Kittens

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love cats.

I had a lot of cats around when I was growing up.

My cat, Puppy, became one of my few links to sanity until I was moved somewhere else and could never see her again.

One sound that I have a hard time with is newborn kittens mewling.

This morning I awoke to this familiar sound.

When I took the trash to the trashcan I discovered the source of the noise.

There were 4 newborn kittens huddled together near a paper bag. They were all still blind, so they couldn't have been very old.

I can still hear them tonight. What I am worried about is that someone's cat had kittens and that person literally dumped these infants into a paper bag and abandoned them. If this is the case the best thing that can be done with the kittens is to kill them as painlessly as possible.

The sound of their cries echoes readily in the valley of the apartment buildings. It reaches my ears anywhere in the house that I am, so it is hard for me to escape this emotionally torturous noise.

I want to go and check on them, but I should not. I should not allow myself to become attached to anymore animals. I am safer this way.

A Comparison

Just a quick post, again.

Medical Care

Medical care in Malaysia is a lot different from the states.

I want to talk about this shortly because I recently went to the doctor.

I visited the doctor, he decided what I needed and gave me a prescription.

Sounds the same as the States? Well it's fucking not the same. mwa hahahahahaha

Ok, here's why:

In the States:
Step 1: If you do not have insurance, visitng a doctor for a simple illness will run you at least 100-200 usd. That's just to talk to the doctor. This'll run you about 20 USD if you have insurance, but you have to pay for that monthly ahead of time and it has a lot of limitations. Does he give you medication? Sure, he gives you a prescription...
Step 2: Again, if you do not have insurance, depending on what ails you, you will have to pay 20-200 (or more) for medication, or 20-50 or so with insurance.

Total: The average should be about 250usd for a normal doctor's visit if you do not have insurance. With insurance you still pay, out of pocket, about 40usd.

Keep in mind that you must pay for insurance ahead of time to have this insurance, and that it may not allow you to go to just any doctor you want to go to.

In Malaysia:

Step 1: You go to the doctor at a government hospital. For a citizen or permanent resident this costs 1rm. Yes, that's correct 1rm. If you are not one of those you pay more, but it won't be so bad. If you should decide to go to a private clinic, then you will pay more. I paid 29rm for this visit, other visits have cost me 20rm. Does he give you medication? Sure, he gives you a prescription... right in his office and the cost of the medication is INCLUDED in the price he charges.
Step 2: Go home.

Total: The average of my doctor visits here in Malaysia has run me 24.5rm. This incuded the cost of all medications! No insurance required!

States 250USD / Malaysia 24.5RM

Which one sounds better to you when you're not feeling well?

Yeah, I thought so.

Mars

Anyone who knows me knows that I love space related things.

I got an e-mail yesterday. Here is the content of said e-mail:

"Your name will be included with others on a microchip on the Mars Science Laboratory rover heading to Mars in 2011!

http://mars9.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/participate/sendyourname/index.cfm"

I visited this link and followed the instructions and received a certificate that indicates my name is guaranteed to be on the surface of Mars on a robot's microchips.

It's not super exciting, but I thought that it was pretty neat. I know this is an official site, I have visited before, a long time ago. In fact, this is what made me build a calculator to determine how long it takes radio waves to reach Mars at any given time. Of course I do not have that anymore, I do not have a website that supports php anymore. :-(

A dream from long ago

I had a dream many years ago that still haunts me to this day:

In this dream I was just gotten married to a beautiful blond woman.

Said woman I were about to engage in coitus when I had the sudden urge to use the toilet.

I went to the toilet and sat down. Then I proceeded to have diarrhea so painfully hard that all of my bones and organs came out of my body.

I did not, however, die. After that my wife and I were seeking a doctor who could cure me of this ailment.

I had to be pushed around in a wheel chair because I had no bones to be able to walk on my own.

This dream was horrifying. It still is horrifying to me.

The worst part is that the sickness that has been ailing me these past few days is diarrhea on a scale that I have never experienced before.

Since Tuesday night I have had diarrhea around 27-31 times. . . not fun at all. I also had a nasty head-ache, couldn't sleep well because I kept waking up to visit the toilet, started to get dehydrated, ached all over and have had (still have a little bit of one) a fever.

The medicine the doctor gave me hasn't settled my stomach completely, hopefully it does the job soon though.

I have had to take 3 days off from work. I must go to work tomorrow, I can't keep taking time off like this.

I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

The best person I could have in my life

Siew took today off from her new job so she could take me to the doctor.

The doctor gave me a lot of medication.

I feel bad, I'm pretty much worthless right now. Siew's been working hard today, cleaning, cooking, driving me around, etc. and I've just been sleeping or sitting doing nothing.

I feel like I'm about 100 years old right now.

Hopefully this mess of medicine straightens me out and I'm back to normal very soon.

Siew, I love you and I really appreciate everything you do for me.

Sick, again

Well, today I called in sick to work.

I couldn't sleep much last night. I am having some stomach troubles.

Siew ran out this morning to buy me some medicine before she went to work. If I continue to feel bad I am going to have to go to a doctor.

As things are I do not know if I will work tomorrow or not either. I need to figure out if I am going to work soon though. I should let my boss know if I am going to be absent again, so she can more easily arrange things for tomorrow.

Hopefully I am able to return to work tomorrow though. I don't like missing work, and worse not earning my wages!

Things are going to become more busy

Today Siew attended a second interview for a job.

She got the job. :-)

Now, however, I am losing my maid!

So, I now MUST, and she has to allow me to do so, help around the house more.

I've been too busy, or tired, to post here much.

I might have less time to post starting tomorrow. She starts her new job tomorrow.

She'll feel better since she'll be doing something other than being stuck in the house and she'll have her own income.

I'll still write things here, but maybe less frequently, or in shorter posts, like this one. :-P

The Transformers

For many many years now I have wanted to watch the original transformers again.

When I worked at Circuit City, the original transformers were just then being released on DVD. However, it was horribly expensive. Season 1 of the transformers was 2 DVD box sets. The first set was 39.99, the second set was 49.99.

Later more sets were released, and each season had more than one box set, all with prices of 49.99 or higher!

I tried to find downloads via torrent to obtain this series, but there were none available or no seeds sharing.

A few weeks ago we were at Ikano Power Centre. While we were there we looked at a sale that Popular had going on.

There was a table full of anime, which of course caught my attention. I found a box set that contained ALL of the transformers series, for 59.90 RM. I wanted to buy it then, but decided that I shouldn't spend the money.

I should have bought it and saved us a trip.

The next day I was talking to Siew, after I confirmed online that the box set did indeed have all of the episodes, about it and told her that I want to buy it, but that I don't want to spend money.

She told me that it's ok. . . so we went and I bought it.

Now I have in my happy hands the complete transformers!

I took some pictures to share:

Front cover

Back

Disks arrayed 1

Disks arrayed 2

I'd like to note that the box states that this has Japanese audio. This is not true. All of these are English or Chinese audio.

When I got home I started checking the disks, to make sure that they work correctly.

I checked all of the disks and one of the disks was indeed bad. I sent an e-mail to the company listed on the box. They responded incredibly fast! I was surprised.

They sent me, at no cost, a replacement disk that works perfectly. I am very pleased.

As an additional note.

Malaysia is well-known for piracy. This is supposed to be an original, licensed, copy. However, it looks exactly the same as something that would come from a pirated place. This was cheaper, and it's supposed to be a legal copy, so I won't complain however.

Here's what I think I have. I think that company has pirated things or was once a pirated company, and has "bought" the ability to say that things are "original" DVDs.

That's my theory anyway.

Mao

On Friday night Siew and I went to a food hawker center near our home.

I had pizza, which was not too bad, but thin crust. Siew had fish noodles. She said the fish was good, but the noodles were not very nice.

While I was sitting, waiting for Siew to return after placing her order, I saw a cat run by with a rat in its mouth.

I started smiling. Good cat! I thought to myself.

Some people sitting nearby, with 2 small dogs, made noises of disapproval at the cat.

Later the cat was chasing said rat around the dining area (it's an outdoor dining area) so I thought to myself that the cat was playing with the rat before delivering the coup de grace.

The rat ran under a table, squeaking the whole time, and tried to run up a man's leg! Then it ran off another direction with the cat hot on its trail (almost its tail).

I think the rat got away, unfortunately.

Later, I saw a little kitten sitting near the table with the dogs, begging. The lady who made noises at the cat chasing the rat proceeded to feed the cat scraps of food.

I was thinking WTF to myself because she made noise at the cat chasing a rat, but she is ok with feeding the cats her own food?

She later fed another cat as well.

I love cats, but I won't feed cats like that. All you do is increase their reliance on people, so they won't hunt, they'll still breed and then become even more dependent on humans.

Keeping a cat as a pet is different, but those are not pets. You cannot pet them, and you wouldn't want to since they're not exactly clean anyway.

After they finished eating, that lady and her family got up and walked away, CARRYING their ugly small dogs. I hate people like that, and dogs like that. But it's not the dog's fault that their owners are morons.

Transformers

When I was a kid my favorite show on T.V. was Transformers.

Recently I have wanted to watch this childhood show again. Many shows, after watching them again when I am older, are terrible. I watched the first episode of Transformers just now on YouTube and I have to say that it is not terrible!

Now I need to acquire the rest of this great show to watch at my leisure!

Go watch it yourself HERE.

I want this!

I suddenly feel nostalgic. I want to play my Dreamcast again!

There is a problem though. I do not have a T.V. and my Dreamcast is NTSC, not PAL.

There is a solution however!

This beautiful item!

This allows me to connect my Dreamcast to my computer monitor, and run the sound to my pc speakers. No need to worry about format, or buying a rather expensive T.V. that we do not need right now!

Anyone who still has your Dreamcast, buy one of these and you can experience 480p gaming circa 1999 technology. Seriously. This capability was not something anyone knew about in 1999, but here Sega built this into their finest gaming console.

Sega, we miss your home gaming systems! At least you continue to develop arcade systems!

Jumping

I like to tease one of my students a lot.

He is 11 but quite tall. His father, I mentioned him in my last post, told me that his son has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and in Gum-Do.

When I was younger I tried lots of martial arts, and I am lazy to put links to them all. I also liked doing acrobatics of all sorts and yoga and running and walking a lot and skating long distances as fast as possible and well you get the bloody idea.

I can still do a few of my old tricks. I do not practice much anymore, I'd like to resume some of it in the near future though, it's fun.

So I like to see, because he has 2 black belts according to his father, what this student can do.

I first tried to get him to do bouncing ball push ups. After that I tried to see if he can do a kip-up. Then, I tried to see if he can sit on the floor with his legs straight out front and push his body up, keeping his legs stiff and straight, off the ground. I do not know what that's called maybe I'll get Siew to take a picture of me doing it and post it.

I spent a lot of time doing crazy or stupid stuff like that when I was young. I taught myself how to do cartwheels when I was 7. I learned more later, mostly on my own.

For me these kinds of things are common. Apparently, even for a double black belt holder, they are not.

In a class with this student we were reading about some firefighters who were inside of one of the World Trade Centers when it collapsed on September 11, 2001.

One lady in the story had descended 59 flights of stairs and was exhausted. I asked them if they thought they could go so many stairs without getting tired. Of course they couldn't, but they had joked about it, hence the question.

I then, because of the one student, said that even if I go down the fastest way I can I'd still be really tired. I said that I can descend a set of stairs all at once. They didn't believe me.

After class, when I was leaving, I warned the kids, "If I show you, you can NEVER try to copy me." They happened to be standing at the door when I was going out, and no adults were watching. So I showed them.

For most normal flights of stairs, if you fall forward, grab the handrail midway down and let your feet swing forward it is easy to descend in a "jump." It was harder here because there is only 1 rail. I put my hand on the wall on the left to hold myself as though it was a rail.

The boys shouted when they saw me do that. They didn't believe me, but I don't lie to my students.

I talked with Siew about it later. She said that it's uncommon here, people focus more on studying.

Thinking back on it, not many people I know can do those things either. Those who can, can't do it as well as I can for the most part.

I trained myself a lot, because I thought it was fun. Now there are things like Parkour that I would have LOVED to do when I was younger, and still wouldn't mind but my knees wouldn't last.

WTF?!

The other day I was talking to a guy who comes to the center I work at.

He has 3 kids who have tuition there. I teach 2 of the 3 kids.

What started the conversation off is that I was sitting on the floor with my legs crossed, resting my elbows on the ground and my chin in my palms. I was not trying to stretch, I was just sitting.

He saw me doing that and seemed shocked. So he tried to do it himself. He could not put his elbows on the ground. Jessica told him that I do yoga and he was like "Oh!"

I went and talked to him a little. I mentioned that I used to practice a lot of martial arts, acrobatics, running long-distance, yoga, etc. I then told him that I do not run anymore because my knees were injured.

He was shocked that I was in the military. He asked me how long I was in the military. So I told him. (I was in the National Guard for 5 years) He was extremely shocked. He said "But, you look like a woman."

I REALLY hope that he meant that I look soft, not feminine.His English is not that good, so it is possible that is what he was trying to say.

He then said that Timm, another teacher there who is from the U.S.A., looks more like someone who would have been in the military.

Timm is 28 and as never been in the military. In fact he is a conscientious objector!

He told me that South Korea has mandatory military service, so he served 30 months in the South Korean Armed Forces.

I joked with this parent, I do not know his name, about exercising in the military. I asked him about push ups. We talked about what I call "bouncing ball push ups."

I can't find images of what I am talking about, to show you. Normal clap push ups are a push up that you press your upper body off the ground and clap your hands before finishing the push up.

Bouncing ball push ups are similar, but you jump with your whole body, feet and hands going into the air, before clapping, landing and repeating.

He was able to do these push ups. I think he was trying to do double clap, clap your hands twice while in the air, but that is hard to do with bouncing ball push ups.

I think I changed his mind about me being "soft."

Part of that perception may be from my expressions. I do not show much emotion, good or bad. I am, however, surrounded by kids all day, so I can't scowl. Hell, the paperwork from my boss says that I have to smile as much as I can, so it's part of my job.

These things coupled with the fact that I'm patient with most people made him think this.

It is amusing to think that people all over the world judge on appearances so easily.