Family Dinner

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

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

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?

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

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...

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

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

• Black and White or Colour?
• Alien Life With NO DNA
  
• How to hack a Coke Machine 1
• How to hack a Coke Machine 2

A Lesson in Connections

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..

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

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

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

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!