Yesterday after work, i pulled into a Petronas in Kepong to fill up before heading off. As I was sticking my credit card into the reader, this 20-something Chinese lady came up to me and started enthusiastically in mandarin about some promotion and sale on branded goods at some shop nearby.

Barely acknowledging her, i went about the business of filling up my car while nodding at her and going “yes” hoping for her to get over her sales pitch and bugger off…

But she didn’t and at the end of her pitch she handed me what looked like a really dodgyly (The colour ran, the layers wern’t nicely aligned, the print was barely legible) printed coupon with perforated borders and asked if i could tear it open. I declined, but she went on about how it was free and non-obligating.. So just to shut her up, i tore it open.

Then, for the most transparent and see through moment in scammer history, she got really excited and said I won a car or something and i could go claim it at that above mentioned shop nearby.

Like hello? I wasn’t born yesterday OK?

So handed her back the coupon, finished filling up and drove off. I have to hand it to her tho… she did a pretty good job of being enthusiastic for the 10 minutes it took me to fill up my car. :P

Click

He Dies™. While Dead™ he Vanquishes-Evil™, which allows him to Return-to-Life™. Afterwhich he Marries-an-Asian-Girl™, Has-Kids™ and Lives-Happily-Ever-After™

Nicholas.C || says:
So… the job that i was ranting about?
They finally approved

Pat || says:
?

Nicholas.C || says:

so we printed their self important brochure

Nicholas.C || says:
Had it folded at a high tech plant

Pat || says:
ah, and then?

Nicholas.C || says:
delivered…
[then] “eh.. got corrections… don’t worry, print again, we’ll pay for it”

Pat || says (11:51):
o_O

Nicholas.C || says:
#!@$!@%@#$^@$%#$% government department

Pat || says:
… sounds like typical govt error trying to waste more money

Nicholas.C || says:
:P

Pat || says:
omg… they’re idiots

Nicholas.C || says:
so then one of the changes was “please italic our motto”
so fine we did the corrections, sent a mock up
it came back “More italic please”

Pat || says:
ok… and then?

Nicholas.C || says:
i mean WTF? MORE italic? it already looks like the freaking leaning tower of teluk intan

Pat || says:
lololol

Nicholas.C || says:
what do they want? for it to Retak dan Jatuh is it?

Off and on in between reconnection of the umpteen time after being dropped from the World of Warcraft servers at the worst possible moments, I would take a look at my router’s active sessions logs for a clue as to the cause of my woes.

Alot of times, I’d notice that my sisters laptop was generating alot of connections and traffic and when i got on her case about it, she would protest argueing that all she was doing was surfing the web and talking on Skype wither her boyfriend.

For a very long time I bought her arguement and let her be, seeing as how her websurfing habits arn’t bandwidth intensive and if i can be on Vent (A VOIP client alot of gamers use) with 25 people at a go, her talking to one person on VOIP shouldn’t be breaking my DSL connection.

But I’ve always felt something was amiss, because as soon as she logged off and went to do something else, my connection tends to stabalize.

Then today i read this about Skype:

“Due to the design of the protocol, if given access to an unrestricted network connection, Skype clients can become supernodes. These supernodes hold together the peer-to-peer network and provide data routing for other clients behind more restrictive firewalls, which can generate a significant amount of bandwidth usage. For this reason, some network providers, such as universities, have banned the use of Skype”

This explains everything. Installing Skype not only lets you make a call out to another Skype user, even when you’re not in a call Skype uses your computer (and your connection) as a sort of public telephone exchange, relaying other peoples traffic up to the tune of 40kb/s. Consider for a moment that my 512K DSL connection with it’s 128Kbit/s upload can only upload at a maximum of 16kb/s. (I don’t have 1mbps because the lines in my area won’t support it)

Whats worse, if you do a bit of research, you’ll learn that unless you install a proxy and do some fancy filtering or own some really expensive Cisco hardware, it’s damn near impossible to trottle or restrict Skype on a network that only has Port or IP filtering (which is nearly all home user routers)

I now officially HATE Skype.

Today on MSN I had a friend ask for a mini intervention because an Ex said friend hadn’t spoken to in a while, but wasn’t quite over, had come online and it would have been detrimental for my friend if they were to speak.

Which brings me to another friend who interestingly blogged today about how some people find,

“…that removing someone from their life entirely is the solution to their problems with said person, and I believe strongly that this behaviour is up there with bank robbery and genocide…”

Few years back, when a certain someone decided it was over between her and me, there was just silence, she didn’t say anything, I didn’t know what happened. When I protested, she gave me one phone call. It was my chance to say my piece and that was it, after that we were but strangers.

I went through the motions of being distraught at how quickly it just ended; how cold hearted the whole yanking the plug was etc. But over time I’ve come to appreciate what she did.

Hope is something not good to have when something is truly over. It holds you back; it’s the anti-healing. You can’t really just be friends if some part of you still clings on to the hope that maybe, somehow, things will work out the way you dreamed they would.

Painful as it may have been at first, at least it’s a sure fire route to closure. So yea, my friend banlisted the Ex and life went on.

I’ve had this CD tucked away in a ring file for a few years now. From time to time when i’m searching for a old TV show or movie it would jump out at me. I’ll pause, stare at it for a moment, then continue flipping through the file.

I haven’t picked up the CD since soon after i got it. To be sure, Ella Fitzgerald has a wonderful voice, lovely and reassuring… but as you may notice, the CD is burned… and the handwriting on the lable is too pretty to be mine. I guess the reason I haven’t had the pleasure of Ella’s company for a very long time was that this CD just reminds me too much of the one who gifted it to me.

We may be strangers to one another now, but one day a very long time from now, when our time is short, yet plentyful, when the leaves have fallen and the sun a dim glimmer on the horizon, with our lives’ burdens gone and our hearts fancy free, I would like to meet you and ask how your life had been.

“Murderess. Murderess. The word rustles like a tafetta skirt across the floor.”

In 1844 sixteen-year-old Grace Marks is convicted of the brutal murder of her employer and his pregnant mistress. Eight years later she is offered the chance to redeem herself - but telling a story is never an innocent act.

In her brilliant portrayal of the celebrated murderess in the play Alias Grace, award-winning Australian actress Caroline Lee transforms into Grace Marks in a performance as intimate as it is dangerous. The character is based on the real-life Grace Marks, one of the most notorious Canadian women of the 1840s.

- Kaki Seni.com

Sounds like yet another dark and heavy production not worth seeing doesn’t it? But I tell you now O’ ye of little faith that having seen this production, ‘brilliant’ is a word that does but a passable job of describing how truly exceptional and captivating the story of Grace Marks was told last night.

How for an hour and a half non-stop, the tale was single-handedly monologued, each character belivingly animated, each emotion brought so close to ones heart… It was light hearted as much as it was controversial, amusing as much as it was dead serious, it was… nothing short of epic.

‘Alias Grace’ runs from Wed 4th till Sun 8th July 2007, 8.30pm everyday with a 3pm matinee on Sunday. Tickets at RM37/ RM22 (students & senior citizens). Go forth and be enthralled.