New Reality Teleblognovela

Dear bloggie,

Catch the new reality Teleblognovela series starting tomolo on Blogspot...

“Programming is like sex,
one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life.”
- Michael Sinz
[Clicky here to hear Teleblognovela series OP & ED]


Sypnosis:

A slacker from Slackervenia that has been living his entire life as a pseudo zen monk whom has been laid off for 1 year is hired as a Javammer by a big software house in Cyberlauya. Watch as this small time fry slacker try to find balance in work, sleep, work, slack, work, romance, work, friendship, work, health, work, rock n roll, work, work & work in this comedy cum splice CRAPZ of life, reality Teleblognovela series:

"IT SUX"

From the creator of "FAG IT"

The Rose

Dear bloggie,

"It's the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance.
It's the dream afraid of waking
that never takes the chance.
It's the one who won't be taken,
who cannot seem to give,
and the soul afraid of dyin'
that never learns to live."
- The Rose, Bette Midler

Wind beneath my butt

Dear bloggie,

Classic oldies...



The Wind Beneath My Wings - Bette Milder

Ohhhh, oh, oh, oh, ohhh.
It must have been cold there in my shadow,
to never have sunlight on your face.
You were content to let me shine, that's your way.
You always walked a step behind.

So I was the one with all the glory,
while you were the one with all the strain.
A beautiful face without a name for so long.
A beautiful smile to hide the pain.

Did you ever know that you're my hero,
and everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings.

It might have appeared to go unnoticed,
but I've got it all here in my heart.
I want you to know I know the truth, of course I know it.
I would be nothing without you.

Did you ever know that you're my hero?
You're everything I wish I could be.
I could fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings.

Did I ever tell you you're my hero?
You're everything, everything I wish I could be.
Oh, and I, I could fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings,
'cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

Oh, the wind beneath my wings.
You, you, you, you are the wind beneath my wings.
Fly, fly, fly away. You let me fly so high.
Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.
Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.

Fly, fly, fly high against the sky,
so high I almost touch the sky.
Thank you, thank you,
thank God for you, the wind beneath my wings.

All by myself...

Dear bloggie,

Heard tis song in the radio, almost a week ago... Wanted to post tis song but somehow can't recall the lyrics for this song (hence can't find this song).



All by myself - Eric Carmen

When I was young
I never needed anyone
And making love was just for fun
Those days are gone

Living alone
I think of all the friends I've known
But when I dial the telephone
Nobody's home

All by myself
Don't wanna be
All by myself anymore
All by myself
Don't wanna live
All by myself anymore

Hard to be sure
Some times I feel so insecure
And love so distant and obscure
Remains the cure

All by myself
Don't wanna be
All by myself anymore
All by myself
Don't wanna live
All by myself anymore
As a single bachelor loser that is approaching the BIG 30 soon, I won't deny tis song does strike a shiver down my spine, especially when I foresee my monk brothers getting married or etc within the next few years...

Only God Knows Why

Dear bloggie,



Why are there so much evil in this world?
Why are there so much suffering in this world?
Why are we raping mother nature like there is no tomorrow?
Why are we here?
Why do some people think the is always light in the end of the tunnel?
Why do some people think money is everything?
Why do some kill in the name of God?
Why do we think and have an ego?

Why am I writing tis lame entry?

Only god knows why...

Swan Dance

Dear bloggie,

Yes, just attended my last afternoon session Body Balance class... A mixed feeling session, sad cause I can no longer can attend this class, but a sense of achievement seeing how I managed to do 2 tough poses today:

The Prayer



I recall the first time I saw tis pose was a good 3 months ago. Try as hard I may, my hands couldn't twist to form a prayer at my back. But I never gave up trying this pose. I practice twisting my hand to get a prayer, but furthest I managed was to form a prayer but the palm was 1/2 touching only. Fast forward to today, I stunned even myself today when I reached back and both palms touched fully forming a prayer at my back.

The Back Bend



Yes, this without a doubt I consider my best achievement so far. I recall the first time I attempted this pose, when I just started BB almost 1 year ago, epic fail. Couldn't even lift off my upper back from the floor due to lack of strength of arm and flexibility of back. The nearest next attempt I could recall was almost 1/2 year ago, I managed to lift of and go into a back bend pose, but couldn't last long and ended up over stretching my back. Painful experience I remember. Today, when the instructor said we were had a back bend in this release track, I was expecting another repeat of the 1/2 year incident. But after I push up from the bridge into the back bend, I was surprised at how more flexible my back was, and without too much effort slip into the back bend position. I know my pose is far from perfect, but this time around I managed to maintain it for quite a long time before my wrist gave up and I had to land down again. No pain afterward either... Befitting for my final swan dance...

I reflect back tis 1 year of BB have do for me. From the first day this weak and stiff noobie dared himself into stepping into a class that is more female dominate, the serene feel when doing the tai-chi moves, the sore sensation of my abs after certain abs track, the every class bliss of stretching and pushing my body to new limits, to the short escape from stress, tension, worries & reality during savasana. I couldn't ask for more really and have nothing but gratitude for being able to intercept with it for tis 1 year period. I guess tis is the part where I 'm supposed to say "Thanks"...

PX90 Chinup Bar

Dear bloggie,

Yes, my next GYM toy in my Xmas list, The "PX90" chin up bar.



Yea, I bought a chin up bar already and it's collecting dust in my room. So why waste more money on another bar? Simple, coz the last time I used my old chin up bar, it collapse while I was doing a pull up. Lucky for me, my foot managed to land safely first so no serious injury.

I been relying on those bars in the Taman Rakyat and it's getting damn mafan to go there just to do my pull up workout. Besides, the damn bar there is uneven and full of sharp holes which isn't really palm friendly (My calluses originated from these crappy bar). Also, I like to superset my workout to save time and I can't really bring my dumbbells to the Taman Rakyat to workout right? People will think "WTF is this sohai doing bringin dumbbells to a jogging park? Did he hit his head with the dumbbell and become dumb?" I actually saw a chin up bar similar to this PX90 in Fitness Concept lately priced about RM78 (Expensive as always). Not sure the brand though, think is ciplak brand.

On other note, final week of freedom before I hit the slavery market again. Been a long and fun ride this 1 year, no regrets on taking tis 1 year freelancing. I also did some rnd in GYMs in Cyberjaya, seems like got 1 gym there at the community center. The equipment looks okay, RM5 per entry. Not sure if crowded, coz looks quite small the gym. Planning to check it out, if not many people, can consider working out there for some variety. But no kaki, damn sienz one gym... Still prefer my home gym, nothing fancy but damn convenient and no need hurt pride compare myself against those "hulk hogans" that lifting heavy weights...

Surrender to Win

Dear bloggie,

Have you ever tried hard get something but fail, only to when you decided to give up and stop trying, that something practically drop from the sky into your lap?

Sometimes all we have to do is simply stop going against the current and surrender our self to destiny and let what ever must happen, happen. Suffice to say I simply surrender/give up hope and oddly the course of nature moved me to what I wanted. Strange isn't the workings of this world?

Slaying a Dragon

Dear bloggie,

I been called a "Kiam Siap Kui" (Stingy Ghost) by MFR more times than I can/bother to keep track of. But call me a "suah goo" (Village Cow), but this is really godlike...

As a monk wannabe, I have to kowtow to this guy for his apparent lack of attachment to money. Kowtow... RM35K down the drain and hardly any suicide threats or etc. Even can say "Money is a curse, spend it and earn it again"

Is tis wisdom or is tis foolish? Even this great hermit monk is stumped... I guess it's after all his hard earned money, so it's up to him on how he wanna spend/waste it... Some people choose to spend their hard-work toil on mundane things like house, family, car, clothes, hookers, etc... This guy merely chooses to spend it to get the thrill of living at the moment, I can't really say tat is a foolish thing now can I? Besides, how can one hope to gain something if one isn't prepare to lose something of equivalent value in return? Bigger Risk = Bigger Gain, Financial Management 101 (My FM lecturer will definitely kill me if he knew I linked FM principals to gambling)...

Yet again, as a pseudo-mathematician, I have to berated his rather questionable strategy in roulette. Call me silly, but I'm quite sure the odds of black or red is actually less than 0.5.

Here are the numbers:

Green: 1 (0)
Red: 18
Black: 18

So the odds or getting red or black is actually,

Red / Red + Black + Green
= 18 / (18 + 18 + 1)
= 18 / 37
= 0.4864

Black / Red + Black + Green
= 18 / (18 + 18 + 1)
= 18 / 37
= 0.4864

[Q.E.D]

The house still have a slight edge over you if you play a black/red game

The biggest problem I have here is with this theory of dragon. At first glance, it sounds pretty logical... Hey, 7 straight blacks, red have higher odds of appearing next... Let me tell u here right now this theory is TOTAL BULLSHIT!!

You see, you need to realize your not really betting against the house getting a 8 black dragon. Your bet is and always will remains a bet against the house getting a black (or green). See, each throw is really a mutually exclusive event. Throw 1 won't affect throw 2, etc. So at the 7th round, despite 7 earlier blacks, the odds of red in this round still remains a goddamn 0.4864!

If you say u were betting against the house on getting 8 blacks in a row from now then yes, I will tell you the odds are in your favor... I however won't deny my arguments is flawed in the sense that it is built upon the fact the roulette wheel is unbiased, but my main point was never to calculate the exact figure but rather to punch a hole in the dragon theory.

However I think my mathematical arguments will probably fall deaf on the ears of most gamblers, since after all, gamblers don't really believe in mathematics, they believe in luck...

Past, Present & Future

Dear bloggie,

My new master company requested I email them a soft-copy of a passport size photo of myself to put in my new ID card. Since all I have is several hard-copies of passport size photos and I don't own a camera, I decided to run though my oldies collection of photos I accumulated since my time in my first company. Imagine the horror when I saw how I looked 4-5 years ago... >_<

Hence tis post on the change in how I looked way back 5 years ago till today...

Past


Oh Me God! I look so lost back then... Actually I still am today...


OH ME GOD!!! Look at all the hair I had...


I look way TOO SERIOUS here...


RAWGH!! Lion Mane hairstyle


Then came "rebirth", "enlightment" or "photoshop"...

Present


Ignorance Korek hidung is bliss

Future


Da names BAKA, BAKA U...

I have to agree with MFR claims that I actually look better with my "botak" hairstyle... Looks less slacker I think...

The last quote of a free man

"Sometimes things happen for a reason. Something bad to force something good - George, Life as a House"

See Thru It

Dear bloggie,

Yea, I have seen thru the mystery of the see thru it background. The trick or rather keyword is "opacity"

Opacity is da magic word...

Opacity is a property in the CSS to make images transparent. Cool thing about it, is you can also make it partially transparent. A rather cool trick, won't ya agree?

The syntax by CSS standard is simple:

opacity: 0.4;

Unfortunately, as we all know there are these bunch of browser developer bozos/morons that dunno how to follow standards...

IE:
filter: alpha(opacity=40);

Old school Mozilla browser like Netscape:
-moz-opacity: 0.5;

Old Safari:
-khtml-opacity: 0.5;

Dog dammit! I ponder on why do we, Web Developers/Designers have to become innocent victims to this bloody "Browser Wars".

Choosing a job

Dear bloggie,

Choices oh choices... 3 job offers, each with their own pro and cons. How do I choose between Location, Money or Balance? For me, the choice was never one that required much thinking... Actually, I instinctively have choose it when they offer me the job at the spot despite the lower salary.

Balance...

New Layout

Dear bloggie,

Me likely like the dark glass effect for this blog theme. Wonder how they do it since it obviously isn't a transparent image. Anyway, decided to change the layout of this blog to mark the end of yet another chapter in my life. Yes, the slacker is finally coming back to the slave market.

Board Chopping, Paper Folding Art

Dear bloggie,

Rather cool title eh... I actually took this title from one of my holy bibles "The Art & Craft of Problem Solving". What it means literally is that one need both tough and softness.

I recently taken a test in an interview where the result rather surprised me. I scored 39/60 but it's not the mark that put me in alarm. It's how I obtain the mark. I always prided myself as a hands on guy especially in programming. Hence you can imagine my state of mind when the test revealed I scored more in theory and experience based question compared to syntax strict programming questions. While the syntax strict programming questions are really trick questions, but it does make me wonder have I lost my edge in programming by doing to much to practical programming?

When the interviewer went through the question with me, it hit me hard just how much fundamental basics of Java, went dormant in me because I do practical programming. What do I actually mean by practical programming here? Practical programming I talking about is the programming habits we have when we strive to maximum output or get the system to bend at our will. Often, we will draw the Force from the "dark" side to get the system to work, especially when there's a insanely short dateline. I can't remember the amount of times when I , "OMG WTF!!? Where got enuff time la? %#&^&$#!!!" then proceed to hard code everything as they come into my mind without proper analysis/planning/etc in a mad rush to get the module working in time for the dateline. Evil indeed... And another one practice that I think all of us programmer tend to do, over rely on our editor. I had a collegue that practically use the editor to do everything, create ejb, create hibernate dao, create hibernate beans, eat dinner etc.. The problem you see is we lose our ability to program without our editor. If you gimme a plain notepad and console to do programming, I will hang myself on the spot. While we all have a rational logic to over rely on the editor, I means why not delegate the API and syntax things to the editor and concentrate more on important task like designing OO structure, etc.

So what is the solution? I think we need our editors, we will need to hard code, we will need the "Dark Side" of the force to meet our dateline, but ultimately we need to be aware of it's effect. Maybe we ought to revise our ancient old text book once a while or take online java tests to maintain our edge? Coz u definitely dun want to break down in a sweat when u see a syntax specific question in a interview test (with no editor in hand) for a job u really want.

Wet Monk

Dear bloggie,

Was washing my eye, ogling at "wet" luis running at the Setia Eco 1/2 Marathon Run when I spotted...



At least beats last year photo finish...



Lesson of the run, when you know you got photo finish pix, near the finish line, dun run like 1/2 death man even if ur 1/2 death...

Invidiualism

Dear bloggie,

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not ~Andre Gide.

I recall my first encounter with the bombastic word "Individualism" way back in High School Form 2, when my BM teacher was using that word to describe the negatives culture of the modern society. Back then, I merely accepted the fact "Individualism" as a bad thing. Fast forward 10+ years, I now see it in a different light. While it's all good and etc to have a united human race that tries to thinks alike, pretends to be alike and try to bullsh*ts alike...

Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not. ~Henri Frederic Amiel

I think ultimately we aren't alike and shouldn't have to pretend to be alike nor force others to be alike. We should be who we really are... For good or bad... But problem is what is really who we are? How do we separate the true us from the us that been brainwashed by our society norms and ethics? Does there even exists a true us deep inside of us? Or are we just who we pretend we are...? After all, I think I am, therefore I am...

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss

Having worked/slaved as a javammer for quite some years already, I know how hard it is especially for introvert peoples like me to adapt to this career line. We came in this line to deal with logic, yet we ended up dealing with illogical dateline, clients and technology. Our employees expect us to adapt to changes, be a team player, blablabla... And I understand our employees pay us to be productive, but it's time like tis that I really feel like a hooker. Not only programmer line, almost every career, there is a stereotype mold which we need to comply to. And what strike me as funny is most of the time, it's we whom bend to fit these mold rather than the mold bends to fit us. Why do I find it funny? Because we are the ones that created these stupid mold to begin with and yet here we are at the mercy of these molds. I not saying that we should just run wild like a cowboy or etc but I guess what I'm trying to say is we should not forget or ignore who we really are.

If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise. ~Johann Von Goethe.

Running in the rain

Dear bloggie,

Tis without a doubt the most amusing, nostalgia and 2nd toughest 10K (1st is Adidas King of The Hill Road) I ran. Quite a memorable run as I manage to accomplish 2 things.

First I managed to clock a 56 min 13 sec time, which is a HUGE improvement over last year run where I clocked 1 hour 9 min 44 sec. But in positioning however, only manage to improve 4 rungs, from 132 to 128.

Secondly, I did what I wanted to do for a long time, walk in the rain. Yea, was raining pretty hard at the 3 quarter of the run. For a brief moment, I felt 14, the age when I also happened to ran in the rain for my school's "Merentas Desa" event.

Personally, running in the rain is pretty hard. While the rain cool my body down, the rain water gets absorb by my vest, pants and shoes makes me feel heavier. Besides the gust of wind provides resistance while running, making me either slowing down or pushing my quads harder to run forward. I ran a pretty slow 1st quarter, reaching the 1st water station at the 2K mark at around 18 min but I surprised even myself when I reached the 2nd water station at the the 5K mark at 26 min! Then I ran outta gas at my 30 min limit. Recuperate for 3 min before hitting the road again. This was when it started to rain. Had to break down and walk a few times before somehow managing to cover the remaining 5K with a few minutes left from the 1 hour mark. Ended soaked wet and with blurry vision (glasses wet) when I crossed the finish line. Don't think I will get a good finishing photo (Yea, they will attach the photo to the cert, last year one my finish photo damn cacat, was with 1/2 dead face walking to finish line).

Resistance Band

Dear bloggie,

Yea, spoil myself again. Bought these bands from Fitness Concept for a hefty RM57.



And no, I'm not into rubber toys sex.

Bought these suckers mainly to do the reverse fly exercise which I have problem doing using dumbbells. I tested the resistance, too weak for my other muscle except for my posterior deltoids (back shoulder). Can easily do a bicep curl, maybe should have gotten a level 3 resistance one (My one is level 2). Will test doing these workout by stretching the band longer tomorrow, if snap got 3 days warranty >_<

Anyway, was planning to buy the cheapest one but while testing the cheapest band, the band suddenly snap. After considering decided to fork out more moolah to get better one as I dun fancy this band snapping when I really pulling this band to max. Imagine the band snapping and flying to ur face...