When you can't live without bananas

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Saturday, November 17, 2001

In NTUC Bukit Ho Swee today, I saw:

Gillette for Women
Venus
Stay Smoother Longer
Reveal The Goddess In You

This issue isn't a peeve of mine, but interestingly, they used a small (even by Asian standards) woman. Perhaps this means that advertising will no longer project an unrealistic image of humans!

At one point, I actually wanted to buy a shaver refill pack for 2 people who shall not be named, but it was too expensive at ~$7.

And as if semi-tasteless Christmas music (5 weeks from Christmas) was not bad enough, there was this crazy Hari Raya card. It cost $4.50, and kept playing the song 'Selamat Hari Raya', driving everyone crazy. It refused to stop, so I buried it under a stack of envelopes, and it was silenced. Apparently when the electrical contact breaks, it will sound.

My mother tried to get me to cut my hair again, so I walked back from the barber's where they dropped me. I think I will ask Killer how to grow long hair. Maybe she can give me her hair clips. Haha.
Weird Junk Mails:

From : qrench@bluesky.com
To : hansonboy@geocities.com
Subject : Time travelers PLEASE HELP!!!!!!
Date : Thu, 15 Nov 2001 00:05:50

If you are a time traveler or alien disguised as human and or have the technology to travel physically through time I need your help!

Also if you are from any of the following planets and can help me as mentioned please reply: Vadikar,Nefarious,Tralfamadore,Valnator,Travers,Edenad

I come to you for help, and need a way of doing this in the following way exactly in such a way that there will be little or no danger. I come to you in peace. Trust and honesty is an absolutely must!!

My life has been severely tampered with and cursed. I have suffered tremendously and am now dying! I need to be able to:

Travel physically back in time.

Rewind my life (including my age).

Be able to (remember what I know now) so that I can prevent my life from being tampered with again after I go back.

I am in great danger and need this immediately!

Only if you are a time traveler or nice alien and have this technology please send me a (separate) email to:

Robby0809@aol.com

Thanks

Friday, November 16, 2001

Might as well learn Old Egyptian and read the Book of the Dead.



The Little Prince - found by Tim.

He also says he used to play the same Wrestlemania game, and do 24 hit combos. And he tells us that FBT stands for "FootBall Thai". Ooo.

There's this red faced Indian guy in 2S06D (?). Very red faced. It looks like he was perpetually drunk. And I saw someone with a thinner shirt than some of those I have.

Triplet now has long hair! So she doesn't look so much like the other two anymore. Many people grow long hair in JC. it must be because they don't like being restricted to black hair accessories.

Joel played us the Raffles School Song handphone ring tone he composed. With trills. Ooo. But if he plays it in school, ACJC will start rioting...

Xephyris has found a funny web comic about vampires - http://projectkooky.com/dylan/biteme/.

It gets funnier as it goes along :)

11:23PM - finally opened my "Stewed Pork Chop Instant Noodles". They're nice, but the 'dehydrated vegetables' included Chilli. Ugh. Sister likes them too, so does Tim The Great, who's tried them before. Maybe we shall buy some and give them out on Orchard Road.
Message from qiying- esp. for pple without anything to do sunday night:
"Leonids Meteor Storm
Date: 19th November (Monday)
Peak Time: 2.13am (as in Sunday night, monday morning..hehe~=) )
Place: juz look up from your house.. look towards the north east and be patient..
What: If you're lucky, you'll actually see about 2 meteors a second.. making it look a bit like rain. this happens very rarely.. cos its usually about 15 an hour."

Little prince is cute. Try reading it in french. But then you'd have to learn french first. (disgruntled sound) Though its over-merchandised like so much of bestselling children's fiction- the other day I saw a computer game based on it.
Other books to read in original language: Sophie's world, Scripture, Gao Xingjian's Soul Mountain, Beowulf (btw came across an alleged English translation of it by Wodehouse in Arete- hilarious), Inferno

*Not afterglow*
@ndrew

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

Thursday, November 15, 2001

Yay, my sister did some stitching, and Blue Bear's almost the same. There was this piece of the long plastic that was sticking out, so it was stitched such that it was secured to the paw but some of it still stuck out.

My mother 'cleaned up' my desk recently, and as is always the case, things went missing. Specifically, the scrunchie and the hairband that I picked up in school a few months (has it been all that long?) ago. I don't mind the loss of the former, because it was torn, but the latter was nice. She always rearranges things and then when I can't find them, she says "don't know".



Xephyris, look on the bright side - you can now use all the SNK roms. Or maybe someone will start a fan project to make sequels to SNK games. Like the "The Darkest Day Expansion For Baldur's Gate II".



I suck at fighting games. The only one which I was good at was WWF Wrestlemania, made in 1994 by Acclaim (I think), a conversion of an arcade game and with 8 characters - Doink the Clown, the Undertaker, Yokozuna, Razor Ramon, Shawn Michaels, Bam Bam Bigelow, Lex Luger and Bret the "Hitman" Hart. I actually was pretty good at it - came from lots of practice with Lin Yucheng when we were still living in the same estate and he didn't call himself Yucheng, Lin or YuCheng. *wistful*



Tim recommended 'the Little Prince', which derides grown-ups. If you are free, go and read it.

"The Little Prince is a book written by the French author, journalist, and pilot, Antoine de Saint-Exup�ry. It was written in 1943, one year before his death. It is the most well-known of his novels. From the outside it appears to be a simple children's tale. The Little Prince is actually a profound and deeply moving book written in riddles and laced with philosophy and poetic metaphors. The book has been translated into many languages from the original French version. It was also made into a play and a movie, and the children's cable channel Nickelodeon in America ran a cartoon series in the mid-80s based upon the prince, his rose, and his adventures."

It's available on Palmgear, but I doubt many people will have a Palm / want to read it on one. Doesn't seem to be available on Project Gutenberg.



Geraldine has been corrupted by MSN Explorer. "well...I want my comp to look beautiful". Sigh.

Little Brown Bear has been missing for a long time. I suspect my brother-in-law spirited him away, but he denies it.

Anti-inspirational message (sorta) of the post:
"The early bird may get the worm, but it's the second mouse gets the cheese"
A sad day came upon us just as the A levels started - SNK has declared complete, total, and utter bankruptcy and has completely folded. Not even any more Pachinko games (which they were making after Aruze, curse their black hearts, bought SNK the first time they filed for bankruptcy.)

SNK died because of a mix of bad marketing strategy (although they did squeeze every last bit out of the Neogeo... a dead horse is still a dead horse, no matter how far you can kick it :P) and poor business decisions, as well as rapid improvements in terms on arcade hardware being made by other companies. When Capcom came up with CPS-3, SNK was still using the "GIGA-Power" MVS (which wasn't really GIGA at all, but had a hardware cartridge memory limit of about 80 megabytes... or about 700 megabits. That's somewhat similar to the Nintendo 64's cartridge hardware limits. Cartridges cost a lot.)

(Neogeo CDs made things cheaper, but not by very much. And the load times were long, to say the least. Almost long enough to cause screen burn-in, and that hopping monkey doesn't help, much.)

The Neogeo 64 failed miserably. It has graphics capabilities on par with early capcom ZN models. (SF EX 1, anyone?) Sadly, Samurai Shodown 64 was on it, which meant that almost no one outside of Japan got to play it (I've only managed to find it in one arcade in Singapore, about 4 years ago.)

However, SNK had a history of listening to what their fans want. The King of Fighters 97 roster was created completely based on Fan feedback. Almost no other company I know of makes games 100% based on what their fans want. Thanks, SNK, for making such great games over the years. You'll live on in our memories. Hontou ni arigatou gozaimashita.

P/s: Reading books on your PC will kill your eyes. I finished Neuromancer, but not before my eyes were red, bloodshot, and had images of Metapad burned into the retina.

P/sP/s: Dr. Pepper is a hard-to-acquire taste. How can ANYONE stand to drink that thing?
Ebooks are fun. Get a LCD monitor, anti-aliased font enabled reader (eg Microsoft Reader) and read.

You actually read all 4 books on a computer monitor? Well done! I prefer to read them on my Palm, then I can lie in bed and read.



Aha. 1999 is done! Yes, after so long, much blustering and doubt about whether I would be able to tenaciously hold on to the end - I have. But the end is the beginning is the end. 2000 looms ahead.



Florida's Natural is no longer Florida's. Now they use California oranges. Rather like Commonwealth Secondary being in Jurong.

For the first time, yesterday I heard, on the BBC, an American. How rare. An American woman reading the news.

Jerry's, a place in Jalan Kayu I went to for dinner yesterday, is perhaps the only place in Singapore which serves Dr Pepper - the most disgusting drink on earth, beating even F&N Fruitade. I had heard about it and in Hawaii in 1999, I bought a can. I don't think I took more then 2 sips.

At the aforementioned place was this 6-7 year old girl in a midriff baring tank top. Tut tut.



I am presently rather distressed and mortified. My Blue Teddy bear, imaginatively called 'Blue Bear', my faithful companion for the last 11 years (at least, probably more) has lost his touch, literally, having survived being put in the freezer by my [12 years older than me] Sister, thrown onto the top of air-conditioners, swung around by the arms [grasp the two arms and twirl him around], sprayed by fart gas, a nose operation, an operation to sew up his right paw after a gash appeared after washing, baldness (he has a big bald spot to the right of his belly), me cutting his stomach hair when he was small because I thought it grew and goodness knows what else.

Due to constant rubbing of the right paw, some of the clear plastic that serves as transparent support had popped up at least 11 years ago and I had grown fond of rubbing it. Sometime during my Primary School Days, I'd examined the paw closely and found that the rough feeling was due to a loop of the plastic thread or such popping out above the fur. Inexplicably, I'd cut it, which meant that it was no longer long enough to slip under my fingernails. Yesterday, while stroking his paw (as I like to do), the feeling suddenly disappeared, and constant efforts have still not managed to bring the feeling back.

*sigh*

Tuesday, November 13, 2001

Random thoughts for today:

Turning back to talk to my friends twice in 2 days while waiting to be dismissed, I have twice seen, not quite unspeakable sights, but (and because of) muscular thighs. No names (cos I know one and the other knows people I know).

Realised what Jet stands for while I was waiting for Economics Paper 3 to be collected. Jonah Elisah Teong yi heong ruxin - JET. Gah, why didn't I notice before? I still think she has the longest name in RJ (Do you?).

LT 2.5 is decorated with 3 balloons at each corner, on the lamps. Apparently Mr Eric Lee is holding an "A03 night". Wonder what the programme is like.

Stupid paper. But apparently other people didn't find it so hard.

How do you
- Write 10 marks on 3rd degree Price Discrimination
- talk (for 15 marks) about why Oligopoly is more common than Perfect Competition?

My A may be bye bye to me.



Why is Cloze (as in Cloze Passage) spelled "Cloze"? What the hell does it mean?

http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=Cloze

cloze
adj.

Based on or being a test of reading comprehension in which the test taker is asked to supply words that have been systematically deleted from a text.

[Alteration of closure.]



Red jacket wasn't in his red jacket! I was looking around for a red jacket while waiting for papers to be collected but didn't see it. Later, I saw him at the Bus Stop opposite Ghim Moh Taxi HQ and... no jacket. Not even in his hand, or on his arm, or in his bag (he had no bag). "Maybe he recovered" - Luther

Didn't see the busker. Maybe he only comes on certain days. "He sings with a nasal voice" - Luther. But I saw 2 ACJC girls coming out of the underpass. Oh wait, that's unrelated. Nevermind.

Hot Shorts are DAMN disgusting. There was this woman in a blue top and cut-off white shorts in front, and it was revulsive. On the first escalator, she was in front, and I could see the curve of the butt cheeks (probably the 2nd time I've seen that happen, the first was during Orientation with someone's FBT shorts). I reiterate my disgust and dislike for Hot Shorts. Luckily Jet was behind her at the second escalator, so she blocked everyone's view.

Heard a beng-lian ring tone on the MRT. I heard it once before (probably more, actually). This beng was programming it for his girlfriend, then they played it back and they started nodding and shaking their heads along with the song. When I turned back today, it was an Indian man whose phone had the disgusting ringtone.



Went to Great World Crystal Jade Shanghai Restuarant (or whatever it's called) for lunch. Interesting food.

More interesting, saw this (presumably) J1 RJ girl with half-dyed (beyond 'highlighted') hair in Half U clinging onto her boyfriend's arm. Tut tut. I wonder if any 'concerned members of the public' (they *are* so pesky) will write in.

I also saw someone from the School With The Most Indecent Uniform In Singapore Bar None, and I think I've now decided that the colour and the design of the uniform are revolting (though not as bad as He2 Gu3 Zhong1 Xue2), and besides, it's too thin. And the strap was visible. Visible straps are irritating. When my sister does that I like to complain, and she'll say "none of your business". Once in a while when she does that, I'll start pulling them and letting go, and she'll shoo me off.



Som asked me how much a Harry Potter book was, and was surprised to find out that it was not $10 or so for one :) aureate, you can sell the extra book on ebay and recoup some of your loss. And check better next time :)

I didn't know about the immortality thing. I always thought it was just lead to gold. Or maybe I forgot. My wealth of history knowledge, built up since primary 1 by reading various books at the library, is eroding. Lead actually *can* be turned to gold by science now, but it costs more to make the gold than to buy the gold itself.



The paranoid guy, Steve Gibson (see some of his rants on security - http://grc.com/), has a subpixel font rendering demo on his page. Downloaded it and tried it - wow. I need to find a subpixel font rendering Document reader for my Palm IIIc. Tried Wordsmith, but the program was too big, and even in Read mode, it needed lots of free space to open a document. Even then, the subpixel font rendering was a touch irritating on the eye. Maybe I'll stick with iSilo 2.58 (small executable - 80+KB, small doc sizes - 20% smaller than Doc). But not subpixel font rendering and no auto scrolling. Let's see if MobiPocket Reader 4.1 is good.



Excerpt from mike's list:

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/making.html

Last Week's Mystery Pic



No, it's not a "Canadian beer TV ad," "Washington Crossing the Delaware 2.0," nor is it "what is left of the government's credibility after being railroaded into the settlement with Microsoft" as suggested by some readers. Most commented on the subject of the picture. But the interesting fact about last week's Mystery Pic is the picture itself. It's a brilliant color photograph taken in 1915! While traveling with the Tsar, Russian photographer Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii took pictures onto three separate glass plates per image that were designed to be shown in color using a slide projector he invented. Technicians recently developed a technique to scan the plates so the images could be assembled in a computer. Last week's Mystery Pic is one of dozens of breathtaking Prokudin-Gorski photographs in the collection, which is on display at the Library of Congress Web site. Congratulations to reader Geoff Washburn for being first with the right answer. Here are three more examples:





"harry potter and the philosopher's stone" - from the uk publisher
"harry potter and the sorcerer's stone" - new york publisher
learnt this the hard way; suffice to say i bought one more book from the series than i ought to, at the height of the craze. :)
Unlike other denominations, catholics take the communion materials as the blood and the body of Christ Literally- technical term is "transmutation" as the priests convert the materials. As far as I know, most other denominations use it more as a symbol. My father told me that in Chapel of the holy spirit (anglican low church in potong pasir), the pastor would have to quietly drink up the leftover wine after every communion service rather than throw it away.

I suppose wine couldn't be packaged- or the gift shop would need a license for the sale of alcoholic beverages (guffaw)
Though i have misgivings about the existence of home communion sets

First book in harry potter series is "Harry potter and the philosopher's stone" not sorcerer's stone- philosopher's stone is, historically, the material sought by alchemists. A sliver of it dissolved in water gives the draught of immorality, oops, immortality. It also turns lead into gold, when a small amt is mixed into the cauldron. Chemical "transmutation" (in the name of the pun, no offense intended)

The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream
[Ed: This URL has been edited so it does not display so long and breaks word wrap]

Monday, November 12, 2001

Mats. Gah. Must be some going away present, since we're the last batch doing this syllabus.

Today it was a different guy doing the announcing, and he asked us to tear our scrap paper in half. Odd. Not that many people did so, anyway.

I want to see Elf Gone Wrong's tongue stud! Recently, her group (Puppy, Fierce Girl and her) have had a new addition to her morning gatherings.

Felicia said that she had a dream involving me last night. Apparently we (a bunch of S05A people) were out, and I started singing in this "ultra-high, Mariah Carey voice". Eeeeeee.



Argh. Yet another victim of the dearth of Internet Advertising.

UselessKnowledge.com's newsletter won't be sent out anymore - at least not for the forseeable future.

I wish I had a credit card. Then I'd register most of my shareware, and buy all sorts of weird stuff like Demotivational Posters (ooo, fun. Motivational Posters are irritating), UselessKnowledge.com Trivia God Hats (yeah, I know lots of rubbish) and paid subscriptions to various lists like 'This Is True' and the LangaList.

Sunday, November 11, 2001

I was at Suntec City and there was a long queue of people on the 3rd floor. On closer inspection, it turned out to be a queue for a service. The queue ended at this large opening decorated like a cave, with a sign sayinq "Rock" on top. Apparently the hall can hold almost 2,000 people.

Going to the gift shop, I found 2 suspect items:

1. Bible action figures. There was Samson, Moses and Jesus.

2. Home communion sets. Each contained wafers & grape juice (from concentrate). Don't they have to be blessed by a priest to turn into the Blood and Body of Christ?

Suspect, very suspect.



Some people are smart and some people are very smart. Some people are lazy, and some are hardworking.



IIc? Must be some older model :) Maybe that's why it's so much cheaper than my IIIc, even with the keyboard and connectivity kit thrown in (which cost $549, though Kheng Hwa's office paid for 90% of it).

I can't remember the old name for the Harry Potter movie. Wonder if any one here will dress up as a wizard to go and watch. Kheng Hwa swung his lightsaber in the air when we went to watch the re-release of Star Wars V.
I wish i had a LCD monitor. My brother has that sony clie, which I got to play with for about 20 minutes before it went to london. Hrrmph
He had a HP palmtop in '97, and another secondhand palm before this one. Hrrrmmmph.
Saw palm IIc with portable keyboard and connectivity kit for $300 or $400 in courts advertisement. Very tempted (if i get the cash)

Here's an idea: Mediacorp is having a scriptwriting competition, deadline 30 Nov. Send in your entries! Cash prizes of over $30k and chance to see your work on TV. Organised by arts central- yeah, it sold out to popular culture long ago.
http://artscentral.mediacorptv.com/feature/scriptwriting/



Caught 3 different trailers for Harry potter movie on Saturday morning TV. Why are there so many trailers? Why is it renamed "harry potter and the sorcerer's stone"?
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