Inconsistent

I suppose maintaining a consistent stream of posts will just never be possible with me... yet. It is roughly 3 months now since my last post, but can't quite pinpoint the exact reason for the sparse updates.

Things are happening; there are stuff to talk about. Can't say I don't have the time to blog; I'm online practically every day. Can't say I'm lazy to write; I compose emails and post in forums regularly. Can't say I dislike blogging; I read my favorite blogs almost every other day. Can I say I'm just lazy? Haha.. perhaps. But I do seem to be doing more study and research recently. That wouldn't be possible if I was lazy, now would it?

For a post much delayed, I sure am writing at the oddest hours of the day. December 12th, 6:11am! It's raining heavily outside, and the fresh smell of rain filled every corner of my house as I went for a late night/early day cup of water earlier. It indeed is cooling, and the sounds of raindrops on the roof tiles does have a hypnotic effect if I were to just sit down in the kitchen and listen to it. Only reason stopping me from doing that is that mom would probably freak out if she were to wake up around now and spot me on the floors outside my room. Haha.

Can't seem to go back to bed. Somehow got alerted too much when the downpour started.

And I'm hungry... :P

Long break, sorta

Finally, a Hari Raya that I actually remember coming and going... first in many years. Raya is one of those awkward times of the year for me because as much as it is one of the major festive event in M'sia, it has somehow succeeded in eluding my attention the past few years. Unlike the other major celebrations, Raya is *quiet*. Seriously! No noise, no outlandish celebrations, no watever. My side of the neighbourhood is almost devoid of Malays, and even the nearby neighbourhood doesn't burst into excitement although it is heavily constituted of the majority race. Raya almost passed unnoticed for me the past 2 years. It was just 'another holiday'; no thrills, no excitement.

This year however, as silent as it always has, didn't go unnoticed. Why? For the simple reason that I geta 5-day break! Yes!!!! With an annual leave in the mix, its one long 5-day break. Gosh~ feels like forever since I had more than a 3-day break. Hehe. I'm loving it~!

Well, there were the Diwali preps to deal with. That kept me occupied the first 2 days. Today marked the 4th day, and the past 2 days have indeed been quite relaxing. Not in the 'i got loads of sleep' kind of relaxing... but I was just hanging around, lazing, playing, reading... doing all the stuff that weren't obligations =D

Another day left... the 5th day seems all rather planned out. Dimsum in the morning with an old friend, then a 'date' with my car... she is in a dire need of a wash, haha. Then, followed by a short break before I'm off to dinner with some friends. The climax of the day is at night! Gamarjobat!! They're back in town, and this time I'm introducing it to a group of friends who've neva been to such an event! Hope they enjoy it totally!

Can't wait... excited in anticipation, hehe.

Children, rejoice!

I came about a pleasant coincidence a few minutes ago. I was humming along to the sound of 'Tomorrow', the World Vision Malaysia 2007 30-hour Famine theme song. My web browser was launching at the same moment with Google loading, and voila! Google's logo was customized for Children's Day!!! I completely forgot about it, what with Hari Raya occurring today too. So here's to everyone out there:

Be aware of the young ones worldwide, Happy Children's Day!
and
Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri!

Need to get back to recipe hunting now :P Yes, I'm planning to cook something sometime soon. I just need to find a vegetarian recipe that captivates me and triggers my appetite, haha. Wish me luck!

Month of events

As the end of September looms near, I can't help but look back at the past month in retrospect. Much has been happening around me, and though it's not all sugar and candy, the undeniable truth is that there is much to introspect.

One of the more enjoyable memories in recent times is Ulu am 2008! Yes, our yearly barbeque and cold jacuzzi event was back; same time, same place, mostly the same crowd. Ramadan is honestly the perfect month of the year to go for an outdoor hangout. Don't get me wrong; I have nothing against the Malays. In fact, I think Malay families have a respectable tendency to be more inclined in having picnics and family outings. I miss the days when my family used to do activities like those. Back to my point; it is also why the favorite spots are usually crowded. Ramadan is the best time to take a break and find some privacy and solace amidst the hustle and heavy bustle of our chaotic work lives.
The crowd this time around was indeed smaller, but some things do not change. The primary partners in crime are around, bar one. We've gotten our barbeque skills down to a perfect science; everything was down to exact needs in terms of food quantity, variety, grill heat, etc. No wastage of food, no deprivation of food either. Haha... Our prized location is still the same every year; untainted and perfect for a picnic spot. I could go on and on about the trip, but that would need me to change the title of this post :P

On the professional side, things have been shifting quite a bit; literally and not-so-literally. On the literal side, we now officially have 2 offices. On another perspective, responsibilities are piling up. Still trying to adjust to the sudden influx of tasks; I suppose I'll just need to take it one step at a time. Having 2 offices kinda makes things tough; the need to ping-pong back and forth between the offices is becoming a consistent activity. It's not really impacting my immediate tasks, but it does hinder smooth communication; something that wasn't a problem in the past 3 years.

On the personal side, am re-discovering my love for knowledge. Been picking up my reading habits again, not to mention my curiosity on the whole spiritual discovery thingy. I've always had a humanitarian side to me; I'm just more passive than I should be. I'm rarely an initiator in that respect; more of a responder. I grab opportunities, I don't make them. Given recent circumstances, I've been lucky enough to be exposed to a golden source of information and motivation to indulge that side of me that I have long left dormant. It has also been quite some time since I had a critical discussion about my beliefs with anyone. Always been someone who questioned the basis of faith. I respect all religions, but I have to quote Grissom (from CSI):

On belief:
Grissom: In religion? I believe in God, in science ... in Sunday supper. I don't believe in rules that tell me how I should live.

I could write an entire post just to express my opinion on that quote, but I shall reserve it for just that purpose :)

Anyway, my point is that I've re-discovered an avenue to point my curiosity yet again. Feels like it's been forever since I indulged it this much; an indulgence I'm more than happy to have rekindled :)

My mind is starting to go wild with so many things to write and say, but I'd like to *not* stray from the topic. I suppose I'll end the post here for now.

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Let's Go!

I love that tagline. It's becoming more of a chant, and appropriately so. Every once in a while, we deserve to just put aside all our thoughts and worries; the past and future being moment of time beyond our control. The NOW is what matters, and the NOW is what we should just change.

Feel like doing that thing you've always wanted to do? Let's Go!
Feel like going that place you've always wanted to go? Let's Go!
Feel like just having a weekend getaway? Let's Go!
Feel like just hanging out with a friend? Let's Go!

The weekend in Malacca has indeed been a 'Let's Go' weekend for me. Sure, there were a lot more things I could've done, but there are no regrets about what I DID do. The place, the food, the company, the experience, the time... everything was memorable, none of it regretable.

I'll be going to work tomorrow; yeah, working on a public holiday *sigh*. Kinda kills the energy and life that was built up over the weekend getaway. Alas, responsibilities are responsibilities. I do hope to get out of office early.. and maybe catch another simple break. Could be a makan-makan with a close friend, or a friend I haven't seen in a while... could be catching a movie... Wall-E comes to mind. Considering I've been dying to catch it, perhaps I should.
...
Come to think of it, I think I will! Let's Go! Hahaha. I wonder if my friend is as 'Lets Go'-ish as I'd hope; it is kinda last minute... something that doesn't bode well with the bulk of ppl out there :P

[Updated]
Let's Go it is! Wall-E, here I come! Hehe.

Weekends Eve

It is early Saturday morning now, the start of a longer-than-usual weekend. It is unfortunate though that the extra public holiday this coming Monday won't really go appreciated at my part coz work beckons and I need to make a visit to Cyber-land regardless.

Will be headed to Malacca and Seremban this weekend to attend an important friend's wedding. It's been a while since I last hung out outside Klang Vallery with friends and colleagues, so here's to hoping for a great weekend ahead.

Friday was an awkward day, however. Many things happened, mostly seemingly good from a 3rd person's view... but not all is as pleasant as I'd like to hope. I suppose time and opportunity are a tricky beast to tame; neither are agreeable to me at the moment. Much to do, say, and act upon... I just don't know how and where to start.

If only...

Captain's Log: Star date 85638.16

It's 10:15pm here in Cyber-land. It has been a long time since I last blogged from work; probably reaching into the range of year(s?). Work's been murder... I'm just posting to take a breather before I get back to the mundane and routine.

So what's there to write about work that won't get me into any sticky situations involving information security and intellectual property? Not much... aside from describing the moment; right here, right now.

• Looping, acoustic edition of 'Blurry' by Puddle of Mudd...
• Gamakichi money pouch... quite loaded with contributions from my generous colleagues
• A few figurines... villain from Metal Gear Solid, mini-Sasuke, Chiyo-chan (lying between the arms of a stapler :P)
• Post cards from Cambodia and Vietnam
• Mini-pyramid from Egypt
• Clay fridge-magnet, wooden puppet from Cambodia
• Paper note with names of my colleagues... written by themselves... a study of handwritings :D
• Wealth charm from Japan
• Sudoku solution from a month ago (yes.. I keep my solved puzzles :P)
• Post-it note with a few more items left uncrossed *sigh*
• Doraemon cup coaster
• Doraemon magnet doll on colleagues cubicle walls
• Ooooo... cute colleague with dimples, busy with her work :P
• My name plate... upside-down!? Someone's been toying with it again...
• Monitor running slideshow screensaver... my own collection of minimalistic-design wallpapers
• Empty Famous Amos container *sigh*
• Singing-a-along to the song...
• Staring at name list again...
• A doodle sheet... contains my personal 'graffiti' art that was drawn over the past year
  Eiffel Tower keychain
• Magnet with identity crisis... came from Belgium, but its a Windmill :D
• Glass/crystal zodiac creature... Golden-tailed Monkey!

Alright, better stop here. It's 10:30 now. My 15 minutes are up :) G'nite.

Individuality

The fundamental truth about any individual is precisely that; an individual is an individual. 6.6 billion people roam this earth at any given second, with no 2 person's being a carbon copy of any other known person in existence. Or is there reasonable doubt in such a statement?

It would be naive to claim that we are a product of our environment; not untrue, but undeniably naive. We are indeed a product of our environment; we're just not exclusively a product of our environment. What we've seen, what we've experienced, the people we've met, the things we have learnt, the things we have done, the places we've been to, the traits we're born with, the skills we acquired, the talents we possess, etc. The list of variables that accumulate to describe how we are the person today is large, and the combinations possible are infinite. This alone would be reason enough to believe that no 2 people are precisely alike in this world. Does that make you feel special?

These thoughts on individuality are not random; there was a question raised today regarding how I am who I am. Even a simple comparison to my closest family members will make evident the stark contrasts between characters. Things only get more interesting when considering that we lived in the same times, nurtured by essentially the same people, and instilled with a similar sense of morality. Yet the minor differences in the days of the years that bring us to this very moment led to phenomenally disparate individuals.

What made me the person I am today? What were the biggest influences and factors? Is it even worthwhile to ponder over these? What can I do with what I understand from the 'how'-s and 'what'-s of me? If I were to re-live my life, would I be a completely different person?

The topic sparked many questions; far more than I am willing to write about here. However, as intrigued I am by the questions, I am equally intrigued to find that leaving them unanswered instills a deep sense of satisfaction. The fact that the concerns were considered satisfies the curious side; the many aspects of individuality are fascinating - its past, present and future. On the contrary, not attempting to feed answers to the questions evokes a sense of mystery and chaos; it implies that our individuality would (and should) continue to grow untainted by external influences. The less it is pondered upon, the less likely it is to change the way we change. The natural order of uncertainty in our individuality is preserved...

...or so I'd like to believe.

'Tis the season of movies

Summer!! Yay~

Ok, it is kinda pointless to be joyous about a season that doesn't really occur in our country. And having actually *not* experienced summer amongst the other seasons, it is also a season I'm not really curious to experience :P I think we have enough year-round sunshine (and rain) to skip summer and, instead, rather glorify in the refreshing experience of the remaining 3 :D

I digress; back to summer. It *is* the season known as 'Blockbuster' season. There's practically at least one movie launch per week to look forward to. It is not really that they're all great shows; au contraire, quality of movies have been on a rather downward trend with regards to originality and inspirational values. I'm not saying there are no brilliant movies anymore; they're just a lot harder to come by.

Of course, thankfully for the bulk of us normal humans, that is an excusable 'sin' :P Amidst the busy buzzing of our jobs (careers for some), sometimes a movie.. any movie.. is enough of a distraction to break the monotony.

It is only unfortunate that the only movie I'm looking forward in the coming weeks is Wall-E. The only other movie I was looking forward to recently was Dark Knight. That turned out to be a marvellous and satisfying watch; met my expectations and then some :D That is indeed a rarity, considering most comic-turned-movie takes haven't really made a great impression beyond the first take. Anyway, since that's been watched and done with... I only look forward to watching robot romance, haha. I sure hope its a good show... I will *not* be missing it no matter how bad it turns out to be... but at least I'd like to hope it'll be worth my time. Here's to hopin'!

I might even... *ponders* -END-


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Hint:
- Too lazy to repeat myself :P

Wind of change

Yup, that's a nice song! However, the words themselves carry meaning that apply to all of us in one way or another. Most people have an aversion to change; a reflection of fear more so than logic. We tend to have an inclination to develop complacency, comfort, and over-reliance on past knowledge. Things don't seem to fall in place if things aren't already in place. We oppose change, rather than embrace it.

I could quote how the general populace is reacting to the recent oil price hike. I could quote how unprofessional (imho) a certain car manufacturer is reacting to a recent move by a certain body to switch to a competing manufacturer. I could quote the Italians and how they never seem to like their food any different than 'how their mother made it'.

But many times, change is good. Change *can* be bad... don't get me wrong! It's just that there are times where change is probably the best thing one can attempt or experience. I mean, change breaks routine... it may give you a scare, yet teaches you to develop courage at the same time. It might even teach us to think; something many of us have indeed forgotten how to, at times.

I've seen some things in my life that could do with some change. I won't want to go thru the details, but suffice to say that in more than one way I've initiated some change in the mundane routine of day-to-day life. I think it is refreshing... troublesome at times, but refreshing nevertheless.

Are you ready for a change today?


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Hint:
No hints! :P No one seems interested in deciphering, so I decided to keep this one short and *totally* private so that I shall find it a challenge for myself when I read this in the far future, hehe.

Yay! A weekend

Feels like it has been so long since I last enjoyed my weekends. Not that I've had bad weekends, just busy ones. The feeling of having nothing to do, or doing exactly that which I wanted to do feels ancient and long forgotten. I actually set out a decent plan for my Saturday; hoping to clear up my time on Sunday for personal tasks.. finally.

Alas, things did not all go my way. Lost half a day attending to my sis... apparently she had some minor food allergy; I'll skip the details. Long story short, she lost consciousness briefly in the morning. Had to go check up on her, and escort her back home. I'm glad it was just a minor thing; not sure how I'd handle her picking up anything serious. *Phew*

The rest of the day was rather productive and caught up on my tasks. However, having lost half a day... it ain't really recoverable. I ain't super-human :P I guess I'll have to sacrifice half my Sunday. I *only* hope it only takes half... any more and I'd be sulking the day out.

Been doing a lot of deep thinking lately; a lot more introspection than usual. Contrary to what some may think of me, I do believe I am quite the introvert. Just that I can feel the weight of the extra overhead lately. I like how a friend of mine put it... she said my head 'sounds' tiring. Hahaha! I'm sure that wouldn't make sense to anyone but the people involved in the conversation that led to that statement :P

There are loads of things I feel like doing right now. I think its about time I prep the list and mark out the things to-do... better to convert them to things I've done :)


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Hints:
a. Blowfish encryption
b. The key can be found in/related to the post
c. 1-word, lowercase

Life is like a cup of water

Using morse code was quite a failure in the previous post. Standard HTML seems to chew-up spaces, and using PRE tags seems to not work well on Firefox browsers. If anyone has any ideas how to make long morse code sequences readable in Blogger on all browsers, I appreciate the tips.

As always, the titles lately aren't really related in any way to the contents of the posts :P They are mostly a string of words that are a combination of words first crossing my mind and whatever else I see around me. Doesn't take a genius to deduce that for some odd reason the word 'life' came to mind (actually 'la vie' was what sprang up originally) and I was staring across the room at my cup of water... and voila!

I'm just taking a breather from a freelance project that I'm currently handling. Seems like it has been going on forever... can't wait to get it over with. It is among the simpler projects I've done, ever... yet for some unexplainable reason, I'm having the most trouble with it. Things just don't work out the way I want them; making glaringly simple mistakes every here and there; etc. It almost feels like its a jinxed project... I'm not the first programmer working on it, and the previous one kinda gave up on it. Sure got close to doing the same... the notion did cross my mind a few times. However, I'm trying to persevere; quitting ain't really in my books... and I'd rather not start now.

Not much left to do... but its the final polishing and touching up that is usually the trickiest 'coz you gotta make sure the tiny changes don't break the rather fragile foundation of what has been a nightmare for the past month and a half. I'm aiming to close this tonight~

And hopefully the sweet feeling of timely bed times and comforting blankets won't seem to far away any longer :) I miss having nothing to do...

For the bored (and oddly interested), here's a brand-spanking new Jumbled Jabber™!

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Hints:
a. Blowfish encryption
b. The key can be found in/related to the post
c. 1-word, lowercase

Codex of Jumbled Jabber

Not too sure if the title makes any sense... it's not meant to, but it might :P There's nothing I really feel like blogging about. Not that there's nothing *to* blog about; there's *always* something to blog about. I've just been rather burnt out from work lately that I'd like to conserve whatever little brain juice flowing to... ya know... keep flowing.

One nice way to give they gray matter a little push is to try out new stuff. Lo and behold, I shall (on random occassions) henceforth attempt to write some posts in any form of encoding that I feel like using. By encoding, I mean an 'alternative form of conveying information'. E.g. morse code, hieroglyphics, Telugu (whoa! most unlikely), cryptography, etc.

I shall start with a small snippet... to satisfy my whim :D

Woohoo! 101

Yup, amazingly (and in many ways, embarassingly) the previous post marked my 100th post evar! Great, considering that I never thought I would make it past 10 (this blog did start *just* because I had to create a login account to comment on a friends blog)... but disappointing because that makes up the following statistics that apply for the duration since I started the blog:

Average post(s) per day: 0.082
Average post(s) per month: 2.497
Cups of coffee drank during posts: (None)
Bottles of beer drank during posts: One (right now actually... a gift from Germany that I never gotten around to opening)
Number of keyboards used: 9
Number of mice used: 6
Number of... nvm :P
Most posts in a month: 10
Average duration of MIA: 3 months

Would love to go on and add some ridiculous items to the list, but it's been a long day; gray matter ain't working up the mojo to continue.

Just came back from watching a Hindi movie that my mom insisted on watching; Sarkar Raj. Surprisingly interesting watch; it's amazing how far cinematography has gone in Bollywood. It is also one of those rare Bolly-movies that you *know* will have a sequel. Apparently it is part of a trilogy and this is actually part TWO. Apparently, I wasn't aware of that fact until after the movie when my mom told me about it.

It's a modern day, Hindustani take at Godfather. Well, I don't really recollect the story of Godfather coz I was still playing my Legos when I last remembered watching it on TV. Sure struck me as a boring show back then (I swear I might get assassinated for saying that)... but I suppose I'm not getting it all too wrong.

Oh btw, the Bachan's (go look up on Wikipedia) also completely take the stage on this one. 3 of the 4 prominent Bachan-family members are in this show... the 3 that matter anyway; and this includes the recently Bachan-ized Aiswarya Rai. Talk about a family business, haha.

Anyway, there are more movies coming in the month ahead; hopefully I'd get to catch most of them. There's KungFu Panda airing at the moment... I wonder if I'll be able to catch it anytime soon?

...