A good taxi driver and a really rotten one

I went to J's ex-colleagues gathering one Saturday back and from there (Sixth Ave), we took a cab to Jurong Point to catch a movie.

Flagged a Skoda Octavia cab and the driver whizzed off without much fuss. I was a little surprised by how briskly the cab accelerated from standstill, more like pinned to the backseat ya know?

I observed his driving and to be honest although he wasn't driving in a dangerous fashion, he was clocking on average 110kph on 90kph roads and 90kph on 70kph roads.
I also liked the way he slowed down when lanes were merging and he anticipated what another driver's behaviour was before he did any action. In the end the other driver was kind enough to let us pass so the cab driver went 'pedal to the metal' mode and we overtook with no fuss even on an upslope.

Just what a 2.5L diesel engine with a light pressure turbocharger (LPT) can do! Wee! I love Skoda cabs! For flag down its $2.80. Not that sure about the per km charge as it was too dark to read.




Warp to today, where I was driving around my neighbourhood waiting for the green arrow to make a right turn.

As the arrow came on, I depressed my clutch, shifted to gear 1 and 1 unclefucka taxi driver started honking me. Nvm, I curse and go thru the bend on 2nd, making sure I slow down as much as possible to make his blood boil even more.

Sure enough, he was behind me again on the next right! Yahoo! This time I turned right on 1st gear, which was like 15kph to annoy the shit out of his shithead.
He honked another 3 times and this time I seriously felt like getting out of the kawaii-no-berlingo and just ask him wtf he wants by honking.

Why do they honk so much? Is 1 or 2 seconds so damn important? If I were really carrying heavy or fragile goods then how? I really have to go that slowwwww can't you have more patience?

If not for the single crooked line and the long line of traffic waiting behind I woulda gotten out of my vehicle after I jam my brakes and stand in front of his cab. Perhaps sit on his bonnet and see what he wanna do.

Driving in Singapore needs some big improvements. Not so much about the illegal mods, the roads or anything. It has to do with the drivers' mindsets, these fuckanathans have to understand that the horn is used only in emergencies, not for slow van waiting to make a right turn!

Fucktards, they probably won't understand, I'll just trace them down and probably become some sort of vigilante myself :x

Singapore Idol finals!

Heard that Singapore Idol has ended and the results have been announced.

Running

Running is fun and challenging. Its good to have resumed running after a brief hiatus, and seems like our group is getting bigger and bigger now.

Yesterday we ran at ECP again, this time we took a different route and didn't run towards Bedok Jetty. We ran towards Fort Road and the coniferous trees (I think) were kind of a welcome relief compared to the numerous tents at 'Malay Village' if you know what I mean.

Having no serious runs in 2 weeks had its toll on me. By the 3.5km mark my abdominals were really feeling the strain, had to stop and pause for a breather but by then all momentum was lost =(

Won't be joining the Standard Chartered marathon or half marathon in any case due to lack in finances. I could but I don't want to spend that kind of $ anyway. Have a lot of other 'poisons' to invest on x_x

How much is too much?

If you had to wash a car and the car gets dirty every week, would you

1. Wash until its 100% clean, noting that the last 20% requires extra hard work and effort
2. Wash until 80% and live with the un-noticeable 20% difference.

My dad is number 1.

I was number 1.

Note: this is an analogy, not actual car washing!!!

DLink router

Recently my wireless router from Dlink (DI724P+) started giving me slower and slower connection speeds. So under constant bugging from my sibling and being a tad irritated with that piece of crap, I called Dlink.

The first lady who took my call gave me some simple instructions but because I'm not a noob I knew it wasn't going to work so I just had to perform basic troubleshooting processes which I had done a gazillion times =/

Then 2nd lady who took my call seemed to be multitasking tremendously because she had like 2 seconds delay when replying my questions. Ultimately after many many steps of troubleshooting I was still unable to rectify the problem and was getting very perturbed >_<

Then I sent her the file and she said she would simulate my situation, using their own DI724P+ router in their service center to see if they have any problem. Well that's the most stupid suggestion I've ever heard. Was she suggesting that my attachment file (my resume ~400kb) is causing the slow speeds/unable to email as attachment?!?!!

After another delay of 2 hours I called them and told them I was going down. Went to their Jurong svc ctr and the guy checked my router. After 5 mins he came out and told me 'Your router is obsolete and we will have to replace it with a new model'

Whooo!!! So now I'm with a DI524UP which is exactly the same as my old router, a little smaller and with a USB port for USB network printer connection. DLink's lifetime warranty.. I like... =D

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!!!!

What do you suck at?

I suck at..

1. Counting dates, for example if today is the 12th and its a Tuesday and you ask me on the 17th what day is it, I can't tell you in like 5 seconds and its highly irritating! Ok I took about 10 odd seconds and the answer is Sunday!

2. Remembering past dates, sometimes you just wish you had Beng's mega memory, I can remember events that happened before but I'm unable to put my finger down on the date that it happened. Terribly sucky memory :(

3. Telling which month has 30 or 31 days. Yesterday I just told my younger sis that July only has 30 days. Haha damned!

4. Running. Even Uncle Nick asked me why I can't get gold, that coming from a CSM, is highly irritating as well.

5. Studying by myself. Without a good teacher/teachers, I really cannot do well, as shown in my below average Uni grades. :(

Oh well, what do you suck at today??

Random rant

After much deliberation, finally bought a Rollerblade Twister II Pro.


Initially I wanted to get the K2 Soul Slide but too bad the 2005 model was sold out and the 2006 model which is exactly the same as the 2005 model, has a significantly higher cost :( Stupid system if you ask me

After graduation, I still haven't found a proper job yet. Its starting to get irritating whenever your parents bug you, don't you just hate it when people nag at you to do something that isn't easy? Its not like I graduated from Accountancy or Engineering where there are tons of available positions.

Maybe its a wrong move to study Physics as a major but too late to regret, currently applying at Investment Office at NUS, we'll see how that goes :/

Support Jkaiser!

jkaiser is shaving his head in support of the Children Cancer Foundation. If there's anything you need to know, just know that it is for a good cause :p

OUCH

Argh @!#*%()( I'm in office and my cheek/gum/mouth is damned painful because the local anaesthetic that Dr Lee applied is wearing off. ARGH!!!!

That's a small price to pay for getting rid of all the stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid decaying stuff. Apparently the doctor spotted an old restoration done by the polyclinic and told Dr Lee to explore that.

Nearly fainted when Dr Lee told me that there was a small civilisation of decaying stuff under the old restoration!!! THE PAIN!!!

I really almost fainted when he used his 'spoon' or excavator or whatever to dig out, and it really was 'highly visible' (read: copious amounts).

Jeez, /me shudders at the thought of lying there, shivering and quivering uncontrollably. Must pwn doctor Lee in dota revenge.. haha

Just j/k he did a great job, except the restoration possibly too thick so will have to go back another time to fine tune it.

Thanks to Dr Lee and his assistant the snoozing (hah, caught her multiple times) Tien2.

Dream dog!

Finally know what kind of breed is my dream dog, its called rough collie, not Shetland sheepdog although the 2 look highly similar.

World Cup 2006

So sad, this WC I didn't manage to catch many matches, basically I only watched the opening ceremony, the first match (Germany vs Costa Rica) and another match which was Portugal vs somebody. Or was it England vs Paraguay? Shit, my memory is failing me :(

Some thoughts, felt that Zidane did quite well in the final match except for the headbutt combo on Materazzi. Pirlo really got Italy going and his crosses were really of high quality. Totti was rightfully replaced as he was really quiet and perhaps it would have been better to let Pirlo take the reins instead of 2 people trying to playmake.

Congratulations to the Azzurri and to Cannavaro for simply being able to fend off Henry. Henry can seek solace that even if he can get past the world's best defender, still got 1 more world's greatest goalkeeper lah. At least, one of the best. So take heart :p

Oh yeah I also managed to catch the highly exciting Argentina vs Germany match where Argentina was ousted out of the competition. The exciting combination of Riquelme and Tevez together with the ever dangerous durian picker Crespo really charmed me! They were my favourites but the coach made some mistakes with the substitutions and it all went wrong when Riquelme was substituted. Damned..

And they were defensively sound too! With players like Gabriel Heinze, it really was a great squad. Their playing style was the most attractive I've ever seen, cool and composed, think Riquelme fending off 3 defenders, Tevez shielding the ball and then with a twist, nutmeg one defender and with another shimmy + burst of speed.. off he goes!

I was aghast at some of the newspaper articles that commented on Italy's performance though. Italy's gameplay was more of a patient one, waiting for opportunities and shutting up France's fluidity by numbers. I didn't see that they were hungry for success or whatever.

Until now they still don't know that the Italians are the masters of protecting their advantage? Time wasting, time delaying, great theatrics etc..

Jkaiser's highly apt description of the Italian game

Listen to Instructions!

Sometimes, when people say A, you better don't do B.

Doh! If not people have to end up undoing all the extra trouble that you bring to other people.

Be considerate!

Overdue meme (what is a meme???)

10 Favourites
Favourite colour: Red for now
Fav food: Prawn noodles (hey same as JK!)
Fav song: No real favourite, love a lot!
Fav movie: Epic types like Star wars, LOTR
Fav sport: Soccer, Swimming
Fav season: Holiday season
Fav day of e week: No favourite
Fav ice-cream flavour: Rum & Raisin
Fav book: Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers (ya right, Angels & Demons/Tuesdays with Morrie)
Fav cartoon: Tom and Jerry, Donald Duck (absolutely love the duck)

9 currents:
current mood: Slepy
current song: Nothing’s playing
current book: No book but yet to finish DaVinci code
current subject studying: CNN
current thought: What to eat for lunch later :/
current time: 1032hrs
current toenail colour: The colour its supposed to be
current girlfriend: Miss J
current wish: My name is charity, so 85% of Warren Buffet's $$ goes to me!

8 Firsts:
1st best friends: Shaorong from St. Gab's pri
1st crush: A pri sch classmate now that I remember!
1st movie: Crocodile dundee
1st piercing: None
1st handphone: Nokia 3210
1st sport: Swimming
1st pet: Terrapin, not even mine, my sis one :(((

7Lasts:
Last cigarette: None
Last drink: Tea from the pantry
Last car ride: Beng Wee's ride!
Last crush: TT lor
Last movie seen: Should be DaVini's code @ Cathay
Last phone call: Call from Ducky
Last sms: Miss J
Last song played: Earth Wind & Fire - September until the battery died! :(

6Have you evers:
Dated one of ur best friends: No
Broken e law: Speeding, illegal U turns, chiong red arrow, never put coupon, download music :p
Been arrested: No
Skinny-dipped: No
Been on TV: NDP counted? I was maybe half a pixel on your screen
Kissed someone u din noe: No

5 things you are wearing: : Fila Polo T, Giordano jeans, specs, underwear and standard issue army white socks.
4 things ive done today: Eat muffin, surf blogs, complete first 2 hours of the tape and made tea
3 things I can hear rite now: Adrian Finigan on CNN, office staff yakking, keyboard chattering.
2 things u cant live without: Computer and money? Ok not really computer..
Things u do when ur bored: MSN, blog, bug people, sleep, game, find Miss J!
5 people to do this quiz: Whoever wants to do lah!

Silly vids

Mike Myers, Alec Baldwin, Chris Farley on Saturday Night Live many moons ago

Silent library, some sort of Japanese gameshow which is highly dumb but funny


Most people should have seen this, the Japanese spa prank

I shout when I'm bored

I shout when I'm bored

What better way to start your morning by climbing 31 storeys! :D

Uniquely Singapore indeed!

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Lunch time blog

What do you do when you finish eating, have half an hour to go before you need to return to office, and there's Singapore Pools in front of you?

Haha!

I'm through!

Yeah man I got to the 2nd round of interviews! Don't really know to be happy or not because its shift work, bloody 12 hour shit.

On the 2nd hand, heard the pay is quite good but come on work till like a dog/donkey/mule/elephant if don't get a good pay, might as well go fish. Right or not PC? :p

Today watched Bloomberg and this dude, chairman of semiconductor association in the US said that semiconductor growth is 10%. 10%, wu yia bo? If really 10% STM, Tech, Chartered and Micron etc all smile until teeth drop liao lor. All you buggers, please upgrade to 3G phones man. And yeah buy more mp3 players please! Forget about your ipod, get that nano! =D

Tomorrow I'll be going for the interview, not knowing what to expect. I look forward to having a ... good discussion with the interviewer. Yawnz ~

First impressions

Just wondering, what first impression did I give to you guys? As in, what was I doing, when we first met?

Just a question which I think will be quite interesting! Tag meeeee!

blogging from work :p

Hi all, haha yes as per the title I am blogging from the office. The view here is really excellent, can see ECP and the sea beyond from the 31st floor.

Watching so many days of CNN, really feel that God is playing a cruel joke on those Indonesians, they are already not very well off and yet have to suffer so many natural disasters. Tsunami, volcano eruption and now an earthquake.

Met Soon Yeow on the train yesterday, and instantly the quote came to my mind.

"si beh zer ah.." -_-

Ok I better go work liao.. although I am multi-tasking right now.

Back for more depressing news!

Yahoooo!!!

Too much haddo-gay there.. :p

Been working almost every single day since my 'holidays' started.. bleddy hell! I have positively forgotten what I wanted to do once my exams ended because everyday is just work work work. You know, like how the peon whines 'work work' in warcraft 3?

I'm like "Job's done" when I finish a task now. Zzz. How miserable it must be to be a real life peon.

And yeah I was so tired that I couldn't manage to finish watching the champion's league final. Fark. And yeah Barca won. Hehe so the midfield maestros Deco and Ronaldinho did it and it was no doubt that supersub Henrik Larsson was man of the match for me. 2 incredible, absolutely stunning assists that led to the destruction of Arsenal.

I can sympathise with Arsenal fans though, their wonder keeper Lehman who is.. well.. a wonder keeper (lols) gets sent off in the 20th minute I think. That totally destroyed the game, no amount of pushing from Ljungberg helped Arsenal after that. I think Wenger should start looking for Gilberto's replacement, I have no idea what his role in Arsenal is. He has always seemed like a redundant player to me?

Anyway, IMO, the first Barca goal was offside when Eto latched on to Larsson's pass but it was such a swift execution that nothing short of those photogates used in Turf club can spot the offside lor. Haha! It happened so fast!

The 2nd goal, Almunia was just damned unlucky. Maybe the wonder keeper would have made a routine block. Suay~

I'm tired leow =(

Tomorrow morning, QM II

Tomorrow I will be taking the QM II exam. Really hope that I can pass, well but I must say I could have put in much much more effort this semester. But well its too late to grumble so from now to morning I will try to finish up my QM II revision and studying!

Chiong ahhh!

Argh~! You know its exams when..

1. You have finished reading every single thread in MCF and MCS forums.
2. You've viewed your own blog more than 3 times a day.
3. You start watching and re-watching Naruto, Top Gear, random YouTube videos.
4. You resort to reading DoTA forums.
5. You decide in a panicky manner that the only way to solve this is to study at the library.
6. You bring your computer to the library and read (1-5) above.

My fault..

Today my sis called me to say she had pain in the eyes and she asked where I was.
I was at home and then she asked, are you going to school? I said no.
Then she asked, are you going out? I said no.

So she told me to just buy Optrex and some Gardenia corn bread for her, ok I did that.

Later on J smsed me to ask if I could pick her up. Given that it was quite late, and that I wasn't able to pick her up from a horrible Monday and Tuesday, I went and I was in a rush. Before leaving Mother asked me if I could pick my sis up. I don't know why but my dad said that she was in a taxi on the way home. So ok lor, proceed on with plan.

Nabeh, later on sis call me ask where am I and where's her Optrex. Then after hanging up sms me stuff like why couldn't I pick her up? Even if dad said she's on taxi (which wasn't true btw), still can make an effort to contact her.


















WHAT FUCKING RUBBISH?!?!? KNN.. MY BIG FAT FUCKING FAULT I CAN'T READ YOUR MIND.
CCB tell me to reflect, seriously other occasions maybe I was at fault but this one is really fucked up.

That's it. End of family ranting. I can so see JK telling me to get a bike solve all these fucked up problems. Or get a manual car with a really hard clutch so that my sis can't drive it. CCB. Anw that's besides the point.


Btw: I think my neighbour got some family abuse problem happening. Ahh fuck them too anyway forever crying and crying and screaming and yelling.

NPP lecture

For the 2nd time this sem, I tried really hard to absorb what Prof Thomas Osipowicz (hope I spelled correctly) was saying in his lecture. I'm telling you its damned tough, his voice is naturally a deep resonating voice and his accent which is a mix of British/Irish accent makes it difficult to understand when you're unable to catch a few words in his sentence.

Not to mention there's a whole bunch of noisy year 3 fellow majors beside me, joking and making merry oblivious to the rest of the class. Haha! (Yes you know who you are!)

There are many ways to studying and concentrating and one of the most poseur way of showing that you are paying attention is by using the highlighter. I often see people using highlighters and they highlight important part of their notes. Its just wrong to me, it just isn't enough to get all that info permanently or semi-permanently etched into your head!

However I've been doing this for some lectures of SSD when I was really sleepy and today's NPP because

1) No idea wtf he's talking about.
2) Got idea but he went to another point already, so too slow to jot down notes.
3) Lazy to get a pen
4) I'm a poseur

Also found out that there are quarks known as 'truth quarks' and 'beauty quarks'. Wtf man, particles that I have no idea of can have such strange names.

End of my quick post, going to finish up my geography assignment now!

Krakatoa ???

What happened!?!

"Indonesia is also rich in volcanoes, the most famous being the now-vanished Krakatau (Krakatoa), which was located between Sumatra and Java."

Taken from Wikipedia.
You mean Mt. Krakatoa is just gone?? By what? Plate tectonics? Or Tsunami? Or Megawati/Bambang/whoever ordered it to be gone?

Edit: JK just told me the answer.. haha and the answer was from Wikipedia also. Lol~

I shout when I'm bored

Talk about queueing up, this is really horrible!

From Fruchee's friend's blog I suppose~

I shout when I'm bored

I shout when I'm bored
Just looking at the comments on tomorrow.sg on 'run in with a tuition agency', wah lau really want to kar pwee! Personally I feel very pissed with this tuition agency and its weird tactics such as charging really exhorbitant rates for using their name/trademark as a referee.

Oh well hope JK better get this settled quick because all our tests and exams are approaching liao. Haha!

My new toys

I'm gonna pwn your noob asses now! Buahahaa!

New record?

Just found out that the ang pao chia got a record low fuel consumption! That's 10.51km/litre of Mobil RON95 petrol. Haha!

On other notes, clay bar-ed the whole car today and it was a new experience, never used detailing clay before. Nitty gritty spots were lifted off the paint surface with ease, and all the rubbish sticking onto the paint surface are now on the clay. Cool product to use, but will probably use it sparingly. After all, I'm not working in Jurong Island or something.

SSD is up this Fri. Better go study now!

Another short post

Its just weird how quickly you can make acquaintances. A week back, I saw a white Nissan Sunny around my house which didn't have its headlights switched off. It was parked if you are wondering. So I just thought, with the rain and the half dead battery, the owner is gonna have a problem trying to start the cold engine later.

So I proceeded to ring the doorbell of my neighbour and told the old lady that her vehicle didn't have its headlights switched off. Well she thanked me and gave me a big smile and that made my day!

This morning while driving, saw her drive back presumably from the market. She gave me a smile and greeted me and of course I returned the greeting. After which her hubby came out and also waved to me. Even though I was late for school, that still made my day!

Little things really go a long way.

Almost the mid term "break"

More of a few days for you to catch up if you're lagging behind lor.

And oh yah NUS is proposing or rather should be implementing a fee hike of dunno how many %. According to the circular that I got in my mail, NUSSU which is the NUS students' union is disappointed that NUSSU was not involved in any discussion about the fee hike.

Although I won't be affected cos I'm hitting the road after this sem, you definitely don't feel good about any fee hikes. And thinking back, I drove past my former school campus which is Nan Hua Secondary and in its place now is NUS high school. Jchyan was like 'wah! this is like bigger than NUS lor!'

It looks freaking big and modern and high tech man, it looks like a freaking RESORT from outside lor. Maybe I'm just jealous, they are demolishing a place of many memories and in its place now stands the NUS high school. Nabeh! Gone is the block where we did our D&T work, gone are the staircases that we gleefully jumped down to chiong during recess time. Gone is the fitness park where me and my NHSS buddies spent the better part of our times playing chaptek, swinging on the monkey bar and doing half-fuck chin-ups as well as playing street soccer.

Sigh, feeling really nostalgic now but really, curse NUS. And as jkaiser mentioned, bursaries do not really help the student population. Sure, help the needy students but does that mean that the other students don't feel the pinch?

Anyway I heard from jkaiser that if I wear a black shirt today, I am protesting the fee hike. I forgot all about it cos I was mugging for QMII yesterday. So screw these useless silent protests and start a proper petition. No black shirt underwear can?

I'm getting more and more incoherent in this post because of QMII. Its by far the most interesting course in Physics, yet the toughest, and yet the one module that I understand and like the most. It is non-intuitive in nature unlike classical mechanics which to me is freaking boring. That's why I didn't even consider doing the gyroscope mechanics for my year 3 experimental module.

Mugged last night till 12 odd before going home and I had insomnia because I wanted to present a solution today. I was so stressed for a fucking QMII tutorial, until I woke up late and somebody else presented it already before I arrived. Bloody hell.
Its not even the test and I'm so stressed already, I really couldnt sleep till about 4am I reckon.

My dreams were not of lambs and sheep or clouds made of candy floss. They were full of Dirac's ket and bras and their adjoints, together with trace of operators and Fourier integrals that kind of made sense to me.

In short, I'm going mad lah.

Cute masters project

Got this off Wind-feynman. Its so cute and to see and listen that the melody and tempo and rhythm changes with the hamsters' different positions.

Can bet that Kenny will be very amused with this. Haha!

Click here

Out of sheer boredom..i decided to....

...share the joy with all of u.

Happy Lunar New Year & good health to all. :)

Weird stuff

Just visited another blog that's pretty hot within the M'sian blogging circle and I found this.

No idea what it means, probably means nothing but well photoshop skills, I can appreciate.

I ate salmon sashimi today for the first time and, strangely, it felt just like any other cooked food except for the slightly sticky texture. I have no idea how is it supposed to taste nice when all I can taste is the soy sauce and wasabe. Duh!

Back to QM2 tutorial. Yay! row x column = column x row? column x row = column dot row? Ahhhh! I don't like vectors. But its still better than nuclear physics. :(

The best of investigative journalism

This might be a little late but its two thumbs up from me!

Read more here

Basically its about debunking myths such as detoxifying your body through your feet!

Wah!!!

A lot of chio bu!!!

The one where I puked..

Nb, just kind of recovered from Friday drinking session with the guys. Totally wasted man, never felt so giddy before! All thanks to silly Jeff, it was a mistake to let him be the 'shit king'. Looking at him pour the tequila for everyone, was enough to puke already hahaa!

Die already lah, now that I have successfully poisoned Ahjing, Nick, JS and a number of others with the DotA virus, hopefully I will not neglect my schoolwork. Especially now that QMII is here to haunt all of us. I mean with Prof. Englert, the first lecture is a preview of many things to come.. sigh. 1 hour 45 minutes with no break, and with tremendously mind-boggling stuff to understand.

And what's with Prof. Thomas Ospo*something*-wicz? He looks like the guy from Sellavision! You know you know? The host who introduced Didi 7, Astonish and I think Duralube and some other car polish & wax. I think its his glasses anyway.

Ok lah just a short post to keep this blog alive, really lazy to do things nowadays.. perhaps its the rainy weather, lack of physical exercise retards the brain. Oh and tequila too! =p

Woo!

Yay exams WERE over, haha! Been lazy to blog until now. Well its weird that after exams I have been feeling really strange. I can't seem to catch a lot of sleep!

Normally I would sleep earliest around 2am, now? 11pm already start feeling groggy and drowsy and the best part is... I wake up at like 5:49. Wah lau like those 老人lor! Sleep very little then maybe early morning wake up and sweep the floor or go outside to the neighbourhood central to buy breakfast back home. Most probably it would be 斋米粉! Hahaha!

Now can start to feel for KC when she insomnia but why my insomnia come in the holidays one? I don't mind waking up earlier but not so early lah! WTF I wake up before the birds start crowing and beeping and cheep-ing.. Ok they just started.

Today I went to Msia and took the yellow bus from JE. As the guys wanted to go to Larkin, we saw that the bus route went there, asked the price for the ticket then we bought it. KNN WTF, that's the biggest 贼船 I have ever sit in lor! NB!!!!! The bus went by Tuas 2nd link then went to GP bus terminal. Its almost at Tian Lye restaurant liao (black pepper crabs anyone?).

After that, we have to change a bus. The bus number was 666. How ominous right? Enz called it the Devil's bus.. right... and did I remember we were boarding it? From GP, it didn't turn right into the long stretch that goes back to the NSHW, omg it went from the super duper ulu 'mount akina' type of roads. Then the driver also like ferrying tofu, Initial D style driver. The body roll on the bus was atrocious man! Then Liu Jing was eyeing me in a worried way which was kind of funny... hahaha! Like, are we going to die here in a devil's bus in the middle of nowhere?

From Jurong East to Larkin bus terminal, it took us approximately 2 hours journey. Jesus... really a bit pain in the ass after we alighted. We were thinking (ok la rather only I was thinking) maybe the locals would laugh like siao after seeing Singaporeans come to Larkin on Devil's bus. Somehow this created the loudest laughter registered for the whole day :p

I also realised that Holiday plaza is a vice city. Hahaa no la but well they do sell many games, dvds and cds at 'discounted rates'. Lol, yeah so basically the main aim of the trip was to go Larkin check out the price of the coach to Genting, and to stock up on movies and games. By then it was already 8+ so we just went to the Big horse garden to eat our dinner. Is it called Taman Sentosa? Not too sure.. maybe JK or $9.90 will know better.

Aiyah wanted to blog more but the Sun is rising liao.. Duh.

Its the exam season again

Oh yeah it means more of mugging and mugging, how boring can that be?
Revision is going on smoothly but slowly for biophysics, partly because Janaky's monotonous voice is echoing in my head.

Sometimes I just feel damned stupid, can't study faster and just absorb every shit thing then go to exams and do a decent grade. Or am I just lazy?

I am so bloody frustrated

Quick break!

The weekend has passed in a flash! :(
Well the exams are drawing near anyway so its about high time to start mugging. Its also been weeks since I listened to Mr Brown's podcast on how to zhng your car and we're still laughing about it. So here's a few useless facts about the podcast and its contents~

1. The turbo sound that Mr Brown mentioned really does exist. I've personally witnessed the sound on a souped up Honda Civic before. Most hilarious in my opinion :p



2. The stickers that are meant for cars are all waterproof. For obvious reasons.

3. The blue neon undercarriage lights are illegal not standard.

4. Same goes for aftermarket retrofitted HID high intensity discharge jinon (Xenon) headlamps. Currently a host of cars from cars have them fitted as a stock option so they are allowed. Toyota Camry (facelifed version), Honda Odyssey(facelifted version), Mazda RX8 are some of the examples. Without proper alignment, HID can be very glaring to other road users. Faulty installation of the ballast may also result in a fire hazard.

5. Spoilers are not supposed to protrude from the car body. More info @ onemotoring.com.sg

6. Honda vehicles in general have a higher insurance premium compared to other Japanese makes in the same class. This is believed to be caused by Honda's bad reputation among insurance firms as a boyracer's car.

7. The loudest exhaust I've ever heard came from a Lamborghini Murcielago/Gallardo along East Coast Road (Katong). It was cruising at less than 60kmph I estimate. The 2nd loudest came from a bike's pipe. The sheer volume triggered 3 car alarms as the bike went past. Bloody fucker zhng so loud for fuck.

8. Lowering springs are available for lowering the car. Lowering the car brings benefits such as better aerodynamics (Ground effect) as well as higher stability due to the lower centre of mass!

9. DOHC stands for dual overhead camshafts. The camshafts are mounted on top of the cylinders and there are separate camshafts for inlet and exhaust vaults.

10. Changing an exhaust to a larger one (in diameter) does not necessarily mean better power. Most probably the low end of the engine's range will lose some power and gain some power at the high end.

Oh well enough of my boliao-ness. But ...

Mr Brown never include the following:

1. Add the dark dark ah beng tinted film.
2. Mugen sunshade sticker.
3. Change steering wheel to Momo 3-spoke steering.
4. Wide bodykit.
5. Huge sports rims. Preferably CHROME.

HAHAHAA!!

My personal opinion on zhng-ing your car. By all means do go and personalise your car but just keep it civil and don't zhng your exhaust until it wakes up the whole neighbourhood. Its plain fucking stupid and inconsiderate. Might attract angry drawings on your car paint anytime.

Zhng your car with HID, jolly well make sure your HID doesn't blind other road users. As for Mitsubishi Grandis' rear LED lights, I'm sorry jkaiser but it comes stock leh =/

Look fierce can, don't drive fierce except on the track.

It all goes up in smoke

PC Lee's seems to have won the battle against smoking, apparently he has been abstaining from cigarettes for quite a few weeks already so I thought most of the army guys would know and try to egg him on. (Not egg him on to pick it up again ok!)

However he has had new issues so all the best to you brother!

Recently also watched on TV that 李铭顺and er forget it my Mandarin sucks. Quan Yi Feng and Huang Hui are pledging to quit smoking. No doubt some part of government awareness campaign. Well but I do applaud their first step in coming forward to try, especially Quan Yi Feng. Evidently her daughter is emulating her smoking at home, and she said she felt guilty and that she didn't want this bad smoking habit to pass down to her daughter.

Been reading a few posts from a fellow Phy major and feel that althought we don't really click/clique, I kind of share the same sentiments with him. That both of us don't really excel at studies, like spending power and being in control. Talk about finding a 知己 in the most unlikely places.

Of KFC and silly blunders

One fine day, my younger sis developed a craving for KFC. So we browsed through the discount coupons very happily and chose our meal.

Then we drove to BP plaza and I parked the car at the carpark opposite the shopping centre. As we were walking towards BreadTalk, Pei suddenly asked me 'kor where's the coupon?'

I went limp in the knees cos I thought she brought it. Dammit, We came without the fiaking coupons. Nb... so I ended up buying PIAC (Pasta in a cup) and she bought something else, oh I remember now. She bought the 4 piece devil drumlets from KFC. So we were both quite pissed at ourselves for being so damned forgetful while trotting out of the shopping centre when... WTF! The guy from KFC is giving out the discount coupons! KNN! Asshole why wasn't he there when we walk in. Damned suay man!

After cursing and contemplating whether to knock the daylights out of that bugger we reached the car and... lo and behold...

THE COUPON IS ON PEI's SEAT!

YYYAAAARRRGHHHHHH!!!!~~!!!

20/20 Vision...

What is 20/20 Vision?
=====================

Visual acuity is typically measured with the use of a standard eye chart called the Snellen chart. It was devised by Dr. Hermann Snellen, a Dutch Ophthalmologist, in 1862. It was originally used at a standard distance of 6 meters, which is about...

Read more about it here
Scroll down until you see the Snellen chart. Yes, the one that you have to look at when your health booklet has to be checked in primary school.

Well at least its stuff that I never knew. "Godma" gave us this site for circular aperture diffraction stuff but well as you surf there are always interesting things that you find out!

:) (why am I smiling when I owe my godma 4 lab reports and a 45 minutes VIVA? ccb...)

Insomnia?

Am I suffering from insomnia? I told JK I was going off at 1:30. Until now still unable to sleep, damn it!
At this rate I won't be awake in time for solid state physics. Freakkkk!!

Gah! Gdnite all.. my neighbour's rooster is gonna start crowing in 1 hour's time.

Lingering thoughts

Been thinking quite often these days, one is about a letter to one of the local paper's forums. Actually it came out from Jingkai's mouth lah but anyway this person was suggesting a death sentence for hit and run criminals. Most probably the idea came to him for the recent case of a taxi hitting someone or some vehicle and didn't stop.

As I watched the news where the one of the local vehicle repair workshops got a plaque from the SPF for being an alert and vigilant citizen blah blah .. it just came to my mind, what would I have done if I hit someone and there's no one around and the person I just hit is confirmed dead. It would be a farking dilemma wouldn't it? I would surely be in one, now does that spell any troubling traits about me I wonder. As Jingkai told me he would surely stop since he didn't want to be forever haunted by this incident, I also searched my mind for a piece on conscience.

What if you surrendered and admitted to running that person over? If this law is passed then you'd better be prepared for a noose around your neck. Well that just means game over right?

However if you ran, well you would probably end up hiding for the rest of your life, probably in any country if you can really get out in the first place. And being haunted by that incident forever. I don't know which is better but both options aren't that good in the first place.

I also realised that my studying pace is so freaking slow compared to my peers. Most of the time JK can finish revision way ahead of me while Zeff can really chiong last minute and yet know his stuff much better than me. So now really quite worried about this, I mean this isn't just about acadaemia but part of a life-long process. Learning self improvement is very important and I also realised I have quite a lot of other flaws. That day while I was revising M&C I realised there was a mistake in one of either JK or KC's drawings/workings/explanation. Though I knew it, I just didn't open my mouth to spit it out. Weird right?

So after a day of thinking the next day I forcefully made myself explain how a circuit worked to KC. Hur hur.. that was really silly and yet enlightening. Machiam doing a mini presentation.

So much for weird traits about me. Have you searched your soul today?

Photos!

Section analysis of a standard 10 micron grid. You can see clearly the recesses every 10 microns.
A 3D image derived from contact mode AFM. This means that the tip and sample are actually "touching" each other.
Power spectral density image of contact gold. This time I'm using a picture derived from the phase difference between some signals. (I also blur) Don't ask me what is PSD, it just gives a lot of information.
A flattened image of the standard grid. Look at the phase picture on the right. It provides fricking accurate pictures of the surface characteristics. In this case, you can see the roughness on the surface.

Since these experiments were all performed by me, please do not infringe copyright laws. MY VERY FIRST OWN COPYRIGHT PICTURES!!!

Arrow from Hai~Ren, nearly forgot about it!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Nothing to blog about :/

Recently really tired and busy. More busy than tired actually but well I'm fighting the good fight. Been downloading some songs from The Carpenters and they really have soothing songs that never fail to make me... drowsy? SHIT..

Anyway I'll upload pictured from AFM soon. Just to make you people even more bored. Hur hur hur~~

1 lab report/viva and biophysics test to go!

Faraday's effect explained..

Warning: The below entry is full of technical and weird physical nomenclature so if you find Physics a turn off please look away from your monitor screen. LOL~

What is Faraday's effect?

One observes that when a plane polarised light passes through a magnetized medium (eg: a glass cylinder subjected to a B-field), the plane of polarization is rotated and this is known as the Faraday effect. Michael Faraday discovered this in 1845 and this is one of his more 'unknown' discoveries relative to the discovery of the transformer.

Basically we start off with a 50W halogen lamp and then a the light beam passes through a filter, hereby filtering out all but a particular wavelength of light. This filtered light goes through the first polariser, set at 90 degrees before passing through the glass cylinder. Note that the glass cylinder is placed in between 2 poles of an electromagnet such that direction of the B-field is parallel to direction of irradiation. The light then passes through a 2nd polariser (analyser) before a focusing lens is used to focus the image of the cylinder's image onto a translucent screen.

Procedure: Since polariser is set at 90 degrees, we would expect extinction to be at 0 degrees. However the plane of polarisation would be rotated by the B-field and hence we would expect some non-zero value of delta phi. We do this by adjusting the analyser to find the point of maximum extinction.

The B-field values were also varied by controlling the DC current supplying power to the electromagnet, and we find that the greater the current the greater the Faraday's angle. So delta phi is proportional to B.

I won't go into detail about the Verdet's constant, because its just mathematical stuff. Lazy me wahaha!

Why does this effect occur? This is pretty interesting stuff at least to me. What do we mean by plane polarised light? We are essentially talking about the direction of electric field when we say plane polarised light. Plane polarised light can be visualised as LCP and RCP light. LCP = left circularly polarised and RCP = right """

We can consider it like this because if we consider light to be circularly polarised, the 2 circular vectors always have a resultant which is along the plane of polarisation. For normal materials, the refractive index varies proportionally with wavelength (the lower the wavelength, the higher the index of refraction)

For most materials, there is a UV resonance frequency or associated wavelength, such that peak resonance is reached when this particular wavelength of light passes through. Refractive index is a maximum at these points. When these materials are subjected to a B-field parallel to direction of irradiation, something occurs and its known as the Zeeman effect. Nabeh, I also dulan at this point.

What Zeeman effect does is, it shifts the point of resonance in different directions for LCP and RCP. So what sense does it make? Ok imagine LCP and RCP passing through the medium but LCP experiences a lower index of refraction while RCP experiences a higher index of refraction. When they recombine again after travelling through the medium, add up the 2 vectors and you get a new plane of polarisation. Cool..

So this BRIEFLY explains what the Faraday effect is about. Hope whoever is reading this understands. If don't understand, don't find me wahaha! Kidding. :)

Ttangchili & His Friends

Its just a name of a very small notebook I had when I was a young boy. One day, we went to an excursion to the zoo and the teacher told us to bring along a notebook to take notes so I took this little notebook.

(Sun Bear) crawls, have fur, black colour, have four legs.

(lama) 4 legs, brown colour, have fur, doesn't have tail, eats grass.

(polar bear) it swims, can stand, can crawl, have fur, bigeg colour (biege), 4 legs, eats bamboo poles. (??? confused with panda?)

(Rhino) 3 horns, 4 legs, a tail, dark brown, eats grass.

(zebra) black and white stripes, 4 legs, a tail, 2 ears, a head.

(ostrich) has feathers, black in colour, 2 legs, 1 leg (Guess I was seeing things), 1 head.

(leopard) have spots, black in colour and some orange in colour. 4 legs 1 head.

(python) biege in colour, 1 head very long.

(King cobra) very very long, black in colour, scale's colour (gold) 1 head

(Giant turtle) very large, has a shell, 1 head, 4 legs.

(penguin) has 2 wings, 1 tail, has feathers, 1 head.

(elephant) 1 trunk, 4 legs, 2 ears, 1 head, 2 horns, 1 mouth, 2 eyes, 1 body.

Faraday's effect

Made me so damned tired, everyday have to type report and research dunno what Zeeman effect. Jesus, enough of electron orbitals and energy gaps!

Just finished typing my report, it sounds damned intellectual when its not and it even talks about pupil dilation as an error source. Haha, Beng should know about that!

Basically this semester seems to be quite packed for me, haven't had dinner at home for a long time already! But strangely, I haven't really been missing it. I really hope this momentum can be carried on (conservation of general momentum) hur hur...

Its a wrap!

Argh..

Basically the last week (this was supposed to be a National Day blog), I've been working as a general helper for the Singapore open shooting championships. So much stuff to blog about.. don't even know where to start..

The wiry issue..

We worked at score-takers at the shotgun range and for the skeet event, the referee will have to walk around with a hand-held wired remote that activates the skeet 'house' to shoot out a clay pigeon. So the problem came when the referee has to walk all around the range and the wire would get tangled up IF the referee zig-zagged in between the range's pillars.

Well in my opinion, this type of thing is really very simple, just that I kept quiet but JK did not so he politely suggested to the referee that perhaps he might want to stick with walking in front or behind the pillars, but not both at the same time. Which kind of got us into a "pep talk" from TP, the overall IC (OIC) for the general helpers.

As we both agreed, its a waste that people like TP don't sign on in the army because he's so bleddy kanchiong spider.

TP: "No matter what, he's still the referee and because he's a nice guy, that's why he didn't say anything. If its other refs, he sure 'kan' you upside down."

How stupid can you get man, this type of thing is called initiative and JK tried to convince him that suggesting this to the referee would only make everyone's life easier but he 'eh xi' refuse to listen to us. Duh! Stuff like we are here as general helpers and we're being paid to help etc etc.. really dumb shit in my opinion.

Even if kena fuck by ref, I always have the option to just go home lor.. like this is a permanent job.. anyway JK made a good point about the job being a short 6 days assignment and it wouldn't be worth making an enemy over this type of crap. Couldn't agree more about that!

Oh btw, happy belated birthday Buddy (I wished you already though :p)

Promotion!

Saintvida.com has opened shop! Set up by a friend of mine, it offers a range of stylish wear for the fashion conscious crowd. Do pop by and take a look, personally I'd recommend the ladies' tees..

PS: Princess, anything caught your eye yet? :p

The Sixth Tuesday

Excerpts from a book I read in ICT.. quite a meaningful book by Mitch Albom. It was a bestseller and a very popular book read by millions of people around the globe. It belongs to the 'self improvement' genre of books I'd suppose but the author writes this book with a unique way, kind of like a recollection of accounts. Go read it if you haven't!

---------------------

The small horrors of his illness were growing, and when I finally sat down with Morrie, he was coughing more than usual, a dry, dusty cough that shook his chest and made his head jerk forward. After one violent surge, he stopped, closed his eyes, and took a breath. I sat quietly because I thought he was recovering from his exertion.

"Is the tape on?" he said suddenly, his eyes still closed.

Yes, yes, I quickly said, pressing down the play and record buttons.

"What I'm doing now," he continued, his eyes still closed, "is detaching myself from the experience."

Detaching yourself?

"Yes. Detaching myself. And this is important - not just for someone like me, who is dying, but for someone like you, who is perfectly healthy. Learn to detach."

He opened his eyes. He exhaled. "You know what the Buddhists say? Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent."

But wait, I said. Aren't you always talking about experiencing life? All the good emotions, all the bad ones?

"Yes."

Well, how can you do that if you're detached?

"Ah. You're thinking, Mitch. But detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That's how you are able to leave it."

I'm lost.

"Take any emotion - love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions - if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them - you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails."

"But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, 'All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognise that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.'"

Morrie stopped and looked me over, perhaps to make sure I was getting this right.

"I know you think this is just about dying," he said, "but its like I keep telling you. When you learn how to die, you learn how to live."

Greatday.com

I was reading this particular day's quotes and it talked about suffering setbacks and encountering low points in life. Well to most, that's just all that meets the eye..

Apparently the sooner we accept that these challenges and obstacles are part of life itself, the sooner we will quit whining about them and get over these difficulties. That life itself matters in the journey, not the current nor the end point.

Pretty useful stuff for a troubled mind anyday~

Public outrage!

Phew.. just finished reading todays papers and 1 whole page was dedicated to the NKF/TT Durai affair. Which was the Forum, only 1 article called for level headed thinking, the rest were more or less from angry/irate/irritated/disturbed readers.. *shakes head*

10-12 months of performance bonus.. that already is terribly uncommon in the public sector. 25K/month and add the bonus in, up to 600K per year.
Mrs Goh said it was peanuts.. sure it was peanuts if NKF was a profit-making outfit but it relies on public donations man. Anyway I think she did the right think by publicly supporting TT Durai because if she also condemn him, then NKF might really cui..

I saw the online petition's link yesterday but didn't sign it because I thought it was kind of bo liao.. I always thought that online petitions can't be taken seriously. Why?

The following is an illustration only..

99. Mr. A (TT Durai has tarnished the reputation of NKF and therefore his resignation is only rightful such that public confidence can be regained)
100. Ms. B (We will not continue to donate until TT Durai resigns and the $ is properly taken care of)
101. Mr.C (F*** you KNNBCCB you LIAR I HOPE U HAVE GONORRHOEA AND UR MOTHER FATHER AH KONG AH MA *****************************************)

Well at least that's what I always see in online petitions. But what to expect, when thousands of people are physically marching in the Philippines to demand President Arroyo's resignation, we can only switch on computer and sign petition. What? Better than nothing what..

Mr X and FKN are fictional characters as below hehe...

Now I'm just wondering, is there any law that governs non-profit organisations on transparency etc. Like at this point of time, would Mr X get into trouble with the law? From the way I see it, that we have decided to donate our money to FKN, we have a right to know where our money has gone. Since FKN's CEO hasn't been accurate about how the money has been spent, would that count as fraud or breach of trust? The public's trust that is.. well that's a question I've been pondering.

叔叔 & Bryan

Well pardon my bad hair but at least Bryan looks cute right?

2nd week continued..

The 2nd week was by far much xiong-er than the previous week. And with that comes more 'legendary and breathtaking moments' with the men of signal platoon..

I remember that we didn't have much to do on Monday because as usual the officers are planning and planning. So it goes without saying that the guys tried to gamble themselves crazy with bouts of in-between and blackjack~ By then WWM was attacking Digital Fortress and I was finishing up Tuesdays with Morrie.

Outfield!

Well we moved out at about 10 or 11am on Tuesday, not that sure of that timing now but I remember we went out before lunch. Oh well, Willis gave me a little priviledge for my bad back so I sat at the vehicle commander's seat in front. Ahhh~ air con just before moving out.. what a godsend!

When we reached the concentration area, it was so damned familiar and I remember this was the conc. area that 42 'pioneered'. Perhaps for ATEC or one of the countless full troop exercises but who can remember? Well as a welcome gift, the jungle soil had a stranglehold on the tonner and we got stuck in the mud. So well, we just stopped and deployed there and then. Haha!

The worrst thing was that, we were beside a swamp and we were damned sure it was like the mother of all breeding grounds for those sickening mosquitoes. Bloody hell.. thank goodness PC gave me some mosquito coils to use and WWM had a lighter so we smoked a lot there.. oh by the way the lucky ass PC didn't need to move out at all because he was attached to PNR platoon and so he was dead bored in camp and could sleep till dusk till dawn till dusk till dawn.. Arghhh..

We got ready, camouflaged our vehicles, did our line-laying job and then just waited. There wasn't much to do but to wait for lunch and when it came, it was almost 2pm. Freaking hungry if you ask me..
For those who had been through countless outfield exercises like us probably finished our job quickly and thought of little else as we waited for the dark of night. For people like BSO who had only been through AOAC, well he was forever a kanchiong spider and kept asking us to tidy up this and tidy up that. Fark man, be lucky we still know how to operate our equipment, it was nice and tidy everything was up and running so why you just go find something more constructive to do?

Ughh, bleddy replacement..

Deep in the dark..

Still didn't have much to do since CO gave instructions that external lines were not needed except for BnSA and mortar. And when we did reach mortar platoon, they were going back to camp. Paradise liao, nabey... lay so long for f***! Not to mention Ong WK gave us a lot of problems dunno chut what pattern. We were on a land rover and then he opened a dispenser pack, ran the line through the roof of the rover and then gave it to me and Willis to do rift knot. And I think everybody doesn't know how to do a rift knot except for the 2 of us. LCP K Lim is automatically striked off so that only leaves 看医生 and 贼神, with the former leaving for Canada permanently and the latter still in polytechnic.

Anyway I could see the exasperation in the brigade "pui-gade" guys and they were really quite dulan with Ong WK. Well which is no big surprise hahaha..
In the end go back to conc. area, TK and Chin had invaded the line tonner and were sleeping on the benches. K was sleeping in a weird position as usual and Willis was sleeping on the bench too. Leaves no room for me so I went to find WWM and talked kok with him until I got hungry. That's when I collected my ice-cold popsicle.. hur hur!

Weird sleeping positions..

LCP K Lim wasn't nicknamed "All Terrain Sleeping Machine" for no reason. He has the ability to doze off standing up, in superman position, seated on a chair and head on shoe cabinet as well as.... upper half body on tonner bench, legs on the ground sideways. Its hard to describe but he's sort of like doing the twist but with his eyes closed.

Well Chin went back to his BX to find a spot to sleep so that left G, me, Willis, K Lim, TK Tan(sleeping like no tomorrow) and Ong WK. With an army of mosquitoes to fight off as well as the midnight heat. Its a wonder how TK, Willis, Ong and G could actually fall asleep. The air wasn't even moving and Ong could bloody SNORE. KNNBchao turtle..

Suddenly, K went like "阿!! 我的背!!" A few seconds later amidst some struggling there was another "阿!! 我不可以动!!" The silly ATSM had finally found a position tough enough. Although he was able to sleep, he was finally awoken by the pain caused by sleeping in his ultra funny position.. -_-"

That would be the joke of days to come.. as well as TK ooh-ing and aah-ing at around 4 or 5am.. Almost like he was having an orgasm.. wahhaha!

Paradise now OUT!!

WIth the orders to RTU, we quickly packed up our stuff and kept the camou net back into the tonner. We were never happier to see the clean white sheets of our bed and plop onto them. Not before having an ultra long shower though! We reached camp at around 2pm I suppose. GX didn't come back till 5 odd and he was cursing and swearing at his commander.

None of my fucking problem!

CPL A was about to mount up his rover when his commander asked "Eh, how come don't have water? No jerry can?"
A: "Nobody asked me to draw"
Commander: "Where is my container? Don't have container how to drink water??"
A:..
Commander: "None of my fucking problem!"

His commander then went outfield WITHOUT him and left him stranded in camp, without a vehicle, without anyone to follow and he had to draw jerry cans himself. WTF! This type of shit coming out of an officer's mouth, I think we as ORD NS men deserve better than this type of shitty commander. Can tell him to go back to OCS or wherever he came from. Even if we did kok up, which we didn't, he could have treated his men in a nicer way. Bloody big fuck, I'm quite tempted to scratch his car. But nevermind ICT is over. That was one big boo-boo of ICT anyway..

Those of you who know who his commander is, just keep it to yourself. Later I kena sued ah.. then I really chao turtle liao.. appointment same as per 42SAR lor.

After the exercise, we didn't have much except for handing/taking over and some maintenance to do. Dismounting of signal sets etc..
The next few days were some lectures, talks about MIW websites and their services and another IPPT test on Thursday. 看医生 got a silver timing, bloody bugger I think he was engineered to run. (His best timing for 2.4km is about 8 minutes odd, he ran about 11 minutes odd that day)

Well we had a fabulous dinner the night just before battalion cohesion night where we played some really kok games, tug-o-war which HQ won and had some beer. As usual CO downed jugs and cans of beer like no kick. His belly really gives it away.. -_-" but at least he has slimmed down compared to the first time when we saw him.

Later on in the night, I told PC I wanted to download a song from Michael Jackson. He helpfully offered the following..
1. Jillie Bean
2. Save the world

Wahahaha!

Out-processing

We thought that it was over but it wasn't. Somehow the CSM arrowed us to go tidy up the washing bay just as we were about to fall in at parade square with our gear. We made our way there and cleared the washing bay and kept the fire hose back into its holder.
PS: The head of the hose resembled part of the male genitalia. Wahaha and the head squirted some water on Chin. Needless to say, Tk joined me with his cackling laughter wahaha!!

Back to our bunks, this guy from the next bunk nicknamed "Steamer part II" because he always looks super blur is still running around in smart 4. He doesn't seem to have any idea that we are about to out-process and the goon is dunno doing what. Really a steamer.. oh and if you were wondering who's steamer part I, its K Lim.

That's about it for the ICT.. bleah!

Oh and for those who want to cut their GIRO arrangement with the NKF, you can do it via Internet banking.
I've already decided I won't donate to NKF anymore, other TRANSPARENT charitable organisations could use my money.

2 weeks of pain, constipation and endless waiting..

Seriously there's quite too much content about ICT that's worth blogging. How about just some highlights? Hehe..

In-process
Me, Chew, Gary and PC met at Zhenghua's Kim San Leng coffeeshop to have an early breakfast. By then the 2 goons had already smoked at least 2 or 3 sticks of ciggies, blackening their black lungs further before I arrived. I was late because I had to pack my slightly damp clothes and stuff into my bag. Ahh.. the result of last minute underwear purchasing.. Hehe!

Also noteworthy was that LCP G aka 看医生 did NOT turn up in ONLY full uniform. Thankfully if I might add.. LOL!

Me and Chew kena marked for not having proper haircut so the 2 of us had to surrender our PRECIOUS pink ICs to the RSM's clerk or whoever he was. Then we cleverly went to our bunk first instead of queueing up for the barber's. We tuang-ed for a while and with our cunning sense of timing, we managed to siam the parade. May I exclaim "song bo?"

Later on, meaning the next day, LCP 看医生 finally found out his IC was confiscated because of his long haircut, not because the unit would return it to him at the end of 2 weeks. Winner... -_-"

Well as per the first ICT, first few days are full of planning so we had a lot of free time to ourselves. Some carried out their individual body maintenance (IBM), some read books (WWM, me and PC), some read and re-read and re-re-read the newspapers (practically everybody). One lonely soul was in S1 branch trying to get a chance to talk to CO and it was only when we went to E-mart that I bumped into him.

It was the glorious! It was the legendary! Or as quoted from LCP CK Chan "World's greatest" 笑饼!!!! LCP K Lim!!! He really was the 'star' of this ICT.

Cold, hungry, tired and to top it off, fuckin wet.

There was a live firing exercise conducted at Basic Main Range (BMR) and it would also serve as a showcase of Armour's firepower to the CDF (Chief of defence force) of Singapore and Malaysia. I won't go into details but it would suffice to say a PA system was needed and 2 sets of 29 inch television sets would have to be set up to show the CDFs some particular images.

We had set up the PA system the previous night as a mini-rehearsal of sorts so setting up the PA system on the actual day was quite a simple task. Next was the TV sets. After we had set them up, and everything was swee-swee, it started to rain as WWM predicted correctly. He quoted Murphy's Law by the way, basket...

Anyway what happened next was that the rest of the companies ran for cover while we ran towards the PA system and tried to get everything under shelter as fast as we could. Looking back, I can only say that the situation couldn't have possibly gotten any worse because I think it was raining damned heavily. We were soaked to the skin within minutes.. Big bloody F.. and it was only 9am. Cat 1 status till 0930 hours. Nabey Chao Turtle!

0930 hours, went to set up the PA system again in our wet and soggy underwear as well as SAF's latest "liquid cooled goretex boots". Morale at this point, was not even at ground zero because I had already declared morale has gone underground through quivering lips and chattering teeth to Willis and BSO.

Actually if you noticed, we didn't save the TV sets. That's right, we didn't. I was damned happy about it anyway because the TV would bloody spoil and it would be CO and BSO's own problem since CO arrowed the task to a super understrengthed and over-arrowed platoon and BSO gong-gong go and accept it. (Note: 9 men were taken by RSM to be sentries for the BMR live firing)
We later learnt that GX and BSO went to rescue the TV sets by placing them on a tonner. Problem was that the tonner's flaps were all opened because it was serving as the seats for the audience. Which meant that it might as well have been left in the rain.

Bang, boom, bang-bang-bang!
I witnessed my first armour live-firing that morning. With a huge boom and a small shockwave that followed, the AMX-13 tank engaged a target 800m away. My personal favourite was the 40/50, the BX engaged a target and fired 3 tracer rounds, vapourizing another target. I could only smile to myself as some cockanaden NSFs still gong gong wait for the tank to fire with their digicams. Why?

They didn't wear earplugs. Hur hur hur.. needless to say I think none of them managed to get a good shot because their hands were covering their ears..

Well, LCP K Lim got to go back to camp to get ANOTHER BLOODY 2 TVs for the VIPs but he didn't bring his earplugs. Well done.. Willis suggested putting ricola into his ears instead. Hahaha! Joke of the day man..
Anyway carrying those 4 TV sets was no joke and I ended up straining my back muscles quite badly. Bad enough to be unable to take a crap without grimacing.. chao turtle..

That was one of the main highlights of the week, the other one being IPPT.

No more SOC, no more IPPT, today is my book out day, doo da doo da dey..
We went to Khatib camp to take our IPPT test, which was ridiculously near Veggie's home. Hurhurhur.. the test is now fully computerised, with all of the stations using photogates to ensure that you do chin ups or sit ups properly. PTIs were also on hand to "no-count" people such as Steven Lim who did about 10 odd chin ups. I think all of them were no-count because his arms were not straightened. Cheers to our superhero..

Well, WWM told me to chiong the first 2 rounds of the 2.4km run so I tried to follow. Off we went and WWM ran at a very fast pace, I decided to try to follow suit and before I knew it, WWM tripped a guy and the guy fell onto the ground. Sibeh zer.. but WWM shouted sorry while increasing his speed.. wahaha! I also decided not to stop because if I e-brake, people will kick my ass and we'll all buang into one another into a huge ball and we'll roll out of the track..

Ok crappy jokes aside, I failed miserably at 13:10minutes. Bah... not even close to passing.. WTF! I was walking by round 4 and totally cui-ed by the time I finished. Conclusion: Chionging is dangerous and may not necessarily produce results. Chao turtle..

More about the next week's activities later...

And off I go~!

To Sungei Gedong chalet for 2 weeks that is! Been a long time since I wore those boots, tied those garters around my shins and strutted my marksman badge around. (Don't tell ppl its 100m range one leii..)

Well on the bright side, will be working with many of the guys I am terribly familiar with. See you guys soon and hope we can conduct our mody baintenance as well as horizontal exercises soon. Thunderflashes, smoke grenades, ninja poofs and etc etc. Of course, how could we forget 'battery charging' as well as 'line laying' (to the canteen)

Gdnite!

Hey hey...

Its almost D-day and I'm fretting about it :x

Been reading just a little bit, Tuesdays with Morrie as and when I can spare the time and energy. Seems quite interesting so far. Most of the time, I find that book titles never match the content. They aren't a clear indicator at all!

Got this site from Zeus' Garden. Its Zhihao's site.
Greatday.com

Actually there was a quote I like and wanted to put here but it was explicitly stated that the material published there cannot be redistributed. So I'd better watch my ass on the net and be a good obedient citizen :p

Argghhh!!

I so so so so so should not watch 绝对 Superstar... I don't want to kena bad karma!
Arghhh its so funny WAHAHAHHAA

Project Atenza begins! 

Well, you can faintly see some dirt and grime.. it did require some effort to clean it up 

There you go, a nice and shiny surface preparation.. 

The job is done! 

Well, I don't have photoshop so.. My right ear is being melted by the Sun and she's joining Inuka the polar bear for a jog presumably.. 

I forgot its name. Let's just call it 'seemingly harmless green lil snake' 

I know its name ok! Its called the reticulated python!  

Technologic

Featuring heavily in my iTunes right now, Daft Punk's Technologic. You guys should be able to recognise it from the Apple Ipod's commercial.

Buy it, use it, break it, fix it,
trash it, change it, mail - upgrade it,
charge it, point it, zoom it, press it,
snap it, work it, quick - erase it,
write it, cut it, paste it, save it,
load it, check it, quit - rewrite it,
plug it, play it, burn it, rip it,
drag and drop it, zip - unzip it,
lock it, fill it, call it, find it,
view it, code it, jam - unlock it,
surf it, scroll it, pause it, click it,
cross it, crack it, switch - update it,
name it, read it, tune it, print it,
scan it, send it, fax - rename it,
touch it, bring it, pay it, watch it,
turn it, leave it, start - format it.

Physical training.. yahoo!

Eh to celebrate my pathetic results, I went for a long run. Haven't done that in a long while, and I ran right after work. Somehow my legs managed to support my body alright lah..

Ran for about 13 minutes moderate pace with majority downslopes towards Jln Pakis from my home towards BKE where I stopped just before BKE. I would have loved to go on and made a big round ie: making a loop at Bkt Panjang/CCK exit. Guess nobody knows what the hell I'm talking about anyway.. wtf~

I ran until I could squeeze out sweat from my singlet wahaha! Could it get any more graphic than that? Anyway these sights were common back in the good ol' 42 SAR. Anyway I ran back to Jln Pakis, took a slow jog towards my 'track' and proceeded to do some 'circuit training'. This basically involved running on the road in 1 direction at quite a high speed and running back at a slower pace to recover a little bit. I was totally drained for the 2nd set so I ended up doing some calistenics.

Which consisted of the standard 20-50 and I added in 10 burpese(s) for good measure. It was incredible that I made it back home with my legs intact..

---------------------------

Had a bunk outing with the guys today. It was fun although you could sense that we had lost touch, moments of awkward silences and nobody saying anything. Ok la granted it wasn't exactly that bad, maybe Dr Lee and me were a lil' tired. Him from his hectic dentistry schedule, me with driving a van. Hehe, Henry seems to have gained some weight (must have been the beer that pwn3d him!) Got to test-sit in the Corolla Altis thanks to Beng and Yeing! Quite a fun experience haha, Beng's driving was very fast and smooth except when he needed to change lanes or turn. Well, I'm a new fan of VVT-i engines now, perfect for city driving! Thanks again buddy!

----------------------------

Oh and to my Princess =P

You can do it! Go Go Go!!!~~!!!

Meeting your targets..

I've managed to meet mine, which is to pass all my modules. Given that I've obtained a C for my quantum mechanics, it suddenly seems like everything is possible. Perhaps except QM2. Well but that's another semester away.

Although my grades are sucky, I could at least give myself some credit for clearing 6 mods, and 2 difficult ones at that. Oh well, its time for my run! Yeah!

Atap chee...

The Nypa fruticans or Nipah as it is commonly known, have pollen fossils found in deposits dating back to 70 million years ago! Leaflets are used to make roof thatching (ataps), house partitions, hats, umbrellas, baskets and mats. The young leaflets are dried and used as cigarette wrappers and leaf stalks are burn as fuel. Sugar, wine (toddy) and vinegar can be obtained by processing the sweet sap tapped from severed flowering stalks. Atap- chee, a sweetmeat, is made from young seeds, and served in a local desert call ice-kacang.

More descriptions of mangrove flora.

Kena arrowed..

Ok la at least its an easy task, from Hai~Ren somemore.

Musical meme/baton/whatever

Total volume of music files on my computer

2.95GB, 766 files.

The last CD I bought was

I can't remember, I think it was Frank Sinatra's greatest hits.

I'm a sucker for oldies.. haha

Song playing right now

Heaven's drive by L`Arc~en~CielDamned, it was Gerry and the pacemaker's You'll never walk alone just a few seconds ago.

Five songs I listen to a lot, or mean a lot to me.

Acoustic Alchemy by L`Arc~en~Ciel
Vincent by Don McLean
距离 by 叶良俊
最美 by 江美琪
Corazon Espinado by Mana w/ Carlos Santana

I hereby dedicate "Vincent" to Mr Vincent Soh :)

Five people to whom I'm passing the baton
The princess
Jingkai
BFSW
Henry
Beng

PS: Eh PC, start blog la time for some online bitching :p

Very gian..

About spying on my neighbours.. ooops I meant birdwatching at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. So does anyone have POWERFUL BINOCULARS to spare?

Phishing for my password!

Almost a target of 'phishing' 

Once again its time for internet security lesson. Don't ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever...... fall for this. If you become broke, don't say I didn't try to warn you guys :p

Why would DBS bank randomly select me? If I don't reply, my account will get terminated? Sounds terribly fishy to me. Luckily I consulted the streetwise JK haha! If not the phisher would get about $500 richer I think!

Basketball or soccer courts?

I remember quite vividly a few years back, our Nan Hua gang liked to play weekly soccer around the Jurong/Bukit Batok area. If there was a big group of people playing basketball, we would try to find another court but if it was like only a few people, we would invade the court and start forming our teams.

Its a wonder how we didn't get into any real trouble since the way we played soccer was like, pass-pass-pass-blast the soccer ball towards the goal or the single goal post. Normally, 1 team would have additional 'defenders' which came in the form of... the basketballers! Voila! Who sometimes bore the brunt of full power strikes thanks to us.. haha!

It was interesting how we treated those basketballers as inanimate objects, we would use them as an obstruction to impede the paths of the opponent, or hide behind them and suddenly spring a sudden attack. I can't recall the number of 溅招 invented which involved the use of other people not playing our game.

Just came back from a jog and I managed to jog without stopping for like 13 minutes. That totally sucks but it should do for a 2.4km run haha. Did a 'mini circuit' training too at the unfinished road, where a Lamborghini Gallardo zoomed past. Its been a long time since I went for swimming, perhaps around a year or so. Anyone on?

--------------------
Update update!

0. Be very nice to gf!
1. Solder and fix up a remote control. (fixed!)
2. Do jigsaw puzzle.
3. Tidy up table and print out all the MM notes for archiving!
4. Collect my Atenza emblem!
5. Short trip overseas if possible.
6. Test out Soft99's Authentic Carnuba wax on top of Glare for ultimate shine!
7. Cut hair, and get my stuff ready for high key ICT! New field pack to buy!
8. Can't think of anything, maybe I'll buy Meguiar's high endurance tyre gloss :p (bought Armorall's tyre shine though)
9. If possible, get rid of my SX1 for another phone! Problematic phone..
10. Think what to do with my cow (Hehe.. for me/Yuanz/JK to know and you to find out)
11. BUY A COMPUTER CHAIR, BLEAH.. NEVER HAD A SWIVEL CHAIR B4! (finally!!!)

Of holidays and what not..

Basically these holidays have been really shitty for me. First day of holidays I had to rush down to the shop to help out. Should I repeat RUSH again? KNNBCCB..

Didn't help that I was ecstatic the previous night and I played CZ till the birds were chirping. Well done.. I drove to Katong with bloodshot eyes. I think all the aunties could sense that I didn't sleep a wink and didn't disturb me for once. Fucking fucked up day.

Luckily I 'woke up' soon and it wasn't long before the lunch crowd came. My dad returned from his chinese physician and he didn't seem like he sprained his back a few hours ago. CCB.. I hate my life man. Why can't my dad and mum just hold a normal boring office job that doesn't fucking REQUIRE ME to help out.. Then again you gain some you lose some.

Before I explode.. goosfraba....goosfraba...

Woohoo!

Its over! Ok it was over 2 days ago and first day of holidays which was yesterday, kena dragged to work already.. wtf! Considering I was gaming till early morning, it was quite a miracle how I survived a day at the coffeeshop the next day.

Anyway since the holidays have started I must have a list of things that I must try to do again! Yeahhhh...so here goes!

0. Be very nice to gf!
1. Solder and fix up a remote control. (fixed!)
2. Do jigsaw puzzle.
3. Tidy up table and print out all the MM notes for archiving!
4. Collect my Atenza emblem!
5. Short trip overseas if possible.
6. Test out Soft99's Authentic Carnuba wax on top of Glare for ultimate shine!
7. Cut hair, and get my stuff ready for high key ICT! New field pack to buy!
8. Can't think of anything, maybe I'll buy Meguiar's high endurance tyre gloss :p (bought Armorall's tyre shine though)
9. If possible, get rid of my SX1 for another phone! Problematic phone..
10. Think what to do with my cow (Hehe.. for me/Yuanz/JK to know and you to find out)
11. BUY A COMPUTER CHAIR, BLEAH.. NEVER HAD A SWIVEL CHAIR B4! (finally!!!)