Happy V-Day & Happy 4th B'Day!

Happy Valentine's Day & Happy Birthday K4L!

Kampua4Life is now 4 years old. Time flies eh, I could remember how noob this blog was when it was conceived back on V-Day of 2007.

Well like usual I'm not celebrating V-Day because there's 2 problem:
1) It's now haram or Islamically illegal to celebrate it for unmarried couples
2) Hello! I'm single!

Busy with work too on that day so I just let it go like any other weekday. Anywho I'm still on a waiting period for a lot of things. Waiting for ministry approval, waiting for a working prototype, and waiting for even more approvals from government and private sectors. Why? Because I'm experiencing this urge to find more sources of income to feel more secure and well established. I'm actually experiencing how money can corrupt one's mind and determination. Besides that after I've done much calculation on when I can be a millionaire after considering expenses and the current inflation and monetary value, I've pressured myself even more. I welcome myself to the RAT RACE!

That or maybe I'm tired of 'fishing' and wanna let the fish to come to me.

So there you go. Don't expect regular updates because it's physically impossible for me to sit down and blog nowadays. Time is a luxury I cannot afford. I finally understand why God said:

"By the declining day; Lo! Man is a state of loss!"

See you when I got the time. For now can't really slow down, because I have to be LEGEND-wait-for-it.... DARY!

Egypt in Conflict: Fun on TV

But not so pleasant if your family is in the conflict

Watching the news in anticipation of what the government can and will do.

This year's CNY eve was marred by the escalating conflict in Egypt. I don't have to explain what it is about as there's a whole Google for that topic. But if you've been hu-ha-hee-hee ing without knowing what's happening to the pre-apocalyptic world, the Arab Republic of Egypt is facing an uprising from its citizens who are unhappy with the way the old Mubarak's government is handling many things especially their silence on the Palestinian conflict (another long story, read this older post).

So anyways we have Malaysian students in Egypt trapped in the middle of the revolution to oust President Mubarak. News from them include food shortages, being looted, gun pointed to their heads, sleeping with knives and many expected news from a chaotic country. My cousin is one of the students in trapped in all that chaos. So basically I got a first hand experience of what's happening there and here in Malaysia.

Apparently the States and other countries have supplied planes to evacuate their own students but there had been almost no contingency or evacuating plan from Malaysia apart from sending a ship to transport the students to nearby Jeddah (through the pirate infested Gulf of Aden). One Malaysian student fled to Moscow and the rest scattered all over Egypt from Cairo to Alexandria with their friends to take shelter from the angry mob on the streets. Sadly not many students are rich and can purchase RM4,000 emergency flights back to Malaysia as many are sponsored.

So after a few days of planning (I think) Malaysia sent 1 C-130 (I think) military plane to bring the students home. AirAsia offered similar assistance and MAS followed suit. Sounds good, albeit a bit late, but it gets worst. Students are limited to carry 7Kg of luggage only. Heck, I came back from Australia with minimal 50Kg (mostly souvenirs). Laptop is already 2Kg, clothes maybe around 10 Kg so imagine the sacrifice the must do to get home. Hence some opted to go home via other airlines. Oh and some students may not have laptops as they were robbed off their electronics on the way to their airport.

But nonetheless I'm thankful my cousin and the rest of the students are on their way home from the troubled northern African country. Although still in chaos her lecturer told her there will be an exam on the 19th February and I guess she and her friends ditched it in favor of personal safety. Talk about job commitment.

While we wait for our students to arrive, let's just see how things in Egypt develop eh?

Happy Chinese New Year 2011

It's the Year of the Golden Rabbit!

And also the year 4709 according to Chinese calender. Despite its festive nature, I don't feel the aura of a typical cheerful CNY mood. Could be the slumping economy or the new generation couldn't care less about it. Heck even the fireworks were meh and I didn't bother to take a snap the somewhat empty midnight CNY skies.

Anywho I'm being optimistic about this year. Gonna enjoy this year, work hard, get money, live happily and do some spiritual and physical balancing. If anyone got open house SMS me yeah or just drop me a message on Facebook. Wishing everyone a prosperous and bountiful new year! Huat ah!!!!!!!!!!

Fallout New Vegas Review

The Future is SO Depressing :D Actually I played this throughout December 2010, and only got time to review it today. So here's a late review.

Fallout New Vegas or FNV is considered as a sequel to Fallout 3. FNV follows the traditional Fallout story about you as one of the survivor in a post-nuclear war world. In FNV most of the stuff and environment is Wild West and of course Las Vegas themed. Roughly 200 years after the nuclear holocaust (radiation lower and people started to repopulate) you play as a Courier who was shot in the head by a gang of thugs who stole the stuff you were delivering. But you were saved by a doctor. Now you're on a path of vengeance trying to find out who killed you and get back the package you needed to deliver to New Vegas (rebuilt Las Vegas).

The Book of Eli, I Am Legend, Apocalypse
The movie titles above inspires the game a lot, and the developers got that post-apocalyptic mood right. I do feel like I'm a lone wanderer in the nuclear wasteland filled with lunatics and optimists.

Yup, this feels post-apocalyptic alright.

This used to be somewhere I think. Now it's just a gloomy gigantic nuclear bombed crater.

Thank goodness post-apocalyptic people don't dress like Final Fantasy folks. And chicks dig guys with rusty ammo chains around his torso.

Factions:
One thing I like about FNV is the factions system and how your actions affect your relationship with them. For example lobbing grenades randomly in a small town will cause the townfolks to hate you and chase you out with Vermin Rifles. Helping a tribe with their quests will cause them to like you and aid you in whatever way possible. There are many factions in FNV, ranging from the militaristic group NCR, the Roman-inspired tribe Legion, some band of Gatling-gun-wielding supermutants, a bunch of zombies who believed they are destined to go to the Promised Land, crazed bandits, loose prisoners and many many more. They all make your experience unique (P/S: be nice with guys with guns).

I decided to be nice and join the NCR Rangers. Because red berets are cool!

Red beret. Cool innit? Oh this is my buddy Boone.

A Splinter Cell-ish attempt to spy on the Legion revealed a dull warrior culture made up of slaves and conscripts from conquered tribes. Just like the Persian army in the movie 300. Not really my cup of tea.

Karma:
Although it is an open-ended free roam game, the main storyline will lead to a final epic battle for the control of the Hoover Dam (SPOILER). Your actions or inaction will decide what the final outcome will be at the battle and after the battle. Helping a Boomer tribe get in touch with the girl he likes will give good karma and this will lead to the Boomers doing a bombing run at the dam (SPOILER). Abandoning or harming certain tribes will of course cause bad karma and somehow you'll feel the guilt in real life. Aahhh... I wonder what happened to the Bright Followers zombies with their crazy idea to fly to their Promised Land in their old salvaged rockets.

Karma: What happens after you whack a mutant Bloatfly with a sledgehammer.

Companions
You can have certain NPCs as your companions in your adventures in the wasteland. They can range from a NCR Ranger with a dark history to a Supermutant auntie with some nyanyuk or Alzheimer-ish condition. They help drive the story even deeper by revealing their own quests as the story progresses.

I introduced Boone to you earlier. Well, he got issues...

And this is my cybernetic dog Rex. He's 200 years-old.

Gore & Violence:
Let these pictures tell the story:

Meet my big f****** gun! (that I looted from a dead mutant)

Just enter the targeting mode and choose your desired target. I like heads.

Then blast your way to pure gory funness! Paint the ground red! BWUAHAHA!

Out of ammo? Go melee! Use your Power Fists and smash their skulls!

No Power Fist? Chainsaw your way to get to the Legion's boss Caesar! Then kill his bodyguards to get Power Fists THEN beat Caesar to pulp!

Rating
I guess everyone got their own unique experience in FNV. For me, I enjoyed mine and took over New Vegas for myself AND killed all other factions just to seal my place as the dictator of the Mojave wasteland. Hahahahaha!

Hello 2011

Happy new year peeps! We're 1 more year away from the overrated 2012, we're entering the Year of the Rabbit, and well I'm not anticipating much to happen after seeing how 2010 went by. You can find many forecasts online saying this will be a better year with some difficulties (didn't they say that last year?). Well here are my predictions:

Economy:
The recession will go even deeper. And the prices of local goods and food will increase accordingly by 10-50 cents. Eventually going to have breakfast at coffee shops will be somewhat a luxury. RM5.00 kampua? Bring it!

Political:
There will be changes in power, although the new power in charge wouldn't do much because the already miserable state of everything. So despite the happy galore of new changes, there won't be much changes.

War:
North and South Korea go to war! Tension between the two will be unbearable and all their supporters and benefactors will be dragged into the war too. Eventually this will lead to a global war; World War 3 a.k.a. Armageddon. The prophecy will be fulfilled, wohoo!

Astronomy:
Whatever shit that was flying from Pluto towards Earth will be made official and undeniably get everyone in a state of panic. 2012 will be abuzz and trending the online world. The age of Pisces is upon us!

Culture:
Not much, since we're shifting everything to digital and online world. So that means we'll leave no culture whatsoever if there's a nuclear war. All our culture we made online from deviantart to LOLCats will be wiped out in the war. And our music? Expect more hedonistic party songs and Bieber's voice breaking.

Not a very optimistic forecast but it's based on trends from the past years. Live long & prosper!

AFF Suzuki Cup 2010

We lost the battle, but we won the war!

I was not expecting much, but after the match ended with INA 2-1 MAL I was happy. We lost the match but hey we won the cup by aggregate 4-2. Obviously we got flak from INA supporters telling us we cheated again, but hey it wasn't our fault INA missed the penalty. Mind you there was a single brave Malaysian in the Bung Karno Stadium waving the flag in the midst of thousands red/white fans so he couldn't have lasered the penalty kicker lest he wanted to get mauled by the mob.

These are not Malaysian supporters mind you.

Anywho congratulations, you guys have broken our 14 years dry-spell. Kudos to Rajagopal & his young tigers! Let's hope they are not showered too much with rewards to the point of being spoiled. Viva Malaysia!

Priceless. We won the cup at their home ground. And this time we didn't cheat.

Malaysia vs Indonesia

It's Konfrontasi (again *sigh*). With Soccer. And Lasers!

Thanks to twitter from our neighbors, our players are now fearsome footballers with laser eyes created by some underground government project.

Last night's match was explosive and managed to put me off to watch BPL matches after that. Apart from the adrenaline-fueled explosive display of 3-0 killing spree from Malaysia to send the reds home, the match was also literally explosive. Supposedly, Malaysian fans threw firecrackers and aimed lasers at the Indonesians around the 53rd minute and this forced the referee Toma Masaaki to call off the game, supposedly. After the raging crowd of reds and yellows chilled a bit the match resumed and led to the 3-0.

Alas, after the match, there was a cyber-war between Malaysians and Indonesians about the supposedly controversial match with the latter side accused the Malaysians of supposedly played lasers at their keeper Markus, supposedly. The "Malaysia Cheat Laser" trended twitter that same night. Sadly we were zerg-rushed by the Indonesians online (240 million of them against 28 million of us) so it really did looked like we were the guilty party. But were we?

Bollocks. They're just pissed we won and we're not guilty. Here are the reasons:

1. Lasers
This is the picture that is supposedly showing the Malaysian fans pointing laser at the field to blind the keeper. Apparently it could be a fact that many viewers are color blind OR they did not see the match at all and proceeded to flame us. At Bukit Jalil last night, the stadium was filled with reds (Indonesian) on one side and yellows (Malaysians) on other. This was viewed from a 42" LCD TV and I can confirm there were no small patch of black shirts mourners who just sat there without waving their respective national flags. Or more Arab-looking. I do not recall wearing the Arabic headgear or keffiyehs as a cultural norm in Malaysia (look at the crowd, I counted 6). FAIL.

2. Scores

How are these scores considered cheating? These are real skills and look at how pathetic Indonesian defense was. Oh this occurred in the 60th-70th minutes. The firecracker & laser incident that put a halt to the game was at the 50th. Unless the players have a time-lag response issue, there is no way the 50th minutes lasers helped the Malaysians to cheat to get the goals in the last quarter of the match. Or is it possible the lasers have some effect to the players similar to how kryptonite weakens Superman?

3. Did you even watch the game?!
Very few Indonesians humbly accepted their defeat due to their poor defenses as seen in the match. But these few were shot by fellow countrymen (maybe 99% of them that happen to not watch the match) who blasted Malingsial as cheaters. -.-

This was just the first leg of the finals. I'm not sure what will happen in the decisive 2nd leg in Jakarta on the 29th December. Maybe bomohs and black magic will be used. Or we might see the usage of the biggest super laser weaponry known to man; the Empire's Death Star blasting everyone to oblivion from space... Now we can only hope for the players to come out of the match in one piece and if possible alive.

And perhaps hope for some help from Japan!

You can read the match report here, although it's less dramatic and has more texts.

Merry X'Mas & Happy Nuclear Power!

Freaking A haven't update in the longest time. Anywho, Merry Christmas and happy new year! Although it won't be a merry X'mas because a lot of BPL matches have been postponed due to extreme weather. So much for having a White Christmas in England.

Apart from that there's not much interesting issues that came up recently. There's the nuke thingy. The government wants to build a nuclear power plant in Sarawak (as if Bakun isn't enough to worry about) by 2021. Thankfully we have some sane politicians to sound some protest about having a potential Chernobyl in Borneo. We'll see if we can handle nukes by then ,but I myself do not wish to explain the logic of why the government is building all these seemingly unnecessary facilities to my three eyed grandchildren.

Oh and our Pehin got married again, this time discreetly to a 30s year-old Lebanese. Taib still got it for a 74 years old dude. Many may question the CM's decision of marrying someone almost half a century younger than him, but I guess it can be lonely at the top. And some may think this as a hypocritical move (government keep telling us to Belilah Barangan Buatan Malaysia but CM marries import). Looking at the trend, CM may want to avoid a longhouse of in-laws to come visit him in comparison to having foreign faraway in-laws. Anyways, congratulations Pehin.


As for the rest, well one may notice the sudden surge of developments around town. New roads. Contractors rushing to complete projects (they've just completed the Simpang 3 market. And it's Orange Yellow.) The election must be coming REALLLLLLY soon.

Erm. That's all I guess. Life in Kampua Town is really boring. Sometimes I question my decision to make Sibu my Kubu. Apart from work, nothing exciting happens besides the occasional races and karaoke sessions. Speaking of races, I finally saw African and Asian Mormon missionaries riding their bikes in town. A nice change of view besides the common white 19-20s males cycling around in their Mormon formals.

If any of you by chance are holidaying in Sibu just give me a call for any yumcha or limteh or movies. I'll be more than happy to go hang out within 24 hours after call to see people of my age range again. Number is in FB, cheerios!

I Love You, Boy

If you thought I was going to discuss the trouble I had with male stalkers, well this ain't it. I was rummaging through my old drawers doing some archeology on my past because I was really effing bored. When I hit the 2000AD layer, I found some old and ancient-smelling artifacts. This is one of them:

Huh... almost forgotten about this

Awww... (blurred out the too-personal message)

Yes, females back then were very feisty. Most of them were really shameless about expressing their feelings towards someone. These girls broke the Golden Rule and initiated the first move themselves. I'm sure some of the male readers agree on this and may have experienced their own personal admirers or stalkers back in the old days. And what did I (and maybe most of us young boys) do? We ignored them because we were disgusted by such expression of emotion. YUCK! But 10 years after that we changed and yearn for female companionship thanks to our testosterone. Or not, if you find the similar sex appealing.

Anywho, we go back to the girls and their attitudes. So yes, when girls are young they express their love openly and share it with friends, making it an embarrassment for the target boy who will be ridiculed by his peers. But gradually this shameless attitude becomes silent as the girls grow older. You won't know their affection UNTIL you can take a hint of what's happening. Like from their Facebook statuses. Or from one of their friends who can't keep a secret.

I can't find specific reason for such decline. But maybe it is caused by our culture where it is expected for the male to make the first move first. Our females slowly acknowledge the said culture and wait for the guys to pop the question. Man, can you imagine how awkward it will be if the girls retain such bold attitude till adulthood? Imagine you are going out of the lecture hall and the girl kneels down in front of you offering an Xbox 360 saying "Be My Husband". What's your respond if you are a male?

WTF?!
Accepts Xbox 360
Accepts Xbox 360 & the girl's proposal
Syntax Error
WTF?!
WTF?!

I'm not gonna say 100% relationships out there started with male's initiatives. Somewhere some females did break the Golden Rule and asked the dude. I salute them, as much as I salute brave men who used up all their balls (metaphor for face, pride etc) to throw themselves into the front line with 50-50 chances of success just to ask the girl he admires to be with him. So dudes, appreciate the effort some of your admirers did to get your attention and your affection. Of course with the exception of crazed stalkers. You may be hunting in accordance of the Golden Rule, but rules can be broken and you may be the one hunted. Good hunting!

Bintangor's Legendary Tumpik

I finally had a taste of the much hyped about tumpik of Bintagor. This traditional baked rice delicacy is a rare treat for me, and if it's legendary enough to be featured in a newspaper must mean that it's worth the 40 minutes drive to Bintangor. It was.

Google Maps can't calculate the route, unfortunately

The 40 minutes drive towards the outskirt of Sibu includes going out of town using the treacherous roads of Lanang, pay some cash to please the Lanang bridge toll operators (RM5 for large vehicles like mine sienz) and finally some relaxing kampung style journey to the small pekan of Bintangor.

The said tumpik is available at Bintangor's central market which looks like a green church. This church-inspired market houses typical Sarawakian foodstuff, supplies and cafes to cater the denizens. You can't miss it, it's the biggest building in Bintangor. Bintangor is not that big to get lost in. And it's easy to find the stall that sells the legendary tumpik. The stall name is Tumpik.

The plain tumpik biasa

Tumpik special

I tried out 2 of the available tumpiks, the normal plain one and a special one (with prawns inside). IMO lah, the plain tumpik was ok-ok lah but the prawn special tumpik was amazing. Maybe because the prawns were jumping 2 hours ago. I jumbled up the order so didn't ask for the exact prices. But both cost Under RM7. Was it worth it? Yes.