Wei Kiat's Blog

The moment has arrived. This is the last post on Wei Kiat's Blog.

My computer was seized by the MOE for anti-AJC posts. The vice-principal of AJC is currently raiding my shelve for anti-establishment books.

Nah.

Just kidding.

This is the last post because I will be finally moving over to my new blog, located at http://www.weikiat.net/. It is powered by Wordpress, a much more powerful blogging tool compared to blogger.

Change your RSS bookmark and browser favourites everyone.

The era of Weikiat.NET has began.

So check out my new blog now.

http://www.weikiat.net

(I'm sad, because I spent more than one week on this blogger template :( )

The premise for today is: Girls' blog is more popular than boys' blog, at least in Singapore.

The premise for today is deliberately written in poor English, but I am too insecure to just let it stand there on its own without this qualifier.

Next, we move on to our primary inquiry for today: WHY is girls' blog more popular than boys' blog in Singapore?

I venture a few answers.

1. Girls' blog got more pictures

In general, any old boy will start a blog. If he has interest in Gundam, he will start a blog showcasing Gundam. If he has interest in leapfrogging iguanas, he will start a blog showcasing leapfrogging iguanas etc etc.

A girl will start a blog if she thinks she is pretty.

Then she will put many many many picture of herself on the blog. I am not insinuating that these think-they-are-pretty girls have nothing of worth to say. They have probably, however, done a cost-benefit analysis: if I have to type something, it will require effort, and time, and creativity. But if I put a picture of myself up, the process is relatively instantaneous, AND at the same time I can get external validation of my physical appearance!

So in the interests of minimum effort, maximum results, these think-they-are-pretty girls put up photos of themselves.

There is of course a sub-group of ugly but articulate girls. These girls' blogs, you will notice, are very unpopular. People don't really read the text on blogs; least of all, people do not want to read what ugly people have to say. If you are still reading this entry, thank you, you're quite good looking yourself too.

Then finally there is the amazing mind-blowing sub-group of PRETTY and ARTICULATE girls. These like giant pearl in big ocean with only 2 oysters.

In any case, from my extensive field surveys, I come to the conclusion that both boys and girls ogle girl photos, but boy photos are seldom ogled. Boys will of course not ogle other boys, ours being a very correct heterosexual nation. And girls will never admit to ogling boys. Even in front of the computer screen girls will only look at boy photo out of the corner of their eye, and then look away and pretend to be inspecting toenail. Like that who will read boys blog? The boys all think "Haiyah this guy is a pussy", and the girls keep averting their eyes from the computer screen. Gone case already.

Furthermore, local boys are ugly. This is actually not my opinion. I have very low standards, I think local boys are OK. But a lot of my "too-cool-for-school" peers like to have a go at local boys. So this is the prevalent mindset, and the girls think so too. Girls come from this planet where everyone looks like Kwon Sang Woo, so we cannot blame them. In fact we should be grateful they have not all died off as a result of sexual frustration.

2. Girls write better

Supposedly girls have more powerful language skills than boys. Last time when we were all killing Shredder and Krang with Splinter, girls were busy reading dictionaries. As a result today girls can all speak very well. This makes for easier, more therapeutic reading. Also some people I know, when they read girls' blog, they imagine the girl whispering the words into their ear. This is something that cannot be done for boys' blog.

3. Girls have a lot more to talk about

Girls live to communicate, to be in harmony, to synchronize periods. Boys just want to kill each other. Apart from giving us an insight into the average intelligence of each gender, this fact also results in girls' blogs being more interesting. Let us say, the same thing happens to a boy and girl: some old aunty cut the queue of the blogger at the hawker centre.

*

GIRL: I am so pissed! Today I was lining up to buy my favourite char kway teow at Ghim Moh (Ghim Moh PWNZ Newton!! Nyahhhh!):

(insert picture of girl lining up)

(insert picture of girl sticking tongue out and lining up)

(insert shaky self-taken picture of girl and photographer)

Then you know what happen?? This AUNTY came and pretend not to see me! And then she CUT RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!!!

(insert picture of aunty's rear profile)

(insert picture of girl's hand making dirty sign at aunty's rear profile)

*RAWR* I was, like, totally going to let her have a piece of my mind lah! And den my darling (insert ridiculous idiotic sweetytalk name here) told me to keep cool. I only managed to hold it in!! *RAWWWRRRRRRRRRRRR*

*pouts* Am feeling grumpy now. The char kway teow tasted lousier! I am sure that aunty's bad aura tainted it!

*

BOY: Nabe todae lao cheebye cut mi Q.

4. Girls readily post comments on other girls' blogs; nobody comments on boys' blogs

A blog that no one comments on is a lousy, unpopular blog.

This point is actually linked to the above one. Girls live to communicate, so they will readily affirm/encourage/support their friends' (or even strangers') blogs. Comments like "you go girl!" and "that's so pretty!!! you always manage to look good in whatever you wear!!" fall like locusts fall from heaven every time a girly blog is concerned. Contrast with boys' blog: nobody comments. or if they do, it usually is of the 1D10+1c l337 5p34k variety.

The reason for non-commenting on boys' blog is straightforward. Boys will not comment on other boys' blog, because the whole aim of existing as a boy is to kill other boys (and to make Gundam). You do not talk to your prey. You just look at their blogs and scoff at them, observe their living patterns and then stake them out for the final kill.

Girls, on the other hand, will not comment on boys' blog because if a GIRL comments on a BOY'S blog, it is damn BO SEI!!! Then everyone will think the girl like the boy! How can like that! Cannot cannot! Girl must sit at home surrounded by flower and spray perfume, staring at her Kwon Sang Woo poster and then one day the boy will show up at her doorstep and ask her to do housework for him. Only THEN can she say "Yes, I really wanted to comment on your blog but I was too shy!"

5. Girls have nehnehpok

I don't really know how to articulate this point. But it feels relevant, somehow.

Link

Garyl Tan Jia Luo, simultaneously the most suay person with the stupidest neighbor of all, to such an extend that foreigners commenting on foreign sites bashing Singapore had this to say:

Lol, Neighbor from Hell.

The seventeen year old had his fortune screwed when his neighbor made a police report, complaining that his wifi connection has been "stolen" by Garyl to do some silly emailing and instant messaging.

My take on this is that this incident is incredibly stupid, but is bound to happen sooner or later. Some points that I am too lazy to put into paragraph form:

1) Since the passing of the new Computer Misuse Act, the relevant authorities are on their toes looking for the first person who commit the offence, so that they can dish out outrageous punishments (much like the racist bloggers incident that illustrates Singaporeans' immaturity), in order to frighten future offenders. This work very well. (Who dares to become another Chee?)

2) Since the neighbor is so IT-savvy has to be able to determine that someone is "stealing" his wifi, and so selfish when it comes to sharing his wifi, he certainly has enough motive and expertise enough to secure his own wireless connection. Something is strange here. Is Garyl's neighbor in liaison with the relevant authorities?

3) Garyl is lame. Just go Macdonald got free wifi already!

4) Some people say that his neighbor is correct, and that Garyl is a thief. Because, they say, even if a house owner forget to lock his door, it is still wrong for a person to walk in and steal stuffs. Well, I can slap these people in their face because what the neighbor is doing is like walking naked in the street (broadcasting his radio waves without any protection), and then calling anyone who look at him a peeping tom (a thief!).

5) The punishment awarded to Garyl don't make sense. 18 months of no internet connection? Even more motivation to steal wifi!

Sure sure, I know this stunt will help the government enforce the law by frightening people off. But do they have even the slightest knowledge of technology?

Imagine I go my friend's house to LAN party regularly. My friend's wifi SSID is "Nabei". I connect to "Nabei" and have fun.

I then go home, and turn on my computer. One of my neighbor's wifi SSID is "Nabei" too. Due to the way the wifi selector on Windows work, it is likely that my computer will automatically connect to my neighbor's "Nabei". According to the law, I die liao lor.

With this news reported all over the cyber space, another massive run of Singapore bashing (so soon after IMF) had began, while a certain figure with charming smile that wins the heart and votes of many Ah Sohs will still insist "Singapore enjoys good reputation worldwide".

I shall end this off with some comments and an image from foreigners.

I guess Singapore changed from the old fashioned, and undoubtedly painful, caning to the more civilized finning.

what? no caning?

Well does it beat the CANING for spitting gum on the side walk?
Nah!

I went out with my girlfrend, and was in very very good mood until I went home, turn on the computer and discover that www.weikiat.net is still not available. I was told last night it will be up in 12hours (heck, some other domain registrars can get domains up in < 1 hour.). Nearly 24 hours liao still not up. Just emailed Andy who is registering for me through godaddy. I'm paying more than registering myself, but heck, its very convenient. Am unhappy. I was looking forward to coming home, installing my new blog system, install a new system for Yesterday, and also shifting my gallery, The Wicked and Yesterday over to weikiat.net. Looks like that will have to wait.

Some photos to share.


The above is a mash-up image of what my new blog will look like. It will be powered by Wordpress with K2 as addon, and using the default K2 template. The bar on the top of the site is a skinnable menu bar designed by me implemented using very basic php and ajax, which will allow users to navigate to my other sites, including The Wicked, Slop Directory and Gallery. The bar will also be present on my other site, and possibly skinned to match the look and few of the other sites. I can't wait to implement it. For testing purposes, you can view some of the skins I've created for my menu bar here: http://weikiat.ikueb.com.

I am also waiting for my web host sponsor to reply to my request for 2 db tables so that I can install wordpress for my new blog and also for the new Slop Directory site. He don't check his email everyday so I'll have to wait.

And finally, some (badly taken) photos of my birthday cake and me pretending to cut it (i don't really know how to cut those fluffy things, it fall apart easily under my blade).




(Oh, I just noticed the web host sponsor actually gave me access to MySQL phpmyadmin. Will get to access it once weikiat.net is up.)

Waiting game!

ZZ

Today is my birthday!

Also, status update, I'll be shifting my blog over to my new site, weikiat.net once it is up and running. By then, this blogger blog will become a historical "museum" of my old posts. Also, my photo gallery and The Wicked will be moved over to weikiat.net. Yesterday.sgblogging.com will be revamped and recreated from ground up, changing the name to just Slop.

Still waiting for my hosting sponsor to give 2 db tables, and weikiat.net to point at dreamhost. 

Am pretty excited! 

Fellow blog readers, you may find the the title of this entry rather weird. Don't worry, its not because I went crazy all of a sudden. I'm using this entry to take part in a blogging competition by Youth.sg.

Things started simple.

Those $2 lockable diaries sold in my primary school's bookshop were everyone's favourite. Kind of lame, because all the locks and keys are the same.

Then came opendiary.com, the first online diary that aroused the interest of all my friends, although none of us could write more than 200 words in a composition at that time. Girls are irony machines. They lock their open diaries. And almost all the girls I know had an online diary.

By the time I enter secondary school, their (the girls') little footprints had already filled up the blogosphere. Blog had become a symbol of girls. Whenever someone ask if I own a blog, I would exclaim loudly, "What? Blog? Blogs are for sissys!"

But then I decided, heck. Blogs are good ways to attract girls too! Especially with my super-powerful-website-design skill and ability to kope javascript codes.

Then I spent a better part of two weeks trying to do really impressive things on my blog, stressing myself up so much that my creativity suffered a big setback. Looking back at my first month on the blogosphere, I noticed that the title of almost every entry ends with the word "day". How gay.

The number of "sian" I used in my first month of blogging is quite high too. So much that it seemed destined that my blog is going to just die, like many many others that lay dormant in the dept of cyberspace with only one entry to boast. And that entry often reads something like, "Test Entry! I'm new to blogger!" Such blogs are often number one collector of spam.

Yet, things went uphill from there.

I started writing funny fictional stories on my blog, and my fellow juniors came for the entertainment. My blog became popular, and I became very happy.

After my O level examinations, I left my blog for Red Alert 2 and Diablo II. My juniors left me. Sometimes I have one visitor on my blog. Sometimes I have zero. The times when I have one are the times when I visit my blog to see if there is anyone visiting.

By a weird twist of fate I went to Anderson Junior College. Things were so fantastic and interesting that my blog exploded with entries.

It was then when I discovered the power of blogs. The power of blogging by a youth in SG. The way information flows from blogs to mainstream media, its amazing!

My blog got me on the newspaper.

Wah! I exclaimed when I saw that. Why never ask me then quote from me? What a wonderful surprise! Of course I don't mind Straits Times quoting from me. I stand by my words. My uncle supported me. And later my Vice-Principal gave me demerit points SECRETLY (my teacher told me about the SECRET demerit point SECRETLY).

Bad bad Jeremy the reporter. He owes me more than a lunch.

Strange enough, being a youth in SG, once you get onto the newspaper, you keep reappearing. This time for an online site I've created. 

 

Overnight, I became a hero. The most chio girl in AJC asked my girlfriend if the guy in the newspaper is her boyfriend. Duh! Of course lah! I do my girlfriend proud :).

Enough of that excitement. Later people fame me for being too proud.

But seriously, blogging is a good way to hao lian about your achievements!

The above is a video of me collecting an award from the Vice Principal who SECRETLY gave me a demerit point.

Blogs are not just a new tool. It is part of life. Part of life @ Youth.sg

 

PS: I got my own camera in June last year. It was a 1.3MP kid hidding in a Hi-MD music player. 1.3MP only. I don't even dare show it to people. Because other people have the common misconception that lower MP cameras has lower quality. So I want to make use of this opportunity to tell other youths: Higher MP only imply larger sized photo, not better quality photos. Look at my photo album with photos taken using my 1.3MP camera.

Another reason why I want to talk about the camera now, which doesn't flow with the rest of this entry, is because while writing this entry, I kept alt-tabbing back to my webbrowser which is at Youth.SG to drool over the Canon Camera.

So please, let me win ok?

This entry had been chosen to be among the top 11 in a blogging competition. Do help me vote! To vote, email iam@youth.sg with the email header "i choose B2 - your name". Include your name, IC number and contact number too, because they are having a lucky draw for voters. Thanks alot!

I had a weird dream (or did it really happen?) last night.

But before going into that, I must mention that on some nights, while lying in my bed, I experience paralysis all of a sudden. It is what chinese people call the "ghost lying on your body" or something. Although I think that there is definitely a more scientific explanation waiting to be found for this strange occurrence, I am not lying when I say I experience it frequently.

The sensation of unable to move my body is just like being paralyzed. While I am conscious and desperately forcing my muscles to move through sheer will power, they still refuse to move. Normally, I manage to snap out of this by constantly forcing my muscles to move, with great amount of "strength". Gradually, they will start to move under my control, bit by bit.

The first few time I experience this, a few years ago, I tried to shout for help. The strange thing is, no matter how hard I tried, my shout only rang in my mind. No word escape. And I have no idea that my shout was not conveyed at all. My brain "hears" it all the same, but it was only when my shout fail to alert anyone when I notice that I didn't actually shout through my vocal cord.

The whole thing is like my mind being cut off from the rest of my body totally.

The reason why I am mentioning this is because it happened again yesterday night. And something else happened too.

I remember I was lying in my bed, trying to sleep, when suddenly a tiny speck of sparkle drifted down somewhere from the darkness of my window onto me. In the exact same instant that the sparkle touches me, I became paralyzed again. This is the first time I see these sparkles (or did I dream it?) before I become paralyzed. I couldn't remember exactly things that followed, but I remember seeing more of these sparkles, and 2 other sensation of something trying to take over my body, from bottom up, while my will power fought back, from top down.

I have no idea what is happening. But I still expect that there is a logical and scientific explanation for this. Since it only occurs when I am trying to sleep, I am thinking that this has something to do with the brain shouting off the section that govern my motor skills while I was still conscious.

Also, as an interesting note, my neighbor, an old man who is sadly dying of liver cancer, has just came back to take a look at his home and family before he will be wheeled again to the hospital.

Are all these related?

What are those sparkles that I saw (or dreamt?)

I'm in the midst of purchasing weikiat.net, so that at least got a url I can put in my personal contact card. Following the purchase, my blog, The Wicked, as well as other projects and pages will be shifted there.

Blog will be replaced by a Wordpress system, and old content from blogger (hopefully) will be ported over.

Busy creating a navigation system for the new site. You can view the progress here: http://weikiat.ikueb.com. Feel free to give feedbacks. Most of the images used there are for placeholding purposes only. Most of my effort is spent on making the simple looking menu bar at the top of blog.html and wicked.html. The menu is loaded dynamically (using ajax) from menu.php, and an embedded php script determines which page (blog.html or wicked.html) it is being display on. It then disable display the menu correctly. Spent the whole morning today making it.

Domain is $30/year, while hosting is $240 per year. I am only purchasing the domain due to the high price of the hosting. Hosting will still be sponsored by the fantastic guy at sgblogging.com. However, I do hope that I get to buy my own hosting (don't want to trouble him).

Donations, anyone?

iPhone came out. It is a handphone released by Apple, a company increasingly unsure of how it can make computers that everyone will buy, to such an extend that it dropped the word "computer" from its original name "Apple Computers", to just being an Apple. Of course, as a result of its uncertainty in surviving as a computer and OS manufacturer that makes things largely only compatible with itself, it had to start selling things like MP3 players and phones to make more things compatible to itself, so that consumers are given the illusion that Apple is pretty much compatible with everything around them, although the reason is because everything around them starts spotting the logo of a half-eaten Apple.

Following the failed attempt of Motorala Rokr (you still see anyone using it now?), they came back with an interesting piece of gadget called the iPhone. iPhone, as many would already know, is the name of an VoIP phone by Linksys. Negotiations were held between Linksys and Apple over the name, but without coming to a mutual conclusion, Steve Job the current CEO of Apple who was kicked out of Apple a few years after he found it, decided to just go ahead and tell the public about it.

During the first MacWorld Keynote held this month, iPhone was presented to the world.

Steve started off by telling his keen audiences that Apple is releasing three products: A Phone, a Music Player, and an Internet Communicator. He then wowed everyone by saying that the phone, the music player, and the internet communicator is one product. Everyone went crazy. I started to think. I can tell people that I have invented a special cup. It can be a coffee cup, a orange juice cup, and even a cup to store rain-water. And best of all, I can do all that with a single cup. Lets call it, MyCup. Yell with joy everyone. Please!

He then said that Smartphones aren't smart because they are not user friendly, and regular phone sucks because they don't have enough feature. Oh well, I think that Smartphones are not userfriendly because the users are not smart enough to use them. Anyway, he then claimed that iPhone is something between smartphones and regular phones, user-friendly and feature packed. In fact, he said, it is even better than a smart phone! WOW! Let me see the day when iPhone contain any productivity suite. Isn't having productivity suite on the go one of the main reasons why people buy smartphones?

He introduced that there is a 2megapixel camera on the phone, yet did not demostrate it, whether it can take videos etc, or any of the features related to the camera (such as exposure setting, macro, etc). Flashlight?

There is no 3G support on the phone, something that major telephone companies are embracing around the world. Instead, it has wifi connectivity, but unlike gadgets like PSP (which can stream podcast and vodcast directly from any wifi spot), or Zune (which allows you to share songs with others), it is use for unexciting things like Google Map and emails (PSP's flash enabled webbrowser can handle that too). Notice of course, that PSP came out many years ago, and iPhone will be available to US only June this year. Outrageously outdated features. And for Asia, iPhone will only arrive next year. By then, technology would have moved on even more and iPhone will an expensive paper weight.

Of course, credit must be given to the decision dump stylus from this touch screen device (yucks! say Steve Jobs). Of course, using fingers to navigate your device is very convenient. But just imagine all the finger grease, sweat and oil that you will be bathing iPhone in. Oh, Steve overlooked that.

Gesturing system is cool of course, but this stuff had been around for years! Opera the webbrowser has that many years ago. Of course, bringing the gesturing system to a touch screen handheld is an interesting concept, but certainly not "creative", or "revolutionary".

Oh, on top of that, there is multi-touch where you can use more than one fingers (i.e three fingers in a pinching action) to zoom in and out of an image. Interesting and cool. Sure. But how practical? So far, Steve only demostrated that you can use multi-touch to play with images. Are there any more uses? He never demostrate.

iPod wise, the usual features (or rather, lack of features). No sound enhancement (EQ is not sound enhancement) unlike even cheap china mp3 players. Average music playback quality. No drag and drop. Use with iTunes only.

He said there are three sensors. One to detect if you are holding the phone to your ear. One to detect the orientation of the device, and one to detect light and adjust the brightness of the screen. Very cool. If not for the fact that the first mentioned sensor is added as a must. Without it, the touch screen will go yaya when you hold the phone to your ear, and iPhone will screw itself terribly and not be able to work. The second sensor had been available at least two years ago on Sony's HDD MP3 player. The last sensor that adjust screen brightness had been available in most LCD/Plasma TVs since more than 1 year ago.

Revolutionary?

iPuke.

My girlfriend was looking for a job on jobstreet website.

Today she received a call from a person, offering her a job. The position is promoter.

Caller: "The job is promoter."

GF: "I don't want it."

Caller: "NOOOOO! Wait! Listen to me! You only have to work 3 days per week! Friday, Saturday, and Sunday! Pay is $6.50 per hour."

(My GF is slightly tempted. But she don't want to be a promoter.)

GF: "no..."

Caller: "Overtime pay is $9.50!"

GF: "no..."

Caller: "If overtime pay reach more than $44, remaining overtime hours will be paid $13 each!"

GF: "NOOOO! Promote what anyway?"

Caller: "Er.... (silence)"

GF: "PROMOTE WAT?"

Caller: "(reluctantly) Beer lor.. BUT! Don't worry! Don't need to wear sleazy clothes one! Just wear a polo tee and jeans skirt can liao. And also boots."

ME: FUCK YOU CHAO CHEEBYE.

Steve Jobs announced the iPhone yesterday night at 2am when most of us are sleeping. I was awake and drinking coffee, monitoring online sites for real time updates from Macworld Keynote. My speculation was proved to be correct. The new iPhone is an iPod with wi-fi and phone capabilities. Steve jobs did a very good job by comparing iPhone to a smart phone, saying that it is something between Smartphones (which are not that smart, according to him), and regular phones. He is dead right in a sense. iPhone lacks features that smartphones have. But he is wrong also. iPhone lacks features tonnes of regular handphones have too. What I saw was plain feature rip-off from  sony ercisson phones (sony hps with walkman +cybershot). However, the difference is that the iPhone has a very low quality and low resolution 2.0MP (my Sony Hi-MD Player with built in 1.3MP camera takes better photos than a iPhone), and an innovative feature that allows you to use your fingers instead of a stylus for its touch screen. Well, innovative for people who have no idea that fingers work on most touch screens already. However, I must give Apple credit for its finger gesture system, although the use of it to access features on the phone is quite limited.

Today I attended the IDM (Interactive Digital Media) Jamboree (or how to spell?) at Science Center. Interesting business related event. Should be on the news tonight. I also got to ride on the Segway, the personal auto-balancing two-wheeled transport system used by lazy police over at changi airport. That stuff is real solid.

And AMK Hub? Thats refering to the new neigbourhood shopping centre in AMK where NTUC became Xtra and imitated Giant. The building, as with other massive Singapore based buildings, has tonnes of safety issues.

Enjoy a review of its safety here.

My buddy, Poh Wei is leavig for Tekong tomorrow. I hope he can survive the yellowish water supply there. More on Tekong's water supply another day.

Below are three business card designs I came up with. Pick your favourite and comment on it! The best of the 5 will be printed. Feel free to suggest small alternations also.

Remember the announcement I made earlier?
http://z12.invisionfree.com/thewickedforum...p?showtopic=493

There will also be some changes to the overall site design, and also something more exciting than plain old Wicked coming soon.

The recent confusion and appearance of V-IX was actually part of a new game me and my team devised after more than 30 hours of solid brainstorming (once even staying overnight at my office with NO toilets facilities, and then when I had stomachache at 4am, I sneaked into a shopping center and use theirs).

The whole thing is a game, and the reason why I'm keeping quiet is to test your response if you all will discover that it is a game. This is also to add more mystery and perhaps encourage exploration and curiousity on V-IX website.

However, me along with my team are particularly disappointed when there is an lack of interest, and particularly players like Ryluna who actually discouraged the community from doing their own exploration. No hard feelings, Ryluna. I thought the community in general will apply their puzzle solving skills on this new development, but was proven wrong.
Therefore, we finally made the decision to just go ahead and announce that this whole thing is a game and i expect you to hunt for clues beyond what the wicked usually offers.

The game take place in the same world in live in, hence details like location and phone numbers are real.

The game will continue, and go ahead and find more clues. Who knows, you may even get a special mention in Wicked HoF. More details later. For now, just play and enjoy the game =D

PS: Do not hack thewicked.sgblogging.com or www.v-ix.com!

Discuss it here.

Link

Angered by their rubbish article, I emailed them.

Hi,

I quote Chris Ayres "The Sony MiniDisc, a small step ahead of CDs but a giant leap behind MP3 players, enjoyed a brief bite of the apple before being consumed itself by the iPod".

iPod is designed as a portable music player for consumers who prefers convenient and design. It came out in 2001.

MiniDisc first came out as a replacement for tapes. It is meant for recording purposes. It also provides very high quality sound for consumers who know better. It came out in 1992 (or was it earlier?)

Comparing two different formats meant for two different purposes is like comparing a spoon and a fork, and then concluding that a fork is better because more people eat noodles.

This is a small, but very clear evident of unprofessional journalism over at Times.

I am a proud supporter of Minidisc, and despite its lack of marketing, is still going strong in many parts of the world. Recently, there was even the release of Minidiscs which stores 1GB of data, and a MiniDisc player with a built in digital camera.

Chris Ayres (the journalist who wrote that article) exhibited a perfect lack of insight, and irresponibility on his part as he did not ensure accuracy in his facts as well as have any idea what on earth he was writing about.

Instead of having the "Email this article" to friends feature on Times, it would be better if there is a link which says "Fire this journalist", for the benefit of readers and also upholding the reputation of your site.

Thanks (for the bad journalism).

It suddenly occurred to me that all Singaporeans look like that:


Why? This question pops up instantly in your head: Why Singaporeans have such short arms?

The answer lies in this photo:

*Arms too short to reach the dustbin less than 1 metre away.*

An 18 year old indian working at Mango at Shaw along orchard road approached my girlfriend, "Are you from Anderson Junior College? Can you buy for me a set of the uniform? I find the uniform very cool! Fun to wear it out to places like orchard instead of normal clothes. I loved the school very much." It was later discovered that that indian was unable to make it to AJC, and fortunately ended up in a Polytechnic. But this example shows how misled the public are regarding AJC. Also, what is the kind of caliber that AJC attracts?

I was alighting from the LRT carrying my laptop and on my way home from my office when I saw one of my primary school classmate, still cladded in AJC school uniform. I was about to approach her, but I guess the shame of being seen in an AJC uniform for a third year in her life is too much to bear. I chosed to ignore her.

My sister told me she want to hi-light her hair. I told her she will get caught by her Disciplinary Master. She told me that she won't because hi-lighting is barely noticeable. Then I asked her if it is not noticeable, why spend the time and money hi-lighting?

My parents kept asking me to get a job to earn pocket money, while refusing to give me pocket money. I finally got one as a co-founder of a new marketing company, funded by IDA. They ended up having to give me pocket money because I need money to eat during my job. Also, the high adult transport fare in Singapore isn't helping either.

The SMRT capacity in Singapore is directly proportional to the amount of armpits you have to smell during rush hours. SMRT provides more capacity by removing seats, and adding standing areas so that an average working adult spend around $3~4 per day standing and smelling (more of) each others' armpits for approximately 45minutes. Perhaps this is why Singapore is labeled food paradise. The market for nice smelling stuffs (i.e. nice food) is huge.

The government, and in particular, our honorable PM mentioned that blogs are inferior as compared to mainstream media. Yet, our mainstream media keeps coming out with blog related projects: www.stomp.com.sg, www.blogtv.sg, etc. Here we see a case of a superior (mainstream media) entity copying an inferior (blogs) one. Perhaps the most sane question should be, which is really better than which?

There is a price to pay for freedom in Singapore. That price comes in the form of adult transport fee when you finally graduated from being a student.

Blogging has become one of the best way people can vent their thoughts and enjoy limited freedom of speech. Blogs are also one of the best way police can use to catch you if you happen to dislike MM or PM Lee, or the indian upstairs who owns two huge dogs that enjoy pooping on your front door. (PS: I don't dislike PM and MM, and the two huge dogs belonging to the indians upstairs don't come and poop on my front door.)

The best food can often be found in old hawker centres. But if the food is so great, the vendor would have earnt enough to start his or her own restaurant. Why still remain in old hawker centres, playing hide and seek with rats and other hungry creatures? Rats are their pets?

People like to buy imitations or pirates of items they like in order to save money. Then they exploded and make lots of fuss when the actual company that came up with the item went bankrupt due to poor sales.

Malaysians queue at the doors of their LRT train; Singaporeans just scatter themselves randomly around the doors of SMRT trains.

Despite all that education, Singaporeans have one of the lowest level of physics knowledge in the world. They would always squeeze into lifts or SMRT trains without letting people inside come out first. Singaporeans do not know that in order to fit themselves into the train, they have to let something come out first. Singaporeans also assume that space is always there, despite the fact that it isn't.

There is something creepy about the back of public buses in Singapore, especially during peak hours. The bus driver always had to yell in order to force people to dispel their fear and move to the back.

NS is a waste of time. Saying that NS is a waste of time is an even more waste of time.

Many uneducated Ah Sohs nowadays are carrying top of the line handphones with tonnes of features, while the only thing they know is how to make a phone call. Getting a phone with tonnes of features they never use or will never even comprehend serves a very good purpose. They can boast about the high price of their handphones infront of other equally uneducated Ah Sohs. A poor educated IT-conscious student like me had to use phones like 3310, 3100 and 7260.

Creative Technologies tried to gain more sales by dropping prices on their product. It made their product so cheapskate that people prefer overpriced china mp3s than Creative's cheap ones.

Creative Technologies sell things very cheaply. I bought their EP630 for a cheap price of $69 last year, and they sell it for a cheap price of $35 now. Can I say, damn you, Creative?

People like whirl strongly resent what I write on my blog. And it is people like whirl who visit my blog most frequently.

Mr Hon, the Principle of The Chinese High School once said that choosing a girlfriend is like shopping for a television at the store. You don't just take the first set (displayed on the store front). You have to walk in and see all the different models and sizes and make your pick. However, I prefer to take the one at the store front. A television set has to be absolutely good in order to make it worth displaying on the store front by the store owner.

Irony is defined by the Head of General Paper Department at AJC as "something is expected to happen, but something else happened instead". Now that, is an irony by itself. (However, if you know what to expect about the competence level of the Head of General Paper Department at AJC, the previous sentence won't be valid.)

It was another day for work for her. Life had been monotonous ever since she took that risk and set sailed for Singapore, the island of hope. She toiled under the sun, getting a lovely tan that would cause the envy females and Caucasians two decades later.

It was while working at the harbor lifting heavy descriptionless objects that she met him. Soon she decided he was her destiny and they would get married.

They got married.

And after enduring three painful labours, he passed away.

Life was bitter, but the smiles on the face of the little ones spurred her on, driving her to work harder for to give a better life to her offsprings. Being a single parent is not easy.

The little ones grew up and it is now impossible to call them little ones anymore. Her eldest son was finally of working age, and his income helped cushion the burden on her shoulder to support the family abit. Finally she was able to live an easier life.

Her eldest son died.

She felt like life was all over for her, and if not for the fact that she had two children to look after and support, she would have seek peace in the heavenly paradise. However, her motherly instinct was strong, and she preserved to provide the best for her children.

Her children finally grew up. They moved away from her when they found their life long love. After working so hard for her children, she was left behind, lonely and cold.

When her grandson came to this world she was overjoyed. She greatly offered to help look after the joyful baby.

The baby grew up.

When her grandson was an adult, he sent her to an old folk home.

By then life had almost completely left her. She was unresponsive and unable to move on her own.

And there she lies, on her death bed, quietly, alone, cold, abandoned, neglected, waiting and waiting, at the old age of 95, waiting for moment when life finally gives up on her, with the last release of carbon dioxide.

Outside the window, the world goes on.

(This entry is based on a real story, although some details have been altered.)

(Dear blog readers, I was away on a short shopping trip to Malaysia. Forgot to blog about my absence before I went. These blog entries were written on paper during my trip.)

He dislike the norm. To him, things done by those around him that are also done by those around those around him holds no purpose or meaning at all. He often reasons with himself why do people do things exactly the same way as other people? Although doing things other people are doing is the kind of thing that everyone is doing, he just can't convince the neurons in his mind to create the chemical setup for that to happen.

While others around him aimed for fantastic results in examinations like A levels that doesn't even test a person intelligence, let alone interest and passion, he concentrated purely on doing what he do best, and made a huge splash about it.

People started calling him a rebel, a very interesting word that instantly conjures images of men holding rifles in their hands waving and shouting wildly in foreign tongues in minds of the uneducated (or seemingly educated) masses.

He was different. To him being a rebel is everything that he stood for. Although he did not go to the extend of chopping off or attaching a few limbs or disfiguring his face just to look different from the rest, he once considered adding a third ear for a few months until he realised that he couldn't find a earphone with 3 earpieces.

While people around him do their tutorials twice - once to get the feel of it, and once for revision, and attend every lectures like bees after nectars, he treated tutorial worksheets like leaves lying on the walkway and lectures like (insert your an event which you hate most here), he whacked on his keyboard, created The Wicked and appeared in a full page article in Digital Life.

Being different has it own sets of problems too. Being different means obstacles and problems met by him are also different from others, and he had to be really creative about solving them.

Once he tried to form his own company with two other rebels, while his female friends who were finished with the lectures and tutorials found parttime jobs at places like NTUC and Isetan, selling male undergarments for a miserably low pay and high risk of sexual harassment, and a few male friends selling ice-creams.

He met with a problem that was totally unexpected. It came in the form of a spoken sentence. That sentence was generated by his mum's vocal cord.

And it sounded something like, "Why can't you be more normal?"

To qualify for the dual-degree fast-track programme under the National Infocomm Scholarship, applicants must be a top-tier high performer who has clearly demonstrated academic and leadership abilities. Applicants must also possess that special X-factor of passion and flair for innovation and creativity. They must meet all of the rigorous and holistic admissions requirements of both SMU and Carnegie Mellon. They must be able to assimilate into the dynamic pedagogy of SMU, and also able to adapt to the demands of studying abroad at Carnegie Mellon, one of the world's leading universities for IT education and research.

Need to meet the first bolded criteria...

http://www.sis.smu.edu.sg/programme/SMU_CMU_Fast_Track/index.htm

Finally Susan Leong, the principal has won over VP Tay.

Although, things seemed pretty much the same, and perhaps a comment in the survey conducted by me and my friends on 50+ AJCians still describes the situation nicely.

The gist of that comment: Tear down and rebuild AJC.