Mee Goreng

Angie cook Mee Goreng for dinner tonight. It's her first try and the result very good.

"Sayang, ini mee goreng sadap..." :P

You Want to Go to Underworld?

Went to Sentosa last Sunday. Angie asked "How do we go to the underworld?".

My reply, "I dunwan to go to the underworld, the blue line bus can take us to the underwater world though." :P

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Talking about Underwater World. This was overheard inside the underwater tunnel.

"Wah! This one so big, sure very nice to eat!" -_-"

Mr Brown's The Gahmen Song

In times of hardship and frustrations, always expect Mr Brown to come out with something to lighten up our day. Smile or frown, life goes on.

The Gahmen Song
Heard some of you bought Minibond
Think it was easy money
The banker told you won't lose one
Got big bank so don't worry

Now the Lehman Brother die
And your life saving is all gone
You want the gahmen to help you cos
The gahmen big and strong

And the gahmen want to say to you...

You die your business
That's life, shit happens
Don't expect us to take care of you

You die your business
Don't try to blame us
Cos we've got more important things to do

Heard some of you the aircon bill
Is now 20% higher
What to do can't help you
Use fan, or your hairdryer

And inflation hit 6.7
And you can't afford to drive
Can't stay local must go global
Buy yourself a China wife

And the gahmen want to say to you...

You die your business
That's life, shit happens
Don't expect us to take care of you.

You die your business
Don't try to blame us
Cos we've got more important things to do

You die your business
No time for losers
We're only doing what is best for you

You die your business
Kenasai your business
We don't need you to tell us what to do

Singapore Wayang Force

Took the bus to Changi airport with Angie on Saturday evening for a walk. Before entering every airport terminal, a policeman will come up the bus to check for any suspicious article. At this point of time, I am thinking

1. Terrorists must be very poor. To deliver a bomb, they can only take public bus, no money to take taxis, MRT or drive their own car or any private transport. If they want to tighten security, how comes these other transports are not check?

2. What makes them think that the bomb will be left in an unclaimed bag? The way the policemen goes through his check is like looking for any suspicious item. A bag with an owner is not a bomb.

3. Talking about bombs in bags, this is regarding the stupid Be Vigilante video playing at MRT stations. Why must bombs be in big black bag. Err... for their info, terrorists uses suicide bombers. They WEAR their bombs, which is barely noticeable underneath their clothings.

What I want to say is, all these actions are only for show. In another words, a big wayang. Not only it is an insult to our intelligence but to the terrorists too.

Return of Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA)

Ha... Microsoft decided to go for another round of its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) feature, which when installed will check if your Windows is a pirated version. If your Windows XP is your neighborhood friendly version, you will experience a lot of nagging message to ask you to help restore Bill Gates as the richest man on Earth (aka Buy Original Windows)

After installing this version of WGA Notifications on a copy of Windows XP that fails the validation, most users will discover on their next logon that their desktop has changed to a plain black background from whatever was there previously.


The desktop background can be reset to anything else in the usual ways, but every 60 minutes it will change back to the plain black background. This will continue to happen until that copy of Windows is genuine.


Also, the user will see the addition of what we call the “persistent desktop notification.” This notification is similar to a watermark but works a bit differently. The image (see below) appears over the system tray and is non-interactive in the sense that you can’t click on it or do anything to it.

As with the plain black background, the notification will continue to appear until that copy of Windows is genuine.

Luckily, you can op not to install this by turning off your automatic update. Set it to manual and uncheck installation of WGA when Windows is performing any updates.

But if you are one of those unlucky ones who accidentally install WGA and is using a *ahem* version of WinXP, all is not lost. A WGA crack is already available in the net. I shall not provide any link here as I dun wan to get sue :P.

The Blues Are Feeling Blue.

YES! Finally someone end the Chelsea home record. Kudos to Liverpool. They did everyone a favor by wiping the smile off Chelsea face by ending their 4 years, 86-game unbeaten home league record. SONG AH!

Man United almost did it earlier in the season but give in with 10 mins reminding. This time Liverpool go all the way, winning 0-1. And they did it without Torres! Maybe this could be really their year. This will really keep the title race exciting!

Another Exhibitionist Spotted

Photos countresy of EDMW

Young Singaporeans really like to show off their bodies nowadays. After Sun Tan, we have Ronald.

Report on The English 新民 :P

Now that, Ronald got his "free publicity" and everyone knows the size of his dick, he must be a happy man. :P

Man, we have really one sick young generation.

The Great One Talk Cock Again

I did not know this till I saw it on Feed Me to The Fish. Frankly, I am offended and find in insulting with what the old man has said. Judging from the responses seem on The Online Citizen (TOC), I know I am not the only one.

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew:

“That is the way the world is. I have explained this. I think I lost votes after I explained the awful truth. Nobody believed it, but slowly it dawned on them – especially the graduates – that yes, you marry a non-graduate, then you worry about whether or not your son or daughter is going to make it to the university!”

Angie is non-graduate but I strongly believe she is much smarter in terms of EQ than some of the "supposedly" graduates. Having graduates parents does not always guarantee the children will be graduates too, just as having a degree or PhD does not prove that you are a smart person.

Trying to instill some Elites mentality to the general public, aye? Losing votes? You bet and you just lost something more important than votes - Respect.

One comment I like @ TOC:
“even if what you say is true, I’ll still marry someone i love, and love my stupid children too. I hope you didn’t force your children to marry clever people they don’t love, just so you can have clever grandchildren.”

Spotted on the Road

Spotted by someone @ Stomp. One way to cut down travel expense. The mini bike have no license plate, hence no road tax. No IU, hence no need to pay ERP. Faster than bicycle, some say SBS bus ;) and more fuel efficient that your regular motorbike. Oh... you can save on parking fees too, just park it under your office desk :P

Minister Explains Raise of Electricity Tariffs

After much kaopei kaobu by citizens & netizens, Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry come out to clarify why electricity tariffs raises while oil prices has drop. I just have this to say

1. I thought our power station uses natural gas, so why the hell did we peg the power rates to oil prices?

2. If his explanation holds true, then I bloody expect my electricity bill to go down more than 21% next quarter since the price of oil then will be the current low low value!

Almost Killed by a Bug

Sometimes I really hate my work. Being a software developer, a software bug sometimes can really drive you nuts.

I am working on a project where part of it is to simulate the functions of a PS/2 keyboard. Sounds simple right. Keyboard nia, should be quite QED. Well that is until you have to write one yourself. There are so many timing and rules to observe and consider just for a stupid PS/2 keyboard.

The past 1 week, I have been losing my hair (as if my receding hairline is not receding fast enough) over a software bug in it. The god damn thing should work but just can't. Worse thing is you duno what the hell is causing the failure. To make things worse, more bugs spring out as you dig deeper into that hole. It's basically Murphy's Law on steroids. You really want to scream at the damn bugger!

And you know what? In the end, you find out that it is just some silly coding or placement of code that screw you. Sigh... sometimes I just hate being a software engineer.

Updated: Oh as the title suggested, I was ALMOST killed by the bug. Managed to solve the issue. Now the fix is running through a series of acid tests at the customer's side. *Keeping fingers cross*

Sweet Potato For Breakfast

These two days I have been having steam sweet potato for breakfast. Oh no, dun be mistaken. We are not THAT badly affected by the recent financial crisis. Giant Tampines are selling them cheap and we thought we might like a change in our breakfast from the normal bee hoon or bread. I hope I won't become a fart canon for the rest of the day. *POOT* Oops... :P

Choosing The Right Career Path

Daphnemaia wrote a very nice article about the lack of career guidance for students in our education system today. Often than not, students took the wrong path either by parent/peer pressure or government promotion, ending up hating the course they took.

I have seen a lot of such cases. Many of my course mates during my university days have no passion in what they study. Most of the times, they are just trying to get by. It got me thinking if they find the course does not suit them, why did they still persist on? Dun wan to waste the money spent or unsure what they want next if they are to quit?

For them, the goal is to graduate with that all important piece of paper. Once you got that degree, it's all that matters as it will at least guarantee you a better head start in your working life. So these people bring their mistakes to their working life, working in jobs they dislike. At the end of the day, most of them end up working in other line of work rather than the one stated in their cert.

Such is the state of our society is in. We are often reminded by our parents that we will "end up as road sweeper" if we dun do well in our academics since young. Together with the lack of career guidance, students, rather than given a chance to pursue their passion, took up courses they dun like/hardly know since it promises a better prospect.

Signs of Me Getting Old

My memory has been deteriorating quite badly lately. I remind myself to do something on my way to work. But as soon as I step off the bus, it has been totally dropped, like a bag left behind on the bus.

So sad, seems like my RAM are failing me. Too bad I can't upgrade them like I did to my PC. DDR3 4GB anyone?

Anyway, what I did to counter this problem of mine is buy a small notepad bring along with me wherever I go. Any time I thought of something, I wrote it down immediately. Like this, I tend to recall the tasks better as the process of writing in down will leave a mark in my memory.

Another problem I am facing is I dun seems to recall minor things like have I off the switch to the iron or did I lock the door? My friend told me such actions are too in built, so much so that we dun even tend to remember them. So now I need to focus my attention when doing so minor stuff cause I dun wan dash all the way back to my car just to find out it has been locked all along -_-"

Anybody got a solution for this?

Age of Greed

Another powerful post by Insane Polygon on frustrations we are all facing right now. Speaks the mind of every Singaporean. A definite must read.

I agree with him. These days, I dun even want to read the local news. Why bother when it will only piss you off? Kaopay too much also won't change anything. Make you tired and thirsty some more. I rather bury myself in games or download a movie to watch. At least in those worlds, we dun face all these shit that our first world society have.

NTUC Chief Scored Own Goal

Sigh.... the Dow Jones return all the gains it made 2 days after it posted a record of 900+ points. As if things are not bad enough, you see people making this type of comments...

"Every month, when I receive my CPF statement, I feel so rich and the best part is, I know the CPF money won't run away. CPF will still be around for a long, long time to come... Not only is it earning good interest, my capital is protected." - NTUC's secretary-general Lim Swee Say (link)

Many people ask, "Since when does CPF give out monthly statement of account?" The minister must have mistaken his bank statement of account with the CPF HALF-YEARLY one. Typical PAP minister self-pwnage!

Unlike us who very much depends on our CPF money for our retirement, for someone who earns a million dollar salary, the amount in his CPF is considered negligible.

I think what he meant is your CPF will be there for a long long time, just like you have to wait long long to get it, 85 years to be exact n provided you are not dead by then.

So Mr Minister, rather than trying to sound understanding n sympathetic about our plight, please STFU! You only expose how much you are out-of-touch and get to be the butt of the joke.

Hotel 626

Someone posted the above website on VRZ Forum daring people to go visit it. It is some sort of online game, which is filled with eerie sound/music and scary sensory to make you crap in your pants. Not for the faint hearted. To top it off, it will take a photo of your scared shitless face using your webcam (if you have one).

If you are really interested, clicking on post title will take you there. As a added suspense, the website will only allow you to enter from 6pm - 6am (hence Hotel626, get it?) But if you can't wait till that time, you can always trick the website by changing your windows time and refresh on the website.

As for me, after registering, I still have not muster the courage to enter. :p

You know those videos where a terrible friend forces another friend to watch a video, only for that video to suddenly flash a hideous image and sound effect, sending the sorry sonofabitch flying backwards out of their seat? Yeah- so imagine that, except now the instant doesn't flash, it stays there. And it doesn't go away.

I am serious, this site will make you poop your pants.

Hotel 626 can only be accessed between the witching hours of 6pm and 6am- prime-time for fear-induced heart attacks. The site also utilizes your webcam and microphone, increasing the amount of piss it scares out of you.

Honestly, if you are not a fan of fright, DO NOT GO TO THIS SITE. And if you think you can handle any amount of haunt, I highly suggest you visit Hotel 626 and see just how brave you really are. - From The New Anti-Social

Things I Learn Today Part II

Kopi Luwak
The world's most expensive coffee. I heard about it when it was mentioned in 法證先鋒 and thought it was some crap made up by the drama serial. Never thought it is real... Here's some interesting facts.

Kopi Luwak an Indonesian coffee made from the faeces of a Luwak, a small cat-like creature native to the island nation's coffee-growing regions. The Luwaks select the freshest coffee cherries to eat and once the bean passes through their digestive system it remains intact but is no longer bitter. Experts say this creates a sweeter-tasting coffee. Bean pickers collect the animals' faeces along with the coffee beans. The excrement is then separated from the actual coffee before being washed and brewed up. The heat of the initial brewing process eliminates any disease, fungus or parasite. Kopi Luwak sells for around $1400 a kilogram, making it the most expensive coffee in the world according to Forbes magazine's Cup of Excellence awards.

A Luwak

Faeces with the Undigested Coffee Beans

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How to Remove Decals/Stickers
Dun you hate removing those price tags or decals from your newly bought plastic container or glass? Well I am sick getting a dirty mark after trying to remove the blasted sticker. Went to check up with my good friend, Google, and found this interesting video. Cooking oil FTW!

How to Remove Stickers

I Am SO NOT Drinking Starbucks...

...after reading this piece of news >:(. Not that I like drinking their coffee anyway plus I am cutting on such expenses. I wonder which idiot thought of the reasoning. As someone put it, we should fine them for such wastage.

Toilet Reading Material

I just dun understand why some people like to read magazine or the newspaper while taking a dump in the toilet. I just want to focus all my concentration and energy in finishing whatever business I have and get out of there.

It makes me wonder, why you need a reading material? Some tell me it is to help to cultivate the emotion to "negotiate" the bugger out. I find it very hard to comprehend such reasoning.

I did tried doing it once but it doesn't work out for me. Rather than focusing on the "task on hand", I end up reading the entire newspaper without any achievement. :P

By the way, have they ever considered that someone else might want to read those papers later? Imagine the papers absorbed with the smell and who knows where those hands have been touching before they take the papers out. Ewww.....

What If...

We, humans, are a funny bunch of creature. We always think of these two words and imagine what will have been if we walk down the other path.

"What if I enter my trade here, then I will be rich now"

"What if I made the other decisions then, we will not end up this way"

"What if I buy all combinations for my 4D, then I will strike first prize"

The grass is greener on the other side. We always like to think of the good things that may happen if you made the other decision. The other decision is always right and always leads to better things in life.

I always thought how nice it will be if there is a time machine and I can make all the wrong things right. But have we ever thought what if the other way is no better of than what we are experiencing now? We know things are better at the other side cause it has happen already. But at that point of time when the decision is made, we never know what will happen next.

By circling on the same spot thinking of what might have been, we are getting nowhere. We only make ourselves more confused and frustrated. Move on. Ya, I admit it's easier to say than do. Truth is I am a very pessimistic person, that's why I am writing this to change my mentality.

I want to live with the motto of No Regrets. No regrets in which ever path I choose. It's my own choice, I have to face it. As they say, "You made your bed, now lie in it". Why always have to think of the negative side, maybe it is a right decision, just that you may not realize it yet. Make the best with what we got. It won't rain all the time, the sky won't fall forever...

"The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows...
...it ain't about how hard you hit.
It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.
How much you can take and keep moving forward.
That's how winning is done!" - Rocky in Rocky Balboa (2006)

Where's The Variety In Our Variety Shows?

With the raise in everything from bus fare, electrical tariff and the latest Singtel bill, Angie ask me should we disconnect our Starhub cable to help reduce the household expenses.

My first reaction is ask her is she willing to let go of all those cable programs like HK drama serial and especially the Taiwanese variety show.

Mediacorp really sucks at making variety shows. They really need to review their creativity department for this area. Most of their variety shows can more or less be categories into 3 categories; Food, Slimming/Beauty and Idol Competitions.

Food: From student chefs cooking competition to finding the most value buffet in town to finding the origins of Fried Hokkien Mee, every night there is at least one shows with this theme. Seems like every other hawker stall is recommended. No wonder Singaporeans eat non-stop.

Slimming/Beauty: Are we really that fat and ugly? From Jean Yip to Marie France, every Tom, Dick or Harry beauty saloon have a show to showcase the type of slimming programs they have and what amazing result you can achieve by signing up with them. IMO, only thing I can achieve is burning a hole in my wallet.

Idol Competitions: Project Superstar lah, Campus Superstar lah, Superband lah. One money making-machine after another. So much so that now even got Supermum -_-" So lame

Ok, maybe I am a bit too critical. Mediacorp did try to follow some of more successful Taiwanese variety show like Fann Wong Beauty Queen, which is a feeble attempt to imitate 女人我最大 or talk shows whose topic (aka gossips) pale in comparison to the 八卦ness in the Taiwanese talk shows. Finally, the Taiwanese gaming shows are so damn funny. Ours can put me to sleep.

Disconnect my cable? No way. Given a choice, would you?

P.S. Ok not all Mediacorp are bad, notable mention are 稀游记 (Find Me a Singaporean) and the various travel shows (another common catergory I forgot to mention above)

Camera Eyes

Thanks to the invention of cameras, we can capture the many special and wonderful moments in life for our memory. However, there are times when things happen so fast that does not give you time to react. By the time, you whip your camera out and turn it on, that moment has passed.

How nice if our eyes can act like some sort of camera cum video cam? Like the characters in Ghost In The Shell, we can instantly capture every second of what is happening. Nothing is missed.

However, if that day comes, it will open a whole new can of worms. Even now, we have seen news of people secretly taking photos/videos using their camera phones. Privacy will go out the window if our eyes can do this.

That Wheelchair—Friendly Sticker is Pasted For Fun

Did you notice that more and more buses on the road today are wheelchair accessible? And you thought SBS Transit is getting friendlier towards wheelchair users.

That's until this news article comes out. For all the disabled friendly stickers on their buses and boasting of spending how much in converting their fleet to wheelchair accessible bus (WAB), not all WABs are allowed to ferry wheelchair-users.

Their reasoning? The bus stops along the route these buses ply are not wheelchair—friendly. At this point, I ask, "Does this means the poor wheelchair user have to go to a wheelchair-friendly bus stop in order to take a bus? Shouldn't all these implementations suppose to make it more convenient than troublesome for them?" If that's the case, might as well ask them to take a cab.

What's the point of having WAB and displaying the sign so prominently when it is not utilized? My view is, all these is just to pack more people on the same bus, while retaining bus frequency (expenditure unchanged). WAB has lesser seats = more standing area for more passengers. Oh... and also as an excuse to justify the raise in bus fare in the near future.

Wheelchair friendly, but you can’t board

SINGAPORE: The message of the little blue sticker seems obvious: We’re a wheelchair—friendly bus. But, as disabled commuters have found out the hard way, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re welcome aboard.
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Mr Lee Jun Hui, flagged down SBS Service No 57 outside One Raffles Quay three weeks ago. Though the decal declaring it a wheelchair accessible bus (WAB) was displayed on the windscreen, the driver refused to let him on.

“He said he was not authorised to do so. I’d understand if the bus was crowded, but it wasn’t,” said the puzzled 27—year—old, who works as an auditor at KPMG.

To ensure this was no fluke, Mr Lee, in the company of this TODAY reporter, recently tried to board services 128 and 130 at Robinson Road after 6.20pm. The drivers of all four buses were apologetic.

Despite displaying the blue decal, they told him they did not have approval from the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and SBS Transit to ferry wheelchair—users.

Nonetheless, 20 minutes later at Cecil Street, he flagged down service 57. The bus driver got down, laid the ramp on the kerb and wheeled Mr Lee aboard. At Novena, Mr Lee alighted and went the rest of the way home by train — as confused as ever about WAB services.

While there are just 16 official WAB routes, buses on other service routes, such as the three above, do also carry the wheelchair—friendly decal.

“I wished the authorities would be more consistent,” said Mr Lee. “What’s the point of displaying the decal when the bus drivers are not authorised to take users like myself? It gives the wrong impression that there are many more WABs on the roads, when effectively, there aren’t.”

He is not the only one confounded. In June, student Thomas Teo, 19, faced similar rejection by service 14 — in this case, one of the 16 approved WAB routes — at a Lower Delta Road bus stop.

“I was very upset. That experience put me off totally; I prefer to use the MRT,” said Mr Teo.

SBS Transit’s explanation

Their frustrations follow expectations that were heightened when it was announced, earlier this year, that 40 per cent of public buses here would be wheelchair—accessible by 2010, and all of them by 2020.

Recently, SBS Transit revealed it is spending S$147 million on 400 new WABs next year, which would come with low floors, wheelchair lots and retractable ramps at the doors. A quarter of SBS’ 2,800—strong fleet now has such features.

Said Ms Tammy Tan, SBS Transit’s vice president of corporate communications: “Although we only have 16 WAB services, we have many more wheelchair—accessible buses that ply the roads on other routes.”

She added: “Not all routes can be designated WAB routes because of the infrastructure along the way.”

For one to be so designated, 80 per cent of the bus stops along the route must be wheelchair—friendly, or such passengers would have difficulties getting on, off or around the bus—stop.

For these passengers’ safety, said Ms Tan, “bus captains will not allow them to board if they are not plying wheelchair—accessible routes. This was what happened in the incidents cited by Mr Lee.”

As for the bus captain of Service 57 who allowed him on board, SBS Transit said this was “actually not allowed due to safety reasons and will remind all Bus Captains to comply with guidelines”.

Still, Mr Lee’s point is: If the buses are not on designated WAB routes, why display the wheelchair—friendly sticker in the first place?

SBS Transit said this was “for deployment issues”. It is “reviewing what can be done to distinguish” WABs on designated routes from those that are not.

Introduced in 2006, WAB services are gradually: replacing existing fleets. The LTA said: “These services are rolled out by bus operators based on the available pool of WABs and are subject to scheduling and operational considerations.”

Fresh Prince of Gotham

A funny video of the Dark Knight movie. This guy is good man....

New Feature: CBox

Added a new feature on my blog. Notice there's a CBox on the right. Now you can drop a message there for a chat. Ya, many blogs already have this feature. I am just a bit sway ku, only to implement in in mine now. Looking forward to your messages :P