[Murphy's Law...]
...it isn't just an idea. It's a law.
Was all prepared for a little trip to the beach with friends today after school for some R & R, but it's been drizzling the whole day and the sun's hidden behind the clouds. The one time we plan to go to the beach, and we get crap weather like this. The gang went anyway, I decided not to because I was totally deflated by the lousy weather. There just isn't that much to do in Singapore for fun.
On the school front, my project group in FNA1002X was picked to be group 2, and my group in CS4260 was picked to be group 1. Excellent. This means we get to present first. The first FNA1002X presentation is next week, while CS4260 is the week after. I guess it's good in a way, to get these things over with earlier and out of the crammed project/term paper period towards the end of the semester. That would work for CS4260, but I believe FNA1002X works on a round-robin manner, which means it's likely we'd be assigned more work than the other groups.
Oh well, shit happens (as so aptly used by Paul Wight on the McMahon DVD when he talked about the Montreal Screwjob).
[Lean on me...]
Took the picture below on the bus today, on my way to school.
This guy thought it was a good idea to lean on the seat behind him. Most people don't do that. In doing so, he's basically putting his ass on the girl's shoulder. The girl sat slanted all the way to NUS to prevent butt-to-shoulder contact.
And I saw this in the canteen. How can it be special if it's available everyday?
[Why argue?]
I'm taking a philosophy module this semester, and the passage below was in our lecture notes.
Why prove to a man he is wrong? Is that going to make him like you? Why not let him save his face? He didn't ask for your opinion. He didn't want it. Why argue with him? Always avoid the acute angle.
During my youth, I had argued with my brother about everything under the Milky Way. When I went to college, I studied logic and argumentation, and went in for debating contests. Talk about being from Missouri, I was born there. I had to be shown (Missouri is the "Show Me" state). Later, I taught debating and argumentation in New York; and once, I am ashamed to admit, I planned to write a book on the subject.
Since then, I have listened to, criticize, engaged in, and watched the effects of thousands of arguments. As a result of it all, I have come to the conclusion that there is only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument – and that is to avoid it. Avoid it as you would avoid rattlesnakes and earthquakes. Nine times out of ten, an argument ends with each of the contestants being more firmly convinced than ever that he is absolutely right.
You can't win an argument. You can't because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it. Why? Well, suppose you triumph over the other man and shoot his argument full of holes and prove that he is non compos mentis. Then what? You will feel fine. But what about him? You will have made him feel inferior. You have hurt his pride. He will resent your triumph. And –
A man convinced against his will Is of the same opinion still.
Real salesmanship isn't argument. It isn't anything even remotely like argument. The human mind isn't changed that way.
- Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People, p. 112.
I thought it was pretty interesting. Of course, being in a philosophy module, Carnegie's little take on argument was tore apart in 10 seconds. In spite of that, I still found his take thought-provoking.
[Bastards...]
I met an old friend on the bus today. He was in the same secondary school as I was, and although we were never in the same class, we knew each other because we lived in the same area and took the same bus to and from school. He's reading Life Science in NUS now, but we seldom run into each other because we take different buses to NUS.
It was nice catching up, but the experience was ruined by two teenagers seated directly behind us. One of them (probably the one on the right in the picture below) was playing his MP3s on loudspeaker mode.
This inconsiderate act on public transport is not uncommon, but that doesn't make it any less irritating. The bus we were on was pretty old, and the engine noise was loud. And this moron's MP3-player was loud enough to drown out the noise from the bus engine. There's really no way for me to describe how loud it was, except to say that it's the loudest I've ever heard in such a situation, and that my friend and I actually needed to shout in order to communicate.
And to make my day complete, I met another idiot at my void deck. This guy was smoking in the lift on his way down. I didn't want to take the smoke-filled lift back up, so I sent the lift up and waited for another one. I take comfort in the fact that this guy will probably die of cancer one day. Don't feel sorry for him though, he brought it upon himself.
[Kill list...]
I was in the Faculty of Arts and Social Science today, attending a lecture. As I was packing up to go at the end, I noticed that the table I was using was badly vandalised. Most of the vandalism on lecture theatre tables are done using pencils, so it's not always noticeable, only from certain angles.
Anyway, the stuff on this table was kinda different from what you normally see. I'm not saying that there's a ton of vandalism going on, but it's not unusual to see some words scribbled on the tables once in a while. The guy who did this table probably needs to see a shrink. He actually had a "muz kill" list and a poem with words like "kill" and "destroy" in them.
This is his hitlist. It's terribly out of focus, that's the best I can do with my mobile phone camera. On the left, it says less than 1.6m. The next drawing was that of PRC students, followed by gay lecturers and mat rockers. Good thing I'm none of those, and I'm above 1.6 metres tall.
This is the poem. It's too blurry to make out everything, but I remember there was a "kill" in every sentence.
Looks like life in university is too stressful for some.
[In your face...]
They installed something new in the male toilets in S16.
See the little shelf thingy above the urinals? That's new. I first encountered them last week, when I took a piss before my lecture. I didn't realise the shelf was installed and had a little moment of surprise when I looked down and realised there was something in my face.
The shelf was installed for a purpose. It's useful if you needed to change in the toilet since now you have a place to put your stuff. Problem was, it was installed at the wrong height. For me, it was just under my nose/mouth area. This means when I take a piss, I actually need to stand further back from the urinal. Most people stand as close as possible especially when there aren't any walls for privacy. I had to stand further back because I needed to see what I was doing.
Taking a piss used to be the most natural thing in the world. Now it's as technical as landing a fighter jet on an aircraft carrier. You need to:
Stand at the correct distance from the urinal.
Unzip.
Aim. Now you really have to aim, as you're further away and you probably don't want to spray all over the place.
Look around (without being obvious) to see if anyone's staring at your instrument, since you're now in full view.
The tricky part is when you're done. You need to lean back to get the best view possible to zip yourself back up. I've had an unpleasant experience yesterday because I didn't get a good enough view. Don't ask.
The shelf was a good idea. Installing at face level....Isn't. I'm just thankful for my height. A friend of mine's who a tad shorter has to contend with the shelf directly at the bridge of his nose. Instead of standing to piss, he has to lean back now.
[Cranky...]
I usually wake up cranky when I didn't sleep well the night before. So it was weird for me to wake up cranky today, when I slept like a baby during the night. I was so irritable and nearly lost my temper when both my parents decided to each occupy a bathroom when I wanted to take a shower. In order to get as much sleep as I could, I wake up as late as I can, and from waking up to stepping out of my house, there isn't a single wasted moment. It's like clockwork. So not being able to use the bathroom when I needed to would throw my schedule off.
But I managed to keep it in. It was on the bus this morning when I nearly lost it.
This woman came and sat next to me. It was a crowded bus, and she was standing before. I saw her then, and she was reading a book and fanning herself with her bookmark. I remembered wondering how much air could she possibly move with that silly bookmark. And it wasn't even really that hot, since the bus has A/C.
It was when she sat down next to me when the fun really started. All this time, she hasn't stopped fanning herself. That flapping bookmark was irritating the shit out of me by this point. And when she was seated next to me, for some reason, she decided to direct the airflow generated by her little bookmark at my right arm. Other than making my right arm colder than my left, her bookmark kept hitting my arm/sleeve with every fanning action. It was all I could do at this point not to snatch the damn bookmark from her, tear it up and stuff it down her throat.
I guess she did realise after a while that she was fanning a stranger's arm, and decided to fan her brow instead. It's hard to explain, but imagine someone next to you fanning him/herself with a bookmark for a long time. It irritated the hell out of me, and being cranky already didn't help matters any.
When I got off the bus, it was a mad rush to SoC to take the internal shuttle to Business School. I thought I was going to be late, but I got there right on the dot and didn't miss anything (I think).
After the lecture, Aeron gave me a ride back to SoC. There were four of us in the backseat, and when the car navigated a turn, Nana instinctively tried to grab something to keep her balance. Problem was, she tried to grab the door handle. Good thing I saw it in time and managed to stop her. If the door opened while the car was moving, it wouldn't be pretty.
[Alter Bridge - Metalingus] On this day I see clearly everything has come to life A bitter place and a broken dream And we'll leave it all, leave it all behind
I'll never long for what might have been Regret won't waste my life again I won't look back I'll fight to remain
On this day it's so real to me Everything has come to life Another chance to chase a dream Another chance to feel Chance to feel alive
Fear will kill me, all I could be Lift these sorrows Let me breathe, could you set me free Could you set me free
[Bon Jovi - These Days]
I was walking around, just a face in the crowd Trying to keep myself out of the rain Saw a vagabond king wear a styrofoam crown Wondered if I might end up the same There's a man out on the corner Singing old songs about change Everybody's got their cross to bear, these days
She came looking for some shelter with a suitcase full of dreams To a motel room on the boulevard Guess she's trying to be James Dean She's seen all the disciples and all the "wannabe's" No one wants to be themselves these days Still there's nothing to hold on to but these days
These days - the stars seem out of reach These days - there ain't a ladder on these streets These days - are fast, love don't last in this graceless age There ain't nobody left but us these days
Jimmy shoes, he busted both his legs, trying to learn to fly From a second story window, he just jumped and closed his eyes His momma said he was crazy - he said momma "I've got to try" Don't you know that all my heroes died And I guess I'd rather die than fade away
Even innocence has caught the midnight train And there ain't nobody left but us these days
I know Rome's still burning Though the times have changed This world keeps turning round and round and round and round These days
These days - are fast, nothing lasts There ain't no time to waste There ain't nobody left to take the blame There ain't nobody left but us these days
[There was a time...]
There was a time when I shaved once a week. Now I shave every two days, and have started shaving the sides of my face as well (which I really hate).
There was a time when I weighed 54kg. Now I weigh 70+kg, with no increase in height.
There was a time when a cup of coffee kept me alert all day. Now after downing a cup of coffee and a cup of green tea, I'm still tired.
There was a time when I did the 2.4km in 10:50. Now it takes me 13:00+.
I'm so tired. That's coming off 7-hours of sleep and 2 doses of caffeine.
[I love Singapore!]
I was on the internal shuttle bus in NUS today when I noticed it had a small Singapore flag on it's dashboard.
It probably doesn't show up very well, but the "flying in the wind" effect is achieved by sticking a piece of transparent scotch tape from the ornament on top to the middle of the flag.
What a lot of trouble to go to just to achieve that silly effect (that's the most "to"s I've ever used in a sentence).
On another note, I've been watching wrestling a long time, and TNA's Hard Justice on Sunday was the first one I've ever seen where part of the arena caught fire due to the pyro and everyone had to be evacuated. Kudos to Mike Tenay, Don West and Jeremy Borash for keeping things going. Boos to Monty Brown. His promo (which was just to stall for time) made me wanna shoot myself.
It was pretty funny when they first started spraying the fire extinguishers because the whole arena was fogged up and the audience actually chanted "you can't see us!". Haha!
[Tagged!]
Ok, in the spirit of things, I've been tagged and I'm supposed to do the little quiz below and find five other friends to do the same. I'm a little rushed for time right now, so I'd probably just do the quiz and worry about the five friends later.
FAVOURITE COLOUR: Green/Black. FOOD: Too many to mention...Let's see...I have a craving for Mee Rebus right now. MOVIE: Armageddon, Black Hawk Down, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. SPORT: Running, swimming and sometimes cycling. DAY OF THE WEEK: Friday ICE CREAM: Not really a fan...Choc Mint if I have to. TEEVEE SHOWS: Friends, That 70s Show, Veronica Mars, King of Queens, Buffy, Angel. Only 2 of them are still running.
CURRENT MOOD: Kinda excited, since this is the first day of the 2006/2007 school year. TASTE: My mouth's pretty dry right now. Due to no breakfast and a cup of very strong green tea. CLOTHES: Old Reebok t-shirt and blue Nike shorts. If the next question is about underwear, I'm skipping the whole thing. DESKTOP: A picture of a coconut tree. I have a ton of wallpapers, which are rotated every 4-hours. Most of the pictures are from Webshots. TOENAIL COLOUR: The original colour. I've been toying with the idea of getting black and white nail polish. TIME: 10:52 AM. ANNOYANCE: Not annoyed right now. Which is rare. THOUGHTS: Unorganised. I always feel like this at the start of a semester. Need to buy my textbooks, find tutorial groups, etc etc. To top it off, I might still have to change a lecture slot later.
FIRST BEST FRIEND: Andrew from Bukit Panjang Primary. I probably won't recognise him on the streets even if I run into him now. CRUSH: This girl back when I was in primary school. Saw her a grand total of 1 time after we moved on to secondary school. MOVIE: Can't remember. LIE: Can't remember. MUSIC: Eh? What the hell is "first music"?
LAST CIGARETTE: I don't smoke. Although once I inhaled second-hand smoke so fresh, my lungs actually "tasted" the methol. It was goooddddd........ DRINK: Green tea. CAR RIDE: When Subby gave me a lift on Saturday night. CRUSH: *signz* PHONE CALL: From Mum, telling me something that made me go "Huh?" CD PLAYED: Mmm...I guess Fort Minor? It's not really a CD....
HAVE YOU EVER DATED ONE OF YOUR BEST FRIENDS? I thought I did. I was wrong. BROKEN THE LAW? Everyday. BEEN ARRESTED? Yes. I was 14. But I wasn't cuffed or anything. Just brought to the police station for my parents to come collect me. Don't ask. SKINNY DIPPED? Nope. There are fishes in the water that might mistake a fleshy part of the male body for something else. KISSED SOMEONE YOU DON'T KNOW? That's a good way to get arrested again. So, no.
[SPGs must die!]
I was on the train last night when I saw something that made me sick to my stomach. I couldn't take a picture, so I'll describe it as best as I can, and you'll need to use your imagination.
The train was packed, and I was standing (hence I couldn't take a picture, it'd be too obvious). I was minding my own business when the woman in front of me turned away at an awkward angle and was seemingly embarrassed. I scanned the crowd in front of me, and I saw the cause of that.
They were really, really frenching. I saw 2 tongues going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth until I felt kinda sick. And yes, the whole performance was in Dolby surround sound. I got to hear the wet smacking of tongues.
Like most normal local males, I hate SPGs. They're sluts. Fucking sluts. Full-stop. If it's not bad enough that us guys have enough trouble getting local girls as it is (don't fucking ask), now we have foreigners here to join the party. You'd only see local girls with Caucasian guys and never the other way round.
And to top it off, the Caucasian guy wasn't even that cute. He was shorter than me, for crying out loud (I'm 1.76m/5'9").
I had to change trains, and I saw a group of boys who think they're from the 'hood, all dressed like hip-hop artistes with their pants hanging way too low. Look at this guy...Seriously, his jeans were already below the widest part of his ass and it really looks like they're going to drop any minute.
Which brings me to another issue: Why do young people these days like to dress up as somebody they're not?
Other than the teens above, I've once saw this Indian teen with a big-ass chain and a huge sparkling dollar-sign hanging from it. Who the hell does he think he is? A pimp? If I had my way, I'd punch his lights out. They should do the gene pool a favour and neuter him. There're a couple of guys in my faculty who should be neutered too. They're PRC students, dressed like basketball players everyday. One of them always wear the same silly visor, even during lectures. The only person who looks dumber is probably Spike Lee when he's at a Knicks' game.
Enough about those numb-nuts. On to something else. As anyone with a planted aquarium would know, snails can be a problem. While they're good for the aquarium as they eat up all the leftover food and keep the inside glass walls clean, they also reproduce like crazy and if left unchecked, you can have thousands of them in your aquarium.
I didn't want to add chemicals to get rid of them (the chemicals can also affect fishes and shrimps), and I got tired of constantly picking them out manually, so I invested in a snail trap. You're supposed to leave it overnight in the tank (snails are more active at night) with some bait, and the snails will climb in for the food and get trapped. This is the perfect solution to my snail problem, because no chemicals are added and some snails (in small numbers) will remain, which is what I want for my aquarium.
[Dazed and confused...]
My mind's kinda cloudy now, due to the medicine I took last night. Came down with a semi-serious (is that even a word?) flu/cold, and had to pop a small yellow pill which packs an awesome punch in terms of the drowsy effect.
School starts on Monday, and unlike other semester past, I feel unprepared. I've finalised and secured the modules I'm taking, but I'm still trying to switch one of my lecture time-slots. Wouldn't it be a gas if I dropped the module and couldn't get the time-slot I wanted?
I always feel kinda lost when the semester starts. I'd need to find out all the assignment, project and test dates to write down in my organiser (lest I forget), and then find out if the exam would be of an open or closed-book nature. The reason because if it was open-book, I'd have to buy a copy of the textbook. If I can't bring the textbook in there anyway (closed-book), I might as well just zap the pages I need and save some money for...I don't know...food?
Next comes the ever-exciting tutorial balloting phase. First, to find out how many friends are in the module with me. Second, to see which are the ones I want to work with. Third, to see if our timetables match. Lastly, hope that the balloting system puts us together. Easy as pie. Although this semester things should be easier, since I've really only two modules which I need to co-ordinate with my friends.
Regarding my rant (read: painful attempt at poetry which didn't even rhyme) yesterday, let's just say I was in a bad place. And I'm absolutely convinced that whoever's in charge (God/fate/destiny/karma/your Mom) was having a go at me.
[What's it like to be me?]
Sitting at my rig Staring at my screen One-two-five by one-two-five That's as close as I'll ever be What's taking so long? 311 days and counting Bloody, battered, and bruised
[I'm tired...]
I went out to run a few errands today, one of which was to deposit some cash into my bank account, so that I could pay my mobile phone bill. There's a machine at Plaza that allows you to do that.
There was a queue which went up the stairs, and a woman was sitting near the end. I thought that she was just tired of queuing (it can take quite a while, even when there aren't too many people ahead of you). But as the queue moved, I realised she didn't want to use the machine at all.
She's just "taking a break". There she was, as I joined the queue.
Scratching her foot.
Digging her ear. She wiped the thing on her dress. Fantastic.
I'm next, and she hasn't moved.
Too many freaks, not enough circuses.
[Okay fine, for all I know, she could have a legit, sane reason for sitting/waiting there. But I can't think of any. There were actually some benches a short distance away, so her behaviour ranks as weird/insane in my book.]
[A million thoughts in my head...]
School starts next week, and right now, I have a ton of things on my mind.
First up, I applied for a financial package from NUS, and was offered an "allowance" every semester, among some other things. It never occurred to me that the "allowance" was a loan and had to be repaid. I just found out that it was, in fact, a loan. Maybe it's just me, but when I saw:
"NUS Study Loan of 20% tuition fee payable & $X annual living allowance."
I thought we only had to repay the 20% tuition fee. I had always thought that "allowances" in such instances need not be repaid. And now there's conflicting info on whether or not interest would be charged on the amount owed. I already owe a shitload of money to the banks as it is (the other 80%), now I also owe money to NUS. Great.
Next up, I'm taking a module with several of my friends this semester. It's complicated, but in the beginning it was better for me to take a different lecture class from them. Now it doesn't matter anymore, and I'm trying to switch to the same lecture class as them. I couldn't though, because that module isn't open to returning students from SoC this current round. Crap. Good thing I had a friend check it for me before I dropped it. Hopefully, slots would open up on Friday and I can make the switch. It's not really a big deal, I could just as easily go for the same class as my friends, but I want to make the switch official so that I can ballot for tutorials at my old lecture timing.
The whole episode about trying to change my lecture class timing is due to my dropping of two modules which I had intended to take. I've changed my mind, and chose another two modules to replace them. The replacement modules are also cross-listed as GEMs, so in theory, they shouldn't be too hard. I'm quite satisfied with my module selection this semester. Nothing seems to be too "heavy". But I've had a nasty surprise when it comes to module workload every semester so far, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Lastly, my aquarium. Everything's dandy, more or less, except for my shrimps. They're mostly dead. The light is off, but I can see 2 dead shrimps lying on the sand. I really liked them...But I haven't been able to breed/keep them ever since I converted to a planted tank.
[Re-scape...]
My aquarium hasn't been doing too well as of late. The plants were not growing well, and I had an attack of green water. I've added fertiliser to the tank on Thursday, and am working to fix the green water problem (less food, less light-on time).
I bought some new plants and did a re-scape today. Here's how it looks now.
I did a re-scape because the previous layout didn't look very "natural" to me. I think it looks more natural now, what with all the same plants being close to each other instead of spread out all over the place.
Unfortunately, I lost some cherry shrimps in the process. I don't know why that is. All my other fishes were fine, but cherry shrimps seem to have a problem everytime the substrate is messed up. Several of my shrimps look as if they've been knocked out, some looked like they were drunk. I did a 50% water change. Hopefully their condition improve.
On another note, I took an IQ test last night at IQTest.com. It was pretty interesting, the first IQ test I've ever taken. They'll email you your score, you don't have to pay for it. Give it a try.
[What was that again?]
There's an article in the papers today about the Zidane-Matterazzi head-butt spoof that's on YouTube.
Check out the URL.
I don't think it takes a brain surgeon to realise that you really didn't have to include the "&search=etc etc etc" portion of the URL. This URL is printed in the papers, so folks interested would have to type out the entire URL. Why make people type out portions of the URL (using it loosely since I don't think QueryStrings are classified as URLs) which they didn't have to?
I've never liked the IT-related coverage in the local papers, because they simply have no standard. Remember the "Hot Tip" they provided back in April?
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.
