Birthdays: keinday 2010 - kein

Ramblings were reluctantly relegated to: The Basketball Freak, The Birthday Kid, The Contented Dude, The Melburnian

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Is this amazing or what? Even the post number is 2010! It’s odd how the permalink numbers keep jumping though, makes me wonder why they’re not sequential. Maybe I have a phantom blogger who’s churning out invisible posts somewhere o.O

Regardless, 2009/2010 has been a rather interesting year.

Work: The second half of 2009 was pretty peaceful, and then 2010 basically started off with a bang, hitting me with shit at work non-stop, even now. Really hope the shitstorm dies down soon, gets on my nerves at times. Nonetheless, endless learning and growing has always been one of the cornerstones of this job, and I’m pretty certain that the Kein who began working here in 2008 is nowhere the same as the one who’s sitting here in 2010. I like to think I have grown nerves of steel and can think even in a crisis, and ideas sprout up all the time about marketing and improving work stuff, but staff management skills need work; I seem to be too lax on my server administrators, which cause huge delays and roastings for me. Gotta buck up and start flaming people harder from now on! Thanks to my guys Benny and Bill for being my left and right hands all this time, I would’ve never gotten to this point without them.

Holidays:
I had several great trips squashed within two very busy weeks.

Singapore.

Bali, and?

Bangkok!

And of course, not forgetting the weekend Daylesford getaway.

A much-needed break from the mountain that I call work.

Basketball: Great improvements. Learning how to pass better, run better, drive better, shoot better even. Life is good.

Photography: The purchase of the 50D and the 28mm = great decision. I love the way my pictures turn out. And of course, the shitty pics make me realise I shouldn’t be doing it that way.

Personal: I have tried very hard to hold on to my habit of writing everything down, and it’s mostly worked out. My brain is like a fcuking sieve, but things still get done because I jot them down before it slips away (most of the time). I do my best to think before I speak, and to rein my temper in. To be more social when it’s required, and to forgive and forget whenever I can. I can say that I’m living my life being more honest with myself with every year that passes, and that’s always a good thing isn’t it?

Everything else in life: Of course, I’m very thankful to be (mostly) healthy, and to have parents who allowed me the freedom to roam and live over here in Australia. And to have a brother I can rant and talk about most things. He’s got room for improvement, but at least he listens and tries – which is about as much as you can hope for. And to my partner V of course, who has been with me ever since our first step here, and pretty much gone through everything with me. I know females always say they never get tired of hearing those three magic words, so here’s it once again – I love you! And ooh yeah the queen of the household – Cookie! Despite all her bad habits, I still would never ever trade her for another dog. And who else have I missed out? The friends who have bothered to keep in touch, and those who are busy but remember me in their hearts nonetheless – you guys are great.

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So, the birthday celebration. It was supposed to be a KTV session to celebrate the birthdays for us all July kids but two skipped out..

.. and only Stan and me were left.

We really had a fun time, thanks guys!

This goes out to Bill, Jasmine, Doris, David, Cherie, Ambrose and Sam for attending and prepping the cake and organising the session.

The actual big day was just a day spent sleeping late (took leave because I was simply too tired from working overtime the night before), having lunch with Stan at Pancake Parlour (lunch set for $10? didn’t know they had stuff like this), and dinner at Ramen Ya with Bill, Jasmine and Doris – everyone (’cept Bill and me) was deeply engrossed in the origami instructions provided. Nothing too spectacular, but enjoyable all the same.

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This is a list of all the wishes and gifts I received this year – spam warning! And thanks again to all those who remembered, know that I appreciate it more with every year that passes.

Presents:

• From Zhiming: Lowepro’s Passport Sling™ camera bag
• From Lishi: CK undies (can never have too many of ‘em!) and the Adidas Boston Celtics tee that I wanted
• From Bill/Andy/Jasmine/Cherie/David/Benny: a pair of basketball shorts and top.
• From Stan: my first birthday card (the one from Crown didn’t count), and a mystery present on the way.
• From V: my first birthday Post-It (lifetime first even!), and a mystery present on the way Received package on 27 Jul: She wanted to get me The Rotting Land, but it was sold before she could click on the Buy button on eBay. I received The Order of the Stick: Dungeon Crawlin’ Fools and The Order of the Stick: On the Origin of PCs instead – still goots!
• From SJ jie: mystery present on the way Received package on 27 Jul: DVDs of The Manchurian Candidate and Paycheck, along with a self-designed card with my name on the front! The inside reads: “Hello di, Happy 29th Birthday! This year is the last of your birthday that begin with a 2, so jie took some time to prepare some small pressies for you. Hope you like it. Er… byt he time you receive this package it’ll be belated! 请不要见怪! 不知不觉 next year you’ll be going to the next stage in your life – the big 30 and before you know it, you’ll be a husband and daddy. (I can’t wait to see Kein jr! =)) All the best in your life journey. Jie would like to take this opportunity to thank you! There have been times when I feel really down and you were there to lend a listening ear and 开导我. I really appreciate it and words can’t really justify how I feel. Thank you! =) Hugs, ShiJie 2010″

SMS:
Nick
Hehe Merry Birthday my great friend ^.^ Merry Birthday!

Davina
Hi Kein..it’s me Davina :) HapPY bIRthdAY!! :D Wishing u a good health, success&happiness throughout da year! Keep in touch&take care.Miss u guys all at Netbay!

Lishi (+ msn status!)
Happy birthday! Not working today? Enjoy!

Nanzhen
Happy Birthday Bro! Chilling at home? Have a good one!

Andy
Happy birthday man!!!!!!!!!

Keith
Happy birthday kein, wish u have a great day

Peiru
Happy birthday to you…happy birthday to you…happy birthday to dear Kein.HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!

Adri (on both my mobiles o.O)
Dearest Kein, enjoy your last 20s :) Happy birthday my friend, wishing you a fulfilling year before big 30!!! Adri

Andrew
Bro! Your birthdat bloody silent sia! Happy belated birthday man!!

On MSN:
Sharon says (7:56 AM):
Happy burfday my fren:) n now I gg bak to zz le :) haha enjoy ur wonderful day

Kimberly says (9:55 AM):
Happy birthday! :)

Alvin says (10:16 AM):
Happy Birthday To U

Zhiming says (10:43 AM):
Happy Birthday to u happy birthday to u happy birthday to tupig kein ….. Happy birthdayyyyy tooooo chiusssss

SJ jie says (12:15 PM):
Hey hey! Happy birthday di~! Enjoy ur day! :D

Zaoliang says (12:42 AM):
yo boss happy birthday!

E-mail:
Wang Li:
Hi Kein
Hope you have a very happy birthday!!!
I really wish I could join you for b-ball more often, but doing internship in financial firm is not an easy job.
Cheers,

Lee

Facebook:
There were too many posts, so I replied each one as best as I could, then did them into a single image. Very, very long image coming up. Thanks guys, I hope my copy/paste job didn’t leave anyone out :X

The white goods saga – AppliancesOnline is good! - kein

Ramblings were reluctantly relegated to: The Contented Dude, The Melburnian

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The washing machine/dryer and fridge we bought from David in 2007 decided they had enough, and promptly kicked the bucket within months of each other. In our household, losing either appliance constituted a major disaster so we got around to buying replacements pretty quickly.

Fridge

The new fridge is a Kelvinator KTM3900W, and was bought from AppliancesOnline. They’re a pretty good online retailer, as they actually offer price matching if you can find a better deal online elsewhere. That’s basically what V did – she found a cheaper price elsewhere, and gave AppliancesOnline (AO) a call to price match. As usual, you can’t get a good deal if you don’t price match over here.

They actually provide two pretty good value-added services:

• installation of the new unit, and
• removal of the original unit.

Getting rid of the old unit (aka white goods disposal) IMO, is a major pain in the arse. You either call up the city council for a date, or check with the building management (if you live in an apartment). The disposal appointment is usually some time away, and you are left with that hunk of junk in the house. I have to say, having the delivery guy haul it off on the same day is a major source of relief – hauling shit is not exactly my favourite activity. And the fridge has been working well ever since.

Washing machine

We had a first good experience with AO, so ended up going with them again for the washing machine purchase, which was an Electrolux EWF1074. This purchase came with a few hiccups. For starters, the unit was out of stock in the VIC warehouse, so I got a call from them asking if I needed it really urgently – YES! Two weeks’ worth of laundry in winter is tough I tell you – the clothes never seem to dry properly, and there are only so many racks in the house. The guy on the line offered to ship one down from their NSW warehouse, which I really appreciated. What I probably missed out in that conversation, was that installation and unit removal would not be done.

9 Jul, Friday: So it came down to the delivery day and the courier gave me a phone call, telling me they couldn’t do the delivery that day, and that it had to be pushed to the next working day. So, from Friday to Monday = another three days of accumulated laundry, duh. I emailed and called AO that same day, and the chap who answered the phone was sympathetic enough but explained they couldn’t do much about it. Apparently they were undergoing a new office shift, and things were in big disarray on their side as well. He agreed that delaying the delivery wasn’t very nice of them without offering an explanation, plus AO wasn’t informed to begin with.

12 Jul, Monday: Stan met the deliveryman, who dumped the washing machine, and promptly left, saying he had a load of deliveries to make. Can’t really blame him I guess, I would be in a foul mood if I had to drive a truckload of white goods and deliver them myself. He had to haul the unit up with the help of the friendly concierge, and DIY-ed the installation (it’s really a blessing that he’s in the house to deal with all these stuff, otherwise I would have had to take leave.) So I was a little mystified at why the hell the old unit wasn’t removed, and called AO up again. The lady who answered the line was very professional about my deafness in the first conversation with Andrew, and offered to send a guy down to remove the old unit on Wednesday. I thought this was really very excellent service on their part, given that it was my blunder. So there you have it, the old unit is due to be removed tomorrow, and the washing machine is quietly doing an excellent job.

All’s right with the world again, I think we’ve run out of white goods to buy for now. But I’ll definitely stick with AppliancesOnline on our next purchase!

Update:
14 Jul, Wednesday: washing machine got picked up by the AO guys at 0845hrs in the morning, whew. Talk about prompt service.

Tech: How do you right click with the keyboard? - kein

Ramblings were reluctantly relegated to: The Blogger, The Technofreak

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Turned out to be amazingly simple – Shift + F10.

And hmm, post number 2000! Doesn’t really count I guess, since there’s quite a few drafts that have never seen the light of day. I’ll get around to publishing them sometime.

Basketball: The left drive, playing the team game and blisters. - kein

Ramblings were reluctantly relegated to: The Basketball Freak, The Invalid, The Melburnian

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Meanwhile, I have been busy with basketball twice a week, and am still on the road to finding my own style in the game. Video footage of the games really help in helping me to notice my own mistakes. My role varies according to the team lineup. If someone’s around to handle the ball (e.g. Ambrose, Bill or Sam) I play the high post, rolling off the pick. Otherwise, I’ll be zipping around looking for a good open spot to fire my shots from. If not, playing point guard is fun as always; there was this moment last Saturday when it felt like I was living a moment from basketball manga; driving in, faking a shot and passing it inside to Stan for an easy finish under the basket. Everything just seems to flow so smoothly, and feel so right. Stan was telling me about one of the other guys exclaiming “cepat!” when my pass went through – I’ll take that as a compliment.

I had a one-on-one session with Darren last Friday evening, and he was pretty surprised at how easily I got to the basket from the left side. I guess when you’ve been driving to the basket on that side for more than ten years, practice does make perfect. I must say, it’s good to feel like driving is finally an effective weapon. These days I can try for a mid-range jumper, drive in, post-up, or catch and shoot in the paint. Or the best bit: pass. Darren was saying I should always be sure of what I want to do when the ball comes, which is important of course. But finding a hole in transition defense and making a decision on the fly is important too, which basically means you can’t set your options in stone before you even get the ball. You will only end up playing a one man game, which might win your team the game but is borrrrrrrrrrrring.

IMO, having multiple offensive options is important because it messes things up for the defense. Having only offense option A makes you predictable, and speaking from a defender’s point of view that makes things too easy. For example:

• If I know you’re only effective at shooting the ball in the high post, I’m not going to be too concerned about you doing anything else – I’ll prepare myself to block your shot and any possible feeds to cutters, and that’s it.
• If you are only effective under the basket, I’ll shove you out or deny the pass to you.

Analysing the opponent’s style and adapting your defense to him is part of the challenge; it’s all a matter of 知己知彼百战百胜. I’m still not that good at guarding shooters though, I think that’s an Achilles heel at this point. I tend to give up too much space to shooters, and for a confident shooter this is like Christmas coming way early.

I bought a pair of AJ XII’s (black/red, Flu Game!) at Footlocker two weeks ago, and it wasn’t exactly the best fit I’ve ever had. There was a bit of extra space between my heel and the shoe, which ended up giving my heel a raw blood red blister the size of a ten-cent coin. On each foot. Painful, to say the least. You can’t feel much when the adrenaline is pumping though, and I ended up playing through that, only to suffer at home later. To be honest, it hurt like a bitch when I first rubbed ointment on it. I’m using a transparent plaster called Compeed that I bought from the chemist today, which sticks like a second skin, is water-proof and is supposed to aid in recovery. Let’s hope this really helps.

There’s this pair of insoles that I bought from Footlocker on the same shopping trip, called VAS (Victory Amongst Soldiers). Highly recommended by all the Footlocker staff I spoke to, and so I got a pair. One of the Footlocker guys pointed out the poor insole that a lot of basketball shoes had, which was paper-thin, did not offer much arch support and flattened out after a while. Getting a good pair of inserts made a lot of difference, he was saying. My shooting posture seems to straighten up tremendously after wearing them. Then again, it could be the Nike shooting sleeve, or the new XIIs. Or all of them. My arches actually felt a little sore after the first time I wore the inserts, but that feeling wore off so everything was good. I’ll comment more on this after I get used to them.

Basketball: Post-NBA playoffs - kein

Ramblings were reluctantly relegated to: The Basketball Freak

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So, it’s been quite a while since that momentuous NBA Finals series this year. I couldn’t really bring myself to write anything about it, but it seems to be a good a time as any other to start now.

This 2009/2010 season has been a hell of a journey with the Boston Celtics. From that excellent start to the injury-plagued road downhill, all the way to the playoffs where they hit that switch and turned into a monster with gritty defense that absolutely shut down three of the big teams in the East, and propelled them back into the finals once again. Oh, and conveniently upsetting so many of the analysts who were so damn sure that the Celtics would get KO-ed by the Cavs, or the Magic.

And that critical 7 game series with the LA Lakers yet again, two years later. Perk getting injured in Game 6, which seemed to spell doom, and yet the C’s picking it up in Game 7 and leading by 13 at a point, only to lose steam and finally crumble, with Sheed fouling out and getting back spasms all together. Kobe had an awful shooting night, but Artest/Fisher/Gasol pulled their act together and overwhelmed the Celtics. Ray was still out cold, Rondo did not perform his usual magic and there you go, banner number 18 for Boston flies away – so close, yet so far.

It would’ve been a great ending to the season had the Celtics won the championship, but the Lakers played better and that’s all it was.

I remembered watching Michael Jordan on TV during the second three peat with the Bulls, and it was a different feeling altogether. I didn’t know much about the rules, but Jordan seemed to be that one figure who overshadowed the rest of the team and could pull miracles out of his hat, no matter how dire the circumstances. I was blinded to the rest of the Chicago roster, and only knew His Airness.

When I began rooting for the Celtics in 2008, I learnt to watch the game in more detail, and not be blinded by the star players. Everyone has a role in the game. You have to believe in the team, for everyone to step up their game and play together. Just like how a normal basketball game is like – getting the ball to the open man for the easy shot, defending together when it’s needed. Team play. Spectacular solo plays are fine, but team plays make both offense and defense easier, much easier.

Time to look forward to the next season, and see how the Celtics reload!

Roomba – busted! - kein

Ramblings were reluctantly relegated to: The Blogger, The Melburnian

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So this actually happened a couple of weeks ago. Stan came home to find the Roomba snagged on a pile of slippers, one of its wheels actually got mucked up with a bit of Cookie’s poo so he ended up taking it apart to clean the wheel.

And this is where it all happened. According to his recount, he took the cover off, laid it upside down and left the battery where it was. And the battery happily gave a odd musical blurp (not the usual sound you hear when the Roomba goes back to its dock), and promptly died. We’ve been unable to resuscitate the Roomba after that.

Sequence of events so far:

• 4 Jun – Roomba busted.
• 4 Jun to 10 Jun – Stan emailed iRobot support on assistance, followed all troubleshooting recommendations and got zero. iRobot support recommended that the battery be sent in for replacement, then realised, “this chap’s in Australia! Tough luck, no warranty.” So iRobot warranty is domestic, and not international.
  Stan contacted Salton (iRobot reseller in Australia), who offered a spare battery for $99 + $8.50 (shipping and handling). I wasn’t totally sure that it was a battery issue yet, so paying that much seemed like a leap of faith.
• 10 Jun – I bought a replacement battery off eBay for about $45.
• 18 Jun – Battery arrived, we had a go at fault isolation – no luck, it doesn’t seem to be the battery.
• 18 Jun – I called Salton and spoke to a friendly chap, who advised to recheck if the contacts were touching the battery properly, otherwise it wouldn’t charge. He also mentioned that repair quotes were available if we shipped our Roomba over to them.
• 18 Jun – We will be shipping the Roomba + original battery off to Salton for further investigation.

More to come later.

Update:

• 23 Jun – Called to confirm that Salton’s received my Roomba. The lady on the line said that a repair quote would be available “within 1 to 2 weeks, we’ll give you a call.” That’s a pretty long wait but like I have a choice.
• 2 Jul – Got a missed call from Tarsha, returned call and confirmed I had a busted part which could not be repaired – replacement cost including return shipping was $189. Paid up via credit card over the phone, and the unit will be sent out to me on Monday so I’m supposed to receive it by Wednesday or Thursday latest.
• 6 Jul – Called Salton and spoke to Tarsha again, confirmed that my Roomba was still “in repair, but we should get it sent out tomorrow”. Requested that she drop me an email when my unit has been dispatched.
• 8 Jul – Called Salton again and spoke to a chap who confirmed with Tarsha that my Roomba was still “in repair, but we should be able to get it sent out tomorrow or Monday”.
• 9 Jul – Received email from MoveitNet about my Roomba being scheduled for delivery by 12 Jul.