Some people can be so... grrrrr....

Took TOEIC this morning. Was easier than I thought so hope I can get a high score, so if I did go look for a job in the near future, TOEIC's gonna make my resume look better lol.

Anyway, after the exam, I head straight to the gym to attend the Powerfit lesson (similar to Body Pump). I definitely didn't want to miss today's lesson, because the Powerfit instructor was quitting her job as an instructor. I heard she was getting married, and that's why she's going to quit. Thus today was her last lesson.
She is a quiet girl with a nice smile, but once the lesson starts, she gets really pumped up and energetic. Whoa, her lessons are tough. But thanks to her, I'm starting to get six pack :p I've been taking her lessons for more than a year now, so it's kinda sad to see her go :(

But alas, by the time I got to the gym, the lesson was already full. Sunday lessons usually doesn't get that full easily but since it was her last day, people who doesn't come on Sundays that often seemed show up. I was really disappointed but I thought at least I will go and talk to the instructor. As I was talking to the instructor we found out that there seemed to be a cancellation and there was one place available for me! yes! yes yes yesssss!!!!

So for 60min I worked out as much as I can. yeah... I think I worked out too much...
I was sweating like a fountain.
Next day muscle pain all over my body, confirmed.

Towards the end of the lesson, few people brought flowers for her, and she ended up crying, which made me wanna cry too lol.
I wish all the best for her!!


Oh, and another thing. After I had a shower at the gym, my friend there told me something really unpleasant. There is this another male instructor which I will name him K. (yeah, he's the guy that used to teach me yoga and I had the hots for him lol. yes, past tense :p)
I noticed that I haven't seen him around much, and I always see him working at the swimming pool section. And yes, today I found out why.

It seems that someone complained to the gym about K because of his attitude. To be specific, this person was apparently annoyed by the fact that he was chit-chatting with few particular customers quite often.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
Ok, K is a very friendly and nice person, but he is like that to everyone, and I mean EVERYONE. He greets every customer and is very easy to make friends with customers as well. Plus, if the customer comes and talks to you, as an instructor you can't ignore can you?
It's not like he doesn't do his job. He's very serious about his job and he loves it.
So what kind of idiot can complain about this?
It's not just about K. I heard that couple of the lesson schedule had to be rearranged because some customers complained that the lesson was boring or didn't like the instructor, or some crap like that.
I mean come on, if you don't enjoy it, just don't bother attending the friggin lesson.
Do you have to be an asshole to complain and make a fuss about it?
Geez... some people can be so self-centred.

If I ever did find out who is responsible, I should poke this person with a poo attached to a stick.

Um... I think I will make you all jealous

Today, I will introduce you all to THE BEST ramen noodles I have had so far.
It's where I used to work, where my friend's mother runs the place. She is a brilliant chef.
She uses all organic and absolutely healthy and safe ingredients (she's really strick about that).
She mainly makes two types of ramen here. one is the usual ramen noodles in hot soup, and the other one is cold noodles separated from hot soup, where you dip the noodle into the soup.
I personally prefer the cold noodles.
And this is my all time favourite:


This one's soup contains chili oil, almond paste, chili powder, and their well known ramen soup (mainly using seafood).

and the noodles... chewy (in a good way) and absolutely yummy.



combine these two together?
HEAVEN


The normal ramen is also very popular. mmmm...


If any of you did come visit me in Tokyo, I could bring you here.
Ask Karen, she LOVED it ;)

Hahahahaha

From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don’t drive usability issues.

Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack … so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

he first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.

This site is so slow it is unusable.

It wasn’t in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.

These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear.

They are not filtered by the system … and so many of the things are strange.

I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.

So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?

So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.

They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).

I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.

I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.

In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.

This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?

So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.

Doesn’t Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?

Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.

This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.

So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn’t use it for anything else during this time.

What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.

Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night — why should I reboot at that time?

So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.

So I got back up and running and went to Windows Updale again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.

So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.

What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.

So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.

At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.

So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like "Open" or "Save". No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.

The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.

So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.

It is not there.

What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.

Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.

What an absolute mess.

Moviemaker is just not there at all.

So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.

I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.

I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.

I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.

So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven’t run Moviemaker and I haven’t got the plus package.

The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don’t you just love that root certificate message?)

When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.”

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/06/25/gates-sends-angry-e-mail-sounds-just-like-a-customer/

Ok, yes I'm alive thank you

yoo hoo... anyone out there? hehehe
sorry for the long 'no-I'm-in-no-mood-of-trying-to-update-my-blog' period. It's been tough. Yup, no doubt about that.

Anyway cut the long story short, I didn't work out with my previous job (yes my boss was a total... well that's another story), but now I've began a new job which I enjoy much more (and relatively good pay) and my mum is starting to work as well so gradually we're back on track... I think?

So... what have I missed out these days? Any sweet gossips from my good ol' Perth town? I know that Julian is in Brisbane but how about everyone else? oh! Honey is visiting Tokyo in August, so that would be exciting :)


Since I don't have much exciting stuff to talk about, lets talk about kiviak (or giviak) shall we? :D

So who DOES know of a thing called kiviak? I'm guessing almost none. Well I didn't know about it until last year or so.

Hint 1: It's a traditional food of the Inuits.

Hint 2: It's got to do with seals.

ok, I will introduce you the recipe of this delicacy.

Ingredients are simple. All you need is a seal and some couple of sea birds.

Step 1: Cut open the seal and take out everything (yes, take out all the internal organs)

Step 2: Shove in the sea birds inside the seal, and no you don't pluck the feather or do anything with the bird. Leave the bird just the way it is, and put them inside the seal. That's all you need to do.

Step 3: Sew the seal up and make sure you put some seal oil on the the sewed area to prevent flies to lay eggs (aka. maggots. ewww).

Step 4: Bury the seal under the ground. Leave it there to ferment from few month to couple of years.

The cooking part is complete!
Now to the "how to eat"

Dig out the seal, and cut the seal open. Oh, and the great thing about kiviak is that you don't need no plate, fork, knife or spoon to eat this thing.
All you have to do is get rid of the tail feathers, and put your mouth to the bird's anus and suck. Due to the fermentation, the bird's internal organs, meat and everything has sort of liquified, so you can suck all in like a... jello.

The closest taste would be blue cheese or yogurt. Apparently it tastes really good but stinks like hell. probably as bad as Surstromming (Swedish delicacy consisting of fermented Baltic herring. you know the one which is in a can but it's swelled up coz of the fermented gas inside?)

Anyone interested? :D

Check out this anime to watch the eating scene (no it's not a horror anime lol). Watch especially the 8:10 part.

Online Videos by Veoh.com