.25

Thanks for all the fish dudes

2005-12-10T21:25:00.000+08:00

(Photo from U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program )

Not much to blog, but:

2005-12-05T20:10:00.000+08:00

Carl's Jr's onion rings are to die for!

Similarly, UK-made Kitkat is to die for!

A Playlist

2005-11-21T22:20:00.000+08:00

These are the few songs that I've been listening to of late. I hope that you would enjoy them, but I know you probably don't, so here it goes anyway.:

1. The Arcade Fire - Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels)
The word beautiful comes to mind, when you listen to this tale of a simple and sweet romance narrated by an anguished voice against the dreamy guitars. This band's quite unheard of in Singapore, but before you get the album, be warned - the other tracks really don't sound like this song. To be honest, I can't get myself to like any of their other songs.

2. Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot
This song was a hit internationally. It's a loud and catchy tune, with lyrics that don't really mean much. It sounds great though - who can ever forget their energetic interpretation of post-punk rock? If there is one song that would have paid proper tribute to the true punk bands of the past - The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones and so on - this would be it.

3.Foo Fighters - Resolve
Now for something more American. This song is what I would term Foo Fighter's comeback song, after all the mediocere fodder we've tolerated from them ever since their amazing There Is Nothing Left To Do. I like how the crescendo of guitars lead up to the chorus, inobtrusively harmonising the vocals. The Foo Fighters are especially good at how they arrange the instrumentation, and this song plays at that.

4. The Darkness - One Way Ticket
Not really my favourite of their songs, but this is insanely catchy, reminiscent of AC/DC and their hit, You Shook Me All Night Long. They're copycats, but hey, at least they're good at it.

5. Alkaline Trio - Mercy Me
Alkaline Trio used to be an obscure punk and ska influenced indie band from Chicago, but has since shot into the limelight after their poignant and intense single named Time To Waste from their 2005 album, Crimson. This second single doesn't match up to the epic proportions of Time To Waste, but it's still an easygoing, lighthearted anthem of self pity.

6. Feeder - Shatter
Originally meant to be a B-side, this sog was so well-liked by Feeder's fans that they wrote in a petition in request of Feeder to re-release it as a single. They finally did. There's no tragic flaw to this single, but there really isn't anything to wow about either.

7. Green Day - Whatsername
The concluding song of their chart-topping punk-rock-opera album American Idiot, this song will probably never be released as a single. However, wit its honest and lively melody, and carefully-ochestrated palm-muted chords, it's good enough to listen on its own.

8. Coldplay - A Message
Simple yet direct lyrics such as: My song is love/ Love to the loveless shore/ And it goes on/ You don't have to be alone, coupled with sprinkles of acoustic guitar, which then build on to a chorus of a declaration of unrequited love. I'm hoping they release it as a single.

9. Starsailor - In The Crossfire
James Walsh sounds like he's shouting out loud when he's singing this song - and with good reason. From what I infer, this seems to be an anthem of one's rockstar dreams. A great first single, presumably to revive themselves from the aftermath of their exceedingly dull previous album. A grungier and rockier Starsailor has emerged this time round.

That's about all for now. If you read this through, chances are that, you have similar musical tastes to me, and in that case, I really hope that you comment, so that we can share playlists or something.

Hairy Potty and the Gobbler of Friars

2005-11-18T23:32:00.000+08:00

Hairy Potty whips off his pants and holds on to his wang. Then he pointed it at the Gobbler of Friars and shouted: violenta shootsum!

OK enough of lameness. I watched the latest Harry Potter movie today, and In My Very Humble Opinion, it gets 4 stars.

After having read the book, my first expectation of the movie was a grand and well-done Quidditch World Cup match. This scene was elaborated in vivid detail in the book, but fails to make the transition to the movie, which is a great pity - they didn't even show a Quidditch match! Many fans walk into the cinema expecting a Quidditch match, so this was a big boo-boo on their part.

What we see in the movie is an introduction of the Quidditch World Cup - complete with grand sights and all, but this is suddenly cut short by a nasty incident in the campgrounds, where a Dark Eater causes havoc and unleashes the Dark Mark.

Next, we get a glimpse of the annual routine of our three friends Harry, Hermione and Ron returning to Hogwarts. However, this time they get exchange students from 2 other schools, and the proceedings of the Triwizard Tournament start.

The plot is pretty coherent this time round, as compared to the dismal third film. The director Mike Newell tells the story in a way much alike how Chris Columbus told the first 2 Harry Potter films, by exploring the events by the chronology of the book, rather than as a mishmash of seperate events like in the third film.

Now, a bit about the characters: Harry is recognisably Harry, but Hermione has definitely matured, especially with respect to her feminity. Ron now sports long hair. Dumbledore's acting is rather disappointing, as he now appears to the audience as a senile geriatric, rather than an aloof-but-intelligent wizard.

The Triwizard Tournament consists of 3 tasks, all of which were dramatically executed in the film, with the exception of a glaring problem - so few spells are used in the tasks, which makes one wonder whether the participant is actually a wizard! Instead, the participant is portrayed as being able to mysteriously solve a task without much effort.

The Harry-Cho Chang romance subplot is patchy at best, though the Yule Ball scene was well-done, and the conflict between Ron and Hermione was given sufficient airtime. If you're looking for sappy scenes involving teenage crushes, you won't find them.

Characterisation is alsovery minimal, as the movie assumes that the viewer is well-attuned to the world of Harry Potter by now. However, it would have been better if the movie had reminded us on some of those personality quirks that make Harry Potter and friends such a likeable bunch.

Overall, this movie may have its fair sprinkle of flaws, but this is only to be expected when it takes on the task of reproducing the finely-crafted magic and suspense that was in the book. It gets its well-deserved 4 stars, mainly because I'm still fuming over the lack of a decent Quidditch scene.

Priceless

2005-11-13T15:20:00.000+08:00

Stopping in the middle of the road just before the taxi reversed into my path to do a U turn.

Shouting and staring at the taxi driver as though I was a madman.

Seeing the taxi driver's fearful look in his eyes as he extricated his vehicle from the mess.

Priceless. The incident didn't endanger me one bit (I knew that he was goin to reverse into my path, since 30m away) but I managed to scare that guy quite badly, I think. I gloat.

Fall

2005-11-10T21:19:00.000+08:00

"I have a feeling that you're riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall. But I don't honestly know what kind.... It may be the kind where, at the age of thirty, you sit in some bar hating everybody who comes in looking as if he might have played football in college. Then again, you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, 'It's a secret between he and I.' Or you may end up in some business office, throwing paper clips at the nearest stenographer. I just don't know." - Mr Antolini from Catcher in the Rye, written by J. D. Salinger.

Call me disillusioned or anything, but this word is quite a misnomer, as I was never illusioned. Rather, it's more a case of, I can't stand the heat in this pressure cooker.

I think I am getting very sick of school. This has never happened before in my life, being sick of school. The experiences I had gone through the past few months have left me wondering if I had made yet another mistake in my life decisions.

I have always based my decisions on what I want to do, not what would be more worthwhile doing in the long term. Take for example my Co-curricular Activity records for my junior college days, reflecting how I spread myself out thin over different fields - Science, Guitar, Photography, School magazine, just so to experience a little of each. I never made it big in any of them.

When I chose to study medicine in NUS, I had never thought of doing any objective assesment of how I would like it there, for I had simply taken that choice with the end in mind. It was what I wanted to do.

If I had actually looked around and asked around, I would have realised that such a choice would be extremely painful for me.

Singapore's biomedical achievements are mainly within the field of biochemical pathways and in vitro experimentation, rather than clinical trials. Therefore I should have known that the professors would be extremely willing to force these dull, dreary, irrelevant biochemical pathways and cell signalling knowledge down our throats, when it has little to do with what medical graduates actually do.

I should have expected my classmates to be achievement-oriented freaks who would rather be walking textbooks, rather than people who interest themselves in getting a proper perspective of how medicine is practised.

Of course, being a walking textbook is much more rewarding, when it comes to exams. The setters and markers of the exams never fail to reward memory rather than understanding or aptitude. From what I see in the USMLE (USA's standardised medical examinations), NUS's exam papers emphasise alot more on memory work and information that often has no bearing on clinical management. NUS's papers are also quite lacking in assessing critical thinking and relevant skills.

I should have expected my classmates to be mainly the rich and arrogant, with parents who are wealthy enough to buy them cars and all. And these very people tend to be the ones who sneers at anyone who doesn't seem classy or refined or whatever. They also have phony, pseudo-high-society voices and sneers to go with it. Rich folks who differentiate themselves from the rest, by the way they dress, the way they dye their hair, their expensive trips to Europe and America (on their parents' money, of course), their loutish behaviour and their condescending glances at those with less wealthy parents. They can't converse without adding in some anecdotes on their experience in a Soandso Restaurant That You Probably Can't Afford To Dine In, and The Tour To Europe and America That Cost Me Several Thousand Dollars.

Yeah. People with backgrounds and interests so different from me, there's no way to connect. That explains why my social life is near 0 now.

When there's so much disappointment, no amount of passion or interest can sustain any form oe enthusiasm. However, the fact that one really has no other alternative, and the fear of losing it all and becoming a worthless bum who's a liability to the family, is a very powerful motivator.

I'm stuck here, I've made my choice long ago, and I'm forced to stick to it. We're all automatons doing what we have to do, doing what we have to do.

World Weary

2005-11-08T21:09:00.000+08:00

School sucks because I'm bad at memorising. And I'm in my own world, with my own interests and etc. It's not like I'm not interested in what I study, it's just that my schoolmates seem more interested in collecting accolades and acheivements and praises along the way.

While all I seek is to enrich myself and do what I want to do. Can't I do just that?

Today...

2005-11-01T23:05:00.000+08:00

... I was waiting to turn right on a junction, in the left of 2 right-turn pockets. Of course, this sounds entirely normal and right. Anyone who knows the highway code knows. The bugger behind me was impatient, and honked at me. Then he overtook me from the left, rolled down his window and muttered a barely decipherable sentence to describe his annoyance. Not wanting to look stupid. I ignored him completely, not even making eye contact.

Why? I was a cyclist. If it had been a car in the exact same spot, no one would lose his temper or even bat an eyelid. However, most motorists do not consider cyclists equally worthy of the road. Those arrogant bastards. They pay road tax for the wear and tear to the roads, and for the pollution they create. Bicycles cause none of the problems. The argument that we don't pay road tax, simply doesn't stand up to debate. Pedastrians do not pay road tax either, and yet they get to use signallised crossings. Who pays for those then? Every taxpayer does. Motorists do not have some magical right to be on the roads. We follow the highway code. So do they.

I had a peek at the guy who was in the car. He looked like one of those sons of a rich bastard, flaunting his parents' wealth as though it were his. He was in his mid 20s, and seemed rather fashionably groomed for his age. He did not wear spectacles (since the majority of Singaporeans have myopia, it turns out that a large proportion of people nto wearing spectacles, are wearing contact lenses) so he probably is some fashion-conscious poseur who chooses to wear contact lenses. If you consider this to be typical behaviour of his age group and social status, this seems very plausible.

Conclusion? Some arrogant asshole. Probably those self-declared upper society elite who probably just graduated from law school or business school or medical school (yes, many of them become _that_ arrogant well into their undergraduate years). Those who feel proud when playing golf or tennis as they're the favoured sporting activities of the wealthy and influential. Those who have to be seen in a car. Those who won't ever give way to others because they view it as a sign of weakness. And if they do give way, it is often done condescendingly.

I'm pretty sure that guy won't have been so hostile if I told him if I
1. am likely to be of an even higher educational level then him in a few years' time
2. am riding a bicycle that cost me almost a thousand dollars so far and am no typical casual cyclist who doesn't know his highway code
3. have a driving license, albeit only a military one
4. can accelerate almost as fast as his car can, if I pedal hard

Welcome to the ultra decadent, ultra class conscious generation of today. Your wealth and social status determine how others treat you, not your merits. You can be the asshole son of a rich bugger and still command respect, whenever you throw your dad's wealth around. Sadly, I don't think this phenomenon will ever reverse itself. Society's too decadent.

Also, what's with young males these days acting hostile to others, in order to impress their girlfriends? There was a young lady next to that arrogant bugger in that car. Whenever I witness a hostile act, the guy is often seen with a girlfriend. Is this some kind of primal mating act? Or is it specific only to Singaporean culture?

It's often said that bad boys often get laid first. I wonder if girls really prefer aggressiveness in their males.

The end results

2005-10-30T11:25:00.000+08:00

The old parts. They were fine in their first 2 years of life, but then, gradually, they started to make funny noises, hesitated to shift, and needed lots of coaxing before they would work properly for a few weeks, only to require further maintenence again.

The new parts. They cost me a fortune. Really.

I changed the items part by part, taking 1-2 rides after each time. For those parts that have to be changed at the same time, I had no choice but to lump them together. An analysis:

1. XTR CN-7701 Chain and SRAM Powerlink
First thing I replaced as the old chain was elongated due to wear. Pedalling and shifting seemed a teeny bit smoother - but this was marred by the fact that the chain started to skip on the gears on the smaller gears. That means, those are worn.

2. LX rear derailleur
Having isolated the clackety noise to the old rear derailleur (a Shimano Alivio), I postulated that changing this part would improve shifting. True it did, but only for upshifts. In fact, there was quite a lot less friction so for the first minutes I ended up doubleshifting by mistake as I was not used to using this little force to upshift. Also, it felt a teeny weeny bit more responsive to acceleration, but I may have been imagining it.

3. LX front derailleur
As this part doesn't come into contact with the chain at all unless shifting, it doesn't improve anything other than shifting the front gears. The old one became quite worn and the pivots sort of allowed too much rotational movement, so I replaced it with this. This has a radically different design, with an extremely enlarged back plate, and I guess it was that that made the upshifts much smoother and reliable.
One thing too, is that I used to have to adjust the cable tension to the nearest 1/4 turn of the adjuster, but now, it seems like the adjustment can be off by 1.5-2 turns before shifting gets affected.

4. Deore shifters, LX brake levers, LX cassette
The difference this time is quite dramatic, with the drivetrain becoming significantly more responsive to acceleration. The shifting was even better, on both up and downshifts. The new brake levers have this modulation gadget that allows you to choose whether sheer braking force, or modulation is your priority. I put it in the middle setting. The modulation seems more progressive, but other than that, it's just something that feels nice. Not much real-life use for it.

Conclusion? The whole drivetrain is a sum of its parts, and every improvement is sort of cumulative. I can't really give comments like: "If you want to make the best use of your $X, you should get Y." because it doesn't work that way. My experiment to see which parts of the bicycle are the most worthwhile to upgrade, ends up inconclusive.

Eww

2005-10-23T21:33:00.000+08:00

Not dead yet, simply writhing from the insecticide penetrating it. I like my Canon A520 camera, it's manual mode allowed me to do such a close close-up.

My revision is hell. I simply can't get my studying method spot-on, end up slacking in the end.

My bike is also hell. Now my front dee looks like it's goin to fall apart anytime - I can move the plates back and forth by 2-3mm with my hand.

Operation Replace Worn Parts On Bicycle (revised)

2005-10-16T21:17:00.000+08:00

This derailleur had seen better days

Spent a small fortune replacing the rear derailleur as the pulley wheels were in poor condition and gear shifting was quite crappy, even with a brand new chain.

Other parts on my bike are starting to die too, and this is a big headache to me because it's costly, and is an unexpected expense - better quality bike parts usually last much more than 3000km mileage. I bought the bicycle 2 years ago with a limited budget so I had to choose a model that skimped on some of the parts. Turned out to be a false economy considering how so many parts have had to be changed since... This includes cranks (old ones weren't strong enough for hard cycling, flexed like a palm tree in a hurricane), grips (uncomfortable), handlebars, stem (those 2 are mainly for improved fit, and also for vainity), seatpost (original was too short), saddle (catastrophic death), tyres(old ones really suck).

And more recently, a chain and a rear derailleur. And soon to come, more worn-out parts.

I therefore map out a roadmap for how I shall replace the parts on my bicycle when they wear out, which would probably be in the order I mention here. I don't think I can do anything to lower the cost, as the following are sort of the minimum parts I need to use. (Or they will wear out after another mere 3000km - damn!)

Operation Replace Worn Parts On Bicycle

XTR chain (list price $40) - done
SRAM Powerlink for easier chain removal (list price $8) - done
|
LX rear derailleur (list price $65) - done
|
LX front derailleur (list price $36) - done
|
Deore shifters (list price - $55) - done
LX brake levers (list price - $34) - done
LX cogset (list price $60) - done
|
Schwalbe Racing Ralph front tyre only (estimated price - $35)
(rear tyre when needed)
|
Shimano M520 SPD pedals (estimated price - $50)
Suitable SPD shoes (estimated price - $100)
|
LX hubs, Mavic X221 rims, normal spokes (estimated price - $250)
|
Koolstop brake pads (estimated price - $30)
(mine are almost new now, but by the time I reach this part of this roadmap, it'll be another 2000km or more?)
|
Fork and probably headset (not decided yet) (estimated price - $350)
|
When parts wear out, repeat iterative loop as needed. Or as prescription orders state: p.r.n.

* List prices refer to the price-tag price. Most shops give a small discount depending on how much you spend there

Exercise Immunology

2005-10-13T19:27:00.000+08:00

Originally posted as a reply on an online forum. Original poster wanted to know how to prevent falling sick easily after several hard bicycle rides in a row. Some terms have been simplified for the lay reader.

No matter how well-conditioned a person is, strenuous exercise will produce changes in the immune systems. There's some studies on how you can overcome this, but those aren't exactly well-researched.

Long-term strenuous exercise reduces your immune cells' effectiveness, but however cause increased amount of antibodies. The overall effect means that the body is particularly weak against viruses.

From a search on Pubmed using 'exercise' and 'immunity' as keywords:

A study claims that eating more glutamine (an amino acid found in proteins) might be able to reduce this effect.

Another few studies mention that supplementation of carbohydrates before and during exercise may preserve the body's immunity. However, the cells involved in viral immunity are affected as much as without carbohydrate supplementation anyway.

Another paper says that vitamin C may help.

Also observe a higher level of hygiene 1-3 days after strenuous exercise, such as avoiding excessive hand contact with others, avoiding crowded and poorly-ventilated areas, sharing of eating utensils, etc. During this period, your immunity will be weaker, so you have to be more cautious.

Summary: Eat more carbohydrates and proteins during and after exercise. Eat vitamin C, drink more water. Observe a higher level of hygiene 1-3 days after exercise.

I don't know if psychiatrists feel it

2005-10-08T14:19:00.000+08:00

I don't know if psychiatrists feel it but what their job entails is extremely depressing and terrifying.

Whenever they diagnose someone with mental illness of any kind, they essentially condemn and write-off someone, making them unable to live like other people do.

Most importantly of all, they become unemployable. If you're familiar with how human resource departments recruit employees, you would find yourself answering this question, be it in the application form or the contract:

Are you or were you suffering from any ... mental illness/condition?

Have you ever suffered or are you suffering from any ... mental illness ?

If you had been or are presently suffering from any ... mental trouble, prolonged ill-health ... etc. please state so)

Have you been or are you suffering from any disease / illness / major medical condition / mental disorder or physical impairment ?

All these are quoted from true application forms for local jobs I could find online. Let's face it, if one has ever had a mental disorder, he stands very little chance at employment. The fact that companies are insisting that their applicants fill up this question, means that they have issues regarding this point.

Morever, there's no way to lie about it. It's illegal to do so and they'll probably find out the truth sooner or later. In Singapore, one does not trust the confidentiality of any personal information. Especially not medical records.

Whenever a psychiatrist gives a diagnosis of mental illness, he wills away much of the patient's life. Using the diagnosis the patient might stand a chance at getting better through medically accepted methods of treatment, but the cost definitely outweighs the benefits.

They can't get a job. They aren't able to support themselves, not because of illness, but because of discrimination. They get further stigmatised when the public assumes that they can't get jobs because they're bums.

It's a known fact that antidepressants only help a fraction of people who are depressed, for example. Schizophrenia and other more severe mental disorders have worse prognosis. Even if they get lucky and become fully cured, you have to realise one thing: Those questions in the job application forms don't only ask whether you are suffering from a mental illness; they also insist on knowing whether you ever had any mental illness at any point of time - regardless of whether you're in complete remission.

Actually I wonder if there are any studies that study if not diagnosing or treating these mentally ill might actually improve their outcome.

Arguably, having a proper diagnosis and treatment might improve the mental illness at hand. However, we know that quality of health not only includes clinical health, but social health too. What good is clinical health if one can't get a proper job or family to maintain a healthy role in society?

Well-intentioned psychiatrists keep on diagnosing people with mental conditions, not knowing that it'll probably harm them more than it'll help them. However, even if they realise the horrors of what is really happenning, there's no way one can just stop and call it a day. These psychiatrists have their own careers to mind of too.

You know and I know that such discrimination shouldn't be done. Nevertheless, society still stigmatises mental illness, and there is crap we can do about it.

Personally, for this reason, I refuse to have anything to do with psychiatry.

Ride Report

2005-10-02T22:36:00.000+08:00

8am - awake - gulped down some breakfast

8.30am - set off for Kallang to meet G and YC. Unlike last time when I used the park connectors, I decided to go via road to save time.

Managed to exceed the Marymount Road speed limit (see previous post) again. Whee!

Thomson Road and Balestier Road are quite empty on a Sunday, so I didn't have much problems. Except I took a turn too early (note to self: Kallang Bahru is NOT Kallang Road) so I found myself on the park connector again. Average speed? A very encouraging 23.0km/h. (I usually hit 19-20 on my usual rides.)

Reached Kallang at an amazing 9.15am. Was supposed to meet G and YC at 10am. So I went around, trying to practice lifting my front wheel. Go in low gear, ready self, pull on handlebars while giving a swift kick on the pedals, land gently, repeat.

After deciding that I can't keep on doing this for 40min without feeling totally bored, I took a seat under the shelter and watched the storm clouds accumulate, while I lazily adjusted my saddle tilt for better comfort.

9.50am - G and YC arrived. And then almost instantly, it rained. Took shelter for maybe 10 min before setting off for Lau Pa Sat. From here onwards, I'm not sure of the time scale.

The route to Lau Pa Sat involves a short ride through the middle of the city, and quickly we found ourselves eating dessert (ice kacang for me) there. Lau Pa Sat on Sunday looks sad, with only a few stalls open and workers using noisy pneumatic drills in a fenced-off area.

The sky looked like it was going to break into a thunderstorm. Nevertheless we pressed on in the drizzle.

Thru Shenton Way, and on to Keppel Road and Telok Blangah Road, in a constant chilling drizzle. We managed to go quite fast, and decided to take a stop in the hawker centre in Harbourfront. It was about noon, so we ate lunch. G and I got ourselves duck rice which tasted quite good, complete with generous servings of duck and herbal soup - score - 4.5/5.

And then we went to Mount Faber proper via Kg Bahru Road. Now you should recall that I described my knee problem two posts ago, and I really did not wish to climb steep slopes and kill my recently-recovered knee.

I decided to sit it out, but staring at an uphill with my other 2 mates up ahead, I couldn't help but want to go on. Decided to downshift my gears all the way to the smallest chainring, and saunter up at a snail's pace

Due to the drizzle the road was wet, and my tyre skidded while I got up my bike. Nothing major, but this feeling is one I haven't got for 2 years. Last time, on my market bike, the chain used to slip on the gears all the time, giving you the feeling of cycling in neutral gear. It's times like this when you appreciate that having a good bicycle really helps alot.

I survived by going at my own slow pace, with no harm to my knee. Mount Faber is steep, but not suprisingly so. The gradient isn't all that bad, but the problem is that it's quite long for a climb, it takes a lot of lung power to be able to sustain a good pace throughout. What I'm used to at Old Upper Thomson Road are steeper or shorter climbs, which are more like interval training as compared to an endurance climb as per Mount Faber.

We then descended and followed the way we took. The traffic was heavier this time round, and we had to squeeze with a number of buses. Was telling YC to be especially wary of the older double deckers with ezpecially poor steering and braking - the Leyland Olympians. These have 2 square grilles at the back, rather than a single rectangular grille with horizontal slots.

Went onto Nicoll Highway, and maintained a brisk pace along its slight uphill gradient. Parted ways after that, while I made my way back home.

Went to Kallang, then Balestier Road, following bus 13's, then 130's route. Was quite lost at a junction, so I ended up taking the wrong lane. I was wondering why 130 moved into a right lane, and I did not know whether to follow suit. I decided not to, and found myself in Moulmein Road. Didn't know where I was going until I saw Centre for Disease Control, National Skin Centre then Tan Tock Seng Hospital. Then I knew that Thomson Road was right around the corner.

That was about the time my speedometer read 0kmh, after having its electrical contacts affected by water. (I subsequently dried it and tested it at home and it works. Now I have greased those contacts and hopefully that will keep the water out.)
Now all I had to do was to follow bus 54's route. Reached Marymount Road totally bonked out, having barely enough energy to maintain a safe pace along the climbs.

Then I took the final right turn into my street, and felt a sense of joy of having completed another long but fun ride. Too bad I can't tell you any of my speedometer's stats as it failed midway into the ride, but I estimate the total distance to be 50km.

Back to school tomorrow. Ugh.

Every time I'm on the roads I'm in mortal peril

2005-09-30T23:36:00.000+08:00

For the past few days while commuting to school by bus, I see a blue sign along Marymount Road, with untidy white-lettering.

It said 'SERIOUS ACCIDENT', and showed a picture of a car colliding with a bicycle. Below it is a telephone number, which witnesses should call.

That stretch of road happened to be where I managed to ride my bicycle and exceed the speed limit on a major road. I was doing 43kmh while the speed limit was 40kmh. This low limit is due to construction works being carried out, thus causing the road to be re-routed into a curve. I had to admit, I had some difficulty following the curve at such a speed. And no I wasn't wearing a helmet. Too uncomfortable. Spoils the fun.

I have not been able to repeat such a feat so far.

I guess I have to be thankful. Some other guy got seriously injured, while I survived. Furthermore, I really doubt that this guy was going above the speed limit.

I've checked the law in Singapore too. There is a clause in the Road Traffic Act about 'rate of speed', and 'motor vehicles', but nothing else, so I guess cyclists are excluded from speed limits.

I know that being so reckless is a death wish, but I don't exactly feel like I have much to lose. I'm not an only son, I'm not some prodigy, I have no dependants, I don't think many people will feel too sad should something happen to me.

Cycling accidents seldom disable too, they kill instantly. (40kmh speed + head impact = confirmed instant death -- if you consider secondary school physics, the impact would be akin to falling head-down onto the road from 6 metres above ground) I won't be much of a liability to my family or nation.

Furthermore, my life isn't exactly comfortable. It's not like I wish to treasure it enough to compromise on the kind of adrenaline-filled fun I have.

BBC Radio 1

2005-09-24T21:39:00.000+08:00

If you think Perfect 10 and Power98 are great, take a listen to:

BBC Radio 1

They play good music, not just the music that they're paid to promote. No advertisements. High quality. Deejays are enthusiastic and are able to connect with the listeners. No pretentious accents (except for the newsreader). A good mix of new music and classics.

You could say that BBC is funded by the taxpayers of the UK. But don't we pay Mediacorp fees, and doesn't Mediacorp get fat funding from the government too? And they get advertising income too. Personally, I think there is no excuse for the pathetic kind of radio we get these days.

Some snippets of my life for the past 2 weeks

2005-09-21T20:23:00.000+08:00

1. The comic below was done in the night of 10 September, and was done on paper that wasn't exactly suited for the job. The ink bled and the paper was yellow, the former having caused a near-disaster on the ink-heavy area of the FDNY jacket, the latter having made scanning a hell of a hard time. But, the speed from conception to uploading, it was something that I was satisfied with.

2. Having some problems with my knee. Some slight pain and a clicking sensation when pedalling steep uphills - the iliotibial band (a knee tendon) is rubbing against the lateral epicondyle of my femur (a convex surface of the thigh bone). This is known as Iliotibial Band Friction Syndrome, and CPTIPS claims that I probably was pedalling with my feet rotated inwards. Sounds plausible, considering the anatomy of the region. When i rotate my foot inwards, this tendon would be lying right on this bony protrusion, leading to friction.
I trust that site. It's written by an American medical doctor who happens to be a cycling enthusiast too.
Am avoiding any knee strain (no cycling, no lower limb exercise) and taking glucosamine pills (medical consensus is that there is growing evidence on its usefulness) for a week to see if it helps.
Added with the sheer number of tasty mooncakes available this year, I'm inevitably cultivating my fat cells.

3. Having no hills to mash up and no adrenaline rush of making it across the junction alive before the amber turns red, I feel disempowered. When my knee gets better I will start on the hills again, albeit gradually.

4. Bought Green Day's American Idiot and The Smith's greatest hits. I didn't didn't think I would like American Idiot at first, due to its rather lacklustre singles. (Which I thought were selected to appease the Good Charlotte- and Simple Plan-crazy teens.) However, on listening to Wake Me Up When September Ends, I liked it just enough to download the album, and that made me realise how well the whole album was done, with themes flowing smoothly from one song to another. The non-album tracks, evidently, are much better. At least to me, a fan of the Dookie-era Green Day.

As for The Smiths, I bought it in full knowledge that I already have heard many of the songs, and like it for Morrissey's ghoulish vocals and its contribution to the evolution of modern-day alternative music. Therefore, nothing much to say here.

5. On a sidenote: I hate it when people ask me to help answer some doubt they have in the lecture or tutorial or whatever, then while I'm explaining halfway, they simply interrupt me to talk to a friend or something. Mid-sentence. Apparently they weren't listening to me, or they don't take me very seriously. If they don't care much for what I have to say, why do they even bother to ask in the first place? Why make me waste my breath?

And when I explain stuff, I may take my own approach and all, but just because it doesn't sound like what the lecturer said, damnit, doesn't mean that it's wrong. If you don't like listening to an alternative approach or viewpoint, don't bother asking me. Ask the lecturer instead. Or your textbook. You should know that that's the way I learn - I make up for my lack of memory of details, with the ability to understand things in my own way. If you prefer to ask someone who is more adept at parroting what the lecturer said, why make me waste my breath?

This makes me wonder: How many words that we speak are actually listened, or understood? How many of those words are actually remembered? Why do we waste our breath?

The Difference

2005-09-11T03:11:00.000+08:00

After toiling for a whole night:

Click on the image to see it in reasonable detail.

Some thoughts of the day

2005-09-10T00:04:00.000+08:00

1. Auditioned the Creative X-Fi sound card at Creative Jurong today. The 3D-spatialiser thing was rather convincing. It seems to alleviate much of the stereo problems of headphone listening - namely, the voice-in-your-head feeling.
However, their Crystaliser engine was disappointing. It disorted the sound, especially the vocals. It's bad enough to make Michael Jackson sound like someone else. This is bad.
Also, there was no mentioned/demostration of how it would help a typical 2-channel speaker system, so it probably isn't of much use to people who don't use multichannel speaker systems.

I went back home and tried connecting my Sennheiser HD497s to a Nvidia Soundstorm based motherboard, and it sounded ok on 2-channel music. The audio samples they had at the X-Fi demo apparently aren't a reflection of the real-life situation. In addition, as for the improvement X-Fi makes in 3D-positioning in games, it is sorta overrated, since they compared software Dolby-Surround rendering vs hardware EAX 3.0 on X-Fi, discounting the fact that there are many chipsets worth comparing that do EAX fine too.

The SRS feature in Windows Media Player may be a viable software-based alternative too, when you set TruBass and WOW effect to 0. System resources hog though.

In short: It may be the best around, but it sure isn't some spectacular improvement, especially if you don't have surround speakers. If you wish to listen to music only, stick to whatever you have. Spend the money on better speakers/headphones/amplifiers instead.

2. Food in Orchard is expensive. Dammit.

3. There's been a lack of good music the past 2 months. And I don't like the new post-punk/lo-fi/whateveryoucallit The Decemberists/The Strokes/Arcade Fire/Franz Ferdinand. I won't say that it sucks, but I tend to find more pleasure listening to their original influences e.g. The Clash, The Sex Pistols, David Bowie, etc.

4. Note to self: Look for Jimmy Corrigan in JE.

5. Note to self 2: Remember to rip another CD's worth of mp3 for my discman.

Cycling saves you money in terms of fuel, but how much exactly?

2005-09-06T21:34:00.000+08:00

Cars need fuel. Humans, surprisingly, do need fuel too. Advocates of cycling as an alternative of driving a car say that you save on fuel costs. Now with the rising oil prices, this discussion is especially timely.

Let's see how much it costs per km of driving in Singapore, on an average car, the either the Toyota Corolla Altis or Mitsubishi Lancer. A typical Japanese 1.6 litre car provides about 8-12km of mileage per litre of petrol. We take the average of 10km/L.

Looking at the current price of petrol at Shell as of 30 August 2005, a medium octane petrol costs exactly $1.844/L.

That works out to $1.844 per 10km, or $0.1844/km.

We now look at bicycles. There are no conclusive figures for calorie expenditure for cycling, so we'll have to make estimations here and there.

http://www.cptips.com/formula.htm provides a plausible formula for the calculation of rider power expended, but it does not factor in undulating terrain and acceleration and climbs. Using the average commuting speed of 25km/h (15mph), I got 349KCal/h using the table.

Adding in my own correction for undulating terrain, the typical poor quality of a commuting bicycle, the effort needed to lug the bicycle to the road in the first place, the loss of energy to the anabolism of new muscles, I'd estimate 600KCal/h. This works out to 24KCal/km.

We now calculate the cost of these 24 KCal. We consider the Oreo, the ubiquitous currency of energy. From http://www.thecaloriecounter.com/Foods/1800/18619/Food.aspx, each Oreo is 52KCal.

A search on Cold Storage shows that a 300g double-pack of Oreos costs $2.00. Each pack contains 13 Oreos so you're getting 26 Oreos for $2.00. 52KCal each Oreo, so it's 0.148 cents per KCal.

We've found out that cycling expends 24KCal/km, thus that's $0.0355/km.

$0.1844/km for car, $0.0355/km for bicycle. That's a 5-times difference. But wait! A car can seat 5 people max. So, with a load of 5 people, it's only $0.03688/km, and that's insignificantly more expensive, in terms of fuel alone.

In the real world though, it's more realistic to assume that the average car has 3 people in it. thus, $0.0615/km for a car with 3 people in it.

My 30km daily bus ride costs $1.34. That's $0.0447/km.

$0.0355/km - fuel cost for a cyclist who runs on Oreos

$0.1844/km - fuel cost for a car that runs on Shell 95 Octane petrol

$0.0615/km - fuel cost per person, for same car with 3 people in it

$0.0447/km - cost of public transport (bus)

Cycling is still the cheapest, but not markedly so. Of course, this excludes equipment costs, parking costs, taxes, blah blah. However, if you take into account that taking a bus needs 0 investment in equipment or whatever, it may be the most cost-effective as a whole.

Teenage angst has paid off well, now I'm bored and old (Kurt Cobain)

2005-09-05T21:43:00.000+08:00

Thousands die in New Orleans and I'm amused, at how pathetic the USA is. I wonder if they'll blame the Al Qaeda for that Weapon of Meterological Disruption.

A hundred people died in an Indonesian air crash and I'm amused, at how it's probably going to be due to some negligence or corruption. It's so expected of Indonesia.

TT Durai's passport is seized, pending further investigations. I'm gloating.

I think I've earned the right to be cynical. So many things have happened in my life, in the past few years, that made me realise how flawed up my idealism is, and how absurd humanity is, and how little goodness there is in humankind.

Being in junior college showed me how young 16- and 17-year olds are able to backstab and sell their dignity just for some selfish benefits.

Being enlisted in the army showed me how sadistic and evil people get when their power is left unchecked.

Being in the adult world showed me how bad working life can get if you're a lowly temporary worker forced to do the things no one else in the company would even touch.

Being more educated on the political situation in Singapore showed me that having any idealism to improve the country is hopeless. It is far much easier to simply migrate. And safer too. Lawsuits and politics are intertwined these days.

Being familiar with how others live, show me that money isn't everything, but merely almost everything. How often do guys in Singapore get hitched if they are unable to afford a car? Girls don't need love and affection as much as they need pampering. And pampering is costly.

Oh by the way, if you've managed to read through all this drivel, you're probably a friend who's on the same wavelength as me, and I appreciate it if you would just go watch a movie with me or just hang out and stone during the weekend. I haven't been out for 3 weekends, except for solo bicycle rides into the nature reserve.

Thank you.

Life is absurd

2005-09-04T22:28:00.000+08:00

Human beings are essentially biased, how can we possibly trust ourselves to make objective choices and live with them?

How do you define what life is, when you have nothing to compare it with?

How can we possibly call a foetus with a barely-formed neurological system, a healthy young man, and a dying semi-comatose elderly woman, equally alive?

Life is absurd.

I'm still alive

2005-08-27T20:57:00.000+08:00

Despite a bad upper respiratory tract infection, possibly having spread to my bronchi, I'm still alive. I sure hope it's not some deadly bug like Mycoplasma pneumoniae or whatever though. A flip through a microbiology textbook shows us the myriad of bugs that we can die from.

So this post's mainly just a shout out to show that my existence, as of this moment, is still mostly intact. And to prove that this blog isn't just going to die with a lazily-done quiz as its swan song.

Well, how's my life? I've been trying to keep myself healthy by increasing my level of physical activity, which paradoxically ended up with me being sick alot more than usual. At least, that's how my theory goes. Physical stress can do nasty things to one's immune system.

School is ok. This year's content, despite being heavier, is infinitely more fun. Immunology is particularly relevant in present days, as a lot of new breakthroughs are done in this field. Immunology helps one comprehend microbiology, pathology, community medicine and even cancer. Pharmacology sucks though, it's just a mishmash of biochemistry, cellular biology and receptor theory. Can't say much about neuroscience though, as all I had were a couple of introductory lectures.

As for friendships and people in general, same old, same old. School is great, but the people in school, I can't really identify with them as well as I think I should. Unlike the many others there, I don't study medicine to fufill some goal of extreme self-achievement or whatever. I don't do it for the perceived prestige or money. I do it because I see interest in it. What can be more important to life, than the science of preserving life?

I've also found a pressure, since long ago, to spread the word on keeping healthy. Ever so often, I find familes, friends or even myself in situations where a tip or two would be handy. Thus I have always ended up repeating the studies and tips I read in the newspapers to my family and friends. After some time, I sought more sources to better myself at this, such as reading medical journals and books, and I realise that I might as well make this interest of mine, my career.

Yeah, cynics will laugh. There is an unwritten law here that one can't express an honest interest in medicine, for he would be assumed to be lying through his teeth. I've made that mistake before.

But what matters is, I've made a choice to study medicine, and I won't let detractors get in the way.

I am forced to do this, so don't expect totally honest answers

2005-08-15T22:33:00.000+08:00

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:
1. KC
2. K.. C....
3. Mispronounced version of the former

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD:
1. KC
2. DM3500
3. (top secret)

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1. i have 2 eyes
2. i have a mouth
3. i have a nose

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU DON'T LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1. my eyes dont have stalks that stretch 30cm
2. i dont have adamantium claws
3. i cant regenerate health spontaneously

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:
1. frugality
2. chinese new year decorations
3. rice, i hate to eat rice

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:
1. going to school only to realise that i was naked and it was exam day, oh wait that was a dream
2. large insects
3. feeling invisible

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:
1. pen
2. money
3. music

THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:
1. a smirk
2. i wear out my tyres does that count
3. brake pads too

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS OR MUSICAL ARTISTS:
1. lostprophets (it's lost prophets, not lost prophets or losprophets dammit!)
2. manic street preachers
3. coldplay
this list isnt definite

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE SONGS:
1. Slow Motion - Third Eye Blind
2. Closing Time - Semisonic
3. Spies - Coldplay
this list isnt definite

THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP:
1. to be acknowledged
2. to be understood
3. to be appreciated

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE (in no particular order):
1. i have no girlfriend
2. my girlfriend is cute
3. i have no girlfriend

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE PREFERRED SEX THAT APPEAL TO YOU:
1. not pretentious
2. not ugly
3. has an appeal that is beyond words

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:
1. listening to good music
2. mashing on the pedals of my bicycle
3. wasting my time on the internet

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:
1. play drums
2. punch the teeth out of some people
3. lie on the bed

THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING/YOU'VE CONSIDERED:
1. mortician
2. novelist
3. medical doctor

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:
1. nil
2. nil
3. nil

THREE KIDS' NAMES YOU LIKE:
1. dunno
2. dunno
3. dunno

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
1. write a will
2. give funeral instructions
3. make sure they give me sufficient morphine in my drip

THREE WAYS THAT YOU ARE STEREOTYPICALLY A BOY:
1. i have male genitalia
2. my choices are often very practical
3. i don't bitch

THREE WAYS THAT YOU ARE STEREOTYPICALLY A GIRL:
1. im not a girl
2. im not a girl
3. im not a girl

THREE FEMALE CELEB CRUSHES:
1. Angelina Jolie
2. Angelina Jolie
3. Angelina Jolie

THREE PEOPLE THAT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE TAKE THIS QUIZ NOW:
1. Bozo
2. Soon Bing
3. Sausage of Harosingapore fame

Going paperless and coming back

2005-08-09T21:56:00.000+08:00

Having taken a short break from blogging, I have made some decisions which would affect this blog.

Due to the poor readership of this blog, I found out that whatever I did, apparently didn't go down very with readers. I have to be honest to myself, that what I write - my style, my content and my anecdotes that I have to offer to readers - isn't what most readers are looking for.

I could whore myself to public demand, and write some controversial-for-the-sake-of-it drivel, or pretend to be bigger than myself and write about myself as though I were some primma-donna popular guy. I could, but I prefer to be myself.

This led me to decide to do something on a larger scale- albeit on paper and not in an online format. There's a certain romanticism to having a pen-and-paper journal. (Even in this day and age, people sing songs about diaries, not blogs, e.g. Bend Fold's Trusted and Travis's Dear Diary.)

If there's any stuff I would like to share here, having a pen-and-paper journal also ensures that what you see here is a second draft, not some mindless rough notes.

To my readers, thank you for the time you've spent following the mundane details of my life, and for those useful feedback on my comics.

This is not the end. I will return here now and then, to share the gems from my pen-and-paper journal.

How I spent my past few days

2005-08-02T18:45:00.000+08:00

I've lost much of my will to blog after the continuously poor readership of about 3-4 unique hits a day. However, I shall still fufill my own intentions of keeping a log of my life, and I'll do it in photographic form.

I've been riding my steed for quite a few times lately.

Went to RI on Sunday afternoon with a friend and witnessed Dr William Tan setting his world record for longest distance covered in a wheelchair ultramarathon.

The crowd was rather large and enthusiastic, but that is to be expected.

I've also been reading this book. It's his funniest ever. Go read it if you can get your hands on it.

Ben Fold's best work ever. If you like the music of REM and Five for Fighting, there is no doubt that you'll appreciate this.

Shop yourself silly!

2005-07-29T23:27:00.000+08:00

Popular Bookshop Bras Bahasa branch has a 25% discount for members and 20% discount for non-members, up till 31st July. Shop yourself silly!

Old Upper Thomson Road

2005-07-28T22:22:00.000+08:00

Back to cycling after a very long streak of bad afternoon weather.

The red Alfa 156 (Selespeed! A.k.a. semi-automatic gearbox. Unlike normal automatic transmissions, it uses an electronically-controlled manual gearbox, thus eliminating the power losses normally found in a torque convertor of an automatic transmission.) is there again, I wonder if that guy drives that area every day just for the hell of it. An Alfa sounds like farting when revved, I found out today.

The monkeys that reside in the jungle flanking the road are hungry. They're hungrier towards the end of the week, since the passers-by usually feed them on the weekend.

I think my handlebars are becoming loose. They creak when I do hard climbs. Those kind of climbs that make you go 'Oh fuck.' when you approach them realise that it's so steep you can't see anything beyond that.

An European tourist asked me for directions to Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3, managed to help her, being familiar with the roads of Ang Mo Kio. (I lived there as a little kid.)

OK. This post didn't make any sense.

Comic cancelled

2005-07-28T01:36:00.000+08:00

The-comic-which-was-never-named is now cancelled, as I can't justify such a great commitment with only a small readership. It takes about 40 minutes to do up a comic, and it's pretty depressing to know that only a few people read it.

Anyway, the last comic's 2nd picture was actually traced from a photo of a komodo dragon so it was sort of a cheat. If you want to know, the tools of the trade are: A4 paper, mechanical pencil, plastic eraser, Zebra marker, Pilot G2 gel pen, a scanner, and Photoshop to crop and cut-and-paste different drafts. I pencil in a draft, ink over it with marker and pen, erase the pencil markings, and the rest of it is done digitally.

Now I'll have to think of new stuff to blog about.

Lizards

2005-07-27T00:33:00.000+08:00

I apologise

2005-07-26T01:43:00.000+08:00

For drawing in my previous comic, Dan Brown's pathetically horrible bestseller, The Da Vinci Code. I read it for 10 minutes, skimmed through some random pages in another 5 minutes, and decided that it was pretentious, frivolous fodder.

What do we have? Gunfights for the sake of gunfights. Shameless fictional extrapolations of religiously sensitive facts. Shallow, faceless characters. Latin name-dropping, just for that added dash of mysticism.

His prose is nothing to speak of. It sounds so dry and descriptive, it reads like deaf man's narration of a film. His sentence structures are so unvaried, it's as though a 12 year-old wrote it (with the help of a thesaurus, of course).

And what's with all those pseudo-religious stuff? Conversations and actions that had never happened, based loosely on some obscure view of Christianity. That's enough to confuddle our religious friends (I not religious though) badly enough such that they can't tell the difference between the proven facts, accepted beliefs or outright fiction. How does Dan Brown sleep at night, knowing that he's doing the ultimate literary crime of mixing up fact and fiction?

I borowed the book expecting to hate it and my prophecy came true.

Rainy Night

2005-07-25T20:21:00.000+08:00

Inspired by American Elf

2005-07-24T23:33:00.000+08:00

American Elf

Bad memories are meant to be discarded

2005-07-23T21:20:00.000+08:00

That's why they're not going to be recorded here. Today was a sucky day.

Depressed.

2005-07-23T01:43:00.000+08:00

Blew my nose just now, lots of mucus and crap. Throat is slightly uncomfortable. A giddying kind of headache.

And I feel down.

I can't even sign my signature consistently for that bank thing.

The room is in a mess. What a sad state.

So alone.

And it's unlikely that I'd meet WZ for the Cowboy Bebop discs tomorrow.

Gonna read read read the graphic novel autobiography I borrowed today. And 2 other novels. And Sartre's Nausea.

Sick, and tired, but I can't sleep.

What's the meaning of it all? We'll never know. But we're saddled with the responsibility of not letting anyone down.

Th main National Library reopened today. But it'll never be the same as the old one with its cosy fiction section and quiet surroundings. Better than nothing.

Everything's better than nothing, I guess. That is why we live on.

And my nose is starting to clog up again. Pity poor sick KC.

Another slow day on blogosphere

2005-07-22T00:40:00.000+08:00

Nothing much to say, since no one else's posting.

Ghost in the Shell was a disappontment. True, it was groundbreaking, but it's not the epic that it's hyped up to be. Honestly, Appleseed (same guy wrote the story for GITS and Appleseed) had tighter pacing and a more engaging world than GITS, and I have to say I didn't even like Appleseed since it didn't offer anything new to the world of anime other than its near-perfect action scenes.

I guess that anime has progressed quite alot in the 10 or so years after GITS, and it should be judged on the basis of that.

Blogs Freak Me Out

2005-07-21T02:02:00.000+08:00

Especially when you came across this blog of a teacher who's teaching in your old school. And his students read. And he's comfortable with that.

If any of my ex-students ever came to this blog and read, I'd probably freak out and do a Gerald Liew. (Gerald Liew used to have his blog somewhere else, but on being mentioned in the Straits Times one morning, he promptly wiped out his old blog and created a new one a few days later in another place.)

On the other hand, I read the blog of 2 ex-students. What goes around, will eventually come around, and I'll die a slow painful death as my last remaining shreds of privacy gets eroded.

On another note, if you read my previous posts:
Xenosaga the Animation ended much better than it started, but it still irks me that it doesn't follow the original storyline plotted out in Episode I (Eldrige crashing onto Earth with Deus) at all. The rest of it is pretty average, if you're looking for big mechas you'll be disappointed. If you like gigantic spaceships you'll like it.

I've completed Max Payne. The tedium sort of tapers off towards the end, they probably put in alot more effort in the last of 3 parts of the game. It's a good but not excellent game.

On yet another note:
Aztech ADSL modem/router was fried, had to get a new one.

Went to Thomson Plaza Burger King to redeem the free breakfast coupon taht I got from buying that Harry Potter book. The Burger King there doesn't serve breakfast.

Took bus 980 to Sim Lim Square, thinking that I could try my luck nearer there. There was this building near Sim Lim Square with a Burger King signboard, but sadly it wasn't open yet.

Walked all the way to Plaza Singapura Burger King. Finally redeemed the sad looking corossiant with egg and cheese in it, and a flat tasting coffee. Well, I shouldn't have bothered with gimmicks...

Walked back to Sim Lim Square again. Bought the new modem/router. Non-wireless because I can't justify the expense yet. And a USB cable for the camera and 2 RJ-45 connectors for future use. Oh, and a screen protector for my camera.

Took the MRT back to Bishan to waste my $12 Popular voucher and a few more dollars on a pack of 6 files and 10 CD-Rs. You can imagine how tough it is to get up the bus holding all that. But hey, I have quite an ok sense of balance. I think I have enough files to last me to year 3 now.

Back home, and the router was surprisingly tough to configure. UPnP yielded inconsistent results, had to set DMZ on the main PC and use direct port forwarding on the rest. Camera screen protector was decent. As for the USB cable, er, it worked.

Later in the night, had to recrimp a LAN cable because this new router is no longer compatible with cross cables (if you don't know what I mean, don't bother, it's not important), so I had to spend like more than half an hour doing my first solo crimping (the previous 2 times I took the role of observer, then assistant), and thankfully it worked out on the first try. It's at this point of time I was wondering why I didn't bother with wireless right from the beginning.

Wires are irritating. Somehow, human anatomy seems alot more intuitive than mucking around with dozens of cables with different-sized and different-shaped connectors.

And I remembered that I have not returned my library book. And fortunately, at least I'm not bored enough to blog about my dreams of wielding that black pistol and having been forced to perform the ultimate judgement on some of the people I know.

I Sympathise with Adolf Hitler (edited for clarity)

2005-07-18T18:06:00.000+08:00

Every few days, whether in the press or when teenagers converse casually or anywhere, I see or hear the unconditional denoucing of Hitler, the Fascists, Nazis and any related items, concepts or people.

Human beings are too eager to villainise people, rather than their actions. Did they ever consider that Saddam Hussein's reign of Iraq was admirably successful despite the circumstances? Do they even know why they villainise Hitler?

I bet not. It's true that Hitler commanded the death of 6 million Jews. It's true that Hitler practised extreme racial discrimination. But how can one condemn Hitler without knowing his motivations?

Hitler's motivations were mostly honourable. He killed the Jews because he felt that it would be better for his own country. The atrocities that he commanded his men to do, it was all in the name his country. He logicalised that certain genes were superior, and wanted his nation to be built upon these superior genes. He felt that a dictatorial government would be beneficial to the country. And he built up the German economy after the national humiliation Germany received after the Treaty of Versailles. Maybe he was power-hungry, we'll never know, but in the end, most of what he did, seemed to be for Germany rather than for himself. He has had his fair share of struggles.

Now, compare this with the typical Indonesian corrupt government official, who squanders public funds and is willing to let millions of its own citizens suffer in poverty (and therefore poor sanitation, nutrition and health, and sickness and death), just so that that official can reap some benefits?

I'd have to say, Hitler would be the lesser of 2 evils, simply because he had honourable intentions.

Speaking of honourable intentions, the Chinese generally consider Qin Shi Huang as an honourable ruler who unified China. Why can't we speak the same of Hitler, when his intentions were equally honourable? Many have died under Qin Shi Huang's rule, and it is no secret that he had used tyrannical and murderous methods to enforce his policies.

It's more just to speak of the value of a person in terms of how honourable and selfless his motivations were, rather than he-killed-many-people-therefore-he-must-be-bad. Ironically, the very people who condemn Hitler probably do not consider executioners and judges as murderers. Whether a judge sentences someone to death, or Hitler sentences a Jew to death, they are both done based on their idea of justice. I doubt the naysayers are able to justify their own double standards.

Let's do away with traditional good/bad dichotomies, and make moral judgements based on honour, intention and motivations. It takes more than a tabulated list of: death, black, dictatorship = bad, life, white, freedom = good, to make moral judgements.

Nothing to blog

2005-07-17T23:02:00.000+08:00

I refuse to blog about Harry Potter because there will always be people who haven't read, I don't want to spoiler it for them, not even 1 year later.

Played alot of Max Payne today. 4 more levels to completion!

Xenosaga the Animation is becoming progressively dreary. Boring plot, characters with stifled emotions, stereotypes. Yawn.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

2005-07-16T08:06:00.000+08:00

Half asleep. Blurry eyes. Stumbled onto the bus.

An empty shopping mall. Otherwise-empty, rather. 6.58am

Shutters open. 7.01am. About 10 people in front of me in the queue. Got my book at 7.12am. They took like 1 minute per customer because they couldn't figure out the how to key in the stuff at the cashier.

7.42am. Back at home, while the Britons were still waiting for the bookstores to open (they start at 12.01am GMT, that's 8.01am here.)

Today is a good day

2005-07-16T00:01:00.000+08:00

Woke up as late as I wanted to.

Read a couple of chapters from that Bill Bryson book, I want to remember the stuff in it, so I want to focus my efforts on only 1 or 2 chapters ever day. It's good to know all about science. Am particularly fascinated by Thomas Midgely, who was the inventor of not just 1 but 2 of the greatest environmental evils - Leaded petrol and CFC. It must be extremely sad being an accidental villain, when he never meant to ause the world any harm. In fact, he invented CFCs as a safe substitute to highly flammable pressurised gases.

Played a few stages of Max Payne, a third person shooter from year 2000. It's graphics were really impressive for its time, and it was a game that was anotable for its 'bullet time' mode, where you can slow time down for about 15 seconds, such that you can fire at will and dodge bullets at the same time. It's nothing spectacular, really, in fact it gets boring. Shoot, kill, move on. Once you master the art of viewing beyond the corners it gets pretty dull. Grenedes and molotov cocktails are unusually powerful in this game, but hard to come by too.

Watched episode 2 of Xenosaga The Animation. One of those B grade ones, only relevant for people who are in the know of the plot of Xenogears or Xenosaga. Otherwise, there really isn't any point watching it.

Fiddled with the guitar a little. Fingers seem sluggish today.

Went out to J8 for the meet-up-with-Mr-Ong-for-dinner with a number of batchmates. Mr Ong's our Chemistry teacher for Secondary 3/4. Turnout of 9 was okay, not impressive, but it worked. Dinner at Cafe Cartel was great. Spent the time catching up with 1. army life 2. rumours on certain socially-deviant individuals 3. further education. Time flies when having meet-ups of >4 people. There's simply so much to talk about. Snapped several hurried shots.

The group. I'm not inside this photo. My face is sacred. Don't bother looking for it on this blog.

Everyone is happy.

Went to Secret Recipe next for drinks. Espresso milkshake was terribly sweet, it'll probably cause me diabetes in the very long term or something. Mused about how they came up with such restaurant names. Tried having 2 people to pick random words, one an adjective and another a noun. Screwey Couch. Silver Banana. Concluded that the restaurant name Secret Recpie wasn't random.

11pm. Late. Very. Parted ways with the MRT-taking majority. (I live in Bishan, so well, this already is my MRT stop.) Some durian seller seemed to call out to me, in a manner that seemed slightly lacking in politeness, for reasons unknown to me. They were closing. I have no idea. Felt that it was weird so ignored it.

Interchange had a blockout. Another weirdity.

Student in school uniform boarding the bus alone at 11pm. I don't think CCAs end that late? Another weirdity.

The roads were really empty for a friday night. Another weirdity.

But it was a good day. Photos will be up soon.

My Room

2005-07-15T00:36:00.000+08:00

It's normally very messy.

School stuff. Can't really make out any organelles in that electromicrograph.

My clothes. I'm too lazy to put them in the cupboard. On the door is some relic from 2001, some inspirational thing that my Physics teacher gave everyone in our batch.

Gorillaz.

The acoustic guitar, and Gorillaz again.

I read these.

Screws and whatever remaining from my project to combine void-deck computer parts with my old computer.

www.blogger.com

Neon Genesis Evangelion

2005-07-14T00:21:00.000+08:00

is an anime series from the mid 90s that contains so much religious, psychological and existential themes that you'll feel mindraped by the end of it.

Don't even try to identify with the main character Shinji Ikari. If you try to, you'll see your very own inner demons appearing one by one. And you'll realise that you're as screwed up as Shinji. Or even worse. Cowardice. The desire of being accepted by others. Insecurity. Fear. Why do we think we do the things we do? Are they just excuses? Do we really do the things we do to fill up a much more subconscious void?

Fear. We fear decisions. Why? There's no way to comfortably make any decision, if there simply aren't enough facts. This happens all the time. But we still need to decide. And being forced to make decisions like this hurts alot. Jean-Paul Sartre described it; it's one of the main concepts of existentialism.

I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away! was what Shinji said to himself.

Easier said than done.

Hello cruel world

2005-07-12T00:42:00.000+08:00

A world where humans mean less and less to each other.
A world where humans spend more hours on income tax forms than on cancer research.
A world where humans treat fellow humans like dirt.
A world where humans are given unconditional rights to kill other humans.
A world where humans can betray each other.
A world where humans embrace instant gratification more so than anything.

Maybe there really isn't much hope for mankind. Tear me to shreds if you want, I've already forsaken my ideals and hopes for whatever purpose humanity wishes me to fufill.

Outdated phone lists. Friends? Used to be, hard to tell now, probably somewhere else, someone else. The real world is a very lonely place. No one hears you fall, it's too crowded and noisy. And I don't mean anything to anyone, or to anyone's existence.

I don't feel like I'm here. Maybe feel is the wrong word. What do we make of existence? No one is indispensable. Lincoln murdered. JFK murdered. America still stands. Thought is painful. Bad memories. Nuclear leak. No way to contain.

Does anyone care? A few do. I hope. I can't disappoint them. It's not fair to them.

I live my life for those who choose to live. I've already relinquished my choice. They deserve my assistance. The most I can do with a life I don't want is to give it away to those who want it.

Philosophy

2005-07-10T22:35:00.000+08:00

is a load of bullcrap. Aristotle, Decartes, Plato, Socrates, Sartre, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, etc. What's the point of philosophy, when in the end, nothing matters except what you choose to make out of your life?

Being a Relief Teacher

2005-07-09T22:55:00.000+08:00

Is one job that took me alot of courage to take up. I mean, I'm this antisocial guy who is the last person anyone would think of capable of being a teacher. Yes. They still laugh at me. Damn you naysayers.

Anyway it's like this. Teaching is a hectic job. There's lesson planning to do, there's teaching itself, there's marking, there's preparation of teaching materials and there's other paperwork. Relief teachers, fortunately do have to do those last 2 tasks. Still, there are days I leave school at 4pm, and that makes a day as long as the typical 8.00pm-5.00pm. The proper teachers do work longer than that, which really says much about how the the myth of short working hours for teachers is total bull.

A typical day goes like this:
7.00am: reach school.

7.25am: flag raising.

7.40am: reach staffroom, get the stuff ready for the next lesson. T minus 70 minutes.

7.50am: now that I've flipped through the materials, I do a quick revision on those topics. T minus 60 minutes.

8.00am: Have to book the periods with the lab technician, and clarify some timetable details. T minus 50 minutes.

8.15am: Flipped thru my own A-level text for details of mitosis and meiosis, and decided to use photomicrographs in the book for explaination. T minus 35 minutes.

8.25am: Ruminated over the whole lesson plan. No way I am able to explain meiosis, in addition to vegetative propagation in plants, mechanism of dispersal of rhizomes and runners, advantages of vegetative propagation, basic concepts of heredity, 5 question on vegetative propagation, stages of mitosis in relation to cell organelles, in one hour. Gonna leave out meiosis. Looking at the mitosis/meiosis handouts that I myself had received as a student four years ago, I wonder if the students will ever understand it. I was rather sure I fell asleep the time Mrs Low explained it to my class. T minus 25 minutes.

8.40am: Handouts. Check. Whiteboard markers. Check. Red pen. Check. Knowing how to start the topic. Check. All systems functional. Rehearsing the lesson in my mind a few times. Knowledge on how to handle rowdy Sec 4 students in the lab? None. I will survie, I hope. T minus 10 minutes.

8.50am: Blast off. Went to the classroom to drag their sluggish asses down to the lab.

9.00am: They finally stroll into the lab. The discipline these days certainly isn't as good as in my time.

9.10am: Trying to explain the basics of vegetative propagation in plants, mechanism of dispersal of rhizomes and runners, advantages of vegetative propagation, basic concepts of heredity, 5 question on vegetative propagation. They seem to understand, despite my shoddy diagrams on the board. Oh no. They treat me more of a friend than a teacher, due to my lack of seniority, in terms of age. Some class monkeys ask me lame questions. A couple of inquisitive and truly interested guys prove that there is still hope for humanity.

9.30am: First casualtys appear. Potato cut into two by a student, a couple of onions destroyed, due to some curious students. I was guilty of this in secondary school myself, so I couldn't get myself to threaten the class or etc. Boys will be boys. I think the students understand what I had explaiend to them. Calling out students row by row to explain those mitosis photomicrographs to them. Leaving them to look at Bioviewer slides by themselves automatically means that they won't learn anything anyway.

9.45am: Rushed through with the 3rd and 4th row together. Explained chromosomes, haploid, diploid, gametes, sperm, eggs, fertilisation, etc etc. The basics. Didn't occur to me to leave more time for those basic concepts. (I was a curious student in my time, already knew such stuff through self reading, before Mrs Low taught my class mitosis.)

9.50am: Bell rings. Trying to ask the students to clear up their mess in the lab was futile. Forced them to hand in their worksheets. Some people simply can't be bothered - it isn't a graded assignment. They left. Disaster scene. Damaged specimens. Forceps and knives on the table. (Those were certainly not necessary for that practical; I never asked them to manipulate the specimens, let alone take those tools out.) Helped to clear up some of their stuff, to ease the trouble of the lab tech. I feel responsible for it. For not being threatening to them.

10.05am: Trundled back to the staff room in defeat. The Sec 4s did learn their stuff, but left a gigantic mess in the process. But I was guilty of that when I was a Sec 4 student myself. Boys will be boys. What can I say? TIme to prepare for the next class...

But the feeling when they tell you that they like your teaching, and they claim that they want me to stay rather than have their usual teacher back, etc, those make me feel that my efforts are recognised. The feeling that I meant something to their lives because they say hi to me along the corridors. In the end it's not about the money. It's about being responsible for their education, albeit just for a week.

If it was about the money, I'd have applied through MOE and got a relief teaching job for other generic schools for the same pay. No stuff to mark, no syllabus to follow, just act as a babysitter and leave at 1.30pm sharp everyday. But my previous data entry clerk job taught me that I can only work effectively in an environment that I feel needed, in a job that I feel has meaning to it.

It was a great 12 classes, 3 topics, 300 or so students and 3 weeks. I'm rather proud of myself for having pulled it off successfully, more successfully than I had expected at first.

If you were one of my students and googled this or something, I'm not surpised. I'm a blog addict too, so I have probably seen your blog too, since I've stumbled upon a few of yours so far. I've even read 1 comment about myself, I'm glad it wasn't bad.

Don't ever think your blogs are immune from the eyes of anyone. Your family, your siblings, your bosses, etc. Google is a very powerful too indeed.

If you were one of my students and you're reading this, kindly post on my tagboard. It's too empty and needs some filling up. Thank you!

25 RSS blog feeds and 0 new entries

2005-07-09T00:36:00.000+08:00

It's a slow day on the Blogosphere. I respect that.

A day of silence to those whose lives were snuffed out by the atrocities in London.

100 Hits!

2005-07-07T21:19:00.000+08:00

Yaay?

Today I...

2005-07-07T20:17:00.000+08:00

There are a couple of topics I'm gonna save for later, so right now I really don't have anything thought-provoking or inspiring to blog about. What would a blogger do? There's two options:

1. Post compilations of links to stupid flash animations and lame jokes. This will only show the whole blogsphere how geeky and bored the blogger is, and doesn't serve much purpose.

2. Do a Today I... post. This is almost equally pointless, but at least it allows the reader a glimpse into your real life, which is sure to excite those who pore over gossip pages daily. ("Ooh! Angelina Jolie adopted an Ethiopian kid!") I'm not a celebrity. My life isn't all that wonderful, but hey, the fact that you're still reading this proves that you'd want to hear more... right?

Today I woke up at 9.45am. For a day when there's no school or work, this is an Amazing Feat. I usually wake up after 11am on these days.

Had a light breakfast, filled up my water bottles and went for a short ride on my bicycle. Being totally out of shape and out of form, I decided not to hit the roads but to do progressive training in the park and park connector nearby. The details are boring.

All that's notable is that there's this relatively new cycle path in Bishan Park, and it's really curvy. So if you ride on that path at 30kmh or thereabouts, you'll have to practise your handling skills, such as, taking the apex of the corner and etc. Sorta like Initial D. Enter the corner from the outer side of the bend - at a reasonable speed of course, steer to the apex, and start accelerating again. If you find yourself going too near the other edge of the path, slow down a little. You'll still crash if you make a mistake, but at least you'll survive.

The rest of the day involved IRCing, and a couple of notable things.

1. Restringing my guitar.

Restringing an acoustic guitar is no easy feat. First of all, the strings are steel, so if they fly into your face it's not going to be nice. If they fly out under tension, it's definitely going to be an A&E case.

The old strings are now black, grimy and sound terribly dull, since they have been in use for over a year. I took out my 1 year-old pack of strings from my drawer and did the sordid work.

Removed the strings, cleaned the fretboard and the rest of the guitar. Saw that the tuning posts have loose screws. Turned out that the screwholes were semi-stripped with tension and age. Solution? Add a little of Liquid Nail glue and hope it holds up.

Restringing and retuning was a frustrating job, but when the guitar was in 1 piece again, it felt good to be playing a guitar that sounds much more lively.

2. Watched Neon Genesis Evangelion

Arguably one of the greatest anime series around. It's a post-apocalyptic, religion-themed tale of robots piloted by 14 year-old kids, in an attempt to defeat what seems like alien invaders. I like it for the way it engages the viewer to empathise with the characters. That's one very big factor when I decide if I like a show anyway.

Anyway that Shinji Ikari guy is some cool guy that I'd like to be, if I could be an anime character. Of course Ash Ketchum would be great too, but, but, he's just too happy. An overly happy life just doesn't mean much, does it?

OK. So that's my day. Pretty boring huh. Or do you want me to include how many times I showered and what I ate?

Stunted growth

2005-07-06T21:49:00.000+08:00

Relief teaching at my alma mater taught me several things about myself:

1. I'm rather more jaded and cynical about everything than I was at 16. Ambition and hopes have took a nosedive, ever since my so-called future is already more or less charted. With the course that I'm studying in university, what else can I really be?

However, I think the 16 year-old version of me would have been proud of the things that I had managed to do in those 4 years after that. For example, I doubt that the 16 year-old me would have expected me to be capable enough to do relief teaching now.

2. Apart from that, I really haven't changed much in the 4 years since I had graduated from there. I look the same. I'm still 1.75m. I'm still of more or less the same personality. At home I still act the way I did when I was 16. I talk to current 16 year-old students like friends, probably as well as I do with my 20 year-old friends. And I still can't grow much facial hair. 1/2 strands on my chin doesn't count.

3. But emotionally, I guess, I've matured. That's one thing that definitely happens when one grows up. I'm definitely more responsible for my choices than in the past. Decisions are no longer made for instant gratification, but for the future.

4. All in all, I didn't change that much since age 16, as compared to my schoolmates and friends. I dunno if it's good or bad.

Many have moved on to more sophisticated hobbies and music tastes and etc, but I still find joy in instant messaging on the internet, and listening to Yellowcard and Green Day. My peers have progressed to fine dining and expensive sports like wakeboarding, and sophisticated music like Norah Jones and Michael Buble.

OK. Actually this is bad. Not having much common interests with my peers anymore isn't a comfortable thing.

5. When I was 16 I made a vow to be someone the 16 year old version of me wouldn't be disgusted with. I'm glad I haven't broken that vow.

Really, you want to know why music in blogs suck?

2005-07-04T11:49:00.000+08:00

We'll do away with the formalities. I've included possibly the most irritating, loud, obnoxious, disgustingly popular song of the last decade, just to let you know why people with embedded music in their blogs should be hanged.

Oh, did I mention? I encoded the file at the lowest possible quality, just for the added ear-piercing, blaring effect of badly-encoded mp3s ubiquitous on blogs.

Don't worry, this irritation won't last for long. I hate it myself.

(Music was removed on 7/7/2005, to prevent myself from going insane from repeated listens to it.)

The 12 songs of my mid-teens

2005-07-01T21:44:00.000+08:00

Nick Hornby wrote a book a couple of years ago, titled 31 Songs. It's a compedium of the songs that had mattered the most to him, that contains enough significance for him to write a complete page for each song. I wonder how he had cut his list to 31 though. If I were to chronicle my whole life, I'd limit myself to nothing less than 3 songs for every year of my life.

What I have here are 12 of my own favourite songs, selected both for personal significance, and relevance to the 1999-2001 period. It's about my teenhood, the things that had mattered to me when I was a teenager of 14-16.

It starts with:

1. Third Eye Blind - Jumper

This song was originally released in 1997, and I didn't pay much attention to it back then when I bought the album; afterall, I was mainly interested in another song, Semi-charmed Life.

Being 14 and having delusions of maturity was a bad idea. This was what teenhood did to me. Perhaps it was my desire for attention, or a craving of what existence really meant, so I delved into ideas of existence, and the lack of it.

Jumper is a song penned out like a letter to a friend, the persona telling that friend how he tries to understand his motivations for suicide, and the personal attempting to give that friend some advice, although he admits not knowing much about his situation.

Being the withdrawn introverted person I was, writing was the way I expessed myself. That song fascinated me and thus inspired me to write a short story about suicide. I don't remember much of it, but it didn't have a nice ending. "He flipped himself over the parapet and tried to grip the white clouds in the sky." was how it ended.

I showed it to my English teacher and Literature teacher. I know my Literature teacher remembers it; she mentioned it only last week. Boy was she disturbed by it.

2. Collective Soul - Run

Some songs don't have to mean something, for it to mean something to a person. It may be a song you attach to a particular person, memory, incident or even an era.

I remembered first hearing this song in a friend's house. He lived opposite the school. He's migrated to Australia though, probably living a great life there. He knew how to play it on guitar, sorta. And somehow, whenever I hear this song I think of this friend of mine. I don't know why. The brain sort of just makes associations beyond our conscious control.

Anyway, this is one of those songs that succeeds on the basis of the melody alone. Back then, I didn't really care for the lyrics because I didn't know what they mean. But now, wiser, mellower and less ambitious, I gather that it's a song on how we grow up into adults, and realise that adult life isn't all that great after all. Once we grow up we get bored with the things that used to mean a lot to us.

3. New Radicals - You Get What You Give

This is possibly the theme song of my mid teens. It's a song that I gather is about the feeling of invincibility you get when you're a teen. The feeling that you can get away with anything, the feeling that it's your world and your era and the spotlight's on you.

I'm not proud of having had that feeling of invincibility. I have done some nasty deeds that are too nasty to speak of here. But hey, it felt good at that time, and I don't think it could have happened in any other way.

It's only too bad that the New Radicals decided to go down in history as a one-album album, having disbanded shortly after releasing an album so catchy and varied you can't possibly not like it.

4. Green Day - Time Of Your Life

Although this song was written well before year 1999, it's a perennial favourite among teens. A simple song played on acoustic guitar, it's an anthem on accepting the consequences of one's choices and moving on.

I bought a guitar when I was 15, and this is one of the first songs I had learnt. It's good practice for right-hand skills, and probably every youth with a guitar has had learnt it at some point or another.

5. Smashmouth - Allstar

Probably the most catchy, infectious, happy and memorable song of 1999/2000. It doesn't have any memorable lyrics, doesn't really evoke any poignancy, it doesn't even mean much. However, 5 years later, and I still associate this song with all of the happy moments I had in my teenage days.

6. Blink 182 - What's My Age Again
7. Sum 41 - Fat Lip

Punk rock was once an underground genre, limited to bands such as The Ramones, The Clash and more notably, the Sex Pistols.

Then came Green Day, which brought punk rock straight onto the airwaves. Blink 182 and Sum 41 brought that to the next step, and made punk rock dominate the airwaves.

What's My Age Again is to Blink 182, the way Basket Case is to Green Day. Like the latter, the former chronicles what I call 'teenage craziness', the era of pranks and silliness and the things we do out of immaturity. Fat Lip however, is a definitive declaration of individuality and a protest against conformity. Both songs are simple yet catchy punk-inspired pop-rock, a genre that soon faded into the watered-down imitations we see today. Good Charlotte and Avril Lavinge may have been inspired by punk, but they are more of a prostitution rather than a tribute to the ideals of punk culture.

I think what mattered most though, was that these were songs that all my classmates liked. It was something to talk about when we hung out in the CD shop in the shopping mall near the school. We practically analysed the music of Blink 182 and Sum 41 down to the individual song, sharing what we liked or hated about each song. As we grow up we find our musical tastes starting to differ. Moreover such fervent discussion over music starts to appear frivolous when you're already 20.

8. Manic Street Preachers - Motorcycle Emptiness

Sooner or later, one has to examine his own ideas of existence. What do we really make out of existence? That's the question that everyone asks, but no one is able to answer, save for a number of religious prophets, or Western European philosophers with unpronouncable names.

Being a person grounded by down-to-earth logic and sense, religion wasn't a choice; it simply didn't make sense to rely on any teachings that have to be followed by blind faith. Furthermore religion often frowns on logical criticism. Without it, there's no way to verify the rightness of the teachings.

The music of the Manic Street Preachers inspired me to look deeper into philosophy and define my own stand on existence. I read voraciously. Nietzsche gave me a few strong arguments against religion. Sartre made me rethink fate and free will. Camus made me consider how cultural implications of religion and free will can complicate each other.

And now? I believe that we don't really have much free will. Much of our decisions are shaped by the circumstances that we are in, and that anyone else in that same situation would have done the same. In the end, regret is rather pointless because, if you're given the same circumstances and set of knowledge as you had back then, there's really nothing that would have made you make any other choice. Take for example, a failed investment. YOu may regret your choice, but would you have made the same choice if you had no idea that it would fail? Probably yes.

I didn't read this in any book though.

Speaking of the Manic Street Preachers, their music provided an ideal medium for the existentially-cynical me to identify with.

9. Linkin Park - In The End

I don't think you need any introduction to this song. Linkin Park may be a mere imitation of the earlier nu-metal bands, but this particular song did everything right.

Instrumentation. Check.
Perfect combination of the 2 lead vocals. Check.
Angst. Check.
Everything just gels together perfectly. Check.

Considering the success of In the End, I consider their other songs rather disappointing.

10. Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Otherside

I never liked RHCP much, but this song has some meaning for me.

It was this community service project thing, and we had to help out at a senior citizens' care corner, by playing chess with them, just keeping them entertained and doing odd jobs in their apartments. On the last day, we put up a small performance for them, and I was playing the guitar part with another friend at that time. It was more of a last-minute thing - I learnt the song just a day before.

My friend's guitar string snapped, and he was playing lead, so we exchanged guitars and I improvised by transposing it down an octave and using the other remaining strings to play the main riff. It worked well, the senior citizens were entertained, even though they never understood a a single word in the lyrics.

11. Eminem - Stan

Hear of Eminem, and most people will think of pretentious, watered-down, violent-for-the-sake-of-itself trash rap. The content of Eminem's songs may be lacking, but no one can deny the fact that Eminem's rapping does have alot of musicality.

Musicality sells. How often do people actually listen to every word of the lyrics? Most of the time, it's a killer hook that makes a song popular, be it a guitar riff or a line in the lyrics.

In Eminem's case, it's his rhythm and his raw vocals. Stan brings out the best of his vocals. It's a song with 2 personas - one, an angsty young adult who has issues, and Eminem himself. The voice acting is excellent. You can tell the difference in tone between the two personas, and I doubt that many rappers can put anger and frustration into a voice the same way Eminem does.

12. U2 - Walk On

On the night of September 11 2001, my friend and I were talking on the phone. In particular, we bashing America, their people, their government and their policies. After a long and entertaining chat, we watched the TV and saw the footage of the two aeroplanes slamming into New York's World Trade Centre. Talk about coincidence.

Walk On is one of the singles from U2's unexpectedly successful comeback album, All That You Can't Leave Behind. Combining the poignancy of Joshua Tree and the energy of alternative rock in the 2000s, the songs are powerful and moving, while remaining catchy and radio friendly.

Walk On was originally written as a tribute to Aung San Suu Kyi and her struggles against injustice in Burma. After the September 11 incident though, Americans found inspiration in it after having heard a dramatic, heartfelt rendition of this song in one of the post September 11 tribute concerts. After having heard and watched that version of this song, it's etched firmly in my mind as the most raw and honest live performance that I had ever watched.

I don't exactly take any sides on the America's so-called war against terrorism. The religious fundamentalists were definitely wrong by commiting those atrocities, but America is no better. Their murderous obsession on revenge had managed to wreck Iraq, the world economy, and deepened the crack between the Muslims, Jews, Christians, atheists and other religions and schools of thought. In this globalised world, war is a zero-sum game, no matter how you look at it. Everyone loses. Even the wars involved in the unification of China centuries ago was with great controversy.

THis concludes the 12 most meaningful songs of my mid-teens, and I hope that you will share yours too.

I wish I had something to blog here...

2005-06-27T20:32:00.000+08:00

but being a Temporary Monkey Trainer is too tiring.

Anyone who puts music on their blog should be hanged till dead

2005-06-23T14:36:00.000+08:00

Ok I admit it, I'm a blog junkie. I have 22 blogs on my RSS syndicator, and another 6 or so RSS-incapable blogs on bookmark. Of this 30 blogs, a sizeable number play irritating music when I load the page.

The fact that most people use broadband these days makes bloggers feel like they can embed 5MB audio files with impunity. Back in the days of 56K modems, we had corny MIDI files, most of which don't sound like the original at all. At least, tthe fact that we're now tolerating 128kbps mp3 files rather than pathetic elevator music is some consolation.

From personal estimate, about 1/5 of all the blogs I frequent have embedded mp3s. 1/20 of them have - gasp - embedded videos. If you happen to surf with a 56K modem, expect your browser to stall for minutes at a go.

But that's not my point. I do have the prerequisite bandwidth to stream a video or an mp3. What I can't stand is, having the music i'm listening to being interrupted by some other song. In fact, right now I'm listening to Snow Patrol's Final Straw right now.

You see, I usually have music running on the computer. Or my DVD player, which is often routed through the computer using the amplifier's tape input:

DVD Player > Amplifier 'DISC' Input > Amplifier 'Tape Out' > Computer > Amplifier 'Tape In' > Speakers

In short, when I listen to CDs on my DVD player, I hear whatever is produced by the computer's sound card too. Including crappy songs on blogs.

Especially crappy Chinese songs. And crappy Avril Lavinge songs. Even if they aren't crappy, what makes the blogger feel like he has the right to interrupt my favourite songs? Even if it's one of my favourite songs, I prolly have it on CD. And CD sounds way better than some 128kbps mp3.

Please, each of us have unique tastes. Don't try to proselytise your musical preferences in this way. You can always review something you like and paste it on your blog. And I will definitely give it a try if I'm convinced. No need to force it down my throat. It also happens that one of my pet peeves are over-zealous envangelists of any religion, or musical taste for that matter.

If you do not wish to encounter my wrath, kindly refrain from embedding music into your blog. No matter how great your tastes are.

Of Bandwidth and Frequencies

2005-06-16T14:05:00.000+08:00

Why is it that, it's so much easier to talk to some people than to others? For example:

If let's say, you and your friend are of the same bandwidth, your friend would have no trouble if you were to say: "My hard disk is full and I have no money. So I'm screwed."

However, let's say you're talking to this alien from the provincial regions of Betelgeuse. You'll say "My hard disk is full and thus has no more free space. A new hard disk would expand my storage space. However, I have no money to buy a new hard disk, since a hard disk costs money. Therefore, I'm screwed."

That alien would still reply with a befuddled "Huh? I don't get you."

That's what we call being on different frequencies. But what really determines whether we speak at 93.2MHz Frequency Modulation or 1.8GHz Time Division Multiplexing?

Individual lingo seems not to be relevant. You could discuss something simple like the taste of a cucumber, but yet the other party might be totally lost. Surely, everyone posseses the prerequisite vocabulary to understand and describe the taste of an object.

Perhaps, the different experiences of a person may matter. They colour words and ideas with connotations unique to the individual. Think of a random object like a cat. When I think of a cat, I imagine a stray but beautiful animal, that's extremely receptive to human affection. When my mum thinks of a cat, she thinks of a dirty, ugly pest that spreads germs and turns over rubbish cans. But, often people from very different backgrounds can speak to each other at an exact wavelength, while others from same schools and social status just maintain casual contact because they hardly understand what each other is saying.

Now that we've debunked a couple of likely reasons, can we just blame the stars? Maybe Aquarians simply can't communicate well with, say, Saggitarians. You may want to bring in Greek, Chinese and Betelgeuse astrology too.

And wait, there's more! How do some people appear to receive a wider bandwidth; i.e. be able to understand what almost anyone is saying? On the other hand, some successful public speakers can broadcast at an extremely wide bandwidth? Is this bandwidth an art that can be trained?

If you know any of these answers, please tell me. I don't know.

Planned Obsolence

2005-06-14T23:57:00.000+08:00

In 1992 my family had its first computer. It was a high-end computer with a 486 chip, which was touted to be superior for multimedia applications, as it was able to do floating point calculations natively. It displayed 256 colours on its screen at VGA resolution, something quite impressive at that time. In addition, it had 8 whole megabytes of extended memory, double that of a typical computer in its day.

In 1997, we felt the pressure to upgrade to something that could actually use the Internet and work with the latest programs, so we got a Dell Pentium II computer. Pentium II was state of the art, instead of a conventional flat chip, it was a cartridge mounted perpendicularly to the mainboard. (This proved to be a disaster in cost and in thermal management, and thus the idea was scrapped a couple of years later.) In addition, it had 8 times the memory and 30 time the hard disk space of the 486. We bought a modem to go with it, and became one of the early adopters of the now-ancient 56.6k protocol. (2 years later we were once again the early adopters of ADSL technology.)

In 2004, the urge to upgrade presented itself again. A Pentium II simply didn't cut it anymore. Games got so much more complex. Multimedia applications got so much more demanding. Even a simple DVD rip didn't run smoothly on the Pentium II. So we got a self-assembled Athlon XP rig, which up to now, at the 65 week mark, is rather up to date.

But where do the obsolete parts go? Do soundcards and CPUs go to digital heaven when they die? Or do they contribute to the world's rapidly expanding landfills? Many choose the feeble way out. They store the disused hardware in a corner of the home, allowing it to gather dust and lizard droppings. Afterall, they figure, they had paid thousands for all these stuff.

As for my family, the 486 had to go, all that was salvagable was one of the floppy drives. Everything else was too obsolete. Sure, the hard disk still fits into any IDE-enabled computer (i.e. any computer), but 240MB is approximately 1/500 the capacity of my current hard disk, 1/20 the capacity of a DVD-R, 1/3 the capacity of a CD-R and slightly less than 2 times the capacity of my $28 thumbdrive, which transfers data approximately 10 times as fast.

The Pentium II turned out to be a wealth of enjoyment, as it still worked perfectly, albeit rather slowly. SNES emulators ran pretty well on it, and it was a rig that's more than equipped for casual WWW surfing, chatting, messaging, email and music. It went straight into my room. The monitor was something I picked off the bulk refuse disposal at the void deck of my apartment block. It was a 10 year old Compaq 17 inch which worked perfectly at 1024*768 resolution.

Another windfall was waiting for me at the void deck, months later. I accquired a total of:
2x 128MB PC133 memory
8MB graphics card, capable of 2D only
Gigabyte motherboard with VIA chipset, overclocking-capable
ATX power supply unit
Pentium II 233mhz CPU (did not use, current one is faster)
Chaintech soundcard (did not use, current one sounds better)
Adaptec SCSI card (did not use, no SCSI peripherals)
80mm fan (did not use, enough fans)
Hard disk cooler (did not use, no point)
CD-ROM drive (faulty)
Floppy drive (faulty)
Hard disk (faulty)
Casing without side panels (useless)
An assortment of cables

That was the third time I was picking up useful junk from the void deck. The first was when I got a small CPU and RAM upgrade for my 486, the second was when I got this Compaq monitor.

So with this windfall, I'm finally able to overclock my Pentium II 266MHz to 336MHz with some tweaking and using wire ties to secure an additional fan to the near-overheating CPU assembly. I also doubled my RAM from 192MB to 384MB, and now it works marginally better than before. It took a lot of work though, troubleshooting each component, and tweaking everything to desire. The new motherboard used a very different connector for the front case controls, so some soldering had to be done too. Thankfully, everything paid off well, and I've got a rather significant upgrade just with some elbow grease and not a single cent.

Who says that old stuff is always obselete and thus should be scrapped? Any old stuff? Pass it on to someone who appreciates it more! For every component recycled by an appreciating user, the landfill gains an extra bit of space where that component would have been.

I still have a bunch of old 486 parts and Pentium II parts lying around. I'm keeping some of them for future troubleshooting and repair purposes, but anyone wants an old PCI soundcard, SCSI controller, Pentium II 233MHz CPU hard disk cooler or Slot 1 heatsink? leave a message.

Oasis - Don't Believe The Truth

2005-06-13T22:34:00.000+08:00

The truth is, Oasis has lost it's charm. And they don't want you to believe it.

After the disastrous Heathen Chemistry, Oasis finally came out with another album, Don't Believe The Truth which was released without much fanfare. Audiences were pining their hopes on Coldplay's X and Y and Gorillaz's Demon Days. Truth is, Oasis is only a shadow of what they used to be.

Once regarded as the 90s answer to the glamourous stadium rock of the 80s, Oasis had their heyday in the late 90s, with infectious hits like Don't Look Back In Anger and Stand By Me. Fans claim that Oasis went downhill ever since Standing on the Shoulder of Giants (two albums ago), an album that can be found selling at half-price in discount bins of many music stores. Heathen Chemistry on the other hand was saved by 2 gems in the otherwise-horrid collection, namely Hindu Times and Songbird.

Don't Believe The Truth starts off with jangly guitars and bluesy vocals reminiscent of Hindu Times, but really isn't a song worth listening to again. With half-baked lyrics like but i'm not your keeper/i don't have a key/i got a piano/i can't find the 'c', you can't really take them seriously anymore. What follows is a song named Mucky Fingers, which sounds like a weird mishmash of The Stroke's Last Night and Oasis's Songbird, with a Cobain-esque refrain of "It's all mine!". And then, the quality of the rest of the album falls like a loose brick off the proverbial Wonderwall.

Lyla doesn't deserve to be a single. It's a flat draggy love song devoid of any emotion. Imagine Born On A Different Cloud part Deux, only much worse. This seems to be Oasis's new style. Write half a verse. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Until they clock 3 minutes or longer.

It's not all bad though, The Importance Of Being Idle conveys a parable of optimism in a a flavour of uniqueness that one would attribute only to Oasis. Lyrics like i don't mind/as long as there's a bed beneath the stars that shine shows that there's still some genius in Oasis yet, though not enough to sustain an album. A-side status.

Part of the Queue doesn't stand out melodically, but it's combination of syncopated beats and folk rhythms is sufficient to warrant repeated listens.

What stands out though, is their last track Let There Be Love, which is a beautiful ballard that isn't as sweet as Songbird, but more poignant than any of Oasis's works in the past few years. Listen to it, and you'll be thinking, 'that's what Oasis should be like!'. A-side status.

As for their bonus track I Can See It Now, it's pretty nasty. Don't even bother listening to it.

With only a couple of songs deserving of A-side status, this probably will end up as Oasis's final nail into their coffin. Heathen Chemistry had 3.

Why I Won't Get An iPod

2005-06-13T01:06:00.000+08:00

(or any other post-discman portable music player, at least until they get better)

Kids play with Lego and Transformers and Star Wars figurines, adult toys simply get more expensive, while at the same time giving the user an impression that the toys do serve a purpose.

A Ferrari Modena 360 is a man's toy. It provides countless hours of fun, by allowing you to tweak it and rev it to your heart's delight. And it has this cool glass window that lets you peer into its engine compartment, sort of like those car models where you can lift the hood and take a look at its chrome-plated engine manifold and radiators. However, a Toyota Corolla is much cheaper, has a plushier suspension and seats more people.

An iPod is a man's toy. You could store your whole mp3 library in one, whip it out and display it's sleek, vibrantly-coloured fascia and evoke a look of jaw-dropping awe from your friends' faces. Oh! And did I mention? An iPod plays numerous file types and looks great with the white iBook.

However, once again, we ignore the presence of a cheaper, more practical alternative, the humble discman. Firstly, an iPod 4GB costs $349. iPod shuffle 512MB - $178. iRiver ifp-799T 1GB - $279, Creative Zen Micro 4GB - $299. An entry level discman that happens to play mp3 files too costs less than $180.

The discman definitely is bigger, but not significantly so. I can live with that. It even fits into my pocket.

Having an mp3 player implies that you're going to have to transfer parts of your CD collection to the player, and that requires a time-consuming process called encoding. On a current middle-of-the-range computer, it takes about 5 minutes, give a take a couple of minutes, to encode a whole CD into mp3 form. Transfering te encoded files to the iPod is going to take time too. Multiply that by the number of albums you're going to encode, add some time here and there because this process takes time to master, and you can see how your next weekend is going to be spent if you decide to buy an iPod.

My computer upstairs (next to the CD collection) takes 10 times as long, it's an ancient Pentium II (still good for emails and surfing the net). It takes all of 10 seconds to change a CD in your discman. Really, nothing is more foolproof than loading a CD into a discman, closing the cover and pressing play.

In addition, battery life on an iPod, or for any other non-discman portable music player, is quite sad. iPod - 12h; iPod mini - 18h; iPod shuffle - 12h, Creative Zen Micro - 12h; Creative Zen - 11h, iRiver H10 - 12h; Creative N200 - 15h. You get the picture, it isn't rosy. A modern discman does maybe 30 hours on a pair of AA batteries, and if you play mp3-CDs, you sort of triple that.

Most if not all mp3 players have peculiar technical limitations. iPod shuffle has a terrible file naigation system oweing to its lack of LCD screen. Creative Zen Micros have poor battery life. iPods and iPod minis are hampered by their lack of FM radio or recording. iRiver's flash players are rather buggy and can't do drag-and-drop transfers natively. iRiver's HDD players command a very significant price premium. Rio players are ugly and hard to obtain in Singapore.

It simply isn't the right time to get an mp3 player. Encoders take too long to encode, players are too expensive and too buggy, battery life is rather sad and players have been a mediocere crop at best. Electronics giants like Samsung and Panasonic have been jumping on the bandwagon, let's hope they put in some of their experience in consumer electronics, and produce players that sell on the merit of their practicality, rather than the cool factor and geek features.

Addendum: The mp3 players of now also do not have one feature I treasure - an in-line remote control, sorta like a remote control that plugs between your earphones and the discman. It allows you to switch tracks and look at the LCD display without having to rummage in your bag or pocket for the player itself.

Going to sleep now. Am currently in an 25mg atarax stupor. Self-medicated for urticaria (hives, rashes) and it seemed to work rather well, though it's rather effective for inducing drowsiness too.

An Open Letter to All Homosexuals

2005-06-12T01:18:00.000+08:00

Homosexuality has never been as rife in the history of the civilised world. Gays in tight ribbed T-shirts frolick openly in public spaces, lesbians express their intimacy in the neighbourhood mall and AIDS is spreading like wildfire.

There is incontrovertible proof that gays are more likely to spread HIV than straights.

We, the straights, feel uncomfortable about being around those of your kind. You may preach of your civil and personal rights in society, but we do have our rights to our personal space. We do not want freaks of the same gender staring lustily at us.

We wish we knew how to deal with you people. You're extrememly vocal and vehemently defensive against any of our suggestions. You forget though, that we are the majority. Studies have shown that only 4-10% of the population are of your kind. So you had better listen to us, for we have ways to fight back. Your pathetic mistinterpretation of legislature and your annoying persistence can only go so far.

As such, we are writing a set of guidelines that you had better comply with.

1. Don't sit on the fence. Either you're gay, or you're straight. Decide now. Bisexualism is just a lame excuse for the weak-minded. Kindly allow HIV to remain as a problem with your kind, so as to maintain the integrity of the heterosexual population. Avoid passing on your inferior genes to our children.

2. Please don't ogle at us heterosexuals. We feel violated by this. Kindly keep your heads down and remain silent when you are around heterosexuals. We don't want to hear your sissy, whiney voices from you gays, or your hoarse, pseudo-manly voices from you lesbians. Stick to your own kind as far as possible.

3. Do not take whatever pecularities we have as a sign of homosexuality. There are many of us who are perfectly normal but yet choose purple as a colour, or leave the toilet door unlocked, or act limp-wristed. Please do not take this as a sign of homosexuality. Please don't approach us. It is embarassing to be associated with people of your kind.

4. Do not ever try to convince any of us that we are of your kind. There are youths and lesser-guided people among us, who may be falsely led by your lies. None of us are homosexual if we do not choose to be. Heterosexuality is a natural state of things and we are perfectly comfortable with it.

5. Do not demand equal rights to healthcare, labour or any other social benefits. What makes you think that a decadent beast like you are of equal standing as one of us? You spread sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) more virulently than us. You cause social decay. You intrude into our normal lives. We however lead productive, healthy lives, are able to fit in perfectly into society, do not cause the public any discomfort, are less likely to have HIV or any STIs that warrant costly healthcare, and we contribute to society's natural renewal of population.

6. Do not tell us any gory details about your lives. We do not seek to understand why males of your kind are perfectly happy to put another male's penis into your mouths or anuses. Neither do we want to know how lesbians share their affection.

7. Do not take up professions such as nursing or physiotherapy as these require close contact with other people, mostly those of our kind. We have a right not to be emotionally violated when you find sexual pleasure doing your job.

We insist that you comply with these guidelines, and in return we shall leave you alone to your own devices and keep a closed eye on the fact that disgraces like you exist in our society.

Being .25

2005-06-08T21:06:00.000+08:00

The average life expectancy of a human being in a healthy environment is about 75.

Science may extend this to perhaps 80 years in the future.

I am 20 years old. A quarter of my life has come and gone.

A quarter of my life is over. It shouldn't feel like this.

A quarter-life crisis is when you realise:
1. Adult life isn't as good as it was hyped to be
2. Life is really that shallow, there really isn't much more to it than this
3. You've wasted your first quarter of your life

The fact is:
1. Adult life really isn't about fufilling your ambition as a miracle doctor, a genius artist, a famous pianist, a heroic lawyer. It's more of, paying bills, filling up income tax forms (they do get more complex year after year), navigating your way through traffic jams and staring helplessly at the injustic the world pelts out at you.
2. It's all laid bare to us. There's no real ultimate answer to life, the universe, everything, unless you believe in religion. And I'm not religious, neither am I planning to be.
3. I did nothing worthy of praise, attention or awe in my past 20 years of life. I never lead any activity groups in school, neither was I particularly successful in academics.

For the past week or so, Part 3 has been troubling me....

Revisiting my alma mater, and relief teaching there for a week, was an eye-opener. The sec ones were an intelligent lot, and I vividly remember being much less intelligent than them now. Perhaps I'm still less intelligent than them.

The follies of my youth proved too painful to recollect, which involves being completely uninvolved in school extracurricular activities, marginal in terms of academics, and in terms of hobbies, I did not excel in any.

So I've sorta gathering what I had done since, let's say age 10, rather than what I had not done, sorta as an ego boost.

1. 6th in Singapore in a science quiz in primary school, some RI-BP thing. It was a crappy primary school so it was like, my team was nowhere close to getting into the finals.

2. Got good PSLE results, got into my secondary school, and in the Gifted Education programme. I sorta abandoned my extra-curricular activity because it sucked very badly, to me. Failed terribly at French classes, so dropped it at the end of the year. I remembered being rather aloof, and uninvolved in lessons. I mean, what's there to be involved in? By then, I had already developed the habit of looking for answers to my questions by myself, so I never asked teachers any questions.

3. All that I could remember doing as a productive hobby was to do programming on Visual Basic. I programmed 3 Windows utilities, of which one was listed as a 5-star program on the then-famous ZDnet's Hotfiles, with the honour of Hot File of the Day. The other 2 didn't take off. All these are nothing to me; I no longer involve myself in computer programming.

4. I was getting terrible grades at everything except Science and English, though from an ex-classmate's testimony, I was a "brilliant but aloof" individual. Is that good or bad?

5. Secondary Three, and we changed classes, finally made some friendships so deep, it'll never happen again for the rest of my life. C, F, L and P stuck with me, even though I was sorta mentally unsound for that period of time (if you know me, you know), and that still means alot to me. Started taking academics seriously, especially the sciences, after having decided what I was better at.

6. Read alot of contemporary fiction and philosophy, in order to understand the world around me, I guess this had sorta helped me develop my precision of thought. I also wrote some poetry, which I thought were not bad.

7. In terms of quantifiable achievements, I had a pathetic Special Award in Chinese Language, simply cause I dropped Higher Chinese and was one of the few to take Chinese at the second-language level. You know what they say about big fish in small ponds. There were only like 10 other people taking Chinese at that level then.

8. Had an Ultimate Pong Programming Showdown with my friend C. We decided to see who could make the better Pong, but neither of us really won. I kept to simple shapes, using conventional Visual Basic code, though with gobs of kinematics added into it for realistic movement. It was also relatively well-packaged, with self-recorded stereo sound effects. C however used a more exotic graphics-oriented language and included a 1-player mode which I didn't, and used more humourous graphics. Conclusion? A Draw.

9. Scored barely enough (got the 6 A1s in the right subjects to get an L1R5 aggregate of 6, and had to thank a couple of 74.5s being rounded up to 75) in prelims to bag a provisional place in the junior college of choice, and got to keep the place, with a new A1 in Additional Maths (first A1 in that subject ever) to boot. You can see, I was wasting my youth doing only barely enough for what I wanted.

10. Went into junior college, where peer pressure compelled me to join a research programme in NTU (which flopped miserably) and joined a local Chemistry Olympiad (got a lousy Bronze) and take 2 subjects at S-Paper level. Was considered to be a General Paper Fiend in class (but due to bad health on that day, I didn't bag an A1 in the A-levels). And of course, I couldn't bother myself enough to take my extra-curricular activities seriously enough, so never made it big in Guitar Ensemble. Ironically, those 2 years were the years that I felt the least intellectually stimulated. Didn't make any memorable friendships either. I guess, after age 16, people can't relate to each other as well as they used to.

Yeah, I barely got what I wanted with my academics, and I hadn't much of a quantifiable non-academic life. For a person of my environment, I definitely was an underachiever.

I'm a lazy ass.