Safari auto-suggest FAIL...

I started to type in "Can you..." into the search bar on the Safari browser on PC, and got the following suggested searches:

Click to see bigger image...

Halloween 2009

Over the years, it's been a tradition at Gamebrains to dress up for Halloween. This year, there was even a themed lunch to match the celebrations.

Unfortunately, only 4 people wore costumes this year... This would be the first year I'm dressing up as something, and I decided to dress up as:

...my boss.

Unfortunately, Brett (the boss) wasn't around that day, which robbed us of a chance to take a side-by-side photo. Maybe next year, i suppose.

And then, there's Jeff:

...dressed as a butcher from Cheras.

And there's Javier, who dressed up as:

...a gay elf (Link)

Jeff asking for a raise.

And then, there was Eugene, who's photo I haven't got. He basically wore a fake dagger poking through his head.

We then walked to this restaurant called Departure Lounge for our themed lunch.

The only drawback with my costume, is that i had to remove the mask to eat.

Elaine and James joined in as well. Elaine's supposed to be a Jester and James is a tiger.

Eeeeeee... so cute!

We were offered severed fingers/penises for appetizers

Jeff eating the said severed finger/penis

Our swampy beverage...

So, yes... that's my Halloween.

Where old Formula 1 teams go to die...

Poor Minardi. God bless its battered soul...

A movie i would pay money to see...

Fiat 500 lands in Malaysia!

Spotted this Fiat 500 at the Fiat Service Centre in Keramat. Apparently, this is a unit for the mechanics to toy around with.

"Say my name... SAY MY NAME!!!"

I'm not sure if it's actually on sale yet, but the guys at the workshop say it'll be priced between RM120k to 140k, which is ridiculous when you consider that you can buy one for just 8000 Pounds in the UK. Even after the over-inflated taxes, it should still cost only about RM90k at most. Me thinks the local distributor is trying to milk as much out of the 500 as they can...

Needless to say, i love this car. Will test drive one once i get the chance :)

Microsoft being funny...

I'm currently downloading the release candidate for Windows 7 (that would be the next version of Windows, in case you've been living under a rock. Like me).

It would've been a routine thing if it weren't for one tiny thing (click on the following photo to see the full-sized version):



Microsoft is using JAVA to distribute Windows 7!!! (Note the little Java icon on the smaller window).

This is quite ironic, if you consider how Microsoft routinely bashes Java in favour of their own C# language and .NET runtime environments. I've been to a couple of Microsoft TechEd seminars in Malaysia, and they'll always have one session that shows just how superior C# and .Net are to Java.

Funny how the world works... :)

Complicated injuries...

I played basketball last night for the first time in... ages, and managed to get myself a little souvenir within the first 5 minutes of play:

"Oww..."

Looks rather nasty but it doesn't really hurt that much. In fact, it doesn't really bother me at all - until you ask me how i got it.

I fell on a net.

...

And yes, this is precisely when people start asking, "How the hell did you manage that?"

And that is exactly the trouble i've been getting with injuries, lately - i seem to be getting injured in such incredibly complicated and unusual ways, that I often end up sounding like I'm making things up. Which is annoying, of course. Don't believe me? Try this:

I intercepted an inbound pass but tipped the ball out of the court. So i ran for the loose ball, jumped before the out-of-bounds line, caught the ball with one hand and tried swinging it back into the court before my foot touched the ground. Which would have happened without incident if there wasn't a futsal court next to the basketball court. Now you see, futsal courts have these nets wrapped around them to keep the ball in - and i was about to land on one of these nets. Usually this wouldn't be a problem if I was approaching the net square on since i could just land on it. Unfortunately, i was approaching it at an angle, which meant that I'd scrape diagonally across it unless i landed on my feet. Which I couldn't because of a long, thin, wooden plank that fastens the net onto the floor. i couldn't step on anything without risk of breaking my ankle because - with the hard and strong net fastened to it, it had formed a VERY uneven surface beneath my right foot. So i tried shuffling my feet as i was falling, but still couldn't get a foothold - and all the while, my whole body weight was supported by my right elbow, which was now scraping itself diagonally across the net as i fell down into a crumpled heap. Which is how i got this massive scar...

There! You SEE? It sounds like I made it up!!! The problem is that I can't just say "I fell on a net" and leave it at that because it sounds stupid, and I can't just say "I got it while playing basketball" because people will then ask if I fell down, I'd say no and I'd then have to tell them about the net, which would lead me back to square one.

AAAAAARGH~!!!

My previous injury was also basketball-related: I sprained my ankle because someone fell on me...

...

"How the hell do you sprain an ankle that way? Don't you have to step on an uneven surface or jump and land wrongly? Or trip while running?"

"No," I'd respond. "My teammate ran into a screen, bounced off it and landed on my leg right below the knee - laterally. With his whole body weight."

You see the trend here?

And years ago, I managed to fall into a huge drain because my mum or dad (can't remember) parked too close to the drain and as i got out of the car, my mum told me not to fall into the drain, thus diverting my attention from the ground at the precise moment where paying attention to where i was stepping would've been quite important.

You see?

Why can't i just slip and fall like other normal people? Sigh...

Burmese hand signals: dodgy...

Went to a petrol station last night to get a can of Coke from the shop but got there about 10pm - right when the attendants locked the doors for the night. However, he'd just let someone in about 10 seconds earlier so I thought he'd let me in as well.

And so I gestured at the attendant inside the shop (whom I assume to be Burmese) that I wanted to buy a drink - using the universal hand signal for "drink" (i.e. holding an imaginary cup up to my mouth and tipping it).

Unfortunately this gesture probably meant something else in Burmese - the guy didn't get it and kept directing me to the payment window where you'd pay for petrol.

I kept gesturing, and he kept pointing. So I went to the window, and gestured again only to draw blank stares from the group of Burmese attendants, all of whom were beginning to look rather nervous.

This has led me to two possible conclusions, either:

1. The universal hand signal for "drink" means "I want to pump petrol" or (according to Elaine) "I've planted a landmine in your front yard so you better lock your front door" in Burma.

OR

2. The Burmese are just shit at hand signals...

"Wait! WAIT! I meant trim my sideburns some more... *URK!*"

Of course, it's all probably yet another case of me getting poor service in situations where it's normally impossible to get poor service :)

Be a man! BUY MY T-SHIRT (part 2)

Ello everyone...

So far, my attempts at selling T-shirts have bagged me exactly USD 0.00

The good news, though, is that I've got nowhere to go but up. To commemorate my first non-sale, I've come up with another T-shirt. Buy a thousand of these and I'll have enough to buy a new laptop!!! Buy! Buy! Do it naaaaauogh! (click here to buy)

For sprinklers...

Super camcorder?

Today, my colleagues were watching the following YouTube video about some sort of missile defense system:



And after that, one of them ran to me and had the following conversation with me:

Keith: "Hey, Chris... do you know if there are any video cameras on the market that are designed to track mortar in the air"

Me: "Huh? You mean the mortar that you drop into that barrel and then goes *kapow!* and shoots into the air?"

Keith: "Yeah."

Me: "Consumer video cameras?"

Keith: "Yeah."

Me: "..."

Keith: "...?"

Me: "You're asking me if a consumer video camera has a special mode settings like "daylight", "sports", "landscape", "snow" and then "MORTAR-TRACKING"?

Keith: "Umm... yeah?"

Me: "..."

I highly doubt that Canon has a camcorder in the market that fulfills such a niche. However, if they did have such a setting, it would probably look like this on the mode dial:


NO no no no... You're in APERTURE-PRIORITY mode, silly!

Of course, what I found funny was that my colleagues were more interested in how the hell they caught live artillery / mortar / rocket rounds on video, rather than the laser technology itself :)

Be a man! BUY MY T-SHIRT

Dear friends,

My laptop is starting to act funny - resetting itself randomly (or whenever I happen to be doing something important on it). Because of this (and the fact that it weighs 2 tons, has a battery life of 45 mins and is really starting to get on a bit), I am now in need of a new one.

Which is why I proudly bring you the "Be a man! BUY MY T-SHIRT" campaign (a.k.a. the "Help Chris to buy a new laptop" charity fund). All proceed will go into a shiny new Apple Macbook, which currently goes for about RM3,999)

We'll start with this T-shirt design, called "The Stephen Oxley":



Click here to go directly to the product page.

Be a man; do the right thing!!!

Under the coconut shell

Bladee hell! Didn't know that there's a new version of the 50 Ringgit note since Jan 30!!!

Looked bewildered when Elaine whipped it out of her wallet to pay for something.


Goes to show how often I've been reading the newspapers these days... -_-

"Eh? What's this, then...?"

More than just hair wax...

Happy new year!

I'd like to begin 2008 with a really nice entry. About my predictions for the year, my new-years resolutions and maybe some display of incredible foresight.

Unfortunately, I'm not any good at writing that sort of thing so I'll leave you with a short video I shot and edited for some online contest:



No, this has nothing to do with it being a new year. Enjoy :)

Just a comic

I've got a bit of spare time, so I decided to draw a four-panel comic. Do pardon the shoddy artwork :)

Silence, it can be stunning.

I was driving home just a couple of hours ago (around midnight) when it occurred to me that my car was being uncharacteristically silent. You see, it's normally a hell of a noisy beast when on the move - the slightest of surface undulations would normally send the car flying off at a tangent, resulting in all manner of squeaks, creaks and very worrying, metallic sounding "Clunk!" sounds. Oh, and they seemed to have forgotten to attach the suspension when it was on the assembly line.

So yes, it's put together like a typical Italian car. Which meant that it should've been really noisy considering that most of the roads leading to my house are dotted with small craters attempting to pass off as potholes.

But no. There was absolute silence. It was like a magic carpet ride.

The reason, of course, was that the potholes were no longer there. And the reason for that, of course, is that the roads have been paved. ALL of them.

And the reason that ALL of the roads have been paved is because the general elections are just around the corner and the federal government needs to show that it's actually running the country properly.

And to show that it is indeed running the country properly, they've decided to pave all the roads with glistening, fresh, black tarmac. Mmmmmm...

Never mind that the crime rate is soaring, that inflation is slowly turning my 50 ringgit notes into small change, and that for some reason, it has become socially acceptable for you to thrust a sword into the air during a political party general assembly while screaming some sort of battle cry - as long as our roads are paved, we're happy.

Now this is actually a good thing. I recently spent over 600 ringgit repairing my suspension (turns out there was one after all) after several years of driving into inverted speed bumps.

Want better roads? Vote for this guy!

But here's the thing.

The roads are only paved about once every five years, which coincides with the general elections (held every five years or so). Which is a problem because the roads normally deteriorate into the rut-infested variety after two years, which leaves us with about three years of shitty roads.

This means, of course, that unless we have general elections every two years we aren't going to get freshly paved roads every two years.

Which means, of course, that we must somehow get the government to hold general elections every two years.

And to do that, we must... must... erm... well you know. Yeah.










Sorry, but that's about as far as I thought. I do like the freshly paved roads, though.

Nando's: well-hung

The Nando's giant ebony rooster mascot was doing its rounds in 1-Utama. Childish/Clever captions ensue.. hur! hur! ^_^

"Look, it's a big black COCKeral"


OR

"Look, it's a young Asian girl with a big black COCKerel coming from behind!"

I wonder if anyone at Nando's thinks the same about this?

Wheee...!!! I feel so childish! :)

Saving money...

I live approximately 200m from my office (literally on the same street), which is walking distance except that my house is up a hill (about 50ft elevation or so), which means that - while walking to my office is easy - coming home will be tiring as hell since I have to climb back up the hill (Which I've tried before, so I know).


However, I have devised an ingenious plan to get to the office and back without having to drive, walk or cycle:


1. All I have to do is walk out of my house and hail a taxi at the traffic lights (while it's still red).
2. Once the taxi is moving, I tell him I want to go to Penang (which is like a five-hour drive north).
3. The driver will tell me I'm crazy.
4. I'll then tell the driver to take me back to my house.
5. The driver will then tell me to eat shit and die.
6. He'll drop me off at the end of the street - where my office is.

^_^

I figure I can probably get away with this a couple of times before they start to catch on.

The problem, though, is in coming back home (which is uphill). From my office, there's way too many exits and stops on the way back to my house. Sigh...

This is SPAAAAAARTAAAAA!!!!

Little sis no. 2 left a note on my door a couple of days ago. It's the school holidays and she's bored out of her skull (as usual).




Then, she left another drawing on my door today:




How cute :)

I suppose both Leonidas and V ended up in hell, then...

Trademark infringement

Just got my Nikon D70 back from the service centre when I bumped into this car in traffic:

It's a learner driver. Slow, hogs up the left lane and often stalls at traffic lights during rush hour. This one's got a handicapped driver, though - hence the picture of a wheelchair next to the license plate and a little sign that says:

Hmm... I've seen those fonts somewhere before.

Eat your vegetables

It's now the season of Lent, which according to the Catholic faith is a time of fasting - to freely abstain from stuff you'd normally like to do (there's a lot more reasoning behind this, apparently).

Some give up chocolate. Others stop drinking alcohol. Most Catholics would take Fridays as a day to abstain from meat - simply because it's yummy and shit.


I am catholic, and therefore, I shall abstain from meat on Fridays too. Because I believe in God and I am a very very good boy.

But it seems that I've not been fasting properly for the past 27 years of my life, as I've recently discovered.



The following conversation is an excerpt from an online chat session:
me: Are you done with work yet? I come pick you up.

Elaine: no need
finish your work
i have stuff i can do here still. ... housekeeping etc...

me: T_T

Elaine: dun worry

me: ok... i hurry

Elaine: dun worry
don stress
had big lunch ... am not hungry

me: ah...
you do realise we're supposed to be vegetarian today, right? :)

Elaine: erm
chicken is a vegetable
it is

me: Oh... really???
So my mum has been lying all this while!!!


Elaine: yes ... um ... yes, she has
because i would never eat anything but a vegetable-chicken on fridays during lent

me: yes...
Ah... so THAT'S how they grow chickens!!!
They plant the eggs IN THE GROUND!!!

Elaine: YES!
The chickens get cut off their stalks when they are big enough to ... erm ... make a tasty vegetable dish



-----------------------



Shortly after, the following mental image appeared in my head:

Click to enlarge

So there. Remember to eat your vegetables.