Month: January 2003 (Page 2 of 2)

I was meaning to get the site revamped earlier (yes, front end this time!
This site has been sporting the same look and feel for the last year
and a half already!) but there’s just tons of other things that I gotta do
(not bad for someone who’s not exactly working, eh? ;) that I just have
to put it off for now (for the, I don’t know… 258th time? :P). I’m
posting the stuff I’ve been writing offline for the last two weeks or so. I
know it’s cheating but seems to me like some people actually pay
attention to all the rambling I do here so we don’t wanna disappoint
them now do we? ;) To all you people who bother coming here either
daily or time to time, THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!

On another note, Spoonfork
has ceased blogging for now. I do hope that he’s gonna bring it back
sometime later.

Took White White (the cat) back home today. He doesn’t look good. At
least he’s back and seems like he’s happy to be home now, rather than
being caged up at the vet and hooked up to an IV for drips. As
mentioned in my previous post,
we’ll just have to wait it out and see.

I’ve been spending quite a considerable time being on the road within
the Klang Valley lately. And those who know me know what I usually
have to say about it: unnecessary stress. There was a MASSIVE traffic
jam for motorists heading into the city area this afternoon. I just can’t
help but wonder just what on earth were these people who design the
roads thinking? With the exception of highways, I do not know if
smooth traffic flow was ever a criteria considered in constructing roads
within KL/PJ. They seem to be taking a reactionary approach to things
rather than planning a long term solution, much like giving painkillers
to patients for temporary relief rather than taking care of it at the root
cause of the pain. Sure, they can widen the road all they want, but
when it comes to the other end of the road, it gets bottlenecked to one
lane again. Other factors they forgot to consider when designing roads
in Malaysia include for use by motorcycles, buses, construction trucks
and of course, Malaysian driving habits. With respect to building roads
in the city, the approach here is the reverse of the norm, i.e. you put
up buildings first then build roads around it. Perhaps there really is
nothing much that can be done but at least put some thought into it
before wasting precious tax-payers money. Oh yeah, new roads that
are opened here comes with the obligatory toll-gates that charges
motorists so unreasonably that most drivers would avoid using it and
stick with the toll-free road anyway (think Kerinchi Highway)

Enough bitching. You can tell I really don’t like driving around the Klang
Valley, can’t you? :\

White White, the family cat of 16 (yes — one six, sixteen) years, hasn’t
been well lately. He hasn’t been eating much for the last couple of days
and has become dehydrated. So we sent him to the vet this afternoon
and it doesn’t look good. If he suffers from functional kidney failure
then there’s not much that can be done. He’s already very well passed
most cat’s usual life expectancy. We’ll just have to wait it out, I guess.
We’re leaving him at the vet for a couple of days just to see if he could
recover, if at all.

Spent the afternoon lepak-ing (hang out lah!) at Gloria Jeans,
KLCC with Albert
and Shaz of
the Xfresh.com
fame. Airzed is
having a free trial of wireless Internet usage at the vicinity so we
brought our laptops equipped with 802.11b WiFi cards for a spin. Not
too bad. We were downloading stuff from the Internet like nobody’s
business (also helped by the fact that no one else was using the
wireless facilities besides us!). Of course, this by all means is too
geekish of a way to pick up girls or ladies. Unless they too are the
geeky ones (nahh, not likely). Besides, I don’t think I can spend too
much time at places like that everyday. Let’s see if there are any
mamak stalls out there willing to do something like this. For one
regular iced mocha, I can get a few teh-o-ais or teh ais limau. :P

Sidenote: Funny how I can just get on to the Internet as soon as I turn
my laptop on whereas Shaz had to sign-up and authenticate first in
order to get on to the Internet. Also, peer-to-peer networking, i.e.
doing simple file sharing between laptops, is not possible over the local
WLAN (IPSec between the AP and laptop?). I guess I still have to keep
that cross-cable handy when I go to these places then in case I wanna
copy files over. Bahh!

I just sat for one of the Microsoft Certified Professional
exams this afternoon. I still object to such certifications ‘cos really, I do
not see the point of it. It’s really a product/technology centric test and
with Microsoft updating their products/technology on a very short cycle,
the certification becomes obsolete just as soon as the product/technology
goes through an update. I would rather be tested on understanding the
fundamentals and principles of systems administration or design
instead since that would have a broader scope and will not reach
obsolence just as quickly, if ever. The exam already costs quite a bit
and the idea of having to fork out that much money to recertify yourself
after every product cycle seems pointless. You don’t have to re-obtain
your college/uni degree, do you?

Anyway, the thing was a cinch, I passed. The only thing it wasn’t easy
on was the wallet. :P So, why did I take the exam anyway? Let’s just say
it’s a requirement to get something going on for now. Microsoft sure
has a way of making sure money comes in by various means.

Update: I just found the presence of so called
Braindump
sites (for Dumb Brains, if you ask me). With these kind of things being
out there, doesn’t this “cheapen” the value of such certifications anyway?

Just spent the day cleaning up my room. The desk by the window really
needed to be clear of the clutter. :P Too many bits and pieces of
printouts, cables, old bills, receipts, statements, etc. etc. were lying
around. Out with the old, and let the new printouts, cables, bills,
receipts, statements, etc. etc. accumulate! I’ll be doing the same thing
in another 365 days from now… :P

We’re on the verge of leaving 2002 and ushering in 2003. So how has
2002 been? In a nutshell, it was a year quite littered with personal
angsts. There were just too many things that I was pissed off with
and most of it were due to things I had no control over. Things weren’t
all that bad though. There were the occasional happy moments that
temporarily eclipsed the bad things. Then of course, towards the end
of the year, things did look up a bit, mostly due to
Adik’s Wedding (Heh! I still
can’t stop hyping it! :P)

Anyways, so how does this line things up for 2003? If 2002 was the
year I lost control, 2003 is the year I hope to take control again. Look
at it this way: At least if I screw it up, I’ll just be angry with me and not
anyone else ‘cos it’s my own doing. ;)

Happy two double-oh three, y’all…