spoonfork

Listening to: Bush - Monkey

The number of blogs tracking PPS: 888 as of the time I'm posting this. Minus 5 or so entries that are not blogs.

From the list I found http://tabulas.com/~musicblog, which I thought was an album and track review blogs, but it contains lyrics and links to MP3 downloads. Bummer.

In another news, Johnny Knoxville is my new hero.

Listening to: Beck - New Pollution

A disappointed Streamyx user:

Kecewa khidmat Internet Streamyx

Saudara Pengarang,

SAYA baru sahaja menggunakan perkhidmatan Internet Streamyx selama seminggu dan saya dapati kelajuan streamyx ini sangatlah perlahan iaitu kelajuan 10.0 Mbps sedangkan saya menggunakan pakej RM99 sebulan yang sepatutnya boleh mencapai kelajuan sebanyak 1 GATE.

Memanglah untuk mencapai kelajuan sebanyak 1 GATE adalah susah, sekurang-kurangnya kelajuan 500.0 Mbps dapat dicapai.

Tetapi kelajuan yang saya dapat hanyalah kelajuan 10.0 Mpbs sedangkan komputer saya menggunakan dua prosesor Xeon yang sangat laju dan memorinya sebanyak 2 GATE.

Jadi saya pun menghubungi Streamyx untuk memberitahu masalah yang saya hadapi.

Respons yang diberikan amatlah mengecewakan. Mereka menyuruh saya menunggu sebentar sambil menghidangkan muzik yang entah apa-apa.

Saya terpaksa menunggu hinggalah duit kad prabayar saya sebanyak RM30 melayang.

Kemudian keesokannya saya cuba menghubungi Streamyx sekali lagi.

Kali ini barulah mereka melayan saya. Saya pun menceritakan masalah saya dan kemudian mengikut arahan yang diberikan tetapi tidak juga dapat meningkatkan kelajuan Internet tersebut.

Saya menghubungi mereka sekali lagi dan menyuruh mereka menghantar orang untuk memeriksa modem saya. Tetapi mereka mengatakan terpaksa membuat report dahulu.

Setelah memberikan report bernombor 3145629 bertarikh 28/4/2005, mereka berjanji dalam masa satu hingga dua jam kemudian, mereka akan menghubungi saya kembali.

Tetapi sampai keesokan harinya mereka masih tidak menghubungi saya dan sehingga ke hari ini, langsung tiada panggilan daripada pihak Streamyx untuk menyelesaikan masalah saya ini. -

PELANGGAN KECEWA, Gombak, Selangor.

Source: Utusan Malaysia

Props to Omen for the story. Now, can somebody enlighten me and tell me what the heck is GATE?

Listening to: Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out

Listening to Bjork always make me regret one thing - that I don't have any state of the art sound system. The closest that I have to having a state of the art sound system is two small Labtec speakers, connected to a Labtec subwoofer, and connected to the on-board VIA Technologies multimedia audio controller to my PC. And there's the MP3, which I have to tune a bit using some kind of replay gain trickery. Even the speakers do not work properly. A 1 milimeter shift in the position of the speaker cables, which are lying on the floor, can cause either the left or the right speaker to stop working. Hence, I dare not move them round about, and the speakers are glued to the table, and the cables has been in the same exact position on the floor, and dusting them is not an option.

So back to Bjork, and how she always me feel half a man lesser. I first heard her voice and music years ago at the house of a friend (he was a DJ, music producer, and owns something to close than 10,000 records). Bjork was playing, I can't remember the song, and he had this nice sound system with whatever canggih amplifiers and whatnot that was available those days. And he was an engineering student majoring in acoustics, which basically means that he took sound seriously. And Bjork blew me away. Literally. Her voice was so crisp, and the bass was awesome. She was, in short, fascinating.

And so it is with Medulla, her fifth and most musically adventureous album so far. Medulla is just Bjork, bare naked and all. Medulla is like Bjork unplugged. It's like this: imagine a football stadium full of spectators during the a football match. It was loud, what with the fan cheering and all. Then, imagine the stadium empty, on a sunny spring afternoon. You could, if you would, almost hear the roar of the fans. And that is weird, cause there's not a single soul in the stadium. And that is what Medulla is all about - just Bjork and her essence.

Ironically, however, Bjork has several outside talents helping to make her Medulla. The Root's Rahzel lends his vocal talents, the Japanese beat-box master Dokaka, and Mike Patton (of Faith No More), London Choir, Icelandic Choir, and Robert Wyatt, among others. Interspersed with the vocals are just more layered sounds, but not just any sound, but the sound of grunts, yawns, burps, moans, breathes, whispers, snores, whines, etc. It's just kinda weird, these sounds.

But one thing remains the same: Bjork is as unintelligible as in her previous album. One wonders why she was chosen to sing for the Olympic games opening ceremony. She's still kinda weird, and it's difficult to understand her 'art', if there's any.

All in all, Medulla is an outstanding record.

Listening to: Ben Folds Five - One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) today released a list of new members of the Information Sharing Forum (ISF) on Information and Network Security.

The IFS was formed in June 2004 and comprises various Internet Service Providers (ISP) and other agencies in order to address the information and network security issues in Malaysia. Apart from encouraging cooperation between different network owners, operators and other agencies, the establishment of the said forum enables the sharing of experience and expertise for the benefit of the Malaysian network infrastructure.

In view of the recent website defacement which happened a few weeks ago, the MCMC has appointed several individuals from three organizations to be part of ISF. The new members are Mr. Dhillon Andrew Kannabhiran, Dr. Nah Soo Hoe, Mr. Meling Mudin and Mr. Dinesh Nair from Hack In The Box; Encik Ahmad Ubaidah Omar and Encik Kamal Khilmi Othman from Defensix; Encik Syaril Aziz and Encik Shamsul Baharin from MYSEQ.

According to Adelina Iskandar, MCMCÃ