"In a country as big as the United States, you can find fifty examples of anything." - Jeffery F. Chamberlain

***

On Saturday, I went with MFM and Acidflask to visit Kampong Buangkok, the last kampong on mainland Singapore. MFS was supposed to come along too, but he was lazy to get out of bed after a wild night, so.


Road in. Instead we went in by the back door.


Probably someone rich come to visit (not in the Kampong proper, but along the canal).


Path in


Stream


Stream spoilt by the concrete pipes


House exterior


MFM and Acidflask


House


Hibiscus (and not Vanda Miss Joaquim, tsk)


They're electrified. Somehow I didn't expect this.


Papaya tree


Another house


Notice the SembWaste dustbin and the street light (!). It may be a Kampong, but touches of modern Singapore are still visible. Another is how doors were locked in at least some inhabited homes (many houses have been vacated as people move out).


Moss


My theory was that the windchimes were a burglar alarm, but apparently they're something to do with spirits.


The glorious SembWaste dustbin


"Lorong Buangkok. 1954."
For the kids, 1954 is the postal code, and not a year.


Porch

We encountered a man sharpening his parang with a stone, and he talked to us for a while, though he declined to have his picture taken ("One million dollars!"). They used to have a small shop in there, but they had no business since people had moved out (and mostly old people are left), so it's now a Karang Guni. He also pointed out a coconut tree - banglas sometimes come over and climb it and pick the fruit; there used to be a Malay man with a trained monkey, but he doesn't come by anymore.


Playhouse


Vegetation


I thought this was a rope for people to hang themselves when they were sick of the kampong life, but the guy twiddled with it and showed that it was actually:


A swing for children


Bridge showcasing the juxtaposition between old (wooden planks) and new (fresh, new railings, painted green, like you'd find in the rest of the island)


Shooting coconuts


Expensive Buddha which looked very out of place


Through the trees: Civilization!


Lots of cars. No, not owned by the residents (so I surmise). See below.




House


Insane number of birds on power wires


Close-up. Notice the albino pigeon.


Trickle


Tulips in Singapore?! [someone: "shape looks like tulip but tulips need to live in the ground"]


MFM and Acidflask on a purely wooden bridge.


Abandoned TV


Continued in next post

"Few things are more satisfying than seeing your own children have teenagers of their own." - Doug Larson

***

Backlog from last semester and the holidays:


Someone said JC kids are very idealistic, but after a year in University students become jaded and cynical. I attribute this to social engineering and problematising.

After I got migrated to the new IVLE, they sneakily disabled SMS announcements. They must be losing a lot of money on it.

Some Chinese students (I suspect just those in my class) were asked on a survey what language we'd use to communicate with someone of the same dialect group: Dialect, Mandarin or English. 1 person responded "interpretive dance". For some reason everyone thought it was me. Wth.

"What else you can do with a library degree : career options for the 90s and beyond" is in Closed Stacks. They must not want too many people to get wrong ideas and not study more "useful" things.

I asked someone why he thought the quality of USP students was going down, and he said the admissions criteria was becoming more gradecentric. Also, they used to look for a "spark" but now it's a more grades-based criteria. He thought my batch was the last one with the spark. Also the marketing began to stress its premier aspect more, so the students attracted were different.

Someone observed that Singaporeans and PRCs hate each other, but both hate the Indians.

I never though I'd see 'heehee' and 'hiakz' inside an Honours thesis. *facepalm*

"Never confuse movement with action." - Ernest Hemingway

***

I hate my Matsushita UJ-850S drive. It seems to be one of the few RPC-2 drives which BOTH has no cracked firmware available AND defeats every software tool people throw at it; even the makers of DVD Region+CSS Free, who boast that "it fully supports region-protected (RPC2) DVD drives, and does not require any firmware modifications. It will even work if you have used up your region counter and can no longer change the DVD drive's region", note that "DVD-RAM, Matshita XX-8xxx, SW-9xxx series DVD drives, and Torisan DRD-Uxxx series DVD drives are not supported now, and there is no plan to support them".

[Addendum: The AnyDVD people say:

"AnyDVD works with Matsushita (Panasonic) drives, as long as:

1.) The drive is set to a specific region code. If your drive isn't, set your preferred region.
2.) CSS protected discs match this region

AnyDVD does not allow you with Matsushita (Panasonic) drives to watch or copy a CSS protected disc, which has a different region then the drive, unless you have a patched firmware. (AnyDVD allows this with every other drive)

The reason is rather simple:

MMC standard requires, that a drive should not reveal a title key on a region mismatched CSS protected disc. (It should return "Illegal request - region code does not match"). Some drives are even less restrictive and even give you the title key on region mismatch.
But AnyDVD can usually reveal the title key with a brute force attack, as long as the drive allows you to read the scrambled sectors.
Matsushita (Panasonic) drives do not! You CANNOT read the scrambled data, if the region code doesn't match.
No other drive behaves this way, only Matsushita (Panasonic) drives do, as the standard does not require a drive to not reveal the protected data on region mismatch, but Matsushita (Panasonic) drives are more restrictive as they need to be.

There is nothing AnyDVD, DVDDecrypter, or any other software can do about this. Sorry.

Solution: Set the drive to a region, and only use matching discs. AnyDVD will remove CSS/Macrovision/Adverts/User prohibitions/forced subtitles/FBI warnings/... no problem.

It cannot bypass region codes with Matsushita (Panasonic) drives."]

Luckily, Media Player Classic works (somehow - from what I read it was hardware-locked), though according to the people on The Firmare Page forums using this or VLC tool doesn't always work.

[Addendum: I found a DVD both MPC and VLC won't open, shocking all the VLC afficionados. Hah.]

Not a few people have suggested that I just download movies instead. Which, of course, is what region coding (and similar silly measures to increase supernormal profits) does - makes people download and buy pirated DVDs instead of original ones.

Pffffft.


On a side note, getting DVDs off eBay is much cheaper than buying them here - even including shipping. The only place I've seen cheaper DVDs in Singapore is at Seah Im hawker centre (S$6 each), and then they're all crappy titles (whose names elude me at the moment).

"Nobody outside of a baby carriage or a judge's chamber believes in an unprejudiced point of view." - Lillian Hellman

***

While sorting through unsorted pictures, I realised I still had some from last August's trip to Bolehland, so I shall do a short commentary based just on the pictures:



A&W Curly Fries and Root Beer Float (with the old glass). Mmm.


One face of the NEP (New Economic Policy)


Curly fries closeup.


"EXPLORE MALAYSIA. WORLD'S BEST Tourism Destination - Global Traveler, USA (2006)"
Wah, how much did they have to bribe them for this endorsement?!


"Pasaraya KK Super Mart. Buka 20 Jam" - 7-11 Ripoff. Compare this with the one in Cambodia.


Roaches galore just behind KK Super Mart, not far from an eating place. Malaysia Boleh!


"Ais Krim Goreng. Fried Ice Cream. We Satisfy You In The Culinary Way."
What other way do they propose to satisfy me in?


"Q Bar is dedicated to serve all our customers who are committed to our dress code and we aspire to bring you the best experience in qlubbing... Every customer must be a committed customer. Ladies from 18 years and above. Gentlemen from 21 years and above... Committed to no violence. Misbehaviour will not be tolerated. The only thing we wish to exclude is the kind of behaviour that makes people feel uncomfortable and unable to relax... Our entrance policy is designed to achieve balance of genders, and to encourage the kind of men women like to be around... Q Bar Management reserves the right to refuse admission without any valid reason. Q Bar is a Qlub. Dress Code: Qlubbing Style Only"
Q Bar discrimination, plus Malaysian English.


"Hong Kong Kim Gary Restaurant. NON HALAL"


Ersatz pseudo-Egyptian pillar. Notice the camera, open book, teddy bear, fountain pen and cup of cocktail lining it.


"You Can See Our Delicacy. You Can Feel Our Sincerity. Soup. Processing Time: 420 mins (3 steps). Weight: -. Methodology: Boil... Total Processing Time: 10 hours 35 mins (39 steps)... Even Though It's Just A Mouthful Of Soup, We Have Combined All Our Painstaking Efforts, Merely To Bring It To Perfection."


Sunway Pyramid. Notice the OMGWTHBBQ Sphinx.


Wth gateway


More ersatz wth pseudo-Egyptian carvings, with Egyptians playing arcade games.


I walked into a Tony Romas and my heart sank, and a part of me died; my worst nightmares had come true: "World Famous Ribs... Bountiful Beef Ribs. A plateful of big, meaty beef ribs basted with TR's Original or your choice of sauce."


"The Body Shop. Kiss & speak out for women! Give us your thoughts on what YOU want for women in Malaysia... 'loose fat !!'"


OMGWTHBBQ Sphinx on the logo of Sunway Pyramid



Sunway Lagoon


Including a wth castle


"Spend your time wisely by visiting our shops. Avoid loitering."
I have nothing to say


"Magical Theatre Restaurant"


Lunch. HWMNBN said this was the best Char Kway Teow (Penang, of course: ethnocentric Malaysians claim that Singaporeans don't know how to make Char Kway Teow) in KL and brought me here as proof of his country's (culinary) superiority, but it was perhaps the worst I'd ever tasted, so he claimed standards had gone down and apologised on behalf of his country.


Not as happy to leave the wretched land as I expected I'd be


Instead of a flashing green man, we have a running green man. Interesting.


Sucking up Root Beer Float froth. The video was HWMNBN's idea. This A&W was much lousier than the one at KLCC (earlier) and indeed, lousy. The Curly Fries were stale and the Root Beer tepid and flat. So much for Malaysian Quality Control.


Dead pigeon. No one smiled and waved at me when I was taking this, though.


Dunkin Donuts at the bus terminal, so I got a large box to eat on the way down.

Is it considered in bad form to release embargoes press releases before they're due for release?

Heh heh.

(Flickr mirror)

stevtomato from YouTube wrote out the piano score for the 2girls1cup theme music!

Thanks, stevtomato!


stevtomato:


2Girls1Cup Reaction + Music

A very defamatory video of Bill Gates:


"Keynote - Bill Gates' Last Day - January 6, 2008"
Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect: He's always been an innovator, always inspiring all of us to think creatively about the future. And we'll be the first to give credit where credit is due.
Craig Mundie, Chief Research & Strategy Officer: Oh, absolutely. Microsoft Bob? His idea, all his.


Luckily he has the pocket-depth to sue anyone who might dare defame him.

"What we call 'Progress' is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance." - Havelock Ellis

***

From: Cyanide and Happiness


Blonde: Mark, dude, you gotta help us!

Blonde: We need to make some money fast.

Blonde: But all we have is some light piano music and this cup.

Brunette: While you guys think of something, I really gotta go take a dump.

Mark: Wait a second!

Mark: I have an idea...

“Now, this is not the beginning of the end. It is not even the end of the beginning. But it is, perhaps, the beginning of the beginning.”

A New Year's Resolution! | Funny Jokes at JibJab

Addendum: Apparently this crashes Safari on the Mac.

"Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting." - John Russell

***

WOO HOO.

I am very happy.


Top Score Music - TMCD1034 Romantic Themes

On this otherwise innocuous page from what seems to be a Dutch company, click on the notes beside the first entry, "Lovers Theme" (03:29). The full description of this piece is as follows:

"Lovers Theme

Duration: 03:29
Style: Romantic
Description: Haunting, light dramatic theme with single note piano lead - excellent orchestral accompaniment with prominent Strings and French horn.
Keywords: airy, calm, caring, dancing, dramatic, dreamy, dynamic, easy, epic, expectant, friendly, good, grand, happy, joyful, light, longing, melodic, mellow, optimistic, ominous, peaceful, pensive, positive, reflective, reverent, romantic, serene, sincere, soarin
Instruments: cymbals, drums, french horn, percussion, piano, strings, orchestra
Tempo: Medium Slow
Composer: Hervé Roy
Release year: 1992
Catalog #: TMCD1034-01"

Album description: "Collection of warm, pleasant and expressive romantic themes featuring piano and acoustic guitar leads."

If you don't recognise it, it is none other than THE THEME SONG OF 2GIRLS1CUP. How did I find this? Very simple. I Winamp Auto-Tag-ged the MP3 (from here), which yielded:

"Track: 1
Title: Lovers_Theme_Herve_Roy_TMCD1034
Artist: Herve Roy
Album: TMCD-1034 Romantic Themes
Album Artist: Tele Music
Year: 1992
Composer: Herve Roy"

I'm surprised I didn't think of this sooner!

Now I can appreciate the full genius of the music, with the enhanced quality (though only encoded at 64kbps, I can hear much that has been lost in the transition to a different medium) - the fidelity is better, the music has more depth and there are subtle chords and drum beats that have been either muffled or totally obscured but are now clear as day; synth audio never sounded so good! Furthermore, we get to hear more variations on this divine melody, with a version that's 3.5 times what we heard in the video.

Time to update my handphone ringtone with this new, improved version!


Update: Another site to download it.

New blog pic:


How do you show someone you love that they are the one?