I hope nobody minds, but with more tinkering to do to the computer I don’t feel like loading on pictures and videos of my Malaysian trip only to have them possibly deleted off the system before I get a chance to upload them onto this site.

So, hopefully you won’t mind if I return to the Dabidostein story, ‘Ghost of Dabidostein’.  I know a few people are waiting for me to finish it.  Simon brought it up whilst I was in Malaysia, so maybe it is best for me to continue before I return to recapping my adventures with snakes and elephants in the deepest parts of … um … downtown Malaysia. 

It’s hard to believe I’ve been back a month already.  Only feels like yesterday I was in KL … must readjust my time machine. 

Oh, there was one part of my system I didn’t back up that I should have … my e-mail.  So, I have no e-mail from the last year or so.  Thunderbird isn’t loading onto this version of Ubuntu either at the moment.  Grrrr!  I have a server full of the last two weeks worth of e-mail to get and don’t have my Mail Client of choice.  Stupid computer errors.

*****

I am pretty happy with the way my house plans are coming along … oh, did I forget to mention I am building a house.  Well, not me personally, but I am taking out a huge mortgage and paying some builders to build it.

I’ve already got the land.  My survey on the land came through today, so the house plans and contracts will be getting drawn up soon and awwwaaaaaaaay we go.

Some of my houses special features:

1. Spa bath for us luxury loving snakes.  (That’s Chinese Year of the snake)
2. Extra wide Garage to allow me to get things out the back yard.
3. Art studio.  (Ha ha, Lainie.  Now I bet you wish you’d married me) 
4. Music Studio (Ha ha, Beatles. Bet you wish you could record at Dabido Road Studios) 
5. 2.5 by 4 meter walk in robes!  (Ha ha … um … people who like lots of closet space!) 
6. Extra big pantry (Ha ha, food lovers.  Wish you want to get into my pantry!!!) 
7. Games room (Ha ha, Gary Gygax and Steve Jackson, bet you’d want to come play Munchkin Quest, Warhammer and snooker at my place) 
8. Three other bedrooms.  One which I hope to use as a guest room, and the other two as … um … spare rooms for when I eventually have kids … I hope.
9. Nice big living / dining area for all those dinner parties and movie nights I will have … just need to find people to come over … um …
10. Good security system … which will probably confuse any burglar who gets around it as I don’t own much furniture or anything of value.  Oh well, all in good time … might be able to afford some after I get a wife. 

I’m thinking of buying an electric scooter to get to and from the train station.  Other additions I’m hoping for include a dishwasher, robotic lawnmower (when I build it.  I mentioned it on the bus and an engineer goes, ‘Oh, that’s easy to build.’), Solar panels, roller shutters, air conditioning … furniture (that’d be nice) … and a wife and kids. 

Anyway, I can’t wait to move in so that I can spend time building stuff (snooker table, ping pong table, LOTS of book shelves, canvas stretchers) and doing art and playing games with my networked computers.  YAY!  Me feel good! 

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the lack of updates etc.  I’ve been having MAJOR issues with the computer.  I think the days that it was in the High 30’s and low 40 degrees celcius here in Gossie caused my computer to have hard drive issues.  As a result it got to the point where the OS [Operating System] couldn’t start and even after installing another two versions of the OS [one backwards and the other forwards] the machine was still having the same difficulty.  As such I’ve reformatted the HD’s and reinstalled.

Along the way I’ve found that Ubuntu 9 wouldn’t install for me off the ISO I down loaded.  Ubuntu 8 had same problem and I ended up going all the way back to Feisty Fawn (Ubuntu 7).

I also installed my copy of Windows XP in the hope it would play the games that I couldn’t get running in WINE.  Unfortunately, they still won’t run in Windows which leads me to suspect the Graphics card is the issue and not WINE.

I feel pretty dirty having a copy of XP on my wonderful machine … but at least I have Ubuntu back.  Now, lets hope the heat doesn’t get to the machine again.

Of course, this leads to the problem of having to upload ALL those games again!  Arrrrgh!  Open Arena, Free Colonization, Battle for Wesnoth.  Plus, all those really gnarly kewl programs like Blender, Ink Scape and GIMP.  WHAT A LOT OF DOWNLOADING I HAVE TO DO!!!!  OUCH!
I’m tempted to just go out and buy a DVD with most of those things on it … and then upgrade it all off the net (hopefully less in GB’s downloaded).

I’ve been getting on the internet via my Ubuntu 7 boot disk!  Unfortunately I was finding that it was accepting my typing at about 1 keystroke per second.  I thought it was the computer, but it appears just to be happening in Facebook [otherwise I might have come here and updated to explain what was happening].

Anywat, if my updates seem a little sporadic in the next week or so it’s because I’m still in the middle of fixing it all.

Hope to be updating again soon. 

Okay, I’m going to take a flying leap forward in time for my latest trip to Malaysia.  Last time I’d left you we had arrived in Malaysia and I’d spent the first day there with Xaviera and young Marco.  Alas, I must project forward a little just to get this post out of the way.  Why?  Well, no one has asked me too if that is what you are thinking.  I figured I had better seems as Nokia and Text100 (thanks David Lian) were nice enough to invite me to the Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic Launch and feed me and pay for my Sprite for free.  Most others have blogged about it and the fever over this phone was pretty darn HOT at the time … hopefully it hasn’t cooled too much.

So, we’re jumping from Dec 30th, 2008 to January 9th, 2009.

This is how the night went down for me. 

Grabbed a taxi from my hotel, the wonder Boulevarde at Midvalley and informed the driver I wanted to go to the Pavillion.  Mind you, I didn’t know what the Pavillion was … hotel, night club, shopping mall, a pavillion … who knew.

The driver took me there and we’d talked a little on the way.  I explained to him I’d been invited to the Nokia launch and that there was going to be a BIG gathering there.  I don’t think either of us realised how big it was until we got there and he was flabbergasted by the HUGE crowd that was there.

I wasn’t sure what was happening, as I was expecting the Pavillion to be a night club or something … like a lot of launches.  (I’ve been to a few, like the Toyota one I went to when I worked for Toyota, plus other computer ones … all before I was a blogger).  Anywat, it was all outside and I had to push my way through the crowd.  I decided to phone Suanie to see where everyone was.  Just as I was phoning her, I turned around and saw her and a heap of other people I knew!  w00t! 

For a good indication of how packed it was, hop on over to Sixthseals blog and check out about the first six or seven pictures.  I’m not sure where my pictures from the beginning of the night went, but I know my video footage still needs to be converted from MPEG4 into something more manageable for sharing.  I do have some pictures (They’ve been on facebook fvor a while) … they’re coming up in the next post. 

I got to talking to the usual suspects as well as a few bloggers I knew about but had never met in person.  I noticed everyone carrying pretty little blue nokia bags around.  Kewl!  I decided I needed one too so that I could be extra cool!  Suanie et al pointed me to a booth I’d passed on the way in and told me to register.

I went over and spoke to Radiance (I think) from Text100 behind the counter and explained who I was (and how important I was in my own mind).  :-)  She got me to start filling in the register page and someone pointed out I might already be on the register.  Sure enough, I checked the front page and I was already printed on the sheet ready to sign!  Yay!  Me almost important!

I got a Nokia Insider tag to hang around my neck from a Lanyard.  [Note to Nokia / Text 100 for next time if you are reading - The lanyards wouldn't have passed our safety standards at work as they don't have emergency clips that pull apart if you get caught on something.  Incidents of people getting caught on office partitions and injuring themselves are more common than some people realise.]

I then walked off, only to return as ask her if I was supposed to get a cute blue Nokia bag.  I was!  w00t!  Stunned silence! 

Inside my Nokia insider bag was :

• a nice unfolding picture of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic touch phone with lots of nice information about the phone on it,
• a cute thumb drive in the shape of a heart with little lanyard which came in a silver box,
• a plastic poncho in case it rained (it was rainy season).  I thought that was very good planning on behalf of the organisers.
• a nice carry case.  From the size I’d say it is good for carrying toiletries when travelling.

Some people said theirs also had stickers.  Mine didn’t, but I won’t cry about it … not much anyway. 

Horny also got his stuff at about the same time and we were left standing at the back of the crowd.  Suanie et al had disappeared towards the stage.  We stood there for a while watching, taking video / photos etc before deciding to push our way through the crowd to get to the others.

If my brain serves me correctly, the band playing was called Strikeforce and they were from Singapore.  A Troupe of drummers / percussionists (yes, I’d say that description was tautological with drummers being percussionists … though not all percussionists are drummers).

I really liked them.  They reminded me of the (dare I say it) Blue man group, though with a lot more people and none of them was blue.

After the flash beginning with Strikeforce, break dancers, exploding streamers and the like, Mister Vlaster Berka (I think he is General Manager of Nokia Malaysia)  hopped up on stage to tell us a little about the phone.

So, before I race off to look up the stats on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic touch screen phone, I’ll see waht I can drag from my memory.

First of all, it has a touch screen.  Why is this important?  Well, I don’t know if having a  screen that is touchable is that important, but what it can do is.  An example is the fact that as a screen it can change the input display, much like a computer screen can and unlike a keyboard can.

I know, some of you are thinking, ‘what are you going on about?’  I’m talking about this; my boss came up to me the other day when I was talking about possibly updating my phone.  He told me I should get a Blackberry, main reason, it has a QWERTY keyboard on it.  I pointed out to him that the QWERTY keyboard on the Blackberry is tiny, where as on the Nokia 5800 the screen turns into the QWERTY keyboard and you can type on it by touching the letters rather than using a pointy stick to do it.

Of course, you can then change what you are doing with the phone and the input display changes so that the QWERTY keyboard is gone and you then have nice little ICONS and so forth.

Second, it can play music.  I think there was some talk about access to Nokias music database for a period of time for free.  (I seem to remember some people in the crowd talking about downloading the entire catelogue as soon as they get the phone.  I somehow suspect them of wishful thinking). 

However, the music accessability was one of the big draw cards.  Download it nice and quick  and play it out loud.  (Just don’t play it too loud and not on any bus I’m on) 

Like most phones, it was games.  I know this as we go to try the phone later in the night and I was playing one of the games … and losing badly. 

There was also the accessability feature of the contacts bar and the media bar.  What are these things?  Well, the Contacts bar gives you a way to get to your favourite people in your address/phone book  pretty quick without going through half a dozen menus before you get to the person you want and the info you want about them.  The info can include things like the last few messages or when they last dialed etc.

The media bar gives you a quick drop down menu to the media parts of the phone, like the music, videos, internet etc.

My first impression was to compare it to the Apple iPhone.  A lot of people told me not to.  Why?  Apparently they are aimed at different niches in the market.  Sorry, but I still can’t help but make the comparison.  Look at it this way, they’re both multi-media phones and as such can be compared.

Let me start the comparison with the price.  Why?  Well, it is one of the obvious things to compare.  I had to convert the Malaysian Ringit (MR$1499 for the Nokia) into Aussie dollars on the spot that night to do the comparison.  Provided my mathematics is correct, the Nokia 5800 was about one third the price of the iPhone.  From here we can compare the value for money, though I will let you decide if it is value for the bucks you pay.

The second thing I will compare (which might be a little different to what some people will compare second) is the robustness of the phone.  Robustness?  Yes, Robustness.  I noticed how robust the Apple iPhone was when I was getting off the plane in Australia.  No, I don’t own an iPhone.  However, I did drop my bag from the overhead compartment on the plane onto a guys arm causing him to throw his iPhone at the floor.  In flight it hit the arm of the plane chair with some force (believe me, my bag was heavy and projected this thing towards the floor) and then bounced on the floor.  I was really shocked and apologised to the guy, who just laughed at me and told me that the iPhones are indestructible.  He then checked the phone to make sure it still worked and told me it was fine.  *stunned amazment*

Now admittedly phones are NOT designed to be thrown around, but it certainly is a good feature for a phone to have.  I think of it a little as being like TAG watches (or other ‘indestructible watches’) as compared to a normal watch.  Obviously not everyone will want this feature with their phone.  After all, I’ve carried around my plastic phones for years without ever having some idiot on a plane drop his bag on my arm.

At the time I counted myself lucky that the guy owned an iPhone.  what if he owned something like what I currently own?  My phone woul dhave been all over the plane in little pieces.

So Nokia, if you read this and want an idea for a feature improvement, making an ‘Indestructible’ 5800 (lets call it the 5800i), then I think there may be a small niche market for it.  Why a small market?  Well, most people don’t envisage their phones being used as footballs, tennis balls, dog chews or anything else.  They generally take care NOT to let their phones get near idiots on planes with heavy bags etc.  However, there will be those people who like to skydive, abseil, rock climb, fall off buildings (called stunt men I believe), get shot at (army and police) and do other things where a phone can easily fall from a pocket or from a bag onto rocks, cement, arms of plane seats, that sort of thing.

I will leave this now and work on part two tomorrow afternoon. 

Yes, I am a little distracted with big decissions being made by moi in my life.

Contacted the builders concerning a house and land package.  I have a few amendments to the house plan and expect them to get back to me sometime within the week with a new quote … plus it might be slightly too big to fit on the block of land.  I’ll have to wait.

The mortgage people will contact me tomorrow.  I can’t believe how quick it has happened.  I’ve spent about two or three weeks looking at house and land packages, some new houses already built, others are just empty blocks waiting to be built on … if I get this one it will need to be re-pegged too.

Anywat, if successful I will go from being a disciplined saver to someone owing half a million to some bank somewhere.  OUCH!  Hee hee!

Sort of feels good and scary at the same time!  I’m sort of freaking out and happy simultaneously.

I’ve been told that I often do things in the wrong order.  Now, all I need to do is find the wife and kids to go with my big house! 

Weird thing happened on the bus to work today.

Was sitting in my usual seat.  Young woman sat in the seat in front with her music blasting so loud that I could hear it clearly.  I assume she is deaf … or is quickly making herself deaf.

The bus fills up and soon there are people standing all along the bus.  An old guy sits directly behind me.  Behind him is my friend Michael Jackson (that’s his name).

So, we’re travelling along the usual route, when the guy behind me starts to hum.  Not a tune as it was out of time and had no rhythm.  More of a random “MMMmmmmm (pause), mmmmm (pause), mmmMMMMmmmmm (pause), MMMmmmmmmMMmmMmmMmm.”

You get the drift I hope.  Anyway, I’m sitting between the girl in fronts music, ‘CHUNKA CHUNKA CHUNKA CHUNKA’ and the guy behind me, MMMmmmMMMmmm.’  After a while it starts to get on my nerves.  Usually I am a very peaceful person and never even think of violence, but the guy behind me is so not in any sort of rhythm and he sounds like he’s humming right into my ear.  Arrrrgh!

Anyway, as per usual I hold my temper, after all, he is an old guy.

Eventually, most people are off the bus and there is a few of us left.  I turn to Michael and ask him if the guys humming was bothering him.  Michaels reply surprised me a little.  He was not annoyed by the humming so much, he was annoyed by something else the old guy was doing that I had not been aware of.

Apparently, the OLD MAN was humming in order to cover the sounds of him releasing WIND!  OH GEES.  Lucky for me the smell drifted backwards in the bus, so poor Michael and other backseat people had to smell it.

I guess it goes to prove one thing, just when you’re annoyed and you think you can’t take it any more, just remember, there is someone else who is copping it worse than you! 

One of these two statements is true, the other is false.

The statement above is the one which is true.

As per my previous trip to Malaysia, I arrived at the Boulevarde Hotel early in the morning and they let me have my room early.  Book in time is at 2PM, so was nice to be able to get into my room and put my bags away and stuff.

I suspect this might have been the reason for the lack of toilet paper in the bathroom (if the maid hadn’t fiished my room properly before I arrived).

I ran into one of the maids when I first arrived and she recognised me from my previous stay.  In fact, she even remembered my room number from the previous stay.  (1014).  For some reason she also thought I’d been there a month or two earlier … weird.  My secret cloned twin must have stayed there in October or something.  (I try to be as forgettable as possible so I can tell the same jokes over and over.  When you only know two jokes you have to make them last) 

I had some Malaysian money left over from last trip, so I swapped out my Aussie money in my wallet for the Malaysian money.

I then sent out a number of SMS’s to people to warn them tell them I had arrived in KL.

I popped into the Mega Mall and hada good walk around to make sure it was still the same old place.

Xaviera (aka Thai Boxing Girl) phoned and we organised to have lunch/dinner.  She and Marco picked me up from the hotel and we went to Indian Kitchen at Bangsar.  I was short of money (even with the Malaysian currency I bought back with me) so I had to find an ATM before eating.

The food was good.  I have no idea what it was that I ate, except that it was vegetarian and yummy.  It had what I like to refer to as the right amount of burn to taste ratio.  Neither over powered the other.

Marco spotted some ladies eating in the next booth and kept going over to smile at them and watch them.  (Darn casanova already and he’s only about one!) 

After eating we went to a nearby shopping mall where Marco had to have a change.  I stayed out of the way as I figure I’m going to get enough practice changing diapers when I have children of my own.

We went to Starbucks and I had my usual chocolate ’something’ (varies) with lots of ‘cream stuff’ (doesn’t vary)  in it.  Whilst we were there talking Marco started making a strange face … something I’ve never seen before.  Xaviera however knew what it meant … yes, he had done in his pants what the elephants had done in the river (in yesterdays post if you must read it)!

So, off Xaviera went to change Marco’s nappy again.

Xaviera and Marco had places to go and people to meet, so she dropped me back at my hotel.

I decided to start making some plans to see places (seems as most people would be working during the week).  I spoke to the tour desk (concierge) and organised a trip to the elephant sanctuary and to Malaca.  Unfortunately, as the only person booked on either tour (with a tour group that needed a minimum of two people to do a tour), I would have to wait to find out if the tour was going ahead.

I phoned up Suanie to bug her about doing something that night, but alas, she was down with the dreaded lurgy (is that only an Australianism or is the dreaded lurgy known in other parts of the world?  If you’ve not heard of it, it means she was SICK as a DOG.)

I headed down to the Megamall to do some shopping.  I bought a Zodiac Friend SNAKE for myself, a ROOSTER for Suanie and a lucky cat for my mother.

At tea time I decided to go to Burger King for dinner.  It caused a bit of a stir as some of the staff kept going on about how chubby my cheeks were.  They even asked me to return each night so that they could watch my chubby cheeks eat dinner every night I was there.  (A bit like having stalkers who want you to show up at their place). 

So ended my first day back in KL. 

This is the TOILET post of the series.  Don’t read it if you don’t like … um … toilet stuff.

Yes, here I will complain about a few things I encountered on my travels.

No, not the lack of Western style toilets.  I’ve used holes in the floor before.  This is more to do with my PROBLEMS with toilets on the journey.

I usually try not to go on a plane if I can help it, so on all four plane legs of the journey I managed to avoid going on the plane.  That’s called advanced planning.  The melancholics out there will understand this. 

However, here is my sordid tail of toilet problems and other distressing things.

My first toilet problem occurred when I touched down in KL.  After leaving the plane I decided I’d use the toilets in the Customs area, just to make sure I didn’t suddenly have a need to go whilst going through customs (there was quite a queue) or in the taxi.  After all, it had been a five hour flight and I hadn’t needed to go for the three hours or so before getting on the plane.  So, using the mens room was probably a good idea … right?

So,  into the cubicle I went to do my business.  It was a hole in the floor type toilet, so I decided it would be best to remove my pants etc so as not to accidentally contaminate them.  This meant taking off my shoes … only, the floor was very wet.  So, my socks got wet.  Ewwww.

After doing my business (hope I was facing the right way), I reached for the toilet paper … oh wait, there was NO toilet paper.  In fact, thre was NO WHERE for toilet paper to even be!  There was no dispenser on the side of the wall!  Oh no?  What to do to clean my butt?

Well, there was a tap with a hose in the cubicle.  So, what other way was there to clean my butt.  So, I turned the tap on and washed my butt (hope no one before me had inserted the hose anywhere, as I was holding the hose in my hand.  Ewwww.  You get these thoughts when holding a hose in a toilet cubicle that has no paper).

Next came my new dilema.  After washing my butt to my satifaction I suddenly realised I had a wet butt and nothing to dry it with.  OH, NO!  So I was forced to put my boxers and pants back on over a wet butt.  Ewwwww!!!

Fortunately Malaysia is a hot country, so didn’t take too long for it too dry.  In the meantime though I had an uncomfortably wet bottom area.

My next unfortunate encounter with a toilet was at the Boulevarde.  Now, the Boulevarde Hotel is my home away from home.  I love staying there.  The staff are well trained, friendly and I REALLY don’t like saying anything bad about them … BUT, when I arrived at the hotel I didn’t realise that room service hadn’t supplied much toilet paper.

The first few times I used the toilet was just to pee, and I noticed it was filling with water and not draining very well.  I thought maybe it would be okay after a while.

So, the first time I went to “sit down” use the toilet I used all the toilet paper in one sitting.  Not a problem as I wasn’t planning to use the toilet again before room service came anyway … but, there was another problem.  I flushed the toilet and it was clogged up already.  Nothing was moving.  The poor drainage I’d witnessed earlier was due to a clog in the drain already!

I didn’t call maintenance as I found the toilet was manageable with about three or four flushes.  I thought, with the amount that I pee it’ll unclog eventually due to all the water going down … right?  WRONG.

Anyway, I put up with the toilet whilst I was there.  Then, off to Penang I went.  Berjaya hotel, up on the CLUB FLOORS (that’s the good floors).  Floor number 27 infact (out of 28).  Kewl!  Only, as soon as I arrived I noticed the toilet kept running.  So, I called Maintenance.

Maintenance were QUICK.  I mean, they were there in about five minutes.  So, they stopped the toilet running … or did they?

Shortly after …DRIP!

DRIP!

DRIP! drip drip!

DRIP! drip drip drip!

DRIP! DRIP! DRIP! DRIP!

Aaaaaarrrrrghhhh!!!!!

By this time it was late at night and I was already in bed.  The dripping eventually returned to the toilet running.  Pttthhhh!

Next day was an early start, so off I went site seeing leaving the toilet to run.  I got back to the hotel late and found the toilet still having problems, so I phoned reception and asked for maintenance to have another try.

They came, stopped it running then left … and sure enough about half an hour after they had left … DRIP!  Oh frigg!

I had a look at the toilet myself and tried to fix it, but found that though I could stop it dripping (like the maintenance men), it would eventually return to dripping, get faster and eventually be running all the time.

This night I was a little clever and found shutting the door to the bathroom stopped me from having to hear it.  (A better nights sleep).

Next day was another early start.  So, off site seeing I went … then, arrived home late once again.  This time as I was going up to my floor I was asked by one of the staff in the elevator if I’d encountered any problems.

Yes, my toilet won’t stop running and maintenance have looked at it twice, stopped it running, but it always returns to a running state.

So, he jotted it down in his notebook and five minutes later the maintenance guys were back … and probably tired of seeing me with the same problem.  This time they brought some more instruments of torture with them for the toilet (other than the screw drivers they’d used the other times) and proceeded to dismantle some of the toilets mechanics.

After ten minutes they were satisfied with the result and left … and just like before it started dripping slowly … then faster … then running.

Solution, shut the bathroom door.  I was leaving the next day, so it became someone elses problem.

So, back to KL I went and my beloved Boulevarde Hotel.  This time, plenty of paper in my bathroom.  Yay!  But one problem.  The toilet was blocked still … in fact, it was blocked worse as the first time I flushed it water almost went over the side of the rim (Okay, I admit I flushed it twice in the hope the water pressure would move the bloackage).

I waited for it to drain and then decided I’d use the old HOT BUCKET of water routine on it.  Only, no bucket.  So, I used one of the metal waste paper baskets and just kept tipping hot bucket after hot bucket down the toilet … still the blockage remained.

When the maid came to make up my room I pointed out that the toilet was blocked.  She asked if I’d phoned maintenance.  Um … weird, why hadn’t I called maintenance?  I did at the Berjaya, so why did my brain not kick into gear and call them at the Boulevarde.  So, I had to tell her that I hadn’t phoned maintenance.  She phoned them for me.  In about two minutes a guy showed up with a HUGE metal pole with a plunger on the end.  Took him about five seconds and he was gone.  The toilet worked again … and just in time.  After the maid left, I had to use it.

You’d probably think that was the worst of my woes on the journey, and you’d be right (though I will mention a few missing items in a later post.  Remind me if I forget).  There was one other poo story I have from the trip.

When I went to the elephant sanctuary we got to bath the elephants.  I was one of two lucky people chosen to ride the elephants into the water and have the elephant fall sideways into the river.  This of course caused me and Denis (from the Netherlands) to fall off the elephant.

I swam to shore only to hit rocks with my hand (causing a nice lot of cuts I still have on the side of my hand … they’re still healing even two weeks after being caused).  Anyway, some of the other elephants came down into the water and we were splashing them and patting them and stuff.  I noticed one of them decided the river was a good place to go poo.  Not wanting to hang about in a poo infested river I got out.  A lot of the other people who had come down to wash the elephants still got in the water even though the elephants was still disposing of yesterdays lunch.  I guess given the choice of a once in a lifetime chance of washing and elephant in a pooey river or missing out, they chose the former option.

What happened as well, was one of the elephant handlers kicked the poo off the elephants behind with his BARE FOOT!  Ewwwww!  I guess we can identify the sh*tkickers at that santuary! 

I figure I better update my blog.  I’ve been told from a few people that they are having trouble getting here, but I seem to be able to access it from home and work without the slightest bit of trouble.

I have reported the issues to my webhosting service and hopefully they’ll have it fixed soon.  So, for the rest of you who can still see my blog I will resume writing posts, and the others can catch up at a convenient time.

*****

One of the things I’ve done to try to counteract the problems is upgrading to Wordpress 2.7.  (Thanks Shaolin Tiger for the advice.  Apparently there are less vulnerabilities in this version, though the dashboard looks completely different).

*****

I’ve started looking around for houses.  I figure regardless of what happens (provided I still have a job etc), I’m going to purchase a new home to move into.  I spoke to my mother about this, as previously I’d promised her when I purchase a home it was going to be big enough for her, me and Jeff to move into.  But, with the way house prices have dropped (about 10% in Perth), I thought it would bea  good time to buy.  There is another incentive too, the first home buyers grant is due to finish in June and I have no idea if it will continue or not after that date.  Even though house prices are due to drop another 7% (according to analysts) over the next year or so, I think it still might be a good time to buy.  Plus, to add incentive interest rates are rather low.

So, fingers crossed, hopefully I will be able to buy my first home.  YAY! 

*****

One thing I am going to try to do when I purchase the house is have solar panels installed at the same time.  Yes, SOLAR PANELS.  Why?  Well, for one, free electricity during the day, and what doesnt’ get used is sold back onto the grid which gives me a rebate on what I use at night.  Personally, I think the State or Federal Governments should make it mandatory for all new homes being bult to have solar panels installed.  It would do two things, first reduce the load on the electricty grid and second help the transition to a more carbon neutral future.

Also, getting a good alarm system installed would be a good idea, as well as window tinting, insulation and other things to reduce the carbon footprint of my new home.  We’ll see what I can afford.

Moving on would also do a few things for here at home too.  Removing all my stuff (which easily filled a two bedroom flat in Sydney) woudl give my mother and brother more room (plus I’d have a house to myself … lots of room). 

Before all my overseas friends start queueing up to book a spare room in my new house though, just remember, I don’t have any spare beds or anything.  So, anyone wanting a place to crash for a holiday may find themselves sleeping on a concrete floor.  (Yes, I am cruel like that.  As a fat guy with a bad back, I don’t give up my bed for no one!  Plus, I still don’t have the house yet.) 

Looking at home loans, and there are MILLIONS (well, htousands) of the things is really doing me head in.  lol

Returning to work today was a bit of a shock. You know how some days you feel like you’ve walked into a door, or a moving door? Well, today was like being tied to the front of a moving car and driven into that moving door which was attached to a truck being driven over a very tall cliff with a large boulder falling on it from a great height with a lemming on top.

First two hours consisted of people coming and GIVING me work to do which was all required ASAP and highly important and critical and … well, I just kept laughing. I sometimes do that when I get stressed … or I just smile a LOT. It can be a little confusing for some people, like the guy who thought my old Sys Admin job must have been really great because I was smiling all the time. After I moved to another department and helped him to get my old job, he sort of … didn’t like me too much because he discovered the job was all STRESS, STRESS, STRESS.

There are not going to be too many photos with this update because they’re all on my old laptop (that is the early part of the journey’s photos. The later photos are on my Scan Disks because I didn’t have enough space on my laptops hard drive).

So, the trip started in Perth and I wanted to go home and get some sleep before catching the red eye to KL. My mother had different ideas and kept on asking me questions and telling me what to pack and other things. As per usual I had everything under control, but my mother worries so much that she had to nag. Eventually she suggested I take a shower.

So, I hope into the shower only to find there isn’t any water. The main reason for this is the outside sprinkler is on. I then ask my mother to turn it off. They did, but for some reason I still couldn’t get any water coming out the shower properly.

We’d previously decided I was going to take a taxi to the airport, BUT my mother decided Jeff was going to drive me. Previously she had vetoed the idea as it was ‘too late at night’ for Jeff to take me. Anyway, I was leaving at 1:45AM, so I needed to get to the airport at 10:45PM (three hours before take off) in order to book in.

I arrived, but didn’t realise that Air Asia had not given me the extra large seat I had paid for. (More of this later on). I wandered around the airport lounge aimlessly for a long while. I bought the book, ‘Do Polar Bears Get Lonely?’ and after reading it I am none the wiser. The book consists of numerous questions posed by readers of New Scientist magazine and the answers provided by other readers. Needless to say, some of the answers didn’t ‘answer’ the actual questions being posed.
For instance, ‘Do Polar Bears Get Lonely?’ I have no friggin’ idea because the answers talked about polar bears not living in groups and scaring off other polar bears who might be ‘threats’, and one answer that even said that only the polar bears could really answer the question. Fine, why not just admit you DON’T FRIGGIN’ know the answer!
I think in order to answer the question science needs to first find out if polar bears feel an emotion like loneliness, and then second find out if it affects them when they are out on the ice by themselves. If there was a generous food supply, would they hang out together like the polar bears at the zoos (they have two together at Seaworld on the Gold Coast). If they do hang together, do they enjoy each others company?
In other words, removing survival obstacles which would usually cause them to DRIVE away other polar bears, would they chose a more social structure in order to curb their loneliness?

I was very disappointed with the lack of definitive answers in the book and think it only became a best seller because people like myself were intrigued by the title. If the title question had of at least been answered definitively I wouldn’t feel so cheated, but still, it’s a book of vague answers to interesting questions.

I also bought myself a Photoshop Magazine which came with a CD (more on the CD in a later post).

Eventually it came time to board the flight. I got to the plane and noticed my seat was well to the back. I asked the air steward if it was an extra large seat like I’d payed for. He wasn’t sure, so he directed me to the guy back at the gate. This guy checked my reservation to confirm I’d paid for the XL seat and phoned the Air Asia desk. They had to go chasing another guy who was able to swap the seat for me with an XL at the front of the plane. Phew, wouldn’t want that to happen twice … would we?

The flight started off with a thunder storm, which caused some turbulence for us to fly through. After a nice vegetarian meal and more reading of the book I was able to get some sleep. Every now and then I’d awaken myself with a snort.

We touched down safely in LCCT at about 6:45AM KL time. After getting through customs I was a little lost due to the fact I had previously flown into KLIA, and I was looking for the train station. I asked one of the airport personal where the train was and he pointed out I wasn’t at KLIA, but at LCCT. He said I’d need to catch a taxi to KLIA in order to catch the train. Wooooah!

I went back inside the terminal and paid for a taxi voucher instead. It cost me RM$68.10 to be taken to my home away from home, the Boulevarde Hotel at Mid Valley.