Quote of the Post: "The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions." - Evan Esar (1899 - 1995), Esar's Comic Dictionary

***

This post is dedicated to:

My Idols



Name: Wo-hen Nankan, the Asian Prince (aka Tuan Anh)
Claim to Fame: He's filthy rich and has lots of women (and possibly gay men) throwing themselves at him.
Why I admire him: He can vibrate his hand, and his hair is soft, thick, and easy to style. He has an inner bad boy, and can charm the socks off anyone



Name: Kimberly Ann Hart
Claim to Fame: Saving the world countless times, participating in the Pan-Global Games in Florida
Why I admire her: Once ditzy and materialistic, she evolved into a strong, confident, and caring person. A kind and compassionate soul, she cares a great deal about her friends, and will not take kindly to anyone messing with them (with apologies to Power Rangers Central)



Name: Professor Alessandro Moreschi
Claim to Fame/Why I admire him: The last of the castrati, he died in 1922, leaving behind the only known recordings of the voice of a castrato



Name: The Associate aka He Who Must Not be Named aka mindgame aka nw.t.
Claim to Fame: I could tell you, but then he'd kill both of us.
Why I admire him: He partakes in adventures beyond compare



Name: The formerly Poor Suffering Substantive Third Sergeant, shortly before that a Poor Suffering Local Third Sergeant, the Self-Proclaimed 'Master of Office', Top Bio Student in NJ in His Year, the Master of the Chair, He Who Cackles Evilly, the Hawker of Evil Torture Devices - (name removed by request)
Claim to Fame: See name
Why I admire him: For putting up with me

Quote of the Post: "No one can have a higher opinion of him than I have, and I think he's a dirty little beast." - W. S. Gilbert

***

I got this thick envelope in the mail informing me that on my reaching my 21st birthday, my Kidneys, Liver, Heart and Corneas would be excised for transplant in the event of my demise. There is also provision for opting in to the Medical (Therapy, Education, and Research) Act (MTERA) and being more generous: for donating more than the four said organs (eg lungs, bones, skin) and for purposes other than transplantation (treatment, education and research).

Undoubtedly, these are worthier causes than donating your body to Gunther von Hagens. Besides which, he has all those corpses of executed Chinese prisoners to use.

The question, then, is how many parts, and which parts? Transaction costs will be at a minimum, because the helpful chaps at MOH provided postage-paid forms. On the other hand, the dignity of a funeral is rather diminished if there is no reasonably intact body lying in a coffin to grieve over. I wonder if they'd accept my volunteering my brain for transplant :)

Decisions, decisions.

***

Anyone not on Gmail who wants to try it? I have 3 invites left. [Update: 2 left as of 26th June, 1AM. None left as of 26th June, 11PM!]

***

I saw someone on Soulseek with all 12 volumes (153 CDs) of Bach 2000.

*whines* I want! A complete (used) set on Amazon.com goes from US$971.25. A new one retails for US$1,199.98 (with FREE Super Saver shipping. Gee, how generous of them).

***

Jerald informs me that the domain name "gssq.com" is already taken up by a Korean. What a pity.

No matter, g-s-s-q-dot-blog-spot-dot-com is already on everyone's lips.

***

Pathology in the Hundred Acre Wood: a neurodevelopmental perspective on A.A. Milne (as published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal)

"Somewhere at the top of the Hundred Acre Wood a little boy and his bear play. On the surface it is an innocent world, but on closer examination by our group of experts we find a forest where neurodevelopmental and psychosocial problems go unrecognized and untreated.

On the surface it is an innocent world: Christopher Robin, living in a beautiful forest surrounded by his loyal animal friends. Generations of readers of A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh stories have enjoyed these seemingly benign tales. However, perspectives change with time, and it is clear to our group of modern neurodevelopmentalists that these are in fact stories of Seriously Troubled Individuals, many of whom meet DSM-IV3 criteria for significant disorders (Table 1). We have done an exhaustive review of the works of A.A. Milne and offer our conclusions about the inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood in hopes that our observations will help the medical community understand that there is a Dark Underside to this world." (courtesy of Come Here For Free Brain Haemorrhage, in on of its posts not about worms, worms and more worms)

I love revisiting the seemingly innocuous tales of our childhood to find out just how warped and perverted they really were.

***

Bill Clinton on Rwanda:

"It's very interesting though: the only people who have never excoriated me for it are the Rwandans. When I went there and apologized to them, their response was, 'You're the only person that ever even said you were sorry. There were other people who could have helped us, too.'" (Salon.com interview)

***

"porn stimulates the mind but games can't"

Wth.

***

The Indian Shankar Drum Ganesh Machine !! :::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Zladko “Zlad” Vladcik was to perform his very popular techno-ballad, “Elektronik – Supersonik” - Luther says he's as bad as Gunther. But at least Gunther can sing tunefully and doesn't go on interminably.

I wonder how the people at Kontraband pay for their bandwith, seeing as they host so many movies. It's a really good place to go to see good ads (ie those not made in Singapore and Malaysia) like this random one, especially since AdCritic no longer provides that service. Singapore's CNB could do better by using this ad, for example.

"ERN005PC" (KANA) - A CPU in the shape of an anime nurse girl.

Mobile phone eats hijacker’s bullet - "The bullet entered Steyn's hand and came out the other side and was stopped by his mobile phone before it could enter his temple and kill him."

China censors online video games - "It has set up a censorship committee to monitor games following the banning of a Swedish game called Hearts of Iron, which portrayed Manchuria, Tibet and Xinjiang as independent nations. A previous Norwegian game, Project IGI2: Covert Strike, incensed officials for its portrayal of the Chinese army. The committee is charged with banning content that 'could threaten national unity'"
The truth hurts, don't it?

***

Special preview of Level 2 of Luther's game - Darkness



Oops. That belongs to Level 1.



Notice that the RGS girl has become a CHIJ girl.



This is the original draft image, before my input :)

On Tuesday, I went back to camp for what will hopefully be the last time in at least a year. Stoltenheim Reinbach went back at the same time, to do his clearance, so I was saved a few minutes walking in and got a lift out to civilisation from him.

Seeing the number of people running around, the Broncos in the parade square, and the amount of barbed wire around the vehicle sheds makes me grateful again that I got posted in during the last lull period. On the bright side, snack machines have now been installed at the company lines, machines which I would doubtless have been banned from using if I had still been stuck in that shithole.

452 SAR was having their ICT when I went back, so I saw many familiar faces, including Yiliang. Argh, I didn't know C9L2/C2L2 people were called back so readily. At least now he's their remains clerk, so one more position is filled, lowering my chances of being called back; Yes! I got posted to 452 SAR. Darn, I was hoping for the Reserve Holding List (or at least the Interim Holding List). On the bright side, CPC hasn't revocated me yet, so there is hope yet. If I am called back every year, my hair is never going to grow to its desired length (this is why you see so few Singaporean males with long hair).

Of course, the SAF is still as brainless as ever. Case in point: the signs warning that your car would be clamped if they parked in certain areas. "Penalty: Releasing fee". Duh.

Also, interestingly enough, one of the M113s that Support company uses is nicknamed "Cronus". I wonder why they didn't name all of them after the X-men - perhaps they'd run out of the more popular/prominent X-men, and didn't want to name the M113 after Shi'ar Imperial Guard members.

Finally, the HDB estate that time forgot, just up the road from Sungei Gedong, has finally been converted into what is presumably a FIBUA training area, complete with barbed wire sealing the place off. This provides a more realistic training environment that the other FIBUA village, but I'm still waiting for a 20 storey high simulated skyscraper!


Quotes:

I think Wang has a pHD in porno.

***

"your site has turned from a blog to a site of pointless links collected across the varse interweb"

So stoning at home doesn't give you much content to blog about. Ho hum. I'd rather not be so traumatised that I'd have to write more rants about the army :) I'd also rather not blog, in torturous detail, every minute detail of my life, transforming this into The dullest blog in the world, or recount publicly each instance of such events as Chinx's "get lost party" or half-day shopping trips with Sentient. Weird (if pointless) links collected across the varse interweb would be more interesting. Though I confess they can bore one to tears after a while.

A Tasmania journal should be up sometime, and some special features (eh heh).

Quote of the Post: "Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event." - Oscar Wilde

Random Playlist Song: Art of the Fugue - Contrapunctus IX (a 4, alla duodecima). I can't hear Gould's humming. Maybe they edited it out.

***

EMJEM on censorship:

"I think I should sit on the Board of Film Censors. I'd be great. I'd make the most diabolical cuts in the entire history of censorship. For starters, I'd cut Hermione Granger out of Harry Potter on the basis that Emma Watson's burgeoning sexuality is nurturing pedophilia and serves as a release for the inner Humberts of middle-aged men. Just ask Adri how many people are out there searching for ‘Hermione Granger porn' or ‘Emma Watson porn'.

Then maybe I'd refuse to accept any version of Troy in which Brad Pitt is walking around half-naked for most of the show: “Let's see how many Trojans you can kill now that you have to wear clothes. Not so immortal now, huh, pretty boy?”"

Ooh, cunning. The bit about Malays (at the bottom of the page) is worth a read too.

***

Incarnate Word set to fly as Cardinals - "The University of the Incarnate Word is expected to announce at a news conference Thursday afternoon that Cardinals will replace Crusaders as the mascot of the school's athletic teams... The Crusader had served as UIW's mascot since 1980. But in the post 9-11 era, the school decided the symbol was offensive to Muslims and inappropriate for a Catholic institution that welcomes students of all faiths and is working to strengthen its international relationships... UIW isn't the only school to abandon Crusaders out of concern that it might be offensive to people of the Islamic faith. In 2003, Point Loma Nazarene (Calif.) replaced Crusaders with Sea Lions. In 2000, Wheaton College (Ill.) dropped Crusaders in favor of Thunder."
Political correctness is almost as dumb as Zero Tolerance

Rev. George M. Malkmus and his Hallelujah Diet - "Reverend George M. Malkmus (1934- ) claims to have eliminated his colon cancer and other serious health problems more than 25 years ago by "following biblical principles for a natural diet and healthy lifestyle." He and his wife Rhonda Jean operate Hallelujah Acres, where they hold seminars, sell products, and advocate a diet that features raw fruits and vegetables. Malkmus and his followers claim that his methods have helped people with obesity, cancer, arthritis, and more than 100 other health problems."

School bans all skirts - "A mixed state school has banned girls from wearing skirts because their hemlines were getting too short. The governors at Kesgrave high school near Ipswich, Suffolk, have ordered all female pupils to wear trousers because girls were turning up for lessons in skimpy miniskirts."

Corruption In Kota Kinabalu Immigration & Police Malaysia. Destroy my life , my family, and my Business - "My Story with Kota Kinabalu Immigration and Police and how they destroy my life and suck my blood. crying not enough - pain as much as any human been can stand. my kids tears asking me to go back could kill the stone. wife looking for money every where to buy medicine to my kids. i knocked every door as much as you can imagine asking for help but nobody want to listen ... and i will not stop till i die for my rights"

Is phi a mystical number as claimed in The Da Vinci Code? - "Your height divided by the distance from your belly button to the floor = phi. Get out. Behold the line segment in the drawing. The only people of height AC with their belly buttons at point B are named Igor. On me the ratio is about 1.7, not 1.618+. A huge difference? No, but Brown's hero observes, "Plants, animals, and even human beings all possessed dimensional properties that adhered with eerie exactitude to the ratio of phi to 1." That's just not so."
Looks like Dan Brown's maths is as bad as his history.

Five shitty movies that everyone loves - I love the Tom Clancy plot generator. It's like the generate-a-conspiracy-theory / write-your-own-song-lyrics thing that Mad Magazine has. The one I made: "Communists devise a scheme to take over a generic industrial compound for ransom under the watchful eye of corrupt German officials (played by Americans with fake German accents). The plot twists when the Communists threaten to unravel the keystone of civilization with wild orgies, unless a turncoat naval officer can gain the courage to do the right thing and stop the Communists once and for all. The movie ends with a mildly comical and/or ironic scene in which the Communists blow up or go to prison. Another satisfying tale of political intrigue and personal redemption closes, and we all walk away from this movie a little wiser."

Twenty Questions - The AI will guess an object you're thinking about in 20 questions.

How a Hen Lays Her Egg - "Laying an Egg. An interesting event!"

Clean and Dirty. Housework puts women in mood for love - "At least one in five fantasise about a hunky man interrupting them while they were dusting. And one in 20 dream of naked male cleaners."

After a 2 day long saga involving partitions, wrong/misheard advice, spoilt rescue disks, much blood, toil, tears and sweat and many hours of frustration, I think my terminal is up again.

A fresh reinstallation seems to have cured the bugs.

On to making a partition solely for the OS.