random ramblings + SGS

I woke up this morning around noon-ish. Hey, I had a late night last night. I watched Man United get overran in midfield as the lack of pace from scholes and carrick got exposed too much. Anyway, looked at my phone, which was upgraded with Darky ROM 9.5 Steel Blue theme (more below), and there was a voice mail. Phoned it. "Unfortunately both your outgoing and incoming flights to Kuala Lumpur has been cancelled." What?! How could Singaporeairline do that? So, apparently they decided to cut down flight numbers to Christchurch and no longer will fly on those dates. $%$&!@ Long story short, I contacted the travel agency, and fortunately they can rearrange the flights, however via Auckland, which is an additional stop, and longer travelling time, but I still arrive on the same day which is the crucial part. But still, I wonder if I could be compensated for this. The main reason I choose them was the direct flight factor. Anybody had an experience getting compensation from this sort of things? A free upgrade to Business class would be nice :D

So, last night, the thing that kept me awake was my phone (samsung galaxy S I9000). I decided to upgrade Darky ROM 9.0 to Darky ROM 9.5 and go a little bit further adding Steel Blue theme. Well, what happen was, I flashed the wrong theme (steel blue 4.0) and it just bricked my phone. It was stuck at booting screen. Luckily, Odin rescued me, reflashed the phone & now it looked great & still as fast as before. If you're noob than all these will sound gibberish. Here's the run down:

(1) Samsung galaxy s is an awesome phone. Listed as #2 as top gadget of 2010 by the Time magazine behind the iPad (which means it was rated better than iPhone 4). It uses android operating system.

(2) Heres an article describing what ROM is.

(3) The stock ROM for SGS is laggy. When I didnt know about this custom ROM thingy, I was disappointed with the phone. I wondered how it got those high ratings. I previously owned an Omnia and found that phone quite disappointing. Then my mate mentioned about this. And luckily, somebody posted on facebook about darky's rom. Gave it a try and just wow. Blazingly fast. I would definitely recommend this phone now. SGS 2 is coming out soon too, wider, thinner, lighter, better display!

(4) Moral of the story: If you cant spend the time or willing to learn to tweak your phone, then iphone is for you. Otherwise, android is so much superior imo as the potential to customize ur phone at your will is just vast.

EQ survivor alhamdulillah

22 February 2011

I just finished my lunch & was on the phone trying to transfer a patient to another hospital. Then the shaking start. Paused for a bit. Just another aftershake. So I initially thought. Unsurprising since we had close to 4000 of them since that September earthquake. But it didnt fade away like the ones before. It grew. It became very violent. Phone line cut. Lights flickered. Instictively I ducked under the table with 2 other colleagues. One huge printer tumbled next to me. After close to half a minute, the shake stopped. We bolted out of the 3rd floor, making our way out of the hospital hastily. Along the way, cracks were appearing along the hospital stairway. And the ED waiting room:

The hospital was evacuated, at least for those that can walk :) Stayed for an hour outside waiting what to do. People started trickling in from nearby places. Those with multiple lacerations were the first to come in. Then, makeshift ambulance, jeeps or vans, arrived carrying the injured or even the dead to the hospital. We triaged the patients outside:

I went back in the hospital, so did other docs and nurses, attending to the wounded. After a while, we needed the beds in the ward, so existing patient had to be discharged. So I went back to my wards, all the way back in 3rd floor. Lights still flickered on and off since the hospital generator couldn't handle the load. We did our work with mine lamps powered by hand propelled dynamo. 5 hours after the event, we managed to evacuate all patients that can be evacuated. Main electricity was back on. I went home at 1800 finding this:

Despite all this, alhmadulillah I was safe. In an earthquake that officially killed 113 people, with 200 still missing, 164 seriously injured and thousands injured, I came unscathed, my flat still standing with electricity, running water and internet. Half of my colleagues dont have home anymore. In fact, one of the death is one colleague of mine.