dracil

The yowling's started. Started last night after we went to bed. I'm not sure, but I think I'm sneezing more. May or may not be an allergic reaction to the cat being in heat and possibly releasing who knows what into the air (urine? pheremones?), although I haven't seen her spraying.
Currently feeling blah

dracil

Hmm, I can make the cat go into sexual throes just by putting my hand on it.

Battlestar Galactica has started showing here. Got my parents to watch it although they seemed to have trouble paying attention. Part of the problem is no Chinese subs I think.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Hehe, this was from a Chinese buffet place we went to for lunch with my relatives, and while there, they noticed this poster. Dirty minds.



The words at the top basically states: "These two say - Sucking this, sucking that, he's still the best." The "he" is supposed to be referring to the cigarettes. The word they used is a generic reference whose default meaning is "he", but there is another word that would've been more specifically "it" and thus wouldn't have given this double meaning.

Buffet itself was nice, tending towards the greasy, fried stuff, although the better stuff tended to disappear rather quickly.
Currently feeling amused

dracil

A couple days ago, the TV was playing 梁静茹's 不想睡. This song is actually from THE BOOM's 島唄. It was first released in 1992 as the "Uchinaguchi" version. A year later, they released the "Original" version. Almost a decade later, Alfredo Casero, an Argentinian, covered it and it thus became really popular in South America and even became their soccer theme song. It was also used by Japanese soccer fans in 2002 as well. I put both 不想睡 and 島唄 on the radioblog so you can compare.

The lyrics of 島唄 is as follows.

でいごの花が咲き　風を呼び　嵐が来た

でいごが咲き乱れ　風を呼び　嵐が来た
くり返す悲しみは　島渡る波のよう
ウージの森であなたと出会い
ウージの下で千代にさよなら

島唄よ　風に乗り　鳥とともに　海を渡れ
島唄よ　風に乗り　届けておくれ　私の涙

でいごの花も散り　さざ波がゆれるだけ
ささやかな幸せは　うたかたの波の花
ウージの森で歌った友よ
ウージの下で八千代の別れ

島唄よ　風に乗り　鳥とともに　海を渡れ
島唄よ　風に乗り　届けておくれ　私の愛を

海よ　宇宙よ　神よ　いのちよ　このまま永遠に夕凪を

島唄よ　風に乗り　鳥とともに　海を渡れ
島唄よ　風に乗り　届けておくれ　私の涙
島唄よ　風に乗り　鳥とともに　海を渡れ
島唄よ　風に乗り　届けておくれ　私の愛を

Random thought: If human girls went into heat like my cat, the world would be a much better place.
Currently feeling fascinated

dracil

Started watching the second season DVDs that my parents had. Six episodes in a day. Should finish by the end of the week. Then it's season three.
Currently feeling sleepy

dracil

Duel - nicely animated duel.

Didn't really do much today besides watching even more 24.
Currently feeling tired

dracil

As you may have all heard by now, seems like there were some bombs in London. Several dozen dead. I wonder who's behind it... and whether this is related to Britain's support on the US's war on "terror"
Currently feeling bleh

dracil

Well, she's been back to normal for the past few days now. So it must've worked.

And just like other females, once she got what she wanted (or thinks she did), she goes back to pretty much ignoring me.

I stand by what I said, human girls should go in heat. :D

Oh, and I fried a cockroach on the electric racket today. Died a little too quick, no fun. I noticed it 'cause the cat was staring at it, then it started crawling up a cabinet. I found the racket by the time it crawled to the top, and when I went after it, it jumped/flew right onto the racket. I guess it's kind of an alternative version of the "Out of the frying pan, into the fire" saying, although the fire looked more like the frying pan in this case.
Currently feeling tired

dracil

(backdated)

Little family argument today.
Currently feeling blah

dracil

(backd... forget that

Twice in two days. Come to think of it, I don't think there's really a point in backdating. I lose the information of when I did the actual blogging in exchange of an estimate of when I would've blogged.

So anyway, yesterday went to see War of the Worlds with my parents. It was a bit anti-climactic and I wasn't quite sure what exactly happened at the end. Of course, a quick trip to IMDB will give me the info I need.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Had a random call today by my dad saying that my aunt was coming over to use our internet. Turns out it's not her that needed to use it, but her friend who had come to my grandmother's place on Saturday. Apparently he just needed to use some internet chat programs to get in contact with some people.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

My dad got some free tickets to a concert by I Solisti Veneti. They were pretty nice tickets too, since we were in the third row from the front, on the very right side of the left section.

Seats there were a bit cramped though. Food before the event and during intermission was excellent. Tiramisu cups, this fried thing that had what I think was goat cheese inside, etc.

Anyway, about the concert itself. They performed twelve pieces in all. Eight were on the program, none of which I'd ever heard. The first two pieces during encore I've heard before. Third piece was really interesting. The composer was only 13 at the time and hadn't had any composition lessons either. The key point about this piece was that there was no part for the violas, so the viola players basically goofed around during the performance. They acted confused, flipped their music sheets around, stole music sheets from the other musicians, and just randomly tried to play stuff when there was a pause, to which the conductor would wave them off sternly. :D Fourth piece was another one I never heard of, but I think it was called the "Night Watch of Madrid"

The other big thing about tonight was that I saw someone from high school. It was during intermission and as I was leaving, I heard my name. It was Camilla. I didn't recognize her at first because I think her hair's longer now (well, it *has* been several years). So apprently she works at Bangkok Post now, and has been for several months. She was here to report on the concert. She told me JB was coming back next month although I'll be gone by then and asked about Varisa (she says hi!).

I'm still not sure how she'd recognized me. Either she was near the top just sitting and noticed me coming up, or she saw me trip on one of the steps when I first went in (hope this wasn't the case ). Forgot to get some contact information though, but after talking to Shubha, I see she's on Friendster (thank you, social networks, even if I don't really use you anymore!)

Anyway, gonna check the newspaper for the next few days to see what she wrote about it.
Currently feeling happy

dracil

Very, very fright'ning me... as it goes in the Bohemian Rhapsody

So yeah, I woke up to a huge thunderstorm, and it lasted for several hours after that. Was worried during the time if the power would go out while I was using the computer, causing possible damage. I'm not sure, but it seems like the hard drives on the computer seem to be more vulnerable to the power going out. Seems like every two times I have to do a hard reset or if the power goes out, scandisk finds a problem on the drives, while my computer in the US never has a problem. May be a combination of other factors, such as different file systems (NTFS vs. FAT32) or different OSes.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Stupid Microsoft and all its different versions of Office, including all the different language versions. >_<
Currently feeling annoyed

dracil

http://www.griddlers.net - AKA Nanograms, Paint-by-numbers, 塗塗樂. I found the site while looking for some related games I could download for my mom. This site seems to be the best of the lot, although you have to be online to play.

Oh, and they caught the main guy behind the London bombing.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Today I had my first red ant egg omelette. It's the large red ants that build their nests in trees by gluing the leaves together. They used to live in the trees at my old school, and I think there are some now in the plants at home. Anyway, it was at a Thai restaurant whose specialty was chicken. As for the eggs themselves, couldn't really taste it with the omelette. I think it had a kind of salty juice. Also, when I tried to look inside one of them, there was some hard black thing. Perhaps it was a developing ant larvae?

Now this is the type of authentic Thai food that you're unlikely to find in the US.
Currently feeling curious

dracil

Hmm, typhoon in Taiwan right now. Why can't the typhoon come here instead? It's too hot here and I'm sure people in Taiwan would be happy as well.
Currently feeling hot

dracil

Optimus Keyboard

It's not only reprogrammable, you can also change the actual pictures on the keys! I assume this means it'll work well in the dark too.

Too bad it's probably going to cost a lot.

Here's some examples.

Layout for Photoshop


Layout for Quake

Currently feeling materialistic

dracil

As some of you tweakers may have noticed, http://www.blackviper.com has disappeared from the internet for some time now. The Internet Archive has several archives, but it doesn't go very deep. However, recently someone has put up a full mirror of the site, so get the information while you can!

Oh, in case you have no idea what the site's about. Basically Windows loads up a lot of unneeded services which don't really do anything but take up memory. The site lets you know which ones are generally safe to disable, depending on just how adventurous you're feeling. The creator also says what the service is used for, if he knows.
Currently feeling tired

dracil

That was quick, but it's 'cause they broke something. You all should know where to get it by now.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Finished watching the third season of 24 today. For a show that's supposed to happen in realtime, seems like no one ever seems to need to eat or use the bathroom...

Oh, China's currency is now unpegged.

And there's been new bombings in London although casualties seem to be much less this time.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Today's the beginning of Buddhist Lent, which means it's a holiday in Thailand, except my father kept getting phone calls throughout the day because of the unpegging of the Chinese currency.

We went to this Chinese place for lunch, except, they didn't have the main dish that we had gone there for. Rather disappointing. And their air conditioning sucked.

After that, we went to IT Mall to look at computer stuff. My parents bought some computer mouses (yes, the plural form here is not "mice"). I noticed they had Half-Life 2 for the equivalent of $15, so naturally, I bought it, since it's around 70% cheaper than in the US. I tested it back home to make sure since it said it was the "Thai version." In the past, this only meant that the manual was in Thai, but there wasn't even a manual in this case. So I popped it in the CD Drive, and the entire installation was in Thai! Eesh. After checking around, it appears that installation won't actually be a problem, and the game can be changed to English after installation if it is in Thai.

Yes, retail games here in Thailand only cost around $10-$20 even though the hardware costs around the same in the US. This, people, is why piracy is beneficial to the consumers. It causes competition, especially when the pirated copies cost only around $3.50, which forces the companies to lower the prices in order to compete. Meanwhile, stupid companies waste money on useless copyright protection, which raises their cost a little, and the price. Imagine, if they stopped wasting their resources on that, prices would fall even further!

For dinner, we went to this cheap buffet place. It's like Hotpot City in the US, except it's reversed. The meat is grilled in the middle and the liquid's on the side. This has the side effect of the meat falling in the liquid constantly. All in all, it wasn't too bad, since it costs around $2.50 per person including water, but the variety was very limited. The ice cream was really good though, since it was Thai style, and we basically focused on eating one type of meat (non-lean pork) since it tasted the best.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Finally, at long last, I watched Episode 3. And watched Madagascar (seems like it was a Russian DVD) as well. And Hannibal earlier in the day.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Long-winded priest. Lunch at Oishi where I managed to achieve a stack of 30+ dishes before it was taken away. Cleaned the air conditioner since it seemed to be getting dirty. Walked something like 5km.

Been kinda sleepy the whole day, even though I actually got up late.
Currently feeling tired

dracil

Man, the ISP here really really sucks. Not only was I unable to login to Slashdot in the months I was here, but today, it even said my network was completely banned from Slashdot a couple times. I'm surprised people didn't write about this in the Database section of Bangkok Post before.
Currently feeling annoyed

dracil

The first series of this Korean medical drama ended yesterday, and continued straight to the second season today. It's kinda interesting, since it basically shows the entire life of the person from birth to death, although it does make for a *very* long series, and of course, as with most historical things turned into shows, the historical accuracy's probably questionable.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Especially when after you're all done, you notice the companies sacked you with some final bills that you weren't expecting (for a very small amount, but may affect my credit rating nonetheless).
Currently feeling blah

dracil

Cool, I now have proper oil to lubricate my northbridge fan. I just hope it hasn't become too damaged in the few weeks I let it run in its current state. Might even be able to use it to let the other case fans run even more smoothly.

Sure beats a $20 replacement fan (includes shipping + tax). And even if I have to oil it every few months, it'll be a good habit to open the computer up for cleaning, considering the amount of dust that accumulates in the computer

Why haven't they created a sort of air filter for computer cases? Naturally you'd have to clean it regularly, but if designed right, cleaning it would be a lot easier than taking apart the case for cleaning.
Currently feeling happy

dracil

This is what I spent my morning, and a bit of yesterday night doing. Partly it's for the community, partly it's to advertise the game, and partly it's to practice a bit of PHP coding. One feature is that what is shown is randomly picked each time you refresh the image, including the background image, and the user can even customize a bit how this is done.

Next step is to add caching mechanisms to the script.
Currently feeling geeky

dracil

The most effective method of stamping out piracy is to abolish copyright laws, and with it, the concept of copyright itself.

Think about it.
Currently feeling rebellious

dracil

Haircut and last minute shopping. Dinner with my relatives at a Japanese restaurant, and it's now my dad's birthday (Happy Birthday!). My plane's in less than 12 hours. We tried to see if I could leave later, but there wasn't any space available.

Been fiddling around with this USB drive/MP3 player that my dad doesn't really use anymore. It has Chinese fonts, which is nice if I have Chinese songs, but it spits out garbage with my Japanese songs. I think I have it figured out now, like how to make it sort my songs properly (it's based on the order the song was copied onto it, but making a new directory on it and copying it over and back in the order I want it in sorts it in the order I want).

Too much stuff to pack, not sure I can bring everything.
Currently feeling tired

dracil

And I'm off. Hope no troubles at Immigration.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

As expected, the Evergreen Lounge in Taiwan is much better. I didn't think it was this much better though. Internet access, an actual game room (all XBoxes), definitely better quality food (large steamed buns, soup, rice, pasta, etc.). And this is just for the Silver Card/Business class. There's two more higher level sections for people with better cards/tickets.

Oh yes, the bookstore here finally had a decent game magazine, and a new comic book in the series I'm reading.
Currently feeling impressed