling is juz psychological n i havent relly become as weak as i feel...guess i'll find out after a trip to the gym tml....by comparing my performance wif last sunday's.....

ok enuf wif the complaints, time for a nap :P

hopefully in the next post i can write bout sumting a little more positive about msia, b4 i get labeled 'traitor to the country' hahaha

juz a brief note

2008-07-27T09:57:00.002+08:00

2 more days of toil, 11 more days till i go home.....oh yeah.....

hell is a hot place where u r forced to study.....i noe cuz im already there. cant wait 2 escape frm this place dats causing me to literally lose sleep due to the heat, damn

naruto shippuuden: kizuna (bonds) is coming out, mebbe i shud go out wif sum1 n watch my 1st cinema movie in japan b4 going home hehe

made bak kut teh yesterday, taste was not bad but sumting in the herbs or mebbe the heaty pork itself combined wif the freakin heat made me nosebleed n i felt like vomiting sumting dat tasted suspiciously like blood later on.....

lately heat's also been lowering my physical abilities....havent made any progress in either str training or karate the last 2 or 3 weeks.....got worse even, maybe >.<

damn, wish i hv more ppl 2 hang out wif....everytime an exam finishes i feel like partying my ass off but every1 already hv plans....need a better social life!

ok time 2 head 4 gyoumu to shop 4 groceries.....tata

update....sort of

2008-07-21T11:28:00.002+08:00

well its exam time now, cant blame me for not updating.

its summer in osaka n it is HOT! temp juz reached 35 degs celcius the last 2 days.....midday temp of course, but night-time isnt much better, wif temps around 29-30. maybe i'll hv to start studying at mister donuts across the street if the temp continues to climb....looks like it'll b an even hotter summer than last year.

anyway, this year i'll b going back 2 msia real early, 7th aug (going 2 attend my bro's convocation on the 8th), will prob b back in penang on night of 8th or 9th....n i'll b staying for over 1 1/2 months this time all the way until 22th of sept, so if anyone's around lets meet up lah! aus ppl, take a weekend n fly back to see ur dear fren raptor the ravenlord! :P

come to think of it, this summer will mark 2 1/2 years since i came 2 japan...half of my total scheduled period of stay under the undergraduate program, that is. tho i'm almost certainly planning to continue to masters, n theres a big chance i'll end up doing that in japan too. damn, sumtimes its scary how time flies n our lives change.....

anyway, now's not the time for musings or trips down memory lane. 5 exams this week, n i havent even started studying for sum of them (dun wanna say exactly how many, juz in case my mom happens by this blog n decides to kills me :P)

ok then time 2 study....

pancakes

2008-06-22T12:02:00.003+08:00

quiz: which pancake ingredient should be increased in order to obtain harder (less crumbly) pancakes? (flour; baking powder; egg; milk)

to tell the truth i hv no idea myself. anyway, as u can guess frm the title, ive been trying my hand at making pancakes lately. specifically BANANA pancakes. now i noe this is a stupid reason but every week i buy a bunch of bananas n end up not being able to finish them before the last 2 or 3 become soft n pulpy. so i was looking for a way to cook them n avoid wastage n i tried han yee's banana kuih recipe but it requires too much oil, imho. so i searched online n voila! i found this.

so how did they turn out? well today saw my 2nd attempt at pancake-making n they were quite a bit better than the 1st one. 1st batch was too salty due to me misreading '1/4 teaspoon of salt' as '1/4 tablespoon of salt' (ppl who laugh will get their heads chopped off). anyway here r pics of my er...rather amateur 2nd attempt:

the 1st attempt produced similar-looking results, albeit wif a rather horrible salty taste :P

well that concludes my post for now. done my duty....again. heh....

3 reasons y i hate osaka

2008-06-20T22:21:00.002+08:00

hey hey, im BACK in the blogosphere after several long months of absence! in response to numerous pleas frm my faithful fans, ive decided to return to blogging once again.....cross ur fingers n pray/hope that this attempt will last a bit longer than the previous ones heheh

well anyway as u can see frm the title, ive been feeling a bit tulan about osaka (which is, incidentally, the city i live in at the moment, since im sure some - or most - of u out there r bound to hv no clue as to my whereabouts after losing contact for so long...hehe paiseh)....

1st reason: its damn HOT n HUMID. osaka must b one of the hottest n most humid cities in japan...at least the hottest (according to my japanese sensei, n i totally dont disagree) among the bigger cities in japan. as for humidity, u can literally get DRENCHED by juz standing in an enclosed space, as happened to me juz today when i went to the gym n got covered wif sweat juz talking 2 my frens....

2nd reason: it rains. a LOT. sumtimes....well most of the time....its juz light drizzling but the overcast skies n increase in the already ridiculously high humidity can hv sum real bad effects on my mental-emotional state. yea thats right, i get depressed after facing 2 or 3 days of continuous semi-darkness n sticky humidity. n well, sumtimes the sky decides to POUR an extra bucketful juz when u decide 2 brave the rain n cycle back home.

3rd reason: the weather forecast here is totally crap. i mean totally crap. u check it the night b4 n it says clear weather today followed by cloudiness at night, then wake up in the morning to find the sky already overcast n the forecast predicts light rain in the evening. then u go 2 sch n it starts raining halfway thru the afternoon.....by the time u finish classes n try 2 cycle home the rain has become a roaring downpour. so much for japanese technology....it only applies to DEVELOPED areas like tokyo, yokohama, nagoya, kyoto, kobe, probably hokkaido n okinawa but NOT osaka. sigh.......

(4th reason: ok this was uncalled for, but it suddenly popped into my mind...today on the way 2 sch, i was stopped by a police officer frm the koban (police box) across the street for the FIFTH time since i came 2 osaka. juz a routine bicycle check, they say. wtf, do i look like a bicycle thief so much...? n cant they stop posting different ppl to that police box so that at least those who hv checked me b4 will noe dat im not the sociopathic bicycle-swiping psycho they seem 2 think i am....)

well thats it, done my duty to my fans, now 2 turn in for a good night's sleep, the 1st i will b having in this entire week thanks 2 the two midterms i had.....

side notes n brief report

2008-04-07T17:30:00.002+08:00

2 recent discoveries:

1) adding ginger to my cooking helps relieve blocked nose....cuz of d spiciness i think

2) going one day without coffee is impossible

elaboration on number 2. i sumhow 4got 2 drink coffee b4 going out 2day, somehow sat thru 2 classes without sleeping......but the effects of coffee withdrawal were far more subtle. it was only when i tried speaking to sum of my classmates dat i found dat the 'wires in my head were crisscrossed'. well...duno the exact term for it, IF there is one....but i ended up inserting the wrong words into my speech n only being aware of it a few secs after speaking out....which resulted in sum rather embarassing moments. n stuff like forgetting wat i was gonna say rite b4 i open my mouth to speak, walking by an ex classmate without noticing him until i was called....

bottomline: no coffee, no social ability

anyways, for those interested in wat ive been up 2 during the spring hols, i 1st went to taiwan around the end of feb.....met up wif dan (BOY, u shud see his spare tyre....hehehehhehe) n went places like the taipei night market n 101 building - tallest in the world at the moment - plus the hualian district in the eastern region which had sum pretty nice scenery. lots of nice food in taiwan too. then coming back i had about a week of rest b4 mom, together wif han yee's mom, visited japan n we went out everyday showing them around kansai. pretty much covered osaka, kyoto, kobe - at least, those places most worth visiting - but didnt go to nara cuz we were all too tired at the end of 4 days of continuous sightseeing. anyway, right after they went back, there was ANOTHER trip, this time all the way to sendai in the northeast (touhoku) region of japan, followed by a stop for 4 days in tokyo on the way back. n no, we didnt get to rest after that, for the kohai frm tokyo came over to kansai n we had 2 take them out again. then the NEW batch of kohai arrived frm malaysia n we had to take THEM out around. phew.

so anyway today was the 1st day of sch. had 2 lectures but basically juz revision of stuff we already knew. so we'r having our classes in suita frm this year on which is a good thing cuz toyonaka feels like a prison compound. but i forgot to drink coffee this morning, plus it was raining the whole day so im feeling a bit under the weather atm. anyway, more on my holiday travels in the next post (wif sum pics if i get down to it :P)

snow n other stuff

2008-02-20T01:13:00.006+08:00

ok so about 2 weeks back there was snow here in osaka :D on.....9th of feb to be exact. to cut a long story short, han yee woke me up at 11am (i slept at 5am the night before) n i looked out... n holla, Its A Winter Wonderland! snow was flying all over, coming down in great big flakes (at least, compared to the tiny specks of 'kona yuki' dat fell a few times before). so of course i cudnt sleep anymore....went 2 sch 2 meet up wif a few frens (taking much longer than expecting cuz the bus stopped running due to the snow n i had 2 take a monorail which was damn expensive >.< )

so here r the pictures to prove that Raptor Has Experienced Snow:

enuf wif the mundane, on to snowmen-making! we begin by rolling some snow:

it looks a little dirty but i assure u the technique is all correct :P see the final product:

i modified the 1st snowman to become SnowGuy n made a SnowGirl for him:

miscellaneous pics of sum of my adoring fans:

its not my fault that they hv a fetish for my gloves:

well thats it for my snow pics, got many more but uploading to blogger is a major PIA. u can check them out at my facebook photo album :P

last note: going to taiwan on feb 21-26; seriously doubt any1 will miss me (heck, prob no 1 will hv even read my blog in that time period) but anyway, hasta la vista! will take pics of hot taiwanese chicks n post them here!

SNOWED!!!!

2008-02-10T16:00:00.000+08:00

IT SNOWED IN OSAKA YESTERDAY WOOHOOOO!!!

more on this later. lotsa pics 2 show hehehe.

cool song

2008-01-27T17:18:00.000+08:00

dont watch this at night all alone tho hehehe

dreary days....

2008-01-20T17:40:00.000+08:00

so in the end, i din get to go himeji after all.
wats all the deal about himeji anyway. i hate traveling alone. wazawaza going all the way to himeji, almost 2hr each way, juz 2 use up a stupid one-day unlimited train pass to see an old castle in the cold winter weather AND it being cloudy n rainy to top things off.....not my idea of spending a weekend day.

still, each 'use' of the 18kippu (the name of the one-day train pass) is 2600 yen, so in essence ive wasted 2600 yen, almost RM80....

the stupid weather forecast predicted snow frm tonight (monday night) till wee hours of tuesday. but today forecast changed to sleet followed by 'wet snow' (wtf is that anyway); a few minutes ago upon checking again, its changed again to sleet throughout the night. now as we know, sleet is a mixture of rain n snow....IF there were any slightest hint of snow in the drizzle outside, i wud b happy 2 accept all the shitty rain.....but NO ITS ALL WATER AND NO ICE zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

so im stuck indoors, outside its dark n gloomy n affecting my mood, n i hv 2 cram like crazy for the calculus test this wed. its such a contradiction dat i actually find calculus interesting but its my worst subject. n i HATE the weekly tests. being given 10 mins to write 2 whole pages of proofs means that u hv 2 memorize everything beforehand......anyway lets leave it at that.

so yeah, another year has rolled by......a few weeks ago ppl were all going 'MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!' but wat the heck. i never had a reason 2 feel happy during this 'festive season'. all those stories ive read about celebrations, festivities, gatherings n fellowship during christmas time.....i never experienced them b4 anyway. n here in japan christmas is synonymous with 'couples' day', which makes things even worse....THIS christmas wei liang dragged me to universal studios japan so u can imagine the feeling of being stuck wif a guy when there r couples all around u. if we didnt look gay i duno wat else we cud hv looked like....lol

damn, winter is such a melancholy period.....its like when cold envelopes u physically it seeps into ur heart as well....winter is a time for feeling both the pain of heartbreak n the forlornness of having been alone all ur life...........a contradiction in itself cuz ive never had a gf before so i shudnt be feeling any 'heartbreak'....but i guess i DID experience sumting of the sort b4 so im able to relate to the nostalgia n longing that ppl sing about in songs.............or mebbe ive juz listend to too many sad songs n watched too many stupid romantic movies....hehh

neways, enuf time wasted.....time 2 prepare for calculus! may god smile upon me....wait, i dun hv a god......may the fates or watever smile upon me then, n duncare if they dun anyway.....life is about believing in n depending on urself, not sum omnipresent, omnipotent deity who may or may not save u on a whim.....

3 unsuccessful attempts to travel alone

2008-01-06T13:22:00.000+08:00

thu night: tells everyone i wud b going 2 himeji alone to use up my seishun 18 kippu, then plays dota until 4am
fri morning: wakes at 2pm, too late for trip

fri night: tells han yee im going to himeji the next day, then plays dota until 3.30am, followed by sum messing around wif facebook applications until 4am
sat morning: wakes up at 11, hits the snooze button about 5 times each time spaced 5 mins apart, then continues sleep until 1pm; decides to go to gym instead

sat night: tells han yee who juz returned frm a trip to wakayama that i'll b going on sun cuz cudnt wake up; plays dota until 3.30am n messes around wif sum stuff till 4am again
sun morning: (copy n paste frm sat morning)

anyone see a pattern of bad habits plus no self-discipline here?

oh n i havent touched the piano in suita campus for more than 2 weeks now. damnit i need a piano......

Recommended Songs of the Day 1

2008-01-04T02:34:00.000+08:00

Exile - Michi
Funky Monkey Babys - Mou Kimi ga Inai
Kobukuro - Kimi to Iu Na no Tsubasa

key differences between tokyo and osaka

2008-01-03T14:20:00.000+08:00

1. uncovered drains in osaka are common; almost unheard-of (unseen?) in tokyo
2. cats rule in osaka; no wild cats in tokyo - ive only seen less than 5 in my entire time in tokyo!
3. bread is available in 8-slice loaves in tokyo; loaves in osaka r 6 or less thick slices.....ughh, all that carbohydrate...
4. air is clean in tokyo; air in osaka approaches penang-level (read: polluted)
5. things in tokyo r uniformly expensive; prices in osaka fluctuate like crazy
6. good orange juice can b gotten for 105 yen in toyko; juice in osaka tastes like shit n is generally more expensive (for the same brand)
7. more hot gals on trains in tokyo; more giggly gals on trains in osaka
8. tokyo schgals hv nice short skirts; osaka schgals hv long ugly skirts....hehehehe
9. u can stay out until 11 or so in tokyo n still make ur way home thanks to its transportation system; u can start to go back at 9.30 in osaka n find u juz missed the last bus...
10. lots of cheap (~1500yen) tabehoudai in tokyo; tabehoudai in osaka usually costs 2000 over
11. ppl r unfriendly in tokyo, or so ive heard; ppl r weird in osaka
12. tokyo gaidai is the best uni in japan; osaka gaidai is....well.....
13. i like tokyo; i dont like osaka so much
14. tokyo uni is for stuck-up achievers; osaka uni is for stuck-up underachievers
15. u can save on transportation costs in tokyo by cycling everywhere, n get sum exercise while u'r at it; in osaka, cycling is impossible becuz of the slopes and bad air
16. total cost for transportation to shinjuku frm place of residence in tokyo: 190 yen. total cost for transportation to umeda frm place of residence in osaka: 490 yen (- -"")
17. kare-raisu (curry rice) in tokyo is sweet; in osaka its tasteless
18. otsuka ai was born in osaka; otsuka ai left for tokyo to pursue her singing career (wise move)
19. crowds in tokyo r impressive and annoying; crowds in osaka r annoying without the impressiveness
20. garbage in tokyo is sorted into combustible, non-combustible (plastic), glass, PET, etc; in osaka there's a 'combustible' tag but no 'non-combustible', so u chuck the plastic n all into combustible garbage....hmm....burning plastic, never a good idea
21. in tokyo u pay when u get on the bus; in osaka u pay when u get off
22. there is one cheap fruit in tokyo: bananas; in osaka theres no such thing as cheap fruits n the bananas rot pretty quick
23. public toilets in tokyo r as clean as science fiction; public toilets in osaka generally match penang's in terms of 'delicious' odours
24. beef chunks for making curry r cheaper than many other kinds of beef in tokyo; no such thing as cheap beef in osaka supermarkets
25. ppl dun (rarely?) smoke while walking on the streets in tokyo, which probably contributes to its clean air; in osaka i sumtimes wish for a gas mask when walking around more populated areas, even the open spaces
26. (in response to a comment) house rent in tokyo is expensive; house rent in osaka is slightly cheaper so the landlords make up for that by charging an exorbitant amount of shiki-kin, rei-kin etc ("key money" n all that stuff)...hence, living in osaka is actually MORE expensive for the first 1 or 2 years
27. ppl in tokyo wait for the traffic lights even tho there r no cars in sight; ppl in osaka cross roads malaysia-style 70% of the time

well thats it for now, ~~wud dearly like to make it 20 but~~ ran out of time n brainpower to think...neways, will b updating if i think of anyting 2 add later on heheh.

disclaimer: this is a completely biased, subjective view of the differences between 2 cities as observed by an extremely biased and prejudiced foreign student, hence they do not necessarily reflect actual conditions. ppl deciding to visit either city shud not use this as a guide or let it influence their preconceptions of either city, n obviously the municipal council of either city shud not sue me for inaccurate descriptions

(updated 3x)

argh......

2007-11-29T01:18:00.001+08:00

man, there sure r times when u feel like u've been living a life thats completely different frm wat u've been wanting..... when everything u did recently that comes to mind seem like mistakes and/or failures......

guess this is juz another phase. of adjustment, growing up, i dunno....

relly hv 2 start picking up the pieces of my life b4 they get buried too deeply in the mess im making for myself.....

i want to.....no, im meant to be here to make a difference....better start working towards that end instead of...getting sidetracked.....

im still here

2007-11-17T11:56:00.000+08:00

ok, so i havent blogged for a long time. will update u guys on my er....recent escapades shortly.....mebbe in a month or two haha.

meanwhile, a bunch of international students here in osaka uni (me included of course) went on a trip to Shiga prefecture, sponsored by the sch as part of the effort 2 promote understanding n appreciation of japan's historically n culturally significant tourism spots....bllablabla....so here r the pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/handairyugakusei/

p.s. the site was set up by a fren. pics taken by me r posted on the 'shao thing' album.....obviously im too lazy 2 hv set up a site like this by myself hahaha

wtf....serious dota addicts out there......

2007-09-25T17:34:00.000+08:00

now this is wat i call creativity in advertisement hehehe....

too bad those dat dun play dota will neva understand......

mai kuraki

2007-09-18T16:23:00.000+08:00

man.......会いたいぜ！！！！

juz a little note

2007-07-30T23:09:00.000+08:00

他に気づいてならなかったことは、ビデオの内容はほとんどアメリカにおけるものであることです。例えばTV　Newsでのニュースもアメリカで放送されたものです。しかもビデオで出る話はほとんどアメリカ英語のアクセントを使っているようです。確かに日本で教えられているのはアメリカ英語で、そのアクセントなどに早めになれたほうがいいのですが、ほかの「風」の英語も少し入れて聞かせておいたほうが全面的だと思います。全面的というのは、英語のいろいろな発音のしかたに馴染んで、聞き取れるようになることです。世界の国ごとに英語の発音には訛りが異なっているので、もっぱら正統アメリカのアクセントしか聞き取れないとほとんどの場合はその英語が使えなくて、聞き取れないのです。例としてヨーロッパの外国人に出会ったとき、ヨーロッパの英語の訛りはアメリカのとかなりの違いがあるから、困るかもしれません。

a temporary note juz in case the mail i sent to myself fucks up the encoding again...hehehe

so i cant sleep again....big deal

2007-07-12T01:56:00.000+08:00

damnit, ever since the 1 week of hols last week, ive been having trouble sleeping on time. 'on time' as in, before 3am (i do hv classes in da morning so hv 2 get up at 9.30 latest n catch d damned bus ya noe...!)

n 2 top it off da stupid weather's been nothing but rain these days.....n u guys out there, trust me when i say u wun wan 2 b in osaka during rainy summer days....its so fxxking humid dat even if d temp drops 1 or 2 degrees, u get all sweaty n sticky da moment u step out of d protective 'cone' of a fan......argh.....not 2 mention wet slippery ground n dat drowsy, lazy semi-nostalgic feeling dat pops up at d most inopportune times n takes away ur will 2 study.....

n 2 top things off, yesterday i committed a serious error in karate. punched my senior whack in the face. 4 those who duno karate sparring rules, face-punching is a no-no; tho it does detract from d 'realism' of sparring, thus raising a few questions about d effectiveness of sparring as training 4 real combat.... anyway i juz shot out my arm in a purely reflex action n apparently hit da senior hard enuf 2 give him a nose-bleed serious enuf 2 warrant a trip 2 da sch clinic. argh, i feel so foolish now.... hopefully its not gonna affect my future in da club.....

anyway. lately been wasting a lot of time. watching anime, watching movies, playing starcraft. getting a little sick of pushing myself so hard i guess. yeah, no 1 ever sed attending uni in japan after only 1 year of jap language edu is gonna b easy, esp when theres already such a big difference in standard between msia n japan, at least in d maths field. but when i came here i was determined 2 fight. now, sumting feels drained out of me....dun feel so motivated anymore sumhow......even tho i keep telling myself theres only 1 month left 2 go so i MUST push on....

blame it on d weather i guess. n according 2 forecast, still 1 whole week of fxxking rainy weather ahead. duno y i'd always been so sensitive 2 d weather anyway. n yeah, i wasnt affected by rain during spring, autumn or winter. guess its becuz only rain in summer gives d same kind of gloomy oppressive feeling dat rain used 2 give me back in msia.

neways. nothing of particular interest but....1 of d movies i watched recently was 'love actually'. its actually quite old n ive had quite a few recommendations 2 watch it b4, tho i only recently acquired it (thru d 'usual' malaysian way of course :P). u guys noe how i hate romantic movies after all. anyway it was my 1st time watching it (i neva watch movies twice 4 dat matter) n yet it was oddly tinged wif...hazy nostalgia. made me think of stuff dat happened long ago. n i cant help but marvel at d way time passes n ppl change, yet d past remains so firmly anchored in memories......

damn, anyway, note 2 self: avoid romantic stories like the plague. at best they're a waste of time n at worse they're demoralizing n sets u thinking bout stuff dat dun hv relevance anymore. n u cant hv dat when u'r trying so hard 2 live in d present.

two farmers

2007-06-26T00:24:00.000+08:00

lately i've been worried by a certain change. after living in an environment where u'r surrounded by japanese-speaking ppl all day, having to speak, write, LIVE in japanese, i've found that my ability in other languages hv degraded to the point of being physical. yesh, im actually losing the ability to speak clearly in english n chinese...!

not saying dat i was ever a bestowed wif crsytal clear speech, but im sure no 1 ever had trouble understanding me unless i was spouting gaming jargon. nowadays, my speech is so seriously slurred n full of mangled syllables dat sumtimes i pause n repeat myself juz 2 assure myself dat i can actually pronounce those syllables right. n sumtimes indeed i cant!

its all the fault of the pronounciation structure of the japanese language. they hv so few syllables dat if u speak almost exclusively japanese for days on end, muscles used in pronounciation of other sounds will eventually deteriorate. at least, thats my hypothesis (Shao Thing's Rule)

well anyway, gotta sleep soon. so, the mean topic of the post as follows:

2 farmers, Ah Seng n Ah Beng. Ah Seng is hardworking, Ah Beng is seen by some as a slacker. Ah Seng works hard on his plot of land, consistently watering the crops, weeding, taking care of his crops from morning till night. however, the crops seem sickly n do not flourish as expected, despite Ah Seng's best efforts. meanwhile Ah Beng doesnt do anything wif his plot of land. then one day, Ah Seng gets fed up wif all the hard work and abandons his crops. Ah Beng, seeing an opportunity, comes in n takes over the plot of land. within a few weeks, the crops matured n Ah Beng had a good harvest, despite only taking care of the crops for a few weeks compared to Ah Seng's months of sweat n toil.

now, a smart aleck wans 2 noe, does Ah Seng or Ah Beng deserve the harvest? Ah Seng DID put in tons of hard work, but gave up the crops in the end (understandably he wudnt b too happy if he found out dat Ah Beng took his harvest tho). Ah Beng was lazy n slacked off on his own crops but it was his intervention that prevented the crops from dying after Ah Seng abandoned them. n perhaps he had better agricultural talent as he managed 2 achieve good harvest in a short period.

oh, one last thing: apparently the crops kenot b 'split equally' or indeed, split in any way. they must b ALL harvested by one person only.

now, its a lame metaphor for sum stuff (read: drama) dats been going on here in japan, but im not d one who came up wif this story/riddle, n im not endorsing it or anything. juz feel like hearing d opinions of d masses....heheh. opinions, comments, questions etc welcome (adds sum life 2 my blog too :P )

customer service in japan

2007-06-16T20:54:00.001+08:00

is extremely good. as some of u might hv heard, i was quite pissed off at my camera a few months back becuz of sum dirt that has sumhow made its way into the lens (no amount of blowing wud remove it). so for a while (quite a long while in relation to the period of time since i bought it) i had speckles showing up on the screen whenever i zoomed in wif my cam.

to cut a long story short i finally decided i had enuf of it. i mean com'on, i paid 38000 yen for this camera (it was top of the line when i got it), n i was taking inferior pictures....no, not juz inferior, totally SPOILT pictures....cuz of the disgusting black splotches that faithfully popped up whenever i used optical magnification. so i took it to the Canon Service Center in umeda (thats the osaka equivalent of shinjuku btw) a few weeks back (i was in umeda attending a dinner at which our prime minister...yeah, the big Pak Lah! was present...hehe...actually he held that function for all of us malaysian students in the kansai region of japan).

(desire to blog fades off....)

so i left it at the service center....din dare 2 ask how much it wud cost, although it was still within the 1-year warranty period.....n today went there again 2 pick up the camera, n hey presto! good as new. most importantly, the repairs din cost me A SINGLE YEN! well, considering i had to travel to n fro by train, it cost me about 500 yen....way less than the repair shud! according to the repair description, they actually replaced the entire optical unit, which wud explain y the scratches on the outer lens i made when attempting to fix the problem myself were absent. btw, it turned out that there was nothing wrong wif the lenses, but rather the dirt got itself stuck to the CCD unit inside the camera.

funny thing was, such repairs were explicitly stated as NOT being covered by warranty as they involve (usually) carelessness on the customer's part.

duno if this is related or not, but i remember dat even shortly after i got the cam, it was already showing odd splotches whenever i took pictures of distant objects at night wif flash. as in, the flash doesnt quite reach the object so its not illuminated, but instead the dirt on the lens/ccd shows up bright as day. juz a random thought, move on.

anyway, kudos to canon customer service, n in fact customer service in japan in general. malaysia has lots to catch up in this regard....

another random sketch

2007-06-15T20:59:00.000+08:00

tada......computer art at its finest

2007-06-14T21:12:00.000+08:00

created wif: mspaint, logitech g5 gaming mouse n lots of talent ;-)
suggest a title, any1?

Spell: Resurrection

2007-05-23T20:35:00.000+08:00

2000 mana and 40000 gold later.......i managed to get my hero - no, blog - resurrected at last!

rejoice ye ppl, ravenlord's back to pwn, uh, blog! now, onwards to the world tree!

shao thing hates kids

2007-05-20T11:39:00.000+08:00

damned kids!

last night i went to a party n took two shots of vodka with sprite.....turns out dat was enuf to temporarily mess up my system, even tho i managed to cycle home in one piece. reached home at 1.30, by the time i fell asleep it was over 3.30am......duno how time juz flies when u'r sleepy n yet not willing to sleep -.-

note to self: if tired, dun go browsing wikipedia for useless information such as the differences between a machinegun n a minigun. juz SLEEP! uni is no place to wake up tired n sleepy.

n this morning, the kids frm neighbouring houses HAD to come out n play n scream n such!!! darn it, kids r d same d world over, whether msia or japan. i JUZ DETEST KIDS.

so i was woken up at 10, one hr before my designated wake-up time (by careful analysis of past experiences, ive determined dat the optimal sleep-duration is 7 1/2 hrs). by the time i managed to fall asleep again (after shutting the window n cutting off my supply of fresh air) it was 10.30. consequently i woke at 11.30, n wif enough of the so-called 'sleep inertia' dat i totally cant remember anything i was thinking juz a while ago. fark.

(INFO-SCIENCE: when a person's normal sleep pattern is interrupted and he is made to wake, a phenomenon known as sleep inertia manifests in which a person may be physically wide awake n alert, hence being unable to go back to sleep, but his mind is in a total state of unreadiness and he has difficulty focusing, recalling or utilizing short-term memory, among other temporary mental disorders)

all becuz of the kids! n probably in part to the alcohol i consumed last night, however.

on a side note, the management at osaka university of international studies shud really fix that stupid old clavinova in their lounge. the pedals WONT WORK!

music? martial arts?

2007-05-06T15:41:00.000+08:00

something occurred to me today.

in learning to play a musical instrument, for example piano, there are two ways to go about it. the first is to learn it the 'classical' way, as i hv done - learn everything from the ground up, spending years building a solid 'foundation' while slowly improving one's skills. thats the traditional way of learning.

the other way is to learn the 'popular music' way. in a much shorter amount of time, one learns only the essentials needed to listen to or read popular music n play it on the keyboard. by focusing on the 'useful' things, in this case the ability to play music that is pleasing to the ears, n omitting everything else that r not directly required for playing popular music, such as musical theory n overly technical finger exercises, one dramatically shortens the time it takes to 'achieve' a certain level of piano-playing skill.

in my case, i learned to play the piano the 'classical way'. no complaints about it....while i cant exactly label myself a 'pro', im at least able to play moderately difficult pieces quite satisfactorily, n hv even tried my hand at some difficult pieces with some level of success. but i noe of ppl who, despite never formally learned piano the classical way, r able to play popular music quite impressively. thus proving that we do not necessarily

so why did i suddenly bring up this topic? actually, this post is not about music at all. its about martial arts.

ive started learning martial arts at too old an age. as such, i'll never be able to hv 'martial arts flowing thru my limbs' the same way piano works for me....no matter how i train from now on, martial arts will never be a 'part' of me the same way music is. not to mention time and energy contraints that increase as a person grows older and finds himself loaded with more and more academic responsibilities, inevitably followed by even greater work responsibilities. which makes achieving a high level of martial arts proficiency thru the 'classical way' impossible.

however, as in the world of music, there r faster ways to learn martial arts. one can take only the bare 'essentials' of combat n focus on those. basic, efficient n effective techniques, physical fitness. these r obtainable in a shorter period of time than the complicated, 'deep' philosophies of traditional martial arts. n while it can be argued that the deep foundations laid down by years of repetitive practice of traditional arts can give an edge in certain ways, learning systematically saves time n allows late-starters to catch up to a limited extent i guess....

so, onwards to glory!!

disclaimer: please do not read if you are allergic to nonsense.

not quite

2007-04-17T23:41:00.000+08:00

okay, i suppose i'll put one more post here b4 i go. sumhow sumting inside is screaming at me to at least go thru the past year n put up some stuff so that someday i can look back at my first year in japan n smile in reminiscence. n ive got lots of photos that, notwithstanding having cost great effort in their taking, have not been looked thru even by myself! (to future self: probably no one's ever gonna read this post, well no one i noe anyway, but still, feels good to put down my thoughts on paper. even if the paper is electronic...heheh)

well anyway, this 'one more post' is not THIS post, cuz theres no time for it tonight. heck im already 45 mins past my self-fixed bedtime.

n shit, has my english degraded to the level of fish. or shit. or watever.

the End

2007-01-29T22:37:00.000+08:00

well, i suppose u all saw it coming. i was toying with the idea for a long time but juz cudnt put my foot down n do it. anyway, its over. this blog i mean.

there had been good times, i suppose, but the maintaining of a blog juz weighs a little too much on my mind. i mean, everytime i encounter something blog-worthy, i feel obliged to blog about it, but other things get in the way (blame it on my laziness if u will...), n i almost always end up blogging about last month's events, or even further back.

this has been going on too long n reading my last few entries, i realise this can hardly be called a blog anymore. its no longer serving its purpose of informing anyone who might be interest about wats happening here in my life, n instead has 'forced obligation' n 'false resposibility' practically printed between the dreary, monotonous, vague lines.

i had been considering starting over, but if i do so, it wun be wif this address anymore i guess. mebbe i'll do as dan does...2 blogs, one for photos n coverage of events, n another to write my rubbish on. we'll see...

anyhow, its been a while! looking at the early pages i find memories of who i was a few years back, n man hv i changed! for the better i hope. THAT is wat a blog is for...THAT is why i created this blog in the 1st place. n thats what its ceased to be. before it rots anymore with pages filled wif meaningless narrations, i should say sayonara.

いてくれて、ありがとう

p.s. oh nevermind, theres too many things to add should i begin...so i'd rather not

p.s.s. juz cant resist doing this, last homage to my old posts

wtf...im still here...haha

2006-12-16T16:31:00.000+08:00

from the pen of a bored foreign student in japan...

lets see. the last post was 11 november, over a month ago. since then, exams hv came n went, n life has become a boring, meaningless mess. now im juz counting the days till i go home. sure, its been 2 weeks since exams ended, but sumhow the days juz slipped by without me doing a single thing that has any significance. im talking major frustration here. actually, i dun even noe wat im crapping about. except dat im damn bored, most of my frens hv either gone home or going out wif other ppl, n the guy i called to play warcraft 3 wif is talking on the phone wif his family. sucks....

anyway, a few updates on my life. the day immediately after exams, i went to Tama Zoo wif the ppl frm biology class...even tho im a physics student here. kinda reminiscent of the f6 days when me n seng chee wud get out of class to attend bio lectures...hehe. got a few pics from that trip. the focus of the zoo trip was sum sort of chimpanzee observation, due to the bio sensei happening to know a keeper at the chimps' compound.

some time after that there was a trip to ueno, a part of the central, 'real' (read: busy, crowded, stuffy even in winter) tokyo. at 1st wasnt planning 2 go, but sumhow got myself dragged along...n was glad i did, cuz at least we did sumting worthwhile, visiting an art museum (has anyone heard of Pira b4? sum french or italian guy, i forgot...wif a seriously deranged mind dat is reflected in the slightly disturbing pandemonia of his drawings) plus the Ueno National Science Museum, an extremely interesting place wif 6 floors full of skeletons, presesrved animals, videos, hands-on tech gadgets, u name it...all for juz 500 yen entrance fee! anyway, i'll put up d pics i took there, sumtime...next week. hehe.

speaking of pics, im proud 2 announce dat i got myself a new camera! a Canon IXY 900 IS to be exact, arguably canon's most advanced ultracompact digicam at the moment. bought it from the same online shop from which i got my slightly disappointing Logitech VX Revolution mouse. this time they were extremely prompt in service..i ordered n paid on tuesday n received it on thursday, incidentally the day exams 'ended'. tho at dat time i was kinda pissed off at myself for messing up my maths paper, so i received my camera wif slightly mixed feelings. its hard not too feel kinda empty when u get urself a 'reward' for sumting u din do well...

anyway, the camera turned out excellent in most cases since i started to use it...n unlike my computer n mouse, both china-made, this camera is 100% 日本製! so i can probably expect more reliability n durability from it in the future...hehe. as ive sed earlier, i'll post the pics sometime later when im feeling like it...nothing turns u off blogging more than the thought of uploading photos, anyway....

so anyway, this week was kinda bz cuz of discussion sessions wif the teachers to determine which university we can apply to...plus doing the actual applications n stuff, which actually doesnt take much time by itself; but ppl like me hv a habit of putting off important jobs until the last moment, then getting pek chek...for those who wan 2 noe, i applied for university of tokyo wif sum misgivings, n put university of osaka as my second choice...tho i probably stand a better chance of getting osaka cuz theres this damn vietnamese who's trying to get into tokyo uni too, n u noe how crazy vietnamese r when it comes to studying...

this week, too, a bunch of us went to a nearby park for a picnic n 'maple viewing', but unfortunately most of the maple leaves had already dropped off so we din get to see the lush red carpets on the trees that we've been expecting. oh well, there's still next year. i must say tho, autumn is probably the best time of the year n it sucked that we were all bz preparing for exams n din get to explore around a bit more...

this morning slept at 4am, woke at 5am to send a fren off, then slept again frm 7.30 to 2pm. so now im feeling really weird. add dat to a neck ache i got frm overexercising at the gym yesterday n u've got a seriously messed up guy that is me. n i hv 2 do sumting bout the stockpile of food in my fridge which i hv 2 clear out b4 i go home...plus buy souvenirs n stuff...haih...looks like life isnt that empty after all, but its still shitty....

ah, last but not least, yesterday there was a party n i got myself drunk on 2 glasses of beer plus 3 of wine...hehe...then tried to do sum breakdancing too...chin siao...but good thing was i got to show off my piano playing, plus there was a ton of food im usually too kiamsiap to eat, AND there was a ton of gals frm other programmes....tho i din get 2 talk to any...:)

anyway, enuf for now. time to kick my fren's ass in wc3

the journey of a thousand miles.....begins wif a single click

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

there is nothing more fun than playing doom 3 on a 17-inch-screen laptop wif lights out n the room bathed in red from the comp's LEDs...hehehe...

ok so....how shud i start....i 1st started having this urge 2 get a comp earlier than planned (original plan was 2 get a comp after d end-of-term exam) sumtime around beginning of september. during d whole of december d library was practically closed (open till 5pm on weekdays only...we hv classes till 2.40 at the earliest) so i was almost cut off frm d online world...n other functions dat required a comp, such as searching for song lyrics, preparing presentations for speaking class etc, were oso affected.

so i started by checking out dell's comps. now, as many of u noe, i've been saving money like a miser ever since i got here in order 2 get a REALLY good comp when d time comes. so i immediately ruled out inspiron laptops in favour of the xps line. but the problem was...d only 'possible' models were the miniscule 12-incher M1210 n the huge 17-incher M1710 (sizes as compared to the notebook 'standard', 14 inches). initially, sum craze for 'the ultimate mobility' took hold of me n i even made an order for a suped-up M1210 online thru dell's website (wif big savings possible due to usage of online coupons n everything)...

a few days after making the order, even going as far as setting up a bank account so i can pay for the order by bank transfer, i changed my mind. n it was sudden too...i took coffee at nite 2 'help wif my studies' n ended up sleepless, n i tossed n turned for d better part of a night thinking how d hell i was supposed 2 play games or even chat onling comfortably on a 12-inch screen for the next 2 years or so. the next day i juz decided to scrap the idea of getting the M1210, even tho there was a great online deal on at dat time.

it shud b noted dat another reason i decided against the M1210 was becuz of its graphics card, a mere GeForce 7400 which wud not b capable of playing nowadays' games at acceptable settings anyway.

so i juz left the order there unpaid for n hoped dat dell wud eventually cancel it automatically :P now i noe dat dats not a good thing 2 do, but when u cant understand wats written on half d website n dun even noe the proper format for sending an email in japanese, u shud b at least partially justified 4 doing such a thing. as i was :P right???

anyway....next choice....i took to looking at a bunch of japanese computer brands. now, originally i decided early on dat i wud NOT get a japanese brand comp cuz of their relatively higher price for the same specs (compared to, say, dell), plus d fact dat they were generally built wif a different focus in mind (ie aesthetics - sleek, colourful designs dat sumhow exuded feminity; capabilities focused on multimedia functions eg tv-viewing, rather than raw performance) from wat i wanted as a gamer. but anyway, i picked out wat seemd 2 b d only good choice among toshiba, sony, NEC n fujitsu....the sony vaio type F, a 15.4 incher wif a geforce 7600.

then i decided the price was simply too high for its specs. i mean, wtf, sony charges 50000 yen to upgrade from 1 GB of ram to 2 GB?? n there was no 2.0GHz processor available, n d upgrade from 1.83GHz to 2.16GHz costs 60000 yen. talk bout cutting throats. so despite having spent hours poring thru brochures n doing online research, i decided to scrap the idea of buying a vaio after all. heh.

so then i came across this company in the US selling laptops wif supposedly fine-tuned performance n simply out-of-this-world designs...alienware. now, alienware was once (n still is, to a limited degree) a 'boutique' computer vendor....they sell highly customizable computers, claim to conduct strict benchmarking n performance tuning on those comps, n charge a relatively high price for these comps. but wat really attracted me 2 alienware was 1) the design n 2) the fact dat a guy here frm mexico who noes computers sed dat its good. n the real selling point was dat despite being 'boutique' n taking into account shipping costs n everything, it will still arrive at my doorstep half a grand ringgit cheaper (for roughly d same specs) as the sony vaio i had been considering. dat tells sumting about d relative prices of things in US n japan eh.

so after working out all the logistics (i wud hv it sent 2 my sis, n hv her send it to me), i placed an online order for a 15.4 inch alienware area-51 M5550, a relly cool piece of work despite being among alienware's 'lower midrange' laptops. reason was dat alienware makes comps geared for gaming, which generally indicates a 17incher wif geforce 7800/7900-class graphics.

then overnight i changed my mind again. until then i had checked up intensively on d alienware M5550 online, n while i discovered certain disconcerting facts about d M5550 frm reviews, i sumhow overlooked them in d zeal 2 get a 'boutique comp, shipped all the way frm US, n not available in japan!'. but then sumhow it struck me dat if sumting bad happens 2 d comp, i wud b stuck wif a broken laptop thousands of miles away frm d nearest alienare service center. in other words, lack of obtainable tech support here in japan = bad thing. n several comments i read online about heat problems (which i guess contributes to system wear) related to the m5550 settled the matter. i din wan a comp wif a burnt up 3d card n no way to replace it.

up till then, i did not even consider 17 inch comps becuz they were, in my own words, 'humongous'. of course they wud not b as light n mobile as, say, yst's 14 inch toshiba. but then the question was raised: y d heck wud i care so much about mobility over performance when i probably wun b moving it about more than once a month? n a laptop is a laptop...it'll b infinitely easier to transport to, say, the common room or even the library compared to a desktop anyway, regardless of size. lastly, only 17 inchers carry serious 3d gaming power. n so it finally dawned on me dat, as a self-admitted gaming addict, 17 inches is the way to go. (by the way, in case sum wacko out there is relating all this talk of inches to another guy-thing also measured in inches, GET OUT U STINKIN PERV)

n the choice for a 17 inch was simple. among all the reviews i read online, only one comp, the 17-inch dell xps M1710, had stood out as being virtually flawless - in performance AND aesthetics (tho of a different kind frm d jap comps). n d price, while high, was by no means exhorbitant, given the performance i wud b buying. so within 2 days i had placed my order online n paid for it via bank transfer.

so now, roughly 10 days after receiving my new baby, im now typing this acount on him/her/it at nearly 2am in d morning. sumbody help me, im addicted again.

btw, any suggestions on resolving the him/her/it question? ie which shud it be?

good news everybody!

2006-10-24T19:56:00.000+08:00

well, not really. juz for those noisy buggers out there who had been verbally pummelling me into blogging, especially in the photo-posting department. i juz uploaded a slew of pics frm no less than 5 events (all during or slightly before/after summer holidays) onto my multiply site. btw, the url is http://shaothing.multiply.com

now b4 those buggers start complaining dat i havent labelled d pics, havent arranged them according to date, blahblahblah, let me remind u dat i m operating on severely limited library hours during which, n ONLY during which, i can do any sort of computer-related stuff. so shaddap. ;P

juz off the top of my mind, lately ive been playing tekken. specifically tekken tag tournament n tekken 5.

ah, n i juz ordered a laptop today. AND PAID FOR IT....which means no more changing my mind. i'll provide more detailed information on it when it arrives (sadly, in 2 weeks' time minimum). n theres the rather amusing story of my search for 'the perfect laptop' which preluded this purchase :P

anyway, gotta go now, library closing liao. btw theam, teach me how to overclock a GeForce 7900GS....

........

2006-10-21T14:07:00.000+08:00

does anyone noe dat jay chou has a new album titled 'still fantasy'? actually i knew bout d album sum weeks back but juz managed 2 find time 2 download it. also managed 2 find time 2 post a blog entry, as u can see...

anyway, i've decided to open a multiply account n use it for posting up pictures. makes things much more convenient than posting them here....the sheer horror of having to sort thru my photos, then uploading them one by one is the reason y my blog has been empty for so long.....so from now on i'll juz use this page to talk crap n mebbe write the occasional poem like dan is doing :P

the last time i posted an actual entry was probably around the beginning of august, ie summer holidays. reason was dat during summer hols the library was closed most of d time so i din hv d opportunity to blog about my summer exploits. after dat sch restarted but for the whole of sept d library was open until 5pm only. hence, my blog being empty for the past month too. then this month there was exams. so basically i m well justified in being away for so long.

anyway, there was a school trip to matsumoto castle around the end of last month (or did i blog about it already?) basically juz a 2 day 1 night affair, but loads of fun esp since it meant 2 days of sch holidays :P im sure yst blogged about it (n oso about the videos taken there) so y dun u head over to his blog for a more colourful account of the trip :P

well, nothing much else 2 talk about for the moment....summer's over, winter's coming so its now cool n nice most of the time, tho i cud do wif a few more hrs of sunshine (it gets dark at 5pm now). i'll b er...'trying' to work harder at my studies for the next 1 n a half months in preparation for the big year end exam...so dun expect too many posts from me. when i hv more time i'll put up pics at my multiply site tho (its currently empty so i wun link to it yet).

haih, for some reason blogging is starting 2 b a real PIA. n yet it somehow feels like something of a duty or responsibility so i cant stay away from my blog without feeling guilty....

anyway, later guys

argh

2006-10-07T15:05:00.000+08:00

ok guys, i SWEAR i was gona post up something today...but i juz got back from an outing wif my japanese host mother.....n now i hv 2 settle some bank stuff 4 my dad...so u'll hv 2 wait!....I AM NOT GIVING UP ON THIS BLOG!!!

Leave of Absence

2006-09-01T15:18:00.000+08:00

well guys, i had a really great summer holidays....went lots of places did (quite) a lot of things n such...but unfortunately due to er...'time constraints' i was unable 2 blog bout the happenings. but rest assured, i'll get around to it soon! in the meanwhile the library's closed for 2 weeks starting next monday, so i'll b gone for a while.

anyway in short, i've gone to an english summer camp in nasu where i had my wits tortured by a bunch of retarded 14-year old kids, who also gave me a nickname that everyone in the dorm now noes about; a guitar 'camp' (gasshuku, meaning 'live-together', in japanese...) in akita-ken which is one of the most beautiful places i've seen, also getting to know quite a few new friends there; and a homestay programme in karumai-cho of iwate-ken, which is the neighbouring prefecture of akita-ken (both far to the north, juz short of hokkaido....approx. 8 hrs' bus ride), also a beautiful place, where i slept at 10.30 n woke at 6.30 each day, n played park golf n acted in a play; n oso played dota after a VERY long time! but details will hv 2 wait. anyway, signing off!

p.s. i've been receiving disturbing reports of my msn account signing in at times when i cudnt possibly hv access to a computer. so if u c me on9 late at nite or sumting, its prob not me. but juz send a msg 2 b sure :P

p.s.s. this post is basically juz 2 let ppl noe i'm not giving up on my blog yet, unlike many of the ppl out there...heheh...strive to the end!

still alive

2006-08-18T14:56:00.000+08:00

had lots of fun these past 2 weeks, but unfortunately computer access was limited for certain reasons which i will not go into detail about now....n going to homestay tonite! so, bye for another 10 days or so!

postponed again

2006-08-01T14:56:00.000+08:00

i swear i was going to post sumting today, mebbe about the crazy n wacky english summer camp i juz came back from (actually, i came back last thursday but...oh nevermind...) but then this guy frm peru wanted me 2 show him how 2 play dota n of course i cant give up the chance to corrupt another soul, can i?

so i'm gonna post tml! n guys, make sure u comment this time or i'll go on permanent blog strike. hehehe....

juz an interesting tidbit of info: most of u noe the song Dragonstea Din Tei rite? the 'mai ya heeee, mai ya haaaaa, mai ya hoooo, mai ya ahh ahh...' song....well, it turned out dat one of the other 'captains' (dats wat we 'paid participants at the camp were called) is the fren of the song's artiste. cool eh.

anyway ciao, gona play dota

post exam...pre camp

2006-07-24T12:20:00.000+08:00

this afternoon i'll b leaving for the english summer camp so i tot i'd juz post a few random thoughts here despite the fact dat probably no one comes here anymore judging frm the number of comments on the last post >(

anyway, exams' ended last wednesday n we did sum crazy things since then. 1stly i've been actively expanding the number of dota players around here after discovering dat we can play dota on the library computers, thus living up to my title of The Corruptor ;P

also, dat nite, we went on an expedition to.......(drum rolls).....Tama Reien! ok...i better explain a little here....'reien' means cemetery in japanese, n this tama reien, which is juz 15 minutes' biking distance away, is one of the biggest in japan. or so i've heard. me n yst were taking a 'loooong walk' back to the dorm the week b4 dat n ended up on the far side of it n it took us mebbe an hr to circumnavigate it. since we failed to go thru it that time due to yst chickening out, we gathered more ppl n hence this expedition last wednesday...n it was spooky alright....but it was damn cool :P in fact we're planning another trip to go ALL the way thru the cemetery next time...

btw, about the long walk thing, yst n me took a train to sum place duno how many km away to take sum pictures of sum famous park...n then walked for 3.5 hrs all the way back...cuz we were looking for a place to eat at first n there wasnt any, n after we found one n ate, we walked most of the way back while looking for a train station to take us home. funny eh.

hmm...wat else...

last thursday me n yst went to shinjuku n bought a porn dvd to giv to a fren as a bday present. man, it was expensive. but the joke was worth it lah ;P n in shinjuku we went to an indian restaurant n ate stuff dat was ALMOST like penang mamak...of course, for about 5 times the price...

n last nite there was this hanabi (fireworks) display....it was cool but the pics i took din turn out too well cuz my camera was sucky...hv 2 get a better one soon....anyway, refer to yst's blog for the pics....

well, gotta prepare for the camp liao, signing off...

here they come!

2006-07-13T18:42:00.000+08:00

tml...exams begin! spring term-end exams, to be exact.

so wats a guy to do?

play SOLDAT, for one thing!

to save me from the boredom of exams (due to the fact that everyone's holed up in their rooms studying kanji, which WE learned 10 years ago ;P which resulting in there being no one to go shopping with), ive been playing this game for the last week or so. pretty simple 2D game, but fun n addictive! or mebbe its juz desperation due to being unable 2 play dota, i duno....but anyway check it out guys!

btw, yup, lately ive been going shopping a lot. no need for those looks of horror. i go becuz theres nothing else to do around here n i need a constant supply of fresh food for the kitchen. saving up for....stuff, u see...so i cook every day instead of eating out.....it makes a huge difference in ur finances here in japan....

well anyway, tml's exam, as i was saying. but the weather's so damn hot its near impossible to study, n anyway i THINK im pretty safe liao...compared to back in penang, theres a lot less study pressure here, at least for the time being....

anyway, hv 2 play a little soldat to loosen up! mata ne!

helllooo

2006-07-01T15:19:00.000+08:00

it appears that either no one's been visiting my blog lately, or ppl r growing a litle stingy wif comments. either way, as rentai did before, i demand comments. minimum of 10 on my pictures post before i post anything else.

and ppl in penang shud play dawn of war. new expansion coming out...necrons n tau! tho i wan tyranids...

juz a few random updates cuz im feeling rather shitty at the moment due to the cloudy weather outside.

- (1 month ago) bought a pair of earphones....model is N.U.D.E. ex. cool eh? they're the stick-in-the-ear-canal earbud type.
- (1.5 months ago) can now cycle without using my hands! tho turning is still a problem. n it contributed to a minor crash about a month back, which cost me 3500 yen in repairs. f_cking bike...
- got a summer 'job'! as a camp counsellor or sumting liddat...for an english-speaking camp for junior high sch students. how old is junior high anyway? :P

ok im out of ideas. bye.

THEY CALL IT TAG!!!

2006-06-26T20:31:00.000+08:00

-The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points about his/her perfect lover.
-Have to mention the gender of his/her perfect lover.
-Tag eight other victims to join this game and leave a comment on their blog.
-If you are tagged the second time.There is NO need to do this again.
-Lastly, most importantly, HAVE FUN DOING IT!! ^^

gender: female AND younger than/same age as me (sorry ghee n rentai...)

1. hv a voice like jin sha (kym)
2. cute! but not in the...er....'affected' sort of way (read: natural)
3. has a REAL hobby/interest as opposed to 'hanging out, chatting wif frens, etc...'
4. someone that i can trust, can share secrets with him/her (<- taken from caryn's)...AND....b patient enuf 2 listen to my whining cuz i get relly tongue-tied n incoherrent when trying to express certain stuff, like wat i'm doing here actually, and u noe, u'r wasting ur time reading this so y not move on to the next point...
5. must b rich?? neh!! BUT, must not b AFTER my money hehe (which i dun hv much of, anyway...)
6. likes music
7. likes, or at least tries to understand, 'guy' entertainment eg martial arts, cursing each other, n dota (does not include porn tho :P)
8. makes me proud? (sounds egoistic rite)

ok now for my victims......

1. lydia (i noe u'r reading this!)
2. dan
3. ghee
4. theam (this gonna b interesting)
5. sam (this too! ;P)
6. xinch
7. june..er...either one....
8. rentai (hmm....hope its not too...shocking...)

at last...some pictures

2006-06-21T18:34:00.000+08:00

at long last, the ravenlord has gotten down to posting up some pictures. so below is a careful selection of pics taken during the past mt fuji hike (well, its the only interesting thing worth taking pictures of anyway). note: since my camera's battery died years ago, all these were taken by my frens. so dun complain if the quality's bad or anything.

btw, dun stop commenting on the last post cuz i wanna break dan's record for no. of comments per post! :P

ok 1stly this is mt fuji, end of story. actually, if u zoom in, u can see a few dots that r me n sum other students. makes the whole scene, well, grander. kua...

there r platforms like this built all over the face of the mountain (at least, the lower part, where we hiked along...). supposedly for stopping landslides but oso gives a great view. n of course there r the suicidals....this IS japan after all....

group foto wif sum ppl....represented here r the nationalities of indonesia, phillipines, brunei, macau, south korea, laos, columbia n lithuania. im not gona mention names here cuz its pointless n u noe it. or mebbe u dun. anyway...

another group foto. this time theres a guy from cambodia (left-most) n a gal from sri lanka (the half hidden one). n the ravenlord was trying to do sumting funny wif his own hp camera but it din turn out well...n that crazy guy who looks like he's gonna rape the gals in front is Bo (full name, Tansri Wibowo....no kiddin!) from indonesia.

heres the rapist Bo-san again. a bit further back is our favourite ravenlord. this is a dried up riverbed btw....or mebbe lava used to flow here. i duno...

the guy in black jacket is oso from indonesia. the guy in the middle is doing sumtin interesting wif his favourite finger...(btw isnt it cool...the riverbed juz stretches up all the way to the top of the mountain...as far as we can see....)

this is Bo, the ravenlord, n the guy from cambodia whose name is Vitou. n if he tries to look any cooler i'm gonna push him off.

ah, my favourite (2nd favourite actually) pose! the human koala!

i call this...er....Koala Waiting In Ambush....

2 years of taekwondo doesnt go to waste, even in japan where its all karate....

group foto of ALL the students..taken at the 'summit'...which was not relly it, but the highest we got to b4 turning tail. guys, comment on the gals n tell us if we're lucky. :P

- edit: notice the rock in my hand. was gonna club sum1 at random over the head, but dun get to do it :(

candid shot (of dunno wat, by dunno who). i picked this to post up cuz it shows a gal rubbing her soles, a guy playing wif himself n another guy taking off his pants. all unwittingly captured in one masterpiece.

finally...at the foot of the mountain, near the entrance of the ice caves (where there is real natural ice). another group foto. move along, nothing interesting. guys, dun forget to comment tho.

well, i guess that conludes today's photo presentation. nite all!
(ps. these pics r not taken in the order posted. duno y i botherd 2 mention this but well...)

btw im thinking of introducing a few japanese words wif each of my post in the future, so u guys can belajar sambil membaca/melihat. it'll give me a bit more to blog about besides the miserable few intersting things happening lately too. anyone in favour of it, raise ur hands.

no time 2 blog

2006-06-10T15:26:00.000+08:00

library is closing...juz wanna do my duty 4 d week so here it is :P

nothing much's been happening lately...except dat the maths classes r deadly dull....n last sunday i went to an interview for a summer camp job...n iv been attending 2 karate classes a week so dan better cover his ass when i get back end of the year. oh, n i went 2 university of tokyo last last sunday (did i already blog about dat??) but it was dull.

anyway, cya guys!

Raptor's Untitled Blog

2006-06-02T18:38:00.000+08:00

man...mount fuji was subarashi (= great, wonderful).....unfortunately dun hv time 2 blog bout it now cuz the library's closing early tonite 4 sum reason....

also our rooms got fogged today while we were outside....to kill cockroaches, u see.....

my list of dota acquaintances here grew longer again today...got 2 noe dat 2 more of my coursemates r players....i think there's already enuf for a 4v4 at least...if all of us hv computers...

neway, back tml!

what ive been up to

2006-06-01T19:11:00.000+08:00

been quite a while since my last post eh? but i always say that. blogs r like girls, burdensome yet indispensable. haha, juz kiddin....

anyway, the 1st exam came n went last week....there was only 1 subject (japanese language) tho, n i got 98.5% for it....in fact i din actually study apart from a bit of last minute look-thru....im not a genius tho, its juz dat knowing chinese helps tremendously wif learning japanese...esp since the teaching speed isnt very fast anyway....

to take sum of the free time off my hands, i joined the sch karate club n a classical guitar class....the karate club is juz as its name suggests, a club....there's usually no instructor so the senpai (seniors) teach newbies like me...n man its hard 2 adapt 2 karate after two years in taekwondo...hv 2 relearn the stances, movement n everything from ground up.....

lately my ability to write chinese characters hv degraded to a horrifying extent....some of the words ive forgotten r so simple dat it seems impossible i cud hv forgotten them...haih, i suppose dat comes of not writing them for the past 2+ years....luckily i can still recognise the words so i hv an edge in learning japanese kanji.....

speaking of memories, lately iv been having 'lapses' into the past, especially when im in class. sumtimes i'd settle down into my seat n sort of think dat im back in my old classroom back home, then i'd juz look up from my book n wonder how in the world m i in a country thousands of miles away, in the same class as ppl from all over the world. theres sum sort of 'shock' involved, u noe. but dun worry, its not homesickness, more of 'surprise' or sumting nia....

last but not least, visited fuchu city planatarium the sunday b4 last, n university of tokyo last sunday. visit yst's blog for details..hehe...

ah well, did my duty to the blog...will b going on a trip 2 mt fuji tml....hope its gonna b fun!

ja mata guys!

boooring

2006-05-20T14:47:00.000+08:00

nothing much 2 blog about, but there was a bazaar on the campus last week n i bought these for 100 yen (along wif other stuff).

cool eh? the 2-pronged thing is for handling sashimi (exactly how, i dunno)...the others....well, i see a throwing knife, a longer assassin's blade n the biggest one is for fighting wif, i guess. kiddin :P

the long-awaited update

2006-05-13T11:11:00.000+08:00

lately i've grown sorta lazy....esp when i sit down to blog....so i'll try 2 keep this short...paiseh 2 all my fans out there lah (kiddin :P)

anyway, for those who dunno, japan's Golden Week is a week in which several national holidays fall consecutively...so most businesses n schools take the whole week off n there r lotsa celebrations n festivals n duno wat else. so last week was golden week n we had 5 days off in a row (not the whole week tho..the teachers here were too hardworking)

d 1st day passed pretty boring-ly, wif most of us malaysians spending the day aimlessly wandering around the dorm, playing a bit of ping-pong (me n ck), studying (cs), playing d piano (me), n making burnt food at the kitchen (me n cs). the 2nd day was a bit more exciting tho; there was a festival at okunitama shrine in fuchu town center, so tufsia arranged an outing to visit the place plus sum other activities. but in the end a few of us (me, cs, yst n a guy from indonesia) decided to go by ourselves...so off we went, on our bikes..

well, the festival itself wasnt dat great, since im not the festival kind of guy anyway...took a few pics wif my hp's camera but cant transmit them here yet cuz dun hv IR...but anyway there was basically sum parades n lots of yelling n shouting n drums n singing...n at nite there was a parade of floats...in short, those traditional festival stuff dat we'v all seen plenty of in malaysia lah...the REAL attraction there (besides the other thing dat i'm famous for) was the food! there was sumting like a food fair there so i went from stall to stall sampling the various 'specialities'...including octopus, yaki-tori (grilled chicken pieces on sticks) n kebab...yummy! the normally-kiamsiap me spent quite a lot of money there...lunch n dinner, in total, cost me around 3000 yen..but it was worth it (i think)

the next day, we went to watch thomas cup! teik chuan, our senpai, booked us subsidized tickets at the malaysian embassy...so instead of paying 2500+ yen, we only paid 500 yen each for the ticket - plus a dismal-looking malaysian flag dat snapped 20 seconds into the match, n a pair of 'pong-bong' inflatable noise-sticks dat wudnt inflate. heheh. but still it was quite an experience 2 b there, watching a world-class event! tho i must say, the performance of the malaysian team, esp the singles, were....heheh u noe lah. malaysia boleh. n after that we met up wif a bunch of jpa scholars who were oso there 2 watch...no chicks, but found 2 guys who play dota, so the evening wasnt entirely lost...

on sat, the 4th day of golden week, we met up wif a dai-senpai who is now working here...had dinner at an underground pasta restaurant (there r lots of underground eateries in the central parts of tokyo)....n i had squid-ink speghetti. looked pretty disgusting but tasted great, tho it left a relly yucky black stain on my teeth n tongue after dat (which i took a pic of). after dat, the other 2 senpai, soon li n teik chuan, took us around shinjuku..n we went to kabuki-cho, the city's sex district :P n the most funny thing was when ppl started approaching us asking if we wanted to watch 'free shows'...tho we din take up any of their offers lah. sorry guys. +P

well, dats about all worth mentioning about the golden week lah. as for the photos, i'll post them up sum time next week, cuz now feeling a bit lazy n wan 2 read adventures of huckleberry finn liao :P

mata, ato de!

updates? no time lah

2006-05-10T19:26:00.000+08:00

stay tuned for updates on wat the ravenlord had been up to during golden week; highlights include:-

visit to a festival during the (name forgotten) matsuri of the golden week;

trip to watch the thomas cup!

n sum gy stuff dat happened during our 'tour' of kabuki-cho of shinjuku :P

also expect interesting photos of:

raptor's very well-stocked fridge!

raptor's messy but comfy room!

sum random pics of mostly birdy stuff...

well, folks, until next time!

random updates

2006-05-02T18:20:00.000+08:00

last saturday there was a bbq organised by TUFSIA, a campus group 'dedicated to helping foreign students adapt to life in japan'. it was held on the bank of...tamagawa? river...but actually it was more like the dried up bed of the river cuz there wasnt any water in sight..n the stones lying around were the smooth pebble type u see in riverbeds. ok back to the topic..the food at the bbq was great....the food was cooked on metal trays over fires built from twigs pulled straight out of the ground n was delicious cuz we (well, i at least) were hungry by the time everything was ready...but it was so damn LITTLE! i cud hv finished everything on the tray myself but it was shared among 10 ppl...ish...

after eating we played frisbee n i learned to throw an american football...there was this guy from marshall islands who dresses like a hip hop guy all the time n throws the football damn good...

dat nite i tried cooking stir-fried vegetables wif the old cooking pot left by seniors...n it was a halfway decent dish...but it turned out to be a damn expensive cooking experience cuz i used up like 400+ yen of meat n 150 yen of vegetables juz to make dat one dish...it was originally supposed to be for 2 meals but i ate up most of it at once cuz i was so hungry..n my fren from macau 'helped' me clean the rest up. n i left my pack of maggi chicken stock cubes in the kitchen n they were gone the next day! chin cibai ne.....so much for saving money thru cooking...

anyway, for those who erm..havent seen my msn nick yet..i LURVE my new frying pan! wif it i finally made sumting nice...fried noodles (called yaki-soba in japanese btw)...n its even easier than cooking rice AND having to make a separate dish..cuz for this i juz throw everything in n stir-fry to my satisfaction. n my fren from chille praised my noodles. hehe.

ah...n another reason to luve my frying pan: it makes terrific sandwiches! i can toast bread without spending like 2000 yen on an oven toaster (which will probably be too troublesome to carry downstairs n wud eat up a heck lot of electricty if used in my room)...n when i fry bacon wif butter on it...damn..its so oishii-licious....n put in slices of apple to substitute for salad..ah...wat heaven..

okok, shao thing's back. anyway, to continue wif my random topics:

the 1st instalment of scholarship money came already! all 134000 yen of it (yes, its been reduced by 1000 yen liao this year..but its only like 10 bucks to the japanese anyway) deposited straight into my postal savings account. n juz today i went to withdraw sum money...more for the heck of it than from need...n their ATM machines can oso b used 2 deposit money...so i mite b depositing the money i brought from home into the account sumtime next week lah.

speaking of which, the rest of this week is holidays! its the Golden Week, where there r like 3 or 4 holidays almost in a row so most offices n businesses r closed for the whole week...the japs call it the 'oogatarenkyuu' (dun try 2 pronounce it...i'm not responsible for damaged vocal cords or tied tongues)...so apart from joining the activities organised by TUFSIA, i'll hv time 2 look around the place around here...as i mentioned b4, fuchu-shi (the district the university is in) is damn nice....lots of greenery n the town is quaint n high-tech at the same time...n mite b going 2 other parts of tokyo if time permits lah...there r even plans to watch the thomas cup, tho i'm not quite sure exactly when or where that will b...

on a more sombre note, my hp bill soared to over 9000 liao since the last post...all becuz i downloaded 2 songs thru the ezweb, their version of gprs.....tho the broadband speed was impressive....170kb file downloaded in less than 15 secs....aih...so next month i'll prob juz b using my fon 4 cmailling (1.5 yen per msg) n calling home...no more stupid downloads for me! n btw those who noe my ezweb email address, pls do NOT send anything other than text msgs to me...best if dun send at all lah, since if u can send email mite as well send it to my internet email address rite? :P

anyway...to continue after last saturday...on sunday i borrowed sum tennis racquets from the office n had a game of tennis on the campus tennis court...the court wasnt as good as the psc court back in penang tho...it was soft court which i wasnt used to, n lots of sand all over the ground. n the tennis club was using the courts so we had to use the most ill-maintained court....chin boh song..but still chin song cuz got to play after so long..tho my frens were..ahem..not dat good at it....so not much chance of my game improving for the time being..hehe.. sorry lah ej...

today met a couple of chinese here in the library...from taiwan...its always so cool to meet ppl who speaks the same native langauge here..itho it isnt exactly uncommon cuz apparently a lot of taiwanese students come 2 japan...n it may seem funny but here, even malay makes me feel kinda proud cuz its a 'common language' we hv wif the ppl from indonesian n brunei so its like a secret language for a mini-'society' here. n dat day at the ywca thing interview, i even met a couple of guys from PENANG, malaysia!! jit sin tho, n a few years older...

anyway, duno if i mentioned it b4 but its been getting hot here lately...not relly hot lah, in fact its still cooler than malaysia...but i've got used to the cold weather so it feels hot if its juz warm enuf for me to sweat.....haih..the best part of spring is over liao....the good thing tho, is dat i dunnit 2 spend so much on food liao...cuz i noticed i dun get hungry so fast or need so much food when its not so cold....

well, this is a long entry...hope its been an interesting read +P at the very least, u juz spend 20 minutes reading raptor ravenlord's crap! hahaha....

ja mata guys!

omg omg

2006-04-25T20:07:00.000+08:00

6600 yen. thats about the amount i'm going 2 b paying for my hp juz for calls alone this month. y? the stupid ol' me din check the call rate for international calls so the day i got my hp, i spent like half n hr calling home n 2 a few other numbers. ish. good thing i found out how 2 check my call credit juz today...or who noes wat sort of bill i wud hv racked up at the end of the month...

anyway, for those interesting in knowing wat my phone looks like:

cool, no? i like the shape a lot..n its got a nice camera dat can take pics at 1024x768...

unfortunately, it dusnt hv memory card support n theres a model wif an even better camera (3.2 megapixel)...yst took one of those, as did chee siang. at 1st i was complaining a lot :P but now i got 2 like my fon liao...

anyway, my number is +81 80 66284197 BUT dun try 2 sms me cuz in japan, they dun hv sms...for phone to phone msging they hv sumting called cmail which is not compatible wif sms. (calls r okay tho :P) i can oso receive email on my hp but since i'll b charged for every 128-byte 'packet' i receive, i'd better not post the address here...if u wanna noe, juz tell me...i guess its ok to receive text-only emails lah..

well..on to other stuff....last saturday a bunch of us international students went to tokyo YWCA to listen a talk about the 'Japanese Mother for International Students' movement....basically its sumting in which they pair u up wif a japanese 'mother' whom u can contact 2 ask about stuff n get help etc (no money lending tho :P).....its like a homestay program minus the homestay, if u get my drift...anyway, since many of the other guys r signing up, i think i'll give it a try too...its a good chance 2 practice speaking japanese after all...

besides that, nothing much 2 talk about except my 2 recent disastrous attempts at cooking. 1stly was the speghetti i 'cooked' last friday. the 500g of speghetti i bought for 100yen made enuf for 4 meals! n big meals too...since i became a glutton after coming 2 japan, i'm eating about 1.5 times my normal (malaysian) amount. unfortunately, (1) sum of the noodles stuck together in unsightly clumps cuz i din put oil or salt in when boiling the them; n (2) the sauce i bought (oso for 100 yen) was totally shit....not only was it not enuf for the huge batch of noodles, it had totally no meat taste...only tomato...n not very nice tomatoes at that...

ur ingenious fren here got around the problem tho, by using the noodles as 'rice' n eating it wif cafeteria-bought meat, salad etc. clever, no?

2nd disaster was when i made a 1cm-thick rice cake when i tried to cook rice wif a normal saucepan. i duno wat happened, but mebbe i din stir it enuf or turned the heat up too high. anyway, the rice above the 'cake' (read: burnt crust) was still edible so it wasnt a total waste.

well, dats it for now, signing off liao cuz got other stuff 2 do. n sum baka told my mom i had been on9 too much lately so now i better go do sum 'productive' stuff...

ja mata!

short note

2006-04-19T19:04:00.000+08:00

ok i think i restored most of the links from my previous template...damn mendoukusai it was, but oso taisetsu....anyway, if anyone's link is missing from here pls tell me cuz rite now all i did was cut n paste from dan's blog :P

me thinking of changing me blog-no-template soon, any ideas? sumting dark n moody as usual...

today i ate lunch n dinner for less than 500 yen! lunch was 3 pieces of bread (half a loaf, they cut the slices really thick here) plus tuna, cheese n margarine...oishikunai but yasui deshitane......n i heard from my senior bout a nearby stall dat sells packets of noodles at 250 yen so tml will b checking it out...

there was sumting else i wanted 2 blog about but i forgot liao, dats y i was crapping so much about the lunch n stuff. oh yeah, i found this when pasting june (ooi)'s link from dan's blog. u can check the error by visiting the link to june's from dan's.

osoi deshita, ja mata!

Raptor's Untitled Blog

2006-04-18T20:32:00.000+08:00

hey guys

1st of all, sum disaster happened while i was updating the frens' blogs links this afternoon...so now i lost my template n hv 2 use this stinkin' one for the time being (no time to fiddle around wif html at the moment)

anyway, a few updates on wat i'v been up to. as usual, no photos, cuz the very excellent photographer in our group, yst has already kindly settled that mendoukusai aspect of life ;P

last saturday 3 senpai's (japanese for senior) took the 4 of us malaysian 'noobs' to the central city area of tokyo, namely shinjuku, hanajuku, akihabara n shibuya. man, the crowds there...all u can see is a sea of bobbing heads...n the noise level is like totally deafening....definitely not a place i wan 2 live or study in....

unfortunately we din c much of shinjuku...in fact we left almost as soon as we arrived..cuz the *someone* in our group claimed to hv went there b4 n thus din wan 2 waste time touring the place again..so we headed to hanajuku, then akihabara to see the electronic n electric stuff there. yst especially needed an electronic dictionary while i was checking out the laptops there. (they suck btw, since apparently pc gaming isnt a hot thing in japan)

anyway dat day was damn cold esp for this poor guy who went out in only 1 layer of clothing...so at nite the senpai brought us to a 'tsu-ke' noodle shop for dinner. the thing about that place is the price for small, medium n large helpings r the same....of course, being malaysians, chinese n penangites, we all took large. n boy it was large....a whole basin....about twice wat i usually eat for a full meal! sumhow, we all managed to cram everything down tho...

well, nothing much more 2 say about that day trip, esp since as usual i was blur blur n din notice much things. oh, n we passed by a red light district of sorts dat nite. but nothing 2 c except the prices, so move along here....

anyway, as usual i'm blogging during the last minutes of the library so now its closing again n i gtg. cya guys!

raptor ravenlord's japan journal

2006-04-12T18:39:00.000+08:00

ok guys i'm safely in japan n i juz got my computer account on monday but i left it in the computer room so i only got to on9 yesterday but the post i submitted last nite wasnt pubilshed so now i'm juz dropping a few lines here....

for a better (n more graphical) description of japan pls refer to see tatt's blog http://escapist5.blogspot.com cuz i had been kinda lazy wif photo taking n since he took most of the pics n posted them liao i guess i dunnit 2 do redundant work :P

the keyboards in japan suck....not relly lah...but the special characters like '@' n '_' (n even the apostrophe n brackets) r in different places..so i kept typing the wrong things on msn n such...but ah...its good to b on9....i cant imagine how i lasted the whole week without the internet (n without dota....god...i miss pwning ppl.....)

well..japan's cold n dry...i've kinda got used to the cold but the dryness still sucks...cuz it was so bad dat the skin was flaking off from my face...n the corners of my mouth dried so much it hurt to open my mouth..so last week talking n eating was sucky...luckily i started using lip balm n the skin oil my mom gave me n it helped lah..kind of. its weird dat now i like rainy days more here in japan despite it being colder..cuz the air becomes more humid when its raining.....

japan's like, really clean. u can hardly see any rubbish like plastic bags etc on the streets n even the backways n alleys r well...not-smelly. its great how they manage to blend in technology wif nature...like...the convenience stores in the smallest village oso hv stuff like electronic scanners n microwave oven...while mebbe a few steps away is a park wif subarashi landscaping....

one thing tho..the stuff here r really expensive...we malaysians hv been living like meanies for the last week......buying only the cheapest stuff from the cheapest place...so far our daily food budget is like 1000 yen but even that is around RM30 liao.....

well, library is closing soon...at least i think dats wat the announcement voice is saying...another thing about japan is dat everything is in japanese cuz they'r so self sufficient they hardly need any imported stuff wif english on....so many times we hv 2 guess wat a particular notice or document or announcement is saying.....

so minasan, ja mata, i'll prob b on9 again tml nite to blog about the classes n sum other stuff....if got anything u wanna noe about japan juz leave a comment lah...cuz i relly duno wat to write when i sit down here....

memoirs of a - SCRATCH THAT - last memories of penang..?

2006-04-01T22:58:00.000+08:00

ah...2 more days n i'll b off to japan...i suppose i hv a lot to write about....not least the stuff dats been happening since my last, ancient post.....but no time lah, hv 2 go over 2 sue lyn's hse in half n hr, then tml morning got one final dota session wif my classmates...

anyway, now i noe how u overseas ppl feel when u were leaving for d 1st time...man, i'm scared to death! much as i hate to admit it, i've been completely dependent on my family (n frens) for my life here in penang...going to a place where the language, customs n surroundings r all so different seems so...intimidating....

luckily i've managed to buy everything (well, almost) dat i need...now its juz a matter of cramming them into my luggage cases....it took me about 7 trips to this n dat stores n supermarkets to get everything..whew...n i probably bought more clothes in one week than i ever bought in a year...

well anyway, my mind's at a blank rite now, will try to continue this post when i've cleared it wif a few rounds of dota...n when an annoying junior isnt bugging u about academic stuff :P

hello world

2006-02-26T22:46:00.000+08:00

ah...its been a long time since i took up the 'pen', so now i'll write a little sumting while waiting for rise of nations to install.

as many of my gang know (they were responsible for it in the 1st place), i've recently got hooked on a new hobby...watching anime. specifically, Naruto, the anime series about a dumb ninja wif a super powerful demon locked inside him dat saves his ass when his carelessness leads him into trouble. on top of that, my interest in dota was resurrected after temporarily being replaced by civ4 (i've deleted THAT time consuming game from all my comps d....whew...)

anyway, on to more 'serious' things. lately i've been...well...not-so-cheerful (read: depressed) as the date of my departure to japan draws nearer. well, the i dunno the exact date yet, but it'll b sumwhere between 1-7 april. that leaves me slightly more than 1 month more in penang now. n knowing u'r about to leave ur hometown somehow sets u thinking on stuff u normally dun think about. eg regrets bout the stuff i din do, wondering wat things wud hv been like if i took another path in my life, etc etc.

on top of dat, there's so many things i shud b doing in preparation but havent done yet, cuz i've been procrastinating n wasting my time on games n stuff. n wondering about the future: whether i'll b able to settle in there, how i'll adapt to the new environment etc. so u guys who r already overseas, u better leave sum comments n advice!

ok, rise of nations finished installing. sayonara!

back from the depths of addiction

2006-02-07T09:58:00.000+08:00

today i found myself doing sumting i havent done for many a week: sipping a cup of coffee, i plonked down in front of my comp n logged in to blogspot for a bit of (short?) blogging! yes, i noe my blog has been in hibernation lately, but now its time to revive it!

anyway, so many things hv passed since my last post (about my trip to china, if i remember correctly) that i cant possibly cover them in this single entry. in fact, i'm not sure i can recall all the stuff i did since then, much less the details to write about. so i guess i'll juz drop watever comes to mind into this little box here n hope u guys out there will enjoy reading. or watever...

sum time (exact date forgotten) after d china trip wif my family, i went for another trip, this time to genting n kl wif my frens, namely jiao jiao zhi (dan), tu lan leng (ghee), sam n uncle theam. we were joined in genting for the first 2 nites at genting by caryn n amoi aka bak kim (dun ask :P). caryn was kind enuf to bring her ps2 to genting, which meant no 1 got to watch tv while i was in the room. hehe. anyway, a lot of stuff happened dat trip, not all of them good. disaster struck almost the moment we arrived at pudu, as sam's hp got stolen by some fuckin' asshole who probably will die by the age of 30 due to the bad karma accumulated on him. but anyway we went on to awana (halfway up the mountain) where d gals met us.

dat evening, another strike: d apartment's hot plate rosak, so we had to eat microwaved canned meat wif bread. sounds yucky rite...only thing is we were too engrossed wif d ps2 (well, i was anyway :P) to care bout wat we're eating. the next day, we went to the cablecar station to take a ride up the mountain, only to be informed dat the cable car system is closed due to strong winds. so in d end we had to take taxis up. (for brevity's sake i shall exclude the good stuff for the moment, n concentrate on the bad). dat nite, we were supposed to take the 12 midnite cablecar down, but missed it by a few secs (we actually saw it departing) so had to wait till 1am to catch the car down. at dat time tho, it din matter so much cuz we were all high from drinking our 3rd or 4th consecutive cup of coke.

ff to kl. on d 4th day of the trip (2nd day in kl) we went to sunway pyramid for ice skating. n guess wat...uncle theam sorta had a nasty fall n his old bones cudnt take it. so poor ol' theam cudnt eat chicken, eggs n duno wat else for several weeks after...due to the (dubious?) advice of his chinese sinseh. apart from dat, i borrowed dan's cap (due to a bad hair day) n left it in the bus on the journey back. n lastly, sumhow an extra piece ended up among our luggage, an orange bag dat din belong to any of us. so oho, we're all having bad karma now.

in case anyone's wondering about the karma thingy, i watched a movie starring andy lau on astro during cny eve, titled 'mr. big'. n in case anyone's wondering y i watched dat movie, ask me wat is cd-pro2 :P

anyway that trip wasnt a total waste: we still managed to hv loads of fun n i learned 3 important skills: ice skating (very VERY mediocre), pool (as in billiards, not swimming) n chor dai di, in which i recently won 5 games in a row. hehehe...

sum time after dat trip, we had another major event....lanparty! theam booked a unit in leisure cove n we happily carried our comps over n hooked them up. well, theam n dan happily, the rest of us had to lug our CPUs n monitors along so we werent THAT happy. n apart from exchanging the wacky stuff we downloaded (including the now-infamous cd-pro2 episodes), we managed to get hooked on Civilization 4 after trying it out on the lan.

more recently, last tuesday i joined my classmates in visiting (u noe...拜年) each other. then wanted to end wif a cc session but unfortunately netcity was packed to the brim. n our visiting ended rather early cuz most ppl were not at home (hiding from our onslaught i wud say). the next day a bunch of us visited pn hong (our physics teacher) n belly yeap (havent relly taught me b4 but he was d discipline master b4). so this year my angpow collection is rather impressive :P for sum reason tho, this cny i decided to forgo my 'custom' of writing 珲春 (u noe...those big big pieces of caligraphy wif 4 or 7 words on red paper) cuz i was bz playing civ4 until 6am on cny eve.

on thursday we (me, dan, ghee, theam, yst, lydia, caryn, xy, xy's bro) went to redbox n had our throats cut. dan booked the room for 4-7pm but when we got there we were informed the room had been taken cuz we were late. cb gy tl lc....anyway, after sum discussion n a lot of reluctance on my part - n a few others too, although they din dare 2 voice it out >.< - we took the nite session (6-9) which includes free buffet. guess how much dat came to? RM55. THAT IS TWENTY-SEVEN HOURS OF CYBERCAFE TIME! but haih, sum1 wans to hiao wif his gal, wat to do? n redbox cut our time short by almost half n hr...we had to wait until 6.15pm for them to clear the room, then around 8.50pm our time ended d. cb gy tl lc redbox.....BAD KARMA FOR THEM!!! after dat we went to caryn's hse for sum gambling, wif half of us playing sumting on the mahjong table n half of us playing bluff n chor dai ti. n oh, there was a relly hot gal at caryn's
hse (her aunt's hse actually, so i think dat was her counsin...hehehe)

then finally (is that a sigh of relief i hear from u, o dear reader?) we (same grup as b4, only without caryn n xy's bro, n including sm n sue lyn) had a 'bbq' at the crown prince beach on sat. actually it was more of a beach party since we din bbq any food....we had bought pizza n satay.....tho we lit a campfire. n we played truth or dare (n sum relly weird stuff happened afterwards). AND THAT DAY I WON FIVE GAMES OF CHOR DAI DI!!!! muahahahhahaa.....

ah btw, i'll b going 2 japan in april. got the monbu-something scholarship n all that. n i'v been learning d language the past 2 months or so....not too easy but interesting oso. anyway, everyone better treat ur fren here nicely cuz he's going away in less than 2 months...ehehe...

lalala....TO BE CONTINUED.......

A Long-overdue Holiday Journal...part 3

2005-12-27T23:29:00.000+08:00

sunday (11/12)
dat morning we visited one more place b4 arriving at the guangdong district. it was a hilltop temple-like area wif all sorts of brass(?) urns n such. there was also a great bell dat we can strike (for a fee). my dad took a video of me striking the bell but sumhow the vid was deleted :( anyway after dat we reached guangdong n checked into the hotel (darn, forgot the name d). then we all split up to wander beijing street, the busy street rite outside the hotel. since it was sunday, the number of ppl on the street was staggering....its like a sea of heads when u look at the street from a higher vantage point...we had to literally push our way thru the street most of the time. so anyway we spent the whole afternoon browsing around the shopping places in the area which included shops, bazaars n shopping complexes...that road alone wud hv satisfied the craziest shopper i think. dat nite we took a taxi to another part of the town for a latin-style bbq buffet. there was even sushi n sashimi offered! n the waiters carried around long skewers wif meat on them n will cut u a slice on ur plate when requested. very satisfying meal it was :P

monday (12/12)
nothing much to say bout this day cuz i practically juz spent the whole day walking around the streets. i think dat was the longest period of shopping i ever did in my life....n got quite a bit of stuff to show for it too. failed to find martial arts equipment tho. there was only one shop selling kicking pads n other stuff n they were too low quality. oso tried a lot of different food throughout the day including a type of desert called shuang pi nai (double-layered milk..?) n the super-spicy hunan roast duck.

tuesday (13/12)
around midday a bus came for us n drove us to the airport n we departed from china without incident....reached penang around 10.30pm. so endeth the china trip 2005. *sigh of relief*

A Long-overdue Holiday Journal...part 2

2005-12-26T13:51:00.001+08:00

thursday (8/12)
early morning we set out for kunming airport. it was a looong car drive n i was green in the face most of the trip cuz there was no toilet along the road :P but anyway we reached the airport n boarded the plane without much incident, n sed goodbye to our kind yunnan hosts. we then flew to guilin for the 2nd 'part' of our trip. oh, n i managed to get my wooden taichi sword thru the customs this time! it had to be packaged up (rather awkwardly i mite add) at the airport packing counter tho...anyway at guilin we were greeted by our appointed tour guide, one xiao yuan (xiao = small, not crazy) who took us to the waiting tour bus n off we went for lunch at a restaurant in the town of guilin. a sad note: i forgot to bring along the bead circlet presented to me by one of the company ppl in yunnan..left in in the hotel room back there :( anyway, at the restaurant in guilin we got to eat more familiar food...more like wat we had back in penang, that is. that afternoon xiao yuan took us to see 3 places...a lake wif a glass bridge spanning it at one point, a small rocky mountain wif a cave forming an arch dat looked like an elephant trunk n sum historical mountain wif caves (its all mountains n caves in guilin :P) not to say i din enjoy the sights but u noe how bad i m wif names :P dat evening we checked into our 4th hotel so far (every nite we hv been changing hotels) then went out to visit the bazaar in the neighbouring street. bought a bunch of trinkets there. n man was it cold dat nite! apparently it wasnt usually that cold in guilin tho...

friday (9/12)
woke up early to catch a ship sailing on lijiang. not li4 jiang1 tho, its li2 jiang1, a river in guilin. the mountains along the river were in all sorts of weird shapes n almost all of them hv sum special name (cant remember any tho :P) spent the morning on the ship snapping pics till my mom's digicam ran out of battery. there was a ship photographer who offered to take 15 'professional' pics for 150rmb...the sucker....dunno y so many ppl took that up...after disembarking we had lunch n then wandered the streets. later in the evening we visited the 'silver caves'...the most colorful cave i've seen so far, n the rocks inside had all sorts of weird shapes (one was like a phallus....serious!) now i relly regret depleting the digicam's battery cuz i cudve taken a lot of great pics inside. at nite after dinner there was a 'cultural performance' at the hotel we were staying...n me, my bro n my sis all participated in their 'mariage ceremony' n got 'married'...the catch? we had to pay 50 rmb each for a 'present for the bride/bridegroom' during the gift-exchanging ceremony -_-"

saturday (10/12)
there's been a lot of long car rides in china but this one takes the prize. we sat in the bus from 9am to 7.30pm! well, not entirely lah, there was still lunchtime n toilettime...hehe....anyway, on the bus my whole family got hooked on a cantonese drama about a couple who got married on a luxury cruiser but broke up cuz the woman had a streak of 3-years' bad luck :P its a romantic comedy actually. anyway we arrived at a town sumwhere near guangzhou dat nite (its near guangzhou becuz the ppl were now speaking cantonese). we spent the whole nite browsing around the streets n i checked out a cc there but it super-sucked...none of the games we noe over here (all chinese games) n cant access many international websites...so i left it after half n hr. luckily dat only cost me 1 rmb :P

A Long-overdue Holiday Journal...part 1

2005-12-25T14:01:00.000+08:00

sigh..i guess i had to get down to this sooner or later....wat better time to do this then when i'm sick at home n unable to go out? anyway, for the uninformed, the ravenlord went on a trip to china wif his parents sum time (2 weeks n 6 days to be exact :P) ago n has now decided to share his experiences wif his faithful followers. heh.

the trip was from 5th to 13th of dec...dats a total of 9 days. phew...dats the longest i've ever been away from home...n certainly the longest holiday i ever had b4. i guess it has sumting to do wif d fact dat next year onwards it'll b pretty hard for my whole family to go on vacation together since me n my sis will both b going to university. so anyway....

monday (5/12)
my abs hurt!!! went for my 1st tkd class in 3 months yesterday n ms looi put us all thru a super-intensive physical training routine as a 'welcome-back'...as a result my whole body was aching when i woke up on monday EARLY morning (around 5.30am...thats damn early for me k..) n my abs kena the most. went to airport, checked in, boarded the plane. we took thai airline so dat meant a stop in bangkok. (hehehh ;p) fast forward to late afternoon: we arrived in kunming of yunnan, china. ppl from the 'host' company welcomed us wif bouquets of flowers -_-" later that evening saw us visiting the streets of kunming n i went to a mcd n bought their 'special'...sumting they dun hv in malaysian mcd outlets...sum sort of triangular pastry stuffed wif slices of spiced beef...not bad at all! kunming was less hazy than during my 1st visit 2 years ago...n i actually saw dogs on the street...most of them short-legged, furry furry types (i was under the impression there were no dogs in china's cities..due to the cold weather n the chinese's appetite for dog meat...) another thing about china is dat their car engines seem to be a lot less noisy but the pedestrians talk a LOT louder. n their cars come in all sorts of sizes n shapes...like the 3-wheeled trishaw-like thingy dat runs on electric motor. dat nite we went to sum restaurant dat specializes in fungus...yeah, mushrooms n stuff...n had a 'fungus steamboat' (it sounded a lot better in chinese k..) the night was cold. end of day one...

tuesday (6/12)
morning we visited a lake where there were hordes of migratory birds...it was cool seeing the way the snatched the bread we threw at them rite out of the air...n some of them came close enuf to grab the bread out of out hands. then it was basically one long car ride to the town of 'ge jiu'. lunch was at the hotel there n it was huge....i counted around 12 main dishes n 3 or 4 side dishes...by the time i sampled everything i was full...n basically that was how i ate for the next 2 days...cuz the hosts treated us like kings n every meal was a feast :P (i put on 4kg at the end of the 3rd day...!) we got to stay in the presidential suite cuz the hotel is owned by the company my dad's dealing wif..n man, was it big...living room, 2 bedrooms, a study wif a bookcase of all the major chinese classics, n jacuzzi bathroom. dat nite we ventured out into the 4-degree celsius night air for a walk by the lake of ge jiu (the town was basically built around the lake). my nose n ears actually became numb :P later we visited a sort of hawker center where they sell skewered roast meat. among the 'delicacies' found there were dragonfly skewers...unfortunately we were all too full from dinner to try that out...hehe....

wed (7/12)
changed my tshirt for the 1st time since arriving in china :P its not as disgusting as one mite think cuz wif all the cold, i havent sweat in these 3 days at all...anyway, we went to visit the company's pewter factory n tin mine. i felt like papparazzi, snapping pics everywhere wif my mom's new digicam :P the roads in that area were ultra bumpy n i nearly cracked my head a few times when the van shot into the air after hitting sum one-foot-tall bump...dat afternoon we visited the pigeon caves. it was a guided tour n near the entrance of the cave there was a performance where a pigeon's nest collector climbed across the rocky wall without any safety equipment...very keng...tho i probably cud do dat if i had been doing it since young :P anyway i wun b describing the caves in any detail here (or any of the places i go to in the following places) cuz u relly hv 2 b there to see it for urself....China Trip 2006 anyone? dat nite after a long drive we stopped by a lake to hv a 'seafood' dinner. the rice was special wif chunks of potato n nuts inside (my mom learned how to make it after dat) n there was sum very nice wild veggies which were a welcome relief from the heavy meats we've been having these few days. but d most special of all were the 'drunken prawns'...LIVE prawns immersed in wine n spices..live as in still wriggling...dun ask me wat they were like tho cuz i only tried 3 of them n ate them wif lots of rice to cover the taste....:P there were also raw fish but its basically the same as the salmon we can get at sushi king so thats nothing new....

(to be continued...)

[edit: the way the caught the fish fresh out of the cages was rather...unsettling...1st they netted the fish n took them out of the water, then cracked their heads wif a block of wood. ah well, guess dats better than let the fish 'drown' in the air....]

shit shit shit

2005-12-03T17:04:00.000+08:00

since stpm ended, time seemed to hv gone crazy for me...simultaneously flying past so swiftly that i cant catch a moment of it for myself, n dragging by so slowly that everything i do seem to be boring the wits out of me...wtf is happening???

this week, i spent a grand total of SIXTEEN (16) hrs in cybercafes. omg. monday n tuesday went to cc wif my class after practicing for the graduation dinner presentation, 4 n 5 hrs respectively. thursday went again wif my class for another 5 hrs. n yesterday, friday, i went again this time wif dan n the gang, to netcity for 2 hrs, juz to 'spend the time'. shit...

(wonder if its any consolation that i discovered both galaxy n netcity hv much better computers than evo....next time i better spend the time there playing the more advanced games like quake 4 or F.E.A.R. IF i do go again. haha....like there's any chance i wont....)

anyway, wednesday was a slightly more meaningful day as i started my day wif a bit of long-overdue exercise at the punching bag n swimming pool in psc. after dat i dropped by dan's hse to pick him up for breakfast n ended up waiting almost half n hr as he's at the barbers...seems like he turned into sum kind of neanderthal during his stay in australia. dan's mom forced a chicken pie on me which filled me up :P later, xinch drove the 2 of us (my car's backseat was totally filled by the organ which i had to drive to the graduation dinner) to a hawkers' center where everything was sold out so dan n i juz had drinks. after yakking away for an hr or so it was about lunchtime so we headed home.

that nite, our class presentation at the graduation dinner was a flop. truth be told, it was expected as each person probably had all of 30 minutes of practice from the 3 days of rehearsal. (compare that to the 15+ hrs of dota we played during those 3 days) tansri n yst's class, u6f2 had the best performance imo, cuz they staged an extremely hillarious sketch that made me n yong shen nearly fall off our seats. "susu segar susu segar its fresh and good!" yst shall henceforth be known as the roti man. the food wasnt bad but a bit too little for 10 hungry youths per table (although my table kurang 1 person so we had slightly more :P)

yesterday (friday) was the 1st time i spent almost the whole day out in a very long time. 1st there was tennis at psc from 8-9 wif my bro n dan, then we went home for breakfast n at chun chun 10am tansri came a-knocking the door (figuratively speaking). after picking up sam at greenlane mcdonald's we were off to the pc fair where we met up wif dan, ghee, xinch n june n spent the morning wandering around getting lost n waiting for each other n wasting our money on IT stuff dat we dun relly need to achieve a harmonious n balanced life ;P me myself bought a 512MB mmc card for my hp plus a card reader to go wif it, as well as 100 cdrs. total spending: 120+30+67 = RM217. sigh...another huge wad of cash gone...

after dat we went to one stop for lunch n a game of bowling where a spree of bad luck landed me 2nd last place :( then we wandered aimlessly around again until it was dinner time, then had dinner n yst n me went to register for japanese language classes at the penang japanese language society opposite pcghs. following that was 2 hrs of dota in which sze ming joined us for a game. end of day.

end of report (boy, its getting boring)

Post STPM Damage Report

2005-11-26T22:29:00.000+08:00

well..its over....

it was over a few days ago actually. 4 days to be exact. something kept me from blogging all these days - laziness n a general lack of disposition to do anything except playing computer games. dunno, i hated studying for stpm but once its all over, it feels like i've lost 'direction' sumhow...without a goal around which all my activities are ultimately planned, i duno how to fill my days.

a few weeks back when a bunch of ppl finished their sch exams, they were putting up msn nicknames reflecting their boredom. well, for me its not like that. in my case its not a matter of having nothing to do, but wanting to do so many stuff that i dunno where to start. in fact, i cant even REMEMBER wat i want to do (luckily i wrote a very long list during the course of the year...will be referring to it as soon as i...haih, nevermind). so instead of going out to do something 'productive', i've been filling my days with computer games. n for sum reason time seems 2 b flowing real fast these days...heck, 4 days gone n not even a movie watched?

damn, relly hv 2 pull myself together to stop wasting the holidays liddat....

anyway, on stpm...i'm afraid i've already fell short of my goal of obtaining 5A's...it appears i celebrated my marks for chemistry 1 too early. the sadists at MPM apparently targetted chemistry as the 'killer' subject this year because paper 2 came out even harder than paper 1, if that was at all possible. without going into details, i can safely say that 20 marks hv gone down the drain. n this juz from an initial assessment...there must be half a dozen smaller mistakes chipping off another 5-10 marks or so....

the other papers were not quite as bad, but there were still some shaky bits in maths n bio, both paper 2. n pengajian am 2 has always been, well, unpredictable at best. so i guess it all comes down to luck now....the type of examiners who mark my papers will determine my fate. pity i dun hv a god to pray to...heheh...

btw, i seem to be having trouble putting my thoughts to words....izit becuz i havent been blogging for a long time or my brains hv already left on their own private holiday?

anyway, a brief account of wat i've been up to the last few days. on tuesday, i went home after the final paper, feeling a very surprising lack of jubilance at the end of the exams. mebbe it was becuz i knew i din do well enuf...or mebbe cuz i had been sick the day before n was still feeling slightly queasy (imagine tossing sleeplessly in bed from 3am to 5am on the eve of ur final paper...sounds bad right? well, dat happened..to me).

so upon reaching home i installed dota n the spent the morning n afternoon in front of the comp. lydia came over around noon to borrow my comp which resulted in me leaving a game >( after dinner, went to evo in onestop wif kst, yst, sam, szeming n..wonder of wonders...yong shen...played from 8-11sumting, then went home n on9-ed a bit more...n there endeth my post-stpm celebration...boring eh?

the next day, wed, i took my car over to the shop to hv its remote control system fixed. turned out to be a flat battery in my remote nia. the rest of the day..played dota n dungeon keeper 2, a relly old game...but boy it was fun. i mean, i like being the bad guy n such :P

thurs: nothing eventful in the morning n afternoon; at night, danny came over to plan our class' performance for the graduation dinner next wed. we're gonna do a singing thing...cobble a few songs together liddat.

fri: went to sch where my class had a meeting to discuss the performance. then went to this new cybercafe in farlim where they had better comps n a better environment (than evo) n at a lower price (RM1.50/hr) too! they even got quake 4! 10 of us went...juz enuf to fill up both teams of 5 in dota. after 2 games - both of which my side lost :( - we played a 'few' rounds of quake 4. man, 10 ppl in a deathmatch is simply crazy. some of the maps were so small everyone was shooting at someone more than half the time...n dying half the other. i recognised two of the maps...one was a remake of a quake 2 classic, another was the final level in quake 3. later, went wif chin kok to ms tan (suat hui)'s hse where we dismantled her electronic organ, then i decided that i din need to take it home after all so we left it there. then went home n wasted the rest of the day as usual.

sat: danny came over in the morning to practice since the 2 of us r gonna b playing the instruments for the class performance next wed. then went over to the pc depot in e-gate near tesco cuz there was an offer on the pendrives there....RM29.90 for a 256mb....unfortunately, those units were sold out so i went home empty handed. i did manage to check out the prices for multi media cards for my hp tho..gonna compare them at the pc fair next week.

well...that concludes my once-in-a-blue-moon blog for now...

Miracle! Holy Light!! Holy Cow!!!

2005-11-18T13:08:00.000+08:00

lady luck has smiled on the gambler once again!!!

yesterday, a depressed n dejected-looking gambler emerged from the casino after a 1hr45min stint left him both mentally exhausted n emotionally disturbed.

in fact he was so disappointed wif his performance in the chem 1 paper that he was thinking of cancelling next tuesday's post-stpm celebration! among other things, he did the paper so slowly that he did not hv time to check thru, n thats bound to put a damper on ur mood when the fella in front of u finished about 50 minutes into the exam n was shaking his legs the whole time u were sweating.

after checking his answers wif the guy in front, his spirits fell even more. there were 9 different answers n knowing the guy in front is likely to get almost full marks, it practically indicated a minimum of 9 mistakes for the gambler. n thats juz minimum. so he went home wif a sour face....

the next day, a miracle happened! a beam of holy light shone down n his handphone beeped. upon reading the msg, apprehension gripped him as it contained the answers to the paper. but wanting to put his mind at ease, he went ahead n checked his answers anyway. and.....HE GOT 7 WRONG!!!

now, i noe 43/50 is nothing to shout about in front of the big baddie guys (like the guy in front). but for me its a personal achievement! according to the tech guru, who also happens to be the gambler's advisor on many things including stpm scores, a minimum of 42 will practically ensure an A for that paper. so the gambler is safe!!

THIS CALLS FOR A CELEBRATION!!!

now i've got a few things lined up for next week:

movies
cc
bowling (mebbe even pool?!)
karaoke
hiking....all the way to the top!
kickboxing at psc gym!

n anything else the gang can come up wif!! plus lots n lots of dota every night!!

so anyway, juz to make sure paper 2 wont turn out to be the killer...i'm signing off to slog for...4 more days. THEN ITS HARI MERDEKA. YEAAAAWAAAAaaaaaaaa.........

What FF7: Advent Children Character Am I?

2005-11-03T13:44:00.000+08:00

What FF7: Advent Children Character Are You?

Hosted by theOtaku.com: Anime. Done right.

Disclaimer: I did NOT consciouly pick any choices that correspond to Cloud! eg. weapon of choice: gunblade, not buster sword. So anyone out there waiting to yell 'u think u'r cloud, want to kao tifa r?', think twice. After all, a gunblade can blast u from afar :P

STPM....is near

2005-11-02T15:16:00.000+08:00

well..there ain't much to blog about lately cuz of the Big S.... been studying almost all the time these few days....i've a nasty feeling i'm not gonna finish my chem in time...damn organic AND inorganic!

anyway here's a brief list of the stuff thats been happening in my life lately: (in no particular order)

1) downloaded jay chou's new album...the songs r good but sumhow they dun hold the same kind of magic to me as they did b4

2) true to the puasa spirit, i've gone on a fast! a games fast, that is. having uninstalled dota almost 2 weeks ago, i briefly switched to reincarnation (refer last post) n now i've stopped playing that also. since it was too hard to simply say 'no', i had to delete my character :( but anyway, i seem to be getting a bit more studying done since doing so...

3) fixed up my old pentium celeron 700...juz in time too, for my bro n sis both came home for their holidays n had i not prepared an alternative, i wudve been cut off the net every nite..the comp hogs....still, no hope of playing any LAN games at my hse for the moment except starcraft...cuz the old comp's juz too beh siu...dun even hv 3d card

4) made a list of movies to watch after stpm: Doom, Corpse Bride, Chronicles of Narnia n Harry Potter 4....for now....anyone interested in watchin those too? pls sign up here :P

5) now recruiting for KL Trip 05/06....tentatively set for early jan, 2006....anyone interested pls sign up here oso :P

6) sum1 went n ran a few entries of my blog thru The Gender Genie n apparently it decided that i'm a female....!! calling everyone who noes me to testify otherwise....reward guaranteed!

addition at 12:47AM, 3 Nov:
7) symptoms of dota withdrawal...poses mimicking various dota characters: antimage's 'yeng pose' wif his moonblades n pointing at stuff imagining i'm blasting it wif finger of death. oh no...

8) Nice quote i've come across: “I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.”

as u can guess, this is very likely my last post for about 3 weeks...until after stpm, that is...due to lack of both 'bloggable' events n time...so guys, cya 'in another, happier time'!

time filler

2005-10-23T15:19:00.000+08:00

shit man....i've given up dota (as of thursday morning) n now i'm hooked on a new game....reincarnation...its a turn-based (well, kind of) game dats played thru ur browser n all in text...no fancy pics...i noe, sounds corny but hey, its addictive..!

plus i seem 2 b doing quite well...having jumped from 1400th ranking to 1000th in juz 3 days :P

at least it isnt taking up as much time as dota...it limits u by 'turns' per day u see...

anyway..on to more important topics:-

graduation day

" 骊歌，声声在飞扬；桃李盈盈吐芬芳...." well, wat can i say...its the 2nd time i'm graduating from clhs..n obviously the last time too..(unless i go back as a teacher? u wish!!) as usual such occasions stir up feelings n memories, not too many of them happy ones....k la i'm juz a sipek sentimental guy who cant help looking back at the years in clhs n wishing i cud go back in time n relive my high sch years...lots of stuff i wish i've done (n a few i wish i didnt...)

this year i managed to sing the grad song..unlike last time in f5 when i only moved my mouth cuz i duno the lyrics :P actually dats becuz cuz this time they projected the lyrics onto a screen lah.....but apparently it served its purpose well as it seemed like everyone was singing full-spiritedly...frankly i never heard such semangat from clhs students in my 7 years here (well, not in the hall anyway)

so anyway the next time i'm gonna meet my classmates will be on 11th of nov....1st paper of stpm...to anyone in my form reading this, good luck in stpm!

blogthings? blogshit...

2005-10-15T10:46:00.000+08:00

Your Hidden Talent

You have the natural talent of rocking the boat, thwarting the system.

And while this may not seem big, it can be.

It's people like you who serve as the catalysts to major cultural changes.

You're just a bit behind the scenes, so no one really notices.

What's Your Hidden Talent?

fed up

2005-10-11T14:17:00.000+08:00

my team: me, tansri, rentai
other team: dan + 3 noobs

now according to the natural order of things, our team shud trash the other team even tho they had 4 ppl vs our 3....cuz 3 of the noobs. n halfway thru the game alex from the other team dropped out leaving 3v3. unfortunately we hadnt counted on a feeder in our team (whose initials is not 'ST'). so early in the game, i was leading the 2nd highest level guy (dan) by about 2 levels. tansri pushed fast n took down 2 towers in one go. then the feeder showed up a few times n bang, the other team's several levels higher than us.

lalalala.

(so my team lost in the end)

power color. huh.

2005-10-04T14:25:00.000+08:00

Your Power Color Is Gold

At Your Highest:

You are engrossed in passions that mentally stimulate you.

At Your Lowest:

You seek thrills and neglect what's important in your life.

In Love:

You see dating as adventure and approach it with an open attitude.

How You're Attractive:

You passion for life makes others passionate about you.

Your Eternal Question:

"Am I Having Fun?"

What's Your Power Color?

wtf? i tot my color is black....

test video

2005-10-03T20:37:00.000+08:00

this here vid clip, me make myself! (compiled from advent children movie)

Update

2005-10-02T11:07:00.000+08:00

well well well..its been kinda long since my last post eh? i've decided to update this here thing cuz the past week's been pretty eventful compared to the recent month or so b4 dat....

last friday (23/9):
last day of trials. after spending the whole morning cramming in last-minute kenegaraan facts, the final paper came n went. fast forward to evening, it was dota time! 5 of us (tst, kst, yst, sam n ghee) went to evo cc at 1stop...played 3 games....paired wif sam n won d 1st game, paired wif theam n won 2nd, then paired wif sam again but lost the 3rd round :(

nothing like dota to unwind after a long week of mental torture, i say... :P

wed (28/9):
juz want 2 say dat City-Link courier service sux. afternoon i was at home on9-ing...then suddenly there was a lot of honking downstairs....then my mom called me down...apparently a crazy indian fella riding a motorcycle has turned up at our gate n was honking non-stop for no reason. n he was carrying a teenager AND a little kid (read: 2 passengers = illegal). when my mom went out to see wat he wans (we already had an idea he's a crazy maniac so i was gearing up for a fight :P) he yelled 'package dont want ar?!'....hey fucker, how wud we noe u'r a deliveryman if 1) u'r not wearing uniform 2) u'r carrying passengers while on duty 3) u din announce dat u'r delivering stuff? so anyway my mom tembak-ed him n he started blabbering 'complain lah! take my car number! my ic number u want anot? you should thank me for delivering ur thing!' blablabla...in the end we got the package from him then sent him packing. we tot of complaining but decided against it cuz my mom sed sumting bout ppl like dat throwing molotov cocktails into houses at nite to get revenge. anyway, dont go city-link. the kinds of ppl they employ as deliverymen nowadays.....*shakes head*

thurs (29/9):
stayed back after sch for a bit of sparring practice wif chia ling. halfway thru, wei loong aka danny came n joined in (he was in karate last time apparently). both me n chia ling relly dropped now...its been bout 5 weeks since our last sparring bout, after all....still, i'm glad i can still kick to chia ling's head height (but din actually hit lah). n developed a new combo: backfist + spinning back kick....derived from chia ling's backfist + reverse punch blitz combo (dan, take note :P) anyway, i relly gotta buck up n sharpen my reflexes...

fri (30/9):
took my car to the garage at the petrol station near my sch to hv my engine checked. seems like the tuning was out again or sumting...anyway, d guy did sum tests then sed dat the spark plug's busted...so he changed it n now my car's performing better, luckily. so dat brings the total cost for engine makeover (including last month's 'upgrades') to RM420....the spark plug cost 20 bux. still, the performance increase is more noticeable this time so its worth it...i wonder if it had been the spark plug all along tho...

sat (1/10):
wasted the whole day sleeping n on9. wun go into details since i've been saying the same things again n again...juz dat i'm kinda depressed over it...man, i relly need more self discipline. its been a week since trials ended after all...most ppl r starting to grind for the final battle after all. anyway, in the evening a bunch of us ppl who went to usm for physics training last time, organised a dinner to thank prof. yoon, the lecturer who taught us. dinner was at 7, started at 7.15, n ended at 8. guess wat we did next? a few of them stayed to chat wif the prof n our teacher, mdm hong...the rest (8 in all) left for....u guessed it - cybercafe :P now, this wudnt b remarkable if not for d fact dat this gang is composed of some of the best students in sch including seng chee, the top boy; yong shen, my 'wife' ;) n choon yee (the r the top 3 students in my class btw..n my class is the top in the form :P) so i guess i can start calling myself ravenlord the corruptor now...hehe....anyway, played a total of 3 games (1st game was introductory; lost the 2nd, won the 3rd...for details ask me or sam...tho i dun think anyone will) after going home, went on9 again n played wc3....lost horribly to the computer...1st we played 2v2, me n theam vs 1 easy 1 normal - lost. then we roped in dan...to quote dan, "2 easies? no challenge lar...at least 3 easies...." in the end, got trashed. sigh.....

well dats it for now. n btw, anyone who hasnt watched final fantasy: advent children, go watch!! i burned it to cd so if anyone wans it can borrow from me :P the fight scenes r awesome...n tifa's HOT... ;P

The Gambler

2005-09-21T14:30:00.000+08:00

The gambler realised time was short. And he needed money. So he threw the dice, and won. Thus he managed to scrape past that particular situation.

Some time later, he needed a quick fix again. So he threw the dice and once again he got lucky. After setting his affairs in order, he still had some left over.

So he spent it all.

The nature of the gambler is that whenever he wins something, he will use it to play for ever bigger stakes. You can never expect him to save his winnings and invest in the future.

But you can't throw the dice and expect to get 6 every time. And sometimes, when you throw a bad number, the consequences can be bad.

Very bad....

And this time, the gambler has thrown all ones.

God save the gambler....

Handphone Numbers

2005-09-11T17:47:00.000+08:00

eh...as i've mentioned in the last post, i've lost my hp...n hence all my hp numbers...so u guys who drop by this blog, pls leave ur no. here k? (or send me a private msg in frenster or msn or watever)

"Gloomy Saturday"

2005-09-10T21:02:00.000+08:00

ok..the title of this post takes its name from a song kryptos intro'd me, Gloomy Sunday...originally in hungarian n supposedly drove over 100 ppl to suicide since 1933....but thats another story.

the point is, this was a S.H.I.T. day.

early at 7am saw me dragging myself up from bed after a mere 4 hrs of sleep to go hiking wif yst. reason? exam's coming up n i need to study for the whole day so from past experience i needed the 'boost' dat an early morning exercise wud give me. duno bout u guys but if i sleep more than 6 hrs at nite i end up being more tired than usual. but that (my weird sleep patterns) is another story too.

anyway...all went well..for the morning, that is...we managed to reach station 5 in record time...less than half an hr (started around 7.35 n reached slightly b4 8...) then went down, had breakfast at the usual roadside mamak stall n walked around botanical gardens n went home. then i found out: strike number 1...missing handphone! i left it in my glove compartment b4 going up the hill n now its not there. plus for sum weird reason, the fucker oso stole a nail clipper i left in the car. so anyway...wat to do..i called up digi n froze my number..hopefully the 90+ bucks credit left wud b more or less intact when i renew the number...

so for the rest of the morning i sat in my room n revised my maths; god noes how much stuff i've forgotten since the last exam. my usual practice after hiking in the morning is to take a short nap n wake up refreshed but since this morning i was feeling more alert n wakeful than usual i decided to slog it out until noon....after which things started going downhill. while waiting for lunch i 'snacked' on the better part of a large bag of potato chips n felt the usual 'body heating up' symptoms harbringing the discomfort dat accompanies any excess intake of oily food. so thats strike number 2.

after lunch i was feeling sleepy so..sleep? nah. went on9 to 'check mail n stuff for a few mins'...ended up playing a 2-hr DotA game wif tansri n aik chuan...2 hrs cuz ac was too damn pro n me n tansri pairing up vs him barely managed to win in the end...by the time the game was over it was like 5.30. i was like WTF??? WHERE HAD THE AFTERNOON GONE!? now, the reason i went hiking this morning n deprived myself of sleep was to give myself more energy to study later in the day. n now more than half of it's gone n all i've had to show was a few pages of revised maths...

so..strike 3.

now its after dinner... less than 2 hrs (b4 dota at 11pm) 4 me to cover the huge amount of work i scheduled myself today. man, life juz sucks....

btw, if anyone's wondering wat happened to me lately, i havent been on9 cuz of TWO blasted modems. but thats another story.

n a brief recounting of my recent week or two - since i havent been blogging lately - dats yet another story too.

my new love interest, kym...hehe..dats another story.

n last but not least, the new game in my life...DOTA!!! ....another story.

sorry guys but gtg study...

Holiday Journal, Part 2

2005-08-30T00:21:00.000+08:00

brief summary, will flesh out when i hv time

thursday
where the heck did thursday go?
juz remembered...took my car 2 workshop for engine tune-up...n did a bunch of other stuff (change petrol filter, carbon flush, n installed sumthing called Air Power....)...COST ME 400 BUCKS! (or rather, cost my mom...)....at LEAST my car's not dragging along like an underpowered toy train now...still...i wonder if the marginal performance increase is worth the money...

friday
bbq!!! at sze ming's hse, then went to onestop for pool n dota
ej n cw who were in charge of buying the supplies got too few sausages n too much sauce *wrinkles nose* n sum horrible lamb steaks which were 'berbau hanyir' n tough as cardboard...but on the whole the 'self-cooked food' was enjoyable lah :P there was a total of 8 ppl: tst, kst, ej, rentai, ghee, sm, lydia n latecomer sue lyn... after bbq we went to onestop where i played my 1st ever game of pool (well, i did try shooting wif the cue once or twice b4 but never relly played a game...) forgot who won d but i din manage 2 shoot in a single ball :( then it was dota time! n in the end we went back at 12.30, way past mine n lydia's curfews....

sat
come to think of it, where did sat go??

sun
went to penang swimming club wif ej in the evening, played 9 games of ping pong (10 points each)..won 6 to 3 :P

personal record for shortest blog time: 3 mins

Holiday Journal, Part 1

2005-08-25T10:36:00.000+08:00

20/8 (Sat)
left for kl wif my family, ej tagging along. he has an mp3 player wif more functions but less memory n costs a bundle more..hehe. reached kl around noon, picked up my bro from his hostel n went to hv lunch at a coffee shop where i found dat penang hawker food beats kl by miles...the 猪肉丸米粉 was like tasteless! after dat, went to shah alam to pick up my sis, spent the afternoon at megamall. the place was huge....we spent 2 hrs walking round the place wif hardly any stops n only covered bout half of it...n got lost trying to locate the place to meet up....haih dat place is kinda depressing too (for the same reason as gurney).
after dat, had dinner at a restaurant...now the food THERE was excellent n i stuffed myself to overflow :S following dat we went to parkson to 'walk off the extra fuel' but ej n i headed straight for the cybercafe...which was 2 streets away. u wudnt believe it...kl cybercafes majorly suck! for one thing, locating them in a city supposed to be the nation's capital, was harder than u think....most ppl we asked din even noe wat 'cybercafe' means! alahh...then when we finally got to the 'cafes, there were 2 side by side n we picked the 'cleaner, brighter' one...bad mistake. turns out apart from 3 stupid shareware games, the comps only offered online games like RO or ROSE. jesus, it was like a kiddies' room. anyway the comps were so sucky we left after half n hr. after going back to the apartment, ej filmed me 'showing off' some kicks 1st wif my dad's hp, then his own digicam. lights out. then talked wif ej until 2 or 3 when we both dozed off...

21/8 (Sun)
went to parkson for breakfast at a dimsun restaurant. made an interesting observation about kl ppl, which i shared wif ej ;) then dropped my bro off at his hostel n embarked on the home journey....mostly passed uneventfully tho i had a sore neck from sitting in the middle back seat.

22/8 (Mon)
morning, went to sch to get my spm results translation signed for the jap scholarship. (they sent a letter a few weeks ago n i tot 'sei liao' but it turns out it was only the blank jap language test paper which we din do during the written test months ago...but now for the final selection we hv 2 pass up all the papers including the blank ones...hopefully the written test results wun count for too much lah cuz i noe i sucked in it) the afternoon-session 'principal' senget REFUSED to sign my translation juz becuz of a small correction even tho i told him it wud b sent by fax n thus unnoticeable...so i had to get a letterhead, go home n type the whole thing out, then go back to sch again...this time, senget was absent...so i had to visit sch a 3rd time in the afternoon. jesus.

later dat day went out wif ej, kst, yst, rentai n ghee for bowling at midlands...most of us (apart from ej) being novices, many hillarious happenings occurred. ej won both games we played, me bagging runner-up in the 1st game n ghee taking dat place in the 2nd. rentai scored near the bottom in both games tho he 'drew first blood' by scoring 1st...most of us went gutter in the 1st round. kst n ghee gained the nicks 'ultra-casual' n 'superslow' respectively, which corresponds to their bowls...kst walks up to the lane like nobody's business n casually CHUCKS the ball 5 or 6 feet into the lane where it typically slides another 5 or so feet b4 rollin towards the pins...as for ghee, he sumhow made his balls (bowling balls, not HIS balls) roll super-slowly n still managed to keep a reasonable amount of accuracy. however, the highlight of the day was yst's triple strikes...in the final round of the 2nd game, yst suddenly got a 'limit break' n did 3 strikes consecutively..overtaking most of us in score in juz one round!

after dinner at mcd, we went to evo for a bit of cc action...decided to try out DotA (Defense of the Ancients) n got hooked for 2 1/2 hrs...all of us teamed up against comp in d 1st game, me n yst teamed against kst, ghee n rentai in 2 other games...we won the 2nd game n lost the 3rd. so instead of leaving at 10 as planned, we went back around 11.30....

23/8 (Tue)
afternoon, went to psc for a bit of punch-bag action. b4 starting on the bag tho, went beach-running...5 rounds down the stretch of beach next to psc...2 rounds in the ankle deep water n 3 rounds in soft sand. pretty darn good exercise - lower back, abs n calves all hurting like hell now (thurs morning). after hitting the bag, went for chin-ups at the monkey bar..did a total of 20 times in 5-rep sets...man i'm getting weak. at least i can actually do them now...still remember bout 2 years back i cant even lift myself up once.
later at nite, met sum of d guys on9 n decided to cancel the bbq thing we've been planning for thurs. wun go into details now but the whole business relly got me fed up...

24/8 (Wed)
got a cold, n subsequently was in a bad mood the whole day. big hub-bub about the bbq business...sum ppl still wanted it while sum din...in the end we decided to hv it after all, at sze ming's hse on friday. spent the day studying arenes n haloalkanes at home....organic chem is shit. found dat my comp has a overheating problem n crashes after playing any cpu-intensive game for a few mins...shita....

shit..blog's dead, n so am i...

2005-08-14T14:27:00.000+08:00

muthaf*cking haze....made me miss the summer 8 concert at esplanade yesterday....n man i so damn regret not going cuz tot the haze wud affect the concert n it turned out dat d haze cleared b4 d concert started..!! fucka fucka fucka....

anyway for all of u out there still tuning in to my blog....sorry for lack of updates. guess i cud make a lot of excuses for my absence from the blogging world...but the fact remains dat i was too lazy to post. hmm..i suppose i can blame literati for taking up my night on9 time (which is usually the time i blog)....n in turn i can blame samuel for getting me hooked to scrabble by bringing his scrabble set to sch....haha

well anyway juz to note a few things dat hv happened in the past..2? 3? weeks since my last post...in no particular order:

hot weather
the weather's been unbelievably hot lately. as in shittingly boilingly burning hot. so hot dat for the last week i din manage to get anything substantial done (in the way of studies)....prior to this i had decided to stay back in sch on weekdays so dat i wudnt waste my afternoons in front of d comp...but thanx 2 d heat, i had no luck concentrating, whether at sch or at home...damnit, one week gone....btw, if anyone's affected by the hot weather too, my advice is to get some exercise n 'sweat it all out' then take a shower...else u'll b sweating a little bit throughout the day n feel hot n sticky n (in my case) seriously UNmotivated to study...

phantom of the opera
last sat, watched phantom of the opera (movie) wif my mom...mainly for the music, since the acting kinda sucked (except for the phantom). there were some humourous moments thrown in, esp at the start tho. needless to say my fave character was the phantom. there were some parallels between him n i...i'll leave it to u guys 2 figure dat out :P worst point of the movie: the song-speech dat the characters adopted halfway through the movie as their main method of dialogue...the words werent really suited to the rhythm so it sounded rather unnatural.

literati
as mentioned above, lately i (n most of the 'fluggen gang'...) had been hooked on literati...every nite at 11 (give or take an hour :P) we'll converge in a yahoo!literati room n play...at the beginning i had the upper hand in most games but lately it seems everyone's getting better while i'm getting worse...last nite actually lost both games dat we played, one of them to rentai! currently rentai holds the record for making the longest word (n scoring the most points in one turn....126 points...) tho he did kinda reinvent the dictionary in doing so :P anyway, hv 2 stop playing literati too..its making me stay up later than i shud n staring at the screen in the dark isnt doing my eyes any good either...

pc fair
went to pc fair last sat. the place was packed tighter than a can of sardines n all of us (me, ej, tansri, caryn n rentai) ended up buying nothing...so all in all, a waste of time (n car petrol). i was looking for earphones for my mp3 player but the ones sold there were all 'bad labels' according to ej...n oso it was a pain navigating the area looking for the best offers...so in the end i left empty handed. sigh. this is starting to sound repetitive isnt it?

other stuff
1. the past few weekends had been a total waste...i seriously hv 2 break this vicious cycle or i'm done for in the upcoming trial exams...
2. lately i'm kinda into karate....chia ling's been teaching me some karate stuff (including the 'coveted' kata Bassai Dai...haha) n i've oso been sparring wif him karate-style....it sure was an eye opener for sum1 like me who had been bound to the rules of taekwondo sparring

bad weekend: physics comp + team A gathering + tennis + FUCKING CAR ACCIDENT

2005-08-02T00:47:00.000+08:00

terrible weekend, it was.

1stly, we'll start off wif friday. well actually, i cant remember much of friday. i think i spent the afternoon reading harry potter which my neighbour jing yin so kindly lent me, then napped, then went off to tuition n slept summore, then after tuition went out for dinner wif parents, then at nite i prepared for the sat physics competition by chatting on9 n reading harry potter...

saturday:
picked up shin jeh the LongMan n went to usm for the physics competition. as usual...u guessed it. messed up. the hall was damn cold, every1 complained bout it. for a cold-phobic person like me, it was hell in antartica. towards the end of d 2 1/2-hr competition my fingers were so numb i crossed out one line at least 3 times b4 managing 2 write it properly. the questions themselves were a lot easier than i had anticipated, which is not to say i managed 2 do them all cuz i din study...din wan 2 waste time on a 'lost cause', u see.....tho i suppose if i studied n refreshed my memory on the formulae things wud hv been much easier lah. as things were, i langsung din touch one of the four questions cuz i had to derive almost every equation from scratch, having forgotten all the formulae. felt relly shitty after the test cuz almost every1 finished all 4 questions except for me n i prob cud hv if i had only tried harder.

neway, after the test i spent the rest of d morning driving aimlessly around wif shin jeh n ariel (who had unexpectedly turned up for the competition) looking for a place 2 hv breakfast, then went 2 buy bus tickets for my sis...by the time i got home it was past lunchtime n after the meal i proceeded to waste the afternoon spending an inordinate amount of time typing a few questions for my mom n napping the rest of the time away.

around 6.30 wei liang arrived at my hse n we left for choh khai's where we met up wif d rest of 'team A' - fatty, ck n rentai. went for western food at pulau tikus, then headed for gurney....walked round d place a bit, visited xinch at tower records, n had a field time pestering william (the current head prefect) wif misscalls while eating cake at secret recipe. felt kinda guilty bout it later tho....anyway, after dat we went 2 take a few pics at gurney drive, i got up on the ledge n held a side kick but fatty goay messed up d pic (glares). after dat everyone went home n i once again turned 2 harry potter b4 sleep....

(btw, gurney is such a depressing place. u see all the happy couples walking around together n u'r alone. ok, not u, ME. )

sunday:
morning passed uneventfully...went out wif family for dim sum breakfast then read harry potter again - i was trying 2 finish it within the weekend - then after lunch went to hv a haircut. well, all i can say is dat it was a haircut of haircuts....i'm now known by such names as 'monk', 'heng ee boy', 'commando', etc....plus the idiot barber made me wait for almost (or more than) an hr! @#&$^%&@#$

later when i went home, it was harry potter again (thankfully, the end wasnt too far off d), then nap, then ej came 2 pick me up for tennis. spent bout 45 minutes trying 2 locate caryn's hse, then picked HER up n went straight 2 psc. xinch was late. xinch missed a lot of balls. i hit out a lot of balls. ej killed a lot of balls. (in case anyone's wondering, those were tennis balls. dun think too much.) at 7 we stopped n went 2 d pool for a swim then showered then all went out in ej's car for dinner....

then it happened when we were parking outside subaidah's. ej was reversing into the parking space n he inched out again to adjust...then suddenly a fucker on steroids drove by at mebbe 60 kph. IN A CARPARK. his side n ej's front connected n he dragged ej's front bumper clean off (almost) b4 he stopped. d fucker got out n started blabbering n at 1st we were all too shocked n tot it was our fault. later we worked out the details n discovered dat HE shudnt hv been driving dat fast in d 1st place. plus it was likely dat his car's side swerved into us as we were inching forwards, so it was HIS fault.

but anyway, we juz stood our ground n waited for ej's parents 2 arrive. THEY started calling in 'reinforcements'....u noe..those thuglike biker-types who claim to be foremen but were probably their relatives or sumting. same bad seed, i say. so i called ghee. if it came 2 a brawl at least we got 2 fighting men. meanwhile the OTHER fuckers who had their car parked next to ej's, started ranting about their car being scratched. for gods sake d scratch was so small it was almost invisible! n they were talking bout wanting the whole fucking car resprayed cuz it cudnt b polished. bullshit, may they die early. trying to profit from other ppl's troubles....in particular i remember this crossed-eyed bitch (ok, not relly crossed eyed, i juz needed something 2 describe her) who alternated between 'its your fault, YOUR FAULT, N I DUN CARE N U MUST PAY ME' n 'hey i'm talking nicely to u, dun shout at me pls'....man, if i had a stick, i wud ram it up her (.....)

anyway when ej's parents arrived they settled the bitch quickly (tho she profitted by 50 bucks, which imho she shudnt hv deserved. she cant even get dat amount if she sold herself) then concerning the 'main' accident, they decided to let d police settle, which was a wise choice cuz the fucker prob wud go ahead n report to police behind our backs even if we agreed 2 settle it in private. the cheek, claiming we were at fault. hope next time he speeds n hits a parking car, it wud b a 20-ton lorry. (humourless laugh)

anyway after ej's parents went off to the police station, the wind startd acting up...sand flying everywhere n we startd worrying bout dat holy man or watever's vision. so ghee dropped me n caryn back home. end of story. one wasted weekend n one busted car.

DOUBLE OR NOTHING

2005-07-25T20:45:00.000+08:00

I GOT A DOUBLE!! last week's grading's results came out yesterday n boy was i surprised. teacher gave me a scare by announcing my name last n i seriously tot dat i failed the grading cuz she finished giving out the blue belts, red tips, then red belts n still din call me. then mira was called out n (this is hillarious) ms looi tore off a bit of mira's red 'tip' (which is actually juz red tape wound around the tip of the belt) n put it on a blue belt. guess she ran out of red tips, haha. then FINALLY i was called out to receive my new belt.

i hv this feeling dat i dun relly deserve the belt lah. mebbe ms looi knew i was gonna take study leave liao so she 'helped' me along by giving me a double? cuz i din win a gold in the state tourney (almost everyone who got a double were gold winners. sob..) n i kinda sucked during the grading (refer prev post). but still, its nice to see some new colours on my belt :D

anyway, for those of u interested in wat i had been up to, i recently watched 2 movies (on my comp, that is)....starship troopers 2 n chronicles of riddick. starship troopers 2 sucked, majorly. the story plot was horrible, there were completely no references to the original movie (which stands among my top 5 movies of all time) n there was none of the elements dat made the 1st movie so great in my opinion.

chronicles of riddick was good tho. despite the bad reviews of it floating around the net, i found the story quite interesting n the action was definitely great. its not everyday u see a movie hero killing a bad guy with a teacup. the story may be quite confusing at first tho....there were stuff dat i only understood after reading bout the movie (n related pc game) at wikipedia. still, its not bad at all.

ok, back to the drawing board for me....

may this serve as a warning to the inexperienced....

2005-07-22T20:41:00.000+08:00

thats wat u get when u engage in certain activities without consulting an expert like me

bon odori & grading

2005-07-17T21:19:00.000+08:00

saturday: bon odori

not relly interesting, n blew 20 bucks there

picked up caryn n june at around 7, then drove over to the esplanade...it wasnt so jammed but the parking spaces nearby were all full (except for one in a secluded alley which a stupid indian fella was trying to con us to going in to, n i had better sense than dat...poor safety + having to pay for his 'service'? no way!) so in the end we parked somewhere near the bank street...10 minutes' walk away from the festival venue...

after reaching there we met up wif ej n went to look at the japanese dance which was going on. it wasnt relly dat good...the dancers dun seem very familiar wif their moves n werent synchronised. hehe u wud think dat they wud hv worked harder to put up a good show for their last year. but anyway there was a lot of ppl gathered around the circular stage where the dancing was taking place.

following that, we went looking around the stalls for some chow. the stalls were organised into rows like chinese, malay n japanese food. everything was paid for by coupons, n one set of coupons is 20 bucks! but the jap food was so expensive we finished our coupons without relly filling up oso.

there was this one jap bbq something stall that ej queued up for while i went to get the noodles. 5 mins later, i went back to find ej n he hasnt moved an inch in the queue. i went to look for my prefect juniors (got motive lah ;P) n when i came back 15 mins later, ej has made 2 steps' progress. then the fireworks started n went on for about 5 or 10 minutes. after which, we still had to wait another 10 minutes b4 ej finally emerged truimphantly from the queue. then i asked him: "where's mine?" n he sed "i tot u sed u dun wan!" -_-'

anyway, we originally wanted 2 eat at the seaside, but it turned out the whole stretch of the curb there was fully seated. so we scouted around n finally came upon an unoccupied table n settled our food, which did not come close to filling us up. (well, us 2 guys anyway) then we walked around a bit more n it was time to go home.

sunday: grading

man was it a disaster!

as was the norm for tkd events, we waited for a long long time there. i managed to learn all 7 one-step sparring sequences n 10 self defense sequences in that time (having been absent for class last sunday n yesterday morning) so it was lucky we had so much free time after all. but it din help me much, cuz i relly messed up the basics. i already knew it was bad news when i 1st saw the grading syllabus. we had to do the blasted jumping kicks (front, side, turning) AGAIN...i mean, we did that for the green belt grading last year! apparently they shifted it up to blue tip so rugilah kita who already did it last year (dats me, justin n samantha).

in case dan's wondering y i'm making such a fuss about jumping kicks, its becuz in tkd 'jumping kick' means u hv 2 jump n HOLD the kick when u land. holding normal kicks is hard enuf for me n jumping is all but impossible. n it kinda makes no sense to put ur leg out like that but lets not go into that for now.

anyway, when our turn came along i messed nearly everything up. 1stly was patterns, i 'gave it 101%' n messed up my side kicks which i was never good at (the tkd side kick still feels a bit weird after all this time). then when it came to basics, my jumping kicks were like waist high, which defeats the purpose of jumping in the first place. then came one step n self defence which wasnt so bad, then sparring. man, justin's an absolute horror as a sparring partner. he kept kicking below the belt! so i din dare to kick to high cuz we werent wearing groin guards n i dun wan 2 resort to cloning to reproduce in the future. the only thing i cud do was get in close n jam his kicks then try to do a chopping kick. but when dat happens he turns his back to me n squats down n covers his head! so i din get a clear hit on him at all. ok, enuf of technical stuff :P

so in short i can kiss that double promotion bye bye d. i think i'll skip next week's class cuz it'll b real siahsui when samantha n mira get their double n i dun.

last 2 weeks

2005-07-15T22:34:00.000+08:00

man, last 2 weeks had been absolutely hectic. sorry, i mean, boring.

i suppose i owe everyone an apology for not updating. but then, it'll b as arrogant as an eldar if i were to assume dat everyone checks my blog for daily updates of my oh-so-uninteresting life :P n since everyone else had been on hiatus lately i think i can be excused for following (or setting?) the trend :D

anyway, in brief, the last 2 weeks saw me completing warhammer 40k: dawn of war (see last post) n LEGO star wars (more on this later), going out a few times (a few times more than i shud :S) cuz someone unexpectedly came back 2 penang to 'haunt my days' hehe...n oh, there was this 'training camp' held by my tkd centre last sat, which i found to be utterly pointless. sorry ms looi, its d truth...

more on LEGO star wars: contrary to my initial opinion, its actually quite an addictive game. i mean, how many games lets u use the force on objects such as cups and tables to make 'coins' pop out of thin air *rolls eyes* but for some reason the ridiculousness of the game fades after swinging the cartoon (LEGO) lightsaber a few times. getting to play almost every character (well, their LEGO versions anyway) in the star wars movies oso helped keep me stuck there. n for concerned parents out there, not one bit of blood is spilled in the game cuz ur enemies r made of LEGO blocks dat juz split apart when u defeat them :P

anyway, dan came back 2 penang for a 2-week (less, actually) stay...ej n rentai 'pulled' me out for a movie despite my adamant (?) objections...then while we were having dinner at nando's b4 the movie, ej accidentally spilled the beans b4 the big guy himself showed up :D but it was a nice surprise all the same. dat was last wed. then we went hiking on sunday (n i skipped tkd :P) n played tennis, the last time we (ej, dan n me) wud b playing together for a long time i think, n got to spar a few rounds wif dan at psc later that day....then on monday we went to rock the world at redbox followed by a few rounds at the cybercafe :P (won 1 round of homeworld 2 n 1 round of starcraft, then ghee got nasty n got everyone to ally against me in sc but i got the highest score anyway even when i lost)

tomolo's bon odori, the last time it'll b held in penang..or so i've heard. want 2 go, but dun hv a date :P ah well, life's like that....

For the Imperium!

2005-07-09T18:55:00.000+08:00

juz finished playing warhammer 40000: dawn of war last nite. d single-player campaign was rather short, consisting of only 10 (or was it 11?) missions...but i spent bout 1 day on each mission....haih need to polish up my strategy gaming skills...

for those who dunno, dawn of war is a strategy game set in the warhammer 40000 universe created by Games Workshop. originally a boardgame, d warhammer franchise grew n while it never reached d same level of fame or popularity as star wars, star trek etc, it built up its own fan base over d years. i 1st knew bout warhammer 40k back in...primary sch when i got a game called Space Hulk. basically warhammer 40k is about a universe torn by war between various factions, the most notable being the Imperium of Mankind, the 'savage' (in d game they were portrayed as being rather comical) Orks, the enigmatic n 'arrogant' Eldars (imho d true 'good guys' of the game), the bio-terror Tyranid Swarm, n the forces of Chaos aka the Great Enemy. there r numerous other races n factions too but to avoid boring everyone to death i'll leave those interested to find out for themselves :P

the background story's pretty interesting too. in brief, mankind spread to the stars after the invention of the 'warp drive' which allows spaceships to travel in an alternate dimension n traverse great distances (think millions of light years) within a relatively short time. so they colonised d galaxy, met various alien species, n engaged in all out war. at about d same time latent psychic traits began to appear among some of the human population. those ppl, psykers, came to wield great power but since their abilities were drawn from the warp itself, they became gateways for 'fell creatures of the warp', known as daemons, to enter the world. so humanity was almost destroyed as they were fighting wars on two fronts...among the stars wif the aliens, n among themselves as daemons possessed whole populations n waged war on man. to cut a long story short, one guy, a 'psyker of remarkable power', emerged n united humanity as well as banishing the daemons back to the warp. this guy? the Emperor, unsurprisingly. so he established an Imperium stretching across a million worlds n put himself at the top. heheh.

still with me? ok, back to the game itself. as u can find out from any decent game review site, dawn of war lets u play 4 factions in multiplayer: Space Marines (humans), Eldar, Orks n Chaos. however the single-player campaign is only for the Space Marines, which imho left me feeling vaguely unsatisfied cuz we dun get to see the other factions' side of the story. the story starts as Captain Gabriel Angelo, a Space Marine Captain (those guys r rather high-ranking...since space marines were supposedly the elite 'superhuman' troops of the imperium) landed on the planet Tartarus to help the inhabitants fend off a massive Ork invasion. eventually they meet (n fight) the Eldar, n finally the forces of Chaos who turned out to be the real baddies.

ok enuf of this, i'm not being paid to review the game. all i hv to say is, the game rox! d graphics were awesome...everything - units, terrain, vehicles etc, r in full 3D, n u can zoom in to watch the fighting up close, which is paling impressive when vehicles or 'super-units' r killing infantry cuz they hv a bunch of special animations reserved for this purpose. for example when the Eldars' Avatar of Khaine, a 30-foot tall incarnation of their war-god, kills an infantry unit, he impales the unlucky fellow on his huge sword n lets him slide down its length, then flings d corpse away. cool eh?

d game also pays a lot of attention to balance. each weapon is only effective against certain unit types, for example machinegun-type guns against light infantry, plasma weaponry against heavy infantry, n rockets/missiles against vehicles. there's also a unique strategic element: morale. when units r outnumbered in melee (yup, u can let ur infantry engage in melee instead of shooting) or attacked by certain weapons, their morale will drop n the squad will become 'broken', at which point they take more damage while doing very little in return. interesting, relly.

ok, i'm sure by now i hv some of u guys out there salivating d. so if u wan d game, ask from me n i'll burn it for u :P no i'm not a good guy, i juz wan ppl to play multiplayer wif...

finally...got that off my back. now for 2 months of study until d next holidays....

notes:
1. This was actually posted since 5/7 (Tue) but for some reason it showed up on the Pirate's Coven instead of here...
2. We can now add images directly to Blogger instead of having to host it somewhere else? Good riddance to Flickr!

heheh...check it out!

2005-07-04T00:51:00.000+08:00

btw, 2 things of interest:

1. today i experienced, for the first time, the pleasure of wearing my mp3 player to the toilet :P makes the boredom more....bearable :P:P

2. according to a medical lab test i did recently, my blood is type O, Rhesus positive. so dat means i'm a universal donor. geez, must i be so good?

Blood...Blood...Rayne-ing Down....

2005-06-30T21:19:00.000+08:00

juz finished bloodrayne. damn, who'd hv thought i wud hv played thru a mindless hack-n-slash game like that...but i think the thrill of dodging bullets n hacking off limbs kept me hooked (there's also the factor of playing a super-sexy female character wif 2-feet-long forearm-mounted silver blades). tho it did take me quite a while (1+ week) to finish compared 2 other games....neway, this is gonna b d last (or at least 2nd last :P) game i'm gonna play b4 starting serious study....had been relly slacking the past 2 weeks n i SWORE to myself to 'finish it off for good so i can concentrate on studies'

hmm...wat else interesting lately....i got 4th in form for midyear exams, which is way beyond my expectations since i was quite sure i messed up several papers.....but anyhow muet pulled me up a lot...its not gonna b in trial exam tho, which means my average will prob go down quite a bit :(

n besides dat, my bio is WAAAAAY behind cuz i din hv 2 take it for d midyears...so i practically din touch it till d midyear holidays...n even then i only covered bout 25% of wat is required cuz i only read thru d a-level books my mom borrowed...n those were quite basic-level too...(example: production of urea - "The ammonia is converted to urea in a process known as the ornithine cycle, the details of which you do not need to know about at this stage.")

so man, i'm relly fearing for my stpm now. esp since i keep making excuses not to study. hope i get the jap scholarship. local Us suck, even if i dun mess up stpm.