Fansign from Stephlee @ Egg Yolk

I love storybooks, dragonfruits and sixthseal.com!

Stephlee :)

Fansigns [blogspot.com].

Stephlee of Egg Yolk [blogspot.com] mailed me a fansign just now. Thanks! This is only the second time someone's send me one. It's really appreciated! :)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 09:51 PM Permalink | Comments (14)

Buying drugs in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia

Note: This is a post by veritas [sixthseal.com], a guest author of sixthseal.com. veritas is not related to the main author and owner of the sixthseal.com domain.

Methamphetamine shards in front of a blue background.

My contacts:
Mr. Pimp - methamphetamine crystals
Category III girl - "Ecstasy" pills

Methamphetamine

(ice, shabu, meth)

Meth is plentiful and cheap in Malaysia due to the proximity to source countries. Not as cheap as our neighbor to the east, but cheaper than Australia. Most methamphetamine comes in crystal form (shards). There are meth pills of course, sold as "feng tau" pills, but IMHO that is really not worth it if you're after meth. Regional street names vary, the usual ones is "ping" (Chinese for "ice"), ice and syabu. Ask for it by the drug's slang, asking for methamphetamine would only get you a blank stare from most drug dealers. :) I will be relating a story of how I got my contact for meth later.

The easiest place to score meth pills ("Ecstasy") are in discos, not the pretentious clubs where people drink and fuck, but the ones where Ah Bengs go. There is a notorious one in KL as oops mentioned. I will not be repeating it, browse the archives. However, I suggest getting crystal meth instead, it's better value for money. I will not divulge where I got mine, so please do not email me about it, there will be hints if you read through the post, but be discreet and don't mention it in the comments! Anyway, meth pills (not to be confused with crystals) are quoted as RM 60, which I thought is a ludicrous price. The person also sells ketamine and what she claims are MDMA pills, all for the same price.

Pre-packed methamphetamine crystals.

That's not what we're talking about though, RM 60 per pill is something I'm not willing to pay unless it's MDMA. Methamphetamine crystals on the other hand, ah, now that's what I'm talking about. :) Anyway, it's not very hard to find sources for drugs, just don't look like a narc or wear a jersey with NTV 7 - EDISI SIASAT on it. I get a lot of emails asking me for drugs, sorry I don't reply those, I don't deal in Malaysia (gantung mati) and even possession would put me in the slammer a long time.

Anyway, if you're new in town and you're looking for someone to hook you up, I suggest the following (in descending order):

Notorious areas of town (watch out for undercovers)
Discos (expensive)
Gangsters types (look out for real players, not the all talk, no goods type)
University (ask around, but watch out for all talk, no goods too)
Workplace (very dangerous, it can be damaging to the career)

Once you find a reliable contact, I suggest giving them a small tip and ask for their contact number. It's not that hard, drugs are everywhere, ask around and you'll get there sooner or later.

Meth taken in front of a red background.

Methamphetamine contact: Mr. Pimp
Nickname: He is one.
Haunt: There are only two prostitution hotspots, it's one of them.
Favorite Quote: "Yau nu hai zhi ma?" ("Do you want any girls?")
My reply: "Wo wan yau de, mei you wan nu hai zhi." ("I'm interested in drugs, not girls")

This guy doesn't sell drugs himself, his "stash" consists of females all aged under 20. However, he has a friend who sells methamphetamine only. I approached him because he wasn't doing anything at that time, so I thought I would strike up a conversation.

(original conversation in Mandarin, translated into English)
Me: Eh, do you know where I get any feng tau ("Ecstasy") pills.
Mr. Pimp: Feng tau yuen ah...I don't sell any, hey wait.
He calls for his friend who was standing 20 meters away.
Mr. Pimp: (name deleted), he's looking for feng tau pills, do you have any?
Meth Man: Feng tau ah...better get it at discos, I don't stock that.
Me: What do you have?
Meth Man: I have ice, it's not on me though, I'll have to get it from there.
He points to a building 100 meters away.
Me: How much?
Meth Man: RM 100
Me: How much is that? Do you sell by the weight or what?
Meth Man: It's a packet, I don't know how much it weights, but it's standard, it's this big.
He makes a narrow rectangle in his hands.
Me: How long would it take?
Meth Man: Oh, it'll be quick. I'll have to get the money off you first though.
I'm wary at this point - Meth Man might pull a Houdini.
Me: I'll pay you when you get back.
Meth Man: Don't worry, he'll (Mr. Pimp) be here with you, so I won't run away with your money or anything.
I'm still wary at this point - the old switcharoo trick where the guy stays with you for a while and then runs off on an emergency, but I thought it was worth the risk if it's the amount he says it is. I hand him RM 100.
Mr. Pimp: Right, he'll be back soon. Let's wait over there.
He points to a carpark nearby.
Mr. Pimp: Lots of police around.
Me: Yeah! I noticed two every 100 meters. Dangerous place to score.
Mr. Pimp: Well, I've been working here 3 years, it is dangerous, but usually they don't bother us. You know, I've seen you before, walking around here.
Me: Yes, I work near here.
Mr. Pimp: I see. Yeah, noticed that you never seemed to be interested in girls.
Me: Yeah, I'm more interested in drugs. It's my hobby, don't do it often now though.
Mr. Pimp: I give my girls ice sometimes, it helps them concentrate on their work.
He's being very friendly and chatty, I'm getting suspicious at this time, since it's been 5 minutes and Meth Man is not back yet. Anyway, I thought I'll make small talk and ask him about his line of work, always interesting to hear inside information.
Me: I see. How is business here? I notice every person seems to have a block for soliciting.
Mr. Pimp: Yeah, we all have an agreement. These car park attendants, I've got an agreement with them too. Are you interested in girls? My girls are all under 20.
Me: No thanks, but under 20??? Are they students or what?
Mr. Pimp: Not all of them. Most of them are shop salesgirls, they do part time work. I have some students as well, that's mostly freelance. Everyone is under 20, I've even got 16 year olds.
Me: Interesting. Isn't that a bit young?
Mr. Pimp: Well, those come from broken families, you know the drill.
Me: There's a lot of police activity here though, is it safe?
I'm actually scared of standing next to a known pimp, people might pass by and think I'm soliciting or police might notice me and do a search.
Mr. Pimp: It would be okay here at this car park...so what are you doing? Working did you say?
Me: Yeah, I work around here.
Mr. Pimp: I see. So what do you work as?
Me: (deleted)
Mr. Pimp: Oh, you earn a lot in that line of work right?
Me: Nah, I just graduated, so my pay is low.
Mr. Pimp: Okay, if you're interested, I can get you a really good looking girl for a discount. Package for RM 200.
Me: Er...no thanks, but it would be great if I could contact you whenever I want ice.
Mr. Pimp: Sure, I'll be happy to do that, just drop by whenever you want any.
Me: Thanks! So, how is business?
Mr. Pimp: It's okay, I have a lot of girls - from Thailand, China, India, Russia, Malays, locals, and I specialize in the young ones.
Me: I see. How does it work?
Mr. Pimp: Well, whenever a customer comes, I'll call the girl he's interested in and he can go up and see for himself. If he's not satisfied, then he can choose another girl. We have agreements with several hotels around here, the girls are in the rooms.
Me: Very enlightening. Good looking girls?
Mr. Pimp: Definitely! For this price, of course the customers get a great looking girl. Interested? I'll give you a discount.
He grins widely.
Me: Well, I don't go into this scene, I'm not interested. But it would be great if I can get other drugs off you. Do you have grass? Or just anything.
Mr. Pimp: Hmm...grass is hard to get in KL nowadays.
So it's true - there is a draught.
Mr. Pimp: My friend, the one that just left, has ice and that's it. I suggest you go to discos and ask for pills, they all have people selling inside. Try going at 2-3 am, that's when it's most packed, that's the easiest place to get pills. After all you'll be going to discos anyway when you take pills right?
Me: Not always, I usually use ice to concentrate. I love the stuff, I've not have it for quite a while now, I'm actually cutting down on my use.
Mr. Pimp: Yeah, I see lots of people getting addicted. It's not pretty. I have a friend who had a heart attack and died when he smoked too much. Do you smoke it?
Most people smoke methamphetamine crystals in Malaysia. It seems to be the most common route of administration - smoking using a light bulb (ghetto meth glass pipe).
Me: Nah, I insufflate.
Mr. Pimp: Really? Does it work that way?
Me: Yeah, I prefer snorting, smoking it gives me a really scattered comedown.
Mr. Pimp: I see. That's interesting, I didn't know you could take ice that way. Is that better than smoking? The feeling.
Me: I can't say, everyone is different, but it's better than eating, there's a rush too, but it's not as intense as smoking or IV but the high lasts longer.
Mr. Pimp: Wah, you've injected ice before?
Me: Just a couple of times, I studied in Australia, we get clean needles and injecting equiptment there. Just need to walk into a pharmacy.
Mr. Pimp: Really??? You can buy needles just like that?
Me: Yeah, the laws are different.
At this point, I see Meth Man approaching. Anyway, Mr. Pimp seems to be a nice guy, he just stood there chatting with me, neglecting his duties of soliciting passer bys, so I tipped him.
Me: Here, thanks for getting the stuff for me, sorry I don't have much, I only have RM 3 left.
I actually only have RM 4 but 4 is a bad number for most Asians.
Mr. Pimp: Hey thanks, you didn't have to do that.
I'm surprised a person in KL actually said "Thanks".
Me: No problem, I'll just come over when I want more ice, is that cool?
Mr. Pimp: Sure, here's my number, you can call me if I'm not around here.
Me: Great, thanks!
Meth Man arrives.
Meth Man: Here, be careful with this.
Meth Man slips me a package discreetly.
Me: Thanks.
I'm not really interested in dealing directly with Meth Man. He's a little...er, burnt out, he looks that way anyway and my hypochondriac tendencies warns me to avoid any unnecessary contact with him, lest I catch anything.
Mr. Pimp: Alright, take care and don't run around, there's heaps of cops here. Be careful.
Don't run around = "bu yau shui bien luan pau".
Me: Yeah, I'm heading home. I'll see you around.

Note: "Ice" in Malaysia does not refer to 4-MAR but methamphetamine crystals.

I didn't want to inspect the package since the place has heavy traffic, plus you never know when one of those damned Edisi Siasat people are filming. Not all publicity is good publicity, you don't want to be on NTV7. Edisi Siasat is an expose TV show who avoids violating privacy laws by "censoring" the people involved. Photography and filming in public places is protected by law but NOT when it's for profit, so they mosaic it out. Very funny. Anything for ratings.

It originally came wrapped in a dirty magazine paper.

Anyway, I went to a public toilet and looked at the package. It was wrapped in a dirty magazine cover, which I promptly flushed. The actual package is surprising.

The contents of the package. It's an ironic touch that the magazine has an ad for Colgate toothpaste. Heh. Anyway, for people not involved in the scene and didn't get it, it's funny coz meth use tends to decrease saliva output and that manifests itself with tooth decay.

It's SEALED! A very nice and appreciated professional touch, the plastic is heated so it isn't exposed to the atmosphere. It's nice for hygiene reasons and methamphetamine is hydroscopic too (absorbs moisture from the air) so that is very nice indeed. It is crystals, crushed shards, but I wasn't sure whether it was methamphetamine or some other lookalike...until today.

Inside the wrapper is a sealed package with pre-measured amounts of meth. Very nice.

I opened up the package (needs scissors), racked up a line, rolled up a new RM 50 bill and insufflated. It burnt quite badly going up...waiting, 2 minutes later - THE RUSH. =D Fuck, it's good stuff - meth shards, no cuts visible to the naked eye and the amounts needed to get me nicely tweaking was sufficiently small, so I dare say it's pure uncut crystal meth, even after taking into account my loss of tolerance. Quality methamphetamine for a very reasonable price!

Here's a closer look at one end of the sealed package.

This is the other sealed (by heat) end.

I don't know how much it weights since I don't have a microgram scale, but eyeballed, it seems to be 200 mg - 300 mg. Anyway, a note for Australian visitors, meth is cheap in Malaysia coz of it's proximity to source countries. I took some of the photos in the toilet, so excuse the quality, it's hard to do that in a WC you know. Well, the above was not taken in the toilet, but it still didn't focus well. How much methamphetamine is in one of this "standard" RM 100 packages? It's pictured next to a 50 cent (Malaysian) coin in the photo below.

Mmm...methamphetamine. :)

Caution! Methamphetamine is illegal in Malaysia and long jail terms awaits if you're found in possession of it. The fury of the Malaysian drug laws would also get you if urine tests finds that you have consumed meth. The events depicted in this post happened some time ago, and methamphetamine only takes 2 - 3 days for normal people to excrete itself from the body. I will not test up for methamphetamine, I politely suggest putting more resources into the investigation of violent crime instead of apprehending harmless recreational drug users.

Sealed for your convenience. ;)

"Ecstasy" (feng tau) pills contact: Category III girl
Nickname: She thought I was after X rated movies when I asked her for pills the first time.
Haunt: "Pirated" CD/CD-ROM/DVD shop
Favorite Quote: "Wah, this guy speak English one."
My reply: "Eh, you didn't seem to understand when I speak in Chinese."

The darnest thing I've ever seen. A girl who sells pills on the side while working at a pirated CD/CD-ROM/DVD shop. I just asked because I overheard her talking to another person with obvious allusions to drugs. I decided to ask if she has any "Ecstasy" pills.

(original conversation is a mix of English, Chinese and Bahasa Malaysia)
Me: Hello, do you happen to know where I can get some pills?
Category III girl: Wah, this guy speak English one.
Me: Eh, you didn't seem to understand when I speak in Chinese.
Category III girl: Heh, I was just kidding. What did you say?
Me: Ecstasy pills, do you know anyone who has any?
Category III girl: XTC?
She whispers to another guy. The guy nods and points outside.
Category III girl: Yeah, we have them outside.
Me: Really??? What kinds do you have? What's the imprint? The logo I mean.
Category III girl: Oh we have lots, what do you want?
Me: Depends, can I see the things?
Category III girl: Sure, they're RM 8 each.
Me: RM 8? You've gotta be kidding me! Are you sure?
Category III girl: (puzzled look) Yeah, that's what they usually sell for.
Me: Amazing! I'll love to get some.
Category III girl: Okay, it's outside.
Me: Where? Can you bring it inside?
Category III girl: Sure, I'll bring the folder. Wait ya.
The folder?!?! I'm astounded at the size of this operation!
Category III girl: Here you go.
She passes me a folder with X rated film covers.
Me: Hmm...where are the pills?
Category III girl: What pills?
Me: Ecstasy pills!
Category III girl: What??? I thought you wanted X rated movies. Alamak. Wait ah.
She whispers to another guy.
The guy points to another guy.
She whispers to that other guy.
Category III girl: Yeah, we have 4 kinds, one's a green "UC"...
Me: A green CU???
Category III girl: No, a "UC". And there's this black one and this blue one as well.
Me: They don't happen to be RM 8 do they?
I grin at her.
Category III girl: Heh, of course not lah. It costs RM 60.
Me: That's very expensive lar...what kind of pills are they? Meth or ketamine?
Category III girl: Huh? I don't know lah. It just gets you high.
Me: Right, can you sleep on these pills?
Category III girl: Nope, these are the can't sleep ones.
That's a meth(amphetamine) pill.
Me: Well, do you have the ones that you can sleep on?
Category III girl: You want Happy 5 is it?
That's the benzodiazepine called nimetazepam.
Me: No, no. I'm looking for pills that makes you hard to move, the ones that lasts about an hour only?
I'm describing ketamine pills.
Category III girl: Oh, those, we have that too, but not very popular lah, these pills.
Me: How much are they then?
Category III girl: Also RM 60. You want to see it?
She shows me the pill - it's a brownish pill with "XO" imprinted on it. I didn't want to pay RM 60 for a pill though, so I declined.
Me: You don't have anything else?
Category III girl: Well, I think got new stock coming in next month lah. I give you my number, you can call me or find me here.
Me: Okay, thanks.

Pills for RM 60! What an exorbitant price...RM 60 is plenty cheap for MDMA though, but I don't think these pills are MDMA. I forgot the logo of the others, only the colors, damn benzos. Does anyone know what pills are going around at the moment? I'm interested in MDMA pills or ketamine pills, not methamphetamine pills. The black pill is very interesting, but I didn't want to part with RM 60 for what sounds like a meth pill. I curse myself for not bringing my EZ-Test X-treme Kit back. Oops, do you know if JB pills come up to KL? Or does KL have different imprints? Anyone familiar with the import scene? Also I would be interested in hearing about pills with less than conventional chemicals like PCP. Thanks!

Insufflating with dollar bills like in the movies is not hygienic practice! Circumstances dictate I had to resort to use this (there's never a straw when you need one), but I take comfort in the fact the RM 50 note is new. Don't do it though, money is dirty.

CT, could you save up an Orange 3 for me? Sounds like fucking legendary pills!

Disclaimer: sixthseal.com is not responsible for what you do, this is just a post intended to reduce the amount of source requests. It is very important to remember that DRUGS ARE VERY ILLEGAL IN MALAYSIA! I suggest buying small amounts (is the bulk buy discount worth the risk of stashing it?) and consume it within the day. I do not possess any drugs. I am not condoning drug use. I am not the owner of this domain! I am a guest author and this article should not be taken as an admission of drug use. Malaysian law is very harsh on users - watch yourself and take care.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 07:57 PM Permalink | Comments (19)

XM Malaysia Annual Bowling Competition 2003

XM has a bowling competition every year. I just came in time for this years - it was held at Flamingo Bowl @ Institut Flamingo (near Hotel Flamingo in Ampang) on the 28th of August 2003.

The bowling started at 8 pm so a couple of us headed there first to get some food (it's in one of the posts below) before going to Hotel Flamingo.

From left: Huai Bin (me), Chia, Wai Hing, Mandy, Vijay, Kelvin, Nita and her daughter. Not everyone was in the shot.

I was assigned to Vijay's team. Pictured above is a group shot before the session.

There was a team with their own custom shirts - Team To-Fu, the elite bowlers of XM.

Here's a shot of the logo from Azli's shirt.

This is the team I'm in.

Team To-Fu.

There are several teams, it's a company wide event.

Another one of my team.

He's got bigger balls than yours. ;)

I think we took up 5-6 lanes.

From left: Huai Bin (me), Mandy, Wai Hing, Vijay, Kelvin, Chia.

Here's another shot of our team - after the session. I went back earlier because I had some stuff to do before sleeping.

I think it's the first time I've been to Ampang.

Posted in XM Malaysia by Huai Bin at 08:18 AM Permalink | Comments (3)

KL Plaza @ 7:10 pm, 29th August 2003

Yeah, I was at the Digi MMS Roadshow. More photos tomorrow, I'm too tired today...was at the office until 6:30 pm and I only got back at 9:45 pm...Merdeka Day tomorrow = lots of roads blocked and traffic jams = taxis charging RM 20 just to send me back. I have to go to work again tomorrow, got some bits of work to finish to help out the Hotlink team. I will try to reply as many comments as I can before I fall asleep. There will be a MASSIVE update tomorrow, with posts from both me and veritas, but don't go refreshing, it's only going to be up after midnight, my host changed their policy, I'm paying for bandwidth through my ears...biggest referrers are of course Erowid (the bible for recreational drug users ;)) and Google, sending in around 5000 uniques each month.

Oh right, my new cell number is 016 204 6669. I'm not using the 016 303 1371 anymore. I wanted 6666 actually, that's easier to remember, but of course a number like that would be snapped up early. I was wondering whether to take 6660 or 6669 and settled for the later. It's not that hard to remember, only three digits - 204 and just think SIXTHseal.com and you've got 666 and then a 9, think of it as 69 if you want. :p A policeman won't come walking upside down. I'm so unfunny, I kill myself sometimes.

Recap:
My active cell phone numbers - 016 869 0110 (Sibu, Sarawak) and 016 204 6669 (KL). Please don't call the other one, I'm not using that anymore.

I will register a new domain and get hosting for veritas posts and move all of the drug posts there, that attracts the most visitors. That would work out to be much cheaper. I'm approaching 10 GB bandwidth this month, please don't make it 11 GB or God forbid, 12 GB. I pay US$ 5 for each GB you know. This is not a free site. I'm sorry for having to say this, but there's just two more days, please exercise judicious use of the F5 key. Thanks! :)

Any suggestions for a good domain name? veritas.com is taken by a huge software company, that's not an option. I want a fast server, not one of those slow assed hosting companies who chuck hundreds of site together. My host is fast, I may open another account for them, but their bandwidth charges...alamak. I need about 500 MB of space and 1 GB of bandwidth. Any good hosts (reliable, no less than 99.9% downtime) to recommend?

Posted in by Huai Bin at 01:45 AM Permalink | Comments (38)

I have to use the lifts to take a piss...

I was confronted by this sign and a locked door in the male toilets of 16th floor Kenanga International (where XM is)...I got my digicam and went to take a photo of it and then this guy came along and looked at me one kind. Heh. I told him the toilet is locked so he'll have to go down to the 15th floor to relieve himself.

Here's a photo of the 15th floor toilet:

A leaking roof...dripping what is very possibly water from the toilet bowl upstairs. It flowed down the mirror and dripped dripped dripped into the sink, where my hands were. Right...

Incidentally, I saw the very same guy who gave me another strange look but didn't say anything. Perhaps toilets and digicams don't mix.

Anyway, I've got stuff to do so bowling photos will be up tonight ok? I'm supposed to be working now, so comments would be replied sporadically starting from now when I take breaks. Thanks!

Posted in by Huai Bin at 02:25 PM Permalink | Comments (5)

Restoran Hameed Ali @ Ampang (Pre-XM Bowling Competition)

A bunch of us programmers left at about 6 pm yesterday and grabbed some dinner before going to the bowling center. We ate at Restaurant Hameed Ali (pictured above). It's somewhere in Ampang...near Ampang Point if I recall correctly.

There's this interesting thing that I've never seen before...they have pre-packed nasi lemak in paper on the tables! It looks like every table has a plate in the middle with about 5 nasi lemak packs. It's like the way small towns in Sarawak are with eggs - they put boiled eggs on the each table. Interesting. That's what all of us ate anyway, except Chia who had another roti telur. He picked up the bill, thanks!

Here's a group shot - from left: Kok Sing (partially hidden), Giat Yeng, Huai Bin (me), Wang and Chia. One of the people working at the restaurant took the photo, so my apologies for the blurry and partially cut off shot. Most people tend to press hard on the shutter release (which causes the image to blur).

Anyway, I'll update with the actual bowling photos during lunch, I'm just taking a short break from work. Will reply all comments during lunch hour. :)

Posted in XM Malaysia by Huai Bin at 11:02 AM Permalink | Comments (20)

The ATM fiasco

I keep my Commonwealth Bank (Australia) bank ATM card in my wallet - it's still valid, the account still has money inside, but that's not the point. I USED IT TO WITHDRAW CASH FROM A MALAYSIAN ATM MACHINE! I don't even know how that's possible and the conversion rates + service charges must be really something. I shouldn't even be keeping it in my wallet, but I'm going back to Melbourne at the end of the year for my convo and so I keep it around. I have a Public Bank (Malaysia) ATM card, that's what I use here, but I don't know what I was thinking at that time...for some reason I just inserted the Commonwealth Bank card instead of the Public Bank one. Blur like what...

Anyway, I was about to go out with my co-workers for lunch, but suddenly remembered I have hosting and billing issues to settle so I headed back and got lunch downstairs instead and ate at the office in front of my workstation. It's currently empty except for me and two other programmers. That's steamed rice with chilli prawns, chicken stomach in sweet sauce and some kind of vegetable. Excuse me, after lunch coma...

Oh right, we have an inter-department bowling session at 8 pm tonight, so I don't know if I'll be updating later. Take it easy on the bandwidth guys. ;)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 01:23 PM Permalink | Comments (10)

You guys are killing me

I just got a Western Union money transfer totalling RM 153 for excess bandwidth charges during my lunch break today. That's more than 10% of my monthly paycheck...of course, like I said before, everyone is welcome here at sixthseal.com. :) It's just that I have to figure out how to reduce the monthly bandwidth usage.

Anyway, as you can see, I've changed the front page to display only 6 days back, but there's a lot of photos on my page - it's been part of my weblog since the inception - at least one relevant photo with every post. It's why I stuff my Nikon 885 into my pants pocket in the past and it's why I sling my Nikon 5700 everywhere I go now. I don't want to break the feel of that, and the (barely updated) Picture of the Day has also been with sixthseal.com since the beginning and I don't want to change that either.

Well, if anyone is interested, I'm allocated 5 GB transfer per month and I pay US$ 5 for every GB after that. At the rate visitors are coming in, I'll have to do something before the bandwidth bills becomes exhorbitant. I'll discuss with my host if it's possible to open another account and register another domain and integrate them, as in allowing each account to use bandwidth from the other - effectively having one account with 10 GB transfer. As veritas is fond of saying, RM 153 is 153 mg of generic alprazolam (Xanax). ;)

Anyway, I got the Western Union money transfer done during lunch hour at the Bumiputera Commerce Bank at Komplex Antarabangsa (or is that Plaza Antarabangsa), which is just beside the place I work - interconnected internally. I happened to notice some workers wearing "BCB Penipu Pekerja" (BCB shafts their workers), some sort of protest going on here.

Second day at work was much better than the first, at least I have something to do, keeps me occupied. Strange thing is, I woke up at 6:15 am yesterday and arrived at 8 am and I woke up at 7 am today and still arrived at 8 am. Very puzzling. Anyway, at least I didn't have to do battle with the Bukit Bintang/Jalan Pudu rush hour traffic and unwilling taxis today - our senior programmer Wai Hing was kind enough to send me back.

Well, tomorrow is Thursday so I will investigate the Bangsar connection after work...will probably take a taxi from Bangsar LRT station and then try the buses on Friday (coz Fridays means no work the next day, unless I have unfinished business). That would be my mode of transportation from now on. I'm still going to take a taxi in the mornings though, until next week when I'm sure of the public transportation routes to take the bus/LRT combo.

I'm going with my gf to eat that 6 cheese pizza by Pizza Hut and the Haagen Daz mooncakes this Saturday. I need to go to Low Yat anyway because my over enthusiastic insertions broke my mouse's P/S 2 connection. I'll also need to pick up a pair of headphones. Right, enough rambling, I talk too much when inhibitions are reduced. ;)

Oh, right, I couldn't even see the moon, much less Mars. It's way too cloudy and the street lights are in the way.

My apologies, I feel extremally sleepy right now. I will reply every single comment tomorrow either before office hours (will go early) or during lunch break. Thanks for understanding...haven't been getting enough sleep lately.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 10:58 PM Permalink | Comments (12)

It's what's for lunch

I stayed back instead of going with my colleagues for lunch because I needed to find out where the nearest Western Union outlet is (for my excess bandwidth bill, what else), re-check the convocation dates and ask about leave so I can actually attend the ceremony - that would happen after lunch though. Oh yeah, I asked the technical director about taking photos inside the office and yeah, it would violate the non-disclosure agreement if I post them, so er...that front door is all you'll see of my work place. Sorry. :)

I guess that means I'll have to write a thousand words to explain - it's a rectangular room with a joined desks around the corners, and there's currently 13 people in the room - 1 technical support, 2 quality control, 1 temp and the rest are programmers. 1/4 of the staff is female, the rest is male. Opposite us is a room with a somewhat similar configuration, that's the creative team work place and that's not a thousand words, but I've got other stuff to do during lunch hour. Oh and btw, it seems that we have 2 hours for lunch - 12 pm - 2 pm. Anyway, I'll reply the comments when I get back, the Western Union is really up there on the To Do List, I will pop out if it's near. I'll post again tonight and reply all the comments, thanks!

Posted in by Huai Bin at 12:47 PM Permalink | Comments (7)

First day at work!

XM Malaysia

I just started my first day of work today - it's at XM (Malaysia) at Kenaga International at Jalan Sultan Ismail. It's quite a while from my place, I took a taxi there, it's about RM 8 but the taxi back was RM 10+ due to the horrible traffic jam at the Bukit Bintang and Jalan Pudu area.

Kenaga International

First day at work was okay, got to know the staff and my colleagues in the technical team. Surprisingly, a lot of taxi drivers doesn't know where Kenaga International is...deja vu from Melbourne where there's frequent stops to consult Melways (a map) and many questions for directions. ;)

There is a nice, relaxing fountain at the bottom of the Kenaga International building and my work place is located on the 16th floor.

Look at the vivid PURPLE BLUE of the brinjals. Is that normal?

Anyway, a bunch of us walked to Bukit Bintang for lunch at the food court on top - it's surprisingly near, I could have walked from my hotel to the first interview. Oh yeah, I heard from my colleages that there's a Putra LRT station - the KL Central one, that's only 8 - 10 minutes walk from the office. The nearest LRT station here is the Bangsar one and that takes about RM 5 by taxi to Medan Damansara so I thought that works out to around the same price, taking into account the LRT ticket. Anyway, I won't try tomorrow morning, but I'll use that to come back tomorrow night and see if I get home alright. It's just too much of a hassle to get back by taxi during office hours...my grandmother could walk 50 times faster than the speed traffic moved along the traffic congestion areas.

I waited damn near 1 1/2 hours for a taxi...no one wanted to pick anyone up during the peak traffic congestion office hour period.

Anyway, I don't have any other photos except of the ones outside the office place...I signed a non disclosure agreement, and since most monitors were displaying code of some sort, that might violate it. I will have to ask permission before taking photos inside the work place.

Posted in XM Malaysia by Huai Bin at 11:08 PM Permalink | Comments (12)

Bangsar mamak @ Jalan Telawi

This is the mamak center at Jalan Telawi 2 in Bangsar. We ate there last night.

Here's a scene of the place - Medan Selera.

We ate at Yacob Tom Yam. Great variety of fried rice.

The large perforated thing is roti tisu (tissue). The guy said it unfortunately deflated while walking down from the front stalls (we were at the back). minishorts [urban-flirt.net] has a better photo. Did I get the permalink right? I can't tell with IE 5. I don't know what the other roti is, but it came with beef liver. Note the giant watermelon juice in front of Alice.

I had Nasi Goreng Pataya (fried rice with stuff, wrapped in fried egg).

and went for a Giant mango juice which I couldn't finish. Damn thing must be close to 1 liter.

Anyway, I just got back from work, I might update again later if I'm not too tired, only had 4 hours of fitful sleep last night and woke up at 6:15 am. Otherwise, I'll update tomorrow during my lunch break.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 08:55 PM Permalink | Comments (6)

The Tallest Book Tower + The Biggest Pushpins Jalur Gemilang @ Sunway Pyramid

Those photos of the two dubious records for entry into the Malaysia Book of Records would be posted below. I reckon veritas should try for The Largest Amount of Benzodiazepines A Person Could Eat Without Falling Asleep since it doesn't seem to take much to get into the Malaysian Book of Records. ;) Anyway, I just came back from mamak so I'll just post this and head to bed. Mamak photos will be up tomorrow.

Anyway, this is a continuation from the previous day - we went to Kota Raya after lunch and caught a bus to Sunway Pyramid.

There were lots of people ice skating at Pyramid Ice.

Which made me crave ice cream for some reason...

Baskin Robbins has this Summer Sundaes sundaes going on.

We had the Tropical Luau and the Banana Bay. That new cheese cake with chocolate ice cream flavor is pretty good. Anyway, the Tropical Luau has a cake base and it's okay, but now the Banana Bay is the way to go. Very sinfully rich, heaps of caramel on top and it even has a caramel base. Thick caramelly goodness. :)

Melaka Fest was going on at Sunway Pyramid - a tourism to Melaka promotional festival, where there were becas going around, carrying people and attempting to run shoppers over and performances of all sorts.

There were men with umbrellas.

Prancing men with umbrellas.

There were even women with umbrellas.

And tea pots, no less...

Finally, there were two "records" being displayed for uh...public appreciation.

The Tallest Book Tower in Malaysia, fashioned to look like the current tallest buildings in the world (Petronas Twin Towers).

It was made with books from Dr. Mahathir, don't you dare dispute the "101% garunteed sold out!" claims the publishers make. Why, I think this tower took more than a couple of the books to make.

The Biggest Jalur Gemilang (Malaysia's national flag) made with push pins.

I thought it was straws and dared my gf to take one from the middle part. :)

Anyway, that's it for today, I'll be working early tomorrow morning, so I'm heading to bed. I'll reply all the comments tomorrow, thanks for the feedback! :)

Posted in Interesting by Huai Bin at 11:12 PM Permalink | Comments (7)

Pentazocine experience and thoughts

Fortwin tablets (scanned) containing 25 mg pentazocine HCl each.

Guest writer veritas [sixthseal.com] reporting for duty. I'm back as promised. :)

These are Fortwin tablets, made by Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals in India. Unlike most pentazocine tablet formulations, Fortwin tablets do not have Naloxone (an opiate antagonist, basically nullifies the "good" effects of opiates). Technically, this makes it more euphoric and also makes the tablets injectable (though obviously this isn't a very good idea, what with the fillers and the binders). The Malaysian list of approved pharmaceuticals does not include pentazocine only tablets (it only has pentazocine for injections in vials) so I was puzzled at how my pharmacist managed to get a hold of these.

Anyway, he told me that these were supposed to be cleared out ages ago, but the expiry date was still valid (expires next year) and he only had 8 tablets of 25 mg pentazocine hydrocloride each, so he just left it in the stock room. These are from India, the tablets have "FORTWIN" imprinted on the front and "RANBAXY" on the back. There is a single score running down the back of the tablets and they appear to be off-white, with blue specks.

Well, since he only has 8 of them left, he sold it to me for RM 0.80 each, instead of the list price of RM 1.50. I just happened to stumble across these while looking around my friend's stock room for recreational offerings from The Wonderful World of Pharmaceuticals. I've heard of pentazocine before as one of the lesser known opiate agonists (or opioids to be more accurate) and I've read of DXM type disassociative effects dominating the opiate type effects at higher doses. An aside for new readers, I have a friend who owns a pharmacy, so I do not need prescriptions for prescription drugs.

Fortwin by Ranbaxy tablets photo.

Anyway, since the 8 tablets total only 200 mg, I could not experiement with the 300 mg and 400 mg doses quoted as necessary for producing DXM type reactions, so my experience was with pentazocine as an opiate agonist. I took 200 mg on an empty stomach and potentiated it (as I assumed all opiates can be potentiated) with benzodiazepines - 3 mg alprazolam and 20 mg diazepam. I am sufficiently experienced with benzodiazepines (very sadly so) so I could differentiate the effects. I wrote this:

it's like codeine but qualitatively "dreamier", more "smacky", and stronger than an equal dose, i'll say comparable to 350 - 400 mg codeine.
stuck to bed
late histamine release - 3 h?
"heavy" feeling more than codeine
it makes a buzzing sound when on and no buzzing sound when off

Well, many hours later (after the opiate effects were tapering off) I found it very hard to go to sleep. I took some more benzos (50 mg diazepam) but sleep was unattainable even after 3 hours. I had rather strange "thought loops" and very minor "flanging" as I lay there with my eyes closed...almost like a 3rd plateau DXM trip, although obviously with much, much less intensity. Whether this is possible with just 200 mg of pentazocine or not is questionable, and I could not obtain any more pentazocine only (without naloxone) tablets to repeat the experiement, so take the DXM part as just an aside.

Anyway, I did not know the exact time I fell asleep, but it was about T+ 10 or more. Oh, and by the way, I'm benzodiazepine tolerant so the diazepam wouldn't have helped much. Well, Fortwin (pentazocine hydrocloride) tablets seems to be a fun compound - I mean the Ranbaxy manufactured ones without any nasty opiate antagonists. It's a little different from codeine and dihydrocodeine, pentazocine has its own strange character, but it's not comparable with the higher end opiates like oxycodone or heroin if you're wondering.

I do not know the LD50 values for pentazocine, but 200 mg (verified) doses does not kill if that helps. ;) It's funny, this pentazocine - it's classified as a benzomorphan (what an interesting name) or benzazocine. The US formulation of Talwin contains naloxone if I'm not mistaken, but if you find this Ranbaxy Fortwin tablets, give them a test drive*, it's certainly something different and interesting. :) I would love to hear if anyone has experience with 300-400 mg doses and noticed effects consistant with dextromethorphan.

*This only applies to existing recreational drug users who are willing to experiment. sixthseal.com does not promote drug use - illicit or otherwise and does not condone such activities to people who are not already aquainted with or part of the diverted pharmaceuticals or illicit substance use scene.

Posted in Pharmaceuticals by Huai Bin at 04:12 PM Permalink | Comments (17)

XM Expanded Media (Malaysia)

Yes, I'm off the unemployment line. :p I will be with XM Malaysia starting tomorrow. I got a call from HR while I was having lunch with my gf and her room mates. Anyway, the job means I'll be engaged from 8:30 am - 5:30 pm (at least). This would probably not affect the frequency of the posts if anyone who's aquainted with the KL public transport system could be so kind as to tell me the easiest way to get from Medan Damansara (Jalan Setiabistari) to Jalan Sultan Ismail (at Hotel Mutiara). :)

The KL Monorail is not in service yet, or else I know there's a station very near the office building. Anyway, I'll be taking a taxi in the next few days to get to and from my work place, but it would be nice to use a cheaper form of transportation considering I'm being offered RM 1,500 per month. Well, I don't even know what this road connects to, but nevermind that, LRTs and buses would come later, going to catch a cab these few days. I don't have a car in KL.

Anyway, the photos of The Tallest Book Tower in Malaysia and The Largest Jalur Gemilang made with push pins in Malaysia would be up either later tonight or tomorrow, I gotta sleep earlier since I probably would need to wake up at 7 am or something coz I don't know how far the office is from here. Now who's up to enter the Malaysian Book of Records? We could make the largest Jalur Gemilang with er...Panadol tablets or something.

[Edit: Updated with photo and explainatory text, accidentally pressed Publish without uploading photo.]

Posted in XM Malaysia by Huai Bin at 03:36 PM Permalink | Comments (10)

St John's Cathedral and CU There Cafe @ Petaling Street area

It's Sunday today and this is the first time in recent memory that I've been to church. Granted, my eyes glazed over sometime during the middle of mass, but anyway...:) I moved out of the hotel early this morning and put my stuff at my gf's place and now I'm updating at Richard's room. I'm bunking with him until the room vacancy at my gf's house opens up at the start of next month, about 7 odd days more. Anyway, the mass was held at St. John Cathedral, somewhere around the Kota Raya area as far as I could ascertain.

Well, I was with my gf, her brother (Richard) and her brother's gf (Alice). Mass was followed by lunch at CU There, somewhere near Petaling Street. It was air conditioned and the interior and ambience is interesting to say the least.

There is a wall filled with scribbles of love messages from couples and the rest of the real estate is covered by posters of artists of all sorts. There's also a music area:

and the toilets are covered with jokes...

I had the prawn steak (RM 7) because I was really interested in how they could come out with a prawn steak. This is the dish:

Recombined prawn steak...that's recombined prawn meat patties, my friend. A steak produces expectations of a single piece of cut meat. ;)

Anyway, here's a photo of us:

From left: Louisa (my gf), Richard (my gf's brother and my room mate for the next week), Alice (my gf's brother's gf) and Huai Bin (me).

Later, we went to Sunway Pyramid, where there was dance performances and two highly doubious Malaysian Book of Records entries. I got pictures of everything, but those would be up tomorrow because I'm very tired, as can be seen by my terse sentences. :) I'll turn in early tonight and wake up tomorrow for a whole new effort in sending out resumes. Later.

This will be up tomorrow.

Oh yeah, just watched on Edisi Siasat about the Africans (Nigerians? Afica is a continent...the reporters are no better than the people saying Asians (a diverse classification which spans from India through Hong Kong and down to Indonesia) is the source of trouble in a lot of Caucasian countries) who started a bit of trouble at Jalan Alor at the hawker food center...I'm not sure when that happened but me and my digicam missed it. :( Not that there's anything newsworthy unless shots were fired, but still, it would make a good update. I won't go into the racial vilification and distrust this produces, I'm against that of course (the expose ends with "Be carefull of people of African descent"), but sixthseal.com is just about personal stuff, drugs (by veritas) and news that I happen to witness. :p

One last thing, sorry about the photos being dark...I didn't realize it on my monitor (with big ass gamma), only realized it here. Will take that into consideration in the future. Here at sixthseal.com, we always aim to please. or something. ;) Nevermind me, I'm too relaxed right now.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 09:36 PM Permalink | Comments (11)

Petaling street (Jalan Petaling): Walking around with a digicam

Jalan Petaling - there are stores selling all sorts of stuff from imitation watches to t-shirts.

There are stalls selling fruits.

There are massage parlors.

There are large book stores.

There's this strange vending machine selling water for 20 cents. I've never seen it before. Very impressive and puzzling at the same time.

There's people selling drawings and wall scrolls.

There's lots of tourists.

There's even people sleeping semi nude on pedestrian bridges.

Air mata kuching - a refreshing cold drink for just 80 cents a bowl.

I had to repair my cell phone coz the speaker wasn't working...he quoted RM 35, I said RM 30 and he said okay. Suspect it could have been cheaper but it's hard to bargain with a digicam strapped around you, you look too much like a tourist - fair game. Highly recommended though, fixed it in 15 minutes. Later, I found out that the speaker was not working again so I went back and he opened everything up, changed the mike and soldered everything back free of charge. Nice guy too.

A dumpling store at petaling street.

I got the largest one - RM 7.50 (!) for a dumpling.

Here's a closer look - it has large chicken pieces (with bone intact), mushrooms, egg yolk, nuts and even mussels! Very filling too.

Cendol - a drink made with shredded ice and stuff.

There was a PowerBar promotion booth beside the lifts at the hotel - bars for RM 5 and gels for RM 7.

Hong Kee Famous Claypot Chicken Rice @ Petaling Street.

This is claypot chicken rice for 3.

Petaling Street - walk through.

Anyway, these are the set of photos I took around Petaling Street. I'm sorry for not being able to answer the comments today, I have to pack up everything, including my PC, coz I'm moving over to Richard's (who kindly offered to put me up for a week) early tomorrow morning. I will update tomorrow and reply all the comments - thanks everyone, I appreciate your feedback!

Posted in Interesting by Huai Bin at 09:13 PM Permalink | Comments (23)

Original Okonomiyaki Hiroshima Style @ Plaza Low Yat

I've eaten here the last time I was in KL and figured I would go back and take photos of the okonomiyaki making process. The seating arrangement allows you to sit in front of the grill and watch them make your okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki has been described as a "Japanese pizza". I had the nikutama ika ebi (pork and seafood) okonomiyaki with soba noodles (you can choose to have udon) and the spring onion topping. That came up to RM 18. Here's the photos of the making of my order:

Pouring out the base

Adding shredded cabbages and sprouts

Shaking pepper and salt

Adding the seafood

Layering several slices of bacon on top

Here's a close up of the partially made okonomiyaki

Soba noodles fried seperately in the next grill

The okonomiyaki pushed over in preparation of combining with the soba noodles

Turning over the okonomiyaki

Combining it with the soba noodles

Compressing the whole thing

Lifting it onto an egg (fried seperately)

Making everything neat

Slicing up the okonomiyaki

Drizzling okonomiyaki sauce on top

Generous sprinkling of spring onions

This is the finished dish - nikutama ika ebi okonomiyaki pictured with iced rooibos tea.

Posted in Best of sixthseal.com by Huai Bin at 07:59 PM Permalink | Comments (19)

Petaling Street after midnight

Right. Ethanol induced hunger prompted me to go in search for food. I called room service but unfortunately they were closed. I went down and asked the receptionist:

where I could get food at this hour. She suggested Chinatown (I assumed that is Petaling Street). Righty-o, off I went with of the two things known as C2H5OH/C2H6O and C15H10CIN3O3 and found myself at Petaling Street after a 15 minute walk which I couldn't remember. Heck, I wonder why I'm back at the hotel, I hardly remember leaving. ;)

Petaling St. was a bit deserted towards the back as you can see in the photo above. It seems that most shops close up at around midnight, if you squint a bit you can see the guy pulling his cart back home to the right of the picture.

The front bit is still quite populated though, but I went a bit back to see if there's anything interesting to eat and it seems that there's no smaller shops so I settled for fried hor fun (something like kueh tiaw) to go.

Here's a photo of the shop I went too, notice the guy giving the peace sign at the digicam while I was taking photos. :)

Anyway, I got the hor fun and walked back to eat and now I'm here updating again even though I'm very sleepy. Here's a photos of the RM 5 fried hor fun:

It has seafood, chicken, beef, deep fried pork bits, cabbages and a generous helping of hot chilli sauce on the side.

This is not the okonomiyaki post, that will be up much later today. Okay, now there's really an unbearable wave of sleepiness...off I go, I'll reply later today when I wake up.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 03:35 AM Permalink | Comments (6)

Buying a computer at Low Yat Plaza

Low Yat Plaza

The photo above has an interesting annotation to it. While I was taking this picture, an American tourist came up to me and said hello. He had the exact same digicam (Nikon 5700) and he introduced himself and said he noticed me taking photos using the LCD monitor (which is how I always take pictures). Well, he said he just wanted to give me a bit of friendly advice - he told me he's always used the viewfinder (the one you have to squint through like film cameras) because that causes less jitter.

Anyway, yeah, I did notice that I haven't gotten the optimal holding position and shutter release for this new digicam right, but using the viewfinder does not cause any more stability for me, coz it's a question of getting to know the digicam and giving the shutter just the right feather touch to not move the body. Better photos will come in time, after I break it in..been taking heaps of photos these few days. Well, anyway, I said thanks for the tip, but told him that I suspect that using the viewfinder to take photos while standing in the middle of the road in KL is likely to result in a trip to the hospital. ;) He laughed and said "Very true".

All IT Hypermart @ 4th Floor Low Yat

Well, I had gotten all the price lists from the Low Yat and Sungai Wang vendors twice - Sri Computers generally has the cheapest prices, but All IT Hypermart has better prices for some and their service is MUCH better than Sri Computers. It's on the 4th floor, it might have been cheaper to pick and shop, but Sri Computers offers competitive prices and they give discounts. My bill came up to about RM 2700 but I told them I'm only prepared to spend RM 2250, and after some negotiations, they agreed to push the price down to RM 2300 and assemble everything for me (saving me bloody fingers [sixthseal.com]) and carry everything down from Low Yat to the taxi stand at BB Plaza. :)

My configuration is not top of the line, but it's acceptable:

AMD Athlon XP (Barton) 2500+ CPU
ABIT NF7-M DDR400 FSB533 nForce2 based motherboard
Kingston 512MB DDR 333 RAM
Samsung 52X 24x 52x 16x CD-RW + DVD=ROM combo drive with 8 MB buffer
Maxtor Diamond Max 80 GB 7,200 RPM w/ 8MB cache
Samsung 17" SyncMaster 763MB monitor
Appropriate casing w/ 450 watt power supply
Sony 1.44 Floppy disk drive
Temporary keyboard and mouse

I chose the Barton for something new, even with a lower rated speed I figured I'll give the relatively large L2 512KB cache a run. I got the 2600+ (Thoroughbred) last time, so I'm going for a different one this time. The nForce2 architecture motherboard was chosen for economical reasons, this model comes with an integrated GeForce4 MX and sound + other misc. stuff I haven't explored. I know the nForce2 shares system RAM though, so I got 512 MB, I may add another 512 MB in the near future. Currently, I allocated 64 MB for the integrated GeForce4 GPU, the largest it can go is 128 MB. Unfortunately, I had to use DDR-333 instead of DDR-400 RAM for compatibility with the integrated graphics.

Anyway, enough about that, I just need to get headphones soon and the Logitech Freedom Optical (the one I've been using up till the water damage incident [sixthseal.com]) sometime in the near future. I love the Zero Degree Tilt keys, I type much, much faster. My old headphones (which was recently broken) was the A$ 330 (RM 660) Sony MDR-V700DJ, which I bought in Melbourne. It has served me well, though it gave me a hankering for good headphones. I don't think I can afford that now, considering I have non-existant income in Malaysia, but I'll try and get a comparable one. Enough rambling, let me tell you about how I had make 3 round trips using a taxi to Low Yat Plaza. That's 6 trips...and it's all my fault.

I got everything back in the first run, but unfortunately I seem to have forgotten all about monitor to PC power supply cables. I...er, didn't know what they were, so I went back to get a dedicated one. *cough*. Then I came back to the hotel and booted up and intended to install Windows XP Pro...but I seem to have lost the CD I brought over. Curses. It was in my resume file and I must have dropped it while going for the interview. A new hard disk with no OS...how troublesome...only 1 of my 4 other hard disk that I brought along has an installed OS (others are data only) and that's Windows Me and it hanged at the startup screen:

Hooking up stuff at the hotel room

Anyway, the third trip was to Imbi Plaza to get another Windows XP Pro CD. Oh yeah, what about that "software piracy" crackdown? Everything seems fine at Imbi Plaza and Low Yat. Well, the last return trip was a bit of a hassle...no one wanted to take me coz of the traffic jam and the few that wanted to asked for a flat rate charge of RM 15 for compensation. I know that's common practise in KL and it was peak traffic hour, but I didn't want to, so I waited for one that charges based on the meter and you know what? It came up close to the quoted price too due to the obscene traffic jam. :)

Imbi Plaza

Anyway, I'm off to bed...will confirm with XM Expanded Media to see if I got the position tomorrow. I'll also post up many photos of okonomiyaki, from the preparation through the cooking to the final dish, so if you like things like that, come back tomorrow afternoon. Well, I see from the stats that Malaysian visitors come to less than 2% of the total so it's appropriate to note that my local time is GMT +8. Oh yeah, I have to pay extra bandwidth fees again this month, now that really sucks. Someone employ me so I can afford all this.

Traffic congestion...and police with submachine guns in the day, something I've only seen Sibu police carry weekend nights.

I'm sorry I can't reply the comments today...I'm about to fall asleep on this keyboard here at the hotel's business center, I didn't get a modem so I have to update here...it's okay, they average 35 Kbps, not blindingly fast, but it does the job. :) I will reply every single comment when I update with the okonomiyaki photos tomorrow. Thanks for the feedback!

Posted in by Huai Bin at 11:07 PM Permalink | Comments (95)

CyberTime @ Petaling Street

I'm at CyberTime at Petaling Street now...moved at around noon today and I've just grabbed some lunch:

Anyway, the good thing about CyberTime is they have relatively fast net access (400 KBps sustained) so I can upload my CF Card stuff up to my server and free up the space so I can take more photos. :) I haven't experimented with the advanced settings yet, but I'm happy with the image quality so far. It's a 5 MP digicam w/ 8x optical zoom, best thing about it is, it uses the standard (well, proprietry for all non-Nikon owners ;)) 2CR5 rechargable Lithium Ion battery, so I have two batteries instead of one (the other one is from my broken digicam).

Well...I've put up the procession photos from yesterday, it's in the post below. I'm feeling tired today due to waking up early for breakfast, so I'll update again tomorrow. See ya everyone.

P/S - Nigel, I got your SMS, sorry for not replying, the same thing happened (lost msg after reading it)...a very serious problem I need to isolate and retify soon. Thanks for the message. :)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 03:58 PM Permalink | Comments (10)

Ghost festival procession photos, Bukit Bintang

Here are the photos from the Bintang Walk procession. There was a "ghost festival procession" of some sort in Jalan Bukit Bintang yesterday, I heard the participants are supposed to be possessed by certain old spirits. Not sure if I got that right, but it's a good excuse to carry weapons and take drugs and act in a wild manner that is above the soceity's norms while in public and within view of law enforcement officers. I kid! Sorry, jokes about religion are sensitive, my apologies if I offended anyone, it was meant strictly in jest. Anyway, please don't flood my inbox with hate mail, you know I'm not like that, it's a joke, I couldn't resist. :)

Anyway, back to the procession, it was very interesting, the photos speak for themselves, here you go:

This is a long one

Gets a bit unwieldy at times as you can see

Mobile prayer lorry

Bloody

Don't mess with them:

This is the youngest participant:

My favourite guy - he was wielding two saws and sucking on a pacifier.

Well, if you ask me I think it was a datura/belladonna like substance in their tea. ;)

Posted in Events by Huai Bin at 03:39 PM Permalink | Comments (10)

Procession down Bukit Bintang (Nikon 5700)

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.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 09:22 PM Permalink | Comments (7)

am pm ezone, Low Yat Plaza

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. :)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 03:01 PM Permalink | Comments (15)

@ Internet, Bukit Bintang

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.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 08:16 PM Permalink | Comments (14)

...and I'm off

I'll be flying to KL tomorrow. I'm heading to Sibu airport early tomorrow morning coz my dad has an earlier flight so we might as well head down together. Anyway, I'll be staying in Bukit Bintang till Wednesday and then I'll be staying somewhere near Petaling Street till Sunday and then I'll be staying with my girlfriend's brother till 1st of November. It's a bit convulated, but the room I'm going to rent won't be vacated until next month, so that's when I'm moving in.

Well, I've got an interview scheduled on Monday, the time isn't confirmed though, so I'll have to call earlier to confirm the time. Does anyone know the easiest way to go from Bukit Bintang (heart of BB) to 27, Jalan Tun Ismail via public transport? How long will the journey take? Anyway, I have armed myself with Mapopolis [mapopolis.com] and map of KL [virtualmalaysia.com], and there's always a taxi if I can't get there.

Anyway, I'll only be able to update very sporadically in the week starting tomorrow, daily posts is likely, but without photos. My digicam is still broken, most recent photos have been taken using a webcam or is from my personal stock photo collection - the random shots I take while carrying my digicam around. The plan is to get Nikon Malaysia to fix it or to get another one, probably the latter though, because I can't justify the price to fix it when a better model can be had for a little more. Anyway, we'll see about that. FYI, veritas sends word that he won't be posting for this week too, in consideration of my quest for employment, but he's got "experience reports (all with photos) of buprenorphine (without naloxone), pentazocine (also w/o naloxone), triazolam + several other benzos and a wierd zolpidem experience, basically quite a few from The Wonderful World of Pharmaceuticals and one rare illicit that is long due (methcathinone - experience report ONLY)" after this week or when I get a job, whichever one comes first. ;)

Well, I've got some last minute packing to do and I'll also have to read up some stuff in preparation for my interview, so till next time, see ya everyone. My apologies for not being able to reply the comments today, but I'll do that next time I update. Thanks!

Posted in by Huai Bin at 11:18 PM Permalink | Comments (6)

Soylent Green is people!

That is all.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 07:43 PM Permalink | Comments (13)

Mop Swamp

I will be leaving Sibu for KL this Sunday. There's nothing noteworthy to report today except that things are starting to fall into place and preparations are basically done. I've opened a new bank account with Public Bank, they issue ATM cards on the spot (during application), which is interesting because I figured there would be a wait. They also have an online banking system, which is useful for paying bills. Anyway, I thought there would be a hassle involved since I had an account with Public Bank a couple of years ago (which was never closed) but they were not concerned about that. Now, I've just got to get some funds out of a Fixed Deposit account I have in another bank and transfer it into this account. My MyKad application has not been successful, the place is absolutely packed every time I go in, so I've decided to take advantage of the 2005 deadline and do it next time I come back. :)

Oh, apparently there is a lorry loaded with new mattresses driving around the Medan Damansara area where you can buy the bulky things off them or trade in an old mattress for a rebate of some sort. I hear it doesn't come at the frequency of gas and newspaper distribution vehicles, but it's pretty close. What an interesting concept, I've never even heard of this before!

Posted in by Huai Bin at 10:50 PM Permalink | Comments (10)

Photo Friday - Sleep

Photo Friday - Sleep [photofriday.com]

Nothing says sleep like flunitrazepam (Rohypnol, Hypnodorm). :)

Disclaimer: This photo was taken in June 2003. I have a legitimate flunitrazepam prescription [sixthseal.com] in Australia. Flunitrazepam is not available for prescription in Malaysia and that makes it illegal to possess. I do not possess any flunitrazepam. The valid prescription I had in Melbourne and all unused pills has been discarded (thrown away) before my flight back to Malaysia.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 10:51 PM Permalink | Comments (6)

Zopiclone (Imovane) review

Imovane (zopiclone) - scanned blister pack

Zopiclone (Imovane, Zimovane) is one of the newer "z drugs" that is pharmacologically similar in action with benzodiazepines but with a different chemical structure. Zopiclone falls into the category of cyclopyrrolone derivatives, and it's a non-benzodiazepine with benzodiazepine like properties. Zopiclone is not prescribed in the United States but it's available for prescription in Malaysia. It is a prescription only drug here, but the middleman (doctor) was bypassed thanks to my friend who has a pharmacy. My apologies for harping on this, people would be emailing me about how to get a doctor to prescribe things if I don't make it clear how I got them. Which reminds me, I have a large backlog of experience reports from The Wonderful World of Pharmaceuticals in the backburner due to my acquaintance, but I digress.

Imovane tablets comes in a blister pack containing 10 tablets, which retails for RM 25 (A$ 10). This makes each 7.5 mg tablet of zopiclone RM 2.50 which is not very cost effective as benzo equivalency charts suggests that 15 mg of zopiclone = 10 mg of diazepam = 0.5 mg of alprazolam. However, it is one of the longer lasting "z drugs" - with a half life of 5 - 6 hours compared to 2 hours with the other two. It is marketed as a hypnotic (sleeping pill) and is supposed to feel like benzodiazepines, unlike OTC (over the counter - the stuff you can buy without a prescription) "sleeping pills" which are usually anti-histamines or stuff like St. Johns Wort which personally does nothing (I am tempted to use the term "jack shit" but that would sound like "drug elitism" ;)) for someone who is used to benzodiazepines.

Imovane tablets - side, front and back view

Anyway, I have taken doses ranging from 15 mg - 75 mg (whole blister pack) and found that it's quite recreational at high doses with alcohol or opiates (be careful), but the BITTER aftertaste which can last till the next day is rather off putting. I would liken that strange taste to scraping an old piece of plastic onto dirty pebbles and stick an aluminium foil at one side and lodging it in your throat for a day. It does taste bad, no doubt about it, but it's bearable, it just makes drinking water kinda distasteful. It is helpful while tapering off benzodiazepines though, I find that the benzo equivalence chart is not really accurate - I have a high benzo tolerance, but zopiclone still manages to induce sleep at doses less than the equivalent of diazepam and alprazolam. Here are a few of my (unedited with spelling errors) notes:

zopiclone at high doses
short term mem affected (slightly)
propensity to induce more (craving, chasing the high) quite strong
disinhibition - fairly high
hangover present at higer dosages

Imovane (zopiclone) blister pack - front

zopiclone - first time, 3 tablets. after 45 min, thought i saw blood dripping, but it was just my red t shirt reflecting off the surface. got the feeling of "there's someone behind me, but when i turn he/she's gone", but whether that and the blood visual disturbance is influenced by previous reading of this class of drugs causing hallucinations in some people is not known. felt a low level anxiety, but whether that is because of a first time w/ a new drug and mixing with 3 drinks (downed quickly) at the 50 minute point is unknown. felt the "there's something wrong in my visual field but i can't point out what it is, but something is wrong" feeling like the start of an acid trip, and anxiety is hightened. general feeling of unreality. when calmed down at 1 hour point, felt hypnotic effects take over. not very strong, but drowsiness is present at a low level. all manifestations of visual disturbances have disappeared as of now (t+ 1:10)
no "horrible taste" in mouth as reported in side effects. first time anxiety slightly present, could be due to benzo taper too. when ignored and relaxed, it feels quite like benzos, nice and easy and sedating, more hypnotic, i would liken it to valium and flunitrazepam in hypnotic effects. "euphoria" (if you like benzo euphoria) is 5.5/10 with flunitrazepam + alcohol + cannabis being 10/10. take note that is a subjective/arbitiary figure. amnesia effects similar to benzos, could still remember previous events before and after the dosing and alcohol addition. it's okay, good for SLEEP for recreation, hmm...its a bit to hypnotic for that. er..yes...at t+ 1:25 there is a bitter taste in my throat NOT in my mouth or tongue but IN the throat and can be "noticed" upon breating in but not breating out. hypnotic effects seem to be steadying, don't feel any sleepier. not very drowsy now, (had to think a little hard to get the "drowsy word :) ) but memory affected as seen in the aside. i'm liking it better now, nice and sedating, relaxing too ie muscles relaxant properties seem to be present as well.ah yes..bitter taste...crept up into my mouth when i took a drink of (plain) water. fudge. the polite term for fudge, not the taste. :) the taste is a vague metallic taste. i'm slouching now, muscles relaxing and i could be drowsy if i wanted to (lie down, ligths off). quite euphoric, i would say at least equal to hm...lemme think. it's definately not as euphoric as xanax...so hm...valium, i would say the euphoria is consistant with valium + small amount of alcohol. :) starting to get forgetful now, wanted to say something but forgot. reading back did not help, i lost that thought. oh well. anyway, these are 2.50 per pill. can you say ouch? oh it's t+2 now and i remembered wat i wanted to say. i wanted to say the feeling is kinda like having my mind obliterated. there's a "pressure" in my brain that makes me able not to think about anything at all. wat i meant to say is...i am no expert in the pharmacological aspects, but subjectively, this zopiclone seems to work by, let me think of an analogy...forcing dried (hard) prunes into a piggy bank while benzos work like inserting coins. in other words zopiclone = brute force, benzos = nice and easy. i say that because i feel DUMB you know, unlike benzos where the mental functionality is not affected as much. t+ 2:30 now, not really drowsy, but can sleep if i lie down in darkness and read a book. bye
did not sleep well last nite. did not sleep until t+12, sleep quality wasn't good too - freq awakenings etc. slight resideuakl hangover eeffects. bitter taste still there

Imovane (zopiclone) blister pack - back

hit you on the head, a good sleeping aid, fairly good recreational substance, pretty low for a social substance. sedation quite powerful, prob coz not used to these class of drugs.felt like it was brute for ie it does it work by having a huge fan in frount of you, forcing your eyes open and the wind blows until you're tired. can resist easily if you're a benzo tolerance person, but if you relax and want to sleep (which is what thisi s for) yeah it works great as a hypnotic. no better than some benzos, no less than some. can't even compare to antihistamines, those dun even put me to sleep. (insert babble about OTC sleeping pills). the equivalencey charts i do not agree with, it seems zopiclone is sedative at less than the equivalancey suggests. 6 x 7.5 mg sedated me much much more than equiv amount of diazepam, but of course apple and oranges cannot be compared, just that i feel its not very accurate. otherwise, its a nice drug, yeah can be recreational by itself in high doses or to potentiate something (opiates, alcohol etc), but on its own, fairly goood fairly good but the bad taste in your month is a minus though. i guess can be social drug as well since it reduces inhibition, but yeah its expensive. i would buy this again if i need to sleep and i don't have benzos on hand, or use them both together (did that twice, nice potentiation too). good for sleep, good for fun, lasts long, so you can stay up reading or whatever while enjoying the hypnotic effects. its a good thing. but it causes dependency as well, so yeah, bewaere. some ppl dun find this "z drugs" to be recreational. i guess you really have to definre rec in that sence. its recreational, it makes you sedated and nice so i mean its recreational. good, but not great, considering the price. i won't take this over a benzo, but for sleep, i just might. doesn't seem to be cross-tolerant w/ benzos (check this before publishing). nice zopiclonone.

I won't put it in the same class as benzodiazepines, but it is a good substitute, it's better than nothing and it really decreases sleep latency. Very nice for sleep (higher than recommended doses is needed though, but this is from someone with benzodiazepine tolerance) and quite acceptable for recreational use as well. Better mileage could be had with generic benzodiazepines though, because zopiclone isn't cheap.

Posted in Pharmaceuticals by Huai Bin at 10:02 PM Permalink | Comments (90)

It is raining.

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! :)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 09:38 PM Permalink | Comments (17)

Flying to KL on the 17th

Busy today, update tomorrow.

There, a post with four words. :)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 10:25 PM Permalink | Comments (10)

sixthseal.com featured in sexpo.com.au

SEXPO

This site got a mention in the official Sexpo site! My coverage of the event (SEXPO 2002, Melbourne) is listed in the "All about Sexpo" news page [sexpo.com.au]. You'll notice that there is a comment from David Ross, the promoter for Sexpo. He emailed me after that and told me that I was eligible to apply for a Media Pass, which would make taking photos easier (people without media passes are not supposed to take stage performance photos). Anyway, if there's anyone in Australia, keep that in mind if you're going to attend the expo and take photos - enquire about a Media Pass. :) Thanks for the link!

Snackspot

On a somewhat related note, I discovered this great snack site for people who appreciate food in my referral logs. I surfed over to find that the Snackspot admin had linked one of my Magnum Sixties Nine reviews [snackspot.org]. Thanks! Well, I shamelessly mentioned my post which has all 9 reviews of the series, as you can see in the comments. Now, what really made my day was the comment later on from "Astounded" who said:

Just a side note - a few posts up this page there is a post from "HB". Check out his site - he has really thrown down the gauntlet to Snackspot. He reviews sweets AND recreational drugs!!! And he appears to come from a country (Malaysia) where possession of illicit narcotics carries the death penalty!!!!

I really appreciate that, it totally made my day. Thank you "Astounded"! :)

Sanlive

This [sanlive.com] post is a really interesting one, the questions make the answers an intriguing read. It would really be great if everyone can answer these questions honestly in their own weblog. Here's mine:

When and why did you start your daily reads list?
I can't remember when, I had a "Links" page in my old HTML blog, but those were mainly links to webpages and not blogs. The "daily reads" (or "Blogs" in my case) was implemented after the move to Movable Type. I started it partly to make easier navigation possible (the "Favorites" drop down menu gets cluttered after a while) and partly to reciprocate links.

Do you truly visit your daily reads DAILY?
Yes, unless I'm away or otherwise engaged. I don't visit every blog daily though, the ones that are frequently updated or which I like I are clicked on daily, others less frequently. But the vast majority of the links in my "Blogs" section are read daily.

Why do you add these people as your daily reads?
It could be one of many reasons - you're one of my personal friends, I like your blog/writing/personality, it's a reciprocal link, you're one of the people who inspired me to start blogging or because you're a fellow Sarawakian. ;) By the way, that last one is what would make me link someone, NOT someone on my current "Blogs" list.

How many people are on your daily reads?
There are 18 people in the "Blogs" section as of today.

Have you deleted people from your daily reads, if so why?
Yes. There was the cut and paste disaster (Note to self: Backup frequently) which made some people unaccounted for, but most of that has been rectified. I've also been asked to remove links because of my site's emphasis on drugs, which was not appreciated by either the blog author or people related to the blog author. I don't blame anyone for that, I'm truly sorry that a link from my "recreational drug use friendly" site caused trouble for the people involved.

I've also deleted people accidentally - the most recent being Felicia. Oops! Making changes to the blog + generous amounts of alcohol + no backups = "Hey, one of my daily reads is missing!". The Nazi Link Policy (which has since been removed) also states that I delete blogs on hiatus and password protected ones. Otherwise (bar accidents while updating in a lack of sobriety) links do not get deleted unless it's one of the reasons above.

Do you comment on your daily reads DAILY?
No, I read them, but I don't always comment unless I've something to say. I will admit that I am susceptible to the "reciprocal comment" syndrome though. :p You know what I'm talking about, someone comments on your blog, you comment back aka "I'll rub your back if you rub mine". ;) In my case, that is due to either guilt or a lack of time.

How often do you modify your daily reads?
Not often at all. It takes time to recompile a Movable Type blog. I know that only the front page needs to be recompiled, but I have this OCD thing where I need to recompile the WHOLE site, and that takes longer and longer as the site grows. :p I did move some personal friends into "Personal Websites" though because the site doesn't really qualify as a blog due to a lack of updates, but I still want to link to them, because they're my real life friends. :)

Do you link people on your daily reads only because they linked you?
Guilt does pay a role in this, but my pastor told me guilt is just a manifestation of Satan's plan of deception and my dad always told me to listen to the pastor. ;) Seriously though, there is a lack of space, or rather time, since "Blogs" are the people who I read daily. I don't want to be a "link farm", just linking people for the sake of getting reciprocals or reciprocating reciprocals, but chances are, if you link me, I'll find out sooner or later and you'll inevitably get into the "Blogs" list coz it's like real life, hang out with a person long enough, and he/she will become personal friends and you'll hang out (read) them daily.

Does daily reads have special meaning to you?
Yes. sixthseal.com is not a link farm. ;)

Your daily reads are mostly (F/M):
Female.

What do you get from reading your daily reads?
A peek into the daily life of someone interesting. Also, some blogs have intellectually stimulating content which makes me think.

Are you likely to read LONG blog entries from your daily reads?
Yeah. However, if I'm strapped for time, I would only read long entries if they are interesting or well structured and written.

Do you expect your daily reads to read your blog everyday in return?
I don't expect anything. I don't want anyone to feel obliged to read my blog, I'll much rather have people read it because they want to or because the content interests them.

Who on your daily reads has the coolest name?
Lye Cwan. :) I like her name. She's AlCee in the "Blogs" section.

Who on your daily reads has the coolest layouts?
I like Hilmy's layout. He draws as well.

Who on your daily reads is most likely to comment in your blog?
I can't really tell unless I write a script and I'm supposed to be working on the photo story now, which would have to be postponed till tomorrow because I spent all my time on this. :p You should too, it'll be great if everyone can answer this set of questions honestly.

How many people on your daily reads are your friends in "real life"?
None. I've known the people in "Personal Webpages" for years though.

Who is the most intelligent or insightful person?
Xiu. Her posts make me think.

Who is the least favorite/most annoying person on your daily reads?
Jia Hui. :) I did not like her at first (and I told her in an email or comment too, if memory serves) because her posts made her seem arrogant, elitist and snobbish. That was a long time ago though, and in my infrequent surfing around and stumbling onto her blog, her writing style grew on me and I realized that she wasn't that way at all. :) It was just me who was quick to make judgements based on someone's blog entry. I have read her frequently after one of her posts made me realize that my first assumptions was wrong and I have read her ever since.

Another person who falls into this category is Grace (graceshu), she also seemed arrogant and sarcastic from her posts and but again, that's another wrong assumption. I've known her better since and she's a really nice person.

Who is most likely to give you news about the world or internet?
Xiu again.

Have you ever wanted to meet people on your daily reads?
Yes, it would be great to have a big blog meetup. :)

Who do you admire the most?
Grace (graceux5) because her posts tend to be happy, and that cheers me up too. Wena (mum-mum) with her photos of food. Grace (graceshu) with her photo stories. Hilmy (Hilmyworks) because of his artwork.

Who has an attitude problem?
I answered this in "Who is the least favorite/most annoying person on your daily reads?". ;)

Who is the funniest?
Everyone has their moments but none of the blogs are full fledged humor/satire/parody blogs.

Who is the sweetest?
Literally? mum-mum is a food blog. :)

Who is the most out-going?
minishorts has a lot of personal posts, that takes courage.

Whom can you trust the most?
You'll know if you know. The people in "Personal Websites". If I had to choose from "Blogs", I would say graceshu. Xiu is also a confidante.

Whom do you know the best?
The people in "Personal Websites", I've known them for years!

Whom do you talk to most online?
Claire (minishorts), Grace (graceshu), Wena (mum-mum) are the top three.

Who is the lastest daily reads you added?
Jikon Lai. I like him.

Whose blog do you wish to drool all over on?
Jasmine. She was the first one to link me back in the old days of my HTML-only blog sans comments.

Whose blog do you enjoy reading the most?
I like to read them all, they're daily reads.

You are least likely to comment on which blog(s)?
That would probably be unsung, although I do read him.

Posted in Best of sixthseal.com by Huai Bin at 05:28 AM Permalink | Comments (49)

Durian season!

The annual durian season seems to have started in Sibu. A friend of my dad dropped by with a couple of durians. These are local ones, seems unripe but it tasted great! Soft, creamy custardy texture, just the way I like it. Photo story will be up later tonight (early morning probably), applications for employment gets priority. :)

Posted in Food by Huai Bin at 09:49 PM Permalink | Comments (12)

Radio silence

Sorry everyone, I've been really busy selling myself lately. Selling myself to the HR people that is. ;) My quest for employment is still ongoing and so is the search for a good post graduate Masters program. I will update tomorrow, with a collaborative photo story - "A sliver of liver". :) Until then, see ya. I will reply all the comments and mails tomorrow, my apologies, I didn't get any sleep last night and I'm so ready to hit the bed right now.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 11:27 PM Permalink |