I'm back

So, what else is new? I've been back 2 days and it doesn't really felt like I've left. Brissie isn't such a different place, especially with the hustle and bustle that is life, on the weekend... I still can't believe I was in Bris... Anyways, this is how it went down...

Friday, I didn't do any OT... was out of there like a rocket bang on 5:30pm. Got home, about 2 mins before my brother got home. Had a quick dinner, my bro didn't have dinner, he just had some focaccia (dunno spelling) with his gf. He didn't want to drop me off at the airport too late, even though I was catching the 9:30. So it ended up that I got there at about 8 or so... had to kill time for 1 hour and a bit. I checked in my bag, and then walked through the security gates. No problems there. Then a few meters on, I got called up by one of the security people to have a random 'explosives' check. I guess I look like a terrorist. Or something. Being asian and all. But yeah, the guy scanned my hands and pockets for explosives, and then my bag. I'm clean. So I walked to the designated gate, and it was still 10 mins or so before the flight before mine leaves... Still a lot of people there. I went to sit another gate's lounge and watched a bit of the rugby. Also to listen to my mp3s. Recently I'm addicted to Ayumi Hamasaki... Don't know why, but she's really cute, but hey, I don't understand a word she sings. Her album "My Story" has some nice ballads in it, and the concert even shows her crying during one of her songs. Must be a sensitive subject for her to be crying while singing... Nice songs include "Carols" "Moments" and "Walking Proud". Rocking songs include "Humming 7/4" and "About You". The rest are ok. Anyways, the plane arrived on time, and departed on time. And then arrived on time in Bris, without any problems. Which is good.

Brisbane. Arrived at 10:30, and got out of the plane and down to baggage claim. Saw my friend which I haven't saw for 4 years and his gf, who is also my friend, that I probably haven't seen in about 2 years. As he commented in the car, its the first time that us 3 met in real life. Amazing isn't it. Considering that I knew momo for a long time, and wooks for a fairly shorter time, but in the college it felt like a long time. Momo drove and dropped me off, she went back to her place cos she was tired. So it was around 12 before we really started to chat. I also met wooks' flatmates, Joey and Roy. Then I crashed on the mattress thinking that the temperature was nice. Except that at about 4am, the upstairs neighbours came back from whatever they were doing. A bunch of noisy gals. And it was suddenly cool, so I wore more clothes. I was caught out that evening, pretty bad isn't it. Lucky I didn't catch a cold. Woke up about 9ish, but still felt a bit crap from that 4am wakeup... So tried to catch a bit more catch eye. Except the flatmates were awake and offered me breakfast... which I accepted, since I was a bit starved. Very generous of them. Then wooks decided to take me around to other college people's places, since they all practically live on the same street... So we had a mini reunion of sorts, also around 4 years that I haven't seen them. Except that most of the time I didn't get to hang out with them. But it's still cool to see some familiar faces. We hung out at around 3 different places, going here and there and meeting about 7 people all up. Then we went to have laksa nearby, 4 people went, then we went back to one of the people's place to decide what to do, and finally decided to catch the Citycat (a Brissie Ferry) to Southbank and check out the markets. I was at that time a bit anxious, since it was about 15 mins to get to southbank and 15 back, so had to get back earlier to change and get to the reunion at 5pm. Which didn't happen, because of the fact that they decided to drink at 4pm in a pub at southbank. I didn't drink, but I did tell wooks that it's getting late, but he said "we'll go at 4:30"... -_- Well, we went at 4:30, and I didn't get to the school till 5:25. I walked around trying to find people, and the last place was the 'new' Gymnasium. And I managed to find them. Spent about 5 mins touring the gym, then the tour ended. So we had to make our way to The Regatta. We had 5 people in our 'mini-group', and we couldn't get a big taxi, so 2 went by taxi, and 3 got a lift with one other who was going to the reunion. He's a lawyer, so he was driving a nice set of wheels. We got to the reunion early, so people started buying drinks and well, drinking. Then the reunion started officially at 7pm, and it went till midnight, where our function room was closed and we had to go back downstairs to the general pub. By then, it was full of people having a good time, and well, I was really tired, plus I didn't drink, and well, I didn't feel like dancing or picking up any girl. So I walked back to wook's flat. It was (strange coincidence) right opposite the Citycat stop. So I knew how to get back. Plus being sober helped. If I was drunk, maybe I wouldn't remember anything. Never tried drinking till drunk, so there's still any sort of possiblity it can happen.

Sunday, it was such a lazy day in, we went out to have lunch after waking up late, then came back to his flat to play PS2. Burnout 3 is a fun game, makes me almost considering getting a PS2 plus the game, just to play it. But it would be such a waste... -_- So maybe not. We played for almost 3 hours or so, unlocking many levels along the way as well. It truly is a fun game. Then it came around to 6pm, nearly time for me to go. I packed my bags and we had the final dinner at a Coffeeclub, I had calamari and chips + ice mocha, while momo had pasta and wooks had pizza + lemon spider. It was pretty good actually. Then I actually couldn't believe it, me and wooks hugged... I guess he's pretty keen for that kind of stuff... He walked back home, while momo drove me to the airport. I shook hands with her and thanked her and him, and got back into the terminal. This time the flight wasn't on time, because it was raining hard while we were going to the airport. But it departed 5 mins late, but still arrived Sydney on time. And I had to wait for 30 mins before my bro can pick me up (slow ass driver). Also it was funny because we managed to beat the rain in as well. Got home about 11:30, and that was the end of the trip. All in all it was fun, I met people that I haven't seen in a while, and I would definately go back for a 20 year reunion. Hey I might even drink by that time :P

Statistics... 240 students in year 12, 50 turned up for school tour, 70 turned up at reunion, one smart guy stopped being a Physiotherapist to become a priest. Go figure.

A week to go...

So, in a week's time I'll be up to my old haunting grounds, where I was for 5 years. My Alma Mater. The other place that I was at for 5 years, well they have a monthly meeting in sydney for all the sydneysiders, so it's nothing special, but for my HS, it's a 10 year reunion. So, I've got my plane tickets pre-booked, my accomodation hopefully remembered (I'm crashing at a mate's place) and my reunion... ready. I haven't really seen them for more than 5 years actually... not since I got into uni...

So what else is new about me? I got a haircut. Though I do get a haircut once in a while, it doesn't really change me. My computer is still good, the HDD space is getting less and less, but then again, HDD are cheaper and cheaper nowdays. If I max out my system, I can get a total of 4TB. 4000 GB. Thats if I buy 10 x 400 GB drives. But that's overkill, for now. (Yes, my motherboard has 8 SATA plugs and the standard 4 IDE ports.) But my bro has bought a new HDD today, 300GB worth of goodness. He's still not at the 1TB stage. Still, he's maxed out at 4 HDDs, 2 SATA and 2 IDE... being a older mobo and all... I'm glad mine is a little bit futureproofed... for maybe 1 year? :P

Anime, I haven't been really watching the new ones, but I started getting into Initial D again... so now I'm nearly finished season 4. What I've got of it, that is... The rest, is out there somewhere. My bro has other anime and thats why he needs the HDD space. It'll be about 2 months or so before he starts complaining about space again...

Also I've been playing with models... paper ones. From the "entertainment" section of the Yamaha website. Soon I'll have a bike! yay! After nearly a month of cutting out tiny parts and gluing them together... I'll have this paper bike. Pics will come, if I want to take them. :P

May the people of New Orleans have peace once more, it's terrible.

Hows this for cool...

This is a keyboard that outputs and inputs. Talk about a boy's toy, it looks to be very interesting. Only problem is, the software will have to provide drivers to actually change the pics on the fly. What happens in games, for example Battlefield, is that when you get into a vehicle or plane, the controls change. The software will have to change the keyboard's graphics, which for now is pretty radical. But it might be normal in the future. Very interesting indeed.

Oh and work sux, blah blah blah. I'm still wondering if I'll be able to go to ATI's launch event on saturday... because I'll be doing some OT...

Trials and tribulations

Ah... it's the second day of my new computer, and well, it's been one hell of a build. Bios, memory, and the general shebang. It's not too shabby, if I say so myself. I haven't fried any components (yet) and I won't do it just yet I hope. More research will be needed, and well, it'll be an interesting experience. If I don't come back on after a while, you'll know that I'm A) too engrossed with the new computer and not doing much online B) had my computer hijacked by something C) still trying to move stuff across the drives. I shall be back!

I knew I saw that face somewhere... and other stories

I watched the Initial-D live action movie a couple of days ago. The main female in it was very familiar. Then I was surfing around some websites (as you do when u're bored) and I saw 'Return Future (Korean version)'. What's that? I thought it was a sequal to Returner, a movie from 2002 but I watched either this or last year. And then it hit me. The main female in Returner is the same one as the main girl in Initial-D! The girl is Anne Suzuki. Not too bad, but I thought she was a little chubby. Oh well.

War of the worlds wasn't too bad. Lots (and I mean lots) of CG and it's very well done. The snake looking thing reminded me of "The Abyss".

Sin City was very violent, bloody and good. Lots of near naked chicks. If u're the type to wince at blood, stay away.

Batman Begins wasn't what I expected, but it was ok. It was more 1 person vs 1 person, rather than Batman kicking a lot of asses. Then again, he was trying to take on many many jail prisoners in the beginning, so it was ok.

On Anime watching, Bleach was great, Ichigo kicked Ken-chan's ass. Don't know how, but it's always left as a cliffhanger.

Gokujou Setokai is a funny story concerning a school president who will become an arrogant and snobby woman if they don't win a futsal practice match. Of course that's not it, its more to do with this girl who has a puppet on her hand which isn't controlled by her.

Yakitate!! Japan's newer episodes hasn't been released... I wanna see more...

Shuffle! is about a guy who lives with his neighbour since his parents and the neighbour's mum got killed in an accident. And then finds out that he has the choice to become a god or a demon. Funny, but needs to see more before I can comment.

Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid is a new one, I haven't watched it, but it's a continuation of the other Full Metal Panic series. It's back to the serious style rather than the comic style of Fumoffu!. I'll watch it soon.

Kamichu is also a new anime, and it has a very cute girl that says that she became a god one evening. And is not sure of what kind of god she is. But it's a cute anime. I'll see how it goes on, but I'm enjoying it so far.

Honey and Clover has already hit the 12-13 episode mark, and I look forward to every episode. It is that interesting and silly and funny that I can't wait to see what happens next. Of course, there's some drama involved (thus the OP is named 'Dramatic' and sung by Yuki. I was looking for Yuki stuff on Yesasia when I found that Return Future was Returner, and surprised that the main girl was the same one in Initial-D... you get the picture?)

He is My Master is a silly and funny series about 2 girls that work as maids in a kid's mansion. His parents died, and they were rich, so he dreams all day to make the girls his. One of the girls is extremely cute, but weird. She owns an alligator/crocodile. She can also jump straight into a death metal rock concert. Singing "I am a cute maid" and the audience going 'die! die! die'. It's really weird. But funny at the same time.

There's a lot of anime but I can't be stuffed typing it out.

On other news, I've commited to buying a new computer. Previously, I've commited $1500 to the parts. That then blew out to $1800. Now I'm actually gonna spend over $2000. Am I crazy? Yeah. I sit in front of a computer all day at work, and I'll do so when I don't work. I don't have a gf, so yeah, spending this amount of money is justifiable :D (or justifyable...).

CPU: AMD AMD64 Socket 939 Venice 3200+
Motherboard: DFI Lanparty UT NF4 SLI-DR. I hope this has some rounded cables, if not, I'll have to spend more $$... *sigh*
Memory: Previously I wanted to get some OCZ Performance CL2 for around 185. It would give me the supposed timing of 2-3-3-6. Corsair has the Twinx-3200C2 with the same timings. But it was around $195. $10 more, and I don't know how much it will overclock. But the OCZ has sold out, so I will get the Corsair modules. They offered me OCZ Winbond UTT Value ram for 180 but I think the timings are 2.5-4-4-8. So I think I will try my luck with Corsair...
Video Card: I will get the Leadtek 6600GT Extreme edition. Simply because I want to. It's not futureproofing, since it's in the lower bracket. Any 6800 version card is simply too much $$ for my tastes. If I wanted to save money, I could go for a dodgy card, but I want to be able to play games decently.
HDD: 250GB SATA. Doesn't matter which brand. 300 if cheap. 'nuff said. Will get more in the later stages. Same as the video card. If they go out of stock, too bad.
Case: I had a really big toss-up between Antec's P160WF and P180. There were only 8 bucks difference. P180 looks sleek and really good. Like a fridge. P160WF doesn't look that good in my books, but it's meant to be quiet, and comes with a clear side panel. Since my motherboard is UV reactive... I'll get some lighting in there and make it look cool. JUST BECAUSE I FELT LIKE IT! My bro says that it's a waste, I'll never go to any Lan party to impress anybody, well, I don't mind. It's my new baby when I build it and I'll get 3 years from it. I hope. :P
PSU: Antec's Trueblue2.0 480W. Simply because it has a blue light. Nah, it's cheap and it has ATX2.0 specs. 480 might be a little less, but I think it'll be ok for now.
HDTV Card: Compro DVB-T300. Simply it's accepting both analogue and digital signals. And it's not bad, at 130.
Cooling: Coolermaster Aquagate Mini 120R. Plus Antec's Artic Silver 5 thermal compound. So I can overclock.

So, am I a geek? Or I'm just somebody that has too much time on his hands? *rubs hands gleefully* ho ho. That's $2000 of sweet loving already. And I'll get some UV lights and decals. It'll be a mean machine when I'm done with it. I swear.

Also, the newest Harry Potter book has been released. People has been lining up since the break of dawn to get their copies in their cold hands. But some other people just walk into Myer (a store franchise) and bought the book $3 more than the normal bookstore. And walked by the 200 people lining up and saying 'Suckers!!'. Even one of them considered reading the last page aloud in front of the 200 people. That's pretty funny :P But what's even funnier was that I did a torrent search for the book, downloaded the torrent, open the torrent, and had the book within 1 MINUTE. All without breaking a sweat. Of course, it's illegal, but that's the power of the net...
My bro would probably get the book soon too...

ElectricNews.net:News:Sharp develops incredible dual-view LCD

ElectricNews.net:News:Sharp develops incredible dual-view LCD - Very Interesting

Blogging is suspended indefinately.

That is all.

I'm tired... 

Back to work

Another day, another dollar. Work is work. And some people commented on my haircut. One even said 'you dropped your ears?' haha funny :P Some others called it Funky. I dunno. Anyways, I'm tired for some reason, by not doing anything at all I guess. Or the lack of sleep, one of the two. Also I had to stay behind, because somebody forgot to put the keys back. They took the keys home. So I stayed behind to guard the warehouse, till somebody found a spare set in the office. Then I went home. The bad thing about today was that they were digging up the front of our 'strip' of land, to build a garden. And they were using some powerful manure. Really strong, when the wind came and blew it into the warehouse, everybody went 'phwoah!! what the hell was that!!' It stinks. But you get used to it. Well, at least I got used to it. Having lived on a farm before. But alot of these city slickers don't know how to block out the smell. So they were complaining for many many hours.

Public Holiday

Well it's a public holiday. The queen has a birthday, and all her peons celebrate her bday. What happens when she leaves us, does the date get changed? Only time will tell. So, it's a lazy day. Watched Hostage. Yesterday, watched Unleashed. I think Unleashed is more fun than Hostage. Though, Unleashed is not for the faint of heart. Lots of ultra-violence. And asskicking. Definately ass kicking. Thats why it was more fun. Hostage was more thriller, and well, there were some surprises there. Bruce Willis is pretty good, and the girl who was a hostage, she was a bit overweight. Thats just my observation.

Anyways, on Saturday I did OT from 7am till 6pm. It's a record I think. It makes up for today's pay.

Yesterday, talked to somebody who I've not talked to for a long time. She moved house, thats why I didn't see her for a couple of weeks. She was talking about how she is getting scared that she's getting older, and still not in a relationship. And she doesn't wanna be single when she's 30. And then saying that I (me) am alright until I'm 40. Yeah, if I'm still single at 30, I'll be a monk then I guess. I also saw a net friend's pic of her trip back to Taiwan and France and now she's in London. In France there was a pic of her bf, and she quickly deleted the pic. Saying that she hasn't asked him yet. I don't know if they had taken pics together yet tho... If they did, she doesn't dare to put them up yet. But a cute canadian boy and taiwanese girl... thats nothing to be ashamed of... maybe she's scared of her parents... But then I know somebody else who's been telling me of her friend who's also in a relationship with a canadian... and she's taiwanese... so it must be a popular choice? I dunno :P

F0oking Biatch.

Before I had one other time in the warehouse that I had a shouting match. Today was the second time. This time, it was with a service support person. There is only one female support person, and well, she thinks she's top sh*t. She always uses the excuse 'combine with *name* order', and even if there's no order to combine, she'll raise a big ruckus. And this time, she yelled and screamed, so naturally I yelled back. Needless to say, the 4 other people in the near vincinity were trying to either A) calm us down or B) trying not to notice it. What makes me amazed is her attitude. She says I got an attitude problem. Well, I'm not the person to get stuff from other people and not return any favours. I've let her borrow my anime, and she has not done anything for me at all. And she has the guts to say I got an attitude problem. Well f*ck that. She can go get f*cked. And I mean it. If she wants to say she will talk to upstairs people and my supervisor, feel free. She can't control me, only my supervisor can. She is just a little potato, but she felt like she can control people. So, she can get screwed. If things come down to me, I will quit. Simple, they can get John to take over, but hell I'm doing so much shit that I'll be wondering how well the next person to take over my position (it's not a job) fares. And the fun thing about it is... Tomorrow I have to OT. at 7am. And they didn't give us Double time for the last month, but they gave it to the other casual. My colleague says that we got 75ed. And then when I came home and told my mum, she said exactly the same. We got 75ed. Only problem is, the payroll guy goes on hols till 20th June. Damn this company. Damn it to hell. Going into Complementary Partnership with a failing mobile fone maker doesn't mean that its great, it treats the people in the warehouse like dogs. And the people in service have more of an attitude problem than the warehouse people. If I leave, I leave with no regrets, since I done nothing wrong. And they'll get their Karma.

Pissed... 

now they tell me...

I've been using the 'new' system that they had for couriers for about 2 weeks now... or maybe 1 week. But needless to say, it's a bi*ch to use. Labels don't stay landscape, and manifest are only available if u choose the sender. Our company. and that was only when they told me today. So the past few days/weeks I've been manually creating a manifest just for the normal day. Each day. Also I've started saving the connotes onto the network because somebody was complaining about the amount of emails they get for... nothing. Fine. They don't want my kindness, they can get my coldness instead. Also I think I should have my own phone, because almost all the warehouse calls are for me! Like what the hell is going on, if the fone rings, "Ken!" they'll yell out. F*ck can't u see I'm busy? No? Tell them to bugger off. Also they're trying their best (and not succeding) in trying to hook me up with this girl. No way, she's definately not my type. And they'll keep on going. But they will never succeed. Because I'm the master and they don't know how to turn things around :P

Hectic...

It's end of month. What else to expect other than 'to ship everything out'. That means practically 400 orders. Today. Except this time I had somebody stay behind to help me. If I was to do it all by myself, it would've probably taken me past midnight... -_- But lucky we got all the orders under control and we were outta there by 9. Except that we had some problems because some of the orders weren't shipped out... But the orders were never given to us. So yeah, it was very weird. Needless to say, we invoiced the orders, so now the next step is to... pick and sticker them. Yay. Thats what saturday is for. OT. Start at 7am. Fun oh fun. And I thought I didn't have to OT ever again... boy was I wrong. I need to take a holiday or something... *sighs*

An addition

Congratulations! It's a brand old car! My brothers went and got a car. The older one is well... old. It's been backed into by some other driver, and the back bumper has almost fallen off. Thats why they've been looking for another car to replace it. Well, now they got a Subaru Impreza LX. In green. 1995 model, which makes it 10 yrs old. For some price which I don't know about. Anyways, they will get the old one taken away for free, maybe for some $$ as well. It's crap. I don't think anybody would pay much for it anyways. But this new car looks ok, except that A) it doesn't have power windows B) It doesn't have CD. It's a very basic model. Also I got a talking to by my dad, to wash and wax the car. I'm too lazy to wax the car, so I washed it. Then I'll get some wax next week maybe. Then it'll be waxed. But I think I cleaned enough today...

overworked?

I'm not a lazy person by nature. Well, I can be lazy if I really wanted to, but when it comes to work, I'm usually not lazy. So it was with great (?) surprise that on Friday (Yesterday), I overslept. 1 hour to be exact. How? I got shaken awake by my dad. I looked at him, and looked at my alarm clock. He says to me, it's 9am. I thought he was joking. Naturally I wasn't awake, but when I looked at my clock, it slowly registered that I was late. I quickly got up, and both my clock and watch was saying 9am. My dad had got up 8:30 and noticed that the car was still at home... so he went to my room and woke me up. Lucky for me, otherwise I would've slept till 1pm or something :P I called my colleague and said that I overslept, but due to bad mobile line or whatever, he misheard me and told everybody in the warehouse I was in a car accident! Like hell I was! he called me back 10 mins later and asked if I was alright... I said huh? I only overslept! And he goes oh! shit! and goes tell everybody later. So when I turned up at 10am, half of the guys I met asked if I was ok, and if my car was ok. The other half asked if I had woken up. My supervisor even called me "Noddy". *Sobs* such is the life of a warehouse guy. :P Work then was normal, one of the slower days. Hopefully next week can be slow, but I think it'll be a loooonnng week. Anyways, what I think happened was that I was doing many days of OT, going home late, and simply staying up too late. And I had told myself, if I went to bed at that time, I wouldn't wake up for a long time. That night, I went to bed an hour earlier than usual, and still managed to wake up late... Guess something's wrong with my body, or all the work's making me really tired.

Today, my mum came back from Brissie, after one week visiting friends and rellos there. My uncle from Japan also went, because his sons are now both studying there in Brisbane as well. He goes back on Monday, and my bro wants to buy some Kendo gear (he's taken up Kendo now...) and since its near where my uncle lives, send it there, and get my uncle to send it as a gift. No tax, which will save I don't know how much $$. But yeah, they went to Tangalooma (www.tangalooma.com.au I think) and had fun for 1 day. Except my mum, who had a mouthful of sand when she sand sled... and rolled... everybody was worried but she was ok, just has sand in her mouth and throat... -_- Should've given her a face mask (like SARS) and then she would be ok. Because she (and everybody who goes sand sliding) yells... with the mouth wide open. hahaha :P

My mum bought back some goodies from my uncle. There's some snacks, but I don't know if it's savoury or sweet. Looks like chips...

One of the things that I did wrong today was to use the wrong spoon. My dad made some 'cover rice', which is just making vege and meat in a thick soup, and then pouring that over rice. Then you mix the rice, just like curry. And eat it. Well, my bro bought some Tapioca starch balls, and cooked them. Then, when my mum called, he took the spoon with him to the fone, and since the water was still boiling, I went and took the spoon for the 'cover rice' and mixed the Tapioca with it. It's oily, and well, I couldn't taste any difference, but I think that was one event my family wouldn't forget... Sad isn't it... :P And the Tapioca (zen zhu) were nice, fragrant. My mum even got a 3kg bag of it from the Brisbane uncle. He was going to give her more than 3kg... but 3kg is pretty heavy afterall... :P

I watched "The Jacket" today. It's an interesting story, about a guy who can travel to the future in his mind, and then use the information gleaned from the future to help the present. Except that he knows that he will die, so he tries to see if he can survive in the future without dying. Interesting idea, and not bad. I give it maybe 8/10.

More stuff will come soon, but I'm tired.

$128... got me this. And I look like I'm still sleeping... -_- 

Happenings

I'm tired...

Woke up early to go for my drivers test. 8am. Went to the place at 8:45, and asked if I can sit the test today. No, they were fully booked. There's 2 free places right there. Obviously they don't wanna let me sit the test, but since I can only go on Saturdays (and next week I might have to OT... hmmm) I asked if there was any alternative. There was free space at 10. So, I went and did some shopping, for some light bulbs. 3 x $5.08 (8 cents extra? what the...). That ate up some $$. Went back to the motor registry, and a police car pulls over this guy... I drove by them and I see the car is moving weirdly... like the suspension was tweaked. Anyways, the booking for the license was $32. The actual exam takes place all on the computer, touch screen and all. 15 mins and I was done. Checked, and passed. Quite simple really. Then I paid $96 for the 3 year option. So yeah, it was the end of morning when I got home. Then the trouble starts.

My bro had gotten 2 drives from uni, they were 'supposedly' ok. So I wanted to test them. I turned off my Server computer. Big mistake. Now, it won't turn on properly anymore. Seems like 2 capacitors had leaked, and it was running on pure willpower alone. Afterall, it's been on for nearly 1 year completely. 24x7. The invoice was 19th of April 2004, which is already past one year. I had spent the better half of the afternoon and evening trying to get the HDD to work. To no avail. It's pretty much dead, it won't even spin up. And the mobo (my trusty (or not so trusty anymore)) - my beloved EPIA-M acts up. Sometimes it detects the HDD as random characters, or a DVD-Rom as random characters, or doesn't detect them at all. I'm a bit pissed off, since there's like 3 gb worth of stuff on there which I haven't got off -_-. Well, time to redownload I guess. Except that I don't have a dumping ground to do it on.

So, I've been spending time to relocate the ADSL modem to my bro's PC. Took some time but it works. Otherwise somebody'll be a bit pissed.

I think there's only 2 options here. One is to get a Router. That way nobody will be stuck without the net. Second option, to replace the broken server with another one. Either a Mini-PC again, or I buy a new PC for myself, and put the accessories on the new machine, and dump the old one as the server. I given it alot of thought... considering I spent a lot today...

I want to get a new PC. Justifiable? I hope so. I could save up and we can pay off the mortgage earlier, but I can splash out $1500 on myself for a spiffy new machine. Which will probably last me a couple of years. I've checked 3 online computer sites in sydney... prices are around the same, some are cheaper and closer to me, and others are a little more expensive but in the opposite direction. Here's what I've come up with...

Essential:
AMD 64 Socket 939 Motherboard $153~874
AMD 64 Socket 939 CPU $222~792
$164 for Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 - PCI-E
$222 for AMD 64 3000+

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Video:
AGP: 256mb Minimum $115~200
PCI-E: $96~300
$234 for Leadtek Winfast 256MB PX6600 TD PCI-Express

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HDD:
IDE: 250GB $194
SATA: $199
$199 for Western Digital 250G 7200RPM 8MB SATA (WD2500JD)

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Ram:
$84 for 512mb Kingston
$134 for 1GB Hynix DDR3200 400MHz
$153 for GeIL DDR400 1GB Kit Value w/Heat Spreader
$169 for 1GB KIT DDR PC3200 400Mhz KingstonChoose
$153 for GeIL.

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Case:Max $150 (I don't care as long as it's quiet)

Spending the least amount: $768 (no case, no router)

Need to get a Router. ($80~120)

Spending what I want to get: $972+120+150 = $1242. *whistles*

Spending the best: $2335... Nah I won't spend that much...

So it seems like I should put aside $1500 if I wish to go for a new computer. But first I need the router. Planning...

And the OT is limited now... oh how cruel this is...

I need sleep.

Oracle sux

It does. It so does. muahahahahah!. Yep, I've been driven to madness by how much it sux. It takes me literally 2 mins to ship an order by clicking through 5 different menus. And that's if I click somewhere in advance, because it lags like hell. At 9am in the morning, of all times. That doesn't mean that I hate it. It gives us time to relax, contemplate how much you wanna bash the computer in. Oh and the mouse cursor acts funny sometimes, it just goes all over the place. Even when you've not touched the mouse. It works fine in other applications... just lags like a b*tch in Java.

Anyways, I had previously called myself 'No more OT', but seems like today I OT'ed two hours five only. That's funny, because the program engine seems to make a weird error. $786.54 said out in numerical terms is 'SEVEN HUNDRED EIGHTY SIX CENT FIFTY FOUR". Seems like the Dollar is gone, and well, Cent is the new currency. Why? I guess they don't use Cents in TW, that's why it's all fooked up. I guess they'll sort it out later when people go 'hey you charged us HOW much? Woohoo!! :P

Today, we shipped out exactly 200 boxes. Thats a record. Not because it's small (we've sent out 0 items before), but it's an round number. Truly amazing. But then, tomorrow, we'll have a guaranteed 100 orders, because thats what I've spent 2.5 hours doing... processing orders into invoices. Thats approximately 1.5 mins per order. Damn it... it's not worth the effort. Oh well, they'll have something to do tomorrow, that I promise...

And the paperwork is around 2 inches thick this time. MUAHAAHAHAH!. I really need to get out more.

Oh yeah and my mum is going to bris for a week for gran's bday. Plus my uncle (from japan) is also going to bris. It's a family reunion (her side). 4 guys will fend for themselves in sydney. Take-away, anybody? :P

Boom

The TNT guy, out of all the days that he's been loading up the goods, decides to drop a pallet worth of goods onto the floor today. In front of his boss (not immediate boss, but somebody from TNT who's higher ranked than he is), no less. Needless to say, our supervisor + TNT guy + TNT higher-up guy picked up all the stuff off the floor and put it back on the pallet. But when it happened... it made a really loud boom... and everybody in the warehouse basically just turned their heads to see what happened... really funny :P That guy couldn't have chosen a worse time :P