sixthseal.com

Goodbye 2003!

It's less than one hour before the end of 2003. This year has been interesting, for the lack of a better adjective. I was still in university at the beginning of the year. It's the end of the year now and I'm in the workforce and I haven't been fired...yet. ;) It's the year of transition - from studying to working and I'm still learning the intricacies of this different life.

I'm sitting at home right now - it's the second year in a row that I'm not out for NYE celebrations. This time is because my gf didn't feel like going out, plus I'm tired from work so we're just chilling out at home. I think we're in the minority though, as the photo above shows - that was taken at around 9 pm at the KLCC LRT station. The incoming (into KL city) human traffic is much voluminous than the trickle of outgoing traffic.

It's been a good year for sixthseal.com too. Thank you for all your support in 2003. I'll see you again in 2004. :)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 11:30 PM Permalink | Comments (5)

Guess the price of my nasi campur (photo included)

Guess how much this combination of nasi campur costs? There's more sotong pieces than meets the eye, some of it is obscured by the chicken drumstick. No, I didn't play "Hide the sotong" intentionally, it was due to the real estate on the styrofoam packs. By the way, "Hide the (most expensive item)" is a technique where you cover up a more expensive item with a less expensive one - like covering a drumstick with cabbages. This is an extreme example, it's just to illustrate the point. I've never done that intentionally though, not for any moral or personal reasons, it's just coz I don't bother.

The way things work over here is like this - you get handed a plate or take away pack filled with rice and you choose whatever you want from the array of dishes displayed. You can opt to have as many items as you want and the portions you choose is up to you. The price (which can vary depending on time of the day, whether you're a regular, as well as many other factors) is tallied up when you're done, based on your choices. However, "Hide the xxx" doesn't work all that well nowadays, because the proprietors usually check underneath due to the popularity of this method.

Back to the post, my lunch has a drumstick, sotong and chili covered brinjals. You don't eat for a couple of days and then you feel hungry enough to eat a horse. ;) Anyway, guess how much this nasi campur pack costs?

Posted in by Huai Bin at 01:35 PM Permalink | Comments (24)

I cut my finger for RM 2000

Okay, I had this big bag of trash with me when I came into work today. When I say big, I mean huge. The plastic could hold one man quite comfortably, if he's willing to go into the fetal position. Whether it'll hold his weight or not is another matter, but I digress. Anyway, this bag had 4 smaller bags inside, all filled with trash. Don't ask me why, some thrash is private you know...

Back to the bags of fun, I opened the big bag and stuffed the first of the smaller bags into the DBKL garbage cans opposite the building where I work. This one went in relatively easy since it's one of the smaller ones. I went to the next one and shoved the bag into the can. If you've seen one of these things, you'll notice that it's no mean feat - the holes are very small...

All is good though, two down, two to go. I crossed the street and went to one of the cans further away and jammed one of the large ones into the trash can. It wouldn't go in. A homeless man looked at me greedily, probably to see what it was I stuffed down. I don't want anyone prying into my trash so I glared at him and went to the next can.

I stuffed it in. It wouldn't budge. I used brute force to jam it in, and it slowly...gave...way...and then I noticed that I seem to have a laceration somewhere because I could feel blood dripping. No, that's not good. I'm already dehydrated, I need ALL the blood I have or I'll probably pengsan [pengsan.com].

No, I didn't just pimp that site for fun. Er...maybe I did, but anyway, I realized all too late that the particular bag I was trying to get rid of is the one that contains Sharp Things. Anyway, I was pretty pissed at it by this time and really jammed it in...and gave myself another cut. Not to worry though, the Sharp Things are mine and at no point did the laceration or Sharp Things come into contact with the thrash can's germ filled side.

However, I naturally did not appreciate being given a subcutaneous incision for no good reason, especially when I'm dehydrated. But at least that's 3/4. I looked at plastic bag #4. It'll never fit in, it's physically impossible. Well...yours truly isn't exactly stupid, so I took plastic bag #4 out and emptied most of it's contents into the original giant plastic bag and stuffed THAT into the next garbage can.

Actually, a single sentence does not do the act justice. There were plenty of grunts, maneuvering, crude levers, back support, standing back and analyzing with the little pats here and little ruffles there method to make it go in. It took about 5 minutes and 10 profanities before it was finally in. If anyone had seen me then, it must have looked like I was humping the DBKL garbage cans. That's the effort I had to make to stuff it in - by giving it a counter weight on the other side.

Now there's this last one, it's a Myers bag, festively decorated, not too dodgy except for the blood stains, so I took that into the office. I unlocked the door and was confounded with a problem...my right index finger is bleeding. My right index finger is the one I use to authenticate myself with the biometrics scanner. I didn't want to authenticate myself with an open wound, in the interests of my fellow coworkers.

No, I don't have any dangerous pathogens. I just have a high level of civic consciousness. Oh, and also, doing that would introduce bacteria and other nasties into my wound. ;) It's bad to touch anything with an open laceration, especially for hypochondriacs like me. All is not lost though - I remember my thumb (which was clean) was another one that I could authenticate with. It just never did work for me before though...

I tried anyway. Nope. Nope. Verified! That's just on the third try - praise the Lord! :) I went in and took a photo of my finger and then went out to dispose of the final bag. This was one of the bags that have an open, unsealable top. I noticed something that should have been in my backpack - a bank draft for RM 2000 from one of my bank accounts in Kuching, which I never got around to transferring to my main one.

There you go, a little anti-climatic, granted, but that's how my cut finger saved me RM 2000. I went to wash my finger and wanted to put a Band Aid around it, except I wouldn't be able to authenticate after that, so I just wrapped a clean tissue and used my thumb (which worked again - whee!) to get in.

Posted in Hmm... by Huai Bin at 06:47 AM Permalink | Comments (22)

Melbourne: Day 3 - McDonald's Salads Plus

Day 3 of the
Convocation: Melbourne, Australia (December 2003)
series.

I woke up after a solid 26 hours of sleep on Monday. This is the third day I'm in Melbourne and I realize that I've technically wasted one whole day sleeping. :) I woke up feeling famished and went in search for food again and to take some photos of Melbourne city. I went pass a McDonald's and saw that they had this Salads Plus menu with healthier options. McDonald's in Australia has been pitching this angle for quite a while now so I decided to sample their Salads Plus menu.

The Salads Plus menu consists of a variety of low fat and more nutritious options that have 10 grams of fat or less each. I'm not watching my weight or anything...people say I should gain a couple of kilograms, but work and the related necessities to maintain productivity has the effect of suppressing appetite and increasing metabolism at the same time. I digress. The reasons I'm attempting to eat the entire range and review it should not be foreign to long time readers - I just want to. :)

Chicken Foldover

This is touted to have only 9 grams of fat per serving. It's made with Bega So Light cheese and has roasted chicken breast meat and veggies on a herbed toasted flatbread.

I didn't expect much from it, but was pleasantly surprised to find out that it actually tastes good! It could be the 26 hours without food though, but still, it's pretty good.

Vege Burger

This one has 10 grams of fat per serving and it's Sanitarium vege patty in a herbed foccacia bun. The patty is made from chickpeas, vegetables and spices a.k.a. fake meat. It also has a piece of beetroot.

I didn't like this one...the patty tastes like potatoes. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but generally vegetarian meat substitutes tastes unpalatable to me. The only thing that saved it is the sweet chilli sauce inside. I couldn't have chocked it down without that.

Berrynice Yoghurt Crunch

It just says 97% fat free on this one. It looks like ice cream, but it's actually yoghurt. There's strawberries and blueberries in it though, and it's topped with oats. They use Nestle low fat yoghurt. McDonald's partners up with other food manufacturers in the Salads Plus menu if you haven't noticed.

That was what I had in the first sitting. After walking around and taking more photos, I passed by a different McDonald's and decided to see if I could eat through the whole Salads Plus menu. :)

This McDonald's has a fridge at the counter with the salads and other stuff:

The salads occupy the first two layers and the third one has yoghurt (including the Berrynice Yoghurt Crunch) and fruit juice. It looks like the Berrynice Yoghurt Crunch is prepared and packaged instead of made during your order. I decided to have a salad this time, since after all, this is the Salads Plus menu. There are two salads - Garden Mixed Salad and Roast Chicken Salad. Naturally, I went for the second one.

Roast Chicken Salad

This salad features roasted breast chicken, Bega So Light cheese, lettuce, tomato, and cranberries. It's 97% fat free and there are three dressings to choose from - French, Low Fat Italian and Mango and Sesame.

It's served with bagel chips. The above shows the salad with the small container of bagel chips and a packet of dressing. Here's a close up of the bagel chips (croutons?):

This is the dressing I chose - Mango and Sesame:

The salad looks like this after everything is added in:

No, I didn't toss it because I wanted to eat it like this. It tastes surprisingly good (again). I was puzzled to find that I actually enjoyed eating this salad. The mango dressing is really good, goes well with the salad and complements the cranberry pieces well. It's also very filling, but that could be due to the fact that I've already eaten two hours ago...

Orange & Poppyseed Muffin Lite

This is also 97% fat free and it tastes like the normal McDonald's muffins...I could barely finish this one. It's quite large. It's a muffin, can't describe it much more than that. It's had orange pieces in it and crunchy poppyseeds on top. I reckon I'll have an excuse should I test positive for opiates at customs..."Officer, I swear, it was those damn poppy seed muffins I had. I hear they produce false positive for opiates in urine tests".

That's true by the way - poppy seeds have morphine and codeine which (if you eat enough) will cause you to fail a drug test. You'll still have explain away the cannabinoids and amphetamines positives though. ;)

Anyway, I didn't manage to eat through the Salads Plus menu...I didn't go to Melbourne just to have McDonald's everyday. However, the only items I missed out on is the Garden Mixed Salad, Raspberry Muffin Lite and the Granny Smith red & green apples (which you could get at the supermarket anyway). My apologies for not eating though the menu, but I covered the meat (no pun intended) of it, so this ends day three of my Melbourne trip.

Posted in Fast Food Inc. , Travel by Huai Bin at 12:42 PM Permalink | Comments (13)

castitas.com

Whether you love it or hate it, it's part of the sixthseal.com network, which currently includes:

sixthseal.com
The main site.

castitas.com
The first sister site.

pengsan.com
The second sister site.

castitas.com is where veritas writes and the content does not appeal to everyone...it's more of a blog with a limited target audience. pengsan.com is a work in progress but we're not talking about that now. castitas.com was also meant to be a load balancing server, since it doesn't receive the 1.6k average (stats for December 2003 as of today) unique visitors (not hits, visits) this site gets per day.

I feel that the sixthseal.com blog has weakened ever since the decision was made for veritas to move to castitas.com. We both feel that the original integrated blog was stronger in that it introduces the people interested in reading veritas's drug related entries to my general interest entries and the people interested in my personal posts to veritas's drug posts.

The first works by allowing recreational drug users a look into other perspectives, like the culture in Malaysia while the second is meant to dispell the "junkie" stereotype by providing non users a look into a recreational drug user's life and hopefully see that there's intelligent users who does not pose a threat to society. That's not to say that veritas is a the safest and most responsible user out there (haha), but hopefully, it would foster some understanding and tolerance and realization that not all drug users are violent criminals.

The move was a mistake because veritas cannot possibly post daily, so visitors do not know when a new post would be made. We both feel that the glory days (or zaman kegemilangan as I like to call it) were when the content was integrated and that sixthseal.com jumped the shark sometime in July 2003. However, that does not mean that the main site would stop churning out daily posts - I still like blogging.

veritas still likes writing trip reports too.

This long winded post is meant as a prelude to the future direction of the sixthseal.com network. There will be changes...very soon. Four days. I'll not be revealing anything now, but whether you love it or hate it, castitas.com will be heading in a new direction on the 1st of January 2004.

[Edit: 1st of January 2005 changed to 1st of January 2004. Typo. Thanks for the reminder.]

Posted in by Huai Bin at 07:45 AM Permalink | Comments (0)

Garlika Burger @ Burger King

Garlika Burger.

Garlika Burger is the new burger at Burger King. It looks good from the ad so I had one of them. It's not a large burger - the size is rather small, smaller than the usual Burger King offerings. I'll have to say that it looks quite dismal too. It's just a burger with a beef patty with a slathering of garlic paste. This is what it looks like in real life:

Never looks as good as the ad photo.

It tastes like...a burger with lots of garlic paste. :) I can't really describe it much more than that because that's what it is and that's all it is. It's a little disappointing compared to the promotional spiel. There's no reason to dislike it if you like garlic but I was expecting something more than a no frills burger with garlic paste.

Anyway, on a more personal note, I will be going to work tomorrow. There's bills that needs to be paid and fronts that needs to be maintained during the CNY reunion dinner. :) Hey, life's just a play after all, so let's just straighten our costumes because the show must go on!

Posted in Fast Food Inc. by Huai Bin at 09:15 PM Permalink | Comments (6)

Look, there's the guy that fucked up

Hello everyone. I'm having a really bad time now. I feel like i'm going crazy. Before any of you make any presumptions, no I'm not on drugs and yes, i did take my benzos like a good boy. i came into work and i realized that all i have been doing is data entry for the past few weeks (months?). i'm not a programmer, please change my job title, i'm a simple data entry clerk. not tha t there's anything wrong with that, but i was doing programming for my own project (pengsan.com) and i realized how i missed it, because it was fun.

i came in work today. it's a holiday but i have unfinished work. on opening my inbox i received a deluge of emails from the person i liase with in another company for more data entry work. i looked at my outstanding work and it wasn't a lot, just need to do a mass replace on ids, prob take 4 hours max. but i couldn't touch it. i couldn't look at it.

i guess some of you would say i had a panic attack. but thats improbable because i'm on a high benzo maintanence theraphy for my anxiety, social phobia and panic attacks. you know the drill, i couldn't breath, i felt like i was going crazy, there's sounds that makes me jump, i can't breath i feel like i'm having a heart attack, my heart is jackhammering and i want to hide from i don't know what but i feel like my mind is ripped apart and i can't escape, please help me god!

it slowly passed and i guess you could say it was a panic attack but like i said, i'm on benzos already. i'm also not taking drugs if anyone is thinking along that lines. though the bad part passed and i felt better, i still couldn't do the work i came here to do. i took a walk and came back and still couldn't do it. i thought about a lot of things.

i felt like calling it quits but i don't want to fuck up. its chinese new year soon and i don't want to go back to the family reunion dinner with my parents and aunties and uncles and grandma and cousins and all the other relatives without a job. i'll be the one that fucked up. they won't say it of course, i'm sure they'll be supportive or not mention it but i know what all of them would think

he couldn't take it. he cracked under pressure and he's a jobless bum.

and i am. am i not? if i quit, that's what i am. a fucking jobless loser who couldn't take it and quit. that's all i am and that's all i'm going to be so i might as well just fuck off from the gene pool and make the world a more productive and reliable place.

i don't want to quit. i don't think i can either, its understaffed at the moment and contract says 1 month notice. i haven't cashed in my paycheck but i don't think they'll allow me to give it back in lieu of one months notice. i'm afraid that there will be consequences from bad feelings too. and thats not to mention the big fucking smear on my resume from quitting on my first job and getting a bad reference. in the current situation (overabundence of it grads), i'll be lucky if i could get a job ever again. there's two million people waiting to replace me who would be more than happy to have a job and more than happy to accept my salary and do repetitive data entry.

but the most important thing is i don't want to quit. i'll fuck myself up. and i don't want everyone to talk about me and be known as the person who's WEAK and COULDN"T TAKE IT and CAN"T HANDLE PRESSURE and QUITTER QUITTER YOU FUCKING LOSER!Q!!!

i don't want to disappoint my parents and i don't want to go to the chinese new year reunion jobless and see what they think in their eyes even though they won't mention it.

i don't want to quit but i don't know if i can take all this data entry work much longer.i can't look at it. yeah i bet some of you would think i'm weak but you don't know me, you don't know my psychiatric history, you don't know how many hours i put in recently and how many hours i sleep and the most important thing is, i don't give two shits about what you think, sorry for disapppoiting you. like i siad, i'm just worried about what my family (inc. extended) and gf and gf's family would think.

or maybe i'm just saying that coz i did mention that i don't want to be known as the guy who fucked up so maybe i do care about what you think and i' m just lashing out as a defensively.

i don't want to quit and be know as the fucking loser quitter good for nothing piece of shit fucking loser.

i don't want all that. what should i do?

i can't look at the work i'm doing anymore. i'll take the lrt back now and sleep on it. i'll see how it goes tomorrow, perhaps i'll feel better and come in and do the repetitive data entry but it disgruntles me coz i'm not learning and updating my skills in programming at work and i don't have time at home. this is not to be seen as a critisism of my company of course, i willingly accepted more work during a meeting last time.

i'll just go back and sleep and see how it goes tomorrow.

i don't want to quit. what should i do?

i don't want to be the loser in the reunion dinner. the weak one who broke down and quit his job, that loser.

what should i do?

Posted in by Huai Bin at 09:21 PM Permalink | Comments (23)

Melbourne: Day 2 - The Paramount

Day 2 of the
Convocation: Melbourne, Australia (December 2003)
series.

The Paramount

There was a change of accommodations on the second day to The Paramount Serviced Apartments at Exhibition Street. I didn't know if I should go to Unilodge or The Paramount when I got back from the doof. I wasn't sure if the rest of my family (my sister flew in around midnight) had already checked out. I tried looking into Unilodge and by a stroke of luck, there they were - right at the reception desk to check out.

We checked in at The Paramount after that and the facilities here are much better than at Unilodge. There are washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, a full sized fridge, and even a nifty food grinder in the sink. Here's a couple of shots of the interior:

The lounge area - sorry about the backlight, was too scattered to notice then.

This is the kitchen.

I was so ready to pengsan [pengsan.com] then, I've been awake for a long time by that time and I was feeling totally knackered. I was ready to sleep for a day...but before that, the search for food must begin! Hibernation requires food intake beforehand - it allows longer hours of sleep and you feel better when you wake up, especially when you've not been eating before that.

Food court at The Paramount shopping arcade.

I've been to The Paramount's shopping arcade before, it's just off Little Bourke Street (Chinatown) and there's a short cut elevator that exits there instead of in Exhibition Street. I got some food at the food court, just one normal meal, take away, instead of overloading like I usually do, because space is needed for the other hibernation prerequisite - alcohol. :)

I have a couple of beers leftover from the night, but I wasn't about to put my faith in two measly beers so I also went to the bottle shop at the shopping arcade to grab another six pack. The photo above shows Burke's Original Hemp Filtered Premium Ale. I've had these a couple of times before, it's a good tasting one. It's filtered with hemp (cannabis plants cultivated to produce negligible amounts of THC), and their ads play on that angle a lot like most hemp beer manufacturers.

Burke's Original Hemp Filtered Naturally Brewed Premium Ale

Needless to say, hemp does not affect the beer in any way. You'll have to do what veritas did with 95% alcohol and cannabis [sixthseal.com] for a cannabis/alcohol concoction. Nevertheless, Burke's is an easy to drink beer, perfect for chugging. I made sure to take generous amounts of nitrazepam (a fast acting benzodiazepine with long hypnotic effects) and some lorazepam (a benzodiazepine with great anticonvulsant properties) sublingually before the meal. Please note that I have a legitimate prescription from a licensed medical practitioner for the two.

This is the dining area beside the lounge where I ate.

Anyway, the rest of my family was heading out for sightseeing so I informed them of my intension of sleeping 24 hours so they could take both the keys down. The Paramount has an excessive security framework that requires the keys to operate just about everything. You can't even press the buttons on the lift without swiping the keys through the scanner first and there are several doors that needs swipe access as well before you can exit the building.

Well, after that's sorted, I started drinking and I may have been too liberal with the benzodiazepines because I nearly fell asleep on the table. I decided that I would eat half of the food and then go to sleep because the benzos sure isn't going to wait for me to finish up. ;) There are two bedrooms, one with a large queen bed and one with two singles. I stumbled into one of the singles and passed out.

I slept for 26 hours.

Posted in Travel by Huai Bin at 09:25 PM Permalink | Comments (5)

Nope

Hello, sorry for the lack of updates, I'm swamped with work, so no Christmas for the wicked. Or something. I learnt something these few days. I mean, its bleeding obvious, so I already knew about it but anyway:

If it's not in black and white, it means fuck all.

Yeah verbal = fuck all. We need a record like email. People can act all nice with you verbally and fuck you later since, naive boy, there's no record of verbal conversations.

So remember dear readers, no record = fuck all.

Have a Merry Christmas everyone! :)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 09:39 AM Permalink | Comments (16)

Melbourne: Wildlife with Deviant Species (UK) live outdoors doof

Day 1 + 2 of the
Convocation: Melbourne, Australia (December 2003)
series.

I managed to meet up with Liam, Andrew and Ashley after I woke up from the much appreciated nap, and we headed back to halls to stock up on supplies before heading out. It was good to see halls again after all this while, managed to get a photo of Roberts Hall. Introductions were made (I only knew Liam then) and we headed out to Glen Waverley after everyone was sorted. I had only bought along a 1 liter bottle of water and worn my warm jumper, and was surprised to find everyone packing bags. Needless to say, I was inexperienced with doofs (outdoor raves).

Anyway, Liam drove down to Glen where we picked up a slab of Carlton Draught stubbies and two packs of ice from the bottleshop. In case anyone was wondering, I meant ice as in "the frozen form of water". Just to make things, er...crystal clear and all that. ;) Okay, enough lame jokes. Ashley had brought along an esky (cooler) and the picture you see above is a shot of Ashley and Liam loading it with beer and packing it with ice.

I forgot the name of this town.

This was all done in the car park beside the bottleshop. We stopped for gas after that and drove straight down to Jeeralang, where the event was going to be held. It's part of the Strzelecki Ranges. The drive was slated to be about 2 hours and it does seem far away coz I distinctly remember passing Mt Baw Baw. We did made a pit stop at a town near the venue for KFC before continuing the journey though.

Driving up the steep road.

The road into the venue wasn't marked, and it was a really steep drive up. I did see a "Wildlife - Deviant Species Live" sign at one point so we were on the right track. There was this sharp turn halfway up that had a bent street light, so it seems that at least one car didn't make it to the top unscathed. ;) It was a beautiful night though, the city lights were visible and you could see past the trees and down into the bottom of the hill with the amazing bush air breezing in.

Checkpoint!

We got to the checkpoint where the promoters were and damn, was that guy enthusiastic about the night. It gave off a great vibe. We got to the top just when it was turning dark and I knew I made a mistake regarding attire when I stepped out of the car. It was freezing! I don't know how cold it was, but the wind chill was insidious. Warm beer never tasted so good...and there's no need to worry about hyperthermia issues, that's for sure. ;)

Warmth available here.

The doof was starting music at 10 pm so we went to the hobo fire that was going on in front of the stage. It seemed to be the most popular spot with the weather that night. I had to make frequent trips back to the car to warm up. It's a good thing Liam parked near the stage and there was this trippy light device under some trees to guide the way. The lights refracted off the tree leaves in a surprisingly mesmerizing manner. It felt like a psychedelic light show.

The Great Illuminating One!

The trees were a bit tricky to navigate though - there were branches sticking out at the most unexpected places and navigating though the maze without The Guide (which was what we dubbed the trippy light) without being sober would be unthinkable. The first DJ set came on, and I vaguely remember someone ordering bales of hay at one point for seats around the fire. I haven't acclimatized yet, so the extreme temperature change was quite uncomfortable. The others had spare coats but I declined and stayed by the fire instead.

Setting up the set.

The early ones...

The crowd started small and grew larger as the night went on, this psy-trance event wasn't heavily publicized - they probably wanted it to be a smaller gathering for the psytrance regulars. I didn't dance much, I was er...mashed, so to speak and besides I was freezing my ass off in the chilly weather. The fire was good, though it was a wood fire, so smoke inhalation was an issue after a while beside it.

The crowd fills up...

as the night progresses.

I actually convinced myself that I had hypothermia at one point. It wasn't really hard to do that under the circumstances, and I was seriously thinking about leaving. I thought I was going to freeze to death if I stayed since the coldest spell hasn't even hit yet. Thankfully, the guys talked me out of that thought loop. Thanks everyone! :) Also, Andrew gave me his warm coat, cheers for that! I stopped thinking about hypothermia and did the second inventory stock take and it was all lovely after that. :)

Deviant Species live set!

This one taken without flash.

I only managed to get three photos of Deviant Species playing live. I was too mashed to move. They played till dawn was breaking...it was amazing to see the sun rise slowly over the valleys and watch the place light up. It really is a beautiful place to have a daylight doof in. Check out the scenery:

The venue looks different in daylight too. I thought I saw a large giraffe or some other animal, details are a bit hazy from the night. I was standing at the cliffs and was surprised to see a large giraffe appearing here, of all places. Checking with the others produced mixed responses, but I saw it vividly, and in daylight too! That is, until the "giraffe" moved and it turned out to be a man beside a rock with the opposite hills making it look that way after all. :)

This was what our path to the car looked like in the light of dawn.

This is us after watching the sunrise.

Liam was recharging for the drive back so we never got a full group photo, but here's one of us three:

L-R: Huai Bin (me), Andrew, Ashley.

To the best of my knowledge, everyone in the photo is completely sober. It must be the lighting that made it seem otherwise. I have to say that my memory of the night is rather fuzzy, but I can fully assure you that no psychedelics were consumed at the particular point in time this shot was taken.

Here's some photos of the morning set with Santos De Castro and Paul Wright (Deviant Species):

A large frame capture from the car.

Moving into the crowd.

Deviant Species were still playing the set.

I enjoyed the talks in the car, it was great, just gotta love the scene over in Melbourne. Excellent company - it was great to go raving with Liam again, and I'm glad I got to know Andrew and Ashley. I had a wonderful time. It's not about the music, it's about the...*cough*. :)

I'm sorry that you lost your glasses Ashley, hope you find it!

It was close to noon when we left the doof.

Memorable quotes of the night:

"I think I actually have to start earlier to warm myself up"

"Would be one hell of a come down tomorrow eh?"
"Do you want to talk about this now?"

"I can't believe you're yawning right after smoking that hit of meth!"

"I'm going off to check on my hallucinations now"

"I'm peaking so hard...I feel full on rushes everytime I move"

and many other classics I couldn't remember. :)

Despite my expression when the event was over and inventory stock clearence was done, it was worth every second of it! I'll do it all over again. :)

I Squid!

Posted in Best of sixthseal.com by Huai Bin at 05:53 PM Permalink | Comments (12)

Quack Quack

I had wanted to write a little rant about my quack doctor, but I'm too tired right now. I walked to see the nearest doctor - wasn't easy for me when my chest pains, fast pulse and labored breathing afforded me a pace slightly faster than a sloth. Two old men with canes passed by while I was clutching my chest and poked me to make me walk faster, while laughing derisively. Okay, that last bit didn't happen, but yeah it did take me a while to reach there.

Anyway, I told the doctor I'm worried about my cardiovascular situation and he went "Heart problems? At your age?" in a disbelieving tone. Yes, another one slipped through the cracks of med school. I told him I have hypertension and he did his quacky listen to my heart with the stethoscope thing and asked "Did you just run here?". I would have walked out of Mr. Quack's clinic if the walk here hadn't already used up all of my remaining energy. Fuckwit.

I told him patiently (which isn't hard to do when you have to work hard just to breath) that no, I walked very slowly. I tried to make it simple for him by putting things into words he can understand but unfortunately he believes he knows more about my body than me. He tapped me a couple of times on the stomach and said "I think it's acute gastritis. I'll give you some pills for that."

Oh, for crying out loud...

I told him to measure my BP at rest, which thankfully was a relatively low 170/95. The second measure yielded the same results, so I'm not bothered about it. Call me when it's 220 systolic. ;) I think my pulse rate knocked some quackiness out of him though...he measured me at several points and finally said that I had a very strangely strong and rapid pulse. Well no shit Sherlock, I've been having chest pains, shortness of breath and I don't even need to feel myself to hear the pulse beating.

Now here's the thing. He made a quick decision to wash his hands of me and suddenly said, "Oh, you're still young, perhaps you just had too much coffee or something. I'll give you some pills for the chest pain, but I think it's probably acute gastritis so I'll give you some of that as well, and you can take it easy and sleep tonight, I'll give you two sleeping tablets".

The "chest pain pills" were Buscopan (hyoscine-N-butylbromide), let's give him a big round of appause for prescribing that to a patient with hypertension and tachycardia @ 180 (sustained).

Oh, and those "sleeping pills"? They're just two Stilnox (zolpidem) tablets. With my benzodiazepine tolerance, he'll have better luck reanimating the dead.

Fucking Quack, I'll stick to my lorazepam prescription to control the problems until I see a real cardiologist. This one is the GP you see when you catch a cold, anything more complicated would be way above his league.

My apologies for not being my usual self today, I'm irritable from the high body load all this is giving me. It's a good thing I already wrote the next Melbourne post on Satuday, so I'll just upload the photos and the post will be up in a while. I'll be fine, I'll go to sleep soon and wake up anticipation for the work that's lying in wait for me. Whee!

Hey, I did write a mini rant after all.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 05:49 PM Permalink | Comments (4)

Vote: Photo #1 or Photo #2

I need a subjective opinion so please help me out here...I had to take a "recent smiling face shot" photo, so I took two a minute ago to pick from. Which one looks friendlier? I know I'm disheveled and I look like I haven't slept in days, but I tried my very best smile under the circumstances (feeling like shit now). It's not really important, I just need one for tomorrow - other people would be doing post production work on it eg cutting the face out, so the hair and headphones won't be part of the final image. My Photoshop skillz suck so I can't do it myself. Just the expression, which one do you think looks "friendlier" i.e. less fake coz I sure had to plaster that shit eating grin on...

Photo #1 or Photo #2?

Photo #1

Photo #2

P/S - It's either #1 or #2, I can't be bothered retaking the photos. I don't have any smiles left in me.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 07:26 PM Permalink | Comments (29)

Melbourne: Day 1 - Unilodge on Swanston

Day 1 of the
Convocation: Melbourne, Australia (December 2003)
series.

It was around 8 AM when the plane touched down in Tullamarine (Melbourne) airport. I just had two hours of fitful sleep over four days and seriously doubted my ability to head to the Deviant Species doof later that night. Customs was good though, I only had two checks on my declaration list and the customs officer said I could go through the Green Exit (no need for checks). Not bringing food along was a good idea, not that I had any use for that anyway, since I'm just coming over for my convocation.

Melbourne airport customs.

It's not readily visible from this photo but Melbourne customs officials seems to have a certain configuration - there's the one on the desk you talk to, a row of sturdy blokes after that, and a third row of older, and presumably more experienced officers. It's just an observation I've made, and I've been held up at customs before, and it seems that at least the second and third row have communication devices with the CCTV monitoring division, which I postulate is for spotting dodgy or nervous characters. I have several interesting encounters, but that's not relevant to the post, so I'll refrain from mentioning them. :)

Anyway, my two checks were for shoes and medication. The customs officer said dress shoes are fine and asked me what my medication was. I told him it's just my benzodiazepine prescription, and he said that's fine, just go through the green exit. It didn't turn out to be a hassle after all. Oh, and if anyone is interested, there were no sniffer dogs in sight at either baggage retrieval or customs - I've gone through close to 10 times and there was always a sniffer dog around, but not this time. Yes, I brought my wallet along, though not my backpack.

Unilodge on Swanston.

Well, I caught the SkyBus to Spencer Street Station and found out that they had a courtesy shuttle bus to CBD hotels, so I hopped on that to Unilodge at Swanston Street. We're staying there for the night due to a mess up with our booking with The Paramount. They have fully serviced apartments during uni holidays, and it's pretty spacey - here's a couple of shots of the interior:

This is the lounge area - windows open to a great view of the city.

There's a full kitchen too.

Melbourne - a bird's eye view.

This is the view from outside the lounge, there's a balcony that goes 3/4 around. This photo is of the RMIT/Hungry Jack's intersection right when you exit Melbourne Central Station, except this is taken from the 12th floor.

I decided to take a walk around town instead of sleeping, figured I won't have enough time before I had to get in touch with Liam. It was Saturday morning and there wasn't a lot of traffic at that time so it was good to walk around. I noticed a couple of changes since I was last in Melbourne (July 2003) - Melbourne Central is under heavy renovation and the familiar Melbourne Central Station escalators weren't there anymore.

Melbourne Central Station under construction.

The escalators have moved into the mall instead of being out front and the upper few floors of Melbourne Central seems to be closed. I walked down to Elizabeth Street to see if there's anyplace I could offload my CF Cards into a CD-ROM. I could fit about 52 shots into a 128 MB CF Card with my 5 MP Nikon 5700, and my other two CF Cards are 32 MB and 16 MB respectively...which means I'll need something to store the pictures in. I found that the best place to transfer from CF Card -> CD-ROM is at Ted's.

They charge A$ 9.95 per CD and they use one of those dedicated Agfa red boxes to do it. There's another shop nearby that's A$ 8.99 per CD - they're using a standard PC with flash card readers and a CD-RW to do it though, so I went with Ted's for the perceived privacy with the Agfa "black box" (don't know what's inside those things), since some photos were not meant for public viewing. ;)

The new mall beside the state library.

I walked back to Swanston and noticed that a new mall seems to have sprung up beside the state library. It's not fully functional yet, but there's a bowling alley, a Safeway and some food courts inside. I didn't take photos of the interior the first day, since I've just offloaded my CF Card into a CD-ROM and wanted to save space for the doof later, but I did get pictures before I came back. The mall seems pretty big - it must be the one that's under construction before I left.

It's surprising how much construction work can be done in a couple of months...it went from a deep pit into a monolithic (okay, I lack a better term) structure. I went into Safeway to get a 1 litre bottle of water and went to Dick Smith's at Bourke Street to get an adapter for charging my digicam battery. It was past 1 pm by the time I called Liam and we arranged to meet at 3 pm. I went back to Unilodge, charged my digicam battery and saw this tempting, tempting sight:

Tempt me not, fair maiden...

I was reminded of my sleep deprivation and decided to try and see if I could cram an hour's sleep before I went. It's something challenging for me, especially if I've not been sleeping in the days prior to the attempt. I set two alarm clocks, but they both failed me...it was way past 4 pm by the time I woke up and I didn't have a contact number so Liam couldn't reach me.

Did I wake up too late? Will I make it to the Deviant Species doof? Burning questions which will be answered in tomorrow's post!

Okay, those are stupid questions since you all know I made it to the doof...check back tomorrow for photos from the event!

Posted in Travel by Huai Bin at 04:21 PM Permalink | Comments (9)

Melbourne: Day 0 - Cigar rolling demonstration @ KLIA

Day 0 of the
Convocation: Melbourne, Australia (December 2003)
series.

I really have to applaud the KLIA KL CAT system - it's a really nifty concept that allows you to check in at KL Sentral (!) and your luggage goes direct to your destination (Melbourne in this case) while you take your carry on into the KLIA Express and ride to KLIA in comfort, without the need to check in again at the airport. A baggage check in system and boarding pass issue service in the city! I was impressed...just made it there at slightly before 7:20 pm so I was eligible to check in there. You need two hours before the flight time to be eligible.

Cigar rolling demonstration.

I requested a window seat as usual (good for sleeping, and I don't piss that often) and took the KLIA Express to KLIA. The train looks like the interior of a plane, probably designed that way. Well, I arrived at KLIA and followed the rest of the herd into the aerotrains. I wanted to make a short post at the net center there but their line was down, and the seats were filled with irate surfers watching a blank screen, so I walked around instead and found a cigar rolling demonstration.

A nice big leaf of tobacco to start with...

It was organized by Davidoff and the person turned out to be "Master Cigar Roller - Mr. Ambiorix Pichardo Reyes" from Santiago in the Dominican Republic. He had leaves and fillers and all sorts of tobacco around him. It was interesting to watch him roll a cigar, he makes about one per minute and I was offered a chance to sample his freshly rolled cigars compliments of Davidoff in the smoking room, but I had to decline coz my flight was boarding.

Cigar making in process.

It was a bummer, I saw several people took up the offer though, it would have been a nice opportunity to smoke a freshly hand rolled cigar, it's not something that happens to you everyday, at least not here. :) I think it was freshly rolled anyway, it's not from the same batch as the ones Mr. Ambiorix had beside him, and the ones offered to us by the promoter looks more "finished", but she said it was "freshly rolled by the Master Cigar Roller, compliments of Davidoff".

Pulling some tobacco into the roll.

Nevertheless, it would have been great to have one since the chance doesn't come by that often, so I wanted to just grab one, have a quick puff and then run off to my gate, but doing that just for the sake of doing it and leaving a perfectly good cigar with just one smoke in the ash tray seems blasphemous, so I declined. I'll have to say though, I would not have declined if this happens again, with hindsight. ;)

Rolling it all up into a cigar.

How many times can you say you've smoked a freshly rolled cigar by a master cigar roller? Not very much...yeah, I'm still kicking myself over it. Anyway, after taking a couple of photos (very grudgingly taken, since I wanted to preserve CF Card space and battery power just in case I couldn't offload and recharge in Melbourne before the doof), I boarded my flight and...couldn't sleep.

Finishing a freshly rolled cigar.

Yes, I took enough benzodiazepines to sedate a small horse. Yes, I drank heaps of alcohol. No, I did not sleep the night before. However, sleep just wasn't forthcoming. Nope. It wasn't. No sleep for the wicked, probably. I filled in the declaration card since I was bored. I only had two "Yes" answers, was hoping to go out the Green Lane. After that, I still couldn't sleep so I wrote a post while continuously downing Bloody Mary's with a cup of water (can't be dehydrated before a doof).

Yes for medication and used shoes.

It was called "sixthseal.com offline (12/12/2003)" and it was written on pieces of tray liner (!) because the flight doesn't have letter pads, sorry. They did have postcards though, which they gave me, but you can't very well write on a postcard, so I asked for something I can write on, and they gave me this. Personally, I think the cabin attendants were just sick of me pressing the "Call" button and asking for a Bloody Mary (can you make it stronger this time, please?) and a cup of water every 15 minutes. ;)

Anyway, the two pieces of paper goes through things I've already mentioned in this post, so I won't be scanning it as I originally intended. It had a story about me losing my Valium blister pack, which I'm lazy to re-write, but yeah, I lost it somehow. There was either a very sedated taxi driver or a very sedated MAS ground staff that night. That's at the expense of my sleep, those were 10 x 10 mg diazepam tablets...I had to dip into my personal stash of 5 mg nitrazepam and slept about 2 hours into the next day.

sixthseal.com offline!

Oh, and towards the end, the irate cabin attendant made the Bloody Mary in front of me. Heh. She poured two shots into the pre-mix in front of me, probably to stop me from repeating "Can you make it stronger this time?". ;) However, she did not allow three shots, stating some obscure code they have to adhere to - she said I could have as many double shot Bloody Mary's as I liked, just not 3 shot ones. The trick to get cabin attendants to keep on serving alcohol is to appear sober and be polite and obviously, don't slur your words. I've read about some guy assaulting flight attendants coz they refused to serve him more alcohol, and I've seen people being denied more drinks on previous flights, but I've never had the same problem myself. Their mistake was to be demanding and appearing to be drunk - two things you shouldn't do.

As always, retain a sedated composure (it comes with benzos anyway, that gives off an impression that you're not a "violent drunk"), appear to be sober (don't slur your words, don't give off any outward signs of intoxication) and just be polite and friendly. I've never been denied drinks before and I've had more than my fair share during flights, including an embaressing one that ended up with me passing out and spilling drinks and er...finding myself on the floor when I woke up. Even with that faux pax, I was still served, so if you aren't already aware of the obvious tips, keep them in mind and the free flow will be free flowing you to sleep. I only had a two hour sleep - but that's going into Day 1...coming up soon!

Posted in Travel by Huai Bin at 11:55 PM Permalink | Comments (2)

Stage exit left, regurgitate

Greetings! My apologies for the lack of updates, I was sick (no, really). It started on Friday morning when I ate some noodles with sotong by the roadside for breakfast which made me projectile vomit for the rest of the day...seriously, I couldn't keep even fluids down, despite my best attempts, and my best attempt can be a good one, considering the things I've had and held down in the past. ;)

Anyway, was absolutely knackered for the rest of the day, but still worked nevertheless, like the productive employee I am. Heh. I didn't want to call it quits and take an MC because these things "build character" or so I'm told, so I subjected myself to a day of frequent trips to the bathroom for regurgitation. This makes two dubious quasi "character building" events in the past week, the first being the hypothermia (my mind was convinced anyway) incident. More about that soon!

Back to being knackered, I finally decided to see a doctor at around 5 pm (coz being dehydrated sucks) and said I'll be back. That's not a good time to go to a doctor because the clinics usually close around that time. Thus, it was back to work and I practically had to crawl back to Bangsar after work. It was seriously that bad, somehow food poisoning and the subsequent hourly regurgitation and stomach cramps tires you like nothing else. It felt much worse than multiple day *cough* runs without food, that was how bad it was.

Anyway, got to Bangsar, crawled (a manly crawl, mind you) into the nearest clinic and got an IM injection, a much appreciated anti-emetic which stopped all thoughts of throwing up within 20 minutes, and I ate a bun and slept for 17 hours and felt perfectly fine today, and went to work and went to BB and came back and now I'm writing this. I will be posting the Melbourne convo series soon, please entertain yourself by looking at this in the meantime:

It's a Christmas present from Lee Qeuh (I think - the signature is hard to read) from the company Christmas dinner that I couldn't attend because I was in Melbourne at that time. There was an exchange of gifts scheduled, I didn't know what I gave though, since I didn't have time on the Friday I was about to leave so Rozana (my friend from work who sits beside me) got a present for me by proxy instead.

Please stand by, the much delayed Melbourne series is coming right up...

Posted in by Huai Bin at 09:19 PM Permalink | Comments (4)

"I'll have breast meat with that, thanks."

I went to take away some chicken rice just now and somehow got breast meat in addition to the drumstick I requested. I don't even like breast meat. The incident happened when I squeezed through to the cashier's place. To do that, you had to go through the existing queue for chicken rice. "Excuse me!" I said, and lifted my hands to utilize the "wedge yourself through by force" technique and got to the cashier's. I started pulling out RM 1 bills from my wallet, when suddenly, I felt someone staring at me. She was wearing office attire, probably mid twenties, with...well, decent (for the lack of a better word) assets for someone of her physical build.

The realization dawned upon me that in my attempts to navigate the human maze in the cafeteria, I had inadvertently initiated inappropriate physical contact between my left hand and the abovementioned person's mammary appendages for about 3 seconds. I realized that my outer left hand had slid across the chest area of the unfortunately positioned woman, thus affecting not just one, but both of the extrusions in question.

It must not have seemed like an accident to her, because the look on her face could only be described as "consternation". It wasn't "appalled", thank goodness, nor was it "shocked", just mere "consternation", with an unasked question hanging above her head. "Sorry, I didn't mean to do that", said I. "No, no, it's okay", said she.

However, I noticed that she had her arms firmly crossed against her breasts when I was about to exit the area, presumably to avoid a repeat of the previous incident.

I walked out behind her, just in case. :)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 12:39 PM Permalink | Comments (12)

Duty Free

Guess who's back? Okay, that's the lamest ever start to a post and I must apologize for subjecting you to that overused cliched statement. Sorry guys. ;) Anyways, I've just got back from Melbourne, breezed through customs. Thank God, there were 5 items I think they would take exception to and frown upon. Heh. Anyway, I have to work tomorrow and it's 11 pm now and even though I drank enough Bloody Marys (can you make it stronger this time?) and other alcoholic beverages (hey, it's free) with bzd I still feel quite awake, but fear not, dear readers, beer is still cold in my fridge and I bought 3 bottles of 1 litre flavored Absolut Vodka (for me) and several cartons of Marlboros (for someone else, coz I don't smoke).

I will update tomorrow, one day each day, starting from Day 0 and ending with Day 5. I wanted to do it Memento style and go ass backwards from Day 5 -> Day 0 but I fear that will fuck with your mind too hard and I don't want to wish that upon you after I had mine fucked with last night. No, no large scary chickens were involved, thankfully. I don't think I'll be able to handle that abomination chasing after me. ;)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 11:19 PM Permalink | Comments (13)

Greetings from Melbourne

Hello, I've arrived in Melbourne yesterday or the day before, I really can't gather my scattered thoughts right now, The outdoor doof was very cold. More about that later, got back yesterday and slept for more than 24 hours (what a waste) to recover from my non sleep in the day before I left and the non sleep in the plane. Anyway, I'm going off now, I'll do a day by day run through when I reach home, it will be sporadic posts like this until I get back. Later!

Posted in Travel by Huai Bin at 10:45 AM Permalink | Comments (5)

Destination: Melbourne, Australia (and a contest for readers)

Greetings, my excellent friends! This is the last post I'll be making before leaving for Melbourne. I will update there, but posts are likely to be sporadic since I'll be very busy once I get off the flight. Anyway, due to a mess up with bookings, I'll be staying at UniLodge [unilodge.com.au] on Saturday and Sunday. Technically staying anyway, I won't be in for most of the day. It's the one smack dab in the middle of the city (Swanston), beside Melbourne Central, the one with a Subway beside it. I'll be moving to The Paramount [theparamount.com.au] after the first two days till the end of my stay.

I will be going to the Deviant Species [deviantspecies.co.uk] (dark sounding psy, lovely!) headlined outdoor rave (which makes it technically a doof?) at the abandoned mountaintop airstrip on Saturday, right after I arrive. It will be fucking awesome, I've been looking for an event to put a cap to the Melbourne scene, and I had thought the Lab4 one at Hard Kandy would be good (the circle completes), but I will not be able to make it to that one due to my flight.

However, my buddy Liam, who happens to be staying at halls over the summer, told me about this psytrance event and it sounds absolutely perfect - the venue sounds amazing, and it's has an underground feel to it. Call (03)88104396 for venue details. I'm looking forward to this one, good thing Liam has bought himself a car so transportation is sorted. :) Yeah, Liam is the same guy some of you might remember in the "last rave" in Melbourne [sixthseal.com] before I came back.

This will go on till Sunday so I'll have one day to recover before my convocation ceremony on Tuesday. T+ 48 eh...prognosis doesn't look all that good, but that's never stopped me before. ;) It will be my last (really) rave in Melbourne in the foreseeable future, so I'm going to have fun. You go in hard, and you go in fast! Don't stop! Which hard trance song has this sample? Name the song title. Hint: The one word title is biblical in nature and is tied to this site's domain (sixthseal.com) in the events depicted in the book of Revelation.

The first one who gets it right will have to email me a postal address to receive a gift. The gift will be something from a headshop. Should the winner be from Malaysia or another restrictive country, it may be considered "drug paraphernalia" or "counter culture", so there is the option to request an alternative item, or accept the gift at your own risk. Naturally, the item will be mailed from Melbourne and the contest will end on the 17th of December 2003 at 12:01 am so I'll have time to send it out the next day. If there isn't a correct answer by that time, the prize will go to a commentor (on this post) chosen at my discretion and the winner will be announced.

This is important: The winner must agree to provide a photo of himself/herself with the prize (upon receipt of the gift) for publication on sixthseal.com. If the winner does not own or have access to a digicam, a photo print from a non-digital camera can be mailed to a physical address which I will provide or scanned and emailed to my email address. By doing this, the winner agrees to transfer full ownership of the photo to sixthseal.com and forfeits all rights to the photo, thus giving sixthseal.com full ownership and copyright to the photo. Obviously, this is based on trust, so please don't agree unless you're willing to fulfil the above requirements.

You can comment on this post without entering the contest, the contest is based on the correct answer to the question above. However, commenting on the post without answering the contest question qualifies you as the alternate winner in case where there is no correct answer, though you will be given the option to decline if you don't agree to the contest regulations. Another alternate winner will be chosen based in the case this happens until someone who agrees to the conditions is selected. sixthseal.com reserves the right to publish all (if any) the names of the alternate winners who decline. Without the pretentious legalese, this just means I'll say something like "xxx was contacted for (reason) but declined. yyy was then contacted for (reason) and agreed. yyy is the alternate winner."

Anyway, we've digressed far from the real reason I'll be going to Melbourne. ;) Regarding the graduation ceremony, it will be at Robert Blackwood Hall @ 8 pm, and since it's summer, it should be relatively light during the photography session after the regalia hire. I will be using the on-site professional graduation photography services, would be doing the standard boring degree in hand, smile on face, "I have graduated from university" pose with a backdrop of bookshelves...as well as family shots (all of them will be there) and...unorthodox ones. =D

No one would possibly want to publish the unorthodox ones, so, dear readers, anyone with deep pockets who's willing to put out the obligatory "announce to the whole world that someone has graduated" ad with a very subtle and discreet subversive message will have my external thanks as well as the shared notoriety of (probably) the first subversive graduation congratulations ad of this manner in the history of Malaysia! ;)

I've always had a bit of a pet peeve at the "I study 16 hour days and I attribute my good results to the blood, sweat and tears from that. Self discipline is very important, I force myself to study when people go out to have fun and I don't have a girlfriend because that will affect results." type statements in UPSR/PMR/SPM/STPM high achiever interviews. I've seen other people with similar results say "Hmm...never did study till the last 2 weeks...crammed my ass off and what do you know, straight A's. I'll be damned." but those never get printed/shown, presumably to not affect those poor impressionable minds out there.

My unofficial graduation photo would be one which accurately shows how I got through university. ;)

The next update will be from Melbourne. Till then, take care of each other and have an excellent weekend!

Set engines to Warp 9. Engage! Bring us out of here.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 07:04 AM Permalink | Comments (18)

Genki genki sushi sushi

Greetings Earthlings! These are the photos from Genki Sushi yesterday, read them and weep! Yes, that doesn't make no sense, but neither does anything else in life. :) Anyway, a prelude before the pictures, I took unpaid leave (again) today to wash my laundry since it won't dry if I take leave tomorrow and people who knows me in real life can attest that my wardrobe is rather limited, to say the least. ;) I don't buy clothes, it's not how I choose to use my expenditure. But, sushi! That's what we're talking about now. Here are the photos from Genki Sushi:

Some sushi with chicken on drop and which I dropped promptly the moment I picked it up. We also got something like this, but didn't take a photo.

Some deep fried parcel like things.

Something that looks like moshi and it's sweet.

Salmon sushi, we think, there is one with a different shade of red.

Genki Satay. Or something. Tastes like chicken. Lost the receipt so I dunno wat it's actually called. Very aerodynamic.

Green tea that can be refilled with a tap labelled "Hot" on the table. Nifty. Quick I have to be fast.

Obscene radioactive sauce with liberal wasabi (not made by me). My friend went "Johnson & Johnson No more tears" went and ate one slathered with this. Indeed, no more tears. Myself, first try made me cry. Fared better on the second endeavor. Desensitized after that. :)

Tempura. Done!

Anyway, I shall throw down the gauntlet and ask if I can finish my work at my company before 12 pm and then go to (client's place) to finish my work there and then leave to ensure that I can make it to the airport on time. I don't know, personally, I think that's pushing it quite a bit and it reflects badly on me, since I'm basically a new employee on my first job, and the IT industry is not exactly booming now due to outsourcing to countries with citizens who will accept lower pay for similar results like India and China.

However, if I'm ever going to taper off my pharmacopoeia I'm going to have to STOP worrying about everything and chant "Que sera sera". Come on now, do it with me!

Que sera sera
Whatever will be will be
The future's not ours to see
What will be, will be!

=D

Let's go to Melbourne! They have this e-visa thing going on now. Now where did I put my reference number? Nevermind, let's go to Melbourne anyway!

Posted in Food by Huai Bin at 11:55 PM Permalink | Comments (11)

I can't believe it's not sushi!

This is a photo of a chef preparing sushi at Genki Sushi today. Well, he's assistant chef but anyway, the most important question is...er, I forgot. Anyway, I ate at Genki Sushi today with a friend and the photos will be up tomorrow and I will have to reply the comments tomorrow during lunch hour too. I'm sorry, I've been saying this in most of the recent posts, and it must be getting old.

However, I realized that tomorrow is Thursday and I'm flying to Melbourne on Friday and I've not done all the things that I need to do yet! There literally a shitload of things to arrange (the least of which is the fact that I don't have a "clean" bag and my laundry would not be ready by Friday if the rain continues) before I go over and I have to work on Friday, so everything has to be done by tomorrow (won't be sleeping then) so I can come back to work on Friday, pick up my bags, take a taxi to KL Sentral and take the KLIA Express to KLIA. My plane leaves at 9:20 pm (wtf, I thought it was a midnight flight) and I finish work at 5:30 pm.

Bets on whether I make that flight or not comes with odds of 3:1, and I've taken too many leaves so I don't think I can take another one on Friday without finding myself on the unemployment line. ;) I don't know, I'll ask just for the sake of asking. Wish me luck ya, and someone hire me if I get fired. :p

Posted in by Huai Bin at 08:36 PM Permalink | Comments (9)

Suria KLCC Santas

There were two Santa Clauses (that doesn't sound right to me too) at Suria KLCC today. I think there have scheduled appearances several times each day to hand out balloons (with the Suria logo, what else) to anyone who wanted them. This was taken at around 6:45 pm while I walking to the KLCC LRT station to get back after work. They were two of them, one female and one male and the Christmas tree has been strung with er...strands of lights. It looks good, and the tall tree is topped by a pink glowing Suria KLCC decor.

How to cook with a monitor.

I have a lot of photos and things to write about today, but there's not much time left before I have to sleep, so this will be a shorter one. See that photo up there? I just took it, the nasi kandar was bought at around 7:30 pm in Bangsar (where I get off the LRT and take the bus for the final leg) and the food is getting cold, and it's been sitting there since I got back. I'll try to reply all the comments before eating and going to sleep.

If anyone is wondering, my monitor produces an obscene amount of heat (I think it's faulty) even at the lowest gamma setting and with all tweaks to reduce possible causes. It will keep the food somewhat warm, if I overturn it once every 15 minutes. :) It's very useful in colder climates, turning it on for more than an hour in your room would make it seem like an oven. Thus, you have a monitor AND a heater at the same time. This unique monitor/heater combo can be YOURS for the low, low price of RM 1000. And if you call within the next 30 minutes, we'll even throw in the packet of nasi kandar (it has a drumstick, sotong and meat inside) JUST FOR YOU! Yes, that's the monitor/heater combo and a nice pack of RM 6.20 nasi kandar, what a bargain! So act now before it's sold out, you wouldn't want to miss this chance of a lifetime!

What do you think? Should I change my career into telemarketing and annoy the shit out of everyone who watches late night TV? ;)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 09:10 PM Permalink | Comments (9)

HWM 1st Anniversary Celebrations @ Low Yat

HWM carnival stage.

This is Hardware MAG Malaysia (HWM) organizing their 1st anniversary celebrations at the square in front of Low Yat Plaza. I was in the area Saturday evening and noticed the air filled structures so I hung around and took a couple of photos. It was meant to go up yesterday, but I wrote about other stuff instead. Here you go - a day late, but not a dollar short, unlike some other posts...the XM buka puasa one comes to mind. :) Speaking of which, I applied for emergency unpaid leave today to sort out my remaining graduation issues which had to be done today and also went to a doctor. I actually have medical insurance cards issued by my company, but I've never used it and I never will, due to the insurance company's liberal disclosure policy. Poor Hippocrates of Chios...with this and the hospital - police unholy matrimony, he'll be rolling in his grave if he weren't reduced to dust already. ;)

Here's the carnival photos:

Rodeo!

Unfortunately, the bull did not like being straddled like cattle.

The (reverse) bungee run.

Adidas mini golf putting.

Angle looks promising...and she did sink it.

The unpopular Rocky Mountain at the far corner.

One of the staff tried to scale it but failed. May should have been there to show them how it's done. ;)

Sticky Jump...watch this guy.

Reverse somersault.

Two clowns leaving the event...one walking and the other on an small bicycle that did not scale well with his stature. The air blown dancing man is featured at the entrance.

This post was brought to you by sheer willpower and the letters M and B.

It's a Sesame Street joke, nothing else lar.

Anyway, I shall refrain from writing posts that like the previous one. I think the Book of Asian Etiquette dictates that issues of that nature should be discussed only within the family. I wonder which way I should go:

I'm keeping an eye out for the grim reaper. (Wary)

or

I don't give two shits about his scythe. (Exhausted)

I'm leaning towards the latter, and yeah the photos were taken just a couple of minutes ago. I'm really tired, as you can see. Dead tired. ;)

This is the last time issues like this are going to be shared publicly. sixthseal.com will be put on a course of SSRIs starting tomorrow, so expect light, fun and easy to read posts! It's a fucking blog after all, and like most people, I would have no problem churning out "happy posts", regardless of the actual state I'm in. There were actually several episodes during ever since I started the blog in April 2001, but I've only mentioned it once.

There was a really bad one where I had to struggle with a surprisingly dark void and suicidal ideations every fucking night. I wondered if it would actually hurt and set my obligations in order, I wanted it to be clean and DOA, not some fucking suicide attempt to attract attention (no offence intended for those who do this), and I was going to do it right. This was the third night, and well, again, I mean no offence, but the people who wonders why someone would contemplate the final solution has never been in a real serotonin depletion before.

The best way word to describe it is "sheer and utter hopelessness", in the strongest sense of the word. The first two nights were test runs, and it became clear that I don't need to worry about chickening out due to my impulsive personality. I can say "Now" and my body obeys, without latency, it won't go "Har?", "Come again?" or "Shit, are we really going to do this?". He's a good guy, follows orders. ;) Whether that's a gift or a curse is something I've yet to ascertain. Heh.

The first two nights were spent kneeling down and feminizing about past memories and I'm not afraid to say some tears were involved as well, but I had convinced myself that it was for the best, I'm a fuckup and my life is going fucking nowhere and my lifestyle is self destructive, I wasn't going to be nobody and I wanted to be everything in kindergarten. I'll say again, sheer and utter hopelessness. :)

People close to me no doubt noticed a certain attitude change and got me out of bed and into the population, which I must thank for prolonging the decision. :) I think my parents were pretty sure about the general direction I was heading and it did made me sad but the depression was so overwhelming that it's just something that register and made me cry, but didn't change my mind. I was afraid of going to hell. I feel bad for leaving my parents and sister behind, but it was hopeless, most people would agree that.

And you know what? I didn't miss a fucking post (technically one, explained below) during all that. I hardly got out of bed, and the only thing I did was to switch on the PC, post a photo from my personal archives and write something witty. Replying comments were easy those days, since I didn't have a commenting system! Heh! I'll eat my mouse (and mine is not optical, so I might choke on the ball) if anyone except close friends and family knew anything was wrong with me at that time. I could be dragged out, and acted relatively normal, though a lot of time was spent planning the final solution.

Well, there's technically one daily post missing but it had two the other day so that means it's still daily - this was the old HTML blog which the majority of you would not have come across, and my standards for daily were different then, will explain some other time. Anyway, the first two nights were spent kneeling beside the suitcase and regretting everything I've done and how things would be different if the several identified incidents did not happen. Making the decision made me serene, there weren't any more desperate and crazy sounding fast repetitions of mantras while facing the side off white wall and I stopped needing to stuff my fist into my mouth to distract myself.

It obviously won't work for everyone, but stuffing fists into my mouth and the common "making myself trip" and fall to get an injury were the more common distractions I used to drown out all the guilt and craziness swimming around my brain. My mom called it "craziness" but didn't bother too much about it since I had other more socially noticeable manifestations then, which she called "habits". The advances in research has enlightened most people (except Neanderthals) about the various neurotransmitters that has been isolated and several classes of prescription drugs went into the market, which effectively managed "craziness" (which is now called GAD) and "habits" (which is now called OCD). ;)

She caught me once when I was 9 or 10, I scraped my knee by "accidentally" fell outside when I excused myself to "go for a walk", but it wasn't deep enough and I had a lot of worries that day, so it wasn't satisfactory. The pain must be something that you feel constantly, or else it won't work. I made a lot of mistakes when I was younger, I've never told a soul about some of them, and this was one of the big ones. No one knows about it, but it was not something that gets a simple slap on the wrist, if you get what I mean. I'm was very young, but what I did then would get me in prison for decades and whipped if I did it now. No, it's not drugs, and I won't say what it is anyway.

Well, about the funny (in hindsight) falls, I did it again, with a rougher concrete surface, but it just wasn't enough. I'll tell you that shit will hit the fan if what I did was found out, but it never did happen. And before any of you judge me, yes I have a conscience and yes, I do feel guilty, but I can't do anything to rectify the situation now so full stop. Well, I didn't find the second one would last me through the night (it was evening then) so I knelt down and scraped the lacerations on the concrete carpark to do it right. Unbeknownst to me, my mom had come out to water the plants and has been noticing the admittedly unusual fall. She did grill me a bit, but yeah that time was one I remembered the house being full of emotional instabilities.

Those were tricks I used to control situations when I was in primary school. I favor the fists then since it's really hard to fit into your mouth and you must fit the whole thing AND hold it in there till it hurts. It's a short term treatment, something you run off into the toilet to do three fists into mouth inserts when someone talks about something that makes you feel guilty. The wall of insanity (but it keeps you sane) was from way back, I've been using that technique since I was young. We didn't have exactly have Xanax (alprazolam) at that time you know. ;)

Anyway, there is a reason I digressed into my coping techniques when I was younger, but that comes later. This is the third night, and the funny thing is, things like "Oh, I haven't been to (some country)", "There's so much to live for!" and "You're wasting your life by ending it at it's prime" never came into my mind. It was moot, I didn't care about those things anymore, I just wanted to be free from the debilitating depression. I couldn't help but be a little out of character on the third night...I said "I love you all" and that "I believe in God" to my parents, and emotionally, I feel the "feelings" of sadness, but I think it's for the best. I'm the black sheep of my family and I don't want them to have to worry about me all the time.

It's everything that snowballs into one huge motherfucker with "Reasons to Kill Yourself" rolling down the hill at you. The uncertainty from two years back (which I'm also not talking about since it's serious), the guilt from indiscretions and lies, even the dusty window, they all add up and jumble together, so you're left with no options. I turned off ICQ, said I was going to play Counter-Strike and that causes problems with the sound. I called my gf and told her I was extremely sleepy so I'll have to go to sleep and the battery of the cell is low, so I'll turn it off while it charges.

I was alone. I felt sad, but it's mind boggling, I felt happy too! I wrote long emails saying that it's not their fault, I just fucked up, they were the best parents I could hope for and all that. I meant every single word I said. I wrote confession letters to some other people and set the mails to go out the next morning,, which I think my death would not have been noticed yet.

I knelled by the black suitcase and prayed for forgiveness (hey, you never know) and took in a deep breath and said "Go!" in my brain, which is how I do stuff I'm not willing to do and for fucks sake, my other phone rang! I swear it sounds cheesy enough to go into a B movie, but then it was dark at that time, and I also didn't want to say something which was another major factor in the decisions. This is not a confessional post, certain details does not have to be included. :p

Anyway, the caller was my dad - he was really worried because my parents agreed that I was acting extremely strange today. I laughed it off and said I'm perfectly fine, just wanted to play CS that's all, and I really have to get back to the game. Suddenly my dad said that no parent wants their child to die before them. I laughed lightly and said, what are you thinking? I'm perfectly fine, but fuck, atmospheric moisture started to find my ocular region a nice place to settle. I didn't know what to do, but I had everything prepared and it would be so easy, but what my dad said kept bothering me.

I stood at the side off white wall and started chanting, I was pacing back and forth, breaking the rule of ensuring maximum concentration. I thought about everything, but the top two suicide reasons were dominating. Did it happen or was I just tripping? The second one went, you know about that, it's a fucking teenage mistake. I don't want to know, I want to go like this, the way I choose! The flashback of the first reason came then and I was crying coz I was sure it's not a ring, it's something else and I didn't even say "Go", I wanted the choice and this is the only choice!

I'm still here am I not? :) Suicide is a very easy way out in severe depression, and I'm sure most of you who has experienced that would agree. I would have killed myself the first time, I was going to ignore the phone and just do it, but the sound shocked me since I thought I had turned off all the communications. When I think about the things I've been through, I'll say I'm one lucky motherfucker. Devine intervention would be blasphemous. :)

I didn't tell you what went on after the phone call interrupted, I still went for it coz it didn't look like a ring (please don't ask) but this time, I couldn't do it. I kept on thinking about what my father said and I remembered very vividly the events that happened when my paternal grandfather died. My father was devastated while his brothers didn't seem to be to my 12 year old eyes. This is when my hand turned on me, it's fucking silly, I know, but I don't want to kill myself anymore, but my hand wanted to because it was not a fucking ring!

I didn't dare to let the thoughts go on, no rings, no beer bottles, no three fingers. I fucking ran out of the door and ran as fast as I could several times around the jogging track by the pond until I threw up. I didn't dare to walk back, since I was still thinking about the ring, because it's not one! That's just the first issue, and the other ones stacked up there would have to be slowly forgotten, but the two, which I will call Not Ring and Satria, interconnected even due to the distance, will always haunt me.

I started getting into a negative loop again when I reached my room and fuck, this must be Deux Ex Machina day, coz Jimmy was there and wanted to go for pizza. I was considering whether to go or not, before I finally said, fuck everything, I'm going to Monash Pizza and I'm going to eat Chicken pizza with BBQ sauce and anchovies and prawns on top. The serotonin levels started filling up a couple of days after that. I wasn't suicidal anymore after that day, though I was still depressed and slept most of the day.

I still get severe depression and debilitating anxiety for two weeks every time I subconsciously think of those two issues, benzodiazepines works wonders in increasing the latency and reducing the severity of the episodes. I should not have written this though, didn't know what passed me, I don't want to her about those two things ever again. No one except my parents and sister knows what the two biggies are and why it would drive someone to suicide. No one knows about that disgraceful crime that happened when I was 9 or 10, and I'm not telling anyone about that. It's technically the worst thing I've ever done, but it's the past now and let bygones be bygones.

Blood is always thicker than water. I don't know anyone who would have stopped me except for my family.

Notice: The writing above that starts with the sentence "There was a really bad one where I had to struggle with a surprisingly dark void and suicidal ideations every fucking night." is complete fiction. Any similarities to events in real life is purely coincidental.

I was compelled to write tonight and it took up more time than I expected, so I'll have to go to sleep now. Your feedback is appreciated and I'll reply every one tomorrow. We shall look forward to a happier sixthseal.com content and a decrease in the superfluous usage of the f-word, unless it's justified. Too much fucking around going on lately. ;)

Posted in Events by Huai Bin at 09:39 PM Permalink | Comments (9)

Time flies when you're having fun...

it really does. I can't say I had fun in the exact sense of the word today, but even though people think that today is a beautiful day to die, I will not kick the bucket today, so that's a cause for celebration if anything. :)

Hey, look at me, I did not buy the farm, it's nearly 12 AM! I told ya, que sera sera and all that since the prognosis for an ICH (hemorrhagic) stroke isn't exactly very promising. :) Don't ask me why I'm quite sure it'll be this variant that hits me, I'll just say predisposing factors and leave it at that. I made sure that my wishes for a DNR was clear after the first incident (self diagnosed as TIA) happened. I'll state it again, I have strong feelings about it, so in the case of severe neurological damage, Do Not Resuscitate. Thank you. :p

Anyway, I can't answer any questions about why I have conditions of these nature at a relatively young age. I'll just say I've been stressing my cardiovascular system for a long time now, and I don't mean exercise if you catch my drift, and it's not very happy at me. ;) I also have hypertension, highest recorded was over 220 systolic in ER, but usually 145/100 (measured with those portable units instead of hospital grade equiptment though). Blah blah, will update again later, I've been feeling less than optimal for the whole day.

Also, no lectures about not going to a hospital please, for reasons of my own, I do not want to check in unless the big one is definately impending and even then, there's no point since well...my brain would probably be ravaged before the ambulance arrives when that happens, and the doctor would be all "Hey, your son's prognosis doesn't seem to good, and er...oops there goes his brain, slippery fucker, the cerebellum just herniated, now that's not good...no sir, that's not good at all...". ;)

Its funny huh, how I always fear losing my cognitive abilities more than anything else. I didn't even give much thought to the delibitating chest pains, even though it was, er...theoretically capable of making grown men with high thresholds of pain accidentally produce moisture in the ocular region and also gave them an urge to lie on the ground, though the person in this example insists he did not collapse in pain, but merely felt like sitting down. He just sat down a little faster than usual. *cough* So there.

Do you people get this? I mean caring more for your gray matter than anything else? I had the time of my life (heh) this morning, the headaches and "pressure" around my head was killing (pun not intended, but the previous one was) me and to top it off my body thought it would be nice to shout me some malignant hyperthermia, how nice of him. Oh yeah, if any of my housemates reads this, don't eat the ice in the freezer, I made batches to "agressively" reduce my core body temperature (brain damage = bad) by putting ice cubes in my groin area. So yeah, it probably won't taste all that good with coke after I was done with it. ;)

Anyway, some doctors seems to suggest that ice bags in the groin area to dissipate heat works better than a full on ice bath or a cold shower in some cases, like mine, where cardiac complications were present. Which reminds me of something funny, now my sister has just graduated not too long ago, so she's a "real" doctor now, but her knowledge in the areas of this particular medical emergency and biopsychiatry disturbs me quite a bit. The second bit is understandable, since I'm...well, rather familar with the issues and I have a personal interest in it as well.

However, her suggestions for managing the unfortunate morning incident should it repeat itself seems to be less than optimal, no offence intended of course. She knows more about other fields while I just read about what would affect me and things I'm interested in. She doesn't think that hyperthermia is related even after I told her (legal) sympathomimetic substances were involved. She's going to kill someone one day, hyperthermia is usually present in cases of excessive consumption of sympathomimetics. ;)

Disregarding that fact, that leaves the two possiblities - either my thermometer broke down sometime between last night and this morning but yet managed to get consistant records, or the readings are somewhat accurate (it's a first aid kit supply, so it's not exactly industrial quality, but it's rectal, which should be more accurate). It's 51 C btw, my body has a golf player's mentality...always seeking the perfect high score and beating previous records.

[Note: My sister states that it's its not possible to survive that reading, and since the thermometer is working perfectly, and barring devine intervention, the logical conclusion would be human error - I must have misread the temperature in the confusing mental state during the incident. I measured it again now (3:49 AM), and it reads 39 C which is slightly above borderline, so I would guess that the previous reading was 41 C. I feel much better now though, and that's the benzos talking since I literally took the advice of "generous" amounts. ;) I am tolerant (call it dependant if it makes you happy) so I am able to remain cohesive and awake on high doses. However, this is something my doctor is helping me with, I am on a taper plan, so we'll not talk about this. I'm concerned that the readings are above borderline even though I keep trying to remain cool. There is no other issues besides this and chest pains. Fever is present but I don't "feel" hot. Cognitive abilities not affected, though I'm concerned about the prolonged nature of higher than threshold temperature measurements and the predisposing factors are all there. I will take a shower now and see how it goes, even though I feel cold (?) though my forehead is very warm. Rhabdomyolysis is becoming a concern - lack of fluid intake, use of a sympathomimetic with known toxicity and direct links to reported deaths due to renal failure from rhabdomyolysis, muscle weakness and pain since morning but was told not to worry about it by sister. I don't know man...I can't be having these levels of anxiety while on a high dose of benzodiazepines and urinary output is very low (haven't gone in 12 hours, but will go now) but then I've experienced these before and came out right as rain. Question for anyone who knows, can a GP provide a Serum CK test or would going to a pathology lab be better? Thanks.]

I would not have shoved ice cubes down my pants and got so worried if it wasn't for that and the TIA. ;) The incident passed after a while though, except for the hyperthermia, why the fuck would I append "malignant" to it if it's just a once off event? :p I still have ice cubes in the freezer. Anyway, residual "strangeness" (confusion), problems with feeling extremities and the occational chest pain was present till now but naturally, those were taken like a man ;).

I'm not worried about kicking the bucket due to heart failure or rhabdomyolysis induced liver failure...I'm only worried about the possibility of hemorrhagic strokes and the severe and recurring hyperthermia because that has a high possibility of causing permanant neurological deficits. I usually keep this shit to myself, but today was special. I wouldn't want to describe the feelings during the suspected TIA, but it wasn't fun, ya know, plus it's a little blur to me, my chronological sense was heavily affected.

I felt that it was necessary to remind them about my strong feelings against being put on life support coz I'm a green vegetable, thus I called my sister and told her about my wishes for a DNR, just in case, since TIAs are usually followed by the big one. It still hasn't come though, and I believe it won't. :) Que sera sera either way. You're wrong, I didn't buy the farm today. I agree that it's a beautiful day to die, but I don't want to. :)

Hmm...I've been quite personal in this post. Just a disclaimer to say that I'm not some poor sick kid, I'm perfectly fine, I just have a couple of medical issues like most people, which may manifest itself like it did today. Doctors would probably know what triggered my existing hypertension and cardiac problems from the symptoms and medical issues that I've mentioned, but please note that I didn't want to go to a hospital and self medicated for a reason.

Thus, I have go on record saying that the catalyst is a perfectly legal sympathomimetic agent - caffeine, commonly found in coffee and other drinks. I do not possess or use anything illegal. Which reminds me, I have to give my sister credit for her perceptiveness when she mentioned that if it really was caffeine, then it would be out the system soon. In my defence, I said I drank a lot and after a certain threshold, the elimination rate would be unable to keep up and maintain textbook half lives. A pat on the back for me too, for a good comeback. ;)

Anyway. there's no need to worry about me too, I'm perfectly fine after generous administration of lorazepam, a fast acting anticonvulsant, unlike slowpoke clonazepam, which was why I was never worried about seizures. God's gift to man. ;) I took diazepam in adjuct to lorazepam as well, works pretty well, managed to bring down the hypertension to a more managable point, slow down my heart and give it some well deserved rest (it balks, then hurts me, then threatens to stop when I do the mildest movements, like moving my arm) and also calmed me down to boot. I swear benzodiazepines would be more handy in a medicine cabinet than Panadols. ;)

Anyway, keep in mind that I'm not a doctor and my sister disagrees with me about the efficacy of benzodiazepines in treating the symptoms above, but she can't tell alprazolam from clonazepam, and medical literature (not quacks, established ones) has shown that benzodiazepines does produce the three desired effects either directly or indirectly and it's indicated for treatment of sympathomimetic triggered complications, and not just to sedate patients. However, standard disclaimer applies, I have a legitimate prescription and self medicating is not an alternative to seeking medical help.

It can be very dangerous to self diagnose and self medicate and it can make things worse. Just go to a hospital, at least they can break out with the CT, MRIs and ECGs with leads that leaves a sticky residue on you for ages. Do as I say, not as I do and all that. Trust me, it's fun, especially when the doctor shows you the CT scan and explains the diagram to you. It makes you wonder when the intracranial bleeding will start manifesting itself, and it's wonder and anticipation that makes life fun! =D

You'll be all looking forward to the day when you start noticing that your brain isn't all that nifty anymore. The anticipation! Such joy to be derived from a simple pleasure! I'm not speaking from experience of course, veritas told me about his in Australia. Anyway, I would advice visiting a hospital in such cases, however, I just can't and I don't want to, due to personal reasons. Oh, Malaysiaku, aku sangat bangga dengan undang undang mu! lalala!

Right, I'm popping into the fridge to get some supplies. Excuse me.

You know, that incident felt like ages ago. :) Admittedly, I was rather confused (hypertensive states tends to have this effect) and don't remember much, but I'm not worried either. That's not the benzodiazepines talking. Que sera sera. Whatever will be will be. The future's not ours to see and all that. There! I told you, my number is not up today. :) My apologies for any disappointment caused by not being 6 feet under. My cards weren't up a couple of months ago and my cards weren't up today either. Someone up there loves me! :)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 11:59 PM Permalink | Comments (7)

There is only one purple Christmas tree...

Behold! I am one! I tricked you all.

It's so obvious that we (meaning me and veritas) should be beheaded for even mistaking it. There were never two or three trees. There was only meant to be one. If you squint a little (though squinting isn't really necessary once you've seen the light) you can see that the coniferous objects starts to become smaller in circumference, and together with the unfinished top (which AlCee [tripod.com] pointed out), it might be obvious to someone of a superior intellect and/or observational skills that the 3 trees were meant to be stacked on top of each other to form one gigantic, disturbingly pointy and phallic looking Christmas tree.

AlCee, it has both a top with the Suria KLCC decor...

and a bottom. With performers to boot.

However, that still doesn't change the fact that Suria KLCC duped me into believing there were three trees in the first place. I just realized yesterday (Friday) on the way back. My whole belief system has been shattered. :( Thus, I am going to stop patronizing the place in protest! Well, except for the necessary passing through during my daily commute that is. *cough* It's like if one day I go "Hey guys, sorry for misleading you all, but there never was a veritas in the first place...". You'll be going wtf and "That's it, I'm out of here." and all that too. ;)

Anyway, enough nonsense...just got back from Bukit Bintang, will post up photos of that event in front of Low Yat just now later. I won't be going anywhere tonight, I have heaps of things on my "To Do" list, starting with writing my long due The Weblog Review review and ending with a through cleansing of my wallet (which I've decided to bring over). I'll be flying to Melbourne on Friday! :)

Oh and btw, there's this question for anyone who has the experience before. I've only had experience with Melbourne -> Malaysia, not the other way, so just to be sure. Anyway, I have a Schedule 4 (Australia) prescription which I have to bring over. It's 100% legitimate, I've explained the situation to the doctor and he says to get customs to call him if there are any problems. It's a go right? A few concerns:

1. He doesn't work Saturdays (which is when I'll be arriving in Melbourne).
2. The prescription does not have the name of the substance, only "morning" and "night".
3. I have to declare it and I'll have to say what it is and the tablets are generics (one local and one popular recognizable generic brand).

I mean, it should be okay, since it's just Schedule IV and it's legit after all. No problems right? I just don't want to be given the third degree and have sniffer dogs all over me, ya know. I probably won't through, I've brought flunitrazepam (Schedule 8) and clobazam (Schedule 4) back to Malaysia before, no one even blinked or showed any interest, but this is going the other way.

Disclaimer: The flunitrazepam was disposed of in-flight since it's illegal in Malaysia.

I'm not going to state my prescription here since a lot of people I know in real life read my blog, the schedule should be enough information and not bringing it over is not an option since...well, don't ask, it just has to go with me that's all. Thoughts? No problems right?

Posted in by Huai Bin at 07:56 PM Permalink | Comments (4)

Don't go...

No please i want my braincells back.!! plEAas\e don't go! pleasei want everything back to normal! COme back!! iw on't io just wnated to, enoughj i won't again, i want to rewin df pleaazse!

Oh, nevermind...just a nightmare.

bACK TO SLEEP.

Back to sleep.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 10:47 PM Permalink | Comments (6)

Go forth and multiply!

Well slap my ass and call me Sally! The stork cometh for the purple Christmas trees at Suria KLCC! There was only two Christmas trees in KLCC yesterday. However, as I steppeth, er...sorry, I mean as I stepped into the central court today, I beheld the sight of three purple Christmas trees!

It must have happened sometime last night or earlier today. For the Lord sayeth:

"Be fruitful and multiply!"

and damn it, those faithful Christmas trees went forth and multiplied! Now, that's showing initiative!

Well, actually, Genesis goes "As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it." but let's not go into semantics.

It looks like these things aren't just for show. ;)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 08:09 PM Permalink | Comments (11)

The purple christmas tree at Suria KLCC

Purple haze.

I noticed this new decor at the central court of Suria KLCC today.
I was there to meet HB, he's passing the cherry tobacco to me.
I'm veritas [castitas.com] btw, and I can't remember the last time I posted here...

I went up and down taking this photo.
It's a large Christmas tree with a smaller one beside it.
It's beautiful...just like you.
and it's attached, just like you...

I don't know what this feeling I have is...
I'm not infatuated...I don't think of you all the time...
It's not a crush, I've felt this way for a while.
I don't harbor any thoughts of being with you.

Love?
Crush?
Nothing.

The best I can describe it is affection...
I like your eyes, the way you smile and the way you talk to me
Mesmerizing...
It reminds me of something in my past

It's certainly not love, and this feeling is purely platonic
It's strange though, I hardly talk to you
I hardly even think about you, unless I notice you
But the fondness is always there when that happens.

That makes me happy. :)
You're a purple christmas tree in a faceless crowd.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 09:16 PM Permalink | Comments (11)

Cocaine is the new heroin!

and more FUD from the Federal Narcotics Department. I honestly wonder how much the department and the media knows about drugs...there's this distinct lack of knowledge about drugs and the behavorial aspects of drug users, it's a wonder they can differentiate between Ecstasy (MDMA) and Erimin (nimetazepam). Er...nevermind, I don't think most of them can. ;)

Anyway, this article is here:

http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Wednesday/Frontpage/20031203074512/Article/

Copy and paste into the URL bar coz it's not permanent, it'll be de-linked in a couple of days like most newspapers with an online presence. Highly recommended and humorous read. :)

P/S - Just in case some people are wondering what's so funny, heroin users typically (in Australian and other country's studies during periouds of draught) turn to either methamphetamine or benzodiazepines like temazepam. Come on, no one would go for coke, it's so expensive and lasts for a scant 30 minutes compared to the much longer lasting meth. It's stupid to even suggest that heroin dependant people would go for cocaine, meth (which is cheap and plentiful in Malaysia) would be the obvious choice. I didn't even want to blog about this, but it's just too illogical and ill researched and yet it made a front page article on a major daily newspaper.

Funniest statement:
We have found no cases of cocaine being sold in Malaysia, but the possibility is there.
Look harder. ;)

Most illogical statement:
With the scarcity of heroin in the market, syndicates may try to smuggle in cocaine, which could be priced even lower than heroin to attract buyers.
Error...sentence does not compute. :p

Right. Back to work.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 01:36 PM