220624 The Raining

 

It rained early this morning while we were sleeping.

Then it rained again while I was on the way to work.

It did not rain much when I was about 3Km away from the Office.

But it was flooded, almost like the December of '21.

I can tell my Vee-chai was wet because the horn sounded more like a little croaked peep.

I know the roads would be wet from all the rain but surprisingly, the whole stretch was quite clear with minimal traffic bottlenecks. Over the radio, there was some reports of accidents which I guessed was what slowed down the traffic before the Federal Highway.

I know that the exit from KESAS would be jammed and was prepared to use the shortcut. Unfortunately, I had to re-enter the KESAS and take another detour back to the shortcut and refill my empty tank as well. Coming out back to the main route, the road was clear (since shortcut leads me past the flooding) and well, despite my best effort, I was about 3 minutes late. Still this was one of the three floods I had to go through and the last was much deeper so I had to step on the gas to prevent the water entering the exhaust.

 

Last Night's Dinner is tomorrow's Lunch

 Waste not, want not, they say. During the Pandemic, this has been my daily Lunch ritual. I would either pack sandwiches and use other food from the fridge as filling. Sometimes, if there were food left over from dinner, chances are, my Wife would pack it as next day's lunch. I am not sure what my Daughter did at school yesterday but she slept through until this morning. So, yeah, this was practically her Dinner.

 Which is fine with me. Because although I love doing this, there are a few positives from it. For one, it saves money because since the Pandemic the average cost of a simple lunch and a drink (you need to order a drink) has gone up to, and past the RM10.00 limit. Secondly, I do not need to go out in the hot Sun or heavy rain, hunt for parking/table space and also, wait for others to finish the meals or vice versa due to long waiting queues at the stalls and so on. But the most important thing is, I do not have to interact with people. Much.

 Lastly, one of the side effect is that I think I am losing some weigh as well. Which is strange because I seldom walk around nowadays and becamse lietrally desk-bound (another story, another time)

 Yeah, I am starting to begrudgingly accept that I am an introvert. And some even say I am an INFJ.

The awesome potatoes deep fried with hot chili oil and anchovies, a smidgen of pork and yam plus fried egg.

 

Mickey can't swim

I hate it when there are rodents around. When you see one, it means there are others and then I would have to start to play the usual waiting game with it. Setting the trap is easy but it takes a average of 5 days to get one trapped.

What I hated most is the getting rid of it part. Unlike termites, mosquitoes,  and cockroaches, getting rid of a rodent is not easy. Sure, you can bake it under the Sun, drown it even and well, give your Cat a present and other stuff. But since no Cat has officially adopted us...

Anyway, my usual would be to give the rat a nice midnight ride in the car and then introduce it to a new environment. 

But, this evening, I did not have to do that. Remember those YouTube videos where some guy would construct weird inescapable traps with buckets? We indirectly did one.

The rat somehow got into this pail and drowned. The pail was actually used to catch waste water from a leaking sink. How it do there, I am not sure but I did watch them jump at great heights.

In the end, I took a farewell photo and dumped its body into the drain.

Big ass Nangka

 

So, yeah, my Wife finally opened the huge Nangka which we guessed was about 30 kilos. And it is about the size of a big pillow. By the time I came back home, she was already done with it and so, I helped to to remove the sticky gum off the chopper. It's not easy but with some flour (or even talcum powder) and patience, I got the job done.

I learned this from my ex-Boss a decade ago when we were dealing with gel-filled cables. It's like wrangling with buttery wires which means there's a lot of stubborn gunk from your hands to the tools to the area, to almost everything you touched or did not touch.

So, this is one of the few times we get to see and eat big Nangkas. Even after sharing it with her sisters, we still had a lot left.

 

20220405 Dream

 This happened a few days ago but I just had the time to post it now.

In the Dream, I was back to my Engineer days although I am at my current age. It was like as if I was helping to install a Toshiba PABX. After so many years, I can still remember the programming and all. So, there I was, installing the system.

And I think, by the time I was finished, I went back home and my late Mom was there, asking if I had eaten. I replied, Thank you and yes.

I was so happy to see once more and she looked quite OK, standing in the middle of an unfamiliar and slightly dark room, with some kind of quilt-like matress as flooring.

Who I am

 This is so me when I was younger. Growing up, it eventually, it drove me to playing computer games by myself, drawing and try some scale modeling, etc. Usually, in most circumstances, there are no 'safe' rooms, I just have to grit it and carry on, which usually leads me to being emotionally angry or uncontrollable.

 

Something new for my VeeChai?

To be honest, my spare Alarm fob is lost and I am not so used to those Push to Start buttons, I am wondering why VeeChai cannot have one?

Actually, I just wanted to know, it its ECU is capable of interfacing with those OBD2 meters. So far, there is no answer unless I go to those Car Accessories shops or Perodua mechanics.

Repairing the Apple MacBook Charger

Just a few days ago, my Wife told me that she had issues with the MacBook. This Laptop was given to us as the one from her school was quite faulty. I planned to upgrade the RAM but at the last minute, this Laptop saved the day. So, she was happily working on it for a few years until last week.

So, after some discussion, she agreed to buy a replacement charger cable for me to replace it when I cam home. Worse case scenario? She would have to use my pre-owned ASUS.

This would be the first time I attempted to repair an Apple product instead of destroying it. After watching a few YouTube videos, I told my Wife the risks and she gave me the green light.

 

The replacement cable costs us about RM40.00. We could get it cheaper for RM10.50 but we would have to wait for it to ship from China,

The pinout for the charger cable. I was expecting a lot of cables but there's only two

Slide the power contact thingy away from the charger itself

Flip open the two plastic 'ears'. You can see the cable is quite worn. This is just one of the few holes I noticed in the cable's sheath

Using a pair of big-ass pliers, wedge the snout into the empty space of the 'ears' and pull the pliers apart. Do the same for the other side.

This is how the power supply looked. I lot one of the ears when it flew away.

De-solder the two cables but make sure you take note of its orientation. You might even want to take a before photo. But anyway, the cables were placed on a symbol which represents an electrolytic capacitor.

The White cable is easy to de-solder but the double-sided tape was blocking the black cable. Still it was not an issue exceot that my 30W soldering iron was not hot enough to remove the solder blobs. This is very critical since the PCB is a FR2 (the brittle SRBP material). So, I melted tome solder on the tip to make it slightly hotter. This really helped to melt the blob, enough for me to use the de-soldering pump.

The videos recommended solutions from CA (superglue) to hot-melts. So, since it was plastic, I tried Plastic Magic. So far so good.

OK, so it works. The next upgrade for this MacBook would be its LCD screen but I was told to KIV first.

 

The Book of Mandalorians

So, after finally catching up on the last 4 episodes of That Book, I must say that the Finale was overwhelmingly draining.

Remember that meme where the poor Devs girl watches in horror and finally in defeat when her client tested her product?
You know, where all the blocks went into the square hole instead of where it should have been? Yeah.

That was how I felt.

Anyway, the Why's

1. Cad Bane's presence was so powerful and I wished I had watched the Clone Wars all the way through. The voice was perfect and he really looked the part. Why..., oh Bobby did mention they're both old, hence most of the shooting. At least it is still better than watching the infamous geriatric laser sword fight. I still can't get over his bald head. Please elongate it a little more.

2. I love the fodder Tactics they used as it isolated and weakened every team to the point Fennec has to go rescue whatever was left.

3. The Mos Espa 'trench run' with the two firing ED-209s could use a Benny Hill theme. The place looked huge and here, all the action is on this one long street.
4. Why the King Kong reference with the Rancor? Also, by pulling it out of the shadows, it does not look so scary anymore.

5. Back to Cad Bane. He looked so unbeatable, so flexible, even in the Clone Wars and now old man gets the sharp end of a stick...

6. I actually did not like what the mid-end credit showed. Why can't they shove the nice fella into the Bacta Tank or something?

7. And just for the kids, yeah, the lightspeed thang. Yeah, I skipped a lot of parts after the battle just to get to this ending and the mid-credit scene. Can't say I'm missing much but that's on me.

In summary...
At one point in time, I am sure some of us would have experienced this scenario: In a play or some last minute group photo-shoot or something, they needed everyone to be there.
So, they would corral all the actors and actresses, and anyone they can get within grabbing distance to be on the glaring stage and tie up all the loose ends. So, everything feels, rushed and well, [insert on your upset emotions for that day].

The only thing I liked was the firing sound effects from the two Droideka-like ED-209 droids. Good Bass there.

I do like Star Wars and other Sci-Fi but not to the point of declaring myself a somewhat hardcore fan, expects everything to go my way . I am way past that. Heck, it does not matter if you do not like what I like and vice versa. Being with the 'in crowd' is so exhausting and pretending toe smile and like what the crowd loved is just so not me. I just watch them if and when I feel like it. If it's good, it's good. Otherwise the turd is just some evening flick to edge away the thorns from my daily grind. But for this one, I really need a drink. And I can't even hold my liquor.

Yeah, you do you.

Here is an image of Cobb Vanth just because

 

Wasabi

 "The only reason I go to these places (Sushi King, etc) is because I love Wasabi"

There. I've said it. And halfway through, I was kinda surprise of the sudden revelation and since the words are already halfway out, I might was well finish it. It is not a good idea to stop the literary flow at the same time when your wasabi filled mouth needs to vent out. Ah, the perils of multi-tasking.

Took me a few moments to digest what I have just uttered. Sure, I love going to these places despite the taste having devolved from being original to the more acceptable local palate. This was a conversation we had just a few nights ago after coming back from (somewhere). And as my Wife pointed it out, Japanese people do not go to Sushi King, Sakae Sushi, etc. for their meals. Just like we do not go to Pizza Hut to experience authentic Italian Pizza.

Anyway, coming back to the wasabi (yes, although what I've been eating all these time was not the real McCoy), I just love them and has been using them for the wrong reasons; a nose unblocker and (horrors) sushi sauce. Growing up in a typical Malaysian household, most of our meals comes with sauce in one form or another. Call it gravy, call it sauce, call it 'banjir', call it whatever you want and its there, on my plate.

If it is not there, you can bet your ass that I would be whipping up one. And just recently, I have discovered that sushi/soy sauce paste, with pate like consistency is way better than my usual wasabi sludge which resembled more like dark green toothpaste or, well, sauce.

 

 

Wasabi Paste.
Maybe I should have taken the photo BEFORE eating.
The powder soaked up a lot of soy sauce.

 

 

My most prized haul after the tables have cleared.
Well, not the salad sauce, though.

Cafe au Clavier

Sounds like a nice French drink right? I just typed that into Google Translate and well, the result in English was what I wanted: Coffee on the Keyboard.

It was just a few days ago, that I accidentally spilled coffee (for the first time in memory) on my keyboard. A used Dell Multimedia SK-8135 USB keyboard which I got for less than RM20.00 decades ago. And the one keyboard which I wished I had gotten more.

This is the Dell SK-8135 Multimedia keyboard.
I have removed the wrist padding since its just plastic

 At the time, it was the only keyboard which has two low powered USB ports (people call them USB hubs now) and I can just plonk in a Wireless mouse receiver in there. I used to be able to do the same with USB Drives but you cannot do that with the modern ones because they will make your computer insult you with words like insufficient power or worse.

Basically, I loved this keyboard due to its very unique curves at the space bar area. Oh, the USB ports and volume controls were a bonus but it was this curve which got me to part about 2 hour's worth of slave wages. Also, because of the two USB slots cut into the plastic, I can get a modern USB hub and modify/upgrade it. It was also the same keyboard which consoled me when I thrashed those mechanical ones just after less than 3 weeks of use before it reverted back into un-assembled component state.

It was the only keyboard which saw me go though a lot of things and still worked. And I christened it with 3in1 White Coffee.

Coffee mixed with two decades of dust, DNA samples, food, etc.
In other words, it is gunk.

Take a picture of they keyboard layout before you start
removing the keyboard caps.

You can see where the coffee affected the keyboard.
The dry dust at the upper left and right were not affected

I used a lot of cotton buds, IPA and curse words though

And they're not fun since the coffee/dust mix has dried

If I need to clone myself around my 30's,
I have all the DNA samples I need

18.12.2021 The Flood

I know, I know.  Weird things or big news sometimes does happen to me. But it is usually a one person experience. But when multiple people experience the same thing, it must be big.

 

When I rains for a long time, my mind always wandered back to one particular memory:

Sleeping and lying on the bed in Kuching.

Around this time of the year, Kuching, it would rain non-stop, and usually, the shortest was about 48 hours. So, imagine you're in the Ground Floor of a building, and all around you were the sounds of rain. It is so cooling that I don't even need to switch the Fan nor the Aircond on.  Man, I can sleep for days!

Towards the evening, as the rain got heavier, some of us decided to wait until the rain lightened up a little and that was about close to about 7 in the evening. But that time, it was already very dark. Anyway, seeing the rising flood first hand, I knew that all the alternative routes are no longer viable. The only one left was through a village. It was OK until I realised that there were no streetlights on the narrow road and both sides of the large drains were overflowing...

The main road was flooded. The flood waters from the opposite side flowed into my lane.

Decided to skip the main Highway as long as possible and took a detour through the village. This was a little dangerous.

Finally on the home stretch and yeah, there was spots of flooding. And this was a HIGHWAY.

Almost there. Since I am familiar with this stretch of the road, I had to keep to the right lane as there would be a pool of water on the left. My bad, it was a big pool of water on the left.

OK, just another three kilometers to go. So a few more minutes of traffic jam should not hurt much since there would be no more flooding.

I was wrong

 

So, on the next morning, the rain has not stopped but slowed down to a drizzle. The feeling was a bit weird because after a great night, I actually woke up on the dot. The traffic was smooth but by this time, the rain has started to get heavier.

Clouds on the building means its going to be a very cold morning.

Half an hour later, my Group WhatsApp reported many staff were going to be late and some of their houses were flooded as well. Taking the cues from the conversation, I fired up Waze and took a longer detour through the back roads.

Sadly, the place was flooded. I was at this traffic light earlier but the alternative routes were a no go too. By the time I came back to this spot, a kind gentleman has alighted from his 4x4 and helped to divert traffic. Because if we were to follow the lights, the jam can form a backlog within minutes.

Finally, I gave up and decided to brave the jam instead. As soon as I drove through the exit ramp, I saw the backlog, noped and reversed. I am looking at about 10Km worth of traffic jam and we haven't even considered the additional 3Km of flooding.

Many cars after me did the same. The went down the ramp, noped and reversed back out.

Wanted to have a break at the Clownhouse but gad, it was full as well...

This was that Waze reported at that time. Finally, Boss said the Office is closed. After notifying our customers, I still have to follow up with the loose ends since some are not happy or have more questions about their cars, etc.

All the way home, I changed to Santa at a lay by. And I so wanted to be able to punch him in the face. It was so irritating as the novelty wore off after a few minutes. But be like me; never ever change your Waze setting when you're on the road.

 

Lunch was a little consoling comfort with some burn biscuit and rando sauce. How it came about, that would be another story

 

That 40B19L Battery or how it lasted 40 months

My car has problems cranking the engine since a few months ago. I thought nothing of it, thinking it was the starter or the key contacts. But then, it got worse last week and so, it just occurred to me that it has been a long time since I changed my battery...

A quick call to my Supplier at Indigo and within 18 hours, I have a new replacement. He wanted to send it to me personally but because of the Roadblocks, he suggested me to go to one of his customer's shop for the same price and also, they did the change without charging me.

This battery has been with me for 40 months! (Read: 3.25 years) Which is unheard of. But then again, with the pandemic last year, I was not able to drive for at least 8 weeks in total, which again, is till not too bad for this battery which roughly costs me less than RM5 per month. And bonus, after seeing the actual prices out there, I am thankful to him for saving me a lot more money.

So, be kind and always help when you can. If not, at least make their work bearable.

After the change, my Car feels very 'on the edge' and little taps gave me spurts of power. All this is made possible by the new battery and those Iridum plugs, I guess.

This tiny little battery (40B19L) packs a punch

 

I was hoping to see a red dot but it just turned dark green.

The T10 Parkng Light using COB LEDs

When it comes to my car's lights, I am a little OCD about it. But in truth, I am more paranoid about being caught by the Police. Still, the degree of that OCD also depends on how deep my pockets are. For today's exercise, I am going to replace the T10 parking lights of my car.

Although they are located near the main headlights, it would be a tight squeeze to fit my hands in there since I have no other tools to remove the headlamp assembly completely. Plus, for a 9 year old car, there's a lot of dirt in there. Since it rained earlier...

So, here are the comparisons between the different LED technologies of the T10 W5W bulb equivalent. The old T10 uses conventional LEDs, which I think, lasted me about a year and a half. But if I were to factor in actual driving time, it would be very much less. maybe a fraction. The new COB bulbs are encapsulated with some clear spongy material which I would guess has the lifespan of between now and when it fails.

 

So, with the new COB LEDs, they are much brighter than the older LEDs. Silly me forgot to order them in that yellowish warm white, which was the original colour of the bulb. I really matches the headlight. But since I have 8 more of those bulbs left, I have to let it go.
 

 

Looking at the burnt LED bulbs, they have turned a slight dark yellow which means, bad news.

 

On a closer look, one LED has 'exploded' while some are cracked. Maybe the inductor is giving out too much power. Then again, in that headlamp assembly, I guess, where there is minimal airflow for cooling, anything goes.

The other side looks OK but had a dark yellow shade.

After going through with the meter, the damage is quite extensive and even with some partially working LEDs and shorting, I have to junk it.

The ELM327 ODB Microcontroller Bridge

 https://www.elmelectronics.com/ic/elm327/