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e-mail : ljm16@hotmail.com |
Welcome to Paanjang's website , where a typical SMK Seafield student brings his school to the world through his own means for honor , glory and driven by the urge to be ahead. Currently studying in Adelaide Australia, where catching up with the demands of university life and letting lose through Mechwarrior is a daily affair. Also looking forward to the day he meet the girl he loves. Sunday, 9ft May 2004
I have finished my Heat Transfer Assignment 3 already, with 4 more days to check and fix any errors that might be written before I hand in. One work down, still got 6 more to go. I got the feeling there is more to come since my E&E subject still has 2 more assignments, Structural Design 1 more, Heat Transfer 2 more , Robotics 1 more and finally ELS the written long long report to come or yet to be announce. Haih.. good work is rewarded with more work :P
Yesterday was the annual BBQ for our hostel (I don't think it is annual BBQ since there was one before this and it too was called annual BBQ) . AS with all BBQs , it serves the usual BBQ food of BBQ lamb and chicken and beef sausages. I didn't eat much of the sausages though, because I prefer the lamb. The BBQ was ok, except for the fact that when you BBQ something you might burn the meat and produce a lot of carbon ; talk about carcinogenic food. I avoided the burned part . On the other hand, if the skin isn't burn then the inside isn't cook. I really should give consultation to those guys cooking on how to cook without burning the food they are cooking (I am a Mechanical Engineer , and one of the experiments is the BBQ experiments ) , and later charge a consultation fee for it!!! Ok, I was kidding there.
I think most likely this BBQ is official because before it there was a photo session with all the residents of the hostel. All of us got into position for a group photo with the hostel owner and his family. It will be several days before the photos are develop. By then, every resident in the photo will receive a CD containing the photos taken. High quality digital photographs we will receive I guess. Don't ask me to put the photo here though, as I have a policy (set by me of course) of not uploading any image with my face in it. Think of it as for privacy reasons.
Tomorrow is another hectic week at uni with assignments due. Hmm I hope I can finish the remaining assignments with ease. Then there is the FEA project and Robotics projects that are looming on the horizon.
** looks at choice between girlfriend and completing university work **
No wonder those professionals have little or no time for their spouses. All their time is consumed by work. And I didn't add in newly manufactured battlemechs into the equation! Talking about girlfriend, well, let's say I have given up hope for the time being. It takes far too much resource to maintain and manage both my university life and work and at the same time maintain a relationship with a girl which might drain all the money I am using for survival and plastic crack here... (looks at the word plastic crack).. ok, I don't think I can give up Mechwarrior unless the girl I want is worth the sacrifice.
Then there is the thing called karma. Like what happen last week and the week before, I can have only this amount of good karma points to spend in a week. No way I can have everything good and then have nothing to balance it out. Like in Physics, every reaction have an opposite and similar reaction. Take some lose some.
Like I used to say to myself, anything I want will come in time, just wait patiently and continue living like normal. I just hope that the waiting period is not too long for me to bear (or worse, the waiting period is indefinite) .... Nah, I don't think that the waiting period will be indefinite. The most suitable girl for me will come someday. I thought that there is only one such a girl which has the properties I like most . When both of us lost contact, I thought that I might never meet another one similar to her. Then I came here and there was this girl which almost resembles the girl I liked earlier. There were some differences, but it was ok. Too bad she was hijacked, but if I can meet a girl like my first, most likely I will meet another one. Had trouble deciphering what my mind originally said , so in Mechwarrior terms:
I thought I have no chance whatsoever to contact and acquire a Ryoken after SPM. Ryokens are rare as hell, with little or none at all everywhere I have looked. After I arrive here via a commercial passenger jumpship ,I was surprised to find out that there is Ryoken near where I was staying. The Ryoken has some similarities to the one I originally wanted long before. I decided to find out more about the Ryoken here before I make my move to acquire it. It was during the preview period that the Ryoken was snapped up by someone else. Man was he fast, as the next day the Ryoken was not available anymore. Oh well, if I can find a second Ryoken, most likely I can find a third (and hopefully I may not have to find a fourth and so on) Ryoken in the future. A quote from Mechwarrior 4 Mercs "Each trial made me stronger and directly contributed to the list of my deeds" . Not sure if that was the exact quote though.
I know what you are thinking, nothing in my mind except Mechwarrior , mechwarrior and more mechwarrior. I guess I can proudly proclaim myself a true ,devoted and obsessed Mechwarrior geek hahaha! I don't think it is serious. The Mechwarrior universe is pretty tame compared to other things people are obsessed with , like those teenage girls obsessed with their celebrities (stupid mind controlling MTV and teen sitcoms, nothing but STRAVAG SAVARASHI GARBAGE in it) or those trekkies (Star Trek fanatics) who only speak in Klingon.
Had this in my mind for some time so I will put it here. Here's a list of mechs I have given to some of the people I met:
Smoke Jaguar Mad Cat & Smoke Jaguar Shadow Cat tag team Loki Vulture Turkina Masakari Ryoken (2) Cauldron Born Ryoken II Pouncer Novacat Uller Cougar Thor Daishi (don't mess with her) Spirit Cat Dasher II & Spirit Cat Mad Cat 2 tag team
Atlas Cyclops Hellspawn (this came out of my mind when I first met him, man my brain is sick) Raven Gladiator (this is what I would labeled myself) Night Gyr
That's the list. Hmmm , the girls are Clan mechs while the boys are almost IS tech.
Oh yeah, before I forget, there is this site which has been in my mind since I visit it some time ago: http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.com . It has something which is really terrifying because it is real and with some hard facts to back up. The site explains what will happen when the world's oil supply drops. After studying about LCA a week ago, oil is used in EVERY PART of the life cycle of a product. Imagine when the oil is 100 percent more expensive and rarer. The cost sky-rockets and everything is so bloody expensive (as do plastic crack). You know what happens when inflation hits new levels.
Saturday, 8ft May 2004
Today marks the 3rd month since I arrive in Adelaide. I arrive here on the 8 of February (I left KL on the night of the 7th). So fast time flies just like that. Felt time passed by me like a jumpship jumping 30 light years in a split of a second.
So what have changed and happened to me during the 3 months I am here? Well, there is a lot of things that will fill this entire page. In fact the blog entries below tells in detail about my life here (and took up several pages) . I heard that someone said that my life is hilarious as heck , because of the last few posts.. what can you expect from a wet-behind the ears Mechwarrior in a star-system millions of light years away from Strana Mechty (I know the spelling might be wrong). Maybe it is due to my sense of humor embedded inside the posts .
The most significant progress I have made here is the number of unique units and LEs I manage to acquire. The number of units I acquire is more than any of my friends and enough to make everyone (including my friend) jealous. I got like , 20 uniques and LEs here in 3 months? I would have gotten more but my piggy bank is small compared to some... no most of my hostel mates here. Then there is the price of the uniques on sale. If the exchange rate wasn't so high I would have even consider it, but it is simply to expensive to buy some of them. The LE Tian-Zong has gone down in price from AUD 50 to AUD 35 , but AUD 35 is still a high price to pay (fortunately no one here plays Liao and crazy enough to spend AUD 35, otherwise it will be snap up). I'll wait for FP to come out. By then hopefully the price will drop, providing no new mechanic appear that will make those pieces even more powerful. Addicted to plastic crack indeed.
On Wednesday Wizkids announced that they will consider a rule change for artillery units.. YAAA! The change is that the arty unit needs to be given an order to be readied on turn 1 by declaring the arty attack and placing the "pog" on the battlefield. On turn 2, arty unit MUST be given an order to resolve the arty like normal. The arty cannot be pushed to be readied for the next turn. This makes arty more order intensive and will surely slow down arty enough to bring the mech into the game. Now my mechs have nothing to fear!
I think with the new ruling , the scenario is like this : Commander : Sniper 1 , aim your guns at this coordinates (gives coordinates) Sniper : Yes sir, arming and moving gun into position. (hears background noise of the arty gun barrel on a turret moving) .We're set. Awaiting your command. Commander : Sniper 1, on my mark (looks at his Tactical map , concentrating on the exact timing needed to fire his arty, ignores a plea for reinforcement on another channel) .. MARK! (can hear the arty firing through his earpiece)
For once the arty is Mechwarrior is very realistic, except the "cylinder of death" part.
Yesterday is the first time I went to Chinatown after my father (who came with me to Adelaide to settle me in) left for home. It is like , 2 months plus since I last when there. Chinatown is next to Central Market. No point going to CM since I have to go the extra mile to get there and back. Most of my stuff I buy is from Woolworths which is located near my uni. I went this time because I wanted to eat the kwai loh size mee soup. The bowl is VERY BIG I tell you. Easily 2 portions of our local mee soup. But the price is also kwai loh price at AUD 5.90 . But the food here is considered very cheap already. For AUD 5.50 in Chinatown, you can pill your plate a mile high with whatever you want to go with your mixed rice. For the same price , any kwai loh food is big, but the portion is small in comparison to the mixed rice I mentioned earlier. No wonder EVERYTHING is made in China.
The CM was open this time. Every time I go there is is either closed or near closing time. This time it was bustling like on Sunday morning (because it is on a Friday, as during the weekend everything is closed). I walked around to see if there is any Navel oranges , you know the very big oranges , more than 200 grams each. All the stalls I saw sells them for AUD 3.99 per kg. So I bought four with a total weight of 1.5 kg! If there is something I want to eat in Australia it is their food! At first I thought it is cheap to buy here, but apparently back home (in Giant Kelana Jaya to be exact) , my parents told me just now that Navel oranges are going for RM 1.99 each! They also told me it was huge too. Arrghhh.. the oranges cost more here than back home! How can it be!? I think most likely the oranges in Giant are smaller (there are smaller Navels) and have seeds (mine are seedless) and might not taste as good as the one imported. Got to bring back some to compare :)
Tuesday, 4ft May 2004
I found out what caused my illness last weekend. Turns out it was the potato salad I ate with my potatoes for lunch and dinner on Saturday. I was having kangaroo meat with potatoes and broccoli for both lunch and dinner. I must have put too much potato salad which then caused me to have sore throat. Too much of a good thing is bad.
Luckily my immune system has finish repairs to my internal structure and everything is back to normal again. Good thing too, because the demands of university work are beginning to pile up really quickly.
Just now I installed the LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) software , SIMA Pro 5.1 demo. It is used to calculate and analyze the LCA of a product and determine how much resources , emissions and a lot of things that might come into effect during the product's life cycle. The complexity of this software is simply boggling. In the demo version I have, it showed all the impact a simple coffee maker like environmental impact, human impact, how much resource went into making , operating and disposing , how much energy is used, what kind of effect that this particular resource caused during its manufacture..... so many things it could fill up an entire report (as it is written in the help file). And I need to use the software to complete an assignment based on it. The software is powerful as heck, but it would take a long time for me to get the full hang of it. Just like Autocad, I am, still not an expert in it (blame it on my short term memory).
My hostel has bought some board games for the residents to play early this week. I didn't play any of them yet, as the board games are used when I am around and I don't have any friends to play with at any one time. During dinner I was watching a group of people playing (they are first year college students with tons of time , just like when I was in Inti during my first semester, free as a bird), and I was puzzled to see why they are playing Monopoly with only 2 dice instead of 3 (can see you readers telling me Monopoly is played with only 2 dice). Oh yeah, Monopoly is played with only 2 dice. Must have played too much MWDA as MWDA uses 3 dice :)
Still got a lot of work and assignments to complete. Here's the list of all the work that needs to be done: 1) Heat Transfer Assignment 3 2) E&E SIMA PRO assignment 3)Solid Mechanics Assignment 4)Structural Design Tutorial 4 5)ANSYS FEA (Finite Element Analysis) Project 6)Robotics Assignment 3 & 4 (or was it 4&5?) 7)Robotics 2 DOF (Degree of Freedom) robot project 8)ESL seminar presentation and report (long deadline but still have to consider)
Wow! All the subject got assignment that needs to be done!! Better be done with it quickly or it might pile up again. .. and considering I am quite lazy at the moment... hhmmm, the joys of being a uni student.
Tuesday, 4ft May 2004
I have finally bought the pre-paid internet today. I didn't buy the pre-paid internet yesterday because I didn't go to uni yesterday . The reason? Didn't feel well enough to go to uni on that day. Had the usual symptom of mild fever and sore throat. I usually have sore throat once in a while, so I wasn't that worried for the last few days since I know how what to do when I am sick due to sore throat. I started on Saturday evening, dunno what caused it, maybe too stressed because of various reasons. Maybe it is due to the food I ate that day? I don't know, but it is however on the eve of the eve of Wesak day. Could be the Kurt Larsen I receive because every time I get a cool unique, all my karma is spent on that figure and little is left for other things.
(Looks at what I have posted last Saturday).
Oh yeah, it is about the girl I wanted being hijacked by someone. Over the last few days I put some thought into the whole thing and I realized that I was over-reacted with inaccurate recon data. Should have stood back like a Ghost Bear warrior and wait and see how is the real situation is. I think the best course of action right now is to passive and hang along for the right because my priorities right now are on the university assignments which are pilling up again and the exams are less than 2 months away! Back to battlemech training for the next 2 month! Dun worry about me and my health though, I have everything under control (otherwise I wouldn't have rise up the ranks and end up here) .
The cost of living here seems to be on the rise. Just a few days ago , Friday I think, during dinner I was reading the local newspaper. The newspaper ran an article about the cost of living here in Adelaide. Turns out that prices have risen by up to 5% from last year. Everything has risen, gas, electricity, petrol , food and telephone etc. On Monday the telephone company sent me a letter informing all its customers that it will raise the rental of the telephone line from AUD 23.95 to AUD 29.95 (got to check later to see if correct). AUD 4 more bucks and they still charging super rates for everything. Looks like I rather balik Malaysia when I finish studying here and our Telekom Malaysia looks like an angel (no, not the EVA type) compared to Telstra. It is bad enough that MWDA cost more here, now everything costs more here ?!!?
Come to think of it, I am already economizing. When I order food, I use my water to drink. I still use dial-up because broadband is full of fine print. I don't go out to drink, party and smoke. But I do buy plastic crack :).... MWDA that is.
Just now I tested my printer to see if it still works after it malfunctioned during the holidays. It was printing half way that day when it suddenly decide to go ballistic. Fortunately the items I was printing was not important and I was only print testing my lab report. I uninstall the printer driver and let the mechine "cool down" . Just now I tested it again and it is still spoil. In the name of Kerensky, this printer survived 4 Succession Wars (UPSR, PMR , SPM , my Diploma in Engineering) and it finally broke down during the Clan invasion after it traveled millions of light years. What a fine place to break down too, in a land where everything is bloody expensive to buy. Good thing my uni got printing facilities otherwise I may have to buy a new printer over here.
Wow, what a start to the month of May. I hope June will be better.
Sunday, 2nd May 2004
I wanted to upload the this updated primary interchange file on Saturday night but unfortunately my pre-paid money ran out! I was half way surfing when suddenly the line was cut off. I know that my internet is running low however I didn't bother to check how much money was left in my pre-paid account. Boy was I surprised yesterday when the line was disconnected. What timing too, since I finish downloading 4 pictures of Kurt Larsen my parents sent me. I wanted to see the box and the mech with my very own eyes first , albeit in digital form however, before I boast about it online :) Nothing like boasting that you have a mech everyone wants and don't have.
I did try to use my university internet connection to surf but surprisingly my uni internet doesn't allow me to surf sites other than the university sites. Usually there is a menu which pops up to ask for my id and password to log on to the other sites but that menu did not appear. How odd. I did not finish up my internet quota yet.
So I wasn't able to go online for the last 2 days. Not to worry though. I am not going to die because I don't have access to internet for 2 days. I do feel disappointed that I was not able to boast about my new mech :) Tomorrow I am going to buy the reload for my pre-paid internet and later of this week got to pay my monthly rent of AUD 700. That's RM 2100 for you information. A very good deal, since the room is big, got air-con (reverse cycle air-con) , hot water and near the university. Comparing to another hostel which is more expensive this one is way better.
Tomorrow is Wesak Day. Totally forgotten about it until my parents told me they went to temple today. Too bad there is no holiday to celebrate Wesak day here unlike back home. I pray that I am healthy, safe ,return home safely , finish my first semester without any major problems , do well in my final examinations , don't do stupid things, , the exchange rate will drop, and I finally managed to find a girl suitable for me and if possible I pull a Kodiak. Noticed that the list of demands is from the highest priority. I rather be healthy and do well in my exams than get a Kodiak . Not point having that piece of plastic when you are too sick to play it right?
I just thought of a Mechwarrior joke a few days ago :
You know that you are addicted to Mechwarrior when: You challenge your opponent to a Trial of Grievance because he messed with your girlfriend. You challenge your opponent to a Trial of Refusal when the girl you like agrees to be his girlfriend. You challenge your opponent to a Trial of Possession when both of you are after the same girl. You call upon a Trial of Annihilation on your opponent or opponents when he messed with your girlfriend and breach decisions set out by previous trials. (Or, just call upon a Trial of Annihilation instead of a Trial of Grievance if you hate him so much. He is after all, not part of the Clans) You call upon a Trial of Position for both you and your wife during the wedding.
Judging from what the jokes are based on I think I am really desperate :P
Entries from the beginning of this website to 28th May 2004
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