Nintendo DS

After some serious consideration, I went out and got myself a Nintendo DS as a belated Christmas gift. It was not a rushed decision. I have been reading a lot of DS vs. PSP debates online. It is without doubt that the PSP outshines the DS in every aspect, but that does not mean that the DS is absolutely lousy. The DS is more affordable for me at the moment. Even if the price of the PSP were to drop to its original suggested retail value of S$500+, it would probably take around 6-12 months for that to happen. In the meantime, I'll just enjoy my DS which incidentally doubles up as a new GBA with backlight for me.

I bought Ridge Racer DS, which is a remake of the N64 version which I also owned but did not complete. I quite suck at racing games though I like to play them for fun. If I cannot beat a track after a few tries, I'll turn it off and go back to play fighting games. But this time, I told myself that I would dedicate myself to learning the game more. As a matter of fact, I actually got further in Ridge Racer DS than before. The game is frustratingly difficult for me; I can spend up to 2 hours re-trying a single track. I sometimes found myself memorizing the track layout unknowingly, and seeing my lap times improve bit by bit every time makes it all the more satisfying.

Aside from that, I got the surprise of my life when I put in some of my GBA games to play. I had absolutely no idea that GBA games could look so good! I've only had a regular GBA for many years now and all of a sudden, the backlight made all my old games look so 'alive'. Gundam SEED Destiny looked so drop-dead gorgeous with all the vibrant colors on the characters and background. I almost thought I was playing the game with a new 'graphics card' installed. It makes me just want to put in some of my old games to see how they look like.

It's Christmas!

On Thursday (23rd) , I went to watch Kung Fu Hustle with Bahamut, Kyo, Brainy and Kenrick. We wanted to go for the 7 pm show, but the tickets were all sold out. I didn't expect the movie to be this popular. We ended up going for the 9 pm show.

The movie was pretty interesting & funny. It was nice to see Stephen Chow in a movie again. The story was a little disappointing though. The plot isn't very refreshing and the hero, Sing was not very active throughout the entire show until towards the end. The show's fight scenes has to be its high points (as the title suggests). I almost think the show was trying to replicate Matrix-style fight scenes.

The movie ended at 11 pm. This was the first time I stayed at Tampines Mall so late and the building & escalators were closed off. We had a hard time leaving because of massive crowding at the lifts.

When I got home that night, I couldn't get to sleep. In the end, I chatted with Max and Brainy on MSN till the wee hours of the morning. We were still doing some last-minute planning for a possible Christmas Eve outing. In the end, we settled on a simple dinner at Orchard's Marche.

For me, I decided to spend the early half of the day at Max's house playing games. I took a short nap and woke up early at 8 am on Friday (24th) to begin my 90-minute journey to CCK. At Max's place, we played mostly Shining Tears and Z-Gundam: AEUG vs. Titans. Max's mum even prepared spaghetti for lunch cos' he told her that I "only ate western" (felt so bad).

When it was close to 5 pm, we left for Orchard to meet up with Brainy. Brainy was in charge of calling people along, and he brought along Chaosmag, Fengokill and Riku. We went to Marche at the Heeren, and there was a special rule that day; all customers had to spend at least S$15 per head. I guess it was to control the Christmas crowd, and it was working well cos' the place was not as madly mobbed as the other restaurants int he Orchard area. I had a cheese sausage rosti, mashed potato and mushroom soup. I tried my best NOT to get any drinks because I remembered how expensive the drinks were. In the end, I was very thirsty and had to wash down my meal, so I went to buy "Tasmanian Rain Water" (I guess it's some kind of mineral water). Initially, we planned to go to Swensen's for dessert after Marche, but everyone of us was feeling full. In fact, I think I had too much potato; my stomach wasn't feeling too well.

We decided to go walk-walk. We went to Cineleisure for a while. After that, we strolled a bit, but soon ended up having nothing to do. In the end, Brainy left, and the rest of us accompanied Fengokill to Suntec City cos' he wanted to look at Gundam model kits.

At Suntec City, we visited the toy shop that incidentally was the tourney location for the upcoming small JJ tournament. Along the way, I saw Kung Pow being shown on TV again at the same place I saw it during the outing with my friends a few days ago. This time, it was the infamous cow scene. hehe.

After that, we went to Bugis Junction to shop some more. I wanted to check out Absolute Comics. I thought that I might be spurred by the feeling of Christmas to buy Tuxedo Gin, but I felt nothing and just walked out. *Sigh*

It was pretty late already (close to 10 pm), but surprisingly, the stores weren't closing for the day yet. They must have extended their business hours for Christmas. The rest were going over to their friend's place to stay overnight, so it was time I went home.

I decided to sleep early that night to make for the past day's lack of any sleep and the fact that my tummy was still aching from an over-filling dinner. But before I slept, I went to dig out my Kung Pow VCD to watch again.

On Christmas day, the first thing I did when I woke up was to go check the NUS intranet. My results were released that day. The first thing they showed when I logged in was "Congratulations on your graduation". Good enough. I navigated a few screens and saw that I got a 'C' grade for my J2EE project. Hey, not bad for 20+ hours of work. hehe.

In the late afternoon, I went to AMK to have a look since Bulaidi was going to have some sort of DM team tourney. When I got there, it was evening and only 4 teams were around. I joined Max's and Akira's team to play for fun.

We then had dinner at Sumo House and returned to the shop. This was when my "I need to get something for Christmas" urge came on and I stood there contemplating about the Nintendo DS again. Just like all the other times before, I still could not bring myself to buy a DS.

Oh, well. Christmas is over, but it is still not late to get something for myself. I'll come up with something. After all, I have been taking the MRT to save money for nearly a week already.

Ho-Hum Outing at Suntec

I went out with my old NUS group-mates today. They actually took 3 weeks to arrange this outing just because everyone kept changing their mind. Oh, well. We agreed to go to Suntec for lunch.

I received a call from JN at 12 noon to remind me of the meeting since I keep on teasing her that I will forget about it. She told me not to be late. Oh, well. I was leaving home already, so I will be there on time. We were supposed to meet at 1:00 pm, and I arrived at 12:45 pm. I knew I would be in for trouble. Typical Singaporeans (especially students) are always late.

I walked around City Link to pass the time AL and SV finally arrived at 1:45 pm. JN had a job interview and would be late. KH... well, as usual, he never did turn up. We went to Suntec first to walk around, but an hour later, JN still had not arrive.

We were deciding on what to eat. SV mentioned that Swiss Culture has Swiss Cheese Pasta; oh, that makes me drool. At 3:00 pm, we finally decided to eat without her. It's about time, too, since all of us were hungry. We decided to eat at Sakae Sushi. I ordered a Teriyaki Chicken Ramen. AL and SV got themselves soft shell crabs and selected dishes off the moving conveyor belt.

As we ate, SV talked about her new job. It made me feel a little stressed that I have not begun job hunting. The conversation turned a little dry to me as they carried on talking about jobs for hours, even after everyone had finished their food. And JN still haven't arrived.

I got a little bored/tired/impatient, and told them I was going. Yeah, it is socially unacceptable for a person to leave halfway in the middle of an outing, but so what? I was friggin' bored; I could not accept the fact that we wasted 1 hour+ doing absolutely nothing before lunch. With a little persuasion, I decided to stay on. We eventually decided to foot the bill and left Sakae Sushi at around 4:30 pm.

After that, it was more walking around. AL shopped for clothes, while SV went to look at jewellery. This was definitely not my kind of thing. Finally, SV soon got a call from JN; her job interview had ended and she had reached Suntec. I waited for her to arrive before I politely excused myself and left.

On the way out of Suntec, I passed by aTV showing Kung Pow. OMG, that was one super duper hilarious movie I remember. The people who passed by also stopped and laughed at the show's silliness. I guess this was the only 'highlight' of today's outing. Yeah. Different people, different tastes. Now back to my regular life.

Comic Hunting

The comic-book style endings in Capcom Fighting Jam were so gorgeous that I decided to find out which company did it. I learnt that it was done by UDON comics, and that they were doing several Capcom comic titles, including StreetFighter and Darkstalkers. Since DarkStalkers is pretty new (still at Issue 1), I decided that it would be perfect for me to start collecting.

I decided to try my luck at Bugis Junction's Absolute Comics. It's the only specialty comic store that I know of for now. (I don't think those that I used to visit in my JC days are still around.)

I first looked around but wasn't able to find any dedicated shelf for UDON comics. Finally, I approached a sales person. She was very helpful and friendly. I asked her if they had any titles by UDON comics, and she replied "Yes, plenty". She then proceeded to show me where they kept DarkStalkers. My eyes nearly popped out when I saw the price tag: S$29.90. And the price printed on the cover itself said US$2.95. Years ago, when I was a mad comics nut, I would have had no qualms paying S$29.90 for the 1st Issue of the first printing of a comic. But now, it seems like daylight robbery.

I decided to put that aside for now and decided to have a look at the StreetFighter comics. The same nice sales person saw me wondering around and offered to show me where they were kept. After admiring the various StreetFighter covers, I went back to look at DarkStalkers issue 1 again. The hefty price tag was indeed a deterrent. I asked the sales person if they had the (cheaper) 2nd edition; she replied that it was not out yet. I then thanked her one last time; I felt bad not buying a single thing after she helped me so much. *sigh*

Anyway, I decided to hang out a bit more before I left. They had a lot of English-published manga. I decided to try my luck and see if they had Tuxedo Gin. I was surprised; they really did have it, but the price was the same as that of Kinokuniya and Borders: S$19.99 (US price: US$9.95; what's it with the gay prices of American manga?). Again, I hesitated at buying it. I did try to find the HK Chinese version at Comics Connection before, but they told me that it was a very old comic and they no longer have it. Looks like I might end up buying the English Tuxedo Gin when I am ready for it. It's one of those rare comics for penguin lovers like myself.

Movie: Blade Trinity

Watched Blade Trinity today. It's another one of those movies with a non-existent plot and plenty of mindless action. It's NC-16, so expect a lot of blood, disturbing scenes, and crude language. Even though I didn't watch the other Blade movies, I was not one bit lost as I think there is to link to its prequels.

Oh, well. Come to think of it, I think I actually enjoy movies with non-existent plots and plenty of action. That, and slapstick comedies.

Speaking of which, the next movie I wanna catch is Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle. It has been eons since the last Stephen Chow comedy, so this is a must-see in my books.

Video Games & Nostalgia

I haven't had much to do after the DMC Tournament. School has reopened for the Poly crowd, so I see less people at AMK. I have been trying to find means & ways to entertain myself while at home.

I was seriously considering getting a Nintendo DS, but after reading up on the Sony PSP, I think I will wait out. Both of them cost ridiculously expensive for now. I now feel like getting World of Warcraft, but Chris has sold out, and I think the whole island has a shortage of the game, too.

Back to console games for me, I guess.

While randomly surfing around the net for games, I came across Capcom Fighting Jam for the PS2 at Capcom's official JPN site. It's a fighting game featuring 20+ characters from several Capcom games. Aside from the StreetFighter & Vampire series, I was rather alarmed that it actually had characters from the totally obscure 1996 arcade fighting RPG, Warzard. I remember how I used to play it in FunLand Bedok and that I brought slips of paper to copy down the password that saved my character's level/EXP.



I went to read up more on Capcom Fighting Jam and realized that it got pretty bad reviews (very small character roster, old-school/outdated gameplay, etc). A forum topic at GameFAQs informed me that FunLand AMK has a machine. Oh, good. It's an arcade port, so I can try it out.

I tried it once and felt it was not totally crap. (Maybe cos' I didn't play a Capcom fighter for months already.) The music is pretty neat; there was even one with Japanese lyrics that blared loudly in the arcade. The comic-book style endings are gorgeous, too.

I decided that I would just get the game anyway, just for nostalgia's sake and that fact that I like at least half of the cast. The PS2 version came with a Master's Disc containing a history of the various derived games as well as some neat combos. It's all cool, but nothing beats the feeling of nostalgia by playing as some of my old favorite Warzard & Vampire characters.

Sony owns Nintendo

I was almost pretty sure I would be getting a Nintendo DS for myself this Christmas, together with cool games like Ridge Racer DS, Feel the Magic, and Band Brothers. Then I read this little article and it totally changed my mind.



Looks like I'll be waiting out a while more before I splurge any money during the festive season.

What I've Been Up to!

*Gasp* I haven't updated in a few weeks. I'll just briefly sum up what I've been doing.

Movie: "The Incredibles"
Watched it. Pretty fun. I just wonder why is it so hyped up. Everywhere I go, I see posters, merchandise, etc.

DMCT2004
Yay, my annual Duel Monsters tournament. This year's event seems to be a lot more grand and more interesting than all the previous ones. I really look forward to organizing it, and playing in it.

Trip to the Dentist
Just when I thought it would be just another routine check-up, the Dentist tightened my braces this time round. And the funny thing was that he didn't tell me till I called him. My teeth ached overnight and I thought something had gone horribly wrong somewhere. Oh, well. Back to soft foods for one week. Hmm. Whipped potato. Yummy.

Video Games
Fell in love with the Nintendo DS, but then realized it is not fully compatible with GBA games. Still using the ancient GBA; darn, I really need a backlight. Bought Final Fantasy I&II, which I now play at my leisure. Also bought Gundam SEED Destiny on impulse (no pun intended); it's basically a suped up version of its American counterpart, Gundam SEED which I already have. It's a million times nicer and completely puts the US version to shame.

Movie Review: Taxi

I wanted to watch The Incredibles with Benedict today, but by the time we got to Tampines, the tickets were sold out. We then opted to watch Taxi. Other than knowing it was a comedy, I didn't really know what to expect. I initially thought it was some spy show since I remembered seeing a cop and a suped-up car with gadgets from a trailer.

To sum it up, it is basically about a cab driver (played by Queen Latifah) with a passion for cars who assists a loser cop (played by Jimmy Fallon) in cracking a case. After I got home, I realized that this is actually a remake of a French show of the same name.

The movie is not bad. It's those typical slapstick comedy with silly jokes. The car chase scenes are very nice and the criminals are hot.

Daily Routine

What I do everyday now when I am at home.

• Wake up at 12noon-1 pm for lunch in front of the computer.
• Surf the net and/or play Maple Story.
• Dinner in the evening while sitting in front of the computer.
• Continue sitting in front of the computer. Maybe watch TV if something nice is on.
• Goes to bed at 1-2 am
• Most likely unable to sleep, so get up shortly after to sit in front of the computer again or, for a change of pace, play my PS2.
• Finally feel sleepy and eventually go to bed at 5am.
• Wake up at 12noon-1pm for lunch in front of the computer...

Priston Tale: Ultimate Force

I never thought I would play Priston Tale again, but Hobbes somehow managed to persuade me into it. I even had to borrow a payment coupon from Kraazg cos' the one I had tucked away for six months had somehow expired. I downloaded the game, which now clocked at a massive 700+MB intead of the old 300+MB. It is now in its 3rd major revision; its subtitle is no longer PT: Age of Renaissance as I knew from many months ago, but now PT: Ultimate Force.

The changes were great and very significant. The average level of the community is now in the level 70s, rendering all level 55 & below equipment worthless. I found it funny NPCing stuff that I once spent my entire fortune to buy. I guess it is better for everyone this way. 3rd-Tier jobs are out, which made it very refreshing to play my Knight again. I am in love with the new 'Grand Cross' move, as depicted in all my screenies of it from many angles. And of course, there are other tons of typical new MMORPG changes (character balancing, new maps, new events, etc).

At first I thought I would just play to check out the new changes, but after one day, I found myself hooked again. It was the game's fast-paced battles and super-difficult enemies that reminded me why I was addicted last time. I felt that same adrenaline rush all over again and my fingers were tired after every gaming session. I guess I can now carry on my unfinished dream of reaching lv 70 (though now it is no longer a groundbreaking achievement that makes everyone look up to you).

I partied with Kraazg, and it was a lot of fun. As for Hobbes, I haven't seen him online yet even though he was the root of all this.

Now I have Maple Story and Priston Tale to keep myself occupied. wee.

Going-Ons

I seem to have lost track of time during the past few days. I would stay up till 3 am everyday without knowing, then go to sleep and wake up at around 12 noon.

And during the time I am awake, I will be playing Maple Story. I am beginning to see a pattern here. It seems that I am always playing some sort of online MMORPG during every one of my holidays. (I was playing Cronous during the mid-year holidays, and last year, I was playing MU Online and Priston Tale.) Oh, well. That's the best way to past the time for me, since I am not a very outdoorsy kind of person.

Speaking of which, I just turned Lv40. I wonder is it me, or the armor just looks plain bad.

Impressions: Shining Tears (PS2)

Been playing Shining Tears (PS2) for the past week. Yes, I am the sort that easily goes absolutely beserk over any Shining series game, and since there was a lot of hype surrounding this game, I told myself that I had to get it no matter what. Thanks to Chris, he got me the game straight from Japan on its official day of release and I am very grateful for that.

I must say that I enjoyed the game a lot. The anime intro is spectacular. The opening and ending songs by 保志 総一朗 left me wanting more (quick, MP3s! I don't think HMV will import the CD Single). The storyline, though short & cliche, is pleasant and full of neat little twists. The character designs are great; the allstar cast of seiyuu (which includes 林原　めぐみ) do justice to their characters. Everything else about the game is highly reminiscent of the Shining Soul series, which is just the way I like it.

But somehow, I feel a little sad that such a beautiful game is marred by technical flaws. Yup, technical flaws. Load times are inexplicably long (5 seconds between screens, 10-15 seconds for battles) and you can only save 1 game per memory card (story no longer progresses after finishing the game unless you start a totally New Game). It's pretty bad and somehow, I felt that such issues could've been averted. (What are you doing, SEGA?!)

Oh, well. At least I don't regret my purchase. I haven't touched my PS2 for quite a while and it's quite refreshing to get in touch with the Shining series once more.

Saved by the Alarm

I finally managed to fix the problem that had been plaguing my computer for the past 2-3 weeks. The problem caused my laptop to crash every 15 minutes (or 1 hour, if it is in a good mood) every time I am connected to the Internet. Despite checking out various tech help forums online, I still had no idea what the problem was, though there seem to be people who are also suffering from the same glitch/bug/virus as me.

All I know is that the problem stopped after I installed Zone Alarm. I've had it for four days and I am convinced that it works.

So now, I am recommending it to everyone. Get Zone Alarm firewall and protect your computer from all the evil things on the Internet.

Outing at Orchard

I went out with AL, JN, and SL on Friday for a little get-together/celebration. (Outside of the classroom, they are quite fun people after all.) I was informed of the outing at the last minute via phonecall when I just got up.

We first went to Marche at Heeren for lunch. I tried the Rosti, which is some kind of shredded potato. Being a potato freak myself, I kinda liked it.

After lunch, we decided to catch a movie. JN proposed stopping along the way to take Neo Print. (This was my first time taking Neo Print...) We stepped into the booth, posed for shots, and after that, the girls started adding graffiti to the image before they were printed.

Later, at Orchard Cineleisure, everyone was debating over what to watch. The girls wanted Princess Diaries 2. SL said House of the Dead was okay, too, but JN didn't like horror movies. AL suggested anything that was MA-18 or R(A), like Everyone has Secrets. We finally decided on Shark Tales. I wasn't expecting much, but to my surprise, I actually enjoyed the show a lot. :)

Before the movie started, they showed a trailer for another computer-animated movie called Madagascar. From what I gather, it's a comedy about animals who try to escape from the zoo. The fact that is has penguins in it (that actually knockout humans with flipper chops to the back of the head) earns an automatic 'must-see' from me.

After the movie, we went to Swensen's for ice cream. I ordered a Ring-A-Ding-A-Ling for myself. We just went on talking for a few hours, then everyone went home.

I enjoyed myself very much as it has been a very long since I have gone out like this.

The End of a Long Journey

My group just presented our project for today. Everyone was okay; Danny kept smiling even though our website looked amateurish and our functionalities were very limited. I don't think he will be so evil to fail us since we were pretty okay people. I hope.

I guess that marks the end of my University life. Now just gonna relax all day until I find my result slip in the mail or something.

Peace.

J2EE: The Final Conflict and Aftermath

The deadline for my J2EE project is now over. It marks the end of another one of those unpleasant and nerve-wrecking responsiblities in my life that I will remember down the road.

During the last few days or our project, we carried on with our meetings as usual, but were still as confused and lost as ever. We simply had nothing but raw Java codes to hand up as nothing was truly working as all. Saturday was a complete waste of time, with everyone sitting in front of the computer, staring blankly for hours on end, doing nothing.

By Sunday, most of us have already resigned to fate. We could not get anything done, so we will just hand up our raw codes with no form of implementation at all.

For me, I have been fiddling around with some sample reference codes I got from my friend (DJ aka 'Giant Hamster'). It was a JSP login page that I was trying to get to work for the past week, but to no avail. Just for fun, I asked XJ (sleepyhead who usually does nothing) to see if he can help debug my little JSP. Surprisingly, XJ did get it to work. I shared my find with the rest of the group, and at this very moment (11 am on Sunday morning), it became a turning point for the project.

I started creating several more simple JSPs to test my friend's codes, and when everything started working, I was very surprised and pleased with myself. And so, it all began. Everyone started refining their Java codes and passing them to me, while I took charge of integrating them into the website. I always considered myself a 'backseat rider' when it came to such difficult and arduous programming projects due to my lousy Java skills, but this time, I ended up being the 'driver' instead. I had a sense of achievement that I never felt before.

But, of course, that initial feeling of excitement died down as we worked into Sunday night. By then, I was very sick and wished it all to be over. I remember I was quite moody as my workload increased with every of my friends' compiled clsses. I even hinted that I was unhappy ("Please don't create more & more work for me; I can't do so many the JSPs, you know."), but I guess I really shouldn't have.

We worked through the night without sleeping (well, only the lazy slacking/leeching bastards slept), and decided to tie it all up by Monday morning at 9 am (Deadline was 3 pm). I was feeling moody/pissy from the lack of sleep. I was relieved that it was all over.

Indeed, it was quite an amazing feat. We actually did more work in 24 hours than in all of our 12 weeks combined. At last, it was all over. I am now pretty sure that I will not fail this module; our project is, by no means, an above-average effort, but I feel at least it warrants a "D" or "C" grade at the very least.

And so, just to formally wrap things up. Props & Slops:

Props to:

• AL, who is always the hard-working/responsible person he is, and endured my whinings during the wee hours of the morning.
• XJ, who made me rethink my opinion about him. I used to hate him because he was always late, or did not show up for our meetings, but during the last two days, he proved how excellent/resourceful he was at debugging all our problems. I take back my words; he is not a 'disgrace to all China students'.
• JN. I used to think she was a slacker as she just sat quietly at her laptop, quietly doing her own thing. During this time, she actually coded an entire booking system herself.
• DJ (Giant Hamster), who supplied me with J2EE reference codes, and consoled me during my horrdenous J2EE experience.

Slops to:

• SL, the ultimate bitch who did absolutely no coding during the entire project at all. She always sat in front of the computer with solitaire on and talked about irrevelant bitchy stuff all day. She would act like a selfish fooktard by repeatedly asking "How is the project?" every hour. She also was the only one who got more than 8 hours of sleep while everyone was slogging. True, she may have done the static web pages for us to add our codes to, but she did that like within 3 days. It wasn't well done at all, and even I could've done better in that same amount of time. SL is the perfect definition of a bitch, a slut, and a whore, all in one.
• KH. Ah here's the 'depression' boy. He came back to watch us work like slaves on Sunday, while always remarking how sorry he is that he is unable to help out. At least not as bad as SL. I can forgive him since he is such a nice guy.

Well, that is the end of my J2EE project. Quite an unexpected ending.

So now, let all the fun & games begin.

Maple Story - Lv 35

Managed to hit Lv35 in Maple Story recently. Here I am, posing with Evil Eyes. I told myself that I would start hunting them beginning from Lv35, but alas, they still aren't worth the trouble. I'll just stick to Wild Boars.

The picture shows with some of my new gear. The nice Cross Chainmail is just for show; it is so weak, I prefer to just continue using my Lv30 armor. I love the Axe & Shield, though.

J2EE Countdown: 3 Days

A few days more and it will be the end of my misery. The J2EE project isn't going too well. Everyone is still slacking as for normal. It doesn't matter matter that this is the last week cos' it feels just like the first week.

Aside from worrying about meetings, my Acer laptop is suffering from some unknown problem that appears to be the result of the virus I got rid of.

Once everything is over, I will do a clean reformat to also symbolize a clean start after the end of my nightmarish semester.

Virus Attack; Thank You Norton

I got hit by some idiotic virus again in the evening. It got me depressed. The same old symptons resurfaced (on me, not the computer): splitting headache, loss of appetite, nausea.

I thought of reformatting again, but I decided to run all the anti-virus progams on my PC first. Norton managed to detect the malicious trojan and deleted it. My PC has survived another ordeal. Yippee.

J2EE Countdown: 6 Days

And so, here I am on the very last week of my course. After next Monday, there will be no more boring groupmates-bashing and complaints in my blog. I look forward to that a lot.

For now, just bear with it...

As usual, Monday blues for everyone. That XJ overslept again (probably had a foursome the night before). KH pulled off an amazing stunt; one that I never saw coming. He did the "I am mentally unstable; gimme VIP treatment" routine by declaring that he is suffering from depression ("I feel like committing suicide"). This automatically relieves him from all his project commitments for the last week. I don't buy his lame excuse. This guy should win an oscar. What a fooktard.

Today, we went to meet Jie Min. At first, I didn't like her cos' her expression is a tell-tale sign that we are extra burden for her. But today, I saw how she actually squeezed 3 different group consultations together (my group included), and was running to & fro, helping anyone who called for her. I take back my words now. If only she was our tutor right from the start, perhaps things would have turned out differently.

Weekends are here!

Went to AL's home today for project meeting from 11 am to 7 pm. It was tiring as hell, and sad to say, we aren't making any progress. I told everyone to mentally prepare themselves for the worst as the deadline draws closer & closer. I can tell that most of them are losing their temper, and they even openly admitted that they dislike XJ (who was not here today). At this rate, I foresee a lot of drama next week. Probably people breaking down, crying, shouting, quarrelling, etc.

They are having a meeting again on Saturday, but good thing I am excused. Saved by my dental appointment again. It's another tooth extraction; a painful price to pay in order to obtain one day of freedom.

Aaah! More project $hit.

Yay. It is Thursday! My hellish daily meetings routine for the week is almost over (then I'll worry about it again next week). Today was no better; only AL and I were the only souls who turned up. The rest went to screw themselves somewhere.

Sometimes, I feel like just saying to them: "Look, guys. We are all gonna fail. Let's not care about this $hit any more. That way, I can get on with my life. AL can stop stressing himself out. XJ can go on sleeping till he graduates. JN can stop coming up with excuses not to turn up. KH can stop deliberately falling sick. And SL can find other things not to care about."

I must endure. 10 more days and counting. Then I will be as free as a penguin, soaring through the skies.

Wait, that didn't sound right.

My Week...

Haven't blogged for the past few days because of my daily project meetings.

Yesterday, we went to consult Danny, who then redirected us to Jie Min, one of the other tutors. We could tell that she was not happy to see us. As a tutor, she already has like 10+ other project groups under her; Danny only has 5 and he keeps pushing us to her. At the end of the day, our codes will were not fixed. We were stuck once more.

I can feel tension building up, especially in AL. His face turned black yesterday when XJ said that he did not bring his own codes. I expected that from XJ, but this was the first time AL reacted that way. I could tell that, out of the 6 of us, AL was the only one who was truly concerned at this point in time. The others are simply bo chup. As for me, I have cared & worried enough for the project during the first four weeks of this semester, so I am now just numb and waiting for this nightmare to end.

Nowadays, every time I come home from school, I would play Maple Story. It is my only source of entertainment now, given my crazy project meetings every week day. Good thing I have a dental appointment this Saturday so that gives me reason to skip (but I have to extract my tooth again... so sad).

I also managed to finish the HK detective series "To Catch the Uncatchable" that my mum borrowed. The ending was totally unexpected; a tragic ending to a comedy series that had me laughing all the way. It left a sort of bitter feeling in me.

*Spoiler:* The main character, Detective Mok contracted a medical condition from his injury after solving the last case. The doctor told him that he would drop dead any moment without any warning. Mok does not tell anyone about it, and indeed, he dies on the way to get his wedding photographs taken with his fiance.*/Spoiler*

I surfed around and realized that millions of fans were so put off by this ending that they wrote in tons of complaints to the show's development crew. In the end, they broadcasted an alternate 'happy ending', but it was lame and anti-climatic. The things people do to appease their fans...

Anyway, Duel Monsters GX episode 3 is out. Looks like I'll have more things to watch today. wee.

Monday Blues? More like Long-Term PMS.

This is going to be the beginning of a very looooooong week. The deadline for the project is 13 days away and our progress is still as pathetic as ever. I glanced at the little timetable my group has worked out; from now on, we are going to meet on every weekday from 10 am to 6 pm, with Saturday being a half day. (Holy, f**kin' s**t).

In such a dire situation, one would expect everyone to be in 'high alert' mode, right? No way; not with my screwed up groupmates. Everyone must be suffering from Monday blues or something.

XJ overslept (again... like what, for the 1 millionth time? Does he xxx every night or something?), JN pulled the old "last minute SMS: I got something on" routine, whereas SY just didn't care. The only ones who turned up were those who had lessons today (AL and KH), and one stupid guy who still cares (i.e. me).

We didn't do much cos' our sudden 'breakthrough' turned out to be merely a temporary moment of joy. Yes, we are stuck again. And AL says: "I think we need to meet more this week."

Holy f**k, 'meet more'??? How many days are there in a week? I feel like slapping someone. There is no way to express my feelings now, but with a most apt emoticon: -.-

Impressions: Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters GX

Kyo gave me the links to download the first two episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters GX on Bit Torrent. I must say I really enjoyed them very much; perhaps even more so than the original Yu-Gi-Oh series.

The opening song was unusual but lighthearted & upbeat. The intro featured the various characters and their cards. The 'baddies' (or perhaps I should call them 'rivals'?) are cool; I especially like the evil-looking Jun (the "Hell" deck duelist in Ep.2) and Ryo (with the Ultimate-Dragon-like "Cyber Dragon" in the opening). The French professor, Cronous is a Pegasus-wannabe but he looks very queer and speaks with an exaggerated accent.

There I go again, talking about the 'baddies'. I always forget about the good guys, but so far, they seem to be a weird bunch. Juudai is pretty neat, though. He plays an "Elemental Hero" deck, filled with anime-style super hero theme cards. Pretty original.

I also like the premise of the show in that everything (thus far) centers around the the Duel Academy. There may be a lack of any plot for the moment, but who cares; I like things to be straightforward this time round. The various 'houses' the characters belong to give the show a Harry Potter feel. haha.

I am hooked on the show. Guess I will download more as it gets released. Can't wait till Juudai actually duels Ryo.

I don't like this feeling!

I suddenly realized that this week was unlike anything I have experienced this semester.

For this week alone, I spent 4 days (inclusive of Saturday! *gasp*) going for project meetings, each lasting nearly 5 hours long (would've been longer if I didn't cook up an excuse to leave). I don't like this one bit. Whatever happened to my ultra slack group members? All of a sudden, half of them seem like they are on crack, especially AL who became super siao on. (He suggests meeting till 6pm every day beginning next week until the project deadline, that crazy #$%^!!!)

My life is beginning to feel very routine, mechanical and utterly dry. I guess this is what it is like to work in future. I also never realized how much I missed going out when I finally had free time today to go to AMK!

Coincidentally, I noticed that Kraazg is also having problems with J2EE according to his MSN nick. It seems that he is learning it to implement a project for his job. His deadline is 15 days, which is probably the same as mine. Looks like I am not the only one suffering from J2EE. Gyahahaha.

Maple Story (nothing to do with syrup)

Yay, I've managed to reach Lv 25 in Maple Story. It's not much of an accomplishment, but it's worth a mention since I got to switch from tacky-looking armor into something more nicer and presentable.

Anyway, Maple Story is this new 2D action/platformer MMORPG (probably the first of its kind) that I've recently started playing. It's not bad, but it took quite a while to grow on me because of its cutesy theme and the fact that it is not in 3D like all the other games I've played. Quite a number of my friends are playing it, too.

So what happened to Cronous, the game that I was hopelessly addicted to? It went commercial and all my friends who agreed to pay-to-play simply couldn't be bothered to keep their promise, leaving me as the only 'idiot' who bought the payment card. Even my guild leader put aeroplane, choosing to abandon the game for another that is free. Freakin' cheapskates.

Back to Work

My project-mates suddenly had a breakthrough. Thanks to Giant Hamster's sample J2EE codes and a semi-enlightening consultation with Danny, we managed to figure out things a bit. Our progress is no longer 0%; I'd say maybe 2% (which is still miserable...).

Normally, I would be happy when such things happen, but when it happens with only 2 weeks left to the deadline, it is not at all good. I had already planned to grant myself a quick and painless death by idling my time away, failing the module, and then starting afresh next semester. But with everyone else becoming slightly more serious about their work (I say slightly, cos' the talking cock and slackiness still goes on during meetings), I am driven by my conscience to push myself to work hard, too.

Oh, well. On Wednesday, we met up at Sylvia's to work on the project. I realized that she has a large VCD collection (pirated, of course). She had a lot of new & old movie titles; everyone grabbed a couple to go home and watch. I, myself, took AvP, Catwoman, and Starsky & Hutch. They should come in handy during my sleepless nights.

Gundam Seed Destiny

I managed to download the first episode of Gundam Seed Destiny to watch in the wee hours of the morning. Insomnia. Again. *sigh* (Incidentally, this is my first Bit Torrent download. wee.)

The opening was a visual treat, featuring lots of new characters as well as returning ones. (Yzak looks so cool in grey uniform! And that masked guy... very high chance he is a Kruuze clone or something.) The song was not bad, though I still prefer TM Revolution's INVOKE. Perhaps it will grow on me after a while.

I found it interesting that the episode begun with the Orb Battle. Caught sight of Calamity/Raider/Forbidden, but too bad the three druggies weren't around with their usual amusing banter.

The hijacking of the Gundams brings back memories of Seed (cliche?). The three Earth Alliance pilots are all badass; it almost seemed as if the Chaos/Abyss/Gaia were made to be stolen by them. Impulse appears near the end; it somehow reminds me of Victory Gundam (good god, no!). I didn't think MS with multiple detachable torsos/parts were back in style. *_*

Game Watch: "Shining Tears"

Oh, rejoice! Fans are getting a new 'Shining' game on the PS2! Shining Tears is the next instalment in the series. I fell in love with the character designs when I saw them. Even if the game wasn't fun (but I am sure it is), I'd play it just to experience the story and live the life of the characters.

Yoshitaka Tamaki didn't design the main characters this time round (he is in charge of monster/enemy design), but fellow artist "Tony" has done justice to the series with attractive and colorful characters. I just find it a little strange that, out of the 6 partner characters, 4 are females and 2 are males. Oh, well, I shall not complain since the two males are anthros; Lazarus the Dragonewt and Volg the Wolfling.

The characters are voiced by a mostly all-star cast. Most notably, the main character (Xion) and intro song are done by Souichiro Hoshi (of Gundam SEED fame). I downloaded the anime opening and it is beautiful (despite the noisy background); I can't wait to get my hands on an MP3 of the song.

The game is set to be released on the 3rd of November, which is sort of a nice bitter-sweet date since it is two days after my project deadline. I will be waiting for the game's release with great anticipation.

[ Resources ]
- IGN Opening Video (Beware: shaky-hands camera man filming movie off giant screen TV at the Tokyo Game Show.)
- Official Shining Tears site

I Hate Sundays!

I hate Sundays. It is almost as if Sunday is a predetermined day for self-reflection, tying up loose ends and pondering about everything that irks you. For me, today is one of those days where I wake up feeling moody and not taking any interest in anything that I do.

To pass the time, I tidied up my room, watched the latest episode of the detective drama I got hooked on, and... oh yes, reminded my groupmates up for our project meeting on Monday. (Our previous two meetings ended up in failure with only 2/6 people turning up.)

My Mum tells me that, since I am ready to just fail the damn module, why don't I just stay home everyday instead of wasting my time entertaining my groupmates. Well, I still have to carry on because I don't want to get a bad remark when they do team-mate appraisal at the end. At the very least, I gotta put on a good show.

I've got 3 more weeks left. I'll just bare with it. I am actually looking forward to the deadline (i.e. 1st November) so that I can be put out of my misery.

I Have Turned Bad!

My insomnia problem has been solved... by me falling sick. After so many days of sleeping late & waking up early, I have finally caught the flu and fever, ensuring that I go to sleep earlier than usual every night.

And because of that, I got an excuse for not attending today's project meeting. Yes, I have turned bad. But at least I am not as bad as I thought; AL SMS'ed me to tell me that only 2 people turned up today and they cancelled the meeting. Good thing I did not go and waste my cab fare.

Me + Hong Kong TV Series?

A few nights back, I passed by my Mum's bedroom and saw that she was watching one of those Cantonese Hong Kong shows she had rented from the VCD rental store. I usually wouldn't bother about those (since she usually watches some soap opera or drama), but this time, what I saw on the screen caught my interest.

My Mum was watching some comedy/detective series and, since I enjoyed the Kindaichi TV series when it aired last time, I sat down on my Mum's bed and watched the show with her.

Before I knew it, I was hooked and have been watching the show whenever I can't sleep every night (all thanks to insomnia). The name of the show in English is the awkward "Catch the Uncatchable", but I later learnt that its name is: 棟篤神探 (Heck, I don't know how to pronouce it). So far, I am enjoying it. It's not too bad, with a lot of comedic elements, yet the cases are serious. But I guess I am saying that just because this is the first HK series I am actually keen on watching.

Sometimes, weird things like that just happen in life.

Introducing the Stars of Our Show...

My insomnia problem carries on to plague me, causing me to sleep for only 3 hours today before going for my project meeting at 10 am. I was a little irritated when "SV" SMS'ed me that she overslept and, as usual, "XJ" simply did not turn up.

Ah, yes. From now, I shall be referring to my project groupmates by code names, just so to make my blogs a little more colorful. Let me introduce the five of them.

There is AL, a rather perky and hardworking kind of guy. So far, he seems to be the only one (other than myself) who is somewhat aware of our rather dreadful situation. Then, there is JN, who is also pretty hardworking (she volunteers to do things).

Next, we have SV and KH, who spend most of the time talking cock during our meetings and generally try to be totally oblivious to the project.

And finally, there is XJ, our mysterious fifth member who rarely shows up for meetings, and even when he does, he is awfully quiet and does not speak much. (We are just hoping that XJ is secretly a programming whizz who will ultimately help us in our darkest hour of need.)

Then of course, there is me. I used to be hardworking, but after considering the state of my group, I have sorta half given up hope.

At our meeting today, AL went to assign parts for each of us to do (SV,KH,XJ excluded, of course).Er, yeah. Splitting up the work when none of us have the faintest idea how we are going to do it.

I laughed in my mind: "I'll just go spend the day at AMK today (Note: which I actually did), and when I come home, I will have magically mastered J2EE and come up with all the codes for our meeting tomorrow morning at 10 am".

Good grief, they have no mercy for a guy suffering from insomnia. Oh, well. Enough rambling from me today. Perhaps I really should at least come up with something for the meeting, no matter how miserable my efforts may be.

Crazy M:TG Drafting Day

I woke up at 12 noon today (once again, thanks to my insomnia) and was surprised to see that GreatGuy actually SMS'ed me and asked me to AMK to draft M:TG. I was actually planning to stay home today, but since it has been quite a while, I obliged and quickly left the house after a quick lunch.

I reached there at 2 pm, and we began drafting with Chris and Andy (altogether four players). Darius arrived later; too bad he missed out. I was a bit disappointed with the cards I got from my Tournament Pack this time (probably due to the fact that my last 3 Tournament Packs all had imbalance/overpowered cards in them). My only consolation was a Keiga, the Tide Star from one of the boosters.

The draft lasted very long, all the way till 6 pm (because Chris/Andy occassionally had to stop and serve customers).

At night, after dinner, Mata's old M:TG buddies were around. They were Ah Xiong (a nice & quiet mature guy), Wen Bing (a okay, albeit talkative guy) and their friend. The three of them wanted to draft for fun and needed a 4th player. I told them I was tired from drafting in the afternoon, but Ah Xiong offered to pay for my 3 draft packs; they just needed a 4th player. (Of course, the cards would go back to him after the draft.) So I gave in and drafted with them as well.

Oh, well. I had a fun time. The little outing turned my typically boring Sunday into an eventful one.

Movie Review: "Resident Evil - Apocalypse"

RE: Apocalypse continues from where the first RE movie left off, so unless you have seen that, you might be a little lost here. I enjoyed this sequel a whole lot more than its predescessor. There is a lot of Matrix-style action and some lighthearted bits going on. I read from 8-Days that the movie's name was originally "RE: Nemesis", named after the game, which is why we see Jill and the Nemesis, too.

I won't comment on the plot since it is nothing special. A pretty nice movie to catch.

Insomnia!!!

The fact that I am typing this at 4 am in the morning clearly proves that I am suffering from insomnia! I have been having it for almost a week now. I go to bed at around 1 am, but end up actually sleeping at around 3-4 am.

A quick search on Google attributes it to the following possible reasons:

• significant life stress (job loss or change, death of a loved one, moving) <- yes, very likely...
• illness <- not very likely, but I do feel like I could've caught a cold in the rain.
• environmental factors like noise, light, or extreme temperatures (hot or cold) that interfere with sleep <- nope, not at all.
• things that throw off a normal sleep schedule (like jet lag or switching from a day to night shift) <- definitely no

I hope my sleep disorder heals soon.

Champions of Kamigawa is out!

Went to AMK today for the release of M:TG's Kamigawa expansion. I bought a Fat Pack and got a couple of cool rares from it. Pulled Isamaru, Hound of Konda from one of the boosters, and the crazy Cranial Extraction from the Tournament Pack. OMG, I was so surprised. It's going straight into my Death Cloud deck.

After that, I just bought a whole lot of packs. Was hoping to get some commons/uncommons for deck-buiding, but most of all, I hoped to get a second Kokusho, Evening Star. After clearing a box, I was disappointed I didn't get what I wanted. Meanwhile, a M:TG fanatic was whacking Tournament Packs; he bought an entire case (of 12) in the end.

Uncle suggested playing sealed deck draft. I was kinda 'on', so I went to grab a Tournament Pack to crack open. To my surprise, I saw a foil Kokusho, Evening Star, staring at me in the face. Looks like this is my lucky day.

Wait for... ? (Part II)

Due to my rebellious nature (feeling fed up due to waiting), I decided to go out at 6 pm. I went to AMK and there weren't many people there. I just bought some M:TG singles then accompanied Chris to Takashimaya to get the new "Master Guide" book for DM.

Then, finally, at 9 pm, I received the SMS. The wait is over... but WTF? Do they expect me to work all through the night and then go meet them at 12 noon tomorrow with everyone done? To make matters worse, I checked my SMS and realized that they were sending me their half-done parts and the rest will come later.

Oh, Great. Wee.

Waiting for... ?

The deadline for the project report is on Friday, and they told me that they will send me all their parts on Tuesday night to compile. My job would be to proof-read/add-on/finalize everything by Wednesday night.

But WTF? It's 4:00 pm already. I am deliberately forcing myself to stay home today, checking my e-mail and the project forums every half hour, but still nothing? How do they expect me to finish a 50+ pages (maybe more?) report by tonight if they don't send me early?

Heck, if after a while more I receive nothing, I am just going to go out. Let's all die together. Wee.

New MP3 Player

After so many days of lazing at home, I finally had to go to school today for my project consultation. Danny was back from his overseas conference. As usual, the advice he provided was okay, but not very direct. To sum it up, I didn't understand a thing (hope the other guys managed to pick up what he said).

Anyway, there was a bazaar outside LT27 again, so I went looking around. There was a nice MP3 player for sale. I needed a new one as my old Samsung Yepp was incompatible with Windows XP (even downloading the new drivers didn't work). I found a nice Karadora Mp3 player, costing only $69 for 128 MB. (Oh, wow. My old Yepp costed $199 for 64 MB back then.)

I surfed around and the company actually had its own website, though it's pretty strange they host it on Geocities. Must be one of those new up & rising local brands. Here is the link to Karadora.

Oh, well. It's a pretty neat MP3 player. Just plug & play (USB), and it doubles up as a flash drive, too.

Stuck at Home on Sunday

I went to AMK yesterday. Didn't do anything interesting except to play-test my M:TG deck and then draft DM at night.

This was quite a pity, as I am stuck at home today working on the report for my CS3214 project (ah, the report; probably the only thing my group can do). I have to submit it by 23:59 HRS tonight for compilation. Starting next week, I think everyone's panic level will be pretty high because we will only have 5 more weeks to the project's deadline. I am hoping it will not affect my mood much.

Wondering what I should do today. One thing's for sure, I need to go to 7-Eleven to buy the latest 8-Days magazine. I have a routine of buying it every Wednesday/Thursday, but this time, I bought it so late.

And I hope that there is no group project meeting on Monday, so I have another day free. (How lazy I have become.)

Wisdom Tooth Extraction

I reached the dentist today at 12:30 pm and was told to sit in the waiting room cos' everyone was having lunch. I had to wait until 1:00 pm before I was served. (Note to self: No more going at their lunch time.)

The dentist told me that I need to get one of my wisdom teeth extracted today. He injected me twice in the gums (ouch) and waited 15 min for the anaesthetic to take effect. He came back later and poked my gums with a sharp needle to test. When I went "owowow", he gave me another anaesthetic injection. *Sniff*

The extraction took longer than I expected; it was not like the others I've had before. He had to use some chisel-like nail and a plier to yank the tooth out. It was painful because he was trying to 'wiggle' it out. It took around two minutes because the tooth put up a fight, and when it was done, I saw how HUGE my wisdom tooth was. It seemed quite scary.

Later in the day, Damnpissed told me the wisdom tooth is the biggest teeth and it extends deep into the gums. In fact, he pointed out that another method that dentists used to extract a wisdom tooth was to slice off the side of your gums, remove the tooth & everything below it, then sew back the skin. Holy... *Pukes*

One down, three more to go.

Saved by the Dentist

I always loathed my monthly dental appointment because, firstly, it wastes a lot of time, and secondly, it is painful. But my Friday appointment coincides with my project meeting, so for once, I am kinda half-glad about it (no need to wake up so early).

I told my group-mates that I would join them in the afternoon after the appointment, provided that he does not extract my teeth. Yes, this is the trade-off.

The dentist told me that I need to get my wisdom teeth extracted, and I have been worrying about it ever since. The last time I had my teeth extracted for braces, it was painful and blood kept dripping from my mouth for the whole afternoon.

I even remembered how he did it. He sorta hammered a 'nail' into the tooth and then yanked it out together. That is so gross. Hope I survive the dentist to enjoy my Friday.

Edit: Groupmates just called to tell me that meeting is cancelled. Oh, well.

Project Again; F**k J2EE

I slept at around 5 am today (insomnia?) and woke up at 9 am for the project meeting. Strangely, I did not feel as tired as I expected. (Normally, I would be in a friggin' pissed mood when I am forced to wake earlier than when my biological clock goes off; I am sure all those who wake up for 8 am lessons in school can relate. hehe.)

I was kinda late for the meeting. As usual, we did nothing much (This was a step up from doing 'nothing'). We sorta discussed about the documentation (due 1st October), but when anyone tried to bring up the subject of coding, no one dared to talk about it because we knew we were treading into completely unfamiliar grounds. We ended earlier than expected because some of them had to leave (poor Kok Hwee had to go for IPPT). After the meeting, I went to AMK at around 4 pm, but there was no one there, so I went straight home (not without buying some Kamigawa packs, though).

My Dad was at home today; it was a rare sight. He asked me about my problem with my studies. I told him that I don't really have high hopes for this semester. There is only 5 weeks left to the deadline. I told him that I'll just do whatever I can, but I am mentally prepared to accept failure as well. He did not say a thing (bad sign), which was quite a different reaction from my Mum's (she told me to try; if I were to fail, then it can't be helped).

Speaking of which, my Mum have been of great encouragement to me. She actually tried helping me to ask relatives/friends for help, but none of them know what J2EE is (including computer programmers who are working).

I think I probably know the reason: J2EE is retarded.

It is a waste of time. I can do the entire project using ASP within 2 weeks, but I can't even do sh*t with J2EE after 6 weeks of trying to learn it. They probably put J2EE as a graduation module to torture NUS students one last time before they leave the damn place forever.

Another Free Day; First Kamigawa Draft

Today was another free day for me because my groupmates did not arrange for a meeting. Wee~ I am spared! But then they want to meet at 9:30 am in the morning on Wednesday. Grrr, meeting early equates to going home late. *sigh*

I woke up at around 2:00 pm today. Since I had nothing better to do, I went straight to AMK to play M:TG draft with Chris, Darius, and Orchi (who was there cos' he escaped from his field trip). I pulled a "Hikari, Twilight Guardian" in my first pack, and thought it was pretty cool (I remember reading about it online being an above-average card).

I made a Mono-White deck, splash Green/Blue. I just pulled any card that looks like it belonged in a White Weenie deck, and Green/Blue for some spells (pumping & drawing). I soon realized that I forgot to grab any fatties, so I usually lost whenever my opponent had a big creature in play.

At the end of the day, I got back my Hikari card. I didn't care if it wasn't good, compared to the rest, cos' it is sort of like my souvenir.

Yay, Free Day

I went to watch Dodgeball with Jeff & Orchi on Sunday at Jubilee. After that, we met Chaosmag for dinner, and returned to Chris' shop to chat.

We talked about Cronous (how I can't play the game on my new laptop cos' there is a speed bug). Then we talked about my dumb CS3214 project, and that I was supposed to have a group meeting on Monday.

Well, it's Monday already and I am at home. My groupmates forgot to arrange for a project meeting. I contacted them and told them perhaps we could meet twice from Tuesday-Friday, but they want three days out of the four. This is crazy to me; maybe I am beginning to feel lazy. Maybe it's because it is supposed to be my school semester break this week.

I felt like going to Chris' shop today. I have recently taken an interest in the new Magic: The Gathering Kamigawa expansion. I told myself I would acquire cards through drafting and today would be a good time since I don't have a project meeting. But then again, who the heck would I draft with at Chris' shop? Arrogant jerks who like to preview their next card and shoot their mouths off? I usually avoid stereotyping, but that's the kind of M:TG players there are at Chris' shop.

I need to find something else to keep myself busy. Well, they are showing The Titanic on Tuesday, but I have to go do project. *sigh*

Movie Review: "DodgeBall"

Went to watch DodgeBall with Jeffrey and Orchi today. I am very into slapstick comedy (the Austin Powers series is my all-time favorite), so I knew I was in for a good time.

I enjoyed the movie; It is very light-hearted and funny, as what all comedies should be ("Garfield"? Yucks). My only gripe was that the few final matches against the 'unknown' teams went on a bit too fast.

I'd recommend Dodgeball to anyone if they have run out of 'blockbusters' to watch and would like an afternoon of fun & laughter.

By the way, I wonder if it is just me, but I noticed that the two protaganist teams sound like they are from the G.I. Joe cartoon ("Joes" vs. "Cobra"). Kinda weird, but maybe just a coincidence.

DMC Get-Together

I was quite excited today cos' I organized a Get-Together Tournament at Chris' new store for DMC members. Even though everyone came two hours late, I was very delighted as I got to meet everyone again, including those that I seldom saw like Xuan Yu, Nigel, Kraazg, etc.

I don't know why, but I felt very very very lethargic today. It was more of a mental thing; maybe I don't know how to enjoy myself because the CS3214 project is on my mind. In fact, I was so tired that, after the tournament, I could not keep my promise to go watch a movie with Orchi & Jeffrey at 9 pm. Guess I was a little moody.

Anyway, I just created a new DMC forum. I am just too terrified to post at EZboards anymore. The link is as follows: http://s7.invisionfree.com/dmcentral/index.php
(*Note: This is only for DMC Members only.)

Meeting at Sylvia's.

My group decided to meet at Sylvia's home today to do our project. She stays in Hougang, so we arranged to meet at Hougang Point for lunch first.

I reached there early and decided to walk around Hougang Point. It was a simple two-storey shopping centre and I was done in less than 30 minutes. The place sorely lacked a video game or book store. The arcade there was very small as well (probably less than 10 machines). Surprisingly, I met Brainy at McDonald's. He was having lunch with his classmates.

When my groupmates arrived, I joined them for lunch at the food court. After that, we all went over to Sylvia's place, which was at Regentville; a condo across the street. Her place was pretty nice; I envision myself living in a quaint little apartment like this in future.

Anyway, we merely discussed about the static webpage, then spent the whole day trying to install J2EE on all of our machines (yes, we are slow...). In between, Sylvia served us yummy onion rings and potato wedges. Before we knew it, it was time for dinner. Off we went to eat at Hougang Point again.

When it was time to leave, I went to AMK since it was nearby. I wanted to check out Chris new shop. It's pretty cool. He decided to scratch the Bedok branch since it was stressing him out.

Oh, well. That's how I spent my day.

The Cause of It All

I was surfing around the EZBoard support forum to see if I can get anything on the bug in the DMC's forum security function (it won't let me turn on authorization; now anyone can post).

I didn't find anything, but I found an even more alarming post:

[Virus-Infested Pop-Ups]
http://p079.ezboard.com/fbugsfrm66.showMessage?topicID=15483.topic

I have found the reason why both my computers crashed that night. Brainy SMS'ed me to ask me go check my forum to fix the security bug. My Toshiba laptop crashed the moment I viewed the forum. Then I got onto my Acer and returned back to the forum (still hoping to fix the security problem), and it crashed, too, due to the same malware.

It all begins to make sense now. Did anyone else besides me experience this problem on Wednesday night? Feel free to discuss about it. I might consider getting a new board. I can use Invision boards; no pop-ups, no nothing. Just that you can't customize the layout/colours.

Thursday; Things on my Mind

I spent the entire day getting my Acer laptop up & running again. This time I got it protected with several programs, so hopefully, it will not fail on me again.

With that aside, it is back to my regular blogging routine.

My group went for project consultation today. We met the tutor Miss Jie Mein instead since our Danny was overseas. I presented the codes I have prepared on the previous day, and was very pleased when she said that I was on the right track. :) She was more helpful than Danny since she was more of the 'hands-on' type. We didn't dare to ask much, though, since no one wanted to admit that we were clueless about coding.

On Friday, we will all be meeting at Sylvia's home to (hopefully) get some work down. Next week is my semester break, but I don't think anyone is in the mood to have fun.

At least I have plans on Saturday. I will be organizing a DM tournament for DMC members at Chris' new shop. The turn out seems pretty low for now, but I'll still go on with it so long as the number is reasonable. For those who are interested, please come to Chris' newly-opened shop (also at AMK) by around 1:20 pm. Find me on MSN or SMS me if you have any questions.

Slowly Recovering...

Slowly trying to recover from my computer crashes. My Toshiba laptop is gone case, so I am going to transfer as many files as I can into a flash drive, and then take it to the service centre to be reformatted tomorrow.

I've just reformatted my Acer laptop myself (this is like the 3rd time in 2 weeks). This time, I have tried to be real careful.

I installed my Norton Antivirus first and updated it immediately. I used Windows Autoupdate this time to get all the new patches except for Service Pack 2. From now on, I will not surf any sites other than the ones I know, probably until my CS3214 project is over. I can't risk losing any more of my work.

If anyone has a computer that rarely gets hit by viruses, please teach me what programs you use to protect yourself.

Double Holy F**king Sh*t!!!

I got onto my Acer laptop to surf the net moments after my previous blog post.

It got hit by the same thing, and so it is dead, too. Norton Antivirus did not detect it cos' it was a trojan/malicious adware. It slowed my laptop to a crawl and it can no longer detect my Internet connection.

I am posting on my school computer right now. I am so DEAD.

Holy Sh1t!!!

OMG, my trusty old Toshiba laptop finally died today after four years of loyal service! Well, it's actually in a state of coma, since a weird error prevents me from reformatting it.

Gonna take it to the school's computer center. Chances of recovery is slim. Perhaps I can just say bye-bye to all my important files (my several websites, MP3s, pics, etc).

Hope my ACER can last me through the entire semester.

Beans! (Not the edible kind)

Woke up late in the afternoon today. Had to force myself to get started on coding some of the J2EE Entity Beans. I got to work in front of the computer, while Kids Central was airing the usual afternoon cartoons on TV (Disney's Recess is fun to watch).

Before I knew it, my maid served me dinner (curry rice, but I didn't have the appetite). I realized that it was night already. As I worked longer & longer on coding, I began to feel uneasy that I was doing it all wrong. But what to do? I've already spent the entire afternoon on it (from 3:00 pm to 7:30 pm) hours on it. Guess I'll just wrap up and bring it to the consultation tomorrow.

And to think I volunteered to do Entity Beans because I thought it would be easy. I still have to do like 5 more of those moronic things.

Viruses suck. So does Acer.

Argh, stupid Acer laptop got hit by some stupid virus, and Norton Antivirus doesn't know how to get rid of it. Fortunately, I managed to remove it with online help. Don't ever buy an Acer laptop. Even my friends say that it sucks. It is so amazing that it can hit by so many viruses in a couple of days.

Anyway, I managed to get some work done today. I have volunteered to do up the database and all associated class files for the project. My group has already started to split up the work, which is a start. Now not really zero percent progress anymore, though it is a little discomforting that some of them have started to not show up for our meetings. Monday's group attendance was 4 out of 6. I hope this is not a sign.

Good thing I get to stay home for the first half of the week. I now spend most of my time playing Cronous when I am not working on the project. I can tell that I am pretty moody, as it shows in my in-game actions. For example, I get irritated at the slightest things (e.g. people finding good drops) and today, I even left a party member to his doom when he got mobbed.

Thursday and Friday will be even more meetings, but Friday will be a little special cos' we will be staying over at Sylvia's house to do some programming together.

An Old Friend

I managed to meet an old friend on MSN today. (Actually, it was more like I didn't talk to him all this time until now.) His nick at the moment was "Giant Hamster". @_@

Oh, well. Giant Hamster worked with me on another project two semesters ago. He has taken CS3214 already, so I asked him for advice. He gave me some tips to start off and sent me some sample codes. We started talking about my predicament. I had 6 more weeks left to the deadline and he agreed with me that I didn't have much time left.

From our conversation, I began to realize that the problem with this project didn't lie just with me. Sad to say, the fault might actually be with my groupmates.

We have group meetings twice a week, and for nearly 3-4 hours per meeting. And yet, we never get anything done cos' halfway through, someone would start talking about fashion, relationship, movies, etc. And to make matters worst, they did not attempt to study J2EE, which was what we agreed to do during the last two weeks. Heck, some of them haven't even downloaded/installed the damn thing yet.

Maybe I am being unfair here. Perhaps I haven't seen their 'hardworking' side yet. Some people need a little stress to spring into action.

Whatever the case was, I started asking Hamster what would happen to me should I fail this module. I told him that, unless my group members can pull themselves together and realize that we are in a most urgent and dire situation, we are all gonna die. Oh, well. I guess I shall now mentally prepare myself in case I do fail CS3214. This way, I won't get a mental breakdown or something.

Monday will be the start of another week full of worries. My project meeting is at 10 am, but who cares. I'm gonna play Cronous through the night so long as it makes me happy.

Cronous Revolution

I spent the whole of today playing Cronous. I was online for 14 hours; haven't played like this for weeks. The new version was simply too fun to try out, and it was a good temporary escape from my real-life problem (*koff*CS3214*koff*).

I played in the new town map (Castle Unos) and got almost 3 times the EXP than before. It allowed me to go from Lv66(65% ) to Lv67(45%). Normally, I would've taken a few days to accomplish that. I feel sorry for those hardcore (yet foolish) players who trained on the old maps to Lv70. I also found quite a number of Divines thanks to the increased drop rate. My biggest joy was when I found a Craftstone from a regular mob. What a pleasant surprise.

My only gripe was that they tweaked the game balance and improved all the other classes except for the one I am playing. I think the Fighter is the weakest class now. Valkyries continue to be overpowered & imbalance. Yucks.

I partied with my guild members in the new Malus Ora map all day. I felt like an 'extra' since I can't kill as fast as the others. Bulaidi came online in the afternoon and this was the first time he was trying out the new version. I also met Guoyi, Orchi, and Jeffrey in the new town.

The game will be going P2P soon. At this rate, it looks like I will carry on.

Just Another Thursday

I went to school for project meeting again, but nothing came out of it. My team was really getting nowhere since everyone was hopelessly lost. We ended up wasting our time, engaging in idle chatter. Since Danny is going overseas for some convention, we decided to arrange for a meeting with his stand-in tutor. Hopefully, this other tutor will help us out and point us in the right direction. There is only 7 more weeks to go and we still haven't gotten our act together.

After the meeting, I went to AMK. I was supposed to meet Chaosmag to go celebrate Xuanzhen's birthday at Pizza Hut in the evening. We ended up waiting till 8 pm for Fengokill to arrive. By then, we were all starving. I had a hard time deciding between the Curry Zazzle and Chicken Mushrooms Tortilla Bowl. I went for the Curry Zazzle, but kinda regretted it cos' it tasted just like any other curry rice I've eaten.

While at AMK, I kept receiving SMS from friends about the new Cronous update. This got me excited about going home. I've already downloaded all the necessary files; all I needed was to patch the game and I was ready to go. The new version of Cronous is amazing. New maps, new items, increased drop rate, tweaked EXP and weakened mobs. Looks like I now have something to keep myself busy when I am not worrying about CS3214.

Blog Updated

Hooray, Blogspot servers are up. Managed to publish a new blog and correct the messed up layout on my XP laptop (The left column was overflowing into the middle column). Now it looks a bit weird on my ME laptop. Oh, well. It's for the majority who are XP users. Only a handful like me still stick to ME cos' we are lazy to upgrade. At least ME is stable (*koff*XP's Microsoft Service Pack 2*koff*).

Nothing much else to point out, except that, despite this being called "The Penguin's Nest", the picture you see on the left column is NOT a penguin. I'll just put whatever picture I want there, but it'd usually be some nice Japanese fantasy artist's work.

Being Stood Up

I went to school today at 3 pm for my project meeting. I waited for half an hour, and nobody turned up except for Xiaojie, but he left soon after. Alvin didn't answer the phone nor reply to my SMS. Only Sylvia replied, saying that the meeting was never confirmed to be on. Grr. I packed up my stuff, and only when I left, Alvin called and told me that he asked Kok Hwee to inform me that the meeting has been cancelled. Looks like there was a miscommunication.

Anyway, during my one hour in school, I learnt that my new Acer laptop can access the school's network with no problems. Goodie. But at the same time, I saw tons of students armed with laptops, working on their CS3214 project. That was a real morale breaker, considering the fact that our progress is currently 0%. It's not that we are lazy, but we can't start cos' none of us can figure out the damn J2EE thing. It made me feel moody and insecure.

Since it was only 4 pm, I decided to go to AMK (the cab had a TV Mobile set!), where I spent the rest of the day playing deck. I could tell that I was still moody when I unknowingly lashed out at some guy who was making rude comments while I played deck. For dinner, I had the "Ultimate Chicken" meal at KFC. I received a call at dinner. This time, it was Kok Hwee who apologized over the miscommunication. We scheduled for another project meeting on Thursday.

Nigel, Xuan Yu, Hong Rui, and Alan dropped by at night. I haven't seen them in ages. It was quite a surprise.

I reached home feeling very lethargic. Either I've played too much today or it was induced by stress.

Tiring Monday

I woke up so early today to go for the darn 8:00 am lecture. I learnt nothing from it, and the consultation with Danny wasn't very constructive either because we had nothing to ask him. Anyway, this was the last lecture, so it means no more waking up at inhumane hours in the morning. Oh, joy of joys!

I joined my friends for lunch, then followed by our project meeting. I noticed a strange trend from all our meetings so far; halfway through, we would always diverge from our project discussion and start talking about everything else under the sun. It never fails to amaze me. Not that it's a bad thing, of course. I like working with people are not 'fun deficient' ( a phrase I learnt from Sylvia). We ended our discussion at around 2 pm. I didn't want to go home so early to do more work.

Since it was the school holidays for secondary schools/JCs, I went to AMK to relax. I met Fengokill, Hobbes, Chaosmag, Riku and Kang-Kang (who was absolutely hilarious). Chris also showed me the location of his new shop. It's not bad at all, but might be a little cramped for customers. I went home late at night, as usual. I felt pretty tired having been out of home from 7 am to 10 pm.

New Blog Layout

I spent the past two days looking through the source codes of various blogs to see how they are coded. All the blogs I've seen mostly consisted of many boxes and had those neat little scroll bars. At first I thought these were done using tables, but thanks to Akira, I learnt that they were, in fact, DIV elements.

After many hours of experimentation, I managed to modify the default codes into this current three-box format. I am most pleased indeed.

How I wished I was this motivated when it comes to JAVA programming.

Project Blues

My weekend was pretty routine. Saturday was the usual; cartoons in the morning, AMK in the afternoon. Today would've been no different, but I resisted the temptation to go out and decided to make some preparations for my CS3214 project meeting tomorrow.

I spent a few hours reading Learn to Program JAVA by Danny Poo (incidentally the advisor for my project), which is the recommended text for weaker students. When I got to some of my most dreaded chapters, I was like: "OMG, where was this book during my first year???" If they had used this book back then, I wouldn't have been so hopeless at JAVA even after 3 years.

I went to print a few notes and, being ever paranoid, I even printed out one of those free calenders just so that I can countdown to doomsday (1st November 2004).

For those who are wondering why I keep brooding over my CS3214 project to no end (thereby making my blog topics highly limited), I shall explain why.

I am only taking one (yup, 1!) module for this entire semester and that is CS3214: Information Systems Development Project. It's the only thing I can talk about since it is my one & only primary concern. I am extremely worried to death about it cos' there are absolutely no lectures/classes for this course. To sum up the entire course in one line: "Go build a fully-functional polytechnic web portal using J2EE and get it ready by 1st November 2004". No help, no workshops, no nothing; just a couple of links/documentation that a layman like me can't figure out. How thoughtful.

I may sound a bit distressed, but actually, my depression level has somewhat reduced over the past few weeks. I still remember how hopelessly distraught I was during the first two weeks of school. In my distress, I almost forgot that I have 5 other groupmates. They are pretty nice people at that. They are unlike those I have experienced before who treat you merely as a 'tool' and immediately outcasts you once they know you can't help them get that wondrous "A" grade.

Oh, well. I guess, so long as my groupmates aren't in a state of panic yet, I shouldn't be worrying myself silly cos' I know I am not alone.

Restless Times

Nothing much happened today. I spent most of my time mindlessly surfing the net.

I think I am actually trying to escape from thinking of my CS3214 project, even though I know I'll have to work on it sooner or later. Somehow, I feel that I am not 'mentally prepared' yet. Probably I am just scared that, once I start on it, I will no longer have the time to do other things. I am feeling very lazy now; I must resolve to start on it beginning from next week.

Anyway, I just wasted my time away today; going through all the various bookmarks I have in my Favorites and deleting those that are now inactive.

Looks like I really must find something to do or else it will be the same boring & aimless routine for me everyday.

Oh, well. It's near the end of the week. At least I have TCGs to keep myself occupied over the weekend.

"Garfield: The Movie" Comments

I just watched Garfield today. Even though I wasn't expecting much in the first place, I felt that it was a disappointing.

The first half of the movie was very, very slow-paced and served no purpose other than to showcase some lame & uninspired jokes/punchlines. It only picked up halfway when they introduced an actual plot; only then I started paying attention.

I liked Odie a lot (he is such a cute pup!) and Jon is a nice guy. On the other hand, Garfield was potrayed as overly obnoxious and I ended up hating him (even though I did enjoy the comic strips when I was younger).

The movie is probably targeted at fans only. Others need not apply.

Morning Phonecall of Doom

I woke up pretty late today to find my lunch on the table. I checked my handphone and noticed that I had 3 missed calls from a strange number at 11 am. It told myself that it must be Benedict; I did tell him to call me in the morning to discuss about our movie outing today (we're gonna watch "Garfield"). I SMS'ed him about it, but strangely, he told him that it wasn't him who tried calling me.

I dialed back the number to see who it was. A lady was on the other line and I realized that I had just called up the General Office of NUS. The lady said that it was her colleague who tried to call me. When I asked her what it was about, she said, "it's something to do with your modules". She told me to call again at 1 pm (after lunchtime).

I immediately lost my appetite for lunch and I was thrown into a state of panick. Was dropping Financial Accounting with a "W" grade a fatal mistake? (*refer to this post)

I worried myself silly and waited till it was 1:15 pm. I picked up the phone and called the General Office once again. It was a different lady this time, and she was pleased that I was considerate enough to call back. "You have recently dropped FNA1002 online, but we could not find out which tutorial group you were from. We just need to inform your tutor that you have already dropped the module."

\(*0*)/ "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!"


I replied: "My FNA tutorial group was B16. But just to let you know, I have already informed my tutor by e-mail that I have dropped the module."

"Thank you very much. Goodbye."

All that worrying for nothing, but at least I am glad nothing bad happened.

Horoscope Fun

"In midweek, perhaps on Wednesday, you may be taken out of your normal routine and start an unexpected journey."

That little horoscope excerpt came from issue 725 of 8 Days magazine. I am usually not very superstitious about such things, but since I am already aware of it, I might as well see if I can recognize any 'unexpected journies' I might make for Wednesday.

---------------

My day started off with a CS3214 project consultation with the lecturer, Danny. He touched on the project documentation, but being more concerned about the actual implementation, I asked him for his advice. His reply was rather long, but it all boiled down to one thing: he wanted us to find out ourselves. Looks like it is definitely not going to be easy. Oh, well. Seven more weeks before the deadline...

When we left, there was a little bazaar outside LT27, so we went to shop around. There were all sorts of stuff on sale, including boxer shorts, jewellery, health products, posters and even designer trash cans. I didn't buy anything though cos' it was all too expensive. Oh, well. Enough shopping. Time to go.

When I was leaving, I recalled how Sylvia was admiring a bracelet back at the bazaar, though she didn't buy it. It suddenly occured to me that I could have bought it for her as a gift because her birthday is coming this Saturday. I soon brushed the thought out of my mind when I realized that this is something that I normally wouldn't even consider doing. It felt strange. *_*

(*Unexpected 'Journey' 1: Usually, I would leave school ASAP after any project meeting. Bazaars aren't to my liking. And buying presents for people is something I don't normally do.)

At AMK, when it was evening, I asked both Chaosmag & Fengokill if they were interested in accompanying me to Books Kinokuniya to purchase the new DM book promo. I was rather surprised that the two of them agreed so willingly. Even I myself felt lazy about making the long trip down to Orchard, but what the hey.

(*Unexpected 'Journey' 2: Usually, I would never think of traveling to more than one place on a week day. It's a waste of time.)

We made our purchases quick and returned to AMK for dinner. By then, it was 9 pm. I was rather eager to play-test more DM after the recent new bans/restrictions. After the shop closed, Chris told me that he couldn't give me a lift home, so I followed Damnpissed and the rest to KFC to play more DM. Damnpissed was trying out his new Water deck and I was interested in seeing it, too. We hung out till 11 pm, then it was time for me to take a cab home.

(*Unexpected 'Journey' 3: Usually, I would go straight home at the end of the day, but since Chris wasn't free, I chose to hang out longer and took a cab home.)

---------------

Was it the horoscope that came true or my own subsconscious mind making it all happen unknowingly?

Oh, well. The latest horoscope in this week's 8-Days (issue 726) mentions that I will soon be able to "kick-start my romantic life".

Uh, yeah, right. @_@

"W" is for Withdrawn.

After much debating and contemplating for today, I finally decided to drop my Financial Accounting module. It was actually quite a tough decision for me. This is the first time I've withdrawn from a module (and getting a "W" grade). I always thought that doing so would leave an ugly mark on my transcript.

I thought long and hard over it, and tried to reason with myself. I am currently taking only 2 modules for my final semester; Financial Accounting and CS3214 (no words can describe how tough it is).

I have already taken all my essential modules for graduation. The reason why I took Financial Accounting was because I had my eyes set on it since the previous semester, but could not get in due to limited spaces. My friend, Sylvia informed me that she has dropped Financial Accounting, too. My other project-mates also advised me to drop it because I actually have absolutely no reason to go through with it. All that, and because I am currently feeling stressed over CS3214, I finally gave myself the courage to click on the Submit button and drop Financial Accounting.

I hope I did not just make an earth-shattering mistake. I pray that everything will turn out fine in the end.

Weekend Visit to the Doctors'

During the course of the weekend, I've made two trips to the doctor's.

On Saturday, I went to the dentist for my monthly cleaning appointments. Halfway through, he said something that bothered me.

"I need to extract your wisdom teeth. Two at the top and two below."

I never did know what 'wisdom teeth' were, but the mention of those words stirred up memories of my army days where my friends had one week's M.C. for getting their wisdom teeth pulled. I was like: "OMG, that's got to hurt!"

The dentist went on to ask: "Would you like me to pull them today?"

Of course, I quickly replied NO! I wasn't mentally prepared for it. Anyway, I asked him if it would hurt a lot, but he reassured me that it is painless.

Uh, right. Perhaps my army friends were just finding ways to stay home and exaggerated their condition. Or were they?

I told the good dentist I would have my wisdom tooth extracted next month. By then I think I should be prepared.

My second visit to the doctor's was on Sunday. This time, I visited a skin doctor for a problem with some skin on my hand that has been bugging me for two weeks.

When I told him that I was using some Chinese 'yellow lotion' before I visited him, he burst out that "the government should ban all Chinese yellow lotion" because, unknown to many, it contains chemicals that a large percentage of the human population are allergic to.

Oh, well. The doctor said that I had an infection, and helped me to apply some cream on my finger and wrapped it up in a bandage. All that costed me a whopping $140. Darn, it was so expensive.

Anyway, I learnt a lesson from this. I attribute the cause of my skin problem to my computer's keyboard, which is four years old now.

Let's just say that, if you have been using the same computer for many years, think of all the dirt/bacteria/germs and whatnot that have gathered there because your hands have been in various places.

Always, always wash your hands before and after using your computer.

Wee~ New Blog

Well, what do you know. I have decided to create my own blog again.

I used to have a blog of my own, hosted by BlogSpot as well. But my personal life is actually pretty dull, so there was nothing to write about. I decided to stop posting in my old blog.

It was only recently that my friend (Yong Hao) showed me his blog and got me reacquainted with BlogSpot. It has been years since I've logged into my account, and lo and behold, BlogSpot has undergone a major overhaul, with a user-friendly interface, cooler preset templates and overall nice design.

Looks like I am back to blogging. Just a little warning to all that read my blog:
The writer is not to be held responsible for any feelings of boredom, depression or negativity that may occur from the browsing of this blog.

Yes, I am quite the pessimist. Enjoy. :)