The Flags Raised Half Today

To pay respect to the passing of Sarawak's Chief Minister's wife, Pn. Sri Laila Taib, the flags on campus were not fully raised today. Read more.

The Haze

Talk about a scene straight out of 'The Mist', but instead of a humid and wet accumulated gas particles, this one is hot and burns the lungs, slightly masin too. Drink more and more water, while we wait for the Bomba to control the bush fires.

Equity Theory: In Relationships

I'm coming to a closing end for one of my assignments regarding Equity Theory (just need to reference, Turnitin can't be underestimated) in the business environment. The theory is basically about 'you get what you worked for' and this is called equity norm. And during my macabre, I stumbled upon one research relating the theory with love relationship. Obviously I can't fit its relevancy anywhere in my assignment but I'm posting it here to share it. Very interesting if you ask me, and yes it helps explain a stuff or two;

1. The more socially desirable people are (the more attractive, personable, famous, rich, or considerate they are), the more socially desirable they will expect a mate to be.

2. Dating couples are more likely to fall in love if they perceive their relationships to be equitable.

3. Couples are likely to end up with someone fairly close to themselves in social desirability.
They are also likely to be matched on the basis of self-esteem, looks, intelligence, education, mental and physical health (or disability).

4. Couples who perceive their relationships to be equitable are more likely to get involved, sexually.
Couples were asked how intimate their relationships were—whether they involved necking, petting, genital play, intercourse, cunnilingus or fellatio. Couples in equitable relationships generally were having sexual relations. Couples in inequitable relationships tended to stop before “going all the way.” Couples were also asked why they’d made love. Those in equitable affairs were most likely to say that both of them wanted to have sex. Couples in inequitable relationships were less likely to claim that sex had been a mutual decision. Dating and married couples in equitable relationships also had more satisfying sexual lives than their peers.

5. Equitable relationships are comfortable relationships.
Researchers have interviewed dating couples, newlyweds, couples married for various lengths of time, including couples married 50+ years. Equitable relationships were found to be happier, most contented, and most comfortable at all ages and all stages of a relationship.

6. Equitable relationships are stable relationships.
Couples who feel equitably treated are most confident that they will still be together in a year, five years, and ten years. In equitable relationships, partners are generally motivated to be faithful. The more “cheated” men and women feel in their marriages, the more likely they are to risk engaging in fleeting extra-marital love affairs.

Conclusion: People care about how rewarding their relationships are and how fair and equitable they seem to be.

Source: www.elainehatfield.com

Why I: Have a Lighter in the Bathroom

You'll know its burning them gases when the fire produces this effect

No I don't smoke in the toilet (nor am I a smoker, except in certain cases in L4D as the zombie Smoker). Any toilet that I frequent can be found with a lighter nearby, as I use them to burn the bad toilet odor from the previous user or on certain occasion myself after a few episodes with nasi jawa with petai. I don't know if it's scientifically proven that this method effectively burns all the excess gas we dispose, but it sure did removed the smell after 1-2 minutes. Worse 3 minutes. The things we do to be a responsible toilet user. Puhhh....

Jerebu? Now?

Eh... is it not April? Isn't Gawai and other harvest/slash-burn activities in June? Then where did all these haze come from? Either it's the brand new genetically modified paddy that can be planted and harvested 3 times a year or some kind of an environmental and biological terror attack to sabotage students' health to deter them from surviving mid-terms.

Anywho being an indiscriminate stereotyping Malaysian we must push this invasion back. Ignore the Regimen Wataniah 57 standing army, we need our Panasonic and Mistral standing fan, big or small, along the border and hopefully we can blow them back to where they came from. Owh and drink more water.

4520 Overclock Success!

The overclocking process [what?] was many months long, but the end result was worth it. While carefully trying to distribute the clock, memory, avoiding blue screen of deaths and making my RAMs smell like they just got back from Hell, I finally found a stable and operational settings. With the addition of the 4GB RAM, now I am able to multitask with up to 58 processes without lag inclusive of 12 big applications e.g. Photoshop, medium and heavy games, Office, 3DS MAX Studio and other accessory apps. If these statements are not enough to describe it, let these snapshots show how successful the overclocking is;

Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, one of my heaviest game in my drive. A snapshot before overclock with settings I can play SMOOTHLY without noticeable lag. Mostly all are Off and Low.

This if after overclock, with most settings at Medium and no noticeable lag (until the big explosions and big army comes in anyway...)

At a glance the draw distance is noticeable better, with fog in the distance and logic light source/shadow to complement the seamlessly large battlefield even after everything on the map is destroyed. Imagine this kind of raw power applied to Microsoft Word.

On the ground level the level of details can be seen even more, down to the insignia on the soldier's uniform to the facial expression. Woot!

These are the overclocked settings via NVIDIA settings, basically;
CPU HT Bus: 200MHz
Motherboard HT Bus: 200MHz
GPU Core Clock: 450MHz
GPU Memory Clock: 150MHz

I can go overboard but I'm playing safe. I'm not sure what is the true potential of this Acer 4520, so I better keep it that way as I don't want to strain it too much.




But all those overclocking did not come without a cost. The heat jumped from 55° to 73° during maximum use, so the thing can get hot during peak hours but not during low times like when you're stuck in the library doing assignments while listening to songs in Xion. I can't fix this since there is virtually no way to access the laptop's fan settings to increase it as mentioned in this older post.

*NEW* Sushi Outlet

There's a new food outlet taking place of what was Hafiz' at the campus' cafeteria. Obviously I can't read what is the sushi stall name is, but hey I tried it out for the first two days.

Urgh blur, either my lens was greasy or the camera did not have time to auto-adjust. Anywho this is the sushi outlet, a branch of the same shop in Boulevard.

The selections are good, and priced between RM2.40 to RM5.00++ per box. Did not get to taste all of them but from the first few I've tasted I can say it's average. Like what my homie said; you get what you paid for. If you guys want better sushi get over the border and eat at Excapade in Brunei... so for now these will be adequate.

And here's a bento box ranging between RM5.00-RM9.oo++ [citations needed]. This one is a Spicy Bento RM6.00. Not your typical bento wooden box but hey, it's still a bento set. The taste? Ok la... if only they give the wasabi properly and wear hairnets....

CyberClean

It's FLUBBER!

Bought this Cyber Clean thingy just because it was cheap (RM15) and of course, due to sakainess. It's a rubbery-ish compound that helps clean stuff with many inaccessible tight spots. Let's see how it works:

Once out of its package it feels all wet and moist (but it's not wet at all, just feels wet) and squishable.

So what you do is slap the sucker on whatever narrow parts you want to clean, in my case the crevices of my keyboard. Those Pringles bits and cream crackers crumbs may reduce the keyboards ineffectiveness by 1.5% [citations needed]

Then peel it off and smile at the dust that got stuck on the flubber. Well, it may not be obvious here due to my 1.3 megapixel camera, but there's a lot of dust beside the little red strand

Besides cleaning it can be a fun stress-reliever.

Was told that it is useable until it is completely coated in dust, then you'll have to buy a new one. Comes in two variation; green for tech stuff e.g. computers, handphones and blue for car interors.

PC Fair 2009

Went to the PIKOM PC Fair yesterday at STEC, and everything that is to be expected to be in a PC Fair was there. You know, typical Acer, HP and Compaqs (oh and Dells too) with noticeable 100-200++ discount, woofer and speakers, mouse and other accessories, projectors, LCD screen (sheet I found a tempting RM400 LCD monitor XD but no thanks not now) etc. But this time I got some more upgrades in mind.

A somewhat back-to-oldschool design from NEC

There's A LOT of Compaqs this time around, looks like they're selling off the whole warehouse

A confused Auntie who just wanders around taking the countless spamming brochures and not buy anything, or someone who is looking for an Alienware or Acer's Predator?

This time it's my sis' turn to find her other half that will accompany her in her years in University life starting from next semester

And here is what I've been looking for in this PC Fair. Random Access Memory.RAMs. 2GB 2 pieces of them. I wanted to do my last upgrade I can apply on my Acer 4520 which is 4GB worth of RAM.

RM88 sahaja per RAM. Kinda expensive considering the West is selling them for RM70++. The cheapest in the fair, others were selling them for RM100 per piece. Yikes. And back in the shop it's RM159. Double yikes with WTF.

On-the-spot upgrade by the tauke of the booth. The operation begins...

And this is how my Acer 4520 innards look like, green and microchippy

And this is the end-result after the operation. It's 4GB but the max XP will show is 3.18GB

With total cost of RM181 including RM5 service charge, the 4GB upgrade is worth it. The feeling of running a pimped-out and tricked-out-to-the-max laptop is beyond words. Now it seriously feels like driving a Daihatsu running on V10 engine. Gonna overclock some more and review the performance in a future post.

Twilight Review

I had a movie marathon not long ago, which includes Yes Man, a recently leaked movie (I thought it was original until it comes to CG effects, all the cables and unrendered 3D models abound, when I discovered that it was supposed to come out on May 1st), Monsters vs Aliens and Twilight (yea yea I know I'm a slow viewer). I'd say thumbs up for Yes Man, MvsA, the leaked movie which I recommend, but not Twilight. I didn't read the book so I don't know how the story was supposed to go. But anywho I have to complain; what kind of vampire have sweaty glitters under sunlight? In slow mo? (if I'm not mistaken) And uh.. the whole movie could have been improved with more plots if they cut out the 10-20 minutes of vampire crush and the 10-20 minutes vampire stalking and the 10-20 minutes of vampir love... umm hard to say on this one, not sure to recommend watch or not. Now I'm gonna catch up with other movies I've missed during my busy semester. Fast & Furious 4 is next. Hope that one don't suck.

If I was a vampire character in Twilight, I'd look like this... which represents what I see from the movie generally (not Photoshopped)

What's on My Desktop Today

A lot of softwares have come and go on my desktop, all in the name of seeking perfection (mostly finding something free, fast, useful and sexy looking). And few managed to stay on my desktop longer than 2 weeks. So now I'm showcasing the softwares that is currently active on my desktop:

On your left hand side, you can see hott notes. It's a free program that works well reminding a forgetful and schedule-packed student about the to-do things. It's useful in a way that it reminds you of the reality of life and you can't escape from it, even in your desktop after you close that sress-relieving Left 4 Dead window. It comes in 3 types:

Note - type in stuff, your girlfiend's birthday, or the cheat codes for Minesweeper
Checklist - my favourite, things-to-do in form of checklist. Just check-off things you have already planned to do and you'll get the satisfaction of progress in life
Scribble Note - scribble stuff, draw a horrible stick cat and post it on your desktop like what some kids do to their drawings that are now stuck on the fridge.

Download hott notes here for free.

Now at the center of the desktop where the Celestial Being logo is you can find texts, which is my Xion player with Simple Text skin applied. I used to have a singing Linux penguin but watching him trembling to all the trance music for 3 months straight on your desktop can be tiring. Xion is a very simple player, and you can create your own skin using Photoshop. So that means the people can create their own personal player skins, and so they have as proven at Xion's website wher there is tonnes of skins to download from. Owh and this explains why on MSN I have that extra Xion: text in front of the music title I'm listening to. You can download Xion here. Owh and it's free.

Lastly we move on to you right hand side, where Thoosje sidebar can be seen. Now I'm using XP, and Thoosje gives sidebars that can match the ones offer in Vista. Comes with its own gadgets like calculator, system up-time, RAM usage (vital for overclockers and multitaskers like me), and it's very own music player. The only concern though is the sidebar may eat up a lot of memory usage during startup, which causes a delay in the Windows start up for around 3 minutes. But disabling it in start up and bring it up after that should fix the problem. Owh the only major problem is that I can't find my ZIP code which may lead to annoying pop-ups asking for it if you have Weather gadget up. Download Thoosje Sidebar here. Also free.

Why I: Seem to Have Issues

I'm optimistic. Nose-bleed? Nah it's okay it's not deadly, here drink more water. You broke a leg? It's okay you can still talk and procreate, it's not like it's the end of the world. It's the end of the world? It's okay I'll meet you on Judgment Day and we'll talk about your leg, just miss call.

But for the past 21 years living on this temporary materialistic world called Earth, I became cynical of everything. Huh? He wants our help? Screw it, where was he when I needed help. What for should I help him or the next person asking for it if they'll just need me when they're going to get phucked? Sure I live up to my name, "the Generous" from time to time with charity and random free advices to friends, but I have yet received a single act of random kindness from the more fortunate to remind me I'm not alone in terms of giving back. Even getting 'thanks' or 'good morning' nowadays is rare from strangers and even from friends. Most are forced or have to be reminded. I got tired of it and have low expectations in humanity.

Combine those two together we get these:
Optimism (n.): A tendency to expect the best possible outcome or dwell on the most hopeful aspects of a situation: “There is a touch of optimism in every worry about one's own moral cleanliness” (Victoria Ocampo).

Cynic (n.): A person who believes all people are motivated by selfishness.

So I'm an optimistic cynic. Having ideologies where the worst SNAFU has a lighter side to make fun of and trust no-one 100% at all because of human's growing selfishness, they deserve it because they're selfish. That's why I seem indifferent in face of tragedy, and even more sien looking when it comes to people talking to me. This was carried on for a while and I ended up having the default 'I-have-issues' facial expression. I know most people would skim through blog posts despite your messy layouts and bad color combinations, because most will do that and then go back to their own blogs and make it prettier thinking others will come by and awed by it. That's my current optimistic cynic level right now. Aye caramba I really need some food for my soul before I get worse.

BN Where Art Thou?

Kancils, tanks sunk in massive pot holes in Sibu-Mukah road. Road users who are pregnant, have a weak heart or had a heavy lunch are not advised to travel through this road.

This is nothing. You will drive through this kind of road for the next 1 hour++ and only then will you get to the infamous back-breaker Ladang-Selangau road which will take another 1hour++ until you reach tarred Selangau-Sibu road... Rakyat's tax money well-spent...

The road to Mukah just got worse. There is no road. As if the Selangau-Mukah was not torturing enough being the back-breaker, now the Simpang Balingian-Ladang road has rotten down to nothing more but mud and pebbles. If this continues, I think the only way to access Mukah division and surrounding burroughs is by boat via Dalat. If only the PKR took this picture and show it to the rakyat (just like how BN in Batang Ai showed pictures of the PKR's Permatang Pauh slum area to the rakyat to win votes).

Illegal Sarawak Cuisine?

On Sunday, I headed back to my hometown. Same routine and all with going to the bus terminal at Pujut Sampah to catch the 10am bus. This time however I was early (called the taxi too early perhaps, 9am trip) so I was the second dude to drop my luggage in the luggage compartment. This time though I saw this box:

Being curious and all I was tempted to poke the box and peep into the hole to see what's inside, only to be warded off by some rustling and hissing. I was like "Okay....." and I just left the box alone seeing the box is heading to Niah, probably to the natural reserve or something.

However upon reaching Niah 1 hour ++ later, the box was carted off by two dudes who later wheeled the box towards;

Batu Niah Food Court Centre. I really hope those aren't endangered animals they're slaughtering and serving at the food court because I don't recall any types of chicken that hisses. Steamed komodo rice anyone?

Curtin 10th Anniversary Open Day

Well, it's 10th Anniversary for Curtin Miri Campus. For this semester's Open Day I was involved with Marketing Club's booth, Sarawak Childhood Cancer Society and a bit of volunteering and promoting other friend's booths here and there. Here comes the pics:

GP stretch, crowded

Accounting club's roses for sale

Student Council members at work

Some more crowds at GP2-Cafe walkway

Volunteers checkpoint booth

Some of my badges

Marketing Club booth, selling ice creams & fish balls on a stick

Marketing Club leng mois FB profile pic update session

Ice cream?

My good old secretary getting down and busy

Basshunter - Walk on Water. Nice t-shirt btw

The cricket club's Massala House corner

I love the Massala House's chicken tikka wrap p:

Your typical dunk-the-dude-with-water-bucket. Or was it throw a ball at the bucket to splash the water on the dude?

Volunteers at the Headquarters

Some more volunteers at the Headquarters

No clown-fearing kids here

I think I found the BlueHyppo

The usual tarot card reading booth, a must have every Open Day

Dance battle, I missed it though, darn

And some free chocolate cake giveaway

Man, am I not well-motivated to write down the whole thing. Hahaha. Just that it all ended with a big storm (literally) by 4pm, so I headed home early to pack up to go home the next day. Tired? Duh...