This week is full of happenings, namely a birthday dinner before booking in last sunday. Followed by 3 days of armour phase training on M113s and sweating outfield. Moreover, guess what- a perfect place to spend the last 3 days of the week and celebrate one’s birthday? – on tekong outfield? Where only your platoon are there to sing you a birthday song at night before sleeping out in the wilderness altogether, oh well so much for camping life or I say- life of a soldier? It’s my 2nd year in National service and my 2nd consective year where I got to actually celebrate my birthday in tekong too. And of course with 19 years behind me, I am 20 now, not very old but very much the end of teenage years for me. oh well, theres more to life and I believe, its just beginning…
GTA San Andreas
The word is out at this link. It would be out on october, aka rockstar game’s 2004 finisher for this year’s GTA series. Current projects include the release of Red Dead Revolver, Manhunt on the PC and Xbox, as well as Grand Theft Auto’s introduction on the GameBoy Advance and the arrival of Vice City on Japanese shores.
Would be going for some light timsum “pre birthday” breakfast tomorrow with my family. The planned family dinner for my birthday tomorrow would be postponed to the next weekend, because of some last minute changes. In place would be dinner with my BMT friends where dom(his birthday today), gingrui (birthday tomorrow) and me (25th march) would be muching away at breeks with the platoon tml evening. Sunday night is the only time where everybody would be free, instead of an actually more convinent (and intended) lunch. I guess my parents were pretty understanding on the sudden change of plans and I am glad they actually happily allowed the postponing of tomorrow’s family dinner as well. Guess that when you are in the army the precious weekends are usually all packed and cramped with activities and you actually got to spend every bit of it wisely with your loved ones, or actually celebrate on your actual birthday out of camp too.
Oh well, soon to be- bye bye life as a teenager… wow 20 do seem old.
Flying handphone
Thursday was a rather funny day esp for my phone- Hurried off for some lessons from the 4th floor down with my hands full of lecture files and stationary, together with my Siemens SL45 on the stack. The moment I hit the stairs a sudden shift of upward g-forces caused everything flying up- and around the stair well the most it like nooo.. (hands outstretched) as my phone bounced down 4-5 steps down before going thru the stair hand rails and down the vertical stairwell shaft, followed by a very loud TANG!, then silence…
I was expecting a mess of phone when I recover it on my way down but heck no, miraculously I found my phone rather intact- the main body and battery lying separately on the 2nd floor and my MMC card on the 3th floor. It turned out that the phone actually flew from the 4th floor down the stairwell, hit the railing on the 2nd floor where it ended up and the MMC flying to the 3rd. So based on some basic physics on impact the lighter parts will tend to get disassembled earlier while the heavier ones will do so later on impact. So that kinda helped in the recovery of all the removable parts.
Slapped all the parts back and scary enough it still turns on, with screen functioning well, keypad and backlight working. wow… strong phone.
Luckily I didn’t use my SX1 that day, glad I switched to my old trusty SL45. or…
Inky situation
Play dutch heh? oh that might be the though most of us had today when my NS friend, ChongGen invited me and 3 more other platoonfriends for lunch today at some italian resturant near farrer road/serene center area. Before that, he brought us to his house so he could unpack his stuff and man it was big- about 5000 sqm. He even had a pool, gym, ballroom sized hall and lots (and I mean lots) of cars in his driveway, not to mention the pool table which we played while waiting for him there.
The resturant where we had our invitation really does fine dining and I guess most of us, italian food is not very much of our taste, expected of a rich guy like him. Tried squid ink pasta his recommendation (partly cos I can’t really understand italian in the menu)- a weird dish too, but worth wandering into and trying. And, well it actually turns out to be pasta cooked in squid ink- literally. Though I can’t really taste the ink, its very much taste like pasta in white sauce, only that everything is all black and ilky, not to mention the mess it can bring to your mouth and face on any “uncued slurping”. The rest ordered traditional pasta, baked rice and lasagna, so my dish was the rather “out of this world” one, esp the regular snicker from the group whenever I get ink all over my mouth… messy!
Passed my traffic police basic theory test, (yea!) got the letter in the mail with my mum happily informing me bout that thru the phone last friday- this means one step closer to my driving license, time to move on the the pracs. Moreover I tried applied another time into the local Us today for a chance to get into mechnical engineering course, hope I would be able to get in this year.
Had another good buy- Jurassic park operation genesis at $19.90, (usual $49.90). whee!
Would be going out for some more mad impulse shopping with my teammate John tomorrow.. *duh*
Safe’s super savers
There I was at the safe superstore warehouse at Sims drive doing what most singaporeans are born for- queuing. Whats more? is a branded 21″ TV going for $99 or a 14″ going for $69 too much too resist? Anyway I was not in for any of those (and thats good), but pretty much for a portable DVD player going at $360. The ad on the newspaper did cover up alot of things, not revealing the makes and brands of the products they are having at the sale, but the price, so why not drop by this morning to take alook? But the moment I saw it: SONY D-VM1 with a 3.5″ portable LCD screen- $360 (previously $1599) arghh! GOTTA get it…
SCDF demo
The SCDF (SG civil defense force) dropped by camp yesterday morning, which was too the camp’s annual safety day. In the morning there was a mock up fire with the fire fighters arriving in a Dennis fire engine and a light strike fire buggy at the scene of the “fire”, setting up hoses to a nearby hydrant while concurrently having another team racing up to the top floor of the “firey” block to fight the fire and save the “casualties”, carrying them all down for burns treatment & CRP by the ST john’s ambulance brigade. I can say that everything was rather eyebrow-rasing. There was a demo of proper fire extinguishing techniques using an extinguisher (and I can remember the last time when I’ve got to race into a fire with one during an outfield forest fire, man was a that dangerous job…) . Furthermore there was a chemical decon demo and water hosing demo where various high pressure hose guns were brought out for all to see and try, not to mention the turret mounted high pressure water cannon on the fire engines (similarly seen on those airport 6x6x6 air craft disaster response team) which can send water spewing 20-50m into the air on various spray modes.
A lunch reception was on thereafter, after CO thanked the team from jurong fire station and the ST john ambulance for the spectaucler show & demo, issuing them with tokens of appreciation & glass trophies for thanks. After that, well its book out time, yea baby…
Version 11 up
Yea man, and they say time spent won’t go to waste. And its finally up and running V11. yea!…
Anywaya, most of the site is unavailable as its in its base form. Moreover, the site wil be undergoing de-bugging sessions for this week till I throw any new stuffs up. In the mean time enjoy! 😉
Getting some time out
There was off-in-leiu yesterday and that came very much like a welcome as I had actually get to book out from camp early. I am really starting to hate army life, esp when it even eats into your one and only precious weekends, when actually, you end up slacking and wasting most your weekday time doing unproductive jobs not of comparative advantage to my kind.
Haiz. Did some site coding the moment I finally get to “chill” at home. Dropped by to bukit batok driving center later to meet my camp friend Darryl for the BTT at the 6.30pm slot. The test is very simple I say, not to mention the “courtesy” of some previous candidates who circled their answers in the question booklet for me to see… (didn’t those invigilator check the books? or do they do it on purpose?) duh, it would be really screwy if I were to fail right? oh well, it all went well. Whether I would pass? well, it would be know in 2 weeks time… than.
Timing is all bout everything yesterday and I glad I rode with it- immediately after the test, the hourly shuttle bus was just happen to be at it stop, feeeling rather shopping deprived over the last busy weeks, hopped on transport towards west mall to feed some impulsive buyings.
(well not really) I needed a USB hub so a self powered one would go neat at $39 from cyberactive computer store. I really wish they stock up d-link or linksys bluetooth USB adapters if not I would spurge out more money there. Theres a new game, simpsons hit-and-run ( mind me if it were to be out for a long time already, I am just like a frog in a well now) not bad but I think I actually did find out more bout the game and reviews before actually commiting myself to it.
Dinner was at AV with my fam for some je-chak (like hawker restaurant)I the beef stew there was rather nice too and they even serve it in a claypot which REALLY keeps your food piping hot till even at the end of the meal. seldom would I see that, most fires just goes off midway.
All in hand it was a rather enjoyable friday, I guess being involved too much at work is rather taxing on my personal time already, really need to spend more time out with my family, friends and my eventual girlfriend? 
Fraking Hackers
yea, as you know the site was attacked early this week, managed to get it up asap.
damn you hackers, what can you gain from doing this shit?
Just woken up
yea, just woken up, having a simple bread and tea breakfast (lunch?) and getting on with my much needed sunday rest… why? just say I was very busy with some dumb SAF division exercise for the last four days (and so it woud carry on till next week.
Besides getting to work like slave office workers in front of retarded pentium 4 and sun workstations running Nvidia quadro4s on 18″ hp/17″ Dell, IBM/15″ phillips LCD monitors, everything sux in terms of our working hours (up to 4am in the morning on friday). Moreover even with the regular basic coffee and tea breaks to keep us running, I’ve never been so dependant on coffee before its like a drug to keep me functioning properly, not to mention my workmates. So much for the experience, I jus think office work is not for me…
The obvious lack of free time in my hands would, sadly delay this site’s building by alot. So don’t expect V11 to come up so soon, I need to rest… 😥
Niffy stuffs
Been surfin around lately for some addons for my phone and I think getting used to messaging on my new phone can be quite a pain at first and I guess it do take some time to get used to it. One alternative is to keep on practising on type gun speed typing game to get acustomised to the side key strip arrangement or get a wireless bluetooth portable keypad/board to do the job, which too means money being spent again. Anyway, check this baby out. Also a gyroscopic mouse do seem nice, even if this is like “the” technology many years back, it still have much of a wow factor to it (Link).
After hardly a week’s usage on the phone and damn, my screen is kinda stratched on one part, not very noticable in the dark but very annoying in the light, esp being spatted right on the lower left quarter of the screen (and now I know not to put my phone and charger in the same bag compartment). Think the warranty should be able to cover that, part of damage during normal usage right?, as numbly stated in the warranty card. But I guess that even if they were to replace the screen cover, it won’t be cheap either considering that it is actually part of the whole phone’s casing. Oh well, as the saying goes, “you won’t enjoy your new car till you put your first stratch on it.” 😎
Back and slackin’
Reached home bout 4pm today, everywhere’s raining kinda heavily today, esp in the afternoon around the western Clementi area. But that didn’t prove much of a trouble as I have shelter all the way to the bus interchange and from the bus stop near home upon alighting in the rain, didn’t really take time to appreciate this on dry weathers, but its very efficient shelter network in both there and my area though…
Reached home, dumped my bags, turned on my comp and started slacking in front of the computer, mainly fixing up site related matters, designs.. etc. I find that I seldom find time to even play games on my comp these few weeks, and yea it had been very busy weeks on the weekends- when I actually can find time to use the computer. Its always work work, coding or otherwise general surfin, oh well, habits. 😀