Away

I will be away until the 3rd of July, attending the launching of Reading Month 2005 in Bat Town, Johor.

Watch the newspapers :)

Trying to be TV Smith

Pustaka Negeri Sarawak is a cold place. I stepped out into the sunshine, camera in hand and started shooting. People panicked, they flee. But they can't hide from my lens!

The building in question is the Pelita Tower. Housing various government offices, it looks like a candle (pelita). Standing tall over the rest of Petra Jaya, it is one of the buildings you can see from the Satok bridge.

I did some experimenting with Nasa Word Wind. Here is a satellite picture of Greater Kuching (Kuching + the areas around it, including Samarahan, Santubong and Bau)



[Links: TV Smith's Tutorial 1, Tutorial 2, Tutorial 3]

The Matchmaker

Throughout my secondary school year, I have encountered many people in relationships. You name it, I've seen it: stormy, lovey-dovey, the obscene, constructing castles in the sky, fumbling when people stumbled upon them, love today hate tomorrow love again today, cat fights...

Ah, life.

And through it all I play a role that seems most unsuitable for a man: the matchmaker. To clarify, I rarely introduce two people together. Instead I help mend the relationship with patches here and there. If something is going to make them happy, I'm willing to do it. They share their secrets with me and I don't go around yelling that the king have donkey ears. The secrets are safe with me.

In one case, I helped to jumpstart a relationship. The boy know the girl (they are in the same club) and the flammable stuff are already there. A few simple tasks like making a fake ID (school, not national) and printing the girl's picture at a photo shop generates the needed sparks. I am happy for them. At the same time, I slide deeper into depression.

I am the matchmaker. And the matchmaker is lonely.

Leave me alone while I listen to Spandau Ballet's Trough the Barricades.

G'day Mate - Seems Like I'm an Aussie

Your Slanguage Profile

Aussie Slang: 75%

Canadian Slang: 50%

Victorian Slang: 50%

Prison Slang: 25%

British Slang: 0%

New England Slang: 0%

Southern Slang: 0%

What Slanguage Do You Speak?

Understandable, since I've been exposed to... if you can call it, Aussieness for 5 years, mostly through IRC and message boards. As for the Victorian slang, I read a lot on our deer cap detective. But Canadian? That suprised the heck out of me. I mean, suprised the shit out of me mate.

Stalking Meeting a Blogger

Sometime in the past week, the Abwehr informed me that they have located her seat.

The game is afoot!

I decided to go on reconnaissance myself. And I did not came out empty-handed, since I now know that the 'A' in her name does not stand for her father's, instead it is hers.

D-day was set on shit I forgot sometime between 21 and 24 June. School was about to end and I loitered around her class, scanning every girl's name tags. People think I am a pervert. I am. After what seemed an endless number of girls passing by, someone walked out of the classroom. Scan. Zing!

"Nadia?"
"Yes?"
"Do you know me?"
A pause. "No."
"NSDS3."
"Oh, hi!"
"Hello."
We went our seperate ways.

What do you expect? Some romance story? Blogger's meet there and then? Naaah.

Life goes on.

Wanderings in Kuching

The General Post Office. Reminds you of the Parthenon, right? Corinthian colums in the facade. In the background is the Merdeka Palace Hotel.


A cemetary. It is so old that only the hardy crosses remained. Others had fallen and rotted away. No flowers to be laid there anymore, since the one that can remember those who are buried are not living anymore.


An old bicycle. Note the even older-styled handbrakes.


The owner, as antique as his bike.


The original Sarawak Museum ('Old Wing')


"I'm lost."


"Why does my map don't match this one?! Damn amateurs!"


"Take one more picture and I'll whack you silly with my umbrella. Or with the carved column, choose either one."

Cold Day In Kuching

Two days of rain. So cold that even the kucings curl up into balls of fur.



I shall be away until this Saturday, or next week's Sunday.

Cataloging the Cats

I think I might die from this job, since there are 19+4 cats. Yeah, that much. All 19 are neutered and/or spayed.

Imagine the horror of uploading 23 pictures onto Imageshack. Combining them together is fine, but the size will kill the 56kers.

Canon EOS 1000F N

The cameras are turning digital. I was fortunate, being able to use a film SLR (Singe Lens Reflex) camera. The functions are better, it is more stable (and still is) compared to its smaller counteraparts and the zoom - it kills! For as long as I can remember, I had been using the Canon EOS 1000 F-N camera. Imagine this scenario: handing your 7 year-old son an SLR that costs RM 1,000++. That was what dad did with me. And in the year 1993, how many dads do that?


We band of brothers... with 35-80mm f/4-5.6 lens attached.


Front view. The white screen was an ad hoc one.


Program dial/button/whatever. The sound offers 4 different melodies for the self-timer mode (believe me...)


Model EOS 1000F-N.


With 75-300mm f/4-5.6 attached.


On a tripod with an indecently long lens.


...so long that it looked big. Of course, still short compared to what the paparazzi use.

So, how does it feels to let the pictures do the talking?

Why I Hate Certain Drivers

Going to service the Perdana, I stumbled upon this road hazard. Can you believe it? Driving with the rear sunscreen up! How are my signals are going to reach him?

Everybody is cautious around L drivers. But when this happens, the L driver can't really notice what is happening behind him. I believe the instructor is the culprit in this matter. Not just L drivers, I've seen people without any P or L stickers driving with the rear sunscreen up.

Common sense is dead.

Grrr....

It feels as if Woody the Woodpecker is pecking the side of my head. Migraine is hitting again, this time in a way that I never experienced before. And yet having the time to write this entry. Crazy blogger.

Administration will be holding a meeting on Friday, of all the days. The agendas are ambigious, and they expect me to have it ready before the evening meeting. It would have been easy if they submitted it earlier instead of giving it to me today.

Shit.

Strange and Weird Search Words

While taking a look at my blog's sitemeter, I noticed a few links coming in from Yahoo! and Google. Though I did not pay for Sitemeter's search words function, analysing the url usually yields the words. Here are a few:

NSDS3: Whoever searched for this must be a stalker. Yeah. A stalker.

Assalamualaikum Blogspot: It seems the only logical response should be 'Waalaikumsalam Blogger!'

The Colonel's Diary: If you are looking for the Civil War book, it's the other branch of the fork on the yellow brick road.

Askar wataniah: I'm interested. Any recruiters?

MUET Malaysia: I will help the souls looking for more information on this one. Though I must say, I'm not the Ministry of Education's information booth or something.

LAPTOP keyBoARd PRobLEM: While some might find the information here useful, most don't. My only advice regarding the FN key is to not touch it for a few days.

And the cream of all...

Mona Fandey: According to Simon, "...Mona Fandey did not get executed. She’s living under a witness protection programme as a karipap seller somewhere in Temerloh..." End of story.

A Tribute to Kenny Sia

He made us laugh. We've been with him trough tough times. And he's still there. Singaporeans love him. Indonesians? We don't know, but there are clues...





And what do locals think of him? Specifically, local politicans? The question is answered today.





Heck, you have to be somebody to be in the Tribune's Outlook pullout. Made an impact on people's life, or whatever that floats your boat.




Do note the absence of coconuts.

Google Search: nsds3hvldjjd

There are...

3560 results for NSDS3HvLDjJd
459 results for NSDS3
199 results for NSDS3HvLDjJdAMKhAJw

From this day onwards, I shall blog as NSDS3.

Another Bloggers Meet (Penang)

Glad to hear that the Mid Valley Megamall Bloggers Meet went on well. If you live in Penang and unable to make it to the meet, fear not because there will be a Penang blog meet! Details here, here and here.

Date: 14 June, Tuesday
Time: 6.30 pm
Venue: Prangin Mall Food Court, 5th Floor

Links on the Mid Valley Meet:
Eye on Everything
Little Girl In A Reverie
Screenshots
Pennypupz
Dustyhawk (Pictures)

I will update the list as the posts came in.

Which Singaporean Blogger Are You?

Congratulations NSDS3, you are...

Mr Miyagi of myveryownglob.blogspot.com

You are witty, and you know people from places. Those two qualities and others make you a very popular person among your peers, because they want to hear you dish out filthy backstage gossips. You also have a knack for inventing new words to suit yourself. You are a very loyal friend, and would jump into the ocean if your friend asked you to. And that's probably gonna happen if your friend gets too jealous of you getting all the girls/guys.

Which Singaporean Blogger Are You?

Blog's Birthday (...and PPS Birthday, and Mid Valley Meet...)

Make yourself a cup of coffee and have it while reading this. When Sitemeter.com started tracking this blog on April 8th, the blog was already one year and eleven months into business. 1238 visits and 2001 page views have been tracked so far, not counting the visits and page views before April 8th.

Without even realising it, this blog is now two years and one month old. That is quite long, considering that most of the famous blogs out there are younger than this one ;) To make it simpler: three years. That is how long I have been exposed to blogs, I remember among the first one I read is Dr. Liew's before he moved to the present domain.

Speaking of birthdays, Project Petaling Street is also celebrating it's second anniversary come 23 June. If you are a member, interested in attending but haven't confirmed it yet, please make sure to confirm it before 21 June here. Also not forgetting the Pre-PPS Bash Blogger Meet Up this coming Sunday at Mid-Valley Megamall. A slogan I think good for it is 'Just Go'. Details are over at Peter Tan's (above link).

To those attending these meets, I send my regards to all of you. I couldn't make it.

Speaking of bloggers meet, the last one held in Kuching was on the 7th of May last year. Maybe I missed a meet held recently, but perhaps it is time for another one. After all, the number of bloggers have increased somewhat.

Weather: Thunderstorm in the evening, slight rain at night. I can hear the rumble of thunder in the distance. Whether it rains again this night depends on the weather.

Link: Kuching Bloggers Meet

Thoughts and Whatever

Proton Sassy came out. So did Myvi. Google hit 80 billion mark. Flood in China. Iraq as usual. EU constitution got rejected by the Dutch and French. Posts on rascism and bias are flying around the blogging community.

I'm tired and bored. School's starting next week, and I haven't done any revisions at all. Still in Gawai mood. Living in Kuching is fun, but I think I need to go out more often. If only my peers aren't such jackasses... I think I'm better off with people in their 30s. Strange, isn't it? Suddenly there's a lot of things to talk about rather than the latest songs, phones, motorcycles and whatever. I rather talk about politics, the economy, hear the experiences of the veterans; all this stuff.

My best friend is my uncle, who turned 37 this year. He's still single, for those who are interested and lives comfortably with a RM 60k income per year, more or less. We've talked on a lot of things, especially the military. He's in the reserves, with the rank of 2nd. lieutenant. Think I'll go and join the ROTC if I enrol in a local university later on. Have to get good results in STPM, but good results doesn't gurantee anything.

I shall concentrate on making money and enjoying what I've earned rather than wait 30 years which is too late to do anything, since at that age most people are usually not in good health anymore. A big bike, a powerful car. Everyone dreams of having one, right? Unfortunately, most can't live their dream.

A wife is a must. I have a few candidates, but people often say high-school romance doesn't work out. But for me, I'll be studying my ass off in university, and I'll be too busy working to find a suitable life partner. I am seriously considering of adopting a child, but having no income, no tertiary education makes the prospect of having an adopted child hazy somewhat. For your information, I'll be turning 19 this November.

I'll just have to kick myself in the ass to get started working really hard to the future. Failing here doesn't mean failing forever, but it sure makes the road to success a hell lot of easier.

Google Adsense Filtering

Earning anything with Adsense yet? You might have, but the amout is very low compared to other Adsense powerhouses out there. What's wrong? The most common problem is that the ad is not targeting the right audience. Most of the blogs with Adsense that I visted have blog-related ads - since most of the audience already have a blog, the point is moot.

But how to get around this problem? One way is through Adsense URL filtering. By using this tool, you can filter all the unwanted ads from displaying on your site. Google has a guide on how to do this. Meanwhile, Shaolin Tiger has compiled a list of URLs that can be filtered out. So if you know any more to add to the list, comment on his post there.

For beginner's info on Adsense URL filtering, check out LiewCF's guide.

Your Quiz Score: Libertarian

According to your answers, the political description that fits you best is...
LIBERTARIAN

LIBERTARIANS support maximum liberty in both personal and economic matters. They advocate a much smaller government; one that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence. Libertarians tend to embrace individual responsibility, oppose government bureaucracy and taxes, promote private charity, tolerate diverse lifestyles, support the free market, and defend civil liberties.

World's Smallest Political Quiz

I Have No Need For A Car/Bike/Phone

I don't like to ask my parents to buy me things. Maybe it's because they often turn the request down, but for most of the part it is due to financial constraints. Outsiders took one glance at our family and said that we are rich, but the reality is of course, different. I did and will not ask my parents to buy me a hand phone, a motorcycle, a car or new clothings (I don't wear branded goods, and most of my cloths saw a lot of use)

Why so? Isn't a motorcycle, hand phone or car important? A transport to the school, and further on, university? A telecommunication tool with friends, is that not important? These are the questions that are often asked, and I will answer them.

I have no need for a car or a motorcycle. My family already have two cars; a Perdana V6 and an Iswara. My mother sends me and my sister to school every morning and fetch us in the afternoon. If my sister have class in the evening, she will send and fetch her. If I have class, I'll drive myself. Now, why don't I ask for a transport? My reasoning is: I'm not the one that pay for the fuel, therefore I should not be driving it. My friends, whose parents let them have cars and motorcycles, they went everywhere without giving a consideration on who will be paying the energy used. Will their pockets hurt? No, they're not paying, their parents will. And when there's an accident, who will take care of the car/motorcycle? Their parents. And the teenagers will drive to their liking. Why worry? Anything happens, parents pay mah!

As for telecommunication, it might suprise you that I share my hand phone with my mother. One number, two people. I don't take my phone to school since it is illegal to do so, and the loss of a phone will hurt, very much so. As usual, my friends tend to show off their newer and classier handphones, with things they don't even use like EDGE, MMS and henceforth. Me, I'm content with my (our) 3310. And the issue of funding again rises. Who will pay the bills (if they use postpaid) or who will pay the cards (if they use prepaid)? As prepaids are more popular, I will take that for an example. Parents are supposed to give quotas to their children, instead whenever a friend of mine run out of credits he can just ask his parents for a reload. And the prepaid model; you are paying for things that you that you are not sure to use yet. The phones? Just ask the parents, they will buy!

So ends my rant. If you are giving too much to your children right now, they might become laid back in the future, waiting for opportunities to drop in their lap instead of searching for it. Can your children feel the financial difficulties you're having? I had.

As Will Smith said, "Too many people spend money they don't have, to buy things they don't need, to impress people they don't like."

Migraine

Arrrrgggghhhh! Pain on right side of the head, behind the eyes. Mom and dad have it too, but for me the symptoms started showing at the age of 17. It haven't been diagnosed yet as my attacks are usually short and not enough to warrant a visit to the clinic. I just take paracetamol and sleep, hoping it will go away. It usually does.

Perhaps I need to cut down on my Nescafe and Coke intake. I drink these stuff like, three times a day. I sleep late, wake up late. And it feels like someone is hammering the side of my head. Not as bad as my father, who needs to be in a quite, darkened room or else his migraine will be bigger and badder.

Right now I'm pressing the side of my head against the wall.

Photo - Above Us Only Dome

Nikon Coolpix 7900, ISO 50, f2.8, 1/32 sec; merged with ArcSoft Panorama Maker 3.
Location: Pustaka Negeri Sarawak, Kuching.

Gawai: After Action Report

Whew. Gawai is fun (sort of) even when I went to only one house. Other friends went back to their respective kampungs, so the streets of Kuching is a little bit empty. My host (friend, not server) wondered why her dogs were silent, since whenever a stranger came the dogs are sure to bark out loud. I noticed that they are friendly, wagging their tails and sticking their tounge out. While I was climbing the stairs, one came near me and started sniffing. I held out my fist (with my thumb tucked in, just in case) and s/he sniffed it. That does the trick. My friend's girlfriend (three of us on a Gawai visit) eyed the dogs warily.

Had fun, even when all we did was sit on the chairs and talk for two hours. I was getting high on two glasses of Vanilla Coke, which I don't really have a good opinion on because I prefer the original, 'classic' Coke. They have lemang, chocolate cakes and things that you can find on a Hari Raya. Managed to scare my host by asking whether her father was a police/soldier, in which her reply was 'yes'. I remind myself not to put any picture with uniforms on them in the living room.

Tasted tuak. More like 5 ml of it. I drunk it without tasting it. Burned my throat a bit. Instantly, a warm feeling started in my head before going down to the rest of my body. My friend, L (the one with a girlfriend) took less than what me and his girl had. I'm driving, so logically 5 ml is enough in case of a police road block (which multiplied during festival season).

I tasked myself with driving L's car while he and his girl sat in the back. I can hear giggles... well, my task is driving, ya?

High on Gawai

mmmm.... be back tomorrow.