Nostalgia

The FIRST thing that comes into mind when one mentions Kerteh is "Haaar...all Malays one, you must miss eating pork loh!" Au contraire, Kerteh has the BEST and CHEAPEST wild boar meat that I've eaten. At RM2.50* per kilo and mostly lean meat, you can't get any better than that. Other than that we also have a fully operating AIRPORT ok!
*When the price hit rock bottom, now it might be more expensive, but STILL cheaper than Sarawak.


Last Monday I went jumped on the opportunity to go back to Kerteh, where I spent the last 2 years of my secondary school life. It was a good 3 years since I've been back there. Can't blame me mah, been real busy =P

It was raining when I arrived on Monday night. And the fucking rain never stopped, even when I left on Thursday. And I'm telling you the rain was FREAKY. The bugger rain seemed to have a mind of its own. Whenever the rain was getting smaller and I was thinking to myself that the rain would FINALLY stop, it would then GET HEAVIER. According to various sources, this year's rain was one of the worst.

One thing I've always liked about my housing area is that it is so damn peaceful. When I was there I consistently woke up at 12pm every day as there were no disturbances to bug me up. Here in Subang Jaya it's either the fucking dog barking outside my window or some asshole revving his engine and zooming past the main road outside my window that wakes me up. Oh and did I mention the beach is just a mere 200m from my house? =D

The house at night

Don't let the single storey fool you, the house is actually pretty spacious, 7 rooms inside with plenty of garden space outside. Those flower bushes are actually maintained by workers employed by Petronas.

This is what it would look in the morning. (Note: Not the same house)

No gates present. The housing is a guarded area.

Perumahan Rantau Petronas

As I said the house is pretty spacious. Actually pretty is an understatement. It's BIG for its size. I don't understand how people can keep dogs in apartments and condominiums. Those dogs would just WEEP if it saw my Kerteh house.

My living room has become less messy since 3 years ago.

The kitchen is bigger than my fucking bedroom here in Subang Jaya.

Now we go to my old room..

The long arsed corridor that leads to the 3 rooms and a toilet.

I know it's nothing compared to some rich kid's house in Country Heights, but I still loved my old room. Here it's seen with 2 beds, but it used to be only one bed. MY BED. Back then I had all the closet space I could ever need, now I'm stuck with a cheapo plastic DIY faux-cabinet. =(


Awesome lights in my room. Where, I mean WHERE can you find this type of lighting INSIDE a room? =)

The trip would've been perfect if it wasn't for the fucking I'm-going-on-and-on-and-never-stopping rain.

Backyard SWIMMING POOL.

Dining area

A panoramic view of the living and dining rooms

I actually cycled to my old school. When I got to the front gate, the FUCKING rain decided it would take a big PISS then, and started POURING. Poor me had to fly all the way back with my friend following in his car. Luckily for him driving, else my handphone, wallet and beloved SLR would've gotten a complimentary lesson in swimming.

But anyway, after a quick shower and string of curses later, I returned to the school, this time sitting in my friend's car. This was the first time I stepped into the school compound since I got my SPM results back in mid-2007.

My friend Stephen ruining the shot =P

Walking through the school sure brought back fond memories. As you would already know Kerteh is a town where the general majority are Malays. Back when I was in Form 5, there was a grand total of SEVENTEEN Chinese students in the school, and even less Indians.

Back in its glory days, my school used to be an International school that catered for the expatriates' children. Slowly, as the expats moved out of Kerteh, Petronas threw the school back at the government and it became a government school.

We have our own auditorium.

We have bad English too.

Cam-menwhores

My school wasn't a big school in terms of number of students. We only had 4 classes for each Form. Each class had an average of 35 students.

The small pondok used to sell tidbits.

Yeah, we only had 2-storeyed classrooms, unlike the 4 storeyed monsters I see all around Subang Jaya.

Like I said, small classrooms.

The structure on the left is an unused hall, apparently it developed some flaws and was declared unsafe for usage. Otherwise we would've had badminton courts. =(

Immediately off the wall on the left is the beach. Yeah, we're THAT near the beach.

My old classroom. 5 Inovatif

The koperasi

Our lousy library. People used to sneak inside there and sleep on the filthy carpet.

The canteen was under renovation when I visited.

Like my friend Stephen said, this was probably the last time I'd be stepping into the school for a long long time.

The only regret of mine was that I didn't manage to visit the Rantau Petronas Clubhouse and the beach, thanks to the fucking rain.

My Pariah Country

According to Wikipedia, and various other sources, the word 'Pariah' is used to term an outcast whose behavior is out of the norm. You can even think of it as 'eccentric''s evil twin brother.

I won't repeat what's already there, so you can read for yourself the definition of a Pariah state in the picture below.

Click to enlarge

And guess what? Our wonderful country Malaysia is IN the list! Yaay! Finally part of an IT-group. A group whom other countries shudder at the mere mention of their names. Yes, and we have FOURTEEN citations to effectively cement our position within the group.

Unfortunately the country whose culture was stolen by us narrowly beat us to the number one spot by 1 citation. =(

Click to enlarge
Awww...beaten by one citation =(

Fret not! I have full trust in our country's administration that we'll be able to leapfrog over the Indonesians. No doubt about it.

Maraysia Buleh!

Canon Photomarathon 2009 in Pictures

After forfeiting the event last year, I finally took the initiative to join this year's inaugural Canon Photomarathon. And no, there's no running involved, though the same cannot be said for sweating =P

For those uninitiated, it is an event where participants are given themes and are supposed to wander about getting the assignment done.

I was there at 7am sharp for registration and had to sit my sleepy arse for two and a half hours (2.5hrs) for the briefing that only begun at 9.30am. My arse turned so numb I ended up walking weirdly at the start of the Photomarathon.

Themes given were:

1. Splash!
2. Red
3. Shooting in Progress

If you ask me, red would be the hardest. Just look at the picture below to understand. Okay enough words for now, I'll let the pictures take over the narrative.

Sea of Red: More than 2500 participants for this year's event.

Flagging off. I actually submitted this picture for the 2nd and 3rd themes.

World's Longest Pedestrian Suspension Bridge, right here in Malaysia! Surprised? =D

Some random RED flower shot. I deemed it too cliche'd, as prolly thousands of people would've shot it.

Some random parrot silhoutte shot.

RED Koi? Nah, this was a fun shot too.

This dumb bird kept moving, moving, moving moving moving and moving

Feeding time

Deep in discussion

I shot a LOT of this eagle..

Here I am, dressed exactly the same as 2500 others.

And finally...
..........
......
....
My iguana shots, don't ask me why, but I'm extremely happy with my Iguana shots=)

Now to catch on my sleep...

Warman 2009

Now, I'm not to blame for the lack of updates whatsoever. There are two types of bloggers, those who keep a blog as their personal diary, and those who blog for the crowd.
I, unfortunately belong to the second group, and the fact that you people just view and not give any feedback on my posts do not help with the updates. You might not know this, but comments, be it good or bad really helps motivate the blogger to produce more posts. Knowing that people are actually enjoying (or hating) your post will make the blogger want to push out even more material.
So get this you lazy buggers, LEAVE SOME FRIGGIN COMMENTS!

Anyway, on the 8th anniversary of Al-Qaeda's successful terror run in the US and A, halfway around the world here in Subang Jaya, some of us old college mates gathered and had a barbecue outing. No I'm not writing anything about the barbecue apart from the fact that MY MUTTON RAWKZ! Yep, not writing anything, Darren already has that covered.

Few people knew it, but the Mechanical people from Monash, namely Me, Patma, Kein Yip and Sidharth had a Warman project run right the following morning at 9am (Oh and by the way, we went back at 2am after the barbecue).

The objective of the project was to construct :

• a vehicle that carries the baton from the start point to the exchange point, passes the baton, and
  
• a second vehicle that accepts the baton and rushes off to the end point
  
  

(Our Electrical vehicle)

Other teams 'invested' a great deal of money on the project, which was worth a grand 5% of our final grade. By a great deal I mean around the range of RM100 or more. To put things into perspective, our team only spent a grand total of RM20 on the project.

There were two runs, in which teams must get at least one successful run. We were lucky to get a good first run, thanks to last minute ad hoc duct taping and inspections. Yeah, you read it right, duct taping. Our whole vehicle was practically held together with duct tape.

(The team lining up the first car right before the first run)

(The first car sending the baton towards our Optimus Prime trailer.)

(Optimus Prime travelling godspeed towards the end zone. )

With the first run over and successful, all the pressure was off our shoulders, and we started letting our guard down. Checks weren't done, and inspections were laxed. And that ultimately resulted in a failed second run.

(Baton car being lined up for second run)

(Disaster in the making. Note the position of the baton.)

(I caught the anti-climax on film as it happened.)

(Aftermath)

(The team)