Ryan Star is amazing!

This guy rocks! I'm definitely buying his album once its out.

Channel[V] had a party at Zouk on Thursday night, with the main attraction being Ryan Star's performance. I was so excited about it, I even took the next day off from work! :D

The performance was amazing. Ryan Star sings with intensity other musicians rarely exhibit. Ok, the performance was occasionally marred by technical issues. Not sure how that managed to happen though. I'd think professionals do sound tests for this sort of performance. Anyway, despite those setbacks, I'd say the performance was a success. Beautiful music, wonderful vocals and amazing intensity! Too bad it was only for about 40 minutes or so. But man, it was 40 minutes of pure musical inspiration!

If he comes to KL to promote his album, I'm gonna get him to sign my cd!

I got sloshed at Ee-Lyn's b'day bash!

Oh damn...what a party! I got completely wasted! Can't do this too often though or I'd die of kidney failure. Heh!

I have to say, the night was a blur to me. Let's see...what do I remember?

- Oh, my name was Sanjay since that's the only way for me to get the free Guinness stout.
- May Li makes a better Muslim than me. She drank Sprite and water only.
- Julie got high faster than me, though I'm pretty sure I got more wasted than her.
- Some of Anand's colleagues came by. The chicks were pretty hawt! :P
- Laundry Bar suddenly stopped serving. Not quite sure why but that was my cue to leave the place and head to the hotel Ee-Lyn was staying for the night. I was already a bit high but I wanted more booze...
- Had more booze and talked a lot of crap in the hotel room. Aaron and Ee-Lyn were perfect hosts. Ee-Lyn got wasted. Julie wanted to see guys kiss each other (there is no amount of booze that will *ever* make me do that, my dear). Me and the toilet bowl became intimately acquainted.
- Slept over at the hotel room. Reached home about 9.30 am I think. Massive hangover...

Man...what a night!

Oh yeah, when enjoying nights like this, remember:
1. Never drink and drive.
2. Friends don't let friends drive home drunk.
3. Getting drunk with friends is fostering bonds of friendship (a very important part of Islam!). Getting drunk alone is just sad and could turn you into an alcoholic so don't do that.

PS: Yes, I'm fully aware that booze is not a respectable beverage for a Muslim. In my defence, that's about my only vice and I do plan to stop in the future. On the other hand, I believe that religion is about the relationship between me and God. I make my own choices and let God judge me when I die. I do appreciate all the well-meaning people who care about my soul. Don't worry though, I'm doing fine. When I decide to stop, I will. Thanks for caring. :)

Rest in peace...

My cat died about 2 weeks ago. Ah...she was 17 years old and lived a long and happy life so I guess it was time. You will always be remembered, Puss.

My cat started getting all sick and weak about 5 days before she passed away. That's one thing about cats. It happened so fast. One moment we're bewildered and worried, next moment me and my family are mourning her. It's said that cats seem to know when their time is up. My cat spent her last few active days before getting sick visiting all the favorite haunts. Normally lethargic, she actually jumped up onto the cars parked under the house porch to laze about there. It was slightly odd but we felt happy she's feeling active again.

When she got sick, my family sent her to the vet. The diagnosis wasn't good. She's old and her body systems are slowly shutting down, one by one. She was so weak at that time. She passed away about 4 days later at the vet. At first, we wanted to take her back but during the journey back home, she was very agitated so we felt it was best to leave her at the vet again. She passed away later that night.

I remember hearing that when approaching death, cats like to be alone. That must've been what she wanted, instead of coming back home with us. She was part of my life for 17 years. She stayed around long enough to see my brother finish his degree and my sister come back from England.

That night when she passed away, I dreamt of her. She was healthy and active again. She was also walking normally instead of limping. Normally a bit snobbish, this time she was very affectionate, nuzzling against my hand and letting me pet her. I miss you, Puss. Until we meet again, take care my dearest cat...

It's been a while...

Yup, it's been a while since I typed my blog. Various reasons for this really, but among other things, it's been a quite hectic life for me.

What can I say? At the start of October, I'm fully involved with a project to build up the entire backbone for a new mobile service provider. It's a rather massive job which I'm doing together with an expert from Australia. Now let me say again that it's been an absolute pleasure working in my present company. Ericsson has some of the finest engineers around and it's been an absolute privilege and honour to work with them. I think I can consider myself very lucky since I'm learning a lot of things that I can't get anywhere else by talking and discussing stuff with them. I'm sure you all already know. The best way to learn is not from books or classes, but from the people who has actually done it.

The first stage of the backbone was completed after 3 days, first circuit call (voice & video) after 7 days and first packet call (data transfer & web browsing) after 8 days. Imagine, all that accomplished in a total of 8 days! Until now, I'm still amazed at how we managed to accomplish all that. Keep in mind, we started the implementation with unconfigured hardwares and softwares and after 8 days, the core network was essentially completed. What was missing are external connectivities such as connections to other mobile networks (Celcom, etc) and to the international gateway. I love working with amazing people! :D

Right now I'm still involved with the project but now it's mainly integrating the core network with VAS (value added services) nodes such as SMS, MMS and WAP. I think I'd be quite busy all the way until the end of January. It can get tiring and there are plenty of challenges but on the bright side, at least I'm not bored. Besides, building up a network from scratch and integrating it with various components certainly looks good on my resume! :)

On non-work related matters, I'm now a proud owner of a 20" widescreen LCD monitor. The monitor is simply beautiful. I plan to do a marathon session of anime and tv-series one of these days. I've just got my hands on "Ghost In The Shell 2nd Gig" and "Lost" season 1. Ahh...perfect timing.

After spending a lot of my time on Neverwinter Nights online play, I'm now taking a break from it and am now enjoying "X3 - Reunion". The game is simply beautiful and space has never looked so pretty! I love the feeling of vastness that is present in "X3 - Reunion" and it's wonderful to go exploring the various space sectors in the game. Sure, it's a single player game but it rocks! Check it out at http://www.egosoft.com/games/x3/info_en.php