Quite
some time back, Carol gave me an
interesting present. She gave me this
book.
Nice.
Well that book is on my table and it
occasionally reminds me of our limited
time and how there’s so much yet to be
done. I definitely have more than 101
things that I’d like to do before I die.
One of the things that I like to do was
to attend a stranger’s birthday party.
As birthday parties go, these are
usually celebrated with the presence of
friends and families. Hardly with
strangers. Yet this lovely lady kindly
invited me to her 21st birthday
celebration. Prior to this I’ve never
met her before nor have I spoken to her
before. The only time that I
communicated with her was via msn, once,
and that was all it took to get me
invited to her birthday. Thanks a lot
Sara!
The party was to be a costume party. I
had thought of going as Zorro! However,
due to time constraints, I wasn’t able
to shop for a proper costume. Damn it.
Hence I settled down for a Cowboy outfit
instead. Sort of.
Well the party was interesting and I got
to know Sara quite well thanks to the
celebration. Not everyone dressed up but
those who did, did it with style. In
fact Sara even made her own costume!
Respect!
Most of
Australia's modern parents think it
improper to smack children.
The other day I was talking to one of my
friends about methods used to discipline
children.
We talked about 'time outs', grounding,
holding back rewards until the child
displayed desired behaviour etc.
One of the things we discussed was the
act of smacking and my friend explained
that no, he does not smack any of his
children.
He explained that what he does is to
take the misbehaving child out for a
ride in the car and a talk. He said that
usually this works and that the child
calms down fairly quickly and really it
doesn't take too much time.
By removing the child, in this case his
son, from the immediate situation and
providing a change of scenery, the child
is allowed to focus on something
different.
Once the child has the opportunity to
change perspective, things get better
quickly and the child has a better
understanding of his place within the
family and begins to understand the
family's concept of acceptable behaviour.
My friend kindly shared a picture of the
process which I share with you now.
I read in the newspapers today that
Malaysia will start a rule that will bar
foreign vehicles from refueling within
50km of it's borders. Initially it was
meant for Thai vehicles, but the
Malaysian Goverment decided to extend
the rule to Singapore vehicles as well.
The rule will start as early as this
Friday.
After reading the
article, I imagined scores of
Singaporean drivers screaming 'What The
Fuck!!!' and/or other colourful phrases
as well. There goes the source of cheap
petrol. When the rule is enforced,
drivers would have to go as far as Kulai
just to refill their tanks. That's
pretty damn far!
I'm sure I'm not
alone in thinking that this was
Malaysia's respond to the recent Pedra
Branca saga. I imagined their government
officials shouting and screaming in a
meeting about the loss of the island.
Then their chairman asked them to be
quiet before saying,' Since we lost the
island, we must hit them where it hurts!
Not too much, but just nice to teach
them a lesson!'
'How?,' they
asked.
To which he
replied,' We will stop them from pumping
at our stations! Not totally because
that will be too much. Instead, we will
tell them to drive 50km from our borders
if they want to refuel! Hah! That will
surely hurt them. Even their civil
servants come to our country to refuel.
So now they will pay! Muahahahahaha...'
In the words of
our PM,' What to do, it has happened.' I
suppose I will feel the pinch when I
start driving. Hopefully by then cars
are fueled by water instead of petrol.
But I doubt it.
Patent Trolls
Today I learnt a new word -
Patent
Trolls. The meaning is this: Patent
troll is a pejorative term used for a
person or company that enforces its
patents against one or more alleged
infringers in a manner considered unduly
aggressive or opportunistic. I learnt
this word thanks to
VueStar,
a Singapore tech firm.
Thanks to some
stupid idiots at the Patent Office in
Singapore, this firm now holds the key
to make ridiculous claims against
businesses here and worldwide. This is
similar to the Odex Saga, except on a
larger and more ridiculous scale. Their
claim is that the use of images to link
websites is their intellectual property.
As such, you have to pay a certain fee
in the range of thousands of dollars for
the use of their technology.
That's fucking
lame lah.
The technology
has been around for decades, and now
someone decided to claim that it was
their invention, patent it and threaten
companies with legal action for the use
of their 'technology'?
But I won't be
surprise if Singapore companies submit
to this company's extortions claims.
Singaporeans are generally a 'kiasee'
(scared of death) bunch and anything
that uses fear (in this case the threat
of legal action) will have a good
effect. In other words most of us rather
pay to get out of trouble than to not
pay and be in trouble. And it seems
Singapore is the first country to be hit
with this ludicrous claim. As
illustrated by this thread, many of
the netizens are already following this
saga closely.
If the VueShit
succeed in suing companies for the use
of their 'technology', then we can say
goodbye to linking websites via images.
We can still have images on our
websites. However we cannot link them to
other pages or other sites.
And if this
patent is allowed to stand, I'm going to
submit patents against existing
'technology', such as the use of images
in communication (read pictures in
emails and emoticons) or the use of
sounds in media players (read ipod and
mp3 players). Just the first one itself
will make me trillions of dollars as
millions of people use emoticons and
pictures in their emails! Hahahaha...
I'll be so filthy rich that I can
probably run my own country too!
The type of
idiots that we have around us never
cease to amaze and entertain me.
Met up with the climbers today for a KTV
session. Finally we had one. It's been a
while since we met up for a KTV session,
and been a while since there was a lot
of people. We were here for a the good
occasion of celebrating Daniel's
birthday, which was tomorrow.
The celebration
and singing was held at a KTV place in
Peace Centre. One unique thing about
this place is that they only have KTV on
weekends. On weekdays, it's more of a
pub/club. Check it out when you have the
chance. ;)
I arrived
fashionably late, and while looking for
the room (Room 88! Lucky!), I bumped
into Jessica. Together we headed to the
KTV room and met up with everyone.
The gathering was
fun. Singing is always fun after all.
Since I had to leave at 10pm, we had the
birthday celebration around that time.
Zhijie got us a 2kg birthday cake. Man
it was huge! After everyone had a slice,
we still had half a cake left! Oh ya,
Daniel got a AE86 car for his birthday.
Now he can practice his drifting with
style. Sweet~
I always enjoy
this kind of gathering, because the
gathering presents opportunities for
friends to catch up with each other and
have fun together. The world is big and
lonely, but friends make it small and
homely. ;)
Check
out what our cute friends at Sesame
Street have to say about the Internet on
the following video (many thanks to
Sharon for sharing this!).
Motivated
Today I was very motivated about
climbing. The feeling hit me when I woke
up. And I made good use of the
motivation by climbing quite plenty
today. I went back feeling happy about
it too. Tomorrow my body is going to
ache like crazy. But it's worth it. ;)
The show was
screening today onwards, and since I had
no plans after work I decided to ask the
climbing gang out to see the show.
Eventually we had up to 8 people
catching the show. Nice. I went to AMK
Hub to buy the tickets during lunch, and
missed the company shuttle bus by one
minute due to this. Since it was a damn
hot day, took a cab back to my office.
Quite an expensive lunch time.
'Chocolate'
Synopsis
Yakuza Masashi
and his Thai lover Zin are forced to part when
Masashi is sent back to Japan, leaving
Zin in Bangkok as a single mother to
their autistic daughter, Zen. Despite
her condition, she is blessed with
extreme agility and picks up Muay Thai
by watching television programs and from
observing the training sessions at the
Muay Thai academy next door. Zen becomes
an obsessive fighter who excels at
catching fast-flying objects. When Zin
is diagnosed with cancer, Zen has to
fight her way to raise funds for her
mother's treatments.
The
star of 'Chocolate' - Cute and deadly
'Chocolate'
Review
It's quite a
refreshing change to see a chick beat
the crap out of bad guys. And the action
was pretty real (no stunt doubles). The
storyline was a bit far-fetched, but it
gave good reasons for the fighting
scenes. The girl is endearing as she is
deadly with her fists and feet. As
pointed out by Chin Seng, some of the
action sequences were quite original.
Even the fighting styles were original
(some of it at least). If you're a fan
of movies that has fighting scenes, this
is one film you won't want to miss. ;)
Happy Birthday
Carol! May all your wishes come true! =)
Carol's Birthday
Celebration
This is event
had been initiated about a month ago,
but it was only today that we found out
where the location would be: Parkway
Parade.
Yesterday Carol
told us that it would be at East Coast.
So I got all dressed up for the beach.
Only to be not too appropriately dressed
when she changed the location to a
restaurant in Parkway today. Bummer.
It's like turning up for a cocktail
party in singlet and shorts. Oh well, I
could only hope that we go to East Coast
Park after dinner.
Met up with Sok
Bee at Dhoby Ghaut MRT and we took a bus
to go to Parkway Parade. However, we
were late and by the time we reached,
Carol, Ronghui, Zhijie and Baoyan were
already there. But we weren't the
latest. Phew. The rule of thumb of being
late is that never be the last one to
arrive. If you do, arrive with style so
that people will forgive you. Hahaha...
Anyway we had
seafood dinner at Roland Restaurant. The
food was good. Kudos to Carol for making
a fine selection. We had dinner and then
cake! Alex arrived after dinner was over
(read late) but he arrived with style by
bringing cake to commemorate the
occasion. After all, what is a birthday
celebration without cake!
Seafood!!
Beach
Bum & the Ladies!
Birthday girl making a wish!
Presents!
Thereafter we
headed to East Coast Park! Hooray! I
hadn't dress up for nothing. Initially
we had planned on riding the Viking.
However when we got there the ride was
already closed. The girls took Alex's
car and reached there earlier. While
waiting for us, they played this arcade
game where you use a claw to try and
grab a toy. Carol got one after her 2nd
attempt! Lucky! She got herself a female
monkey. Nice.
She 'picked' this
stuff toy after 2 tries! Respect!
We then headed to
the beach to chill. It was a breezy
night and the skies was clear. In other
words it was a great time to hand out by
the beach. We sat and stand around,
enjoying the moment. It was quite sad
that we had to leave by 11plus. If only
we didn't have to work tomorrow. Haiz.
Oh well, once I
have my driver's license I'll drive down
to the beach to chill more often!
Too much
I'm quite fed-up. I don't think it's too
much to ask to turn up for a close
friend's birthday, since it happens once
a year. Sure, we all have our
commitments, but there's always a way to
work it out when there's a will to do
so.
I also don't
think it's too much to ask to inform an
organizer that you can't turn up. I sent
out quite a number of sms on the day of
event and days before to remind people
of the event. If you knew you weren't
going to come at the very least let me
know. But it seems to be too much for
some to even send a message to say they
can't make it. That 5 cents is so
fucking priceless that to spend it on an
sms is too fucking much for some.
So fuck it. Not
going to ask such people along for
future events. I've tolerated such
nonsense till it can't be tolerated.
Once, twice, sure, it can be forgiven
but not forgotten. Thrice, and you've
fucking striked out. Added on to the
other nonsense that's going around,
I've decided
enough is enough.
Disappointment
In retrospect over what happened, anger
aside, I was disappointed. Disappointed
that some people have not changed,
disappointed that some people changed
not for the better and disappointed that
close friends would treat each other
this way. The fact that I can't
comprehend why this is happening and the
rationale behind the irrational behavior
adds on to the frustrations.
Is it that as we
grow older we don't really give a damn
about the people around us?
Or we become more
self-centered that other people's
feeling don't matter?
I don't believe
this is true. I've once approached such
people to seek answers and expressed
hope that they change for the better.
What do I get in return?
A total shut-out.
Such people chose to shut me out and
ignore me instead of providing
clarifications. Well done.
On 12th May 2008,
at 2015hrs, my fate was sealed with one
word:
'Passed'
Happiness for the
moment, for I had passed my basic theory
test. One small step for me, one giant
leap towards driving! Sure, it has taken
a while to take this first step. But as
I usually say, better late than never.
I'm looking
forward to the fun of learning to drive.
It's
Mother's Day.
What better way to spend the day than
hanging around at home with my family,
especially my mom.
Did a bit of
spring cleaning as well at the throne
room. Rediscovered some 'treasures' at a
corner, and decided to have some fun
taking photos of them.
Went to Yishun
SAFRA to climb this morning. The weather
was extremely fine, and I did the
incline walls only today. Felt good. The
fact that there were new routes to try
out gave me some motivation. But too bad
my climb had to be cut short, as I had
to head down to town to get tickets for
the show 'Speed
Racer'.
I bought a total
of 10 tickets today. I've never held so
much tickets in my life. Only after
Ronghui met up with me that I realized
that I had bought one ticket extra by
mistake. Now the following is something
that you can learn about movie tickets
here.
According to my
friend's experience, at Golden Village,
if you have a ticket extra (friend don't
turn up, or in this case bought one
ticket extra by mistake), you can
exchange it for a voucher that will
entitle you to watch another movie
another day. Interesting right?
I've yet to
personally experience this. However,
taking a note from this, I approached
the ticket counter and asked if I could
do the same with Cathay cinemas.
I was told by the
duty manager that they don't offer such
service. Fuck. The best that they could
offer was to help me try to sell off the
ticket. Even then I doubt that they will
really try to help me sell, especially
when it's just one freaking ticket. Haiz...
disappointment is all I can say.
Eventually went
for dinner. Zonghao didn't initially
join us for the show as he was not keen.
However, he did a turn-around and showed
that he has a heart of gold by coming
down and taking up the last ticket.
Nice!
'Speed
Racer' Synopsis
Based on the
classic TV series created by anime
pioneer Tatsuo Yoshida, the live-action
"Speed Racer" follows the adventures of
race car driver Speed on and off the
track in his thundering Mach 5. The film
also features other characters that fans
of the show will remember, including
Speed's family and his mysterious
arch-rival, Racer X. The movie combines
revolutionary visual effects and
cutting-edge storytelling that have
become the benchmarks of the Wachowski
Brothers' films.
'Speed Racer'
Review
This show is quite
entertaining and quite fun to watch. I
was thrilled by the action that rumbled
and dazzled thru-out the show. However
the pace of the show was rather
inconsistent. At some parts it got so
boring that I could feel people around
me falling asleep! But the action
managed to 'wake' people up and built up
an energy that is nothing short than
thrilling. The visual effects gave the
characters more life on the big screen.
That aside, the story line promoted the
ideals of bonding, family togetherness,
friendship, good moral values and
respect. There was even a slight twist
that made people stand up at the end of
the show. All I can say is, Go, Go Speed
Racer, Go!
Well, links to
this video as well as clips of this
video has been going around lately. I'm
sure some of you would have received it
by now. For those who haven't, check it
out. This is definitely not for the
fainted heart.
Shopping For
Toys
Ronghui and I went down to China
Square Central today to check out some
toys. Initially we wanted to get the
Starscream Coronation set, but after
looking at it, we decided that it was
not worth it's price tag ($28). But
there were other toys that caught our
attention and we left the place not
empty-handed. Presenting my new toy, Suzuki:
One robot, 4
different faces, one big head. Each face
has a different expression. Good as an
emoticon for MSN. I like.
A great friend
from start to end and all the way!
Hahaha...
May your wishes
come true, especially the good ones and
those involving me striking first prize
at toto! And may you be blessed with
love, health and wealth in many years to
come!
First Day At
New Tech Park
Woke up with a start this
morning. I was supposed to meet Audrey
and Seren at AMK MRT at 8.25am. I woke
up at 8.20am! Argh! After telling them
that I would go on my own, I changed and
made my way down. Since I missed the
last shuttle bus, I decided to take a
cab down to find out the damage if this
ever happened again.
The answer:
$9.20!!! And about $1.60 was spent on
waiting to turn into the bloody place!
Wtf! Oh well, lesson learnt. Don't miss
the shuttle bus!
The first day
starts with a lot of unpacking. In my
rush, I forgot to bring the keys to my
drawer. As such I can't unpack as much
as I would want to. Hence most of my
stuffs were left in the boxes. The first
thing that I unpacked was the computer.
Had to be sure that it is in good
working condition, else I can't get to
start on work at all! Once that was
done, it was off to unpacking the other
stuffs.
We had some
sort of orientation to the new place,
conducted in groups. It was during this
orientation that my colleagues and I
learnt that we have a new colleague in
our midst. Her name is Jancis and it was
discovered that she stays a few blocks
away from me. She suggested meeting up
in the morning to head down to office
together. Sounds good to me. Her company
is very much welcomed.
When we reached
the canteen, all I could think of was
disappointment. There was only one
Muslim stall amongst the 8 stalls
available. And as we were leaving,
someone heard the stallholder at the
Muslim stall saying 'I also want to move
out already.' Damn!
After the
orientation, it was more or less back to
work. At the end of the day, my
colleagues and I went down to catch the
shuttle service. This service was
provided by the landlord, and the end
destination was AMK MRT Station.
I'm still not
impressed by this new location. Looks
like I've to work hard on being flexible
and adapt to this new environment.
Jasmine told me that life is such that
after going down, the only way to go is
up. Life's duality. Life sucks.
Well, I don't
know how if I'm on my way back up, but
today I woke up feeling that I should
clean up my wardrobe. I suppose this is
a way to start getting back up. Cleaning
up physically before going on to
cleaning up mentally and spiritually.
The journey is long but it begins with a
single step.
Back to my
wardrobe. Too many old clothes are
taking up space. Time to get rid of
them, but not thru disposing them.
Instead I will recycle the clothes by
donating them to a charitable cause.
By the time I was
done, I was shocked. There was a lot of
old clothes in my cupboard! Now my
cupboard is more spacious. Time to fill
it up with new clothes. ;)
Since I was on a
roll, I went on to clean up other parts
of my room. Eventually I ended up going
thru an old document file/holder that
had contained memories of another
lifetime.
You see, back in
my secondary school days, I wrote mails
to people that I got to know thru camps
or events or whatever social gathering I
took part in. I even had pen-pals whom I
got to know thru magazines. And these
friends wrote back and we communicated a
lot. Besides writing mails, we sent each
other cards. I had friends from Hong
Kong, Canada, Brunei, Malaysia and
Thailand! However, once I stopped
writing, everything just ended. Now,
going thru the mails and cards brought
back sweet memories. I wonder if I
should pick up where I left off?
It'll be weird,
but in a good way.
Iron
Man Movie Outing
Initially I
was supposed to head to East Coast for
some sand, sea and cycling fun. However
that planned got cancelled and replaced
with a movie outing with Ronghui,
Zonghao, Zhijie and Carol. We were going
to catch Iron Man!
'Iron Man' Synopsis
Billionaire industrialist Tony Stark makes
weapons for the U.S. government. While
testing of one of his inventions, he is
wounded, captured and forced to make weapons
for the enemy. Instead, he fashions himself
a crude power armour to save his life and
facilitate his escape. When he returns home,
he revises his armour and finds purpose as
the Armoured Avenger, Iron Man!
'Iron Man' Review:
As Azhar puts it, Iron Man is awesome! There
story and character development was
well-paced, and the special effects as well
as action was well taken. Iron Man really
looks awesome on the big screen. My only
gripe is that the action scenes were too
little. It could have been more spectacular.
There's so much to Iron Man than what was
shown. But that would have probably made it
a three hour movie. And I guess the
film-makers want to leave that to the
sequel. Hint: Do stay back after the show
has ended and the credits has rolled to see
a small cliff-hanger/hint of the sequel. ;)
Spent my waking moments today climbing
at NUS. The best thing about today is
that there are few people around in the
gym. This is due to the fact that the
students are mugging for their exams,
leaving the place fairly empty. Despite
being tired, I still managed to get a
decent work-out.
Next week, I plan
to jog and climb. Maybe I'll get to do a
little yoga. Hope the journey is not too
long and out of the way from my new work
place.
I woke up with a start, and was
immediately stunned. Because at 8.00am
in the morning, I found myself lying on
the ground floor at my void deck, my new
hat missing and no recollection
whatsoever of the events that happened
yesterday night. The last thing I
remembered was being at the dance floor.
And that was it! Only two words to
describe this situation:
totally fucked.
I checked my bag
and it seems like nothing was missing.
However, Sok Bee's concealer and
handphone was in my bag! How the hell
that get there is a mystery.
I tried to recall
what happened but I came up totally
blank. Argh! With so much questions in
my head and no one to answer them, I
just picked myself up and headed home.
Eventually I
managed to contact Adrian and Baoyan. It
seems that yesterday Sok Bee and I got
drunk/high and so we ended the night
early (around 1-2am). But we weren't
very wasted (or at least it seemed that
way) when we left the place together in
a cab. On the way out to Zouk, Sok Bee
sprained her ankle while trying to avoid
a bouncer. Later on she called me and
told me she doesn't remember much of the
events of yesterday night as well. She
even asked me how come her ankle is in
so much pain! Unfortunately I wasn't
able to answer her as well.
On reflection,
New Hat : $30
Velvet cover :
$30
Two Jugs of Long
Island Tea : $70 (1 for 1)
Getting high,
passing out and waking up at void deck :
Priceless.
There are some
things money can't buy. For everything
else, there's Visa.
Recollection
Attempts
I lay in bed and
tried to recall the past night events.
But every time I tried, all I got was
blank. I think the overload of alcohol
had killed off enough brain cells to
prevent any memory from forming. It
bothers me a lot that I can't remember.
And so I tried. And tried. And tried.
And still I fail.
Climbing
Since the memory recollection attempts
failed, I made my way to Climb Asia to
work out by climbing. What better way to
burn the alcohol than thru exercising,
right? Met up with Daniel and Kelly, and
we climbed hard. My body was a little
tired from yesterday night's fun, but I
pushed myself. At the back of my mind, I
was working hard at trying to recall the
past night events. By the end of the
climb, no success. Haiz...
Looks like I've
to look into other ways to recall my
memory. If it even exists. =\
Life sucks.
What Eurasian
should I be?
I shared with
Kelly and Daniel about my experience at
Far East Square, about being asked if I
was local. Thereafter I asked them, if I
was Eurasian, what kind of Euro-Asian
mix that I should be? We came up with a
few silly ideas:
Indo-pino or
Fili-nesian: Indonesian & Filipino (not
really Eurasian but we had to start
somewhere)
Fili-penese:
Filipino & Japanese
Fren-ji-penese:
French & Japanese
Fren-Ji-nesian:
French, Japanese & Indonesian (Wow!)
Fren-Ji-Pino:
French, Japenese & Filipino
Frappucino: A
drink at Starbucks
Spili-pino:
Spanish & Filipino
Spa-nesian:
Spanish & Indonesian (Bingo)
Eventually, Spa-nesian
seemed the best of the lot. So I
decided, if anyone asked me if I'm
local, I'll just tell them I'm Spa-nesian.
Ola~! =)
I try to live life to the
fullest while enjoying the beauty that life has to offer.
It's all about the brighter and
funnier side of life.
For everything else, you would
have to discover for yourself.
No
Pedra Branca? No Petrol!
'Chocolate' Movie
Outing
'Speed
Racer' Synopsis
Iron
Man Movie Outing
