I PASSED!!!

I PASSED! I PASSED! I PASSED! I PASSED! I PASSED! I PASSED! I PASSED! I PASSED!

Hahahahahahahaha........

It's 5:15am in the morning now, and there's no way I can go back to sleep! Hahaha..... Forget what I posted last nite! I'm too elated to think about anything else!

I PASSED! I PASSED! I PASSED! I PASSED! I PASSED! I PASSED! I PASSED! I PASSED!

OH MY GOD... I still can't believe it!!!!

Results coming out....

Results are out tomorrow morning. This time around, I'm not even anxious at all. Maybe I'm in denial... or maybe it's just nonchalance. Or maybe I'm so sure of the result that I can't be bothered worrying about it anymore. Somehow I feel that whatever the result, it does not impact me at all (ok, ok... I admit the salary increment that comes with a pass does offer some form of utility. :P ).

I wonder how I would actually feel tomorrow morning.

Killer Hanjie!!

Oh my god... I just found the "Killer Hanjie"!!! I didn't realised it was THIS BIG! (Cissyn, seriously, when you told me you finished it, I had no idea how gigantic this Hanjie is! Haha...)

I just printed it out, and will try my best to complete it. As the website said, "If you complete it without tearing all your hair out, kudos to you!!". :P

http://hanjie.co.uk/killerhanjie.html

Try try try!! :D

Hanjie

No no... it's not some Chinese word I'm trying to teach or anything. (I'm probably the last person to even try to teach Chinese!). This is a Japanese puzzle... yes, another one of those logic puzzles. It's not numerical in nature, like Sudoku or Kakuro. It's more like filling in the blanks to form a picture in the end. Imagine a box of n x n squares. And at the end of each row and column, they give you a series of numbers which represent how many boxes in that row/column are to be filled.

The following is a simple example to start you off:

Puzzle: "Musical"

How To Play:
Let's start with the last column. The number '8' in the last column means that 8 boxes in a row must be shaded. Likewise in column 5, "1, 1" means that 2 boxes must be shaded, and these must be separated... one box at a time. So there cannot be 2 boxes shaded together. They must be separated by at least 1 spacing. Basically, that's all there is to it!

There are of course some basic tricks. Like, where do you start first? Personally I would start with the last column. In the last column, it says that 8 boxes out of the available 10 boxes must be shaded, in which case there would be some overlapping such that we can say for certain which boxes MUST be shaded. IE, there are only 3 possibilities for this column:

1. You start at the 1st box from the top. This will mean that the first 8 boxes will be shaded, leaving the last 2 boxes blank; OR
   
2. You start at the second box from the top. This will mean only the 1st and last box will be left blank; OR
3. You start at the third box from the top, leaving the first and second box blank.

You will find that under all 3 options, the 3rd till 8th box is ALWAYS shaded. Thus we can fill in these boxes for certain. There, you now have your starting point. :) Now, you can proceed to fill in part of Row 3 with the "1, 4" combination. Since the last box in that row is now filled in, you know for sure that the "4" boxes in a row has to end there. Thus you can fill in boxes 7th-9th in Row 3.

Another trick is to mark boxes where you know for sure should NOT be shaded. This will reduce the number of "eligible" boxes, thus making it easier to determine which sections should be shaded.

Do try it! It's really quite cool!! And extremely addictive!! :P

Adventurace 2006

Today was Trek #1 of the Adventurace 2006. The Adventurace is like the Amazing Race and Trek #1 and #2 are like some kind of audition. The top 3 winners from each Trek who will join another 6 finalists in the Final of Adventurace 2006, a race from KL to Langkawi. Since there's no hunt this weekend, I decided last minute that I should go try my luck. There were only 65 participants in today's Trek, and I thought I might have a good chance of making top 45 qualifiers who will win at least RM100 petrol vouchers.

The race started at the Malaysian Tourist Centre at around 10 am (I was there by 8 am to register, mind you). There are a series of 9 checkpoints we are supposed to get to within an allocated time to obtain stamps on our answer sheet. Missing any one of these checkpoints will effectively end your race! The checkpoint clues are pictorial. For example, a picture of Ronald (McDonald) should tell you to look for a McDonalds fastfood store. But of course, some of the other pictures were not so 'kind'.

Checkpoint 1 showed a picture of the Petronas Sains Centre (KLCC), so off we went on foot, solving some pictorial questions along the way. But it was upon reaching KLCC that we already encountered our first challenge... finding the darn checkpoint. Our first thought was to go straight into KLCC to the top floor where the Sains Centre actually is. But it was no where to be found! It was only much later that we realised the checkpoint is supposed to be OUTSIDE KLCC. Arrghh... So on we ran down to the other exit/entrance, and the checkpoint was actually at a bus-stop.

Next, we were told to take Rapid KL (bus) to Terminal Titiwangsa (Checkpoint 2), and the next picture clue given was a man sitting on a river bank fishing. We thought they wanted us to go to Taman Tasik Titiwangsa! But luckily it was just by the river bank at the bus station itself. After getting the stamp there, the next clue told us to take the Rapid KL again to Kompleks Pertama on Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman. By then, I was already panting and sweating like mad! My shirt was already soaked with sweat (eeewww...!!!).

Onto Pertama we went. Finding the Pertama foodcourt (Checkpoint 3) there also took us awhile (coz the checkpoint station was not open when we got there, so we went walking one big round around the foodcourt! More panting and sweating! :P ). Next we had to walk down Jln Tunku Abdul Rahman towards Jalan Tun Perak, while solving another 4 pictorial questions.

At the end of Jalan Tun Perak, we had to find the next checkpoint where a picture of a burger is shown. We went to Burger King, but no one was there, and in the end we found it in McDonalds instead (Checkpoint 4). After getting our stamp, the next clue told us to take the Putra LRT to KL Sentral to find the next checkpoint, this time a picture of Ronald McDonald is shown. When we arrived at KL Sentral McDonalds (Checkpoint 5), the checkpoint was not yet opened! Which meant that it allowed a lot of latecomers to catch up to us. Sigh... Not good, not good at all. :(

Next, the instruction told us to either walk or take the monorail to Jln Tun Sambanthan where a picture of Ray Charles was our next clue. Since we were way ahead of time, we decided to take the monorail to at least rest our poor legs and possible save some energy for the final part of the race. The clue took us to the Malaysian Association for the Blind (MAB, Checkpoint 6) and there we were to make our donation and get a 'treasure' in return.

The next checkpoint was back to KL Sentral where a picture of a chicken is shown. There we made our first mistake, where we were waiting at the wrong checkpoint (The Chicken Rice Shop). By the time we found the correct checkpoint (Kenny Rogers, Checkpoint 7), we were already behind quite a lot of other racers. :(

We then headed on to the Putra LRT again and onward to Kelana Jaya LRT Station we went. By the time we got to Checkpoint 8 (7-Eleven), there was already a long queue waiting. That caused us to miss out on the free shuttle service to the final checkpoint. In the end we had to take the feeder bus to Sunway, which took about half hour.

Upon arrival at Sunway Pyramid (Checkpoint 9), we ran down to look for the final pictorial clue, which was just a picture of a box of Pharmaton Multi-Vitamin Capsules. My initial thought was that it must be at a pharmacy, so straight into the mall we went. We looked into Watsons, GNC and Guardian, but the checkpoint was still eluding us. We must've been running around the mall for like 20 min (too long!), and still could not find the location. Eventually, I resorted to asking a fellow hunter, and he told me that it was OUTSIDE the building, next to the lion's head. ARRRGGGHHH!!! NOT AGAIN!!! So off we went, and by the time we got to the checkpoint, we were clocked in at 47th & 48th position respectively, thus missing the qualifying cut. :'( I mean, the Pharmaton sign was actually put up by them on that day itself! How the hell should I know to look outside first?!?! :(

I was so, so, so disappointed. All that work for nothing in the end. Sigh... All because of one silly mistake and bad luck. Sigh... But I guess all in all, it was a good day. I haven't run so much since... don't know when! That's my exercise enough for a whole week!! And also now I know what bus to take to Kompleks Pertama, Terminal Titiwangsa and Sunway Pyramid!!! Hahaha...

There's still Trek #2 to go on 9th July (which I will miss since I'm going for another hunt that weekend). Anyone who's been dying to try the Amazing Race phenomenon should give it a go. It really is not as easy as it looks on TV!! :P

Check out the following website for more details: "Adventurace - Advance Dreams"

Hunting... and more hunting...

I went to two consecutive hunts in the past 2 weeks. The first is the Sun Motor Hunt and another is the Kiwanis "Chill Out" Hunt. Ok, here's where I start bitching about hunting... Haha...

Let's start with the Sun hunt... There were like 280 teams who signed up. We thought... no problemo... this should be a relatively ok hunt. We expected most teams to be newcomers or amateurs so probably we would have a good chance. Moreover, last year we did pretty well and managed a 9th position. We got 9th coz of a few silly mistakes. So this year, we resolved to be more careful and better last year's position. However, we were sadly disappointed. Wait, wait... that's understating it. We were devastated...! First, we made 2 silly mistakes. That really cost us. And also, we underestimated our opponents. A lot of people did better than us! I am ashamed to even say this... but we only managed... *sob*... *hiccup*... 26th... SOB SOB SOB!!! Why? Why? Why? You wouldn't believe how desolute I felt. [ Oh, and may I say how sorry I am to the friend I brought to the dinner with me. I believe he was literally bored out of his mind... Hahaha....!! ] I hope next year they can upgrade us to the Masters category. With only 17 teams there this year, you'd be guaranteed good prizes. And also the glory of being classed a "Master"... ;)

Ok, now to the Kiwanis Hunt. Alright, alright... the hunt was good. We did pretty well. Granted, we also made one or two mistakes, but at least we were still somewhere close behind the Masters. We managed a 13th position, which was not bad at all. The prizes weren't that great, but at least it was great fun. We went up to Cameron Highlands for about 3 days, and had tea and scones (how English!) at the Cameron tea plantation. Nice, nice...

Now to my complaint: As with every Kiwanis hunt, there's always some extra events you can take part in, just for fun. This year, the theme was "Chill Out", and contestants were required to build a chill out scene... anything that can remotely be linked to the theme "Chill Out". They gave some suggestions: a hang-out place, where you 'chill out'; a 'chilling' murder scene; an ice-cold ('chill') igloo... Anything at all. So we decided to join... just for the heck of it. We brainstormed out this brilliantly idea... and this is what it looked like:

Ok... please say you all get the joke?! I mean, it was brilliant! I still can't believe they didn't give us the prize for this!!!

Well, for those who didn't get it, here's what it's supposed to be:
On the tray, is a bowl of Vanilla Ice Cream. It is supposed to represent "Vanilla Ice" the person. And there's this hot, blazing sun, that's slowly melting him away. Thus, the 'Murder' of Vanilla Ice (cream)!!

What's more... we have a poem written on its 'tombstone', which says:
"Here lies Vanilla Ice (cream) who once was a 'pop'.
But the sun came up, and poor Vanilla Ice (cream) melted... drop by drop!"

Now tell me that isn't brilliant?!

Well, looking at who we lost out to, I guess we shouldn't be complaining. Since this is a family event, we should've known better to stick to 'family themes'. The eventual winner was one family who built this make-shift "Chill Out" mall. And they had their teenage daughter explain the whole scene, which is supposed to signify the Sunway mall that they visit, as a family, every Sunday. And it shows all the shops that they would go to. "Uncle Lim where Dad loves his kaya toast... MPH where we love to buy our books. And the rental shop were we rent books that are too expensive to buy... *blah blah blah*" [ Ok ok... now I'm just being bitchy and bitter... :D ]

Now... how can we beat that?! :( I can tell you for sure... family-themes always win. We shouldn't have bothered. Sigh... All I can say is: ours is still the cleverest idea. But guess they don't give points for cleverness in this event.