Bored again?

Yup. The self destructive side of me is talking. It is boring when all is the same, and when all is well. I guess we can never leave good-enough alone. There is always something to tweak, tinker, and twiddle with. Now, 20 months into a long drawn project and about two years into being out on my own, life has started to have its own rhythm. The familiar hum is beginning to ring, alas here I am again on my blog, after a few months of nothingness. I made some small alterations to the blog. Lat is gone. It is a much simpler site now. Nothing fancy. Just me, my rants, and perhaps a note or two.

It has been almost 5 months since I moved to a MacBook. All I can say is that I was perhaps ten years too late. So much is so much better that to stick to good 'ol boring PC is depriving oneself of the few small pleasures in life. Seriously. Now, I am eyeing the MacBook Pro. For good reasons too! Simply because it has 2 extra inch in its screen real-estate. Yup. 2 inch, and I am thinking of shelving a good nine-grand for it. I must be bored!

A little bit of spice, and nothing nice

Ok, so I have pulled off an extended disappearing act. Lots can be blamed on, but basically it is just me. Just lost interest for a while as I adjust into my Mac world. The verdict? Absolutely, positively, definitely recommended!

A must, I must say.

If you're still rebooting, worried about viruses, and attempting to get the latest OS from good ol' PC aka Vista to actually work with all your apps - just stop now. Look at your credit balance, bank balance, and/or balance of family and friends that you can beg and borrow from. Then, start totaling up how much dough you can put together. If it hits RM 4,000.00, stop. Then pack you things, go to Mid-Valley and get yourself a MacBook.

And, yes you may thank me later.

Happy New Year to all, and stop with the resolutions already. Just do it.

An apple a day

You are looking at the new and proud owner of a MacBook. Having seen a few of my team mates getting infected by this new virus that wipes out the FAT on the hard disk, and resulting in an instant reinstall of everything and lost of all data – I felt that my investment is well justified. Of course I am just saying this to convince myself. The real reason I bought my MacBook is because it looks just so cool!

All white with a super friendly OS and minimal hassle about trying to tinkle here and there to make things work, along with built in software to manage photos and music, this boy is very happy. Anyway this is day 2 for me as a Mac user. I am waiting for my MS Office for Mac to arrive and then I shall have to figure out the MS Outlook transfers. Still debating on which to use, Mac’s or MS’. We shall find out later tonight.

My issue is I am an email power user. I get anything between 80 to 100 emails (work-wise no spam included), and send about 20 to 45 emails a day. Hence I have a huge email archive and I also use my email to track a lot of the activities happening around me. So the decision to migrate my emails into Mac’s email is a biggie. To be continued on this one.

So I have decided to live up a bit. I ran a very conservative year in 2007 because we were trying to stabilize the company. Now looking ahead, if we stay conservative I believe we will lose out on large opportunities as our risk appetite would be pretty low. With bolstered confidence along with a stronger team I really do look forward to 2008. My E90 and MacBook would definitely help too. Just that dang car that keeps peeping around the corner taunting me that bugs me ha ha. Just you wait Mr. Higgins… Just you wait.

So what's new?

Had a slow weekend. Came to the office on a Sunday. Today is UAT for the project, so had to do a bit of housekeeping. 37 days of UAT ahead. Today is Day 1. Well 36 days to go.

Got me a new E90. It sucks. Could have been so much better, but being a communicator user since the brick Nokia 9210 days - my expectations are much higher.

You're wondering about the cat? I just browsed and found it. I thought it showed very well how I feel! It is Monday you know.

So back to the rambling. I have too much to do, some important, some urgent, some I really don't care too much about. Instead? I blog. Nice way to tone everything down a bit, and get into the rhythm. With new ventures and new grounds to break, I have realized that while reflecting on the past is important, just forging ahead into the future is equally important. One gets paralyzed much too easily dwelling on what if’s and what not’s. Just do it.

So here I am rocking ahead, much to the dismay of foreboding thoughts of pessimisms, while I leave caution to the wind. Dramatic? You bet. I am going to spend 2008 figuring out how to get my hands on my CLK. Having thought about it, I figured an RX8 is nice but too “ah-beng” and a Cayman is kinda out of my league right now. So a CLK will have to do. Some say it is a mistress’ car, I say it is! I just need a mistress to go with it heh heh.

Five minutes of blab…

I have been reading a couple of blogs, and since I really have nothing to write about, I shall just spend the next five minutes writing about nothing. It has been a rather good Monday, and as a result I am expecting a lousy Tuesday. That is just the kind of person I am. A pessimist? Not really, it is just that due to what I do for a living (which is basically running IT Projects and being an IT Consultant) I get to see a lot of what I keep advising people not to do, being done, and when all hell breaks loose, I get to say I told you so – and end up cleaning up their mess.

Right now, I am seriously looking for two to three good people. They should be around 26 to 28, have a degree in IT, a very good command of English, very hungry and willing to work hard to make a lot of money, and inquisitive in nature – always willing to learn and invest in themselves. Know anyone? Email me.

Okay, my five minutes are up. Happy Monday to all.

Welcome back!

Congratulations for not being a statistic in Ops Sikap XIII, and Selamat Hari Raya to you too.

For me, Aidilfitri has begun to lose its appeal. Perhaps I used to have lots to celebrate about, and the reasons are simply getting less nowadays. We used to have a “kampung”. Used to. Back in Ipoh. Kampung Manjoi. Jalan Menteri to be exact. Anyone from Ipoh will know where this is. It used to be a big affair. Uncles, aunties, cousins, second cousins the full monty. We were not so traditional, hence no dodol making and our last attempt at actually making lemang ourselves was probably back in 1985. After that, my uncles found it easier to just buy the lemang and spend all the extra time lazing around gossiping about each other. And for the ones that just bought a new car, they usually spend this time washing the car. Sometimes twice a day! I guess it gives them an opportunity to tell their brothers and me all about their car. Twice a day!

Then there was Maktok’s cooking, which was a whole different story. In my family only my grandma and mom could cook. The rest of the clan just kinda became kitchen helpers. Kitchen helpers and noisemakers. Gossips of the year - talks about divorces, divorces to be, and in-laws who should be outlaws are often very hot and juicy. Amidst all this hoopla, the kitchen unleashes its delightful aroma. One so recognizable I could be blind and still know exactly where I am and why I am there.

Maktok would make her rending tok, ketupat, and the usual Raya affair with an addition of her ayam masak merah, and this is made just for me. She knows I like her ayam masak merah a lot and she will make it for me, every year. In the morning, every morning we were there Maktok will make me my lempeng pisang. It’s like pancakes and I have at least five of them. This is a woman who raised me, so she knows how to get me. I looked forward to Raya. Every year.

Maktok passed away two years ago.

Top ten reasons to hate Mondays

10. It comes right after Sundays… two days of bliss interrupted by no other then? Yup, you guessed it… Monday

9. It is the longest working days distance to Friday… Yes, I know we have 5 days to go to Friday!

8. Monday morning meetings… guys come on, my brain is barely functioning and we are having a meeting?

7. Monday is when you have to plan for the week, realizing that you are simply repeating last week’s work this week.

6. For some unknown cosmic reason, the traffic on Mondays are worst then other days. This is even worst when you are finally calling it a day, and on your way home it simply just takes forever.

5. Monday sitcoms just don’t seem that funny anymore, all the jokes predictable, the casts look desperate, and it is full of reruns anyway.

4. Monday seems like a longer day, and it crawls to an end. I swear there is something wrong with the clock! I have been watching it and it barely moves 5 minutes in the last one hour!

3. Everyone and everything seems to move slower on Monday.

2. No blogs get updated on Mondays; usually bloggers use Mondays to write blogs!

1. Monday is the day, when customers usually calls and ask you if you have finished their work for them, and guess when they asked for it? Yup, last Friday! And they have the cheek to say, I asked for it since last week, why is it taking you so long? God damn…

Sit seek seize

In the dark I sit
Hiding not from what I see
It is what I know that trembles
Murmurs of beyond sinks deep

It is not insanity to seek
Far beneath the skin of light
In depths of morbid intensity
I know of too little to swim

The cry of crows too near
Piercing the final scream
As the soul finds asylum
Nothing begets nothing for the damned

As it seems hope is forgotten
Cloaked by promises of abundance
One that ploughs and never ends
Pray it ceases and set me free

But it persists but it persists
So let the damned be damned
And insanity ruins insanity
While in the dark I sit

Zed Ezekiel, Sep 2007

Yup, I miss my coffee. Much! Anyways right now my life is a mundane routine broken by whines and cries of foul which doesn't seem to be worth a mention - hence I won't, and shall spare the two readers of this blog the agony.

Beyond work, I am enjoying the fasting month, where people pretend to be unaffected by the days and remain productive, but actually leaves exactly by 5pm rushing out the door like Fred Flinstones jumping off his dinasour at the sound of the horn. So much for productivity.

Food is good, but I have decided to use this fasting month as an opportunity to lose some weight (Who am I kidding? Lots of weight! Heh heh) and have set my sights on losing at least 3kgs within the next 3 weeks or so. I often gain a few kilo’s during Aidilfitri hence I might as well be prepared for it. I actually have not had a single hunger pang throughout the last week and this is a good thing. So here’s goodbye to all the kuihs and cendols for breaking fast.

As work turns into a grinding routine and with so little time left thereafter, life is becoming a monotonous grey. I hope to be able to get out of this toneless schedule sometime in early 2008 and perhaps again sail the stormy seas of luck and chance. Otherwise I may lose my street creds and will just be that final dot you see in your old TV when you turn it off – a disappearing speck of a has been flailing for attention.

Salam Ramadhan

Wishing all Muslims a blessed Ramadhan and may we all reap the benefits from this glorious month.

A Clear Midnight

THIS is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best.
Night, sleep, and the stars.

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.

What a life!

So much to seek, so much to unfold, yet what is done - never is. I have learned that our lives intertwine into a convoluted puzzle that never ends. What is today is merely tomorrow’s mess, and tomorrow shall be an illusion of promises – most of which are never kept.

Perhaps I am disenchanted by untold stories and promises broken, alas to realize that this is all there is to this life. Money cures not the pain, rather it adds to the want. Love cures not the pain, rather it warrants the fear of lost. My soul seeks serenity now, only to be disappointed by promises of tomorrow.

So little we believe that we set aside faith for fortune, yet when it is done – it is never enough. Pangs of regrets echoes in the soul, only to be awakened by the fact that time is no longer a friend. So much have been wasted over the toil of material, yet the soul is left hungry and starved for salvation.

Perhaps I am lost not in a maze of confusion, alas it was a foray of choices wrongly taken. Choices taken not for faith, instead for the glory of fame and fortune. Such deprivation of the soul, such travesty of ignorance – while I plead superiority to the simple minded, I rape and pillage the very essence of my conviction.

It is time.

Time to no longer seek, but to accept.
Time to no longer plunder, but to accept.
Time to no longer question, but to accept.
Time to no longer run, but to accept.

It is time to accept that I am nothing but a humble slave. I am a slave, and it is not me that matters – it is what I am a slave to that makes the difference.