Competition results

We did reasonably well in the competition. Finishing 3rd in Grade D and semi finals in Grade C. That's one placing better in Grade D compared to our first outing back in December so I guess, it is an improvement, albeit, we were competing with a different group of dancers.

Am I happy with the results? Well ... I'm quite ambivalent about the results. Finishing 3rd and semis in not a bad thing but I was, a little bit, hoping that we could at least get into the finals of Grade C. Guess we'll just have to practise harder.

A friend and adjudicator advised on a change of costume. The maroon dress I have is apparently too dull and not outstanding on the floor, causing me not to be seen. She suggested orange, yellow or green. More striking colours. On top of that, the design of my dress is not quite flattering for my body type. The loose cutting makes it more apparent that I'm not ... ahem ... slim. A few other friends have mentioned exactly the same thing.

So, it's time to suss out for a new costume.

Either



or this purple one on the Dancing With The Stars site.



Which is nicer?

Getting MyDVD LE to work (Part 1)

Finally managed to get MyDVD LE (I have version 6.1.6) which came with the DELL laptop to work.

My first attempt at burning DVD came quickly to a stop with the following error:

Could not make a thumbnail. Make sure you have the appropriate decoder installed. -47010

After much searching through various forums, including Roxio's own forums, the decoder(s) that got it to successfully add a file to the project was the DJBCP Codec Pack 2.1 Light.

During installation, I believe I have only installed the following:
* Decoder 5.1,
* XviD-1.0.1 Final,
* DivX 3.11 Alpha, and
* AC3 Filter 0.7b.

After many successful disks, I also installed the VobSub 2.3 to enable burning (hardsub) and viewing of subtitles.

A whole series later ... it stopped working.

What is my number?

Quick tip I learnt from the friendly Telekom guy who came by to check out the problem with one of my office's phone line. Dial 13183 to find out the number for that line hooked to your phone. Especially useful when you don't have your mobile phone or if caller ID is has been suppressed for that line.

Back to paper

I was chatting with a friend of mine on messenger regarding a meeting that we were to attend for a society which we were both part of the committee. It was going to be held in a couple of days at her place and I asked why the event was not in the calendar that I have setup for the committee?

Thinking that we need a collaboration tool to keep each other informed of events that are coming up for the society, I had a google calendar setup and shared amongst the members of the committee. Little do I know that I will end up being the only person using the calendar.

It got me thinking that I spend quite a lot of time updating all sort of tools online that was suppose to help me organize myself and become more productive. It seems to me that all this time that I've been using to update these tools is actually taking me away from the act of actually doing the things itself. Hence, actually becoming less productive.

Recently, I have decided to go back to good old pen and paper.

Bill Westerman commented on this post of David Seah's about his method of GTD called the GSD. It's a basic to-do list which I have found to be simple and sorta effective. I am currently trying this purely for work now and haven't mixed it with personal to-dos. Bill does a transfer of his unfinished items on a daily basis, which I find to be quite bothersome after three days. After transferring an item of low priority which I will only do after I have completed all the tasks that requires more immediate attention, I've decided that I will only bring over unfinished items on a weekly basis.

What I also do is, to pop items into the current day's list as soon as it pops into my head. Whether or not that task will be done the same day is another matter. The next day, on top of starting the list with things that I've thought of to do that day, I'll pick two or three items from the previous days list to be completed today.

Come Monday morning, I'll gather all the unfinished items from the previous week and start all over again.

I believe that with this to-do list and not trying to multitask is slowly helping me become more effective. At the very least, I get a sense of what I have completed at the end of the work day and how many more check boxes there are to be completed, which feels better compared to having to wreck my brains thinking what I have or have not completed.

My first ebay listing

My friend wanted to sell off her pair of latin shoes. What better way to test out ebay than to list that for her eh?

Anyone for a pair of latin shoes?

Outlook unable to connect to Ms Exchange Server

The connection to the Microsoft Exchange Server is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action.

There is a simple solution for XP Pro users who encounter this message when trying to add their Ms Exchange mailbox to their Outlook. When configuring the mailbox for Outlook, after entering the server name, User Name and clicking on Check Name, Outlook will automatically replace the server name with it's fully qualified name. This is what causes the problem. Just set it back to your server name and you should be able to access your Exchange mailbox.

According to blurred_vision, XP Home users can connect to the server using the fully qualified name. I have not tried this as I'm not on XP Home at the office.

But then, I'm not actually using XP Pro either; I'm on Windows SBS.

Monash Alumni Group Christmas dinner

The Monash Alumni Group will host this dinner event, Monash Malaysia's biggest alumni event of the year. Date: Friday 15 December, 7.00pm Venue: Modestos, Desa Sri Hartamas, Lot 48652, off Jalan Bukit Kiara, Sri Hartamas 50480 KL Price: RM20 (Monash alumni), RM50 (friends and family) RSVP: 11 December to Kelvin Lee via email or on 603-5636-0600

My one week vacation

It's been over a year since I've started working for this company and apart from a couple of single day leave on Fridays, I've not taken any leaves for over a year. Ok ... well, maybe a two day, Friday into Monday leave. I feel like I'm Bruce Willis in Unbreakable last year. No matter how long I've worked, people in the office were dropping like flies and taking MCs left, right and center. Being the honest (read: scaredy cat) that I am, I've not even dared fake a sickness just so I could get some rest. In fact, my leave application citing reason for leave as 'to rest' was denied.

Finally, I managed to get a whole week of leave two weeks ago.

So, what did I do?

Chores mostly. Carting aunt to buy stuff. 5 hours of grass cutting at both my aunts townhouses. Finding more bling for my competition costume. Basically, lots of running around and no rest.

The competition on Saturday went alright. Despite the superslow cha cha for the first round which we danced a little out of time, we still managed to proceed to the semi-finals. Semi-finals was much better but I think our finals dances were probably the strongest of the three. Our final standing was 4th. Not bad for our first outing. :)

Last week was a mad rush to get a new project up and running by Dec 1st. So there was basically nothing but work, work and work. Which in a way was good cause my feet has been hurting for the past couple months. Lets hope the one week of feet rest will do the trick.

Over the weekend, I went for a karaoke session, and a fashion thing that souldoctor was involved in for a brand discount store. I'm very into Diane Von Furstenberg's wrap dresses now. Although the store was probably selling their stuff at 1/4 the original prices, they were still pretty exorbitant for a pinch penny like me. The dress I like costed over $500! Yups! Not getting any. Just hoping the girlie boss will have a garage sale soon!

A little change of steps

In my previous post, I've mentioned what a hassle it was to rename a label with blogger beta. I've discovered a way to kinda change/rename all posts with a particular label to another label. Instead of following the steps given by blogger, skip Step #3 until after Step #5. So instead of the following ...

1. Click the "Books" label link on the left side of the page.
2. Click the "Select All" link at the top of the list of posts.
3. From the "Label Actions..." menu, choose "Remove label > Books."
4. From the "Label Actions..." menu, choose "Apply label > New Label..."
5. Enter "Reading" as your new label. (If you already have some posts with the label "Reading," you can simply apply that label, without making a new label.)

You do this instead ...

1. Click the "Books" label link on the left side of the page.
2. Click the "Select All" link at the top of the list of posts.
3. From the "Label Actions..." menu, choose "Apply label > New Label..."
4. Enter "Reading" as your new label. (If you already have some posts with the label "Reading," you can simply apply that label, without making a new label.)
5. From the "Label Actions..." menu, choose "Remove label > Books."

This was just something that popped into my head and tested with low amount of posts. Further testing might be required. Wonder if 'Select All' would select all if there were hundreds of posts.

Adding labels in blogger beta

I'll need to build a new customized template with beta's capability to add Labels now. Either that or I figure out how to add that to my old template. I think it's time for a change though.

Anyways, regarding the labels. I was trying to figure out how to rename the labels but apparently there is no way of doing that. The best I could find were the following steps provided by blogger help.

1. Click the "Books" label link on the left side of the page.
2. Click the "Select All" link at the top of the list of posts.
3. From the "Label Actions..." menu, choose "Remove label > Books."
4. From the "Label Actions..." menu, choose "Apply label > New Label..."
5. Enter "Reading" as your new label. (If you already have some posts with the label "Reading," you can simply apply that label, without making a new label.)

Alrighty, sounds simple enough.

I followed the steps up to #3. After I've removed the label, the list of posts dissappears. Which means I'll have to go back to ALL posts, reselect the posts which were previously labelled Books and the continue with Step #4. This is fine with the label I was playing with but what if I've been using the labels for the past 3 years and have hundreds of posts with that label? How would I possibly remember all the posts to reselect and re-label?

When reading the steps, I had the impression that the posts labelled Books will still be listed so that I would be able to easily follow up with step #4. Was that a crazy assumption?

I do think that they should create the function to rename the labels, this run around method of doing it is error-prone and tedious for mass postings of the same labels.

If nobody else has this problem, please tell me where I went wrong with the ste

Tickets are on sale

Tickets for the show are now ON SALE!

There's no turning back now. Well ... if nobody buys it then I guess we, technically, can still turn back. But lets not be pessimistic me.

The one day where we're given a day off from rehearsal and I was still rushing to go off for rehearsal. Even called up the ASM to inform her that I'll be late while tearing my way to the elevator to the car park. Doh! Occupational hazard. :)

Day off to rest for tomorrow's recording and what do I do? Stay back at work to finish off stuff! I've proven my own point that I NEED a production or dance practise specifically scheduled in order for me to actually leave the office. I wonder if that makes me a workaholic.

Anyway, quite excited about tomorrow. After three original musicals, this is the first that's going to be recorded. Cool! An original cast album with my name on it ... er ... we're going to have our names in there aren't we? Not just all lumped into ensemble? *pray*

When does he become your boyfriend?

While having dinner with JT after dance practise, he mentioned that he has been hanging out with this girl for the past three weeks. Not quite sure if three weeks equate to three dates but yeah; three weeks. He kept insisting that he they weren't dating/pak toh.

To me, if a guy asks me out, I mean, just me with the intention of maybe getting to know me for the possibility of a relationship, I would consitute that as dating. Wouldn't you? How would you differentiate dating from simply hanging out?

Isn't the whole point of dating to get to know each other with the possibility of further involvement? Futhermore, would you consider a person you've been seeing for a month, your boyfriend or girlfriend?

JT says even after three 'sessions' of hanging out he wouldn't consider that they are dating. It's still a getting to know each other period. Tres odd, no? Maybe he's right and I make too rush a judgement but to me, after two or three sessions, if you still have to figure out if you want to date that person, I think you can just forget about it.

But then ... what do I know, I barely have time to breathe much less to date. :)

PGL - The Musical

It appears from the few reviews that I've read that most people have enjoyed the show. The liked the sets, the liked the costumes and they liked the music. It's also quite unanimous that Adipati stole the lover's limelight every single night.

I wish I could get a day off from the show to be able to see just what we have come up with after all those months of tears, pain and sweat. To hear that the audiences enjoyed it is certainly thrilling. I'm hoping that they're recording the thing on video so that we would have a chance to see what actually happened on stage. Must get that cute sound guy to make me a copy of some of the shows.

Personally, the piece that enjoy most is a piece that I'm not in. I really like the drum transition during the sumpahan scene. The one the ensemble goes "Melaka bercelaru, Peminangan tuanku ...". Simply brilliant. Love it every time I hear it and I'm right there in the pit when they play it. You guys rock, drum guys!!! Dance wise, naturally, it would be the 'Titah Sultan', I think that's the most playful thing in the whole musical and I really do enjoy doing that piece. Re-energises me every single time ... er ... of course that's only when I don't make any mistake in it. ;)

Watch out for me. I'm a Goddess, a Jelmaan Nenek Kebayan, Perempuan Jawa, Perempuan Kraton ... in general ... ensemble.

Two more weeks to go. Leave me a link to your reviews if you do go and watch it!


Show and ticket details:-

Dates:
February 7 & 8 – Previews @ 8.30pm RM30 (Student, veteran, disabled)
February 9 to 26 – Show Dates @ 8.30pm (normal price)
February 12, 19 & 26 – Matinees @ 3.00pm (normal price)

Tickets: RM150, RM100, RM70, RM50 & RM30

Venue: Istana Budaya, Kuala Lumpur

Box Office: 03-4026 5558

Booking Website: http://www.ticket2u.biz

Tickets available at Istana Budaya, Kuala Lumpur.

For more information, please call/fax ticket2u.biz at 03-4026 5558
Email: production@enfiniti.com.my or visit http://www.pglthemusical.com.my

eyes wide apart

She has some lovely illustrations.
I always wonder how people do illustrations. Do they draft it on paper first or do they just hop on the PC and drag-and-click?

Wonder if there are any tutorials out there teaching how to draw illustrations like the ones she has.

gmail & celcom email sms

Does anyone know if it's possible to email sms to a celcom number from Gmail? Cause I'm getting a failure notification email when I tried.

From the email, I'm gathering that gmail is sending emails as multipart contents

Subject: xxxxx
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_Part_909_4480553.1121765928693"

------=_Part_909_4480553.1121765928693
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline



------=_Part_909_4480553.1121765928693
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline

While the Celcom sms email server is anticipating text/plain content.

(Email-SMS) Please check the following:
1. Typing error on Celcom GSM phone number.
2. The content-type of the mail must be text/plain *only*.
3. The mail is excessively long.

Does anyone know if I can get gmail to send mails as text/plain?

Windows XP search tweak

This is more for me than anything. I keep forgetting how to do it. Maybe it could be useful to you as well.

Ever tried searching for files via the specifying the 'A word of a phrase in the file'?
Then never seem to get any results even though you can bet both your arms and legs that some results show be returned and yet still get absolutely no files found?

Well, I get this a lot and I don't know why. Must have missed a class or two in the Windows XP Search 101 class.

I'm not sure if there is a better more legal way of getting the search they way I think it should be but here's the one I found in many many many places online. They are all the same and it involves changing one value in the registry.

Namely ->
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ContentIndex]
"FilterFilesWithUnknownExtensions"=dword:00000001

That's it! Simple huh? But the question remains, why doesn't the default settings of the search work?

Your favourite sites

I need some sites to test a product. And since I hardly browse sites except for phlogs (my own term for photoblogs), my friend's blogs, emails, amazon (which I wish they'd have a Malaysian branch!) and google, I'm looking for other sites that people visit frequently.

So, I need some help. What sites do you guys visit frequently? Preferably sites that are not blogs and search portals and of course, not gmail, yahoo nor msn.

Callback/No callback

Signals Master announced that the KLPAC people are on the phones right now ringing the people for callback. It's been almost an hour since the announcement and SoulDoc and I have yet to receive a call. *sigh* Guess we didn't make it. SoulDoc's depressed. I'm slightly dissappointed.

Yups! I've decided not to place too much hope on auditions so that I won't be overly dissappointed when I don't get it and pleasantly surprised when I do.

Sheesh! What a load of crap! LOL

[Update] SoulDoc got the callback too. She asked if I did but the lady had no idea who I was, so that's a big fat NO. Ah well .... c'est la vie. NEXT!

Not competing

There's a competition this weekend. Sadly though, my partner, Jay, and I will not be competing.

Why not?

Well, so far, since the last time we practise for a performance for one of his friend's wedding, which was back in May 21st, we have practised all of ONE time, and had all of ONE class; both at the beginning of this week. So that was almost a whole month of no dancing. How's that for preparation? We did however do another performance. This time for my university alumni event. It went ok. I kinda messed up the rhumba. Forgot the rhythm for some of the step. :P But then, nobody knew. At least, I hope nobody did.

Our teacher said it up to us whether or not to compete and but he didn't see any reason why we shouldn't as " ... the cha cha actually looked slightly better. Though the jive looks slighly worse. There should have been more improvements but that's fine." I feel the same, which is why I don't think we should compete since there was no improvements. Jay feels it's too rushed and he's also been busy.

And therefore, no competition this weekend.

Prior to the alumni event, I managed to slip in an audition for an upcoming staging of Pygmalion. It's going to be a musical. No, not My Fair Lady; this will be with original music and as is often with the Actor's Studio, it'll be a Malaysianised version.

I was late for the audition. I sang two songs with pitching going up and down and everywhere else except where it should be. I hope they're not as pitch perfect as my previous auditioner. Then jumped around for a bit for the improptu movement part of the audition (nowhere mentioned in the audition notice). Then read a bit of text.

Now, the text reading bit felt a little odd. The part to be read was the part where Liza has already learnt how to speak properly. First time we read it, I was suppose to do it the Malaysian-bahasa-pasar way. I had trouble with that due to the content of the text. Also because I usually try not to speak too bahasa pasar and then I'm thinking I have to inject in some local dialet stuff. So, I stumbled quite a bit there. The second time was better cause it's just regular reading. Just have to read it as is with proper English, it doesn't matter that it's a Malaysian English accent, we're not British nor American to begin with anyway.

The auditioners were friendly. One of them said, "... you know we love you." when I mentioned that I get really nervous at auditions. That had me thinking "Er ... ok." LOL. Then one of them said "charming girl". Don't know what is involved in being charming.

Does excessive nervous babbling constitute as charm?

Hmmm ... must babble more then, huh?

Anyway, fingers crossed for that. *fingers crossing*

IQ Test (retake)

I re-took an IQ test at Tickle cause I received an email from them. Not much difference. Still in the same category - Visual Mathematician. Am not enetirely certain but I think I scored one point less than I did the last time. Or did I get a 129 previously? Somehow the numbers 132 and 129 popped into my head after I saw the result.

Your IQ score is 131

This number is based on a scientific formula that compares how many questions you answered correctly on the Classic IQ Test relative to others.

Your Intellectual Type is Visual Mathematician. This means you are gifted at spotting patterns — both in pictures and in numbers. These talents combined with your overall high intelligence make you good at understanding the big picture, which is why people trust your instincts and turn to you for direction — especially in the workplace.

This is another test - the Super IQ test. Taking it for the first time.

Your thinking style is Visual Linguist

Your IQ score is 120. This means that you are smarter than 91.0% of all other Super IQ test takers.

This number is the result of a scientifically-tested formula based on how many questions you answered correctly on the Tickle Super IQ Test.

But there's more to intelligence than a single number, a single score, or a single label. Tickle uses 8 distinguishable dimensions of intelligence in the Super IQ Test. By analyzing your individual scores on those 8 scales, we are able to look beyond the raw IQ score into how you process information, and which intellectual strengths you're best at.

Your test results indicate that the way you process information makes you a Visual Linguist.

You are highly intelligent and multi-talented. Particularly strong are your language skills and your ability to interpret visual information. You tend to map things out spatially, so it's immediately clear to you how things work. Understanding abstract concepts is unusually easy for you and it helps that you are able to see things differently, to see multiple angles on one situation or thing.

You have a very realistic interpretation of life, but your mind is capable of complex, conceptual thought. With most things, you just know what you know and don't particularly enjoy having to explain why or how.

...

As you can see (there was a graph), your top scores are in the areas of Mechanical, Verbal, and Spatial. This is a very unusual combination — only 6 in 1,000 people have it.

Did the test just call me weird?! Bloody hell!