The Rules

I was tagged by Tim to play this thingy, so here we go again!

Here are the rules:

Rule 1: List 5 weird or random things about yourself.

• I dunno how to swim till I was in junior college… In fact I almost drown during one of my secondary school scout camps in one of the water activities. Since then I had a phobia of water and never attend any swimming lessons or make an effort to go to the pool to learn. Yet, deep down inside I knew I had to overcome this obstacle sooner or later in view of the fact that I had to swim during my BMT in NS. Fortunately, during my JC days, I joined the outdoor activities club (OAC) and eventually learnt to swim through all the swimming sessions. Furthermore, my water confidence grew after the jetty jump session; oh gosh it was 10 meters, how did I do that?

• Although I could not fathom some mmorpg (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) which have the sole purpose of mindless leveling up your characters to as high as possible, I was actually addicted in one such game called Gates To Heaven (GTH) for some time. This is yet another of those games which does not have any storyline or any quest or require much strategy, the main task is merely to level up as much as possible and Player Kill (PK) or bully low level players. At high level, like beyond level 50, one level could cost you 2-3 hrs of mindless slaying of monsters at the same spot and using the same old dumb moves over and over again. Well, I was level 57 when I finally quitted the game. Also, I would sometimes preached to some PKers on how immoral Pking is, how they would feel if they were the victims, how they should make this a beautiful game by not picking on the weak, yada yada… How dumb…

• I love to cook for my family. Always have a sense of satisfaction cooking for them. I believe I started learning how to cook when I was in secondary school when my parents were all busy working and have no time for a proper meal. Hence, I experimented around with the food during my free time and began learning to cook myself and sometimes with the guidance of my mom. Well, although initially the food was rather inedible and disgusting, I gradually became better and now I sometimes prepare meals for them. Oh yea I just did a lunch for me and my brother this afternoon - steamed chicken drum stick, a vegetable soup with prawns & minced meat, and fried sliced pork with potatoes.

• Since Tim mentioned his weird sleeping habits, I shall also reveal mine. I like to lie on my side, often bringing the bolster close to my ears and sometimes covering them. One hand will hug onto the bolster and the other will grab around my head, sometimes grabbing the pillow instead. One leg will remain straight and the other will wrap around the lower part of the bolster, locking in that position throughout the entire sleep. My bed is positioned such that it’s against the wall and I always face the wall. I will only take up one half of the bed, the half closer to the wall and thus, I often bang against the wall during my sleep. So I placed another bolster on the side to cushion my crash instead of changing my habit. Bleah.

• I like to organize gatherings and outings for 2 particular groups of people, the OACians and the 3^rd guards’ signalers. Because these are the two groups of people that are closest to me; I have not much secondary school friends to speak of, let alone primary school friends. Why so? You might ask. I would blame it on myself for not maintaining the friendships, for having spent too much time onto my studies back then in secondary school. With a low psle aggregate, I barely scrapped through to enter the express stream; I was utterly looked down by my relatives and parents, often comparing me with my brother who attain impressive psle results. No I did not blame them, in fact it was this “hard life” that I went through that “strengthen my soul” which droved me to work harder, initially trying to prove them wrong but eventually for my own future. Hence, I had little friends as I seldom make an effort to join in gatherings or the weekly soccer games. I dunno how my classmates perceived me as; admittedly I was quite anti-social back then. Although I had better results than most of my peers, I left the school with only a handful of those whom I can call friends. From JC onwards, I learnt to juggle between work & play and not to take any people around me for granted. Yet, I understand that while these gatherings can maintain a semblance of friendship, there will be some that will eventually leave the group and find new friends, as evident in some of the folks.

Oh my, that was rather long-winded of me. Ok proceed to the next rule:

Rule 2: List 5 people whom you would want to do this quiz.

• Chuwen

• The Rational Neurotic

• Kang Rui

• Eng Kiat

• Xiao Yun

Rule 3: Next leave a comment 'you're tagged' on their blog and ask them to read your blog for the rules.

Alrighty! I am done with this game thingy and its now time for the rest to carry on this, no obligations lar.

Meme

I Kena tagged by Chuwen, so here goes:

Four jobs you've had in your life:

• Admin assistant in an accountancy firm
• Salesman in a MLM company. (Read: Fuck-up Company!)
• Camp Instructor for secondary schools camps (freelance)
• Tuition teacher for 2 primary school kids and a JC guy. (Current)

Four movies you could watch over and over:

• Shall We Dance?
• Harry Potter
• Forrest Gump
• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

Four places you've lived in:

• (1984 – 1992) Somewhere in Bendemeer (Forgot the name of the street)
• (1992 – 1996) Towner road, somewhere in Bendemeer too.
• (1996 – Now) Pipit road, somewhere in Circuit road (Paya Lebar area)
• (May, 2003 – Mar, 2005) Bedok camp 2

Four TV shows you love(d) to watch:

• American/Singapore Idol
• Charmed
• Friends
• Lost

Four Two places you've been on vacation:

• Palau Tioman – July 2005
• Rockhampton, Australia (Exercise Wallaby) – Dec 2003

*Lowers head* I dun travel much…

Four Five websites you visit daily:

• Yahoo Mail
• Nus ivle
• Chuwen's Blog
• TodayOnline
• Tomorrow

Four of your favourite foods:

• Roti Prata with egg or cheese drown in lots of curry
• Laksa
• Minced meat noodles
• Chocolate waffle with a scoop of chocolate overload (Gelare's)
  

Four places you would rather be in:

• The Outdoors
  
• Palau Ubin – Why? Read this.
• Cycling on the road
• Sydney

Four words I want to say right now:

• Happy
• Chinese
• New
• Year!

Four tagged:

• Eng Kiat
• Kang Rui
• Gelhead
• NinjaZG

Alright, I am done!

Help lar help lar 2

I had one of the worst lectures today; no I am not referring to the lecturer or the contents of the lecture, but 3 students in particular, two guys beside me and one female in front of me.

I have already got used to the noise level for our lecture group, it seems inevitable that every ten minutes or so, we will get some murmurings which will gradually increase in volume and at some point, the lecturer will probably stop and stare at the class (like Raymond Tan last sem) or some “kind” soul will do the “Shhhhh” thingy to signal to the class that the noise level is too high and its time to shut up. And this works most of the time. Yet, somehow the noise will come back. Ok nevermind about that; let’s get to the main point. Anyway, the reason why I included the inverted commas for the word kind is because I noticed something very disturbing about one of those who always do this “shhhh” thingy. He was talking to his friend beside him, not whispering but loudly as though in the canteen, then he felt the noise level getting unbearable and does the “shhhhh” thingy and then continues his small talk with his friend in the same volume as before. Oh great, ask people to shut up and you yourself is just as inconsiderate. He was just doing it for fun, at least 3 times and always never fails to resume his conversation with the guy beside him. I was so appalled.

Yet, my disgust doesn’t end there. As the lecture continues, I could occasionally hear giggles and sometimes burst of laughter from the same 2 guys. What were they laughing at? The lecturer. They were making fun of the lecturer’s not-so-good pronunciation, repeating the slightly distorted word uttered by him and laughing hysterically. They were probably doing that for like 10-15 mins for every wrongly pronounced word. Admittedly, his pronunciation wasn’t that great but at least it’s comprehensible; probably most people would just laugh it off the first time and get use to it, yet these two guys were purely making fun of him. Kids.

Subsequently, they got sick of laughing and decided to sleep. Oh, in case I lost you, we were still in the lecture room, yes lecture. And nope, they were not just dozing off due to tiredness or something, but deliberately and rebelliously refused to listen to the lecturer and dumped their heads to the desk. Once in a while they will pop their heads up to see what’s going on and if they were in doubt they consult each other for help which probably never occurs to them that the other guy was just as blur as he was. One tried to clear the other guy’s doubt but I could tell that he was merely trying to smoke it through. Such is the good friend he is hanging with. Once again, I was disgusted to know that these people are “la crème de la crop”; what a disgrace.

While the above was going on, the girl in front of me wasn’t making my life any better. There I was trying hard to listen to the lecture and trying hard not to break through the message of shutting up by the medium of a clenched fist to the guy next to me, and in front of me laid yet another disturbance. Basically, she was doing everything else other than the lecture. Once in a while, msn window pop up, if not she will be referring to other stuff like the forums or some other website. Then she went on to set up the X-Win server and course marker (some software for our labs). Every now and then, she will refer back to the lecture notes, read a bit and resume whatever she was doing. Now, its not that I want to observe what she was doing, but I cannot help it when she was loud. I mean tapping the keyboard and typing loudly, loud enough for me to hear.

Now it’s not really that hard to wonder why there were so much dumb questions in the ivle forums when we have such dumbasses around. The lecturers sometimes announced some important information during the lectures, be it test/exam format or important concepts not found in the notes. And occasionally, as evident in last sem’s modules forum, we got jokers repeatedly asking dumb questions which were already made known to us during lectures. If they are not even paying attention to the lecture, just in what position are they to complain about the module?

Idol fever!

Came home this evening after a long day in school and noticed something on my brother’s door.


Hmm what’s that?


What the? Take a closer look.


Ya right… zzz

Yes idol fever is here again and Singapore idol is back! Auditions start on the 11^th of February. Register at www.singaporeidol.com now! But before plunging into that, let’s watch the American idol first. The 1^st few episodes are really must watch. Not just for American idol, but also for the channel U’s superstar project, super host, super band, and all the super-shit shows. I mean really, the first few episodes which feature all the auditions are really the highlights of such competition (other than the semi and finals). You get to see all sort of people, we have the daring yet no talent ones, the totally cannot make it yet think they are the best kind, super ultra thick skin with very bizarre performance ones, etc etc. And of course we have got inspiring ones, like the blind with a truly mesmerizing voice, the mute using hand signs to perform their song, etc. These are the people who, despite their disability, are brave enough to step out and do things which were perceived to be for the “normal” people. These are the people, who grab hold strongly to the opportunity to fulfill their own dreams despite the unfavorable circumstances.

Catch American Idol on channel 5 every Wednesday and Thursday at 8pm. Also check out the Singapore idol when it begins, we might get another of this amazingly thick skin yellow-underwear-guy.

Timetable for sem 2

The 2nd week of semester 2 is coming to an end and thus our no-tutorial-no-labs period is going to end soon. Tutorials, programming labs, online tutorials & quiz will start coming into the picture to keep us all busy. Anyway, the following is what my official timeable looks like after all the tutorial balloting and swapping:



This looks scary. Monday and Wednesday from 9am to 6pm.. Thursday also seems like a long day. And Friday with that 10am to 5pm back to back lesson without break. Oh my, where's lunch then?

But, its not.

Actually, the lab (physics) on tuesday is only for 2 weeks. Week 5 and 10. So this can be ignore.

Next, the cs lab on thursday is a week-long assignment and can be done at home. Going down to the lab itself is optional. I will most probably be doing them from home. So ignore those 2 slots too.

And not forgetting that i am going to webcast all the MA1506(maths 2) lectures, not because TBP is lousy but webcasting is good & his lectures are all so late.. So delete all the maths lectures.

Also, for EG1413 (Critical thinking & writing) tutorial, we will be having it on tuesday and only the 2nd hr for the friday slot. So there, remove another 1 hr.

Lastly, i shall shift the EG1413 lecture from thursday to Tuesday and join group D. There is a reason for doing this. Read on. =p


So I will end up with this:



PC1432 (physics 2) tutorial is only on odd weeks; so this means that i will have my thursday free for alternate weeks and more or less considered a 4 day work week. Woah, thats pretty amazing for a 6 modules semester.

And oh yes, tests are coming up too. Will be having a test for the module "Living with fluids" on next wednesday. This is the first of the four tests we will be having for this module and each test contributes 25%. No exam.

This module till now is my favourite, the lecturer is interesting, the contents are useful & informative and also relevant to our everyday life. Now i have a better appreciation of why planes and cars are designed the way it is, why racing cars are so different from the normal production cars, and why fighter planes have such sweptback wings (delta wings) which are so different from the normal commercial planes.

Oh yes tests. There will be more tests coming up after the chinese new year..
16th feb - Maths
17th feb - Physics
18th feb - Programming and Econs...

Alright, its time to tune my mood back into studying again, have been slacking too much for the past 2 weeks.. Time to mug.

Mee soup

Ever brought mee soup back home and realized by the time you pour the contents out, the mee turned so soggy and stick to each other that you lost your appetite for the meal? Well that’s the reason why we seldom buy mee soup back home. But for today, my mom suddenly had the urge to eat mee soup and being a filial son, I hopped over to the hawker centre to get our lunch.

What the hawker did amazed me. She heated up the mee and the cooked ingredients like meat, fish cakes, vegetables and prawns, and placed them in one bag. Subsequently, she poured the boiling soup into another bag. The intention was clear; the soup wasn’t poured together into the bag with the mee so as not to dampen up the mee and cause the sogginess as mentioned above. I have never seen other hawker doing such thing before and in order to confirm my inference, I asked her purpose for doing so. Indeed, she did it out of consideration for her customers and her understanding of the soggy problem. Thoughtful and smart, I would say. I shall patronize this stall more often. All it took was a little kindness and a little effort and she will get contented patrons like me.

Anyway i asked my mom what she loved most about mee soup, guess what she said?

Mom: Tau gay (bean sprout) !
Me: Mom??? How about the meat, prawns and the mee? No?
Mom: Nah, you can have the meat and prawns if you want. *Dumps prawns and meat to me*

My mom... I love my mom. =)

Soup and mee separated.

Nope its not soggy, nice. =)

Indian Rojak to go with the mee.

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Hall production: Fame

Attended a theatrical hall production “Fame” yesterday in the University Cultural Centre (UCC). Well, we were strongly encouraged by Liu Ting to watch this wonderful performance by NUS King Edward VII hall (her hall) at a special price at $15. Hall plays have been the tradition for KE VII hall for more than 30 years and charity has been the main motivation for preserving this custom. As for this year, the beneficiary is the Andrew and Grace home (AG home).

What is the price of fame? The cast of fame aims to answer that question through their terrific acting and dancing skills. The play began with auditions of applicants who wished to get into this School of Performing Arts in New York City. Everyone came from different background but all with a determined dream in mind, the pursuit of fame. The audiences were presented with the different problems each individual encountered during the pursuit and how they came to terms with their setbacks.

Doris, who developed the most in the play in my opinion, learned to be beautiful in her own ways and not be like a puppet who were more or less manipulated by her mummy.

Ralph Garcy, the clown cum the professional asshole, was the best in my opinion that brought out most of the laughter. This guy was really damn good lar. He was always in the quest of making people laugh, either through annoying others or making the fool out of himself. He eventually learned that he needs to make people laugh with him and not at him.

Also, Leroy was the street-smart but academic failure who did not get past 3^rd grade (if I remember correctly) and pissed the hell out of the English teacher and yes we cannot really understand his English sometimes but that’s understandable. Probably only his talent and passion in the dancing field can lead him to success.

Montgomery was in an army academic before coming over to this arts school. In the beginning, he portrayed his dread for loneliness in the barracks and his need for companionship, particularly his mom in the beginning and later became friends in the school. I think he was in love with Doris.

Ok, last but not least in my list of favorite characters in the play is Hillary Van Doren, Eunice played this role and she danced very elegantly, totally mesmerized in her beautiful moves and steps, especially the dance with Leroy where the audience applauded unanimously.

All in all, it was a great play and it was $15 well spent, not forgetting that it was a pleasant gathering with the OACians last night (well although not all turned up). Looking forward to our Chinese New Year gathering. Cheers!

Rain rain go away

Oh gosh, it’s raining like as though the sky is falling once again this morning and it’s showing no signs of stopping at all. Well, it’s a good thing that there is no lesson for me today, but I still had to go out and buy my brunch just now and it was so freaking cold that I was literally shaking while gripping on to the umbrella which almost served no purpose in that terribly heavy downpour. I just cannot stand cold weather; I will shake, sniff and sneeze like shit, nose will run like mad, brains will probably freeze and I might just become plain intolerant to other disturbances around me.

hmm why was the west side sparred from the rain??

I check up the rain locations in Singapore via this site just now and realized that the entire Ubin Island was engulfed in the moderate and heavy rain region. Well, this brought back memories of our ubin trip just one month back where we celebrated Liu Ting’s birthday. The rain dampened our bodies but not our spirit; we continued cycling in the rain, well actually we had to until we found a shelter. It was a pretty heavy rain but I doubt it’s heavier than the rain right now, and visibility was terrible. Riding in such conditions was dangerous, especially dashing down a rather steep slope where I feared for the safety of those behind me. Fortunately, nothing awful happened. Upon reaching the pavilion, we continued chatting, catching up and sharing of uni survival tips, oblivious to the merciless rain. Oh well, not surprisingly, we all fell sick after the trip.

Only got one decent pic nia..

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Diablo 2

Oh yes yes I did it; raise my Druid, a werewolf, to the level of 50 and equipped him with a "rain" runeword armor. It wasn't a really difficult task; all I did was to change the player setting to 8 and just whack Baal and his minions probably a dozen times. Changing player setting can be done by typing “/playersX” in the chat box where X is the number of players you want to set. By changing the setting to 8 means that the monsters will be 8 times tougher as though there are 8 players in the game and correspondingly, the amount of experience points you get will be higher (not 8 times but something else, forgot the figures liao). Actually, “rain” runeword wasn’t very impressive; “enigma” is the real thing, but that’s really almost impossible right now as it requires not one, but two very rare runes, jah and ber. Ok, just some pics here and I should be done with this game until the next vacation.

See what has the rainy season done to the char in d2 lar, not just me(the werewolf) is freezing, my bear & oak sage and even Mr baal were also turning blue due to the coldness...

Engulfed in fire and err ice..?
hmmm, weird combination..

The weapon i am currently using, bonesnap with a shael rune socketed in it. shael rune gave 20% increased attack speed which changed my attack speed from fast to very fast, sweet.



"Rain" Nothing very impressive, just the +2 to druid skill, 15% dmg to mana and the chance to cast cyclone armor and twister upon struck and striking respectively.



5% of casting twister on striking and with my very fast attack speed, the chances of casting increases. =)



Twister have low dmg but have a stunning effect on monster, its only 0.4 sec but can be critical at very tight situations.. *monster on the right kena stunned*

Random stuffs

A gloomy weather accompanying my gloomy mood began a gloomy morning. It has been raining non stop since 3am when I slept last night and at 11.30 am, I am still being greeted by that ominous dark sky the moment I woke up. And now as I blog, it’s still raining like hell. I am supposed to go for my Sunday run, looks like that’s not going to happen today. My family wanted to eat out today for lunch, looks like that’s not going to happen either. So here I am, with my mood dampened by the rain, blogging and surfing randomly at other blogs & sites.

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Tim’s birthday (1^st Jan) marked the beginning of the new year and also that the end of the vacation is nearing. We had a celebration at AIWO restaurant at Raffles’ City on 3^rd Jan. That was one of the few gatherings we had this vacation and also the last one. A great time we had together, catching up and teasing each other and having fun like the good old days. AIWO or love yourself in Chinese offers healthy and appetizing food served in plates on the conveyer belts. Wait, that is with the exception of…

The green barley:

NinjaZG: “…this is the most rancid thing I have ever eaten…”

And the egg plant thingy, which ZG shamelessly pushed to me after much complains as usual.

Other than those two, everything else was delicious. =)

Some photos:


Me and the b'day boy.




Happy birthday tim!


The birthday cake sponsored by AIWO, their speciality i heard.


After the ice cream session


Last one before we say goodbye..

All photos stolen from Tim's and NinjaZG's.

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Oh my, this is the last day of my vacation and i have yet to finish two things... err game wise. That would be to complete Need for speed: Most wanted & level my druid to 50 so as to try out the new runewords, particularly "rain", in diablo 2: LOD v1.11. Oh well too bad, today is the last day for these games before the semester start, or at least thats what i promise myself.

For NFSMW, I am nowhere near completion; still at the 8th rival, looks like i will continue next vacation.

And for Diablo2, I installed it only a week ago perhaps and target to reach level 50 in order to try out the new runewords introduced in V1.11. With the help of Jackson aka Pandemonium, I managed to secure a 3 socketed body armor and the runes required for the runeword "rain". However, my druid is still at his early 30's, there is still a long way to go. I must be mad.

Anyway, just feel like posting some screenshots taken during my days in diablo2.


In one of the tcp/ip games i had with JC and Jackson



During one of the many baal runs in an attempt to get some good items out of him..



The highest rune drop for me from countess, Vex.



Me in a set item(forgot which one..) which gave me the ability to transform into a vampire form.



Again, another disappointing attempt to get good items from bosses...
Items that are in gold words are unique items, great drops which everyone desire to see popping out of monsters.



Those creatures were immune to fire...

At the threshold of a new semester

This is it. Semester 2 is about to commence with most of us already successful been allocated all our modules through the bidding via the cors system. The bidding this semester was rather exciting, unlike the last semester’s where we more or less got our modules through the engine faculty’s protected system with a mere 1 point. This time, much more time was spent into the bidding, monitoring as well as discussion with fellow classmates and friends.

The bidding for Principles of Economics was unexpectedly intense. At first, I thought since it’s a SARTOR module and the fact that it’s protected, it shouldn’t be too difficult to get and with little points. Yet, just before closed bidding, people started getting panicky and the minimum successful bid rose up from 1 to 50+ and with 80+ people competing for 70 seats. So I decided to dump in 200 points while Jian Cheng only threw in 100. The minimum successful bid was 109. Oops! That was so unfortunate. Well, he bid again in round 2a and got it.

Next for Living with Fluids, I was shocked the moment I saw the bidding status when I logged in. 1/1/1193 (lowest /min successful/highest) and within a few hours this rose to 1/103/1193 and just before the closed bidding, it was 1/121/1374 with 102 bidders for 75 seats. Shucks. I decided to just show hand since I expected many would do that. I was right; many did. Yet I am glad that not everyone was willing to risk it, if not we will end up with a high successful bid. 293 was the minimum successful bid and it’s about what I would want to invest in this module.

And so, it’s now finalized. This is going to be a hectic semester with 6 modules and out of these 6, I can expect Programming and Critical Thinking & Writing to be the more time-consuming and challenging ones, Economics to be the more disadvantaged one as I have no background and Fluids to be the more relax one.

Anyway, this is how my timetable looks like now (without CS1102C’s tutorial & labs and EC1301’s tutorial):

Oh my, look at those undesirable long breaks during Monday and Wednesday. I will either slot in some tutorials or probably find some program to fill in those breaks, perhaps go swimming with Liu Ting?

After some planning, this is what I would like my timetable to turn out after the tutorial balloting:

Also, i might just skip the math lectures to watch the webcast. One, the lectures are all so late. Two, its Tan Ban Pin anyway.

Ban of Aerosol Foam Sprays Petition

I signed it the moment i saw this petition through Chuwen's.

If you were there in orchard road during Christmas eve and New year eve, you probably knew what was this all about, if not read here for an account by Xiaxue.

In short, foam sprays were being misused during the festive celebrations, becoming tools of foreign workers (mostly) in an attempt to leave innocent female defenseless while they molested them. The foam, upon contact with the eyes, can momentarily blind a person, causing irritation to the eyes. The victim thus will be powerless and allowing the attacker to grope freely at them.

Taken from Xiaxue's:

“Junne got her ass groped (grrr! FUCK YOU, UNDERSTAND, I HOPE YOUR FUCKING TESTICLES DROP OFF), but SY and I escaped unscathed...”

”The worst comment I read, was this girl who actually had a foreign worker insert a finger into her vagina.”

”Being blinded by foam, and then molested while you are struggling with the foam on your face - how's that for Happy New Year?”

As a male, I am utterly disgusted by such inhumane acts committed by fellow men. Please protect our females by joining in the petition to ban these sprays to stop such horrific incidents and spoiling our festive mood. If you share my sentiments,

click here for the online petition to ban aerosol foam sprays.

Furthermore, these are not just harmful to the people; its adverse effects also extend to the environment as well. Check out these photos of the aftermath of the Christmas Eve madness taken from Haro Singapore: