Urban Angel

Nice or not? Kristine just took the washing netting and then
it just happened........

Another milestone for Kaelynn

Wife: "I tried it the other day, and she could only do up to five"
Me: "Really? You sure"
Wife: "Yes"

Me: "One.. two.. three.. four.. five.. six.. sever.. eight.. nine.. ten......"

After all the excitement, Kaelynn decided to take a rest
while Kristine tempted her with some crisps

Trouble.....II

So, today is the day we get to install a Panasonic KX-TDA200. A first for me as I have never installed such a big system before. The stocks were delivered yesterday and today is D-Day where I get to install it for the first time.

Being over confident, I slotted the cards into the system as not only would it save space in my car, I will also save time at the site. It was quite easy to install and I actually did it without having to read any manuals (OK, so I was rushing and did not really have the time to go over them). The only time I did ask for help from the authorised installer was, "Are you sure I only need two screws to lock it to the wall? How come thre are six screws? Sure, ah?". Damn! It was so easy, I thought nothing else can go wrong......

The system is here....

So are its interface cards......

And its phones....

And after slotting in all the cards and mounting it and then....


"What do you mean there is a problem?"

Didn't we go over the details that we do not need to purhcase the extra stuff for this cabling? I have reminded you many times that I need your schematics so I can go over them before the actual installation. Yes, I know we saw the plans on the site but there was no lighting, OK?

Kristine's new nightgown

I forgot who gave Kristine this new gown but she took an immediate liking to it. So much so, she tried to wear it every night.

Fresh from her bath, she was so excited with her nightgown

Although it made her look a little bit more like a girl, but unfortunately...

She still climb things

The Good and Bad of Life (Or, today, I am bored)

No matter what you do in Life, if there is something good for you, something bad is just around the corner. And after you have experienced something Bad, then you’d know that something Good is around the corner. Unless you have bad Karma, then that something Good you anticipated could turn out to be something Bad which is Worse for you.

For you see, these are the Yin and Yang in Life. And however it may seem, there is no proven formula that if you do anything Good, you will be rewarded accordingly or if you have experienced something Bad, Goodness is just right behind it. There are also no definite plus and minus score chart for you as these events will come in a random fashion. However, if you reflect on the last few months of your Life, you would realize that such formula actually does exist and it goes like this:

Natural Good + Forced Good – Forced Bad + Good = Bad

e.g. Today is a Good Day (Natural Good) because you helped an old Lady across the road (Forced Good) even though does not want to and she hit you with an umbrella (Forced Bad) which landed you in the Hospital and you saw your enemy dying (Good). But, in the end, you just realized that your enemy owes you a lot of money which you cannot recover (Bad) and he has been seeing your Wife (Bad) for more than six years (Bad)

Or,

Forced Bad + Bad – Good + Natural Bad = Bad
You just saw your enemy across the road and you ran across (Forced Bad) and unfortunately, you Wife had a secret affair with him (Bad) and failed to step on the brakes (Good). As a result, your legs got hit (Bad) and she lost her Life hitting a tree (Bad) while your enemy runs away (Bad).

Other formula:
1) You accepted your friend’s final gift which was her favourite cat. A week later, your house becomes Cat Central and after a few months, you’re broke and out of work because most of your time and money went to taking care of the kittens which scratched your mortgaged house into smithereens.
[Good + Natural Bad + Forced Bad = Bad x Bad]

2) You plucked up enough courage to ask that beautiful clerk of yours for a drink and the next morning, you noticed that she has an extra appendage which makes a very interesting third mountain under the bedsheet.
[Forced Good + Good = Natural Bad]

3) You ate the free Viagra which you saw thrown out of the window and for the next few days, you were a walking tripod. Unfortunately, your sex-happy Wife was out of town and your tired Mistress (done by the same man who threw the Viagra out of the window) does not want anything to do with sticks for a week.
[Good + Forced Good x Natural Bad – Bad = Shit]

4) You got robbed and you managed to defend yourself. Then the thief sued you and after the expensive court session, you slipped on a fallen bottle. While you’re trying to balance yourself, you accidentally pushed the thief onto the busy road. Now you’re serving Life and there are no Playstations in there.
[Natural Bad + Good / Bad + Bad + Good + Bad + Bad + Forced Bad = Damn!]

5) You studied hard to get A’s, worked even harder in your career and now you’re a CEO and also a proud father. You are a shining example to the community. Unfortunately, your 2 year old daughter went around and told everyone you like to do monkeys from behind. And everyone believed her.
[Forced Good + Forced Good + Good + Damn Good = Woohoo / Awwww, no]

6) You helped your neighbour build a new library shelf and he gave you the latest Harry Potter book as a reward but your 8 year old son told you the ending before you even got to the second page.
[Forced Good + Natural Good = WTF…..!]

7) You saved months for a brand new Mobile Phone and after traveling across the City to buy it, the shop below your apartment sells it for half-price and it even comes in limited edition Pearl White.
[Forced Good + Forced Good = Oh for goodness’s sake]

8) You gave your enemy some chocolates which has camel semen in it. And he returned the favour with your Wife.
[Forced Bad + Bad = Shit]

9) After months of E-Mails, and reading and helping each other’s blogs both of you met for the first time. After a few hot dates, both of you decided to get married before the nine months are up but at the altar, your Great Great Great Granny pointed out the two of you are related.
[Forced Good + Good + Natural Good + Goody + Bad = You’ve got to be kidding!]

10) Buying a MP3 player in the shape of a Transformer toy on impulse only only to discover that you need to get a miniSD card separately. Oop. Oh, hey, this has been covered.
[Forced Good + Good x Bad = Shit]

Oh, well. You get the picture.

Kaelynn's first bubble bath

Kaelynn has never seen bubbles before!

Trouble....

What? You want to put the system INSIDE the server cabinet?

Can I have a look at your schematics? Yes. Yes. OK, good. Can I have a black & white? OH, you'll E-Mail me..... Right. But I would prefer you to have the system outside since you're going to install another server cabinet next to it..... right. Saturday

Happy Birthday, Kaelynn!

Today is Kaelynn's first birthday and luck was on my side because my Johor trip was postponed to next week. In the end, I get to go home early and get to annoy the heck out of my neighbour by parking in front of their house. While waiting for everyone to come home, I decided to go for a haircut since my last visit was three months ago. But because it was already half-past seven in the evening, there were a lot of customers and those girls were rushing. Anyway, in summary, as I was the last of the two remaining customer left, I had a good head/scalp/shoulder massage from a Sarawkian girl who tries to speak Cantonese in different intonation (a day later, no bruises showed up but it was painful as heck.) and still got to read last month's FHM.
[Question: If Rick cuts other people's hair. Would you call him Barberick?]

By the time I arrived back home at 9PM(I calculated that my hair cut was about 1 1/2 hours long), everyone had gone out about their business. Being Kaelynn's Daddy, I performed the necessary ceremonies to tell the World that Kaelynn is now 1 year old and is still not toilet trained. (Oh, but she is starting to take things apart.) And I still get to re-park my car again just as my neighbour was driving in. Kristine fed Kaelynn some cake and they did not fight nor shout about. So, its still a nice day afterall.

This is Kaelynn's Birthday cake. Please excuse the missing cherry

Both girls ate the half of each cherry and put back on the cake

Mommy helping Kaelynn cut her first Birthday cake

Kristine fed Kaelynn some of her Birthday cake

Sci-FI Prop

There is one fact which I cannot ignore: I am a menace with tools. If I have a soldering iron, I tend to either burn myself or someone next to me. If I had a cutting knife, I would cut a lot of things except for the intended object. Anyway, since I was ealy in the office, and after testing Soundwave, I decided to continue with the Sci-Fi Prop project. Last week I found my rotary tool and made a hole big enough for the micro-switch.

As the original push-button is now out of the question, I had to go for another switch. This was because the thread of that switch was not long enough to be secured from inside. It is also too long and this means it keeps knocking into the battery compartment. And since the piezo buzzer was too big to be placed anywhere else inside the pepper mill, I did the next best thing. The piezo buzzer will now serve as the top of a flat push-button switch. I’ll worry about how not to let it pop off later.

So, now the two screw holds the flip cover more securely. And I used
the piezo button as a top cover for another flat push-button switch

On second thoughts, now the flap cover makes it look so bulky

Takara Soundwave Part II

I had to hide this from everyone so that I can open it in private. Months after moving to the new house, I realised that there is no privacy (unless I hide in the toilet). In the end, I had to come into the office early to inspect my ill-gotten prize and I still had to hide in the toilet. One thing to note here is that when you're in the toilet, make sure the floors are not wet and there is ample space for you to spread your things out (I mean the other things, not your thing, OK?). This is so that ther are no flowing water that sweeps your stuff into the drainhole or you accidentally dropping them into the toilet bowl. And once the area is secured, you can open your box/pizza/toy/underwear, etc. And boy, I was a bit disappointed. Because the box had no English words on them when I was at the shop except for a few words like MP3, WMA, 1GB and miniSD, I assumed that not only does it play MP3 in 128kbps, but it also accepts WMA. And stupid ol' me also believed that a 1GB miniSD memory card was included too. OK, I am now extremely disappointed. Still, I have yet to test the player and/or go to their website (www.takaratomy.co.jp). Maybe in a few months time when I have the extra cash to buy a miniSD card which costs another RM140 or so, then I would get the chance. Until then, its going to the back drawer somewhere and I hope that I will still remember it when I have some extra cash.

And the overall feeling I experienced? Its like finding a boxful of rare 1950 chewing gums (that is still edible, la) and delivered to your desk the first thing in the morning while you're celebrating your Birthday in front of your Bosses in the meeting room. Then you realised you're a Civil Servant working in Singapore, next to a Police Station.

OK, that was a bad example. How about this?
You found a RM1000 note and while picking it up, your bulging wallet containing RM3000 fell out and into the stormdrain. (RM1000 is not legal and you’d have to take it to the bank to change it)

OK, OK. This is more relatable:
Your Black belt Karate Wife and Body Building Mistress found you making out with your friend Pamela Anderson look-alike whom you drooled after like a wolf on heat for months. After they successfully taught you a lesson in fidelity, you just remembered that your friend had terminal Herpes and is going to be one very late friend soon. And you also remembered where your friend worked part-time at: A test subject at the Gorilla HIV testing lab.

You know, even if there are no miniSD cards inside, it would have been fun if Takara designed the miniSD equivalent of the micro-cassettes Ravage, Laserbeak, Rumble and Frenzy just for old times sake.

Here he is, standing on my salvaged PC power supply. When fully transformed, Soundwave is quite tall. Apart from the white headphones, Soundwave comes with two extra pair of hands.

In the middle, you just slide the rectangle and out pop its head. Also, on his right shoulder,
there is a 3.5mm headphone socket where you plug in the headphones. And when you're
not using it, you can block the hole with his rocket launcher. You know, since Soundwave
only use one AAA battery, Takara could have made him a little bigger and then turn the
shoulder rocket launcher into a battery compartment instead. And when Soundwave is a
little bit bigger, then they could have put in an LCD display with a mirror-like screen just like
those new Motorola or Sony Ericsson mobile phones. And also put in one or two miniSD
transformer as well while they're at it. Anyway, just like the original Soundwave, there is an
"eject" button. In the cartoon, he will press the eject button and out comes those micro-cassette
Transformers. So, I press the "eject" button and .......... shit........... there is no miniSD card inside.

And one other little thing. Since I do not have a miniSD card, I cannot test its battery
endurance. And where the battery compartment is concerned, Takara has opted to secure the
cover with a screw. Reminds me of those cheap China made toys which have screws to secure
the battery compartment. Dammit.

Transforming Soundwave is quite easy. Just make sure you do his legs first.
But here is one part I hate about Soundwave; In order to make sure that he
stays in the MP3 player shape, Takara have used these annoying plastic tabs.
And I can tell you that if you transform him too often, the tabs would either wear
out or snap off prematurely.

Takara Soundwave Part I

This is going to be a very bad habit of mine. I am starting to get Mr. VISA to help me more and more. I should not be doing this. I should be looking for more things to do to make more money. But when I saw it, I just lost it, you know. With just one swipe, my journey to financial damnation gets closer. But my heart said, "Ah, who the hell cares. This is important."

It all started when the usual mailing lists from XL-Shop, Shioktoys and HLJ arrived at my inbox. One of them mentioned a Transformer that can play MP3. And it had to be the Decepticon, Soundwave. In the 80's, Soundwave is actually a silver blue walkman or mini-compo or something. And inside its chest, lies four/six cassette tapes which transforms to Buzzsaw, Rabrat, Lazerbeak, Ravage, Rumble and Frenzy. And the Autobot equivalent was the red and yellow mini-compo, Blaster, which my favourite and he also has cassettes Steeljaw, Ramhorn, Rewind and Eject. Although he was created c to Soundwave, but he just did not last long in the TV Series. But my dream at that time was to get him and then actually stuff a radio inside. Well, that was the plan because a that time, MP3 does not even exist yet. But because my pocket money was not enough, I eventually forgot about that idea. Anyway, twenty years later, Takara introduced the latest (or upgraded) Soundwave which is now an MP3 player (thank goodness he was not updated to be a Laserdisc player). And I just happened to visit a customer at Amcorp Mall where Ultimate Toys and Toys were. Since Ultimate Toys has a habit of opening in the evening (except for the 1-Utama outlet) I decided to drop by Toys. And they were in the middle of unpacking some limited edition Optimus Prime toys. However, when I saw Soundwave, I just went, you know, nuts.

There are two versions of Soundwave on sale. One is the White version which looked so deliciously cute but in the end, I chose the Blue Spark version as he looked more like the original Soundwave. After walking out of the store, I realised on thing, "My God! What have I done!!! I don't need another MP3 player! I already have my iPaq and the new wireless car MP3 player!". So, how am I going to hide this little sin of mine?

Just the box alone makes the toy so exclusive. But I stopped at buying the Transformers headphones which turns to Rumble and Frenzy. People would think I am wearing earrings instead. Well, OK, the real reason is that Rumble and Frenzy are both micro-cassettes stored inside Soundwave’s chest. They are a part of him.


But if you do not transform him, then it would look nice, Something like a early version or an iPod, I suppose. In the background, you can see an White Optimus Prime truck with its trailer which serves as iPod cradle and speakers. And and it is coming soon. But since I do not have an iPod, it is useless to me.

And so, this is what it looked like when you open the front cover.

There you go. Soundwave with extra 2 pairs of hands, some
kind of missile launcher, a plastic sci-fi toothpick and a pair
of white headphones.
(Actually, I was hoping for those sound cancelling types)

At the back of the box, this is the White version of Soundwave. So, he looked kinda weird.
And not only that, in the original toy, his calf was the other way round. Now, this is the
opposite but it still looked better. I mean, you'd look weird with a huge bump on your
shins.

But if you do not transform him, then it would look nice, Something like a early version or an iPod, I suppose. In the background, you can see an White Optimus Prime truck with its trailer which serves as iPod cradle and speakers. And and it is coming soon. But since I do not have an iPod, it is useless to me.

Battery

After more than six months, I finally got back to visiting this customer and looking at the condition of the battery, its not good news at all. The customer admitted that they have dismantled the compressors for the air-con which resulted it in blowing warm air for months. They just totally forgot about the blower unit. But I am not sure if this is the main cause. So, the battery needs to be replaced as soon as possible.

This battery is full of energy

And as you can see it, bursting out of the seams

Sometimes, when things get too excited,


You just can't hold it anymore

[Update: Days later, the very same air-con caused a trip which affected half of the office]

The ultimate Bengmobile

Every now and then, I will see a decorated car so different, that I need to take its picture regardless (unless its dark out there). This is one of them. Somehow, when I look at this car, I felt so jealous because if I were to park my Bengmobile next to it, mine would be boring. Ha ha ha ha.

I am not sure what went through the owner's mind when they did this.
But it does have an effect: Every car tried to stayed away from it

Its ready!

The girl called me up today, after 11 days to tell me that my PCB boards are ready. So, when I went and collected them, I was both happy and sad. Happy because this was the first time my design got through manufacturing stage. Sad because they are extremely expensive and there are only five pieces.

Still, tonight I will go and try to "dry fit" the components and then test fit into the pepper mill. What I am worried not is the height of the Piezo buzzer and maybe I can fit an IC socket into it as well. I just hate to solder a fully programmed PIC and then finds out it might not work. Ha ha ha ha

This is what I got back: (back L-R)
The circuit board positive mask, the copper mask and the silkscreen mask
And the five pieces of PCB. The last one on the right shows the underside
copper tracks and the green stuff.

Brush with Death

All the while, I did not pay much attention to my Notebook's power cord. Since I am bringing my Notebook all over the place and plugging in and out of the mains power, the power cables gets worn out very fast. And I go through these cheap RM3 power cables every few months. I wanted to get better ones but there are none on the market. Either that or I am searching at the wrong place.

It was not until this afternoon that when I was about to pull it out from the mains socket only did I notice how near I was to being electrocuted. In the end, when I was back at the office, I "borrowed" my Boss's dead Notebook's power cable.

If I touched the bare wires while there were some
people around me, everyone is going to have a bad
day. Luckily, I saw it........ or its bye-bye.

Konica Minolta Ad

I have been staring at this billboard in front of me at the traffic lights and I still don't get it, the last part, I mean

Translations in [Malay], Cantonese and (English)

[Fast printing]Ho Faai! (Very fast!),
[Lots of Results] Ho Geng! (Dem powerful!) &
[Huge profits] Ho ho Jaan! (Profitable)

Toy Gun

I had been eyeing this toy for quite some time. But I did not agree with the RM5.90 price. So, when I dropped by at Bangsar's Lucky Garden's magazine shop (there are two but this one was at the corner) I saw it again. After being told it was RM3.90, I bought it. The guy even asked me to buy some ammon but I declined since I had other ideas for this gun.

This is a very small gun. But I like its shape.

After looking at the barrel, I think I am going to
open it up when I have the time, that is

See? I told you its a small gun. Small enough to be
a Derringer. I think I shall turn it into a Sci-Fi
stun gun or something

The silver is painted on it and can be scraped off.
Then the strong spring to the top of the gun must
be weakened and the ammo magazine..... well, I'll
think of something else.

Redfox Car MP3 player

As my Boss wanted me to get a 5metre USB cable, I decided to drop by "All IT Hypermarket " at Section 13, PJ. And I also picked up a car MP3 player too. Maybe its the convenience of using thumbdrives compared to burning CD-Rs or maybe its the fact I can have MP3 in any car I drive. But whatever it is, I got one. Moving from shop to shop, the same product, the RedFox MP3 was priced between RM98 to RM119. So, I decided to wait until All IT opened and got it from there.

A car MP3 player like this is a boon. Not many people can afford to have MP3 players installed in all their cars. And even if you got the cheap ones, its still a small fortune. And not only that, you'd have to burn the MP3 CD and take it with you when you change cars. Lastly, if there was a few songs you have gown out of it, you cannot just delete file on the CD-R (or CR-RW) and make a new one. So, this clever little invention (USB MP3 player with a FM transmitter) solves a lot of problem for people like me. Everyone has a radio in the car and every car has a 12 volt outlet which means this unit is convenient to use.

I am not sure if I am happy or sad because although I got Mr. VISA to help out, the sound that came from it lacked treble and sounded like as if it came from a muffled speaker. Not only that, since its using FM frequency, any car which, by coincidence, happens to be on the same frequence, will be able to hear your MP3 being played. And woe betide you if you decided to plug in your handphone into as well. I mean, its possible to have a nice conversation but there are things best left in private. Oh, and if you accidentally knocked into it while its playing, the sound skips or you hear lots of static. And when you put it back on, it will start from the beginning of that song during the incident.

For RM98.00, all you get is the MP3 player which looks like a cut-off
gold club, an infra-red remote control and a stereo cable in case you
do not have a SD card or a thumbdrive but a PDA

It accepts SD cards and USB drives

This is the little hole where you plug one end of the cable
and the other end to another music source. Its not for a
headphone though.

Its not the cooking, ..... Ma'am

Last night, as I was about to leave the office for home, there was a bad burning smell near the Petrol Kiosk and I noticed there were a lot of Blue flashing lights (authorities, la) at the main Kepong street. And taking the shortcut to the highway, there was a Police cordon. I did not think much about it until this afternoon.

One of the restaurant was burnt down. And putting two and two together, I can bet you its not about a clumsy chef nor a difficult customer.

This is the remains of Restoran 101

There were some reporters and a lot of "important" people looking around

By now, a lot of people were clearing the debris by the truckload

Grafitti

Wanted to take this picture for quite sometime now but kept
forgetting. Its not easy to take it while the car is moving at
an inconsistent pace. This reminds me of a flattened Dilbert

CSI:Miami 10-7

Ever since I watched the Original CSI series, I was hooked. But then, in one episode (Cross Jurisdictions) where there was a murder in Miami, one particular character stood up. Horatio Caine.

From then on, I was hooked to this guy. I did not know it but he has his own CSI series too, namely CSI:Miami. Anyway, last night on Astro, they were showing the episode "10-7". There were some touching scenes, namely when he told his nephew Ray Jr. "I want you to turn around, walk (or was it run?) away and don't look back" to run to the direction of his Hummer. He boy did as he was told and not look back. Because if he did, he would have seen his "dead" father died for real .

Then, towards the ending, he agreed with Yelina that both of them should take some vacation from all this. But when both of them walked to the plane, he stopped instead. Yelina looked back and wondered why and only when her son, shouted out that his father (her husband) is still alive did she realised that both their relationship should remain as it is, etc.

Horatio is a caring person, (especially where kids and innocent are concerned.). Sometimes, he really does go out of his way to make sure they're safe or taken care of.

This reminded me when I was a teenager, always caring about other people , making sure they're all OK before even though I suffered for their sakes and all that shit. Yeah, I was like that. A good boy.

Thas was until I went Overseas and that changed my whole perception. I came back as a monster and also a recluse. Maybe I should go back to whom I was and make everyone happy again. But this is not the case anymore. There is no turning back and I have to accept things as they are. Still, when I am in control (and not the monster), I will try to make it bearable for everyone.

But whatever it is, I am not going to put my hands on my hips/belt and start taking off my glasses ans speak sideways.

Whats in the toolbox today

All of a sudden, this morning I had a lot of time to myself.
So, why not stuff some bombs into it and something else
to screw other people?

Koko Crunch Duo

After our jaunt at Subang Parade, we had to stop by Carrefour next door on our way home because Kristine wanted to go in there. Anyway, there was nothing to shout about since we did not have much time left. But we did come across the new Koko Krunch whihc has white chocolate. And after two helpings from the nice girl at the counter, we decided to get one box.

I made Krsitine get the sample herself so as to overcome her shyness. Because, if she wants something, she should try to get them herself, if possible since she wanted (OK, insisted) to do most of the things herself nowadays.

But at the end, guess who had to finish all the three unopened "old" Koko Krunch? Sigh

I tell you, the white ones are damn good!

Dad's New Handphone

Dad's mobile phone konked out months ago and when I sent it for repair, they said its not worth the repairing since the cost would be the same as the phone itself. So, I lent him Wifey's phone while I tried to source another one for him. Eventually, I forgot about it until recent events which triggered my brain cells. Except that I still forgot about collecting back the faulty phone.

Anyway, one of the family member has decided to *censored and to cut a long dirty linen story short* get my Dad a new phone. And so, he is now enjoying a brand new Nokia 6080 phone. It met his criteria of having a large screen, ear-piercing loudspeakers and longer lasting batteries. The Nokia 6070 costs RM80 less but after playing with the keypad, we decided to go ahead with the Nokia 6080 since everyone has a large thumb and once you insert it into the crystal casing (plastic transparent case, la) the keypad is still functional.

This is the Nokia 6080 (left) compared to my Wife's spare Nokia

One of the unnecessary feature was the camera, but who cares?
Its a free phone. Ha ha ha ha

An afternoon at the Subang Parade

This Sunday was the only time we had to go out as long as we wanted. That was because of my outstation trip ended a little earlier than expected. So, we decided to head for the nearest Shopping Mall for lunch with some friends and also do a bit of shopping. And we ended up at Subang Parade.

Kristine is growing quite fast now. Just seemed like a months ago,
she looked like a small girl but in this shot, you judge for yourself

Then after that nice lunch as Fisherman's both girls were
fully charged up and thats where their antics started