I have decided to move my blogs to www.mygrumblings.blogspot.com. The primary reason being because it has more space allocated for me and thus I can put more pictures up.

The GUI (Graphic User Interface) is DEFINATELY better than blogdrive. The HELP assistance is much better and easier to find than in blogdrive, etc.

I feel that blogspot is better initially but decided to give www.blogdrive.com a try but this is one of the regrets that I have  in my life. So BLOGSPOT is in BLOGDRIVE is out.

So here's my new and probably my last site.

MY GRUMBLINGS

Okay folks, I'm pissed. Here I am with nice pictures and using this blog and somehow, I may have to move again but I'll see how it goes. The reason this time? I have only one Megabyte of picture space so I'll check if I can move into a bigger diskspace without doing the tedious moving or not. I've check at www.blogspot.com, it's pretty good and the limitation is 300 MB of picture space. I know that in friendster blogs, the limitation is 50 MB for picture space. Initially I thought of moving to blogspot but then again I thought of giving this blogsite a try. Sigh. So there you have it folks, check the size allocated for your pictures before you move in. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.

Anyway, moving on.

I have here two pictures to show to the world. Both pictures are pictures of my church members and the first picture of my "posse" is taken sometime in 2004 and the other is a picture taken sometime in 1995.

Yeah, I went out late last night to watch Underworld 2 (that would explain that I'm tired and look like a lychan today). Anyway, here's my "dua kupang" worth.

If you haven't watch it, only read the first point. Skip the rest, I don't want to spoil the movie for you.

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1. Not a bad movie but they should have warned about "You should be familiar...very familiar with the first Underworld before you view the second one".

It was not that great an explaination by the father of all three males (who all are actually playing supporting roles in my opinion) in the second film. If you so happen to watch the second sequeal and skipping the first one, you won't know a few things. For example,

Who is this hybrid and how this hybrid can BE a hybrid and no one else can BE a hybrid (vampiric abilities and were-wolf abilities). I'll enlighten you on that matter, first there was this guy, Alexander Corvinus, who became immortal somehow (I can't remember...it was mentioned in the first Underworld) and had three sons. Yup, three sons. Two of the sons were twins. One of the twin, William,  was bitten by a wolf and was the first were-wolf. The other, Marcus, was bitten by a moth (just kidding), a bat and soon became a were-bat, i.e. vampire. What happened to the third? Was not bitten by anything carried the genes of Alexander Corvinus. The decendent, the hero of both the movies, Michael Corvin, carries the genes and in the first movie he was bitten by the heroine AND the were-wolf and so he was the first hybrid.

This would give you some enlightenment in how the Michael Corvin got his "powers".

2.  The movie's focus was Selene. In both the movie it was Selene as the heroine. The hybrid fella's just a supporting guy that has more powers than ANY of the villian but does not know how to use it. Probably because he's new with his new founding powers rather than Selene who became a vampire over 600 years ago had lots of practice, seeking revenge of her parents (mentioned also in the first and partially in the second Underworld).




3. The entire movie, the vampire and the hybird needs very little blood to survive. All they did was suck on each other's blood and they have enough energy to kill everyone that is deemed bad. I tell you, the amount of blood sucked in the show was not more than one litre. Okay, the bad vampire, Marcus, has to suck on a whole horse's for its blood to fill him up. Probably because he's the biggest honcho in the movie.Then there was this other villian, all grunts and noise, he was imprisoned in a tomb for all eternity (total was 800 years) and still have energy to kill, rampage and was in beserk mode. Mind you, this were-wolf was entombed and so no food for 800 plus years. Surely his fleas would have sucked HIM dry.

4. The original were-wolf and original vampire fighting a hybrid and a "turned" vampire scene was not good enough. Too short. You have the originals of the two breeds and then destroyed by their enemies by ripping them apart. The hybrid tore the upper snout of the were-wolf like me ripping a wing off a chicken. Then the heroine broke the original vampire's wing, chopped off his hand (very little blood spluttered out by the way) and pushed the villian to the chopter's turning blade to be shredded to pieces.

5. Not enough blood. The fighting scenes were not bad, story was poor but just plain not enough blood. Vampire movie, people getting shot, mutilated, etc but the amount of blood was just below my expectations.

6. So in the end, the hero and heroine CAN live and love each other forever. How sweet. All they have to do is to suck on each other for food (remember they only need less than one liter of blood) and then can battle villians etc. If they have an argument, all hell would break loose. I mean, they have super-strength and super healing ability, and if they get into an argument, catastrophic scene.

Anyway, that's all for now, feel free to add on to the comments on the movie. Brian signing off.

Looking at my wallet the past few days made me think hard, very hard, on what to do with my remaining money. Not much, it may or may not get me by till end of the month. It would be two more weeks till I get my next cheque and another three days for it to clear. I have a little extra reserved for any emergencies. Sigh. Some reserve it seem. Just a couple of hundred bucks. Where did all my money go to? Plenty of places. Most of it not for myself or at least not for my own pleasure. My car, my immediate family, insurance, the likes. So I'll have to find some way to stretch my money's worth for the next two weeks. Problem is my car's paint looks pretty bad now, actually more worse than the last time I'd checked. So it would be time for me to cough out 1,700 bucks to repaint my car. I just checked my tires and it seems that I need to get them changed too, soon, but not yet. So I need to allocate some amount for that as well. The price of having a car.

But you know what? Funny thing is, I'm still not worried. In fact, I am still in control of my stuff. Yes, I sometimes induldge myself in a game or two (or three) with a "boys-night-out" session but that's much less than before. Averaging once a week or even less. So what am I going to do? I'm going to watch myself more closely this time. I already cleared most of my bank debts (credit card debts are sssoooo hard to clear off). So I'm okay with this "no money but not much in debt" situation.

If I do have some spare cash what would I do? First of all, it would depend on the amount. If the amount is at a five hundred bucks extra. I would probably fix my tires. If I have an extra of a thousand? I won't do a single thing. Wait a bit longer to accumulate a bit more then I would repaint my car. If I have a couple of thousand. Hmmm... I would do both my tires and paint my car at the same time. If I have five thousand? I would use two thousand to fix my car and the remainder to go on a holiday with Esther and probably let her buy some stuff that she likes (I know she just loves those cute artistic stuff that they sell at those kiosks). However, these are just my wishes. Possible but still a wish for now. Hmmmm... dream first. Accomplish later. Walt Disney always reminds people that "if you can dream it, you can do it". The thing that stops people from achieving it is the "doing" part. So what's beyond my horizon? My reality that has yet to come true. Adios.

Yesterday we had church service that was mostly run in North American style. Meaning the songs that were sung, the part where they bring a show-and-tell session to the children (during the service mind you) and of course the people that were leading the service were Americans. I find myself smiling through out the serivice because of the style and I was explaining to someone next to me who was surprised and exclaimed, "hey why we didn't thought of that" everytime she sees something new and was wondering if it is a new thing. Oh well, she's was wondering if our church could adopt some of the styles that we saw yesterday.

Moving on to something more depressing. Pratiba, I send my condolences to you. I am sorry to hear that your mother passed away and I hope that everything is alright with you. We will pray for your comfort.

I just found out that I need to fix my car. Total amount to fix my car ? Try one thousand six hundred (ouch! Malaysian Ringgit of course but ouch nonetheless). Sigh. My car's pain is ruined (no thanks to the harsh sun ray's in this tropical side of the world) and let's see if I could delay till next year. Hopefully my car won't be in total rust by then. So in the mean time, I got to wash the car more often, apply car wax more frequently and may need to double my layers of wax just to prolong my paint. It's inevitable but it's like delaying death rather than increasing life. Oh well, got to go.

My condolences once again Pratiba.

Raining season. Sigh. Love it. Hate it. I guess it depends if you look at it from a different angle. Love it. Yeah. Cools you down. This country of ours is known to be hot. In fact, as Thomas @ Supremo would say it, "we have four seasons. Hot, HOTTER. Wet, WETTER". From here, we can safely deduce we are in the season of WETTER (we're also in the season of Lent but that's a different story).




This picture is taken from www.thestar.com.my (our local newspaper). The next picture is taken from the same source which was photographed near Esther's place.




Sigh. It's a pity that the earth turned against us humans ever since The Fall of Man. Man could only hope for the earth to be less violent so that the pain is less frightening. I bet those people that were caught in the violent storm was wondering if they were going to make it to their destination or not. It is scary and even for me I'll bet that I would be shaken up too but this doesn't mean that our lives is not like driving the road (I feel philosophic today) too. There are times when we have our own problems that comes to us, I'm going to quote a friend of mine (I'm just full of quotes today):

"As captain planet would say, "when the powers combine…" I'd finish that line off with "I am the big whammie of the week!" one day with two hard hitters."

Having said that, we too know that times like those are pretty hard. Sometimes it is so hard it feels as though it manage to break us. When it does, our knowledge of happiness seemed only but a dream. Of course, friends, family and other factors comes to play and do save us. Over coming ones ego to talk and seek help (and prayer too) before the trouble manages to break us down completely. Anyway, this is a simplified version (for longer explaination, please ask me for tea). Till then, bye folks.

Sleepy. Tired. A bit of worry feeling. Yup. I'm having all three. Waking up at 3:30 am just to send my dear Esther to Nepal. Driving to the airport is fine but coming back was a torture. Nearly fell asleep while driving. Boy was I sleepy then and am I sleepy now. Took several cups of coffee but still feeling sleepy. Slept in office too but for a short while. Anyway, hope she'll be fine. I'm sure she will but just saying that is more for myself to calm down.

Having said that... let me tell you about a joke. Okay. A lame joke but I'm going to tell you anyway.

A faucet, a cabbage and a tomato were having a race to try to see who is faster. At half way point, cabbage was ahead, the faucet was running second and the tomato was trying to catch up (ketchup).

P/s: Aileen, I'll change my picture. Yes, I know it's all worn out and I need a new pic. Hopefully I would be able to dig a nice picture of myself somewhere.

I had to miss the blogging opportunity yesterday because of my appointment. A particular friend of mine was seeking help from moi since I know computers. Problem is I'm not good in THAT particular area that he was seeking assistance in. So I had to pull someone else from outside and this outside friend to help out. It went well. About an hour and a half of meeting, it went rather well. All my partner was asking is, how much can he get out of this "consultation". Sigh. I guess I'll have to push my side to find some sort of renumeration. Actually I don't mind taking a bit of it myself. Not too much since I didn't do most of the job, just a fraction but I'm taking 25% while my partner takes 75%.

Today is my last day with Esther. Tomorrow morning she's flying off. She's going to the top of the world (or very close to the top). Yup. She's going to Nepal for ministry for a total period of 14 days. So what does this make me? Very scared. I always have this fear of travelling long distance. Even for me or anyone else. I have this fear that something bad might happen and I would be blaming myself (if I'm not already dead) for the incident. I don't know why. I should have more faith in myself and God (most of all) but I just can't help feeling edgy...you know...apprehensive. I suppose to have 14 days all by myself (bachelor again, and I can do whatever I want during my free time now) but I have these "whatifs" in my head. Oh I don't know.

I don't have the fear of travelling ten years back, in fact, it was more the other way round but ever since I started my career, I have this fear of travelling long distance and I'll never see anyone again. Geeze. You heard me on one of my fears in my life being told via internet. Sigh. I hope that things does turn out well, inspite of the turmoil in Kathmandu (political protests and country under military control is being carried out over there right now) I still have some comfort in God taking care of Esther. If not, hey, I'll see her in Heaven again right? Darn. I'm feeling very melancholic now. Sigh. Somebody slap me. Oh well, I guess I have to learn not to worry about this isn't it. Prayer helps, so I'll do that more fervently now.

Over and out.

Things today ran pretty smooth. Meaning it wasn't like my second job where I had fears of coming into my office on Monday. Monday was a day of fear back then. Thinking about that time just gives me the shivers. *Shudder*.

Stepping into my office on a bad day(previously), could range from a server is down (above medium alert) to a user got himself/herself locked out because of typing wrong passwords (very minor problem). Major problem is when someone hacked into the system or someone forged one of our products. Products? Yeah. Sales people talk. Even though the product is a cheque (or check for North American) we still calls it a product. So it would be a big thing if the product got forged. Anyway, back then things like that just cropped up on Monday because over the weekend, my Managing Director would receive news regarding our cheques (or checks) being rejected or accepted or any other thing that may have happened during the weekend.

Thank God that's over and now in my past.

Monday these days means coming into office. Open the front door if I'm early. Set my computer to connect to internet. Wait for my breakfast buddy (or he waits for me if he's early) and go and have breakfast. Come back from breakfast, start to do research. Then in between office hours could play a computer game (or two) and hope not to get caught and continue to do research till lunch and repeat till clock struck 5:30 or so.

If I do happen to have classes to train, then, it would just mean no breakfast and start to do training from the time I come in, lunch, continue till 5:00. Half an hour to pack and check e-mails and then off I go.

Not bad eh? I think so. Much better than my average Monday in my previous job description. Only thing is, research must be done in order to conduct training properly. That's the key to being a trainer. Keeping up-to-date is vital for a successful training. Knowing a trainers job, a trainer must continue to test the concepts that he/she is instructing. No point telling people how to fix a problem when the instructor isn't sure but only to say "theoreticaly can work". Proof-of-concept is the utmost important. Everything else is extra.

Besides that, nothing much to say. No funny remarks/line. This is Brian reporting. Over and out.

With the recent rise of petrol price, I don't think I want to go anywhere and so I made a joke about driving (can I say driving?) a bullock cart instead. I mean all you need is a couple of cows and some hay to feed. Then my friends that were in the conversation via Yahoo Messenger, Judy(at the background giggling), William (got disconnected halfway) and Joel (the one who laugh last), made more jokes out of driving a bullock cart... here's the edited converstion clip.

ME: need to buy hay for my cow
ME: I wonder if I need a driving license to drive a cow powered vehicle or not...
joel: try western...
ME: western grass is more nutricious right?
ME: hmmm...
ME: produce better...bigger cows...
ME: I wonder if I have to pay for parking a bullock cart if park in the parking bay or not
William: hahahah
ME: if I get a ticket...where would the authorities put the ticket? on the horns of the bull?
ME: I'm afraid that the bull might eat the ticket though.
William: haahhaah
William: of course..
joel: you can try to push your cow to move to the max driving speed of 110 kmph
joel: must be a madcow to drive THAT fast
ME: must be a British breed
ME: Japanese  breed is synthetic one
ME: darn...I'm enjoying this conversation
joel: YEAH
ME: Malaysian cows never follows the speedometer...so can move very fast..but the cows may have frequent coffee breaks....breakdown mah
William: ahhahahah
ME: australian cows only knows how to go South...
ME: Singapore cows however...needs more hay for motivation...hence kiasu cows
joel: MUAHAHAHA
ME: geeze...I should put these in my blog
joel: HAHAHAHA
ME: Indian cows are too holy to move
ME: chinese cows...are not cows...but imitation...from goats...
ME: French cows won't listen to you when you  say "move" in any other language...you have to talk to the French cows in French
ME: American cows...they are big, fat, and produce waste often
joel: MAUHAHAHAHAAA
ME: American cows are primarily meant for fertilizer...not good for pulling a bullock cart
ME: Canadian cows? Too cold to move fast if move at all
ME: good eh? I can almost hear Suresh's laugh from here
ME: I'll post this conversation in my blog
joel: :p
joel: right


Okay folks. Just a joke and nothing more. I hope I won't get flamed TOO badly though. I edited a fair bit (slang and local language are modified) but yeah, please don't flame me too much. Have a good time folks.