balik kampung! yeay!! yeay!! yeay!!

since it's already 1 in the morning and i can't exactly submit an entry tomorrow in the office, i'll do this quickly then, on-the-fly.

sounds like a happy happy title but i'm really  hoping it wouldn't be a wishful thinking only for the raya period. wifey went for a check up 2 weeks ago (i know, i know that long ago) and guess what? the baby is already engaged! edd (estimated date of delivery for the uninitiated) is supposed to be 20^th. october (ok that's only one week after raya) and she/ he (most probably she) can't wait to come out? alaaa please laa my little baby. give me a chance to eat to my heart's content all those cholesterol-brimming home-made lemangs and oil and fats laden rendang please!!! and what should i do with those fireworks that i've spent some good money on? don't go out yet, please my dear baby. i wouldn't fancy celebrating raya in the hospital.

which brings out the other question? should i balik kampung (go back to the hometown) at all, considering that the baby is engaged already and raya is like 2 weeks from now? historically, both alyssa and amelya were induced so not much history there. alyssa however came about around the edd time when the water bag broke and not much choice there but to be induced.

my only feeble justification for balik kampung this time around has always been that the three lane highway has been completed all the way in addition to the short 6km dual lane carriageway all the way to in front of my parents'  so hopefully, hopefully we won't be seeing those 3 4 hours of horrible jam every raya balik kampung period for a journey that would normally take about an hour and a half. plus, there are hospitals along the way to deliver the baby right? hmmph! tak mo kawan...

need to pay the fitrah (alms) for 4, for now. even that wouldn't be a problem should the baby come when we were in me1aka. i can just pay that to my father whom is collecting in the hometown anyway.

so, should i? should i? i know seremban also one private hospital beside the highway what..... huuwaaaa!

g00gle reader unofficial tutorials

*write entry! write entry! write entry!* ok doing well so far...

hah! it takes such great willpower to be on the pc not playing the lastchaos but writing an entry instead here at home :D. so here it goes.

if you were wondering, no i am unfortunately not a shareholder of the internet behemoth to be promoting the use of their reader. not that i didn't dream of buying one when they went public a few years ago. but at usd70+ per share, i could buy the whole lot of penny stock in my local bourse. plus i'm not really into the equity market anyway.

it is funny to be somebody who is almost a virgin in a rss feeder software to be writing about one. but as far as my knowledge goes, there are two types of readers available to be used nowadays. one is a local software based to be installed into the local pc and it will pull all the subscription information from the net once the pc got online. the second type is the web-based one which normally wouldn't need any installation and g00gle reader falls into the second category. the obvious advantage of a web-based one is that you can access it from anywhere and your subscription will not be tied to a local pc only. another nifty feature of this reader is that you don't even need to the website or blogsite that you would like to subscribe to and can do it internally without leaving the reader.

for g00gle reader, no installation is required and all you need is just a valid g00gle username/ password used for gmail or any other g00gle applications in the net. if you haven't got one, give me a buzz and i can use up my 50 invitations that has never been sent to anybody. oh yes, i nearly forgot! the url to go is http://www.google.com/reader

here is how it looks like once you've logged in. ok not exactly true. yours would be totally void of subscription of course. this is how mine looks like.



if you are familiar with the gmail concept of tagging, it is an obvious and simple way of "grouping" your items together. rather than file and folder concept applied by most of file management systems of linux, mac or windows where it is modelled on physical concepts of documents and filing, tagging systems means the same document or item can have multiple tags and will appear in all groups when the selected tags is chosen. confused? let me give you an example with my little nifty subscription here. say i have yeop's and lollie's subscription tagged as blogspotter and i also have lollies subscription tagged as efx2ers, so lollies subscription will appear in when both blogspotters and efx2ers groups are chosen. still confused? try it out then you'll see.

for blogging sites (blogspot and wordpress), blog alerts subscription can be added internally by using that add subscription link highlighted in the screenshot by simply adding the address (works even without the http) such as blogname.blogspot.com or blogname.wordpress.com or myfriendurl.whatever.com. you can rename and group whatever subscriptions that you have to your heart's content to be more palatable to your own eyes.

for comment alerts, it is only slightly trickier. the same add subscription link will still be used though. for blogs hosted in blogspot and using the built-in commenting tools, the url will be blogname.blogspot.com/

feeds/comments/default. but for those people who are not using the default commenting facility of blogspot like our yeop there, you can either jot down the rss feed address while hovering on the link in their blogsite and re-entering the address in g00gle reader or the easier way would be just click on the link and you'll be presented an option of how you'd like to subscribe and please choose g00gle reader if you would like to use it, right?

for wordpressers (the name given by themselves), the url for comment subscription would be blogname.wordpress.com/comments/feed. and voila! you've got yourself all your subscriptions in the reader and no more excuse of not knowing whether your friends blogs have been updated or that little smart comments that you left in their blogs have been answered.

enjoy...

be positive!

positive thinking, easier said than done. but not impossible definitely. and what could be anything positive that could be coming out of this efx2 downfall, you might ask.

for me, i've learnt to utilise the g00gle reader to keep up with bodies of stars scattered across the blog universe after the efx2 big bang! thankfully, whether they realised it or not, most of the people that i normally get in touch with within the efx2 community with the subscription facilities have built-in rss capabilities in their new blog hosts. initially i thought i would only be able to keep up with their new blog alerts because that is the most obvious way to subscribe to the rss service. but voila! thanks to <a href=http://hafiz238.blogspot.com>hafiz</a> i found out that i can even keep up with the comments posted on each of their entries like the little subscription utilities in our old efx2 service. so now, i've arranged everything nicely into the reader that i am able to keep track of the alerts as easy as it was during the heyday of efx2.

the bonus points? i can even easily monitor the ones i normally patronise outside of the efx2 blogosphere as well, most definitely. so, my little subscription facilities, though not as nicely integrated as the internal service of efx2 even has its own positive points, like previewing the entry without actually going into the website.

so, there you go. again, i would like to reiterate the whole point of this entry; some good will always come out of any mishaps or calamities, no matter what they are.

our pride and joy?

when i checked my own blog, it seems that the last entry i posted was like 2 weeks ago. no, i am not that busy and i'm sure you know that because you have seen my comments splattered all over other people's blogs. it is just that currently my life is going through that phase that has nothing interesting to be shared with all of you. interesting enough for me that i don't have to peel myself of the bed reluctantly everyday but i doubt those things would make anybody curious, happy or wiser.

that is until the kompeni published this news item in our intranet website. i am not sure whether i am jumping the gun or revealing any p&c info of the kompeni but the models are on public display in our headquarters anyway so i don't think it is such a bad thing to be published here. however, if you get a phone call from me looking for a job after this or put up a job search entry, you know why that would be.

what i am talking about is our new headquarters building as pictured in the artist illustration, to be built within the same proximity that we are now. we are talking about a 36-storey structure to be nestled within the same compound in which at the moment has an 11-floor building as the highest! and to stress the point further, it is in addition, not replacing any of them. what will be displaced would be some very very low density semi-detached staff quarters which includes the building that houses amelya's nursery.

should i be concerned? of course i am. because if you work in this vicinity and trying to beat the punch card or go home during the rush hour, it is simply helter skelter. few minutes before the 8am are always the most treacherous where you would see any clerical or admin stuff, executives, managers and senior managers alike became half breeds of f1 drivers or motogp riders and the crews of the flying dutchmen, in a trance-like state rushing to swipe that silly card which bears not your worst ever photograph before the dreaded display of 8:01.

while not as bad as the morning sessions, the gasoline burnt by those queueing cars to go home everday should be enough to light 1000 houses for one night. add some heavy rain into the formula and you'll get an interesting mix of wet bike riders, car drivers and umbrellaed jaywalkers all jostling for the same, limited exit paths.

so, imagine those multiplied by ten and you'll see why i am a little concerned with the new kid on the block, planned to be fully completed and occupied by 2010. hopefully the relevant people have done their paperwork and have some decency of thoughts to us the commoner who has another life at home and don't spend the whole time in the office.

don't worry, be happy!

first of all, apologies for not being able to visit any of efx2 pages or even reply the comments that you beautiful people left in my blog. either my proxy or efx2 server doesn't like me very much. i can't even get into any single page without waiting for gazillion of hours and patience is one thing that i'm severely lacking when it comes the internet and or any other IT equipments in general. if fact, it would be a miracle if i could submit this entry.

i must've woken up on the wrong side of the bed (even though it was the same one as yesterday or many days before) because a lot of things that could go wrong went wrong. initially, when i went down to clear up the last few remaining dishes, there was a very scared feline that was running around the house looking for an exit. opened up all doors and windows but the horrified cat just could not think straight and kept bumping into furnitures and brick walls instead. after several minutes of running around, i finally managed to corner the cat and picked it up. the worst thing that you could to a terrified cat. it was gnawing my fingers like it was enjoying its best catch of the day and unfortunately the f word slipped out of my mouth and i seriously hoped that alyssa who was running around with me did not register that into her fairly impressive long term memory.

when that was all settled, i went back to the business as usual routine. i was thinking of sending the car for a regular maintenance service which will also provide me the opportunity to fix the non-functional spare key. i remembered that i stashed the key somewhere around the house so that i could easily find it should the need arises but ironically, i just couldn't remember where that place is. spent a few precious minutes looking for the spare key before finally giving up and postponing the plan for the car service until tomorrow so that i can look for the key tonight.

as i was sitting down to wear my shoes, a loud ripping sound suddenly came from the worst place possible. checked it out and found a good and airy centimetres of split pants. and like most of the people i know, we don't exactly get ready to the office with hours to spare and i simply didn't have the luxury of time to let wifey sewed it up or went upstairs and ironed another one. moreover, it happened in the most obscured place possible so unless i'll be walking around upside down eagle spread the whole day, nobody would notice anyway. so, i'm feeling a little airy today and please don't ask me why i would be sitting with the most civilised poise for the whole duration of the day.

if you're thinking that i would be grumpy with such a bad start of the day, i can tell you that you are very wrong! despite all that, i'm still happy. happy, happy, happy!

persons behind the avatars

warning, this could be long! proceed with care

before i stand to lose the last few remaining minuscule readers of this semi-stasis blog, i am going to submit a "properly" written entry. but what do i write about when all my life nowadays revolves on lastchaos? about the game, naturally.

and before you hit that 'x' mark thinking that this is about another video/ computer game review, don't! because this is not about a game review. it is the human side of the game and somehow, the wonders of human nature never fails to amaze me, more so when they are safely obscured behind the avatars of the game.

for the uninitiated, mmorpg games stands for multi-media multi-player online role playing game. while you could still play the lone ranger and be oblivious to your surroundings while playing the game, interactions between players are encouraged in the forms of added bonuses, complementary skills and powers between characters to coerce the players to play together. so, what do you get when you team up humans with superpowers to be playing together with practically nothing to lose (especially since it's a free-for-all kind of game?

the first interesting type are the ones whom have serious inferiority complex issues. i am talking about those higher level players that are virtually invincible to the much lower level players and just go around killing lower level players senselessly without any much logical reasons and nothing to gain except bad reputation. that's why the only reason i could think of is serious inferiority complex issues. when one person whom doesn't have anything to be proud of in real life are given powers beyond their imagination in the virtual world, what do they do with it? establish their superiority towards the lesser beings would be a logical step. imagine what would happen if those kind of people are given real responsibilities in real life?

as the cliche goes, there are these group of high-level, good samaritans as well to provide the check and balance. these defender of faiths are the ones that hunt for those inferiority-complexed scums and provide a carefree environment for those lower level players devoid of those void-in-the-donkey's-behind players, also with no apparent tangible gains except for goodwill. doesn't it say a lot about the player behind the avatars?

while theoretically avatars are supposed to provide a gender-free, race-free, age-free and discrimination-free environment, as you all know they don't. the game servers are located independently both in the you-es-ay and bolehland but i have found one s1ngaporean guy whom had relocated from the you-es-ay server to the one in bolehland just to feel closer to home. interactions play a vital role in the game and and when you have to communicate with other people, as always, language barrier notwithstanding, people tend to feel easier and be more open with their own kindred. even though he reaffirmed that the social network in the you-es-ay servers are a lot more helpful than the ones he found in bolehland where people there sometimes go to great lengths to helping him out instead of generally a more kiasu (selfish) crowd at home whom would just ignore him many times he was asking around. reminds me of that hujan emas di negeri orang, hujan batu di negeri sendiri malay proverb (sorry can't think of the equivalent one in english).

when you are dealing a lot with teenagers, those raging hormones definitely provide an interesting mix into play. despite being busy slaying monsters everywhere, believe it or not, you have some of these teenagers suggesting directly or indirectly of different kind of activities that would involve a different kind of excitement. usually, i would just dismiss all these as background chatter but there was this one time that it had became so unbearable that i had to make it stop. not that i'm completely sterilised and became oblivious to that kind of excitement but i was more interested in avoiding her to quit the game altogether and depriving me of the crucial support line that i have been enjoying in her company. oh no! now i beginning to sound like an old man.

i have a lot more pointers to say but i think this should be long enough. hopefully it's enough to keep my readers coming to this blog, or NOT!

jazz i am

just one of those silly quizzes that i got from a hard-core transformer fan, my normal supplier of a much more "inspiring" stuff whom is floored by a dental surgery, resulting in a much more subdued e-mail garbage.

I AM

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JAZZTake the Transformers Quiz