A day in the city

It's been awhile since QJ and I had the time (nor money) to go gallavanting carelessly in KL....since he was slightly 'up' in the finance department lately, we decided to go jalan jalan in KL for a one day trip.

Thanks to my 'bleh' FYP, as well as some random assignment tasks tossed at me last minute (not to mention 'assignment' by my bro to do some major alterations to some pics of his youngest girl =,= ) .....ended up not sleeping the night before. By the time I was done with all my work, it was already 6am. Ended up doing some random stuff till 7am, woke QJ up...and went dimsum with Yeap at 8. We were kinda behind schedule...but managed to get on a 10am bus...reaching KL around 12-ish...so it wasn't too late. Went Times Square...the boys burnt RM14 playing Razing Storm...this new arcade shooting game (prolly not so new la but heh...its been ages since we went there)..."Shoot like crazy...smash and destroy" was the tagline they wrote under the name on the machine's label...and well...they live up to it. I mean...heck...you just need to keep your fingers on the trigger...swing your gun around....and heck...you'll turn the place to dust! There was one scenario where the enemy AI was on the upper floor....the boys just shoot the flooring and the bullets managed to hack off a huge chunk of cement! Swt....wat kinda bullets they use la... :P ...what's cool was that the environment was very interactable. If you see a car/barrel...shoot it cuz it'll explode and practicaly wipe out enemies in that area. What's funny tho, is that in certain scenes...enemies come at you with their guns raised in the air...i/o pointing at you...they look like some dancing/protesting mobs instead of some guerillas... kekeke....some parts of the game enables the guys to use rocket launches to kill the bosses....but in between the scenes where the guys are chasing the boss/running away from the boss...they get to use the rocket launchers on human enemies too...which is...well....kind of an overkill ^^; ...fun tho...even just watching them.

Went ronda ronda a few anime/figurine shops, Borders, then had lunch at Papa John's Pizza. One of the things QJ and I dread bout going to Times Square is the lack of food choice the place has. Same goes to Sungei Wang and Low Yat...if we want some good food, it'll have to be in Pavillion...heh...there too much choice pulak :P . So the night before, I did a search on Google for some suggestions of what to have in BTS....and found Papa John's. Was kinda worried since I've read mixed reviews on that place...but decided to give it a try anyway...since it was the only way to find out if it was good....

Turns out pretty good :D ...its not ZOMG AWESOME pizza (QJ and Yeap could not stop raving about the pork pizza they had while they were in Thailand...Yii even swore off all other pizzas in Malaysia after he had that....but oh come on...how can you beat pork on pizza ?? >.< )

....the ambiance in the place gives a warm comfortable glow...altho I have to say their table's a tad bit too small...we had to struggle to fit all the food we had on our table...not to say we ordered a lot oso ...we decided to go for their Merdeka specials...since it was the cheapest one with decent portion of pizza...RM49.90, comes with 2 9" pizza, one of them is their merdeka special pizza...some local flavour...grilled chicken with sambal sauce....YES sambal sauce!...I had to admit I was a bit intimidated to try that flavour at first..but it actually turned out nice. The sambal smell wasn't very overpowering and the pizza was actually tasty...but it could definately do without the red chillis...pedas x.x ...the other one we had was Chicken Super Papa's...which I liked.

Other side dishes that came with the set was a plate of very delicious pasta bolognese...

...and a snack platter that had 2 chicken wings, some potato wedges..and a few pieces of very sorry looking onion rings.

..in its defence...one of us had already 'attacked' the onion rings but still!!!

Seriously...I mean...come on! It looked so pathethic! Supermarket frozen ones can do better than that. And look what they had on the advertisement!

Look at how fat it is in there!

Feels cheated. But only that tho....everything else was good.

Oh...it also came with 4 glasses of ice lemon tea.

So yeah...RM49.90...about RM54 after tax...for a meal that's suited for 4 people (we were stuffed x.x )...its pretty cheap. Definately beats Pizza Hut and maybe on par with Dominos...maybe. I haven't had enough of Dominos to remember :P

We finished off our lunches, and headed to Sungei Wang and Low Yat to check out their 'otaku-stash' offerings. To our surprise...many shops have either closed down...or became rather 'lame'. The level of otaku-ness in these areas have certainly dropped substantially since our last visit here ^^; ...well not that it really bothers me cuz watever anime-related stuff I'd want nowadays...I can find them off the net ;P ...went to get a new switch (cuz ours got fried) from Low Yat before heading to KLCC.

Needless to say, it was worlds apart, Sungei Wang/Low Yat/BTS and KLCC...

We went straight to Kino's Japanese section...or at least where it used to be :P ...its been so long since QJ and I paid a visit there that...they are no longer inside Isetan...instead, they've moved into Kino's main branch upstairs. Yeap had a field day there...he spent a fortune there while the both of us were browsing thru some stuff (wheeee finally read Saiyuki Gaiden Vol 4...eventho its in Jap and guh so hard to read...but my gawd these are so hard to find! >.< )...since Yeap was busy with his shopping spree, QJ and I decided to go for a cup of overpriced but very very fragrant coffee at Kino's coffee club. Aih the price we pay for drinks these days...

After he was done, we head down for dinner. Well since we had lunch quite late that day...we weren't really that hungry yet but its so rare for me and QJ to go KLCC...and I've been wanting to drag him to Santini since last year when I went there with sis and Ken. Got there, ordered my meal...and went off with my tripod (berat babi but gah...I wanted to take a night shot of KLCC twin tower) and camera to shoot these:

Yeah almost same shot..just slightly different angle but heck...dun care. So much trouble to shoot these pictures so I'm gonna spam a bit! :P Carrying the damned tripod all the way there..was definately worth it. Of course I could just use some makeshift tripod out of...stuff I can get there but didn't wanna chance it since I hardly get time to just linger off KLCC and snap this shot..the timing was just too nice (altho I had to rush a bit and would have preferred to just took my time and take a few more angles and what not)...while taking these pics...some...foreigner guy came to me and kacau..."Your pics are nice" la (ei my camera was so bloody close the the floor how the hell did you see my photos when the display was angled towards the floor?) ..."are you local" la..."you look nice" la....=.=#...eh bugger..fuck off la. =,= ...I hate it when these foreigners come to my country and behave like this...

Went back to join the guys...the drinks have arrived....damn bloody expensive but so goddamned bloody nice. The best overpriced drinks I've ever had! LOL!

Green Temple mocktail - Green apple, sprite, vanilla ice cream...

...I shall attempt this one day...

Iced mocha or sumthing

...so damned chocolaty and rich..QJ got full just by drinking this alone :P

Food arrived after awhile...Yeap ordered Grilled Chicken breast ...and got the most impressive plated dish we've ever seen with our own eyes (after watching so many of those in Hell's Kitchen..haha!)....it was sooo so nicely plated...he was almost reluctant to eat it. I stole the brinjals (cuz Yeap wasn't a fan of veges :P )...and gawd..they were good.

I decided to share a Carbonara with QJ...since he wasn't hungry yet. It was delicious, but QJ would have liked it better if the pasta was not so tangy...

Overall, I felt the price of the meals were okay for the standards (Yeap's was about RM20sumthing...mine was RM19)...but the drinks were a killer..and so was the tax. 4 drinks (Yeap had 2..hahaha), and 2 dishes came to almost RM100...compared to lunch...this is definitely "Ouch!" ...but I think I'd wanna come back here again...maybe go cheapskate and order cheaper drinks or sumthing... ;P ...QJ would say "You masak jer la" ...hahaha...ah one day I'll learn to cook as skillful as these l.... tee hee....

Finished our meal and we headed back to Pudu to catch a bus back Melaka. It was a brand new bus...and what's more...it was also the first time that I've sat in a NGV-powered vehicle...not just any vehicle...a NGV-powered bus! Waaaaa....they power busses too?!!...and as if the thought of riding a NGV-powered bus isn't scary enough for me...the driver had to go refill the gas. Gehhh.....but at least we got to see how much the bus takes (full tank for the bus was about 130 litres..I think) ...was so tired and burnt out...I just fainted on the bus :P ....thank god Yeap drove us to Sentral so his car was just parked there whole day so we could head back straight the moment we got to Sentral. Pasar Ramadhan area was soooo lively this time (didn't remember it being like dat last year)...it looks as if they've converted the whole area to become a pasar malam...but we were just too tired to go check it out.

As if we haven't splurged enough the day before...we decided to go catch "Up" today....and then have Pak Putra for dinner....well at least I managed to get some grocery shopping in so...we'll be camping in for the next couple of days :P ...hee!

p/s: Selamat Hari Merdeka btw...altho this year...it hardly feels like anything at all...such shame ^^;

Fried switch

I was on the bed planning the structure of a 'componant' of my FYP when suddenly QJ went "Oh shit...the network's fucked up again"....got rather worried cuz no net means my FYP's gonna stall....when I look out the room, I noticed the lights on the house switch (our router got stolen...those bastards) was blinking in a rather...peculiar pattern. QJ went out and check and smelled sumthing that resembles burnt electronic parts. He quickly turned off the switch.

After trying a few times...the damn thing still wouldn't. It would be fine for about 30 seconds..then it goes nuts again. Bah. There goes RM50-ish. Thank goodness it wasn't the modem tho... *touch wood!*

Going Kay-Ell later...been so long since I went KL to really 'kai kai' jalan jalan...Ah I really shud be sleeping now...But bah too much stuff to work on and I've been slacking off so much today. Slept around 5-6am and ended up waking up at 3pm. Much needed rest...but freakin 3pm!? ....wow. ;P

Aih...work work...as the peons would say.

Reasons why...

Reasons why it might be kind of a bad idea to be selecting a fully software FYP, which is fully dependent on a good/decent internet connection, and a server which won't die anytime soon.

• Like fire, you need 3 elements to be able to work on it: a computer, internet connection, a server (which won't die on you anytime). Any one of them missing, and you're a sitting duck.
• When you have no internet, or the server fucks up on you, you can't even present/demo the damn project...nor can you work on your report cuz you need the screenshots of the damn thing.
• Fully software means, if you can't demo your project on the day itself (or worse, you don't even have screenshots of our project)...you're dead during presentation/report writing.
• If your PC dies on you, and all your files are inside, you're screwed. (which is why you should backup, backup and backup! >.< )
• When you can't access your own project, and other people can.....you'd shoot yourself in the head and wonder what to tell your lecturer tmr.

The last one happened to me.

My FYP is a Facebook/PHP-based system that enables FYP students to update their supervisors on their FYP progress via the application. In reverse, supervisors can also post annoucements on the system to alert all his/her supervisees on any matter. Of course there's other features on the damn thing but that's the gist of the whole project.

Last night, all of a sudden I was unable to access the page I was working on. At first I thought it was coding error. Then I realised that it had nothing to do with the codes cuz, pages that had previously been working fine, had suddenly turn up 404 on me too.

And here's the kicker. I opened it with QJ's facebook login...on MY pc....and everything works FINE! All the pages can be loaded...even the page I was working on. So all I could do was sit and stare and wonder when the damn thing will work for me again....and if it doesn't...what am I gonna tell my supervisor/moderator. "And suddenly....it boikot-ted me so as you can see, I'm actually logging on using my bf's account ^^ " ....it'd be damn kelakar if I actually had to say that during presentation day.

Anyways....progress is going fine...I suppose (although it wouldn't have killed me if I had done more work earlier...lalalalala!) Prolly give it another 2-3 days and I think I'll be done with the software part. Report's gonna be a bitch tho. Blergh.

Hail coffee.

15MALAYSIA

If you haven't already check out 15MALAYSIA.com ...go now!

15Malaysia is a short film project. It consists of 15 short films made by 15 Malaysian filmmakers.

New films are released every Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The best part is, if you've seen the films and you like them, the short films are available for download so you can keep a copy and watch them 'n' years later :P (tho, I'm pretty sure you can still find them on youtube then)

Edit: Here's a message by ruumz (as per posted in comments section)-

15Malaysia Contest: We're giving away a MacBook pro! Add us on Facebook fans or follow us on Twitter to find out how!

Ramadhan

/tries to beat Khurshid to posting his annual 'copy paste Ramadhan post'.. :P

Eventho I'm not a Muslim and do not observe the act of fasting during Ramadhan...the month of Ramadhan is still kinda special....

...of course when I mean special...in this context it can only point to 'food' ...LOL. Cialat...I know :P But I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks like this (My eldest sister would stock up on the good food she scouted from some bazaars and then have a feast out of those goodies....my 2nd sis and I would be lucky sometimes during our visit to her place after Ramadhan...like 2 years back ..I didn't join them last year tho :P)

The most special thing (to me) about Ramadhan is Pasar Ramadhan...or rather the Bazaar. About 2 rows of 10 (or more) meters stretch of stalls...with so much variety that...if I were to try one stall each day....tak habis makan thruout the whole month :P

Every year...a visit to the local bazaar would be a pain to the wallet...cuz...everything looks so delicious and we wanna try everything (cuz the damn place ain't near to our house so we're not likely to go everyday)....end up buying a bunch of 'snacks' and not decided what to have as our 'main course'... XP

Among the every time favourite are roti bom, murtabak, air tebu, ayam percik (dammit the Bangsar ayam percik used to sell at Wednesday pasar malam...now no more!), laksa (there's sumthing special about Malay-style laksa...altho I love just about every type of laksa :P ), and most recently...roti bakar. (Gosh that stall...they advertised that it was famous...at first we thought it was just a gimmick but turns out...its really nice!). I'm always tempted to buy 'lemang' but I tend to have rather bad experiences with them...which kinda makes me think twice everytime I wanna buy it.

In my first year at MMU, all those bazaars in town were rather...in accessable to us...since none of us have a car (nor know anyone with a car)...but we didn't really have to go that far since...there's a Pasar Ramadhan just downstairs hostel (we were hosteliers) at the Mosque Square. Even the small scaled bazaar like dat is quite...'dangerous' to us...since we're prone to over-buying food, to the point that we're stuffed every night and have plenty for supper :P ...awesome thing bout having the bazaar there last time was: we didn't have to walk far for dinner :P ...cuz otherwise it would be from MMU Hostel....until at least MMU corner or even further (damn semangat last time)...now ask me to walk....pftt!

One other nice things about Ramadhan...aside from the bazaar that is....is that QJ and I used to teman our housemate, Amran...to puasa. Well...we cheated la. We drank water....and sometimes curi makan (when we're too hungry...haha!) ...Sometimes we were so 'hantu malam' that by the time we were gonna tido, it was about time for Amran to sahur...so sometimes we join him for McDs (especially this one time where Bukit Beruang TNB had PMS and decided to go on maintainence at night for 3 nights in a row....we practically lepak-ed there whole night till it was time for sahur)...or just wake him up before we go to bed.

Mmmm....all this talks bout Ramadhan makes me think about Raya...and that makes me think of my friend, Fahizha's mum's laksa and ketupat. Sedaaaaapppp! Haven't been to her place for so many years...hehe :P /sheepish ....she's already married too...ahh teruk me ...hahahaha...sorry...takpe la this one saya yang rugi ne? :P

Wonder if we'll be visiting the bazaars this time around...since Amran's already graduated and Razzman....I doubt he'll be very keen to travel that far for food. We'll see :P

Anyways....to my Muslim friends out there...Selamat Berpuasa :D

GACC Committees staged an assassination attempt on the director

After the event was finally over and the GACC Committee members cleared the hall, it was time for the usual 'committee group photos' session.

The serious shot...

...then the crazy/fun/casual shot...

...then the other crazy/fun/casual shot...

...which got crazier...

...and CRAZIER (notice Navin already making the first attempt at stabbing the director)...

It was all fun and stuff :D

...and then it happened.

People from the back started tumbling down...

Some even decided to just jump off the stage to join in the fun...

Edo: pinned

Navin jumps to his Director's rescue!

(either that or he was trying to stab him while he's being pinned down :P )

Don't worry. The guy's still alive and kicking :P

Edo: "i nearly lost my left leg"

Edo - molested. Too bad 80-90% of them are guys eh? LOL

The GACC Committee - "Thank you for coming!"

p/s: As stated, images are from Edo's camera.

pp/s: resized to 500px. Any wider and it'll crash my blog's template border...bleh. I should edit it some day. Default 400 is just too freakin small

The crazy 2 days called GACC - Summary

I don't really like writing a whole length story about GACC...at least not now...so here's a summary of what happened in the past 2 crazy days in my life:

• we almost 'lost' Nicol Bolas!
  
• having intensive physical Taekwondo training early morning on the same day of your event sucks cuz you get shitty tired at the end of the whole day
• having intensive physical Taekwondo training the day before you event day (second day) sucks too...cuz your muscles go on strike and the leg muscles hurt so much even when I wanna go bathroom... =.= ...so I ended up slightly limping whole day
  
• having to shout to overcome the band volume to teach your players how to play a game...sux. Tho the satisfaction of seeing a bunch of players on your assigned table playing is a good feeling.
• I'm sick of monopoly card game...for now. Ask me to play again in 2 weeks time ktxhbye.
• meeting people I haven't seen for ages was awesome! Thanks for coming, Dex, Sim (all the way from Penang wtf!), Shu Yin, Thye Shin, Ailing, Hsia-Liang and of course Khurshid! (langgar perintah berkurung rumah datang yo! Sorry couldn't spend as much time hanging out as I wanted to...so occupied today gah!). Chris too :D. Enjoyed the chat...
• met a bunch of my assignment group junior friends (CyberP, Moral)...as well as my friends from Taekwondo that I just met a few hours earlier from the training session...kinda tickled me that I'd bump into them in the event (didn't think they'd be interested cuz they never mentioned wanting to go)
  
• GACC was not as disasterous as I had feared it could have been, thankfully. It could have been better but I'll say overall, it was good. Of course there were problems here and there but the event was executed and the crowd (as far as I can tell) enjoyed it so I guess, mission accomplished on their part. As for our division, mission accomplished, as always :P...
• ....altho the lack of manpower on our division almost killed me (and my 'colleagues'). So freakin hard to manage with so little of us!
• altho the number if visitors was relatively fewer than previous years, I must say...the quality of cosplayers this year is pretty damn good. There were guys that did very well at convincing other guys that they girls. There were girls that look so hawt in their costumes...they make other girls go "Omg she's damn hawt!"...and that's saying a lot.
  
• we got 3 new boardgames :D (altho technically, only 2 of them has 'boards'... :P )
• free pizza from our division head...kekeke...thanks Dear X3 ...splurged on meals so much these 2 days...
  
• and last but the best 'so called' achievement on my part during the whole 2 days...I won RM250 in Magic: the Gathering games today! :P Got first for the Constructed competition today and won 24 packs of boosters, worth RM10 each....and later won RM10 from booster drafts with the guys...nyehehehe.
  

Didn't really take much pic cuz was freakin busy 2 whole days I keep forgetting about my camera all the time. Maybe a little some pics in next post (cuz I doubt I'll write another GACC09 post..me being the lazy me :P ).

Bleh...so dehydrated today...keep drinking water and I still feel thirsty and my lips are cracking >.< ...ah bed calls. Nites peeps!