Pasir Ris, City Hall, IOI, photos, tie, phone call. Later.
Going to be stuck in Object lala-land. Wonderful welcome to the
fascinating world of business application programming.
I think if you dig hard enough, you may just discover why I picked
TypePad.
"Airplanes don't fly until the paperwork equals the weight of the aircraft."
Get this. My landlord offered to wash my bedsheets for me.
*speechless*
Yee Jiun: "Kinda like handling tofu. You grab too tight, will just
fall to pieces."
My Quicken bars have returned to normality. It has been a year since
recent bars were dwarfed by three gigantic pillars. Those were nice
simple days of no-life-ism. (In contrast to the relatively more
complicated days of no-life-ism now.) A little wistful that this is
the very first season that we made a loss.
"A tautology is a thing which is tautological." Brilliant. At least
Slashdot seems interesting once again. It is nice to have a little
familiarity when everything seems to be changing beneath my feet. I
like standing on solid ground. Probably explains why I can hardly
swim. Hah.
The most self destructive thing I have done all week is like, uh,
not brush my teeth and put on my retainers before I go to bed. Not
half bad.
Cleaning blue tack is positively the most therapeutic experience one
can have. Especially when it is not your own blue tack. Compound
that by being supervised by a mute girl, who miraculously found her
tongue only back at the office to complain that my cleanup was not
thorough enough. Sheer bliss.
If I move my legs fast enough, perhaps I can walk faster than me to
leave myself behind. Perhaps.
Mellow yellow. Sallow willow. Wallow.
"Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also
easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to
improve." - Alan Perlis
Oh hi. I've moved too. Into the real world, where the air
conditioning is not free flow, and where Internet access is metered.
Hello world.
2-digit. Everywhere.
Throwing away my 3233 notes. End of a chapter. I wouldn't even be
doing the programming questions at Gigahertz. Gosh I suck.
Another wholesome day wasted. Wow.
Oooh. I belong to the claypot chicken rice fraternity.
All of a sudden, Singapore food does not taste so bad after all.
Even campus food is kinda delectable.
Prediction: Microsoft would purchase Groove within the next 3 years.
Um. Rejected. Ellen Feiss: "It was a really good paper".
Not. Need to work harder. And smarter.
Badly need to: stop checking the VLDB website every hour or so. Would
have insisted that I be the contact author if I had known that I
would be such a nervous wreck. Time to take some of my own advice.
Relac, jangan tension. *deep breath*
There are a lot of things that I share a deep conviction for. One of
those is that I Want To Take You Higher by Duran Duran is
the singularly best piece of music for an IHG
video. Maybe I should go pick up some new video tricks, get some
footage of good-looking athletes, block off 3 days and relive the
experience again.
Little whims and fancies: wish I could buy the Conversatron folks a
beer or something. FedEx it over, maybe. Not fresh local beer,
Tiger, though.
My ex-roommate developed a conscience and sent me a thank you email.
Wow. Life is good.
"The sound we heard wasn't the bubble bursting; it was the big
bang."
Edwin says: "All the way bro! Final paper in your study life".
With luck, hopefully not.
Looking back, exams seem to be one of those rare periods
where you can legitimately call for a timeout. To say, hold the
floodgates, till I'm done. (Oh, of course a select few
do not quite get the concept, but well, I am talking about the
majority at large.) Decidedly interesting the proportions my todo
list has grown to. This is definitely not the last lap. It is more
like the time you get out of the water in a biathlon.
From CMI to CMU. Hmm. Jealous.
And just when you thought you could do with a little sunshine, it
rains. It freaking rains. Argh. inner voice: so you imagine
that the whole world revolves around you? wake up your idea.
One of those entries that would tip the scales in favour of those
who think that blogs are just self-absorbed, banal rants. Pandan
spread. On pandan bread. Mmmm. Honestly, I am a simple man who is
easily contented. Doesn't take alot to make me happy.
Zhu Yi: "I am designing a genetic algorithm. There are guys and
girls in the population. Should I add the property that all girls
are weird?"
Finally. My 5-year ICQ history put to good use. (You would approve
too, dear, I guarantee.) You owe me one, pal. See, I told you I
still like you.
Stranded. Quite.
"When other people flame, he reads, and thinks and a few days later
adds light, not heat."
Yee Pern, you must be the singularly most unobservant friend I have
ever had. But it's okay. I still like you. =)
"Everyone knows it's the .5 version that gets it right." Gives new
meaning to my referring to "half past six", don't you think? *wink*
"Huge blop, not happy issit?" I was going to say that I would then
lick it all up, but I bet that would be even more disgusting than
thereugo.jpg. =p
Second thoughts about corporatism. Fine thin line between control
and liberty, I guess. Would try to go through, soon, a blow-by-blow
on the Internal Security Act flyer which I picked up some weeks ago.
Slightly delayed, but it has been awhile since Slashdot has managed
to perk my interest. Is it me?
"BTW, all programmers want to tell you How It Works. In excruciating
detail. As if you cared. Try to be patient."
Ooooh. Office gave me the handphone number of our cheo-babe law
tutor. I'm sure Liu Fang would die of jealousy. Hur hur. *grimace*
Signs of aging. Cannot for the world distinguish between Eminem,
Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit. They all sound like noise and angst to
me. Why can't my cousin listen to good ol' Bon Jovi or something?
To KH and SC: Ah. Don't think that I don't know what you two are up
to. That's just a roundabout way of saying that I am a
anal-retentive fusspot, right? =)
Alarm bells. Sometimes, I think I give the male instinct too little
credit. And I mean it in more ways than one.
You are wrong. And I am right.
Give a man enough rope..., and he would make enough lassos to hang
himself 101 times over. Last mile. Focus focus focus.
Honestly. Not for the reasons you think. =)
I know. My taste in music leaves alot to be desired, but at least I
don't listen to boy bands. Nae nae nae. Woohoo.. all hail the Queen of
Bubblegum Pop!
Prune prune prune. I guess gardening is something that comes with age.
"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a
thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot
possibly go wrong goes wrong, it usually turns out to be impossible
to get at or repair." - Douglas Adams.
Chey. Focus focus focus.
当你的意志在前进时，每个下一步，都已经是一种从容、一种冷静；冲动的，其实是那瞬间的倦意、刹那间闪过的放弃。曾经有人问跳远好手，窍门在哪儿。健将说∶“我飞跃在空中，有时只是忘了着地而已。”所以，或许意志力也仅是一种健忘。静思，而忘却冲动。
-insert random profanity- Some people have no honour; others have no
freaking cow sense. Patience. Boy do I forsee a lot of
shouting matches in the weeks to follow. Patience. But I
have exceeded my limit. This is beyond what any reasonable man can
withstand! Patience. Spontaneous combustion, I guarantee.
It is just a matter of time. Patience. None to spare. Shut
up and go away. Patience. So what? I have to prepare a nice
layer of sugar coating to deliver this bitter pill of truth?
Tact. Ah. Now you got me. And some help are your good
intentions if you are just F-ing up the execution. Uh. Thought
you were saying something about tact? Patience. I hate you.
Be warned. I promise to sing in front of anyone who dares to say
anything about my new haircut. I mean it!
Overheard: "If my time on the internet has taught me anything, it is this:
There are many, many people who are far more pathetic than I am."
"You are ignorant". Da boom ba. I hope it is not
because of me that groups spiral into dysfunctionality. Help!
It is just very curious that my bosses all have problems staying
focused. Or maybe it's just that I always follow flighty
people. Hmm.
Okay. Everybody's aghast at my pathetic state of existence. Hey, not
my fault that journalists at large are terribly inept! Would have to
subscribe to Economist or something. Ugh.
"And here's your chance to be in bed with some of the pros..."
Visitor to my cluster: "Hey, do you know an Eddie among your
neighbours? You know, this Angmoh... Chinese?" Kinda amused that
someone does not quite know his ABCs. Sigh.
In heavy flow. Confirmed. Hey, it wasn't me. *denial*
My bad for being a freakazoid. Freaking mad. Freak far to walk too.
Siao. =) Hope you are in floooooooooow.
*deep breath* Everybody is A-okay. Everybody is A-okay. Everybody is
A-okay. Hey! Are you guys A-okay? Oh okay. Just thought I would
double check. Great. Good to hear that. Now, reports, presentations,
midterms and examinations! Get in line, one after another. Freaking
excellent. (And pray tell me, what are the chances that
all modules in a semester have mid-terms,
say, 6 weeks after term break and 2 weeks before exams? Honestly.)
Larry Wall: "In fact, the basic problem with Perl 5's subroutines
is that they're not crufty enough, so the cruft leaks out into
user-defined code instead, by the Conservation of Cruft Principle."
Damn these Russians are good. HURRY!
Barrage of recalcitrance to wring my hands over. Don't get? Me
neither. Something's eating my insides for lunch, but I can't quite
put my finger on it.
Hope we win. Staying up.
*hearty laugh* Now I know what the Vivianne blog entry meant. Guess
it's not a guy's forte to be able to put two and two together.
Don't know what possessed me to watch a TCS5 teen drama. I just hope
that I don't look half so constipated when I tackle my problems in
real life. And the Weakest Link shall be known as the show that's
singularly responsible for subconsciously moulding little boys into
henpecked husbands who behave like terrified schoolboys before
bitchy sharp-tongued wives.
Damn the rumours are scary. Well, in case I get SARS and don't get
the chance to say it in person. Thanks. You guys have been a blast.
They say PGP is hot zone wor. Oops. (okay, CH and YP can inform the
rest about how paranoid me distributed the Y2K article the last time
round.)
Andy Kurnia: Basically all of Andrew's other students understand
Minflow. We are the only two exceptions.
"Hello? Is this the library?" Hello! Library open at 11pm one meh.
Twinkle twinkle little star.
Ran out of ideas, luck, and optimism. Help.
"But I hear a lot of things, and I'm sure they can't all be
happening outside my head."
If you think that I spout helluva lot of rubbish on my blog, my dear
friends, just be very very thankful that you need not read my
report. Not a pretty sight.
Random nuggets. Howe Szuan dropped a note from Khajuraho, some
4000-people Indian village; Cooked tofu; A very concerned Maisy
messaged; Wishing Andy knew something about network flow; Decided
that heuristics are not all that acclaimed.
Boy do I have the habit of working the Probability Curve hard. Runes
flashing red and blue.
Flow. Please flow.
Okay. Me worm too. Grovelled for help, and entire lab was helping me
formulate my problem. Humbled, very humbled.
Super power Zhu Yi. 5 hours training, 4 hours counselling. And still
has the energy to write research papers at night. Live and learn.
Paralysis of analysis. Lalala.
I feel dumb. Must be the lack of sleep. Sleeping makes you smarter.
Goodnight. And yea, I concede. Char siew pao is stupid. (Why do I
have so many things to apologize for? Oh no.)
This sounds decidedly daft, but things just suddenly hit me when I
handed in my vacation stay form this afternoon. Only less than half
of the boxes were ticked. Have stayed back on campus housing for
each vacation in the past 4 years. This is not just about missing my
cosy little setup in PGP now, it is... Aiya. You know lah.
Graduation blues. Okay, I would just go sit alone and mope abit.
Cannot whine in public, coz I am luckier than like 99% of my peers
already.
Reality check. Testing. Testing, one two three.
Ah. The sheer pleasure of using a normalized database!
Denormalization must be in the same category as optimization: Pure
EvilTM.
Had the incredible sense of mind to restrain myself from being too
mischievous. Open Sesame! *grinz* (okok, I know. I am a petty
bastard. sigh.)
Got lucky. Tutor decided that our class CMI, and just spoon-fed the
answers when I am slotted (for the third time) to present. Debugged
my B+ tree just in time (sorry, yee pern). And somehow remembered to
take deep deep breaths to prevent myself from bursting into
spontaneous combustion. Way cool. At any rate, I would not be
pushing my luck any further today. Would just go and and lie low and
get some much needed sleep.
Pop quiz: Said target is colour blind, has a miscalibrated monitor
such that somehow real colours shift towards less discernable
colours, and is too big a hurry to notice point 14 error messages.
How would you design a usable website for him?
When the going gets tough..., you can always count on lazy graduate
students cancelling their tutorials. Whoop!
Final semester of my undergraduate studies, and I feel that my
education is only just beginning. Still so many deep ends to plunge
straight into, still so many pools to learn how to swim in. Books
glorious books.
Nothing vaguely intelligent to say. Need more sleep. I tell you, it
is quite stressful staying with your supervisor who stays awake
later into the night, gets out of the house before you wake up, and
generally smarter and more driven. Which is not to say that I am not
having fun up here. Just have to remember to shut the
window at night coz the pink blanket (amazing how some
other people's mistakes come back to haunt you) is hardly
any warmth. I miss my comforter. *chatter*
Pray, is there any way to make your users read your error messages,
without having to display text at 72points blinking like billboard
advertistments? Sometimes, I really really think that mummies and
grannies should just stay at home to look after the kids, not chug
away at some mediocre paper-pushing job. So sue me, I may at least
feel less guilty.
Funny how a little measure of success suddenly draws in people from
all over the map to get in touch. Okay, I do get a little conceited
with praise sometimes. But at the end of the day, the people that I
am most comfortable with are those who let me know in no uncertain
terms that I am just a babbling idiot who mumbles inconherently and
writes imprecise, convoluted garbage. Thanks people. (And in true
blue fashion, Yee Jiun has this to say about my personal statement:
"Your [statement] is kana sai. Xibei xibei kana sai. =/)
Pretty cool when you rope your Dad in on a boyish prank, and both of
you share a moment in maniacal laughter at the ironical situation.
*grinz* Boys will always be boys.
"Ignorance must certainly be bliss or there wouldn't be so many
people so resolutely pursuing it."
Sometimes it is such a relief counting the little blessings in life.
Like brushing your teeth, getting a hot shower and getting a decent
night's sleep. Mmm.
"It's easy to understand why contest organizers don't have much good
to say about Dr. Loebner -- in their experience, he's a control
freak and congenital, chronic pain in the ass. People say that the
more you go out of your way to do Hugh Loebner a favor, the more he
treats you like hired help." Oooooh, don't we all know little
Loebners. Irritating little pricks. Okay, deep
breath. I will not lose my temper tonight.
"'Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in
dreams." - Dostoyevsky
There is something very comforting about taking your education into
your own hands. It is very curious that four years of penfolded
specialized attention in the gifted programme of a world class high
school failed to do that (for the sarcasm impaired, you really
wandered abit too far off your beaten track), but a run-of-the-mill
university did it. For all the gripes I have about my university
now, I really like it when people leave me alone to surf the Net at
my own pace. I wouldn't consider it isolation. True, you miss out on
human contact (and become really vulnerable to late night phone
calls, but that is another story altogether), and there are
definitely things that face-to-face cannot replace. But you are
reading, not from one source, but from several, authoritative or
otherwise. You are not reading chronologically (the Web is the most
successful hypertext project because the almighty URL allows
transparent random-access); you may be reading more than
one texts simultaneously, opening up two browsers side by side. So
you have all these information at your disposal, and you can just
read and read and read. Glorious.
See? It is just an elephant. Sweet irony that examples are alive
in my own cultural heritage, of all places. Wow.
"When we trust people, we recognize their jokes as jokes, their
metaphors as metaphors, and their fishing stories for the tall tales
that they are. We also recognize that on the things that really
matter, they won’t lead us astray."
"Be strict in what you send, and lenient in what you accept." -
Internet Engineering Task Force (oh, and we sure know where that led
us...)
I think I would really really hate it, if I were a 45 year old IT
manager at some MIS, and some 20 year old kid thought that I am the
dumbest thing since sliced bread and made no secret of it on his
blog. I had better learn more while my mind is still malleable and
receptive.
Cramming for test. Back to books.
15 year old cousin wants to tag along. Yucks. *mumble grumble*
My fridge has been feeling particularly unloved, so I splurged and
bought enough groceries to feed an army. Might as well. The next
month or so is going to be long dreary nights of coding, debugging,
word-smithing and, failing all of the above, bull-shitting. Boy are
my fingers already tingling with excitement.
Oooooh. The truth hurts. Tough shit.
Aha. Have a point to make, and I proved myself right. It is more
that I am lazy instead of sick. Sick people can't run 10k. Either
that, or I really needed that fresh air. Whoop!
Ethnic is good. Is it junevile to go gaga over accents?
Okay. So I have been a jerk. What do I do next? Sigh. The last time
I watched a chick flick on TV, I sprinted out like a madman in the
middle of the night. And now, this. Your parents are right. TV is
bad for you. Stop laughing. This is so unfunny. Goodnight. Oh, and
while I am at it, I hate flossing. Too bad I spent good money on my
teeth. Oh, Happy Valentine's Day to everybody. Hope you had a great
time.
"Free speech is a right. Being heard is a privilege."
11th February
Hey, I was kidding about the "MC" part. Ah well, better that Someone
up there has a sense of humour than not. Doctor says that somehow
viruses bypass my lungs to go straight to my stomach, which is why I
get to hug my tummy in agony as opposed to coughing my lungs out. No
cough mixture for me neither! (The great balancing act of the
Universe saw to that by making me grab almond-flavoured soya bean
milk off the counter in a hurry. Yucks. Did you know that almond
flavouring is actually some form of cough syrup? Clear bottle, 60s
looking label, probably called Ah Pek brand or something. Your
grandpa takes a spoonful for his cough, your mum stirs it into your
almond jelly. Ewww.)
My head is whirling. Think I would go and take my medicine cocktail.
I am pretty sure this blog entry would look pretty incoherent when I
wake up and re-read it.
10th February
It is time for a little disappearing act. (Audience chants "MC! MC!
MC!") In a wisp!
9th February
Blooper: Flipping through my sister's copy of the NUS undergraduate
prospectus. School of Computing says, "The school upgrades its
curriculum regularly to meet the fast changing needs of the
computing industry." That was the caption to a stock art photo
showing two 1990 (?) Classic Macintoshes. Whee.
5th February
Thank you, MOE. I really appreciate the hidden, unpublished clauses,
and the couple of zeroes you are tagging onto my further studies.
On adaptive deterministic gossiping in ad hoc radio
networks. Real funky title.
Even funkier: How to cut a cake almost fairly. I am telling
you, mathematicians are a really weird bunch.
31st January
Mmmmpgh.. Grandma makes the best love letters! I
would try to bring some back to Singapore, but I guess that would
largely depend on whether any survives my hourly raids on
the pantry. Mmmmpgh.. (okay, I am not quite sure how to describe the
sound that I actually make, but if you can remember Cookie Monster
from Sesame Street, I would say that the imagery is pretty close.)
30th January
Ordering new toy tomorrow. Whoopee!!
29th January
Flashback from Sunday again: A little bone to pick with the
subtitles of 《英雄》.长空、残剑、飞雪、如月、无名can hardly be
translated to Sky, Broken Sword, Flying Snow, Moon and Nameless
respectively. They are just... too literal to convey the underlying
imagery! Sadly, I can't seem to come up with something better
either. Sword-broken sounds more appropriate to me, but
otherwise I am pretty much stuck myself. Guess I would have to wait
till my labmates come back from their Chinese New Year break.
A book! How quaint.
28th January
Hiak. My turn to enjoy the good-friend-of-GF perk! (Succumbed to the
temptation to read a few lines of the surrounding history after
confirming the reference. It used to be so simple. *wistful*)
Uninteresting work? Leave it till the absolute last minute (better
yet, be already late!) so that you would have the motivation to get
it over and done with, while not necessarily sacrificing quality.
Interesting work? I don't even need caffeine. Just the adrenaline
rush is enough to get me going through the night.
Looks like either way, I am destined to a career built on
all-nighters. Good day.
Sorry. 六亲不认。 If it is any relief to all
of you, I am being just as cruel to myself. Good night.
Slam dunk! ala Owen Meany. I see that Lady Fate has her own twisted
sense of humour.
Ha. This is a really cryptic one. 越漩。
Flashback from Sunday: all of a sudden, I have grisly visions of
having to accompany my dowdy, bitchy wife to up-market boutiques,
nodding my silent compliance to her bombardments of "Do I look
nice?". *shudder*
No thanks to this middle-aged woman, who has a nose so ugly that it
could have only been an artifact of a botched plastic surgery. She
came out of the fitting room in fluorescent green stripes (I swear
that they make her nose look bigger, then again, what can possibly
go with engorged noses?), and squeaked "Do I look nice in this?". I
imagined that her tortured husband probably mumbled something
positive, since she was encouraged to squeak even more
enthusiastically, "Oooh.. I think it is very youthful.. very
cute
rite?".
And that is all that I heard.
27th January
Every once in a while, it is such a relief to delegate the driver's
seat to someone else. Found myself a random jogger for a pacer
today. Bugger, Mr. Lanky Athlete was basically only shuffling his
feet, but I had enough trouble as it is being the chaser. Cramps
later, but nevertheless it was so much easier simply following
someone than having to pan their entire route in my mind.
I suck as a pacer. Probably will not make the cut as the captain of
the ship either. All that I have ever done is to be the last one
standing, sinking with the ship...
KW: *grimace* Which way do you stretch when you have a
stomach cramp?
YP: Hmm. For guy or for girl?
Why would a male ever ask another fellow non-med school
male what to do for female cramps???? You see that
smart people sometimes do not have an awful lot of common sense.
Sigh.
"Research is like a supply chain." - Andrew Lim
26th January
"Epperson's law: When a man says it's a silly, childish game, it's
probably something his wife can beat him at." So Yee Pern, you are
right, it is probably not just you. =)
One option striked off my career list. No way am I going to be a
systems administrator. It is not as if we are doing a very good job
maintaining our own servers, but I see no reason why I should be
interrupted on a Saturday night out with my friends over a MSSQL worm on
someone else's Windows server.
Not to mention that I just dissed the ComCen administrators a few
hours ago for broken network connectivity. Well, at least this is
one time when they are not tripping over their own incompetence.
That is, of course, under the very generous assumption that letting
Microsoft bribe their way into the campus IT infrastructure is
not incompetence. And I have not even started to complain
about how the NUS DNS servers seem to travel back in time to serve
up an outdated database every now and then. Maybe Microsoft's DNS
servers have some half-assed replication scheme, like what they
have for their WINS servers?
25th January
"There are two sorts of law under Common Law: the written law, and
the unwritten law. Written law, is written down in full. Unwritten
law, " He pauses for effect. "is also written down in
full."
"There are three types of courts in Singaore. The Supreme Court, the
Subordinate Courts, and Food Courts."
*CRINGE*
Perhaps I should not change tutorial classes after all, so that I
can continue to laugh at people laughing at bad jokes.
也许你就是那个．．．．．．他，
我所寻找已久的那个．．．．他；
如果你真的是那个．．．．．他，
请你让我知道你就是那个．．他，
我期待已久的那个．．．．．他。
-- Bad poetry found on vandalised tutorial room table.
Accepted. *toothy grin*
24th January
4 more days. SIGMOD, please don't reject me.
23rd January
"That's what you get for swimming in the shallow end of the gene
pool."
On
electing Steve Jobs
President of the United States: "So, I was having these
negotiations with North Korea over their Nukes, and then all of a
sudden, they were like boom boom boom boom boom and then South Korea
was gone. North Korea, ate South Korea. It was kinda.....a bummer."
22nd January
Zhu Yi on IM abbreviations: "First time I saw 'np', I thought it is
'nondeterministic polynomial'." =)
Zhu Yi again: "So NP-Complete means 完全没问题."
Classic!
One of those days when you sit in silent marvel, not in awe of
strength and beauty and perfection and what not, but rather, with a
stupefaction at how incredibly topsy turvy the whole world just is.
Every single day is a miracle, simply because it is decidedly
curious why civilisation as we know it will not spontaneously
collapse under its snowballing weight of kruft and entropy. Duct
tape. The whole universe is just held up with duct tape,
precariously perched on the wire thin line of normalcy.
Hmm. Since you asked. I am not comfortable with having to justify
why I like. I don't like having to explain myself. I don't see why I
cannot decide to be nice, just because. I think everybody deserves a
second chance, even my ex-roommate who exiled me out of my own room
for a whole month during A-levels.
And I don't see a big deal behind
differences, this inclusive, since if you bother to dig deep enough,
we are essentially made of the same stuff, just wired up
bit bit differently. Tralala.
It is pretty easy to offer advice. Just say what people want to
hear. However well-meaning your advice, people are just going to
ignore it so long as it is contrary to their beliefs and experience.
So the net effect is all the same. With the side benefits that your
friend feels happier, and you won't be tempted to pull a
I-told-ya-so later on. Ah, the fine art of apathy.
"The pointy-haired boss miraculously combines two qualities that are
common by themselves, but rarely seen together: (a) he knows nothing
whatsoever about technology, and (b) he has very strong opinions
about it." As do we all.
"If you can't find ten Lisp hackers, then your company is probably
based in the wrong city for developing software." Uh. I don't think
you can even find Perl hackers in Singapore.
Revenge of the
Nerds. Don't you love advocacy?
Let us all kowtow to the indomitable elegance of Mathematics. I can
respect it, even I do not understand it. Sad when you discover that
you are relegated to, at best, a second class intellectual citizen.
21st January
Sianz!
Procrastinating has
never been so boring.
Go fly a kite.
Life is too miserable to let yourself be governed by a bloody todo
list. I am going where my feet would take me.
There is a story behind every 5am jogger. Me? I am just trying to
preempt the effects of Grandma's Lunar New Year love
letters. Huh.
Starstruck eyes scintillating,
Thunderstruck thighs throbbing,
Awestruck jaw dropping.
Boys and girls, this is what sleep deprivation does to you.
Back to bed!
Neck wringing mood. Stay away.
As Yee Jiun would say. "Pain, damn pain". Ugh.
Listening to restroom music. Hah. Not half bad though.
20th January
"You can have great sex with a beautiful woman for a week, but
someday you're gonna come up for air and want to have a
conversation." Mmm.
Jamie Zawinski on
Apple's decision not to use Mozilla in Safari. Nothing like having
someone do the one finger salute to your pet project. Angst-y, but
boys will be boys. My sympathies.
Which is quite a big deal, since, on an unrelated note, I thought
that I had expended my sympathy vault just this morning.
18th January
He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. - Bion
We are all waiting for Joel Spolsky to write something about Gnome
and KDE being platforms to counter all those
but-competition-is-good purporters on Slashdot. Sigh. Which part of
standardisation do you people not get?
17th January
Hah. Girls at work are dumb and irritating. (Nono, not you
my dear) So sue me.
The word is out. My good friends now know exactly how
compulsive obsessive I am. But honestly, my little script is kinda
cool, is it not? No?
16th January
Not an ideal or principle too high and lofty. The world is not as
cutthroat as we imagine it to be sometimes. There is enough slack in
the system to be nice. There are times when you have to
watch your back, but you do not have to always sleep in chain mail.
Not everyone is trying to make a profit at your expense. It is not a
perfect world that you can enjoy with naviette, but that doesn't
mean that you have to fight and battle every inch of the road.
Chill. Take off your armour, stroll by and smell a flower. Be nicer.
Smile.
Peace.
Admittedly, a knife is incomplete till a sharpening block lends
character to it. But just be careful with sharp objects. And never
run with scissors.
Better luck tomorrow.
15th January
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating." - Miguel de
Cervantes
Pie. Mmm.
14th January
Why cheat? Moron.
Bushed. Like totally.
Solace. Me and my songs. Happy Power and High Power on replay.
My nose betrayed me.
13th January
In all honesty, you cannot truly expect me to take you seriously
when you have a name like Jingo. Can you?
Feeling like a freaking has-been. Really itching for another project
now. Though that would probably be the wrong reason for starting
one. Perspire, anyone?
Marketing copy is written by those lowest down the food chain who
have absolutely no idea what they are bull-shitting about. But I bet
you already know that.
12th January
"Don't think my friends will be getting employed for a
while... so their schedules should be quite flexible." Wonderful
friend we have hor?
11th January
"Ook! Jerome Quelin offered an implementation of the latest silly
language, Ook! which can be thought of as brainf*ck for librarians."
I guess that makes us orang-utans who (which?) were powerful
wizards? *grinz*
Just a little girl,
Indulging in her fantasies.
I am not your biggest proponent of animal testing, but in a way
aren't you glad that they tested putting domestic products
such as soap and washing powder into eyes? Particularly when your
shower foam is hanging on an incline taller than you are, and
pressing on the dispenser too hard got the soap in a projectile
motion right into your eye. Sigh. Stupidity rulez.
Reflective: isn't blogging cryptic one-liners just a form of
emotional masturbation?
10th January
Blind-sided. By good fortune. I am so sleepy now that I cannot quite
grasp exactly what happened, but by golly, my not-so-little ass was
very neatly saved. In a happy, grateful daze now. =)
Saw Little Norman today. He is still very little.
9th January
Cursed Piscean blood. Reminded of my twin brother.
Colour accuracy resolved; now we are waiting for
faster auto-focus sub-systems and longer battery life. To the
zealot, this was what I had in mind when we were having the
flamefest about digital vs. analog. There is nothing to get
defensive about regarding film cameras, because frankly, film or
CCDs are but pale replicas of the marvellous sensing
sub-system that we call "eyes". Digital was the first step in
breaking away from the tyranny of chemistry (so that you get to play
by the rules of physics and software instead, hah).
But absolutely nothing here is meant to trample on your artistic
expression.
"It took film almost a century to figure out the best
way to do color. But once Kodachrome was perfected in 1935,
competing schemes largely faded away. By devising the simplest and
most reliable solution to the problem - a three-layer emulsion -
Kodak won the color war." If it seems that technology precedes art,
it would be only because there are certain others who are toiling to
bring to fruition the full dynamic range of artistic expression.
There are certain others who are improving the medium, the mode of
expression, so that you can express better what you have to
say.
Nobody is lording you over and saying "I am superior". It is all in
your head. So cut the angst, stop bickering over tools, listen
first, and go out there to create something worthwhile. Coz you can.
ps. Hope Carver Mead would forgive me for piggy-backing my own
agenda on his brilliant invention. Flame wars are bad; IM flame
wars are the worst, since you do not even use as many words as in
email to make up for the lack of tone and facial expression.
"If someone stinks, view it as a reason to help them, not a reason
to avoid them." - Larry Wall
You know that you are a jaded old fart when you are not all that
impressed with new shiny toys. =)
8th January
Witnessed first-hand how two seemingly reasonable and logical local
decisions led to a terrible global consequence. Thumbs up for
rationality - maybe that is why the world is so topsy turvy. Then
again, that is how the Real World works. Wise up boy.
I am not going to get involved. Even though I am
really tempted to.
Give me a couple of hydralisks and I would gladly let them chop up
this Protoss melee for dinner. Logically rude. Confirmed.
"Measure twice. Cut once."
7th January
Written alot these two days. Pity none of it is for my report due
Friday. Hmm.
"Three decades past, the relational empire conquered the
hierarchical hegemony. Today, an upstart challenges the relational
empire's dominance, threatening the return of hierarchy. XML is
Lisp's bastard nephew, with uglier syntax and no semantics. Yet XML
is poised to enable the creation of a Web of data that dwarfs
anything since the Library at Alexandria. This talk examines the
design of XQuery, the W3C standard query language for XML, and
related standards such as XML Schema." - Philip Wadler, Keynote,
VLDB, Rome, September 2001
Diplomacy is to do and say, the nastiest thing in the nicest way. -
Balfour
Hi. I am Kian Win. I stay in a Singapore cave by night and I work in
little China by day. I love my digital camera, particularly since
I can swivel the LCD around to take pictures of myself. I am not a
big fan of group settings, coz you don't get to catch up with anyone
at all. My good friend thinks that I can only be in one of two
modes: irritating, and apologetic for having being irritating. I
adore my sisters, which is why I feel bad when I scream at them for
messing up my cupboards.
When I was 5 years old, I used to think that the phone would explode
if I dialled the very number I am calling from. I proved myself
wrong eventually, but only by accident a good many years later. At
18, my dance partner nearly killed me for graciously ceding her to
some weirdo pursuer whom I thought she liked.
I hate tinkering with hardware, thus I am still using my computer
from 4 years ago. And I still have their covers. Both of them.
Sometimes I feel like a Swiss Army knife aspiring to be an
Excalibur, and all my friends would burst out laughing
aloud if they ever hear me say that in person. My wardrobe is a
coordinated sea of blue, the most striking article in which is a
retro fluorescent cyan polka dot fitting shirt that I have had the
good sense to not have worn. Yet.
6th January
Look Ma. No blood.
This is downright silly, but I get a big kick out of seeing
centericq display [msn] connecting with ytying. *goofy
smile*
5th January
So much emotions. So little time. So many ants phasing
right into my room. So many loose ends. So few chances. So many
chasms to cross. So tight a schedule. So short an attention span.
So many choices. So sleepy *yawn*. So big a puddle of
spilt milk. So many old demons to kill. So much incongruence. So
few appropriate words. So many deadlines. So dysfunctional is the
lab aircon that you have to play with the remote every 15mins. So
much to look forward to. So little baggage you can discard. So
misunderstood. So itchy.
You make the choice. And then the choice makes you.
The Serenity Prayer: I pray for the serenity to accept what I cannot
change; the courage to change what I can; and the wisdom to know the
difference.
2nd January
"This is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. And now you know
why."
1st January
爸：政府要在这里开辟高科技农场。
Kay：哦。会不会有电子鸡(Tamagotchi)?
30th December
"Cos nobody knows what you talk abt anyway." Sad huh?
26th December
And so, I decided to run. Pretty good timing too, if you ask me. =)
25th December
Sometimes I think the world would be a better place if I would just
hold my sharp tongue for a second.
24th December
Placed under surveillance. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
20th December
My grades suck. Sympathy to spare, anyone? Anyone?
Anyone! Dammit, isn't effort supposed to count?
Don't you think I should stop subjecting myself to dangerous
situations?
19th December
"People don't usually make the same mistake twice -- they make it
three times, four times, five times..."
16th December
"It's not the years, baby, it's the mileage." - Indiana Jones
Overheard:
- The Capitalist Way
- You overwork, they underpay.
- The Socialist Way
- You pretend to work, they pretend to pay.
隆胸手术。打一国家。
One of those days when you have struck nothing off your todo list,
but walk home feeling particularly accomplished.
14th December
陌生的人
陌生的脸
陌生的城市
在异乡的夜
和我同行是我长长身影
而你只是回忆
陌生的床
陌生的被 (ed: pink!)
陌生的房间
想着你的夜
反反覆覆回想你的从前
才能合眼安心入眠
陌生的夜 - 动力火车
A little bit of research, a Good Samaritan and an extremely speedy
email reply just saved me US$2000 and a week's work. Wow.
13th December
Lab. 2:30am. Photoshop. XPathscript. Personal statements. Sleepy.
Not exactly looking forward to my icy bed either.
Random thought: Bad things happen when you think too much or care
too much. Which is not a good reason to stop, nonetheless.
"Two sandwiches short of a picnic." Wow. Right on the money.
And the flood-gates are open. Woah.
Reading like no tomorrow. Tuned in, sensing faculties wide open.
In retrospect, it is scary the way you ask those very difficult
questions. Somehow you just have the knack of treading on sensitive
ground. Raw and tender.
12th December
Friends are all coming back for the holidays. Hooray!!
Sis has a crush on someone she has not even spoken to. My oh my.
积极点！
"A lot of effort went into making this effortless."
"If you can imagine yourself not doing what you're doing, do
something else. Do whatever it is that you can't not do."
Why in the world would I need to check my examination
results using my mobile phone? Decidedly a solution looking for a
problem. Uninspired.
11th December
One week.
I bet my friends hate me when I start my sentences with "err..".
Just wondering. When we look on in disdain at secretaries trembling
in excitement at their newest stationery acquisition, could there be
others yet higher up the food chain who disapproves of our exhilaration
in getting new shiny gadgets on the company's budget?
Yae! My auto notify works!
Oops. Shhh. Not too loud now. =)
"Weaned from breasts." Classic.
10th December
"Journalism is literature in a hurry." - Matthew Arnold
Gun toting mercenaries. Engage, rapid fire, move on.
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull
in all kinds of directions." - Terry Pratchet
8th December
"Rincewind is one of those people who gets in the way of his own
happiness. If it was raining kisses he'd be the only person with an
umbrella." - Terry Pratchett, CIX Pratchett Conference
With all due contention. =)
Volition. "If I didn't
believe in free will, I'd stab you to death with a Nintendo
cartridge, because I was destined to do it!"
Holiday's over. Panic time. Good to be back on the road.
6th December
Inherited a pink blanket.
Actually, I do have a best friend. *pause for effect* See, I know
you would disapprove. Hee.
Just occured to me that "nice" could be a convenient catch-all.
Anyone can be nice. Not like it requires much skill. If
someone were nice to me, I think my hair would sooner stand on its
ends. *cringe* Sweet incongruity.
Who says you cannot have smoke without fire? It could well be a
smoke
screen. When you have gossip mongers hot on your heels, it
pays to cover up your tracks.
And while we are at it, do not believe everything you read on the
Internet. *wink*
Hate small talk. Yucks. Why can't people bask in the golden glory of
silence when they have nothing to talk about?
I think my dear friend is going through a mid-life crisis. He has
taken to wearing an Ah Beng necklace, thinks he looks damn good in
orange shades and an Hawaiian shirt, and is talking to his fish on
his blog. Uh, I am concerned, buddy.
5th December
Must be tough taking care of 3 kids all by himself.
4th December
I have never thought that blogs could induce tears, but now I
believe otherwise. (A perfectly convoluted sentence for "I cried'.
Fine fine.) I don't know, I don't want to write much here, since
words have that power to cast your feelings in stone. They become a
binding force, when you become afraid to admit that what you have
written previously could well be wrong. I don't know what to think
now. But it's ok. Things always turn out for the better. That I am
sure.
Riddle me riddle you: what shivers and gobbles?
All of a sudden, there seems to be a hell lot of short-haired girls
in black cardigans and jeans in Mongkok. Don't worry folks, I am not
turning into a psychopath. Just wistful, that's all. =/
"If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are real
good, you will get out of it."
"Windows, while similarly old, is not similarly aged." Ah.
3rd December
So. Maybe it is not so dysfunctional MSN-ing the person immediately
beside you after all. =)
My heart beats slow by a day. Let's see how it turns out tomorrow.
2nd December
Banality.
But damn it must be amusing from the other end. It is a good thing
to be able to laugh at yourself, especially when you are making a
fool of yourself for the most part of your existence.
Haplo just lost his dog. You bet Death Gate Cycle will be a bigger
hit when it does hit the big screen. And all that I want for
Christmas is to get my 7-book series back. The culprit who has
borrowed it for 2 years, confess up! No questions asked.
1st December
Urm. Unfunny.
28th November
eye n. 9. Meteorology. The circular area
of relative clam at the center of a cyclone.
Perhaps the only place where a storm can be truly silent is right in the
middle of her heart.
24th November
Mutants, aliens, misfits. What is your premium on normalcy?
It is official: I am a camper. =)
22nd November
I propose the character alignment as the grand unifying theory. 4 hours
to freedom.
21st November
You sure that it is me you are trying to persuade otherwise? Or is
it you yourself that you have trouble convincing? *innocent angelic
look*
I guess it takes some creativity to make a shampoo advertistment
with the model's hair all concealed under a tudung. Terkhas dari
TV3.
20th November
Peace. Thanks in part to acetaminophen. This is so like
A-levels.
What is in a name? I was not quite expecting squeakyblue to
have any sort of brand power. *hearty laugh* Silly lass.
$17 will solve all your troubles. =)
OK, I will spare you guys all these once I get ICQ back. Urm,
when I get ICQ back. Make that if. Uh.
Leaky abstractions. Uh. Well, a leaky black box beats not having
anything at all.
Hello? Does a coin segregating machine take up so much space? Is it
not just a ramp with a centrifugal thingo on top? I refuse to do by
hand what can be accomplished by a machine. Ugh.
There is an impedance mismatch between graphics tools such as
Photoshop and markup languages such as HTML. So unless you eliminate
the impedance mismatch (by either modifying the tools or the
specifications), you would always need human labour as electrical
charges to straddle the impedance. Ding ding ding!
18th November
Everybody is acting mightily weird. OK, I will shape up right about
now. As usual, I would have to be the captain of the ship of reason.
It is certainly no fun having your sensibilities in close reach when
all that you want is a moment of indulgence. Operational
Research! I would just have to ace you like how I did
the other subjects. Woohoo!
I hope you recognize false bravado when you see it. Coz I do not
tag facades as such very often.
或许是在原地踏步。或许确实处处都是妳的身影。又如何？反正 treadmill 和 cross-country 都是种跑步。晴天跑越野；阴天跑健身器。且别问我目的地在何处，重要的是，妳有毅力跑完全程不？
我有。我替妳接力。
Overheard: "No matter how many men you put on the job, it still takes nine
months to make a baby." Classic.
There is a very whimsical feeling to this little insight I
developed, so I shall put it up here so that you folks can have a
shot persuading me otherwise. Basically, the food on campus is so
bad that, sometimes, I have absolutely no idea whether it is
chicken, pork or fish I am chomping on. Look, my Ma has an upper
hand here because her dishes are entirely predictable (love the
20-year-old recipes, nonetheless). But when your meat all come in
chunks covered by some generic sweet-and-sour sauce, or worse,
stir-fried with black pepper so that your tongue is too tingled with
spiciness to tell the distinction, you just lapse into this apathy
about the muscles and tendons you are sinking your teeth into.
So, if I have to eat suspect meat anyway, why not just go
vegetarian and eat mock meat? My tongue will not be the wiser,
and if I do this everyday for the next 10 years, maybe I would save
the life of one little piglet and ten kilograms worth of ikan
bilis. Not to mention that it will do wonders for my
weight. Logical, no?
And yes Chiew Hong, this has everything to do with your little
crisis after The Edible Woman. Bleah.
13th November
频密的节奏中，
是否也应该留下，
一些成长的缝隙？
12th November
Kay: 要注意身外物喔！ =)
希望，动力火车演唱会是场经验，不是场预习。命运摆脱不要开小苍蝇的玩笑。
41.
11th November
When in doubt, accessorize!
9th November
It is not so much that the texts are uninteresting. They are very
relevant and useful. I just need more time, time,
time! If I were studying on the Eastern coast of
Peninsular Malaysia, at least I could pray for a monsoon flood or
something.
我像是咖啡豆，
随时有粉身的准备；
亲爱的你，
请将我磨碎；
我满溢的泪，
会蒸馏出滚烫的水；
再将我的思念溶解，
化为少许糖味，
盛装一杯咖啡；
陪你度过，
每个不眠的夜。
－蔡智衡《檞寄生》
The sky's the limit; but fly low.
Favourite quote from my lectures this semester: "I taught a graduate
course on typing last semester. *gasps amidst audience* Yes,
just typing alone." - Martin Heinz
Can they please give more marks on attendance? I think I attended more
lessons this semester than in all the past 5 semesters put together. Not
that it is of any consequence the way I am totally screwing up my exams
preparation.
All I want for Christmas is Perl 6 (but I suppose I would have to wait like
everyone else).
8th November
"You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a 'realist', he
is preparing to do something he is secretly ashamed of doing." - Sydney
Harris
Stenderup's Law: The sooner you fall behind, the more time you will have
to catch up.
"When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." - Will Rogers
7th November
Huh?
Hope that by some mysterious cosmic force, it will not be as bleak a
world I wake up to. Goodnight.
6th November
I make up 1.5 asses: have been a half-assed friend, am a half-assed
paper collaborator who have not even read through the papers I am
submitting, and will surely be a half-assed student when I fail my exams
next Monday. Congratulations donkey.
A theory is only as useful as its potential to be misapplied.
4th November
There is more to staircases than you would ever suspect.
*enlightened*
Oh, code does not take an 's' since there is an uncountably many of them
that you have to write, compile, debug and repeat. Sigh.
3rd November
乱乱的。点给我自己。
1st November
Panic is when you suspect that all that code that you wrote last week
may be wrong again!
31st October
Horrid day. Woke up late, found out that I was at only the
50-percentile, procastinated, saw a slime-ball (judgemental.. ack), and
I cannot jog because I have a project meeting 1.5 weeks before 2 killer
papers. Sorry, my dear eardrums. (Oh, and the first song on my
randomized playlist is Wasted Time. Thanks Computer.)
Scabs. Not scars.
29th October
Okay. I think I am not going to die. Never ever add tuna brine
to MSG-laden instant noodles. If you think booze scrambles your brain,
believe me, salt does worse. Please just take my word for it.
Don't give up! Miracles are abound. For one, it is a miracle indeed how
we manage to sit for our exams, given the state of some administrative
officers in the university.
25th October
休息了片刻，看了“喜从天降”。有时候也蛮希望自己周遭的事情有如节目中般，能有一群人涌出来说“Surprise!开开你玩笑。”过后恍然大悟，发现糟遇其实纯属作弄。可惜，现实没那么好玩。
还有，拜托。开我玩笑和寻我开心两码子事截然不同。看来我的朋友有些确实交得很糟糕。嘿，其实我也有心结。
24th October
Don't Panic. Hey, I need it
myself as well.
20th October
"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man
as it really is, infinite." - William Blake
I am receptive and open to suggestions. Then again, maybe I am just
naive and gullible.
"So how did you think it works? Magic?" - Andy Kurnia
19th October
Yee Pern is very dangerous when he starts doing homework.
18th October
Anyone will like you if you are an unassuming chap. In fact, everyone
will. There is something safe about someone who does not step
beyond his boundaries, who does not probe and who does not question,
much less judge. Now, if people love you in spite of you being
an over-confident bastard, that's something.
How can one ever get sentimental over food dye? I disgust myself
sometimes.
Looks like my interviewing skills are not all that swell. One false
negative, couple of false positives. Live and regret and learn.
I think it is a natural tendency for us to sound like lovestruck mushy
pies on our blogs. Hey, at least I am consistent. I look the part too in
Real Life. =)
Okay, so maybe I don't sound so lovestruck. yt thinks I am just twisted.
17th October
Flashback: You think solitude is all alone in your room cut off from the rest of
the world? I say it is all alone amidst a rowdy crowd where you suddenly
develop a third person perspective.
"A lot of effort went into making this effortless."
Common lies, #295: "I came here because of the music". I am tempted to
use the word "socialization" in my explanation, but I shall not grant my
social sciences tutors that satisfaction.
哈哈，有人有心结。泡泡泡泡-泡泡泡泡-泡泡龙。=）
14th October
"An instrumentality must not obey the same rules as that on which it
acts." Takes some brain cycles.
In context.
When you were 10, would you have ever believed that Mickey Mouse can be
evil? Uh, not like you would believe it now. Meh.
Just a little bit more conviction needed.
In retrospect, it is fortunate that there were some projects that I
never acted on. Who says procrastination is necessarily bad? =)
"Advancing technology does not change what is right or what is wrong. It
does not convert good law to bad. It just increases the contrast and
makes it more obvious that a lot of seemingly good ideas that we have
made into law are not really such good ideas after all."
Complexity should not come at the expense of simplicity. And vice versa.
When I do grow bald, I promise to never pat imaginary strands of stray
hair back onto my diminishing hairline in a public toilet.
13th October
12th October
College is the time when you stay up to write a paper and end up talking
about character alignments. (No, I am not a RPG fan. Really.)
Hey, it is not so hard writing Maths that people would have
difficulty understanding. =)
11th October
Proof of postage is not proof of receipt.
Drowning in coffee, music, code and LaTeX.
10th October
Grr. Why does Daddy insist on buying the cheapest laptop on
offer? Can he not sense that his son might want to borrow his
laptop for a spin once in a while? Talk about insensitive.
9th October
We had soya sauce spare ribs today. Yae!
Completed my todo list today. Double yae!
8th October
Nipple abrasion. Ouch. Serves me
right for laughing at Sam.
2 weeks. 6 due dates. Actually, just 3, since they all manage to
coincide with each other. The next 14 days will be very interesting.
7th October
"The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time, the last 10% takes the
other 90% of the time." Hear hear. But the Kian Win Exponential Work
theory also states that you accomplish more in the last 5 hours than in
the first 5 days.
"I am a tough cookie. If a bit flaky." - Chiew Hong
Is it just me, or do you also pick up little quirks, habits and
preferences of friends whose lives have stopped converging with yours?
Maybe it is just that I am a sentimental fool. Still a rookie at being
the tough cookie.
6th October
Looney Kian Win thought that Sze Chean said that Buddhism is some form
of Christianity, by virtue of the fact that Buddha proclaims to be
(only) a messenger. (I see that the Possibility Curve is working quite
hard for me.)
Wonderful wonderful dream. Let's just hope that it was actually a me in
an alternate timeline having slightly better luck.
"You never know when you are making a memory" - Rickey Lee Jones,
courtesy of Faye.
"I asked my wife where she wanted to go on her vacation. She said
someplace she's never been before. I said, 'How about the kitchen?'" -
Henry Youngman
"The purpose of a liberal education is to make you philisophical enough
to accept the fact that you will never make much money."
I think I am a sucker for quotable quotes. 20 more minutes to Super
Sunday. Yae! "超级星期天! Super!"
"We really don't have enemies. It's just that some of our best friends
are trying to kill us."
*High-piched wail* "Pig face!" Remember that? =)
5th October
Shallow me.
又变款。
To put it simply, we are but a function of our hormones. When you think
it is chemistry, well, it really is chemistry, just that it is happening
inside a few itsy bitsy cells, not you. Anyway, first time I
have felt alive the whole week. A deadline is approaching in 3 hours.
Adrenaline rocks.
4th October
Oooooooh.. the week just gets better.
Loud and clear, baby. Loud and clear.
好无辜。
3rd October
"SCS - the more-or-less defacto national society for IT professionals." ahaha.
I just destroyed my toilet door. Oops.
Bumblebees
should not be able to fly according to simple models based on
conventional steady state aerodynamics. Which is not to say that real
bumblebees cannot fly in real life. You just have to choose the correct
mathematical model. (Anyway why would anyone pluck scientific facts from a
Q&A site? I wonder.)
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in
all kinds of directions." - Terry Pratchett
The syndicate. *grinz*
2nd October
Looking forward to breakfast.
Bingo for our little
intuition in winter
1998. Stuff
that, indecipherable-prefix-preneurship
competitions. (Boy, I am one bitter fella.)
"Blogging will get you through times of no sanity better than sanity will
get you through times of no blogging." Uh.
And you said you trust your mind? Try
counting
the Fs
And my favorite quote of the night,
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma."
1st October
"Man who sleep on railroad tracks wake up with split personality."
Hi morons. I have to use 2 fire escapes, a basement car park and a
smart lift to get to the adjacent floor of an adjacent
connecting block. Why don't you all go
eat your own dog food? Dammit.
30th September
I will be a good scientist and perform the experiment honestly.
"A rose by any other name would still have thorns."
"My VAX 6420 will crush all of your PCs - literally." =)
Bloody murder! *pout* *sulk* *despair*
27th September
你觉的累了，所以我睡了...
26th September
$100-friendship.
You would have thought that only kids pick at scabs. Bloody.
24th September
Is it not sad when everyone is avoiding you and your happiness level is
functionally dependant on the volume of your sub-woofer?
Just add drums and electric guitars.
23th September
That disgraceful meh? Bah.
I need a holiday, like right about now.
Seduction afoot. (Don't guess. You will get it wrong.)
Maybe we all need to perform community service sometimes.
20th September
I think control freaks are those people who cannot accept the good
fortune that comes knocking once in a while. Of course, it takes one to
know another. =)
Training hard for the concert. My sister would be proud.
Hot.
Love concentrate.
19th September
Wow. You can work in a bank if you are weird or something. Maybe they
just lock you up in a vault.
18th September
You would have seen an incriminating photo of young JC girls here, but I
decided to be nice. Of course, she did not say anything about forbidding
individual requests... =p (ps. I am personal on my blog, just that the
content is selectively personal. bleah.)
"Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my
part." Ding ding ding!
The guilt is having me for dinner. They say what goes around comes
around when you have half a can of Pringles for dinner.
Ding ding ding!
I am early for my 8am lecture. Coz I could not sleep a wink. *grumps*
16th September
This time I know what the smiley means. Yae!
15th September
Passion can go take a hike in Bukit Timah Hill. Where is Detachment when
I need it?
The gentle difference between hearing and listening, is that you expose
a little of yourself to be influenced when you listen. So what do you do
when your neighbour is blasting a cacophony of heavy metal industrial
shit? Why, you ask him to shut up, shut up, shut up!
Inner voice: shut up, shut up, shut up!
At this rate, I would soon be qualified to write cryptic riddles to
pirate booty.
14th September
"You would think my 14 years on the Internet would have made me better
at typing one-handed." Priceless!
13th September
And if I were ever to be the one stuck in the rut, please don't give up
on me. (Oh yes, thanks to those who did not, the one and only time it
happened.)
11th September
Troll.
So misunderstood.
7th September
Going blind.
"She's the type of trouble I like to be in."
I can look moderately decent only in clothes buatan Malaysia. I
think I have a cheap body, no thanks to all those cheap sugars. Sigh.
1st September
Just realised that there are no strong contenders for second choice. I
quote my prof's pet line whenever he hits a puzzle: "Interesting!"
Flashback: The knife was probably a deliberate
touch.
26th August
Il. Ee. Sam. Sa. O. Yuk. Ch'il. P'al. Ku. Sip. =)
"No good deed goes unpunished."
There was a Chinese New Year when I needed to roam my handphone.
Shouting match. Decidedly prepubescent, but it is nice to know that
someone still cares enough to shout back.
18th August
We are visting IOI, Korea, and we find ourselves in the lab IM-ing,
email-ing, and blogging. Sad. But seriously: did you expect better?
16th August
I do not fancy myself a particularly magnanimous person. Just to get
things off my chest (they have gotten off before, but they found their
way back), I share a healthy despise for people who boycott friends,
even more so for people who incite boycotts. And I really
really hate custom officers who do not put your green card back into the
passport holder (which is really all but 1 of them). I hope this is not
considered a petty crime.
"Maybe the world needs more generalized hatred... that way we don't get
hung up hating a specific group. If we all learned to hate equally I
think it would bring us much closer as human beings." -
Vegeta_23,
Conversatron
I hate you.
No escaping destiny sometimes.
It is a monologue, darling, and frankly I am starting to get a little
restless.
"If you give a man enough rope, he'll claim he's tied up at the office."
14th August
No better icing for a college student than a sub-woofer, incandescent
bulbs and a full length mirror.
12th August
"If ya wanna be bad - ya gotta be good." Woohoo.
10th August
ARGH.
Repartee?
"Doing gets it done." Smart.
Darling Britney re-did "I Love Rock and Roll"? Dang, I liked that song.
9th August
The only rules that make sense are those that you make for yourself.
Sometimes, not even those.
Business is business. Hmm.
I wonder if my parents would have visited
parent
support forums had the Web existed in the days when I was all
"goo, gunk, damp and dribble".
7th August
If it ain't broke, hit it again.
4th August
Can I persuade you otherwise?
MORON. You bastards who cannot keep simple lists. Do I
have to teach you everything??
3rd August
You do realise that the whole point of this exercise is just to prove that
what you concluded is nearly always wrong, don't you? =)
Intimately impersonal.
1st August
Do you know how to shoot the moon?
Schrodinger's Fat: Fats are both present and absent before you lift up the T-shirt.
30th July
Sorry palz, but Eusoff videos still suck. Just coz Eusoff is second home
to you doesn't mean that they have to look like home videos.
Sick men are easily touched.
28th July
Basketball. Haha.
27th July
There is a cure for temptation. Like taking a vaccine, you ingest a
weakened form of the fatal virus. Just be sure you do not succumb to the
cure itself; or worse, suffer its
side-effects.
You cannot in all honesty accuse me of being close-minded. I
downloaded and watched
all of the
Apple Switch ads. And
thought... "
Hogwash." I do like
Ellen
Feiss a lot though. Chalk one up the Masses-O-Meter.
*bleat*
Sad when people cannot see self-deprecating humour for what it is.
23rd July
"Choose." Fwoah.
21st July
It is sobering to be reminded of your own mortality when you realise
that the world has pretty much continued functioning on its own while
you were away for vacation.
With all of my heart, I'll care
I'll play my part, I'll share
Functional nationalism? God awful lyrics.
18th July
Sorry.
17th July
"All upper management is looking for is a nice plush behind to stick it
in. Its the job of your middle-manager or tech-lead to wave his/her butt
around, intercept the phallus, and shield the techs so they can get
their job done in comfort." -
Slashdot
Blurb
16th July
I have the attention span of a
goldfish.
Disturbing.
15th July
My bum hurts.
Just pruned a large section off my search tree. Hope I did not cut off
too many false negatives in there.
13th July
I am in a moral dilemma because I have just discovered a bottle of
brandy in the communal fridge. Should I report it, or should I snitch
it?
"Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents
determinism; the way you play it is free will." - Jawaharlal Nehru
"Life is like a game of cards. If you do not have a good partner, you
had better have a good hand."
12th July
I am terribly sensitive to numbers. Any form of Mathematics would sooner
trigger an allergic reaction.
Flip switch. Floodgates opened. Floodgates closed.
It is a tough pill to swallow, but I am resigned to the fact that I am a
snob. Snob snob snob. Snotty snorty snob. Sigh.
10th July
A competitor. Keep them coming, keeps me going.
Ambiguity to spare.
Threaded on your toes?
yt thinks I am Pure EvilTM.
9th July
Grapevine is baaaaaacccckkkkkkk!! Oh my god. "Most of the comedy is in
the dialogue, which zips along at a wicked clip." "What's most unusual
about the show is that frequently the action stops so characters can
talk directly to the camera or to an unseen interviewer." So it is all
about sex. But exactly what are you looking for on TV? An enactment of
Anna Karerina or something? I had my TV tuner captured the show, by the
way. Re-runs anyone??? Fucking excellent.
8th July
I would like my humour dry. Thank you.
7th July
I wanna marry Aikawa Nanase when I grow up.
6th July
Everything can be funny in retrospect. Even abcdef. (Just in
case you are trying to be a smart aleck, no, it has nothing to do with
ABCDEF4.)
5.0.
"Bigger than Pokemon (well, physically)"
4th July
Everybody is moving away after I move in. Argh.
Give and take; Take and give.
Lavender sweets: the ultimate compatibility test.
2nd July
Rejection ain't a pretty sight.
1st July
"No, Oliver Kahn, you cannot be star goalie for Germany coz you look
like a chimpanzee. As for you, Ronaldo, stop flashing your stupid
buck-tooth smile, else I would sooner axe you from the team too.
Weirdos, all weirdos."
Meritocratic Singapore uses weirdness as a
yardstick for choosing her players. Surprise surprise!
I respect authority. It is just you I have a problem with.
30th June
For the last time, Mr. Customs Officer, I don't smoke, and I am not
carrying any cigarettes.
29th June
One of the little blessings in life is to wake up to an email.
Unless you are a
sysadmin, of course.
"Fatal Attraction type psychos". But that makes up 50% of the people I
know! Uhoh.
I have just cut my finger on a ISA NE2000 card of a 486DX2. In the year
2002. On a Saturday afternoon. Can I be pissed?
28th June
Boink.
The nonsense I have to put up with.
"Sometimes the purpose of a journey is not to arrive." Uh.
27th June
I am not sure. Wonderful multi-tasking summer.
Mommy, the washing machine shrunk my clothes again!
Which is more beautiful: by design or by chance? No, please don't answer
"
both".
26th June
The diagnosis is out. Late Night Syndrome (LNS). The doctor prescribes
sleep.
So can I put off programming till tomorrow?
25th June
Butterflies in my stomach. Why do I have the feeling that I am going to
do something daft within the next few days? Ah well. They say self-awareness
is the first step.
If I could bring my emotions into focus, they would shoot out in a beam
with the intensity of a laser. Unfortunately, they are now just wandering
amok in brownian motion.
23th June
Words are cheap.
22th June
Wow. Korea beat Spain. Shows that us Asians can kick, tug and elbow up
the food chain just as well too.
21th June
Damn I look good in this jacket.
20th June
"Money, it seems, can buy everything but competence."
19th June
hi bugger. i think you are a jerk. please at least aspire to be a
responsible one.
17th June
My mommy never quite articulated this, but one of the main reasons
to pursue an education is so that you don't get hoodwinked by the
likes of car-salesmen. I hope that sometime, someday, I would know
enough to refute someone's random anecdotal evidence. "No Sir, I don't
know". Yet.
15th June
I don't understand all these papers. What is going to be our
angle?