my gwad gumball!

me eating a 10+ year old giant gumball. My brother got it when we visited some family friends up in queensland who owned a lolly shop and had kept it in this metal container ever since. He wanted the container, so I ate it...for a minute before getting sick. Thankfully it was soft, I can't imagine eating it properly...

so after doing some reading, apparently the 'theory' behind tony's new element is quite plausible. Using his home-built particle accelerator, charging whatever blue particles he had in there to high energy, and then fusing two elements that when combined together would add their atomic numbers together to the desired new element, yes it is quite plausible.

However, if any of my readers are highly qualified scientists (no, you're not marco (neither are you ling)), here are a few questions: what is the triangular case made of to withstand and capture the beams energy to fuse whatever elements are inside? how does the accelerated high energy beam held constantly when it was diverted from the accelerator? I would've thought it'd need to keep it's circular motion in order to sustain itself. And finally, how does Stark make it stable? If you can answer all of these, then please join my team in building an iron man suit, as I don't want radioactive poisoning when I wear mine either.

In other news!
I don't know why, but I've got a craving for watching digimon. ><>teoh,

the giants that will never fall

I. Am. Sick. Of. Telstra.

 You'd think changing to a newer more recent plan would be easy; especially when I already had all the per-requisites. But NOOO. Not so apparently. Telstra goes out of it's way to STUFF IT ALL UP. So bear with my rant, I do have a point to make.

First, the stupid store doesn't even put the order through properly. Then the deal doesn't apply within 3 days. THEN, they charge me the normal price instead of the discount special. THEN, the stupid operator who gave me my discount CHANGED my plan back to the normal one. Like double-yuu-tee-eff? So that means not only do I get charged for normal price, but I get double charged for the month remaining of my non-existent faster plan. And I'm pretty sure I didn't get my $30 discount either.

So now everything is confusing, I don't get any quotes so I'm pretty sure Telstra came out of this laughing it's multi-billion ass off. 

Man. I hate it when big companies can get away with stuff like this. And there's nothing we little people can do about it. Banks, telecommunications, governments, they're all the same. We need a modern Robin Hood. Someone who will go past the law and sort these guys out, cause let's face it; what else is going to hurt them? A law suit is like throwing a rock at a steel building, and having it bounce back and hit you in the eye and kill you. I'm tempted to be that person and spend the rest of my life plotting to somehow make Telstra's stock fall to negative infinity.

Btw, call-operator Alan, from one operator to another. Saying "I'm juuuuust cheeecking" for like 2 minutes does not help my patience. How about you just check it faster instead of wasting your breath saying that phrase over and over? Or put me on hold dammit, that's what soothing music is for. I'd actually prefer you to actually fix my problem, but I know that's TOO MUCH to ask from Telstra.

angry teoh,

p.s hi stalker =]

the life of luxury

 so I went to see Iron Man 2 again...but this time in gold class! (note my lovely 2MP pictures above) 

I went with my uni friend Linda, who actually works at the doncaster village as a waitress in gold class (free tickets =]). She hadn't been once herself, so when we talked about it, we decided to go. Linda hadn't seen iron man 2 and I didn't particularly mind watching it again. It was actually good, cause I could fully enjoy the experience, while not caring too much about missing out on stuff in the movie. Also, I don't spend too much time with Linda at uni as she's only in one of my classes, so it was fun to hang out.

Gold Class Experience.

As I open the heavy glass doors that lead into this fantasy world fit only for the wealthy, first thought is: I hope I'm dressed ok. I was wearing my 'good' clothes, but nothing fancy. Despite that, I immediately felt out of place. The nice carpet, the dim lighting, the fancy plush couches, the brightly lit bar with shining wine glasses, the uniformed waiters/waitresses; it felt only the red carpet was missing.

Linda had asked me to come half an hour early, which I thought meant we were going to eat first or something. Turns out, you use that time to not only order your food, but decide what time it comes! How bizarre. And yet strangely pleasing. Power over what and when? And since I had already seen iron man, my choc-mint choctop came exactly just before the exciting end =]
The food and drink prices were, of course, through the roof. At first, I saw meals at $10 - $12, and I thought, hey not bad. Then Linda explained that they were actually snack size stuff; 2-3 pieces each. The pizza, which wasn't that great, was $24. Luckily for me, having Linda with me slashed everything by 50%. But for a normal gold class experience, good luck you cheap asians.

And now, for the one thing I would pay $25 bucks for. The chair. Oh my god, the chair! It's so big! Respectful Red. So soft, yet firm enough at the same time; comfortable. Electric relining action (made me feel like iron man to see my legs brrrr up). A nice big compartment on the side for my jacket and things. A little table on the side for my food.
The cinema was quite small; two big chairs made up a 'table'. 4 by 4 of them gave it a capactiy of 32 people (yeah, that's why me engineer, I can maths! (the next tony stark)). Tonight, there were only 6 others in the cinema.

So once the glory of it all wore off, I started criticizing things in my head.

Having waiters come by every now and then was slightly annoying. I would rather it somehow be elevated up through my little table. Cause there weren't many people in the cinema, yeah I didn't notice it as much. But if it was a full house, I could imagine people going up and down delivering stuff. Yeah that could definitely ruin my movie.

Eating and drinking in the dark is not cool. I couldn't tell what I was dipping my fried calamari into, cause I couldn't see. Plus, trying to eat and drink while a movie is on...takes my concentration away from enjoying the movie. Instead I'm trying not to spill stuff on myself. And that takes a lot of effort.

The little call button next to me was too bright. Turn it down yo.

The atmosphere wasn't there. Even with a room of 32 people, I don't think that's enough of a crowd that's usual for a movie. There were some really amusing parts in Iron Man 2, as most of you should know, but I found that Linda and I were the only ones laughing about it. New reactor core tastes like coconut, that's worth at least a room of chuckles.

Linda said many people actually go to gold class...they even have regulars! Crazy. I'm not sure if I would prefer gold class or not. The chair is such a deal breaker. Wish it had one of those sliding tables like on airplanes, and then a decent laptop and oh boy.

Awesome to experience it for the first time. My thanks to Linda for taking me. Also, driving to Doncaster was an experience. It's actually not that far from my house, but took awhile from uni.

teoh,

p.s I am still NOT convinced about how tony makes his new elements. stand by for theory.

reading in the past

this week isn't turning out too badly as expected, but hopefully I didn't just jinx myself.

I was cleaning up my hotmail inbox today...and it's actually pretty cool how I just left alot of old emails lying around. Because now when I looked through them, I got a nice self-reflection of myself and things that happened.

The history only went as far as first year...warren and tiff sending me stuff for uni, my excitement of meeting a particular female, first year stress, a few correspondents from online forums, Yoda's Yarn stuff (good old days), beach days in the summer, yearly carols by candlelight, all the oxygen and lifegroup invitations, Queensland organisation, parents forwarding me stuff, family emails when everyone is overseas, recent fights, old fights, old romances, new romances.

I wrote to one of my old correspondents, just cause we used to talk a lot, and while I was writing, I thought, what has changed since I last talked to him. I'm in university now...old and new friends..some new experiences. But other than that; I'm just the same?
I wonder if me being the same since three years ago is a good thing. Surely I should be changing as a person (hopefully for the better), but I don't think I have. Same interests, same kind of life style.

I did do a self-journey thing awhile back, made me more certain of where I was going and what I wanted to do. Coming up to graduation year is not to be taken lightly. Yet personal changes have never quite come around. I feel like I'm stuck in a black hole, unable to break free of being me.

teoh,

oh fritter.

ingredients for a week of uni hell: 2 tests, 3 major assignments, 1 report and no motivation. Serve hot.

so my friend Long just got his new phone yesterday, the HTC Desire. It's pretty nice, the touchscreen responsiveness is about on par with iphones, and since smartphones are pretty much mini-computers nowadays, it's got a mini computer processor 1 GHZ which makes it run very smooth.

So tempting to get a new phone as I've been on an open contract for so long, but I'm also at debate with myself that I don't actually need one. But it'd be sooo nice to get one. HTC Evo has a bigger screen and coming out in July, but really expensive =[ But it runs so fast, and so many apps, first 4G phone, HTC aren't that common (among my friends anyway), oh so cool. But then, do I really need mobile internet? Just one more distraction, more time spent looking at a electronic device. But then it could be useful for like looking up things on the spot, GPS etc. But then money...

My friend simon bought an Ipad from eBay over seas. Very nice, so impressed with the touch interface. The screen is really clear and you can actually type notes onto 'Word' app pretty accurately. Wouldn't mind having one for lectures, make things a bit more interesting. But, with any new tech, I will wait for better generations (I remember buying first gen ipod 'nano', big brick compared to the new ones and no colour)

My mum told me a funny story today, how she had used compost and soil in a part of the garden a few weeks ago before she left for the UK/Malaysia. Then a creeper vine had grown around (not uncommon in our garden) so she pulled it all out...and out...and pop comes out:


aha so cool! Home grown rock melon. Well done mum.

And also, made banana/pineapple fritter tonight. Was a partial success, the batter turned out alright, but the fruit inside wasn't sweet. Had it with ice cream and wasn't too bad though. It's fun deep frying stuff =]

teoh,

p.s while looking at myself at my haircut today, i thought to myself: my face is fat. =[

night out with the guys

so me and my two uni mates Henry (left) and Long (right) went out around the city on saturday night. Our other friend Wil was sick and also at work and missed out on a fun night. The idea was just to go around to a few pubs and just hang out. Me, being a city noob, was also interested in exploring the city a bit more. Here's a google map of our route, both for anyone interested, and myself to remember:

we met up at (A) melbourne central, and headed out to (B) stalactites, a greek souvlaki restaurant. I had a steak, which was cooked very well (very close to medium-rare as you can get), so overall a nice place. Typical melbourne city restaurant price though ~22 bucks for the meal.

we had slurpies straight after, which turned out to be a horrible idea haha. Headed over to (C) Red Hummingbird, which has a really nice open roof space. I could see a small 21st function there easily. Then off to melbourne central, to some bar I can't recall...had a nice open view of the state library. A quick drop by maccas for some chicken nuggets, and then to a bar called (D) Softbelly. Had some cool retro gametables, and a nice atmosphere. I was surprised to see a fair few asians hanging out at pubs, just drinking socially. Had some Lord of the Fries (well they did, I passed) after as well. I want to try their onion rings next time I go in.

And then of course, ended up at (E) galactic circus to show off some DDR skills lol. After that, was feeling pretty dead and sick. Then we ran for the (F) Flinders station for an 11:05pm train. Got there at 10:59, and then hung around for a minute talking about nothing, and then realised it was a 11:00pm train. GG, missed it. Ended up buying the Age and read for half an hour until the next one came.

GOOD FUN.

On another note, have finally obtained a copy of Mass Effect 2. Always respected Bioware's games, and Mass Effect 1 was damn good. About 2 hours into the game, and I'm already hooked with it. They've made some nice improvements (which I won't bother to list, since no one really cares :D), but most importantly they've reduced the amount of that far off distant motion blur. I think the remains of it might be cause my graphic card isn't up to scratch =[

Speaking of which, trying to bring my 'old' laptop out of retirement for uni. Will not install VLC or anything entertainment wise besides MusicBee (music player). Trying to put windows 7 on it, but it's putting up a fight at the moment..damn you vista.

next: new phone thoughts? ipad thoughts.

teoh,

optical illusion

ACDC Vs Iron Man 2

Another clip I know, but this is pretty cool. Advance projectors play some cool features on the Rochester Castle in time with ACDC music. There's not that much Iron Man 2 in there, but seeing the castle crumble is pretty awesome. Take a look.

teoh,

talented youngesters performing classics

These guys are pretty talented for a high school performance, and arranged by themselves. Brought back some nice memories of those ever lasting classics.

teoh,

presents from over seas!

love it when family come back from overseas, i love opening up all the bags and boxes, looking for treasures and prizes! above are japanese figures luke and leia, who will now guard my computer for me.

behold the holocron mark II, my new usb 8 gig stick. mark I's plastic shell eventually crumbled to nothing, so this is the high tech replacement! awesome.

my sister loves cupcakes, so she saw this cute cupcake bib and bought it. I put it on mags for some highly amusing entertainment.

and my belated birthday present, flown across two countries to get to me, a stormtrooper jumper! thanks sis =] it's got a cool stormtrooper button on it as well, which I will rip off if I ever grow out of the jumper, cause it's that cool!

teoh,

we're back in hardware mode.

Last week was a nice slow relaxed week. A nice change of pace.

Picked up an extra project for fun, and although it was not worth any marks, I quite enjoyed doing it; mainly cause it involved presenting. Had to do a presentation on Shang Hai Expo 2010, which is quite interesting by itself, and choose a structure to focus on. My friend Henry Lim does some pretty fantastic things with Office and made an awesome powerpoint that made my job really easy. We got invited to present again at a seminar at the end of the semester.

Got to floorwalk newbies at work, man that was more tiring than I expected. They aren't exceptionally good, and I had such high hopes for them, but it's only their first week on the phones, so hopefully they pick it up.
On another topic at the workplace, something big is going down, I can feel it. We've had supervisors leave and shuffle around, and they've been asking shift leaders what they think they can improve and such...something is definitely happening. Stay tuned for more news.

the fantastic adventures of crown continue, although nothing quite spectacular happened. Ann, Erica and me just did the usually catch up, drink (reached five in the Fibonacci rule)  and I played a little bit of blackjack. The flame towers at crown have been cut back to being disappointing. No big flares anymore =[ we're thinking of going somewhere else next time. cya later crown.

Resistance - Muse, is a song that strangely touches me. The chorus depict, to me, the rush of rebellious love, wanting to be with someone despite good reasons not to, having self-doubt creep in, then resolving to erase the whole thing...and then wondering that it could've been right.

saw Iron Man 2 on friday with the uni boys. it was an okay movie, the usual hyped up sequel, but it had some really awesome moments as per usual. Man I love the whole idea of Iron Man. I actually hate the big boss fights at the end, they're really mediocre for me. The best part is the whole process of making Iron Man, being a super engineer. So awesome. The music is pretty dramatic too, listening to some of it now to motivate me to do my own work.

and a nice shout out to QBE Travel Insurance. Got my second cheque back today for a full refund of my replacement passport. Thinking back, QBE was actually very helpful and so easy to deal with. The only thing I can fault them is the waiting period can take awhile, and with no communication, it's a bit hard to know if your claim is actually being processed or not.

qantas on the other hand, can go stuff themselves and their *insert angry frustrate word here* helpdesks. Even I'm more helpful during a crabby mood.

need to have a productive week this week.

teoh,

edit: time for a new layout soon I think.