Sick again

This is really sucks, after approximately 6 months of clean sheet, I manage to get myself sick again, so here am, sweating and head dizzy and typing this post from my bed. The sickness itself is not serious, just a little bit of fever and no energy for the whole body... fortunate enough there are no joint pain.
Having said that, today I found out that the company is unmerciful when it comes to employee getting sick. First of all, I took effort to attend night teleconference, and push my ass all the way to Kulim to prepare the training for 2nd half, but the company will expect more from you, short of exhausting your energy.

If I can't get better by tomorrow, I guess need to descend to Defcon 2 already (see doctor), and the funny thing is that I don't even know who is the panel clinic here in BM... yeah, I don't expect to fall sick in BM mah.. here got parents, suppose they can take care of you right?
Anyway, the reason I think I got sick this time is because of heaty... earlier my body had try to send an early warning (by accidently biten my lips and caused ulcer) but I choose to ignore it, coupled with the food I taken before getting sick (nasi kandar, nasi lemak...), and that particular day I was driving around looking for 4E halfcut (yes, I went hunting on weekdays). All these add up to the toll :(

Nevertheless, I should prevail! Now I'm dreading next week of work... so many stuff to do and yet so little time.

Now that I'm back for a while...

Life ain't really change much at this part of the world, work still alot and hectic... and if I were to tell my ex boss on my current working situation, she would laugh her ass off and say "told you so" right in my face before proceeding to give me wisdom advise :) But life doesn't end here, and this would probably work out in my favour as they say "you only learn through hardship and mistakes"....

Yeah, speaking of mistakes, so far I am doing pretty well on avoiding mistakes (as for those who knew me, I am prone to mistakes when I am under workload), being in my field of work, ESPECIALLY in this industry, mistakes are what that will end you up in jail, so double and triple checking is the way to go right now.... having said that, I have some really good luck after joining this company... Probably 1 hand is not enough to count em all, they started with:

1. I lost my bloody wallet in Singapore airport terminal after my Singapore training, BUT THE BLOODY SIA PERSONNEL FOUND IT AND WAS RETURNED THE VERY NEXT DAY WITH EVERYTHING INTACT!
2. They run out of economy seat on my flight to US AND THEY UPGRADED ME INTO BUSINESS CLASS!
3. Despite being an Asian prick (I admit), I STILL MANAGE TO MET TONS OF WONDERFUL AMERICANS WHO SHOWED ME THEIR CULTURE AND LIFE (probably not even 20% of it, but anything more would be cultural assimilation to me)
4. Getting caught for speeding in US under ridiculously high speed BUT MY FRIENDS POUR IN THE SUPPORT FOR THE TICKET DISMISSAL FEES!
5. I lost my stupid Nikon S6 camera after the shooting range game in Phoenix, BUT THE COUNTER GUY SAW IT AND RUN AFTER ME AT THE CARPARK BEFORE I LEAVE TO RETURN IT TO ME!
6. Economy crisis is coming and I MANAGE TO GATHER ENOUGH DOUGH TO ACHIEVE MY TARGETED HOUSING LOAN GOAL AND EXTRA FOR ENGINE CONVERSION!

Besides that, I have a few personal achievement that's worth mentioning:

1. I managed to experienced one of the world's most exciting theme park under RM150!
2. Fired my first semi-automatic rifle in my life!
3. Drove an American muscle car! (not really a muscle but anything above 200hp would do)
4. Cured my childhood lesion on my leg naturally!
5. Bought 3 years of Chinese new year clothes at the fraction of what it is in Malaysia

There are more insignficant luck and achievement which I think its not worth blogging, so I'll let them pass. One thing I know even for an athiest is that life is really can be short, live life and enjoy an affordable lifestyle to prevent regret after you goto hell.... and no, I do not condone criminal activities.

Common conceptualization about gamers

If you are in asian countries like where I came from, more often than not, you will hear people giving out comments like "don't play games, you're just wasting your time", or "go do something beneficial" or worse.... "go build your character instead of playing computer games". Many of the generation Y people in the Asian country will definately hear that alot, especially from the mouth of the generation X people (a.k.a. your parents). There are no disputes, playing games whole day is bad your for character, as it deprive people from sleep and meeting new friends, but after coming to the states and with plenty of time to self reflect, I realize that this might not be entirely true.

I am not sure about other gamers, but for me, I found out that much of my traits are corresponding to the effect of playing games for the past 20 years in my life. Games attracts me, I like to stand there and see people play, trying to understand why that guy wanna turn left instead of right, trying to think why he chooses that place to set the bomb instead of there, and stuff like that (and occasionally get a negative feedback from friend that ask me to stop staring and start playing).... and I kind of like to analyze people, not judge... just analyze and ask questions about why he wanna say that, why she wanna do that...

Then I remember when I was young, I like to transform my hand into an airplane and fly around visualizing barrel roll, loop and those difficult maneuver, yeah... I kind of still do that now but without the hand sign. I believe this is also coming from the visualization skills I have when I started to involve in playing computer games.... Coz nearly all of the games out there are NOT real, you have fantasy or science fiction with plenty of effects and impossible maneuver in games, you have gruesome murder in games that even TV doesn't show and I never question it to be impossible.... That is how much I trusted myself in games, and I believe it kind of skewed the actual life that my eyes are seeing... kind of scary if you ask me, but I believe I'm still sane.

Not only that, but the never say die spirit is there, I believe this is the result of being too involve in games in the past, in game losing is a normal thing, loading a game probably took 10% of my total game time and even playing games that CANNOT die like "Fahrenheit" and "Days of the tentacle", losing will be in the sense of how to make the game advance till the end, and that I believe is the fuel to propel a gamer to reach the end point because there is a promising cake lies in wait...

and speaking of end point, most gamers will do in life with an end in mind, maybe not the final end in life, but a little distance away point where I have something to look forward to. This is enforced even more by my parent earlier when they give incentives if you achieve something insignificant like passing your PMR and stuff like that :P But the point is my mind has been shaped to chase for something, and without a goal, my life can be a total disarray with no direction, and this is where I can turn into something different if not careful....

After been in the States, alot of my colleague say that I am 'fearless' albeit in a stupid way, and they credited this to the reason that I have no problem take the free fall ride in 6 flags, I bravely rented an AR-15 rifle instead of starting out with a 9mm pistol during shooting range and I even suggested to have parachuting out from 15,000 feet from a plane.... and nobody interested in jumping from the sky.... lamers
Anyway, I believe this attitude steam from the fact that most gamers dare to face whatever the world throw at them, they have face crazy fuhrer in Wolfenstein, they have faced with impossible puzzle in Prince of Persia, and executed world record maneuver in Wing Commander or Descend 3D... So gamer never say die, especially for an atheist :P

So basically there are many wrong intepretation on gamers nowadays, and it really sux when we have to take the blunt for the failure in society. But I guess this is life, and as long as it doesn't take away the time and energy for one to concentrate on their love ones and important task at hand, it definately will build character.

Gamers forever!

Yum yum at Arizona

Had been going to alot of places for food in and around Phoenix, US is basically like Malaysia, with multi-racial food everywhere... instead of malay nasi lemak, indian roti canai and chinese char koay teow; they have mexican taco, western steak, italian macaroni & cheese, vietnam phö, and of course west coast shrimp. Amazing that a place so deep inside the desert, you get to eat fresh shrimp all the way from California... must be some impressive logistics at work here.

1st week started off with Joe's crab shack, which serve superbly huge crabs (Alaska king crab, spider crab) and it was topped with endless beer... ok it look endless to me, but its actually kinda like 3 pint per person... Somemore the mood is great, people dancing around, probably could make those people in TGI Friday looks like pre-school pom pom team. Damage is $30

After 2 weeks devoid of chinese food, we manage to found a shop in Los Angeles's Chinatown and went to this chain shop call "三和"(San Her) and had the best chines food in US, yes... as of now it still top in the chart for best chinese food for me in US so far, and yes... the shop is quite dirty for US standard. The left koay teow is actually "干炒牛河", which means dry fried beef koay teow, and the green vege is actually the ultimate 菜心 (choy sam), being in US nearly all the greens are brocolli and capsicum, I tell you if I come back to Malaysia, I'm gonna ban those fricking vegetable from me list for at least a month! Damage around $13

Another nice place we went was the "Cheesecake Factory" in Phoenix, their cheesecake definately could beat our Secret Recipe cheesecake (original American marble vs original cheesecake), so the comparison is quite equivalent... the reason they are good is because their cheese after eat will not make your stomach too filling, and the price is not that expensive... dollar to dollar wise. Besides the cheesecake, their shrimp pasta is nice, not too much spices to cover the fresh shrimp, and not too little to compliment the ingredient used...Damage at $23

Of course we also went to the famous "Red Lobster" restaurant which serves .... *duh*... seafood! We ordered basically everything they had and the food is just so-so, its comparatively expensive and the quality is just not as expectation. Then again experience might vary, their mango pina colada was superb though, and I'm still awake after the drink... awesome :P Damage $30

One of the all time favourite here (and cheap food) is the Vietnamese food, they are famous for their beef / phö (which basically means koay teow soup), spring rolls and their coffee are famous.

Basically I just like the beef and their hot soup... and the spring roll tasted good because the skin is soft and feel 'fresh'.... yeah, I think I have taste problem when it comes to Asian food. So far I think I had eaten 10 times of Vietnamese food, all in and around Phoenix, the best so far located in 19th Avenue and Bethany Home (IMHO), followed by 19th Ave and Camelback, but people might argue the other way round....Damage usually at $7

Then there is the Chinese buffet that many of my friends so like to eat but I don't see its worth the money at all (USD13 per pax), the food is basically more shrimps (not so fresh), kid lobster, and standard beef, salad, chow mien and stuff...

The cup above is actually sweet and sour soup, good as appetizer, but sux if you drink too much :P

And of course I don't just eat outside all the time, I do cook my ownself just for the sake to save some money, maggie mee, soup, yogurt and fries... Quite healthy right?Stupid picture dunno why auto rotate, which I give up adjusting....

So basically that's what I try out in US... there are many more small stuff which doesn't worth mentioning over here, till then. Sayonara from Arizona

Valley of the sun

For those who knew me, I would be at Phoenix for 3 months on a product transfer from a company here... and while I am not able to blog about my job (export control issues), I am free to blog about the free time I spent here, and with just 3 weeks of life in Phoenix, I had basically travelled 1400 miles in car alone!

The weather here when i arrived Phoenix is horrible, at 114 degree and nearly 0% humidity, your skin dry up like Sahara and your lips crack into little jigsaw puzzles... I can still remember even my skin hair dried up and become curly during the 1st week, but now the weather is a bit forgiving, as its gently leaving the summer season.

The first weekend is mostly jetlag week, spent most of my time shopping for groceries and familiarize myself alone with my rental Camry. Successfully mapped my route to work and also the nearest shopping mall.

The 2nd week is more interesting, where a group of us drove 120 miles up North to a place called Sedona, along the route we stopped by Prescott, which is a lush town with a big park where all the toy dog owners came and have a relaxing day out, background with choir and the local orchestra playing.... really a nice place to enjoy a timeout weekend.

Then we reached a "mining turned ghost town turned tourist attraction" place called Jerome, they have a few souvenir shops and basically used by the people around as a gathering point for power bike and supercars... I had the opportunity to feast my eye on a Dodge Charger SRT and the owner is so kind to pop up the hood and let me know a thing or two about this American muscle car... yup that's a 6.1litre V8 HEMI engine, and its just USD40k for a new car -.-

The main course of this trip is of course the red rock canyon, where you get to have the big scenic view of the natural formation. Picture paints a thousand words.

The view before reaching the observation area









This is taken from the side of the observation post looking into the valley

Some say the valley looks even pretty than the grand canyon itself because of the lush green dotting the valley, as compared to the huge red grand canyon. I haven't been to grand canyon at this point and thus couldn't conclude.

The 3rd week is even fun, we had decided to take a whooping 5 hours drive to Los Angeles via Interstate I-17 South and head towards I-10 straight to West. As US is celebrating labour's day on the 1st of September, it will be a 3D2N trip extending to Monday. We moved out on 3am Friday and reached Universal Studio, LA on 8am Saturday. On the way I found this to be pretty....

All the while, I thought Universal Studio is just a stupid place to rip movie buff off their hard earned cash, but I was utterly impressed with the amount of effort and work they done, especially on the detail for each ride and show.

The major show had shown extensive story building before presenting us the experience, for example Simpson... when we are queuing up, it shows us a few movie clip on the story, and before entering the motion master seat, more clips and story... because instead of the motion master ride we had in Genting, the screen enveloped the whole theater (I am not sure how they manage to make a screen round and so big), and it gives a feeling of surrounding, plus its 4D (meaning they add water, smell, wind into the theater) and it makes you feel very real, even its just Simpson cartoon motion master

Then there's Terminator 2, Shrek, Jurrasic Park and Waterworld.... despite being turkey of the year movie for Waterworld, the enactment of the waterworld fortress is great, with a 30 minutes screen play and pyrotechnics, this is one heck of a show, the shotgun does sound loud...
Overall Universal Studio is a worthy place if you are coming to LA. With the price at $64, its worth every dollar IMHO

Sunday was a crazy ones, we paid money to enter a themepark that would make me suffer. Even blogging right now made me feel dizzy... the place was Six Flags Magic Mountain at Valencia, just off the border of LA. I had tried all the ride in Malaysia and still laugh at death in its face, this place does redefine that... a little

Most of the thrill ride here had a reason to be stay in the park... world fastest, world tallest, world first, 5D rides (as if 3D is not enough)... I only manage to take 70% of the ride as the queue had build up alot after 2pm. It was considered lucky I could capitalize on the low queue during the morning session. With me was a crazy guy who opt to take all the ride on the FIRST carriage, for those who don't understand, first carriage is the most scary because you don't know where the roller coaster will actually go during a fast corner and you are the first to see the end of the track after the high climb, those carriages behind at least could know what to expect and therefore not so scary.... despite such thought, you can see that the first carriage will have the longest queue, while the other carriage queue can be as low as empty queue line... there's a lot of crazy people here in the States, that's for sure.

After some of the ride, we got bold and went to try the external payment of $20 free fall cum commit suicide ride.... and that redefine my thoughts on committing suicide by jumping off building.

Overall not recommended for the faint hearted. If you can't accept Sunway Lagoon or Genting ride, then no point ruin your appetite in this theme park.

Besides that we also went to Beverly Hills and Hollywood... no biggie, as I am not a fan of rich people and hoo haa.

This is taken from Chinese theatre if I am not mistaken on the name..

The 4th week we went back the scenic drive (notice how we plan our alternate scenic, entertainment, and back to scenic trip?) and this time we are going to one of the world's natural wonder - Grand canyon. The trip would require us to drive north along I-17 up to Flagstaff and then redirect to 180 towards Grand canyon, the trip was 3 hours up and 3 hours down and unfortunately I have to do most of the driving because my colleague complaint of sleepy. WTF.

Anyway the trip was great! We stopped by Flagstaff, witness a local car gathering at their area, where all the vintage and supercars came to say hello. Pictures to come...

Yup, those are a line of Ford Mustangs which they gathered, park and showcase their car, while the owner slide behind the shade and have some R&R himself. They claimed that they do this every week. Really different from the way we did our gathering back home in Malaysia..... yeah, ours are more like illegal gathering anyway.


Of course there are the boring Porshe and some of the rare cars like the Ford GT400, Shelby Cobras, Mustang GT, Mustang SVT, and the likes.... We really thought that they are fund raising event or motor show... but apparently prior to the existence of Interstate and freeway, this part of town is the intersection of a famous road called Route-66, and last time people would just drive their car and stop here for a night, before resuming their journey next day, so in honor of this ancient history, folks around the town will drive up here to kinda 'celebrate' the event every weekend, funny huh? These people drove as far as 300 miles just to be here. Crazy people at the States.

Once we reached Grand canyon, a superb sight greeted us. Really beyond words.




The depth and horizon is amazing... the picture couldn't really show the 3D effect when you are looking at the panorama view... we are at 7500 ft above sea level and the whole place is literally.... canyons.

Standing by the edges really made you experienced "vertigo" where your balls starts to shake itself .... not literally. But I did feel dizzy when stand near the cliff, and my manhood shrinked a few cm if I am not mistaken








Ain't it breathtaking?




Here area more pictures to show:

Yes, there is an ancient tower build somewhere near the Desert View observation point at the South entrance of the grand canyon, pretty neat stuff

These are the places I have been to for the past 4 weeks... I haven't even blog on the food and the shopping trips I had made... Nevertheless, I will try to blog as much as possible. Work is getting really hard and pressure is mounting (its about time)

Next week we are planning for San Diego trip, hope it will be equally fun.

Land of Lions... and lambs

Few weeks back, my company provided an oppurtunity for me to get expose in the islands south of Malaysia and I must say, it was a good eye opener experience... both in work and in cultural!


Singapore is great, with their clean and systematic traffic and orderly fashion really make my heart at ease... as much as I hate to admit it, that bloody country really beats the hell out of my pathetic country, they just reported an inflation rate of 7.7% this year as of this month, and I'm really curious what Malaysia's number will come out to... note: Their economy rice in Chai Chee was just SGD2.50, try beat that number dollar to dollar.... and the current political situation in my country is a joke which deserve a standalone entry itself, sigh. Anyway as usual in Singapore there is bound to be shopping, shopping and more shopping.... so Orchard, Bugis and vivo city is the targets of choice.


The bulk of my time were spent in the huge island of Bintan which is a 1.5 hour ferry journey away from Tanah Merah ferry terminal, deployed at Lobam ferry terminal which near to the Bintan Industrial Estate (BIE). The ride wasn't so bad as I didn't feel dizzy or vomity, and clearing the Indonesia customs is a breeze, this is also the 1st time I have step into Indonesia soil ^^


The place resembles the period of time where human had yet to discover musket and uses sling as primary weapon, although the road had been incredibly paved with tar and portholes are still a rare thing, the amount of vehicle is low over here, and 95% of the vehicles here are SUVs like Avanza, Innova and in some rare cases, CRV, Feroza and Frontiers

The night life are pretty scary for foreigners here as there are no emergency payphone around, people retire to home early and you just don't trust people anymore after all the news you listen from all sorts of crime that could happen nowadays.


As seen in the picture, this is one of the most lively town around my area called "Prampanon", might not exactly spelled correctly but this is all there is, 1 street, with shops at both sides until the end of the road.

I forgot to mention that this part of the world is +0700 GMT, that means night comes early, and coupled with no entertainment, it is a really dreadful place to spend your life here, especially people at my age IMHO. But then again, one can actually save alot of money if he stays here just to pass time.


Food here on the other hand is wonderful, nearly every night we ate seafood here, and nearly every lunch we ate nasi goreng ayam. Many of my colleagues have constipation issue, while I have bowel problem every morning.... strange how my ever strong stomach have problem digesting the delicious food here, must take a mental note before flying to the country of stars and stripes..

Nevertheless, its consider ok for an island 3 times the size of Singapore and with just nearly 3 million population (as in contrast with Singapore's 4 million population), one would know why the government doesn't find the need to invest so much in this place, unlike Batam island which is just couple of clicks away, classifed as free trade zone and complete with lots of shopping mall and 'entertainments'

Bintan is generally an ok place, but one need to constantly get in touch back with civilization in order to remind yourself how the world is pacing, maybe thats the reason the people supporting this facility will constantly travel to and fro from Singapore... In a way its a healthy way of sustaining life and continuing the effort to keep one sane.

On the other hand, Singapore is even fabulous in food, their cheap and my stomach accepts their not so 'provoking' food with no problem... Haha. And I didn't know their night city is so vibrant, complete with the shot from the tallest hotel in Asia, it was facinating !

Isin't it pretty?

Pangkor trip 2008

On 12hb July 2008, 6 souls were gathered around the world to participate a joint exercise in Pangkor Island, off the shores of Lumut, Perak. There are multiple objectives for this trip, some treat it as a getaway, some wanna spend time with friends for an outing, and for some is to recharge mentally for the next coming challenge in life.
The gang basically consist of (from left): Alvino, Jeebs, Jocy, Keebs, Joyce, Neebs (Photo courtesy of Jeebs)
Not really sure why the picture is skewed to the right, probably due to high wind from the sea...

Anyway Pangkor is a real crappy place: Mediocre beach, pathetic tourist attaction site like the (Holland fort, big rock and.... that's about it!), very little chicks in bikini, road system is dangerous and alot of blind spot slope... luckily the total length of road in Pangkor is not that long, you can basically round the blardy island in less than 20 minutes, 15 if you had a good car.
The food is ok, can't expect much in a small island, having said that, price ain't that bad, seafood ain't that bad (thanks Alvino for the treat!)
But basically food in Pangkor lacks variety... imagine the first food we crave to eat once we get back to mainland is McD! Maybe we are becoming city slickers... But then again still those seafood I take from Koh Samui or Perhentian were not as bad as those in Pangkor.... And yeah, Pangkor doesn't have much ang mo, so probably that's why the situation is like this, at least its not expensive.

Luckily the weather was great over there: It was cloudy when we go snorkeling and sun bathing, it was raining on Monday morning, it was raining on Monday morning - How often do we find it raining in the morning especially on your off day? Nice!
And time flies pass the 3 days we were there, I think the reason time goes by so fast is because of the good company of friends, and of course partly due to the liquor. Once the bacardi entered my bloodstream, the lullaby already start singing in my head. Maybe that's why Alvino and Jocy cheated my money for those nights.

All in all, it was a great trip, better than Genting and much cheaper than Langkawi and cleaner than Port Dickson. so despite its patheticness of the place, it still worth remembering

Heck, even my PSP was having a good time in Pangkor. Seen here is the PSP crawl out of its pouch to had some sun bathing, backdrop is the sunset at the beach in Pangkor.





On a different note, I will be going to Singapore and Bintan Island next week for training, duration expected to be a week or so. Lets hope I get to see the beaches of Bintan and grab some pictures back for posting...

Feedback of Manhunt 2 [PSP]

For the record, my 1st gruesome game played so far is Manhunt 1, which is rigged for PS2 few years back... Now Rockstar games had released Manhunt 2 few months back, which was telling the story of 2 prisoner escapee in search of truth (as one had lost his memory).

The gameplay is based on a sneak and attack role and reward player if they sneak long enough behind an enemy's back with a gruesome kill based on the weapon in his hand. The idea is good and the gameplay is sufficiently long, story line is also as twisted as the 1st game.

This game actually had a tough time passing the European board of ratings during the time of launch but eventually got over it after Rockstar agrees to release a tone down version in their market, sissies... Anyway total game play is around 10 hours, with perfectionist player needed slightly more if they want to kill EVERYONE and in STYLE.

I would not recommend to buy this game in original disc as the replayability is seriously limited, and reward for replayability is no big deal. Would put a score of 7/10 for this.