"But there never seems to be enough time,
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them..." From the song, Time in A Bottle.

Sigh... the weekend zoom pass again. So fast that there isn’t much time for me to do any personal things. Life is getting more and more robotic. I have a long list of things to do and yet I just can’t seems to find the time to do them. Nowadays I hardly play any PC games. I dun even watch the World Cup, just did a quick check on the results every morning. Actually it is also because I din subscribed to Starhub World Cup Pay-Per-View. Wait till I setup my TV antenna to watch it on RTM1/2 or SCTV. Argh.. another item on my TO-DO list.

I know it’s all about planning your time and prioritizing your tasks. But either my planning sucks or shit always happens to me. Whatever I plan, it always does work out well. Can’t imagine what life will be like if I were to have kids. Sometimes, you really have to compromise between family, work and personal life. Sadly for me, personal time is always the one who have to sacrifice.

Rants For the Week

Have a couple of rants to make over the past week. Written them down long ago but can't quite find the time to post them.

Money CAN buy success…
Ever since Chelsea football club has been bought over by the super wealthy Russian Oil tycoon, Roman Abramovich, money is the least of their worries. These days they simply go out and buy whoever they want at any cost. Take for this coming season; they have acquired the services of Michael Ballack and Andriy Shevchenko plus the young talents like Salomon Kalou and Jon Obi Mikel to add to their already overly talented squad. They can just win everything easily without breaking a sweat. And to think that Jose Mourinho still has the nerve to say that winning the English Premier League is tough. Hell, with the kind of squad available, they can win the European Champions League even with an idiot as their manager. They are luring the best players from other clubs even though the club itself is not willing to let the player go. Using cash and the promise of success with the squad they have, which player will not be tempted to join them? And the way they over paid to get the players they want is causing everybody to overpriced their players. They deserve no respect from me. All their success is bought. There is no pride in this kind of success. No matter how much Chelsea will try, they will not gain the same support as Liverpool, Arsenal or even Man U has. Oh… I pray that they never win the Champions League.

Singapore Idols - Are they really that popular?
Lately, there is a string of idols show on TV one coming after the other. Immediately after Project Superstar comes Campus Superstar follow by Superbands with the latest being the Singapore Idol Season 2. Other than the winning contestant, I believe the biggest winner in all these shows must be the phone companies and the Mediacorp. Charging 50 cents for every SMS or phone calls made, they must be laughing all the way to the bank from the amount of votes being cast for each show. Imagining if every idol competition adopts a charity organization? Guess that organization won’t have problems raising funds for the next few years. ;) From the experience, we also see how immature Singaporean youth can be, wasting so much money and effort on star chasing someone, whom you may probably forgotten by this time next year (Taufik / Sylvester Sim anyone?).

Another provoking thought is the contestants’ fate in the competition is determined by the number of votes they received even though a large number of the votes may come from a small group of people. Is it really a fair way in determining the contestant’s popularity? Why not make it such a way that all SMS/calls from the same number are counted as 1 vote and let the judges’ marks have a higher influence in the final score. Won’t this be a fairer result and give every contestant a better judgment?

Superman or Super Dork?

With the latest installment of Superman movies, Superman Returns, coming to our movie screen. I am still unable to understand one thing… How the hell did no one can identify Superman from Clarke Kent?!!! Are they blind?!!! A pair of glasses and a change of hair style. VIOLA... No more Superman. Must be the red underwear. Everybody must be ogling at those pair of bright red underwear when Superman appears cos no one in their right frame of mind will wear something so striking on the outside.

OMG! They are indeed two totally different persons!

My Damage At the PC Show

Strike off another item from my list of desires. Bought myself a cheap digital videocam at the recently concluded PC Show. It is a Digilife DDV-C330 DV Camcorder. It is a mini-camcorder that is also a digital camera, mp3 player and voice recorder. Compact and comes with a 3.2 Mega Pixel Sensor and 6x digital zoom. Quite good video n picture quality under good lighting. Almost got con at buying it at $288. Luckily i walk around n saw it selling @ $189 at another booth. Next item on the list, Sony Ericsson K750i. My M1 contract is now eligible for phone upgrade. With my current K500i still having a trade in value of $100, signing a new contract n getting the phone will oni cost me $98. Tempting... ^_^

Live World Cup 2006 Matches at McDonald's

Good news to all. For those who wanted to watch WC2006 matches but do not want to be backmailed by Starhub into subscribing their pay-per-view (like me) or hang around the hot n stuffy coffee shops at your block, here's another alternative... McDonald's Singapore will be broadcasting live matches of the World Cup at their 24-hours outlets. On their giant plasma TV screens! Hurray!!! Now you can enjoy WC2006 matches with aircon n fast food all under one roof. Find the nearest 24-hour McD to your place here ;)

How Nerdy are you?

Found a How Nerdy Are You Quiz? at Seck Tien's blog. My score: Low Ranking Nerd. Definitely a nerd but low on the totem pole of nerds

Playing around :p

Of Wooden Heels and Pepper Lunch

Went down to Orchard road last Saturday for a checkup. As it is the Great Singapore Sale period, it make perfect sense that my wife will not resist the urge to shop a while. When browsing through the ladies' shoes department, I notice that the heels of the high-heel shoes are made of wood. Kinda makes me think while we are educating the need to save the rainforest by recycling paper, here we are fashioning wood to make the thousands and thousands of ladies shoes. There are so many designs and for each design, there are so many sizes! Where do they get all these wood? There's no sign that says these woods are recycled material. I shudder to think of what will happen to those shoes are not sold and are out of fashion... We can be so cruel to the environment just for the sake of looking beautiful in our eyes. We kill animals just for their skins and furs, and we cut down trees to make high-heel shoes that are hurting for the feet. And this does not apply only to the fashion world, as we seek for more riches, we are taking more than what we need from our fragile planet. It is a matter of time before we drain out our planet's resources or the planet collapses to destroy us. The price for development....

Sad issues aside. we went to Pepper Lunch, a Japanese fast-food steak restaurant, at basement of Takashimaya for lunch. We ordered a beef pepper rich set which cost $8.80 with a bowl of miso soup. The dish consist of fragrant rice with corn on top served with raw sliced beef, all on top of a hot plate. oh... all the dish here are heavily sprinkle with pepper, hence the name of the restaurant. We need to mix the dish up with a choice of adding either honey brown sauce or garlic soy sauce to further enhance the flavour. We added honey brown sauce and the rice taste like baked rice. The waiter is quite friendly and teaches customers how to cook the dish. Pardon the photo as it is taken with my mobile phone. :p

Some links on the restaurant
can.com.sg
Channel NewsAsia

Have problem parking?

Found this fun game post by Peugot at Parking Idiots in Singapore. A great training tool for those attending driving lessons and those having problems parking correctly. Hehehe

Turning the Ouch... to Ooo...

Hoho, surprise, surprise. OTO changed my chair's delivery time to yesterday's evening which came as a pleasant surprise for us. So we get to enjoy our new massage chair 1 day ahead of time (we made some changes for it to be delivered today). Never thought in our life that we can afford a massage chair. I am not a sucker for massage but watching my wife relaxing herself on the chair with the sound effects of "Ooo... Ahh..." makes me feel that it is money well-spent. :D

Haha finally moved my lazy butt and upload all my taipei trip photos to Yahoo Photos.

Links are provided below:
My Taipei Trip Series 1
My Taipei Trip Series 2

My Rig's New Speakers ^_^

I finally got the speaker that I always wanted, the Creative I-Trigue 3400, in the color that I like. Got it install last Sunday and the two new babies look fantastic and match perfectly with my rig’s black theme. Even my wife says the speakers look very nice. :) However, when I test the audio quality, I realize that it is not as good as my old Yamaha speakers. For someone who likes to have a heavy bass, the bass output from the I-Trigue is quite disappointing. I wonder is it me or the song I use has a weak bass (How strong the bass can be playing a sentimental song? :p) Will do more testing when the time permits. Check out the speakers. Yah... I know my table is messy

Hehe... The new speakers free up more space on the desk to throw my things around

OTO Cyber-Lux

My wife and I have been thinking of getting a massage chair. One reason is to help relax the tired muscles of my wife as well as relief the aches of my in-laws. Another is to let me rest my hands on massaging my wife aching shoulders all this time :p. So we went down to Hougang Mall to take a look as both Osim and OTO have retail outlets there. Both companies have introduce a low-end massage chairs lately and we can’t decide which one to get. Hence we got my in-laws down to test them out as they will be using the chair too. Both offering by Osim and OTO have their pros and cons, the Osim being that it is covered by cloth n can get dirty easily while the OTO is made of leather. Problem is the one from OTO does not have any massager for the claves which the Osim does. In the end, my mother-in-law tried a higher end model, OTO Cyber-Lux and she loved it so much. The rest of us tried it too and found it to meet our needs and requirements. Hence after much decision, we decide to get the OTO Cyber-Lux. Now our newly bought massage chair will be arriving this coming Saturday and the whole family is very excited especially my wife. She even dreamt about it during her afternoon nap. Hoho, I can foresee she will be stuck in that chair once it is delivered.

Our new chair is black in color

天下无不散之宴席

Sigh.... found news that my work place gang leader has resigned. Although I feel quite sad cause we really get aloong quite well, I oso happy for her. Work at the new workplace is quite hectic, can see she is overwhelm by the amount of workload thrown to her. In addition, our company have a lot of rules, processes and procedures to follow. Very rigid in times. "Must do things like this, must follow this method...". MNC are like tat, can't be help. She told me she feel guilty as she left us in times when the project have started to pick up pace. Actually I dun blame her at all. Why force yourself to stuck in a work place, making yourself unhappy? For me, a happy working environment is more important than anything else. Without it, you won't feel motivated to do your best in your work. Furthermore, everyday going to work is a drag. Like a phrase I heard, "Happiness is when your vocation becomes vacation". :)

Gosh... I am so dead beat today. Suppose to post this thoughts last night, but came home had my dinner n took a nap. Next time I knew, it's already almost 12 midnight. So here I am, unable to sleep, waiting for the live telecast of the UEFA Champions League final, posting this.

Our work project is running out of time. Hence to save some time, I have to be at the production line at 6.30am, which is the time the line starts, to do a quick programming of the 2nd prototype units to ensure everything is working fine. Hence I have to wake up at 5am to get to office. I left my place at 6am with the sky still dark and the streets quiet. It reminds me my secondary school n poly days when I woke up early in the morning to be in school as early as possible. I really like this type of atmosphere. I like the dark, the silence, the serenity. That's why I like to stay up late if possible. Last time when I was staying with my family in Jurong, I will go downstairs in the middle of the time to the 7-11 store to buy a snack n a drink. Even though it might be dangerous, I will still go cause I am really love the atmosphere. It is so quiet, so peaceful. Walking in the dark gave me a sense of bravery and the serenity give me a peaceful mind, where I can forget all the problems I have in my mind. U know what can make this better, listening to really smooth songs, 过敏 by 杨丞林 is my favourite in this class at this momemt... Yeah, i sound crazy but sometimes we really this to escape from our hectic life.

Will the Real Guy Kewney Please Stand Up?

To think that even BBC, the famous news network, can make such a mistake. The news channel mistaken a cab driver waiting at the reception as a IT expert, invited for a live broadcast interview. Video of the interview can be found on YouTube

Read more about it:
Daily Mail
Timesonline

10 Things I Hate About Commandments

This is one of the funniest parody I have seen. Made using the movie "The Ten Commandments". Well done 2 the people who did this. Hahahaa



And the first video done by the same people - Must Watch Jaws. Haha

阿雅的最后一次主持<我猜>

So sad, 阿雅 is leaving <我猜> to go US for further studies. It's been ten years since she started hosting this popular variety show in Taiwan. Gonna miss her funny antics in the show. The show will never be the same without her. Below is her hosting the show for the final time.

Happy Mother's Day, Mum...

Today's is Mother's Day. My wife and me together with my sisters went to pay mum a visit. How time flies... Mum has passed away for more almost half a year. Usually this time of the year, we will go out as family to have a meal to celebrate Mother's Day for her. This time, it is totally different. We still misses her very much. Happy Mother's Day, Mum....

Up... up.... and away.....

Have been planning to take my wife to try this this ever since I saw the advertisement in Bugis around 2 months ago. Finally did it today. It is a great experience. The balloon goes up to a height around 40 stories high or 150m. The view up there is fantastic. The feeling up there is as if you are floating. But most of the time, I am worrying that my camera will drop off (killer litter :p) My fear of heights does not help too especially when the strong wind cause the cage to wobbly, whereby my legs dully follows :p. Click on the photo on the right to see more pictures.

All in all it is wonderful ride. It cost $23 per adult but thanks to my colleague, Kavitha, who gave me a 30% coupon, it cost $16.10 each for us. The coupon and brochure can be found below. Take note the coupon only valid till end of May.

A video of the view up there

Writing this post in office. Getting restless working here. I dun feel any satisfaction working here. Although our job title is software engineer, all we did are liasing with dfferent groups/teams, testing and integration work. Everything is just a process, tasks are completed by following a set of procedures. We hardly do any development work as those are restricted to the engineers in India and US. The worse thing is my job role is factory support engineer. hence other than when there is a factory production coming up, most of the time, I am just sitting here waiting for something to happen. To others, this is very good for them. But for me, I feel very guilty and useless seeing my colleagues slugging away at their work. To some, this is a very easy job, but not for me. I am more like a techincal guy, I prefer to do real work like programming, debugging and technical stuff. Anyway, i have told my wife I will try to stay here for one year and see how things goes. After that, if I still feel the same way, I think it is better that I moved on.