Thoughts, Opinions, Issues and Narcissism

2 Great Songs and the Stories Behind Them

2010-05-10T02:28:00.006+08:00

A different kind of blog post this time.

Despite me never really having any musical talents (I don't particularly consider listening to music as one), I've had this interest of researching into the songs that I like. What I'd do is that I'll listen to the lyrics and then try to learn about the backstory to the song.

In a funny way, the circumstances surrounding the writing and subsequent release of the song leads to the discovery of certain facts which make the works seem more intriguing to me. The following songs (which are among my personal favourites) each have some interesting stories behind them which then shaped the careers of the persons who sung them.

* The information below is presented with some of my research from the Internet and what I've view/read in other sources over time. Don't consider it an encyclopedia of sorts but I've done my share of ensuring the authenticity of the information given.

Iris

One of the best songs ever written by one of my favourite rock bands, the Goo Goo Dolls. The band had some earlier success with their previous album and their real first hit single, "Name". But years had gone by with the Goo's lead singer and songwriter, Johnny Rzeznik facing a case of severe writer's block and self doubt.

In 1997, the band was approached to write a song for the movie, "City of Angels" and the result was "Iris". Johnny had written the song's in an hour and in doing so, he broke several years of writer's block and sobriety in that very same night. It's was nominated for 3 Grammy awards and was one of the biggest songs of the decade. Till today, it still makes an excellent song to listen to.

Interesting Fact: The title of the song came from the name of a singer that Johhny Rzeznik came across in a magazine. He simply thought that the name was beautiful and chose it as the title of the song.

Angels

A classic ballad recorded and performed by Robbie Williams; the ex-boybander turned one of the biggest selling performers of all time. And he owes all of his success to this one song.

The setting was this- Robbie Willaims had embarked on a solo career and just released his debut solo album, "Life Thru A Lens". It didn't perform well with 3 singles already released. The writing was on the wall and it was then that he was about to be dropped by his record company; effectively ending his singing career.

They released the 4th single from the album in 1997, and it was "Angels". It turned out to be a major hit and not only saved his career but then it allowed him to have the career he has had today. It remains one of his signature songs today, and he normally ends his live performance with "Angels".

Interesting Fact: I once saw in an interview that he lifted one particular line from the song- "... she breathes flesh to my bones..." from his sister's book of poetry.

Crossing Paths With Obnoxious People - Part 1

2010-04-20T01:51:00.012+08:00

It's been almost forever since I've last written a post.... So here's a story about an observation on a person I came across not long ago. Let's entitle this post 'Crossing Paths With Obnoxious People'. Hell, this may even be a recurring series of posts on this weblog.

I was at a friend's birthday just 2 weekends ago. Well, it was more like I was invited to make up the numbers, but that's a story for another day.

Seated across me from the dinner table was this other gal. Let's just simply call her the 'Other Gal' for the sake of simplicity (I'd honestly rather use some other degratorary terms, but I'll play nice for now).

The birthday gal who invited me sorta thought that she's make decent company for me because she spoke only English which was alike me, cause my limited Mandarin and Cantonese may make look like a retard at times, of which really isn't the best thing for me at social settings like these. So she sat Other Gal right across me in the dinner table, seperated by perhaps 1 meter or so of breathing space.

I can't say that I recall anything much about her. Nah, can't remember what she did for a living (not sure if I asked), can't remember if she actually has a pet dog (not sure if I asked) and hell I can't remember if she has any diseases (not that I would ask, and not that I'd really need to know). But holy piece of crap, these few things I do recall (they seem imprinted in my memory and are unwilling to go away) of which I'll list below.

Observations

1. Other Gal talks out aloud on the dinner table; mostly rethorical things that you'd wouldn't bother responding to. Not that it's really a bad a thing but kinda vomit inducing if exposed for prolonged periods.

ObnoxiousmeterRating : 2/5 stars.

2. Dinner was Italian food where everyone shared the mains. As everyone was about done with dinner, Other Gal wasn't done yet tho. She seemed to have the appetite of a rabid wild boar which has yet to have feasted since coming out of hibernation.

Urm.. ok well I exaggerated a little here, and I apologise for it. Well, the fact of the matter is, wild boars do not bloody hibernate. They eat every single day of their bloody lives! So there, I've set the record straight; and now back to my story.

She was feasting thru this plate of pasta consisting of clams and mussels (again, remembered the mains were shared) and using her fork and spoon to assist herself in opening up the clams individually to see if there were .. urm.. clams inside. She'd diligently open them one-by-one to examine them before moving on to the other, whilst leaving the previously examined clams on the plate.

That behaviour is kinda lousy. Not that it's vomit inducing but I'd hide my clams from her if there's ever another chance meeting over the dinner table.

ObnoxiousmeterRating : 3.5/5 stars.

3. After the horrific 'clam brutality' incident, we (ie. the people at the dinner table, yours truly included) were just talking about stuff. You know, random talk while passing time. Nothing particularly meaningful, just casual dinner conversation.

So I made a comment in passing about something being 'edible'. And I sort of pronounced 'edible' as 'eatable'. I know, slip of the tongue. Not that anyone would've bothered and not that I didn't know I made a slip up with that word.

Other Gal pauses from eating the birthday cake (oh hell yeah, she was still eating) and gives me the stare and says '....you mean edible'. It was as if I've denounced her family as being part of a dynasty of petty thieves and sewage workers. Her tone also seemed to suggest that I murdered her pet dog (if she ever had one) and buried it on her front yard before proceeding to piss all over it.

-_-

ObnoxiousmeterRating : 4.5/5 stars.

Thoughts

I think I'm generally an easygoing person that doesn't go Christian Bale apeshit a whole lot. Like, seriously.

Trying to take the positives from this, I guess that I did learn a thing or two from this incident. Apart from the fact that I learned that I should hide my clams from certain individuals during dinner, I realise that perhaps I should try to rationalise why certain people behave the way they do. But wait. Wildboards do not hibernate! Ok screw the rationalisation, I'm going to leave it as it is.

PS. If Other Gal actually reads this blogpost and tries to outsmartarse me by correcting me by saying '... actually wild boars do hibernate', well... they really don't. And here you go.

Bye for now.

Of People I've Not Met and Those I Might Not See Again

2010-04-03T17:26:00.000+08:00

This is going to be a somewhat more insightful post.

I had this thought running through my head not long ago and it's been a recurring theme lately. It did feel kind of intriguing and I figured that it'll make good sense to write a post on this (this weblog is after all entitled Thoughts, Opinions, Issues and Narcissism).

Well as a disclaimer, this post isn't expected to have any punchline. It's just meant to be a commentary of sorts. So.... there you go.

Thought #1: People I've Not Met Yet in This Lifetime

I like the feeling of knowing that there are an infinite amount of people I'd get along with and would love to meet and would meet in this lifetime but haven't done so yet. And yeah, I like the thought of not having met my future spouse yet. It's an endearing thought.

There's this rather peculiar story (peculiar... but in a good way). I've got this business associate in the UK who's been working with us on some levels for the past 2 years. We've spoken before, corresponded via emails and collaborated on various work assignments but have never met in real life till today.

He's a nice bloke and that I'm sure and someone I'd regard as a business partner too. And yeah, rather strangely, I was told that he looks quite like me.

Thought #2: People I Might Not See Again

Now this is a funny thing. I'd use to think that I'd had all the time in the world to catch up with friends; people I've known since my childhood or teens or in my early adult life but haven't been seeing around as often as I'd like. That's something that I think we all take for granted really.

Now I start to wonder if I'd actually see certain persons I've met before ever again. I guess society has made it such that we only get around seeing certain people at special occassions (weddings seem to be the most conducive for this).

The thought of this predicament is a shame really, and I think that I'd need to make more effort in this department. Or at least make the experience of knowing another person for however short a time good while it lasted.

Being Awkward and the Mental Anguish that Comes With It

2010-03-08T13:30:00.005+08:00

I normally try not to post videos on this weblog, simply because it'll mean that I haven't come up with something original/funny/witty/interesting/narcissistic. But this video is just... apt.

I was showing some friends this video last night. It's something i came across some time ago, but it's still unbelievably hillarious each time I watch it. Methinks that I somehow like it partly because I identify with the video. Strangely enough, I go through the same nonsense as the protagonist in the video (albeit with less dramatism).

So... have you got 8 minutes and 3 seconds of your life to spare? Well you most likely do unless:

(i) You've really got to takea dump any second now before you make a mess in your pants.
(ii) You're having labour pains and you need to get to the hospital real soon.
(iii) You're reading this at work and your boss isn't very appreciative of Youtube videos or blogs for that matter.

Well considering you've already read this far, you should just complete the task by watching the video below in its entirety =P

Watch more of their videos at Britanick.

Interesting Quotes & Short Conversations

2010-02-26T23:17:00.004+08:00

It's the end of the month and I'd like to be able to make it 4 posts for this month; which is a record for recent times.

Here's a collection of recent quotes and short conversations that I was a part of.

#1 You'd Better Not Have Overslept, Again

Setting: Friend asking me to make it to her wedding reception in the morning. Of which I was seriously thinking whether I should attend or not.

She: Make sure you make it for both the dinner and morning ok! Not like Elaine's where you overslept. The ceremony at the Church is at 11am. So lot's of time for you to sleep!

Me: [Oh noes..... looks like no bailing out this time =P]

#2 Where My Gut Feeling Isn't Trustable

Setting: Friend was talking to me about this situation and that I should trust my gut feelings when it comes to this sorta things.

Him: Yeah, I think it's a go-ahead, that's what my gut feeling tells me.

Me: Hhmmm... I get what you mean, but then again I've trusted my gut feelings in situations like this in the past and my gut kinda screwed me over! Hahaha..

Yeah, so I kinda refuse to trust myself nowadays -_-

#3 WTF?

Setting: Me and another friend was having a long-drawn discussion over some work matters. It was late, and we were both getting hungry.

Him: Man... I'm too tired. I can't think. I need food.

Me: Ok ok.. we'll go get food then. You drive or me?

Him: Yeah, I need food. No food means no energy. No energy means I can't work.

Me: Yeah yeah, I hear you, so who's car do we hop into?

Him: Hell, I'm so tired that I can't even have an erection!

Me: Damnit, since when you need to drive with your dick???!!

Hmm... perhaps that's how he does it...

- Fin -

Vanity Is

2010-02-18T14:07:00.005+08:00

In the quest to pen down some serious thoughts about life and what goes on around it comes this post. It's a spur of the moment thought kinda thing which just occured to me over lunch.

Vanity is:

Self conciousness
The desire of wanting to look good at most times
Having the desire for other people to like you
Thinking of what other people think about you
Having to reevaluate your actions in life and how others felt by it
Wanting to be recognised for what you've done in life
Wanting to be remembered when you're dead

And the list goes on and on. The thing about vanity is that we can't escape from it in this day and age. Every one of us is at least partially guilty of the items mentioned above. I guess vanity is the reason why people want to be famous. That's why every other dude secretly wants to be a rock star someday. That's why people want to be influential in what they do for a living.

And society feeds this lust. Twitter (I reckon this is the worst form of self-indulgent vanity tools in existence today), ~~Friendster~~, Facebook, Youtube and the what-have-yous practically allow nobodys to have their 15 minutes of fame. How often have you not meet a person before in real life but yet having recognised the person from the Internet somewhere? I know I have.

What I'm trying to say is, I think vanity shapes our lives some way or another. Our actions are motivated by it. Now, it's not like it makes all the important life choices for us, but I think it creeps in there somewhat and motivates what we do. Interesting how modern society makes us live our lives.

The Stranger's Namecard

2010-02-07T21:36:00.014+08:00

I feel like blogging this short story which I thought was pretty funny when it occured last week...

Here's an IM conversation that happened not long ago (it was just last week). Pretty interesting and humorous (well, good enough for me to write a blog post about it lah :P). Not produced in verbatim (this tends to be my standard disclaimer statement eh?) but essentially the message is contained within (with a wee bit of added humour).

Participants

Slacker aka the writer of this web log.
Friend over IM (FIM) who happens to be a she, and who relates this story to Slacker.

FIM: Hey, can I ask you a question?
Slacker: Sure... go ahead!

I'm nosy by nature, so I was kinda hoping that the question turns out to become an interesting story =P

FIM: My parking neighbour (who parks next to me) stuffed his card on my window this morning.
Slacker: Inteeerrrreessstttiinggg... (said with an evil voice).
FIM: Should i do the same thing or just leave it?
Slacker: Is he hitting on you?
FIM: Hahahaha. Dunno.. he's an old man.

Hmm.... well in certain cases, some chicks dig older dudes but perhaps she doesn't.

FIM: Not too old though.. about 30s to 40s?
Slacker: Well but how do you know that it's your parking neighbour?
FIM: Well on his name card, he wrote 'your neighbour'.
Slacker: Oooh.. well just leave it la. Buat tak tau la (that's Malay for acting as if you didn't know). It's no biggie.
FIM: It won't be rude right? I barely see the guy.
Slacker: Well, it's not like he's expecting you to text him and go 'tenkiu.. xoxo'.
FIM: Hahahahahahahaha. So I don't have to take my card and leave it on his car window right?
Slacker: Haha.. nah.. that wouldn't be needed la.

It was at that point that I had a brilliant idea!

Slacker: But if you wanna have some fun, you can take some dude's namecard and place it on his car window!

Needless to say, she didn't buy my idea. Afraid that it would offend him. But hey, that's courtesy isn't it? You give me your name card, then I give you another (though not necessarily mine =P).

PS. Also I just noticed that this blog turns 1 year old in 3 days. Yipee yay.

It Almost Always is Just a Sales Transaction, Really

2010-02-03T23:39:00.006+08:00

Short, non-funny post coming up.

I met up with an old friend of mine just the night before. It must've been a close to a good 14 years that we've known each other. Not that we were particularly close, but we have taken the effort to be in touch lately; which is a really rare thing in this day and age.

I'm pretty happy for the dude, engaged and having a good career in his hands. What was better to know is the progression he's made as a person compared to back then when we were just teenagers (you know, the usual teenage know-it-all arrogance). All I can say is that he's got a good head on his shoulders and it shows.

Well this post isn't about this particular friend of mine. Rather, it's about something he said that really struck a chord with me. I think it's pretty true and appies to us all, and I'd like to reproduce it below (not in verbatim, but essentially the message is related below):

"Nothing compares to the kind of relationships that you have with friends that you've known for ages; people from our secondary and primary schools. You see, nowadays we meet lots of new people on a daily basis. But you know what? Most of them are just acquaintances. You don't get that kind of transparency or honesty with friends that go way back. Cause back then, it's always a 'no-strings-attached' kind of relationship. You were friends cause you just get along. Plain and simple. Nowadays, you get to know a person or a person gets to know you because of work, courtship or whatever. It's almost always just like a sales transaction."

Hell yeah. I reckon that it's true on most parts. Not that I'm complaining or anything, but it's just a cultural observation on how humans interact and what becomes of life when you add more layers of complexity into it.

End Note: For once, I'm going to try sleeping early tonight. It's 12.18am and I'm really beat.

The Reply When Getting Hit On

2010-01-24T00:21:00.008+08:00

Second post of the month and year. Not a bad start eh?

I've got a short story told to me by a friend. Somehow after her telling me the story, we seem to have different viewpoints on how a certain message may have been intepreted by the parties involved. And thus (with her permission of course), I've taken the liberty to use her story for blogging material. Mashing it up with a little bit of artistic freedom and humour comes this post.

Here's the setting. She was at a party organised by a common friend of ours. So there was a dude there who befriended her and got to adding her on Facebook later on. They then had a chat online after that where he's sorta hitting on her. Now you see, her profile on Facebook listed her as 'being in a relationship' with 'Mr. X'. Well, that's not his real name, but if your name is indeed Mr. X and your are reading this, I assure you that it is purely coincidental after which you should really think of legally changing your name to something else less stupid sounding.

Ok.. back to the topic of posting. Here's how their chat went (not produced word-by-word though I think it's pretty close enough).

Participants:
Dude - Single man in his mid 40s from a foreign country living in Malaysia.
Chick - Single (but attached) lady in her mid 20s.... urm... from Malaysia.
Slacker - Not exactly a participant. However, he shall retain his credits as the story narrator.

(After abit of chatting online via Facebook)

Dude: Actually I was lying low during the party when I noticed you. Cause I didn't know whether you're attached or not. So... who's this Mr. X I see on your profile? Is that a ploy to curtail my advances?
Chick: Urm.. No. That's my boyfriend.

Slacker's Comment: Pretty good answer. Firm. Kinda stops him from asking more or from hitting on you.

Dude: Well, if you ever break up with your boyfriend, let me know so that we can hang out for coffee.

Slacker's Comment: Man... not cool. Not cool at all. It's probably only acceptable if you're being cheeky or joking when comfortable with that person; which I know isn't the case when he was chatting with her on that day.

Chick: Haha right.... sure will let you know.

Slacker's Comment: Wtf? That's just enouraging a potential stalker (if he indeed is one). Doesn't work if you want to put him off!

So that was her reply. She said that she was being sarcastic about it. Well, IMHO I disagree. Instead, this is how men would interpret her reply:

Most Men: "That's like playing along with the cheeky tone of the conversation. Not putting off my advances but potentially leaving a small hint for me to hit on her."

Stalker Men: "Oooh.. she's looking for an affair.. Hee hee hee."

So what do you think? Feel free to comment below =P

Top Ways in Bailing Out

2010-01-20T22:44:00.004+08:00

Sorry for the hiatus. It wasn't that this blog was abandoned or anything... So back to having updates! This post has been in 'draft' mode for awhile actually... so here I am completing it for my return to blogging on this weblog.

Bad News. It's always a sad thing to give someone bad news. To tell someone that he's fired ain't exactly gonna be as fun as your first trip to Disneyland. Telling a friend that his pet dog got stuck in the lawnmower (when in actual fact you accidentally ran over the poor fella with your car) isn't exactly my idea of fun either.

Now there's this other thing that happens to people. Telling someone of the opposite sex (or the same sex for that matter if it applies to you) that you're not particularly interested in him/her (in cruder terms.. telling him/her to 'piss off'). Yeah, it happens... and I've had to privilege of being on both ends of the spectrum.

So yeah, things like that do happen. So allow me to go into the topic of this posting. Often, you want to reject meeting with someone or to call of an engagement that you've made. Why? Well....let's face it, sometimes you just aren't even half-assed about showing up! But there's almost no good way of bailing out.... or is there? *insert evil grin here

The collection below is the underlying principle and top ways on how I'd deal with it if I have to deal with it (ie. bail out of a prior engagement). Written humorously from a guy's perspective of course =P

Underlying Principle: Tell Her Things to Blur the Truth

I hate rejecting people. Seriously. It's as if I have this thing that makes me want to be able to please as many people as I can if I can. But there happens to be a time where you just can't please everyone. And that's when you have to find ~~excuses~~ explanations as to why you:

(i) Can't Make it For Dinner
(ii) Didn't Answer Her Call
(iii) Did Not Make it To Her Grandfather's Funeral

Yep... You'll just have to tell her things to blur the truth. Thing's that don't make it seem that you're a total jackass (she might call your bluff, so you'll have to do it with finesse you know). So the idea is that you've got to politely reject the other person whilst still maintaining your image. That my friends, is called a bluff. Not lying. Lying's a sin... bluffing ain't =P

So the list of 'Top Ways in Bailing Out' are as given below:

#1 Tell Her of the Last Minute Thingy

Always the best way IMHO! I'd normally go with 'oh sorry, but I've got an important business meeting' or 'fark, I've got an important proposal that needs to be submitted to the client first thing in the morning'. Oh yeah, adding a 'fark' into the equation makes it sound ever more the serious. It definitely plays to your advantage. And yeah, work is always a good excuse. Why? Cause they can't dispute the importance of your work.

Wait.. you're unemployed? Now that's a little tricky. But there's always a solution. You can go with the 'family emergency'. Something along the lines of you have to see your so-and-so relative' who just arrived from 'God knows where'. Putting the family thing into the picture always makes it more important (family comes before work you see, hence added effect) and it also paints a good picture of yourself. She'd go 'wow.. a family man..' and you not only not become a jackass but you earn a few brownie points while you're at it.

#2 Tell Her of the 'Emergency'

Well, if you've used reason #1 a little too often, then you need alternatives. The key here is to sound convincing. Hell, if you can get some emotional mileage out of it... more so the better! The idea is to make it seem like you went through alot of hardship or better still.. if your life was in danger! The example below illustrates the concept:

Bluffer: Hey, sorry... but I can't make it tonight.
Bluffee: Aw.. so you're cancelling again aren't you?? *in a hush tone* asshole.
Bluffer: Well I'm really sorry and I'll make it up to you. But really, you have no idea what happened.
Bluffee: *in a hush tone* you're still an asshole.
Bluffer: Well as I was driving home from work today, I was on the highway driving normally, when all a sudden, my steering wheel came off!!
Note: Notice that you 'drove home from work'. Tying in the work principle from reason #1 helps. Never mention that you 'drove home from a date' or something like that cause it makes you less innocent.
Bluffee: Oh no! What happened??
Bluffer: Yeah, I feared for my life.
Bluffee: Oh no!
Bluffer: Yeah, and then I thought 'Shit! I can't make it to my date tonight!'
Bluffee: Oh.. you shouldn't! It's ok really... now tell me.. what happened??
Bluffer: Well I panicked at first, but then I did my best to keep calm and prayed hard. I used my weight to shift the balance of my car and miraculously I avoided all traffic. I almost hit a motorcyclist, but thank goodness I missed him. It was only about 2 inches apart, otherwise it would have been a disaster.
Bluffee: Wow, I'm glad you're all right.
Bluffer: Yeah, but I'm really sorry that I have to cancel. We'll do it when I get my car steering wheel fixed ok? My mechanic said that it'll take about 6 months to get it fixed.

That's where the Bluffer wears an evil grin on his face and proceeds to politely end the conversation.

# 3 Tell Her The Ultimate Bluff

Well... this happens when you've used reasons #1 and #2 a little too often on the same person. You've been avoiding her calls all along and sooner or later you're gonna get caught. She catches you in the mall after telling her that your non-existent pet dog passed away and that you're mourning for the next 3 months. Now, situations like this are almost impossible to deal with. It is really hard. None of the other principles given in reasons #1 and #2 are gonna get you out of this hole that you've dug and fallen into. Well.... except for one... and it's called the Ultimate Bluff. Here's how it goes:

Bluffee: Hey asshole! I thought you were mourning your pet dog? And now I see you here all happy sipping on your low fat latte and oogling over girly pics online with your laptop. You better have a good explanation for yourself.
Bluffer: Huh??
Bluffee: Yeah, explain yourself!
Bluffer: Huh???? * But this time with greater look of confusion over face.
Bluffee: >.<
Bluffer: But ... but... I don't know you.... I'm sorry, but I've not seen you before. You must have mistaken me for someone else.
Bluffee: WTF?

Note: That's when the bluffer tries to leave the scene of the crime as quickly as he can.

Disclaimer: The work above is purely fictional. Any resemblance to situations involving people dead or alive is purely coincidental. Really, it is..

So there you go. Life saving tips for everyone.

-Fin. -

Latest Obsessions

2009-11-15T00:21:00.011+08:00

I'm trying to make up for the lack of posts. It's been more than a month since the last one, so saying that this one is long overdue is an understatement =)

I reckon that everyone have their own obsessions about things. Little obsessions (so long as you don't take it overboard) are what makes a person unique, giving oneself a quirky trait that makes up a person's character.

Hey, I have my own share of obsessions. I kinda reckon that I have quite an addictive personality (this I have mentioned to people recently after having notice that it's quite true) that makes me want to inquire more about a subject matter; which often makes me think about it from time to time and if so available, makes me research into the subject matter just a little more.

So here I'm sharing some of latest obsessions. Rest assured, these obsessions aren't unhealthy nor will they get me hauled up by the police nor will they make me a target of assasination by the underworld. So here comes the list of my Latest-Nice-Little-Obsessions (LNLO)!

#1 Threadless

That's how your tees come delivered to you. It's actually the postal package that they use to ship the tees to your doorstep.

Good shite I tell you. Threadless is an online community that allows designers to submit tee shirt designs which get voted and are eventually sent for printing. They've got really nice designs; alot of which feature quirky humour (just how I like them). To date, I've bought 6 tees from them.

# 2 Dentyne Splash Chewing Gum

That's how the candy looks like in their package. If you're wondering, no pedestrians were killed in the picture taking process, just that I made a wrong turn at the traffic light =P

These highly-addictive chewing gum comes in RM 2 a pack in 3 different flavours. I personally favour the strawberry flavour and citrus (pictured above). Seriously, you never really get tired of them. The best type of candy you can find IMHO. I can finish a pack in half a day, which is why I try to refrain from having them in sight =)

# 3 English Bulldogs

"Oh hai. My name is Bob. Bob the Bulldog"

They're unconventional; they look lazy; always seem to wear a frown over their face and I bet they droll all over the place. Thing is, you can't deny that they look really cute (unconvtionally cute that is). Maybe it's an acquired taste though. Most people I talk to seem to scoff at the idea of a bulldog as an ideal pet dog; but they seem to change their minds after seeing one in real life. I'll get me one of these hopefully in the next year or so, once I sort certain things out. Heh.

- Till I find some other obsessions worth blogging about. Fin -

Getting Older and How It Messes With Your Head

2009-10-02T17:25:00.010+08:00

I've just edited the 'About the Author' section of this web log. And along with that, comes this post...of which is written to commemorate the fact that I ain't getting any younger -_-

They say that you get wiser as you get older. More experience (of which normally comes with age) makes you just that little bit better in the things that you do (whether it is work or in attempting to change a light bulb ~~or in attempting to hit on the ladies~~... all the s-a-m-e!).

So it's the generally accepted rule, and while I'm a strong believer in age not being a barrier to accomplish big things in life, I do have to admit that age and experience does helps and in certain cases...it helps ALOT. Knowing how something is done or should be done really is a huge advantage. Having done something before at least (i) gives you the confidence of being able to do it again and (ii) let's you do it faster and better.

So you get the drift here. However, that's not really the topic of discussion in this post. There's this other dimension to the whole age/experience thing and how it screws you over with life's undertakings.

Comparing myself when I was in my early twenties to the mindset that I carry with myself today, I'm different in my approach to things. Having gone thru certain life experiences just makes me change my approach to certain bits in life; for better or worse, I'm not too certain. And I'm pretty sure this applies to other people in general too.

I'm saying this just because I've noticed that being older/more experienced just makes you analyse things deeper whilst losing that youthful-naive optimism approach to things. Let me illustrate my point in the examples below:

Getting Older and How it Messes With Your Approach to New Ideas

There was a point in time, perhaps towards the tail-end of my tertiary education and the first couple of years of work where I thrived on new ideas. There were many new ideas (particularly new business ideas) that I think will work, which I thought would be exciting to embark on, that I held with great optimism; thinking that "Hey.. this will work!" (and meaning it too).

I had lots of new ideas. "Restaurant serving cow penises and testicles?? Why not?!". "Self-service car wash?? Hell yeah!". Ok...fine, I didn't exactly come up with such extremes but I certainly was more open to innovation and creativity back then.

I reckon that I've gathered a decent bit of experiences in setting up new ventures and running them. I've seen ideas come into fuition, promises broken, businesses flourish and partnerships dissolved. And with that, I've developed a different mindset with regards to this.

Today, I always think of the commercial aspects of new ideas, trying to see if the numbers add up, trying to weigh the idea against the potential pitfalls and basically having a more restrained mindset in my approach. Basically I've grown more resistive and less optimistic with new ideas.

And that is how getting older screws me over in life -_-

Getting Older and How it Messes With Your Approach to Relationships

Relationships (I'm refering to the one where you have with the opposite sex, and not other forms) get more complicated when you're older. Really, it does.

Have you stopped to figure how simple it was trying to get to know and court the opposite sex when you were much younger? Like when you were just a kid. Back then, calling the girl names and making fun of her was a form of courtship. Ok, well that was a very primitive way of human relations... but it....sorta...worked.

When you were in your teens, it was just about getting to know the other person better, to go out, spend more time together, and things just took it's course. Naturally.

Now let's bring the context back to you being an adult, and in my case, somewhere in between the mid and late twenties. Having gone thru relationships and courtships before and numerous 'projects' (of which in my case I've abandoned and have been abandoned numerous times before :P), I've sort of developed a deeper analytical mindset when it comes to dating. Hell, most people my age have it one way or another.

You develop tendencies such as thinking of how to make the first move, deciding on whether it's too soon to call, not overly showing that you're into the other person, deciding on how to approach a dinner date and the list just goes on and on.

Hey, I've been criticised for this analytical approach, and granted, it would have been so much simpler, less time consuming, with lesser moments of anxiety and ~~less time spent to devising complex courtship schemes with Excel spreadsheets, workflow diagrams and visiting the local medium for advice~~ less time spent wondering about things. But that's just how the system works (or so I reckon) and I'm a victim of it :P

And that is how getting older screws me over in life -_-

- The End -

Things That I've Learned Over the Past Week

2009-09-21T15:20:00.003+08:00

Some quick ramblings as I feel like blogging today...

You gain more experience as you age... that's just how it works. You also get more experience as you attempt to do newer stuff. And with experience you become a ~~smartass~~ more wisdomful (is that even a word?) person.

I haven't gotten that much additional life experience over the last week (well it's only just been another week, so I haven't aged considerably nor attempted to do much newer stuff either). But, I think I found out some new, interesting stuff that makes life a little more interesting (to me at least). Here's some of the things that I've learned over the past week or so:

Interesting Discovery #1

I had to see a client of mine for a quick meeting the other day. I had to look at some stuff on his computer just so that I could troubleshoot them (I was just helping him out as a small favour, since I was there anyway).

I proceeded to open his web browser (not that I was snooping, mind you) and I saw a rather conspicuous URL in the address bar. I'm not gonna say much, but the word 'gay' was up there in the address bar. I was pretty sure it meant 'homo gay' and not 'happy gay'.

It seemed very much like a homosexual networking website, where you find your fellow dudes with the same sexual inclination, where I presume they get to know each other so that they can become more than just friendly friends. Not that I'm homophobic or anything, just an interesting discovery that sort of confirms my suspicions on that dude.

Interesting Discovery #2

I met my brother's galpal for the first time over dinner yesterday. Haven't seen her before that though. And with that, I've effectively crossed him off from my "Suspected Gay Person Watchlist".

Hehe.. Ok that last sentence was meant to be a joke. I once cracked a joke to my mum about my brother being gay, and she shot me with a deeply concerned, very serious look! I suppose that's not something to use as a joke with your parents =p

On another note, my mum somehow has the idea that I'm seeing someone and I'm just being coy about it. Wonder how she comes to that conclusion.....

Interesting Discovery #3

The number 40 is actually spelt as 'forty' and not 'fourty'.

Ok.... not as interesting, but this blog post would have seemed very plain and not complete (always needs to have a miminum of 3 items!! Or so my OCD tendencies tell me). Not to mention very homophobic with the jokes in the 2 interesting discoveries above.

Ok that's all for now...

So It's Decided Then

2009-09-06T00:54:00.013+08:00

Rather personal post coming up below. It may seem vague, but the people I know who know me well enough should be able to understand.

Stragely enough, I think I've come to a decision that will allow me to get out of this on-off-on quarter life crisis. It's about time to put things the way I want them, something I've not had the liberty of doing so for some time already. Equally stragely was the sequence of events that led up to it and how appropriate the decision seems to be.

My working life has come to a situation such that I've decided that I need to leave the current business that I'm in. Reasons? Got 2 of them really...

Reason #1

Well, I've always liked what I do here but the fact that I've missed running my own business just creeps into me; and it just hit me that it is something that I've missed for far too long. I guess you can say that I long for a sense of ownership of something that I've started and having substantial control over. Where I am (well to the end of the month at least) did give me the liberties of running a business though I was never in the driving seat, but having to take a backseat role at times and the lack of a sense of ownership of things just makes me feel that I've diverged from what I started out to do 6 years ago.

Reason #2

Well apart from that, the second reason is because I think I've reached a stage where I'll get burned out real soon. The feeling of going to bed knowing that I've tons of issues to deal week and that I've not finished sufficient amounts of work is something I've had to deal with for too long.

So this decision just allows me to have some breathing room (for a short while at least). I'm planning to take some time out at the end of the year to really do some things that I've not had the liberty of doing for quite some time. I've always been working since graduation without a proper break and having to go thru the emotional ride in what I do has somewhat made me realised that I need to take a breather. (Here's to hoping that I get a month to not think about work issues!).

I typed out the draft of this post when I made the decision which was about a week ago. What I wrote then as the closing paragraph was:

What's left now is to work out the necessary steps to make this progress smoothly. As I type this, I also can't help but ponder the reasons as to why it took me that long to come to this. Perhaps everthing just gets clearer when the decision is made and when you can take a step back to have a good view of things. Till then...

I can't say that I don't feel sad leaving. I never like to leave something that I'm a part of, however small it is. I guess I'm always emotionally attached to whatever I do. But having said that, I suppose what I feel is also a feeling of sadness mixed with relief, excitement and optimism over what's going to happen in the months ahead.

Till then...

The Checklist

2009-09-05T03:11:00.003+08:00

I think it's just about time to have posts like this again. Again, the contents are not to be taken too seriously. Credit to be given to my friend here for giving me such interesting blogging material... PS. You might want to reat this post as well though.

Lot's of my humourous posts come from conversations that I have with people. The few people who follow this weblog will definitely attest to that. I really wonder why this happens....I guess it's partly cause of the following reasons:

I talk too much nonsense at times
My friends talk to much nonsense at times
~~Cause we are have a good sense of humour~~ We're just full of nonsense at times

The posting is going to be based on the entire conversation given below (well I took liberty to add some bits of humour, but esentially that's how the conversation went and meant):

Participants: Slacker, and Lameass Dude (LD)
The Setting: Late, on a Friday night (reinforcing the fact that I have zero social life rating at the moment)
Disclaimer: Crude humour coming up ahead. Not to be taken seriously.

Lameass Dude (LD): Hey... have you watched 'District 9'?

Slacker: Nah. I've not.

LD: Oh... ok.

Slacker: You've got some nerve here, you asshole. Ever since you've been dating your chick, you guys sneak to the movies on your own and I'm never invited! Based on your treacherous characteristics, I shall now call you 'Cibaiface'. Yeah, that'll be your new nickname.

Disclaimer: Well we aren't exactly that hostile. Really. It's just the way we talk at times :P

LD: Hahahaha. Actually it's a really good show. You oughta watch it. Go call [name removed to protect the innocent] whom we met the other day. I'm sure she'll gladly watch it with you.

Slacker: Neh.. No thanks.

LD: Actually, honestly tell me....Why not??

Slacker: Well.. she's not me type.

LD: WTH? What are you talking about? What's this about her not being your type?? According to my checklist here:

Boobies...... Check!
P****......... Check!
A**............. Check!
Mouth........ Check!
Hands........ Check!

That's when I started to laughed uncontrollably. I then proceeded to tell him that I'm going to blog about this. And hence, the post that you're reading now :P

The Song of the Moment: #2

2009-08-29T18:35:00.003+08:00

Before I get to writing a post about a 'strage encounter' I had the other day, somehow posting up this video seems apt for the moment. This is going to be a short posting about this particular song, I'll keep this post short, with some commentary on my end.

For me, there's always some kind of personal attachment to a nice song. Not all songs do that....just some do. This was playing in my car just now, so somehow or rather, it came to mind and hence this blog post.

Natalie Imbruglia - Counting Down the Days

I think the music video captured the meaning of the song perfectly and it's a good one to watch. If I recall correctly, I remember reading that the singer (Natalie Imbruglia) wrote this tune about her relationship with someone she was seeing who was living in a different continent from her. So the distance apart inspired the lyrics to the song and the part of which they were always 'counting down the days' to be with each other.

Lyrics given below:

you were right
and I don't want to be here
if you're gonna be there
was that supposed to happen
I'll hold tight
I'll remember to smile
though it has been a while
and without you does it matter

there's no room
no place to start
when our souls are apart

I want to travel through time
see your surprise
I'd hold you so
tight
I'm counting down the days tonight
I just want to be a million
miles away from here
I'm counting down the days

how've you been
it's just the usual here
and days are feeling like years
and every
day's without you
now I cry
just a little too much
when I think of
your touch
and everything about you

I feel cold
I'm in the dark
when our souls are apart

I'm gonna be your surprise
I'm gonna
hold you so tight

Moments That Make You Scream F***!

2009-08-16T02:25:00.004+08:00

Real-life events/issues post coming up!

Ok.. so I'm back after a brief hiatus of being stuck in a country without access to Facebook or Blogger for just over a week (yeah, our Chinese comrades sure have issues with Internet content).

As you'd probably have figured out from the title of this post, I might have gone thru some apeshit moments as of late. Well.. not really apeshitish (is there even such a term??) events.... but they literally made me yell 'Fark' (or 'Fuck' whichever tickles you fancy.... just that I'd figure 'Fark' would be a more polite term.. hehe). So yeah, all the events detailed below occured over the course of this week, and it actually made me use my favourite expletive (depending on the ocassion and setting actually) by having it said out loud. So.... here goes:

Moment #1

This isn't exactly what I received, but you get my drift...

Was in my hotel room that night in Suzhou, China (I was there for work). It was supposed to be our last night there, so the guys thought of having a night out. I wasn't too much into the activities planned cause I was rather tired with work and all that's been happening.

I'd rather not go into the details or the backstory to what happened, but I got a SMS stating something that essentially flipped things over. It basically served to be a 180-degree turnaround towards a particular scenario. Something that was developing in a certain direction... changed entirely via a single text message.

The Reaction

My immediate reaction was to say out loud: 'What the Fark?!!'. Oh well, at least there was no one around me, so there wasn't a scene or anything.

What Next?

Nothing. So let's leave it as that. Meh (yeah, that's how I'll describe it).

Moment # 2

I wasn't actually supposed to fly on that plane, but you get my drift...

Me and 2 other dudes were due to leave back for Malaysia via Shanghai. We were kinda late to the airport (not disasterously late, but still manageable by rushing a little).

As our car approached the airport, the cabbie asks "Which terminal are you heading to?". We didn't know. Being ever the smartass, I whipped out the e-ticket which i printed out form our office just a couple hours before and proudly exclaimed "Terminal 2!".

Then something on the printed e-ticket caught my eye:

'Departure time: 10.15am, Arrival time: 3.30pm'.

My clock read:

'2.10 pm'.

Man... this has to be my most dumbarse moment ever....

The Reaction

One word.... 'Fark!!'. Said it out loud in the cab which then made the fellow occupants go: 'Oi... What the hell??'

What Next?

Spent the next hour figuring if we should take the next flight out or to talk our way through getting a free ticket (of which failed spectacularly). We eventually spent another night and flew out the next morning.

Moment # 3

No rings were purchase, but you get my drift here...

Was talking nonsense with my friend over on MSN where he out of a sudden proceeds to tell me that he's marrying the girl he's been dating for the past couple months. Tells me that he's getting married end of the year and proposed last week.

This is a big deal.. at least that's how I see it! And also knowing him and how he deals with things, this was certainly unexpected!

The Reaction

I said 'Fark!' in a hushed tone, in the office, with some colleagues around. I'm sure they heard that with the complete silence that was in our workplace at the moment.

What Next?

Turns out, that jackass of a friend was just joking. Made me call him just to find that out. Asshole.

Thoughts, Opinions and Issues Without Narcissism

2009-07-19T23:20:00.007+08:00

The title of this post matches the title of this blog, minus the "narcissism" (not much self love and vanity in this post I think). As a departure from other postings, I'm writing this without much of a structure to the post. You see, normally, I'd have a structure figured out in my head, but this time, I have some thoughts in my mind (of which aren't necessarily in order), but instead of processing them in a more structured form, I'll just spit them out here as I go along.

I've always written posts to put a humourous spin to things. Reason? Well that's really how I see things sometimes. The most important (or rather, one of the most important) thing in life is to always be able to laugh, and when the situation calls for it, to be able to laugh at oneself. Well for this post, I'll try to limit the humourous spin to it, just for once.

Bad Business Decisions

I've been thinking a little. About 'bad business decisions'. I'm using the term 'business' here loosely, as you'll see as this post progresses.

Have you ever felt that you've held on to something for a future promise, that of an expected outcome when the deal is done? Having to pay your dues, work hard, be patient and things will happen for you in the end?

Life has always been like that for me. I've been promised future value over business dealings (in this case, I'm actually refering to real business, and it not being a substitute term) many times in the past. Things like having this, this and this should you do that, that and that.

The concept of the big payoff for all the hard work and sweat you'd have to incurr for now, that's what I call being promised future value. You get my drift. So..... this thing of future value is one that I'm never really that comfortable in. And in most business dealings, it is something that I will turn it down.

Why? Simply cause it almost is never a fair deal. How is it that you are supposed to incurr business cost on behalf of another party for a future payoff? The only way it is acceptable is if the other party were to contribute just as much, and if the payoff is well worth it (which would then mean that the figures would have to really add up to justify it). And so if it really is acceptable, I've to make sure that the numbers do add up, and that the warning signs are heeded to; if and when they present themselves. All in all, these things do make for potentially bad business decisions.

Bad Business Decisions in Life Outside Business

Ok, so I've laid out the concept of potentially bad business decisions; with the 'promised future value' type and the need to constantly look out for warning signs to make sure that it still makes sense.

Strange thing is, that these soft of business dealings do apply to human relationships too. 'Future payoff' being the desired outcome of a relationship, 'Hardwork' and 'Paying your dues' being the effort by one party (yes I said one party, cause in situations like this, one party sacrifices a little more than the other) and 'Warning signs' being the signals sent by one or both parties that put your decision making criteria to the test.

The Idealist Vs. Practicalist Take on Things

As much as I try to relate the two different scenarios (business and personal), fundamental differences do exist. With business dealings, you can add the numbers up, calculate the risk involved and make an education decision.... or as I rather put it, choose to take up a calculated risk. The thing with dealing with humans is that the variables are not so easily defined and in that, decisions aren't that easy to be made at times!

So how are decisions made then? 2 train of thoughts exist. One being the idealist view - in that "you put in all your efforts and the rewards will come eventually". The practicalist view on things will be to treat it very much like any other business decision, ie to "do the numbers, look out for risks and walk away if the risk-reward ratio doesn't add up."

The Solution?

I'm a person that does tend to make non-practical choices when it comes to human dealings (not all the time, but I do so at times). It's not like I don't know I'm doing it, but at times I break the certain preconditions that I set for myself. So it's not as if I have all the answers here.

Though this may sound rather cryptic, all that I can say is that the answer to the question posed on human relationships is to work hard and pay your dues, and hopefully things will turn out right. But really, it's also a balancing act where you may have to realise if it's not going anywhere and learn to walk away if you have to.

So to sum it up, the answer is to "Balance your ideals against what is practical and logical". That at least, is what I believe in at this moment.

The Truth About Love & Marriage

2009-07-11T02:48:00.013+08:00

Now before you think I've gotten all preachy about the subject matters of love and marriage, here's a disclaimer. I've not! But the post below is just something that's good that I have to share it... and with that, I'll provide some insightful and potentially cynical comments..

Updates on 13/7/2009 at the bottom of this post

Now I had this email forwarded to me by a friend of mine, which surprisingly was a really good read (Forwarded emails are hardly every worth reading, but this friend of mine at least selects the good ones for my consumption =p)

Let me reproduce it here:

A student asks a teacher, "What is love?"

The teacher said, "in order to answer your question, go to the wheat field and choose the biggest wheat and come back. But the rule is: you can go through them only once and cannot turn back to pick."

The student went to the field, go thru first row, he saw one big wheat, but he wonders....may be there is a bigger one later. Then he saw another bigger one... But may be there is an even bigger one waiting for him.
Later, when he finished more than half of the wheat field, he start to realize that the wheat is not as big as the previous one he saw, he know he has missed the biggest one, and he regretted.

So, he ended up went back to the teacher with empty hand. The teacher told him, "...this is love... You keep looking for a better one, but when later you realise, you have already miss the person...."

"What is marriage then?" the student asked. The teacher said, "in order to answer your question, go to the corn field and choose the biggest corn and come back. But the rule is: you can go through them only once and cannot turn back to pick."

The student went to the corn field, this time he is careful not to repeat the previous mistake, when he reach the middle of the field, he has picked one medium corn that he feel satisfy, and come back to the teacher.

The teacher told him, "this time you bring back a corn.... You look for one that is just nice, and you have faith and believe this is the best one you get.... This is marriage.

A pretty good way to put things in perspective eh? Though it saddens me to realise the fact that I cannot be picky and must settle for the medium sized corn.... haha.

But is that necessarily true? Should we not settle for less? I have a theory/solution to this:

"Go Thru As Many Cornfields as You Can".

As with all things in life, experience helps in making choices. I reckon that one should always be careful with important choices and at least have a good idea of what he/she wants before settling for it. Of course, the element of having faith and believing in what you have is important.. just make sure that you're not forcing yourself to believe in a rotten piece of corn.

Comments anyone? I hope I haven't enouraged anyone to discard their piece of corn though....

* Update @ 13/7/2009

I thought of sharing a comment that my friend made when reading this post. She was the same person who forwarded me the email. Her response to me wanting to quote her was:

"Hahaha! Pls ensure my comments will not be altered, misused or mis-represented in any way that would distort, harm or impose any negative connotation to my reputation hahaha"

Well no worries, nothing incriminating will be posted =p Anway back to the topic, reason why I'm sharing her comment here is that I thought it was a pretty good one; something that at least reinforces my thoughts/theories on the subject matter:

As with the wisdom of the story, even after going through more corn fields, you may just end up with a corn you have faith & believe in - before you realise there isnt anymore corn fields left or before you get tired at looking around corn fields and you know for sure paddy fields would be worst (metaphorically hehe).

But it's definitely a better option/solution (like you said, and i agree) to have a better idea of what type of corn would best suit you. It may not be the best in the field or most perfect by the farmer's/export/buyer's standards. But it's the corn that best suits your taste, likings and you're able live with forever or cannot imagine living without (that corn) anymore (whichever way you prefer to see it) since you'd probably seen too many corns to know better!

Well said =) On the flip side, I had this rather brief conversation over MSN on this subject matter.

Friend on MSN: Medium sized corn eh?

Slacker: Yeah.. haha

Friend on MSN: Hope you find it la ya

Slacker: -_-

Oh wells......

Job Interviews: 2 Minutes and Those 'Spectacular' Moments

2009-06-14T22:16:00.011+08:00

I really ought to be working just to catch up with an increasingly-growing-out-of-control-work-pile (yeah, despite it being a Sunday). But I'll take a break from work just this little bit... cause this is a story (or rather a collection of stories) worth telling.

I've had to interview quite a number of candidates to fill up some vacancies we have over at where I work. That happened over a course of 2 days this past week and I must have interviewed 10 candidates or more for a variety of positions. Which incidentally has given me good blogging material =P

It's a whole routine really, having to go through a set of questions and methods to assess someone. And I think I'm pretty methodological about it (as with most other things I do, I tend to follow a series of logical steps.... keeps things in a nice flow and I like it that way).

If only they'd all look like that....I'd look forward to conducting more job interviews

In conducting the interview, I'd generally get the person to talk about himself first just to have a judge of his character (I reckon that the way a person strings his sentences in a formal setting tells quite abit of himself). I'd then follow up with some other questions on his past nature of work and I'll always end with the customary:

"Well... this is how it's going to happen. There's going to be other candidates that I'd have to interview over the course of the next couple days. We'll then conduct an internal assessment and if all is good, we'll be in touch to get you in for the second interview. yada yada."

So you get the drift. Imagine having to go through the same process again and again and it kinda gets tiresome for abit. And my reason is this. Everything you need to know about a candidate just to disqualify him (or conversely qualify him with the minimum requirements, ie. being good enough to be shortlisted but not necessarily to get him hired immediately), you can do it in 2 minutes.

No shit, 2 minutes. That's about all you need really. Get someone to talk for that amount of time and you'll have a good enough perception of him. Granted, the rest of the interview process is where you really try to confirm some of your initial perceptions and to try out certain methods just to see if he's going to change that (yeah, I don't want to be accused of being an ignorant prick who builds everything from first impressions).

Hell, it's the same thing when attempting to disqualify a potential partner of the opposite sex. Ok, maybe it's abit more complicated but a combination of a visual assessment (it's not everything but definitely is needed!) plus being in a proper conversation for 2 whole minutes tells you quite a bit.

So what I'm saying is this, 2 minutes tells you a whole lot about a person... enough for you to know if it should lead to anything more. Which then leads me to the next point that I have, ever so rarely, certain things happen in the interview process that I'll term as "Those 'Spectacular' Moments". Notice that I've chosen to put the word spectacular in inverted commas.. heh.

I wouldn't really mind if someone say's that... Hell, at least I'd know we both share the same sort of cynical humour!

Funny/weird shits happen during job interviews. And I have no damned explanation for it. I'll let the real-life scenarios (which happened during the interviews in the past week) below illustrate my point:

Scenario # 1

Slacker: I don't seem to have a copy of your resume sent to us. But I'm sure you a hardcopy with you right?

Interviewee: Urm... well ... I was on a rush to get here so I don't have it. I've got a softcopy though!

Slacker's reaction: -_-. Oh well, not a good thing, but it ain't exactly statutory rape (which incidentally in certain countries is punishable with the dismemberment of one's sexual organ) isn't it?

Scenario # 2

Slacker: I see in your application form that you didn't state the post that you're applying for.

Interviewee: Oh yeah. Actually I don't know what post I applied for.

Slacker: (Says "WTF" together with other common expletives in his head. Thinks that it's best to go with the "Well... this is how it's going to happen" routine and to end the interview).

Interviewee: Actually it's caused I applied for both positions from the job portal.

Slacker: Well, but certainly there has to be one preferance for you right, I mean, which position are you more inclined for?

Interviewee: Why not I tell you about myself then you decide which post I'm more suitable for?

Slacker's reaction: -_-. Not a very good thing passing the buck to me eh? Bad, but I guess it's not like he's having an incesteous relationship with his daughter isn't it?

Scenario #3

Slacker: Well, that's about it. Any questions before we end?

Interviewee (*in a hesitant tone): Urm... well... urm... I was hoping you'd be able to give me an answer after this interview.

Slacker's reaction: -_-. I bet he was also expecting me to give him his first paycheck (despite not having worked yet) and grant him maternity leave (despite being an impregnable male) and allowing him to be my future children's godfather (despite him having a creepy vibe). All on the spot as soon as we conclude the interview. That's kind of an akward question, don't you think? Bad, but it's not like he just shagged your pet monkey isn't it?

Scenario #4

Some backstory: The dude had to wait for about an hour before being interviewed. I had something to attend to before this and had to interview 4 other candidates before it was his turn.

Slacker: Well, that's about it. Anything you'd wish to add before we end?

Interviewee: (Proceeds to rub his face)

Slacker: (He'd better not start rubbing his crotch!)

Interviewee (*in a hesitant tone): You guys seem quite busy here.

Slacker: Yeah, it comes with the job.

Interviewee (*in a half-hesitant tone, trying to muster some confidence): Well, why is it that I'd have to wait for 1 hour for an interview? That's quite unprofessional isn't it?

Slacker: Well, as I told you as soon as you entered this meeting room, I had a prior engagement and that's why we started a little late. I explained that to you and as soon as you got in as a statement of apology. Also, there were 4 guys that I had inteview before you, so naturally you had to wait. But having said that, you're the one sitting for the interview and not me, so keep that in mind.

- end of interview-

Slacker's reaction: -_-. That's like commiting statutory rape by having incest while shagging your pet monkey on the sidelines!

It's kinda weird really, the situations that crop up during a job interview. Thank goodness for the normal, decent candidates that came knocking on our doors though!

Top Business Ideas Guaranteed To Work: Part 1

2009-06-02T01:02:00.006+08:00

After my brief hiatus, I've realised that this post (or any post for that matter) is long overdue. It was actually in my head for some time so I guess it's pretty much about time for me to get it written in its entirety.

Over my period of self-reflection, I've formulated various business ideas that I reckon will be the next big thing. I'm not talking about the next Google or Microsoft or any of those lameass, so-called huge corporations that secretly rule the world today. I'm talking of things as life changing as the invention of the telephone or the discovery of electricity or hell, the creation of the Internet....

Being the ever-so-kind person that I am, I'm sharing these "Top Business Ideas Guaranteed To Work (TBIGTW)" with the readers of this weblog. This is gonna be Part 1 of a series of TBIGTW (got too many of them =p ).

TBIGTW #1: Self-Service Car Wash

Screw the basic car washes that we have all over town. Screw those automated ones you have at petrol kiosks too. We need some innovation over here!

Having slutty chicks working at the car wash doesn't cut it anymore. It's an overused and overrated idea. Only works in the movies IMHO.

My point is this: the chicks cost much more to hire compared to the average carwash dude, and let's face it... you're only appealing to 50% of the car-driving-population (ie. horny males).

That's what you get hiring chicks like those for the carwash. Looks good, but hardly ever effective. Zero productivity, high wastage.

So as you see, we need to improvise over here. After years of dedicated research, I've formulated a kick-ass car wash business model. I've figured that we cannot rely on manual labour. Things have to be automated. And hence, I've come up with the Self-Service Car Wash.

How It Works:

It's simple, really. You pull up your car to the the car wash. Pay some money. The attendant gives you a pail, unlimited soap and watter supply and a sponge. You then proceed to wash the car yourself (self-service mah! What do you expect?!).

Oh yeah, usage of rubber boots (so that you don't get your shoes wet) are charged as an additional item.

Why It Kicks Ass:

What do you mean "why it kicks ass??" Think about it, it solves everything. From the business owner's perspective:

Less workers meaning less overheads.
Less hassle of having to deal with dumbass employees.
It's self-service ok? Everything is self-service nowadays.... so stop questioning things and go with the flow!

And from the customer's perspective:

No more complaints about missing a spot. Clean it yourself!
No more complaints about it taking too long. Speed things up yourself!
It's self-service ok? Everything is self-service nowadays.... so stop questioning things and go with the flow!

And that concludes the very first TBIGTW. Interested parties willing to invest can contact me at slacker@tbigtw.com or slacker@thisisnotascam.com.

Hello There

2009-05-25T23:03:00.002+08:00

Oh hai.

FYI, the author of this blog is not dead (at least not for many many more years I hope). Just a tad busy putting out fires (I like this term and its a very apt job description at times). His humour has run dry (not sure if it was well appreciated to begin with).

So yeah, I'm a little occupied with work (things that I do for mahnee) and normal blogging service to resume soon enough (by this weekend I hope).

Kthxbai!

Questions to Self

2009-05-15T22:09:00.005+08:00

I haven't been updating this weblog much in recent days/weeks. A combination of work issues and the lack of time (sleep deprivation has been prevalent as of late) are some of the factors resulting in the lack of opstings. But rather, I might have lost some of the initial enthusiasm that came around when I stared this journal-of-sorts..... So here's to catching up with the happenings on this journal.

I've got some nice topics to write about, but yet I've somehow not bothered to pen those posts yet. Instead, I'm going to make a post of some of my thoughts. Oh yeah, some serious shit coming up ahead.

I reckon that every once in a while, a person needs to take a breather and to take stock of the current situation in life. In the endless days that begins from the moment you wake up in the morning to the moment you go to bed at night having achieved the minimal amount of work needed for you to let yourself rest soundly, there just isn't much time for you to have a clear perspective of things. I've been pretty much adhering to this routine for the last year or so.

Another thing that I reckon... is that life is cyclic. There's the ups and downs when it comes to everything. I've noticed this trend, and it especially applies to my work life; which stragely enough has 'downtime' every 1 to 1.5 years or so. Pretty cosistent at that it has been (for my relatively 'young' career)... oh well, but this is a different story for another day.

Back to taking a stock of things. The question I've been posing to myself lately is "How do you know which part of the cycle you're riding in at the present moment?". I do also think sometimes whether "Have I been doing things right? If not, could I have done so better?". And I've been noticing things as of late too that then triggers the question "Is this all there is to it, and is this really what I want out of things?".

Complacency and not being too engrossed in the details that come in everyday situations have not allowed me the kind of clarity that I would have otherwise preferred. I suppose the questions that I have posed to myself have no apparent answer. Well, if the answers were already available, then it would have otherwise been a straightforward affair, wouldn't it? (And also would not have made me bother writing this entry =p).

Though there are no apparent answers to some of the questions in mind, I always believe that a conclusion has to be made. A summary or a lesson learnt perhaps. And in that, I've learnt to have to closely evaluate certain situations that I'm in. And to make the neccessary changes as I see fit. I'm giving myself some time to see how this plays out and of which indirectly gives the answer to some of the question posed above. And that, I'm determined to see through.

Something to Do If You're as Easily Amused as I Am

2009-05-11T00:28:00.006+08:00

Short post up ahead...

Logged into Facebook? Well do so if you aren't already. In any window on Facebook, just key in the keys below in this sequence:

UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A *ENTER*

Well you wouldn't have to worry that it unleashes a virus on your Facebook account that spams all your ex-es with unsightly pictures of yourself. Rather, it produces some lighting flare effects whenever you scroll, click on something or type into a textbox. Yep, my life is more fulfilled after having made this discovery :P

* Crosses off one item from the list of things to do before I die

In case you were wondering that I was trying out all possible key combinations on Facebook (imagine the amount of time it would have taken!), if I found this via GeeksAreSexy. And the key combination is actually the Konami Code. Apparently it works on Google Reader and a host of other sites as well.

Some Insightful Opinions

2009-05-03T17:41:00.013+08:00

I feel like talking cock (ie. the act of telling random nonsense for that doesn't necessarily needs to make sense and is solely for humorous reaons) at this moment. But since there's noone to my left nor my right nor my front or back, I've resorted to having practise my storytelling nonsense on myself. Since talking to myself is a big no-no (in my books at least) and only results in odd stares by other people, I've decided to pen down this blog entry to humour myself and anyone else who bothers reading it :)

Over the years, I've always tried to dissect the inner secrets of a certain class of society that is prevalent in our country (Malaysia). They exist in all facets of society, in the upper, middle and lower income groups, in various social circles and are present in almost every geographical region in the country.

Over the years, I've made many observations (taking down notes with my trusty notebook in the process) and at times infiltrated this thightly-knit clique of individuals (oh the risks in doing so!) so as to ascertain their secrets in life.

The type of shadowy individuals that I'm talking about are the Ah Bengs. According to Wikipedia:

Ah Beng is a stereotype applied to a certain of a group of young Chinese men in Southeast Asia, particularly Singapore and Malaysia. The stereotypical view of a Ah Beng is a young Chinese man or teenager, that lacks cultural refinement or indulging in criminal activity or being involved in brawling and arguing out of disagreements with other people. Ah Bengs are also sometimes associated with extensively-modified or zhng-ed cars, and are stereotypically seen as being excessively flashy and show-offs. Ah Bengs are often stereotyped as trying to emulate Japanese street fashion.

It is with great pleasure that after 13 years of research, 2 near-death experiences and countless run-ins with Ah Beng mobs (which has resulted in some very bad memories), that I present:

The Quintessential Ah Beng Guide to Boosting Your Street Cred

The following are some very important points that are held in high esteem within the Ah Beng community. Though I must stress that I do not fully comprehend the nature of their inner thinkings which seem to be an intricate web of mannerisms, social classes and hair colour, I believe that the following are very important to establish oneself as a Ah Beng with high social value, and hence street credibility (or street cred in short).

Language - Predominantly Chinese. Depending on the geographical location, Ah Bengs speak mostly in the Mandarin dialect though those in the Klang Valley converse mostly in Cantonese (possibly due to the influence of media from Hong Kong productions).

Certain areas such as Penang and Klang carry the also popular Hokkien dialect which is notorious for its infamous swear words such as "Pu Nia Boh", "Kannina", "Cibai" (often misspelled as "Cheebye" by non-Chinese speaking individuals much to the disgust of hardcore Ah Bengs).

Mannerisms - Ah Bengs typically like to speak at the top of their voices which are often followed by hand gestures that exhibit anger and conflict or are used to depict the male sexual reproductive organ.

The showing of such a hand gesture is a popular topic of debate among my peers. While some think of it as a sign of wanting to initiate a sexual act of some kind, I stand by my opinion that it is merely used as an insult from one Ah Beng to another, simply because most Ah Bengs do not seem to exhibit homosexual tendencies. I think that the showing of the hand gesture that resembles the male sexual reproductive organ simply means that one Ah Beng's 'equipment' is more potent as compared to another indivdual's, hence the showing of it being more of a taunt more than anything else.

Arts - Typically Chinese-language movies and music from Hong Kong and Taiwan as there seem to be a lack of quality local productions from within Malaysia.

It was once told to me by an inside informant (who sadly due to his heroic exploits in shedding light into the Ah Beng community has passed on after being discovered by one of the local DVD-peddling triads) that each Ah Beng must possess or at least have watched the popular Hong Kong series of triad movies, Young and Dangerous.

Food - Naturally, Ah Bengs prefer Chinese food, though some have ventured beyond their social norms in experimenting with Western ("Chick Chop" as most will call it) and Japanese ("Sushee" as remarked by an individual I met) cuisine.

Despite the recent experimentation with different types of cuisine, most still prefer to patronise Hong Kong inspired cafes such as Kim Gary and Wong Kok Char Chan Teng. Apparently, these are the most "in" or "happening" joints for Ah Bengs throughout the country.

Fashion - Ah Bengs often gather inspiration for their dressing from celebrities from Hong Kong and Taiwan but tend to put their own twist to it. Some prefer thight fitting clothes befitting that of a female, some prefer to go with the classic white dress shirt unbuttoned at the top with frills by the side whereas some prefer jeans with coloured wordings written all over it.

While fashion tastes do vary, one common trait is prevalent. Ah Bengs tend to dye their hair instead of adopting their natural hair colour. Ah Bengs often exhibit colours that are deemed "criminal" by other societies. Colours such as blonde, brown and even red are among the most popular, though there have been incidences of individuals who have experimented with colours such as blue, purple and pink. It is often thought that the hair colours actually carry subliminal messages such as an impending triad war or the release of a new pirated DVD available through the local paddler. This however is purely conjecture at this point as it has yet to be ascertained at the time of writing.

Ride - An important aspect of Ah Beng culture is the car that an Ah Beng drives. Younger Ah Bengs (college students or those in their early twenties) often drive locally produced cars that are heavily modified.

Visually, their cars are decorated with racing stripes, bumper stickers or badges of foreign automotive brands (in the hopes that it makes their female counterparts think that it is a car of a different make).

In the interior, their cars are often modified to have Recaro racing seats in the place of the standard ones. They also often exhibit In-Car-Entertainment systems that include the mandatory huge subwoofer that takes up half of the space in the car's boot which produces heavy bass sounds that make the ears bleed.

The Ah Beng's most important attribute when it comes to car modification is the exhaust. The general rule of thumb is "The Bigger the Better". Exhausts with openings that can fit the head of the driver are generally held in high regard. It was once told to me that they often mould the exhaust opening to fit the head of its driver before its installation. Apparently, this is the single-most important aspect when it comes to their cars.

Conclusion

While great effort is put into the above research findings, it must be said that it is not entirely conclusive. If any one of the attributes above do apply to you, it doesn't necessarily mean that you are an Ah Beng.

After all, there are many other sub-cultures in Malaysian society, such as Ah Lians, Mat Rempits, Mat Motors, English Speaking (Banana) Chinese and many more.

- End of Report-

End Note: The above post is purely fictional and is to be taken as a humorous piece of work. Kthxbai!

Signs - A Short Film that Makes You Go Awww...

2009-04-26T20:09:00.003+08:00

I try not posting too many Youtube video clips on this blog as I'd really prefer to be able to pen down interesting entries. But this you've got to watch...

Now this video was passed on to me the other day (thanks LJ, here's the credit that you demanded for showing me the vid :p) and came with a good recommendation and that I had to watch it. It's pretty long (12 mins it is) but it's a pretty good 'human-organ-that-pumps-blood'-warming story with a satisfying ending at the end of it.

Observations:

Why is it that I don't have a window at my workplace and my home room's window faces the back and someone else's kitchen where the maid cooks?
I reckon I oughta pick up some tips from the dude in the video too.

The Stupid Things I Say Sometimes....

2009-04-21T00:18:00.012+08:00

I'm in the mood for some self assessment here. Something to do as I go along in life; which I reckon is basically the act of analysing the dumbass things that I've done recently and to learn how not to repeat such mistakes. That's what I call progression in life :P

I kinda have the tendency to say silly things at times. Cynical remarks, lameass jokes or random observations do slip my mouth (at times lah). But much to my relief, it doesn't happen that much. Just at the occasional moments when my tounge seems to get the better of my brain.

Lo and behold, I've compiled a list of recent cock-ups (pardon the language, but I'll let this pass as this post is about stupid things that happen to slip my tongue :p) that I've made recently. Yep, it's another post with self-depricating humour.

Incident # 1

Setting: Just before a conference, somewhere in KL. I was supposed to give a talk.
Participants: Slacker, Chair of Conference

So the deal was this. I was really busy and didn't have much time to prepare for this talk that I was supposed to be giving. The conference wasn't really a big deal as I've attended one of them previously as part of the audience. Not too big of a crowd.

With the knowledge of that at hand, I guess that subconciously I knew I could breeze through the event. I suppose that because the topic in question was something I was familiar with helped a big deal too. So I worked on my presentation in between my other works in the span of a couple days. Mind you, it was from scratch and research needed to be done and I'd need to ~~rant~~, ~~preach~~, talk for about 40 minutes or so.

I was just mingling around for a bit right before I was supposed to do my thang (ie. give the talk lah). The Chair of the Conference and I spoke for a bit. We sorta had a brief conversation that went along the lines of:

Chair of Conference (CoC): So... you're up as the next speaker yeah?
Slacker: Oh yeah, I guess so.

Some small talk in between that I can't really remember. Well it was small talk anyway, so I'm not obliged to remember right? And you know what, that's the thing with small talk. Noone bothers and noone really gives a shit.. (well ok, that's a topic for another occasion, so back to the post).

CoC: So all right. I'll leave you for now to check on some other things. Have a good one later!
Slacker: Well, yeah.. Thanks! Actually, you know what? I didn't even really prepare for this talk, so I reckon I oughta have a look at my notes again. Haha.

All a sudden, I realised that wasn't exactly the person who'd appreciate the joke...... The deal was this: I just made a joke and was sniggering, but then in my head I thought that I'd just behaved like a dumbarse! Pretty conflicted I was at the moment. It was good that we weren't going to engage in the conversation anymore so that sorta killed off the awkward moment =P

Incident # 2

Setting: I was part of an entourage of friends to assist a mate of mine (the groom) to pick up his woman (the bride) for his wedding. This actually happened at the bride's family home.

Participants: Slacker, Some Friends, Host (or rather, one of the persons in the house hosting us)

So the deal was this. It was the usual festivities at the bride's house where we were having some food after the groom was put through inhuman tests that test the very fabric of male bravery. I don't know how I came up with this description.... haha.... but it's the Chinese culture thingy where the groom is made to do somewhat embarassing tasks before he's allowed by the bridesmaids to meet his wife-to-be.

Host: Guys, please have some of the food. There's plenty to go around!

Well, we weren't exactly hungry at that point but me and my friends decided to chomp down on some food anyway. Act of courtesy I suppose. That and also because I have a policy of not turning down food! Children in Africa got no food to eat wokay??? OK back to the story....
Friend A: Sure thing.. Thanks!
Friend B: Sure thing .. Thanks!
Host: Make sure you guys eat more ok.. There's still alot more to go around!
Friend A: OK.. but I don't think we can eat too much.. We're kinda getting stuffed already.. But thanks!
Here's where I interject to say something that makes me seem very much of an asshole (of which I'm not btw).
Slacker: It's ok.... thanks! We can't eat too much cause when we get to the groom's house later, they're going to force us eat more still! Haha.
Friend A: (Gives slacker the stare)
Slacker: (Wishes he had that amazing teleportation ability)
There was then a moment of self reflection and I realised that I've just commited another faux paux. I guess it wasn't the most polite thing to say when someone offers you food! I began thinking of happy thoughts to get rid of the awkwardness creeping inside my head =P

Well, I honestly never meant for my lameass jokes to come out that way. It's just one of those things where I try being a smartass and it comes off the wrong way. No harm intended. Really. Me no asshole. Really.

Ok that's all for now. Bai.

Random Post for the Day: #3

2009-04-15T01:53:00.013+08:00

I've got some plans for a humorous post worked out in my head. But it'll take time for me to get to penning it down. What this blog needs is a random post with pictures so here goes...

This post is gonna be about pictures depicting various work related events over the last 1 year or so. I've had the privillege to go to a couple of new places that I never been to before, so I guess it was good on that front last year. The following are pictures of some of my work assignments in 2008.

Jakarta, Indonesia

I'm not bothered listening... I just want my food damnit!

Taken in Jakarta in May, 2008 where I was invited by a client to provide some training into a software solution that was being implemented for their organisation. I think I was there for only 1 night (or was it 2?). All-in-all, it was a pretty short trip. Funny thing, there was turbulence in the aircraft on the way there and I spilled some coffee over on my socks and shoes during the flight (in what was meant to be my only pair for the trip)! Oh well, at least it wasn't piss. Heh.

Shanghai and Wuxi, China

Slacker is somewhere in the picture (and no, he's not one of them wearing skirts)

Taken at the Asia Pacific Service Outsourcing International Conference in Wuxi, China back in September 2008. Spent close to a week there and it was all good fun. Well, it was good from a work perspective, but the thing was (and still is) that my command of Chinese (the language) is poor to say the least. Thus, my involvement in some of the work was somewhat hampered. I think I had more fun than work there. Heh.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Half of the buggers in the picture were probably asleep....

Taken at the Asia Business Forum, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in October 2008. Was supposed to be my first ever public talk/conference/seminar/~~cocktalk~~. I actually only prepared for a couple of day cause I was really busy with work and all, and the forum seemed to be a lesser priority at that time. Well, it wasn't as if there was a huge crowd in attendance that day. Heh.

The Songs That You Listen To

2009-04-09T23:57:00.005+08:00

I'm not so sure about this, but it almost seems as if I have less things to blog about. Can't seem to think of more awkward moments, funny stories or random happenings worth blogging about. So I guess that the following post is the next best thing I can think of at the moment.

I reckon that the songs that a person listens to tells a little bit of himself. Not exactly something you can use to dissect another person's personality, but it does depict a person's progress in life, his outlooks and all-round general condition.

Recently, I've begun to notice a change in the type of music that I've been listening to. Perhaps I'm really getting old, but my favourite music acts used to be mainsteam pop/rock music that you'd hear on the radio. Radio-friendly music as I would call it, but nothing too cheesy (and yes, the lyrics to a song do matter).

Lately, the songs that have piqued my interest seem to come from the likes of Michael Buble, Diana Krall, Keith Urban, Sarah McLachan and John Mayer. Good stuff that I otherwise wouldn't have appreciated last time. Below are some songs that have been occupying my playlist at the moment (they're not exactly new songs, but they're recent on my playlist):

John Mayer - Say

Keith Urban - Got It Right This Time

Michael Buble - Home

There you go. Some pretty decent tunes to listen to. ktxbai.

The Thing About the Thing That I Do: Part 2

2009-04-04T19:17:00.023+08:00

I've always meant to write a meaningful, personal post like this. For all the nonsense that is written on this weblog, I guess few would have really known what it felt like being me. Not that it's all that special (I reckon everyone has their own tale to tell anyway); I believe that few (not my close, personal friends nor even family members) would have truly understood some of the things that I went through and experienced.

Ive always wanted to pen a post on what I do for a living, how and why I came to it, and to give a short a recap of my entreprenual journey thus far. Hell, even if noone reads it, I reckon it will be good to have this as a short anecdote to myself.

Given the subject matter, this isn't necessarily something that's going to be easy to write about. What with all the details and especially cause it is not going to be that interesting to everyone, the challenge of writing this post seems daunting. Alas, I've always wanted to pen my thoughts over this subject matter, so here goes.

This is the second part of the series of "The Thing About the Thing That I Do" posts. Part 1 can be read here.

Recap

The deal was this. At the tailend of my tertiary education (that is the final year of university), I sort of realised what I wanted to with my life and career. And it wasn't meant to be the standard plan that I envisioned for so long; which was to graduate and to work as an engineer. Not that being an engineer would have been a bad thing; in all honesty I think it would have presented itself as quite a decent job (albeit slightly boring!). As fate would have it, a series of events drove me to self-realisation; that I didn't want to be someone else's pencil pusher and I really wanted to work for myself.

Planning, Planning, Planning

C (the gatecrasher dude during my industrial training and who was to become my business partner) and I begun work on business plan not long after sharing some ideas together. We had a simple idea then and we really wanted to make it work. We'd spend time brainstorming after work (as I was a trainee then, and himself employed as an engineer), putting things on an Excel sheet, coming up with business models, figuring out the mechanics of how things would work.

In retrospect, I'd say that some of the things we thought of then were pretty elementary and wouldn't even have been good enough to stand the challenges of the business world, but hey, all budding entrepreneurs had to start from somewhere, yeah? The process of the doing the research and planning ran its course for several months I reckon, from the time when I was an industrial trainee to when I went back to university for my final 2 semesters of studies.

It All Starts With A Name

Digitel Solutions. That was the name that I coined for my first business venture years ago. A deliberate misspelling of the word 'digital', the name (which I've realised actually sounds quite awkward!) in fact was a combination of the words 'digital telecommunications' (4 letters of the first word, and 3 letters of the second make 'digitel').

Digitel Solutions' logo, designed by Slacker himself.

I even designed this logo myself. Hell, everything we had to do, we did it ourselves back then. No designer to come up with flashy logos, taglines etc. I even recall that to come up with the logo, I was using a set of primitive tools that weren't quite up for the task. Would you believe it, I actually used Microsoft Visio to crack up that design. No idea on how Photoshop or Illustrator worked. Yep, my limited skill sets meant I had to get things done via unconventional methods.... which really was how I got my work accomplished in all those early years. The method didn't matter, just the end result which in all honesty is how I pulled through at the beginning (more on this later) of my career.

Back to the name. It was somewhat inspiration by Intel Corp. which got the name Intel' from the words 'integrated' and 'electronics'. Pretty smart I thought to myself at that time :p But again, I have to stress that it doesn't sound quite as suave when I think of it today!

Making Things Work

Digitel Solutions was to be an technology company, specialising in providing comunication solutions to small-medium scale companies. That was what it was meant to be upon its inception.

Our first ever marketing collateral/product brochure. Again designed by Slacker himself with some less-than-stellar tools.

They say that one cannot build a business solely by himself. This is something that I agree to whole-heartedly. It was just me and C at the beginning. Now, there's this other good friend of mine, SL whom I've known every since we were in primary school together. We've known each other for what it seems to be almost forever, but it wasn't until much later that we became really good mates. There wasn't any doubt that I wanted him to be on board with us, working this to make Digitel a success.

Here's the thing with SL, and this I'm going to say bluntly. He's simply brilliant. He was always regarded as the smartest chap back when we were in school and in college together. Everything I needed to know when it came to the fundamentals of business strategy, the basics of investment, the basics of economic theories and countless other topics, I've learnt from him.

As a team, we complement each other too. Me, I'm always wanting to push things ahead and try to be proactive at all times. Him, he's much more reserved and calculative but never fails to give a very strategic outlook on things (though I must say that him being hesitant over certain decisions does piss me off!).

Till this day, if there's something when it comes to strategic decision making which was rather technical in nature, I'll run it through with him just to have a balanced, objective viewpoint. And he's one person that I'd trust. I'd trust him not screwing me over, and I'd trust his viewpoints when it comes to certain decisions. You can go as far as saying that if there's one person I want on my side in business when it comes to making a final roll on the dice with my final RM 100, it'd be SL. And it is based on these facts that I'm still working with him 6 years on.

So yeah, SL was convinced with the ideas we put forward. He was naturally excited and it was then SL, C and myself pioneering this IT startup. The plan was for us to work on building the company within our own resources through the final year of university for SL and me. C would have to chip in despite having a full-time job. The plan was that when me and SL had graduated, we'd work for about a year each while running Digitel part time and then both of us would quit our jobs and move into our business venture in a full capacity.

So we had to start from somewhere. We had develop the IT solutions ourselves, and that basically meant software programming. A little hitch though. Myself and C were trained as engineers. SL was an accountant by training.

-_-

Talk about a bunch of random dudes coming together wanting to pioneer the next big IT startup and yet their resumes read a bunch of unrelated disciplines (granted, it wasn't as if it read plumber, gardener and chef so we still thought we were capable of pulling it off).

Study we had to do, and self-thought programmers we had to be later on. It's based on this methodology of learning things on our own that also led to us doing things unconvetionally sometimes. If there every was a mantra for how we'd do things, it'd probably be:

"It Doesn't Matter How We Accomplish the Task, Which Route We Took, So Long As We Reached the Destination."

Results over approach. Destionation over route. Accomplishment over convention. Whatever you wish to call this methodology, we still practise it to this day, though we have imrpvised somewhat by ensuring that do things via the 'best-practices' approach as much as we can.

Decision Time

Months passed and we toiled on. I was nearing the end of my studies, and I'd graduate in a couple of months. By then, I was toying with doing an extra year of studies to graduate with a Master's degree. I reckon that I had to do it then if I could, otherwise I might just not do it once I start working.

I was considering this option for months though this might have been a setback for Digitel, which was still very much in my plans (and I did acknowledge to both SL and C that some sacrifices in timing had to be made should this course of action be taken). I might not have noticed it back then, but thinking about it, SL probably was bummed out when I told him of my potential plans.

I was considering this route, but eventually I made the decision to stick with the original plans which was to work for a short while and focus on the business shortly after. No setbacks, no delays in the timelines, things were back as how it was meant to be.

As we were working late one night and discussing the way ahead, I was asking SL on what he felt were the prospects of us moving ahead. Just one of our regular self-imposed questions to see if we're on track and if this was what we really wanted to do. He then said something along the lines of:

"I believe in this venture, and I'm considering going into this full
time right after I'm done with my studies"

What that meant was that he'd finish his studies, leave the UK to come back to Malaysia, and in the process turn down some job interviews that he'd secured with financial services institutions in the UK itself to work on this venture with me.

What that meant was that I'd have to give up a scholarship (as I'd have to break a contractual agreement between myself and a multinational firm where I had to work for them in turn of them sponsoring/subisdising my education expense) and a decent job that was waiting for me.

We both gave it some thought on what we wanted, and it wasn't long till we reached a concensus which was to give up the security that we had for an uncertain life and career as entrepreneurs. It was only later that I found out from SL that he was willing to take this next step after I had taken mine, which was to sacrifice what I really wanted to do which was to pursue a Master's degree after finishing my undergraduate stufies.

I guess you can say that by then, we were both then dead serious about this venture. Any doubts that existed before were effectively eliminated with this agreement between ourselves. C, on the other hand did not/couldn't leave his full-time job and was to take a smaller role within Digitel.

So then, my decision was made. I was going to give up a job and scholarship and dive into trying to set up and run an IT business with no working experience, not having done real job before (save for a 10 week internship stint), not much of business sense, and to top it off, not much of IT knowledge to boot. I was 21 then.

To be continued in Part 3.

Messing With People's Minds

2009-03-28T18:48:00.008+08:00

Humour is good. To laugh is to be happy. Happy is a good thing, and so is humour. Hence the post below (not sure how I came up with these senquence of sentences :p).

Lots of my inspiration for humourous posts come from conversation that I have from people. It could be over the dinner or mamak table, a phone conversation, a series of text messages, or over on MSN. Seriously, I don't know why; but perhaps nonsense is all I talk about these days?

So I was out with a good-old friend of mine who recently (ie. just a couple days ago) got together with this girl that he fancies. I sorta expected them to get together ... with the amount of time that they'd been spending with each other.

Now, the deal is this. I'd like to mess around with his head (in a non-serious, but rather in a humourous way) by telling him the downsides of being in a relationship as opposed to leading a ~~hedonistic~~ lifestyle of a single man. Things like:

Not having to give a shit about things, and being able to bum around as much as you'd like.
Not needing to have permission to watch footbal with your mates at 3am in the morning (European Champions League quarter-finals coming up soon ok!).
Not having to give a shit about things, and being able to bum around as much as you'd like.
Having to meet your other half's parents and act non-dodgy (especially important if you're a dodgy dude).
Not having to give a shit about things, and being able to bum around as much as you'd like.

Ah.... the perks of being single..... Oh well, in all seriousness (and before girls who read this think I'm that much of a bummer), those pointers mentioned above don't necessarily have to be true. Being in a relationship is all about making sacrifices (both him and her) and I reckon that if both are happier being together rather than being single, then it's all worth it.

So back to the topic. I've been trying to mess around with my friend's head by saying those things above. But they don't seem work! Damnit! Looks like I have to play a little dirty.

Thing is, the girl he's dating is 2 years older than us and it's just another 1 more year till she hits the big Three O (ie. 30 years old lah). So I'd figure I'd play into this topic and see his reaction (yeah, I'm evil at times). This conversation actually happened last night:

Participants: Slacker, and Friend Who Has a Chick (FWHC)
Setting: After mamak one night.

Slacker: Bro.... you know, she's actually 29 this year. You know about girls
who reach that age right?
Friend Who Has a Chick (FWHC): What??
Slacker: Urm... she's at an age where she needs to be in a serious
relationship. You know, girls our age (26-27) are looking to get married. She's
hitting 30 soon, and hence she might actually be thinking of those things
seriously.
FWHC: Urm.. no issues lah. Not worried about that at the moment.
Slacker: Well, you never know. Perhaps she might plan to get pregnant
'inadvertedly' just to force your hand in marriage! Hahahaha. [Insert evil
grin here]
FWHC: Not worried about that! That trick doesn't necessarily work!
Slacker: Huh?
FWCH: If that happens (ie. girlfriend gets pregnant), I can always say to her:
'Urm..so..? '

Huge bouts of laughter ensued.

In case anyone is wondering, none of us actually meant those statements above :)

Most Awkward and Improbable Moments I've Had to Endure: Part Three

2009-03-26T23:00:00.005+08:00

OK. This post is going to be personal. Personal in the sense that it deals with situations that I've been in in my life. But as with all things that have to do with me, it somehow just has to be twisted (why God?? Why??!), resulting in a rather awkward and improbable situation; but which in retrospect, gives me a good laugh whenever I think of it. So let me pen down this self-depricating post on some of my Most Awkward and Improbable Moments!

This is going to be part three (and possibly the final part... unless more awkward shits happen to me) of the Most Awkward and Improbable Moments series of posts (read Part 1 and Part 2 here). So without any further delay, here goes...

The Movie Outing

The Situation

It was a Friday night. Time for some time-out after a long working week. Not that it really meant much to me really, as I do catch up with work over the weekends, but I guess it's an excuse to have an outing with friends just to catch up. Well not that it's the point anyway, so back to the main story before i diverge too much.

So what's the plan for a Friday night? Simple, we (ie. me and some friends) decided to catch a movie. I still remember the movie we were all excited about. It was "10,000 BC" and it had just opened in the cinemas.

Official movie poster for 10,000 BC. Apparently the protagonist was trying to feed it's pet sabretooth tiger. Oh yeah, they do things back then in 10,000 BC (pun intended).

Let' see what the movie was about:

"From the director of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow". Looks cool!
The show features huge-ass monsters. Looks cool!
The show has some huge-ass battle scenes. Looks cool!

All-in-all, it was meant to be a testosterone infused dude flick! The show where you neglect the plot lines and sit in just for the action scenes. Cool, I thought!

So the deal was this. I was going out with 2 other couples. Both my guy friends were bringing their gal pal's along for the movie. I was meant to be the odd one out as my then girl friend couldn't make it for the movie.

Now, I normally never like to join other couples for outings. Why? Cause it greatly diminishes the amount of nonsense I get to say to my guy friends. Not like their gal pals really mind, but I guess it's a different thing having only half of your audience get the kind of nonsese that you say. That and also causeI never like to exclude other parties from the topic of my conversation. And that, coupled with the fact that the different crowd causes me to act a little more *coughs mature.

So my friend was about to have the tickets booked. He asks "So.... you sure you want to join us?". I said 'Yeah, no problems'. He asked this question like twice over our convesation on MSN. I thought to myself, "Hmm... those guys must be afraid that I might feel really out of place going to the movies with them and their gal pals".

The Turning Point

So it was all good. Me and one couple met up for dinner around 8-ish, just a couple of hours before the movie was to begin. As we started talking about the movie and make plans to meet the other couple (they didn't make it for dinner and joined us just before the movie was to begin), I realised that the movie was booked for the Signature Cinemas in the Gardens, Midvalley! Well, if you're as ignorant as I was then, this particular cinema only houses twin/couple seats, ie. seats that come in pairs with no dividers between them! Bloody hell! I was cussing and asking "Why the hell did noone tell me??!"

Well, at times like this, the only thing to do is to think positively. Yep, trying to put a positive spin on things does help sometimes. Perhaps a nice gal will occupy the seat next to me? Wishful thinking it was indeed. As fate would have it (yes, the stars were aligned against me that day), some random dude picks up the seat next to me. -_-

Did I Get Away With It?

Considering there was ~~minimal~~ no interaction whatsoever with the random dude, and nor was I violated in any way, I guess I came through the episode unscathed! Just moments of awkwardness, you can say.

The Aftermath

No big issues really. Just a good laugh over the incident. And we still talk about it to this day (in fact, the topic came up like 2 hours ago). Oh yeah, the movie kinda sucked too :(

The End. Ok.. Go laugh away. I shall hide in a corner now. Kthxbai. -_-

Random Post for the Day: # 2

2009-03-22T22:43:00.007+08:00

Not being in the wordy mood to come up with a detailed blog entry today, so I'll let some pictures do the talking for today's post.

Let's have some pictures to tell some stories. All of the pictures below were taken quite recently (over the past 1-2 months or so) with my crummy phone camera.

Exhibit A: Small-Scale Paper Recycling Factory

That's the desk of a friend of mine. Amazing shits if you ask me. I seriously think you'll find some maggots underneath the stack of paper and a racoon hiding inside the chest of drawers there. I really wonder how he gets his work done. Well .... to his credit, he actually gets it done quite efficiently IMHO (I can attest to that). His colleague actually remaked that she's given up hope on him ever clearing his desk.

Exhibit B: An Overpriced Menu, Literally

This is a picture of a food menu of a pretty decent restaurant in PJ. I suppose the most expensive thing on the menu is, well, the menu itself.

Exhibit C: The After Effects of Alcohol Consumption

The picture says it all. Good friend of mine gets wasted after a friend's wedding. I had to rush back from another engagement to make sure that all is well and fine with him last night. Safe to report that it was all good. In fact, he even got up before me this morning!

Dealbreakers

2009-03-18T18:57:00.007+08:00

Some deep thoughts in the post up ahead. Well actually, not really...

Here's the deal when it comes to meeting a boy/girl/man/woman/~~koala~~ (whatever tickles your fancy) for the first time. You qualify the person by determining whether he/she is your type. Using a set of predetermined criteria, often influenced by the following factors :

Your level of alcohol intoxication
Degree of desperation in meeting a life partner (especially applicable to women in the late twenties and the early thirties!)
Looks (aww.. stop calling me superficial! At least the person has to pass this minimum requirement right?)
Conversation (ie. whether or not your conversation with the other party is at least interesting to say the least)

You then decide whether he/she warrants any further attention by moving on to a casual date. That's when you go into the second part of the qualifying phase. You pick up some hints of information on the other person. Things like, 'Oooh.. she loves watching football too' or 'Oooh.. we actually love the same movie' and yada yada...

More interestingly, rather than finding positive points, you'll notice certain traits that swings the courtship into the opposite direction. Yep, it's in my cynical nature that I look for the negatives first rather than the positives. The way I think this works out is that you'll use the negatives to actually qualify the person. Hell, the woman I'll settle down with in the future probably will be evaluated based on the 'lack of negatives' aspect of things.... haha.

But hey, I'm a compromising person and I reckon that'll I'll make lots of exceptions for another person whom I really like. But (and this is a big but) there are certain negative traits that you just can't live with.

These traits are termed as dealbreakers. Things that make you go "Whoaaa.. holy crap, I gotta run away as fast as I can while she's in the washroom!" Yep, things that are a complete turn off when it comes to being with another person.

For the sake of laughter, and also cause this is also applicable to me in real life (only partially), let me list down some serious dealbreakers when it comes to dating a girl (sorry, I'm a guy so I'll write this from a dude's perspective... chicks can write theirs in the comments section). Oh yeah, and please don't take the things below too seriously, like I said, they only apply to me partially.

The dude isn't going to be threatened with that.. really

I. General Dealbreakers Before Things Get Serious:

She Loves Too Much of a Drink - Having an alcoholic beverage by all accounts is fine. Hell, I'm fine if she drinks on nights out. The dealbreaking factor happens if she often get's intoxicated in public places to the point that she's incoherent in public and needs help to be ushered around.
She Know's So and So and Sorta Was with So and So - It's bad news if the girl has a bit of a reputation among your social circle or neighbouring ones. It's fine if she's been with that person, but if she was with him, him, him, him, him and him, well... that's a bad sign I reckon.
She Cusses Like a Sailor - Cussing is fine. Just so long as she doesn't use it all the time and doesn't say it out aloud. So leave the cussing to the guys. I'm sure most people will get my drift here.

II. Stuff that are Huge Dealbreakers and that Make You Go WTF?

She Just Doesn't Quite Get It - Imagine this. You crack a joke. The best one you've ever told. Evarrr. And then she goes "Huh? (Insert totally irellevant comment that had nothing to do with the punchline)". Kinda sucks, doesn't it?
You Have to Explain the Concept of X More Than Once - Imagine this. You both watch The Lord of The Rings and you have to explain to her why the Ring is evil and has to be destroyed. And you also have to explain why you suspect Sam and Frodo are in fact, gay.
She Cheats! - Imagine this. Imagine her fooling around in bed ...Urm, ok enough said.
She Has Lousy Friends and Thinks Yours Are Lousy Too - Imagine this. She has an abnoxious female friend who likes to tag around you guys when you're out on a date. This friend makes lousy jokes, complains, and bitches about everything in general. She also thinks that your friends are lame and that having guy's nights out is downright gay.

III. Stuff that are Huge Dealbreakers But Are Funny to Talk About Afterwards:

Her Father Runs the Mafia - Doesn't work unless you're considering a career in the underworld. Imagine having to answer to her dad over the fact that you missed the family reunion dinner. Not. Good. At. All.
She Has a Criminal Record - Her record may say 'convicted for manslaughter', but how sure are you? What if she really did it?? And on purpose? My guess is that you'd keep an eye on her everytime she's holding the butcher knife.
She Was a He Previously - Seriously, WTF??

IV. Not so Big a Deal Kinda Stuff That I May Contend With:

Smoking - Acceptable if done in moderation. But I reckon that I'd somehow bug her to kick the habit.
Partaaying - Acceptable if it doesn't go overboard. But I reckon that I'd somehow bug her to live a more domesticated life once we're together.

The Magic Cheat Card

I'm a man of principles. But hey, principles are meant to be broken once in a while (like I said, I might make some exceptions with dealbreakers :p). I reckon she has to have some really cool qualities (like superhero powers??) to be able to let me overlook one of those dealbreakers (so long as it ain't too serious).

I guess there's no hard a fast rule to things and that you'll only know when you know.

What's the Deal With....

2009-03-17T18:00:00.007+08:00

A short post on some totally random thoughts of mine coming up ahead. Well, not actually random, but it's been weighing on my mind quite a bit today.

The Deal

So here's the deal. Have you ever been in a situation where you meet a person (well, not necessarily one of the opposite sex though I may think that it's more pervalent in these situations) for the first time and really get along well.

You have really good conversations, the person gets your point and you'd think that you are on the same wavelength (hell, you'd think that somehow your brains are wired together). The same trend sorta sticks for the next few rounds where you meet up or generally converse. But somepoint down the line (pretty soon in certain cases), you find the initial enthusiasm to not be as great, the conversations to not be as good as they used to, and generally things die down.

(Insert Disclaimer Here)

To the handful of people (I'm not so sure if 2 or 3 persons makes it a handful :p) who actually read this blog come to a conclusion that I'm indeed in some distrought phase in life, I'm assuring you that that ain't the case :p (Like I said, just penning down some of my thoughts)

Observations

My theories as to why these things happen:

Person is a friend of the same sex (and is straight): He/she probably called on your bluff and thought you weren't so cool after all (well that is if you were being dishonest for whatever reason). Or perhaps he/she found out something about that isn't so cool about you, OR perhaps it was because you tried to scam him/her off for a free meal.
Person is someone you know on a professional level: Pretty much the same reasons as above. In addition to that, perhaps he/she was trying to do a deal or work something out with you, and of which didn't go throught and hence he/she deosn't feel obliged to make more of an effort to have a relationship with you.
Person is of the opposite sex (and is straight): The person probably was qualifying you as a partner/fling/whatever. Once that possibility wanes for whatever reason; either he/she found out that you were a sleazebag, gay or just wasn't his/her type, less effort is put into the relationship.

Thoughts anyone?

* This has got to be one my most serious posts evarrr. Thank you now, bai.

The Song of the Moment: #1

2009-03-15T21:54:00.005+08:00

Short post up ahead. I think I'll make this Song of the Moment thing a recurring theme on this weblog.

This is my song of the moment. Not that it's particularly new but I sorta discovered it quite recently. It's "Answer" by Sarah McLachan. It's not your typical cheesy love song; I reckon that you've got to look into the lyrics to really appreciate it.

Enjoy the video.

I will be the answer at the end of the line
I will be there for you while you take the time
In the burning of uncertainty I will be your solid ground
I will hold the balance if you cant look down
If it takes my whole life I wont break I wont bend
It'll all be worth it worth it in the end
Cause I can only tell you what I know
That I need you in my life
When the stars have all gone outyou'll still be burning so bright
Cast me gently into morning
For the night has been unkind
Take me to a place so holy
That I can wash this from my mind
The memory of choosing not to fight
If it takes a whole life I wont break I wont bend
It'll all be worth it worth it in the end
Cause I can only tell you what I know
That I need you in my life
And when the stars have all burned out
You'll still be burning so bright
Cast me gently into morning for the night has been unkind

Random Post for the Day

2009-03-12T03:36:00.005+08:00

I've been quite occupied with work lately, hence the lack of posts. But in the spirit of entertaining the 5, 4, 3, 2 readers or so who actually check this weblog on a daily basis for new posts, I've decided to come up with a ~~masterpiece~~ filler post!

This blog is devoid of pictures.... Especially pictures of yours truly!

Wokaay then... Let's break the trend by allowing me to indulge in a wee bit of self-love and narcissism by posting the picture below:

That's slacker flipping off the cameraman with the V-sign (with palm inwards)

I don't know why I was giving this often-misunderstood hand gesture. Probably cause the camera dude was making some funny remark at my expense.

While I'm on the topic, I've come across people wanting to flash the 'Peace Sign' (similar gesture but with palm facing outwards) but end up doing it like the picture above. Hell, I think George Bush even made this mistake once.

Do you know the difference in meaning between the two hand gestures?

Most Awkward and Improbable Moments I've Had to Endure: Part Two

2009-03-08T23:57:00.013+08:00

OK. This post is going to be personal. Personal in the sense that it deals with situations that I've been in in my life. But as with all things that have to do with me, it somehow just has to be twisted (why God?? Why??!), resulting in a rather awkward and improbable situation; but which in retrospect, gives me a good laugh whenever I think of it. So let me pen down this self-depricating post on some of my Most Awkward and Improbable Moments!

This is going to be part two of the Most Awkward and Improbable Moments I've Had to Endure: Part One series of posts. So without any further delay...

The Medical Checkup

The Situation

I was a teen at that time. I've never done a medical checkup before at this point in life. Hell, when you're young teenage boy, you never really understood why older people complained about sore backs, not having enough sleep, having migraines etc. etc. But anyway, that isn't really the point of the statement; what I'm trying to say is that I've never had a medical checkup before the one I was suppoed to do back then ... of which led to some funny happenings.

So I got to my regular clinic for the checkup. Same doctor I've been to since I was a kid. Same place I threw up at whenever I was a sickly little kid. So I go through the regular motions of having my height and weight measured and the usual yada yada. No problems, I seem quite healthy. Gave a blood sample (I never look at the syringe whenever the doctor's extracting blood from my body.. dunno why).

The Turning Point

Little specimen cup.. urm.. holder..urm.. gadget?

Ok, all good so far. The doctor then hands me a little specimen cup/holder for me to deposit .. urm ... my specimen (urine sample lah, not of the other sort to test my fertility!). Funny thing was like I never did give a urine sample before. I thought to myself, "Hmm... sounds easy yet complex at the same time". My main thoughts were (OK, I was young and naive so don't judge!):

Hmm.. Awkward... I'm keeping my own piss for once :P Weird but manageable. No problem for slacker!
How do I pee into the thing eh? Place it onto the floor and pee? Hmm.. requires abit of urm.. 'targeting' skill. After 1 minute of thought, I realised that I could actually hold the cup with one hand and place it closer to the .. urm.. source of liquid? Ok then. No problem for slacker!

So fine, I've left some of my fuilds in the cup and time to hand it back to the doctor. Not sure if you've experienced it before , but it's kinda awkward carrying my piss around in a cup. Ok, funny thing is the cup didn't come with a lid (unlike the illustration above). Any bloody hell, I just had to fill it to the brim (thought that the doctor needed more of my piss to examine mah).

So I was walking back to the room where I was supposed to leave my piss (pardon the crude language, but how else do I describe it??) on a table. Piss on one hand, other free hand opens the door. Mind you, this was just not far away from the general waiting area, hence, the awkwardness of having people seeing me carry my piss around.

So open the door I did, I stumbled with the handle and my piss carrying hand jerks and I spill some over the floor! Shit, I may even have spilled some on my leg!

Note to self: Why the hell did you have to fill it to the brim!???

Did I Get Away With It?

Naturally the thing to do when being caught in situations like this is to act as if nothing happened.

Caught littering in public? Act as if nothing happened!
Ran over your neighbour's cat? Act as if nothing happened!
Ran into your friend making out with his maid? Act as if nothing happened!

Holy crap, I just left my goods where it should have been on the table. Washed myself up a little and got out of the clinic in no time.

The Aftermath

As far as my memory serves me, noone noticed my little transgression there. No weird stares the next time I got back to the clinic.

As far as I was concerned, I got off free!

Note to self: Do not try balancing a cup of delicate liquid specimen that's almost full.

The End. Ok.. Go laugh away. I shall hide in a corner now. Kthxbai. -_-

We've Reached New Lows

2009-03-02T23:37:00.008+08:00

Taking a break from the serious post on my life and career, let's revisit some lameass jokes and crude humour! I'll try posting Part 2 of "The Thing About the Thing that I Do later" (not easy to write ok??!). This post was originally posted on my old blog (one that I've shut down after I got bored of blogging after some time) but with some edits.

I find it quite a bit of hassle to take a drive down to the city centre sometimes. From my office or residence, it isn't too far but the issue of traffic remains a real turn-off. Sure, sometimes it depends for what and at what hour of the day. Entering town during peak hours is a definite no-no. A trip that can otherwise be completed in 20 mins ends up taking an hour; so you get my drift here.

The following are excerpts of a conversation between myself and a friend of mine (btw he's a lameass dude like me :p) over IM and SMS one fine day over the issue of having to drive to town. Not produced in verbatim, but in essence the message is contained as follows:

Participants: Slacker, and Lameass Dude (LD)
The Setting: The participants have to make a trip to town in the evening rush hour. Being lazy as they were, both were attempting to come up permissable excuses as to why they shouldn't be the designated driver for the day.

Slacker: Eh bradder.... my car tyre came out la. Damn.. looks like u have
to drive to town!

Speaking in broken English to add to the pathetic tone, hence to
establish a more permissable excuse as to not have to be the driver

Lameass Dude (LD): Oh crap. You know what? My car's engine dropped off also
lah. I think the mechanic didn't screw it back properly the other day.

Slacker: You're full of donkey cock talk lah. Your reason sounds a little
too cock lah.

LD: You think I believe that your car tyre came out ar??

Slacker: Look, let's do this in a more civilised fashion. You deserve to
drive. I gave you 500 chips yesterday (on Texas Hold 'Em Poker on Facebook).
Furthermore, I was the one who introduced you to ***** (name withheld to protect
the innocent). If it weren't for me, your life would not have been so
fulfilling!

LD: Damnit, more lies! As a punishment for your constant lying, you drive
tonight!

Later in the day....

Slacker: Bro, you wouldn't f***ing believe it. First was my car tyre, now the
exhaust on my car just dropped off! No choice, looks like you really have to
drive.

LD: Damnit, you liar. I don't believe you. But in all seriousness, my car
steering wheel came off just now!

-_-

It's at this point of the conversation that we both realised that we've reached new depths of lameness and hence the title:

"We've Reached New Lows"

But as fate had it for us that day, someone else volunteered to drive us! I suppose being as lame as we are helps sometimes. Success it was :)

The Thing About the Thing That I Do: Part 1

2009-02-28T02:54:00.007+08:00

University was a breeze really (mainly cause I was such a nerd and where I went to study wasn't exactly what you'd describe as being a top-notch university)

My grades were good (somehow that was all I thought mattered back then, and yes, I really was a nerd).

I had a scholarship by a multi-national semiconductor company (think 'inside' the PC/Mac that you're using and that's the company I'm talking about) and job security wasn't going to be an issue at all.

I sort of knew what line of work I'd wanted to be in - As a R & D engineer in the said company in Penang. The said job paid well for the industry that I was supposed to be in too.

I was in a long-term relationship with someone for about 2.5 years at that point of time. At the back of my head, I'd assume that I'd be married after a couple of years of work or so. Not that I had it all planned out. As naive as I was, this wasn't something that I was absolutely certain of, but nevertheless you can say that I subconciously had some thought of it happening that way (* dont laugh, like I said, I was young and naive!).

So there you have it. Education - check. Job - check. Urm.. personal life - check. That's how simple my outlook on life was back then.

Hell.... if I could, I'd travel back in time just to teach slacker v1.0 back then a thing or two about life. Especially the part of being suckered into thinking that relationships last forever (well, that's a story for another day, so I'll not diverge too much into it :p ).

Somewhere in this picture, you'll see Slacker v1.0

Second Act

Before the commencement of my final year of studies, us engineer wannabes had to go for a training programme or what we term as an 'industrial training'. It's meant to be a 10 week period for final year students to have job placements just to have a taste of what the working world was meant to be like.

Fun, I thought! Time to be less of a nerd and take my first step into the working world! Little did I know that these 10 weeks was to have a profound effect on my career. I guess I can safely say that the events that transpired in these 10 weeks essentially shaped my outlook on life itself and totally altered the course of career that was to be.

Now, I worked hard in those 10 weeks trying to prove myself. I thought I did pretty well. Hell, my supervisor even sent me an email saying something like "the country should be proud of having people like you". No shit! Though I'm pretty sure he meant to say that I did a decent job but he essentially was really a little overzealous in penning those words in an email. That and coupled with his less-than-stellar English.

Now, couple of things happened halfway through these 10 weeks:

Self Realisation - I realised that I didn't quite like taking shit from people. To be honest, I think that I function as a perfectly decent subordinate. I get my job done, I don't bitch about it and most importantly, I deliver. Period. However, there was just this part of me that thought that "whatever that dude telling me what to do does, I can do better". I thought that I needed to be ahead, in a position to influence things or just needing to take a bigger role.
I Developed an Entreprenual Mindset - Me and some fellow trainees rented a condominium during our stay in Penang for our industrial training programme. I had this friend whom I had just met whom apparently was a senior in my university who graduated 2 years before us (let's call him C for the remainder of this post). C worked in the same company as us trainees but somehow found it cooler to bunk in on our couch most of the time (stingy bugger he was!). I got to know him well; he thought me some things that I was oblivious to back then and eventually I picked up an entreprenual mindset (from him, you can say). It was basically that urge to wanting more from life and to get things accomplished for yourself. For all the nonsense that C was and still is; and for being the butt of an endless number of jokes by myself, I still give him props today for having that influence in my life. He probably doesn't know of it, but I'm not ashamed to admit it here.
I Got Dumped - No shit. Slacker for all his *cough qualities gets the shove. Apparently, having a distance between us (I was in Penang, and she back home in KL) leads to a self realisation of another sort for her. Well, in retrospect (not that I'm suger coating the fact that I got the shove) this was a one of the best things that ever happened to me.

So there I went from being a smart-ass-know-it-all to a shell of a person emotionally in the space of a few weeks. There's always a flipside to it though, and mine was the fact that I actually found out what I wanted to do with my career and life.

I once said to someone at that point of time:

"I felt that I've gained so much in realising what I want from my work life in that I know what I really want to achieve, but yet have to suffer this other loss."

Despite the emotional setback and perhaps being spurred by it, I realised that I didn't want to be an R & D engineer/lab rat for the rest of my life. I needed more. There's simply more to what I can do and achieve in this life; or so I thought.

Through some late night sessions, me and C had actually agreed that we wanted to start up a business venture together. We devised a business model, did our research and even came up with the name of what was to be my first ever business venture.

What was built on naivity, optimism and not to mention a desire to prove oneself after being shattered emotionally then led to a business venture that has continued to the present day.

To be continued in Part 2.

Humorous Post for the Day

2009-02-25T16:54:00.003+08:00

Friend: "wah cheh..4 lines in your last post and you wanna change this deep ingrained traumatic perception of yourself!"

That's what she said in response to me trying to shed this perception of writing only about humours stories on this weblog. Damnit, I'm not going to write a serious post evaaarrr again! Which then leads me to the following post.... :P

Edison Chen is Back!

The man who caused so many webservers to go crashing down, sparked a tabloid frenzy and not to mention countless MSN conversations and discussions over at the mamak table is back! Well, kinda. Apparently, he made his way to court for a hearing over his sex scandal.

Being inspired by the man (Edison that is) himself, I've had an interesting conversation which in turn leads to this post. Below are excerpts of a MSN conversation that I was having with a friend of mine. Not produced in verbatim, but essentially the message is contained within.

Female Friend on MSN (FFOM): That Edison Chen guy is such a player!

Slacker: What?! What?! He's a hero ok!

FFOM: What?! how can you idolise him?!

Slacker: Hahaha. Why not??

FFOM: You jatuh saham already in my eyes!

* What the hell, you trying to judge me isssit!

Slacker: Well, in my defense, that statement was meant to only be a joke. But u have to admit he's quite a champion having * ahem had so many conquests! You wanna know what my friend said about him??

FFOM: Yeah, what?

Slacker: My friend said 'Edison Chen's a hero.. because if not for him.. we would not have seen so many things in this lifetime! My life is more fulfilled because of him!!'

FFOM: aiyo lol. Well let me ask you a question. If Gillian Cheung slept with many guys and her tapes got leaked out, would you also think she's a champion or that she's a skank?

Slacker: To avoid being berated by you, i shall choose not to answer :P

FFOM: I think I know la what you're thinking.... there's always that double standard!

Slacker: Oklah.. I give Gillian props for her role in enlightening the world's male population!

FFOM: -_-

Deep Meanings With Words...

2009-02-25T03:16:00.005+08:00

Short post up ahead. Slightly personal in nature. Non-funny (I reckon this is the first post that hasn't involved me making a lame joke).

Before I get accused of writing too many awkward story/humourous posts, I think I'd refocus and simply pen something down that I came across; just as a reflection to my thoughts.

I've heard this song many times, but always felt that this portion of the song's lyrics were really deep in meaning. It always seemed like a poweful usage of words (well to me at least).

That love could kill the pain
Truth is never vain
It turns strangers into lovers
And enemies to brothers

You can listen to the song in its entirety here.

Most Awkward and Improbable Moments I've Had to Endure: Part One

2009-02-21T02:37:00.025+08:00

Edit: I initially wanted to list down 3 awkward and improbably situations that I found myself in, but halfway throught the first one, I thought that it was good enough to warrant a post on its own. This way, I get to dig into the details of each event even more (yep, for your reading pleasure and at my own expense!).

I'd like to look as calm and collected as the subject above when faced with awkward moments, but it sadly never happens!

The First Dinner Date

The Situation

There was a girl I went out with once (and a couple of times after that, but that's a different story alltogether). It was the case of wanting to get to know a person better, so you'd do the normal dinner/movie thingy.

It was a weekday and I had an early dinner with a client of mine. Early by my standards, say like 6pm. I only knew her (the girl that I went out with, and not the client.... who by the way is a dude in his 50s -_-) like a week before that.

And as I recall, I came to find out that evening that she wasn't too well that particular day. So being the nice person that I was * coughs, I had offered to take her out for a meal (porridge it was supposed to be) since I hadn't eaten much for dinner with my client earlier. The thing is, I hadn't plan on asking her out that day, it just only seemed like the thing to do considering she was working late and was ill and I eventually thought.... why not?

Urm.. that isn't me but I'd thought of placing a picture here solely as an illustration of a dinner date :P

As with all first dinner meetings/dates, you've got to be extra careful and be able to make a good first impression. Being the sad person that I am, I'm never good at these things, so extra effort is needed to ensure that:

I don't perspirate too much to the point I drench the car seat with sweat. Which isn't a good thing, considering that it was just half a year old then.

Crack too many lame-ass jokes to the point that she thinks I'm a clown in disguise (ie. a clown with so much makeup on that he masks his clown face to the extent that he looks like a normal dude).
Not appear to be gay (what to do, I've got too much of the metrosexual vibe going on *slaps myself for making lame-ass joke; vows never to repeat the same statement again).

Ok.. to ensure that these things don't happen, a plan needs to be in place! Hey, for whatever I lack in smoothness, I can make up for it by having a gameplan right? "To fail to plan is to plan to fail" as the Malaysian Chapter of Association of Smart aSses (ASS) have emblazoned on their crest. Ok, and so plan I did. Here's how it was supposed to go down:

I was supposed to pick her up from her place after she got home from work. I sorta knew the place she was staying in and she'd offer to direct me there. Even if that fails, I have GPS! ... so no problem. Slacker has it covered!
I'd thought of a place for porridge as she was having a bad flu. Pretty decent one it was in Sri Hartamas. Heck, I even drove past the place beforehand (she told me that she'd be late as she had to get back from town, so I actually had ample time) to make sure that it was still there ... so far so good. Slacker has it covered!
She was down with flu. What a better way to score extra brownie points by having ready a fresh bottle of mineral water in my car as she gets in? * pat's myself on the back ... so thoughtful of me. Slacker has it covered!

I was actually quite proud that I had most angles covered. "Not bad eh", I thought to myself. This way, awkward scenarios 1 -3 would have been avoided!

The Turning Point

So I pick her up. Starts a decent conversation. Haven't begun to perspirate uncontrollably yet. All that's needed is to get to the restaurant and I'm halfway there without making a fool of myself.... and by then, I'd build up enough confidence not to make an ass of myself for the rest of the night!

So as we near the place, I had to look for parking. As with most commercial centres in Petaling Jaya, the one in Sri Hartamas is mostly one-way traffic; dual lanes with cars moving in a single direction just to cope with the number of vehicles that travel within the area.

I was about to reach the open-aired parking area as that was about the only place where I could find a decent parking spot without obstructing a car or fire hydrant in the process. Then out of nowhere, some dumbass taxi driver appears (a magician I swear he was), cuts into my lane (yeah he probably is blind or was wanking himself to the point that he didn't pay much attention to the road), and hits the front-left side of my car! WTF??!! So much for my preparation! So much "for Slacker has it covered"!!

* Note to self, avoid places with crazy-ass taxi drivers when going out with a girl.

Did I Get Away With It?

Depends on how you look at it.

That inbred taxi driver obviously didn't want to pay for the damage even though it was his own fault. I had a passenger who was hungry and sick. I was in no fucking mood to want to argue with a retard on how "Me drive straight.. You drive crooked.. You bang me. You Wrong. Undaahstaaandd??" I was obviously upset and just walked away from the scene without negotiating a settlement (bear in mind that the car was still new then). Made it to the parking lot. Parked my car. Pulled off a cool face (I was pretty cool lah in my defence :P) and adjourned for dinner.

Only to find out that the porridge restaurant was closed! (Here's where I insert Hokkien expletives such as KNN! MCH! MCB!)

The Aftermath

We picked another restaurant. A Japanese restaurant in fact, with a funny waiteress (I remember her being unusually talkative). Food there wasn't really good. In fact, it was pretty overpriced. As for my car, the scratches are still there (though I've managed to polish off most of the paint marks) as I hadn't found the time to get it fixed yet.

You can't see much, except for some scratches and a dent on the fender. It was initially much worse without polishing the paint marks.

Some friends who knew of the incident had a good laugh at my expense. "Love Marks" on my car as one friend put it. Asshole.

The End. Ok.. Go laugh away. I shall hide in a corner now. Kthxbai. -_-

Can You Read This?

2009-02-19T04:54:00.006+08:00

Humourous (I hope) post up ahead. Ahh....Normalcy is restored on this weblog...

It's 5am in the morning now and I was contemplating getting some shut eyes. But for some strange reason, here I am making this post. Hell, it's not going to be much of a post; just something interesting I came across some time ago. I'll let the picture do the talking:

"If u c4n r34d th15 u r3411y n33d t0 g37 l41d". Got the image from here.

On another note, I've always thought of getting this shirt from Thinkgeek, but sadly they don't ship to Malaysia. Imagine the uber geekish coolness of having this tee!

Hell, while I'm on the topic of tees, here's some pictures of some nice tees that I have. I got this one online from the Neatorama store. The graphic's done my an Australian cartoonist. Just in case you can't read the text, it says "Don't lie to me Smith - that cookie was our last hope. You've doomed us all you fool!"

This one I scooped up from a night market in Kota Damansara. Brings new meaning to Teamwork!

Ok ... I seemed to have deviated from the original intention which was to post up the rather humourous Can You Read This? shirt....

That's all for this post. Bai.

Slacker's Weekend

2009-02-16T02:26:00.004+08:00

Somewhat personal post ahead; considering that it actually is about my life and is not meant to be cynical or humourous in nature.

So Valentine's day came and passed. What turned out to be a potential bummer of an event (as I had no real plans apart from a family thing) turned out pretty interesting instead.

As fate would have it on Saturday, I had some work to rush for, resulting in my family not being able to wait for me to take the drive down to my uncle's place (which was pretty far, approx. 45 mins with normal traffic conditions. I've never been to his place before (it's meant to be a house warming party) and by the time I was done, I'd be late to reach anyway. So as it turned out, I'd have to give the family event thingy a pass.

Backup plans were needed to be set in place, and I eventually joined an old friend of mine for dinner who was with his other friends and they in turn joined my friends for some after dinner events soon after. Good company for a decent evening I guess.

I'll write about it if I find it interesting enough. Heh. I suppose this post is merely just to validate the fact that I wasn't that much of a loner on Valentine's Day (yeah, LJ.... since you've requested for me to pen down my eventual activities for the day).

As they say, all good blogs need pictures. So that's what I'll end this post with. Pictures of good, old friends as we hung out together just earlier this evening.

Kthxbai!

Valentine's Day for Singles

2009-02-13T00:40:00.006+08:00

Cynical post coming up ahead. Not to be taken seriously.

Valentine's day is just round the corner. Yep, Feb 14th for all you happy couples out there. This the day for guys to have their balls broken, for chicks to be spoiled (and be able to share notes with their friends from local Evil Girlfriend's Club on how their partners had to break the bank just for the day), for retailers to make a killing, and for single people (like yours truly) to come of with believable excuses as to why they don't have any plans for the day.

So in the spirit of Valentine's day, let's examine the common excuses people give for not having any meaningful plans for the day:

#1. "Well, it's not really a big day for us you know... it's just like any other usual day.. we'll probably have dinner another day or something."

What this means: The guy is a workaholic and is too-busy with work. Or that he's broke. Or that he's really tight with the pursestrings! Or worse still, he doesn't really care much about the day alltogether and he's convinced his girlfriend that it's not a big deal at all, and hence gotten away without getting his balls broken for the day.

#2. "Oh.. I've got a company event/work matter to attend to."

What this means: In some cases, it may be true. But having a company organised event on a day (after working-hours) that's universally acknowledged to be the day that couples get together to do all forms of coupley stuff ain't gonna cut it. What this probably means is that the person is just gonna stay a little longer at work to fill up his claims form and rudimentary stuff to justify the excuse. Heh.

#3. "Valentine's day? Fuck, I don't give a shit. I'll hit the club anytime and score from there."

What this means: He's probably a loser in denial. What's gonna happen is that he'll probably buy some DVDs and watch them at home alone through the night.

Ah.. three common excuses, representing different facets of people. What about my excuse for not doing anything on the day? Well, I'm attending my uncle's house warming with my family. Yep, family event. Seriously.

PS. Let's end this post with what I believe has to be the best Valentine's day card design evaarrrrr (from Cracked.com):

The Antithesis of the Pickup Line

2009-02-12T00:34:00.002+08:00

This post was originally posted on Elaine's blog where I've written some posts for her in the past.

So I was chatting with one of my online buddies/friend/colleague the other day over crappy stuff as usual. Well our conversations normally goes along the lines of work issues and somehow or rather the conversation will be diverted to interesting/humorous/crappy stories that we share with each other.

So it started along the lines of someone we know getting hit on subtlely by a foreigner. Poor gal was supposed to help translate some of their conversations, ie. act as an interpreter:

Foreigner: So.... do all Malaysian Chinese girls look like you?
Local Gal: *Blushes... [insert shy emoticon]. I'm not telling you....

I'm wondering if this actually works? Well maybe, just maybe I'd try that if I was in a foreign country and had nothing to lose.. The thing with pickup lines is that it almost never works in the real world (at least the world I live in anyway). You see, you put yourself on a platform of high risk (with potential gains if you look at it in a way) but I can't help but think of the consequences. The potential end result is that the dude walks away embarassed with his tail in between his legs after a failed attempt (he doensn't physically have a tail, but you get my drift :p).

Anyway our conversation moved on to other corny pickup lines that my online buddy/friend/colleague knows of. Gosh, I don't know how she remembers them but she seems to know quite a few. Things like:

Pickup Line: "Your father must be a thief cause he stole the stars and put them in your eyes...."
Slacker's Comments: I swear I heard this in some movie/telly show before! Not gonna work.. .not in a million years unless you're at a weed party or a convention (a convention where people are stoned from smoking weed that is... I highly doubt that it will apply to other conventions unless intoxicating agents are involved).

Pickup Line: "Do you like water? Cause if you do, you'll like 70% of my body...."
Slacker's Comments: LMAO... well not gonna work for reasons I'm not able to pen down in this blog post as it necessitate that I write a white paper on the subject matter. One reason that comes to mind will be that you hit on some smart-ass chick and she'll say something along the lines of "Go take a piss.. cause that will reduce percentage of water in your body and we'll talk after that.. but hell.. probably not cause you'll drop below the minimum 70% treshold". (This is where you turn around and run away before she disses you with statistics, biology and quantum physics to justify why she shouldn't date you... serriously, run and never look back....)

Anyway, back to the main topic of this blog post. I've got a friend (whose indentity must be withheld for reasons not known to us) whom I shall refer to as Rekcals (I know it's hard to pronounce, but I was told that it means Smart Ass in ancient Hebrew). Well, Rekcals is a pretty decent dude.... he's your average straight (as in non-gay), single guy in his mid-twenties. Now, he's a guy whom people will describe with the urban term "he ain't got game". He hasn't got the pickup lines to start conversations with the female side of the population. What he will do is to build a rapport with normal convesations that aren't necessary flashy. Simple words, nothing corny. I suppose this is fine by all means. I mean, at least he doesn't have to turn around embarassed when one of those lines don't work?

Rekcals knows he doens't have all those opening lines nor fancy catch phrases to really strike a convesation with a girl. One thing he has (by his own admission) is that he has the innate ability to repel women. That's what i call the Antithesis of a Pickup Line. To best illustrate the subject in question, I shall give my first-hand account of an incident that occured a couple of weeks ago:

Location: Some club in KL (that's in Malaysia if you're not from my side of the planet).
Participants: Rekcals, Girl From Next Table (GFNT), anonymous characters (Slacker unfortunately is a non-participant, though he has a first hand account of everything :p)

So Rekcals (whom I shall refer to from this point forward as R.. Smart Ass in ancient Hebrew doesn't sound very smooth btw) was there with his bunch of usual friends. Say, maybe 10 or so people that he knows. As usual the setting of the clubs is crowded, what with all the party-goers unwinding for the weekend. There was a table adjacent to his; another similarly sized group of revellers with a 50:50 composition of guys and gals or as Malaysians will refer to as 'batangs' and 'lubangs' (yes, this is the part of the post where I must insert some crude humour).

With the place being crowded, naturally R had to find a comfortable spot where he wouldn't get his ass squished by some not-so-straight people. So he found himself in a spot between both tables. It was pretty uneventful, except at one point Girl From Next Table (GFNT) sorta stands next to him, dances a little bit, makes a bit of eye contact. This is the usual thing a person does to get another's attention: You repeat the same sequence of thing until one person initiates a conversation. That's how it works sometimes, at least in my book and in R's. So they started talking and the usual stuff flows (remember, there were no cheesy pickup lines).

Just abit of information to set things straight, GFNT was pretty decent, long decent hair, with a decent dress, decent looks etc. etc. except that she wasn't really R's type (don't ask me why, she just wasn't). So in all accounts, she was all right but just perhaps R was feeling a little gay that night :p So as it seems, they got into a convesation, like "my name is so-and-so, blah, blah, blah". The usual drift.

GFNT: Blah, Blah, Blah.
R: Blah, Blah, Blah.

Conversation is insignificant at this point.. hence the blah-ness.

GFNT: So where's your girlfriend?

This is where she's hitting on him!

R: Well... I don't have any.

GFNT: Ya, right!
R: Seriously....
GFNT: Well, why is that so then?

This is where the Antithesis of the Pickup Line occurs.... the ultimate women repellent!

R: I have no idea...seriously... well... but maybe you can introduce me to some of your girl friends over there? (Does so with a cheeky face)
GFNT: -_-

The conversation more or less ends there. The "stands next to him, dances a little bit, makes a bit of eye contact" sequence comes to a halt.

I'm not so sure if this women repellent thing is so much of a good thing.... but I guess it works if you need it to!

Obligatory First Post

2009-02-10T03:29:00.007+08:00

Hi there, welcome.

So here goes the first post on my new weblog. Firstly, I guess I'll have to justify to myself why I'd want to spend time writing posts that only a handful of people will ever read. Thinking about it, I guess the interest mainly comes from the fact that there are just many occurences in my everyday life (not that it's very exciting actually, just a handful of things worth mentioning:P) that warrants to be noted down and perhaps shared with a select audience.

These things that are worth sharing will probably be humourous in nature (the main interest sparks from here, alot of them starting from silly conversations over on MSN or perhaps some random thoughts flowing thru my head) and I'm pretty sure they will dominate the bulk of the posts for the time being. I'll perhaps try to pen some posts on things that are related to my personal life; whilst still preserving a degree of anonymity and privacy for myself. I'll do my best to stick to this theme, but I guess I'll find out along the way!

Slacker and The Thing With Privacy

Slacker's simply an online pseudonym that I've carried for quite awhile since my college days. It doesn't necessarily reflect my real-life persona (as I've been known to be quite industrious in nature :P); more of my blogging/online 'alter-ego' where I get to say or do stupid things and not be judged too harshly (it allows me deniability for anything going wrong!). Also, I think it'll be more interesting for a reader to read about a person's posts and form their own image of the author; and hence the pseudonym helps achieve that somewhat.

Yep, that's me. Edited so you wouldn't recognise me in the streets, hence saving me from a few acid attacks.

The thing with privacy is that I wouldn't want my professional life to be associated with things that I may write here on this weblog. My line of work (which is a wholesome, honest-to-goodness business operation that is non-illegal btw) involves dealing with customers, partners, and subordinates where I cannot possibly have them question me about something silly (perhaps talking about a late night excursion to buy DVDs??) that I may have written here. As such, there will probably be no mention of my name or incriminating photographs of myself on this weblog!

Moving Forward

All that I can say is that I hope to be able to sustain my interest long enough to continue updating this weblog. Let's hope it's going to be fun doing so, let's hope that many interesting things happen that warrant posts on this blog and lastly let's hope for ~~world peace~~ (I can't think of anything more so let's leave it like that).

* End note: It's 4am in the morning now and I'll write more later. I think it's wordy enough for the first entry.