Sihat!

Finally, after a few months of thinking, considering, reading on line what people have to say about it, did some once over on a few articles I did it. The thought of it came late afternoon when I was on my way home after a disappointing trip. Went to the new integrated bus station to have lunch. Particularly I was looking forward to have a plate of roasted chicken rice from one stall at the food court there.

The first time I went to the stall, the operator seems a little bit inexperience in food service. Maybe he was new in this business or maybe he was the new worker, and I didn't get my hopes too high on the food. Let's face it. Who expects great from a cafeteria at a bus station. As I had my first bite, that all change. The taste of the roasted chicken sauce was very good. It wasn't like something that was put together to be sold for money. It tasted like food that was prepared for personal consumption. The money paid felt worth it. The old man seems like an honest food stall operator now. More than that, instead of regular food stall MSG soup that accompany chicken rice, the soup was actually good. Tasted like beef soup and it was a little thicker than regular watered down soup complete with the good taste. I wouldn't mind paying more for the food now.

Sadly when I went there this afternoon, I found the stall closed. It was not occupied by anyone(yet) and all the posters that were there before are now gone. With an empty stomach that have been calling to be filled for sometimes I settled for Laksa Johor from another stall. The amount was good and the taste was acceptable compared to the usual food stall near bus stand standard.

After getting of Taman Melati LRT station, I remembered what I've been considering for some times now. I also had in my mind another option of getting a gym membership once again since I have plenty of free time after work, the gym is situated on my way home and I can afford it. Then, calculating my willingness to head to the gym from home which takes into account the 1 hour from home -> LRT station -> gym -> change -> start workout would probably take almost an hour plus the fee and stories I read from the internet plus my experience at that particular gym(especially the staffs), I decided against going to gym again. Heck, I don't want to go to that gym again. After having some thought and the urge to get that "thing" overpowers me, I head out to buy that thing. I went and found one that's good enough and head home.

At last, I am now an owner of a kettlebell. The only thing left now is reading / watching training material and actually DOING it. I bought one dumb bell when I was in secondary school during the holidays, but as my laziness prevailed, I stayed lumpy and unfit.

Now I want to start my kettlebell training. First target, to be able to fit into my working pants easily without sucking in my stomach and have to wear it low since my waistline wont' allow my pants to get too high.

Sleeping Time

This week my sleep pattern has really changed. Never have I went to bed earlier than 1 am. The good part is I don't really get sleepy at the office, only after a few days of lack of sleep I suffered micro sleep. Oh, I don't really get tired when I get home from work. Maybe it's due to not doing any coding or having something interesting to do at home or, whatever. Oh, I managed to function without my daily caffeine dose.

Today I planned to hit the sack early. But like other attempts this week, it gracefully failed when I sit and find something to read. I can't really focus on what I read but I'm so bored having nothing better to do. Doing nonsense doesn't seems very attractive now.

I hope this is a change for the better. Whatever it is, not getting sleepy or bored at work and getting tired at home at the end of the day seems good. Maybe my decision to walk the path of the masters was a good choice. Well, gotta wait 10 years to see that.

Fun, fun, fun!!!

These few days had been fun, fun, fun! Installed Ubuntu 11.04 on my machine to dual boot with existing OS. Had a few hiccups during the first few days, currently not feeling too awkward. Since I use my machine mainly to surf internet, listen to music, watch videos and occasional doing work everything I need is available.

Just finished installing web, database and scripting language server for doing some work and have fun!

The currently apparent downside of all these is the lack of sleep. I only have the time after work and after going through few start-up tutorials, re-installing and just getting comfortable I usually ended up sleeping after 3 am. That and I need to leave for work by 7.30, 7.45 the latest made me late twice this week. Well, only once since on one occasion I took a cab from the LRT station and managed to get in office in time. Not that bad since cab only cost 4 ringgit. And on another occasion I was only late about 5 minutes and that's no big deal.

Lacking sleep for 1 or 2 days was okay, but this morning things became worse. Luckily I have no important meeting or chasing a dateline. I had what I thought was micro sleep. While reading a book, it seems that I went in and out of dreaming and being conscious from time to time. The transition into dream was so seamless it felt real. Wonder how I looked like when that happened. Tried to take a nap at a room nearby but I ended up leaving that room after 10 minutes since I can't fall asleep because there were a group of guys talking and the room was choke filled with cigarette smoke as if all the air in the room was substituted with cigarette smoke. My shirt ended up like it was smoked under a burning heap of cigarettes, shit! Then at 12 something when I can't take it anymore I napped at my place. Woke up about, what maybe was 15 minutes later and felt much better only with little headache. After that everything was fine and smooth sailing ensued.

I've never been this glued and attracted by computer since my family bought our computer a long time ago. I didn't messed with computer enough to think of writing software for the machine at that time though. I was thinking of getting some sleep after getting home from work but that didn't happen. Managed to hold back from powering up my machine during dinner but after that the unfinished business of setting up web/database/scripting server seduced me. Now I have something really interesting to do everyday.

I wonder if I would ever be able to walk the path of software wizards. Seems that this is the only option viable in the long run. The only weak link is me. Do I have enough discipline, aptitude and patience(among many other required) to be excellent? I don't know. But messing around with Linux was fun, although I still have my old habit of just skimming the documentation instead of reading and uploading it straight into my head. But I want to walk the path of masters. The only path seems viable to me since the dream of being math wizard died of slimmed probability. And I give myself 10 years to do that. If by that time I've given up or still stuck at my current level, maybe I should be a waiter or a salesperson at supermarket instead.

Things Happens

Anyway, I haven't been writing for some times and when I write it's like I assume that there's somebody out there that care enough to read through all these trivial matters. Instead of writing more journal style, I write like I'm writing a column in the newspaper. I wonder if I should change my writing style to suit my initial intention of setting up this blog. One of the main reason this blog is up was to train myself arguing more articulately so that I can give criticism/constructive and argue better by having my thoughts and facts in check and my arguments logical and strong. Another reason was to keep my English in check. Since I won't be using it as much as I did when I was in university, it seems that the only channel where I communicate in English is through the internet. Though I sometimes speak English whenever I go to places that gives me that speaking in my mother tongue is not the norm, seems like I only speak simple English. I don't really use the language extensively. It's not that I don't value my mother tongue or trying to be snobbish by using English in writing this blog, I found out that: I can express my thought more clearly in English. Also I found that I'm more willing to unearth those feelings that I usually keep to myself and not dare to speak to anyone about can be unearthed more easily in English. I don't really know the reason for those two, but I think that's good enough. Plus writing in my mother tongue has never been my strong suit since primary school and I found myself more inclined to be emotional and lost for words to convey my thoughts through my mother tongue.

Anyway, enough of the long introduction. Since end of May / early June I've successfully kicked a few bad things that I enjoy to do and they are:

• Smoking
• Surfing LOL/flame blogs
• Watching TV

Smoking was an addiction that I used to cope with work and free time. After reading a little bit more than halfway through The Nicotine Conspiracy by Allen Carr, I think I understand the connection between a smoker's body and the cancer stick and also what the author's method of getting out of the addiction is(even though it's not detailed in that particular book but in his other books). Since that I felt like I just snapped out of the addiction and stopped altogether. It felt good. No longer I find inhaling the deadly mixture inviting.

There used to be a few troll/LOL/flame blogs all maintained by the same person that I frequent since a few years back. I think I stopped following and removing them from my RSS subscription maybe because I found them not as interesting as it used to be. Or maybe it was other reason(s), I can't really pinpoint. Seems that I have more time at night and less distraction when I'm at the office. Even when I opened Cracked a few hours ago to fill some time while waiting for a download to finish, I don' t really found them LOL-able anymore. They are just simply not turning my LOL buttons anymore. To a certain extend HTG seems more interesting compared to Lifehacker/Gizmodo nowadays even when I don't really do what I read on HTG but it seems more cool. LH/Gizmodo articles seems like the result of high adrenaline plus popular culture plus interest in technology. Maybe because I only subscribe to popular post, but the topics seems more towards high-end user but not too technical. Hmmm maybe I'm developing a healthy dose of interest in technical things now or just another excuse for me not read more.
 
I used to watch TV a lot and greatly reduced the amount of TV watching during secondary school thanks to the limited access to it save for the weekends. But after my family subscribed to the sole satellite TV provider, whenever I'm home and to makes things better there was a period where I spend mos of my school holiday alone, I get to lie down and watch TV as much as I can stand. The same thing happens when I was in university and after graduation. I only consume TV at home when I get to control the remote. When I started working, the only time I watched TV like that was when I'm home(again whenever I get to control the remote) and when I'm at my friends' house bumming for a few months(and whenever I'm at their place). This year I watched TV usually after work, catching The Simpsons re-runs and on weekend sometimes. After buying my PC and also because of other circumstances(some of them being I don't own the TV or the subscription) I found TV uninteresting. Not fun anymore. Boring. Too "slow" - I have to wait for the next episode or for the show to repeat, there's too much advertising even after paying for the service(I expect to be able to watch TV uninterrupted by ads since I payed for the service). The stuff on the internet seems more interesting; be it the latest update of my favourite comic strips or just another random article that I found, internet seems a healthier choice for entertainment. Sitting in front of  the telly for hours everyday seems like a shitty way to live. Watching commentators/news reader/anyone yakking non-stop really turned me off. I hope this is it: the moment where I can say goodbye forever to TV and not watching it anymore. I planned not to have any of those in my house anytime in the future.

Generally speaking, things like Facebook status updates and daily news doesn't really interest me like it used to be. Instead they are the opposite of it. Coming tho think of it, the only manga seems interesting nowadays for me is Bakuman. Naruto, One Piece, Bleach(oh, I hated this for a long time already but still follow it nevetheless), History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi, Gantz don't seems to cut it anymore. Maybe old age is catching up and maturing me. Or maybe I'm sort of developing the serious attitude. Hmmmm there're lot of ways to view the situation from.

Maybe because it's part of what I'm doing now. And that is: to be continued since I'm fairly sleepy.

Clarity Or Boredom

It all started when I read somewhere where a blogger made comments about my fellow countrymen lamenting the censorship that's been done in this country on file sharing websites. Upon reading and pondering the posting, I came to similar conclusion to the writer: don't fucking steal other people's work. Let's face it: watching movies and listening to songs currently cost big $$. Whether going to the cinema or buying a legal copy of VCD/DVD/Blu-ray Disc, it's a kind of luxury. Furthermore it was created by hard work of other people. So if they decided to charge $$ for people to enjoy their work, then be it. I personally think that's acceptable and also a for of reward for people pouring labour and dedication onto their work.

The next thing that I realized that my countrymen are poor SOB and don't realize or ignore the fact that they(myself not excluded) are. Luxury are for people who can afford them. If one by chance or misfortune or by one's own decision is poor, one must accept the fact and live with it. It doesn't give one an excuse to steal. Oh BTW, the ones who steals from file sharing sites are SOBs that can afford to own a computer and pay for internet, meaning that they are not that poor since they are stealing entertainment material and not life's necessity. Live with it. Grit your teeth and march forward with life. I'm not saying this on a higher moral ground, instead as also a reminder to myself. Since I have limited amount of legal tender, I should spend them on necessity and if that left none for entertainment, then be it. Thinking about it, if illegal downloading is prohibited, maybe a lot of people will find the evening boring and start talking about the state of this country's economic condition. Maybe that'll result in something interesting. :)

Another thing that got my attention was when a colleague complained(luckily not to me) about the sole satellite TV provider in this country will increase their charge. To myself I said "SO BE IT. The company can charge an arm or a leg for the service for all I care. It's not life's necessity". I wonder how the price increase in entertainment seems to take higher priority than the increase in basic needs. Don't they see how big a hole in their wallet petrol price hike made? How much a meal cost today? How much overhead cost we need every month? How little we have left near the end of each month? How much salary has pretty much stagnated compared to increased in living cost for the past 20 years? I really hope a lot of people will realize and get angry. Then get even. Then realize that your life is harsh. Then realize that you need to prioritize in spending or suffer the consequences. I wonder what'll happen if monthly satellite TV here cost more than 100 a month? What will people skimp on? I don't mind what the single people will do since they don't usually have dependent but how about families? Do we really need that black box(or slim black display unit) in our home? I was puzzled when a colleague a few years senior but on the same job level talked about selling his 40 inch plus TV and buying a bigger one? WTF? Why are you willing to pay so much just for entertainment when it burns a big hole in your pocket? Is your life that painful you need to get drugged daily by a dose of TV? Darn, I blame marketing! :)

All those aside, currently I.. to be continued since I'm going out for dinner.