New Chinese Albums

I'm in a music mood lately after getting my Creative Zen V Plus last month. I got myself all new chinese albums lately. Ahh... I just can't stop looping them 24/7. Here are short reviews on the albums.

Jay Chou : Secret


Track:-
01 不能說的秘密 Bu Neng Shuo De Mi Mi

Being a fan of Jay Chou, I can't deny that I will rate his song being the top album. This new song is based on his coming movie, The Secret releasing on the 16th of August *I must go...* Jay Chou's songs are famous for its background music, not to be mentioned for this song too.

Enjoy the mv.



Zhang Dong Liang : Prince 2007



Tracks:-

01.游戏 (You Xi)
02.错了再错(Cuo Le Zai Cuo)
03.王子 (Wang Zi)
04.幸福的理由 (Xing Fu De Li You)
05.如果 (Ru Guo)
06.陌路 (Mo Lu)
07.Super Idol
08.其实幸福很简单 (Qi Shi Xing Fu Hen Jien Dan)
09.相信 (Xiang Xin)
10.晚安，宝贝
11.Heart (OT: My Heart)
12.北极星的眼泪

Ever since I watched Smiling Pasta, I just love Zhang Dong Liang's song. He looks way better than he was when he joined Astro Talent Quest *cough* Haha! The Xiao Wu Gui's song still as lovely as before. For his new album, I would give a thumb up to 错了再错(Cuo Le Zai Cuo) and 王子 (Wang Zi). He is so cool in the music video...

王子 (Wang Zi).

错了再错(Cuo Le Zai Cuo)


Lin Jun Jie : West Side

Track:-

01: 獨白 (Monologue)
02: 殺手 (The Killa)
03: 殺手@續 (The Killa continued)
04: 西界 (West Side)
05: 無聊 (Bored)
06: 單挑 (Let's Battle)Track 07: K-O
08: 大男人 小女孩 (Big Man, Little Girl)
09: L-O-V-E
10: 發現愛 (Discovering Love) Feat. Kym Jin Sha
11: 不流淚的機場 (The Airport That Doesn't Cry)
12: Baby Baby
13: 自由不變 (Freedom Never Changes)

I don't really listen to JJ's albums until my friend told me that he released new album lately. I bought and try. OMG!~ The intro song is really attracting... I've been looping 殺手 (The Killa) and 殺手@續 (The Killa continued) many times with my Zen. Enjoy the song...

殺手 (The Killa)


Quincy Tan



Tracks:-
01.Quincy 陈仁丰
02.桃花源
03.幻想教室
04.幸福意外
05.挥不去你
06.音乐魔咒
07.谢谢你捧场
08.片尾曲
09.幻想教室 (Minus One)
10.音乐魔咒 (Minus One)

Quincy is just another newly born Malaysian Chinese Singer this year. He released his first album mid this year. I wouldn't say his songs are good nor bad. However, there is one song that I like the most, that's Quincy 陈仁丰. I simply love the music!

Rynn Lyn Yu Zhong : In The Rain



Tracks:-
01.苍蝇的眼泪
02.猫头鹰
03.复活
04.捉迷藏
05.旋律
06.对调
07.淋雨中
08.余兴节目
09.主题曲
10.空秋千
11.Melodi (OT:旋律)
12.讯号

Oh well, this song has been released for quite sometime. Another Malaysian Chinese Singer. Melodi is still the best song. It used to have a significant meaning to me... Enjoy.

旋律


Wang Lee Hom : Change Me



Track:-
01: Intro
02: 改變自己(Change Me)
03: 落葉歸根 (Falling Leaf Returns to Roots)
04: 創作前言 (Composition's Preface)
05: 我們的歌 (Our Song)
06: 你是我心內的一首歌 (You're A Song In My Heart)
07: 愛在哪裡 (Where's the Love)
08: Cockney Girl
09: 不完整的旋律 (Incomplete Melody)
10: 愛的鼓勵 (Love's Praise)
11: 華人萬歲 (Long Live Chinese People)
12: 星期六的深夜 (Saturday Midnight)

The long awaited album! Wang Lee Hom is my favourite singer after Jay Chou. I love so much of his previous album, Gai Shi Ying Shiong that I was so desperately in getting his new album on the day of the release. Failed, I downloaded the whole album that day. From the Rap-Hip Pop style of his previous ablum, this new album really is a "Change Me" album. It features oldies as can see in his first song, 改變自己(Change Me). His hairstyle really like Elvis Presley.

I'm little dissappointed with the new album, however.. I would say his songs rock again! I like 我們的歌 (Our Song)

改變自己(Change Me)


I still like these two songs of his in "Heroes Of The Earth

Heroes Of The Earth


Kiss Goodbye

Googling BUGS on Google Blog Search

Today, I shall amaze you with the extend of my wu-liaoness. (Lameness? For lack of a better English word) While trying out the Google Blog search, I decided to search for “undergroundsquare”, look what I found…

Yay, number 1 search result is a post by me, written some time ago about my “exercise routine” at work. Weird, I don’t know how this blog search thing works. Then the second result, weirdly, is a post by one of our BUGGERS, Divious aka Ling, who isn’t even much of an active blogger nowadays. Then in third place, there’s a blog by a student from Kuching who’s our Boss’s friend, and her post says that our blog is good. Oh wow. Only after that is a search result from Boss’s blog which introduces BUGS, The Undergroundsquare Blog. And following that is our other admin kvys2000’s blog post search result about the Undergroundsquare forum itself.

All in all, 9 search results, only. But that’s for now. Hmmm.. Now I’m really curious how this thing works.

Then next, I tried to search “BUGGERS”, “BUGS blog” but none of them yield any result relating to our blog. Then, I searched “BUGGERS BUGS blog” and what do you know, up pops BUGS as the first search result. Hah. Which actually is a blog post I did about BUGGERS catching the “lazy to blog” bug. And slightly below that is another search result about BUGS, which is the “This Week's BUGGER to Bug to Blog at BUGS” post.

Next up was searching “ugs blog”.

How did BUGS get up there? In the related blogs section. Hmm. But the first search result isn’t BUGS, it’s another blog by the name of UGS Blog. Only the third search result relates BUGS itself, and also the fourth. Both posts of which are about UGS gatherings, one from BUGS itself and the other from Daniel's blog. Hmm…

Enlightening, this search is. *Listens around for the symphony of people snoring*

CIMB

Okay la, since it is my school's sports day, I thought it wont kill me just to take some time out to write a single post. I was glad though that I stopped blogging like almost 3 months ago. Blogging regularly can be a responsibility and tedious to perform. And that's one of the things I'm afraid most ---- responsibility. It's like the thing that kills all the fun. For example Mathematics was all fun and interesting until your teacher comes in and say "You have to get an A for the final exam". And all a sudden, maths turned from fun to much stress. I don't like responsibilities. And That's because I am a very responsible person.

Huh? Huh Huh? What did I just said?


Oh, I said.......... "I don't like responsibilities, and that's because I am a very responsible person"

Irresponsible people are never afraid of responsibilities, don't you realize that? They never care about it and they never make effort to fulfill whatever they're suppose to do. That makes them irresponsible. But there are some others who are serious about whatever things they do....... like me and you perhaps.

Perhaps we are afraid we'll fail to do what we are suppose to do, and the best way to avoid that, is to not do the thing at all. Ain't I just smart to figure that out? Not...

I guess that explains part of the reason I am still single. I just wish I can get a girlfriend, have sex, break up and call myself a Christian again. But that's............... hmm.......... wrong. And the thought of not doing it wrong will lead me to another option, which is right, but again......hard and that is "to get a galfren at 17, be faithful and commited for like 9 years before I would consider marriage, 17+9 equals 26 years old. And you know not everyone can get married right away. some take 2 years to put everything into place. That will be like 11 years of girl-boy fren relationship before we get into the proper thing? I have not yet to figure out how that works. I guess if you ever survive that, you can truly say 'love is magic'. But I guess what most people experience is they get into a relationship 9 times, break up 8 times and the last one stays and win, then get married. Life is so sien....................

On another matter, when I was still blogging, I sign up for this e-junction advertisement (http://www.ejunction.com.my/) for a month. It is where I help them put advertisement on my blog and they pay me. So in April I guess I put up the advertisement. And in May they emailed me and asked if I would like to receive my money by cheque or by bank in. I replied I wanted it by cheque. So after that I waited and waited.

FOR 1 MONTH!!!!!!!!! Kan Ni Nah Buh, what kind of service is this, ask you to send a cheque also have to wait 1 month. AND IT IS A KUCHING BASED COMPANY. GO TO DIE LA YOU.

So after 1 month in June I emailed to them and that alerted the boss call what SEAN, and he sent me the cheque in June itself....

And this cheque reached my house. So it was a Rm21.40 and not very much. Thus I wasn't very mindful about it and decided only to cash it out today along with paying my monthly bills in the bank.

So I took that cheque and gave it to the counter and they told me "This cheque is invalid, you cannot write Twenty One Ringgit And Forty Cents like this ---------> Rm 21.40/= Because the "/=" sign means thousand. So it would be Rm 2140 instead. =___="

I was so pissed. You know I was suppose to study 1 chapter of physics that morning and that totally ruined it. I went home and instantly complained to my friend who also happens to know the boss SEAN. So she told SEAN about it and SEAN was all like..........." ooh, that's interesting, I didn't know that". KAN NI NAH BUH, if you don't know how to issue a cheque go sell KOLO MEE LAH.

And with that I emailed the SEAN guy and this was what I said.....

"Dear Sean,

I am Ho Yong Zhou whom you have again and again failed to deliver your Rm21.40. After much delayed, I have received your cheque last month. And today when I was going to cash your cheque, the bank told me that it is invalid. The reason being you wrote Rm21.40/= on the cheque, and it would have literally mean Rm2140. The '/=' sign apparently has its own significance. To give you the peace of heart that I am not trying to swindle you to give me another 20 ringgit of yours. Attach is a picture of your cheque sent to me. Having said that, I have already given up all hope to receive any amount of money from your company. However if you would still like to return me my money with or without additional compensation, you can bank it in right into my account. Bank Simpanan Nasional, Account No:13108-41-********-3

From the desk of,

Andrew Ho

With that, the SEAN said he had already bank the money into my account. =___="

Sien............. I wished I can burn him up................ with that .............. having said, oh yeah, if you ever came to my school, this was sticked on the door of my class..............(my frens took it down after 2 weeks)

THE END

A Weekend In The City

Music was never a big part of my life - but lately with the amount of Math T homework I'm sifting through there's never been a better time to go through albums (and improve my rusting taste). John Mayer's Continuum kept me alive during the SPM (about 50 replays or so, and counting) ... but I've got to move on. And quickly.

British Not Staid

It's fascinating, the bands that you come across for the weirdest of reasons - I first found Bloc Party while looking for header art - their first album Silent Alarm was the header image for Janus (yeah, copyright infringement, yada yada).


But then I found a review on Pitchfork. And in Stylus. And a snippet from Urb. And I was shocked: Silent Alarm was Universally Acclaimed. I started looking for their music.

I blanched.

It was horrible to my untrained ears back then: inventive guitar dischords, lyrics that were repeated over and over again, song structure that would be called inspired by some quarters but just plain weird to mine. But it grew on me, slowly, and I realized that Bloc Party was an acquired taste - the lyrics when repeated meant emphasis, the heavy Brit accent a cover for often heady messages. The song structure never tired in my ears - not your typical commercial fare of two passages, chorus, passage, chorus, bridge chorus end. You never actually know what you'll hear next - a hook in the next bridge ... is that even a guitar riff?!

A Weekend In The City came out on the 6th of February - their sophomore attempt - and it took a good 6 months before I finally got myself to download it (Math T played a part in my sudden inspiration).

It's good. A solid album for many a lesser band, but it's come out after what the international music community calls a dazzling debut ... and it suffers for it.


The album starts off confidently and pulls out all the stops - big hooks, big music, the same accent and the same taste for weird stuff that made the first album work. The theme is even headier than the first: The Problems of Modern Life ... Kele sings in Song For Clay (Disappear Here):

Oho, How our, how our parents they suffered for nothing
Live the dream, live the dream, live the dream
Like the 80's never happened
People are afraid, are afraid
To merge on the freeway
Disappear here

If it sounds like poetry ... it is. Song For Clay is a testament to how we're increasingly apathetic, even in our world of modern luxury. Then they sing of (Britain's?) paranoia of terrorists in Hunting For Witches, which in itself sounds catchy enough to last several replays. Of note is Uniform, easily the longest in the album:

There was a sense of disappointment as we left the mall
All the young people looked the same
Wearing their masks of cool and indifference
Commerce dressed up as rebellion

A Weekend In The City is not without its faults - of the songs Where Is Home? is a big mistake, painful even in my ears. And there's homosexual and casual sex references done badly in On, where the line You make my tougue loose being ambigious enough to invite reinterpretation. The weirdest is the lead single The Prayer, which took me four listens before falling head over heels in love with, but the range of music is narrower; the experimentation sounds more electronic than guitar based - and this is the album's biggest limitation.


Bloc Party's old fans (indie heads, most of them) may not like this more accessible work, but it's good news for the rest of us. Get it before attempting to dip your toes into Silent Alarm and be reminded just how gritty city life can be:

If I could do it all again I'd make more mistakes
Not be so scared of falling,
If I could do it again, I would climb more trees
I'd pick and I'd eat more wild blackberries

A weekend indeed.

Hahaha

Just wanted to tell you all that I did not fail my exams ........................and I got the most votes............. hahahhahahhahahhahahahahahahhahaahhahahahaahhahahahahahahahhaha ........... I am smart and blogging is lame............... hahahahhahahahahhahahahhahaahahhahahhahaha.................

..........................I am nuts

This Week's BUGGER to Bug to Blog at BUGS

Try saying the blog post title real fast three times. Haha. Really a tongue twister. Anyway...

The words loyal blog readers fear to see in RSS feeds for their favourite blogs:

Hiatus
Taking a break…
Password protected post
Blogger Block
Farewell/Bye/Good bye
Computer crashed/Internet down
Exams/Study break

And last but not least…

Live bookmark feed failed to load. (A real nuisance)

Fret not, I am not going on hiatus or anything like that. Just realising that more and more of friends’ blogs are getting quieter and quieter. And so is this blog. Well, there is only so much I can do to contribute, and I’m pretty sure readers are getting a bit tired of seeing Wandkey posts around so much already.

So, judging from the poll on this page, the three BUGGERS that readers would most like to read more posts from are actually Andrew Ho (26 votes), Saykhia (24) and Wandkey (23).

But since Andrew Ho has already taken an indefinite break from blogging due to studies, that leaves this week’s BUGGER to Bug to Blog to be… *drumroll*, Saykhia!

We shall be awaiting your post, Saykhia. Right, fellow BUGS readers?

Lousy Birthday Presents

I know I said I wouldn't blog. In my Personal Blog. Therefore I shall not. Blog.

In my Personal Blog.

I was going around the blogs I read on a daily basis (more than my fingers AND toes) when I saw it was somebodies birthday.



That somebody is non other than Heather B. Armstrong. A Mum with Style and the owner of Dooce.

(Bloggers Note: I'm writing this post because I know the general audience of this blog are fascinated by ....the Lousy Birthday Present)

Even though she doesn't read this blog and probably would never read it, I would like to wish her a happy birthday!!!!!

Now moving on to the Lousy Birthday Present that she received.

Dang, I wish I could receive TERRIBLE present like that too!

“Multitasking” at work

Sometimes, the load at work just piles up high and at times you feel like it’s just endless work. There’s no better way to deal with stress than to take a few moments of rest and, as I’ve learned, “goof” off a bit. Some things I’ve found out, the intranet can be very handy, find a “secluded corner” and try out this few de-stressing, fun activities, without even going onto the Internet:

1. Notepad can be used to create a very simple chat “room” that takes up little space. Or better yet, Microsoft Word, you can use different text fonts, colours etc to liven up conversation. If you really have time on hand, Microsoft Paint can also be used as a chat room of sorts and you can even include pictures, akin to the Windows Live Messenger handwriting tool. Heh.
2. Paint has many uses, you can play Tic Tac Toe on it with another person, Hangman, probably any game you can play on paper.
3. Creating funny collages using even just Paint can be quite fun and worth the look on your colleagues’ face as he/she tries to control their laughter in the office.
4. There are games programmed to be used in Microsoft Excel. This I came to know quite by accident online. The games are mostly old school, like Tetris, Mastermind, Asteroids, Word Games, Number Games and the like, easily downloaded off the Internet. And some really look inconspicuous.

Word Search on a Mac on Excel?

Tetris on Excel... Old School

Mind you, I do work hard but I also play hard. That’s pretty much what I’ve discovered these few days, as I’ve became somewhat of a nomad at work. And I’m very thankful I have someone to cooperate with. Goodbye messages handwritten on scraps of paper or costly sms! Haha.

Remember to please be very careful when doing this, try your best to make the files inconspicuous, hidden and anonymous. Remove your tracks, clear and delete often. Remember to empty the Recycle Bin as well.

Disclaimer: Follow the given suggestions at your own risk. The blogger is not liable for any consequences on taking the said suggestions.

A Bad Day!!!!!

Yesterday evening, at 545pm, i have an accident. My car was knocked by a big Prado car! Can you imagine a proton car was knocked by an imported Japanese car? Can you imagine the consequences? The accident occurred at Jalan Song, just outside the friendship park! I've just finished jogging for about 4-5 rounds and i am exhausted so i wanna go to Expert food court to lim teh but a semi-blind woman in her 50s rammed into my car!

I tried to negotiate with the woman but the woman insisted that it is my fault and she won't pay me! DAMN IT! She ask me to call the police. I wanna call my bro but my hp don't have credit! I tried to borrow hp from her but she's so ngiau ci so what to do? There are 2 apek there but they don't have hp... haiz.... So i told her like this, 'ok lah, seng tiok si wa soi'. So i drive my car away. Luckily, my bro called me to fetch when i was stuck in a traffic jam near just outside Jalan Song, near Jalan Laksamana Cheng Ho. I told him my car was knocked and the woman don't want to pay me. My brother asked me to follow her car(since she don't want to give me her hp number). Her car is still behind me. My bro quickly borrow his manager's car and went to find me! Luckily i was still stuck in the traffic jam. He called his friends to help negotiate.

Meanwhile, he flagged down the woman's car, prompting her to stop near NB Motors. There are about three cars including the woman's near the traffic light stopped there! One is my bro's manager' car and the other is his friend's car. My bro's friend called a policeman and the policeman said if we don't agree to settle the problem there, we can go to the police station but we have to pay RM300 to the government. It is better to solve it by our own. We negotiate there and the woman insisted it was my fault! She says she won't pay for the damage. We negotiate for almost an hour and finally, she agreed to pay us RM200! We ask for RM300 but she says she will pay RM150 and the other RM150 we bear it ourselves!DAMN KIAM SIAP! Drive Prado bo.... Well, the accident's illustration is like this: (i'm not good in drawing using computer)


My Proton Wira was coming out from the junction and there's a space of about 30metres so i did on the signal, including waving my hand to ask her to give me way. At that moment, the traffic light still red so there is no problem! Everyone in KL also drive like that! I don't know why she couldn't see my car was in from of her so she rammed into my car! P-R-O-T-O-N!!!! Cia lat arghhhhh.......... My car was badly damaged, in the driver's door. Here it is!




proton nia........ mai hai!! so nipis one......



Notice the scratch!!



what to say? bengkok or pengek?



Anyway, it was my luck that my bro called me at the right place, at the right time!

UGS Life Cafe Lunch and Harry Potter Movie Gathering

Yesterday’s UGS gathering could use these following words to be described:

Chaotic
Fun
Loud
Claustrophobic
Quiet and distant, some were
Gay
Let down
Funny
Insightful

For me, the gathering started as I saw Sam and Nicole walking into St Thomas to find me, Kenny and Paul. The later two who had not arrived just yet. We waited under the big, green parasol on the wooden garden seating set while Sam as usual whipped out her camera and all of us were on the point of melting in the hot, noon time conditions. Before long, Kenny and Paul did arrive and we went off to visit some UGSers at L6S4. Kenny, needless to say, attracted attention from the teachers, many of whom said he had really slimmed down and they were amazed. When we did arrive at L6S4, too bad they weren’t having their free period, in fact they were having their weekly, 4-period long chemistry. Called out Jylene from the “prison” while the two other UGSers inside were probably wishing they could escape as well. Haha. Tough luck, guys.

When we did eventually go over to Life Café for lunch, Daniel gave me a bit of a shock by rushing out from behind me and tapping me on the arm after we got down from the car. When we got in, I was faced with the stark reality that no way were all of us going to fit into the space available, the turn out was far better than I expected.

There were 15 of us I think. Kenny, Cedric, Sam, Nicole, Andrew, Ben, Dwen, Jeryl, Tay, Daniel, Paul, Danny, Angel, Ravin and I turned up for the lunch itself. Though only 11 went to watch Harry Potter later on.

Lunch was for one thing, chaotic. At times, I felt like I was placed in the Kiddy Area, especially since the seating area was the “no shoes allowed”, “sit on the floor till your legs go numb” area. Forgive me, I’m not always this pessimistic. But sometimes being too observant or in the know can really be... Let’s just say, ignorance really is bliss sometimes. All in all, even within a small group, the dynamics of interpersonal relationships can be very complicated, that much can be said.

There was four distinct groups of people, one the big kids, one the incessant talkers and laughers. Two other groups had to be separated and sat at the back of the café, one of which was the serious discussioners and the other the Hokkien chatters. Mind boggling? Not really. But indeed chaotic.

Half way through lunch, it started raining. Even the weather wasn’t helping, and we ended up walking across the road to Star Cineplex in the rain. After a bit of hassle about the seating, the movie did finally begin.

At the start, for a moment, I was thinking, am I in the right movie theatre? There were showing a field.. I was expecting aliens and crop circles any moment. Then they did show Harry, though everything was muddled up, and if you didn’t read the book, or forgot about most of it like I did, you probably would be quite blur throughout the movie.

I know I’m not really concentrating on the movie at times when I think things like.. “How come a lot of the characters are wearing striped shirts?”, “Hey, I’m going to be going there next time maybe (when they were showing shots of London)” , “Harry’s good looks are marred by that hair cut” or “Who’s that famous British actress that acts as Sybil?”

And during the movie, the two people sitting next to me, Nicole and Tay were sniffling and sneezing, “Year Play” been taxing? Heh. After what seemed quite a long time at times, the movie finally ended. Yea, no spoilers here. The general consensus was that the movie wasn’t as good as previous ones. Daniel gave it a 1/10 rating. Andrew was more kind, giving it a 3/10.

After a quick photo shoot and some of them left first. And that was that. Next gathering, end of August ok? Hint hint wink wink.

I didn't manage to take any photos since my dear cam has to be admitted into hospital, again. For photos, please request from BUGGER Sam.

View of Kuching 18 Storeys Up

Earlier on this week, for two days, I was at Crowne Plaza Riverside for work, since the company I work at was organising a training programme there. I thought it would be just at the 3^rd Floor, as usual, but since the 3^rd Floor rooms were taken up for another function, we got the suite at the 18^th Floor instead.

3 years ago, when I was secretary of Interact Club at Kuching High, I accompanied my president for a Rotary Club meeting at that same place. Fast forward 3 years, and here I am again. Déjà vu. It’s the same place, but a different me and a different situation. And the place has got a whole new look too. It used to be called the Clearwater Suites, but now they call it the Windows on Kuching Meeting Suites. Wonder if it’s because the river water isn’t as clear…

Okay, photos coming up. The views from up there were spectacular! It was so incredibly nice that I had to bring my camera on the second day of training to capture the scenic views. Believe me, nothing that my camera captured can compare to being up there, 18 storeys up from street level, with the views spread out before you. Good thing they had full length windows, the view is really.. Ah, see for yourself.

Kuching’s “Golden Triangle”? Haha. I love how the taxi tops are all yellow and lined up in a row, and there’s patches of greenery around.. And the river is right behind Sarawak Plaza there.

The Dewan Undangan Negeri (State Council) well under construction, it looks massive. And with the Fort Magherita near it, a relic of the British colonial times. New and old, side by side. And I love the touch of old the sampans, or “tambang”, add in the photo. Though mind you, Kuching is not that behind in times okay, we have quite a good road network and the sampans are there so that the people living across the river can access the city more easily.

The bar style tables, overlooking the views towards Petra Jaya across the river, and beyond. You can see Mount Santubong in the distance. And the DBKU (Kuching North City Council) building, the old Dewan Undangan Negeri, the State Mosque and many other buildings can all be seen from there. I was preening my eyes, trying to see if I could see the sea around the Mount Santubong area, but nope.

Then on the other side of the lounge they have up there, which is where I took all these photos, the full length windows reveal a different scene, this time of the South of Kuching. To the far right is Gateway, supposedly the tallest building in the city. As you can see, there aren’t that many tall buildings, so the views are pretty unobstructed. If you look closely in this photo, you can see an awkwardly shaped, blue and white building which is the MBKS building, the Kuching South City Council. In the far distance, are what I think are the mountain ranges that border Sarawak and Indonesia, correct me if I’m wrong.

Obviously, I’m still not jaded about this kind of life, but the training venue they had this time is really different from what I experienced just last week. They even have a special lounge sectioned off where the participants had their tea breaks, there’s morning tea and afternoon tea, plus buffet lunch. I really had to control myself from overeating. Thank goodness there was a quite a bit of walking and work to do, so I hope that helped burned off the calories. Though the walking was done in heels, thus resulting in two red blisters on each of my little toe now.

I’ll show you two of the photos I took there in the lounge area…

There’s the “café” area at the back where the tea breaks are served with bar style seatings looking out towards the river. And the rest of the area has lounge style sofas, the curtains were drawn in this area. And to the left is this…

Wow, they have a buffet area up here for tea breaks?! And plasma TV! Though this time round the training package didn’t include those buffet style tea breaks. My colleague told me there was once they went all out and had it really executive style, the whole lounge was filled with food and drinks. The buffet table was full with fried dishes, the café area was loaded with cakes, pastries, yoghurt, fruits, juices, coffee and tea. Wow, unimaginable. Imagine attending a seminar and the whole adjoining room is filled with food for your taking, the whole day.

Aiyo, too bad I was a bit wary of myself putting on weight, I was controlled during the buffets, so really bo hua lor (not worth it). Haha. My plate was only like this.. Quite light right, since I was saving up room for dessert. Which I ended up not eating much of either, what was wrong with me? Haha.

Look, practically vegetarian…

Very light cheese cake, cakes, and some fruits.

I was a bit conscious of taking photos then, so only took two. If not for the fact that there were clients around, I might have took my photo taking up a notch. Oh wow, I ended up writing more here than I expected, this is how it’s like, when I really start to write, sometimes it just keeps flowing. Haha. If only I were this motivated to write more often.

Im Lost

Wen Qi's blog post on the BUGS bug has made me realize that I should be posting something up around... now. She made it seem like such a serious uncurable disease that grips on to anyone close enough and stays.

I dont pretend to be cured.

I write this post out of the necessity to contribute at least...something.

The first time I saw this I thought I needed new spectacles

Everyone has watched this ex-Hit Series before, and if you have not it just means you dont have Astro. This show was so popular my class would have group discussions a day after the episode, trying to solve the mystism behind the dynamism of its inequalities. It was all very fun.

And now, as everyone knows, LOST is literally LOST.

(God that sounded so cliche'd I feel like banging my head on the keyboard. I must have heard the above phrase more times this two years than I have changed my underwear. But bear with me!)

The DHARMA Initiative a secret organisation dealing with... well... hysterics.

The plot is messier than my hair. Nothing adds up, and nothing even adds down. I fail to see how a storyline so jumpy and mashed can even be resolved in the next few seasons. I am even surprised that ASTRO still has the show on its programme list, considering the dwindling numbers of viewers

(apparent, because LOST is now two episodes back to back on a Thursday night. If LOST was getting any hits at all ASTRO would have at least tried to lengthen the time... as in... one episode a week. ASTRO knows that if they do that, nobody would watch it anymore so the two-episodes-back-to-back gimmick is just that. A gimmick.)

I am the only person in my class who still watches LOST. No its NOT fanaticism. At least, not towards the series itself.

Nicole Evangeline Lilly


The only reason I still watch LOST.

Summer Anime

It's already the middle of summer and the anime are still rolling in! What are some of the animes coming out in summer?

June:
1. Tales of Symphonia OVA
2. Devil May Cry
3. Prince of Tennis OVA

July:
1. Kodomo no Jikan
2. Nanatsuiro Drops
3. School Days
4. Zombie Loan
5. Iblard Time (OVA)
6. Kenko Zenrakei Suieibu Umisho (Warning: may be not suitable for kids)
7. Code E (looks like ROD?)
8. Sky Girls (First comes the OVA, second comes this...)
9. Mushiuta
10. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai (Higurashi second series)
11. Genius Party (Movie) (???)
12. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
13. Zero no Tsukaima: Futatsuki no Kishi (Tsukaima second series)
14. Shigurui (Warning: blood and gore abounds!)
15. Piano no Mori (Movie)
16. Baccano
17. Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpuchou Tou Dai Ni Maku (Kenpuchou second series)

August:
Naruto Shippuuden the Movie

Disclaimer: Not all upcoming anime are listed here, just some that looked nice. And I haven't seen any of them yet, so fans please don't kill me! Personally, I'm waiting for Zero no Tsukaima 2 and Naruto Movie.

Thoughts

DeBugging the BUGGERs

Alas but it is true, the BUGGERs have caught a bug, the “lazy to blog” bug. Notice lately there has been much fewer posts here than usual? I didn’t realize what was going on till Daniel mentioned he has caught the blogger laziness bug, that the BUGGERs seem to be experiencing the same symptoms too. Oh no! It seems to be an epidemic! What should we do?!

Prevention is always better than cure, so firstly, here’s how to identify if you are susceptible to catching the “lazy to blog” bug. The more symptoms you identify in yourself, the more safety precautions you would have to take.

1. Everytime you open your offline word processing programme to type out a blog, your hands linger, stationary, poised over the keyboard. After a short while, you just close off the programme and proceed to doing something else instead.
2. You go to Blogger/Wordpress/Xanga etc., notice that it’s taken a while to load, and when it does you don’t feel like typing in your username and password anymore, what more to say blog.
3. You read other blogs or do other things, telling yourself you will find inspiration somewhere, somehow. Then you get distracted by something else and “forget” all about blogging.
4. You write up a draft on your blog, but after that find yourself too “tired” to continue finishing it up and forget about it later on.
5. Before starting to blog, you come up with a wonderful idea for a post, filled with photos and have thought up captions to go along with them. Then, after resizing and editing the 5^th or so photo, you’re too tired to continue, thinking of the long process ahead of uploading photos and typing out the whole post.
6. You go online, telling yourself you will finally post something, but end up at MSN, Friendster, Gmail or the like instead.
7. You start having thoughts like, “Why blog? Nobody reads or comments on them anyway.”
8. You come up with any excuse to avoid blogging, “Nothing going on in my life anyway”, “Too tired”, “Lousy internet connection refuses to cooperate”, “Blog for what? So wu liao.” and etc.
9. Knocked out after work or school, blogging is the last thing on your mind.
10. This one is for the BUGGERs in particular, you log onto Blogger, see that a fellow BUGGER has already posted a wonderfully written post for the day and decide to just leave your post for some other time. Have had this personally happen to me some times.

As with any outbreak of any dangerous viruses, there are guidelines given on how to deal with the situation. So, here goes the safety measures that can be taken, and guidelines on how to survive this dangerous BUG.

1. Imagine the visitor stats counter dropping to 0 visitors a day. Gasp! Motivation enough to blog?
2. Block out any complaints from other people who have The Bug. Do not be influenced to not blog.
3. Blog regularly and make it a habit, build up your blogging stamina, increasing your immunity towards The Bug.
4. Blog offline, where there are less distractions.
5. Do not make excuses for yourself, a Blogger is not a Blogger just because he/she has a blog. Blogs should be blogged in.

And after some discussion in the Undergroundsquare forum, came up with this phrase, “Bugging the BUGGERs to Blog”. One of the admins, Sam, suggested this should be our catchphrase or aim or something. So, that’s what we should do from now on, Bug the BUGGERs to Blog. If any of you BUGGERs should catch The Bug, you shall be Bugged to Blog till you are rid of that awful, nasty Bug.

Now, are you confused enough by the words above, “Bug”, “The Bug”, “Bugging”, “Blog”, “BUGGER”? Haha. That’s a lot of words starting with “B” in a paragraph.

Battle of the... Titans?

In a battle for supremacy between two titans, one already famed for its predatory power and the other a relatively unknown but not-to-be-underestimated force, the showdown was nothing short of spectacular.

Introducing the Great White Shark, one of the most powerful predators on Earth - fast, powerful and precise - many have met their ends in the hands (or jaws) of the Great White.


On the other side lies the relatively-unknown and elusive deep sea titan - the Giant Squid. Though lacking the force and the precision of the Great White, it is compensated by several elastic tentacles which seem to reach anywhere they want to, giving it an edge when it comes to speed and flexibility.


The battle started with the Great White on a highly offensive bout, knocking off the Giant Squid and chomping huge bites off it before it managed to gain a footing... I mean tentacling. Whatever. The Great White's power was delivered forcefully and swiftly, the Giant Squid not at all prepared to handle the blitz. It was not until that the Giant Squid suffered serious damage before being able to regain control of the battle, extending its tentacles in anticipation of further attacks by the Great White. Unfortunately, it was a bit too late and the Giant Squid has already lost the first half of the battle.

In a turn of events, the Giant Squid went on an offensive. No longer on a passive defence, it stretched every single tentacle it had and gave the Great White a beating. Whip after whip, the Great White was simply overwhelmed by the speed and numbers of tentacles it had to face. Its attempts to counter-attack were brushed off just like that, with the Giant Squid seemingly able to read the Great White's moves so quickly and accurately and that it made the Great White look like a Tuna in a fisherman's net - a desperate struggle.

But it wasn't long before the Giant Squid started to lose its advantage, and the Great White managed to regain its composure and went on the offensive again. The Giant Squid fought with all it had, extending all its appendages to the limit, fearless for its own safety. However, it simply lacked the power and precision for the killing blow - while the Great White is making its way through the many layers of defence of the Giant Squid in a calculated and refined power, proving itself worthy of carrying the title as one of the most deadly predators on Earth.

In a final struggle between two very worn down titans which were on the verge of collapsing, the Great White gathered all its remaining strength and pushed forward. Try as it may, the Giant Squid simply was not able to stop the Great White as it was approaching like a bullet train - fast, powerful and unstoppable. The Great White dealt the killing blow, and it was the end. The Giant Squid put up a valiant fight, but Great White was simply the better fighter. Survival of the fittest, quite simply.



And that, was the final results of the SCG Thailand Open 2007 Badminton Championships. Really. I'm not kidding. Really.

A New BUGSer?

So... Hi.

I guess I should introduce myself first, being a new member and all.

Name:Regina
Age: 16
School: Taylor's
Passions: Dreaming, eating, anime and manga

As some of you may know, I'm from the UGS forum.

And er...I don't know what else to say.

I'll be writing about anime and manga from now on.

So... yoroshiku onegai-shimas! (Please take care of me!!)

LOLcats

The internet has its fair share of idiosyncrasies and weird fads ... but I do not get this particular one.

LOLcats is an internet phenomenon (or a now significant part of net culture): a wacky brand of picture editing humour that isn't at all funny.

Well, at least to me.


The pictures are really just cute animals doing crazy (non-animal-like) things, and are subtitled with Bad English. Anil's definition of LOLcats:

This relatively recent phenomenon is the convention of taking pictures of cute animals, most frequently cats, and overlaying absurdist captions on the images.

It's supposed to crack people up, and the geek communities I sometimes visit regularly post LOLcats in their forum posts just to make a point.


Some are cute, some are downright annoying. Others make me wince. I don't know whether to laugh, or to cry.


Go check out I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER, which is a repository of hundreds of LOLcats. I go there once every few months.

Just out of curiosity, mind. I don't get it! At all!


Urgh.

Liar Liar, Diapers on Fire

According to a study in the UK, babies apparently learn to lie before they even learn to talk - at the age of six months. Gone were the days when babies were thought to be completely innocent. Psychologists believed that children only begin to lie when they're four, but this study has proved otherwise.

As a plus point, babies don't seem to lie due to any evil intentions (that would be scary) but rather as part of learning social interaction, sort of a method to strike up conversations.

Sneaky baby

What I found hilarious were the observations of babies caught in the act:

There was the 11-month-old who, caught in the act of reaching for the forbidden soil of a house plant, quickly turned his outstretched hand into a wave, his mother reported to Dr. Reddy, "as though he was saying, 'Oh, I wasn't really going to touch the soil, Mom, I was waving at you.' "

Babies also seem to think they are masters of the Jedi mind trick, using steady eye contact as a distraction technique. Another 11-month-old, upon being presented with toast she didn't want to eat, would hold eye contact with her mother while discreetly chucking the toast onto the floor.

Fake crying is another trick babies learn early on to get attention, Dr. Reddy says. The researcher defines "fake" crying as being more calculated than the usual "I'm tired/hungry/wet/hurt/lonely" cries.

"In one case the mother thought it sounded 'put on,' but watched from a crack in the door, and noticed that there were pauses in the crying which seemed rather like waiting to see if it worked," Dr. Reddy wrote in an e-mail.

It's amazing how young we were when to began to learn how to lie.
The next time you see a baby, don't trust him/her! :D

At least they don't have claws.

Random observations and a newsflash

Some time ago, on a sunny afternoon, while browsing nearby shops at Main Bazaar after watching a movie at Star Cineplex, I came across something that looked familiar.

Why it is exactly the same bowl and coasters that my mother got at Bali earlier on this year. Except at a much marked up price. We got the bowl for about RM20 at Bali, here they are selling it at RM32.90. Exactly the same thing…

Well, the price didn’t startle me as much as seeing exactly what we got at Bali being available here. It kind of makes it less unique. The one at my house I discovered, has a very lovely cinnamon scent as the insides of the bowl has shavings of cinnamon bark. Though my mum suspects they also put cinnamon essential oil in it to make the smell stronger. So, when I saw the one at the shop, I instinctively picked it up to see if it had the same scent. Haha. It did, but not nearly as strong.

So when what you can get from another part of the world can be found in your hometown, what is really special anymore? Hmmm.. Perhaps just the memories of making that special purchase.

BUGGERS newsflash:
Here’s a quick update on what’s going on with our BUGGERS or UGSers which you may or may not know, since they do not all blog that much.

• Good job Eli James on his performance in the school’s fund-raising play, saw you in the papers today
• Congratulations also to Lil Tim, Interact President of his school now, following in my foosteps? Haha.
• Sam got silver in her level at the summer ballet school she attended at Singapore
• Zhe Rong got into USM for the course of his choice, translation. Congratulations!

And if I missed out on anybody else, sorry, just let me know and you’ll be in the next newsflash. And note, after blogging for three times a week here for several months, I’ve been taking it down a notch now. Okay, I’m going off to enjoy what little of Sunday I have left…