[The world's lousiest wrestler...]
I posted an entry recently about what I thought of Mark Henry. If you're not convinced, check out the match below. It's from the January 27th edition of Smackdown, Mark Henry versus Rey Mysterio. The match lasted for about 9+ minutes, and in the entire clip, Henry executed exactly 1 wrestling move. Punches/Shoves/Whips-to-the-corner are NOT wrestling moves. The only move he executed that remotely resembles a wrestling move was his finisher at the end.
Check out the match, but be forewarned, it's going to be 10 minutes of your life which you'd never get back.
[Are you a psychopath?] I placed a reservation for James Patterson's Mary Mary in the beginning of December last year. The note from the library finally came yesterday, asking me to go pick up the book. I love this guy's books. Patterson is not like other authors. Many authors spend pages and pages on one scene, describing in detail (sometimes too much) about what's going on. A prime example would be the Laurell Hamilton's Anita Blake series. Reading a Patterson book is like watching a movie.
I came across the "psychopath test" in the book, and I'm going to reproduce it here and let you guys have some fun. If you get the answer right, you're supposed to have the mind of a psychopath. So if I know you in real life and you got the answer right, please let me know so that I can watch my back, okay?
Here's the story. At her mother's funeral, a woman met this guy and fell instantly in love. But she never got his name, number, or anything about him. A few days later, the woman killed her sister. Why?
Answer (highlight the text with your mouse): ...because she hoped that the guy she liked would appear at the funeral.
[Youtube.com and Myspace.com]
I've uploaded several videos onto Youtube.com. You can see them here. There isn't any theme to the videos I've upload...I just upload anything that I want to share, either here or on a forum I frequent.
I have no problems with people using my videos on their site. Hell, most of the videos aren't even really "mine" in the strictest sense of the word. A lot of the stuff I upload are clips taken from WWE Programming.
Anyway, today I thought it'd be fun to see who used my videos on their sites. As it turns out, a lot of Myspace.com users. I couldn't access most of their sites...You have to be a Myspace.com user to see some sites I think. I didn't bother to find out more.
Of the sites that I could access, 2 of them caught my eye. For the wrong reasons.
First site belonged to a 17-year old boy in Chicago. What caught my eye about his site is now terribly it was designed. He changed the mouse cursor to that of a pistol, and you can't tell where's the pointer. There's a ton of pictures on his site, with seemingly no relation to each other. I don't know what's his problem...And don't tell me he's just 17. I authored my first website when I was 15, and I had way more sense than he did.
Second site's the kicker. It's by this guy pretending to be John Cena. I know for a fact that Cena does not have an account on Myspace, he said so himself on "5 Qns With The Champ" last year. And the "real" Cena would not need to use Youbtube videos uploaded by others. It's actually quite a giveaway...The pictures on the site were from WWE.com and one even had the watermark of another website on it.
The best (or worst, depending on how you look at it) part: People believed he was Cena! The guy behind the site must be laughing his head off at all the people who left comments thinking he was the real deal.
Don't ask me for their URLs. I'm not going to generate more traffic their way.
[Keep on keepin' on...]
Yesterday was an eventful day, of sorts.
I had 2 lectures yesterday, and I caught a cold during my first one. I really should have saw it coming...I've been low on energy and feeling tired all the time for the 2 days before. The virus was probably setting up camp within me and finally announced it's arrival yesterday. I catch cold/flu much easier than the rest of my family members. Might have something to do with my allergies, I don't know.
I reached home at about 6pm. I was surprised to see my Mum at home, since she usually gets off work at 5pm and reaches home after 7pm. It turns out my Dad was ill during the day, throwing up and suffering from very severe giddy spells. It was so bad that he couldn't even eat the noodles he cooked for lunch, which was still on the stove when my Mum hurried back at 4pm.
Later that night, our family doctor came over because my Dad couldn't walk over to the clinic. It scared me a little to see my Dad that way. He was almost never sick. He's was born in the 40s, and folks from that generation usually had a hard time when they're young and for some reason they never seem to fall sick. I helped him walk from his bedroom to our living room and he almost stumbled twice. It was just a short walk, less than 10 metres and he had trouble. Other than his very severe giddy spells, he was fine. He could think clearly and still had a very stong voice.
The doctor gave him an injection and some medicine, and he seems better today. He can walk around on his own, but still feels giddy. I hope he gets better soon.
Now, to find something for my cold...Where did I put my vitamin C?
[50-year old stuck in a 23-year old's body...]
Senseless ramblings begin:
I've been running out of steam very easily the last couple of days. Both yesterday and today, I was so tired that I had to take a nap after dinner before I could get on with my work. What the heck's wrong with me...
Encountered a few events in the last couple of weeks that convinced me that those funny/insane stories you hear from people working as customer support/service personnel are true.
People in University are not "smarter" or "more intelligent", they just disguise their stupidity better. Hell, some of them don't even belong in University. Sometimes I feel it applies to me also....
Sometimes, when you want something hard enough, magical things can happen. During tutorial balloting, I was allocated a class on Tuesday evening which I do not want. I wanted a class on Wednesday morning, preferably the 11am class since all my friends are in there. I managed to swap my way to the 9am class, but I still wanted the 11am class. We were told to go to our preferred class anyway, and our tutor would try to swap us in. As it turns out, almost 30+ people turned up for the 11am class. After going through our requests, the tutor asked me to attend my allocated class since she couldn't swap me into the 11am class. However, in a twist of fate, a ton of people changed their minds (raised a white flag) and decided not to hold out for the 11am class. Since I already have 3 friends in the class, the tutor then came to me and approved my request. Having 3 friends who were already in a project group and needed 1 more member really helped ease my way in.
Senseless ramblings end.
Ok, on to what I actually intended to write about.
I took the above picture today in one of my tutorial rooms. The thermostat is highlighted by the red box. No, it's not a doctored photo, that's really how high the damn thermostat was. I wonder which genius thought it up.
Nothing much to say about this one...A moth decided to hitch a ride in an elevator.
[Caught in the act...]
Before I move on to what I really want to write about, here's a little background information.
This is a combination lock that's very popular here in Singapore (not sure if it's available elsewhere). Most guys who have served time in the Army would have used this at one time or another. They would also know how easy it is to "crack" the code. I have successfully cracked one or two, all it requires is a light touch.
That said, on with today's entry.
After my last lesson today, I went to my locker to make sure that I didn't leave anything behind before I left for home. You can see in the picture below that the lockers are located next to the wall in a very long corridor. In fact, the lock on the locker below is the same type as the one in the picture above. About half the people with lockers use a combination lock of some sort to secure it, since it's more convenient and doesn't require you to carry a key around.
This picture above was taken when I was standing right in front of my locker. You see the door at the end? That's where I came in. When I came in, I noticed the guy who's walking away from me in the picture hanging around the lockers, with his hand roaming around the locks from locker to locker. Knowing how easy it was to crack the very-popular-yet-extremely-easy-to-defeat combination lock, it seemed to me that he was trying to "feel" for a "loose" lock. This might not make much sense to you...Basically he's trying to see which of these locks would be easier to crack.
He did not notice me coming into and walking along the corridor (since it was pretty long). By the time he realised there was someone else in the corridor, I was already pretty close to him (I think he was concentrating on beating the combination). He hastily stopped molesting the lock he was at and pretended to walk off. That's when I snapped the picture.
I took my time at my locker, watching him out of the corner of my eye. He was still hanging around the corridor, and it didn't seem like he was waiting for someone, since no one came out of the labs to join him nor did he enter any labs to find out what's taking his "friend" so long. He did not want to look up neither, trying to hide his face.
I thought that maybe if I could catch him in the act again, I could confront him and ask him what the fuck was he trying to do, touching and pressing every combination lock. I left the corridor, and realising I really had nowhere to go and would start to look suspicious myself, I went back to the corridor. There's some other people in the corridor now, so he leaned against the wall and started fiddling with his handphone.
I took a picture of him this time as I walked past him. Smile, jackass. I've made you famous. Even if you weren't trying to crack anybody's lock, you had no business pulling on everyone's lock in the first place.
On a different front...I got my first-ever ICT callup today via SMS. June 12th to 16th. Excellent. Although I already knew about the date since I saw it on MIW a while ago, the callup just confirms it. Most people think that once they ORD, that's the end of it. I knew that when I ORDed, there were still 13 (now reduced to 10) more years of ICT to go. 1 coming, 9 to go.
Why did they put him in the main event at Royal Rumble?
What has he done to deserve main event status?
Mark Henry has been back on WWE television for a couple of weeks now. I wasn't impressed with him the last time I saw him, and before this I only remember him as "Sexual Chocolate" (WTF?) and him kissing a chick with a dick (WTF?^2) on TV.
Here's a guy who knows less wrestling moves than the Ultimate Warrior (who knew that was possible?), and moves around the ring slower than Mae Young. In his match against Rey Mysterio this past week on Smackdown, Rey did the best he could to make Henry look good....But Henry still ended up looking like a lump.
[Manchester United 1 - 0 Liverpool]
The match ended about 10 minutes ago. Rio Ferdinand won it for United at the death, 1 minute into 2nd-half stoppage time.
If you asked me who was the better team, I wouldn't know. Mainly because I kept switching back and forth between the match and AXN, which was showing The World's Most Shocking Videos Caught On Tape 3. But hey, the scoreline doesn't lie. This is the perfect tonic after being beaten by Man City in their previous match.
It's always great to win at the death. Tonight's match brought back memories of May 26th, 1999, when Sheringham and Solskjaer scored in 2nd-half stoppage time to win the European Cup.
Okay...I have school tomorrow. Time to hit the sack.
6 more days to Chinese New Year. I can hardly wait.
[Angst...]
When I left secondary school in 1998, I thought that was the end of handing up homework. I never liked handing up homework, I don't know why. The thought of having to hand up homework stirs up some very rebellious feelings and some bad memories from my primary/secondary school days.
When I was in polytechnic from 1999 to 2002, we didn't need to hand up homework on a regular basis. We only had to hand up projects and assignments, which was fair. I had a great time in poly. For most tutorials, I'd start off at home by trying to complete it before actually going for the tutorial. But I usually only do about half of it, and complete the rest in class while the tutor was discussing how to go about doing the first few questions.
The last place in the world I'd expect to have to hand up homework every week would be in University. I mean, seriously, what the hell? I have 5 modules this semester, and 4 of them requires us to hand up or be really prepared for tutorials. All the modules I've taken so far do not have this practice....You may have to present some material once or twice a semester, but that's it. No weekly homework to hand up.
This semester has the potential to turn out to be real shitty....
[Black Friday...]
My Dad and I have this routine. Sometimes when I'm home on a weekday (during school vacation, or like today when I don't have any classes to attend), I'll go with him to shop for groceries. My Dad's 58, retired, so he does the shopping now. But being 58, he usually enlists my help when he needs to buy the heavier stuff, like rice. Today he's going to buy packet drinks for the New Year when people come visit.
Usually we'd walk over to a place called "258". It's actually not a place, per se, but a collection of small Mom & Pop stores and a "Shop & Save", which is a cross between a wet market and a supermarket. It's supposed to be a supermarket, but it doesn't look nor feel like one.
So as always, my Dad went off to S&S while I went to buy lunch. We never cook lunch on weekdays because it's just the 2, or if my sister is also home, 3 of us. My Mum's working, so she never has lunch at home on a weekday. I always walk up to S&S after buying lunch to meet my Dad and to help him carry everything home.
Today on our way there, I saw an area in the carpark behind 258 roped off with police tape. I thought that was weird...I mean, when you see police tape, it usually means something's happened. I did not see anything strange in the carpark, so I didn't think anymore of it.
After buying lunch, I took the usual route to S&S. I was surprised to see my Dad walking back and looking for me. He signaled for me to follow him. On my way to catch up with my Dad, I saw the owner of the aquarium shop sitting at the coffee shop, having a cigarette.
I finally caught up to my Dad. I thought he wanted to show me something, or he wanted to buy something and needed my help to carry it.
Instead, he told me I couldn't take my usual route because it's been blocked off by the police. There had been a fire. Okay...That explained the police tape in the carpark. But because everything seemed usual up till this point, and I was lead off in another direction before I actually saw the police on my usual route, I thought it's probably a small fire. After all, it was still business as usual at the coffee shop and everywhere else. I did see a group of distraught shopkeepers on my detour...But at this time all I could see was the back of the shops, and they looked fine to me.
When we reached the other end of the "street" (it's very hard to describe the layout), we had to turn to get to S&S, and that's when I saw the devastation.
From our vantage point, we saw that 2 whole rows of shops were charred. The 2 rows were facing each other, and stretches down for about 80-100 metres I think. Police officers, firefighters and people from the town council were there, inspecting the damage.
It was pretty insane. I grew up in this area, moving here when I was 5. I've been to 258 a million times. Now all the shops were charred. We lingered for a short while, looking at what remained of the shops behind the police tape.
We finished our shopping and 10 minutes after we got home, the news bulletin on the radio reported the fire. It happened in the dead of the night, early this morning. Which made sense because the fire could not have spread so far if there were people about.
Personally, after seeing the aftermath, I think it was arson. The fire spread very far horizontally, but did very little damage vertically. Those were 2-storey buildings, but the 2nd-level seems fine. But don't take my word for it, I saw what I saw from a distance.
This is a huge blow for many of the shopkeepers. They've probably overstocked for the Chinese New Year, and now the fire's taken everything.
[More guppies!]
Yet another of my guppies gave birth this morning. It's still giving birth, in fact. I saw a fry's head popping out, and quickly snapped some pictures of it.
I seldom see fries out come like that. They usually come out tail first, or curled up in a ball which "snaps" back into their original stream-lined body shape once it leaves their mother's body.
[Fortune Cookies != Chinese]
I've been wanting to get this off my chest for a while now.
The fortune cookie is NOT a Chinese after-dinner snack. I've been Chinese for all 23 (soon to be 24) years of my life, and the only time I ate a fortune cookie was when I was in LA. It was probably invented as a restaurant gimmick by an enterprising immigrant. The closest thing we have in our heritage to that are moon-cakes, eaten during the mid-autumn festival.
And another thing. When I say I'm Chinese, I don't mean China-Chinese. I mean Singapore-Chinese. It's actually very much like white folks in England and the United States. My grandparents (on both sides of the family) were from China, and came to Singapore....A long time ago. So in retrospect, the folks in China are the British and us here in Singapore are the Americans.
I don't know what made me think of this all of a sudden. This entry was supposed to be about fortune cookies. I ended up talking about the British, Americans, and Chinese in 2 different countries.
Except that I *do* need a mirror to do my damn hair. I hate my hair. I hate my hair. I hate my hair.
But to be honest, this really is pretty close to what I wanted to be. I mean, if given a choice to be anything I want to be, I want to be a vampire. Which is funny, if you consider how I go weak in the knees when I see someone else's blood.
I don't want to be some lame-ass vampire like those you see on Buffy. I wanna be something cool...Like Lestat or Louis. But best of all would be like Christof in the first Vampire: The Masquerade RPG game.
[DRM to protect content, who to protect us?]
There's an interesting article over at p2pnet today. You can read it here. It's about time someone realised that DRM is taking away some of our basic rights as consumers. Yay for the Brits!
Some interesting parts of the article:
"The NCC had little faith that industry self-regulation would adequately protect consumers' rights," stated the NCC to a parliamentary inquiry, "into technologies that limit what people can do with CDs, DVDs and downloaded media," says the BBC, going on:
"In its submission to the inquiry, the NCC said many consumers were regularly running up against the restrictions record companies and film makers put on their products. The consumer group said people were finding that they could not make compilations for their own use or easily move digital copies between different devices."
In its statement, the NCC said digital locks put on content were, "constraining the legitimate consumer use of digital content" and also undermined were rights established by consumer protection and data protection laws".
[Good news and bad news.]
Tutorial balloting results were released a while ago. The good news is, I got 2 out of my 4 desired tutorial timeslots, and I don't have to go to school on Friday.
Came across this website. This website makes pixel advertising look like a good idea. The least they could have done was to proof-read their site...There's a typo in their browser title (depending on when you read this, it may have already been corrected). It now reads "The Largest Webstie on Earth".
My Dad's watching Room Raiders on MTV. Should I be scared?
[Welcome to my life...]
I woke up this morning feeling out-of-sorts. I can't describe the feeling. Probably because my body wasn't ready to wake up yet. I was awaken by the sounds of the TV. My Dad's really into politics, and he watches this program every morning on weekdays where political commentators talk trash about the politicians in Taiwan.
What I don't understand is this....Is Taiwan such a screwed-up country such that those armchair politicians can actually find subjects to bitch about 5 days a week? That's insane. Either Taiwan is a super fucked-up country politically, or those guys are just talking nonsense. Either way, if I ever meet those guys, I'm going to tell them to find a real job. Talking about politics on TV...What kind of job is that? And I think the main thing that pisses me off about those shows is the way they talk. They don't talk like normal people, no....That would be too easy. They say everything as if their lives depended on it, in a very aggressive and agitated manner. This is probably the reason why the Parliament over there resembles the WWE, with the politicians wearing $3000 suits and fighting among themselves, punching each others' lights out.
My class for today start at 12nn. What a fucked-up time for lessons to start. That's lunchtime. If I have lunch before that, it's too early. If I have lunch after that, that's too late. Anyway I reached school at about 11:35pm and I bought a candy bar for lunch. The internal shuttle bus was insanely packed, and I could only get on the 3rd bus since I started waiting for one.
Reached my lecture 5 mins late. Good thing she hasn't started yet. I hate being late for lectures. I would always wonder if I missed something important. The lecture was easier to understand this week, since I already read ahead in the textbook. Not much happened during lecture, except that we had to form project groups. This module is different in the sense that we have no separate tutorial, instead it's a combined lecture + tutorial for 3-hours straight.
Forming project groups in modules where you haven't got any friends suck. I formed a group with total strangers, and some of them don't seem to be very friendly. Oh well, perhaps it's too early, so I'll reserve the comments about them for later.
After my lesson ended at 3pm, I went back to my department. This is where my day really went to hell.
One of my friends left yesterday for Sweden on a Student Exchange Program. He said I could have his locker, so I bought a combination lock and claimed his locker for my own. When I reached my department, I put my bag in my locker, and took out a book to return to one of my lecturers. I locked my locker using the combination lock....For the last time.
I went upstairs to see if the lecturer was in. He wasn't. So I came back down. All this took less than 5 mins. I wanted to put the book back into my locker and then head to the library to get something copied, when I realised this was not going to be a good day.
My combination lock could not be unlocked. No, I didn't forget the combination. Yes, I turned the numbers correctly. After 10 mins of trying to figure out the lock, I thought, the heck with it. I went to the Computing Club to borrow a lock-cutter to cut my lock away. Good thing I knew one of the guys who were in the Club at the time. I should have taken a picture of the broken lock...But I was too pissed to think of that.
I got all my stuff out, since I can't possible use the locker without a lock for now. I went back up to see if my lecturer returned. He did, and I finally passed his book back to him. He just wanted us to give some comments on which areas of the book could be improved, and it took us 3 months to do it. Excellent. Actually it took so long because the book was with another friend of mine and we never seemed to be able to run into each other.
I finally left to go to the library...And when I got there, the book I needed was already borrowed by someone. Damn it. It's a 2-hr loan, and whoever borrowed it still had an hour to go before he/she had to return the book. I decided to go off and copy the book some other day.
When I reached the bus-stop outside my school, it was clear that an accident has happened somewhere down the road due to the massive traffic jam. After I got onto my bus and traveled down maybe 1 kilometre, I saw the cause of the jam. A "Sunshine" bread truck has overturned and was lying on it's side. I tried to take a picture of the truck but the picture didn't come out very well. Anyway, I should have been trying to take a picture of the moron in the seat ahead of me. He was craning his neck from left to right the whole time, even before we reached the wreck, trying to see what happened. When we got closer, he actually got up to look at the wreck.
[New champions!]
Just finished watching this past week's Smackdown. Pretty good show this week. No screen captures...It's late and I have school tomorrow.
The Boogeyman segment where he bit off Jillian's mole? Gross. Seriously, where the hell do they find these guys?
The battle royale was not as exciting as it could have been. The end with Mark Henry and Kurt Angle back and forth killed the damn match. As good as Angle is, it impossible on his part to make Henry look good. Boring end to an otherwise pretty good episode of Smackdown.
Kurt Angle deserves to be champion. But personally, I'd rather see someone from Smackdown win the title. Give Rey Mysterio the title already! Or Randy Orton...He's the future of the business. He has the mic skills, charisma, and can actually work a decent match.
[The problem with fish...]
I've been keeping fishes for 2 years now, and my biggest fear is when the fishes start dying, one after another for no apparent reason.
My tank has been very stable for a while now. The guppies, tetras, corys and ottos are all happy and healthy. The last 2 deaths were probably due to old age, since the corys that died had been with me for almost 2 years. So yeah, it's been good.
Until now.
On Thursday, while I was in school, my Dad bought 4 male guppies for me (without telling me in advance) from the LFS. The guppies from this LFS were unique in that they were much bigger than regular male guppies. They have a bigger body, and if you just took a glance when the aquarium lights are off, you might mistake them for young females that are not pregnant. Sounds great, doesn't it? Not really...Because drawing from past experiences, these guppies, for some reason, do not survive very long in my tank. I don't know why...Maybe it's the difference in water chemistry or something, but most of them do not survive more than 1 week.
It's always the same story. The guppies are released into my tank after the bag has been floated and water from my tank was added into the bag. They would be fine the first day, but sometimes by the next day you can tell something's not right when their tails start to rot away. Sooner rather than later, they'd be dead. My Dad's theory was that these guppies were probably raised in water that's very optimal for their growth (hence their bigger body size), and cannot adapt to the water in my tank.
So the 4 new guppies were added into my tank by my Dad while I was in school. When I came back, I already saw the tail of one guppy rotting away. I must stress that this "slow but sure" death usually only occurs to the "big" guppies from that one particular LFS, and all my other guppies were usually not affected. These new "big" guppies just waste away and die within a week.
This time, they decided to take others along with them.
Maybe it's because my Dad poured the entire bag into my tank after floating it (I read somewhere that you should never allow the water from the LFS to mix with the water in your tank...So I usually scoop the fishes out of the bag and do not pour the entire bag in), maybe the new guppies were already sick to begin with (and brought whatever disease they had into my tank). I don't know. What I do know, is that something happened and changed the water conditions/chemistry in my tank.
Of the 4 new guppies, only 1 remain (not unexpected). It's not showing any signs of distress, nor is it's tail rotting. However, I've lost half of my cardinal tetras and some of my other guppies (this really pissed me off because cardinals are not cheap, and I lost a very nice male guppy which was born under my care). I can't really tell if the corys are okay...They seem fine though. One of my ottos have a very red mouth...Maybe it's bleeding internally? I don't know.
I've told my Dad many times not to buy guppies for me, since I prefer to pick them myself. He never listens. Maybe he will now....
[Laughter, the best medicine...]
I received a hilarious email today. Here's what it says:
Dear Locksley,
We have just recently entered our second year online, and I want to take a moment to ask you for your support of our free service.
Putfile has experienced a rapid rate of growth and development over the past year, growing from a small image hosting site to an enormous free multimedia hosting community with over 12 million uploads.
Putfile is run by a group of volunteers who donate their time providing everything from software development to server management and content moderation. We strive to create a safe and fun environment for people of all ages to enjoy. As part of this quality experience Putfile does not employ the use of flashing adverts or annoying popups, whilst using such advertising media could cover the shortfalls in our budget they would most certainly damage the user experience.
With bandwidth and server hardware bills continually growing at a rapid rate, we now need your support more than ever. Please consider a generous donation so that we can raise the funds needed to keep us online and further improve our free services.
To make a donation please visit: http://www.putfile.com/donate.php
Thank you from all of us at Putfile!
Back in December, Singapore hanged an Australia drug trafficker and Putfile promptly cut off it's service to all Singapore users in protest. I managed to sign up for an account (which I never use) after they've made the announcement. Nice filtering system guys...
Still, in spite of everything, I find the line in bold extremely funny. I've never came across anyone asking for donations to ask for a "generous" contribution. It's usually any amount will do. If we need to contribute "generously" so that you can continue to provide "free" services, how would the service still be free?
You are very smart, and very talented, although you don't really enjoy social company. You prefer to live alone, go to movies alone, cry alone in the corner...
Not half as evil as I thought I was. Now....Whether or not will I survive a T-Rex attack.
You have a 80% chance of surviving a T-Rex Attack
You have a very good chance of surviving a T-Rex attack. You are very smart and know how to survive in the wild. You would be first in line if there was ever a real Jurassic Park.
That's good to know. Next, what type of nerd was I in high school?
You were a MTG/D&D nerd in high school
At lunch you probably played magic cards, and after school you would go to a friends house to pig out and play Dungeons and Dragons. You have a great imagination, and you are likely to be very successful now.
I have no idea what the hell's MTG, never played magic cards, and never pigged out at a friend's place nor played D&D. I do, however, have a great imagination, and I am definitely very successful now compared to my high school days. Next, my Warcraft race.
Gnome Warrior
Gnomes are strange little things. Fascinated with gadgets and shiny things, gnomes are often plotting and planning - but are pretty smart, despite all the explosions.
As a warrior, you like to take charge of things. You feel that you're an important part of what's happening - and if things turn sour, you like to have a very large weapon on hand that you can use to negotiate.
I didn't play WoW, just the regular WC3 and it's expansion, so I have no idea who the hell is a Gnome. Isn't that some sort of lawn ornament? Next, what will I be famous for?
You will be famous for taking over a small country
You always see opportunities to get what you want no matter what the cost. You are cut-throat and a capitalist at heart. Let's hope the country is a tropical paradise and not Iceland.
[Updates...]
There has been some spirited comments left for my previous post. I'm glad to see that many others share similar views with me.
For those of you who want to read the article, you can click here. This is a link to another local blogger who took the time to scan the article. I got the address after he left a comment on my previous post.
[The things people come up with...]
I saw an article in the papers today that I just have to comment about. I couldn't get the online version since they require a paid subscription, so I'll type out some of the main points of the article here.
Bloggers and personal website owners may soon be pressed to license the background music that they have on their online journals or websites.
This was announced by Dr Edward Lam, chief executive and director of Composers and Authors Society of Singapore (Compass), yesterday.
"We increasingly see more bloggers who upload music onto their webpages," he said.
"We want to encourage them to come forward to our one-stop centre to get licensed, for a reasonable fee."
As always, the papers were not very clear, and I'm not going to waste time online to find out more about this, so here's my understanding of the article.
This applies to site owners who have background music when you enter their sites. Not talking about podcasts here...I'm sure they'll come up with another way to squeeze you guys dry on that one.
The license? S$1,000/year for 10 songs and below. S$5,000 for 11 to 49 songs, and S$10,000 for over 50 songs. (No, I did not make a mistake copying the rates. Non-exhaustive rates, yes.) I would imagine that site owners childish enough to implement background music in their sites would be those in the primary/secondary school age bracket. Very reasonable fees, indeed.
A popular local blogger named "Mr Brown" says he's "not sure this will endear fan bases who like the music so much they've given you free publicity on their websites".
That's basically all the information in the article. Here are my thoughts.
It wasn't very clear whether or not Compass act on behalf of the RIAA/RIAS. If they do, why start now? RIAA has been "suing" folks all over the world for copyright infringements/piracy for a long time now. Why start this little "licensing program" now? Something to think about. But if they do not act on behalf of the RIAA/RIAS, this whole article would be quite irrelevant since I honestly doubt you'll find background music on anyone's website that was composed by a local musician.
Background music on websites, by itself, is extremely irritating. The only thing that's more irritating would be video that automatically plays. Popups irritate me less since I can easily close them, while I would have to hunt for the damn embedded music or video player somewhere to stop the audio/video. Yes, there are settings in your browser that can stop them from playing altogether, but who the hell goes there?
That said, does Compass honestly believe they can make money by "encouraging" one of the most irritating and hated occurrences online?
Maybe in the years to come, we can thank Compass for single-handedly eradicating background music on local websites altogether.
[Imageshack]
Yes, I see the "hotlinking has been disabled for this domain" message. I need to leave for school in 30 minutes...I'll fix this as soon as I get the chance.
[New Year's Revolution]
Just saw NYR. On the whole, a decent PPV. Much better than the previous one...I can't even remember the name of the previous one. I fast-forwarded the previous one like crazy, including the Undertaker-Orton match.
There are 2 matches (or 3, depending on how you view the last match) worth mentioning. The divas match threw up one surprises, and no, I'm not talking about Mae Young (FYI, she interrupted the divas' match and started taking her clothes off). Maria actually did alright for herself in the ring. Most improved wrestler of 2005/2006, that's for sure.
Ok, on to Mae Young. The last time I laughed out loud while watching WWE was when The Rock made Kevin Kelly put his finger up his own nose while conducting the interview. I almost fell off my chair laughing at Mae Young's bit....Maybe skit would be a better word. No, I didn't take any screen captures of her doing her skit. But I took some of the reactions....Look at Victoria's face below, in total shock.
4 thumbs-down and a "NO". Who would have guessed?
My eyes! My eyes!
No wet dreams for them tonight.
This guy's forgotten all about his girlfriend and is thinking "that must be what my grandmother would look like...."
This is just funny all by itself.
This guy's face sums up the whole skit. HAHAHA!
Now, on to the good stuff. The elimination chamber match. Kane's pyro was wicked. If I ever get into pro-wrestling (I can dream, can't I?), I want his pyro.
Shawn Michaels. 'Enuff said.
This is what I always try to look out for...When the wrestlers bled during the match, it's 99% not because of the blows they took to their heads. If they start bleeding from the blows to their heads....I'd say those are probably life-threatening blows. Instead, they usually take a bump to their heads, hide (easier if they have long hair) themselves from view, and at this point the cameras usually point away from them. They then take out a razor and slice their own foreheads open. That's the only place where it's safe to do so.
I remember another elimination chamber match...Randy Orton was in that one. Triple H was about to sling-shot him into the steel when you can see him remove the razor from his wrist tape and start to quickly unwrap the wrapper. Triple H tried to stall since Orton wasn't ready, which only drew more attention to Orton's hurried hand movements. When Triple H finally sling-shot Orton to the side of the chamber, you can see very clearly the razor in his hand.
Back to the present. In the scene below, Cena just took a DDT on the steel. You can clearly see him going for the razor in his wrist tape. Might not be obvious from a still shot, but trust me, if it was a video feed, you'd be able to spot it if you know what to look out for.
The twist of the night was Edge winning the title from Cena after Cena won the elimination chamber match. Don't get me wrong, Edge has more than paid his dues, what with all the TLC matches he's been in. But was he deserving enough to be the WWE Champion? I'll let you decide that. What didn't sit well with me was all the celebration afterwards. Gimme a break...It was even a "real" match. Edge basically speared Cena twice and that was it. His celebrations reminded me of how Hogan celebrated after winning the WWF title from Yokozuna at Wrestlemania 9 -- Over the top.
And look at the damn fans. They must really hate Cena to cheer Edge so hard when he won the title. Not too long ago, Edge was public enemy number 1 for what he did to Matt Hardy. How soon they forget....
This may be a bit of a spoiler for those who don't read newsboards...Batista had to drop his title because of his injury. Guess who picked it up? Kurt Angle. Yes, finally, a deserving champion who can actually wrestle a decent match. Too bad...I was rooting for Randy Orton.
EDIT: Saw this as I read my post after publishing it. This is a new record low temperature for Singapore. 23 degrees! The one before this was 24 degrees, on the 22nd of November last year.
[Free money?]
I went to the photocopy shop in the Science Library today to get something copied. The shop is fully self-serviced. You use a CashCard to activate the photocopy machines, and there's a NETs terminal for you to top up your CashCard if need be. There's a woman there in charge of the shop, but she comes over to you only if you can't work the machines.
I was there on Monday too, and I noticed something. The woman in charge would be away from the shop for long periods of time. Today, for example, she was not there when I reached at 1:30pm. She only got back at about 2:15pm. She was away also for a long period on Monday.
Now, the above table is next to the door, and this is where she would be sitting at if she's there. The NETs terminal for topping up CashCards is circled in the red box. The instructions on the table states that you'd first have to insert your ATM card to get the value deducted first before putting in your CashCard to get the value credited.
While topping up my CashCard, I saw that next to the "NETS" option was the "Cash" option....Mmmm...Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Let's say the woman is on one of her "breaks". What if I chose the "Cash" option, topped up my CashCard, and left?
Free money?
EDIT: I just realised...My computer table is the same as the white double-decked table in the picture!
[5th post of the day...]
This is what happens when there's no school and the weather's wet. I sit in front of the computer and write about every single thing that comes into my head.
Kindness is most important in a boyfriend/girlfriend. You want someone who will go through everything with you - the best moments and the worst, and all of those other moments in between. You love to be able to say anything to your partner, and have them say anything to you. You are able to be extremely close with your partner for that reason.
[Erm, to write er...well, give I a call. Ok?] My friend YQ sent me this picture earlier today. This was just too funny to pass up. It's like asking George W. Bush to teach you world politics. Haha!
[Injustice?]
I've never been an Arsene Wenger fan. Mainly because he shoots his mouth off before his brain has finished thinking. Sir Alex Ferguson does it too...But the champion of them all is probably Jose Mourinho.
But I digress. I think Arsenal was really owned by the Ivory Coast FA. I'm on Wenger's side for this one. You can read about what happened here.
[Oh dear, this isn't a spam blog!!]
I was editing my previous post (blockquotes causes a small positioning problem on my site) when I saw something I've never seen before on Blogger. A word verification below the Create/Edit Posts area. It wasn't there when I created the post, but was there when I went to edit it.
It seems that Blogger has detected my blog to be a spam blog! Oh dear....I wonder why. I think it might have something to do with this post. My friend left 2 comments, both times signing off as Anonymous.
[Mission Accomplished!]
Just completed Need For Speed: Most Wanted. Took me about a month, since I got the game on December 6th. It was an excellent game on the whole, though there were some I'm-so-frustrated-I'm-gonna-pull-out-all-my-hair moments.
My personal favourite car to use in the game in the Prosche Cayman S. I played on the XBox, so I couldn't get any screenshots. The cars I used include the Golf GTI, Cayman S, Prosche 911 Turbo S, McLaren Mercedes-Benz SLR, Lamborghini Gallardo, Dodge Viper SRT-10 and of course the BMW M3 GTR.
Of all the cars I tried, I liked the Cayman the most. Although it's unlocked pretty early on in the game (after defeating blacklist #10), it actually lasted me the whole game and I used it to beat Razor in the end. Cars that disappointed include the Gallardo and 911 Turbo S. The 911 could not match the speed and acceleration of the Cayman. The Gallardo, while fast, did not handle well at all.
The end of the game was a letdown...After you fly off the bridge, that's it. I'd have expected a little more. And it wasn't easy finding the damn road to take...It took me several tries.
All in all, I give it 4 stars out of 5. Can't wait for the next title in the NFS series.
[And so it begins...]
...a new semester has began. I've been to 3 out of my 5 lectures so far. No real surprises...yet. If anything, there's good news for my CS3266 - No restrictions on web programming language. Last semester, you had to use both ASP.NET and J2EE. This semester, the only restriction was no PHP/Perl.
[It's a damp, cold night...] It's been raining for over 12 hours now. I'm not too sure when the rain started...I know it started some time during the night. I could hear the rain, but I was too stoned to get up to look at the clock.
I can't remember the last time it rained so long. Memories of what happened during rainy days when I was in the Army came rushing back. I remember this one time it rained so heavily that we had to put our field exercise on hold. We huddled in our vehicle, trying to get some reprieve from the rain. We were in the forested training area behind our camp compound, so we could see our bunks away in the distance.
Everytime it rained during field exercises, everyone would feel miserable because our feet would get wet. Tired, dirty, hungry (thanks to the crap combat rations), sticky, wet and cold. What a combination. I'm glad that's over....For now, anyway.
[Flying without wings...]
Yes, that's me in the video. No, that's not my room. It's my sister's room.
A closer look at my feet below.
No camera tricks, no strings, no pulleys.
I'm still learning. Can't stay in the air for very long. With proper practice, I hope to "suspend" in air longer. While it's not impossible to perform this in front of friends, it's not easy to set it up...
[Germs! They're everywhere!]
The lecture today ended early. As it turns out, almost every module that had it's lecture on Tuesday moved their make-up lectures to today. I met my friend from my department in a Business toilet. What're the odds?
That aside...You know how you always read about people who are afraid of germs, and they would wash their hands repeatedly or carry disinfectant with them everywhere they go? My lecturer today can be classified as one of them. She wrapped tissue paper around the microphone as well as the mouse before using them. First time I saw such a thing in real life. To top it off, she was a medical student. Shouldn't she know that such fears of her's are unfounded?
[Time to play the game...]
The new school term officially starts on the 9th of January. But for me, it starts tomorrow. I have a make-up lecture, because the 10th of January is a public holiday.
I'm full of energy right now, feeling ready to take on the new semester. The sort-of disappointing results I got last semester is driving me to want to work harder this time. I'm sure this renewed energy will last me all of 1 week, before I go back to my lazy-ass self.
I looked through some of the material for my modules this semester. For some reason, several of them list "basic calculus" as their pre-requisites. Shit. One of the reasons I'm in E-Commerce was to get away from maths...Useless maths that kill our CAPs and we'll never ever use again. Now 2 of my modules require "basic calculus". I know from experience that "basic" is pure BS. Worse case scenario, my sister can be my calculus tutor this semester...Seeing how she's waiting for her results and Uni applications to come through.
Looked through my MSN, lots of people put their modules on their display names. Many of them also posted their module bidding results. Some were happy to get their modules, some were frustrated because they couldn't. Module bidding this semester wasn't too bad for me. Last semester was a complete nightmare, with me having to change my entire modules list at the last minute when I found out I was still a "new student" and was not allocated any vacancies in level 4 modules, and when whoever's in charge of MKT1003 decided to enter a new preclusion for the module at 11pm on the night before bidding begins.
This semester, I managed to get everything I wanted by Round 2A, including a module which my friends got in 1A for 3000+ and 1000+ points. I got the same module in 2A for 1 point. Nope, still can't get over my good luck. :)
My lecture tomorrow is from 12nn to 3pm, and I need to hightail it back home by 4:55pm. I was awarded the CCC/CDC bursary, and tomorrow's the collection ceremony. This is one of the very few times which I'm glad that I live so close to the Community Club. Noise pollution tends to be more evident when you live so near to the CC.
I changed the countdown ticker. It's now counting down to Chinese New Year. For my international audience, that's our Christmas. I also changed the format of the Archives a few days ago. I think it's easier to read/navigate this way, don't you? Blogspot's default method was pretty hard on the eyes...And did not make good use of Internet real estate.
[Limited edition collectible...] My 512MB USB thumbdrive from Kingston became a collectible today.
I don't know the full details, but basically, Trek filed for a patent for the thumbdrive, and the court ruled that from now on, all other companies who want to market their thumbdrives in Singapore has to get them licensed from Trek. Kingston actually pulled out of the Singapore market when this whole mess started, way back last June. I only knew about it today when I read the article in the papers.
So guys...Grab your non-Trek thumbdrives while you still can! According to the same report, Sandisk and Sony were still selling their thumbdrives right now. Hurry! Before stock runs out! J
PS: I have nothing against Trek. In fact, my first-ever thumbdrive was a Trek.
[Dealing with bad news...]
I received a piece of bad news a few hours ago. The exact details are private, and doesn't really concern anyone else. Not to worry, I don't have some terminal disease or anything (that might change when I pick up my medical checkup results tomorrow...haha!), and the piece of bad news was not all that unexpected. In some ways, I was a glutton for punishment. I guess I just had to know. And now I do.
I was playing Xbox when I got the news. My sister was in my room, using the computer. She's also new to youtube.com, and was going nuts as she searched for and found a ton of Backstreet Boys videos. Interviews, commercials, MTVs, concert footage, even sound tests before a concert. She was squealing with unrestrainted excitement...While less than 2 metres away, I was dealing with the bad news I just received.
I finally told her that I was dealing with the reality which I wish wasn't. She calmed down for exactly 10 seconds, giving me some reprieve. After the 10 seconds, she went back to her hyper self. I guess it helped...Her being hyper took my mind off reality for a while. She's gone back to her room since, and now I'm back to dealing with reality.
Ironically, this is the second time I'm dealing with this reality. Yay for me...
[Things happen for a reason...]
Last week I was just complaining about how there were too little vacancies in one of the Business modules I needed to take. I bidded 1720 points for it and was still unable to secure the module.
Round 2A ended at 5pm. This time, the class I wanted had 3 vacancies, and at the end of bidding, there were only 2 bidders, myself and some other guy. Isn't it funny...Just last Friday there were a few of us fighting for that time slot since there was only 1 vacancy open in Round 1A. The winner spent like...2000+ points on it if I remember correctly. Now I have a very good chance of getting the same module at the same timeslot for just 1 point.
Came across another funny video on youtube.com. This is a short video of a female streaker scoring a goal. Yes, you read right, a female streaker.
Came across youtube.com today. They allow you to upload videos to their servers and they'll host it for you. So this is my first video...Fighting tetras! :)
I shot this video earlier. The albino tetras I bought today were fighting among themselves, which was unusual because tetras are regarded as peaceful community fishes.
It's about 2 mins long. Shows the tetras fighting at first, then I took a shot of the rest of the fishes and then again another shot of the fighting tetras.
[Albino Neon Tetras!] About 2 weeks ago, I went to my friend's place for a BBQ. I was looking through the fish tanks in his house (his Dad has 5 of them if I remember correctly) when I noticed an albino neon tetra in one of his tanks. I went to the fish shop near my place today, and saw a tank full of albino neon tetras! I bought 4 of them, and the picture above was taken as I was floating them in my tank. You can see 3 of them fairly easily, but the last one was close to the surface of the water and it's a bit hard to see it. Anyway, the ones I bought were quite different from the ones my friend had. The ones I bought had a half-red stripe like regular neon tetras. The one in my friend's tank did not have that. Because of the red stripe, I actually mistook them for albino cardinal tetras...I only realised the stripes go halfway when I got home.
Just to compare, regular cardinal and neon tetras are below. The biggest difference between the 2 and the red stripe beneath the bright blue stripe. Neons have a half-red stripe with a white belly, while cardinals have a full-red stripe. Cardinal tetras are easily the brightest and most colourful tropical fishes, and it's nice to have a huge tank full of them. They look like blue diamonds swimming about.
Since I had my camera out anyway, I took a few more pictures. This is a rare photo of an otto catfish. Why is it rare? Because it's usually hiding under or behind the driftwood in my tank. I bought them to control the algae in my tank...But after they had a taste of the flake foods I fed my fishes, they don't seem to be very interested in algae anymore....
These 2 guppies are suffering from tail rot. I put them in a smaller tank and dosed the water with anti-fungus water treatment. The lighter blue one has been fighting the tail rot for quite a while now.
You can see the tattered ends of it's tail.
This darker blue/black one was fine last night. When I saw it this morning...Well, you can see the problem. Huge chunks of it's tail had rotted away.
Broken for now. :( If anyone knows of a good way to display tweets without using Twitter's awful looking widgets, please let me know. Preferably something that allows me to retrieve my tweets in plain-text format.
What's this about?
Anything and everything under the sun. I write about my day, my thoughts, things I see in public, things to get off my chest, or sometimes just some senseless rants that make sense only to me.
About Me
30 year old male. Always with too many ideas in his head and too little time. For my 15 minutes of fame, I want to be a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman.
Interests
Movies, TV, cycling, computers, planted tanks, cherry shrimps, P2P legal issues, Manchester United, WWE, TNA, UFC, etc...
Disclaimer
Best viewed @ 1280*1024 or above. Views are expressed are mine and mine only, and are not meant to offend or influence anyone. Designed for readers with a sense of humour. If you can't laugh at yourself, you probably won't like my style of humour.
Although I already knew about the date since I saw it on MIW a while ago, the callup just confirms it. Most people think that once they ORD, that's the end of it. I knew that when I ORDed, there were still 13 (now reduced to 10) more years of ICT to go. 1 coming, 9 to go.
This is the perfect tonic after being beaten by Man City in their previous match.
The least they could have done was to proof-read their site...There's a typo in their browser title (depending on when you read this, it may have already been corrected). It now reads "The Largest Webstie on Earth". 
