This author is currently on hiatus for the ignoble cause of mugging. The public is advised to remain calm, as this routine protocol has been shown to have no effect on one's violent tendencies in 96% of cases.
| Saturday, December 30, 2006 |
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Earlier tonight, my mum and I along with my cousin, aunt and grandmother (who were staying over in our house again) went over to the not yet completed AMK Hub to take a look-see at Fairprice Xtra which is situated at the basement level. It's this new giant mall connected to an air-conditioned bus terminal (wow) which is just a stone's throw away from Ang Mo Kio MRT station. It's also a mere 10 minutes' walk away from my home, and is a nice new addition to Ang Mo Kio. Won't be surprised if it becomes one of the most popular malls in Singapore, behind VivoCity of course. As the name suggests, Fairprice Xtra is...well, rather extra. Although construction on AMK Hub hasn't completed yet, with the interior and finishing touches still undone, the supermarket is already open for extra business, with extra opening discounts and a whopping extra 38 cashier counters to serve the crowds. Rather unsurprisingly, considering it will be the largest NTUC supermarket and also the first NTUC hypermarket. Heck, NTUC owns the entire building, so i guess they wanted to open the supermarket for business (even despite the rest of the building being still undone - even the carpark isn't up yet!) to woo in the crowds first before the actual opening ceremony. And despite all the construction work, lack of space to park cars and the stretch of road beside the mall being slightly jammed, the crowds did come. It's amazing how far Singaporeans will go just for mere discounts, or worse, just to "check it out" out of curiousity. Well, i guess the aunties have nothing better to do than shaking their legs and nagging at their husbands at home. And so, Singaporeans from all around the island congregated at Ang Mo Kio Ave 8, all brandishing trolleys and raring to zerg into the sacred hall of cheap skates, baguettes and fish. Except, they were held up in their tracks by a narrow passageway and a couple of escalators. Yes, there was such a big crowd that there were actually queues just to take the escalator down. Imagine water going through a funnel, then replace the water molecues with people, dogs and trolleys, and the narrow funnel end with travellators. Oh, and add a sign above which read "[Down] Basement 2: Hypermarket." And that was what the scene was like. If it was already so bad for people trying to go in, i can't imagine how long the queues at the 38 cashiers were. Maybe it was because the entire hypermarket was filled with queues, thus hindering people from going in. A lot of people were turned away by the sheer amount of sardines - no, people - there were. And we were one such group of people. Sadly, we don't quite fancy being canned in the hypermarket, and having to wait an hour or so in queues before being freed, both of ourselves and quite a bit of money. In the end, I walked home, and the rest of them took the free bus service to the Giant hypermarket at Turf City. Like i said, humans are smart creatures and there's always a Plan B. However, the plan can sometimes be severely affected by the promise of not having to spend an extra 10 cent coin, or for the sake of novelty, as was the case for the mass of people at FairPrice Xtra today. |
'Twas teh winnar at 11:53 pm.
| Friday, December 29, 2006 |
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Hmm, it looks like internet connections are picking up again, although they're definitely still not as fast as pre-quake speeds. Guess we'll have another week or two to wait for the cables to be repaired so we can enjoy speed surfing again. Even though connections are steadily improving slightly, its still very bad. Right now, i can hardly play SCO without lagging. It's like, the surroundings will disapear once every few seconds due to lag, or the server will register shots a few seconds late. Surprisingly, though, i can play Gunz without any lag at all, even though the action is mroe intensive. Looks like i may have to resort to a previous game temporarily is things don't clear up. On a different subject, here's the list of teachers for next year's Sec 3 iSpark classes, for those who don't already know. Kudos to Hubert for getting the info round so quickly, but im not too surprised, considering the speed at which he is updated on latest soccer happenings, especially on Arsenal. 3N Form Teacher: CaoJW English: Kevin Cheng Chinese: CaoJW Math: Benjamin Lee Chemistry: Letchmi Physics: ChiaK (apparently from Aphelion, not sure) Biology: N/A History: Brian (new teacher??) Geography: Melvin Chng Literature: Kevin Cheng 3M FT: Kevin Cheng English: Same as above. Chinese: YangWZ Math: Benjamin Lee Chem: Justin Loh Physics: ChiaK Bio: LeeFY Humanities (IHC): Melvin Chng 3O FT: LeeFY English: Lina Chinese: YangWZ Math: ThamSW Chem: Justin Loh Physics: ChiaK Bio: LeeFY IHC: Melvin It looks like 3M got the best set of teachers out of the 3 classes, especially since they've got KC as the FT. It looks like KC won't be 2N06's form teacher for 2 years after all. *pouts* And i'll be in 3N next year, along with most of my classmates from 2N. Although 3N is the Humanities class, we've got CaoJW, a Chinese China teacher, as our FT. The Humanities class is supposed to be strong in English, and thus weak in Chinese lor. Maybe the teachers decided they wanted to work on our weakness and improve the standard of our Chinese or something, with the new inclusion of China Studies into our already-packed syllabus. Ugh. I have no freaking idea. |
'Twas teh winnar at 11:22 pm.
| Wednesday, December 27, 2006 |
Taiwan quake disrupts communications - Associated Press, Dec 27 The above article was taken from Yahoo! News (argh, Yahoo! for a Google fan), because Google News has been loading for 2 minutes, yet the only thing on the blank page is the Google logo at the top-left corner of the page. And when i tried to source for alternative news websites on its search engine, the only thing that has appeared is (unsurprisingly again) only the Google logo. An extra added bonus this time: there's the textfield displaying my keywords too. The result from my search is: " " To be fair, Gmail and Blogger are still the fastest loading sites for me. Hurray for Google. Not all hope is lost on Google after all. :) I've been hearing the sentiments of disgruntled Net users all night on MSN, and some on the online forums too. Well, provided users can even access the forums in the first place. It's the first time where the amount of online contacts in my MSN contact list during peak periods like evening has amounted to less than 10, out of more than a hundred. The computer freaks (like me) sure suffer the most. With MSN working only 20% of the time, anime and YouTube movies downloading at 4kbps, and laggy connections to game servers (if they can be even established at all), intensive computer users and gamers heavy reliant on the internet are sure left high-and-dry. And if the cables at the root of this problem really take weeks to repair, then there goes the rest of the holidays. Poof. But humans are smart creatures, and when Plan A fails, there's always a Plan B. So i've been reading more of Terry Prachett's Discworld novels again in front of the computer screen while waiting for pages to load. No, im referring to WEB pages, not the pages in the BOOK. The latter have already been loaded by printers and ink, and have been displayed within 0.00 seconds, unlike the Google page, where the timer has already passed 300 seconds and is still counting. And we shall hereby quote some-famous-female-tennis-player-whose-name-i -can't-remember, when she won some-tennis-competition-i-can't-remember-either some time back and tried to call her mum to tell her the good news but her mobile refused to connect the call. In her words, "Work, technology!" Or to be straightforward, in the words of some of my friends who have just had a looooong chat with me over MSN, "Screw the Net!" Or to be even more blunt, in the words of most Internet users who are experiencing the lag right now, "F*** Taiwan and its earthquakes!" Well, i can't imagine if someone tried to attain pleasure with that crack on the ground caused by a quake. It would probably be a messy scene. Hang on a moment...can it be true?! The results page of Google just updated! Now the results read:" News results for earthquake internet - View today's top stories Update: Earthquake disrupts Internet acc " |
'Twas teh winnar at 9:25 pm.
| Tuesday, December 26, 2006 |
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It's the day after Christmas. For Americans, it's Boxing Day, the day when they open their Christmas presents, but for us, its just another square (or rectangle) with a number on the calendar. I guess its because Singaporeans are just too kiasu to leave their presents waiting for a day before they open them, so that if the present isn't something nice, they can quickly rewrap it and give it to someone else on the very same day. But that's provided they even celebrate Christmas in the first place. There's been nothing much to do today. There's no newspapers today, since the people from The Straits Times have decided to follow their tradition to slack the day after a public holiday. Its rather odd why they've put off their holidays for one day, but since its an international code of practice, i guess they have no choice but to refrain from being kiasu and using up their holiday present - a holiday from work - immediately. As the saying goes, no news(papers) is good news. Well, not quite. Today's also the anniversary for the tsunami a couple of years back which costed many lives and money. But i won't elaborate too much on that; im sure everyone knows all too well about it. Talking about water and flood, it's been raining non-stop again for the whole of today. And the weather forecast for tomorrow goes like this: Morning - Rain; Afternoon - Stormy rain; Night - Rain. I just hope the sky clears up before school reopens - I hate having to carry an extra umbrella in my bag. Ah well, at least there's TV. I spammed TV programmes for one-and-a-half hours earlier tonight (a rare break from my holiday schedule of SCO and blogging). It started with a half-hour of the sitcom Phua Chu Kang (Pte Ltd.), then another half-hour of Mr Bean, and then finally Just For Laughs gags. (Lol, all funny shows.) But i think "Merry Christmas Mr Bean" was the best, like always. Rowan Atkinson ftw. It's been a boring day and a boring post (as usual). But at least there's one piece of good news: Ben has revived his blog, with 2 posts in 4 days! Now that's what i call revival. And thus, he has hereby been removed from the Dead Blogger's Society. Plus, not forgetting our two new class bloggers on the block - Hubert and Julian. Well, Julian's blog has been around for quite a long time, it's just that it's only surfaced quite recently. Hopefully you guys don't end up in the Society too quickly, though. ;) And i shall end this rojak post without a proper conclusion. End. |
'Twas teh winnar at 11:11 pm.
| Sunday, December 24, 2006 |
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...And a happy new year to all =D Well, the hapy new year part is just so i can keep decorations up a little longer until Jan 1 2007 without anyone complaining on MSN: "Oi! Christmas over liao leh, still Merry Christmas..." Anyway, i do hope you like the new blog layout and the added Christmas effects, exclusively only on this blog from 23/12/06 to 01/01/07, 12 noon. Today's Christmas eve, and celebrations are going into full swing. People wheeling Christmas trees in wheelbarrows, loud singing of carols which can be heard a block away (even with windows closed), and of course, all the spamming of "Merry Christmas!" in online forums, MSN and in-game. You would think i've probably seen it all, but no, my father had a more interesting tale to tell yesterday night, after coming home from his regular workout at the gymnasium... The condo's gymnasium is located just beside the function room. That night, it had been booked, apparently for a Christmas party, with Christmas trees and lighted figures of angels hung up on the walls. When my father passed by and tok a peek inside, he was surprised to see People robed in white, dressing up like angels/preists/Jesus, some even with halos above their heads. And some of them appeared to be cradling babies in their arms and singing hymns or lullaby songs. But at closer inspection by my father, they were actually hugging bolsters in their arms. Quite a odd scene. Later, after some thought, my father realised that those devout Christians were actually pretending that the bolster was the son of God, and they were celebrating the birth of Jesus. When my father told us about what he had seen, my mother's remark was something along the lines of: "Wah, those Christians are really crazy, even dress up until like that summore." No offence to Christians, but my family members are all free-thinkers, except for my father who's part-Buddhist because his father was Buddhist, and i guess we do find the rituals of other religions a little...unnerving, sometimes. Anyway, i can't remember ever celebrating Christmas before, except for once when my mum brought me to the Christmas party held by one of her friends. Oh, and another time when i was still a young child and followed my maid to her church to watch some performance and listen in on some songs. And ive never exchanged presents in my life. Christmas presents would be nice, but don't expect anything in return since ive never done any shopping for Christmas. it might be the season of giving, but i don't expect anyone to give me anything out of goodwill and not accept anything in return. it will be on my conscience for the rest of my life that i still owe someone a present, and interest rates do pile up, you know. So this Christmas will probably be spent sitting at home playing SCO, killing giant smiley snowmen and wishing everyone i see a very merry Christmas, whetehr i mean it or not. Oh wait, my mum just told me that she wants me to go to work on Christmas day since they have a container arriving and everyone's helping out. (Well, i don't suppose Bangladeshi workers celebrate Christmas either.) Change of plan: I'll be in the workshop listening to the combined melody of hammers, drills and the aching of muscles. Maybe the occasionally flurry of sawdust and metal bits in the air too. Hallelujah. |
'Twas teh winnar at 11:14 am.
| Friday, December 22, 2006 |
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I've been busy these few days to the run-up before school starts, working on my Creative Arts Portfolio, doing admin stuff, but mostly i've been helping out with The Wicked. Can't disclose any details though. ;) Christmas is round the corner, and ill be updating the layout of the blog just for this festive season. Do watch out for some eye-candy over the next few days! And that's all for the updates. Just a short post to let you guys know what i'm doing. ;) |
'Twas teh winnar at 11:37 pm.
| Wednesday, December 20, 2006 |
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Ah! It's so good to be back home in Singapore, albeit a very wet one. Apparently it's been raining for days on end during the time I've been in China due to the monsoon winds, and looking at the reports in the papers, it looks like there's been much flooding also. My mum was kiasu enough to buy 2 small umbrellas to bring to China, and we ended up not having to use a single one of them there, but the moment we were out of Changi airport they had to be opened immediately. At least my mother's efforts were not in too much of vain. Not that we had an easy time over at Chian either. It's praactically the extreme opposite from Singapore, being utterly freezing and dry. My whole body erupted in an outbreak of rashes on the very second morning, and the ugly red spots haven't subsided yet. A lot of the other tourists in the tour group, including my mother and brother (who now has an excuse for his itchy hands), were affected too. And my face would probably be all as cracked up as its made to be, if not for some hated Johnson's baby oil which I had to apply every day. Ugh. Enough about the weather. I'll try to cover the activities in the few days not mentioned in my previous blog posts, which unfortunately were the height of all the sightseeing and shopping. So, on the third day, we visited the Great Wall of China. It's almost 4000 miles long (or 6,352 km, according to Wikipedia) and was counstructed over a period of more than 2,000 years, which is quite a great feat considering the sort of technology they had back then. Since it was my first visit, i had thought all we had to do was to climb up a flight of stairs to the top of the wall, where it would be a flat slope for the rest of the way. Instead, it turned out to be nothing but stairs, stairs and more stairs, and it would be almost impossible for us to reach the highest point of the wall, which was in the mountains quite a long distance away. Some of the younger children even innocently asked whetehr we would be walking the entire length of the Great Wall. Well, sure you can, but it's probably going to take at least 4 years, and would be even more tiring than a marathon around then world. For the record, i climbed up a grand total of approximately 1,127 stairs, and reached five watch towers before turning around. And the trip up and down took just one hour. In contrast, my mother gave up at the first tower, which wwas probably less than 200 steps up, and some of the older folk didn't attempt it at all, preferring overpriced coffee instead. And i was rewarded with aching and wobby knees for my so-called feat. As usual, some enterprising Chinese were selling "certificates" some way up the Great Wall which stated that so-and-so had climbed the Great Wall on some date. Their giant advertising poster said: "If you climbs the Great Wall. You are a hearo", with appropriate pieces of paper with corrections stuck over mispelled words, erroneous grammar and stray punctuation. Seems like some civic-minded American was kind enough to point out the mistakes to them. The rest of the day and the next day was spent on mostly sight-seeing to an emperor's palace, garden, temple or tomb of sorts. Really, it looks like most of China's tourist destinations are only of historical value, which does get boring after a while. Frozen-over lakes, large (but very empty) palace grounds and long descriptions of an emperor's routine, anyone? Other than that, we would be visiting various factories, where we would be given a presentation of benefits on this-and-that, after which we would be encourage to buy the goods at "special rates". I have no doubt that the tour company receives commission from such trips. In conclusion, it's not worth talking about. On Day 5, it was finally the activity that the kids were all looking forward to: skiing. Sadly the snow at the nanshan Ski Resort was man-made, so we didn't really get to try out the real thing. But that's perhaps because prices there are the cheapest in the world. Skiing is, after all, an expensive sport. After spending nearly half an hour gearing up and listening to introductories by the instructors, we finally got to try it out, but only at a small and gentle slope for beginners. Another 45 minutes spent on getting the right posture later, we were finally headed for slightly steeper slopes. It's quite a nice feeling whoosing down at a greed speed with the wind hollering at your ears and face, and definitely fun. But i daresay i still prefer ice-skating over skiing, even though the basics of the latter are easier to grasp and you're not as liekly to fall as often. The main reason is because ice-skating is definitely much less expensive and more widely available. I probably won't go skiing again. So if you're ever going on a skiing trip, i wouldn't expect too much out of it, unless you're willing to burn your pocket in the snow or you're a professional (which is unlikely in both cases.) On a side note, the ski resort we went to is open for only the 4 months when it is cold enough for the fake snow not to melt. I suppose you might think they might have though of someone innovative to do with such a huge plot of land then, but no, the entire place is emptied out until the next time the chill comes around. Quite a waste of money and resources. I can't say this holiday to China has been satisfactory, much due to the cold and the food - we got almost the same dishes with rice every meal, until we got so sick of rice eventually. My family has vowed not to touch rice for the rest of this week until we can get over last week's intake of carbohydrates. But it was cheap, at less than SG$1000 per person. Like they say, "一分钱，一分获". To end this off, here's the 5 most memorable things which should be remembered about China: 1) The record for the most amount of blobs of spit on the ground every 10 paces; 2) The record for the lowest amount of 'Thank You's or 'Sorry's one hears in a day; 3) The record for the highest prices stated proportional to the actual price (up to 10 times); 4) The record for the greatest fluctuation of given prices within a time span of 10 seconds; 5) Never to go to China for a holiday again, if possible. |
'Twas teh winnar at 11:47 pm.
| Monday, December 18, 2006 |
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So many nights have pased since i last posted from China (3 to be exact.) I was simply too tired on two of the nights since my father was using his laptop till late, but on the other night (2 nights ago) the tour group was transferred to a "Hot Springs Resort", which turned out to be a dingy small hotel which standard was probably lower than 3 stars. (The rates are quite cheap too, at RMB200 a night. That's about SGD$40.) They didn't even have a lift and we had to climb up 3 storeys to get to our room, and they obviously did not have an internet connection. What was supposed the indoor "hot spring" turned out to be a grimy tiny well-like tub on the balcony. If we wanted a dip in the spring water, we would have to call housekeeping to fill it up manually, or get them to scrub the tub clean. Considering that the temperature at night was a chilling negative 7 degrees celcius or so with strong gales, it was no surprise that no one in our tour group wanted to go out in the chill to sit in a dirty small tub, hot spring water or not. Anyway, we'll be flying back to Singapore tomorrow afternoon. This is one holiday im glad to get home asap, since the weather here is terrible. Temperatures range from 0 to -9 degrees celcius, or 5 degrees and below if the weather's on our side. We have to wear a few layers of shirts and shorts just to endure the freezing outside, and its not exactly very comfortable. Sadly we haven't seen any snow falling yet though, although we did ski on faux snow at the Nanshan Ski Resort yesterday. I've gained many experiences from these past few days, travelling around, skiing, climbing the Great Wall, seeing whatever historical monoments (which we forget about 1 hour later), and most of all, shopping at shops with no fixed price. I won't (and can't) tell you about all that's happened, since im dead beat and it's already midnight. But perhaps the most shocking lesson is that seasons are horrible. (No, im not referring to the brand of drinks, although they don't taste that good either.) Tropical weather with no seasons is still the best. Same comfortable weather all year round, no need to brave the extremes of hot and cold, and much more convenient since you can wear the same set of clothes the whole year round. Singapore is still the best. Home Sweet Home~ |
'Twas teh winnar at 11:22 pm.
| Thursday, December 14, 2006 |
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Today's tour took us around sight-seeing, to marvel at the historical architechual of monumental value. The younger kids were more interested in chaptek, though, and i don't think the adults enjoyed sightseeing buildings very much either. Knowing Singaporeans, we generally would rather burn a hole in our pockets than hear about some fire which burnt a hole through some building, so there's nothing much to talk about on what we saw today. However, there are lots of enterprising Chinese who go around the streets hawking odds and ends (something like those salesmen who harrass you to sign up for credit cards at the age of 15), so some of us did manage to satisfy our urge to take out our wallet necessarily a little. At least, there were these young children whose parents gave them a fixed allowance, and going by how they've splurged mindlessly these couple of days (even worse than teens patronizing malls), it doesn't look like their cash is gonna last long. In China, prices range from cheap to dirt-cheap. If something's expensive, its probably yet another enterprising Chinese trying to swindle some cash from tourists, which is actually quite a common sight. tUnfortunately for the Englishmen, the Chinese's interpretation of "expensive" is their intepretation of "cheap". So they end up slapping themselves later when the find the exact same item in another shop which is 1/3 the price they paid. So to be extremely safe, only purchase stuff which is dirt cheap. Do make sure that it's not dirt though. The Chinese are really good at suckering people. Before we continue, the current exchange rate of the Chinese Yuan (RMB) to Singapore Dollar (SGD) is roughly 5:1, for comparison's sake. So just divide the price in RMB by 5 to figure out the price in SGD. There was this case when we were visiting Tiananmen, and the tour group was approached by this hawker selling these small paper kites strung together at ¥10 a packet. The littl'uns took some interest, managed to bargain a little and got it for ¥10 for 2 packets. Not bad, picking up the skill of legally shortchanging others. However, the adults were already guessing that they could buy those kites at ¥10 for 4 packets, if you haggled hard enough. Speak of the devil. Just as we were leaving, yet another hawker came up to us offering those kites again. This time, the starting price was ¥10 for 3 packets. Argh, been suckered, those littl'uns. They were already content with their ¥5-a-packet-kites though, so they declined the offer. But the hawker didn't give up,following us all the way to the exit. Dring that period, the price dropped from ¥10 for 3 to ¥10 for 4 and finally ¥10 for 5. Aw, the adults were wrong, the price was even lower than what they expected. The littl'uns, not willing to let an offer down, accepted 5 packets for ¥10. So we exited the area, the kids having fun running around with he kites trailing behind them. And then we met another hawker who was selling the kites, with a starting offer of ¥10 for 5 packets. She even offered us ¥10 for 6 packets. But we had more than enough of blasted kites, already having 9 packets between 7 children. I think the price was more like ¥10 for 10 packets. Not surprising, since some of the kites broke within 10 minutes of the children's manhandling of them. Anyway, there are offers abound for the more prudent ones. There was this JC girl in our group ("Wenn" her name was) who got a pair of stylish tall leather shoes with fur padding at ¥120, after her mum's bargaining brought the price down from ¥180. It would probably have costed about $60 or more in Singapore. Oh but of course, if your pockets are feeling heavy and you're feeling a littleover-the-top, China also has just the thing for you: .jpg) Some vases on display/sale at an engraving workshop. See that giant one in the center? Beautifully hand-crafted right down to every detail, an authentic work of art. All for the price of ¥700,000. |
'Twas teh winnar at 10:35 pm.
| Wednesday, December 13, 2006 |
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Looks like the hotel we're staying in has a broadband internet connection, so i won't be cut off from cyberspace for a week anymore, as i had so previously speculated. But then again, who would have expected that those (usually cheapskate) tour agencies would book us into a 5-star hotel? (At least, that's by Chinese standards. My father says you have to subtract one star for the international one.) Today has been rather uneventful, since the flight was delayed by one-and-a-half hours to 11 am, and we had to sit in the plane for another hour before it finally took off. Another 6 hours to reach Beijing, and you get arrival at a dark 6.30 pm tour guides who had not been informed of the rescheduling and had waited at the airport since 3 hours earlier. ANd yes, ive been reading Prachett on the plane. After we landed, we went for dinner at some "江湖菜" restaurant. The food wasn't too good, even with a rather measly portion of Beijing roasted duck (is that the English translation?) We were supposed to go for some acrobatic show ater that, but due to the delay, we missed it and went to our hotel rooms instead. And the weather here is terribly cold. It's 3 degrees Celcius tonight, and it looks set to drop even further tomorrow. And it's even worse when you step out of the bath and the water starts to evaporate. It seems like the country is going ga-ga over the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Everywhere, there's signs proclaiming stuff like "China Bank: Official banking partner for the 2006 Beijing Olympic Games." There's even this display that counts down the time to when the Games are due to start, right down to the second. But the people here still have quite a long way to go in English, though. I've been taking photos using my father's Nokia 7610 again, and will transfer them over Bluetooth to my father's laptop when i have the time. It's already 11.40 here (same time zone as back in Singapore), and we're supposed to be awake by 6.30 tomorrow. Apparently Beijing receives only 6 hours of sunlight in the winter since days are considerably shorter, and unfortunately it just has to be from 8 am to 4 pm. That leaves very little time for sightseeing if you're gonna stay in bed. Will update this blog on what's happening over here in Beijing over the next few days. |
'Twas teh winnar at 11:25 pm.
'Twas teh winnar at 10:15 am.
| Tuesday, December 12, 2006 |
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Finally returned to Singapore shores at about 10 pm yesterday. The driuve down from Genting took about 7 to 8 hours, which were unsurprisingly boring and uneventful. I ended up fiddling with a Rubix cube (that toy with coloured square faces which you can twist and turn to sort similarly coloured squares on each of the 9 sides.) Since its something only incredibly stupid or incredibly smart people who can complete it in a minute would waste their time on, unless they're aiming for a place in the Guinness Book of Records (which is even dumber), it just shows how plain bored i was. But at least its less silly than spending the time playing scissors-paper-stone or pepsi-cola. Sadly, the cube was a cheap $1 version and soon enough, one of the small cubes broke off and the cubes starting dropping out. And it was extremely hard to twist the sides. Obviously i did not manage to complete the puzzle, but at least i tried. :P One thing about the stuff up there is that its extremely expensive. When we arrived on the first night, we went for dinner/supper, and the bill came up to be RM150. One plate of Kway Teow was about RM16; satay was RM10 for a half-dozen; and their Ice Longan lived up to its name - One small glass of about 6 longans with lots of ice and some sweetish syrup, at a price of RM4.50. Luckily my uncle had about over 1k Genting points, with each point having a value of 1 ringgit, so the meal was technically free. But if he were the pay in cash, the exchange rate is about SGD$1 to RM2.3, which equals a lot of cash down the drain. But i guess one reason for the exorbitant bill was because it was the supper menu, where prices tend to be a tad on the high side (service charges, heh). However, i didn't think the holiday was really much of a vacation, largely because of my cousin, Leonard. He is totally addicted to Monopoly® (the property trading game) so every single time he sees me, he will want to play the game a few times. When he first started on this craze, it was still rather fun winning him almost every time, but then repeatability took its toll and i steadily grew sian of it. But he never seems tired of it, and ive had to play it so much that now i can almost memorise the rents to be paid for every single property. And the same thing happened up on Genting. A typical schedule for the day would be: 12pm to 1pm - Wake up, perform routine morning procedures like pushing cousin off the bed and getting dressed 1pm to 2pm - Lunch 2pm to 2.30 pm - Uncle goes off to "do his business" (i.e. indulge in the casino.) Aunt brings the two littl'uns to theme park. Leonard and I hang around for a bit, watching them run comically in and out of the bumpers cars again and again. Leonard gets a bit restless and makes noise about returning to hotel room. I give in reluctantly. 2.30pm to 3pm - Walk back to room. I try to drag time along as slow as possible, stopping ever so often to comment about the weather. 3pm to 3.10pm - Arrive back in room. Leonard immediately perks up and asks, "So, shall we?" I know what he wants (no, not gay sex), groan in my heart and excuse myself to the loo. 3.10pm to 5pm - Stepping out of toilet, i find that Leonard has already set up the game and is all ready for me. We start the game and the only sounds heard are the rolling of dice, counting of steps and useless banter. I win in the end. 5pm to 7pm - Leonard wants to play yet another game of Monopoly. I doggedly refuse, insisting on reading books instead. After a stand-off, Leonard finally agrees. We pack the game and spend the time lying on the bed reading. 7pm to 8pm - Dinner 8pm to 10pm - Uncle goes off to do his business again. Aunt brings the littl'uns to the theme park (the indoor one doesn't close until 1 am.) I persuade Leonard to go to the arcade, where we end up playing some weird shooting game called "L.A. Machineguns". One thing to note: the driving simulators there call drifting "power slide". Leonard starts getting noisy again. 10pm to 12am - Return to room. After bathing, yet another game of Monopoly. 12am to 1am - Leonard wants to play another game, but i refuse. End up watching Asian Games and LOLing at some unheard-of Korean player who keeps on winking at the camera. 1am to 2am - Uncle, Aunt and littl'uns return with fast food from McDonald's. Eat supper, perform routine night procedures and go to sleep. Probably the most exciting activity that I did there was going to the arcade (and blowing about RM40 on it), since Leonard and I didn't go to the theme park (Monopoly is funner, Leonard claims) and i need to be 21 to enter the casino. But then again, if i wasn't on such good terms with my cousin (after countless reluctant rounds of Monpoly), then his family probably wouldn't have brought me up to Genting FOC in the first place. Uncle's Genting points before the trip: ~1,400 Uncle's Genting points after the trip: 1,249.20 Genting points actually spent: ~500 At this rate, he will never run out of points, since every time he goes up there, he visits the casino and earns even more points to cover the expenses. And he had to cater for 6 people this time round. Imagine if he went up there alone (as he often does.) The cost would be almost 6 times cheaper! Talk about free holidays. And ill be off again from tomorrow morning (7.30 am to be precise) until next wednesday (19/12/06), on a holiday to Beijing (this time paid for by my parents, sadly by cheque with no points whatsoever.) Can't even enjoy SCO for a straight couple of days :( The temperature there's gonna be about a chilling -2 degrees celcius - we saw it on the weather report today. That's gonna take at least 3 layers of clothing to keep warm. Brrr! Anyway, to end off this post, here's a few photos from up at Genting which i took using my father's Nokia 7610 (they're not very clear):  Amazing scenery from the hotel room ...until the thick mist clouds everything My younger brother, who had just about the sense of a blind dingbat to wear a singlet in the 15 degrees fog, and was clawing desperately for warth from cousin Melissa Him later in the hotel, being carried by Melissa. Those two seem to have some sort of bond. Temperature and Relative Humidity inside Hotel Highlands at approximately 1pm, 11/12/06 |
'Twas teh winnar at 11:52 pm.
| Saturday, December 09, 2006 |
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YEAH!! I'm back in action, baby! Mr Ong finally fixed the computer and delivered it back yesterday evening. And after a little tweaking here and there and a cheque for $290, we are back in business! And its soooo lucky that Jay partitioned my hard drive, so i still had all my setups for Opera, Firefox, SCO and all the stuff. But updating them takes quite a long time too. =/ The graphic card was replaced, and the new one's much more powerful. When i tried out SCO earlier, i was quite amazed. The graphics were suddenly so stunning (or maybe it was just the shock of not having been able to play it for more than 2 weeks...) Actually, my father had wanted to take up the SingNet broadband offer where they gave you a free computer for a $63/mth plan, so he didn't have to spend extra money repairing this computer. Right now, we're using a $60/mth one. But the Terms and Conditions were something alogn the lines of "You have to stick to this plan for 24 months, and if you break the contract, you have the pay the prevailing price of the freebies." And there's a lot of hidden costs too, like $42 for "registration fees", and if you want to upgrade/downgrade, you have to pay an extra few hundred dollars. Being the businessman that he was, my father outrighteously declined it, since broadband subscription rates were set to drop drastically in the next few months/year, with the free Wireless@SG, competition from M1 and all that. And if you signed up from the plan with all the freebies, you'll have to pay $63 every month for 2 years, even if prices drop to like, $30 or something. Do the math, and you find out that you end up paying a few hundred dollars anyway. In the business world, nothing is free. So what have i been doing the 2 weeks while the computer refused to work? I've taken the chacne to read like crazy, since that's about the only thing i don't mind spending hours on, other than the computer. (No, i don't watch Kids Central or a dozen assorted murders.) And ive (finally) started reading Terry Prachett's Discworld's novels, and i realise why Yiyong's been egging me to read them. It's amazing how many hilarious synonyms Prachett can come up with for just a single jokes. Not to mention the dirty jokes, which are hidden under the guise of "little jittery things" and "equipment in the sewing basket". Not to mention his creativity in getting a vampire to be a flash photographer (or salamander iconographer, depending on the time-space plane which you happen to be on.) Nowadays, i always frequent the "PRA" section under "Adult Fiction" (don't get the wrong ideas) whenever i visit the library. Which was once every a couple of days, since i could finish a novel in about half a day without the computer around. And my parents (especially my mother) actually remark that my lifestyle that way without the computer is better. Eh, wait...Lying on my bed reading books is better than sitting in front of the computer, exercising my fingers as they churn out post after post?! (imo they're about the same, only difference is in the Input/Output and which muscles get exercised.) They may "wish the computer never gets repaired", but i certainly beg to differ. Only problem is that ill be off (again) from later today until Monday afternoon on a last-minute-ly-planned trip to Genting with my uncle (no, no the one that passed away, doh) and his family. Apparently he has some sort of reward points which are about to expire so he wants to use them up before that. And he has more than 1k points, with each point having a value of 1 buck (im not sure whetehr its SGD or Ringgit) and can be used for accomodation, food, gambling etc. Yeah, he frequents the casino there, which probably explains why he accumulated so many points. So in these short few hours before i leave, in between mess-patching Messenger and enduring my brother's relentless pleads to let him "play computer" even though his games aren't installed yet, im going to have to do quite a few things: LZC's PRIORITIES FOR 9/12/06 #1. Get a new tagboard. I'm quite sick of seeing the message "Your Free NeoBoard will be back as soon as new server resources are available," when i'm expecting some sort of comments or spam. Done! But haven't had time to do up the settings and format #2. Pack my stuff for the trip. Done! #3. Level up to 57 in SCO!! (and enjoy the great new graphics which i've been deprived of for quite a while already) #4. Do the sickening Creative Arts programme portfolio. I'm supposed to include 8 - 15 pages of works, excluding drafts and reflections (1 set for each piece in the portfolio), and get it all done by 12 Jan. What a horrid way to end the holidays. |
'Twas teh winnar at 12:38 pm.
| Wednesday, December 06, 2006 |
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[This post was originally typed out at yet another computer in Ang Mo Kio library, but somehow the system konked out at exactly 15 minutes into the post, leaving me with no draft, no publishing and not even a Ctrl-A + Ctrl-C. Sadly, working on a $1 budget at the library doesn't give much, and i didn't have enough money (or patience) left in my account to resume typing there, so here i am working on this in the comfort of home on my father's laptop, at 1:30 in the wee morning while everyone's asleep. And he doesn't even have Firefox. What a pity.] Rather than bringing my computer over to Sim Lim Square, which i rather hoped he would do when he got back in Singapore, my father chose the more expensive, albeit more convenient route by asking a repairman to come over to my home to try to diagnose and solve the problem that's been bugging my computer. Name's Mr Ong, and he's quite a friendly guy (Are Ongs nice people?), chatting with us animately while working on the computer. Miraculously, when he fired up the CPU, the pixels on the monitor flickered back into life, if not just for a while: it hanged again during disk checking, at 60%. And when he tried to start it up again, the monitor reverted to "No Signal". At least that means that my graphic card is likely to be still functioning. But in the worst case scenario, if its the motherboard that's down, it will cost my dad $300 to fix it. But my father still had to pay $30 for Mr Ong to come down. As Jay says, repairmen tend to inflate the price of parts and petrol a tad too much. The computer probably could be serviced at Sim Lim Square for free. But it's my father's money, and if he's willing to pay for the price of convenience, i should tell myself to stop obsessing over it. Eventually, Mr Ong decided that he was unable to diagnose or fix the problem right there and then, so he had to bring the computer back to his workplace, where hopefully it would be up and running by tomorrow. At least im guaranteed to be able to enjoy SCO again sooner or later, but most probably the latter. And Jay: i love you! (figuratively speaking.) Luckily you repartitioned my hard drive whenyou came around previously, so if Mr Ong does reformat the computer (as i think he will), the data will be safe in the E: drive, and only the C: drive will be wiped clean. But that does mean that ill lose all my programs, and im going to have to reinstall everything (including SCO.) But at least all my screenshots and videos are more or less safe, if that's any consolation. Oh, and i realised that my tagboard's down in my absence, and it "will be back as soon as new sserver resources are available." That's what you get for "Free". At this rate, im going to be the one breaking down at the end! |
'Twas teh winnar at 1:23 am.
| Friday, December 01, 2006 |
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A few days ago, it was the bus that broke down. Now my computer has followed suit. On Wednesday night, when I was engaged in yet another raid in SCO, the screen suddenly froze. Alt+Tab, Ctrl+Alt+Del, nothing happened. So i turned off the power and back on again, and my computer refused to start up. Unable to do anything, I went to sleep, hoping that a miracle would happen and it was just a dream or something and everything would be okay in the morning, but of course the gods were not on my side. I suspect my graphic card was fried, since the "power" light on the CPU is on but the monitor insists on telling me "No Signal". And YES, i've already checked the connections. Now im blogging from Ang Mo Kio library, which is just a short walk away from my home. And rates here are not cheap at 3 cents a minute (that's $1.80 per hour) for restricted internet connection. They even banned invisionfree.com under "Chat". It's amazing they didn't block Blogger too. Furthermore, they only accept payment by CashCard. So I had to plead my mother to lend me her CashCard ("$1 only", i begged). Until my dad comes home from China on Sunday, I won't be able to get my computer fixed, since it's rather heavy to lug it all the way to Sim Lim Square on a public bus. So it probably means no posts from me at all for the next couple of days. And now im resigned to blogging with a very old version of Internet Explorer, beside this young boy who's playing around with the monitor settings. What luck. |
'Twas teh winnar at 2:32 pm.
