Wow. I actually skipped two whole months without a single entry on this website. What is the world coming to?

In case you didn't catch some of my tweets in the last month or two, once again, I got myself involved with another 8TV production called Showdown 2010 to do the music remixes and edits. The whole thing has been crazy to say the least but at the same time, the most fun as well. Crazy as I was doing this on top of the demands of my day job but fun as I was given a lot of room to play around (and too much rope to hang myself with sometimes), especially with the remixes. Plus, I gotta say that the production team has been the coolest I had the privilege to work with and the dance crews have been awesome as well bringing visual life to the songs. I hear some got injured performing to the songs too so I guess my work is done and mission accomplished. More...

I decided to do a bit of rummaging through one of my overstuffed gerobok cabinet in my apartment when lo and behold, I found me an unopened brand new toaster! For the love of God, I have no idea when I made that purchase nor was it someone's gift to me but I have never been more excited about a piece of electrical appliance ever since I got my fridge a few years ago! With this, I can now have my bread slices toasted or even have waffles for breakfast. Of course, because I'm such a lazy ass, I'll probably be eating them over the kitchen sink to avoid having to clean the mess that those toasted crumbs can make all over the place.

Toaster. Never stick a fork in it or shower with one that's plugged in.

I actually made it through the month of March without a single entry on this weblog. I'm not sure if I want to consider that as an achievement but it's the first ever since the inception of this website.

Bring out the cake!

Ever since MySpace acquired music service iMeem, a few of the mashups that I've uploaded there have gotten lost in some digital wasteland. Worry no more. I'm releasing ALL of the mashups and remixes that I've ever done in freely playable and redistributable MP3 format. That's right! You can finally download and keep remixes and mashups like Nikki (feat. Survivor) - Cantik Like Me, Nikki Vs. Shazee (feat. Christina Aguilera) - Selamat Tinggal Genie and Dayang Nurfaizah & Diddy (feat. OneRepublic/Timbaland) - Hilang (It's Too Late) that were previously available only on iMeem. You can find more of those to annoy your neighbors on the Audio page. So don't delay, collect them all today!

Everyday is made up of different battles. Sometimes you fight them not because you want to, but because you have to. Other times you fight for what you want but what you want isn't willing. Even worse, you still fight knowing very well that you can't have what you want. Rarely, if ever, that there's no battle at all, where everything works out perfectly that things just happen. So when you do win a battle, be happy with it and savor it well as it usually involves a fair share of disappointments before that. It makes you more appreciative of what you've been fighting for when the battle has been a long and difficult one, fraught with so many failures before victory is achieved. Especially when the fight is for things that really matter in your life. Like pride in your work. Or your friendship. Your family. Your loved ones. Or most importantly, yourself really.

Just keep the faith when you're still duking it out there on your own even after all these years.

Happy 2010.

You'd think I'd let 2009 slip away without an entry for December, eh? With everything that went on throughout the year, I actually took a very long overdue break from everything during the whole month of December in my bid to fix the most difficult thing I've ever had to fix, i.e. myself. Rather than trying to find myself by going elsewhere, I actually did the opposite by going nowhere and did absolutely nothing but daily errands and reconnecting with people that matter, i.e. family and friends. I won't bore you with details of it but I'm thankful that I did manage to find that clarity I needed to get in touch with myself again (although I still remain untouched by anyone else). There was also a discovery of purpose that I really want to take further steps on but that's just tempting fate at this point in time. Trying to remind myself that good things do come to those who wait, though I don't think I want to wait too long that I'll miss the boat altogether now.

And so in just a few hours, 2010 will be upon us. You may go, 2009. I forgive you. I want to move on.

• 10 surprising reasons sex is good for you
  A 10-year Welsh study found that those who enjoyed an active sex life were 50 per cent less likely to have died during that time than those who did not.
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• How to Get Out of the "Friend Zone"
  You done messed up, didn't you? You saw romantic ski trips and candle light dinners. You had visions of spooning with her naked on the couch. Ferris wheels, and canoodling on the boardwalk, lazy Sundays together, and gulp, introducing her to your parents... Didn't quite turn out that way, huh?
• Eight reasons why you're still single
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• What killed Ranjan Das and Lessons for Corporate India
  A month ago, many of us heard about the sad demise of Ranjan Das, 42, CEO of SAP-Indian Subcontinent, the youngest CEO of an MNC in India. He was very active in sports, was a fitness freak and a marathon runner. Just after Diwali, on 21st Oct, he returned home from his gym after a workout, collapsed with a massive heart attack and died.

If I knew it would be the last time that I'd see you fall asleep,
I would tuck you in more tightly, and pray the Lord your soul to keep.
If I knew it would be the last time that I'd see you walk out the door,
I would give you a hug and kiss, and call you back for just one more.

If I knew it would be the last time I'd hear your voice lifted up in praise,
I would tape each word and action, and play them back throughout my days
If I knew it would be the last time, I would spare an extra minute or two,
To stop and say "I love you," instead of assuming you know I do.

So, just in case tomorrow never comes, and today is all I get,
I'd like to say how much I love you, and I hope we never will forget.
Tomorrow is not promised to anyone, young or old alike,
And today may be the last chance you get to hold your loved one tight.

So, if you're waiting for tomorrow, why not do it today?
For if tomorrow never comes, you'll surely regret the day
That you didn't take that extra time for a smile, a hug, or a kiss,
And you were too busy to grant someone, what turned out to be their one last wish.

So hold your loved ones close today, and whisper in their ear,
That you love them very much, and you'll always hold them dear.
Take time to say "I'm sorry," "Please forgive me," "thank you" or "it's okay".
And if tomorrow never comes, you'll have no regrets about today.

-- Tomorrow Never Comes by Norma Cornett Marek

There are times when I feel guilty for not updating this weblog as often as I do those status updates on Facebook or Twitter. It's one thing stringing a few words together into a concise sentence that doesn't exceed the 140 character limit and one whole other thing putting together a few sentences into something meaningful and worthy enough for the reader to spend a few non-refundable minutes of his or her life reading it.

So being the geek I am, I quickly knocked up a piece of code to grab the last few updates from my Twitter account and have it displayed on the main page of this website. I initially toyed around with some of those ready-made Twitter widgets that you can just copy and paste the code over but the end result of it just made it seem so aesthetically wrong that it would've given the website self-esteem issues already with Twitter being on its turf. Besides, real geeks code, others rely on plug-ins.

With that out of the way, I'm gonna be sorting out MY own issues now.

The PC I built back in 2005 that I've been using as my home studio computer died on me a couple of months back. It has served me well. With the motherboard dead, it meant that I had to gut out and perform a transplant on major parts of the machine. Looked up the Arstechnica's System Guide for Budget Box and ended up with the following:

• Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3L motherboard
• Intel Core2Quad Q8400 CPU
• 4x 2GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 RAM (that's 8GB RAM yo!)
• ATI Radeon HD4850 graphics card

It's not really orgasm inducing or top of the line by today's standards for sure but at just slightly over RM1,500 it's beefy enough to run my favorite piece of software on top of the usual everyday computing stuff for the next few years. Hopefully the 64-bit Windows 7 OS that I'll be using for this machine will restore my trust in Microsoft and make the money spent for a properly licensed copy worth it after the horrible wreck that was Vista.