Around The Web

Websites running under the rader

Aston: For those who don't know, they sell western food and specialize in steaks at very affordable prices. Did I mention the food rocks too?

Old Chang Kee: I actually spotted this while searching for inspirations on a project. I wasn't totally surprise to see them having a web presence. But to see them having a delivery service? Number: 65550055. Could I call them up in the middle of the night and ask for 1 x curry puff? Wait, aw, there's a minimum order of S$12.00.

Tampines Webtown: Tampines actually has their own website. Though IMHO, i think it's a bit 'cui'. It's nowhere near Punggol's standard. You mean you didn't know punggol had a website?

Mount Faber: We need one for Orchard Road, Hougang, Jurong, everywhere... Join in the fray =)


For the Geeks/Intellects

Music Symbols: Do you know that another name for Treble Clef is G Clef? The same goes for Bass Clef and F Clef. Just looking at all these music symbols makes me dizzy.

Story of Proton: Now this is one of my favorite econs related story. Proton is actually heavily subsidized by the Malaysian government while their rivals are smacked with heavy tariffs. And yet... Oh well, read the article. I wouldn't want to say too much.

Nalgene = Impotency?: "It has been linked in dozens of independent research studies to illnesses that could be caused by hormone disruption". NOOOOOooooooo....... (I have a Nalgene bottle)

Interesting, Weird Stuff

All in one Breakfast Machine: Could I have 1 for my birthday pleease? Oh, my next birthday I mean.

Life Lesson

Life Lesson 1: Leadership

Coming up to make a decision is a tough thing, especially when there are limited/no incentives. If you make make the correct decision, you get applauded. The wrong one? You get flamed. The best you can do? Make an apology.

But what if you make a decision that you think is correct while others believe is wrong? After all, humans have differing values and opinions. Now that stumps me. Do you apologize? What if the majority stands on the other side? Should you take the political correct path by apologizing? Perhaps you were really wrong?

But... what if you still firmly think that you are correct? What if you were correct? After all, people might approve of your decision with time?

Life is one confusing thing. Lol.

(Edit[301207]: I hope the that only minority of the 1000 hits are generated by bots or similar stuff. Noooooooo.)

OkCupid - Nice Guy =)

Thanks for taking the OkCupid Dating Test on Facebook!

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Your results from the Dating Test are:
The Boy Next Door (Random Gentle Love Dreamer)

Kind, yearning, playful, you are The Boy Next Door. You're looking for real Love, a lot like girls do. It might not be manly, but it's sweet.

We think the next three years will be very exciting and fruitful ones for you. Your spontaneous, creative side makes you a charming date, and we think you have a horny side just waiting to shine. Or glisten, rather. You enter new relationships unusually hopeful, and the first moments are especially glorious. If you've had some things not work out before, so what.

On paper, most girls would name the Boy Next Door as their ideal mate. In the real world, however, you're often passed over for more dangerous or masculine men. You're the typical "nice guy:" without just a touch of cockiness, you're doomed with girls. A shoulder to cry on? Okay, sure. But never a penis to hold.

More than any other type, Boys Next Door evolve as they get older. As we said, many find true love, but some fail miserably in the search. These tarnished few grow up to be The Men Next Door, who are creepy as hell, offering backrubs to kids and what not.

(*Note: Everything seems fine except the last part -_-")

Xmas Special: Design/Girls?

So, how was X'mas for me? Well, I went to my friend, Alan's house to play Winning Eleven Eleven with 2 chaps (it's a soccer game and there's no pun intended) and had a basketball game just now. Sounds boring? But I actually found it quite fun in a way.

The 4 player Winning Eleven actually produced quite a couple of hilarious moments, like Dogzilla (my friend's nick) actually managing to score a uncanny amount of goals by pouncing on lucky rebounds. He's one lucky man. And if you don't play Winning Eleven, I bet you are pretty lost (don't worry, you should be).



Oh yeah, back to the topic. Besides from having fun and food, I was also pretty busy doing some work these few days; getting up a new design for Mitworkz's website and logo and other stuff. And that's when I stumbled upon Ron's Theory of Design/Girls. Actually I held this theory for quite a time already. It's just that I've confirmed it with recent events.

The theory; designs are just like girls. [Okay, for girls, it will be guys. Wait... for lesbians, it will be gers... gays, guys. O_O" Whatever]. Anyway, I've got my reasons to back it up....

1. Designs can look good but yet suck in functionality, like this one. It's like having a pretty girlfriend who is only willing to go out with you once every few weeks, because she has either too much stuff to do or too much friends to attend to. (Yes, this does happen in real life. I vouch for that.)

2. Designs can look pretty on first sight but yet somehow amazingly seem not so much as time goes by. Maybe it's just that you've been re-visiting the design too much? Girls? Might be their bad hair day? Now this one really befuddles me.

3. Different people like different designs. The same goes for girls. Some guys like sweet-looking and demure girl-next-door. Some like intelligent, swashbuckling, outspoken girls. Some like vivacious, fashionable girls. And the list goes on and on. O_O"

4. Girls, like designs have accessibility issues. Designs, in particular web designs, are sometimes not accessible to all. Try disabling your javascript or uninstall your embedded flash player and go around surfing. You are going to bump into a ton of problems. It is the same as liking a girl who is simply not in your league. Perhaps she's a 25 year old working class lady with some Honors in some degree while you're a 22 year diploma holder just out from National Service. Now, that's a big No-No obstacle.

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Oh well, I haven't been managed to overcome all these issues (in design not with girls). And if I ever do find the solution, I'll share it with you all. No worries.

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And to end this lengthy post off, here is my friend, Mr K's (false nick) opinion on chasing girls in this era.

Mr K says:
u need to get your club
Mr K says:
go out there
Mr K says:
and club the cai you want
Mr K says:
drag her back to your cave
Mr K says:
and thats it
Mr K says:
its back to the stone age now

I'm pretty sure he was drunk when he said these. Oh well.

Rambling

Yes, I've finally finished up some work on some prototype and it seems like the client likes it, which is good I guess. Yes, doing a website in Chinese makes my head spin.

Caught National Treasure today with a couple of close friends and it totally exceeded my expectations; I went into the cinema prepared for yet another mundane show. But this one was far better than I thought it would be and the main actress, Diane Kruger, IMHO is gorgeous. I did not watch the previous episode anyway.



Speaking of gorgeous, here is Andrea Fonseka's blog for those who don't know she has one; Kudos to Kevin. For those who don't know her, she got famous through Deal or No Deal and Live The Dream. (TV Shows)

Anyway, is it me or are there more couples cuddling around come Christmas time? Oh well.

[终究还是要回到现实]

IMHO My (Lower) Back CMI

IMHO - In My Humble Opinion. I didn't coined this, but I've just decided to use this more often, especially on subjects involving design. I was debating with a friend over a certain prototype I done up for a client and I put across the fact that I thought my simple design was alright. And IMHO, using the IMHO in these situations are the best.

Anyway, IMHO, i suggest that everyone should use IMHO whenever commenting on any subjective stuff, especially involving the arts. For example, "IMHO, that art piece sucks". At least that's better, no?

CMI - Cannot Make It. I think this is used relatively lesser by the masses as compared to IMHO. Often used to describe tight, bad situations. (Hmm, pretty hard to describe).

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Anyway, I went running around my neighborhood in the evening and my lower back totally gave out on me. Halfway through the run, I could feel a pretty bad ache around my lower back region. It wasn't an acute pain, but it was still painful enough to stop me from running.

IMHO, I think the pain is a result of my bad seating habits and long hours in front of the computer. And after some Googling, it seems that running/walking actually stresses your back less than sitting. Here are some tips to improve your seating posture. There's a reason why our mums always nag at us to sit straight [which is partially correct].

One interesting discovery was that some actually recommend using the Swiss Kneeling Chair (below) and the Exercise Ball instead of the standard office chairs at work. Can you imagine having a big yoga ball instead of a office chair at your workplace? Nah, I can't. But the kneeling chair actually seems viable.


(If you can't imagine how it is used, click here)

Anyway, it's Christmas time isn't it? Let me end this off with a Christmas Carol done by NBA players. IMHO, I found it funny. I hope you do too.

Vids/Thanks

First of all, my thanks to Keith and Elin for the book. Though I'm not a great fan of the author, I still want to extend my thanks out to you two. Anyway, the book they gave me was written by Adam Khoo.

Also, if you are not able to load my blog page fully, there's nothing wrong with your computer or connection. It seems that blogcounter.com's hit counter is facing a bit of their problems.

Oh yeah, I'm going to share a couple of videos today.

Slug Sex: Gross, waaaaay gross stuff. Click only if you're mentally strong. Beware.

Narutimate Accel 2 New Trailer: It's a PS2 game which many Naruto fans are looking forward to. (Okay, I don't own a playstation 2. But that doesn't stops me from admiring the gameplay and graphics.)

whysoserious: This is a big movie coming up in 2008. The trailer seems great. I'll leave you to find out the rest for yourself. whysoserious.

Worms in Rocher?!

Ok, I received an email talking about Worms being found in Rocher(Pretty gross). It's from Stomp so it should have a certain degree of credibility. Wasn't the best of things for me to see since waking up with that split headache at about 3pm.

I often get headaches whenever I sleep too little or screw up my sleeping timings. Anyway, before I forget about this, I'm going to wish the following dudes happy birthday.


Lebbeus [24th Dec]: Poly classmate of mine, devout Christian, very serious 50% of the time and very funny 50% of the time.

Clara Lee [24th Dec]: Poly schoolmate of mine, a very vibrant, sporty chatterbox. You'll never find yourself out of topics with her around.

Alfred [27th Dec]: Fellow (ex) military policemen. Pretty fit guy. We love to call him 强而有力的手臂.

Meiqi [1st Jan]: Another Poly classmate. Used to live just a block away from me when I was living back in Ang Mo Kio. Quiet but pretty sweet gal. We even scored a prize while working on a project together.


Yes, I know I'm very capable to remember all these birthdays. [Thank the gods for friendster, lol]. Anyway, I better go take my lunch, high tea, dinner or whatever it should be called.

22 and going

322am

Crapz, it's 322am and I'm not asleep? I'm freaking gonna strangle that FTP server, webhost or whatever you like to call it. The files are in such a mess and the web host is soooooo slow. Bad day bad day =(

Anyway, my thanks to all those who remembered my birthday. If you didn't, it's fine too. I totally understand that there are so many birthdays to remember per year and humans only have a tweeny tiny brain to store them all. I could do with a lunch/dinner treat though. Wahahahz.

Because I'm so shag and tired now, I'm not going to list any funny funny birthday resolution that I end up not being able to fufill in the end.

I just hope that the days to come will be happy ones and that the people around me are happy and healthy too.

22... Old...

1225pm

11, 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, 77. Assuming that I don't live till 88, this year is 1 of the only 7 years whereby my age consists of 2 identical numbers. Okay, actually I'm just trying to make something special out of nothing special.

And I'm really very dissed, pissed, upset over the web host's customer service. I'm not going to point out the company. But it's a Singapore web hosting company located around Ubi. It seems like I don't have luck with customer service these day. Or perhaps I'm just too critical of them.

Anyway, time to catch some sleep.

(If you can't make sense of this post, neither can I. Feeling sleepy and typing a post at the same time doesn't usually bring out something intelligible.

SG Customer Service

Erm, after doing some work today, I went out with some friends to catch the Man U - Liverpool match which Man U won 1-0, which I personally felt was undeserved; but that's another point.

We caught the match at 'The Prata House' at Serangoon North/Yio Chu Kang area. We often patronize there but I don't think I'll be doing that anymore pretty soon. Know why? Because I ordered a 'Teh Ice' (Iced Tea) and they simply refused to serve me the drink after 30 minutes.

My guess? Reason being that it's simply too 'unprofitable' for them. We spent around 10 minutes just to gain attention so that we could ordered already. Well, there might be a few plausible reasons why they didn't served me my drink; they forgot the order, messed up the order, gave the drink to the wrong fellow. But it hasn't been the first time such lousy service has occurred.

I totally feel sick of the service and have just decided not to continue to fund this lousy customer service. I've just P.Ban myself from that place. I think it's our responsibility as customers to not patronize bad customer service. Well, but that is plainly one man's view.

Anyway, is there no way that Singapore's overall customer service woes could be solved? I think the heads of the government dudes are really going to crack on this one soon.

It's Christmas Time

Ehm... And Christmas should never ever be short of one thing... And that's chocolates.



(Yes, I know Lays ain't chocolates, but... oh well. Lol.)

And Cold Storage prices are waaaaaay not competitive as compared to NTUC.

[Oh yes, I chanced upon this website talking about how to do more with your router. Very interesting (for tech geeks).]

The Marathon Boy

For those who haven't heard of Budhia Singh before, he's a four-year-old Indian child who ran 65 kilometres in seven hours.

"Budhia Singh (born 2002) is a five-year-old Indian boy and the world's youngest marathon runner. Generally considered an athletic phenomenon, Budhia has participated in (and finished) races of up to 60 kilometers (37.3 miles) in roughly six hours and thirty minutes." - Wikipedia



I personally find it a form of cruelty more than anything else. He's just a child isn't he? Well of course, if he loves running, it's a totally different matter.

Erm, first a kid getting up close with wild animals, then a kid running marathons at a age of 4. What's up next? Kids skipping O'levels? Yes, that has already happened. (Might be old news to some of you all out there, but oh well, they didn't had this in my era.)


[Note: I was actually going to post about the movie, "The Warlords", which I caught yesterday. But I idiotically went on to start Warcraft 3 without saving the draft. And the com hanged on me. I lost most of the post. -_-".

Anyway, it's not a totally fantastic movie, but it's kind of intriguing in it's own sense. A lot of violence, blood and emotions involved in portraying the harshness and reality of early warfare (Qing Dynasty) with a very overt and direct approach. And that is all carried out by the star-studded trio of cast. All in all, I call it an Imperfect Unique Barbaric Movie. You need to watch it to understand.

And here's a Andy Lau MV of the movie. And the trailer.]

[大哥是对的。]

Need to Run

Well, I think I need to start going for some runs again now that there's no Army morning runs. Today, I actually went running at Serangoon Stadium with a close friend of mine, Alan, and it wasn't an easy one.

To be truthful, I haven't really been running ever since I ORDed from Army. Add that to my unhealthy lifestyle (late nights, fast food), and you could pretty much guessed what happened.

We decided to do a 2.4km. Alan is a frequent runner and rather much a good one at it too; he can score under 9 (freaking) minutes for a 2.4km run while hardly breaking a sweat. That's how good he is.

Well, I'm totally fine with that... until he decided to pace me. -_-" I tried to convince him out of it but instead, he somehow managed to convince me that I would be able to keep up with his pacing. I was kind of thinking that since I was previously a 10++ minutes runner, I would be able to make it. It was a waaaaaaaaay big mistake. =(

After 4 rounds (1.8km) on the track in around 6++ minutes, I totally tapped out of it. The phlegm, most probably courtesy of my late nights was out (yes I know that's gross), I felt dizzy and my legs were cramping up too, so I gave up.

I didn't wanted to score under 10 minutes, just to end up fainting. Lol. =( The late nights and MacDonalds have come to haunt me. Duh.

I need to start running again. O_O

Life After Death

Well, it has been raining really frequently in Singapore these days. And it has been a short 3 days since I've ORD-ed and I'm starting to get busy again. (When I was still a NSF, I was doing Admin work).

For those who don't know, I'm now in the line of web design, online solutions, e-marketing kind of company (Mitworkz.com). It's setup by me and my Poly friend, Keith and it's still really small; more like miniscule.

All thanks to a friend, we kind of manage to secure a web design deal. But their company is rather a conventional company which requires all those black and white stuff like contract, proposal and such. And thus, I was thrown into a situation whereby I've to draw up a contract, which I've never done before and I don't recall learning that back in school too.

So that caused me a bit of stress. But I guess it's all part of the learning process.


And here is a web page about this little girl who lives in Africa and somehow manages to co-exist with animals very well, Tippi. I'm not sure if you all have heard of her before.

Tippi of Africa
(Warning: If topless female kids is considered nudity, porn, etc. to you and it offends you, please don't click the link.)

Salvation

Salvation can come into many forms. Lol.

A picture speaks a thousand words as the old adage goes; so I'll show a picture. =D



P.S. I was once a very fat boy. Lol.

ORD! =DDD

Reformat

I'm going to reformat my computer. I hope everything that is needed are all backed up. Nothing was left out hopefully. -_-" Reformat, reformat... to a faster computer.

Pecking Order

Overseas Indians

PRCs

JC Students

Poly Students

The suspected pecking order in an engineering course of a local university. Should I start to worry about my university studies? It seems like I'm at the bottom. Oh well, I'm not an engineering student, it should be fine right?

Sitex '07 and 'The Phone'

I'm a man in search of a phone. Because I'm going to ORD soon, i can finally get this monster off my back. It has served me really well, no doubt about that. But it's dying off; auto shut-downs, unresponsive keys, etc. You name it, the phone has it. Now you know why you get cut off the line while talking to me. LoL.



(It wasn't always this phone. I had a phone in the Nokia 6xxx series. Can't remember the model but I somehow spoiled it and thus had to bear with this archaic fellow.)

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Anyway, I know I definitely don't want and cannot get through my life with this phone anymore. So I went down to Sitex 07 @ Expo with two friends to have a look at phones, while also updating myself on the latest hardware. I don't really recommend going down there unless you are out to buy something. Else, you'll end up as a part of the crowd that robs the true buyers (minority) of their convenience. And yes, I didn't bought anything. My friend did. Phewz.

Instead of going down to Sitex, you might want to take a look at Hardware Zone's guide first. Going down to Sim Lim Square during this period of time is also a shrewd move, as the bulk will be at Expo.

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Anyway, I didn't really got to see any phones that interested me. The phone that always interested me was Sony Ericsson's K850i. It's armed with a 5 mega pixel camera and the series (K810i and K800) has been credited with many great reviews.

That was till one of my friend told me that K850i had no Wifi.(?!) I was like... "What? You mean one of the top end phones in Sony Ericsson's line has no Wifi? No surfing of web at the Coffee Beans and Starbucks?" That totally killed my yearning for the phone. Geeks (or self-proclaimed geeks) must have Wifi. There's no way around it.



Er, yes I did took Nokia's N95 and N95 8GB edition into consideration; 5 mega pixel camera, Wifi, GPS, everything, anything. But unless someone is willing to buy one for me. I'm not going to get one of those at 1000++ dollars.

Even for a 'It's What Computers Have Become' phone. (Funny commercial). I would rather get a notebook, honest.

Lol.

And the search for 'The Phone' continues....