Freeware and a Dream Guy

Location: Hands on keyboard, feet under desk, eyes forward at monitor, mouth sucking in a Sprite.
Mood-of-the-day: See, I can do minimum multi-tasking :P...

I’m so not in the mood to go to school today. In actual fact, my Wednesday class was not scheduled to have today since we’re supposed to read chapter 4 on our own. Plus, this was supposed to give us extra, extra time to work on the 2-minute movie assignment, which is due in less than two weeks. So project current evaluation: Arrrggghhh!!! And here I was day-dreaming of making a Multimedia major.

So why am I here anyway? Well, to slave away into this blog so you can pry into my story since you’ve got no spice of your own (heh! :P). Nah, that’s not it. I’m having a Last Chance group meeting. Hopefully the others managed to get an idea or so. Confession by me, I haven’t been downloading the Matrix trailer at all (but I am now!). Let’s just say a lil’ RPG was being a very tempting distraction.

Amaranthia: Ahriman's Prophecy

You know when they say you’ll know it when you met the man of your dreams? Okay, so maybe they don’t say it often or even at all (whoever ‘they’ are). No, this isn’t a steamy story of a dreamy new crush (I hadn’t had a crush on any guy since secondary school *sigh*). But there was a dream involved that’s for sure. And I’m wondering if the man of my dreams is just that, in my dreams.

Usually I’ll call upon E. Diot to interpret my dreams despite the lack of any true calculation (my alter ego would read a blue mushroom in a dream as Death by Slurpee). But Im going to be open and let you guys decide (since I’m lacking any real story for this blog entry), here’s how the dream goes...

It was a scene back at my mom’s old Johor community. I presumed it was at the backyard of a distant because there’s lots of coconut trees, the ground was soft and there’s lots of greens and running (living) chickens. It was a very Aidilfitri atmosphere. Everybody’s in his or her Malay clothes, eating finger foods (satay, hot dog and such). I was wearing my pastel pink kebaya, surrounded by aunties (more that I liked to be surrounded by in one place but that might had been the dream making).

Sudden, one of my aunts, mak-yah and cik-sidah said that I was turning into an old maid and that all of them were going to do something about it. Then there was this guy came up to me. Tall, dark and clean-shaven, he’s not exactly a guy who should be seen on TV (IMHO, a bit skinny). He looked like the kind of guy my mom would gossip to all her friends about, which was my first thought as next to this-must-be-a-joke. He smiled and I woke up.

I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed. I swear that I’ve never seen this guy that crept into my subconscious, even if I bothered to compare with all the Unitar guys I pass everyday. But if this was one of those mysterious dreams that you’ll an unexplained sense of déjà vu when you get to it, I hope I wasn’t an old maid when I’ll get it.

Signed: *Ophie, still had to graduate before any serious commitment.

Gas-tronomic and PC Alive!

Location: In the classroom that smelled like a sloppy joe :P
Mood-of-the-day: *sing-song voice* “Hurry, hurry, hurry! Must be hurry... In a fast track world...”

Last night I felt so weird. As I got up, these was this sudden dizzy sensation in my eyes, you know, spots. And everything below my head seemed drained. It could have been the long sitting position in front of my PC as I tried to juggle some of the graphics drivers, a sudden shock of blood rush. On the other hand, it might even be slow blood rush. I’m notorious for low blood pressure (my mom, an aunt and first cousin got it too), but hadn’t felt that weak since I nearly passed out in secondary school.

Wished I hadn’t blab it out to my mom though. This morning she made the treat of breakfast sloppy joes (see previous September 17th and Unforeseen Tragedy). And she had the gall to make me pack one for lunch today (I’m notorious for skipping meals but I never seem to go under *ahem* kg). Wished she hadn’t talked me into it. Wished I hadn’t chosen to sit under a wall fan either. But I was 3 wishes too late.

My tutorial room isn’t really like those secondary school’s big and roomy, four-doors-open kinna class. It’s like an office, enclosed and air-coned. I didn’t realize my bag was a gas-tronomic bomb until I opened it to pick out a notebook. Suddenly, the whole class was filled with sloppy joe aroma. My imagination don’t extend too far in a few-feet by few-feet cube room so I can honestly say, everybody was trying to find the smell’s source. Even the lecturer (Pn. Noor Lees) stopped in chapter 3 presentation and said “Ooo, sedapnya bau.”

Lucky mom didn’t serve durians for breakfast :P.

PC Restoration Update: “It’s alive, it’s ALIVE!” wheee~eeeeee~! Alive alright, but not in a monster-Frankenstein kinna way (though maybe it might run much faster if it did mutated).

Looks like mom managed to get the hard drive to KLCC just in time, though by the moans of her tired feet, I’m thinking she didn’t just did a drop-off errand (rumours says that dad brought another fiction mystery). Sis and bro-in-law got the CPU guts back together again and the brain received a Windows 2000. Awesome! But I’ll have to re-download my old desktop theme.

Maybe I'll choose something like this...

At this moment, I’m downloading some drivers from the Internet. I managed to locate the sound card software driver in a box under1999 Jelita/Woman’s Weekly magazines (though ‘1999’ might also be the year of the magazines, but there was too many to check). But Nvidia’s Riva 128(TM) is online (it’s amazing the software driver’s still there!) but I got it covered. I tried playing Ahriman’s Prophecy without the sound card driver and it killed itself :P (stupid freeware).

Signed: *Ophie, eating her lunch sandwich outside the school building.

The Chaos Circles #11

Whatever effect Jaque thought he would gain, only those around his age looked surprised and/or puzzled. Lya could tell that he managed to surprise himself. The elder clansmen and clanswomen just stared solemnly at him, some even cringed their faces. Even less told than the myths and legends of Suvon was the secret history of Green Cliffs valley.

For many years, the tale was told through generations but not spoken of. After the new King did not provide protection or aid, her father openly rebuked anyone who tried to speak of it. To the children, he only taught them that the clans’ people came to a lush land from the Old Realms and made it their homes. Nothing about the magic. Not even the secret archives of Chaos Skills.
Esaeni Aqens. Perhaps no one even remembers what the Suvonite name means anymore, save Lya herself.
“Sit down, Jaque,” said Handred, his tone was sharp but with little displeasure.
Jaque’s face was red but the mage had his attention well focused. “No, Father Villager. Let him speak,” said Mage Chris.
He raised an open palm to Jaque and nodded. But while Jaque looked eager, his father was tugging at his son’s hand to sit down.

But Handred stood as quickly as his frail bones could carry him, his expression filled with growing distaste.
“I do not let any one to speak of the Green Cliff’s old days as long as I am the Father of Green Cliffs.”
“The boy is not of your clan, isn’t he? Let him speak. Let him tell the truth,” countered the mage.
A mutter of interest rose from the younger folk of the Hall only seemed to fuel Handred’s discontent.

“He is a man. More importantly, my son-in-law! And what does he know? He was not even schooling when I passed the rule,” said Handred, his eyes going back and forth between the mage and the half-standing Jaque.
Because I was the one who told him. Lya squeaked instantly at the thought and quickly regretted her bad habit. Half the hall now drew their attention at her.

Jaque quickly broke free from Terrence Jaymeson’s grasp and spoke loudly.
“I do know. More than that, I’ve told many about it! Who we were, how we came here, how we failed the Towers and how the mages...”
But Handred was knocking his the head of his walking stick on the table loudly.
“Stop, stop! I forbid you. Jaymeson, restraint your son!” shouted the Head Villager.
Terrence pulled Jaque forcefully by his arm as Jaque continued to rant.

Lya thought that she should speak too but her mother’s grasp on her own hand was almost begging for her not to start. But the rest of the hall was growing troubled as well; the walls were ringing with the voices of the younger clans of both men and women as the elders tried to hold them.
“Let Jaque speak!”
“What secret?”
“Mages, tell us if you knew!”
“Quiet Boris, or I’ll have your mouth stuffed with dung!”
“Clean out your mouth, father!”

Between the shouts and cries and knocking of Handred’s stick, Lya caught the elder mage standing up. With hands as thin and crooked as her father, the elder mage clapped them together once but the sound emitted was enormous. It was like a crack from an End-Winter thunderstorm that was a lightning-struck tree too close. Lya felt her ears ringing and wondered if others, by their shocked faces, felt the same.

Channeler Harrietta seemed to be the only person unmoved by the sudden noise. Immediately she pointed a fat finger at the elder mage.
“Magic! You touched the Chaos!” she cried, as if the 300 unskilled others had not noticed the unnatural resonance. Lya saw the faint waves of patterns too.

Many times she had watched the channeler performed the common skills on others, healing or cleaning the water or reading the earth for when to plough the fields. Always there was this strange white glow on her fingertips, like the faint edges of candles. When she was a smaller child, she had always wanted to ask Channeler Harrietta about the glow, but the woman’s huge size had always intimidated her.

It was not until after she discovered the archives that her curiosity was quenched. Even then Lya had not mention them to the channeler. Now that she was older and hopefully stronger in the skills, the desire to share her secrets was turned to Jaque instead of the Channeler. But there was a difference between the waves that exude from the elder mage and the channeler.

“Virdie,”
“Please Lya, not so loud,” said Virdie, rubbing the ear that Lya spoke into.
“I’m sorry, but who was that old mage again?” asked Lya, her eyes watched as the elder mage and Mage Chris whispered quietly to each other.
“Oh had I not mentioned? His name is Mariel Hivyniqiv. A foreigner no doubt,” said Virdie.
Hivyniqiv. Lya wondered what language did his name contain a meaning.

Handred’s look was never broken from the two standing mages. If anytime, he was a man ready to gain control of the situation. He turned a hand away at Channeler Harrietta and gestured for her to return to her place. But it was the elder mage, Hivyniqiv, who spoke first.
“Keep your old secrets, Handred Samuelson, and bury your past if you think you know what is right. But tonight we both see that your voice had not been one with the Whole. We can sit here until the Old War-Devil knocks on your door before he blows down this shack. But I am old and my juniors cannot waste their skills with you while the rest of my family break their bones on stones.”

The old mage produced a stick from under the table, long and strong, shaped like a shepherd’s crook. He rapped the other mages with it on their shoulders as if he had turned daft.
“Come, come! We leave. Yes, now. Let their own dead speak to them. When it gets louder, maybe they’ll finally hear something.”
The Mage, Chris Anasteq, raked his hand through his hair, his face suddenly turned dejected. The woman mage, Karina, looked as if she was ready to protest and speak her voice but the rap on her shoulder seemed to have dispirited her. Only the face of the youngest mage did not express his thoughts, his striking gold-brown eyes stared blankly at the clan leaders.

Enatuh did not seem to let them go silently though. Many were standing and shouting with divided opinions. Those who sat by the entrance to see the mages pulled back by others; clearly they wanted the mages to leave.
“Good riddance!”
“Please, wait! What secret?”
“Forget it, they’ve brought more trouble than loose goats!”
“Don’t come back!”
“Quiet, they might curse us!”
“They’ve travelled far. They can protect us!”

Suddenly, a man from the benches pulled free from his father’s grip and nearly fell as he ran down the stairs to the mages, running as his father cried for him. Lya wondered if Jaque insistence for the mages’ support was his plan to escape Enatuh. But to war? She remembered how Jaque froze in fear before an oncoming wild boar. He would never survive any real battle.

Lya watched as Jaque pushed away at the hands that restricted him and stopped dead in front of the mages. He looked surprised at his own courage. Behind him were shouts of disapproval and called for him to move away. The old mage seemed to have thought the same. He said something to Jaque that was drowned from the chaos of noises and used the stick to rap Jaque. Jaque avoided the stick and said something to Chris Anasteq, his voice too Lya could not here.

All eight clan leaders were standing as they faced the backs of the mages, each of them with their own thoughts and mixed expression. Handred held tightly to his walking stick as if it was a sword ready to wield.

To be continued...

Unactive Sunday

Location: Follow the trail of bread/cookie/pie/biscuit/chocolate crumbs.
Mood-of-the-day: "I’m a little PC in a little house. This is my keyboard, this is my mouse."

Mondays are always the days when I post five entries at once, to make up for the lost of time during the weekends. It’s the Friday, Saturday and Sunday entry as well as Saturday Night Musings and weekly Chaos Circles. I borrowed Dad’s Compaq for that. Using my new thumb drive! Works like a charm. Very plug and play.

The new hard drive will have to wait though. Sis was going to format and upload Windows 200 while at work (yay, thanks!). She almost forgot about it this morning and called home to ask if I could sent the lil’ black box to KLCC. As my policy was ‘any reason to go to a shopping mall is a good reason,’ I said sure. The oxymoron was that I’d call her once I get there. Since she hadn’t got the Maxis bill paid, how on earth am I going to use my phone?

Mom provided the solution as she was going to book a flight for Turkey and would be passing Masjid Jamek (she too has a similar shopping policy. Must be in the genes). Apparently, Uzbekistan Airways wasn’t in the Yellow Pages. Dad was checking on that as he read Sidney Sheldon. I dunno how long his fiction reading going to last but at least it kept this retiree occupied.

Looks like we got a new electric juicer in the kitchen. This baby fires up with all the spinning action of a NASA G-force machine, but hey it’s still new. Once we managed to properly place the orange pieces into the slot without it jumping out into our eyes, it’s juice on one side and pulp on the other (funny enough, I preferred my juiced with pulp).

Okay, in actual reality, nothing exciting happened at Home on Sunday. My sis was so bored that she walked around the house announcing that fact to anybody within hearing range (which means, everybody). Mom and lil’bro was drooling for ice cream on TV (maybe I’ll stop for a Drumstick later) and Dad was neck deep in a book about a gay judge using a half-sister to steal inheritance money from others.

I knew I should have written something in my lil’ notepad. No, not the program, the actual white pieces of paper (you know, paper? Dead tree, grinded and pulp, spread and dried...). Usually I would turn on the PC and type a sentence or paragraph before going downstairs to experience real life. Without it, I used the one I’ve won from Hitz.fm Ford Cruisers. Nice, but I rather waste electricity than dead trees.

Signed: *Ophie, Cutting this entry one paragraph short so that she can work on her fiction ;)

Low Yat Plaza Hunt!

Location: Where I’m watching the sunset screensaver
Mood-of-the-day: Scared of the Dark

Today’s the Day! I’ll be going back to KL to hunt for the elusive thumb drive. My personal PC maintenance crew had brought out the boot disk and got to work (without pay :P). The end result was that my sweetie’s hard drive is too old and corrupted to continue its work. Alas! Poor Seagate. I knew, Horatio...

At least I’ve saved my most important files inside my 20+ diskettes, that is, if I could ever figure out which contains what. So after an Astro laze-around, watching Whose Line Is It Anyway? (The one where Colin Mochrie grabs everybody’s dick), Dad, me and lil’ bro got ready to a Bintang Walk Part 2. This time, we take the KTM to KL Sentral.

Once we got to Low Yat Plaza, I felt like I was in Digital Heaven. They got everything in here. Motherboards, memory cards, video card, 3D card, pick-a-card-any-card, phone accessory, hard drives, thumb drives (I could continue forever but I’m not paid to advertise Low Yat Plaza :P). That was dedicated to the whole of 2nd floor (which I should mention, isn’t a very big floor).

And the games. All the latest in (pirated possibly) RPG, Simulators, FPS, Warcaft series, whatever all at the mere RM5. I used to cough up my breakfast on the counter before I could reach RM15 for a Myst series. Dad had to pull me kicking and screaming or else we’ll never get the drives search done in time for lunch. Even so, I managed to grab me an Emulator Set in the nick of time (got Pokemon Gold in it! :P).

My first B-day present was a 40GB Maxtor priced RM168. It was the absolute minimum made. When the Dad told them my Seagate was a 6GB, they practically fell over laughing (see how outdated we are?). Well, can’t blame a guy on a budget. We packed our fra~gile as we go on to Phase 2 of drive, which should be the size of, well, a thumb (okay, I know, bad pun :P).

This one was easy as we got it in the same place. A KingMax 256MB. Not I can go download Ahrimas’s Prophecy! And er, um, well, yeah~ some school work too, er well, like that multimedia movie, yeah, that’s right. Chores done, we go eat lunch at the LG food court. Not too bad actually. Lil’ bro had chicken rice and was sporting a soya bean milk moustache and gravy goatee at the same time.

The trip home was less pleasing. For his Turkey trip, Dad was searching for that Uzbekistan Airways office, he thought he saw while on the Monorail. We hiked all around the Bukit Bintang vicinity (and me without my jogging shoes *sigh*). And there it was, right next to the Imbi station! (could have taken the nice, air-con ride, eh?).

But the entire healthy jog was for naught for the office’s closed anyway (bleah!). As we waited at the Imbi station, Dad asked if I even knew where Uzbekistan anyway. Sure, it’s near Afghanistan, Pakistan, Hindustan and Satan. His reply was a ‘fatherly’ pat on the back that knocked the wind outta my lungs for a good 2 minutes.

Signed: *Ophie, who used this sneaky opportunity to play her new Pokemon Red only to find that everything’s in Japanese (Damn! :P)

Birthday Dinner at Outback

Location: Alternate Box of Digital Utility
Mood-of-the-day: Thanks for the B-day Wished!! :D

Wow, I hardly knew you guys through your own daily ramblings and gave me big B-day Wishes! I supposed now you want to pee-peek on how last Friday went, right? Oh come on, of course you do! Your invited intrusion (and some uninvited) into my personal details is the very survival of this ‘ere bloggie. So tit for a tat, here’s how my 20th B-day goes.

We had planned to go to Outback at Bangsar but the new outlet won’t accept the 30% discount on Maybank credit card. So we had to take the long walk to Bintang Walk’s. And when I say long walk, I mean lo~ooong walk. There was the Lantern Festival and much of the roads were closed. Not that my dad had ever favoured driving around KL anyway. We opted for the familiar KL Monorail (bro’s first ride).

The whole area was (to put it by first sight) noisy. Chinese drummers banging their beat one end of the street and Indians were equipped with cymbals on the other. We didn’t managed to take pictures of them since dad was in a hurry to get in time for the reservation (sis and bro-in-law would be meeting us there). So I didn’t really managed to sink in a lot of Bintang Walk will get to it on Saturday (Low Yat Plaza).

Outback, with its entire Australian theme, was actually started by some American from Florida, just as Delifrance was first in Singapore. We had planned to go to Saray at first but the Outback discount was preferable. We’ll try the turkey restaurant on Mom B-day, so they’ll know what to order in the parents’ Umpteenth Honeymoon (no point for guessing where :P).

The main dish everybody looked forward to was the Typhoon Bloom. The last time any of us had an onions fried appetizer (with dip!) was American Chili’s (until they too it off the menu, damn!). I had this braised sirloin, which pretty much is the cow version of Secret Recipe’s lamb stew (wished I had taken the chicken instead but I was scared of bird flu :P). No B-day dinner was complete without dessert, so we all shared these two tasty white choc/black choc from Strudels (small, but cute! We preferred their cakes anyway).

Outback Dinner for the Birthday of Bro-in-Law’s and Me!

Outback offered some of these bottomless drinks, but the term ‘bottomless’ seemed better applied to Bro-in-Law since he gulped 4 1/2 of ice lemon tea (the other one half was gulped by Sis). Mug after mug, the staff is sure going to remember this guy’s face for quite a while (the ‘Bottomless Guy’). Oh and btw, they don’t have ‘Toilet’ sign on their doors. They have ‘Used-Beer Department’ signs.

After the dinner, we parted ways, as the KL veterans would be going back to their cars while the parents, schooling sibling and one football-head headed for KL Sentral parking lot. Sis stopped at every taxicab to ask if they go to KLCC even as we reached the Monorail. By now the roads of the Lantern Festival were back open (this is KL! They can’t keep the roads closed for more than 4 hours max!).

Signed: *Ophie, taking a minute to go to the ‘Used-Coca-cola Department’.

Saturday Night Musings!

Location: Downstairs but I preferred in a room equipped with a foot massage
Mood-of-the-day: I would make a list, but a new entry would be due by the time I’m half-way through

It’s Saturday Night Musings again and it’s a definite ‘pm’ mode of the day. 11.30pm to be more exact, but who cares keeping track of time after the end HBO movies finished anyway? So I have exactly half-an-hour to make a 35-To-Muse-About list before this entry turns into a Saturday Night/Sunday Morning Musings. Now why exactly am I doing this? Well, until I get a real date on the infamous Saturday Night, consider this as my singles ad.

1. Young woman seeking 100% man.
2. Anything below 75% is a B average and is unacceptable.
3. I still say fish are friends.
4. There’s an old scenery painting in the back room that I loved.
5. But it’s too dark, a dreary aura.
6. This week’s Amazing Race episode was cool!
7. I’m having a lil’ diskette bonfire.
8. Okay, actually I’m not :P.
9. But I’ll probably have one!
10. Now what am I going to do with this boot disk?

11. I’m still full from yesterday’s Outback dinner.
12. Still wondered if I should have ordered chicken...
13. I miss my old PC already *sigh*
14. My feet are still killing me.
15. Uh-oh, I feel the pangs of sleepiness
16. Living room sure looks different at 11.40pm.
17. What is it with cats and late-night-chases-around-sofas?
18. Anybody Japanese fluent?
19. Mmm... chocolate...
20. Will need to buy bread tomorrow.

21. Oh shit, I think I’m going to break out a zit.
22. Candy Island Marshmallows are halal... right?
23. Winds outside is making haunted noises inside the house.
24. Most creepy at night.
25. Ten more musings to go.
26. Truth or dare: Truth!
27. I used to eat my fingernails.
28. Did I just post that on my blog? :P
29. I had planned to make a map for Chaos Circles.
30. Maybe in future installment.

31. Oh yeah, we got a new juicer.
32. Mom’s got a purple phone accessory with a lil’ bell.
33. She wears the phone (and accessory) around her neck.
34. Now the cats can hear her coming.
35. I’m starting to hallucinate... must get to sleep...

Signed: *Ophie, recently rehabilitated from an extreme case of dark-places-phobia