End of Times, 2007

Hey hey! To me it seems that year 2007 passed very fast indeed!

As previous years, I've gain a whole lot of new experience in this year. This blog also undergoes some changes as well.... and I'm glad that this blog "survived" for another year to come!

Here's my own summaries of something happened in 2007, with most of 'em covered in this blog.

1. January 2007
• Started to work for the first time, earn money with my own sweat.
• Attended my cousin's wedding at Perth, Australia. Having great time there. :)

2. Feb 2007
• Celebrating Chinese New Year with family!

3. March 2007
• Got my SPM result. Somewhat below my expectations.

• Prepared for joining National Service!
4. April 2007
• Attending National Service, separated from Internet for good.

5. May 2007
• Came back from National Service earlier to further studies in college.
• Took A Levels at Tunku Abdul Rahman College.

6. June 2007
• Replaced my ageing mp3 player with a Creative player.

7. July 2007
• I got this blog redesigned, turning from pale white into deep blue(current theme).
• Passed my driving test and got the driving license.

8. August 2007
• Participated college's football game, lost at the first round. :(
• Got my AdSense cheque.

9. Sept 2007
• Surprisingly nothing much happen in this month, except for 2nd college test.

10. Oct 2007
• Got the domain PhantomCLF.net from a competition. :)
• Made another video masterpiece for my grandfather's birthday.

11. Nov 2007
• Third and last test for the semester.
• Watched Kitaro in Genting!

12. Dec 2007
• Successfully organised primary schoolmates' gathering.
• Got a new laptop, which I'm using it to write this right now. :)

Looking back at my resolution for year 2007, I realised I've achieved most of the goals, except for a few one.

Yes, I've got my new laptop.
I've took a pre-U course en route to my university degree.
I've learn how to drive.

I did not score as well as I expect in my SPM.
I did not get a new handphone (partially untrue, as I've switched from my Nokia 1100 to 1110i)
Lastly, I'm still single!

Year 2008 will be a crucial year for me. I'll be facing 2 major exams, AS (May) and A2 (Oct). This exam result will be very important for my pursuit in university degree courses. So far I'm still considering what courses I'll take for university.

I did not give up my interest in studying in Geography and Humanities (Anthropology & Sociology), as this is the courses I think of originally.
Secondly, I've a choice to turn myself into a sound engineer, as there's a course I'm interested in LKWU, Diploma in Sound and Music Technology.

As it, there's still sometime to go before I'm deciding which course I'll be doing next. No matter which path it is, my future will be determine by it. So, there's no room for error then.

I think, year 2008 will be very interesting for me, we'll see. ;)

Last but not least, I hereby wishes all of you out there, blog-readers, visitors, pass-byers, strangers, a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

!~!~!~ {Happy New Year} ~!~!~!
:) *[-2008-]* (:

Testing Office 2007!

Am trying to blog from Microsoft Office! :)

My Desktop, again

desktop_20071227, originally uploaded by CLF.

Nowadays I frequently switches wallpapers because I'm getting bored of the desktop backgrounds more often.

For now I've a whole load of wallpapers waiting for me to switch day by day.

I previously used Webshots on my Windows XP, but I think my Vista will handle it nicely. :)

P/S: Original pic available here.

End of the Year....

The time sure passes pretty fast 'eh? It's just like a blink of eye it's end of year 2007 already. There's a week to go to the new year, which means I'm going back to college pretty soon too.

I've been spending most of my holidays staying at home and went working. To be honest, I've forgotten about college's studies lol. A bad bad move, as I'm having my AS and A2 exams next year, aiks.

Recently I've been going out and enjoy some great time with friends. I appreciate the time we're able to hang out together, especially those secondary schoolmates. Although some of us haven't seen each other for quite some time, we are still able to hang around like the old days.

Few weeks back, Fei Wen asked me to join her Red Crescent Society's blood donation campaign, held in my school Chong Hwa. I wanted to pledge my blood for the good deeds earlier in college, but for some reason I didnt do so.

Last Sunday morning I went back to the school to donate my blood. It seems I reach there quite early (9am), I should've realise that most of my friends promised to come will only came here at late morning. I went through the initial check-up for my blood, only to be told by the nurse that for my condition I cannot donate blood.

So what's going on with me? Why I cant donate blood? The problem lies with something called G6PD deficiency, meaning that I lack of a kind of enzyme in my body. I was told that I wasn't the only one whom the nurses refuse to draw our blood out. A few other friends who came late face the same fate like my case too, but whether they're G6PD patient or not I dunno. Oh well, I cannot donate blood for the rest of my life, sigh. It somewhat feels guilty that a chance for you to make a good deed is shut down. :(

Enough of depressing stories for now, let's talk about some more cheerful events happening.

On the Christmas Eve, I was invited to my friend, KY's house for an annual Xmas party. I was absent for the past 2 years' Xmas so I've missed pretty much stuffs happening at his place. I had a good time there spending with friends, joke around and eat some good food.

I think I'm the biggest winner of the day as I collected quite a lot of gifts there heheh.

My gifts, the Santa hat and the Santa doll. Other than this I also receive a snack and I think the best gift of the year, a few GBs of latest Japanese animes, hahah.....

So on the morning of Christmas, I went to picnic at Titiwangsa with Form 5 classmates. Sadly, only 5 of us went instead of the original 8.

We brought quite alot of food go there, especially Sam's father generously cooked a whole pot of fried noodles!

We walked along the large lake park and took photos on the way.

Pretty much stuffs going on for me, I wonder when I'll have the free time to do all these again? Heh, year 2008 will not have much time for my own leisure, unless the A2 exam is over, somewhere in Nov. 1 year from now, heh.

Adidas adiPure

Adidas' answer in order to stop Nike's Legend series from dominating the classic/retro market of football boots.



AdiPure comes in two colours for now, black and white, as you can seen from above pics.



Some Adidas players switches from the Predator series to the AdiPure series, most notably is Kaka, the Brazilian and AC Milan ace player.



Adidas used to promote classic boots during World Cup 2006 in the 7406 series, but because of it's material quality (calf leather instead of k-leather) only a few of these boots worn by actual players. The only player I noticed wearing this 7406 boots is Ashley Cole from Chelsea.



Actually AdiPure is pretty much a redesigned 7406, if you look closely.

Nike football boots for 2008

Nike is releasing a series of new boots in the first day of certain months, starting from the first day of 2008.

Nike is obviously trying to sell the variations of Vapor boots in this new year, featuring Vapor4 and Vapor SL. I thought SL suppose to go for a limited production run, but Nike's smart enough to extend the production. From the pic you could see a slight difference in the Vapor4 and SL, especially the heel part. I guess the materials used in the boots separate between the two boots. Vapor4 is made of synthetic leather, while SL is made of fibre-glass.

The Legend series, still remain it's classic look. This time they'll face a tough competition from Adidas' Adipure.
Oh and also Ronaldinho will be able to compete with Kaka with football boots as R10 series will get an update too. Anyhow I still think Adipure looks better than Ronaldinho2 Legend.

The Lasers however, will be facelifted and renamed as Laser2. I'm still skeptical on Nike's move replacing the Air Zoom Total series with this Lasers, very unorthodox design. I wonder whether the rubber ring in the middle really works for kicking the ball better.

For me, only the Air Legend series look good, the rest, below my expectations. :\

Emotion Control

 

 

These few days back I've been experiencing emotional outbreaks from a third-person's point of view. It's uncomfortable to have someone around you acting desperately to overcome the mental strain, eg: crying, shouting, freakin' out etc. It is disturbing and it's 'infectious' too, dragging those who're not involved into the hot pot at the same time.

As for myself, I've a certain thoughts on how to control and maintain my emotion. I think it is important that I kept my emotion under control so that I wont be doing silly things when my mind is driven wild by excess mental strain.

At most of the time I only show a little hint of my emotion, while hiding the real thoughts back. Most of the hidden emotions are slight negative, and I prefer to show my positive side to the public.

I've been training myself to be tolerate on matters, try to get use to changes, like dealing with new peoples. I learn how to be compromising with others, so that we can work together in a peaceful matter. This is also a good practice to figure out different types of persons.

I believe most of us have someone in our mind that we dislike, or hate. Same  applies to myself, but most of them are history for now (they're still alive, just no longer in my "hatred list" anymore). I met most of these "enemies" back in school, or in recent case, mates from the National Service camp. At the initial stage when I knew them, I was utterly disguised and disturbed by them, by their actions, talks and reactions. At that time I'd show them the bitter side of mine, trying to take them off the arrogant throne.

After some time, mostly months or years later, I did not held any grudge on them anymore. Within the time-skip I'd forget about their nasty things that make me dislike them, however I'd start to take them as another friend. Whenever meeting them again after it's like meeting an old friends again. For this compromising attitude, I'm happy to say that I have no enemy or whoever I hate!  :D

I've seen friends of mine having problem to deal with emotional problems. My solution for them is listen to a few relaxing music pieces, which I strongly recommend to anyone who needs it. It works for me to de-stress, while for others I dunno it works for them, because different people have different ways to handle this.

Emotional outbreak is not the best way to solve problems. When we're in the state of rage or upset, the way we think will be disturbed, and now our most valuable asset, the brain, will start to think of weird things that one usually wouldn't think of. The worst case scenario from this outrage might involve human life too, whether it's suicide or homicide. Of course for the people around me, things haven't gone so wrong until they'll be desperate to choose these options, well it's happening outside there, frequently unfortunately.

Living in this 21st century prove to be a big challenge for everyone. Things are starting to evolve, a new dimension has been form. We must change ourselves, physically and mentally in order to cope with the new development of humankind. Before we could change the world, we have to change ourselves first, and the best is to start off with switching to a proper mindset. In our mindset, the core of every thoughts are based on the instinctive emotion we had. Emotion cannot be ignored, for it's power to lead a person to success, or drive a person crazy enough to kill.....

Movies

This holiday I've been spending quite some time watching movies with fellow gangs.
I just watched two movies though, not the crazy movie-spree as you can imagine.

I've watched The Golden Compass and National Treasure: Book of Secrets.
How was the movie? One of them is good, and one of them is bad.



I went for The Golden Compass first, and I heard a few friends of mine praise the movie. In the end, it turn out to be a total disappointment.

The story starts out of sudden explaining very briefly at the beginning, then suddenly jump into "adventure" of the little girl Lyra.

The battle and journey to the North Pole is not something the movie can be proud of, it doesn't have the suspense element in it, it's just not quite the kind of atmosphere for the movie.

What make it worse is, the ending part. Like the intro, the ending part covered very briefly and boom there goes the credits rolling in.

I'd say Harry Potter movie series looks better than The Golden Compass a lot, although I had a lot of thoughts and comments on the HP series.

There must be a sequel coming up within few years time, and I dont expect myself turn out in the cinema to catch the sequel. It's just not worth it, wasted my money on a kiddie movie, crap.



This movie aired today. Nice I'd say, far better than the kiddie compass stuff.
At least, this movie is much realistic than TGC.

I did not watch the prequel National Treasure, but I did not miss much of it's story. Pretty interesting stuff to deal with the history of the United States. Way back to the US Civil War in 19th century.

I like this movie where it showcase latest technology geeks such as Apple iBook, iPod, Motorola V3 phone, and not to mention the high-end Mercedes Benz.

I personally like the scene where the bad guys chasing the good guys in the streets of London. The protagonists escape in the new Mercz C 280, while chased by the antagonists in a Land Rover and another antique Rolls Royce/Bentley.

This movie isn't that serious as it speaks, with some humour elements added in the conversation, make it more lively.

Well of course, the movie do have it's flaws. Some questions did not been answered, like what's the meaning of the code where Mrs. Gates told Mr Gates sr. Also, what's in the page 47 of the President's book?
As for the page 47 stuff perhaps it'll be the clue for the next sequel of this series?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A little disappointed that both movies did not involve too much background musics, or the background musics arent outstanding enough. Of course given these kind of movies might not need to employ heavily-orchestral tracks, but I'm keen on experiencing the music that could change the movie, just like Lord of The Rings (Howard Shore), Star Wars (John Williams), Pirate of the Caribbean (Hans Zimmer).

Death of a Piano

Death of a Piano
Originally uploaded by mawa_73527

To me, this picture is very disturbing.

I dont think a piano should be discarded in this way..... not environmental-friendly and of course, killing the musical soul in this instrument.

:\

Testing webcam

First day owning the laptop

Geez, I started to felt that I'm isolated after getting this new laptop.

I rarely online MSN these days because the old desktop's memory hog making me no mood to boot up the MSN; there're too many features to be tried in this new laptop making me even more lazier to chat with others!

I've been spending much time customizing the laptop, tuning and tweaking settings, discovering new stuffs, experimenting choices, etc. I am still yet to adapt and get use to a laptop.

So far the experience of playing with Windows Vista is pretty good. Although I've backup data from the desktop, I did not load all of 'em into the laptop. 

The performance reaction is fast, I can load things swiftly and hassle-free. I'm having no problem running a few memory-hogging programs together (eg: listening songs, chatting, blogging and downloading at the same time).

As for Internet browser I've been switching from IE and Firefox on and off, confusing myself.  @_@

My wallpaper:

 

That's all for today's Vista journey, I will try to explore more it's functions to make full use of it's potentials!   :)

Vista Experience

Hmm..... somehow I'm still not getting used to running Vista, too many features to be tested out! I'm running on Vista Home Premium by the way.

I'm facing a problem while trying to partition the harddisk. Vista is smart enough to include the Computer Management tools which I think is a great deal. I'm having 120 GB on C drive and 10 GB on recovery D drive.

I tried to partition the C drive space into additional drive but I'm met with this problem shown:

I checked the net, seems like I'm not the only one having this problem. Dell's doing some sneaky things 'eh?

Blogging from Vista

A brand new start for my computing experience!! :D

Now I'm writing this via Windows Live Writer, and of course on my new laptop.

I name this laptop as "Instrumentalism". :)

Cameron Highlands Trip

Last weekend I went to this highland gateway with family, along with father's sports members. This is my first time coming here, and I like it.

Going there from KL is quite easy, as there are two routes to choose to reach there. We took the so call new route from Simpang Pulai. It took roughly 3 hours to reach there from KL.



First impression Cameron Highlands gave me is that it resembles Sabah alot. Sabah is the mountainous state in the Borneo island, which the highest peak in the country stands, the Mt. Kinabalu.
The scene filled with lush green trees, plants, as well as the chilly weather.



Basically, agriculture is the main source of income there, as they're the supplier of fresh vegetables and fruits to other states in Malaysia and also Singapore. The second income comes from tourism, obviously.



Mountainous region like this suppose to be pretty deserted, but not for Cameron Highlands. We even experience traffic jam up there not once but almost everytime when we move to do sight-seeing!
You can see many cars from different states in Malaysia, even foreign cars from Singapore and Thailand!




We've spent most our time visiting farms and plantations, as well as local markets to shop for goods. Vegetables and fruits are fresh and cheap here, a haven for green lover!





Tea plantation.


Strawberries. They're all mad with strawberries up here!


View from Rose Centre.


Me, taken at BOH Tea Plantation.


In front of the San Bao Buddhist Temple, not so far from the place we stay.


While my short-stay here in Cameron, I was assigned a task by my Form 6 friends to get them some plant samples.

Flowers




On our journey back to KL, the weather is pretty bad. It was foggy, visibility is reduced to 10m in front of us.

Nike Mercurial Vapor 98 R9 Limited Edition

Still remember the fat Ronaldo of Brazil? I guess some of us had forgotten this great legend's presence these days as he's not as active as he use to be years ago.

Year 2008 marks the 10th anniversary of Nike's flagship Mercurial Vapor boots, so Nike released these original Mercurial boots worn by Ronaldo, limited to 1000 pairs.

The Mercurial boots first worn by Ronaldo during 1998 World Cup in France. The current Mercurial Vapor's 1st generation is released on year 2002 in conjunction of World Cup 2002 Korea & Japan.
The Mercurial Vapor series is famous for it's lightweight and agility features.

This boots uses the original materials and colour schemes from the original boots, as well as integrated some technology elements from the current Mercurial Vapor III series. This boots is much like the Air Legend series, a retro style boots packed with latest technologies.

More details of the boots available here.
http://www.nikemercurial98.com/mercurial98_EN.html

Yanni Voices - Nathan & Leslie

Previously this video is exclusive in Yanni.com, now it's made available on Youtube, which means better publicity!



Yanni is a world-renowned instrumentalist, so this time he tweaked his style a little by introducing vocals into his music. Man, the first two artists feature in this video totally rocks!

Nathan, the guy who sings "Adagio" in latin, which turns out to be absolutely fantastic!

Leslie, the sweet lass turn "To Take, To Hold" become "Before The Night Ends". Also there's another track she sang, but I not pretty sure what's the track name.

So now I'm anticipating the next artist updates, featuring Ender Thomas and Chloe. :)



Read: Yanni Voices Part II.

PC Fair Dec 2007

This is my second visit to PC Fair for this year. I've been there in Aug, and now I'm back in Dec. :D

I had a company today, 3T Ben came along with me while some other friends will be going there later.

We settled our lunch at Kenny Rogers before stepping into the exhibition hall.

This time I came with a purpose, I'm hunting for laptop.

I've been considering few models from different brands, namely HP Pavilion dv2600, Dell Inspiron 1420, Acer Aspire 4920G and Toshiba.
In the end, I go for Dell.

Here's the specifications:

Dell Inspiron 1420 Notebook.



Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 1.5 GHz.
2GB DDR2 SDRAM
160 GB HDD
14.1" Widescreen display
Windows Vista Home Premium
Nvidia GeForce 8400M GS 128MB
8X DVD+/-RW
Card reader
Wireless + Bluetooth
Jet Black cover integrated with 2.0 Mpx webcam
Nylon case
etc.

Price: RM 2887

For the specs to price ratio, I think this is a real deal compare to the other brands. So far my parents seems to agree on this unit because the price is lower than what I budget earlier RM 4k. Hehe....

As for accessories, I've bought a USB Hub (RM 21), USB extension cable (RM 8) and a Sonic Gear headphone (RM 34).



After coming out from the PC Fair we rest a while and enjoy some sushis in Sushi King. The unagi temaki(RM 5) taste good and the best is the buy 1 free 1 offer!

I noticed a lot of my friends are in the PC Fair either working or looking around. Most of them are college friends, namely Li Hong, Mei Ying, Jolene & her bf, Donathan.
I also met with primary school friends Wei Jian who couldn't attend last week's gathering, and a mate called "Alien" from National Service whom I had problem to deal with him that time. Both Alien and Wei Jian are working in Toshiba's booth at the lower floor.

Before we left, I picked up DJ Tiesto "Just Be" CD, RM 37. Pretty good deal as it's having 20% off for certain items. Tiesto is another type of instrumental music with techno trance backing, in other words, those songs for discos and clubs.


How much I spend on this trip? Excluded the meal fare, I've spent RM 100 sharp. Kinda amazing looking at the figures I've paid, all added up to be 100, a nice round up number. :)

Pisces Man

PISCES MAN

He is very emotional and always allow himself to be very emotional. He can
have a good night sleep and be in a good mood, and less than few hours at
work he can be very moody. He does not understand things or try to
understand things easily. If you notice him carefully, you will notice what
kind of moods he is in.

He is a thinker and able to do well at work and always succeed. His normal
gestures mean he always look at other people faults, but he will not talk
about it. He has the ability to know your thought and able to tell you what
you are thinking about.

He can mostly memorize all his anger, his loves. They are his important
secrets and he will keep them to himself and will never let you know. He is
not a very ambition man and careless about his position in society. Wealth
does not drawn his attention, because he is not greedy man and as well he
thinks money is not something that will last. He could be very careless
about his future. He does not like to fight against all odds, but instead
following the stream and make life easier. Sometimes because he likes to
take an easy path, which cause him very unsteady future.

He is kind and slightly lazy, but it is his cute character. He hates rules
and regulations. He will never look down on people. He is a polite guy and
can be very aggressive when he is mad. He loves to think that he lives in a
beautiful world and surround by nice people, so if he finds his world is
cruel and not what he expects, he will live in his world instead.

His other charm is that he is a funny guy, and it is his real weapon. He can
tease you and yet make it looks like one of his joke. Even when he is sad,
he still has that funny face, so you could hardly tell if he is mad or
depress. He likes to hide his feeling and help other people especially those
who need friend or lonely.

He will be everything that you want and everything you do not want. He has a
chance to make it as much as a chance to fail. He can determine to make it
work and can do it well, except he tends to lost his energy with other
important things, that's how he miss many of his good opportunity.

He can be happy and content by himself. What he think is important is not
"Love" ,but firm status and stability. He has plenty of love for you.

He is a good speaker, as much as he is a good listener. When he is with you,
he wants to be happy. He understand his partner's emotional. He likes to
take a long rest and sometimes being alone. If he needs to be alone, try not
to disturb him.

He is a sensitive, quiet , shy and easily hurt. He wants to feel worthy. He
can be mad and noisy, but once he calm down, he will be that happy person
again. He is not a jealous or possessive guy, and if he feels jealous he
will hide it. He has many friends of both sex, and he care about his
friends. He likes to have lots of friends, so you can not get jealous or
else you will loose him. He likes beautiful things, so if a pretty woman
walk by he will look ,so do not get mad at him knowing this fact.

When he is lonely or feeling sad, be close to comfort him. He does not like
to take advice,so if you want him to listen or to follow your advice, you
have to act as a good sample for him first. He likes a cheery and a smart
woman. If you treat him like he is your special person, then he will be that
special person for you. He will trust you if he is in love, but try not to
over doing it and spoil him too much. You have to know yourself worth all
the time too.

--------------------

Yep, I'm a Pisces man!
I think this article somewhat wrap up what do you expect from me in person. :)

Encore 2007!

After Saturday noon's primary schoolmates gathering til evening, I rush back to college to catch the show much anticipated for sometime.

The show did not disappoint me, it was a great show. The emcees are bunch of jokers, the performers are awesome, and the singers are superb! Anyhow this kind of entertainment, I bet only youngsters like us can stand it, this is not the kind of event oldies will enjoy, hahah.

Congratulations to schoolmate Pui Kuan & Chi Meng who won no.3 and no.1 respectively in the singing category! Excellent performance by both of them, especially Chi Meng!

Here's his winning entry, singing "The Phantom Of The Opera" with his partner Rita. Too bad I did not record the earlier song "Come What May" from Moulin Rouge, also another thriller.




A great college life experience, that's what I'd like to comment bout this event.

P/S: Thank you Val, for asking me go at the first place hehe. :D

Mun Yee 6M Gathering

Saturday afternoon went to Steven's Corner tagged by Aun Chee. When we reach there a few familiar faces been spotted sitting there already.

We settle down and chatted while waiting more people to turn up. As time runs through, more and more old mates turn out and eventually half of the classmates present.

We chatted lots of stuffs bout the good old days, as I'm surprised to find that many classmates still can remember all the details bout things happened long ago, to a degree that I was freak out I couldnt remember anything at all!!

Talk about those old mates, most of them havent change much since then, still easy to recognise, while some of them changed a lot! Boys are turning into macho guys, and girls turning into pretty ladies. Hahah, talk about growing up. :)



I've tried to contact our class teacher Mdm. Leong but too bad she couldnt join us because she's taking students to Langkawi for graduate trip.

Every year I've been trying to sway my primary classmates to get together, once in a year to gather around with bunch of old friends. It is not easy to organise such event because losing contacts with them after some time.

Well, as the organiser I'm glad that this year's gathering is a success, albeit some of them who eagerly asked me bout the gathering earlier did not show up, I wonder why. Some of them are regulars for past year's gatherings, weird eh....


The ladies


Group photo

P/S: More pics here!