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

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)

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)

1. 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

2. 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.
3. 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

4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.