Archive for December 2008

NEETs & Hikikomori

Well I just read this on Sankaku again, and was really interested about this certain topic:
Aso Vows to Drag NEETs & Hikikomori From Their Rooms

It was primarily discussing about NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training) and Hikikomori and how the government wants them to contribute to society. Not sure if anyone could understand this topic without further research, but it does kinda reflect how most of us like to be "confined" in our room and use the computer all day long and how getting a job can be a pain in the arse. Haha yeah, I do have to admit I'm also a slight Hikikomori after reading that topic..... =P

An Unexpected Return....

Yeah, it was only just yesterday that I thought I finally get to go on a proper holiday with my family to Penang. Well I don't know if I could keep this short or anything but I'll try my best to tell it straight to you guys...

After having a late lunch earlier today at some famous "Nasi Kandar" restaurant at Bukit Jambul, (it was about 4PM during that time) my mother got a called from one of my aunties in Johor saying that my grandmather had passed away. Not only did it took us all by surprise, but the fact that so many things were happening that day it couldn't have happened at the worst possible moment. She passed away at one of my aunty's house in Kluang, Johor at around 3PM from old age. Not sure what was the cause of death, but it was related to her weakening state after she suffered stroke a few years ago. (it could either been a heart attack or a second stroke, should probably know by tomorrow)

The thing was, it also happens to be my one of my cousins wedding that very day. (not sure what to say about this cause I don't really know my father's side of the family much or who most of my cousins are....) They already had done the "akad nikah" that morning and during that whole aftetnoon it was to be "kenduri" (meaning feast) for them. My step grandmother (it was my fathers step mother, my real grandmother died when my father was young) came to the wedding that afternoon with my grandfather and one of my aunties that drove all the way from Muar. Even at that moment she was already weak and almost collapse when she tries to sit down. In the end, they took her inside the house and let her lie on the bed. Then they called the doctor to check on her condition, but the doctor said she was already too weak to live and could very well die at any moment. It was too late to send her to a hospital and all they could do was just pray that she would stay alive. So everyone gathered around and started to read the "surah yassin" and grieve upon her. Sure enough her pulse finally faded and she had passed away.

Don't know how everyone was coping at that moment (but obviously everyone was grieving) and who was effected most by it.... (probably my grandfather, since he was closest to her) So they called the masjid and did all the procedure like how all procedures go to care for the ones who passed away. We thought that she was going to get buried the next day since it was well after the evening before the body could be taken but my grandfather insisted she would get buried today. Sure enough after the Isyak and Jenazah prayer, they took the body to Bakri and get her buried there.

Right now I'm just lost for words to describe the moment. Stunned? Confused? Exhausted? Panicked? Sad? Grief? Disappointed? None of these could even describe how I feel right now. I just went to Penang yesterday and had to come back today to get ready and go to Johor the next morning. But then again family is WAY IMPORTANT than any holiday you take and that visiting your relatives had to be your first priority, so I can't complain about that either. Anyway, I just want to say that life comes with many surprises and this is just one of them. One day your happy, the next day your struggling to live, that is just the way of life I guess. You can't blame these things for happening, but it does and we all should just accept it without any regrets or hatred towards this.......

Also, sorry not to wish everyone Christmas yesterday. Kinda slipped out of my mind. =P Also, it is kind of an irony that today also happens to coincide with the Tsunami incident that happened 4 years ago...... *sigh*

Will be away for a few days....

Yeah, just want to let everyone know that I'm going on a vacation to Penang for a few days. Don't know if the hotel I'm staying there got internet or not, so I won't be going online for a while (maybe I will go online on my handphone from time to time while I'm there, or try to catch some wifi signal with my PSP if possible) So I will see you guys online when I come back, until then this is me signing off.....

Photos of my upgrades

As promised earlier, here is what my new computer is running now:



A closer look at the motherboard and processor:

Yeah, still using AMD processor as last time, but this is the more hardcore "Athlon X2" processor... (dual processors FTW!!!!)

And here is my new 500GB Western Digital Caviar Blue internal hard drive:

Yeah, now I can fit more s*** inside my computer hahahahaha.....

Oh, and here is how that Razer Boomslang looks like in the dark:

Thought the Razer logo would illuminate like the other Razer mouse, but I guess not. =P

If anyone is interested in my PC spec, have a look here:





Yeah, not exactly a gaming PC per se, but at least it gets the job done really well. Unlike my fathers laptop that was really f***ing slow, this computer could multi task really well without the PC freezing up. Well, not yet at least..... =S So hope you enjoyed (or envy) my new computer, hahaha......

Got back my computer....

Well, after what seemed like ages ago (about September this year) my PC was dead and I was stuck using my fathers laptop for 3 month...... until today! A few weeks ago my brother-in-law decided that he would take the PC to the shop at Lawyat there to get it fixed at one of my late uncles friends shop. Well after discussing with my brother-in-law and my father about the budget for the repair and it was decided that my father would be spending less than RM1000 on the repair/upgrade. The thing was, at first I thought it was the graphics card that failed, after getting it checked it seems that the motherboard just fried itself and spoiled along with the processor. Not sure what was the main cause for the failure, but my guess was that the processor got clogged up with dusts and overheats itself and just self destructed.

I would like to continue more on this tomorrow as I want to enjoy every second of my PC again, as well as updating my iPod and stuff. More things to talked about later, as well as a few pics I snapped with my fathers camera phone. =D

A new world of music....

Having a big interest in music I do always have a knack for finding the most unique and unheard of bands which are popular elsewhere, hell some of them are not even known by the music scene and yet their music is like nothing else on the radio. The independent (indie) music scene is big out there and you'll almost always see some unknown band rise into stardom, but the true indie bands out there would not care if they become famous or not or even fade into obscurity. Their music will always leave a mark one way or another.

As I think some of you may/may not know, I was a really big indie rock/emo/screamo fan and would try to introduce bands that no one ever heard of to my friends and kinda see if they liked it or not. Well yesterday morning I was surfing around looking for some albums to download and would usually do a quick search using google blog and see what albums are available to download. I was looking for Chronic Future's first self-titled album on the internet and never found it. But then I just randomly searched for Maxeen's second album titled "Hello Echo" and I got a hit on this site. I entered the site called It-Leaked.com, but it seemed to be an invite only site and (at that time) there was no way I could get into the site. Looking for answers, I managed to stumbled upon this one site which were discussing about It-Leaked.com and tried my luck to get an invite. Sure enough there was this one person accepting request for invite and all my hope was on that one person....

He left his email there for people to contact him, and I did send him the message for an invite both straight to his email address and on that forum. But things started to take a twist and all my hope evaporated into thin air. I waited for hours for him to reply back to me, and what was worse is that I got banned from that site for "requesting" an invite. How bad can my luck be!? Looking for alternatives I did manage another way to get that album (albeit it was hell of a lot frustrating) and just accepted it as it is. While I was downloading each song one by one from this site called deezer.com using some software called freezer, I suddenly realized I got an email. When I clicked to check who was it from, I had my prayers answered. I was just, at that moment, gasp in disbelief that I managed to join that site and download the album in all its quality.......
Note: Don't bother asking me an invite from that site as I probably can't.....

Okay, fair enough. I finally get to complete my Maxeen album collection for my iPod as well as discovering many bands on that site I never ever heard of and yet are well known in that community. I gave a listen to a few of those bands and I'm hooked back into emo/screamo music. Yeah, I don't have that J-Rock bug I had a few months ago and now will looking back into these awesome and emotional songs. Of all the bands I got to know, these were the ones that I actually liked and downloaded their songs from that site:
Raein (a Italian screamo band)


Love Lost But Not Forgotten (a screamo band from St. Peters, Missouri but are no longer active)


Saetia (a New York City-based screamo band, disbanded in 1999)


House Vs. Hurricane(a a Progressive Post-Hardcore band from Melbourne)


So if anyone is interested in listening to them I do recommend you to cause their music is just totally different than what you would usually listen on the radio, and its just something about those bands that makes me want to listen to them a lot, whether its their certain style of play, the reputations they have build throughout the years or just me being a music person. Doesn't matter, at least there is now another person interested in them.......

I'm not sure if I could make a short post about each of those bands and why they are different (I only discovered them this morning) but if anyone wants me to I will try my best to describe them in my own words. =D

Oh, here are their myspace links if you want to give them a listen:
Raein
Love Lost But Not Forgotten
Saetia
House Vs. Hurricane

PIKOM PC Fair 2008 part II

Well yeah, can't believe this is the second time I went to the pc fair in 4 months (the last time I went there was in August, as the post in this blog shows....) got to say it felt more tiring than last time (although we did spend time there a little less) but yeah, I think this was the most wallet breaking thing I have ever done in my life (not exactly really, more on that below....)

Started out the day with meeting Najib at his house at 12pm and his mother send us to the Putra station in Kelana Jaya, where we waited for Kamal to arrive before we bought our tickets and headed towards KLCC. Then it started to drizzle when we were halfway there and when we finally got there and wanted to walk to the convention centre in started to rain heavily. Luckily I remembered the underpass which we could walk trough without getting wet, albeit it was a slightly longer route than what was the usual way and definitely had a huge crowd like it was last time. Anyhow, got to the convention centre without getting wet and went through all the halls.....

Did a few stops here and there to check out some items, and well finally stopped at the Razer booth and admire all the great looking mouse there. Was sad that the mouse that I wanted to buy wasn't available (the A4Tech X7 X-750BF gaming mouse) and there wasn't a single damn booth that sold internal hard drives (they heavily promoted their external hard drives there, but no internal hard drives for sale. WTF!?) and in the end, I got myself this:



All got to say is, I can't f***ing believe I actually bought these stuff for cheap!!!! Yeah, that is about it I guess. Will post the "unboxing" video of the mouse later as well as a layout change for this blog. =P

Attention alert!!!!

Where in the world is Najib? I'm supposed to confirm with him to go to the PIKOM PC Fail tomorrow or Sunday, but he never did went online since yesterday and his phone is off. Can anyone try to contact him in any way possible? Well other than that, I got nothing else to say lol, I'm just a very uninteresting person I guess..... hahahahaha.

Finished watching Wangan Midnight.....



Yeah, been watching the anime the whole day today (just finished watching it at 1am, after starting at 12pm earlier....) Got to say it was fun watching each episode all in one go, makes me feel happy in a way. =D Not sure if I want to do a review for the show or not, but give me some time and I'll write something later....

Tinkerchel


Do I need to say more? Found her while I was chatting with my friend about Miku Hatsune and all the other Vocaloid characters, then suddenly this came up. She does seem a little popular on Youtube though.... I really don't know what to say though, she does certainly look "kawaii" enough for pedobear to attack lol, not to mentioned how old she looks like.... =O I think her videos are cool enough to view and her cosplay seems good enough to pass from otakus to start drooling over. Well I just leave it to everyone to decide whether she looks hot or not, whether she could be a good cosplayer or whatnot, whether she could sing or not, bla bla bla, etc. etc. etc.......

You can view her many videos at her Youtube page, and get to know more about her.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=tinkerchel

What happened today....

Well, just to summarize my day I will post it in bullet form (or something like that) and explain what a tiring day I just had.....

+Woke up at 8 a.m. after I slept at 2 a.m. when I was online the whole night doing "something".....
+ Bathe, getting ready and have breakfast all before 9 a.m.
+ Called up friend at 9 a.m. and ask whether he was at school or not. He replied saying he just woke up from bed, and went back to sleep...
+ Played my PS2/PSP until it was 10.30 a.m. while waiting for my friends to arrive.
+ Went to school together to send back the form 5 books we "borrowed" for this year. In return we got our certificate and that was about it. Was good to meet some of our classmates and teachers there after what was like such a long and exhaustive SPM examination...
+ After that, I went back home to keep my certificate in my folder, and changed my slippers for some Converse shoes... =P
+ Met at "padang asam" and talked for a bit before heading to SS15
+ We stopped to eat rojak and have some drinks while it was about 12 p.m.
+ Gerak to JS Internet Cafe and enjoyed playing some games. Most notable events were
*Played Counter Strike and had an awful time keeping up (lol, I had the most death in the game) Also managed to knife one of my "pro" friends while we were playing.... =D
*Then we moved on to play FIFA09, and made a big fuss about the game. We were shouting left right and center as if we were in a real game or as my friend put in another way, "like playing WCG" lol. The results were pretty bad I could say (out of all the 3 games we played, my team lost all 3 games. The last game gave quite a good fight, if only he hadn't scored that own goal...... =.=' ) but yeah, we had quite a good fun.
+ After we played for about 3 hours (from about 12 something to 3) we paid for the hours we played and walked to Subang Parade to have lunch
+ Ate at KFC (yum) and one of my friends had a call about going to Sunway Pyramid but after we ate, they had a changed of plans... (too bad though, my friend wanted to put some new games on his PSP. All that effort to go Subang Parade was for nothing... lmao) Also met some of our friends who were working there...
+ Walked back to SS15, and went to Asia Cafe to have some drinks and chit chat a little (again) While we were there we kinda met some other friends there also...
+ Then we headed to another cyber cafe, this time we went to FTZ for a few hours
+ While most of them (well, all except me) played FIFA09 again, I was minding my own business and played Call Of Duty and Outrun 2006.
+ Later, they joined and played Outrun as well. But somehow I was left out from playing together (there were 7 of us, but the game can only host 6 players =S ) so they played without me, saying that I was "too pro" to play against lol.
*The first race I didn't interfere any of them, cause I was too busy playing mine...
*The second race however, I stopped playing while they were halfway through the map and watch them duke em out. Them when it was about 80% through the map, I helped my friend get first and win the game. Hahahahahaha..... =D
+ When everything was over, paid everything and left our separate ways. Gave a handshake or two and started walking home.
+ Arrived home at about 7 something p.m. and take a bath. Dress up and here I am..... =P


That is pretty much for today, and I do know I could have said out some of your names here but I feel it should be better just to be anonymous. But if you think I'm better off mentioning your name in my posts, I'll gladly do so in the future.... =) So yeah, this is for today, not sure about tomorrow though lol.

Note: Ouch, it seems a little harder to read my post like this than I thought. Damn, wish I could make the bullet point look a bit bigger.... =/

Its over......

Finally finished SPM today, and now I get to start a new life after school......
Well other than that maybe I need to get a part time job or just loaf around with friends and whatnot. Man, I don't even care how many exams I failed cause I just couldn't give a f*** lol. All I want to do now is just get my drivers license and a car, and I could pretty much live happily ever after........ xD

Phantom on the Horizon


Its been a while since I've heard a good song from TFOT. I know it has been a year since the release of "Manipulator" but this was really something worth listening to. A rerecorded version of their Ghostship EP, it really amazes me how good their song was compared to Manipulator. Listened to the first few minutes on the first song and it almost reminds me of Doppelgänger, it was bloody awesome! Just give a listen to the EP somewhere (maybe Youtube or Imeem) or if your like me, try to find the song somewhere and download them. If the album ever comes out to Malaysia, its probably worth the RM40+ price tag........ hahahaha.

Whatever....

Finished 8 out of the 9 exams taken for SPM, with accounts out of the way now its time to concentrate on economics. Yeah, after that I couldn't care less as to what happens to me in my life. Will I become a successful person? Would I end up as a beggar on the street? Who knows, it is one of the many surprises in life that we cannot predict......

Copyright © Muzaffar's Blog