sixthseal.com – Page 278 – Leading the wild into the ways of the man…

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…

US$ 10 Amazon Gift Certificate

November 19, 2003 by HB

I received a US$ 10 Amazon gift voucher from Brent, who runs The Weblog Review
[theweblogreview.com]. I’m not sure if I should be saying this since it
hasn’t been announced but it was supposed to be on Monday. *shrug*
Thanks Brent! I did not know about the contest until two days before it
closed and er…posted up a review that I did several days ago with a
link right on top. *cough* I figured that with the 1.3k visitors I get,
someone is bound to click on that link, and sure enough 42 people
clicked on the link when it was the first post.

I know, that’s not exactly ethical, but checks and balances were in
place – a reviewer cannot win first price (US$ 20), only second place
(US$ 10). I was told that I was actually the top referrer, but I write
for The Weblog Review and it was decided that it would be unfair for
others who does not have the liberty of posting up reviews to…well,
give hits a boost. I write once in a while, even though I committed to
one review per week, which reminds me…I need to write one tonight.

Gotta have drums…

Anyway, I’ve been eating nothing since this breakfast I grabbed this
morning. There was a stall that always was in front of the workplace,
but they weren’t open during the puasa month until today. Which reminds
me, thanks to Taryn I now get to run around the office and take photos
of people doing (client’s name) work and send it daily to Catharine,
the Creative Director. Yeah I can’t talk about work stuff or post any
photos because of the NDA I signed and the confidentiality agreement. I
just took a couple today, the first batch, but again, only for internal
use.

I just got back from the office not long ago, wanted to finish up
some stuff and I had the energy and mental clarity (hey, from caffeine
ok) so I reckon I would finish it up before going home. Also, I
couldn’t seem to drag myself off the seat and the thing I’m working on
is rather compulsive on coffee…I just had to finish it off, or else
I’ll never leave it alone. 😉 It’s like…hmm, you go down the list one
by one and you just have to finish everything, you can’t concentrate on
any other thing. Tweakers, you know what I’m talking about. Disclaimer:
That sentence should not be interpreted to mean that I myself ‘tweak’
in the classic sense as I was using that term for caffeine.

Thus, I won’t be sleeping tonight, there’s not much time left
anyway. I did get enough sleep yesterday, so yeah, will be up while I
write a review and maybe work getting another one of my “meth projects”
off the ground. Disclaimer: “Meth projects” is simply a metaphor for
the things I start (remember sixthseal.com mailbag? the autograph
project? and now this Black Kingdom chapter-a-day fiction) but don’t
finish, and is not an admission of any activities normally associated
with that term.

Well, more verbal diarrhea, it seems that there is some activity in
the search engine world (well, I only aim for Google) recently. I’m not
a hardcore SEO (Search Engine Optimizer) per se and it’ll be sad to see
the Malaysian blog scene start to care about PR (PageRank) and compete
for SERPs (Search Engine Results Page/Position). There are blogs out
that that will not link a lower PR site or one that has PR 0 or grey
barred because outbound links are essentially a ‘vote’ and will
contribute PR.

IMHO, that’s counter productive, especially in the blog scene. It
shouldn’t matter what PR a blog is, if you like it and read it daily,
then by all means link it. That’s what community is about…not linking
to get PR or to hog PR. Personally, I’ve never minded what PageRank a
page is before linking, everyone started with a low PR and get
“importance” from content or inbound links, which I like to call
“uplifting”. Read Davin Brin’s Uplift saga to get that.

Anyway, just in case you didn’t know, yeah I do a bit of SEO but
it’s mainly for SERPs. I’ve got a couple I’m proud of (particularly
this high ranking one in a high results (millions) keyword) and some I
don’t give two fucks about, and I’m glad to say that I dropped in the
latter but not the former. 🙂 I don’t even know when Googlebot crawled
nor do I have time for these things now but on an interesting note:

http://www.sixthseal.com
is PR 6
http://www.sixthseal.com/
is PR 5
http://sixthseal.com/
is a mere PR 3

I’m thinking about using Apache redirects at the .htaccess level to
consolidate PR but I don’t know whether Googlebot likes that or not.
I’m pretty sure the PR 6 is just Google flux anyway and I’ll be back to
PR 5 again soon. I publicize the site as “sixthseal.com” which would
get the browser to display the 3rd URL. However, inbound links are
mostly using the 2nd method, which is what I use to link internal pages
too. I don’t see the logic behind a PR 6 for the URL without the /
though.

Enough Search Engines 101, basically, I was surprised to see a PR 6
on the URL without the trailing / and was interested to see metafilters
topping me using my link (not PPS) and was happy to see that the SERPs
I hold dear are still there. If anyone is wondering what keywords I
target, wonder no more, it should be pretty obvious. I won’t be stating
them here, since they’re all er…chemically related.

Anyway, if you just skimmed through all that, you might get the
impression that I’m making two different stances. I’m not, I just meant
I personally do some optimization (but not hardcore ones, don’t have
time for that) but that doesn’t mean I care about the PR of blogs I
link and I don’t think anyone else should either. It would be sad to
see the blogging scene degenerate to a “Will I gain PR?” link policy.

Okay, it’s 2 am so I should stop talking now. I’ll write a review
and then reply the comments and write the nasi ayam post if I have time
left tonight and write another chapter of Black Kingdom in the unlikely
event that there’s any time left after all that. I’ll be back again
after writing a review for TWR.

You know, I found that talking about SEO issues during Google Dance always lowers my PageRank. Heh.

Bread Talk – the catalyst

November 17, 2003 by HB

The catalyst? Pork floss buns and other pastries my gf’s cousin
bought and left with my gf’s brother. I’ve become selfish, ungrateful
and inconsiderate. There you go…that’s how much I’ve degenerated. It
embaresses me, especially since my gf’s bro is the opposite of that. I
was less than willing to take 15 min out of my preciously limited
personal time to go and get something someone bought for us. And he
bought it up to us. Someone knock me upside the head and call me names,
I deserve it.

I want more time. But before that I really need to work on being
less self centered…it’s shocking how I get affected by work to let it
affect my personal relationships. I really want to be a better person
in this regards. There are only so many hours in a day. It can be
extended if you want, but you’ve gotta crash one day. What did I want
to do with this “personal time” anyway? Fuck this shit man, time with
close people should be personal time too…I must not let this happen
again. This is not who I want to be, this selfish, ungrateful and self
centered person.

Fuck this shit man…

November 17, 2003 by HB

I realize that I value my personal time a lot…and as it currently
stands, I have fuck all. I was about to make the chicken rice post,
re-sized all the photos and started uploading them. It’s 9 pm and I
haven’t eaten dinner and it’s such a small matter…we needed to walk
down and get some stuff. I was a little unwilling because it takes time
and time is something I don’t have with this job…I wake up at 6:30 am
if I want to catch the bus/LRT (and I have to if I want to live on my
1.5k salary) and by the time I get back (using LRT/bus again) it’s
usually 8:30 pm earliest, and usually it gets to be much later coz even
though official working hours is 8:30 am – 5:30 pm, sometimes we need
to stay back to finish up.

Which brings us back to the personal time question again. I have
none, not during work days. Just now, as we were about to eat, my gf
started being pissed off at me coz I was (admittedly) taking my work
stress out on her, grumbling about having to sacrifice even more
personal time to go out and she walked away without eating the stuff I
tapau and well…I must have had a lot of pent up anger coz I just blew
up on her…in front of all our housemates. I started enquiring (in a
volume that wasn’t suitable) about why she didn’t want to eat blah blah
blah and yeah…

I suck, it’s all this stress and nights without sleep and anxiety
about work security and the pressure to perform faster, stronger,
better than everyone else and the realization that I hate coming home
and having to go to sleep right away to get enough sleep, that or stay
up with assistance and weeks and months pass and you wonder where the
fuck your personal time went coz you sure as hell don’t remember shit.

I should not have taken it out on her, I’m such a terrible bf…I’m going to apologize now.

Fuck this shit man..all this even after 2 mg sublingual
lorazepam…I had wanted to talk about this to her too, about whether
working in KL is what I want and whether I would be more comfortable
working in a low paying but lots of free time ie teaching in a school
but fuck it, forget it, back to the daily grind.

Well then…this is quite a personal post isn’t it? Now, I’ll sit
here and wait for the masturbatory “oh, you just haven’t gotten used to
working life” comments to come in. See! Now I’m taking it out on my
readers…

Anita Sarawak film set photos

November 16, 2003 by HB

I saw some people filming a local production at Jalan Gereja this
morning as we were heading to mass. It seemed to be a low budget film,
considering the lack of road cordons, security or high end film
equipment so I just took a couple of shots and then went to church.
Anyway, after mass, we walked pass the set again and Richard noticed
that one of the cast is Anita Sarawak.

Remember her? She’s the local artist that was popular many years
ago, and she’s looking relatively young for her age. She was there with
her Caucasian husband. I don’t know much about her, this is what the
others told me. I don’t know what this film is titled, but Anita
Sarawak was getting out of Land Rover and there was also a scene
involving a mini that the guys had to push back and forth after failed
scenes.

Here’s a photo of Anita Sarawak beside her husband and some other
cast members. She was only there for a short time before leaving, and I
took this photo as we walked past (there are no cordons or anything):

Anita Sarawak is the one with the bleached hair.

Brain Tofu

November 15, 2003 by HB

Tofu brain.

The picture above shows what my brain has become. Rows of rows of
smooth tofu. Taufu lembut replacing my grey matter. I need at least 40
hours of solid, uninterrupted sleep to recover, but there’s not enough
time. My mental faculties did not escape this week totally unscathed
and I’m about to fall asleep right now. It feels like there’s a void
inside my skull where my brain once was. It’s Saturday morning and I
haven’t had felt this bad in a very long time. 🙂

There’s stuff to do tomorrow…I mean, later today. Ah fuck, I don’t
even know what to write. I tried writing a review and tried doing a bit
of work that I took home to do over the weekend but I can’t think.
Paleolitik 35,000 Mesolitik 25,000 Besi dan Gangsa 2,500. That’s what I
mentally recite during certain periods when my mind doesn’t want to
play nice. I don’t know if the times or spelling is correct it’s just
something I repeat in my brain. It’s from Form 1 Sejarah (History).

I want to eat but I can’t move. I can sleep (with help) but it won’t
be enough. Excuse this post. I will update tomorrow with the really
long due chicken rice post, which would be much less depressing, I
promise. 🙂 I will go to sleep now.

Paleolitik 35,000. Mesolitik 25,000. Besi dan Gangsa 2,500.

I still have this at least.

My apologies for not being able to reply the comments today. Thanks
for putting up with my sporadic updates and lack of feedback. I will
sort things out after sleeping. Meh, I’ve had worse. Everything is
fine. 🙂

Black Kingdom: Chapter 2 – A Brave New World

November 13, 2003 by HB

a brave new world

I didn’t know what lead to it, but the four of us started to walk
together and talk like old friends, joking around and everything. The
events during the school sports day started to bore us, so Ah Boon
suggested that we head off to smoke. Smoking! It was unheard of in my
limited social circle, which consisted mostly of “good” people, when I
was back home. I was apprehensive but attracted as well so I went along
even though I haven’t started smoking then. I was interested to try
though, but parental conditioning made me turn down the offer of
cigarettes by Ah Boon.

I was only 15 at that time as my birthday had not passed yet. I
still remember what I asked when Ah Boon, Tom, Aaron and Chen lighted
up. I said, aren’t you worried about lung cancer? Boon had a strange
answer – he didn’t mind dying early as long as it’s an enjoyable life
and smoking is one of life’s greater pleasures. I even remember what
everyone smokes – Ah Boon favors Dunhills but would go with Mild
Sevens. Tom would only smoke Dunhills or this Japanese brand of
cigarette that has one word – “kaze” for wind in the front. Aaron on
the other hand doesn’t care for anything except Davidoffs.

We walked around Church Corner, where my house and the high school
is located. There is dairy shop right there that has this dodgy looking
but nice guy who sells cigarettes and adult magazines to anyone, even
if you’re in school uniform. 🙂 It’s not your run of the mill Playboy
and Penthouse magazines, he carries the hardcore mags too, and always
wraps it in a black bag when selling to minors. Heh. The legal age to
purchase cigarettes was 16 at that time in New Zealand, but 1996 also
saw a legislation change that made the age limit 18 instead of 16.

I remember a funny incident that happened during the day of the
legislation change. I had started smoking later, and there was a very
strict but nearer dairy opposite my shop. I was unable to purchase
cigarettes till the day I turned 16, and I proudly displayed my Student
ID as prove of age and bought a pack of cigarettes…and the law
changed a scant week later, to which the strict but near dairy owner
went “Hah! I know you can’t be 18 coz you just turned 16 a week ago! No
cigarettes to minors.”.

That forced me to walk to the further but lenient dairy at church
corner. The four of us hung out once in a while, mostly in school, but
I was still going out more frequently with Sam and the others then.
Besides the drama production practice, we sometimes go to this youth
group, which is an interesting mix of half innocent kids and half not
so innocent teenagers. Cannabis was a common drug then, one tinny
(foil) goes for NZ$ 20 and it has about 1 gram or so of weed.

However, I have still not smoked nor taken any drugs at that point.
A lot of my friends are users (on Sam’s side), but I had read that
drugs are bad mmmkay, so I just passed the joint along whenever someone
has weed, which is quite frequent. The availability of cannabis and LSD
was to high school students was surprising. I was interested in
chemical and plant substances due to reading a lot about it and wanting
personal experience, but I was still not comfortable about even smoking
weed then.

My first cigarette was at this all nighter youth group function
where several vans full of people went Go Kart racing, then adjourned
to an indoor water park, before going to a laser tag game and then a
ball at some far away horticulture place before ending the night with
two back to back movies. I remember one of the movies I watched was
Mars Attacks! It was an all day till the next morning event, and it was
during the ball that I first started smoking.

There was this girl chain smoking the whole night, even making the
driver make stops to buy more cigarettes. Everyone calls her Kitty.
She’s from my school as well, but one year younger than me and I
remember Abba’s Dancing Queen playing during the ball and I was
standing beside her and she asked me if I wanted a smoke. I thought
about it and reckoned that since I was interested to try, now is a good
time as any.

We shared a cigarette and she laughed at my inability to inhale. 🙂
She taught me how to properly smoke a cigarette, not just holding the
smoke in the mouth and exhaling, but chasing the smoke down with
another intake of breath so it gets into your lungs. I wouldn’t say
that I liked the taste of tobacco, but it was a memorable experience
and the song that played during that time still reminds me of that day.

End of Black Kingdom: Chapter 2 – A Brave New World

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