One more before 2006

It's been a crazy year indeed... Other than went on a trip to Japan with my family (see the side bar) the rest seems like a blur and not as important...

I wish for something better next year... At least I will do something fun on New Year's Eve... Just like last year :)

OMG!!!! XDDD

I first saw this clip once on TV years and years ago, but I remembered it quite vividly. I was started to watch sitcom on cable and back then the local cable seems to mostly shows the sitcom from the 80s and Golden Girls was one of them. I love that sitcom so much...

What can be funnier than this!! XD

I am so happy that I finally found this on Youtube. God bless the person who upload this clip.

Another Changing Time

When I look back at my old post a year ago, things has change a lot since.

I was just a happy go lucky sort of guy, living day by day with little worried with the world and this year I became moody, sullen and slightly vindictive toward life in general. The culprit is, without any doubt, my job.

Now with the venture I mention in previous post, I will finally be able to quit and concentrate on my well being instead. I had weight myself on a scale recently and confirm what I had suspicious of ever since my bigger pants felt fit around my waist. I had officially gain more weight than I thought. The first digit had changed! I need to work outs... Things will be better once I quit my job.

It is time to join a gym and work my ass off, I guess it is time to ask around which gym is populated with hunky white gay men :d

Finally a breather

The venture I did with my friend finally get his approval. It is like lifting a mountain off my chest!!

Now I can look forward to slightly brighter future and quitting my current job... It became too much with the 12 hours night shits working every other 3 nights, regardless of the public holiday.

Looks likes I will be enjoying this Christmas after all, even if will just be on Christmas day.

On another bad news... I gain weight... Another reason why I wants to quit the job. I can eat only a meal or two when the hours were less...

Guilty Pleasure

Another quickie... This is my 'guilty pleasure' song :)

Boy... how I wish I have a boyfriend to grind with while this song blasted on a streo.

The Chill Finally Arrive

The Winter finally arrive in Bangkok. The dawn is about an hour later than usual now and the morning chill can be felt outdoor.

It felt good to have a 10 degree C drop in temperature for a change. Now I can sleep better in the daytime, at least for awhile.

I had been working for 6 nights in a row for two weeks.... It was so f*cking tiresome. I wants to quit this job...

Prince: A Quickie before Bedtime

I found this old MV on youtube.com of one of Prince's song that like and kinda stuck in my brain :) Not to mention how the sexy MV seems to burn itself in the back of my mind for a long time :P



I like how Prince sing this song. He sounds like he is bellowing out the song full force without straining and to me it sounds slightly hypnotic :)

My Banana

I have been meaning to do this post for quite sometimes. The problem is that the subject in the photograph is not easy to find and when I find them it wasn't long before I devour them all :p

Here is what I am talking about

Aren't they look good enough to eat??? :d

They are grilled bananas, one of Thailand's.... well it's not dessert and it's not appetizer, you will not find this any restaurant as they are usually found on street side stands.

They use a particular kind of banana called 'Hugmoog'; Hug means to snap or break things (usually in half) and Moog means pearl. I do not know the origin of the name however :p Anyway these bananas will be cut when the peels are still green. When grilled the peel will be slit and then place on hot charcoal grill. The secret seems to be in the timing of grilling. When grilled at the right time the banana will turn sunflower yellow, it will became sweeten and very very juicy. I could ate 6 of them at once or more :dd.

Too bad that they are not easy to find in BKK and whenever I found some I would buy 3 to 4 pieces at least at a times :ddd They seems healthy at a first glance but as MusicMan said when I send him this photo "It's not heathly since it's charcoal grilled"

It seems that whatever taste good are usually bad for you eh...?

Clive and his BMW

A while ago I was browsing on Youtube to kill some time and I came across some clips of Clive Owen. As it turns out, the clips was part of a series of short movies comission by BWM to showcase their car with Clive Owen as the driver in every movies, each was directed by different famous directors. Below are two of my favorites of the series :)

What's not to like about this clip? Features King of Soul, Gary Oldman, Las Vegas, and special cameo guest star at the ending XD

I like this one because of the score music, apart from the feel of the whole movie, anyone have the score music?

About Mr. Clive Owen... Well, what else can yo usay about the man other than he is All MAN with all the capital letters! The man is not exactly handsome but the man raw sexual appeal that could melt you on the spot and that's even when you have not heard his sotto baritone voice... How nice would it be to have someone like that in bed, rolling around in rough manner with his deep voice growling in your ears...

Ohh... How I wish I would know someday...

Instant Message on a Go

I had covered this topic before but it is time to update a bit since I just found out that AOL also have the web IM (Instant Massenger) as well. Therefore, start from the beginning:

In case you are in a situation where the computer you are using do not or cannot or do not wanted to install certain IM software but you wants to chat with your friend on MSN, Yahoo, or AOL here is your solution.

MSN Web Messenger, this one is, of cause, for MSN users. However, true to Microsoft's style, it will only works when you are using Windows OS and preferably with Internet Explorer as your browser (on the website it said it will also works with Netscape 7.1 but I doubt anybody still using that one)

Yahoo Web Messenger, the name saids it all. This one seems to be tougher to use than the other... It seems to utilize different port than usual, thus, it probably will not work in case of office environment where they often blocks most other internet activities other than web browsing.

AIM Express, for AOL users. This one seems to be the most versatile among the three. It works in closed environment, just like MSN Web Messenger (my praise to that) and it will works on most web browsers as well.

I hope this post is useful to whoever read this :)

Music Therapy and Template Update

I have not been in the best mood lately...

With the prospect of have to working for more nights than usual due to staff shortage, the new lead from my younger bro has not contact him again (it's been a month now), and the fact that the system that I have my work on will be replace by the end of January, made me quite worried about my future.

I know that I no longer wish to work 12 hours a night 3 nights on 3 nights off anymore. Esecpially no the telephone operator job that will became full time once the current system has been replace. I think I can get transfer to tech support position, but that is under the same boss and I have no desire to work under her anymore...

Anyhow, I find that in the moment like this, Rock songs seems to help quite a bit. Such as blasting guitar and goth style of Evanescense, Amy Lee's emotional vocal seems help me cope for the time being. I guess I will have to try harder with job hunting and other plans... If any of you readers have job leads for me please feel free to either leave comments or email me. I am getting slightly desperate and any help would be Very appreciated.

I also finally do the template update thing with the intension of being able to add the red ribbon on my blog. The end results seems quite nice, luckily I copied the HTML code of my old template on to notepad beforehands so I could add my accessories and links back to the updated template. It took quite a while to completely restore my sidebar but it will be quite easy to work o nthe template and looks of the whole blog with the new features from the update. I suggest you should try it :) But only when you have time to update the sidebar back to normal and made sure you made copy of your old template beforehand so you have still have the original codes and links.

I also added a new feature called "True-A-Day" :D Scroll down a bit and you will see ;)

My Wednesday Fun

I had quite a long day today... Wake up before my intended time again, despite my lack of sleep the day before... But it turns out quite alright... My mom was still home so she cook me some noodle with the left over stock soup and noodle :)

My destination today is MBK Mall, to do a bit of shopping for my friendS (yeah with a capital S since I actually bought stuff for three persons). I end up spending about four thousand baht on the DVDs/CDs with only 200 baht of that belongs to my goods 'Murder on Orient Express'. The majorities of my acquisition belongs to CA, who made me slight worried as he has not reply his email for quite a few days now. I hope he will not doing a disappearing act on me or else I will end up with a big lost on my hand.

Other than that I got to spend some fun time talking with my regular game shops and even help out a bit with my in depth knowledge about games :)

Today I spend quite a lot of money on different food... There is a Egyptian food booth in the food court here in that sell slice chickens in tortiya (I don't remember the name right but it is quite good). Then I went to Pizza Hut to try out their smoked salmon pizza, which turns out to be just so so for the 149 price tag for the small one which didn't even feel full to me, I don't think I will have it again... The money will be better spent saving up for good Salmon Sashimi :d My mom said earlier that she will not cook tonight so I went to have a chicken on rice at a Japanese restaurant. Then after I finally arrive at Central Ladpraw after the grusome two hours 20 minutes on the road back from MBK Mall, I decided to went to Swensen's to also try out their new menu :P

So today I had both Pizza and Ice Cream, neither were quite fulfilling my appetite but it was quite fun day nonetheless :P

Pried My Wallet Open

My future is on hold again... Well.. not my life pre se but rather my future. I am waiting for the job leads from my younger bro to came through so I can make plans and so on. That has not happen yet so it became a waiting game... So I will post about something more pleasant that happen recently.

The shopping mall near by house is having a big sales again. Since many of my briefs have hanging treads and became worn off, I decided that it is time to buy some and bought them I did.

I ended up bough one polo shirt, one shirt (deep red color, no less), 3 briefs, 3 bikini briefs and 2 tenga brief (nylon and lycra mix fabric, for special occasions to come,tee hee), all Jockey brand. I also end up bought a backpack as well. I like the look and style of this one, it has three compartment, sturdy padded back support and a small pocket for mp3 player on the left side strap.

So in the end I spend quite a lot of money than usual for all these, but I surely need all of them and I am wearing one of those items right now, wanna guess which one? ;)

Day Two & Three (I am getting lazy :p)

I woke up before alarm again... I hate when it happen... Anyhow the breakfast was ok, typical hotel buffet breakfast comprise with the usual egg dishes and local breakfast meals. Then we are off to the Royal Flora Expo.

It was quite nice, abide hot and sunny weather with no cloud in the sky. I was cautioned enough to push extra SPF moisturizer on my face (but neglected my arms -*-, which results in reddish color the next day with slight sore in the tender wrinkle area). My intension was to take as many picture of beautiful and interesting things in the Expo as much as could for my mom. And I seems to did just that with total of 345 photos (there would be more if I have the time) just in the expo alone. We enter the Expo around 10am and the appointed time was 2pm. Toward the end of the walk my digital camera ran out of power and I have to use my w810i to take photo instead. It surely could take good photo ;)

The highlight was, of cause, can be seen here :P

There was also a little excitement going on. You see I was late to return to the bus that it had took off without me :p Somehow the tour guide miscount me so they have to return to pick me up. All this happen while I was walking toward to exit which lined with shops that sells flowers and souvenirs :p In the end I have to run quite a distance to the parking lot to board the bus. And then we are off to Baan Tawai

Click here to download the photos (55Mb)

Baan Tawai is a famous wood products market of Chaing Mai. It seems that most, if not all, of the wood products there are made with teak wood. I saw some very nice crafts and one has very delicate wood craving panel. All can be seen by download below.

Click here to download the photos

The day ended with a party, but I am only there for the food and spend 30min in the near by shopping mall and an hour in the internet cafe opposite from the hotel that the event was held :P

Last day was quite uneventful... but nonetheless interesting. After breakfast we went to PraSingha Temple, one of the famous and sacred temple of Chaing Mai

Click here to download the photos

And next we went to Chaing Mai Cultural Center which we learn the history of Chaing Mai

Then we are off to lunch and visit a souvenirs market. Since there were sometime left before going to the airport, we stop at the silver factory for the last bit of shopping. I was tempted to buy some ring but most are too small for fingers, also the design was not to my liking.

Then we are of to the airport. It was my first times at Chaing Mai airport, the check-ins was without a hitch and since I did not felt like browsing the shops I went to the gate quite early. The flight was delayed by about 30 minutes but it was a short flight anyhow. After about an hour in the air we arrive at Suwannapume airport.

I must say that the airport did not impress me at all. The interior was rather dark, as if the brightness was at 50% of what it should be. Perhaps this is because of the glass panel as the wall that would make it bright during the day, but did they not think of how it would look in the night? The column and ceiling were not painted and were left in cement color, they also have metal pipe running through them along the walkway. I understand that it is the 'modern' design but it does not look good nor Thais at all. It took a while to walk to the luggage belt area (four floor escalator no less). And it took about 20-30 minutes before the first luggage arrive, since it would took awhile to unload them from the plane into the truck and came to the area...

And then we have to wait for about 20 minutes for the bus back to the office as there seems to be a miscommunication of the rendezvous point. However it took only about an hour on two highways back to the office which is about 10 minutes away from my house :)

Chaing Mai Trip, Day One & Two: BKK->Chaing Mai; Doi Suthep, CM Zoo, Khantoke Dinner

The trip began by coach bus from the office to Hua Lumpong, the Grand Central train station of Thailand. I think it was my first times ever in that place.

It does looks slightly modern with the terrace style shops on both side and the A/C waiting area. At around 18:00 we boarded the train to Chaing Mai. The ride itself was, in all honesty, quite horrendous. Eventhough we got the sleeping carriege, the A/C was very cold. After the train staff set up the sheets, and blankets and pillows, I went up to sleep on the upper bunk. Which is a big mistake since the cold air from the A/C was blown in just above the curtain rails and directly into my head. To make the matter worse, a card game just happen to be played, quite loudly from time to time, opposite from my bunk. After fell asleep and woke up for 3 hours, I felt wide awake and decided that I had enough of the chill and went down to look for empty lower bunk to settle myself in. The first one I tried, has this exhaust fume smell coming in so often as well as the loud engine noise, so I have to switch to another one. I read the book I brought with me to kill times before went back to sleep. Morning came and it wasn't until around 9am that we finally arrive in Chaing Mai and not before I have the endure a lousy sandwich which comprise with only onion, tomato and lettuce as well as boil rice with chicken.

According to the schedule I printed out from the office, we were suppose to began our tour right away but then, much to my delight, we went to our hotel first to freshen up before began our sightseeing of Chaing Mai.

We went to a Chinese restuarant to have Lunch first, it was quite ok although I later heard from other people that it was one of the worst place to eat in CM :P

Then we headed out to Doi Suthep which is one of the most important temple and signature location of Chaing Mai. I think this is my second times there although I didn't recall most of the places... They let us spend sometime there and I took quite several photos as well. The place do looks peaceful although packed with tourists.

Click here for my photos of Doi Suthep temple

Adter Doi Suthep we headed back to Chaing Mai Zoo, with the highlight of seeing the Pandas from China. My impression of Chaing Mai Zee is that it seems... unfinish somehow... And perhaps the standard might not be up to par in some presentation. Anyhow, the pandas is now quite huge and perhaps rather lazy :P One was sleeping on the tree while another is eating bamboo from a handler behinds the bars. They has kept cool by the big fan that also spraying water mist to cool down the surrounding. Some of the photo of the pandas were not clear because the camera flash was banned.

Click here for Chaing Zoo's photo

When we headed back to our hotel from the Zoo the tour guide began to handed out the... I suppose it could be call a decorative cloth to be place over the shoulder which is a local tradition of Northern Thais or in local tongue we called "Larnna". The cloth is meant to be use in for the Khantoke Dinner which is the traditional 'Lanna dinner' serve in the occasion of foreign visitors by the head of the city. For men they have selections of three colors, blue green and light tan. I wants the blue one but it was ran out so I have to wait till later to get one from other bus. After we finish freshen up and dress up (for some, not me :P) at the hotel, we headed out to old Chaing Mai cultural Center for the dinner.

The dinner began with the reception which has a lot of locals food to choose from and tried. The idea was to really eat up before the main events since real Khantoke food are quite minimal and it would be during the show. So there will be less times to eat.

After the show was over we went back to the hotel, some of the guys in our group talked about went out to see the night life of CM but I was very tired, plus I have no desired for the straight night life anyhow :P

A Quick One for the Boys

I just got back from the trip :) It was quite fun and tired at the same time... I guess I am not used to all day activities. However I want to do a quick upload for you guys (several now :D). The picture is taken in the Moroccan garden in the Royal Flora Expo.

I wondered if this is the Moroccan Boy that Paul was talking about :P

He is working in the section that seems to replicate the Moroccan market, all of the goods seems genuine Moroccan.

I will post my Chaing Mai trip experience tomorrow :) I had taken about 650 pictures, several from my phone no less as my digital camera ran out of battery during the Flora Expo. With the total space of 827Mbs, I won't upload them one by one but I will do so by locations and upload the whole chuck as zip on sendspace.com

Northern Expenditure

My company has set up a friendship tour for the occasion of company merger (actually I would called it a take over, in which mine has been taken over :P). We will be heading to Chaing Mai for 4 days starting this Wednesday.

At first I was not going to sign up for this trip thinking that there will be "friendship activities" that required mandatory participation, but when I saw that it's going be a real touring trip and we will actually came back to BKK by plane (we will be there by train), I am sold :)

So I spend about 30 minutes packing my clothes and digital camera. It will only be about four days so I will only bring the small trolley I got from the Japan trip, along with my trusty backpack (which started to torn on the top :~( ) for the necessities: such as comic books and other stuff.

This will be my second trip to Chaing Mai, my first trip was with my family years ago... Don't remember much about that trip anymore though...

We will be visiting the... World plants exhibition (roughly translated from the Thai name), some safari park too I think...

Let's just say there will be many photos to upload once I got back :)

Another ComMarts Affairs

Commart Thailand started out as a innovation expo (if I remember it correctly...) but it gradually became sales event instead. Most of the major brands in IT industry will came to sales their goods with promotions and discounts. As it became a quarterly event, the novelty seems to diminish a bit but it is always very crowded.

This times I went to look for a good mouse to replace my old one. My intended budget of estimated 500s baht got blown away when I walk pass Acrox booth and found this mouse.

It is a laser mouse, which means it can scroll faster than normal optical mouse as it was intended for gaming purpose and with the laser sensor it can be use on any surface even on glass panel (I guess for posh tech geek who use computer on glass table :P)

Click on the photo to look at the mouse's homepage.







After walking around the area several times, I walk into the main hall which house most the major brands from Mac to Lenovo. As I expected, the main focus of this event is still on notebooks. I did not really look into them though... Since I still do not need to buy any just yet, plus Intel will release their quad-core CPU this week. That should effect the computer price (at least on the desktop front) quite a bit.

However, my eye fall on this item and I just have to take a closer look.

Try save the picture on your computer and flip it upside down and tell me what you see ;)

It is a gel based wrist supporter. I only saw a green one at first and I was hesitated about getting one, but after I looks behind it and I saw the blue one I just think what the heck I just need to splurge myself a bit (My favorite color is blue :D).

I was also sorely tempted by the 190 baht USB bluetooth adapter. But I figured that I might not use it that much. Plus I prefer to scroll in the phone memory with explorer rather than using the phone menu, some might not show up by using the phone menu alone.

Epilogue: I left my home around 11am and must have arrive at Queen Sirikit Convention Center no later than 20 minutes later using the subway, but when I left I look at the clock and it 3pm already!! I seems to easily lost tracks of time when I am around IT stuff...

New Feature and My Coming Soon Weekend

After considering this for a while I decided to add chatter box on my blog, I am not sure anyone would use this but what the heck :P Just something a bit fancy for my blog :) So please people, left kind words, suggestions, anything on the newly added box on your right ;)

For this weekend, I will go to another ComMarts event at Queen Sirikit Convention Center. It must be the forth times this year that they held this event, which became more of sales event rather than innovation one. My goal this times, is to buy a new mouse. I am not too fond of my current one, it is a tad small for my hand and it made my hand ache after prolonged use. Plus I wants to look for the type with five buttons.

I also wants to check out the price and specs of notebook, in case I need one :)

Seventh of Nine

My sanity is still intact so far, thanks to my luck that seems to only effects minor things. My workload is still on the light side due to the missing data that required another person to give me the correction for it. Looks like tonight I will rest easy again and two more nights till I feel like a normal human being again. Gosh I need to shave, get a haircut, and getting laid (although I am not sure I felt like it... sleep deprevation does decrease libido).

Fifth of Nine

Right now it is the fifth night... Some might think I am being a drama queen but the stress (although there wasn't a lot of work for now, perhaps tomorrow night...) of being in the office is not something to be taken lightly... Especially when you cannot have a restful sleep in the day due to hot weather.

I think after this ordeal has ended, it is time for Japanese buffet that include Salmon sashimi, some takoyaki and nice Japanese sticky rice :ddd. There is one such resturant called 'Kuroda' near Ekamai BTS station (walking distance).

The problem is that... I don't have anyone to go with me and when you have buffet meal it is best to have company so it won't be boring... Perhaps I might ask my younger brother... Eventhough I could ask my mom, she might decline since she did not like to eat Japanese food that much, and not in the amount that will make paying for 399 baht per person worthwhile.

I also need a new mouse. Not the living kind but the kind that attach to computer :) My current one is a tad too small for my hand which will cause aching when used for over a period of time. Plus the wheel button is not working anymore...

It is tough to find a decent mouse that I like that cost around 500 baht. Also that I like five-buttons mouse, the only model so far that has that is no longer produce. Plus its cable tend to break internally after a year or so, which I believe is faulty design. Anyway I will find time to go to Pantip, there is no rush since the current mouse is still working.

At least my state of mind is still intact so far.

Second of Nine

Tonight is the second night of working for nine nights straight due ot my co-worker return to his hometown in the South. Apparently he got married awhile ago and now it's like his honeymoon... Not to mention that it is the end of Ramadun month and I think that by tradition he has to return hom to visit his family.

Now I understand his reluctant to return when I request for him to come back one day early so I could go to the comic book publisher event on the last weekend of this month.

This is just my second night and yet I felt like my sanity is slipping away... It felt almost like depression is looming around the corner and if I am not careful it will overpowered me. I knew I will be in pretty bad shape by the ninth night and I will probably sleeping the whole day away. Hopefully the weather will cool down a bit and permit me a more restful rest in the day. At least Monday is public holiday here which means I will get extra O.T. for working on that night :D.

No More Toilet Paper

This is a dedication to Torn, who seems to have problem with dry toilet papers ^^ I would like to offer a solution that might ease his problem.

I had became accustomed to this... instrument since about... perhaps 15 years ago when it was installed in my house for the first times.

It is essentially a water hose with the spray head similar to shower head but smaller with the hand level that you can close your grip on to release the water.

It is essentially a better way to clean your... well your behind after you finish your business.

and if you manage to hook warm water with that... It is a very nice feeling :PP

I am not sure if this available in Canada... At least it seems that it wasn't install at the hotel Torn stayed while in Las Vegas...


Maybe I just get the impression... But let me assure you who never tried this to seek this out in the baht section of the hardware store. You Will Love It!

edit:
So... Per Torn's comment, he never saw something like this before... I am always wondered if the reason that this is not popular in Canada and perhaps USA is because of the hot water pipe...

Anyhow, I still recommend a trip to hardware store. And perhaps you should also print out this picture to show the salespeople there :) If it is not available, then I might recommend a trip to Thailand, ring me up and I will be happy to show you where to get one or more ;)

The Opened Position

I am currently a contractor working for a big company. I had been in the same position and same status for quite a long time and now the same position but with employee status has been open up and I gotto know about this on the public email annoucement as the internal application process.

My problem with this? The person who request this mus be my boss. I think that he boss should have some decency to tell us that this is going to happen and give us some extra time to prepare. And why should we have the courtesy warning before hand? Because we been slaving away at this job for 9 years, with minimum benefit and no bonus, I understand that since we are just a contractor but when this position happen why should the boss did not tell us beforehand...

Anyhow , I already submit my application for it as well as for a PR position that happen to be annouce around the same time as the one mentioned above... The catch is that the boss must sign the either approval or acknowledgement paper for every internal application. Somehow I don't think it bode well to have the two papers for two positions to came at the boss' desk at the same time. Luckily my position has later deadline so I ask the nice lady in the mail room to send the paper of it a day later than the one for PR position which has deadline on today. I hope it's all works out...

It would be nice to be able to finally say that I officially work for this big company not to mention having a regular day job and normal sleeping hour.

Grace is back and My Day with Grace

On Saturday night, during the walk home with groceries in both hands, my cell phone rang, and when I pick it up it was Grace.

At first she ask me if I remember who she is, and I said her name right away and said so she is back in BKK already ;) She was a bit surprise that I still remember her voice but then she is the only close woman friend I had :P

She back home from London to see her family, her bf is here as well. Since she was on a paid phone on the street, I told her I will call her in her hotel room when I reach home so she don't have to spend a fortune on the phone.

So when I got back to my room, I search the hotel name and got the number. After two rang she pick up the phone and was surprise of how quick I was and said she just back in her room as well.

We talked a bit about the new airport, she said it was big and beautiful. And then she told me about how the hotel screw up her reservation and put her in smoking room. She complain and the front office said they will move her tomorrow since the hotel was full, she refuse and argue that it wasn't her fault that the room was not available so they eventually move her to a new non-smoking room. However, when she got into the new room it still have the cigarette scent so she went to ask the maids and they told her that the whole floor is smoking floor. She went through the roof about this and go berserk on the front office :P She asked to speak with the manager since she already talked to five different people and got no where. The manager came and said to settle this issue she will be move in to the suite. Grace said when saw the suite she say no more and completely satisfied with the room :P

Later on we set the time and place to meet on Sunday, she was excited to hear that there is a subway now and one of the station is just around the corner from my house. Since the hotel is in Sukumvit, we agreed on meeting in the subway station. I also mention that now her English has British accent.

Sunday came and we meet, Grace does not change much except that her hair is a lot longer, of which she said that haircut is very expensive in London, while Leo (her bf; he looks more Moroccan than Europian, and have nice tight body due to work out :P) comment that he likes the long hair so it was good for him and I joked that he have to keep an eye on her so she won't be sneaking off to a salon :P

We had lunch in Central Ladpraw and then Grace said she wants to buy photo albums so I lead her where they sell that. After she finish buying the albums we went back to see the suite room and it is huge, twice the size of the normal hotel room with living room+desk+small kitchen and big family size refrigerator. The bedroom has king size four posts bed and 42" plasma TV with DVD player, the bathroom is very big as well.

We talk a bit and then look at the photo that she had develops. She asked about my plan and we discuss that a bit, she suggest that my new schedule is bad and I should get a new job. I told her that perhaps I should looking into sticking to my plan instead. Later it was time for me to go as they would leave to do some shopping as well. And she pull out a Starbucks paper bag saying it is her gift for me, that she did not know what to get me but she remembered my glasses collection. So she get be Starbucks London city mug (a collection of 20 from around the world (according to the package of the mug).

It was nice to see her again. And we will probably meet one more time for dinner at one of the Japanese restuarent I mention. That would be nice for sure ;)

Friday Fun

The first week of the month is usually the busiest time of the month for me. Though it is not busy as in the normal sense of the word but it definitely straining me more than usual.

Especially this month, which my shift falls on the 3 busy days straight. However, on Friday I will be off to a certain decadence place for my relaxation :P It's been months since my day off falls on the first Friday of the month like this. Can't hardly wait ^^

O Mare e Tu

It means 'The Sea and Me' in Italian, in case any of you wondered :)

I first saw this MV on cable several years back and it captivated me ever since. Back then I still visit record store from time to time and with the opening of Tower records in BKK. I went there on occasion since they have seperate classical music section.

At first, I did not quite catch the name of the song, but thanks to the sample stations in Tower Record. I was able to get the name of the song and acquire it later :P And the song has been stable on my mp3 players afterward ;)



Andrea Bocelli voice is very captivating in this song. Some might say he sounds better in Opera songs but I am not into that, so this one is more appealing to me :) This song made me wish for a decent store system with human size speakers so I could close my eyes and *listen* to the song with my whole body...

The Wet Pants

I woke up today to the sound of rain (alright by the sound of the alarm set on my w810i :p). It was raining pretty hard but I think nothing of it, it is the rainy season here after all.

By the time I left the house the rain has almost stop so I did not bring my umbrella with me. However, when I finish my meal in Central Ladpraw department store around 19:00 it still raining and quite heavier than when I left my house. The water has gone over the road into the pavement and of cause the stalemate traffic.

It is never fun when it's rain in the early afternoon when I have to get to work. This times it is downright offensive that I have to get off the bus two stops early because I was already late for work. The most annoying part is that I have to walk through the rain and the flooded water (brownish and with garbage) to finally reach my office.

Imagine my surprise that I was the first one to arrive at the office :ppp

By Friday

I know it's a bit late but here is the picture I took with my w810i, near my home on my way to work on Friday (2 days after the coup)

The usual traffic jams of BKK

As you can see the traffic had went back to normal, which means most people did not seems to be overly concern or panic by the coup. Everything seems peaceful thus far, although the news said that the soldiers were exhausted by the overwhelming people who went to see them. They said that some of the men have to carried hundreds of children to take photograph with and many appear to be exhausted.

On the front page of one of the local newspaper, therei s a wedding photo of a newly wed in Chaing Mai with the backdrop being a tank and a soldier on top of it. I guess this is 'The One and Only' that could only happen in Thailand :)

The Peaceful Coup

So far the coup has been a very peaceful events. After browsing through several sites I found these links that I would like to share to you guys :)

http://www.pantip.com/cafe/camera/topic/O4727569/O4727569.html
http://www.pantip.com/cafe/camera/topic/O4726730/O4726730.html
http://www.pantip.com/cafe/camera/topic/O4727592/O4727592.html
http://www.behindxtreme.com/webboard/bhx/html/06173.html (In this one, it looks almost like Children's Day in Thailand when the military will open their forts for children to see their machines and equipments)

It does not matter if you cannot read Thai, the photos tell all ;) Many posters comments how foreign press paint a rather terrifing image of the events while in fact, it seems that everything will be back to almost normal by tomorrow.

Some people still caution about how the coup will played out, many still remember what happen last times, although the atmosphere of this times is quite different.

The Day After

In case any of you readers has no TV :p, click here to find out what happen yesterday.

So far things are calm and placid, almost everything are running like usual like phone, internet, public transportation and later TV. Except for government works, schools and banks. Even my office is close today, but not my section :p I wondered if I can charge my work tonight with public holiday O.T. ...

As per Torn's concern :)) Both my house and my office are far away from the hotspots so I am not in harms way. Plus there was no news of any violent occurance so far, so everything seems to be in order.

Rumour has it that the now ex-PM has planned a coup, so this current coup is to countered the ex-PM's plan. As the ex-PM has made an urgent announcement from US yesterday on local channel 9 to depost the Royal Thai Army commander-in-cheif who is also the leader of this coup just before the coup happens.

A Coup in BKK

Nope I am not joking, as you can probably see on CNN and BBC and probably all over the world news mediums now. There is a Military Coup happening right now in BKK.

The ridiculous part (or not when you think of the nature of the coup) is that I actually first know that this is happen now is from Kitjar who told me that it is happen at and told me turn on the local TV channel 9. I did and saw nothing on there except some video with the 'I love the King' theme on most of the channel, so at least I know something is happen alright. Then I turn on CNN and it was the big news break.

In my opinion this is rather stupid... Military Coup in this days and ages will not help the country's image as much as hurting it. Begins with tourism, economy and a whole lot more... Not to mention people who have to travel...

The Parted Pathway

I seems to almost reach a turning point in my life...

I can see that... not very far in the future I would have to choose whether I will stay in my comfort zone (albeit, some adjustment career wise) or move far away for a chance of make a living in another area. I am sorry for being vague about all this but nothing is certain at this point and I don't want to speak of things before hands (and besides you never know who is reading this despite the lack of popularity of my blog :P).

I guess I should mention that I still live with my mom. In a way my situation might be close to that movie 'Failure to Launch' in that I have not given much thought regarding moving out to live on my own. There are benefits of living with your family of cause and I have not earn enough money to considered moving out also to added that my mom still find me useful with grocery shopping and being buffer between her and my younger brother :PP.

Therefore the prospect of moving far away to study for a Nurse degree can be quite scary for me. I suppose it is all came down to the fact, that despite being a Buddhist, I am very attach to my belongings. I guess in the end, just one suitcase won't be enough considering how long I will be away.

I know that I have to do something soon, before I get out of my mind with my current work hours. But I am not certain whether I will like being a nurse or not although I know that if I be one, it would be easy for me to move easily to any country I wants and find a job (nurse are always in needs right?). And if you were wondering why I did not doing a nurse degree in BKK, since it would be cheaper and I won't have to move. Well, due to my current work schedule which is 3 working nights and 3 off nights, it just impossible to fit any other regular program into it. Plus I don't trust myself with science classes, especially chemistry...

If I move away, I will be staying with MD in his apartment and I am counting on him to help tutoring me on some of the subjects as well. Not to mention it is the chance for me to tried to live on my own, as I should do sooner than later...

As well as the chance to find myself a man :P Since I only fancy GWMs, it is tough to find a decent, single gay man with the looks like Torn in BKK. In a way, it is a numbers game but the odds will be better when I move that's for sure...

I still have my doubts but I still also have time to ponder on the choices. Although I think I know what I choose to do...

Thank you, Tornwordo :)

I notice a few days ago that Tornwordo of the famous Stickycrows Blog had added a link to my blog on his list ^O^

I had been visiting his blog almost daily ever since Scotty mention Stickycrows Blog. Not to mention how I like Torn's looks :ppp The man is quite my type... hehe

Too bad by the time I check out his blog he seems to stop participating in Half-Naked Thursday.. (darn it) :P

Anyhow I would like say I felt honoured to to have be linked to your blog :)

Office Fixing

Sometimes it makes me wondered, how could something that seems so obvious has not been dealt with at a more proper times.

Such as what happen in my office right now... The room that I work in also has a security guard section within the room which has been closed off from the rest of the section. The room is quite cramped and not of a lot of air circulation, so they decided to have the room expanded. What's wrong with this picture then?? The room has been use for about a month before we moved in and we been moved in for like a month now... So the expansion were commence while I am in the room as well!! All of this would not annoyed me all that much has it not been to the fact that it happen on the spot where my desk is (or rather Was!)

What strikes me as rahter unusual is that why the architect who draw up the blueprint could not see that the room is not quite fit for human condition?? And even so that they have to do this construction while the room is in use.

Is this a common practice for big company? To repeatedly rebuilding the office floor, instead of perhaps listening to the people who would be using that room and make it according to their job and preference and rather be done with it in the first two tries??

Is this not a common sense?

It's The Heat...

It's been strangely blazing hot in BKK for several days now. It is utterly indescribale how difficult it is for me to fall asleep in this condition on top of my usual restless state . Especially after I came back from work in the morning.

It was HOT HOT HOT and I mean BKK Summer time like heat. My room is next to the main road so it is definately noisy. The light coming into my room rouse my disdain as if I am vampire. Good thing I ask my mom for an unused banner, now I hang it on my windows to block the light and it definately an improvement for me to sustain my sanity. From all things considered... I think I might skip CSI: Miami tonight for, hopefully what would be, 16 hours of sleep before my working 4 nights in row.

I hope the weather would improve by then...

The Good and The Bad

I just got back from the Dentist and here the the verdict.

The Good? I got no cavities, and the health of my teeth and gum in general are quite good although the dentist said I should do flossing.

The Bad? Since I got no cavities, the dentist think the culprit might be my wisdom tooth. The X-ray shows that I have a big wisdom tooth horizontally nudging against the last tooth on the lower right side. So she recommend to have it taking care of, which means the minor surgery to take out the tooth.

Needless to say I am quite disturb by the news. Although it's not the first times I have been told that I need to take care of this. I sort of... well... I have been avoided to do anythink about this... It's going be relatively major for me, since it will be the first times I ever get cut open.

But the thing is... If I wait too long to do this and if I need to take care of it when I get older, it's going to be harder to recuperate and all...

So I think my solution would be, to see if the sensitivities still happens after a few more days. Then I will decided whats to do... I will be taking some days off from work afterward if I do it. Since I don't think I will be in the mood for work during the recuperating period.

To the Torture Chamber

Well... another exaggeration, but it's not far from the truth which is I need to go to see Dentist.

One of my tooth became sensitive when I drink cold water, which is a good indicator that the trip to dentist is imminent. I used to go to the Dentist clinic that belongs to a friend of my mom (at least that what I think it is) but they are quite expensive. Although it seems that the quality fit the price. So I am going to another clinic that my younger brother went to and said that they are not so expensive and the quality is not too bad. He went to see them once and need to have 20 fillings and they charge him lumsum for 3,000 baht, which is considerably cheap.

I will post what happen at the dentist tomorrow :)

Multiple Shower Buddies

As titilating as the title may sounds, unfortunately it refers to my several bottles of shower gels.

Is it common to have more than one kind of shower gels in your bathroom? Ever since I switch to shower gel several years ago, I tend to end up with more than one bottle of shower gel at one times. Whenever I shower, it seems that I prefer different scent of shower gel each times depend on my mood. Right now I have chocolate truffle butter shower milk, Boots' orange citrus essentials shower scrub, Johnson & Johnson baby milk baht, and the new Lux mediterranean mineral shower gel :))

I often use the Chocolate butter one mix with J&J milk baht, since the chocolate milk one didn't smell as nice once it's been lathered :P But mixing with the milk bath it smell quite Ok :)
As for Boots' Orange citrus shower scrub, it smell very nice orange citrus smell and it lasted quite long :) It's good when you use it everynight as the scent will stuck on your bed too :)

So, lemme ask this to a few of you guys who read my blog, is it common to have more than one shower gel in your bathroom? :)

The Long Overdue Benny News post

I meant to do this post for quite a while now (now that I check my email, it's been a month alraedy, arghh...) But then, I had my own issues and this is My blog so there ya go...

So the update on Benny (click on the name if you don't know what I am talking about). He is doing fine and now sue his parent and the hospital with abduction and wrongful imprisonment. Click here to see the news on Taiwanese newspaper website. It was all in chinese though but if you scroll down a bit you will see some illutration details Benny's account of the event that leads him to end up in hospital for 2 months and how he stay defiant until the judge released him. Here is another news post at PlanetOut.com Click here for the news.

MusicMan told me that Benny had became a sort of celebrity in Taiwan with what happen to him and that he is on TV a lot as well. So he is doing well considered what happen to him.

Lady in the Water

I have been waiting to see this movie since I saw the preview. And eventually saw it on the first week of it's release here in BKK.

The movie is... not Shayamalan typical movie, as in there was no huge plot twist, no huge surprise at the end. I think it still quite an ok movie, although it seems a bit... off. The opening scene (after the epilogue part) is quite funny :) As the movie progress, I find it odd that Giamatti's character believe the girls rather fast and not even questions the girl's identity. I do like the multi-culteral vibe of the casts though, the whole movie has a great mixture of tenants of various backgrounds and it serve as a colorful backdrop to the movie. The main female protagonist herself stars by Ron Howard's daugther Dallas Howard. I must say that her acting is quite good, she does a job being mystic being.

However, at the end, the movie seems to lack a certain element to make it a great one. I am not sure what it is... perhaps it's how the movie seems too straight forward than it should be or perhaps I have a preconception that this is a Shayamalan's movie and that it would be more complex than usuals.

In the end, it was an Ok movie, not as good as it should be (considered the stars and the director). I had seen a more 'together' movie :)

Also the time that I went to see the movie, there was an elder couple sitting not far from me and they were talking during most of the movie... It was annoying as hell but I just didn't have the heart to tell them off... Unfortunately, the staring doesn't not help either...

Tomorrow to MBK

My plan tomorrow, since MusicMan already have a plan for Sunday at noon (a date to go see Fashion show, darn him :p), is to go to MBK Mall again to visit my regular game shop, this times to exchange the CDs I already bought.

The last times I was at MBK Mall I had, acquired :), Dungeon Siege II: Broken Sword, the expansion of DSII. It was available in both DVD (the original included) and the CD version (on BS, 1 CD). Since I had got the first one already, so I bought the CD version just to save some money. However, when I got home and rummage through my games collection and found the CDs. Three of them are 'mass produce' CDs while one was CD-R (as one of the mass produce original was bad). The mass produce had gone bad somehow... both computers I tried them on did not see the CDs at all, while the CD-R one was working just fine.

I called the game shop to tell them about this, the owner is very kind and tell me to bring the CDs in for exchange for the DVD version instead (I bought the original 4 CDs version from them since about last year so she is very kind about this) Also when I call her again today to tell her taht I will be there tomorrow she said to also brought one of my purchase so she can make a copy of it for another customer :)

And perhaps I might get a haircut tomorrow also...

My Day with MusicMan

My Friend, MusicMan, had some free time today so we meet up so I can show him where can he shop for the stuff he wants.

First stop was Pantip Plaza, the man was really entralled by the place :) I am surprise when he said that he never been to Pantip Plaza before but not surprise when he added that he will definately come back and spend a whole afternoon just walking around, not to mention the eye candies for him :p He said he wants to look for small TV, adaptors for his music intrusment, blank CDs and cell phone. The first three is best to browse in Pantip while the last item is best to go to MBK. I lead him to the blank CDs area on the second floor, in which he take a liking to BenQ CDs as it has musical instrument printed on top. He end up buying a 50 piece box of that :). And after we check out a few places for Adaptors and small TV, MM announce that he wants to buy the cell phone (the same one that I have, I saw what it can do for him the last times we meet and he really like it :))

So we headed outside the building and hail a cab, it was a short ride to MBK mall. I took him to the shop that I bought my phone from. When we arrive at the shop, it was close. However, when I was talking to MM and thinking about what to do, the shop owner is walking toward us so I walk up to him and ask if he's here to open the shop. He said yes and that they were just came back from paying respect to the ancestor day (Chinese tradition). And then the purchase process begins.

After some testing and so on, MusicMan is now a proud owner of Sony Ericcson w810i :D. After the purchase was complete, MusicMan began to complain about started to get claustophobic (the mobile phone area was indeed quite crowded and MBK are generally crowded mall with heavy foot traffic already). So he excuse himself to split as he is due to work in studio as well.

It was fun hanging out with him :) Although he had brough his slave with him, so I wasn't comfortable enough to grope him :P But I will see him again, hopefully this Sunday, as he might visit JJ Market (the famed weekend market). Then I will have him in my room so I can show him some stuff on my computer as well as hook his phone up to my computer for some materials transfer :)

Whose Line is it Anyway

Ever since my English listening skill is up a point where I can make sense of American and British TV shows, I began to enjoy 'Whose Line is it Anyway'

I remember saw it on TV sometimes whne I was younger but I couldn't understand it as it was aired without the subtitles. But after I no longer need that, Ohh.. boy :)



This one I never seen before but man it's HILARIOUS. There is an old saying in Thai that laughter is a key to longivity, boy the people who work on this show must lead a long life indeed!

Happy Birthday to Me...

Yeap it is my Birthday today, and yet I am stuck in the office till morning... Not to mention I have to come to work again in the early evening later... It is quite a final straw for me that I no longer wants to work in this position... Sadly that did not translate into options of already have a new job so I can bargain my way out of this one... Due to my current situation... I need some rejoicing moments but I guess that have to comes later.

So I will quietly celebrate my birthday with a bar of Cadbury milk chocolate. Any real meal have to wait till later when I have time...

Several of my friends bid me happy birthday via internet (IMs and email) Two calls on my cell phone to say Happy Birthday :) At least I knew I have a friend who would at least send me appreciation message. Although a job offering would not hurt too ^O^

Dimmed Light

I called the job agency in the morning after I got home from work and got the answer regarding the job interview... They said FOrd has filled teh position with their own candidate... So one hope shot down permanently... At least I am no longer in suspend about the job.

There is another lead from another job agency, a translator job in Chonburi area. I hope that at least I will have the interview at least... Because I know I can do the job and my English skill added to my impression of Japan culture from the large amount of mangas I hjad over the years, should made me a good contender... Despite the prospect of moving, when the time came... I will be nicely compensated...

I will call the job agency after weekend followup on the progress.

My apologies to the few of my regulars readers and several passerbys (if you ever stop to read my blog) that my posts lately are not of happy events (if you wanna read about happy time, check out the posts about my Japan trip on the sidebar)... It just how it happen... If you have any suggestion or better yet, solid job leads that would help my situation a LOT :) See how desperate I am that I even trolling for job on my own blog?

After the interview.

I had my job interview yesterday... I am not certain how I perform though...

The interview is more concentrate on my current job, like what are my duties, how I handle the problems, how do I deal with them and so on... I think I portrait myself as a pracmatic type... (when ask about mistake, I said something about mistake is only the matter of when it will happen and how we learn from it and don't repeat the mistake.)

In the end, I ask when will I know the results, the interviewer reply within two weeks and I will be notified via the job agency that referred me.

After all said and done, right now I felt like sleeping my life away again... I hate to have to wait for two weeks... I just hope I will get the job...

Also my mom has pushing the idea of study aboard (in this case it's Australia)... The idea itself is quite lovely... The real issue would be the money and whether I can study western style (research, homework, papers and reports, study at Abac is not much different from my highschool years in my opinion) and work the real labour task (waiters, flyers handling etc.). Also, I am not sure how well I will manage, living on my own...

My mom was right in saying that if I wants to do this I have to this now (or real soon) considered my age, my singleness and so on... I agreed that, disregarding my career, I am in my prime of my life. If I wants to do something more labour intensive it has to be now (or real soon) and not five years later. It's, perhaps, all came down to the fact that I am very reluctant to leave my nest to face the uncertainty... not to mention how I like the easy lifestyle and not the thrill seekers one...

Glimmer at the end of the Tunnel

Yesterday I finally took off to the job agencies to apply myself for their service, I had been to one of these before but it was a waste of time since I got nothing from them. Anyhow things seems more fruitful this times.

The first one is located in Asoke area, the office looks quite posh and as the woman on the phone mention, it's specialize in placing people in Japan companies. So it was not a surprise to see a couple of Japanese in their office as well. After I complete the whole processes (writing applications and interviews) the interviewer (young Japanese woman, whom I might say speak with a little worst English than I do ;P) said they will be in touch soon with job leads.

The second one is in Silom area, the office looks rather iffy. There was a car parking on the ground floor with stairs leads up to quite a tiny office. I have to complete quite a few test for them including typing (I learned that I actually could type about 50wpm in English and 23wpm in Thai which I think both are better than average thanks to my extensive training from internet chatting and online gaming), test paper on marketing and MS Office. And complete the whole process with an interview in English. The interviewer, a woman who might be the agency owner, interview me in English. I think I did quite well in impressing her with my English skill that she told me to went to one of her staff to tell them to set me up for interview for a customer service (said to be doing paper works to continue some license for clients) at Ford. And when I actually went to see that staff, he told me there is another job that I could go to, a job as network admin (to work in the server room that's what he said) and the good thing is that he said they are willing take in new graduated which means they will provide the training. The best part is that both job will pay almost the same amount that I got now, which would be better since I will actually be an employee this times (if I could landed the job).

I left the agency feeling quite giddy about the whole prospect of things. It felt as if I got two job offerings not interviews but I have to try to control my feelings. After all, I has not even have the interview yet. Not to mention I have to also keep in minds that sometimes they choose no one from the applicants pool at all.

Still the whole prospects of things seems to help with my condition a bit, as one oe my friend said, now I have a more tangible hopes to hang on to. Also I will post an update regarding Benny in a few days, he is getting a lot of press in Taiwan now and a few gay news site had pick up his story as well!!

Borderline Depression

I had discuss my recent bouts of negative thoughts while at works with several of my friends. One defied my feeling with a word that seems to hit home straight on, and that word is 'despair'

I suppose it was a combined result of my impending birthday, the less chance of seeking employment in another establishment with me getting older and the possiblity of having to answered phone for the rest of the year, when the company execute their new system which will replace the system I work on.

Earlier today, I had chat with The MD as well (the New Yorker MD, whom we stop being friend for a while over a dispute regarding C++ Complier software). He had first hand experienced with depression and after I explain my symptoms and condition to him. He forward me a link to a short quiz page on official Prozac website. I got 53 points, in which the prompt said if your score is above 50 you should print out the questions with your answers and bring it with your physicians. When I mention this to MusicMan he doubt the validity of the results, since it is Prozac owned site which might push the results a bit so they could sell more drugs. But it is also true that I did not feel well.

So The MD told me what I already suspected, that I am borderline depress. He also added that he was not sure whether my work situation as a whole cause my depression or that my depression cause all these negative feelings toward my job.

Today I feel better than how I felt yesterday, I guess it's because I had discuss my feelings with mom (although I didn't mention my depression since I doubt she would understand my condition, she is a tough woman afterall), my friends and even shed a few tears out of frustration when chatting with The MD.

Now it is halfway done before I complete my 3 days shift and having a 3 days off... I will have time to go to a manpower service. I hope this one can help me out... So far none of my friends were able to help me with a solid leads or job offering. I can't blame them though, since not all are at the position to hire people or knowing people. Right now I just NEED all the helps I can get... Sometimes it felt like I am wildly reaching for helping lines but none are tangible... At least not yet...

One way to cure your sorrow

I found this clip on a Thai site but it didn't have the embedded code like youtube. So I tried my chances and found the same clip. If you are in need of a laugh or a lift in your spirit. Take a look at this clip :)



Also, I would recommend you turn off the streaming of the clip below this post. Otherwise, it would sound rather odd :P

End of the road

Gladys Knight Lyrics

Gladys Knight Music Video Codes

Music Video Codes by VideoCure.com

This is one of rarest music video in my opinion. The song is the well-known one 'End of the Road' originally sang by Boyz II Men and now covered by one of the lady of R&B Gladys Knight. I fall in love with her version the first times I saw it on cable TV almost ten years ago. However, there was no direct version of this song anywhere only the medley version in her album "Just For You". I am able found and able to download the song from the net :) It was quite a hassle to download but boy I triump pt over the challenge of all the blocking attempt from the host. Now I will be able to rip the song for my mp3 player and as well as convert the song to be play on my cell phone :D

Soon it will be morning

When I am down from whatever reason, one of the 'pick me up' method that I use was listen to my music collection. One of the song in particular would perk my spirit up nicely when I need it the most. The song is a thai song from 'The Peach Band' - 'Soon it will be morning'. It was a second single of the band's first album. I did not like it at first but then it grow on me. The song has an upbeat and light melody with the lyrics talking about how the bad things will soon go away and all will be right again. Sure, it was not very realistic thing to put your mind to but sometimes you just need to hold on to that thoughtm just ot made it through the day.

Soon it will be morning, soon it will be new day.
And it will not be as bad it was today.
Soon it will be over, all will be right
And in this time, you are here with me
taking me through this nightmare
Soon all will be alright.

Above is part of the lyric from the song, translated by me. It maintain the meanings of the song in Thai language, more or less. If you are interested in the song, feel free to leave me comments :)

Sad True Story

I had just got home from work and logon to my MSN. I saw my friend MusicMan online so I chat him up and he relay to me a shocking story of his ex-bf in Taiwan.

He told me that ex-bf, Benny, his parents drugged his drink and made him unconscious. When he woke up he was in a mental hopsital and he was locked up for two months because he was gay! His parents also went to a judge to have him declare crazy but the good judge went to hospital to release him instead. He was released yesterday and now he homeless with nothing. His parents took everything out of his apartment. Now MusicMan said Benny is looking into the law to get his possessions and his life back.

MusicMan also added that Benny love drama, he also mention that Benny was on TV to tell his story. Therefore I would like to ask any readers to spread this story. You can put it up on your blog or website and give credit to this blog or put up a link to this post. Also if anybody know gay advocate group who might wants to have this news please leave email me and I will forward any information to MusicMan.

More thoughts on Depression

I meant to put the content on this post on the previous post but sometimes thoughts just slip through me like smoke (darn the aging process, but then I think I am, more or less, been like this most of the times)

My bouts of mild depression give me a bit of insights regarding depression. At the moment that it happens to me, the negative feeling was overwhelming, swepting quite strongly and it felt as if it's not going to end.

Now what I felt, may or maynot be depression. However, I can slightly emphatize to those that got hit by the real deal. I can see why it is a serious matter that need to be treated correctly and as fast as you can. And I can also say that if you stuck in depression state, you cannot just shake it off either. I would agreed with Brooke Shields in that you need to treat this right away with medication. No time to waste on vitamins and minerals adjustment like Tom Cruise said :p

Bouts of Depression

Lately I seems to be experincing bouts of mild depression. It was strong negative feeling that swept through me, usually it came during my worknights. I guess it was results of exhaustion from lack of sleep combine with the feeling of being unappreciated in the rather dead-end job.

Usually when I am having these depression, I have a feeling of disdain and the-hell-with-the-job and wants to quit. Then after I return home, got a couple of hours on my computer and sleep, all is well again.

I suppose the remedy for this condition of mine is a new promising job with decent paid...

Living on Yogurt

It's been a long time since I made the yogurt post without realizing I would be living off of it not long after I got moved to 12 hours shift.

Thinking back, it never occured to me that this new product, Dutchies 0% Fat Green Apple flavoured, will becmae one of my main late night meal almost up to 2 out of the 3 nights I worked. It was either that or S&P chieck pie and mushroom puff or instant noodle. So considering my choices, three cups of yogurt seems to be the most healthy choice of all. Also that I usually do my eating about 2 hours before I go home it seems to be the best choice of food.

But I can't jsut always eat them darn it!! So tomorrow I will bring with me some thai flavour instant noodle instead *evil laugh* I need my spice fix every now and then.

Money issue and the rest days...

The verdict was out regarding my wages. In short, I am screwed regarding the day offs. In a bit more details, it means that I no longer have the weekend paid anymore. Now that I work 3 days and 3 days off, if I came to work on my 3 days off for any reason, I would get paid normally.

Is it fair? For the employers maybe, for me? Hell No!! This means I no longer have day off slots on my timesheet, except for the public holiday. This is no way to raise moral of the employees...

Regardless of that bad news... The days off are now desperately needed to made me feel like human again. Lately I began to felt akin to Paul's situation of all works and no play made me a really moody guy. But darn... the job paid quite well, if you disregard the fact that it's a deadend job and that we have been in this position for close to 10 years, and I do need to money...

If only I have a rich sugar daddy... I could go to work with the devils-may-care attitude and could countered any one who cross my ways

The Yellow Power

Yesterday was my last holiday before going back to work so I spend the day entertaining myself at home and only go outside to grab a meal at the shopping mall near by. In the spirit of celebretion for our beloved King, I wore the only yellow t-shirt I have. I hope it doesn't look too inappropriate because it's of the movie 'Kill Bill' :pp

Anyhow, when I finally out of the house and walking to the shopping mall, a lot of people wore yellow t-shirt as well. I would say that about 70% of the people inside the shopping mall (except the salespersons who may or maynot wore yellow according to the store policy) also wore yellow t-shirts. Many were the ones with the royal emblem as well as the word 'We Love The King' or just any yellow shirt that they already have.

It was a great sight to see, I would say it is once in a life time events in the world to see how Thais people appreciate the King and show their supports in quite a unison ways.

Such a lovely sight to see indeed!

Bigger and Larger

I did my purchase, not as I originally intended but almost as good. I decide against going to the ComMart expo since I figured that any shops that went there would not bring large harddisk, as it is not really mainstream despite the going price. And I think I made the right choice since when I visit one of the shop I knew in Pantip (this shop is probably one of the oldest shop there, it's been there started by selling pirated softwares and games in diskette) The owner remembers me and we chat a bit. She told me that this times the expo is concentrated on notebooks, so most of what shows there will be notebooks and little else.

After walking around Pantip for a while looking at all the price, I decided to follow one of my friend's advice to get Maxtor brand. There seems to be only a few shop that carried Maxtor harddisk for some reason... Perhaps it's because Seagate had up the stake by increase the usual gauranteed time to 5 years. Still... I decided that a longer working harddisk with shorter guranteed is better than the vise versa scenario.

I went back to the shop that I had my latest upgrade with them. After telling the salesperson what I want, he told me that 300 Gb harddisk would not be recognise by most mainboard yet. They can manage that but it will required for me to take the machine to them and it would take all day. Since I did not carried my computer with me, nor I would wants to, now that I knew it just one harddisk that cause all the problems.

So after all said and done, I bought Maxtor 250Gb IDE for 3,500 baht. Which might be for the best since Maxtor IDE harddisk have 133 cache compared to the 150 of normal S-ATA. I had some experince with installing IDE and none of S-ATA.

After I got home I install the drive into my dusty computer case with the newly bought scrwedriver. I was a bit worried at first since the harddisk did not show up on the BIOS loading screen but after XP has loaded up, it recognise the new harddisk right away and after the startup has finish the harddisk is ready to be use (read filled up *wink* *wink*)

Light at the end of the Tunnel

It's been a hell of a week for me... Beginning with the woe at work, woe at home, and also added salt to my wounds, I lost my money that I just withdraw from ATM yesterday! I just stuff it in my pants pocket and it must have drop out somehow... Also I accidentally press my ATM card on the magnet of my wallet, thus rendered it useless. I had to spend about an hour at the bank (and it just open) waiting to get a new one.

One good thing that came out from the comptuer problem is that I got to update Trillian. Now it can open yahoo mail without asking for password again.

I also able to nail down the actual culprit that cause my computer woe. It is my oldest harddrive. I unplugged the power cable from it and now my computer is back to normal. So the good news that I don't need to carried the whole thing to Pantip. The bad news (or perhaps a good news in regard that I get to do a lil' shopping :P) is probably that I have to spend money on a new drive.

There will be another ComMart expo tomorrow. I will plan my day so I have time to check out the price both at Pantip and at Commart. The price at ComMart is surely to be cheaper than Pantip slightly...

The End of My Shift

Tonight will be last shift, before having three days off as it would then be my co-workers shift. I can't wait for the night to be over as I really need some me time. Not only for rest but also to fix my computer.

As in my two previous posts, I had realize I still have a few check ups I should be doing. However, those check ups require a screwdiver, an essential tools for computer guy like me, which has conveniently disappear from my room eons ago. No sweats, I will get one tomorrow after I had my sleep when I got home later. Perhaps this times I would find a place to keep it and not losing one again.

My last check ups scheme would be, to open the computer case and unplugged the power cable from one of the smaller harddisk. This way I will know if the problem is power is not sufficient due to power supply failure for real or not. So far I am able to determine that after the computer has been use for a while, any usage that lead to utilizing explorer will lead to freeze up.

I hope I can get to the bottom of this with not much fuss...

Found the Culprit (Hopefully)

After try out many methods to find out what actually went wrong on my computer, I eventually narrowed it down to power supply.

One of my acquaintance who works in IT customer service dept. had stop by the office today and I ran the problem by him. He also agreed that problem must be in the power supply and that four harddisk is too much.

Therefore, when I have day off this Thursday, I will carried my CPU to Pantip plaza and shop around for a harddisk and perhaps also a power supply...

It's a relieve to know what's wrong with the computer, however the solution seems to require money... Something I did not want to spend at this moment...

My Serious Computer Woes

It all began a few days ago. I woke up after being asleep for about 6 hours and play on my computer a bit. I open Trillian to check mail and people online and chat with Kitjar about the trouble at woke. After a while trillian freeze up and everyelse began to do so. I couldn't kill the process nor the order the shutdown of the computer. I eventually have to press the power button for 5 seconds to cut off the power (not recommended in normal circumstances).

At first I thought it was the software acting up, but after looking more closely and several more reboots later. I conclude that the problem seems to be the harddisk which is my oldest one of all four that I have. The harddisk is still accessible after being reboot so I thought the harddisk might start breaking down. Therefore I began bac up stuff to one of more empty drive.

However, yesterday another drive began to acting the same way, I thought heck this is awful, two drive in such a close proximity of time? It is just like what happen to the first one and I follow the same routine. thinking I Could retired both drive of 40GB and get a new 200gb instead.

But today, just before I left for work. My third drive began to acting up as well. This lead me to another conclusion that my first diagnostic would be wrong. Now the problem seems to somewhere else. I would have to eventually open the cover and check out if there is anything I can do, otherwise I would have to carried it all the way to Pantip plaza.

Now I felt like the world is really conspired against me...

A Lot Bigger Deal Than I Thought...

I jsut got a call from my office just a while ago. It turns out that the news of my mistake yesterday went up the directorS (the S is because it went to at least two directors, of finance (the user) and of IT (my dept.)).

I thought since it was fixable (as mention in previous post) it would not became a real serious matter but then it did. Since it involve the accounting system. So my mistakes were the mistake itself, not logging it and report to my supervisor.

My supervisors (not the same person that fix my mistake) were very understanding, that due to the nature of my job, mistake happens This would be my second official warnings (although I felt like I have been singled out for this, I did made the mistakes afterall). So there will be some punishment, I am not sure what that would be yet. I hope the worst would be some cut in the paycheck... Otherwise the alternative make my life seems bleak. But if it were going to happen it might be the push I need to look for a new job.

Right now I felt withdrawn and worn out, that you usually feel when it felt like the world had conspired against you (I know it wasn't that but still... I can't shake that awful 'Why Me' feeling...) And also sleepy... It would be nice if this is just a bad dream and once I went to bed and wake up again all would be well... But I know it aint's and I would have face whatever the tomorrow (the wait of punishment is a real bitch) will bring.

Also... None of close my friends were in Thailand now... Nordic went away to visit his family, Mr. American had became a traveling businessman and has not return yet, and MusicMan (I am not sure I had mention him in my blog or not, he is a musician :P) went abroad to do his work till August. Not to mention that, how I wish I have a boyfriend in a time like this... I felt like I need to hold on to a strong body and sob out my frustration.

In The Hot Seat, Again...

I can't believe it... I made another mistake in my work again... And on a crucial step to boots...

Lucky for me, my boss go easy on me this times (perhaps due to exhaustion as she still in her office when I call which is already after the office hour), plus she could manaully fix the problem. Otherwise we would lost about 3 hours to rollback the data to restart the process.

This happen just when I planned to do a post, about my bitter-sweet feelings when I open the reciept for my half month wages.

Sweet because it was more than what I used to earn from a whole month. Bitter because it translate to how many hours I have been in the office...

Still... I suppose it's nothing that a nice meal at an Italian or Japanese restuarant won't fix...

Crazy Dominos in Oblivion

Lately I had been obsess with the Mod (alteration plugin for game) for Oblivion, that I visit the official webboard quite often to check out the new mods as well as the update of the older ones.

And tonight I came across this particular video from a signature of someone on that webboard.



This is probably an actual recording from within the game. I know for fact that the game engine has the ability to perform a task like this (which make arranging items on shelf or display such annoying task). I figured that the person who made this must utilize the Construction Set software and add all the books and contrapment before hands before play it in the game. The hard part is to defy the phychic in the game or rather 'the ball must be place at the right point so it won't move before being push' (which would happen, exp: if the object were place in the CS software in mid-air it will drop to the ground when the area is loaded up)

Feeling Better

Oh... well... No well-wishers left any comments but still... I know a few of you guys care so here is the update.

My back is feeling a lot better, still felt lik it's 30% more to back to normal. Last night I had to came to work to substitute for one of the operator. So this means I have to stay put in at my station at all time. Not good for the hurt back that's for sure but I survive.

Today my mom calling me from in front of my room, which has the effect of jerking me from my half-awaked, dream like state to fully awake. And to what reason she wake me up? She wants to know is I have spare computer-to-monitor-cable left. In my groggy, backaching (move to lay on my back to face her), and parched throat state, I croaked out no or something similar and get back to sleep. Since I will be working tonight as it's the begin of my three days shift again. I wondered what's the important of this cable that she had to wake me up to ask for...

Oww... My Back TOT

Today was my day off from work... Eversince the new shift began I have 2 Real dayoffs. Afterall, when ones got home from work at 8AM (shift began at 19:30, which meant wake up at 16:00), ones simply do not have the energy to go out and about and call the following day 'Day Off'.

So today I planned to went out and about for some relaxation. I bent down in my shower to pick up shaving cream bottle and felt a slight stabbing pain in my lower left side of back. I didn't felt the full affect of this at first, which is a good thing since I could finish my shaving. But once I got out? Man it HURT!!!!

I could barely walk straight not to mention sitting up right without twitching from the pain that keep shooting up every 5 minutes...

After contemplating whether I am in the condition to go out and enjoy myself or not... The answer is probably barely, I could go again later in the week, and this might be a sign (other than I need exercise) that today might not be the good day to go...

It seems that celebrex help a bit, I hope it will healed up by tomorrow since I will be back in the office again TOT

The Return of Ex-Friend MD

Tonight I receive an unexpected email from an ex-friend of mine MD (The third guy I mention in that post) with the subject sn change (he boosted about how he keep using the free AOL cds that were given away for fre in supermarket which give you free 3 months account of AOL. The practise he had been doing for the pass 3-4 years I believe).

Inside the email it stated that he had found a way for me to redeem myself and good wishing ot me and my family.

I expected that this means he need to buy some *software* from BKK again. This means I would get money from sending him stuff. So I reply to him that I have naught to require redeeming but I will hear what he wants to say.

I wondered how will he reply...

Photo, Finally!!

I know I had been slacking a bit in doing the photo and so on... But I was working so I wasn't really in the mood... Again but here it is, my new toys

The pictures on the phone are from my collections from deviantART.com

The picture below is of my new mp3 player mention in my Japan trip post.

It Finally Happen!!

The almost impossible had finally happen! I thought it would took longer but it really did happen!

No it wasn't that I finally got myself a man of my own (Darn!) But I finally cough up the dough to buy a new mobile phone :D

After much consideration and contemplation, I finally reach the conviction of buying Sony Ericcson w810i. It's price has surprising droping after the first week of May and seems to keep on decreasing which means I paid almost three thousand baht less than when it's first came out :D

I also bought the obligatory accessory of screen shield cover and black silicon protective case. I had add several game and a bunch of songs it to the phone :) It will also be my alarm clock as well :P

Portrait of the phone will be coming in a few days ;P

Japan Trip in Restrospect and The Day at Disney Sea

At first I am had gathered some thoughts to be put into this retrospect post but those thoughts has elude me now... So I had come up with some new ones in regarding this post.

As I mention in my earlier post, I wasn't exactly thrill about this trip but rather the chance of being on a trip abroad. But I was thrill nontheless, it would be my second times in Japan and this times I would be old enough to remembered where I had been.

Overall I must say that it was a good trip. It was not a shopping tour but sightseeing tour so it seems that due to the currency and other factors the program seems somewhat crammed into the limited days to make the entire trip effordable. The results was that we felt rather beats by the end of the day to go out from the hotel to explore the city. Which is quite ashame thinking that I would be able to go into some ramen place and try the real Japan ramen, while in fact when I finally entered the hotel room I rarely came out at all.

One thing that you would notice while in Japan is how clean it is in all the places. I actually saw a few janitors diligently sweep cigarrett butts and small paper pieces to clean the place up. The cleanliness of the place also apply to most toilet as well. Also 99% of the urinal that I had been in (what can I say... I seems to have small bladder and the weather was cold) use light sensors at both the urinal and the washing sink. And some looks as though it's been there for 10 years at least.

Perhaps I might edit to add more thoughts but for now here is the link to see the photo we took during the trip.

Click Here I was in one of the photo ;)

I was not going into much details of my day at Disney sea in the early post because it was quite lengthy already, however I also want to describe it in more details regarding the rides so here it is. You can read about the event that lead me to wandering in the park alone here :P

If I remember correctly I began by walking toward the left side of the park from Mediterranean Harbor into the American Waterfront, and onwards to Lost River Delta and then into Port Discovery area, then going into the mountain in Mysterious Island to see the Little Mermaid's kids area. Then looking toward the Arabian Coast which would house Aladdin and Sinbad, I turn away toward the Mediterranean Harbor again. All the while looking around to see if I could find my family

I finally reach Mysterious Island again and decided to try the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride to get out of the rain for awhile. In the que, I met several people from our tour group as well. After waiting in lines for about 20 min. it's my turn. We went into a circular shape box that looks like the old brass submarine box and off we went. There was a narration as well but it was in japanese. The ride is quite pretty with bubble floating about on the looking glass. The ride seems to base from the book of the same name focusing on the part where caption Nemo took the professor out on the sea-stride session, with the lost city of atlantis, the giant squid and ship wreck ground. At first I was convince we're actually underwater, thinking it must be quite difficult to looking after the set underwater, but upon better inspection it turns out that the looking glass was double decked and filled with water to provide the illusion.

Next I was off to the Lost River Delta to the Indiana Jones rides. I had heard about this one before on TV but this would be the first times to try it. The que seems to be quite long but actually moving steadily, near the end of line into the ride there was a safety movie in silence black and white playing on the wall complete with sound affects to make it seems like it's from an old reels movie projector. The ride itself was on a jeep shape car, I have trouble putting my sizable backpack into the safety pouch in front of me as well as putting on the safety belt since I am not sure where it is! I started to panic slightly when the car started to took off but it seems that the alarm was set when the seat that has been taken but did not use the belt. So the staff came rush in and help me putting the bag away as well as helping me with the belt. The ride itself is quite grand, inside it was quite spacious and a lot of look at. The story itself is quite new although at the end of the ride it use the trademark giant rolling stone to did the drop down with photograph moment to be purchase at the exit :)

Then I walked through Port Discovery section into the Mediterranean Harbor and walk into the Fortress. I forgot to name but it was decked out Italian renaissance style with several rooms displaying the science and discovery of that era. They have one room that shows the Time-pendullum, illusion painting, alchemy, planterium with hand-crank for each planet that you can play with, and camera obscura which reflect the sight from the harbour area. It was also connected to the pier which has a small water playground for kids and a ship to explore. This is the place I regret the most for not having my camera with me T^T

After walking out of the Fortress, I walked toward the Arabian Coast and enter the Sinbad rides. This is not the Sinbad from the cinema featured but rather the traditional story from the Arabian Nights. The ride is on a boat which sail into different room with mechanic dolls performing on the story (think Smallworld here). There were a few room that was dark to represent stormy sea and night time which made me wish I have a hunky man for a quick make out session instead of just hugging my backpack...

Then I think I took the boat ride from around there back to Lost River Deltas to explore a bit more. Eventually I found my mom again as she was about to board the monorail. After a few discussion and pried my camera back from her only to found out that the battery has ran out. She recommend the Journey to The Center of the Earth rides that I avoid at first, thinking it was one of the *wet* ride but since she said that it was not and that it's quite good. I retreat back from the line and made my way to Mysterious Island again.

The Journey to The Center of the Earth rides was probabaly base on Jules Verne's book by the same name with a nice touch of the ride, for before we were to board the rides' car we were to go into the elevator to mock the descending 1,000 feets below the surface. The ride itself is like a minor rollarcoaster with some fast moving area and drop but overall it was quite fun indeed.

Then after thinking what the heck I decided to also try the StormRider rides. This one is in Port Discovery built and design with a retro modern Jules Verne style with lots of domes and brass fittings and futuristic design, it also the design of the StormRider ride which located in the Center for Weather Control building. This is a flight simulator with you sitting in the observation deck of an advanced flying laboratory into the eye of a storm with the mission to defused it with the new storm ray gun. I would not spoiled it for everyone but it is one of the Must-Ride rides in the park :)