:: d a n n y ::

Moved to dannytalk.com

2008-07-06T20:44:00.005+10:00

Hi all...

I've finally made the move to my new site, www.dannytalk.com.

Please update your links as this blog will not be active anymore.

It's been fun and there's more to come :)

Take me to the cool new website now!

Website Urge

2008-04-26T01:16:00.002+10:00

I feel like making my own website. Just this sudden urge to spend some time coding and making cool things that I'd enjoy and would like others to see.

Can't figure out which language to use though. PHP? Rails? Probably something that uses Apache web server. I guess that rules out .NET.

What will it be about? What domain name should I get? Perhaps someone can suggest one for me.

Haven't been around much lately. Been flat out with work. Oh yeah, I'm working tomorrow too. On a Saturday. Pretty much when I get home from work, I eat, play a bit of wow, watch a bit of tv/anime and then talk to my girlfriend.

Then when weekend comes, I feel totally buggered from the week that I don't really wanna do anything besides stay at home and bludge. I guess when people organise things I don't mind tagging a long. But yeah...I feel like 50 in this 22 year old body.

Weird how it is. Perhaps I should start exercising again to build up my stamina and fitness. Doesn't help when you kinda spend 10 hours traveling and planting your ass on a chair for 50 hours a week.

Guitar tabs for Christian music

2008-04-05T21:53:00.002+11:00

I'm rostered on for worship for my church tomorrow and I hadn't practiced yet. So I decided to search for guitar tabs for a song which I wasn't familiar with.

I stumbled upon guitar praise. These guys have really taken the effort to help many Christians learn how to play a lot of popular Christian songs. They have video and tablature to read and see.

They've really helped me learn a song for tomorrow and most probably I'll be visiting them more often.

A must see for those out there who are doing worship and praise for their churches and ministries. A lot of their posts are Hillsongs music, and more specifically electric guitar.

I finally...

2008-03-26T20:14:00.002+11:00

..graduate on 16th May!

Confirmed! Got a letter from uni stating that I'm eligible for it.

Guess my work experience report got accepted.

Can't wait to get my A$25,000 paper which took 5 years to get it.

I get to dress up too and pay for the gown hiring.

Yuppi-doo-da!

Goodbye Saturday

2008-03-15T15:54:00.003+11:00

Don't you hate it when you've been working at least 50 hour weeks, getting an average of 6-6.5 hours sleep a day and then finding yourself waking up at 8.50am on a Saturday morning?

Well I do. Had to wake up early (after mum woke me) and watch the electrician fix a new telephone socket in our computer room. So yea, that's pretty interesting but I'm still pretty sleepy.

So I pretty much spent the next 3 hours or so watching the electrician drill holes, screw stuff and feed cable. The electrical side of things (wiring) was pretty easy and I could've done it myself, but I guess the hard part was actually the installation of it as it required a fair bit of drilling which I wouldn't be confident enough.

Once the new telephone socket was installed and tested, I then spent the next 1.5 bloody hours trying to configure the internet with our new ISP (TPG), ADSL 2+ connection.

What really bugs me is that all the ISPs in Australia do not have support for home networking setup with a router. They always assume you're the only user connecting to the internet, thus providing useless information, in my scenario.

I spent 1 hour on the telephone with a TPG operator, trying to figure out how to configure the modem to bridge mode. After many attempts, she finally gave up on me and suggested I call up the modem manufacturer for help. Ok, fine. When I called up, I got the machine saying that the telephone operating hours are 8am-5.30pm, Monday to Friday.

Well whoopy-dee-doo. I work during those hours. So my last resort was to sift through the many folders in the driver cd, looking for some manual which I did find. A quick glance through it told me my problem was fixable with a single click.

The modem didn't need to be configured to get WAN IP Addresses!!! Far out, the operator didn't tell me that obviously! Soooo sooo frustrating when you know you could've saved a lot of time if I knew there was a manual somewhere, or the operator knew what they were talking about.

I can't say I really blame them because it's probably the company's fault for not providing them sufficient training.

Oh well, there goes my Saturday afternoon. I've got grease on my fingers now from changing the car tyre earlier.

FYI, I suspect someone deflated our car tyre. Grrrrr!

i'm soooooo lazy...

2008-03-02T21:30:00.003+11:00

Yes, that's right. I'm a lazy ass.

Why?

I haven't blogged for like yonks, and I've got a billion photos and stories to share from my 2 month holiday overseas (Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand). The photos are up on Facebook btw.

I've also started working fulltime. It's been a month so far and I've clocked an average of 50 hours/wk (Mon-Fri only) and have worked on 2/4 Saturdays already. Sleep deprivation is my blanket now as I cling onto it since I started work.

Not good :(

But oh well, it'll get better once the busy period is over. My company organises a big technology event called CeBIT Australia. So it's only 3 months away and we're working our butts off for this.

After the event, it gets pretty quiet and hopefully I'll be back to my 40 hours/wk schedule.

Anyhoos, thought I'd make a quick post here and share with you what my girl drew for me on Valentines. She also made me two cupcakes which I will take photos and upload later. On top of that, I got a nice JAG key holder wallet. It's pretty nice.

Haha, she also left the price tag on it as well :P

Will show photos later.

Update!

2008-01-13T17:07:00.000+11:00

Haven't been blogging much over the past couple of months. Been busy holidaying in Malaysia, Singapore and just came back from Phuket! Will post up photos once I'm in Melbourne. Flying there this coming Wednesday.

If you're on Facebook, you can view the pictures there :)

Greetings from Malaysia

2007-11-29T13:49:00.000+11:00

I flew down to Malaysia on the 25th of November via Jetstar. You'd think you'd get pretty crap services and facilities with the budget airline, but it is quite decent. I only paid $240 for a one-way flight.

Flight was smooth and had no issues at all. I bought a book at the airport which I was planning to read on the plane, but ended up just watching movies and sleeping.

So what have I done so far ever since I touched down? Eat eat eat. :S

Food here is soooo cheap that it's hard to say no to seconds. I've been having mamak & chinese food mainly.

Also I've been fishing with my highschool friends at some man made pond in Sri Petaling. Costs around RM23 for 4 hours on Mondays. We ended up fishing for 8 hours hehe. I didn't catch anything though, so unlucky. My friend caught a 3kg pachu fish and we traded it for two 2kg patin fish.

I've also been doing a little bit of shopping. Not as much as I want though. Only bought a pair of boxers so far. Will be going to Lowyat today to buy a bunch of electronic goodies.

Not sure if you've been to a pub called Wabisabi here. Had beers with friends there last night. Gosh, it is soooo expensive! RM42 + 10% surcharge for a jug of beer. I've always hated having alcoholic beverages in Malaysia because it is so expensive compared to Australia.

Well my reasoning was I'd rather eat 40 roti banjir instead, hehe :P

Anyways, if any of you want my Malaysian number, just send me an email and I'll get back to you.

And you thought you've heard everything...

2007-11-15T21:06:00.001+11:00

until this guy gets caught having "sex" with his bicycle. WTH?!?! Seriously, the perverseness that you come across nowadays is just ridiculous.

Cleaners of a hostel caught the guy with a singlet and naked waist down, holding his bike and moving his hips back and forth. The 51 year old bachelor claimed he was drunk.

Read more here.

Squirrel Fight!

2007-11-14T13:28:00.000+11:00

I love their fighting stance and agility.

It's Cooking Time!

2007-11-13T22:19:00.000+11:00

I decided to cook something tonight and flicked through HungerHunger's blog and discovered Steamed Chicken With Chinese Ham n Mushrooms!

Now the only deviation I did from the recipe was that I used normal soy sauce because I couldn't find light soy sauce, and I used normal bacon because I had no clue where to find ham that's asian. Also I used chicken thigh only because I couldn't be stuffed cutting up a whole chicken. Besides, I was only cooking for two: myself and my sister.

Oh, I'm not sure whether the chicken was corn-fed though. Didn't get a chance to ask it. Anyways, I followed the recipe and mixed it all into a bowl. Refrigerated for an hour.

Now the mixture was smelling bloody good and I was kinda proud of myself. Everything was going good until I came to the cooking part. A huge stumbling block for me, but perhaps not for others.

The instructions said "Steam at high heat for 25 to 30 min. Serve hot with plain rice". Me being a guy, didn't really understand this in full detail because I need step-by-step instructions. I wondered to myself, "How on earth will I steam this without the sauce dripping away?". I didn't think this through thoroughly and so I proceeded with the assumption that you're meant to simmer it. Oh how wrong I was!

Now I think the correct way is to place it on a heat tolerant plate or pan, and place it into a pot of steaming water and steam it! Aha, why didn't I think of this earlier?!?

Another huge mistake was not doing it in a non-stick pot. If you see the picture above closely, you'll see that the bottom is burnt and the food is stuck as well. I must say the aroma still smelt nice though!

The end result?

I didn't bother decorating and positioning the food in a presentable way because I was about to devour it in a few minutes.

The verdict? Very niiiiceeee...

Ignore the head piece and don't ask why.

Boring 22nd

2007-11-12T23:30:00.000+11:00

Happy birthday to me!

Anyways, was a pretty boring day for me. Woke up 9sih cos Sahar called me. Then had a dentist appointment at 12pm. After that I played dota all afternoon pretty much, hehe.

After getting sick of dota, I bugged my sister and then went outside to do a bit of weights under the sun. Man, really need to get into the workout routine again. It's been a while.

Dinner at Big Johns with family and cousin. Then got a call from my girl to pick up my present from abercrombie.

Here it is!

Thanks princess! :) Funny message though on the card, hehe.

"I did not know" - Yahoo acting dumb

2007-11-07T20:04:00.000+11:00

Chief executive Jerry Yang said his firm had always been open with Congress and that it was "fully committed to protecting human rights".

Mr Callahan said then that he did not know why the Chinese authorities wanted to trace Shi Tao - who was jailed for 10 years - but it has since emerged that other Yahoo employees had a document stating it was to do with the "suspected illegal provision of state secrets".

"Yahoo claims that this is just one big misunderstanding," Mr Lantos said.

This is one funny article. If you didn't already know, Yahoo recently gave information to Chinese officials leading to the arrest of Shi Tao, and jailed 10 years for sending an email to a foreign website, warning journalists not to cover the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 2004.

Shi Tao's mother who was present at the hearing only received a silent nod from Jerry Yang, CEO of Yahoo and Michael Callahan, execute vice-president of Yahoo.

I guess Shi Tao's mother can be comforted from Yahoo's "I didn't know" defence which lead to her son's jail term, with a silent nod.

At least offer her monetary compensation, gosh. Oh wait, Google's owning you at the moment. Gotta save every penny.

uncapped

2007-11-07T19:34:00.000+11:00

woot, once again i rejoice at fast internet.

lay-Z-ness

2007-11-05T16:09:00.000+11:00

Why is it so hard to do something so easy? Especially after what I've gone through. I have a 10 minute presentation worth 20% tomorrow. That's like 10 or so slides and rehearsing my speech a few times to get it in sync.

I've done 7 slides already but I think that's too many because I haven't even got into my main work yet. Terribly hard to condense the explanation of Ajax, Ruby on Rails and Web 2.0 into 3-4 minutes. Now the weather is gloomy and slightly chilly, ideal conditions to hibernate. Ok, wake up hong yi. You're sleeping in the computer labs again!

As I type, I begin to wonder. Wonder what's it like to rest my head upon my soft sheridan pillow.

Need I wonder for much longer?

Thailand anyone?

2007-11-04T23:38:00.000+11:00

Ah it feels so good to be sorta free. Watched Rogue Assassin yesterday (crap), and The Kingdom today (good). Two movie in two days. Man I'm spoiling myself silly.

I'll be flying to Malaysia on the 25th of November for holidays and would want to go to Thailand, sometime in December or early January for about a week. So far the people who enlisted are:

Me
Suren aka thambi
Sean

I know, not a very impressive list but I haven't really asked many people yet anyway. Not that I'm looking to run a contiki group to Thailand either.

Anyhoos, if you're keen to go Thailand during those periods, let me know k? Don't be shy.

[edit date="5/11/07"]

Newly acquired member(s):

Wern

Quick quick, don't be shy!

[/edit]

80% down, 20% to go

2007-11-02T11:21:00.000+11:00

Woot! After 122 pages and 14,419 words, I'm finally done with my thesis. Stayed awake for 38 hours or so as well (sorry hy, not really keen to break your record).

Now all that's left to do is a 20% presentation on Tuesday and a work experience report to hand in before I graduate.

Can't wait.

Wings of Red Bull

2007-11-01T23:25:00.000+11:00

I've stocked up on 2 cans of Red Bull to last me all night tonight. Yes, just two. Don't want to end up on the floor. That's the recommended intake anyway.

Another 14 hours till my thesis is due. 109 pages and 11,919 words so far.

"Victory!" - Viking Quest shout.

Its an entourage thing.

C'mon...nearly there!

2007-11-01T05:25:00.000+11:00

It's 5.25am now and I've just finished my 90th page of my thesis. Due in another 34 hours. I still need to print and bind it as well.

So so tired. Can't wait till this is over.

Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus - Philippians 3:13-14

Feel like that now, hehe. Different from how Paul intended it to be though but nonetheless, handing in this thesis seems like a heavenly prize (but its not really!).

Yet another "Thriller" moment...Bollywood style

2007-10-31T13:21:00.000+11:00

I've posted another thriller video previously if you haven't seen it. But here's another!

Sheer brilliance.

I have no life

2007-10-24T01:12:00.000+10:00

Since last week I've been waking up at horrendous hours (i.e. 11am-pm) and sleeping similarly as well (2-5am). My routine begins with waking up, getting some breakfast and perhaps read some stuff online. Would probably waste an hour or so.

Then for the next 8-10 hours I stare at the computer screen, clicking and typing away with the occasional break. My shoulders are sore, my wrists feel a bit cramped, and my eyes feeling lifeless. I have a slight pulsating headache as well.

I can't remember the last time I talked to my friends (I do, but its a figure of speech) and went out to get some fresh air and sunlight. This is what it's going to be like for the next 7+ days. It's kind of depressing.

Almost finished coding. Now I'm in the debugging and testing stage. Not looking forward to writing up my entire thesis.

Cute Hamsters

2007-10-23T12:21:00.001+10:00

This is for Hong Yi.

Apple goes Open Source

2007-10-22T12:22:00.000+10:00

Finally the fruit goes open source.

I was leaning more towards getting an iPod Nano but now with Apple about to release a software development kit (SDK), I'm seriously considering the iPod Touch. The iPod Touch uses the same underlying architecture as the iPhone, which will be the first to have its software go open source.

What this means is that you can now have your favourite softwares installed onto your device. Word, Excel, Skype, Firefox and others will be available. I'm pretty sure someone will develop those softwares.

The iPod Touch comes at a hefty price though. $419 for the 8gb, and $549 for the 16gb whereas the Nano comes at $199 for the 4gb, and $279 for the 8gb.

Perhaps I should just wait till the price drops.

Dumbledore pronounced gay

2007-10-22T02:21:00.000+10:00

I've been a fan of the Harry Potter series since I was like 13 or 14, before the movies came out and spoilt it. Now another recent news has spoilt my enjoyment of the book: JK Rowling announcing that Dumbledore is a gay character.

What a load of bull. I can't believe JK Rowling is subtly instilling gay content into children's literature. Well that is how it started anyway, a children's literature.

Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell welcomed the news about Dumbledore and said: "It's good that children's literature includes the reality of gay people, since we exist in every society.

"But I am disappointed that she did not make Dumbledore's sexuality explicit in the Harry Potter book. Making it obvious would have sent a much more powerful message of understanding and acceptance."

I'm not a gay hater or anything as they are still equally human beings which God created, but I disagree with the notion of accepting the practice of homosexuality. Does it mean that we have to accept the practice of rapists and murderers even though they exist in our society?

God made Adam and Eve, not Steve. The male and the female organ was intelligently made to fit together, thus procreation. I don't think crossing swords would cut it.

She said she regarded her novels as a "prolonged argument for tolerance" and urged her fans to "question authority".

JK Rowling has definitely kept this quiet till the end to boost her book sales. If she was really sincere in her quest to urge her fans to "question authority", she would've revealed this a long time ago.

I'm pretty sure parents would not have allowed their children to read the book knowing this much sooner. A very disappointing end to the Harry Potter literature.

More time wasted!

2007-10-18T22:08:00.000+10:00

Argh! Just spent another couple of hours adding del.icio.us, digg and facebook bookmarks onto my posts. Also added a digg button at the top of my page. Colour looks ugly but I couldn't be bothered to change it atm.

Shanghai continued...

2007-10-17T19:58:00.000+10:00

Alright I'm back in Sydney and have been busy coding, trying to complete my thesis which is due in a couple of weeks. It's very exciting to know that you finally finish university education (for now anyway) after five hard years. I totally enjoyed it though I must say.

For those who don't know what I'm doing in Shanghai, I'm working part-time for a company called Hannover Fairs Australia, the organisers of CeBIT Australia. Our parent company is Deutsche Messe, the organisers of CeBIT Hannover. A team of us have been sent over to Shanghai to do media coverage for CeBIT Asia, CeMAT Asia and PTC Asia, a combined trade show at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre.

So back to Shanghai. First three days were a nightmare. Basically got up at 6.30am and sleeping around 11pm-12am. Around there. We were so busy that we usually took work with us back to the hotel to continue uploading content onto the website since there is internet in the rooms.

Working hard in my room.

The hotel rooms were quite nice. I think it's a 4-star hotel, Rendezvous Merry Hotel. Sounds a bit like a seedy hotel though don't you reckon? It had a nice view of the city as well. If you've never been to Shanghai, it's a very developed city, much like Sydney. A lot of skyscrapers and construction going around. With a high rate of development comes pollution as well. The city was constantly smoggy.

Day 1 - 3

This is what kept me occupied on the plane. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!

Me arriving in Shanghai, outside Pudong airport.

The taxi ride to our hotel from the airport was quite lengthy. I think it took us around 1 hour to get to our hotel and costed around RMB250. Oh, apparently you're not allowed to have schizophrenia, and do dumpings in the taxi. You can also refuse to pay the fare if they taxi driver doesn't say polite greetings like "bye-bye!". I would've taken a picture of it, but it was a night. The flash would've made it unreadable.

We were very tired after having our flights delayed by two hours and I think the flight was just over 10 hours total. As a result, we collapsed almost immediately onto our beds.

We travelled by bus every morning for 1 hour through the traffic to the centre.

Each morning we travelled by bus to the centre through the city, which crosses over the bridge. Traffic in Shanghai is terrible, whether it's day or night. The city also looks very smoggy as you can see from the pictures. There are a lot of skyscrapers and construction though. Lots to see while you're on the bus.

The exhibition centre has like around 10 huge halls. Weird though how there's like a huge barren land in the middle. Also there was a swampy house randomly located while we were walking to the exhibition. Hope no one lives there.

This was one of my work areas in the hall. Not very glamorous.

A snapshot of what it looked like inside the hall.

There was a stand which showcased cool modified cpu towers and also had over-clocking competitions. They call it "over-frequency" over in Shanghai.

They were using dry ice to cool down the cpu.

On our way to the opening party, I came across an "engrish" sign. I think it was one of the chinese companies exhibiting. Couldn't miss the chance to take a picture.

I wonder what they're selling.

The opening night party was pretty much drinks and food. A lot of it! I would've taken pictures of the food but I didn't want to seem like a loser.

There was a guy also singing karaoke songs on the stage. Would've roundhouse kicked him off if I could. Sucked so badly. After several torturous minutes, some other cool performances were presented.

I love German beer.

I can see your thighs there.

These three violinist chicks were awesome.

Do I look tired or is it the beer(s)?

On the second night we went to a reception at the Sheraton Hotel, hosted by the government of California. Not sure if you guys know Lt. Governor John Garamendi. He's someone who works with Arnie. Well, he was representing California there.

There were really nice desserts there. Took a few pictures of them. Gosh I love digital slr cameras. Too bad it's the company's and not mine :(

On the third night, we went for a Shanghai river boat cruise. Some other corporate function. This was when I was craving for some local Shanghainese food already. Already had enough of eating hotel/catered food! Anyways, the night city views were beautiful. All the buildings at night were brightly lit up.

FYI, the wine and beer tasted horrible.

The media team. (L->R) Emma, Gilad, James, Kae Yen, Me.

Me and Gilad.

Not sure if you can see it, but that's actually a boat carrying a big ass advertisement!

Day 4

We finally finish early on Saturday and looking forward to actually spend some time enjoying ourselves and not attending corporate functions or doing work! As a treat from the company, we were taken to the Hyatt Hotel, a very luxurious bar on the 88th floor. I ordered campari and lemonade/lemon juice. Very nice!

Beautiful view from the top I'd say.

Remind you of Gotham city?

Michael and the media team.

Looking down the atrium. Beautiful isn't it?

Emma and I (aerial shot).

Next we headed off to Nanjing Road and the Bund. Touristy areas. Pretty lights all around. Shopping area too but didn't shop there since they'd probably charge tourist prices as well.

Whilst walking on Nanjing Road, couple of guys came up to me asking if I wanted "female-company". Pretty funny since they were pretty persistent. Oh btw, something that you'd notice is that if you're with foreigners, a lot of these street sellers will come up and ask you "You want watch? Want bag? Prada? Gucci?".

The Peace Hotel.

Mao and I go way back...

Yes they do have adult shops in Shanghai. Only saw one though.

Nanjing Road.

Day 5

Shopping shopping shopping! Finally we get to pick up our tailored suit and shirts. The tailored stuff we got at the "Spinning Market", apparently on Qi Pu road. Other stuff, we got at the new copy market.

The tailored suit cost only RMB500, including two pants. That's around AU$75. The tailored shirts cost RMB100, which is around AU$15. Pretty good if you ask me!

Can't remember what's this place called. It's above the copy markets.

That's how you use a gun, son.

Satay anyone?

Trying on my newly made tailored suit.

Hungry after a day's worth of shopping!

Me outside "Spinning Market".

Our friendly tailors and their baby.

Me about to be measured.

After all the shopping, we were about ready to head to the airport and fly back to Sydney. But not before we have some local food! Finally!

Bowl of La-Mien (hand-made noodles) was RMB7. That's like just above AU$1!

It was pretty funny cos while we were having dinner, a lady was arguing with a guy from the shop. Obviously I didn't understand them. Then a police came to hear them out. Was too scared to take a picture in case that was illegal :S

So what's the quickest way to Pudong airport? Did anyone say magnets? I sure did. Shanghai has a popular train that goes to and from the airport using magnets. Yeap, apparently the train hovers on magnets. This of course uses electro-magnetic principles which I refuse to regurgitate what I learnt 4 years ago in my physics class.

Takes less than 15 minutes to reach the airport and travels at around 300km/h.

Queuing up to buy tickets.

In the magnet train.

Fast and smooth.

And thus concludes my trip to Shanghai. It was fun and would've loved to spend more time there but unfortunately I got a thesis to write and an university to graduate from.

Gosh, I think I spent nearly 2 hours on this post. ><

Farewell Shanghai!

iPod Dilemma

2007-10-16T14:05:00.000+10:00

I'm meant to be doing my thesis (which is due in 2 weeks!) but this sudden urge to get a mp3 player has crept up. Usually I'm not an avid fan of apple products because

Their new products usually have defects and problems. It only gets fixed after several revisions and complaints from the consumers.
Apple's extended warranty is so expensive but so essential as you're bound to get tangled with battery, hard drive and display problems.
Apple products and accessories are so proprietary oriented. I love open source.
I once owned a mini ipod and I totally hated it. Had a lot of battery and hard drive issues. It got stolen when my car got broken into. I was glad the mini ipod was stolen and upset that my car window got smashed.

So why am I still considering the iPod Touch and iPod Nano? Well, I must admit that I really do like their design and interface. Pretty cool. Just bad hardwares. There aren't any decent competitors out there as well. If there are, I'd definitely go buy them over Apple to help topple Apple from their reign over the mp3 player market.

So what's the verdict? iPod Nano has been out in the market for some time now which means the hardware and software would've been improved and hence more stable. The new design looks pretty cool as well.

iPod Touch looks sexily awesome. Big display screen. Very thin body. Downside? New product. I smell disappointment. Also with new products come bigger price tags and the older products get cheaper.

The nano looks slightly promising at the moment.

Goodbye Shanghai

2007-10-14T11:57:00.000+10:00

I think China has blocked my ability to check blogspot blogs. Can't seem to be able to view any of my usual blog stops while I'm here. Not even my own!

Anyways, the show is over and we've finally got some rest. About to spend a day in Shanghai shopping and exploring the city, taking the usual touristy move. Will be flying back to Sydney tonight and arriving Monday morning.

Its kind of disappointing but I haven't been able to grab hold onto some local Shanghainese food. Been hotel and catered food so far! Urgh, how I hate it.

More to come when I get back and can actually view my own blog. I'm not even sure if this one will get through. Perhaps China will intercept it. Perhaps.

Over and out.

Shanghai Day 1

2007-10-11T00:57:00.000+10:00

Hi people. Been away for some time now. Kinda been busy. Or perhaps lazy.

Anyways, been a packed past few weeks. Went down to Melbourne to see my girl. That was fun. Will most pictures up later when I get back.

So yesterday was a big bummer. My work decided to meet at the airport 3 hours before the flight. When we arrived, we found out that our flight was delayed by 2 hours because of some taifun that was in Shanghai which resulted in the delay of the aircraft's departure. That meant we had 5 hours to kill.

To my dismay, I found out the hard way when I took my seat in the plane and there was no small tv screen in front of me. Instead there were communal screens in front of me. It was a rather lengthy flight. 10+ hours in total. Lucky I brought the last book of Harry Potter with me.

The air stewardess also performed some exercises for us accompanied by the tv screen where young chinese girls dressed in tights and pink singlets were demonstrating muscle exercises to prevent injuries during long flight periods. Looked pretty dodgy to me, hehe.

I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but during the entire flight, all the air stewardess were speaking to me in mandarin for obvious reasons. For one, I look asian. Gosh, it seemed so hard to be able to muster some mandarin out of me. Like rummaging through a drawer looking for something when it had been years since you opened it. I guess you could say I used a bit of 'chinglish' (chinese + english) to speak to them.

Anyways, I'll continue this another day. I'm so bloody tired now. Was actually blogging this to kill time so that Hong Yi would reply my messages to her to have a chat. Oh well...

P.S Shanghai seems cool. Very well developed, clean and full of life. Oh, I'll include photos/videos once I get back. Forgot to bring my camera cable. D'oh.

Google Search Hack

2007-09-19T10:47:00.000+10:00

I woke up and I found this cool way of searching for things on Google's search engine. You get a list of index directories containing the files of your search string. What that means is that you can literally download anything for free!

In your google search field, type in

intitle:index.of "search string"

So for example if you wanted to search for an e-book for Java, you'd type in

intitle:index.of "java pdf"

Viola! Click away. Hope this helps.

Happy 27 Jason

2007-09-18T21:56:00.000+10:00

Yes, I'm procrastinating. So sue me.

Just updating what's been over the past few weeks. Damn my brother's getting old. Ah well, guess that's what happens.

Jason opening his present. Think he got like a pair of massage sandals. Random.

My sister and I posing.

Carina taking a sneak shot of me.

Me eating something. Can't remember.

Yummy prawns!

nong ho...

2007-09-18T21:41:00.000+10:00

Ask a Shanghainese what it means.

Anyhoos, its been confirmed that I'll be going to Shanghai on the 8-13th of October for CeBIT Asia. Will be there doing media coverage for the event with a small team. Was doing something similar last week with the German Arts Festival at Sydney Uni (my hood!). You can check it out here.

It's pretty exciting travelling overseas with a company who you only work for two days a week. All expenses paid + travel allowance. Heck, even I get paid. Awesome!

I'm also going down to Melbourne next week for a holiday to see my pretty girl. Should be mad fun.

Gosh, so much to do till then. My thesis is due 31st October. Time is running out.

/cry

Battle at Kruger

2007-09-10T20:44:00.000+10:00

Soooo coool...must watch if you're into national geographic kinda stuff.

capped :(

2007-09-02T22:58:00.000+10:00

Internet is capped...again!

Sad day.

4 more days to go...

So you want to make PDF documents?

2007-08-31T00:37:00.000+10:00

Just spent the last 3.5 hours working on my draft treatise which is due tomorrow. Had uber writer's block yesterday. Produced 300+ words over 4 hours. Tonight I managed to up it to just over 1000 words. Pretty happy with the progress. Will continue to work on it tomorrow.

So while I was taking a break, I decided to browse the Internet and came across an interesting article on how to make pdf documents without software.

There are two methods to create PDF files online. Each method is followed by a list of available free services, first choices being the best based on extensive testing and personal experience.

1. Convert: Upload the document from your computer and the PDF is sent to your email address within a couple of minutes.

Express PDF (DOC, RTF, XLS, HTML files and URL - max. 20MB size)
PDF Online (DOC, RTF, XLS, MHT, TXT, PPT, PPS, PUB, JPG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, WMF, EMF, GIF files - max. 2MB size)
PDF Convert (65 file types supported, unlimited file size but max. 7 files per month. Also converts PDF to DOC or XLS)

2. Generate: Enter the address of the website and download the PDF instantly. No email address is required.

PDF-o-Matic (URL, unlimited file size?)
HTML To PDF (URL, unlimited file size?)
HTML 2 PDF (URL, unlimited file size? Adds a watermark ad)

Productivity Tip: For the second method, you could save even more time by using the Add to Searchbar extension for Firefox and generating PDFs of the website you want to "print" directly from the search box.

You can read the original article here.

draft treatise

2007-08-29T12:52:00.000+10:00

I've been working on my treatise (undergraduate thesis) over the past weeks. That's pretty much what's been keeping my busy. I've even kept a blog for it if you haven't noticed. Feel free to visit it.

My draft treatise is due this Friday. It's been a while since I wrote actual essays so I've lost my ability for writing up structured sentences, paragraphs and sections. That's if I even had those abilities to begin with.

So I'm suffering slightly from writer's block. Funny though you'd get that writing a treatise. Perhaps I should do more googling to get more ideas. Yea, that's what I think I'll do.

Clear acne...

2007-08-20T18:18:00.000+10:00

...with baking soda? What the? Ok Hong Yi, maybe you're starting to convince me a little bit. However, I'm still not totally convinced. And no, I'm not going to rub a leg ham against my face to have smooth skin.

Zeroes - ordinary people...pointless abilities

2007-08-20T18:02:00.001+10:00

I was taking a break from working on my thesis when I stumbled upon a short Heroes parody clip. Heroes is a famous tv series that involves ordinary people with supernatural abilities and how they use it for good and evil.

Pretty funny if you're an avid Heroes fan.

rain oh rain...

2007-08-19T16:29:00.001+10:00

So I'm in a bit of a ranting mood. The weather's dark and gloomy. Rain drops trickle down as though the heaven's were crying. The gusty wind howls and the trees sway from side to side, greeting you feebly.

Took me 20-30 minutes to find a parking near Paddy's market. Some rude dude also snatched one of my potential parks. Walked in the rain wearing thongs, while dragging along one of those old china lady trolleys for groceries.

"One dollar! One dollar!", they shouted. "Best apples! One Dollar!", shrieked the old slightly plump lady. "One dollar, one dollar! One dollar!", the congregation sang.

Loaded up my trolley bag, I hurried back to my car...in the rain. My feet is wet, the windshield is fogged up. Home I go...in the rain.

Lucky I don't have mascara and black nail polish with me. But I can't complain.

There are many people out there who are much more unfortunate than me. Always remember to smell the roses.

font control

2007-08-08T14:09:00.000+10:00

I was bored so I decided to write a font control using javascript. Try it here.

I've added the controls on the top of the page as well as in my javascript widget.

Enjoy :)

[edit date="09-08-07"]

Added new buttons I made.

[/edit]

redirecting in plesk

2007-08-08T10:42:00.000+10:00

I thought I'd make an entry here about important stuff which I might need to know later on. Kinda like building a knowledge base. Perhaps other people can benefit from this as well.

So I was informed on how to redirect traffic to another website on Plesk today at work. Pretty handy 4 line configuration to the .htaccess file.

First of all, change your working directory by running
>> cd /var/www/vhosts/$domain/httpdocs

Note: $domain is the name of the domain from which you are redirecting from (e.g. /var/www/vhosts/mywebsite.com.au/httpdocs). If you're running from Plesk, just navigate to your httpdocs folder by going to the desired domain to redirect and clicking on File Manager.

Create a .htaccess file in that folder (if it doesn't already exist). Then enter the following lines to the file,

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} $domain [OR]
RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} www.$domain
RewriteRule ^.*$ http://$Redirect_To_Domain [R=301]

Note: $domain match the $domain above (e.g. mywebsite.com.au) and $Redirect_To_Domain should be the domain to which you are redirecting to (e.g. mynewwebsite.com.au).

Once you have saved the file, you have to configure its permissions. You can run,
>> chmod 755 .htaccess

or if you're in Plesk, just make sure the permissions are rwx r-x r-x (uncheck write access to Group and Others).

If your website accepts SSL connections, simply do the same for the folder httpsdocs.

bloc party.

2007-08-06T12:06:00.000+10:00

Bloc party was playing at the Hordern Pavilion last Saturday. Brian, my sister and I went to it after having dinner at Ayam Goreng, a Indonesian/Malaysian restaurant in Kingsford.

I was pretty impressed with the food: ayam bakar, satay, kangkung. Even the sambal was genuinely hot! The satay and kangkung wasn't cheap though. $7 for each dish and I think there were only 5 satay sticks (yes, I'm comparing to Malaysia). The ayam bakar was $6.50, which was pretty reasonable in my opinion. Unfortunately I didn't take photos of the dishes as I was too lazy and incredibly hungry.

So we headed to Fox Studios after dinner. The support band was Midnight Juggernauts. Music was alright, but the singing was kinda weird. The keyboardist made attempts to dance while playing the keyboard, but it looked like he was humping it instead.

Bloc Party was absolutely great. Great lighting, sound and interaction with the crowd. The drummer took off his shirt and was pretty much playing shirtless throughout the show. He didn't really have a good body though, some fluff on his chest and had lanky arms. Oh well, he's the Bloc Party drummer after all so I guess he could pull it off.

Here are some photos:

retreat photos

2007-07-30T22:38:00.000+10:00

Back from the beautiful Terrigal, Central Coast. We lived in a very nice house just next to the beach. Pretty amazing if you ask me. Only $50 for the weekend.

View from the top of the street we were staying

Photos from my morning run with Peter

People who were unfortunate to not have a bed

Some scenic shots I took during sunset

Traffic Light

Peter and I relaxing

The Crew

"Thriller" - inmate style

2007-07-27T17:53:00.000+10:00

Haha, couldn't pass the chance to post this after Rudy linked it to me. The chick dude puts the icing on the cake.

Alright, I gotta go pack!

retreat...!

2007-07-27T17:27:00.000+10:00

Going away for the weekend for my church's youth leaders retreat to Terrigal. Should be good.

Been an unproductive week. ::sighs::

Later!

JavaScript Inheritance

2007-07-25T16:42:00.000+10:00

Found some really useful tutorials on how to use inheritance in JavaScript. This is pretty new to me as I haven't learnt JavaScript formally but through the Internet. <3 Internet

Anyways, I'm working on an automated HTML generator using JavaScript since I don't have access to server side stuff. Gosh it gets complicated doing it all on client side!

http://www.cs.rit.edu/~atk/JavaScript/manuals/jsobj/

http://www.webreference.com/js/column79/index.html

Project Playlist

2007-07-24T22:57:00.000+10:00

Newly added embedded music player at the bottom of the blog. Yeap, that's where the music's coming from. Decided not to put it at the top as it took too much space and I don't think there's a way to resize it.

Anyways, let me know if you have a playlist request and perhaps I'll write a JavaScript feature to select different playlists to play music from.

::sigh::

WoW maintenance :(

Battle

2007-07-22T14:32:00.000+10:00

There's a battle within myself,
Lord help me to lose,
Through my loss, I will find myself,
I'd rather this than to lose you.

Am I just blind, am I a fool?
Why can't I see it and not perceive it?
Lord help me to understand,
Why your ways are so true.

So take this world from me,
The Christ it's you I seek,
Let me not forget,
The times you were there for me.

So there's this battle within myself,
This time I think I'll win,
Oh Lord, lead me to the battle,
Victorious I'll be.

So take this world from me,
The Christ it's you I seek,
May your name be glorified,
So others will see,
So others will see.

flip text

2007-07-04T20:48:00.000+10:00

Some cool javascript I found on the web. Flips whatever text you give it upside-down and reversed!

Source code can be found here.

burn the muffin top!

2007-07-04T02:48:00.000+10:00

I've been reading a lot of articles on men's health trying to figure out how do you loose 'muffin tops'. You know, the love handles or the beer gut. Whatever you want to call it.

You heard me right. I have a slight muffin top. My sister pokes it. Been going to the gym since the start of the year so I've been sorta sticking to my new year's resolution. But I don't want to call it that in case I jinx it. The reason why I want to get rid of it is because I've been doing abdominal workouts and I can see the top four pack forming, but the lower two are buried within the moat of prosperity. It'd be nice to see the fruits of my labour.

Every time I go to the gym, I just want to do weights and not cardio. Why don't I want to do cardio or am reluctant?

Boring. I don't have a tv in front of me or a mp3 player. Doing cardio while watching time incrementally is sheer boredom.
Running 30 minutes on a treadmill and burning a minute worth of calories doesn't appeal to me when I can spend 30 minutes on weights and see an immediate effective result.
Doing an effective cardio workout takes time. I don't have a lot of time.

I don't mind swimming but weather's getting cold so I guess that rules it out. Well the plan is to go running during my off gym days with my house mate. At least there's someone for company and to keep me motivated. Apparently there's a park nearby with workout bars which is cool because I can incorporate strength and cardio workouts with those.

According to a lot of men's health articles on loosing weight, a lot of it has to do with diet. Apparently you need a well balanced diet and have about 5 meals smaller meals a day to increase your metabolic rate. The problem is I don't have time to prepare 5 well balanced meals a day. I'm a uni student living out of home. If I'm hungry and I need a quick fix, I pop in a couple of indo mee's. Also I love food too much to sacrifice it for the sake of my abs. I do enjoy eating very much.

Over the past months, I've cut down significantly on fast food. Haven't touched fast food in a while now. I've also cut out soft drinks when my dentist told me soft drinks dissolve your teeth (yikes!). Hmm, I suppose those two factors have helped. Perhaps I need to have a massive lunch instead of a massive dinner. But I love dinner so much!

::tear::

:'(

argh!

2007-07-01T22:41:00.000+10:00

Darn Optus networks. Crashed and burned couple of days ago. Had to call 'Mohammed' to figure why I couldn't connect to the internet and after 30 minutes on the phone that I realised it was a problem on their side, not on mine. I was halfway blogging this post as well! Oh btw, 'Mohammed' is just a name I use for Optus' telephone operators. Don't ask why.

So exams are over and I'm partying! Boy Friday's exam was tough even though I spent 5 days studying for it. I'm glad its finally over though. Woo! No more classes forever which means ZERO contact hours! I've finished all my subject components and only my thesis is left which I'll be working on next semester. I'll probably start working on it during my 3 week holiday (little of what I have).

So it has been a very interesting past few days ever since I finished my exams. Spent around 5 hours at my local pub with the engo boys after our exams. Here are some of the results of drinking.

[Disclaimer: I had no part in these, hehe.]

The boys having lunch and beer at the Royal.

Tony falling asleep after too much beer.

Raul taking a leak outside Manning Bar.

Now Raul is an interesting guy I had just met that day. Brought up in Dubai, with Bangadesh ethnicity, he's a 3rd year engineer. I think after having too many beers, I managed to sneakily take a recording of what he confessed. Here is what he confessed:

[Disclaimer: Contains a lot of swearing, inappropriate language, sexual reference but quite funny, hehe. Rated MA15+]

Went to Jian's 21st as well on Friday night. I must say, lots of alcohol there. So that concludes all of what happened on Friday. Come Saturday night was Mark's 21st party. The theme was 1920s. I must say I really dislike and suck at dress up parties. The reason is I don't have things to dress up with. All my clothes are normal. Nothing fancy or outrageous. I managed to borrow Tiff's pinstripe jacket and a bowler hat.

Here are some photos from the party.

More photos can be found here.

So that pretty much concludes my Friday and Saturday night. I watched Transformers on Sunday and I must say I'm very impressed by it. Wasn't expecting much to begin with, but it is a definite must see. "Toe thumbs up!".

I was also bored on Sunday so I decided to YouTube some photoshop tutorials to improve my Photoshop-ing skills. Here's a picture (my housemate Larrie) I photoshoped.

The left picture is the original. Middle I did some healing brushes, made the eyes smaller, made the pupils brighter, and added colour to her face. The right picture I made her lips more red, and wanted to create an "airbrush" effect to the overall picture but didn't work. Needed much more lighting. Anyways, more photoshop-ing to come when I have more time!

bored

2007-06-26T14:37:00.000+10:00

Another three more days till my last exam. I'm so bored and tired from studying. Haven't been out of the house for a while now. Haven't done much really but write notes. I keep having all these ideas I'd like to do with my free time such as making my own website (with my own domain) and writing cool JavaScripts. You know, stuff like that. Or perhaps even play around with Photoshop to improve my graphic skills (or lack thereof).

I'd also like to go to the gym more and get fit. Perhaps get into my guitar again and learn some really cool plucking songs (or write my own). Maybe I'll fly away to a far away destination and laze around the white sandy shores, bathing beneath the brightly lit sun and sipping pina-coladas.

Was thinking of working full-time too during the holidays and earn some extra cash, but slaving away to money doesn't really appeal to me. I'd much rather work in moderate amounts and earn decent money. Besides, tax return is just around the corner. Hopefully the government will be good to me.

There's just so much to do.

Ok, enough of my mini-procrastination. Back to symmetric and asymmetric encryption/decryptions! Woopy-dee-doo!

pull up bar!

2007-06-23T17:19:00.000+10:00

Yet another day where I procrastinate. Wake up at 11.15am thinking I'll get at least 4 hours of study on my security exam (last one) before I head out to my parent's place for dinner.

Went downstairs to the kitchen to grab breakfast and there was Karis & Larry cooking some awesome french toasts (had creme, nutmeg cinnamon, vanilla and other stuff in it). Then got dropped off at Broadway shopping centre because I wanted to buy some push-up bars. $30 at Rebel Sports. Bloody expensive! Couldn't find it elsewhere (tried Kmart and Target). Was thinking of buying a heater but couldn't bring myself to spending $35 for a heater when my computer already warms up my room (small room).

There's just this dissatisfaction I get whenever I go somewhere and I don't buy anything. Its not that I'm a shopping junkie, but when I put effort into going somewhere out of my way to get something, I have to get something. Else it'll seem like a waste of my time going out. Ventured back to Rebel again and spotted a pull-up bar for $35. Seemed more worth it than the push-up bar.

Installing it was a pain in the ass. Driving in screws through the raw wooden door frame really did take its toll on my right hand. Had to wear gloves when doing it. Couldn't get all the screws 100% in. Need an electric drill/screw thingy-ma-jig to do it. So after playing around it with and testing it, its like now 5.33pm and I gotta head out soon.

And thus a day's worth of procrastination.

Pictures courtesy of Rachel M. Gilmour (the house mate).

two down...

2007-06-22T18:03:00.001+10:00

...one to go.

booyah!

nice guy

2007-06-16T16:35:00.000+10:00

I came across these videos when I was youtube-ing (evil website). Three short ten minute clips about "nice guys" aka cuddle bitches aka "You're like a brother to me". Oh, they mentioned "Ladder Theory" as well. Check it.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

off to Malaysia...

2007-06-12T16:27:00.000+10:00

...in another 6 months though. I've booked my ticket already when Jetstar went on a uber cheap ass flight to KL sale ($199 one-way)! Flying on the 25th of November, arriving at 5.55pm at KLIA according to my itinerary.

Looking forward to having my holiday at the end of the year when I graduate. Will be thinking of doing a bit of travelling. China is in my mind (its good to find out where my ancestors came from!). I know some people don't find China that appealing (with all the heavy populated and polluted pictures floating around the media), but with pictures like these I'd be crazy not to visit China!

I got these pictures from Hong Yi's mum's blog (yes, her mum blogs! Amazing huh when compared to my mum who has trouble using sms?)

I want to go to Africa as well, but it depends how much mula I have. Would be mad to go on the Safari's my sister went to. Ain't that cheap though :( I also might want to visit neighbouring south east asian countries such as Thailand, Fiji, Sabah etc. Oh wait, Sabah is part of Malaysia.

Haven't really set a date to go back to Sydney though. Was thinking of taking at least a 3 month break if possible. Depends on what graduate job I get and how late will they let me start. After 5 years in uni, I think I deserve a long break.

Anyways, enough procrastinating now. I've done my laundry, cleaned my room a bit and cooked and eaten lunch. I really should start studying. Ciao for now.

and...i'm done!

2007-06-09T00:18:00.000+10:00

::phew:: Finally all my assessments and assignments are over. It's been a long 6 weeks or so. Feels good to come home and get into bed, not thinking about uni work. Guess I can sleep in tomorrow.

I'm nearly there. Three more exams (in two weeks), and my university classes will officially end for good. Just one more thesis to go then.

Ok, sleep time.

stupid bug

2007-06-04T00:50:00.000+10:00

So I'm home now. Another 7 hours spent in the labs. One stupid bug took 4 hours to figure out. And it was so simple. Argh. Had to stop by Macca's for a pitt stop as all the other shops were closed.

I miss mamak :(

one down...

2007-06-03T00:35:00.000+10:00

Another 12 hours in the lab today. Finally finished the j2ee project worth 30%. We had to create an e-commerce application using j2ee technology and mysql database. I'm pretty happy with the final product considering that we only spent 5 days on it, hacking away at the keyboard.

The graphics can be improved and perhaps the CSS as well, but I didn't have time to perfect it with Photoshop. Would've taken a while fiddling with it since I'm not very good with it.

Anyways, c++ assignment tomorrow. Yippy :S

more good news

2007-06-01T15:58:00.001+10:00

Alright, just a quick update on some more cool news I've been getting.

Firstly, once again I've been granted my scholarship cheque for an academic year which is really amazing! God chooses to bless me even though I don't deserve it :D

Second, I got an email from QBE regarding my graduate application and they will be doing telephone interviews soon. ::phew:: I made it through the initial screening. Hopefully things will go well :)

Thirdly, not so great news but I'll just mention it anyway. Got an email from Accenture regarding another one of my graduate applications stating that my application as a technology consultant was unsuccessful. However, they will be holding onto my file if I'm suited to another role. ::shrugs:: Don't know if that's a kind rejection email or they genuinely mean it. Ah well, see how we go ay?

Oh, another thing that's irrelevant to the topic but I logged onto my email today and found 40+ new emails! Grrr @ Mark, Jacq & Shez. Email chatting! Lucky Gmail whacks it all into one conversation instead of a giant array of quoted texts. Oh yea, Google rejected my graduate application. Bleh!

camping

2007-05-30T15:24:00.001+10:00

Alright, so I've been camping out at the SIT labs for the past week or so doing 10-20 hours worth of coding each day pretty much. Woke up about an hour ago after going home at 6.30am this morning. Spent 20 hours hacking away at J2EE. Assignment was due at 2pm today.

So let me share with you some pretty cool exciting stories that has happened recently:

At 12am, my lecturer sent an email saying we've got an extension till Sunday for the assignment. Schweet.
Our project is actually going pretty well I reckon. Things are coming together. Finally.
On Sunday I applied for a graduate position at Parson Brinckerhoff (engineering consulting firm) and yesterday I got a call from one of their HRs to ask me to attend a group workshop at their office next week. Schweet.

Time for me to get some breakfast now and then shoot off to the SIT labs once again. Think I'll have to start on my c++ assignment tonight.

New USB stick

2007-05-25T00:24:00.000+10:00

So finally my 4gb Sandisk Cruzer usb stick arrived. Turns out that my university computer did actually zap both of my previous usb sticks. Found out the hard way though. Isabelle's usb got fried as well last week. After hearing about my previous experiences with fried usb sticks, I guess she immediately suspected it was a faulty usb port that's causing the damage. My suspicions were right after all when the lab dude confirmed it after inspection.

We both made our complaint to the university asking for a replacement and Isabelle got her 2gb Sandisk Cruzer Titanium while I got a 4gb one - titanium. I guess uni was on a budget with me. It's pretty sweet I must say as it has its own internal drivers and softwares which are pretty handy such as WinRAR, Skype, file encryption, anti-virus, photo viewing and so on. That means I can Skype from uni now which is pretty schweet!

Anyways, off to bed. Work and more assignments tomorrow. I'm starting to get a pimple :(

imma stressed

2007-05-24T23:40:00.000+10:00

I really cannot emphasise enough how stressed I am with the amount of work load on my plate at the moment. There's a 10% assignment due tomorrow, a 30% project due next Wednesday, a presentation for the 30% project due the following Monday, a 7% security project due the next day, a 4% c++ quiz the day after, and finally a 12% c++ assignment due on the Friday (last day of classes). Oh, did I forget to mention also I've got a 12.5% assessment on wargames due before class ends.

Wait, there's more! I've also got a 50% security, 60% e-business, and 70% c++ exam during the exam period.

The 30% J2EE project is stressing me out the most. The entire course has been conducted very poorly and I've learnt hardly anything through the labs especially. Over the past few days I've been camping out in the SIT labs "trying" to learn J2EE through tutorials and various pages which Google spits out at me. Clock is ticking and the sand is running out.

Tick tock, tick tock. Pray for me :)

[edit] - 25/05/07

So I've been awake since 6.50am and its 10.04pm now. Went to work this morning and I've been at uni ever since. Finally managed to hand in my security assignment today. 1 down. Now I'm camping at SIT labs working on my shopping cart. It's been a while since I've done this much reading. I'm pretty hungry now as well and I think the kebab shop around the corner has closed. Haven't had dinner yet.

Ran out of time doing things today. Had a quick lunch with leftover rice, two fried eggs and soy sauce! Also didn't manage to make it to Wei's graduation which kinda sucked. Jess' 21st party is on tonight as well (in fact now). Ah well, hope she doesn't mind. At least I went karaoke-ing with her last week. Anyways, back to work. I'm going to collapse soon.

[/edit]

tired

2007-05-16T21:45:00.000+10:00

So many assignments. Pretty much got one or two assignments due every week till the end of semester. Can't believe I'm so flat out with three subjects only. Its the busiest I've ever been in my whole university history. I guess that's what happens when you do three programming subjects.

Can't wait till this semester is over. Only a thesis remains that stands between me getting a very expensive piece of paper from university. No official contact hours as well next semester. Should be interesting.

Can't wait.

Skype Me!

2007-05-13T00:43:00.000+10:00

So I went out on a electronics splurge today. Woke up at 9.45am after suffering from the cold night. I thought I had frostbite on my toes as I only had my summer blanket on (blanket with holes). Perhaps I should get out my dooner tonight. Weather's getting cold. Anyways, went out with Nath to get a 7-port usb 2.0 hub and a Philips VOIP 321 cordless phone. Cost me $145 all up.

Turns out that I need a telephone line connected to the base component for it to perform as a normal telephone as well. Thought I could call out normally through the usb connection. Guess I was wrong. Too bad that I've only got one working telephone socket at my place and the rest are duds. Hopefully Rach (my house mate) will go into bitch mode and hassle the real estate agent to fix it up.

The reason for the sudden splurge was that I wanted to try out this VoIP technology which I've been hearing so much of. I've also made a Skype account, so add me if you're on Skype as well! If you're a random, most likely I won't authorise you. I've already got 2 random people from China trying to add me on Skype ever since I put on my Skype widget on this blog.

Princess, I didn't know you made VoIP phones? Very impressive.
:)

[edit] - 14/05/07

Oh mad! Figured out how to make outgoing calls with my Skype credits and I don't need a telephone line. Turns out that I just needed to add the numbers I want to call out in my Skype contacts so that my phone can retrieve it.

People have said the sound quality is pretty good and it seems pretty decent to me as well. So far so good.

[/edit]

USB Ass Stinger!

2007-05-10T01:02:00.000+10:00

Argh!!! My recently acquired usb stick died again, along with my important files that I forgot to backup (ie. resumes, cover letters, job application details etc.). The stick was brand new too! This is the second time my ass has been bitten by my stupidity of not backing up every single file. I bought an 320gb external hard drive a couple of weeks ago after my first ill experience. I suspect my university computer labs somehow zap my usb sticks with fluctuating higher than normal voltages as my usb stick felt hot after I plugged it in. My first one also died in my university computer labs. However, that's kind of dumb. Shouldn't usb stick devices have some kind of protection mechanism that stops higher than normal input voltages? Ah well...

Anyways, sorry I haven't been blogging much. I've been so busy with uni assignments/assessments and also recently went to CeBIT Australia 2007 at Darling Harbour since I work for the organisers. Will post pictures and all that another day. Just having my rant because of what happened today. Lucky my flip-flops are still intact.

Greetings from Melbourne...

2007-04-08T17:09:00.000+10:00

Just thought I'd say hi! In Melbourne University's architecture computer labs at the moment, using the internet. Flew down here on Friday night and will be here till Wednesday night. Meeting with princess rain cloud (prc) for these five days and I'm staying at North Balwyn with my mum's friend, Auntie Jun. Turns out her son, Eugene is an avid WoW gamer hehe. Level 70 alliance warrior. Hardcore compared to me.

Anyways, will update this blog with pictures once I get back to Sydney. Having a great time here at the moment with prc. Lots of food and more food! A lot of walking involved as well in Melbourne. So unlike Sydney.

paint ball battle scars

2007-04-02T22:31:00.000+10:00

I'm trying to procrastinate from doing my uni assignment which is due tomorrow. ::sighs:: My usb memory stick died today, along with all my uni files from first year till now. Also my thongs broke few couple of hours ago as well. Sad day :(

Back to school

2007-03-07T09:25:00.000+11:00

My first day of uni today. Total of 3 hours with a lecture at 7-9pm, grrr! Ah well, I've had a long holiday. Most of it was working though. Should be fun :)

EDIT:

Oh no! Got a Chinese lecturer. A "me no speak engrish" type. So typical of engineering. ::sighs::

Bed of Manure

2007-03-04T00:02:00.000+11:00

Whenever I walk out of my house, this is pretty much what greets me. A bed of manure. Seems like they've dug out all the plants and replaced them with manure. Hopefully they'll plant some nice flowers soon to replace the eye sore. I pity Larrie. Her room is downstairs and I guess the odour from outside must permeate her room. Ah well, at least its not my room :P

Optus to Voda

2007-03-03T17:55:00.000+11:00

I've changed my phone network now from Optus to Vodafone for 'special' reasons ;) So all you voda users out there, don't be tight and give me a call soon :P

Finally, princess arrives...

2007-03-01T23:03:00.000+11:00

The long awaited day has finally arrived since I parted with Hong Yi on the 10th of December 2006. After endless hours on the phone, connecting to the distant and somewhat foreign land of Sabah where the trees reign and the reception is poor, it seems surreal that she is actually sitting beside me. I must say it has been an interesting past 3 months as I wasn't really used to the long distance thing, but it was well worth it.

Beep beep. Damn. Alarm clock, 6am. Oh wait, I have to pick up princess from the airport at 7am. Shower. Get dressed. Make sure I look good, hehe. Drive to the airport. Stuck in traffic. Panic. Arrive at the international terminal at 7.10am. Check board for flight number. Brunei airlines arrives at 7.25am. Relief. Look left, look right, look forward. Repeat.

8.10am. So as I was waiting, there comes princess strutting out in style, carefully poised as she pushes her trolley full of luggage. Stumble. Oops! Hehe, I saw that! Quickly she recovered and continued her elegant walk towards the assembly area. I stealthily stood next to her as she continued to circle her head, in search of someone. Seconds later, she found that someone and I extended my arms, inviting her to feel each other's heartbeat. Damn guitar. I was expecting a soft surface for my arms to wrap around, but I guess her shoulder guitar bag got in the way. Oh well, can't complain.

The first moment I saw her was bliss. Seeing her digitally on my 22" computer monitor is incomparable to seeing her in real life. The way she smiles, the way she laughs and the way she that is. I guess my monitor doesn't do that. Funny though how I picked out a bar code sticker stuck to her hair while we were walking to my car. Wonder what price she registers.

Its a real shame that I have to continue working for my summer vacation work experience for the next few days which means I won't get to spend time with her during the day time. Grrr! Ah well, at least she's keeping herself busy with her cousins and her Sydney friends. Its amazing how many accommodation offers she received while she was here.

Day One: I was planning to bring her to a restaurant in Bondi for dinner but auntie Elaine snapped her before me! Unfortunate too that I finished work late because I went to work late that morning, hehe. After munching down my meat pie, corncobs and potatoes, I hurried to Maroubra to pick her up and take her out to cockle bay wharf. Funny how auntie Elaine offered her house for us to hang out. Politely I declined and dashed out the door. Well, not exactly dashed but I thought of it. I wanted some a-lone time, hehe.

Whilst driving around Chinatown looking for a park, we drove down I think it was Goulbourn street (where Golden Century is) where we saw lots of flashing lights, policemen and camera men. Somewhere among the sea of on lookers, we saw a glimpse of two bloodied bodies lying on the floor. OH MY GOSH! What a way to start the first night. Grrr!!! Quickly I conjured up a memory erase spell and cast it on Hong Yi. Well in my mind anyway. Finally decided to park at Wilsons parking and head over the bridge to cockle bay wharf where we enjoyed drinks and ice cream at the Blackbird café. After that, we walked around the darling harbour before finding a spot to sit and talk, with the colours of the city light reflecting off the soft ripples of the water.

Day Two: Beep beep. 7.30am. Work. Gay! Fast forward. Drove to Ant's place around 7pm as she's been hanging out with him during the day. She had the sleepy look on her face. Kind off hot, hehe. Drove to Artamon, to 'Sexy Steak' otherwise known as Yakiniku for some Japanese. Met up with Jacqui, Shez and Mark. Vicki, Carina (my sis), Noelle and David was there as well. We had raw salmon and kingfish, as well as karaage chicken. Also had these barbeque things which I have no idea what they're called. Perhaps Shez will be able to fill you in as she's the one who ordered. Jacqui introduced me to the 'rain dance' as well. Haha, no not the weather nor the Korean performer. Symbolic meaning :) Anyway, the food was ABSOLUTELY delicious. Hoi-shi!

After eating to our hearts content, we bid farewell and especially to Shez who obviously has had too much to drink although I could've sworn we didn't order any alcoholic drinks. Drove back to Ant's place but Ant hasn't arrived yet as he was dropping off other people. So we decided to walk to the park nearby and hang out. Bzzzzz....smack! Damn mosquitoes. Copped a few bites on my left arm. Hopefully they didn't get to princess before me! Haha, just kidding :P

Day Three: Beep beep. 7.42am. Last day of work. Woohoo! Gay. Fast forward. Go back from work around 6.15pm. Showered. Looked hot. Catch a train to Eastwood for Korean at Mi Rac. Snooze. Wake up. Snooze. Damn train rides are boring. Snooze. Ring ring. Princess calls, allllllright :) Got off the train and asked the station dude where's Rowe Street. Apparently it runs on both side of the station. Asked him again where's the Korean side. According to him both sides are Korean. Obviously he's wrong. If you didn't know, apparently at Eastwood station there's a Korean side and a Chinese side. Called Wei for directions. Power walked. Hot princess waiting for me by the side of the road. Stealth mode. Our eyes met. Prolonged hug. No guitar bag this time, yesss!

So I arrived an hour later than the appointed time and everyone was still waiting for me. That was pretty cool. Whole bunch of student life who went to MYC was there, as well as other people I'm too lazy to mention now. Getting sleepy typing this :S Had some really nice Korean food which Wei ordered and I have no idea what they're called. Spicy as well. Nose dripping-licious!

After dinner we headed back to Wei's place for some ice cream where we all hung out for a bit before Wei booted everyone else out as she had to work the next morning. However, Hong Yi and I were allowed to crashed over and this time Wei wasn't the third wheel by herself. Jane (her housemate) was there as well! We chatted for a bit and went through some photos on Wei's computer before it was time for her to hit the sack (life of a working class person). Hong Yi slipped into something more comfy, a oversized t-shirt. I thought I'd never say this, but wow she looks hot in it, haha. There's just something magically about a girl in an oversized t-shirt. I can't explain it. We went to the backyard and laid on the brick laid steps, gazing into starry sky. When asked if I knew about astronomy, I quickly pretended I did and presented some of my bogus theories. I got caught out quickly too, hehe. Smack! Scratch. Damn ants. Headed back into the house and safe on the sofa. That's all you need to know :)

Day Four: Beep beep. 8am. Work. Oh wait, I don't have work. Woohoo! Had to wake up early as Wei had to go to work but she had already left, and Jane had to go to the city. Hong Yi sat on my bed as I was in the process of waking up. Its true that waking up is a process. Had a quick breakfast before we drove to Mellor's place as he was going to drive us all to the city. Went into Mellor's place for a bit as he had some stuff to print out before we hit the road.

Got dropped off at Sydney Uni and I showed her a glimpse of what my university was like. I could tell she liked it, hehe. Gave her the tour and showed her where some of my lectures took place when I was in first and second year. Headed back to my place for a quick shower while she mingled with my house mates, Rach and Tiffo. After that, we drove back to her to auntie's place where we hung out for a bit. Apparently you need an engineering degree to figure out some display settings on a tv which I had the privilege of configuring her auntie's tv as she had problems viewing it in wide screen mode. I felt so useful, hehe. Got to hang out a bit with Chris (Hong Yi's childhood friend, auntie Elaine's son) as well. We then had lunch at a Thai place at Kingsford with Chris and Norman, and then headed back to my place to grab her shoes. The plot thickens.

Speedily we made for the train to circular quay at Redfern station. Phew. Only a 3 minute wait. 3.45pm. Darn, need to be at that place by 4pm. Got off at circular quay. Walked along George Street. Climbed a flight of stairs which led to Campbell Street. Walked up another flight of stairs which led to the undesired destination. Crap. Don't know where I'm going. Called Ji Hao. Walked further down Campbell Street. Under the bridge. Crap, where's this place?!? Dialled some numbers. Walked 20m back to where we were before. Ah, the entrance.

So yeah, the surprise was that I was taking her to the Sydney Harbour bridge climb for her belated 21st birthday present. After all that walking and panicking about whether we'd make it in time, my back t-shirt got a bit wet from sweat. Yuck. She too was sweating. The sweat drops that trickled down her soft cheeks glistened, leaving trails of lustrous patterns across her face. Wow, hot again. I can't explain it, hehe. We proceeded to the change rooms where it was just a spacious area, with curtains that could be pulled across a certain area of the room. We had to strip down to our undergarments to wear the dorky jump suits they provided us, and all of us were encouraged to share change areas wherever possible. Hehe, well we didn't share just to let you know. Don't think it would've been very appropriate :P

We then continued to the equipment area where we were briefed about safety and various devices was attached to our suits. By the way, the climb group was just us two and a company group that was working for an engineering company called Transfield. Our climbed leader teased us a lot such as informing us the engagement statistics on the bridge climb. It was such an exhilarating experience climbing up the harbour bridge with someone special. We had a scenic 360 degree breathtaking view from the bridge. The Queen Elizabeth was also there to greet us. You just have to experience it to understand what I mean. It kind of puts into perspective on how little we are in this very big world. Yet despite how insignificant we might feel about ourselves, we are significant before God's eyes.

As we made a descent on our climb, I managed to have a little chat with one of the company group members. I told them that I was studying engineering and will be looking for a graduate position for next year. One of the them immediately offered to give her business card so that I could apply to their company for a graduate position. Wow, climb the harbour bridge with a hot chick and getting a possible job prospect at the same time. God, you are amazing.

After a 3 and a half hour experience, I am buggered. Remember that we were awake since 8 something in the morning. Hungry and tired, we needed food. Off to pancakes on the rocks for some ribs and pancakes. I got beef ribs while she got the pork ribs, accompanied by our ice lemon tea and apply juice drinks. By the end of it, I was so bloated from ribs and could only manage a couple of ribs from her plate as she couldn't finish it. Then our Hot 'N' Troppo dessert came, which was delicious. Mmmm...what a yummy night.

We strolled along the quay enjoying the night lights, the salty breeze and the gentle crashes of the water. There were a couple of acoustic guitarists basking, playing romantic love tunes. We finally settled down on a bench near the ferry wharf, keeping each other warm and exchanged gazes and words for some time. The night was still young, but our energy levels were not. We then made our way back to my place, then drove to Ant's place to watch some Heroes. She fell asleep. I watched her breathe softly and gently. Beautiful. After a couple of hours, I took her home back to Maroubra. Before we bid goodnight to each other, we rested on each other in a standing position, arms around.

Day Five: Beep beep. 1.30pm. Wow, that's the latest I woke up on a while. Did my laundry and ironing before heading out to Maroubra to help her with her luggage. Chris' parents were there as well as his house mate, Byron. Auntie Elaine offered me some rock melon which was cold, sweet and juicy. Mmmm, nice and refreshing. Byron asked me if I came over just to help her pack. Haha, now that was funny. Chris' parents were there as well. I couldn't really explain to him what my primary purpose was. Felt awkward, hehe. Said that I was taking her out later on as well, hehe. After that, I began to load her luggage into the boot of my car before saying our goodbyes.

Next stop, my parent's place. Upon arrival, I could smell and taste the familiar saltiness in the air again. I introduced her to my mum, Jeff and my brother. She then gave my mum some pineapple tarts and some Sabah tea. The pineapple tarts were quite nice. My mum then started to ask the usual formal questions to find out more about Hong Yi. After a few minutes, it seemed like it was more like an interview as my mum asked questions, and she answered. Hehe, hope Hong Yi wasn't too freaked out. I then gave her the tour of the house and the backyard. As I was in the middle of explaining to her about something, I got lost in thought and words as I just stared at her. Hehe, kind of funny. We then headed to the Signature café at Brighton le Sands for a nice meal, overlooking the Botany bay.

When we got back, I took her for a walk along Dolls Point beach which is like one minute away from my parent's place. It was a bit windy as well that evening, but I guess I became her jacket for her, hehe :) We walked along the shoreline, feeling the cool wind brushing against our face and the thought of her flying back to Melbourne kicked in for me. Oh how I wished I was like Hiro Nakaruma from Heroes where I could stop time. But I'm not in a tv show am I? Hehe. We sat on a bench and gazed into the starry night once again. I've waited two and a half months for this, and now its going to come to an end in two hours. Beep beep. 9pm. Darn, have to take her to the airport now.

Well, terminal 2 seems pretty empty. In fact, no one. Checked her flight itinerary. Terminal 3. Ah. She checked in at around 9.40pm. Gate opens at 10.05pm. I have 25 minutes left with her. Once again we found a bench seat in the airport terminal, reminiscing the times we spent together for the past week. We were locked arm in arm, and I gazed into her eyes many times. Before she disappeared into the tube which leads to the air plane, I gave her a few more hugs and said my goodbyes. She was gone.

A sense of calm and peace came over me as I walked back to my car and I thanked God for giving me this opportunity and time to spend with her. This is definitely not the end, but only a glimpse of the beginning. Hopefully I'll get to see her again in Melbourne, but I need to find a job first, hehe. Pray for me :)

Princess visits Sydney

Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb 07

testing 123...

2007-01-24T11:49:00.000+11:00

Boo! I have to do a test report for the code that I've written at work. Not quite complete yet but most of the main functions should be working fine enough to deploy it as a pretty decent prototype. ::sighs:: Never did like doing test reports at uni. Guess I can't escape it even in the workforce.

:(

Oh happy 21st princess! :)

Because you're worth it.

Rendering table in IE using DOM

2007-01-18T11:40:00.000+11:00

So I thought I'd share with people who would be interested in these sort of things (programming), especially dealing with JavaScript's Document Object Model (DOM). I came across an annoying bug that has bugged me for the past few days which turned out to be quite simple.

First take a look at the following JavaScript:

var container = document.createElement("div");
var table = document.createElement("table");
var tr = document.createElement("tr");
var td = document.createElement("td");
var text = document.createTextNode("This is a test.");
td.appendChild(text);
tr.appendChild(td);
table.appendChild(tr);
container.appendChild(table);
document.body.appendChild(container);

When you go alert(container.innerHTML), you will see that the DOM is created correctly but for some reason it is not showing up. Even by inspecting the DOM using IE7's add-on, IE Developer Toolbar, you will see that the DOM is constructed correctly. When running this on Firefox, the code seems to work the way you want it to. So what the heck is the problem?!?

Well after many hours of googling, I came across an article that helped me solve my problem. Apparently, a tbody element is required within the table tag which is interesting because according to the HTML4 Standard, a tbody isn't required within a table. Adding a couple of lines will fix this rendering problem:

var table = document.createElement("table");
var tbody = document.createElement("tbody"); <--
var container = document.createElement("div");
var tr = document.createElement("tr");
var td = document.createElement("td");
var text = document.createTextNode("This is a test.");
td.appendChild(text);
tr.appendChild(td);
tbody.appendChild(tr); <--
table.appendChild(tbody); <--
container.appendChild(table);
document.body.appendChild(container);

Hopefully you won't spend as much time as me trying to figure out this problem.

22" of Pleasure

2007-01-18T00:53:00.000+11:00

No no, I'm not that well hung believe or not. I finally got my 22" Chimei monitor and it is sweet! Oh man what a delight it is to have a 22" widescreen with dual monitor capabilities. You might think I'm like out of date with technology (which is partially true at the rate it is growing), but I simple am still stoked about having dual monitors! Playing my bloodelf rogue (WoW) on a 22" is simply amazing, accompanied by 5.1 speakers!

Oh, noticed my desktop wallpaper? :)

WoW: Burning Crusade

2007-01-16T23:07:00.000+11:00

Woot! Another 53 minutes till Burning Crusade comes out at Broadway EB Games. Can't wait! I've upgraded my graphics card (thanks to Tow or Tao :S) and getting my 22" Chimei monitor tomorrow! I've quit WoW for some time now. Nearly 8 months to be completely precise. Thought I'd get back into it again since I'm on holidays and I got nothing else better to do besides work, hang out and talk to someone special :)

Hope there's no big queue though. I have go get back to work tomorrow ><. Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm. Can't really complain though that I have a job after watching 'Pursuit of Happyness'. I guess a lot of people out there are desperate to even have a job while I sit here and tell you my sob stories. Hmm, I guess I should really count my blessings and give thanks to God. :)

EDIT:

Got it! Woohoo! 4 cds to install...urgh :S So late and I need to sleep ><

Firefox rox, IE is evil!

2007-01-11T15:42:00.000+11:00

Urgh...I'm so frustrated creating web applications at work that works perfectly fine on Firefox but stuffs up on IE. Darn Microsoft, why you gotta go make things complicated!?!

Anyways, I'm just venting out my frustration here because I don't get why Firefox can get the value from the hidden field, __EVENTARGUMENT while IE can't seem to get it. I mean, they both work fine with __EVENTTARGET but for some retarded reason the other doesn't work. This happens after I call JavaScript's postback method, __doPostBack(eventTarget, eventArgument).

Oh how I wish Microsoft's IE market dominance fall below 1% and Firefox gained 99% of it. Then I don't have to create web applications to cater to IE's lameness! Argh, how I wish.

EDIT:

Well I've managed to fix the bug! Apparently for each postback that occurs on the page, ASP.NET calls the postback function and set's the id of the control that triggered it to __EVENTTARGET. However, I still don't get why __EVENTARGUMENT is not accessible though. Perhaps the value gets overwritten due to postback in IE, and thus would explain why I'm not getting the values I passed to it. Weird though how it works fine in Firefox and not IE. Instead I created my own hiddenfield in the aspx and used that to store my value obtained from JavaScript's prompt box. Viola! Works like a charm.

Merry Christmas and a Happy Boxing Day

2006-12-29T13:45:00.000+11:00

Yes yes yes...I know I've been a slack arse for not updating my blog since I left to Lorne for summer projects but ever since I got back I haven't had the chance to catch my breath yet. After a 9 hour drive back to Sydney from Melbourne (thanks Wei for driving all the 'wei'!), I found myself back in the familiar neighbourhood with the smell of Sydney's 'busyness' in the air. Life wasn't going to be the same as it was for the past 2-3 weeks.

I won't elaborate too much what happened during summer projects as it will take forever to mention everything. Perhaps another post. But I will mention a little bit of my 'personal mission' down to Melbourne which involves a particular gorgeous looking girl whom I met 6 months or so ago in a country town called Albury. Boy oh boy is she gorgeous, or have I mentioned that already? Hehe. Spent an amazing 4 days hanging out with her in total, exploring the sites of Melbourne and tasting the vast amount of foods that Melbourne has got to offer. To the valleys of the Yarra, to the mountains of Dandenong, I was in ecstasy just being with her.

I'm at my parent's place at the moment so I don't have access to my pictures back at home. Will post some pictures when I get the chance to do so. Oh yeah, to some she's known as 'Rachel' and to others she's known as 'Hong Yi'. To me she's known as 'princess'. Haha, yes yes I know. Corny. :: Anime sweat :: But heck, its true :P

Anyway, I must've digressed from the what I was meant to post about (see post title). Christmas seemed a bit empty this year since my siblings are spread across the globe (Malaysia, China and Tanzania). It was good though to have ham and turkey for dinner with lots of booze. Red wines and a newly discovered beverage for myself called 'Little Creature - Pale Ale'. Pretty nice, you should check it out. I got a cool shirt from Vicky, toblerone, and some cash from my parents which I've spent most of it on shopping.

On Boxing Day I had a little barbeque gathering with some mates from church and uni. Also had 2 surprise visitors from Melbourne whose names are Carmen and Sarah. They were hanging out in Sydney for a few days before heading to a place 800km or so west of Brisbane to do missions work. Cool bunch. Hung out with them and Anthony for the past few days watching a movie and shopping. Oh don't forget the endless nights of watching the tv series, Heroes. Awesome tv.

Alrighty then, I guess that's it for now. Tired from typing. Recommence full-time work on Tuesday. Heading to Canberra tomorrow for a science exhibition. Doing something for new years eve. Happy holidays, have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Something to think about: What does Christmas mean to you? Presents? Family gatherings? Santa Clause? He's just a fat-ass dude who I find unimaginable that he can fit through chimney openings. Jesus? :: hint hint ::

Melbourne...Lorne...Here I Come!

2006-11-22T04:58:00.000+11:00

Wish I had more time to do a proper post, but didn't realise packing my bag was so time consuming last night. Its 5am and I'm about to embark on a journey down south, to the distant land called Melbourne. Hehe, not so distant really. Well, kinda is. Anyways, I'm going down to Lorne in a few days time too for summer projects. Managed to raise all the funds and more for it! :D

Keep me in prayer as I drive down. Hopefully no kangaroos decide to hop onto the path of my speedy camry! Vroomm!! Hopefully I will be able to keep you guys updated while I'm down there. Over and out.

21

2006-11-12T23:33:00.000+11:00

So I turn the big 21 today. Wonderful thing about it is that I'm studying for my last exam on Tuesday, Real Time Computing. Ah well, I remember spending my 18th birthday studying for Physics. The fate of having birthdays during exam periods as long as I'm a university student.

So 1 year older, 1 year wiser and 1 more year spent walking with God. Look forward to the adventure up ahead. The big 21 is just another number by the way.

:)

Before and After

2006-11-11T15:28:00.000+11:00

At times like these I try,
To mend it all inside,
By my own I keep falling down aside.

When my worlds collide,
Feel like giving up the fight,
Surrounded by the dark I try to hide.

You are near me now,
You are dear to me,
You are all I need,
You're everything to me.

The scarlet snow turns white,
All the stains are made bright,
So take my hand and show me the way.

The crimson rose nailed tight,
Forgiven, now I know why,
I'll put my cross now, I'm here to stay.

Never leave my side,
Precious one of mine,
I'll give you all of me,
I am yours to keep.

Remind me of the times,
Your gracious plans are made right,
In my life you restore my faith.

When things seemed to have gone wrong,
I'll put my trust in you,
Magnify your faithfulness.

Fill me with your love,
Find myself in you,
And I will follow you,
Jesus Christ my Lord, my Lord.

- Danny

Rest In Peace Ahma

2006-11-07T20:42:00.000+11:00

Last Friday I received news my grandma had passed away. Although I'm sad, I am happy too that the Lord has taken her to a place where pain and suffering is no longer and that she now dwells in the house of the Lord forever. She was 90+ years old and has been unable to walk due to her frail strength. Last time I saw her was last summer where I was in Penang, Malaysia, spending Chinese New Year with my relatives and eating lots of food. The photo above was taken then. It was pitiful to see my grandma unable to walk and restricted to the compounds of her bed. All she did was sleep, wake up to eat and maybe chat a little before going back to sleep again. I can't imagine how boring that must've been, watching time ticking by the second, as the sun and moon take turns beaming up from the heavenly skies.

We, her children and grandchildren, used to spend every Chinese New Year playing "Sah Ki" with her as it was her favorite card game. She was well known for her love of playing cards and take shots of brandy to keep her body warm. Ahma left her legacy with 5 daughters, 4 sons and countless grandchildren. She has lived a wonderful 90+ years of her life and has also gotten to know of her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We will miss you.

"1The LORD is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
2He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
3He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name's sake.
4Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
5You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
6Surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever." - Psalm 23

Inconceivable

2006-11-05T17:49:00.000+11:00

So I've got some bloody great news! Been praying to God for the past two months or so, asking God to provide me a summer vacation engineering job to fulfill my university requirements (12 weeks practical experience) and also to be able to go on summer projects with Student Life during the vacation period. For two months, I didn't get any answer except horrific interviews and rejection letters, and the deadline for support raising is due very soon (10th of November)! Back of my mind, I was so worried that I won't be able to find a job during summer, which would suck because I'd have no money to enjoy the summer holidays and I'd have nothing really productive to do for 3 months+. The down side to getting a job as well is that if I were to find a job, there's a high possibility that I won't be able to go to summer projects due to work, which would suck majorly.

So this dilemma continued until a few days ago where I received an email from an interview I went to couple of days earlier saying, "IES is pleased to be able to offer you a position for student employment during the coming summer vacation period....". H-O-L-Y COW! Usually most companies close their summer applications like in late August/early September. I only found out about this company advertising summer work last week and applied to it on the same week. Couple of days later, I received an email asking to attend an interview. On that interview day, I ended up being late 10 minutes! Grrrrr @ taxi drivers! Walked out of St Leonards station asking a taxi driver to take me to the office, but he told me I was on the wrong side of the road. So I went on the other side but couldn't find a taxi so I decided to start walking along the main road. 10 minutes later, I was running late and had no clue where I was. Called up the office and found out I was walking in the wrong direction! Ahhhhh, bloody hell...late for an interview...again! Hailed another taxi asking him to take me to the office. The taxi driver told me that the other taxi driver must've not wanted to take me to the office because it was close by and he wouldn't have made much money, so probably sent me on the other side of the road. Cut things short, got there late 10 minutes and explained myself. They seemed cool with it and the interview went terrificly! Turns out the chairman of the company has been to Malaysia and likes Malaysian food very much. Part of the interview was talking about Malaysian food and how nice it was, hehe. Hilarious, I know.

So great, I've got the job which I've prayed my ass off for, but there's still one more problem. Summer projects. Will they let me start work later and allow me to go? I was a bit nervous to let them know my plans for summer, not knowing if they'd let me go or not. So I emailed them anyways, letting them know my plans and requesting if it is possible for me to start later. The next morning they replied saying, "We are happy to delay your start date to 11 December as requested." Haha, God is good!

"If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels." - Luke 9:26

So yeah, basically God answered two very important prayers last minute. At times like these, you just laugh to yourself how amazing God is and how good He is.

"1Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. 3And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.'

4"For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, 5yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' "

6And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" " - Luke 18:1-8

With two big prayers answered, there's one big prayer left to be answered. I will need to raise $1300 for my missions trip to Lorne, Victoria and I've only started support raising on Friday since I wasn't able to do so earlier as I wasn't sure of my plans yet. The due date for it is 10th of November, so basically I have 5 days left hehe. However, after what's God done in the past few days, I can't seem to imagine that God wouldn't want me to go to summer projects.

To shed some light on summer projects, summer projects is a missions trip that Student Life (Christian society on campus) organises each year for students to go places to share the gospel to those who want to hear about it. I have been to summer projects last year to Monash University, and it has been one of the best experiences in my life. This year we'll be going down to Lorne, Victoria to talk to local Aussie beach goers and also to people celebrating their schoolies there. This project goes for two weeks, 25th of November till 10th of December. Therefore, I'm looking for financial and prayer partners who are willing to be in partnership with me in this ministry. If you would like to be in partnership with me in this ministry, please email me at dannynsl@gmail.com

Below are the details of Campus Crusade for Christ Australia's (CCCA) if you would like to support me. Just use 'Danny Ng' as the description.

Account Name: CCCA
BSB: 064433
Account Number: 10577799

"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" " - Romans 10:14-15

Student Life Annual Dinner 06

2006-10-30T22:37:00.000+11:00

Finally the Student Life's annual dinner is here and everyone gets to meet up for one of the last few times before the year ends. It was a semi-formal theme so all the ladies brought out their well preserved lustrous dresses, sparkled and made themselves look glamorous overall while the guys wore their neatly pressed shirts accompanied with equally neatly pressed pants and perhaps applied some hair products, followed by a clean shaven face. Bit boring on the guy's side.

Of course this event wouldn't be called a dinner without food. I decided to invade the kitchen with some quick artistic food photography before getting kicked out by Ken because it was busy and congested.

Mmm...your mouth watering yet?

Yeah, you better wipe that drool off your face before it trickles down onto your keyboard hehe. The night was pretty much chatting to everyone and catching up with each other, talking about each other's summer plans and how much study they've done (or not done). As they say, "Its too late to start studying once the Jacaranda tree has bloomed". There was also a period where people shared in front of everyone what they've seen God done with Student Life this year or how their lives have been influenced by their involvement with Student Life.

There was also a 'graduation' of Student Lifers who have served in this ministry on campus and have come to end of their degrees where they will be pursuing their careers outside of university. Some of them are international students where they're here on exchange and will be going back to their home countries.

During the period where people went up to share with everyone about the year, a girl in a top dress with jeans and boots decided to go up. She called and motioned for a few girls to come up and join her while her voice broke down in a teary voice. She gave her testimony on how she got to know about Student Life during o-week, thinking that this society was all about university partying life and that she'd be able to get drunk and party with the people in Student Life. However, to her dismay, she found out that it was a Christian society on campus that envisions for every student on campus to be connected with someone who truly follows Jesus Christ. The few girls who went up with her maintained contact with her throughout the year and did a Christianity Explained (CE) course with her. Although there was no immediate response that she wanted to follow Jesus, the girls continued to befriend her and show her love. She shared this with us all with her teary voice and said how she was so amazed to see a bunch of students and missionaries loving each other and loving God as a family and that she wanted to be a part of the family. That night, Mel (I think that's her name) decided to join the family of Christ and wanted to be a Christian.

"A new command I give to you: Love one another. As I have loved you,
so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples,
if you love one another." - John 13:34-35

Wow, what an amazing night that was! Definitely no one expected for someone to make that decision on a night like that. Boy am I reminded on how God is limitless. As the night approached the end, we all gathered and mingled with one another, taking photos and sipping coffee and tea.

Tom, Daisuke (Japanese on holidays) and myself.

Myself and Joshua (missionary on campus going back to the States to study post grad law).

Andrew (another missionary on campus) and myself (just posing I guess, haha).

Daisuke, myself and Jun (another Japanese student).

Myself, Jun, Andy and Jian.

Some of the guys doing a FHM (For Her Magazine) shot. Yes, we are posers haha.

The girls of Student Life.

The guys of Student Life.

The guys doing a "Moose" pose. If you don't get, don't worry...Beyond Melbourne 05 inside joke.

$200 Mystery

2006-10-19T23:39:00.000+10:00

Yeah I know its been a long time since I've made a post but I've been so bloody busy with uni work its not funny. Many happy and unhappy events have occurred in the past couple of months which I'd love to blog but unfortunately time is constantly against me nowadays. However, I really do need to share with you all about what happened to me today which is pretty exciting.

I received a post parcel pickup docket a few days ago, informing me to go to my nearest post office to pickup a parcel because I was not at home when the delivery was made. So made my way to the nearest post office today after class to find out why on earth am I receiving a parcel? I wasn't expecting any delivery since I didn't buy anything off eBay or anywhere else. I exchanged my docket for my delivery item with the post office man, and turns out that it wasn't a parcel after all. There on the counter lies a red and white registered post envelope addressed to my name. Confused as I was, I opened the envelope to find two items with my name on it.

First item was a check for $200. What the heck!?! I certainly wasn't expecting that. Thought it'd be a bill. Seems like bills are all I get in my mail. Second item was a hand written letter.

It appears some anonymous couple in Queensland found out about my recent financial situation and decided to bless me with a $200 check. Holy moly!!! How'd they know about this? I won't go through the details of the letter as I've included them in the images above. But man, this totally stunned me as I've always thought things like these only happen to other people when they give their testimony's of God's grace in their lives and not myself. I guess this is another testimony I can add to God's graciousness in my life and how I am constantly reminded of Matthew 6:25-34.

You Are

2006-10-14T13:21:00.000+10:00

When the grass withers and the flowers fall,
And the wind blows and the whirlwind sweeps away,
My glory's all gone, gone with your breath,
You are the one I fear.

Surely I am like a drop in a bucket,
Nothing more than dust on scales,
Lift up my eyes, who made the skies?
You are the one I revere.

Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told?
You sit above all, above the earth and all enthroned,
To whom shall I compare to you?
You are my only hope.

When I'm tired and weak and out of breath,
It is you that I shall find new strength,
And I will soar, high like the eagles,
You are the one I trust.

You are the everlasting one,
The creator of all the earth,
Incomparable strength and with great power,
And I will soar with you.

-Danny

Post-Exam Euphoria

2006-09-22T11:49:00.000+10:00

Man, its been more than 1 month since my last post. This is due to major difficulties that happened to drop into my life for the past 4 weeks and having no internet at home during that period as well. Anyways, I'll update more about that once I get internet on Tuesday! (yeah! :D)

Although my exam was only worth 10%, I managed to grab hold of last year's midterm exam and studied it carefully an hour before the exam. And guess what? It was exactly the same one! Hurrah! Guess I killed this one! :D

My new apartment

2006-08-15T01:21:00.000+10:00

I've recently moved out to my new place in Redfern. Tony calls our place the 'Playa Pad'. This is the view of the ever busy Cleveland street outside my room window.

My recently furnished room. As you can see, there isn't a lot of head room from my bed to the ceiling. Can't sit down on my bed with my back straight without hitting the wall. The first night I slept there, I woke up smacking my head on the ceiling. I've gotten accustomed to it now after 3 weeks.

The upper level bathroom is just ridiculously massive. I think I only use half of the space. Could probably have a dance party going on in the bathrooms.

Now going downstairs. Our entrance where a fooze table greets its guests, inviting them to a game of football with the twisting and flicking of wrists.

The living area and to the right (chopped off) is our kitchen area with another bathroom.

Lastly I'll finish off with our beloved bar fridge and our liquor shelf. Try to spot Mr. Daniels!

$7000 prayer

2006-08-15T01:05:00.000+10:00

So I went back to my parent's place to have dinner with the family for my brother's farewell as he's going to China for 6 months. Saw an envelope addressed to 'Danny Ng', with red, blue and white borders. Opened it and out came two sheets of paper. First one informed me that my scholarship application for the academic year 2005 had been granted. Second one was a check for US$7000.

Sweet! Another prayer answered. Thank you God. :)

23 years and two crabs later...

2006-08-15T00:11:00.000+10:00

Seems like all I do these days is attend birthday parties. There appears to be seasons where trains of birthdays come steaming through, pulling along with it empty carriages waiting to be filled up by presents. My wallet never seemed emptier these days. Parents stop mating at the same time please! Well last Tuesday was Tony's (my housemate) 23rd birthday and he decided to celebrate quietly by shouting us dinner at Harry's Chilli Crab (Singaporean place) with the household and his woman. As you can see from the picture above, Tony has recently acquired the love for the taste of Tiger beer. "Smooooooth..." he says.

That's Lian Shi (my other housemate), Tony and myself.

The household and Anna (left).

Thought we'd do some poses with the crabs before we devoured them completely beyond recognition. Pretty massive crabs if you ask me.

After a massive dinner with chilli crab, black pepper crab, sambal chicken, pipi's and fried rice, we headed back home to have some black forest cake which is Tony's favourite. Pretty funny how Lian Shi managed to get him the cake and Anna somehow couldn't get a blackforest cake as it was sold out where she bought it.

Before going out to Tony's dinner, was playing soccer for 1.5 hours and then went to uni pub for some drinks with friends. This week seems like a week full of alcomohol. Went whiskey tasting the next day.

Jameson, Jameson 12 years, Glenlivet 12 years, Chivas Regal 12 years, Wild Turkey and Wild Turkey Rare Breed. After whiskey tasting, ended up in a pub with friends at Capitol Square for the next 3.5 hours. $5 pints for James Squire Golden ale! I really should give my kidney a rest the next couple of weeks.

In Your Name

2006-08-12T14:07:00.000+10:00

It was that time,
When I went mine mine mine,
Unsatisfied,
without you in my whole life,

Now looking back,
At all the silly things that I regret,
Now you're with me,
Show me the way, let your will be done,

It's your love that satisfies,
No other, that makes me smile,
Compel us, with the love of Christ,
In your name, in your name, in your name.

I stand here before you,
Obedience is your delight,
In your name I will,
Tell everyone what you've done in my life.

-Danny

Bavarian Birthday

2006-08-03T23:42:00.000+10:00

Went to the Bavarian Cafè on York street last Saturday to celebrate Darran's 21st. As I walked in to the rather posh tavern, I soon realised they served German beer! Straight away I headed for my 500mL glass of German draught. I had no idea what they were called as I could hardly even pronounce their beer selections. Was also great to see the RF (Radio Frequency) crew that survived Godfrey Lucas again last semester! Oh what grand memories I have of our so called 3 hour labs which we ended up spending 6 hours or so every Thursday. Most of the time it was filled with mischief and socialising rather than doing work while Lauren did all the work, making sure all the lab results were attained accurately and doing her research into the theory. Thanks a bunch Lauren, you pulled us through!

Was also great to see Lauren's sister, Rachael, all the way from California. Over the last semester, Lauren had been updating Richie and myself on how hot her sister was and that all of her friends say to her, "So what's up with your sister, Lauren?". Was kind of hilarious meeting Rachael for the first time, as it seems that I've known her for a long time already through Lauren's stories.

Hours passed as we recalled funny stories from last semester and caught up with each other over what we all did during our holidays. The German draught tasted divine each time I held it up 45 degrees over my mouth. I think Darran would've been close to being pretty drunk by now.

As the night beckoned and the Bavarian closing up, we headed to Oxford street to shake our bon-bons. As we were driving there, there was a drunk girl in a blue dress with her right boobs hanging out, crossing the road with the aid of her friends. I guess her friends were also too drunk to notice her mishap. Funny how Lauren's analytical eye spotted it first and was more excited than anyone else when she gestured to us what had happened. She even insisted that I take a picture! I didn't though. The dance floor wasn't too great where we were at. Darran just kept on drinking and we managed to meet up with Isabelle and Andrew. Too bad Andrew was driving, else he would've had a scotch and coke in his hands.

Lauren, Rachael, Richie and myself decided to leave the scene and venture elsewhere to find a nice place to boogie. Since we were in Oxford street, we were right in the heart of Sodom & Gomorrah. Richie and myself avoided gay bars/clubs, although the flamboyant venues seemed pumping with long queues. If we did end up in one, Lauren and Rachael would've had to "cock-block" for us all night long.

We finally ended up in Brooklyn Hotel on George street after deciding on Richie's recommendation. By that time, the German draughts were wearing off and I had to get a couple of bourbons in me to get the grooves going. Music was better there and the floor was packed with perspiration! Went straight to the heart of the floor and started strutting our moves to the beat. You wouldn't think we were nerdy engineers then, hehe. Lauren and Rachael made us Rich and I look good as there were quite a few random guys on the floor trying to dance with them. Couple of hours later, it was nearly 4am and was time to hit the sack.

Had a fantastic Saturday night with engineering mates and wish we could do it again! Next day my entire body was sore and tired. Guess I really need to exercise more. Just thought I'd end this post with a picture which I think why Darran chose the Bavarian Cafè to have his 21st.

MYC 2006

2006-08-01T00:05:00.000+10:00

So its been 3 weeks or so since mid year conference and man have I enjoyed every moment of it. Surrounded by flatlands, sheeps and cows grazing blithely on the green pastures, and the Albury breeze that gently rustles the trees as though greeting whoever that passes it, somehow reminding you what the beauty of nature is really like as though an extinct attribute within the streets of the city district. Being in Albury for a week made you forget about your routine life laden with anxiety and busyness, and spend time with God's artistic creation called 'Mother Nature'.

It was great to see old faces again from last year's conference and to see the familiar surroundings of Lakehume Resort, recalling memories of laughter and joy. The 8 hour bus ride must have given me NBS (Numb Bum Syndrome) but that didn't stop me from heading straight to the tennis courts to have a few hits. Would have been my first hit in 6 months or so.

This year's MYC was full of new faces and definitely was bigger than last year's. Students from Sydney University doubled from 18 to 36 and there were a lot of new Victorian faces as well, or perhaps I've forgotten them from last year. ::shrugs::

Free times were filled with mainly soccer as most people had the world cup fever and wanted to strut out their newly acquired soccer skills. The game of 'Taboo' was also rekindled as fellow Taboo fans gathered to outdo the opposing team in a heated battle of careful word assembling and guess work. As the battle got more intense, more cries of excitement could be heard followed by the blessings of holy water (ie. saliva) by Rachel upon me. I guess no one told me to wear weather protective gear during the game. Hehe, was kind of funny though :)

Besides playing games, was also cool being able to catch up with friends and have a little chit chat.

Once again John North's talks was very inspiring and uplifting as his talks went straight for my heart like an arrow to a bullseye. Romans 1:14-19 was pretty much what he talked about. Things I learnt from his talks:

Obligation - "I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish." vs 14

God has given us the ministry of reconciliation and also are ambassadors of Christ. To experience Christ's love in our lives and not share it with others would be outright selfish. (2 Corinthians 5:14-20)
Eagerness - "That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome." vs 15

To have experienced God in our lives, why wouldn't we be eager to let people know about it and to give them this wonderful opportunity to know God?
Not Ashamed - "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile." vs 16

Imagine if you knew of a shopping sale of 99.9% off everything. Would you be ashamed to let your friends know about it? How about if you knew what type of questions were going to be in your exam because your lecturer told you so? Would you be shy to let people know about it? Well this is God we're talking about here, the one who created everything. We should be excited to present the gospel (good news) to others. Our roles as Christians isn't to convert people but to share the good news. God does the converting (John 16:8). The message of the gospel has the power to change people's heart and it is for everyone.
God's righteousness revealed - "For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."" vs 17

We should live our lives with the righteousness of God through our faith so that the righteousness of God may be revealed to others.
God's wrath revealed - "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them." vs 18-19

Sometimes do you wonder why the lives of people around you are depressing and spiraling downwards? It could be the result of sin as people decide to reject God and as a result, God gave them over to immorality, degrading passions and depraved minds which leads to a corrupt world. All the more reason why people need God and be reconciled to the creator.

People will not change if they are satisfied where they're are. Am I satisfied where I'm at?

-Danny

My Heart Undone

2006-07-26T12:23:00.000+10:00

Hear me now, my praise to You,
Humbly seek, to worship You,
I quiet my soul, I still my voice,
I bow before, my heart undone.

I close my eyes, begin to think,
The sacrifice, for saving me,
Amazing love was, truly free,
Glory to the Lord and King.

I love you, I need you
I want you, I adore you.

-Danny

Pilot

2006-07-25T23:21:00.000+10:00

So its been like 15 months since I created this blog and haven't properly posted what constitutes to be a proper 'blog post'. Why did I create a blog? Heck I don't know. Could be the lack of enthusiasm as I haven't caught on to the wave of blogging or perhaps sheer laziness. Spending hours in front of a cathode ray tube typing aimlessly on whatever popped into mind and narrating my life didn't seem like my cup of tea. I'm not much of a writer anyways. I'm an engineer. I write maths equations, draw graphs and circuit diagrams, program code and perhaps learn a little bit of Greek by using words like rho, pi, theta, sigma, and the list goes on. Here I am now, nearly midnight during first week of 2nd semester of university and I'm bored.

My name is Danny Ng and I am a Chinese born Malaysian. Yes, my surname is really 'Ng'. There are no vowels in it so get used to it. Grew up in the streets of Petaling Jaya (PJ) and Robertson, Brisbane, I lived a very nomadic life spending 12 years in Malaysia and my 9th year in Australia. Went to three different primary schools and four different high schools. Let's just say it was a combination of my nomadic lifestyle and the education system having a hard time adjusting around me. Now I'm attending the University of Sydney and studying a combined degree of Bachelor of Electrical Engineering and Bachelor of Repeated Electrical Engineering. Yes, theoretically I am supposed to graduate this year as it is my fourth, but hopefully the last sentence explains a bit why I'll still be around for a little bit next year. Go figure.

The reason why I've decided to make a proper post is because July 06 has been a very eventful month full of excitement and stress, blood and sweat and above all, God. Wonderful things have happened throughout this month that continue to amaze me how good God is. The month of June has been quite a stressful period of looking for a place to move out to, looking for a new job to sustain me living outside of home and university exams. I prayed to God asking for more faith not to worry (Matt 6:25-34) about my problems because I know God is good and He will take care of me. As I continued to pray to God fervently, slowly He started to answer my prayers. I bumped into an old university friend who I haven't seen for more than a year and he told me that he had a spare room to rent out ready in July. After that, I managed to buy furnitures off ebay at minimum bid prices which was unbelievably cheap.

As I enjoyed seeing my prayers answered, I kept asking God for more faith to not doubt Him. University exams came and the Radio Frequency paper was a bitch. Sure needed lots of prayer for that one. Turns out I found out last week that I managed to pass that paper. Sweet as! So the holidays came and I started paying rent and moving some of my stuff to my new place. Didn't start living there until 3 weeks later as I hadn't found a new job yet. As I spent my first week of holidays job hunting and working my ass off to earn money, God decided to answer my prayer by giving me a new job. Sweet I thought, couldn't get any better than this. Second week of holidays I went down to Albury for six days for a Student Life mid year conference which was totally wicked! I'll talk more about MYC is another post as it is quite lengthy. Third week of holidays, God decided to answer another one of my prayers by giving me an interview with a IT company that one of my friends from church works at. "What the heck!?!", I thought. So I went to the interview and was successful with the HR manager which means I'll be back for a second interview with the managing director.

So yeah, thought I'd share the wonderful things that have happened. Prayers after prayers were answered by God. I still wonder why sometimes I still doubt Him?

-Danny

More than Conquerors

2006-07-13T13:00:00.000+10:00

Call my name, I call Your name,
Let the wind whisper the sound of Your name,
Let me see the beauty of Your heart,
Till this day I know we will never be apart.

Neither death, neither life,
Neither angels, rulers,
Neither things within this life,
I can't escape, Your love surrounds me,
Oh no, we will never be apart.

Awake my heart,
Awake my soul,

Who shall separate us from,
The love from heaven above,
Because of You this I know,
We are more than conquerers.

There's no height, there's no depth,
In all creation, there is nothing that could keep,
You away, me from You,
You're the only one that will pull me through.

-Danny

It's You

2006-04-10T16:16:00.000+10:00

When I wake up,
And see the sun again,
Your love shines down on my face.

In silence,
Lord hear my prayer,
Thanking you for your saving grace.

And all I have I give to you,
Cause all I have is from you,

It's you who gave me life,
It's you who paid the price,
It's you who was glorified,
For the son was crucified,
It's you.

-Danny

Conviction

2006-04-08T23:49:00.000+10:00

I'm sitting here, thinking to myself,
What the future holds.
Questions and thoughts fill up my mind,
How I can be sure?

The body wants to go to the left,
But the mind wants to go to right,
Why I'm being torn.
Separation that once exists, the body that was broken for,
Relationship restored.

God of mine, release me,
From the chains of the world,
Spirit inside, live in me,
Let your truth be told, conviction.

I'm holding all these broken pieces,
Of a puzzle that I'm trying to put together,
There's a missing piece that I can't find,
Wondering if it's you, that I'm looking for.

And I will extend my hands,
To the one who gives it all,
All these broken pieces here,
You made it whole.

-Danny

Because of You

2006-04-08T15:20:00.000+10:00

Every night, I dream of you,
Every night, I think of you,
Every night, I read your words,
Because of you.

I see the stars, they shine so bright,
I see the birds, they're flying high,
I see creation, in a beautiful light,
Because of you.

And when I fall,
I'm falling deeper in love with you,
And when I'm down,
I'm down on my knees, in awe of you,

Cause I want to love you more,
Cause I want to be in awe,
You're the one in life,
The one I've been looking for.

Hear these words, I sing to you,
Tell me now, what should I do,
Let me hear, the sound of your name,
Because of you.

-Danny