Ruben Tan has severe brain damage after constantly hitting himself whenever he faces problems in his programming projects, and thus have a weird outlook on life which prevents him from being trapped in the surface of lies.

September 17th, 2008

Relationships Rant

Just came back from dinner with an old friend of mine, and had a long chat about our love lives. Yeah, emo and gay. But it feels good to share these emotions once in a while. I’m still straight.

I realized that as people age and mature, their outlook towards love begins to dilute and soon relationships becomes more of an accessory than a necessity. Which isn’t a bad thing, because when we’re young we tend to put too much on an emphasis on the superficial layers of love rather than having faith in its substance. I’m actually envious of what she had - a relationship that she is comfortable in, that doesn’t distract her away from her own life and her own personal space but rather complements it and brightens her days.

Isn’t this what love is meant to be? Unobstrusive, supportive and subtle? I don’t need a relationship where we argue and then make love after that everyday. Not a roller coaster ride, not declarations of love and poems and flowers everyday, not romance every hour. Just a simple faith in each other and the constant strive to improve the relationship, knowing when to step back and when to push forward. A tango if you will.

I’ve been through relationships that I end up crawling away from, bruised and battered. And along the path I broke many hearts, shattered dreams and ended lives. Perhaps this is the cost I had to pay for not taking relationships seriously enough, that I jump into one too hastily that I forget to properly look at the person that I’m falling in love with and decide whether that girl is the real one I NEED? Love can be deceiving sometimes, for it is an emotion that overwhelms one easily. And I, with weak willpower, have been overwhelmed many times, and after that I could not keep up with the responsabilities that come with it.

Now I know. I need a girl who understands what freedom means. A girl who understands what having your own space and privacy means, and a girl who knows what respect and honor still means in this era of cynicism and darwinism. Somebody who understands that when she takes a step back, that’s when I’ll compromise and reward her doubly for her wisdom, and somebody who is responsible for her every action and knows not to blame others when things go wrong. That’s the girl I’ll be searching for, the one that I can easily fall in love with.

And oh, she must have big boobs.

September 15th, 2008

Tribute to a friend

My friend passed away this morning, after being hit by a drunk driver. She is a beautiful lady in the prime of her youth, blessed with an infectious smile and a cheerful personality that have brought joy to the house that I used to stay in for the much of last year. She was one of the few who took care of my ex when we broke up and I believe one of the few that brought her back up to her feet.

Rest in peace, Ling.

September 15th, 2008

Abolish ISA

When ISA is used not to fight terrorists or communists but to create chaos, instill fear, oppress the rakyat and silence political opposition, then it no longer has any place in a democratic society.

On a separate note, I bid UMNO to relax its racial requirements for membership. If that happens, I will be the first one to join UMNO, because apparently being an UMNO member also means you are immune to the law. Ahmah Ismail openly flaunted racial remarks and all he received was stripping of his posts. No police charges, no arrests, no nothing. But Teresa Kok who practically did nothing went into ISA instead for Khir Toyo’s baseless remarks and Utusan Malaysia’s went under the judicial radar.

Nowadays, if you want to be above the law, just join UMNO or join the Pariah Dogs Raping Malaysia. Both ensures your financial well-being and both allows you to ignore the law. Nice deal ‘aint it?

August 22nd, 2008

A lesson in conspiracy theory

The government has JUST cut petrol prices by 15 cents after Bodohwi said 2 days earlier that petrol price would not change until the end of August.

Is this another flip-flop? No my friend. It is a conspiracy. Now, anybody remember that something big is happening between today (22nd August) and 1st of September? Yes, the Permatang Pauh by-elections. So why did Bodohwi decided to drop petrol prices NOW rather than keeping his promise on 1st Sept? Because the Permatang Pauh by-elections is happening on 26th August.

Simply said, BN had ran out of goodies to offer to the voters and have resorted to character assassination to achieve their goals. Except that this time, the characters they’re assassinating are their own.

F.U.C.K. Y.O.U. B.A.R.I.S.A.N. N.A.J.I.S!!!!!!!!!!!

Because they have the kiss of death:

2783483713_9126df0fb7_o.jpg

August 18th, 2008

Web 2.0 Entrepreunership

I’ve learned that in order to own a successful business, you got to have at least two things - a good business idea, and the drive to sustain it.

In today’s rant, I’ll talk about the former part. Ideas. Or more specifically, types of ideas.

There are a lot of ideas floating around nowadays, and some are good while most of them are bad. Of course, you can say that certain ideas aren’t exactly bad - they are too ahead of their time for puny humans to understand. But here is my counter-point - if people cannot understand it, then it is a bad idea all over.

Ideas are like fast food. You don’t teach a kid how to use the fork and knife properly in order for him to eat a burger. You tell him to pick it up and start eating. Good ideas always come out and send you into that “hey, this could work” or “fucking hell, why didn’t I think about that in the first place” realm, and those are the ones that gets your attention and most of the time, those are the ones that you’ll want to put your money into.

Bad ideas, even if they are brilliant, requires time for people to understand, if at all. My criteria of evaluating ideas is that if one person cannot explain his idea in one sentence and have it make sense, then it is probably something too complex for the public.

Especially in this Web 2.0 era (disclaimer: I still think Web 2.0 is a hype). Google, for example. Among the giants like Yahoo, Altavista and AOL, it rose to prominence thanks to its unique page indexing algorithm. This is superiority by expertise.

Next, facebook came into existence and kicked friendster’s ass, and now is on its way to becoming a giant that even Google’s Orkut might have trouble wrestling. This is superiority by exploitation.

Then, you have delicious that came out of nowhere and introduced the idea of social bookmarking. This created a whole new trend and now there’re literally hundreds of others trying to emulate its model. This is superiority by niche.

And finally, you have stuff like SaaS that transcended its traditional powerbase of offline solutions to the online world, accomplishing superiority by evolution.

These four different kinds of brilliant ideas work on different levels, but they all share one single relationship - they are all related to each other. For those who wants to brainstorm for ideas, they must explore all four elements to see which niche do their product falls into. This is important because each niche has its own challenges. Read the rest of this entry »

August 13th, 2008

Life

My friend’s dad just passed away this morning.

Life is fragile in this world. Without death there would be no birth, and without death there would be no progress. Death is but a part of life, and essential end to what is a glorious beginning, and death, in many ways, also serve to teach the rest about the sanctity of life.

I feel deeply saddened by my friend’s lost. It had been a long process. First it started out with cancer, and then cure, and then regression, and then the decay. I had expected the news, but when it came it took me by surprise. I could only barely imagine the pain he had to go through, to watch somebody he love wither and eventually die, to have to go on in life only with memories of him and to see the world around him collapse and change. I dare not imagine myself in his shoes but I can only hope that he has the strength to move on, to suffer the grieve and then set himself free from its shackles. Read the rest of this entry »

August 11th, 2008

Malaysian Politicians

When you’ve read enough of news in Malaysia, you start to understand how politicians work in Malaysia. They have different ways of handling problems, and most of the time, they are fairly consistent when it comes to giving replies to the media.

Let’s ask a question and see how the politicians (or other stars) will answer, shall we?

Ok here goes.

Who ate the cake?

Raja Petra Kamaruddin: (long article in Malaysia Today that concludes the cake is a conspiracy)

Najib: RPK is lying. Rosmah and I did not eat the cake.

Chua Soi Lek: I ate the cake.

Lim Guan Eng: The cake must be shared by all races, in a transparent and accountable manner.

Lim Kit Siang: The government is despicable to let the cake, paid by the taxpayers money to be eaten at all.

Nik Aziz: The cake is not halal.

Karamjit Singh: Bigfoot ate the cake.

Bung Mokhtar: The cake bocor every month.

Hishamshuddin: Don’t question our right to the cake.

Zainuddin Maidin: You you you think we Pakistan, we Myanmar, we cake we… (incomprehensible)

Lingam: The cake looks like a cake, smells like a cake, taste like a cake, but I am not sure if it is a cake.

Khairy Jamalludin: I am not involved with the cake. NOT.

Abdullah Badawi: (snoring) wha…?

and last but not least…

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Anwar Ibrahim: I did not sodomize the cake.

August 5th, 2008

Good Fucking Morning

These days I feel consistently velcro-ed to the bed. Like the new bedsheets I bought had a vacuum power that just refuses to let me go. It takes a lot of effort to get out of bed, and this is how I look when that eventually happens.

 good_fucking_morning.png

Okay, I hate mornings. But just the waking up part. Once I’ve de-glued myself from the bed, most of the time I feel pretty proud, energetic and productive even when the day has yet to start.

One a sidenote, I just learnt something fun from my friend today.

 - (michy quah) [+]  - BATMAN haunts you says:
goldfish
- (michy quah) [+]  - BATMAN haunts you says:
is pla tong in thai
Ru - I have goldfish memory says:
LOL
Ru - I have goldfish memory says:
ROFLMAO

Pla Tong??? OMG, this is freaking funny! Imagine how the Thais got to naming that fish.

Guy with Gold Fish:
Eh brader, I got this new fish, see?
Guy B:
Walau, what is this fish? Never seen before one.
Guy with Gold Fish:
Dunno lar, I think is new species.
Guy B:
Eh then we should name it.
Guy with Gold Fish:
Hmm… how about my grandma’s name? Let’s call it Meh Lee.
Guy B:
No lar, too girly.
Guy with gold fish:
Then what?
Guy B:
We ask the gold fish lar then.
(Gold Fish jumps up from water and splashed back down): Pla Dommm…
Both guys look at each other:
Pla Tong!

Okay that was lame.

August 3rd, 2008

Sex and the city of KL?

Kuala Lumpur. Not exactly the fashion capital this side of South East Asia, and not exactly the place you come to find love. In fact, you come to find the direct opposite of love - money. It’s amazing how money issues can always blow up a perfectly healthy relationship, and it is amazing how trivial those issues are some times.

People in the big city don’t really understand sentimentality. Perhaps it is my flawed observation but from what I see, there are too many shallow people who have too much influence upon too many people in this city that’s too rich for its own good.

Take a walk in Pavillion for example. Louis Vuittons slung on shoulders, Jimmy Choos on feet - beautiful ladies with the perfect makeup strutting around in perfect style and stature, with well-built men trailing behind. They wore flashing smiles and glorious hairdos, chatting about everything except the one thing that binds us together - love. Read the rest of this entry »