PhD, closer but must I learn how to speak German?

Two steps forward and one step back, at least that's how I feel about it. Last week was my second interview with Uitm for its Young Lecturer's Skim schorlarship. (Well, at least they don't consider me to be too old). You may have heard me grumbling about writing my research proposal --which I am still unsatisfied with-- and going to Uitm first interview -- which was hell, and so disappointing.

They called me up on a sunday afternoon to tell me that I am required to go to an Interview on wednesday. Disheartened and losing all hope after the first interview, I never expected the phone call. I was left flabbergasted as the news left me ineffable in speech and expression. I thought I had no reason to hope for a scholarship from Uitm any longer, but I was so wrong. Here, I was given a second chance. I must have been good in my previous life or there was probably a big mistake while they were shuffling paper around in the admission's office.

Wednesday came, and they were many people waiting outside the interviewing room. They narrowed down to about 11 PhD. candidates and 54 Master candidates for the Faculty of Information Technology and Quantitative Science that day, and all of us were expecting to be called one-by-one to be interviewed and belittled like little school children begging for someone to buy us ice-cream. This round of interview, the PhD. candidates were called first, which was different from the first interview. But one thing remained, they still interviewed us in groups. Worst, they called all 11 of us into a capacious room with over powered air-cond blowing wet and moldy near freezing air (maybe i was just too nervous then) to our faces.

After a few questions about why you want to do your PhD. and of that sort of questions, while everyone of us trying hard to think of something irreverent to say to impress the panel, finally, one of the panel members decided to adumbrate us on why we were all called at the same time. Apparently, we are all given the scholarship. Their generosity came with a few rules, yes, no, provided that and when.....???

1. Yes we are all given a scholarship.
2. No if we are thinking that we can do our PhD. in USA, UK, Australia or Canada. There goes my chance to be in the USA again.
   
3. Provided that we get a placement in a university at Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, China or India, or other countries not in rule no. 2.
   
4. When we do get a place, we get to secure the scholarship, until then, we have nothing, and we have till the end of 2006 to do that.....ohhh...bummer.....

So here I am thinking that I am now two steps forward in getting my PhD., but with all the rules, I have to take one step back. First of all, its not easy doing your PhD in a country that doesn't even speak the English. Second, people in Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, and China can hardly get a placement in their own country, what more someone from Malaysia and third is that it will be very difficult to find a University in these countries that does Artificial Intelligence, Expert Systems or Natural Language Engineering.

I guess now, I have to wait for another miracle. My next task is probably see how lucky I am in getting a place in Germany, Singapore, China or Hong Kong. After which, depending on where I'm going, I'll have to practice my Mandarin (wo hui jiang huayi, yi tian-tian, keyi le, wo shi joey, wo yao ni gei wo qian, wo yao qu Daxue) which is a lot of work cause I can't speak mandarin if my life depended on it, or start learning German (Guten Morgen......Ashtung....ich bin Joey)
At this point, I can only hope. But I'm still hoping that US is the place where I will eventually go to do my PhD. I'm more sad than excited really, cause I got my heart set to go to US....but what can a commoner like myself do....we are not above the bourgeoisie or the likes of orang Bangsawan....(Dato's and Tan Sri's)

And If I am not so lucky to secure a place in Germany, China, Hong Kong or Singapore, I guess I have to find other means, maybe the lottery ticket again.....No matter what, lottery tickets sounds more sensible....:) 4D or something.....guys, give me a number to buy.....:) Or please help me in getting a place in Germany or something, if you know any Professors from Germany or other countries. Having some networking could probably help....:)

Life at 30, feeling old, very old....

After my last day/lap in DHIT (OSCC), I was with 1 month and a half without work. Actually, my contract states that I have to give a 3 months notice, and since I had 1 month and half holidays, i exercised my annual leave rights and immediately left right after raya. Thought it would be cool to be a bum. But it was cool, for about a week, then slowly i got restless, the house got smaller and smaller, I'm slowly getting claustrophobic and I'm starting to hear funny things up in the roof top of my house. I think there's a giant snake living in the roof. And...what....? did you say scchhhsss....Nevermind.... thats probably the snake again, or the little dwarfs in the back yard....oh...thats another story. Not wanting to wait till I get crazy enough to see ominous paranormal activity in the house, I tried to make myself busy again.

So I did some training for people. One of it is going to INTAN to teach PHP and MySQL programming for Internet Applications. Oh yeah, if you are interested, you can hire me too....part time that is, i have a full time job now. So about 2 weeks ago I was giving this training, and someone from the class thought that I was 34 years old. I was shock....have I grown that old? I didn't think it would bother me, but later when I went home that day, I can't get that out of my mind. Me, Joey aka. Rizal, mistaken for 34 years old. I'm not even 30 yet. How did I get soo old so fast. Or have I been living in a time warp, where I age faster than other people. So I guess, my life today is at 30:(

Anyway, I talked to my friend Fero (the talented artist) about it. And he thought it was my dressing style. So he suggested that he would volunteer himself as my personal image consultant. He's going to turn me from an old donkey to a young stallion stud. or atleast young short stallion stud. Hereafter, called SSS, or triple S for short stallion stud.

Anyway, Fero said my first task was my hair. Like a great wise sifu, he says, fix the hair, and we get the clothing to match it. I need to do something with my hair. I told him that my receding hairline doesn't help. So I guess, I'm out of luck to look like Antonio Banderas. But what about Lex Luthor look? I'm not cute enough to look like Clark Kent from smallville, but maybe I can look like a good looking evil genius like Lex Luthor......What do you think....become my image consultant today:) Tell me what you think, or what kinda hair style should i go with?

A1 Team Malaysia

Here I am writing again. Have been busy lately with some part-time work ( I have to make money too, cause my blog doesn't pay me, at all). I just wanted to say how proud I am to be a Malaysian. For once in a very long time, I found myself cheering for the Malaysia team. It is such a different feeling from the previous games that I have watch before. It was always an embarrasment to watch the Malaysian football--soccer or is it sucker..:)--team, similarly, it was such a dissapointment to watch the badminton players, and it was such a humiliation to watch the sepak takraw team. The effects of it can be seen when MU played againts Malaysia football team, we have Malaysians supporting MU instead of Malaysia.....how sad. But we have lost faith on our own players, our own people, our own country.

But this time, its different. This day, Malaysia has a chance. A chance to be a winner among the 24 participating countries. A chance to be a world champion. For once, I can bravely cheer for my Malaysia without secretly snickering that they have no chance of winning. For once, I am not alone in hoping that Malaysia could win. Hundreds like me, all with the same glitter hopes in their eyes, wearing the cheap bright yellow t-shirt sponsored by Berjaya to support the Malaysian A1 team. It wasn't a fancy t-shirt, it didn't matter who sponsored it, the color and texture alone tells you that its trite and cheap. But we wanted to be as one, to represent the color of our Malaysian team, to make a presence to the world that we are fast, we cannot be ignored and we are champions. We wore it brazenly, with pride and dignity of our beloved country. We stood that day, with colors of our Malaysian Flag and the yellow color of our team, believing and witnessing a soon to be adage, "Malaysia Boleh"......and always will....

Congrats team A1 Malaysia, even though they failed to win 1st, 2nd or 3rd place in the race, they still managed to be the top 5 winners. Alex Yong and Fauzan Fauzi managed to bring back more then just 5th place. They brought back the hopes of fellow Malaysians, inspired the future kids and aspired future athletes for many future Malaysian champions. Malaysia certainly boleh, not now, but we are pretty damn close.....and we just hope that there will be a time where our sports can make a name for the Malaysian people, Malaysian companies and the country. Imagine Telekom will be as popular as Vodafone and Tongkat Ali ginseng will be as popular as 100 Plus, maybe then if we can't get hired in our own country, we can get hired in UK....(just like how Malaysian people like to hire whites just because of.....wait, nobody really knows, must be the post-colonial thinking we still have that whites are better)

Korean Porn!!!

Who likes korean porn? Alright... now....., you don't have to show hands. You can put it down now, I'm not going to get head counts. But I'm sure this posting got your attention....

So sorry to disappoint all of you. But this weeks segment is more about jokes.
This is probably a joke that the engineers in Ssangyong decided to play on their Management.

Below is a picture taken from a Rexton. If you noticed, I have marked to red circles. Indicating the word porn ("P" or "N"). They could have word it any other way, but the engineers, or whoever who was responsible for it, decided to display this part of the intructions just like this. And from afar, it looks like porn. I wish someone can tell me what it says in korean, I'm just curious.:)


I wonder what they were thinking then....Maybe the management asked them to put this silly comment on the gear box. And of course, someone decided to be naughty. Or maybe I am just dirty minded, or was this deliberately done to spell out PORN????? hmmmm....

I need someone to fund my PhD.

I now feel that my dreams to do my PhD. might stay a dream for much a longer time or even forever. My enthusiasm have never been lower, after yesterday's interview with the Uitm Intelligent System's faculty members from the Faculty of Science Technology and Quantitative.

A few weeks back, with excitement and eagerness, I wrote my Research Proposal for my PhD. to prepare myself for the Uitm Tenaga Pengajar Muda (Young Lecturers Skim) application. The skim will help fund my education, with of course the agreement that I will have to work for Uitm as a lecturer for the next 10 years. But that didn't matter, cause I just want my PhD. I was very excited that they actually called me for an interview after submitting my application. I thought that I might have a chance, since I've chosen a unique topic that was concentrated to researching Bilingual use of English and Malay to be fed into an AI engine for experts systems (at least, I thought it was unique). I am utterly discourage after yesterday's Uitm Interview and am now trying to pull myself together and not discourage myself to find other means in finding ways to fund for my education.

They told me that the Interview starts at 9 am. Knowingly that Professors hate students who are late to come to class, I made sure I was there at least 30 minutes before the interview. I centainly don't want to make them pissed-off by reminding them that students who are late are irresponsible. When I arrived, there were people by the hundreds waiting for their turn for an interview. Some for Master's, others for PhD and some for different fields of study--other than Intelligent Systems. For Intelligent Systems, there were about 25 Master's candidates, and about 10 PhD candidates.

They started the Interview with Master's candidate. Each candidate had a 30 minutes chance to convince the Panel that they should be selected. It was terribly hot waiting at the corridor for my turn and being formally dressed with a tie doesn't help at all. I want to look good during the interview. After three hours of waiting, I'm starting to look like a sweating pig. And that made me even more nervous, and I'm worried that I might have the BO smell when I get into the interviewing room.

Finally, the Panel showed their faces at about noon and told us that the interview will continue after lunch at 2 pm. I made a few friends while waiting for my turn. A PhD candidate Zul from Melaka, and Azmi a guy from Bangi. Both are smart and have been in the academic field ever since they were a featus. and after talking to them, I realize that my research ain't so unique after all. Everybody had a unique Research Proposal and some of them even took 6 months to 1 year preparing for this moment.

Finally lunch time was over, and I was there waiting again in the hot corridor together with Zul and Azmi and other PhD and Master's candidates. The panel suddenly decided to change the interviewing style--3 candidates at a time. I was shock, cause now I'll be exposing my not so unique research paper with 2 other strangers. Finally, my turn came and I had to enter the room with two other women candidates. I passed my credentials and Research Proposal to the panel of 3 people. They flip through my credentials and just took a 2 second look at my research proposal. In a round robbin manner they asked us about our credential. About our research and after 10 minutes it was over. They didn't even bothered to look at our Research Proposal in depth. The Proposal that I spent the whole night trying to make it better. The Proposal that I've been working to make sure that everything was in place.

All of us left the room with perplexed feelings. What was that all about? Was that an Interview. It was more like an Interview for a job as a sales rep. in Giant supermarket. I guess there goes my chances to get Uitm to fund my Phd. Sad but not discourage, I'll have to look for other options now.....

But the good thing about that day is that Emil got 5A in his UPSR exams. I'm really proud of him for doing soo well. He also said thank you to me for teaching him science. I told him that I never really thought him science that much. Then he said, he remembered me telling him that science is not like other subjects, where you read, memorize, practice and understand. In science it starts with "Imagination, then one will understand.". I guess that had a strong impact on him. And I am glad that I got a little credit for his success. Though, most of the credit goes to his mother, my sister, Leilanie. Read all about it in her blog....

Should have not been an engineer!!!

Most of the time, we engineers feel so unappreciated.
It's normal, I feel it too.....
First of all, let me get rid of the the stereotypes.

"We are not boring people, we just get excited over boring things"

And for bosses, "If you think you don't understand what we are trying to say, its probably because you can't. Try listening and asking questions to make yourself understand better. Don't even fool yourself of thinking that there is something wrong with our english, or we are just socially retarded."


It's not engineer appreciation day or something, but I found a qoute that really describes people like us....

"It is a great profession. There is the fascination of watching a figment of the imagination emerge through the aid of science to a plan on paper. Then it brings jobs and homes to men. Then it elevates the standards of living and adds to the comforts of life. That is the engineer's high privilege.

The great liability of the engineer compared to other professions is that his works are out in the open where all can see them. His acts, step by step, are in hard substance. He cannot bury his mistakes in the grave like the doctors. He cannot, like the architects, cover his failures with trees and vines. He cannot, like politicians, screen his shortcomings by blaming his opponents and hope the people will forget. The engineer simply cannot deny he did it. If his works do not work, he is damned......

On the other hand, unlike the doctor his is not a life among the weak. Unlike the soldier, destruction is not his purpose. Unlike the lawyer, quarrels are not his daily bread. To the engineer falls the job of clothing the bare bones of science with life, comfort, and hope. No doubt as years go the people forget which engineer did it, even if they ever knew. Or some politician puts his name on it. Or they credit it to some promoter who used other people's money....But the engineer himself looks back at the unending stream of goodness which flows from his successes with satisfaction that few professions may know. And the verdict of his fellow professionals is all the accolade he wants."
--Herbert Hoover

Anyway, here are some good jokes for fellow engineers.....

And if you have a friend or a love one who is an engineer, consider these items as gifts...

Eid Mubarak/Hari Raya

Finally, Eid Mubarak is here. Which means the end of my one month fasting and my secret trips to Mcdonalds drive through, oops. Guess it's not a secret anymore.

Hari Raya is as usual. we spend the night before Raya cleaning up the house, decorating the house and the most fun part is weaving the ketupat casing--while watching Battlestar Gallactica. My dad made sure that we continued the tradition of weaving the ketupat casing, a skill not many urban folks knows these days.


The next day, it was the trip to my home town, Seremban. We left early about 6.30 in the morning to reach there in time for Raya prayers. Of course after that we made the traditional "minta maaf dan ampun", "asking for forgiveness" for the sins that we might have done to our love ones. Of course, Raya morning won't be complete without a family picture. And here is the Mohd Nor family taking their Raya morning family picture:). Hope everybody had a good raya too. Selamat hari raya to all.

The rest of the Raya update are illustrated further in my sister's blog. Go check it out, at sweetleilanie.blogspot.com

Going to the Country, gonna get me a lot of lemang!

I'm not totally lost when it comes to the art of kitchen science. I'm proud to say that I can boil some eggs and maybe even cook curry for myself when I'm really desperate. But traditional cooking is something totally different. About 2 days before Eid Mubarak or Hari Raya, I decided to help out my friends in their lemang business and learn about making lemang the traditional way. So I drove to Kuang, Sungai Buloh to see what's so hard about cooking lemang. All of us had limited experienced in cooking lemang. You can just imagine the havoc of clueless people trying to act like experts. I know nothing about cooking lemang, and the last cook book I read was Perl Programming Cook Book, which had nothing to do with cooking or that sort.

To make it short, Lemangs are glutinous rice, cooked with coconut milk in bamboo sticks. The ready made lemang will have glutinous rice ready in a cylinder shape. Then you have to crack the bamboo open to serve the glutinous rice.

Kuang, Sungai Buloh is about 30 minutes away from Shah Alam. It was the closest suburban town that they could find, and it was the best location to have an open burning fire without the authorities bothering us about it. The moment I arrive at they production house, I saw one of my best friends Ayen in the production pipe line. He was in charge of filling the bamboo sticks, filled with glutinous rice with coconut milk. Inspecting further, it looks like they have successfully made some lemangs yesterday and are now in full force of production.

My other best friend Syirman was mostly in charge on Marketing the lemang. He was busy that day doing some quality control work and making sure all the lemangs was ready to be distributed to strategic areas in the city.

After a short chit-chat about their lemang production process, I found my niche in the oven section. I made sure the fire was up and burning to right temperature by adding optimal amount of dry logs. Then, I stack the lemang on the sides and made sure it was turned every now and then. It was fun for a city folk like me to be in the country experiencing traditional cooking. It feels as if I am a host in a show from the travel channel. The only thing lacking is the English accent and my cameraman crew.

I've managed to bring back some ready made lemang for myself that day:)
Out of four lemangs that I brought back, Only one was perfectly cooked. I guess my friends and I still need to practice more to master the art of lemang making. And because of our inadequate experience, the lemang business only managed to cover our cost of production. They didn't managed to make profit this Raya season, but we all managed to have priceless fun. And that's something mastercard can't buy....

Geeks day out....

I received an sms from Amran today, for an invitation for buka puasa with Mr. Mokhtar, and why not I say. It would be great to have dinner with the old gang again. It has been a while since all the geeks meet up for a get together. And of course, these macho geeks won't possible admit that we miss each other's company. We are geeks, but we are not gay.....

Of course, smoking comes naturally among us. Besides being geeks, that's what we have in common. Though some of us don't smoke. Which is good, but they might as well did, cause all the second hand smoking makes them as good as a smoker too. As you can see in the picture, there are a few boxes around to gobble on the smokes after dinner. The itenary was, food, smoke, food, smoke, desserts and smoke again. Chit-chat and smoke again. Hmmm, what else, taking picture session and smoke, smoke, smoke....jeez, we will die early. And I don't need no crystal ball to predict this....

Some was not able to come that day. But we managed to get some good geeks to come and had good fun. Among the DHIT gang was Ami, Jeffry, Munir, Amran, Hasfa Juliana and the man of the hour, Mokhtar who organized the whole thing. Thanks dude.

Ami later had to leave early. We continued our little party at Starbucks.

I had an awesome ice-blended mocha while chatting to jeffry about my python book he wanted to borrow. "No, not python the snake but python the second most sexiest programming language." While Mokthar and Amran had a battle of wits on the chess table. Not sure what Ju was doing, but she was just being sweet as ever and mingling around. So happy she decided to join us that evening.

The day ended at close to 11 P.M when Starbucks starts to clean up and roll down their gate curtains. It was a nice day out together, for us geeks. And I hope we can meet up again really soon. Selamat Hari Raya people....and maaf zahir dan batin.

Final Lap in DHIT

"This is my final lap in DHIT, joey", uttered my former CEO and friend, En. Zul when he brought me for a nice lunch in One Utama after a meeting with Solsis. I have so much respect for the guy, and I was sad to see him go. I never understood what he meant by that emotionally, or understand what he was feeling at that moment in time. I was just glad that I don't have to be in the office and even more happy to accompany him to buy some jazz CD's and window shopping for high-end stereo system. But I could see that his mind was wandering, else-where.

Today, is my final lap in DHIT and for the last few days, I've been slowly picking up my personal belongings to bring it home. The picture attached is my last table in DHIT. As you can see, I've stacked my books to be conveniently picked up when i walk home that evening. As i gather my stuff, nostalgic memories of all my old-timer company friends who used to be here flash through my mind. Dr. Yusseri, Ami, Jeffry, Pian, Abah, Muniq, Arfa and Yukhairi....and the fun times we had covering each other in the office, playing computer games and troubleshooting hacking attempts by outsiders. Then I remembered how we brought in other members of the DHIT family. Abah and I personally wrote the test questions and tested their exams. Smart people and people I've learned to love as friends along the way. Megat, Mokhtar, Amran, Hakim, Fiza, Yati, Syirman, Apai, Arina, Ju and Aida. These are all technical people that I thought had their own skill set and potentials. Once, in DHIT, I had hoped that they would carry our Linux philosophy and learned our culture. I also thought alot about those who have done so much for us, Kak Nik, Kak Ayat, Suria, Fiza, Kak Intan, Pasita, Fairul and Ina. Then, it struck me, I'm missing them already.

Maybe, that was what En. Zul was thinking before he left. Maybe, this is what he meant by, "this is my final lap in dhit, joey". Maybe this is what he was feeling while making his last turn towards the exit lane. I can't be certain what was going through En. Zul's mind at that moment. But for me, it is a feeling of despair, a feeling you get when leaving your family for a long time, a feeling so unfamiliar which resides between happiness and sadness.

It's not leaving the job that I hate, it's the feeling of leaving your friends. I feel that a little bit of me is in everything in DHIT. The server's that I have configured, the codes, the papers, the presentations and the manuals that I have written, the chairs that I have sat, the tables that I have used and the people that I have touched. And I would definitely take time to pull myself together at my new job before I can live without a day thinking about it all.

Suddenly, En. Zul's anology of Formula 1 race track makes sense to me now, because to think of it, life is just like a racing track. You go round and round the same track for a while, making your share of friends and enemies and every racer always have to make the turn on next corner or else they will crash. But when you reach your last lap, you have to take the exit lane. Separate yourself from the other racers and then later start on a totally new race, a totally new track, with totally new racers, making monotonous rounds again, gaining some friends and enemies again, while absorbing every knowledge and experience along the way.

Sure my new job in Mimos would have a lot to offer. A permanent job, a scholarship fund for my PhD and the other medical benefits. But it will never get to buy the friends and experienced I have gotten from DHIT. And that's about the only thing, I am greatful to be apart of DHIT. Stealing En. Zul's famous words of wisdom, "This is my final lap in DHIT, fellow colleagues and friends". Thank you for your friendship.

Parking, the get rich quick scheme

Last thursday, i went to the bank to withdraw some money for the week. So I went to the local Shah Alam bank. Yes, the nice peaceful town of Shah Alam. Shah Alam has always been a homely place to live in with good people in a slight kampung(Village) setting.
This is probably the only Bank in 60KM radius where you can do real banking chores. But recently, Shah Alam turned into a City. And I guess this made Shah Alam a bit busy.

The recent changes in Shah was parking. Suddenly, everywhere we go now, we have to pay for parking. You go mamak (indian food stall) at Seksyen 9, you have to pay parking. You go Mcdonalds at Seksyen 9, you have to pay parking. I guess 50 cents an hour is not much when you know this will be used "efficiently and reliably" by MBSA(our local city council) for maintaining our lovely city.



But can someone please tell me who approved this ridiculous thing about parking right next to a bank that everybody have to go to. Its not 50 cents, its 2 dollars. The thing is, everybody needs to use the ATM machines in the Maybank building. On average, a person spends about 2 minutes taking his money and leave. I guess, this is one of those get rich scams, buy a land next to a heavy populated building, get MBSA to run summonses on road side parking and charge people extremely ridiculous $2 per entry for a 2 minute parking. I prefer the meter parking cause its fair. I guess someone was thinking about money when they approved this land to be a parking lot. This is a bad example of a civilized nation, while our gas prices are hiking, our parking is also becoming more and more ridiculous.
Fortunately, the bank opposite to Maybank is not doing the same, BCB seems to be nice and not have such ridiculous things. And conveniently, road side parking is okay over BCB's side, but not okay on the Maybank's side. I guess if people park on the road side, how is Suasa Efektif(M) Sdn.Bhd. gonna make money right. I tried to park right outside where I used to park, but less than a minute out of my car, MBSA goons are out there to summon me. I ran straight back to my car to park my car at the Shah Alam Library infront of maybank to get a parking for the price of a 2 minute walk. I just refuse to pay for something so unjustly capitalizing.

Summons, the Sequel

It's right after sahur, and I cannot make myself to go to sleep. I don't know why....
So I figured that I might as well write something since its been a while since I wrote anything...

The police department finally decides that they would give the Malaysian citizens a break. And so a nationwide promotions was announced to pay your summonses. 50% discounts for all summonses if you pay before the end of the month. Unfortunately, the promotions was more of an act of greed rather than a benevolent act of kindness. Before the promotions was even announced, they sent out threat letters to gullible people like myself to pay our outstanding summonses, and so I did. But right after that, this promotions thing came up. Though I still had outstanding summonses, I wish I had known about this promotions thing earlier. Since I would save about more than RM400 otherwise....

I don't know, if the police department was playing a joke on us or whatever, but I think they forgot that over 24 million people will be paying their summonses nationwide. The first deadline was extended due to long queues and only 3 million managed to pay their summonses on time. The deadline extention gave opportunity for the other 21 million to pay their summonses. And even after the extension, i doubt 21 million people managed to pay their summonses.

The whole thing was a real havoc. What used to take 10 minutes, was 6 hours that day. Due to the abundant amount of people, some was smart to capitalize on the whole thing by selling ice-cream and drinks. Hence the picture of the ice-cream man.

Atleast some good came out of this.....

"Some local small time business traders get to prosper for the Raya season."

I think the police department was so not ready for the whole nationwide promotions things. The queue was long and nobody dared to leave their queue to go pee or buy a drink since one might lose their queue. There are some rude people cutting queues, and the crowd responded with anger, with "Oii's" and "Buta ka (are you blind)". It was hot, it was suffocating, it was long, it was tiring and it was definitely unbearable.

It was a test of mental and physical strength. The weak fall down to the ground. Brave men like myself fought hard to keep my queue. The system was terribly slow and I don't understand why the police department did not spend some money on a ticketing system. Like the postal office and banks. That way nobody needs to stand-up in a line, as if we were waiting for our judgement day call.

Noon was the worst time ever. It was terribly hot....and everybody fought to get some shade. The police department must have known that they will be collecting payments from over 500 people a day!!!! And they did nothing to prepared for that...Nobody went to lunch, prayers or what so ever and I figured the the police collected more than just cash that day, they have also collected some sins.

And yes, I bet the guy in charge thought that they needed more than one counter. So he opened two counters...(yeah two would be enough.....duh!!)

What's sad that Malaysia is still not a caring country. We tell people we are different. We are a caring nation. But the police department proves us wrong. There was no special considerations for the old and injured. I mean, the old folks, veterans over 55, Grand papa and grand mama who hasve to stand in the hot sun without shade, food and water. They were treated like criminals, as if they were guilty for murdering kenny ong or something. It was terribly insensitive. I know this cause I was worried that an old lady, who was standing right infront of me would suddenly faint or suddenly suffer a heart attack.

Anyway, I'm joey reporting live from the police station Seksyen 11 Shah Alam. I tried to take more pictures in the police department. But they pulled me aside for taking pictures. I got a scary pet talk from the police and a threat about putting me in jail without a warrant. Apparently, camera's are not allowed. They just hate the public to find out that while they can easily afford LCD monitors for their solitaire pleasure, they can't afford an automated ticketing counter for the public......

Friendster blogger sucks so moving on to another...

Like my friend, Linuxlah, I too gave up on friendster blog. I thought it would be easy to have everything in one portal, but friendster had a lot of limitations for a novice turning intermediate blogger like myself.
Hence, I've created my own blog here in blogspot. The reasons are as below:

1. I'm starting to get the bloggeritis fever.
2. It supports anonymous comments, cause I like to get to know strangers who have nothing better
   to do but to nose around other people's blogs.
3. Friendster had this bad feature where it tells all my friends in my friends network about me updating
   my blog. It happens even when I correct a spelling in a word. Don't get me wrong, I like attention but not
   too much attention. Sure, sometimes I like to spam my friends, but that I can do occasionally when I do
   update my friendster blog about an article i wrote here.
4. Blogspot have way cooler features.
5. Blogspot rocks when it comes to customizations.
   

So therefore, pasquinades.blogspot.com was created and got spawn off my old blog site, pasquinades.blogs.friendster.com.

If you are wondering what pasquinades means, from dictionary.com, it means:

A satire or lampoon, especially one that ridicules a specific person, traditionally written and posted in a public place.

Could Dr. Rizal PhD be possible?

Research Proposal
Research Field: EXPERT SYSTEMS
Research Title: Natural Language Processing(NLP) For Speech Input/Output In A Computer Expert System

1. Background
   
   The development of Artificial Intelligence has spawn many applications from creating artificial neural network for Self-learning Systems to case reasoning systems for Expert Systems. Experts Systems are mostly used today to gain answers to myriads of knowledge, however, the problem lies in recognizing inputs, searching the right data to be processed and outputting the data in an understandable form. Previous work that have been done with Natural Language speech input/output are mostly restricted to English. A problem lies for countries that use mixed languages like Malaysia, where English and Malay are often used interchangeably.
   
   This leaves an opportunity to create a whole set of Media Library to recognized English, Malay and derivatives of the two languages for natural language processing. A trained Expert System can therefore use the much more relaxed natural language set for input and output that can recognized crude English grammar with mixed of Malay and English. Consequently, producing a better, robust and practical use of an expert system.

2. Previous Work Done on NLP
   A popular work in Natural Language Processing(NLP) is GATE (General Architecture for Text Engineering), it aims to provide a software infrastructure for researchers and developers working in NLP. GATE has now been widely available for four years. Using GATE will eliminate the hassle to:

• store data on disk
• display data
• load processor modules and data stores into processes
• initiate and administer processes
• divide computation between client and server
• pass data between processes and machines.

This research will evaluate GATE potential and feasibility to be used as an NLP library to be integrated into an Expert System. It will also involve research work to use NLP for languages other than English, primarily the use of Malay language and the combination of English and Malay Language.
GATE has been used in many projects for language processing and data extraction. It has also been used for building NLP systems that can recognized German language. The challenging mark for this research is making GATE to work with both Malay language and English language.

3. AIML for Expert Systems
   
   The Expert System to be used in this research will use the power of AIML. AIML, or Artificial Intelligence Mark-up Language enables people to input knowledge into chat-bots based on the A.L.I.C.E free software technology. AIML was developed by the Alicebot free software community and Dr. Richard S. Wallace. It was originally adapted from a non-XML grammar also called AIML, and formed the basis for the first Alicebot, A.L.I.C.E., the Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity.
   
   AIML, describes a class of data objects called AIML objects and partially describes the behavior of computer programs that process them. AIML objects are made up of units called topics and categories, which contain either parsed or unparsed data.
   
   Parsed data is made up of characters, some of which form character data, and some of which form AIML elements. AIML elements encapsulate the stimulus-response knowledge contained in the document. Character data within these elements is sometimes parsed by an AIML interpreter, and sometimes left unparsed for later processing by a Responder.
   
   The research will involve the use of AIML with Program D as its engine. The core of the Expert System's responds to questions and answers will be processed through AIML coding. These coding must be able to recognized the complexity of using languages other than English, or a mix language of English and Malay. Several work has been done to create chatbots that are also experts systems. These are also done using AIML based from the original ALICE programmed used in previous work.

3. Previous work done on Experts Systems Integration with NLP
   
   A popular open source development in AI is Program D. It is the most widely used open source / free AIML interpreter in the world and can be used to create an Expert System. It is the most feature-complete implementation of the current AIML specification. It supports unlimited multiple bots in a single server instance, and has an open-ended architecture for interacting via any interface imaginable. (The standard release includes interfaces to instant messaging platforms, IRC, HTML forms, and Flash, and provides a working servlet implementation.) It includes an automated testing framework for testing your knowledge bases, and is packaged with an AIML Test Suite that verifies that the program itself complies to the AIML specification.
   
   Program D is known to work with many different languages / character sets. Its component-oriented architecture allows it to be integrated into any application framework desirable. It is implemented in Java, and uses many features of the latest JDK to provide optimum code reliability. It is actively maintained and supported.
   
   There are some work being done in Project D to support speech. The most integral part of this research, as proof of concept, is to make Project D work with GATE to process natural languages and create speech for input/output for an Expert System.

5. Objectives of Research
   
   The main objective of this paper is to present ideas for future researchers and developers to create Expert Systems that are more robust in recognizing languages other than English or a combination of languages. These are more practical implementation of NLP for experts systems.
   
   This paper will also describe a computer program which accepts and "understands" a comfortable, but relaxed set of two natural languages, English, Malay and derivatives of both languages. Certain difficulties are inherent in this problem of making a machine "understand" English, Malay or a combination of these two languages. Within the limited framework of the subject matter understood by the program, many of these problems are solved or circumvented. I shall describe these problems and my solutions, and point out those solutions which I feel have general applicability. I will also indicate which must be replaced by more general methods to be really useful, and give my ideas about what general solutions to these particular problems might entail.

6. Research Methodology
   
   The research methodology used in this research takes the following approach:

1. Domain Analysis
   1. Analysis of research descriptions
   2. Examples
   3. Abstracts
   4. Journals
   5. Papers.
2. General Architecture for System
   1. Comprehension of tools being used for research.
   2. Requirement Analysis
   3. Design and Implementation
   4. Explanation and Design of software
3. Demonstration and example of implementation
4. Empirical data testing and statistical overview
5. Contributions for research and benefits of research
6. Future Work

7. Significant Use For This Research Paper
   
   This paper will be useful to guide software developers and researchers to develop software that uses natural language processing for speech and Expert Systems. It will also help developers and researchers to create new support for different languages to be recognized and possibly integrated into an Expert System for the purpose of education and knowledge sharing.

8. Benefits Of This Research
   
   The benefits out of this research to society is the possibility to create a database of knowledge in a Expert System that has lower language barriers. This allows education softwares to be created for the community. In will also spawn new development and revamp how computers interact with human beings. It could possibly revolutionize how human beings interact with computers and enhance learning through computers. As for Malaysia, the use of this research can be the basis to create educational softwares, consumer relationships softwares, knowledge based softwares that can be used as experts systems in the form of robots, chatbots, touch screen displays and many more.

9. List of References
   ...////......exhaustive list of resources
   

10. Research Schedule
    

Phases	Description	Duration
Analysis of research descriptions	To analyze research domain and define scope of research.	1 month
Examples	Information Gathering for examples in the use of GATE and Program D	2 months
Journals	Information Gathering for journals of previous work being done.	1 month
Papers	Information Gathering for papers of previous work being done	1 month
Comprehension of tools being used for research.	Comprehension of tools, languages and integration methods for research in GATE, PROGRAM D and AIML language sets.	3 months
Requirement Analysis	Requirement analysis for software development, language sets and database	3 months
Design and Implementation	Design of overall system for proof of concept	3 months
Explanation and Design of software	Thorough write up for difficulties, limitations, and possible enhancements	2 months
Demonstration and example of implementation	System demonstration and prototype	1 month
Empirical data testing and statistical overview	Statistical data of performance, language recognition and success rate	3 months

11. Proposed Supervisor
    
    I intend to have Associate Professor Lawrence K. Saul from University of Pennsylvania as my supervisor for my PhD. research. Currently, Professor Saul is attached to the GRASP Laboratory, Department of Computer & Information Science, University of Pennsylvania. His experience in machine learning, pattern recognition, and voice processing could help me realize my research and possibly provide guidelines for my work.

From Coder to Plumber

So what did I do during the weekend, when I'm not being a computer geek, pecking away on the keyboard, trying to write codes that could possibly be the only clue for extra-terrestrials to the existence of intelligent life form on earth (I'm exaggerating)?

I'm a plumber! Yes a plumber. Mind you, its harder than you think it is!!!. I somehow have to justify myself to my parents for still squating in the house. Therefore, I try to be useful to them, and play many roles besides a son which leeches money of them. The roles I usually play are; electrician, plumber, a handy-man, driver, butler, maid, household ornament, the dog picking up news papers, and many more that goes much more worst than just being a dog. I try to think of myself like the "Pretender", a genius in taking multiple roles and doing multiple kinds of jobs. But not as so dramatic that I save the world. I'm a Jack of All Trades, but unfortunately, master of none. Last week, I was the aquatic guy cleaning the pond, this week, I'm the plumber!!!

For some weird reason, the pipe outside the house--where the garden host is attached to--broke out of god knows why. I suspect, Samsiah, our helper, suddenly gone mental and decided to break the pipe faucet just because, she gets a kick out of looking at me doing something in the house besides sleeping. Hehehe, no it must have been due to wear and tear. The broken pipe needs to be fixed, and hence, i put on my plumber cap, bring out the wrench and start wearing some village people clothes.

The task was not as easy, I had to go shopping for a new faucet. And what I got was a industrial standard valve faucet. If it still breaks, then god is just testing my patience. After putting some plumbing tape on the faucet, i used the wrench to finally finish the job while flexing my muscles....hehehe

Job accomplished. Today I'm a Plumber, wonder what I'll be tomorrow?

Yes, I know, i know, its counter-clock-wise
if you want to unscrew the pipe.
Do you want to do it instead.
Two onlookers trying their best to
be plumbing consultants.

Almost done, just some adjustments
and mission accomplished.
Where did the other
two consultants go,
don't they want to
celebrate a work well done?

The water filter doesn't talk Fariz.
Fariz trying to flirt with the water filter.
Trying to coerce it to work better.
Water quality has not been good so far.
I told him that it won't work.

Life of a mercenary Coder

In the IT world, coding is probably the most creative work that requires patience, brilliance and skill. The level of creativity is so complicatedly confusing, obscure and incomprehensible to the normal being. The codes are literally a bunch of instructions to govern a certain system, and just by observing a bunch of code, one can only see chaos and disorder. But in the chaos of source codes, order comes into being, which only an engineer could call it beautiful.

If you enjoy coding, I'm sure you must have code before for friends, hobby and money. Well, I am coding today for the latter reasons and in that order particularly. As my friends and I gathered in the office, trying to finish a system we promised, we are tired, terribly dehydrated and hungry. The whole gathering thing was fun, its like a coding camp, that everybody comes to a tent and start coding. It feel like we are boys again, running around in the parking lot, pushing each other into the bushes...and playing with the water sprinkler in the park. But when the development became slow, it was terrible.

Its about 2.30 am now, and we are far from completing the system. The place we work in Cyberjaya, is an isolated city far away from human interaction. Hence, its name, Cyber-Jaya. It so hard to find a place that's open at night, that is, if you daring enough to go out alone. The roads are empty and the road lamps are dim. It like a scene from sin city, a ghost town at night and a technology city during the day.

To make things worst, the whole development cycle start-off badly. We have no CVS, use a central database and we use a live data for testing. What this means really in non-geek language is that there is no sane way to work concurrently in a group. Each mistake of one member in a group will effect everybody. Not to mention, the bandwidth that each person will consume, causing massive delays to each member of the group. To add to our pathetic ordeal, the office does not have any airconditioning at night. You can just imagine the heat that each PC and laptop radiates. It like being in a steam room, without the moisture.

Finally, the whole development stops to a halt when the database became to slow to do work. This is due to fahmi, who keeps on trying to insert new data into the database, and everytime he does that, nobody can do anything. Tension starts to built and we finally stopped coding to do other things until the server speeds up again. Below are fellow comrades, and a snap shots of their lifes, as a mercenary coder....

Syirman, cracking his head over his coding. He is overdosed by ciggarettes and drinho. He is hungry and the words on his monitor starts to dance with the "Samseng" music on the background.

Pian, the Project Manager, the guy responsible for it all. He is also responsible for not having a CVS by the way. But overall, he's managing well. I did try to get a tense picture of him, but this is the best shot i can get.

Zul, terribly frustrated with the slow database, has been complaining with slight sounds of hmmm, and ish...coming from him. He doesn't talk much, but I assure you, that if he does make sounds, he is pissed.
Here is a picture of him pissed....

Myself, not really stressed, but can't stand the heat in the office. I so want to go out and get some fresh air. All the smoke that pian and syirman produce, doesn't help either...heheheh

I'm actively contributing to the Malaysian Economy!!!

A few days before my exams, I again parked right outside of my office for a short meeting that I have to attend. Thinking that, who would want to summon me for being around for like an hour. But, guess what, my timing was all wrong. I must have gotten like 10 of these papers and today, I can reduce the space available in my dashboard compartment by adding my collection of summonses.

I hate the management of EB3 cyberjaya. I think they have been calling the police to summon all cars parked outside just so that they can force people to park cars in their premises and so that EB3 parking can gain revenue from people parking in their parking lots. I saw police making frequent visit to the EB3 parking office. I am on the works to unravel the mystery and conspiracy behind this stupid and silly car park summonses.

What's certain is that I am not the only one who is rebelling againts this injustice. As you can see the picture below, almost everybody is parking right outside. Its not like Cyberjaya is such a busy town anyways.

What led me to deducing a conspiracy is that, building other than EB3 does not have any summon tickets. Hmmm, wonder why? Is the police getting extra by being a liability to the EB3 cyberjaya parking payroll now?
Funny how the police makes such a big deal in parking offenses, but when a theft crime occurred in OSCC, the police didn't even bother to go investigate.

I guess someday I will have to pay for all my summonses. But I will think of it that I am doing Malaysia a favor. It's people like me that creates the multiplier effect in economics. One summon paid will be an income to a few police man, which in turn will spend that money else where, and will be income for those people, who will eventually spend it on some other people, and so on and so on. Hence, increasing money liquidity in Malaysia, increasing market trade volume as well as increasing consumer spending, eventually effecting overall Malaysian GDP and GNP. Consequently, assuring currency stability, higher import and exports and better Investment spending. Hell, we should be considered heroes, benefactors and we should get discount cuts in taxes for being such good citizens of Malaysia....heheheh

Sun Certified Programmer for JAVA 2, sure, that's gonna make me rich.

Finally, I found some time to write something on my blog. I really needed the weekend to rest cause, last week, studying for the Sun Java Certification was hell. Due to the last minute study, I had to skip work with the following excuses: car problem, paying housing loans, puncture tyre problem, high fever, diarrhea, my dog hid the keys ... and etc. I had to continue lying for 3 days until the day of the exam. Anyway, all the lies was worth it, as I passed my Sun Certification by mere luck. The passing score was 32/61, and my score was a little bit higher, 33/61. Funny, I had no idea what I did right or what I did wrong. It was all very confusing and all the questions was obscure. I'm just lucky to have answered a little bit more than half of the questions right.

A friend who took it with me was not so lucky though. I feel bad for him cause I was the one who kinda coerce him into taking the certification. Its RM 500 a paper, and with our pathetic salaries, that's a hell lot. Anyway, I had confidence that my friend could have pass the exam without any problems, but I guess his part-time school and over demanding job, with crazy bosses drained him out of excellence.

Well, here are some pictures of me cracking my head for an exam that I don't really know why I'm taking it. Like LPIC, I'm not sure how this cert. will help me....

And that's a picture of me studying....Garbage Collection, Classes concepts for inheritance, polymorphism and yada-yada-yada.

Hmmm, I will survive.....I will not give up!!!
This cannot be that difficult.

And that's me trying really hard to understand the abstract concepts of java inner classes....

Inner classes, outer classes, method classes,....what classes? I'm lost here!!
And what was threads again...what is this whole Garbage Collection thing have to do with objects and threads.....

I'm just gonna give up and let luck decide on my fate.

Linux Professional, sure, that's gonna make me rich.

So, today was just like any other day except that I woke up a little bit early. The extra time gave me the chance to practice my morning rituals that I have long abandoned since my life turned into adulthood. I tried to recollect all my momories being a kid, and the precise order of things for the morning ritual to start. The morning ritual starts with chanting and songs of rock music from the 80's. Followed with shower while doing the morning dance bare with only a soap in my hand as my imaginative weapon. And finally, a meditation period with eyes close as I wash off the shampoo on my hair. It doesn't end there, the ritual continues to a show of strengths, where I stand infront of a mirror, trying to do some push-ups and sit-ups to prove to the elders that I am worthy of thy respect. And the ritual ends as my task completes--with me leaving the ritual area--with my official war costume (yeah, its my office attire really).

But what made today special was that I finally received my LPIC Level 1 Certificate. Yes, the Linux Professional Institute Certificate, Level 1. Yes, the letter finally arrived, i thought they sent it somewhere else cause I got mine a little bit later after Ami and Mokhtar, who got to brag about it before I can....

Along with the certificate is a card for LPIC Level 1 members. Yeah, I'm kinda proud of it. Actually, I'm really proud of it. So that's why I am attaching a picture of my card here. Yeah, you can call me a poser, but I don't really care....and I'll explain why later. But first let me show off.

So what can I get from being a Linux Professional. Well, in Malaysia, probably not much but working for some company making NOT MUCH, with really bad benefits. Unless probably if I work for shell, I heard they have hired a couple of Linux experts. But do I really want to be in the support industry, becoming a System Administrator is not really what I enjoy. So that's why I'm just gonna brag about me passing the LPIC exams, cause I don't know what other use for it for now....

Ironically, I'm going to take another exam--the Sun Certified Java Programmer (SCJP)--which i might be able to brag again about but don't know what to do with it. I guess it will look impressive on my resume. That would probably help me get a job, but getting paid high, I need to be a total idiot. Maybe someone who knows how to pretend to know technical stuff and do marketing or better still a silly dispatch boy for some Dato'. But I don't think I'm the kind of person that can bend over so long just to make sure that my lips are actually the same horizontal height as my superior's arse. So there goes my chances to pass the LPAC, Lame Professional Asskissing Certificate. But I still have hopes to get myself prepared to get LPAC certification. :)

Parking Summonses for the poor

About one week ago, I went to the Police station to settle all my summonses. In Malaysia, they really come and knock on your door with a warrant to jail you for paying your summonses late. It has been a recent policy for the Police Department here in Malaysia and have cause a lot of publicity for the Police and unwanted publicity for the offenders. Some say its good the police is doing this, others find it sad that police Inspectors are now playing the role of local illegal credit institutions(Ah Long) trying to retrieve bad debts by sending gangsters with guns and threatens loan owners to pay their debts.

To get a report of all of my overdue summonses, there was a long queue and only ONE single counter that does just that. Needless to say, they had a system that works slower than the conventional paper filing. Paying summonses could probably take you a whole day, since they don't take credit cards, online payment, payment through bank, ATM and the other methods that could probably make it easier for busy working individuals to pay their summonses. To make things worst, the payment counter only accepts cash and are open from 9-12 and 3-5pm. The convenient time is for people who doesn't work obviously. You can't even run during lunch hour to pay your summonses, cause the police officers seems to have lunch from 12-3pm. My summonses adds up to about 15 summonses which totals up to RM 970. Yes just RM 30 shy from a 1000. I'm not really a hooligan on the road, I was never stopped by the police except for once for driving without a seat belt, yeah big deal...Boo f***ing hoo, thats dangerous driving. You probably thinking what kind of driving habits do I have to have such an abundant amount of summonses.

Looking at the summonses report, I see that 2/3 of my summonses are parking offences, one for driving without using a seat belt, one for speeding and the other 3 i can't really remember. Parking tickets!!! How ridiculous is that....I mean I'm fine with traffic offenses but parking offenses, thats like hitting someone below the belt. I mean, I feel it is wrong that there is no cheap parking around public service areas. I'm sure you find it funny too that a government office that everybody needs to go, but wait a minute, there is no parking unless you pay like 10 dollars per entrance for a parking area that is handled by some corporate company that was awarded to maintain the parking.

I mean don't we pay taxes??? How difficult is it to have a land for the public to park their car for maybe 50 cents an hour?
I mean, is that too much to ask. I'm not sure how other people feels about it, but something must be done. People pay taxes for the basic necessities, that includes parking to do our daily obligations like paying electrical bills, water bills, credit card bills, banking, making new IC and etc.....

I feel that with the rising oil prices, they could atleast help reduce the inflation by making parking a little bit less expensive. As if the tol is not lucrative enough. Who are we paying for here???

And what's the deal with police officers giving summonses to people driving while not wearing a seat belt. Is this offence really worth RM 70. I mean, a lot of people forget--don't tell me you always remember--the police should stop them and remind them for it, not try to make money out of them. There are a lot more serious crimes out there, people who drives too closely to other cars should get summonses for tailgating, they should be courteous on the road. But seat belts......?
The worst thing is, the police that stopped me for not wearing a seat belt asked for a bribe? When i said sorry, I think i did nothing wrong, he gave me a silly forget to where seat belt summon. Is this how our police should serve and protect our public....

Its sad that our tax money is used wrongly. I mean, I'm sure there are more serious crimes out there, why aren't the police out there busy observing drivers with serious potential dangers, but instead busy trying to get petty mistakes of drivers. Hoping that they can make a buck or two by hinting that, if they pay now, its cheaper. I've gotten this a lot....

Well, its all funny how things work, we all pay summonses, I'm sure you do, but the next time you pay yours, check to see, was that summon really a big deal. Hope someone will make police realise that they should start concentrating on catching drivers who tailgates, drivers who drive fast in housing areas and drivers who drives dangerously on the road. These are the people who are dangerous. And by all means, summon them, not making silly mistakes for parking offenses when there is no where to park or not wearing the seat belts. Apparently, these are only summonses for the poor, cause If i have a driver, and wouldn't mind paying RM 10 for a 10 minute parking, I wont get these kinds of summonses.

Inevitable

I always thought that Blogs are ridiculous. Its a place where attention seekers try to get attention, a place for people who have no life to keep themselves busy, a place where the egoist tries to display his ego and all that that maybe defined as POYO ( a poser).

But as more and more blogs are being created, I am drawn to create my own. Its an INEVITABLE force of nature. I'm not pretty sure why I'm doing it, but it seems that some force of social behavior coerce me into creating this very thing I hate. Its like disliking fat people, but loving everything that makes you fat, disapproving smokers but can't live without a cigarette and hating a hangover but love the beer. In Malay, its like Cinta tapi Benci which roughly translates into "Love but hate it". Makes no sense at all, which is perfectly consistent with everything else in our lives, like the government, the jobs we have, the bank loans we have, the credit limit we have on our credit cards, the credit we still owe the credit card companies, the price of buying a house, the price of getting a car, our own very actions in our lives, yada-yada-yada and the list goes on forever.

So I guess you can expect that my blog, the Sardonic laughter of a Satirist, is all about me trying to point out the things in our lives that are ridiculous and doesn't make sense, obvious. Its also to keep all my complains in one place. I'm starting to think that my circle of friends are sick listening to me complaining about every little thing. Hence, the web would be a bigger place for me to vent out my lonely sardonic comments.