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Procession down Bukit Bintang (Nikon 5700)

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I’ve just taken photos of the parade (?) down Jalan Bukit Bintang
(caught it at Bintang Walk) with my new Nikon 5700. Yeah, I’ve finally
decided on that, managed to find a store selling it at RM 3100 (cash
only) or RM 3168 (with 2% credit card charge). It’s a graduation
present from my dad. Anyway, I can’t actually show you all the photos I
took of the parade because this Internet cafe is running Windows 98 so
it won’t detect a USB digicam connection and mount it as a new drive.

I didn’t bring the driver CD out and Nikon View supports a minimum
of Windows 98 SE (this cc is running the first edition) and I can’t
find the drivers on the Nikon site for the life of me. Anyway, that
long assed explaination is why I can’t post up the photos today. I can
do something a little unorthodox though…I’m using the webcam to
capture the digicam’s LCD screen during play, so that blurry photo
above is supposed to be of this guy wielding this very long stick with
Sharp Things on both ends while in a trance.

Anyway, I don’t know what’s going on, I just saw a lot of police and
Rela members to control the crowd and traffic while I was walking back,
and saw that there’s a procession going on. I got quite a few photos,
it’s like the procession that happens at Cheng Beng, where people piece
theirselves and walk down in a trance. I’ve always wondered if they
took anything…does anyone know? A deleriant perhaps, or a psychedelic
of some sort?

Well, I could only see two groups in the procession, Chinese and
Indian. The Chinese ones were mostly pierced across the cheek and they
wield all sorts of things like meat cleavers, saws, and all that and
walk around in a trance guided by the front person. The Indians had a
lot of limes on their bodies, and there’s this guy who was being hooked
by well, hooks and pulled by another guy. Lots of blood, very nice. The
procession puts the fun into photography, great event to break in the
digicam with.

Anyway, I can’t upload the photos today, so tomorrow it is then.
Well, regarding the Nikon 5700, I think it’s great – been thawing on
getting either this or the 5400 and finally decided to forgo portablity
(the 5400 fits in a pocket) for the additional 4x optical zoom (5700 is
8x optical). I could fit the 5700 in my pocket if I were wearing cargo
pants, but otherwise not, so I slinged it around me, that would
probably be the way I’ll be carrying it now.

Well, that’s it for today…going back to the hotel now. I’ll be
moving to another hotel near Petaling Street starting tomorrow. My
apologies for not being able to upload the photos, I hope the Petaling
Street Internet cafes would have a newer OS, because I’ve filled the 32
MB CF Card and most of the 128 MB one.

P/S – Jasmine, thanks for your SMS, I couldn’t reply because the cell phone didn’t save the message after viewing. Sorry!

I think I’m forgetting something but I don’t know exactly what…anyway, I’ll update tomorrow.

am pm ezone, Low Yat Plaza

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I’m currently eating a chicken sandwich and drinking peach tea at
AmPm ezone at Low Yat. It’s supposed to be the largest cybercafe in
Malaysia (it says so on the outside). Anyway, I dropped in to recharge
my cell phone battery again and I’ll be surfing around to read digicam
reviews later. am/pm ezone
[ampmezone.com] also has a phone beside each terminal and they allow
free local calls within the KL area. Interesting. Anyway, I was
supposed to go to Petaling Jaya today, but I called beforehand and
Nikon says they need 1-2 WEEKS just to give me a price quotation (that
time does not include repair), so I thought I’ll get another digicam
and leave my old one as a spare. That’s one reason I’m at Low Yat,
another is I’m getting the price lists for computer accessories.

I can’t get it today though, there’s too much luggage, so I plan to
come here sometime at the end of this week and get all the stuff I need
to assemble a box and put it at my new place first. The room I’m
renting is not vacated yet and won’t be until the 1st of September, but
I’m putting the bulky stuff over first, probably just chuck it in a
corner of the house or something. I won’t be having my own connection
on my own box until next month, but photos of stuff would be up
starting next week or maybe even earlier, going to get a digicam in
these few days.

I find myself reaching for a non-existant digicam in my pocket
everytime I see a scene that warrents a shot, but alas, my fingers are
always grasping at air. 🙂 Yeah, a digicam would be my first priority.
Thanks for all the price comparisons everyone, the cheapest price I
found for a Nikon 5700 is RM 3500 and that comes with a free 128 MB CF
Card. It’s not the RM 2800 I’m expecting, but it seems to be about as
good as it gets, considering most shops retails it at RM 3999.

Now that has got me thinking whether I should skimp on the box or
skimp on the digicam…probably the former. 🙂 The Nikon 5700 does give
me pause though, I tried to fit it into my pants pocket (which is where
my digicam usually goes) and it didn’t fit so well. There’s a
rather…hmm, disquieting bulge around the general area when I
put it in, so yeah, perhaps I should go for a more portable one,
although the 5700 seems to be a delicious morsel. The 5400 retails for
a bit less and it’s smaller, due to the 5700’s 6x zoom lens but they’re
basically the same.

Oh speaking of bulges, I can’t walk 10 meters in Bukit Bintang
without someone asking me “Eh, yau loi yan mou? Yau hou sang ga.”.
That’s “Hey, are you interested in girls? I have young ones.”. It seems
that the ah, adult entertainment industry is alive and well in BB,
perhaps prospering even, I don’t recall being prepositioned with such
frequency last time I stayed at BB. I usually don’t bother replying,
but this one time yesterday, just for shits and giggles, I replied
“Hmm…loi yan wo mou hen choi, nei yau feng tau yuen mo?” which
translates as “Well, I’m not interested in girls, do you have any
“ecstasy” pills?”.

Well, what transpired was rather interesting…the pimp (or
middleman to be polite) gave me a funny look and said “Wo lei to mai
loi yan ga, wo moi mai yeun” – “I sell girls here, not pills”. 🙂 I
guess you had to be there, it was kinda funny. It’s interesting though,
coz I thought the two businesses are somewhat interrelated in Malaysia.
I’m glad it’s not. Disclaimer: I was only asking for fun, I do not possess or consume any illicit drugs.

I digress too much, I should be looking at digicam reviews now. I
saw a couple of Sony models that looked okay, and the prices are cheap
for a 5 MP digicam, I’m not a big fan of Sony due to their proprietry
MS storage format, but I saw several new ones that accepts CF cards
too. Well, I’m off, gotta decide on a digicam soon. Thanks for the
suggestions everyone. 🙂

@ Internet, Bukit Bintang

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Greetings from @ Internet Services at Bukit Bintang. I had wanted to
get a PC upon arrival and hook it up with the hotel’s telephone system
for net access but I was too tired the first day (didn’t get any sleep
the night before coz I was packing) to shop for components. Anyway,
today is the second day and I was at a job interview from 3 (went
early, was scheduled at 3:30 pm) till 5:45 and now I’m at a net cafe in
BB to update. Well, not only to update, one of my cell phones require a
USB port to charge because I broke the original charger and got a USB
port phone charger coz my box was almost always on back in Melbourne. I
will miss that 10 Mbps connection.

Well yeah, so one of my phones have been running low on battery ever
since I arrived, so here I am today to borrow the net cafe’s USB port
for charging my cell phone. Oh yeah, I just got a KL Digi number too,
it’s 016 303 1371, so if you can’t reach me via 016 869 0110, call this
other one instead. I have no problems giving out my cell number since
they’re both prepaid ones. 🙂 Anyway, the KL number is easier to
remember if you think “13 to 1” (literally) as in “The odds are 13 to
1” in Chinese (Mandarin).

Anyway, regarding the interview, I guess it went okay, though I had
a bit of trouble with the ASP coding part coz I was more familiar with
ASP.NET and I misread the question and did in-code validation before
the database update. It seems like a great place to work at though,
it’s XM Expanded Media. They’re located at Kenaga International,
somewhere between Hotel Mutiara and Fitness First (a gym I saw on the
other side). It’s on the same road as Nouvo, if that helps. Not very
far from Bukit Bintang, I took a cab though.

Well, I’ll hear from them by Friday, so we’ll see how this interview
goes. I did mention that I run a weblog, which most career advice sites
do not advice, but I was asked about other interests in the interview
and I couldn’t think of anything besides digital photography. I did not
mention the site, but it doesn’t taka a genius to surf over,
considering I gave resume@sixthseal.com as my email address. It doesn’t
really matter anyway, because every email variation at the
sixthseal.com domain (except veritas) goes into the catch-all address,
me@sixthseal.com.

Speaking of veritas, I need to make it clear to everyone (again)
that there’s two people writing on this weblog – myself and veritas
(guest author) whos writing may not interest everyone but it is of
interest to a significant amount of people, including myself. Just a
disclaimer that not all posts in here are written under the ‘hbpoh’
nick, though veritas’s posts have photos that all have a
“sixthseal.com” text overlay and veritas’s writing and photos all fall
under the sixthseal.com intellectual property banner (as per his
wishes).

Well, I’ll be off to Petaling Jaya tomorrow, going to fix my digicam
at Nikon if the repair rates are reasonable or get a new one if they’re
not. I’m currently eyeing the Nikon 5700 and 5400, but they retail for
RM3999 here, while I was expecting somewhere along the lines of RM2800
from the US prices. I like Nikon because of their great macro
capabilities. I could take macro photos at 4 mm from the lens, a
feature I couldn’t find in most 3 – 4 MP digicams. I’m looking for a 4
– 5 MP one now though. Where’s the cheapest place to get a digicam in
KL? If there’re no retailers offering it at that price, I’m going to
get it online. Anyway, my cell phone is charged so off I go.

Oh, and since my old hard disk isn’t up yet, I don’t know if I got replied all the comments, coz I can’t check. My apologies.

It is raining.

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My apologies for the lack of updates in the last couple of days. I’ve been feeling rather down lately, but I’m fine. Thanks Grace
[pixelphobia.net]. 🙂 Well, I’ve just booked my tickets using AirAsia,
flying out on the 17th (this Sunday) at 10:05 AM and reaching KLIA at
11:55 AM. My sister would have been waiting for a couple of hours then,
she’s coming back from Christchurch (NZ) to do her electives, and my
dad has a meeting to attend and he’s going to arrive 1 hour before me,
so we’ll all be heading down from the airport together.

Well, I’ve been a bit busy lately, going to do MyKad tomorrow
morning, so I’ll have to wake up early, so yeah, my apologies if I’ve
been posting less these few days. I will reply all the comments and
mails in due time (probably tomorrow), so until I get my stuff
together, there might be a slight decrease in posts here. I’m going
over to KL for good, so my gf and her brother is getting the
accomodations part sorted out for me, I’m planning to live somewhere in
Medan Damansara (?). Anyway, sorry for the lack of postings and thanks
for reading! 🙂

New wardrobe

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I woke up in the evening to find strange men assembling a wardrobe
outside my room. I did not remember taking any drugs (well, any
psychedelics anyway ;)) so I concluded that someone bought a wardrobe
for me. Photo taken using a webcam, so excuse the quality.

Sibu, Sarawak is a microcosm

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Sibu, taboo, what makes drugs rhymes with “Sibu”? Removing link at
the request of the blog author, sorry to have caused you all that
trouble! Trimming the list while I’m at it and changes will be made to
make sixthseal.com back the way it was, since it’s heading into 1st of
July. Thanks for all your comments, I will reply them later tonight, I
still have work related stuff to do and I’m sick of being in Sibu,
Sarawak where people cannot see past their old ways.

Condemnant quod non intellegunt

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Readers from Sibu who came from a certain institute, which shall remain unnamed:
If you lack the linguistic capability in English to differentiate between the terms “guest author” and “main author“, then please do me a favor and Fuck Off!

sixthseal.com WILL NOT CENSOR itself! Fuck off if the contents (from either myself, or guest writer “veritas“)
bother you that much. You are not welcome here. However, it does feel
good to talk shit about someone doesn’t it? Sure gives you that rush of
“feel good” endorphins as you put on your “holier than thou” attitude
and go *whisper whisper*. Primates, trying to elevate your social
status by spreading rumors and gossip about another.

My apologies to the other readers, I will rant about this matter
some other time, I will need to consult with my lawyer (oh, wait, I
don’t have one on retainer – my law graduate friends then ;)) regarding
libel and scandal laws in Malaysia before proceeding with an
appropriate and feasible course of action.

You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and
then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Matthew 7:5 (New International Version)