S'Wonderful Quotes! 1

"20 - 30% of kids between the age of 11 - 14 years old today are exposed to phonography"
Rev Kevin Gan on how kids today are into pornography

The Long Farewell

Wednesday, 23 May 2007 @ Chilis 1 Utama

This is the first dinner I had with Ian this week, the week before he leaves to UK to finish his degree. As you can see very soon, I almost had all my dinners this week with them =)
Anyway, it was just Ian, Susie, Prakash, Angela, Me and Joyce. Sadly Lam was at Penang, and couldn't make it. He would definitely pick this place over Fridays anytime. We talked for the better half of the night and ate the other half. This very night was also the night where we came to know of - McDonald Mouse! credits goes to Susie

Friday, 25 May 2007 @ Jackie's

Jackie cooked a wonderful 5 course meal on Friday night. You could see that she worked hard and wanted to give them a nice farewell. So we had dinner, Hong Liang made ice blended drinks for everyone, the wine was good and I got creative with the leftover Vodka and Ribeena. Yes, the Vodbeena still lingers on all of our tongues. The night ended marvelously with the screening of the oh so stoopid movie, Darkness Falls.


Saturday, 26 May 2007 @ Glo, Canaan Church

We had to give him a very wonderful gift before leaving Glo on Saturday, what better than a traditional rotti? Actually, I'm still wondering how did we all broke out into a pillow fight... It was sad, all college students screaming and shouting, throwing pillows at one another, while the high school students looked on. We felt young dammit! and thats all that matters!

Sunday, 27 May 2007 @ Friendster Cafe

We met up at Friendster Cafe in Mutiara Damansara for dinner to the theme of "childhood church friends". The 10 of us had a good time catching up seeing as its been a long time since its just been us around the table. We played Taboo the whole night through. You never know how terrible your explanations are until you've played Taboo, trust me. I have to say that if you ever drop by this cafe, order the club sandwich. Its pretty good. But for the love of God, do not order the vanilla tea latte. Its fancy talk for teh tarik without the tarik. We sure made that place alive that night.

No Early Macbook Pro Update As Hoped

Sadly - Latest News
I am resigned that the new models will be released at WWDC on June 11th. I have faith in the rumors (idiot?), and will be just waiting till then. As you can see, I am quite desperate now. My Powerbook G4 is dying on me as each day passes and I need a fully functional, reliable work machine soon, before it really does (gasp) die.

I have to take this time to thank God for preserving my mac all this time. Its been more than a year when the first problems creeped out, but I'll leave that for another post.

Minutes To Midnight

Linkin Park's latest effort - Minutes to Midnight was suppose to break new ground, as well as bring us the good stuff that we love them for in the first place. To many of my friends, the new album is disappointing. But to me, I have to say that I'm at peace with their decision to move away from their Hybird Theory days and more into, dare I say, pop territory?

I deliberately waited for the official release despite all the temptation to just download it, and on the 15th of May, I finally had my hands on the album from iTunes Music Store (yeah, I preordered). I was looking forward to the 2 exclusive tracks that would only be revealed on release day to my dismay. Turned out to be a live version of What I've Done and a song by Mike titled No Roads Left. The live version doesn't defer much from the studio recording, but Mike's song is pretty good.

The first thing you'll notice is that these guys are soft! The whole album is just soft, volume and everything. Only a handful of really heavy rock, and even then, those sound nothing like the stuff I loved about them (Crawling, Faint, Place For My Head etc etc). I was hoping for really heavy stuff, but nope, nothing like that in this album.

Verdict - the songs are good old rock/pop rock stuff and definitely very catchy. But you definitely cannot compare this with the previous 2 full albums. Totally different, and as I hate to say it, the Linkin Park we knew is gone. Musicians evolve, don't blame them for it. Despite everything, I really enjoy their latest effort.

When We Were Young

Yeah, when I was younger, I use to play really silly games in my church's youth group. No regrets though. Anyway, since Marcus took so much effort to put this up on Youtube to humiliate me, I'll just recognize that effort by putting it up here. Cheers Mr Boon!

Hermit Crabs From Port Dickson

Have been taking care of 5 hermit crabs since I got back from the glo trip to Port Dickson, and been doing fine until today. Its been 3 weeks and counting! Took out an old fish tank from my high school days and bought a new water plate for their home. Taking care of them is pretty straightforward. Fresh water and a small portion of food everyday, wipe out the crap once in awhile, and 5 minutes of exercise a day on the floor or wherever. Planning to get sand for them, but still deciding on the commitment that brings. A friend keeps telling me how terrible adding sand would be, about how other animals or insects could make it their home as well and such. We'll see how it goes.


As you can see, I've not actually found a perfect place in the house to keep them yet. So they sit in front of my sisters prizes and trophies. They seem to like the upper left corner, maybe the gold medals?




These 2 are total opposites. One is brave and adventurous, while the other shy and would rather prefer to be upside down


A shot of them getting out of the water plate I got them. Natural looking plate, nothing much to say about it, so I'll just say that its guud~

Some Thoughts in Mid May 2007

I am thriving at UCSI now, taking care of hermit crabs that Susie caught from PD, about to renovate my room, still taking pictures with my Canon 400D, in the middle of designing for 2 jobs now (one with AOG Malaysia and another with a flooring company), getting my English and writing skills up to date for my classes as well as making lotsa new friends, waiting for the NEW Macbook Pros, listening to Linkin Park's latest and wishing that Ian and Susie would not be leaving so quickly at the end of this month.

New Macbooks (not Pros) Out Today

Ok, not what I was expecting but this update caught most of us off guard. Apple updated the Macbook line a couple of hours ago. I for one am neutral about this update. I just have nothing much to say about this. I'm only waiting for the new Macbook Pros. Looks like all the hype over an early release this week was for this model. This can only mean that the MBP update is going to rock!

The new Macbook lineup:
- 2.0GHz, 13.3" White MacBook, 80GB, 1GB RAM, Intel Graphics 950, $1099
- 2.16GHz, 13.3" White MacBook, 120GB, 1GB RAM. Intel Graphics 950, $1299
- 2.16GHz, 13.3" Black MacBook, 160GB, 1GB RAM, Intel Graphics 950, $1499

Full tech specs here

New Macbook Pro Coming Out as Early as NEXT WEEk??

Thinksecret, Gizmodo and Appleinsider believes that Macbook Pros are coming as early as next Tuesday!

I'm so stoked about the unity in all of the ramblings these rumor sites are churning out about the new Macbook Pros. And today its quite a brave statement, but even they themselves are not 100% behind it. So I'm taking it with a pinch of salt.

Read about the latest rumor here

Screwed by The Oral Stage

Just click on any picture to see it in full size.
Photography be me, taken using Canon 400D.

Strictly for Fans - Manchester United Fanatics

I would like to take some time out to promote my dear friend's blog about the devils in red. This is Lam and Jonathan's blog about Manchester United and their fanaticism and obsession over this team. Frankly, I am not a football person, but these guys are crazy about them and I would like to help them to get more fans into their blog.

Manchester United Fanatics

p.s. Lam don't need to advertise in my shoutbox. I dedicate one whole post for you.

ANNOUNCEMENT Month of the MacBook Pro!

I declare this month, the month of May 2007, as the month where it will reek of Mac goodness. It will reek of many many rumors about the future Macbook Pro as we all wait in anticipation for WWDC 2007! It might come earlier, it might come on June 11th itself, but I have a feeling that it won't come later. If it does, I would crash from all the hype thats in me now.

Why the urgency in this post? READ THIS

For those of you who couldn't be bothered to:
2 very popular and established mac rumor sites and 1 very popular tech blog has posted up rumors that has got to do with the inevitable release of the new Macbook Pros.

What this usually means from all these years of following rumor sites is that - Its coming! Its really coming soon!

(If you're interested, go ahead and visit the link to read it for yourself. You'll get what the hype is all about)

At this very moment, I cannot be more excited and bleeding with excitement... I have been waiting for this moment where all the rumor sites turn their spotlight to the MBP's. This is folks. As I said, if the new Macbook Pros are not released, I will be totally devastated to wait anymore longer... but... nah, it won't happen like that. Mr Jobs isn't that cruel... Is he?

This is it folks! May will be the longest month this year!

ThinkSecret has reported this today. If this comes true (which for now has a 60-70% chance of happening based on ThinkSecret's declining reputation for being an accurate mac rumor site), I will be so freaking happy that I cannot begin to imagine what kind of euphoric craziness I would indulge in! New Macbook Pro's in June!!

My MBP Wish List

What Macrumors has got to say

Got Robbed Twice Last Weekend

I realize that I haven't wrote about a couple of things that has happened in my life recently such as:

1. My new DSLR - the Canon 400D
2. The night I watched Screwed
3. The glo trip to Port Dickson last week

I am working on these and will get them up soon with full pictures of course. I'm sure you will love some of the pictures.

On to what I wanted to share with you guys. The events that took place last weekend has me sad and disappointed with the way the world is today. Not that I haven't actually known about these things, but that it has finally happened to me.

The First
The first is Lam's Macbook. Last Saturday was Amanda's birthday and we all decided to take her to The Curve to have dinner at Friday's after glo. Trust me, we had a wonderful dinner, the whole place was packed, but we were sitting outside and it felt comfortable enough. Then came the time for the customary birthday song from the waiters and waitresses. As you can imagine the whole table got pretty distracted during that time. Lam was busy recording the whole thing on his phone and after it was over, I went to the loo.

Came back and when he was done recording everyone, he turned around and his bag was gone! No where to be seen. Susie immediately asked Jeremy if he was fooling around. Everyone laughed for a moment, but when it was clear that it was not a joke, the reality of the situation hit.

The night ended with a police report, lots of tears and a big dose of disappointment and anger in all of us. Even though it was Lam's lost, all 4k of it, I felt it too. I believe all of us felt it. I sympathize with him and thank God that he is strong through all of this.

If you have a laptop and you're reading this, please remember to hold your laptop bag with you all the time, no matter where you are. Don't leave it on the table or chair even for a moment.

The Second
The next day, Sunday, I came back to another robbery, this time it was my family. My parents and sister was suppose to go overseas for a family trip later in May/June with a certain travel agency. Everything is booked and prepared. My father even paid in full. Some of you may know this. 3rd page in The Star on Sunday. A group of customers of this company got a call and told that their flight has been canceled. Everything has been canceled, or rather nothing was planned in the first place. The travel agency has suddenly gone bust and the boss gone with all the money. The same travel agency that my family was customers of - Excellence Holidays.

My dad lost all the money paid to this company. All 20k of it. He has lodged a report along with the others, but at this point, it doesn't look like anything can be done about the money.

So there you go people, thats how I was robbed twice last weekend.

From KDU To UCSI

After studying Multimedia Computing in KDU for more than 3 years, experiencing all the firsts of college life, I decided 4 months ago in January that it was time to pack up and move on.

Year 1 moving on to Year 2
I ended my Year 1 in Multimedia Computing with a terrible suspicion that this was not the course that I originally had in mind. First things first, I am not an IT guy. II am not remotely interested in programming or anything too deep into IT. I remember telling myself on the last day of SPM (and maybe to some of my friends too) that I would never ever step into Computing Science or anything that resembles that. For those of you who know me, I am computer literate, its just that I prefer to just use the computer to create, rather than creating the computer. Coupled with lousy lecturers (not all, but there were some really bad apples) and a course that suspiciously resembles Computing Science a lot, I told myself enough was enough. But... I had no guts to change at the end of Year 1 ...and... I was really getting along with my class mates (I miss them today very much today), so Joshua thought in all ignorance and false belief that he could get through this degree and continued on to Year 2 in 2006.

The Beginning
In January 2004, with all innocence, I chose to believe in the marketing people of KDU regarding this wonderful new course (which I would have the privilege of being the first batch of). I was suppose to take up graphic design at KBU but changed my mind last minute because KDU's "counselors" told me that Multimedia Computing would be exactly like graphic design but with an IT twist. We would use computers, modern tech blah blah blah.

Turned out 1 year later that I would be studying most of the same subjects with my Computing Science counterparts. They told us that there weren't enough lecturers to teach the "multimedia" subjects and that we would still have some multimedia subjects at Year 2 and 3. Year 2 and I still was doing the same old thing.

The worst thing was that the Computing Science degree students weren't exactly happy with their course either. If I was going to end up taking CS, I wouldn't be taking it in KDU.

Complaints
1. I had one lecturer that didn't know how to use the program that we were suppose to use for our assignment. This whole assignment hanged on to the student using this one single program. Our class ended up having a big fight with her down the road. She was a racist, fascist, bias beach.

2. Class rooms were always swapping. Computer labs for the first year couldn't even run the app we were supposed to use. They were ancient machines for Jebediah's sake!

3. Subjects that we Multimedia students were taking were almost exactly the same as the Computing Science students.

4. Admin was terrible, but which college's admin isn't?

Took me long enough
December 2006 - I don't think I can pass my subjects. Everything else sinks in and I think its time to consider some drastic measures.

To cut an already long story short, I made the decision to go into Mass Comm. I think that after 3 years of seeing, learning and experiencing, this is the best thing for me to do now.

I leave KDU with very little IT knowledge but lots of design skills. I love design. But I think I've learned enough about design on my own and its time for me to pursue what I've been pursuing indirectly all this while - the life of a Mass Comm grad!

Next
I will be majoring in Film & TV, but seeing how Mass Comm is, I will eventually be able to dabble in PR and Marketing too. I'm pretty sure that I left out a lot in this post about my history, but I'm sure I'll visit this topic again someday=) Until then