Time to play catch up

It's been a long time since I posted anything. Too long. And I don't have an excuse for it. I just didn't set aside the time for blogging.

My last post was on 16 Aug 2006, about the Dell battery recall. A lot has happened since then. The biggest change of all is that I'm now in Dubai. I'm sort of settled in, and ready to start posting again.

Still, there were a few updates I wanted to post before this, and I've even drafted some posts already. So I'll be posting some "new" posts, backdated to the time I want to post them. Each of those posts will be time-stamped 9pm exact. Once I've caught up, I'll post new stuff. Hopefully playing catch up doesn't take too long.

Dubai, here we are!

It’s always a thrill to move. At least, to me. But that’s probably cos I’m so used to it, having moved around a fair bit in my life. I grew up moving practically every three years, uprooting myself and getting into a new school, adjusting to a new place, and making new friends. A large part of my temperament and personality has been affected by this background. And I’m not afraid to leave my family “behind”. I was in boarding school from nine to twelve years of age, so I’ve adjusted to that before.

This move will be harder on Nany though. When she went to Penang for a year to do her teacher training stint, it was the furthest she’d been from her family. So this is a big move for her, coming all the way to Dubai.

So, here we are. At least it’s a Muslim country, so food isn’t going to be an issue. We still have to adapt to the local customs (Friday prayers are done slightly differently here), and the local shops. Language isn’t too much of an issue, since English is widely used here. I don’t foresee us having any problems on that front.

The “apartment” unit we’ve been assigned by the company isn’t large, but at least it’s just us. We don’t have to share accommodations, unlike some of my other colleagues. It’s also the first place to call “ours”, so there’s an excitement to that too.

Big changes, and an exciting time ahead.

A’isyah’s 1st birthday

This is a big occasion! It’s the point when we stop describing her age in months, and start using years. :-) No longer “x months old”, but now, “a year plus”. To celebrate, A’isyah decided to start walking.

And we had a family dinner at KGPA. It’s becoming something of a favourite for my family; we even had a buka puasa there recently. The buffet spread’s certainly not bad.

We had planned on adjourning to Damansara after dinner, but the weather didn’t cooperate. When we exited the dining hall we noticed that it had started raining heavily while we were eating inside. Since we had the cake and the main presents with us anyway, we decided to just do our thing right there at the external dining area. So we commandeered a round table and took pictures. A’isyah sat down on the table and started playing with her new gifts straight away.

I think she had the best time of all. Which is a good thing. :-)

Dell recalls laptop batteries

Heard this bit on the news this morning on my drive to work. They mentioned the largest safety recall in the history of consumer electronics, for Dell batteries manufactured by Sony.

I remember coming across some articles about spontaneously combusting Dell laptops. This was after I purchased one myself of course.

Then while getting my daily dose of Slate I found their Hot Document on the issue. I am a bit surprised that Dell tried to keep it on the quiet. Still, can't blame them. Wouldn't want to scare off potential customers with a huge warning plastered on their front page, would they?

Anyway, for anyone else with a (recently bought) Dell laptop, check out Dell's battery replacement page for info on whether you're affected.

Just for the record, the serial numbers affected are:


Luckily, we're not affected.

Battlestar Gallactica 2

Malaysia's getting the second season of the new Battlestar Gallactica! Cool!

We finally got the reworked BG last year. Finally an update of the 70's show. I remember watching some of those episodes when I was a kid. Mostly I remember the Cylons with their eyes like Kit from Knight Rider, and that line, "By your command", and of course the Vipers. I was some baffled when they never finished the story. I mean, we never got to find out if the ragtag band of ships managed to find Earth.

The update took the same main story, at least in broad strokes. With some rather interesting changes to the characters and other elements. The best change, of course, was to the Cylons. The new version gives them a proper backstory, and at least some kind of motive. Of course, we're kept guessing, but that's good. Still, some "fans" felt it wasn't proper calling it BG, since it was so different from the original BG. But what's the point of doing a rework of it's gonna be exactly the same?

Anyway, the first season ended with quite a cliffhanger. So this second season's gonna get off to an interesting start.

Time to switch the channel! :-)

The Real Story of the 2006 World Cup Final

Yes, Italy won the World Cup for the fourth time.

But let's move past
1) that Italy beat France (yay!), and
2) that they did it on penalties.

What everyone's talking about, and what the 2006 World Cup Final will most probably be remembered for, is Zidane's headbutt. What a coincidence that the incident happened to involve the only two goal scorers in that game's regulation time; Zidane scoring with an early penalty, and Materazzi equalizing with a high header from a corner kick. And at the penalty stage, France could have used another Zidane penalty kick. I'm sure there are France supporters out there agonizing over Zidane's red card.

Anyway, this headbutt thing was quite serious. There was immediate speculation on what set off Zidane. One side said this. The other side said, "No, I don't even know what that means." They even got lip readers to watch the tapes and decipher what was said. Still, despite being sent off from the Final, Zidane got the Golden Ball. That's a tribute to a great ballplayer!

So, the 2006 World Cup was the Zidane Headbutt World Cup! :-)

And this brings my football-following days to an end. At least for another 4 years or so. I don't really follow any sport that closely, but I do enjoy watching the big games.

I vaguely remember the 1986 World Cup, mainly cos of Maradona's Hand of God. I somehow remember people talking about that. That was when I was in boarding school in Penang. The next World Cup for me was the 1994 World Cup. (Lin, remember watching that in Stockholm?) I didn't really follow the 1998 World Cup, mainly cos I was a uni student in Canada with no cable. And somehow, I didn't much follow the 2002 World Cup, but that was a busy year for me.

Until the next big game attracts my attention, that's it from me for sports.

A forgone conclusion for third place at 2006 World Cup?

Well, seems my outlandish predictions were only half outlandish. ;-) Loved those two late Italian goals! Well deserved, and quite a gamble. I mean, seriously, four strikers on the field!

So now we're down to the last two games of the 2006 World Cup.

And I wonder, is the third place game really a foregone conclusion? Most peeps I talked to seemed to think that Germany was sure to win their match-up with Portugal. But they do seem to have run out of steam in the last couple of games. In the run-up to the quarters, they were quite impressive, with their string of early goals to give them the psychological edge. Then they kinda faltered and met with some good fortune in the Argentina game. And in the Italy game they looked like they were fine with taking it to penalties again.

Sidebar: They're letting Kahn in for their last game! Hehe.

This is the third place game, and they're on home ground. They'll be playing for pride in front of their home fans. I'm sure the crowd will be pushing for them to win against Portugal.

Do Portugal have some magic up their sleeves they can pull out for their last game? Look around the field... Doubt it...

World Cup 2006 Semi Finals

So it's a European Cup.

Surprises galore for me. Crushed dreams. Countered with raised spirits for some.

Let's make some outlandish predictions then shall we?

In the Germany-Italy game, Odonkor gets a red card for getting in the face of an Italian. Lehmann lets an early goal in, so he gets switched for Kahn (finally!), who quickly concedes two goals. Ballack manages to limp pass all the Italian defenders for a late consolation, but the game goes to Italy after they crush the German defense 3-1.

Portugal-France goes to Portugal. Score is 1-1 after 120 mins, and Portugal wins on penalty shootout after Zidane kicks too high.

Yeah, right.

What is it about fans and their predictions? Let's just hope for a beautiful game. I wish I saw more of that from Brazil. :-( Seriously, I didn't see Ronaldinho really shine this World Cup.

Germany-Argentina result

Oh woe, oh woe!

I knew as soon as they went to penalty shootout Germany were through.

Did anyone else feel the ref was biased against Argentina?

It was a good and entertaining game though. Just felt that the ref made too many calls in Germany's favour, and waved off incidents against the Argentinians.

Looks like Germany might make it to the finals then.

World Cup 2006 Quarterfinals

So we're at the quarterfinals already. Quite a few surprises on the way, and Brazil's taking me on a rollercoaster ride. Gotta see how they perform this weekend.

But of the four games this weekend, the one I've really got my eye on is the Germany-Argentina game tonight. Should be quite a match! I'll skip staying up for the Italy-Ukraine match and hope I don't wake up to a shocker in the morning. Hehe.

Incidently, I'm now actually rooting for Argentina to win it this time around. Yes, I'm hoping to see a Argentina-Brazil final.

A few thoughts on the new car

First off, it was actually less than two months. :-)

I've had a chance to drive the new car a bit. It's quite a feisty car. Smooth acceleration, and no problems on any hills so far. Seems to handle the hills nicely, compared to my old Wira. By hills, I'm only talking Bangsar and Damansara Heights, but I can still notice the difference. Only thing is, you gotta watch the turns. It sits higher, compared to the Wira.

We're both pleased with the car. Features and specs of the car are pretty good, especially considering the price range. Seriously.

Only thing is, we've got to get rid of the new car smell, cos it's giving Nany a headache. But she doesn't want to spray any air fresheners in there either.

More thoughts after the first service.

Our new transport

We just took delivery of our new Ozzy Orange Premium Auto Myvi today, after waiting two months.

Wait, let me repeat that.

Two months.

Don't be jealous! :-) People I know had to wait upwards of six months to get their Myvi's. We got a little lucky.

So anyway, when school opens next week, Nany will be driving a new car.

Did I just jinx MyTeam?

Just saw Malaysia score one on MyTeam, putting them one up.

So the pressure's now on MyTeam. I won't hold it against them if this is the final score. They made some good plays.

Maybe I shouldn't be blogging while supposedly watching TV. ;-)

MyTeam v. Malaysia at half-time

MyTeam is up 1 over Malaysia. Hehe.

Why am I not too surprised? Sigh.

Mixed feelings here.

Oh wait. Malaysia's already equalized. Ok then.

Sorry, Nany's watching the AF prelude concert.

First movie in year (at the cinema) - X-Men: The Last Stand

Yup, went to the cinema for the first time since last year's Batman Begins. A few changes, such as, the ticket line, the ticket price (up RM2!), the seats. (GSC MidValley, of course, as both Nany and I still think that's the most convenient place to go.)

We'd been planning to go on opening weekend since I heard when it was being released. So we made it. No problems getting the tickets on Thursday night. Entered the theater this morning and it wasn't full. Not just the front rows, but generally everywhere. Don't know if this is a trend with movie-going, bad word-of-mouth for the movie, or the school holidays that just started this weekend. Whatever.

We enjoyed ourselves, and enjoyed the movie too. Won't go into a review of the movie, except to say that, yes, it's not strictly true to the comics. But, get real! There have to be some concessions when making the conversion to movie format. I can see where they're coming from, and as long as they make a good enough movie that stays true to the spirit of the comics, then I'm ok with it.

My verdict: this was a good way to end the "trilogy".

The only thing is, I didn't know there was an extra scene after the end credits! I should have guessed when I noticed a bunch of people not moving from their seats when the credits started to roll. I would have totally missed out, if I didn't start reading posts on the net about the movie. (Policy of mine not to read too much on the net about a movie I'm going to see, before I see the movie.)

Imagine my frustration. It's not like we're going to get another chance to go watch it at the cinema again. And no, I'm not going to go out and get the pirated VCD.

Anyway, it didn't take much to find out what I missed. (See bottom of this post for the spoiler.)

I'd still recommend this movie, even to fans, although I'd tell the die-hards to chill, man.

*** SPOILER ALERT! ***

*** Don't read further if you don't want to know anything about the movie! ***

*** I'm serious! There's a spoiler here! ***

Info on that extra scene follows this...

Wipe away those tears. You know, the ones that slipped out in that scene at the Grey residence. The one where... yeah, that one. Anyway, remember the ethics lesson Prof. X was giving towards the beginning of the movie? Remember in the video, Dr. Moira McTaggert was talking about a guy in a coma that had no higher brain function (the guy in the hospital bed in the background)? Guess who wakes up in the extra scene and calls out, "Moira"? And how does she respond? With a surprised, "Charles?"...

Happy Teachers' Day!

To all the teachers in Malaysia, including and especially to my wife, Happy Teachers' Day! :-) Nany's busy receiving messages from her students now...

Hello World

unknownVisitor = StatusCheckCookieCrumbs()

IF unknownVisitor
    Display("Hello World!")
ELSE
    Display("Hi! Just announcing myself on Project Petaling Street")
END IF

The Malaysian blogosphere

Wow. There're quite a few Malaysian blogs out there.

When I started this blog I wondered how many other Malaysians were into this blogging thing. While browsing around, I actually came across a few Malaysian blogs. Of course, the next thing I wondered was whether there was a list of Malaysian blogs out there.

Just recently, I stumbled into the Petaling Street Project, a Malaysian blog-tal. Probably the Malaysian blog-tal. I haven't really explored much for others like it.

So, the Malaysian blogosphere is larger than I thought, and there's a wide range of voices out there. Definitely something for everyone.

I'll probably list myself there sometime.

Troubleshooting the "Local policy on this machine does not permit you to logon interactively" error

This one was a pickle, and even after solving it we don't know what caused it in the first place. One moment we were fine, logged in as admin, fiddling with the firewall. Then after a restart we get the logon error message. Can't logon to domain, can't logon to local account.

Go all around and finally found three articles of use.

1. Microsoft KB276590 article
   
   This one was the first to point in the right direction.


2. Microsoft KB279664 article
   
   This one gave info on syntax for NTRights.


Unfortunately, I was getting an Open Policy error when I tried to use NTRights.

3. Forum posting on the subject
   
   This one gave a hint to what was keeping the above from working. Tried to establish a link to the pc, but kept getting "Network path not found". Finally clued in and booted up in Safe Mode to disable the firewall, and voila! NTRights works and we can log in again! What a relief!

So, finally got it stable, but now have to get all the components working again. Hope to be up and operational by end of day tomorrow.

And all this with little to no experience as any kind of admin (sys or network), and with zilch training. Damn Comp Sci degree! Everyone thinks I'm supposed to know all about computers... ;-)

Starting classes

Tomorrow I try my hand at being a tuition teacher. Some of Nany's students have asked for some help at Prinsip Perakaunan, and she volunteered me.

It's not like I don't have experience with teaching. Well, the informal kind. I've headed study groups before, and coached my fellow students as well. I even help Nany prepare for her classes.

But I've never been in a teacher-student situation before. The people I've helped before have always been my contemparories. So this will be something new for me. And I'm going to be "teaching" Accounting Principles. I took a couple of accounting courses at Acadia, and before that we covered it in IB Business at Kungsholmens in Sweden. So I'm familiar with the material. Just have to get used to the BM terms.

I hope my students tomorrow are comfortable with English. We'll see how this goes.