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.

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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.)

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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. @_@