daily cuppa

Just about everyday of the work week, my buddy and I would take a short walk away from office to a place just across the street.

Its our daily arrangement. A trip to get our morning coffee. A simple cup that kinda allow us to jump start our engine.

Normally I prefer mine to be either a cup of coffee that is chilled or hot depending on the weather or my every changing mood. Ernie's owner on the other hand, would never fail to get his Frosty coffee.

Its may not taste like the coffee drink that we found in Starbucks. It may cost more than the kopitiams. But for sure, its something that we both could enjoy in the comfort of a short trip away.

I miss my coffee today. The rain persist in changing my plans once more :(

Need a break

Work for the past 2 weeks have been hectic for me. Though there is plenty of work to do still, the major headaches have ended and I needed a mental break today. So I chuck away the long list of TO DOs and just set about doing what its urgent.

Looking beyond this, I found there is nothing much left and took a leisure lunch which left me drowsy. At this moment, I thought about the work, the prospect of my career and the need to explore my potential.

Perhaps its time to look for a new challenge once more. A whole new area and a wider job scope. I needed to explore and see and then drag my heavy bum and weary feet to risk my paycheck.

Just then it snaps in my daydream. I guess all I really needed is a break. Been working from the start of the year with only the public holidays and short overnight getaways. I needed a real holiday. A highlight of the year. Something to make me look back much later and said that in 2009 I Been there, I done that.

Oh and if you are wondering if there is any point of this post and the comic and so on. There isnt. I just started typing and never read from the beginning.

The Worm within

I was reading thru this story.

And I know I have to share it.

Its quite a nice visual description by this web designer and I simply love it.

Funny ad

Try and try again to guess what this Jap ad is trying to sell.

I fail miserably btw

Jai Ho

I love the movie. The soundtrack seems to complete it.

Tired

Its been a one long and challenging week for me. At the moment I am tired beyond imagination. I cant wait for this weekend. Gonna sleep as much as I could.

I am so tempted to walk out of work today, just to have some time for myself. But I seriously doubt I could.

Finding the solution

I have been involved in a Design review meeting for the past 2 days now. There is 2 more days to go before it officially close. The reason behind this long meetings is to sit down with the contractor to work out on a viable design that meets all our purpose. And I do love to make things simpler.

Which brings me to this other story I heard about. During the space race, ball point pen do not work well in zero gravity. The US scientist set out to design a pen that has pressurize ink and better ball points to allow for their astronauts to work in space. The Russian just gave their guys some pencil.

And that reminds me of another story. Lightning protection is essential for any metal structures and expose cables. The danger lies in laying long length of cables connecting one equipment to another across an over space. The longer the distance spaced apart, the higher the potential differences of which the current would flow. (geek talk beware).

The question posed by my lecturer was how to protect this equipments. He was looking for an answer in the line of laying metallic cable trays that would eliminate the potential differences. However when he looked at me for an answer, I simply reply that all they have to do is to disconnect the cables during a lightning storm. I kinda stun him a little.

But thats not all, my colleague bested my answer when he recommend that the equipment use wireless transmission. I applauded.

Megan Fox ... and the rest of the ugly transformer

Dont get be wrong. I am a huge Transformer fan. The original series and the Next generation rocks. The Jap took a different direction from there and though the toys look decent, they made the robots too noble warrior like. It lacks the edge of a soldier-style fighting a massive war.

And while I gave the Transformer 1 movie the benefit of the doubt and caught it, I am so not paying to watch the sequel. The first movie made me realise why Michael Bay was the wrong director. For the simplest reason that he alone never caught any of the cartoon series and probably hated it.

The story was dumb. I thought I was watching a slapstick comedy. The animation was somewhat good, though the robot characters appeared to be stupid. The only saving grace I feel was the discovery of Megan Fox.

And judging from this 10 sec shot of her changing, I may consider..... watching this movie.

Nerf N-Strike

I been trigger happy the whole evening today.

Gotta love this new toy

The Killers - Human

Lost

Present Cast

There are few "drama" series that kept me waiting in anticipation of the next episode. Lost is such one of them. And after 5 seasons spanning 5 years (in TV time its just about 3 years, exclusive of the jump back 20 years part), Lost still kept me entertain.

What started out as a plane crashed onto a deserted island (season 1) has led to the encounter of the Others (season 2), before the battle and fight for survivable (season 3), to the escape from the island (season 4) and now the return of it (season 5). And this is on top of a setting of a mystical island of unknown power and origins.

Original Cast

Just one of the things I like about this show is that they have an extensive set of casts that formed various unique characters. This give the viewers the weekly option to understand each of their characters back stories and personalities.

Not to mention there is also the writers' readiness to kill off characters and include new ones. Definitely interesting to see how they play out.



Of them all, I admire Sawyer the best. A thief, a crook and a winner with many of the girls. How not to like him.

Nerf gun

While at Inky's place, I chanced upon a new toy he has. Its a Nerf gun and its soo cool.

He even try to shoot at the girls, attempting to wist across their hair. Thought I thought it came close to their face. And yes, he try to shoot at me later when I had fired away on his precious moment Tatty Teddy bear.

The one below is the ultimate weapon. It almost make you feel like John Rambo.



Now if I had that, I would definitely fine tune it just a little (a)

Yakult intolerant

You probably heard of and also know those whom are lactose intolerant. Well I might be the first Yakult intolerant.

Seems like every time I take it, my stomach would have a meltdown.

Sighs.... Why must they make something so tasty to be something I cannot take.

Maggi mee

I have a strong urge to cook a package of maggi noodles now.

Part of me is hungry. And the cause is unknown considering I did eat plenty today.

The other part of me is craving for hot noodles in salty soup.


Afternote: I realise the blood donation cravings are speaking to me

Another blood donation

I donated blood once again on Monday. Frankly I have no idea how many times that would have been. You cant really keep track anything more than 5 these days.

Anyway, my iron (Hb) count for this donation was about 13.4. Its by no means high and for a couple of years now it has been the only obstacle to prevent me from giving more.

I believe it was 5 years back when my iron count was below 10. The nurse wont let me donate for the fear that I may become anemia. The cause for this... well I dont really know. Considering I never have any of the known causes.

My only guess was that I been a regular blood donor and after each sessions, I do not take care of my body well enough. Skipping on the necessary supplements and so on.

To date, I been turn away from donation a total of 3 times (its less than 5). I strive to keep it as that. Maintain my health and strength.


Oh and in other news Both Crayfish that I have at home and at work are dead. The cause of death is unknown. I suspect that they were properly in poor health before I even bought them. Guess I wont be going back to this shop any more.

Congrats dude

My close friend, NS buddy, colleague and weekly spiritual brother has finally proposed to his girlfriend.

It was an eventful day which he kept telling me in details of what he plan to do, what would be her expected reaction and so on. I can tell that he is jumpy and cant wait to for the moment to arrive.

All the best to you dude. The expressway has officially began for you.

Farewell Amber

It finally happened. I took Amber to the phone shop just by my place. She was examined thoroughly and I am offered $220. I took it and just leave. Its perhaps not the best deal but I din want to drag it.

Earlier on, I thought of advertising Amber online. I tried but the online auction failed to send me a verification email for me to register. I gave up there and saw an ad by a guy claiming to offer high price for all phones and would gladly come by my place.

I sms him, describing Amber and asking a quote. He spoke in broken English and ask me abt the price. I said 250 which he sorta said ok.... and ask to meet in the east instead. I aint exactly convince by his offer. Got a feeling I would be offered less and made to travel all the way down.

From the auction, I saw several offers for Amber's sibling. They were all stated at $300 with no bids placed. Starhub offered $200 as a trade-in, which became my baseline.

Anyhow, I hope Amber finds a better place. 4 visits to the service center is just too much. Production quality has definitely plague this product.

The Bigger Prank

An incident in office trigger me to write this.

An innocent colleague whom seated near me was blasted by his boss just after lunch. There wasnt any profanity spoken but the tone used was rather harsh. A tone one would describe as insulting and demeaning.

The poor kid perhaps made a slight oversight. Or maybe just that he did not follow this idiot of a boss instruction to the detail. Regardless the case, he is still an adult and does not deserve the shouting.

I was in no position to step in. I do not know this kid, nor the manager personally. The loud mouth gave one last scolding before walking away. As I sat there quietly, I began to hear sniffing. This I dismissed it initially to be just the bad air or possibly flu.

Just then, I heard a loud sniff and knew its has nothing to do with the air. The kid was fighting back his tears, not to let others know of his emotions. As a man to another man, I know that he needs his space. Comfort and words would not help him at this moment. He just need time to settle his heartbeat and pick up the pieces to fight again.

(And yes if this happens to a female colleague, I wont sit still)

At this particular day, there is also wind of a possible security check. We were advise (indirectly) by our Deputy Dir that we should be more careful with our stuff. With that said, I kept all documents and would be dumping this laptop into the cabinet later.

Chatting with my friend, we thought it would be fun to PUNKED the security people. Shall we get a TOP SECRET file and fill it with junk and mark Happy April Fools and such? Sensing our dislike for BJ101, we thought of dumping this prank on his desk.

However, the better idea would be to dump this prank on that manager desk. It would be a sweet revenge

The Cray

After months of deliberation, I decided its time for a change.

In my office mini tank, there left a handful of cherry prawns from the 20 that came many moons ago. Not to forget the 4 expensive CRS that die out without any reason. I highly suspect that the food I have been using (given to me by a colleague who is RPO-ing) might have been the cause for this. I am not sure, but I am changing the food.

In my Home larger tank, there survive 5 Danios and 1 cory. The danios are slowly dying off one by one, largely due to old age. At the moment, one of them is showing signs of illness. It has a blob at its side and unable to swim well. The friends of her has taken this chance to nibble on her fins. I suspect it wont last the week or even tonight.

I guess it time for a change. I am planning to get a couple of crayfish. These slow moving critters and rather different from the fishes. They can survive for a long time without food and basically feed on any stuffs.



However they do have the problem of being night walkers. I do have to make sure that they do not find a way to escape from either of my tanks.

The Prank

Since this is April Fool day, I would no doubt play a part in it. So far, I have pull off 2 mini pranks

1. Put a fake cockroach in the cracker box. Awaiting for a hungry colleague to be surprise

2. remove the telephone cable and loop it through the cup handle before reconnecting it.

Sadly both my pranks required my colleagues to be in office and they are not. So if they are PUNKED tomorrow, does it still counts as April Fool?