Saturday, December 31, 2005  

[That time of the year...]

2005 is drawing to a close. As I'm typing this, I noticed a huge bruise on the back of my left hand. I went for a medical checkup yesterday, and during the blood test the doctor couldn't find a vein on my arm to draw blood from. Not the first time. So he took it from the back of my left hand. The blood was slow to flow too....Not the first time neither. Hope the results don't show that I'm an alien or anything...

How was 2005 for me? I guess the big highlight of 2005 was finally making it to University. Remember when you're young, your parents always told you to study hard and go to University or risk being a road sweeper? Haha...Guess I won't be a road sweeper.

Highlights of 2005:
  1. Doing much better than expected during my first semester.
  2. Found a special someone.
Low point of 2005:

  1. Doing below expectation for my second semester, therefore dragging my overall result down to a place I don't want it to be.
  2. Losing my special someone.
2 years ago today, I started blogging. Back then, I was still in the Army, and used blogging as an outlet for my stress and "pissed-off-ness". It's still somewhat of an outlet now, but I guess there's less angst and maybe more humourous stuff especially those pictures I take when I'm on the bus.

2005 wasn't fantastic, nor was it especially bad. But here's to a better 2006.

^^^ by Locksley @ 7:34 PM. 0 comments.
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[New guppy fries...]

One of my guppies looked ready to pop this morning, so I took her out and placed her in the birthing (is there such a word?) tank. Turns out, I was right and she's giving birth right now.

The pregnant guppy.


2 of the fries.


Another fry. This is probably the clearest picture I've ever taken of a new-born fry.

^^^ by Locksley @ 2:13 PM. 0 comments.
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[As it draws to a close...]

Went for dinner yesterday evening with some friends from NUS. There were 6 of us in total, and all of us were graduates of Ngee Ann Poly. Of the 5 other guys, I didn't know one guy very well while I saw another one for the first time ever last night. Still, all of us were able to click and talk like old friends. No lame jokes, no "fake-smiles-even-when-something-silly-was-said". Maybe it's because we were all from similar backgrounds? Who knows...? Anyway, our main purpose in going was because one of them was flying off to Sweden on the 16th for a semester in a Student Exchange Program.

Before I entered NUS, I was told that polytechnic graduates usually had an easier time in Uni, since we came with proper backgrounds. After 1 year, I have found that to be a myth. I know more polytechnic graduates who are struggling than those who are doing well. Probably due to the material taught...It was very practical stuff in poly, while very academic stuff in Uni. For some reason, folks in Uni want to reduce every damn thing to a maths formula. One of the 5 guys has a very serious problem with his CAP right now...After his first semester. I wish him the best....There's still time to put things right if he tries hard enough. Nevertheless, half the people in our group last night had already given up and switched to a 3-year course instead. I hope I can hover around the range I am at currently, because I have no fall-back plan. It's do or die for me in a 4-year course.

We had dinner at a restaurant called Outback...Something. I can't remember the restaurant name! Haha! And I wasn't wasted or anything. On our way there, we passed by some marine tanks at Suntec City, and I took a picture of the biggest tank. There were 3 LCDs inside the tank, showing some advertisements from the folks who set them up.


2 fishes inside the tank. I'm not very into marine tanks, but I think this one could have been set up a little better. For some reason, it was very "blue". It was hard to see the fishes, and the colour contrast wasn't very good neither because everything looked so blue!


We order some onion rings and a salad for appetizers. Look at the plate of onion rings. Both looked and tasted much better than the onion ring loaf I had at Tony Roma's in Las Vegas. A selected few knows the story....


On the school module bidding front, I didn't get all my modules. Secured 4 of 5, didn't get the module which had only 1 vacancy. Dammit. I have 2 friends who were bidding for the same module, albeit at a different timeslot. They both managed to secure it. It could be a blessing in disguise for me, if more slots open up later I might be able to get it with lesser bid points. I certainly hope so...I really don't want to have to clear another UE module. I need them for my last semester to ensure safe passage. Sounds like a pilgrimage to an unknown land or something...Haha!

^^^ by Locksley @ 9:47 AM. 0 comments.
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Friday, December 30, 2005  

[Welcome back, the baby-faced assassin...]


Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the man who scored the winning goal in the 1999 European Cup final for Manchester United returns to the team after a 2-year injury layoff.

Welcome back, Ole!

^^^ by Locksley @ 11:45 AM. 2 comments.
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[I don't know what the hell they're smoking...]

Whoever's in charge of allocating vacancies in the Business School at NUS must be high when he or she was making the allocation. Many of us in School of Computing need to read several Business modules for our degree requirements, and this semester, I don't know whether was it done as a joke or something, but for many of the Business modules students from SoC were allocated just 1 vacancy.

This is insane. Maybe someone from our faculty offended someone from their faculty or something. Hundreds of students need to take those modules to graduate, and you decide to allow only 1 student to read it this semester?

^^^ by Locksley @ 12:55 AM. 0 comments.
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Thursday, December 29, 2005  

[Green tea pizza, anyone?]

Someone left a flyer at my door today. It's for a new pizza parlor which sells pizzas with a Japanese flavour. For example, take a look at this....


Before today, the most outrageous thing I've ever seen with green tea was green tea shampoo. Now it's green tea chicken pizza.


There's another item on the menu that made me sit up. I was putting it down after scanning it, and in my blurred vision I thought I saw "semen salad". Hahaha!

On a less funny note, module bidding has began, and it's as screwed up as ever. Not like last semester when the whole system crashed. Rather, for one of my modules which is offered by the Business School, there's only 1 vacancy for returning School of Computing students. Right now, there's one guy and myself fighting for it. This is a very, very bad situation. First of all, the winning bid would also be the lowest bid, so you get no points refunded if you successfully outbid others. And right now, that idiot who also wants the module has bidded 1000 points for the module.

Grrrrrrr......

^^^ by Locksley @ 5:59 PM. 0 comments.
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Wednesday, December 28, 2005  

[New stuff for the new school term...]

Almost every student in Singapore wore white socks and white shoes throughout their primary and secondary school days. I was no different, wearing them for 10 years in total. When I left secondary school, I swore I'd never wear those uncomfortable torture devices again.

Ever since then, I've been wearing sandals or sports shoes when I go out. After 7 years, I think it's time to move on. I'm going to be 24 soon, and it wouldn't look good to go everywhere in sports shoes.


Bought a new pair of shoes yesterday when I went shopping. It's actually meant for hiking, which meant that it's a lot heavier than sports shoes. It looks more formal than sports shoes, but not so formal that you can't wear it everyday. When I was trying it out, the saleswoman said something about Goretex but I didn't quite catch what she said. I only realised that this pair of shoes had Goretex in it's sides when I reached home and read the little card inside.

What's the big deal about Goretex? When I was in the Army, I was issued the old leather boots when I enlisted. They were sturdy and could last very long, but they were an absolute torture for the feet. Then came the Goretex version, which was a God-send since they were very comfortable and did not require any "breaking in". The only problem was that it was made of man-made leather (I think), and wore out very fast. I actually wanted to buy a pair of Goretex boots for my own use after I completed my service, but by that time the ones I liked with the Goretex material at the side of the boots were phased out and the whole thing was man-made leather.

On a related topic, I ran into a friend on my way home. I know him from during my time in the Army. I was about to complete my service, and he was just starting his. He caught me up with some of the latest developments in my old unit. Most of the people have left, having completed their tour and were posted to other places. Of those that remained, one was a commander whom I was directly under towards the end. His life spiraled out of control in the last year, and have a few court cases pending due to drunk driving. I was sad to hear that since we were pretty close towards the end and he always treated me fairly and helped me out of some sticky situations.


Back to my loot....I also bought a few Nike t-shirts. This one made me laugh because I just couldn't figure out the significance of "love machine". Even after I saw the Nike Tennis logo on the sleeve, I couldn't figure it out. I only realised what it meant last night, while lying on my bed and reading an Archie comic.


On a sad note, 3 posts ago I wrote about the longest surviving fish I had in my tank. Today, 1 of them died. There were no signs of any illness, so I figure it's probably due to old age. It's been with me for almost 2 years, and I estimate that it's probably around 3-6 months old when I bought it at the fish shop. That's a good run for a fish.

^^^ by Locksley @ 8:08 PM. 2 comments.
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[Mistakes, I've made a few...]

About 13 months ago, I received the letter from NUS asking me if I wanted to matriculate earlier, in semester 2 of the 04/05 academic year instead of semester 1 of the 05/06 academic year like everyone else. I chose to matriculate early, and have been regretting my decision ever since.

Let's see...What good came out of matriculating early?

  1. I'll graduate 6 months earlier.


  2. I was still considered a "new student" during my 2nd semester, while 99% of the "new students" had only just matriculated. This meant that during module bidding, no one could outbid me since I had way more bids points than they did. This isn't really a big deal though....
Now on to the bad...

  1. The modules I'm taking are always "different" from the rest, even those in the same stream, because I started my journey at a time when everyone else had already started their's.


  2. Being different, it's hard to find friends to take modules together. More often than not, I end up alone in the module, and have to make friends during class. This may be fine in the level 1 or 2 modules, but as you climb higher, it gets harder because everyone's already in a group of their own. This is probably my biggest regret....Having to start each semester alone in modules which no one else I know is taking. Some familiar faces may walk through the doors, but sometimes they don't.


  3. Somewhat related to the point above, is that you won't know how your new friends would perform during project work. And having to work with different people all the time, while it's good training for future employment, is hard to build rapport.


  4. So most if not all my problems so far are related to not having friends in the beginning with me in the same module. In the big scheme of things, it may not be a bad thing. I get to make more friends. I just don't like the "lost" feeling in the beginning. Some folks may not see it as a "real" problem....


  5. Here's a "real" problem. I only realised this yesterday. This may be a little hard to understand. The modules available for the academic year and usually published before the year starts, so students can plan the modules they plan to take for the whole year (both semesters). This would become increasingly important as you progress further. Let me give an example. A 4th-year graduating student would be left with say....8 modules? He could look at the module offerings for his last academic year, and plan his last 8 modules such that exam and lecture dates do not clash. For me, my last academic year overlaps two regular academic years (semester 2 of one year, followed by semester 1 of the next). So I would not know which modules are offered and when during my last semester. There is a chance that whatever modules I have left at that point could clash and there's nothing I can do about it.
So yeah, if anyone asks me, I would tell them not to matriculate in semester 2.

EDIT: Actually I just realised a way to get about the problem in point 5. I could make it such that the only modules I need to fullfill during my last semester are my Unrestricted Electives and Breadth modules. There are lots of choices for the two module types, and there are no "have-to-read" modules. This could solve or potentially reduce the chances of exam or lecture clashes by a whole lot.

^^^ by Locksley @ 11:35 AM. 2 comments.
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Monday, December 26, 2005  

[To prove a point...]

Earlier this month I posted an entry about a website giving out inaccurate information on guppies. You can read it here. I just thought I would post a follow-up to what I wrote about older/bigger female guppies giving birth (which a visitor agreed with).

One of my older guppies gave birth today. About half of them were still in their egg sacs, while the other half were healthy. Below you can see the egg sacs and some of the deformed fries. Some were even joined together, like Siamese twins.


Here's a pair of Siamese twins.


Some of the healthy ones swimming around. The pictures are not that great, reason being there isn't enough light. I usually place them on my table for photo-taking. If it were during the day, the light from the window would allow me to take better pictures. My table lamp simply won't cut it.


Here's all the dead/deformed/egg sacs. You can clearly see the Siamese twins. There are 3 pairs of them.

^^^ by Locksley @ 8:49 PM. 0 comments.
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Sunday, December 25, 2005  

[Fishy business...]

I bought my first fish tank on January 2nd, 2004. On that day, besides the tank, I also bought a few fishes. If I remember correctly, it was a bunch of guppies, a few neon tetras and a pair of corydoras.


This pair of corys are the oldest fish I have with me, having been with me for almost 2 years. They've been through all the "disasters", including the beginning when my tank wasn't matured enough and all the fishes I bought just kept dying one after another. They also survived the "air curtain" incident. That was when I bought a rubber tubing which connects to an air pump and creates a wall of very fine air bubbles. It was beautiful, but all my fishes died overnight. Except my corys. I guess there was something toxic in the rubber. The one on the left is female, which shows since she's clearly bigger than the other one. They've spawned on a number of occasions, but the eggs always get moldy before they could hatch. :(


If that pair of corys are the oldest in my tank, this albino cory would be running a close second. I cannot remember when I bought this cory...But it couldn't have been more than 6 months after I bought my tank. I also bought them in a pair, and one of them died last month. This one is dying too....As can be seen from the blood-streaked tail and it's loss of balance. It was swimming funny yesterday, and the blood-streaks appeared this morning.

I've been experimenting with my Nikon 5600 for a long time, trying to take a good picture of my fish tank. It was hard to take a good picture. If I used a flash, whatever's in my tank would look dark while the back wallpaper would be the focus of the photo. If I didn't use a flash, the fishes would all look blurred since they were swimming around and not posing for a photo. I've finally figured it out...I chose not to use a flash and lowered the exposure time of the lens.


So there you have it...My fish tank. This is a 2-feet tank that's actually beside me right now. Yeah, I placed it next to my computer. It's my second tank, my first one was a smaller one which my Dad's using now to keep fishes of his own. It's a low-maintenance tank. No gravel, no live plants. Just a piece of driftwood and some small decorations. I used to have gravel, but it was just too much of a bother to clean because leftover food and fish waste keeps building up in it. All I need to do now is change water and scrub the tank walls once in a while.

It's a plain-looking tank, and somewhere down the line I plan to convert it to a planted tank. I might get started on it during my next school vacation.

^^^ by Locksley @ 5:50 PM. 2 comments.
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Saturday, December 24, 2005  

[A distant memory...]

I subscribe to a wrestling newsletter, and in it's most recent issue, it gave a link to an interview of Bret Hart conducted by The Sun. I'd pass on the link here, since I'm a Bret Hart fan.

Bret had some interesting things to say about Hogan, Michaels and Flair. I totally agree with what he said about Hogan and Flair. When you've seen one of their matches, you've seen them all.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2003560001-2005590282,00.html

^^^ by Locksley @ 12:17 AM. 0 comments.
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Friday, December 23, 2005  

[Oh heck....]

My results were released yesterday at 5pm. Did not do as badly as I thought, but did not manage to pull off a great escape neither. Overall, my CAP has been pulled down. :(

Here's hoping that next semester would be a better one...

^^^ by Locksley @ 11:07 AM. 1 comments.
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Tuesday, December 20, 2005  

[Singapore Subway]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Singapore+Subway

I saw this on a friend's blog. I don't know who the hell came up with this, but we don't even have a "subway". It's called MRT over here.

I'm pretty sure the folks at Micro-Machines won't be very happy about this. Probably invented by some geek after watching too much porn and have an array of Micro-Machines on hand.

^^^ by Locksley @ 7:57 PM. 2 comments.
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Monday, December 19, 2005  

[Stop the drilling!]

Does anyone know what the hell the following piece of equipment is? It's been spotted all over my neighbourhood recently, making all sorts of noise from morning till late evening.


These pictures were taken at two different locations.


And no, they're not drilling for oil.

^^^ by Locksley @ 6:27 PM. 3 comments.
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Sunday, December 18, 2005  

[Today we lost another...]

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/184281/1/.html

We lost yet another serviceman today. This is a small country, and to lose our servicemen during peacetime is all the more pathetic. Many times when I go running, I hesitate to push myself to the limit because I don't want to become another statistic. Yes, I'm much younger than the serviceman in the news today, but you'd never know.

What I found amusing were the comments "such deaths are hard to prevent". I can think of several ways to prevent such deaths.

^^^ by Locksley @ 10:15 PM. 0 comments.
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[Not flat...*Super* flat!]


I saw this TV on sale in a supermarket today. Yes, they're selling TVs in supermarkets now. I wonder who the hell came up with the term "super flat". If it's flat, it's flat. How do you differentiate flat and super flat?

^^^ by Locksley @ 4:13 PM. 1 comments.
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Saturday, December 17, 2005  

[Big boy toyz...]


My Dad's really into photography, and a little bit of it rubbed off on me. He was using his camera to take pictures of his flowers (he's into gardening as well) when I got the idea to take a photo of his big, bulky Nikon F80 with my (actually also his) Nikon Coolpix 5600 by it's side. We had to put a videotape under the lens of his F80 otherwise it would "topple" over.

When I take the 5600 out, I can just put it in my regular bag, or clip it onto my bag strap. My Dad has to bring along a separate tote bag for his camera. His camera uses film, so he's very carefully with every shot. He can take up to 5 minutes pointing, focusing and checking the settings for just 1 shot. But he's really good at it, and it's very unusual for him to take a bad photo.

^^^ by Locksley @ 2:03 PM. 0 comments.
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Friday, December 16, 2005  

[Once again, on the bus...]

I went swimming today, and as usual, met some morons on the bus.


First up, this is just disgusting. I don't know what's with the older generation. They love putting their feet up onto the seats. This is such a turn-off. I saw him as he got up the bus, and his shorts weren't zipped nor buckled. He's wearing something underneath, but I'm not sure if it's another pair of shorts or is it underwear. It's amazing he could walk around on the streets like that and not get arrested for indecent exposure.


This dude takes seat hogging to another level. People usually sit on one seat, and place their belongings on the other. He placed his belongings on the inside next to the window, and sat in the middle of both seats. If you ask me, these people should not be allowed to reproduce, lest we further contaminate our gene pool.

What's wrong with these people?

^^^ by Locksley @ 5:45 PM. 3 comments.
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[Bret Hart]


I just finished watching the Bret Hart DVD released by WWE last month. After watching all the matches, I was once again reminded of what an exceptional wrestler he was. His career was colourful towards the end, what with the "Attitude" era, his American heel turn, the Montreal incident, the death of Owen Hart and finally being kicked in the head by Goldberg which ended his career.

My first memory of watching Bret wrestle was at SummerSlam '91, where he won the Intercontinental Championship from Curt Hennig. I was 9 years old then. I've been watching wrestling since I was 5, with my Dad, and as incredible as it sounds, I can sort-of tell a good match from a bad one. Probably the reason why I don't remember any of Hulk Hogan's matches....


Bret's finishing move was the Sharpshooter, and before I watched the DVD, I always thought that the only wrestlers other than Bret who could execute the move correctly was the late Owen Hart and Chris Benoit. I remember watching The Rock put on a lame, half-assed version of it. I vaguely remember watching a few other wrestlers having a hard time putting it on, but their names fail me right now.


Ironically, while watching the DVD, I spotted Bret himself screwing up the Sharpshooter on a few occasions. Against Curt Hennig at Summerslam '91 and against the Undertaker...I cannot remember when. The match against the Undertaker was in the 3rd disc. Compare the 2 Sharpshooters. The one on top is the "correct" one. Whenever Bret does the grapevine around his right leg, he would mess it up.

^^^ by Locksley @ 12:56 AM. 4 comments.
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Thursday, December 15, 2005  

[In a blue funk...]

Lately, I've been in a funk. I don't feel like doing anything, and just sits around playing Xbox, watching movies or going running once in a while. I came up with a list of things to do during the school break, and I'm nowhere near completing any of them.

I usually go through a spell of...depression during the holidays. No...Depression is not the right word. I don't think it's quite that serious. But I am definitely in some sort of "zone" here, and it's not one to remain in.

Let's see...What are the things I need to accomplish before school re-opens:
  1. Refresh my knowledge of creating/working with SQL databases.
  2. Learn ASP.Net for web applications.
  3. Learn J2EE for web applications (lots of luck).
  4. Throw out my old notes, pack my cupboard to make room for next semester's books/notes.
  5. Train up and pass my IPPT before school starts (this is quite hopeless).

Not a lot of things to be honest. But I keep putting them off.

I wonder why.

^^^ by Locksley @ 9:46 AM. 1 comments.
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Sunday, December 11, 2005  

[One Angry Veronica]

I saw the movie 12 Angry Men for one of my modules this past semester. It was about how 12 jurors deliberated over what was seemingly an open-and-shut case, with 1 juror all alone in the beginning with the verdict of not guilty, and how he managed to convince the other 11 men to come over to his side, one by one. It's listed at #21 at imdb.com on the list of 250 best movies ever. Incidentally, I've seen 25 of them.

This week's Veronica Mars was titled "One Angry Veronica". I did not make the connection between the episode and the movie until I saw the juror scene in VM. The whole juror scene did not contribute much to the ongoing storylines, but it was pretty cool to see them copy some of the elements used in 12 Angry Men. It is pretty sad though, that most people (I'd imagine) who saw this week's episode probably did not see 12 Angry Men, and would not be able to draw parallels between the movie and this week's episode.

^^^ by Locksley @ 9:31 PM. 0 comments.
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[Where the hell do they get these people....]

I just watched this week's Smackdown!, and saw one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen. One of their new wrestlers actually "ate" worms during the match. I know he did the same thing last week, but I missed last week's episode, so this is the first time I saw Boogeyman in the ring.




I didn't even know where he got the damn worms from at first. I had to rewind to see that he actually kept them in his pocket. Yuck! These are live worms, and they were moving around. He fought half the match with the worms in his mouth (it was a short squash match against a jobber), and spitted them onto the jobber at the end.





I don't know what's worse...Keeping the worms in your pocket, reaching into your pocket for the worms, putting the worms into your mouth or having them crawling around on your face. These were big-ass worms. I don't know where the hell they find people to do these things, but whatever they're paying them (both the Boogeyman and the jobber), it isn't enough.

Other than this match, the only other thing worth mentioning was how Michael Cole shot himself in his foot again. Bobby Lashley was in yet another squash match against Regal. So far, Lashley looked impressive, but haven't really done anything worth remembering in the ring. And I don't recall any mic work from him. The only time I heard him talk was when he made Simon Dean eat all those cheeseburgers. They're trying to build Lashley up as some sort of Superman or something, and Cole said if anyone doubts how powerful Lashley was, they should speak to the RAW superstars involved in the 10-man tag match at Survivor Series.

What Cole might have forgotten was that Lashley was the first person to be eliminated in that match. I don't even know why he was in that match in the first place.

I don't know how Cole walks to the announcing table every week, considering the number of times he's shot himself in his foot.

^^^ by Locksley @ 6:54 PM. 1 comments.
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Saturday, December 10, 2005  

[Google me for unexpected results...]

I added 2 new things to my blog today. A blog-counter and er....An "Animal of the Day". The blog-counter was offered free by BlogExplosion, since I was already a member, I thought I'd try it out. I saw the "Animal of the Day" from another site, and I thought it would be fun/interesting to try out.

I've tried a couple of times to get my blog listed in Google with no success (or so I thought). You can submit your URL, but they may or may not ever list it. I've submitted my URL a few times, waited for a few days and searched for it. Nothing.

I've actually given up when I saw on my blog-counter's stats page that someone actually arrived at my blog from Google. I checked out the link, and realised that if you searched for "guppy fries", you'll see my blog on the 2nd page. I guess my work is done.... :)

I took a look at the results provided by Google when one searched for "guppy fries". One of the results that ranked before my site was http://webpages.csus.edu/~qn22/breeding.htm. I took some time to surf the site. The webmaster did not say who he was or where he was based in (if he/she did, I must have missed it), but from the way he wrote the contents I figured he's from an environment where English wasn't his first language. However, on his Journal page he mentioned about going to Fry's. To the best of my knowledge, that's an electronics chain in the US (I've been to one during my time there actually), and I've never heard of a Fry's Electronics outside the US. What a mystery....

But I digress...The level of the webmaster's language proficiency was not what I really wanted to comment about. I've kept guppies for almost 2 years now, and I find a lot of the information provided by the site to be inaccurate. For example, "guppy is tropical fish so if you keep the water at the right temperature, they should be have enough oxygen". I don't know where he got this from.

Also:

"First of all, you should decide which breed of guppy you want to breed. I recommend beginners choosing Black guppy or any type that shows black guppy train, because these can require less care. Choose one or two big and colorful male as you can because that indicate the male have reached its' full grow state. Also you should choose a big female because they give birth to more babies and strong babies later on."

Does the "Black" guppy strain really require less care? I don't know. What I do know, is that choosing the biggest female for mating is definitely a big mistake. I've been told by my Dad (who helped his father in their family-sized fish farm rearing guppies, among other fishes, for commercial sale) and by an aquarium shop owner that when breeding, you should NOT pick the biggest female. They are usually older, and the chances of having weaker, deformed fries are higher. The younger, not-so-big females are the ones you should use for breeding.

From my experience, while I've had big females giving birth to 60+ fries at a go, less than 20 made it to adulthood. I'll never forget the other time when a large female gave birth to only 3 live fries, while the rest were all deformed (2-headed included), dead, or still in "egg" form. Younger females give birth to lesser fries, but they are usually bigger and healthier.

The one thing that made him lose all his remaining credibility was his albino guppy page. His pictures were all external links, and best of all, none of the guppies in the photos were albino. Albino guppies have red eyes. The guppies in those pictures clearly had black eyes.

I give him an "E" for effort.

^^^ by Locksley @ 11:03 PM. 2 comments.
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[Mary Mary]

James Patterson's latest novel, Mary Mary, was released last month. Patterson's last book, 4th of July, did not arrive at the National Library until about 1-2 months after it's release. Hence, I did not expect Mary Mary to be available so soon at the library.

I went to NLB's website anyway and did a search for Mary Mary. I was suprised to find that the book has already been bought by the libraries, and they were being processed for lending. New novels usually have a long reservation list, so I went to place a reservation as well, rather than waiting to find it on a shelf (I might have to wait 6 months for that to happen). My reservation was ranked number 39, with 21 copies for lending. A successful reservation pick-up costs $1.55.

So there are at least 38 other James Patterson fans in Singapore. I've always wondered how did NLB turn over a profit. Now I know.

^^^ by Locksley @ 7:29 PM. 0 comments.
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[Taking out my frustrations...]

I learnt something today. When people reach a certain age, they don't change. They can't. They're set in their ways. They talk, think and behave as they did before, even after gaining more exposure. Is it the way they think? Or is it in their nature? Doesn't really matter...It's undesirable, either way.

This entry probably doesn't make much sense to everyone else. It's mostly for me...And someone else.

^^^ by Locksley @ 6:47 PM. 0 comments.
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Thursday, December 08, 2005  

[*cough* *cough*]

I've been ill for almost a week now. I'm mostly recovered now, still battling a cough though. This means I haven't trained for my IPPT much since my exams ended, and I had planned to take it one last time this month. I may have to push it to the first week of next month.

Manchester United was knocked out of the Champions League this morning, local time. About 4 hours ago actually. It's the first time they did not make it pass the group stages since 1995. My verdict? Fire Fergie. I've been lobbying for his pink slip ever since he sold Jaap Stam for, honestly, no good reason. After he did back then, the United defense went to hell. Next was the sale of David Beckham for non-footballing reasons. You can tell that United really missed his crosses from the flank.

Got my copy of Need For Speed Most Wanted yesterday. It lived up to the reviews, a bitchin' game all round. The pursuits with the cops were extremely exciting. So far, I've had chases lasting from 2 minutes to 10 minutes. Really gets your blood pumping, especially if you're spotted during the cooldown period and had to take off immediately. Only complaint I have is the colour of the game. Everything looks "yellowish", like it's always dawn or dusk. Other than that, bitchin' game!! :)

^^^ by Locksley @ 9:04 AM. 3 comments.
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Tuesday, December 06, 2005  

[*thud*]

Went to East Coast today with my friends. The weather was great, although really hot. It was nice to cycle on mostly level roads with friends. As I've said before, cycling around my house is a nightmare, with all the slopes around. They're not even very steep, just very long....Anyway I left early and did not join them for dinner because I was dead beat after the cycling. The fact that I'm still fighting my virus didn't help. I nearly fell asleep on my seat at McDonald's after returning our bikes. Oh, and the McSpicy no longer comes with 2 pieces of chicken thigh chops. It's just one big chicken chop now. Boo!

On our way back to take a bus, we had to walk through this underpass. There were a bunch of kids in front of us. If I remember correctly, it was 4 Malay kids and 1 Chinese kid. They looked like they were in the secondary school age bracket, and all of them were smoking and blowing the smoke all over the place.


I took this picture of them as I was walking behind them. Congratulations fuckers, I just made you famous. Well, not exactly, since I didn't get a clear shot of your face. They were carrying surfboards/wakeboards/skinboards/blackboards...Who cares? They're a bunch of poseurs as far as I'm concerned.


How can the day be complete without meeting an inconsiderate person on public transport? This person could actually sit there all happy taking up 2 seats when there are people standing on the bus. When will such people learn? Tsk tsk...

^^^ by Locksley @ 8:26 PM. 0 comments.
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[Worst game of the year...]

...goes to Fifa 2006.

I don't care what the review sites say, this game sucks. Let me tell you why. First of all, the programmers at EA Sports decided to play a prank on the supporters of the "famous" clubs, like Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Real Madrid, etc. You cannot manage them when you first start the game, and unless you had the presence of mind to unlock "Career Teams", you'll never be able to play using the famous clubs in Manager mode.

Next complaint is the AI/gameplay. Whoever designed the AI in the game obviously does not watch or play football (it's called football, not soccer, take the hint when the whole world calls it football except you....). Let me count the ways:

  1. This is one of my biggest pet peeve. Say the opposing team's defender clears the ball with a powerful kick that sends the ball back to the edge of your penalty box. What happens? In real life, the keeper would come out and knock the ball back to his defenders. In the game, the keeper stands there watching, while one of the central defenders run from somewhere near the halfway line (if you push up using flat-back strategy) back all the way to claim the ball. Usually he's followed by an opposing team's player. Great......


  2. NO ONE WANTS TO GET OPEN! Imagine the full-back running with the ball, with his winger and an opposing player all in a line, with the opposing player in the middle. What happens? Does the winger get open? Nope. He stays in that straight line, lest the full-back pass him the ball. I've lost count of the times I lost the ball because none of my other bloody players would simply GET OPEN!!


  3. In Fifa 2005, when one of your players are injured, the controller would vibrate when the injury was suffered. In Fifa 2006, it may or may not vibrate. I played with an injured left-back throughout the whole game once because the controller did not vibrate. Yes, the player status bar would show if the player's injured, but I really haven't the time to look at the bar when I'm looking for another player to GET OPEN!!! AAaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!! *tears out a clump of hair*


  4. Long through balls. Oh my God.....The AI has no idea how long/through balls should work. When the midfielders pass the ball over to the strikers using a long through chip (the strikers would be behind the opposing team's defenders at this point to prevent offside), the ball does not land ahead of the strikers. Instead, the strikers run while the ball is in the air, and as the ball land, they would be right at the position to receive the ball. This would also mean that once they touch the ball, the opposing team's defenders would be able to steal it from them. WTF? PASS THE DAMN BALL FURTHER UPFIELD!!! AAAaaaahhhhh!!! *tears more hair out*

I can't think of anymore AI/gameplay issues right now. Suffering from loss of hair. Andy Gray's still the pundit for the game, although he talks lesser now. I hate him. I hate listening to him on TV when he's the pundit, and I hate listening to him offering his "thoughts" in the game. It's like a chemical thing...Whenever I hear his voice, something triggers in my brain and I need to hit something. The commentary improved a bit from the last Fifa, although some silly phrases still remain:

  1. "A bad place to lose the ball." Tell me, where would be a good place to lose the ball? Go ahead, think. Where would be a good place to lose the ball?

Ok, I can't think of anymore silly phrases right this moment, but believe me, there are more. Now, on to my last pet peeve about the game.

This is hard to explain. When I first started playing, I used Wigan. Won the League title twice, and European Champions once. It was not too bad playing with Wigan, the speed of the game was just right.

Fast forward to playing with Manchester United. United is a 5-star team, and the playing speed actually increases when you use them. I can't explain it to you, but it seems like all the players have superhuman powers when you see them run and turn. It's hard enough as it is to look for players who are OPEN (insert swear word here), now we are "assisted" by the insane game speed.

Save your money, don't buy this game. Save your time, don't play this game. Save your hair, don't pull them out from the frustration of playing this game.

^^^ by Locksley @ 12:01 AM. 0 comments.
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Sunday, December 04, 2005  

[I feel like crap...]

I haven't been feeling well for two days now. Started on Friday night when I went to bed. I realised something was wrong when my throat felt weird, like a throat infection was coming on. I woke up on Saturday with the worst sore throat ever.

Right now, my sore throat's gone. But I still feel feverish, have a heavy head and mucus all over the place. I also feel kinda weak....It feels like I have full-blown flu/fever, but I haven't really any of the symptoms anymore. If I don't get well by tomorrow, I'm going to wave a white flag and go see the doctor.

^^^ by Locksley @ 5:50 PM. 0 comments.
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Saturday, December 03, 2005  

[Does this prove anything?]

http://www.putfile.com/putfile-goodbye-to-singapore.php

Incidentally, I've never heard of this site until today. And I've still managed to register for an account. Haha!

^^^ by Locksley @ 6:58 PM. 0 comments.
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[Fifa 2006]

Anyone else out there playing this? I'm playing on Xbox, and I have a problem.

I am currently managing Manchester United, and the problem is that the players' salaries per match is simply way too high! I've picked the sponsor with the highest per-match contribution, and even so, I was unable to cover everyone's salaries during away games, and make only about 700 credits during home games with the highest ticket prices. I've tried to renew everyone's contract and bring down their salaries (some players were paid 400+ credits a match!), but I've run out of money for renewing contracts.

Are there any ways to make more credits or bring down the players' salaries quickly? This is insane...My budget goes from negative to positive, to negative, back to positive....I was "richer" when I was managing Wigan!

^^^ by Locksley @ 1:01 PM. 2 comments.
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[Problem solved!]

Yes, the clock and countdown ticker are back. I found the problem and fixed it. The rest of this post is about how I did it, so if you're not into or familar with HTML and CSS, you may not want to read the rest of this entry....

I realised that even without the tickers, IE was still consuming a good amount of CPU cycles when I'm looking at my blog, even more if I'm scrolling. I tried highlighting some of the text, and it was kinda jerky. If everything's fine, you should be able to highlight text effortlessly. At this time, I basically have 5 "panels", width/height and x/y co-ordinates all controlled by CSS. Honestly, CSS is very powerful, and extremely easy for placing content exactly what you want it. In fact, coding this blog became similar to programming since I no longer have to strictly observe sequence, as long as the right code goes into the right panel divisions.

For some reason, IE has a problem when the "panels" get too big. In my previous design, the panel was small so it wasn't much of a problem. With this new design, this main blog panel can get very tall and big depending on the blog content, even though I show only the latest 5 entries. That was what's eating up all the CPU cycles.

So I embarked on a mission to replace the site's layout from using CSS to using HTML Tables. It wasn't that hard, I just used whatever styles I was using previously inline instead. I did have to check up some CSS parameters, but no problems with that, thanks to Google. To most people, the layout looks the same, but under the hood, I've removed all the CSS "panels" except for the one on the right. It's still a panel, but inside a HTML table cell. I had to, otherwise the background colour would extend all the way to the end of the page, instead of ending with it's own content.

The improvements:
  1. Now all screen resolutions from 1024 * 768 and above would be able to view this site quite nicely. If you're using 800 * 600, you'd need to scroll. Can't be helped. Previously, the layout was designed for the 1024 * 768 screens, so even if your resolution was higher, you would still see the site in 1024 * 768 format, with white space on the right.
  2. It should load faster and consume less CPU cycles on IE.
  3. The problem of white spots on dark pictures on longer exists. I thought it was a Blogger bug, but as it turns out, it was due to the CSS.

New problems:

  1. This black border used to be only as tall as the contents using CSS. Now with HTML Tables, the border will be as long as the panel on the right even if the post was short. A little hard to explain, just click on "Read Comments" of any short entry, and you'll see what I mean. All the white space inside the border. When I used CSS, the browser understood that it could "close" the panel as long as all the content has been displayed.

^^^ by Locksley @ 1:59 AM. 0 comments.
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Thursday, December 01, 2005  

[Goodbye, furry friend...]


A few weeks after I got my first aquarium in Jan 2004, I bought 2 hamsters for my sister. Today, one of them passed away. It was losing fur and had a huge sore on it's underbelly. My sister did some research online, and it seems that it had cancer.

I didn't play with it a lot or anything, but it's still pretty sad to see it lying there motionless. :(

^^^ by Locksley @ 9:34 PM. 1 comments.
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[Survivor Series 2005]

Caught Survivor Series today. It was so-so, I wasn't really excited about any of the matches other than the main event itself, the 10-man "inter-promotional" match at the end. I used quote marks because let's get real...They're not really inter-promotional.

I was looking forward to the 10-man tag-team match, but unfortunately the match was single-handed ruined by Tazz. Instead of calling the match, he basically got into an on-air argument with the guys at the RAW announcement table. I don't know if it's a work or if it's a shoot, either way, I was pretty turned off by the whole thing. Shut up, Tazz. No one wants to hear a short, fat, NY hoodlum bitch on-air. Just call the damn match. You think you're all that? If you're all that, you'd be in the ring, not outside calling the match.

The quality of the play-by-play has really gone downhill since Jim Ross's departure. At least for the RAW side, they still have Jerry Lawler to keep it together. Joey Styles has his moments, while I think they should remove The Coach because he irritates the hell out of me. For Smackdown, Tazz is okay, nothing special. But after his performance for Survivor Series, if I was the one in-charge, I'd give him a stern talking-to. Act your age. Call the match. Zip. I know there's some legit heat because Cole and Tazz were not happy because they felt that WWE was pushing RAW as the main brand and not Smackdown, but a live PPV was no place to engage in petty name-calling and arguments.

Michael Cole. Holy shit, what a dick. When he first got started, Ross had to feed him his lines through his ear-piece. The latest dumb/turn-off thing he said was during MNM's entrance a while back when he said that MNM rubbed shoulders with Hollywood-type A-listers like Keanu Reeves, Paris Hilton, etc. WHAT THE FUCK!? Yes, that's their gimmick, but did he really expect the viewers to be so naive as to believe that a couple of oily wrestlers and their valet actually knew those celebrities? If I were Keanu or Paris, I'd sue for libel.

I end this entry with screen captures of one of the coolest pyro on WWE ever. Remember, this was done live in an arena, not behind the cameras/CGI in Hollywood. I cannot figure out how they had the lightning strike down like that. Basically, some druids wheeled out a casket after the match and set it on it's end. Lightning struck, casket burned, Undertaker came out and kicked some ass.

[EDIT: The first 3 screen captures are darker than the rest, and for some reason after uploading them onto Blogger, white marks appeared. Usually I reduce them to 400px for width before uploading, so Blogger doesn't have to resize them for me (the "large" image setting is 400px wide). The white marks seems to appear only when I do not resize beforehand, and Blogger had to do it for me. And yes, I did not resize this time. Too tired (read: lazy)...]















^^^ by Locksley @ 8:08 PM. 2 comments.
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