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.