yeeth.livejournal.com

cos lj be teh coolz.

USapps are DONE!
finally!
been busy these few days with some personal stuff and apps, but managed to clear everything before 2008 ends. but CNY is quite early also this year, so 2009 will probably begin with a lot of cleaning to do. and i really need to organise the stuff in my comp.
i'll be moving to livejournal soon; till then, no further entries. class gathering and stuff tomorrow, so be back next year =D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFIS-8DIYX0
the ra3 theme song is seriously amusing. sounds kinda like some communist anthem, until you know the lyrics =D

I have to admit, EA's ingame musics are always decent. I still like the BF2142 orchestral theme, for example. It's interesting, though, the effort EA spends in creating a nice musical score and then neglecting things such as unit balance. Was looking forward to playing Empire then all the japanese anti-air cmi. damn. somehow rts games are always much more satisfying than fps, especially when you win, but it requires an immense amount of brainpower (relatively speaking =D ) to play.

i've been thinking about switching to livejournal for quite some time - diaryland is fine, but lj has so many more features, some of which i do want. one of these days, perhaps, when i'm tired of thinking of what to write for apps. Seriously, i swear mugging for bio was easier than all these stupid essays.

the previous week has been an interesting one for me - i passed BTT (spent too much time mugging it i think - finished the 50-minute test in 16), had something stuck up my ass and shoved down my throat, found out how much my pool skills have degraded, and found $10, which is the first time i've ever found so much money (i know it isn't $50 or something, but somehow money doesn't seem to land at my feet often).

i went back to rj just now to run, and i saw this new signboard that's been, uh, modified already:

Interesting eh? If anyone asked me which part of my life i'd like to change the most, my answer would always be my ri years (specifically, sec 1 to 3), but i still have fond memories of that period. But it doesn't seem right that 2 schools with such different cultures should be named the same thing. oh well.

speaking of rj, it's amazing how much has changed in less than a month, the time when we last stepped out of the hall clutching our pencilcases, entry proofs and calculators. It isn't just the carpark - outside 7-11, outside PAC, behind ISH, the gym, below the MPH... seems like the whole school's under renovation. Some of these are indeed timely (the new entrance is infinitely more useful than a row of plants impeding entry to the campus; other secondary schools already have cafes; even RI has a small pond), but i really wonder why they weren't built when the campus was constructed in the first place.

still, all the construction got me thinking again. I'm quite used to this whole "change" thing - my kindergarten closed for renovation right after i graduated, we had to use container blocks in p2, p4 and p5, we moved to some old pri sch in p6 while cathigh was being renovated, and in RI we got to use the raja block for... less than 6months? But in just 3 weeks rj has changed so much, and that kind of encapsulates the whole "progress" thing in singapore. can see sentosa from vivo? not really, it's all construction for the IR. the old redbrick national library? gone to make way for a 100m-long tunnel. In singapore something is constantly being demolished to make way for something. I still remember quite vividly the curved stone steps we saw at one of the Cambridge college side entrances (Gonville and Caius, i think) - a stark contrast to Singapore. I know, we don't have much of a choice, but like somone recently commented - if we go get the chance to go overseas and study, would we still recognise the singapore that greets us on our arrival 3-4 yrs later?

i realise my whole blog is emo, but this is where i channel my emo-ness. or maybe it's cos i just ran 11.58 today. what happened to those grand after-As plans.

just started playing crysis:warhead. Graphics are amazing; i'm sure they'll be even more awesome with a better graphics card. I haven't seen such great graphics since the Half-Life 2 series, and the CryEngine 2 doesn't have those annoyingly long loading screens that Half-lfe 2's Source engine does.

it's kinda shocking how i've used up more than 1TB of my total harddrive space within a short few months. ok 100gb of that is for backup purposes but 900gb is still damn alot. i need to stop getting blu-ray movies lol. it's not like i can fully enjoy blu-ray movies on my comp anyway - my lousy cpu can't sync the audio/video properly at times, and i'd need at least a 22" LCD to watch bluray at its native resolution.

RJC is digging up the carpark and doing something to it. don't really know what they intend to do with it this time, but it simply reinforces my belief that when the campus was commissioned, the people in charge decided to cut costs by getting a random physics class to draw up a plan for the building. i never really liked RJC's design, even RI's raja block (with its single, teachers-only lift) was better imo.

back to mugging for BTT on fri, which is kinda stupid. who actually signals before overtaking? In Singapore, signalling before you overtake (especially in a jam) simply increases the chances of the car you're trying to overtake inching closer to prevent you from overtaking, from maybe 30% to 50%. And if you're trying to overtake a lorry/taxi, the chances increase from 75% to 99.9999%.

Linkin Park - P5shing Me A*Wy

When I look into your eyes there’s nothing there to see
Nothing but my own mistakes staring back at me

Everything has to end
You’ll soon find that we’re out of time left to watch it all unwind
Everything falls apart
Even the people who never frown eventually break down
Everything has to end
You’ll soon find we’re out of time left to watch in all unwind
Everything falls apart
Even the people who never frown eventually break down

I’ve lied to you
This is the last smile that I’ll fake for the sake of being with you
Everything falls apart even
Even the people who never frown eventually break down
Everything has to end
You’ll soon find we’re out of time left to watch it all unwind
The sake of being with you
Everything falls apart
Even the people who never frown eventually break down
The sacrifice is never knowing

(chorus)Why I stayed with you
Just push away
No matter what you see
You’re still so blind to me

Even the people who never frown eventually break down

I’ve tried, like you, to do everything you wanted to
This is the last time
That I’ll take the blame for the sake of being with you
Everything falls apart
Even the people who never frown eventually break down
The sacrifice of hiding in a lie
Everything has to end
You’ll soon find we’re out of time left to watch it all unwind
The sacrifice is never knowing

(chorus)

Reverse psychology is failing miserably
It’s so hard to be left all alone
Telling you is the only chance for me
There is nothing left but to turn and face you
When I look into your eyes there’s nothing there to see
Nothing but my own mistakes staring back at me
Asking why
The sacrifice of hiding in a lie
The sacrifice is never knowing

(chorus x2)

finally, a new layout!

i thought of using a blogskin made by others, but i didnt find one that i liked so i ended up making my own. i haven't done this in a loonnng time, and it definitely isn't the best i've ever done, but it's a layout all the same. HTML code seems to have evolved since i last did proper coding - so much html code has been replaced by CSS, and my previous layout used very little of that. This new layout may not be w3c-compliant, but it'll do. and since my layout is Linkin Park-themed,i might as well talk about that.

i never used to be that much a linkinpark fan. i liked their music, but that was about it. i didnt even know the names of the people in the band. But i ended up listening to their music longer than most other groups because their music grew up with me - after i began to tire of the whole emo-rock thing, they released a new album which was a totally new sound.
But that wasn't the main reason why i like their music so much. In November last year they came for a concert. I spent a whopping $128 on the 2nd most expensive tickets (back section of the moshpit), but i'd gladly spend that money again. It was a truly memorable experience, listening to songs you used to hear on the radio/ipod belted out by the dude standing just there on the stage. And it's rare nowadays to find a band that sounds good live as well, without all those digital editing.
But i'm not a hardcore fan (and i doubt i will ever be one, regardless of whih band), and i had some grouses about the concert too. The lack of an opening act, for example, causing shermin and i to waste 30mins stoning. The band's famous, but that also makes them more... aloof. None of that fans-crowding-at-changi-airport thing was reported in the news, since they came by private jet and landed at some unknown time and unknown airport. Want to meet them? pay money to be in the official fanclub first. But that's fine with me, since i'm in for the music more than anything else.

and oh yes, prom the day before! another memorable event. posh place, posh attire, not-so-posh food. Our class had a hotel rm, so i went early to change up. The girls did their make-up stuff while the guys played some card game that mrs quek introduced to us. Bennett's unashamed vainness was rather amusing -.^ . About 1h before the thing started the guys all crowded into the bathroom to change up and style our hair, and duly kicked guozhong out after he tried to use that disgustingly smelly hair spray instead of wax/gel. We missed earlybird draw, but the prizes weren't great anyway. Then it was down for photophotosmilephotophotosmile-lookatjoshanddennissperform-photophotophoto-lookatboyahsperform-photophotophoto. We decided to heck post-prom, buy our own alchohol and go back to our hotel rm, which turned out to be a good choice since butterfactory was ridiculously packed, there was no more freeflow and it was $18. Post-prom hotel rm was fun though. Not sure if it was the bacardi, the atmosphere or events the previous days (prolly a combination of the 3) but i ended up saying a bit more than i intended to for truth or truth. ohwell, if you can't trust ppl who spent much of the last 2 years with you, who went through the same, uh, experiences, who can you trust?
So somehow we ended up sleeping - at arnd 5.15am, but we didnt intend to sleep at first. i went down to talk, and went back to our room at 6am (waking ruiyi in the process whoops) to see jianhao and mohandass going home. We all woke up at 7am. So i ended up sleeping the least amongst everyone (hsuan doesn't count, he didnt sleep =p).
Breakfast was funny though - we walked through citylink to mac's marina sq in our shorts and sch tshirts and slippers, got a few weird stares since we coincided with the working (read: formal shirt and tie) crowd. So prom was memorable overall, and mostly for the right reasons =D

the emcee for prom also mentioned that we were the last batch to graduate from RJC due to the impending merger, which i am still against. i didn't bother to go for the talk with the principal since the decision was already cast in stone, so it's not even a discussion, just a session for her to state the facts (which google provides just as well). Surely there is no need to call both RI and RJC the same names in order to share facilities or teacher resources? I have fond memories of both schools, but i can still remember Orientation last year, the sense of graduating from RI to RJC. Turning it into a 6-year institution loses this sense of transition. And what of the elitist perceptions that already cloud the schools? The renaming of RI and RJ may just be symbolic, but it is that very symbolic value that is precious. So it's sad, but the junior college i studied in and graduated from will cease to exist from next year onwards.

moving on, i took SAT 1 today. much better prepared than last year, despite prom - last year i forgot to bring food, tried to do the essay like a gp paper (surefire way to screw up SAT essay) and spent wayy too much effort checking the ridiculously easy math questions. hope it's better this time.

today why

i don't really know how to start - it feels weird typing a blog entry for the first time in ages. But i do think it will be interesting to blog again, since the following few months are probably going to be the most free for a long, long time. not too sure how long this enthusiasim will last, but we'll see.
i suppose it's a little late to say the A's are over. the feeling of exhilaration, of ignoring the retarded i'll-dismiss-you-row-by-row CPE, of having nothing to mug for the next day - it's all over, but strangely as someone said, the 3 weeks of exams seemed to past really fast, but while we've celebrated for what seems like a long time, it's only been little more than a week since bio paper 1.
somehow, though, old habits die hard. i still tend to read newspapers like i do for gp - skim through the news, look out for facts that can be used in essays, omit the details and mentally summarize "gp-worthy" articles in a few sentences.

speaking of news, there's something which gets on my nerves a little. there was another article recently about the new F-15SG fighters singapore is getting. i really don't know why on earth the Straits Times likes to harp on the "zero combat losses" of the F-15, how it is technologically advanced, how it will transform the RSAF and turn singapore into a huge superpower capable of stopping any invasion or alien attack etc. There have been numerous articles on this since the contract was signed by Singapore, yet somehow all the articles failed to mention that
1. The F-15 is formidable, but it was developed in the 1970s and 1980s.
2. The US still uses, and will continue using, the F-15, but the F-22 is slowly phasing out the F-15.
3. Sure, the F-15 has zero combat records, but it was mainly used in the Gulf War. So it had zero combat losses against mostly ancient Soviet fighters piloted by badly-trained Iraqis and a badly-run military.
It's a respectable acquisition for RSAF, definitely. But it's just not the miracle plane the Straits times makes it out to be. It does its job well, but the F-22 the US is starting to use has supercruise and stealth, both of which the F-15 lack.

Anyway, as for what i've been doing since A's ended - the usual, slacking and playing comp and going out, and settled prom stuff too. Oh and helping jianhao build a comp too. Which was kind of fun since i hadn't dabbled in computer hardware for a looonnng time, and it's interesting to see how much things have changed since then. It's kinda amusing but i somehow forgot that while i stopped dealing with hardware, such hardware hasn't stopped developing. Before JC my comp was pretty good, and i'd become accustomed to installing games and setting all the graphics setting to the highest. last week i tried to do that for Far Cry 2, and crashed my computer twice in a row before i realised that my graphics card, once top-of-the-line, is now below average. But i now have a 9800GT and 2gb of RAM, which should allow me to play crysis at reasonable settings.
it's 11am and my body doesn't like staying up late, and sleeping at 1am everyday is giving me ulcers and a sore throat. off to sleep before i wreck my body before prom ^^

it moves! its... its alive!

yes, i've decided to ressurect this diary. amazing that it didnt get deleted during my loooonng absence. I'll start posting proper posts soon, after i'm done with all my busy stuff.

gah. My gums hurt. That darned tooth at the back is trying to puncture my gums coming out and my gums are swelling. If I close my mouth hard, I’ll bite on my gums and make it painful. If I don’t bite on it it seems to get bigger. Sfjkdahskl
ohwell, all in the name of being wiser ^^

an entry, finally.
this entry exists mostly because i have nothing else to do. and that stems mainly from the fact that my RAMs died, leavng me with a dead computer. now im using a 400mhz pentium2 laptop with a faulty 'i' key. i can't edit our SS documentary with this since it will take 500 millon years to export, i can't watch movies cos the video lags so bad that the voice and audio will finish twice as fast as the visual,i can't do much work cos MS office isn't nstalled, and i can't even play neopets cos flash lags. so spend my time reading random pages on the internet.
it's surprising how much time we spend on the com without realising it. my mum keeps telling me i spend too much time on the computer doing unproductive things. now that im forced not to use my com, it's a sort of realisation that without what i normally do i have so much tiome on my hands. which, of course, i spend productively blogging ^^
've been wanting to blog about the jbj play for a long time. for those don't read the news, it's the infamously controversial play called The Campaign To Confer The Public Service Star On JBJ. it was a good play and we all had fun before, during and after the play. before that when michael was trying to get a picture of us with the reflectve lifts, the lift doors opened the first four times we tried ^^. the play WAS funny, both slapstick and subtle jokes. i really wondered how it got past the consors. some that i still remember:
-JBJ, the chairman of the WP... no, not that one (points accusing finger)... it's the Wildlife Preservation, preservation of the Buangkok white elephants!
-A night scene with a crescent moon at the back, but then five stars slowly fade in a circular fashion just like the singapore flag.
-"yes, this is the secretary of the WP..." yadadada... "so what is your name?" (the main character says "David Lee...") "LEE?!" *slams phone down*
well, those are the ones which can be taken out of context anyway...
i really enjoyed it and thought that using a fictional JBJ to talk about such stuff was brilliant. Thus when the first straits times report by hong xinyi (i tink) came out saying that the mention of JBJ in the title played with audience expectations i wanted to write a letter to the Forum. however i had something due that day so i thought i would write it the day after, but when i read the newspaper the next day somebody else had beat me to it and voiced my thoughts.

another thing which i wanted to talk about is Half-Life 2. Having finished the game, i bought the sequel HL2: Episode 1 at sim lim square while doing SS filming. yes, i bought it.
i bought it not because i couldn't find it elsewhere. i bought it because i found HL2 really original and fun, and that the gamre really deserved the money spent on it.
i think that this should be what all game designers and record labels should aim for. i've never thought what they were doing is correct. stick, stick stick and the occasional mouldy carrot. but despite all the anti-copying software, holographic stickers, online activation and stuff, you still see new mp3s and warez on the internet. they should spend more money on lowering prices, improving the quality of music and making people buy the products because they like the products itself.

that said, however, i was really disappointed when i did install the game. (notice i did not say who) if a person wants to play a pirated version of Half-Life 2, that person needs to download an illegal offline installer for the game because Valve has this Steam thingy where all games must be installed and activated online. so users can actually play pirated versions of all of Valve's games, but once they install a single genuine software using Steam, their Steam account will block off all the pirated games. As such a person who plays a pirated HL2 and buys an original HL2: Episode 2 cannot play both together. not many people would be willing to pay $70 or so for a game they already played once, so most people who encounter the above situation would probably put their original CDs aside and download a pirated version with no restrictions.
by limiting what consumers can do with such products, companies are limiting what legitimate, paying users can do. technology is constantly evolving. hackers keep up with the times. there has never been a game which has not been cracked int eh history of mankind. so why do companies bother?

mummy... it's over :'(

anyway it was really much more fun having watched all 5 plays unlike last year. i was really sure morrison would win... the theme _was_ cliche and i could guess the theme and title 5 minutes into the play... but i really thought the way it was written and acted was damn nice. it was funny(especially with ali benedict and senghenk), it was serious, it was sad...
i really do feel sorry for them, it was a good play, they put alot of effort into it, and i do still think they were the best. maybe it's because i haven't watched the show that hullet adapted theirs from?
but there were many memorable parts. like walter's "i like my leg... i've had it for as long as i can remember!", benedict's dead-piggy scene, the senghenk-ali-elton trio, joseph's scream... and of course the two entertainers. not the emcees,but the alumni who made a big entrace parodying bayley's play ("are you real? are you real?" "are YOU real?" "no wait we must both carry the ladder out" and gobbling all the pills). they were superb, and hopefully they can grow up to be world-class comedians.
and here's a nice memento i picked up from drama feste 06... those who went should know what it was for ^^


anyway i feel so guilty i didn't get any flowers to give the cast :( there was a funny nincompoop who bought a cauliflower though, and that was really funny ^^ no pix tho, i lent my cam to ms low for the phototaking ><

EDIT: oh, and i forgot to mention that true to tradition everyone was shouting for their own house before the play started. when the lights dimmed for bayley's play i was feeling very blue, so i shouted "morrison" damn loudly when everyone was shouting bayley ^^. everyone started laughing, and that was how i single-handedly started a mini shouting war between blay and morrison whow ere both performing that day (less of war, more of seeing who could shout which house's name louder ^^), which culminated in bor ray shouting "aiyah ngiam just shut up lah" and everyone started laughing again :p
and walter poked fun at ms low this year, continuing the tradition of suaning fat tchrs :o last year it had something to do with a bouncing exercise ball and mr lim, this year is was about looking down from the podium... lol

was taking a break from crunching thru homework juz now and randomly started reading blogs... this one really cracked me up.
exerpt from tim chow's blog archives (posted in 2005 i tink)

How to protest about Singapore's transportation system:

Get a group of cars, and at a fixed time and day, converge upon Newton's Circus, and keeping driving around and around the roundabout. With no cars able to get in because no cars are moving out, all traffic that passes through this confluence of traffic (交通枢纽) will grind to a standstill. A very feasible way to protest against counter-productive ERP systems, costly COEs and the lack of green car-friendly measures. Driving round and round Newton Circus cannot be a traffic offence, because you aren't obstructing the flow of traffic, the cars are in continuous motion!


pity he didn't take into account rising fuel costs though.

the obligatory post on the once-in-a-leap-year event and the headbutt which every blog has ^^
finally over.
world cup rocks.
not the actual game, that's about the same every year (except to france and the people who bet)... it's the diving, the red cards, the antics, victory dances, blurred RTM signals, and not to forget the defining moment in football history:

and not to mention the parodies. courtesy of SomethingAwful forums which has 23 pages full of gifs :D

(a man walked into a bar)

due to the CTs being over (ok, almost over) i decided to take up Joseph Wong's challenge to attend a rally on Friday night. i didn't know which of the 7 rallies to attend, but i decided to go for the WP rally at Serangoon stadium eventually since: 1. i could always read the contents of PAP's rallies in The Straits Times which, curiously, always has the most extensive reporting of PAP rallies; 2. SDP and SDA's rallies were further away.

but it seems like the whole RI population was there too.
I met Ali, Daniel, Yuguang, Chian Fern etc at the kopitiam opposite the stadium. They said that they saw Aruna Johnson and Kwa beng hong there too.
Michael said that he went for the rally too.
Markgoh also said that he was there halfway.
Weizhong had a short blog entry on his experience there.
i was sure i saw 6 guys in uniform sitting a few rows below me.

so, who's the guy who said young SGrean's are politically apathetic? :P

anw, who else?!

first, there was Project Superstar.

then, there was the spin-off Campus Superstar.

now, the new series is in the running.

unlike the previous series, not everyone can vote.

unlike the previous series, voting is totally free.

unlike the previous ones, voting is not mainly for the wild, screaming teenagers.

the final round is here.
may the best man win ^^

just found a wiki-parody site called Uncyclopedia. It totally rocks.
Pages to visit: 1. Chuck Norris Facts 2. Hwa chong institution 3. Raffles Institution (the article features Elangor!!111) 4. The artist formerly known as God 5. Redundancy

some excerpts from the RI wiki:
-Numero Uno Bob Koh - "The Half-Day Destroyer"
-* '''The Master Baker'''
:This mysterious entity has recently been in the spotlight during the Assembly time. It is rumoured to be a fat boy who apparently has a fetish for pastry. It is harmless to all non-bread eaters. However, if you '''do''' eat bread and find traces of Master Baker, feel free to report this to any prim and proper teacher who is extremely conservative and anally retentive, and you will receive a '''free''' public apology from the Master Baker himself on the next assembly period. He has not been seen, but is rumoured to be similar to a pig. (No neck)

-* 'TAUPOK!!'
: Usually heard when a traitor is discovered amongst their midst. Upon hearing this cry, all available students in the immediate vicinity will rush towards the originator of the cry and jump on top of the person whom the originator points to, crushing him to death in the process.

i can't take it... such intelligence ^^

The pencil-pushers sitting in the MOE building don't seem to have common sense.
i can still remember that our Chinese lessons have always been behind schedule since P4. from P4 all the way to sec4. every year without fail. you'd think these people have learnt by now that there aren't that many lessons and stop being so ambitious.
not just chinese, actually(though chinese is the most striking example). maths was behind time in sec1 and 3, and still is this year.
dammit, holidays were meant to be holidays. just because theres a certain subject's lesson that falls on a holiday doesn't grant the teacher the right to call extra lessons on other days. likethat might as well not have holiday right?!
too much to need to learn, too little time. wake up la, all the people at the top.
i just realised while clearing out my phone pictures that i haven't blogged about the chinese conference thingy i attended that saturday. nothing out of the ordinary to reveal publicly, but what's blog-worthy was this woman standing in the Macs queue at Far East Plaza.


wah auntie. very rich hor?! $50 note can wave around behind your back. with 2 fingers somemore. you know we people got $50 note must hold until how tightly anot? (Seriously... anyone could have just taken it and ran, not considering further consequences of course)

my quest for the perfect blog host continues.
diaryland's been fine. in fact i rather like the simplistic interface, and not many ads. takes a ridiculously short amount of time to load. but this is why i find it lacking in features.
blogger allows you to be fickleminded and change blog add without changing account. but i personally don't see any benefits over diaryland except for a bigger writing area. and diaryland just requires a simple link on the blog, blogger puts their onw logo there.
livejournal is most interesting. i recently found out that you can hide pictures in the comments page, and that is one feature i'd been wanting all along - not having to clutter my blog's main page with pix. the comments section is implemented rather well too. however - it has a totally sucky interface when it comes to template. i don't want some easy-to-use S2 programming language that is totally restrictive. give me plain old HTML. at least i can do what i want in there.
wordpress lets me passprotect certain entries. but it has lousy implementation of comments, and i think it also suffers from lack of freedom in template editing.

waht to do???
EDIT: ok i've had an idea. put a plain black livejournal in a FRAME. :o
ahah i shall do just that when i have the time.

i think i have a perverted sense of humour.

some background knowledge: yichen's asking me about a bio plastics assignment which is happening on monday itself.

.--------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Session Start: Sunday, April 16, 2006 |
| Participants: |
| ...[VR Youth OC] frankensteinian complex (that's me) |
| .... i like aloevera more than apples (that's yichen) |
.--------------------------------------------------------------------.

[01:27:51 PM] .yichen. i l: eh
[01:27:51 PM] .yichen. i l: send me the file
[01:49:33 PM] .revolutioN : hm?
[01:49:45 PM] .revolutioN : the what file
[01:55:34 PM] .yichen. i l: the bio thing
[01:55:46 PM] .yichen. i l: i'm lazy to do my own research
[01:57:45 PM] .yichen. i like aloevera more than apples just sent you
a Nudge!
[02:08:12 PM] .revolutioN : no thank you
[02:08:52 PM] .revolutioN : but prices start at $10 for each solution
[02:09:08 PM] .revolutioN : eligible for a 5% discount if you buy all 8
[02:16:09 PM] .yichen. i l: :(
[02:16:09 PM] .yichen. i l: send me lah
[02:16:11 PM] .yichen. i l: i'm so nice right?
[02:16:50 PM] .yichen. i l: brb restart comp, you know you want to send it to me
---------------------------5 minutes later-------------------------------------
[02:21:44 PM] .yichen. i l: send it to me pwease? :(
[02:24:06 PM] .revolutioN : so would it be cash, cheque or paypal?
[02:25:29 PM] .yichen. i l: :(
[02:25:31 PM] .yichen. i l: oh come on XD
[02:25:34 PM] .yichen. i l: pweaseyyyy?
[02:28:12 PM] .revolutioN : there
[02:28:18 PM] Transfer of "bio.txt" is complete.
[02:28:21 PM] .yichen. i l: i think its a fake
[02:28:27 PM] .yichen. i l: lol
[02:28:27 PM] .revolutioN : :O im so hurt
[02:28:28 PM] .yichen. i l: it really is one
[02:28:30 PM] .yichen. i l: :-O
[02:28:32 PM] .yichen. i l: oh come on XD
[02:28:39 PM] .yichen. i l: share the joy!
[03:02:20 PM] .revolutioN : u want some joy?
[03:02:24 PM] .revolutioN : joyjoyjoy!
[03:02:28 PM] .revolutioN : JOY!
[03:02:37 PM] .revolutioN : joy!
[03:07:28 PM] .revolutioN : joy ^^
[03:08:15 PM] .revolutioN : (please note that the demo version offers limited
functionality. Please register in order to unlock full
functionality and more joy)
[03:16:20 PM] .yichen. i l: lol spastic
[03:18:08 PM] .revolutioN : were you impressed with the product? help support this
product by donating a small sum! or failing that, would you
like to spend some time on a short survey so that we can
improve our product further?
[03:25:20 PM] You have just sent a Nudge!
[03:25:32 PM] .revolutioN : *irritating popups start appearing
[03:25:34 PM] You have just sent a Nudge!
[03:26:38 PM] .yichen. i l: lol
[03:26:40 PM] .yichen. i l: sniff
[03:26:43 PM] .yichen. i l: well that's mean
[03:27:03 PM] .revolutioN : it's a dog-eat-dog corporate world out there
[03:27:04 PM] .revolutioN : wake up
[03:27:10 PM] .yichen. i l: b-but...
[03:27:12 PM] .yichen. i l: but I'm so nice!
[03:27:17 PM] .yichen. i l: and stuff
[03:27:44 PM] .revolutioN : yes, we know that. in the meantime please take a queue
number, have a seat and fill up forms A thru F in triplicate,
then put them on the counter.
[03:27:51 PM] .yichen. i l: all done
[03:28:15 PM] .revolutioN : ahah! you h4x. RIAA now has evidence against you.
[03:28:21 PM] .yichen. i l: lol
[03:28:23 PM] .revolutioN : nobody could fill them up so fast.
[03:28:48 PM] .yichen. i l: I can ^^
[03:28:53 PM] .revolutioN : you lie. you have the right to remain silent. you may appoint a
lawyer to represent you, or failing that you can request for a
lawyer to be assigned to you. any questions?
[03:29:07 PM] .yichen. i l: when can i have the real bio stuff? :(
[03:29:40 PM] .revolutioN : after monday
[03:29:48 PM] .revolutioN : 5 day work week, y'know
[03:29:50 PM] .yichen. i l: :(
[03:29:57 PM] .yichen. i l: i don't fren you liao
[03:29:59 PM] .revolutioN : not my fault... government policy
[03:30:17 PM] .revolutioN : bring it up during the next Feedback Unit session
[03:30:21 PM] .yichen. i l: lol
[03:30:22 PM] .yichen. i l: eh brb
[03:30:24 PM] .yichen. i l: restart comp again
[03:30:27 PM] .yichen. i l: send me when i get back horh
[03:30:31 PM] .revolutioN : kk. cheques are to be crossed and made payable to "L337, Inc."
[03:30:37 PM] * .yichen. i like aloevera more than apples is now Offline

or maybe it's reading too much Kenny Sia =P
sorry yichen, i couldn't resist having some fun ^^

sometimes in the process of growing up, it's nice to be able to look back into the past and bring back wonderful memories.
that's a reason why i backup my blog entries (other reason being i spend way too much time on them to dump them on an unknown server). but my blog only goes back at most 1-2years.
sometimes simple things in life can remind you of the wonderful past.
sometimes a simple present on the 16th birthday will suffice.
something like a box of Kinder Surprises for guocong's 16th birthday ^^
but jokers junren and yiphei's presents for GC were on hindsight really ironic.
the kinder surprise represents the past.
the FHM magazine represents another stage in his life XD
and during recess when seng teck was happily glancing through the magazine, weizhong crept up behind to take a picture.
sengteck, ever so mindful of his 'image', tried to chase GWZ down to force him to delete it.
i'm thinking of migrating to livejournal. the picturegallery function is so useful.
anw, just something funny to share.

MONEY

It can buy a house

But not a home

It can buy a clock

But not time

It can buy you a position

But not respect

It can buy you a bed

But not sleep

It can buy you a book

But not knowledge

It can buy you medicine

But not health

It can buy you blood

But not life

So you see money isn't everything

And it often causes pain and suffering

I tell you this because I am your friend

And as your friend I want to

Take away your pain and suffering!!

So
Send me all your money

And I will suffer for you!

Cash only please!

=P

wow, a sudden surge of posts ^^
according to the newspapers, the government does not allow bloggers to take a hardline or "biased" stance on one party, but they can comment on it in a neutral manner.
i've found time to read the straits times on a daily basis. as far as i know, in countries where freedom of speech is Holy Grail (ie USA), the elections are a very hyped-up event. the ruling party and the opposition parties all pop up on TV, newspapers, state visits, internet, etcetc.
< writing type = " talkingcock " style = " satire " >
i've noticed that Singapore seems to be getting into the spirit. the gahment has been in the news along with the 'pee-aye-pee' to talk about their future, their kopitiam visits and all. wah, so noble. but i think the opposition not doing a good job leh. the opposition neber appear on the papers one. only got one time that party with a hammer logo publish some cheem manifesto thing the newspaper got publish. then straightaway the next day kena shot down by gahment liao. and then also got that unpatriotic guy who anyhow scold our PM/SM/MM. now he bigmouth go and try to be funny, want to go complain to other country people how our judge all sibeh bias one. want to write feedback also must look for feedback unit mah, where can anyhow one. singapore is a fine country you know? very good one. anyways he kena contempt of court lor. who ask him. and hor he got to go to jail for 1 day wor. straits times say he is the first guy in singapore to be jailed for contempt of court because his case very the serious. but jail one day like not very effective like that leh. but who ask him anyhow, now he got go to jail, even if it is one day, he cannot run for election liao. wah lao why so lousy one. want to jail him also jail for longer mah, why one day. if a teacher punish a student to go to dentention, must punish for full two hours. cannot ask him to go to dentention for five minutes one. unless the teacher really pervert, teacher know that the student go detention already will get laughed at by his peng you, so make him go detention five minutes then he come out no more friends liao.
i see the papers, the pee-aye-pee show so many new faces in the news. also they visit so many kopitiam and mama shops. but the newspaper report only show pee-aye-pee doing so leh. our newspaper very accurate one, thus i can see that pee-aye-pee really doing a good job. but hor the opposition hor not covered by the newspaper one. so must be they never do anything, because if they got do the newspaper will also publish like they did for pee-aye-pee.
why like that one??? i avid reader of newspaper, so i know that pee-aye-pee got visit a lot of kopitiam and got very good candidates, because got publish a lot of fullpage reports on them. but hor the opposition i read the newspaper, i only see that they publish some cheem piece of paper which was shot down by gahment. then another opposition party also got the bigmouth who kena one day jail so cannot run for election liao. who ask him anyhow badmouth people, now he kena sue leftrightcenterupsidedown until he gong liao.
ok lah, the gahment quite poor thing. they keep getting badmouth by people. people say what singapore no democracy. where got, they got give election leh. is opposition never take the chance only. see i know so much because i read the newspaper. opposition never do anything, or the papers will report one. paper never report, so i know they just slack only. aiyoh. so cham one.



EDIT: wah the gahment really scare me wor. i write this one or two day only then the straits times feature 3 new opposition meber. not bad sia.< / writing >

wow.
on Monday night while i was in the shower, i heard this really loud noise and then another one which sounded like someone shouting.
my whole family heard it too, and my mum eventually spotted a car stopping at the RJC bus stop. i spotted a police car too, but instead of the normal police cars this one had twin blue sirens like those on the highway patrol cars. i thought there was some serious accident, so we all took a walk.
i'd grabbed a camera on the way down too, so for the first time in my blog history i'm going to camwhore.
first, the police car in question. it's the first time i'd seen one of these new-generation high-performance police cars which are not european. the police force started buying jap cars to save costs sometime last year i think. this one's the famous subara impreza wrx:

and then the main highlight itself:

remember, drive safely. car accidents form the highest number of casualties from transport-related deaths.

no-one dies here though fortunately. the driver's head smashed against and cracked the windscreen, but he's up and walking. the picture was taken using a funky candlelight mode and it turns out fine, except that i can never get long-exposure photos right. my hand shakes like i've got mild Parkinsons. and i felt really awkward taking photos when the river was there ><
yes, those were the 2 better shots. were you expecting more? =)

Phew. v7.14’s about as far as it's going to get. one more major kink (bloody stupid browsers) to sort out and it's done.
Warning: long post ahead.

My blog is essentially a place where i record down all my little flashes of brilliance or the funny stuff that happens, in class or outside. somehow it never rains but pours - since my last blog entry i've got so much material to write about i've had to jot down notes on notepad ><

the thing that i remember most vividly is still royston tan's visit for CLE. much more interesting than staying in class writing down your own good and bad points or problems etc.
i've always found royston tan's short films intriguing, although some too abstract for me. but some are just plain funny, like the "auntie one-dollar" remix ^^
but what i found worthy of real estate here was the "careless whisper" film, about Mr Careless Whisper(obviously) from Singapore Idol (If you stll don't remember who he is you're probably living in a gutter in Somalia or Afghanistan and shouldn't have Internet access). The film itself was ok, but it was the fact that Mr Patrick Khoo himself (that's careless whisper for you ppl who think his IC reads "Surname: Careless, Name: Whisper") came to sing. Yes, we all know he isn't the world's greatest singer. He has improved quite a bit, i'll give him that. But what's worth mentioning was the standing ovation we gave him when he finished. Royston even mentioned that we were the first school to encourage him thus. for that moment i suddenly felt proud to be where i was, proud to be among "the Ones"(can't have forgotten sec1 so fast right? ^^) who rose to the occasion.

on a less emo note, MSN messenger 8.0 beta looks good. all kinds of cool features as usual. but the complaint i've had since Windows Messenger 3.0 still stands - don't Microsoft people ever eat anything _BUT_ lunch?! when we're having lunch in school, we can rest assured that if we were on MSN then we could announce to the whole world that we were eating lunch. But if we're eating dinner at home, we have to say that we're "busy", "away", "be right back" or "out to lunch". can't they call it "eating" or "mealtime" or a simple "food."?! why just lunch?! don't tell me billgates is on some funky new diet program where you eat once per day ^^

i just saw a tv program about 9-11, and they mentioned some conspiracy theory about CIA hijacking the plane etc. i went to search up more, and it's amazing how many deceptions the US government can keep up. google "US conspiracy theory" if you don't believe me. and while we're on the subject, we were talking about a funky book called "the world is flat" during SS period. and yichen mentioned a group of people called the Flat Earth Society who believe that the world is flat and that all photogrphic evidence and otherwise are part of a US government conspiracy to... i dunno. but apparently it really existed :o
here's an alternative theory i came up with in a flash of brilliance during SS, revised now to explain many well-known phenomena:
the Earth was indeed flat a loonnng time ago when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. Remember that Earth was mostly one huge supercontinent back then? in the center of this continent, there were so many dinosaurs competing for food and fighting to gain control of a small river which was their only source of water that all the dinosaurs started moving outwards to the borders of the supercontinent. there they found ample water, and so they settled there. However, this meant that there were no dinosaurs in the center of the Earth. The combined weight of all the dinosaurs on the sides started to take its toll on flat Mother Earth, and she began to bend downwards. After centuries of bending, she curved into almost a complete sphere, but with a gap at the bottom like a "C" tilted 90 degrees to the right. (my original theory states that the dinosaurs fell off the earth, but that was just wrong) then, the dinosaurs on the two extreme edges saw each other and wanted to move closer, but they didn't see the gaping hole in the middle and in the mad stampede to reunite, all the dinosaurs on Earth fell into the massive hole and died, filling it up with their remains. and that was how Earth turned round. ^^
it perfectly explains the current landmass on earth (the supercontinent cracked and shattered while Earth was bending) as well as the disappearence of the dinos, doesn't it? ^^

here's another alternative theory courtesy of his royal braininess michael (lim), inspiration from wee hsuan: humans evolved from Venus Flytraps.
rationale: according to wee hsuan, humans yawn so that we can catch flies. michael therefore deduced that humans feel sleepy when they are hungry, and when they feel sleepy they yawn. Thus yawning helps catch flies to satisfy our appetite, like the venus flytrap ^^
somehow writing about eating flies doesn't feel the same as talking about it in class =S

i saw popular having a cdrom sales sometime back. most of them were EA Sports titles. It's amazing how far people take these games - Fifa 2005 was a WCG game, meaning that players get money for sitting in front of a screen controlling little players running around. Excuse me, there's EPL and World Cup for a reason. Why compete over a game which simulates a rael-life event? stuff like CS is ok, because not many people would be signing up to see who gets more blood on their hands. but WCG having sports games just feels wrong... >.>
I just noticed sometime back that Dan brown's Angels and Demons and Da Vinci Code is _still_ on StraitsTimes bestseller list after, what, almost a year?! i'm not saying it's rubbish, but think about it. its a weekly bestSELLER's list, not most-read book. which means that even with all the new fiction books coming out, every week people still buy these two books more than other fiction books. how many times can Singaporeans buy the same book?!

while sorting out and clearing my old posts 2 days ago, i suddely remembered li qian's blog [EDIT: His Excellent Braininess's blog address has been censored not by China's massive firewall for anti-Mao sentiments, but my me on his request ><] horror of horrors, it's growing cobwebs!! oi!
but then again, reading about seth-trap still made me laugh. i remember the time li qian took (i think gary's) famous nalgene bottle, hung a long piece of yarn over it, and looped the string over the metal grille on the side of the wall so the bottle hung over seth's chair. we were all waiting for seth to come into class and sit down so we could cut the string ^^
seems like eccentricity's a side effect of intelligence. here's another example: during physics lab prac, michael rooted out a huge bottle of "Poison Corrosive May cause Severe Burns" and poured some of the syrupy colourless liquid into a glass beaker. the bottle's label says "70% conc. nitric acid", but it's written over that in marker ink "glycerine". michael says glycerine is highly explosive when exposed to electricity. nobody knows what it actually is. oops...

Singapore's going to have a new high-speed fireoptics-based internet, if the government delivers what it says. Although this is still way behind South Korea where broadband prices are dirt-cheap and 70% of the population is connected to the Net. Somehow, though, internet speeds are never fast enough. I attribute this to the movie industry.
i've got a theory that techonological advances like DVD, HDDVD and blu-ray are part of a conspiracy to lower piracy. why? simple - the bigger the file is, the longer it takes to download. but internet companies keep coming out with faster speeds, and when it reaches a certain limit, Hollywood starts pushing out newer "hi-defnition" movies in a new storage medium that's a few times bigger in size. harddisk space will never be enough - ISPs and moviemakers will compete in the same fashion until someone puts a stop to it ^^
the more i watch the Amazing Race, the more i think it's gotten off the original spirit of corss-country racing. firat they had mini-Fear Factor stuff like jumping into cold water from a 10m springboard and sitting in a Mercedes whizzing around a racetrack going so fast the track's angled at 90degrees at some curves, but it seems to have a little Apprentice flavour to it as well. I saw a trailer on AXN about the contestants having to sell 10 pound of something or the other as a roadblock. talk about original...
ok, ENOUGH. i've wasted enough time here. there's a lot more work to do and i don't know what i'm doing here. this guy on some internet forum summed up the new "teach less, learn more" policy quite effectively: "they teach us less stuff, and we have to learn a lot more things ourselves after school when we're supposed to be free." w00t.

and nope, nothing for april fool's this year. last year was so fun, but the joke shop stuff ran out ^^

omgwtfbbq!!!111 just did a wordcount using MS word out of curiousity. 1.5k+ words. if only my essays flowed out just as smoothly...

yes, finally...
i feel like some sort of necromancer reviving a dead blog ^^

just started playing GTA:SA during the holidays. I must say that despite all it's inverted morals and stuff, i find it a very unique and refreshing game.
I've read on some website or the other that the GTA series is different from all other games. indeed it was a trendsetter. if you think about it, games in the past can be classified under one of these categories:

racing - self explanatory. some are just pure racing, others are more upgrade-oriented. but whatever it is, it's still driving around in a car and getting somewhere faster than another guy by 0.1s. a good example would be the whole NFS series.

rpg(roleplaying game) - try to unlock the next level by doing stuff, getting past enemies etc, then rinse and repeat. good examples would be pokemon and super mario ^^
strategy - you control this and that, you need to crush your opponent. just keep churning out creeps, overlord tanks or apocalypse tanks to win. alternatively, just keep using some maph4x or speedh4x and you'll pwnz too.

fps (first-person shooter) - simple bang-bang-you're dead. whether you shoot with ancient winchester rifles, futuristic lightning guns or AWPs, its the same kill-em-all game. famous examples include Counterstrike, Quake 4, HL2, operation sand... :p

adventure-based role-playing - also known as "level-up whoring games". basically fight, get a levelup, buy stuff, fight more people, get a higher level, buy more stuff, fight more advanced people/monsters/mushrooms, rinse and repeat. then go to school and proudly announce that you've wasted a week of your life getting to uber l33t level 100 status. examples? all around you. maplestory, adventure quest, KoL aka the crippled stickman game crippled = lame... get it? =P)....

alternate world games - usually internet based where you're placed in a different world. also known as "richer-than-thou" games. Neopets would be a good example ^^

and there are those brainless internet games like dynasty street, matrix bullettime, alien hominid, pepere parallel parking... -_-

yup, those are the styles. most of the game producers in the world probably have a box with the above written on slips of paper, and when they feel like the market's ripe for a new game they pick 1 (or more) slips out and then create such a game.

so back to the topic... GTA is different. it's got the currency and alternate-world attributes, it's got car modding and racing, stuff to unlock, a character which you play, some FPS element to it... it's probably one of those unclassifiable games. and then there's the carjacking, the questionable ethics, the police... =P
it's fun to play cos in a way it blows up misdemeanours to such absurd extents. one cannot associate such stuff with real life as it is way too far-fetched, hence we can laugh at it (there, i haven't been sleeping through lit classes =D).
so as long as i know what i do in the game (it's pretty obvious actually ^^) i don't see why i can't play the game.

and another rant about the ipod - why couldn't steve jobs just do what creative did and let users drag n drop songs from the com direct to the ipod? if you're at someone else's house and you want to transfer a song to listen, you can't. (note that the above example is HYPOTHETICAL. it is illegal and nobody is doing it, so you shouldn't =D)