Zanussi

Been agonizing for more than a year how to fix up my cooking area.

Didn't want the stove in my house, cos I didn't want a cooking hood. So it has to be in the washing area.

As a temporary solution, I used a crappy table a tenant left behind, lay out the top with ceramic tiles left over from bathroom repair jobs the building engineers did, and tossed a hob on top of it.

Been that way for more than two years. Always had the intention of building up a proper platform and popping a hob in. There's just the question of whether I *CAN* figure out how to work with cement to do up a mini counter top in an alcove in the washing balcony.

Then recently, in a casual perusal of the forums, I came across a garage sale notice.

A Zanussi 4-hob cooker with electric oven.



Very nice condition. And the oven has hardly even been used!

RM550.

Just a pity that the seller realised at the last moment that he had left a gas tank inside. Else it would have been a steal.

Had to get Moses to use his Atoz to help me transport this back. The stove just barely slipped in his boot with half a cm to spare.
This should finally complete my kitchen... After I'm able to toss out the old hob. If I'm able to find the time to clean it up and polish the careless grime on it, I should still be able to fetch a decent price on it.

I'm harbouring no delusions of baking. But I can offer the use of the oven to friends. And exact a tax from whatever they're baking... Ha ha!

And there's a turn-spit for the oven too. So I could ohways woast a wabbit or swomething.

Invisible Tenors

Happened to be in the area around PJ South last week. Lots of workshops there, so I took my car to a random one that does aircon servicing. And also to have the passenger window replaced at the same time.
Aircon died a few months ago. The Daihatsu service centre quoted me 1.2k to repair. Hmm... 1.2k to repair a 7k car. Didn't sound right. So I bore with till I could get a second opinion. These guys, I think a pair of twins with prematurely greying hair, actually took things apart to look for leaks etc.

The compressor was leaking. I needed a new one. And that's that.

Got a reconditioned compressor. Looked shiny.

But after the compressor went on, the car handles like I'm driving the 3 tenors up Genting.

This is crap.

Thought maybe I could re-tune the engine a bit... Took out the kit I bought in Melbourne and spent a few hours on my car.

Think there may be something wrong with my vacuum advancer. Doesn't seem to do anything to the engine timing... According to the manual, the timing should advance a few degrees when I suck on it.

Sheesh...

For all the tuning... The car still feels like there are 3 fat men sitting in the back.

But at least they're quiet.

More Malware…

Office network down...

After some investigation, I've determined that my PC was the source of the problem.

Although being protected by Avast! AV, something snuck in. When I'm connected directly to the iPStar network for tests, it always leaves my PC very vulnerable.

Checking Network traffic:


Note the regular spikes in the middle of the graph.

Something was spamming the upload bandwidth, such that nothing could come in too. Thus, I threw open the Task Manager and removed suspicious processes. When I hit the right one, the bandwidth graph went back to normal, and the purple line finally moved upwards and stuff started coming in.



lsass.exe is the Local Security Authority Service. But lssas.exe is NOT. And it should not be a hidden file either.
In either case, it should never appear in that particular place in the system registry.

Thus killed the lssas.exe in the Task Manager. Removed it from the registry. Deleted it from C:\Windows\System32.

But this may not be the last of it... It's made it's way in once, it can do so again until my AV software gets a new update. Hopefully.

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30 Year Old Virgin

Yay....

Looney Tunes

Just 'got' a whole ton of Looney Tunes cartoons.

Lots of nostalgic moments.

My favourite will always be the Rabbit of Serville, an ingenious 'musical', with Bugs and Elmer, done to the track of Rossini's Barber of Serville.

But sometimes I wonder if watching so much of these in my childhood might have warped me somewhat.

Every character has a speech impediment, and a Brooklyn / Bronx accent, that might have worked itself into my speech pattern during my formative years.

And the RoadRunner physics took a few years to get over too.

Many a times too, I wish I knew where to get hold of some Acme products, like their Dehydrated Boulders. And I think some of my repressed pyromaniacal tendencies come from growing up thinking TNT was cool.

Also the misogyny. There were no female characters, with the possible exception of PePe le Phew's unfortunate targets, or the hens in Foghorn Leghorn's farm. Anytime a female animal is introduced, she's merely a plot device to make the protagonist become hormonally charged or act stupid.

Infrared Camera

On the left is the lens housing from my cheapish RM50 Made-In-China webcam. I unscrewed the lens out, and took a knife to it.

In order to remove the small pinkish glass on the bottom. That's the InfraRed filter.

Then on the right, is a piece of fully exposed colour film negative. I cut a small circle of that out, and glued it to the lens, where I removed the IR filter.

Then put the lens back into the digital cam, and took the following picture.



That's my buffish fore arm. Under infrared, all the veins show up on the camera. Under normal lighting, none of those veins show through my well tanned complexion.

Theory of operation:

The electronic sensor in even a cheapish webcam is sensitive enough to pick up infrared light. Thus, an IR filter is put in to block some of the IR, or else the brightness will wash out the picture. When I pried out the IR filter, I let IR light back in. When I added a piece of exposed negative, that blocks out a lot of visible light. So now, the camera captures mostly IR light.

Why do I do this?

Cos I've got that kind of time in the office...

Unlucky Day

Hoping for a quiet day today, three jobs popped up out of nowhere.

Needed to get all of them wrapped up quick, so I can come back to send my parents to the airport.

First, to Shah Alam.

Call came in just as I arrived at the first site. Stopped car by side of road to answer phone. Grasscutter guy worked his way towards me, and slammed a rock directly into my passenger side window, shattering it!

Argument with the landscaping supervisor about whether my car was illegally parked or not. But finally got his company's phone number and the person to talk to to file a claims. But will need a police report too.

Shit.

And the phonecall? That was from dad. My apartment's power just got cut. I had set up my credit card to auto pay my electric bill a year ago. But had terminated that credit card a few months back... And thus my electric bill had gone unpaid for a couple of months. Cripes. I've got an RM350 deposit with TNB, and the total bill was only half the deposit amount! Where will I find the time to make a police report. Repair my window. And pay the power bill now?

Shit.

Let's get the work finished first.

Nothing wrong with our equipment. All working fine. But someone had been messing around, and two connections were pulled loose. Fixed the connection and done. But who's the retard that generated the unnecessary work? Those things were sitting there working fine for more than a year, and suddenly two connections came loose?!

Found a bunch of traffic cops writing summons for illegally parked cars as I was exiting building. Got one to tell me the nearest station. Headed there to file a report for my damaged car. Quite a simple process. Saw a sergeant. Was instructed to go to a counter to get a camera guy to snap a pic of the damages and I'll be done.

Reached that counter a few minutes before 1pm. No one around. Lunch. They'll be back at 230pm.

Shit.

Settle other jobs first. One more in an industrial area in Shah Alam. Then zoomed off to another one in PJ.

The job at PJ was again not our problem. Their keyphone system was acting up. So I just pulled out our equipment and demonstrated that the fault is ENTIRELY the keyphone's fault. And let them call in those technicians and give them no reason to pin the rap on us.

Shit.

240pm. Zoomed back to Shah Alam. Found cameraman. Received copy of police report. Quickly done.

Zoomed back home to parents and sis.

Cleaned the glass out of the car. Loaded up the luggage, and headed to the airport.

Started raining. And one window missing.

Shit.

My parents flew from the LCCT. And after that, my sister flew  from the Main Terminal, many km away.

The Main Terminal has very expensive parking. RM3 /hr. After the string of luck today, didn't dare to tempt it further. So, I sucked it in and parked inside. Paid RM9.

Shit.

Dinner with sis. Lunch for me also. Sent her off.  Headed home, and washed off the day's grit and grime in the silent darkness.
Then I took all the perishables out of my fridge. Parents had gone overboard, and bought me a few kg of char siew and siew yok. Too valuable to risk them spoiling. Took them over to Settler's Cafe, to keep them in their big freezer for a day. Their big boss from Singapore was visiting the franchise, so couldn't hang around to chit-chat.

Back home. Parked my car with the side hugging a wall as tightly as possible, so the door with the broken window can't be opened. Not that there's anything inside worth stealing at all.

No internet. Slept without aircon.

Shit.

You can never please your parents…

Parents have all kinds of expectations for their children. Because they contributed DNA, they have God given rights to make their offsprings jump through hoops their entire life. Offsprings are also bred and trained to seek approval from their parents, thus completing the circle.

During childhood, their expectations were simple.

"Sit down! And shut up!"

Those were simple days...

As you age, the goal posts are pulled ever further away.

"Study hard so you can get into a good school."

"Study hard so you can get into a good University."

"Find a husband/wife."

"Give us some grandchildren."

"Make your boy/girl study hard so he/she can get into a good school."

...ad nauseum...

Last year when my parents came over, I was still in the middle of DIY-ing my kitchen. So there was a small mess in the living room.

I never heard the end of that.

This time around, before they arrived, I did a lot of cleaning. Vacuumed and mopped the floors. Scrubbed the bathrooms. Especially the outside bathroom, which until last month, was used by a tenant. Thankfully, she had moved out end of last month.  Less RM220 of rental income, (cheap cheap cos I was helping out an old friend's ex-girlfriend), but I no longer have to worry about the loser boyfriend she brings home every other night. That kind of grief wasn't worth the pittance.

Anyway, the toilet... There were brown stains in the basin, and it looked filthier than my toilet bowl. Enough said.

So, I managed to get my house into some semblance of order. Particularly, I had to hide away some of my toys. Namely the WARMACHINE stuff. Else I won't hear the end of it... ("This is what you've been doing in lieu of giving us a grandchild?!?!").

Anyways, house cleaned. Mom came. Nothing but praises for the first few heartbeats, but praises tainted with grumbling reminders of the previous STY-ish state last year.

By the tenth heartbeat, she ran a finger across the top of the microwave and shoved the grimey finger in my face.

"Look at this oily grime! You have to clean your microwave often. You have to close the door when you cook. Don't let the oil fumes come into the house... etc etc..."

*sigh*

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Sweetened Creamer

Whatever happened to condensed milk and evaporated milk?

Just went shopping a few weeks back, looking for condensed milk at Tesco. And I can't find any!

All the classic Nestle Susu Cap Junjung I saw there were Sweetened Creamers. Teapot, Carnation, and every other brand of tinned milk in the beverage section were Sweetened Creamers.

They're almost the same packaging as the condensed milk and evaporated milk tins of old.
But the ingredients listed Palm Oil and Milk Solids.

Yuck!

Do you realise, that everytime you order milo, kopi and teh at mamaks, you're drinking palm oil? As if the sugar isn't fattening enough already.

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