Saturday, May 31, 2003

Gah!

Uninstalling Dreamweaver 4 has deleted the directory where my homepage, among other things, is stored.

Gah! Evil!

Furthermore, sundry attempts at un-erasing the files are not working.

I think the only permanent damage is the loss of the last month's updates to my long essay. Hopefully He Who Will Not Be Named will still have a copy of the version I tried to make more lucid [Update: Happily a version from 4th May resides in my Yahoo Briefcase folder. Yeh!].

Oh well. *shrug* The truth can never be totally covered and illuminated all at once. Take it as the will of the gods, if you like :)


Hackers Put 'Bane' in Shadowbane

"The population of an entire Shadowbane town was forcibly moved to the bottom of the sea, where they drowned. City guards turned feral and attacked town residents. Mobs of never-before-seen superpowerful creatures, seemingly spontaneously spawned from the ether, began to prowl the streets unchecked, killing characters in the most painful way possible...

Experienced players looked on in horror as new players were slowly and gleefully dismembered by ax-wielding ogres. Others just laughed and looted the characters' bodies after the ogres were done."

Woah


The Dullest Blog In The World

The beauty business

Thursday, May 29, 2003

Quantum History - 100 Things Evolutionists Hate - Something The Associate sent me. Though many of his arguments are bafflingly obtuse, some are actually worth considering, and a simple "we don't know" would answer many of them.

Oddly enough, there are only 93 things on this guy's list, many of which are repeated.

Happily, it's more well done than a more haphazard site which inspired it - Creationists Hate, though that one does also raise many pertinent questions (which are conveniently ignored by the former site in favour of mostly irrelevant sniping)


Microsoft Linux - the premier linux distro

3rd Annual Nigerian EMail Conference

"I am Mr. Laurent Mpeti Kabila, a senior assistant leader of the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone.

I present to you an urgent and confidential request: I request your attendance at The 3rd Annual Nigerian EMail Conference. This is an excellent opportunity to meet your distinguished colleagues, learn new marketing techniques, and spend your hard-earned money. Attending this conference demands the highest trust, security and confidentiality between us.

Dates: November 7 - 9, 2003
Location: Abuja Sheraton Hotel & Casino
Registration Fee: $995 per person

Like most Nigerians, you're probably finding that it's increasingly difficult to earn a decent living from email. That's why you need to attend the 3rd Annual Nigerian EMail Conference."


SNE 85

- That in Singapore, it is possible to be sentenced beyond the maximum penalty allowed for an offence, especially if you are dumb enough to try appealing to the Chief Justice.

Some guy punched his former wife's lawyer in the Family Court in February last year. And for that, he was sentenced to six years' imprisonment. Seven years is the maximum you get for grievous hurt. . He appealed and the Chief Justice upped his sentence to 10 years, way beyond the max.

So say, you were sentenced to hang, and decided to appeal, in theory, you could be sentenced to hang twice.

Reminds me of a line from Hot Shots: "I will keel you until you die from it!"

Of course, this is just my uninformed, uneducated, man-on-the-street observation. I am sure all this is totally legit, justice for all, and so forth. Hey, I don't want to be accused of "usurping of the Judiciary's power derived from the Constitution of Singapore".

"Court of Appeal reserves judgement on Gilbert Louis case

By Asha Popatlal

The Court of Appeal on Monday reserved judgement to a later date on a case of a man who assaulted a lawyer in court.

The State Public Prosecutor argued that the Chief Justice did not act correctly when he raised the jail term of the man beyond the maximum for grievious hurt."

- That according to a recent Life article by Sumiko Tan, the midriff is the new cleavage.

I thought the Butt Crack was the new cleavage. But what do I know?

Oh, this was the same journalist who shared with us intimate details of her hemorrhoids.

Sunday, May 25, 2003

Somehow, I haven't and don't feel like saying much, so this fortnightly post will be shorter than a usual weekly post.

I spent a whole week in camp without booking out. Not since SMM have I gone for so long without a bookout, yet oddly, I didn't feel anxious. NS must be getting to me.

I passed my Unarmed Combat G1 grading! My experience can be summed up by Shawn's quote Summing up the tragic tale of my mock grading:

'"Ian: "You won't believe what I'm looking at now. Gabriel Seah doing contact sparring."
Me: "Hahaha. Is he showing aggression?"
Ian: "Haha he just got thrashed by the other guy it was quite tragic."'

The heat these days is oppressive.

Nowadays we are -supposed- to wake at 5:45am. Assuming we come back from breakfast at 6:15am, and roll call is at 7:30am, are we supposed to spend 1 hour doing area cleaning? I think most have thought on this and come to a conclusion - which is why no one wakes up at 5:45am anymore.

Both sides of Boon Wei's glasses fell off, so he began wearing them like Morpheus does. Heh. I wonder how the latter gets them to stay on! Maybe that's why, once he gets them on, he never takes them off.

I saw 2 people who tattooed their IC numbers (and the barcode for the IC numbers) onto themselves - one onto his arm, and another onto the back of his neck. Weird. Maybe the Nameless One should have done that!

I sent a patient to Tengah, and he told me: "Medic, can you accompany me? I'm scared... I don't know what they'll do to me". I was befuddled. It's only reporting sick! Though he *did* get an injection and admitted to the sickbay.

All our food comes from one cookhouse now. The 42 people are happy, since 46 cooks better food than 42. The ATC people aren't. Aww. Oh well, so much for their experiments. I miss their experimental cooking - it's nice to get Roti Prata for breakfast on a Sunday!


Life imitating 'art': Dane acquitted in goldfish blender case - I believe the Flash of the goldfish in a blender was around many years ago


Quotes:

So do you choose the red pill, or the blue pill? [Brandishes 2 pills which are half red and half blue]

[On a fundamentalist] He's living in the Matrix

Armuor HQ (Armour)

He maintain a constant speed, constant acceleration (no)

[On a survey] 'I feel appreciated by my employer.' No.

[On a survey] 'I feel appreciated by society.' Do we get money from the Courage Fund? No.

[Someone from NJC: You actually went for your school prom?] Unlike your school, my school does not hold its prom in the school hall.

[On my scribbling] What did you write? Is it bad? It can't be anything good.
Gah!

Thanks to Channel i's deceptive scheduling, I've missed the first three episodes of Power Rangers Time Force - Force From The Future Pt. 1, Force From The Future Pt. 2 And Something To Fight For.

Luckily, synopses (with pictures) are available. Detailed episode transcripts used to be available, but damnit, the site's down.

At least Channel i has redeemed itself by showing *3* seasons of Power Rangers at once (Lost Galaxy, Lightspeed Rescue and Time Force) and by screening trailers for future episodes. I wish they'd re-run the older seasons, though.


After watching Episode 4, Ransik Lives, I'm actually rather impressed with Power Rangers Time Force. In part, the technology that Toei uses to film Sentai series has improved, making it look slightly more impressive. However, Saban has obviously been trying to pitch Power Rangers to a more mature audience - you even have a cursory discussion of the perils of genetic manipulation now:

"When Wes tells Ransik that those are innocent people out there, Ransik tells him his life story.

In the future, babies are born of test tubes and green goop.

Parents choose the characteristics for their own children.

But when a test tube falls down the sewer, the goop gives birth to Ransik, the first mutant.

Ransik is shunned by society, and gathers all other outcasts to form a criminal empire."
Went for an S05A class BBQ yesterday. Attendance was 18/28, not bad after 2 years, and only just under last year's 20 or so. Twas held at Qingru's place, which stunned me and several others who had not had the chance to step foot on the grounds.

Perhaps the address - Cornwall Gardens - should have alerted me. The place is like a richly decorated manor house, or a 5-star hotel suite. Now we know what opulent, decadent splendour Mr Li lives in :)

Chinx was, as usual, decked out in his customary black, including long pants. I wonder at his not burning to a crisp in the recent oppressive heat. And as with the last time, the Shuyu-Tong-Myo Li-etc clique convened a meeting of the Cult of the Banana. A quick count of 6 of the girls revealed that 4.5 of them had brown hair (ie 1 of them had hair subtly streaked brown). I suppose it's a natural expression of individualism, but I didn't know that they had secret A03 tendencies :) The choice if colour is perplexing, though. What's so good about brown? If you wanna dye your hair, why not go all the way? Green, platinum and blonde, ala the Japanese. For example, Chinx stridently proclaimed his intention to have white hair!

It was Changge's birthday, so following in the time-honoured tradition of physically expressing their friendship, most of the guys dunked him in the pool, and he managed to bring Sing Pou down with him. Sadly, it seems no one ever dunks girls.

After Luther, Katie and Kaimun left, the 2 cliques of girl talk exchanging girls and Pro Evolution (or whatever that PS2 football game is called) watching guys became more apparent, and Chinx and I were the only outcasts left. Damn. Not long after, the evening ended with some of us watching amusedly on as 1 guy and 4 girls squeezed into the back seat of a car going to Holland Village.

It was the first time I got to indulge the secret, hidden side of me that revels in the Compulsive Photo Taking Disorder, and between my shaky hands, attempts to take shots without using the flash and poor manipulation of the "exposure" setting, I emerged with a new motto - "In Auto We Trust". Oh well. Whenever people screw up their shots they just call them "artistic". Mmm. Time to read "Photography for Dummies" on my brother in law's bookshelf.
Tree That Give Meat Instead Of Fruit!

"Fruit from the new Meat Trees, developed by British scientists using gene-splicing technology, closely resembles ordinary grapefruit. But when you peel the large fruit open, inside is fresh beef."

Is this for real?


Buddhists "really are happier"

Dating a Blogger, Reading All About It