island tales #42

Living the Malaysian Dream!

Today's Independence Day for Malaysia, so I'll put something a little more suited to the occasion here. The Malaysian Dream: to be honest, I have no idea what it is. Do we have one? The only one we have, as far as I know, is to be a fully developed nation by 2020, something I learned wayyy back when I was a kid. And up until I was in upper secondary school, I did not have the slightest idea how a fully developed nation was different from the country I lived in.

So for those of you who, like me, did not know what it means to be fully developed, I'll share what I've managed to decipher so far:

1) everything seems cheaper when you are fully developed, except for stuff like gas/petrol, housing costs and various forms of taxes

2) you get very fast and very cheap internet connections, and cheaper cars, and cheaper computer stuff. but food prices go up.

3) everyone will be able to afford the expensive original stuff (as opposed to sneakily using dirt cheap pirated software/pirated goods)

yep. can't wait to be developed.

here's my malaysian dream: to be able to live out my life in a quiet city, zero (or low) pollution, not too hectic, but with cheap food, cheap goods, low taxes, fast telecommunications, friendly people, low crime, and the possibility of a good life for my kids (if any).

racial policies/attitudes? i sure hope they figure out a way around that soon. corruption? well, it's hard to change greed, but let's hope they can find a way to get that out of the way too.

hm. perhaps that's too much of a thing to dream for after all... :P

island tales #41

tuesday... tomorrow malaysia turns 48, and to show how patriotic i am i won't be coming to work! haha. and that also means that it's fong's birthday, so...

happy birthday fong!

that's fong choong chiu, for the other fongs out there. who kinda looks like the picture below...

(erm. or maybe not. but there is a slight resemblance.)

heh. and work has resumed for today, after that it's a whole day off! woohoo... i got myself a brand new dvd-rom drive (yes, was too lazy to replace the old one which has been spoiled for a VERY long time now), and installed sims 2/diablo 2 in preparation for the holiday, weekends and everything else between now and the return of the new computer.

and yes, enough of the sims jokes, i'm well aware that it's very cute to share my surname with those adorable little creatures. so enough already!!! no more simcity/the sims/simcard jokes, it's getting really stale.. :P right. the games will probably keep me occupied for some time. meanwhile life goes on as usual, week 12 out of 32 of this internship is already halfway through....

happy merdeka day everyone. here's hoping our country becomes a great place to live in!

island tales #40

hola. here's something slightly different for a change... my nephew (answers to brian... er, dad's eldest brother's second daughter's kid) got entered in some baby competition thingie, and being the loving uncle who's only seen him a couple of times, i've decided to plug the little guy here. heh.

click here to vote for brian! (you handsome/pretty/attractive person, you)

cough. end of plug. thank you for your attention. and hey if YOU put ur baby in some future competition i'll be sure to return the favour. *convincing grin*

* * * * *

in other news. i've been working a bit overtime this week to catch up with the work i lost while sick. and the rest of the time after that was spent sleeping to catch up with the sleep i lost while overtime. and the rest of the time after THAT was spent playing games to catch up with the playing i lost while sleeping. and i also did my laundry...

got myself a spanking new mouse again too. black and silver with a funky blue light coming out of it's mousewheel. and optical. i havent used optical for a long time... so decided to try it for a change. my previous, not-so-new-anymore-mousewheel-broken-cheapo mouse is now a spare. together with the other two mice upstairs. (erm. anyone needs an extra mouse?)

and YES! i more or less successfully completed the first round of stuff at work. second round starts on tuesday, and this time i'm a lot more prepared for it. going to plan it so i can get everything done on time this time around... wish me luck!

* * * * *

oh and don't forget to vote for brian. u'll need java to do it though (what were they thinking?? havent they heard of php/asp??), so there might be a slight hiccup if you dont have it and dont want to download it. but if you do get it... er.... you'll get to hug the kid if you ever meet him. :D

cheers~

island tales #39

i'm back! not completely recovered, still feel slightly blur, but headaches are gone, fever's gone and cough's been reduced to a mild throat irritation. yes!

all that's left to do now is to catch up with all the work that got pushed back due to the worrying and falling sick. oh, and thanks to my mum and dad (you guys can stop worrying now... :P), carol (you can stop worrying now too.. :P) and chen (i believe i still owe u the chicken rice..).

strangely enough, i dreamt of sun wukong (the monkey king that is, not the dragonball guy) almost the whole night. hmmm. i've always found him a fascinating character: cheeky, mischevious, gets away with the most audacious stunts, but deep (deep) down he's actually a rather nice guy... in other words, completely unlike me. (confession: i've been a fan of this naughty monkey since i was a small kid.) hm.

*back to work*

island tales #38

this is a whole new meaning to the phrase 'worried sick'. i think i have the flu... weather's taken a turn for colder times. sigh.

island tales #37

i feel like... i just climbed to the top of the tallest peak in existence, tripped, and fell several thousand miles into the deepest hole in existence, which i then slowly crawled out of.

in other words, im feeling pretty damn weird.

finally upgraded my pc, though some parts were not available so it ended up being slightly more expensive than i'd budgeted for. so decided not to spend more money by choosing to install everything myself. in retrospect, that wasnt the wisest choice i had ever made in my life...

and of course, the computer is now spoiled. after a sleepless night (where i dreamt of the invoice cackling madly in my face while pointing to the phrase "NO WARRANTY CLAIMS FOR DIY F-UPS"), i spent the morning in a totally dazed state (as i always do when any one of my computers conk out. my colleagues said i looked like a total wreck, as if someone just died. hm.), and finally couldnt stand it anymore, so took a break to get it to the shop.

the technician insisted it was my fault, and i insisted it was a hardware error. so the motherboard is now on its way to the factory to be validated for warranty claims. i got a nice green reciept that says (more or less) "we will try and claim for u, but u might not get the claim approved", but at least im now able to function normally!

heh. i hope the warranty claim is approved. will find out in two or three weeks... so far it seems like everything other part survived the catastrophe. I CERTAINLY HOPE SO! else i'd have to dig in my pocket some more...

and the moral of this story is: destroying my computers will certainly have a cataclysmic effect on me. so please don't! it's cruel~

(and everyone also says i place wayy too much importance on those stupid boxes...)

island tales #36

it's the convofair! utp holds one everytime there's a convocation, so me and chen took a trip to tronoh to meet up with friends and revisit the uni. and this here is chen's vehicle, which was how we got there.

the convofair is mostly a huge pasar malam/carnival/exhibition event, with lots of stalls being set up in the field near the new hostel villages. there are mini car shows, food stalls, exhibitions held by various companies, carnival game stalls (including an archery station and a giant yoyo), and stalls selling everything from computer parts to shirts and posters.

here are my utp buddies, minus me.

and here i am! hair looks really short in this pic though.

this was dinner! a quick before and after shot of our pizza. ordered the wrong one, supposed to not have beef. but it turned out ok in the end.

this here is the ayam golek madu (chicken cooked with honey) stall, which was where we had lunch. it was quite alright, though there was quite a wait for the chicken.

after dinner, we visited this newly opened cafe right next to my old hostel block. it's larger than most other cafes, and i was really surprised to find this above the cafe:

pool tables! it was RM3 a go, but i dont play pool. watched the guys play instead... looked pretty fun. and speaking of pool, there is actually a KOI POND next to the drinks stall in the new cafe... with koi fish inside!

oh and there's a foosball table too. but there was nobody playing.

it was supposed to be a day trip, but there was lots of stuff to do so we decided to bunk over at gordon's place for a night. was up by 7.30 thanks to the faulty internal clock, and spent the time watching CSI episodes while waiting for the rest to wake up. oo and took an early morning shot out the corridor window:

and we left at 11 plus after breakfast, headed for home. here's the v5 car park, where you can see lots and lots of cars...

and here's the new mosque... still under construction though.

and i present to you the world's most advanced guard post! complete with a fountain nearby, it's located in the middle of a roundabout after the main entrance.

goodbye utp!

and 2 hours later, we came to the penang bridge.

home sweet home! :)

interlude

*brief interlude*

yes, i havent had a proper update for a while. and there probably wont be one for a while yet... in the midst of planning for a brand new (electronic) baby. i'm strangely excited... the last time i felt like this was three years ago, when i got my current computer. mmmmmmmmmm.... that burning feeling of anticipation......

i can't wait. :P

probably heading for utp later today.

*end of brief interlude*

island tales #35

i'm amazingly tired.

lost the basketball match in the first round (no big surprise..), 5-4. was pretty fun, havent exerted so much energy for a long long while now. but was so tired after the game, practically lost my vision for a few minutes as my (weak) lungs pumped oxygen like mad to the rest of my body. driving back was pretty whacked, had to concentrate real hard due to the recovering body and the oxygen-deprived brain.

note to self: don't get that tired again if driving back is involved.

went out with alvin choong and his friends last night for... wat else... dota! first time i actually saw so many computers in one room all running the SAME GAME. a bunch of fricking crazy people out there.. i'm pretty sure they play a LOT more than i ever will. the games were rather ok, tho i look real rusty next to the maniacs who play this game for a living.

and of course, life at the workplace has evolved into a kind of high-speed grind, where you have to get lots of stuff done while time whizzes by. i've resorted to actually making a time table (help me im becoming like my mum!) to keep track of what needs to be done by when. guess the honeymoon period is well and truly over... it's not too bad actually, just very similar to constantly shovelling water out of a bucket under a tap that has been turned on full blast... (and that has got to be the worst analogy i have EVER come up with...)

supervisor visiting tomorrow. not much idea what to expect, let's just hope it goes okay. now if you'll excuse me, i have a lot of recovering to do.

island tales #34

Simmie's Survival Tips #1

Here's the situation. You start your car one fine day, and to your utter horror, the needle is best buddies with the ominous red dot labelled with an 'E'. You're miles from the nearest petrol station, and worse, it's rush hour AND there is an accident somewhere along the expressway, so the roads are crawling with cars. Now what?

1) Rule number one is Don't Panic. That is possibly the worst thing you can do in any situation. Take deep breaths and try to remember Simmie's Survival Tips (now available in printed form at a reasonable price of... whatever it costs for you to print out this page, adjusted for local inflation), it's a slightly better option than Panicking.

2) Before you do anything else, plan the rest of the journey. (insert cliche here: he who fails to plan, plans to fail). While you're at it, try and include a gas station somewhere along the route. Preferably somewhere AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE along the route. Not to put too much emphasis on it, but when you're running desperately low on fuel, a gas station would, perhaps, have a rather high priority on your list of desired destinations.

3) Conserve fuel. Which means no revving the engine to sound cool, no sudden 180km/h handbrake turns, no playing with the highlights, no stressing the air conditioning systems at full blast, no extremely loud music thumping out of your speakers, and if possible keep the car moving until you get some more gas into the tank. In other words, drive like those old guys you find on the road early sunday morning.

4) Should you actually run out of fuel halfway, activate your hazard lights, guide the car to a safe spot (on the shoulder of the road, a parking lot, whatever), whip out your mobile phone and call for help. Be sure to state where you are: statements such as "OI FRIEND! (insert expletive of choice here)!!! I RAN OUT OF FUEL! (insert more expletives)!!! COME HELP ME LIAO!! *hangs up*" will really help you vent that pent up frustration on your unfortunate listener, but aren't of much use to whoever it is you are calling.

5) Again, always remain calm. And next time, for goodness sake, check your gas level before starting any journey! (insert cliche here: avoidance is better than cure)

This social message was brought to you by Simmie and the Half a Cup of Coffee's Self Preservation Foundation. Please forward all gratitude (monetary or otherwise) to the less fortunate in your neighbourhood.

* * * * *

And on a totally different note, I'm thinking of getting a new computer soon. Still undecided on the exact specifications, but i'm planning to switch to DDR/DDR2 RAM, a 3 gig processor, new motherboard (USB2.0, SATA, PCI-e), SATA hard disk drive (160 gig, most probably), and a casing with better airflow. Everything else will most likely be recycled, including the fx5700 im currently using.

Hm. Only one small problem.

* * * * *

Dear Santa,

I hope you're reading this blog. I have been a good boy this year, i think. How's the North Pole?

Yours sincerely,
nerdook.

island tales #33

the haze seems to be gone for now.

spent the weekend coughing, nursing a headache and cursing the haze. grrr. fell sick upon waking up on saturday, with a dry irritated throat and a thumping headache. the haze was better by yesterday, and this morning it seemed to be completely gone. and i feel much better already... yay!

hm, and this weekend was spent with the visitors: gordon, samick-f2b, longkang and fish. pretty fun having them around, though sleeping in an air conditioned room worsened my situation somewhat. i cant seem to sleep properly in aircon rooms... even hotels make my mouth and throat really dry. just another one of my many quirks, i guess. the concert seemed to be pretty ok too, but four of them were pretty much on the verge of collapsing upon reaching home, after 5 hours of standing around.

went out for dinner last night with chen, his (rather cute) sis, and the rest of his (rather cute) family, including two (rather cute) young cousins of his at this beachside food court opposite Northam Towers. was pretty nice, except that my eyes had pretty much given up functioning by then, and my headache had evolved into a migraine, so most of my vision was filled with streaks of light dancing around to a funky beat. but it was a nice meal...

monday! work awaits. quote of the week: "the young want to get richer, while the rich want to be younger." something which has been running around in my head since friday.

island tales #32

I got back really late tonight.

Had a barbeque session over at a colleague's place, which was really really fun. lots of food (tho the butter used on the barbequed chicken limited my appetite somewhat), and lots of fun. also i left rm35 poorer thanks to greed (and loads of bad luck)... lol. we had this card game thingie, and though i don't gamble as a general rule, i guess this was an exception. most of the cash in the final pot (and there was a lot left at the end!) went to the hostess and the rest was used to pay for the food and stuff, and in any case, we had loads of laughs over one round where a mindboggling amount of RM120 was lost... it was eventually returned to the guy, of course, that was way too much cash!! went for limteh (drink tea) session after that, and honestly i havent had so much fun in a while. i dont usually go out with my batch people to these kinda functions, usually coz the girls are there, and the rest is a pretty long story. ask me some other day.

anyway, the event probably marks the end of my more relaxed period, since work rolls in on monday. and tomorrow, a bunch of utp people will be over in penang for the 8tv concert thingie. no plans as yet, but i definitely would be staying home... no concerts for me, not my kind of thing.

* * * * *

updated: oh yes, it's now 8am and im wide awake. reason: it's hard to sleep with the smell of smoke everywhere. oh yes, that's right, the haze has reached penang. not sure how bad it is, but everything's already blanketed by the foul smelling cloud. here's the pic: it might not look so bad, but take a good look at the sky, and you'll see that it is WHITE IN COLOUR... which is just how bad the situation suddenly became. hm.

gah. let's hope it goes away soon. in the meantime im going to boil more water and stay indoors...

island tales #31

this was my dinner. triple char siew pao... cost about rm2.50, and i've only eaten one so far. kinda full from lunch, my whole team stuffed themselves at kfc in tesco. other than that, it's been a pretty typical tuesday. saving the other two buns for tonight, just in case i get hungry.

and this here is a sign that says ladies' toilet.

why did i put a picture of that here? heh, it just so happened that i walked right into one today! dont ask... it's a long story... but anyway, was pretty funny (yes, it really was) and in any case it was a part of the building i've never been to.

lesson of the day: always read the sign on the door before going in. :P

island tales #30

it's the end of yet another monday. chen's off on a family dinner, so it's a pretty quiet night. took a quiet moment picture to remember the eeriely tranquil "monday night atmosphere"... bag dumped on the piano seat upon getting back from work, lights on in the porch, waiting for my housemate's return. empty seats and empty tv screens. just the way i like it...

once again, time has hurtled past at a breakneck speed, which is something that has always puzzled me. one hour these days doesnt seem to last as long as one hour back then, and before i know it another day has merrily zipped past. work was pretty okay, but it seems like the honeymoon period is going to be over soon... the workload seems to be gathering momentum day by day. by all indications, i'm going to be neck deep in work from next week onwards all the way to next year... hehe. certainly sounds exciting.

here's a shot of the dining room table. not particularly exciting, but not exactly boring either. the perfect analogy for my life at the moment.

birthday!

and we interrupt our normal programming with a special news bulletin:

happy birthday to my little bro!

hehe. that's right. it's my brother's birthday today... and how cool can you get, he was born on the 8th of august, 1986. which makes it 8/8/86... haha, off by a single digit. which means the guy is 19 years old now, and he sure as heck does not look like the pic above. a lot taller, for one thing. and certainly not bald. and slightly less cuddly. but heck, i prefer the smaller version, so im gonna stick that picture up with this blog! (mostly coz i look cute as well)

so yes, happy birthday bro. let's hope you get wiser and richer, have a great year ahead, and good luck for ur exams this week (ahaha!). please don't grow any taller. and for the record... i needed to sleep early, so i cheated on the time this is posted. it's only 10.50pm and it's still sunday, but hey, who cares, eh? :P

have a great birthday! p/s he's still single and available too....

island tales #29

finally... after missing church for the last two weeks, i managed to drag myself out from bed early enough to make it to church. and amazingly it's my earliest arrival yet, though it's still a good five minutes after the thing started... the place is a catholic cathedral, so everything is pretty much identical to church back home. except of course, the priest is a different guy.

ah, and in a flash of inspiration (and also because i was only half awake at the time), i snapped some pics of the place this morning at seven am. yea dat's right, seven am!!!! insanely early for a sunday, but thanks to waking up at 6 smth everyday, my body insists on opening my eyes (despite vehement protests from the bloodshot eyeballs) and getting out of (the warm, comfortable) bed every freaking morning at six am. even when i have nothing to do. gah...

so here are the pics:

this is my computer, and it has been left on for more than 24 hours now. currently plugged into the modem and shuffling several million bits of data into its gut. and this also happens to be where i spend almost all of my waking hours at home.

and this is a photo of the street in the early morning. i kinda like the reddish hue caused by the street light, mixed with the barely blue sky. and the reason everything else seems dark is... because nobody else is awake yet.

it seems like a lovely sunday so far. there is a pcfair here in penang, might visit again later to see if there's anything worth buying. hm.

island tales #28

i've always tended to remember my dreams, which are of course usually quite bizzare. like last night, for example. for no apparent reason, i dreamt i was going to russia... of all places.

apparently you can just walk across the nearest border (with a quaint little checkpoint) and tadaa~ you're in russia. complete with sudden climate change and everything. i rented this little place there just down the road from the checkpoint (surrounded by uh mango trees?!), and visited the nearby uni (again, conveniently located along the same road) to look for my russian medical friends. and all this without being able to speak a word of russian, but fortunately for me the road signs there were in chinese... uh.... and i could have sworn there was a russian spiderman zipping along above the streets. and then i woke up.

anyway.

staying at the shop half the time as a kid has plenty of advantages. and one of them is.. a supply of cigarette carton boxes!!! and no, i dont smoke, nor do i enjoy people smoking around me, and i definitely am not encouraging you to light up. back then, i used the boxes to draw on, with their blank insides serving as an excellent replacement for paper.

i would draw people and animals and superheros and cartoon characters, then cut them out and uh, use them as the characters of whatever storyline i was conjuring in my head at the moment. sometimes, i'd add in 6-sided dice, make up some rules and then, urm, aggressively persuade my brother to join in. hehe. he was a lot smaller back then!!

oh, and i used to take cellophane tape from the shop downstairs, until it was pointed out to me that this was called stealing. whoops. that was honestly one of the most astonishing revelations i had as a kid. cello-tape consumption was reduced from then on and i made sure i actually asked before i took anything... *sheepish grin*

of course, i no longer get to cut my own toys out from cigarette carton boxes, but i guess that's one of the reason i found programming so fun... now i can move little people around on the screen! and my brother's too big to bully... haha. but i've always wanted to make something i imagined as a kid: a machine that can design, make and repair other machines! but i guess that's not gonna happen anytime soon...

friday again. i've got a larger than usual lunch to go to later... 2 birthdays and 1 farewell rolled into one. well.. back to work for now.

island tales #27

rainy morning today... im sniffling slightly due to the sudden cold upon waking up, brrrr. *sniffle*

spent the night reading kenny sia's blog.. thats www.kennysia.com for those who are interested. i actually think he's done more to put kuching on the map than a stack of government brochures, and it actually makes for an entertaining read. you'd be surprised to know how many west malaysians consistently mix up sarawak and sabah cities... more than once, telling people im from kuching earns me the reply "ooo.. in sabah?"... sigh. so yea, if you're bored, go take a look. he's funnier than i'd ever dare to be, haha. just take everything there with a pinch of salt.

also, today is thursday! which means it's time to start planning for the weekend (which actually starts tomorrow afternoon)! currently hoping that it'll be a nice relaxing weekend... i'd probably spend it taking more pics to put up here, and make more of an effort to get myself to church (which i've missed for 2 weeks now), so no more late saturdays, hopefully. and yes, another week has just whizzed past, which means i've just passed week 8 of the internship... exactly a quarter of the way through.

wow. feels like i've just arrived.

not much else to update everyone about, unfortunately. life is very quiet on all fronts, with no expected storms in the horizon. or is there?? *dramatic crashing music!* hahaha...

island tales #26

it's tuesday!

this week is turning out to be busier than expected. the malacca trip thingie is off for now, as everyone here is running around getting stuff done, so this weekend is definitely going to be a welcome relief for everyone at work...

had a nice hotel buffet dinner last night for a grand total of RM4 (for the parking). it was held at evergreen laurel along gurney drive, which coincidentally was one of the places where we visited way back in first year, with the gals in my batch. actually, i would've totally forgotten about the place if it wasn't for the fact that chen was there the last time as well.. :P i found it nice, but was kinda full driving back. *burp* so decided to skip the monday post, hope nobody missed me.. ;)

* * *

and let's talk about dota! yes that's right, again. i'm well aware that there are plenty of unhealthily fanatical people out there whose lives revolve around this game. and i'm also well aware that, on occasion, i'm one of them! haha. trawl through the net and you'll probably find lots of fanboy rants and an equally vocal amount of anti-dota sentiments hammering the dota lunatics and their obsession with the game.

hm. quick background then for those who are lost: dota (defence of the ancients, and more often than not refers to the dota all stars version) is one of the many many custom maps available for warcraft III, and it happens to be the most popular by far in malaysia. it pits 2 teams of 5 players each (or maybe less) against each other, backed by a neverending stream of disposable soldiers controlled by the computer. there are three lanes between the 2 teams, and first one to wipe out the enemy's Big Building wins. simple, isn't it? :P

as to WHY it's such an addictive game: i really have no idea, but i would hazard that it's because the game rewards teamwork as much as individual skill, and so it appeals to quite a wide spread of its audience. prefer to support? be a healer. love sneaking around? bone. or be a spellcaster, close-range fighter, or even the guy who has so much hp, he just sits there and gets hammered by the opponents while grinning (the term is 'tank').

in this sense, it's got plenty in common with superhero comics (a small team of individuals with diverse skills and abilities... naruto, anyone?), sports games (5 on 5 basketball demands tactics, teamwork and skill as well), and warcraft III's production qualities are so high that the various special effects feel incredibly satisfying even on low end computers.

so why are there people complaining (mostly girls, as far as i know) that guys prefer this stupid game to their companionship? and for the record, carol does feel that i spent way too much time on this game last semester (the root cause of a few of my reddened ears)...

i haven't the faintest clue, except for the assumption that it's because a single bloody dota game usually takes 30 minutes to 1 and a half hours to complete, averaging just over one hour. this means that once you start the game, you wont be able to walk away until an hour later (on average!). and guy, notoriously enough, have the self preservation tendencies of a suicidal lemming, so even with half an hour left before something happens (i.e. the gf pops up online, gf shows up at the door or gf wants to go shopping) they would STILL decide that they have ample time to finish a game. and since you are heavily discouraged to leave halfway through a game (penalty is usually some kind of ban from future games), guys will stay glued to the monitor throughout the game, screaming at whoever is beckoning in the real world to "wait just one second im about to pawn these guys!!", and this leads to flare ups and a sense of extreme annoyance on whoever is waiting for these baboons to get back to their real life.

and yes, on occasion, i have done it all. guilty as charged! not so much on friends (since almost all of them play the damn game as well), but definitely on my mum and on carol, lol. oh, and once i was (ever so slightly) late for a lab session in uni because of dota. but (importantly), not always... more often than not, i'd choose to do SOMETHING ELSE now if i realise there are people waiting for me, or simply if i can't afford to spend the time to finish that one game.

so girls (and parents)! here's a friendly piece of advice. there really is no need to stop anyone from the game, but there sure as hell is a need to make sure they don't get so absorbed in it that they lose all sense of the real world. freely admitting that i am a gaming geek, i still try to get most of my work in the real world done (studies, projects, tutorials, housework) before relaxing in a game. of course, i wish you the best of luck in changing the attitude of a guy (it's unbelievably difficult, isnt it? ;P), but if i were you, the best solution would be to (jeng jeng jeng) introduce him to some other EVEN MORE ADDICTIVE game that allows you to quit any time you like (haha..), so he would at least have something to play while waiting for you, you won't need a crowbar to pry him from the computer, and you can save everyone involved a lot of grief. if this still doesnt work, then i suggest you turn off the computer's power supply the next time it happens, and then cackle in glee as he leaps screaming and spitting back into the real world... :P

i'm only writing this because carol referred me to some of the dota victims' exasperated cries for justice on the web, and i thought i'd offer my own views on it.

* * *

well that was a pretty long post. i'd better get back to work, it's gonna be a long day. do leave your comments as usual, there is the usual chicken-or-beef choices of the comment box below or the shoutbox to the left. take your pick. would probably only be able to reply by tonight... until then, im off!