The days are longer now. And the weather is so unpredictable. UK experienced an earthquake, measure at 5.2 on the ritcher scale. This is my second year in UK and I had never known that earthquake do happened in UK.

One of my colleague said that it’s really hard to find suitable clothing to wear each day. The weather has been crazy and usually, it’s freezing in the morning and night but hot in the afternoon. But sometimes, it’s cold for the whole day.

My sister will be coming back tomorrow after a month in Malaysia. It must be relaxing and enjoying throughout the month for her; except for the weather which is HOT.

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I find that Need for Speed: Carbon is a boring game to play. The career mode is short and not challenging at all. The graphic, in my opinion, is worst than Need for Speed: Most Wanted. The introduction of crew members does not make any difference. The city is always at night and the map is small, nothing much to explore. I felt the urge to become the No.1 blacklist when playing NFSMW but there is not directions when playing NFSC except winning matches. The only good thing is the addition or should I say re-addition of drifting.

I have stopped playing NFSC for two days in a row now and have switched to Ridge Racer 2 on my PSP. Just a few more races and Ridge Racer 2 will be completed. I guess I will install Midnight Club 2 this Saturday. Previously, I had completed 99% but due to my old computer specifications, everything slowed down at the last race. Having completed NFSMW and also finding the NFSC boring, I think I should proceed to Midnight Club 2.

‘Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anybody driving faster is a maniac?’
– George Carlin

I read this article from techrepublic.com. I must say that I agree with the author’s saying but the reason for me, posting here, is that I have some other things to add.

I believe that a lot of support staffs face something similar to what the author has described;

‘The best engineer in our office, for example, might be challenged with a computer issue that I might consider rather simple. He/she might call me when faced with the simplest of problems. On the other hand, there are those who are actually very computer savvy, and they require very little (or no) support; if they run into a glitch, they delve into it until they figure it out on their own.’

Even if it’s not the best engineer, IT support staffs will have the similar issues among themselves too. A friend of mine once asked what I will do should I not able to power up my computer. My immediate answer is to check whether the power cable is plugged properly or switched on. That was the question he got from an interviewer earlier and he couldn’t think of the answer at that time.

Well, this simply indicates that, I will always try something simple first before going into details, but my friend works differently. Eventually, we may find the same answer but who is quicker?

Sometimes, the problems do not depend on whether you are driving fast or slow. Indeed, everyone cannot be treated the same but as long as making everyone driving at the same direction, things will be different. However, that is equally hard to achieve, especially when the organization is huge.

Favoritism influences. It is somehow very hard for human to not judge a book by its cover. There are always things to comment and things to complain about a person who you do not favor much. No matter how fast or how slow that person drives, he/she still looks idiotic to you. When that person solves a problem, you might say it is by sheer of luck. When that person offers a helping hand, you might consider he/she busybody. Thus, equality is even further away. When a person’s mindset is fixed, somehow, it’s hard to change.

Even though we couldn’t create equality, but we are able to treat everyone with the same attitude which I believe, the same as creating equality in ourselves. The hardest thing of all, admit our own mistake and give credits to the one who deserves.

I am really fed up with the IT department here. First of all, when I first came to work, there wasn’t any instruction as in the IT equipment here, the application, where do I look for support, e-mail and stuffs like that. When I was an IT support previously, I spent at least 30 minutes explaining IT stuffs to new staffs. We later decided to even join in the induction which is organized every month for new staffs. But here; nobody cares. Problem-solving takes ages. They will call it day with 30 minutes left, and leave it until tomorrow.

And to add oil to the fire, one of the support just restarted my PC while I was at lunch without even informing me of anything. My flash drive is still plugged on the PC and Windows is locked when I left AND OBVIOUSLY, I HAVE NOT LOGGED OFF. They are here since morning, accessing the computers here just to install printer driver. Can’t they just inform us, users, to log off before going for lunch? They like to talk a lot but they can’t even make a simple announcement.

So, my files are not saved, but luckily my browser allows me to restore previous session. I am really speechless but I still want to say. I do not like to exaggerate things but it’s not how IT should operate, especially support staffs. They should understand that when the computer is locked, it should be left untouched. Otherwise, why should I leave it locked? As I said, it is only a task to install printer drivers and utilities and they had been doing it last week. They don’t even send emails but just coming in and out from the office.

Initially, I told Mee that the people here seemed to be more educated in terms of IT and the IT support staffs should have some easy days as they do not have to give very clear instructions. However, after today’s incident, it looks like even the IT support staffs do not even know their responsibilities. They certainly ruined my day.

Indeed, it was the problem with the custom pack folder. After creating the custom pack folder as \own_custpack, everything was processed smoothly. I did it on Friday night but was quite worried that Mee might have problems with the firmware and only let her use it on Saturday. There are a number of changes but our opinion is quite different. To me, I prefer to have such modification as there are more things to do with it such as flash menu and flash wallpaper. However, Mee would think that it is unnecessary because she likes original. Anyway, in order to unlock the phone, it would be better and easier for me to flash it with W660i firmware and the unlock.

However, one thing that she will like is the ability to read Chinese characters. But I might be searching for V630i Chinese firmware soon because I believe that she might not like the changes.

Well, let me explain the changes then. The green and red buttons which are used to answer and end call have been changed. The green is used to open the Walkman function while the red is to open events, user-shortcuts and bookmark favorites. Thus, open and end calls fall on the top two buttons. Radio is not functioning as the original V630i does not support radio.

The presentation is definitely more attractive as there are several built-in flash themes to choose from but Mee is not quite pleased as the screen looked blurring. Another problem which can be resolved is the brightness which can only be set to 60% at max. There is a patch which can correct the brightness to 100%, though.

We had a hectic Sunday. Mee and I had planned to take the 0831 bus but the bus passed by us at 0826. Thus, we had to settle for 0901 bus. It’s Sunday; what can we expect? The ‘Every 10 minutes’ service will only start from 1200.

When we reached the town, it looked dead coz the shops normally opened at 1100 or 1200. So, we proceeded to the train station. Our ultimate destination was Colindale but since Mee’s facial appointment was fixed at 1700, we decided to go Sutton and then Leicester Square (Chinatown) before going to Colindale as to fully utilize the ticket value.

Onboard the train, an announcement from the driver saying that there will be a diversion from Woking to Clapham Junction and the whole journey took about 52 minutes; which usually takes only 40 minutes. Anyway, diversions, delayed, and stuffs like that are usually expected on weekends. It’s very different from Malaysia where the transportation is important to accommodate the amount of people traveling to city area.

There wasn’t much to do at Sutton and we ate our lunch there before departing to Leicester Square. Upon reaching Leicester Square, the Chinese New Year atmosphere was still visible with all the lanterns hanging up high and the stretch was packed with tourists. We managed to take a few shots, though. There were road closed due to the road maintenance and it made even harder for the tourists to walk around.

We then walked to SOHO which is about 10-minute walk from Leicester Square; and into Mee’s favourite cake shop; Patisserie Valerie. We ordered a piece of cheese cake, a piece of black forest and a pot of green leaf. So, we spent our afternoon resting there before setting off to Colindale.

Gaming
As usual, while Mee is enjoying her facial, I will be playing games or walking around the building. This time, my PSP is loaded with Ridge Racer 2. I had the game for quite some time but did not get my hands on it until yesterday. Well, I find that it is quite enjoyable as the concept of the game is about drifting. And it’s not hard to drift at all, just press the brake and turn and control. The only boring thing is the selection of cars. If only it could let the users to select popular car brands.

The way back home was suffering and terrible. It took us 1 hour and 30 minutes from Clapham Junction to Basingstoke. Due to the diversion, the train moved like tortoise. We were exhausted being out the whole day.

Luckily, we stayed at home and charged our energy on Saturday. But it was still Mee, who suffered as she is coughing badly since last week. So, hopefully she will get better soon.

Liverpool; the team that I have always supported since I was in my primary six. Wow, that was 15 years ago. Well, even though I always say that Liverpool is my favorite English Premier League team, I am, however, not very obsessed to it. If you were to ask me questions like, ‘Who is the legend in Liverpool?’, ‘How many times have Liverpool win the Premier League?’ or ‘Name me all the current players in Liverpool squad.’ I would suggest that you googled it yourself or go to Liverpool.

Before that, I wasn’t interested in football, or soccer which you might want to call it. It just happened that 1993 was the first time we owned a home computer. It wasn’t meant for me, though. It was mainly for my sister and brother who took computer courses in school at that time. In their eyes, I could only be interested in games. Indeed, I was hooked up with Tetris. The same goes for my brother and sister.

A short description on that computer. It was a 80286 machine and I could hardly remember the rest of the specifications. It came with a dot matrix printer (still connected to my dad’s current computer in Malaysia). The whole system cost about RM4,000 – 5,000, equivalent to about £1,000 and above, if I am not mistaken about the exchange rate during that time. There wasn’t any Windows, just DOS main menu.

Alright. Back to this post. I tend to stray away from what I want to talk about. Especially it was 15 years ago and there could be lots more stuff to talk about within this 15 years period. Okay, I am back.

After Tetris, I started borrowing games from my friends. So, one of the game was a football game. And the featured team is Liverpool. What I mean by ‘featured’ is that I could only play the game using Liverpool, nothing else.

That’s when I started to read football news and pay particular attention to Liverpool progress and the easiest to understand; the score. Honestly, I don’t have much memory about my supports toward Liverpool until late 1990s when I pursued my further education in college.

In my opinion, Liverpool’s performance is not consistent at all. And it became even worst after acquiring Michael Owen. I mean after a few years later. I do admit that in the beginning, it was nice to have Owen. But it seemed that his glory had overshadowed the team-mates and Liverpool became inconsistent afterward. During that time, I kept telling my friends, who always watched football games with me that Liverpool should sell Owen to cash in and buy some quality footballers. Unknowingly, Owen had played about 7 years in Liverpool.

As much as I complained about Liverpool’s consistency, I am still very much in support for every match Liverpool played as well as the Liverpool managers. The recent matches seemed to be of disappointment but to me, that’s Liverpool. They can win anytime and lose anytime at the same time. Winning Inter Milan, I believe, made any Liverpool fans happy. I read a comment on Metro yesterday. A Liverpool fan commented that the recent lost to Barnsley is on of the worst performance while the win over Inter Milan is creditable. And the final statement indicated that it is hard to be a Liverpool fan. Undeniably, it’s true.

Looking back at how Liverpool played, sometimes they depend very much on luck rather than skills and techniques. The rotation of players is a very good idea but since there have been a lot of new players after the change of owner plus the inconsistency of the previous first team; it wouldn’t be wise to have rotation until Liverpool has a strong first team. Therefore, it’s quite a relief after reading the news that Rafa may drop the idea of having rotation.

After all, there is still hope and faith for Liverpool and hopefully, there will be any changes in the management. At least until the end of next season; or hopefully longer.