Recently I was at Zaki's place for some free food (his sister's b'day actually). As usual, meeting the sucker will always involve him telling me WoW rox and asking me to join. Anyway, during our conversation he mentioned the following which made me double-up in laughter! :D
"Amir, I've created a new guild! Name of guild - DownDiagonalFront Punch. Name of guildmaster - Hadouken. It rocks, man! Hahahaha!"
PS: Only people who played Street Fighter will understand this one. ;)
Ahh...what a way to start the year! Ladies and gentlemen, let me now inform you that me and a close friend of mine has something new in common. Hmm...how shall I start?
For the past 2 years or so, I've been seeing this girl. Well, not continuously for the entire 2 years. It's more of an on and off kinda thing. She's into rock music and japanese anime, which was what got my attention initially. Heh, I guess I have a slight weakness for rocker chicks. Start talking about rock music and I'd probably worship the ground that the girl walks on! :P
Anyway, this girl I'm seeing keeps giving me inconsistent signals. She blows hot and cold. I mean, ok. It happens all the time for every single guy out there. Women are weird creatures, no? But in this particular instance, it's so extremely hot and cold, it's beyond normal women behaviour range! This is also the main reason for the on and off thing between us.
Anyway, I haven't heard from her for quite some time and was happily enjoying my less complicated but duller life when I met up with that close friend of mine for lunch about two days back. Anyway, after talking crap for a bit, the topic veered and we started talking about my love life. We couldn't really talk about his since he's a married sucker. Heh! Anyway, the conversation was something like this (relevent parts only!):
"Eh Amir, remember
"Sure. Man...she's weird. I could never figure out what the heck was going on..."
"Yeah well, during that time she was a very confused person."
I look at him blankly. "Huh?"
"Anyway, she's now fine. No longer confused. She has a significant other."
"Oh, good for her! Lucky guy, I guess."
"Girl..."
"WTF!?"
An interesting start to the year, eh? If this is any indicator on what this coming year's gonna bring, at least I'll be laughing as much as I'm crying. Heh heh!
PS: No offense meant to all alternative lifestyle people out there. I don't really give damn which direction you all swing. It'll be nice if you could decide before hand which direction you wanna swing though. It'll save people like me from unnecessary headaches! ;)
Woohoo!! New year! Actually, maybe I shouldn't be celebrating too much. Last year was a pretty decent one for me. I mean it could be better but then, every one of them for the past 26 years of my life could be, eh? Still, last year wasn't so bad. I've had worse!
Here's some summary of last year:
Proudest Achievement - I'm WAY more fit now than beginning of last year. When I first joined gym, my stamina was SO bad that I lasted for only 4 minutes on the treadmill at gradient 0 and speed 4. It was THAT bad. I'm seriously not joking! These days though, I'm doing speed 8 to 10, with gradient varying between 3 to 6. I do those for at least 15 minutes non-stop and generally continue up to 30 minutes.
Saddest Moment - My cat passed away late last year. Heh, I really loved that cat. Been a constant companion for me (and the entire family) for the past 17 years. Some might ridicule the feelings people have for an animal but that cat shared a helluva lot of history with me. Rest in peace, cat. We'll meet again in the next life.
Best Purchase - A bluetooth headset which I connect to my handphone. Allows me to listen to MP3s while jogging and also acts as a handsfree for my phone. Simply terrific!
Worst Purchase - Signing up for a personal trainer at the gym. The gym has excellent facilities and the personal trainer is very professional. The only stumbling block is that I HATE being tied to some schedule and I prefer to go to gym when I feel like it, not because I have an appointment with my personal trainer. I need to do something about this though since I still have TONS of sessions left in my contract...
With all those behind now, I guess I do have some changes I wanna make for the coming year (sorted based on how difficult I think it'll be).
Not so difficult/Doable with a little bit of effort
I plan to watch more plays at theatres, go for more concert and attend more rave parties. Theatrical plays for the *ahem* cultural growth, concerts to feed my great love for good music (NO DANGDUT!!) and rave parties for the chicks wearing bikinis (oh, the music's pretty good too)! Oh yeah, I should add going to the MPO into the list too. Some of the classical music by those long dead composers are quite good and MPO has an excellent orchestra! Hmm...I might need to cut down the clubbing part a bit to balance my accounts if I do all this though. Besides, traveling all the way to KL is kinda tiring and I keep getting lost coming back home after clubbing!
Next on the list is to get even more fit. I plan to go to gym very regularly. I'm hoping to reach a pulse rate of low 70s or high 60s at rest by end of this year (very ambitious but doable, I think). It's true about what people say. The healthier and fitter you are, the more prepared you are to face life's challenges. While it's true that my line of work doesn't really require strong muscles and amazing stamina, a fit body keeps the mind alert. With the coming year, I think I'll definitely need an alert mind. As I grow with my current organization, I suspect more responsibilities and challenges will be coming my way and I plan to be prepared when that happens.
Moderately difficult/Might need a bit of luck
This coming year, I plan to prove myself beyond any doubt on my abilities as an engineer and reach for the coveted title of Senior Engineer. Ericsson don't hand out those titles easily and the Senior Engineers in my department are all REALLY good! Not sure whether I'd achieve it or not but I'm really gonna give it a go. That means no more muddling around. It also means that when it comes to my competence area, I know what's the issue. "I think I know" will not cut it. I must really know my area, inside out, backwards and forwards. Not only that, I must also really know not just my current competence area, but also another area such as radio networks or transmission. My technical knowledge must not only be deep, it must be broad as well. I'm still not sure about this part so I guess I probably need to talk to my manager about my path. Beyond the required technical competence, I must also demonstrate sufficient leadership qualities since Senior Engineers are expected to lead and mentor other engineers. A heavy responsibility, but one which I'm aiming for.
Next on the list is probably getting to know my religion a bit better. By better, I mean a helluva lot better. Nope, I don't plan to be those sanctimonious bastards who are purer than pure and whiter than white. To be honest, I think I've got better things to do than to go around telling other people how to live their lives. I've got my own personal demons to deal with anyway. By getting to know my religion better, I plan to focus on knowledge. Some people do Bible study. Me? I plan to do some Quran and Hadith study. There are many reasons for this being one of my plans for the new year. Partly, I've always been curious about the world around me, both in the physical and metaphysical sense. Secondly, there seems to be too many idiots calling themselves religious leaders and spouting nonsense about the faith. I hate those people and I plan to arm myself with the correct knowledge to avoid being misled by stupid propaganda and also present a more accurate interpretation of Islam during any discussions. Thirdly, if I continue going around screwing up my responsibilities as a Muslim, I might as well find out exactly what I'm screwing up at. Heh! Nope, the plan does not include me being a better Muslim. If that was part of my new year's resolution, I'd put this plan in the category below. :)
Very difficult/Needs divine intervention or a miracle
I need to be more honest with myself and start dealing with certain issues that I've been purposely ignoring/avoiding ...Y'know? I don't think I'm ready to write this part of my blog posting. Maybe some other time.
Happy new year 2007, y'all! :D
"Awas, bonggol di hadapan."
'Nuff said!
PS: Ok, so this blog might not make sense to everyone but I swear, the moment this divine phrase was uttered, it was as if time stood still, the wind stopped blowing, the birds stopped chirping and the Niagara Falls stopped frothing. Then me and Anand laughed...hard...very very hard! =)
Do I really talk Malay like a foreigner? If I do, man...that's so sad...
I mean c'mon! My vocabulary in Malay language is excellent! Ok, so I don't have any Malay accent but whaddya expect from someone who's born in PJ and lived in KL/PJ area for pretty much his entire life? I can't really have a Kelantanese accent now, can I? ;)
On the other hand, when I speak English people think I'm a native English speaker. I get a lot of "Hey, you're English is pretty good!" statements from people.
Of course, the puffing up of my ego is tempered by the fact that I apparently speak Malay in a funny (as in weird, not haha) way. Sigh...
...about a joke I just HAD to share. ;)
We've all heard about people having guts or balls. But do you really know the difference between them? In an effort to keep you informed, the definition for each is listed below...
GUTS - Is arriving home late after a night out with the guys, being met by your wife with a broom, and having the guts to ask: "Are you still cleaning, or are you flying somewhere?"
BALLS - Is coming home late after a night out with the guys, smelling of perfume and beer, lipstick on your collar, slapping your wife on the butt and having the balls to say: "You're next."
I hope this clears up any confusion on the definitions.
Medically speaking, there is no difference in the outcome, since both ultimately result in premature death.
:D
Argh...there goes my weekend, all THREE days of it.
On Friday, I left work at exactly 5 pm. Heh, I was looking forward to the 3 day weekend and couldn't wait for it to start! I arrived at gym at about 7 pm and was happily jogging when I got a phone call from my manager.
"Amir, what are you doing tomorrow? We need you to attend a technical meeting with customer. It should be between 2 pm to 5 pm only. See if you can find out what's causing the problem."
2 pm to 5 pm? It didn't sound so bad. Even though it's a Saturday, the problem seems like an interesting challenge so why not? Did some preparation, played FM2007 to relax and had a good sleep. Next day afternoon, I went for the meeting. To keep a long story short (and also avoid giving confidential information!), meeting was from 2 pm all the way to 8.30 pm. So much for a short one. After all the discussion, we've arrived at an action-plan which involves me working from Monday night entering Tuesday morning. To make things more interesting, I then have a meeting (on a completely different issue) back in office at 10 am Tuesday. Heh, no rest for the wicked! Hmm...maybe I can claim emergency allowance...
So, Saturday technical meeting, Sunday emails and planning, Monday night work. Oh, and Tuesday morning meeting and Tueday afternoon more backbone fun! While I love my work (it's challenging and never boring!), it does get tiring. As soon as I'm done with my current project, I'm looking for a nice break next year. Maybe go to some beach or something and enjoy the seaside. Then again, if there's something interesting on, maybe I'll postpone my vacation and work some more. ;)
Hmm...looking back, I've been doing a lot of stuff this past year. I've done implementation and integration on SGSN, GGSN, Juniper routers, Extreme switches, Funk RADIUS servers, Bind DNS servers, Netscreen firewalls and SUN Solaris servers. I've also done backbone integration with VAS nodes such as SMS, MMS, WAP, Video Gateway and Video Mail. Beyond that I've done a large number of network trace analysis on Sigtran traffic for Video Gateway (H.323 and Megaco protocols mainly). All in all, I'd say it was a rather productive year. I'm looking forward to what next year will bring. :)
PS: Warning, bragging ahead! Did you know that I set up the first GGSN in the Ericsson world that handled HSDPA in a commercial network? I did that last year in Philippines. :D
