sixthseal.com

I answer to me

NOFX - Lori Meyers
(right click, save target as)
[2:20 minutes 128 KBPS STEREO 44KHZ 2.14 MB .mp3]

[Edit: Mp3 deleted. Won't want to eat into my August bandwidth, I have to pay several GB extra this month as it is. :)]

Lori Meyers used to live upstairs
Our parents had been friends for years
Almost every afternoon we'd play forbidden games
At nine years old there's no such thing

It wasn't recognition of her face
What brought me back, was a familiar mark
As it flashed across the screen
I bought some magazines, some video tape scenes
Incriminating acts, I felt that I could save

"Who the hell are you to tell me how to live my life?
You think I sell my body? I merely sell my time!
I ain't no Cinderella, I ain't waitin' for no prince,
To save me, in fact until just now, I was doin' just fine!
And on and on..."

"I know what degregation feels like,
I felt it on the floor at the factory,
Where I worked long before,
I took control!
Now I answer to me!
The 50K I make this year will go anywhere I please!
Where's the problem?"

Disclaimer: The photo above is from my personal stock photo collection - this one was taken last year, protected by public photography laws, and has no causal relationship with the lyrics, implied or otherwise.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 03:38 PM Permalink | Comments (10)

Sibu, Sarawak is a microcosm

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

Posted in by Huai Bin at 03:12 PM Permalink | Comments (0)

Honey fish floss cake

It sounds good, so I got it from the bakery just now. It’s basically just a cupcake (muffin) topped with fish floss and drizzled with honey. It was alright, doesn’t taste too bad, but more fish floss would be good. The photo was taken using a webcam, so the quality isn’t optimal. Go to mum-mum [blogspot.com] if you like reviews of food. :)

Posted in Snacks by Huai Bin at 01:31 AM Permalink | Comments (18)

Lexotan (Bromazepam)

Lexotan (bromazepam) 1.5 mg tablets

This is a veritas [sixthseal.com] post.

Bromazepam. This is the Lexotan brand name bromazepam tablets manufactured by the illustrious Roche Pharmaceuticals. The blister packs indicate that each tablet contains 1.5 mg of bromazepam, but it's written as 1,5 mg bromazepam (with a comma instead of a period ala French style). I've taken these twice - 3 mg in conjunction with codeine and other more potent benzodiazepines and 27 mg by itself.

The front of the Lexotan blister pack

The second dose (27 mg bromazepam alone – no other recreational substances) was pretty uneventful. I took it on an empty stomach and I’m aware that this particular benzodiazepine can take up from as little from 30 minutes to as long as 4 hours to reach peak plasma levels (get the full effects) so I waited for 4 hours and 30 minutes to get a feel for this particular benzo. I find that this is rather like clobazam (Frisium) – all anxiolytic, no hypnotic action. :)

The back of the Lexotan blister pack

I did not feel sleepy at all, even though 27 mg of bromazepam is equivalent to 45 mg of diazepam (Valium). Granted, I have a rather significant benzodiazepine tolerance, but nevertheless, I found bromazepam to be weak in its hypnotic effects (doesn’t make you sleepy). However, it is a great anxiolytic (anti-anxiety agent), that familiar Benzodiazepine Blanket with it’s “No worries, mate” feeling was very dominant at 27 mg of bromazepam. :)

A closer look at the Lexotan blister pack

It is a GOOD anxiolytic, and it doesn’t make you sleepy, so it might be great for some occasions, but I did not find anything significant about this particular member of the benzodiazepine family to warrant further consumption. I had to take 5 mg of Xanax (alprazolam) and another 3 mg an hour after that to sleep. The price is rather prohibitive too – each blister pack costs RM 10 (A$ 5). That’s 15 mg of bromazepam for the price of 10 mg of alprazolam. Which one would you rather have? :) Anyway, benzodiazepine equivalency charts states anywhere from 3 mg – 6 mg of bromazepam as equivalent to 0.5 mg of alprazolam (Xanax) so do the math, it’s just not cost effective. However, I am glad to have tried another member in that great, but potentially dangerous family called benzodiazepines.

Please do not read any further unless you want to hear something you don’t want to hear. I would probably not be answering comments/flames/immature “Haha! Serves you right.” statements related to the things revealed in the paragraphs below. Most recreational drug users would not enjoy reading the following paragraphs, it’s about the dark side. :)

Note: This report was written today, but the events described within happened in the past (about a week or more back, I can’t really remember). I have since decided to quit benzodiazepines and it’s a HARD task, fucking things are practically impossible to taper off of. ;) The decision to quit benzos is a personal one, because I don’t want to be blur all the time and have a fucked short term memory (Eh, wat did you say again? I forgot laaa…sorry ah.). I admit I have been self-medicating for anxiety at first, but I’ve noticed manifestations of dependency which I do not like.

There are times when the anxiety screams for me to reach for the benzos, but I’ve been disciplined *cough* enough to refrain. To date, I’ve had two panic attacks, but I did not reach for the Xanax that has “Eat me!” written on it both times, and I’m proud of that. =D Quitting benzodiazepines after one and half years of regular use with regular abuse towards the end of that time period is not easy. I’ve mentioned my taper plan before in one of the previous posts – phentermine resin one, I think it was. I’m not going on that slow ass Ashton taper plan, I’m going on my own with minimal benzos (none during the day, only minimal dose at night and reducing fast) and wow, it’s harsh, lemme tell you that.

I’ve had a rather disheartening comment from a fellow benzodiazepine tapering person who said something along the lines of "You don’t have real anxiety lah, so you shouldn’t have withdrawal problems." which is unfortunate to hear from someone who should understand better. *shrug* Anyway, my benzodiazepine of choice has changed to alprazolam (Xanax) before the decision to taper which is a VERY BAD DECISION. The rollercoaster Xanax gives, oh man…and I’ve been taking it like candy eg 7 mg in the day, 5 mg in the afternoon, 10 mg at night, absolutely ridiculous doses that is just begging for trouble during the end, but there you go.

Anyway, at the start of the taper, I maintained a steady plasma concentration of diazepam (Valium) by dosing according to Ashton’s manual, but I thought “fuck it” and drastically reduced the doses and replaced morning and afternoon doses with either codeine/dihydrocodeine or tramadol (Ultram). Not at recreational doses, just at slightly higher than prescribed doses for rebound anxiety management. Personally, I find that tramadol works wonderfully and its low potential for abuse and dependency makes it a good choice for an alternative to benzodiazepines. It helps with sleep too! Please be aware that it also increases seizure thresholds though. Constant low level anxiety is present, but manageable. :) I am not blaming benzodiazepines at all – guns don’t shoot people, people shoot people. Benzodiazepines doesn’t cause dependency problems – irresponsible use cause dependency problems.

I don’t get withdrawals as bad as some people, I get it worse than some people. I’ve acquired Zopiclone (Imovane) – a non-benzodiazepine with benzodiazepine like properties to help me sleep and I plan to switch to that instead of the small dose diazepam + smaller dose alprazolam (optional) I take currently. I will switch to 5 mg diazepam nightly starting from today for 2 more days and then go on zopiclone (which doesn’t produce as much dependency problems as benzodiazepines) for 3 days and then I’m fucking off. :) I know I’m impatient, I don’t like that taper plan that takes months, fuck that shit man, I can do better than that. veritas will be benzodiazepine free in 5 days. It’s not exactly cold turkey (you’re not supposed to cold turkey on benzos – seizure risk) but it’s the best I can do and I’m not the most patient person on the earth, and when I decide I want to be off, I want to be off NOW. I do not need your sympathy, it’s not that bad, I’ll be off in 5 days tops. However, what I do need is your understanding - if I’m irritable or uncommunicative for the next few days, this is the reason, don’t take it personally. :)

P/S – I will still do benzodiazepine reviews from time to time, but that would happen AFTER I’m off benzos. By going off benzodiazepines, I don’t mean total abstinence – I just mean I don’t need to take it daily. I still have two or three reviews (benzos I’ve consumed but not written about) in the backburner though, so that would be posted at appropriate intervals so benzodiazepine fans would not be bored. ;) Personally, from now on, my benzodiazepine use would be kept to an occasional weekend thing or just for reviews of benzodiazepines I haven’t had before – as it should be for something that can produce dependency problems.

Posted in Pharmaceuticals by Huai Bin at 01:19 AM Permalink | Comments (16)

Please look at this photo of a lorry carrying a fridge...

while I continue submitting resumes to potential employers and apply for post-graduate studies.

Clarification: The angry post below is directed towards students rather than people in an administrative position.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 03:06 PM Permalink | Comments (2)

Condemnant quod non intellegunt

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

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

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

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

Matthew 7:5 (New International Version)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 02:36 PM Permalink | Comments (17)

DF118 (Dihydrocodeine tartrate)

DF118 tablets manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals.

Also known as: DF 118, DF118's, DF's, 118's, DHC
Cost per tablet: RM 0.80 or A$ 0.40

Dihydrocodeine (DHC) is something I've grown to love. DF 118 is the most popular "brand name" for dihydrocodeine tartrate and it is the most sought after tablet because it only has 30 mg of dihydrocodeine and nothing else (except inactive binders and fillers). It is said to be approximately twice the strength of codeine but personal observation seems to indicate that it is indeed stronger than codeine, but qualitatively, I did not find that it's twice the potency, perhaps slightly less than double the potency would be more appropriate. This is from personal qualitative experience though, and I stress that medical literature states that dihydrocodeine (DF118) is two times stronger than an equal dose of codeine. I have been able to get a very pleasant "nod" off these tablets. I've had plenty of nice nods with this relatively tame opiate agonist. :) I find that 210 mg of dihydrocodeine or 7 x DF118 tablets (crushed up before oral administration) + 5 mg Xanax (alprazolam) taken sublingually produces this dreamy state I liken to The Land of Nod. This is not a dosage guide! Most literature seems to indicate that dihydrocodeine is two times more potent than codeine itself, but I've just not have the same experience. It certainly doesn't feel like what I presume a 420 mg dose of codeine would feel like, though I've never taken it at that dose, since it's approaching the lower end LD50. The highest dose of codeine phosphate I've gone is 330 mg. Qualitatively, I find that 300 mg of codeine feels "stronger" than 210 mg of dihydrocodeine, but I need more experiences to comment, since I've developed a tolerance to these things from rather frequent use. It's a scheduled prescription drug of course, considering it does not have any other active ingredients except dihydrocodeine, but if you can convince a pharmacist to hand these over, it is much better than the codeine phosphate tablets tainted with paracetamol eg 30 mg codeine phosphate + 400 mg paracetamol. DF118 and other generic dihydrocodeine only tablets contain ONLY 30 mg dihydrocodeine tartate as the active ingredient, so there's NO OTHER things like the liver destroying APAP in there. Wonderful stuff. :)

Caution: Use of dihydrocodeine (DF118) and other codeine preparations in conjunction with another CNS depressant like benzodiazepines could potentially lower your respiratory rate to a lethal level. Exercise caution.

Posted in Pharmaceuticals by Huai Bin at 12:46 PM Permalink | Comments (124)

Project PM is deleted

This post has been deleted after discussion and much paranoia from both myself and Stella. Special thanks to Noor Hidayat [noorhidayat.com].

Posted in by Huai Bin at 09:18 PM Permalink | Comments (20)

McDonald's & Sega promotion - Sega mini handheld games – Sonic's Action Game

McDonald's and Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog mini game #5 – Sonic's Action Game

This is the final one in the series - it came out yesterday, and I went to get one early in the morning. The quality of the photos are quite dismal because they are taken using a webcam, the Logitech Quickcam Pro 3000 that I had since the beginning of this blog. My digicam is still out of service, and probably will be for at least a week. Anyway, Sonic's Action Game differs from the others in that it only has one button instead of the standard two. The background is the most colorful and detailed in the series and the game play is different – this one is a platform game, like the first Sega Sonic the Hedgehog games. The single red button is used to make Sonic jump over obstacles (where there sometimes are rings) and the game speeds up at each level. It seems to have 4 levels instead of the usual 3 and the last two levels are quite fast – rather challenging, until you find out that depressing the jump button repeatedly will get you through the final two levels without even looking at the LCD screen. It's an interesting game nevertheless, different from the others and a nice one to end the McDonald's/Sega mini video game promotion series.

The manual for Sonic's Action Game

The front of Sonic's Action Game

The back of Sonic's Action Game

Sonic's Action Game in action!

Posted in by Huai Bin at 09:57 PM Permalink | Comments (6)

Ecstasy pill reports: Yellow Tp and White mx (Melbourne)

White mx front

White mx back

Contents: MDMA
Dose: 1 White mx and 1/2 Yellow Tp

This is a pill report from a couple of weeks back, which I couldn't post before due to technical issues which have now been partially resolved. The White mx has been tested before [sixthseal.com] (this is from the first batch) as MDMA and the Yellow Tp has been saved up by a friend from the end of last year (2002) and is a good, strong MDMA pill. The Yellow Tp has a round imprint circling the letters. I took one White mx and half a Yellow Tp together and effects were strong at T+ 2. It took quite long to hit due to a meal beforehand and not crunching up the pills before swallowing. It lasted about lovely 5 hours total, with effects tapering off to a nice afterglow. Some methamphetamine was insufflated sometime during the night and I had slight MDMA tolerance from consumption the day before, but these are still nice pills. Nice strong MDMA. Lovely! :)

Yellow Tp front

Yellow Tp back

P/S – Project PM (Pos Malaysia) has been completed! Full write-up tomorrow! :)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 09:41 PM Permalink | Comments (49)

Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life

Image courtesy of IMDb [imdb.com].

I just got back from watching this latest installment in Lara Croft's adventures at King's Theatre. It was okay, didn't expect much from it, but found that it is a nice movie to turn off your mind and chill out with. Very nice special effects, I liked the one that happened after the transmission of a .wav file to Lara when she borrowed the TV set of this family of boat people eating dinner. I don't want to spoil the movie for everyone else, considering it just came out today, so I won't go into too much detail. Great movie, if you like James Bond type movies...turn on, tune in, chill out. ;)

Thanks for commenting, I have to go out again now, will update and reply tonight!

Posted in by Huai Bin at 03:25 PM Permalink | Comments (15)

McDonald's & Sega promotion - Sega mini handheld games – Sonic's Speedway

McDonald’s and Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog mini game #1 – Sonic's Speedway

This is the first one in the series, the only one I don't have. It's called Sonic's Speedway and it's a racing game that follows the same game play as the others in the series. The three photos are taken by Daniel [geocities.com]. His sister owns this game. Tomorrow is the day the last one comes out, going to send out some more resumes tonight and sleep earlier to queue up tomorrow.

Sonic's Speedway in action!

Posted in by Huai Bin at 08:54 PM Permalink | Comments (8)

McDonald's & Sega promotion - Sega mini handheld games - Ai Ai Banana Catch

McDonald's and Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog mini game #4 - Ai Ai Banana Catch

Ai Ai Banana Catch is the fourth one in the McDonald's/Sega promotion series. I got this last Thursday morning at the McDonald’s in Sibu, but didn't get around to posting it till today. The branch supervisor actually recognized me (probably due to my impatience ;)) from that Monday where they were selling off the rest of the back stock. Anyway, I found that Ai Ai Banana Catch is the hardest mini game I’ve played to date - the third (last) level is actually quite challenging if you aren't concentrating, unlike the other two in the series preceding it. The game play is still very much the same. Two buttons move the protagonist (Ai Ai) into three positions (left, middle and right) in order to catch falling bananas. Oh, and I noticed that the batteries of these handheld games doesn't last that long. I don't think I’ve even played them for one hour, before noticeable manifestations of battery drainage occurs - volume decreases, screen becomes dimmer etc.

The manual for Ai Ai Banana Catch

The front of Ai Ai Banana Catch

The back of Ai Ai Banana Catch

Ai Ai Banana Catch in action!

Posted in by Huai Bin at 09:46 PM Permalink | Comments (13)

Okana - a 2F production

This is from the photo shoot a couple of days ago at my old high school. It seems insignificant, a featureless piece of masonry, but it has personal significance to me. The memories this photo evokes are all from Form 2 (14 years old) and there are three I can remember with great fondness. I won't share the first two *cough* but the third one is the class drama production we did that year. Our class (2F) did a play based on Cinderella. The script (and the performance) was called Okana which is the nickname of Karen, who played the female lead in the production. I remember waiting with the rest of the cast (all are my classmates) at the very place you see in the photo above before moving into the room to the left (not pictured in the frame) for our practice sessions. I remember the production having a lot of dance sequences, including one choreographed to Rednex’s Cotton Eye Joe. =D My partner was Margaret Lim, and I think her feet was injured many times during the practice sessions for the ballroom dancing scene. Heh.

(from left)
Front row: Jackie, Karen, Justina
Middle row: Peter, Velvet, Ita, Mdm Yeo, Rita, Margaret, Wei Ing
Back row: Daniel, Adrian, Huai Bin (me)

Photo courtesy of Karen [geocities.com].

Here is a photo of the entire cast together with our English teacher, our advisor for the play, but we basically had full control over the play. Her job was to go through the script with a fine toothed comb to see if there are any “inappropriate” scenes. ;) I don’t remember her being present our practice sessions except for the full dress rehearsal at the stage in the school’s hall (at that time). It’s a nice memory, those were the days, a bunch of 14 year olds having fun and getting a production together. :)

If it hadn't been for Cotton-Eye Joe
I’d been married long time ago
Where did you come from? Where did you go?
Where did you come from Cotton-Eye Joe?

Well, if you haven't noticed, I've rearranged some things during the optimization last night. I put the “Blogs” in alphabetical order and put some sites into “Personal Websites” because they aren’t really weblogs per se, but they’re my personal friend’s sites. Anyway, I’ve also been applying for jobs in the KL area these couple of days. After thinking it over and discussing with my parents and girlfriend, the plan is to get a Masters degree while working part time in KL. I’ve been browsing through a lot of online job listings, and it seems that there are a lot that requires something like 2 to 3 years of work experience in the related field. Hmm…I wonder if my Industrial Experience year qualifies? :) The ones that are targeted at fresh graduates seem to offer a salary that I’m not prepared to accept. Also, I’ve been tweaking (har har) my resume/CV and I wonder if I should put this site down in the resume. That could be a good thing, but there are two things which concern me.

The first is the fact that the site does not support some Mozilla based browsers like Netscape due to their lack of full W3C CSS specifications support and that could give a negative impression to the HR manager reading the page using those browsers. The second is the fact that my blog has a guest author who writes about things which most companies would not approve of. It could prove to be something that counts against me even though I always make it obvious that there are two people writing on this blog – I write using the nick ‘hbpoh’ while veritas writes under ‘veritas’ but this is not readily visible since the text is small and at the bottom of each post. What do you think?

Posted in by Huai Bin at 11:11 PM Permalink | Comments (15)

sixthseal.com needs your help!

sixthseal.com costs RM 38 per gigabyte to run

My hosting plan allows 5 GB of data transfer per month and I need to pay RM 38 (A$ 15) for each gigabyte after that. I surpassed the 5 gig limit last month and I've also already gone past 5 GB of transfer a couple of days ago for this month. I appreciate every single one of you who drops by (even the trolls ;)) but unfortunately, I cannot afford to pay the excess bandwidth fees. Well, as you know, I've just received my results a couple of days ago to find out I've graduated, so I'm waiting for my official transcript to be mailed to my Malaysian home address before applying for post graduate studies and a part time job.

This site has grown quite a bit since the beginning and I've always tried to include at least one photo in each post, since I carry my (currently broken) digicam everywhere. :) This means that the front page does take up quite a bit of bandwidth each time you visit. I tried to reduce the main page's size to display 7 days back instead of the previous 14 days to accommodate the increase in visitors. Theoretically, that should cut my bandwidth usage to half, but that still wasn't enough to keep sixthseal.com within the 5 GB per month bandwidth allocation.

sixthseal.com costs A$ 15 per gigabyte to run

I currently receive an average of 630 visitors a day, which comes to 18,927 hits daily and that uses up 261,659 kilobytes (slightly more than 1/4 of a gigabyte). July's (the statistics up to today) daily maximum is 918 visitors a day, which resulted in 27,771 hits and 395,306 kilobytes (!) of used bandwidth. Today is the 20th of July, so there's 6 more days till the end of the month. Using the average daily bandwidth consumption figures, that comes to 1/4 of a gigabyte daily, which might result in a bandwidth bill of RM 114 or A$ 46.30 (3 gigs over) when the current surpassed bandwidth is added in.

Unless I transfer the money from my drug dealing in Melbourne (in my secret bank account in Australia) to Malaysia, I can't afford to pay that much per month. Heh. I’m kidding of course. The bank account is in Switzerland, not Melbourne. ;)

On a serious note, I do not run any banner advertisements or any other forms of revenue generating features, since I do not like banner ads or those darned Gator pop-ups. I'm not interested in doing that, since this is after all a personal blog for everyone to read. I appreciate every person that surfs over, and the regular visitors are always welcome. =D However, I do need to make some changes in order to reduce the bandwidth consumption rate.

1. The main page will now only show 3 days back instead of 7 days.
2. The Picture of the Day would not be clickable to display a larger photo.
3. The currently bloated CSS would be optimized to reduce the file size.
4. The banner would be replaced with a lower quality version to minimize the bandwidth impact of each visit.
5. The photos/scans of the next few days would be hosted at my SNG Unix account at Monash University, Australia instead. Heh! I’m surprised they haven't deleted my user account yet.

Those measures are temporary and they will only be in effect till the end of this month (31st July). Please don't get me wrong, all of you are more than welcome here! :)

Just take it easy with the F5 key. ;)

Thanks everyone!

Update: Oh, I wasn't asking for donations or anything, I just noticed from the stats that the F5 key was used a bit too enthusiastically by some IP addresses. However, I could not mind if anyone wants to send me a fansign. ;)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 11:46 PM Permalink | Comments (27)

Ionamin (Phentermine resin) report (and a tip for Malaysian scripters)

veritas [sixthseal.com] loves stimulants.

30 mg Ionamin capsules

This is one of the few amphetamine type substances (chemically and pharmacologically related to amphetamines) available for prescription in Malaysia. Ionamin is the only phentermine resin complex available (no generics) and it’s a "diet drug" (appetite suppressant/metabolic booster). It is only indicated for the short term treatment of obesity, and unless I’m prepared to eat 10 whole chickens and chug 3 liters of cooking oil a day for a week, my Body Mass Index (BMI) does not qualify me to obtain a prescription from a doctor legitimately. I don’t think I’ll enjoy chugging 1 liter of cooking oil, much less 3 liters.

However, I do have a friend who has a pharmacy. ;)

Jump to the Ionamin (phentermine resin) report if you’re not interested in the pointers for fellow Malaysians interested in doctor shopping or pharmacy runs (otherwise known as prescription fraud and obtaining/possession of a controlled drug). *cough*

Malaysia does not have prescribed methamphetamine or dextroamphetamine for treatment of narcolepsy or ADHD/ADD. The word amphetamine in any chemical probably causes the Malaysian government to get their panties all in an uncomfortable twist. ;) Heh, check it out if you don’t believe me:

Searchable Database of Registered Pharmaceuticals in Malaysia [bpfk.gov.my]

Courtesy of:
National Pharmaceutical Control Bureau
Drug Control Authority
Ministry of Health Malaysia

It’s the Malaysian scripter’s best friend. :) Ritalin which is Methylphenidate hydrochloride (Look ma, no “–amphetamine”!) is available though. I’m surprised to find oxycodone (Oxycontin) available as well! It wasn’t the last time I checked. Anyway, the link was posted ages ago on this very site too. It’s easy to type in the generic name of any potentially recreational pharmaceutical and see if it’s in the database. They show ALL the available products of the drug you typed in (product names, dosage forms it comes in etc).

Example with phentermine:

Your search : PHENTERMINE
Search result : 5 record(s) matched your query

1. MAL19871772A ADIPEX RETARD CAPSULE 15MG GERMAX SDN BHD
2. MAL19871769A DUROMINE CAPSULE 15MG 3M (M) SDN BHD
3. MAL19871774A DUROMINE CAPSULE 30MG 3M (M) SDN BHD
4. MAL19871770AR IONAMIN 15 CAPSULE ZUELLIG PHARMA SDN BHD
5. MAL19871775AR IONAMIN 30 CAPSULE ZUELLIG PHARMA SDN BHD

The registration number is clickable to show more information eg all the substances contained in the preparation and they’re adding in the packaging (quantity) and prices slowly eg “10 x 10 blister pack – RM 34.60”. This really helps when you’re doing pharmacy runs/doctor shopping. Not all pharmacists here are familiar with every generic name, so before they browse their outdated book, say something like “It’s lorazepam, it comes in a pack that says Ativan and has 10 tablets, but I’ve had another pharmacy give me something from this big bottle called APO-LORAZEPAM, he said it’s the same thing”.

Say thank you if you aren’t aware of the Ministry of Health (Malaysia)’s Drug Control Authority product database and its uses for unscrupulous scripters. ;)

Oops…sorry that’s not harm reduction at all, moving back to my experience report. :p

Ionamin (Phentermine resin)

Retail price: RM 2 (A$ 1) for 30 mg capsule. I can’t believe the online pharmacy prices! Obscene!

Experience #1
The first time is always the best

Substance: Ionamin (Phentermine resin complex)

Dose: 150 mg total
90 mg (3 x 30 mg capsules) at T+ 0:00
30 mg (1 x 30 mg capsule) booster at T+ 1:00
30 mg (1 x 30 mg) booster at T+ 1:30

Route: Oral

I took 3 capsules of Ionamin (without attempting to foil the time release) right after I woke up and chased it down with a bottle of water. I had an empty stomach (last meal was a good 18 hours before) and I felt stimulated about 30-40 minutes after that and felt “speeded up” like on amphetamines. It was looking promising, so I put on some gabba (gotta love hard music on stimulants) and wrote a post, the one below which mentions that I’m tweaked. :)

Contents of the 30 mg Ionamin capsule

I felt quite good at this time, so I opened up a capsule to examine its contents. I noticed that half the capsule is filled with white powdery stuff and half of it was some kind of beady black spheres. The white powder had no taste to it and I think the spheres are the phentermine resin. I don’t know what the white powder is, I don’t think it’s filler/binder/some inactive agent since it’s a capsule. I would guess that it’s some kind of GI tract pharmaceutical to decrease absorption? That’s a guess though, does anyone know for sure?

Anyway, I crunched up everything (including the capsule) an hour after the first dose as a booster. I worked it with my teeth real good to try and see if that would break the time release, but I’ve read somewhere that Ionamin isn’t really “time release” in the traditional sense. Could the mysterious white powder have something to do with it? Anyway, the black spheres are quite hard to crush! I had to really work on it before it powdered, your dentist would not like this. ;)

It’s quite compulsive, I felt the urge to crunch up more capsules when I reached that certain state of tweak bliss. However, I have to state that I’m very fond of stimulants so take that as you will. I took another booster 30 minutes later (1 hours and 30 minutes after my initial dose) and that put me in a nice tweak zone for most of the day. I’m really surprised at the duration of this, unlike the short, steep peak – medium length plateau – steep return to baseline of (meth)amphetamines, phentermine resin has a longer peak – very long plateau and a VERY steep return to baseline.

My apologies for the crude diagram. This is an observation from personal experience, not scientific data. x and y refers to the axis, which I didn’t draw. Start and stop points are baseline (normal).

The intensity wasn’t as good as (meth)amphetamines, but it does rival methcathinone’s intensity. Oh, you really have to drink A LOT of water, like the manufacturer says. I had an extreme thirst the whole time and heaps of water, but it came out too (no problems with urination) so that’s cool. When I’m on meth, I find myself stuck doing something for a long time (intense concentration) and nothing can pull me away from it. It was the same with Ionamin so I think this could be a good study drug as well, but the mental clarity is inferior to (meth)amphetamines and feels more like the scattered caffeine state of mind towards the end.

Well, I went out for a long walk and felt a good body buzz but rather disturbing cardiovascular manifestations. It has been 4-5 hours since the first dose and I was still feeling great. I didn’t eat anything, the appetite suppressant effect of phentermine is equivalent to that of meth, food was the last thing on my mind. I went for a night out with friends and came down (crashed would be a better word) about 8 or 9 hours since the initial dose right before going out. Certain GABA agonists were necessary to reduce the comedown effects, and to maintain a level of acceptable sociability. ;) The above GABA agonist worked very well in smoothing the comedown. Shh, it’s obvious to fellow recreational drug users, but please don’t state it out loud it, since I’m being obscure intentionally. Much later in the night, I took 2 mg alprazolam (Xanax) and was asleep in seconds, but that was probably due to the abovementioned GABA agonist. No “hangover” effects were noticed on the second day, even with just 6 hours of sleep.

Scanned capsules of Ionamin (30 mg phentermine resin)

Experience #2
Giving methcathinone a good run for its money

Substance: Ionamin (Phentermine resin complex)

Dose: 240 mg total
150 mg (5 x 30 mg capsules) at T+ 0:00
60 mg (2 x 30 mg) booster at T+ 1:05
30 mg (1 x 30 mg) booster T+ 4:35

Other possible interactions:
27 mg bromazepam (Lexotan) at T- 14:00
5 mg alprazolam (Xanax) at T- 10:00
3 mg alprazolam (Xanax) at T- 09:00
Note: The subject is a long time user of benzodiazepines, has high tolerance and suspected constant plasma levels of unknown quantity.

Route: Oral and “intranasal”

Haha! That intranasal thing shouldn’t even be mentioned. Basically, I opened a capsule to display its contents on a clean surface and while licking the contents, I accidentally breathed in some. :) Accidental insufflation. Anyway, I crunched up 5 capsules of Ionamin in the afternoon on an empty stomach (12 hours since last meal). I’m starting to like that salty tang, I find that it’s nice to chew for a long time, getting the little hard black balls between your molars and grinding, grinding, grinding till you can feel the brittle powdery texture. I don’t know if that actually breaks the time release though, but I like to have some of it down with the time release intact for a longer plateau.

I felt sleepy (!!!) about 5 minutes later and went to take a nap, hoping my “dexamphetamine trick” aka The Dexamphetamine Alarm Clock will work with Ionamin. Well, the dexamphetamine trick is for the occasions when you HAVE to wake up but you’re too sleepy from the previous night’s benzo consumption (or lack of sleep). Anyway, the trick is to reach for the dexamphetamine bottle when your alarm clock goes off and gobble a few of them before going back to sleep. Hehe! In 15-20 minutes (for me), I’ll suddenly bolt upright and feel ENERGIZED and ready to take on the day! :)

Well, I woke up an hour or so later feeling slightly stimulated and yet slightly sedated. I had a lot of benzodiazepines last night, so that could be the problem. I took a 60 mg booster dose upon waking up and felt tweaked (similar feeling to amphetamines), and the urge to consume more. I wanted to take another capsule after a while, but I was having shortness of breath, chest pains and my toe nails were turning a disturbing shade of black. I have existing hypertension, so I decided not to push it and live to tweak another day. :) I think I’ve lost my significant amphetamine tolerance, which is a Good Thing, my wallet is extending its gratitude every day. Heh.

I’m still feeling good now, still at the plateau, but personally I noticed that with every crunched up capsule comes another peak and another peak and plateau rather similar to the first, so that was why I wanted to take another, but I’m not going to. Pupil dilation does occur at high doses, personally, it’s not the saucers I get while on MDMA, but the dilation is quite similar to (meth)amphetamine at recreational doses. I just checked and I have a fever. No, not using my cold, clammy hands, with a thermometer. Nope, I’m not going to have anymore today. :)

I’m still feeling good by the way. Also, there isn’t any paranoia present but then again that usually only happens on long meth runs, and I don’t like the idea of going for a phentermine run with this heavy body load. I hear the LD50 is 20 mg/kg and I do not want to approach that, with my hypertension. I’m having breathing difficulties now, that is the thing that’s bothering me more than anything, but I’m okay. :)

Anyway, I mentioned before that I don’t fully defeat the timed released capsules, I allow some of the spheres to go un-harassed by my molars, so I’m still up. Oh, if you haven’t figured out by now, this is a running experience report aka “living document”, I write a bit, go out or do other stuff and then come back and update and I post it after it’s complete. I also took another capsule just now. Anyway, after the health issues of the past few hours subsided, I decided to take another 30 mg Ionamin capsule to establish the dose-response curve. ;)

Well, in all seriousness, I was curious to see if tolerance develops quickly on this substance since it’s new to me, so I didn’t just take another one to keep me awake. Booster doses (re-dosing) seems to be more effective than (meth)amphetamines in terms of efficacy. Of course, phentermine does cause tolerance, but qualitatively, a small booster dose will bring me to a plateau again, but a lower one, of course. A disturbing pain is evident in my right eye, but whether that is related to this is unknown. Sleep is still far away, benzodiazepines are definitely necessary for sleep tonight, since I will not be going out. I might comedown anytime and the harsh body load is still very noticeable, so I would prefer to remain sedentary for most of the night. Ionamin lasts a long time too, and I have developed a scary tolerance to benzodiazepines after constant recreational use, but I am doing something about it, so I’m okay. :)

That said, I still love benzodiazepines though, and I hope to try every single one in that happy, large family. =D I have to time it well though, because the Ashton taper plan is not forgiving. The mantra seems to be “always go down (lower the dose), go sideways (take the same dose) if you must, but never go up (take a higher dose)”. Well, I don’t have that big of a problem, so seriously, forget I brought it up, I’m perfectly fine. :) I will still do reviews of benzos (see above about happy family), but for recreational use, I’m going to cut down to the point where I don’t take them every day, maybe just weekends or something. That is a personal decision, coz a benzodiazepine problem is not the best thing in the world to have. :)

I digress, back to Ionamin, there is something quite interesting (disturbing?) about it. It happened during the first time, but I wrote that off as an isolated incident, but it happened again today. The first time it happened was in the shower after my first phentermine experience. I took a piss and during that final muscle squeeze to get the last bit out, semen came out. Wtf? I wasn’t sexually aroused at any point so that was indeed puzzling, but I thought it was just a manifestation of that feeling you get when you take dexamphetamine and potentiate it with baking soda ie the feeling that no matter how hard you strain, you still can’t get that last bit of urine out, it’s just stuck there. This happens on phentermine for me too.

Well, I took a piss late into the second trip and something which looks suspiciously like pre-cum came out, again during the final squeeze. My understanding of the male anatomy says that ejaculation and urination cannot happen at the same time, due to an “either or” valve somewhere along the piping. Very puzzling, especially since there was no erection or sexual arousal at any point. Well, my penis is perfectly fine, thank you very much. :p I was just wondering if anyone had the same experience.

Well, my first two experiences with Ionamin (Phentermine resin) suggests that it certainly is fun. I would try the hydrochloride salt next time to compare against the resin complex. I find it to be quite recreational, but it’s not something I would take frequently due to the heavy body load. Right now, I’m having very disturbing manifestations of hypertension. Here’s an interesting tidbit about Ionamin from RxList [rxlist.com]:

Blood levels obtained with the 15 mg and 30 mg resin complex formulations indicated slower absorption with a reduced but prolonged peak concentration and without a significant difference in prolongation of blood levels when compared with the same doses of phentermine hydrochloride.

I haven’t tried phentermine hydrochloride, but yeah, even before I even read this I already noticed that phentermine resin’s plateau was unexpectedly long!

Ionamin Thoughts:
It’s strangely dehydrating, you really need to drink a lot of water! It’s unlike meth/speed, where you know you’re thirsty but you don’t care coz the current thing you’re doing is more important. With phentermine, you know you’re thirsty and the thirst is bad so you reach for the water bottle. I drank an obscene amount of water during both experiences! Be careful and monitor your water intake.

It’s a good cheap and dirty amphetamine substitute. After a certain (high) dose threshold, amphetamine type effects predominate – full body buzz, slight arousal and sensitivity in the genitalia, head rush when urinating, excessive talking and writing (just look at the length of this post!) and of course EUPHORIA! :) Mental stimulation is also present, thought processes remain quite clear (unlike caffeine), though not as clear as meth(amphetamines).

Phentermine resin seems to have a heavy body load. My heart felt like it was going to fail anytime from the fast heartbeats and the elevated body temperature raises concern about possible brain damage. I also felt out of breath on higher doses and the comedown is quite harsh and remarkably similar to (meth)amphetamines – tiredness, slight depression, muscle aches etc etc. However, qualitatively, the comedown effect of a single day’s use is equivalent the comedown of a 3 day meth run! It’s quite unacceptable, considering the heavy body load and lower intensity.

The dose-response curve seems to be less steep than other amphetamines. Re-dosing at a low level (30 mg) at the tail end of the run seems to produce effects, which though inference and extrapolation seems less pronounced than what a 30 mg dose would provide without tolerance, but it is keeping me awake and slightly stimulated. Phentermine does produce tolerance as the literature states, but surprisingly, it doesn’t seem to develop as fast as (meth)amphetamines, so re-dosing (booster doses) does work, though of course, at a decreased rate. However I have to re-iterate that I don’t think it’s a very good idea to go on long phentermine runs, considering the body load.

My personal (based on the things I’ve had experience with) stimulant potency hierarchy:

(in decreasing order of qualitatively perceived strength)

Methamphetamine (meth, shabu, ping)
My favorite drug, I use it very frequently in Melbourne - and the only drug I’ve IV (injected with a syringe through a vein). New readers can read my experiences here:
Methamphetamine IV Part I: Intravenous injection [sixthseal.com]
Methamphetamine IV Part II: Hitting the vein, synergies and the comedown [sixthseal.com]
or just browse the Sticky Posts at the right (under Recent Comments and above Archives) since they’re all best of the best posts on sixthseal.com or so I like to think :p

Dexamphetamine (d-amphetamine – speed, just the stronger non-racemic kind)
The potent dextro isomer of amphetamine. Amphetamine = speed, and this only has the dextro isomer, which is good since the levo isomer isn't recreational. I love this too, a bottle (500 mg or 1/2 a gram) of pure amphetamines can disappear in two or three days.

Amphetamine (speed)
The racemic mixture (contains both d-amphetamine and l-amphetamine), so it’s a step down the ladder since l-amphetamine is not as recreational (doesn’t get you high) as d-amphetamine.

Methcathinone
It makes me sad during the comedown, but it’s an okay stimulant. I’ll write a post (not everything, just my experiences with the stuff, and ONLY that) when technical problems resolves itself.

Phentermine (resin)
Hi!

Pseudoephedrine
Oh, my poor overworked heart.

Caffeine
Well, if you have nothing else…

Again, I reiterate that this stimulant potency hierarchy is based on personal experiences and YMMV.

Caution: Taking more than 100 mg of phentermine may be dangerous.

Posted in Pharmaceuticals by Huai Bin at 04:08 AM Permalink | Comments (38)

DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE

coz you might spill your drink. ;) Gotta love that song from NOFX. Anyway, here's what I did Thursday night and Friday night.

Thursday

Counter clockwise from left:
Huai Bin (me) = purple t-shirt with black sleeves (to hide my track marks)
Daniel = floral print shirt, partially obscured (sorry)
Alice = black top
Alan = blue with no sleeves
Bing Jong = grey with collar
Ing Tai = white Vodaphone

P/S - The hiding my track marks thing is a private joke, it's not to be taken literally!

Counter clockwise from middle:
Alan = blue with no sleeves
Huai Bin (me) = purple t-shirt with black sleeves
Daniel = floral print shirt
Alice = black top
Bing Jong = grey with collar
Ing Tai = white Vodaphone

P/S - Don't ask me why I'm always biting my lip, I just do it sometimes. :p

I went to Yes Music Cafe with a couple of friends where Tsingtao beer flows aplenty. It's a karaoke place that has great pumping music "feng tau" style during the intermissions. Anyway, too many ethanol containing beverages were consumed, and I wasn't exactly the soberest person in the world when I went into my car. It's a good thing the place is near my home and it was very late by the time we left so not many lives were potentially endangered while yours truly was behind the steering wheel. Technically, I knew I was unfit to drive and it's irresponsible to do that, but personally, I'm a safe driver when I know I’m under the influence ie drive extra slowly, signal lights way in advance, triple checking for cars before making turns, concentrated to sober up and analyze the roads for potential traffic etc. Justification aside, I definitely won't be passing any breathalyzer tests that night, it's in one of the top three Most Intense DUI/DWI Incidents (MIDI) in my life. It’s a good thing nothing happened. I hope no one who’s in MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) reads this. Thanks to Alan and crew for following behind until I was home to make sure I was safe. Oh yeah, in my lack of sobriety, I forgot to close the automatic gate, only found out from my dad the next day. Oops…

Friday

I caught up with Ting Chuan, who was also back for the holidays. Went to have (non-alcoholic) drinks at Bamboo House @ Premier Hotel, it was the free drink vouchers from the time me and my gf had dinner there. Anyway, saw the two girl performing group, there were only the two of us inside so "This song is dedicated to those two gentlemen over there". I thought their music was great, and ah, the adjective to describe their music would be very suitable to describe the aesthetic features of the duo as well. ;) I was kicking myself all the time, because my digicam was broken and Daniel had already left so I couldn't take pictures. Too bad.

Saturday

I got a call asking me to go out right as I was typing the "Friday" part, so here's "Saturday". I wasn't planning to go out tonight so I had to decline. I'm already in my PJs and tonight has been designated The Day of Rest. Gotta run, got a plane to CRASH. Har Har. *cough*

Posted in by Huai Bin at 10:40 PM Permalink | Comments (4)

The Standoff

I want new shoes and a new skirt for the party tomorrow.
You know we can't afford that dear...
I hate being in this family! Why don't even you dress up when we go out? You're such an embarrassment mom!

A woman walks past without listening and the man slouches in his chair, oblivious of the standoff just a meter away from him...nodding out in opiate bliss.

Inspired by graceshu [pixelphobia.net].
Picture taken at the back alleys of Channel Road, Sibu.
This is a work of fiction based on a photograph I took about a week ago.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 03:16 AM Permalink | Comments (7)

Photo Friday - Identity

Photo Friday - Identity [photofriday.com]

Identity. Schools in Malaysia require uniforms. There is a strict dress code which is enforced by prefects standing at the main gate. The uniform is usually a blue pinafore with a white collared shirt for females, while males wear a white collared shirt with green pants. The footwear is limited to white shoes and socks and everyone has a visible ID card attached their shirts, displaying the name, date of birth, class, a photo and several other personal details. Personal effects which break the homogeneous appearance are frowned upon. I had to wear a bandage every day to cover up the tattoo on my wrist to comply with school regulations during my time there. This photo was taken yesterday afternoon at Methodist High School, Sibu (Sarawak) - my alma mater. I was in 5S1 (Class of '98) and I decided to do a photo shoot of the whole school yesterday. The picture above was taken with permission from the teacher of the class.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 02:25 PM Permalink | Comments (3)

"OTC" prescription recreational pharmaceuticals in Malaysia

This is a veritas post.

Xanax, Ultram, Phentermine, Lexotan, oh my…

My friend is back!!! Project Doctor Shopping Malaysia Part II is cancelled! Why would I want to go through all that trouble when I get what I want without a prescription? I will write the report soon though, coz it’s worthy of a post. But I’m giving up on my scripts, thanks to my good friend who shall remain unnamed, I can just walk into his pharmacy and ask for stuff and only pay pharmacy retail prices (bye consultation fees). Heh. I’ve gotten 20 x 1 mg Xanax tablets a couple of days ago, which I finished in no time, so I went back for a bit of a shopping spree. :)

Pictured above:
Benzodiazepines
Heaps of blue 1 mg generic alprazolam (Xanax) tablets
Blister packs of Lexotan (Roche’s brand name bromazepam)

Opiate agonists
Blister packs of Mabron (generic Tramadol – sold under Ultram in the US)
Not pictured: Heaps of 30 mg codeine phosphate tablets (from two other pharmacies – pictures only shows haul from last nite at My Favorite Pharmacy in the Whole Fucking Wide World!)

Stimulants
Ionamin (phentermine resin) – will write a trip report soon. :)

Plus, I can get diazepam, and other benzos and I haven’t taken a look in his store room for other nice stuff too, will do that soon. Hehehe! I will write a FULL REPORT in due time. My apologies if I sound like I’m bragging, I’m not, I’m just tweaked on cheap speed substitutes (phentermine).

Don’t hate me just because I have a friend who has a pharmacy. ;)

P/S - I wanted that sunny smiley in some people's comments box but I couldn't find it so think of the ;) as that one ok? veritas over and out and tweaked.

Posted in Pharmaceuticals by Huai Bin at 03:12 PM Permalink | Comments (26)

What did I do yesterday?

Take Away Street

Hmm…lemme think. Just give me a minute here. :) Okay, the day started when a went for lunch with Daniel [geocities.com]. A big thank you to him, he’s the reason why sixthseal.com has photos again (albeit for a while, coz he’s going back in a day). He has a digicam too (Sony DSC-F707) and I borrowed it to take some photos, so yeah, photos are available for a short time. :)

The interior.

Anyway, he told me of this place called TakeAway Street in Wisma Sanyan where every main meal is just RM 1.50 and every drink is just RM 1. That was last month though, the prices have been raised since then. I had the Taiwan Noodles (which tastes suspiciously like Maggie Mee Curry Flavor) for RM 2.50, meat stuffed kompia with gravy for RM 0.50, egg cooked in soy sauce (lu tang in Chinese, what’s the English equivalent?) for RM 0.50 and kopi peng for RM 1.20.

My food posts are definitely not as good as mum mum [blogspot.com], so if you’re interested in food, head over to Wena's site, it’s GREAT! Always makes me hungry, photos and descriptions of all kinds of food. She’s from Kuching (about 400+ km from Sibu) and I’ve lived there for 8 years total (7 during childhood, 1 in college) and I visit very often so yeah, I’m familiar with most of the places she mentions. Great food blog, go visit! I’ll like to think of her blog as “The Best Food Related Blog in Malaysia”. On a narcissistic note, and borrowing from Phua Chu Kang, I’ll like to think sixthseal.com is the best drug related blog in Malaysia, Singapore and some say Australia. ;)

Terminator 3 – I took a shot of the screen inside the cinema.

Anyway, let’s see…after that I borrowed Daniel’s digicam to do a bit of photography, as you can see from the photos of the Knuckles Soccer photos below. A couple of us went to watch Terminator 3 later at night, it was the 8:45 pm one, they only charge RM 5 on Wednesday. After that, it’s off for drinks at SRC, the people I remember there (besides me) is Alan, Bing Jong, Johnny, Daniel, Christopher, Niny, and Ing Tai. Hey, I think I remembered, it’s easy to visualize the table and go counter-clockwise. Heh. Er…not much was remembered after that due to my excessive alcohol consumption to celebrate my results. So yeah, that’s my day yesterday.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 03:00 PM Permalink | Comments (12)

McDonald's & Sega promotion - Sega mini handheld games - Knuckles Soccer

McDonald’s and Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog mini game #2 – Knuckles Soccer

I got this back issue from the McDonald’s Sibu offer last Monday, where they reintroduce the sold out games (only #2 Knuckles Soccer and #3 Tails Sky Patrol, not #1 Sonic’s Speedway). It was supposed to go on sale at exactly 12 noon and man, the place was packed! Everyone was jostling, shouting around etc. and the staff finally had to resort to giving out numbers, and I got Number 2. Heh. Anyway, after a long wait and a lot of pushing around, we (me and gf, she was still in Sibu at that time) walked out with two copies of Knuckles Soccer. Yay! The game features Knuckles in front of a goal and you control him using the two right-left buttons to guard the goal from incoming balls. Fun, but all too easy to win again. The background has a wider variety of colors compared to Tails Sky Patrol though – colorful. I couldn’t post it up before because of my broken digicam (didn’t have photos). Why do I have photos now? I’ll write about that in the next post, here are the photos that I took:

The manual for Knuckles Soccer (scanned)

The front of Knuckles Soccer.

The back of Knuckles Soccer.

Knuckles Soccer in action!

Posted in by Huai Bin at 02:55 PM Permalink | Comments (1)

I HAVE GRADUATED!!!!!

HELL FUCKING YEAH!!!!!

I just happened to check the Monash Exam Results page just now and saw a link - Semester 1, 2003 Results! Oh, fuck!!! I thought. It was supposed to come out tomorrow afternoon but sometimes it comes out earlier. With EXTREME TREPEDITION, I clicked on the link, entered my authcate password and covered the monitor with my hand. I pulled it away and saw:

CSE2030 Distinction
CSE3151 Pass
ELC1000 Distinction
GSC2714 Distinction

My apologies to my neighbour for my shouts of "YEAH! FUCKING YEAH! FUCK! WHO DA MAN? HUH? WHO THE FUCKING MAN? FUCK! YEAH!!!!" at an unacceptably loud volume. I am happy you see, because it's my last semester and I've been worried that I will fail something and will have to repeat. Turns out that I don't, woo fucking hoo, I've officially graduated! =D

Anyway, here are the actual results and the expected grade I forecast after the exam:

Expected: Distinction
CSE2030 Postmortem [sixthseal.com]
Actual: Distinction

Expected: Pass
CSE3151 Postmortem [sixthseal.com]
Actual: Pass

Expected: Distinction
ELC1000 Postmortem [sixthseal.com]
Actual: Distinction

I got 3/3 correct this time. Heh. I didn't forecast GSC2714 Drug and Alcohol Use, because hey, it's something I'm very interested in so I don't expect to fail it. True enough, I got the highest mark of all my subjects for that. Arrggghhhh...just 4 marks short of a High Distinction. I'm still happy though. :)

You see that Limited Edition Rugby World Cup 2003 Heineken Magnum (1.5 liters) up there? I've lugged that back from Melbourne to save for drinking when I pass everything. Now I'm going to scull that motherfucker and head out for celebrations! =D

P/S - I will reply all the comments when I come back, I'm too happy now so I'm going to celebrate. :) My apologies for the profanity laden post, I'm not usually like that, but dammit, this is great news for someone who has been worried about failing in his last semester and having to repeat. Hehehe! =D

Posted in by Huai Bin at 07:03 PM Permalink | Comments (20)

Who is Stella K?

Who is Stella K?
What is Project PM?
While we're at it, who is veritas?

Answers to all of the above (except one and three) will be revealed in six days! Stay tuned...

Posted in by Huai Bin at 02:46 AM Permalink | Comments (16)

Sibu's Parking System

Sibu's Parking Coupon

It's been a while but I still hate doing this…basically you have to punch holes out of a parking coupon (scanned image above - good thing my scanner is still available) and leave it on the dashboard so it's visible through the windshield. There are five sections to remove and even though I usually like doing things like this (popping bubble wrap, depressing that thingy on the cover of McDonald's soft drinks etc.), this isn't fun for someone who answers "I don't know" to "What date is it today?". :) It’s a good thing I have a Palm for dates, the time is alright though, there's always the car clock and the cell phone one. The other problem with this is the way it has changed the way people park…while it used to be (usually) obvious whether a car is parking in or moving out, it now isn't. Malaysia is hot, so people leave the engine running to have the air conditioning going while messing about with these parking coupons. You'll all be sitting there waiting and thinking, hmm…has this guy just parked in and getting the coupons done or is he arranging his groceries (or whatever) before driving out?

The worst thing with the coupon system in Sibu is the way you have to put as many as you’re going to park for eg if you want to park for 3 hours, you need to perforate 6 coupons (each lasts half an hour) and put them all in a row on your windshield. The problem is there is only one denomination available – the 40 cents (42 cents with tax to be concise) one, which lasts 30 minutes. The people who need to park for the whole day needs to put rows upon rows of parking coupons to cover the time, and making sure to arrange it properly so none is partially obscured, or they’ll see The Red Ticket (parking fine) on their windshield wiper. I mean wtf? Am I the only one who thinks there’s something wrong with this? 6 hours of parking requires 12 coupons and these things are not small – they’re the length of a standard DVD case and about 4/6 the width of it. Come out with higher denomination coupons for Christ’s sake.

Anyway, I got fined yesterday because I over parked for a measly 7 minutes. The parking fine (dubbed the “Overparking Compound Notice”) is RM 1 per 30 minutes, more than twice the price of the coupon, which isn’t much, so I don’t really care, I just feel that the system isn’t practical for long term parking unless they come out with higher denomination coupons like Kuching has. Oh, the back of the parking fine has Fine Print that’s quite interesting – have a read:

Well, I’ll just give a quick update (personal stuff) about the things that happened yesterday and today:

I went to Wisma Sanyan early yesterday morning with my gf to buy some stuff she needs before leaving for KL. The parking fine was from then, I the parking inspectors usually aren’t that vigilant, so I figured we could drop by Tops to get something to drink before heading to the car. We saw the Parking Inspector’s Employee of the Month walking right past as we headed back, curses. :)

Anyway, I also picked up a pirated (unlicensed) VCD of Finding Nemo to watch in the afternoon with my gf. It was funny how the store operates – since the raids, they have only legit things on display, but there are plenty of posters of new movies ie Matrix Reloaded, Charlie’s Angels 2, Hulk, Terminator 3 etc on display. Basically, they ARE selling pirated VCDs and DVDs of the pirated movies displayed in the posters, so just ask at the counter, and the girl will dig around the back room and be back with the movie of your choice in a few seconds. ;) Other prices are still selling it openly though, but unfortunately, Sibu saw an increase in price from RM 5 to RM 8 per movie since the raids. It should stabilize back soon though, seems that the operation is over.

I saw heaps of people at the Sibu Town Square last night for the Borneo Cultural Festival, it was PACKED. People were parking in that road divider between two opposing roads (the ones that has the street lights). Man, I wished my digicam was working. I didn’t go though, coz I was going for dinner.

My gf went back to KL this morning. :( Her semester started about a week ago, so she’s already going over late. I drove her and her mom to the airport this morning and we got some breakfast there before she took the 10:05 am Air Asia flight out. I will be seeing her soon though, will be heading over to KL in a while as well.

The picture above was taken about two weeks ago (my digicam still broken – only scanner working), I had wanted to make it PoTD with a crack about “San Pedro tastes so good, the Mexicans want it back” but never got around to doing it. That’s okay, since I finally went to eat KFC’s Bandito Pockett combo meal today (comes with a drink and potato wedges) with Michelle, friend and pharmacy student. ;) I was on my out when she called me so we went for lunch and then visited our ex-high school. Oh, the Bandito tastes okay…a bit bland (had to keep on adding Thai chili sauce) and you get to buy a 325 ml can of Pepsi Twist for just 10 cents if you buy it with the meal. I wasn’t really interested at first, until I thought of something it would go well with. Potentiator?

That's it, the story of my personal life up to now. :)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 11:15 PM Permalink | Comments (7)

Borneo Cultural Festival Sibu (2003)

Borneo Cultural Festival 2003, Sibu.

This has been going on at the Sibu town square for a while now, and will continue for a few more days. I took the photos yesterday noon, but I've been busy so I couldn't post it yesterday. My apologies. Anyway, the story behind the photos is worthy of a mention, but I will put the photos up first – it cost me RM 16 so enjoy. ;)

A balloon flying high.

A blowpipe accuracy competition – a blowpipe is a long contraption used by the Ibans (and other groups) that propels a dart (originally poisoned and used for hunting) to a target by the user blowing through the pipe.

Something going on here, I just didn’t say long enough to find out what it was…

Another shot of the unknown event above, gotta run, battery low.

A row of traditional Chinese stalls.

Thirsty?

Setting the stage for the final judging of the Borneo Cultural Festival Sibu's Miss Malaysian Chinese 2003 tonight. I took photos of the candidates about a week ago. Link: Miss Malaysian Chinese (Borneo Cultural Festival, Sibu) - Miss Photogenic photo shoot [sixthseal.com]

Tug of war.

This is a swing of sorts used by the Melanau at their harvest festival. It's a test of manhood, they swing and bungee from this contraption.

This is the main motif of Borneo Cultural Festival – a montage of a Chinese lantern, a Malay ketupat, and several native symbols which I'm not familiar enough with to comment about, but I like the tuak (rice wine) that's perpetually pouring from the top. :)

About the RM 16 photos, I went to the camera repair shop yesterday morning but unfortunately, my digicam could not be repaired due to mould (?) in the internal components. The repair guy asked if the digicam has had water damage before and I told him it had, but that was a long time ago – about a year back. I forgot to zip my pants pocket while skiing and snowboarding at Mount Buller (Melbourne) and found my digicam covered with snow at the end of the session. Anyway, he said that was probably the cause – the mould slowly manifested itself and damaged some of the stuff so it needs to be sent to Nikon Service in KL to be repaired. :( That means I will be without a digicam for about a week, but I will check other repair shops tomorrow and see if they have the necessary components.

Anyway, I passed by the town square yesterday noon and just HAD to take photos, so I went to one of the camera shops and offered the owner a deal – let me rent a digicam for 15 minutes and I'll pay him RM 10. Heh. Well, I had my (broken) digicam with me, and my CF card, so I'll just need one for a couple of minutes to take photos. I convinced him to rent me a new Nikon Coolpix 3500 (it was the only one that could hold my CF card, the shop is a Sony dealer, so all the other digicams they stock use memory sticks) and I'll give RM 100 + my digicam as a deposit. Well, he was more than happy to do that, so I waited while he opened the new digicam box and got out everything and charged the battery.

My gf called me at this point and I told her what I was up to, and she said it's already raining at her place (the photos won't turn out well if it rains). I went out and sure enough, dark skies abound. I went back and told the camera guy that I needed it now, so forget about charging the battery. He said that it wouldn't last all that long, since it has only had been charging for about 3 minutes, but I said it's okay, since I'm in a hurry. Well, off I ran and upon startup, it was already showing the low battery indicator so I ran around, hoping to get a shot of everything before the battery ran out – and I did. :)

Anyway, I'm sorry about the quality of the photos, I noticed that the quality setting was at the default (Low) but the battery was so drained I didn't want to risk changing the settings instead of taking more shots and having it die on me halfway. Anyway, the Nikon Coolpix 3500 seems okay, I like the way the lens fold out. I ran all over the town square, taking photos until the "Battery Exhausted!" warning came out. After that, I went back to the dealer, paid him RM 10, got my RM 100 and digicam back and he packaged the digicam back into the box, probably to sell to another person. *shrug*

Well, I got home later and then thought of something – how was I going to get the photos out of the CF Card? Windows won't detect the CF Card unless the digicam is on, and my digicam is broken (couldn't even turn it on). So off I went to the Fujifilm Imagng Center near my place to get the photos burnt to a CD-R, which cost RM 6. I should have bought a CF Card reader instead, since it was only RM 45, but I reckon I don't need one since it's just a one time thing. So there you go, photos from yesterday. :)

Posted in Events by Huai Bin at 07:37 PM Permalink | Comments (12)

Project Doctor Shopping Malaysia (Part Dua) in progress...

Project Doctor Shopping Malaysia II is well on its way. I’ve currently gotten alprazolam (off another doctor), diazepam, and clonazepam since Project Doctor Shopping: Malaysian Edition (Part I). I will write the full report when I’ve acquired a suitable amount of different stuff. ;) I'm hoping to get Phentermine, Ritalin (wish me luck) and several other different benzos before I write it.

Posted in Pharmaceuticals by Huai Bin at 07:29 PM Permalink | Comments (7)

Photo Friday - Symmetry

Photo Friday - Symmetry [photofriday.com]

Symmetry. This photo was taken yesterday night at around 10 pm at the ground floor of Central Market in Sibu, Sarawak (Malaysia). It shows rows upon rows of symmetrical stalls - selling anything from fresh vegetables to meat products, all wrapped up in tarps and other coverings in preparation for an early dawn opening.

The shooting data:

Focal Length: 8mm
Exposure Mode: Programmed Auto
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern 1/23.5 sec - f/2.8
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Sensitivity: Auto
White Balance: Auto
AF Mode: AF-C
Saturation Compensation: 0

The post-production work was done in Photoshop 7.0 and involves:

Image Size: Size reduced from 2048x1536 to 500x375

Posted in by Huai Bin at 11:04 PM Permalink | Comments (2)

No photos!

My digicam died on me this afternoon. I went for dinner with my gf just now at Premier Hotel (their buffet dinner is pretty good on Saturday nights) but unfortunately, there aren't any photos today because my digicam is out of service. Anyway, I've passed it on to a camera repair shop just now, and I'm expecting to have it back by noon tomorrow, so all is good. It does feel weird not to have a digicam handy - all ready to take photos should the opportunity arise, but oh well, it's only for a day. :)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 11:02 PM Permalink | Comments (0)

Teochew Roasted Meat Flat Mee

Teochew Kampua Mee @ Central Market, Sibu

This is said to be the best kampua mee in Sibu. I went last night with a couple of my buddies but I've been busy so I only posted it today. This stall is on the second floor of Central Market and I've been told it's only open from 8 pm – 11 pm at night, except for Sundays. 3 hours per day, and they have heaps of customers due to its reputation so be prepared for a long wait. I think we had to wait more than 30 minutes, which is a long time for kampua mee!

Teochew Kampua Mee (Plain)

Anyway, I thought it was okay, it's good, but I've had better. :p I had two bowls – one plain and one with soy sauce + chili sauce. The soy sauce + chili sauce one is better, IMHO. The soup is great, I don't know what they put inside, but it's different from the usual kam pua soup. The meat is roasted (smoked?) pork, tastes slightly better than the normal ones, but the noodles is helluva oily. The reason for the long wait is not only coz of the many customers, but because they cook each bowl separately, unlike other stalls who just chuck everything in.

Teochew Kampua Mee (Soy Sauce and Chili Sauce)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 11:00 PM Permalink | Comments (10)

Kehidupan Seorang Pramugara Yang Terlampau (Hardcore Version)

Malaysia's gift to the world.

I'm probably the last one to see this, watched it last night with a couple of friends. This is the Malaysian Airlines cabin attendant porn movie - it's supposed to feature the cabin attendants of MAS Airlines. I didn't follow the news regarding this story, but I've heard different things ie it was an ex employee, actors got Malaysia Airline uniforms, it's authentic etc. Nothing to write home about anyway, also the end featured the Libby webcam strip tease clip.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 10:54 PM Permalink | Comments (195)

Methodist High School @ Country Cafe

L-R: Johnny, Huai Bin (me), Daniel

L-R: Christopher, Huai Bin (me), Michelle

I went out for dinner today with Daniel, Johnny, Michelle, and Christopher just now. I haven’t seen some of them for 5 years! They’re all my ex high school classmates and we all happened to be in Sibu at this time. We had dinner at Country Cafe - I had the Teppanyaki Chicken dish and a Mai Tai. Here’s some shots from the night, it was great to catch up with all of them. :)

Mai Tai. Mmm...

Teppanyaki Chicken

Posted in People by Huai Bin at 07:57 AM Permalink | Comments (11)

Malaysia: 30 mg codeine and 10 mg dihydrocodeine in MALAYSIA for 60 cents each!

400 mg paracetamol + 30 mg codeine

500 mg paracetamol + 10 mg dihydrocodeine

I woke up with a migraine yesterday morning, so I decided to call a couple of pharmacies and see what they have. Pharmacy #1 only has Panadeine, an obscene preparation containing 500 mg of paracetamol/acetaminophen/APAP (they all refer to the same thing) plus a decidedly meager 8 mg of codeine. Pharmacy #2 doesn’t sell any restricted drugs, apparently codeine is “restricted drug” to them. Pharmacy #3 sounds too good to be true – I called them and they said they have two codeine preparations. The first one is Paralgin Forte and when I asked about the exact concentrations, the answer nearly made me drop the phone in surprise – 200 mg of paracetamol + 30 mg of codeine. That sounds very nice indeed! =D Excuse me, I meant to say that it sounds like that would do help with my migraine very well indeed. The other one they have is an unknown tablet that contains 500 mg of liver destroying paracetamol + 10 mg of dihydrocodeine. I told them I will be down in an hours time. :)

I had to write what that myself...

Same here...

Well, I went there with my gf and Anna later and yes, it was too good to be true. The Paralgin Forte contains 400 mg of paracetamol instead of the 200 mg they told me over the phone. Nevertheless, 400 mg is better than 500 mg, so I bought a couple of them. They go for 60 cents each, which about 30 cents Australian. Anyway, just so I won’t have to convert all the time:

RM 1 = A$ 0.50
A$1 = RM 2
Basically, half the RM (Ringgit Malaysia) prices for the Australian equivalent.

Dihydrocodeine tablets with RM 0.50 and A$ 0.50.

I bought 10 of the Paralgin Forte tablets for a nice 300 mg of codeine. They cost 60 cents each, which I think is pretty cheap for a tablet that has 30 mg of codeine. It is interesting to note that the bottle says Codeine Phosphate 1 1/2 H20 – 30 mg. What’s with the 1 1/2 H20? Does it mean that codeine is soluble in 1 1/2 amounts of water or does it mean something else? Pharmaceutical aficionados, I would appreciate it if you could shed some light here.

Codeine tablets with RM 0.50 and A$ 0.50.

Dihydrocodeine - front

Dihydrocodeine - back

Anyway, the other one they have contains 500 mg of paracetamol and the inferior dihydrocodeine tartrate, which I haven’t tried before. There’s only 10 mg of dihydrocodeine to the whopping 500 mg of paracetamol, so ah…I think I might need to get some coffee filters next time I have a migraine and have some cold water handy. ;)

Well, the photographs of the photos are actually quite funny. I walked in, and this conversation ensued:

Me: Hello, I called just now regarding the migraine tablets?
Pharmacist: Oh yeah, I remember, let me just get the bottles.
She comes out with two large bottles, each containing 1000 tablets – nice…
I examined the bottles for a while and asked for 10 Paralgin Forte tablets (60 cents each so that makes it RM 6) and 16 dihydrocodeine tablets (RM 1 for 4 pills, so that makes it 16 pills to round the total up to RM 10).
Me: This is going to sound like a strange request, but do you mind if I take a photo of the bottles before you put them away?
Pharmacist: That is indeed the strangest thing I’ve ever heard! I’ve never had a customer make that request before. Why do you want photos of the bottles?
Me: Well, I have a personal interest in these things.
This is the truth, but it’s the “wrong answer” when doing pharmacy runs/doctor shopping. Sometimes, being economical with the truth is the better policy as you can see below.
Pharmacist: *looks doubtful* Okay, I guess that wouldn’t do any harm, so go ahead.
I take photos of both the bottles.
Me: Hey thanks, I really appreciate you going out of your way to help me out.
Pharmacist: No problems…can I ask you a question? Are you taking them yourself?
Me: I am aware of the abuse potential of these things, I would only take them if I have a really bad migraine.
Pharmacist: That’s good to hear. You know, this is actually a prescription item, so I’m not actually supposed to sell it to you without one.
Me: I see. I appreciate that you would go out of your way to help me, I hope this doesn’t get you into any trouble.
Pharmacist: Nah, it’ll be alright, but it’ll be better if you have a prescription before coming in next time. You can have these today though.
Me: Thanks again, I appreciate your help. You have a nice day okay? Take care.
Pharmacist: Have a nice day.

I reckon it was that interest in taking photos of the bottle that made that “SCRIPTER!!! SCRIPTER!!!” flashing light go off on my head. I wasn’t scripting, I really did have a migraine, but yeah, add this bit to the Tome of Doctor Shopping – don’t appear too interested in the medications you’re trying to acquire. It’s normal to ask about side effects etc but it’s not to start breaking out with the digicams and asking permission to take photos of bottles inside a pharmacy, all the while focusing on the 30 mg codeine part. Take care everyone.

Paralgin Forte – front.

Remember, pharmaceuticals are fun! :)

Paralgin Forte – back.

P/S – SWIM consumed 4 tablets for a total of 120 mg codeine and 1,600 mg paracetamol (yuck), with benzodiazepines and had a very positive experience, although the most common side effect (not itching, the other one) was very strong. That person says that he only truly appreciated codeine this time, and actually nodded off (he does not have opiate tolerance at all) for a very pleasant experience, except for the side effects. He might be writing a trip report in the near future. Please do not mix benzodiazepines and codeine, that person had a very responsible trip sitter.

Posted in Pharmaceuticals by Huai Bin at 07:40 AM Permalink | Comments (25)

McDonald's & Sega promotion - Sega mini handheld games - Tails Sky Patrol

McDonald’s and Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog mini game #3 - Tails Sky Patrol

I did not wake up early because I was still sleeping, so I didn’t queue up at 9 am. I only got up at around 10:45 am after a call woke me up. I rushed down to the local McDonald’s and I’m happy to report that I have managed to acquire two of Tails Sky Patrol (the Sega mini handheld game this week – a new one every week). I’m planning to collect one (unopened, in shrink wrap) and play with one.

Sonic's Tails Sky Patrol game.

Well, the construction of these Sega mini games seems to be pretty solid – the only one I have (Tails Sky Patrol) feels light, but sturdy. There’s a bit of a rattling sound when it’s agitated though. The back of the game has a simple On/Off toggle switch and the front is molded to the Tails character from Sonic the Hedgehog. The LCD is about the size of a postage stamp and has a pre-rendered background. By that I mean the background is “painted on” and shows up even if the game is not on. You know what I mean if you’ve been messing around with handheld games before.

Front of the handheld game.

Back of the handheld game.

The background has scenery of a blue sky, with nicely rendered cumulonimbus clouds. The two red buttons to move Tails up and down seems to be able to handle a bit of rough play, but I haven’t put that to the test. This game also has sound – it emits beeps, boops, and squeaks, depending on whether you made Tails eat a ring, you missed one, or the game is over. :)

The game in action!

The game is pretty compulsive, a lot of fast reflexes are needed to get through the levels, but I suspect that this isn’t a device that would take a lot of punishment, so personally, I don’t think it’ll last for all that long. It’s great value for RM 5 (A$ 2.50) so I would be getting the other two in the series. Please email me if you have the first two in the series, I’m interested in getting two of each (but one would do if that’s all you’re willing to part with), just offer a price in the email. Thanks!

The manual

P/S - Has anyone taken photos of the back of Tails Sky Patrol? I noticed this very interesting visual distortion where the blue bits swirled and blinked and moved around. It’s not an isolated incident so I wouldn’t call it a flashback. Try taking a close-up photo of the back of this mini game and see if you experience the same visual distortion when viewed through the LCD viewfinder. The front and other parts did not produce the same effects, only the blue back of Tails Sky Patrol did. I had to think very hard to remember whether I consumed any mushrooms or blotters during the night! I’m pretty sure this phenomena occurs because of the silvery finish at the back of the game – it just messes with the digicam’s autofocus and that translated to bizarre visual distortions in the LSD viewfinder.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 07:19 AM Permalink | Comments (4)

My bag of puke

Pictured above is a plastic bag containing a portion of the things I regurgitated today. There is another fat, dark plastic bag inside (at the final bag below)…that's also full of vomit. If you look hard enough you can see a half eaten Fish Filet from McDonald's (ate there again for the Sega mini handheld game promo - got two, whee!). I could not eat anything the whole day and drinking water only made me regurgitate seconds later. It’s quite tiring really, all that throwing up business. Especially when you vomited everything from your stomach – I was basically making uncontrolled dry heaves.

A closer view to make more details visible.

Another close up of the bag of puke.

The final big bag of puke. Note the yellow transparent color at the bottom – I didn’t have anything else to throw up so up came the stomach acids...

Anyway, I went to see a doctor just now and specifically asked for an anti-emetic injection – which usually prompts "Oh, so you're a med school student". It seems that a lot of the doctors here assume that only med students know those words. I use medical terminology not to sound pretentious – just to be concise. Anyway, out came the nurse and told me to lie down. I declined and asked for it in the arm because I wanted to take a photo of it. Unfortunately, that nurse is faster than a speeding bullet – my digicam barely went through its start up procedures before she was done. In and out in a second. Bummer. Anyway it was an IM (intramuscular) injection that only left a tiny red mark:

But this nurse is truly fucking clueless and the doctor was looking the whole time and didn’t make any comments so he’s fucking clueless by proxy too. The nurse didn’t swab me! This is such a basic hygiene method employed even by IV drug users that one would expect a GP to know, but apparently not. Hmm…are there any lawyers out there? If I get septicemia, endocarditis or something like that, am I eligible to file a lawsuit? Of course, if (a very big if) something happens and the courts decide in my favor, I will keep half of the profit, some will be used to run a contest on sixthseal.com, and I’ll donate the rest to a good harm reduction organization. Hehe! Seriously though, some HR organizations are tax deductible, so it would be good to do it, if you support the idea behind it that is.

"Gastric" pills

"Vomiting/Giddy" pills

Well, here are photos of the medication I received – one is supposed to be an anti-emetic, while the other is for gastric. True to the practice of most of the doctors here, the actual name of the drug is not written, only what it's for (the symptoms). It's coz we patients are stupid you see, we'll never understand and know what it is, if they wrote the name of the drug instead. Anyway, now I have to search RxList and see what it is, which would be pretty damn difficult as one of them has no detail, just a single score.

"Gastric" pills
YS imprint on the front, single score on the back, beveled edges on both sides. 1/4 of the pill is pink while 3/4 is white. It smells like candy.

"Vomiting/Giddy" pills
Single score on back, no detail on the front. Plain white tablet without beveled edges.

Well, I’m sure that they don’t have any recreational value (unless stopping you from vomiting counts, heh) but it would be interesting to know what they contain anyway, just in case it’s contraindicated against something I’m taking in tandem. Oh, you want to know something interesting? The pills labeled "gastric" looks a like like this (except for the color):

Picture taken from this pill report [pillreports.com]. It’s an MDMA pill called F1 11, F1-11, F1 or Foneeleven.

Very interesting, huh? :)

I just got back from dinner, I'll make a couple of posts and reply all the comments in a while.

Posted in Hmm... by Huai Bin at 11:59 PM Permalink | Comments (12)

30 mg codeine and 10 mg dihydrocodeine OTC in Malaysia

Here's a teaser photo. I was about to post about my acquisition of this tablet today (uh, for my *cough* migraines you see) - it weights in at a decidedly hefty 30 mg of codeine per pill, but I am really too sleepy now. I promise the report will be up tomorrow, with plenty of pictures (even the ones taken at the pharmacy, hehe! that lead to funny conversation), so if you're interested in things like this, come back tomorrow codeine fans! :) I got two kinds, one with 400 mg APAP + a nice 30 mg codeine and another with the usual obscene 500 mg APAP + a meagre 10 mg of dihydrocodeine tartate (just for fun), and I'll write about that tomorrow. Disclaimer: I don't mean I bought the tablets for fun, I just mean I've never had dihydrocodeine before so that's why I got them as well. Nevertheless, I'll post the report tomorrow (not the trip report, the pharmacy run report - the trip report will be up next time I...uh, have a migraine). Thanks and good nite! :)

Erowid Experience Report: Surviving Law Enforcement Interrogations - Drug War Interrogation by Alkaline [erowid.org]

If you're involved in any drugs, you have GOT to read this...very, very insightful article about dealing with the police. Er...the police here does practise physical assult, the report was written in the US but please read it if you have a love of chemical substances, it could help you if you're busted.

Note:

Posted in Pharmaceuticals by Huai Bin at 11:58 PM Permalink | Comments (12)

Photo Friday - Solitude

Photo Friday - Solitude [photofriday.com]

Solitude. This is a late entry. :) I took the photo this afternoon - it's a single "laughing bag" sitting in solitude on top of a vacuum tube amplifier. The laughing bag is a novelty item which emits this peeling and slightly manic laughter when you give it a squeeze. I got it about two years ago, and the battery is still running strong. I know someone with Down Syndrome in her late 40s who LOVES this thing, it always makes her laugh, and that's a good thing. :) Dogs like it too, but my cat is apprehensive of the sounds of mirth this laughing bag emits.

The shooting data:

Focal Length: 8mm
Exposure Mode: Programmed Auto
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern 1/335.5 sec - f/2.8
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Sensitivity: Auto
White Balance: Auto
AF Mode: AF-C
Saturation Compensation: 0

The post-production work was done in Photoshop 7.0 and involves:

Image Size: Size reduced from 2048x1536 to 500x375

Posted in by Huai Bin at 11:38 PM Permalink | Comments (14)

Smoking is cool - gotta start them young!

Pictured above is a round container full of candy cigarettes. I found this at the local grocery shop while getting some snacks. I remember those candy cigarettes they used to sell at the shop outside my primary school - they look like real cigarettes (the length is similar anyway, unlike these ones) but it’s actually chewing gum. It caught on in our class and it’s not uncommon to see people playing with the chewing gum "cigarettes" for a long time before actually eating it. It was quite the thing to pretend to puff at the cigarette, emulating "adults", playing grown up. I was either in Primary 2 or 3 (age 8-9) and I never took part in this as my parents frowned at the concept of marketing candy cigarette look-alikes to children. I did eat a quite a few of those though, at my discretion. ;)

Pictured next to a Malaysian 50 cent coin and an Australian 50 cent coin for size.

Anyway, I saw this again today and it was much longer than the chewing gum cigarettes from my youth, but it looked similar, so I got a box of it. It does look remarkably like a real cigarette – brown filter with white writing (looks like the specks of white on the filter of some cigarettes), brand name on the top of the cigarette (it has a picture of a pagoda and says "Yantang" – tang is candy, I’m not sure what yan in this context means) and a long white cigarette complete with "burn lines" (I don’t know what it’s actually called, it’s those circular lines at regular intervals on a cigarette to help it burn evenly). Very impressive.

It isn’t the chewing gum I expected though. This one is filled with this fruity tasting round pieces of candy. It’s loaded back to back so there’s quite a few inside the long candy cigarette. The length is approximately similar to two regular (King Size) cigarettes or 1 1/2 100's. The candy tastes pretty good too – fruity! :) It’s not bad for the price – 80 sticks for RM 6.80 (A$ 3.40), so that’s about 8.5 cents (A$ 0.04) for each one. It’s also convenient, you don’t have to unwrap the whole thing, just the top (either end would do). If you want more, it’s a simple matter of turning it upside down and giving it a little tap, and the rest comes sliding down through the open end.

I happened to see another type of cigarette candy – this one even had a quasi burning tip, all the better for children (I assume it’s marketed to that demographic) to play "I’m smoking". Cigarette candy #2 is shorter than cigarette candy #1 and I don’t think it contains the same thing. I gave it a bit of a shake and it sounds like it’s filled with those fizzy tiny crystal thingies that fizz in your mouth, so I gave it a pass. I did take a photo in the grocery shop though, here it is:

Note the glowing tip, a bit too realistic eh? I would have thought that with the strict guidelines about cigarette advertisements in Malaysia, someone would have lobbied the government to stop sales of cigarette look-alike candies to children. "Oh, won’t someone think of the poor children" or something. Anyway, I’ll leave the issue of whether this leads to increased rates of smoking to scientifically conducted surveys, but personally I think it's just a bit of harmless fun for the children. However, I did start smoking when I was 16 though, so hmm…;)

Anyway, on a related matter, it's funny what you can find under (inside - not below it, the folds behind and inside) the couch. My girlfriend dropped the candy down the couch (our term when this happens is "The couch ate it") and I had to dig around (not a pleasant task) to find it and guess what I found?

An ang pow with RM 10 inside. Ang pow = red packet, literally. It’s an envelope filled with money to be given to guests and unmarried relatives during Chinese (Lunar) New Year. That was in January, so yeah, it was a bit funny to find one in July. :) My pet theory is someone accidentally dropped it down the couch and couldn’t find it so they didn’t bother and it only got discovered today.

Bawalah saya pulang - bring me back.

Anyway, onto another matter, I found this great deal at the local grocery shop again – 7 tins of beer for only RM 10! RM 10 = A$ 5. No catch, the beer’s use by date is June 2004 and it tastes perfectly fine. It’s Oranjeboom, a beer I haven’t heard of, but it's imported from Holland. It’s a lager, but it’s a bit too "watered down" for my tastes. Don’t get me wrong, I don't care what I drink, I’m not a choosy drinker, if it's beer and it’s cold, I’ll drink it. Heck, I’ll even consider drinking it if it's warm. ;) Just passing on my tasting notes here…this one has the standard 5% alcohol, so it’s not too bad, especially for a can of beer that only costs slightly over RM 1.40 (A$ 0.70) per can! That’s a very good price in Malaysia.

On a somewhat related note, when I was about 10 years old, another local grocery shop (now defunct) was selling whisky (!) is small pre-packed plastic bags for RM 0.50 (A$ 0.25) and they stock that NEXT to the candy and chocolates! I was having private tuition at the school above that shop and that was like the Holy Grail, since I had asked my father what it was last time and his answer only instigated my curiosity. Naturally, he told me never to buy that, but one day after my tuition, I did just that. I handed over my 50 cents pocket money and bought the whisky in a small vacuum sealed plastic bag. The cashier didn’t even blink because it's quite common in a small town (at that time) for kids to buy cigarettes/beer for their parents while they wait in the car. With trembling hands, I ran to the back of the building (where it was secluded) and bit into the FORBIDDEN FRUIT. I gave it two small swallows before retching and throwing the rest of it away in a drain. I didn’t remember feeling drunk, although I was a bit dizzy and I was guilty and worried that my act of curiousity would be discovered, but it never was. It's worthy to mention that the product (whisky in plastic bags) was recalled from sale after complaints from many parents. There you go, an anecdote from my past. :)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 11:57 PM Permalink | Comments (22)

McDonald's (Sibu), grainy B&W photo in ze papers and NO DRUGS!

I went to McDonald's for lunch today. I wanted to get those Sega mini handheld games they're having a promotion on - RM 5 (A$ 2.50) for each one with the purchase of a meal. Unfortunately this is what we saw upon arrival:

There goes my hope of getting every one in the collection. :) Hmm…come to think of it, if anyone happens to have a spare one that's still inside the shrink wrap, I’ll be more than happy to get it off you, email me and name a price. Well, we had lunch anyway since we were already there.

I had the Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal while my girlfriend had the Spicy Chicken McDeluxe meal. It seems that the Quarter Pounder has finally a