[Problems again...]
There are problems with my newly-replaced display card. I was playing SIMS 2 earlier (yes, I play SIMS, ha-ha-ha...get over it) and a lot of artifacts appeared on the screen. However, it went away after I exited the game and rebooted. I started the game again after reboot, and the game hanged after about 10 minutes. I was able to play without problems after I lowered some of the graphics settings. I suspect the problems this time were due to overheating, as the symptoms went away after a reboot. It was a hot day, but the GPU did not exceed 67 degrees (I left HWMonitor running) which was pretty low for a display card (the same card that I originally bought and got exchanged with went as high as 75 degrees when I played Company of Heroes).
I don't think I'll go get the card serviced just yet. The problem goes away after a reboot, so I'm not sure if it could be replicated. They need to see the problem for themselves before they would exchange a new one I think.
ERP is going up. Again. Do they not realise that it's not working? Do you think that people who could afford a 50k vehicle would avoid a road just because it's going to cost them a few dollars more? This is just a way for them to squeeze more money from us. The rich get richer.
If you want to improve the traffic conditions, give out less COEs and improve public transport. Public transport operators shouldn't be out to make an obscene profit...They should be there to serve the public.
University Town...What a load of crap...And a waste of resources. The idea was first mooted when I was still in NUS. One of the reasons they gave was that "an undergraduate student's experience in University would not be complete without living on-campus". Or something like that. That's crap. Singapore's a small country, there's no need for students to live on-campus.
In other countries, students live on-campus because they had to. Here, it's just a waste of money.
So it seems we're only going to get a portion of our CPF after we hit 80. The details aren't finalised yet...And to be honest, I'm not too concerned because I'm a long way from retirement and by the time I'm there, the system would most likely have changed.
That said, I remember reading the proposals before and the amount that we would get per month from the new scheme was ridiculously low. So what's the point? Our money, not in our pockets but in...someone else's. Mmmm....I wonder what do they plan to do with it.
66.6%: Way to go.
The world's going to hell, mother nature is out to get us. Global warming, freaky weather patterns, and pimples growing on other body parts other than my face. It's a sign.
[Back again...]
This has really been a bad couple of weeks, computer-wise.
I upgraded most of my computer about a month ago because something wasn't working and I didn't know for sure which component it was. Last week, on the first day we started painting the house, my (new) display card went kaput. I couldn't get it fixed until after everything was done, which was on Thursday. On Friday, I had to go to two different distributors because not only did I have to get my display card fixed, but my old motherboard which I sold couldn't boot up and the guy I sold it to returned it to me.
I was hoping to get everything fixed up during the weekend but my CO2 cylinder was nearing empty so I had to get a top-up on Saturday. I bought a new regulator as well. I was using a manual regulator, which sucked because you can't really turn it off (at night, when it's just a waste) and the amount of CO2 coming out depends on how much pressure is left in the cylinder - hence you need to keep adjusting and opening the valve up more towards the end. Couple this with the fact that the knob on the valve actually broke off a few months ago, it was just too much of a hassle. Not to mention how the 2-litre cylinder lasted me only 5 months. Since I turn on the CO2 for about 10 hours a day, with the new regulator, the cylinder should last me almost a year. I had two choices, a made-in-Taiwan one for about $80, or the top-of-the-line made-in-Germany JBJ for $125. I picked the JBJ because I didn't want any hassles in the future. At $125, it's the most expensive thing I've ever purchased for my aquarium. I think a lower-end Eheim filter would cost even lesser...Even with all the accessories (like taps).
The output of an electronic solenoid regulator is supposed to be constant, because there's a step-down function. Not true. When you first turn it on, due to the difference in pressure, it would be different. Only after a few hours would the flow be constant, and at the amount you set. I also had to dump my ceramic diffuser because it just wasn't feasible to use with a solenoid. Long story, mostly due to the difference in pressure which I won't bore anyone with.
Had an interview yesterday at....a pretty big company in Singapore. It wasn't a traditional interview. There were activities, they wanted to see how we reacted with people and also there were comprehension and personality tests. It somewhat felt as if I was playing Survivor. At one point, we were trying to "outwit" another team, at another time, I had to solve a puzzle within the stipulated time. I didn't make it. The moment I saw the puzzle I knew I was toast. I've never been good at puzzles, much less when under pressure.
On the whole, I don't think I did badly, but neither did I do well. I would be surprised if I made it to the next round, though. Oh well. At least I got some valuable interview experience. I always knew that I wasn't very good at thinking on my feet. I could come up with much better stuff if I could think it through, on my own, in peace and quiet. Hence I think I tend not to do very well at interviews.
[Not again!]
Yesterday was a great day. Today's not so good.
My Dad's been after me to help re-paint the house for a while and we finally started on it today. The last time we re-painted the entire house was back in 1999 and I remembered that it was exhausting. I'll probably upload some before and after pictures later. The colour has changed from light-purple (not my choice, I didn't like it very much, to be honest) to moderately-dark blue. It's a tad darker at night, but I like it.
We started at around 9am today and it took us about 6 to 7 hours to paint just my room. My room was the toughest, I had a lot of crap that had to be moved out into the living room and also a fish-tank that cannot be moved. We did two coats of paint and by the time we finished, moved everything back in and cleaned up, it was almost 5pm.
To prepare the room for painting, my computer table was pushed out into the living room. On the way out, the back of my CPU hit the door frame. Not too serious, because only the wires/plugs at the back of the tower hit the door frame. When it was all done and everything was moved back in, the clock above my computer table fell and hit some of the wires on its way down. These were the only times my rig was possibly subjected to damage.
When I connected everything back together I realised that the TV-out function no longer worked. I was sure I connected everything back the correct way. I tested using other video-in options on my TV (which I knew was working because my X-Box could load just fine), tried pushing in the cable (in case some wires inside the cable snapped), nothing worked.
I then looked through the settings in nVidia's driver. Here's the absolute kicker. I played with the TV-out settings and set them to Singapore's settings (they were previously at "Any" and "NTSC"-something) and after I clicked OK, my screen went blank.
Yes, it happened again. Not sure if I mentioned this in my earlier posts in the beginning of the year regarding my computer troubles, but this happened before. Rebooting doesn't work. Going into Safe Mode doesn't work because the graphics driver isn't loaded and hence I was unable to change the settings. Uninstalling the driver in Safe Mode didn't work because Windows didn't allow it. I was told that the "device was needed for start-up". Actually I don't think it's Windows...It's nVidia who designed their driver that way because I'm pretty sure I've removed a display driver in Safe Mode before in the past in Windows.
Basically, I was locked out of the fully functional Windows desktop by nVidia. When I changed the TV-out signal format. Not even the primary display settings. Seriously, what the fuck?
I was pissed. Looks like I have to format my rig again. At least I wouldn't lose any data, thanks to my regular backup routine.
After formatting, I installed the nVidia driver first to try to sort out the problem. TV-out still do not work...And now I have a new problem. Videos play with artifacts. Basically I get a chess-board pattern on my videos with artifacts representing the squares.
I figured that the display card's probably faulty. Can't do TV-out and artifacts when playing videos. Oddly enough, no problems playing videos if the nVidia driver wasn't installed...But of course, I can't try TV-out then.
I swear, my next display card's gonna be a Radeon. No more nVidia bullshit. I had problems with my previous nVidia card's drivers and as for this one...Honestly, I lost count of all the problems I've encountered.
Assuming we finish both my sister's and my parents' room tomorrow and the living room the day after, I should be able to RMA my display card on Friday. The distributor's in Ang Mo Kio. I don't get it...Why can't they get an office near SLS? Like maybe SLT? Makes things easier for everyone.
I wonder how did a slight tap on the wires cause this much damage. In any event, I really hope that the problem's with the display card. It seems logical to me. If it's not the display card, I think I'm in for yet another marathon troubleshooting session.
Won't be on MSN for the next few days...Can't be bothered to set up my rig when I still haven't figured out what's really wrong (if I didn't care about TV-out, I could just ignore the problem and get everything back up and running). If you need me, email or SMS.
[Passed!]
I passed my driving test. Phew. It was close too, I got a total of 18 points. Most of them were because I was over-cautious, cause I went slower than usual and took more time than necessary before moving off. At one point, I thought I failed because I didn't stop at the stop-line in the circuit while exiting the crank course. I guess it was just a give-way line.
My tester was rather rude. At the end of the test, we went to the tester's office and he started marking out my mistakes on the marking sheet. He didn't do it while I was driving, and I honestly thought it was a bad sign. He would basically mark anything he wanted to now that we're sitting in the office. After which, he tossed the marking sheet to me and left without a word. That's really rude.
But I don't care. I passed. He could have easily given me one more tick and that would be the end of it.
As I've mentioned before, as my test date drew near, I was assigned the same instructor every time (I took private lessons from this guy who's basically the boss and assigns other instructors to his students). He's said some very bad things to me in the run-up to the test, basically along the lines that said there's no way I could pass. Well, balls to you. I passed. I don't know why, but these uncles seem to have very little tact.
During the test, there's this PRC girl who irritated the hell out of me. All the people waiting to take the test were tense and it was clearly visible on everyone's faces. She was just bouncing around, full of energy and zest, really being a pest (no pun intended).
She chatted with a lot of the instructors around BBDC. While we were waiting for the "graduation video" to begin, she actually tried to chat with me. Annoyed the crap out of me. But then I started receiving messages from family and friends saying congrats and that got me out of talking more with her.
When I went to get my license made, I saw this guy from my unit during NS. He wasn't in my company and he didn't know me. I knew him because he was (in)famous for being weird and asking WTF-type of questions.
Idiot that he was....He went and picked up a pink form because many people were taking them. The form was for people who wish to convert a foreign driving license to a Singapore one, so I don't know why he took it. He put it back eventually, but still. What a dink. There was a huge sign on the wall telling people what the pink form was for.
I waited a long time for my turn because the basic theory tests were going on and lots of people were applying for PDLs. The joker from my unit actually sat next to me at one point and I saw that his queue number was immediately before me. So when he went to the counter, I went closer as well, since I was next. I overheard him asking his trademark WTF-questions. He asked why were there 3 counters but only 2 operators, and were tests conducted everyday.
I guess I'm one of the lucky ones who passed everything on my first try. I spent a total of $2,028 to get my license. Well, $2,027.60 once I receive a cheque for my account balance at BBDC, which was 40 cents. My queue number when making the license was N055. So there you go...2028 and 5055. Give me a treat if you win at 4D. If you lose, don't tell me. =P
[Dazed and confused...]
I'm taking my driving test in 2 and a half hours' time. I can't decide whether am I nervous or not. Probably nervous.
I knew I would have trouble sleeping the night before, so last night, I drank a fair bit of alcohol to help myself fall asleep. And yes, it helped me fall asleep, but I woke up at about 4am and could not get back into the "deep sleep" phase. The same thing has happened before in the past. Maybe I should reconsider using alcohol as a sleeping aid.
Anyway, I got a call about 30 minutes ago from a company that I applied for a job with. It was a short phone interview that they conduct before selecting candidates for an interview. Putting together my nervous frame of mind for my driving test later, my semi-lack of sleep and the surprise factor in getting the call, I was a complete wreck. I had to think and talk at the same time, to make sure I didn't sound like an ass and to make sure I said what they wanted to hear.
I'm not sure how it went. I think it went okay. The lady on the line said they would arrange an interview with the short-listed candidates within 2 weeks and that my chances were good. But of course, that could very well be a standard closing.
[What do you want from me?]
I've been looking for jobs online almost everyday for the past week. It's true, there are plenty of jobs out there. But if you're a fresh IT graduate with no real experience, no knowledge of any real-work technical skills and don't want to do programming or sales, your choices would be somewhat limited.
In any case, I've sent out a few resumes as well as filled up job application forms at several websites. And I've noticed a pattern at the websites.
They have a long form asking everything they need to know about you. Your contact information, education history, employment history, National Slavery Service records, etc.
And then at the end, they have a box. "Please copy and paste your resume if you wish."
Being the typical kiasu Singaporean eager to make a good first impression, I wanted to fill that box in. How would it look if it looked like you couldn't even be bothered to fill in your resume? Worst still, what if they thought you didn't even have a resume to begin with?
But the problem is, all the information I've got in my resume are already filled in into their form. So what the hell do they want from me?
I end up writing my cover letter in those boxes. And as far as I'm concerned, cover letters are lame. Most people lie in their resumes, but I think everyone lies in their cover letters.
[Random conversations of grouchy uncles...]
As my driving test date draws near, I've always gotten the same car and the same instructor as well. The instructor I've been assigned...I used to think that he was a jovial guy, until getting him on a regular basis, I realised - not so jovial.
In any case, he had a very heated conversation argument in the car today, on the phone with another student. Obviously, I caught only one side of the conversation (although the phone was loud enough for me to know that it was a girl on the other line).
To the best of my understanding, the girl had a lesson scheduled for tomorrow, but I think she got it wrong and came down today instead. My instructor scrambled to find someone to give her a lesson (they work in a group, hence I was assigned different instructors in the past). She ended up being late for the lesson because she went into BBDC for something. And from what I gathered, she wanted her assigned instructor to make up for the lost time which he could not because he had other students after her.
So back and forth, they traded verbal blows. Honestly, I thought the girl was being unreasonable. She threatened to look for other private instructors instead, and my instructor called her bluff by saying go ahead and hung up the phone.
She called back about 10 seconds later. Owned.
And in other news....I went to BBDC to print a receipt I need to present for the test. On my way in, this lady came out and she was visibly upset...With a red nose and eyes. I wonder what happened. Well, not really. Anyone can guess what happened.
I hope I pass on my first try...Mainly because I'm starting to run out of money. In any case, I think that passing the driving test is 50% skill and 50% luck. Seriously. It depends on the road conditions as well as the tester you get.
[Keyboard stickers!]
The keys on my current keyboard were wearing off and I ordered some keyboard stickers online. I ordered two versions, the extra large and the regular sized version. My idea was to use the extra large stickers for the A-Z keys on my keyboard and the regular sized ones for the other less often used keys.
As it turns out, the regular sized version stickers only included stickers for the A-Z keys while the extra large ones included stickers for all the keys. I think the rationale was that the regular sized ones were meant for people whose keys have worn off (and most likely it's just the A-Z keys), while the extra large ones were meant for people with vision problems who need to see larger prints on all the keys.
No matter...I'll just use the stickers on the A-Z keys.
Compare the size of the letterings of the A-Z keys with the function keys near the top to see the difference.
Looks good, doesn't it? As I was applying the stickers, I wondered why keyboards aren't printed with larger keys as it is. Why use only 25% of the space on the keys for the printing?
Now, I know why.
While larger prints are good in theory, it also means that you can't see the keys as you're typing. Not really a bid deal cause I guess most people don't look at the keys while they're typing, but that was the original purpose I believe. Now I can't always see the keys as I type and I mis-type more often. Hopefully it gets better after I get used to it.
Otherwise, I might just rip out all the stickers and apply the regular sized ones instead.
[New rig!]
For those of you following my struggle with the new computer...It's finally done. Everything's up, good to go and all the software has been installed as well. Thank God the Audigy card worked...Although I had yet another problem to content with after that, which was a buggy nVidia Forceware driver. I couldn't get it to install properly, and when I did, I could not do TV-out. Anyway, following the advice I got on a local forum, I installed an older version of Forceware and everything was fine from then on out.
I remember when I was building my previous rig in Sept 07...There was also a problem with the nVidia drivers then. Caused me a lot of pain because I thought the problem was with my hardware and I was trouble-shooting everything like crazy. Curses @ nVidia.
What an experience. I hope I never have this much trouble with my computer ever again. My previous rig crapped out on Sunday, and here I am on Saturday...Took me almost a week to fix everything.
Some time ago, a report appeared in ST regarding the linking up of the parks in the east, using the newly-completed park connector network. We went cycling yesterday and it was pretty tough. Took us 6 hours to complete the entire thing...After discounting the time we used up for breaks and for shelter from the rain, we must have been on the go for around 5 hours.
Should I attempt this ever again, I'm going to get a pair of cycling shorts with padding sewn in. Towards the end, I had to get down and push my bike once in a while because my butt hurted so bad.
I took the above picture when we were semi-lost at Bedok Reservoir Park. Throughout the park connector network, there were many signs which kept cyclists on the right track, except at Bedok...And we got lost.
[You turn me on...]
I just heard an advertisement on Capitol 95.8fm that I thought was worth mentioning. The voice-over said if you could identify the mystery sound, you could win a shirt with a "cute" saying printed on it, which is "you turn me on".
Points to ponder:
Let's face it, 95.8fm is really an auntie/uncle radio station. Do they know what "you turn me on" means?
Should an auntie or an uncle even have such a saying on their shirt? They're not 18...So it's not cute. I think it's creepy.
But hey, that's just me. Don't flame me if your parents have and wear such a shirt.
Those of you who've read my older entries know that I'm not a fan of Digital Life. The quality of the articles have gotten better over time, but today's edition featured an article that made me lose faith in them...Again.
They published some "tips you must know" (or something along those lines) on page 2. One of them was asking people whether did they still open IE windows using the little blue "E" on the taskbar, and then pointing out that one of the great new features of IE 7 was the tabbed browsing feature.
OH PLEASE!
No, not because Firefox already had this feature ages ago, but because there was no way in hell would anyone using IE 7 not know about tabbed browsing. I mean, com' on...A fresh IE 7 installation basically screams "tabbed browsing" at you. It's one of their main selling points and they're damn proud of it. No one using IE 7 would not know about it.
The people at DL really needs to wake up their ideas....
Guess what's on 95.8fm now? An "expert" of some sort is giving advice to parents on how their daughters should dress. Your typical stuff, like not too revealing, not too expensive, etc.
I always thought such things were stupid. How can middle-aged people try to understand and control how teenagers dress? Or how they think? Or anything at all? If the "expert" was a young adult, it would probably be more appropriate since the generation gap is smaller. Nothing is harder on the eyes than a teenager dressed like a 40-year old woman.
But that's not really what I want to talk about. Here's the kicker...A radio station wanting to give out shirts with the saying "you turn me on" to aunties/uncles also wants to give advice on how young ladies should dress.
If this happened in a computer, we'd see a BSOD. Logic conflict.
My sister asked me if I mentioned I've been blogging using her laptop. So here it is --- I'm blogging using my sister's laptop.
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.
