Concussed

Was knock-out pretty badly last night after a drinking bout...

Curry Fishhead for lunch

Date: 30 December 2005
Venue: Amoy Street
Attendee: E, GC, I, S, YM and me

Bored

Again woke up quite early even though I was on leave today, not quite sure wat to do though... Meet JL for lunch @ Sim Lim Square as I was thinking of buying some blank CDs there... Think it's been quite a while since we last met... Then accompanied her to the Post Office to post an XBox game which she was selling... The postage cost 80 cents but she charged the other party $2... :D

After lunch walked a bit at SLS, then go to the new National Library at Bras Basah... There is 9 level in whole building, but I only went to level B1 where the Central Lending Library is located... Stayed there for about 20 minutes browsing some IT books, but never borrow any... Then took a bus down to Toa Payoh where I borrowed a book @ TPY Library and visited the bank to settle some stuff...

Took a train to Bishan and shopped a bit at Junction 8... Then noticed there is this long queue streching to the traffic light near the bus interchange, not sure what it is about and decided to check it out... As it turn out, these people, mostly teenagers, were queuing for the autograph of Rainie Yang...

Not sure what time would the event starts, but the guy at the head of the queue seems very excited about it... hehe... Think I've long passed that period of chasing idols liao...

Cameron Trip: Day 4

Time to go back to Singapore, our bus was at 9am... We packed up, had scones (leftover from the previous day) as breakfast and checked out of the retirement home at 830am... The bus ride back was as bad as the one going up, considering the winding route... Although I still managed to catch a bit of sleep during that period... Once we reached the highways, the route was smooth and fast...

Reached Puduraya Bus Station at about 130pm and we alighted along the main road outside, as there was a jam at the entrance of the station... Went to get the bus ticket to Singapore, but was surprised that quite a number of them were sold out already... In the end, got the tix for the 330pm bus @ RM$35 each... Had lunch at Chinatown, then walk walk a bit there as we still have a fair bit of time... Headed back to the bus station at around 315pm...

Upon reaching, we found that the bus was changed to another one, and that it would not be leaving on time... It was not until 415pm that the bus had arrived and waited for another 15 minutes before it left the station... Nothing unusual happened on the journey back, with the bus making a stop at Yong Peng after about 3.5 hours... However it was not until the bus reaches the checkpoint that I realized that it was going by the second link... At least clearing the custom here at Tuas is probably faster than at Woodlands IMO... S alighted somewhere along AYE at Tang City, while me and XY took the coach all the way down to Jalan Sultan (near Beach Road) and hailed a cab home from there.

Cameron Trip: Day 3

Only had less than 3 hours of sleep last night (*yawn*)... Had to get up though cos E and YM were leaving for Singapore on a morning bus... They finally got the 1030am bus ticket on the previous day, despite some mix-up by the boss of the local travel agency... E and YM were all packed and prepared for check out at about 930am, then we all went for breakfast at a coffeeshop nearer the bus station... But YM couldn't even have his breakfast in the shop as the time was almost up, so he had to da bao his food...

After E and YM left, the 3 of us finished up our breakfast and then further explore the town (although there were nothing much to explore really)... Went back to our hotel for rest and played more game of dice, in which the game was seen from a Taiwanese entertainment show...

Decided to go to Brinchang Town in the afternoon... We took a cab there, which costs us RM$6, and the journey took about 5 minutes... Actually there weren't much to see or do at Brinchang as well, only 2 rows of shops, mostly restaurants... Spent around half an hour finishing exploring the town, then had lunch at Secret Recipe where all of us ordered Chicken, i.e. Mexican Chicken (XY), Chicken Cordon Bleu (S) and Grilled Mushroom Chicken (me). But think mine taste the worst out of the 3... We had wanted to order a slice of cake but were too full to do so after having the main course...

Wanted to head back to Tanah Rata, but then S saw a KTV lounge at one of the hotels there and decided to check it out (think it was Hotel Rosa Passadena)... However the lounge was not opened until at night... Also inquire from the hotel staff that there would be a night market just outside of the hotel tonight... Usually the night market is only on weekends, but as it was holiday during this period, the night market is on weekday too...

As it was still early, we decided to walk back to Tanah Rata, which was something like 5km away from Brinchang... We started walking at around 330pm, and after 10 minutes, we reached a T-junction with a sign saying 1.8km to Tanah Rata... But it was a side road which we did not take on our journey here... However, being adventurous, we decided to take this supposedly shorter route (although it turned out otherwise)...

We finally walked back to Tanah Rata after making a detour, total time taken was around 1.5 hours (all these just to save RM$6!!!)... But at least it helps burns some calories... lolz... Stopped by Marrybrown for a drink and then went Century Pines Hotel and nua down there... We are still deciding whether or not to go back Brinchang for the night market. In the end, our fate was decided by the flick of a coin, where the outcome is that we would not be going back...

Just as we were about to go back and rest, there was a group of Singaporean who went trekking down to Parit Falls, and we also tagged along (or follow them rather)... It was a short walk, completed in about half an hour... Took quite a few pics at the waterfall although the fall is not exactly fantastic just a small one IMO...

Then decided to da bao dinner back to our accommodation... Once again we bought quite a lot of food. Also bought some beer back... We were having our dinner at the balcony and played some dice games in which the loser will bottoms up (not really do that la...)... I guess we must have been too noisy that one of the guest / resident (not sure which) shouted at us, saying that we were making too much noise, threatening to call the police no less... So we moved back to our room and continue with our game... In the end, it was S who drank the most... Finally went to bed after finishing up all the beers...

Cameron Trip: Day 2

Had to wake up at about 7am in preparation for the half-day tour which commences at 845am... At the time we boarded the bus, it was still quite empty... As expected, the bus went around picking up more people before heading to the 1st location of the day...

There were 7 places that we were supposed to go altogether but we decided to skip the butterfly farm, cos we weren't very inerested in that... Then it started to rain quite heavily towards the end of the tour, and we were all wet when back at our bus... However there was a traffic jam on our journey back to Tanah Rata, so by the time we reached, I was almost dry liao...

Had lunch then went back to hotel and rest.... S had a headache, so she took some medicine and had a short nap while the rest of us played cards in my room... Went for dinner at a local cafe after S woke up... Food there was only so-so and E had to request the waitress to heat up her lamb chop as it was cold... There was a pool table at the cafe, so we played a few games after dinner...

Walked around the vicinity of the town after that... There was a mini night market nearby but nothing much caught my eyes... The town was not exactly buzzing at this time though, and soon we walked back to our hotel and call it a day... However we were still not resting back in our hotel rooms, 4 of us, except E, played cards until the wee hours in the morning... The panda eyes are starting to show... :D

Cameron Trip: Day 1

Woke up super early today, at 430am to be exact, in order to catch the first train... However was still unable to board the 1st train to Kranji at 517am., caught the next train instead and reach Kranji at 550am, around 10 minutes late... The rest, E, S, XY and YM were already there... We all decided to meet this early as we were afraid that there might be a jam at the customs... Barring a bit of slow traffic just before Woodlands Checkpoint, all of us managed to breeze through the JB custom at around 715... Now we got so much time on our hands before boarding the bus up north, which was at 930am... Went for 2 rounds of breakfast then waited at the shop where we bought the bus tickets...

It was a long long journey with stops in between here and there... It was already 430pm when we reached Tapah...Then went to a KFC nearby for some refreshments before going up to Cameron on a local bus at 6pm... The road uphill consist of many twists and turns, and the bus was non air-con, coupled with uncomfortable seats (looks like those Singapore buses in the 80s)... and halfway up the hill at Ringlet Town, we had to change to another bus... Finally we managed to arrive at Tanah Rata Town at around 830pm...

Upon reaching, we went to a local travel agent to purchase the return bus ticket, as E and YM were coming back on the 26th... At the same time, we decided to sign up for a half-day tour the next morning... The boss of the shop was rather blur but helpful, he brought us to a steamboat restaurant for dinner and waited for us to finish our dinner before driving us back to the place of our accomodation for the trip, KRS Pines Retirement Homes... Though it was a retirement home, there were only 4 residents in house and most people who stayed there were guests like us...

By the time we checked in, settled down and washed up, it was almost mid-night, and we all gathered for our mini gift exchange programme (suggested by YM)...

Picture Courtesy of StupidGenius

ECQ D & D 2005

How time flies, this is already the 2nd D & D for me at ECQ... and this year, the event was held at Zes Disco Pub in The Chevrons on 23 December 2005... As members of the ESC, CK, S, XY and me went to the venue earlier to setup the place... Reached the place at around 445pm and started unloading all the prizes for the lucky draw, and moving them all into the pub... then the technician at the pub teaches us, or me specifically, how to operate the sound and karaoke system, as I was supposed to take charge... We also tried to rehearse a bit on the games and items to be shown on the projector...

Our CEO, CFO, Sea Lin and Linda were the first to arrive at around 6+ or so... while the rest of the colleague arrived in a big group near to 7pm... Upon arrival, everyone had to surrender their gift and pass a name card for the lucky draw... The gifts were tagged for the gift exchange later on in the evening... And I've noticed that the gift that I bought for last year's D & D 're-appeared' as a gift this year (at least the wrapper was new, lol)... the recipient (not mentioning names here) said he had not used it and had no time to shop for gift...

As usual our CFO made an opening speech regarding how the company has done over the last year followed by the CEO... MK got the early bird prize, which was an air purifier... Then the dinner commences, which was buffet-style, by the time I went to grab the food, the turkey was gone (with only bones left), food was ok but not outstanding... then we (ESC members) tried to encourage the people to sing... Ser Wah started the ball rolling, and soon more people joined in...

In between, played some games (trivia, guessing the person from pics and pictionary), gift exchange and then the lucky draw was made... I got an electric toothbrush early on (think was the 2nd name to be called), but was quite 'sad' that my chance for the top prize was gone... hehe... On the hindsight though, it was better than nothing I guess, at least it was something practical that I could use... In the end the top prize, which was an IPod Video, went to JZ (oh lucky man... )

The whole thing ended at around 10pm and some of the people like HL, V, YP etc stayed on for more karaoke... We opened up the sparkling juice (brought by the CEO, but was forgotten during the D & D) and toast to each other... Had to leave by 11pm, the time at which the venue was booked until, and went home to prepare for the Cameron Trip the next day...

Shopping for Christmas Present

Trying hard to clear all my outstanding tasks during the week before going for my leave... but somehow done more done what I'm suppose to do, should have checked with CH before commencing... Anyway at least that can help lighten the load for the rest of the team...

Went to Suntec with S and XY for some last minute Christmas Shopping on Wednesday, though I have already bought all that I was supposed to buy... The 3 of us went for dinner @ Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao... As usual we ordered a lot of food but still managed to finish everything...

It was already 9+ by the time we finished our dinner and so we scout around for some door gifts for the D& D... Most of the shops were already closing, if not closed, at this time... went into Toys R Us to see if we can find something there... It feels a bit nostalgic seeing all those games / toys which I used to play... In the end though we went back empty handed...

OMG... PC down

Oh sharks... Home PC went down yesterday, was still alive and running the previous day... But the next time I turn it on, the HDD was not detected by the BIOS at all... Not sure if its the HDD or cable connection problem, will need to do some dignostic... what a bad time to go down... #$%^&*

Sexy Name Decoder

Weekend Trip to JB

Went JB on Saturday afternoon, was supposed to go in the morning but due to the late night out the previous day, it was postponed to the afternoon... As usual, the same gang, including E, S, XY, StupidGenius and me, head down to JB... main objective of going there is to buy bus tix to go Camreon, as there weren't many tix left from the company in Singapore...

Thought that afternoon will have less people going over but it wasn't the case... We reached Woodlands checkpoint at about 230pm and had to wait quite a while before clearing the custom... then there was also a long queue for the bus to bring us across the causeway... In the end we decided to walk over instead as this seems to be a faster route looking at the crowd waiting for the bus... and this is the 1st time I had done so...

Upon reaching the JB checkpoint, the queue was not as long as I had expected... maybe most of the people going over are Malaysians... We managed to clear the custom pretty quickly... But E was still stuck in the queue, and she told us to go ahead first...

After buying the bus tickets to Cameron, we went to grab a bite at a nearby coffeeshop, as I haven't had my lunch yet and had a craving for Prata... Only manage to find this shop selling prata after walking for a while... Just as we were about to finish it started raining quite heavily.. So we decided it was best for E to meet us directly at City Square...

We have done some window shopping for gift exchange present and bought the tickets for the show "The chronicles of narnia: The lion, the witch and the wardrobe" at 7pm... However there was still no sign of E... The last exchange of SMS was around 1 hour ago already... We began to become worried about her... thus me and SG decided to go look for her, while S and XY stay put at Mac in case E received our message and come find us here...

SG suggest he go back to the custom direction to look for her while I search for her here in City Square... In a weird twist of event, E appeared right before me after like 5 minutes into my search... and to think that all this while she was happily shopping away while all of us was worried about her...

After that, we still have a bit of time to grab a present for gift exchange, in which I manage to do so... After the show, we went for dinner at a nearby eatery outside of City Square... We ordered bak kut teh and 2 other dishes... by the time dinner was over, it was around 11pm already... And it was time to go home liao...

XY's Birthday

Went to Hark Cafe for XY's birthday celebration on friday... Was supposed to leave office at around 7pm, but StupidGenius was still at home around 15 minutes earlier, so played pool at the back with E, PS and S... In the end left at around 730pm...

At first wanted to go Minds Cafe but it was fully booked, so went to Hark instead which is just next to Minds and very near E-game (place where the DOTA Compy was held)... We were sat at a table which was not big enough for all of us, which includes D, E, PS, S, XY, SG and me... So I tried to move one of the tables closer to another when one corner of the glass top cracked and dropped off... :O ... think it was already cracked before we came... Anyway we then place order for our food...

The singer started to perform at around 845pm... and the theme for the day is "I am also a singer" (literally translated)... Then XY, being our birthday, was "invited" to sing a song onstage, though unwillingly should I say... She chose Fish Leong's 如果有一天 and the singer also sang along with her as backup... Managed to complete the song, which was captured by SG on video... After that the birthday cake was served and the present was presented, a gigantic Tigger, in which all the ladies present seems to like so much that each of them took a pic with it...

We chit chatted and heard some of the audience went up onstage to perform... I think those who went up didn't sing too badly as well.. After that we decided to go KTV at Chinatown, D and PS didn't join though... So the five of us continue our session late into the night...

DOTA Competition

Then on thursday was the DOTA competition at E-games at Prinsep Street... not that our team have a lot of practices, but thought we would be doing ok... how wrong I was as it transpire...

Here's the team line-up:

ECQ (Scourge)	o2 (Sentinel)
Treant (kian) Earthshaker (templar) Lich (UT) Venomancer (me) Queen of Pain (j e v x)	Omniknight Sandking Rogue Knight Necroltye Stealth Assasin

From the start I knew we were in trouble as UT and temp were getting killed pretty early in the game... I was on the left lane with kian and Omni was solo-ing in my lane... Keep planting my wards in between the trees and manage to farm up quite a bit, and oso not dying... And suprisingly could save up to buy blink dagger and boots on my 1st shopping trip at the spa... Managed to clear the 1st left tower...

However things started to go wrong as jev and temp were getting killed, and our mid tower was gone... Then a level gap starts to appear and we were getting killed in gb, with sk being repelled by omni then epi... In the end, it was gg after almost an hour into the game, and we had only managed to down 3 of their towers, kill - death ratio was like 1 : 5...

After the game, our reactions were as if we had won... lol... Had a good fun and it was a pretty nice experience... The whole atmosphere was generally noisy, not only from the sound of the game but also from the people shouting to teammates the movement of the opponent... Special thanks must be mentioned to Brudder Luv, Newbie, Obi for their presence at the game venue supporting us, even though we could not survive the 1st round...

Watching King Kong

Watch King Kong with E on wednesday as she got a pair of free tix from her company, and her fren fly pigeon at the very last minute... Actually only confirmed going like 1/2 hour before the show at 630pm, so was a bit rush for me...

Reached Suntec at around 715 and missed about 20 minutes of the show... But think it was ok as nothing dramatic happened during the early part of the show... In fact, after watching the first 40 minutes of the show, I still dun feel like I was watching King Kong... Then during the middle of the show, one would feel like watching Jurassic Park, seeing all the Dinos roaming around and squaring off with big King Kong... As YM (a.k.a. Obiwan) puts it, this show could be appropriately renamed as King Kong vs T-rex... hehe... The show lasted for 3 hours, and promptly ended at 10pm...

SPS Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon

The function was held at Suntec Convention Hall 601... Actually EC was supposed to attend with CH, but he can't make it at the last minute, so I took over his place (although not compulsory for me to go)... Arrived at Suntec at 1130am and there was many people there already... thought the event was only for the launch of the SPS Volunteer Website, but the launch was in fact only part of the whole event...

It was like attending a wedding dinner with over 60 tables in the hall... the opening address was done by one of the SPS directors (not exactly remember the name of his position though...), who also gave out some certificates of appreciation to some of the volunteers from the various organisations... this was followed by a flash presentation which signifies the launch of the website and another video clip of events for this year's Yellow Ribbon Project...

Lunch was then served, it was 7 course if I remembered correctly, the usual dishes that you would normally get at a wedding dinner... At the same time, there were also performance on stage by the inmates... these include a dance item and 2 song performances...

The function concluded at around 215pm or so...

Going Off Site

Have been going off site a lot this week, went to GDC and Prisons on alternate days... Encountered some problem during deployment though, as the scripts can't seems to work at staging environment when all was well in dev... As the weeks goes by though, I found myself learning quite a lot of new things... and I could safely say that I could type pretty well after this week (as I have been typing a lot of unix command...)

And it seems that SG is really a small place as I had met the Ops Officer during my NS time at GDC.. Apparently he is working at GDC now... It was like 5 ~ 6 years since we last met, and I'm quite surprised that he can still recognise me... (maybe I did not change a lot during this time)...

Anyway the launch of the SPS website would be today actually, although not all the things are completed yet... Will be going down for the launch later...

The 7 sins Test

Pride You are 64% nice and 32% bad...hmmm...interesting

Your deadly sin is pride. You dont like to feel like a fool, and you would love everyone to see you as the perfect person. You would hate it if you were outdone by someone younger or less clever than yourself. If you have siblings, you probably don't like them very much, but wont stoop to their level if they want to fight. If you don't, then you're lucky.

Every Day is a New Day

Finally get to watch Chicken Little yesterday... Wanting to watch it for one month already, although it was only opened in SG this week... went Tampines Mall for the show after skating at ECP in the afternoon with S and XY... We arrived at TM at around 645pm and bought the tickets for the 850pm show...

Decided to go for dinner first at Ding Tai Feng, while waiting for seats, met D and XH... was juz discussing with S and XY about the possibility of meeting frens here, even though it is out of city area... Overall the dinner was pretty good except for the complimentary Hot and Sour soup (supposed to be 酸辣汤), which is really only hot (烫) and sour (酸)... Think we had ordered too much (3 person with 6 dishes), which makes me really full after the dinner...

The show is really good for relaxing and makes you laugh your hearts out for the duration of the show ... It all started out with Chicken Little's "The sky is falling" blunder, which makes him a laughing stock in the whole town even after a year... though I think Chicken Little is quite resourceful with some of his antics, like using the pressure from a bottle drink to propel himself up 2 storeys...

And all of his frens are really funny characters, i.e. Abby the Ugly Duckling, Runt of the Litter and Fish out of Water, although each in a different way... Especially can't stop laughing when Abby and Runt started singing the Spice Girls' song, with the dance moves no less... and Runt really likes to sing a lot, and singing helps to calm himself down as well...

The World's Shortest Personality Test

Your Personality Profile

You are dependable, popular, and observant. Deep and thoughtful, you are prone to moodiness. In fact, your emotions tend to influence everything you do. You are unique, creative, and expressive. You don't mind waving your freak flag every once and a while. And lucky for you, most people find your weird ways charming!

The World's Shortest Personality Test