Now in KL

I arrived safely and soundly in KL yesterday night. It was a 5 hour drive, a long and tiring one.

Au Revoir, Alor Star!

Leaving you for 9 months, dear PC... Don't miss me, and remember to behave well ya!

So this is the last night I am spending here in my cosy house, tomorrow this afternoon I will be on my way down to my brother's house in Kuala Lumpur. See you, friends, and thanks for all the thousand wishes (and the good-wish angpows) from my siblings and relatives. I shall be living my life to the fullest when I am in Melbourne then! Keep your fingers crossed.

Almost asleep.. then.. Virus strikes!

Yup, I almost disconnected when two of my friends in MSN messenger sent this to me and disconnected immediately.

wtf.... http://members.home.nl/marnixstaal/handcuffs.pif :-D

WARNING: Please don't follow the link above. It's a VIRUS

Well, I almost clicked on the link. What happens is, when you click on the link, you will be downloading a self executable file (just like .exe files). While downloading the file doesn't do any harm, running it does. If I am not mistaken, once you run it, you will be spreading the same message to your MSN contacts, hence spreading the virus! There are other havocs in your pc too, but I am not sure what they are.

Anyway, what happens behind this is, virus always capitalise on common folk's curiosity and sexuality. Well, some variations of this virus have a description that it's a picture of a handcuffed girl. I think if a guy is computer illiterate and think from his lower part, he would have been fooled into downloading it.

Well, here I wish to share a few rules of thumb:

1. When your friend tries to send you a file through MSN, Yahoo messenger or other IM applications, confirm with him / her before you proceed.

2. Picture files never ends with .pif, dude! The common extensions of pictures online are only .gif, .jpg, and .png. I think many people must have confused that pif stands for "pics". Nope, there's only .pic extension which is nearly obsolte now, and .pif stands for Program Information File, a kind of MS-DOS extension.

3. Never accept files transferred online which ends with .scr, .pif, .vbs! Apart from that, always practice precaution while transferring files that end with .exe, .doc, .xls, .dot etc, they may contain virus if your friend is already infected. Make sure you scan these files before opening them.

4. Last but not least, if possible, dump IE for a safer and more convenient browser! Follow this article for the reason and rationale behind it.

p/s: For those who are infected with this virus and need to find the remedy, google for handcuffs.pic removal. There are a few informative links, one of them is this one.

Ninth Day of CNY

Every Chinese in the world know what it is. Glistening, shiny, but made of pulpwood. At some point in their lives, most of the Chinese must have folded one or burned one themselves, in one of their major cultural and religious events. Just list out the major events - Chinese New Year, the ninth Day of Chinese New Year, Hungry Ghost Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Cheng Beng etc; see, there are virtually no chinese events that can be done without these little joss paper. Folded into the shapes of gold blocks, for thousands of years it held the belief of the oriental folks that it would carry their sincerity to invoke the deities for the sake of prosperous and smooth well-being in their business, life and health. It has been an embedded cultural mark of the Chinese.

Today, we celebrate the ninth day of Chinese New Year, which is also known as the "Jade Emperor's Birthday". It was believed that the Jade Emperor, the highest authority in Chinese traditional belief was born in the ninth day of the first month in the lunar Calendar. For some reason, it has also been said that the Jade Emperor saved the Hokkien ethnic's lives on the ninth day of CNY a ~long, long~ time ago. Therefore, today it has so evolved that Hokkien would celebrate the ninth day of the first month as "the other New Year". It was a norm for Hokkien to invoke to the Jade Emperor on this day because it was believed that it would have been the most efficacious.

Well, as Alvin said,

Man, this event is even more significant and celebrative that the highly-commercialised V-Day here.

Haha, Alvin, nice summary ya! True only for single folks, okay? It all started the night before the ninth day at 11 something. Well, mother painstakingly prepared all the standard "altar materials" as shown on the left. There were candles, a tableful of fruits and some small portion of siow bak (roasted pork). Gee, for some Chinese it's a full pig lying on the table, lucky we don't do the same! It's so disgusting man...

While parents worked out their way on the altar, children around the residential area had their once-in-a-year to join the fIrew00rK fEStiVal!! Mind you it's not an exaggeration, the whole nightsky was lit by these illegally smuggled fireworks, size of which can match those displayed in the Times Square! Well, you can laugh at me for being nerdy again, but guess what I'm doing all the time? Yup, friends you would know right. I am busy turning the dials, pressing the buttons and shutters for the best shot. Hehe... So here is it.

Well, when it's time to go back to business, we go back to business. As the grandfather clock strikes 12, it's the time for us to start the prayer. Clasping the three skinny joss sticks with my fingers, I prayed for the best for myself and for my most beloved ones. I hope that wherever they go and whatever they do, they will always be with the blessed luck in accordance to their karma. It's my fervent wish that no matter what happens, let them have the courage and the faith to brave through it and reemerge with refreshed vigor. I prayed hard and sincerely. No kidding, you know my dog, having not the least idea what's happening tried to tickle me. Hehe, I tried so hard to put up a straight face... See that straight face and my straight face? Hahaa...

After the prayers, it's time for the "gold foil" to do what they are destined for - dance in the flames! Gold blocks, "Emperor's hat" and all other innovative shapes, they all terminate in flames and ashes. Year after year, the Emperor God's Birthday has always been the same for Hokkien around the world. The firecrackers bang on, and the fireworks still evade the ever watchful enforcer's eyes. Culture, unsatiated wishes,and more... I believe it will always be the same, and by the time I am 60 it will still be. There's no theory or reasoning behind it, just an anchored belief.

So now, you think that I am a taoist? (or folk religion to be more accurate) I am constantly questioning faith, if that's what you would like to think.

I Shouldn't Be At Home Now

One month ago, I thought that by 16th of February I would have been on the flight to Melbourne; but right now I am still surfing away at home aimlessly. Duhh... The orientation of the university will start tomorrow, but my sponsor is only going to fly us there on the 23rd! They made us miss the one and only university orientation in my whole life, and then evaded all the responsibilities of being unorganized by simply saying, "orientation not important larr, only last few days important..."

Grrh!! Somebody help me to soothe my dissatisfaction. Boh siok lar! You know how important the orientation is to a freshman in a university, especially to a single man?

Ouch! Hurtful Valentines

Ouch! I never knew scaling was soO~ painful... Thought of enjoying a teeth-cleaning, but ended up with bloody and foaming mouth. Haha! The drilling machine worked its way mercilessly in my mouth cavity, probing into every single crack and cleavage between my teeth. Well worth the 45 ringgit for a good dose of pain.

By the way, Alvin, a friend of mine has just set up his blog (what lies ahead...) to update his friends about his latest news in the future. To read other friends' blog of mine just scroll to my blogroll on the sidebar and click on one of the links under "friends" section.

Blogging is getting more both serious and trivial at the same time. Although many have voiced their concern about the intrusion of privacy, I like the idea of sharing thoughts and ideas, one to million. Ranting and grumbling should be avoided by all means, because a public blog like this one can never be kept secret from my mum.


Image courtesy of Reuters.co.uk. Flamingos are so cute and romantic!

I Am Feeling Lucky?

Sometimes Google's most automated search (I am feeling luckY) can return funny results. Just a few moments ago I stumbled upon pictures about the gates, so I decided to know more about it. Using Firefox's address bar, I typed "what is the gates".

Enter. 1, 2, 3...

Guess what? I arrived at this guy's page. Haha...