New Balance Real Run results!!!!

Haha I was thinking of doing the mean and median thing but looking at the position of the scrollbar, mine is wayyyy down.

MO3567 SINGAPORE MEN'S OPEN 00:29:52 00:52:29 01:12:44 01:28:07

There are 3 other timings and those refer to the timing I took to cross the 1st, 2nd and 3rd checkpoints.

Looking at the timings, the fastest guy can run twice and still have to wait for me to complete the race.. his timing was 34:41.. wtf!

Hope to improve myself I'll go for 01:15 next time!

Rollerblading

Blading is something that I've been doing for a long time. I got my first pair of blades courtesy of my cousin when I was in Primary 5. That's 1993, 13 years ago. It wasn't just any pair of blades, it was frickin' Rollerblades! Woo! Brand new! I think it was bought at Parkway Parade in some big departmental store. There was a TV showing an ang mor 'cai' doing the slalom backwards and I was like WOW (slalom involves criss crossing several cones in a straight line)

Went home and tried blading around the void deck. After 3 rounds I pretty much got the hang of it. I remember it was about 9 or 10pm at night and we kinda attracted curious stares from passing people! Haha!

Well it took about 5 or 6 years for my first big fall. I was practising turns and my right foot which was leading the left turn, went over a green algae patch on the concrete floor and down I went, hard on my right hip. I struggled to smile sheepishly as a family who had just alighted from their car with badminton rackets asked if I was ok. Well, at that point of time I was wondering if my hip bone was gone and did I have a fracture or something because the pain was.. ahhhhhh super duper incredibly intense. Heng I was alright.

In Nan Hua, after managing to 'poison' Xinyan to learn how to blade, we started doing more dangerous stuff like jumping off a flight of stairs, going down staircases(backwards) and doing a lot of sliding/braking. I remember a particular accident where XY with his old blades (c/w pathetic plastic wheels with a low rubber content), he attempted to do a fast turn which became a hockey brake and he couldn't control it and he ended up sliding on his thigh for like 5 metres. LOL

His thigh skin + some of the butt skin was injured/abrased and it sure wasn't a pretty sight. Think average knee scrape, the amount of plasma + pus and multiply all of it by 10. The pain... >_<

Along the way he got more and more pairs of blades, Oxygens, california pro and God knows what else before he got his Majestics.

He dumped the Oxygens at my place and trashed the Cali-pros. I bought my Roces Chapter 322 together with his Majestics and after that I was kinda disappointed. With the more rigid, heavier and uncomfortable boot, I couldn't slide as well and my feet got tired faster. Although I could try new stunts like grinding railings (never tried though)

Until now with my new blades I still don't think its as good as my first pair of blades. Somehow the camber angle is too rigid for my liking =(

For those who dunno what is sliding, when I finally get used to my blades, I'll show you what's a slide! You know like Takumi in Initial D? Well this is the closest thing to it if you can't afford a car =D

My traceroute to PC's IP address

:( No idea wtf is going on and what this means but I HATE MY INGTERNET CONNECTION!

Of parabens and breast cancer

Reading about a friend's blog post about this, I decided to do some research.

As fitting of a BSc (Physics) holder, wikipedia came to mind (lol)

Parabens are a group of chemicals widely used as preservatives in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. One report, now universally discredited by scientists, showed parabens present in breast cancer tissue samples. This study was driven by the belief that parabens in underarm deodorants migrated into the breast tissue, despite the fact that less than 1% of all underarm products contain parabens (they rarely require any preservative due to the nature of these products). No causal link with cancer has ever been proven and so far there is no scientific evidence to support any link with any form of cancer . Parabens were claimed to have been found in 20 samples of breast tumors, see Parabens in breast tumors from the Journal of Applied Toxicology Jan-Feb 2004. It is by no means certain that the parabens were actually present in the tumour tissue as similar concentrations were detected in the blank control samples. The presence of parabens in the blank samples was attributed to "contamination", so it is possible that the parabens detected in the tissue samples were also due to contamination.

Complete article here

Basically, paraben can be adsorped not absorbed. Surface absorption = adsorption if I remember my A level chemistry correctly. Maybe Beng or even Henry can clarify.

Looking at the chemical structure it is basically
1. A benzene ring,
2. An ester group (sweet smelling compound common in perfumes) R-O-C=O where R determines the prefix. If R is CH3 then it will be methylparaben as seen on Gatsby facial washes.
3. On the 4th carbon just a plain looking -OH (essentially, the most fundamental alcohol group, one oxygen & 1 hydrogen atom)

Myth busted!

I did it!

Yeah, completed the New Balance Real Run 10km which comprised about 5km of road, 1.6km of sandy beach and 2.4km of 'trail'.

At the beginning I ran with my sister and well it was quite a slow pace then after the slopes and hills, just before the beach, we (PC and me) decided to run ahead and wow we didn't stop at the beach we ran all the way until the trail started. Frankly I was quite surprised that I could take on the sand portion without pausing~

After that I ran ahead and it was smooth going from then on till the finish line. I have no idea what was my timing but I am guessing that it was about 1hr 30mins.

Not bad for someone who simply buey zhao~

Good job guys! Hope more peeps will join us in your weekly Sunday run/jog/blade/swim/kayak!

Finance noob

Uh uh uh I'm really a finance noob. Luckily there's wikipedia to make things simple.

Learnt quite some stuff today, its good being paid to surf work :X Nope I didn't say that!

Movie Review!

Oh yeah this is my first movie review so yeah hope I do a good job!

Movie: Too fast too furious: Tokyo Drift

Acting: What acting? Ok lah, the main baddie did a good job of doing that hyperventilating cum quivering/angry thingy. Not bad. A few cameos by Keichii Tsuchiya (The real drift king in real life) and Vin diesel.

Storyline: American boy ricer moves to Tokyo cos he got busted in USA. Somehow gains the trust of a local ricer and gains access to a red Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. And so the drifting begins..

Cars: Ahhhhh really tasteful bodykits and paintwork. Nothing in the local scene can match the artistry in the vinyls. Quite sad really.

Main stars: The evolution, Fairlady 350Z and a couple of other RX-8s and Silvias. Nope, nothing human here.

Soundtrack: Well a couple of tunes were from Need For Speed: Most Wanted. But other than that, WHY NO EUROBEAT??!?!?!! Haha!

Would I recommend it: Only for the car fanatics, drifting performance was really good, nothing like I've seen at the movies so far.

Saving grace: Infinitely better than Initial D. If you thought Initial D sucked, the drifts in this movie, the cars, the soundtrack reinforces the argument. If you thought Initial D was great, well.. why are you still reading this? =D

Ok end of review!

Mind Control?

I can stare and stare at Rolex 30 second commercials all the way, its really a damned nice commercial. Well I'm not sure if you can find it on youtube but you can catch in on CNN if you have cable. There's the sailing version, the Phil Mickelson one, the LPGA version, and my favourite..

Roger Federer!!!! yay!!!!