::: [F]usion[S]tream :::

2010-03-24T15:50:00.001+08:00

I was looking at some old photos.

Discovered that some of my photos had been used. It's nice to see my work being used. So.....lest the work not be used, the usage of said work be unusable in the working world which be of great use to us workers in use of......

Fuck it.

Links:
http://purplewomenblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/paternal-instinct.html
https://twitter.com/doofusdanF1fan/status/2357039948
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47882872@N02/galleries/72157623540758956 (3rd photo)

New Camera Incident

2009-12-09T20:18:00.002+08:00

I was testing out my new camera right? I intended to try out all the modes (I had to settle for an almost fully auto camera as a replacement for my trade-in because of budget concerns).

Anyway, I decided to take a snapshot to check the colour comp so I found this nice "dilapidated" corner near to where I was parked. Unfortunately, there was a man there. He was on his feet and moving about but after a short while I concluded that he was not going to leave the place.

So I reasoned that I was not going to use this for production anyway so I took a picture. Big mistake. Upon reviewing the shot, I heard shouting. Ignored it at first but then I looked up and saw the fucker in the picture running towards me with what I thought was a stick.

He came after me shouting in his foreign tongue while I did the Indian Dance around my parked van (which was not locked, had the driver door semi closed, with the keys still in the ignition). That's when I saw that what he actually held was a seriously thick, almost empty liquor bottle.

Mo...ther...fuck...er...

I did the moon-run to a nearby building (my office). While he did the drunken master run towards me. As I stumbled for the words in Mandarin he stopped, and I stopped, about 5 to 6 metres apart. Clearly this man was insane! Who the hell runs after people with empty bottles? This is the new millenium. We use the full weight of the law instead!

Then he shouted in English, "You take my photo?! You Chee Bye!" or something to that effect. Quite frankly, I am not obliged to recall the random shit fouling up his mouth but I guarantee you those words were uttered by him at some point. He went on and on repeating the same old shit but I ignored most of it. My eyes were glued to the thick bottle.

I tried to explain the situation, that I was only taking a test shot and actually wanted him out of the photo. One of my rules is you only fight strangers if they are sane. But this man was clearly well past it.

Then he spoke with some semblance of intelligence. "You come show me!".

I was going nowhere near a crazy and drunk dude with a weapon of ass destruction (giggity giggity - Family Guy).

So I demanded he put down the bottle first. And using none of that "I must insist that you be so kind as to relinquish that bottle" nonsense. I was getting pretty pissed by then. So I shouted for him to put down the bottle. I shouted so loud my voice sounded like Daughtry.

He refused, I tried it a second time. He refused again. He leaned forward. I took a small quick step towards him. He stood up straight again. As I began to bend my self-made rule, vehicles began to trickle past us.

I had started to threaten him instead. lol. As I began to find a place to keep my camera to protect it, I started making towards him and shouting, of all things, calling the police. The crazy dude started trotting back to his lair, shouting that if he ever saw me again something would happen. I'm pretty sure he detailed what he claimed would happen but I don't really think it matters.

The next time he comes after me I'll be sure to keep my camera somewhere safe, or better still, video the event. Only then will my hands be free.

One of the drivers who had just parked behind me came out of his vehicle and impressed upon me that he was a regular around these parts and that that crazy man was truly missing a few marbles. We had a nice brief chat about the crazy man and about parking wardens and their schedules before we went our separate ways.

These last few days have been way too exciting for me. Work has contributed significantly to the excitement these few days but this thing definitely is worth a solid stroke on the ole checklist.

Fedora 11 + Presonus Firebox (+fglrx)

2009-09-22T22:26:00.002+08:00

This is how I got my firebox to work in conjunction with my onboard soundcard (in my case, Intel HDA) on Fedora 11 x86_64. This article assumes you have basic knowledge on jack and qjackctl and a jack-compatible program such as ardour.

My smolt: http://www.smolts.org/show?uuid=pub_...f-774ec4381ae7

Reasons:
Personally, I just wanted to be able to do it and to be able to give a good explanation when people ask me why I'm monitoring recordings through headphones - and because it won't work through the PC speakers wasn't going to cut it.

You may also need it because while recording "deaf" might be fine, playback needs to go through your state-of-the-art monitors.

You may need it because you have a studio all set up and for some odd reason, you just need to add a firebox in. Of course, if you had a studio, you could have just patched the line outs to your main speakers. But that is besides the point.

The Background
After searching for almost 3-4 days, I chanced upon rokit's thread and was very disheartened when he seemed to have found no solution. Today, he solved the connection issues but I wanted more. Unlike him, I wasn't using my firebox as a sound card. It would be a sin to waste my onboard audio capabilities.

The Juice (some parts paraphrased from rokit's solution)

You need to install the PlanetCCRMA repository. Since I'm using Fedora 11 (x86_64), I used this one. This will install the repositories for you so tat yum will be able to locate the needed updates.
Code:
```
rpm -ivh http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/mirror/fedora/linux/planetccrma/11/x86_64/planetccrma-repo-1.1-2.fc11.ccrma.noarch.rpm
```
If you have jack1 (0.x.x) already installed, you MUST uninstall it. jack2 will NOT work with jack1.
Code:
```
yum remove jack-audio-connection-kit*
```
The * at the end will also remove the -devel version if you had it installed. Uninstalling jack will remove a lot of existing software that uses jack as a dependancy. Take note of them so you can reinstall them later.
Install FFADO. FFADO is the new Freebob from the same developers. It's the driver that will connect jack2 to the firebox. You MUST install this before jack2.
Code:
```
yum install ffado libffado
```
Install jack2.
Code:
```
yum install jack-audio-connection-kit jack-audio-connection-kit-devel
```
. Yum will automatically detect jack2 from planetccrma as the newer package because the version number is higher than that from the official fedora repo. jack2 is basically a rewritten jackdmp. It is still under development though and running jackd under the command line will print jackdmp information. It works fine though. Mostly.
We also install qjackctl as it makes it a lot easier to run jack. After installation, you can find this at "START"->Multimedia->Qjackctl.
Code:
```
yum install qjackctl
```
. Qjackctl, like jack itself, is best run as root. On the "START" button, right click and choose "Menu Editor". Look for Qjackctl in the list of programs and click on it (take note that it may be slow to update after a yum install). Now, on the right half of the screen, click on the advanced tab. Tick the run as user box and enter "root" as the username. Save your changes and the program.
Now we need a real-time kernel. You could do without it with some tweaking (I remember only one day out of many where I got it to work) but let's face it. This is audio. You want it to be realtime.
Code:
```
yum install kernel-rt kernel-rt-devel
```
(Graphics cards will need the -devel to install properly).

Now reboot your computer and select the realtime kernel from grub. I have a total of 3 linux installations and one WinXP running and I installed this on a non-first hdd so it took some tweaking but I got there.

Now to setup jack.

Open Qjackctl from "START"->multimedia->Qjackctl. Click Setup. For the driver, select "firewire". Under parameters, tick "realtime". The rest of the settings at default should be fine. rokit suggests a frames/period of 128 is good. However for this solution where we need to add a soundcard, 512frames/period and 3periods/buffer seems to be the bare minimum in my case. I should point out that ONCE while testing this, I managed to run this solution perfectly with the frames/period set to 128 with absolutely no errors. I have no idea how it happened. Even playing the the frames/period vs periods/buffer ratio did not seem to help. With some tweaking, this probably can be improved. If you want to keep the monitoring capability of the firebox via the phones jack, leave the audio parameter as "Duplex". Otherwise, choose "Capture only".

Click "Start" in Qjackctl. Make sure the red light is on before doing this. If it's blue, you either already have jack running or it hasn't been reset since the last use. i.e. it is still initialised. In this case, unplug and replug the firewire cable to the firebox.

Run ardour to test if you can see the vu meter rising and falling on your instrument's track. Ardour should automatically set the connections for you in jack. You can see the routes in Qjackctl by clicking on "Connections". Expand the entries if necessary by clicking on the little plus-es. Remember, ardour probably has set it all up for you. If you are new to ardour and need help, do let me know and I'll help you out.

Now, to add the soundcard into the list.

Tutorials on the net (which are rare btw) will tell you to use alsa_in or alsa_out. As of jack2, these are no longer included. Now we use jack_load. *Hold off on the sniggers. In a command prompt as root, run:

Code:

jack_load -w onboard audioadapter

the -w option means we wait for the signal before we unload. I have no idea what it means since it doesn't unload itself when I stop the server but it seems to work slightly better during "resets" (I have experienced a number of resets where jackd fails, causing ardour to jam). "onboard" is the name we give to the client (what we see in Qjackctl's connection list. "audioadapter" is the name of the plugin we use to load the soundcard into jackd, it includes alsa_in and alsa_out functionality automagically. http://chrestomanci.org/cgi-bin/man/...ml?jack_load+1

Hit enter and you will get a bunch of errors in qjackctl's messages, specifically, something about the client being too slow. After a bit, this will stop. If it doesn't, ctrl+c the jack_load command, stop the server (stop button in qjackctl) and set frames/period to something higher and then start it up again. Then try the jack_load command again.

It should work. If it doesn't, let me know I'll try to help out.

As for me, it works but due to the 64milisecond latency, I get can actually hear the lag between my playing the guitar and the output. With some tweaking, it could probably be lowered. I will update on this if I can get it to work.

Notes
I am unsure on the endurance of jack2 even without the added soundcard as it seems pretty iffy. I get keyboards, mice and screens freezing up now and again, sometimes for up to a minute. But it always seems to unfreeze itself after that. Be very watchful of jack. The moment ardour jams, it probably means jack died. If you have access to a shell, "killall qjackctl" followed by "killall jackd" will save you a lot of waiting time.

Now and again, jack2 will also get sync errors with the firebox. The only way to solve it is to kill it and restart it again. This method will also not unintialise the firebox so you will also need to unplug and replug the firewire cable to the firebox.

modprobe-ing ohci1394, raw1394 and sbp2 is also not needed as it's already done by fedora. So if you added these based on some tutorial, you can stop.

Like rokit, I have had much trouble running this without the realtime kernel. I ended up installing Fedora in another partition and this is what I have. As a result, I now have no graphics driver and everything looks weird. I will try to install ATI Catalyst 9,9 and if it works I'll post back. If I don't, assume it doesn't.

If I've missed anything out or you need more help, do let me know.

It's a lengthy post, I know, but I hope this is somewhat thorough.

Cheers,
fusionstream.

=============================

Unless you have an issue with how the screen will turn into a rainbow when switching screens or adjusting display settings, I would suggest you not install the official ati drivers with this kernel. This driver makes it look like the computer has a refresh rate of 20Hz. You're better off with no drivers. As mentioned in a previous thread, I have had issues with the 2.6.29.x kernels and ati drivers.

I will try the akmod catalyst as suggested by rokit to see if that will work, but as at now, if you do not experience the "rainbow" issue or you are alright with the default resolution, I would again, highly suggest that you not install this.

To install the official amd/ati catalyst, download it from the ati website.

Run the program from bash as root.
1) [root@coldstream2 Download]# bash ./ati*
2) Choose "Install Driver 8.65 on X.Org 7.4 or later release 64bit"
3) Accept the agreement and choose "Custom".
3.x) If you did not install the kernel-devel for whatever reason (yum install kernel-rt-devel), untick kernel module.
4) Continue install.
5) Open up a shell and as root, type

Code:

aticonfig --initial

6) As there is some problem with the driver, you will now need to enable the software cursor. (Software will draw the cursor for you instead of the graphics card). In a shell, type:

Code:

nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Under devices, add an entry:

Code:

Option    "SWCursor" "true"

so that it becomes something like:

Code:

Section "Device"
      Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
      Driver      "fglrx"
      BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
      Option      "SWCursor" "true"
EndSection

7)Reboot your computer.

To access the Catalyst control center, as root, run:

Code:

amdcccle

Again, I would highly suggest that you NOT install this unless you have a really good reason.

2009-08-09T18:37:00.002+08:00

Whoa.

My last entry was when I was still a LCP. hah.

I'm a Corporal liao. And going to ORD in 1 month and 2 days. My understudy has already come but unfortunately after 6 days with us, he's now going for a course. He'll be back to see me leave though.

A pretty smart kid with a GPA of 3.8 for a Diploma in IT Security or something.

A lot's changed since then but I can't say much because now that I've grown older, there are some things that I have to be discreet about. Sure, I'll still say things that the more conservative might consider should be kept to oneself, but who gives a fuck. Yea, phrases like that included.

Had my first real drift yesterday in the van. The Impreza does not count as it's front wheel drive (or 4 wheel drive - so they claim). A taxi had come to a dead stop after the lorry on his right mistook the merge signs on the road to mean he was to merge with the taxi. Swerved to the right after finding the front brake to be unresponsive. Quickly countered to the left and found myself drifting for a short distance. Sure, maybe it was just a baby drift but chances are if you even have a license, you're driving a front wheel drive car so bite me.

Today, I left home at exactly 3.42pm. Headed out to the Shell station for the crazy 44cent discount going on from 4 to 5. Reached there at 4pm to the minute but there was a queue. By the time I reached the station, I was the last one to get the discount, at exactly 5pm. Well, officially at least.

I filled the van so full that petrol actually started leaking out of the tank. We'll see how this goes. 7Km/L on Shell's 95.

Untitled

2009-03-19T18:59:00.004+08:00

I woke up at about 3 this morning with the sensation of ants crawling all over me. In my semi-lucid state, I then "recall" someone spraying some pesticide all over me and the feeling was gone. It's quite disturbing to wake up with the need to scratch and swat every inch of your body.

Sherman played MC again today. Told him he would be the one to stay back in camp to settle the auditorium events when the rest of us were at pasir laba for some event at said location. At about 4pm he gave the "I'm gonna be sick face" and muttered something about "I think I have a fever". Pretty predictable since that's exactly what he did the last time round.

Truth be told, I can't really be bothered anymore. Told him off a few months back and his attitude got a little better but it seems to have declined somewhat. All I care about now is that it's maintained at this level because I'm going to ORD already.

Going for my 3rd bike prat this saturday and hopefully I can pass. I may have failed the first time due to incompetence but the second time round was because I was unbelievably tired.

Going to be promoted to CPL either by this week or the next. Just in time for F1 season. How that applies I have no idea but yea.... ORD OH.

2009-03-19T17:09:00.002+08:00

I think it's about time I update this shit.

As usual, lotsa stuff happened between my last post and this one. And as usual, I can't be bothered to try and remember. =)

So I promise to update this page before next wednesday.

And Michel, stop loading my blog in the office. It's creeping the other guys out.

6 more months to ORD!

Last week of recourse

2008-12-23T16:15:00.003+08:00

I could've sworn there were many fun things that happened but I forgot them all.

All I remember was CO Sch 1 coming up to our bunks, me giving out mineral water to the confinees, and me meeting up with Syed and his gang at Dbl 0 which I believe was a fun night.

Hmm....

T-minus 1 week

2008-11-22T16:27:00.011+08:00

This was the second last week of my recourse BMT and it went by pretty fast.

Took status on Tuesday after killing my feet during the 12km Route March by wearing new boots. The old ones were still wet and so were drying at home. Then, to counteract the blistering, I began to walk bow-legged which cramped my left thigh muscle and made my right knee hurt to high heaven.

I still took part in SOC though and was quite proud that I was able to complete every single obstacle. Skipped the IPPT though.

Went for a Dental Appt on Thursday but forgot to bring some stuff so the flirty dentist sent me back home early and I ended up slacking with Syed at Eastpoint, looking at the people and chatting the time away.

Friday had another 16click route march scheduled in the evening but I was still on status so I did not participate. Consequently, I was confined till the next morning whereas everyone who participated got to book out that night. But the confinees made the best of it by playing a spot of soccer and chatting the time away. Talked a lot with Samuel about life in general, friends and religion. Went to sleep past midnight and woke up at 5, dead tired.

Those who marched (and had gone back) were dead tired themselves anyway, completing 16 clicks in exactly 3.5 hours, inclusive of rest times. Crazy shit.

As usual, the confinees ran out of smokes and everyone turned to their regular "backups" to find spare smokes. I was Samuel's, Kok Xiong's and Poobalan's backup. Damn irritating.

Anyways, drove up to Malaysia the next evening with Ali, Md Nur and his gf where we makan-ed and lepaked, enjoying the Malaysian cigarettes. After sending Md Nur and his gf home, me and Syed headed over to ECP to slack with Syed's friend, Fadhil, where I got friggin wasted with the equivalent of a little over 6 shots of vodka in half an hour. I attributed this to the fact that I had not drunk ANY water since yesterday afternoon.

Outfield

2008-11-15T15:33:00.029+08:00

So we had our field camp this week.

In terms of training and discipline, it was alright except for the stand-to exercises which were stupid, especially the one that we had to do for half an hour after changing into new uniforms. Smoke breaks were about the same as in camp, which it to say it was at any break or rest time, which was a lot. haha

In terms of the environment however, it was the worst I've ever seen or experienced in my life.

Day 1:
Had our 8 click route march where it began to rain very very heavily. We're talking about if I were driving, I-would-seriously-consider-slowing-my-car-down-for-safety kind of rain. How it rains on the main land, in the Tekong camp, and in the Tekong forests are all very different despite them being the same rain clouds. Within 10 minutes of the rain starting, my boots were flooded past my ankles and my field pack had gained an extra kg of water. I kid you not, it was a Cat 1 rain.

The field camp site was somewhat flooded and as we began to dig our drains and set up our bashas, we inadvertently brought up any remaining ground water to the surface. Light showers during this period. This is all I remember from day 1.

I slept less than 2 hours that night.

Day 2:
Light rain during reveille. Boots and socks were flooded to just below the ankles, despite my draining them and keeping them under shelter. Everyone was covered with erupting sores and mosquito bites. Did some lectures and some training and boots filled up to previous levels of water.

We were allowed to go back to shower within 1 hour. Everyone boarded the tonner with dry pairs of underwears and uniforms but the same wet boots.

It rained that night. Slept under an hour.

Day 3:
It rained at reveille. We proned in the mud in our stand to position for about 15 minutes. Went for our first lecture and training regime. A few minutes after it was finished, it began to rain very very heavily as the Cat 1 alarm sounded off. Everyone was confined to their rapidly flooding Bashas. Hansel and me began to sing loudly and enjoyed ourselves before Amos and Md Nur started joining in for a few of the songs, much to the chagrin of Bo who was actually able to doze off a few times.

Dinner was consumed and by 7pm it had started to rain even more badly than the first day. Even the admin tentage was flooding. Within half an hour, Hansel and Driver and Medic were running to the admin tentage complaining of swimming pool conditions. Poobs and Feisal did the same but all were shooed away within ten minutes of arriving at the shelter.

Under special medical conditions, I was able to sleep in the land rover that night (supposed to be under tentage but there was no space). I managed about 3 hours.

Day 4:
It rained about as badly as Day 1 in the morning so much so that the morning exercises were canceled. At about 8 we headed to an adjacent lot to dig our shell scrapes. I sneaked a can of red bull in to my system and found that it helped none whatsoever.

As expected, we were let off that afternoon.

Day 5:
We cleaned stores. It rained. We cleaned stores. Cougar recruits washed their mud from their stores onto our stores. Fuck.

Field camp was over by day 6 and everyone was ecstatic about going home and technically "passing the course".

Our transport bus was driven by a former 3rd sergeant who was adamant on us 'not breaking the windows in his bus'.

Then Shakir, Syed and me(Shawn) shared a cab back to Simei that was driven by a crazy lady. She was like touching her hair and rubbing her face then touching the steering wheel every few seconds. She really looked maniacal.

A number of us were supposed to head down to Dbl 0 to celebrate our field camp success including Sgt Jonathan but many of them decided to fly their kites, including Sgt Jonathan. Hansel, Bo and Sam were absent as well. Syafiq lost his phone during the cab ride with Bernard so gave it a miss also, despite my obtaining his house number and calling him up.

I had a quick shower at home before rushing off to Dbl 0 and actually arrived 5 minutes before Ali did. Considering that he left before me and he's an insane driver I find it very commendable.

Met up with Syed's gang (who are all fun as fcuk) and we hit the bar almost immediately. In about 30 minutes, I was filled with about 5 shots of Tequila and 2 or 3 Jaeger bombs.

Jacky and his GF arrived somewhere in the middle of that and they ended up drinking my alcohol. Fadhil noticed that and sponsored a round for everyone to raise my BAC to illegal levels.

Some chicks started moving in on me, mostly because I was dancing like a man man. I was moving my feet like a man on speed but I moved away after a bit because, to be honest, I don't really give a rat's ass about having to play it cool anymore. I just want to do what I want to do. I don't really care about my image. It's just too troublesome. I guess I'm old.

I couldn't stand it though, when Ali started dancing on the top with his ancient but well executed moves and I burst out laughing every few minutes, setting Ahmad into laughter as well.

Once Joel arrived, we headed down to O bar, to support Jacky and his RnB habit. The place was seriously packed. It was no fun for me as I had to stop every few seconds to give someone room to walk past.

I headed out when it began to get too hot and me and Joel decided to go back upstairs. The re-rentry queue was damn long but it was entertaining because Syed had snagged himself some crazily drunk chicks. They were seriously past it.

Left at about 2.45 to find a summons on my car. I felt seriously fucked because all the indications were there. Like when I was arriving, there were riot police vehicles and patrol guys all around. I should have parked higher up the slope.

Played with Ali all the way to Simpang until Joel was convinced that Ali's car had a Ferrari engine inside. Ended up eating 2 Roti John's because I got it confused with Roti Prata.

Sent Jacky and his now ex gf home at about 5. In my haste to go to sleep, I left a burnt cigarette on the car seat which my dad found the next day.

Woohoo. Book in time.

Ignite & Kenneth's Birthday

2008-11-09T05:32:00.032+08:00

This week was eventful as usual and I also ended up finding 2 former BMT mates in my section commanders. Then there was Samuel who was so sleepy that he actually fell asleep kneeling with his head on the bed and his arms dangling beside him... in the middle of the day.

So at night I went for Ignite's Birthday celebrations. Was a pretty mild affair. Met one of the priests who apparently goes fishing and used to be from an armour unit during his NS years. Talked a little and tried to make the best of the situation (Eugene could not make it at the last minute). Chatted a fair bit with Ian again over some fags. Nice guy.

Headed over to Dbl 0 at roughly 9.15 and found myself speeding to make time. I also found myself out of cigarettes by the time I had found a parking lot.

Met up with Wei Zhen and Song Wee in the queue before heading upstairs to find Mich, Sophie and Kenneth, the birthday boy.

Mich and me

Sophia and me

Mich, Sophia & Kenneth

Ended up reuniting with an old BMT mate, Kong Ee who also turned out to be the fren of a fren of the fren of a female fren of the birthday boy.

Kong Ee and me

The man's a playa! And a retro fanatic! Think I'll be bumping into him a good number of times in the near future as he's also a regular at Dbl 0.

Showed me a few of his magic tricks and was impressed enough to try and learn them. Nothing like Houdini but enough to garner interest in the viewer, with the intended viewer being a member of the opposite sex. heh.

Chris popped up out of nowhere at around midnight and started dancing almost immediately. For the most part I lazed around the couch, chatting with Kong Ee and his OCS friend. Mich was out dancing with Alex, yet another lover of hers. Song Wee was semi passed out on the couch (a situation he would find himself in many times that night). Kenneth had puked in front of the sofa (ala me on my birthday) and his meaty but pretty target was mostly seated around the table because apparently she didn't dance.

Went to dance with Kong Ee and co for a bit sometime after Chris arrived but found myself woefully inadequate when comparing my moves to those veterans so went out for a smoke before heading back to the couch. Came back to find Mich on the couch with none of her lovers with her. After a while of sitting on a backless stool, I moved over to Mich and proceeded to make out with her passionately for a good hour before we decided to make a move to my car for a quickie. Oh wait, that was just in my head. haha. What really happened was I went to sit next to her, she leaned on me, I put my arms around her and we both started killing time by staring at anything that moved. I was too tired to dance and she was too self-conscious to dance.

One by one, her different lovers (all which she had 'personally' and 'individually' invited by the way) began to filter back to the table, presumably from the dance floor. I chuckled to myself each time one of them came back with a slight frown on their faces as they noticed Mich and me slacking together, and I realised that none of them really knew who they were chasing after.

Song Wee and Chris (who had now become his minder) began to frequently repeat the cycle of hitting the dancefloor and coming back to the table as Song Wee began to lose it each time. That was till they started playing all my favourite "rock" hits. Once that happened, I literally pulled them to the dancefloor and began to dance like the "rocker" I am. Kenneth's colleague was there also though we both left the floor once Song Wee and Chris started chasing after skirts again. Young, hormonal kids.

It was short lived but it was fun.

By now, Kenneth had puked a second time near the exit sign and the place was beginning to smell like the 0 Bar.

Wanted to leave at around 1.30 as I was growing increasingly tired. But ended up staying till about 2.30 as Chris was adamant about chasing after this particular skirt that was really into him except for the fact that some of Kenneth's friends were constantly chasing her off.

Hit the dancefloor somewhere around 2 with Michelle as the company at the table was growing incredibly boring. Began laughing while we were dancing to which I was prompty slapped by Michelle. Apologised and started laughing again not more than a minute after that. She didn't know what I was laughing about but I knew she assumed it was her so she stormed off the dancefloor, to the table and dragged Kenneth's target back to the floor while I retook my seat back at the table.

For people who don't really know her, Mich is crazy and incredibly insecure. Save for her self-conscious nature and near non-existant Christian values (at least that's what I figure), she could have been characterised by a single common 4 letter word.

Despite this being Singapore, a small country, I've randomly met enough acquaintances of hers to be convinced that she has some serious issues, if you know what I mean. Both Chris and me do care for her somewhat like family but recently, we've both realised that there really is nothing much we can do, save for kidnapping her and slapping some sense into her with an MG242. The problem with her is that she's probably done too many bad things to bother listening to people for advice. She's pretty stubborn yet weak willed at the same time.

Anyway, Chris eventually came back to the table, having given up on the girl he was chasing after and we left for home. As I've always noticed recently, he, like all my passengers were all pretty nervous regarding my sobriety despite me being totally legal at that point in time.

It was raining pretty bad by the time we hit the highway and the white lines were all but invisible. It was like driving down a Need For Speed: Underground 2 road with the 'reflection detail' at maximum. The road was mirror like. Nevertheless, I travelled at fast but legal speeds on the empty roads.

We were driving down the PIE somewhere behind Bedok Reservoir Road when I hit a puddle going at 90. It slowed me down to about 20 almost instantly despite my foot still being on the gas. The car started to lift of the road and I had to turn the wheel almost 90 degrees in both directions just to keep it straight.

Before I could even recover the car, I hit another puddle which almost stopped me dead before I filtered to the left most lane and engaged the car's "Hold mode". There were 2 taxis on either end of me. One was 10 metres in front and another was 20 metres back. Both of them were caught in the same situation as me. The guy in front of me was so rattled that he began to drive with his hazard lights on.

Finally reached Chris' house and we had a short but interesting talk under his void deck as I puffed away. Talked mostly about that night and some about Mich. Made our conclusions and agreed that she was pretty much a non-issue in our lives anymore. Said our goodbyes and I left.

I was exiting his carpark and about to make a right turn to the road when all of a sudden I swerved left as I noticed I was too close to the centre divider but it was too late. The car flew over the curb violently at about 30 kph. I composed myself quickly and pulled over to the nearest bus stop to check for damage. There were scratches all over the underside of the car but under than that, everything else seemed fine.

The curb was totally invisible and I only pulled away at the last minute only from noticing the dark green fence being too close to me. In spite of the rain, I rolled down the window and slowly puffed my way back home.

As with every weekend out, it was very eventful. I wouldn't say the music was good, hell they were playing backstreet boys' songs. But it was definitely a fun night though somewhat unnerving what with all the dangers I experienced that night.

lol.

2008-11-08T22:23:00.000+08:00

Taken from Bash.

<evilada>: Best suicide plan ever
<mcm310>: what is it?
<evilada>: you go up to the top of a roof
<evilada>: string piano wire tight across the front edge at neck level
<evilada>: tie a cord to your foot and the other end to the building so that you'll be above sidewalk level when its fully stretched
<evilada>: then you put super glue on your hands
<evilada>: and put your arms around the front of the wire and then back to touch your head
<evilada>: then you lean forward, so the piano wire cuts your neck but not your elbows
<evilada>: when the cord goes taut, youll be hanging upside down with no head....except your head will be in your outstretched arms thanks to gravity and the glue, staring at someone upside down and spewing blood everywhere.
<evilada>: And some poor bastard will be traumatized for LIFE.
<mcm310>: i dont think i can be your friend anymore

21 + 14

2008-11-08T17:33:00.020+08:00

Did a lot of stupid things again in camp.

Had a challenge with Bo (Clive) on the chin up bars. First it was who could do more chin ups. Then it was who could hang on the longest with one hand. Then it progressed to trying to kick each other off the bars before becoming chin up bar humping, with him being the bitch. haha.

Before long we trying to see who could swing to the other's bar first, who could take off their shoes with only their feet first and who could take off their shoes and socks first. I won the shoe thing hands down but Bo won the shoes and socks thing without breaking a sweat. From the way he spoke about his past, I'm not surprised. ;-)

Then there was the thursday where I was sleepy as fcuk for some reason and began laughing at random intervals for no particular reason. It could just be a simple conversation and I would start laughing at simple things like how the words were pronounced or how the guy was sitting when he spoke. At one point, I ran out from the smoking point to the compound and shouted for everyone to keep still there. Of course, as luck would have it, there was no one there. But it felt good. haha

Made some pretty good friends there. Everyone is a laojiao (experienced [soldier]) to some degree.

There's Hansel who's a crazy bastard who is as funny as he is insane.

Then there's Bo who's from Burma and Syed who's unphased by anything, speaks freely and always wakes up late.

There's Talos who's a bit weird with his Wicca practices but quite smart in my opinion and gives great massages. He used to steal my food after certain meals but I put a stop to it once I had him figured out. Thank God He protects me.

There's also Samuel who's a semi-worldly Christian who's quite placid in that he's trying to figure everyone and everything out.

'Medic's a blur and miserly but funny-in-his-own-way kind of guy. 'Driver' (Desmond) is another blur one but still relatively street savvy.

Then there's Jacky who's quite honestly one of the nicest and open guys I've known. You can't tell if you are friends with him but if you take a step back and analyse him, you'll see it.

There's Bernard, the Yankee storeman who with me, will most of the time walk around in our underwears.

Santos is a Filipina who considers me Malay because I can't speak Chinese. Then there's Joel with a really colourful history but he's a good guy, but still has some of his past on his shoulders.

And that's just my section, who all happen to be smokers by the way. All in all, we're all mostly quite close to one another with the exception of a few bad apples. 'Orchard Road' is an ass who is a blatant follower and compulsive liar. Most of us have given up on him. And of course there's Thiban who's probably going to be charged soon.

There are really too many friends to fit into this post though. And oh yea, Richard and Ryan are Catholics too. Both are relatively insane, just like me. Then there's Amos who's thinking of converting to Christianity. Whether Catholicism or Protestanism is still on the debate table for him.

We all go through the same shit together. Like almost all of us had scratches all over our body due to the stupid Battle Innoculation Course. The course was damn short but the soil was damn soft so leopard crawling was very tough. Amos who was behind me was cheering me on sporadically but my arms had never felt such pain before and my legs, well I couldn't really feel them.

Then there was the live grenade throw where there were 2 nades that didn't explode, both belonging to persons from section 4, a section notorious for having a very bad discipline record. We planned to celebrate their 'birthdays' but alas we were short on time with the training schedule so tight this week.

Had a great debate with Talos on a few subjects which I now forget and an exchange of opinions on the topic of homosexuality and evolution and Darwin's theory of evolution. I came out with my points at first but as it was just an exchange, I prodded him for his own points. Found that it was not quite as straight forward as it usually was with him and I found myself arguing for the legalisation of homosexual marriages and etc for a while. I finished the remaining sticks in my half full pack of smokes while talking to him. Sometimes though, he takes his debates too personally for me to enjoy learning from each other. I don't always want a winner in a debate between friends, i much prefer the sharing of opinions. Bbut for the most part, we both share some very unique opinions and positions.

Took 6 sticks from Murali after he bought a new pack from my friend from the office because his gang and him finished up a significant portion of my last pack because none of them had the sense to buy more packs, despite this being the 6th week of training.

Ended up going to dbl 0 that night with Syed, him driving his car and me driving my own. His people are crazy bastards who had the skill and energy to make that night one of the most fun nights of my life.

Happened to meet Ben and Sophie there and the latter introduced me to Maple. Quite a cute girl but she was very young and looked pretty naive in terms of relationships. She was clinging on to her ex (who's name I forget) as if they were still together.

Syed is damn power with his pickup skills, from my observations with him and Maple. I was wowed by the stunts he pulled but he refrained from doing too much mainly because by extension, Maple was my friend. I swear I gotta learn from him.

I tell you, the longer you serve in NS, the more fun (but tiring and routine) it gets because everyone stops giving a shit to a certain point and we start filling our time with other more entertaining pursuits.

21 + 7

2008-11-01T21:15:00.008+08:00

I had planned to book out on friday but that was cancelled due to RT - 6km route march. So basically my halloween plans were ruined. Not that I had any concrete plans but I planned to go out la. I mean, cmon. We're all lao jiaos to some degree. 6km is nothing but a waste of time for us. Some of us have been on 62 route marches (or 64 or 68, I forget) before.

The crazy ones among us decided to compensate for this change of fortunes with a camo-on parade but it was shelved after everyone got tired and just fell asleep... at like 10.30pm.

I wolfed down 2 durian flavoured potong ice creams before I turned in and finished my last pack of smokes.

Woke up the next day and dude the standard routine stuff and finally headed out for the damn march. I volunteered myself to be the rear scout but alas there was no smoking or fooling around because the safety vehicle was trailing us all the way.

Ended up booking out at 11ish. Headed to the nearest mac and bought a McSpicy meal and took the bus home.

Took a nice drag on my newly bought smokes at the stairwell of my block before I began to realise that my pockets felt lighter than usual. Did a quick change and found my house keys were missing. Did a quick call to the Ops room to get the number of my coy and asked the COS to keep my keys for me, which were left on my locker.

It was a good thing my bro was home so he opened up the door. Finished up my unwatched tv episodes on the ipod while laying in my comfy bed while eating the damn McSpicy.

It took only about half an hour before I began to feel sharp pains in my gut. So as usual, I took a sip of my McMilo, which expectedly, only made the fucking thing worse. It was beginning to feel like my insides were coated with napalm.

Tahaned the pain all the way as I brought my family to eat at Pagi Sore (which I incorrectly pronounced as 'sore' in the pain sense. It's pronounced `saw-ray`). We didn't end up eating there though because my sister was not fond of spicy foods. So we ended up eating at the unmaintained hawker centre where Oyaku Don meals were only $2.80. Halfway through the meal I began to feel my large intestine began to disintegrate so I rushed off to the disgusting toilet.

Through to it's outward appearance and location, the toilet was filthy and the only squatting-toilet-bowl-equipped cubicle was at the corner which was only slightly bigger than the width of my shoulders. This did not include the fact that there was a fucking pillar at the entrance of the cubicle and that whole thing narrowed towards the back of the stall.

About 2 minutes into the all out assault on the bowl, I decided that killing my lungs with the smell was just not worth it. So I took out a pack of smokes and puffed away. Finally called a cease-fire just under 10 minutes into the exercise, decided the stench was still in my nose hairs and headed out to the nearest parking lot to clear my lungs of the stench. So I lit another cigarette.

Directed my dad on how to get to the place where I was gonna collect my co2 canister before deciding that it was too much for me to bear but I remembered the training that they thought me in the SAF and somehow managed to hold it all in.

Finally reached home and using the SAF method of holding in my waste materials, I managed to set up my co2 canister for my tank before finally going for another offensive operation on the toilet bowl.

Drove out to meet shahryl for a drink but decided that I still needed to make another bombing run so went up to his office and decimated his bowl. The best part was that it could not flush a second time. So there were still remnants of my activities floating around.

Headed over to a nearby coffeeshop as we drank about a quarter of the night away, talking about old times and catching up. Went back home at about 3ish-4 (if I rmb correctly) and woke up unprepared to book in.

Luckily, my dad was willing to send me because his badminton game was cancelled so I reached there just as they were about to board the bus.

So that's how my weekened went, a week after my 21st. Not too interesting but not too dull.

21st Birthday.

2008-10-26T06:11:00.025+08:00

Friday started off like every other day for the past 3 weeks. Woke up at 5.30, exercised at 5.45, ate breakfast at 6 and smoked till 7.

Santos bailed from yet another duty so just wanting to make the time pass faster, I took up his slack. Had a good smoke at Rocky Hill where we set up camp. Chatted with Jan about life and before we knew it, our CSM was barelling down the road, in the wrong gear nonetheless, and bitching about the location of the water point.

Being the laojiao that I am, the next 8 hours passed by very quickly.

Had a good birthday bash from the guys after dinner (where they throw all sorts of rubbish at you from camo cream to milo powder to ribena). Some ass threw fucking detergent down my pants, provided by the not-my-fren-anymore 'firhan'. Ass. Chased a few of them down the corridor before rubbing my filthy arms over Section 3's windows. haha.

It took me a good half hour to wash off everything and a few more hours for the minty sensation on my member to subside.

Fell in at about 7ish for book out. Reached in my field pack to switch my spectacles and ended up slicing my left pinky on the uncovered Gillette Fusion razor blade I had put inside. Bled quite a fair bit from that. My pinky's still somewhat swollen by the way.

It was beginning to look like my birthday in 2006 so I had a good smoke on the ferry to calm my nerves.

Went home with Syed, bought him a Mocha Frap and smoked and talked about life in general. Reached home at about 9 and texted Mich to tell her I was too knackered to meet up with her. Went to sleep at 9.30 and woke up at around 9am the next day, hugging my bolster nonetheless. Worked on Azul from then on till about 5ish. Got rdy to go out and well, headed out. Minus smokes.

I've always been one who hates celebrating my birthday. 21st or not. I hate being in the spotlight when I don't want to be in it. That being said, I do occasionally enjoy stealing the spotlight. haha. I just don't like people to be scrutinising me in my ordinary disposition.

Dad bought me a limited edition F2002 model set. Number 2510(25th Oct) out of 5555. It was unsigned unfortunately because despite his meeting both Massa and Kimi, they were not allowed to sign stuff.

Ate a $60 buffet at Royal Park @ Scotts with the family but didn't stuff myself because for some reason, I was already stuffed.

Left at about 8 to meet hansel to get inked. Well actually, to get sprayed. Airbrushed to be exact. I had always wanted to see what the alternatives looked like. It looked nice but was nothing like the real thing.

The entire process was over pretty fast and I found myself texting my dad to see if he was still in the area to give me a lift, which he was. Dropped me off at Double 0 - which my dad swore was near the old Madam Wong's which made me wonder what he was like when he was younger.

Met Jeremy, his bro and his gay partner (so he says) almost as soon as I had stepped out of the car. Chatted for a bit then quickly queued up behind the fast growing line. Then James popped out of nowhere and we queued together. Yea. Fun stuff. lol

Did the usual entry-exit at O-Bar and had a quick smoke which is when Mich and Sophie popped out of nowhere and joined in the Global Warming contest.

Queued up again after that and in keeping with the theme that evening, Kyle too popped out of nowhere. I swear, I must have been fucking blur at that point in time because I seriously did not see any of them coming.

Hana S., Khairiyah and Sophia

Went up to the table and got bored pretty fast. Asked Mich to make out with me but was brushed aside. Asked Sophie to make out with me and was laughed off. Asked Kyle to make out with me and he moved in close before he saw my tongue and quickly moved back. haha.

Mich (behind my elbow), Kenneth (behind my big biceps) and me

Anyways, the rest started showing up soon after. Saw (2lt) Alvin at the place and he bought me a jug of something. Nice guy. Started doing shots with Khai, Wan and intermittently with some of the other guys.

Went for a smoke after about the 7th shot with Wan and Khai. Laughed our asses off at Wan who was laughing uncontrollably for some reason. Came back and was forced to take about another 3 or 4 shots. That was when I felt like eating steak. Mostly because the now semi regurgitated steak was tantalising my taste buds. mmm. Steak. Thought about it a little more, turned to the right and boom. I exploded. Having a slight flu and a chest infection and doing shit like this was probably not a good thing.

Me and (CPL) James

It was at about the second wave of shots that I began to feel high. Personally, my best so far was 11 shots in about an hour and a half while still feeling relatively in control. With the exception of feeling the need to run and laughing very easily, I didn't feel like puking. Oddly enough, that time it was on an empty stomach.

Wan, Khairul and me

Apparently, being sick seriously screws my ability to control myself. Went for another smoke and sat down on the couch and began to stone.

Ben and Ash popped by somewhere around 12. Champagne was opened and I took a sip before handing it to Ben cuz I was seriously not feeling it. Ben then disappeared somewhere around 12:01. The ass.

Joline J (Facebook acquaintance and Khairiyah's member)

Went to the floor with Ash and Ken for a bit where I was jumping like mad for some reason. True to the rocker's jump, I lost my shades which were in my pocket. Went back to the couch when I felt my lips cracking up.

Stoned for a bit more and took some photos with the guys, taken by some Ang Mo girl from the next table WHO STILL HAS NOT SENT ME THE PHOTOS. The bitch. lol

Laughed at Kyle who was lying down on the chair in a fashion similar to a person who had been dead for a significant period of time.

About half an hour later, Mich stumbled to the couch and dragged me out to the floor again. Happened to be at the spot where Khairiyah, Siddig and Joline were dancing. I don't really remember much on that. Mainly that me and mich were sort of dancing up the wall and after something I said, she gave me a quick peck on the lips. I cannot recall what I said.

Seeing the other 3 girls were dancing by themselves, Mich asked me to dance with them which I did as she went off to dance with her lover for the night. Danced with Joline for a bit but she was frigid, or possibly turned off by the fact that I could still have had bile on me (which I didn't). So moved to Siddig who faced me but quickly pointed out that she doesn't like to grind guys. So, ok. Danced for like a few minutes before getting bored and went back for a smoke before heading back to the table.

By now, Wan was puking in a jug and staring at the contents intently. He was seriously past it. Stoned on the couch even more before hearing a song I really liked and ran to the dancefloor to find my kaki but they were not there so I went back and stoned till closing time - which was not long, taking a few sips of whatever was left as the time passed.

Closing time arrived at 3.40 instead of 4 and soon we were all headed off. Found that my present from Mich had been stolen. Bastards.

Stupidly asked the bounced to give me a call if he found my shades and the present to which he agreed before walking off. By now I was sober enough to know that I hadn't even given him my number yet. The fucker.

The rest of us headed down and stoned near a deserted road. Kyle who woke up the moment the music stopped had disappeared in spite of himself.

Walked all the way to a not so nearby macdonalds. Khai was spotted by a fucking ugly transvestite who started yelling out to him, calling him chubby and stuff. Wan who was still pretty cranky and ticklish began talking about yanking the lampost out of the ground and using it to hit the tranny.

Queued up at Mac with Wan grumbling all the way about the counter staff being too slow for their own good, and Khai and me laughing our asses off. Mich and her lover for the night had gone to 7eleven, probably to make out. Ken and Decay were already seated at the table.

The usual stuff happened after that except that Ming called Mich to say he was coming to pick her up. That left Ken in a bind because he was the only one staying in the west.

That pretty much concluded my 21st birthday. It was nothing like Jac's birthday, the one where her dad, my uncle, rented a friggin huge bungalow and invited the minister of defence down. Pretty boring by activity's standards, but it was enough for me to have some good friends there.

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

I'm one of the last of an era. One of the last few hundred still active NSFs who have been trained in both the M16 as well as the Sar21. I'm one of the last few born in the year 1987, the last year to not have a recurring number in the numerics of the year. (1989 has 2 nines, 1990 has 2 nines, etc)

Saturday Night's the night alright...

2008-10-05T23:05:00.003+08:00

Went out to Dbl 0 again with some friends. Didn't drink cuz I was driving. Freakin boring la. But at least they had fun and I know all of them got home safe.... cuz I was driving them home!

Anyways, woke up at like 11 this morning despite sleeping at about 6 cuz I was trying to get my body clock in rhythm for my course. Fuck la, it's like 11pm now. So much for that.

Planning to go clubbing again this saturday. I so intend to let off some steam.

Hopefully my course will be damn slack. I know a number of the people going and a few of the people in the company itself. Haha. Make me suffer equals problems with Audit for you! wahahaha. no la.

I intend to train though. I'm seriously out of shape. My beer belly is starting to grow more. I already have my stash of handrolls ready. 3 packs of Butterfly menthol. lolz.

Really nothing much to say anymore. I'm starting to blank out my mind in preparation for tmr. I guess I'll see you in a week.

Byes.

alalala

2008-10-04T19:22:00.003+08:00

What the hell was in the air last night.

I hit the sack at about 6am and literally had to hold my hands up just to text my friend.

I woke up at 4.30 pm the next day feeling extremely sleepy. Not the I-want-to-sleep-but-I-know-it-will-make-me-sore sleepy, twas more like the I-really-want-to-go-to-sleep kind of feeling.

So I messaged a buddy about the possibility of bailing from tonight's thing and got a screenfull of labels on my phone. lol.

Needless to say, tonight I WILL be going out. haha

ARGH

2008-10-02T23:40:00.003+08:00

I just gave up the chance to make $70 to $80 so I can go clubbing tmr.. I hope it's worth it ah.. knn.. Better be worth it. My last day!

Partay

2008-09-28T10:07:00.011+08:00

I like it when you dance close to me.
I like it when you look me in the eyes real close.
I like it when you rest your head on my shoulder.
I like it when you put your arms around me and mine around yours.
I like it when you hold me when you need steadying.
I like it when you look at me for direction.

I don't like it when you start randomly grabbing at guys who you know will only lead to trouble.
I don't like it when you give out numbers to people before even saying hi.
I don't like it when you ask me for an answer but won't hear it.
I don't like it when you toy with me.
I don't like it when you assume I will always be there for you.
I don't like it when you use me and my friends as stepping stones. It hurts to be walked over.

As a friend, I want you to be happy K?

Sometimes I wonder why I do this to myself.

Men are cruel and the world in unfair.

2008-09-03T18:08:00.002+08:00

"Men are cruel and the world is unfair." These words were reinforced repeatedly to my platoon by one 1LT Arthur Poh.

It was a pretty cynical statement but either I've been indoctrinated by the SAF, or I've been let privy to a world beyond the borders of my niche because I now feel this to be true.

Of course for all the good things he thought us, the man was generally an asshole himself but who I am to judge.

There's this guy I know.

Apparently he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and psychosis. The best part is he claims to have been totally cured of both mental illnesses. I literally wanted to laugh my ass off at that statement because to the best of my knowledge, such a disorder is not curable unless it was brought on later in life. He claims to have been born normal.

Subject displays symptoms of rash anger and easy irritability. According to my amatuer knowledge, bipolar disorder is a "I am now very happy for no reason" and then "I am now very sad/angry for no reason" problem, generally speaking of course. It's not a "I am happy now but since you pissed me off, you'll get it" kind of thing. It just follows cycles.

Subject also claims to have fought to have stayed on for his NS term instead of getting a PES F rating. Bitches and moans about knowing how to do everything and also repeatedly points out how he used to handle his many many events outside. Does not give details.

Subject is always late to camp. He either immediately goes to the bunk to sleep or goes to play soccer. His duties are never done. This includes the single "This is your jobscope that no one else is allowed to touch" duty of compiling the parade state every morning.

He is an unreliable person and a backstabber with no balls to cover his colleagues who have covered for him. Has no respect for anyone but his elder brother and constantly hurls vulgarities, often putting our now-ORD-ded resident Tourettes man to shame.

Subject mentions how since he will be ORDing later than most of us, he will therefore be more lao jiao than us. He lost me on that one.

Claims his brother was an RP and therefore from the stories, he knows how life is like in camp. Lol. This includes how life is like in BMT. A tick for BMT in Ninja, Mohawk, Taurus and Viper. Yes, he knows how BMT is like in all these companies. Lol.

Fyi, subject was sent for BMT in unit and was down PES-ed that same day. He was posted straight here after the fuckers in HQ decided that they need the creme de-la creme. We are a god damn support unit. We are the fuckers you call when you want work to be done. How the fuck do you think we are going to work with morons like this?

On the very first day he came in, he texted everyone, asking if we wanted to hang out. He even passed one of my friends' number to his own friend for friendship building. I... I.... lol.

Subject never replies to SMSes and frequently asks people to cover him. This includes when he is talking to his imaginary girlfriend on the phone, with the loudspeaker on.

In my opinion, these are all symptoms of a fucking attitude problem. Not a mental disorder.

Most of the elder malays sucked up to him cuz they needed to build connections with him for future manipulations. The chinese hated him cuz he's a racist bigot. And everyone in the office hated him because exactly as the saying goes, we actually do better without him.

He's not just a dead weight, he actually swims in the opposite direction.

In my opinion, he is not fit to live. But with foresight, who am I to judge. I am no saint myself. Judge not lest ye be judged. A saying popularised by a famous TV villain no doubt.

So I posthulate.

Children, despite their misgivings and disappointments in their early lives never do truly grasp the concept of "nothing in this world is fair". You really need to experience it to understand it.

And that, in essence is what separates most of the women from most of the men. Women begin their experiences in the real world in an environment with few and lighter consequences.

For most of us men, yes even some of the PES Es, they have experienced the consequences of assholism. They know that making it easier for yourself makes it harder on someone else which makes people hate you which makes people want to kill you which makes people do bad things which makes life harder for even more people.

There are but few things wrong on paper with the SAF. Everything else is just from the people in it.

Goodbye to my first fishing friend.

2008-09-02T16:18:00.009+08:00

Ken (Wannabe on FishingKaki) was one of my first real fishing kakis. I got to know the kid through the forums when i was but still a humble Blur Sotong.

I thought I could write some nice memories about the guy but the truth is, it was a long time ago.

What I do remember though was that he was a good kid. Cheeky but good. Knowing where the boundaries were and sensitive to people's moods, he would often beam us a smile and let me tell you, he probably coined the phrase 'grinning from ear to ear'.

When he laughed, it often brought me back to the days when I was his age when the only thing we had to worry about was whether I had enough money to buy seaweed. His laughter was more like a healthy and boisterous chuckle. Loud and strong.

He was the one who really got me into fishing. He was the one who started me thinking about the quality of the fishing tackle I bought. He was one of the first few who would sometimes jio me out for 11th hour fishing stints. I didn't always go though. I wish I had.

Ken was one of those guys who could get you to do something for him even if you didn't want to, and you'd still mostly likely end up feeling like you're suddenly doing the right thing. And I don't think I'm the only one. He had that amount of energy and bubbly-ness to pass around.

I once brought him along with some classmates (or you could say he brought me along) to Bedok Jetty for an overnighter-of-fishing. I can't really remember much that day but I do remember him being really wacky. My friends though can still remember him. That's how much of an impression he could leave.

Sadly, we grew apart, mainly due to my school commitments. But I think we still considered ourselves close. He started a short lived blog because of a fishing related entry I wrote in my blog. I had some fun teasing him about his blog's lifespan. He even called me, or rather 'MSNed' me for a boat trip after a really long time of little contact. The power of the youngsters and the internet aye? :-) These are the pictures you see now.

Ken's enthusiasm for fishing at the time was so immense that he even created 2 fishing clubs, both of which I joined. His ability to attract people with similar passions was great. Sometimes, he would attract the wrong kind of person but he would always overcome many problems and was not afraid to ditch people if they were asses. Trust me, he ditched some mutual acquaintances even quicker than me.

I don't really know if he was still in to fishing. Perhaps he started new hobbies. I don't really know. But I know that he definitely had an impact on me.

I've only ever had 1 other defining peer in my life move on to the next world. Ken now joins him as the second.

Tight lines old friend. If I had to leave early I'm pretty sure I would want to have lived like you.

Ken Yeo
13 Aug 1992 - 1 Sept 2008

Ashcuse me, there ish a problem wit your mic.

2008-06-25T08:48:00.009+08:00

The other day I was handling an Anti-Tobacco talk in my auditorium where the Emcee was a pack-a-day smoker. There were many boring speeches by many people who had a lot to say including a "recoveree" who literally gave a 2 second pause after reading each sentence very slowly in his "How I Gave up Smoking Speech". Of course there were 'fun' speeches from a few like the 9Div Commander who was open enough to actually interact with the crowd although if one of the 2ICs had shared his story of why he quit smoking it would have been really nice (it's really very touching but it's his story to tell, so...) .

Anyway, apart from all that, there was a skit by HPB.

There was this young lady who looked alright but who wore a figure-hugging dress that was really flattering, and misleading. So when we set her up with the wireless clip-on mic, almost all of us were wondering where on earth she kept the transmitter. I don't need to tell you where our first guess was.

About halfway through the skit, she forgot to unmute her mic and she was left to shout out her lines. Being the gentlemen I was, I rushed backstage with a wireless handheld mic before stopping at the curtain.

The lead actor was very observant and saw me standing by the side and cued me out with a "Yes? Can I help you?". So I walked out and knocked on the invisible door and handed the mic to the young lady. There was silence for a bit before the lead actor thanked me with great exaggeration and I gave him a down-swinging 2 finger salute. Then the crowd went wild, cheering loudly.

My hands were shaking a little when I reached the curtain not because I was enjoying the glory, but because that 2 finger salute was actually a really good save from my performing a real SAF salute. When thanking or acknowledging my friends, we generally salute each other and I realised how close I was to almost giving that civilian the same thing. Luckily, muscle memory from previous habits managed to convert that salute to a casual one.

For Pete's sake, the COMMANDER of the 9th Division was there!

Anyway, I promptly headed back up to the control room after the scene was over but by the next scene, she had turned off the microphone again. wtf.

Talk about a 'doh' moment. Luckily, that was her last scene.

I cannot hear you lah sir.

2008-06-25T05:09:00.004+08:00

The army is full of 'one-kind' people. I think it's because of the different subcultures that we grew up in. Something acceptable to one subculture might not be in another and that's just assuming we're all conforming to it.

I know of one such person who has been stuck as a 1st Lieutenant for a really really long time. He is the last minute king. Recently, he strolled into our office 4.45 and calmly informed us off a high key talk the next day. He then proceeded to arrow(the art of military delegation of work) a few other key personnel in the other offices. Then he went home.

Then there was the other time he called me at 8pm to tell me he needed to use the auditorium the next day. I gently told him to bugger off as we don't entertain requests as close to the eleventh hour because of the preparation we need to do but somehow he managed to butter my officer and suddenly I found myself with a booking slot with no aircon schedule and ill-prepared equipment.

Then there was the Master Sergeant who followed his OC around like a puppy. He's a nice guy when he's not pissed and has a wacky sense of humour but to see a grown man follow his boss around even between rooms and even sitting on the floor while his boss sits on the chairs, it's really degrading.

I have a million other stories to tell and I'm not even half way done with my NS life.

Fascinating.

Lady from Quebec

2008-06-13T18:16:00.007+08:00

In the army, we constantly point out and rate chicks. At least that's what me and my colleagues do. Perhaps because we have nothing better to do, perhaps because of the sudden change of visual stimuli or even because of an apparent need to prove one's manliness, but every time I oversee a Graduation Parade or an Enlistment, my colleagues and I trade hand signals and silent nods showing our approval or disapproval of our targets.

This is especially true during Graduation Parades when girlfriends(usually) dress to impress. It's a proud moment for their other halfs to 'pass-out' and many are not shy to mirror that sentiment in their fashion sense. Sometimes even sisters decide to put on a little show for the soldiers she knows are watching her.

Sometimes we even consider fashionable aunties in our assessments. 1 out of every 4 GPs though have poor showings in terms of the statistics of 'hot chicks'.

There was however this one GP 2 days ago where there was this supremely gorgeous chick. With a plunging neckline that still kept her classy and not in the least bit inappropriate and a smile to match, she truly was a vision of an angel. People use that phrase all the time to describe pretty women but in truth, she could have truly been an angel and I would not have been surprised.

In her gray dress (I swear it was light gray but my friends said it was an obvious blue :x) with flowers above the hem, with legs to die for and slightly brown, slightly wavy hair done by God himself, she was a radiant vision of beauty and style.

In my book, she was a perfect 10. She was even familiar with some of the other recruits' girlfriends who were of no similar caliber when they stood next to her. From the way she walked, to the way she interacted with her friends, I stopped caring about stuff like how she might sound like and what attitude she had. I was mesmerised.

She was slow in going to meet her boyfren/brother and that loaned more credibility to the notion that she was someone's sister. Instead of being all over her, the recruit was instead more content to take photos with his buddies and another girl(yes, there was another girl), leaving me even more convinced that she truly was just someone's sister.

She had caught me looking at her a number of times and was not afraid to look back. There was once she even started waving in my general direction and flashing that gorgeous smile but as there were still parents in front, I assumed that she was waving at her friends. Little did I know that she was waving at me.

Alas she was too far away for me to go down and talk to her while still looking casual and my stupid stupid refusal to screw up my military life stopped me from even waving at her.

Instead, I continued to look at her and she would occasionally look back, throwing me for a loop and wishing that from a distance, she would think I was worth it to break all protocol and actually walk up the bleachers to me so I could save my stupid military face. But life is not like the movies.

Too soon, the parents and graduants from BMTC Quebec 02/08 were invited to make their way to the ferry terminal. Throughout her slow and beautiful stroll to the edge of the parade square, she kept looking back and with each step she took, she moved further and further away until she could not be seen.

I was left alone again, wondering what had just happened.

The next day there was an enlistment exercise and although I related my story to my friends with vigour, the traditional practice of pointing out the 'hot chicks' no longer had the same appeal as it once did. Instead, I stared out into the sea of parents and silently wished she had another brother enlisting.

I was day dreaming again of course but sometimes, just sometimes, foolish hope pays.

Sometimes I wish Singapore was smaller.

Microsoft loves the taste of feet in mouth.

2008-05-01T22:47:00.003+08:00

http://www.news.com/Microsoft-says-Firefox-not-a-threat-to-IE/2100-1032_3-5448719.html?tag=nw.20

Hahahaha!

Watergun v2

2008-04-12T16:34:00.001+08:00

I was thinking.

Since water can be manipulated by magnetic fields, would it be possible to create an ice bullet.

I know the mythbusters have done an episode regarding the efficacy of an ice bullet. The bullets either shattered on firing or when they impacted the target, they left behind tell tale signs of gunpowder from the charge.

I was thinking, since water can be manipulated by magnetic fields, would it be possible to create an ice bullet using a railgun or a coilgun? It would solve the sudden impact problem that a traditional explosive charge could cause and it would even even out the the force acting on the projectile, preventing it from cracking or shattering. It would also solve the problem of gunpowder residue.

Granted this "gun" would possibly be too large for any one man to carry by himself (at least with current technology) but hang on. This is the ultimate weapon in a would be assassin's arsenal. Using an entire black ops team(maybe even a crane) to carry the damn thing would be cumbersome but would definitely be worth the effort and risk. Not that I'm condoning assassinations. But imagine if a would-be hitler-esque person were to rise up again in the near future. Bang (or whoosh)! Hitler gone, little to no fallout.

Granted it would be relatively expensive what with the purity of water being important to the integrity of the bullet at possible supersonic speeds and the enormous amounts of energy but it is from massive problems that monumental solutions are found

Food for thought? Or maybe it's already been done.

If i don't post anytime soon, you know what happened. heh.

The woman behind every man

2008-04-11T13:50:00.000+08:00

You know what they say? Well it's absolutely true.

There is always a woman behind a man, manipulating him and pulling his strings. I hate these kinds of people. I've seen it happen a few times before. They manipulate everyone to some degree such that everyone thinks like her.

I've working in a current project where this new comer comes in, knowing nothing but the moment that person is ready to stand, he/she comes out fighting. Thinking that he/she fully understands how things work and in fact, how THE WORLD works, I'm inclined to disagree. We literally had to guide this person every step of the way and even as a department head, we were continuously working behind the scenes to cover up her mistakes. I'm pretty sure some bodily fluids were exchanged prior to her appointment as department head.

Is there no justice in this world? Or will it come only in the next.

ps. I'm biased of course and have overly generalised (gender and magnitude) because I was pissed but this post will stand.

A world without terminal velocity

2008-04-10T16:19:00.002+08:00

I often (not really but it sounds cooler) wonder what our world would be like if there was no terminal velocity.

Terminal velocity is a phenomena when the upward drag caused by a falling object moving through the air would counter the downward force of gravity to a point where the object simply cannot go any faster.

In a world without terminal velocity, raindrops would be like bullets (or perhaps the curved nature of the droplet form would help dissipate the impact more than I would have thought). A sneeze from a skyscraper could land you in jail for 'intent to cause grievous hurt' or 'terrorism'. Killer litter would seriously be killer litter.

Then I realised, I'm talking about life on the moon. Having no atmosphere, the moon is unable to slow down extra-lunar material to it's terminal velocity because it has no terminal velocity in zero atmosphere.

So I sit back, imagine I'm on the moon and stare towards the sun, picturing Osama in front of me.

ironies

2008-03-04T09:32:00.001+08:00

My Chinese New Year celebration was fraught with ironies and oddities that I simply must share.

Firstly, my lucky draw number was 123. It is STATISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for me to win with the number 123 as my 'lucky number'.

Then there was the official photographer who won a camera in the lucky draw.

Not forgetting of course the getai singers, one with a beer belly and another with a double chin so big, you could fit a small infant inside.

These are the little things that I experience in my journey as an NSF. Things that I'll tell my kids are reasons to look forward to NS. Things that without me and my comrades having been bored out of our skulls would have annoyed us all at the sheer absurdity of it all.

I can speak no more for the last parade calls me. With a trumpet nonetheless. Formalities and ironies. These make up my life.

What the army teaches us

2008-03-03T08:44:00.019+08:00

One of the few things that the army brings out in us is lust.

I swear, after hearing your commanders shouting in your ear and forcing you to do really stupid and exhausting things, the (perceived) soft and gentle "company" of a lady feels like the 7th level of heaven.

Recruits, during their Basic Military Training(BMT), routinely bring their magazines featuring bikini clad women and read, in earnest, the air-headed conversations with these ladies written across the pages as if they were really talking to them. It gives them a sense of reprieve from the harsh and controlled masochistic mayhem that is the army. I'm not implying that they "use" the magazine because in the psychological state that they're in, most impressionable recruits follow the much joked about rule against wanking off in the SAF. True to making use of every available resource in resource-scarce Singapore, the SAF is against informal discharges.

This goes on (the lust, not the magazine reading) throughout one's tenure in the army and in some cases, well past it.

I remember during a Chinese New Year event that was held on the same day and near the vicinity of a similar event held for employees of Cycle and Carriage. I had already been posted out as a permstaff guy and was no longer a recruit. Halfway through the insanely boring army event filled with Getais and a fat man promoting their services by handing out their flyers in the form of a game/contest, a few of us began noticing hot women(from the Cycle and Carriage event) walking past the entrance of the event room, presumably to the toilets.

With the true courage of an SAF Warrior, a few of us headed to the corridor to stand by the wall like pimps watching our fodder go by. We were not dissatisfied. The fodder apparently was though.

I have a BMT buddy who constantly SMSed and talked with his girlfriend throughout his BMT days and seemed oblivious to the surrounding pressure and chaos that most of the rest of us went through. I always wondered how he did it (from blatant eavesdropping sessions, I gathered his girlfriend was herself a handful).

I have another friend who routinely visits Geylang for tau huay and then for the other tau huay. I kind of got the feeling that he felt at peace in that fantasy world.

In the army, when you're not talking about current affairs, fucked up commanders or the latest white horse who's enlisting, you're either talking about hot (in some cases "cute") chicks or verbally rating the babes from friendster or facebook profiles according to hotness, cuteness and several other attributes. Quality of tau huay included.

Look Mum! The army has made me into a man!

Fuck it.

note: I don't really know how the 302's are affected by National Service.

I'm still here

2008-03-02T16:25:00.005+08:00

A lot's been happening lately and I before I've had the time to sit down and write about it, another thing crops up.

That would explain my lack of writing shit here. :p

Changed the playlist and the player so sound quality and loading speed should be much better now.

Spent a bomb upgrading my guitar gear so posts with pix on that coming soon.

Housekeeping coming soon too. Links getting stagnant even though the sites are alive. Thinking of doing a randomising script to display diff links per load.

Very soon.

Do the math

2008-01-01T23:55:00.001+08:00

Imagine a taut rope is put perfectly center around a smooth earth. Now add a metre to the rope and pull it taut upwards so that the rope is raised evenly above the earth's surface.

How high will the rope be above the earth?

You're thinking a fraction of a fraction of a millimetre right? So did I. And we'd be wrong.

Apparently, if you do the math, the answer always rounds off to 16 centimetres.

Not convinced? Neither was I. heh. So here's the formula. All calculations are in metres.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pi = π ≈ 3.14
Circumference = 2 x π x radius(r)
∴ Add a metre to the circumference = Add 16 centimetres to the radius
∴ 2 x π x r + 1[metres] ≈ 2 x π x (r + 0.16[metres])
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now this may still be a little hard to believe so take out your calculator and substitute r with any number.

Now go post it on your own blog and watch the geeks start to 'digg' it.

Forza Ferrari!

2007-11-04T09:40:00.000+08:00

*Shouts with utter glee.

Kimi Raikonnen for Ferrari wins the world championship! Rookie Hamilton and FORMER world champion Alonso bite the dust.

Can't wait for next years season. Hopefully Massa will be given a better chance this year especially since he's a great team player, hopefully Kimi can reciprocate.

Too much sugar can kill

2007-09-13T17:38:00.000+08:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_molasses_disaster

Now you know.

National Service

2007-09-12T19:50:00.000+08:00

Off to go learn how to defend my country from (presumably) the neighbours up north :p

Tons of posts left to complete but I figured I'd just post this first so you know where I'm at.

Do read the barely completed "Tioman Trip" post that you can see just below this. Apologies for the boring story but you can just look at the pictures and that should be enough. heh heh.

And, oh yea. WOOTS for F1 coming to Singapore. =D

Cheers,
Shawnster.

Tioman

2007-06-03T10:32:00.000+08:00

Day 1
(This is one of those stories that you can read by only looking at the pictures. Sort of. Only if you want.)
Woke up early in the morning (5am) half dead, knowing that a headache would be following soon but also knowing that I could sleep it off in the van. Did some last minute packing, stuffing my chargers and batteries into my travel bag which was carrying all my fishing tackle and could've easily weighed 20kg.

Made my signature egg mayo sandwich for my dad and me. This time though, I used double slices instead of folding the bread slice in half. This presented a problem in terms of bread supply so I ended up using wholemeal bread that had expired the day before, with no ill effects I should add.

We were supposed to take the train down to Eunos MRT where the Malaysian van was supposed to pick us up but we ended up taking a cab. One of the Comfort cabs refused to stop for us and I immediately called the company to complain. As I write this, I have still not received an update on the situation as promised by the company. As always is the case, when carrying my fishing rods, there will be those who taxi drivers who drive past and there will always be the eventual taxi driver who will stop for us and will turn out to be an angler himself.

We arrived at Eunos in no time and I headed off to do my morning business while my dad went to the carpark to meet the rest of the guys. Said the customary "Hello Uncle"s (they were my dad's Badminton kaki) before we headed off to Marsiling MRT to pick up the remaining passengers. The driver though, ended up stopping at 2 other MRT stations before finally finding out where Marsiling was.

We finally reached the Woodlands Causeway where our driver told us that he could persuade the Malaysian customs to overlook our bags with just RM40. Thinking "oh what the hey", we paid him the money as we went to get our passports stamped.

After I did more of my morning business at the terminal, we headed for some genuine Malaysian coffee. Sent an sms to cutie as promised just before we headed off to Mersing, and just before I was out of Singtel's range because it turned out my AutoRoaming had been cancelled. Took them 2 days to activate it.

Lean into that curve!

Our driver must have thought he was Schumacher because he cornered at speeds between 100 and 120 KPH and even leaned into the curves but I guess you could also consider it a blessing because we reached there in no time.

Ferry Terminal

Waiting for Ahmad

We had to wait about half an hour for Ahmad to arrive and then another half for the boat to leave port. I watched the inhouse movie which was about a dirty cop who started loving his slut of a wife after he recovered from a gunshot-induced coma. The show had quite a few scenes that probably the kids shouldn't have seen. I was like, "WTF?" and then I was like "Hang on? Isn't this a Muslim country? A country where they won't even let former Muslims change their religious status on their Identity Card". There was one sex scene where all orifices, appendages and the twins were not visible but everything else was! Including "the ins and the outs".

Pirated disc clearly visible.

The journey itself was around 1 hour but because the boat had to drop passengers off at different jetties across the island, by the time we reached ours, slightly less than 2 hours had passed.

Blue Water

I know a few Singaporeans who wouldn't dare go on that.

We finally reached our stop and we unloaded our stuff, helping each other with our baggage as we went along.

Our rooms were right in front of the jetty which had since been converted from a wooden one to the concrete one that you see below.

Rooms	Old aircon disconnected.
Like no Sauna you've ever felt!	Empty Jetty

My dad and me changed rooms thrice because the air con was not working. We both can live without aircon but when there are no windows, the heat gets to you in a way no one likes. Anyway we headed off to a little "restaurant" that some of the guys had been to in their earlier trips here for a late lunch.

Food

The guys

Had a nice late lunch even though the kangkong was damn oily. Stole a bit of left-over prawns and rice from the fried rice to use as bait and berley for river fishing. I had spotted a nice small river with some fish that I was keen to try out.

Over the food, we decided to go for a hike at around 5 plus to fill up our day.

We headed back at around 5 to prepare for the hike when Uncle Robert came out of his room to let us know that Ahmad was inviting us to fish on his boat for an hour or so. I came here to fish so I said I'd go along once I unpacked my gear and stuff, which wasn't long. Since the boat was small, some of us would fish while the rest would go for the hike.

You put the lime in the...

Had a sip of nice cold sweet fruit punch before heading out for my first ride on a speedboat and after riding it, I must say, I WANT ONE! The speedboat I mean. :p

We fished till about 8pm where we returned to the shore where our part of the island had a blackout. My pants were all wet and sandy by the time we reached land because I had been the anchorman, taking turns with George, and then helped to pull the boat up 10 metres from the shore to save it from the tides.

Ahmad

Me and

We had a dinner cooked by Ahmad's mum followed by a mini "peanut-party" and then I headed off to bed with my dad warning me to let the water run for a bit before using the toilet because the first part was black and full of sand. The rest of them went Karaoke-ing with Ahmad in his Karaoke room.

As I was about to turn in, I saw a cockroach crawl underneath my dad's bed but I shrugged it off and just laid my head on the pillow. I figured if it had another dark place to hide besides under my blanket, it would stay there.

Day 2
Today was to be a "full fishing" day. But before we were to head out on Ahmad's bumboat, we decided to go to a "waterfall" somewhere behind the chalet.

Had a breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast bread with delicious kaya and margarine, and instant coffee! Tasted just like home. I don't know what it was but it reminded me of civilisation!

Went to the nearby shop to get myself a pair of pants and bought myself a pair that costed RM29.99 (and as I would later find out, was NOT machine washable).

Kua Simi?

Ready for a dip.

We took a group photo before heading off for the hike to the "waterfall". As you can see, the sky was pretty dark by the time we set off and I was actually afraid that it might rain.

"Upper Class" Chalets.	Fat Ass Lizard
March de Triumph	A River Runs Through It.

There were quite a few things to see on the way there. Monitor lizards, power cables coild and stranded like suspension bridge cables, sea coconut plants, rivers. Unfortunately, there was no eye candy but that would have been only a bonus, not the main attraction. I think.

Some of the wildlife, coexisting with humans.

The source.

Thankfully, when we reached the "waterfall" it didn't start to rain. The water was really cold. It must've been at least 10° to 15° C and is not the kind that you can get used to over time, unlike a "cold swimming pool". When you're in the water for a while, your legs start to feel a little numb and tingling sensations move up your leg and although they stop getting worse after a point, it doesn't disappear.

The guys.	"Waterfall" :P
10° - 15° water	Building a dam

The water was much colder than the surrounding air so if you got out of the water for even a few seconds and then hand water splashed on you, you'd feel it. You can ask my dad for verification on that. haha

There was 2 foot long catfish swimming among the rocks but thought nothing of it. In the river there were also Yabi, crabs and tons and tons of insects. No snakes though. =)

Managed to catch a crab with the help of Uncle Robert's croc slippers. He stood on 'em and I grabbed them buggers from the back.

Soon it was time to head back as we had to do some boat fishing and I picked up a few pieces of driftwood that I found along the trail to put into my fish tank back home.

Dry riverbed.

Fallen trees on the
same riverbed.

We trekked uphill for a bit to check out what was higher up the mountain. We saw dried up rivers hundreds of meters long. In place, we saw pipes which were used to supply the island's plumbing with fresh water.

Cool plant (Not edited!)

There was a lot of interesting stuff to see along the way. Seeing a dry riverbed was way cool, the plants were cool, the insects were cool. It was all cool.

If this river was deeper, it would have been my dream fishing spot.

Heading back	Armed like Rambo
Fungus	Spot the Monitor Lizard!
Attap Palm (Attap-chee)	3 Brothers - 1 + Ahmad

Headed back to the rooms to get our gear for the boat fishing that we were going for soon.

The fishing was somewhat odd. Size 20+ weights and size 1 to size 4 hooks. For those not familiar with this stuff, we usually use size 1 and size 2 weights (a.k.a the sinker) with size 1 and size 4 hooks. The current was simply so strong that we had to use super heavy weights just to keep our line straight.

The view

Some of the guys

I started using a fishing rod and a reel but the rod couldn't take size 20 weights so I had to use size 5 weights which ended up drifting. Fed up that that was happening, I asked uncle Vincent if I could borrow his handline, which he let me to use.

Schooling

That's when the fish started coming in. Using a handline, I could feel every single nibble by the fish and I spent less time reeling my line back in to check the bait. But trying to pull a line without the aid of a rod and a reel up possibly about ~50 metres with just your bare hands was tiring work and I began to ignore small nibbles so I didn't waste my energy just to bring up the small fishes.

Uncle Vince (not Uncle Vincent)

Caught a number of small-medium fishes. They call this a good haul. I suppose it's alright but I was used to bigger fish than this in Singapore. Luckily, the use of the handline made it much more fun.

The catch	Posing (with some strangers)
Quantity

Posed with this Canadian lady and 1 third of the "Indian Brothers". Had a home cooked dinner of Chilli Kangkong, Fried Battered Sotong (which tasted heavenly) some Asam fish and rice.

Managed to catch a live telecast of a soccer match final (Not sure which it was. I only follow F1 these days) while sipping a beer.

Went to sleep shortly after. The simple life. heh.

Day 3
Headed to the gift shop/provision store and bought a few trinkets for the folks back home. Was pretty expensive stuff. The shop lady, as usual, was a bit nosey and poked us into telling her how much fish we had caught and what not.

Most of us headed to the waterfall again, this time bringing ourselves a couple of beers left over from last night which was frozen solid, having being accidentally left in the freezer. lol

After lunch, we headed off for another boat trip. My dad caught a nice sized parrot fish and I caught my first barracuda(s). When we got back I tried to bait the parrot's at the jetty but they were not interested.

All in all, my hands were cut all over because of the handline and the size 24 weights on size 1 hooks.

Good enough for the market.

Not for boasting though.

This one is good for boasting.	Handlines all the way.
Huge schools	My first Barracuda

Home-made incinerator	Cows at night

O 'Rly?

Did you know that monkeys socialise? Yea. It's true. We spotted a whole bunch of them taking turns to jump into a pool of water from the tree branches.

After dinner, we saw Ahmad walking quickly to the jetty for some late night egging (squid fishing). Seeing him catch a few of them got enough of my adrenaline pumping and I ran to my room to go get my rod and my virgin squid lure. Within seconds of casting out, I managed to snag a big one. The water was crystal clear and you could actually see the squid turning and then sprinting to your bait. Snagged on the hooks of the lure, the squid tossed and turned and squirted ink in a blind panic, only to tangle itself more on the numerous barbs of the squid lure.

Good fight

Good eating

Day 4

3 for RM10

Crunchy

Today was our last day on this little island. Woke up and had a cold shower, yet again. You know, someone should build a portable water heater - wrap the device around the pipe and it heats it for you.

Tooks some pictures of the island while waiting for the ferry.

In our rush to board the ferry, we almost left the fish box behind. Then there was some dude who was trying to bluetooth rubbish to me. So I decided to send him/her a picture of me and a huge fish I caught.... and the toothing promptly stopped. =/

On our way back home, our van had to pass through a roadblock but the policeman waved us by with a smile. From this trip I will remember the "peanut parties" and watching a live final of one of the soccer cups on a 20inch TV, 10 metres away. Of course then there's the scenery.

Persecution is rampant	Waterfront property
Crowded	Right out of a postcard
Bullshit	Your dream or mine
Empty but full	Waterfront property

To see more photos from my trip, visit http://www.fusionforest.com/main.php?g2_itemId=213.

Apologies for the poorly written story. You know how when things seem funny or important at that moment, but don't later on? Well this is one of those times. The difference is, I still wrote about it. haha

Cheers,
Shawn.

Siao bo?

2007-05-03T16:52:00.001+08:00

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/070411/1/47qxy.html

Gahmen say UP GST to help the poor, but UP liao somehow got some "extra money" to feed into PM Lee's pocket.

The fuck is up with that? No doubt the Singapore government deserves a good pay rise but a 25.5% increase in pay after talking about shortages of money which was the apparent cause of the rise in the GST smacks of fucking greed if you ask me.

Every single damn cent should be aimed at the poor. They should take a page out of the US's books. The reward is serving one's country, not getting a nice retirement. Being the prime minister/president is an honour and a responsbility and that should be enough.

Sweet Smelling Pimple Pus

2007-05-02T11:57:00.001+08:00

What the hell?!?!

Virtual Keyboard

2007-04-12T11:29:00.000+08:00

Remember when you were promised all those amazing future tech innovations? Just around the corner was supposed to be a shining technology utopia with flying cars, personal space travel to distant galaxies, and bio-implantable cell phones. It's almost disappointing enough to make you sit at home and watch old episodes of "Space 1999".

Don't lose hope! An amazing glimpse of this promised future has just arrived at ThinkGeek in the form of the Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard. This tiny device laser-projects a keyboard on any flat surface... you can then type away accompanied by simulated key click sounds. It really is true future magic at its best. You'll be turning heads the moment you pull this baby from your pocket and use it to compose an e-mail on your bluetooth enabled PDA or Cell Phone. With 63 keys and and full size QWERTY layout the Laser Virtual Keyboard can approach typing speeds of a standard keyboard... in a size a little larger than a matchbook.

It appeals to my inner geek.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/8193/

Lindelof and Cuse are sick!

2007-04-11T00:59:00.000+08:00

So I was watching Lost Episode 14 of Season 3 right? Ok. You know what? Fuck the summary. Let me get to the good part!

Two of "our losties" are mistakenly buried alive!!! Watching it happen is excruciatingly painful even though from their backstory which was shown in the episode, you want them to bite the dust. BUT NOT LITERALLY?!

It's like.. like.. alright. Just watch the episode. Lost fans only in it for the big picture may either see it as 1: "This doesn't help the plot at all" or 2: "I see that the "not so good people" seem to be getting it."

Lost fans like me, however, who live day by day on pure adrenaline from watching the episodes would've had an orgasm had the episode not make you want to scream out at the top of your lungs and bang your fists in agony at the atrocity that befell Nikki and Paolo (who I started to appreciate as a 'man in love'). Watch the episode to understand.

From a "Lost story-telling style", it had one or two drawbacks with mild but still noticeable regurgitation's of flashbacks from episodes gone by, peppered with some filler of unseen in-between events. It sort of filled up the holes in the Swiss cheese that is Lost but in all honesty, we just want more cheese added on top, because regardless of the holes in the "cheese", it can still support the weight of the plot advancement.

On the other hand, this episode is definitely my most favourite episode from Lost although, it is not my most favourite Lost episode. If you get what I mean.

Episode rating: 7/5
Lost story arc: 3/5 (Interesting information given but next-to-no plot advancement)

You can read an interesting after-you've-settled-down article here.

Bye bye Mr Soldier man

2007-04-07T13:58:00.000+08:00

Good game.... :)

Formula 1 in Singapore

2007-04-07T00:37:00.000+08:00

Ok. Firstly, fuck that pubokia Malaysian Sports Minister Azalina Othman Said.

You're in politics. Play the damn game or prepare to be verbally assaulted by me the next time you bad mouth "your wealthy neighbour", Singapore. Fuck you and your pampered ass and stop dissing us just because you're unsuccessful, stupid and useless.

If you don't stop dissing us sooner or later you will find yourself at the brink of war with no funds because of your ignorant stupidity. It was your own damn fault that you wanted us out of Malaysia so now piss off and mind your own damn business you sad sad loser.

Malaysian Minister being an asshole:
http://www.f1way.com/.../singapore-should-not-host-f1-race-says...
Malaysian Minister trying to deny being an asshole:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/.../266587/1/.html
(NON F1) Perm track in Changi:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/.../267970/1/.html
Local motorsports gets a boost:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/.../268444/1/.html

Ferrari remain at the top

2007-03-18T22:44:00.000+08:00

Today was the start of the Formula 1 season with the race at Melbourne.

It was an exciting race. Massa started from the back of the grid and picked his way up to 6th. He was originally slated for 16th(Gearbox problems so he DNFed the Q2) but Ferarri pulled another good strategy out of thin air which saw them replacing his engine and filling him up to the brim which penalised him to 22nd but game him extreme "stamina".

Kimi raced relatively unapposed with a superbly fast car and finished first. Kimi later sported a grin at the podium.

Alonso and Hamilton raced each other for 2nd and 3rd but Alonso used his experience in Formula 1 to put himself in a position to regain 2nd (which Hamilton had stole in the early stages of the race) in the final quarter of the race.

Webber made a daring late-game move (which he would have won had Wurz seen him coming) which saw his car vaulting over Alexander Wurz's Williams at turn 3. The car narrowly missed Wurz's hands and helmet. Both drivers were DNFed.

Super Aguri did quite well in qualifying and at the end of the race, Takuma Sato placed 12th.

Alber's crashed his Spyker in turn 3 and later said that 'his ear plug was hurting his ear and so he missed the braking point'.

And oh yea... Spyker are headed for arbritation over the alleged fact that the Red Bull, Toro Rosso and Super Aguri cars are all the same car, last year’s Honda RA106.

It's gonna be a fun season. :D

So.. like... Lost is out...

2007-03-18T13:02:00.000+08:00

LOST IT OUT! I SAY AGAIN! LOST IS OUT!

Got my damn dates mixed up again and found myself in a situation where I could watch the 5 latest episodes in one shot! WOOHOO!!!!

This is about the best time in TV Land. All the shows either come out of their hiatuses or new and good ones start. Stargate came out of their hiatus at about the same time as well.

And.. oh yeah... Formula 1 is about to start next week!!! WOOHOO!!!!!

I'm soooo gonna grow fat... *fat-ter.

Teenage Magazine

2007-03-17T17:38:00.000+08:00

So, like, I'm on the media again. This time it's on Teenage Magazine and the SP Website (just a scan of the Teenage Magazine article).

Click on the image to see a bigger version of it with words that are legible.

A good photo that shows the WHOLE team.

Anywayz, sorry for not blogging regularly. Been tied up with a lot of projects recently. In any case, you guys should check out www.fusionstream.org. I've got my personal site up and running (still needs some fact correction though). I've got a good webhost hosting it now, it's no longer on my Broadband connection (Singnet recently proxied our IPs. Damn fuckers).

Will blog soon enough and btw.. FORZA FERRARI!!!

Only recently

2007-03-01T11:34:00.000+08:00

Only recently, I had yet another strange dream.

The characters involved included the characters from Prison Break as well as the characters from a fictional clinic from one of my previous dreams.

Well anyway, I was with T-Bag on the MRT. Somehow or other, it surfaced that I had either left his son behind or I had killed him during the prison escape.

Without so much as an "aiyee", he pulled out a cleaver and tried to chop me at the neck. I managed to stop his hand but as I was just a kid(I'm my real age in the dream), the cleaver got closer and closer to my head. Suddenly, the knife moved fast and cut part of the left of my skull taking a tiny piece of brain with it.

T-Bag was shocked and so was I. Literally. I fell to the floor and was unable to speak coherently nor move. T-Bag was apologetic and when we alighted at Simei MRT, he carried me towards a fictional clinic that had originated from one of my previous dreams.

Halfway to the clinic though, he put me down because all of a sudden, I could walk, albeit I had to shake "it" off.

As in my previous dream, the staff at the clinic asked ME patient information questions slowly and without urgency (I was able to talk by now). Again, as in the previous dream, there were no doctors in the clinic whereas there were like 4-7 Nurses/Receptionists.

It surfaced that T-Bag did not pick up my brain nor my skull to bring to the clinic because "It had touched the dirty MRT floor". Fug!

The cute receptionists were there again. One of them was having a problem with her computer so I took a look at it. I took a quick look at the hardware and then try a reboot. Everything seemed fined and I told here that. That's when she told me that she wanted to put her hard drive inside but I told her it was impossible because all 8 IDE cables(4 from RAID) had been used by 6 HDDs and 2 DVD/CD-Roms. From what this computer looked like, it looked like my P3 1Ghz Computer. wtf?!

As I was putting the casing back on, I knicked her black stockings just a little. Had a look at the tear and ended up staring at her legs. She noticed me and I looked away sheepishly and mumbled a sorry while the rest of the receptionists there had a good laugh.

**I now recognise her as Mellisa from Whose Line Is It Anyway, the one who's skirt was lifted by Wayne when he carried her to the stage. She isn't exactly pretty. Stupid sub-conscious

Then all of a sudden, I was in a room(in the back of the clinic) with T-Bag, Manche(the fat guy), C-Note, and some other dark dude (Up till now, everyone except T-Bag had been Asian).

Only T-Bag, C-Note and me were talking. What we were talking about I forget(was some plan) but I distinctly remember telling C-Note to remove some chain/bracelet from his pliers because the public would immediate recognise that being from prison (I'm just as WTF?! as you). He was hesitant at first because his daughter had gave it to him (I know it contradicts here. Blame my brain) but eventually he removed it and stuffed it in his pocket.

Anyway, after that, we left the room and I called out again, reminding them that "the thing" was on Thursday.

I went back to the helpdesk and again enquired where the surgeon was. This time, there were only 2 receptionists. Mellisa and some Chinese chick. They were painting each other's nails. I asked them where the surgeon was and the Chinese chick looked around and then mumbled a "er.. coming soon". Mellisa didn't even look up and was still painting the Chinese chick's nails. So I said "Are you sure? What kind of clinic is this! Why do I always have to wait!" (from my previous dream, remember). The Chinese chick was very dismissive and shooed me off with a "Erm, soon.. soon. ok.. bye bye bye..."

So I went to the toilets which were on the right side of the clinic which is where the non emergency patients were at (Was a pretty big clinic. This fictional clinic is located at the void deck of block 141 in Simei). The non-emergency side was like a bank in that the pharmacists/doctors all sat behind a glass panel with a hole cut in the middle. That was when a male receptionist came over and politely chided me for being "so impatient" and I began shouting out stuff about him being cocky and snobbish.

To make matters worst, the non-emergency side was working very efficiently and politely.

After that, I woke up because I had to do a big number 2. You know the kind that you get when you eat chilli late in the night and then go to sleep? Yea. That one. :)

I know it's very boring and anti-climaxic and I'm sorry for that. Promise to blog about something nicer soon. :-)

Prison Break Overnighter

2007-02-14T08:34:00.001+08:00

So I spent yesterday from around 4pm till this morning's 8.30am watching Prison Break on DVD!

I watched up till the latest Season 2 episode, the one where Kellerman/Kravecki shoots Mahone and helps the brothers.

I have to say though, if not for me being a sucker for mystery, the show has many many problems. Factual errors, In-Story Factual errors, Continuity errors.

One factual error is that from looking at Fox River, it IS NOT a Max Security Prison. Why? Go find out. Furthermore, there is absolutely no way security is that lax. Max Security Prison personnel never ever slack because their life depends on it and they are trained as such. In-Story Factual errors also appeared because some of the plots just didn't gel. You need to watch it to understand. The most obvious is continuity errors. Guns pointed point blank at heads suddenly appear far away in different camera angles, items in opposite hands, etc.

Still.. I can't wait for more.. lol

I enjoy intelligent conspiracy shows because it alerts people to the possiblity that this is happening. Politics is a dirty game. Politics across all forms(Democracy, Communism, etc) always has dirt. People should be aware that some of these guys are pretty good at disguising themselves.

PICA press conference

2007-01-17T17:35:00.000+08:00

Waiting for PY to give me the rest of the pics would give me enough time to grow a beard. So I'll just go ahead with this post using the pictures I have.

Only interested in the client. :(

It's a bit annoying that I got so stressed up to deliver a good speech and got next to no airtime. No check that, it's immensely frustrating. Daryl pushed me into making doing it even though he knew full well that I didn't want to (I even told him flat out no) but you know ole Daryl Lim, always needs to get his way.

Su Ling interviewing Daryl

I shall say no more about this in this long overdue "Draft Post" because I feel it best to bottle up my feelings.... and save them for your family one day.

Wei Li and Gary. (Khian Ping is camera shy)

In any case, it wasn't really a press conference and was more like a launch. It was, quite frankly, a waste of time because the exposure was next to none. If there's a next one, I'll be skipping it. Let the rest of the team members stress themselves up.

Anyway, here is a link to the video of the launch aired on the Chinese News.

The Radio Interview Part 2

2007-01-16T16:27:00.000+08:00

Khian Ping, Li Ling and mua.

Gary, Wei Li and Khian Ping

Su Ling, Gary and Wei Li

Gary, Wei Li, Khian Ping, Phui Yung and Li Ling

Nothing much to say here. It's all in the previous post. Except for the fact that I think Su Ling's cute. heh. Although for some reason, her eyes are always half shut whe she's in a photo.

As mentioned in the previous post, I don't think my voice will be inside because the recording stopped and she only has that small part of my voice(see previous post) which is like worthless even though my voice is damn nice. ;p

Podcast Part 1
Podcast Part 2

The Radio Interview Part 1

2007-01-13T17:35:00.000+08:00

Headed down to mediacorp for a radio interview for PICA(The board game project we created during FYP). Phui Yung's supervisor was in charge of the thing so she scheduled this (She's interned at MediaCorp).

Took a taxi cuz I was late and ended up tumpang-ing Weili and Gary who I saw on the side of the road.

Me, Wei Li, Gary

Camwhore!

Entered the MediaCorp gates a.l.a "The Sum Of All Fears" and headed down to RSI. We passed by the live 93.8 studio which was basically made of glass. This made me want to see the 987 studio where Muttons In The Morning was on especially after they pulled that stunt about having Beckham on the line. Neh neh la! lol

Tap N Go (or something)

We headed deep underground and entered the studio. It felt like a bunker and my ears began to ring from the sheer quiet.

♪ Nobody said it was easy... ♪

We were interviewed by this University Intern named Su Ling.

It was all in Mandarin so I was like "huh? yea. erm.. yea".

I only said a "Hi. My name is... and I do the..." and a "What I learnt was..." in English.

The thing is, I believe the rear part of the interview was not recorded. Particularly because the timecode had stopped and because Su Ling looked a bit shocked when at the end of the interview, she went to "stop" the recording.

So that meant that the only recording of my voice was the "Hi. My name is... and I do the...".

The last I heard, my voice was totally removed and Su Ling introduced me herself.

Apparently the only cafeteria at Mediacorp

Will update with broadcast timing or podcast link once I get more info.

PHP Developers

2007-01-12T01:35:00.000+08:00

Headed out to Brewerks for the PHP User Group meeting and as usual it was raining cats and dogs.

Starting to flood

Only 3 of us were there excluding a non-participant. I guess it was because of the rain.

An Indian national came down. He didn't know what PHP was and didn't seem interested in learning about PHP. Fulfilling the stereotype, he came only to sell his product and his services. He pointed the organiser to visit many websites on his laptop which was connected to the net and then proceeded to ask us if we were able to crack proprietary embedded software so that he could sell it, on behalf of us of course... repeatedly.

The 3rd guy, a business man familiar with the local software scene but not any good at programming came down about half an hour after the Indian national left apparently had to leave to go cook food for his roommates.

I'm becoming a cam whore.

This 3rd guy was really knowledgeable about handling an idea and with the organiser's practical experience in the field, the stage was set. There are loads of interesting things that we are hoping to start in the local PHP community.

From those few hours I learnt quite a few interesting things from the organiser(although in brief). I was going to implement them in FishingKaki the next day but my school (Singapore Poly) had other plans for my schedule so that unfortunately will come later.

Some of the things that we discussed included how PHP developers were in short supply. This actually shocked me because I thought that there would be a healthy supply of them. Now I'm trying to teach Sam some PHP but he doesn't seem interested. I also invited Chen Shan to join this user group and we'll see where this goes.

Beauty of the midnight train

Left the place very close to midnight and managed to take one of the last few trains.

New Template

2007-01-06T14:10:00.000+08:00

I have redone the template so that I can use the new blogger beta widget system.

If you notice any problems, let me noe at fusionstream@gmail.com.

I may be doing another template change(changing the actual look and feel) soon too. We'll see how it goes. Extremely busy with fishingkaki. Can't even maintain my other sites.

New Year's Countdown 2006

2007-01-01T04:23:00.000+08:00

Went out with the guys to catch the fireworks and participate in the countdown. Didnt go to Vivocity because the tickets were sold out by the time we wanted to get them and also because we had to pay which sorta turned us off.

Your Truly

Simon, a person Roy had met while playing Dota online and who also turned out to be jinghao's friend, was with us too.

Roy and Simon

Weili

Weili said while walking down the escalator someone suddenly came and stood in front of him and stared at him and then proceeded to ask his friend if he was Cuteworm. lol.

Hao

Ended up going to eat at MOS at Plaza Singapura and then walked over to Cineleisure to check out what free gifts we could get from the countdown happening there.

One too many Party Poppers

Saw that the gifts were nothing so we took a bus down to the National Museum to go for that countdown instead.

We were early and after looking around, we decided to go play pool at Paradiz but the tables there were full. So we decided to go play at nearby LAN shop.

The Lan Shop with No Aircon

At about 11.45pm we hurriedly pulled ourselves away from the LAN shop to try and head back to the Museum for the countdown. We reached about 5 minutes early and stood by the side of the stage while some people began to dance.

Might actually try out the dancing at these things one of these days. For now, I just like the drinks. haha

Fireworks

Sound: Baloons popping

After the fireworks were done we headed out of the Museum to see if we could catch the fireworks at the Esplanade.

The fireworks at the Esplanade started just as we exited the museum so we watched it from there.

Fireworks over Esplanade

The guys are pretty docile... No shouting the countdown.. No handshakes.. quite sian acherly.. lol

I think we need some girls in our group to make it more lively and what not.

After catching the fireworks, we headed down to City Hall MRT to decide where to go. The guys wanted to go to KBOX but Simon wanted to go home so he left and we headed to Marina Square.

Exodus

Masses

It was fucking crowded along the streets as everybody was trying to get home on the MRT which was about to close in 45 minutes. I swear, if Singapore ever had to perform a mass evacuation, we'd be seriously screwed.

In fact, I saw volunteers "ushers" quarelling with the pedestrians.

Meet China

Hordes of people

We Walk Alone

There is only one day in the year where you can walk against the flow of traffic on the main road.

Evacuation

KBox was also crowded so we located a 7-11 in the building that was "bounced" by 2 bangla temp employees and bot some drinks and sat at the foyer, waiting for the jam to subside so we could take a bus to Weili's house.

Litter was strewn everywhere including the secluded areas which were notw devoid of people which eerily reminded me of "28 Days Later".

The bus service that night was seriously fucked up. Before the jam subsided, the entire bus lane was filled with buses - with duplicate services - but once the jam started to subside, the buses were few and far in between.

The best part was, while there was still a jam and even after it had subsided, WL's bus still had not come. About 1.5hrs had past before we saw roy's bus coming and we decided to go to his house instead.

Once we had boarded the bus, I saw my own service coming up behind. Faced with the prospect of a long train ride home the next morning (Roy lived much further away from me than WL), I alighted at the next bus stop and boarded my service home.

Christmas Day (Boxing Day +4)

2006-12-30T18:04:00.000+08:00

Went to Auntie Margie's House on Saturday for a Seet Family Gathering and also so I could fix her network.

Didn't do much except to watch some movies and one of the movies turned out to have some nudity. Luckily, the kids were busy playing with their toys.

Table Spread

Managed to set up their network pretty fast. Was quite easy really.

Sakae Sushi (I love sushi)

Aunty Sarene bought me and my siblings some presents this year. Some cool stuff...

Present from Aunty Sarene

The contents of the box

Things change...

2006-12-30T12:34:00.000+08:00

This is a post that has been in draft mode since 7/6/05.

Sometimes i wonder what has been going on with my old friends. You know? The guys and gals from primary school, the exchange students, the foreign students, etc...

Teo Jia Yun
She was my first real crush. She was "relatively (primary school)" mature and quite cute. Her smile would brighten up anyone's day. Even after she had braces put on, her smile was still beautiful. Never got the guts to ask her out (Probably would've been to the playground or something. We both live(d) in Simei. haha). Guys, if your parents ever tell you to not get a girlfriend and focus on your studies first, screw that. It's easier to try and then make mistakes when you're younger.

Farhan Ibrahim
Farhan was a good friend in kindergarten but we kinda didn't talk much once we were in primary 3 because we were in different classes. When we did talk it was like we were old friends. He always used to get me birthday presents and I always forgot to get any for him.

Tupaz Shaun Antonio
A good friend back in the day up till we graduated primary school and he stopped going to catechism class (Sunday School). Used to belanja me erasers, fishballs and other small trinkets that kids like. Mixed up kid who was coping relatively well with his family issues. He eventually started hanging out with the wrong crowd and dropped to EM3 and started 'bad habits'. Sent him an sms once while I was in Secondary 2 and got back the reply that he was in a "different church". Haven't heard from him since. He was/is a good kid.

Shafeeq
Shafeeq was a dude whose voice never fully broke and who walked funny but was brilliant and somewhat cheeky. I remember the conversation that we had about how "Primary 5 is the time when the girls start to grow". lol. Good times. He also created his first simple C program in primary 5. I never really appreciated it's creation till I started C programming 2 years later.

Fazli
Fazli was a good friend in the early years but we grew apart because we were in different classes. A good kid with leadership potential. There was once where he over stood his boundaries though and I had to put him in line. He learnt from that and I had great respect for him for that.

He was also a good player at the childish game (not childhood game.. muahahaha) of "Police and Thief, Guns Style". Well there was actually no name for the game so I just came up with one. It's where we separate into two teams, police or thief - didn't really matter, and we would then fold paper bullets and propel them to our opposing team with ordinary rubber bands. It's sort of like a catapult but in a catapult, you put the bullet in the "holder" and fire whereas in this game, you "hang" the "bullet" on the rubber band, pull back, and fire.

Good techniques for this game include using good quality paper or 'drawing block' to make the bullets and using two (red) rubber bands or a short industrial (yellow) rubber band.

Good times. FYI, getting hit in the nipple is not a good feeling.

He also lives(/d) in Simei.

Sulaiman
Was the first guy I met in primary school where we had a test on day one. I remember asking him what is air(pronounced ehr) in my Malay test and then he told me it was not air as in atmosphere but air(pronounced aeeyier) as in the Malay word for water.

Was also the first guy to be kicked out of the Gymnastics ECA(Extra Curricular Activity) due to "size".

Muzafar (possibly wrong spelling)
Good guy who was friendly and always slung a shoe bag filled with his books and stuff over his shoulder. I still do the same now and again following his style. Also lives(/d) in Simei.

Rudy Hendra Saleh
Short and smart kid with bug teeth. Good kid and was not socially stupid despite his looks. Was the first guy to write in my "diary", which is stowed away and not in use btw, where he wrote a poem which I didn't understand due to the advanced use of English where conjunctions had been left out. He called me "a pig left behind". Bastard.. haha

Pei Zhen
A distant friend since Kindergarten, she was a nice person.

I wasn't excellent at gymnastics (because I didn't really enjoy doing it as a performance - although doing those tricks was cool) but I had good PR so to speak and I could get by so I usually ended up doing the annual performances (Prize Giving Day and etc). Teachers usually liked me. I don't know why. Well, anyway, one day, while training for an event, I cut my foot on a rusty lid covering a microphone point on the stage. I told my teacher about it and he just told me to go sit it out.

Pei Zhen on the other hand came over to have a look and asked me if I was alright. It's silly and if you look at the previous paragraph, long winded as well, but I felt really happy at that point that someone actually cared.

Alex and Joe
Joe was a loud mouthed Chinese idiot who was a jerk not because he was a jerk but because he was wild. I remember one time I was playing soccer with him and he kept on pushing me to get the ball(was a tennis ball) till finally I just shouted "CEBAI!". It felt good. haha

Then there was Alex. Alex was a foreign kid from God knows where, possibly Germany or Sweden due to his accent who, when in primary 1, was an extremely shy kid. I knew him through gymnastics. But when I got into the same class as him in Primary 5, he had transformed into another Joe. A clone with the same loud-mouth brash attitude.

They were still kids though so attitudes like this were kinda cool even though they were simultaneously annoying.

Ridwan
Ridwan was a good friend with quite a fair bit of wit and creativity. He however was not a follower but a leader and sometimes we clashed. Last I saw of him, he was out with the wrong crowd and smoking. I saw his brother once and mistook him for him(rephrase that in your own mind) and spent about 5 minutes lecturing the poor boy about the good ole times. Ridwan was short you see.

Was also great at manipulating people but didn't use it on his friends... much. Whether he uses it now i have no idea.

He also cracked up whenever I said the self-made word of Shittish.

Sufree (possibly wrong spelling)
Sufree was a short kid who was very easy going and consequently prone to teasing. Good kid. Saw him once out of the bus I was in while I was in Secondary School. We recognised each other and waved hellos. Haven't seen him since.

Nasir (possibly wrong spelling)
Good kid who was always trying to look cool and lives in the same block as me. Extremely short and funny and had a good throw/hook. I saw him a few times and his voice had broke tremendously. These days, if we see each other, we just smile and continue walking on because I guess we have nothing to talk about.

Khidir
Good kid who also short but less tolerable to teasing that Sufree. Extremely pliable to external influences. Even walks like his sister with toes pointed inwards.

Shobana
I remember her because I used to rhyme her name with banana. Good kid who, like me, was fond of making fun of our music teacher's name, Mrs Thong. Not making fun of the meaning of the word(we didn't know what it meant), but rather with the pronunciation. Mrs Thong insisted we pronounce her name with the correct intonation. Had some good times with that stuff.

Also was in my first play with me where I had to wear a skirt-like item of clothing like a tube top and pretend to be the "fox" in the play. Fuck shit. I hated plays ever since. I was actually the narrator and was quite happy with it till the "fox" guy came late one day and I had to read his lines. Fuck shitty day. I still hate plays till this fucking day. It's too bad really. Had I not been humiliated like that I might have liked that shit. I remember asking my mother to take me out but she refused. I still hate her for that. After that play she wanted to enrol me in another one but I gave her a firm no and nearly threw a fit so she changed her mind. Smart woman.

This is also why I hate wearing costumes. Bad memories. Fuck.

Megana (possibly wrong spelling)
Barring her odd sounding name which didn't seem so odd when younger, this kid was an intellectual. Was also one of those who introduced me to a few Animorph books. Her home phone number is also nearly identical to mine with only one number being different.

The following names I wrote in this article at the start but I have since forgotten who they are. I remember their names.. just not their faces.
-Sufiyan
-Sufli (I think is my brother's friend)

I still have many of their neoprints. Most of the guys here also used to be Tamiya(mini-4wd cars that run on a track) buddies. They have since stopped this hobby I believe. Too bad that I have since advanced way beyond them although I can't really compete in competitions because my cars are built for speed and not for stability. They are really fast.

Cherish your youth. Being an adult is fun. But so is being a kid.

Cheers and Happy New Year.

Christmas 2006 (Boxing Day + 1)

2006-12-28T01:08:00.001+08:00

Nothing much just that my mom's side came over. Yummy pasta and Lasagna.

Godma and Nanny

Tried to play CS with Bell and Tim but dad's laptop kept on restarting. For some reason Bell, Godpa and Auntie Sally had to leave early again. So "bo on".

Played GinRummy with the remaining people after that and I wasn't doing too well. Esp in the last two games where Uncle Kevin and Uncle Narin proposed sling-only and 5-card-passport and they were supremely lucky and won faster than the games without these rules.

Samanatha made this edible item

I'm also finally making headway with the fragnetics server logs.

Christmas 2006 (Day)

2006-12-25T17:08:00.001+08:00

Today, oddly enough, was a boring day. There wasn't even anything good on TV. wtf?!

Apparently, I couldn't wake up so the rest of the family ended up visiting Grandpa & Grandma without me. Nin nao peh... zzz

Also didn't see Auntie Marjorie or Auntie Janet these time round... Skipped their pre-Christmas gathering and ended up not seeing them during Christmas either since I missed Grandpa's house.

Also skipped Godma's house in the evening cuz was feeling quite tired.

Oh well, my mom's side is coming over to my house and on Saturday we're headed over to Auntie Marjorie's house.

Anywayz, some of my musings on the Christmas season. I hate it when people use "XMas" instead of Christmas. It was invented by some fuckwits who decided that "Christ" had a religious tone to it and decided to popularise the offending "XMas" word.

I only have this to say. "DUH! IT IS A RELIGIOUS HOLIDAY!".

I also would like to add: "Fuck you". It's our fucking holiday and our religion. The fuck is up with stealing it and making it your own? Go fuck yourself preferably with a retractable baton up the one and only hole that you have.

Commercial assholes.

Christmas is when CHRIST was born. We celebrate the day for HIM. Hence CHRISTmas.

Who, by the way, is "X"? X-Men perhaps?! Sod off.

You don't see us saying Selamat Hari X or Happy XVali now do you? Or perhaps X New year. Arsewipes..

Christmas 2006 (Early Morning)

2006-12-25T04:32:00.000+08:00

As tradition my mom's (formerly) immediate family spent Christmas eve at either Nanny's, Godpa's, Godma's, Auntie Karen's house or our own. This year, it was Godpa's.

View from Godpa's

To see a similar view using a non-handphone camera from 3 years back, click here. It's the picture at the end of the post.

Food. (Tasty Sheperd's pie at top right)

Turns out that Isabella, my cousin with whom I do not meet regularly cuz she stays so far away, did most of the cooking. Auntie Sally made the stuff crabbed shell which was nice. Didn't try the ribs though cuz very leceh if it got stuck in my teeth.

I want to make our house look nicer with simple stuff like this.

Spent the rest of the night playing Gin Rummy and drinking "a can of beer" (These days I feel damn full and cannot drink or eat properly. Dunnoe what's wrong with me).

Midnight came fast and we wished everyone and at about 12.30am we left for home.

Wait for part 2 (Day).

Pre Christmas 2006

2006-12-23T23:30:00.000+08:00

Went to buy some shoes at velocity with the guys just before Christmas so we could exercise and prepare ourselves for NS.

At Mos Burger

No Shit?!

We left the place for Queensway because the stuff here was pretty ex.

At the end of it all, we still ended up not buying anything cuz we didn't really know what we wanted. After spending a good part of the afternoon just walking around, we went to eat dinner at a nearby hawker centre before heading to Ikea(not the Tampines one that I wanted to go to) cuz Hao and I wanted to get "fishbowls".

Depicted here is Sam, by Ikea Staff

I ended up buying some presents for my family. I'm a really practical kind of guy so I ended up buyin my mom a nice lamp cuz she stays up at the computer at night sometimes and I bought my dad a set of metal-styled file folders, pencil holder(2 sizes), waste paper basket and paper tray.. Got my bro a nice table lamp as well. Didnt' get anything for my baby sister though cuz couldn't find anything. Gave her a nice hug though (See next post). haha.

I ended up spending half the night sleeping on my bed without any blanket cuz I used the blankets to hide the wrapped presents, wrapping paper which I got from Godma.

Haha.. Maybe next year I'll get something more meaningful and less useful.

This is where one of the guys told me "How to test like that?"

Merry Christmas.

Zouk Streetstyle Awards 2006

2006-12-22T18:15:00.000+08:00

Went to Zouk on the 15th with 2 of the guys and 2 of the girls after being invited by Jinghao. Decided to go check it out because I had never really been to a club before(been once or twice for fishingkaki events (i.e. NON-partying ppl))

Roy and Wei Li

Nothing much to say in that we used our free drink tickets (so cheap) to get vodka 7up which didn't taste very nice although I feel like drinking it again and I don't really know why.

Me and Kah Peng

Me and Wei Li were checking out these two girls standing by the far corner of the club when we caught them checking us out right back at out us checking.. er... you know what i mean so use your brain power to rephrase that.

Anyway, they were looking at us real hard(no joke) and I got a bit creeped out after a while and looked away. After a while, they got tired. And then we saw this dude bringing them some drinks. haha.. But I think that dude was with them from the start so...

Me with the need to lose the specs and braces

We left the awards halfway(around 11plus) because the girls were going back. Hao had to stay though because his awards video was on display which was one of the reasons we were invited. Wei Li, Roy and me went to Great World City and ended up watching Eragon at about 1am. Wei Li tells me he slept thru the first part of the movie.

Leaving early

I found the storyline a bit convenient and rushed but the special effects were really good. The dragon looked mighty real to me.

Me again

We went back to Zouk at around 3am because Hao wanted to sit back and talk cock but we found out he was dancing and possibly drunk so we left him there and went back home. Roy and Li took taxis(Rich men are like that) while I ended up taking the bus back and reached home close to 5-6am(about half an hour went into time spent taking the bus in the wrong direction).

The next day Wei Li msged us and said some girl had recognised him at Zouk and MSNed him. He showed us the girls display picture and she seemed to look familiar and was fairly pretty. I wonder who it is.

On a sidenote, I can now conclude that I enjoy a good bar/pub more than a party club. Drinking isn't like drinking a tasty drink. It's more of how you feel afterwards. In fact, I'd take drinking over drinking-then-dancing.

*Cue: Fall onto bed in tired heap*

*END*

Inviman the Teddy Bear

2006-12-18T18:33:00.000+08:00

Meet Inviman, my cute little teddy bear. He is currently looking for a new home. The adoption fee is just S$40. No where else in the world can you get a bear as unique as this for such a low low price!

Inviman is see-through.

Another angle of this amazing being.

Using advanced optical quasipositronic servos in conjunction with abu-neh-neh technologies, we are even able to display some rainbow colours on his body. This technology is known as "Intelligent" because the rainbow areas move around the bear as you turn it's body. This technology is patented under CRAP(Conditional Refraction and Asynchronyous Position-recognition) RFC 1337.

email fusionstream@gmail.com

Get one today!

Another lesson in Connections

2006-12-17T20:44:00.000+08:00

I was looking for info on the band, MorningWood, which also turned up the disambiguation page for it which brought me to this interesting page about Morning Glories.

wahahaha..

My post on my maiden voyage to Zouk coming soon.

I had a dream ... and Adsense

2006-12-15T13:42:00.000+08:00

I dreamt my house was haunted. More specifically, my room was haunted. I can't really remember much of it now. Just that the fear that I experienced in that dream was thoroughly incapacitating.

One of the things was that I was watching TV in the hall when suddenly the area around the door to my room suddenly became very dark(and you could see the darkness moving) and my 6ft step ladder scraped itself from my room to another room in the house.

I woke up stiff and even though it was day already(I sleep late) I didn't have the strength to turn myself over(I was sleeping face down). It was thoroughly terrifying.

Anyways, I recently introduced Adsense into this blog hoping to get some money but so far I have made zilch. LOL.

I also introduced Adsense to mirror.CuteWorm which is a mirror site that I am hosting for Wei Li's dota stuff. Averaging 200-400 unique hits and bandwidth usage between 400mb and 700mb per weekday and 1.4Gb and above on weekends, I have also so far only earned, 50 US cents. And I believe 25 cents may have been from me testing the links. Each hit usually generates between 15 cents to 30 cents depending on factors that I have no idea about.

This just goes to show that advertising is a complex business. I was hoping to make some money from the adverts to pay the difference between Starhub's 12mbps plan and Singnet's 10mbps plan to appease my mother who for some odd reason was very adamant about staying with Starhub(even though she fully noted the benefits of Singnet).

Oh well.

Day out

2006-12-12T23:30:00.000+08:00

Went out with the guys 2 Saturdays ago to go check out Sitex. Instead of going to Expo we ended up at Suntec so we decided to go jalan jalan and I ended up buying my 1GB MiniSD(apparently 2GB will lag the phone) at just $20. The 2GB one was just $48 at certain stores(incl some reliable ones) while other stores were selling it at $73.

Mr Li excited to see the food
(Later found out the kangkong sucked)

On the way to a LAN shop, we saw this.

That's pretty much how the day went. Nothing much happened.

Sitex (SupposedTo)->Suntec->Jalan Jalan->Arcade->Makan->LAN Shop (Closed)->Go Home

Family Dinner

2006-12-10T21:20:00.001+08:00

So my dad treated us to dinner yesterday at an old haunt casually known as Upper Thompson. Very funny that The Straits Times should run an article on it. Anywayz, they missed out the best shop there! The Everybody-Has-Rice-And-Shares-The-Dishes stall.

The stall used to have great Sambal Kangkong but their standard for that dish has since dropped. They also changed their Chilli Crab recipe a few years back and although it's slightly different, it still tastes really good.

SHIOK! Crab Roe	SHIOK! Fried Chicken
2 of the many dishes	Only ten hold the secret. The others misplaced theirs.

My stomach's been a tad weak lately. So I only ate one pincer from the crab. Near the end of the meal I had to go make some extra space but even after I cleared room, I was still full and so were the rest, so we tapao-ed the rest of the crab and Sweet and Sour pork ribs.

This sucker's body is the
length of 3 Nokia 6280s

More yummy food.

The amount of Crab roe was quite a fair bit this time round as you can see from the picture below. There were two of these sacs plus whole pieces still floating around in the sauce.

Lotsa Crab Roe!

I used to release these
buggers by the dozen when
fishing because I found them
smelly. But NO MORE! lol.

Afterwards, we went to checkout the new IKEA. The inroad was very long and was jam packed with no outroad nearby. We didn't go in though cuz my dad hates crowds so I'll be checking it out with the guys this Saturday after we go to the Cosplay thingy at Expo(They want to check the costumes out, I want to laugh at the wearers :P).

All I can say is that the place is extremely huge and I've only seen something like this in other countries. i.e. Malaysia.

That's just a small part of the building.

There's another building nearby that belongs to Courts and is big but not as huge as Ikea's.

Courts Megastore

There's yet another building (and this one is huge) that belongs to Giant. It's still being constructed though.

Sad to say that all my secret fishing spots seem to have developments going on nearby. I guess I was never destined to enjoy exclusivity.

Shawn the Fixer

2006-12-06T01:01:00.000+08:00

Saved myself $30 the other day by fixing my own earphones.

Looks good as new	Speaker
Test PDA	Faulty wires and connections

I art smart.

Hilarie Burton

2006-12-04T19:38:00.000+08:00

FK's upload function is finally back up. Turns out the problem was server side. It's a great relief because otherwise the problem would probably still be there because I was completely stumped at the cause.

Anyway, I've been watching One Tree Hill (oth) lately because Celest's been slowly poisoning me with tidbits over time. The show's basically a teen drama with hot chicks and so-so guys(I'm better.. I think) but has a really simple story structure with a complex story line which is basically what I adore in shows. Think Lost and Taken. But when you cross complexity with emotional depth(which this show has to a certain degree) and hot actors/actresses, people like me get headaches.

People like me think too much and easily get sucked into the show and the line between reality and fiction begins to blur.

The actors on the show are unbelievably hot yet sweet/fun(sweet=girls, fun=guys) and caring. Let's just take a look at one of them

Hilarie Burton is a cross between Charlize Theron and Scarlett Johansson(voice), Madchen Amick (Hair and Semi-emotional and "innocent" demeanor), Angel(Face and Smile) and the surreal(everything else).

I watched some of her videos on youtube and it would seem that she is a really sweet person. How can anyone hate her?

Let me put it this way. Someone like her would be my dream girl. The more I watch her on tv, the more I find myself liking her. But that's exactly the problem. If I were to meet this girl in real life, I think we wouldn't really be that much into each other - well, at least I wouldn't be in to her as much as I'd think(she probably wouldn't be in to me at all). Ours lifestlyes are so different and I'm not just talking about the careers here.

American shows influence us to American ideals and American fantasies which seriously screws up our society because in real life, finding a way to combine these two cultures completely is near impossible. Screw the fact that we're a westernised society. A westernised society doesn't mean a western society.

Just think of this. Supposing we ignore 3/4 of our local Television programs which is really crap and focus on the 1/4 which is "good". To see how much American television has influenced us, watch one of our good local dramas and then compare it with an American program and you'll feel like there's something lacking in the local program. You feel it? Perhaps you can't quite put your finger on it yet. Let me clue you in on the answer. Whites.

I ain't kidding here. Think about it. If you were to see a good local actor/actress on an American television program, wouldn't it feel weird? That, ladies and gentleman, is the influence that we all are under.

"Perhaps it's the accents", you say. Well I say exactly because accents are part of a culture. The attitudes and the way they handle things are part of the culture. The clothing styles are part of the culture. The way they socialise is part of the culture. Now you're getting it. We're different!

So how then is experiencing two lifestyles (American, vicariously thru TV. Local, through real life) affecting us? I don't really know yet. Let me just leave it at this. Regardless of what I've said above, if I had the chance to meet her(Hilarie Burton), I still would if only just to find out what their lives are like.

And just for your info, in case you're pathetic and living in a fantasy world(not me because I'm still able to tell the difference), she's already taken. Haha.

Did you know?

2006-12-01T13:40:00.000+08:00

Did you know that we are radioactive?

http://science.howstuffworks.com/carbon-142.htm

The link shows how we breathe in ionised carbon atoms from the atmosphere. This makes me wonder if the hole in the Ozone layer has been causing all these deformities in the human population.

===================================

So FK's been getting a little rough lately. Been working on the new template only to find out that a release of the new template without upgrading the backend is near to impossible. Because of this, some of the features have been unavailable for a day or so and maybe even more. I'm still trying to confirm this before I let the big bosses know because it was all going so well.

At least, the new FK is going to look super cool and is going to be extremely easy to use.

Peace out. Time to get back to work.

zod

2006-11-22T16:10:00.000+08:00

So I came across this link while browsing my favourite comic website. The author was talking about how some dude got smashed into a pole when Walmart held a race for which the top ten winners would be able to get a PSP 3.

Some pretty fucked up stuff.

Neways, been watching the second season of Prison Break and I have to say it is quite interesting. Not so much how innocent civilians are being victimised, but more on the details the show incorporates. I love shows with details, Lost being another fav of mine.

Fusionstream, out.

Playlist updated...

2006-11-17T13:28:00.000+08:00

I have updated the music player's playlist. This time round, it's all blues and blues rock and the file size is damn high to preserve as much quality as possible. As such, you may experience extremely slow loading times. You "may".

Here's some comics from my most favouritest comic strip ever, ctrlaltdel.

New Stuff

2006-11-14T18:57:00.000+08:00

I have added new blogs to my account.

They are
http://fusionstream.blogspot.com
http://fusionforest.blogspot.com

They are a replacement for my Flickr accounts because I found out that Flickr will delete your old photos automatically.

Will be redoing the music player shortly too. Btw, you need to enable cookies in order to save the Play onLoad/DoNotPlay onLoad.

Interesting Stuff

A Lesson in Connections

2006-11-04T18:03:00.000+08:00

The links within the wikipedia entries and under the Related Links section in the entries are THE DEVIL. THE DEVIL I SAY. You just can't stop clicking....

So.. on with the lesson.... and proof of this sinister occurence..

I read daily RSS feeds via RSSBandit.

I subscribe to Snopes' RSS Feed which is a rumour busting site. It's sorta like Mythbusters but just not as entertaining in the same way.

One of today's topics' was about the MYTH that watering your plants with microwaved water will kill it.

This reminded me about the Triple Point of water and Superheating and Supercooling from an episode of Mythbusters which showed you can heat pure water higher than 100 degress Celsius without boiling it.

That led to Supersaturation and Phases of Matter.

Supersaturation led to a dead end of sorts.

Phases of Matter however contained a link to Mentos Eruption. Within that page, there was a link to Mythbusters again but there was also another link to Rock Candy.

Within the Rock Candy page, there were links to United Kingdom and Rock Confectionary which is useful if you want to know the difference between, Britain, England and the United Kingdom. Fortunately, I had already read up on this and so did not need to waste more of my life reading addictively pointless stuff. And the Rock Confectionary page was a dud.

Still within the Rock Candy page, I managed to find a small inconspicuous link to Candy Cane.

Candy Cane led me to it's roots, Christmas.

Talking about the origins of Christmas and how it was nearly lost as a tradition, I found a small link to Dissenter. But this was another dead end. :D

Further down the Christmas page, there's more info on Christmas Celebrations. There's a small link to something called the Christmas Truce, which was basically a time when an informal, unofficial and unsanctioned truce occured during World War 1 because the troops at the front lines wanted to celebrate Christmas. I was of course already aware of this because I had read about it before but I was still eager to learn more.

I read on with great interest and was moved by the brotherly love shown by these soldiers. And then I got pissed with the commanders in charge. I mean... if the people of two countries don't want to fight each other, what fucked up reasons do the commanders have for wanting war in the first place?

Other links within the page also indicate that at times there were other informal "truces" where both sides purposely misfired their guns at set times for set durations at set distances to prevent any casualties. There was even a story about how an English soldier accidentally shot a round over to the enemy, - yes. that's right. there was no fighting -, and then yelled out "Sorry!".

The fuck is up with that?

Anyway, by this time, 3 hours had passed and I was left wondering how the fuck I even got to this point. Luckily, I managed to trace my steps with the help of the browser's "History" and managed to post it here just for you.

So my point is proven. Wikipedia is THE DEVIL!

Microsoft bides to take over the world.. again..

2006-11-03T18:29:00.000+08:00

The low down is that Novell had some patent dirt on Microsoft which forced Microsoft over to the table. At least that's what I get from the blog of the Chief Open Source Officer at Sun Microsystems.

Read the joint letter from Microsoft-Novell here and puke(laughing is not an option) at the absurd reality that it seems to portray. Idiots.

I'm no genius but... Isn't there a conflict with the GPL here? GPL and Microsoft. It's a contradiction in terms. Read more about that here.

We all know how Microsoft works. They enter deals or buy out a partner, and then kill them off slowly. Novells guarantees itself a few safe years but also guarantees it's own death immediately thereafter as noted by this blog.

Other Links
Novell Sells Out
The unholy alliance

And here are some reasons why Novell are morons..
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=81
http://talkback.zdnet.com/52.....68&start=-1

How I spent my Birthday

2006-10-25T13:17:00.000+08:00

Ok. I didn't want a party but that seemed to open the flood gates of anti-luck on me.

10.00am

Woke up. Got ready for work.

10.15am

Reached work (Didn't I tell you? Working from home today)

06.00pm

Finish work

06.10pm

Late for meeting with CatEYE to get Rechargable CR123a

06.30pm

Can you tell I'm frustrated?

Finally reached his block and was drenched.

Opened my pouch to find a shallow puddle of water inside. Everything was wet. The AA and AAA batteries for my "useless" bicycle light, the wallet, and the fucking handphone.

Broken Slipper of my heart... LMAO

I tried to get down my bike but my sliper slipped and it broke by the side strap save for 2 strands.

Tried for about 20 minutes to get my phone working but I could see it was shorting out, jamming, refusing to accept button inputs at times and finally, the lcd backlight simply went dark.

I believe if I had just switched it off immediately it would have worked fine. BUT. I needed to get in touch with CatEYE to get the rechargable CR123a batteries

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

06.45pm

That's when I gave up and sat in front of the lift, dripping from
the rain for about 5 minutes.

I finally decided that I needed to get in touch with someone who could help me contact cateye to come down from his block.

So i went up to this man to ask to borrow his phone.

He looked flatly at me and "No."

I was shocked that these kind of people existed so I just mumbled back an "Okay".

Then this other dude came to the lift landing and he seemed to know that other selfish bastard and he wished that bastard Selamat Hari Raya.

So I tapped the new guy on the shoulder and asked if I could borrow his phone.

He said "Ok". I asked if he wanted to use my sim card cause I tot that the call was gonna be long. Not because CatEYE's number was inside. My numbers are all stored on the phone, not the Sim Card.

He said "No. It's ok". I now realised it was because he was afraid I might steal his data or something.

He didn't want to let me have the phone yet so he asked for my name and number first. Then he called my mom and said something to the tune of "Is this the mother of Shawn?".

Neh Neh Sia! My mom had heard this phrase many a times before.
When I bust open a gash in my head in primary school.
When I fell off my bike and knocked out my teeth
etc

So when the dude finally let me talk on the phone, she sounded worried.

After assuring her I was ok and realising that my mom was also unable to help me locate CatEYE (Nokia Suite doesn't keep a user-friendly backup of one's contacts), I gave up and gave the phone to the gentleman who was oddly still wary of me and thanked him.

07.10pm

So I sat under the block for about the next 10 minutes just contemplating my luck and how bad things usually happen all at once to me and how it always happens after good thing(s) happen to me.

~7.20pm

That's when I finally remembered that CatEYE had PMed me his number and so I went out in search of a coin phone(also just realised I could have used a coin phone) to call my mum.

My mom told me to wait for God knows what and I ended having to call her again which was extremely frustrating(had already waited so long) but I finally got his number and called him immediately.

I explained the situation and managed to get the battery and charger from him. There, he showed me his new torchlights before I had to go.

07.30pm

Left for home with a slight drizzle still going on.

Dumped my now turned off phone(it magically turned back on when the battery was still in) in the bag CatEYE had gave me to keep my stuff dry.

Broken man

The "Pierre" in Pierre Cardin

OMG!

Looks like I need to get some new footwear. I'm thinking about this one. What do you guys think?

To quote from Erin in a non-related article,
Sars: Dude.
Erin: Duuuude.
Sars: What. The. Fuck.
Erin: I. Don't. Know.
Sars: But…DUUUUUUUDE.
Erin: I know, dude. THE FUCK?
Sars: I…dude?
Erin: Dude. Just…dude.
Sars: See? Uh. I.
Erin: With the. In the. How the.
Sars: Dude?
Erin: Dude.
Sars: And, in case it hasn't been said enough: DUDE.
Erin: Totally.

Feng He dropped by later to drop off my present. Which was really sweet. *Lowers voice and coughs man-like.*

Freakin Huge (The Box)

A Model Replica of SP Rover's Campsite

Thanks mate! (but don copy my "Cheers" signature =D)

Overnight @ ECP

2006-10-24T16:55:00.000+08:00

Went for night cycling with the guys the other day at East Coast Park.

I cycled there and ended up waiting for them for like forever cuz they got lost. Lol. I even cycled the entire stretch of ECP looking for them(only to find out later they were lost outside of ECP).

I brought my own bike but the rest rented their bikes for $10 for the whole night.

The "ancient" Cable-Ski park

The guys eating supper

After we saw the whole ECP, we headed to Changi but not before making a detour to see Gary's workplace and his and Weili's primary school friend's house, which was like in the center of a roundabout on the main road. After that, Gary wanted to eat so we went to a coffee shop near his workplace that was open 24 hours.

Home-Made Noodles

Angry Smoker

After that we left for Changi. However, some of the guys were getting very lethargic and after stopping at the bus stop, shown below, which was like half way between ECP and my house (distance between Changi and my house is twice the distance between ECP and my house), I realized that they'd never make it in time. So we decided to go back and stake it out at Macdonalds.

The bus stop of Sloth

At Macdonalds, Sam decided to play with his food and come up with new concepts for increasing Macdonalds' sales. He presented this to the cashier who promptly stuffed her finger in Sam's donut hole.

Sam and his Donut Burger

Macdonalds is cold at 6am in the morning but many of the guys still drank cold drinks.

Sam describes the Donut Hole	Jinghao's towel fetish
Gary	Roy

Everybody was getting a little sleepy just because we were sitting down. In fact, my butt was beginning to get too comfortable on the seat. It was bad for me because I still had to cycle home and if my butt felt comfortable here, it would begin to feel painful on the bike seat.

Yours Truly	Jinghao getting sleepy
Sam sleeping and eating	Gary measuring mouth size

Those who were not used to pulling overnighters began to slowly give in. It would seem that staying up all night playing DOTA versus staying up all night doing labourous work were 2 entirely different things. doh

Sam gives in to sleep	Roy prays for Sam
Gary thinking deeply	Jinghao has turned to stone

At about 7.30 am we went out to "cycle" but ended up passing by the shop and saw a lot of people waiting to return their bikes so the rest of the guys gave in and decided to go return their bikes so they could go home. But we found out that the shop hadn't opened yet so we cycled to a nearby bench and sat down and relaxed.

A trap set by Jinghao and Weili. lol

I followed them all the way bus stop and so ended up cycling further than I usually had to to get home. I passed by an Esso station and bought mineral water which only costed 50cents. Back to the good ole days of cheap water.

50cent water

I managed to get back home in one piece but the sun greatly drained my strength and it took me twice as long. Even more so with that aching butt.

Happy Deepavali and Hari Raya from Petronas

2006-10-24T10:52:00.000+08:00

Deepavali: http://202.71.107.161/petronas/index.asp
Hari Raya: http://202.71.107.161/petronas/tvc2.asp

To all you Muslims and Hindus, Selamat Hari Raya and Happy Deepavali!

Nokia 6280

2006-09-26T22:58:00.000+08:00

I finally got myself a new phone. No well, actually, my mom bought it for me after my four year old, war-damaged T610 looked like it was about to konk out on me.

So the new phone is basically everything I wanted again. mp3 SMS and Ring tones.. Radio... Video.. Camera... Expandable Memory... AND VIDEO CALLS!

The problem with the phone though is that sometimes it will just restart, now and again all your profile settings will be lost, and there is a major problem with saving your "own words" to the phone's T9 dictionary. Other than that, it's ok I guess. Except for the slider which has become stiff.

I'm proud to say that I finish the entire Splinter Cell series within one week from the moment I got this phone. =D And I've also started listening to the radio again which has caused me once aagin to go an update my playlists again. 987fm is STILL my favouritist radio station.

The plan from Singtel(which allows me free phone calls from campus.. but I just started my internship) gave me this free Paris Hilton Interactive CD too. I perused through it once and then dumped it somewhere in the mess of my room.

Sexy new single? The song or the artiste?

Modern Bling Bling. Where we hang rubbish around our neck. wahahaha. But honestly speaking, Paris Hilton's music is ok. It's not bad but it's nothing to oo and ah about. Maybe it's just not my cup of tea.

This is another gripe that I have. These earphones make me look like an idiot, nerd, goondo, fucktard and geek, all at the same time. No pictures. Those who have this will know what I'm talking 'bout.

I'm thinking of getting a 2gb MiniSD card for all my music and videos. It's just S$60 sia.

Well. That's all for now.

Mahatear

2006-09-18T12:56:00.000+08:00

I noe it's probably way over due for me. But I've been busy. So here's me catching up with old posts..

So did you hear about the Mahatir's run in with the spice spray? LOL. Apparently he was accidentally pepper sprayed by some Malaysians who were fighting with each other over who should take care of him.

Here's a picture of that.

That face is priceless. To see a politician display that kind of emotions always get's me high. LOL.

I would've took the picture and framed it up but I was afraid the ink would run. lol

Look Ma!

2006-09-17T17:14:00.000+08:00

So I googled myself after watching Jay Leno interview these 2 old geezers who had the same name and lived pretty similar lifestyles but lived on opposite sides of the globe.

As usual(Did the same many times before), Shawn Seet turned up results about an unknown director/producer in the States.

This time though, I took the added step of ALSO googling(and yahoo-ing) my full name, Shawn Ronald Seet, and came up with some interesting results.

Readers should know that I wrote a letter(see-and-type version by another guy) to The Straits Times(which was heavily edited) a while back shooting down this woman's insane idea to have women-only carriages on the MRT because apparently, groping was outta control. Apparently.

This dude recognises what I'm trying to say. Dumping the whole lot of us in with the gropers(WHICH ARE RAMPANT! lmao) is insanely stupid.

Next, Shawn Ronald Seet (I am inherently suspicious of anyone who carries this particular surname) cries out that a previous letter about having women-only carriages in MRTs is unfair to men. His points are all valid - the initial call by a certain Mdm Lam Yar Ee is incongrously stupid, and our friend Shawn here rips her argument to shreds (more manpower needed, gender biased etc.), sarcastically concluding we should have three carriages for men and three for women, thereby also protecting men from "frisky old aunties". Still, for the original notion to even be put forward is rather scary; does this not remind anyone of 1950s Montgomery or worse, apartheid-era South Africa?

Hey dude! What's wrong with my surname! You seet-o-phobe. lol. To be honest though, I too have reservations with people who have certain surnames. Damn me.

Then there's this guy who recognises my point but is a softie who believes in factual reasoning and does not appreciate the "what-could-happen" stance. I only guessed as much because he acknowledges my points but believes that sarcasm and careful use of words should NOT appear in full-sized publications. At least I gathered as much.

Anyway, the dude then goes off to write a letter to me in his blog because he knows he can never get it published. lol.

So now I sit here wondering how come I get more hits on FusionStream than on my real name. Damn.

Japanese Toilet Show

2006-09-09T14:06:00.000+08:00

Got this as a head's up from WeiLi.. so went to search for it and here it is..

WTF!!

Suicidal Bunnies

2006-09-08T08:38:00.000+08:00

http://people.freenet.de/schnubelken/bunnys/

This saturday is Operation Darknight. Will be heading off to Pulau Y (Our last Island Trip was at Pulau X). Fishing's the objective here.

Icebomb's going to Pandan again tonight. Would've joined him but got some stuff to tie up. Fix my fishing rod la, clean up room la, add more features to my software project la. Not that it isn't fun. Variety is key though. lol.

The Third Nipple

2006-09-01T14:13:00.000+08:00

http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~wenz/

Have fun.

lmao

2006-08-29T12:45:00.000+08:00

Damn that was fun.

I spent the whole night watching comedies and dramas and watching the "chemistry" between Ryan Secrest and Juliana Depandi on E's repeat telecast of the emmys. The late nights shows are simply the best!

I had to blow off Sam and the gang for pool cuz I was just so tired. Heehee.. Here'a a secret you don't know about me, the longer my hair gets, the harder it is to get me to go out. haha.

My work/project is coming along fine. The details of the project are getting clearer and the features are coming together. I hope to finish it before school starts cuz programming on 2 different projects by myself(one more coming up for ITP) always confuses me.

I'm in to breeding bettas now and planted tanks. More pix on this stuff when I can.

Then I will also be going to HotBoys Kelong off Sibu somewhere in December for fishing with Icebomb and some old-new kakis.

Will be collecting this 4ft fish tank sometime today or tmr too. This girl I met in an online game doesn't want it anymore so she's giving it away to me, free.. :P

NDP @ Simei

2006-06-06T19:56:00.000+08:00

*Salut! The future of our nation.

Day 7 - Shell China Trip

2006-05-26T10:56:00.000+08:00

Day 7

(FINALLY! 3 Months late!!)

Woke up damn early today to pack my bags.. Which is when I realised that the sun apparently rises by 4am in China.. well at least during that period.

Went for breakfast and took some photos.. :p

Lovely dishes they had there..

Fry the New Year Pudding	Stir Fried Assorted Rice
SMALL CAKE!!!

Ladies & Gentlemen, I give you... SALT!!!

That right.. This here is salt.. It's not sugar.. And please don't tell me otherwise just because you think it looks like sugar. I was there. I had a taste. It's salt.. After 7 days of eating tasteless food, I finally find some good ole salt. 6 days too late albeit.

Anyways. First up today was yet another shopping street. It's a very popular tourist spot so it was damn crowded...

Fancy a spot of tea?

Brilliant signage!

My mom was in one of the shops bargaining for some blouses. After some bargaining, it turned out the lady didn't have any stock and was left with the display piece. Being the crazy oppurtunist my mother was, she attempted to bargain more for that item. Needless to say, it failed(tourist spots can afford to hold out). So my mom left and the lady started cursing and swearing at her. Which is when I gave that woman the dirtiest stare my cold and hard face could give. I was a bit surprised though that the lady didn't seem shocked. I mean, c'mon.. I sometimes freak myself out when I look in the mirror in the morning.

Who says Starbucks is on the decline!?

Starbucks is WESTERN FILTH!!! wahahaha...

Street Hawker

"Road Sweeper's" cart.

I tried to photograph the sites and sounds of the places I'd been. Notice the colours in this country are different. That gray cart for example would've looked more silvery here in Singapore. Not just because of the paint(doh!), but also because of the colour temperature in that region.

Some of the popular tourist dishes

The Chinese and their Koi

A Koi farm in China equals $$$. I swear. The sheer number of these Kois and the way these Chinese flock to these numerous ponds must make the aquarium shop owners love Capitalism.

Singaporeans will understand this

Malay speakers will understand this

Do you know the way to San Hose?

Can you spot Bruce Lee?

Those pictures were from yet another tourist shopping street. I got some stuff from there like this magnetic UFO thingy that allowed you to spin a top in the air. Unfortunately, there was some trouble with this item at the airport.

Our last lunch that we had today was the usual with duck for the appetizer and the usual watermelon desert. Also as usual, there was lots of left over food. This is when I found out that James' wife had bought me a Mickey Mouse belt which was a Godsend cuz my pants was sliding off my arse. The belt wasn't as childish as you might think.. In fact, it was quite cool.. lol

A Trike! Never seen one in Singapore before!

Last view of the "wrong-direction" streets :P

Anyway, we set off for the airport where we saw these real cool buses that had beds in it and all. It was pretty obvious that what the guide had said about the rich and poor gap being very big was true. WE HAD NO BEDS!! WHERE IS THE JUSTICE IN THIS WORLD?!?!

So, at the airport, I was going thru the metal detector right? When this lady called me aside and asked me to open my bag that went thru the X-Ray machine. Apparently that magnetic UFO toy had too strong a magnetic field. Costs us about S$12 in total.. Since I had 2 of them with me.

List of prohibited items (Magnets included! DOH!)

Da Rules

More Rules

Anyways.. The whole of China, airport notwithstanding, is full of people who tend to burp and fart WHILE WALKING and continue walking as if nothing had happened. This reminded me of cows. lol. No offence. In fact, right in the airport, this guy walked right pass me, slowed down, and bent forward a bit, and let loose a semi-dry one. "DAMN!", I said to myself. "Something just ain't right here." lol.. It explains the extremely high ceiling in the airport though.

Futuristic but simplistic, high ceiling.

Then there's their travellator. Which is nice and all, save for two things. (1) It's way way way too narrow for the trolleys. (2) My little sister could walk faster than the damn thing could move.

Space saving bastards! :P
(Apologies for poor framing. Cropped!)

Multi-Directional Trolley (Speedster)

You got that? Passengers only!!

The lights even went out for a bit at the passenger waiting area. Budget sia!!

Passenger waiting... er, in area. hmm..

SAFETY TIPS!

Did someone say, FIRE!?!?

Someone I know did manage to get in with some pretty strong magnets though...

That's a BATTERY on the chain, PEOPLE!

After a fellow Singaporean mumbled "Fucking Inefficient" when he was stopped from entering cuz he didn't have a RED sticker on his ticket, we walked onto the last bit of China we'd be seeing for quite a while(No more Pudong and Pusi.).

The gangway

And on to Singaporean Property!! S.I.A!! MUACKZ!!! (Moment of weakness there. Ignore it)

I saw Badawi(One of Singapore's MPs) on the plane in Business Class. Hmm... There was some holdup with the plane and we left behind schedule.

KrisWorld was different this time. My unfinished movies from the flight in to China not being available anymore coupled with the fact that you were no longer able to fast forward or rewind the video meant you had to sit thru those boring and unending commercials and if you pressed the wrong button.... it meant u started from the beginning again.. But..

Le Remote Control

Le Screen & Remote.. and my hand.

I've got to say. SIA is Number 1 in service. I love their KrisWorld. I love their crews' accents(BIASness there). I love their warm attitude. I even love their safety instruction video, which is hilarious btw. Then there's the fact that they give us warm towels to wipe our face just before the plane takes off.

I dunnoe if any other airlines do this service. But if they do, I think they give the towels after the landing. So that the passengers can clean up after themselves. Which brings me to another point.

SIA has the BEST FUCKING pilots! I swear. All my trips on SIA have had perfect landings. This landing though caught us with some tailwinds but I swear, the pilot realigned the plane seconds before touchdown such that we felt like nothing had happened. Well, actually I felt the plane about to tilt over but what they hey. I could've passed it off as my imagination without being the wiser.

I know that one of my fishing buddies who was a former steward told me about all the hush-hush stuff from SQ about Taiwan and shit.. But who fucking cares?!?!

And as usual, I got a deck of the customary playing cards.

This was when I overheard one of the Shell guys mentioning that the quality of the petrol these days was so high that people only really cared about the prices now.

We arrived at Changi Airport ahead of schedule to a very balmy 29ºC dry wind. We didn't need to worry about crossing the street anymore cuz we were on the right side of the road.. haha

Uncle Simon was there to pick us up and Dad gave him a bottle of Black Label. I don't drink myself cuz I don't like the taste so I wouldn't know how much it meant to him to get that and stuff.. haha.. Which is also when I found out that the flight crew aren't allowed to buy drinks from the DFS..

(Photo Edited. What is missing eh?)

The day was ended in my SPRING mattress and snoring my head off.
Part 7 of 7

Good night guys.

ADDENDUM: Apparently there was a flood in Shanghai the day after we left. God is great ain't He? But then again.. It would have been way fun.. haha.. *Scolds the sadist in me*