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Yes, it’s really called so! I was looking at an extensive list of weeds found in Australia (coz I want to find out how to get rid of some), and I happen to do a double take on this gem of a name! Wouldn’t think that something cute like this is considered a form of weed…
Scientific name: Ochna atropurpurea
Well folks, the party’s over. Though, it never actually started yet. Remember the upcoming costume party in September that WiKKiD and I were invited to? The one where we were gonna dress up as X-Men characters? Yeah, we’re not going to it anymore. One of our best friends had just broken up with his girlfriend who was organizing that party. So, no dice.
It was a real shame too, I was really looking forward to it. I’d even picked out my character, X-23. She’s Wolverine’s clone, which I thought was perfect since WiKKiD was going as ol’ Wolv; couples tend to talk and act (and maybe even look) like one another after awhile. Though there’s that annoying misconception that X-23 is Wolverine’s daughter, she is indeed a female clone of him. Anyway, WiKKiD can finally have a shave — his ‘Wolverine chops’ had started to thicken up pretty well like the character’s. What a waste, huh? He’d endured an itchy face in the early stages just to get this far!
I hope WiKKiD continues to work out whenever he can, it was incredibly satisfying watching him sweat 
I don’t really have any focus on what to blog about right now, but I really have a blogging itch. It could be the interesting environment I’m in at the moment. My partner WiKKiD has invited two of his best friends over for an XBox night on Halo 3. It’s no ordinary boy’s night in though — they’re not all sharing an XBox console. They each brought their own TV and console, and an extra router so I can still surf the net on my laptop (how thoughtful!). It’s total Geek Zone here!
Out of curiosity, I asked WiKKiD why that they can’t just play in their own homes instead or just share his console to play, and he replied that it’s just much more comfortable to play on just one TV each, besides, it would be cool. It was also Basherios’ birthday yesterday and we’re all gonna go watch Dark Knight tomorrow together. But anyway, screen-cheating is a little more interesting like this! Basherios forgot to bring the power adaptor plug for his router so the plan changed a little, and now Termapotent and WiKKiD share the same TV. Good thing our plasma screen TV is huge
A few other things are floating around my mind. I’m trying not to spend a lot and saving all I can to pay for the huge visa and migration agent fees that are coming up soon. But if I did have some money to spend, I would donate to help save the Cryptozoology Museum in a heart beat. Or buy Loren Coleman’s books, the guy who founded the museum. I am a huge fan of paranormal and mysterious creatures, after all.
And lastly I need to rant about how ridiculous gossip mags and media coverage of celebrities are these days (yes, I know it has been like this since forever). I mean, I’m a sponge for daily news stories, usually of the weird and unusual. But once I scroll down to the Entertainment section, all I think is ‘Who really cares?!’ as I scan through the headlines. I have an extreme aversion to attention-seekers, celebrity or not, and the Entertainment section is more like the Antagonizing section for me. Who cares, if Nicole Kidman has started to go out and about after giving birth to a day of the week? Who cares, if Lindsay Lohan is going out with Freddy Krueger a chick? And most ridiculous of all, how dense are the public to really believe the PR-pumped claim that Jessica Alba had a “Zen birthing experience” and ‘didn’t scream and or make any noise’ whatsoever? She is a normal woman, it’s okay to publish the fact that she can feel pain and anxiety when giving natural birth to her first child. So get off your effing high horse, Alba. I wouldn’t even go near the headline in OK! magazine of Alba and her spawn on the cover, titled ‘Dream Baby’. Jeesh, I rest my case.
It’s a little hard to think of stuff to do when it’s freezing cold in the middle of winter, isn’t it? Sometimes, you just feel like you’ve watched every DVD, every news story online, surfed every website, etc. BUT, I haven’t lost the novelty of hiding in a corner under a minky with WiKKiD sipping hot chocolate and mini marshmallows… Mmm… I want to save money and try not to use the gas heater, too. Most of the time the muscles in my back and shoulders are so tight from me trying to ’shrink’ myself to keep warm, I feel sick and lethargic. There’s also that knot of muscle near my left shoulder blade that will never go away, and be a constant source of pain. Winter, what a pain in the tail.
Perhaps in the future when I’ve saved enough money, I can get a Siberian Husky to keep me warm, active, and on my toes 
I can also finally buy some gym equipment and work out again. It’d be a waste to not maintain what my old personal trainer helped me to accomplish. I can’t really go out for runs either because it’s either too hot or too cold here, and I need proper cardio equipment that absorbs shock instead of the hard tarmac due to the latter being too harsh on your joints and ligaments. And if someone thinks that I should toughen up anyway and go for it, you have to take into account that I have a ‘less fortunate’ knee that’s dislocated twice in 3 years.
Oh, and since I’ve been handing out tips for the past two posts, here’s another one: Cod liver oil. Start taking them now and thank me later. They’ll be a godsend to joint health. Because cod liver oil is like the WD-40 for the body, it keeps everything going smoothly.
It’s 25 minutes past 3pm and it’s 9 degrees Celcius. Awesome. At least the frequent rain might help the poor Murray River down here. A lil hard to do washing with this kinda weather though. If you hang your clothes out for a few days, it might get dry after awhile but the weak sun can still power out a few rays enough to bleach your clothes if left out for too long. Or you’d get that white line on your black t-shirt on the area where it folds on the clothesline. Here’s a helpful tip for everyone: Always wash and hang out/tumble dry your clothes inside out, unless you want the right side of your clothes to look faded, battered, and off-color.
Right now I have a cuddly polar bear cub purring himself to sleep next to me. I could rub his back and wake him up, but he might get all cranky and growl if I move him around too much. Ah, the joys of robotics! WiKKiD bought Blizzard for me to keep me company while he’s at work, and I feel less cold now looking at that fuzz ball being all comfy.
In other news, WiKKiD and I were invited to a party in September where the theme’s ‘Heroes and Villains’. You have no idea how excited I am about it — I’ve never been to a costume party! Naturally my geeky boyfriend and his friends decided it would be freaking sweet to go as Marvel comics characters (they are huge fans)… and X-Men characters to be precise.
Admittedly, already being somewhat of a geek myself, their influence rubbed off on me easily, and I’m currently looking for the perfect character. There were a few suggested for me, X-Men or not; Shadowcat, Lady Deathstrike, Psylocke, Jubilee, and Lady Punisher, but I’m pretty sure there are plenty other characters for me to contemplate.
WiKKiD decided to live up to his reputation of being nicknamed Wolverine for the past 8 years. He’s going all out to be Wolverine, from the clothes to even custom-making the metal blades. If it wasn’t for his resemblance, I think WiKKiD would’ve chosen to be a villainous character. Suffice to say that we’ve both gotta tone up a lil bit before then, and I think it’s a pretty good excuse to want to look good as a superhero type! After all, Hancock learned the hard way.
Recently I got a really sweet deal from a laptop roadshow that includes 3GB RAM, 60GB HD space, original Windows Vista, MS Office, and other goodies. It was time for my 3-year old S2020 to move on to a slower-paced life back in Malaysia, as some of the buttons on the keyboard had just died.
I’d like to bring to light a certain ‘feature’ to new users of Windows Vista. Whenever you plug in an external memory device (e.g. thumbdrive, CD-RW, DVD-RW, memory stick, etc), you will most probably encounter a dialog box telling you that your device contains a ‘bad’ file or something and gives you the option to ‘Scan and fix (Recommended)’ or to ‘Continue without scanning’. Here’s what you do: DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT click on ‘Scan and fix’!!
I had plugged in my digicam to transfer some rare-to-happen family photos of my Dad while he was in Malaysia. Thinking of the scan and fix feature to be something like a virus scan, I only realized the horrible truth when I discovered that all my pictures were gone when I then clicked to transfer them to the hard drive. There was only some sort of rudimentary file left on the digicam’s memory card. A quick research online through forums and support websites turned into a night-long frantic search for the missing files.
It seems I wasn’t the only one to have a problem like this. However the only responses these people got from tech support were that they could try downloading a few file recovery programs like Recuva (which this person tried with no success, and so did I), and to make sure that you never unplug your devices without ‘Safely Removing Hardware’, as the sudden cut-off will create corrupt files that triggers this ‘Scan and Fix’ dialog box. It’s the big difference between Windows XP and Windows Vista, because most of the time it’s ok to just yank out your external device, on Vista, it’s a HUGE no-no!
However, I have to note that some people have no problems with this feature, and never lose any files after the scan. Weird, huh? I’ll just choose to stick with clicking ‘Continue without scanning’ in the future.
Here are some helpful links from my research for a little bit more detailed explanation.
I’d admit it, he’s cute.
Thanks for the Christmas wishes via text message everyone, with responses ranging from the traditional to the enthusiastic, to the don’t-bloody-care-at-all. Here’s a few great ones:
Alfred: Happy commercial jesus day to you too!
Gerard: Yeah yeah..
Lynn: Wooffffff wwuufffffffffffff! Burp… Hugs. Merry christmasssss!
Jonnie: Who’s this? I’ve lost your contact yo! [lol... damnit Jon...]
Unknown Malaysian number: Merry christmas to u n your loved ones. Bhavani. [um, I don't recall knowing a Bhavani...]
*shrugs* Eh… spread the love and joy everyone. Have a metal Boxing Day!
