attended said camp held over the weekend. it’s basically a dry run of the programs planned for FOC. was a lot of fun… save for the full-bodied sunburn. sigh.
learnt a few lessons:<ol>
<li>bring water everywhere you go
<li>bring a torchlight
<li>use sunscreen. lots of it.</ol>
“ladies and gentlemen of the class of 99. wear sunscreen. if i could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.”
Gary :: Jun.30.2003 :: Old Deadjournal posts :: No Comments »
someone upgraded the showerhead. it now has more modes of operation than my first electronic calculator. the first is this run-off-the-mill shower spray, not very exciting, but highly practical.
with a twist of the user-friendly plastic mode selector ring, the spray reshapes itself into three pulsating jets of water, supposedly for the purpose of massaging one’s tired muscles. with the water pressure in these parts, the jets massage nothing save perhaps the tip of my left pinky. the third mode is more exciting, comprising nothing more than a single, directed jet, great for shooting ants off the walls. it’s only when you switch to the forth mode that things get spectacular. the water emerges in a fine mist… the purpose of which eludes logical reason. it might have been okkkaaayyy for showering with, but the thing, being undirected, blooms from the showerhead in an omni-directional cloud and gets into my face, pissing me off.
sigh. whatever happened to buckets, a rag and a bronze tap?
Gary :: Jun.27.2003 :: Old Deadjournal posts :: No Comments »
i am ashamed. i have been tricked by a spammer to add his/her contact to my icq list. the authorization REQUEST that came in had been reworded to look like the feedback message that comes in AFTER you authorize someone. the original “Sexy (ICQ #2147962) requests your authorization to add you” now read “You want to add Sexy to your contact list.” it tricks people who skim through these system messages (llike me) to unthinkingly click OK.
then i got my first message:
<i>Tell me itself, me much interesting you..
It’s my profile:
http ://p.absolutelyagency.com/profile/person.asp?kod=A3642013
I wait you,
Olga</i>
blardee shit.
*adds to ignore list and deletes Sexy into obscurity*
Gary :: Jun.27.2003 :: Old Deadjournal posts :: No Comments »
Went for a ride on the NEL this afternoon. Treated it as more of an experiment, really. Was my first opportunity to actually travel on the NEL, and wanted to see if getting to Dhoby Ghaut from Outram Park would take less time as opposed to me hopping on the eastbound then changing to the northbound at Raffles Place.
Anyway, the first thing one might notice when one steps into an NEL station is the sheer SIZE of it. Cool, whitewashed walls, froody LED displays, looooooong (and i mean loooooooong) escalators and really high ceilings make the place look like some space-age hangar. the dhoby ghaut station even has travelators, for crying out loud. arty-farty decorative panels line the walls, and as you tread briskly through the long walkways, security cameras watch your every step.
With all that, the place reminds me of some top secret lab facility (a la half life). even the tunnels have fluorescent lighting every 30 m or so… perfect for dramatic shadows when the aliens are trying to sneak up on you.
Arriving on the platform, i head straight for the map, and the first thing that hits me is that HarbourFront is designated NE1, whereas Outram Park, immediately following, is designated NE3. Now, THAT CAN’T BE RIGHT, can it? Maybe someone can’t count, or maybe we are MISSING A STATION. Whaddaya say to that? I THINK WE’RE MISSING A STATION. Where’s the logic? I see no logic in numbering consecutive stops with non-consecutive numbers. What’s wrong with NE2? Someone’s unlucky number? Bad karma? Or did the fengshui man advice against it? That’s not all… once you realize they missed out NE2, you’ll realize that <b>every single station</b> after that is numbered wrongly. Kinda pisses me off that NE6 should really be NE5.
Presently, the train arrives, and I get on, settling into one of the large, oversized seats. Now that’s something they did right; large seats. More comfortable than those teeny ones you get on the regular lines. I am just getting comfy when I notice the large glass windows across the aisle distort reflections… making them look hideous. NOOOO…. Meaning that unlike the trains on the N/S or E/W lines, if a chiobu gets on, and settles into a seat in the same row as the one you’re on, you can’t watch her in the reflection without feeling as though you’re watching a wildebeest documentary on Animal Planet. Argh.
At this point some of you might start complaining that I whine too much. As George Carlin once said, “I don’t have pet peeves. I have Major Psychotic Fucking Hatreds.” Well, unlike Mister Carlin, I don’t have Major Psychotic Fucking Hatreds, I have pet peeves. So there. Can you live with that?
Yet another gripe: driverless trains. It doesn’t feel right to be speeding through the bowels of urban Singapore at 70 km/h in a tiny steel caboose with NO ONE IN CONTROL. I like the sense of security provided by someone who knows what the hell is going on at any one time, even if he’s not doing anything else save sitting there. What if there’s a bomb scare? And I’m trampled into the floor by stampeding aunties? Who’s gonna calm the crowd, open the emergency doors and call in an SOS? The old guy opposite me slumped in the oversized seat looking really contented and comfortable with his fly wide open? (Yes. There was such a guy.) I think not…
The remainder of the journey to Dhoby Ghaut turned out uneventful, apart from the VPIS at one point flashing the message “SBSTransit Welcome You!”
Blargh. Not only can someone not count, someone needs to work on his / her grammar too.
<b>Thus, The Gary Review says:</b>
<i>The NEL gets <b>three-and-a-half obese old women out of five obese old women</b>. Could’ve been four, but only because it took the same amount of time to get to Dhoby Ghaut as it would have taken had I boarded the northbound at Raffles Place interchange.</i>
Gary :: Jun.25.2003 :: Old Deadjournal posts :: No Comments »
just came across this on everything2. some guy started a node entitled “Don’t Tell Her She’s Beautiful”, wherein contributors submitted writeups on why you should never compliment a woman on her good looks:
<i>Obviously you’ve never gone out with any of my ex-girlfriends. I can just see it now…
EVIL, VENGEFUL, PSYCHOTIC COW : “Darling, am I pretty?”
ME : “No comment.”
EVPC : “Eh?”
ME : “By commenting on your beauty I would be perpetuating a set of standards that are designed to keep you enslaved and undermine your ability to develop as an individual.”
EVPC : “Fine. Cool. But am I pretty?”
ME : “You are a nice person. That’s all I’m saying.”
EVPC : “Well, may I say that that’s a very mature and enlightened attitude. May I also say, that your testicles are chains that forever bind you to a patriarchal society and stopping you getting in touch with your true feelings. By removing them thus -”
ME : “Eeep!”
EVPC : “- I am liberating you and allowing you to develop as an individual.”
ME : {insert sound of person bleeding to death}</i>
ok fine. not funny. but it amused me for a while, ok??!
hmph.
and i still love everything2.
Gary :: Jun.25.2003 :: Old Deadjournal posts :: No Comments »
caught alex online at around 3am that day, which was extraordinary, considering his sleepyhead gene kicks in every night at around 1.30 latest.
<a href=”http://www.cyberway.com.sg/~recoil1/sleepy.htm”>had an amusing conversation, transcribed here.</a>
as usual, everything in bold is me…
whoever said boredom breeds insanity wasn’t joking…
Gary :: Jun.22.2003 :: Old Deadjournal posts :: No Comments »
Back again to rant about this gem of a song. i’ve had it in my mp3 collection for what… nearly a year now? i’ve never realised it was so listenable until only recently. still listening to it over and over… to whoever hasn’t heard it before.. i suggest you give it a shot. =) comes in two flavours; the drum-and-guitar-thrashing industrial rock version or the soulful-crooning acoustic version. both by the same band, Flaw. You would never guess the same song could sound so different… also, lyrics which actually <b>mean</b> anything are rare nowadays.
KTV yesterday with gina and yunjia.. not too satisfying, cos the bloody song-selection thing broke down when we barely even started. the management transferred us to another room and extended our time by 30 mins. still… only 3 hours. was fun though… short, but fun. =)
Gary :: Jun.22.2003 :: Old Deadjournal posts :: No Comments »
<i>”…Why don’t you think about that?
so now i’m bleeding on myself, yes, once again.
seems i trusted another deceitful friend.
my fault;
i should’ve known the deal.
keep your friends close, but your enemies closer, for real.
seems easy, but nothing could be so hard.
trying to guess life’s dealing -
what’s the next card? I’m surely folding.
i don’t like this hand at all.
It’s mine, it’s pure and as decent as i can make myself.
Inside, we all know only the strong survive.
Keep those eyes wide open, here comes a blind side…
<b>maybe things happen for a reason,
and wherein lies the answer.
to overcome the grieving of life’s unruly lessons i’m handed in sucession.
it builds my pain which makes me strong.</b>
Why don’t you think about that?”</i>
Gary :: Jun.21.2003 :: Old Deadjournal posts :: No Comments »
i realised for the first time that i’ve never mentioned the core specs of my comp after the upgrade (see long post below).
well, just for the record, here it is:
AMD Athlon XP 2600+ running at 333MHz FSB (non-oc’ed).. equivalent to approx 2.0GHz.
1 x 512MB Kingston 1st party PC2700 @333MHz
2 x 60 GB HDD PM: Maxtor PS: IBM
1 x 15 GB HDD SS: Quantum
Yamaha 8424 CDRW on SM
Creative 3D Blaster (GF 2 Ultra with 64MB of RAM) running on AGP 4x
Creative SB Live! Value
2 network cards (one 3com one some weird brandless thing)
various odds and ends (webcam etc etc.. too lazy to list.)
Side note: i’ve got 6 USB ports… 4 @ 12Mbps and 2 @ 480 Mbps.. i wonder what the hell for.
Gary :: Jun.19.2003 :: Old Deadjournal posts :: No Comments »
Got D’s for electronics and maths… my two weakest subjects..
B’s for data structures and discrete maths..
C for that blardee technical report writitng bullshit subject.
whooo hooo… never tapao… D’s? WHO CARES?? =)
Gary :: Jun.19.2003 :: Old Deadjournal posts :: No Comments »