November 2003 – sixthseal.com

Frusli Roadshow @ Lot 10 with photos of Frusli girls

November 30, 2003 by HB

Frusli Mini Bug.

I passed by Lot 10 today and saw the Frusli event. I was aware of
this from TheSun – they had this page each day with a number on it,
from 1 – 3 and you’re supposed to collect the three different numbers
to redeem a free Frusli bar. I didn’t bother with that, just went to
see what’s going on since I just finished my work at the office and Lot
10 is just a short walk away.

Frusli blue customized Mini.

Anyway, there’s supposed to be the original Frusli Mini there, I
don’t know which one it is, but I saw two – a yellow one stuffed with
Frusli cereal bars and a blue one with a customized Frusli paintwork.
The yellow one also has a Frusli decal on the bonnet and it’s filled
with the bars. It was cordoned off and had “The British Job” comes to
Lot 10 banners with a competition for people to guess how many Frusli
bars are in the Mini Bug.

Guess how many cereal bars is in the car?

Frusli stage.

There’s also a stage where there’s some shows going on, I saw a
“Wheel of Fortune” type spinner which awards a prize depending on where
the pointer falls on after the spin. Besides that, there was a Frusli
booth with people packing samples for the Frusli girls (well, promoters
would be a better word, but anyway…) to distribute to the public.
This begs the question of why TheSun promo was necessary since there
were at least 12 Frusli girls giving away samples.

Frusli booth.

Anyway, I didn’t have time to stay for long, but I did take some photos of the Frusli girls, so here they are:

Frusli promoters photo #1

Frusli girls picture #2

By the way, IMHO, the blueberry Frusli bars taste the best out of them all.

Thai Seafood Sensation Pizza

November 29, 2003 by HB

Pizza Hut’s Thai Seafood Sensation Pizza (spicy)

It tastes pretty good – the sauce is great and there’s tuna, squid
and crabstick with other stuff on it. Ordered delivery just now, woke
up, called for a pizza, ate it and I’m going to sleep now. I have to go
to work tomorrow…and I still haven’t made a full recovery so here’s a
final rally, couple of beers, stuff myself, (I didn’t inhale), (legally
prescribed) and yeah, sounds like I’ll have a nice 12 hour sleep. 🙂

NORML News, Anthony and Melbourne

November 28, 2003 by HB

aka fast posts for fast people. 😉

Thanks fuzzy [absolutely-fuzzy.com]! I got the copy of NORML that you mailed me. 🙂 NORML News is New Zealand’s cannabis reform magazine.

Today was Anthony’s last day at XM Malaysia. Everyone say bye and good luck. You will be missed.

I’m going to Melbourne on the 12th of December and will be coming back on the 17th. Convocation. Staying at The Paramount [theparamount.com.au]. Can’t go to Hard Kandy, but will probably hit another rave. Note to self: Avoid hassles at customs. Do not bring wallet or backpack over, not even after washing.

Short posts for people with short attention spans. 🙂

Jit and Suzanne’s birthday (XM Malaysia) 2003

November 27, 2003 by HB

Jit is the one in the white shirt. Prem is puzzling over the candles. 😉

Here are the photos from Jit and Suzanne’s birthday at the office on Monday.

Jit and Suzanne blowing out the candles.

Suzanne cutting the cake.

Well, it’s Thursday night now, and there has been a distinct lack of
updates, as you may or may not have noticed. 🙂 Anyway, I’m not dead,
killed or in jail so that means I’m either depressed (my quarterly
serotonin depletion) or something has happened. A little bit of both,
I’ll say. Monday night was crazy, my gf went back to Sibu on Tuesday
morning for more than a month and my “Warning! Serotonin levels low!”
indicators went off last Sunday and was beeping all through the Hari
Raya holidays.

Thus, I slept. I figured that was the best way to counter depression
(damned sea dwelling mammal…*shakes fist*) – always works for me. I
can count the hours I was awake during Raya holidays on the digits of
one finger. With a little chemical assistance (legally prescribed,
thank you very much), my waking hours were greatly reduced to ride the
depression wave and I’m pretty much okay now, and I project serotonin
levels will be back to normal by tomorrow. 🙂 sixthseal.com will be
updated as usual from now on. My apologies about the Quarterly
Serotonin Induced Hiatus (QSIH).

Me and my abysmal acronyms…;)

Big pink cupcake with yellow fringes

November 23, 2003 by HB

This is definitely the largest cupcake I’ve ever seen…used to eat
them when I was young, they were purely white then, but the colored
varieties do pop up once in a while. They all taste the same though. I
got this at Bangsar pasar malam just now. I haven’t seen one that comes
in such a big variety before and two of us couldn’t finish it. It’s
pictured next to an RM 1 coin, but it doesn’t seem to show the scale of
the big cupcake well. It’s about 3-4 times bigger than the normal sized
ones and it’s in a large plastic container base.

Anyway, when I was young, I would only eat the top parts – the four
soft chunks on the top and leave the bottom part for someone else to
eat, which usually would be my father. I did not like the crumbly and
relatively hard base – only the soft top then. Strangely though, this
variety goes against the soft top – hard base mould. The bottom of this
is softer than the top and the top chunks taste like the bottom of the
normal ones.

MDMA (and other drugs, non users) research at my alma mater

November 22, 2003 by HB

I saw this notice on Pillreports.com
[pillreports.com] today. Photo courtesy of veritas, naturally.
So…who’s going? 😉 The research is being done at my previous campus
(Caulfield). I live at halls in Clayton but my main campus is at
Caulfield (20 minutes drive), though I can take subjects in Clayton. I
know Monash Uni had CADAR but wasn’t aware of active research by the
center. Help out if you can, it would be interesting to see the results
of this study. Here’s the details from the page:

Cognitive Performance and Monitoring in Dance Drug users (Melbourne, Australia)

People who have used ecstasy for over three years required to participate in a psychological study.

Research through Monash University’s Centre for Applied Drug and
Alcohol Research (CADAR) is looking for people over 18 years old:

who have used ecstasy for over three years

who would be interested in participating in a psychological study

We are also testing people who have used ecstasy for less time than
this, people who have used no drugs at all, and people who have used
other drugs (e.g. speed, cannabis etc) but no ecstasy.

Participation will involve around 3-4 hours of your time, and is
open to those able to make it to Monash University, Caulfield.
Participants will be reimbursed for out of pocket expenses.

If you are interested in participating in this research, please
email me at gillinder.bedi@med.monash.edu.au or call on 9903 1149.

Berbuka Puasa Bersama Kami di Nipah

November 20, 2003 by HB

XM and Zenith had the company buka puasa today at Nipah. They really
do have an impressive amount of dishes – I couldn’t try every single
one, I would be amazed if anyone out there can. However, I didn’t eat
for two (or three?) days before and had two packets of Indomie last
night with multivites, first meal after some days without solid food,
so yeah, I nearly threw up when I had three dishes today. I would have
too, if I wasn’t on the LRT trying to catch the last bus back home from
Bangsar and by the time I got home, stomach bloat factor has become
less of an issue.

Anyway, I just got home so I’ll post up the photos of the array of
food they have tomorrow, since I’m about to fall asleep right now. I
did sleep last night, but not as much as I wanted to, and I have to
wake up at 6:30 am tomorrow. Check back tomorrow night if you want to
see photos of the interesting platters of food Equatorial’s Nipah
Coffeeshop (no, not that kind – unfortunately, we don’t have those in
Malaysia). My favorite photo is the “Ulam ulam tempatan” section, very
nice. Stay tuned!

Oh, and if you don’t want to squint, here’s what the text in the promo above reads:

Delight in traditional “kampung” specialities, popular hawker
favourites, superb delicacies from various states and an unbelievable
array of desserts from our renowned “buka puasa” buffet – enough to
please even the most discerning diner.

Available nightly throught the month of Ramadhan from 6:30 pm to 10:30 pm.

Priced at RM 68.00+ per adult and RM 35.00+ per child.

For reservations please call 2161 7777 extn. 8555

I should be on their payroll for transcribing that. 😉

Defaced and no screenshot…woe!

November 20, 2003 by HB

This site was “hacked” (er…defaced would be the correct term) by
some script kiddies sometime during 3 pm to 5 pm (GMT +8) today. They
just replaced index.html with another file, and I took a screenshot but
before pasting it, I was looking at the source, saw a URL and copied
that (losing what was on the “clipboard” previously – the screenshot)
and now I don’t have anything to post up.

Anyway, if anyone has a screenshot, I would appreciate it if you
would mail it to me, coz I rectified the issue (it takes all of 1
minute once you notice it) before I realized that I haven’t pasted the
screenshot into Photoshop. Alternatively, if anyone knows of any
“website defacement sites” where those l33t h4ck3rz post up images of
sites they have “hacked”, that would be appreciated as well, would love
to have that screenshot.

Anyway, if you’re the perpetrators behind this, please “hack” me
again ok? I would love to have a screenshot. Plus, I didn’t even
remember your group’s name or any of it’s members, and what’s the point
of what you do if there’s no memory of it? I promise I’ll post a
screenshot up and give you more publicity or something. 😉

Well, I’ll be off to the company “Berbuka Puasa Bersama Kami di Nipah” later. I’m hungry already.

Buah Kurma giveaway @ KLCC LRT station

November 20, 2003 by HB

Free packaged dried dates.

The staff at the KLCC LRT station were giving out nicely packaged
buah kurma (preserved/dried dates) at the monthly ticket entrance as I
got off from work yesterday. It was relatively early – around 6 pm when
this happened. They had boxes of it and I tried taking photos, but it
was the after office hours rush, so I couldn’t get a shot of the
personnel handing them out – someone is bound to walk into the frame
due to the volume of commuters.

Kurma photo – close up.

Anyway, here’s a closer look at the dates in the container. It
tastes good, dry and yet slightly moist in the middle. There is a
surprisingly high fructose content too, a little too cloyingly sweet,
but it’s great to eat when you’ve been without food for a while. It
seems to be one of the more common things people eat right after buka
puasa.

Which reminds me, there is a company buka puasa at Hotel Equatorial’s Nipah CoffeeShop later at 6:30 pm.

pengsan.com and VPS/VDS hosting

November 19, 2003 by HB

Before we go to pengsan.com (there’s nothing there anyway) here’s a
photo that you don’t see everyday. Another san, I mean sun – The Sun –
a daily newspaper provided free in racks like this. For the life of me,
I’ve never seen the racks filled…everytime I see these, it’s empty.
However today was going to be different. I knew it was going to be. I
had inklings. I came in at a little past 7 am and walked into Wisma Antarabangsa…

This is the rack at the entrance and lo and behold it was partially
full! Granted, it was only partially full, but for someone who’s only
seen it empty, it was a sight to behold. I stood there for a few
minutes, admiring the beauty and decided to document it by taking a
photo. The Sun! A rack partially full! Will wonders never
cease? Soon after I took the photo, a woman walked in and grabbed a
stack of the papers and walked out…such ephemeral beauty…I’m glad I
took a photo of the rack, even though it was only partially full. 😉

Anyway, after a lot of research, I’ve decided to go for a VPS/VDS
(Virtual Private/Dedicated Server) solution for my hosting needs. I got
a decent custom package – US$ 17.50 per month for 1 GB disk space, 30
GB transfer, 64 MB RAM, 1 static IP and root access. Additional excess
bandwidth is US$ 1 per GB and the same price goes for storage. Which
brings us back to pengsan.com – I registered that this morning (no
don’t check, it won’t progate until 24-48 hours and there’s nothing
there anyway) to test the VDS with.

I didn’t have to, since there is after all a static IP assigned, but
I figured it would be fun to get. sixthseal.com is biblical in nature,
castitas.com goes into Latin and now pengsan.com, local! 🙂 I don’t
know what I’m going to do with that domain yet, but currently, I’m
going to use it to test the server with and store images for the time
being, and I’m looking to move castitas.com soon (it’s MUCH smaller
than sixthseal.com and thus more forgiving if I fuck up) and if all
goes well, sixthseal.com will be hosted at this new server.

Anyway, a VDS (or VPS) is basically a quasi dedicated server…it’s
not like shared hosting where everyone shares the system resources, OS
and everything. VPS/VDS solutions are more secure and for all intents
and purposes, it’s a dedicated server, minus the cost of one. 😉 The
custom package I wanted is bare bones – nothing installed except Debian
(a Linux distro). I chose that over Red Hat due to size considerations
and I have experience with apt get. Er…in uni labs anyway.

Thus, you manage your own account – you get root access and you can
install stuff and all that. It would be good practice, I haven’t been
around Unix/Linux for a while. Because it’s empty (except for the OS),
I’ll have to install everything myself so it won’t be up and running
immediately, but it’ll be fun and it’s a learning experience. Anyway,
once the account is setup, my first priority is to install and
configure Apache (HTTP server) and use it as an image server. I still
haven’t figured out what to do with my existing
accounts…sixthseal.com’s is expiring soon, but not that soon, so
probably will get more domains and do the funky domain dance to get
load balancing right.

I’ll get around to installing PHP and Perl modules later and set up
MySQL databases soon and the test blog will be up when that happens.
It’ll be much more versatile than shared hosting – you install what you
want and only what you want. I got one month first to test things out
and we’ll see how it goes. Thankfully this host (jvds.com) does allow
the content of castitas.com, and he’ll move me to Amsterdam if it
violates US laws, so yeah, I’ll have my own server to play around with
soon. Stay tuned…