Saturday, May 30, 2009

2009 = The Year of Death?

I think I have been surrounded by death in 2009. Just a few weeks ago, I counted that I lost 2 friends. On the 27th of May, I received another bad news that my own mother passed away. After several days of getting myself busy and a couple of sleepless nights without any internet access, I found out that another of my ex-colleague also passed away on the same day as my mom.

What a year!!! Is 2009 the year of death of the year of ox?????

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Malaysians Behave Badly In Lifts

I wish all lifts in the country should have sensors at the doors and they should come and go like LRT (light rail transit), monorail or MRT. So that I don't have to be pissed of with anyone.

I have been noticing some bad attitudes of Malaysians in lifts. The main ones I have seen very often are two of the following:

1. Rushing into the lift but went to the end of the lift without bothering to hold the door opened. Such assholes should be thrown out of the lift!!

2. Rushing into the lift even before anyone else inside the lift has the chance to get out. These kind of assholes deserved to be smashed into pieces by the lift!!

Tonight, I was pissed off that I had to pick up something my wife left in the car. I had to wait for the lift for a mighty long time at level LG (lower ground floor) despite we had 3 lifts in the building. As usually, one of the fucked up lifts broke down during weekend. I saw it stuck at level G (ground floor) forever. Then another one kept going up and never came down. The third one came down from level 12, 11, 10, 9....2, 1, G, but went up to level 1, 2, 3.....the rest was history.

By the time one of the lifts reached me, I saw a Weirdos family. I held the lift for them but none of them entered the lift. There were at least 8-10 persons. One of the kids asked me whether I was going up or down. I answered "up" but in my brain I was answering "This is the lowest floor. Can I go down further.... to hell?". None of the adults bother to tell me whether they're coming in or not after letting me held the door like their door boy. I felt like a serial rapist that could rape everyone of them if they entered the lift with me. By the time I heard one of the adult's conversation in Mandarin, "Let them go first....", I immediately hit the close the door button. Then I heard one kids shouted "Oi! Oi!". In my brain I was thinking, "Such a little bastard with no manners dares to call me 'oi'. Fuck off and enjoy waiting for the lift!".

When I am in a bad mood, even kids are not spared by me....let alone adults. If you happened to misbehave and meet me in the lift when I am in a bad mood, beware!!! I may just ask you to fuck off...

Saturday, May 23, 2009

My Metal Days

It has been ages since I last listened to something really noisy. I am not talking about punk rock or indie stuff here as they do not match the noise of the music I listen during my metal days back in the late 80s-90s. To experience the true noise of music, you have to listen to Heavy Metal. Check out Death Metal, Speed Metal and various Metal stuff....not just the lovey dovey Bon Jovi crap.

I remember a punk rock friend questioned me about Death Metal, "You call that music?". I just kept quiet because I listened to indie, punk rock as well as heavy metal during that era.

In times of trouble when I am really pissed off, heavy metal is the music that calms me down by letting me letting go of all the tension. You got to be joking if you tell me that the music of Britney Spears, Mozart, lovey dovey Bon Jovi or even Morrissey helps. I will need something noisy and really heavy like these:

Sepultura with Roots Bloody Roots:


Soulfly with Prophecy:

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Air Asia's Crappy GoInsure Interface

After lodging a complaint against Air Asia's crappy GoInsure (insurance) interface directly to the CEO in January 2009, I still don't see any action being taken by them to improve it.

Since there is no action from them, I will continue to warn people about their crappy interface. This time I have captured the screens.

When booking for your flight ticket with Air Asia, you need to be extra careful about GoInsure if you do not intend to purchase it. The web based booking system's interface is very confusing and you can be easily tricked into purchasing it.

When booking the flight, in Payment page, you need to be very alert. Look out for the right section of the page where I circle in the following screen. You need to click the word "[Cancel]" in order to cancel avoid paying for GoInsure. Note: Please click on the image to get a better view.



After clicking on the word "[Cancel]", a pop-up window as follows will appear. Note: Please click on the image to get a better view.




By default, majority of the users will click on "OK" thinking that OK is to agree to cancel the GoInsure but not for this crappy interface. For this pop-up window, the users are expected to click "Cancel" button in order to cancel GoInsure. Do you see what I mean by confusing? If the users are in a hurry or careless, very likely that the poor users will end up purchasing GoInsure. As a software developer, I personally think that this system is not professionally developed at all. It has the intention to cause confusion to the users. Do we call this cheating?

I wonder which idiot created/designed/tested this user interface and which idiot agreed to accept this lousy user interface on behalf of Air Asia!!!

Friday, May 08, 2009

Death

It has always been a painful process to loss a friend for me especially when you won't be seeing the person on planet Earth again - DEATH! This year seems like a horrible year because I have lost two friends to lung cancer. Both of them were non-smokers and I doubt they're regular drinkers.

Early this year, I lost an ex-colleague. She was my volunteer photographer on my wedding day and also my ex-colleagues in 3 different companies. I wish I had the opportunity to see her before she's gone. Unfortunately, she refused to let any of us visited her when she was hospitalised - I was not even aware that she was in Malaysia.

Last Sunday, I received a SMS from a friend. Initially I thought it was just another annoying advertisement SMS from Digi. It turned out that another of my friend was diagnosed with lung cancer. I was in Penang visiting my sick father and my friend was hospitalised in Klang. So, I could only plan for a visit after I returned to Petaling Jaya. During that period, I also sent out a couple of SMS to other friends and made some phone calls regarding the bad news. I told my sister about it and she printed out an article about consuming asparagus to fight cancer for my friend. The moment she passed me the article, I received another SMS that my friend had passed away. I could hardly believe it because I was hoping that he was wrongly diagnosed. The bad news hit me really hard. Barely 4 months, two of my friends were no longer with us.

I really hope that there is a cure for cancer. For prevention, I would encourage everyone to consume a lot of asparagus and green tea. At the same time, reduce the amount of meat consumption. I cannot say what is the possibility of success but let's hope that it works.

Let's hope that both of my friends are resting in peace now.....