Thursday, May 26, 2005  

[Champions...]

Liverpool won the Champions League last night. I'm a Man U fan, but I was rooting for Liverpool in this one. Better an English club than any other. Some say the match was more dramatic than the one in 99, where Man U scored 2 goals in the second half's injury time to claim the title. I disagree, I still feel the one in 99 was more dramatic. All the same, credit to Liverpool for coming back from 3-0 down at the half to force the game to penalties.

Managed to get a copy of the first-ever King Of The Ring. That was way back in 1993. Bret Hart won it in the end. I've yet to finish watching, but one thing's for sure. Lex Luger and Tatanka are probably 2 of the most boring wrestlers in the history of wrestling. If the match they fought was fast-forwarded to present time, people will be chanting "boring....boring.....".

The MP(is it called MP?) for my place is visiting my block tonight, and the cleaners have been washing and sweeping my block and the surrounding blocks all day. Just like in the Army.....

Wayang.

^^^ by Locksley @ 7:02 PM. 0 comments.
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Sunday, May 22, 2005  

[Injustice!]

Man U lost the FA Cup last night, in a match which they outplayed Arsenal in every way. It stood 0-0 after extra time, and Paul Scholes missed a penalty while Arsenal converted all 5 of their's. Rio Ferdinand was in tears at the end. Couldn't blame him.

^^^ by Locksley @ 3:45 PM. 0 comments.
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Thursday, May 19, 2005  

[Laughter, the best medicine....]

One of the letters in today's ST Forums almost made me burst out laughing after reading it.

Someone wrote a letter about how mobile phones, when they could not detect a signal, would use more power in an attempt to search for a signal. He described this as not being able to find a "server" (haha!). He then wanted the authorities to find out if there would be any danger if 10 people were in a lift and all 10 mobile phones increased their power (and radiation) to search for a "server".

I don't know if not enough people write in to the ST everyday or did the editors publish this letter just to get a good laugh. This person either lives in a lift, or simply have way too much time on his hands.

^^^ by Locksley @ 4:35 PM. 0 comments.
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Wednesday, May 18, 2005  

[USA.com]

I've been using free email provided at USA.com ever since PostOne.com closed shop a while back. Sometime ago, I realised emails from a Yahoo! Group which I've subscribed to since 1997 were blocked by the spam filter at USA.com. I get the emails from the group once in a while, depending on the spam filter's mood.

This is excellent, considering that spam still ends ups in my mailbox. Your blocking is so "strong" that even legit emails get blocked, but spam is still allowed through.

^^^ by Locksley @ 11:11 AM. 0 comments.
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Saturday, May 14, 2005  

[Fare hikes...]

Fares for public transport are raising again. What a surprise. No wait, it's not.

The general public has been very vocal in voicing out their displeasure at the fare hikes, however small they may be. The transport companies' spin doctors arrived on the scene today in the papers, giving reasons for the hike. One reason was increasing fuel costs.

I'm a consumer. I don't give a shit about your fuel costs. All I know is that I've NEVER been able to board a bus home from school after 6pm. Each and every 963 at go pasts NUS after 6pm either drive past the bus stop altogether, or it stops a fair distance away from the bus stop, drops the alighting passengers, and then carries on without picking anyone up. This can last all the way to 7:40pm. Maybe even later, but the latest I've ever been at that bus stop was 7:40pm. If it's after 6pm, I usually just board any bus that comes along and changes to 184 at Clementi. They could easily fix this problem by increasing the number of buses plying the route during peak hours. But they choose not to do so. As far as I'm concerned, the public transport service here is NOT world-class. As for the companies increasing fares to cover fuel costs, both SMRT and ComfortDelgro has reported staggering profits in their last profit report (whatever, I don't know what's it called....I'm a consumer, remember?).

Another one of the points brought up by the spin doctors was that the average fare here is still lower than that in other countries. They, of course, only mention the countries where the fare was higher. Anyway, the average fare in Singapore is 65 cents it seems. I realise that this probably takes into account the fare paid by secondary school students, which accounts for why the average is so low (how many adults pay 65 cents for their trip?). This also means I've been paying way above average. It costs $1.23 one way to NUS.

But that's not the main issue. The main issue here is that the spin doctor pointed out that the average fare in the United States is S$1.40. This is a bullshit comparison. Ignoring the exchange rate, the value of money is more or less the same as in Singapore. Walk into a department store in the US, and you'll find that the prices are very similar to those in Singapore. This means if a shirt sells for S$X in Singapore, there's a good chance it sells for about US$X in the US. By converting the average fare in the US to S$, the price difference has been OVERSTATED. In reality, it's probably just a few cents difference. But due to the exchange rate, it seems that the average fare in the US is way higher than that in Singapore.

Don't be fooled.

^^^ by Locksley @ 10:35 AM. 0 comments.
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Tuesday, May 10, 2005  

[Pearls of wisdom...]

"Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like." --Will Smith.

"Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't make them all yourself." --Usher, Confessions.

I nearly labeled this post as "Meaningful something-something". Affected by someone who keeps sending me "meaningful" emails. Not *EVERYTHING* is meaningful. If everything seems meaningful to you, it's probably just you.

To others it's probably called spam.

^^^ by Locksley @ 11:07 AM. 0 comments.
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[Now I know why you wanna hate me....Cause hate is all the world's ever seen lately...]

In today's papers, there's a big hoo-ha over MIW providing some new services or something for the people involved in National Slavery. Oops...I mean National Service. Honestly, I did not read any of the articles in detail (I have better things to do), but most of it are about how great the site is, how useful it is, etc etc. From personal experience, I have 2 things to say:
  1. The site is slow.
  2. I was unable to book my IPPT online. Even the tech support guy for MIW couldn't do it for me when I called them up.
  3. Who the fuck cares about the site?

MIW is a local website. I'm on broadband, and it's still slower than most of the foreign websites. The speed has improved lately, but a while back, the speed was so slow that I gave up surfing the damn site. And now they are replacing the green booklet that we have for recording our ICT attendances and stuff with an online version....I'm telling you, I'm pretty sure that at least a few of our attendances would not be captured and we would have to call them to straighten things out. Ok, to be fair, that's got nothing to do with the site. More to do with the idiots pushing paper in the office, but still....

Typical SAF "wayang" tactic. A small achievement has to be broadcasted to the country in the loudest voice possible. In this day and age, the services provided by MIW are really nothing to crow about. If anything, we should be asking why wasn't it implemented earlier.

Another thing I've been wanting to get off my chest is about a local TV show. Eye For A Guy 2. Yes, 2. This show was so bad I couldn't believe they came back with a second season. Basically this show follows the footsteps of it's American sibling Bachelorette, where one girl gets to choose a guy from a pool of them (who have no self-respect IMO).

I've never caught the full 30 mins of the show. Last week I saw the ending part of the show while waiting for Amazing Race to start. The girl in question (who wasn't even *that* hot) was ripping off a guy about how she never thought of him as ordinary until he said it himself. "Ripping off" as in really scolding the guy. And the guy just stood there and took it. What a geek. On the teaser for next week's episode, two guys were eliminated and were replaced by two white foreigners. During a dialogue session, one of the local guys asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up. It would be funny if the guy himself wasn't so pathetic to begin with.

Every once in a while you see articles in the papers about how local women think of local men as not being good enough, and flock towards the expats. Take a walk down Orchard Rd and you'll see many male expats holding hands with a local girl. This show just exemplifies how pathetic local guys are.

Com'on guys....Strap on a pair.

^^^ by Locksley @ 10:41 AM. 0 comments.
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Sunday, May 08, 2005  

[Still not done...]

I don't know what's wrong with my guppy. As of this moment, she still looks like she's not done giving birth. It's hard to describe, but guppies behave in a certain way when they about to, or are currently giving birth. She hasn't dropped any new fries, but she still behaves as if she would. Anyway, I put her back into the main tank, which you can see above. The thing on the right is the internal tank (yeah, a tank within a tank) for the fries.

Last night's match was an amazing one. Nobody knew who the hell Tomasz Kuszczak was before last night...But he sure was famous now. He came in as a sub for the West Brom keeper who got injured, and pulled off a string of amazing saves to deny United a second goal. Honestly, it was one of the most amazing goalkeeping performances I've ever seen. Last night was only his second appearance in the Premiership, 7 months after his debut. I can't even find a decent picture of him to post...Anyway I think Man U should consider signing him.

The match ended 1-1. Man U looks more and more likely to end up third in the table. That means no auto qualification for Europe. *sign*

^^^ by Locksley @ 4:49 PM. 0 comments.
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Saturday, May 07, 2005  

[24 hours and still going...]

One of my guppies started giving birth last night. I've been eagerly anticipating this since recently more than half of my guppies were wiped out by bacterial infection. She started giving birth last night at around 8-9pm, and as of this moment, she's still not done! There's not a lot of fries, about 20+ the last time I counted. It's just taking her a long time to push them all out. None of my guppies have ever took this long to deliver their brood.

Found out how to blog with photos attached, so this is my first photo post. The picture was taken using my phone, then scaled down. Quality's not the best, since it's taken with a phone and not an actual camera. You can see the mother guppy, and if you look closely, the fries are in the lower part of the tank.

^^^ by Locksley @ 7:56 PM. 0 comments.
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Tuesday, May 03, 2005  

[Whoo!]

Had my last exam today. This marks the end of my first semester in Uni. After one semester, I learnt that I'm not suitable for studying in Uni. Hahaha!

Anyway, all my exams sucked. I remember in Poly, I could calculate how much I'd get, at the very least. Now, it's how much I can get, at the very most. This sucked. And I've never ever had to depend on the Bell curve to save my ass before. Now I'm praying and hoping that it will.

Met a mad woman today on my way back. She kept talking to anyone who was stupid enough to engage her in conversation, about how her marriage was failing, how her daughter's going to study law and get a PhD, etc etc. Basically a whole load of bullshit. I saw her at the bus stop, and realised that there was something wrong with her. Prayed and hoped that she wasn't taking the same bus as I was, but hey, thanks to Murphy's Law, she was. She didn't stop on the bus, and a poor secondary school student became her latest victim. Good thing I was able to move further away from her while on the bus. She used a lot of vulgar words, and was very loud. Good thing she alighted before me and didn't have a chance to come talk to me.

^^^ by Locksley @ 5:17 PM. 0 comments.
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Monday, May 02, 2005  

[Winning ways...]

Last night Manchester United beat Charlton 4-0. It was one of their best performances this season, away from home too. If they played like this throughout, Chelsea would not be the holders this season.

I saw my black neon tetra laying eggs this morning. It was in my main tank, and the first thing I noticed was that they seemed to be extra restless this morning, darting about here and there. It never occurred to be that the female was laying eggs, since they were supposed to spawn only in acidic water and in darkness, both of which were not present in my tank. Anyway, I saw the female scatter her eggs in the water, kinda like "fireworks". All the other surrounding fishes came in and gobbled up all her eggs.

I've taken her and another male out and left them in a small tank. There are plenty of eggs on the base right now, I hope at least some has been fertilized by the male. I don't have any water testing kits, so I don't know how soft or hard or acidic the water is, but hopefully the water conditions are good enough for the eggs to hatch. Hey, they were not supposed to spawn in the first place....So, fingers crossed.

^^^ by Locksley @ 10:15 AM. 0 comments.
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