- Attitude Problem -

finally I've blogged

2007-12-11T02:27:00.000+08:00

It came to the stage where when i keyed in the address of my blog in my IE that it did not appear in my history anymore ... yes, it's that long ... it's not because I'm too busy, it's just that all of a sudden i felt if i want to tell people what's going on around me, not that i've got a fan base ... but you never know who's actually passing by ... :)

Ok where did i stopped? July, KK trip. After that, I've still managed to go on a trip almost once a month, be it personal or business. Along the way, made mistakes here or there, met some good and not so good people, went through some fun times and uncertainties. And life is just so ironic. It's already December, the last month of the year, and funny how things changes so fast. Need to take a glimpse of what happened over the past 4-5 months ....

Aug 07

1. Youth Camp at Port Dickson, the most entertaining job was given to me - videographer :)
2. Genting trip with IT monkeys, messed up the BBQ chicken wings, either it was not frozen properly or i've bought aging chickens :P
3. Bangkok Trip - Went with Rob, Grace, Daphne and her two friends. This time I really covered places I've never been to earlier

Sep 07
1. The return of koko and unka leong. Blardy mahjong kakis
2. Meeting at HKIA, managed to meet up with the HK leos. :)

Oct 07
1. Bonus payout time! Cleared my debts, bought some UT, did some shopping (working clothes, bed sheets, comforter, carpet, underwater cam casing) and bought a mountain bike
2. Applied and awarded scholarship by AA to study masters in UK starting Sep 08
3. Leftover cash, went for diving trip in KK Tar Park

Nov 07
1. No trips - busy month with system upgrades and AAX first flight
2. Tried out BlackBerry Pearl but didn't like it, changed to SE P1i for a very good bargain

Dec 07
1. No trips again - busy work schedule and koko's wedding
2. Xmas outing in KL with the Leos - again we will be parking in Crown Regency Apartments
3. Bro's wedding on 30th December

Despite all these, it's not the real reason for me not blogging. Everytime i login to blogspot, i wanted to write about my activities, but there's always an urge to burst and write about how i'd really felt for the last few months. My boss always said, "with great powers come great responsibilities". And I always agreed, but never experienced it. For the last 6 months, I did. Many times I had to put on a brave face, many times I had to speak out, and many times I had to find ways to make my statements "politically correct".

Things changed around me. And at times at a pace that I reluctantly had to follow. I tried to just do whatever i can but that was never enough. Everything always catch up on me and haunt me. I have a great team and great mentor, but then it's just not good enough if i don't manage them well. I always felt disappointed because we did well but the results were always not enough. You get an A+, people find a worm hiding behind it. No doubt the working environment is dynamic and fast paced. Without the experience I was lost many times and had to recover as fast as i fell.

I felt tired, i felt stressed, I felt like a kid again and wanted to go back to school, wanted long semester breaks and most of all, wanted to find a sanctuary far away from home where the fishes and corals are my only friends. I am tired, there are nights where i just go to bed and tears just flow out. I can't remember what i did yesterday at work. And i can't remember what is my goal in life. It just eats into you so much that the next best choice is to let everything go and start all over again.

There's so many things happening around me that i don't think it is advisable to say it in a blog. That is why the long silence ... but I hope with this post, a better tomorrow awaits ...

Tagged by Robarto ...

2007-11-26T00:57:00.000+08:00

Am quite outdated but was tagged by Robert last month .... so here it goes ...

4 Jobs I have had in my life :-
1. Technician at Computer Shop
2. Web Designer
3. Web Develoeper
4. Airline Systems

4 Places I have lived:-
Shah Alam
Taman Mayang Jaya
Kajang/Bangi
Kelana Jaya

4 Countries I have been to on vacation :-
Japan
Hong Kong/Macau
Thailand
Indonesia

4 of my Favourite Food :-
Charcoal Fried Hokkien mee hoon with Pork Lard
Char Siew/Siew Yoke Rice
Claypot Fa Lam Pork Meat with Salted Fish and Brinjaw
Oh Jien (fried Oyster with Egg)

4 Places I would rather be right now :-
Diving in an Island
Watching sunset at the beach with *tut*
At my host family's house in Kumamoto
On a live aboard ship diving in different sites all over the region

4 Friends I’m going to tag :-
none :-)

Conquering Mount Kinabalu

2007-08-19T15:50:00.000+08:00

Yes, it took me 2 months to blog about this, and finally here it is ...

This trip was planned in January when we bought some free seats on AirAsia. The initial 5 of us were reduced to 4 when Chee How has obligations during that week and it was too late to find any replacement.

The dates, 24 - 27th July 2007. Wasn't the best time of all as it was weekdays and work in office was never less. Some preprations were done before hand to get ourselves going. But being the indisiplined me as usual ... i didn't work out as much as i could.

Day 1
Rob was already there the week before for some community service project at the nearby kampung. When me, Merv and Grace arrived at KK's LCCT we met up with the car rental guy and got hold of the proton wira at 90 ringgit/day, thanks to Chow Pang for making the arrangement.

On the way to town we were already thinking about tapau KFC to the national park for dinner as we heard that the food there was not good which later we found out were wrong, only the food at laban rata tastes rata (flat) as it's name. Lunch at KK and some last minute shopping and we're off to Kinabalu National park. The journey was estimated to be 3-4 hours on mountain roads and i was on the wheels. The maps provided by the tourism board wasn't as complete but one of my colleague Alistair who works in the airport reckons that the sign boards are quite clear. So we used the map and the sign board to guide us all the way, only taking wrong turns on one or two occasions until we arrived at the main park office.

Our trekking plan was to go up from the Mesilau trail (extra 2 km but with more beautiful view) and come down by the usual Timpohon trail. On the way to the Mesilau we got a bit lost. First we missed the turning and was headed towards the hot springs, we turned back and manage to find the turning which actually feels like going into a small Cameron Highland village. Then we missed the second turning again, this time ending up in a very steep road with no tarmac. The car had problems going upwards and was stuck in the potholes and the bottom of the car chasis kept hitting the ground (hope the car rental guy didn't read this blog).

We met some locals who were walking downhill and they told us the road actually leads to a 'kebun sayur' and not Mesilau resort, KNN! So we let the car roll back downhill and manage to find the right turning. 30 minutes later we checked in to the resort's 6 bed hostel. The weather was getting cold and wet. The walkway was slippery and i slipped twice on my brand new ACG sandals. I thought that's it, the sandals are not seasoned yet for KK. I walked to the resort's restaurant barefooted.

The food at the restaurant was quite tasty and were in big portion, we only forked out about RM60 for the 4 of us to have 3 dishes with 4 huge plates of rice (luckily didn't buy KFC :P). Feeling satisfied we adjourned back to our room and packed our stuff for the trek the following morning.

Day 2
We loaded the spare baggage back into the car and then proceeded to the trail entrance to register ourselves. We brought along a lunch set sold at the restaurant, which has 2 sets of sandwiches, a hard boiled egg, chicken wing and a bottle mineral water.

We started off the trail steadily, taking pictures and talking to each other casually. Not even halfway through our guide informed us that he had something urgent to attend to and needed to go back down, he gave us information on the trail and who to meet when we are at Laban Rata, and also took our car keys and offered to park the car at the headquarters for the price of RM30. I felt a bit weird that guides are allowed to abandon their customers and let them walk themselves, why pay for a guide at the first place? Anyway the trail is quite commercialized and every rest hut has a toilet, we knew we can take care of ourselves.

The weather was misty, so when we reached the highest peak of the Mesilau trail we couldn't see far. I could hear the sounds of water fall and caught a glimpse of it far away when the mist cleared briefly. Weather was getting cooler as we ascend. After the peak we descended all the way down until we reach the mail trail, connecting from the Layang-Layang Hut. It was afternoon then and the rain has been drizzling for a couple of hours. From Layang-Layang onwards we can start to feel the thin air and steeper ascent up the trail. The temperature was dropping and i could feel my fingers freezing everytime i join both hands together. I already had my sweater on earlier by the cold on my legs were unbearable the moment i stop moving as sweat vaporises on the surface of the unconvered skin.

By 4.40pm we finally reached the Laban Rata rest house. We met with our guide Mauries and then went straight to have an early dinner before check-in. The food was somewhat pricey and not tasty at all, i mean i can cook better than that ... seriously. Anyway I was too tired to consume my mee goreng that Merv and Rob helped finish half of it. The best was still having a hot cup of coffee around both my hands, putting it near to my face feeling the warmth going through my face.

Our hostel was another 10 minutes away from where we were. And I though it was near, so i insisted on going straight to the hostel even though it started raining. KNN it was a big mistake, after being in a room with heater and hot coffee, outside felt like north pole. It was freezing, and still in our short pants, every drop of rain felt like ice, my soaked shoes and numb fingers were killing me ... finally we arrived at Gunting Lagadan, the final oibstacle was we had to climb up a slippery rock surface before arriving at the entrance.

tired, cold, exhausted and smelly, the climb's beginning to take its toll on me...

Day 3
After 4 hours of restless "sleep", we woke up to the noise of the other people walking around the hostel. My toes and fingers felt numb the whole night. This is the type of situation where you will think how will it feel up there when you'er already struggling where you are.

We ate instant noodles and geared up. The weather wasn't good and it's been drizzling the whole night. Mauries our guide was outside smoking and monitoring the weather. Moments later he came to our room and said "let's go" ... feeling full of excitement and don't know what to expect. I hyped myself up by expecting the worse and hoping for the best, it's always the safest mentality.

Our walk up to Sayap Sayap hut was dark and long ... not to mention freezing cold. My poncho was starting to tear apart by the strong wind, KNN. As we approach the orcky area of the climb, I turned around and saw lights far far below, Mauries say we can see KK town from here. I can imagine how far up we are. The air is thin and the wind is freezing, i made myself breath faster to get more oxygen into my system. the rocks were slippery and there the last part before we arrive at the Sayap Sayap hut requires us to use the rope. I could see nothing except for the areas where my torch is shining. And to make things worse, the battery to my head torch ran out fast, i suspect it could have accidentally been switched on the whole trip up when it was in my bag. I had to take out my secondary torch which was hand held. Most of the time i hold it with my mouth so that both my hands are free.

After registering at the hut, we proceed on flatter rocks but going upwards. We had occasional stops to catch some breath. It was a long long walk and we could not see anything around us. The wind was so strong i lost balance a few times while walking. The best I could do was follow Mauries's foot steps which were steady and slow, but consistent.

If you notice at this point i have only been describing about myself, because in my mind i could not think much, Rob, Merv and Grace didn't register in my mind, it's frozen, I can't remember what they said or did, we just walked and walked. As the unfittest of the 4, I concentrated on my ascend. As we passed the other peaks such as Donkey's Ear and St John's we were able to see a dim light far ahead. "That's Low's peak, we're almost there ..." he pointed to the light and said, as we passed a sign board saying 500m more.

I turned around again, and saw a line of lights moving towards us, there was a total of 100 over climbers that day who would conquer the peak. I realised i was the only one who kept drinking water, the other 3 were quite steady moving on.

By 5.30 we arrived at the peak, it was already crowded. Looking back more were on the way. At the peak i really didn't know what to do, it was cold, windy, sitting down means cooling down my body which causes a lost of heat. Gosh it was suffering, and the sun wasn't up yet. I looked around and started to see the red horizon rising from my left. It was getting brighter very fast, after taking a few pics we decided to hide behind some rocks to block ourselves from the wind. Was kind of worries that my muscles will give way and start to cramp.

By 6.15 we decided to descent. Mervs took out his Jalur Gemilang and we took a group pic with it. That was the moment the sense of achievement started to kick in. The sunrays also helped warm us up a little. The view was clearer and I was shocked looking at the trail we walked to reach here. It was a long long way back to sayap sayap.

The descent was faster as we're going downhill. Soem parts we had to use the rope. I fell a couple of times due to the wet surface. Back at Sayap Sayap hut, i looked down at the trail we climbed, i cannot believe we actually did that at night. It was freaking dangerous even with the ropes to hold on. After 2 hours of walking down rocks and stairs, we finally reached our hut. Managed to rest a while and then we departed at 11am after another round of lousy food at the rest house.

Remembering 5 years back when I was at taman negara, my legs gave way to muscles strain and atritis when i was on the way down from gunung Tahan. The same thing happened again after the first stretch of trekking. I could not bend me knees or it will just give way. I was think "fuck", there goes my muscles ... making use of other parts of my body, i basically "limped" like a pregnant lady all the way down. The urge for warm air, nice food and comfy bed, pushed me on ... Rob, Merv and Grace were patient waiting for me, and with Mauries walking behind me making sure i don't fall down the mountain at any part of the trek :P .... There come to a point where i cannot feel pain, just numb, i lost control of my legs, used my hand with the tongkat to manuever.

After 5 hours of torture, we made it. We took the Timpohon route so that we can get back to the headquarters to get our certs. We also gave away our tongkat to other people who have just arrived at the park. Mervs offered to drive and we were back in town by 6.30pm. In the car, I could feel my tow nails giving way. It felt like the nail is not part of my toe but part of the shoe, it was damn scary but luckily when i took off my shoe at the hotel, it was still intact, but loose, looser than a 40 year old prostitute and i had to take good care of it making sure i don't bang anything while walking.

We had dinner at a nearby restaurant which served really nice food, especially the curry sear food.That night was the first night that i had a good sleep. We all KOed at 9.30pm.

Day 4
Morning, we woke up and had breakfast at a nearby restaurant, they served nice noodles with mixed fishballs and fish meat.We drove around and went to the Philipino market to do some souvenir shopping. We didn't have much time to find a budget massage place so we decided to skip that. During lunch we met Chow Phang and had bak kut teh. And after that we were headed to the airport. We basically can smell the nice stench on our backpacks so we decided to check-in to spare the nose of the other passengers on board.

In all the trip turned out quite well as we achieved what we went there for. Mind mattered more than body at times like this. I remember after the Gunung Tahan trip I told myself to never do it again ... this time around, same advise, I will not do it again ... once is more than enough, and to do it with your best buddies is more than i can ask for.

Cheers!

long long silence ...

2007-08-11T01:04:00.000+08:00

my gawd ... i haven't updated my blog for more than a month! It's not that I'm lazy or something, but over the past 5 weeks lots of things been happening and I didn't even have the time to sort out my photos and stories. I'll be updating it soon but I'm still stuck with lots of stuff ...

what happened in July ...

1. Along with 3 of my best friends, we conquered Mount Kinabalu and I practically limped all the way down ...
2. Our company announces AirAsiaX's plans to start sales soon. And thanks to that, we've been kept busy ...
3. My house underwent a facelift for 2 weeks, plaster ceiling, repainting, new wooden flooring and rearrangement of room furnitures. Everything's brand new in preparation for bro's wedding this coming December ... had to pack and unpack everything ...

what happened and will be in August so far ...

1. We organised another Youth Exchange camp for the Lions Club last weekend in Port Dickson, and the young members rocks!
2. Will be departing to Genting in the morning for a 2d1n trip with my fellow IT department monkeys, a well deserved team retreat ...
3. There'll be a suprise coming up from AirAsia soon ... stay tuned ...
4. My long awaited first trip to Bangkok ... i mean for this year la ... is finally arriving, 31 Aug - 3 Sep. can't believe that i was there 5 times last year and this year zero! (actually i missed the first trip in Feb due to bad flu and the doc advised me against traveling on air)

7 items and counting ... hope i can blog about it as much as possible ...

Suprise! Mervs caught off guard ...

2007-07-08T13:25:00.000+08:00

Opsss this has been in my draft for a while.....hope it's not too late...:P

Over the past week a few of us have been acting busy and told Mervyn that we won't be available on the eve of his birthday, which was last Satuday. Being equally busy that night as well, he wasn't expecting anything from us after attending a wedding dinner with Joanne. But behind his back Joanne and Rob has been planning and getting everthing in place:

Scene 1:
Venue: Sime Darby Convention Centre, Bkt Kiara
Mission personels: Joanne, Rob, SY, Elaine Tham, Zetuan and Elaine Ang
- 5 of us departed from Somo in Hartamas to the wedding venue. Identified Joanne's car, opened the back with the spare key given to us, and place the cake with candle in it.
- We parked our car nearby but out of sight from the main exit to Joanne's car.
- Rob sms Joanne to give the green light.
- Joanne ask Merv to get a present from her car which she wants to give to the bride.
- And what happens can be seen in the video below:

Scene 2:
- All the other friends are already seated in Somo.
- Joanne request Merv to close his eyes and leads him to our table.
- "Supirse!", he's totally shocked to see ppl from his zhi mui, KLU leos and KLCC leos sitting around the table

Enjoyed ourselves the whole night with the usual drinks and birthday cake. And no thanks to Zetuan who got Mervs high with the 4 shots of 'dunno wat' ... but it wasn't strong enough to get Merv to bed ... the amount was just right for a good night.

Happy Birthday dude!

My Daemon ...

2007-07-08T12:58:00.000+08:00

random images ... volume 2: Jan 2007

2007-07-02T22:39:00.000+08:00

With the IT dudes during New Year celebration at Shogun Buffet , 1 Utama

Tommy won the grand prize of 800 freaking ringgit

With Shota on his b'day countdown in Sanctuary, the Curve

Fan Pan in da house, act -AP- during K session

Shota's b'day teh tarik at Mongkok Char Chan Teng

Laine & Fukku trying to earn some extra bucks by acting retardo

Keep Walking ...

My B'day bash at Sanctuary, Zetuan looks like giving a B-job

B'day in the office ... grapey flavoured cream

Transformers syndrom ...

2007-07-01T17:21:00.001+08:00

Watched the long awaited movie last Friday. Was just so realistic that I got a bit dizzy when driving in the 1U carpark. All the cars seems to be able to transform to something!
Yes, that's how real it is in the movie. Marvelous CG, I never thought Transformer can be made into a movie due to the complexity of its transformation. My recomendation? go for it, watch it a few times, it's worth it. My buddy Chee How have watched it 3 times in 3 days.

The next morning I woke up with further headaches, I think it's the Transformer Syndrom. Every car seems to be a autobots, and every person u meet on the street also seems related ... this is what i mean:

my dream BCD ...

2007-06-24T15:46:00.000+08:00

Been looking around brands such as Aqualung, Mares, Sherwood, TUSA, etc for a suitable BCD for me.

BCD = Buoyancy Control Device. This is the device all divers wear when diving. It holds your tank as well as allow you to inflate/deflate it to control your buoyancy while underwater. So that we will always remain flaoting in the water and not crash to the bottom. :P

Some of the criteria I've set for searching would be:

- extra buoyancy control
- compact and easy to bring around
- looks cool with nice design
- has it's own weight system (the cheaper ones come without)

And I always come back to the same model from Mares:

Mares Icon

• Folded to compact size, and very lightweight
• Great buoyancy lift
• Completely Accessorized

And the best thing of all, it can be folded!

I have no idea on the price though. Anybody who's used this before or know it's price please drop me a msg. I gave a call to Hobi Sports before and enquired (they're the authorised distributor for Mares) and it seems they don't have this model now. Hopefully they will later ...

random images ... volume 1: year 2006

2007-06-23T19:23:00.000+08:00

Ran through the photos in my handphone and gosh ... there's so many photos taken but not shared. So what I'm gonna do is post these pics whenever I'm free with some captions ... let's start with 2006:

Raymond's Birthday in office

With the guys at newly opened Prince Cafe in SS2

One of the many beatiful views at the Angkor

Wen Yee's birthday in office

Robert's birthday cake - Zidane headbutts Matterazi

View of Bangkok from Baiyoke Sky, polluted

with Joanne the J-Girl wannabe, YE Orientation Day

Going Bananas! That's what they cost (USD) in Salt Lake City

Cockroach attack in office! Dino, Lizard and Batman to the rescue!

Heavy rain and thunderstorm blew the roof of in LCCT

Our YE Hotline/Callcentre - Fanpan's number

Chee How's birthday present - Ferarri F1 team lego set

back from Redang, new lesson learned ...

2007-06-18T22:07:00.000+08:00

This was my second trip back to Redang this year. This time it's just leisure dive and family trip, with Merv joining me for the diving. Vincent our dive instructor was there as well with a group of AOW students, so we joined in his dives instead of the resort's dive master's boat trip (which i later found out there's a leng lui diving with her friends at the same resort, shit! should have maybe joined in one of their dives ... :P).

We did the usual routine: AirAsia flight, Ferry ride at Shahbandar, checked-in at Coral Redang, setup our gear at the dive centre, feed the squirrels, snoozed at the beach side bench, rented underwater camera at Pelangi, ate ice kacang, etc.

Mom and Dad wasn't too comfy with snorkeling as the feeling of no ground beneath their foot is scary to them. I suggested to get the guide to bring them around at the snorkeling site so that they will feel more secured. I also brought mom around the house reef to give her a bit of feel on snorkeling.

This time around the resorts were mostly full, daily we see refugees in red safety vest climbing up/jumping down from snorkeling boats as if they were illegally entering Malaysia. Quite a scene ... and not to mention increased tourist means increased number of pretty girls of all age, however most of them were already holding somebody's hand. The weather was cloudy and raining during midnight. It was no show stopper for us and better still as i didn't get much sun burns in the afternoon due to the cloudy weather.

Ok, back to the main story of the trip, which was our dives. As we were following Vincent's group who was doing their Advance Open Water course so it was Drift dive, Night dive and Deep dive. And i sucked at 2 of it, yes the ones that consumes the most air. The last two dives we did it at the House reefs, one day and one night dive, just a walk away from Coral Redang, in front of Redang Bay.

Drift dive at Mak Chantek
This is the best site around Redang and it's my 3rd time here. This time was different, strong currents and waves. We had to descent along the bouy line but the current keep pushing us around, it was fucking annoying and energy consuming just to get down there. The dive plan was to stick low to the sand at 18m and go againts the current around the reef then drift back to the same point from the other side of the reef. Problem is, by the time we reach the point of drifting back, i was already at 60 bar. CCB I have never felt so tired before, i had to paddle non stop which sped up my breathing, tried slowing it down but it weakens my legs and i can't paddle, deep breaths after deep breaths i knew this was gonna be a short dive for me. And to make things worse the drift back was not exactly direct, we had to paddle sideways. One thing when the current is strong is, never ascent without a buoy line as reference or you end up drifting far far away and the boat have to find you. So what I did was hold on till we found the line, i was the first to get up to the 5m safety stop for 3 mins. The current was strong and I was thinking this is the worse dive I've ever had. Can't remember seeing any fish except for a school of yellowband fusiliers, left 10 bar of air so I switched to Merv's octopus for more air at the safety stop just in case. Getting up the boat was not easy as well. On the boat ride back i was wondering if i should have any high expectation for the other dives at all.
Night dive at Mak Chantek
On the first night we prepared for our 2nd dive at the same site. Vincent confirmed that the current will be weak by night fall. We descended on the same buoy line again and this time the current was totally gone. While Vincent conducted his routine with his students, me and Merv went around the reef nearby to snap some night life. The results was magnificent, camera flash works better at night as there are no distorted sunlight that turns into blue. Just on the same spot itself we encountered decorator crab, cuttlefish, sleeping fishes among the corals etc. On our way around the reef we found a kermit crab. No signs of turtles or rays. Sadly speaking this was the first trip that i did not encounter any rays or sharks at all. And to sum it up we did the same but longer routine as the earlier dive at the same spot i had 60 bars of air left compared to 10 earlier. Uncle Leong's lesson was priceless to me, relax, control your breathing, don't play with your BCD too much. Now I've learned new lessons, build up stamina and leg muscles, you'll need it when the current comes and there's no time to relax.

Deep Dive somewhere between Big Mount & Pulau Lima
Initial plan was to go to Big Mount so that Vincent's students can do their deep dive training. But after 2 rounds of searching for the buoy to descent we changed plans and moved closer towards Pulau Lima as the current was really strong that morning. Descending was done without any line and it took about 4 mins to reach our max depth of 32 meters, along the way we were pushed so hard we were actually drifting sideways going in a round to get to the destination. It was freaking far and the current was strong. My god i almost finished half my tank in the first 10 mins (at 32m u're consuming more than 4 times the amount of air on ground due to compression). And by the time Vincent was finished with his students i was down to 70 bars. As for all deep dives we do multilevel, I tried catching up to Vincent to tell him I'll need to ascend soon but could only do so when we reach our second spot at 26m, bad news was I'm already down to 40 bars, should have noticed it earlier because I am actually at a 30m depth. After informing Vincent who was showing me the ascend sign with high alert, me and Merv ascended to 5m safety stop again I used Merv's Octopus. Merv did a sharp turn on his body and i totally lost the Octopus, KNN no air! Finally we managed to get things back in place then only i found out whats wrong, Merv couldn't find the sausage thats why he turned around and as for me I was concentrating at the dive comp that i did not hold the octopus to my mouth with my other hand thats why it got pulled off. Mervs pointed down and when we looked, 4-5 m down it was our darn sausage! We wanted to try to get it but Merv pulled me back as we're low on air, we did a 2 min safety stop and went up. Bye bye RM120 sausage ... :'( . Luckily no boats were there to bang us down as well since we did not had a sausage inflated on the surface before ascending ... :P. On the flight home we sorted out what are the things we should do together when underwater to get things more organised and avoid such events from happening again. Nevertheless we were not really in danger as we knew the routine, things were done calmly just a bit clumsy. New lesson learned again.

Day & Night Dive at House Reef
The remaining dives offered were either too early(NDT not allowing us to do so) or back to the same dive spot with strong currents. And since we have one more boat dive to our package we traded it for 2 shore dive at the Pasir Panjang house reef, one in the afternoon, one at night. At least we won't be going too deep after the morning deep dive. the first dive with day light was very relaxing and fruitful as well. Although most are common fish and corals, we did encouter a Titan Triggerfish, kept our distance and moved away from it. After a while we noticed it was catching up on us from our left. CCB we just stopped let it pass us then moved the other direction. Now Triggerfish has been known to be aggresive species who would charge at you if they consider you a threat to them, knocking on you straight on. they don't look so friendly either but Mervs said he was ready to charge back at it if it attacked. YEAH RIGHT! HA ... HA ... HA ... Anyway the night dive plan was the same as we head out and back in. But the visibility at night was quite bad compared to day and sand particles where everywhere and we didn't see much except another 3 divers heading out the same directions as us.

Buoyancy control was much better this trip as i added one more weight to all my dives. The last time when my tank was at 40 bars at 5m my body ascended to the surface without even able to do a safety stop due to my positive buoyancy. Overall I didn't enjoy most of the dives but then on the other hand it was valuable lessons learned, this all related back to my own health condition, daily routine and diet. I've got to work out more to build up my stamina and muscles at least for a comfortable leisure dive.

Also I noticed that my sinus was non-existent when I'm in Redang even if I shower in cold, go in and out of the sea diving, dry my throat breathing through the regulator, sleep in freaking cold aircon room when its raining, run around without my shirt and in my trunks. I could also sleep well and wake up at 7 without alarm. This is the difference between city life and island retreat. One day it'll be great if I'll have a stint at resorts working on anything just to get free lodging and food, as well as couple of free dives a day.

At KT town we chartered a van with driver to bring us around to kill some time. We tried our this shop called Erwina, which serves good nasi padang and there's a stall outside selling delicious Cendol served with pulut. Next stop is going to be KK mountain next month. not much time to build up my stamina for the climb so I better start bucking up ... :P

health concerns ... time to change

2007-06-12T22:20:00.000+08:00

I hate to admit it but I've came to the point that I'm eating my own words when my buddy Robert was talking about concerns on his health.

Recently I've felt fat, out of shape, lack of stamina and fatigue easily. Recent test Mervs did for me shows that my body metabolism rate is actually same as a 37 year old instead, KNN! The time has come to live life more moderately, so that my lifespan will last longer and I will be able to spend the money i saved for my older days.

Resolutions for SY's healthy lifestyle:
1. Replace 2 daily meals with Herbalife ShapeWorks shakes - now I'm still on 2 meals and 1 or 2 shakes per day
2. STOP smoking - last count was 2 sticks in June and 10 sticks in May, I was never a heavy smoker anyway, just social
3. STOP drinking - cannot la, KNN. but i will drink moderately and also not weekly
4. START exercising - considering the fact that i might get atritis if i take up ball games such as basketball and futsal, walking and swimming for a start would be good. And basketball/futsal comes a couple of times a month?
5. ENOUGH sleep - I do admit most of the time I am lack of sleep at night. Need to change this habit.
6. SNACK healthily - No keropok, pisang goreng, mee goreng, or whatever goreng goreng. I should start stocking snack bars in my drawer.
7. FULL body check-up - I need to understand my condition more. Appointment has been set with my personal doctor next Teusday once I'm back from Redang

WTF, it seems so easy to type out these 7 resolutions. But when it comes to action, you don't know how hard it is. For the past few weeks I've been struggling a bit with gastric and over hungriness at times, and it's just not easy .... for me.

The only way i 'motivate' myself is, imagine ...
... 10 years down the road sitting on the couch playing PS2 no able to move my fucking arse anywhere. Eventually my fingers we so bloated that it can't press on the buttons correctly.
... The day i get my pension was the day i was struck with heart attack. And my kids are still in college, fatherless
... Having unimaginable pains, vomiting/shitting blood everynight due to cancer and feeling like a piece of shit from the kimo treatment and medication
... Died of asthma on my 50th birthday celebration with my buddies beside me on the dance floor

We did it ... -AP- Band live

2007-06-10T22:43:00.000+08:00

After weeks of preparation and thanks to Chee How and Kelvin's persuation with the Rokaro boss. We finally performed on stage couple of days before Ian left for UK.
The usual once a week practice was intensified to 2-3 practice session per week. It didn't just burn our wallet, it burnt our energy as well. Going to work with muscle straints on my arm and fingers, bet the other guys had the same prob as well. And to add on it I promised not to play my PS2 too much cos it worries the others...:P...but then come to think of it, playing my PS2 actually helps strengthens my fingers.... hahahaha....

On the day itself, I left office extremely early with the consent of my boss and rushed through traffic jam to arrive at 7 plus, Kelvin, Chee How and Ian was already there. And when we though the place should be usually empty, it had quite a number of customer eating dinner there. Sound check wasn't that possible but it wasn't too much of a problem too since they're using quite good quality amps.

Then our friends started pouring in till there's no place to sit. It was really crowded, and i mean CROWDED. The songs we played:

set 1:

1. 志明与春娇 (MayDay)
2. Yellow (Coldplay)
3. 恆星的恆心 (MayDay)
4. Here without You (3 Doors Down)
5. It's My Life (Bon Jovi)
6. 自由 (張震嶽)

set 2:
1. I hate myself for loving you (Joan Jett)
2. Mungkin Nanti (Peter Pan)
3. 你快乐所以我快乐 (Faye Wong)
4. 他不爱我 (Karen Mok)
5. 我真的受傷了 (Jacky Cheung & Evana Wong)
6. Boston (Augustana)
7. 光輝歲月 (Beyond)

I had to admit i didn't feel any nervousness until i was on stage. Was kinda worried I'm gonna do the same mistakes i did during practice so I had to concentrate, which was why for the whole night most of the people were saying i didn't 'smile' at all when playing. :P Ok, so the next thing I gotta work on is my smile.

Thanks to all the buddies and friends who came all the way and support us. Our dream of performing has finally been realised. Hopefully there'll be more to come. Cheers to Kelvin, Chee How, Ian and Jannice for the fun night!

more pics to come ...

updates ....

2007-05-25T01:36:00.000+08:00

Been extremely busy lately with work and of course my new toy: the devillish PS2. Am down with infected throat since last Thursday and still not fully recovered yet, so I'm having limited 'talk time'. Other than that the band's been working harder than usual to be prepared for something big. A 'farewell' gift for Ian.

CH and Kelv managed to convince the Rokaro boss to let us perform one night at his pub, provided we pay RM500 deposit and bring in around 50-60 customer on that night. The details:

Wednesday, 30th May, 8.00pm
Rokaro, PJ State.
who'll be there? -AP- : Kelvin, JanNice, Soon Yean, Chee How, Ian

We might not be performers level but i guess we can do quite a fairly good show. So we're hoping anyone, anyone who is free on that night to drop by and have a drink at Rokaro to show your support. :)

Jerry and Ochie's wedding in Jakarta

2007-05-09T00:20:00.000+08:00

Few days after my trip to Saudi, I was on the flight with Darren, Josh and Ni Choon to Jakarta to attend our ex colleague, Jerry's wedding. Jerry's a really nice guy who seldom says 'no'. I'd been working with him in the Web Team since the first day AirAsia Indonesia started operations as AWAIR.

This was the best opportunity for me to visit Jakarta since I've never been there before (yes, I have never visited our Jakarta office as well). We were picked up by Ferrand and Andy at the airport. One thing I notice is, it's really important to have your own transport there as public transport (bus, taxi, train, etc) doesn't looks too comfy. This is really the land of the Kijang, you'll definitely see one on the road at least every 50m of the highway.

The food we had was no problem as it is almost similar to what we have in KL, the type of food where you can see a mix of Malay, Chinese and Indian feel. Teh Botol (just normal tea with sugar packed in glass bottle) is a popular and common drink everywhere, I took it during most of my meals as if they were 'liang teh'. If you think drivers in KL are sometimes crazy, your opinion will change once you've experienced the road in Jakarta. Just when I though the Saudi Arabians were crazy in driving, siting in Ferrand's car feeling the cars around us squeezing around and changing lanes, I realised that there's more that meets the eyes. Interesting things you can see is at the traffic lights and under the highway. Penjaja equipped with drinks, soft toys, merchandise will be walking to your car the moment the red light pops up. Occasionally some beggars would pass by asking for some donations as well. Some ladies also dust your car with a feather duster while passing by and hopes to get tipped by the driver. As I noticed Ferrand, being a driver in Jakarta you must be always equipped with loads of RP 1000 (RM0.40) notes to tip the car park attendant, traffic controller, beggars at the traffic light, and whoever who lends a hand to you.

the main agenda of the trip was Jerry and Ochie's wedding. I've never met Ochie before but heard a lot about her. During Jerry's first trip to KL we actually went around trying to get the specific Vincci shoes that Ochie saw online, an when asked what size he would like to buy, Jerry will take out a ribbon with the length of Ochie's feet! That's a classic bf/gf story that I'll always remember. BTW, Vincci shoes are cheaper in KL compared to in Jakarta. The banquet reception was set at 11am in a hall in Taman Mini. The backdrop and decoration was beautifully done in theme of purple and red. The buffet lines were serving freshly cooked Korean beef, Tempura prawn, soy sauce duck, etc. Another buffet line deeper in the hall was serving all the other finger food and snacks. The ceremony took about 3 hours where the couple walked on to the stage decoratedin tradisional Malay/Javanese style. All Guest took their turns to congratulate the bride and groom after the prayers by the Imam.

The remaining of the day was spent stuck in the jam and buying pisang bulen and pempek. At night we had a good dinner at Kelapa Gading which was a huge chain of 4 shopping centres with lots of restaurants and eateries. And after dinner was some drinking session and the ManUtd Bar where there are pole dancers and live band performance.

We definitely have to thank our great colleague Ferrand for driving us around for the whole 3 days. He's one cool dude! don't think will be coming back to Jakarta soon but I do hope to go shopping the next time i'm around. Seems that there are some places where you can get cheap DVDs and clothes.

All the best to Jerry and Ochie!

visit to the Holy land ...

2007-05-03T22:24:00.000+08:00

Finally I'm home from my meeting in Jeddah. The outcome was a positive one and I was playing a supporting role providing system integration possibilities with the other company.

My stay at Jeddah was kind of a cultural shock. Stories I've heard so far from my brother and friends working in Riyadh was played live in front of me for these 3 days.

After the long 12 hours transit in Dubai, I've finally boarded the flight full of foreign labour and Muslims on Umrah tour packages plus some Saudi nationals. Stepping into the international terminal reminds me of Subang airport, but only worse. It was hot and dry, everybody was stinking and so was I. The bags took quite a while to arrive and I didn't enjoy the feeling of being slowly pushed away by different Pakistanis on different occasions, these dramatic actors were so worried that their bags won't arrive, they just cut in as if I wasn't there, KNN.

Met my bro at the exit. 40 minutes drive to the old city area of Al Ballad's Red Sea Palace was quite smooth, because the driver's skills is only 2nd to Micheal Schumacher. CCB with his MPV mini van he can actually turn left at the traffic light from the right most lane ... was already praying to God that my tiny little life can be spared in this holy land. In the car my bro was showing me traffic jam at the opposite direction and some of the cross junction because Thurs and Fri is a weekend in Saudi. Since there's no night spot, no alchohol and no disco in Saudi, what do they do coming out at this time? My bro's ans: Nothing. They just come out stand by the streeet and talk to each other. Either that or they just come out to cause the jam and make it look happening, honking every minute. *pengsan* These people are more -AP- than i thought!
The next day we took the hotel shuttle to the Red Sea, straight to Palm Beach which was privately owned and you can actually wear short pants and expat females can show off their bikinis. We met up with my bro's dive instructor and her husband. It was a busy day and the shop ran out of fins. So my bro bought me a new pair of fins for my belated birthday! Wow, luckily they didn't run out of BCDs. hahahahaha..... We did 2 dives, 1 before and 1 after lunch at the house reef. The beach stretches about 80 metres out and then falls straight down a reef wall which was about 25m deep. We stayed around 12-14m depth where most of the corals and fishes would be. Not much big fishes but ocassionally you'd see a school of fusiliers swimming by. Corals are abundance and visibility is fairly good, around 10-15metres.

The next two days was spent with the team attending meeting and presentations as well as having group discussion before the final outcome. Overall Jeddah is not a place recomended to go unless you would like to do your Haj or Umrah. The food here is fairly digestable. Some of the food that's good are the kebab, Al Baik fried chicken (famous in West Saudi), BBQ chicken and Kumar dates. The Mango juice here is freshly blended with no water or sugar added, super gao, you can actually go on Mango juice diet. You should also observe the prayer time as all shops are closed dunno how many times a day because of the prayer. Short pant's not allowed as well, unless it's a 3 quarter pants.
The interesting thing i found here is there's a sacred area known as Eve's grave which has been fenced up. No scientific proof has been given so far but the people believed that Eve was buried here and so it is protected land. Next to the Red Sea Palace Hotel is the beautiful Mosque where public punishment is done every Friday after prayers. When I say public punishment, i mean stoning, hand chopping, head chopping, etc. Our team calls it the "chop chop" mosque. Other days you would see kids playing football at the parking area of the mosque. The Indian and Pakistani community here is huge, mostly muslims and speaks arabic. My colleague Offar speaks a fair bit of Hindi and managed to be friend with one of the kebab shop boss who offered us a free drink after our delicious Kebab & Mango juice meal.
Overall it was a real eye opener to see this part of the world, a place where women are not allowed to drive or go out alone without their family/husband, and the only Budweiser they are selling is a non-alchoholic Budweiser Beer. I take it as a priviledge because you don't get visa easily into this country.

signing off ...

camping in Dubai Airport

2007-04-26T12:39:00.000+08:00

asalammu'alaikum, signing in from Emirates. For a change this time i decided to take Emirates for my meeting trip to Jeddah instead of MAS, the consequneces was I have to lepak in Dubai airport for 12 hours till I connect on another flight to Jeddah.

Working in an airline industry, you tend to have the urge to try other airline and then compare their service to your own. What I found out about Emirates, pretty crew, multinational to the extend their staff can converse with the Guest in 10 languages in this flight. The food was pretty good but the seats were not as comfy as MAS, in house entertainment had more choices though.

The moment I step into the Departure Terminal when I arrived at Dubai Airport around 5am local time it was already crowded. Things that don't happen in LCCT actually happens here, for example: Lining up in the toilet for 5 minutes just to pang sai! There's easily one washroom after every 3-4 departure gates but it is still crowded. There's thousands of chairs lined up along the whole terminal but all taken up, you see ang mo and hak gwai sleeping everywhere. The duty free shops are crowded that nobody is free to attend to you.

Food isn't that cheap here, that's the case usually for most international airports. Most of the mid range and high range cafe's restaurants were crowded with the white ghost and had a line queuing outside. Thank god I found the food court, one glance at the McD meals it was 19 Dirhams, KNN! So i decided to go for a Sandwich at the next shop for 18 DH, mana tau the auntie gave me a XL which was 28 DH, add up with the mineral water it was 33DH (can eat a lot of dim sum liaw!). Now I've found a comfortable spot in one corner of the terminal, sitting down on the carpet floor with my laptop plugged to the power outlet meant for the buggies and vacuum cleaner doing my work. Tomorrow's a weekend in Jeddah so I'll be going diving with my Bro at the Red Sea, hopefully my skin won't be peeling off like it is the last 2 weeks when I meet the counterparts here during Saturday's meeting.

-AP- camper signing off ...

Ian's on the move ...

2007-04-20T00:58:00.000+08:00

It's kinda sad, but our bassist Ian's decided to go abroad for a couple of years ... wonder if he'll ever decide to come back.

It's by luck that 4 of us got together and formed the -AP- band 2 years back. Me bringing Chee How and Kelvin bringing Ian to the studio. The first time really sucked big time with 4 of us trying to get each other's rhythm.

But then 2 years down the road, we can play some decent songs even though we're not pro level. No we're not going to replace him, the most we would do, find a substitute bassist until he's back in KL. All the best to our -AP- buddy ....

We've got a couple more jam sessions before Ian leaves so we're hoping to get some audience to come and support us ... :P

Yes, I've never asked or invited anyone, but then I think I should cos if not it'll be another 2 years before we can play that well again ...

Heroes, the story continues ...

2007-04-09T00:07:00.000+08:00

Chibai, have to wait till 23rd only can see the next chapter....seems that another 5 episodes and its end of the season liaw....

What to expect in episode 19 titled ".07%" :
1. Peter's dead
2. Lindermann shows off his power on reviving the dead
3. Matt tries to escape from the papermill

looking forward to Redang ...

2007-04-01T00:31:00.000+08:00

Happy April's Fool ... another month has passed in a glance ... can't believe that a quarter of 07 passed just like that. Lots of things happened and lots of things done and lots more yet to come.

Definitely the main highlight for this month would be my diving trip to Redang. This time we've signed up for the advanced course. this is a minimum qualification if you want to dive in different places without constrains. What most dive shops see in you before allowing you to sign up for a dive trip is:

1. number of dives you've done and where
2. your qualification

Since we don't have no.1, no.2 will be our fast track to night dives, wreck dive and other dive sites that's deeper. And on top of that, i'll be back in Redang again in June, so I'll be able to take more speciality dives after geting my advance.

Only problem now is ..... save more money .... f***

another night at The Sanctuary

2007-03-25T03:17:00.000+08:00

Decided to join a few my buddies in Sanctuary. Needed the break anyway ... Heineken was having an event at the Curve in conjuction with the European Cup being displayed there. There was this freaking freaking long fusbal (dunno how da f*** to spell that) table at the event for us to play.
Don't think any of us were in the mood for hard liquor, so we settled for Heineken, KNN, 85 bucks per bucket. Anyway they were giving out some nice freebies along with every bucket. Cute beer cover designed as jerseys. Comes in quite handy, look at our models for the day ...
and when i mention it came in handy, i meant we manage to make a story out of it with good moral values ... here's a pictorial short story about drinking ...
The moral of the story is:
1. Girls, check what drinks you're being offered and make sure you don't take more than you should.
2. Guys, Don't drink too much till you have to give a guy blowjob just to make a threesome...

been a while ...

2007-03-24T03:10:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since i updated my blog. Been busy after returning from Sydney with crazy datelines and worries of setbacks on about to launch projects. Only thing I've been doing after work is work and DVDs.

These are the times where you don't get enough sleep worrying about everything. Pressure from all corners and insuffient time in a day to complete what you need to. Thanks to my 2 good bosses, my hardwork team and new headcounts who came in this week, I'm not just praying for things to go smooth but WE ARE going to make it happen.

Sorry guys if I've been ignoring your messages or had been short tempered in my replies. :(
Hope I'll be updating you guys with interesting stuff soon.

Cheers!

touching Malaysian story ...

2007-03-12T01:32:00.000+08:00

This movie is a classic example of how our kids 'might' get fuctup if they're not brought up right from young.

Starring HK and Taiwan stars such as Aaron Kwok and Charlie Yong including one of my favourite girls Kelly Lin, and all of this shot in Ipoh ????

The Dad's a gambler with lots of debt while the wife's found a new life with another man in JB. The son's left behind with his dad who's simple minded and always promises both that tomorrow will be better.

The kid's life got worse when his dad makes him steal from houses if not he will be disowned. Eventually he got caught and was sent to the boy's town for 10 years. Movie ends with the kid coming back to town 10 years later and saw his dad from far, a changed man i presumed.

The lingo, costumes and setup is totally Malaysian. I recomend you watch unless u're the type who ahtes sad ending .... but this is definitely my type of movie (got some nice sex scenes as well... :P)

back from Down Under

2007-03-10T14:07:00.000+08:00

It's my second trip to Sydney within 6 months. This time was for another conference organised by our system provider. Most of the time was spent in the Accenture office with a beautiful view of the harbor. Weather was cool and refreshing, this is the kind of places where walking to the office is definitely better than driving. the streets were full of padestrian, I'd say 40% has a Asian look,while 10% African and the remaining caucasian.

I'd expect the weather to be warmer since it was the end of summer so I left my jacket at home in the dryers. Mana tau the wind was strong and there were drizzles of rain on the late evenings which kept me shivering most of the time.

3 of us stayed at the Vibe hotel in North Sydney, which was a 4 minutes walk from the harbor area opposite the Opera house. The view was just magnificent.

Our Account Manager, Ramesh brought us for some good food at a Italian restaurant by the side of downtown called Reggie's. The place's always full and you can smell the fragrance of it's pizzas few shops away. Just can't forget the mixed seafood spagetti i had the previous time so I ordered the same.

We were also hosted to a cruise dinner by the organisers, the food was fantastics, booze unlimited, and coincidentally one of the larger international crusie was leaving the harbor so there was a fireworks display and our cruise got the front row view of it. Just wonderful ...

On the last day we had half the afternoon to walk around. Me and Bill went downtown to Paddy's market to do some souvenir shopping. Along the way we saw a F1 racecar parked outside the pub. Wonder which driver from the Red Bull team was out for a drink on a thursday afternoon ... :P

At Paddy's market there were assorted souvenirs to buy but beware as a lot of them looks very "Asian" I got caught off guard when one of the souvenirs i bought was easily available in KL as well, according to Bill. Kanineh ... when i turned over to the back of the product it says "made in China", must be more careful liaw ...

This was a short trip, me and Bill would have loved to get an extra day here but I insisted booking the night flight and coming back the next day to work due to our overload work. Hopefully we'll have another chance again ... :)

travel itinerary 2007

2007-03-09T11:29:00.000+08:00

I'm a person who likes to travel, ever since I worked in my current company I've been traveling as much as possible. For this year it's the same, and I've just completed my first travel. to sum it up below's the plan for the whole year. We're looking for backpackers and divers who are interested to join the -AP- travellers ....

Month	Destintion(s)	Status/Info
Jan	Nil	-
Feb	Bangkok	Missed due to Flu
Mar	Sydney	CAB Conference - completed
Apr	Redang	Advanced PADI Cert - completed
	Jeddah	Meeting and Diving at Red Sea
May	Jakarta	Jerry's wedding
Jun	Redang/Lang Tengah	Family trip and Diving
Jul	Kota Kinabalu	Climb Mount KK
Aug	West Coast, MY	9 days backpack from SG to LGK
Sep	Salt Lake City	Conference (tentative)
Oct	Bangkok	tentative, replacement for Feb trip
Nov	Sipadan / Porto Alegra	Diving Trip
Dec	-	Xmas and NY celebrations in KL

Malaysian drinks ...

2007-02-27T22:10:00.000+08:00

Just a couple of weeks back a few of us went out of the airport for lunch just before the CNY break at Salak Tinggi town. I've always been amused by the Chinese Herbal Tea that they serve to us.

First it uses the old beer glass bottle, the usual logo we see on it is either Carlsberg or Guiness. And then they stick a piece of paper on it written in Chinese. I know my Bahasa Cina isn't that good, but corretc me if I'm wrong cos after reading it everytime i come to the restaurant, this is what i understand:

清凉解渴, 发热头痛
What came into my mind when I read it was "cools & quench thirst, gives you fever and headache"

I believe it actually means "cools (清凉) & quench thirst (解渴) , fever (发热） & headache （头痛）".

all the chinese experts please enlighten me ...

tuk tuk qiang in Redfort ...

2007-02-27T02:28:00.000+08:00

First thing I got in to office on Monday morning was the notice that there'll be a lion dance visiting our Redfort (FYI, Redfort's the name of our office), going around the office collecting 'ang pows' from all the department heads. the time was 1.30pm.

The best part was the finale before they Lions sat down and start slicing the mandarin orange and pamelo. The Lions were mischievously playing around with the pamelo as if it's a football. Here's the clip:

CNY at Malacca ...

2007-02-18T15:33:00.000+08:00

My journey back to Malacca was kinda shitty. Spent 4 freaking hours just to arrive. We departed at 8.30am ...

Can't believe it took 30 minutes for 7 of us to finish our business at the toilet! Finally at 1pm we arrived. First stop was Poh Poh's grave. This is the 2nd year we're celebrating CNY without Poh's presence, I still feel something's missing.

Then we checked in at a very nice boutique hotel near Jongker, Hotel Puri. The pics below speaks for itself, very comfy and nice ambience around.

By evening we were back in the old house for reunion dinner.

Night time was spent walking around the weekend Jongker pasar malam. For the past 4-5 years me and my bro have been trying so hard to find good places to hang around in Malacca during CNY but always end up at lousy mamak stalls. I wonder why nobody ever told us that there's life here??? The pubs were full, the street was full, the famous Jongker88 stall was full. They even had a stage for the countdown. (I'll post the video here once I get it out of Mom's Canon Ixus)

Mom complained that Dad has never brought her to Jongker pasar malam, she never even knew it existed. :P

Next morning we followed our family tradition of praying at the temple. Was really crowded and beh tahan the smoke from the josticks.

Anyway thanks all for the nice SMS and Thanks Rob for calling me in the morning for the CNY wishes. I didn't send any SMS out as this happen to be a budget cutting month for me. Gong Hei Fatt Choy to everybody and wish you a good year ahead. Hope you win more, but not from me la .....

CNY ... on the go ...

2007-02-17T01:35:00.000+08:00

Can't believe that my family will be covering 4 places in the next 4 days. But it'll be better than staying too long at one. This year my bro's not back in Malaysia so his gf won't be joining our trip as well. That makes 3, hopefully it won't be too quiet, but definitely will feel different with bro not around. Nobody to teman yumcha/dim sum during midnight at Malacca.

guys please keep me updated where you are man, need to make some plans when I'm back in town on Wednesday ...

My Itinerary:

年三十 (sat) - depart to Malacca early morning
初一 (sun) - return to PJ late evening
初二 (mon) - depart for Penang early morning, proceed to Ipoh late evening
初三 (tue) - depart for Teluk Intan early morning, return to PJ late evening
初四 (wed) - Ang Pow collection and gambling spree

while packing my bag I finally had a good look at the CNY t-shirt my dad bought for me from Bangkok. This thing is gonna come in handy when I gamble ... check it out ...

You guys better think twice before upping the stakes on me yeah ... :P

Happy WahLanEh-Time ...

2007-02-15T01:36:00.000+08:00

fesI know it's kinda late, 14th Feb just passed and most of you must be having steamy sex half way while i blog about it. Wasn't much of a day for me, Valentine's was never a big thingy in my life (celebrated it twice only i think ....) but then it's a good thing because:

1. Loved ones renew their relationship with each other
2. New couples are born over a expensive dinner and priceless gift
3. Florists earn enough to survive for the rest of the year :P

Back in office today I've notice some Valentine's mood flowing around ...

First of all, was our dear Christy, who received a rose from her beau who was waiting for her at the BTS ERL station this morning.

Then we have KJ who received a delivery from his girl, 2 boxes of Ferrero Roche (is that how you spell it?). She must have written something lovely/mushy/kinky ... because for the rest of the day KJ was smiling by himself.

Our corporate culture girl was also out distributing nice little chocolates to the staff ...

To me, Valentine's really starting to become a publicity/marketing thingy. But we can't deny that with this kinda celebration happening you tend to get into that mood. Some'll go crazy and spend tons of cash just to please their girl while some opt to make it simple but meaningful. There're some who would celebrate it earlier to avoid the crowd and jam too. And for some, Valentine's an excuse to give someone a gift and putting the reason as "rising to the occasion". Whatever it is, hope you guys and gals out there have a good day yeah! ...

Remember that Love can be expressed anytime, anywhere, anyway as long as you have the heart to do so ... and to end the day, I'd like to share with you this clip, that even animals are in the mood for Valentine's (hope my intepretation of their actions is right :P)

Commentary by Fan Pan, Jason Ong, background sound by other - AP - who were present

- Attitude Problem - story continues ...

2007-02-12T22:59:00.000+08:00

Ok, there are some who are crying foul already due to the delay in introducing the other APs including the -AP- Band ... so the story continues ....

Robbie Beng @ Bengster @ Hengster @ Fengster @ whatever la ...
Rob's a nice guy actually ... until he mixes around with us. He's got this sickness of fake laughing that will always end up with him being bashed by the others. Why? Cos it's worse than any iritation. Rob's a good blogger we always look to his blog for a good laugh, and now it ended up all of us are blogging ... our daily rubbish ... :P

I basically have too many pics to prove that this bugger is a true - AP -, to start of with a few:

Simon Leong Chow Phang - The Sexy Turtle
He's the Digi Yellow Man, he's the fuckin' pimp and he's the Jedi master when it comes to annoying people (yes, I admit defeat). Known for increasing the road death stats in Phuket last Dec cos he and Rob was riding a "cup jai" half naked around town while me and Mervs were diving at another island (thank God we were not there...). Has a cruel heart for all kinds of animals except turtles and tortoises.

Check out Sexy Turtle enjoying himself at -AP- Band's jam session

Sexy Turtle teaching the Teriyaki boys a thing or 2 ... :P

Sexy Turtle and Hengster killing four old birds with 1 stone at The Port, Banthai Hotel at Patong Beach Phuket

Coming soon:
- AP - Mervs
- AP - Jason Ikeda
- AP - Band

back in action ...

2007-02-11T22:31:00.000+08:00

FYI I've been down with flu for more than a week and it has caused me to skip work for 2 days, missing my department trip to A'Famosa and family trip to Bangkok. Today I declare myself 90% recovered. To celebrate this I've decided to join the gang for dinner, and nothing's more soothing than my favourite "Bak Kut Teh" at SeaPark.

One thing I noticed during the meal was:

... and last but not least ....

Yes, the retarded duo of Chow Phang and Soon Yean, MIA was Mervs who left earlier because he freaking pulled off the wipers from his BMW and need to get new ones before the shops close.

attitude problem species: I am Fook and Absolute Pleasure Chiao

2007-02-11T15:56:00.000+08:00

Many of you must have wondered why's the blog titled "Attitude Problem". It's our trademark. All these started during one hot afternoon while I was in Zetuan's car on the way to A'Farmosa Resort for the YE camp. As usual i was acting childish just to disturb Zetuan and make sure he's awake while driving at 130-140 kmph on the highway, his one remarks to me: "You have a fucking big attitude problem!". We have attitude problem by choice which means we do it under control and in full concious. Take for example to AP species below:

"I am Fook"
Remember the movie "I am Sam" by Sean Penn? It's one of my all time favourite movie. Yesterday the gang had their first "Lou Sang" session at Paris Retaurant SS2. Below are some pics of our very own Ah Fook trying to act retarded while his gf and Robbie were busy discussing on some EMCEE script. Sorry Fook the pics are just too good for me not to share it out ...

- AP - Chee How
Chee How i would say is one of the main contributor to the "Attitude Problem" birth. Not because he suggested it or gave the idea, but his every action will relate you back to that word. He even started his own event company called Absolute Pleasure Entertainment (in relations to - AP -). Why is he so AP? The following pictures and clips says for itself:

Chee How at Heaven's cafe, The Curve

soon to come:
- AP - Mervs
- AP - Jason Ikeda
- AP - Robert

the tagging disease ... pass it on ...

2007-02-08T14:57:00.000+08:00

No thanks Mr Hengster for tagging me, and no thanks to Unka Leong for tagging him. Since today I'm sick, missed my holiday to Bangkok (sorry unka Leong, we'll have to meet another time), getting yellow wee due to the medicine ... I'll just blog about it:

And the title issssss ....... "five things most people probably don't know about me"

1. I used to be slim and skinny (60kg) during my SMK days (Unka Leong should know). Have put on weight ever since I stopped playing bball everyday. Wanted to continue on during my Uni days but the court was freaking far and the players were all out for glory and stunts (turn off). Eventually the weight contributed to my slight atritis problem i have on my knees preventing me from doing sports extensively.
2. I talk lots of crap in front of my friends, I even bitch about everything just to iritate Mervs and Rob (they nearly stabbed me to death in Phuket), but then I shy off or get nervous when I see somebody that attracts me. My remedy: keep quiet or act nice until i'm confortable with her around.

3. I shit in my pants on 2 different occasions when I was in standard 2. Big nature calls at bad times during those days (it was my first year attending classes in the afternoon, needed some time to adjust my daily potty time :P). And no thanks to the teachers who thinks I'm rude for asking to go to the toilet 10 minutes into their class. Now I'm really rude for making the class smell good.

4. My eyes wet easily, be it sinus/running nose/flu, watching a sad/touching movie scene, or super bright afternoon sunlight ... tears start coming out from my eyes.

5. Can't think of anything that people don't know. All the funny stories about me in each of the LEO/YE trips, annual dinners, outings have been passed on by mouth year after year. Some uninteresting stories were also made popular by my good friends because everytime they tell the story it changes with more spices and ajinomoto added in to make it sounds damn 7 funny.

And there you have the five stuff that I could tell you about me. I've got no one to tag on anymore leh (lazy actually). Somebody please tag yourself and leave your link on the comments. Need to get back to bed and take a nap now..... :D

rotten, decomposed, reborn ....

2007-02-03T22:13:00.000+08:00

Being sick with flu over the weekend, a day before when you are suppose to be on a fully sponsored trip to Malacca has it's blessing in disguise as well.

I've been stuck the whole day at home drifting from my sleep to DVDs and office emails. Then this idea of moving my blog from friendster to blogspot which was suggested by friends finally struck me. A little bit of image editing here and there, changes to the XML and here I am with my virgin post on blogspot.

Only problem now is, how good am I in posting and maintaining it ... And for a start, I wonder if anybody noticed the huge sperm on my header?