Curing Curlyhair-itis

Since the dawn of my existence, I've been blessed with slightly curly hair but cursed with tough locks. Until today, I cannot afford to let my hair grow too long because I will wake up every morning with an afro and everytime I comb it to the left it will curl its way to the right.

It's not too curly, which actually compounds the problem because I'm neither here nor there. I can't use hair styles for straight hair because the curls will make it look cheap, but I also can't do curly hair styles because it's not wavy enough.

However, salvation appeared in the form of Wellastrate. Wellastrate is a hair straightening cream that allows DIY-ers like myself to straighten their hair without forking out more than RM100 to a hair salon. I never knew a product like Wellastrate existed until a family friend recommended it.

One package cost me RM33.30, and from my estimation it can be used for 2-3 applications. I used it last Saturday, but instead of applying it to my whole head I just did the sides and front, which is where my hair is most curly. I left the back untouched because the curls at the tip actually add some value to my style.

All in all, I would say it worked very well. There were some parts where it's still a little bit curly, but I think that's because I didn't apply it thoroughly enough. However, its chemical composition is quite similar to colour dyes, and therefore it's damaging to the hair and I'll refrain from using it too often.

These days I've been experimenting with plenty of new styles, especially spiky ones because it is no longer in danger of twisting its way out of my grip whenever I pull it up. The best part of the deal is that when I miss my curls, I just have to go for a haircut.

Anyone else have experience with hair straightening products?

Duty Calls

On this fine holiday, I'm in the office. I can't exactly say why or what, but it doesn't take half a brain to come to the conclusion that there's a crisis going on. What's more of a crisis, though, is that they left the central air-conditioning off! I guess 4 people in the office do not warrant switching on the air-con capable of cooling a hundred.

I'm happy to report that my social life is finally picking up again. What's more impressive is that I'm finally playing video games again. I mentioned earlier that I bought Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Tomb Raider Legend. As an update, I'm now also playing:

• Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones: Gorgeous graphics, but doesn't work well with my el cheapo gamepads.
• Megaman X8: I missed out on X7 but I'm more than happy to continue playing as the Blue Bomber, now in glorified 3D.
• Call of Duty 2: I'm not a fan of FPS, but I downloaded this game because it's the nicest-looking Mac game now. I wanted to see how well games run natively on Mac OS X instead of going through Windows. But I got hooked on this game anyway because it really makes you feel as if you're in a war.
• Halo 1: Again, I'm not an FPS fan but I've heard so many great things about the storyline that I don't mind suffering through vertigo and dizziness to see what the fuss is all about.

Other games I'm looking out for are:

• F.E.A.R.: I love survival horror games. And I've heard plenty of good reviews about this. So I'll give it a try once I exhaust my other FPS games.
• Silent Hill 3: I didn't finish the first game coz I was scared shitless. But now, I want to prove to myself I have the balls to blast away virtual demented nurses.
• The Sims 2: I know I won't stop killing them once I start playing, so I'm holding out on this for now till I get my psycho tendencies under medication.

Any other graphically-gorgeous games you'd like to recommend? I want to play all the 3D games I can while my video card is still "current".

Refund, Please

At my gym we have a VCD library where members can borrow any movie for free. Just today I brought Dad in as a guest and he asked me to borrow Elektra. I haven't watched the movie before but I read really horrible reviews for it. But I figured I'd have nothing to lose.

Apparently I did. 2 hours of my life, in fact. I wonder if there is a way to claim back time for all the lame movies we ever sat through? Catwoman and Daredevil are two comic book adaptations that instantly come to mind, but I'm sure my loyal readers can provide more lame movies they regretted watching.

My Life is (More) Complete

...now that I've finally gotten my graduation gift from Dad:


Earlier I contemplated taking photos of the iMac in my own room but didn't because:

1. People will see how messy my desk is
2. iMacs in real life don't look as good as iMacs in marketing material

To just squeeze a little more envy from all of you still stuck with Windows, here it is again:


Ironically, one of the first things I did was to install Boot Camp and then load Windows XP onto it. After which I experienced orgasmic joy via beautiful video games. At the moment I'm playing NFS: Most Wanted and Tomb Raider Legends. For someone whose last games were probably Need For Speed 3 and Tomb Raider 4 (remember those?), there's not much more I could ask for. Surprisingly good performance from the ATI X1600 chipset on a 17" widescreen monitor.






And just in case you promised yourself that you won't be jealous:

Weird Happenings

Some of you might have noticed that a pop-up appears when you first enter the blog, something about cPanel username and password. I've done some checking and it appears that it's caused by the TagBoard - they have tutup kedai and now I have lost all the tags you guys, erm, tagged. Can anyone recommend a good alternative?

Another thing is that my site counter has gone bonkers and I had to reset. So I'm starting my counter from 8500 - pretty accurate if you ask me. I am tempted to just start from 9000 but I'll give myself the benefit of the doubt.

P.S. You should no longer see the weird pop-up. If you do, leave a comment.

One Can Only Hope

How I wished that our mathematics problems were as interesting as this:

The distance from Point A to B is 100km. If a cyclist starts cycling from Point A at a constant speed of 20km/h and a car moves from Point B at the constant speed of 80km/h, how long will it take for the car to run over the cyclist?
Give your answer in minutes.



Just in case you were wondering, the answer is 60 minutes.

Fantastic Shot

This is the kind of stuff I look for when I work on Saturdays:

P.S. If you don't see any picture, well, it sure ain't MY side of the problem!

Oh OK! Let me re-upload the whole thing so you can see for yourself. Though on a Moody Monday, the picture doesn't look as impressive anymore:


P.S. If you're wondering what's so weird about a plane flying across Gurney Drive, it's that I've never seen planes fly across Gurney Drive.

Workaholics Part 2

Today is Saturday. So why am I in the office?

Plus, I've been coming home tired everyday, hence the lack of posts. I do have things I want to write about, but since I sleep earlier than Cinderella I don't think I'll have much time for writing.

Pandemic Panda Eyes

I'm at the office early to post because Streamyx at home has not been working for 2 days already. But the moment I started writing, I forgot what I wanted to write about. Oh wait, I do now.

At the factory premises we have a small mini-market and yesterday just before leaving office I stopped by to get a bottle of Eye-Mo. My eyes have been stinging for the whole afternoon, and I couldn't take it anymore. Surprisingly the shop keeper told me it was his last unit of Eye-Mo. I guess many other workers here have been staying back more than they should.

My eyes still sting now. Sigh. Might I have to wear glasses soon?

Hurricane Post

Lack of time and lack of sleep has forced me to do what many bloggers have done before - multiple short notes!

Biological Alarm Clock
It is said that we only need to do something regularly for 6 weeks before it becomes a habit. Well, it took me half the time to adjust to the 6.30am routine. I adjusted so well, in fact, that on weekends I wake up before 7am as well! It's totally screwing my weekend nightlife. Which I don't have but I'm trying to create.

Selling My Soul
I finally joined a gym - Fitness First. And you know what? I had to sell my soul to get their free gift pack. OK, so I didn't have to sell my soul, but I needed to write down names of 10 friends and their phone number so Fitness First could go harass them. I scrolled through my address book and wrote down 10 names, who may or may not be even interested. And I explicitly told the lady not to mention my name when harassing them. All this for a bag, t-shirt, tumbler, headphones, and some silly vouchers.

Double Cascading Action
If you thought that was some new sex position - shame on you! It's the technology behind my new washing machine. OK, so Dad paid for it, but he's already made it clear I'll be doing most of the laundry. All this while we sent our clothes to the dobi, but I figured it's time to go for long-term savings and convenience by doing our own washing. So in the end we settled for a low-end Panasonic 7kg washer with Fuzzy Logic. Where they use Fuzzy Logic is quite fuzzy to me.

Sorry, just had to write that last sentence.

No Day Like Pay Day
So, I finally got my first pay slip. Never mind that it's all online and I don't get to feel it with my fingers. Now I know why people are automatically happy at the end of the month. And I just discovered that it's good to go for dates around such time because people are more willing to pay for your meal.