Daily misery

Michael Hoppe - Lincoln’s Lament.

Simply splendid.

Tomorrow is the voting day for (many) Americans. Judging by the influence and power United States possessed, and the big brother-role they play within the international community, i would assume people around the globe will be paying close attention to this election as well. Certainly not trying to swing any last minute votes (as if i can), I hereby, humbly would like to lay out the rough sketches of what Americans can expect for the next four years should their candidate of choice gets elected to the White House.

If Bush gets reelected:
+ Obviously he will not begin his victory speech by saying:” Mission accomplished….”
+ Iranians, Syrians and North Koreans (most unlikely) should start packing and head for the nearest border.
+ Yep, same tax cut, same Medicare, same Social security system and same Texas ranch. Isn’t it such a good thing that nothing has changed?
+ Rockers will be sent to Guatemala, Cuba and be detained for an unspecific period of time. Dixie Chicks, Bruce Springsteen and Green Day will seek asylum in Canada. Rolling Stone will be banned from reaching the newsstands.
+ Michael Moore will be sentenced to death.
+ Fox’s Oreilly will be the first American in US history to receive the Order of Knighthood.
+ One will have to endure another 4 years of that same innocent puppyish face he has got so good at putting in front of the tv camera. “In God we trust…..we will prevail……I am a war president….bleh bleh bleh…” Oh God.
+ Americans should really get used with the word ‘zillion’ cuz that’s how the budget/trade deficit will be analyzed and discussed with in tv.
+ Iraq …. Wait, what Iraq? Oh you mean Iran….
+ Afghanistan? Never heard of it.
+ United Nations> Three words - Veto, Veto, Veto.
+ It will be Arnold swarchzenegger Vs Hillary Clinton in election year 2008. (by Charles Bump, great fren of mine)
+ Well obviously i will be detained under the Patriot act II and Daily Misery will be closed down for allegedly spreading pro-pacifist propaganda.

If Kerry gets elected:
+ Clone babies should be here in the last year of his first term.
+ Gays, Rockers and Geeks will party 365 x 4 = 1460 days.
+ Try to stay firm by holding troops in Iraq only to withdraw them in his reelection year because the resistant is just too overwhelming. He then blames it all on previous administration. Damn Bush.
+ Medicare and SSN will still stay the same. Changes in tax cuts remain to be seen. Rich guys are very powerful people.
+ India will be bombed because they are sucking away too many American’s job. Outsourcing is an act of crime and punishable with death penalty.
+ French fries can actually be called French fries again in US.
+ Expects more war movies like Black Hawk Down 2, Swift Boat Adventure or Superman Vs Vietcong.
+ For some reasons i think he will very likely get himself into a sex scandal. You see my head has this deja vu…

If Nader gets elected:
+ Supreme court will orders a recount if the margin is small and will continue to do so until the ‘preferred’ outcome is achieved.
+ If the margin is huge, Supreme court will orders a reelection during Christmas and Mr. Nader will not be eligible to compete. Dont ask why.
+ At last, Floridians will be forgiven for election 2000.

I am sure Daily Misery readers have their own futuristic views that they would want to add here. Feel free to, after all its a free country, at least for now.

Can i have a show of hands among the readers please?

I got this photo from lead Wordpress developer, Matt. Its a moving picture that reconstructs the face of President Bush with smaller pixel faces of the many soldiers that have died in Iraq. I myself lost one friend and 2 blog pals who happen to serve in the US reserve army/Coast Guard. The larger version of this image is approximately 2mb and its so big that you can identify clearly each and every faces in there. I tried to locate those of my friends but it was just so hard, not because there are too many mini-pictures to go through (which is true btw), but because its hard to hold back the tears.

DM readers might also be interested in reading my futuristic views about the outcome of this election. I wrote it from a neutral stand point of view, really.

|| — Beep Beep. You have just reached Daily Misery. The author is currently suffering from a severe emotional letdown and wont be able to write anything anytime soon. If you would kindly leave your message in the comment box, hopefully he will be able to get back to you when he has the adequate mental strength to crawl to his bedroom window and feel the sunshine. Beep –||

I am moving to Vancouver. Period.

After days of fruitless effort to resurrect myself, i am now partially able to brave the world and pick up my keyboard. I have however, a few last words to share with DM readers.

Many people jump to the conclusion that i am Kerryian judging by the way my heart speaks about Bushie. There’s definitely not many choice when you have to choose between a war monger and someone who vote for the Patriot Act. But that’s the way its laid out upon many Americans, and sadly, they will have to make the best out of it. In an ideal world, i would have checked the box for Libertarian Michael Badnarik and i strongly believe many would. But this is not an ideal world, its far from it.

My roomate got THE flu. I am going to die…..:sad:

Hereby i present to you, Cleopatra - the Queen of Cat…..of all cat!

Thou shall fear the fox, cuz thy shall it bring with thee the fire that burns the web.

I totally screwed up the classical phrases of thou, thee and thy here. But what the hell, spread the fire!

“Man was made at the end of the week’s work, when God was tired”
Mark Twain

This quote had me laughing so hard, i still feel my stomach aching now. :lol:

DM update - something screwed up my weather plugin, will fix it later.

Difference between Half life 2 and Firefox 1.0 - Firefox 1.0 is all about punctuality.

One of my friend (tin tin) pm me with this:

1) Go to www.Google.com
2) Type in “weapons of mass destruction” (DON’T hit return)
3) Hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button, NOT the “Google search”
4) Read the “error message” carefully and thoroughly.

MAKE SURE YOU READ THE WHOLE ERROR MESSAGE AND CLICK THE LINKS….

Hillarious.

Firefox, which was originally called Firebird, also has a growing number of vocal net-based fans.

A campaign co-ordinated by the Spread Firefox website attempted to raise the $50,000 needed for a full page advert in the New York Times.

The campaign set itself a target of recruiting 10,000 volunteers. Ten days in to the campaign 25,000 people had signed up and now about $250,000 has been raised. The ad is due to run sometime in a three-week period in late November/early December.

The surplus cash will be used to help keep the Mozilla Foundation running.

~BBC news.

This is something that Microsoft and SCO will never fully understand. Ever.

Allright, i promise this will be my last political posting on DM.

Americans say sorry.

I saw him an awful lot of times in the media ever since i was 10, i think. He always gave me this scary yet funny looking kind of impression. Always the same military costumes, the same fabric-hat, the same smiles.

Today, Yasser Arafat died due to a blood-related disease. NY TIMES started ff the report by saying something like this:’ Yaseer Arafat - terrorist, dictator or patriot? Being brought up in Malaysia, one would have easily assumed that i have a favorable image of Mr. Arafat implanted into my brain. (Malaysia doesnt have diplomatic relationship with Israel). I didnt agree with such preassumption, nor i feel the urge to deny it. This is basically the fundamental cause of our own social misperception that was burried deep within our sickened, narrowed mind, which as a result, shapes the world as it is today. Most of the media and people of ‘high intellectual’ in US only see things in black and white. There’s no middle stand, no grey line, just plain and cold, BLACK or WHITE. It’s not hard to figure out the source of influences when you have your president and army general blurting out bigotry phrases like ‘either you are with us or you are not‘ or ‘…because i know my God is bigger than his God‘. *sigh*

The fact that one who opposes the Iraq war can be easily labeled as a traitor of the country for not supporting his country’s troops is somethign that should concern many citizens of America. The fact that you’ve been called Atheist because you see stem-cell research as something that should be legalized is something you should worry about. The simple fact that you label and cluster different fraction of people into your sadistic groups of brand should make all of us worry. There’s no semi or half-likened. Either you are conservative or liberal, terrorist sympathizer or the supporter of the Iraq war, my God or your God, terrorist or patriot, homophobic or gay………..Tom or Jerry?

After all, a strong leader should always stick by his decisions, no matter how wrong the decision might be, no matter how bad the consequences might follows, no matter how many lifes taken. He shouldnt change his stand as this will makes him appears weak in the eyes of many. If you are black, you shouldnt change to white even though you know the reality say otherwise. You should stick hard, and fight and fight and fight, until you can put the black as a color you want everyone to see it. Of course, there’s no grey in this country, as i’d mentioned before. The ‘flip flopper’ nametag is a widely recognized taboo. Even though ‘grey’ is the color that really matters during chaotic times like this.

You can’t change the world
But you can change the facts
And when you change the facts
You change points of view
If you change points of view
You may change a vote
And when you change a vote
You may change the world

Quoted from asterisk

Just received this lovely DIY card from my younger sister, Karen. I guess i love it so much cuz if you look closely enough, you will actually see how beautiful the boy within the frame is drawed. That boy is me i assume, and i am not by any means as pretty as he is.

I cheated on a test yesterday. Well i guess i could say i was not the one who actually cheated, but this Latvian girl sitting besides me did do the peeky looky thingy on my paper. The fact that i spreaded my answer paper wide out and put on a mesmerizing smile on my face (signalling my approval obviously) means i was an accomplice. Still cant get over it as i have never cheated on any form of tests ever since like, Form 1? But she is hot, i guess that could justify my action for the time being.

Yumi Adachi. She was the girl that i would spend the whole day daydreaming about when i was like 10. I mean i would literally download her songs (kiddy melody) and listened to them for like hours even though i didnt have a single clue what she was singing.

This was how she look like when she was 16, maybe. Ah.. still an angel.

And this would be her most recent pic. *sigh* God sure know how to take away a child’s dream and smashes it into pieces like how my mom would usually do to a raw garlic. Dont get me wrong, she’s still great and those boobs develope really well :oops:. But due to the the combination of certain peculiar reasons, i dont seem to feel the thing anymore. Sometime i just wish things are the same as they used to. Yumi Adachi will still be the cutie pie, my aunt and grandpa are still here, my uncle’s smile, Nicole Kidman is still with Tom Cruise, Bill Clinton still the president……

Would really appreciate a hard smack on my face anytime soon.

Holiday season is looming ahead. The ultimate reason folks here try to clear their credit debt before December come is partly due to the fact that they can start building up their debt all over again when December ends. Americans dont really save much. During shopping season, they really do bleed out their wallet many times over.

Well its a blessing i can join arms with the shoppers parade this year. My dad gave me some money to spend, which served as a nice supplement to the freelancing wages i got from designing websites/blogs . I bet you can almost feel the wide grin upon my face right now.

So i was thinking about getting a digital camera. Since i will be graduating in 5 more months, i really want to capture THE moments. You only get one chance to toss your graduation hat. Well, at least that’s how it spells out for most of us. Besides, i have always wanted to start a photoblog :wink:.

I plan to get Fuji Finepix E510. It fits all my needs and looks like a no-brainer to operate. Despite my academic major and interest, i am still what many would consider as a manual-dummy when it comes to getting my electronic gadgets to function well. Moreover, i really dont plan to follow my gf shopping paradigm - shop-til-you-drop. Wait, its more like shop-till-you-cant-walk. Those are scary and emotional-torturing experiences i would rather not go into detail with.

But here’s my dilemma, i am also itching for a mp3 player. I used to have an iriver’s mp3/cd player but i gave it to my sister when i went back this summer. I love her so much so we can drop the topic of this brotherhood generosity.

So Creative Zen xtra 30GB steps in. Should i fail to rationalize my choices, I am just going to flip the coin at the end of the day. *sigh*

Microsoft recently launched the beta version of their own web search engine, joining Google and Yahoo in their quest to search for the divine light of eternal prosperity. In the following weeks to follow, i can bet you all the tech magazines and articles will line themselves up covering the compare and contrast table game between the three. I dont know about you, but i rate them base on how well their web spiders crawl my site. Simple and fair.

First of i entered ‘alvin woon’ into the three browsers and three of them returned alvinwoon.com as the first top rank. Then ‘wei ping woon’ returned the same thing except for Google *sigh*. So to decide the winner i decided to trick around with the wording, thus ending up with ‘woon wei ping’. And we have a winner…..

Let’s line up the contestants:

And Google returned this.
Microsoft returned this.
Yahoo returned this.

Yahoo! the winner it is.

“In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards.”
Mark Twain, Following the Equator.

Ah, finally an explanation.

I am going to have 114 credit hours completed by the end of this winter semester. I need another 14 to graduate. Minus the 9 Computer Science major requirement courses, i have 5 credit hours to fill up in order to reach the 128 credit hours needed to graduate. I take it as a great opportunity for me to learn smth useful to compliment my prodigic mind. So here’s a rather interesting list that i have put up:

HMRS 2523 - Human Sexuality
ENGL 2530 - Poetry Writing
FSDT 1304 - Diet Therapy I
HMRS 1202 - Behavior Therapy
HMRS 2363 - Grieving Process *i know!*
THEA 1140 - Basic Acting

Really looking forward for next semester.

This movie suprised me in one so many ways. Many times i watched a movie, be it a good one or a lame duckie, i always felt like it was some sort of emotional torturing experience. I couldnt sat my ass down due to hypertension while watching Lord of the Ring I II III, I finished two packs of kleenex during the movie ‘In America’ and I threw my half empty cup of popcorn towards the screen while watching Gigli.

A very intelligent movie, but more importantly, Runaway Jury is suprisingly enjoyable to watch.

Ty Burr, Globe Staff summed it up pretty nicely.

……But we read beach novels to be sucked into believing the impossible, and ”Jury” is the closest cinematic approximation to a beach novel that money and skill can buy. All that’s missing is the embossed cover and the Mojito.

Led Zeppelin can come out with a greatest hit album, Celine Dion can come out with a greatest hit album and even Firehouse can come out with their 10th greatest hit album. But not Britney Spears. Yeah of course she revolutionized the pop industry, 14 year old teenies probably sing along her song for the most part of their days, or lifes, and half of dozen men on earth masturbrate with her picture on the floor. But she’s not even 24 for crying out loud, and what like 5 albums where each one of them sounds worse than the previous one, not to mention the number of clothes that fell off her body, piece by piece during the process from 1 to 5? *sigh*
Owning a Britney Spears’ greatest hit album is like having the privilege to own an aid box full of a variety of anti-depressant drugs. How can one possible stand listening to ‘Baby hit me one more time’ and follow it up in the next hour with ‘Baby hit me one more time (remix)’? You will go crazy and i tell you, by then not even an infinite amount of ‘hits’ laid upon your body will ever bring you back from this permanent state of dillusioned euphoria.

“Putting this record together was an incredible journey for me,” Britney says. “I had the freedom to explore and experiment with some of the most exciting people in music. In the end, that allowed me to make a record that is a pure reflection of where I am right now.

So exactly where are you right now?

Its thanksgiving time all over again. A great time to appreciate the things you have had in life, give your family a big hug and tell them how much you love them. I guess the phrase ‘time sure flies’ is a lil’ bit an understatement for me this time around. ‘Time sure travels in light speed’ is more like it. It seems only yesterday i was celebrating thanksgiving with my frens. We started the day by waiting outside the Best Buy store in a chilly morning at 6 a.m, getting ready to grab everything we can on the Black Friday’s sale. Ah, fond memories of the past.

My cryptography professor started the day by talking about the act of gratitude today; he had never stray off from the course topic this far before *sigh*. Anyway, he said at times when he bumped hard into a wall or felt sad/lonely/depress, he would list down all the things he’s grateful for and it would take all the unhappy feelings away.

So i thought i mght give it a try, not that i am really sad right now or anything, but just to remind myself how lucky i am. Here goes my cheesyness…

I am grateful to have such great parents. As much as i hate it when they are always right, i wouldnt be half the person i am today without their loving hands.

I am grateful i am surrounded by great frens, although a large portion of them do look geeky and dorky at times.

I am grateful for my lovely girlfriend. Right until she came into my life, the only thing i knew about love were sweet talks and flowers and physical contacts. Now there’s teddy bears, long distance phone calls and happy tears.

I guess i am just grateful to be able to do the things i love, study the things i am really interested in and work with people whom i greatly admire.

Happy thanksgiving everyone.

I’ve watched three movies in the space of two days. ‘Mr. Incredible’, ‘Finding Neverland’ and ‘Jersey girl’. All three of them were good, but i found Finding Neverland suprisingly exceptional. My friends and I werent even planning on watching the movie at first, but ‘Alexander’ was sold out so……..I did hesitated to watch this movie at first, due to the fact that i have watched two dffferent version of Peter Pan movie this year and both of them were mediocre at best. Well, this movie wasnt really about Peter Pan at all! Had i not went to the movie with tired eyes and empty stomach, i would have found myself weeping on many occasioons during the movie. Under the circumstances, one can only imagine how powerful this movie was to me. I mean i was literally like - great, so now i am tired and hungry and the movie i am so eager to watch was sold out, and now my friends want to watch another Peter Pan movie, seriously the night couldnt have been worse for me at one time. What a wonder a movie can do :grin:.

Kate Winslet was stunning - P.E.R.F.E.C.T to be precise. I am very much awared that such movie might not be well-received in Malaysia (its a drama…), but movie like this doesnt come very often, and if they do, they most certainly wont receive the credit they very well deserve. The whole storytelling process was so gently delivered and yet captivating to watch. The inclusion of Johnny Depp might as well served as an icing on top of the shortcake.

There comes a day when a movie is so divinely crafted that it runs in your head days after you’ve watched it. Yesterday was such a day.

The reason why my blogging activity has decreased in great scale recently is due to the fact that i was designing my photoblog during the whole thanksgiving break. I finally finish it, and now am waiting for my digital camera to conclude the ceremony. Most of my web designs have been of minimalist and white color theme, this doesnt differ much either. I just like the clean and white look, purist so called :D. I name it photodock. I basically combine Kubrick’s template designed by Michael Heilemann with Pictorialis, a wordpress hybrid specifically recoded for photoblogging purpose. Its not like an album type of template, i purposely made it so its more like a ‘a picture a day’ type of thing.

Visit at: http://www.photo.alvinwoon.com

I am going to present a paper with two of my classmates on Information Security day this coming Tuesday. We are going to present the topic about steganography. I dont know how many people are going to attend the talks, but damn we are not ready yet. Come everyone, the price to have the opportunity to witness Alvin’s idiotic and clueless look while on stage, scratching his head rigorously when being confronted with questions from the crowd - priceless. *sigh*