irony

Hurray now people think that we the youths of today are less resilient and weaker than those of the previous generation because we spend too much time playing computer games.

Look at what the computer has done to us. All computers should go to hell.

***

Currently on Race Driver: GRID, another game from Codemasters. Codemasters' racing games have never disappointed me, and this one is no different. This time they removed all the technicals, like vehicle upgrades, brake bias, gear ratio etc and thrown in some arcade fun. On the other hand the physics can be punishing. Just a bump on the side by the opponent is enough to send one spinning into the sand.

***

Its the launch of Mozilla Firefox 3 today, and the Mozilla Foundation started a drive to set a world record for the highest number of software downloads. What happened now [downloading officially started at 1am GMT+8] is that their servers cannot handle the overwhelming number of users accessing them.

***

Past few days in a bid to keep ourselves awake and kill our boredom we played riddles!

九十九 [猜一个字]
为什么猫爬山爬到一半就转回头呢？
婆婆不做事 [猜成语]
有一天四个人在打麻将，突然天花板掉下来，为什么有五具尸体呢？
有一天一个人去钓鱼，钓了一条鱼回家，为什么到家后鱼不见了呢？

Just to name a few.

***

祈祷

让我们敲希望的钟啊,多少祈祷在心中;
让大家看不到失败,叫成功永远在.
让地球忘记了转动啊,四季少了夏秋冬;
让宇宙关不了天窗,叫太阳不西沉.
让欢喜代替了哀愁啊,微笑不会再害羞;
让时光懂得去倒流,叫青春不开溜;
让贫穷开始去逃亡啊,快乐健康留四方
让世界找不到黑暗,幸福像花开放.

让我们敲希望的钟啊,多少祈祷在心中;
让大家看不到失败,叫成功永远在.
让大家看不到失败,叫成功永远在

***

how i watch my euro 2008

Self made antenna strapped to a bamboo pole, which connects up to my television.



If there is one thing I can be proud of my father about, it will be his ability to come up with such godlike things.

Not exactly a hard core fan, I neither follow club matches nor throw my hard earned allowances into betting centres hoping I see eleven men playing against eleven 财神爷s. I only watch once-in-four-years tournaments like this to add some colours in my otherwise monotonous life.

Netherlands for the win! Because their bright orange colour very nice. Haha.

Last but not least, eight more months to ORD! Its times like this that make me hope its Feburary 2009 now.

tankee yango

Booking out at 10am in the morning and then being expected to be back in there before 9pm the same day means effectively I only spend about 6 hours at home when I live on the opposite side of Singapore. Throw in a movie and a dinner and the time reduces to three hours.

Twelve hours a shift with no forms of entertainment allowed is a torture; there is absolutely no motivation to stay awake. We did our best to 苦中作乐 in the tinniest of things possible, from comms checks [strength 5!] to funny radio conversations [tankee yango!]

***

Not too long after the forummers got the 'paper clip scam' reported in the papers a new scam has already appeared, in a short space of just a few days I had no access to computers!

What is the world coming to!?!

***

The rising food prices is affecting me! Da bao-ing the 大巴窑 kway chap at the coffee shop opposite my house now cost a whopping $0.70 more!

Two of three things done! Now for the last thing before I head out of home.

activity watchful 'king of beasts'

And then I wonder what exactly is this world coming to. Around the globe millions of people are struggling to scrape together three meals to keep themselves alive for another day, and then here we got people going around trying to cheat money out of others, executing different get-rich-quick methods just so that they can get their hands on a BMW earlier than their peers of the same age to prove that, "There! MLM works!"

And not that far away there are childish people who are fighting over the ownerships of small little islands no bigger than my house toilet [ok fine bigger than that]. Yes I know the bigger deal at stake is the control of the water areas around them. But does it really matter who controls which part of the waters?

Can they get their priorities right?

***

And so in a few hours time I will heading off to another camp, to start my duties for a month which my friend says sound like that of a regimental policeman. Life is [supposedly] good, hopefully it will be, although I am not that positive about rotting my life away for a month. When was the last time I used my brain?

On the other hand, firing a pistol is fun though. =D

sapping on the trail

It seems weird that a year from now I am going to study the number one thing I hate most.

We depend on it so much these days that we cannot live a day without it, yet it is so dumb, when something goes wrong, it continues to run things like nothing has gone wrong at all, and it cannot say anything more useful than "Connection failed." And now people spend more time talking to it than their own family members and friends. Some dumb people like me probably spend more money on it than their own family members and friends.

The number of problems that came up on the first day was so overwhelming; I felt so helpless that I wanted to cry.

I totally gave up on the last day of the event; I have done everything I could; changed every setting that could be changed, restarted everything that could be restarted, configured everything that could be configured. It refused to budge. It was one of the few times I actually gave up on a problem.

And yea, I'm going to play with this dumb thing for the rest of my life. Hurray.

***

Seven people from my company ORDed today. Felt sad they were leaving, for there will be lesser people around to make life in this shithole better. Felt happy they were leaving, because they were finally leaving this shithole.

***

Long month ahead. Likely to be a slow moving one.

safra national runway cycling

Did not expect that I would finish work so late on Friday night [actually Saturday morning], and that I will have to book in at 5pm later, so I signed up for it weeks back, along with some friends.

I thought we were going for the 15km leisure route, until they told me we had signed up for the 45km endurance route.

We started off late; the ride flagged off at 8am but we only started at 9am, so by 11am they closed off the route, and we had cycled an average of 35km before we were to turn back. But still, it was very, very, very, very, tiring.

Have to go now; I seriously hope the problems we face now can be solved as soon as possible.

visual

I always get alot of complaints that its all text here and no pictures. Well one I don't have much pictures to show, two its a hassle uploading them.

I really don't wish to remember what happened this week, so for a rare change, photos from my trip to the Republic of China. Sadly it was not my camera, so I had no control over what to take.


As mentioned, the "huge golden Buddha that towered over the surrounding hills."


See I told ya there wasn't much of a difference from a rectangle of green created using Microsoft Paint.


日月潭，or Sun Moon Lake. Taken when we went...


...here. Very majestic temple, facing the very beautiful lake.


Danger!


Haha this was at a wine factory in 台中 I think. Sadly the entire poem was not captured.


Yes I went through this shit. Heart nearly stopped by the end of it.


I took this after I took the previous one. Heart really nearly stopped.


Ocean World. Really kudos to these ang mohs who had to act as clowns on the show, because that day we went it was...


...so bloody cold, the only audience there were us, and the grandstands were empty because we watched the show from inside the building, through the doors.


The same ang mohs who had to perform stunts too. So much for the salary.


Forgot the name [UPDATE: I remembered! Its called Miramax.]; it was a very big shopping mall with an attached ferris wheel. Nothing much to buy though.


Taipei's Metro which worked the same as our MRT system so no problem travelling around.


This was only half of the track. I did not try this one for fear that my heart really stopped.


人山人海。


Because I'm not niao with food I didn't find it extraordinarily good.


Something familiar in a place far from home.


Something familiar in a place far from home 2.

Horrible week I had, horrible week I am going to have, and all of a sudden, horrible month upcoming.

beautiful words

It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking how did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did he know that?

-The Pursuit of Happyness

*

Because when I was young and I get an A on a history test or whatever, I get this good feeling about all the things that I can be. And I never became any of them.

-The Pursuit of Happyness

*

The Square Root of Three

I’m sure that I will always be
A lonely number like root three

The three is all that’s good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath the vicious square root sign,
I wish instead I were a nine

For nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic

I know I’ll never see the sun, as 1.7321
Such is my reality, a sad irrationality

When hark! What is this I see,
Another square root of a three

As quietly co-waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer

We break free from our mortal bonds
With the wave of magic wands

Our square root signs become unglued
Your love for me has been renewed

-David Feinberg

chaos

Just as I thought the cyclone that hit Myanmar was bad enough there came the earthquake that jolted China. So in a matter of two short weeks some 150,000 people were wiped off the face of the earth just like that.

The news were especially graphical this time when it came to reporting the tragedies. The grief, tears and anger of the victims were clearly telecast on national TV and splashed across newspapers; reading and listening to the grim reports about rising death tolls and helpless survivors were just as depressing. Those who wanted to save could not save; those who wanted to be saved could not be saved.

Should I feel sad for those who died, for they have left the world without a proper goodbye? Or should I feel angry, for they have left many who loved them deeply? Or happy, for they have escaped this living hell for somewhere heavenly?

As usual the week was spent preparing for the major event coming up. Went to jump into dirty water on Tuesday to practise escaping from sinking vehicles, while the rest of the time was trying to get something we never tried before to work.

Although there is still alot of work to do next week the bosses still decided to squeeze time out for a SOC practice and a test, the number one morale destroying physical activity which I will probably fail anyway.

I decided to wait at least till the end of the month before I consult a doctor regarding my foot rot, since word has it that we will have to throw ourselves into more dirty water during the major event itself. My feet doesn't look as bad as the name sounds though.

Never too late to say, since 120508, 9 more months to ORD! One digit looks [slightly] better than two digits.

as a soldier

One of the rare weeks where I felt more like a soldier than a IT helpdesk support staff. Exercise on Monday, shooting on Tuesday, more shooting on Wednesday, saikang party for regulars' range on Thursday [ because the crabs and bars were not expected to hang up target boards, pick up rubbish and expended rounds and wash toilets], and mounting signal sets on vehicles on Friday.

I am having foot rot; just like the heat rashes a while back its the first time in my life that I ever got it. I was pretty resistant to it, having survived my BMT fieldcamp, Wallaby and Starlight without anything, but fell victim this time as it spreads around like wildfire, at least within my platoon. I have not got down to curing it though; apparently the medication that the medical centre provides does not solve anything, and waiting three hours just for that five minutes of consultation and medication isn't time well spent.

On the other hand by the time I wake up on Saturday the clinic near my house has already closed. Which is also why I am still coughing to this day.

Maybe I am really dying.

I read with interest how Myanmar's military can turn the recent cyclone to its own advantage by sticking their generals' faces on the aid that flew in from other countries, to lead their people into thinking the military is doing its part to save them. The country's constitutional referendum carried on as usual, and most people that the newspaper interviewed had no idea what they were even voting for. They simply said 'yes' because they were told to do so. Talk about the power of the soldiers.

please do not waste your time here

I still remembered way back before I enlisted my friends were telling me how xiong route marches were, and I could not understand how difficult can walking get, until I experienced it myself.

Since 'graduating' from Tekong I have not done any route marches, until yesterday. The distance covered was supposed to be just a third of the final one I did at Tekong, which was furthur reduced to a quarter because of bad weather, but having not walked for so long my legs were giving way by the time I completed it, with two blisters appearing at the 'usual places' of my feet.

Also I underestimated the weight of the signal set. It turned out to be as heavy as the fieldpack I carried back in BMT.

Tomorrow is Labour Day [Happy Day to everyone!], and because I couldn't get an off on Friday I have to book in tomorrow night, which is less than twenty four hours from now.

Still Friday will not be a easy day. Different events of various magnitudes are coming up next month; there's quite a number of things to do.

May I go in peace.

mind over body

Another physically demanding week.

Finally completed my icct by passing the test on Wednesday, which was not too difficult except for the two-minute wayang sparring session with a partner, which by the end left me with almost no strength to even hold my water bottle.

Immediately the next day on Thursday there was IPPT. Having turned second year soldier meant I had to clear my annual physical fitness test, and being so lucky to be able to take the test just two weeks into my second year I must get a decent result so the bosses will not harrass me anymore till I ORD.

A silver I got, and besides being untouchable now there is also the additional $100. Yay.

While everyone booked out on Friday I had guard duty, an indirect consequence no thanks to Mr. "Mike Sierra Kilo". @#$%!

Now that in camp I eat dinner at a very early time of 1700 everyday my stomach will start grumbling again by 2200, so recently I have started feasting on supper haha, usually mee pok or bee hoon noodles with an egg and chicken wing, finishing off with a coffee, milo or bubble tea, courtesy of friends who happen to be outside and can buy in. I'm quite glad I am quite resistant to growing horizontally; in fact I am almost underweight.

Then again of course I am not the only one who eats supper. McDonald's and zi char deliveries come in almost every night, and with some of the mates going to bring in toasters and mini hot pans and whatnot soon we may have a kitchen right in our company.

Now that I am spending most of my time doing useless things my memory has started deteriorating. Now without Friendster's reminders in my mailbox I have trouble remembering birthdays. Its worse when everyone else remembers mine. Apologises for that.

Countless times I have told myself [ and probably many others ] I will stop 'investing' in my dear desktop and my next major purchase will only be my laptop in university, however there is still plenty of promotions and offers that tempt me real hard [ forummers call them 'poison'. Indeed. ]. Just this morning when I returned home there is yet another one. Have not succumbed to any of those 'poisons' yet, but given the length of time between now and July 2009, to resist all that for more than a year is truly, mind over body. Hahaha.

My "mind over body" experiences are not over yet; there's a 4km route march next Tuesday, something I have not done since I passed out from the lovely island at the North East of our motherland. Hopefully I can survive it.

Its 五月天's concert tonight; always wanted to go, but always reluctant to spend the money. Must go someday. Meanwhile wish them good luck for tonight's concert!

I am still coughing. Randomly but everytime it comes I will almost cough my lungs out. I am still wondering whether I am dying soon.

Last by defintitely not the least, a piece of great news here.

May great game companies live on!

wonders of technology

Having played with computers since young [and most probably till the day I die] doesn't mean I support everything that holds bits and bytes and confuses people by displaying virtual objects that look exactly like real ones. Like a double edged sword advancements in technology has no doubt help us alot, but now it seems like we are so absorbed in it that we cannot live a day without it.

Back in the good old days of school a long bus ride from Point A to Point B with a good friend meant endless chatting and laughing on almost everything under the sun. Now everyone is armed with a portable entertainment device in hand, whether mobile phone, MP3 player, or Playstation Portable, or all three, with earpieces stuck in ears. Throughout the trip the total number of words exchanged probably does not exceed ten. No offence to anyone, I myself plead guilty to that.

Online advertisements are well hated by many. Actually there's nothing wrong with them; the Internet's another place to reach out to consumers, but they have to thank the irritating little windows that pop up at almost every single website and the tiny trackers that record your surfing habits and send them back to advertising companies so they can pop up more relevant advertisements for you, which is no different from an intrusion to privacy.

And now there is this. You pay a sum of money to buy a number of referrals [you can choose not to, but you take a longer time to earn money.] , and everytime you and/or your referrals click on the ads listed on the site and stays there for thirty seconds you earn some money. A couple of my friends have already paid a couple of hundreds of dollars, and are slowly earning money back.

Of course there is nothing wrong with it, but somehow I feel that like the pop ups and the trackers, it defeats the purpose of advertising. Because people click on the links and go to the websites for the sake of money, not because they are genuinely interested in them. And it seems to give an impression that earning money is easy, which..shouldn't be the correct mindset..?

Of course, technology is not that bad, there's still this. Haha.

Gotta run. I'm late.

india charlie charlie tango

pain. head. neck. shoulders. triceps. elbows. palms. hips. thighs.

very, very pain.

This entire week [well almost] was spent in the hall learning how to break falls and apply various types of armlocks. Besides a couple of breaks here and there the rest of the time was spent throwing ourselves onto mats, slapping them and yelling out loud like mad men, or getting a partner and doing the locks on each other. Everytime I hit the mat a wave of migraine will pass through my head, and before its gone we hit the ground again.

"Ouch!" was an underestimation.

Exercises were repeated to condition ourselves, so thanks to the neck rotation exercises on the first day my neck was immobile for the next three days.

Yesterday was equally disgusting when we had to roll across the hall repeatedly. No headache, but the giddiness was no less torturing. The stuffy environment did not help at all.

I'm glad my bones and joints are still intact.

No less relaxing next week. Lessons continues, with final grading on Wednesday, IPPT on Thursday, and @#$%! guard duty on Friday, thanks to last minute additions.

countdown 3

10 more months to ORD!

Still so far, how to survive?

五月天 all of 小太阳 a sudden...

多麼难忘 是你纯真的模样 突然的吻 弥漫著茶香

...the US dollar weakens.

多麼向往 梦想总是在他方 你说等我 不管多漫长

...rice is in limited supplies and everyone is worried whether they have enough rice to eat, and whether the rice is cheap enough to purchase in the first place.

你就是太阳 蒸发了彷徨 所以挖开土壤 种下希望 离开了故乡

...the Tibet issue appeared and many people go crazy trying to extinguish the flame on the Olympic torch.

看著你的眼眶 忍著泪 闪著光 我会很快回来 继续我们 未完的天堂

...another dumb rule came up; we are not allowed to clear off on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. [ They have since amended it to be on a case-by-case basis. ]

看著你的脸庞 微笑著 要我去闯 你的盼望 是我握在手中 小小的太阳

...I came down with rashes all over the body and I wondered whether I was going to die soon. [ I was fine after some calamine lotion and one day. ]

念念不忘 此刻应该是农忙 如繣风光 有你在歌唱

...I can't stop coughing and I wonder whether I am going to die soon.

你就是太阳 照亮了方向 你让地球旋转 月亮发光 让我有翅膀

After getting two consecutive weekends burnt due to guard duties [ last week of March and first week of April hurray ] I fortunately got today off. Fortunately because the rules say I was supposed to get it approved one week before, but I got it signed on Tuesday. Seeing how they go all the way to make our lives difficult when it comes to clearing off I think today's off will be the last one for at least the next two months to come.

Spent today resting and reading Kindachi, I don't collect comics; I just buy randomly. I particularly liked the way this issue's case was executed, how 'one became two' and 'two became one'. Otherwise, it was a quiet day at home.

I used to be fine with cooling fans in CPUs, but now that I hear them everyday at work because of the server and at home because of my desktop, I'm beginning to find the constant humming irritating. Haha.

its a pain thinking of a title everytime I start a new entry

Again another relatively free week, with the big shots involved in "major events" which we are not, at the same time planning for upcoming "major events" that will not concern us until the events near.

Because we had nothing much to do, they decided to ask us to do things like find posters to hang onto the bare walls of our lecture room, and come up with names -.-' for our auditorium and lecture room [how does Sleepland sound?].

Today was even more out of the world when a movie Idiocracy was screened to us, apparently recommended by the biggest boss in my company. However the only thing I can find inside the movie that is related to where I am now is a simple short phrase.

"Lead, follow, or get out of the way."

hot days, hot tempers

Very precious weekend, because my Saturday was eaten up by a guard duty. The weather added salt to the wound by maximising its heat and humidity.

As mentioned before, I like "major events" because they make the days pass very quickly, as was what happened in the two middle weeks in March. In this last week where there was no "major event", we simply had physical training everyday, the rest of the days just waiting for things to happen. The weekend took forever to come.

Its actually quite sad to see Creative being reduced to this, after having being emphasised for so many years by the government as a small local company that made it big internationally, and labelled a "role model" to brainwash encourage Singaporeans that we can all one day do great things too. On the other hand, I have to agree what Creative has done has indeed gone a little overboard, since what that guy has done was very well in the interest of the company, minus the donations.

The root of the problem, as it appears to me, is the fighting over what is mine and what is yours. Has always being a problem for mankind isn't it? Since young one would already have fought with siblings over whose toys belong to who, and as one grows up this argument balloons to money, custodies, land mass, airspace, oil, kidneys, the list goes on.

Won't the world be a happier place if people share instead of fight?

Ok maybe not. Maybe a little respect and compromise going both ways instead.

Forummers have since seized the chance to bombard Creative with cries of poor QC, with many of their MP3 players "up-lorry" after a year or so. While I admit that my Zen Micro has not been in the best of conditions for a long time, it has nevertheless served me for three good years, and I have never regretted my purchase.

盘底的洋葱像我
永远是调味品
偷偷的看著你
偷偷的隐藏著自己

杨宗纬's 洋葱.

如果你愿意一层一层一层的剥开我的心
你会发现你会讶异
你是我最压抑
最深处的秘密

Was a little surprised when I you-tubed to find 五月天's 阿信 singing this song on a Taiwanese variety show, where I then realised it was written by him.

如果你愿意一层一层一层的剥开我的心
你会鼻酸你会流泪
只要你能听到我
看到我的全心全意

Interesting to use an onion as a comparison; a novelty. And the lyrics are aptly written. I like!

two great jokes

After stopping for almost two years I restarted my problem solving recently, in one of my several moves to "keep my brain alive". Being out of touch with it for so long I am very rusty now, already forgotten all the little tricks hidden inside the problems to trap me. Like the fact that the first value read in is not necessarily always smaller than the second value.

Thankfully there is a forum full of helpful people who pointed out all the hidden tricks, so I can correct my mistakes before submitting.

"Marking" is done by a robot, as in a software bot, and the data it uses to test the programs we submitted is kept secret; all it tells us is the end result, so awaiting the result yields the same feeling as receiving my O Level or A Level results.



At that moment nothing can be happier than seeing the word "Accepted". And nothing can be worse, in my own opinion, than seeing the word "Wrong Answer", because to me its the most vague result among those it gives.

Right now I have only solved a pathetic number of forty problems, out of the two thousand over problems it offers. And to complete this joke my ratio of submissions to accepted problems is 5.875 : 1, which means on average I have to submit a particular solution six times before I finally get it correct.

Wahaha.

***************************

My first major problem after "upgrading" to Service Pack 1 has just surfaced. Apparently my save files for my racing game DiRT have all been "corrupted". I check that my files are still there, but somehow the game can't read them, which include the many days of effort I put in to complete my "career".

Service Pack 1. Wahaha.

yesteryears

One highlight during my years in AHS and VJC was watching sports matches and supporting my schools.

VJC days were much more fun because the staff there were much more flexible; they allowed us to cancel lessons to go down to external venues for important matches. AHS, being a secondary school, could not afford that. The only time I remembered going out of school was in Sec 1, to support a basketball match at a very old stadium to be torn down.

Fortunately AHS had an indoor basketball stadium (just about the only thing left that we can boast about), and most East Zone matches would be held there. Because we usually ended up among the top four in basketball, students from other schools found it unfair, going by the comments that they left here.

Stumbled across this sometime back, which I think is not bad, given that sports matches are not played on weekends. The bad thing is that the reports are submitted by volunteers, so if no volunteers, no report.

Looks good for AHS in their nationals; may the best team wins.

*****************

My Zen Micro is dying =( It is showing its age; Connecting it as a removable drive throws me a empty drive, and I cannot get any songs out into my computer, which I had planned to do so to back up. Also its battery now runs out noticeably faster than last time.

I'm thinking of getting its upgraded cousin: the 8GB Zen MicroPhoto which was on a Chinese New Year sale at $99 at the Marina Square Creative Shop at when I went there last month, although production has stopped long ago. $99 for a 8GB player is very good a deal, but common sense tells me I should be using my PlayStation Portable instead.

On the other hand I like to play games while listening to music, which the PSP cannot do at the same time. And I actually listen to the radio more often than my songs, which was one major reason I chose the Zen Micro over the Ipod Mini back in 2005.

*****************

My @#$%! Vista SP 1 is still @#$%! sluggish. Its @#$%! eating up @#$%! 1GB of my @#$%! RAM in @#$%! idle mode. @#$%!