Friday 31 December 2010

It’s a New Year? Ok

I’m not greeting the New Year with any resolutions. No clichés about losing weight or doing volunteer work or anything like that. I’d rather not set myself up for disappointment. Yes, you should set goals for yourself. Yes, you must have some method to measure your success. Yes, you should give yourself a deadline so that the goal is achievable. Hmm. I seem to have made the case for resolutions. Nevertheless, I say no! Instead, I shall remember all the good things from 2010, try to keep learning from all the bad, and keep reminding myself: yes, I too deserve happiness.

So it’s a new year, huh? Ok then. Let’s get working on achieving happiness, however you define it.

Happy New Year, everyone! I wish happiness for you, wherever you are.

Monday 29 November 2010

I should be somewhere else

Maybe “should” is too strong a word. Ok then, I “want” to be somewhere else. But life doesn’t always turn out the way we want it to. Usually something gets in the way. A “commitment” of some kind, whether time, or money, or attention, or some combination. We all have them. Our jobs; doctor’s appointments; class schedules; mortgage payments; project meetings; and the list goes on.

So I’m sitting here wishing all these commitments could take a break, when it hits me. I get it. I know why parents always want to “spoil” their children. Forget making them happy and seeing their smiles. Forget giving them a better future or more fulfilling life. It’s about living vicariously.

When else are you unburdened by commitments that hamper your free spirit? Only as a child do you have the freedom to go through your days without a worry in the world. Before there are timesheets, before there are examinations, before there are roll calls, before there are campuses to cross, before there are teachers, before there are homework assignments, before all that - there is exploration of your world. There is you - and there is the world. There are paintbrushes and colouring books, fields to jump in and slides to go down, butterflies to chase and gardens to water, toys to play with and the boxes that substitute - all there for exploration without concern for anything but that it’s there.

So if you want to eat something specific - fries, or ice-cream, or sliced apples - it’s there. If you want to go to a mall - someone will take you. If you want to go to a park - someone will take you.

And that’s what parents should do. Take care of the commitments. It’s what you do as an adult. Protect your child from the disappointments of life. They’ll come in soon enough, those disappointments. Can’t stop that; no way to avoid it. And when those commitments get you down, live vicariously.

Take care of the commitments so someone else gets what they want and gets to live life.

Thursday 18 November 2010

Where were you... when Aung San Suu Kyi was freed?

This post is part-diary, part-momentous-occasion-noting. It’s like that Zen question: “if a tree falls in a forest and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound?” (Ok, I checked; it’s not a Zen question, just a philosophical riddle. Same diff.)

In today’s electronic world, if you don’t blog it, or tweet it, or FB it, did you have any reaction? Were you even aware of it, whatever “it” is? Certainly there are benefits to this. At least, years from now, if I can’t recall the story, I can look it up. This is what I was doing when “it” happened.

So where was I when Aung San Suu Kyi was freed from house arrest?

It was Saturday evening and I was home after having sent A’isyah back. She had her certificate presentation day in the morning where she had performed with all her schoolmates, and we had spent most of the afternoon making Play-Doh ice cream. So I was sitting and drinking some warm water with honey for my sore throat when my koi messages me a CNN headline:

Aung San Suu Kyi release after 15 years of house arrest

She was asking me to remind her who that was. :-)

The leader of the democracy movement in Burma/Myanmar being released after decades of persecution by the ruling military junta is certainly a momentous occasion. After all, Aung San Suu Kyi was the symbol of the human rights abuses of the Myanmar leadership. That, of course, was always a thorn in ASEAN's side vis-a-vis international relations. What a different world it would have been if her party’s victory in the 1990 general election had been recognized instead of nullified by the military.

Of course, just because she’s been freed now doesn’t guarantee a different future for the people of Myanmar. After all, they just had (a sham of) an election days before her release. So the military government probably feels they have a mandate to lead. And they could just very well place Aung San Suu Kyi on house arrest again in a few months. It’s not like they haven’t done it before.

Still, let’s be optimistic.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

So yesterday was a public holiday (selamat Aidiladha to those I didn’t already greet) and a day off for me. The night before I had thought about catching HP7, the latest installment in the Harry Potter series. Yesterday was the premiere for Malaysia, so there were bound to be lots of screens showing it. It being a public holiday made it more likely that seats would be difficult to find, as opposed to a normal premier mid-week. When I checked online through GSC's e-ticketing service, I managed to find single seats easily enough. So I was off to the movies!

Of course, this made some people just a tad jealous. I’m not exactly the biggest Harry Potter fan. Yes, I’ve read the books. Yes, I’ve watched the movies. Yes, I’m quite familiar with the lore. But no, I don’t remember all the little details. I don’t go crazy about the latest news in HP fandom. So here I was, hardly a hardcore fan, going alone to watch the new Harry Potter movie on opening day. :-)

And it was a thoroughly enjoyable movie. To channel Ron: “Brilliant!” ;-) The mood was perfectly captured, with mounting dread weighing on the scenery and the costumes and the characters’ bearings. I thought it was a story well-told, with good pacing and nothing seeming out of place. It’s been ages since I read the book, so I can’t comment on how accurately it portrayed scenes from the book (other than to note some obvious parts that were different of course). But the script and the director really captured the essence of the story.

One thing to really appreciate are the special effects, which are there to help in the story-telling, and not as something tacked on for wow-factor. That’s what separates the great movies from the B-movies.

Even if you’re not a Harry Potter fan, if you know of him, you owe it to yourself to watch this movie. It’s that good. And then, of course, you’ll wait a year for Part 2 to be released; just like the rest of us.

Wednesday 20 October 2010

Five years later ...

It’s been five years since I decided to (finally) start a blog. My original inspiration was A’isyah, and today she turned five. It seems a lifetime away, and in many respects, it was. I have nothing against how my life has changed from then. But no matter what, A’isyah plays a big part in my life.

When I started blogging, I never intended to exhaustively chronicle my life, or my parenting, or A’isyah’s growing up. As a matter of fact, looking back at my blog - which really won’t take that much time - I’ve touched on a wide range of topics. There have been times when I blogged frequently, and even liveblogged while watching TV.

In all, I’ve delivered a little bit of everything, and nothing, just as I promised. :-) Here’s looking forward to the next five years! And other things to celebrate!

Sunday 26 September 2010

The shadow of the father

My sis sent me an sms earlier: "Dad’s on Wikipedia!" (Bored much? Hehe. Can I get my laptop back?) Soon after, there’s a short clip on TV about today in history. 10 years ago today, TiungSAT-1, Malaysia’s first microsatellite, was launched from Kazakhstan. And my dad’s picture flashed on screen. The timing of the sms and the "today in history" clip is coincidental; the Wikipedia entry is not a personal page, but just a list.

Still, it gives me pause. Nothing too mindblowing. I’ve thought about this before. It may not be a very big shadow, but there’s still a shadow cast by my father. Nothing I need to really crawl out of though. We don’t have that much in common, and I don’t operate in the same circle.

I wonder what others think though.

Sunday 19 September 2010

Holiday season’s over

The three week holiday season is coming to a close. First we celebrated Hari Merdeka on 31 August (although I came into the office to work on my tender exercise). Then we celebrated Hari Raya Aidilfitri on 10 and 13 September (good break). And finally we celebrated Hari Malaysia on 16 September (our first Malaysia Day celebration, although I spent it starting to get sick). This is the last weekend of the two week school holidays also, so A’isyah will be going back to school tomorrow. KL will come alive again, and the traffic will start snarling.

Sunday 29 August 2010

Minority racism in Malaysia

From the Letters page of The New Straits Times, 26 August 2010:


Shocked at biased attitude

We are from Sabah and most of us, even though we are born Muslim, do not consider ourselves Malay, especially when we have Kadazandusun parents or grandparents whose forefathers were Chinese or some other race.

1Malaysia is nothing new to us as we have been living it here in Sabah since Malaysia was formed in 1963.  My daughter has lived in Australia and the United States for the last five to six years.  After she graduated and worked a year in Australia, she wanted to come home.

Being in the film industry, she would have more opportunities to work in Kuala Lumpur.  She is now trying hard to adjust to life in the capital.

When I spoke to her on Aug 21, she told me she was meeting a real estate agent who would show her an apartment in Ampang.

Imagine how she felt when the real estate agent asked if she was Malay or Indian.  When she asked why that was relevant, the real estate agent told her “because the owner doesn’t want to rent to Malays or Indians”.

As she doesn’t consider herself Malay, the real estate agent agreed to meet her.

Having only been in Kuala Lumpur for slightly more than a month, it wasn’t easy for her to find her way to where they were supposed to meet.  This agent, who called himself Kenneth, became angry when she couldn’t find her way and made a racist remark.

When I called Kenneth, he was rude and hung up on me.  When I called his company, I was told Kenneth had been fired earlier.  But the man who answered was very rude too; he, too, hung up on me.

I am utterly shocked at the standard and the attitude of these real estate agents.  How on earth is my daughter going to find a place with such people around?

F. Arif
Kota Kinabalu, Sabah


Make what you will of it.  I’m just copying from the papers.

Saturday 14 August 2010

PriceWatch: Lipton Green Tea

Item: (Lemon) Green Tea, 500ml
Brand: Lipton
Price: MYR 2.40
Date of Purchase/Survey: 26/07/2010
Place of Sale: Foodcourt, Lvl 8, Menara TA One

Assuming that there aren’t any other pricing variations between a tuck shop found in a commercial building, and a bakery found in a shopping mall, there’s a 30 sen premium for the Pokka bottled lemon tea.  Basically, you’re paying 12.5% more for Pokka compared to Lipton.  Hmm.  Makes you think.  And A’isyah prefers the Pokka.  Hehe.

PriceWatch: Pokka Lemon Tea

Item: Lemon Tea, 500ml
Brand: Pokka
Price: MYR 2.70
Date of Purchase/Survey: 24/07/2010
Place of Sale: BreadTalk, MidValley Megamall

Sunday 11 July 2010

World Cup history tonight

Doesn’t matter who lifts the trophy after tonight’s Holland v Spain match. It’ll be a historic result, since neither team have ever won the World Cup. It’s been a thrilling ride so far, with a fair share of surprises and upsets. My dream final of Brazil v Argentina never materialized, after both teams were ousted at the quarterfinals. Still, I haven’t been disappointed. Overall it’s been a fantastic display of world-class football, and the teams have given their all.

Now it’s off to bed for me so I can wake up for the 2:30am game. :-)

Wednesday 23 June 2010

A Father’s Day gift from A’isyah

Yesterday morning A’isyah came to me with a (late) Father’s Day gift. I didn’t get the chance to spend the day with her this weekend, but this made up for it. She gave me a card:


a cake (had some of the cake with A’isyah this morning):


and a photo-frame, with a picture of us.


After a bit of hunting down, I managed to date the picture. It was taken on 26 October 2006, just after A’isyah’s first birthday. We had stopped by at Cameron Highlands on the way back to KL from Ipoh. This was about six weeks before moving to Dubai.

The full-sized picture is here.  (My, I was rounder back then.)

Saturday 19 June 2010

World Cup Fever is here

Actually, it arrived about a week ago, and we’re in full swing already. There are already teams who have booked their place in the round of 16. I haven’t watched all the games, but thanks to Astro, I’ve at least watched the highlights of every game. There have been some good games, and there have been some shocking results. Some early favourites haven’t performed up to mark (see the lackluster Spain, or the uninspiring England), and some teams have done better than expected (see Ghana, the only African team to win their opening game).

Now if only my work schedule would cooperate and give me the time to watch the key games. :-)

Thursday 10 June 2010

Starting a photo-blog

So, I’ve decided to start my own photo-blog. It’ll probably be as infrequently updated as this blog (hehe), but I wanted a place for me to share certain pics. I haven’t decided yet how public I’ll be, but I recently set up a Flickr account to share pics with certain people. That didn’t work out very well, so my Flickr account was just lying dormant. Then I decided I might as well use it for something. Plus, I didn’t want to clutter up this blog (which is sorta like a journal) with too many photos.

So here we go! What I see welcomes visitors.

Saturday 22 May 2010

Citing online images

How does one cite an online image? I had no idea (it’s been a while since I’ve written anything academic), so I searched online. A Google search for “bibliography reference for internet image” led me to a useful page at a virtual middle school library site (how appropriate).

To quote from that page:


Photographer's or artist's name (often not given)
Name of subject or title of picture
Date of picture (often not given)
Title of website
URL
Date you accessed the picture


So, for example, my table on divorce rates in Malaysia, which seems to be quite popular, would be cited as:
Yahya, Meor Azmal. Average Divorce Rate (2000-2005). 18 Nov 2009. on Everything, on nothing. http://lothaq.blogspot.com/2009/11/divorce-statistics-in-malaysia.html 22 May 2010.

What happens if there’s more than one image at that URL? Hmm. Needs work. Hehe.

Btw, citing the site I went to should be done like so:
Bibliography Format. Virtual Middle School Library, The American School in Japan. 12 May 2010. 22 May 2010. <http://www.asij.ac.jp/middle/lib/BibliographyFormat/Bibliography%20Format.htm>

Saturday 8 May 2010

Comparing last weekend and this weekend

Last weekend actually started on Friday, since we got the day off as a replacement for Labour Day falling on Saturday. A couple of noteworthy events from that day, including, catching a movie at the Premiere Class at GSC Signature Gardens for the first time. Interesting layout; very well-suited to those watching movies in even-numbered groups, e.g. in twos. ;-) I watched Iron Man 2 alone though. Yes, I caught Iron Man 2 on the first day. Yay me! After the movie I went to meet up with some friends for dinner. They took me to a part of town I’d never been to before: Taman Mayang Jaya. Yeah, I don’t get out much. :-P

And that’s when things took a turn for the worse. Oh, the outing itself was fun. I had a great time with my friends, and the food was alright, although a bit on the pricey side. The problem was that it was a street stall, and I’m not really accustomed to those types of eateries. So the next day was rough for me. Specifically, for my stomach. Urgh.

This Saturday, then, tops last Saturday. No question of that. Instead of staying in and just trying to keep it together, I had a good day out, bowling at Ampang Point (no, Chong, not Ampang Park! Hehe) with KERIS, the office’s social club. Doesn’t matter that I didn’t bowl well. I make no pretense at being any good at any sport. It was still fun, even with my over-eager Project Director in the next lane.

A stop at MPH, MidValley later in the day to grab a copy of Stuff and PC Gamer, and I’ve got some reading material. (Reminder to self: keep the receipts for next year’s tax rebates!)

Definitely a better weekend compared to last weekend. I get to get out of the house, and even enjoy an Extreme Mocha from San Francisco Coffee. Now I just gotta catch up with my Creakos assignment. Hehe. (There’s a story in there for another blog post.)

Hope others are also having a good weekend, wherever you are!

Wednesday 21 April 2010

Cough medicine

Item: Cough linctus, 100ml
Brand: Himalaya (Diakof)
Price: MYR 13.90
Date of Purchase/Survey: 21/04/2010
Place of Sale: MidValley Megamall (Watsons)

I really like Himalaya products. All herbal, all natural.

Tuesday 20 April 2010

“Oh, we’re not friends with him any more”

I’m really curious how that conversation would go. It’s a hypothetical conversation of course. At least, as far as I’m concerned.

I once was married and now am not. I am also a few friends short.

Let’s start with two sets of friends, one mine (M), one hers (H). Then we’ll intersect them (M-I-H) for after we met. There are still members of the original sets outside the intersection. Due to the dynamics of sympathy, I have since discovered that it is no longer possible to identify the original boundaries of M and H. Hence, upon separation, we are left with {M} – {M-I-H} and {H} + {M-I-H}. There are a few rogue elements that do not obey this, but by and large, it seems to be the case.

Am I bitter about this? Once I was. Not any more.

Good thing my experience teaches me how to renew {M} as and when necessary.

Saturday 10 April 2010

This is why I don’t play sports

A scraped knee
My mind, eternally youthful, seems to believe my body is 16 years old. My body, being at least twice that age, refuses to play along. My mind, able to imagine fantastical feats of physical prowess, is convinced what it can imagine, my body can achieve. My body, woefully untested in actual physical exertions, can barely keep up.

And so what happens when someone tackles me in a friendly game of futsal is not a graceful recovery, turn-around, and artful dribbling. Rather, the result is a tumble totally lacking in grace, and a scrape on the knee from the artificial turf.

*sigh*

All in good fun, of course.

At least I came away with a “door gift” just for showing up and participating in the club’s first sports activity of the year. I wonder how many such mugs I have. I wonder where they all are. Hehe.

A gift mug

Tuesday 30 March 2010

Can’t get an IP address from the router

An odd thing to happen. All of a sudden, the PC only managed a limited connection. The PC is connected to the wifi router via Cat5 cable, while a laptop connects wirelessly. All connections are assigned a dynamic IP by the router via DHCP. Router was connected to the internet, and the laptop received an IP and working connection. The PC, however, was assigned IP address 169.254.154.171 (could be a different last number; I can’t remember, but it’s not important), with subnet mask of 255.255.0.0 (this is why the exact IP isn’t important).

The IP address on the network connection on the PC showed that it could not obtain a valid IP address, so it was assigned that IP by Windows.

Restarting the router and PC didn’t do anything. Assigning an appropriate IP to the PC resulted in it showing it was fully connected, but it could not ping anything. Not even the router itself.

I thought it could be a faulty NIC, or maybe there was something wrong with the cable. Could not find any other advice to solve the problem, so it was decided to have the PC taken to a shop to be looked at.

Their advice? After some fiddling around (not sure what they did), they advised my dad that it had to be reformatted. So they backed up the files in My Documents (and only those files; no program settings or anything else) and reformatted the hard drive. *sigh* At least the PC can connect to the router now, and there was no need to replace the NIC or network cable. But couldn’t there have been a better solution?

Wednesday 17 March 2010

Things you’d love to say on the LRT

… but probably won’t. (Bukankah kita prihatin?) In no particular order:


  • “That’s a lovely baju kurung, but I think you have way too many chemicals in your hair.” whisper: cos I can smell it from here

  • “That’s a nice big backpack you have there; you could probably kill a dog with that bag if you dropped it.” whisper: I know cos I’m still reeling from that shove in the chest

  • “Is there a water shortage in your area, or are you just allergic to water?” whisper: (yes, you guessed it) cos I can smell you from all the way over here



Would an “excuse me” prefixing those statements make it less caustic, or is it still overstepping bounds anyway?

Monday 15 March 2010

Home before the Sun is down

This is a rarity. As a matter of fact, I can count on one hand the times this year that I’ve made it home before the sun has gone down. That would be ever since I started at this new job. At my previous workplace, it was rare that I left the office when it was dark. This is more like back when I was in Dubai. At least I still get weekends though.

It felt a bit strange stepping out of the office and crossing the road to go home, feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin. And the LRT was actually crowded. It’s not necessarily the holiday mood (school holidays just started), but that may have played a factor. The past few weeks my team has been really busy, and we’re coming into the home stretch now. Today was a bit of a slow day at the office, and we’re now just waiting for others in the process flow. So I took advantage of that to come home early.

Which reminds me, Amazing Race is on tonight... :-)

Monday 8 March 2010

So You Think You Can Dance – Season 6

(Yes, we’re late a season. Season 7 is about to start, but Astro is only just now showing Season 6 on AXN.)

I missed Amazing Race earlier tonight (timing’s just not right, and I haven’t recorded any of the episodes), but I managed to get home in time to catch So You Think You Can Dance. Tonight was the top 18, and I saw some really nice routines. I was truly enchanted by Kathryn and Legacy dancing Stacey Tookey’s contemporary piece. It was magical. I think I’ll keep an eye out for Stacey Tookey routines. :-) Another good performance I thought was Ellenore and Ryan dancing an Argentine Tango. Simply brilliant, and to think she did it with her dress caught in her shoe! Hope I get to catch more of this show.

P.S. I’m not going to comment on the Oscars, since I didn’t watch them, and am not familiar with most of the movies anyway. I’ve been falling behind on my movies for some time already.

Sunday 7 March 2010

A’isyah’s first train ride


She’s been sending me to the train station in the mornings for some time now. Today I finally took her to the train (LRT) station, as I promised her. We just rode from Bangsar to KL Sentral and back. At first the noise of the train as it entered the station freaked her out. She’s never been too fond of loud noises. But then the excitement of being at the train station took over, and she was busy looking around, at the tracks, the signs and billboards, and the trains as they approached. Bangsar to KL Sentral is overland, so she hasn’t had a full subway experience yet. We’ll save that for later.

Sunday 28 February 2010

State of personal gaming – Feb 2010

I’ve got an RTS/Action itch that I just can’t scratch. I’m getting some light action with Diablo 2 (re-installed a ramp-up of Diablo 3 hype), but most of my gaming needs are taken care of on Facebook at the moment. Facebook has always been an app-centric platform, which – to me – was what really differentiated it from the likes of Friendster.

So this is what I’m playing right now:

Castle Age


(Level 189)

This has taken over my Utopia inclinations. Game with a fantasy setting, building an army through collecting units and items, but with the option to play completely cooperatively. I think the best change they made to the game was introducing Monsters to fight. It’s a much more social game as a result. In fact, I’ve added close to 400 “friends” to FB just to become more effective at CA. It’s about having enough people looking for Elite Guards, and having enough people to answer your Monster CTA’s.

I’m spending the most time on this game, and having the most fun with it too.

FishVille


(Level 33)

This one’s just as a stress reliever. It’s nice to have a few tanks of imaginary fish you can’t really kill through neglect. And cleaning the tanks is such a breeze. Hehe.

Country Story


(Level 30)

This is my CS. Not Counter Strike. Country Story. I’ve never really been a fan of shooters anyway. The only shooter I ever got into was Halo.

Restaurant City


(Level 32)

This is the first “game” that I really took seriously. Before RC were games such as Scrabble, or Boggle, or whatever the FB apps are now called (copyrights, people).

I still like it for the interior decorating aspect.

Crazy Planets


(Level 11)

A’isyah made me join this. One day we were gardening in CS when she noticed this button on the side. That’s good advertising. It attracted her attention, and she asked, “Can we play this?” So off I went to add the app, and we were playing soon after. A’isyah’s the one playing this; I help out once in a while only.


Outside of Facebook, all I’m playing is:

Diablo 2 (Asia Realms)



I’ve got three chars on the Realms right now. I’ve also got some old single player chars that I play when the Realm connection sucks (which still happens).

Level 39 Paladin – built as an Avenger, and doing some leveling before taking on Baal.
Level 12 Amazon – trying out a Javazon, still in Act 1.
Level 9 Necromancer – not sure what build, still in Act 1.


And that’s it. I haven’t been following game news for a while now. All I know is I’ll be there for Diablo 3. Before that? Not sure yet.

Saturday 30 January 2010

Meydan is open for business

Well, it’s done. The first race at the new Meydan Racecourse in Dubai was held on Thursday, 28 Jan 2010 (about 2 months later than originally planned). Fitting that the first race was won by jockey Richard Hills on No Risk Al Maury, owned by Sheikh Hamdan Al-Maktoum.

I worked on that project for almost two years. Never got to see the last year of it though.

I’m not surprised that the opening was low-key, and there was “relief among officials that the gigantic grandstand had passed the first test without any major glitches” (source: UK’s Telegraph).

Watch out for the end of March. That’ll be the big night.