Thursday, June 30, 2005

Koi Pond - Rounding the Top

After elevating the garden, we add another layer of brick to the top of the pond wall. The bricks are layed about 3 inches offset from the inner part of the wall. Mortar is then plaster on covering the bricks to create a round it up. This creates a nice roundish top with an illusion that the wall is thicker than it actual.

An overflow pipe is installed at the deep end too. A 2" diameter pvc pipe with an L joint is used. This serves to channel the extra water from rainfall straight to the drain.

Horng did the first 30% while I finished the rest in another day. Took us 2 sessions. Galvin helped out in mixing the mortar. Thanks dude!

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Horng did the first part

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I continued the work

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Galvin mixing the mortar, but first we had to filter the sand to remove pebbles and cat poo

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Overflow pipe is installed

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Job well done!

Next Up - Fixing the Drainage System and Water Meter

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Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Why You Shouldn't Bite Your Nails

If you bite your nails like there's no tomorrow or you know someone who does, please pay attention and read on. While you might have already heard about the other disadvantages of the habit of peeling of nails with your teeth, there is another very pragmatic downside to it that might have eluded you.

Forget about the unhygienic factor, the bacteria, or the reverse aestheticity of nail biting.

You see, the other day, being a prankster that I am, I adjusted my coworker's watch to half an hour ahead of the actual time. But instead of scolding me and readjust it back herself, she was nicely asking me to do it. And then I found out, with no nails and a small watch, she couldn't pull the dial out!

Without nails -> no ability to keep the correct time -> time mismanagement / late -> piss off friends -> no more friends -> depression -> not eat / eat too much -> unhealthy -> die

This is bad.

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This is how short her nails are.

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No way she coulda pull out the dial by herself.

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Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Koi Pond - Garden Elevation

After plastering the wall, we elevate the garden by laying red bricks seperating the garden and the drive way. This has two advantages, elvation of the garden to deepen the pond by an extra 6 inches, and also saves us the hassle of removing all the earth dug up to make the pond. Even then, we had removed about 15 wheelbarrow of red earth.

I had to use an aquarium tube filled with water to mark the difference in the elevation from the gate to the front of the house to ensure the side wall is not slanted. The difference is about 5 inches in height, hence 2layers of bricks by the front of the wall is used, while 3 layers near the gate.

This took us two days, originally only a layer of bricks were to be layed, but we eventually decided to top it up with another.

Look at Galvin's blog for his version of my pond, supped up and modified!

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Mixing the mortar a bit

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Laying the 2nd layer of brick at the front of the house

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Cutting red bricks proved to be a pretty tough job

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Done! You can see 2 layers of bricks from the left, to 3 layers to the right side.

Next Up - Rounding the top of the pond

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Monday, June 27, 2005

Koi Pond - Plastering the Wall

Now that the brick wall is up, it's time to plaster it with a thin layer of cement. 1 part cement 3 part sand. This step is a little more delicate, my pal horng did most of the plastering after I did the initial 20%. In the mean time, I was building up the red-brick wall to elevate the garden. That'll be on another post

This process took us about 3 days

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My friendly housemate and buddy for more than 20 years, horng salutes you

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Jack was helping to shuffle the mortar too. Sex him up please, gals.

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True to the JKR (Jangan Kerja Rajin) spirit, 2 of us were holding the torch light while horng works

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Slope at the bottom of the wall to have a smooth connection to the concrete floor.

Next Up - Garden Elevation

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Sunday, June 26, 2005

Koi Pond - Brick Wall

Now that the foundation is done, the next step is to build up the wall for the pond. We use bricks and mortar for this purpose. 1 part cement with 3 parts sand. Wire mesh to be layed in between the bricks for every 3 layers too, to strengthen the wall.

The process took about 3 days

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I started out at the deepest end, the corners are particulary tough

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Working the way up..

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The lines are for leveling purposes

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You can see the lines more clearly here

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All nice and leveled up, the hole at the far end is left for the overflow pipe

Next up - Plastering the wall

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Saturday, June 25, 2005

The Origin of Caesar Salad

According to a famous Chinese provobe "Know the origin of that water you drinking, NOOB!", or in mandarin "ying sui shi yen". The idea is that you shall remember how your food came about.

Now I'm sure most of you have either eaten, or at least know what a caesar salad is, but how many of you know the origin of caesar salad? According to this page in culinaryarts site, it's from the name of the creater, Caesar Cardini. Some might even say it was to the great Caesar in ancient Rome.

Those are lies! I shall reveal the long kept secret that is the origin of caesar salad to the world here.

Once upon a time there was a lady on diet who went to a restaurant late night to have a fix. It was 5 minutes to closing. She ordered a salad, any salad.

The waiter then took the order to the kitchen that was already closing. The chef, chef Ahbeng, gave a sour face and then look at what he's got left that hasn't been put away and locked yet.. and what he found was these..

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a loaf of french bread, romaine lettuce, olive oil, parmesan cheese, garlic, and a pair of scissors.

He's already kept the knifes in the safe, and was too lazy to unlock, he wasn't in the best of mood that night anyway.

So he use the scissor to cut up the ingredients, put them in a plate, added olive oil and some Worcestershire sauce too. Shoved it to the waiter and called it the scissor salad.

It was served to the customer, she liked it, alot. In fact, she was a writer for a famous culinary magazine. She wrote about it, and thought that it was actually called ceasar salad. The rest of the world followed.

There you go, know your food!

Caesar Salad

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Friday, June 24, 2005

PPS Bash - Could be better?

Went to PPS Bash, and I am going to be posting a slightly alternate view of the party. My salute to the organizers for their efforts. However, I would like to talk about my experience of it and perhaps offer a few suggestions for next year's event.

Sorry folks, this post isn't going to contain any pictures of the party. I'm sure you can find plenty of those around, Reta's the first to post them up, and I'm sure Suanie, Kim, ST, and the rest will follow pretty soon.

The location:
Charlie's Place. Personally I think the set up of the place isn't very well suited for the amount of people who attended the party. The indoor area were a little too small even to fit half the attendees, there weren't enough chairs. While the food was good, the service were pretty poor. Kim has waited some 3 hours to get her's, and it wasn't a service with a smile either, to say the least.

Perhaps a hotel ballroom would be a much preferred venue? I believe a small cover charge would be sufficient to handle the cost.

The event:
There event organization, I believe, could be a little better. It was very unfortunate nobody has volunteered to be the MC, and I think Suan rejected the idea the offer to be one. As such, the party became like a get together with segregated groups of people. Those who were in the blog rings longer were a lot more comfortable, and those were weren't, mostly just hung around with their respective groups.

Taking a cue from high school prom nights and award shows, an MC or two should definitely be running the show, maybe throw in a projector to showcase nomination of blogs?

An ice breaking session would definitely be most welcoming as well, I believe. That would make a lot of us strike up conversations with "strangers" whom we otherwise would not have.

Many bloggers are like me, newbies to the scene. Most of our readers are our real life friends, and there aren't many blog friends we know that we haven't meet yet. Striking up conversations with perfect strangers that share only one thing in common (blogging) with you could be a challenging thing to do especially when most are busily engaging with people they already know.

***********

Many thanks again to those who made this came true, and please do not get offended by my comments, they were merely honest opinions/suggestions. I look forward to next year, and hopefully we can have a more enjoyable and "friendlier to newbie" party.

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Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Keep Flies Away from Durian, featuring Suanie

Whenever you are trying to enjoy some good old stinky durian, there are always flies all around you trying to share the spoil. Isn't that just annoying? Don't you hate it? Furthermore, it's really unhygienic.

Now of course, the famous Suanie will show us the way to counter this pesky little natural phenomenon. Move your mouse pointer over to the graphic below to find out the answer.

Cheers!


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Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Koi Pond - Concrete Foundation

After 5 futile day waiting for the pre-mixed concrete that never came. A decision was made, we were going to do it ourself, mixing it old school, hardcore style. 1 part cement, 2 part sand, and 4 parts gravel.

My cousin who is in the construction business brought us to the building material store to get the supplies, and lend some free professional consultations too.

I bought: 1 fork-lift scoop of gravel, 2 scoops of sand, 2 sheets of BRC, 8 packs of cement, 450 cement-bricks, 150 red-bricks, 3 packs of water-proofing agent, 2 rows of brick wire mesh.

Total cost: RM 680+

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Building material delivered, looking like a construction yard now.

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Cousin giving a few words of advice

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BRC is laid for a strong foundation

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BRC had to be raised a couple inches high (using bricks) so that it'll be in the middle layer of the concrete

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Mixing the concrete, Big David helped, and so did Chan

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David gotten a bit tired..

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Sotong was just fooling around, as usual

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While they mix, I level the concrete foundation at approximately 5 inches thick

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And it was done!

Next up - Brick wall

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Monday, June 20, 2005

Koi Pond - Constructing the Roof

While waiting for the pre-mix concrete that never came, we decided to construct a roof partially over the pond. This would ensure the pond does not get too much sunlight. Koi loves a cool temperature, furthermore, extra sunlight promotes algea growth that will make the water green.

We bought some 1"x2" and 2"x3" beams for the construction, the plan is to construct only one column at the right end. Connect that to the existing extended roof at the left side like a '7' shape, both with the 2"x3" beams. The structure would then be connected with the smaller 1"x2" beams to the existing roof at the top. Put a layer of the "netting" that is usually used for orchids, and we're set.

Total cost of the roof was around RM 100. That includes the saw, too.

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Connecting the skinny beam to the '7' shaped column.

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Power tools to the help

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Chisseled the edge for a nice finishing

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Sawed off the edge, fancy my acrobatic move? Yeah, it translate to performance in other areas too!

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The frame is up!

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Horng put some finishing touches to the netting

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Success!

That took us the whole saturday.

Next up - Concrete Foundation!

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Sunday, June 19, 2005

Koi Pond - The First Week

So one day my housemate and long time (over 20 yrs) friend Horng and I had the brilliant idea of building a pond in the garden. A Koi Pond.

At first I thought of digging a hole, throwing in a pre-built fiberglass pond, and be done with. After scouring the local aquarium stores and Ikano, we figure the pre-builts are a little too small for what we had in mind, and they weren't cheap either. Hence we arrived at the decision to build a cement pond.

The plan is to dig a hole, pour in concrete for the base, build up the wall, apply water proofing agent, fix up the bio filter, landscaping and gardening, put in fish, done. Sounds simple? Here we go!

And then we started digging...

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The digging took about a week to complete, deep end is slightly over 3 feet, shallow part a bit over 2 feet.

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Goh came and lend a helping hand too, for about 15 minutes anyway. Chan helped a bit too.

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The almost finished hole..

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I swear I didn't kill her...

Originally we were going to pour in pre-mixed concrete that Faggot was going to order for us. Unfortunately due to some unforseen circumstances and 5 days later, we gave up and decided to DIY the concrete part..

Next up - The Roof.

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Friday, June 17, 2005

Of Weight and Eating Habit

Galvin has been blogging about his diet, and fooling around modifying other's appearance by using his photoshop magic to effortlessly add or reduce weight. He's made me put on a bit of mass and a new hairstyle here, made faggot fat and also buff, and of course, sotong could be slimmer. These are all in his "What if" mini series.

Ever heard of discussion over mamak session that sounds something like this?

"Yeah you put on weight because you never eat regulary, eat at normal meal hours and you won't be piling up all the fat gut and manboobs at 80kg"... to someone like Galvin, for example.

And then there's this:

"Dude, you can't be putting on any weight if you don't eat at regular intervals. You gonna just stay at 48 - 49 kg. It's of no use even if you eat alot but no at meal time!" ... to someone like Faggot, for instance.

Now wtf is this anyway? You eat regulary to gain weight, and doing the same to lose weight, too? Stop believing in this bullshit and concentrate on the amount of food you take on the average day.

Well I'm about 17% heavier than Fag but 30% lighter than Galvin. Do your calculation, whoever guesses right gets to help work on my pond.

Anyway, the lack of updates are mostly due to being busy at office (2 days training + 2 full day of meeting,) and working on building a pond.

I'll post some pictures of the progress thus far, and a new POND section shall begin soon. Cheers.

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Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Russell Crowe Whacks

On The Sun and other news sources today, Russell Crowe was reported whacking some hotel staff in New York due to poor service. In my opinion, he should be stripped off the Best Male Actor award he got from Gladiator simply for the fact that he didn't act in that film, it was his nature to be whacking people.

Now we have a friend who is quite prominent on this blog. This dude has a history of wanting to whack people off the slightest annoyance. In fact, he was once forced to hang out at the conference room of the infamous ss2 police station for 9 hours for whacking a dude. 9 hours without food, water, or a chance to go to the toilet. Ouch. Fortunately he was let go without charges.

I tried my best imagining what would happened if we put Russell and our friend in the same picture, and all I can come up with was this.. Cheers.

Russell PWNED Fag

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Friday, June 03, 2005

Money Politics?

There's a great contrast on the front page of the Sun newspaper today. On the left, it's a news about a beautician pleading not guilty of taking bribe. On the right, a state executive councillor found guilty of money politics.

I deliver my upmost sincerity and pay my respect in the creativity of the power that be who created the word money politics, a phrase that is so completely detached from bribery, when both are basically describing the same thing. The major difference is, of course, one leads you to jail term, and the other, perhaps a resignation as a 'Casualty', no less.

Now, why don't we come up with new "politcally beneficial" terms to replace those that might get us into trouble?
Come up with some too, will ya?

Complete bullshit. By the way, I haven't really swayed from my theme, this is almost the funniest thing on the frontpage, I thought it was April 1st for a moment.

Have a nice weekend.
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Thursday, June 02, 2005

My Computer

Technology News reported today that Microsft is dropping the "My" prefix from "My Computer", "My Documents" and the likes from the next version of windows.

Now this is going to clear up some confusions about who's document to explore on tech support phone calls. However, there are still alot of funny software names made famous by Microsoft. Here's a skid to demonstrate, blatantly ripped from here

COSTELLO CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT
ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
COSTELLO: Thanks. I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm thinking about buying a computer.
ABBOTT: Mac?
COSTELLO: No, the name's Lou.
ABBOTT: Your computer?
COSTELLO: I don't own a computer. I want to buy one.
ABBOTT: Mac?
COSTELLO: I told you, my name's Lou.
ABBOTT: What about Windows?
COSTELLO: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?
ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?
COSTELLO: I don't know. What will I see when I look in the windows?
ABBOTT: Wallpaper.
COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.
ABBOTT: Software for Windows?
COSTELLO: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What have you got?
ABBOTT: Office.
COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?
ABBOTT: I just did.
COSTELLO: You just did what?
ABBOTT: Recommend something.
COSTELLO: You recommended something?
ABBOTT: Yes.
COSTELLO: For my office?
ABBOTT: Yes.
COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?
ABBOTT: Office.
COSTELLO: Yes, for my office!
ABBOTT: I recommend Office with Windows.
COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, lets just say I'm sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?
ABBOTT: Word.
COSTELLO: What word?
ABBOTT: Word in Office.
COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.
ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.
COSTELLO: Which word in office for windows?
ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue "W".
COSTELLO: I'm going to click your blue "w" if you don't start with some straight answers. OK, forget that. Can I watch movies on the Internet?
ABBOTT: Yes, you want Real One.
COSTELLO: Maybe a real one, maybe a cartoon. What I watch is none of your business. Just tell me what I need!
ABBOTT: Real One.
COSTELLO: If it's a long movie I also want to see reel 2, 3 & 4. Can I watch them?
ABBOTT: Of course.
COSTELLO: Great! With what?
ABBOTT: Real One.
COSTELLO: OK, I'm at my computer and I want to watch a movie. What do I do?
ABBOTT: You click the blue "1".
COSTELLO: I click the blue one what?
ABBOTT: The blue "1".
COSTELLO: Is that different from the blue w?
ABBOTT: The blue "1" is Real One and the blue "W" is Word.
COSTELLO: What word?
ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.
COSTELLO: But there's three words in "office for windows"!
ABBOTT: No, just one. But it's the most popular Word in the world.
COSTELLO: It is?
ABBOTT: Yes, but to be fair, there aren't many other Words left. It pretty much wiped out all the other Words out there.
COSTELLO: And that word is real one?
ABBOTT: Real One has nothing to do with Word. Real One isn't even part of Office.
COSTELLO: STOP! Don't start that again. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: That's right. What do you have?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?
ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer.
COSTELLO: What's bundled with my computer?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?
ABBOTT: Yes. No extra charge.
COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?
ABBOTT: One copy.
COSTELLO: Isn't it illegal to copy money?
ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.
COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?
ABBOTT: Why not? THEY OWN IT!
A FEW DAYS LATER . . .
ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?
ABBOTT: Click on "START".......

Abbott and Costello were most famous from their baseball sketch "Who's on first". You can find the sketch here.

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