February 2003 – sixthseal.com

New Age Cafe @ Box Hill

February 28, 2003 by HB

Putting the hill in Box Hill

I’ve been keeping really weird hours lately. I woke up at 12 am
today and I still haven’t gone to sleep yet. I was finishing up my IE
stuff yesterday so I didn’t get any sleep and I went to Box Hill with
my friends to eat lunch.

Exterior of New Age Café

This is New Age Café at Box Hill. It’s along Whitehorse Road I think. They have really good Baked Pork Chop Rice.

Baked Pork Chop Rice

The portions are pretty large too. Come to think of it, I haven’t
eaten anything since then and that was around noon yesterday! Strange,
I don’t feel all that hungry. And no, I’m not tweaking. :p

Interior of New Age Café

I’m sleepy.

Project Deep Sedation

February 28, 2003 by HB

is complete! =D

I’m still writing it up, so expect a lengthy report tomorrow night!

7 Deadly Sins

February 27, 2003 by HB

Give in to it

Ah…now this gives me a fair bit of nostalgia. The Magnum 7 Deadly
Sins ice cream came out about a year ago and I wrote about it in one of my first few posts
[monash.edu.au]. You have to scroll to the middle of the page coz my
blog was plain HTML then. It was a limited edition of seven ice creams
representing each of the 7 sins with a different theme for each ice
cream and a phrase imprinted on the stick.

Which sin are you?

Well, it’s out again, but with only three of the sins now. No sign
of the other 4 that was out last year. That’s too bad coz the best
tasting and best looking sin from last year was Vanity. It was
champagne ice cream with pearl balls in the shell.

Wrapper of Sloth

It’s also smaller than the ones that came out a year back. The size
now is similar to the Magnum Minis instead of the normal sized Magnums.
They are only available in a boxed set of 6 mini Magnums (2 x 3 sins).

Wrapper of Gluttony

Well, I ate all six of them over the course of the night while I was
coding. I haven’t eaten anything besides the six ice creams for a full
32 hours but that’s still pretty bad. Heh. Eating so many ice creams
can’t be good for me.

Wrapper of Greed

I haven’t eaten anything else because I’m lazy to cook and I’m busy
coding for IE. I can actually go without eating for a long time, you
just don’t get hungry after you pass a certain point. I’m not planning
to eat anything until noon today. I find it easier to concentrate this
way.

Gluttony – Craving something rich enough for your appetite? Gorge down this! Chocolate mudcake on a stick.

Well anyway, the 3 sins in this pack are Gluttony, Greed and Sloth.
I like Sloth because it’s “my” sin. 🙂 Gluttony tastes the best though.
It’s chocolate mud cake ice cream with a white chocolate shell. For
some reason the stick didn’t have any writing on it. I forgot what it
had last year too, but it’s all the same as last year’s only smaller
and repackaged.

Greed – Let the golden richness of the honeycomb entice your
ravenous desires. The deep indulgent outside layer of chocolate will
excite your sensual hunger.

Greed is okay, but I didn’t really like it all that much. It’s
honeycomb ice cream with a shell made of milk chocolate and that hokey
pokey thingies that’s like the thing inside Crunchie. Come to think of
it, Greed tastes like Crunchie. It had “Greed is good” written on the
stick.

Greed is good

Sloth – Slack off on a peanut butter indulgence. A creamy excessive luxury for the loose relaxed sloth you are.

The last one is Sloth and it’s peanut butter ice cream with white
chocolate and peanuts for the shell. It didn’t taste all that good, but
I like it anyway coz it’s Sloth. 🙂 It has “It is better to have loafed
& lost then never to have loafed at all”. Haha! I like this one so
much.

It is better to have loafed & lost then never to have loafed at all

I feel like I’ve time travelled back a year.

Link of the Day: NOFX – Summer Sonic Festival 2002 Tokyo, Japan [fuckinbollocks.com]
111 MB

(Right Click, Save As)

What’s Bob gonna do, now that he can’t drink?

Murder The Government/Dinosaurs Will Die/I’m Telling Tim/Bottles To The Ground/Bob/Linoleum

Classic! NOFX in playing some of their greatest songs in Japan. The
audio and video are really good quality. It’s on a fast server too,
it’s around 230 KB/sec sustained and I’m in Australia. A must download
if you like NOFX. Too bad my two other favourite songs are not in. 🙂
I’m partial to Pharmacist’s Daughter (Pump Up The Valuum) and Go to
Work Wasted (Surfer EP). It’s interesting that the Surfer EP is where
they kinda go back to their roots production, sound and lyrics wise. If
I didn’t know better I would have thought it was a Liberal Animation
era album. Go download the video. 🙂

McAttack!

February 26, 2003 by HB

McDonalds

Have you ever gotten totally BLAZED and then go out and act normal?
hehehe! That’s what I did today. I haven’t eaten anything for the whole
day and after I came back, I ate 25 (5 x 5mg) mg diazepam (Valium)
tablets and chased it down with two beers. After that, I smoked several
bowls of weed and went out for supper with a couple of my friends. It
was so funny.

Chicken Delight

While on the way there, I was already trying hard not to crack up. I
didn’t tell them I was less than sober. 🙂 Everything was just too
funny for words. Anyway, we got to McDonalds. I was feeling so tickled
that I nearly had a laughing fit while walking to the cashier. I don’t
know why I got so amused, I usually laugh a lot while stoned but never
like this. I didn’t have any problems ordering but I was still trying
hard not to have a laughing fit. 🙂

A half eaten Chicken Delight and an uneaten Big Mac, fries and McFlurry

Well, I had the munchies really bad by then and I ordered a Chicken
Delight meal (with large fries and large coke) and a Big Mac. Chicken
Delight is one of the new menus that they change every once in a while.
It’s okay but then I was having the munchies really bad so I can’t
really say for sure. 🙂 I held my own in conversation but was prone to
zoning out. I just felt so sedated I could slide off the chair with a
grin.

I accidentally dropped some lettuce and tomatoes on the floor and slid around a bit on my shoe before realizing it

Well, after eating all that and an Oreo McFlurry I still had the
munchies really bad. AND I ORDERED ANOTHER BURGER! Disgusting and
totally unacceptable right? *hangs head in shame* 🙂 I ordered a
McChicken and I ate that and still felt hungry. This was the munchies
from hell. I usually can’t eat more than two burgers without being so
full as to nearly puke, but I was still fine by then and I had a slice
of Blackforest cake from the McCafe that was conveniently beside it. I
am ashamed of myself. 🙂

The aftermath

My friend was cracking jokes about CONQUERING McDonalds. He meant
eating all 7 of the larger burgers. Even that feat is too much for even
someone with a bad case of the munchies. In fact, I’m feeling very
close to throwing up now. I feel so bloated. I’m feeling sedated now
though. 25 mg Valium isn’t much, but add a couple of beers and some
cannabis and it’s nice. 🙂

I shredded the cardboard ring and arranged it on the plate. Fun.

I didn’t even remember taking half the photos I took…

Do you feed your cat yogurt for breakfast?

February 24, 2003 by HB

Apparently, there is a specially formulated yogurt meant for pets. I
took this photo at the local Coles pet food department. It’s yogurt.
For cats and dogs.

I went to the Asian grocery with Adrian today to get some instant
noodles, fishballs, beef balls, prawns, and crab sticks (love that
stuff). It’s an easy meal if you chuck a bit of everything into a rice
cooker and cook it. That way, you only have one thing to wash (the rice
cooker bowl) although it won’t taste as good.

Proton Satria sighted in Melbourne.

Temazepam

February 24, 2003 by HB

10 mg Temazepam tablets (Normison)

Temazepam is a short acting benzodiazepine that’s usually prescribed
for short term treatment of insomnia. I recently aquired 3 x 10mg
tablets for some quality relaxation. No, I didn’t get it from the
streets (there is black market here coz heroin users inject temazepam
to potentiate the effects of heroin) but from a doctor! I got it for
free too, I’ll tell you all the story one day. It’s part of this
project from a GP for my ‘sleep disorder’. [Edit: After reading
it again, I have no idea about what I was going on about here. I think
I wanted to tell you about the project but suddenly switched trains of
thoughts to “I got it from my GP for a ‘sleeping disorder'”. heh! I
feel my short term memory going already. Very, very nice.
Euphoria…)hehehe! I’ll tell you the story behind that one day. It’s
part of a project (codename: PROJECT DEEP SEDATION) that I’m currently
working on. I’ll write that up in the near future after the project is
finished.

Front view of the blister pack

Anyway, about temazepam. The ones I got are manufactured by Sigma
Pharmeceuticals (I passed by their Melbourne factory a couple of days
ago…too bad I didn’t take a photo then) and are called Normison. They
contain 10 mg of temazepam in each tablet. The tablets are white, with
no score. It has a ‘double twin peak’ imprint on one side. The tablets
are very, very slim and small. I have yet to see tablets slimmer than
these ones. The size is even smaller than the gas release button on
cigarette lighters.

Well, I took all 3 tablets for a total of 30 mg and drank quite a few shots of this 95% stuff + cannabis
[sixthseal.com] on an empty stomach. I haven’t had any benzodiazepines
for about a month. The last time was a couple of Valiums with heroin
[sixthseal.com]. I didn’t think 30 mgs would do it for me, since I have
quite a high tolerance to benzodiazepines. My ‘normal dose’ would be
2.5 mg of Xanax (alprazolam) with a six pack of beer to feel buzzed.
Thus, I combined it with alcohol and smoked a couple of bowls of
cannabis for further sedation. 🙂

Back view of the blister pack

Anyway, it feels very nice. I can’t remember half the things that
happened just a minute ago. It’s euphoric, very much so. My apologies
for being slightly incoherant and confusing. Forgive me if I’m
over-enthusiastic. This just feels so good. So sedating…All this
happened just an hour and half ago and I’m feeling like happy jelly
now, sitting on my chair and nearly slouching off the chair. 🙂 Jelly.
It’s very sedating with the euphoria that’s comparable to Xanax +
alcohol. Perhaps slightly better, but I still like Xanax (my first
love) + alcohol.

Well, instead of talking slightly incoherantly, I’m going to fix up the photos now and post this up. Temazepam…Mmm…

Temazepam + alcohol + cannabis = Jelly. Wobbly, happy jelly.

What’s short term memory?

Caution: Combining benzodiazepines with another CNS depressant like alcohol in large amounts can be dangerous.

It’s just like Magic!

February 23, 2003 by HB

There I was…taking a dump in the toilet this morning. I was still
in my PJs (I just woke up) and I brought my cell phone into the toilet
to play some Tetris. As I was about to wipe myself, I put the cell
phone down on top of the two rolls of spare toilet paper that has been
stashed in one corner of the toilet and pulled on the roll. I actually
can use one hand to wipe myself but that requires this trick where you
take a hold of the end of the roll and pull hard towards you to unravel
it. Once a desirable length has been acheived, you flick the length of
toilet paper downwards (while still holding to it) in a hard and fast
motion. I was in no mood for bathroom acrobatics this morning, so I
just put the cell phone down and used both hands.

Anyway, after doing my business, I washed my hands and went back to
my room. A bit of background information: my toilet is shared with 3
other people, each stairway floor has one toilet and each stairway
floor houses 4 single-occupancy rooms and thus 4 people. The cleaners
come every morning to clean the bathrooms, restock on toilet paper and
empty the floor waste bin. Well, I was in my room and working a bit on
my IE when I realized that I forgot to bring my cell phone back from
the toilet. I went back to get it and found out that:

My cell phone has been transformed into an unused roll of toilet paper.

Anyway, the cleaners had been there since there was a new roll of
toilet paper on top of the previous 2, so I called my own cell and one
of the cleaners picked it up. I arranged to have it returned to the
operations office so everything was fine. Just thought it was funny
that my first though was “Oh, my cell phone turned into toilet paper”.

Death in the family

February 22, 2003 by HB

My Athlon 750 killed itself yesterday afternoon, may it rest in
peace. The fan somehow fell off the CPU, which resulted in it
overheating. It happened in a couple of seconds, which raises questions
about how hot the CPU was running. My theory about what happened was
that the thermal glue was transfering heat to the surface of the chip,
but with no fan to dissipate the heat, and thus it burnt. I couldn’t
get the computer to restart after that, not that I expected it to,
considering that there was the smell of burnt electronics eminating
from the case.

Christopher’s Indomie Pien Nuk

Well, I woke early this morning to get the motherboard and CPU
replaced. Adrian came by and we went to Christopher’s place, where he
was eating breakfast – pien nuk (basically wonton) with Indomie flavor
packets. He swears it tastes good…I gotta try that someday. We went
to three places – IT Computer Supermarket, I.T. Warehouse and
e.Computers. Very convenient, since all of them are in Clayton. After
comparing the price lists, I found IT Computer Supermarket to have the
cheapest prices. I have to say that e.Computers has the nicest cat
though. Look at it! 🙂 It was lounging around the shop when we went
there. I think it belongs to the owner. Very cute cat and it touched my
hand with it’s nose when I went up close. Furry, furry cat.

🙂

Anyway, we went back to IT Computer Supermarket and I got:

AMD Athlon XP 2200+ A$210
Gigabyte GA-7VA VIA KT400 A$158
Kingston 256MB DDR PC2700 A$134
80GB Maxtor 7,200 ATA133 A$195
Sparkle 64MB GeForce4 MX440 SE DDR TV Out A$98
Omni Black USB+Audio P4 See Through Case A$105
GA 008 PS/2 Keyboard A$5

Total: A$905

IT Computer Supermarket

I can’t say that they have good service, but they have some of the
cheapest prices in Melbourne. I got a discount on top of the total
price, so I only paid A$850. I didn’t actually need the hard disk, but
Windows XP can be really anal at times and refuses to start if the
system configuration changes drastically so I got one to be safe. I’ll
enjoy the capacity anyway. I didn’t really need the case as well, but
it has a clear side panel. With lights. And a fan. And front USB ports
and headphone jacks.

I’ll have the 2 piece chicken meal please

Anyway, after getting all that (except the GeForce4, more on that
later) we went to Coles to get some grocery shopping done and then to
KFC. I have to say that KFC really sucks over here. The chicken is so
fatty and soggy that I can barely choke it down. Does Australia use a
different recipe for KFC? It’s a franchise so that’s unlikely, but it
sure tastes like it.

Push down and outwards

Well, after all that, I went back to assemble everything. Getting
the heatsink and fan mounted (haha) on the CPU really took a lot of
effort…until I read the manual. It turns out that I’m just supposed
to align one side and press down and out with a screwdriver tip to
connect the other side. I tried doing that as well but I still couldn’t
get it to connect. I poured over the diagrams. It said “push down and
outwards where it’s circled”. WHAT CIRCLE??? Damn manual should have
never passed Quality Assuarance. After a lot of attempts I finally
realized that I should push at the top groove, not the bottom one…

Don’t look at me! I’m naked! 🙁

Well, after that the RAM went into the motherboard, the case got
disassembled, the motherboard went into the case, the cables went into
slots and the screws got screwed. I looked at the power button. PUSH.
Nothing happened. Puzzled, I looked around the case. Ah, one of the
power supply cables were not connected. That’s it! I connected and
pushed the power button. Still nothing. My monitor says it’s not
receiving a signal.

Note to self: Edges are sharper than they look

I removed the graphics card (GeForce2 MX – my previous card) and put
it into my old motherboard with the dead CPU. It detected the graphics
card but of course couldn’t boot up due to the burnt out CPU. I put the
card back into the new system. Still nothing. I called the shop – they
were closing at 4:30 pm and it was nearly 4 pm so me and Adrian went
over again to get the motherboard replaced. I thought it was a
motherboard problem, until I read “This motherboard does not support 2X
AGP cards. Only 4X-8X AGP supported”.

Stuff that matters

My old GeForce2 MX is 2X AGP, so that was where things went wrong.
It’s a good thing I read that before I went back home because if I
didn’t, I would have been without a computer the whole weekend coz the
shops all close on Sunday. That would be BAD because I have IE stuff
due next week. Well, long story short, I got back and put everything
together and everything worked! 🙂 Thanks to Adrian for helping out
today. I’m pretty tired now coz I didn’t enough sleep and was running
around Clayton most of the day. So that’s it for today. Yay, everything
runs so much faster now. It’s like my PC had several points of meth and
it’s now raging, eager and helluva tweaked out. Naughty boy.

All riced up and ready to go!

Oh, and if my spelling degrades noticably today, it’s because I haven’t installed spell check yet. 🙂

Weed Society of Victoria

February 20, 2003 by HB

I remember this episode of The Simpsons that had Otto (the stoner
bus driver) coming out of a shop which had a large sign saying pot
something or other (I think) and he said “That’s just false
advertising”. Heh. The shop in that episode was really selling pottery
but the name of the shop was somewhat misleading and the color scheme
was very much like a head shop too.

Anyway, I’m still not done with my assignment that’s due at 12 noon
tomorrow! I’m feeling very unproductive now so I’ll get some sleep and
wake up at around 3 am to work on it again. I’ll have to go to the 24
hour computer labs in campus to do it though, the program we’re using
is not available for download. It’s a good thing I live on campus…

Well, I updated the Picture of the Day, which should be called
Picture of the Month. I also fixed the CSS to make it display properly
on 800×600 now. My apologies, I didn’t realize the sidebar wasn’t
showing up in that resolution. By the way, the Weed Society of Victoria
[vicnet.net.au] is not what first pops into the mind, but a legitimate
organization “to promote wider awareness and interest in weeds and
their management” and also “to encourage the study of weeds and the
dissemination of its findings”. I’ll like to say that sounds
interesting, but that would make me a liar.

THERE IS A BOMB ATTACHED TO THIS TOILET, GET OFF AND YOU DIE! Check out the Picture of the Day. Classic toilet graffiti.

The Third Peak

February 19, 2003 by HB

*puuuushuuuuuuuuu* (sound of a balloon deflating) I just got back
from the code review. I’ve got a list of 23 odd things to fix with my
code before Monday. It’s mostly minor stuff though, so it’s still okay.
Our supervisor has selflessly sacrificed a good chunk of his after work
time to go through our code and my group mates and I spent several
hours in his office while he went through the code with a fine tooth
comb.

Anyway, I’m pretty tired now so I’m going to sleep early tonight.
I’ve gotta wake up early tomorrow coz it’s the last day I’ll be able to
work on my Neural Networks assignment. It’s due by Friday 12 noon. The
above picture was taken tonight on the Pakenham train I take to get
home. It’s not very clear, take a train in Melbourne and you’ll know
why. It’s not exactly smooth sailing.

I took two photos actually, and the second one was when the train
was stationary so it should be clearer. Unfortunately, the second one
mysteriously disappeared from the memory card. I’m going to file that
under mysterious mysteries. I think I may very well be the only one
that finds myself funny. =D Anyway, I’ve noticed that there are three
peak hours for trains. The first two are logical – the hour before
office hours and the hour after office hours.

However the carriages are always full from 8:30 pm – 9:30 pm too.
I’ve thought about this and the best reason I could come out with is
that the passengers are people who went out for a drink and to catch up
with friends after office hours instead of going straight home. The
fact that night trains are truncated might have something to do with it
as well. The trains after 7:30 pm are not full length ie some carriages
are removed because it’s supposed to be off peak hours. Truncated
trains. 🙂 I alliterate.