The $#!ttiest Week Ever

It's so $#!tty I have to revert the blog post date to when the whole thing started. Then I have to revert it back because the post pops up at the location with bad feng shui. Talk about series of unfortunate events...

R.I.P. 1/3 Ham
So my assignment was due on the 28th (Mon), and as of 26th January (Sat) I was 81.3% complete. Then I decided to have a quick lunch and leave the laptop on that noon, when $#!t started to happen...

Yes, it was one of those strange 3 minutes lightning storm that struck Senadin as quickly as I got my first sip of a cold chrysanthemum tea. I didn't mind it because these kinda storm is frequent of late due to climate change, plus me and my bud can stay a while longer ordering more food while waiting the storm to clear. And when it did I went home to find all, ALL complex electronic stuff died, DIED. The modem, the router, the laptop etc. Ham 1/3rd died on the spot, knowing my 5 days of blood, sweat and tears to complete the assignment gone in vain. Even worse the assignment was part of his 1 month long experimental project for his summer course unit. Ham 1/3rd lost it, and died at approximately 13:27 26/01/08, disconnected from the outside world for good.

So from 26th to 27th the remaining 2/3 and 3/3 of Ham tried to gain back what was lost by retyping his assignment from scratch, thanks to the help of a fellow clan member Gin-san who remained at Senadin until 30th. Ham 2/3 and 3/3 completed his rushed assignment at approximately 23:15 27/01/08.

R.I.P. 2/3 Ham
28th (Mon) Submission Day. That morning the remaining 2/3 and 3/3 Ham was still celebrating the glorious accomplishment from the previous night, until the Arrow 2" blue tint spectacles malfunctioned after they tried to put it on after shower. 2/3rd Ham died on the spot at 07:12 28/01/08. Broken, and literally blur about everything, the last 3/3rd Ham carried on the fight to complete the summer course, even if it means death.


To make things a bit better, there's going to be a last test worth 40% on 30th January, which will decisively determine the outcome of Ham's performance in the summer course. And the quickest shop is in town, or in e-mart on the other side of Senadin...

R.I.P. 2.5/3 Ham
The remaining Ham used whatever life force remaining to revise and do whatever the phuck he needs to. 1/3rd Ham was vital as it was the very part of Ham that makes Ham uniquely Ham, 2/3 was his sense of self-existentialism, the last 3/3 was cukup makan for him to behave like a human being. After 5 days of no update Ham was left decimated, lost his sanity and lost 2.5/3 of him. Another 0.5 came from a remnant of 2/3 with a pair of new glasses (and that would be the last time I buy a personal item from e-mart).

Fortunately I managed to go through the last test, and now resting safely back in Kampua Town. For now I'm gonna get myself back together and enjoying the short holidays and CNY with family and friends.

Alien vs Yakuza

Must watch! I give it 5 stars. Only in Gintama.

Featuring Jou-aniki and Aliens

Whoever wins, Edo will perish...

Why Can't We Be Friends?

Check out the meaning for the "Fruitful" trait (Click to enlarge). Hm... this Ham Julius XI very ganas haha XD. This is just part of what I do to keep myself sane while going through summer course alone. It's an old game actually, 2004 Rome: Total War, but this is the only 'latest' Total War game I can support (for the unaffiliated, it's similar Sanguo). I got severe lag with Medieval II: Total War, so what chances does my wee lil 5572 has against the monstrous upcoming Empire: Total War, guarantee this message will pop up:

I'll just get a new machine later lah using my own hard-earned cash, more value and love that way. For now I'll just stick to whatever I have and enjoy my own personal full scale war with my neighboring factions just for kicks.

Yeah, fights like the above are normal lately while I'm here spending the last moments of summer course. Sure I could opt for sitting here doing nothing but completing my assignment and revise for last test next week, but that's not the way of Ham. Hey, all work and no fun makes Ham a soulless boy.

Back to the title. Why can't we be friends? Someone inspired me to start this post, in addition to certain games I've been playing over and over again. Yeah, like the scenario that led to my 2nd Rome-Carthage conflict prior to the clash above was due to xenophobic attitude. I mean, we might seem 'friendly and peaceful' towards each other and have trade agreements, but that's it. When some countrymen like ambassadors etc. set foot on their land they act as if they're superior. Until certain point where they purposely blocked my men's path or even try to assassinate them. If only I could remind them that I'm generous enough to let my traders to spend and trade in their country. But I guess it can't be helped, if they don't like foreigners so be it. It's a human nature since the prehistoric age to be on the defensive when strangers comes in to their turf. And I think the same would happen to us if a new dude we don't even know asked permission to use our home's toilet. Things like these will run through our heads:

"Who the puck is this guy? Suddenly borrow toilet..."
"I hope he flush and won't leave an unpleasant aura"
"Your house no toilet kah?"
"Ok so he needs to go, but why here? Sienz..."

Those are just the issues when we're on foreign territory. Sadly though the same will/could/must happen with fellow countrymen in the foreign soil. Like in Rome: Total War where Rome itself is made up of 3 families of Scipii, Brutii and Julii (currently playing this family). We're all fighting for the glory of Rome, but in the end of the day I myself won't know the progress of the other families. Things like these often occur:

"Hi, I'm Decious Julius, from Julii capital city of Arretium. Where are you from Ham? Oh you're from Roman Empire as well, nice, which part? What, Sibu? uh, ok... you guys have paved roads, communal farming, Colosseum or Streamyx there?"

S*it. Fellow countrymen don't even know where another fellow countrymen hometown is. And usually those from the capital or big cities will have this perspective of the other lesser known small towns in the SAME country to be backward and mundur. From there onwards what used to be a respectful and friendly conversation will turn into an oppressive ignorant talk. No kidding, I mean how many Malaysians nationwide know where Sibu is? Sure i's a small town though but at least as Malaysians the should know there's a crater on Mars is named after Sibu. Sure I myself don't know 100% about the peninsular either, but that's not a reason to think Sarawakians still live in trees, and no need to show off what you have at your place. Which reminds me of a story of a lady getting a KFC coupon upon purchase in KL:

"Can I use this coupon in Miri?
"Sorry ma'am, you can only use it in Malaysia"
"..."

I found a way to answer people asking where I'm from. Like saying I'm from somewhere south, Sarawakian, or less loso Malaysian. Swat. Just trying to be as humble as possible like that will usually make the other big city folks brag less about their hometown. But over time my presence here have accidentally advocated the co-relationship of gangsters and Sibu, which resulted in me coming from Town of Gangsters and Kampua (sheesh thanks a lot guys XD but I don't mind lolz pretty nifty). I just wonder how long will this "my-place-have-this-s*it-and-yours-don't-have" scenario persist.

Live 12% Longer

Quote from THE BORNEO POST, Nature & Health section 19/01/08 p.2:

"LIVE 12% LONGER

How: Get less sleep
Why: A joint study from the University of California's School of Medicine and the American Cancer Society found that compared to people getting seven hours a night, people who slept for recommended eight hours a night were 12% more likely to die prematurely. However, one study also found that getting less than four hours sleep a night significantly increased the death rate."

The newspaper should reference the link, ma fan have to Google the article. Anyways the full article can be found here.

Ok so this means that a person should sleep for min 5 and max 7 hours only la is it? Well technically this is kinda good news for me and a couple of other late-niters (all students of course, maybe you're one of them) since our generation somehow managed to reduce the need for sleep and still able to live optimally. And who knows in the near future we don't need to sleep at all because of our biological clock 'evolution', and after that we also might not need to eat, drink, walk, breed (well that sucks) etc to achieve perfect evolution...

But logically I think the sleep less live longer only applies to teens and adults because little kids still need their 10 hours rest due to their hyper metabolism and I've seen them mutate into cranky monstrosities if they try to stay up. Speaking of which, from my point of view this is an evolving lifestyle. Back when I was 6-10 years old I slept at 8pm (wtf right?) then 11-15 years old it's 10-11pm, then at age 15-17 it's 12-2am and finally at 18-20 I hit the hay at 4am++ before waking up at 11am on no-class day and 7am on have-class day. And there's no addition from naps, I don't take afternoon naps because I'll always wake up disoriented for a minute. So that's 3-7 hours sleep for me and leaves me on the border of living longer-living shorter, which means I'll live life at 100% and not 112% or 88%. I think I should be happy with that percentage :)

Networking Challenge

Dear blog, this week I did a good job in networking. Last week I realized how limited my network was as most of the people are off during the summer course, and those who were here can be counted with my toes. So I challenged myself to expand my network in 5 days from Monday - Friday this week and until today (final day) I managed to hook up with 7 new people of different networks.

بروني دارالسلام
Brunei Darussalam
Friendly folks if you ask me, easy to open up. I got a few top tips from this Bruneian girl I just met on the things to expect when I go study in Oz.




ްMalaysia
You'll never get enough of your fellow countrymen lolz. They all know the s*it and stuff you're experiencing in the country. But yeah they are helpful in studies, since we all have this "don't leave a man/woman behind" spirit in this mini global environment. Always 'gotong-royong' in doing projects and assignments, you know what I mean lolz...


ދިވެހިރާއްޖޭގެ ޖުމުހޫރިއްޔާ
Republic of Maldives
Amongst the first few foreign network I established with way back when I'm in my Foundation times. If you ever want go to Maldives for a vacation, have them show you around the islandsss. A good place for a honeymoon or retirement if you ask me. Heck, they even have an underwater Hilton resort there, uber nice.



中华人民共和国
People's Republic of China
I networked with them only recently since one of my buddy's girlfriend is from the Mainland. Too bad I'm not fluent in the Mainland slang, maybe I should also get one Mainland girl to help me to network with them lol just kidding. They tend to stick to themselves, but when they do open up and welcomes you prepare to meet the rest of the big family, and their slang. 你好? :)



جمهورية العراق
Republic of Iraq
Despite the war back home, I admire these guys' determination to continue their studies. Most of them are adult students, and this new guy I hooked up with is 32 years old. Like they always say "It's never too old to learn". Really friendly folks after a quick 5 minutes intro, and the West can't be friendly with them after the long 5 years war.



اسلامی جمہوریۂ پاکستان
Islamic Republic of Pakistan
These guys also came from a country with fresh turmoil after Bhutto's assassination last December. They're willing to share stories about the internal conflict, and I feel their pain. Imagine you're here sitting comfortably in the air conditioned case study room while back home your family is living a state of emergency with riots just outside your kitchen window. Few Pakistani buddies came back for the studies, I hope they're doing alright.



இலங்கை ஜனநாயக சமத்துவ குடியரச
Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
My first Sri Lankan connection that I made before the last challenge day ended. I like the dude, he shares a common insight as I do on government oppression on the economy. I'm surprised he assimilated to our local slang of adding 'lah' etc because none of the foreign students I know would do that, and this is only his first year. I see him as a potential neo-economist to work with when the West goes into a recession, soon.


So far so good, these new networks should be beneficial for me later. But next week I should expand it again during before the summer course ends, I have no connections to the Koreans and Vietnamese students here, maybe because there is only one student from each of those countries. They're all female some more, so you know how most girls would react if a guy suddenly sit with them for lunch at the cafeteria out of the blue and says "Hi :D". I won't worry much about this problem, since it was mentioned in the Hofstede cultural dimensions itself. But that's just another challenge that I have to find a way to counter wahaha...

Hey any stories on your networking experience you like to share? Drop it in the comment, will ultimately be useful for us students everywhere :)

I Am Ham

Sunnovagun. Now I'm disconnected for good in 3666, as if trying to survive here alone was not hellish enough for your average southern boy. I managed to jedi-mind tricked the landlord to help me cover the other bills so I can survive here for the summer course. But then again there's a limit in business, and ethically I decided not to burden him with the streamyx charges (either way the line in 3666 is dead-dead unstable, so no difference from now and then). All the charges are due 2 months ago, and I don't mind since my comrades will only return on March, so luckily the landlord was kindly enough to help me settle the basic housing needs payments until then.

Sorry for the crappy preview quality. Click to enlarge.

And talk about irony, I'm more like Will Smith in I Am Legend already for the past 2 weeks and most likely the remaining 3 weeks. Being disconnected left me with no options but to re-watch animes over and over again. Not only that surviving in Senadin in perilous (seriously), and now I got a Doberman puppy (but looks like a mutt to me) and all I need to do now is name it Sam to complete the ironical circle. I just hope there won't be a viral outbreak that will leave me talking to mannequins at DPS...

"I promised a friend I'd say hello to you today... so, 'Hello'... please say back hello... please... T.T..."

Dammit this situation already happened last Monday at cafeteria, except that the girl responded back, and she wasn't a mannequin. Wonder what's next, maybe the part where Will's house get overrun by those vampires, except my scenario would involve hobos instead...

THE LAST STUDENT IN 3666
IS ALONE
I
AM
HAM

Remember the Old Days? (For Boys)

Remember Pokemon? You know Poké Balls, Poké Dex, gotta catch 'em all etc? And back then we knew every names, types, infos on the 251 Pokemon, and always bring our Game Boys to school and tuitions to trade, battle or just to show off lolz. Those were the days...

It's just a phase when all boys are in a hype of something (like we have anything better to do at those times). Well our batch of generation Y (1986-'88) was caught up between two hypes for Digimon and Pokemon and I remember the fad lasted a few years, until we grew up found something better to do. Somewhere in Primary 5-6 most of the boys got a Digivice and beat the crap out of other kids mashing C A B, B A C, A B A B A B C buttons on the Digivice just to give the other Digimon a virus. As if after my parents bought me a RM54 Digivice wasn't enough, I found another Digivice which someone left at my house (and didn't claim back) and the fanaticism for Digimon grew.

Then somewhere between Primary 6 and Form 1 there was a transition betwee Digimon to Pokemon. When a GAME BOY COLOR was first introduced to me, the first game I got immediately was Pokemon lolz. From there the real bigger craze to catch 'em all began began all the way till Form 3. I would just come back from school and play the damn thing no matter where or when until the batteries ran out. The versions I played was according to the version release chronology. First it was Pokemon Yellow, Red and Blue (black and white), then it's the colorized Pokemon Gold, Pokemon Silver, Pokemon Crystal and then stop. Those game tapes weren't cheap either, RM70+ if I'm not mistaken and unfortunately there weren't cetak rompak tapes around. Even though I stopped I still find myself playing new versions like Emerald and Ruby emulated for PC (bored but still find it fun to play). Now I lost track of the game updates already, heck I lost track of the hand-held gaming world, mainly because I have to disconnect myself cold turkey from my old gaming life of hand-held and console (but not PC hehe).

You guys still remember this? Back then used to buy some of these mini cars and race them at Sing Kwong race track (old Hobbies & Toys Center) or home-made tracks. I think I still have one model Black Shadow left collecting dust in my display shelf.

But now I see the trend of boys fad hype is dying. See this:

Digimon > Pokemon > Yu-gi-oh > Naruto? > ???

(Sorry if I exclude Beyblade or Crash Gear or etc in the chronology, I just want to make the chronology look clean). As an ex-wee little lad I'm pretty much concerned with this development. I fear my own kid one day would not enjoy the pleasure of living a fad and share the experience with friends like how we used to. Sure, right now seeing my young 8-12 year old cousins and nephews cutely greet each other Naruto style (you know those fancy hand thingy) and talk about the anime episodes, chakra and s*it that I'm clueless about (I'm not into Naruto FYI) is normal since we used to do almost similar things at our age, but I do hope this scene will persist in the future. But should the trend of these hype fad dies the kids in the future would be stuck at their holographic computer screens playing games 24/7 and all their socializing and sharing interests as mentioned above are done online, quietly with the kids smiling and laughing to himself. I already started to see those scenes with small kids playing DotA today. And that suck. Haihz...

Happy Hormones

It's one of those moments again whereby I got a sudden surge of testosterone and endorphin out of the blue. Most likely due to the fact that this is day 7 of me doing almost nothing besides sitting and sleeping. In other words the body is in a 'culture shock' because where it came from it used to do work and loads of other stuff, then over here it's unable to adapt to a slacking life. Or in visual terms, it's like Arnold's transformation here happening overnight. Shocking... lolz (so far still 'THEN', hopefully won't turn into 'NOW' anywhere in the near future...)

Play sit[1], listen to lecture sit[2], eat sit[3], walk[1] a few meters in campus and to DPS to resupply, sleep[1] meniarap, go 'invest' sit[4], wait for bus sit[5], walk[2] some more in house to do laundry and to the washroom, then go home sit[6] watch anime, do assignment sit[7], then LAN party sit[8] from 9pm-4am, then sleep[2] meniarap again. That's 8 sitting, 2 sleeping and 2 walking activities ONLY. Virtually 7 days of almost inactive actions, and the hormones built up slowly until one day I can't take it anymore. I need to spend it on something or else I'll pop like the Hindenburg X(

The LZ-129 Hindenburg POPPED! So will Ham if he is unable to find any heavy activity soon.

Back in the old days (circa 3-4 years ago...) used to get and release those happy hormones playing soccer and the lot on a balanced and fixed basis. Now kinda impossible to do that though considering there's no one to play soccer with here, but then again it's hard to even try to get into the field dominated by the big guys -__-

But I don't mind the excessive happy hormonic flow in the body system because it does make my mood better and happier, I'm just worried the pain-killing endorphins will null my senses. Heck I already got a 3-inch cut on my arm from who knows where or when, and I didn't feel or notice it until I scratched my itchy BCG. I fear one day I get a 40'C fever and I won't know it because of those happy endorphins running amok and jamming all the pain signals... Haihz never mind, 23 more days to go before summer course ends, and then I can get back and do what I do best wakaka

Summer Course withour Summer

Got back in Oil Town on the 1st afternoon for my summer course which will begin on the 2nd. Enrolled in Consumer Behaviour 102, which should be sap sap soi as rumored and apart from that I can bodek the lecturer for extra marks because I knew him from another unit last semester hehe woops.

Day one for my first sumer course lecture got lagged in startup (who doesn't if you already got used to sleeping at 3am and waking up at 11am... then today had to wake up at 7am so all the body system went !@#$%^&). And then at the first day of class I was told the schedule had to be reshuffled to 9am-12pm AND instead of 3 days we will have class for 2 days only per week. S*it I thought the original 3 days per week was nice but now I had to find more ways to kill time in this forsaken Senadin area. With the condition in this place (clan members still off on holidays, almost no line in my house, most shops closed etc) I'm like Tom Hanks and his ball Wilson in his movie Castaway.

My first day of summer course could've have started slow but that sunny mild morning I was greeted by these two who sempat do what they do best; doggystyle. At least they taught me that it's never too early to do anything XD Jia you!

And why on Earth is it called summer course anyways? I mean I know la Oz is in summer right now, but please do change the term when it is used here. We don't have summer, just monsoon and drought but now mostly monsoon with occasional flood. Monsoon Course - nah there sounds like some fancy meteorological studies exclusively available here only.

Fortunately CB102 have no finals, just tests along the course of 1 month so I will be home for CNY as unexpected this year wee :D For now I have to survive being casted away on this deserted house (ok not so deserted, got Irwin coming over for a mini duel LAN party) for the next 27 days... WILSON!

Moshi Moshi 2008

2008

Insightful image from www.indiadaily.org

The night before New Year in Kampua Town was supposed to be quiet, dull and peaceful. Instead, some smart ass b*stard sent SMS saying oil price was going up by 40 cents next year (2008) then all hell broke loose. Just like a computer worm, it infects the whole network and caused utter panic and chaos to the system. Almost all 90% of Kampua Townies came out not to go to the 2008 Countdown in Town Square, but to queue up at all jammed petrol stations in town from 4pm - 11pm. Monkey see monkey do, when more people saw people queuing up and asked what happened, they themselves went home to bring their vehicles to refuel and told even more people about the mythical price hike. All accessible petrol stations were virtually clogged as if the whole town population is going to run away, causing major traffic jams within 1km+ of each stations. Plus the rain that night didn't make the situation worse, causing the town folks to show their true nature -___-

This kinda scene was not limited to Kampua Town only apparently, as reliable sources told the same happened in the west, especially in KL. The rush to refuel as much as possible that night just show how much people would do just to save some bucks. I don't blame them, because the cost of living in this country is just enough to make common folks like you and me to be happy, but not enjoy life to the fullest. During the mad rush I talked to a fellow Kampua Townie who shared a very insightful thought (sorry it's in rojak, I'm in no mood to translate);

"Betul ka olang cakap minyak naik esok?"
"Saya pun tak tau oo, tapi saya rasa tidak la"
"Mana ada beza isi ini hari atau esok bila minyak naik, nanti sama juga mesti isi minyak nanti, bayar pun sama, sien kalau ini macam satu Sibu keluar kerana minyak naik 40 sen saja"
"Yalah, nanti pun isi sama juga perlu bayar nanti. Memang minyak akan naik ba next year, tapi mana logic government mau naik esok hari. Mungkin bulan tiga la lepas election, tapi sekarang dia takut-takut orang cakap minyak naik, tapi cancel, mau pancing itu undi..."
"Politik oo, habis undi mereka naik la... olang macam kita ikot saja ma, bising-bising lepas itu diam, poket habis kena d*ao kena ini balang, diam saja la jangan buat keleja bodo sudah la"
"Lol, ya tui-tui... ok la uncle saya chow dulu. Hepi nu year! Xi nien quai le rofl!"
"... :|"

In the end the price stays. So much for the town's rush for oil. The people should form an angry mob and d*ao the b*stard responsible for spreading the SMS in the first place. And reminder to the others, don't be gullible when new information hits your inbox. Always read between the lines, cast doubts and protest against any suspicious info regarding money... or else we kena tipu again like what happened on the 31st. Waste of energy and time, especially after eating dinner in the mood of embracing the new year.

The shark fin soup was nice :}

That's that for the last day of 2007. I checked out town for a while, met some kamchengs here and there and enjoyed a night cruise listening to Satisfaction and other songs to the max (hey it's nice to let go the ah beng inside of oneself sometimes lolz). Got pulled over by cops at the roadblock in front of St. Mary's (I didn't do anything wrong, the cops are there to stop more would-be-dead mat rempits racing on new year's eve, they can't touch me I'm a hokkia ba XD yeah right). And then had a feast with the familias that night at town and that's it. May the new 2008 has something special for all of you. Happy new year!