I thought I will only have a brief brush with computers during my signals course, but never did I expect that I will be diving deep into computers for my 8 week course.

The BMTC e-posting put me into the 'infocomm 2' course, which is manpack radio. But on my first day there I was instead posted to the 'infosys' course, where my main job is well, computers.

Not too bad I guess, after looking through my schedule for the next 8 weeks (7 weeks as of today), because I will be learning very, very, very useful stuff.

Then again, I do miss the days of chiong-sua-ing with my friends by my side.

For now, I just sit back and enjoy my course.

Now I have so much free time at night, its time I bring in some books to read.

For the past week I have not done anything worth mentioning here, which explains the absence of entries here. But it seems like I'm not the only one to have outdated blogs around. Hmm is the blog trend dying out? Haha.

Block leave went by too fast for me to enjoy, and soon I will be packing my bags off to CCK where I will start my next phase of national service. Not sure what to expect yet, though there's nothing much I can do anyway. Just 走一步算一步 lor.

Besides gaming and web surfing I have not done anything related to computers for the past few, erm, months. Not sure if I will get to play any computers during my signals course, but now I have a sudden urge to start creating games using Macromedia Director again, something which I have stopped doing since secondary school. I'm glad to see Adobe is coming out with a new version of Director; previously I was still wondering if they are going to stop producing Director, since Flash is much more popular now.

I personally prefer Director, because I only know how to use Director hahahaha.

My urge came about after spending an hour in the library today reading a book on how to create racing games haha. I fell aslp after reading less than a fifth of it, because I have already half forgotten my maths haha. Besides the following chapters on OpenGL was getting too complicated for me to understand. Now.

But too bad, my urge comes as my block leave ends, so I no longer have whole days to sit in front of the computer to program. I should be spending my weekends outside camp, but I will be busy meeting friends. Anyway my first week in Signals shall be spent doing some observations, to see if it will be appropiate to bring in some books haha.

Till the next time.

Life sucks when one has no friends. Its my block leave but I have no one to enjoy it with.

Contrary to popular belief I am not spending all my time playing games. Gaming is only fun when you play with friends, not with some predictive AI.

And it doesn't help when I am neither close to my platoonmates, nor share the same interests to them. I don't find clubbing or DotA fun, for instance.

POP loh!

Tuesday and Wednesday were perhaps the most enjoyable days of my entire BMT. Tuesday night was one rare night of total havoc. While waiting for the tonners to come and fetch us back to Rocky Hill the recruits splashed water at the commanders. The commanders took revenge by making us fall in and knock it down, then made us all wet too. Then there was the push ups and jumping jacks which everyone for once enjoyed doing.

But perhaps the single most memorable thing that night was cheering as a company of 400 men: 200 lao jiaos at coy line, another 200 from the new mild obese batch, something which the neighbouring Hawk Coy could only envy. The roar produced was magificant.

After a final exchange of well wishes between the two batches we went back at Rocky Hill. Back in our own coy line we were given a lights out timing of 2359, and a last minute decision to order pizzas resulted in a party till late at night.

POP itself was just waitng and more waiting.

And now I'm a private. What's next for me? A good 11-day rest before I report to my new unit next next Monday. I don't know where I will be posted to; for now I just sit back and enjoy my block leave.

All right, my friends say I reveal too much about NS, so instead of just removing sensitive stuff I turned all of them into drafts. Yes we were told by our OC on our first day of enlistment with regards to blogging about national service, but I thought whatever I have blogged previously are already freely available in the forums and Wikipedia. Never mind, it doesn't hurt staying out of trouble.

Thanks to NS I have lost touch with all the latest news. Computex, the second biggest computer expo in the world and the largest in Asia, is ongoing now in Taiwan. The difference between Computex and the numerous IT shows we have here is that, Computex is a place where the different manufactors exhibit their latest technologies, whereas all our IT shows are simply giant while-stocks-last sales.

Anyway I was reading the various articles on Computex, and I realise exciting stuff like the Intel X38 chipset and DDR3 memory on motherboards are coming up. My computer is becoming outdated!

Then I surfed game websites and realise EA is coming up with a new Need For Speed game. I want!

In other news, Nvidia may be slashing the prices of its latest Geforce 8 series of graphics cards. Wonderful news to me, since I am really hoping to get one soon. I do hope the price cuts will come as soon as possible.

A few more days to POP!

While waiting for Hamachi to connect I might as well post an entry.

If you think I have been doing nothing but playing games the past few days, you are wrong! [I'm not a game addict!]

Spent Tuesday and Wednesday at home, didn't dare to go out because my CSM has once told us they do random calls to our houses to make sure we are at home resting and not outside having fun. Thursday and Friday went to PC Show [yes I went twice, not because I was crazy, but because I was going with two different groups of friends whom I have not met for some time].

Yesterday I spent three hours looking intensively at both NUS and NTU's websites, trying to decide which course to accept before the deadline is up.

So today evening I will be booking in again, at the record early time of 1740. This week will be a half-xiong week for me, thanks to my fever last week. There is re-IPPT [I heard will be tomorrow! I definitely rather go tomorrow than book in again during block leave], SOC, and the last major event before we pass out - 24km route march on Tuesday. The consolation is that there is Recruit's Evening tomorrow night, and we are booking out on Wednesday, because of the obese batch that will be coming in.

Now I am [im]patiently waiting for Hamachi to connect me up with my friend so we can have at least a game of Tiberium Wars before I book in. But sian Heaven seem to be out to spoil my day. Haix.

At the top of my wishlist: a 8600GT 256MB GDDR3!