The Ugly Truth: Traveling Food

For the past 5 years of traveling I've seen drastic price changes to the food at rest stops along the trans-Borneo road. These stops, be it small shack kopitiam style or medium scale concrete restaurant that dots every 1 hour of travel distance, offer a variety of exotic food you can find anywhere else in any township you live in. And what makes them unique is the price the owners set for each of those food.

If Labuan have duty free thingy, the shops here in Sarawak have travel tax, foreigner-who-dunno-actual-price tax and you're-hungry-so-have-to-buy tax charged on all goods and services. Well, the toilet is free anyways. If you want running tap water to clean your hands afterward it will be 20 cents. Tissue RM1.

Back to the food, several big rest stops do not put price tags on their goods. Most of them are grab, say and pay. You GRAB a sweet & sour Mr. Potato, the lady behind the counter will SAY it is RM5.00, and then you PAY RM5.00. Then you savor the expensive 20-25 potato chips while arguing in your head "WHY THE HELL LA I BUY THIS THING?"... Well anyways that's the lumrah of a traveler. Below are the list of prices you can expect to see as of 2009:

Drinks: The same as any coffee shops, canned drinks may cost up to RM2.00
Keropok (don't care what): RM3.50 - RM5.00 (normal price RM1.20 - RM3.50)
Maggi Mee Cup: RM3.50 (increased by RM1.00 within the past 6 months)
Meal (nasi campur etc): RM5++ (depending on mood somehow)

So be careful out there and prepare a wad of cash if you are planning to make a lot of stops during your travel. No point arguing with the owner as the next available food might be 200KM away. Travel safe, ciaoz...

2012 Review

It's Final Destination on a global scale

WARNING!: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

I watched this movie a bit late because of finals (nyeh finished on the second week of finals) but fortunately the movie was worth the wait. Once again Roland Emmerich returned to destroy the world. He destroyed the world with aliens in Independence Day, destroyed NY in Godzilla, and destroyed the world (almost) in The Day After Tomorrow. Now he destroyed the world with a prophetic Mayan calender that ends on 21st December 2012 which marks the end of the world.

The movie had a flair of characters one can attached quickly within the 2.5 hours of the movie run (yeah, it's that long). Once the CG doomsday starts playing, all the ooh-ahhs come out despite the morbid nature of the movie. Too bad some humans (400,000 of them) survived in the end.

Despite all the epic tsunamis, platonic earth shifts, super volcanoes of epic proportion expected from a Hollywood movie, 2012 have some downsides as well. Some parts are way too cliché and predictable. Look! An Aston Martin! Oh noes he's going to hit that AM! Yes he did! NOESS! Worse still several scenes and plots are reminiscence of other disaster movies like The Day After Tomorrow, Deep Impact and the like. Oh yeah did I mention likable characters? Well they all will die in horrendous ways ala Final Destination along with the extras.

All in all, it's a good one-shot movie. I'm not looking forward to watching it again anytime soon. Maybe give me 2-3 days when I return to my hometown to watch it with friends coming back for the semester break.

Yuri: Engine. Start.

Ham: It's been a while since a movie made me go YEAH! OH-HO! and OHSHIT! But some parts are clearly borrowed from previous movies...

Bladder: 2.5 hours?! Are you ******* kidding me?!

Mayan Dude who carved the calender: Dude! I got tired making a calender worth 5,000 years so I stopped at 21/12/2012 before signing up for Facebook. Read the damn facts!

End of Year 3 Semester 1

...end of my semester in Miri as well as an end a comrade's life

I finished my last paper on a very solemn, gloomy and drizzling Tuesday morning. I like the weather, it reminded me of hometown. After the finals I didn't get much of the Hava Nagila mood anyways, partly because I've been through the same procedures; study, play, revise, study, exam, finish exam, celebrate, play, for the past 3.5 years. Next semester is going to be my last doing the same thing, so I do get that same feeling "here we go again" and at the same time "I'm gonna miss this" knowing I'm not gonna do all these student life thing again anytime soon.

Speaking of final semester, I broke out the exchange news to some of my comrades. after the papers. And yes those who are very close to me was expecting me to finish and graduate here in Miri. Alpha was the 26th to be so surprised (not fake, you don't have to be a marketer/PR/psychologist to tell) and asked me to stay. But after the 15th person I was adamant with my decision.

Later that evening I joined the memorial service for a fellow Curtinian brother Mathew who passed away a day before his last paper. Rest in peace comrade.

It is things like this that makes me more... apathetic of life. I guess I've seen too many deaths to show me that things have to end and there's nothing a mortal could do to bring back a life. Only to carry on with life while we still have the opportunity.

For now, let's layan some Fort Minor. Happy holidays comrades.

NASA Finds Water on the Moon

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A "significant amount" of frozen water has been found on the moon, the US space agency said Friday heralding a giant leap forward in space exploration and boosting hopes of a permanent lunar base.

"Yes indeed we found water and we did not find only a little bit but a significant amount," said Anthony Colaprete, project scientist and principal investigator for the 79-million-dollar LCROSS mission.

"It's very exciting, it is painting a new image of the moon," said Gregory Deloy, from the University of California hailing it as "an extraordinary discovery."

Read more from the source here

Awesome, we found H₂O on our biggest natural satellite! Now the new image of the moon in my head would be this, a Lunar Lagoon with 5/6th of Earth's gravity fun!

Stan Helsing Review

Oh gosh, I was expecting to see a good movie and some good laughs after my 3rd paper. And sadly Stan Helsing sucked, badly. It was kinda disappointing to see a potentially good spoof movie to be so.... lame.

Ratings:
IMDB gave 3.7/10
Rotten Tomatoes gave 15%
Ham says: WTH is this shit?

Bigger Breasts = Smarter Brains?

A STUDY conducted in the United States showed that women with big breasts are not necessarily less intelligent than those who are less endowed.

Quoting a Singapore newspaper article, Sin Chew Daily said women with bigger breasts were found to be smarter instead.

The report said it was possible such women were smarter due to the higher level of female hormones that could result in better development in the brain.

Read more here

Ham: I abstain from giving any comments to avoid confrontation with any groups. At first I thought there were no correlations between chest size area with intelligence (men have no boobs/n. breasts but they aren't boobs/n. stupid). But since they threw in the hormone thingy, I rest my case. But one thing for sure, those who had implants are exceptions though...

Finals Semester 2, 2009

It is the time of the semester comrades. Finals. Wishing everyone the best in their exam and see you all at the end of it all. For the motherland!

And here's some motivating speech to kick start your fight, a repetitive one yet never cease to invoke my spirit:

Happy 50,000th KM to My Hyundai

We've gone through 50,000KM of sadness, joys, wars, tragedies, defeats and victories. Will service you at the end of finals. Cheers mate~

Sarawak Killer Wasps

Aggressive wasps cause a string of deaths, increased temperature may be blamed

Roughly a month ago in October there were cases of kids who died after being stung by wasps. And the cases increase until yesterday, when another boy died by what seemed to be wasps in Sarawak's southern region. Condolences to all the families of the victims. Below are the chronology of the cases:

October 5:
Batu Kawah: A family was swarmed at their home. Mother, eldest child and brother in-law survived. Two other children, Sze Ying, 6, and Chun Jie, 3, died. Read here.

October 8:
Batu Kawah: The eldest child of the previous attack, Chen Sze TIng, 8 did not make it. Read here.

October 25:
Muara Tebas: Two men and three women were attacked by a swarm of wasps during a jungle trek. All 5 were hospitalized in Sarawak General Hospital. Read here.

November 3:
Kampung Bako: Sazali Sapiee, 12, succumbed to unknown insect stings after being attacked by unknown insects while playing with his friends. Read here.

I'm not sure what's pissing off these wasps but I can point out to the weird weather pattern. I mean, I myself can be cranky during a hot day and even more crankier when experiencing extreme temperature change within 12 hours (bloody cold and wet in the morning and blazing hot in the afternoon). Or another theory is they're some kind of new species of wasps accidentally introduced into the state by insect collectors, stowaways from cargo ships, or simply were blew here by the 4 typhoons raging in the neighboring Philippines.

Whatever the reasons for their recent agitation, let's be careful with wasps or any other insects you encounter. Below are the info on the bugs that may inflict pain (Source thestar.com.my):

CENTIPEDE - The house centipede, unlike most other centipedes that normally live outdoors, can live indoors especially in damp, moist basements, cellars, bathrooms, crawlspaces or unexcavated areas under the house.




ANT - Ants sting and inject their formic acid into animals or humans that threaten them or their nests. Unlike honeybees, ant stingers do not have barbs so the ant can sting several times, and the act of stinging does not kill the ant. A bite or sting from a CENTIPEDE, ANT or BEE can easily be treated, even at home. If the reaction is localised, wash with soap and water. You could also get a steroid-based cream from the pharmacy to apply.

BEE - Bees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, and are known for their role in pollination. Bees sting only when they are extremely provoked - to protect their colony or when frightened - because they will die after stinging. When a BEE stings, it leaves a sac in your skin that continues to pump venom into your flesh, so it’s best to get it out as soon as possible. Scrape the stinger off with a quick sideways movement with a fingernail.


WASP & HORNET - Unlike the bee, the wasp and hornet are more aggressive and can insert and withdraw its sting with comparative ease. Hence, a single wasp is able to deliver multiple stings with ease. When you are being attacked by HORNETS, don’t run as this will make them think that you are going to attack them. Find a place to squat down and sit still. Hornets can mobilise the entire nest to sting in defense. They will only attack when provoked, but don’t go too near the nests as our sweat will provoke them to attack. When stung, lie down and apply cold water or ice in a wet cloth on the affected area. If you experience any symptoms of allergy in the first 20 minutes after being stung, get medical aid immediately.

LEECH - They hang off the leaves of bushes and will drop onto you as you brush against them. The leech’s saliva contains an anaesthetic so you do not feel its bite. LEECHES will drop off once they have drunk their fill from you. They should not be pulled off - their jaws could be left in your flesh. Remove with a dab of salt, alcohol, an ember or a flame. (Ham: Hmmm, our sweat is salty, so I have a theory that applying sweat drops on them may work).

SCORPION - The Black Scorpion is common in Asia, especially in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. It can be found in forests or sheltered scrublands. However, its venom is not considered lethal. A SCORPION’s sting might require medical attention. There might be symptoms and lots of pain. These can be treated with sedation or pills to stop vomiting.


SPIDERS - Although scientifically not an insect, it is still a creepy crawly. There are no significantly poisonous spiders in Malaysia. A bite from a tarantula is painful but not life-threatening.




CATERPILLARS - Caterpillars’ bristles may be poisonous, so they should not be touched.

Marketing Research Presentation Sem 2 '09

This was the third and perhaps last best MR presentation I attended. And wow, it has been 1 semester since it was my group's turn to present our papers half a year ago. And Irwin's the semester before that. Now it's my juniors.

Anyways at the end of the semester 3-4 groups with the best research from the unit Marketing Research will be selected to present their findings to a panel of judges. And this time there were 4 groups with the best research to be presented, with topics of:

1. Men Skin Care Product (common research every semester)
2. AirAsia
3. TMNet
4. Men Skin Care Product (see how common it is?)

Friends and comrades showed up to give support. As well as students who will take the unit next semester.
The judges from School of Business' economics, marketing and business information department.

Graphs and formal wear are common scene in such event.

And after each presentation they will line up to face the firing squad, except that the lecturers will be shooting them with questions. Failure to answer results in instant death.

And congratulations to the group of the men skin care product (uh, the first one) as the best of the best for MR presentation Sem 2 '09. Time to grow old Ham...

R.U.S.E: The Next Age of Gaming, Perhaps

Now you can personally touch your troops and make him do stuff

Okay, so the idea is you play a WWII RTS game on a table top, with touch screen interface. Imagine ye olde chess or the plastic green army men you used to play. Except with bigger scale and a lot of ego at stake. But with the table priced at $12,000, I doubt most casual or even the hardcore gamers would touch it anytime later. Below are the trailer and the gameplay for the game R.U.S.E:

Visit R.U.S.E. official website here