Nice week ma...

Had been watching alot of movie lately... finally there are time to clear up those downloaded movie especially this week where my schedule and job load are loose (don't tell my boss)! Had been watching "What happened in Vegas" which is kinda like a chick flick, not bad of a show which cool down myself but with an expected ending. Worth watching if you want something light... and there are a few spur of the moment laughter... well, it would be seriously wrong if you don't laugh watching this movie anyway. Cameron is kinda chio in certain scene and potong stim in certain shots... but I'm sure this is what the director want the audience to feel...

Another film is "Sniper", and no... this is not the English movie which have a few sequel here and there, this is a chinese film starring innocenti Richie Ren, sex king Edison and another guy I don't know his name. The movie basically used all the famous sniper rifle that CS fans and airsoft fans would heard of... PSG-1, Artic warfare AWP, Dragunov, Beretta 50 cal. (yup that anti vehicle shit) are all there... the plot is a standard "best guy" left the academy coz of circumstancial issue and came back for revenge and take out some good guys before some good guy come back and square off with him. It talks about some of the sniping method and tactic but nothing deep like "double tap" or the like. Its worth noting that his movie is also behind in screening time because of the sex scandal Edison got involved earlier...

Having said that I have more time in my hand now, I foresee that this window of enjoyment will close soon once the next wave of work hits my factory... so much for "hardship first, enjoy later"... and I still have 7 days of leave to clear by June!!! I wonder if I am able to clear it in time... it would be silly to just burn off my earned leave because of heavy workload... this is just insane.

This week is also 3 days off.. because of labour day on Friday (1st May maaa)... didn't do much at home, was downloading torrent, watching movie, sleeping... the standard work. Hohoho

Till next time, TiBuN signing off...

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.

The leprosy that was not meant to be

2 weeks ago me and Jeebs went KL for a vacation trip, joining us was Alvino, Grace and Jocy... it was a great trip (at least for me coz I manage to learn a lesson or 2 regarding gambling and manage to cover my holiday fees), btw the game played was Bacarrat and it is strictly a luck game.

The game was introduced by my colleague and he had offered some pretty good advice on the way of betting and based on the odds that I had so far (7 win and 1 lose), I would say either lady luck was on my side or that the technique works. However the 1 lose that I have is also the biggest amount of $$$ i lost in my life in 1 bet. Darn....

So having played, slept, gayed in KL for 3 days, me and Jeebs got into Malaysia's most luxurious bus trip (KL - Penang), onboard a NICE bus. With on board entertainment and NL doing announcement before departure, during toilet break and after arrival, plus snacks served, it was the best bus trip I have ever taken for my life in Malaysia, it was also the most expensive trip I have ever taken in my life RM56 from KL to Penang. Sick.

So the trip was nice, but a day later when I got back, Jeebs told me that he had infected with small bumps on the under side of the arm, at first I don't give a damn as I just thought he had infected with STD on the trip in KL, probably slept at Alvino's bed or sit in the same toilet bowl as Alvino's.... anyway at night the nightmare begins.... my elbow begins to itch, and upon investigation, small bumps have appeared around my right and left elbow, which looks reddish and cute. I ignored it and slept the night away....

... only to find out that the bumps have spread towards my wrist, the itch also had increased in magnitude and this goes on for the whole day at work, this had made me ponder what illness I might be having and the word leprosy came to mind after Jeebs mentioned it on MSN... Took an early leave from office and went straight to doctor at Peace Clinic. Doctor said its just an allergy reaction due to irritant (possibly food or skin contact, need skin biopsy to confirm). So applied the skin cream and taken the itch medicine, 1 week later the rash had gone away, leaving the mark of healing on its wake.

Not reall that bad but it is very kill joy / potong stim if people saw it.

Feedback of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops [PSP]

Everyone that experienced playstation already know who is Snake, the iconic hero behind the console game Metal Gear Solid...

MGS:PO take place after MGS:Snake Eater, where Snake had beaten "The Boss" in a beautiful meadow field, and the plot takes further into the conspiracy and treachery of the government in changing the world power with the philosopher story still actively in play

All the Metal Gear series are famed for the animated cutscene which could stretch as long as 20 minutes in certain episode, Portable Ops also have its moment even though the cutscene are told in a comic book like sequence.


Not only are the approach to the cut scene is different, there is also a new game feature which allows Snake to 'recruit' enemy into his team by 'persuasion'... the added team mates will in return contribute by developing new weapon, medical items, perform reconnaissance and assist Snake in mission. This added up to a lot more micro-managing into the game which let players do a lot more strategy.

The weapon will still be based on post world war 2 era, with the standard M16, AK47, Dragunov sniper rifle being the arsenal of Snake and his allies and the game location is in Cuba. Though the map are all mostly the same with buildings and some wilderness. Typical tropical country mode.

Nearly every Metal Gear game had a chick involve, this game its Elisa, the sweet looking psychic girl who have dual personality ESP, too bad she has to.... Well anyway, she's underage .....

So back to the main plot, Portable Ops pave way and extend the story after Substance and Snake Eater, and provide the prologue for the up and coming PS3 hits, MGS: Sons of patriot. This is also one of the game that could put emotional players in tear as the plot reveal slowly and the amount of death in the game seem justified with the cause it tries to achieve. I think I am beginning to fall in love with MGS...

Good: Great storyline, able to put player involve in the game for many hours, good sound effect, staying true to the name, good enough cutscene and control is still good even ported the traditional control from Playstation 2

Bad: If only the cutscene is longer, I don't feel enough :)

Feedback of Warhammer 40K: squad command [PSP]

My first PSP completed game is this. Warhammer40k: Squad command by THQ. This story revolves around the Ultra marine which have to fight against ridiculously large number of Chaos marine for a series of gradual increasing difficulty mission.

For those who are familiar with Warhammer 40k world, the universe is made up of a couple of factions of clan like the ultramarine human, the corrupted chaos marine, the alien type genestealer, the alien+human Tao faction which has some kickass spell... and many more. This game only talk about the conflict between ultramarine and chaos marine, one is trying to get rid of the tainted stain and unholyness of the other

The game pits your normally 6 person team against a 20 - 30 opponent battle in a turn based strategy game. It has a bit of customizable factor as you are allowed to select different secondary weapon to each member of the team but due to the nature of the game (outnumbered in nearly every case), a decisive weapon is always preferred by me(e.g. One that uses more action point but deal more damage) ). And to make it better, you can save at any point of the game, making achieving perfect health possible. So this can be a 'feel good' game for the perfectionist, if you have the patience.

Its always nice to fire a rocket launcher into a mass of enemy, seeing the amount of destruction to both the environment and the pathetic marines, or walk up and chainsword or powerpunch your enemy to oblivion. After every mission, there is a short video clip to show the progress and the impact of the mission, and you will realize slowly the dark plot of the chaos marine. Overall its a short game even if you play the perfectionist route.

Gamespot gave it a 6.5 but I think its kind a harsh number. It would be more like 7.5 to 8.0 due to its nice graphic and OK plot. But seriously the enemy can be made a lot less and a lot tougher.

Good: Feel good game, good graphic

Bad: Strategy can be made better, story line not grand for a Warhammer 40K class

Langkawi LIMA 2007

Have wanted to experience air show all my life, but never really got the chance. But LIMA changed all that, now that I have heard the sound of aircraft flying close with afterburner on, and also smell the smoking fume from fighter jet, I think I can rest my craving...

So next stop is to fly a plane with the stick...

Anyway, besides airshow, the main reason is also to take a break, away from routine, away from life. So what else is there at that small island?

I know my *friends* forced me to drink alot of absolute fokca & take obscene photos of me when I was drunk. I might have some foreign object forced into my body for all I know, as I was happily drunk on my bed on both nights.

Besides that also have chance to visit the places around, really a nice place to live, not hectic, no traffic jam and the air does feel bit more fresh. Surroundings either sea or trees....

Somewhere in pantai Cenang


Somewhere in some yacht zone


Somewhere near cable car outpost


The total % breakdown in expenditure below could really sum up the whole experience..

• Nearly half of my spendings are for food, basically the 3 of us did not settle for normal local food - the western food is ok only, but thai food at pantai cenang not bad, Mahathir's roti shop very expensive, the typical local food is just so-so

• Next follow up with transportation - the price during LIMA is not cheap, have to thanks Edwin for securing a cheaper alternative (rent a car in land, instead of jetty), the rest is petrol and cab to jetty

• Entertainment and accomodation was last on the list with NO signficant spendings to be reported, LIMA fees of RM20 also included in this category.
  
  
  Overall, the trip is fun and nice, but will not go again since there is no repeatitive value in this island as there are better beaches, better booze (not cheaper) and better place with leng lui.... too bad KY cannot join me for this :(

and things can be better if Alvino did not treat this vacation like a sleeping tour, the whole trip like he just wanted to rest his tired body.

Starting on the day to Langkawi ferry he sleep

LIMA also he wanted to sleep

Take cab also sleepy

Sleep king and smiling queen...

Anyway, thanks guys for the great trip, lets plan for another one :P