Lümmel

ever since started working in EA, i have been noticing this weird looking mini sofa lying around in the pantry/game area. not only it looks weird, it looks extremely dangerous to sit on. i saw quite a few of my colleague sitting on it while playing games and i decided to give it a try, its really astonishing. you will never believe how stable it is until you have sat on it. not only its not easy to make yourself fall off while sitting on it, you almost need alot of strength just to push yourself over while sitting on it.



meet Lümmel, the L shaped wooden framed seat thingy designed by defacto.design. there are so many ways to sit on this thingy, it really depends on how creative you are. i personally like this mini sofa so much, that i actually wanted to buy a couple myself. to my horror, it costs €169, which is about S$344! i think i shall enjoy it at work while i still can LOL

MJ 1958-2009

my 1st mobile blog post

This is the very 1st time I am blogging while on my way back home frm work. Ever since I bought the htc dream, I have been having a lot of fun with it. I love the qwerty keyboard on the phone. I'm the kind of person who prefers to text than to make phone calls. With the qwerty KB, I am typing alot faster than the usual numpads on mobile phones. I also like the way the text msgs are displayed in the phone. They are arranged in such a way that it looks like a msn conversation, grping all msgs to and frm the same person in a single thread, u no longer have to scroll thru a long list of msgs to look for 1.

The other cool feature abt htc dream is the android OS and the android market. It virtually supports anything frm google, allows ur phone to sync with ur goggle acc. The android market is full of free applications where u can easily try out and have fun with. The browser that comes along with the phone is great, even better than opera mini. Works like a charm, loads all the sites I visit thru the phone.

The gui quite user frenly, the ball cursor works well, except that there isn't really a cursor on the scrn, its just another alternative for u to scroll if u do not want to use the touch scrn. The only complain I have is the battery life, which I think is quite short, compared to the phones I used to carry. But putting in the features into consideration, its not bad. Hopefully there will be a new firmware patch or battery that is able to increase the battery life.

sofa king great

started working since april fool's day. yes, many have asked me "are u sure they're not fooling you?" no, i'm sure. i have a written contract, and if they want to fool me, they can always see me in court lol.

work has been so far so good. the process of doing things might be a little different, but basically i just need some time to get used to it and adjust the way i work. there isnt a perfect work, so even though everything has been good to me, the people, the environment have been great, there are always some little bad stuff in every work u do. just a matter of how u weigh them against the good things. i dun really like the location, cos its freaking far, but i hope i can work there long enough for the Circle Line to start kicking in full gear, and i'll save me a lot of time on travel. the other thing i dun like is where i am sitting now. its a crampy small little place. everybody else is sitting in a spacious 1-2 meter length of table when a grp of qa testers are sitting in a small cramp room with monitors touching each other, keyboard placed diagonally and pedestal-ish drawers lying everywhere becos of the strain of space. kinda felt like there is a "discrimination" on qa testers, it has been like that in every work place i been to. qa's kinda been the lowest form of rank in every work place, and qa's always full of temp/contract stuff without the benefit of every other employee. i really hope this global discrimination of qa will change, seriously i believe qa staff has always been working just as hard as any other employee and this discrimination has to stop.

overall, work has been great. i have good co-workers, just that those i spend most time with, are now sofa king far away from me. i am hoping for the best.

IAH holds up to their rep

IAH never fails to disappoint their customers. it looks like every single game they put their hands on gives a bad name to their developers. 1st was Granado Espada, then comes Hellgate: London. and now FIFA Online 2. i cant say for Hellgate, but i feel that IAH is turning fun games like GE and FIFA to hellish experiences for their customers with under par services. so freaking disappointed with them to the point that i dont know wat to feel after going below disappointed. i may have to come up with a new adjective to express wat i feel.

feeling so uneasy

i have not seen my dad in years... since i moved out to stay with my mom few years back (i dont remember which year). but i will be tomolo, at my sister's new place. she arranged for us to have dinner together over at her place, menu is the last thing i'm gonna worry over. i dont know should i be happy that i am meeting my dad once again, some people may find me heartless and cold for leaving him, letting him live alone while he is in his 60s soon, there is nothing i can say to make u change ur mind since i too am wondering am i so heartless and cold?

i dont ever remember having a heart to heart talk with my dad or even a casual chat with him abt my life, my work or even my school years. i just find him so hard to approach and chat with, unlike my mom. he was always so quiet, unapproachable and always ready to reprimand me over something that he doesnt like. i remember he used to dote me, he bought me my very 1st gaming console: the nintendo entertainment system aka NES. u could say that he's the one who planted the seed. if not for him, i wont be working in the gaming industry i think. maybe its becos of his work, he was never around the whole day and was always not available for chats, he used to buy things for me just to make me happy, but as i grow older, i no longer sense father's love in any other form other than materially.

he absolutely hates me for visiting or seeing my mom when i was living with him. i have no idea why he wants to create a disgusting personality for my mom in an attempt to make me hate her. it could be his way of trying to keep me (and my sis) with him than to have us leave him for my mom. its not a biased thing on my side when i feel annoyed that he tries to uglify my mom, but i feel annoyed too when my mom tells me abt the ugly things my dad did.

its so true that when parents divorce, ultimately its the children that suffer. they can absolutely take sides or speak badly about the other party in whichever ways they want, but as their children, we can never take sides or choose to abandon either parent without feeling bad or have an attack from conscience. the fact that now divorce has become so common, its very damaging to the future. more and more kids now have divorced parents, step-siblings and many more. sooner or later, every kid in the world has divorced parents. some people might think its not a big deal but u'll never know the psychological effects the kid may have and how they grow up to be in future.

lots of time in hand

been really free these days... why? becos i'm jobless now. i'm not really celebrating the fact that i am jobless, but somehow it's my decision to leave mikoishi when they offered to extend my contract. i seriously cannot continue working there now when things are wat they are now. there are so many frustration and it feels like they are just dragging everybody along with them instead of making a clear decision of wat to do. moreover, i am getting very disgusted of how some ppl work. its like kids misbehaving while the parents just let them be. its not up to strangers to go up and tell the parents how ill-mannered your kids are without insulting them, but that's the truth. that's how its now at work, some kids just feels that they are the apple of the parent's eye, they can do watever shit they want and never get reprimanded for their actions. i certainly do not want to work in an environment like this.

well this past week i have been going out, to my sis's new place and to jason's house for a small bbq we have been planning for a long time. and since now i'm jobless, allowing me to go ahead with the bbq thingy. jason went to buy the portable gas stove and the korean bbq dome. it was pretty fun and the food was nice.