Adam Lambert's New Album Cover..

What. The. Fuck.

.

My favourite phrase..

.. in the entire English vocabulary:


Deadline Extension!

.

After watching this..

I remember just how much I used to despise this little twat.






Look at how happy he was scoring against United.











And now, this...










In the words of Sir Alex, he was "desperate to play for us". Not so smug when your career's heading down the pipes, huh? Huh?!

Out of the frying pan, into the fire..

It's been a really funny 3 weeks for me since I came back from Melbourne. Just one mishap after another, whether through my own blur-ness or just pure shit luck.


There's the whole missing the flight thing because I misread the flight times (Wed 0045 means you leave on Tuesday night). That one was still bearable because the extra time meant not having to rush back from the day trip the night before to get to the airport.


The day I came back from the trip, I met my supervisor who told me there's a pretty good chance I would have to do a 2-3 month attachment overseas. Which would be fine except it's gonna be in Hyderabad, India. I've heard very bad things from my colleagues about that place and they were only there for a week!



Then of course, there was the whole girlfriend issue which really took a toll on me. The issue is still not resolved, by the way. Basically, she got a bit, erm, suicidal. And me being too nice a guy, in the end decided to "give it one last try". I know, "but you said it was over the last time". Well, she fucking cut herself, okay? What do you want me to do?


Who am I kidding, I really don't give 2 shits about this relationship anymore. I just don't want her blood on my hands. Face it, I'm never going to be able to be free, am I? Why can't she be like all the other girls? We call it splits, and we move on with our own happy lives. Nooo, it has to be this dramatic.


Anyway, I've been trying to filter this issue out of my head because it depresses me every time I think about it but also because I don't have time for this. There's a review paper due at the start of November and I'm only about 50% in!



That's not the end of my misery, though. My dad brought the Vios out the other day probably because it was conveniently parked outside and he didn't want to go through the hassle of opening the automatic gate to drive his car. Not the point. He caught a cold on the way back and so, wound down the windows on the way home. He didn't, however, wind it back up when he came home.


Now my cd pouch containing all my favourite CD's were inside the Vios so even though it hasn't rained for days, of course it rained that night! My CD's were, thus, soaked in rainwater overnight. I tried drying it for a day but when I tried playing them in the player, some of the songs started skipping. RM800 worth of painstakingly sourced albums, ruined.


(image of my wet CD's) ***


Then, comes the self-merk. My Wira's road tax was going to expire soon so we sorted all that out and my mum came back with the new road tax sticker. She asked me to put it on when I'm free and for some reason I can't remember, I delayed doing it.


So a couple of nights ago, I decided to get to it. Opened the door, sat down and attempted to peel off the road tax sticker. If you've tried it before, you'd know the thing's a bitch to take down but removed it I did in the end; in pieces of course.


I then proceeded to open the glove compartment to stick on the new sticker. When I couldn't find it, I suddenly felt something was amiss. I stared at the "old" road tax sticker I tore down minutes ago.




(image of a torn up road tax sticker saying "18 OKT 2010") ***



My mum helped me replace the sticker without my knowing, and so, yes, I hilariously tore down the new one. There was some consolation in that I won't have to pay the full price for a new one since they have a record of the road tax renewal but still, fucking hell...


Hang on, there's more..


The next morning, I slept in a bit and was hence, running late for the lab session I was supposed to conduct.


Now, there's this sort of a flyover that I've been passing by for my last 4 years of driving to Semenyih and there's never EVER been a speed trap there. Since I was a bit late, I thought, screw it, just this once, I was going to push the limit a bit.


Of course, given the theme of this post, you know what happened, right? Yes, of all the days, that one time I decide to push the speed limit at a flyover with no known history of speedtraps, a policeman sits there with a speed camera in all his full glory.


You're usually given a 10 km/h leeway in Malaysia. The speed limit was 90km/h. My speedometer was hovering at about 100 km/h, give or take. Knowing my luck, I'm probably going to be penalized for going 101 km/h.



So right now, you're thinking, poor CM, it's been rough for you. Ohhh no, it doesn't end there. Not yet, anyway.



So I went into the office after the lab session and turned on my computer, getting ready to put some solid hours into finishing that damn report. I guess I really shouldn't have been surprised when this showed up on my monitor:



(image of a computer screen saying windows won't start because some file's corrupted) ***



For no reason at all, Windows decided to die on me even though I shut it down properly the previous time. Called the IT guy, brought the computer to his room and he told me there could be a chance he has to reformat my drive.


Oh, one problem though, all my work files are inside and yes, I have no backup copies of them..



This is the sort of run of shit luck that drives people insane and plunges them into insanity, in case you didn't know..







Well, not really but yeah, for now, I'll just choose to laugh off the whole matter and get on with my work. Depression is for people with time on their hands and I'm a bit too busy for that.



You win, Universe, you win..








*** I copied the image files off my phone into the memory card and when I plugged the memory card into the computer, the images just disappeared. Into thin air. Like I never copied them in the first place. Wow, okay, this is getting a bit creepy now..

Samsung D900 >>> iPhone tbf...

I remember going batshit over the iPhone back in the day. Way before Maxis brought it in. Back before there was the iPhone 3G. When it was still actually cool to own one and do multi-touch gestures with your photos or surf the net on your phone.


My hunger for it then was indescribable. I would go through my daily routine and start wondering at various points ,"You know what would be perfect right about now? An iPhone."


Of course, back then, the iPhone wasn't so readily available as they are now. Grey market imports cost a ton, well RM2500 to be exact, but it was a lot of money for a student who lived off his part time jobs and ahem, doesn't like to go to mummy and daddy to get him toys.


There was a loophole though and that was that in the US, you could actually buy iPhones off the shelves without signing a contract. That means you could get subsidized phone prices without committing to a 24 year phone deal. The reason was that the phone didn't work until you activated your contract at home. Hackers managed to find a crack, though, and that meant RM1400 iPhone's for everyone!


I had friends in the US and I would always ask once every few days if it was alright for them to get one for me, to the point of being an irritant. Trouble for me was, that was in March-April and they wouldn't be back for another couple of months, and when you are a tech geek who has a serious gadget craving, it's WAY TOO FUCKING LONG!







The source of much misery in Early 2008.



So I spent days upon weeks trawling through the online forums looking for ways to avoid being taxed if I got one of my friends to ship it home. There wasn't a way though and that meant I always had to try to get over my obsession with it and fail miserably. I would go to the Apple page every day and just stare at pictures of it or go to Youtube to watch videos of it in action. I didn't even know a girl for whom I obsessed that much over! Well I did actually, but that's a story for another day...



Finally, about a few days before I would have gone insane, out pops a saviour. Sharon's sister who was an air stewardess was flying to the US for a couple of days and very generously agreed to help me buy one! She got one for herself too in the end, probably by seeing how jubilant I was by my unexpected fortune and wondering what all the fuss was all about.



I got it off her the night after she came back and spent the entire night trying to unlock and activate the thing. It wasn't as easy as these days where you just plug your phone in, click a few buttons and be done with it. It was relatively more tedious back then, and there was also a danger you might brick your phone. I was frustrated the entire night and didn't actually succeed in getting it to work until 6 am the next morning, yes, I stayed up all the way!


Of course, my shit luck was existent even back then, I dropped it on the road 4 days after I got it, and there were huge dents over the back of it. I was actually in shock for about 30 minutes after that happened but I suppose it's good to get that first bump out of the way.



So what does this entire, boring I'm sure, back story to my 1st generation iPhone have to do with the actual topic of the post? Well, nothing actually, I just thought I'd say something about how I got it and I just veered off track. Massively.



So anyway, fast forward till 2 days ago when I finally had it with the iPhone as a phone and changed back to my old Samsung D900 and I have to say I never realized how much I missed having a dedicated phone phone.





My old baby.



It seemed hard to believe now that there really were days before the iPhone but really, I'm enjoying using my D900 more than I am the Jesus Phone. So my iPhone is basically now just a rich man's iPod touch with unresponsive, faulty buttons. My, how out of love have I fallen with it.


You see, the D900 is a phone first and foremost, and all the other fancy stuff are just things it happens to do, whereas the iPhone is a great entertainment and internet device but quite frankly, is a piece of shit when it comes to this dialing/calling business.


Consider this,

To make a phone call:

iPhone: Press home button, slide to unlock, press phone button, go to favourites/contacts, flick until name is present. press name, press number.


Samsung: Slide open, press contacts, search number, press call.



To dial a number:


iPhone: Press home button, slide to unlock, press phone button, press keypad, press numbers.

Samsung: Slide open, press numbers.



To answer a call:


iPhone: Look at phone, slide to answer.

Samsung: If you can't be bothered, just slide open to answer.



To hang up:


iPhone: Look at phone, press end call.

Samsung: Slide close to end call.



Get my drift? And this is not considering all the waiting you have to do during the menu transitions on the iPhone and the unresponsive home button which is a hardware defect that eventually happens to all iPhone's. There are just too many steps to make a phone call and sometimes when you're in a hurry, it really gets on your nerves!


The Samsung is a small, lightweight phone that doesn't make my jeans feel heavy nor cause a huge bulge on it (This is not a euphemism for anything!). And it's allowing me to actually enjoy making/receiving calls again.


I heart my Samsung D900. Welcome back, buddy. I missed ya!

It's Finally Happened..

.. and before this, I was convinced that it's what I've always wanted. It was supposed to be the best thing for the both of us.



I'm just really sorry I had to break her heart like that. It shattered me inside to see her crying like she did. As much as I wanted to hug her, tell her it's going to be alright and give us "one last chance", I just couldn't.



After all, if I wasn't that interested in her, I shouldn't be wasting her time. I haven't really been happy in this relationship for a long time. While of course, there were countless memorable moments that we shared, and that I will still cherish, at the back of my mind, I've always felt like it wouldn't last. Or so I believed.



While before this, I was quite clear about the reasons why the both of us won't work, right now, I won't be able to offer a single explanation if you asked. All the supposed reasons suddenly seem so trivial now.



It has been a really numb 2 days. What was supposed to be a relief for me is turning out to be the complete opposite: grief. How annoying. Something time will heal, I suppose. If that fails, I suppose a looming review paper deadline should be enough to keep my mind off matters.



Haha. Hah. Sigh...

After declining to go to the library the previous night..

CM: So the next time you guys are going to the library, lemme know okay, I wanna join..


Everyone: ...................................



CM: What? I can't study at home, can't seem to concentrate, no study table and all..




Everyone:










CM: What? So I can't study and work hard now la, is it?




*Some minor altercation with Min Li over not going to the library when she asked*



Everyone:






And that's when something clicked in my head..



CM: Oh wait, oh no, did you guys mean the pub, Library in Cineleisure yesterday?



Everyone: (realizes he was being serious the whole time)



CM: ...... you guys did mean the pub, Library...



*MASSIVE LAUGHTER*



Min Li: I was like, fair enough la, he didn't go since he didn't know Pei Fern and her friends very well.... Why would Pei Fern be studying anyway?



*MORE LAUGHTER*



Heng Lean: I thought he was joking so I didn't wanna say anything..



Ka Seong: Yeah la, who would go study on a Friday night? Lucky you didnt show up with books and short pants yesterday!




CM:

Just got out of a time warp...

Well, sort of. I was taking a break from reading the journal articles just now and brilliantly decided to rest by doing MORE reading. Blogs, that is.



I used to have a friendster blog and I forgot all about it until just now when I decided to read everything again right from the very first post.



Fuck me, the things I wrote back then. Some made me laugh, most made me cringe but it was all great fun. Still though, what the hell was I thinking with some of those posts? And my writing style, gosh, it was horrible to read; ending every sentence with "...." and adding weih and lor and whatever into it. I've no idea why I thought it was alright to type like that back then. Granted, it's just a blog but it looked like some teenager wrot... oh, hang on, never mind...



Writing annoyances aside, reading it was like travelling back in time and during those moments, I really felt like I was living everything all over again from A-levels, when I first started the blog.



A special mention for the girlfriend posts in 2005: they were absolutely cringe-worthy! Damn, I really did like her a lot back then, huh? The fool, I wish I could just post a comment to the "2005 me" to warn him of what lay ahead. And also to tone down on the mushiness: oi, have you no shame?!



Anyway, once I was done, I decided to look for more blogs to read, and so I proceeded to dig up my friends' old blogs. Haha, I could copy and paste snippets of their old blog posts in msn to have a laugh but nah, I'll let them discover it for themselves. It's the whole process of reading everything word for word in chronological order that makes it fun.



Reading a number of the old blogs did make me feel sad in a way though, in that I never realized how distant I grew from some people until I read about the things I supposedly used to do with them. We were that close? Wow, what happened?



And once I was done reading, I needed something like 10 seconds to readjust to the present; entering a sort of mini reflective phase where I realize how long it has been already since ____ etc etc.



It's this whole "looking back" experience that made me glad I did decide to blog all those years ago, even if updates became more and more sparse. I could sort of see how much I've grown and learnt, besides being able to snigger at some of the posts.



Hehehe, CM, you hilarious/sad/naive/lame little bastard. (Yes, I do realize this is what the future me would be thinking too when he reads my recent posts next time)

" How come everything I think I need...

... always come with batteries? "


A line off the John Mayer album I bought in Melbourne, which is strangely reflective of what I thought of the trip. I remember weighing the opportunity cost of going there for a break: a new laptop and other pointless stuff that could be bought with the RM4k ++.


In the end, I am really glad I went through with it. It was such great fun; a very welcomed break from the routine of the past few months. All the lovely places and the food, gosh the food (Cafe Vue grilled burger, Rose Garden Chinese, Miss Marples' scones, Boost Juice, Squire's Loft's awesome steak etc etc).


Of course, it wouldn't be nearly half as fun without the company.


In particular, (alphabetical order):


Alex for the couch, sweet, sweet, couch, and pretty much everything else that made the trip fun.


Chee Weng for the promise of awesome barbeque but ending up with the still quite okay Oriental Spoon equivalent. Came through with the steak dinner though, great stuff.


Daniel for recommending Cafe Vue, fucking awesome, top 3 meals I had there.


Jacey (sp?) for driving and Claypot King, and her boyfriend Leon for the humbling experience.


Jack for drunken Flight Control and Doodle Jump mastery.


Joseph and Ka Faii for PES 2v2 lessons.


Susan for the lunch.


Trisha, Seow Yen and Seow Mun for the new language and the countless laughter (both with and at me) throughout.



And all the hi-bye people I met whilst there..




Pfft, and now, back to bloody work. Yawnnn, fucking brilliant....