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JULY 2003 |
31st July 2003 - Kuala Lumpur
Met with Sids friend Kok Bin today, messed about in Midvalley shopping center for a while and bought a daysack for myself (a Deuter Quantum 28 - its very nice). Went to a computer fair (er, I know I've only been here for a day, but you gotta believe me, I was dragged there) and bought a Shuttle machine for Kok Bin. Had coffee and then to Bangsar again where we met some old school friends of Sid & Kok Bin. After that, to town, and Hard Rock Cafe to see Big Band (they kick ass).
30th July 2003 - Kuala Lumpur
Landed in KL, walked through the Club Class express immigration and customs, picked up my suitcase, swatted away the hoards of taxi drivers and got picked up by Sid & Raveen all in about 45mins. Very efficient! It was great, the weather was nice, the road was clear and I'd finally made it to Malaysia, yay! We drove back to Sids place to sit and chat a while. Took a quick trip into Bangsar for curry puffs and then back to watch The 25th Hour on DVD before a nice relaxing sleep.
29th July 2003
The displays at Heathrow Terminal 2 said I had to check-in in Zone F for Malaysian Airlines - but the queue was so long it started in Zone D! It was ok, the queue moved fairly fast. There was an old lady behind me who was worried that she wouldn't get through her baggage allowance, and since I only had one 3/4 full suitcase, I helped her by taking one of her bags. As we moved through the queue, she was approached by staff to be upgraded to Business Class since the flight was overbooked. She was very nice and insisted that I came with her :) There is so much food in Business Class, and its very nice too. The seats are fairly large, but I am a shortie and it didn't matter all that much, on the 10hr flight I still didn't sleep much.
Track of the day: Ozomatli - Vocal Artillery
26th July 2003
Wooo! I got my flight tickets :) Yup, they actually arrived, so I can ease my mind. I think I might play with PHPStats over the next couple of days, add more features and neaten it up so I can release it like I've been meaning to do for months now. 3 days to go...
Track of the day: Badly Drawn Boy - All Possibilities
24th July 2003
Well, I was supposed to be leaving this evening, but it seems that the saga of my flight booking continues. lastminute.com double-booked me on my replacement flight, and the Airline's computer system cancelled my reservation. Spastics. More headache, more pacing around my living room with my phone to my ear. My bags are packed, everything is ready, I just want to go now. But no. I have to rebook on another flight because there are no seats. I am now leaving on Tuesday.
- Malaysian Airlines 0001, DEP 29/07 @ 22:00 LHR, ARR 30/07 @ 17:30 KUL
- Malaysian Airlines 0008, DEP 19/08 @ 09:00 LHR, ARR 19/08 @ 15:10 LHR
Track of the day: Incubus - Nowhere Fast
23rd July 2003
A bit of drama today. Called up travelselect.com (aka lastminute.com) to ask them why my tickets hadn't arrived for my flight in a couple of days. After one guy infinitely putting me on hold and then being in a queue for a ridiculously long time the second time around, I got through to someone who told me my flight had been cancelled. Great. Why the fuck? Well, the guy said something to do with a "payment problem", which is impossible since I had it on a Credit Card with an unused limit, and money in it. It was also pretty daft of them to not contact me when my flights have been cancelled, or even ask for a different payment method or something. Muppets, I tell ya. Anyway, it was their fatal mistake, and they should know not to mess with me. It took a few phone calls, lots of argueing and explaining to a few different people, but finally they agreed to sort me out another flight at the same price as my original booking. I could really do without the hassle, but how can I complain when I'm now on a Virgin Atlantic direct flight to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow returning on the 16th August. 3 weeks baby.
- Virgin Atlantic 0501, DEP 25/07 @ 22:00 LHR, ARR 26/07 @ 17:30 KUL
- Virgin Atlantic 0504, DEP 16/08 @ 12:00 LHR, ARR 16/08 @ 18:10 LHR
Track of the day: Coldplay - God Put A Smile Upon Your Face
22nd July 2003
Three days to go! Whooooo!
Track of the day: Frou Frou - Must Be Dreaming
20th July 2003
Moved my routers over to OpenBSD 3.3 in the past couple of days. Its pretty cool, the firewall is tight, there is rate-limiting (though I suspect it may have some issues and need tweaking), and it seems totally rock solid stable, useful and neat. Nice One.
Track of the day: Fugees - Ready or Not
19th July 2003
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Track of the day: Coldplay - Clocks
18th July 2003
YAAAAAAAY! I'm going on holiday to Malaysia next week :)
- Flight No. BI 94 From London Heathrow Term 3 dep 25 JUL 2003 at 1330 To Bandar Seri Begawan arr 26 JUL 2003 at 1325
- Flight No. BI 871 From Bandar Seri Begawan dep 27 JUL 2003 at 0825 To Kuala Lumpur arr 27 JUL 2003 at 1040
- Flight No. BI 872 From Kuala Lumpur dep 11 AUG 2003 at 1130 To Bandar Seri Begawan arr 11 AUG 2003 at 1350
- Flight No. BI 93 From Bandar Seri Begawan dep 11 AUG 2003 at 2005 To London Heathrow Intl arr 12 AUG 2003 at 0625
Track of the day: Rootjoose - Holiday
14th July 2003
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Track of the day: Coolio - Gangsters Paradise
11th July 2003
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You are Morpheus, from "The Matrix". You have strong faith in yourself and those around you. A true leader, you are relentless in your persuit. |
Track of the day: Wayne Wonder - No Letting Go
10th July 2003
I finally did it, it took 2 days but I managed to fit my stuff into my room that is about a quarter of the size of my room in Nottingham. I have one box of stuff that I don't immediately need which is in my garage, and I have downgraded from 3 computers on my desk to having no desk at all... but hey, whatever, this is why I have a laptop with wifi.
Track of the day: Dr Dre - Still D.r.e.
8th July 2003
Made my way back to London today with Jon. I was stupidly tired on the train on the way back, maybe too much sugar from that bottle of Fanta I had. Sugar really messes me up sometimes. Anyway, had a nap for a while and all-in-all it was quite relaxing. Got into London and thought we would wonder about for a bit. We ended up at Goodge Street off Tottenham Court Road, walked about while Jon looked for an MP3 player, and I ogled at new gadgets. We went into Computer Exchange, and other random shops looking for anything interesting but it was a hot day and we couldn't be bothered in the end so just sat in Costa Coffee upstairs in Paperchase for a little while drinking our icy drinks. We came to the conclusion that TCR is rubbish. There is nothing even remotely less-than-retail price anywhere around here and a lot of the time you have a pushy salesman trying to con you. We went into one shop, and I pointed at some Sennheiser MX300 earphones and asked how much they were, and the guy snapped "29.99"! Yes, they may be Sennheiser, but they are earbuds, and I'm sure the MX500 (same thing, but with inline volume control iirc) are 19.99 in Maplin, so the 300 should be about 15 quid or so. </rant>. Anyway, I finally got back and slumped on my sofa. I miss my housemates already.
Track of the day: The Strokes - Is this it?
7th July 2003
Graduation day! It was a really fun day out, I got to waltz across the stage and got a "Woohoo!" from my little sisters as I picked up my certificate. We did the throwing mortarboards in the air, the sun was shining, and it was a lovely day. Of course, there are photos. After all that, I packed all my stuff that was left in the house into the car and went out for a lovely lunch with my family in town. Then chilled out for a bit before they all drove back to London. I stayed for the night and went to dinner with Sids family and family friends at Two Rooms in Sherwood (a very cosy place with fantastic food). It was an awesome evening.
Track of the day: Travis - Flowers in the Window
6th July 2003
Graduation tomorrow. There is a live web broadcast here where you may be able to see me pick up my piece of paper :) My ceremony starts at about 10:30 I think. It should be fun, I'd better get up early to get there on time. No doubt there will be many photos here soon.
Track of the day: Morcheeba - Love is Rare
5th July 2003
Went to Jon's Barbecue today with Ben, Jo and Tom. It was a lovely day, we had a great time chilling at his house.
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Track of the day: Morcheeba - Be Yourself
4th July 2003
Booted up Redhat 9 on Famous to mess about for a bit. "Found New Hardware"... What?!?! "HP Deskjet 5550 found, would you like to configure this device?"... er! 'y'. "Would you like to print a CUPS test page?"... sure! 'y'. With the latest version of CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System), the printer just burst into life and printed a lovely test page. This is Linux! But I wanted to edit some config files and restart some services! Redhat is pretty amazing, it doesn't cease to amaze me - anyone can install it, it is hugely usable straight out of the box, very nicely set up, and it works great with the latest hardware (I have no problems with my new Asus A7N8X-Deluxe nForce2 PC). It really makes a great desktop. Its lacking a little in available packages, and I wouldn't install it on a server (thats what Debian is for) but really speaking I think its a serious Windows XP competitor (yes, really) - try it!.
Track of the day: Portishead - Biscuit
3rd July 2003
Went shopping with my sister today and got a new pair of shoes. I think I'll go with her more often, its fun and she can pick cool stuff where I would just get irritated and end up not buying anything. I hate shopping.
Track of the day: Jamiroquai - Stillness in Time
2nd July 2003
Bought a new printer today for Famous (the desktop at home). The (Manufactured 31st October 1993) HP Deskjet 510 Parallel B&W inkjet has been replaced with a brand new HP Deskjet 5550 USB2 Photo Printer. Its pretty damn cool, the text is super sharp (almost laser-quality) and photos should come out well with the 6 colour photo cartridge - but mainly it means my sisters can print their homework in glorious technicolour.
Track of the day: Jurassic 5 - Remeber his name
