March Pimpin'

It's my desktop for March. Yes I procrastinate so much that even doing something I actually enjoy is delayed by 23 days.

I can't wait for April and re-pimpin' of the desktop! Of course, it would probably be done sometime around July. Don't hold your breath ('Cause you'll die! :D).

This is my fresh new start.

"Is there anything wrong? You seem awfully quiet..."

I'd usually get that a lot when I'm out with others, and most of the time I'd be wondering why. I suppose when interacting with my friends, I'd be the loud and boisterous one, trying to crack funny jokes while making a fool of myself. And now, it's come to the point where my silence is something to be concerned about.

How did that happen?

I don't remember being lively when I was younger or even when I was in high school. I love going home after school and just messing with the computer, never accepting any invitations to go out or have fun and just spend the whole day with myself. I had more internet friends than any real friends. I was the typical computer addict, downloading pirate, cyber geek.

Come college, I had to stay in a cramped room with 7 others and initially, I hated it. I pretended to like it and tried to be friendly with them, and surprisingly it came with ease. Social venture was apparently a natural thing to me. Soon, I found myself liking these people, even admiring them to a certain extent. I had more than 5 close friends at a time and it was new. Still, I missed my recluse days.

Days segued into months, and subsequently years and my circle grew larger. I had a lot of close friends and a staggering number of acquaintances (those I would strike up a lively conversation with, and yet would always feel an encompassing distance to them, despite the affable interaction). I'd be going out often, though not exactly to party into the night and come home a drunken mess. One still has to choose one's crowd. I wondered if as they say, college has changed me. Growing up made me a different person. I was apt to swallow those words, until I realised one key fact: I still missed spending time with just myself.

It's fun being with other people, yeah. I found out there are other ways to interact other than being sarcastic or cynical and I'd like to think they softened me up, like melted butter on a hot pan. I can sincerely emphatise with people's concerns, and not just fake it because I'm obliged by societal rules. I became less judgmental, more compassionate and even more (earnestly) sensitive to other people's worries.

But I still missed being with me.

Is it so much to ask for, then, that I might find the same solitude that was exclusively mine and mine alone two years ago here in London?

I love London.

London is beautiful! Simply magnificent and with such panoramic views! I love it more and more.

Here's a picture that encapsulates the breathtaking elegance of this resplendent country:

Such beauty brings tears to my eyes.

Ahh London...

Seroja, the cat that I wanted to name Blu-Ray instead.

Anyone missed me while I went MIA?

No one?

Really?

Screw you I hope you get cancer.

So... Sorry for the lack of updates... and here is where I give you an excuse about being swamped with things to do, enjoying life, lacking inspiration, have exams coming up or not having proper connection et al. Choose whichever that the last 5 blogs you visited didn’t use, it would certainly give me points on originality.

Dyjae and Balqis suggested that I should probably write on a particular incident that happened approximately two months ago. It involved an exploded abdomen, exposed flesh spared of profuse bleeding brimming with balls of puss and possible infection of the gastrointestinal tract.

I promise you this would be good.

But first, I should probably prelude this post with a caveat to some:

Warning: This Post is not for the faint of heart. If you are not accustomed to seeing grotesque stuff I redirect you here instead. If you are of 13 years of age and younger, and have gratuitously conditioned yourself to the likes of the horrific and terrifying talentless Jonas Brothers, High School Musical and Miley Cyrus, then I congratulate you on having the stomach of a surgeon. You brave warriors may tread on.

But first, a little personal plea from me:

God have mercy on us all...

Moving on.

The general population, meet Seroja the cat:

Seroja, the cat.

Seroja the cat, the general population:

The general population, roughly.

At least we have opposable thumbs.

You know, dogs aren’t the only animal species capable of doing tricks. For instance, I taught Seroja to play dead.

Good kitty!

Alright, now you're just getting cocky.

We picked her up from Seroja the college. Anyway, I’ve decided on a reward-based incentive to a simple trivia. Whoever can guess where the cat’s name is inspired from gets to inhale free oxygen for the rest of their living days. I’ll even pitch in free nitrogen. I tell you, this is a tough one.

UiTM is just full of geniuses.

I was bunking at Dyjae’s room and freeloading her stash of food when I noticed it was standing in front of the door. When I went to it and bowed to pat it, I spotted from my peripheral vision a huge, gaping wound that had globs of puss deep it its recesses. Of course, I jumped in fright, panicked a bit and incoherently told Fatin who just got back from the showers what I just saw. Then I proceeded to re-enter the room and eat more of Dyjae’s chocolate crackers.

Later that night, while freeloading at Balqis’ place and eating her Dahfa Fish snacks, I mentioned the cat’s wound to Balqis so she wouldn’t much realise that I was dwindling her food stash err I mean because I was deeply anxious for the feline’s condition. Getting worked up, Balqis laid out plans for some of us to use her car to drive it to the Government Vet’s. Due to certain reasons (mostly because I was afraid of Balqis who would 100% guaranteed choose the cat’s life over mine) we then had to go to a private clinic.

It was... interesting.

Oxymoron of the day: Governmental efficiency.

Apparently, stupid Government Vet Lady didn’t much know what she was talking about. The condition that the cat suffered was apparently a rather common one, the third most common cancer suffered by cats, most recurrent in female felines.

Quite literally, milk accumulated in her mammary glands. The milk went sour, became a festive ground for bacteria, her mammary glands (titties) hardened, grew bigger and swollen and exploded (This part of the process is not to be confused by another, um, self-gratifying process).

It’s called feline mastitis.

Feline-Mass-Titties. Get it? Get it?! God I’m hilarious.

And once again, we the public are so ever impressed by the admirable sagacity and wisdom portrayed by the Government sector. Anyway, the treatment set us back about RM100 and we spent another RM100 when the cat suddenly became weak again after a week’s treatment in Dyjae’s room. That’s RM200 we spent on the cat, not to mention that additionally, we’d have to keep her in sterile conditions because having her wound getting infected is the cause of a slow, agonizingly painful death.

This is about a week after bringing her to the vet:

No more blood and puss, darn.

This picture was taken after her wound was cleaned and she was admitted for a day at the vet's (I didn't want you losing your lunch). This was two weeks:

The wound still feels sticky when you touch it, hehe. Fun.

Shout-outs.

In which I’d now like to thank Dyjae, Izzati, Fatin and her senior whom had patiently endured the cat’s constant yowling and desperate-for-attention bouts. I’d also like to apologise to Dyjae’s neighbours whom had patiently endured the cat’s nightly cacophony of noises (except for this one particular short, chubby girl who gave me the dirty look when I tended to the cat outside).

Screw you, fat chubby girl. You know what I hope you would get!

Also, another shout-out to Lily for not minding when the cat used her textbook as kitty litter.

I'd rather not talk about Lily right now. Or ever.

Finally, mad props to Balqis and her family for (Well, obviously not for choosing the cat’s life over me. I am hurt. HURT) keeping the cat at home for a month during the convalescence period. Now she’s completely healed, obese (Good job Balqis. Death due to wound infection avoided, now we just have to worry about the cat dying of a heart attack) and is one of the most pampered cat I’ve seen.

Balqis, I’ll forever remember your fervent attitude in taking care of the cat, and your compassionate nature of always putting it ahead of so many other things...

I feel the love.

Now the cat’s staying in Seroja, we brought it back about a week ago. And this particular incident that happened, is one of the creepiest experience, I kid you not.

*Nightmare on Elm Street music playing*

I don't have a recent picture but there's no open wound anymore, just a small scar where it used to be and where's the fun in that? The only cool thing about the cat now is that it only has 7 nipples. Or 5... Wait how many nipples do cats have in total?

Anyway... good luck with feeding the cat now Balqis. You are such an animal lover and may God smile upon your blessed soul as you personally take care of His wounded creatures while I... uh... give non-monetary moral support from afar.

Nighty night, Seroja.

Have fun on Izzati's bed!

A Langkawi Haunting

This was my second personal experience, and compared with the first, I didn’t actually witness a spectral figure or sensed a ghastly presence of anything. For that, I refused to call it a supernatural awakening. Still it was creepy.

I spent the remainder of my Raya holidays in Langkawi with relatives. This meant - for me - free food, free lodging, free rides, free tourism activities and you know, the experience of familial bonding and shared closeness with your related kin or whatever.

DID I MENTION FREE FOOD!?!?

On the last day before having to leave early tomorrow morning, we headed out to a few tourist spots namely Makam Mahsuri, Forgettable and Overpriced Tourist Spot #1, You’ve Got to be Kidding Me Location #2, This Sure Was a Pleasant 5 Minutes Experience That Took Us Half an Hour to Get Here #3, Langkawi Cable Car and Underwater World Langkawi. Of course, dehydration was a constant bother so I chugged bottles of water as we drove to the designated places. My 3 years old niece, Adriana, probably excited by the sudden elasticity of my abdominal area, decided to play bouncy ball on my full bladder and refused to sit anyplace other than directly above the Human Organ Balloon. I am much tempted to verbosely tell you how extremely pleasant that experience was but it was actually dimmed by the more excruciatingly thrilling events of driving on bumpy streets and over speed bumps while having an approximately 15kg giggly and jumpy deadweight on your bursting full bladder.

I heart kids. We should teach them to play with scissors and other random sharp objects.

Anyway, it was a seven-seater car, and I sat way back with the kid. She was at an impressionable age undergoing the mimicking phase. She’d imitate your actions and words and I was quite proud of the new range of profanit—err vocabularies that I exposed her with. Wouldn’t it be nice if she grew up into a Jr. Aziemah? I’d be making the world a favour ‘cause she’d have my bubbly optimism, egregious generosity and love for all things happy and cute teehee! :D

Dyjae stop gagging.

We were driving to the Underwater World (actually enjoyed the place) and she was staring intently at the back windshield, at the miniature horizon growing smaller as we drove past thickets of bushes and sparsely grown trees. Then she pointed out the window, and I presumed she was pointing at the car behind us;

“There’s someone there! Someone over there!”

“Uh... congratulations kid. You can detect humans. Your mom must be proud.”

“There’s someone there!”

“Yeah it’s called a driver. Wow, right? Your aunt Aziemah is a genius.”

She was pointing vigorously still and I noted that the car behind us already drove past. There was nothing there. Before I comprehended anything, she asked the window;

“You want to go to auntie Aziemah’s house? You do?”

She nodded excitedly a few times and turned to me;

“Can we go to your house? Can we?”

Note that the house she was referring to is the adjacent room my cousin rented for me at Kampung Tok Senik. By this time, alarm bells started ringing... though it was just Beyonce’s ‘Ring The Alarm’ song playing on my Zune.

“Uhhh... who’s going to my house? You’re going to my house, Adriana?”

“Yeah I want to go to your house too!”

“Then”, I emphasised this part out of paranoia, “only YOU can come to my house.”

I thought the matter settled, eked out some courage and tried to focus on burning a hole on the backseat of where my eldest sister was sitting (This is for chuckling whenever we ran over a bump, you No. #1 sister in the world you!) before lil’ Adriana started doing something more creepy. She continued staring outside the window for several minutes, and just like how she’d imitate me everytime I stuck my tongue out at her, she started the imitation of bulging her eyes out and sticking her tongue much further out than people usually would. Her whole tongue stuck out of the crevice of her sinisterly creepy smile and she kept her eyes bulged for quite some time, all the while keeping an intense stare outside the window. I just gaped at her, chilled to the bone at the creepy face she was making and made a mental note to sleep under the covers that night... not because I’m scared, but, uh... because I’m... anticipating chilly weather and such and such.

After that, she got distracted as 3 year old kids would usually do and resumed her favourite pastime of imagining auntie Aziemah’s full bladder as a makeshift trampoline.

I almost prayed for her new friend to come back.

The creepiest thing was, when we got back that night and I slept in my respective bed... It happened... I actually...

...Slept like a frikkin’ baby.

Thanks for inviting the Sandman over, kid. Here have a penknife. Pergi main jauh-jauh, preferably without adult supervision.

A Death of A Loved One...

So Diecisis died. Had a power trip, and then refused to load windows. I entered BIOS and did a disk check and sure enough, it confirmed that her harddisk died. In human anatomical terms, her heart stopped beating.

I’m just angry at her. I mean, I know I’ve made a new friend and life companion and all, but she didn’t have to act the way she did, dying like she did. Okay, maybe I neglected her a bit... didn’t even look at her for the past two weeks... Flaunted her new rival in front of her constantly...

I’M SORRY DIECISIS I’VE BEEN VERY MEAN TO YOU PLEASE COME BACK! T_____T

I guess I should write an eulogy or commemmorate the day she died. In fact, I know exactly what to do.

Let’s show off the new Compaq even more! :D

New wallies:

User Pictures:

Siamese Satans

Grotesque Overlord

Killer Rabbit!

Peaceful Slumber

I was using this for some time, until someone told me it’s too morbid and twisted, so I changed it to match the current wally:

Which is this one:

Made the Samurize skin (the green bubble thingies) myself, with actual working media buttons! :D I’d say ‘Wow’ to my self effort, but I hate that word on account that when directed to me, it’s usually followed by ‘You look like a girl!’.

...I may now have deep-rooted psychological issues that would affect me in the future.

Anyway, can’t stop pimping Azrin up (Not my sister, I just decided to finalise the laptop’s name and at the same time express gratitude to the person who contributed money... Though it’d be cool if I can pimp my sister $___$). She’s undergone several makeovers, and now I feel like a rich husband giving my wife breast implants and botox injections which is yeah, disturbing... I should you know, what’s that word called, interact with actual living people and that like, human communication thing... Oh right, socialise.

And I’m out, yo. *Does lame hip-hop hand gestures, pimp stylez* (That would sure make me popular with people :D)

Note: All pictures were stolen from DeviantArt...

I've found my soul mate!

I've always been attached to laptops and I had my first when I was 14. I already knew how to download files the year before that and it made having a laptop all the more fun. It was a Dell (let's name it Takaa), bulky and reliable and I had her mostly during my gaming phase. My second was a Toshiba (Qacen) and she ran pretty good too. Unfortunately, she went into permanent state of uselessness after a botched up surgery (Online upgrade to XP SP2) and it later turned out that her BIOS hadn't even been installed properly. The third was also a Compaq (Diecisis) and is still in usable condition. I don't feel much of an attachment to her, since my sister 'borrowed' her for about two years while in Melbourne. Generously, she gave it back when it became horrifyingly obsolete and probably not advisable for those without the patience of a saint.

Just like a car, she would crash when I'd let out verbal complaints - "Jeez, women give birth faster that this" - so I'm writing this post on my new laptop, with the screen turned away from Diecisis, since I'm still using her to play some games and with her being my main downloading machine and everything (I'm not sure if Diecisis is literate, but let's stay on the safe side).

My biggest complaint about her would be the fact that with a 256MB RAM and 1.64GHz processing speed, I could only run one memory intensive program at a time. I had to choose between downloading, converting videos, burning or surfing the web. Thank goodness I find watching download speeds picking up or seeing the time remaining for the burning process and the percentage of completion for video conversion very entertaining, otherwise I would've grown really frustrated. And you say I need a hobby, tch.

She also didn't have a built-in burner, so I bought an external one and connected them with a USB to IDE cable. It's like computer porn.

...Yeah I probably need a hobby.

It was time to get a new one and I bought my fourth, Jessica, about a few weeks ago. I glanced through her specs, saw the price quote and fell in love, albeit intending fully to try out an Asus this time around. Imagine a backdrop of evergreen forests, cascading waterfalls on a moonlit night, and a flat-chested figure running in slow motion towards her soul mate personified in the form of an inanimate object. It felt exactly like that and now I should either start reading more edifying romance novels (who the hell gets romantic in a jungle?) or again, get a hobby.

Or padded bras.

And guess what? Jokingly, I asked my little sister if she'd mind contributing to the spontaneously initiated Aziemah's-Laptop-Fund, and with a slight moment's hesitation, she said yes.

She gave me a thousand bucks.

One friggin K for Ka-Ching, baby!

While your younger, devilish spawn of satan that happens to share the same parents with you goes on to read your personal diary, tell mom about the condom she dropped found in your purse or post Zac Effron's posters all over your shared bedroom and complaining to everyone after you defecate on it for the sake of mankind, mine gave me a thousand bucks to buy a laptop for myself.

I love money my sister. <3

Linda came at a whopping RM3099, with a free 2GB RAM upgrade and I spent another RM280 for Vista Premium. Check Marjorie out:

HP’s new Compaq Presario CQ45-137TX is a 14.1-inch notebook with Intel Centrino 2 technology,

NVIDIA GeForce 9200M GS graphics chipset card, Integrated Altec-Lansing speakers and 1.3MP webcam.

Detailed Specs:

* Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7350, 2.4 GHz
* 3 MB Level 2 cache, 1066 MHz Bus speed
* Intel 960GL Express Chipset
* 3-GB PC2-5300 DDR2 (800 MHz), 2 SODIMM Slots (maximum 8 GB)
* 250-GB Serial-ATA Hard Drive, 5400 rpm, 150 MB/sec transfer speed
* 8X SuperMulti Drive Double Layer (8.5 GB) DVD Writer with LightScribe
* 14.1-inch (35.8 cm) WXGA+ High Definition BrightView Widescreen display, 1280 x 800 pixels resolution in 16:10 Aspect Ratio, BrightView Screen Technology
* NVIDIA GeForce 9200M GS graphics chipset with upto 251-MB shared video memory
* Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Wireless LAN 802.11 a/b/g Network Connection
* Integrated Bluetooth v2.0 connection
* Broadcom 5787 10/100 integrated Ethernet LAN interface
* 56 kbps v.52 modem/fax
* Full Size 101 Keys Keyboard
* Altec Lansing Stereo Speakers, 3D Sound Blaster Pro compatible sound 16 bit integrated
* 2 Omni-directional microphones
* Integrated 1.3 Megapixels Webcam
* Integrated Biometric Fingerprint Reader
* 5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Reader supporting xD, Secure Digital cards, MultiMedia cards, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro media cards
* ExpressCard/54 slot, Support for ExpressCard/34
* IEEE 1394 Interface - video capture interface
* HDMI Digital Port
* Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic Edition
* 6-cell LiIon Battery, 2.5 hrs backup
* Dimensions: 33.4 cm (L) x 23.7 cm (W) x 2.6 cm (min) H / 3.9 cm (max) H)
* Weight: 2.50 Kgs (with power pack)

This review echoes all my own opinion of Stephanie (If you're wondering about the constant change in my computer's apellation, it's because I'm going to think of a new one until it feels right. If you're wondering what kind of efftard would name her laptop and talk about feelings... go jump off a cliff).

Vista has been running well so far, though I find Windows Sidebar overwhelmingly fun. A program that would crash intermittently, despite the upgrade in RAM and processor? Splendid! I play a game in which I'd start guessing the next time it would cause another computer freeze and by golly, guessing 'every fucking time' had been indeed accurate! I know, it's like I'm psychic!

Overall, I'm satisfied with it. Here's my pimped up desktop, with some Vista widgets on the side and basic customisation tools to beautify the ugly (Rainlendar, Rocket Dock and Samurize).

Most loved feature:

Biometric Fingerprint Reader.

Most despised feature:

Windows Sidebar.

Last and somewhat definitely least;

Windows Experience Index: