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10kg in 2 months: 10kg in 2 months: Experimentations in a minimalist method for rapid body redesign

2012-01-15T13:01:00.001+08:00

The minimalist method explained

Results:

Time taken: 2 months
Muscle mass gained: 10kg (not fat, but lean muscles)
Total gym time: less than 4 hours per month (20mins twice a week).

Though I’m still far away from my ideal body weight, and I still look like a stick for my height, I’m at my heaviest my entire life. I’m writing this because I’ve tested a method which gave me consistent results for 2 months. I have no reason to doubt this will keep working until I reach my ideal weight.

If you’ve been skinny all your life, what would adding 5 to 10 kg do to your life? What if you can do it in a span of 1 to 2 months, without the need for a personal trainer, without complicated diets, only spending 20mins max in the gym, 2 times per week. Impossible?

Why the minimalist approach?

You see, if you approach a regular gym visitor with a physique you admire and ask them how they achieve their muscular stature, they would be able to tell you how much efforts they put in to attain the kind of results you’re seeing, but I can bet my grandmother’s grandfather clock that they would not be able to accurately tell you what are the bare minimum you have to do to achieve the same results.

Huh?

Ok. What if you can cut out 80% of the exercises and still get the same results? This would really make you rethink every single thing you’re doing and approach everything differently.

“It is not the daily increase but daily decrease; hack away at the unessential”
- Bruce Lee

What I’m telling you is that someone has already found out (through tireless research) how to cut out all the energy wasting things so that you can focus on the core things that will give you what you want in the least amount of the time. That’s what this is all about.

The reason I’m using this method is that it is just so completely awesome. 40 minutes per week for massive results? My cup of tea J
Another more important reason has to do with my work schedule. To keep up a training regime religiously would require massive discipline and my busy and sometimes unpredictable working schedule would require either an extremely flexible regime or a ridiculously simple one. Thank god for self experimenters like Timothy Ferriss.

Take note: This method is NOT for you if:
a) You’re already a professional body builder, looking for the next breakthrough results.
b) You have more time to train. If you can go to the gym everyday and would like even better results, there are other training methods available.

But if you’re like me, have a busy schedule (or pretend to be ;p), and would like to see massive results with minimal gym time, then you should continue reading this article.

Somewhere in the article, I will reveal how (a source of information) you can learn to do the same to reduce weight.

Note: I’m not selling any products. This information is free. Do your due diligence in making sure you are in a good health before changing your diets and do the necessary to prevent injuries.

What I did

First, I’ll let you in on the method. For most people, this is the most important part and what they want to know first. Though for me, this is the least important part. Today, with the power of the internet, “how” you do something is information easily available. Information is cheap. We’re in an age where the problem is too much information. The question is how to successfully apply the “how”. You have to go one level up.

For example, I can reveal my training regime and diet, but your success depends on how you’re going to implement the training regime and diet, whether you can take action and follow through. There are thousands of diet and training programs out there, but how many people successfully utilize it and get the results they want? The most important battle is in the mind. I’ll talk about that later. I’ve a few tricks up my sleeve.

The ridiculously simple training regime:

The origin of this training regime is from Timothy Ferriss’ book: The Four Hour Body.

A
Close grip supinated pulldown
Machine shoulder press

B
Machine bench press
Machine leg press

All exercises are performed with a 5/5 cadence, meaning 5 seconds up and 5 seconds down movement to eliminate momentum and increase time under tension.
All exercises are performed one set only, to failure. All exercise, except leg press, if a maximum of 7 reps if achieved, add 10% more weight or 5 kg (whichever is more), in the next raining session. Leg press is performed to the max of 10 reps.

Only two exercises are performed in one day. Take two days rest between A and B. Increase weight in every session. If you failed to make progress and could not lift the same amount of weight as the last session, stop, do not repeat the exercise with reduced weight. Do not proceed to the next exercise. Just stop and go home and take the next day off. There are only two reasons this happens. Your body have either not recovered or you’ve not eaten enough to stimulate growth. Whatever it is, increase the rest days to one more day once you encounter a plateau like this. This means as you grow bigger, you train even less.

For more detailed philosophy and the rules to train by, read this article: www.bodybuilding.com/fun/timothyf.htm.
Follow the six basic principles in the article, including “record everything”. It’s important to accurately track your progress like this is an experiment.

This is my progress after two months:

A
Close grip supinated pulldown – 30kg x 5 reps to 60kg x 6reps
Machine shoulder press – 20kg x 6 reps to 40kg x 6 reps

B
Machine bench press – 35kg x 5 reps to 60kg x 6reps
Machine leg press – 40kg x 8 reps to 65kg x 12reps

If you compare the training regime to the one in the article, I used another of Tim’s regime with even less exercises and took no supplements at all. This proves it is possible to get massive results without stuffing your body with chemicals, although those with the budget can surely try supplements for even better results. It’s useful, but not necessary.

To most people, this amount of training is ridiculously small. The desire to add other exercises will be immense. Don’t do it. Don’t add a damn thing! Remember, this is a tested method. For uncommon muscles growth, apparently less is more.

How to apply the “how”: Primary motivating factor (The Why)

You need a good reason if you want to successfully implement this regime. What I mean is a compelling reason. Why must you do it and why must you do it now? There is no try. If you’re thinking of trying out this regime, DON’T.

I’m serious. I can guaranty your failure if you “try”. Don’t even waste your time reading this article. If you just thought of trying, complete this sentence and click to another site.

Studies shows 99% of people reading the last statement would be too curious to not continue reading, even if they have no intention whatsoever to apply what they have read.

Ok, I just made that up. But you’ve already proved your commitment by reading part 2 so pat yourself on the back and now pay attention.

Back to having a rock solid reason for change. This is what I found to be true. I was a really skinny kid since I was 10 years old or something. I used to be in the “I want” to gain weight mode for the longest period of time, which left me with mediciore results at best.

The reason I wanted to gain weight was I wanted to look normal, I wanted to not be shy when I take off my clothes. I was especially timid when it comes to any beachside activities, or at the pool. I had low self esteem and attribute my weight to why I suck at sports. I thought I would never be able to get a girlfriend! I was so shy that at one point, my parents thought I was depressed, and I suspect that I was, mildly.

My weight issues were not easy to solve. The main suspect being a high metabolic rate (Update: a recent article I’ve read pointed out this to be not true) But the truth is I can eat like a pig and not gain a single gram. I am only slightly exaggerating. Ask my friends and they can attest to that. I’m the Majlis Bandaraya at any company dinner. Can’t finish the food? Shove it to Wah Hoo. He’ll take care of the leftovers. He’s so skinny he needs the calories (if any of you guys who know this are reading this bit and laughing, you deserve a tight slap for being so cruel. Just kidding J). Normally I would comply and try to attend to the leftovers until I’m stuffed.

But why was it that I have never had the motivation to make it a must to put on weight if I’ve been suffering in silence for so long?

The answer is my discovery of ‘self-help’ books. Lacking a role model, I tried to understand what was happening through self help books, and stumbled upon some interesting concepts.

To cut a long story short, I started to work on the inside, rather than what’s outside. And so came to the attitude of:

I accept myself no matter how I look. To change the world, I need only change my perspective of the world. I can enjoy myself no matter how I look. The important thing is to keep myself healthy.
The most beautiful people are those who accept who they are. When you develop a deep self respect and admiration, others will respond to you in the same way. They will respect and admire you for who you are.
At the same time, when you have an inner peace with who you are, you become confident and able to engage others confidently, and confidence is the most attractive thing about a person.

Once you start doing that, some side effect will come along. Mainly, you would want to start to take better care of your body. I tried going vegetarian for a month. I tried cutting down on meat, just to see what it would do to my level of energy and health. Though I’m back to a normal omnivorous diet now, I still constantly try to eat better and treat my body better.

And that’s the paradox of beauty. You need to be able to accept yourself no matter how you look, and then go out of the way to treat your body the best you can, including getting in shape, eating healthy, getting enough rest, etc. You MUST do both at the same time. Doing one and not the other would be cheating yourself of either your health or self esteem. If you have high self esteem, don’t cheat yourself of health, and vice versa.

So I took priority to working on accepting and loving myself for who I am first; and my world began to change. No matter where you are currently, I recommend you start with this part first. Your opinion of yourself is what matter, not anyone else’s.

One day, I realize I’m able to make fun of myself for being skinny. I mean really laugh at myself and crack some jokes when I’m with friends. They would comment I have “chopstick legs”, and I’d show off and feel sexy. Haha!
Taking my shirt off for water sports no longer pose a problem. Though still self conscious, I forget about it as soon as I engage in whatever activity in plan. The girl problem was solved with this attitude too J. Apparently, girls cared a lot less about what’s on my body than what’s in my head. Nice.

So for many years, though I still “want” to gain weight, there was no big motivating factor. So I became a dabbler. (read The Dip by Seth Godin, or this article: www.christopherpenn.com/2010/02/ ..to spot a dabbler vs a top performer).

But then came another motivation for change. I always look for ways to challenge myself and break out of my shell. To grow is the only way for me to live. But the rate of growth for an average person is too slow. I have an innate hunger to learn and become a better person, and so would appear as a curious student most of the time.

And so one day I came to know that Timothy Ferriss is publishing a book called the Four Hour Body. Suddenly, with this information on hand, I felt very motivated to challenge myself to do the seemingly impossible, in a lot less time than I thought possible. It’s like being given an opportunity to explore the final frontier. Having solved the inner issues gave me even more motivation to want to make a change on the outside.

A lot of people ask me why do I suddenly have this motivation to change (to gain weight). Most of the time I make up a reason as normal as possible, to save time explaining myself and being very philosophical, but now you know J (I think I’m over using smileys, but what the heck, it’s my article).

Ok, if you’ve got a good reason and feel very motivated, you need to solve the next great riddle. You need to understand how motivation and willpower works.

The true nature of willpower

This is my model:

Motivation (rock solid reason) --> Willpower --> Sustaining strategies --> Results --> Motivation (from seeing results) --> Willpower --> Sustaining strategies --> More results

“Willpower does not work, if you use it the wrong way.”

If you only depend on your willpower, you’re doomed to fail. But use it the right way, it’s essential to your success. This is what most people do. They get into the very motivated mood, where their energy level and activity is high, and then they run out of steam. Sounds familiar?

Here’s the reason: Willpower is unsustainable. You have to use conscious energy to sustain your willpower. Willpower often loses its steam after a period of time. It comes in burst, and tapers off with time. It’s like using your muscles for too long without rest, it gets tired and eventually fail.

So how do you use it effectively?

Knowing the nature of willpower, you must harness it and milk it to the max when you have it. Use your willpower especially at the beginning to setup sustaining strategies. Sustaining strategies are strategies that will ensure that you follow through when your willpower wanes.

Keep on keeping on

Sustaining strategies are what you do to maintain momentum when willpower runs out of air. These strategies keep you going when you feel lazy. It keeps you going when you’re “too busy” to go to the gym. It keeps you going when you have to choose between keeping to your regime and having a night out with friends. It replaces willpower as the burst of motivation until you see results and get another burst of willpower to continue.

I’ll let you know what mine are so you can understand better.

1) Psychological scaffolding
2) Stress of public humiliation

Psychological scaffolding

I’m sure you’ve seen how a new building is constructed. First, they have these scaffoldings up around it. The scaffoldings are meant to be supporting structures as the main structure is being built. We’re going to do something similar with our mind.

Remember willpower comes in a burst? This is how you use willpower effectively. You use it to build psychological scaffoldings. When your will power is high, set things up to create momentum and so it’ll be hard for you to backtrack halfway.
Take massive action while willpower is in play, for example: sign up for gym membership, get a coach, stock up supplies for your bulking period, get rid of all unhealthy food in your fridge and fill it with healthy ones, buy a diary to record things, set up a training schedule and tell your friends, change your fridge, bloody hell, change your friends if you need to!

Do everything all at once! You need to create such big change while you have your willpower so that it will be hard to backtrack later on. You can’t eat unhealthy junks after you’ve thrown it out from your fridge. If you have a habit of sitting in front of the telly once you get back from work and this is stopping you from working out, move and hide the TV somewhere so it’s hard to move it back to the living room. Sell the damn TV if you need to.

You have to make it easy for yourself to follow through and hard to fall back on your plans. That’s the basic principle.

Remember, your willpower only last for a short period of time, so create massive impact with it while you can.

Stress of public humiliation

Looking back, the single most important factor that made me stick to my regime and made sure I was disciplined enough was this: setting up a bet.

A marvelous idea this is, a bet.

The first thing I did was I told everyone what I was doing, that I was going to the gym trying to gain weight. Then I set up a bet with a close friend, and tell that to everyone.

The idea is to commit to people around you. I recommend committing to people who’s opinion you value the most. I know it can be intimidating, especially if you fail! But that’s the idea. Avoiding public humiliation can be a big motivating force. The pressure alone will be a great motivation to follow through. Announce it: I’m on a regime and I’m going to gain 5kg in a month. Say it like you know you’re gonna make it.

But the most effective means would be to set up a bet. Losing money can be a big motivating factor. I was only comfortable with RM100, so I made a RM200 bet with my friend. Get the drift? Make a bet that is out of comfort zone! When he suggested RM200, I was like “uhm…er…”, and that’s when I knew I’ve got to go for it cause it made me so uncomfortable, because in my head I was only thinking of RM100.

Seriously. If RM100 is your limit, go for RM200. If RM300 is your limit, go for RM500.
The best thing is, I don’t even ask for a fair bet. If I don’t make it to the target weight, I lose the money. If I make it, I get nothing from my friend. It’s a one way bet! You can go for a two way bet with someone if monetary return fires up your motivation, but for me it’s not so much of a motivating factor to win money from my friend. Losing money is a completely different thing though.

I’ve also posted on Facebook when I went on my second month to gain 5 more kilos and announce that I’m gonna write about it when I make it, hence this article.

So that’s basically how I set things up so that I follow through. Try it, it’s really effective.

I got a lot of ideas to fine tune my mind from Steve Pavlina’s blog. Read if you have time.

Bike shed discussions

Bike shed effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality

If you talk about something as complicated as how to build a rocket to fly to the moon, very few people will chip in and offer their opinion, but if you start talking about something simpler, like how to build a bike shed, everyone will suddenly be an expert and try to offer advice on how to manufacture a magnificent bike shed. This is known as the bike shed effect.

Basically, with something like a weight change regime, almost every single person you meet will have an opinion on how you should do it. Your job is to refrain from participating in any of these discussions. Beware of bike shed discussions. Stick to your regime. Tweak it at you own expense.

Many will also have inclination to start tweaking based on their experience and opinions of other experts they know of. I recommend you only tart tweaking things when you have achieved your results, not before. This regime can make you gain 10kg in 2 months. Once you achieve that, then start making changes. Many have the inclination to better the regime because they believe they have some extra information that will give even better results, but this almost always screws up the result.

Discipline

If you’ve got your psychological scaffoldings in place and set up a bet as booster, you’ll have little problems with maintaining discipline. But just to illustrate, you must be willing to do some pretty silly things (at least, in the eyes of others) to maintain your regime. For example, running around after 11pm at night trying to find eggs cause I didn’t realize I’ve ran out of it. Then there was the time when the pulldown machine was down at my gym and so I did the shoulder press and went to another gym nearby, paid a day use fee, did a set of pulldown and left. For unconventional results, you need to behave unconventionally. All these would be too much trouble if I didn’t have my sustaining strategies in place.

You must also have the discipline to persevere when you encounter a plateau, which is very possible. I’ve had two in my two months. I went for a week without significant gain and after that another of 2 weeks without any strength and weight gain. It’s very demotivating, but you need to keep on keeping on.

Pushing past your comfort zone

I don’t know how to make this any clearer. If you’re out of your comfort zone, you’re going to be uncomfortable. It’s that simple. But somehow, this fact is illusive to a lot of people.

It is very uncomfortable for me to go to the gym and work out among all these muscular dudes. I look like a stick being around them. This does not stop me from going there twice a week. It is very uncomfortable for me to shove huge amount of food into my stomach almost 5 times a day. This does not stop me from eating like a pig.

Let’s take the example of doing a one set to failure. What give you growth are the last few repetitions when you reach the point that it is a struggle to move the weights, when it starts to hurt (for me, especially leg muscles). That’s when it is most important to push further.
The first few repetitions are just warm ups and do nothing for muscular growth. It’s the last few repetitions that create what is called ‘micro tear’ in your muscles that stimulate growth. Yes, you are destroying your muscles in the gym. Contrary to popular saying that you’re building muscles in the gym. Your body build muscles when you rest – sleep.

For a ‘to failure’ set, a general rule to follow: when you reach the point that you can’t move the weight, do not let go. Try to hold and move the weight millimeter by millimeter for 5 seconds. Then try holding the weights for 5 to 10 seconds. Only then lower the weights slowly (take 5 seconds more).

I recommend those who’ve never been to the gym to start training with a partner who have experience training. You need to know how to push past your mind’s limit. It’s when the mind says “No, I can’t anymore”, that you start pushing. It’s very hard for someone new to experience this because the muscles will be hurting and their mind saying stop. Watch this video to get an idea, it shows Lou Ferigno (the incredible hulk): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqY5woMdv4A

That's all folks!

Wahoo

CAn you really make money online or is it just a big, fat, ugly scam?

2010-05-31T22:50:00.004+08:00

Now there's a legend, if you've heard. That there exist beings who makes tons of money online, working just a few hours a day, in their pyjamas. Selling anything from sexy lingerie to ebooks teaching horny guys how to get girls, and teaching girls how not to get seduced by guys so easily... or things like that.

Can you imagine? When we're stuck in the morning traffic, these buggers are at home sleeping. When we're caught in meetings all day, these buggers are at home enjoying their cup of coffee and with just a few press of the keyboard, practically 'downloads' money into their bank accounts. It can't be true. Nothing is that easy! Making money cannot be that easy, or else we, 'normal' people would not be struggling everyday, toiling away our lives just to get our hands on the bloody paycheck at the end of each month. Only to watch it evaporate as we pay our house mortgage, make our car payments, buy a few pair of shoes and some pizzas...and.... poofs!! ... the money is gone!

How can there be a way to get rich so easily, and yet the majority of us mere mortals do not notice, or are not exposed to? Do you notice it's like the case of those ghost stories. It's always told by a friend's friends' friend who experienced it. Internet marketing is the same. It's always some firend's friend's friend who is making tons of money on the internet.

Two questions always pops up in my head:

1) Is it legitimate, or is it a scam?

2) If it's genuine business, can I learn to do it or does it take an IQ of Einsteins caliber?

There's this guy. His name is Ewen Chia, who's made a name for himself by appearing in newspapers, magazines and TV and whatnots, telling his stories of how he made millions online. When I found out he's giving out an ebook on his secrets of making millions with internet businees, I was thinking: Is he stupid or what?!

You cannot be giving out such valuable information for FREE! What kind of a lousy businessman are you? To quote Joker:

"If you're good at something, never do it for free"

Now is the informatioin his ebook really useful and will make you rich?

Go and bloody download it and read for yourself idiot! It's free anyways.

This stupid Ewen Chia. I think he's stupid, but also brilliant.

I've included the link to download his ebook in this post. Click on it. If you can't even find it, forget about making even a cent online, you're beyond help.

Video Games Live in KL: A Review

2010-04-20T15:20:00.006+08:00

The first Video Games Live concert is Malaysia was held in KLCC Convention Centre Planery Hall on the 17 April 2010.

Video Games Live homepage

I was there to witness all the fuss.

And I’m here to report to you that it’s all a bunch of stinking cow dung hoo hah.

Ok, I’m kidding. The concert rocks my socks, and if you were there, I’m sure it rocks yours as well!

The concert aims to promote music from video games as a form of art that deserve a place in the mainstream artistry world. It surely does. Some amazing artists have contributed to the gaming music industry: Faye Wong sang the theme for Final Fantasy VIII, Japanese rock singer GACKT will be singing the theme song for Dragon Nest.

The concert is hosted by its co-creator, Tommy Tallarico and the orchestra team conducted by another co-creator, Jack Wall. Both industry veteran and video games composers.

Perhaps one of the greatest music events I’ve attended. It is truly awesome, in every sense of the word.

The Video Game Industry

I cannot imagine there would still be people who ignore the video games industry, still treat it as a ‘toy’ industry meant for kids or adolescents. I remember during my 2^nd year at the university, I was to do a speaking assignment for the English elective course. After much deliberation, I chose the topic of ‘The Video Games industry’. Now being a video games enthusiast at that time, I would have to make sure I’m not overly eager and overlook the fact that the gaming industry is still alien to a lot of people and hard facts or even sharing the details of games - however interesting to me - might bore the hearts out of my audience.

At the time, the Sony Playstation has already made a storm in the market and expended the gaming market to young working adults. With the powerful technology and mature contents/storytelling of the Playstation, gaming was becoming serious.

I divided my presentation into three parts:

1) An intro of the gaming industry

2) The relevance of the gaming industry in YOUR life

3) What the future holds

The introduction mainly reveals how big the gaming industry has gotten, how new technologies has changed the landscape of the whole industry, expanding it, into the huge blue ocean. I presented a prediction – taken from a magazine I’ve read – that the gaming industry will be bigger than the Hollywood movie industry in the coming 3 years. That has proven to be true. The game industry is worth $10 billion in 2004 and generates more revenue than the US movie industry. If you still treats gaming as a niche market, as does many of the mainstream entertainment industry, here’s another nugget for you: the gaming industry is forecasted to be bigger than the music industry by 2011. Looking at the figures, I’ve no reason to doubt that will happen. Take my word for it, I’ve been right before.

Image source: ars technica

Why did you think Microsoft jumped onto the bandwagon with the X-box?

The second part of my presentation touches on how even as a non-gamer, that the industry is affecting you. One is because of the scope the industry is getting, video games is fast becoming a universal language, just like movies, music and sports, the gaming industry is earning it’s spot as a conversation centerpiece for many youth and young adults, and quickly expanding to even more mature audiences. The bonding that comes from talking about video games is becoming as important as sports, if not more. Parents, think about this when you’re communicating with your kids.

On the second part of my presentation, I gave them a practical avenue to use gaming as a tool even as a non gamer. If you’ve ever purchased a new PC before, you know the intricacies of picking the latest technology. Bigger processing power, more memories – Nitpicking on how many megahertz and gigabytes and such. But rarely do you need the latest processing power for your everyday use, unless you’re a computer graphics designer or a software developer. So even if you have the machine capable of having the most amazing processing power, how do you test it? How do you know what you’ve paid for - all your megahertz and gigabytes - are capable of doing what it says in the colorful brochure you’ve been shown? And more importantly, how do you showcase your latest mean machine to your friends or family to boost your ego? The answer is to pop in the latest games CD.

The game genre that’s perfect for this job is an FPS (first-person-shooter). The latest of this genre would push the limit of your PC’s processing power to its max. The expensive environment and fast pace gameplay would squeeze the most out of your machine’s capabilities.

Another thing you should know is the advancement of technologies in the computer graphics and processing power of computers are mainly driven by the gaming industry. The need to produce a more detailed looking, faster-paced, realistic gaming experience fuels the development of better processing power and larger memories. It practically spawns the CGI movies industry too.

In ending my presentation, I provided a glimpse of the future for my audiance. I felt that I need to tie it all up to something relevant to them as a take home message. And what better way than to introduce some props and talk about career advancement to a bunch of eager university students. I showed a list of Degree courses in gaming that’s available around the world, and showed some real life stories of people who made a fulltime income from taking parts in gaming tournaments worldwide. Gaming is becoming serious. I ended with what I hoped would be a funny anecdote. “Don’t be surprised if during an interview, you see me coming up with a resume with the column ‘past work experience’ filled in as ‘professional gamer’.” That managed to trigger a chuckle from a cute girl I’ve been noticing in the class. Mission accomplished. The grade don’t matter much :p

VGL highlights

By now, you should be able to appreciate the gaming industry more than when we started.

Back to the VGL concert.

I’ve not heard of this concert before until the day of the concert itself. But once my housemate told me about it, I’m sold.

Music

Some really memorable music for me that was played were from Metal Gear Solid series, God of War series, Final Fantasy VII (Sephiroth theme) and the Super Mario series.

Some other notables that got the fans screaming the most: World of Warcraft, Crono Trigger, Castlevenia, Shadow of the Collosus, Halo, etc.

Some classics, lots of them my favourites: Space invaders, Donkey Kong, Ice Climbers (which is actually the first video game I played), Punch Out (I used to be crazy about this game), Street fighter, Contra (wow, I have goosebumps just from typing all these), Tetris, etc.

Others are hugely popular series but I’m not particularly attached to, like Sonic the hedgehog, Mega Man, The Legend of Zelda, etc.

Interactions

Gaming fans are particularly interactive people, they don’t just watch a movie. They want to be the hero, the central character influencing the story line, experiencing the plot as a participant rather than as an observer. That is why any events involving gaming fans must include participative activities. This concert is not going to be an exception. The first one was a Space invader Live Game. The chosen participant is given a shirt with a spacecraft on the back. He was told he’s motion tracked and given a handheld device to press to fire. His movement corresponds to the movement of the space craft on screen. He’s to be a life sized space ship shooting at alien craft, moving sideways. He failed miserably at the game, but it was a heck of a lot of fun to watch.

The second ‘game’ got us all on the edge of our seats. It was a Guitar Hero challenge. The gamer, who was a winner from preliminary round of Guitar Hero got an impressive 140k points for the Expert level! The tune was becoming so fast we had trouble keeping track of the buttons on screen, but he just kept slamming his fingers on the guitar with such accuracy you can almost be certain he has 10 fingers on one hand.

Special appearances

The beautiful rendition of Metal Gear Solid 2’s theme song: Snake Eater by the composer himself, Norihiko Hibino, was another highlight of the concert. Goosebumps all the way.

Do you remember Pong? The first video game ever created. The creator, Ralph Baer, was on a live Skype call with us, telling us what led to his vision of creating video games. He changed how the world entertains itself, for generations. And his influence is only going to get bigger.

A gamer

It was such a fun night. Nostalgic and deeply moving. It reminds me I’m a generation that has grown up with video games. Video games have become just as important as other mainstream entertainment, emotionally stimulating and rich. The experience of a good game is even more memorable than a good movie, because of the participatory factor.

It’s funny to see gamers gather around. They are an emotional bunch. And they go crazy over the smallest thing. Like, really really crazy, which is a whole load of fun to watch.

Looking around the planery hall, I kinda remember the geek that’s still in me. What am I saying right? I’m still a geek! Although nowadays I’m more into reading a good book than playing games, a good game still fires my emotions up. Games have immeasurable value to the human psyche. The moment we stop playing, is the moment we stop living.

Elevator pet peeve

2009-06-22T22:28:00.004+08:00

My office is on the third floor.

I usually park my car at B1. That's one floor below the ground floor.

Which means from the car park, I go past 3 floors to reach my office.

I use the elevator to go to my office.

The above explanation is needed for those who've never been on an elevator before, so have no idea how it works, or why you should use one. Probably readers from Papua New Guinea, or those people who work on the first floor of the same building of my office.

To explain further.

The elevator is a marvelous invention of the 18th century. Or a few centuries before or after that. Or something like that.

Legend has it that a man by the name of Elly Waiter was walking up the stairs to the 15th floor of a pagoda to meet with his Holiness the Dalai Lama. Or someone as important as that. Half-way there, on the third floor (he really sucks at math), totally exhausted from stairs walking, he screamed "Fuck it! I'm inventing the elevator, and I'm naming it after me!".
And then the elevator was invented.

Beautiful story. Ahem.

ANYWAYS, most of us intelligent people know how to use an elevator. But there are those strange creatures that migrated from Papua New Guinea who works on the first floors of office buildings everywhere who doesn't!! Yea, right. The horror!

These people comes into the elevator on Ground Floor (G) to go up to their office at First Floor (1). For those not very good in maths, that's ONE floor up. ONE FUCKING FLOOR.

Why the heck do you need to use the elevator to go one floor up?! The ancient invention, the fucking stairs, is just 5 steps away! Believe me, it's there. I've used it before. Don't even get me started on the story of how stairs are invented to make you realise the usefullness of stairs. You don't want me to go there.

The stupidity of those people who use the elevator to go one floor up is only matched by those who use it to go one floor down. In fact, these people should marry each other. It's easier to eliminate them from the gene pool by lumping them together in one family.

Think about it, the elevator has to make two more stops on my way to my office just to accomodate your lousiness at maths!

In conclusion, all these problems are a consequence of our lousy Malaysian education system. So please vote for the opposition in the coming election. Thank you. Good night.

Shattering the 'can't do' myth

2009-05-25T22:19:00.011+08:00

I should have written this sooner. If I did, I would have been rich, famous, fat, bald as a turtle, divorced twice and living the high life by now. Anyway, that's how successful people end up, don't they?

The other day, my colleague mentioned a book by some Chinese author with a title that translates to something like this: "It's not that you can't, you don't know how to". I could have written the book.

This is supposed to be Wahoo' s Second Law. Let me repeat it again:

It's not that you can't, it's just that you don't know how to, yet

Wahoo's First Law: We live in our own Matrix

If you've been reading me, you'd know that I've been writing a lot of self-help/positive thinking/motivation stuffs in my recent posts. It doesn't really help much in increasing my blog's readership but I have this innate hunger for all things 'self-nourishing' and would pay any price towards a path of self-awareness and growth. So what better way to do that than to blog about it as a way of cataloging and organizing all that's in my tiny brain. I'm a self-obsessed bastard. I know.
But then again, aren't we all?

It's like a coming out of the closet thing for me, all this writing about success and fulfillment stuffs. So I really like to let you know that it means a lot to me that you're reading my writings and that you appreciate the awesomeness of the knowledge I reveal to you. I also believe with unfaltering certainty when the day comes I'm publishing my first book, you'd be bulldozing your way to the book store to grab a copy of my bestseller to be, to experience the physical form of an awesomeness unmatched for a long time to come.

That's the image of my visualization sessions these days. But that's the topic for another day.

Disclaimer

I hope you realise what I'm going to tell you can change your life in the most mind blowing way possible. Or it's going to mess up you brain you swear someone poked your head with a screwdriver and scrambled everything inside your skull.

What I'm going to do is to render some very convenient excuses you've used your whole life to protect your ego useless.
If you understand it correctly, you'll feel responsible for every single shit that happened to you, and all those that are going to happen. If you're able to handle it, the power that comes with it is surreal. If you can't, you'll remain as what you are, a complainer and a 'victim' of life.

I hope you know I'm being harsh on you, as I'm being harsh on myself. There is no use for excuses in life. When you can be honest with yourself, you can start living your life.

let's get back to Wahoo's second law and it's awesomeness.

What the heck does it mean?

What it's saying is this: Whatever you want to do in life, you can do it. If you ever feel you can't, it's not that you can't, you just don't know how to.

It's not a question of capability, it's a question of strategy

Moments when we're stuck with an impossible situation is common. We all know the feeling of reaching a place where you're not able to proceed to the next level. The reasons are many: lack of skills, lack of experience, being too young, being too old, someone stopping you, the situation does not permit, responsibilities, and so on and so forth.

References can change your life.

The thing is, whenever someone give me a reason they are not able to do something, I can think of an example where someone in a similar situation did just what's supposed to be impossible. Even if I can't think of any examples, I know and believe it's out there. I just have to look for it and learn from it to enable me to do whatever it is I want to do.

Ask yourself: Is it really the impossibility of things or are we lacking in the department of having good references.

A reference = examples of situations we come to know of.

The first thing that will help you is understanding this:

The quality of your life depends on the quality of your references

Let's say you lived in a small village in Africa your whole life. By the time you're 18 years old, you've picked the most beautiful girl in the village and got married. You lived the happiest days of your life with your beautiful wife until you're 21 years old. Then you received an omen from the stone god in a wet dream one night prompting you to make a decision to leave the village to venture to Malaysia, a supposedly heavenly country where you will live your destiny of bringing enlightenment to the leaders of this country on their boastful and lustful ways. After getting rid of these bozos called politicians, you will be elected king and live a rich and revered life with 20 wives and 200 concubines. Ahem. When you did make your trip and reach Malaysia, you realized you've never seen such beautiful people in your whole life! Even the 40 years old aunty sweeping the streets is more beautiful than your young wife back in Africa. Shocked by the discovery, you had an heart attack and died.

My story is a bit over the top in the imagination department but it does illustrate my point. When you think you've tasted the most tasty 'bak kut teh' ever, have you really? How many other 'bak kut teh' shops have you not tried? The best 'bak kut teh' in Ipoh does not even compare to the worst one in Klang.

When you say you can't do something, are you referring to the the lack of idea as to how to do it or is it that you're doubting your ability?

Normally, you feel you can't mainly because of one of these two reasons:

1) You've never seen anyone successfully doing it.
2) You've only seen a lot of people fail at doing it.

Have you heard of the four minute mile story? It's a true story that illustrate the importance of having a good reference for your success.

Up until 1954, it was believed that man do not have the physical ability to run 1 mile in under 4 minutes. Sport's specialist and physicians would testify that the human body do not have the ability to achieve this feat. This created a belief system so strong that it kept the four minutes barrier from being broken. In 1954, Roger Banister became the first man to break the four minute mile barrier, clocking 3'59".4. That same year, 37 other people broke it. The following year, more than 300 people broke the four minute mile.

Now how does a record that's been thought to be impossible to break for hundreds of years can suddenly be broken by so many people at such a short period of time?
Did something change in the body of these people giving them the superhuman strength to do the impossible? Did time slow down to suddenly allow more people to run faster? Do you want to slap me for saying these ridiculous things?

The only change that happened is there is a new reference for these runners. Suddenly the excuse that the human body cannot run one mile in four minutes seems like a heap of bollocks. From the pile of stinkiness that is the beliefs of these runners, rise a new belief that the human body is not just awesome, but can also run a mile in less than four minutes.

Capability vs strategy

If you think you can't, it's simply that you do not know the right strategy to do something.
What you need to do is to install a new strategy, that is one of learning. Anything that you can't do at the moment will become possible if you decide to learn to do it.

I have this belief: Anything can be learned! ANYTHING.

If you think you can't, you're either too lazy or too hard on yourself!

Sometimes, I hear some people complaint that some things are just too hard to learn. It might take forever or need herculean efforts. The question is: are you using the right strategy?

Ask a better question instead: How do I learn it faster, and enjoy the process?

Note to self: 'The power of questions' is the topic of my next post.

'And' vs 'Or'

Sometimes it's a matter of asking the right questions and using the right strategy. I've learned the power of 'and' mindset versus 'or' mindset in a T. Harv Eker workshop.

For example: There is a RM10 in my left hand and RM100 in my right hand. If I ask you to choose, which one would you choose?
You're smart if you choose the RM100 note, but you're smarter if you choose both! Whoever told you you can't have both? Or even to take the RM1000 in my pocket?

Think about these:

I cannot be rich, healthy, happy and fulfilled at the same time.
I must choose between family or wealth.
I cannot be doing what I'm passionate about and expect to be rich at the same time.
Politicians are all crooks. If I want to be a politician, I must learn to be a crook.

Are you operating with the 'or' mindset or 'and' mindset?
Why would anyone sane be choosing between being rich and having a loving and happy family? Why do you even have to choose between these two?!

Always know that there are a better way of doing things. Also, always know the difference between learning from success and learning from failure.

If you tell me it's impossible to have wealth and a loving family at the same time and quote me various examples of people you've met or even admire who are rich but do not have a loving family life, or vice versa, I know you're learning from failures. My advice would be to go out there and search for new references. Look for people who are rich, successful, have a loving family an learn from them instead!

It is the most ridiculous thing in the world but I swear so many people do it. It's almost funny how many people tend to learn from failures than from success.

If you want to be successful, learn from examples of success, if you want to fail, learn from examples of failure

The time factor

I have come to believe that anything is possible in life. Anything you want to achieve, there is a way to it. If you can't do it now, it's because you lack the knowledge and strategies. And the most powerful tool you have is your ability to learn. We can learn almost anything we want to, also with the right strategy.

There is a final frontier to explore, the sole limiting factor in the equation of success: time.

The truth is, you can't be doing everything at the same time. Time spent doing A is irreplaceable and can't be used to do B. Even though it's possible to achieve almost anything you want, you have only so much time to invest in. If you live to be 80, you have only 80 years to spend. Make good use of that time.

So the question you should be asking instead of 'Can I do it?', 'Am I capable enough?' is 'Should I invest my time learning to do this?' or 'Is it worth my time doing this or is there a better option to get the same results?'.

Don't even think about whether you can, just assume you can, and think of 'Is it worth my time?'.

Hurtling down the vortex of life

2009-05-02T12:22:00.010+08:00

Ah, I suddenly feel the urge to to do a review on my life. Like what people do when they reach the middle years of their life.

I'm going to be 30 this coming August.

Ok, 30 might be too young to be considered 'middle years'. I intend to live until 130. According to the Ayurveda life preservation technique I've learned, 130 is the minimum I'm aiming for.

But 30 to 50 years old is supposedly the golden years, where you start to get a taste of achievements in life, as you've accumulated some experiences and started building up your career and/or family. Then, there is the possibility of this stage being a period of crisis, as you relook your life and find out: "Shit, I'm not supposed to be doing this, but I'm stuck here!", thereby creating what would normally be known as a mid-life crisis.

But I'm far from having a mid-life crisis period. At 30, I'm too young to have a mid-life crisis. I think. That's why this is the perfect time to look at my life and make decisions as not to have one in the near future.

At 30, I feel young and old at the same time. It's a strange age to be in. It's like reaching a crossroad in life. Where you're force to make decisions that would chart the course of your life, changing it forever. The consequences of a decision at this stage seems so much more, should I say, far-reaching and heavy, but at the same time exciting, when you put your imagination on the things to come.

But I also believe you should not take life too seriously. A life not enjoyable is a life not worth living. Period. Therein lies my interest in humour and comedy. To sidestep on the topic a little, humour is an imperative prerequisite to creativity, problem solving and emotional management. The most successful people I've met in life has uncanny abilities for generating and recognizing humour and using it to uplift the emotions of people around them. We refer to them as having charisma.

At 30, life seems to have just whizzed by.

I'm thankful for the experiences life has thrown to me, all the love exchanged and shared with family members, friends I've acquainted with along the way, mistakes I've had the privilege to grow upon. Life tasted sweet at times, sour at times and bitter at particular appropriate moments. Which is all good.

Work is stressful at the moment. But I'm reminded again of a great truth by a colleague today. That crisis reveals character, thereby provides an opportunity for growth.

Favourite quote at the moment: 'If you can't, then you must'. The philosophy of 'stretch'.

Here aresome things I'd like to do before I die:

1) Give a talk to an audience of at least 500 people.
2) Write a best-selling book.
3) Sleep with a supermodel.
4) Learn to fly a plane or helicopter.
5) ******
6) ******
7) and so on and so forth...

Don't ask. Life is a work in progress.

The comparison game: What I learned during Chinese New Year

2009-01-29T12:27:00.013+08:00

Chinese New Year is a time for reunions. During these reunions, we'd be able to meet up with schoolmates we rarely keep in touch with, some only appears once a year during these nostalgic gatherings. Since leaving school, most of us embarked on different course of life, some according to our passion, but most because of convenience.

The need to meet up with old acquaintance and gauge their progress in life suddenly flares up during Chinese New Year.

For those who've achieved more than their peers, it's a time to flaunt their status symbols (big cars, Tag Heuers, flashy namecards, sexy girlfriends, etc)

And those doing not so well as compared to their school buddies, its time to lament on the state of economy, that bastard you call boss, life's impossible circumstances that makes you stay where you are, instead of being great.

I know it feels natural to want to compare with the people you grow up with, schoolmates, or even siblings. But is the act of comparing doing you good or is it counter productive?

Why we do it?

Because scientific research has identified a gene that fuels competition among homo sapiens, in order to maintain its evolutionary advantage, so to speak.

Ok, that was just bullshit. haha..

The real reason is more because of social and cultural conditioning than genetic, it's because from young, we were trained to compare ourselves with others. There are two main culprits:

1) Our parents
Its an easy way out for our parents to compare us with our siblings. Its a way to control our behaviour. Familiar with these?:

'Why can't you be more hardworking like your sister?"
"Why can't you keep your room clean like your brother?"
"Why can't you be more organized like your brother?"

It is not the correct way to teach behavior, but our parents uses it because they think it sets a higher standard for us to aspire to. The fact is, all of us are unique, and we shouldn't be expected to act like someone else. There are other ways to motivate a child into better behaviors. Comparing them with other people, especially their siblings, does more harm to a child's self-esteem than help build it.

2) Our education system

In school, we were graded based on the same 'test system', which makes comparing easier than ever. You've got 70 marks? Nice. But if you compare it to the class average of 80 marks, you're an underachiever!! See how comparison works? We're constantly striving to achieve a set standard so rigid there can only be ONE standard for all students the same age.

It neglects the fact that all of us learn at a different pace. We are sensitive to different types of teaching methods and teaching materials, we take in information based on our preferred senses: visual , auditory , kinesthetic. Which makes us learn very differently and at different pace.

Comparing seems like a pretty bad idea so far. But is there a positive side of comparing?

Wait, just to digress a little.

When I started thinking about this, I've noticed a very common statement that I hear when someone's comparing himself/herself with others: Life's not fair!

Years later, I learned something that changed my life:

Life's not fair, use that to your advantage!

Stop for a moment and think about that statement. Its one of the most powerful belief I've acquired in the course of searching for the secrets of living a fulfilling life. You can apply it to almost any areas of life.

Once, I thought it was a disadvantage that I was born in a poor family. My dad struggled to keep us all in school and worked his ass off to give us a better life. I remember a time when we were so poor he has to borrow a motorbike from a relative to go to work. He can't afford one, but he still has to go to work to feed 4 children and a wife. We were poor, but we were happy. I always fantasizes what it would be like to be born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Well, even half a silver spoon would be nice. I thought life wasn't fair.

Since then, I have come to realize that life is what it ought to be. I would, and should not have it any other way.

Life gives you exactly the things and environment you need, to learn the lessons you need to, if you know how to recognize it.

It was only because of those experiences that I treasure my family, value the ideals of financial freedom, started to have a keen interest of how life works. Life IS not fair! Life gave me so much of advantage, I just need to recognize and take advantage of it!

You can use this if you're:

Rich
Poor
Short
Tall
Born with a disability
Unbelievably good looking
Looks like a cow
Looks like a chicken, and so on and so forth..

The truth is: Whatever situation you're in. Life has given you advantage because you have the unique experience that nobody else have. This gives you the chance to see things that the people on the other side of the fence do not see.
The next time you complain of a situation that seems unfair, think about what lessons you're given the chance to learn.

Back to the question:

To compare or not to compare?

I've spent a lot of time thinking and researching about this too.

The answer is: Yes and No.

You were kinda expecting that huh ;p

Remember my post on 'the self-belief paradox'? Everything worth knowing in life comes in a paradox.

Let me spare you the long-winded explanation and give you the nugget right away:

Treat life as a race against yourself.

Alright, do you really think I'll not indulge on a long-winded discussion? Silly you.

Life works the best if you think of it that way(I mean the statement). This statement suggest you should not always compare yourself with other, because whatever achievements of other people does not affect your life. This statement is so powerful because it solved the riddle of 'How to deal with failure/ the fear of failure' for me. I'll write about it someday.

This statement implies:

The only person you should be comparing with is yourself.

Don't treat others achievements as a yardstick of what you should achieve, because all of us has unique life experience and challenges that makes us who we are, and not the other person.

Worry about making improvements in your life today vs yesterday, tomorrow vs today rather than vs other people. This is the key to being great at anything! Making daily incremental improvements.

This is the reason why some people become great and some stays on the same forever! Some people are stuck at a particular level in life forever. Look back in your life 5 years ago, do you still think the same way, act the same way and produces the same results? Big suprise! How much have you learned during the last five years? Have you expended your knowledge, your mindset to facilitate a better you? Look at you life now. Results don't lie. Your life is your results!

So if comparing with others gives you a sense of helplessness or disappointment, do the smart thing: Stop comparing.

So when you realize life is not being fair to you when you're comparing with someone you think don't deserve the things or achievements they have, how do you take advantage of that? (Remember again: Life's not fair, use that to your advantage.)

If they are more successful, worry about what you can learn from them instead of envying them. Envy can be a very powerful and helpful emotion if you know how to use it. Use it to recognize there's something you want from that person's life, and learn how they acquired it, and what you can do to acquire it.
It seems simple to me: It's either I envy that person and resent him, or I learn from him whatever he's doing right and try to do better than him.

So when is comparing ok?
Comparing can be a tool to gauge your position in life. Comparing can open up your mind to the possibilities life has to offer. When I read or hear about stories of what people of my age can achieve, it motivates me rather than put me down. It shows me the possibilities if I do the right things and learn the right stuffs. When I hear about stories of disadvantaged people who excels in life, it strips me of all the excuses I've made up for myself for not persuing my dreams and passion.

So how are you doing in the race agianst yourself?

The problems of Life: 2

2009-01-17T21:12:00.004+08:00

Life's guaranty:

From the moment you were born, you are set to face many uncertainties and challenges in life's bumpy journey. As we grow up, people around you tries to impart upon you wisdom by which to live a happy and fulfilling life, which is always assumed as a life free of problems.

But there is no such thing as a life free of problems, are there?

Imagine this: You're living the life of your dreams. You've got all the money you'll ever need. You're with the one person that's meant to be with you, your other-half/ soul mate. You have a great family. You're in a career/business that is your passion. You have all the money and freedom to do what you want, whenever you want it.
The question is, will you be free of problems?

We all know the answer to be NO. You're still faced with daily challenges of living your life. Poor people will have their financial problems. Rich people will also have their financial challenges, like how to manage their wealth, the effect on economic situations on their business/ wealth. You will also have to manage your life to find the balance of work and family. You'll be working hard to solve the puzzle of how to raise a happy and loving family.

In short, even if you're living the life of your dreams, you'll still be working your ass off solving problems, seeking solutions, looking for ways to do things better, or to avoid future problems.

In fact, successful people face more problems and frustrations than the average people. They are successful because they handle it well.

If a man could have just half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.
-Benjamin Franklin

Maybe the only way to live life free of problems is to live a life of shaved head, vegetarian in diet, up in a monastery far far away from civilization. A life of enlightenment. Maybe.
I don't know because I've never tried. If you have, please let me know.

Fact: You can't change the fact that life is riddled with problems. If you want to consult with people who have no problems in life, you won't find them high up in the mountains, in monasteries. You'd find them buried underground, in your local cemeteries. Yes, they're dead.

The purpose of problems

Problems in life are meant to serve us, if we recognize it as opportunities rather than nuisance.

I was once told: Challenges in life are there to keep those not deserving enough form getting the prize.

So in order to obtain the good things in life, we have to prove that we are worthy. And our worthiness are subjected to tests in the form of problems and frustrations. The next time you encounter problems, it means its time to prove your worthiness for the better things in life.

Also, crisis reveals character. Problems provides opportunities to understand ourselves better and make us face our inner demons. Nothing provides a better chance for us to discover our failings as problems do. It's like someone handing you the key to unlock a limiting belief/character on a silver platter. That someone is 'the problems' you encounter in life.

So why are problems such a debilitating feature in people's life?

Problems creates frustrations. The key to living a happy and fulfilling life is knowing how to handle the frustrations.

Next post: How to handle frustrations, thus getting rid of the problem of 'problems'.

The problems of life

2009-01-05T22:22:00.004+08:00

Let's see how much I can write in 15 minutes.

I've not been updating this blog for too long. My readers would think I'm dead or something. I've saved a few topics so I can write when I'm free but never seems to be getting to it.

Been working hard the past few days since coming back from a year end holiday. Big meeting in 2 more days and I don't even have enough sleep! Damn, wasted 5 minutes just writing these craps instead of the topic I want to write about.

Been guilty about not doing something. Heck, guilty is such a useless emotion. I'll write about it someday. I'll do something to make up for it.

*Reminder to self - write about year end trip.

Lets see. I'm going to talk about the problem of 'problems' in life. Heavy topic, this is. One so close to everyone's heart because everyone experiences problems.

Define problem: Unplanned events that fucked up your plans/ things that annoys you(like mosquitos)/ things that caused you inconveniences, drive you up the wall, pisses you off....etc.

Bottom line: You must get to a point where you see problems as a part of life. It is a signal that let you know that either something should be done another way or you should change your perspective in a looking at a particular situation. It is nothing more than that.

What problems are NOT:

1) A punishment from god - karma, maybe...explore further on your own (Need another blog post to explain this)

2) Bad luck - there's no such thing as good or bad luck in this world. Things happens. Whether you felt good or bad about anything does not change the fact that it happened. Also, all events are meaningless. We give it meaning by our individual interpretation.

3) I've finished my quota of 15 minutes.....tune in next time for more..... ;p

Now if you feel like wanting to poke me in the eye cause this post is half finished, then it is a problem, and that makes you need to read the next part of this post. So pls come back again soon. haha.

to be continued.......

Why diets don't work: Stop kidding yourself!

2008-10-04T16:22:00.003+08:00

I'm not even going to ask you whether you've tried dieting.

Because somewhere along the way, you'd have known someone who did, and thus would be able to relate to the 'dieting experience'.

If I were to ask you how many people you know who are successful dieters, meaning they have shed some pounds through the process of dieting (the use of the words 'I'm on diet' being the key identifier here) and have kept it that way since, for long term; my hallucination is that you couldn't even name one.

My argument is, the concept that denotes conventional dieting does not work.

Why the concept of 'Dieting' don't work.

What do you think of when you think of dieting?

I think of ........

Christy Chung

Andrea Fonseka

Bernice Liu

Naturally, I think of girls with 'to die for' bodies. But that's just me being sexist ;P

Ok, that was simply a lame excuse to put some chick photos in my blog, to increase readership.... :)

Anyway, let me prove to you that diet don't work, not because we're not capable of controlling our body weight if we want to, but because the concept of dieting as we have come to know it, is counter productive. That's why we often see dieters face the problem of weight rebound.

The reason almost all dieting fails is this (pay attention, this is a biggie):

We attach a time frame to dieting

Yes, it is as simple as that. It is more complicated when we dissect the psychological impact of attaching a time frame to dieting ,whether we do it consciously or subconsciously.

To understand further, we need to know what dieting means to most people.
Ask yourself these questions:

What is the purpose of dieting to you? What is your target weight? What happens when you reach your target weight?
Dieting normally means sticking to a particular regime (meals, exercise, sleep, activities) for a period of time until you reach your target weight.

Normally, nobody tells you what happens when you succeed. Therein lies the problem. More often than not, we are 'forced' to go back to our daily habits before dieting. That is, we live a 'normal' life again.

If you ever start a dieting regime without answering all the three questions above, you're in for failure.
If you think dieting is a method of getting to your target weight and only that, you're in for failure.

Here's the bottom line:

If you do anything short of changing your lifestyle permanently to sustain a healthy weight, you're in for failure.

So many people are afraid of these words: change your lifestyle, permanently. Yet it is the only effective means of achieving and keeping your ideal or healthy weight.

In fact, it is the only means of achieving and keeping anything permanently in life.

Remember this: Change is a conditioning process.

Change is not a switch you flip and get the results for good. Here's a good story by Tony Robbins to illustrate my point:

Tony owns a grand piano he doesn't play, cause he doesn't know how to. He has just got the bucks to buy whatever he fancies even though he doesn't need them, simply because it's cool to be able to own things you don't need. If you know what I mean. What blissful lifestyle ;)

Anyway, one fateful day, he calls a piano tuner-technician to calibrate his piano. You know, a person who come and adjust the strings in a piano to make them sound good again. After the technician worked his magic, when he was about to leave, he told Tony that he'll be coming back the next week. Tony asked him why, and he explained that because the strings were stretched in a certain way for a long period of time, he needs to condition it back to keep it working.

He explained further that even after the second tuning, he would have to come back every month, then every 3 months and after that every 6 months just to keep it working the way it is.
Tony uses this story to explain his brand of change technology, which moves from NLP (Neuro Linguistic programming) to NAC (Neuro Associative Conditioning).

As an expert in personal change, Tony clearly understands that change do not last if not conditioned into our daily life by taking on new habits. Be it bad habits like smoking or unhealthy diets to larger patterns of behavior like financial success, relationship success, peak performance; all needs new habits to calibrate and tune our behaviors to make it consistent. Daily rituals, to keep conditioning our mind, to make it stick.

I repeat, if you ever start a diet regime thinking: "I'm going to stay off deserts/supper/chocolate or I'm hitting the gym 4 times a week....until I get to my ideal weight. Then I can have my deserts/ supper etc, as reward. You are heading for failure.

What to do?

So you see, there is no other way. Those people who you see who succeeded in dieting and kept it that way, have all taken on new habits and behavior to support their weight change. They've changed their lifestyle, in some ways. They are using a conditioning mindset.

If you are going to start dieting, think about what is it that you can change permanently in your life in order to support your new healthy target weight. Think about what new habits you can build into your daily routines like fixed meal time, avoiding junk foods, exercise 3 times a week etc, etc.

You don't even have to do everything at once. Start with a few simple steps and build it from there. It will not just be good for your weight problems, it will be good for your life. You'll have more positive energy and your self esteem will go up for successfully making positive changes of habits.

Remember, you need to change your mindset to change you life. Hit and run diets programmes will not work in the long run, in fact, statistics shows that dieters often put on more weight and becomes heavier than they were after a diet programme! The same is true with hit-and-run mentaility of dieting until you reach a certain weight and then rewarding yourself.

Stop kidding yourself, because you deserve a better lifestyle.

Dammit, I'm in the rat race!

2008-09-10T20:48:00.003+08:00

Crap, I'm in THE rat race.

I was driving home the other day, thinking about my new work environment and suddenly realized I'm in a position I swear I would not get myself into: the rat race.

&%^&$%@**&!!

This is an accident. I'm not going to be here long.

Damn.

Here's why Malaysian Gorv increase oil prices..

2008-07-15T22:16:00.006+08:00

My fellow Malaysians, I'm doing this on behalf of the Malaysian Government.

I'm sick and tired of you guys complaining about the increase in oil price. Here's what I want to ask you:

You don't read the bloody newspaper one issit?

Cannot see in the news oil prices increase like hell meh?

Why you all so stupid!!!

Oil prices, as of now, is $147 per barrel!!

You know that is how many percent increase from last year or not?!! Last year, it was $68 per barrel.
Increase 53%, you know or not?!!!

So you know how much subsidy the gorv is giving you for the oil you use to send your children to school, go mamak stall for supper, go convenience store buy roti....etc, etc.

Very easy calculation, stupid!

So don't complain anymore, can or not?! (Damn, you people force me to use so many exclamation mark in one post!)

STUPID!

You see, the gorv ministers always try to explain to us (Malaysians) the mechanics of crude oil pricing and gorv subsidy calculations. Only that we are too stupid to understand it, cause our maths sucks because of our Malaysian education system. Understand onot?

Very simple only. Crude oil price increase, gorv spend more money to buy oil, therefore increases subsidy for rakyat. Then then then.. gorv cannot tahan anymore cause oil prices gone too high, so not enough money to subsidize us, so have to increase oil prices loh, stupid!

But, but, but then hor......

I saw this listing in Fortune magazine's issue of Fortune's Global 500, which list the 500 top companies in the world in terms of revenue and profits.

Which makes me remember, I studied in school last time that Malaysia is ALSO an oil producing country. I don't know since when I forgot about this fact. It probably got lost in the huge amount of crap, lies and propagandas our beloved gorv tries to shove into our........*....... day in and day out.

Do yourself a favor, stupid, and read this article.

Petronas is ranked 95 of the top 500 companies in the world in terms of revenue.

Petronas is ranked 8 of the top 500 companies in the world in terms of profit.
( ahead of companies like War-Mart [largest company in the world], Toyota, ING Group, General Electric, Citigroup, Berkshire Hathaway, Honda, Hewlett-Packard, ArcelorMittal, Bank of America Corp. , Pfizer, Sony, Nokia....... and the rest of the 400+ top companies in the world).

So, remember this: Petronas makes more money per year than the company of the plasma TV you're watching, the car you're driving, the phone you're using, the computer you're looking at now, the underwear you're wearing...etc. etc.

They made more than US$18 billions last year, and definitely more this year.

Profits grew 40% in 2007 because oil prices went up 11.2% from the previous year.

So, if oil prices go up 53% more, then profits can grow how much leh?

If Petronas is making so much more money, then where has all the money gone?

Stupid, stupid, stupid. I tell myself. The calculations must be too complicated for a normal Malaysian to understand. Only Malaysian gorv politicians know how to calculate such complicated maths. So forget about calculating where the Petronas money has gone, because you, like me, a normal Malaysian citizen, would not be able to understand.

The options for me is simple. It's either I remain stupid or I do something about it.
Ah....I instantly felt a lot more cleverer once I made a decision in my head of a certain box to cross in the future, and doing something to let the people around me know that they suck at maths.

I am writing this post because of how stupid I felt after reading the Fortune issue today. I'm sure you'll feel the same way after reading it too.
Thanks for listening, STUPID!

It's 'Scam Me' Day

2008-05-27T22:29:00.006+08:00

Scam one

First, I was awoken to an sms that reads:

Selamat! (selamat what? It was not mentioned. Learn your bahasa, scammer!) Anda memenangi cabutan bertuah RM10,000.00. Info, sila dail 0128171732 Pengirim: PETRONAS

I got the sms from the no: 0128421334.

So watch out for this fucker of a scammer, k.

I was too curious, and though I can smell the rottenness of the whole thing, I still called the number to make sure I don't miss the probably o.ooooo1% chance of me actually winning ten grand.

A person speaking Indonesian answered the phone. I was expecting him to congratulate me once he picked up the phone, but he doesn't seem to know the reason I called so I have to explain to him I'm calling regarding the sms I recieved. It's either they are operating more than one scam or this is a number he actually use to make calls. Weird.

Then after all the congratulatory bullshits and craps, I tried to ask more questions to hear him speak more just to be certain he's speaking Indonesian. After a while, I was convinced that this is a scam. I tried really hard to think of some witty and stupid questions to ask him to fuck him up, but can't, cause just woke up from sleep. I'm such a failure... ;P

Apparently, this scam have been going on for a very long time, according to blogs like this one and this one. The only difference, they have changed the sms content and the number is from Malaysia.

Also read from Petronas HERE.

Scam two

Then, there was this thing I found out about Richard Bandler today. This is the most depressing news for me today cause I'm such a big fan of him.

I've been listening to his CDs these few days again and again and even thought of making it a habit to listen to it every once in a while cause it's such good stuffs. But when you start to doubt a person's character, you don't feel like taking his advice, even though it sounds like it's the best advice you've ever heard.

I'm still trying to come to terms with the fact that he's involved (either directly or indirectly) in a murder. I think he's brilliant in coming up with NLP and helping people make changes with hypnosis and there's still so much I want to learn about NLP and hypnosis, but I can't help but have this feeling of being cheated. I guess that's the thing about trust, once you lose it, it's probably not coming back.

So, I've decided to turn to John Grinder (the other co-founder of NLP) instead to get deeper into NLP.

Scam Three

I was out with a friend tonight and sent him to an ATM machine. I was waiting inside the car when a malay guy (with two other, aged around 15-16) approached my car and tried to hand me a pamphlet. I have a weakness for surprises and is too curious most of the time so I winded down my window to see what this guy (who smell very much like a scammer btw) has to offer.

He gave me a folded pamphlet taped at the side and told me it's a contest for a shop that is due to open in a shopping centre near my house. I opened the phamplet and and have to endure 5 minutes of fake surprise reactions from my three new friends. They seriously need acting class.

I can't help but say, this is as bad as it gets.

I mean, three skinny 15 year olds waiting around an ATM machine to hand out phamplets for a contest that offers gifts thousands of Ringgit? Come on. Be serious. If you run a scam, do it properly, like the Petronas sms thing.

I was to told to go to their office which is also near the place I live and contact a certain manager. I said no, I can't go now, I've got things to do (like come back home to blog about this). I told them I'd pay a visit to their office only tomorrow, and ask him to tell me exactly where it is. He gave me some directions and wrote down the company name of Nabinco Network.

He also wrote his name down as Black. Yes, you read that right: Black.

WTF!! What kind of name is that?! It fucking spells S.C.A.M to me!

The pamphlet I received.

Eh, boss of Nabinco, pls hire better looking and trained staffs to scam people. You're digging your own graves here. Don't say I didn't give you tips. When I googled Nabinco Network, I found this interesting bit of news HERE.

Well, well, well, if it aint bloody SCAM ME DAY today.

Pls tell more people about this. There are those who still falls for these kind of shit. I seriously can't figure out why.

Take this advice from me, the next time you feel like putting down money for contest for free prizes of cash: If it's too good to be true, it probably is.

How to build a home library

2008-05-20T22:11:00.005+08:00

I imagine I'll have this in my future home:

Yum yum!! The ladder, ohh...sexy...

This post is not really a 'how to' on building a home library. It's about how to prepare for one though.

Take two simple steps:
1) Make lots of money to buy a big house that have space for a home library.
2) Buy lots of book to fill the racks.

I'm starting with the second step first.

I've developed a habit of buying too many books at one time and not having enough time to finish reading them. I'm drawn to the bookstores every time I visit the mall. It's like a mental preprogramming, or a post-hypnotic suggestion.

And every time I'm in a bookstore, I couldn't help myself noticing some new bestsellers or more intriguing books I'd really like to read. I've had fantasies of one day buying the whole bookstore. Now, wouldn't that be a scene?!

Me walking towards the book store counter.

Me: Excuse me (see, I'm polite. People who loves to read are polite ;p)

Bookstore staff: Hi, how can I help you?

Me: I'd like to buy all your books, please.

Bookstore staff: Excuse me?!

Me: All your books........please. How much?

Bookstores staff:............

Then, the staff would call the cops on me.

Haha... no, that's not how it ends. I will end up buying the whole store and live happily ever after....WTF!

Anyway.....

As a result, I've successfully flooded my room, my car and my living room with books I'm reading. I try to tuck a book or two everywhere around the house so it is within reach everytime I feel like reading, which is like, all the time. So I end up having dozen of books I've read half way.

I'm producing this list to remind myself of the books I'm currently reading and should finish reading soon.

Books I'm reading (percentage of the book I've read up until now in red):

1) The Female Brain (Louann Brizendine) - 0%, would be so interesting to understand how a women thinks. As impossible as this task may seem, worth trying.......gua. Haha

2) Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)- 20%, Been wanting to read this for a long time.

3) SubContact (Robert K. Benson) - 40%, Anything to do with the subconcious mind, I dig.

4) Mind Set! (John Naisbitt) -0%, From the author of Megatrends, the master of future predictions. Can't wait to read this. Then I'll be more accurate than Nostradamus in predicting the trends of the world ;p

5) The Audacity of Hope (Barack Obama) - 15%, calling myself a big fan of Obama, yet have never read his books to understand his motivations and policies. Shame, shame.

6) My Life: Bill Clinton (Bill Clinton)- 25%, I don't think I'd be able to finish reading this one like, ever! I can finish Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela's aotubio. Both are equally thick. But this one is filled with so much details of personal nature that the only thing it missed out are when Bill go to the loo to do no.1 or no.2.

7) Instant Confidance (Paul McKenna) - 90%, very engaging book. Bought last week. Almost finishing.

8) Small Giants (Bo Burlingham) -30%, It really made a shift of my thinking about how big a business can be or should be.

9) Secrets of Millionaire Investors (Adam Khoo, Conrad Alvin Lim) -40%, since I'm such a fan of Adam, it's only natural that I would want to get financial advice on investing from him.

10) Self-Esteem (Mathew McKay, Patrick Fanning) -40%, Supposedly the best-selling book on self esteem. The similarities with NLP concepts are interesting.

11) Free Prize inside! (Seth Godin) - 50%, Seth Godin is THE contemporary marketing guru. This guy is so brilliant.

12) How to remember anything (Dean Vaughn) -0%, I've read this system before, there was a file I used to keep about this memory system, but I lost it. So I bought this book to try to relearn it.

13) Purple cow, The Big Moo (two books in one) (Seth Godin) - 50%, Finished reading The Purple Cow. Seth Godin. Remarkable :p

14) Social Intelligence (Daniel Goldman) - 25%, This book will be a much better read if it's not too technical. I'm very interested in the concepts, but the way this book is written makes it so...boring. Will finish it eventually.

15) Jack: Straight From the Gut (Jack Welch) - 5%, I usually don't like hardcover versions. Bought it because it was on sale, 70% leh! Read a few pages, it's really interesting. I dig autobios.

I wish I have more time to read, or can read a bit faster.

How to make a wimp out of your kids

2008-04-21T18:15:00.015+08:00

It is the hardest thing to do.

I see people holding on when they shouldn't in so many areas in life.

The other day, I had a discussion with 2 friends about parenting.

Let me tell you, I'm not married. I don't have any kids. In case you're wondering.

Btw, me and the other friend who's also not married are the ones giving out parenting advice to this poor parent of two kids. Haha..

You see, my reasoning is that because I don't have any kids, that's why I'm qualified to give out parenting advice.

O_o (always wanted to type this icon ;p)

Now you must be thinking I'm drunk behind this monitor.

I don't drink and type. You shouldn't too.

But seriously, my logic is that if you're a parent, you'd already have the emotional burden of a parent. Sometimes, you need a different perspective.

So parents, sit your ass down and get ready to receive some sagely wisdom from mua.

What I'm talking about is parents being overprotective. You should learn the ability to let your children decide even when you don't totally agree with them. The ability to let your child experience life and make mistakes on their own. Now I'm going to skip the discussion of what age should your children be when you should do that, cause that will take like, forever. Just exactly how much control should they have on important decisions at what age? I found a workable formula at this blog though.

Think about this:

Do you follow your kids everywhere including their schools field trips? (I know of some who follows their children secretly!). I feel I can't blame them for this one cause of the current safety concerns. I don't feel safe myself. I also know someone who will be with their kids the whole time during their teakwondo lessons, to watch over them, scared they'll get hurt.

Do you also stick to your kids like a piece of plaster when they go to the:

a) Playground
b) Sports lessons
c) Extra curriculum activities.

What's more important?

The greatest skill your child can develop is the ability to make good decisions. If you decide everything for your child, you stunt their growth in decision making. However immature or inexperienced you think they are, you need to include them when deciding things concerning them.

Also, your child needs to learn to cope with emotional setbacks. You can't do this for them, and you can't protect them from it forever. They need to learn to handle the emotional aspect of everyday problems themselves. The earlier you start them on the journey of emotional mastery, the better set they are for life and it's challenges.

Why it's bad.

Overprotective parents are producing a generation of wimps. Kids that do not even have skinned knees are missing out a lot on physical bonding that our generation went through. There are dire consequences of holding on to your kids, trying to steer them from harms way. They should be doing that themselves. The trick is to educate and prepare them, NOT preventing them from making mistakes, because mistakes WILL BE MADE ANYWAY. How you prepare your child to handle problems when they messed up is the important thing.

Things can be worse. Psychologists reports that overprotective parents causes anxiety disorders later in adulthood. How? Scared or not?

Really meh? All parents that bad meh?

I hope you realize I'm overgeneralizing here. Of course there are great parents that understand the means of motivating and protecting a child without being too controlling. Salute to all those great individuals, and hope I can be one of them in the future.

But if you're still using the excuse of : "You don't understand lah, you don't have kids. Once you have your own kids, you'll also want to protect them like that la", I just want to say:

Just because I've not died before, doesn't mean I don't know dying is very painful one, ok.

We live in a bimbotic world

2008-04-07T18:04:00.006+08:00

I don't quite understand why every blog I read is going goo goo and gaa gaa about 'The Malaysian Dreamgirl.'

Seriously, every single one of them! Well, every single female blog that is.

I mean, we've seen all that need to be seen and salivated upon on 'American's Next Top Model' already. Yes, we have. All the boobs that needed to be gawked at. All bimbotic bitching to prove to the world the female species can be the most vicious creature on earth, we have already witnessed too.

Photo taken from ShaolinTiger.

Every single one of this blog has a bitchy post about the one (or more!!) contestant they don't like. Gosh, girls are so typical. The two most used description:

'She's so fake!'
'She's a bitch!'

Yes. Yes. We know. Don't you know these are the two universal qualities that any female human being can produce from their inner soul and show to the world when the need arises?

Never mind the fact that I haven't watch a single episode.

Eh, thanks for listening.

I just need to get this over with before I start to watch the whole series from episode 1. I need to catch up and find out what the show is all about. The are effing 66 Youtube videos to be watched. Shit. I'm so outdated.

Shit, I've lost it.

2008-04-06T14:28:00.000+08:00

I think I've lost my spark in blogging funny stuffs.

*What funny? You were never funny!*

I was, ok. At least I think I was. Well, at least I'm funny to myself.

*Whateverrrr....*

You know. Once I get rid of these voices in my head, I'm sure I'll be back to normal.

*Phuuuuuuleeeezz.......*

I'm thinking. I actually like to write about philosophies. It'd be nice if I can inject some humour into it .

*hmm....*

Niameh. Don't believe me. I show you!

*........waiting...........*

Eh, maybe in the next post.

Can't get anything out of my head.

Niameh.

p.s. Remember to come back another blardy day.

The self-belief paradox (part 2)

2008-04-01T22:29:00.004+08:00

The second part of the self-belief paradox:

"Don't believe in yourself too much."

How can we live with such conflicting rules in life?

The reason we face so many challenges in life is because we have conflicting needs that need to be fulfilled at the same time. To be able to have a healthy self esteem ,we need to cultivate a certain amount of self-belief. At the same time, you should not believe in yourself too much to the point of being egoistic.

So while you need to believe in yourself, you also need to be able to take advice and suggestions from others, even when it is against what you believe in.

Doubting yourself sometimes is not a sign of weakness. It shows maturity. Only a person who truly believes in his own self worth is able to take criticism from others and look at himself critically, without hurting his own self image.

Mistakes is as much a part of life as everything else. As they say, to err is to be human. Being critical at oneself can be a great asset. We should strive to constantly improve every area of our life, and mistakes (or failures) serves the purpose of letting us know the area we should improve on.

Therefore, making mistakes should not hurt your self esteem. Our mistakes are not us. Our behavior is not us. I know this can be hard to accept, because we’re often judged by what we do. I believe that it holds true to other people, that we are our actions. But for ourself, we should not be constrained by our past actions (yet another paradox, but too lengthy to discuss in this post). What we can't do in the past does not mean we can't do in the future. Whatever mistakes we made yesterday do not mean we're going to repeat it again tomorrow. We often define ourselves as a certain type of person. Which can be a huge mistake!. Don't trap yourself with your past actions!

So you see. It's ok that you're not perfect, and its ok that someone notice and points it out to you. Don't be too confident about yourself until you're arrogant to the opinions of others.

The other problem is, not everyone can be truly truthful to themselves. We have a built in self protective mechanism for our inner ego. It is hard to admit a mistake to other people, it is even harder to admit it to ourselves.

So here comes the part where seeking the balance becomes very important in the paradox of self belief. Believe in your self worth but also know that you're not perfect. Life is about striking the balance. It's yin and yang, baby.

One thing striking about a person who are able to follow these two rules at the same time is that they are extremely confident and comfortable under their own skin. I immediately think of Simon Cowell, the American Idol judge.

Learn from him. Better yet, read his autobio titled: 'I don't mean to be rude, but...'

I think, a person truly able to grasp the meaning of the paradox of self-belief has these qualities:

1) Able to love yourself unconditionally, therefore also able to love others the same way.
2) Comfortable under your own skin, unafraid to speak your mind.
3) Able to take criticism in a positive way. Taking it as an honest opinion, rather than a personal attack.
4) Able to accept and love someone with a different opinion and beliefs.
5) Willing to admit your own mistakes and make amends if need be.
6) Willing to learn.

Let me know what you think.

The self-belief paradox

2008-03-30T15:38:00.011+08:00

According to scientific research, happier people follows these two advice:

1) Believe in yourself.

2) Don't believe in yourself too much.

That's the thing about life. It's complicated.

"Everything worth knowing in life comes in a paradox."
- unknown

The wise will tell you that life is about searching for balance. Everything you think is important in life has two sides. You can't just take care of one side and forget the other. In other words, you can't be too extreme and be at only one end of the spectrum. The other end is important too. Consider this other quote:

"The opposite of a profound truth is often another profound truth"
- unknown

Your head is probably throbbing by now. I can be really abstract sometimes. But abstract ideas can only be explained in abstract ways. Or maybe that's the only way I know of explaining things ;P

To make things simpler, let's look at an example.

The question of self-belief is probably the most important element pertaining to the success of a person. Simply, you need to believe in yourself and your abilities to be able to function at an exceptional level that people will consider you a success. People with intact self-belief or high self-esteem are generally able to achieve more in life simply because they take more action. Their self-belief provides a basis for a more positive outlook in life and therefore motivates them to do more.

By now, you should realize that self-belief is without doubt an important arsenal to have in the pursue of success in life. So you should have absolute self-belief. Actually, only in certain context.

Just how important are self-beliefs? It makes or breaks you. It defines your life. You should have absolute self-beliefs in these areas:

1) Your self worth.

You are here for a reason. You should know by now you're not some kind of alien experiment or you're not a byproduct (or side effect) of your parent's naughtiness :p
Your self worth is the single most important thing that shapes your life. You must understand that for the single reason that you're born into this earth, your life is worth living, you are a worthy human being, regardless of your current achievement and past experiences.

You're not an accident, the events that have to take place for you to be born is almost impossible. Consider the long line of ancestors that dates back to the beginning of life itself. Each one of your ancestor will have to meet and mate successfully.

That means there are probably hundreds of thousands of people that have to mate with an exact person and not anyone else to be able to lead to the production of you! Of the millions of sperms that was out there, that single sperm that carries half your genetic material have to be the first to reach and fertilize the particular egg that carries the other half to successfully bring you to life. You think that's coincidence?

Believe it!! You're a miracle!

So whatever you encounter in life, you should never doubt your own worthiness. You should love yourself unconditionally. Only then can you love others the same way.

2) Your ability to lead a happy life.

Let's face it, life's tough. You will meet with all sorts of challenges but there is no doubt that if you make an effort and are willing to learn, you will be able to live your life happily. If you're constantly not happy with your life's circumstances or your own achievement in life, you're being too tough on yourself!

If you've changed everything that need to be changed and are still not happy, change your perspective.

This is life's guaranty: There will be difficult times. There will be times so tough you'd wished you've not come out of the womb. Life is about choices that you make, and happiness, like everything else, IS A CHOICE. You can choose to be happy. No matter what. No one can take that decision from you.

Make the most of what you have. This is the best advice anyone can give you about being happy: Be Happy!

End of part one.

Stay tuned for the next part: Don't believe in yourself too much.

Don't listen to your parents

2008-03-26T21:20:00.004+08:00

This may be the best advice you can get in the area of self development. I'm not kidding.

I'm telling you this because that's what I just did.

Let me get this straight: I'm not teaching you to be a rebel. You're doing fine the way you are already, I know you are. Anyway, I'm way past that 'rebellious age' when everything my parents say seems like the worst advice in the world, where everything seems like just tricks to exert control over me. We're all born good rebels.

What I mean is don't listen to your parents all the time. I assume you have a fair judgment on when your parents are giving REALLY good advice, like we they tell you don't jump in front of that on coming truck. Other than that, it's really up to you, because it's your god damn life, and as long as you're willing and are mature enough to take responsibility for whatever happens, you're entitled to act on your own free will.

Come to think of it, it's ok even if you don't listen to them when they tell you you'll die if you're hit by that truck. You should do it anyway, if you want, cause it's really YOUR god damn life. I'm not the one who goes to hell as a consequence of that. So go ahead. Yes, you just realized it, didn't you? Don't listen to anyone, NOT EVEN ME. Actually, ESPECIALLY me.

Our parents can really become the greatest source of encouragement and motivation for us or the greatest obstacle, can't they? You see, your parents will always try to 'protect' you. They will try to show you the best course of living your life based on their experience. It's all good, if you want to life a life exactly like theirs.

I personally believe we can be so much more than our parents. I'm not being arrogant or disrespectful. I'd like to think that I'm a filial son. A lot of people say I am ;P

The thing is, however successful your parents are, you can always strive to do better. You can take whatever great life experiences of your parents and learn from it. You can also learn from all their mistakes, and then you can learn to do better than them. Our parents are our greatest teacher. They are willing to teach and most of the time WILL FORCE YOU TO LEARN FROM THEM.

You know they do it for your own good (in their opinion). But what they think is good is not always the best for you, right. They have their limiting beliefs. What you should do is identify what those are and be able to make your own decisions.

In conclusion:

1) Identify some of your parents limiting beliefs that prevents them from achieving much more than they should have. (Yes, even people like Lim Goh Tong has them, I believe, and Lim Kok Thay should know them, to be more successful than his dad.)

2) You don't have to start a shouting match to make your point. Well, nothing wrong with that if the occasion calls for it, but there are always more positive ways to get your point across.

I believe standing up to your parents is not really an issue to a lot of you reading this. Especially the younger generation nowadays. I guess the trick is to do it in a way that do not drive them up the wall and yet, you get your way. Yes, it is possible. If you can't seem be able to do it yet, it means you have much much more to learn. Actually, don't we all?

We're not so different, you and I.

2008-03-24T20:29:00.005+08:00

Have you watched the winning videos of YouTube Video Awards 2007 yet? It's kinda like the Oscars for YouTube.

Apparently, it's a biggie to a lot of people. Even CNN mentioned the awards. YouTube has really become so much more influential than we care to admit. I mean, if you think about how often people upload videos to YouTube, coupled with how easy it is to record a video clip on your handphone nowadays, you get a little scared. I know I do.

It makes you feel like you're under surveillance almost 100% of the time once you're out of the house.
It means that everything you do or say has a possibility of being recorded by someone who owns a camera phone, which is practically everyone! So be mindful of the stupid things you say or do when you're in public places lest it becomes entertainment for millions of people one day.

Of course, this doesn't stop people from acting crazy in public (unfortunately). But I've always wondered just how much it will affect you in how you carry yourself in public? Do you notice that sometimes, when there is a car accident, there will be scores of handphones pointing towards the scene to capture or record whatever it is so interesting about the accident. Some to get the car number involved for TOTO or Magnum maybe ;P

What do you think? Do you think about this when you're about to engage in an argument with someone on your way to work on the subway?

Anyway, one particular YouTube award winning video caught my attention. It's titled "Stop the clash of civilization".

The political situation in the our country is not so different from everywhere else in the world or even on a global scale, where race and religion takes center stage in the clash of idealism and the way different people think the world should be run. It's funny when you consider that wars are fought just because we think differently. I mean, aren't we supposed to be different? What starts wars is when one party feel the need to impose their opinion on how things should be to another group of people, who normally are in a situation and context very different from the initial party. Opinions can be a powerful thing.

One particular experience struck my mind on this issue. On Christmas last year, I was stuck in Dubai Airport for a 10 hours transit to come back to Malaysia from an oversea trip. Spending 10 hours in Dubai airport is a unique experience.

Just walking around the airport, I'm surrounded by so many people of so diverse origins. The thing is I don't really feel any different from these people. Really, when you look past the face, color of the skin, even with different religious and cultural background, you can see that we don't act and behave that differently. We all can be courteous to each other (most of the time, anyway). We have the same basic needs, we can learn pretty much to behave the same way like most other people do. All men go in the loo with the "male" sign and we pee standing up, next to each other. We're like the most adaptable beings on earth, and yet sometimes we find it hard to live with each other. I mean, we can learn so complicated a maneuver as peeing at the right place, the correct position and with correct manners and hygienic habit to wash our hands (most of us, anyway) afterwards, yet we feel the need to bomb each other into pieces occasionally.

Just when will we realize that despite having different opinions, we're not so different from each other. Sometimes, it made me think that we're born with an innate need to argue and be in conflict.

Protest against Astro?

2008-03-14T22:43:00.007+08:00

I stopped subscribing to Astro a few months ago, as a protest to their constant price increases and unfair business policies towards customers.

Generally, they find ways to charge you more constantly, justifying it by manipulating channel packages so you end up 'forced' to take on more channels with each upgrade, and of course also paying more as a consequence.

These constant 'upgrading' of their services is forced upon all subscribers, by the grouping of certain channels together (chinese channels, sports channels...etc, etc.). Popular channels are priced higher and are sometimes split in different packages so you would have to sign up for a whole new package even if you're interested in just one particular channel.

Do you also realize that Astro charges you RM10 for each downgrade and there are no charges for upgrades? Also, you will be charged a fee if you cancel your subscription but there will be no charges if you reconnect. All means to 'motivate' you to put more money into their pocket and punish you for giving them less business.

I've read a nice article on to how to protest against their unfair practice.

If you can't bear the thought of living without Astro, the article suggest that you downgrade and cancel one or two less watched package as a protest to Astro.

I think we as consumers should exert our power to punish unfair treatments by big corporations. I mean, if we can do it to the gorv, by voting them out in the election when they're not treating us well, we can also do it to Astro.

I've another option for those who have broadband internet access (which I presume all readers of this this post would have).

How to watch the latest movies and tv series on your LCD TV for free.

My system comprises of the following:

1) LCD TV (or a digital to analogue converter/adapter for your normal TV which costs around RM200).

2) Broadband internet access (necessary for streaming sites).

3) VGA cable (or whatever kind of cable you need for connecting your PC to your LCD TV, eg. DVI to HDMI cable....etc).

4) A PC (my PC is too far away from my TV and somehow the 10 meters VGA cable I bought is not working, some told me the cable is too long for the data transfer, I can't confirm it, but be cautious with this option of connecting your TV-PC with a long cable), but preferably a laptop so you can easily connect it to the TV.

5) Wireless router (Make it easier still for internet access anywhere in the house).

6) Audio cable (audio signals can be connected to your TV through the red-white audio jacks or to your amplifier/reciever.

Here's what you do:

Connect your laptop with wireless internet access to your LCD TV using VGA cable and audio cable. Enter streaming movies website like www.tom365.com to instantly watch the latest movies (English and Chinese) and also TV series (Korean, Hong Kong, Japanese, English...practically all lah!).

THAT’S IT! You’re watching free TV!

Forget pay-per-view on Astro, there are latest series currently airing in Hong Kong at these sites!

There are lots of other streaming sites available, but you've to do some homework and search for it yourself. I can't do everything for you lah, ok. However, if you need my service or consultation to setup for you, you can contact me but I will charge you an appropriate amount ;)

And you know what the best part is? You can stop paying Astro's monthly fees (what I thought you is FREE) so you can buy more shoes, handbags (for ladies) and maybe use that money to subscribe to a porn channel on the internet instead (for guys, not that I do.. ;P).

The Quality?

The quality of the videos in these streaming sites is a lot like your normal TV. Some shows even looks better than your normal TV. The speed of your internet connection (which depends on which area you live in) would also be a factor. I have no problems watching a whole movie, episode from start to finish at normal speed 80% of the time. Our broadband service being yet another monopoly issue which we should be doing something about.

Sorry for the noises of baby crying, not part of the movie, it's my nephew ;P

Why should we do it?

The most important message I'm trying to get across for doing all this: Let's take back power as a consumer and refuse to be bullied by a big corporation who has a monopoly.

BN the big bully show it's horns

2008-03-13T20:57:00.006+08:00

The news at 8pm reported that the federal gorv is canceling all mega projects planned for Penang.

Hmm...wise move. All these future projects that's supposedly for the development of Penang is awarded to BN cronies and will sooner or later be either scraped or be awarded to new developers based on an honest tender system by Penang CM Lim Guan Eng anyway.

So, since they are going to lose these opportunities to suck more money from the poor and make themselves rich anyway, may as well use this opportunity to punish the people of Penang for voting the opposition, right?

So clever, don't you think?

Now, I have no idea who the guy was who made the announcement, but what he said was along the line of 'We (BN) wanted to develope the Penang state, but obviously the Penang people did not want developement, so we cancelled all the mega projects planned for Penang'....

Wow.....Is that clear, or is that CLEAR?

This guy is certainly not one who beat around the bush and says it as it is. It practically says:

''We (BN) are big bullies, if you don't vote for us, that means you don't want developement and we will make sure you suffer for the next 4 years so in the next election, you'd be forced to vote for us again.' (Bullying at it's best. Threatening is the most awesome arsenal of bullies. Your kids should learn this from our beloved BN leaders so that they can also excel at being bullies at school!)

How I wish the next election is tomorrow so we can get rid of ALL these idiots once and for all. Don't you realize already? WE (the people) ARE THE BOSS! We pay your salaries! You still don't know why you lost, do you? You still think by threatening us, we'll turn into little submissive mice and take all kinds of crap you constantly throw at us?

Haiz.....You make me angry, and angry makes me old.

It might just be me, but if you've also watched the news on NTV7 at 8pm, did you saw the facial expressions of the newscaster when she was reading the news about this. Especially when she's reading the part right after they air the clip of the BN guy's announcement, that says according to the federal gorv, this decision is not a punishment for not voting BN. I saw a hint of a sly smile on her face. Serious! I think she sense the idiotic sarcasm as well. So funny.

You can throw away your HD DVDs right...about ...NOW

2008-03-11T20:27:00.007+08:00

Did you know this? I didn't until today. Apparently Toshiba has announced the death of it's HD DVD format by pulling out of the HD DVD business last month.

That means in the war of the next generation high-definition video format, Sony's BluRay has claimed victory, and will be the ONLY High Definition DVD format for the near future, until someone come up with Higher Definition (H-er DVD ;P) format, that is.

It also means early adopters who tripped over themselves to grab a HD DVD player a year ago are now cursing like there's no tomorrow. Whatever precious HD DVD collections they own are now probably more valuable (as collectibles) since there will be no more new HD DVD movie releases!

Oh ,by the way, if you've just purchased a HD DVD player yesterday, you'll feel like kicking yourself in the nuts. My advice is ask someone to do it for you, especially one of your friends on the opposite camp who supported Blu-Ray right from the beginning. They'll do a better job ;P

This came about after Toshiba (the creator of the format) lost support from major players in the war. Namely, Samsung (DVD player maker) and Time Warner (Movie studio).

On the other hand, the Blu-Ray backers will be so happy they'll be singing even when they're in the loo. All new HD movies will be in Blu-Ray!!
This is an extremely good news for those who're torn between the 2 formats and are thinking of either buying both or buying a hybrid player (Damn expensive, k)....like ME!! So happy!

Now I can buy a PS3 and use it for all future HD movies!! (btw, PS3 is the cheapest Blu-Ray player available currently.)

That's the thing about being the early adopters, risk-takers, who're always ahead of the pack. It's a big risk. But the thrill of innovations are just too much to resist for some people sometimes. And a lot of new technologies require the service of early adopters in testing out the market and spreading the technology to the masses (go read some business textbooks or something to understand more).

As for laggards such as us, we can enjoy cheaper products (by the time we buy, market competition would have made these products significantly cheaper), and more peace of mind that what we buy would be stable products (tested and a safer choice). Whatever it is, we wins!

Two year of battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray: a retrospective

My life story

2007-05-08T20:09:00.000+08:00

My whole life, people have been coming up to me saying one particular thing more than anything else: "You're damn tall!"

Actually, not exactly 'my whole life', cause I used to be nicknamed 'shortie' by my brother when I was young, like before 10. Now, I've made him regret calling me that. I mean, really really regret it.
I've been gaining height ever since, without stop until I was 21 or something cause I was still getting taller when I was in University.

Chinese people are tall too.

I still get those comments when I meet someone new, and what really amuses me is I got a few messages lately in friendster commenting on my heights, both from people I know and I don't know. It boggles me, because some of these people have known me for years! You know who you are.

Just why? Why is it still suprising to you guys that I am tall? There are times when I've not seen a friend for some time and when we walk together, suddenly, I get that wierd look from them, like my nose is suddenly missing, or a tree just grew out of my head, and get that perplexing question: "Did you grow taller, or am I having optical illusion?", and then they'll normally walk a bit away from me cause they say I make them look short.

Reality check: Nothing can MAKE you look short, cause you ARE short.

Seriously. I've been through this numerous times. You won't belive it. It happens so often, it's almost funny. See me laughing? Ha. Ha.

I've got an announcement to make to everyone in the entire universe and beyond: I've not grown any taller since I left uni, which is like 7 years ago! It's either you've grown shorter or you're standing at that wierd angle which deflects lights and bend it in a way so it creates the illusion that I'm taller than usual. That's the only explaination I've got for you.

Another message to my friends: I am tall, LIVE WITH IT.

And if you're envious of how tall I am: NEH NEH NEH NEH NEH!!

Ahem.

Can I call you a wahoo?

2007-05-08T20:07:00.000+08:00

I found out that some wise guy reached my blog by Googling the question 'If you call someone a wahoo, what does it mean?' My blog was listed as the 5th result.

I know that it's a genuine question and this person would really want to find out what the word wahoo means. Probably some girl he tried to hit on told him to f*ck off and then called him a wahoo. I have no idea.

I thought, pretty cool, people throwing my name around.

'You're a real wahoo, you know!'

'Stop being such a wahoo!'

'Who do you think you are, wahoo?'

My tuition teacher in secondary school told me that wahoo is a name of a kind of fish. Apparently, a lot of people know this and I'm periodically reminded of the similarity of my name and the name of a fish.
Then after a while it didn't feel quite right anymore. I thought - I've got to find out what else does it mean when you call someone wahoo.

So begins the quest to solve the wahoo riddle. I know this sounds narcissistic, but what the heck, I can't help it if my name is cool. Armed with the mantra 'Google is your friend', I did my own little research that would have made my thesis lecturer proud.

And what's the value of knowledge if not shared, right? So here goes, this is what was bestowed upon me after going up a mountain and asking a wise wise old man sitting under a tree:

Does Wahoo sound fishy?.

In Wikipedia, I found:

'The Wahoo (Acanthocybium solandri) is a dark blue scombrid fish found worldwide in tropical and subtropical seas. Some say that the name "Wahoo" is a derivation of the name of the Hawaiian Island Oahu, which was sometimes spelled Wahoo, while others say the name derives from the exclamation of some fishermen, "Wahoo!" who have hooked into the extremely fast running fish. The fish is also known as Ono, after the Hawaiian word for "delicious", ‘ono, Jack Mackerel, and Peto.....'

source.

Cool. But I know this already. So it didn't surprise me much. Then I found more:

'Wahoo - The speeding bullet - When a Wahoo hits your lure at 60 miles an hour and runs your 30 lbs test line for a few spurts of 100 to 150 yards, you have discovered an allure that no other fish will give you. The Wahoo or (Acanthocybium Solanderi) is a lean, sleek, torpedo looking fish that may be confused with a king mackerel to someone who has never seen one before.....'

'Few argue that there is a better tasting fish than the Wahoo. It can be argued that there isn't a fish in the ocean that has whiter meat than a Wahoo and the texture of the meat makes you want to eat all of it as Sashimi, Sushi or very lightly seared.....'

Conclusion: I'm fast (err...depending on what you're talking about) and I'm tasty (tasty as in sexy). I'm yummy. whoo.....

Wahoo vs Titanic

It's only natural that they name a submarine Wahoo since its such an amazing fish. Too bad it sank and killed all the crews on board.

USS Wahoo -

'WAHOO returned to Pearl Harbor from her sixth war patrol on 29 August 1943 with the dejected air peculiar to a highly successful submarine who suddenly could not make her torpedoes run true. In twenty-eight days away from port, seven of them spent in her assigned area in the Sea of Japan, WAHOO had expended ten torpedoes in nine attacks without inflicting any damage on the enemy. Her Skipper, Cmdr. D.W. Morton, returned to port to have the torpedoes changed or checked, and requested that WAHOO be sent back to the Japan Sea for her seventh patrol....'

source

Conclusion: Giving a ship or submarine a great name does not predict its fortune or destiny. I assume its the same with naming children, so forget Brat or Angelina or Joline, if he/she's gonna grow up looking like a fish, the name won't matter. So, consider Prick or Bitch or Bastard (Hi, I'm Bastard Lim. Ha...hilarious!), at least it'll not be boring and can make people laugh.

They'd make me their Mayor if I stay there

Yes ladies and gentleman, there's a city called Wahoo in Nebraska, US.

'Located in the heart of Saunders County, Nebraska, Wahoo sits just 30 minutes west of Omaha, 30 minutes north of Lincoln, and 30 minutes south of Fremont. A small town community with a can-do attitude, Wahoo prides iteself on being a GREAT small town while still having access to many of the amenities of big city life. With two excellent school systems, a well-developed parks and recreation program, a new hospital, a new law enforcement center, and a new library, Wahoo is the heart of activity in Saunders County.....'

A Pulitzer Price winner and a Nobel Prize winner hails from this city.

source

Conclusion: Geniuses springs from small city and town. There's one coming up from Ipoh too. wink wink wink wink wink and so on and so forth. Get it?

Wahoo can kick your ass, big time.

Edward "Wahoo" McDaniel achieved fame as a profesional American football player and later as a profesional wresler.

'He won the NWA National Heavyweight Championship from Tully Blanchard in front of a packed house of 11,000 fans in Los Angeles at The Forum (Inglewood, California) on August 28, 1986 during a wild and bloody match, but lost a unification match against NWA U.S. champion Nikita Koloff.......... Although his playing ability in football is often overshadowed by his wild lifestyle. Joe Namath and Larry Csonka, who played with him early in their careers, both printed stories about him in their autobiographies. In 1995, he was also inducted into the WCW Hall of Fame.'

Conclusion: Even if you think you own something so unique, you'll never find it anywhere else in the world, you better think again. Come on, someone else called Wahoo? So you still think you're special? Duh?!

It's been an interesting journey of self discovery for me so far, but still it doesn't answer my primary question - What does it mean when someone call you a Wahoo? I'm sure they don't mean a fish, a submarine, some city in Nebraska or a pro wrestler who's dead.
Then I found it. It even made me discover a really cool website on modern day slang.

-
'The slang term used to call a prick-ass native american.

That faggot-assed wahoo sold me some shitty coke.'

'1. UVA student
2. Derrogatory word
3. Popped-collar sporting, butt plug using, all-around ugly and rich off mommy and daddy's money....assholes.

There were a bunch of fuckin wahoos at that party last night.'
-

So that's it. The next time someone call you a Wahoo, you'd know what it means.

To the guy who search for the meaning of wahoo with the question above, if it makes you feel any better, people calls me wahoo all the time, I mean everyday, for as long as I can remember. They make fun of it much more than I prefer them to, but its all good fun to me. Some don't even remember my real name but just call me Yahoo.

I'm sure some of you have names that's even stranger than mine. The shit we have to deal with everyday huh. Life is amusing.

---------

Did anyone realize I've just shared another intimate part of myself with the world? If you notice, I don't really blog a lot about my inner feelings and the inner most thoughts and workings of my mind. Partly because I don't have the time to, and also because I'm not comfortable doing it. Even if there's a storm messing with my thoughts and emotions inside. I take care of my own problems, you know what I mean? I surprised myself a bit recently when I found that I'm opening up to certain people in my life, and felt glad doing it, cause it made me so much wiser sharing pieces of myself and exchanging it with pieces of other people.

But then again, I don't see myself blogging my intimate thoughts online. I don't know, maybe not just yet. So if you're trying to know me or understand me through my blog, this IS as good as it gets.

What the hell am I saying? People don't care about me, all they think about is themselves, you have no choice because you have a habit to finish reading whatever you started. You have no interest to read about me. Now you know I'm right, so get outta here, go watch tv or sleep or have sex or something. I'm finished here. Go, shoo.

Maybe I'll write about you in my next post. Maybe.

Of doing good and f*cking up

2007-01-31T21:14:00.000+08:00

Major disclaimer:
You know when sometimes someone wants to talk to you and they try to tell you things in such a way that you would never be able to figure out what they're talking about, cause they don't intend it for your understanding? Like when they try to describe things which they don't want you to fully understand so whatever they say becomes so damn abstract you swear that it would give even Einstein a hard time, but in the end they finish by thanking you and you're left with the feeling of wanting to strangle them for choosing you to talk to?

I'm gonna do that to you today.

Compared to Einstein, I'm more stupid. I admit that.

You have no need to make sense of what I'm about to write because what I write today is not for your understanding but for your reading enjoyment. But if you insist in knowing the true issue, you can email me for further questions. I have to say I can only entertain a certain number of enquiries, so you'd have to ask yourself these questions before you contact me:

1) Are you a girl?

2) Are you hot?

3) Do you think I'm hot?

4) Is there a tiniest weeniest bit of a chance that further contact with you would result in us making out?

If the answer is 'NO' to ANY of the questions above, contacting me further would be out of the question.

This doesn't count as a girl, or hot for that matter. Pls, no arguments here, ok.

End of Disclaimer.

Assuming you understand what the hell I was saying in the disclaimer, I'd like to thank you for still reading.

Here goes:

F*cking up is essential, given the right thereafter contemplation in making things good for the future. The right kind of f*ck up make you stare at yourself and realise being a f*ck up and admitting it can mean doing good in the future. Sometimes you have to be sorry for your f*ck ups, and do good in f*cking yourself so you realise you still have a chance to do good to the right person. No f*ck up is caused by one single person. That's the beauty of it. And by the time you realise this fact, you're already so confused that if someone hand you 'the most f*ck up person of the world' award, you'd gladly take it. I guess the trick is stop blaming yourself or anyone else cause you know what happened, and you didn't or are too stupid to do something about it earlier.

That's all I've got for you today.

Oh ya, thanks. Can't live without thanking you.

The Stupidity of Individuals

2007-01-19T01:27:00.000+08:00

I just finished reading a book titled 'The Wisdom of Crowds' by James Surowiecki. A fascinating book. It details the phenomenon where large group of people always make smarter decisions collectively than the brightest individual in the group, with some conditions in place, one of them being that the group is a mixture of bright, not so bright, and also really dumb people, like you. Hahaha........!!!Wahahaha.......!

'm sorry. Kidding, kidding, ok. Just that you've not been here at my blog for so long (cause I've not updated it, haha...), just messing with you a bit, you know, a little bonding. No?

Not funny? Whatever.

What this means is that, if some inherent conditions apply, groupthink always outsmart the decisions of individual experts. Yes, polling the results of a group always outperform the opinion of some of the most well educated and informed experts on any particular topics, consistently. Only very few percentage of individuals are able to make better decisions than when the general public (which includes the whole spectrum of intelligence) decides to poll their wisdom.

Well, let's take the example of the financial market. For those who have invested in mutual funds before, we know that the majority of mutual funds underperform market indexes. This is because mutual funds are managed by fund managers, a small group of people who are supposed to be expert in investing, but these few individuals, with all their knowledge and experience still make us lose our hard earned, like what we Chinese like to say, blood sweat money. Damn those fags. Of course there are a very selected few in the world of investment who constantly beat the market average, one of them being the ultimate guru of investing, Warren Buffet, the second richest man in the world, but there are not many.

Some commented this is a counter intuitive model. Yea, I believe it is. Ever since that 'Men in Black' movie, where, if you remember, Tommy Lee Jones explained to Will Smith why the existence of aliens are not made public, he said: 'An individual is intelligent, calm, blah blah..and some shit I don't remember. Mainly good shit. But people, as in a group, a country, is chaotic, panicky and so would not take the knowledge of existence of aliens well. It would only cause mass hysteria. That has been my model of the world ever since. Until I read the book, that is.

Why am I telling you all this? I'm not trying to do a book review here actually, although it may seem to be. I'm writing this post after, once again, I'm astounded by the display of lack of cognitive abilities among even some of the smartest people by doing something every other moron is doing, and I'm sorry if you happen to be one of them.

What triggered this is when I saw a message on my friendster Bulletin board titled 'I'm deleting you from my friendster list'. It reminded me of the numerous emails and sms I received with somewhat the same kind of title, but more potent threats incorporated into it. The one in my bulletin board is really quite harmless and different from the ones I'm condemning (So don't be angry ya, Marilyn!).

I'm sure you've encountered them also. See if you remember any emails or sms that ends with anything that sounds like these:

'You must forward this mail to at least 15 billion people or so in the next gazillion of a millionth second or else your love life would suffer for eternity, meaning, you'll end up marrying someone from 'Buy a Russian Bride' programme and find out she's a transvestite on your wedding night.'

'You have been tagged by the good luck deity. You must forward this sms to all your friends, your enemies, and the people you don't even know but for some bizarre reason, you have their phone number, or else all hairs on your head would fall off and hair will grow on your buttocks as thick as the Amazon forest.'

'Hotmail is shutting down inactive accounts! Please forward this message to as many people as possible because we at Hotmail are too lazy to do anything more than lifting our fingers or ordering pizza for lunch. Failing to do so, we would assume your email account is inactive and your existence in the online world insignificant, and that you're impotent, and would delete and bar you from using our services ever again for your entire lifetime, and your next life, and the next one...and...well, you get the drift.'

The amazing thing is after all efforts by some of us, the smart ones, to inform those who feel intimidated by these messages that these are hoax and is probably written by losers as a viral marketing bid to get some messages across, we still see it in our mailbox and sms from time to time. I still do. I bet you do too.

I can't believe it when even Youtube is infected by this virus. In the comments section, I found this:

'DONT READ THIS!
In 1932 A Girl was Raped And She Said Hei Do Laki Before She DIed. IF You Dont Repost This In 5 Topics She Will Appear By Your Bed With Glowing Red Eyes And Stare At You Until YOu Fall ASleep'

Not surprisingly, people do repost this. I have no idea whether they do it out of fear or because they think it’s funny. It is not.

You know what? I give up. There is no way to stop the world from acting dumb. Just one thing, if you receive one of those emails or sms, don’t send to me, even if you have only 5 friends in the entire world and I’m one of them. Even if you think your life (or sex life for that matter) depends on it. Don’t, please, I beg you. Deal?

Hah Hah hah hah staying alive, staying alive...lalala dada..

2006-03-06T23:12:00.000+08:00

It is not my intention to let you die. It is not my wish to kill you.

I will summon whatever willpower and energy I have within me to resurrect you. To make you into your glorious self again!

Trust in me! For I am Sakuragi! Wahahaha..guahahahahah.......!!!!!!!!

Ahem.

By the way, I'm talking about my blog.

The KLG Invasion

2005-09-25T21:57:00.000+08:00

They’re here. RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!

I’m sorry. I got carried away. But I feel like I need to tell you this. I kept telling myself that this means something. I just want to be the first person to give the world a warning if it turned out to be true. Nothing of this sort has ever happened before, at least, not to my memory.

Actually, I have this theory which I pushed to the back of my mind a while back, because of the sheer absurdity of it. I want to share it with you now. Why you? Of all the things to do in the world, you chose to waste your time hanging around my blog, reading this. This makes me feel, in a weird way, connected to you. In fact, I feel so close to you now, at the same time vulnerable. It’s like we’re standing naked in front of each other, an arm’s length apart, and I keep seeing you as Angelina Jolie.
Ok, maybe not the last part, but can’t a man have fantasies once in a while?!

Back to my theory:

Fellow earthlings, I believe we’re under attack. From whom (or what) I’m not so sure, but I assure you they’re here, amongst us! I believe this is only the first wave, an initial fleet to ‘test the water’, and soon, droves of ‘them/it’ will swarm over us, and by then, there will be no escape.

It makes perfect sense Ipoh was the choice for this initial fleet of invaders. We’re a quiet little town, peaceful people. We would never suspect anything. They would have gathered whatever intelligence they have to, pat their buttocks and left without making a fuss.

There is no other logical explanation. These buggers just popped up out of nowhere. I swear to you. One day we’re still peaceful (almost dead) little Ipoh town, and the next thing you know, these generic KFC restaurants, calling themselves KLG (yea, the originality), and even spotting the same appearance (the white, blue and red of a typical KFC restaurant) started sprouting everywhere around town like mushrooms after rain.

First sighting: If you’re far enough, you’ll probably mistaken this sign as one showing the way to another KFC restaurant. I certainly did.

KFC lookalike, with Colonel Sanders replaced by a ‘surprised/confused looking’ chicken. How original. (Falim)

Well, they look as harmless as chickens, you say. But I assure you, what we’re able to see from the outside could be excellent job of covering up for some bizarre operations behind the counter. The blatant display of plagiarism of the designs of these restaurants very well proves my point. I mean, if you didn’t really take a careful look, you might walk into one of these restaurant to order your regular ‘hot and spicy chicken’ or ‘zinger burger’.

Just how can a business with this much money to invest (looking at the total number of restaurants and the short period of time they have come into existence) had given so little thought into the design and branding of its business that it confuses customers into mistaking it as part of a well established chain restaurants? Cannot be, right? Will someone tell me, am I living in China or something? Has ‘someone up there’ decided to ‘move’ the whole Ipoh town to China and I’m the only person who hasn’t realize it?

Why does the bloody chicken look so surprised? And why does the ‘G’ look so much like a ‘C’? To further confuse us with the other restaurant? (Ipoh garden)

This photo look distorted because I was driving at high speed when I snap this shot. I know, I’m dangerous. (Fair Park)

Another thing that gave away their evil scheme is the quality of their food. Although I’ve never tasted it before, according to reliable sources, two words sums up what their foods taste like: It sucks!! They seem to be doing nothing right. I mean, how can this be? No genuinely operating restaurant can be this bad.

Another one! We’re doomed! (Ipoh Jaya)

From what I’ve gathered, there are at least 6 (that I know of) of these restaurants in town. All of them appeared out of the blue in a span of 2 months. The way these restaurants appeared at prime locations simultaneously reminds me of the movies ‘Independence day’ and ‘Wars of the worlds’. Then, I was thinking to myself: ‘It’s happening! Its really happening!’ They are just waiting for the right time to strike us. The only thing stopping them is, maybe an official command from their ‘headquarter’, and once they’ve got that too, we’re tossed!

There. This is the least I can do, to expose them so you can save yourself before its too late. I'm taking a big risk by doing this. So, if I suddenly disappear one day, you would have a hint what fate have befallen me.
If I do go missing, the next time you order your chicken burger at a KLG restaurant, it might not be chicken meat you're eating.

Taipei Philharmonic Chorus/ Leo Club of Ipoh Unity/ My genes

2005-09-12T01:19:00.000+08:00

A few weeks ago, I went for a charity performance by the Taipei Philharmonic Chorus. I wouldn't know what to expect of it when I got the ticket because I've never been to a professional chorus performance before. The closest thing I've ever experienced were amatuer attempts by secondary schoolgirls during my Leo Club days.

Superb performance

The 40-voice choir was selected from a 140-voice chorus to tour and perform selected musical works. In Malaysia, they performed in 3 states, first in Penang on the 24th, then in Ipoh on the 26th and finally in KL on the 27th. It was like nothing I have ever seen (or more acurately, heard) before.

The theme of the chorus was Image Taiwan. We were treated to tunes that describes the area and culture of Taiwan, including Taiwan and Mongolian folksongs, Chinese choral works and aboriginal tunes. When they came out from backstage at the beginning of the show, two particular members of the choir stood out in terms of appearance, one of them is a tall, blonde, unmistakebly caucasian lady and the other one, we found out is a Filipino man. The blonde lady (Perlette Jyehae Matthews) turns out to be half-American, half-Taiwanese. That very well proves that music really do has no racial/religious/geographic boundaries.

It was a spectacular performance. Especially when they performed some familiar tunes like 'The Tuberrose' (Yie Lai Xiang) and 'An Unforgettable Affair'(Bu Liao Ching).

I was expecting a typical Ipoh crowd where they do commentaries or chit chat about their neighbours dog giving birth and so on. Suprisingly, the crowd was very well behaved that evening.

I was one of the very few 'not so old' in the crowd. I was sitting beside 2 young rascals who kept making a lot of noise throughout the show. At the end of the show, I slapped them both and kicked them so hard in the backside they flew straight home.

The performance was also a fundraising event for the Agape Home for childrens. I had a chance to talk to Pastor Lim (who manages the orphanage) on a recent visit (organised by the Leo Club of Ipoh Unity) to celebrate the mooncake festival with the childrens and was really impressed with the energy and passion of this 49 year old man, on and off the football field.

At Agape Home. The 'smart' camera lady did not use the flash. Duh! 8pm at night le. Luckily can still see me because my yellow color shirt is just so 'tak chut'.

Football match with the boys. I did not join them. I'm too old for this, you 'hau sang chai' go play.

One of his philosophy in life is to challenge the norm of modern society, get out of the programme, live life according to your own rules, don't just go with the flow. Live your own life instead of living the expectations of your parents, friends, teachers, company managers...etc.

This is so true. There are too many temptations in the world waiting to suck you into 'the matrix' (if you're not in it already), where you live by rules and limitations preprogrammed into the system. Where sooner or later you become a drone in this immence factory producing more drones as you multiply yourself by producing offsprings. These offsprings of yours will carry on your 'legacy' in their genes, and programming through education and constant feeding of unqualified opinions and guidelines on how to live life. This whole process is known as 'Parenting'.

Don't get me wrong. I intend to pass on my genes and produces my own offsprings. Lots and lots of them, and when I have enough, I'll go a step further and produce more, and more, and then more........infinity(if possible). Yea, what can I say, I'm a high achiever. I believe I have good genes and should utilize it(by passing it on) for the betterment of mankind.

Ok. This post is way too unstructured. I'm rambling about too many unrelated things at one go. I better make some kind of conclusion to round up what I'm trying to say so that there'll be a clear take home message to make it worth your time reading. So here it is:

I have good genes. Wanna mate?

Gua pun cinta sama legara, chalet!!

2005-09-01T21:02:00.000+08:00

Harap-harap saya tidak terlalu lewat untuk membelog dalam bahasa kebangsaan kita seperti kebanyakan saudara-saudari dalam blogosfera yang telah pun berbuat demikian sempena Hari Merdeka. Setelah berfikir lama, akhirnya saya membuat keputusan untuk mengharungi segala sawang-sawang mental yang wujud akibat terlalu lama tidak memfleksikan otot-otot bahasa supaya saya dapat, sekali lagi, menyampaikan fikiran dalam minda dengan menggunakan bahasa tercinta kita, Bahasa Malaysia (atau Bahasa Melayu? Sudah tidak begitu pasti lagi kerana kerap ditukar).

Tapi jika difikirkan dengan teliti, agak membosankan jika hanya menulis dalam bahasa Malaysia baku. Maklumlah sudah sekian lama tidak menulis dalam bahasa, agak karat juga tatabahasa dan vokabulari saya. Kemungkinan juga apa yang ditulis ini tidak boleh difahami. Tapi apa kuasa saya? Inilah yang larat saya buat pada masa ini.

Demi menghilangkan rasa bosan semasa saya menulis dan rakan-rakan sekalian yang rajin membaca, saya akan menulis dengan cara yang lebih kreatif. Karangan ini akan bermula dalam bahasa baku yang sebaku-bakunya, selepas itu mungkin berloghat Perak sedikit dengan campuran unsur-unsur bahasa pasar dan diakhiri dengan bahasa yang rojak dan mengelirukan. Baiklah, kita mulakan tanpa melengahkan masa lagi.....

Sejurus selepas mengakhiri persekolahan menengah, (walaupun usaha ini mungkin dianggap sebagai anti-semangat kebangsaan) saya membuat keputusan untuk memuntahkan kembali sebahagian besar daripada apa yang dipelajari dalam kelas bahasa Malaysia, untuk dipulangkan kepada guru-guru bahasa yang dihormati.

Ketika itu, semua pencapaian dalam bahasa Malaysia seperti tidak banyak mendatangkan manfaat, kecuali untuk lulus dalam peperiksaan. A1 dalam SPM seolah-olah tidak bermakna langsung (ni nak aksyen sikit la, tak boleh). 'Selepas memasuki Universiti, Bahasa Inggerislah yang lebih penting', itulah yang berlinggar dalam otak. 'Bahasa Malaysia itu, faham sikit cukuplah, cukup untuk menulis esei, yang selebih tu, tak penting sangat'. Pada masa itu, rasanya logik juga berfikir demikian.

Mungkin sebab masa tu, Bahasa Inggeris saya memang teruk. Nak tulis karangan dalam bahasa Inggeris memang susah. Dalam rumah saya, bukannya ada sapa-sapa yang tahu cakap English. Habih tu, kena blajar sendiri la. Eh, kome ingat senang ke? Tapi tak apa, asal rajin sikit, mesti boleh punya. Sama jugak dengan masa mula blajar bahasa Malaysia. Eh, cikgu masa tu kata bahasa aku lebih terer dari budak melayu tau? Tak caya? Cis... sapa pduli? Aku tau sudah le. Masa tu bahasa aku baik sebab banyak baca majalah 'Gila-Gila' (malay version of 'MAD' magazine) kot. Entah la. Sekarang ni, nak kata bahasa Malaysia tak guna, idak jugak. Bila nak cakap lebih sikit dengan gadis melayu cun tu, hah, masa tu le yang sedar bertapa pentingnya bahasa ni.

Hah, sikit yam lagi habis celita. Sabar selikit, ok?

Apa yang gua mau kasi lu tau ah, itu bahasa malaisia, itu ala penting jugak. Mesti mau paham selikit, boleh. Kita suma hamplang olang malaisia, betul tak? Itu lempat lu tinggal ala jugak olang malayu, olang cina, olang india, etc, etc... mesti mau satu kali kerliasama tolong-menolong balu suma olang happy selikit bukan. Balu boleh ciapai wawasan lua puluh lua puluh.

Satu lagi gua mau kasi lu tau ah, ini hali gua ala dengar satu lagu manyiak selupa lagu kebangsaan kita. Ini celita ala keluar lekat sulatkhabar. Gua sulah kasi lownload itu lagu, kalau lu jugak mau, lu pegi sini. Cali itu lagu 'Mamula Moon'.

Amacam? boleh tahan jugak?

Selamat Hari Merdeka.

Furong jie jie shut down?!!

2005-08-24T00:24:00.000+08:00

This is interesting. The Propaganda Department of China has decided to exert it's power to shut down Furong jiejie. Is she a treat to China's national security or something? Maybe she is. I puke everytime I look at her photos, and I guess that's a bad thing. You wouldn't want someone like that representing your country in the blogsphere right?

"Mirrow mirrow on the wall, who's the most narcissistic bitch of them all?"

Read more here.

I wonder what Kenny and Xiaxue has to say.

My family jewels..........

2005-08-23T19:16:00.000+08:00

There's no doubt they're important to us, and thus we give them meticulous care. Even during times when they're not in use, we keep them clean, so that when it is time we need them to perform, they would do a good job to bring us pleasure, maybe even suprise us a little.

Once every little while, just like a car, we need to start it's engine and let it run for awhile, just to make sure it's still functioning well, and similar to a car's engine, if it is left unattended and unused for too long a period of a time, it might not function well the next time you start it.

All men in my family has this itch. Actually, it's more like a universal men 'thing'. We get excited and squeal like little girls whenever we see a set of high quality goods. Ever so often, we are tempted to part with a month or twos salary for a little upgrade on our own set.

But that will only cure the itch for a certain period of time. Eventually, when an upgrade do not seem to do the job of maximising the performance of the whole system, we go for a completely new set.

Let me show you what I'm talking about in case you're still wondering, or in case you wanted to write me an email to ask me "Can I really upgrade my family jewels?! How? Where?"..........

This is what I'm talking about. Our AV system (as in audio visual, not adult video).

Let me just explain about the photograph in case you're still confused even after looking at it.
In addition to the existing system, my father just bought a pair of 10" Dynamax karaoke speakers (placed on the floor). And when he's testing it by hooking it up to our old Marantz amp and his faithful karaoke decoder, I decided to take a photo cause it was such a sight!

The photograph above might not be so clear, there's actually 7 speakers in there. 8 if you take the subwoofer into account. There's also a pair of rear surround speakers not in the photograph. So in all, there's a total of 10 speakers in my living room that day.
Holy macaroni!! 10 effing speakers!!

The pair of Dynamax (a cheap cheap brand) speakers is now in my parents room. My dad has practically turned his room into a mini karaoke. It finally dawned on us that having so many speakers blasting away in one room is not a very good idea when my mom and I had to go for surgery to fix our ruptured eardrums. We are ok now. My dad on the other hand, has to use a hearing device for the rest of his life, and my sis is gonna kill me when she sees what I just wrote :p

Overkill would be an understatement

The mountain of AV products (audio visual, audio visual, OK!) you see in the photograph is a collection which started with a modest lineup of a Marantz intergrated amp, Pioneer LD/VCD player, a 34" Sony TV, and a pair of JBL bookshelf speakers. We used to have a Telefunken cd player for our music cravings too. It was quite an awesome system and it did well in music and stereo movies for us back then.

After that, my bro brought a whole set of Sony AV system back from Uk including a video cassatte player (which is now absolete, but we still leave it there just to fill the rack and make people visiting us go "Wow!"), a DVD player (which is now officially retired, means broken. and replaced by a cheaper Tagwood DVD player which also plays almost every kind of disk known to man), and the STR DB930 surround reciever. Along with this system, he also managed to smuggle a set of BOSE 'Lifestyle 10' surround speakers back to Malaysia.

Having a compatible DVD player with digital output, a decent amp to decode digital signals and a complete 5.1 set of speakers, I was all ready to experience Dolby Digital (also known as AC3) and DTS sounds, with just one final problem that needs solving, to look for a digital interconnect that tranfers datas from the DVD player to the amp. It took quite a while before I found one because a lot of AV equipment shops don't even know what kind of cable would work. There are actually 2 types of digital cables: optical cables and coaxial cables. The first time we put in an AC3 DVD to test the system was a pretty breathtaking experience. We did literally go "Wow!".

By the standard today, this system is pretty out of date. With new formats like Dolby Prologic 2, Dolby Digital EX and DTS-ES being the standard for almost all new players and amps, the only choice would be for a total replacement, though it's not gonna happen anytime soon, cause now, unfortunately, I'm still poor.

Anyone wanna donate so I can get a new system? ANYONE?

Guess not.

Come on, come on heaven, spit on me!!

2005-08-16T22:09:00.000+08:00

The much awaited rain finally arrived today. In fact, it is still raining outside as I'm typing this. Let's hope the sky will be clear and blue tomorrow, free from haze, and I can actually see where I'm going when I'm driving.

Actually even before the rain today, the haze has improved in Ipoh. What? Don't believe me? I can prove it to you. Today I can even tell you that I've only ran over 2 dogs, one cat and one old lady, which is a great improvement compared to when the haze was really bad.

It will definitely be better tomorrow. I'm aiming for just two kills tomorrow, hopefully just some small animals, preferably frogs. Let's just hope the numbers get better, at least until the direction of wind change again and brings back the haze. Please keep YOUR fingers crossed.

I have always liked rainy days. Especially when I'm indoor, there is a strange feeling of security and comfort. I suspect it is mutual among all living things, except maybe plants, and frogs. The feeling of being sheltered from rain is so luxurious.

Oh, and I hope you know I'm kidding.

wahoo.com

2005-08-15T22:00:00.000+08:00

wahoo.com

This is hilarious. I've got to blog this.

An sms I got:

New Malaysian national anthem...

Negaraku, Tanah tumpahnya jerebu,
Rakyat hidup, bersesak dan layu,
Rahmat bahgia, penjual topeng muka,
Raja kita, kena pakai juga!

That is all. Cheers.

It's MY day

2005-08-12T23:11:00.000+08:00

It's my birthday today. Thank all those who had sent me birthday whishes. Special thanks to those few who celebrated this special day with me.

I don't really get presents often for my birthdays in the past. Except from 1 or 2 close friends who never fail to remind me of MY OWN birthday because I'm not a 'birthday celebrating' person(what great friends I have!). Of course, there are also those who would send me countless reminders of their own birthday so that I would have ample time to shop for a present for them (Yea, great friends! @*%&*!).

The presents I got this year clearly shows that it does not matter how much a birthday present cost but it's more of the thoughtfullness of the person buying it.

Look at what I've got:

Present no.1

Just look at me! No one can look so angry and so cute at the same time. Grrr.....

This one is amazing. A Ci-Boys 8cm figure! I've been looking for these buggers since I got one from my bro and placed it on my car's dashboard. I''ve never been a big fan of action figures, but these buggers are real cool, and cute. I don't care if it sounds gay. I like cute things too. Spank me.

At last, the one in my car has got a new partner. Hopefully I can get hold of more of these cute angry bald guys real soon. I'm gonna inundate my dashboard with these little fellas. Ooo....I'm so gay! (as in happy).

I've only casually mentioned I like Ci-boys figure very much and am thinking of starting a collection, so I'm rather suprised you remembered. Thanks a million!
Ha.....and now I know where you bought it. My cousin next door just bought one at 'New World' (What bucking coincidence!!) You got it from there too, didn't ya?

Present no.2

You guys bought me a book. To know that I like to read is one thing. To know what kind of books I like to read is really sweet. But to buy me the book that I'm planning to buy without me ever mentioning it to you is......er......quite scary. Really. How the hell did you guys know?! You guys didn't follow me around like stalkers, did you?

Dear all, stalking is unhealthy. It scares the shit out of the person you're stalking. They know. Believe me. It's like a sixth sense thing or something. Like you always know when someone is staring at you even when you're looking the other way. And, once they know who you are, boy, are you in real trouble. Lawsuits are imminent. But if you're a real hot babe, that's a totally different story. In that case, a cup of coffee at your place will greatly diminish the possibility of you being sued.
-This is a public service announcement brought to you by wahoo.com

Ok. I'm just kidding.

Yes. I'm an intellectual one. Having read books by Anthony Robbins and Adam Khoo, I decided it's time to go digging a little deeper on the teachings of NLP.

Happy birthday to you too Li Wah!

Now, what are the chances of one of your best friend sharing the same birthday as yours. Yea, it's pretty cool. Double the fun! We should go out K-ing more often, don't you think. I had so much fun today.

The third present I got is a Sheaffer pen. Now, you're thinking: How boring!. Wrong. I've been thinking of getting myself a decent pen for quite some time. I've been using cheapo pens supplied by my company all this while and voila! I didn't even tell you that! Can you read my mind or something?!

Holy cow!! I got (almost) all the things I wished for this birthday! How uncanny!

The writer in me

2005-08-10T22:18:00.000+08:00

So here's the deal. Siew Lean has posted her first entry in her blog, and I think it's damn good. Pulitzer prize material, I tell you. Being the smarty pants I always has been, I was thinking to myself: I can do this too. I can write GOOD.
And so, equipped with my somewhat limited vocabulari, and a larger than elephant ass ego, I'm gonna try to write something with similar grandeur. So, here goes....

Wait, before that, I must stress that the material you are going to read is like, totally original. There is not even the slightest possibility that the plot, ideas, words originated from her post. Plagiarism is despicable. All those who plagiarise should be sent straight to hell. No. They should be castrated first, then sent to hell. Ladies would have their breast removed.
So, you will not find any part of my material to even remotely resemble her entry. Totally no connection with hers, got it? GOT IT?

Ok, back to the real deal...

The sun going down adi, but not all the way down, ngam ngam halfway like playing peekaboo like that.The rumah atap all empty. All went out clubbing, or went do something naughty. Left two insan in the rumah, in the room. These two siao lang stay close close. They are baby siao lang and mother siao lang. Mother siao lang cekik the poor little baby siao lang. Juz kidding. Touching only. Baby siao lang couldnt care less. He was too busy tasting her neh neh. It's damn hot outside, so they were both sweating like hell. Both smelly like hell. Baby siao lang continue sucking her neh neh, and summore, and summore, and summore, and summore, and summore.And then, "NEXT", moved on to the other neh neh.
After the mother siao lang's reservoir is depleted, baby siao lang also chiak pao liao and went to chiak something else, chiak bantal (means sleep la, Einstein!!). Satisfied with her first experience of feeding her baby, with a sore neh neh, she went out clubbing to celebrate.

(I really want to continue the story, but I sense a tsunami of negative vibes aproaching, so I stop here....)

See. I can write a decent strory. I think mine is a lot better than hers. Don't you think? Yea. I think so too.

Friendster shut me down!!

2005-08-08T23:22:00.000+08:00

Actually it might have been a bug they couldnt fix, but heck, it still messed up my normal blogging schedule I try very hard to keep. Glad you all kept your cool, my dear blodger(term coined from xiaxue, which means blog reader. Ingeniuos, isnt it?) fans. By now, I'd assume I have tons of fans reading my blog, because I get marriage proposals at least once a day in my mailbox, all claiming to have read my blog and told me I swept them off their feet with my charm and idiosyncrasies.

Ok, OK! Hold your horses. There is only one me, ok! I can only marry 7 of you at one time (I'm like the modern 'wai siu bou', I'm strong. Ahem). But you can still wait 'till I get bored with my current wives. I assure you, I have very short attention span. THEN, I can marry you. So make sure you leave me your contact no. Stay home always, wait for my call, and you might just have a chance. But of course I can't promise you anything. As I've said, I am only one man! Unless, of course, you're rediculously hot. In that case, call me NOW! What?! Why are you still reading? Which part of NOW that you don't understand? Go grab your phone.

GO!

Wait, brb,something I forgot to do.

Ok, now that I've taken care of those voices in my head with some Zyprexa, let's get back to my ranting about how friendster shut me down from blogging the past week.

I was kept from blogging for the past week because everytime I click on the 'update blog' link, I end up where I started; my friendster home page. I kept clicking on that same link for the next few days, but to no avail. Realising cursing at my screen would'nt work (believe me, I've tried, with all my might. *pun not intended*), I tried clicking on a different link. All working fine, except the 'update blog' and 'edit album' link. After awhile, I began to hate seeing my homepage loading up. I still have uneasy feelings in my stomach when I look at my homepage now.

As you can see, I'm back now. So all is fine. No need to take Luvox anymore to control your wahoo.com withdrawal symptoms. At last, you can worship your god again on this sacred ground known as wahoo.com. At last, you.........I think I need another dose of Zyprexa.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Cool links

Anyway, if you have a broadband connection, here are some cool links of a few P2P software that I'm using for downloading movies, anime, mp3, software, watch internet tv and a whole load of other cool stuffs. Gotta fully utilize the broadband connection, right.

Bitcomet.
I'm pretty sure most of you are familiar with bittorrent files. Bitcomet is only one of the bittorrent client (software), many others are available. I find it very easy to use, with lots of extra features. It is reported to conflict with ZoneAlarm 5.0 though. I'm using version 6.0, so I'm safe. I use Bitcomet to download movies and animes mainly, also e-books.

Limewire.
Limewire is another great P2P software. The fact that it has got iTunes intergration makes it very nice for downloading Mp3.

Kugoo.
I use Kugoo to download chinese Mp3s. It's made mainly to cater for chinese speaking dudes, so even the sofware is in chinese also.

ppStream.
This one is pretty cool. Another chinese made software, but this one is for watching China's tv channels. Hong Kong's TVB is also available. A good substitute if you don't have Astro at home.

All these softwares are free for download and use. With the powers of these softwares, there is no need to buy anymore cds, dvds, books, or subscibe to Astro. Even those pirated vcd peddlers won't be able to make money out of you anymore. Because you become a bigger (and greater) pirate then them. A lot of materials you download using these softwares are illegal. Now don't say I did'nt warn you.

After you've done downloading to your heart's content, you can get back to worshipping me on my blog.
Thank You.

Wait. Now just one more thing. This whole post has been without a photo. A post without a photo is boring, rite? So, here goes.....

Ghost sighted!!! No. This is actually a 'Wanted' photograph. This is the culprit who stole robbed my 'Moonlight Fried Hor Fun' of one of it's 2 huge prawns! In that split second when my food arrive, even before the plate touches the table, one of my precious prawn was in the hand of this siao cha bo. Ceh! Early celebration of my birthday konon. I kick you then you know.

Monday blues

2005-07-25T23:03:00.000+08:00

Mondays are like a curse for some people. It's the day we have to start hauling ass and get back to what we should be doing: working (to earn a living), or studying (to be able to earn a living someday, hopefully).

For me, it's important how I handle Mondays cause it'll effect my performance the whole week. As i'm in sales, and as what they always say, sales is an energy business, the higher the energy, the more effective you are, which means the richer your pocket gets. I like.

So to boost up that all important energy level of mine, I'm gonna indulge myself in an activity that all men are familiar with, and also spend countless hours doing it. By the way, it's a really rewarding pastime, cause apparently, according to studies, it increases our heart health. Yes, it does. No kidding.

What am I talking about? Hehe, what else...looking at girls loh.

Discalimer: The contents below are totally safe for all ages, even childrens and senior citizens, especially males. If your granpa is around, get his ass over here to read this with you, it'll do both of you good. Why? Studies shows when we men look at a woman's body (even fully clothed. What were you thinking?), we get aroused and blood starts to flow faster in our blood vessels, thus promoting circulation to the whole body and possibly removing plagues at the same time (amazing, rite?). There are no nude or offending photos in this post. Only pictures of healthy young women indulging in sports. They are extremely sexy though, but not in terms of revealing too much flesh, but more of the sexiness of being active and healthy, if you know what I mean.

So, here is, my list of the sexiest women in sports:

No.1 in my list:

Guo JingJing, the diving queen of China

The Olympic gold medalist in Athens 2004, clinched her 3rd consecutive world champion title in 3m springboard in the 2005 Montreal World Aquatic Championship.

Ok. Maybe you think this photo is too model like and maybe heavily photoshopped too.

........

So let's look at another one.

gorgeous, aint she?

.......

Some more....

Absolute beauty.

And, bachelor no.2:

Anna Kournikova, tennis princess

She needs no introduction at all. With heaps of product endorsements, she is the poster girl of tennis fans and the epitome of sports beauty. A rose with lots of spiky torns. In 2004, her parents sued her for allegedly taking over a waterfront home the three jointly own. Ouch! Dangerous women are sooo sexy!

Moving on, no.3 in the list:

Michelle Wie, the sexy golf amatuer

Michelle Wie, a korean descent born in Hawaii became only the fourth women, and the youngest ever to play in an event on the main US based men's golf tour, the PGA tour. She's only 16 years old!! and already 6 foot tall.
Michelle, I have a question to ask you, err...um, will you marry me?

Let's feast our eyes on more Michelle Wie...I mean, on MY Michelle Wie.

Next, we have...

Tennis babe, Maria Sharapova

Eh, Maria, why are you looking at me like that? You SO want me. I know.
Ahem.
Maria Sharapova is the new queen of tennis. I watched the 2004 Wimbledon Final where she beat the crap out of Serena Williams to become the first Russian to claim the title, and instantly fell in love with her.
Maria, you can be my second wife. I'm sorry, I have to marry Michelle first because she's Korean. She's just closer.

................................

Walau, pose like that meh? Ok la, maybe I'll reconsider.

and, finally, last but not least, we have a Malaysian winner:

Malaysian squash beauty, Nicol David.

She's a beauty, I tell you. These photos here doesnt do her justice. I've seen her in person. She's a lot cuter.
Yes, Nicol, I've seen you, back in 2001, in Mandarin Cafe, Sungai Dua in Penang!

For those who do not know (shame on you!), Nicol is now ranked 3rd in the world and has just beaten world no.1 Racheal Grinham to become the first Malaysian ever to win a gold medal in the World Games.

Nicol looks so hot in action. Nicol, you can marry me too :)

I'm always happy and smiling, with no worries, the sky is blue, the moon is beautiful, I take valium everyday...tralala....

2005-07-25T23:01:00.000+08:00

That's my new motto. So that it would match the smiley face sitting so unassuming in the space where my photo used to be in my frienster profile page.
It's so cute, don't you think? I'd give anything for a face like that. Soothes the heart just by looking at it. And in case you don't get enough of the mood regulating therapeutic effects of just one smiley face, go click on the 'view photo' link under the big smiley face. Go on, don't be shy, GO.

and tadaa!!.......EIGHT MORE smiley faces, just for you. (All of them with captions to explain to you what I'm doing in those photos that makes my face so happy. Just use your imagination.)

Wow, if one smiley face makes you feel so good, just imagine what eight of them will do to you?! It might even bring you to ORGASM!

The people at Frienster are so good to me they messed up all my photos and replace them with all these cute smiley faces. Aww....those precious smiley faces, I'm not worthy. Give it to someone who deserve it.

Eh, just a thought: but my face isnt round? My eyes are not just 2 f***king dots either, and I swear to holy mother of Christ, I'm not that happy and smiling all the time!

So PLEASE, fix my photos already, WILL YA!!!

SOME GREEN MIDGETS TOOK MY FACE!

2005-07-18T22:55:00.000+08:00

If you notice, I've photoshopped the faces of the people in my previous posts to conceal the identity of, um, everyone in the pics.

No, I did not recieve any death threats from disgruntled fellow colleagues/friends/family members who are not happy with me putting their pics online.

And no, there ain't any concerned buddy telling me I'd get sued by putting other people's pics in my blog without their permission. (But really, can I, like, get sued for that?)

It's just that I've been thinking (yea, um, I do that sometimes). Some people might have a different view on what private information is. I mean, some people might just be a wee bit sensitive about having their pics online, on my blog, WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE. Ok, I can understand that. Would'nt you be concerned? No? really? You narcissistic freak!

But I really do understand. So from now on, I would make everyone of you, who are priviledge enough to have your geeky face posted on my blog, to look like your face's been zapped by an alien's laser gun, so no beings on earth would be able to recognise you. Unless of course, you've given your consent to me to post it here, in which case, it will appear in all it's naturally freakish glory. Thank you.

Ok, let's see some more alien-laser-zapped faces, er, just for the heck of it, k.

Which style you like? In case you're wondering why I left out the guy holding the mic, that's my pretty face. I won't sue myself, so I guess it's ok.

What? Want more? Aww...ok, just one more.

Ok, this one does'nt look like he got attacked by aliens but it looks cool right? See the guy having coffee in the background? I am so thorough in my work I didn't leave him out and did a fix on his face too. Talk about attention to details.

I think I'm getting good at this. Wait, *lightblub glowing above head*, let me make you an offer. If you send me a photo of yourself, I'll give it the alien-laser-zap treatment and post it on my blog. FOR FREE. What d'ya think? It'd be fun, wouldnt it? We can start a galery or something. And I promise I'll keep your identity secret. Heck, you don't even have to let me know who you are, whether you know me or not. Just send your pic to my email: sakuragi.c@gmail.com

I'm serious (how many times do I have to repeat myself to get your attention?) It's a great idea, aint it? You hit a few buttons, and we all get entertained. How many times have someone offered to zap your face silly (face on your photo, of course) and post it online? FOR FREE.

Original shit, huh.

2005-07-11T22:47:00.000+08:00

Pls read Part 1 first (not that there is continuity that would otherwise be uncomprehendable if you read this part first, but since this post is named part 2, I guess, what the heck, do as you like...)

Cameron Highlands

This is the second time I'm driving up to Cameron using the new road (enter at Simpang Pulai). Me and my colleagues were very well treated by our company. We get to stay at Equatorial Hotel near Brinchang (about 2 km away). The Equatorial is a 4 star hotel, and it is rated as the second bestest hotel in Cameron Highlands. The highest rated being Lakehouse Resort.

The Equatorial has great views and some very comfortable apartments (besides the hotel rooms). We stayed at a 2 rooms apartment with a spectacular view.

Nice!

Albeit all the great facilities of a 4-star Hotel, they still manage to screw it up by some substandard service and poor management. When we got there, there were no slippers and towels in the apartment. We called, and were told slippers are not provided for occupants but they will bring the towels as soon as possible. Now normally I wouldn't have given a damn whether they provide slippers or not but here in Cameron Highlands, the floor is icy cold!

We thought it was only a glitch that happens on the rarest of occasions, but we were dissappointed again the next day. No towels again. WTF, rite!? 4-star hotel? Dissappointing.

Also, we were only provided with one towel each. No hand towels provided. They charge RM5 for each extra towel. Never seen a 4-star hotel so kiamsiap one. I think they're trying to cut cost or something, as apparently, ours was not an isolated case. Others also had to request for their towels. Such simple thing also cannot do, call yourself 4-star. haiz.

Anyway, apart from work, we also went around scouting for good food. Boy, can we eat!! Food, food, food all the time. And of course we went for steamboat, one of the must do if you come to Cameron Highlands. The cold weather makes steamboat really really goood.

Don't forget the fisballs, faster, put fishballs first. Fishballs. I like. A steamy scene at Cameron. (steamy scene. Hehe...)

We had steamboat at Restoran Kowlong, Brinchang. The parking area opposite the restaurant was the site for the famous pasar malam in Brinchang.

If you think the huge prawns in the last steamy picture (steamy picture. hehe...) was the star of the meal, how very wrong you are, my young padawan.

Introducing, *drum rolls* the real star of the meal, Fried Mushrooms!! *applauds....screams*

Mine! They are all mine! Wuahaha... (eh, why look more like fried shit? eww..)

After feeding ourself fat that night, we worked like dogs again for the next few days.
In all, the trip was enjoyable.

THE END.

Backdated entry (Part 1)

2005-07-11T22:43:00.000+08:00

Sleepy Hollow

I've been working for 2 consecutive weekends, luckily had a chance to rest last weekend. The first was to Kl. The second weekend was in Cameron which I'm gonna write about in a while. I've accumulated some serious sleep dept now. If the body has some kind of debt collector like what those 'along' have. I'd already been chopped to pieces.

Chop chop chop!!

I think it has. Only working in a different way. One of these days I'm gonna crash myself straight to hell by falling asleep behind the wheel. I spend, like, 3-4 hours driving everyday. So, Ipoh shitheads! Better watch out for me!I'm gonna mow ya 'all down like chickens or dogs or whatever with my blue Unser.

Don't get me wrong, I like dogs. Especially the squashed ones by the road side. Cute.

Kidding. KIDDING!

See what lack of sleep has done to me.

But seriously, move your big fat butt out of the way when you see my dream cruiser in the close vicinity. I'm dangerous. Ya know what I'm saying?
REMEMBER: Blue Unser = run for your life/ give way, like what you do to an ambulance.

-------------------------------------------

Land of good food

Since my colleagues (from KL) and I are supposed to meet up in Ipoh before driving up to Cameron. They decided to come earlier (at lunch time), so that they can enjoy some Ipoh food before going up there to work like a dog (see, told you I like dogs, mentioned them twice in this post).

And so I brought them around to fulfill their crave. First stop was Tin Chun restaurant in old town where we had chicken hor fun, satay and egg pudding (really famous there). Then, by request, we headed to the famous 'tau fu fah' place opposite Foo San restaurant.

The ladies enjoying 'tau fu fah' and 'soya mixed with cincau aka black and white'.

This 'tau fu fah' stall is sort of like a drive-in stall, only it's not exactly drive-IN...........anyway, you get to enjoy the famous Ipoh 'smoother-than-silk' bean curd in the comfort of your own car, cause you just have to park nearby the stall, yell at them and they'll happily send it over to you.

Lastly, we stopped by Indulgence for desert. This atas restaurant with a great ambiance is very comfortable and serves really good cheese cakes. However, the bill will really hurt your wallet.

-----------------------------------------------------------

tired...the bits on Cameron later. Chiao.

David Letterman Rocks!

2005-07-10T01:06:00.000+08:00

Dave rocks! He's losing hair, but he still kicks ass. Whoohoo....

Why I blog

2005-07-03T22:41:00.000+08:00

A friend of mine called and told me he read my blog, says it's cool, I'm gonna be famous and I look hot in the pic.

Alright, he just told me he read my blog.

But that really starts me thinking, 'do I really wanna be read by my friends'? Is it the reason I blog?

Frankly, I have no idea why I started blogging. I read a few blogs, thought it's cool and wanted to try it mostly to amuse myself. I wanted to see a site with the name Wahoo.com badly. I also wanted to write words like shit, fuck, tits, boobies, wanker, clitoris, and assy all in one page (whohoo...!! Now that I've done it. I might just stop blogging).

I probably have too much time on my hand.

Ya know, my friends would never believe I wrote those stuffs I just did. In real life, I'm this all polite and decent human being who doesn't smoke, drinks only for business purposes, and wouldn't (oh god forbid!) let slip a single swear word out of my mouth. Profanity is just not in my everyday wardrobe.

On a more serious note, I thought it would be a good way to record the crazy shit I have to deal with everyday and laugh about it later when I reread it. A place to do some mental purging, so to speak.

And Cham, no worries dude. It's not like I'm gonna bad-mouth my friends here, or tell the world you're actually gay, or tell them about the time in secondary school when you were doing the impression of tarzan or something, jumping from table to table, howling your personnal battle cry, then then then banging your head on pure-hard-CONCRETE (ouch! I feel your pain, bro. I really do.) and end up lying on the ground while the whole class laugh our asses off.

Muahahahaa...! I'm evil!

Belly dancing, a bottle of 12 years old scotch and an Indian pub.

2005-06-26T22:39:00.000+08:00

For a certain company function, I went to a prestigiuos hotel, the Le Meridien hotel in KL Sentral and got a taste of all these three things.

The hotel was spectacular but unfortunately I was put in a less expensive hotel (Armada Hotel) for my 2 days stay. Still, I was able to luxuriate in some of the facilities of the hotel during the meeting, and so far this is my favourite hotel in KL.

We were given a complimentary room ( reward of my product manager's philosophy to 'squeeze until the last drop'), for pre-function meetings use. Whoo...I'm still drooling over the huge and delicious Hitachi LCD TV and the rediculous-looking-but-damn-comfortable chairs in the meeting room.

All meeting rooms were equiped with an LCD screen on the entrance preprogrammed with the schedule of use of that particular room. A colleague was also impressed with the hotspot accessibility in the hotel. "Fast, very fast, wah, first time like this, broadbandlah!", remarked this colleague of mine in excitement.

The real show of the day was probably dinner where we indulged ourself in Lebanese food in the Al Nafourah Restaurant, where we were also entertained with ahem...let me catch my breath....belly dancing! Aww....!

But ceh! Nothing much la. Just a fat lady prancing around looking for victims to embarass. Yes. Guests who are eating are subject to being chosen to embarass themself/entertain others by dancing with the middle eastern lady. So now you got 2 overweight people doing the mating dance (people who can afford to eat here are overweight). Yukk. Appetite killer.

After dinner, there was another round of gathering in a customer's room, where there were lots of drinking and laughing and dirty jokes and politics. This is where the 12 years old scotch which I can't remember the name came in. Dhevass or something which sounds similar, not Chivas though. After gotten ourself half drunk, we decided to go to an Indian pub in Brickfield which was just 1 km away, so we decided to walk there. Now just imagine a bunch of half drunk men (10 of us) walking on the streets goofing around, laughing so loud we're lucky we didn't get arrested for disturbance of peace or something. Hell, wat the fuk am I talking about, it's Brickfield!

Now, there are 2 things I notice in Indian pubs:

1)They are frequented by males mainly (ratio of male to female, 15:1). Probably a heaven for getting away from the nagging wife??

2)Loud singing!! All the latest and not so latest indian pop songs. No club music, trance whatsoever, just good old Indian pop.

Got shock of my life when getting out of the hotel carpark in Le Meridien and told parking cost RM44!! Luckily bossess are staying in the hotel so asked them for their room no. and got free parking. (Yea, they stay Meridien, we stay Armada. Bah!) Still have to pay RM5 though.

Got back at Armada finally at 3am. Fully prepared for the hangover the next day.

My phone is SEXY!

2005-06-23T22:36:00.000+08:00

I'm gonna brag about my new phone now. If you're not happy about people being cocky once in a while because they CAN, pi main jauh jauh.

Everybody brags about it when they buy a new phone. I'm reading Bill Clinton's My Life, and he brags about it when he got himself a new phone back in 2002. Here's (something like) how it goes :

(** Conversations Malaysianised to cater for local readership** ..Fuk! Who am I kidding? nobody reads my blog :( )

Lil' Bill: Wah!! Fuiyoh, Hillary, come see my new phone, damn canggih! Come la, come. See, got camera summore.

Hillary: Aik, thought you said you never going to use handphone. Said very distracting, especially when you working, if phone go 'tee toot tee toot', it makes you go crazy, no meh?

Lil' Bill: Actually, I brought this phone for communication with you and Chelsea la. You see, I'm always on the go, cannot always look for the payphone ma, and cannot carry the damn payphone with me, damn heavy. I tried already. So have to buy handphone lo.

Hillary: Just make damn sure that you don't use it for other purpose ah, especially the camera function. *dagger stares with the grrr... sound effect*

Lil' Bill: I love you

Hillary: Oh, sweetie pie. Come here. Muacks..

Lil' Bill, thinking in his head: 'Works everytime. Everytime.'

(ok, so it's not from the book. I made it up. So what? Spank me.)

Anyway, back to my handphone.

It's soooo sexy! Yes, I'm using the word sexy, cause if I'm able to, I'd have sex with it. Yea, it's THAT sexy.

I didn't buy the phone. By the way, it's a Sony Ericsson F500i. No. SHE's a Sony Ericsson F500i. Ok, I'll call her SHE from now on, since I'm such a sexist. She's a gift from my bro in UK. So she's got a huge Vodafone logo on the front cover which I don't like very much. The only thing that's not so sexy about her.

She cost about 60 pound which is about RM420. Take a look at the phone's review here.

I love her big boobs color screen. 64k color, man. My first color screen phone. Woo... nice. I love her fantastic ringtones too. My first polyphonic phone. Hmm....delicious. And her camera, ohh...baby. Ahem. I think i'll stop here.

Welcome to the real world?

2005-06-07T22:31:00.000+08:00

This post is to further a discussion with a friend of mine, Adele.

There are 2 concepts that I find very interesting and we have different view of:

1) The real world vs everything is perception
2) Being genuine vs modeling someone

I'll start by tackling the concept of how we look at the world around us. I have a belief of everything being only perceptions of the mind. It's not that I don't believe in concepts like genuine love or faith, but then again, when you go deeper, what are they? They are feelings, or more acurately labels that we adopt to explain the state of mind we're in. If you try to describe the feeling of being in love, you might say it's the warm fuzzy feeling 'inside' of you. Cause some chemical reactions are taking place in your body and signals are being sent to your brain telling you that you're experiencing the feeling of love.

Again, it's important to know that the trigger of the feeling of love, or any other states of mind, is different for everyone. That's why you'll get different feelings either kissed by your boyfriend/girlfriend or a complete stranger, rite?(and I'm not talking about Brat Pitt or Angelina Jolie here)

Knowing all this is important when you introduce the concept of CHOICE into the equation. Why? Because it gives you power. Power to control life's circumstances instead of it controlling you! Pretty big words, huh.

What I mean is you and I have a choice as to the state of mind we adopt, in reaction to external events/stimuli. We choose to respond to the same kind of stimuli in different ways. Based on our upbringing and our life experiences. Agree? Knowing we have the power of choice in our hands, the question is how many of us actually utilize that power? Does other peoples behavior effects your mood? It's not their fault. It's yours! Cause you failed to employ your god-given power to choose a meaning for their action. It's your PERCEPTION of their actions that counts! If you could look at it in a positive way and get good feelings from it, that's the TRUTH for you. If someone else looked at it in a different way and go kill himself, that's the truth for him too. Cause in his body, different chemical reactions are going on and unique signals are sent to his brain, and it's all real for him! Something real for you is different from me because we have different interpretation in our brains. Savvy?

Let's look at the concept in extremes. Let's talk about the movie 'The Matrix'. In the movie, Neo got out of the Matrix into the real world, rite? Then there's one part when they're having a meal and one of the crew member brought up a fascinating topic of discussion. What if the food they have tasted when they are 'plugged in' the Matrix is misinterpreted by the Matrix? Since none of them have tastes a lot of real food before, what if chicken tasted like something else. All the Matrix do is to send electrical signals to your brain to tell you what you're feeling or sensing.

Think about it. Why can't this happen in the real world? All your five senses do is to collect stimuli from the environment and send it to your brain to be interpreted, rite? What if I am one in a million and i have got a different wiring in my brain. Nobody would be able to tell the difference. Everytime I see the color white, because of my 'defect', my brain will interpret it as black, and vice versa. You see, black and white are just labels. If I have this 'defect' in color interpretation since i was born, nobody would be able to tell the difference. White to my brain is black to everyone else, but I'll still name it as black cause I learned to call it that from everybody else. Crazy?

So just what is real? The real world is just what meaning your brain decides to give it. And that depends on the interpretation of your brain, doesn't it? What software does your brain uses? Matrix is a sofware for the brain, hence, my concept of 'all of us live in our own matrix'. Understanding this, you will see perception as a tool that will change how you live your life. So, when I have negative feelings, despite triggered by some external uncontrollable events, I know that I chosed to feel that way. And knowing I have a choice to change the perception of these events give me much more positive power than just succumb to life's unpredictability.

On the second concept of modeling someone means not being your genuine self, I've been asking myself this question for years: Who am I? What is genuinely me?

For me, we all started out as blank papers, filled up along the way with life experiences to be who we are today. Except for the basic instincts born with us, we have zero personnality when we started. So where do we acquire our personalities? From our external environment, of course. From our parents, our teachers, friends and all the people we meet, even books. Whether concious or not, we acquire our personnality from modeling all these people. In a seminar by a well known speaker on human behaviour, participants are told to list down five names of people they have the most contact with in their life at the moment. When they are done, they are told that they are looking at what they will become five years down the road. You are a reflection of the people you're with, your family, the friends you hang out with.

Many years ago, I've come to realise an ugly truth. I don't like some of the personalities I have. I've suddenly realised I'm not the person I want to be. The thing is I have only myself to blame cause right till then, I have not really made any concious effort to mould myself to become the person i dream to be, so without a plan, I got influenced by what comes along in my life.

Since then, I've taken up total responsibility of who I am. Yes, my family and my upbringing had great influence on me, but I still have a choice, I can change anything I like with enough discipline. I hear people all the time complaining about how their family background had made them the way they are and it's hard for them to change. I agree it's hard, but it's POSSIBLE. Just take up the responsibility and stop blaming someone else for who you are. Makes sense?

Do modelling someone really stop you from being creative and unique? I disagree. I've struggled with the concept of creativity for years too. My interest in the concept of creativity spiked when I came across books by Dr Edward De Bono in lower secondary school. Became a fan since then. I've always been quite a creative person especially in arts despite never taking any serious arts lessons. Always got involved in designing logos, t-shirts or arts in school magazine. I got stuck for many years and felt I could just be average and can't really come up with something revolutionary. All because of the defination of 'creativity' and 'innovation' I learned from a lesson in 'Kemahiran Hidup' (Do they still teach that in school?).

Creativity is being able to come up with something that nobody else has think of before and innovation is taking someone's ideas and make improvements into something better, rite? That is what got me stuck! I've been working on coming up with ideas from thin air! That is so STUPID. Since then, I've done a lot of research and came up with my own defination of creativity and realised creativity only comes with a lot of knowledge, not producing ideas out of thin air.

I see examples in this in the life of 2 of the most creative person in history. Thomas A. Edison and Bruce Lee. We all know the great inventor, Thomas Edison who invented the light bulb and thousands of other inventions. He showed me what creativity means. If you can put 2 or more existing ideas that might seems totally unrelated together and make it work, that's creativity. In short, creativity is just playing with ideas already in existance to fusion it into new ones. When creating the light bulb, he brings the ideas of light, electricity and heat together and made it work, and voila! A preequisite to being creative is to have a lot of knowledge in that particular subject, so you can have a lot of ideas/concept to play with in the first place. Do you think he would be able to invent the lightblub if he's not knowlegable in physics, chemistry and maths?

What's so special about Bruce Lee, apart from being a silver screen icon and a respected martial arts expert? If you look at the history of martial arts, all types of martial arts are created more than hundred years ago, be it aikido, karate, teakwondo, chinese kung fu etc. You don't see new forms of mainstream martial arts being created by a modern man, with the exception of Jeet Kune Do, the supreme art created by Bruce Lee. Now THAT is something. isn't it?

To be able to come up with with a new form of martial arts is extraordinary and if that isn't creativity, I don't know what is. So how does he do it? I think it's pretty obvious he has immense knowledge of martials arts, trained in kung fu since young. But he didnt just stop there. He travelled all over the world to research and learn other types of martial arts. Modeling, isn't it?! That's not all, he has a personal library of more than 100 books on martial arts, all thoroughly researched, with notes scribbled here and there.

What I'm saying is to be able to become unique, you have to do it conciously, by modeling the right person for the right traits. You become unique by becoming a mixture of different people. If you go with the flow, then everything is up to chances. You'd be lucky if you end up with parents, friends and teachers with good traits. But that's just what you are, lucky.

I try not to leave anything to luck if I can help it. For things I can take control of, I'd like to take responsibility. Of course, luck is part of the game. But for me, it's only a small part. A really, really small part.

Enough rambling for one post, chow.

It's like smoking crack everytime

2005-05-07T22:27:00.000+08:00

I'm high. Emotionally. Feels like it's burning inside. It's one of those times again. Accidently tuned in and just finished watching another episode of 'The Contender' on AXN.

It's a rerun of the first week's match, which is between Alfonso Gomez and Peter Manfredo. Alfonso, being the underdog, won hands down. I like to see underdogs make it. I like to see them beat the crap out of supposedly strong opponents (not just in boxing, but in everything in life). Love it!

I have friends who thinks reality shows sucks. Some thinks they are as fake as Micheal Jackson's face. But I just dig 'The Contender'. It's an emotional roller-coster to me. I'm sensitive, man.

Here are a bunch of guys being given the oppurtunity of their lifetime. In other words, they've got a shot to make it big in what they have passion for. How many of us get these oppoturnities? How many of us are still job-hopping trying to figure out what we're gonna do with our life or whether we'll ever end up doing the things that we really like to do?

These guys are fighting for their future in every fight, with their most loved ones by their side every step of the way. You can almost see fire burning in their eyes when they go up on stage. Knowing they are not just fighting for themselves, but also for all their loved ones. How would it make you feel? when you're fighting on stage and getting hurt, and your eight year old daughther is watching by the side of the ring. It gets to me everytime.

Starts me thinking, 'How hard have I been fighting for my life? or have I let life past me byjust like that.' Have you been thinking too?

NTV7 are run by crooks!

2005-05-03T22:26:00.000+08:00

I'm watching Stephen Chow's 'God of Cookery' on NTV 7 now and couldn't stop swearing.

To the people running NTV 7, what do you think we are? Do you think we're all MORONS?!! 5 minutes of the show and 15 minutes of comercials are just too damn annoying a patern to not notice!! You blood sucking, inconsidarate freaks!!

You have yourself to blame. I hope all other Stephen Chow fans out there will boycott your channel. This is what you deserve for incurring the wrath of us Stephen Chow fans!

I know you forsee tons of people tuning in to see the show because of the popularity of Mr Chow, so you go all out to sell as much comercial time as possible. But actually cutting the show short to fit in all the comercials completely ruins the show! What? You think we wouldn't notice?!! Some part of the show would be incomprehendable to some new viewers out there!

You crooks!!

This puzzle is killing me!!

2005-04-24T22:24:00.000+08:00

The net is full of people bored out of their mind. I'm one of them. Another one would be the creator of the Not Pron puzzle, found here:

Notpron.com

I've been hooked since I've started playing. In a week or so, I'll be

1) bald (from yanking my hair out of my head)

2) blind (no sleep, radiation from computer screen....these evil machines!)

3) needing brain surgery (from banging my head against the wall, crying "Damn, I'm stuck again! Arghhhh..!)

Warning: you should not start playing this puzzle if you're:

a) impatient

b) have tendencies towards aggresives behaviors

c) have better things to do (don't we all?)

d) just plain stupid

This is a very challenging game. It's one of the most creative and time consuming game I've ever played. And addictive, did I mention additcive? It needs you to think out of the box, and be extremely resourceful. I started yesterday, only at level 7 now. Time off for me, I should be working (so should you!).

Up for the challange? Try it. Just don't blame me for all the sleepless nights :p

Hail the new Pope!!

2005-04-19T22:23:00.000+08:00

So, the new Pope is in. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany became Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday. I don't know, people always say that first impression counts. And this first impression thing is just not working for me in this case.

The new Pope looks more like a mafia boss from one of those Godfather movies. Hey, I've nothing agaisnt him (at least not yet), I respect senior citizens (I guide one across the road once in a while), but Pope John Paul II looks so much more...hmm....warm and comforting? In fact, I feel so vulnerable and close to him just thinking about him.....eww, doesn't sound right.

Maybe it's all the things we've come to associate with the late Pope. His love and passion for mankind, his faith in his religion, his sympathy for all those suffering.

We'll sure miss him, huh.

By the way, did i mention I'm not Christian?

Are you pondering what I'm pondering?

2005-04-19T22:13:00.000+08:00

I want to make a confession. I'm real shy about this. I've been keeping it secret for some time now. I have no idea whether people will accept me after they found out the truth. What are my closest friends gonna think about me? Just to let you know, it takes up a lot of courage for me to be able to do this. So here it goes...ahem. I love pinky! Yes, I do. And no, I'm not finished yet. I love brain too! Hell yeah, love 'em both, narf!

I love them so much, I want to pay tribute to them with this post. It's one of the most enjoyable, funny and mind-stimulating cartoon show ever: Pinky and The Brain. Wobbly

For all those who've never seen the show, it's an animated comedy about two lab mice, Pinky and The Brain, who are constantly trying out schemes to take over the world.

I admire brain's ambitious nature, his intelligence, and creativity. But Brain also tend to be selfish, short tempered, intolerant because he cares of nothing but himself and his quest of world domination. Pinky, on the other hand, is the total opposite of Brain. Pinky is patient, kind, not jealous or boastful, not arrogant or rude, believes all things and faithful. Of course, also incredibly stupid. Narf!

Brain is soo...smart he even has his own words for things that that is not represented in available contemporary vocabulary. For example, what is the word for 'staring at someone eating in hopes they'll give you something'? In Brain's words, it's called groaking. Other interesting words in Brain's vocab are:

Yerk - to beat someone vigorously (useful. do that often)

Ultracrepidarianism - giving opinions outside of one's knowledge (ok, this one too)

Myomancy - divination by movements of mice (Just bought a book to teach myself of this one)

Schadenfreude - joy at the misfortune of others (Ha...)

Viraginity - female masculinity (Eww!!)

Phronemophobia - fear of thinking (everyone experience this at some point in life, right? Right?)

Panphobia - fear of everything (Wow!)

For more, go here.

Also mind-bogling are Pinky's answers everytime Brain present him with the question: 'Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?'. It's available in wav files here.

Too bad the show is not shown on tv anymore, cause Pinky and The Brain rocks!!

The Next Wave

2005-04-18T22:07:00.000+08:00

Whale Got an email the other day that warns of another tsunami predicted to hit us between the date of 13/4 to 15/4. Ironically, the email reached me a day after that, on the 16th. Thought that was supposed to be a warning. Looks more like a confirmation that whoever made that prediction is either a very unsuccessful fortune-teller or a prankster who has nowhere to direct his pethatic sense of humour. But credits has to be given to this dumb friend of mine who 'accidentally' forwarded this mail to me without considering the contents in it.

Can't really blame him, huh. We're so used to it. I would even go so far as to say that almost all of us have had the experience of mindlessly forwarding mails without giving thoughts whether it's contents suits all the recipients in our forward list, or whether the email is seriously outdated. It shows, once again, that computers can really make us dumber.

But then again, what would you do if you got an unconfirmed warning like that? Would you go around spreading the warning to your friends too? I had the fortune to make myself seriously ponder upon that question when I recieved an sms warning of tsunami a few weeks before the email.

And I did. I forwarded the sms to a few of my closest friends and colleagues in Penang. Stupid or better safe than sorry? What are you gonna do? Spank me?! But of course, nothing happened, no tsunami, no nothing. Didn't even rain. Now, I'm seriously considering what I would do if I recieve any sms of that sort in the future. For anyone who invented these warnings as a prank, it aint funny. I wasted probably fifty cents on sms. Fifty cents!!

Back to the prediction of tsunami. It seems some parts of the email is worthy of serious consideration:

'1. The person who predicted 1st Tsunami is predicting that there
would be another one between 13th and 15th April caused by another
earthquake.
2. Animal could sense things much earlier than us. Yesterday's news
reported all the sea cucumber came out of the sea in PD and whales were out
somewhere in Australia.
3. Sea experts say that there will be another earthquake happening
at the same spot to balance the imbalance caused by the 1st earthquake.'

Now the first tsunami that hit us in Dec was actually foretold by an Indian professor, based on the observation of a mass beaching and deaths of whales and dolphins on an Australian beach. Now that would give logic to point no.2.

Three weeks before the earthquake off Indonesia, Dr Arunachalam Kumar, professor of anatomy at Kasturba Medical College at Mangalore in Karnataka, posted a note about a recent whale-stranding in Tasmania, and its possible implications, on a "listserve", an e-mail distributor, hosted by Princeton University. Read more here.

How true are the logic behind this? Let's hope he doesn't have to predict another tsunami for us to find out. And for all my dear friends who forward me emails. Thank you, I appreciate all your mails but mind putting your thinking cap on and at least read through the mail before you hit the 'forward' button?