From The Sidelines

I did the unthinkable last night.... I went to watch Pete's basketball game.

Well... it might not be a big thing for most people. But for me it is. Its the first time I have ever gone to see him play basketball. Or gone to see any one of my ex-boyfriends play any sport in that matter.

Normally I would rather just stay at home and make use of the time alone to get some good quality time Online in Warcraft.

However, last night was kind of different. Pete had nicely asked the night before, and faced with the opportunity of a free ride home (no need to take the train), I accepted the invitation.

I'm not really a sporty-type person myself. I have a gym membership, and I have been to the gym in the last 6 months...... once.

I have seen Pete and my friends practice shooting hoops with a basketball while I play badminton on the next court...... twice.

So I was kind of surprised when I actually saw their team play against another team in a competition. Well, surprised in a 'funny' way. I kind of expected something different. Maybe I have been watching too many NBL Perth Wildcat games. Needless to say, Pete and his friends are not professional league players. But after about 7 team fouls (in the first half alone), I felt like I was watching some 'Gangster type' street basketball.

The other interesting fact I noticed was that most of the players on the other team were taller than them. In a game that is heavily dependent on the ability to jump high and to get rebounds, being taller was an automatic advantage.

For the record, our side lost by 10 points. It may not sound like alot, but it was a pretty low scoring game. The 10 points was about 40% of the points showing on the scoreboard. I guess thats what got to me. The low scoring aspect of the game. Seeing the guys miss shot after shot. I guess that would be something that would hardly happen in league games. Then again, I must not compare Apples with Oranges.

After the game, Pete asked me how they played. And I told him exactly what I thought. There was alot to improve (e.g. Do not argue with the Referee), but he didn't exactly see it my way. Mind you, not once did I mention the 'C' word... (Cr*p). I just thought it was important to tell him how I saw things.

I guess watching the game from the sidelines is different to actually being on the court and playing.

hmmm... I think I will go to the gym today.

Random Facts ~ About Me

I was looking back at my first 'About me' page I wrote back in May 2005, and realised I didn't really include much interesting facts about myself... (probably due to the MSN withdrawal symptoms I was suffering from back then) ... So here are some more random facts I can think about at the moment:

• I have broken my left arm 3 times. (Don't ask...). My doctor said if I break it again, then I will need to have surgery to fit some screws in there to make it straight. My left wrist, still isn't totally straight, when I rotate it, I can see a bone stick out the wrong way. As a result, I try to avoid any 'extreme' activities which might end up with me needing surgery.

• I once drank a whole bottle of Chivas by myself. (Was very young then..Don't ask...). How ever much my friends think I'm a super alcoholic drinker, I actually don't like to have alcohol with food (I will pass at wine during dinner), and will not drink at home alone. I only drink when other people are drinking and if the occasion calls for it.

• My ideal night out with my other half is to stay home and watch DVDs the whole night snuggled warmly underneath a whole heap of blankets. Something so simple, yet so hard to achieve.

• I like reading books. I prefer fantasy \ fiction type books, but would read pretty much anything. The current book I am reading is 'Crime and Punishment' by Russian author Fyodor Dostesvsky. It was highly recommended by my colleague, and after reading about 1/3 of the book, I understand why my colleague is a bit mad. As I believe the book is doing the same to me. Well, after finishing the book, I'll either be a bit mad or end up with a split personality.

• I recently got my ears pierced. But my right ear's infection hasn't gotten much better. Its still puffy and swollen, however, I'm still holding out it will heal itself over time. As I know if I take the earing out, and the hole closes, I will never go back to get it pierced again.

• I have never had my hair dyed a different colour. My parents were always against us (my two brothers and I) getting our hair dyed, for some reason they associated all naughty Asian gangsters with having bleached yellow hair. My mum used to threaten us that she would just cut all our hair off with a pair of scissors while we were sleeping if we ever did dye our hair. And out of respect for my parents, I still haven't done so.

• I learnt how to type chinese through playing an Online game (LineageII). It is true that I can type chinese but don't know how to write it. As a result, I can email to my Mummy written all in chinese, but will not be able to reproduce the same letter in my handwritting. I guess this also highlights my addiction to Online battle games.

• As a kid I was always proned to having nose bleeds. (I have no idea why.. and nor does my doctor). If I eat anything which was chilli or spicy, it will result in me having an instant nose bleed. However, as I have grown older, my tolerance for chilli spicy food has slightly increased... (helps by having a bf who cannot survive without chilli)... and I can now eat yummy Thai food and Malaysia Laksa, without bleeding all over my food.

Thats all I can think of now. Well the interesting ones anyway. Will probably post up more the next time I'm bored at work again... :)

coffee cup philosophy

Just to share an interesting story with you guys. Now, everytime I wanted to make a decision in life, I will ask myself, "Which is the cup and which is the coffee ?".

Enjoy the story...

Too many times, we face challengers at work, at home and at all other occasions. Maybe we can learn from this story: A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups: porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite, telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said:

"If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups and were eyeing each other's cups. Now if life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality of Life doesn't change. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it."

So, don't let the cups drive you... enjoy the coffee instead !

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This was sent to me by one of my chain-emailing buddies. Normally, I would just deleted her emails after a quick glance. But being a Coffee Addict myself, I decided to read on. Nice philosophy... if only somehow now I can convince my mummy to stop buying those expensive porcelain cups... which end up never being used anyway .... :)

Communication Skills

On my Gmail chat today :

B: hello

B: say something!

me: THIS IS PATHETIC !!

i can't believe we are talking through here ... when we are sitting next to each other !!!

B: basically we are nerds

me: idiot

B: ok bye!

me: go do ur work

B: speak fer yourself ...

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Mr. B is my colleague who actually sits right next to me. Yet somehow instead of turning his neck 45 degrees away from his monitor to talk to me, he decided to communicate through an online chat (in this case - Gmail chat).

No wonder why other people think I.T. people are crap when it comes to communication skills.

XXX aid declared as bomb ?!

"The Associated Press (AP) has reported that a 29-year-old man travelling abroad told airport security officers a sexual aid he had packed for the trip was a bomb."

"Madin Azad Amin was intending to travel to Turkey with his mother when he was stopped by officials on August 16 after they spotted a grenade-like object in Mr Amin’s baggage, said AP. Rather explaining the nature of the item in front of his mother, Mr Amin told the officials it was a bomb. The item was in fact a section of a penis pump, AP reported Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Lorraine Scaduto as having said. "

Penis pump looks like a grenade ???????????????

I always imagined them to look somewhat different. (like the scene in Austin Powers where he has his stuff returned.... "One Swedish-made penis enlarger...").

The pump showed in that scene definitely didn't resemble anything like a grenade bomb.

The poor guy got charged with felony disorderly conduct, and now faces up to three years in prison if convicted.

Hope the jury \ judge is able to see the funny side of this story and let the poor guy off.

Planning

Anyone who knows me personally would know that I'm absolutely hopeless with planning and organising things. I'm like the most unorganised person to have ever graced the face of this planet !! I'm not exaggerating. Just take a look of my room. There is evidence in there to satisfy any jury.

So for the past week, I've have been using most of my time at work trying to plan my airtickets and accomodation so that I can attend my high school reunion and C & A's wedding. The reunion is in Perth while the wedding is in Macau. And since I would be in Asia, I will try to visit my dear friends in Singapore as well.

At first I thought I wouldn't be bothered to try to fly back for the reunion. Since I already keep a pretty close contact with most of my high school friends that I used to hang out with. However, on second thoughts, I guess it would be good to see how everyone else is and what they are doing now.

So far my trip will be as follows :

Sydney - Perth - Hong Kong - Macau - Hong Kong - Singapore - Sydney

At the moment, I'm trying to avoid overnight stays in Hong Kong, as for the past two years I think I have already been to HK too many times. So just to simplify things, I'm thinking to just transit there only and take the Ferry to Macau. Plus if I get out of the airport, I think I would just end up spending too much money on shopping.

One of the problems is that if I was to make this trip into a reality, the air tickets alone will set me back around $1500. That is the cheapest I can find so far. If anyone else knows a cheaper way to get out of Australia (while keeping to the above itinerary)... PLS TELL ME ~~!!

I will be eternity grateful.

And then there is the issue of my exam at the end of the year. The exam will be held sometime within the week I will be away. (Thats if I don't fly to Singapore and just come straight back to Sydney after the wedding).

My exam timetable doesn't come out until week 9. Another 4 weeks away. I somehow doubt my airtickets will still be available at that price. If they would still be available at all. At the moment, I hope that when the exam timetable does come out, that my lecturer will let me take the exam at a earlier date. Lets hope he agrees. If not, I'm screwed.

And what is it with those Online booking sites ?! Why isn't there an option to let travellers plan multiple stops ??

So fustrating.... :(

Dead Phone

My mobile phone has completely died. I've swapped chargers and phone battery. Still nothing.

Its absolutely, utterly, completely dead.

I feel like I've just lost half of my life.

All of my contacts are lost. (I made the stupid mistake of saving my contacts onto my phone instead of my SIM card).

And now its all gone. :(

Can someone recommend a good phone pls ?

200th post !

Just realised I've hit my 200th post of Blogger... I think it goes to show I have a lot of free time on my hands. Well, I don't think I actually have a lot of free time, I guess its one of the advantages with working in I.T.

If I'm busy typing, then it means I am busy working.

Over the weekend, I finally found the time to go Yum Cha with my Daddy's childhood friend. Apparently, this so-called 'Uncle' of mine was one of his very close friends before coming to Australia, and I had seen him when I was 9 years old. I'm usually very reluctant to meet such family friends. Especially since, even if I had bumped into them on the streets, they wouldn't even know who I was. However, my Daddy had been on this case ever since I first stepped foot into Sydney 3 years ago, so I thought I might as well get this over and done with.

The other reason why had finally decided to do this, was that I had meet their eldest daughter earlier this year (who works as a flight instructor in Perth), and since she was back in Sydney for the week on holidays, it was the only opportunity I had if I wanted to avoid meeting them alone.

The Yum Cha session turned out pretty good. Her parents were as cool as her. Which I kind of expected. I mean, their 20 year old daughter is a flight instructor .... Pilot ~ !!!

Damn... what was I even doing when I was 20. Actually I do know, I had just graduated from Uni, and was frantically sending out resumes everyday trying to secure a job.

Anyway, my Daddy was really happy when I told him all about his childhood friend and how he was now. Happy enough to actually step out of his seat at the Mahjong table, and let me my mummy take over for the game, while he was talking to me on the phone. Just so that I would have his undivided attention. Needless to say, I think my mum was even happier than my dad with this sudden stroke of good luck.

Comments in Code

Following my Users post a couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across some weird comments found in some software code (an application my company uses). The application had somehow failed to work, so I decided to take a look at the code and work out which module had died. This was not the first time I had to debug someone elses code. So while I had seen some pretty non-informative* comments before I was still pretty surprised when I saw these ones.

It probably may have been 'ok', to see comments like these in testing or development stages, but this is an application in Production.

Its stupid alright ... but after reading the code I'm still not sure which 'stupid update thingy variable' the programmer is referring to.

Nasssty.... humm.. too much LOTR ?? Myyy PRECIOUSSS.......

hahaha... 'No Comment'.

However true this statement maybe... this guy has got to stop using the 'S' word.

Gets messy ?! why ? where ? how ? if it is Messy, why isit still included in here ?!?

Riigghht... Um. I'm not sure what they are trying to say here though.

Nassty...wicked bad programmer ! Servants of Sauron ! Myy PRECIOUSSS..

I hope so too.

Great. Nice to know if it doesn't end, then we will have a major problem. WTF ?!?

There is more where these came from. But I think I should stop for now. Hope you enjoyed these as much as I did. :)

*non-informative comments : Comments (in layman's terms) are added into programming code to make it easier for other people who read the code to understand what the code is actually trying to do. Therefore, unlike the ones above, comments are supposed to be Informative.

And there was Light...

Both of my car's headlights had suddenly died. (I still had high beam... just not normal head lights). So after a week of unsuccessfully trying to figure out how change the light bulbs myself, I decided to take the car to a local Auto Servicing Center.

The mechanic at the servicing center however, insisted it wasn't just blown light bulbs. And that it was something more severe...

"With both light bulbs blown, it could be a good chance there is something wrong with the car's electrics... you should leave it here so I can get an Auto Electrician to take a look at it."

"Auto Electrician ? But its just my headlights. Can't you just take a look at the bulbs and see if they are blown ?"

"With both headlights gone, it would appear to be something wrong with the electronics"

"Well, it doesn't make sense, if the Fuse has blown for the right light, then the back brake lights should be dead as well, because they are connected to the same fuse aren't they ? Look, can you just try changing them ... I'll gladly pay for the bulbs even if they aren't blown out"

(I had spent a whole week studying my car manual)

"Well... if you insist...I've hardly seen two headlights blow out at the same time.. *grumble.."

30 seconds later..... *drumroll*** and there was light ~!!

Damn... it feels good when you know you are right.... :)

Adelaide

For a couple of days last week, I went to Adelaide for work. It always is nice to get away from the busy lifestyle of Sydney, but somehow when it involves work, it isn't quite the same.

Nevertheless, I did manage to spend my last day in Adelaide exploring the city and the beachside suburb of Glenelg.

Adelaide, I found was alot like my hometown Perth. It was just as peaceful. Very few high-rise buildings and no traffic jams. For once, I did not awake to the sounds of car horns or the oncoming train. I could walk at my own pace without feeling like there was a need to walk faster and to keep up with the 'flow'.

Here are some photos I took from the trip...

Testing out my camera phone - Sony EricssonK750i
(all photos were taken with this phone)

King William Street @ 10.15am (one of the main roads of the city centre)

Glenelg @ 1.25pm
(Its nice to see a beach that is not overcrowded with people)

Hopefully the next time I visit, I would have enough time to go sample some wine at the vineyards in Barossa Valley.