Been awhile since I have updated this life story of mine so here goes:
Beloved Nokia 6630 (may thee rest in peace)
I don't believe I have posted here regarding my dear and beloved Nokia 6630 which I used it for blogging, watching short clips, listening to mp3s, alarm clock, appointment reminders and a whole pleothora of damned useful stuffs. That phone has been an intricate part of my life and it has been with me for a year. Sad to say (and I know you guys know where this is leading) that I lost it during a trip outdoors wayyyyy back in April.
Declaration of Lurveeee
I will now here, in public internet space, declare that I LOVE Miss Chin Siew Fong very much
Work, Games and everything in between
I promised a guy (name witheld) in a college to conduct a short course for J2ME for young grads/fresh grads/secondary school students. It will be a 40 hour short course and this course requires me to teach programming and games to people with NO PRE-REQUISITES what so ever. It's gonna be a challenge but it's worth a try. I've always wanted to teach....I think. This is NOT gonna be a permanent job and it's not gonna deviate me from my current career goal (see below)
Current Goals
Career: Build up my parents' business. We are doing printing (general printing, posters, flyers, box sets, cd inlays, etc) and have connections if you need to replicate cds. Contact me if you need such services or looking for a partner in Malaysia!
Physical: Lose bout 5kgs more this year
Others: STOP comparing myself to other people!
Other non chalant and non important stuffs
Currently listening to:
Sean Paul - Temperature
Nelly Furtado - Maneater
Nelly Furtado - Premiscuous Girl
Planning to fly to Java island to scout around for business opportunities
Magic: The Gathering Malaysian Nationals 2006 is just under 2 weeks away! (It's a geeks' game)
Current IGDA - Malaysian Chapter Chairman has asked me to take the position of Vice Chapter Chairman (non official and non paying) simply because:
a) He needs a local and chinese 'bridge' to other local and chinese game developers
b) I am currently not affiliated with any game companies and thus can give a neutral point of view
c) He wants me to stay and at least keep in touch with the game development industry (sob, thanks Hilmy!)
PS: Matt, if you are reading this, I have considered getting myself hired abroad to do J2ME but seeing that my friend, who WAS in Gameloft, left because he simply can't see a future into Mobile Gaming (at least to him), I have decided to just stick around in Malaysia and look for other opportunites. Thanks for the offer to become my referral, I have not yet given up entirely in the games industry, just laying dormant for awhile.
It might as well be another day for me. *Comes back from outing at 1am. *Looks at computer's clock and it says 14th February....Wait a minute, that date looks familiar. Oh gosh, it's Valentine's Day! (Who the heck is Valentine anyway?)
LINK: http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/ValentinesDay/default.asp Apparently, it was used to be a Church Holiday! *Shudders
Ok, leaving the exotic practice of exchanging sexual Roman lovers aside (NOW you can click the link above :P), it's actually a replacement for a pagan festival for the God of Lupercus. How did it evolve into a money making business that sends adolescent males everywhere (that has a romanticsm of an armadillo) to buy chocolates and flowers for their lovers and secret admirees everywhere? (and not to mention many dissapointments from males AND females that was hoping on the receiving end of a Valentine's card/gift) Thrust the Americans to do it. Capitalism in all its glory. Basic human nature turns into profit.
I remembered I sold roses in my university in conjunction with Valentine's Day. We even do deliveries to the receiver's dormitory. The profit all for our club though so it wasn't so bad. The years go by and frankly, the writer of this here blog, haven't had a decent V-Day celebrated before. He did solo outings as well as the non-too-bad-idea-of-staying-at-home-watching-mushy-shows-and-drinking. Great, now you don't only have a sci-fi geek who is writing what you are reading right now, you also get a useless desperate romantic armadillo!
Right, so not to cut hope for all the romantic armadillos out there (and of course those dear dear couples out there who are reading this ere' getting nowhere of a blog), do celebrate this day of Roman sexual pervertions and beheaded saints in unabashed lovey dovey style!
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Originally uploaded by ycjoo.
After some 400km plus journey from kl to kuala perlis and a brief rain that left 6 of us slightly soaked, we are finally in the boat at 7.30am morning of 2nd of Nov heading towards Langkawi, the island of fables and legends. This is going to be a most fun trip!
Ok, had enough of rushing already for the month. So many projects and to do's and so little time. Of course, it doesn't really help either when I have so many more other distractions.
Some rants:
Motorola (E398 & C380)
Sound - Can't stop the media player. Had to release the player and create a new one in order to play again
Graphics - Sharper than Nokia's because of active panel LCD. Can't get fullscreen on C380...only get 128x116 O_o
Connectivity - E398 only support PUSH object. That also it didn't generate a jad to accomodate my icon. C380's even worse, had to OTA download everytime you wanna test it.
Speed - E398's pretty good, C380's slightly better than N40's
Memory - E398 definitely has enough memory. C380's slightly more accomodateable than N40's
Sony Ericsson (T610 & K700)
Sound - Both plays midi - cool. I had to cheat in T610 to get it to stop/pause/sync correctly using MMAPI although in the end, I used the system time to sync for everyone. K700's fine.
Graphics - T610 has very smoky graphics. Colours were blander than the K700
Connectivity - Both has bluetooth. Cool~! I can even make them output my error messages to my comp. Double Cool~!
Speed - T610 = turtle among turtles. Even more turtle than N40's (like 6100)
Memory - Both features adequate memory but T610 has a problem of how fast it is accessing them O_o
Samsung (E600, E630, E810)
Sound - MMF sounds really good on all the machines. Though in a Java app, they have a limitation of only 10K (lower end phones)
Graphics - The E810 has the best graphics among them. E600 suffers from dull screen (I suspect is the dust cover..) and the E630 has grainy pictures.
Connectivity - Ewww, and that's to say the least. Cannot upload from computer even though they have IR connection. There is a way for the E600 but I deem it too 'hacky'.
Speed - They're alright I guess. Haven't really strain them to their capacity.
Memory - Ample and doesn't seem to have much problem releasing and acquiring
Nokia (3650, N-Gage, 6600) - The Problematic Trio
Sound - They can all play midi that's for sure. The player to play them all CORRECTLY, now there's a challenge. Had to go back to the drawing board couple of times to get this right esp for a timing critical app like my Mobile Karaoke.
Graphics - Non active display panel = teh suXors. 3650's keypad layout = mind boggling. N-Gage's OS is kinda outdated and only has 3 colours for its menu (wtf?)
Connectivity - All of em has bluetooth. Good thing too coz I don't want to spend too much time on these oudated machines
Speed - Gah, the threads sometimes unsync themselves while loading. Speed is there, just barely controllable.
Memory - Lots of it. That's the good part. Leaking. That's the bad part o_O
Next week is another challenging week for me... Call an ambulance if you don't see me posting anything within 5 days.
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Originally uploaded by ycjoo.
Found this little gem parked not 10 meters away from my car. While I do like cars, I hate it depreciating the day I buy it. Not a very prudent investment plan and not a very convenient way to show off that one has a lot of money either.
There few weeks had been tough on me. Particularly about work. Took me a lot of sleepness nights and a lot of thinking and calculating to get that midi reader to do what I want it to do, and a few more sleepness to get the gui right for my mobile karaoke to look the way I want it to look too. I've been doing core programming for sometime now so my gui design skills are a bit rusty. Thank goodness it all turned out well. Now if I can just cross that minor hurdle that is the dreaded T610 and its inability to sync sound and timing together.
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Originally uploaded by ycjoo.
Something to amaze my uninitiated friend lol
A lady in traditional costume travelling in the countryside.
Two parts:
The foreground
Lady potraying the "virgin" look by the way she cocked her head, the way she lifts up her dress a bit to prevent it from being dirtied, the way she held her cloak, the way she ties her hair, and the slightest hint of lip colouring that contrasted with her fair skin. Clad in non descript brown and purple, she looks like the flower of a village on the way back to her home.
The background
The lady is in a by the coutry beside a river or a waterfall within a thick conifer forest in a valley. Time is actually about 2-3pm (check her shadows) but colour of the picture is toned towards that of dusk time to match her costume.
Picture balance
Lady slight off to right side of the picture. Emphasizes where she is looking at the moment while giving ample room to show off the background. Background goes on to about 7 layers. Lady on the steep side of the rock gives the viewer the feeling of the lady is only stopping for a while before moving forward towards wherever she was looking at. You are almost expected to hear water gushing sounds and feel some water droplets spraying on your cheeks as you watch her. You will also think that she will look this way anytime now when she feels your presence.
I still remembered back in 2004 when this show was first shown in Malaysia in Astro. I came back one day and saw my mom watching this peculiar show and she said that it was new and very interesting. I dismissed it as just a regular Korean drama that was filled with tears and some very contemporary and unconventional story. Boy was I ever so wrong!
This is a story mainly about a girl in medieval Korea that tried very hard to achieve what she wanted and strived to become the first female emperor's doctor. In the time when the world considers women as the weaker sex and all the females in the palace belongs to the emperor, this is an epic tale of girl trying to clear her mom's reputation, weaving around the conspiracy and deceit within the palace, friendship and untainted true love.
The acting in this drama was superb to say the least. The characters development are really deep and you really feel the deep resentment and regret when Lady Choe turned from being a young and naive internal worker to a murderer later. Also for Geum-Ying where you could not help but to think she is one of the good guys in the beginning. Throughout the show, you can't help but develop feelings for the characters. The deep hate and anger that Jang Geum feels when she was betrayed by her friends, the untainted and traditional love (although not too plausible) of Jang Geum and the male lead, the simple joys of being in a family with Jang Geum's adopted father and mother and the feeling of being rewarded when all of Jang Geum's hard work and determination paid off.
The show was a whole phenomenon that sweep across Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Canada, Chicago and Japan. In Hong Kong, it was the best performing foreign show with 40% ratings. It even had a "special edition" where they will showcase the many places, cultures and food/herbs in Korea that is presented in the show that might not be general knowledge to people outside of Korea.
Of course, the fans loved the female actress, Lee Young Ae, who is actually a veteran in the drama series first appearing on TV on 1993 and then regularly by 1995 in dramas as well as movies. She has the girl-next-door look and I would say that she is very very attractive even though she is already in her 30's. Strange enough, I share the same birthday as her, although 9 years removed apart. I also share the same blood type :P OK, I am getting creepy here. Currently this show has more impact to me than say, Star Trek:Voyager, my previous feel-good-inside fuel.
