Hurm

We have blogs, and we have twitter. And perhaps, the next social-communication breakthrough is just around the corner. But I'd like to think that our most basic desire to have face-to-face communications will probably not ever diminish. Static texts on the computer screen don't tell us half the story that could otherwise be gleaned from things like tone of voice, facial expressions, body language and all the various non-verbal cues that allow us to say so little and yet mean so much.

Which would explain why the Tanjong Mamak Bistro near my house had been jam-packed full of people the last few times I went there.

Don't know why I'm posting about this though. Maybe it's because....I'm wishing there's someone who is intimately familiar with all my thoughts, all my wants, my hurts and needs and failures that I could just chat the night away with.

Nah, not a girlfriend.

Just sort of imagining God in person doing some pillow talk with me :)

What a random post.

Windows 7 for a Song!

Not exactly a song lah, but close xD

Windows 7 Home Premium is now (right now as in today, 26th June) available for only 50 USD as an upgrade!!! That's about err...only RM 175! I've been trying out the beta version for quite some time, and I love what they've done to it after how thousands and thousands of customers had relentlessly bashed Vista and all its shortcomings. For 200 bucks, I'd seriously consider going for the upgrade and join the other early adopters :D

Unfortunately the offer's only available in the US and some other countries for now....shipping it back to Malaysia would take extra time, and not to mention money. But the huge discount of 70 USD is almost too hard to pass up. Aih, how now.... :P

If you wanna check it out for yourself, simply head over to Amazon and see what the Home Premium version offers, as compared to the other version on offer also, Windows 7 Professional. Sure hope Windows 7 is worth the money this time :)

128 GB

If you haven't found out yet, not too long ago Kingston just announced their new line-up of USB drives sporting a new design and colour scheme. While they've been constantly doing this 'new look' thing for as long as there had been pen-drives on the market, this time around they've pushed the capacities all the way up to....err, (tapping at the calculator...) almost two-months' worth of non-stop music! Plug this into cars with USB playback audio systems and there's no need for the radio ever again, haha.

Picture above taken from hardwarecanucks.com.

Blogging

Blogging seems to have taken a backseat for the last month, which is usually indicative of a relatively boring day-to-day routine. Ironically though, the last month had actually been a period of many blog-worthy activities, from late-night Street Fighter gaming parties to driving a new car around the town and impressing my friends with it :)

Every day when I check back on my blog, I'd feel like updating but then pause for a moment and then in the end decide to do otherwise. Nothing to update? No, I've got plenty to write about. But just that I felt like not sharing what I had been doing, to kind of make those memories a little bit more valuable, instead of just public information available on the Web.

But if I keep this up, then I might as well shut the blog down, I thought.

So I tried to rationalize with myself, and mentally go over reasons to continue blogging. I was pretty blank for the most part. Then I tried to invoke more reasons to necessitate pulling the plug on this blog that I had spent several years on. Blank again, unfortunately.

And it's a tie, I thought.

Ever too often I get myself into the whole 'Why did I start blogging in the first place' dilemma that is never definitively answered and waste time thinking about blogging instead of doing some actual blogging. I'm a lazy person unfortunately when it comes to weighing pros and cons and all that jazz, so I've decided that I should stop thinking so much and going nowhere with the thoughts. And just keep the blog here and post whenever I want to.

Time for More

Quite a few things had taken hold of my time the last few days, but thankfully they're mostly positive.

Time-management had never been more intricate and nerve-wrecking for me, and I honestly had a lot of moments when I realized that I lost a lot of precious time doing nothing of benefit. I had to own up to the lost productivity and pay for all the times I slacked off, making the past few weeks a bit more tense and straining than usual.

But like I always say, "Oh well".

It's really funny then, that right now I suddenly have so many good things on my hands that I could blog about. Then again, I believe that I've always had a lot of good things to talk about. Just that I don't realise it. Life here on earth is way too distracting most of the time, and I had forgotten what it means to constantly see things from different perspectives. I got lazy over the years and lost touch with the flexibility in looking at life that I used to pride myself on. It's so much easier to just stick to one way of looking at things, I had to admit.

Instead of not having enough time to do what I wanted to, I never saw the lack of excess time allowance as a means of learning to make better use of what I do have. One hour can be spent doing nothing, or spent doing many things in one go. The lazy person in me would happily sit out and read newspapers whole day long, but there's so much more that can be accomplished when you find the correct way to focus on the tasks at hand.

For more than one reason, the next two weeks is gonna be an interesting one. Something really bad could happen. Catastrophic. Or I could also be having the time of my life. Ecstatic. Hurm....

Oh well.

Guess I'll just have to learn as I go along, no matter what happens :)

Streamyx Can Do Better

Currently paying about RM 80 every single month to the ONLY landline broadband provider around (I think), it is disappointing that I am stuck with a tricycle's equivalent of Internet speed almost every night..and afternoon, and evenings too. And sometimes mor....ah, sorry, I meant to say ALL THE TIME!!

I know many third-world countries don't have Internet access yet even. I know we are lucky to have such a kind Internet Service Provider who doesn't go after the pirates. I know we shouldn't compare, and instead count our bountiful telecommunication blessings, that we don't have to travel 10 miles to the nearest post office just to send a telegram (which is still being used, apparently).

But this is just sad.

What Streamyx is doing now is akin to trying to simultaneously water 5 different gardens all at once using just one thin pipe, so to speak. The end result is of course every garden getting only an IOTA (very very small amount) of water, and the plants are just happily wilting away. I know I'm wilting away here trying to download a perfectly legal file from overseas servers. Pretty sure I'd make better progress trying to figure out the secrets to time traveling...

Surely the behemoth of telecommunications in Malaysia can stretch its muscles a bit more and try to provide better service for us wanting citizens...personally, I'm just sick of big government-backed corporations like Telekom becoming overly complacent with itself, merrily lazing around and putting the nation's resources to waste.

At present, I get the impression that as customers who contribute to their war chests, we're being treated more like liabilities. It's almost as if we're being a burden to them. Oh poor Streamyx, it's internet lines are so congested by us free-loading good-for-nothing consumers. I hope they're not too exhausted from trying to provide decent Internet access to the lowlies and insignificants like us.

Come on Telekom, you can do better than this.

The Incessant Whiner

The phrase about pastures always being greener on other peoples' lawns has been ringing louder and louder lately.

This semester of my studies, I realized that I've been complaining about a hundred and one things. Oh wait, I actually think it would be more accurate to say a thousand and one things instead. When you yourself realize that you are being...err, snobbish, for example, then it usually means that you really are a snob, because the hardest person to evaluate is always yourself. So when I started noticing that I was constantly on WHINE mode, I discovered the unpleasant prospect of me having turned into the modern-day whine-addict who's never satisfied with what's going on in life.

I don't think I'd need to give any sort of examples here, since those of you who see me regularly would likely have heard about my long list of complaints some time in the last 3 or 4 months. Now that I think about it, I don't remember any recent conversations in which I made any efforts to refrain from whining. Not at all.

And funnily enough, I had initially wanted to post about my busy timetable, the deluge of assignments, the nonsensical happenings and all the other bla bla bla idontlikethisidontlikethat complaints that I had been sharing with everyone else. But I figure you guys already have enough negative stories to chew on in your own lives.

Not that I'll only be posting about happy-happy-I-won-the-lottery sort of things from now on, but I'd like to stop bathing in my own negativity and enjoy what I have right here, right now. And indeed I actually have plenty to be thankful for. Sure, the fan at my house is suddenly dead and the weather is so darned hot and all, but at the same time there's also tonnes of other things to smile about that often get lost in the eat-sleep-then-eat-again cycles that we have to plow through everyday.

The big events, the small gestures, they all count towards this life that I'm happy to live right now. Call me naive, but I love the fact that I am alive and well, imperfect as the world may be that we inhabit.

I'll end the post with a picture of this girl whose smile is so radiant, and so magical that most, if not all members of the male population would instantly be reduced to a melting pool of goo had they seen it for themselves :P