Watermelon Buns June 12, 2009
Posted by Wilz in Personal.1 comment so far
Willie : you can has read email pls now thx k
Sent an email to William, asked him to read it. The purpose of this post is to… introduce watermelon buns to the world.
Willie : you can has read email pls now thx k
William : familiar name
Willie : yes he r
Willie : you may replai email nao kthx
William : can i reply here
Willie : no
Willie : the other two (including the shmuck) must sees
William : haet
Willie : or i can i guess quote you or somethins
Willie : but i’ll put ‘watermelon buns’ next to each line
William : wtf are watermelon buns and how can i get some
Willie : just the sound of em are awesome aint it
Willie : they will only surface once the moon kisses mars where the star (which is not the sun) sheds it’s tears
Willie : and you know that’s not happening for a bit
William : damn them stars
Willie : replai wru?
William : sent you big doodoo
William : ah rats i sent it to you only
Willie : WHATANOOB
Willie : WHAAAAAT AAAAAAAAAA NOOOOOOOOOB
William : i hate yahoomail
Say NO to Shark Fin Soup March 21, 2009
Posted by Wilz in Environment, Personal.add a comment
I actually wrote this in my drafts two years ago (around November 2007)
A couple of months ago, the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry announced that it and its agencies will stop serving shark fin soup at all functions. Now if only the billion or so Chinese, actually more like the hundreds of millions who can afford it, start doing the same.
I’ve stopped taking Shark Fin Soup during Chinese New Year. It can be weird at the reunion dinner table, especially if your family insists on serving that dish. Last year I asked my parents not to buy shark fin when they went out for CNY shopping. They went ahead and bought it. They cooked and served it, I didn’t eat it. I think they got the message.
I wonder if they’ll insist on buying it again this year.
The happy news is that my family has been shark fin soup free for two years!
The unhappy news is that… there’s a lot of Chinese people, they’re getting richer (in the long run), and they’re a bunch of hard-headed blind culture-worshippers who won’t listen to Yao Ming.
Fill ‘er up. June 5, 2008
Posted by William in Environment, Personal, Society.1 comment so far
A litre of unleaded petrol in Malaysia now costs RM2.70(~USD0.80), a 40% increase over the previous price of RM1.92. As per usual motorists could be seen making a beeline for the nearest petrol station last night to “take maximum advantage” of the old subsidized fuel prices as the revision will come into effect at midnight.
Much consternation aside, it is not as bad as it looks. The government has announced that they will be awarding an annual RM625 rebate to each vehicle with an engine capacity <= 2000cc when you pay your road tax effective this July 1st.
What this basically means is that you will be recieving RM12 per week to absorb the new hike in prices. For those lazy with maths this means that if you have been pumping RM30 worth of fuel per week this rebate will be paying for the 40% hike. Any lower and you will be gaining a positive income, any more and you’ll feel some heat.
I’m cozying up to this change as it will provide those owning economy cars with more incentives to use less and at the same time perhaps encourage Malaysians to pursue alternative fuels or to practice efficient power management. Here’s hoping that the extra tax income generated will be wisely spent on upgrading our public transporation systems. Better yet, fix the goddamn potholes all over the country with REAL asphalt that could withstand severe rain corrosion (I swear mechanics are making a killing everywhere fixing wheel alignments and whatnot. Maybe it’s a conspiracy :O).
That’s not to say everything is fine and dandy however, undoubtly prices of almost everything else will escalate in tow and inflation was projected to hit 6% this year. Time to ask for those pay increments, or start carpooling.
Here in My Home, Malaysia May 17, 2008
Posted by Wilz in Entertainment, Personal, Society.3 comments
Best, Malaysian, Song, Ever.
Can you feel the wave of change that’s sweeping all over the nation? Malaysia’s all growing up. /tears
Anyways do check up the site. It’s full of delicious fruits. Just don’t eat the guava. The geek bites. (I know she said she doesn’t, but it’s scary nonetheless).
What does a.m. mean to you? May 6, 2008
Posted by Wilz in Environment, Personal, Society.2 comments
/fume
Here’s a conversation I had about 20 times in the past 5 days.
Me: “Are you coming for the Pangea Day event?”
Person: “I have to work the next day lah.”
Me: “…”
Person: “Wut.”
Me: “It’s 2.00 a.m. on Sunday. ON SUNDAY. It’s errr, Saturday night or Sunday morning. Not Sunday night.”
Person: “Owait.”
Me: “The clearest I can get is, 3 hours after the show ends, it’s 9.00 a.m. Sunday morning. You can sleep the rest of the day.”
Person: “Right.”
Really? It’s that hard to understand “11 May 2008 (Sunday), 2-6 a.m. ??”
/facepalm
I dodged a bullet the size of a car. March 11, 2008
Posted by William in Personal.8 comments
This is my second life and it seems pretty sweet so far, aside from the gnawing pain across the whole of my right torso and the occasional steak knife stabbing agony when I try to mobilize certain muscle groups.
At 8:30 a.m. this morning a Kia sedan became a little more excited than usual and plowed into the driver side of my car with enough vigor to tame a thousand female amazonian warriors should they exist. Apparently annoyed at this transgression my lightweight Satria absorbed the blow like a trooper and spun two complete circles, smashed into the curb, smothered a bush and probably frightened an entire ant colony whose queen upon staring at the sudden and totally rude appearance of my car’s front fender, predictably issued a royal decree that setting up shop at the corner of a deadly intersection seems like an overvalued idea (in hindsight), and proceeded to have three ministers whipped publicly, a thousand warriors ordered to assault said offending fender and had a dozen contingent of scouts recon for a more suitable nesting site.
(This is the part where I write “But I digress” but I happen to like digressing aand it will not kill you to noticed that I had DONE so)
I discovered that it’s rather annoying to have ONLY “FUUUUUUKKKKKKKK!!!!” screaming in my mind when I realized the increasingly high probability that I will die. No time dilation, no slo-mo flashbacks to my kindergarten sweetheart, just pure unadulterated horror. So much for dramatization.
When the spinning finally stopped, and when my faculties finally switched back on one by one I noticed that there was an acrid smell in the air (my airbag had deployed) that seared my throat. I then noticed two pairs of hands grabbing the frame of my door and trying to pry it off so that I can actually be extracted. There were a lot of disembodied voices asking if I’m alright, or where does it hurt and whether I can move. This prompted me to wave my left pinky weakly. There certainly was urgency in the air about all the getting out of car thing but I wasn’t feeling anything much if at all and my seatbelt was still on so things should be alright if I just take a quick nap, aight?
A small defiant part of my mind however was desperately trying to inform me that most (but not all) cars runs on internal combustion engine and those gulp down stuff that makes it combust. Licking flames hmm. OH SHIT FUCKKK (excuse my pathetic literary efforts during a crisis)
So I promptly unbuckled my seatbelt, yanked myself over to the passenger side, unlocked the door, stepped out onto the asphalt and immediately fell down on all fours, coughing. Wiggling my extremities to check if anything important was broken/maimed/smashed I noticed the lack of spilled blood, which was basically an encouraging sign. I then stood and stalked around my expired car, much to the relief of six men (how did they get here so quickly??), who are still asking the same questions save that they are now also asking me to sit down and rest.
It sounded incredibly absurd at the time.
What I saw when I got round to the impact site was even more incredulous:
In a nutshell if I had been a fraction slower I would bear the force of the trauma and would probably have a broken spine/hip/be playing D&D with Gary Gygax. If I had been a little faster my fuel tank may have ruptured and pose a great hazard, regardless of whether it exploded or not. Talk about providence.
Somebody handed me my spectacles at this juncture, which I noticed to be lacking the left lens but I put it on anyway.
So we fast forward to various men in uniform buzzing in asking questions, Min Chen swooping in and going postal on the offending driver (who was insignificant to me at the time as to how bedbugs are pretty insignificant to us -I don’t know why) and my Dad finally arriving to send me to the hospital for a checkup, which I found to be rather tedious at the time because my organs felt like they have been rearranged according to alphabetical order i.e. balls retreated into my abdominal cavity and heart dropping to where my bowels was.
I presently found myself on a wheelchair, waiting for a pretty cute nurse to give me a prelim check in the ER ward of a hospital. Both of us had to wait for a doctor and the X-Rays, and it was boring so I did what every self respecting dude would have done if he just had a serious accident and is waiting to find out if he’s about to die.
ME: So, how long have you been working here.
Pretty Cute Nurse (PCN forthwith): Ah…this is my third week and my second day in ER.
ME: Oh?
PCN (Blushing a little): Yeap, I’m a student still. From (Some Uni name lost in the haze of the moment).
ME: Ah. I’m a lecturer.
PCN: Really? Which university?
ME: Lim Kok Wing
PCN (Sagely): Ah, very expensive. Most expensive.
ME: Uh, nah it’s about the same really. How long till you graduate?
PCN: This semester. I’ve been posted to other hospitals for two months now.
ME: Ah so they rotate you around.
PCN: Err… yes
FANTASIZING ME: Tell me nurse, would you mind stripping together with me in the x-ray room so we can conduct a full body examination. With x-rays. And maybe some whiskey to numb the pain.
ACTUAL ME: I teach games. (Picture a burning fighter jet spiraling meteorically into the ground in a huge fireball)
PCN (Feigning interest and surprise): Wow, a game genius! (WTF is that supposed to mean?)
ME: Err…nah I just tell people about what’s fun.
At this point the radiographer rushed in and promptly abducted me into the X-Ray chamber. I didn’t even get to say goodbye. After a tense ten minutes the doctor called me into his office, stuck my X-Ray up on a lightbox and started pointing vigorously to blurish blobs of matter. Well it turned out that everything is where they should be and my skull (they had to X-Ray it FOUR times – yeah it’s thick) hadn’t sustained any fractures. He then gave me a prescript, told me to rush back to the hospital if anything starts to leak (figuratively) and shooed me away.
And so here I am, typing this away while refraining my self from chewing the Celebrax painkillers to save them for tomorrow when according to the doc “you just might get out of bed, good luck”.
Lux Aeterna, or how your life can be made epic February 29, 2008
Posted by William in Entertainment, Personal.1 comment so far
I think most if not all of you have heard Lux Aeterna and its various incarnations(compositions). Still puzzled?
Think Lord of the Rings trailer.
It was originally composed by Clint Mansell for the movie Requiem for a Dream, and have been featured an adapted to various movies and their trailers. Even games are picking it up for their own teasers.
Despite the dreadful amount of cheesiness one may expect from this score due to its many exposure to pop culture it remains a demonstrable evidence that music can and WILL reach down to our psyche and yank our soulstrings. I am clearly not qualified to justify or explain this phenomenon but as a listener I’m disarmed by its ability to whip chains around my overactive imagination and yank it around in a crazy fashion to create a constant stream of epiphanies when I’m doing just about anything.
Here’s a youtube sample of the original.
and one composed just for LoTR.
So now, a few easy steps to really make your life more interesting(to yourself only, unfortunately):
1) Obtain the mp3 and pop it into your ipod/mp3 player.
2) Listen when you do your laundry, drive to the store, lick stamps, conduct perfunctory observations of your right big toe, or even (for the hell of it) slap your monkey.
3) Come back in tears feeling like a vindicated hero.
4) Grimace as the sledgehammer of Mundane Life plow mercilessly into the depths of your livid conciousness.
5) Repeat step 2 as many times as necessary.
I love music.
The Blue Light February 29, 2008
Posted by Wilz in Entertainment, Personal.2 comments
I sat down to watch the first bits of this movie to find out what it’s about. I did not intend to finish watching it. I did.
The only other movie that I felt as powerfully described the cornered human person was The Hours. And that one had multiple Oscar winners as actresses and a convoluted story that very few of my friends ever truly understood.
The Blue Light or Ao no hono-o (2003) is simple, to the point, and yet contains enough small cues that you would miss if you weren’t paying attention. And the acting was shocking superb considering the experience of the actors. I have a feeling I’m going to be watching this one for a long time. Now if only I could find a good copy…
Re:Your Brains By JoCo February 20, 2008
Posted by William in Entertainment, Personal.add a comment
Convincing the masses that I am horrifiyingly tone death is a pet project I managed to complete successfully throughout the past two decades. However it doesn’t mean that I do not appreciate or enjoy music, in fact being a cornerstone of culture music manages to invoke an insane amount of feelings on my part – a simple melody can be very uplifting for example.
One of the few things I do regret about myself is the inability to memorize song lyrics. It’s very demoralizing when my best pal in primary school could do it right after two or three renditions. I on the other hand, have difficulty recalling the chorus after being locked up in a small closet with the song piped in on repeat, and the lyrics painted on the walls. With a gun pointed at my crotch. I suspect my brain is wired wrongly in some way to never reproduce music.
Hence I generally wasn’t fond of any artist in particular, instead I just pin for the most fun or beautiful melody of the moment and never did notice the lyrics even if I hear them(not that I wanted to during the boyband infested 90s). So I pretty much resigned myself to just listen but not hear great songs like the simple recreational outlets they were.
Until a software engineer turned indie singer Jonathan Coulton turned up with the song Re:Your Brains. Now you must understand that he’s a geek, and zombies are something geeks just get. We even have a manual on how to survive a zombie infestation. But this isn’t what’s phenomenal with the song, its the very fact that I could now *get* a song. And another of his, and another…
THIS GUY ROCKS. LITERALLY.
Watch this video accompanied by the lyrics below. Sing with me folks.
————————-
Heya Tom, it’s Bob from the office down the hall
Good to see you buddy, how’ve you been?
Things have been OK for me except that I’m a zombie now
I really wish you’d let us in
I think I speak for all of us when I say I understand
Why you folks might hesitate to submit to our demand
But here’s an FYI: you’re all gonna die screaming
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re not unreasonable, I mean, no one’s gonna eat your eyes
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise:
If you open up the doors
We’ll all come inside and eat your brains
I don’t want to nitpick, Tom, but is this really your plan?
To spend your whole life locked inside a mall?
Maybe that’s OK for now but someday you’ll be out of food and guns
And then you’ll have to make the call
I’m not surprised to see you haven’t thought it through enough
You never had the head for all that bigger picture stuff
But Tom, that’s what I do, and I plan on eating you slowly
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re not unreasonable, I mean, no one’s gonna eat your eyes
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise:
If you open up the doors
We’ll all come inside and eat your brains
I’d like to help you Tom, in any way I can
I sure appreciate the way you’re working with me
I’m not a monster Tom, well, technically I am
I guess I am
I’ve got another meeting Tom, maybe we could wrap it up
I know we’ll get to common ground somehow
Meanwhile I’ll report back to my colleagues who were chewing on the doors
I guess we’ll table this for now
I’m glad to see you take constructive criticism well
Thank you for your time I know we’re all busy as hell
And we’ll put this thing to bed
When I bash your head open
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re not unreasonable, I mean, no one’s gonna eat your eyes
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise:
If you open up the doors
We’ll all come inside and eat your brains
eof
——————————
Hi-fucking-larious, with a great melody to boot. His lyrics are very honest, funny and matter-of-fact. If you like this one please sample other awesome songs like Codemonkeys(his most famous), I Crush Everything(it’s about a self-loathing giant squid), Creepy Doll(great lyrics) and the poignant You Ruined Everything. He distributes his works freely on his website under the Creative Commons license but you can pay for his tracks if you’re so inclined. My fav part:
I think I speak for all of us when I say I understand
Why you folks might hesitate to submit to our demand
But here’s an FYI: you’re all gonna die screaming
Pure genius.
I’m definitely supporting this amazing talent, just because I can now belt out songs in the shower, in the car and in cafeteria line. If you don’t get him, well you’re not geeky enough :P. For more information visit his site or watch this yahoo news piece.
BRains!!1!!
Wilz
zhiyuan
William