I ate so much durians today I think I’m gonna be sick. 🙂 Mmm…durians.
Why is this man naked?
Spotted @ Jalan Bako, Sibu
Hmm…that’s a good question. I was out having lunch with a friend
when this old man sauntered up and peered at our food. I could see his
patch of pubic hair (it was grey if you want to know), which couldn’t
be covered by that miniscule piece of cloth he wound around himself. I
looked at him questioningly, and he turned away and walked to another
table. The view of his back showed that the piece of cloth was not
sufficient to cover his anus as well. In fact, it left it wide open (it
was black-ish, if you’re interested in the color). 🙂 Very strange guy,
he’s harmless but yet he disrupted the rest of the customers due to his
near nudity. Two families promptly got up and left the moment he came
by them. He was indifferent though, he just stood there and TOOK OFF
HIS CLOTH. I won’t go into details regarding his anatomy, but I could
see everything. He then wound the cloth around himself again and sat
down and ordered some food to eat. He was around 70 by the looks of
it…poor guy, I think he’s trying to make a fashion statement. That,
or he’s mentally deranged.
:)? :(? :| (Exam results)
I’m in a state of limbo here. I don’t know whether I should be happy
or sad so I’ll just be emotionally neutral for the time being. 🙂 I got
my exam results today:
CSE2203
IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Pass (56)
Hmm…at least I passed since I didn’t do well in the first unit test and the final exam. This is the same mark I expected [sixthseal.com] after I finished the exam. I wish I got a Credit though. Anyway, score one for my prediction.
Prediction: Credit
Actual: Credit
CSE3002
DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING SYSTEMS
Distinction (75)
Ah…just 5 more marks to a High Distinction. What a waste. 🙂 I expected to get only a Credit [sixthseal.com] after I did my exam, but I got a Distinction instead. Good.
Prediction: Credit
Actual: Distinction
CSE3153
NETWORK ADMINISTRATION
Withheld (WH)
WTF? Why did my results get withheld? I tried calling the lecturer
but the receptionist said that he’s away until Monday. Bummer…now I
don’t know whether I passed or failed this subject. I’m pretty sure I
did pass, I had expected a Credit [sixthseal.com], but this Withheld business has got me all worried and shit.
Prediction: Credit
Actual: Withheld
Melancholy, my bride
This was taken while driving this evening in a thunderstorm. The black thingy is the windscreen wiper.
It was absolutely pouring with rain when I was driving home this
evening. You just don’t get this kind of rain in Melbourne. It was a
fierce sort of rain, relentless and loud and making visibility near
zero. There were thunderstorms and lightning and what not and you’ll
get drenched in a second if you’re not under some sort of cover. I have
loved storms like this ever since I was in Form One. Form One – Form
Two were afternoon classes in my high school and it usually finishes by
either 5:45 pm or 6:25 pm. It would be getting dark by then and I used
to wish for heavy rain at the end of a Friday. I had to walk quite a
distance to wait for my mom to pick me up in front of a bakery and when
it rained, it was lovely to walk along the long stretch of road leading
to the bakery. It would be getting dark and the rain would be pouring
down, soaking my uniform and I’ll walk slowly and happily, savoring the
fact that there was a weekend ahead of me. I loved the feeling of rain
soaking me and getting me thoroughly wet. I think the combination of
dusk + rain gave the whole thing a melancholic tone, which I really
liked. That was one of my strongest memories of Form One (age 13).
Korean BBQ House
I went to the Korean BBQ House today with a couple of my buddies. We
had wanted to go to Shabu Shabu at first but it was totally full. Our
next choice was the Paramount buffet, but we saw that it only happens
in the weekends. Since the Korean BBQ House is right beside Paramount,
we went for that instead. There were four of us – Daniel, Ting Chuan,
Johnny and myself so we had the meat platter thingy. None of us have
been here before, it had only opened recently. This is the same place
that Vivien [blogspot.com] went to on Wednesday.
BBQ
Anyway, the meat platter was really nice, it had beef, lamb (mmm)
and chicken and it tasted really good. The meat was put in the middle
of the bbq platter and there was some chicken soup poured over it.
There was a small moat thing surrounding the platter to catch the soup.
The meat tasted really good, it was probably marinated well and the
resulting soup + meat drippings on the side of the platter was divine.
I imagine it had a lot of calories though.
Sinful
I also had this ABC special, they called it a BBQ special bowl or
something, I couldn’t remember. The bowl was huge and it had a scoop of
ice cream in it too. However, the best thing about this place is the
service. The service was excellent. There was a waitress
to pour the drinks, cook the meat and serve it, all with a smile. I was
pleasantly surprised at this level of service and I would have no
problems recommending this place to anyone.
Our waitress
Hmm…I just realised that we did have a group photo taken, but one
of the guys was partially cut off from the frame, so I’m not going to
post it.
Xany Xanax
Mmm…Xanax
I’ve always wanted to try Xanax coz the 2mg bars just looks so sexy.
Thus, I decided to go shopping for some Xanax today. It’s a relatively
short acting benzodiazepine. Xanax is the same drug that Noelle Bush
(the niece of the current United States president George Bush) was
arrested for because she tried to pass off a fraudulent prescription
[cnn.com]. The first pharmacy I went to regarded me with suspicion when
I asked for Xanax. They didn’t want to sell it without a prescription
and told me to get some at the clinic instead. I got a general feeling
of not being welcome the moment I mentioned Xanax.
The second pharmacy I went to was more accommodating. They didn’t
know what Xanax was and asked me to write down the name of a piece of
paper. I wrote down Xanax, Alzoram (the Malaysian generic brand name)
and Alprazolam (the chemical name). The old lady there asked his son to
read the paper and he instantly recognized Alprazolam. He told the old
lady it’s sleeping pills (?) asked where it’s kept.
She said they have some at the back and he went over to rummage
about under a cabinet. I was feeling hopeful at this point, I didn’t
even get asked for my prescription script. He didn’t find any at the
back and rummaged about some more in a box of Handiplast (the st
bandage). He came out with a stack of blister packs tied together with
a rubber band from the box of Handiplast. Don’t ask me why it was kept
there, I was puzzled too.
Xanax/alprazolam/0.25mg
The old lady asked me who the medication was for and I made up a
cock and bull story about doing an exhibition about benzodiazepines for
my university and I was going to stick one pill on a piece of manila
card. I don’t know if she actually believed that story (I had the
feeling she didn’t from the look on her face) but there was not
questions asked after that. I got the impression that this is a “no
questions asked” pharmacy if you catch my drift. The guy came back at
this point and asked me how many blister packs I wanted. I examined one
of the blister pack and saw that it’s brand name Xanax pills with each
tablet containing 0.25 mg of alprazolam. I was hoping that they carry
the beautiful 2 mg pills, but oh well, this will work perfectly well
too. There were 10 tablets in the blister pack, which comes to 2.5 mg.
I decided to just go for one blister pack and it was sold to me, for
RM7 (A$3.50). This is the brand name Xanax (alprazolam) marketed by
Upjohn pharmaceuticals (the old name, they have since merged with
Pharmacia). On a side note, I’ve read in the newspapers that being
caught with possession of Xanax pills without a prescription carries a
RM2000 fine and/or a 2 year jail. Someone who was caught with 24 pills
got that sentence recently. They were credited as “upjohn” pills
though, which further illustrates that mainstream journalism has their
heads planted firmly up their ass when reporting on technical or drug
issues. Upjohn is a pharmaceuticals company, not a drug name.
Upjohn 29/single score at back
Trip Report
Substance name: Alprazolam (Xanax)
Street names: Z-bars, bars, Upjohn (in Malaysia)
Dosage: 2.5 mg (10 x 0.25 mg) taken orally in a mixture of
powder, broken off bits and whole pills. The pills seem rather crumbly
and some broke into pieces as soon as I pressed it from the blister
pack. I do not have any tolerance to benzodiazepines.
Usual recreational dosage for people with no benzodiazepine tolerance: 1-2 mg
Pills: White oval pills with Upjohn 29 imprinted on one side and
a single score on the other side. The pills have beveled edges. Each
pill contains 0.25 mg of alprazolam. They come in a blister pack
containing 10 pills for a total of 2.5 mg, if you eat them all.
T+ 0:00
I took all 10 pills at 11:00 pm sharp. The pills are in a mixture of
powder, bits of tablets and whole tablets. This was because the pills
are either very brittle or this is old stock so they break easily. The
tablets tasted like powdered mint (without any hint of sweetness) at
first and very bitter when i washed it down with water.
T+ 0:05
noticed some clumsiness and a heaviness in the head and a general feeling of being mildly stoned only 5 minutes later (!!!)
T+ 0:08
a feeling of not being very sober, but i can’t put my finger on what
exactly gave me this feeling of non-sobriety. i just feel not very
sober. the medical term for this is derealisation i believe.
T+ 0:14
mild nausea. a feeling of numbness in my extremities, especially the
fingers, very much like the feeling you get when you’re starting to get
drunk. Heaviness of the head is present all throughout the time.
T+ 0:18
feeling a kind of “super enhanced sight”. its like i can see every
movement i make is in full frame and with a high framerate. don’t
really know how to explain it besides this. it feels like the start of
a LSD trip visually, everything looks enhanced, colors stand out etc,
but this is very mild. clumsiness did not get any worse. numbness in
extremities still present.
T+ 0:20
a mild euphoria. not like ecstasy euphoria but more like codeine
euphoria. aka stupid euphoria. 🙂 a better word will be contentment.
palms are feeling sweaty, which is peculiar for me since i seldom get
sweaty palms
T+ 0:22
pupils VERY dilated (?!?!?!) even in bright light. looking at myself in
the mirror feels wierd. uneven dilation. my left pupil is more dilated
than the right one.
T+ 0:30
feeling contented and relaxed. not much progression other than that.
feeling slightly disappointed due to high expectations. i’m more of a
fan of “fuck me up” drugs like LSD which provides cool visuals and
wierd trains of thoughts.
T+ 0:40
hmm…feeling slightly sleepy now.
T+ 0:43
er…i’m trying to fight this feeling of being sleepy. it’s getting stronger. heh.
T+ 0:50
i caught myself staring at a half eaten chocolate bar with a bit of
chocolate sticking out in an interesting manner. stop hypnotizing me
dammit.
T+ 1:00
yawn. i’m trying to keep an open mind but it seems that this is all
Xanax has to offer. a feeling of being (very) mildly drunk and
admittedly quite significant relaxation. not much euphoria to speak of.
valium (another benzodiazepine) provides much more euphoria compared to
this.
T+ 1:10
wtf? i feel myself returning to baseline already. baseline = normal (sober) state
T+ 1:15
i still felt slightly clumsy and my body feels heavier than usual when
walking. not much more numbness in the fingers and i’m still feeling
sleepy.
T+ 1:20
noticed some problems with memory. i dropped my cell phone to the floor
earlier and didn’t remember to retrieve it until 30 minutes later.
T+ 1:26
hehehe
walking arond in the dark with my arms swinging freaked me out
considerably. and i thought Xanax was supposed to be prescribed for
anxiety and panic attacks. =D
T+ 1:30
feeling close to baseline now. i suspect i’ll have a nice deep sleep later tonight too. 🙂
T+ 1:40
a nice afterglow can be felt. still feeling contended and happy.
walking still feels a bit strange, but nice. i just noticed that time
passes pretty damn fast on Xanax. i didn’t even notice that nearly 2
hours have passed since i took the pills. hmm…i wonder what i did in
those two hours since it didn’t felt like i did much at all. 🙂
T+ 2:20
i did another time jump. don’t ask me where the past 40 minutes went, coz i seriously don’t know. i wasn’t even doing anything.
Afternotes:
I don’t see the appeal in taking Xanax by itself. It’s basically just a
chill pill, and I’m not into this particular class of drugs. I can see
its value in helping with meth/coke/other stimulant comedowns, but when
taken on its own, it doesn’t have very much to offer. Possible good
combos will be Xanax + alcohol (be careful, a lot of deaths has been
attributed to this combination) and Xanax + cannabis (the sedative
effects will probably provide a nice synergy). Personally, I feel
Valium (diazepam) would be a much better alternative if you like
benzodiazepines. Valium actually gives pretty good euphoria when taken
in recreational doses. An interesting thing with Xanax is time seems to
go much faster. It’s almost as if time jumps forward. One minute you
look at the clock and it’s 2:15 am. You feel that only a minute has
passed but next time you look, the time is already 2:45 am and you’re
left scratching your head about what happened during the last 30
minutes coz you don’t remember doing anything at all. Huh? It happened
a lot of times during the trip too. Very bizarre.
Caution:
Being in possession of prescription drugs without a prescription could be against the law in your country.
Additional info site:
Always follow a doctor’s instructions when taking prescription medications like Xanax. Deviate from doctor’s orders and take more of the said drugs, and you might find yourself addicted to prescribed drugs in no time.
Going home for the holidays
That’s my trash. All of it. It’s amazing how much rubbish one can
accumulate in a semester. There are notices and newsletters slipped
under my door frequently, newspapers that I got before my commute and
inevitably ends up on the floor of my room and general food wrappings.
I had trouble fitting my stuff into luggages too and found out the bulk
of my stuff are CDR cases. Thus, I’ve moved all my CDRs to a spindle
and thrown away the bulky cases. Now everything is packed and ready to
go. I’ll be taking my computer offline soon to store away. My flight is
at 3:40 pm today and I’ll arrive in Sibu on Monday morning. It would be
nice to be home again. 🙂 Later folks!
“Waterfall bong bath” review
I bought this at Off Ya Tree for A$5. It’s supposed to be a bath for
bongs that will “neutralize all those nasty bong-water smells”. That
would be quite an impressive feat, so I got one to try it out.
Trial #1:
I emptied one cap full into my dirty bong water like the
instructions said and sloshed it around. The dirty bong water + bong
bath mixture did not froth much. There were very minimal air bubbles at
the water line.My bong was filled with the bong water from last night’s
session, and lets see how well this bong bath attacks it. I was
supposed to leave it there for 5 minutes and then clean it with a brush
and water. I forgot about it though and didn’t get around to it until
40 minutes later. The smell of the dirty bong water + bong bath was
particularly nasty. It smelled like the worst of the bong bath (kinda
musty and dull) and the worst of dirty bong water (all that charcoal-ly
ashtray smell). If you try really hard you could smell the mild perfume
of the bong bath, but it didn’t mask the bong smell much. I washed it
out with cold water and a brush, but the smell was still there. I had
to wash the bong again using my A$3.29 blast dishwashing liquid and it came out smelling like lemons.
Trial #2:
I emptied one cap-full into the dirty bong water from the night
before and shook the bong. I never get around to cleaning the bong
after a night’s session until the next night’s session. 🙂 Anyway, I
timed myself and left the mixture in for EXACTLY five minutes. I
figured the dismal results from Trial #1 was due to leaving the
mixture in too long. After the 5 minutes were up, I cleaned it again
with cold water and a brush. It did smell slightly better, but there was a musty tone to it, which doesn’t make it smell very nice. blast, on the other hand, makes it smell lemony fresh.
Verdict:
blast or any other dishwashing liquid would be cheaper and
produce better results. Waterfall Bong Bath is probably geared towards
the novelty market and simply doesn’t work as well as common
dishwashing liquid. Save your money, unless you want one for the
novelty of it.
Hmm…
Someone ate too much watermelon. I noticed a whole bunch of seeds in
the toilet today. At least I think it was seeds. I tried flushing it
twice, but the seeds just bounced around in the water turbulence and
the flushing only got about half of them each time.
EH!
I freaked myself out when I caught my own reflection in the mirror of a door.
