As you might have noticed, I have upgraded myself from using the manual updating to blogger. And I thought it was hard *laughs*. It took me around 2 hours to change the layout, upload some stuff, changed the coding to html, and voila, here it is. I still haven't figured out how to make my archive work. lol.
Okay, maybe saying Al-Baik is the KFC of the middle east is an overstatement. Who knows in Egypt or Syria of Lebanon they have something different? Anyways, as for Al-Baik, take a good look at the picture below.
My dear friends, people here don't really go to KFC (it isn't that good here anyway). They have Al-Baik (picture above). The people here eat chicken with a bun. Normally, for me, I would need around 2-3 buns to finish the chicken. Hell, is the best, brah! I wonder why they have no franchise of Al-Baik in Malaysia. They should, after all, it's way better than Taza! (picture to be uploaded later).
I noticed that since I became a 10 kyu in December, my performance has fluctuated greatly, and I am actually seeing a downward sloping curve on my rank curve. How is this possible? I was very near in being promoted to 9 kyu, a single digit kyu, but now, my performance is so bad that the graph is moving downwards, towards the 10 kyu bar. For you to understand better, take a look of the graph here. Just look at the down sloping curve at the end!
In order to polish my go skills, and thus getting myself promoted to 9 kyu, I broke my hiatus on reading Opening Theory Made Easy (in which I was meant to finish it weeks ago). Apart from reading the book, I also decide to download some professional games (easily obtained from Gobase). Gobase is a great place to be for a Go player. You can get almost every study material available, from downloading books, to classical games such as Shusaku (1829-62), Shuwa (1820-73) and Go Seigen (1914-now) for free!
I was thinking about using blogger for my site, and after 2 hours, I manage to upload it, did some alterations, and it turned out okay. But, well, maybe it's just me, but I'm much more comfortable editing my files through FrontPage and updating them manually. (I'm also frustrated with Blogger's server being down so frequently - or maybe it's the Jeddah internet connection?) lol. I'm a FrontPage user, and this whole website is made from FrontPage. You know why I like FrontPage? Well, it is easy for me to see the HTML code. (colours and stuff). I know there are loads of HTML editing software out there, but I'm just happy with FrontPage. I've tried using Dreamweaver, but the whole thing just didn't click. Yeah yeah, I know I'll have to migrate (to other softwares), sooner or later, but that can wait.
Anyways, for my site powered by blogger, see it here. Not bad ey? I even manage to put Blogback on it. Well, maybe I'll use Blogger on the main site, if I get a better connection in Melbourne. By the way, I'll be going back to Malaysia this Thursday. =)
It has been 2 days since I start re-studying Go, and the results were rather drastic. After looking through the games that I lost so badly, I manage to correct my opening and hence that made me won 6 games in a row. Tolerance, and patience. That's the key. How do you apply tolerance in go? Well, just look at the diagram below.
The situation above is so common in amateur games. Just look at the board carefully. We're playing on the upper left of the board. Normally, a lower kyu (14kyu above) would respond in a manner similar to the diagram below.
When black ataris at 1, white will escape by doing to 2. Now black is in gote, because he needs to cover the cutting point at 3. Hence, white will use the sente to make a pincer move at 4, thus limiting the 3 black stones ability to expand. And, to make the situation even worse, the upper single black stone, is as good as dead (assuming there are no reinforcements on the right). A better move rather than going for an atari at 1 (above), is extending to 1 (below).
White will have to respond, by extending his move to 2, in order to keep his connection alive, and thus killing the single black stone. But with this move, black gets the opportunity to extend to 3, which is valued around 10 points. As you would be able to see, the extension at 3 is way better and much more profitable than an atari at 1 (middle diagram).
As you would have probably noticed, I have uploaded 2 mini pictures. The green cups are coffee from Barnie's. They happen to be the best coffee makers in Saudi Arabia, in which, wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration if I say they were better than Starbucks. Not to mention the price that is absolutely reasonable for a decent yet satisfying latte.
As for the chess board picture, it was a game between me and my brother before he went back to Malaysia. Well, my brother can play Go, but he still has a lot to learn. As for me, I play Chess in a terribly slow manner. It's just that I tend to think long, even for a simple move.
Greetings. As you can see, I have come up with a totally new layout. It took me nearly 2 hours to come up with the designs (you see, I'm not so good with graphics). I kinda like my work, as it looks way better than my previous dull layout. Oh, for those who are new here, my 2003 website looks like this. You can see that there's a massive reduction of unnecessary hyperlinks. I also decide not to put all the scripts (mouse trailer & no left click), for the time being at least.
Another rather apparent change to my site is the top banner. Lol, I'm laughing my head off whenever I look at it. My new banner is a picture of me wearing sun glasses, whereas the 2003 banner was only my naked eye. I wonder how next year's banner will be. =)
Since tomorrow is a weekend (the weekend here is Thursday & Friday), my whole family went out for dinner at Shami Restaurant (it serves Lebanase food). Anyways, we ordered one of the most famous family sets, and according to the waiter, will be enough for 4 Arab men (that means 6 Asians). As a whole, the food was very good, and too bad I didn't bring my digicam along. But, I manage to bring home one of the paper menus. =).
Just look at the amount of food there is! Since there was only 3 adults (my sister is still small), we didn't get to finish the food. Btw, if you look at the menu above, you can see the price of the meal. But, it's in Arabic. Hehe.
In my effort in promoting go on the internet, I managed to put most (not all) of the links that I find would be useful to a beginner, on one page. I even divided it according to its category. This new page by me, named Go Links, is situated under the Go section.
It's more like a Go goldmine. You have almost all import link that a beginner-intermediate go player would need. If you think I've missed out any interesting Go websites, please inform me about it.
In my effort in promoting go on the internet, I managed to put most (not all) of the links that I find would be useful to a beginner, on one page. I even divided it according to its category. This new page by me, named Go Links, is situated under the Go section.
It's more like a Go goldmine. You have almost all import link that a beginner-intermediate go player would need. If you think I've missed out any interesting Go websites, please inform me about it.
I just found out that my webserver (telpacific) has been experiencing (or at least it seems to) some problem with uploading my page correctly. Hm, let me rephrase that. My site doesn't load at all. And not to mention that I can't even connect to its server through FTP. Well, free webspace, enough said. Anyways, I spent my evening painstakingly uploading my files to my new host, Time Net. Here it is. I think I might have forgotten to fix the links for a few pictures, and if you guys do find a broken link, please inform me through my guestbook. Thanks.
I also took the opportunity to change the colours of the group headers (from red to blue), and uploaded a nice picture of me playing Go at a Go club in Melbourne (it's on the left nav bar).
I just found out that my webserver (telpacific) has been experiencing (or at least it seems to) some problem with uploading my page correctly. Hm, let me rephrase that. My site doesn't load at all. And not to mention that I can't even connect to its server through FTP. Well, free webspace, enough said. Anyways, I spent my evening painstakingly uploading my files to my new host, Time Net. Here it is. I think I might have forgotten to fix the links for a few pictures, and if you guys do find a broken link, please inform me through my guestbook. Thanks.
I also took the opportunity to change the colours of the group headers (from red to blue), and uploaded a nice picture of me playing Go at a Go club in Melbourne (it's on the left nav bar).
Finally, winter managed to show itself a little bit apparent than usual. This was indicated by a light rain [sic], or drizzle, as you may call it. In addition to that, the temperature has dropped slightly, and cool breeze is to be felt everywhere. In Makkah and Jeddah the change in climate isn't as drastic as in Riyadh and Madinah. I went to Madinah 4 years ago, and you definitely have to wear a light jacket (well, 2 layers of t-shirts would be more than enough). After checking at Yahoo, I found out that in Madinah it's 13° - 20° centigrade, and in Jeddah it's 18° - 25° centigrade.
Anyways, as I was out shopping yesterday, I managed to snap a picture of the entrance of my compound, which will testify that the Saudi Government is doing all they can in keeping the expatriates safe from the bloody terrorists. Check out the barricade. It definitely makes you feel safe.
Finally, winter managed to show itself a little bit apparent than usual. This was indicated by a light rain [sic], or drizzle, as you may call it. In addition to that, the temperature has dropped slightly, and cool breeze is to be felt everywhere. In Makkah and Jeddah the change in climate isn't as drastic as in Riyadh and Madinah. I went to Madinah 4 years ago, and you definitely have to wear a light jacket (well, 2 layers of t-shirts would be more than enough). After checking at Yahoo, I found out that in Madinah it's 13° - 20° centigrade, and in Jeddah it's 18° - 25° centigrade.
Anyways, as I was out shopping yesterday, I managed to snap a picture of the entrance of my compound, which will testify that the Saudi Government is doing all they can in keeping the expatriates safe from the bloody terrorists. Check out the barricade. It definitely makes you feel safe.
I've been looking at it since I modified my site a year ago. It's the lower sliding bar (or whatever you call it). Heck, I've been working on it for nearly 3 days now, and I can't find a way to remove it. It is not meant to be there! Another thing, if you're using IE, from the welcome page (with the picture of my hand putting a Go stone), whenever you click on the picture (if you click on the text link it turns out okay), an error message will appear. It mentions something like "The script did not return proper headers". Hmm, I'm sorry, but what is that suppose to mean?
You know what? The hyperlink on the picture is gonna go. I'll just make a text link, and see whether will there be any errors this time. Oh yes, by the way, I also noticed that my site looks rather different on Netscape and Mozilla. Is it due to my code? Can anyone tell me anything about this?
I've been looking at it since I modified my site a year ago. It's the lower sliding bar (or whatever you call it). Heck, I've been working on it for nearly 3 days now, and I can't find a way to remove it. It is not meant to be there! Another thing, if you're using IE, from the welcome page (with the picture of my hand putting a Go stone), whenever you click on the picture (if you click on the text link it turns out okay), an error message will appear. It mentions something like "The script did not return proper headers". Hmm, I'm sorry, but what is that suppose to mean?
You know what? The hyperlink on the picture is gonna go. I'll just make a text link, and see whether will there be any errors this time. Oh yes, by the way, I also noticed that my site looks rather different on Netscape and Mozilla. Is it due to my code? Can anyone tell me anything about this?
Geez, when are these guys gonna stop? I just found out recently that these people behind the scams have an even bigger goal in mind. Not only they send their scams to personal emails, they even send it to large multinational corporations! I know somebody that works in the IDB (Islamic Development Bank), and he told me that they receive these kind of letters almost everyday. I have one example here. The Bank got it a few days ago.
What really pisses me off is, this person is being a martyr by using religion as its main claim. And why is it all these damn scams are from Nigeria? Is somebody trying to make that country look bad? Or is it simply that the people there have nothing better to do than to come up with these lame stories? I actually have my own collection here, and after reading nearly 10 of them, I found out that 4 of them came from the same person. Yeah, that's right. It's the same person using different names.
Geez, when are these guys gonna stop? I just found out recently that these people behind the scams have an even bigger goal in mind. Not only they send their scams to personal emails, they even send it to large multinational corporations! I know somebody that works in the IDB (Islamic Development Bank), and he told me that they receive these kind of letters almost everyday. I have one example here. The Bank got it a few days ago.
What really pisses me off is, this person is being a martyr by using religion as its main claim. And why is it all these damn scams are from Nigeria? Is somebody trying to make that country look bad? Or is it simply that the people there have nothing better to do than to come up with these lame stories? I actually have my own collection here, and after reading nearly 10 of them, I found out that 4 of them came from the same person. Yeah, that's right. It's the same person using different names.
Believe me, it's truly silent. Well, my younger brother just went back to KL yesterday, as his A-Level classes starts this Monday. And I'm only 1/3 through my holidays. Thank god that I won't be spending the next 2 months here, in Jeddah. I might go back at the end of this month, taking advantage of the cheap return (from Jeddah to KL) tickets due to Hajj.
As for Hajj, I performed it in 2001, and it wasn't that difficult after all. Don't get me wrong, there were around 3-4 million people (could be more) in Makkah that time, and it was definitely packed (Makkah isn't as big as Jeddah). But we managed to get around rather easily, due to some members of the congregation have had experiences from their previous Hajjs.
First of all, welcome to 2004! I can't believe it that my site has come to it's 3rd year! (and I'm still running on free webhosting! lol). It's about time things get upgraded and become better, but these stuff needs funds and most important of all - ideas. I can't really design stuff, and whenever I do it, I end up making something hideous (well, the upper banner is a good example). So, I'll make it one of my new year resolutions to change the layout of my site, and add some really interesting colours to it. Make it lively!
Believe me, it's truly silent. Well, my younger brother just went back to KL yesterday, as his A-Level classes starts this Monday. And I'm only 1/3 through my holidays. Thank god that I won't be spending the next 2 months here, in Jeddah. I might go back at the end of this month, taking advantage of the cheap return (from Jeddah to KL) tickets due to Hajj.
As for Hajj, I performed it in 2001, and it wasn't that difficult after all. Don't get me wrong, there were around 3-4 million people (could be more) in Makkah that time, and it was definitely packed (Makkah isn't as big as Jeddah). But we managed to get around rather easily, due to some members of the congregation have had experiences from their previous Hajjs.
First of all, welcome to 2004! I can't believe it that my site has come to it's 3rd year! (and I'm still running on free webhosting! lol). It's about time things get upgraded and become better, but these stuff needs funds and most important of all - ideas. I can't really design stuff, and whenever I do it, I end up making something hideous (well, the upper banner is a good example). So, I'll make it one of my new year resolutions to change the layout of my site, and add some really interesting colours to it. Make it lively!
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