As Mælström Sees It

A rant that never ends

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 09:31:00 +0000

I have been assigned to an overseas assignment in Yanbu Industrial City, Saudi Arabia since July 2008. This is due to the less workload in KL office so they outsource some employees here and there, mostly to another branch just to make money out of it. They ‘sell’ us at considerably high rate and for us? We only earn peanuts. There were a few assignments, namely in Chile, Australia and Saudi. I opted for Australia but some older colleagues managed to grab it earlier, so I settled for Saudi instead since nobody wants to go except a few younger dudes.

I wondered why all of a sudden, the HQ (located somewhere in Norway) chose KL office to supply engineers to ‘assist’ this project. It turned out that this is one fucked up project. It’s way behind schedule, it should be finished somewhere in May 2008 but now it’s still loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong way to go. The culprit? EPCC (engineering, procurement and construction) for this project were awarded to our branch in Holland and a big engineering conglomerate in China. It’s a JV. Construction was indeed halted at various areas due to flaws during engineering design. Those chaps involved got away (successfully) and left everything to the construction team. It’s like designing a car without telling correctly on how to create a wheel, for god sake! Worse still, the customer keeps asking everyday on when you gonna hand over the car to them. Being stucked in the middle makes your life miserable every single day.

That’s why colleague from other branches are clever enough not to come to this hell hole to wipe all the scattered shit left by the dutchie. And yet, KL branch’s corporate blindly agree to send their subordinate because they don’t know shit on how to make money by themselves.

Having said all that, I forced myself to go as this is my first site experience (could be considered the worst, depicted from a bloke from Grimsby who have been experience site work for almost 20 years) and….. to earn those peanuts which is nearly impossible to get in KL.

Life couldn’t have been ‘easier’, till I meet the Arabs. (to be continued)

Stereotype Malaysian

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Thu, 29 May 2008 16:12:00 +0000

Following article is intended to be a leisure read. Pun is intentional becase I’m currently bored and if you’re too easily offended, GTFO.

Sometimes we can’t get enough making fun of other language as we found out that it’s sounds weird in nature and totally incomprehensible even a single word.

Chinese language for instance, inclusive of all slang, generally would sound to others as “cheng ching chong ching cheng”... all the way until the end of conversation. Some dramas or movies from mainland focusing on martial arts or old Chinese dynasty would apply anger and seriousness into the language due the fact that most of the genres were in fact all about war. At certain point we wondered why they are angry so much among each other but they still hold the title as the most productive race in the world today. 3 billions? This means you don’t have to be happy in order to have a ‘big’ family.

Indian language? Typical Malaysian would simply divide this into Tamil and Hindi. Comparison was made back in the old days of early 90’s where Tamil and Hindi movies were aired on TV2 & TV3 on Saturdays respectively. As a kid, I found that the one on TV3 sounded better as it is softer more pleased to be heard. TV2? You tell me. The characters talked as fast as human could be able to. At the same time, the head of the speaker moved as he was trying to draw number eight using his mouth. But I think Malaysian version of Tamil have been toned down a little bit throughout the years and not like what it is in the far south of India.

I admit I sounded mean but really, it is funny.

How about Malay language? I’m a Malay that could understand my own language and the way we talk. So there is no room for me to nitpick any funny parts of my own language because I do understand and practice it everyday as a routine. The same applies to Chinese and Indian as well. Right?

To my own amusement, I wonder how Chinese and Indians would react to any funny part of Malay language, if any.

LOL. I’m off to sleep.

PRU 12

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 10:29:00 +0000

I was wrong.

It's really time for a change.

Hahaha.

Here we go again, same shit, different year.

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 13:18:00 +0000

I was m.i.a for exactly 1 month. It doesn’t really matter. A few people got pwned as promised and more to come as the time goes.

General Election is around the corner and for the second time in a row, I still won’t cast my vote. I’m going to stay at home screening the progress and waiting for the result to be revealed at night. Unlike other excited youngsters who are eligible to vote for the first time and which some of them really boast to the masses on which side they’re going to vote, this G.E. won’t even float my boat, really. I mean, who cares if you’re already know who’s going to win anyway? This goes without saying but if this statement is to be heard by those so called liberalist, most likely they’re going to say typical school textbook stuff that goes like this:

“It’s the kind of people like you who don’t contribute anything to the country.”
“It’s the kind of people like you who easily forget about our ancestors who fought for the independence”
“It’s the kind of people like you who don’t care about your children’s’ future”

Hahaha. Come on! Why am I going to waste my energy queuing at the ballot booth to cast my vote, my choice, my hope because in the end, it will always be neglected. Take for example if the outcome is not as expected to be:

a) There will be a backup ballot box full of fake votes which were already crossed to that-ahem-party if ‘something goes wrong’.

b) There will be few recounts if the parliamentary seats of those big shots and big fishes of the current G if the first count doesn’t bias on their side.

c) There are a lot of buses full of voters who most of them are not even Malaysian citizens. These buses can be seen at parliamentary seats that are long held by I-think-you-know-who-I’m-going-to-say.

d) SPR = Full of dickheads.

For those who are going, I hope you guys can still remember on what have been going on for the past four years. Do ponder all of these things below while waiting for your turn to make the choice:

a) 2005 – RM0.30 hike of petrol price had triggered the uproar of almost all Malaysian citizens which was not acceptable at all. It was said the subsidy was reduced for the sake of improving public transportation facilities with the projected amount RM4 Billion (that is RM 4,000,000,000) saving. Few months before, we all heard that MAS was bailed out of a figure that close to RM3 Billion to prevent them from embracing bankruptcy. So, was it coincidence? Regarding the plan of improving transportation, is it any better? All LRT services keeps breaking down forcing thousands of commuters who bought the season passes to fork out more for taxi and busses without fully utilizing the season pass fees that they paid for each month. Still, Syarikat Prasarana who controlling all the LRT keeps their mouth shut and there were no plan to refund the money to their loyal subscribers. Don’t you remember?

b) Rafidah? – This AP Makcik has been absent from appearing on any media for quite sometime now even though the general election campaign has started. So, what happened to the AP case? After the ding dongs hoo haas of exposing quite a number of AP kings and the sheddings of some tears from The AP Makcik, nothing was actually revealed on how this AP kings got their hands on the large number of AP which were awarded to them. This case has been hanging since then and still not resolved. Don’t you remember?

c) Altaaaannntuuuuuuyaaaaaaa Shaaaaaaariiiiiiiiibuuuuuuuuuu – It’s Najib. Enough said.

d) Mr Zakaria from Klang. This thick face ass is still brave to announce that most people have forgotten about the case of his mansion. Now he’s ready to participate in the election.

e) Eric Chia is still out there as we speak.

f) Samy Velu? Hahaha.

Well, whoever you vote, if SPR is still in the tight grasp of the so called G. Then you’ll already know who’s going to win.

2008’s 1st pwn victim: Gunung Stong, Kelantan

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 14:28:00 +0000

The pwnage lasted for 4 days. There were 30 of us, mostly AKE employees whom had enough of workloads and hunger for relief which leads to this pwnage activity.

Thursday, January 31st.
It’s actually a normal working day. I didn’t apply for a leave unlike most of us do as they have to take a good rest and be prepared for the trip. A L.A.M.E excuse I would say. I myself went to work that day except I wore proper hiking attire complete with backpack full of camping equipments. All set to go! The rendezvous point was at KL Sentral as we were gonna catch a train to Dabong, Kelantan at 2030. At exactly 1700, Fazrin, Zaid and myself left the office and headed to KLCC’s Putra LRT. As we walk through Suria KLCC, shoppers and bystanders looked at us like we are some sort of freak. Could be, for we were loafing around shopping complex with ten-fold kilo bagpack on the back. Zaid was ought to be blamed for this because he wore complete army camouflage outfit with 2 lines of ink smudged at each side of his cheek (yes I'm lying).

This is the first true train ride for me. STAR, PUTRA and MONORAIL can be considered ‘fake train’ because the longest ride I had ever experienced was only 1-2 hour (due to ever popular inefficient Malaysia’s public transport) and just circulated around the town. This time is purely lethal. It’s bone crunching and anti-comfy ride. Plus, it would take circa 12 hours due to the interchange point which is ONLY located at the far south which means, we will be heading to south and going back to north and straight to the east. Heck, this is what I heard from others, and this is the time for me to embrace the truth.

It was my fault by the way for I haven’t chose the slightly more expensive coach that provides the double decked bed. I thought it’s okay to choose the seated package as I was hoping the ride is more or less the same as I would get in a bus. Far off! As the train building speed, it trembles due to the uneven surface of aeging railway. The 12 hours were spent mostly on playing cards, chatting and cocking on just about everything. How I wish that I could sleep in such predicament? Well, the body couldn’t take it then the mind was forced to decide that I should sleep. Finally, I was off.

Friday, February 1st.

About 10 to 8am, we reached at Dabong train station. It was particularly small. Way smaller than a decent sized LRT station that we could find around KL. I took a pee after the train became stationary. There’s no way in hell I could do it while the train was moving and trembling. My fresh urine will be splashed all over the place! Hahaha. Luckily I didn’t had any fatigue as I was expected for the last 12 hours journey. There was a small restaurant located nearby. It’s the only place where we can have breakfast. All of them were there, except myself being the last one who just got off the train.

“Are you sure you wanna do this?” – Kamarul
“Yeah why not?” – Me
“Then why you refuse to get off the train?”
“I went to the loo.”
“Really? While the train stops?”
“Definitely la”
“You didn’t read the sign? It says there you shouldn’t deposit anything when the train stops”
“Ha?”

Yes it’s true. Even though there’s no slight relevant explanation to that. The problem about the KTM train is that there is no sewage system at all! Our deposits will go straight to the ground because piping and storage tanks don’t exist. Our faeces won’t break to pieces is the reason why they don’t allow passenger to do it while the train stops. Else, train station will be covered by weird smell and wetted with urine. Funny thing. I didn’t aware about that. But then, how about people who lives nearby the railways? It’s going to be horrible when train passes by their house everyday! Some kids also treat the railway as their playground and some local music production house that often uses the railway as the theme for their latest Anuar Zain gay looking video clips. How’s that?

We did some stretching to loosen up the muscles to avoid any sort of cramps on our way up. According to those who had already went, it’s going to take less than two hours but I bet it’s gonna be more as this is the first time for most of us here.

Less drama. Nobody was hurt but some were experiencing fatigue and slight cramp. The few kilometer comprise various types of terrain. 0 degrees, 45 degrees, 90 degrees, you name it. It’s not quite a problem since most of it were already explored and some tough terrain was equipped with steel chains so it’s easier for us to climb. Nevertheless, if anyone slipped, just even once, they gonna slide all the way down the ravine and all of us will vouch for it will make it to the front page of each and every national newspaper tomorrow morning.

Finally we arrived at the peak. We relaxed on the bank, full of rock near the ravine. It was scary moment, if there’s any chance for anyone to trip on their feet, the person shall bungee all the way down but he won’t bounced right up again as there’s no elastic rope tied around the feet.

Tents for all groups and lunch were set up. Some went to the waterfalls. The water is very clean and one could take a sip without worry about it being contaminated (just yet).

All of a sudden, rain hits. All went inside the tent till the rain stops. I heard about kepala air (water head?) that normally happen on waterfall during rain. It’s a surge of water from the top of mountain and merges with the flow of waterfall producing some kind of continuous tsunami. It was fortunate our campsite was located on higher ground but we still felt water mists flew all over us. Even my camera got wet. It eased down as the dusk emerged.

We had dinner afterwards. No specific activity planned for the night. Everybody was free to do just about everything.

Yes. E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G

Well don’t get me wrong, not to the extent that we gonna organize some gangbangs or whatnot. All of us are civilized Malaysians ok?

Saturday, February 2nd.

We were required to wake up around 6am to go to the waterfall bank to watch the sunrise. I brought along my tripod and camera. All set up for that very event. I was told that the view will be astonishing as the rain washed off the atmosphere last night to ensure a clear sky for us.

It turned out not as I expected to be. As the sun emerged, we only managed to witness only slightly. The sun was obscured by the thick cloud. Sigh. There goes our hope. Lol.

Right after breakfast, another journey was set. We left all of our things at campsite to explore more of Stong’s beauty. This time it’s way lot easier since we brought no load at all. It took about 1 hour to reach another waterfall located deep inside the woods. The water was chilly, clean and pure. Better than the tap water at home. I wish I could build a house up there. Provided if I can get my hands on to Doraemon’s pintu suka hati and 4MBPS wireless internet connection. That’s all I need.

Then it’s time to pack and leave the place. Another team has waited for us to claim the campsite. We left a lots of excess food to them. Rain was going to pour in no time. We got to get going because the soil is going to be slippery and it’s tough for us to get down. This time was easier since we haven’t had to fight with the gravity. It’s just that more stress will be focused from the waist all the way down to the feet due to the momentum we had to absorb.

Once we reached the bottom. We took the train and went home. Another 12 hours we had to endure. This time the stupid train operator set the air-cond temp at the lowest point possible I reckon. Everyone was freezing to death but nobody was dead, luckily.

Sunday, February 3rd.

A great weekend and truely great journey. It really took a strong mind and gaziballions of motivation to face all of that. Now, I had to sleep. Got to go to work the next day.

2008

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 20:24:00 +0000

It's time to pwn everyone!

Pure sex indeed

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 14:21:00 +0000

I would rather live in a million mile tunnel with this 360 Challenge Stradale than having a threesome with Angelina Jolie and Keira Knightley.

lol

What’s gonna happen to them?

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 14:16:00 +0000

Disclaimer: What you’re about to read is just a thought that has been boggling my mind for quite some time which can be pretty sensitive if you’re happen to be a non-Moslem. Well, don’t be crossed. It’s just a religious teaching which we have to believe in and it’s not an obligation for you to do the same.

I’m a Malay Moslem. I got a lot of nice non-Moslem friends and acquaintances at work, old classmates, neighbors, car clubs and almost everywhere. Most of them are way cooler to befriended with, rather than a few of my Malay Moslem friends who are happen to be quite annoying and deserve to be murdered.

In Islamic believes, there is life after death. There will be a judgment day whereby all of our practice in the previous world, all the good deeds and all the sins we had committed will be reviewed. If the good deeds weigh more than the sins, the person will go to heaven and if it’s the other way round, that person will be thrown to hell, but for good? No. There will be some executions and repetition of death sentence as compensations to all the sins the person had committed. The individual will spend their life in the hell maybe for a few or could be thousand years until there’s a point where the good deed is finally weighs more than the sin, he’ll go to heaven.

On the other hand, for non-Moslem and non-believers, there’s no chance for them to go to heaven and simply will spend their life in Hell, forever. Non-Moslem is simply can be classified into two categories:

a) A group of people who actually knew about the ‘truth’ but simply won’t embrace it because afraid of losing status, wealth and power.
b) Another group of people who ain’t know shit about the ‘truth’ simply because it’s not their destiny to be a Muslim since day 1 but there a some who can see the ‘light’ at some point in their life’s timeline which is very fortunate for them.

A lot of my friends who I described in the first paragraph fall in the second category. The point now is that how they’re going to face the ‘after life’? To me, they’re not criminals and they’re so good in a way that I can really make them my friends. It’s just that they’re not Moslem and they will spend their WHOLE life living in hell. Despite of that, there a bunch of Malay-Moslem who rape their own family members, some government ministers and big shot tycoons who close one eye robbing taxpayers money (mine, yours, my dad, your dad, etc) just to fill their luxury craving even though they don’t deserve it and lots more where you can read in your everyday’s newspaper. Still, they still will be going to heaven.

At some point, I just feel that this isn’t fair just because the group b) people are one step behind for not being born to be a Moslem at the first place. Well, there’s a saying that goes like this… “Human knowledge is just a drop of seawater whereas the whole ocean is own by God himself”. Perhaps there’s something that I don’t know but I have to live with it.

Road Trippin'

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:29:00 +0000

Most modern cars are equipped with a trip computer which records traveled distance, displaying fuel consumption (both average and real time) and measuring tire inflation rate (very rare perhaps).

Having said that, the most interesting feature is the fuel consumption display. The popular measuring units are MPG (miles per gallon) or KPL (kilometers per liter). For some drivers whom are really concern about their fuel consumption, this is quite a tool that benefits them. As accurate it can be, I think the man behind this idea forgot to put another measuring unit for this feature which is:

Current fuel pricing per Kilometer

As fuel price is sky-rocketing at each corner of the world, this measuring unit is surely effective as it will psychologically affect drivers mind. It’s simply because, even though 9km/liter is being shown at the trip computer everyday, they will get used to it and won’t bother about it. Let say RM0.10/km is being displayed and it climbs to RM0.20/km or even more as the driver put more weight on the gas pedal or, maybe they constantly shifting at redline, covering the whole rpm range, all the time. How patronizing that could be when they see RM1/km on the trip computer?

“Oh fuck, that full throttle action from the toll plaza had cost me RM10/km. That Kesas alone already cost me RM2.20. There I go, RM12.20 just for short sheer excitement. One Burger King's Whopper Big Set flew away.”

It’s one of the solutions for reducing fuel consumption that not even one car manufacturer has thought about it. Fuel price isn’t stagnant? Of course there will be a plus/minus button where the figure can be adjusted, just like the dashboard clock.

If such thing exist, I believe there will be at least a dumbass who is going to fiddle the settings way lower than the current fuel pricing so he can please himself.

"Hmm, only RM0.00000000000001/km.. that's quite a relief.. so I can go fastahhhhhhhhhh"

What a cock.

lol

After 2 weeks

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 16:50:00 +0000

T3h car is finally up and running.

Thank you.

What if it is not what you think it is?

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:38:00 +0000

Assumption and understanding about certain things at any moment will normally registers in your mind for the rest of your life. Provided it’s relevant for the mind to adhere to, and suit with your own logical sense.

Let say your assumption is actually isn’t true and could be arbitrary at certain extent.

There’s a saying which goes something like this “Money isn’t everything, it’s the happiness that counts”

One would swallow the above reasoning and would joyfully apply to his/her everyday life and let the fate or destiny acts like as the sole decider.

“As long as I am happy, less trouble emerging and I can easily go through the days ahead… that should be enough”

“I better off with Honda Civic than BMW 325i Sport. Why spend more while I can get similar thing with the same amount of money?”

“Normal apartment will do, I don’t need a bungalow. I just need a decent shelter, no more, no less.

I am obliged to point out that it’s none but just a plentiful of bullcrap. Those so called philosophists had ran out of ideas to turn these helpless peoples to live their helpless life to be a little bit better by adding up just a spoonful of happiness whilst they realized that there are another worth thoughtful ideas that could be far more better than that.

They do have the right idea. Yes, they actually do, but, by pointing it out to the crowd, it might sounds like harsh or could be a little bit extreme that the fraction of 9 over 10 wouldn’t be able to fulfill the objective. That’s why they came out with such mediocre thinking that may suit the average Tom, Dick and Harry.

There are a lot of other things that you have been done since the first day you were born that really suits your style as the days went by. Most of us like to stay that way and like to be known as a-just-another-average-Joe. Try to think, just even slightly on each usual things that we do everyday. Obviously there are more than that. We could gain more profit by adjusting the way we think and practicing the different approach of the way we do things.

Wake up in reality! As you are doing the same thing that makes you happy everyday, you are still driving a small car, live in the small house and manage to get money just to stay on the critical edge of the lane of life! And at the same time you see other people being chauffeured in a Rolls Royce Phantom, live in the most prestigious housing area in the country and owns a lot of things that you can’t even to get your hands on it.

Do something, or you just be the way as you are now. The former is the risk worth taking.

So, what's next?

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 10:52:00 +0000

After my mechanic lifted up the engine head, he observed that 4 of 16 valves were bent. Those four exhaust valves were from cylinder one and two. Two valves per cylinder respectively. There’s a slight scratch on the surface of piston 1 which is not really a problem. So, I don’t need to replace the piston but, prior to what happened to my car. I decided to do more instead of repairing it.

a) Gates Racing Timing Belt – I bought this almost a year ago with a ridiculously cheap compared to the retail price. Planned to use it once I converted to 1.8 turbo motor from Mitsubishi Lancer GSR (lol how I wish) but due to current circumstances, I got no choice but to use this instead.

b) 0.5mm Metal Head Gasket – I’m going to use this instead of buying another paper based head gasket. It can be re-use just in case I need to lift the head again and it also it’s ability to produce higher compression is an add-on point.

c) 1.6 Mitsubishi SOHC piston. It do have the same bore with my existing 1.8 Mitsubishi DOHC piston which measured at 81mm. The only difference is, the latter has a flat surface compared to the 1.6’s whereas slightly raised surface/dome figure which will produce a little bit more compression compared to the 1.8. 4 pistons complete with piston rings .

d) Chemlube semi synthetic engine oil, oil seal, head cleaning, labor charge and any other stuff?

He said the job will be done in one week. We’ll see the outcome then.

The history repeats itself

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 07:38:00 +0000

Shit happens. For some, it is something that’s inevitable but for others, they thought it 's their bad luck which will happens again in a matter of time that they won’t know.

In this case, it happens to me. Exactly the same day, last year, my car was broken into by bunch of thieves. Half of the fault was contributed by me, maybe. I parked my car on a pathway between terrace houses to avoid being charged at the proper parking spot at my office. Most people do that by the way. Perhaps my car has been marked by them because I was using the same spot for the past 6 months when I started to work over there.

The scene was fast and I hated to say that it could be done by professionals. The driver’s window was smashed and the shattered glass thrown into the ditch. As they made their way in, they managed to open the front hood and cut off the alarm siren with an assumption that no one will notice. Is it? No! Unfortunately not! because I still can be notified through my alarm’s remote. As I approach the scene, they all went away and thank god my car is still there. They couldn’t figure out how to unscramble the alarm code and ended up stealing stuffs from the car. A Pivot racing shift light, a 4 channel Kenwood amplifier, a Kicker subwoofer and few other stuffs which I can’t remember. I lodge a police report as a matter of procedure even though I realize it is useless to do so. I brought my car to an accessory shop nearby to get a new driver’s window and asked them to join back some wiring that has been cut by the vandals.

A year later, I worked with different company and they decided to do an annual dinner as the year end is fast approaching. All employees are granted to leave the office as the event will start at 6.30. Stupid as I can be, I used the time between to go shopping when the traffic in KL is on its peak; Friday evening. Well, I stuck in the traffic and drive like mad all the way to the shop, to home and to the event. Rushing at 10/10. I believe that more than 10 drivers are offended and cursing me due to that. I don’t give a shit as long I can make it to the event. How selfish but it’s not an event that happens everyday. Passed the congestion and entered NPE’s clear road. I blasted all the way and managed to get into the Hotel basement parking. As I drove through the second basement ramp, the engine died without any logical cause that I could think of. I called my mechanic and he asked me to check the timing belt. All seemed fine; it’s still tough and sturdy. I left the car and rushing to the event and will get to that later at midnight. My mech came to the scene with the help of my friend. It turned out to be the belt’s teeth is gone. The valve might be bent and so do the other stuff. By the time I wrote this, the car is still in the basement parking and I will go there afterwards to observe the update. Hopefully a tow truck can manage to enter the restricted spaced parking lot or else I have to find some manpower to get the car out of there.

If you compare these two situations, there’s no way that both can match up with each other really. Car broken into and car breaks down but the analogy is still the same which is I have to fork a lot of moolah to repair things that I don’t even need to at the first place.

22-11-1999

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 12:41:00 +0000

Two-two-one-one-nine-nine

Today, it has been 7 years and that very day has changed my life a lot. It has made me start thinking differently about life, taught me how to handle situations in different ways, helped me to tell and understand my life story and taught me how to understand other's minds.

LOL stop! Now it sounded more like a boring motivation class.

kthxbye.

Ask! Ask! Ask!

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 12:14:00 +0000

A plague that has been happening to Malay since years ago. I don’t think it is uncalled for, to make an assumption that this been happening since the day 1 of existence of Malay? Take for instance, school or uni days. Most Malay students are afraid to ask question. The reason why is that the Malay themselve that cause it.

Peers.

They’re afraid if their colleagues think that they are stupid by asking a question which others might already knew the answer and asking such rhetorical question might sounds lame. So one will keep quiet and pretend to understand even though there are a lot to ask. It’s better to question and feel embarrassed at first than not-knowing at all.

Be the one to ask question, you will surely benefits yourself and even your peers if they have the same habit of afraid to ask question. At least they got the answer without asking since the other guy has helped them doing it.

Of course there’s a thing called ‘common sense’ that needs to be applied while asking question and some 'common sense' that you ought to know first before considering to ask a question. Else, you’ll just make yourself looks stupid. So, there are some that considered not worth asking and you need to keep it to yourself.

Actually, you can.

Provided that you’re 5 year-old . You can express whatever doubt and thought that is boggling in your mind without being labelled as stupid. I once asked my uncle whom is a father of 3, whether he has hit his puberty yet and he said no. I nodded and accept it blindly. That's me when I was 5 year-old. Bet you guys thought the same way too. I found the truth few years later and hate my uncle because he lied to me. Hahaha… No biggie since I realize his intention at that time.

But how can a 24 year-old ask the same thing to his uncle?

Actually, you can.

Unless you want to get shoveled right in your face. So, remember and realize when 'common sense' comes into play.

Why am I writing this?

That’s a stupid question. In case you don’t fathom what I wrote above. Just don’t bother and don’t ask

High Dynamic Range (HDR)

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:26:00 +0000

An experiment that I did by playing of a few identical image with different exposure bracketing to produce one image that contains wide exposure range. A division of my company located at Port Klang. It might look quite dark and messy for those who can’t accept such gloomy scenery.

Another one, which I took from my friend's apartment.

To view in full size, simply click on the image.

Rules: Break it? or play with it?

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:19:00 +0000

People tend to break the rules. For them, it's a restriction that might grab off joy from their life or in simple word:

Inconvenience.

Rule is made for a reason. It’s generally for safety and provides justice for everyone but sometimes there’s no need to implement one since it’s clearly don’t produce any benefit, maybe only for some, which is not acceptable for everyone.

Take for instance, Formula One.

The aids that are allowed in formula one car have been banned, reinstated, modified and sometimes has been hidden from the scrutinizers, in this case, FIA of course. Clever engineers have been always tried to outwit the men who write the rules or formula. The excuse given by them was that cars were getting more clever and at the same time, drivers are playing even smaller role in races

1. Early 70’s - Fully slick – Banned.
Hence, tire manufacturer played around with the design and finally came out with 4 grooved tire that has insignificant performance as fully slick.

2. Early 80’s - Fully flat undercarriage was first developed by Lotus. The feature was accompanied by side skirt installed to each side of the car. As the car move forward, stationery air was forced under the car and accelerated. As the air sped up, the pressure under the car dropped significantly and making the car sticking to the road. The skirt was an attempt to seal the low pressure from the outside air. – Banned
From then on, any attempt to improve the aerodynamics of the car was hunted down to every millimeters on the car surface by the FIA

3. Early 80’s – Turbocharged Engines – Banned

4. Early 90’s – Active Suspension. Some car manufacturers dumped the conventional damper and spring system and they went for actuators and controlled by computers as a full suspension system for the car. As for that time there were no rules that govern the usage of computer to control the suspension system. At some extent, it works but for a short time only because it was… Banned.

5. The list goes on...

Of course from time to time, FIA decided to lift off the rules they implement when they see it’s not relevant anymore or may be not relevant at the first place. This is something that car manufacturer have to deal with. As a rule maker, FIA is immune to be sued by car manufacturer, so whenever they were right or wrong, car manufacturer can’t put any lawsuit on them.

So, one might play around the rules to get away with it but on a safe approach where he won’t cross the rule circle or border because he will face bad consequences.

Thing is, rule maker or people who govern the rule is sometimes don’t have any slight idea on what’s he’s doing. He might not have the level of knowledge that makes him the right person to decide what’s wrong and whatnot. Just because he has the power to do it doesn’t mean he fit enough to make the rule.

Same thing has been going on to everything for years, that’s why every system in this world is damned and deemed as absolute failure because the power has fall to the wrong hands to make a system that will surely fail.

There was a saying:

“Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely”

Youtube: Xevifoo

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:57:00 +0000

Off all amateur drummers that I discovered on youtube, I reckon he's the best, with simplest arrangement, he could came out with such a marvellous sound.

Some of my favourites

Everlong (Foo Fighters)

Monkey Wrench (Foo Fighters)

There's a lot more. Checkout his other videos.

http://www.youtube.com/user/xevifoo

New Season of Top Gear

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 16:46:00 +0000

The long awaited new season (10) has been released last weekend in the UK telly and spread wildly on the internet for (ahem) downloads on the very next day. Man, that was fast. I’ve been anticipating the release together with other millions Top Gear fans around the globe since the last season which ended January this year. The previous season only has 6 episode plus 2 extras, The Top of The Pops and The Polar Challenge. Since then, it wasn’t clear whether BBC is going to make a new series because there were lots of rumors saying that Top Gear will come to an end due to protest of villagers that lives nearby with an excuse of noise pollution (lol) and the landowner who wants to take back the land where the studio and the test track reside because they plan to build a residential housing area. Obviously, none of that becomes reality and that’s quite a relief for fans.

The show started with Clarkson usual shout “We’re back” followed by greetings by long-haired Hammond that appeared higher than Clarkson (actually he was standing on a box). The first car reviewed was a Golf W12 which was basically a souped-up Golf GTi. The 6L Twin Turbo W12 650hp is taken from Bently Continental GT, the rear axle and suspension from Lamborghini Gallardo and brakes and some other parts from the Audi R8. As expected, it only excelled on the straights and rubbish at the bends since it’s not wide enough. The laptime was also bad, clocked at 1m29s.

The highlight of the show (at least to me) was the news. It seems that the furniture has been changed to few old leather button couches and the Plasma TV which was normally located at the center stage was replaced by old box TV. Actually, the old stuff were burnt in a fire accident few months ago where the store was torched up by unknown vandals. Clarkson started to make some speculation on who should be blamed on the incident. I burst into laugh when they he accused Fifth Gear team (Vicki, Tiff and Tom) for that but, in a sarcastic way of saying. Strong words but funny. I wonder how Fifth Gear will react to that.

The next segment was a hunt to find the best driving road in the world. All of them were given 3 cars each. Clarkson-Gallardo Superleggera, Hammond-GT3 RS, May-V8 Vantage RS. May’s was a pure track car. Though this is the main segment, I won’t comment much on it. It serves no justice if you don’t watch it for yourself.

“It’s time for the cool wall!!!”

As normally chanted by Clarkson and Hammond but this time it was a little bit different. Together with the old burnt down couch, the cool wall had also join the bandwagon. LoL. They both tried to force themselves to run the norm but to no avail. All pictures in the cool wall bucket had also faced the same fate. It’s damn funny when they tried to ask the audience to comment on one of the burnt car picture. Again they accuse fifth gear crew for the same reason. Finally they moved on and continue previous segment to find the best driving road in the world. I hope that they will make a new cool wall just because most die hard fans find this quite deceiving to not to have such crucial segment in Top Gear.

Man… The episode 1 of the new season really made my day. I can’t wait to watch the next. All in all, there will be 10 episodes for this season! Hell yeah!

From Bittorent to Rapidshare

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 10:42:00 +0000

Rapidshare is one of thousands one click web hosting that’s available on the net. It provides webstorage for internet users where they can upload any file from their local hard drive to rapidshare’s server so that other people can download the file by using the url provided by them. Rapidshare offers their service into two packages. The first one is free and the other one is premium package where a subscriber who opt it has to pay an amount of money to enjoy some benefits that’s lack on the free account whereby one is able to download multiple files at full connection speed simultaneously and the best of all, it's not limited.

Rapidshare has been around for years and I was only using the free account just to share some small files like mp3s and some documents with friends. The uploaded file will be deleted if the particular file isn’t downloaded for a period of time. It becomes popular after more and more people started to share big files like movies, games, softwares and TV series. Though it’s limited to 100MB per file, splitting software is used and these files being merged back after all files are downloaded to one’s local hard drive to make it usable. Apparently, this only benefits premium users since users with free account can’t download at full speed and there is time intervals up to 1 hour if one has downloaded one or a few files up to 100MB. This restriction made me sick to spend my time on it and rather using bittorent instead.

Until one day, my ISP had declared a war on all P2P based software and networks where the bandwidth for certain ports that are used for them is throttled. In layman terms, speed is limited and uncertain. This really pissed me off since most of the ‘files’ that I need are sourced from bittorrent networks. (files = movies, ahem softwares, TV series, games, e-book.. etcetera)

Finally, I subscribed to rapidshare premium account. For that, I had to fork out 16.99 Euro which able to make the subscription last for 3 months. It’s actually a bargain because I’ve made a calculation that I only have to pay RM2 per day for the whole 3 months. They made a change to the terms and conditions where 25GB limit for premium user to download within 5 days. It won’t do harm to me because I don’t think that I’m able to download that much within 5 days, unless I sit in front of the PC 24/7.

My ‘investment’ pays off right after I click the subscription button, account is activated and I can start downloading. Thing is, rapidshare don’t have any search engine for user to search the url links due to security purpose (as claimed by them). I google’d thru some forums that provides rapidshare links and I download some files from there. Coincidently, there are some files that are available for download which coincidently the same as some that are still being downloaded in my utorrent for weeks and haven’t completed yet because of p2p slowly-ness. Guess what? The 350MB file was downloaded in less than 20 minutes, compared to the one in bittorent which I don’t have any idea when it will be completed. It’s a TV series actually. Normally if one has released on US telly today, it will be available for download using bittorent/rapidshare on the next day and 1-3 or more days are needed to complete whereby it depends on the number of seeders.

The pattern has changed now. Instead waiting for hours and days to watch a movie, it only takes a few minutes. For such a service, RM2 per day is not a big problem but, if you’re not a heavy downloader, don’t waste your time and just stick to the conventional stuff instead.

p/s- the only drawback is that when one tries to search old file, it could be deleted due to its popularity has gone down the drain.

Things aren’t made to last.

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 10:32:00 +0000

It happens. Even though it’s made from the highest quality material known to men and combined with the most advanced manufacturing technique that’s available, made sooner or later, it will break.

Technology used in manufacturing and production is actually capable to make products that have a long lifespan. But why in the name of Homer Simpson’s gut that the stuff breaks just ONE day after 1 year warranty ends? So many people experienced this problem. So, it’s not a coincidence, right?

Why?

Because it’s engineered TO BREAK after sometime. Manufacturer isn’t that stupid to set the exact timeframe for their product to break because in the end, their calendar will be full of court hearings due to lawsuit filed by consumers because all of it break at the same time.

Why they do this?

Business is business and it’s all about the money. A manufacturer will be awarded as The Manufacturer of The Year (yeah I know, such award don’t exist) because they’re too generous to invent a product that will last forever. Consumer will spend their money one time only and that’s it. There’s no need to spend for another after sometime since there’s no need to do so. There’s nobody in this world who only wants ONE TIME SALARY. Mankind needs money for living and it must be continuously consumed.

Therefore, they must create at least a glitch so consumer will send the product back to them for repair and it’s a requirement for the consumer to pay for the repairing fee, assuming the product is out of warranty. If they can’t stand to send it back and forth at a number of times, perhaps they may buy a new one, provided that they’re loyal and stupid enough to buy the same brand again and again. Smart consumer will turn their heads to other brand name if they may find it better. At the end of the day, the so called smart consumer will also feel stupid because the new brand he bought also breaks, realizing that every brands are all the same.

Manufacturers are capable to achieve engineering perfection but money and wealth hold them back.

An example which I’ve been observing these few years is computer technology. It’s easy to see how they exploit our money by selling shitty stuff and teamed up with other manufacturer of different kind of products to suck our money off the wallet.

Microprocessor manufacturer + Video card manufacturer + Games developer.

The fastest Intel Pentium back in 1996 was Pentium Pro 200Mhz and the high end video card was 3DFX Voodoo II. Both were priced at damn freaking expensive figure but some serious gamers didn’t mind to fork out such amount of money so they can set their graphic settings of their favorite game to the max. The next generation of games and computer hardware follows the same pattern. The interval between generations is as short as one year. The next year’s games can’t be played at full resolution using this/last year highest end hardware. So, these gamers will resort to plan and buy the whole new setup of their game rig. Their ‘last year’s hardware can’t be sold as second hand since it depreciates as fast as it accelerates the ‘last year’s games. Nobody will buy it and I’m pretty sure that it will end up being paperweight. The tradition continues today whereby Nvidia 8800 GTX Ultra is sold at RM2000. It’s a no brainer price but no brainer-er if compared to the buyer. LOL.

Again, they do have the technology that could make a video card which can display the highest quality graphics possible but they hold their horses because of the market and money.

Another case is that the ‘thing’ between antivirus developer and the virus creator. Why there were have been new viruses created and new antivirus updates released almost everyday since the day one computer was invented?

Actually, it’s known for long but in case if you don’t know…

… the ‘thing’ = pact…

Have a nice weekend.

Duel of Fates

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 15:00:00 +0000

I just downloaded the latest installment of Fifth Gear S12E03 (season 2 episode 3) yesterday. Normally I would scroll throughout the whole video for preview because Fifth Gear can be somewhat boring due to some stupid segment that the screenwriter had always decided to put into, unlike Top Gear whereby each episode has always been fab since season 1. This makes it very worth watching from the start.

As I was scrolling thru, I found a segment that I really looking forward to watch for quite a long time.

The new civic Type R vs. The new civic Type R.

If you’re n00b about Hondas, a question might pop-up and you might ask why the hell one wants to make a comparison road test of two identical cars? Well, for a start, both are completely two different cars. Two versions have been made by Honda using two different platforms, same engines but different firepower and targeting two different markets.

The first one
Civic Type R (UK version)
- Dubbed as FN (based on Honda Jazz/Fit)
- 2 door hatchback
- K20A engine producing 198 brake horsepower
- Target Market: Any driver

Another One

Civic Type R (Japan version)
- Dubbed as FD2
- 4 door sedan
- K20A engine producing 220 brake horsepower
- Target Market: Hardcore drivers

I would say this is a pretty good test because I always wanted to see the difference between these two. I’ve watch lots of Best Motoring series that featured FD2 and made a lot of road/track test but they didn’t e their hands on to the FN where they can do head to head test. Surprisingly, Fifth Gear UK decided to make this happen! w00t!!

One of the presenter, Vicki Butler-Henderson was the one whom testing it. I wish it could be Tiff Needel or Jason Plato which I find more accurate in driving style and throws lots of informative feedback to viewers compared to Vicki who likes to squeal most of the time. Call me a sexist but a girl will never be a good car presenter due to the feminine DNA even though she’s a racing driver like Vicki.

She started with the UK version. As all CTR (Civic Type R) have been hardcore since the first generation, this one looks and feels more civilized. The handling is a bit poor compared to its predecessor (EP3) where I observed lots of understeer during fast entry corners and somewhat wobbly on the exit. One of the factor is that the chassis isn’t tight enough. The reason behind this was Honda wants to make good selling of this car. By making the chassis stronger and tighter, it would compromise the comfort as for the typical driver don’t want a bone-breaking car but craving more power output. I label this kind of people as poser. Why the hell that you want a car with awesome engine but lousy handling? The looks are quite hideous too. Honda is aware that most of their customers in the UK are elderly and they desperately need to wipe off the perception with an aim to scare the hell out of the old people by making such an extreme design. The engine power output is the same as its EP3. All in all, it’s still the best in its class but still up to no good to my liking. After delivering the verdict for the UK CTR, she went full blown to get the lap time.

Next, JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) CTR. At first I was being put off and quite surprised by Honda decision to have 4-door sedan platform for the new JDM CTR (codename FD2). The previous two CTR which were EP3 and EK9 (the first CTR) built as 2 door hatchback platform. It’s known that 2-door hatch equals to better handling than 4-door sedan on racetrack whereby there’s no rear overhang to deal with and no tingling tail whenever the car endeavor any bends. Honda has also announced that the FD2 will be the successor for the Integra DC5. I was like WTF? To end the life for both 2-door hatch and 2-door coupe to make way for high performance 4-door sedan is just ridiculous. Both EK9 and DC5 have their own racebred history and it should’ve stayed that way. It’s sad news but Honda fan had no choice but to accept the fact that Honda wants this to happen for a reason that all of us don’t know.

Well, back to the FD2. It’s surprisingly good! If you take a look of it in any picture and you have a thought that it is good, it’s actually as good as you think it is. The chassis is stronger than the one that UK folks get and much much tauter. The suspension is tweaked to the extent that it is not suitable for normal roads anymore because it’s track biased which is astonishing! It’s purely for hardcore and I’m pretty convinced that sissies won’t get near it. As Vicky were braking and turning the steering wheel vigorously through the first corner entry, nose dive were not visible and virtually no understeer at all. FD2 just slides through all the way until the corner exit but tyre squeal is inevitable. Even so, the still wasn’t out of grip anyway. I was shocked to see the handling goodness for a 4-door sedan, front wheel drive car. My perception about the boring family sedan tarnished completely. The handling is so superior is actually due to some contributing factor that isn’t available on FN which is….. LSD (Limited Slip Differential). The engine develops 220 brake horsepower. A full 22 more than its UK counterparts. It’s obvious that FD2 also reign the corner exit compared to FN because of the extra horsepower.

Fifth gear did the first run with the FN and followed by FD2. During FD2 time attack, they embed the ghost FN so it’s easier to compare both cars at the same time, each corner entries, corner exits, hairpins and straight. In the end, it’s clear that FD2 outrun FN by full 4 seconds.
FD2 is one a hell of a car. My full respect to Honda.

I’m looking forward to watch the fight among EK9 vs. DC5 vs. EP3 vs. FD2. That makes the battle of the century!

p/s - The good thing is Honda Malaysia has also brought in the FD2… officially!

The best of time… is NOW!

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 10:26:00 +0000

It’s the most common moment that happens in our every day’s lives but we normally unaware about it. Let us just say when we’re doing any activity where at some point may lead us into boredom; we will simply stop and continue with something else that’s more interesting. The problem is we didn’t even have a chance to discover on how enjoyable the previous activity was and we just ignored it for good. After sometime, day, months, or maybe years, the aborted activity could happen to someone else and he may find it really interesting and you realize the same thing could happen to you. The action you took in the past may flashes before your eyes and you regret for what you did.

Back in 4 years of university life, I got a few male/female friends whom were anti-social. They refused to join any activity conducted by the faculty or even by us. It’s obvious that any faculty activity is indeed biased towards formality but heck, they can treat it as interesting just for the fun of it. They could discover new things and maybe improve their socializing skills. Honestly, that’s the only reason for me. It’s nice to get to know people, especially their habit, the way they do things and most importantly, their interest. But, in a way, that kind activity is limited to some extent, to the fact that we can’t express all of our 'ability' due to emphasized formality from the university management. Thus, naturally we were forced to behave.

What should we do then? We conducted our own activity. Still, those people grasp steadily to their principle. Some are against the ideas and didn’t even come with any alternatives (what a cocker). So, only the cool folks were participating. Self-proclaiming? Yeah I admit but is there any other word that suits us? (duh!). Ok. We made trips to some places that we could afford because we’re not financially stable nor have enough time (students), we dine together at weekends, having parties (sort of), camping, went to sepang circuit to watch races and racing with ourselves on the way back (oops!). In one of our trip to PD, we rent an apartment for 3D/2N and share it with the girls. We explored the hill to the firehouse at noon, conquered it in evening, having BBQ at night and relaxed on the white shore sands till late. We sleep in separate rooms of course and obviously nothing bad happened. It’s not as naughty as you think it is (because we CAN THINK!). Nice wasn’t it? Living with girls for few days in under one roof, eating together, doing stuff together, sleep together (not.. haha)… what a good experience. It’s illegal for sure but we knew our limit.

Time like these were something that we want to reminiscence after a few years. Things that make you smile. But what about the other group who declared a war on everything? They missed the moments they deserved. I bet there’s nothing for them to remember and I’m still wondering what anti-social people are having in their minds.

Life is short. Enjoy it while you can. 60 years (average) isn’t long enough.

In pursuit of great handling and comfy ride.

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 15:35:00 +0000

It began back in 2002, just a mere 2 months after I got my car. As an ultra n00b back then, I was totally blind on how suspension works. Until one day, I bought a copy of Hypertune (local car tuning magazine) and saw an advertisement inside entitled Hotbits Adjustable Suspension. No idea of what it is, I asked my housemate whom was quite knowledgeable about cars at that time, to explain. It’s a combination of shocks absorbers and springs to absorb almost all sorts of bumps and uneven surface on the road whereby the springs assists the shock by withstand the car weight. It has the ability to rise the ride height up and down as it has 2 rings overlapping with each other, fixed to the threaded shocks body. It can be moved to a specific position so you can have your desired ride height is quite handy at certain extent.

For a normal car, built for the masses, it has to be balanced to both comfort and handling. By all means, you can’t have both. You have to sacrifice one of them in order to get more from the other. It’s a trade-off that you have to accept but this won’t applies to gaziballion dollars supercars where you can have both.

Well, for me, this sucks. Teens are normally filled with adrenaline where almost flows most of the time and hot blooded 24/7. The stock suspension was full bodyroll everytime I took hard corner entry and it happens all the way till corner exit. The weight is transferred to one side of the car. Let’s say if you’re doing a right turn, you can feel the right side of your car is lifted slightly and the left part dives, mostly on the front end. This happens because left springs simply couldn’t take the excessive weight because it wasn’t designed for that. Thereafter, same goes to the tire, it loses grip as it can’t withstand the weight. So, instead of taking corners at high speed, the car will go straight even though the steering wheel is turned. This can be concluded in a term which is called “understeer”.

I began my journey to find the good handling by simply failing the first move, what a farce. I took the easiest why just by changing the springs. It’s branded as APM which costs RM80 at that time, including installation. It’s actually a best bang for bucks because most workshops charge varies to RM60 – RM80 for shocks + springs installation. So, in other words, the springs only cost RM20 or maybe F.O.C if I was being optimistic. Resulting from that, the ride height was lowered to a few cm’s. The handling was improved only slightly and the ride started to be harsh. It was harsh but still acceptable. I stayed on that setup for few months while doing further research because I was still not satisfied.

Next was Eibach Pro-Kit springs. I still paired it with stock absorber. Handling was improved a bit more and surprisingly it also provide comfort. There was once I cruised on PLUS highway with my friend and he told me I’m doing 160km/h and I was unaware about it. Thought it was lesser than that. But then, I still experienced bodyroll and
rear was too high for my taste.

I tried Kayaba RS (short stroke absorber) with Eibach. It turned out to be a disaster. Front and back were lowered too much. Undercarriage scraped everything as the car went through. The front fender once bent as the tire hit it when the car was going thru bumps. Useless! Both Kayaba RS and Eibach were sold soon after.

The hunt was still nowhere and rather mind boggling. The next setup was a no brainer. I just simply bought APM Performax absorber and paired with Sapura Leda springs. Nothing special about it but it’s the setup lasted the longest.

I had enough. I felt that this trial and error method won’t go nowhere and what a wasteful investment!

I must find a coilover (another name for adjustable suspension). Price of most brands are quite steep to say the least, so I tried to find second hand set. Most targeted brands are from local manufacturers like APM and HWL. I don’t like RG and I don’t have any idea to explain. The price ranges from RM500-RM1100 which depends on the condition and how long it’s used. Other than said brands, I also fancy TITAN but to find the second hand set is rather difficult and pretty rare to be found

TITAN is a custom build suspension. Unlike any other brand, they are using the method of mass produce concept without knowing the customer needs, while TITAN is otherwise. Customer can simply tell the shop owner on any setup or taste that he needs. Some people wants best of both worlds, some people prefer handling over comfort and some choose only comfort which is stupid and pointless.

In the end, I continue to hunt to find HWL. I excluded APM from the list due to customer complains on their set. HWL bears almost the same reputation but less user rants about it.

Browsed thru the net to find a decent set: MOST OF THEM SOLD.

Asked friends: MOSTLY NONE USING IT.

I resorted to ask my mech in Shah Alam.

“Dude, do you have any customer of yours who wanna let go their HWL?” – Me
“No one so far” – Mech
“Hmm..” – Me
“But I do have custom made coilover I want to sell, it’s still in my car” – Mech
“It’s OK dude, thanks” – Me

After 5 minutes, I called him back, just curious what sort of ‘custom’ made coilover he’s using. So, I called him back.

" Dude, out of curiosity, what’s the brand of the ‘custom’ coilover you want to sell?” – me
“The brand is TITAN” – Mech
“Holy mother of Jeebus!!!!!!!” – Me

… to be continued (lol)

Modern Days Playlist

noreply@blogger.com (mælström) — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 19:49:00 +0000

Enthusiasts normally hate music produced by people whom are from their own generation. It’s known as music for money instead of music for arts which applies to the musician from previous generation. Good musician:

a) Don’t rely on MTV and excessive publicity to make them popular.
b) Don’t rely on radio to air their single. Single = it’s actually the best track on the album, so they release the single first so listener/fan can assume that other tracks on the album is as good as the single, which is not, most of the time.
c) Write their on songs and don’t even need composer to make for them.
d) Play instrument on their own.

All of these are lacking on newcomers. More and more copycat musician are available at your local music store everyday. They’re also music enthusiast. They adore and respect good musician from the previous generation. Influence them in many ways. It’s just that, they produce an album to mimic the voice, singing style, song pattern and arrangement and... almost everything! They know people will buy their music because of this. They prefer to copy rather than producing their material as new innovation. From 2000 till 2007, I bet they’re more than 20 bands which has the voice of Kurt Cobain and the bunch are all one hit wonder but some are quite lucky to manage to their 2nd album and so on. Why this is happening?

The market.

I don’t understand why current music listeners prefer this kind of music. Let alone those niggas hip-hoppers with gold teeth. They’re making music purely for money. Some of my friends don’t even know about Radiohead but they praise Coldplay and muse. They listen to five for fighting but don’t have any slight idea about Dave Matthews Band.

“I love Creed! They make good music!.. Erm, Pearl Jam? Soundgarden? Never heard of them”

“Man, I have listened to the Radiohead as you requested, but why the singer sounds like Muse vocalist? Why the song arrangement is similar to Coldplay?”

Some even asking me,

“Dude, what’s the current hits? I need it for my ringtone (I don’t want to be old fashion, I have to keep up with current trend)”

"I love Linkin Park, Simple Plan, Maroon Five and Fallout Boys! They're pure rock!"

Silly peoples. Come on!

Don’t you wanna try music from 50’s to early 80’s? That’s music you need to listen to! Where you can feel so much soul in it! The lyrics are like poetry! The composition is like no others! It will give you shivers every single time it plays on your winamp! Why do you need to listen to these rubbish?

80% of my friends fall in this sucker category. All my life, I only have less than 10 friends that have same music taste as mine. Both boys and girls put together. My utmost respect to them!

Bad music sometimes don’t come from the newcomers. For whom that already established, lack of ideas and money loving had turn them to produce stupid music. Contrary from some masterpiece that they had done once. Shame on them.

Axe gods like Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, Eric Johnson and few others good stuff are getting older and there are no successor at all. Everyone is making stupid music which you can hear at Hitz.fm. I don’t know about next generation, they still can find excellent stuff from good old days to listen to. It’s just that I hope they will realize the music industry is going nowhere and maybe someone or some band will make some good material again.

Well, that’s modern western music. So, what about current local music?

Not even worth commenting.