I'm a winner!

Just bought my PC Gamer Malaysia January 2009 issue yesterday. Turned to this page accidentally straight after opening the magazine:
Yeah, Sekai is my nickname in Velocity Forum. I've sent this screenshot taken in COD2 to the editor of PCGM on early of November last year. I thought I have no more chance to win in this section when last month's issue came out with another person's screenshot. This marks the third time I've won something from PCGM.

I think you can see my screenshot above and the caption below it clearly as I've "magnified" it for a bit. Else, you can just buy a copy of this month's PCGM at your nearest bookstore to have a clear look on it. =D

Anyway, how am I going to claim my prize this time? It's just a 5000 MOLePoints card equivalent to RM50. I'm certainly not going through the hassle by riding KTM to go Subang Jaya just for that. Can anyone help me instead? XD

Vincent out.

Hail TV advertisements!

I have been very free since my Mapling fever has subsided completely(Hooray). So to prevent getting infected by that fever before I get back my killer card, I have been honing my MGS 2 & 3 skills in terms of stealth, not killing like I used to. Ok I know both of them are godd@mn old games, even MGS 4 has been released for a while now. But hey, I'm not that fortunate to have a PS3 just to play that masterpiece.

I'm not in that kind of mood to play that much, however. I visited Youtube to find some clips that could cheer me up. Guess what have I found:

Caught your attention? You should, if you're a real man, else, I feel sorry for you. =X

I suppose this bra advertisement is from Taiwan. That's some nice ads that we perverts men would like to see on TV. Don't deny it, I know you(men) would, but sadly it's not going to happen in Malaysia. =( Anyway, I think I'm going for a train ride these few days and see what will happen to me if I do that. I hope that you won't see me at police stations or even newspaper headlines.

Here's another short but funny advertisement. Judging from the language spoken, this one should be from Hong Kong. Now that's creative, this clip advertises how Rejoice smoothens your hair, to an extent that the event above happens. Girls, use it with caution. *evil smile*

Do we have Rejoice advertisements here in Malaysia? Yes we do. But, the way they show how their shampoo smoothens your hair is boring. The idea of every hair shampoo advertisements here is the same, not just Rejoice. Basically, the models just swing their "computer-drawn" hair to show that their hair becomes *that* smooth after using the shampoo. It just lacks creativity IMO.

By the way, to avoid me being thought as a disloyal citizen of Malaysia for being too supportive on overseas TV advertisements, I have included an one-of-a-kind Malaysian TV ads as well.

Now this one's special. Proton emphasized the importance of buckling up your rear safety belt, so that we won't get smashed out of the car through the windshield like what happened to the "ghost" during an emergency brake. But for some reasons I never saw this advertisement on our TV beforehand. Banned perhaps? Anyway, nice try.

Vincent out.

PS: I'm not promoting nor critizising any brands or companies in my post. Don't sue me if I have insulted you by any means. =P

Approaching Chinese New Year..

My Mapling fever have started to subside after 1 week. I admit, the fever did subside, but I didn't say that it has completely subsided so I'm still addicted to it, just not as serious as before. I had many stories that I would like to share but for some reasons the screen shots failed and are all corrupted. Zz.

I managed to collect another 1800 Rascal Snowpieces these few days to help Darren exchange an Ice Chair. Since he helped me so much, and he's busy with his college studies currently, so I should repay his kindness with the least I can manage to do. Now he sure does looks cool on that chair.

By the way, it's just a week before we, the Chinese, are going to celebrate Chinese New Year. Well yeah time flies. I have never thought that it's CNY next week, and never had the mood to celebrate it though. Nothing special, really. Every year, I just get to go back hometown in Johor, have Reunion Dinner, get Angpau, play computer, lose in gambling, sleep, and lastly come back to my home. This cycle bored the hell out of me, just take the journey to Johor, at least 4 hours will be wasted on highway. In addition, Angpaus I got never increases, but I think they decreases every year!

But, I heard from my parents that we may be going hometown at the 2nd Lunar Day(年初二) instead of the usual CNY Eve(除夕). Okay that sounded a little overboard. Why on earth are we still going back like that? I would rather stay at home for the whole CNY. 2nd Lunar Day depart = night arrive, and then my cousins would most probably return home at 3rd Lunar Day = face my elders = nothing talk = play computer = LONELY. No difference in being lonely here or there. Plus, lesser Angpaus. Oh, I get it. We get lesser Angpaus so that they can give lesser Angpaus as well. Economic recession ma, I fully understand.

Ok I was just kidding about that Angpau part. They aren't stingy enough to do that just to save money. Perhaps my mom just wants to pray at our own home on CNY to bring us good luck, causing the delay.

Anyway, preparations to celebrate CNY is on the way. New clothes, decorations, are bought, I guess. That's not the main part la, by this time we should have been cleaning our houses already. Everyone knows we are not allowed to clean our houses during CNY, especially with brooms, to avoid our money being "swept" away.

Me, being a good boy, have actually started cleaning my house before I got that Mapling fever. Just take that fan cleaning as the starting point. I wouldn't post everything that I have done, or else there will be more crap posts in this blog.. Wndows wiped, ceiling fan cleaned, and any traces of dust in my room had been taken care of. I did say dust, but not the messy appearance of my desk.

My mom always said, messy desk = messy mind = bad for studies. Now perhaps that's the reason why I sucked at my studies all the time. Shall tidy them up soon before entering college or going Form 6, or else I'm going to fail in my life.

Vincent out.

Vincent is on a Mapling Spree!!

Yeah, as the title emphasized, I have been Mapling for at least 12 hours per day for nearly a week now, thanks to my failed job application attempt. This is the reason why I have not blogged even I had some crap to post = =. The server is having an urgent check right now so I got the time to blog. XD

Anyway, for the past week, I have been gooing to sleep very late, but actually it's early in the morning already...Things worsen everyday when I slept at 2am and waked at 11am at starting until today I slept at 4am and waked at 1am!

12pm~4am, that's 16 full bloody hours(no la, of course got rest one..) spent on MapleSEA! Hell, I'm unstoppable and surely has gone out of my mind. Now I'm behaving and looked like a zombie... Besides, my whole body is going to "rust" and die off if this could continue for a month. I can't recall the date when I last had an exercise. I think you readers can have an idea of how rusted I am through this post as well.

On the other hand, this intense gaming has resulted in my characters levelling up real fast, with the help of Christmas quests of course. My Warrior raised from LV10 until LV24 purely with Christmas quest whereas my LV14 Mage is raised to currently LV33 Cleric through potion spamming and Christmas quest! I have dedicated myself into MapleSEA so much that I have collected over 5000 Rascal snowpieces for the past 3 days, and used them to exchange for 1 Ice Chair for my Cleric and Assassin respectively, and a Warm Muffler(usable for 1 year) for my Cleric. Now that's what I call an accomplishment.

By the way I would like to thank my sponsor, Der Yaw a.k.a. Darren for all your support in MapleSEA all these time, either financial-wise or levelling guideline. You helped a lot, seriously.

Now then, I think I'm becoming god-like. I mean I really will become god(or ghost) if I continue to damage my body like this. My eyes are starting to fail me now, I can hear the scream of my liver(11pm~3am being the time for liver to rest). The only way to stop me from being god-like, is getting my 8800GTS back! And then I can get tired from those graphics-intense games so that I will sleep earlier! But now when on earth can I get that piece of hardware back?! >=(

To cut the crap short, the server check is over now, and I'm going to continue my Maple fever. =X

Vincent out.

It's so hard to find a job, eh?

Well, it's approaching 2 months since SPM ended. I had been planning to work while waiting for my SPM result to come out. It didn't turn out well as expected, a lazy bum like me couldn't forgive myself for not enjoying the long-waited holiday. Plus, my classmates had a trip to Genting Highlands on late December. So, I can't help myself to postpone my so-called plan.

The day after Christmas, I actually went to apply for a job position as a waiter at GreenBox Jusco. And of course, I wouldn't be here blogging if I have succeeded. My equation only for myself, in a nutshell:
Not prepared for an interview + God d@mn cold interview room + My inability to talk = FAIL.

Early of January, I went to Jusco again with my friends, trying my luck again. The result was still the same. Those shops with vacancy require us to be working at the 3rd Lunar Day. I wouldn't be a problem for me if my hometown is in KL, but no, it's in Johor! How am I supposed to come back at the 2nd day of CNY when I havn't finish collecting my angpau??

Yesterday, I tried my luck at The Mines/Capitaland or whatever you call it. There sure are a lot of vacancies, BUT, most of them are either only for females or full (full then why stick so many vacancy notice at your shop entrance??). WTF, did my face just pissed you off by giving me these reasons? Fine, I still managed to apply for a job in one of the computer shops there.

Today, I went to that shop again to attend an interview by the supervisor as he was on leave yesterday. I did better in this interview if compared to last time at GreenBox, BUT, I have shown my honesty (1st stupidity) by saying:"I'm not really good with computers, but you can't say that I'm not good with it either." Know my meaning of "inability to talk" now?

Anyway, he said he will give me an answer tomorrow as he will discuss with the higher-levels. Judging by my past experience, that means, I have 99% chance of failing to get the job for (1)my inability to talk just now, (2)my high expected salary (RM1000 nia, 2nd stupidity). The hell with it, at least I've tried to be myself. Using the equation earlier:
Not prepared for an interview + God d@mn cold interview room + My inability to talk = 1/3 FAIL.

If I failed to get the job, which I most probably will, fine, I got myself the easiest job in the world: Full-time Mapler! By then I can earn at least 100K Mesos per day with my LV27 Mage, gaining experience at the mean time!

Vincent out.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

This post is dedicated to my mom.

This day has come,

a special day for you and only for you,

but will never be the same day as last year,

the same goes to the future years.

You,

devoted yourself to our family for so many years,

without hoping anything from us in return;

what you get is what every woman trying to avoid:

aging.

You,

however,

will still be my mom,

the most beautiful mom in the world,

for the rest of my life.

I will not forget you,

even if you have forgotten me for any reason.

I'm still not good with words,

so,

I hereby wish you:

Happy Birthday, Mom!

w00t!

I HAD SO MANY FERRARIS!!

Ok before you say that this is a show-off post, I had many Ferraris...


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...of this size.

From left to right: 575 GTC, FXX, 360 Challenge Stradale, 599 GTB Fiorano, 250 GTO,
430 Challenge, F40

Feel relieved now? Ok then. With my current financial condition there's no way I can have even one of the above, and of course I mean the real cars that we can drive on the road. This is just a prank post =D

Anyway, these toy Ferraris were given by my one of my cousin who is a car enthusiast. These cars were once sold at Shell petrol stations, and for sure he collected all of them. He gave me all of them last year (SPM trial exam period) when I went back to hometown to attend my other cousin's (his elder sister) wedding ceremony, since he said they were just collecting dust...

By the way, I got to play with them for a while when I was snapping their pix, their "engines" sure are strong. I pulled back the car like around 3 inch and let it go, it was out of my expectation that it can travel that fast and before I managed to stop it, the car crashed hard on the wall at the other side of my living hall. Zzz. That happened on the 599 GTB, but it's not a big deal.

This is the Ferrari F50, of a larger scale. This model has the most detail amongst all the cars above, obviously, and the other F40 that I will show later. This model was bought by my dad when he went to outstation, I think Australia, at least 10 years ago. The car is still in one-piece, just that some of the paint got worn out.

As for the other F40, it's luck wasn't that good. Remember that I said my driving license is just a decoration in my New Year's Eve post? There's a reason behind this. If, and I mean IF, I'm able to drive that F40, the result will be as the following image:Just look how a phail like me are going to "pwn" this poor car!

However, have you noticed there's something wrong in those model cars? Well hell yeah, every model, except the F50, has no side mirrors! Now how the heck am I not going to "pwn" them even if I can drive them?!

Until then, ciaoz.

It's boring, isn't it?

Trying to find something related to computers to pass my time today, and I ended up disecting my computer which is already older than 10 years. I had been together with this computer since I was Standard One until 2004 when my dad bought a new one(this computer).

This old chap can be counted as a durable computer for working that long until recently, perhaps the VGA or motherboard failed. Upon opening the side cover:

Well yeah it's messy, considering that the casing is smaller than normal ATX factor(size), and dusty too since no one has ever cleaned the internal of the CPU.

Here's a gallery of very old computer hardwares that you might not have seen before if you didn't take ICT subject (The computer lab has some ancient hardware too).

These 2 sticks of SDRAM that adds up to provide a total of 160MB RAM for the computer, had a hard time by just running Windows XP..

The core of this computer, Intel Celeron (Socket 370) processor, codenamed Mendocino, which runs at 366MHz if my memory didn't fail me. I tried to remove the heatsink away from the processor but it's sticked so tightly, I suppose it's due to the thermal grease that had dried up for a long time. This processor was fit onto a processor card (or whatever it's called) first before the card is inserted into the slot at the motherboard itself.

This is the graphics card, RivaTNT 16MB AGP. Nothing much to say, but you definitely can't play any games, except Starcraft, with this.

This is the sound card in ISA.

No no, not that ISA. I mean the slot named ISA, which stands for Industry Standard Architecture. None of us will be able to see this slot in present motherboards anymore...

Don't look down on these ancient hardwares, I had spent my earlier gaming days with them. Starcraft, Worms, Red Alert, Half Life(laggy..) were the few games I had fun using this computer before I got a better computer. Now it brings back my memories, felt sad that it's broken now..haizz

Until then, ciaoz.

Fan-cleaning

Finally, this post came out as promised in my last post.

Things started to get fishy a few months back when I started to sneeze violently straight after I woke up everyday. I was wondering, did I make any rivals that speak bad things about me? I had insomnia from this matter (well not really, it's SPM when it started, i guess).

Until that time approaching New Year, I saw this...

Bloody hell just look at that! I failed to expect the expected, it's my standing fan that I used everyday but never paid attention to it. So that's the reason to why I'm sneezing a lot. My dad even said that the fan has not been cleaned for 1 year! LOL

And so I decided to clean this fan at New Year's day. It was a hard + hard task. Considering my condition for not sleeping for the whole night, my hand was trembling badly during the whole process...and not to leave out that the fan isn't really that "cleaner-friendly".

To start it off, I had to unscrew 4 screws to remove the back cover of the fan, and it didn't look beautiful either. Anyway, cleaning that part was fairly easy.

One wipe across it...

and this was how the wiping cloth looked like!

Next I had to unscrew another 3 screws to remove the core of the fan which obviously is the spinning part that creates air flow to blow my @$$ when I am sleeping. It was covered with dust, which explains why device efficiency has lowered (in other words, smaller air flow with more sound produced). Fortunately I just need to clean it with water hose.

Before

After

Here comes the hardest part, the front cover.

I call it The Tower of Dusts

There are many obvious obstacles you can see from the pictures, and the spaces are not as shallow as the ones found at the back cover. I have used 1 hour+ just to wipe off those dusts that are easily wiped by the cloth, and another half hour for thorough cleaning...test of mental and physical fitness...more like a torture.
Nevertheless, I still managed to finish the task despite my bad condition. And the result:

Increased efficiency (larger air flow, lesser sound produced). Most importantly, I have started not to sneeze that much after I have cleaned that fan =D. Hooray!

Off-topic: I have turned 18 officially yesterday. Have to say I received a lot of greetings compared to my past birthdays, 3 from MSN, 3 from Friendster (strangers zz), another 3 by SMS (which included my good friend suffering in NS, and a female friend actually typed a birthday song in her SMS, you are the only one to give me a birthday song *touched*). Thanks to all of you.

All of you might think, "wtf you call 9 greetings a lot??", yeah it's true, the greetings I received in my past birthdays never exceed 5. To add up, my family didn't even remember my birthday since last year. Pathetic eh you say?

Anyway, I have made one and only one birthday wish, and I'm telling it out. Why you ask, because this is actually the wish of everyone who cares for their future! You dare to say "getting 11A1 in SPM" is not what you have wanted for your whole life??!!

Haha, ok la. Until then, ciaoz.

New Year's day

Have been thinking of wanting to post this or not, just to add up another boring post. sighz

My New Year's day begins as soon as New Year's eve ends (duh). I was lying at my bed, listening to the exploding sound of fireworks far away, thinking what should I do for that day. Even it's a lonely day again but I guess it's good enough to able to "celebrate" New Year like that, imagine those less fortunate ones that don't even have a bed to lie, thinking about their future plans. Thanks God!

In the meantime, I had decided to spend the whole midnight watching anime, Shakugan no Shana Second.

Shana, my type of girl :D

But it didn't turn out as I expected though, as my computer is situated at the living room, in which will most probably wake my mom up and get myself grounded.

I had still watched it until about 5am before I decided to read my school magazine for the rest of the midnight day...This was the first time reading a book without feeling drowsy, I had actually read it for an hour without knowing the time if it isn't my dad's alarm clock rang...

New Year's day = ordinary day, I knew that my family won't go anywhere special, but it doesn't bother me now. I have took this opportunity to clean my fan later that day (this process is bloody time and energy wasting, and so the process will be covered in my future post as I don't intend to make this post too long).

I did say we didn't go anywhere special, didn't I? But I had still followed my parents to Jusco that night and barely managed to buy 1 T-shirt for CNY, congratulations...

By the way, that day marked that I have finally turned 18 (unofficially la..). I had chosen the most special way to start off this day, maybe. Perhaps, I should start to have mature thoughts from now on, and most ultimately, start a relationship with a girl XD (as if I could..).

Anyway, I'm looking forward towards tomorrow. Let's see what lies ahead of me tomorrow..

Until then, ciaoz.