Hanging...

You know, occasionally your pc might froze up. what do we normally do? Check taskbar, check running program... still nothing, press hardware reset. Reboot back to PC.. done. But when it happened for 3 - 5 times consistently, u know something's not right.

Seek my fren's help, installed speedfan - a program to monitor various PC component's status such as temperature, fan speed, hdd health, etc. Saw my motherboard's speed hitting 60C! There's even a 'burning' icon beside the temperature. hmmm, let's see.. burning icon shouldn't be a good thing rite?? burn = nah ah! seeing that might be the fan's problem... could be malfunctioning, I decided to shutdown my pc. unplugged all cables, brought it to washing area.

Opened up the casing, use a duster to remove off those dusts. Let's see, I'm ashame to say that I haven't open up the casing and dust off those dirts ever since I bought the casing like... 2 years ago?

One of the sponge behind the grill

LOL, I removed the front panel, remove the grills, saw there's sponge like thing which filters off incoming dusts to prevent them from entering the interior. I knew it would be dirty, but nothing could prepare me for what I'm about to discover, a THICK layer of dust! layer after layer of the grill, each of them as thick as the previous ones.

The back of the front cover

As I clean each of them off, I thought this might be the reason that caused the heat to shoot up to 60C. Think of it like this, the fan sucks outside air into the casing to cool the internal parts and circuits. As dusts are collected from the sponge in the front grill where the air intake was coming, they eventually obstruct airflow and thus things are 'heating up' inside there.

Dusts removed from front grill... a word to describe -> YUCK

It's like a party!... After I cleaned those sponge, I found that it's hard to stick them back into the grill as the grill has some part which kinda holds it in place via its curved bended edge. I found it very hard to stuff the edges of the sponge into those curve spots and eventually decided to discard them.

Dusts from internal parts... not that much, but still

This way airflow would be better considering the fact that the holes are bigger but one thing is, more dusts will be sucked inside. Well, I'll just have to be much more hardworking from now onwards, I should unplug and clean it every 2 or 3 months from now onwards. Hahaha...

Now a quick check, temperature drops to 41C - 43C! It really makes a difference! hahaha, I might need to change the CPU fan also, to keep it cooler...

So, when was the last time you cleaned your CPU casing? ; ) I think I'm not the only lazy one here.

Subway

Went to have lunch at Subway - EGate today with my friend. Long have I tasted their sandwiches. I kinda like their restaurant's design, something like American style with the bricks and the lighting... : )

Not sure if you guys tasted it before or not, Subway is famous for their healthy sandwiches. Although I'm not a frequent patron, I did visit the place like 3 - 4 times. All the time I ordered 6 inches bread size and almost every time also not that filling to me. Today I got myself the foot long size for the first time! hahaha, ordered terriyaki chicken and Parmesan (if not mistaken) bread and have it microwaved for that extra crunchiness bite. Stuffed every single vege they have their and bathed it with chili sauce, mayonnaise and BBQ sauce!

yummy!

Have orange juice to go with it as well! Although much more expansive than other fast food on the market, they are a tad more tasty and healthier should I say? : ) So, is healthier food your thing?

Old is gold

I dunno why but somehow when I was surfing the net... suddenly I thought about the 80's cartoon and those toys that I had when I was a kid.

Curious to see if anyone post any video of it..I went to Youtube check them out. Surprisingly, someone actually did and there's tonnes of them lying around too! Talk about retro.. haha.
One of my favorite was M.A.S.K. Not sure if you guys watched it before, it was aired on tv last time, which involves a group of peace loving organization (sounds so familiar) who fights crime with their special ability imbued helmet hence 'M.A.S.K.' (looks like scuba diving gear) which some I remember shoots fire and others ice perhaps. But the highlight of the series comes from the transformable vehicles these guys drive.

The good guy's leader drove a red sporty car which transformed into a airplane (or so) by opening its side doors (just like some sports car). My friend once commented that its funny that a car can fly by opening its door... LOL, well we as a kid simply didn't thought much about logic and just enjoy the show. As I browse through a compilation of toys posted in youtube it's surprisingly that I recall a number of these toys and little to I realized... I do have 7 - 8 of them! Wow, I always thought that I only have like 4 - 5 of them when I was a kid.. I was wrong then... I remember my dad bought the largest M.A.S.K. toy for me which was the Goliath. A sports car transporter which transformed into a missile launcher tower and the sports car itself transformed into a small jet. Cool!

Another one of my all time favourite is the SwitchBlade. Bad guy's leader's vehicle. Transformed from a chopper to a fighter jet. It still looks cool up till these days.

Another cartoon that I wanted to share is Starcom. Still, I'm not too sure if anyone watched it b4 or not. It involves 2 faction battling each other for a cause that I dun really care right now... lol. The thing is, they have these fighter jets which can transform by a flip of the 'Power Deploy' button. It didnt really transformed into another vehicle in most cases but they flip open a lot of latches, parts, wings and hidden weapons. The idea is pretty much like those pencil case you have when you were a kid which has these compartments that open up revealing extra slots for your pens, eraser, ruler, pencil sharpener, etc. It's really cool, and the best thing bout it -> no batteries were needed as they kinda use a spring mechanism to spring those parts. How do I know?

A small sample of the toy in action

I once had a malfunctioned toy and out of curiousity, I opened it up hoping to fix it and saw the internal working parts of the toy. Sorry to say I didn't managed to fix it in the end but my good ol' mum bought me another one of it. Haha...

And if anyone cares... check out the product promo in the 1988

Another good part bout starcom toys is that the pilot figure that comes with the toy features magnetic shoes that able to attach to some magnet mounted on the vehicle as well. I remember sticking the jet and pilot on the surface of my fridge! hahahahahhaa

Judging from these 2 types of cartoon you can see that I'm a big fan for those transformable things. Transformers being the top of my favorite series and its good to say that its still up and running till these days. They just don't make these types of toys anymore. Kids nowadays are more keen to play PC or video games, but the toys industry isn't dying just yet with strong sales from the recently hit movie Transformers.

I'm happy to say that I once experience the 'transition state' before. Meaning, the era before video games was so mainstream and toys were much more popular. Some of the older generation people might not fully grasp the PC and video gaming today whereas the kids these days might not play much of those traditional toys but favor more digital entertainment for their pleasure. I for one embraced both of them but growing apart as I'm getting older... : ) What about you guys? What's your story...?

Visible trash and hidden treasures

I've finally decided its time to change the arrangement and decoration of my room as I have plenty of free time a few more days ahead.

I started out by measuring my room's size, my bed and my cabinet which were one of those bigger objects inside the room. After the measurements were in, kinda sketched the new arrangement and made checking to see if its possible. Next, as I have a lot of 'excessive' things lying around (magazines, boxes, models, books just to name a few of them) I decided that in order for me to move things around... some have to go.

I decided to move some of the things into a cabinet which was under utilized as there were a lot of boxes and er..well, other stuff inside and the cabinet was not used in its full 'potential'. It has 6 section each with removable metal pins to support the wooden planks. It was 4 previously as 2 of the planks were stacked on top of one another so that the bottom part is larger than the rest for me to push those unwanted or lazy to organize things out of sight for as long as I could. heh heh... I shift them and re-stack the planks so it went back to 6 sections and although smaller it could contain more items and appeared to be much more organized than previously.

The star of the day, when the going gets though, Wonder Cloth saves the day!

Ironically, as I was taking out the old stuff I found a kind of 'cloth'. The package suggested that it can be used as a multipurpose cleaning cloth in the house. Well, good that's what I needed (it's made in England too, u dun see a lot of 'made in England' cloth lying around the house). I decided to test it and boy, after using it to wipe off dusts and stain for close to 5 hours.. it's pretty tough and when I went to clean it regularly between wipes I'm surprise to say that the dusts and stains came off pretty easily compared to those cheap cloths that I used previously... I shall now call it... da 'Wonder Cloth~'. hahahahaha...

My collection... cost me a bomb too!

Next up, arranged a lot of my models which were displayed outside on my tv cabinet and some my PC table as there weren't any more room. Pretty satisfied with the outcome.

You know the good thing to give your room a scrub or two every now and then is that it's free from those dusts that might be hazardous in the long run if we were to breath most of them in. It's a good exercise too mind u. And as the title of this post suggest, I do find a lot of unwanted things lying around and threw them away in a jiffy. I sneezed a lot during the 5 hours cleaning... man.. those dusts.... uugh..

The Lord of the Rings - Trading Card Game... found some of them and decided to keep them as their quantity were lesser than Magic the Gathering and has prettier art! love the game!

One particular thing that got me think twice before handing it to the bin was the trading card - Magic the gathering. Not sure if you guys heard it b4 or not, spent quite a fortune on this hobby last time... I think a few thousand to be exact. It's sooo addictive like I'm on crack or something, luckily I got off the habit of buying and playing as the bag containing all our binders and cards were stolen from my friend's car as a thief broke in some years ago. It sure rid us of the hobby for good! hahahaha... talking about going pro Bloon! hahahahahha... we're all settled by that thief.. well actually kinda owe it to him/ her too.

The unwanted trash (kinda like throwing away $$$...)

Well, as for hidden treasures... I dunno bout u guys but everytime I do spring cleaning I do encounter some hidden things that brings back a lot of memories (e.g. Photos, toys, CDs) that sometimes tucked away in places we forgotten where we put them in the first place.

Well, A few more cleaning and I'm all set for re-arrangement and 'renovation' of my room! The theme of this time is 'Simplicity'.

P/S: 1 thing's for sure though, this was not the first major spring cleaning I've done for my room... everytime a lot of thing goes into the trash but I'm happy to say up till the next cleaning event things didn't get more.. I didn't throw away stuff just to get more stuff to fill in the room.

Optimus Prime saying Good Night! sleeps with my National Geographic magazines...

Check back for more updates!

Farewell for YP and Reunion with Latté

Alright, it seems that I have been having nice food lately ... always go to fancy restaurant for the past few days... as a result... -> ~($)~ flying away from me, guh... but it was necessary as I dun wanna be the one who rejected them for these special occasion, at least not now.

Anyway, today was the last day at work for our colleague and fren - YP, I dun really get to know her more cos she's in charge of another project and we hardly ever deal with each other b4, just occasionally have some light chats.

Went to Nando's restaurant in QB mall for the lunch treat, heard that it's her favourite.. well, it's mine too~ no objections at all! I ordered the usual stuff, half chicken with 2 sidelines and bottomless coke. As always, our professional photographer is snapping away at us with a lot funny poses while waiting for the meal with our star of the day. I took the chance to snap some of the stuff in the restaurant too, it has gotten the attention of my colleague that lately I have been taking snap shots of the stuff whenever we go out to these events, well I didn't explain much... :)

Taking a shot of our star of the day, YP! and suddenly my leader stole some of the space with his Victory finger sign... guh...

Took advantage to snap this as they were posing for the other better photographer and camera!

When one of the waitress checked with our table one more time to confirm the order, she said "anyone ordered half chicken?" I was looking around the table to make sure if there's anyone who share the serving size as me but... it seemed that I am the only one... and I got the weird attention.. lol.. they made fun of me having eaten a whole chicken as yesterday I also ordered half chicken at Breeks... guh.... what's wrong? I really dun think its a lot, well.. it's enough to keep me full for around RM5 more for 1/4 more chicken...

The half chicken that caused a 'stir'

But yet nobody ordered it, they all stuck to 1/4 size chicken instead... and when the waitress finally served the plate to me... they all went "WAAAAAAAAAHHHH.........." ..... (-_-) my gosh... I looked like a big appetite "alien" who has been starving for chicken like forever... guh..

Another shot at the wall deco, introducing all the goodness explained in..er.. few words and chilis

Hot tea of Nando's. Never seen one b4... looks kinda neat. note: as I was focusing my camera on the teapot... my 'clever' and 'helpful' colleagues quickly pull in all other 'necessary' objects to go with the teapot... I just have to satisfy their 'creativity' by snapping them all in as well. People are quite helpful these days.. LOLs.

Later on, back at the office before the day ends... YP handed over a farewell gift to all of us. It's the ferrero roche chocolates with a little note.
How lovely! Thanks YP and we bid her farewell at the end of the day and all the best!

My auntie called me this afternoon, asked if I could print her some basic rabbit owner's knowledge base and I said alright, I went back... hit the net and downloaded some info and printed them out.

The necessary information

Went over to her place and saw my lovely Latté! (I bought her on impulse buy and realized that I have little to no time to spend with her and no room to let her roam around, she deserved a better attention and caring environment, so I gave her away to my auntie) She's sooo cute and adorable! But didn't see any difference in her size yet... she kinda eats a lot for a thing so small... but never grow an inch... oh well, maybe a few millimeters... couldn't really tell... so I took the chance to snap her...

use a vege to lure her to eat and held it high enough so that she kinda stand on her rear legs and eats them. Oh now cute! Cute isn't it? Keeping a pet requires time and patient and a lot of care and love to be given to it. My auntie told me that her daughter wanted Latté badly so she let her keep it as long as she takes good care of her. She told me this can instill love and care and responsibility into her daughter, think she's about 12years old right now. Its good to hear that, good that she has a nice environment to live in right now. I'll be visiting her every now and then. =)

P/S: Here's another shot! : )

Good girl!

Birthday Dinner for Steven

Today went to Breek's restaurant to have birthday dinner for our friend - Steven. Not exactly my first time there so, I just ordered the usual... half chicken in BBQ sauce with my fav. drink - lemonade.

BBQ half chicken - took me a while to finish... large portion

Lemonade.. not the best but still my fav.

While waiting for the food to be served, a few of us went to nearby gift shop to buy a present for our friend who's last day at work is tomorrow.

I followed, they decided to get a medium size and small size CJ7 doll from the movie CJ7.

All of us signed on the thing's body to leave our signature there for her.

Big and small CJ7 wrapped together ready to be delivered

I browsed around and saw something really nice and I've bought it. Tada, the little koopa from the supermario bro. game. Cute isn't it? He even wears Mario's hat. haha...

After the dinner we chat and one by one they started to give IQ questions for all to guess. 1 particular funny one that Steven gave was...

IQ question: What's the difference in sound does one make when a person jumped off a building from 29th floor and 2nd floor? Guess a few answers first b4 u see the answer... =D

Answer (high light to see) : Jumped off from 29th floor -> "AAAaaaaahHHHHHhh~! Pakk!..." Jumped off from 2nd floor -> "......Pakk! AAAAHHHhhHHHH!!" hope u get what I mean. hehe

Have a nice day ahead!

EARTH Day

April 22nd was our Earth Day. Got to know of this day because company sent out emails asking employees to wear green today for the occasion.

Just 2 post away I've blogged about reject, reduce and reuse plastic bags, well there are many more ways to help out global warming issue and will cover that in the future posts.

Nothing much but let us all lend a hand to this wonderful cause and we can do this not just on Earth Day but make it a habit!

Found some interesting Earth Day facts to check out.

Happy Earth Day! :)

Movie Review - The Forbidden Kingdom

**Spoilers Warning**
Turn back now to avoid any spoilers in Story section (if wanna read it just hight light the text). Proceed to read Overview and Rating section below.

Story (hight light to read): Story about the monkey god having a duel with the Jade Emperor's General and being turned into a stone after he's been tricked to fight without his magical stick weapon which in last minute he cast away to safety.

Seems that the stick is present inside a pawnshop in America safely guarded in generations by a family. A typical American guy who likes kungfu movies went to pawn shop in Chinatown and saw the stick. Boy got bullied by bullies who then found out he befriended the shop owner of the pawnshop then being forced to lie and broke into the shop. Somehow bully shot shop owner, American guy grab golden stick and fled for life. Being chased to roof top and suddenly magic stick transformed him into the 'fairy tale' land of monkey god.

Jackie Chan as a drunk beggar

Befriended a kungfu beggar (Jackie Chan) and Sparrow girl (didn't catch her name) then met up with silent monk (Jet L) and sets out quest to save monkey god by bringing the stick to the palace of Jade Emperor's General. Learned how to fight in kungfu style along the way too.

Jet Li as silent monk

Challenged Jade Emperor General and his legion of army, eventually freed monkey god then he defeated the general and thus the guy gets to go back to present where he kicks the bullies' butt and live happily ever after. The End. Nice story? no, to me it sounded and looked cheesy...

Overview: Cheesy story, didn't explain why chinese guys can speak in English, nice kungfu fighting sequences, featured Asia's kungfu superstars.

Rating: 6.5/10

Reduce and Reuse

This morning saw an advertisement on newspaper today, it was addressing the global warming issue that the world is facing. Interesting fact is that hurricanes such as Katrina, Rita and Wilma caused by global warming? No, in fact not a single storm can be attributed solely from global warming. But get this... global warming makes them worse.

So I guess all of us should do something to help out the matter right? I think I myself will begin to play my part in some of the areas. So I'll start by having this thought of keeping the current plastic bags that I have and fold them into tiny form factor to be kept easily. Just carry these plastic bags with you the next time you go shopping or just have some of them around your bags every now and then. You'll never know when u'll actually purchase a thing or two when you go out... unless u have a very strong persistence. ; )

And also, decline plastic bags if possible... for those small items that you purchase e.g. Magazine, a bottle of water, etc. unless they give u bio-degradable bag.
follow this to learn how long it takes to degrade plastic bags.

I'm not sure how many readers know how to fold the plastic bags into smaller form, I kinda forgotten who taught me that but I'm pretty sure it was a guy... So I've decided to compile this mini guide to help ya all out. Behold...

Step 1: Prepare your plastic bag

Step 2: Press it and tidy up those corners. squeeze out air.

Step 3: Fold the handles inward.

Step 4: Take the bottom part, fold it upwards symmetrically.

Step 5: Like so, again press and squeeze out air trapped inside

Step 6: Take the bottom part, fold it upwards symmetrically.

Step 7: Like so...

Step 8: Take the corner and fold it 45 degrees up like so.

Step 9: Here's the folding...

Step 10: Press it down like so. Repeat process up and down towards the other end.

Step 11: Stop when you almost reach the end.

Step 12: Make a 'hole' in the folded triangle part like so.


Step 13: Fold or squeeze(if too short) the remaining part into the hole.
Step 14: Press and secure the folded part to seal it in.

Step 15: Tada! Complete! Give your self a pat on the back.

Good! now that you know how to fold those bags... keep a few of these handy with you wherever you go, remember...
1) Reject bags for small purchase or any purchase able to carry without the bags.
2) Reject bags that are not bio-degradable.
3) Bring and re-use your own plastic bags.

Although not much, but a small effort goes a long way people. Keep it up! give our children a better environment to live in in the future!