As my tradition (and surely most of the people in the world), I will list out NYR for this year and see how far I can achieve them in 365 days. So, let’s start with this year’s plan!
1.) Get back in the art game! Colouring, Line art, Toning, Manga, Portraits, Character Design, etc… 2.) Go back do comics as part time. 3.) Get a stable office job. 4.) Loose weight. Target: 25KG less than now. I weigh 86kg today. (My bones are heavy…) 5.) Manage my finances properly this year. 6.) Save money. Target: 2K for this year. 7.) Pay personal debts. Including that PTPTN thing… 8.) Keep my promises that I delayed. 9.) Plan storylines for my future series comics. 10.) Make my KL home even MORE comfortable than previous year. 11.) Take more photos of my journey as memories. 12.) Get a new camera phone. 13.) Clone my own desktop OR Get a Mac. 14.) Get a new gaming console. 15.) Post more things in this blog. 16.) Change the layout of this blog. 17.) Read more books. 18.) Learn how to prioritize and use my brain to think. 19.) Learn Japanese! and get serious with it! 20.) Get more involved with the Malaysia Mandarin Comic Society. 21.) Make a monthly schedule and follow it! 22.) Live the best this 2010. And make it the best!
Now I made my list. I’m gonna print it out and stick it on my wall. What’s in your list?
Usually I always do this at the end of December but I think I’d do it early this year. I’d review of what I’ve did this whole year and reflect it on my next year’s goals and aspirations!
Find, copy, paste complete…
Let’s review!!!
1.) Do 1 Major comic story. (Expected to come soon, either “Modern Magic” or “Magus-Faust and Co.”.) End Result: FAILED!!! I didn’t kick my skills up a notch… Or even 10 notches… I failed to impress my boss. The editor helped me all along. I MUST NOT FAIL HIM NEXT TIME!!!
2.) Get my first book published. End Result: Failed Coz #1 failed so…
3.) Learn electronic drawing with CorelPainter or Colors in a Nintendo DS. End Result: Half Baked Well, It’s hard to draw blindly. But I’m an optimist. Check my DeviantArt account for some art on colouring.
4.) Study Japanese. End Result: Baked not well… Watashiwa Eemori Desu, Notu machu onrine arutikaru tzu lerunu… The DS’s Japanese Coach is nice… But not that solid to have fun. Needs higher discipline…
5.) Get an IPod. End Result: ? Does a broken iPod Shuffle consider one? I got a Sony Walkman NWD-B105 though…
6.) Watch more old and new TV series. (Sliders, House, Reaper, Supernatural, Prison Break, The Office, Heroes, etc…) End Result: Some some… Doctor Who (THE BEST EVER SCI-FI SHOW IN THE WORLD!!!), The Office (Still tha best!), The Big Bang Theory (Nerdy jokes are my cupoftea!) Reaper Season 2 (NICE), Prison Break (Ended…), House (Damn nice series!), CSI: NY (The only CSI I liked), The Simpsons Season 21, Top Gear Season 13 & 14, Fringe, Man vs. Wild, etc. I stopped watching Heroes because it sucked this season…
7.) Get a Nintendo DS. End Result: Success!!! Finally, a promise DONE!!!
8.) Start project clear debt.I owe the stupid PTPTN a worthless pain in the ass service for its RM10000 End Result: SUCKED BIG TIME! I really need to know how to plan my finances!
9.) Find more new information for more cool story ideas. End Result: Minors good, Majors not very… Somehow little things come first.
10.) Lose more weigh healthy please… LOLs! End Result: Not-very-promising… Just refer my previous sales job post… I somehow wanted to ‘try’ different kinds of food.
11.) Treat friends better! End Result: Erm… So much to learn… so much…
12.) Keep my promise. (A big one too! I can and I will DO it!!!) End Result: I think it is a Success… I kinda forgot the big one but I think that’s it. Next year after the big event…
13.) Learn to save money. P2K End Result: … …… (Hey, 3 more dots than usual)
14.) Blog more on work, play, music, movies, comics, techs and much much more. End Result: Hmmmmmmmm… I think I covered pretty much. But not so much… Just long posts. On and Off… Hot and Cold…
15.) Make my KL home comfortable. End Result: Half comfortable… Need to make new plans so it becomes more comfortable…
16.) Get productive and think out of the box more often. End Result: Where is the box? AT THE STORAGE!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!
17.) Learn how to cook a decent dish or meal. End Result: Not bad, mostly I just go tapao… It means take away… in Chinese…
18.) Inspire others while learning. End Result: Yeap… My sales job I try not to only be the learner, but also a teacher to the newbies.
19.) Start a story online for people to read. End Result: What’s in the box? MY CLOCK!!! Coz it keep’s my time!
20.) Make 2009 the BESTEST YEAR EVAH and to infinity and beyond!!! End Result: THIS YEAR has… Many SUCKY moments! and also MEMORABLE experiences.
This is the end of 2009. It was a whack-in-a-mole year. But enough to say… This year has been a tough one on me. Not just me… to many people as well. I have to see the world differently now… I have to understand the consequences of not being able to see the world as I did in the past. This is what we call… Growing up. (Yeah, I hate it… but I have to live with it.)
Sorry for the long disappearance, my sales job had taken most of my time to even make a proper blog post. Finally I have a little time to do this another long post since my previous one.
SUPER LONG POST!
First off, this post is all about my latest work in the sales department. Which involves me, A “Subscription Advisor”, a fancy name for Magazine Subscription Agent… or for short Salesman, selling magazine subscriptions to customers like Teachers, Lecturers, people with education and loves reading!
We had to go to schools, universities, colleges and maktab perguruan, we had to go inside these locations, sometimes it’s a bit hard because of security. Most schools and universities mostly ‘ban’ salesmen doing business. It’s pretty much hard to enter most areas. But if we are in luck, we might get into the teacher’s room or lecturer’s hall.
Mostly we have to work outstation. Right after a hard day of work, we stayed at locations so called Salesman’s House. This picture above is one of them. And the best one so far! This house is located in Ipoh.
Most salesman’s house is decent. But this one was newly renovated. Fresh, new and also comfortable to live at. It has most things, WiFi, fridge, microwave oven, LCD TVs, air conditioning, heater, DVD player, etc. It was superb!
But still, most things at this house is not for rent for one group only. Other salesmen also can book the rooms. Yes, we only rent one room. And also, the rate is RM25 per head!!! We had 4 people staying for 1 nights. Just imagine, instant RM100 for one night.
The room we stayed is pretty nice. Me and my friend stayed at the lower bunk of the room while my manager and my other friend stayed at the top bunk. Both areas has LCD Tvs!!! It’s worth the rent!
The outstation work was nice. I get to see many many different things, learn other people’s culture. Taste their food. talking about food… It has been a ride for my tastebuds!
This is very nice… It’s fried yong tofu! It’s super nice!!! It’s practically yong tofu fried and they have a variety of choices. It only cost RM6 for BOTH the Curry Noodle and also the fried yong tofu. As for the drink, it’s red bean + milk + ice. Expensive drink!!! Forgotten the price already.
I think one piece of the tofu was only RM0.50 if I not mistaken. The location of the restaurant is a bit hazy on my mind now. But people call it “Big Tree Head” (Dai Shu Tao) in Cantonese.
Penang food was also nice. I didn’t stay inside the island. The other side of the island, Butterworth. This plate of normal ‘LeeFah Noodle’ with Curry is an ULTIMATE match!! Sadly I don’t know how they made it. But it’s nice to eat.
This dish… Is absolutely hot… Despite it’s ‘cool’ colour, this rice is called Nasi Kerabu. It’s something like Salad + Rice + SomethingHotterThanWasabi. This thing is HOT!! Not to mention that Kota Bahru also having an extreme hot weather.
Calm places like these is always nice. But sometimes it’s a bit bothersome. No potential customers can be found at this area. We had a joke name for this area, FireFox Mountain. XD
Sometimes the weather at the mornings are a bit too cold for a person to work. It’s so calm that you sleep at the car even with enough sleep the previous night.
My spec was broken at the first week. A charger fell on it and broke one side of the lense. But it was replaced right before I went to Company ‘Training’ Camp. Just to know that during the bus ride to the location, my specs fell on top of my feet when I was asleep, when I got up… Crack… again… and got it fixed… again… =_______=…
On my first month, we had our first official team dinner. It was at a buffet Grill and Steamboat. That area serves the best lamb slices for grilling! They can lose the steamboat and only do the grill.
Back to my work… I’ve learnt a lot from these few customers that educates our nation’s future. There’s some good, and some bad. The good ones are mostly the most memorable advices I’ve heard so much. I try to work with pure honesty. But the bad parts are, some teachers are not what they look on the outside. They do judge people.
This is mostly the best excuses I heard so far from these teachers. No time, Internet is the next best thing, No money… blaa blaa blaaa…
Educators always tell us to read, but they don’t practice what they preach. They keep on passing excuses, and I quote that person’s saying: “I’ve read so much of these (textbooks) books. It’s enough already lah.” So this states that you are enough of learning? Enough of teaching? Then why bother keep going on educating the future?
Humans are selfish. So was I. I expected most educators of Malaysia are eager to learn, but somehow they are not. Well, I thought that the government implemented the internet in schools for teacher’s ease to find material to teach. But instead the teachers bring their laptops and online to plant trees, harvest their crops, asking other teachers to add you as friends… in Facebook…
Maybe it’s a stress relief for these teachers. Most companies ban these sites to improve productivity. Heck, my friend doesn’t even have internet access at his IT work!!! It was a WTF moment when I discovered that. Now I have a disturbed view of teachers already. I mean, they are still human.
Talking about human needs, food is mostly important. And another point to mention, I had a few healthy food and also some unhealthy food along the way. This meal above is nice. The portion is ‘controlled’. The rice is only a little amount, so as the chicken and the vegetable. But the soup is nice! So as the Honey Tea! The meal costs like RM7 while the drink is RM2.5
Some are up to my taste, but some, just not my cup of tea. This bowl of Fish “head” noodle is not really nice enough for me. Although there are also some fish meat, eating it is a bit troublesome. The fish bones just kills the enjoyment. My manager likes it… I just finds it a bit of a hassle.
Yo! My friend’s name on a store!
This is a mall in Kedah. It’s pretty empty at the noon time. Really empty… The mall is really big but no people on weekdays.
MyFC, A pretty much a local copy of KFC. I haven’t go there to have lunch. My manager didn’t want to put a risk.
This is an old place at Penang. This is Ong Cheng Huat Seafood Restaurant. This place was introduced at TV when we were working at Kedah. This place was said to be packed. And it IS!!!!!! The food is SUPER NICE! But the drinks, they have to knock it up a notch…
That is not a bottle of FnN Sarsi. It’s cooling tea…
The best of this seafood restaurant is not seafood. but this fish meat is smooth filled with flavour, and the fish taste is not that strong.
Just look at the meat…
This one… Don’t order if you go there… Basically they don’t have rice so they have an option of fried beehoon or fried (forgotten what that thing is… Highest chance it’s noodle)
This is crispy crackers. One of the best dishes I tasted.
Fried Tofu. Just like smooth smooth tofu fried. and not dried. That rhymed!
My plateful of tasty food. But this is not the hit dish at this area… and it’s not seafood also.
It’s chicken. This is not just any normal chicken. It’s small, young and also a virgin. Yes, you heard me… A virgin young chicken, deep fried…
The food is nice. It’s absolutely really nice to dine at the area but the environment can be improved a bit more. It’s packed like the whole town people enjoying the food there. They should invest more to make the area bigger. Okay, enough for the food… Back to my work.
Somehow people manage to follow rules in life. People set rules, become social norm. Conform with the normality of human beings. Follow the rules and live a mildly happy, stable, secure and also ever growing little problematic life.
People like being safe than sorry. Because if you go out of the box, it’s either you step on land, or you will fall down a pit, and climb up it… or die at the pit.
Because people didn’t think of much anymore. The guidelines are there set for you. I agree that sometimes people just moved on the wrong step. Some people move to the right one. But who can makes the best judgment? What is wrong and what is right?
People become defensive to what they want to protect, keep and also maintain it. They want to be safe on that. I too want to keep something for the long term. But somehow plans always obstruct you from getting it.
Sometimes we just need to cool down. I have lack of emotion control, I just don’t know how to control it. I don’t know how to cool myself down when I boil up. Maybe Ice is too common. Add some fruit, syrup, juice or a sweet topping, you get a nice desert. Smile and repress…
Time’s short… And I don’t have alot of time left. I’ve learnt alot this past 2 years. It’s time to start practicing, and continue learning.
New beginning, or should I say a new start of a new year half. It’s already been a painful experience, but today I’m going to blog out many Many MANY things in one go. Hopefully I will maintain my blog more this time. Due to many current events that happened to my life, I’ve grown a bit. Not to say much because the world is still a tough place to live. I’m not bragging much on it, but it is.
APRIL 09
Computer Issue:
The beginning of the worst months of my life. My HDD (Hard Disk Drive) died on me. Curse you Seagate!!! I’ve been so bad luck in HDD’s ever since the beginning of my life with computers. First Western Digital, next Maxtor, then now Seagate? I hate these companies that are BIG at making HDDs but fail to make the durability of the HDDs.
I know that Maxtor was bought over by Seagate. And now the worst became the worstest… (Pardon my English here) I did have an experience of my Maxtor HDD failed on me 2 times, even after service!!! The first time is my HDD completely stopped. But I was able to recover half of the data. Then I sent it to servicing, after a month later, the HDD came back with a little bug inside. Now that HDD is placed under my computer table, at my Kuching home, left there unattained for it to rust and maybe next spring cleaning, I’ll try to rescue it. See if it works again.
Western Digital failed on me once too… That was when I’m using that little bugger to store my works inside it. Having it lost gave me a freaking panic!!! Good thing my friend was there to help me rescue the data for the first time. Then the next few incidents with Maxtor was routine work.
Although your burial is not as USD1.4 Million expensive, I’d rather toss you into the can and keep the casket… Enough with the Hard Disk Drives!!!
Work:
Darn, it’s been tougher month this month too… I can’t believe that my boss actually raised the bar till I can’t work properly. Toughest challenge here is to make myself even better. Because I’m not an art student to say for first, I admit I still have problems drawing people figures so perfectly that they resemble the Vitruvian Man’s scale… I can’t just become like Akira Toriyama in one night!!!
My friends told me that I’ve improved so much already. I’m not sure. It seems that I wanted to be better, I just don’t know how. Haih…
MAY 09
Myself:
This month I learnt a lot emotionally. First off, a string of bad luck fell upon me, and I am sorry for those who I made upset. I’m sorry that I was selfish enough to disregard everyone’s feelings. I just can’t think right and it was my fault. I’m sorry things didn’t happen they way it should be. I’m sorry ya?
Mostly people will think what is going on here, I would like to remain it private for the best.
Computer Issue 2:
I’ve been using Ubuntu since my HDD failed on me. Seems like there is no signs of life for my HDD now. All sign points to dead. My reference data are all gone, songs, movies, videos, idea references, texts, information, photos, all… gone to the depths of oblivion if it wasn’t for that wretched Seagate. Now all I have is a 4GB Pendrive envo USB to get my system running again.
I’ve been using Ubuntu 9.04 Jackalope on my EEE. It runs smoothly since I’m not running any other software other than Firefox 3 (That keeps crashing), Pidgin Messenger (A very nice multi-IM client), and some video and music playback softwares. Most notably VLC after installing it.
I had to create a virtual USB that can boot the Ubuntu Live CD, then install it into the 4GB pendrive. And after installation, voila! A temporary usable OS in a stick. Yes, In a stick, pop it and lock on! The only thing I can complain on is the only 1GB of space left for me to use.
JUNE 09
Gaming Industry:
First off, Nintendo. It’s been a good run for Nintendo after their launch. With the success of the Wii and DS lines, they are indeed “printing” their own money out of these products. Introducing new ways of gameplay to consumers is the next best thing. But sadly their throne is about to be taken away by some of the new gameplay methods made by the “other people”. Only the new Nintendo Wii Motion Plus is introduced.
The Wii Motion Plus will add more sensitivity in tracking. Being even more responsive than the Wiimote. That is pretty a good step, I hear many people complain about the lack of accuracy when using the Wiimote. But anyways, there is a glove that holds the Wiimote and Motion Plus together, it enhances the grip of the Wiimote also but it made it fraking UGLY!!
There is another new addition to the controls. Introducing, Wii Vitality Sensor!!!
Yes, now you are going to be playing games with your pulse! Imagine a game that you uses your pulse to control many things!!! Or the game needs you to cool down in order to escape from horrifying in game death!!! Many people thought that Nintendo is starting to lose their magic and came out with something very rash! Well, investors may go WTF?! Nintendo lacked introduction to the application of that device in gameplay… The only gameplay I can see for it is like for the Wii Fit. Which Ironically is a hit, but an exercise device? I’d rather go out in the blazing sun!
And also, new games for Wii and DS. Only one game caught my eyes dearly. That game was THE BEST JRPG game I’ve ever played in a Gameboy. With awesome gameplay, puzzles, story and treasures!!! YESH!!! Treasuresssss… The game that I’m talking about only had 2 series, a prequel and a sequel. Now, back with another hit but in the DS this time,
I will have you Golden Sun DS, I so damn will…
Now Sony. It’s been a blast seeing Sony still can maintain it’s place after notable games started to become multiplatform. Games like Grand Theft Auto 4 and Final Fantasy 13 already ported to multi consoles. And developers really getting a pain in the arse trying to develop games for the PS3. Seems like there is a new hardware to ‘keep’ things alive. Introducing, the motion sensor by PS3.
Yes, it looks like a thing with a glowing golf ball stuck on top of it. Anyways, the tracking is 1 to 1 tracking, meaning it won’t be so irresponsive when swinging that thing all around the place. Sadly, that thing is not the final design. Seems like Sony likes to tease people with odd controllers, even the PS3 banana controller!!! good thing they stick to the old normal controller design.
As you can see… The movement is absolutely gorgeous! Perfectly made for REAL HARDCORE GAMING EXPERIENCE for the PS3. The input method is actually tracking the whole thing wirelessly and with Sony PS3’s EYEtoy, It looks good! I hope Sony really can pull new hardcore gameplay into life.
I almost forgotten about this little fella. Introducing a new line in the PSP family.
This is actually a redesign of the PSP line. They made this PSP UMDless… Meaning there won’t be the disk you need to pop into the player. How do you play the games then? Download them via the PlayStation Network. It will have internal memory of 16GB for those downloadable data. Movies, Music and also Games in one tiny little thing. Many people wanted another analogue stick. Maybe Sony’s waiting it for something else. (PSP2?)
But the winner of all this E3 is not Sony or Nintendo… You betcha…
Microsoft is going pretty far fetched this time and it win many people’s hearts! Firstly, I’d like to talk about Alan Wake.
Sorry for the poor video Quality… If can, watch this video in a new window by clicking on to the YouTube logo and remember to click HQ.
Alan Wake, a game that is made by Remedy (The team that brings you Max Payne series). The game took a LONG time for the developers to make it to people’s houses. It’s pretty lame that it took much development just to make the game look like that. I hope the storyline is good enough to beat GTA4. The game is a good concept. Same as many horror games like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and also Fatal Frame, this is made by Westerns… I hope it brings the Stephen King out to creep people out. (No, it’s not based on any works by Stephen King…)
The other thing I want to talk about gaming is. I bet most people already knew about it…
Microsoft Project Natal
What is Natal? Project Natal is actually Microsoft’s version of motion tracking and this beats the hell out of Nintendo and also Sony. Why? It’s full body motion tracking, including voice recognition, 3D depth vision (because it has 2 cameras), and also facial recognition.
This is the most advanced technology being made for households. There are many uses to Natal, (I’ll cover that on my Microsoft post soon) Movies, Games, Music… It’s basically changing how a household would become in the next few years. Gaming consoles is not just for gaming anymore. With many people synching it with the internet. The future is starting to appear one by one. It’s really nice to live in this era where technology changed so fast. And Microsoft’s vision has made that happen with the risk of the first Xbox. It’s not just a concept unit. People really started to make things for Natal!
This is an actual game! Just not in stores yet. Talk about AI in the future. A personal avatar inside your living room, talking to you, reminding you. It’s basically a TV version of Tamagotchi. Good for lonely people who lives alone. (Otaku’s may rejoice after Japanese companies start to abuse this project for something… Else…)
With that, I end this post on gaming. The future is here.
(There is a special post for Michael Jackson soon after this post…)
JULY 09
Now with many research, I ended up with Sama-sama, together, with Samsung! A new brand in my lists of good products. I was aiming for Hitachi, but Samsung is there for my rescue and so as my wallet’s. I formatted the HDD with a USB Pendrive. Yes, A pendrive. I never formatted a PC with a pendrive before. Usually I’d just pop in the CD and let it run like the wind! It was tough learning things for the first time, but after a while IT’s ALL GOOOOOOOD!!!
Running XP again, with 160GB Samsung HDD. I’m so damn happy now.
Now let us swoosh back in time again…
DOWNLOADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!
Work:
I think it’s time I get a proper job and i think it’s best to change temporarily. It’s actually nothing much but I’ve decided that this is a good change. I can’t even keep my comic job because it is so unstable. Suddenly you meet the standard, the next it was raised till higher up! Talk about sudden changes. I’ve had it with people messing up my plans. This is not what I’ve expected and I’m getting tired of topping myself. I do want to have this job as my career, but it’s best to stabilize my own life first before I jump into the bandwagon again if I know what’s good for me.
I’m so looking forward to this new job. It seems challenging, facing people everyday and selling magazine subscriptions to them. It will be a good change and I’ll fight hard for this to earn back what I have lost for all those time up till now.
Anyone wants a magazine subscription? I can toss you a pretty nice deal! (More on that next month… ) I’m so FREAKING excited over this job. I hope I get to see the rest of Malaysia with this job. : )
Books:
Nuff said… I’m getting this book!
And that’s all I can update for now. Next up? Microsoft or Michael Jackson?
My Universal knowledge and ideas towards things that I see in life whether in Living, Dead and Matter. Life for a living thing is unique yet ironic. One mostly do not get what they wanted but with hope and determination, everything will fuse into one thing for a purpose.
