Freaky Night or Freaky Me ?

Note to self; do not consume Redbull like ever! Seriously it's really making go really crazy at the moment. Seriously screw drugs, a can of this is enough to stimulate my mind like crazy. It feels like thoughts are going through my mind like 100 miles an hour or something.


Started off the night feeling really active and started telling childhood stories to someone like for hours literally. After that, when it was time for bed, it started to get really windy. It felt familiar enough and I was smart enough to get up and close the windows tight. Sadly to say it's really building up and it started to rain really heavy. The wind really isn't helping; it's literally blowing rain into my room and my window is not shutting properly.


And I thought it would be a great idea to tape some of the part that is leaking in strong wind. Bad idea; water started flowing in. Well it's not that bad. I mean I did manage to seal it pretty tight. I guess the small is just overflow or something.


Then the whole taping the window incident reminded me of some thriller show. Can't really recall the name of the show. The one where it started of with people to kill themselves. And it turned out like this "ghost" came from the net or something. And in the story people usually get freaked out and it turns out that the only way to "prevent" the ghost from coming in is by sealing the doors and windows with red tapes.


Shuckz now I need to stay awake long enough to see to it that my room and PC don't get soaked. I guess in the end it's a good thing that I drank the Redbull then. Ugh...

Rant...

It's been a while since I've wrote anything here. Mainly because I am pretty much swarmed by work and also I am pretty much emotionally stable for the past couple of months that it feels like there is just nothing much to rant about.


Of course there are days such as tonight where there are just a million things in my mind that just needs to blurted out. Even though there are minor things of the past, somehow they remained lingering in my mind hoping that one day I would be emotionally unstable again and start pouring them out again.


I think I've talked about this before but then again due to some recent (quite long ago actually) encounter with it I guess it doesn't hurt to use it again to get things started here. There is just something wrong when people somehow shows dislike of something that you do or decide to do. I mean what does it have to do with them in the first place ? It does not even effect them in the first place. If it was a bad choice I doubt I would go complaining to them or anything. Seriously most of the stuff that they show dislike of is quite petty. Why I don't have a car still ? Why am I still at ? The list goes on.


Secondly, it's my choice, something that I've given lots of thought into and I think it is a decision that I am comfortable making and I am pretty sure made me happy. I am not really sure why but somehow some people thinks that the things that they have decided in their lives are correct and anything that is against that is wrong. I mean seriously? If your choices or decisions are correct what makes mine wrong ?


Another thing that has been bothering me is the elevator. The past couple of weeks, on and off, one of the elevator was stuck on the top floor and just don't want to come down. As usual when there is just one elevator, it's pretty darn slow when I need to get back down to the ground floor which is still fine somehow. I mean what you gonna do right? Then comes the culprits who makes it even worse. Those that I have doubts on whether they are just plain stupid or ignorant. It's just those people that when you are going up, there is just one dude from one of the floor that press up but wants to go down. I mean seriously? ( I should stop saying that) The up button means you want to go up and the down button means you want to go down. I mean what is so hard about that? Is pressing both the up and down button making the elevator go any faster? Is it faster being in the elevator going the opposite direction before going the direction they want ? Sheesh...

The Thing About Big Companies

Been a while since I've rant about something here. No surprise there since everything have been fine so far... till tonight. I think the problem lies in big companies in general. I will get back to that after I've explained the situation. So basically I am avid gamer specifically in Warhammer Online at the moment accessing using Streamyx broadband and those two combos really annoying sometimes. It has its ups and downs but most of the time it just plain piss me off.


So here is the situation. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking I could probably play an hour or two before going back to bad, ASSUMING the connection on Streamyx broadband would be much better around late in the night. Boy, was I wrong. I couldn't even go through the auto patcher (this is the part of the online game experience where you wait for your game to check if there is any updated files or what not before letting you start the game). Constant timeouts.


After a few attempts, I restarted my modem and basically retried. For those who don't know that's the routine of most Streamyx users I know, you have to restart your modems to get "good IPs" which has smoother connection and less lost packets. But when I tried to go into my game server it just timeouts. So what is a customer to do after having this two problems alternately after a few tries? I go for the Customer Support I guess since the funny thing is, I could access other servers. I thought hey maybe it's the game.


Now comes the main part of my rant, Customer Support. Rule of thumb for big companies who want to provide Customer Support; provide them only if you are going to do well with them else don't provide it at all cause people would be so pissed that they wouldn't even be using it at all. Applies for both Streamyx and Warhammer Online.


Streamyx users already knows the usual response from the CS people. First they will ask you to restart modem, yadda yadda yadda and after half an hour nothing was right still and you've wasted a large sum of money calling their 1 300 number which is not free. Warhammer Online being under EA is no better either. Famous for having crappy Customer Support from day 1. I have experience their poor service numerous times in the past.


The thing is, there is one question that keeps popping up in my mind. Why provide the service in the first place? Why? Seriously why get people's attention on the product if you're not going to be providing a good product in the first place.


Customer Support and also complains are almost impossible to reach to the correct people in Malaysia I have to sadly say. There are only three things that will happen when you are using some sort of Customer Complain/Support. It's either a) it's so troublesome that you stop halfway into your effort and you end up not reporting anything b) you've successfully reported something but it just doesn't reach the proper people c) they don't give a crap about your complains cause what is 1 - 2% of complains out of their full range of customers to them? The infamous "You don't like don't use" attitude.


I know this is not reaching out to anything really and this is just nothing more than ranting my frustration to myself. But I really wish there is something that can be done.

Honor Thy Father

Lately I've been wondering whether I've been resentful towards my own father. I guess it doesn't sound weird to most people who knows me since I rarely talk about my family members that much and I don't really mention about the people I know to my parents. I think these are just two worlds that shouldn't mix... for my own safety I guess. I don't want to wake up to a call from my dad one day going "Hey why did you dump so-and-so, bla bla bla".


Anyways, yes I don't really mention them to people close to me even. If I ever do, then it's pretty rare I guess. The reason why I've been thinking about this is, I've been having these weird dreams about my dad pissing me off somehow and making me go really mad till I can even wake up in tears of defeat lol.There goes my day. Whenever I have one of those dreams it just spoils the rest of the day.


The latest one was about how he kept asking me to do stuff. Now I am not trying to talk bad things about my dad or anything but seriously he does that a lot in real life. I wouldn't say I've quarreled with him regarding it before, but once or twice I've voiced this matter out to him. And he would sort of imply that he is trying to teach me how to do this and that by asking me to do it. Note that some of the task can range to a measly one such ask bringing the TV remote to him which is like arm's reach if he just sit up.


I remember I've sort of voiced up in quite a bad manner by telling him how he resembles a snake that don't have legs and hands. Well, I wouldn't say I regret it or anything but I still respect my dad as a father figure and anything so small doesn't really matter to me in the end. But the dreams really bother me. Do I really still keep some sort of rage and anger towards my dad? I think it's something I should find out one day.


I think being around my dad for the past 20 over years have made me sort of numb to anything that people throw at me in my daily life. Somehow the things he does or say sometimes can really be annoying and really really frustrates me. I guess that is a good thing right? LOL

Work : Age of Reckoning

Finally I have the chance to write down some stuff here again. It's been a while I have to admit. Roughly two months. Life have been hectic as well as exciting in a nerdy kinda way. Work, finally I manage to update my contract which really feels like a ton off my chest. The documents that I have to fill in was just unbearable. Three separate documents that I had to fill in that involves not only my personal information but what have I been doing for that particular year, how did I "think" I perform and much much more. Pity my supervisor though, she had to fill in her fair share as well.


Besides that, I have somehow got myself tangled up with the major leagues among my team. With the contract ending, my colleague, a great guy with vast knowledge in Linux and just that kinda person that is so persistent in making the programming world a much more exciting place, decided not to continue on with his contract and his major tasks sort of slide off into my lap. Part of me is saying oh crap and started to panic while another side of me is getting really pumped up ready to go. To be honest I am fine with the task, its just the matter of the documentation which I've already estimated to around 600 - 700 pages of it.


Life is going to suck in a way. But I guess, at some point I have to step up to a new step sooner or later anyways right? But at the mean time I am trying to enjoy my 5 day holiday as much as I can hopefully not having to focus on the task yet till much later when I DO actually finish reading the documentation.

My Headphones and Massive Paperwork

Just a bit of an update. Recently my headphone have been smashed to pieces by myself. Not intentionally of course but I really learn a lot from this headphone. Dropping it on the floor from a desk constantly is not a good idea (d'oh). Anyhow one day after it dropped on the floor, it broke to two. I am not kidding and I even got image to prove it. Apparently the metal strip frame that gives the headphone the shape sort of detached from one side of the headphone speakers and... well you get the idea from the image I guess. It was a Koss headphone. Pretty not too bad average headphone but sadly I guess it's the way it was designed that somehow it just doesn't sit properly on my table and kept dropping on the floor.


OK, the whole image is basically messed up, I know. That's why I labeled some of the parts. Number 1 is the sponges that cushions the ear. Number 2 is the curved metal frame/strip and Number 3 is the ear pieces. I guess it didn't turn out like that when I drop it. I sort of remove the metal part in hopes that I can still hang the ear pieces on my ears and use it temporary. Sadly I guess it wasn't meant for that and it didn't fit that well.


So I went and got myself a new headphone. I guess I am the proud owner of Sony MDR-V250. Nothing to brag about just a normal headphone. A bit tight on the ears, it's currently giving me a bit of a sore. Overall still pretty good headphone. I guess it's a smaller version of studio headphones. Blocks lot of ambience sounds. Pretty decent bass.


OK right back to the second issue I am having. Lately I don't know why but my department and my whole "place" in general have been doing a lot of I guess unnecessary paperwork, which is fine with me if I am not the one doing it! A lot of things regarding over job and the relationship of my position towards the big mother company itself. Honestly speaking I thought it was sort of a bull seriously. I don't mind having paperwork and what not but at least make them related to my job in the first place. Last week I was bothered with some feedback forms that I need to fill in to literally rate myself. Took me a week I guess to figure out all the bombastic business terms used in the feedback.

This week I was again bothered with a written form that explains what my job is suppose to do and all the details regarding it. To sum it up, it's what they call a job term of reference. Basically it explains what the job is, what challenges it faces, the budget... believe it or not, Skills needed, etc. The whole 9 yards. And basically I spend the whole day filling it up. You can say that I am around 90% done I guess. Honest truth I think this should be filled by only certain people in the company. Even though we are executives but I don't think we are connected strongly to the managerial site of the company and personally I think some of the things that is in there should be filled in by HR or something cause seriously I wouldn't know what is the official requirement of the job and things of that nature.


However my Assistant Manager was good enough to fill in some of the stuff like organization structure and some basic information (which I would have gladly filled in myself). Although I really think that they should have helped me fill other things like competencies required for the job, qualification requirements, job dimension, etc. Oh well, I guess I will continue to fill them in tonight. Busy day tomorrow.

Forsaken...

Again and again I have been asked about my believe in the Big Guy above, where do I stand? Do I really believe in Him? So many questions related to Him yet so little answers about Him. Is my believe in Him just to the point that He is someone I talk to and pray to at the time of need? Is it to the point that I hope for the best for everyone I know from Him everyday? Is it to the point that that I hope that what happens to me each day is from Him and what happens to me is only for my own good? Is it to the point that I have someone to blame when things go wrong? Is it to the point that I have someone to point to for all the success in me? Sigh I can't say for sure where I stand... at least today or rather the past few weeks to be exact.


Probably around Tuesday 6pm I came home to realize that my PC wasn't working... System Boot Failure. Feels like my heart have broken into thousand pieces when I realize it had crashed dragging along all my treasures of songs, animes, comics, mangas, etc. Sad but true. Today I finally manage to get a new harddisk and also send the old one to reclaim warranty as there is nothing more that could be done to save the data.


My joy for having a new harddisk was cut short when I got home and installed everything else. My other harddisk could not be detected in my Windows. But the weird thing is it is detected in my BIOS and it is also detected as a hardware in my Windows. But no drive appeared. After a few setting changes here and there, it became worse as I can see the drive now but it is claiming the drive to be not formatted and asking for permission to format it. Again... my heart broke into a few more thousand pieces as my older songs and my whole collection of mtvs are gone for good if I ever press the button format which seems to be the only thing that I could do for now.


Problems aside, I have been having these thoughts for a couple of days now while walking to work. Why did all this happen to me? Did I do something bad to deserve all this? Is He showing me another route in life that means the sacrifice of this materials? Part of me want to deny the fact that it might be His work for a greater good in me. Part of me want to blame him for what a utterly disasterous thing he could do to me to erase a whole lifetime of things... my life along with the harddisk(s). I am getting confused.


Again with the problem tonight regarding the old harddisk... the idea came into mind again. We are talking here about gigs and gigs of data that I have collected over the years :

Songs and MTVs : The many many genres that I have collected over the years showing the transition of my taste for songs. The memories that they have, the people I met that recommended me the song(s), the people I met through songs, all gone. From pop to hip hop to rock to punk rock to many others that I have gone through. All gone.

Notes and Projects : The proof that I actually did study and gone through an amazing amazing life in campus. The tortures from my lecturers and tutors, the easy going life I had in campus. All gone.

Comics and Mangas : Though they were illegal at some point, it is still things that I have treasured over the past year or two. They are like trophies to me, sense of greatness is felt in me for I am holding on to gigs and gigs of comics and mangas in my humble collection. All gone.

Though there are more things in my harddisk that I failed to mention but I think the point is pretty obvious, a lot of things were kept in my harddisks. Things that really define me. Things that made me proud. Things that kept me alive in this lonely world of mine.


Sadly all is gone now and to my surprise, I somehow felt relieve and eager to tend to a new start in life with new things to keep in my new harddisks. The good side of me says He did all this in order to give me a new start in life. Trying to get rid of illegal things from my life. For that I felt greatful and eager to accept His action and find alternatives to the illegal things. Though there are some things that I cannot part with that will still grow and be collected in my PC. Comics, Mangas and Animes. I seriously can't part with those. For the rest I am willing to change. I am in fact downloading OpenOffice to replace my old pirated version of Microsoft Office. In hopes that I might be able to reduce the amount of piracy in my life.


Don't get me wrong. I do feel devastated by the event. Thinking back about all the things I have collected over the years. But part of me question myself, since when do I rewatch, reread, relisten to all those old materials? I don't seem to be using them as much as when I first got them. Maybe it is for the best that I part with them. Maybe it is His way of telling me to get a life. Maybe He is telling to get my life straight and legal and clean.


Or maybe I am just lying to myself. Another part of me want to say screw You. You have created earth and all its greatness and You screwed up by creating a mistake which is human civilization and dump them on earth. And now You are making them suffer. I say kill all or suck it up and deal with it...