When you can't live without bananas

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Saturday, December 01, 2001

My box feels old.

An Important Lesson Xephyris has Learnt in Life:
Never swallow Listerine (intentionally or otherwise) when you gargle.
*coughchokecoughhhackhackcough*
Followup Important Lesson Xephyris has Learnt in Life:
Never drink the fruit of a citrus fruit (orange, lemon, or both mixed together) after the above event has occured.
*achkacackackack*

I've finally ordered Dark Age of Camelot - it's shipping in 3 days. I can't wait.

[Editor's note: This was the last time Xephyris posted for a loooooong time (and as of writing, 11/03/02, he still has not returned to this humble home we call Balderdash), as he retreated to play Dark Age of Camelot day and night until he was enlisted on January 7th. After his 1 week PES E BMT, he returned to indulging in the game which so fascinated him :) Send him your regards!]

There's a strange taste in my mouth.
Today, I took my SAT IIs in the Land of Hot Socks, the Buaya and the Buayee (ACJC). Actually, I think it (and the people) are overrated.

There were quite a few RJ people there, some J1s in Uniform and assorted J2s. There was some girl with green tinted hair.

Nau'shil was some way in front of me and wore her RGS jacket during the test. Kind of defeats the point of wearing skimpy clothes.

They've given in to political correctness, but sloppily - most dates in World History were in CE (Common Era) ie AD (Anno Domini) and BCE (Before Common Era) ie BC (Before Christ). Unfortunately, AD was used at least once, in one of the questions. The Chief Supervisor had terrible pronunciation. Too bad I didn't remember any quotes.

What's it with handphone covers? They don't seem to serve any purpose, except to make it harder to take your handphone out.

I later went down to Jade, meeting Mr Ong on his ex-4Kers outing. CDs are now $6 per disc, unless you buy 3 or more, whereupon they become $5 a disc. Odd, with competition (there is now another shop a few units away), prices go up. And now they don't give jewel cases anymore, just flimsy plastic holders, and the printing on the CDs is dinky - 2 that I and Kairen bought say "Magic 80min 700MB multispeed 24X". They still have that unfortunate habit of stamping the CDs, though (maybe it's meant to spoil them!)

Going home, I found that Battle Realms, Civilisation III and my original Baldur's Gate II couldn't install, so I suspect something's up with my CD drive itself.

11:11PM:
The IDE cable gave out a while ago.

Primary IDE Channel no 80 conductor cable installed
The CD Drive has disappeared from the Primary/Secondary Master/Slave display at startup after the memory check.
Well, in times of penury, there is only one thing to do - PLAY PIRATED COMPUTER GAMES
Commentary on Gabriel's new monster rig withheld in my fits of rage.

Anyway, here are the latest games I got hold of.

First, in contrast to my 18-hour binge of Metal Gear Solid 2(10 hours of which were spent watching cutscenes ... I kid you not),
I have been to the other extreme in terms of games - from the graphically cutting-edge to a game with no moving graphics:)

King of Dragon Pass, ladies - the closest I've seen to a gamebook online. FANTASTIC shit. It's based on the Runequest
RPG world of Glorantha, which will mean nothing to everyone except the most hard-core RPG people around. You command
a small clan and must lead it to glory... by allocating really cool stuff like magical power(to Destiny, Growth, Battle), managing
your herds, arranging hero quests - sounds like generic empire building? Well, this one is accompanied by brilliant
still art work, *long* epic descirptions of conversations, interactions, events...(at the end, your whole accomplishments are summarized in a saga
format that's surprisingly good to read)... and there's a real feeling that what you do in the game affects everything else that
occurs after on. And your advisers and populace have *really* good personalities. Any game that has a talking head that says
this gets my vote:

"By taking a Trickster onto our ring, the other clans expect us to sow disorder. Let us confuse them further by refusing to do
so."

Other games on my list:

Stupid Invaders - really good animation, and majorly cornball voice-overs. It's a very linear, straight-forward, Ren-and-Stimpy humour type adventure game,
just click to pick up items, look at items, interact with items.. but it's got good production values(and an artwork style that has a strangely Nickelodeon cartoon feel to it),
some very nice jazz tracks at the start of the game, and some good satire amidst all the toilet humour(a lot of farts, burps, green goo, green goo, and more green goo).

Project Eden - this one is a strange beast to review. It's got a pretty decent 3d engine and a team of elite armed cyborgs, but the fps shooting isn't the major premise of the game(or third-person rather, it uses a camera angling reminiscent of Tomb Raider - after all, it's done by the same people. Lots of puzzles, cross-character interaction(you control 4 dudes sent to the "Real Meat Factory" to investigate the disappearnce of some technicians.. ), and a fairly good engine that does lighting efects well, but is clearly meant for the PS2 with its bland textures.


Friday, November 30, 2001

My computer has just been upgraded, thanks to Chris, Tim's brother.

400MHz => 1.33GHz
128MB RAM => 512MB RAM
Intel Graphics Card => GeForce 2 64MB
Integrated Modem-Soundcard which screwed up my sound when I dialed up => Soundblaster Live!

All for $1010. In fact the only things from the old comp are the (new) 15" LCD, the (1 year old) 30GB HDD and the (3 year old) 8GB HDD and the DVD Drive. The only bad thing's the Athlon's noisy fan.
My cousin went to rgs prom in a madonna outfit. No, not the 80's one with the- nevermind [Ed: Spiky bra]. The white cowboy suit in "Music" music video. And the hat, wig, OTT rings to match.

Andrew's humble theory: Black's popular with un-slim girls in order to hide excess poundage. Black's popular with girls trying to emulate hollywood sleek star look. Black's popular with pseudo-rocker chic girls. Black's popular with girls who want to draw attention away from their figure. Black's popular with girls who don't want a colour that suggests sheer. Andrew should stop typing more before he gets into any trouble.
isn't jessica tay this mannish looking ex-rgsian

she looks more feminine now
sends more recent picture, of her with long hair

good grief
who's that??!

Jessica Tay!

AIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

hahaha

you've gotta be kidding
she(in the awful neoprints)'s fat!
Ugh, I've been had.

File sharing, especially MP3 sharing, does have its disadvantages. Misnamed files are very very annoying.

I've just found out that what I thought was Tchaikovsky's "Peter and the Wolf" (leeched during the good old Napster days), was actually by Prokofiev. At one point, I was confused and led to believe that both of them composed such a work. Ah well.

At least it's not as bad as things like "Mozart - Moonlight Sonata". No, the worst I've seen so far is, ahem, "Beethoven - Pachelbel Canon", or something like that. Not to mention all the "paino" concertos.

Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije Suite, Op. 60, is very interesting. I listened to "The Wedding of Kije" again today and it was quite enjoyable, and I downloaded Troika (Sleigh Ride). But then, it's film music. Then again, I found the former by searching for "Classical Thunder", one of those Classical compilations. Which is quite good actually, much better than "The Best Classical Album In The World, Ever!!!!!!!", with such stuff as Respighi (yeah, I'd not heard of him before that either). The Classical Symphony by Prokofiev is good.

A large number, perhaps even most of the songs on MP3.com now appear to have become streaming only. !@#$%^&*().
I just came back from the Raffles Guys School (RGS) Alma Mater night. Disclaimer: I was asked to go by Screwed Up Girl, so I wasn't buayaing. Like I'd make a good buaya.

Disclaimer: This does not indicate any *ahem* mortification with sexuality. Most of these were noted with amusement rather than with hate or disgust.

I arrived at almost 11pm, and left at maybe 12:30am, and I didn't actually *enter* the ballroom proper, but here are some notes, my report.

All the boyfriends were hanging around. Most of them were in shorts and looked beng and pai kia-ish. A lot had dyed hair. The most interesting of the lot was this plump guy in a black shirt, silver tie and large black trenchcoat. He reminded me of a Mafia goon! [NB: Ruxin tells me Tanglin Secondary School was having their Prom their too, so *maybe* the Bengs were from there. Jiamin claims that the Mafia goon was her classmate, but I'm skeptical.]

A few Prefects were going off just as I was coming. Maybe they didn't want to party.

The MCs for the evening were remarkably deep voiced, lending credence to the name "Raffles Guys".



A myriad of fashion was seen, and the more exotic or weird ones shall be noted.



Clothing:
It seemed some people were not used to gowns. One girl had to lift hers up just to walk. Pity. Another held it up much too high - to the thigh (ugh). I wonder how they danced in their gowns during the disco later.

Back baring outfits were quite popular. One girl had a bare back and on the front was this shiny fish-scaled piece of cloth, which was sheer cut. And she jiggled a lot.

One had a white dress which seemed to have the middle portion of the back ripped off. Another girl had a tube top patched with both brown and shiny black leather. She had to pull up. So sad. This other girl had a black top, with a blue skirt, and pink fabric draped around it.

Black was very very popular. Disappointing, the lack of adventure. Then again, I'm not going to be taking Shawn's suggestion of dressing as Barney for *mine* own Prom.

Surprisingly, there was some ethnic dress. A few in Cheongsams, others in Indian costumes (the midriff baring ones, with a top, a long flowing skirt and a shawl).



Accessories, hair and shoes:
One girl had a fur-trimmed overcoat. And another fur cape was sighted on someone else. Yet another was wearing a Michael Jackson-esque tophat, and had 2 ponytails which reminded me of Michael Jackson, too.

One girl evidently left her hair for too long in the curler for it looked like Maggi Mee (like the Rafflesian Spirit). Another threaded pearls through one lock of her hair.

Some people had designs on their backs traced out with stones, or crystal, or something. Others had glitter in their hair and on their shoulders. Boots were remarkably prevalent. There were many high, black boots. Bondage?

Although the theme was "Masquerade", only one girl wore a mask. A mask black on one side of the front and white on the other. She had a blue feather in her hair and a silver cape, and I'm told she was Zing. Another girl had a red malay-esque cape over her whitish gown. And she had elf ears!



Raffles Guys:
This girl had short hair and a T-Shirt with Red and Black horizontal stripes , and she was wearing men's shoes. However, this could not compare to another one, with even shorter hair (though not cropped a la Jessica Tay before going to the UK), a light beige shirt inside, a large black leather trenchcoat, and men's shoes. I saw her in the corridor while walking with Adela and Geraldine, and we all noticed. "Was that a girl or a guy?" [NB: Ruxin tells me that "ohh..the guyish gal in trenchcoat is felicia.. we shared the same hotel room.. she's very suave right?". Indeed, she was quite suave :)]

The student band had the singer singing very very low. Lower than some guys' ranges, in fact. It's very weird and disconcerting to see gowned girls playing electric guitars and drums.



Miscellaneous:
And I met Yaoi Girl. Nice to meet you, Liying. Nice bondage boots (ooo.). Nice, erm, squeaky voice. ^_^. It needs some work before it becomes a Jap Schoolgirl voice, work on it!

This girl, presumably doing AV, reminded me of Huijun and Huimei, with her gait and the RGS jacket!

As there was last year, the letters "RGS" were spelled out in Sculpted Ice. Nice. Some girl put her tiara on the letter "G".

One prefect took off her court shoes. Aww. Another mannish prefect looked a bit like #5. I wonder if she knows #5. Some shrieked as they ran to take a photo with the other prefects. Leftover influence of Act Cute 2?

Learning from Nanyang, RGS has extended its merchandising. Now you've RGS bears in pinafores. But the Nanyang bear looked *okay* because Nanyang girls have short hair. Somehow the head of the RGS bear doesn't look right.

Some of the black cutouts on the walls were of guys in hose/breeches [I believe - the ones with the puffy thighs]. The legendary Raffles Guys?

Some of them screamed even worse than me.

Later, there was a Mat band. Mat bands are actually quite good.

Some girls were dancing on tables. Apparently one fell and broke her ankle (Adela's friend), so I surmise, so they weren't allowed to dance on tables anymore. Who dances on tables, especially in high heels? As I left I saw the ambulance outside.

Heard in the elevator, ""Very tired...". "My legs ah, can't take it." "My sandals [are painful]". Ah well. The price of wearing female shoes (hey, at least they don't need socks, and they keep the feet aired). What a pity.

Apparently Jane went too. She says that she "saw at least five girls with the same gown, which i also happens to possess (for some reason or another). The getups were boring! i'm going to tailor me an orange outfit next year;)
hey the mcs are pretty bimbotic, they hardly hae deep voices whot"

And while scribbling all of these notes, I was seated behind the Principal, the Vice-Principal and many of the Prefects.

Now I've an idea of what the RJ prom will be like. Much more high class than the RI prom, which was held in the School Hall (grr). Though Zhiming points out that we paid $40 while they paid $60. At least that meant I could wear my green tail freely!

Minrui: what did you go there for anyway.... advertise your website?

Thursday, November 29, 2001

Search Referrals - 29th November 2001 / Andrew's new page / Using the Cane

Now that Google has finally reindexed my Tripod page, I no longer get all the hits redirected from Geocities.

On the plus side, I get to see all the weeeird things people search for in Search Engines, to find my page.

I refer you to Yaoi Girl's own Search Engine referrer page.

At present, of the last 20 searches, there were 6 for "Green Tea Ice Cream", which, considering her blog is titled that, is not surprising, especially considering the links to it from her Yaoi/Anime community. 3 more of the queries are related to ice-cream. As usual, there are the "hentai" (hentai ice and rena hentai) searches, and one "sex on ice". Why is sex mentioned so frequently there?

Maybe she should stop talking about sex, hentai and tentacles on it.

And it seems many of her friends' blogs have a similar design - large anime-themed picture on top, sidebar on the left with information and links to other in the community. That sort of stuff.

Looking at mine own search engine hits:

First, the ones from when this page was indexed when it was the old download page.

"blood sword" - considering this was when this was a repository for Blood Sword covers, among other things. Mmm. I still get Google's top 10 for "Blood Sword" hits (and the Associate still owes me some help with my Blood Sword page...)

6 hits about variations of George Bush wavs - Too bad it was George Herbert Walker Bush's speech. It goes: "You know, Barbara is unstable. She is too big, and spends too much. She's nagging, lazy and uninspired, but when Barbara holds my pride, I have always risen to the occasion. This may seem frivolous, and it don't mean itself, but this weekend, we did it together, right here in this chamber, pushing, my missile inch by inch further and deeper, and I'm huge, and I think twice, really, that this is no time to boast. Tonight she wanted me to know that someday having a good time must end. Which means, no more next year than this year, oh no, this will not stand! She now recognises that I have needs, my piece is hard and it's been languishing in these hallowed halls for years now. There're certain things that a president can do without the wife, and I'm gonna do them. Let me level with ya, I relish I'm good, and job, and I cannot wait. Let me tell you what you can do. Give me the same thing 43 Governors have - a new woman under complete government control. And you, pay the bill. And finally, I had a joint tonight, and it is, kicking in now. And that is fine. No one ever thinks - I need drugs, but after all, a man needs a vice. You know, I have bad dreams. This time, I saw Elvis, that thief, making fun of my life, and you know, my thing. *This* will not stand. Thank you, and God Bless our beloved country, thank you very very much.

Listen to the WAV.

[Addendum: The link is broken. Download the WAV.


Embedded MP3]

"Ecce Quomodo Moritur" was searched for once. Mmm, rare to find it on the ih'ernet.

"College Football Handicaps" - What the hell?! But that's Askjeeves, which is weird, so.

"what shall i do it is VERY I MEAN IT IS VERY BORING" - also from Askjeeves. They think my page is funny? Wah.

"Raffles Voices" - whoah, I'm on Yahoo's first page of Google-provided results about my alumni choir.

"nelson kwei" - Hrm. Maybe they'll find the secret page.

"cache:Csg1rsKLWGE:www.geocities.com/gssq/me.htm nanyang sports bra" - The image is frightening. Probably because I talk about a lot of stuff on my "About Me" page. Don't remember a bra though.

"pictures of trishaw in singapore" - probably references to Melvin's trishaw.

"scanned pso pictures" - that's the problem with not using inverted commas. Maybe they'll like Xephyris' PSO Section ID calculator.

"turn off your handphone picture sign" - ???. Apparently because one of the quotes of the day at the time it was indexed was Apple Woman's talk about her tai gor tai handphone.

"Chiang Kia-Shek" - How very odd, just because History 6 Lecturer made a snide remark about how Chiang Kai Shek was unpatriotic. Well, he was damned if he did and damned if he didn't, I don't think even his best German trained troops would've survived the Japanese.

"pictures of jc girls singapore" - ???. If only ah. The site would get millions of hits then.



1:42AM:
"science over 18 vagina pictures sex" - uhhh.



Andrew Gan has finally updated his page! Oops, not *that* one, this one. I just put it on Netmind so I can visit when it is updated. Netmind is bear'er than Spyonit.

Surprisingly personal, without being angsty (that's a compliment by the way, oh Bunny Killer). No drab colour schemes (why do you think successful sites like bay and yahoo all use white backgrounds, black text and blue hyperlinks?), no irritating "about me" that has words or phrases. For example, his might go:

bunnies. babylon 5. (insert latest obsession here, eg "Killer"). some cute stuff. dancing.

or something like that :)

"I still want to know about certain things: Why does Madam Chiang have issues with the (s)elected Prefectorial Board? And I say Henry Park is somewhat elitist too, though not as much as RI." - something from him that inexplicably appeared here.

How to be pretentious - very funny.

People spend all their time reading all those "deep" books, while I don't. I'll just run around acting like a fool.



'People don't use the cane now, except for cows and horses,' said Chief Justice Yong Pung How when he dismissed their appeals [of a couple who caned their maid]. I bet if a case of people who caned their children was brought before him, he'd not say that.
Insider information on the Nanyang Prom:

Their dresses must all be white, and only certain cuts are allowed. No bare shoulders, at most spaghetti strap.

The skirt must be of a certain cut - it must fluff out specifically. It must be of a certain length.

Black court shoes only.

No dyed hair. Hair must be neat.

If they do not wear the correct outfit, there will be a rack of clothes for them to borrow.

Wednesday, November 28, 2001

Also started on my bibliophile pilgrimage. To Kino with ralph, then to Borders (will have to go back to Kino again but i don't like the atmosphere as much as borders). Much tempted to watch Magnolia that En ming ranted about. Purchased a Naxos collection of assorted Verdi opera choruses. When lyn foo asked how come it was so cheap, i told her that Naxos employed east european musicians at low wages. Ralph was wandering around looking for a place that sells original CivIII- don't know if he managed to purchase it in the end. Then walked over to Far east plaza for 2ndhand bookshops (i think sunny's still the best) There's an upcoming one that supposedly imports cheap books from India- stock coming in in 6 weeks (Angel Bookstore [Ed: Angel is expensive.], quite secluded). Right now they don't have much in store (shopkeeper-"you see, worst fantasy collection ever here.")

Ended up renting a Babylon 5 technomage series book, Plath's Bell Jar, a Peter Wimsey mystery by Dorothy Sayers, and rama revealed. Next target: Attempt to obtain terry pratchett discworld series and rest of Rama series. Ran out of energy, returned home to blog. And update homepage. Which i will publicise when i'm satisfied with it.
Think Long Hair on guys is against singapore regulations. Or at least civil servant regulations.

Woohooo~@@***!~ A levels over! Went to watch harry potter with class. As usual, things screwed up- we left school barely 20 minutes before the show started at 12, gals disappeared on mysterious errands, thus necessitating the change of ticket booking, adam was stranded outside the theatre when we went in and he went off on a food run, and further disintegration after the movie- apparently the mysterious errand was an urgent visit to the toys department, Taka.

Movie was pretty good. Loved the special effects, floating candles and pumpkins, (watch out for the moving portraits and the myriad looks/expressions exchanged between teachers/students throughout the show). Snape does a wonderfully dry impression that is so brit, Maggie Smith is imperious. Though everyone (excepting Oliver Wood) has much less of brit accents than expected- some of them sound suspiciously New yorkish (though i'm no expert). Owls are sooooo cute! (as are sorting hat and Fluffy). Think the kids playing Hermione and Ronald are such great character actors.
(I just realized I'd spoilt the movie for some of you, you have my sincere apologies if you've come this far)
Apparently some key character development bits were cut and the passage from Fluffy to the philosopher's stone was shortened for length (some obstacles not mentioned).

Ah well, JMS (producer of Babylon 5 and spinoff Crusade) claimed that in producing episodes for TV dramas, the first to go at post-production editing was the humour bits, then the character development bits. Which happened to to be hallmarks of B5. And shows how zai B5 was.

Think i'm inexorably and inexplicably inquisitive about female prom-fashion. The bits i've already heard piqued my interest.
[Ed: Gowns, gowns, more gowns. Booring.]
Woo hoo!!! The A-levels r finally OVER! wooooo!

Now I'm tasked with the fun job of typing a LOT of essays b4 i get enlisted... sheesh.... i have over 20 essays to do in the 13 remaining days... I _must_ do 2 a day, but I havent managed to reach that efficiency yet =(

Hehe, went to school early today from Julian's place today, cos I'd promised my teacher the day b4, not realising i would be staying over at a friend's house... ended up sleeping at 3 am, waking up at 6, and wandering around till 6:45 b4 making my way to school... *growl* living close to school is so useful.. i would have taken 1+ hour to reach school... i think Julian's mum must be curious how I appeared at his house once at 7:15 am, then this time, disappearing even b4 7 am... hehe... anyway, my trip to school to discuss mouse with my teacher ended up being a 3h debugging session on a PAE program... =) it was interesting cos i was over-writing the database, not realising that possible rj-enthuiasts may have submitted their stuff to the database... when we checked some time later, there was 1 record of someone... i wonder how many i destroyed by the debugging... =)

Argh, so many things I want to do.. like work on MetaMud, work on my terrain generator, work on my directX library, read books, go out, play Battle Realms, idle, idle some more, sleep etc.. ARGH and I have to type all the essays some more.... *growls some more*...

Okie.. enuf rabblings by me... have fun enjoying the holidays b4 ns! =)

NS Countdown: 13 days
AHH. A LEVELS ARE OVER! Now I've 15 days to set my affairs in order.

The busker was there today! And his voice was especially irritating. I sang, not entirely pacing correctly. A bit off, but otherwise it was okay. I think I pissed him off. People were looking at me weirdly - "Now they're 2 irritating people singing!". Actually I cheated. I started the instrumental introduction at "B" instead of "D". Ah well.

My mother chopped 8 of my sister's 4 year old basil plants this morning and she was crying. She claimed that she didn't know that, unlike bougainvilla (is that spelt right?), basil plants die if they have no leaves left. And she didn't even apologise. (...)

I think I know why YC's Gah + Crap Place gets so many hits - misspellings.

einam_z has been sending me lots of songs on Audiogalaxy. Paul Mauriat - Love Is Blue (So now I know the name of that lounge music hit! :0).

Kairen offered me $50 yesterday to take off my shirt from my table at Prom and shout "National Service is National Slavery". Ms Bala said could I please not do anything that'd get me thrown out :)
*Are* there girls' schools that allow girls to dye/layer/perm their hair? Because I need a new place to stalk during the holidays.

There's something fiendishly slutty about a girl with dyed hair if she does it right.....
Before History tests/exams, Jiax always tells me, "die". And in the end he does better than I do - topping the Arts level, in fact.

Tuesday, November 27, 2001

I saw one of the legendary pony-tailed students from the School With The Most Indecent Uniform In Singapore Bar One today, while coming out of my estate.

Tong said the dogs reacted especially violently to me. Ah well.

As I was looking at the board for seating arrangements today, I heard this high voice [description of voice will not be posted her] behind me. "... I'm scared". It was familiar, I knew what I was going to see before I turned around. 8 year old girl! (She's scared? I should be scared.)

Myo Li says her voice hasn't changed since Primary School.

"Gross, ugly" - Friend 1
"I think she's quite cute" - Friend 2

I think she looked better with long hair.

I am told that only 2 Singapore students, both from TJ, will take the A levels tomorrow (F Maths Special Paper).

Red Faced Guy was wandering around school again, in PE Shirt and Blue Shorts.

And a woman covered up, a la Taliban, on the bus home today.

And if teachers can dye their hair, male teachers should keep long hair too!
Why shouldn't teachers dye their hair? The only people who aren't allowed are schoolchildren (and that depends on the school).

Monday, November 26, 2001

I always wanted to go to Pompeii and Herculaneum.



I saw the Red Faced guy again! His face is redder than Ian's. Ian and Shawn offered me $5 (each) to ask him why his face is so red, but I refused because he looks like he'll do something bad to me.

Blank faced girl kept crossing and uncrossing her legs during Economics S and the guy on my left kept shaking his legs. Gah.

And there was another teacher who'd dyed her hair! Are they allowed to?



After the paper I went to pick up my UN Peacekeeping Cheat Sheet - Elizabeth's good essay. And I got acquainted with 2 out of her 3 dogs. They kept barking. As did the neighbour's dog. Maybe she should get an Aibo for the fourth dog! I wonder if they kept barking when Myo Li / Shuyu / Zhiyong went over.

"You can't stand, you can't sit, you can't walk" - Tong on dresses
Why is everyone quoting "eatmejusteatme"? It's never been so popular.
Oxford is taking forever to reply. I'm sure there must be something better for me to do than check my letterbox twice a day.

Just finished chem option (transition elements) the paper i consider(ed) the "easiest" 'cos it's very short (1.25 hours) and there are only 2 sets of notes to study for. Of the 4 questions two were on iron, one on copper and one on cobalt. Strong suspicions that something was fishy (no it wasn't amines)- a question on the relative "oxidising abilities of iron (II)" in the absence/presence of hydroxide ions. Now everyone knows that in the Cambridge a level syllabus, iron (III) has different oxidising powers depending on whether hydroxide ions are present. Iron (II) ions may have the ability to be oxidised to iron (III), or to oxidise other elements by itself being reduced to iron (0). Unfortunately the latter case is irrelevant as redox occurs in aqueous solution.

Do battlerealms or CivIII require 3D cards? I stopped buying computer games for 2 years (weren't any good ones anyway beyond a certain shoot-em-up). My 5-yr old computer (which has had almost every part replaced) doesn't have one. I know the harry potter advenutre game requires one (go play at the website).

Gah. My cousin's spending her holidays in Jurong library collecting comm service hours, as are hordes of other JC students. J2s: CCA records out, collect yours today! . Dr. Chan is really great- he gave me membership points for alchemy and enrichment points for its activities. Even though he liked to make cracks abt me disappearing most of the time.

My church's having a youth camp in dec. in camp sarimbun. One hopes the casualty rate does not exceed the 80+ people who have broken legs, gashes, fevers, sprained limbs, flus, asthma attacks, every year during RI's orientation.

Considering the following work options before I go into uni:
a) Temp office work in a place where I get paid at least $8 an hour
b) Temp teaching job in RI. (applied to teach with lit topping my list of preferred subjects). Comes with the perk of having a valid excuse to kapoh at choir.
c) Church's SERVE programme- full-time attachment to church ministries for a short period. Get paid.
d) Temp job in my relative's company in KL. In any case, going to KL for a "pilgrimage" to Niketown, KLCC and Philharmonic orchestra.
e) Sales assistant in Giordano outlets. $5.50 an hour. The only reason why I'm considering it: staff discounts on brand clothes.
f) Internship at Singapore Press Holdings
sigh
sometimes i wish we weren't so civilised. i could be happy in a world like below.

"A big reason you have all these teens joining these paramilitary forces is because they don't have jobs, carrying an AK-47 is cool, and it's something to do. "

but then again, i probably wouldn't have broadband while hiding in a cave outside Jalalabad eating beef jerky. Massacring villages, raping the female populace, ambushing American soldiers, and defecting to whichever new armed faction happens to be bigger doesn't give me as much utility as 100+kb/s download speeds of fansubbed anime or div-x ripped movies. Not to mention the highly unlikely possibility of ever eating blue cheese again(unless I ambushed the right UN aid convoy)....
i had a very long post but i clicked on the wrong button and it all cleared.

so i shall redirect my rage at CS

Sunday, November 25, 2001

A choking miasma lingers in the air of my house, a fetid stench. Belachan. Ugh. I'm choking.

Elizabeth says she's giving up on History 7 - "too much to study". I could say the same for Econs S :) "Econs S is worth studying" - Tong. I think there'll be a Pareto improvement if I allocate my time to studying History 7 instead. Actually, there'll definitely be a Pareto improvement if I stop looking for Power Ranger skins for Winamp (found them already). No one had the FULL Power Rangers In Space theme on Audiogalaxy, so I had to find it on Morpheus :) But she'll do well. Then again, people say that of me.


7:36PM:
Gah, another pair of flourescent shorts just split. I'm gonna have to plunder the going out set soon.


8:36PM:
Audiogalaxy has just gone up in usefulness. They now let you browse other users' shared files! Whee. This means I don't have to upload files Tim wants to Tripod (since his ICQ can't receive files, probably due to Connection Sharing with his brother).

I got invited to this classical music group - Lucianapopy. A lot of people speaking Spanish in it. I'll see how it goes. Maybe I'll hire Jessica Tay to translate (she learnt Spanish in 3 months at the start of last year, and did quite well in the exam too)!

And I found out what the icon of a user getting zapped by lightning means - User Is Online.

Am currently acquainting myself with Britten's Simple Symphony and A Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra (Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell).


9:53PM:
Argh, finally rebuilt mp3 playlist. It's irritating, after Windows freezes, I rarely remember to "reload" the playlist when I next run Winamp so it gets stuck with the playlist it had the last time it closed properly, so if I'd added or removed entries, they won't be reflected, then the next time I save over the old playlist it will wipe out the changes I'd made.

Also, got rid of 3-5 corrupted files by deleting them in DOS. One with a DOS filename including the "=|" (one character) character was deleted by moving all the files into another directory, deleting the directory with the corrupted file, and the recreating the directory and moving files back. So I've lost my Takcas and Janacek (however they're spelled) songs. Heck. I'll get back Notturno another time. Must Spinrite my HDD.

Sometimes I'm perfectionist in the "wrong" ways.


9:58PM:
OUCH. I just overwrote the playlist I'd made, with the old one. !@#$#%^&*().


10:08:
To add insult to injury, my computer froze after that last line was posted, and Blogger is damn slow now. The corrupted file names *may* be due to an overzealous NDD.


10:32:
Some of the (badly ripped, with pops) MP3s I ripped from Quanxing's CD : Mozart - the Last 5 Symphonies, have disappeared. Maybe He wants me to study :)

Teaching David how to use Audiogalaxy. He doesn't want to share files because, "dun want to
troublesome and freaky to have pple come in any time of day to grab sth from my comp"

Gah.
Interesting stuff:


http://eatmejusteatme.50g.com/war.htm

Where does this leave Islam, both in its moderate and fundamentalist forms? Can Islam really coexist peacefully with the free world, with other religions, and with people of no faith? I'm not so optimistic. Islamic teachings tend to contradict the two tenets of the free world, capitalism and democracy. Syariah law discourage interest rates even as a compensation for inflation. Name one rich Islamic country. That isn't sitting on an ocean of oil. Can't do it? Now name one Islamic country which has a constitution that enshrines equality of her people. Can't do that either? Name one mosque, anywhere in the world, which allows females to enter. More problems. Oh, all men are created equal in Allah's eyes, all right. It's just that women aren't.

The point is that Islam is a stringent, insecure faith - this explains the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism since the 1980s. It's a reaction to what are seen as the excesses of a secular world. It's a knee-jerk reaction out of the insecurity of the ascendancy of other faiths. Once upon a time the Church too tried to impose its rule all over the world and become the one true faith. But the Middle Ages have moved on. About 500 years ago, in fact. If Islam is to become secure with its position in the world and find a modus vivendi with other religions, change will have to come from within. And so believers of a faith obsessed with proving its superiority over all others have some questions to ask of themselves.
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