wilkommen

The worth of a book

2011-01-09T20:25:00.002+08:00

It hasn't been long since I started enjoy reading. After a few books I found my interest in the historical fiction genre. Stories adapted from real historical events but novelised for the extra oomph.

Three series have fascinated me to the extent that I would reserve their newest book from the library, pretty amazing for someone who hardly read anything other than textbooks just a few years ago.

1. Simon Scarrow's Eagle series: One of the first novel series I picked up. Story on Rome and its conquest fascinated me even more after I started playing Rome: Total War.

2. Simon Scarrow's Revolution series: While I was waiting for the next book in the Eagle series, I took a read on the Revolution series that got me hooked. Very interesting to find out more on Napoleon and Wellington's march against each other.

3. Conn Iggulden's Conqueror series: I first saw this book in a San bookstore in PS. It was the cover of the Lords of the Bow that etched in my mind. I then started reading right from the start. Story tells of the history of Genghis Khan. Book 3 ended with Genghis death and I recently realised they are publishing a book 4. Can't wait to read that.

The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it. ~James Bryce

The Selfless miser

2010-01-14T22:18:00.002+08:00

A book I am currently reading talks about how selfless a miser is. This may sound strange but do continue to read on to find out.

A miser is classified as selfless simply because of the miserly way of life. The miser choose to lead a spartan life even if he could afford otherwise. However his spartan life has unexpectedly benefit the rest of the world. Yes, you and me and everyone else out there. The miser's insistence to consume the resources at the bare minimal has in turn allocated the rest of us more resources at our disposal. By choosing to eat less, buy less and take less, we are able to eat more, buy more and take more. Its effectively a supply and demand theory, the miser lowers the demand and resources which in turn increased the supply we can have.

In fact the miser is so selfless that a philanthropist pales in comparison. A philanthropist's charitable act would benefit few at the most, the orphans at the orphanage receiving the donation or the needy in need of some subsidies to get by. The miser on the other hand benefits every single one of us out there, including the orphans and needy. By simply consuming less, demand decreases and so does the price that goes along with it.

The moral of the story: The true philanthropist is the miser!

Autistic Teen Finds Inner Voice

2009-11-22T01:10:00.001+08:00

Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody

2009-11-15T22:38:00.001+08:00

The waiting game

2009-11-15T22:15:00.002+08:00

There's so many things I am waiting for right now.

1. My transcript from Germany which I have been waiting since September, finally on its way now (hopefully)...

2. My 1/4 car which I bought for the purpose of my FYP. 3 weeks and counting...

3. Meeting with the therapists at SGH regarding the FYP as well, supposedly having a meeting last week but still waiting for the date...

4. My parcel from HK that contains some gadgets for my own purpose. Turned out that the postman came over on Sat but I was not in, so I can only collect it from the post office on Monday.

The waiting continues....

Breaking out

2009-11-09T23:33:00.003+08:00

If you can choose one superpower, what would it be?

I desire the ability to fly, much like how Nathan Petrelli from Heroes, or even Superman does it.

I would be able to get to any place in the world, from US, Europe, Russia or just plain wilderness out of nowhere, I could reach it in no time. Best of all its all free!

When I am down and out and just want to spend time alone thinking over things, I could just fly myself up to the clouds.

I could bid traffic jams and crowded public transport goodbye and take a scenic route to where I desire.

Maybe I just desire freedom in its purest form.

Being too optimistic

2009-10-21T20:00:00.002+08:00

Everyone knows its good to be optimistic, but sometimes you should not be too optimistic as can be seen below.

The scenario is based on the pre-enlistment conversation of 3 Singapore Poly students (2 guys and 1 girl) who were sitting beside me on the train.

Guy A: How many camps are there in Singapore?
Guy B: Don't know
Guy A: But no matter what, we will have to be in Tekong for the first 3 months right?
Guy B: Yeah... hopefully we can all be in the same unit after that.
Guy A: Hope so... I wonder how the training is like?
Guy B: I heard you only train for 4 hours a day.
Guy A: Really?
Guy B: Ya la... who can train the whole day? No man will be able to take it.
Guy A: Ya hor... now very slack, since last year got quite a few people died
Girl: Die??
Guy B: Ya, last year got some died while running
Girl: Oh...
Guy A: So if you just cough a bit, they will probably ask you to fall out... They all scared liao.
Guy B: Should be quite slack one la, how tough can it get?

Hopefully they do not get the shock of their life on enlistment day.

Blind 5 Year Old Korean Girl Pianist - Child Genius

2009-10-18T11:37:00.001+08:00

I happened to chanced upon this video clip when one of my friends posted it on Facebook. I have to say that this girl is very talented but it could also because being blind hones her hearing to such extent.

However, the reason for this post is regarding a comment I saw which says that poster felt that the girl is very pitiful to be thrown into the harsh entertainment industry as such young age. I have to disagree, children with talent should be allowed to developed them and even to flaunt them. What is the use if you have such talents but have no means to show it. Look at American Idol or Britain's got Talent, without such platforms, talents would remain hidden among us, only to regret when you get older, lamenting for the lack of opportunities or lack of guts to try it. If you think you are good, show it!

Getting together

2009-10-09T12:40:00.005+08:00

This has got to be one of the best time I've spent in my house in Munich. A dinner get-together of the occupants (most) in the house. As we residents are made up of a myriad of different nationalities, the house-master decided that everyone should make something iconic to our home country.Preparing the dishes by Zhao Feng (2nd from left, China) and his friend

More preparation by Aboudi (left, from Lebanon) and his wife (right, from Greece)
Setting up the table
As time passes, more food arrives...
And more...
And even more...
Until it was ready to eat
From left (back to front): Singapore (myself), China, Turkey, India, Lebanon, Greece, Pakistan, Latvia and USA
In the courtyard are the Bulgarians working on the grill
And then we finally started eating
Taking photos
Displaying the dishes they made
I made BBQ Sambal Fish because they do not eat Stingray in Germany

Mastering the Master Grade

2009-09-22T23:28:00.003+08:00

This is the first time a Gundam model kit is able to sit in my room for 2 weeks and yet to be fully assembled. So far, I have only assembled the upper body, i.e. the torso, arms and head, and some of its weaponry. Its partly due to a lack of time due to other commitments as well the level of difficulty and parts for this one since its a Master Grade this time. Nevertheless I am sure it will be completed before Christmas.

Anyway I am quite surprised to find the price of model kits these days to be rather affordable, much so compared to when I first started back in Secondary school days. A Master Grade now is comparable to a High Grade (lower grade than Master Grade) back in those days. But I wonder when will the day come that I would be willing to buy a Perfect Grade (costs at least $200).

Moving forward | Stepping back

2009-09-10T22:41:00.003+08:00

It surprises me how people tend to forget about their goals in the face of obstacles. Some give up without giving a try while others are ready to settle for mediocre solutions even though they know it will not be enough to fulfill what they set out to do.

Few people sought to re-tackle the problem at hand in search of better solutions which we ought to do in order to accomplish our goals.

Why are people settling for mediocrity?

Maybe its human nature to be lazy and choose the easy way out.

Next stop.... Kent Ridge

2009-09-01T23:30:00.002+08:00

Its really not because I want to compare but it is really much much more convenient to have an MRT station right beside campus. In Munich, I have a station outside where I live which could conveniently bring me to either campuses I studied in. Having such a long heritage, I would say that having a MRT station to NUS or even NTU is long overdue.

The NUH station on the Circle Line would probably be the best we got.

Don't speak English

2009-08-25T21:41:00.001+08:00

The Best of Europe

2009-08-21T11:03:00.004+08:00

Having travelled to many of the Western and Central European countries, there are bound to be some places that I particularly like. Here I would like to share the top 5 places in my stay in Europe. (In no particular order)

1) Koenigssee and Berchtesgaden
The small town of Koenigssee (aka King's Lake) is one of the most scenic places I have been to. The Alpen mountains beside a clear lake present picturesque views that is truly spectecular. The experience was enhanced through a freezing outdoor camping by the river and a early morning jog through the misty town.

2) Haarlem and Zandvoort am Zee
Haarlem and Zandvoort are nearby towns to Amsterdam. Haarlem mesmerised me with its integration of river coursing through the town square and its residents' efforts in creating a green environment in their surroundings. Zandvoort am Zee was a very comfortable resort town by the North Sea where hundreds and thousands of Netherlanders come to relax by the beach. Though the water is not clear and blue as many would like it to be but its was truly comfortable and relaxing to be lying by the sandy (and clean) beach, doing nothing. Did I mentioned that this is a nude beach as well?

3) Segovia
The small town beside Madrid, the capital of Spain, is a far cry from the populous city. 30 minutes away by train, It gives you the impression that the town is in the midst of wilderness with a mountain blocking the view of Madrid from Segovia. Its largest attraction is no doubt one of the few Aquaducts that have survived through the years and still as magnificent.

4) Venice
Dubbed the one of the most romantic city in the World, the entire city is built on waters for protection against the barbaric Bavarian tribes. This is where boats instead of cars are a common sight while buses run on waters. The Doge Palacce, residence of the democratically elected leader of the Venetians is the best Palacce I have seen in Europe, even more luxurious than the great Versailles. Another reason I like Venice is because of a particular pizza shop that serves the best pizza I have ever eaten. (Pizza Al Volo @ Campo Santa Margherita)

5) Vienna
The Austrian capital entices you with its architecture and arts. Opera from 3 euros (S$6), complete with monitors for english/german subtitles. The Schoenbrunn Palacce also boast one of the most beautiful garden. And I got to enjoy all of it with my girlfriend and a friend who happened to be there.

Final Year

2009-08-17T00:12:00.002+08:00

My final year project involves building a driving simulator for stroke rehabilitation patients. It might also involve cutting up a real Toyota car, dismantle it and used some of its parts for the simulator.

Sound fun huh? Its not fun when

I have no idea how to programme the software for the simulator.
No idea where I can start looking for information regarding this aspect since I might well be the first person ever to do something of this nature.
I am the pioneer in this project unlike some FYPs where we carry on what our seniors have done.

Right now I think I shall indulge myself in Daytona USA as a form of 'field research'... haha

Best investment ever

2009-08-11T22:29:00.002+08:00

This bike is my best investment in Europe.

It cost 40 Euros originally but I managed to bargain for a 5 euros discount at the fleamart.
Then I asked for the basket at the back so it would be easier for getting groceries and the owner wanted to charge me 5 euros for the basket which I managed to get it waived.
When the spoke gave me some problems, I brought the bike back to the fleamart which the owner managed to fix it for me FOC.
The last and most important point is that I managed to sell the bike for 40 euros when I only paid 35 euros for it.

Friedrich-Deckel Haus

2009-08-09T04:26:00.000+08:00

This is where I called home for the last 4 months.

The Freidrich-Deckel Haus, aka Haus 2A of Studentenstadt, aka Grasmeierstrasse 19

The Front door

The inner courtyard

In room 133

On days when I am on garbage duty

The common room (it was being cleaned, that's why the table was on the sofa)

The common kitchen

Making an entrance

2009-07-28T03:10:00.001+08:00

A cultural difference?

2009-07-27T05:16:00.003+08:00

Its supposed to be exam period 1 (Exam period 2 comes after the 1month break), but why do I still see people outside partying, having fun or BBQing everyday? By the way, I live in a student dormitory zone (Studentenstadt).

On a side note, I am moving out on 31 July and I still do not have anything in my suitcase.... yet.

CAP it out!

2009-07-24T20:55:00.003+08:00

I always ask myself if CAP really matters to an undergraduate.

I admit that it is a useful form of measure of a person's academic level but I also believe that the CAP system itself has its flaws. For one thing, it has taken away the joy of learning. Students no longer purely take electives that are of interest to them, which should have been the case, because they rather take something easier to prevent a fall in their CAP (a rise is always preferred). Sure the S/Us are there for this purpose but if you have a choice of raising your CAP further with a module you dislike but is easy to score, why not?

The CAP system is the main method in classifying undergraduates (when they graduate) of their Honours class. Those with higher CAP naturally have a easier time looking for jobs and securing a higher starting salary. But is that really an accurate way to determine the worth of a graduate?

I am sure most people have seen those totally unworthy of their position in society. Be it a straight A's student from an elite school only to f*** it up in NS or that manager of yours totally having no idea what is going on. An excellent student do not always equate to being an excellent worker or even an excellent leader. That said, CAP should only be a guide to a person's ability to learn and apply his knowledge but sadly many people treat it as a prediction to their future success.

Maybe the laidback lifestyle here has influenced me too much.

The reality of life...

Immer kochen

2009-07-24T04:42:00.004+08:00

This was what my Latvian neighbour (ethnically Russian), Alesja told me when she entered the kitchen last week. It means 'always cooking' in german. Whenever I am not studying or doing whatever I need to do in my room, the best place to look for me would be the kitchen. Well, its not like there are really a lot of other places I can go, though the Englischer Garten is just 50m away but weather these days are too unpredictable. Anyway I still need to eat and Munich is not like Singapore where you can just go out and da-bao something. There is a restaurant in Studentenstadt but its fairly expensive. So here are some of the more special dishes I have made in Munich. I apologise for the lacklustre photos as my room is rather dim and I did not bother about the aesthetics part, plus I am normally have baerenhunger (hunger of a bear, worst german phrase becos no one uses them here) after spending so much time cooking these stuff.

Lamb curry

My dad told me to bring some curry powder so I could make some curry whenever I want. I am glad I did because my first attempt was great, partly because I used pre-mixed curry powder. The Nepalese in the house made their own curry from scratch, tumeric powder, chilli powder, coriander powder, etc. Hats off to them.

Sweet Pork

What is sweet pork you say? Everyone knows sweet and sour pork so when you take the sour element away, you get Sweet Pork! I did this according to a recipe from wokkingmum and since I had all the ingredients needed for this sweet pork, I decided to give this a try. It turned out really good. I did a sweet and sour pork subsequently using my neighbour's ketchup and it was gone in a jiffy.

CX's chiong Kung-Pow chicken

It was not my original intention to make Kung-Pow chicken. After cooking the chicken with onions, carrots, chilli, ginger with oyster sauce and dark soy sauce, the taste turns out to be rather similar to Kung-Pow chicken. (On 1 July 2009, CX discovered the secrets(part of) of Kung Pow chicken)Kartofeln Salat (Potato salad)

This is a dish I copied from my mum after she made it for me once. Simple, easy, able to eat on the go and delicious. I added bacons to give it an extra oomph. Yi han the 90% vegetarian is tried to find a non-meat substitute to beat my potato salad.

Chilli con carne

I decided to do a chilli con carne after seeing Yi han did it on one of the dinners. Really simple but totally rocks. I just did another one today.

Other dishes I have made here and probably worth a mention:

Bak Kut Teh - I brought the spice pack here but sadly something is still missing, maybe its the you-tiao, haha.
Crepes - Learnt it from Xiuqing and her french friend. (Note: never eat more than 3 crepes at once, you will wanna puke after that)
Sambal fish - Chiong version of BBQ sambal Stingray. There are no stingrays here, so I used wild salmon instead.
Chicken rice - Without pandan leaves, its just not fragrant enough.
Baked beans stew - Scrambled eggs + grilled sausages, put it all into the baked beans and pour them over your rice = a yummy meal.

Speaking deutsch

2009-07-20T17:50:00.002+08:00

After staying in Deutschland(Germany) for 4 months, I do not think my deutsch has improved very much. Though I am now more able to keep with their pace and different accent but my vocabulary remains largely inadequate. Certain more commonly used phrases do come out of my mouth more naturally but due to the lack of conversing in the language my level of deutsch remains fairly constant.

Most of the time I understand others through inference. The german language is vastly different in structure compared to English where the main points of the sentence exists at the start and the end while the details (if any) are found in the middle. Thus most of the time I only pay attention to the main points and infer what they are talking about rather than fully understand the entire context of the sentence. Unless of course the words in their entire sentence can be found in my vocabulary library.

Sounds so much like Knowledge-Based Engineering Systems that I am reading right now.

No eating pls!

2009-07-16T18:54:00.002+08:00

It seems that rules-flouting habits of Singaporeans have finally broke the tolerance threshold of SMRT when it announced that it will be enforcing fines on riders caught eating and/or drinking on the train.

Singapore is a 'FINE' country, everyone knows that. We fine people for jaywalking, littering and many more to keep the people in place. Singapore is known to be a clean country but are we really considerate citizens? Nope, at least that is what I think. I would say Singapore is clean because of the large numbers of cleaners we employ to keep it clean. Take a look at East Coast Park or any beach and you will find tons of litter everywhere (if not where does beach cleaning CIP come about?). Even with restrictions of eating on public transport, we find empty packs of McDonald's or bubble tea cups everywhere. Sure, there are people who are considerate enough to place their litter in bins but there are still many inconsiderate ones out there.

In Germany, eating and drinking are allowed in most public transport, save buses I think. However the hygiene conditions of these public transport are on par if not higher than our MRT and buses. On the S- and U-bahns, its common to see people having their breakfast or a nice bottle of beer or even an ice cream cone as they commute to their destinations. But there are hardly any litter. Muencheners (people living in Munich) are considerate enough to place their litter in those small bins found beside seats or just throw them after they alight. Public areas are also generally kept clean and this city does not even have the reputation of being clean unlike Singapore.

Echo auf dem Konigssee

2009-07-13T19:54:00.003+08:00

Blast the volume up and listen to the echo.... It was truly an amazing experience.

*PS: This is not what we took but is same anyway.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

2009-07-10T04:43:00.002+08:00

I believe many have watched it, so have I despite being in Munich and paying double the price than I would have in Singapore. Without a doubt the action-packed movie would appeal to many Transformers fans who have watched it on TV when it was still a cartoon back in the early 1990s. New fans would probably be satisfied with a decent enough sequel to the first flick. However as I was riding my bicycle to school(the 40km route B was boring enough) the day after I watched it, it dawned on me that there are more loopholes in the story than I realised.

1. The All Spark mystery
Since the Sun harvester was built on Earth in 17,000BC, way before the All Spark arrived on Earth as shown in Transformers 1, why would the All Spark know of the location of the Matrix of Leadership?

2. More All Spark mystery
The All Spark splinter was supposed to reveal where the Matrix of Leadership was but instead all their information were provided by Wheelie (the decepticon that hump on Meagan Fox), Simmons (the sector 7 agent) and Jet Fire. You could say that Jetfire translated the symbols Sam carved but see mystery 1. The All Spark did nothing else after that.

3. Megatron
If my memory does not fail me, I remembered that Megatron was thrown into the deep ocean after being destroyed in Transformers 1 due to its high pressure and ultra-low temperature which are able to prevent any other Cybertronian robots from reaching them. Then how did they revive Megatron if they are supposed to be deactivated upon reaching the depths? Global warming?

4. The Primes
The Fallen mentioned that only a Prime could destroy him. If all it took was Optimus Prime alone to defeat The Fallen in less than 10mins, it would not make sense that the 3 Primes who hid the Matrix of Leadership would be inadequate the defeat him.

That said its still one hell of a show.

CyberGlove

2009-06-25T22:44:00.001+08:00

The future in technology in endless.

3 months

2009-06-22T04:12:00.002+08:00

Without realizing I have already been in Europe for 3 months. Today my friend, Yihan, asked me what has living in Europe taught me or how have it changed me?

I can safely say for sure that my stay in Europe, especially Germany has made me realized the importance of punctuality. Well, I do know the importance of punctuality before I come here but its only here that I realized that I must really be early or on time if not, I'm dead!

One, the trains and buses leaves on the dot, not very often to see a late bus/train. Second, the Germans are very punctual people, very much so compared to Singaporeans. However the presence of a fixed time system for public transport has taught me to appreciate the convenience and high frequency of the Singapore's public transport. Here I could easily wait up to 20 or 30mins for missing a train/bus. The train from my hostel to TUM ME faculty only comes once every 20mins. It not the regional trains we are talking about here, but the U-bahn, Munich's subway.

I also appreciate how the Europeans value family life. On Sunday, families throng to the parks or some nice places of interest and spend time together. You will not see families hanging around shopping malls because the malls are not open on Sundays. It probably will be unthinkable for many Singaporeans to survive a Sunday with practically everything closed, supermarkets and malls, etc. I have yet to see a convenience store in Europe, no 7-11 or whatsoever. You either stay at home on Sunday, head out to one of the few restaurants and cafes opened or go to a park. I felt that it would be great if Singapore have something like that but probably not every Sunday though, that would be too much for a generation of window shoppers to take. Maybe once a month or even once a year would be great.

Cook more, ride more is what I think I would do when I return. Its fun to try out different recipes and healthier as well, though the washing dishes part is not fun at all. I would miss the opportunities I have when I can just organize an impromptu dinner at my place and within minutes everyone would arrive or having a BBQ in my backyard under the tree I only recently realized is a cherry tree (We plucked a few cherries today!). Maybe I should review this post again 3months later when I would already be back in Singapore and reflect upon what have changed and what I miss about Europe.

Summer

2009-06-20T23:54:00.004+08:00

When I first arrived in Munich, it was snowing, the trees were bare and there wasn't much greenery in the city. Spring came and filled the city with greenery. Flowers shed their petals amid the breeze like snow. Now spring is leaving, the flowers developed into fruits as the season enters into summer. I realised that my backyard has a cherry tree when I saw the little red fruit on the tree and the ground below. You know summer is here when mosquitoes bigger than 50 sg cents appear out of nowhere. Yeap, they are THAT big here in Europe. Another hint that summer is here is when you see people sunbathing nude in the Englischer garden. Europe is always full of surprises!

Someone once said that there are 2 groups of people in the Literature world, those who have read the Lord of the Rings and those who will read it. I belong to the former with the trilogy lying in my room in Singapore now but I wished they were here with me in Munich right now.

I have heard from other people saying the LOTR is a boring book with excessive description of the environment and surroundings. Description, yes.... excessive, I don't think so. I felt that it was ok and a pretty good read for someone who hardly does. So do take a browse if you have the chance, you will be surprised.

It is said that 'The Hobbit' is coming soon on the big screen, it largely revolves around Frodo's uncle, Bilbo Baggins. It will talk about how Bilbo got the Ring from Smeagol and the most interesting part would probably be the Battle of Five Armies. It should be more interesting watching it than reading it though.

A dying Lust

2009-06-15T20:50:00.003+08:00

These days as I speak to my fellow exchange students in Munich, it is inevitable to hear them talk about travel fatigue. Oh yes, you can get tired from travelling. Some of you reading this blog might find it hard to understand, especially if you have not spent more than a month holidaying.

If you have been keeping track of my 'Wanderlust' list on the left, I have been travelling quite a lot myself since I arrived in Europe in March. As you see more cities, been to more places of interest, its hard not to compare new ones with those you have already been to. European cities are pretty standard, there is always a city center with an administrative building (Rathaus in deutsch). Then there is always one or two churches/cathedrals that are more well-known. A few must-see museums which houses nothing but paintings and/or sculptures. The paintings get pretty boring after you been to a few museums, a large portion of the paintings always depicts the life of Jesus or important events for the Christians. At least one of the churches/cathedrals will almost always have a tall tower where people will be queuing to go up to have a panoromic view of the city. Then there is the palace where there is nice and pretty stuff to look at, e.g. Hall of mirrors (saw 3 of it already), some nice murals on the wall or bedroom and furnitures in gold, etc.

So when we travel to 10 cities, we do not generally see new things in all 10 cities. Many times its just the same old kind of places, maybe better maybe not. Thinking back, I once met 2 Malaysians on a Europe tour for 2 months, I wonder now how they can travel non-stop for 2 months.

After looking at Fussen, I am now more inclined towards discovering the nature side of Germany. Visiting mountains and forests, hiking and cycling, discovering the other side of Europe. Anyway the word Lust in german means interest.

Misconceptions about Singapore

2009-05-31T21:48:00.004+08:00

When you sit down in front of your laptop on a long weekend in your room, somehow you remember the stuff you want to share with others, thus here comes another post to compensate for the weeks of inactivity.

As you travel around, people start asking where you are from and stuff and you start to know what others know about your country. Here are some of the common or biggest misconception people have about Singapore.

1) Singaporean chinese speaking Mandarin is pretty new to some of our chinese folks. Some thought that we only speak English while others express surprise at my fluency (I WAS in higher Chinese ok?)

2) Singaporeans do not like the English (the people of UK). I met this teacher from Manchester in Rome who felt that the fall of Singapore in WWII was a total disgrace on the British and thought that we Singaporeans hated the English because of it. You are always welcomed in Singapore, Martin!

3) Tourism is Singapore's only if not biggest source of revenue. Did I mention that 70% of the World's oil rigs are built by us(mentioned by some ME prof)? Surely we did not attain 5th in terms of highest foreign reserves based purely on 10mil visitors a year.

Another interesting incident

2009-05-31T21:06:00.003+08:00

There is this new guy who came into our house 2 weeks ago, while interning in Munich. Last week he tried to bake those frozen pizza from the supermart without turning on the oven.

1) It cannot be fully his fault as you need to turn 2 knobs to turn the oven on.
2) However he failed to realise that the oven was not on after tens of minutes, all the while looking at a still frozen pizza and an oven not heated up.
3) When the oven was finally heated up thanks to my intervention, he had wanted to start eating the pizza while the cheese on top of the pizza had yet to melt = uncooked pizza.

A few days ago, he pulled another stunt. Approaching me for help after he failed to open the washing machine. I too failed to open the washing machine and suspected something was amiss. I realised that the washing machine was still filled with water, meaning it has yet to finish the entire procedure before someone switched it off. So I asked...

CX: There's still water inside, did you switch it off before it was done?

New guy: Yeah, I did.

CX: Then I guess you have to re-run the wash again and wait until its done.

New guy: I need to wash again??

CX: Yes, because its not done washing. What mode did you choose just now?

New guy: This one (the timer showed - 0:48), 48 seconds.

CX: 48 seconds?!? (Even hand wash cannot attain such speed!), Its 48 mins!

New guy: 48 MINUTES!?! It needs so long??

CX: (stares at him blankly)

New guy: Is there a faster one?

CX: Quick wash, 28 minutes.

New guy: Ok... thank you.

I had a good laugh after that. I figured that he must have switched off the washing machine by himself thinking that 48s have passed. Nicely done!

The Cycling routes

2009-05-28T16:59:00.006+08:00

Universities in Munich do not have halls or residences the way NUS has. All student accommodation is handled by the Studentenwerk which houses the thousands of students in the numerous dormitories around the city. As such there is hardly any dormitories that are near the campuses unless its a rented apartment. As TUM is a rather long-established university, the main campus was near the city centre but subsequent expansions have to be done outside the city centre. There are 2 campuses I attend lessons in and unlike NUS, there are no shuttle buses here. Purchasing a monthly ticket would cost me roughly S$130 thus the next best option here would be to purchase a bicycle which cost me S$70 and I can still sell it at the end.

Route 1: Studentenstadt --> TUM main campus
Distance: 5.8km

First we go South through the residential area beside the student city before taking the straight road down towards the city centre.

Towards the city centre with the Siegetor in sight

The walking man statue which some german learners should recognise through NUS' german courses.

5 mins later will bring you to Siegetor, one of the old entrances to the city

Then passing through LMU which the TUM folks like to call it 'Lousy Munich University'.

Turning right into Theresienstrasse and going straight down will bring you to Arcisstrasse where TUM main campus is.

TUM Audimax, just a big hall like the ones we have in MPSH but they sell food and beer while there's no exams or events.

Total time taken: 20 (personal best when running late) - 30 (average)

Route 2: Studentenstadt --> TUM Garching
Distance: 11.2km

Going North towards Garching will bring us through the Freimann area where the big Flea market is (to be posted later).

Then coming out of Freimann, riding along a canal from the Isar river is a tiring stretch of straight and monotomous road.

5 mins later, riding through this stretch of road along the plantation will take at least another 5-10mins.

No idea what they are trying to plant now, it used to be a nice field of Canola plants.

Looking back, one will be able to see the wind turbine and a hint of the Allianz Arena which would have roughly mark the halfway point of the route.

Some sights along the way...

Almost there will be what you will be thinking once you see this fountain in the town centre of Garching.

Going through Lidl and Rewe outside the campus.

More fields, its really almost there...

It reads 'Technische Universität of München, Fakultät für Maschinenwesen' - Technical Univerisity of Munich, Mechanical Engineering Faculty. In TUM, ME has an entire block roughly half the size of the entire Engineering faculty in NUS, that's how big ME is in Munich.

Total time taken: 35 - 45 mins

An interesting incident

2009-05-07T21:46:00.002+08:00

This happened in Florence, Italy when 3 exchange students in Munich made their way to the city's most famous Museum - The Galleria degli Uffizi. First they reached there on Labour Day at 7.30am, thinking they beat the crowd (it was rumoured that you need to queue for at least 3hrs to get in), they happily sat down in front of the door. But how could a musuem that famous be empty 1 hr before opening (opening at 8.15am)? Then they realised that the museum was closed on Labour Day. Tough luck!

The next day, the same 3 students reached the Galleria degli Uffizi at 7.45am, only to end up queuing 3hrs to get into the museum and it was a little boring btw. But an interesting incident happened while the 3 waited for their turn to enter the museum. A japanese lady came up to them and asked them a question.

Japanese: Nihon-ji des ka? (are you japanese?)

Exchange students from Munich: instinctively shook their heads and said, 'Nein' (in german)

What is interesting is that they were all in Italy, the japanese asked a question in Japanese while the students were earlier conversing in Mandarin. The exchange students then looked at each other and wondered why in the hell they answered in german so instinctively.

The spoilt brats of China

2009-04-21T16:41:00.002+08:00

Though the One-Child policy in China managed to control the population growth of the country (I hope it did), it has spawned a new problem for its citizens - a generation of spoilt brats. Before I illustrate their doings, I must emphasis that not all of them are spoilt. I personally have chinese friends who did not display such behaviours to the slightest bit and too are irked by the ugly behaviours of their countrymen.

Incident 1

It was part of the orientation programme to visit the Royal Palace in Munich. As a picnic is expected, many brought their own food along. This incident happened between my taiwanese friend and a you know who.

My Taiwanese male friend prepared a sumptuous sandwich meal for himself and another Taiwanese girl in the group. When the chinese girl(about 18 or 19 years old) saw the delicious sandwiches, she approached the guy who was sitting with me.

(Translated from mandarin)
Spoilt girl: Wow, your sandwiches look delicious

Guy: I just made them with whatever I had.

Spoilt girl: Can I have one?

Guy: Sorry, but I only made enough for myself and the other girl.

Spoilt girl: How about you give me yours?

Guy: (gives a awkward smile) Sorry, I can't.

Spoilt girl: (She brought some normal bun from the supermarket) How about I exchange my bun with your sandwich?

Guy: Sorry, but there's not enough.

At this point in time, the spoilt girl was giving a pitiful look hoping for the taiwanese guy to relent while he continues to give an awkward smile. Then she finally relents after a couple of minutes and buy something from the cafe.

Apparently on another trip a week later, she approached the taiwanese guy again to ask for some lettuce, which I have no interest in finding out the details.

Incident 2

It was also part of the orientation that there was a welcome party at a club near one of the dorms. My Singaporean friend bought drinks on behalf of a few of us and apparently the girl from the previous incident was one of them. After 2 cocktails, the girl appears to be drunk and slumps onto a chair outside. As we were also about to leave, we were discussing about some stuff next to them. Then out of nowhere....

Spoilt girl (18 or 19 yrs old): Hello... (Pointing to my friend) hey you!

Singaporean guy (23 or 24 yrs old): yes?

Spoilt girl: (gesturing with her index finger) Come here!

Singaporean guy: (walks over)

Spoilt girl: Here's the money for the drinks just now for me and the other girl. (hands the money and slumps back to her chair)

Singaporean guy: Takes the money and continue talking to me.

Living in Munich

2009-04-20T03:14:00.002+08:00

Munich has one of the World's highest standards of living. In fact most western European cities are expensive when compared to places in Asia. But how expensive are things here?

The expensive list (1 euro is approx = S$2)

1. Frozen chicken (whole): 2.19 euros
2. Ice cream with cone/cup: 0.6-1.2 euros/scoop
3. Durian (yes they do sell it here): 15.99 euros / 0.5kg
4. Fresh seafood: from 1.29 euros/100g
5. Watermelon: 1.99 euros/ quarter
6. Transportation: 1.2 euros for 2 stops on the S/U-bahn. Travelling in groups of 5 is most cost saving at 9 euros/day for all 5 people. Ticket for one from airport to city centre will cost 9.20 euros for just 1 trip, again the day ticket makes more sense.

A typical meal(main dish only) here in Munich would set you back by at least 5 euros in cafes, and about 8 euros in restaurants. For the ill-informed, there is NO hawker centres or kopi-tiam here.

Not everything here is expensive, there must still be stuff that is cheaper than anywhere else. Local products are indeed cheaper than imported goods, in fact some can be so cheap, its unbelievable.

The cheap list
1. Potatoes: can go as cheap as 0.99 euros/ 5kg
2. Dairy products: e.g. ice cream (tub): 1.2 euros for 1 liter tub
3. Alcohol products: Beer can go as cheap as 0.5 euros/ 500ml bottle (pfand not included)
4. Mineral water: 0.19 euros/ 1.5L bottle

Some people may lament at the high cost of Eurail passes, but if you have the time, its well-worth to learn about the Deutsche Bahn(DB) system.

The Happy-weekend ticket entitles up to 5 people on unlimited travel for either Saturday/Sunday from 00.00-03.00 the next day throughout Germany by regional trains. (37 euros)

The lander ticket is a state ticket which entitles up to 5 people on unlimited travel on DB, metros and buses within the state for the day by regional trains (weekdays 09.00-03.00, weekends 00.00-06.00 the next day). (28 euros)

My recent trip to Northern Bavaria with 4 other exchange students only cost me 15 euros for transport for 4 days and 5 cities. Some planning in advance and getting to know the DB system will save you a lot of money while in Germany, of course the Eurail passes allows you to take the superfast Inter-City Express trains.

Funeral - English

2009-04-18T18:55:00.001+08:00

MCYS' newest commercial... I miss S'pore TV programmes!

The short-lived spring

2009-04-11T23:38:00.002+08:00

When I first arrived in Munich on 24 March, it was snowing. Before I left for Spain on 25, it was still snowing in the afternoon.

When I returned from Spain on 2 April, clutching the same thick jacket I was wearing when I left Munich, it was all shiny revealing the arrival of Spring. Leaves started emerging from the buds and flowers started blooming this week.

Yesterday temperature starting soaring past 20 degrees Celcius, the sun was up with no clouds across the sky. It certainly has a hint of Summer that couldn't wait for Spring to be over.

The main difference in weather here is that though its sunny, its still cooling and slightly drier than Singapore. You do not sweat after just walking for 5mins under the sun. The dry weather creates static on the clothing where you can hear the short-circuiting by just running your arms over the blankets. Its a eye-opener at night when the lights are off and it just seemed like lightning has descended upon you.

Stepping into Europe

2009-03-28T17:26:00.006+08:00

Arriving in Munich on 24th March, it was snowing and freezing like hell. Condensation could be observed when I left the airport to take the S-bahn (street train). A german approached us if we wanted to share the partner ticket (for up to 5) with him and we did, so the train ride which would have cost us 9euros is now 4euros. Anyway it was a good thing that I made arrangement to Spain where the weather is a lot better, warmer and sunny, at least in Madrid.

Madrid did not get off to a good start with the plane delayed for an hour but the Barajas airport got a magnificent surroundings with mountains and nature. Madrid has very nice streets, cobblestone and the houses that lined these streets all have balcony, those little ones. I like their metro (MRT) system which is similar to Singapore's but a lot more extensive and also need to walk more to change to connecting trains. Interestingly there's 2 types of train doors, 1) all doors open at the station, 2) press a button/lift a lever to open individual doors.

30mins away by train brings you to a very different town of Segovia. Its main attractions are the Roman Aquaduct, Sant Maria Cathedral and the Alcazar fortress.
More details later, I'm in Barcelona now and its very different from Madrid. Adios!

I will complain you!

2009-03-12T09:28:00.003+08:00

It always amazes me how people in general, not particularly Singaporeans (I believe such people exist everywhere) like to look at things from just their point of view. People like to complain at anything and everything that did not turn out to favour them. People now regards convenience as an entitlement and demands it. People have failed to recognise that maybe convenience should be more of a personal previlege than an entitlement conferred. This way when things go wrong, people are less likely to feel anger and disppointment.

It is also human nature to blame others first than themselves, these people failed to look at things from the perspective of others. Thoughts of 'They could have done this, or why don't they do that instead?' always surface in their mind but they never go deeper on the possible chain effect or put themselves in the shoes of the other party.

Crowded buses and trains are the common grouses these days, tons of people complain about them. Their suggestion? Get more buses lah. This does seemed to be the most straightforward solution but not many actually delve deeper than just purely getting more buses.

There are at least 300 bus services in Singapore, assuming half of them are always crowded during peak hours and we increase the fleet of these services by just 1 bus each and we will already get at least 150 more buses. Question is, does it really end here?

1) Where do we park these 150 more buses if the interchanges and depot are already at close to max capacity?
Of course if they had sound planning in the first place they would have already considered the option of getting more buses thus would already have plans for that.

2) Who will drive and maintain these buses?
Since its recession now, many people are out of jobs so now there's 150 more jobs? Would you go be a bus captain after you're retrenched? I am not saying its not a decent job but it is a fact that not many people want to do it (long hours, low pay, etc). Same goes for automotive technicians.

3) Who is going to pay for these buses?
New buses cost S$360,000- S$500,000 each, equating to S$54m- S$75m needed to acquire the 150 new buses, not inclusive of spare parts, additional staff and support needed, as well as fuel. Shareholders definitely would not want to bear that costs since it will cost their dividends. The government would not want to bear that cost either where the taxpayers' complaint letters almost drowned them when the GST was increased to 7%.

4) With more buses, do we even have enough roads for every vehicles?
Bus passengers: Build more roads lor.
Government: No land leh.
Bus passengers: More bus lanes lor.
Car drivers: Cause more jam leh.

As you can see, there is no way to satifsy everyone, it is a vicious cycle that never ends. I just want to bring the point that everyone should take things easy and be content.

I also would like to share a rather interesting conversation I overheard (I didn't mean to, he was way too loud) on the way home.

Guy: I was late for work today

Girl: How come?

Guy: I took bus A and reached the bus stop to change to bus B. When I alighted, I saw bus B in front and ran, trying to catch the bus. When I reached the door, before I could knock on the bus door, the bus just left the bay. F**k! (Expletives included in actual conversation)

Guy: I don't care, I am going to write to SBS and demand an explanation why the bus just drove off and did not wait for me.

Girl: Were you late?

Guy: I was at the bus stop on time...

Girl: I meant if you were late for work

Guy: I had to wait for the next bus which came at 9am.

Firstly, buses are never on time, they do have a guide as to what time they are supposed to be at each bus stop but as the name suggests it is just a guide. Even MRTs which have their own tracks are not always on time. Secondly, if you expect such exclusive service, public transport is definitely not recommended. Again as the name suggests, it is for the general public so it has no obligations to wait for you. Thirdly, not everything in this world revolves around you, people must learn to take things easily and no complain at the slightest issue. Wake up to the real world dude, maybe wake up early to catch that bus of yours as well!

The never ending war

2009-02-15T21:54:00.003+08:00

If you have read about the ongoing rat killing biltz in Orchard, LAMESHIT School of Thought is going to tell you why the rats will NEVER be annihilated.

Background: Rats are running rampart in Orchard Skatepark area and breeding like nobody's business affecting real businesses (nice huh!) in the area. So pest controllers area engaged to trap, poison, starve, ultimately killing the rats.

Why its not going to work?
Reason 1: There will always be rubbish
From the observation by LAMESHIT on Singaporeans, many of them do not care a hoot about leaving their rubbish uncleared. Their main response to this problem will always be to expect cleaners to clean after them. As such the rats will always have a steady supply of food so starving them really isn't a solution since it cannot be sustained unless NEA resolved to permanently post dedicated Bangla cleaners in the very heart of Orchard 24/7.

Reason 2: They are indestructible!
LAMESHIT has witnessed first hand how tough a rat can be when a rat fell 3 storeys yet lived to tell the tale; though it was not confirmed if the actual rat actually died after telling the tale. But yes, the rat is that tough that hitting the ground from 3 stories did not managed to kill it. They eat all sorts of rubbish and not die. Poison can work only if they egest enough of it to kill it, if not it would only be a matter of time before they grow immune to it.

Reason 3: The numbers are always there
The report has indicated a 95% success in eradicating rats, this would mean that the rat population has drastically decrease right? Yet any 14 year old who have paid attention in Science class can tell you that it would only mean good news to that remaining 5% and bad news to us. Why? The main factors for survival includes low competition for food, with most of the other rats now dead, the remaining ones only have much more food to go around. Even if there is a decline in rubbish (see reason 1), there would still be enough to go around since their numbers have decreased 19x but not the same for the amount of food.

Natural selection would probably also have gotten rid of the weaker ones, leaving the stronger ones who can withstand sufficient amounts of poison or smart enough to not eat that lousy grilled coconut amid that sea of rat glue. The result: Fatter and stronger rats who will re-populate their communities with their kind.

LAMESHIT School of Thought's suggested solution:
Solution 1: Introduce the their natural predator... the snake. Compared to rats who tear apart rubbish bags and spread deadly diseases like plague, snakes do not have such problems. Sure, snakes bite but they hardly kill (non-poisonous snakes), comparatively plague have killed millions worldwide. Snakes are slower and bigger thus easier to catch and they generally leave us alone. So LAMESHIT suggests unleashing snakes to do the job and re-capturing them when its done so they can be reused again (smart right!).

Solution 2: Since you can't kill them all then why not just leave them be. Urbanites have already learned to live with rats. Did you know there is at least one rat in every 50m radius in urban areas? We just leave them to their scavenging at night while we are sound asleep, so since there isn't anyone staying in Orchard at night, who cares?

Note: This is proudly brought to you by LAMESHIT School of Thought, it is totally nonsensical and should not be taken seriously.

Picture below is not for the faint-hearted!

The missing orange.... without a trace!

2009-02-10T09:02:00.004+08:00

Intern 1 decided to leave an orange on his table so he can eat it as and when he wants. He also brought 3 bags of chocolates, which he left on his other chair, so he could snack on them. Intern 2 bought a a box of Kinder Bueno, ate some and left the remaining pack and a half on his table togehter with his other goodies which comprised of a big box of 'chiong' Pocky called Rocky and a box of small curry-puff-lookalikes which were originally thought to contain peanuts as fillings but turned out to contain hae bi hiam (prawn paste).

One day Intern 2 wanted to snack on his Kinder Bueno after lunch but found them missing, he asked Intern 3 if he had seen them but no one had any idea where the chocolates went. When Intern 1 came back from lunch, he too had wanted to eat his orange but found it missing from his table and asked the other 2 interns about his orange which had mysteriously disappeared. Also 2 of the 3 bags of chocolates were also missing. This prompted the 3 interns to ponder on the mysterious case of the missing orange. 3 explainations were provided:

1) The office cleaner had took them. But this was rejected as the cleaner typically arrive later and leave earlier than the workers in the office.

2) The missing foodstuff had been preyed upon by rats. Upon closer scrutiny of the 'crime scene', the interns found no traces of food bits or torn wrappers and thus also reject this hypothesis.

3) Someone on OT decided to snack upon the interns food while they were gone. This seemed to be most plausible judging by the positions of the food items which seemed inaccessible to rats and the rather selective disapperance (the other food items were intact).

A few days later, another colleague discovered a packet drink under his table behind his cabinet and decided to check it out. The scene motified him. Bits of wrappers and food scraps were everywhere. Packet drinks were chewed into and the contents emptied, so too were chocolates leaving only their wrappers behind. Out of the pile of mess were discovered bits of skin of orange and 2 rather intact bags of chocolates that resembled that of Intern 1. If up to this point you still had no idea what had happened, it was the rats that had intelligently removed the food, taking care not to consume any of them but to first gather them in their 'hideout' before settling into their buffet complete with drinks, fruits and desserts. Due to the grotesque sight and in prevention of scaring away present and future readers, photos were not published.

The mysterious case of the missing orange: Solved!

The ugly side of the White Collars

2009-02-06T16:23:00.002+08:00

Observation #1: I am not the lift operator

To some, standing in front of the lift controls do not mean they take on the responsibility of controlling the lift. These white collars do not bother holding the lift doors open when people are entering/exiting the lift, nor do they bother to promptly close the lift doors when everyone are in. They take a autonomous approach towards the lift thinking the lift IS automatic wad!

Observation #2: Who cares about the Earth

The 3Rs of saving Mother Gaia - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle certainly do not interest some White Collars who thinks global warming is just a fad like those small coffee buns called Papa Roti or Roti Papa (how uncreative) that mushroomed all over Singapore before disappearing just as fast within a few months. White Collars have been observed to openly dumping unused paper into rubbish bins where a recycling bin is just 3m away. Toilet bowls were found to be choked with toilet papers enough to clean the Incosiderate's ass for weeks, but since its free, Incosiderate probably decided to use a week's supply for ONE use... its free wad!

The above observations were brought to you by LAMESHIT School of Thought

Update

2009-02-03T15:16:00.003+08:00

Just an update for those who are still visiting this blog despite its recent inactivity

I have been interning at DSTA since the exams ended and after my KL trip in Dec and will be ending my stint here on March 20.

Then the next question would be: 'How about ur semester in NUS?'
Ans: Unless you dunno me personally or we haven't been in contact for years, I will be leaving for Germany for my exchange on 24 March (for some: finally... after talking abt it for so long), tentatively be back on 8 Aug.

Up to this point many would be asking:'Huh... why so late? When is ur term starting?'
Ans: The summer semester in Munich starts on 20 April til 25 July while orientation starts on 5 April. I am going for a short tour first before school starts, most probably Spain (25 Mar-2 Apr) and then Belgium-Netherlands (7 Apr-17 Apr).

For those who would like to spend a nice holiday in Europe are most welcomed to visit me in Munich. FYI, flights can cost about 1.3k (return but with transit) or lower depending where you fly to and hostels in Europe generally cost about 10-20 euros (eastern/western europe) ~ 20-40 S$. So if you work it out, you can generally tour Europe pretty comfortably with a budget of S$2k, enough to last you about 1 week. After doing my sums from information online, I am estimating my 8 days 4 cities to cost about S$1k all inclusive where about S$300 is for my return flight Munich-Barcelona.

So the old tip applies: Plan and book early and watch out for promotions (some exchange students are flying SIN-Frankfurt for S$998 only, Qantas promotions)

Happy CNY

2009-01-28T15:37:00.002+08:00

Wishing all a Happy CNY!!

Gamble luck to all, unless you're playing against me ;)

Happy Holidays.......

OneRepublic - Stop And Stare LIVE! @ Stripped

2009-01-09T21:56:00.001+08:00

Food glorious food

2009-01-05T22:42:00.002+08:00

2 nice places for dinner to introduce to everyone, but due to my current internship stint at DSTA, I do not use a camera phone during weekdays and somehow the food is so good that taking photos seem to be the last thing on our mind.

Kuishinbo @ Suntec
I'm sure many people have heard of or even tried Kuishinbo and this is my first time eating since I dun really have a liking towards raw food so its kinda 'bo hua' for me to have a jap buffet. But not until I heard that Kuishinbo offers snow crabs for its dinner buffet, thus even ar a festive price of $43.90++ coming up to $51, it felt it was still well-worth the price.

Generous servings of snow crab in 'leg' servings meaning they have cut the crabs up into individual legs and unlike your regular Sri Lankan chili crabs, the legs are where all the meat are and the snow crabs are replenished regularly. Every table has a pair of scissors for the snow crabs and it really is very useful in order to draw out the chunky crab meat. Must try at Kuishinbo.

Surprise to see Wagyu beef offered at the teppanyaki counter but at this buffet price, it should be the lower grade Wagyu. Then again no harm trying.... beef stir fried in cubes normally are at least a little tough since its almost well-done but surprisingly this is pretty tender, might be the relatively higher fat content of Wagyu beef.

Other nice items to try would be the cream dory fillet from the teppanyaki counter which is rather smooth and the desserts and ice-cream which I find rather delicious. Worth a mention are the fruits which are pretty sweet unlike other buffets that do not pay much attention to the fruits.

Ricciotti
A nice little Italian restaurant overshadowed by the Jumbo Seafood restaurant beside it along Boat Quay(opposite Central). Can't really comment on the interiors since they were renovating a rather large part of it but I do feel that the tables are rather too close to each other for a nice chat during and after meal.

Tried the Tiger Prawns linguine and mahgerita (i think) pizza for mains and both turned out pretty good. Can see lotsa garlic on the pasta but it isn't overpowering but I guess its a little too oily even for me, even though its (dunno how many extra) virgin olive oil. Pizza was thin enough to not feel like eating roti prata with tomato sauce, so 'doughy'.

I must say the desserts were pretty good, the soffiato which is actually kinda like chocolate cake with moist chocolate in the middle served with ice cream was not too chocolaty I dun really like the heaty feeling after eating chocolates. The ricciotti dessert was okay only, jelly onto of cake with a hint of wine flavour wasn't to our liking but at least it wasn't too bad. Do note that they have a promotion of 50% off for desserts after 9.30pm for take-aways only. Not a bad deal since items there aren't too expensive. Desserts typically sell at $8-9 a piece.

Why looks count?

2008-12-26T14:43:00.003+08:00

Recently bought a copy of my all-time fav magazine, the BBC Focus magazine at a real dirt cheap price of $5.... $5RM at KL. Those familiar with such imported magazines will know that they typically cost in excess of $10 in S'pore. Among the libraries, I think only Tampines and one other library have those under reference section, the national library at Bugis do not even have them at all. Its a Science magazine in layman language and the best part of it is its Q&A section where experts answer almost any questions the readers may have.

One interesting topic it had in its March 2008 print is regarding the Sexy-son hypothesis. The hypothesis explains females tend to prefer physically attractive males hoping their partner's good looks will be passed on to their offsprings who in turn have a better chance of securing a mate. In short, a sexy dad gives a sexy son who will have no problems carrying on the family line.

With regards to this hypothesis, one would presume that 'ugliness' (assuming a trait) would be naturally eliminated through this process and everyone would be yandaos and chio bus, however it is also said that physical attractiveness is subjective (which is true), and people tend to choose a partner of similar level of attractiveness as themselves. This in turn leads to 2 things:

1) Physically less attractive people are paired up with each other as they find each other attractive in their own perception. Their physical traits are passed on in their children. 'Ugliness' passed on.

2) People with high level of attractiveness have problems finding a partner since their level of attractiveness means there is only a small percentage of the opp sex who can match their attractiveness, counteracting the Sexy-son where attractive means guarantee for mate.

From the Sexy-son hypothesis, comes another spin-off on why females tend to be promiscous. It is said that females prefer a more feminine male as their lifelong partner as they are more likely to provide care for the mother and the children. However such males are not perceived as physically attractive and do not produce sexy-sons, thus putting their offsprings at a disadvantage. Thus it is said that females are biologically tuned to be attracted to masculine males during ovulation with the hope of having offsprings (affair) with a masculine male yet

have a feminine male as a lifelong partner to take care of the children (who aren't his, or maybe some aren't), suggesting females are naturally promiscous in order to encourage evolution. However many have come to believe that females tend to be more faithful in relationships and it is the males that appeared to be more promiscous instead. This debunks the hypothesis and so if you have had the patience to read this thing, I am sorry to tell you that all that is said above is absolutely inconclusive. Happy holidays!

Cubical Maze

2008-12-12T10:28:00.000+08:00

This is a story about an intern who is sitting by himself in a room within the office with great views of high rise buildings and forested area.

He is so strategically positioned such that no one can see him from their seats while his boss sits outside without a room of his own(so sad~).

He has a laptop and 2 desktops which he seriously doubts any of those desktops really work.

He is denied access through this particular door but he can access the area behind the door through another door which links to the same area(?!?!)

He is the only one in his department who arrives and leaves on time(they either leave late or come late)

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

2008-11-16T15:37:00.001+08:00

http://www.myheritage.com/collage

MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage - Family tree outline - Free genealogy

Tropic Thunder

2008-10-29T22:12:00.002+08:00

Watched Tropic Thunder last Saturday with the alliance before dinner. If you one who purely wished to wind down after getting stressed-up at work, this is it. Basically a star studded-no brainer- no need to know the plot movie. Jack Black is a well-known clown while Robert Downey Jr is freshed from the success of Ironman. Ben Stiller... well... just Ben Stiller. What is amazing is Tom Cruise had a role in it. A fat, balding, super vulgar Tom Cruise(yes, it really is him) dancing like he's on 'So You Think You Can Dance?'

I'm looking for La-Bell

2008-10-06T15:54:00.003+08:00

Joker: Excuse me, I'm looking for La-Bell, do you have La-Bell??

Assistant: La-Bell??

Joker: Yes, La-Bell.... L-A-B-E-L..... La-Bell.

Assistant: Oh, Label?

Joker: Ya, La-Bell, A4 size... do you have?

Assistant: Yes, we have...

Came across this funny incident last week when I happened to be walking around in Daiso, Plaza Singapura... I wonder if that joker still pronounce it as La-Bell. Anyway Daiso seems to have almost everything thinkable... amazing.

1st day of F1

2008-09-26T23:55:00.002+08:00

4.30pm
Just reached, went from Gate 5 near Raffles Place MRT. Didn't seem like many people were inside the Circuit Park. I caught a glimpse of a wheelchair platform and stood while the other races were carrying on with their practice. F1 only starts at 7pm. Getting bored, I decided to tour around looking for other vintage points for viewing. Before I left, a Caucasian was telling an usher that he would not like to see able-bodied spectators to be on the wheelchair platform because they were blocking their view and they paid good money for wheelchair access. Geez there's a dozen slots for wheelchairs and you're the only one there, not like people are denying u access at all.

5pm
Explored the Padang area and Esplanade area. I can hardly recognise the place now with all the barricades and stuff. Seems like Esplanade Grandstand people got a pretty good deal with free flow drinks for them (I think) just below the stands. Lesson learnt #1: Always carry the map and consult it to avoid walking into a dead end.

6pm
Reached the Singapore Flyer and Paddocks area. Not many people around here either but with plenty of area for walkabout people. Discovered a stand for Walkabout *gasp*, well-protected from the elements and right after bend 21. How nice of them. Checked out Singapore Flyer as well, nothing much to rave about the 'mall' itself but the Ferris Wheel is really quite big.

7pm
Armed with my dinner from Popeye's Chicken its back to the stands as the F1 cars races out of their pits. Its really pretty darn loud, much much louder than those Formula BMW race cars and such. The stands gives a pretty nice view from there and I stayed towards the end of Session 1.

8pm
Time to head out and source for other places to view the race. Turn 5 gives a nice opportunity for photographs. Pondered my way to Gate 2 so went back the way to Marina Bay Platform, the area around Turn 19 was flooded with people as the cars made their final practice before the break. Then people started jostling to move to other parts of the circuit, some to find fuel for themselves while others like me just wanna explore other viewing points.

9pm
I'm still at the Marina Bay area due to unhumanely congested roads. Apparently the officials are slacking somewhere else and spectators started climbing over fences and fall all over the shop. Some managed to sneak into Ritz Carlton trying to find another way out while some 'hero' managed to open a gate into Marina Square. So CX managed to bypass the congestion to turn up at Gate 7. The young officials decided to overlook that I did not have the UV stamp and let me through. Lesson Learnt #2: Always take a detour from outside the Circuit Park.Now the Padang area seems more crowded especially the merchandise stalls. The girls manning those stalls are quite pretty, all of them, I wonder if they're former participants of the Singtel Grid Girls or something.

9.30pm
Back at Fullerton to catch Session 2. Saw a bunch of stupid "Ah Nehs"(no racism intended) but they were acting real stupid, whenever a McLaren passes by they raised their arms in a rather odd manner (I can't put them in words). Its just free practice for goodness sake. One Fullerton was the best place to catch free action when dozens of people started climbing up the other side of Anderson Bridge or stood by the fence to watch. They really got a good view compared to the free viewers outside the Asian Civilisation Museum or Marina Square.

10.30pm
CX realises he had enough of seeing cars for today and decided to hop onto the train from Raffles Place before hordes of people tried to exit the Circuit Park.

*There's no pictures because the memory card died just now, along with all the shots I took today. Great!

Possible PSLE maths question for this year

2008-09-23T22:33:00.004+08:00

Q: If the Singapore F1 race circuit passes through 5 ERP gantries which charges cars at $2 each, how much ERP toll must the winning car pay? (The first car which finishes 61 laps wins)

Viewers who have watch Channel 5's The Noose, pls refrain from answering.

F1 comes to Singapore

2008-09-23T16:40:00.002+08:00

3 more days til F1 kickstarts in Singapore!

Heard that the $168 3 days walkabout tickets I bought now sells at $250/set on ebay... Darn, should have made some 'investments' if I knew.

The media has reported that the excitement for the race have not actually hit home, foreigners are more excited about it than we do. Pretty true actually, since there are some people who do not even have an inkling that the race will be over this weekend(like my mom).

Anyway I felt it was pretty unscrupulous for SMRT to exercise an $5 surcharge for its taxi flagged down in the race area during this period. A darn blood-sucking move indeed, either way SMRT wins since those who refused to pay will most likely have to take MRT and the fares again goes to you know who.

Anyway my guess for the race is Ferrari will win if the sky is all clear, if it rains darn Hamiliton who have proved to be the wet master will probably hit it home.

Viewers' discretion is Advised

2008-09-09T21:28:00.003+08:00

Just wanted to share some nice 'retro' pictures one of my fren uploaded on facebook. These exude such nostalgia that would probably raise eyebrows even though they were taken 'not too long ago' (say 8-9 years). Time really flies and so does fashion and everything else. Those from NAS would probably recognise some familiar faces other than mine of course.

Look how popular I am with 3 wanting to pose with me.
Actually that's the only available place to sit!

Good old Mr Phua at the corner, don't you just miss the school?

This is in Toa Payoh and definitely not some old estate from the 1980s
You're suppose to loook at the camera not me, Aloysius

How many steps does it take to uncover your F1 pass??

2008-08-24T20:35:00.009+08:00

Step 1: Collect the parcel... looking back at Sept 11, I seriously thought there might be a bomb in there. But then again I also thought since its such a big box, there much be some memorabilia inside, maybe a shirt or something.

Step 2: Open the box. First thought: What the F***! Did I buy the F1 ticket on April 1? Then you realise there's another small black box at the side. Apt example for a WHITE ELEPHANT!
Step 3: Take out the black box and scrutinise it, afterall I did pay $168 for it.

Step 4: Open the black box and be fascinated!

Step 5: Then you take a closer look at the pass.

Step 6: You prop up the passes and take a picture of it, if you want, blog about it ;)

For the record, the F1 passes really did came in that big white box.

2008-08-19T13:45:00.002+08:00

The undying Trojan Horse seems to be rather 'immortal', not wanting to risk my computer crashing, I've to keep offline while I kill the Malware with the help of an expert probably on the other side of the globe. Anyway its back to School for me and as usual NUS is still the same old campus, no big changes anywhere, not that I realised anyway. But I do realise that even NUS has succumb to the pressure of inflation and most prices are on the rise in NUS since the holidays. Now food here do not cost that much different from the hawkers centres outside, Indonesian food at Engin now cost at least $3 now for those who miss it. Haven't had a chance to try though, I wonder if its the Freshies this year, NUS really seems more crowded. That will be more for now, until that stinky parasite is killed at least.

Red Cliff - A Flop

2008-07-22T20:15:00.003+08:00

Watched Red Cliff today with Eugene and I was utterly disappointed at the show. Same sentiments with viewers in China, the show was more of a comedy than an epic. A more Hollywood-style chinese movie but definitely a joke if they are showing this to the chinese where the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of four top chinese literature works. I believe its failure could be traced to a few factors:

Weak cast. Other than Tony Leung, Zhang FengYi(Cao Cao) and Hu Jun(Zhao Yun), the other cast do not have the acting chops to carry off a decent period movie. The portrayal of certain characters are laughable most of the times, like Guan Yu lacks an some arrogance.
Not living up the name. It didn't help that the 1995 100 episodes drama serial of Romance of the Three Kingdoms was so good that the style of each characters are deeply etched in fans.
Modern dialogue. Imagine MacBeth played out in modern english dialogues in those school skits. You laugh right? Period shows should adopt a style of language suitable for the era it represents. In Red Cliff the style is often too casual.
Funnies. No one forbids jokes/funny stunts in epic movies but at the very least it should be kept to a minimal yet introduced at suitable times. Legolas using a shield as a skateboard was done so nicely that it enhanced viewers' perception of his abilities. Recall the scene where the soldiers throw ropes, pulling enemies in and killing them; leaving one looking around to find out where his comrades have gone to before falling prey. Come on!
Lousy fight scenes. Guan Yu, Zhao Yun and Zhang Fei are valiant but they're not indestructible and certainly do not enjoy fighting alone. The show is more of giving the actors more screen time doing their 'I can kill everyone' stunts than portraying a better fight scene. Even War and Beauty starring Kelly Chen does this better.
Too lengthy. Many scenes can actually be done away without affecting the story much. There are just too many redundant scenes in the movie. Who cares how a horse give birth? I think that scene alone took up like 10 mins of the show.

So for those who have not watched, its certainly not worth the money.

1 month of absence

2008-07-09T10:23:00.002+08:00

I shall commerate 1 month of absence with a post... haha!

Busy the past month on my present job as a surveyor for MOM. It certainly is hard work but I'm still around becoz of the pay and flexible hours. But there are times when you feel so down when you work from the afternoon til late night(9pm) and people just show you attitude even when you're on government service. There are a few nice fellows once in a while which kinda keeps you going.

Well, this job brings me to some exciting places like Geylang showing a side of Singapore I bet most of you people have never seen with your eyes. I've been 1-room, 2-rooms, maisionette, shophouses, etc. Quite an eye-opener esp the 1-room flats which we normally only get to see on TV. Gosh, they're really quite small yet some had to squeeze entire families in there. Geylang is another eye-opener. For those who only roam about there in the comfort of their 4-wheelers, try walking through the alleys at night, you will be greatly amazed; though I haven't had the chance to interview a 'brothel' (unlike someone), guess they're not 'lucky' enough to be randomly chosen.

Tried some great food in the area as well, most notably the sliced fish soup stall at Aljunied Crescent Blk 119 which also serves braised duck. Their fish is either of top-notch quality or supreme freshness, or both. The texture is truly superb, even fussy Eugene said its good, so it has to be. If you're there, try the fish soup and braised duck over a bowl of rice topped with the braised duck sauce.

One thing I realised through the survey, most couples I've interviewed had the wife older than the husbands, I wonder if its a geographical trend or otherwise.

Lastly, congrats to Benjamin on his graduation and thanks for inviting us over for lunch, we had fun on your Nintendo DS and uncovering the 'porn' pictures on your laptop. ;)

2008-06-06T23:41:00.002+08:00

Haven't been updating for a really long time now... sloth has caught up in this aspect. Well, I've haven't start work for now, but went for some job training already, I'll be doing surveys for MOM for their June Labour Force Survey and though it pays well, it certainly isn't going to be smooth-sailing. Survey is going to start on Tuesday and its kinda flexible where I can call respondents from home unless its those troublesome cases where I can't locate the respondents by phone that requires me to head down for a house visit but there's not going to happen soon anyway. Hope I get allocated to somewhere near, Tampines, Simei or Pasir Ris would be ideal.

Backdated

2008-05-09T23:11:00.007+08:00

Some backdated stuff here which I had wanted to blog about but just plain lazy to upload the pics from my HP...
First up is the dinner I once had at Adam Rd Food centre before the exams. If you're wondering why I took this picture from the sides, it becoz it was actually raining outside. Its a rather small food centre with about 10 odd stalls but out of this small number, there's already about 2 nasi-lemak stalls and 4-5 mutton soup stalls so the variety is actually really small here. Probably great for those craving for some mutton (there's chinese, malay and indian versions here). Tried the Dum Briyani (no, the rice is not stupid but the mutton is cooked while covered in rice) and maggie goreng. Briyani was not bad but the same can't be said for the goreng(u have been warned). So sticking to mutton soup or nasi lemak should be a wiser choice... oh I heard the prawn noodles are pretty good but at $6-7 a bowl its on the high side actually.

Tried the half-spring chicken($2.80) from THE DECK(FASS canteen) the other day, wanted to order my fav chicken cutlet but the spring chicken was beaconing me to eat it which I did and regretted. Don't be fooled by its KFC-lookalike appearance though, the meat tasted bland yet its was still bleeding at the joints(Ewww!). I should just stick to chicken cutlet.

The last day of exams was spent at Vivocity watching Ironman and trying out new food. Seriously, Ironman was really quite phenomenal, from the story, its flow, the graphics... its was just great, even tough critic Eugene said so. So for those who haven't watched it, do head down to the cinema to catch one, I can guarantee you its definitely worth that $7-9 bucks(depending when you watch it). Do remember to catch the prelude to Ironman 2 shown after the credits!

Stir-fried noodles with Black Pepper Chicken was good.

Beef Hor-fun in black bean sauce was less fantastic.

Sausage breaded with French Fries from Dong Dae Mun was way over-rated!

Dinner was spent at Central @ Vivo, a HK cafe with quite a few outlets I think, including one at TM top floor. Nothing special worth mentioning actually, its menu was pathetically limited. Hill-top HK cafe at the Tampines CC trashed it hands down in terms of food, price and variety. Read about a new Korean snack chain opening up in Singapore from the papers the other day, Dong Dae Mun, so decided to try it. Again this Breaded sausage is as 'good' as that spring chicken I had, if you just had to try it I suggest you dump lotsa mayo on it, its practically tasteless. The chicken skewers were much better, it comes in sweet or spicy sauce, but we tried the sweet one and its good. The ones you see at the counter are actually only half-cooked after which they will 'peng' it for a while before coating the sauce of your choice so it comes pipping hot.

Back to the bonus question from the last post : 用什么抹窗最干净??

The Answer: 用力抹窗最干净... haha... you gotta admit that it really makes sense!

Why don't ghosts swing their arm while 'walking'

2008-04-16T22:11:00.004+08:00

Have you ever wondered why ghosts are depicted to be motionless while 'moving' around. Note the '' '' here which I will explain later as well. Some would probably say that this is just something scriptwriters and movie directors came up with to differentiate real living people from those dead ones. But if you think about it from the scientific aspects, it actually make some sense.

There are actually 2 problems here... 1) Why don't they swing their arms? 2) Do they even walk?

The only way for someone to travel from place to place without any mechanical aid(eg. skateboard, roller blades, etc) is to walk. We all agree that right? Then again, we don't really classify them as people, but let's assume they are for now. So why don't they swing their arms like us? Scientifically it is accurate, let me show you. Firstly, we don't assume ghosts have any weight, isn't it? They can float and do other funny stuff so let's assume they are weightless, or rather mass-less. But what makes people swing their arms is actually due to the moment generated by our legs as we walk, so to counter this moment, our arms swing or else we will be turning as we walk and can never reach our destination. To generate moment, we need a force and a perpendicular distance from the force to the pivot(from one leg to the other).

Then we go back to our 2nd question, do they ghosts really walk?? Let's first assume they do, so with each step they generate a moment and so on... but wait, they were mass-less, right? So by Newton's 2nd law, F = ma, they cannot generate any force so no moment and no counter-moment from the arms. Question 1, check!

Then we go back to our first assumption that they walk, so now we assume they don't, if you watched enough movies they actually float around since they can defy gravity with their lack of mass(sometimes they crawl too, think THE RING). So they move, but their arms still don't swing, why? Remember I said the swing of arm is due to the moment from the movement of the legs, so since their legs don't move, why the hell you get that moment you need to swing those arms??

Then back to Qn 2, do they walk? We need to go back to Newton's 2nd law to explain this. If you paid enough attention in your physics class in secondary school, you should know you need a force to move, since ghosts are mass-less, they generate no force and thus they cannot walk. Therefore the notion that they float is more accurate than say Sadako crawling out of the TV.
Question 2, check!

**Explaining the Paranormal with Science is proudly brought to you by LAMESHIT School of Thought, any truth is purely coincidental**

Hope you guys managed to de-stress in this exam period!

PS: LAMESHIT School of Thought is looking for more myths and legends that need explaining with science.

Bonus Qn : 用什么抹窗最干净?? Answer will be out with the next post.

Eee PC

2008-04-10T16:26:00.006+08:00

Easy to Learn, Work and Play
Excellent Internet Experience
Excellent Mobile Computing Experience

These 3 phrases describes the EEE of the Asus sub-laptop which I saw someone in NUS carrying. At 7", weighing 920g, looking like your MacBook in its pure white chassis, this is one darn cool laptop. It should be noted that they do not contain any optical drives for storage, instead uses the same technology as your thumbdrive in data storage. This results in the smaller than normal size while boasting a cooler machine and faster startup. For those who are interested the 4gb version carries a S$598 tag with the 8gb going to hit S'pore shores real soon(maybe it alr did).

For more information, click here.

The Answers

2008-04-03T15:48:00.002+08:00

Well, since the test do not display the answers, I shall do the honour of revealing the answers since I'm stuck in the computer lab in YIH.

1) My real name is of course Changxiong, no space in between but sadly most people add a space to it and the banks don't even care if there's a space.

2) If you know me after JC, you shall be forgiven... Swimming is the answer, it dominated my life from sec 1 way over JC.

3) If you have read the blog, you would know that I've done diving way back in 2005.

4) Watermelon has been my favourite since young, cos its juicy, sweet and you can get seedless ones!

5) Unlike most guys I'm not interested in soccer, golf is too boring, tennis is not commonly on Ch 5... they used to have F1 on TV back in my secondary school days and I have a Ferrari flag at home, courtesy of Jon.

6) Living in Tampines my whole life, commuting to NUS is really punishing sometimes. No bonus to knowing why I chose NUS over NTU. I shall forgive those who thinks Tampines is in the West as well ;)

7) Again the answer can be found on the blog. Munich will play host to me next year.

8) If you have been reading this blog, this should not be too hard either. Since I've compared Xiao Long Bao from Imperial Treasure, Crystal Jade, Ding Tai Feng and some other places.

9) Boring CX will definitely be in the most boring faculty in NUS. ENGINEERING of cos. Indulging myself with Fluids Mechanics, Nyquist Stability Criterion and if Newton is alive, I would salute him since he actually came out with his laws just by looking at an apple falling from a tree, I think.

10) I would say this, along with the fruit question should be the hardest. I think I mentioned Prison Break and Ghost Whisperer before and I finished the whole of season I and II of Heroes. Desperate Housewives are just beyond me in terms of content and time(I'm always busy at 10pm).

Sakura Orchard

2008-03-23T13:45:00.002+08:00

Happened to be in town yesterday and decided to try out Sakura at Orchard Shopping Centre which is just opposite Cineleisure. Weekend Dinner was pretty expensive at $29.95 per head.

The ambience was pretty okay, you will not have the feeling of eating in a sardine can and the place was done up pretty nicely. Seated by the window I was treated to a nice view of the surrounding shopping centres and the endless stream of people walking along the streets(dun expect too much). Service was also prompt and staff were courteous most of the time. Some of them were wearing face masks, hopefully that was to maintain hygiene not becoz of SARS or somthing.

Most importantly, the FOOD!

Well, generally it was a pleasant meal which I felt was definitely worth the price even for a weekend one. The Jap food bar has lotsa items to choose from, about 15 different types of sushi, a decent variety of Sashimi with squid, prawn, salmon, snapper and I dunno wad. There's also Cold Soba noodles, smoked duck and some appetizers like Fruit salad, scallop and abalone salad which I found really nice.

Then there's the western bar with pizzas(Ham and chicken I think), grilled scallops(w or w/o cheese or raw), mussels(grilled or raw), salads and its other condiments.

Next up would be what I think is the asian food area with roast duck(nice!), cray fish, mutton redang, beancurd with sauce, steamed fish with sauce and some dim sum(mainly siew mai, beancurd roll and pao).

As with the other Sakura outlets, there's the tepanyaki/grill corner with a wide variety of meats to choose from. There's satay(mutton and chicken), beef(not steak), lamb chop, dory fillet, unagi, mackerel(nice!), squid(not the panggang type) and some other meats as well. Adjacent to the grill is the fried food corner where there's fried prawns and fish and other common items but no fries.

The deserts section is split into 2 with the ice cream and sherbet at one side and the fruits on the other. There was about 6 different types of ice cream like peppermint and 2 sherbets(lime and orange) with choco rice or nuts toppings. The fruits section has at least 10 types of fruits with other items like 'gui ling gao', mango pudding, yam paste and thai sweet tapioca.

There's also a variety of drinks to choose from, soft drinks, cold teas or just the normal coffee and tea.

Overall experience was good with my personal liking to the roast duck, lamb chops, yam paste, appetizers, sherbet and mackerel. Apparently I saw some people having laksa and seafood soup which I have no idea where its from, but i presume it should be ordered from the grill section area. Grills are fuss free, no queuing as one just need to attach your table clips to your order and it will be delivered to u once its done. The entrance is hidden away since there's no indication of its entrance but it beside teh 7-11 and there's actually a small flight of stairs before a waitress will attend to u then u make your payment and take the escalator up to the restaurant. Do have a try.

Video from NTU

2008-03-14T00:04:00.001+08:00

Video by NTU students on the triple bunking proposal. Very funny.

SUBWAY ...... Eat Fresh!

2008-03-11T23:31:00.002+08:00

I remembered I first tried Subway back in secondary school at the newly(at that time) opened pioneer outlet at Suntec. I tried the meatball Sandwich which wasn't that fantastic and since then I haven't tried Subway again. That holds true until maybe I enrolled into NUS. With NUS students discounts and our very own in-house outlet here, I decided to give it another try. My second try of the Italian BMT wasn't so bad, better than the first time. Probably becoz of my new liking to vegetables which Subway sandwiches are loaded with. With time, I tried others on the menu, Subway Melt, all the different breads, different sauces like honey mustard and chili, 6inches to foot long, the cookies they had... One of the best combinations I've tried so far is the Cold Cut trio with BBQ and sweet onion sauce. Not too salty like Italian BMT yet also not as guilty as Subway Melt. Though there's still plenty of other items I haven't tried yet but yes the NUS outlet is better than the other outlets out there. Do try it if u happen to pass by.

New Homegrown Movie

2008-03-07T00:30:00.005+08:00

NOW SHOWING
at all parks, wooded and secluded areas near you. Catch it while you still can.
Co-starring: Police Gurkha Contingent, Special Operations Command AND your normal 'Ma-ta'.
Guest Appearance: SAF Guardsmen, Military Police AND the 'cute' dogs from the K9 unit.

Shock and awe

2008-03-06T23:13:00.002+08:00

I've seen some really interesting and shocking things the past couple of weeks.

Shock #1

As I was running at the park beside my house, I smelled cigarette smoke. Looking around I saw no old uncle smoking, the other people nearby were another guy running in front(pretty impossible to be him) and a small kid walking in front as well. Guess what, the young KID was puffing from a cigarette like a young Chao Ah Beng from Jack Neo's new movie. My guess on his age puts him at 10 years old, at most 13. I've seen the plenty of secondary school students smoking, but someone of his tender age totally took me by surprise.

Surprise #2

Walked past the 201 area the other day while buying dinner and passed by the Singapore Pools outlet. Happened to see that they're expanding their revenue by opening up on F1 betting. Yes, the very sport which is coming to Singapore this Sept. With the decision to allow casino in Singapore, the bookmarking(its the gambling version la, bookworm!) industry is really opening up here.

Surprise #3

For those who have taken a test in a Lecture theatre while not being forced to sit alternately will definitely find the test very 'open'. Not that its open book but rather copying is so so rampant in such environment. But a test I took on Wednesday changed my opinion, the Professors and tutors finally put their minds together for a countermeasure. The gave the question papers out to alternate students. Meaning there's 2 different papers and the only the 3rd person sitting away from u would get the same questions as u. Those who might be crying foul here, rest assured that the 2 papers are awfully similar save some numbers changed and diagrams altered slightly otherwise they're the same. Now to add another element of surprise we realised that those doing the 'same' papers were not exactly the same as the answers may still be jumbled up(MCQ). So there's probably 4 different sets of papers out there. But then again, when its time to hand in the papers, it was so chaotic that many people were comparing answers and discussing them.

Malcolm Park under siege

2008-02-29T00:39:00.003+08:00

The biggest news for the month of Feburary has to go to the escape of the JI head Mas Kastari (sorry Youth Olympic 2010). Chances are every Singaporean or just anyone staying on this island will be tuning in to the news about how a fugitive actually bolted out from detention centre and managed to evade thousands of policemen, Gurkhas, military police and Guardsmen for not one day but two and counting(yes, he's still not caught). For the less news-savvy, here's the summary so far:

Mas Kastari was going to the toilet enroute to his family visitation
He managed to escape from the toilet, dunno how, maybe he knows the ancient Chinese art of "Soft Bone"
Either the entire building is not fenced up or somehow our JI leader here managed to climb/crawl/fly past the fence. (The ancient Chinese art of "Ground digging" may be the culprit)
Mr JI leader then managed to disappear maybe into Malcolm Park for maybe somewhere else in Singapore though the authorities suppose he will try to escape to Indonesia
Only after 4 hours after his escape did our Mr JI leader became the no.1 Billboard champion in Singapore. Literally 'famous' overnight.
Large police cordon at Whitley and Dunearn Road through the night as police do house visits(after CNY, tsk tsk)
On Thur morning, police, Gurkha and members from the army locked down on Malcolm Park with personnel standing around Malcolm park facing inwards(looking out for Mr Fugitive less he walks out on his own).
Last time I heard about this incident is that the cordon around Malcolm Park was withdrew without explanation(what else? he's not there la, duh!)

Well, I haven't mentioned that Mr Fugitive here is a limp(maybe its just to fake ppl) so that made his escape all the more unbelievable. I mean an Internal Security dention centre that actually managed to let a limp escape through a bloody toilet? Fire the janitor! No lah, we should not speculate at this point since the entire picture is not known. At least he didn't walk out through the main gate, that would have been very embarrassing. Anyway there are bound to be people who have to bear the responsibility for such a security lapse, we'll know soon who it will be. If he actually escapes to Indonesia or any other country, Singapore will bear a bad reputation on internal security and probably will face repercussions from its neighbours.

Then again, it might all be a ploy by the authorities to let him escape. My alternative theory would be that they did it on purpose for 2 reasons. One, to get the already complacent Singapore population back on the alert level while testing the operational level for such emergency internal security operation. Second, to lure any JI remnants in Singapore or any like-minded people to make contact with Mr JI head in order to secure his escape out of Singapore, then the police can catch everyone in a swoop. Nice huh, just my own guess though, dun think the authorities will put the safety of the population at risk. Sleep tight everyone, the NSFs on duty will keep us safe, hopefully if they dun doze off on duty.

Digging the grave

2008-02-26T23:50:00.002+08:00

Took a look at my old blog from my own link... saw this interesting post which I wrote last year. Thot i share it with those who haven't seen it yet, for those who already did, u can close this window now.... tune in to the next post!

Story from CTW

For ppl who have no idea wad CTW refers to, its actually critical thinking and writing, its a requirement for all engin students to take to grad. So my lesson in CTW pretty much revolves around a story mi tutor said.

The story began with 2 boats and its 5 passengers, boat 1 has a chio-bu, an old man and a sailor. Boat 2 has the chio-bu's bf and his best fren, dun ask why the bf and the gal are not on the same boat that's just the case. So the 2 boats were at sea and encountered a heavy storm where the 2 boats got separated and washed ashore to 2 deserted islands. Boat 1 was damaged during the storm, and the chio-bu wants to be with her bf on the other island so she approached the sailor to help repair the boat. The sailor agreed readily but his condition is that she must sleep with him. Confused, the gal approached the old man for advice. The old man upon told her that he could not tell her exactly wad to do but if she should follow her heart. So the gal decided to sleep with the sailor and the next day the sailor repaired the boat as promised and they set sail to the other island. When the gal met her bf, she cried and told him everything that had happened. The bf was furious and slapped the gal and broke up with her. The gal ran to the beach and sat there crying, at this time the best fren came up to her and comforted her. He said he would help her patch up with him but in the meantime he would take care of her. That's was the end of the story.

So who among the 5 ppl mentioned did the RIGHT thing? Ponder about it for a while at first thought many ppl would prob choose the old man or the gal, so did i, but after discussing it with mi classmates for a while i realised that the sailor was the only one who did the right thing and actually that's the correct answer. If you were to base ur arguments on facts from the story alone the sailor kept his word though he did ask for a high price for repairing the boat but he was honest abt it. the old man gave a on the fence answer while the gal was rather irrational abt her decision. The best fren obviously have some ulterior motives, so the horny but honest sailor who kept his word wins the day!

Ultimately, critical thinking is about looking at things in a unbiased view, looking at things from the facts, ignoring all social/moral stigma that may otherwise cloud your judgment.

Mid-term break in a flash

2008-02-26T00:23:00.004+08:00

This blog is kinda dormant for the last 2 weeks huh.... been rather busy with school stuff with projects, reports, tutorials and other stuff. I was hoping to catch up some work during the CNY but sadly it was no possible. So now its the mid-term break, I feel this shall be the most productive mid-term break for me ever. I've planned revisions from mon-fri with tutorials to be done during the weekends (of cos sat is reserved for the special someone). So this semester shall see my most productive mid-term break ever. FYI I was totally slacking last mid-term break as there was no test AT ALL! There's 2 tests coming up next week plus another online quiz real soon as well. There's no time to lose, full-time enjoyment shall be fulfilled next year in the midst of the beautiful landscape of Deutschland(Germany).

Some interesting 'events' that happened since the last post includes CNY visit to Alex's party @ Sentosa Cove(pics not uploaded yet), CNY 'gamb-thering' at Kian's place(no pics taken, though sheila brought her camera, maybe she used it to do an edison imitation while her bf was in town), Fireworks @ Esplanade on 2nd day of CNY.

For the super kaypohs (e.g. crystal & maybel) who might question me later, V-day was spent at CHOMP CHOMP. Yes the very renowned hawker centre in Serangoon as german classes which were un-skippable ended at 8pm.

One last important message applicable to all single girls who are looking for Lurve and/or companionship only. Pls refer to "My Fluffy Pillows Classified Advert Subject Ref: 001 posted on Tuesday, February 19, 2008 " here for a super-duper knock-off deal!

Its that time of the year again!

2008-02-07T11:21:00.000+08:00

Once again, its that time of the year again where people start dressing in bright red colours, hands carrying 2 odd looking(sometimes) mandarin oranges, hanging out at your relatives' collecting ang pao though for some its giving out those pesky red packets full of cash.

Its the Chinese New Year!

Its time to go about the usual routine I always does each year. The same people would be visiting and I would be visiting the same people as usual.

Wishing all a Happy Chinese New Year!

The 101st post

2008-02-03T13:49:00.000+08:00

Unknowingly its the 101st post for this blog, so I shall share something really interesting I came across. A word scramble I came across in the NUS FASS' bulletin. It re-arranges word(s) to form other words that quite aptly relates to the former one. Enjoy.

After Arranging

Dormitory : Dirty Room

Astronomer: Moon Starer

Desperation: A Rope Ends It

The Eyes: They See

The Morse Code: Here Comes the Dots

Slot Machines: Cash Lost in Me

Election Results: Lies - Let's Recount

Snooze Alarms: Alas! No More Z's

Eleven Plus Two: Twelve Plus One

Mother-in-Law: Woman Hitler

Leaders & Managers

2008-01-23T18:53:00.000+08:00

I once read an article that points out the differences between a leader and a manager which I find rather apt. A manager is one who maintains a system that has already been put in place and ensures its smooth running(think factory). His main role is only to ensure the smooth running of the system and could only solve minor problems that could have arise. A leader on the other hand would most probably be the one who came up with that system and deals with any major problems that can pop up.

From my opinion a leader should be one who do not have to be the best in everything within the team, his role is to be able to bring the whole team together and utilize every members' talents and abilities to bring out the full potential of the team. Of course the leader himself must know a basic minimum of everything in order to be able to communicate with the rest of the team and come up with a plan/strategy. He should also be one who solves problems met by the team by either from his own experience/thinking or by tapping on the expertise of the other members. At no point can he push the blame to the other members, rather he should be the one who accepts all responsibilities on behalf of the team. The leader must not micro-manage but should always supervise the progress of the team. As the link between the various members in the team, he should also be the one who mediate any conflicts and be willing to accept all ideas. Only then can he command the respect of the team in order to lead them.

Actually I'm just venting some steam from a recent encounter where a 'leader' enforces others to his idea, giving out instructions to all. When problems started coming up, he simply start to show his attitude and pushes the blame to others for not listening and supporting him where in fact everyone were acting on his instructions. The now-mellow CX would most definitely avoid confrontation at all cost for the sake of peace and harmony, but should I be on a bad mood that day, I would most definitely flame his ass and throw him out. Leader? MY ASS!

Botak Jones + Katong HK Cafe

2008-01-16T20:18:00.000+08:00

Went to Botak Jones Clementi last nite to try it out, first impression is that its probably the main draw of the coffee shop. Staff are all youngsters, bringing a breath of fresh air into the coffeeshop culture here. They set up a nice counter at the entrance, probably to prevent long queue from forming inside which may disrupt the biz of other stalls. The counter has a sample of some of their dishes, probably the more famous ones and also provide with numerous copies of the menu for waiting customers to read. Service wise is considered superb if you're comparing within the coffeeshop culture, polite and prompt. Price wise I find it to be rather reasonable considering the serving. Taste wise I've only tried the Botak Burger with Cheese. Initial bite was rather delicious with succulent and juicy patty but after a while the thick patty starts to get on your nerves a little as it gets more and more messy as u eat. Coleslaw was bad, rather tasteless, one of the worst I've eaten so far. Fries were normal though they said it was topped with their own mix of spices but its probably just the common cajun spice.

Overall I would say its value for money in terms of service, taste and serving though they compare their taste to those of restaurants, which I feel based on the burger set is so-so only but I would go try its other dishes for a more well-rounded opinion.

Botak Burger set at $7, plus $1 for cheese

Tried the HK cafe at Katong, located just behind ROXY Sq which in turn is opp Parkway Parade. Ambience wise is not bad with lotsa old HK singers posters like Jacky Cheung and god knows who. Service was prompt and staff was rather polite. Price wise was reasonable as well and the menu has pictures for many of the items which is good for people who have no idea wad they're ordering. Food was rather tasty and most importantly all are served piping hot.

Sorry no pics for that, too hungry to remember to take them. But ordered a dry noodles in X.O sauce, curry noodles, guo tie(pan-fried dumpling) and siew mai. The dim sum were really good, esp the siew mai, its like eating prawns la, pretty fresh as well, guo tie was alright. They serve steamboat alfresco style and the traditional HK CNY dish, Peng Cai(literally vegetables in a basin) but its more than just vegetables, there's meat like cured meat and roast meat in there as well. I saw a nice looking roasted duck drumbstick.

Birthdays surprises

2008-01-09T09:43:00.000+08:00

During the tough military trainings, the only occasion worth celebrating(at all) would be people's birthdays. It provides us with a chance to experience life, normal life in the harsh conditions in camp trainings. So normally these goes out in a bang.

Birthday Surprise 1
Victim: LTA(NS) Yap Weihao aka Mr 13
Location: Somewhere in Taiwan

The Plan:
This surprise was hatched almost the moment we reached camp in Taiwan, his best pal Nat had already informed everyone about the plan. Everyone were roped in, including the instructors. It happened the night before the live firing were to commence. Instructors who went back to camp to bathe drop by to purchase nice food for the party, stuff like Chicken Cutlets, spicy tofu and a big birthday cake. Then as everyone gathered to rehearse the sequence for live firing(dangerous leh) everyone surrounded weihao as the food stuff and cake were unloaded. There wasn't a need actually since he was already in a daze with lack of sleep. Seeing this, LTA Heng our instructor saw an opportunity and started scolding him for not paying attention(you shld look at weihao's face) then all of a sudden 'Happy Birthday to You'..... To be honest most of us were already feeling low morale at that time, cold weather, lousy food, lack of sleep, daily rantings. That party boosted our morale tremendously.

Birthday Boy Yap on the left
Food courtesy of Yap's Bday.

Birthday Surprise 2
Victim: LTA(NS) Chua Hanxiang
Location: Somewhere in Singapore

The Plan:
Someone noticed hanxiang's Bday from his 11B(military IC), so planned this really impromptu surprise for him. The chance came when he went to bathe, alone. The entire room jumped into action, removing everything from his cupboard(refer to pic below) including his bedsheets and pillow case. Then someone went to call him to fall in, meaning to gather while he's bathing. He quickly came out and went to his cupboard shocked to find everything gone. That's when everyone started bursting out in laughter. For the record, we didn't help him put his stuff back, haha.

Moving out

All clear

Birthday Surprise 3
Victim: 2LT(NS) Wang Changxiong (Yes, its me, I fell for it too!)
Location: Somewhere in Singapore

The Plan:
Ok, from what I've gathered is that, someone saw my D.O.B from my 11B. But it was already over at that time so they had a belated one for me. I completely had no idea they planned something behind my back. We went to our sand model room for debriefing for the day, reading the routine orders for the day. It was a really weird routine order, it said something about a thief stealing something on this particular day(my birthday) and it was something really serious. Then they faked a call and told me my Commanding officer wants to see me and another person now(at 10pm). So we went out with me totally muddled with what's going on. My friend was all-smiles already(I didn't know why at that time). Then before we even went up the stairs, they called me back. When I entered the room, it was pitch black with candles on chocolate cup cakes. That's all they could get in camp, but it was real sweet of them to do this. No photos for this one.

I was reminded of this becoz of a surprise party someone is throwing this sat and I'm invited to be part of it. I shan't say who, in case this person is reading this, though I think that is 99.9% impossible but just in case!

Lighthouse Family - High

2008-01-06T15:19:00.001+08:00

New Yr Eve steamboat grill

2008-01-03T00:14:00.000+08:00

Had a steamboat grill at Sheila's for this New Yr Eve, super duper impromptu with most ingredients acquired at NTUC before heading to her house to prepare them. The feast was proudly presented by Chef Wang, Sous Chef Elson, Kitchen Helper Kian and Sheila the maid. I must say the meat for Shabu Shabu(jap steamboat) tastes way better after grilling it, my 'magic sauce' played a major role in that as well. I personally like the prawns(shelled by the 3), the shabu meat and the crab leg meat best. The steamboat grill set, magic sauce(special jap grill sauce) and vodka provided by myself. I left for home before they set up the mahjong den. I think we can do more of this.

The 2 Chefs hard at work

Sous Chef elson trying to be funny behind

The spread we prepared

Sous Chef elson, Chef Wang, kitchen helper kian and sheila the maid

Chef Wang as part time photographer

Now you see 1
Then 2

Lastly 3 (we need someone to take the photo ya?)

The blurriness is what makes this special

More on Berkelah

2008-01-02T20:07:00.000+08:00

Clara and me

The lousy food at Stonegrill City Sq

The tired Colin

Campsite before leaving (committe is last as usual)

Our 'tent-mates'

One part of the treacherous rapid

Happy new year to all

I had a good start so far ;)

Berkelah Falls

2007-12-31T16:55:00.000+08:00

I must say my trip to Berkelah waterfalls in Kuantan Malaysia has only one word to describe it : Treacherous. It probably due to the fact that no guides follow us as compared to the Ophir trip. The trip is mostly led by yr 1s com members of the NUS rovers and they lead by memory which resulting in a few backtracks along the way. Some part of the trek was so dangerous that one fall will land you into the rapid with little chance of surviving. Generally I would say its an accident waiting to happen. At one point a snake fell onto the feet of the girl in front of me after I led her through, meaning it should have fallen onto me(heng ar!). The snake quickly slithered away as I pointed it out, leaving no chance for the rest to see it fortunately since the girl might freak out and fall into the rapid below. Pretty enjoyable as whole as being experienced from the Ophir trip made this one well-prepared in terms of food and everything else. There was pasta, fried eggs(with salt n pepper), sausages and soup for the meals. Having donuts for the mobile lunch beats biscuits during the Ophir trip.

This is just outside JB checkpoint

The small waterfall
The big one(top)

The big one(bottom)

The entrance to Berkelah Falls

Now I know...

2007-12-25T22:13:00.000+08:00

I bring this special report on why 'Ah Balling' is called as such. My Mom just told me its becoz of an ang moh who happened to pass by someone preparing this dessert and exclaimed,'Ah its boiling its boiling!' As everyone know our forefathers and foremothers have little knowledge about english so they named the dessert as Ah Balling. Apparently my mom heard about this from her mom, my grandma so there should be some truth in it then.

Spending Spree

2007-12-25T00:04:00.000+08:00

I guess today must have been the day I spent the most, not considering paying for overseas trips which definitely cost a lot. Went to Brewerkz for lunch with Eugene today, my first time there. Ambiance wise is pretty good, eugene said its interiors is similar to Hard Rock(another place I haven't been to) but I must say its really pretty big. (photos will be posted after I upload them into my com) Split into outdoor (non air-con, by the river) and indoors (air-con, no smoking) the whole place is very suitable for those wanting to chill out and chit chat(preferably over beer). Eugene had BBQ'ed Combo which includes chicken breast, 1/4 rack of ribs, a small serving of salad(in a small bowl) and a choice of potato(fries/mashed/baked). I had Sausage Mash - 2 sausages from a choice of Brewerkz Beer Bratwurst, Spicy Italian or Garlic(I chose the first 2), with 2 servings of mashed potatoes from real potatoes and some onions in vinegar, stewed maybe sautéed. We shared a pint size(500ml) fruit brew (today was raspberry) which was ridiculously cheap at 5.99(before 3pm). A jug cost 11.99 before 3pm for all beer. I think the BBQ combo was pretty good since fussy eugene finished everything, my sausage mash was good too, pretty filling as well. Beer was so-so, maybe becoz its raspberry(read sour) so its not that sweet. I would have ordered burgers if not for eugene's constant persuasion not to, saw them on the next table after that, which looks really good, serving was quite generous as well. Its Salad noodles looks very generous in serving as well, the big salad bowl filled to the brim. Looks good, shall try that next. Service was prompt with only the price for the food not so nice, our total bill was about $56, though it should have been more judging from the menu, maybe its 10% for lunch or something. Good impression overall, suitable for those chilling out (preferably before 3pm) with thick wallets.

Walked to Raffles City, shopped around but no purchases, head over to Suntec. I bought a belt at Roots which was at 50% storewide, for those who have no idea where Roots is, its within the small side atrium accessible from GAP. Wanted to buy a jeans from GAP but the queue was too long and moving way too slow. Bought a pair of berms from L.P zone and 6 donuts from Donut Factory. The donut fad is fading away...

New pair of shoes from Prima Vera @ Marina Sq since my present one is a little worn out at the soles. Played sales assistant for fussy eugene at United Colours of Benetton taking all sorts of sizes for him. Big sales there, he bought 2 shirts at $56. Now we had plans for dinner at Bedok 85 but the sales assistant at Prima Vera told us we could get a $10 MS voucher if we chalk up $150 worth of purchase in UOB card. So we were a few dollars away and decided to have dinner at MS instead. Dinner at my favourite Imperial Treasure for fried rice and Xiao Long Bao which cost $32 in total for 2 of us. After my second try at Imperial Treasure, I've come to the conclusion of my own personal Xiao Long Bao ranking.

1. Imperial Treasure : Thin skin with tasty filling filled with generous amt of soup in it
1. Ding Tai Feng : Pretty much the same as Imperial Treasure one
3. Hilltop HK Cafe(Tampines CC) : Loses out on its relatively thicker skin
4. Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao(Holland V) : Smaller in size with hardly any soup in it

For those who aren't fans of Xiao Long Bao can try my next favourite dim sum - the wantons in chilli sauce which I've blogged before - here. Sheila and gang (core alliance would be wad sheila calls it) have tried it at Crystal Jade, really quite nice but a different in style from Xiao Long Bao.

So after chalking up more than $150 in bills on my UOB campus card, the counter told me the voucher is not applicable for debit cards but i'm still entitled to the lucky draw. Before I go, Merry Christmas everyone, Frohe Weihnachten! Auf Wiedersehen

This Week

2007-12-23T10:25:00.000+08:00

Went to MOS on Wednesday with my sec sch core alliance (name given by sheila) after turning up at a super the crowded Zouk. My first time to MOS and it was quite enjoyable, I guess the company plays a big factor here. Some photos here, more could be viewed at Sheila's blog, all the unglamorous pics she's not posting will be here, haha!

From left: Me, xiuhui, kian, sheila & elson (zhihao shld be hiding behind)

Zhihao stealing a shot from behind like he always do

Sheila resting for part 2

The next day the same group of us minus a few went to watch The Warlords and had dinner together. Show was very exciting at the start but that's where the action ends, so action buffs will be disappointed with the show. Nevertheless, the fight at the start was gory, action-packed and exciting, Jet Li's performances was great.

Saturday morning was spent in NUS, meeting with the rest of the participants and trip leaders for the upcoming trek to Berkelah Waterfalls in Malaysia Kuantan. Collection of stores and meeting the people in your tents as well as delegating the purchase of food for the trip. I forsee a noisy trip topped with lame jokes after turning up at the meeting. The leader is a yr 1 girl from VJC or something with some of her frens joining the trip as well. They were laughing and talking while everyone were waiting to be briefed. This is the kind of leadership one should expect from varsity clubs, unprofessional. They were appointed presumbly based on popularity or just the fact that no one else is running for the post. From my experience last yr, don't expect too much, so my ranting shall end here. A trip to Vivocity after that gave us a surprise... meeting Adrian Pang and some of the Deal or No Deal models. They were playing the exact same game courtesy of items from Courts. Adrian Pang was rather wacky and witty throughout the show and some of the girls were really pretty. Cameras were clicking away the moment they're on stage.

Swordfish Collar

2007-12-18T23:11:00.000+08:00

Regular patrons to Fish & Co. would probably recognize this dish from its menu and today I tried it. 2 reasons for choosing this dish, firstly the standard of fish and chips has dropped and secondly it looks delicious from the picture on the menu. When it finally came, I was stunned by the sheer size of it. The portion is really huge with 3 big pieces of what I supposed is the swordfish collar, a nice helping of boiled carrots and celery(I think) plus a choice of chips or rice(I chose chips). Though a significant part of the 3 big pieces of fish collar is bone but the amount of fish is really quite significant. Maybe its due to the calamari we had before the main courses came, I actually barely finished 2/3 of the fish collar, erwin helped me with the 3rd piece. Price wise it was only $1 more than the fish and chips so really quite worth it.

One thing I prefer road traffic than human traffic is the fact that many people(esp girls) take their own sweet time, strolling. Now, using the same principle on road traffic, we can consider that as serious road hogging. You can stroll, crawl or wadever all you want at home I don't care, but at least be considerate to the people walking behind you who might be in an hurry and there you are strolling, taking your time blocking others. Slow pace movement in congested areas in high temp Singapore just should not be tolerated. To me it just gives the impression that you're walking aimlessly, much like a zombie which really frustrates me, so pls dun do it if i'm around. The other thing is that there's no 'lanes' on a walkway. For some with their large group of frens, they may hogged up the entire pavement walking in the same direction, blocking those walking in opp direction and those in same direction(if they're slow like case 1). Again basic courtesy and consideration to others would prevent such incidents from happening, there's just no basic rules like on road traffic. I feel maybe we should if we can't instil such basic courtesy and consideration to others on people.

A different side of Lim Chu Kang

2007-12-09T11:46:00.000+08:00

Now, I have been living in Lim Chu Kang as my 2nd home in most of my 2 year NS life in one of the ulu-est camp in Singapore there. Never quite explored the place until yesterday together with Sheila, elson and kian. We visited Farmart which is a cluster of shops and stalls selling foodstuff, probably local produce like honey, organic vegetables, exotic meat and stuff. There's a couple of restaurants there and the secenery is vastly different from what most urban dwellers are exposed to. Pets and aquarium shops also lined the place with a prawn pond that I heard attracts quite a lot of people at night.

Retro coke in glass bottles from Farmart with elson in background(not the one in green lah!)view from Farmart

We then went to Qian Hu fishery which was the main highlight of the day cos Sheila our driver for the day wants to try the spa fish therapy there. The place wasn't very crowded for a weekend but there are quite a bit of people there already. Fish tanks everywhere with lotsa different kinda fishes, 2 tanks stood out among all:

The ugly fishes
The fishes with numbers tatooed onto them(whoever wins 4D from the numbers here must treat me to a nice meal!)

Then in one corner is the spa therapy fishes(garra rufa fish) in a pond where people pay $10/30mins to sit around and let these fishes eat away their dead skin on their feet. The one most enthusiastic about this turned out to be screaming through the session whenever fishes tried to have their decent meal. It was rather interesting to see those fishes eating away on our feet, rather ticklish, an interesting experience anyway since those fishes normally live only in mid-east countries like Turkey. I guess the conclusion is the fishes prefer a hairy meal since elson and sheila had pretty few fishes 'feeding' on them.

This is my leg btw(hope u guys can see the fishes)

It was Holland V for dinner after that and this is my first time to Holland V actually so an eye opener for me. Dinner at Crystal Jade was pretty normal nothing fanciful, the main course of la mian was very normal, nothing to boast about. The xiao long bao was pretty small with few soup in there though the skin is quite thin and the taste was quite good. The dumplings in chili sauce which I had blogge before when I went to Imperial Treasure at Marina South was quite good. Not too spicy yet the dumplings were quite big. Service was normal though they were prompt to refill our ice water.

Dumplings in chili sauce(we already ate half before the photo was taken)
My spicy beef la main( really very spicy, not nice)

Sheila & Kian ordered the la main in meat sauce

Desserts at my favourite Bedok 85 with 'new' discovery. I found out last nite that they actually sell Ah Balling there, my god after going there so many times I actually dunno abt that! For the info, Ah Balling is a dessert pretty much like Tang Yuan with its glutinous rice balls filled with sesame, peanut, yam or red bean but the base soup is peanut soup or ginger soup. This stall does it pretty authentic and I saw Terrence there, my TJ senior in Swimming and a nus mech eng classmate. Fun day out but can't do it too often, no money!

New phone + Day out in Orchard

2007-12-07T23:10:00.000+08:00

I just bought a new phone which is actually not that new, as in its an old model but first hand. My W810i, from mobilesquare in far east. I had a day out in orchard rd today as well, Christmas lightings were really beautiful while the traffic sux like hell as usual. Walked around the malls without buying anything unfortunately. Dinner at DOME at Scotts was amazing, the quantity and quality were more than justified by the price. Eugene and I paid in total about $27, he had seafood pasta while I had a meal of Pan-fried Dory, garden salad and cuppa tea. For 12++, the seafood had ridiculously amount of ingredients, 3-4 prawns, squids and fish.... it was really a generous helping. If they get praised by fussy Eugene it really have to be good. My Pan-fried Dory was pretty good as well, 1 big fillet of dory fried with herbs, getting rid of any fishy smell it may have. There's also broccoli and cauliflower which were well-cooked unlike some I've eaten. It was also topped with a generous helping of wedges. The garden salad was rather normal, nothing special, maybe I should have tried the soup instead. House peppermint tea was also rather normal. Overall the helping was generous and the quality was pretty good as well. In the end Eugene even left his handphone in DOME, realising it only until when we reached Taka, so we made it all the way to Scotts and the next customer on our seats had it with them, lucky for him.

How could u....

2007-12-04T23:39:00.000+08:00

My phone just died on me today, actually yesterday and today. It almost made me miss my last paper for today at 9am. It totally failed to activate and sound the alarm, fortunately I was awake at 6am probably anticipated its failure. When I got home and about to take a nap, it failed again, this time I can't even switch it on. So now I'm using the Nokia 6510 found in my house which my bro n I used it for NS(non-camera). I could sense it was going to break down already, so recently I was already on the lookout for a new phone. Right now in contention are Nokia 5310 and Sony Ericsson W810i. The Nokia one is pretty new and all, specs wise is more or less the same as the SE's rather old model of W810i. Of course price wise the w810i is cheaper and in my opinion looks better and I dun have to switch to a Nokia platform which I'm fumbling right now(that explains my short replies on sms). The only drawback is that many shops would probably not be selling a rather older model like the w810i. Think I probably need to go down to Far East one of these days.

Something to share

2007-11-25T10:56:00.001+08:00

I received an email from Eugene the other day, I think this is the first time I actually received 1 of his email and I must say the contents are really very interesting and funny at the same time. Whether or not this is a true event, I do not know but it should get you laughing anyway. So here goes...

Subject: FW: What should I do to marry a rich guy?

* I thought it is interesting to share with you what I read from a blogging / forum website
I'm going to be honest of what I'm going to say here. I'm 25 this year. I'm very pretty, have style and good taste. I wish to marry a guy with $500k annual salary or above. You might say that I'm greedy, but an annual salary of $1M is considered only as middle class in New York . My requirement is not high. Is there anyone in this forum who has an income of $500k annual salary? Are you all married? I wanted to ask: what should I do to marry rich persons like you?
Among those I've dated, the richest is $250k annual income, and it seems that this is my upper limit. If someone is going to move into high cost residential area on the west of New York City Garden , $250k annual income is not enough.

I'm here humbly to ask a few questions:

1) Where do most rich bachelors hang out? (Please list down the names and addresses of bars, restaurant, gym)

2) Which age group should I target?

3) Why most wives of the riches is only average-looking? I've met a few girls who doesn't have looks and are
not interesting, but they are able to marry rich guys

4) How do you decide who can be your wife, and who can only be your girlfriend? (my target now is to get married)

*************************Ms. Pretty*****************************************

Here's a reply from a Wall Street Financial guy:

Dear Ms. Pretty,

I have read your post with great interest. Guess there are lots of girls out there who have similar questions like yours. Please allow me to analyze your situation as a professional investor. My annual income is more than $500k, which meets your requirement, so I hope everyone believes that I'm not wasting time here.
From the standpoint of a business person, it is a bad decision to marry you. The answer is very simple, so let me explain. Put the details aside, what you're trying to do is an exchange of beauty and money: Person A provides beauty, and Person B pays for it, fair and square.
However, there's a deadly problem here, your beauty will fade, but my money will not be gone without any good reason. The fact is, my income might increase from year to year, but you can't be prettier year after year. Hence from the viewpoint of economics, I am an appreciation asset, and you are a depreciation asset. It's not just normal depreciation, but exponential depre ciation. If that is your only asset, your value will be much worried 10 years later.

By the terms we use in Wall Street, every trading has a position, dating with you is also a trading position. If the trade value dropped we will sell it and it is not a good idea to keep it for long term same goes with the marriage that you wanted. It might be cruel to say this, but in order to make a wiser decision any assets with great depreciation value will be sold or leased. Anyone with over $500k annual income is not a fool; we would only date you, but will not marry you. I would advice that you forget looking for any clues to marry a rich guy. And by the way, you could make yourself to become a rich person with $500k annual income. This has better chance than finding a rich fool.

Hope this reply helps. If you are interested in leasing services, do contact me.

Signed, J.P. Morgan

Peeping Tom

2007-11-24T21:02:00.000+08:00

Today I saw one, at least I think I saw one. This is what happened...

I was going home via Buena Vista today, where I had to take the escalator which is like 2-3 storeys high. So there was this guy leaning beside the escalator(ok, he could be waiting for someone) but he was a little suspicious. He was looking at the legs(maybe thigh or i dunno where) of the 2 gals in front of me as they stepped onto the escalator cos 1 of them was wearing shorts. At first I didn't realise anything until i finally realise how high this escalator goes up to, when I looked back, true enough I saw that guy looking up the escalator. Tsk Tsk... so those of you who goes by Buena Vista be careful now.

Well, sometimes I dun understand wad gals are thinking abt. At times when I'm at Central Lib(everyone knows how cold it can get), even I need to wear my jacket in there while I'm wearing jeans. But I can see many gals wearing tubes, shorts, mini skirts and wadever they wear. Don't they feel cold? Maybe its just me being weak huh... I'm not against gals wearing less anyway since I'm one of those benefiting anyway, haha!

A nice german exchange student wished me gd luck on the train when he alighted today, think we met in lecture before, can't remember. How nice of him to think of poor undergrads like me as he alighted at Bugis, probably enjoying his last few days of stay in sunny Singapore.

Relax, have a break!

2007-11-19T21:06:00.000+08:00

Since everyone is so stressful with exam preparations, I ought to entertain u since u, yes YOU who still took time off to read this blog. This is a joke I came up with some time ago, but before u read this, u shld put on that jacket hung on your chair/door/cupboard/wherever u left it. Here goes....

Beware of Lameness and extreme coldness that might spread through your whole mind and body!

You've been warned....

You sure u gonna read this? U can still close this browser now....

Qn: Which Superhero is most environmentally friendly?
.
..
...
....
.....
......
.......
........
.........
..........
...........
............
If you think you will kill me for giving such lame joke pls i beg u to close this browser and not read the answer for the sake of my life!
.
.
.
.
.
.
Answer: The Hulk. Because he's GREEN!!!!

2007-11-16T10:23:00.000+08:00

Stupid CX was wondering where he misplaced his ME 2121-Thermodynamics Part I Chapter 4 notes only to realise he didn't print them since they were self study materials. Talk about being absent minded and plain stupidity.

Keeping fit

2007-11-15T23:49:00.000+08:00

Now that CX has been made OC support of 483SAR, that means responsibility to keeping fit. Becoz as a Tank officer last time, I hardly dismount, my trusty SM1 brings me to everywhere I want. OC support does all the shitty job like flanking, where bashing through thick forest is required. Sounds like I'm back to the shitty days of being a cadet.

Anyway now that CX has no CCA, no 3 times a week hardcore 2hrs each swimming training or sadistic land trainings by either Erwin or Jon, I'm keeping myself healthy through my weekly gym session at Tampines Clubfitt Gym. Its the one at the swimming pool so I get nice views of people swimming below yet in a spacious gym(clubfitt tampines is ridiculously spacious). It has become a weekly routine for me to meet Colin there every Sat at 4pm. Sometimes we see the fit siao Jingsheng there, sometimes I look at him do his weights, I tot he's preparing for some gang fight or smth. Let's pump some iron.

Central Library

2007-11-14T23:41:00.000+08:00

I dun always study in librarys when I was studying in JC or secondary. But I'm starting the appreciate the benefits of doing so. Since sem 1 I have occasionally join Colin at Central Lib and I find it more productive sometimes. Staying at home or rather my room have many distractions, that 21'' TV beside this laptop and that bed are top 3 killers. Being in lib prevents me from doing so while being among those hardworking muggers just prevents me from straying away. As per last 2 semesters, i'll be at Central Lib level 6 with Colin and Co.

TUM

2007-11-14T12:21:00.000+08:00

I just checked my SEP application and it says that I've been offered a place for SEP to TUM - Technical University of Munich. My first choice. Yeah!

You are so beautiful!

2007-11-13T16:48:00.000+08:00

You know who you are, yeah that's you I'm talking about.

I finally understand what is it that attracts me. Its gotta be that sweet smile that never fails to brighten anyone's day. I love it.

Top 10 reasons to date an ENGINEER

2007-11-10T11:13:00.000+08:00

10. The world does revolve around us... we choose the coordinate system.

9. No "couple" enjoy a better "moment".

8. We know how to handle stress and strain in a relationship.

7. We have significant figures.

6. We understand the motion of rigid bodies.

5. Projectile motion: Do we need to say more?

4. Engineers do it to specification.

3. According to Newton, if two bodies interact, their forces are equal and opposite.

2. We know it's not the length of the vector that counts, but how you apply the force.

1. WE KNOW THE RIGHT HAND RULE!

2007-11-08T11:46:00.000+08:00

I've just been acquitted from charges of murder. Yes I'm really innocent, but no this is NOT a real case. I'm just playing the accused for Colin(law undergrad) in his mock trial assessment. The 'Judge' is actually a qualified lawyer who also serve as tutors for law students like Colin. This is the first time I've stepped into a law firm, nothing fanciful, pretty much like a standard office u see in Raffles Place. It was fun to see how Colin and his opponent(another Seow) questioning the witness(someone else) with Colin trying to discredit the witness(I like the hearing loss part). But it wasn't all that fun when its my turn man. Its okay when Colin was questioning me, since we already gone through the whole procedure a few times but the 'prosecutor' was actually smart to use yes/no questions on me, trying to confuse me with double negation questions and the likes. But apparently she prepares everything she has to say in a 'speech' form and kinda thrown off tracked when I did not gave the answers she wants. So Brad Peat(read Brad Pitt) is cleared of all charges yet score a night with Valda the nurse. Yeah! It was a good experience for me to get a glimpse of court proceedings. Anyway both of them passed so no harm done.

Yesterday as I was on the train(yes, i still take public transport once in a while) to NUS, I noticed how popular PSP has become. In one carriage alone, from what I could see, I saw 3 people indulging in some PSP fun. Looking at them just makes me wanna buy one man. That day I saw someone reading comics from her PSP, how cool is that man.

The Greatest Invention

2007-11-05T20:57:00.000+08:00

What is the greatest invention of all time?

From paper to flying aircrafts to automobiles to television or even the World Wide Web, one invention has stood against all others in the face of time. Even as science advances by leaps and bounds, there is one invention that is still very much in existence despites more advanced models appearing in the market. What is it?

Its the INCANDESCENT LIGHT BULB! at least in my opinion.

Invented in 1879 by US renowned scientist Thomas Elva Edison after over 100 failures, the incandescent light bulb is still very much in use today without much modification from the first successful prototype developed by Edison. You can hardly find a place on Earth inhabited by Man yet find no signs of the incandescent light bulb. Even in developed Singapore with many people using the more economical fluorescent light bulbs in homes, you can still find the incandescent light bulbs somewhere, be it the bulb in your storeroom, toilet, your car's front headlights or even that very tablelamp you bought from IKEA could well be using incandescent light bulbs. You must praise the brilliance of Edison to come up with such invention that stood against time, against the advances of technology, after more than a century, the incandescent light bulbs we have are still very much similar to the original ones he made. It could well be because of his more than 100 failures that made his invention survive until now.

As I was searching for some info on the Incandescent light bulb by Edison, I stumbled upon something interesting. The invention of Jeans was actually by Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis back in 1873.

Anyway could anyone tell me the difference between the normal Levi's shops and the Levi's Strauss shops?

Ich spreche Deutsch!

2007-11-04T01:22:00.000+08:00

Today we shall learn some simple german phrases which u may find it useful next time. The title means I speak german.

Hello = Hallo, Hi is okay

Excuse me = Entschuldigung - An~shoe~d~gong( nice ar)

Thank You = Danke - Dunk~ke

Yes = Ja - Ya (J is pronounced as Y in german)

No = Nein - Nine ( close enough)

Please = Bitte - Bitter

That's it for today! Auf Wiedersehen(good-bye )