Thursday, October 30, 2008  

[Fugly...]

I saw a colour-blind fashion victim today.


This was the best shot I could get of her. If I'm 100% honest, I really can't tell for sure if it's a woman or a man dressed as a woman. First of all, the way he she it chose to sit on the bus already guaranteed it a place in the WTF-that's-stupid category, but the way it was dressed pushed it into the WTF-that's-stupid-and-fugly category.

She had on light blue hair accessories, t-shirt, nail polish, and bracelet-bangle thingies. Bright pink ear-rings, berms, crocs, and ear-phones. And black knee socks. So basically, other than her socks, it's all light blue and pink. It was as if the Sharity Elephant threw up on her. And who the hell wears socks with crocs? Crocs are fugly alone as it is, and wearing socks with crocs is even worse. That puts it in the crazy-ang-moh-wearing-socks-with-sandal category.

And the thing is, the way it's seated, there's no way you can avoid seeing it as you board the bus. I'm still trying to erase this light-blue-and-pink image from my brain. Don't think that's going to be accomplished anytime soon.




I'm sure you know the rule - don't take lifts when the building is on fire. You may get trapped inside, the lift carriage may come crashing down when you are in it, etc etc.


Then again, they have "fire lifts".


To be completely honest, I have no idea what's a fire lift. I suspect these lifts will still work properly during a fire.

If that's the case, why not just install fire lifts instead of those that send you to hell during a fire?

It's like the black box they put on planes that are supposedly indestructible. Why not make the whole plane out of that material?

^^^ by Locksley @ 8:43 PM. 3 comments.
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Wednesday, October 29, 2008  

[Why so serious?]

Every year in February and March, the "big three" places ads in the local papers fairly often. I am, of course, talking about NUS, NTU and SMU. Three different Universities. There is, however, a common thread in their ads. All the students they feature in their ads are smiling.

Compare that with the ad Shatec placed in the papers today:


They don't look happy, do they?


Shatec offers tourism and hospitality related courses. Shouldn't their students and graduates have more reasons to smile? Instead of this "I'm going to put rat poison in your food" look that they're sporting in the ad?

^^^ by Locksley @ 9:44 PM. 0 comments.
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Tuesday, October 28, 2008  

[Where are you going?]

To the best of my knowledge, about half of my colleagues are going away for holidays. What amazed me the most was their attitude towards going on tour - some have already taken their leave, but have not yet decided on where to go. When asked, they would say that they were "still shopping". Of course, leave can be cancelled and re-applied, so not much of an issue.

Going for holidays seem to be like watching a movie for them. Just flip through the papers and decide based on what's on offer. And they are going for proper holidays. Not those 3D2N in Tioman or Langkawi nonsense. We're talking about Europe, China, the US. Stuff like that.

Me?

Well...Someone has to answer the phones.




Being out and about without a camera phone is going to kill me. I've missed so many photo ops and material for my blog. Sometimes I wonder if I could pull it off without any pictures - WOT. Wall of text.

I'm going to try.

Have you noticed how the aunties and uncles like to do on buses with regards to their plastic bags? They have this "S" hook and would hook it on the seat in front of them. I think that's so...WTF.

Today, this auntie on the bus did something similar. She was so cheap, she couldn't afford an "S" hook. So she tied her plastic bag to the seat in front of her using another plastic bag. It was so unglam and I almost wished it would drop. It's her dinner, but I don't care.

To top it off...The genius that she was, she tied it in the middle of the seat. So she couldn't close her legs and sat with her legs wide open. With her right hand on her crotch.

I'm so going to have nightmares tonight.




The lift upgrading programme has been going on forever in my neighbourhood. My block is the last one in my cluster whose lift-on-every-floor still wasn't operational yet. Well, almost.

Most people these days cannot imagine living without a lift that takes you to your floor. Older blocks of HDB flats do not have a lift landing on every floor, and not too long ago, they decided that an "upgrade" was in order due to the greying population - lifts on every floor was going to be a necessity. The thing is, residents have to vote on the upgrade and if it goes through, we have to pay for it. An interesting question was raised by the opposition - why are the residents paying for their mistake of not building a lift on every floor in the beginning?

But I digress. I'm absolutely convinced that the contractor paid to carry out the upgrading works is artificially extending the length of time needed to complete the project. So that they get paid more. Why do I think that?

The reason is simple. Most of the time, no one's working on the lift upgrade. The workers would come, work on the stuff for a day or two, then disappear for one week or so before the cycle repeats itself. Honestly speaking, it's not a big job, what with all the pre-fab walls and lift shafts. They are just taking their own sweet time.

And the most damning piece of evidence - the new lift started working on Sunday. I believe by accident. I took the lift down on my way to work this morning and when I returned earlier, it was switched off again. "Maintenance", said the display. Maintenance my ass...It was fully functional for two days, now all of a sudden it's under maintenance? Then where are the workers?

Fuckers.

^^^ by Locksley @ 9:32 PM. 2 comments.
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Sunday, October 26, 2008  

[Man United vs who?]

This appeared in the TV listings yesterday:


Manchester United versus Everton. On the bottom of this little programme alert...


I know that Everton is in Liverpool, but still, they really should not promote the match this way. It's very misleading.




I'm in a rut again. I push through life at 100-mph everyday throughout the week. On weekends, I can't find the motivation or energy to get anything done. I just want to laze around and do nothing of significance. The thing above proves it - it was taken on Saturday morning and I only got around to posting it now.

I need to find the motivation and energy to get things going. So many things to do...So little time.

^^^ by Locksley @ 8:18 PM. 2 comments.
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Sunday, October 19, 2008  

[Random bits...]

Had an attack of allergic rhinitis this morning. I guess I was overdue for an episode. What I hate about it is the fact that I get very lethargic when it happens. I took an antihistamine and other than the lethargy, I'm more or less okay.




I finally switched over to Firefox. I have never contemplated switching from IE because I was comfortable with it and simply cannot be bothered. But recent events left me with no choice.

First off, IE7 has a very serious memory leak problem. As you surf, the amount of memory taken up by IE7 just grows. And it keeps growing. I use a RAM monitor and very often I see IE7 taking up 300-500MB of RAM. With SP3, I thought they would do something about it. Not only did they not do anything to fix this problem, they created a new one.

Ever since the installation of SP3, IE7 has been insanely unstable. It would freeze up while browsing. Very annoying. The other night, it happened seven times as I went though my daily surfing routine and I almost lost it. Time for a change.

Firefox is indeed faster. Much faster. But it takes more clicks for me to get some of the things done. I guess that's just something I need to get used to. I haven't been using it long enough to tell if Firefox has a similar memory leak problem (I think it did, in the past), but I'm keeping a close eye on my RAM monitor.

One issue though, is that my blog's layout looks different on Firefox than it did on IE. Not exactly the way I wanted it to be. But I guess I can live with it. Can't be bothered to change it anyway.




For about 90 minutes in the early afternoon, a car alarm was going off somewhere in the distance. I'm glad it's somewhere far so it's not too loud, otherwise it would drive me crazy. Why do all car alarms sound the same? Repeating a series of different tones. That's stupid. When an alarm sounds, how would you know if it's your's?




Received a call from a guy from Readers' Digest. These jokers always call on a Sunday. How hardworking. Anyway, he once called and asked if I wanted to renew my subscription - when I had over 14 issues to go. Luckily I checked before making any commitment.

When he called earlier, I went to check the end date of my subscription. January 2010. Isn't that a tad early? I asked him what's the expiry date of my subscription in his records.

He told me he lost his records.

What. The. Fuck.

I wasn't in the mood, so I told him I'm covered till Jan 2010 and that was it. Now I regret not giving him a good telling-off. What a moron. How hard can it be to keep track of your customers' subscription expiry date? It's printed on the mailer that comes with the magazine every month. And for him to get it wrong once, and now admitting that he lost it...What a douche.

^^^ by Locksley @ 5:09 PM. 7 comments.
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Saturday, October 18, 2008  

[Chicken and egg...]

I was on hold earlier with Singnet and was treated to their recorded messages while I waited. One of the messages went something like this:
"Say good-bye to Internet connection problems forever. Visit www.singnet.com.sg/smartfix [I can't remember the rest]..."
Hello...If someone has Internet connection problems, how would said person visit your website?

Singapore Pools pulled a similar silly stunt. On the 13th, the Toto jackpot was $3 million. If you bought a ticket, you would have saw them printing a line on the ticket that advertised the $3 million jackpot and asking people to "beat the queue, buy early".

Of course, being printed on the ticket itself, you would see it only after you've bought the ticket.

^^^ by Locksley @ 1:11 PM. 0 comments.
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Thursday, October 16, 2008  

[Middle finger...]

Have you seen the front page of today's State Straits Times?


Look at the two main headlines. Seriously, I hope you see it.

Between the two headlines, I know for a fact that there's a middle finger in there somewhere. What I can't quite figure out is who is it directed at. The don't-understand, don't-care, hear-higher-interest-rate-eyes-light-up senior citizens, or the everything's-okay, we've-got-it-under-control men in white.

^^^ by Locksley @ 9:41 PM. 0 comments.
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Monday, October 13, 2008  

[Growing up...]

Not too long ago, when someone tells me he or she has bad news, they're usually talking about how someone's broken up with someone else, how they've gotten the results of a test back and they didn't do so well, how they screwed up a presentation, how they could not find a seat at the canteen...

How insignificant.

It's actually a pretty big adjustment to go from full-time student to working full-time. The situations you're use to...are no longer there. Everything changes. From the stuff you talk about to the people around you, to your hopes and dreams, and worries that keep you up at night. They all change.

Teenage problems gone. Adult problems in.

I received some bad news at work today. Doesn't concern me, per se, but it really puts things into perspective. Bad news are really badder(?) when you get older.

We all have our crosses to bear.

^^^ by Locksley @ 9:26 PM. 0 comments.
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Thursday, October 09, 2008  

[Therapist?]

Yesterday on the bus on my way to work, I saw a woman driving beside the bus I was on. She was digging her nose like crazy. Gross....I mean, everybody poops, but com'on, don't think just because you're alone in your car that no one can see you. You are alone, not invisible.

On my way home, also yesterday, met another gold-digger. This guy was digging his nose on the bus for 10 minutes. I'm not kidding. How is it possible that he has that much to dig? I don't know whether to feel grossed out or impressed. Maybe a bit of both.

To top it off, I was in the perfect position to record a video of him doing it. But of course, I didn't have my camera phone with me.




My sister went for a career talk and they were handing out freebies (like they often do). And they were nice enough to give a bag for the attendees to carry everything in. Just one problem...


This is the bag. What does that look like from afar?


Hope you've figured it out by now.

^^^ by Locksley @ 9:30 PM. 1 comments.
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Saturday, October 04, 2008  

[How waterproof are you?]

I saw this ad in the latest issue of Readers' Digest.


And then I noticed this...


What the hell is "fully waterproof"? How can something be partially waterproof? It's either waterproof or it's not.

^^^ by Locksley @ 7:14 PM. 0 comments.
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Friday, October 03, 2008  

[Bits of me...]

I haven't been sleeping enough for the past two weeks. Mainly because I stayed up way too late to read Bret Hart's book. It wasn't all that interesting in the beginning when he described his Stampede days because for the most part, I didn't know the people he mentioned. Things got a lot more interesting when he started talking about the WWF. Last night I got through the part about Owen's death and stopped just before he gets his head kicked in by Goldberg.

I'll say this about Bret Hart - he believes too much in his own publicity. And whatever he says in his book, I'm sure there are two sides to every coin. My childhood hero was, in some ways, not really a hero.




When I bought my Nokia 6500s in April, I was pretty pleased. I've managed to find a phone, camera, organiser, MP3/video player all in one package. I'd rather not have to bring along a bag or pouch of some sort when I go out, so having a device that could do it all is important to me.

Then as it turns out, my workplace doesn't allow camera phones. The bastards. After much consideration, I've decided to shell out for a PMP (personal media player, not a misspelled PIMP). I bought the Creative Zen X-fi on Wednesday. I've moved my MP3/videos from my phone to the Zen. So now I could bring my MP3/videos to work with me, even if I couldn't bring my camera phone.

I'm considering whether or not to get bluetooth earphones for the Zen. There aren't a lot of choices. I'm looking at Creative's SE2300. At $169, it's an expensive pair of earphones (I'm the type who never buys earphones and just use the supplied ones). But not having to tangle with wires on the bus can be a great persuader...




Work-wise, I'm moving. Probably. I can't remember what my colleague told me. He either said that the chances were very high, or that it's just a matter of time. I think my brain's fried from all the caffeine I take during the day. 10 minutes after the conversation, I already could not remember what he said.

Basically, the organisation I work for has several office locations. I'm at the HQ. Most of the people are....Not at the HQ. Chances are, we are moving to be with most of the people. Which sucked. For many reasons.

1) Lifts take forever to arrive. You can spend 10-15 minutes just waiting for and being in the lift. A friend and I were once in the lift and there was music playing and he asked, "I wonder why we don't have music at [HQ]." I said, "Because at [HQ], it takes 30 seconds to get where you're going." Other people in the lift actually laughed.
2) I would need to take the LRT, transfer to MRT and then again to a bus in order to reach my new workplace. That sucked. Not only would my transport budget go north, but I wouldn't be able to nap in the mornings like I do currently on a direct, albeit taking-the-most-indirect-route-possible bus.
3) No privacy. I currently have a cubicle. The other place, open-concept. 'Enuff said.
4) Related to the above, since we're the "late-comers", all the choice locations are probably gone. I can just picture myself sitting next to the toilet/pantry, near the photocopy machine (with all the microscopic particles it spits out, cancer is probably guaranteed), or near the front door and every lost soul that wanders in would ask me for directions.
5) Limited car-park spots. Doesn't matter now, but it might in the future...
6) Leaving my current colleagues. Although our work doesn't overlap so it's not like I would need to adjust to working with new people (my entire team's moving, so work-wise, I would interact with the same people...by the way, it's a 3-person team), I would miss having them around and going for lunch with them.
7) The toilets at the HQ are very clean. It's almost like we have our own private toilets. At the other place, due to the high people-to-toilet ratio...Toilets are not as well maintained. I've toyed with the idea of taking a nap in the toilet cubicle after lunch....I sure as hell won't if I'm at where I'm moving to.

Of course, there are some positives about moving. Meeting new people could be a good or a bad thing. It's hard to say. Also....There's this other thing....

Imagine if you were a kid and someone placed something you really want - a piece of candy, a toy, whatever - near you and told you that you can't have it. That's really gonna suck. I'm in a similar situation right now (the adult version, of course) and I guess it would be good to not be around something I cannot have.

But truth be told, that's not a strong enough reason for me to want to move. My colleague was originally from there...And he's not looking forward to going back neither.

Aragh.

^^^ by Locksley @ 8:32 PM. 0 comments.
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