Daily misery

I’ve finally gone live!

After 2 freaking days of porting over the new design (that’s the consequences of using nightly builds instead of the stable official release of wordpress), i finally get everything but the photo section and music player in place. This feels so good! I get to release it on1.1.2005!

While i managed to port Daily Misery into a new subdomain, i had decided to get rid of the images from previous postings. This was due to the fact that i was reorganizing my image folder and under certain circumstances, deleting all of the image archives would seem to be a more feasible move.

Happy New Year everyone!

Before i start my listing, just want to let everyone knows that i’d just watched ‘A Beautiful Mind’ for the third time. Third time is still a charm and again there were tears in my eyes when J. Nash gave his speech in the Nobel Price ceremony. It has come to my realization that sometimes it takes movie as such for mass public to truly appreciate what academia scholars have brought to ensure continuing growth in human civilization.

Now, lets head into my 2005’s resolution.

• 1.) Try to fulfill my long overdue 2004’s resolution (2003’s in some cases).
  2.) Hope i will get a job after i graduate this coming May and start sending money back to my parent. The longer it takes me to achieve this, the less i will think of myself.
  3.) Try to be nicer to the people i am not very fond of all this while.
  4.) Hope i can meet Karen sometime this year.
  5.) Learn how to make cheesecake for myself.
  6.) Spend less time in front of the pc, more outside with birds and squirrels.
  7.) Love, love more.

Now, what’s yours?

While i was digging through my stacks of cd-back up data, i found this rather interesting piece of art performed by none other than me myself during my first semester here in UNL. This is a classic face-switching snapshots, i can guarantee!

See i was trying to emulate this magnet sticker back then:

And here’s my version. Well sort of, give or take a couple emotions.

Pheuwww…that was hell lot of images to upload.

I was having a little chat with Akira just now and realize that all men(excluding spoiled rich kids) encountered the same problem when deciding what to buy their gf during special occasions - finding the right balance between the depthness of your love for her with the depthness of your money pocket.

Akira wants to buy his gf a birth stone come her birthday on this coming April. And the birth stone for the month of April? Diamond. Poor kid~

Unfortunately, he is just like me, a college student with no consistent monthly income, further burdened by the ever-increasing tuition bills. He is also just like everyone else in the elite manhood village - he loves his gf very much and wishes there’s something he can do to give her more. Well, i feel for you pal. The classic excuse of ‘love me for what i am’ is still usable, you know, as a last resort thingy. Feels like doing a Lobo’s, eh.

I wore the clothes you liked
You said they gave me that look
I even tried to like the food
I know you like to cook
I parted my hair on the left
I carried your arm on the right
I slept late in the morning
And I stayed out late at night.
I can’t give any more of my soul away
And still look myself in the mirror everyday
I can’t change any more
of what makes me be myself
And still have enough left
not to be somebody else
I’m not demanding as a man
Just asking you - love me for what I am.
I tried hard not to say
the things you don’t like to hear
And when to you it was apropos
I nibbled on your ear
I opened the door up for you
I kept my big mouth shut
Well I’ve been going down
While you’ve been going up

Sometimes it takes massive trajedy of such magnitude to make the world come together. Sad, but true.

At the Elysee Palace in Paris, a somber President Jacques Chirac observed the tribute with government officials and about 600 civil servants. In Brussels, hundreds of officials gathered outside European Union (news - web sites) headquarters to pay their respects as flags flew at half-staff.

At Europe’s busiest airport, London’s Heathrow, all takeoffs and landings were suspended for five minutes to not disturb the silence. Pilots were told not to taxi or even start their engines.

As the board flashed noon at the Frankfurt, Germany, stock exchange, traders turned their backs to their screens, some with eyes closed. The regularly buzzing trading floor fell quiet, with only the ringing of unanswered phones and the hum of tickers audible. At least 60 Germans died in the disaster — the highest official toll of foreigners so far — and another 1,000 remain missing

Spanish National Television’s two channels broadcast images of the effects of the tsunami. The national radio station played choral music and read out damage reports. Most other private TV channels and radio stations continued with their normal broadcasts.

Britain’s Independent newspaper ran a white front page, blank save for the words: “To remember the tsunami victims … silence.”

In Rome, hundreds gathered outside the town hall, many with tears in their eyes, as bells tolled in several nearby churches.

Read more about the day of commemoration for the tsunami victims here.

Today is my mom’s birthday. I want to take this opportunity to wish her a very lifetime of good health and happy birthday.

Beloved son,
Alvin.

Cheers, the photo gallery page is up. Thanks to the brilliant simple PHP gallery script by Paul Griffin. Right now there isnt a lot of images being uploaded but rest assure the gallery will increases in size over time. I am still coding the flash player as it gets pretty annoying when it starts to play songs without having users clicking on the ‘play’ button. Webpage with sounds equals to bad usability and accessibility, i should’ve known that.

Next, this piece of comic by Sergio Villareal. It cracked me up big time. The words pretty much put everything in perspective.

After enduring a long, overdue and exhausting journey, Karen’s Christmas present finally arrived safely in front of my door step. I gracefully grabbed it up and one can easily saw the widest grin beaming from my face. With the most gentle touch, I carefully opened the parcel. Wrapped beautifully inside were 2 cards and this cute beanie cap. I wont want to distort the posture of DM’s readers body hairs by disclosing the contents of the cards, but yeah, they pretty much fell in the parental advisory category. Let’s head to the cap, it was cute. I can really make use of this thing, especially when the weather temperature hovers around 5 to 10 Fahrenheit right now (about -15 celcius). Its going to be a long and cold semester when school starts this coming monday. I dont have to rub my ears everytime i come back from outside anymore! Wee!

Oh, as per Karen’s request, here’s a snapshot of Alvin with the beanie cap. Please do ignore the unbearable view of my closet, i had to hang all my laundry because all the damn dryers broke down. Its almost about time to move.

I assume its ok to be a lil’ bit cheesy now before i close this entry.

Ahem.

I went for dinner at Olive garden with some of my ‘Abelian’ friends yesterday evening. Abelian means people who used to spend time washing dormitory restrooms for a living. Yep that’s us! Maybe we should skip that part. Anyway, it’s been such a long time since i last saw these three donkeys. Susan just came back from a month long trip to western US, jumping from places like Seattle to San Diego. Rohit graduated and is now working at a local Lincoln’s company. Andrea seemed very happy with her new work place, which is always a good thing. Now, let me introduce the crews.

Here’s Susan and Rohit. Susan is the sweet, solf-talking girl from Miri, Sarawak. Rohit is this tall, thin yet brilliant guy from India. Second picture shows the lovely Andrea. She is always smiling.

Here’s me and Rohit. The pan-cute head by head thing only works when both people are actually doing it you know, ROHIT!

And the food: starts with the appetizer which was served with salads and yummy buns. Next on the line is my main dish, the mixed grill. As soon as i saw the gigantic size of this thing (the photo is lying!), i knew i was never going to have any chance to taste their cheesecake with raspberry toppings.

Let me wrap things up with this cutie-patutie picture of Andrea and Susan. Rohit, that’s how we were supposed to do it!

>> It was the first day of school. My schedule sucked big time this time around. I got a class from 9.30 to 10.20, followed by the next one at 12.30 till 1.20. What am i suppose to do in that 2 hours time space. I tried to kill that time slot on the first day by attempting to do a sit-in in a Japanese lingua class. Turn out most of the students in that class were male, that just instantly killed the fun factor for me. See most of my CS class are already filled with male students, so i need a little co-ed environment to reaffirm my masculinity, so called.

>> After only the first few days of the monthly web-hosting cycle, Daily Misery had already consumed more than 1GB of the server bandwidth. Could it be a wordpress inner-working problem, or were there more people dropping by this site now, or simply the flash header was taking all the bandwidth? After i checked the web stats today, i found out the number of unique visitors had skyrocketed in the past few weeks, with many new unique IP appearing at the rate of tens everyday (spammers maybe?). At this rate, i afraid my monthly hosting package of 20GB bandwidth per month might just be able to cut it, hopefully.

>> I am really upset with the Malaysia postal service. Every single time, they lost my…. (why am i even wasting my time to write about this?!)

>> Feed on feeds is a must have for those who constantly reads articles from websites that provide rss/atom feeds. Unlike most desktop newsreaders, FOF is a server-side newsreader which means you can read news from your subscription/bookmarks sites from virtually anywhere provided you have internet access and a web browser. This software is so freaking cool, now i can read slashdot, Yahoo news, many many of my favourite blogs and xpbargains from one single browser window!

Update (2 hours later): I was told in class that the Software Engineering course for this semester had been canceled! Great, oh so great. No seriously. Now i can actually enroll for the Internet system and programming class that i had been drooling for ever since it was announced in the bulletin but unable to take it due to the fact that i have already fulfilled all my CS credits requirement. I have had quite a bit of hands-on experience with various internet programming language and really looking forward to learn more from this class. I just wish the faculty have told us earlier about the course cancellation. Anyway here’s the internet programming class description:

The special topics course, CSCE496/896 XML, has been a placeholder for a new course CSCE464/864 Internet Systems and Programming.
A survey of paradigms, systems, and languages for Internet applications, including client-side and server-side programming, object-based and event-based distributed programming, and multi-tier applications, object-based and event-based distributed programming, and multi-tier
applications.
Coverage this semester will XML, XHTML, HTTP, CSS, DHTML, JavaScript, DOM, CGI, Perl, PHP, distributed SQL services, Java applets, servlets, JavaServer Pages, and Web services. It is a great course for acquiring valuable technical skills as well as a larger perspective on Internet systems.
This course has been offered previously as a special topics course and counts:
* in the software track and 4xx level requirements for the bachelor degree in computer science,
* in the software systems technical elective area for the bachelor degree in computer engineering, and in the systems track for the graduate programs.
Register for this course as CSCE496/896, Section 3, Call Numbers: 7778/7779. I hope to see you there. It is a fun course.

Essential ingredients to lead a successful life.

Using Terraserver’s satellite map software, i was able to pinpoint the area map around my residence. It has only been a few years back when i first watched ‘Enemy of the State’ starring Will Smith. Satellites surveillance technology was showed in great details in the movie, where high-powered satellites could zoom in till the very inch of almost anywhere on earth and produced ultra-high resolution pictures or motion videos to capture a specific target. Now almost everyone can do it from their home computer. According to terraserver’s website:

• “You can easily navigate the enormous amount of information in TerraServer by selecting a location on a map or entering a place name. And now, a new Web service–called TerraServer.NET–enables Web developers to easily integrate TerraServer data into their own applications.”

Does that not scare you? It scares me a little.

Mmmm……mmmm…..it was good.
Heck, it was an awesome movie.
Shut up! It was the best movie i’d seen this year (its January, but still!)
Zach Braff, you, yeah you. I am gonna keep an eye on you closely from now on.

Now all of you say this with me:

“So how much you have to pay for this browser you have been talking about?”

“Oh, its free.”

“So is it like a shareware thing or ?”

“Nope, its free.”

“Does it come with spyware, you know, like kazaa and how about those advertising pop ups?”

“Nothing as such, i said its free.”

“You mean its like free FREE?”

“Yes, its freaking free!” *me, growing impatient…*

“Nothing in this world is free. And if its really free, maybe it isnt such a great software afterall..”

* I walked away, fearing i might started to take off one of my boots and stucked it into his big-ass mouth in any minutes.*

You wont believe how many times I have had such repetitive, identical conversations while trying to recommend OOS software like firefox, Gaim or Sygate to other people when they come to me crying about how their PC f***s their life up. First thing first, we, Computer Science students dont have a single clue why your Windows stops responding to your mouse clicks, or why your Internet Explorer starts behaving weirdly, or what is the best RAM in the market or simply why your internet connection slows down so badly you cant stream porn anymore with your mp3 player. WE DONT KNOW, because we dont learn such things in our syllabus. Now, after clearing this huge common misperception of what many people think of CS students are, let us head over to flaming part II.

The thing is, there are a lot of dumb people around us. There’s probably one beside you right now, and rest assure they will be the last species to extinct in this big wholly earth due to the fact that there are just SO MANY of them. These are the same people who worship certain proprietary softwares to the very end of their ignorant life but then start whining:”what happen to my pc?” when in fact its their window OS got hijacked by spywares, or simply because its time to run their ever-so-dependable auto-update again. Read my lips, nothing happen to your pc, its your Windows OS, and no, Microsoft’s Window does not equal to PC just as Internet Explorer does not equal to the Internet. These are the same type of people who come out to me and say:” Can you help to reformat my pc, i think i just got hit by a virus…” These are also the same type of people who would happily open emails with porn headings and atttachments of the size of BigMac. I know this is probably a harsh generalization of mine, but i can tell you, i am not too far off.

Dumb people will never buy the fact that some brilliant programmers would actually spend hours coding softwares and release them for free. Even if they do finally understand that, you can be sure they will start whining not so long after when they find out certain OSS are not entirely free as per se (some professional technical supports for instance). Even the word ‘DONATION’ is enough to generate an overhyped sense of phobia among them. As one of my friends who studies PHP like a religion puts it:”they will never understand the true spirit of OSS”. Nor will they ever understand why anyone would do that, or why is it so important that codes are being made public, just like why they dont understand why we cant fix their computers (we probably can, but many times we just dont feel like to).

I have got to chill~~

Btw, Bonnie Sommerville just took over from Elliot Smith :). So clear your cache and check out this fabulous song titled ‘winding road’ from her.

Can i be any more superstitious in my desperate attempt to improve my programming skills?

Many girls talk about their teddy bears all the time, but not boys. Its more like the taboo thing where you dont say ‘I love you’ to your girlfriend in front of your guy friends. As stupid as some of these subculture, outdated thinkings might sound, those actions still remain as one of the few unforgiven acts within the manhood fellowship. And I am placing my future, career and my existing circle of friends in huge risk by writing this entry - that I have a teddy bear. For those who had already passed out when I made the first exclusive disclosure, good for you. For those who survived it, here’s another one - my teddy has a name. Its a HE and his name is NOEL (No·ël).

*I would assume everyone’s dead by now, either by laughing to death or shocked to death or simply by dont-know-how-to-react to death*

Wokay, now that we’ve smashed the taboo into infinite pieces of uh…little broken taboos, let me introduce you to Noel - the great egoistic bear. Karen made me adopted him when we were celebrating my 20th birthday 3 years back. Little I could do back then since I badly wanted our first kiss that night, so I promptly complied. He has been with me ever since, crossing tens of thousands of miles from Malaysia to US, sleeping in the same bed with me and take care of my well being . In fact, he is solely responsible for many of my sweet dream sleeps. Whenever I have a deja-vu in my dream that some ugly looking, blood-sucking demons with oversized boobs are going to turn my cozy night into a nightmare, Noel will appears in my dream with his rusted Excalibur and protects me in anyway he can possibly think of. I am serious.

Here’s a few random facts about Noel.

• » He always sleeps at the top right side of my shoulder.
• » He wears a Rosary around his neck. He’s not that holy; I caught him watching Playboy one time! Wait, that was actually me..
• » Karen loves to spray her favourite perfume onto his sweater. He doesnt complain. I cant complain. Sometimes I really think we are not that different.
• » Noel was humping male dolls quite a lot lately. I never judge him. Karen and I had promised to love him no matter what’s his choice of sexual orientation might be. We will also stand right behind him should he decides to join the military or anti-globalization rally.
• » Noel rarely smiles. He has always wanted to quash the stereotype that all teddy bears are cute and adorable.
• » I didnt pack him into one of those sad looking postal box when Karen and I had a ‘temporary break-up’ a while back. He and I have so much history. Besides, he told me he was scared of dark.
• » I’ve never said ‘thank you’ to him when he chased away those demons. I never say ‘Good Morning’ to him either when i wake up every morning. I never say anything nice to him. Yet he is always there.

Attending Applied Ethics class is proven to be an unheathy activity for people with dysfunctional way of thinking. According to my psychiatrist, I belong to that group of people.

Here’s some of the topics we are going to cover in class:

If you happen to be one of Daily Misery’s veteran readers, you would probably be familiar with some of my positions/beliefs in regards to some of these ethical issues, and you are probably aware that I did write about them from time to time (not very often ever since Bush won the reelection). I believe this class is going to be of good value to me as I am sure I would be exposed to many other kinds of alternative thinkings that might serves as a way of learning new things and enhancing my knowledge of how critical thoughts are constructed and supported. I wont be suprised if some of my initial beliefs are gradually be substituted partially or wholly by alternative views come the end of this semester. But that is before my psychiatrist cum psychologist perscribed me with these following words:

“Judging from your passiveness and openness in expressing/accepting views about ethical values, you should probably stay away from disclosing, discussing or even write about your ethical views in public. You are also strongly advised to reject any sort of politically-oriented thinking as it is essentially a hopeless waste of intellectual effort (for people like you).”

I need a new psychiatrist, any good recommendation anyone?

* I learned a new word in class today - Beastiality. It means sex with animal. What?! I never came across this word before, seriously. *
* Also if anyone of you happen to be interested in what I think in regards to issues above, just drop a comment. I cant promise its something you would like to hear, but I can promise that I will be honest.*

If you think Remember the Titans is good, you should definitely catch this one. But you will love this movie even if you are not a football fan (of which I am not).

Oh, here’s the trailer.
This movie is probably the best sport movie ever made, period. Kleenex might come in handy if you plan to watch it.

No seriously, watch it.

If you can meet Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet W.D. Snodgrass, Academy of American Poets Past Chancellor, David Wagoner, Dr. Herbert Woodward Martin, Dr. Len Roberts and living legend Florence Henderson all at one time, will you? You bet I will run around naked just to shake their hands.

The chance presented itself when my poem got nominated for the grand prize in the International poetry competition, or something like that (I totally forgot about the whole thing until one of DailyMisery’s reader hat tipped me when she saw my poem in their online publication). I am supposed to go to this Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, for their awards presentation convention from February 25-27, 2005. As soon as they mentioned that travel expense will not be covered, I knew I can only kiss all those poet superstars bye bye. Their appearance is probably the only thing that makes the trip worth going to, but no money. I really want to meet W.D. Snodgrass especially, I’ve read some of his poems and they are pure classic in a sense that:

• 1.) I dont understand the stuff he wrote .
• 2.) I sort of understand the stuff he wrote and I sort of think they’re beautiful.
• 3.) He writes honest stuff, no bullshit or flowers or trees or sky.

See if I can actually meet him, I can ask him all the questions about the stuff he wrote that I dont understand. THat would be awesome. *Alvin clapping rigorously*

*sigh* Click read more if you want to read their letter of invitation. Oh by the way they are going to published a book with all the finalists poems in it. Now if only someone can actually buy that book and send it to me as a gift……..
(more…)

NARUTO IS BACK! NARUTO IS BACK! My life had been so empty ever since Naruto went hiatus for months starting November last year.

I am so spoiled by this comic. *sigh*

“Alvin, are you ready yet?”

“Yes mom…”

“Now be a good boy today, dont cry like last time. Its embarassing.”

“But I dont want to go….. I hate piano. I just want to play my LEGO.”

“Its only for an hour, your sister is going too.”

“Allright…”

I started attending piano lessons at a very young age (8 maybe?). Back then, my sister, Karen (not to be mistaken with my gf - Karen also) who is one year younger than me, took it together with me. I dropped out after one month but she carried on until recently when she got her 14th grade piano distinction.

I’ve always think the sexiest man on earth is the male pianist. I still do. Its funny how I’ve never came to terms with myself about why I would be so unhappy on attending piano lessons back then. Maybe it was because of the classroom smell, maybe the instructor is a very fierce looking creepy woman, or maybe I just want to play my LEGO and not do anything else but keep building my little pirate island of the block paradise within my own imaginary utopia.

I love piano. I love piano music and I love Keane. I also love classical music that has piano as their main concerto. I love when my sister practices her piano although it can be very irritating at times when the sound totally fills up the space of the house and drowns my 3d gaming sound. Thinking back, I wish my mom had been more dictactoring on me regarding this matter. I wish she would see me through those lessons and leaved me alone in the cold dark room crying by myself. But nah, my crying was probably loud enough to make her ears bleed - it was that bad. Besides, she did let me take taekwondo classes instead, which too didnt last very long after I was kicked right in my face during a district level competition back then. Oh yeah, I cried like a baby right on the spot and my coach couldnt do nothing but to throw the white towel (signalling surrender) into the ring. Apparently I do not have many fond memories I can be proud of when I was little.

Now, I can only stand by Karen’s side and watch her fingers dance through the blocks of black and white wooden nodes, guided by the melody notes of Gerard Hengeveld, Hélène Grimaud, Yundi Li, Hans Richter-Haaser and many others. All with such a soft, mellow flow and she obviously did it with such an apparent ease.

If you cant be a pianist, you might as well have one in your family.