Starbucks....missing

Wish there was a Starbuck coffee house here in lil' oil town...

Blackout...?

Came back to Miri. It was good to be back.

(Photo from Miri Council)

Well first things first...went to unload all my foods and clothings to humble bungalow. Once got all the foods in the fridge, next on the 'to do' list needed to pay for my internet bill. Driving in town... noticed that most of the shops were all dark, and people were waiting outside the shops. I didn't take note of this. Anyway, went to TMnet building to pay off the bill. That was done and over with. Next on the list was to get credit for my phone... Parkson came to mind (Imperial was closer then Parkson but I had a personal preference for Parkson)...also I could buy some drinks, and check out what was showing in the only cineplex in the whole of Miri for home, kill two birds with a stone.

(Photofrom hornbill.bizland.com)

Got to Parkson and there was a lot of parking spots free, that unusual especially at lunch time,got a great parking spot right in from of the main entrance. I was wondering why was there a lot of people standing out side and how come the inside was all dark? Opening the glass door a waft of warm moist with sweat air brushed pass me... *OMG!* The whole of Parkson was with out electricity...only a few lights were on (generator powered I assume), lots of shop sales girls and attendance were waiting by the front of their shop fanning them self with anything that was light, flat and fan-able.... A BLACK OUT....

(Not actual paper...just for illustration purposes)

wow... I found out later that Parkson or Bintang Plaza was not the only shopping complex that suffered...the black out streached as far from the town itself till Boulevard shopping complex...that some distance.

(Eeks forgot where i got this photo, sorry)

Isn't Miri a City now... and black outs do not happen in cities? Well apparently I found out later that there was a power transformer for the Miri City grid that was faulty... and the council decided to fix it then rather then in the evening...for security reasons, which i believe was a sound and logical action to take. None the less, not knowing that they were replacing the faulty transformer does raise question for those that was out of the country for a long while or that was visiting Miri for the first time... well on the way home I was thinking, is the whole of Miri effected? O SHIT! what about my home...my pc was still on and downloading ... stuffs...damn! Got back in a rush...thank goodness that there was still power at senadi area... he he he.

Later on the evening...I went out for dinner with a close friend at Siamese Secrets in town. A really nice place to bring a date, anyway...we were there having dinner a chatting about all sorts of topics when a flash of lightning lighted the sky and a few second later thunder followed ,thunder that rumbled through the ground even shaking our drinks on the table. Wow this was cool... natures own show with audio...

Well after the dinner, we headed back to Senadin, only to find the 1 phase of that area in complete darkness. Was this just like this morning (not knowing that the electric transformer was being replaced)? I hope that my house is not affected... As we made our way towards the second phase of Senadin we saw lights...a glimmer of hope...and to our delight our area was not effected.

Apparently what caused the blackout at Senadin was the lightning earlier that had struck one of the electric hub for phase one in Senadin.

As my friend said so eloquently as we saw our area had lights...

"We are too dependent on electricity!"

Back to the oil town of Malaysia

Its almost a week away from Orientation in Curtin University of Technology Sarawak Campus and already I am anxious to get back to Senadin. Some may say i am crazy to go back to that sleepy town with one cinema that can't play any decent film with out a glitch (audio, visual or other wise), other may say that I am crazy because of my line of course deals with insane amounts of assignments and time consuming reading and writing and practicals...but I say nay! I am going back to my friends. My other family. My freedom.

(Sunset on Campus)

Good bye 2006...Hello 2007

Took long enough to get this blog out...enjoy the read.

2006 has gone like the typical tropical weather what I have come to almost love. Sun shine, overcast, dark clouds looming in the distant – pitter patter of soft rain in May, hard-heavy droplets in December and almost constant rain through out the never ending summer on the equator. This year … Last year held an assortment of feelings and emotions.

Highlights of 2006

Beginning of the year; back to campus and the life of staying on your own.

Mid-year; Media trip to Kuala Lumpur, the discovery of Maple S.E.A

End of year; the coming home after a long period in Miri, cousin Zan back for good, Christmas dinner at Carols & New years get together.

Through out the year; event managing between Curtin Volunteers and Student Council

Annual New Year Eve family get together

Like all the other years we hold a party for close friends whom has become a second family for most of us. Like the previous years I would supply the venue which this time is the Beribi house in Gadong.

It has a large compound out front, a pool and gazebo in the back. The theme was thought up by Zan and Carol, which was to be a chill-out atmosphere, running parallel to this idea was the colour scheme: green and red.

Guest list: Shaq, Riadah, Riadah's frined, Carol, Joe, Dina, Bob, Zan, Rozman, Rozman’s spouse, Ulma, Ariphin.

It was a blast!

I wonder what 2007 will hold for this average over weight person that lives life for the moment and does occasionally plan for the future…

[Shout out to Brokenpixel who attended and produced excellent pictures from NYE 06/07 Annual party]

Conspiracy theory...just a thought

My thoughts maybe in complete...was writing this a rush as not to forget what the idea that i had was about... enjoy....

I was just switching through channels on Astro while checking my email, Astro over the past 5 months has added more channels to their arsenal of media information and services.

Well there I am, flipping through channels like a text book that I an bored with but have to read through for an economic test…and found this particular channel Discovery History channel when they were showing about space and life aside from planet earth (forgot the programs name)…*shrug* think to self ‘this would be a interesting channel to listen over while checking my mail…’ There I am clicking away at my emails that has accumulated over the past four weeks, when the commentator started to discuss moon dust and stones that could contain some sort of bacterial life form in a fossil form and that astronauts that walked the moon could carry or be effected by these alien bacterial life or even both. The commentator goes on to tell how Neal Arm Strong and his fellow astronauts after safely landing on earth was seen as heroes by the public, on the other hand they were seen as biological threat by NASA and other agencies and was in quarantine from when they first came out of their pod to a holding tank and paraded through the streets to an airstrip where they were flown to NASA to under go a series of test for a duration of 3 weeks to see if they were affected in anyway… concurrently the samples that the astronauts took back from the moon was also tested on plants and animals…just to see if anything would grow ABNORMALLY. In the end there was no threat. Guess its better to be safer then sorry.

Now this is where it gets interesting…the commentator mention, after that whole history lesson, about a mars fragment that crashed to earth. After a closer inspection there on the mars fragment was numerous of fossilised bacteria…There could possibly be life on Mars once upon a time. Being that Mars did have water at some period of time in the far past. My ears picked up another sentence that intrigued me…”2004 they sent a rover to Mars to collect samples”… Now this is where my brained kicked in, could some of these epidemics that came recently be a by product of Mars’sian origin or even be a result of tests conducted with these fossils that has mutated the bacteria to something like the brid flu (Afluenza) or even AIDS…

Don’t quote me, this is just a though…holidays are in and lots of free time to think about rubbish things.

Curitn Media Students Visits KL media centers 2006

This was almost write a year ago...wow can't believe that its been that long since i last blogged...Well here it is... a way overdue blog about my media trip to KL last year....

Recently, 20 media students from the school of business, Curtin University of technology Sarawak completed their journey to Malaysia’s capital, lead by their lecture Mr. Mawi Tarip.

This trip consists of the student visiting key media areas in Malaysia. On the list of places to visit was Bernama, News Straits Times Press Group (NSTP), RTM, TV3, Astro and UiTM (University of Technology Mara)

Datuk Azman Ujang showing the works

First on the agenda was the visitation to Bernama, where we were brief on what Bernama does and showed there cooperate video. The presentation was lead by Datuk Azman Ujang editor-in-chief for Bernama. He advised the media students to

"have good general knowledge in any background in whatever field that the students may pursue in the future."

Following the presentation, we were lead around Bernama office to key places such as the Image sector, video processing unit and the journalist room. On top of that, they were also shown how news was shot for Astro. Then we were then treated to lunch after the tour.

Image of gunung Merapi provided by Bernama

Next was the visitation to NSTP. Where we were shown NSTP’s cooperate video and a short presentation about their facilities and the process of producing newspapers for Malaysia and neighbouring countries. Then questions and answers sections lead by Datuk Manja Ismail News Straight Times, Bertia Hairan, Metro Harian, and the Malay mail which unfortunately are only distributed in the Klang Valley area only.

After the visitation to NSTP, the media
students…ous… had an appointment at Astro, Shah Alam. Where they became the participating audience for the show “Top 10 Hits, Live” airing every Wednesday at 3pm on channel 16. Here the student viewed and learned first handed how to produce a show of its kind. We were aired on Wednesday the following week! (Added info...I won the 'most funkiest fan')

"At the back gates of Astro""Bella and Somebal""A bunch of ous with the hosts on Top Hits live"

RTM, the national television and radio station, which is located at Ankasapuri, was next on the 20 media students’ agenda [feels kind of wearied to talk about our self in third person view]. Here they were brought on tour around the facilities.

"Camera rolling!""Look ma...I am on Tele"

We manage to observe an interview that was being recorded in one of the television studios, and had a chat with Nigel Green (DJ Greenman) and Gary Ratnam (Dj Scamboy) of Traxx FM live on air.

After RTM, the next big television station in Malaysia was their target, TV3. The students were accordingly invited to watch and view the live recording of TV3’s live show “Muzik-Muzik” that airs every Thursday at 4pm at one of their studio at Shah Alam. The visiting students were shown the process of what was going on and off stage through the producer’s eyes and later were invited to take part in watching the program.

On our final day of visitation, we pay a visit to Curtin’s rival ‘in a friendly manner’ University of Technology Mara, Shah Alam Selangor. The head of advertising programme, Mr. Khairuddin Othman, the media staff at UiTM and a few PR programme students warmly greeted us. After Mr. Khairuddin’s presentation the visiting students was brought around to view UiTM’s 3-camera studio that was recently completed, we were awed. Now why can't we have that back on campus...

It was and experience, that i would love to do again in the future...

"Newspaper clipping from Berita Harian"

Around the corner

It’s been almost 6 months since my last blog… who ever said life as a media student is free… Well let me start it off with a recent happening *hint: subject title*

For you readers that do not know what a ‘JPJ’ is? Well they are, in a sense, the road police in Malaysia.

On to the story…

Week free is on at campus, as exams are just around the corner. I decided to come to campus to check up on things from the student council office and head back home. As leaving campus, about to reach the security guard house, one of my friend highlighted me and wave me down from his car…*window winding down*

“…hey bro, seatbelts on…JPJ up ahead…” speed off’s

Puzzled, I look to the security guard for confirmation…He nods…I reached for my seat belt… “Ha ha ha…orang Brunei pun pandai takut…Ha ha ha” boomed the security guard.

“Ha ha ha” *drive past guard, expression changed “grrrrrr”

Driving pass the two humps and around the corner there I saw two JPJ cars parked on both sides of the road, bright orange cones littered between the JPJ’s cars and the officers. A number of fellow Curtin’ians was a head of me, so all I could do was to queue and wait for my turn. Got to one of the officers, roll window down…officer looks at license plates …opens to speak… “O, u oreng Brunei...ada jalan dari situ?” *pointing to the off road with is face*

Reply: Tak, saya belajar kat Curtin.

Officer: O….selalu pulang balik to Brunei?

Reply: No, terlalu banyak assignments.

Officer: assignments?

Reply: *just look at the officer with a question mark on my face…*

Officer: Liecen

Reply: * hand over my paper licence*

Officer: *studies “liecen”*

Officer: IC?

Reply: *hand over IC*

Officer: (My P.O.V.) *thinks hard to summon me, and start to sweat*

Officer: *About to ask another question…got cut off*

Reply: *produced my international driving licence….smirk*

Officer: *nothing to say…signal that I could go on my way*

This concludes this log…feeling lazy to continue…