Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Aw Naw

Monday, April 7, 2008

Hobbit

Tagged by Jon

rules:
1. name 5 people you can think of right off the top of your head.
2. don't read the questions underneath until you write the names of all 5 people.
3. randomly list the names. no cheating!

the 5 people:
1. Chen Yee Leong
2. Christina How
3. Chatichai Chong
4. Sara Mak
5. Shaun Lai

questions:

1. how did you meet 1?
We met at primary school but we have been neighbours for our whole lives.

2. on a scale of 1 -10 how would you rate your friendship with 1?
Definitely a 9.

3. how long have you known 4?
About 3 years.

4. how do you know number 3?
I met him when we were in the same Moral class back when we were 13.

5. wheres 5?
At his home I guess.

6. a fact about number 1?
He is Yee Leong. Need I say more?

7. who is 4 going out with?
I don't know.

8. what does 1 do for a living?
He works at his dad's office but he will be going to IMU soon.

9. would you live with number 3?
For sure. He is an awesome dude with a great sense of humor!

10. what do you like about number 2?
Her personality.

11. do you miss number 5?
Quite a bit. I haven't seen him in a while.

12. would you make out with number 4?
Can I skip this?

13. what's your opinion of number 2?
I think she's a nice person, a good friend and pretty one as well.

14. what's your favorite memory with number 5?
I'm not drunk!

15. what would you do if number 1 and 2 were going out?
Nothing I guess. If it happens, it happens. Who am I to say or do anything?

16. ever had a long conversation with 5?
I think so.

17. have you ever slept at 2's house?
Yes. But only once, because I got locked out.

18. do you hang out with 3 a lot?
Before he went to Russia, yes.

19. who have you known the longest?
Number 1. 15 years?

20. how often do you talk to 1?
It used to be very often but quite infrequent these days.

21. what about 2?
Sometimes.

22. have you ever thought 3 more than a friend?
He's a great dude and a great friend. A brother maybe?

23. would you go out for a date with 5?
Are you kidding me? The last time I checke, I was perfectly straight.

24. do you dream about 2?
A couple of times in the past. But so have I about the rest.

25. what did no 4 did to you that you can never forget?
She helped bring her crew for Music Fest and it definitely rocked!

26. what have you done for 1 that the person never forget?
Now that would be a secret.

27.what's 3 hobby?
Medicine?

28. tag 5 people
Those whom I've mentioned here.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

A Strange Experience

The other day when I came back from a drinking session with Jon and Sara, I had a pretty unusual experience when I got home. As usual, I parked dad's car in the driveway, checked if I had secured everything and then went into the house. After I got in, I grabbed some food and I went upstairs to check my emails. By then, it was already very late, I was the only one awake and my parents were probably thousands of feet up in the air by then. Then, as I was about to get some work done, "Chunk! Chunk!" I heard a noise. It was rather loud and it came from downstairs. It sounded as if someone was trying to yank the door open. Bearing in mind that my parents were not in the country, and we were not expecting anyone at that time, hearing noises coming from down below, startled me. Two things came to my mind. First, it could have been either intruders or the second, it could have very well been a ghost. I discounted the latter. Immediately, I turned around and I went to do a little bit of investigating. But instead of going right down to see who it was, I peeked at the door from above. Call me a chicken, but a lot of thinking went into that decision because if I had gone down, the potential robbers would have seen me and they would have known what to prepare for. I took a peek and to my relief, I saw nothing unusual. That gave me a slight relief, but it still did not erase the fact that I had heard a noise.

After making sure that there was nothing there, reluctantly, I went back to work. Then, as I was happily typing away, I heard another noise. This time it was different. There was a bang followed by the sound of hurried footsteps coming from the ceiling. I stopped typing and immediately looked up. By now, I was completely baffled. What could have made that noise? Again, my mind went into overdrive. I was convinced that somehow, someway, a bunch of nasty people had broken into my house ready to steal whatever they saw fit. And to make matters worse, last year, Leong, my neighbour, told me of how his house had been burgled by a two thieves who entered through the roof. What if it was my turn to get robbed? Immediately, I started to look for help and for whatever reason, I messaged Jon. Then, after doing that, I messaged Ping Fuan. At first, Ping seemed to think that it was all some kind of a joke. But after some relentless persuasion, he realized just how serious I was about the whole affair and then proceeded to offer some solutions and one of them included looking for a weapon, a knife or a machete. Never did he mention the police and never did it cross my mind to call them.

Then, a couple of minutes later, I heard another loud sound. This time it was the door. It was as if someone was trying hard as they could to get that door open by somehow pulling at the knob. I was really scared by then. What should I do? It was already around 12 or 1 A.M. by then and I really wasn't in the mood for anything extraordinary. So this time, I stood up, and marched all the way down the staircase, pushed the curtain aside and took a good look from the window and to my absolute surprise, nothing was there. Absolutely nothing. How could this be? Especially after hearing those very obvious sounds, there was nothing there and as soon as that realization had come upon myself, I started to think of something a little more sinister.

My aunt had always said that she saw a old lady in red saree wander around my house and at times, she did feel a presence every now and then. So the thought of one of these things deciding to come out and play just when my parents were away and I was the only one awake definitely got on my nerves and it did make me a little scared. If it was a robber, I could somehow defend. But what do I do against a ghost?

Slowly, I made my way up and went about doing my work, trying not to think too much about it. I decided, if there was something there, a robber or a ghost, I might as well stay awake just to be safe. I for one wouldn't have wanted a good stabbing or a haunting while I was asleep. After some time, there were no more unusual sounds to be heard. Whatever had been making them had decided not to make them anymore. So at around 2 A.M, when I decided that all was safe, I went to bed. Thankfully, nothing untoward happened while I was asleep. So the question is, what was it that I had heard that night?

On a more lighter note, I went to Jon's church today to test out the K200D. Its a pretty good camera. Let's see where we end up in about a week from now.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Female Hormones In Beer

I read this on one of my friends blogs. I don't know what to make of it but I do think that it should be an interesting read. But keep in mind that I mean no sexism.

Last month, National University of Lesotho scientists released the results of a recent analysis that revealed the presence of female hormones in beer.

Men should take a concerned look at their beer consumption.

The theory is that beer contains female hormones (hops contain phytoestrogens) and that by drinking enough beer, men turn into women.

To test the theory, 100 men drank 8 pints of beer each within a 1 hour period.

It was then observed that 100% of the test subjects:

1) Argued over nothing.
2) Refused to apologize when obviously wrong.
3) Gained weight.
4) Talked excessively without making sense.
5) Became overly emotional.
6) Couldn't drive.
7) Failed to think rationally.
8) Had to sit down while urinating.

No further testing was considered necessary

Friday, April 4, 2008

Thursday, April 3, 2008

This Is My Stand

A couple of days ago, I woke up to a headline that Mr. Max Mosely, the President of the FIA has just found himself in a rather sticky situation which magnitude is quite difficult for me to grasp. It appears that this man has his very own sex scandal involving a couple of prostitutes and himself in an apparent role playing orgy. And as usual, an array of comments have bombarded press rooms all over the world about Max's conduct. Predictably, some condemn it while some are indifferent about it. As a Formula 1 fan who has followed the sport for 10 years, I believe that it is important to make my stand on this issue. I too wish that fans, spectators, teams, and all those involved directly or indirectly with the sport or are contemplating involvement with the pinnacle of motorsport, to stand up and be counted for we definitely are facing a situation which could indeed make or break the reputation of our sport.

My stand is simple. What Mr. Mosely does in his personal life is up to him and to no one else. Therefore, the so called tabloid who broke the story out to the public had indeed broken the moral responsibility which it had to both its subjects and its readers. Its invasion of privacy upon Mr. Mosely should not and must never ever be tolerated. And its reading public really have no business judging, meddling or finding out information of a sensitive nature with regards to the personal life of Mr. Mosely or of anyone for that matter. In my opinion, this news paper has to be shut down before it damages any more lives, as it has so unscrupulously done so on countless occasions in the past. And therefore, I voice my strong support for Mr. Mosely to continue running the FIA until his term expires in the near future. I just cannot agree with calls for his resignation for professionally, he has done nothing wrong.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

April Fools

April fools is always a day where I would somehow, someway come up with some pretty decent pranks which I would pull on people. And I used to enjoy every single moment of it. But please bear in mind that the last time that I had actually played a prank on someone was a couple of years back and I haven't played any since and obviously, having been laid off for sometime now, I have unfortunately become a wee bit rusty. Therefore, with that in mind, I did make it a priority that I go back to the ways of my old days and try to at least play a decent prank on someone. Afterall, there really is nothing like a prank well executed. And I needed some action.

As usual, in the bygone days, the eve of April fool's served as a platform where I would try to think of a decent prank to pull on anyone. But as fate would have it, try and try as I may, I was unable to come up with anything which was close to even resembling a prank. And the closest I ever came to executing a prank was about an hour and a half too early and in my books, probably wasn't the best of pranks. But the victim, sure had her heart skipping many, many beats. But little did I know, April Fool's itself was about to play an even bigger prank on me. A prank which I did appreciate for it reminded me of certain things that I already knew. What I am about to relate to you is a story on how April Fool's played a good prank on me and of how a friend drove from quite a distance away to come and rescue us in the dead of night.

Last night, after returning from Low Yat, my father and I decided to get some dinner at restaurant near KL Sentral. We had just come back from a camera hunting trip and we still haven't had our dinner. Instead of returning home to have dinner, we decided to try something else. So, after getting the car parked, we alighted and proceeded to this restaurant by the name of B'Sentral where we subsequently bumped into a cousin of mine who is currently with the WHO. Then after we had said hello to him, we went in to have our orders taken. I chose to have a rather heavy meal while dad had something lighter. After we had eaten, the both of us felt rather tired and we needed to get back as soon as possible. Dad had a pretty long day, while I had a somewhat busy day at my dad's office editting some pictures for him. And walking around Low Yat looking for that Pentax K200 definitely was not such an enjoyable experience because nobody seemed to have it nor have any idea about it. But anyways, as we had wanted to leave, I realized that the car would;t start. It kept making a funny sound each time I turned the ignition. Having never experienced anything like that before, I asked my dad what was wrong. He said that the batteries had died. The second after he said that, I began to wonder how could the batteries have died. Afterall, it was only a year old and I hadn't left any of the lights turned on while we were away. Not knowing what to do, my first instinct was to call my cousin to see if he had a car which we could use to jump start the car. Unfortunately for us, he rode his motorcycle that night and his friends had already gone home by that time. So seeing that he couldn't do anything to help, he rode off.

A while later I went into the restaurant to ask for help or if anyone had a jumper cable which they could spare. Unfortunately, no one had any and we were back to square one. We then tried to locate the telephone number for the insurance company, but it wasn't anywhere to be seen. It was rather unusual for such a thing to happen because my mother always keeps things like these in her glove compartment. Flagging down cars did not yield any luck at all. We tried asking a lorry driver for some assistance but they were a little hesitant on lending us a hand. Knowing no other way, I decided to call for some assistance. The only person whom I could think of at that time was Jon Woo. I called him, told him of the situation that I was in and asked him if he knew of any good mechanic or anyone whom we could contact for assistance. He said he would look around. For a while there, I was beginning to wonder whether or not he saw this all as a good prank. Thankfully, he did not. Minutes later, after learning that I still hadn't any luck in finding a solution, he offered to drive all the way down to see what he could do to help us out. Obviously, I was delighted that help was on the way. I didn't expect him to come to our aid as he lived quite a distance away to where we were but I am thankful for the fact that he did indeed come out to help us at such and hour. That's what I call a friend. One who would think of nothing more but to see how we can assist one another in times of need. I told him where he could find us. About 20 minutes later, a red Myvi pulled up beside us. The first thing I did when I saw him was to give out a good laugh for I did find it a bit comical to end up in a situation such as this on April Fool's day.

He quickly got out and the three of us set out to solve the problem. After we had connected the cables, I was asked to start the car. But to our disbelief, the car wouldn't start. It was not supposed to do that. We tried again and again. But yet it wouldn't start. We were baffled by what had taken place. Afterall, why shouldn't the car start? We decided to give it some time. But we knew that perhaps, it was not going to work and we needed to find a bigger battery, perhaps one from a lorry. And just as we had said that, a lorry came from the distance. I flagged it down and my dad asked the driver for some help. Thankfully, he agreed and we set to work straight away. After a few adjustments, we got the cables to fit and we waited for a while. My dad then asked me to start the car. But to our absolute chagrin, it wouldn't start. Again, we tried, but it still wouldn't start. By now, we were completely flabbergasted. How could this be? We had everything in place. It should have worked out. Unfortunately, it didn't. Jon theorized that the started had most likely failed and we had to probably leave the car at Brickfields for the night and get some help the next morning. After some slight apprehension about the safety of the car, we agreed and Jon gave us a lift home which I thought was absolutely nice of him. I tried to offer him some petrol cash, but he resisted.

The ride home, proved to be good in some ways because I have been having some trouble explaining to my dad just why Pentax owns Nikon and Cannon and just why it was almost impossible to find K200 set for a price lower than RM3500 on the streets and therefore the RM2900 which Jon's friend quoted to us was a very good deal. Jon, in a way helped me to convince my dad and the deal may be concluded sooner than I thought. I have to ask my dad again.

But anyways, we got home, explained the situation to my mother and of course, she wasn't too happy about it at all. The next day, which is today, we went back to the scene of the problem and tried o solve the problem. It turned out that the car did indeed had a battery problem for we did manage to get it started after transferring the battery from my dad's car. Fortunately, it had not been a starter problem, for that would certainly have doomed us to a visit to the mechanic.

So, April Fool's did indeed manage to pull a rather good prank on me. An expensive one in fact, now that I have a set of batteries to change. But it did remind me of a couple of things that I already realize and I do find it refreshing that I am constantly being reminded of it.