Update, Christmas plans...

My good friend asked me to update her on events/plans. Quote: "Update leh... your blog isn't particularly illuminating".

I've been neglecting my blog, and with that my readers, I apologise. Too lazy you see, and too caught up with world of warcraft (WoW). Lately I've been rushing home after work just to spend 4 hrs on the computer.

Work has been pretty ok. Not particularly a lot of things to do, and I feel pretty confident about most tasks now - i.e., I won't screw up big time - so work has been... a little unchallenging. but i'm not complaining. especially after my "performance review" today, when my boss told me that I did very well this year.

Quote: "So how's L?"
She's good, still in the States doing her PhD. She really has a work-life balance - she took up dance again, and knitting, and she has loads of friends over there. Plus the weather there is brilliant, the food is cheaper that where I am, and she owns a car. I'd say she's living a better life than me. :P

"Christmas plans?"
Eh heh, can't stop grinning when I think about christmas. hehehehhee..

I'm leaving this friday to the States and I'm going to be seeing L after eight bloody long months! and heh, I better not reveal all our plans otherwise you guys will go green with envy (damn cliche..)

And I'll be there for 3 weeks.

And for her I'll be giving up WoW.

For 3 weeks.

Haircut

Had my hair cut last weekend. It was really short. Like a military guy. But I liked it.

Came in to work this morning and one response was,

“That’s serious.”

“What is?”

“Your haircut.”

On another occasion, another guy commented, “Ah, you had your hair cut.”

“Do you like it?” I asked.

“Yeah. You look like you’re saying, don’t mess with me. I’m ready for you.”

…

I never had that intention. I just thought it looked cleaner.

Well, at least they didn’t say it sucks. =D

Could we do this...

I always get this kind of work-related emails:

Dear W,
A couple of questions:
1. Can we look at the backtest to ...
2. Can we also look at ...
Let me know if you have any questions.
Thx,
M

Or

Dear W,
Could we do the following
1...
2...
Rgds,
M

Or

W,
Can we please cross check ...
Rgds,
P

Or

W,
We need to optimise ... and let us see what comes out.
Rgds,
P

Notice a pattern?
These are all emails requesting me to do some work, but instead of:
"Please work on this" or "Will you do this for me"
its always:
"Can we", "Could we", "Let us" etc.
and its not even "Can YOU", its always "we" or "us". When in fact its just ME.

Sometimes I just wish I could just reply
"Yes, WE can." or "Yup, I agree, WE should do it." and leave it at that. Based on syntax, that isn't a real work request, is it? Besides, if its a "we", its inclusive of the person who sent the email right? That means the responsibility also lies with the sender, right?

They make it sound like they're contributing something, but they're not.

How can I make it sound like they are not doing anything, I'm doing everything, and they're making it sound like "WE" are sharing the work?

Sigh...

Sorry for the extended absence..

To get right to the point, the reason why I didn't update the blog was not because I was swamped with work or errands or other important stuff.. and not because something terrible happened...

its because i kinda got addicted playing World of Warcraft. If you heard of it, you probably also heard that one 8 year old kid played for 4 days non-stop until he died. i'm not like that, in case you were wondering...

BUT, truth is I am addicted. every little bit of free time I have after work, I spend it playing the game. on weekends, if I don't have plans, I'll be at home playing it. While its fun, it kinda sucks the life out of you.

Yeah, i know, i should cut down on it. I will, I promise.

And I'll try to update this blog at least once a week.

And finally, before I end this post, I'll like to thank all you sweet things who emailed/msn-ed/sms-ed me birthday messages. To tell the truth, I would have forgotten its my birthday. haha.

A coupla things..

I hadn't been updating the blog lately, i realise.
Reasons are:
1 - been too busy at work.
2 - been too busy after work.

I wanted to post 3 issues today...
1. Limbo. Heard the pope was thinking scrapping the idea of limbo... i.e., right now if children die without getting baptised they won't go to heaven. So once he does that, children, apparently, will go to heaven if that occurs. Amazing isn't it? Maybe one day he could say that, oh, contraception is allowed. then maybe another day, oh, gay priests too. I mean, they argue that limbo is just a theological hypothesis.... but hey, isn't the entire faith a theological hypothesis?

2. Muslim headscarves. They created some waves a while ago in France, where it is outlawed. In Singapore too. And now there's this debate going on in the UK. This MP in the UK suggests that Muslims should take off their veils (you know where they cover their entire face except for a slit for the eyes), and then got shot back by a lot of people saying that he's being discriminating, racist etc. You are entitiled to your own views about this, but what I think is that people should be allowed to voice their opinions without being branded as racist. how else can we achieve understanding and tolerance??

3. World of Warcraft. I'm playing now. Which sorta explains why i'm cutting short my post.

Back in London

I only slept 2 hours the night before the flight. Reason being that I met CT (again, the second time that day) for supper/tea at Adam Road Food Center (really quite happening place) and had pengkang (barbeque/grilled) stingray with the shiok chilli sauce. and also a plate of char kuay teow. yum.

And then we went to a friend's place to watch the English Premier League. I think I watched more football in Singapore in that 2 weeks than I watched in England for 12 months. Caught a bit of Chelsea/Liverpool/Arsenal (not playing each other) and the whole of Man U vs Tottenham at 12am. The match wasn't too bad, but the climax of the night was the Barcelona match against some unknown team in the spanish league. That game started at 2am. Man, Barcelona seemed unstoppable. They basically had all the world's best and most promising players - Ronaldinho, Messi, Deco, Eto'o ... it was simply stunning, watching them tear apart the defence.

The match was done at 4am. Soon after me and my mum went to a market to buy some stuff, and we had breakfast at the market. Oooh, I had a plate of oh-so-good carrot cake. mmm-hmm... *smile on face*. So by the time I reached home it was 7.30am. Having to reach the airport by 10, I had to wake up by 9.30.

So the flight wasn't too bad. The moment I boarded the plane -> *poof* i was out. really dead out. the flight was delayed i think by close to an hour, because one of the passengers i think mistakenly boarded another flight (how the hell does that happen?) and they had to unload his baggage. but i didn't notice. i didn't even notice the plane taking off. i didn't notice them turning the lights off. or them going around giving warm towels. luckily by the time i woke, they were just about serving dinner. heh. only then did the captain explain the delay (otherwise I wouldn't even know there was a delay. haha)

Oh oh, i was supposed to write this down a while ago. When I first arrived in Singapore, I was surprised when I turned on my handphone and saw on the screen, underneath the M1 network name, the words "Changi Airport T2". Wow. I thought that was like, so cool. As I took the taxi back home, I constantly checked my handphone, and saw the text change to stuff like "Ubi Ave 2, Blk 369". Super amazing. In orchard road it sometimes became "Shaw House", or "Cineleisure". Woah. Best.

ok, back to the topic.

I bought an LCD monitor in singapore. A nice samsung 940BW. Initially I was slightly worried at the resolution setting, at 1440x900, as being too uncommon (weird). But no problem at all, I could set the resolution properly. See my computer setup now:
nice right?

Poor taste

 
As promised, this is a picture of one of the trees wrapped in red/white along orchard road. 

Some more thoughts before I fly back.

1. Tiffany is just soooo cute. She said (not to me but loudly enough for me to hear), "I like W- Kor kor". She treats me like I'm her knight in shining armour. How cute is that. L doesn't treat me this way... (got to clarify - if L treats me the same way, I'll really be quite worried)

2. I'm not young anymore. Can't go to Cineleisure and fit into the crowd anymore. And I cringe at their behaviour and conversation, half-wondering whether I used to behave/ talk like them.

3. A- called me. She was complaining that I never mentioned her in my blog. Truth was, her name did come up a couple of times during our gatherings. We're all wondering how she's coping in Bahrain.

4. Happy to have gotten to know KL better. Great guy. Only flaw is that he refuses to be treated. He has plenty of good-looking friends too. No wonder his wife was complaining.

5. Glad to have met up with so many old friends during this short trip.

Singapore Gripes

1. Uniquely Singapore. Its the campaign organised by the Singapore Tourism Board. I think people complained about this before. First of all, "unique" doesn't tell you much about anything right? It can be so dirty its unique. It can be so clean its unique. It can be steaming hot. It can be icy cold. The people could be super arrogant / unfriendly. Hell, any place in the world can be described as unique - even a patch of grass along the highway. Besides, it has become a more politically correct way of saying "fat" or "ugly" or "wierd". Eg., "What do you think of him?"

"Er.. he's unique."

You get my point.

2. Together, Singapore's OK. I think this is something during/just after the SARS period. You know when people were getting infected with some kind of virus and some kind of epidemic was going on? The government started to a campaign to get people to flush toilets, wash their hands etc. But what i hate was the Singapore's OK. OK only? man, shouldn't we be aiming for something better? Like... people ask you "how's the food?".

"Ok lor."

Sigh...

3. Have you seen the trees along orchard road wrapped up in red and white? Its in preparation for the IMF. Shows that some people just have bad taste. I'll try to take and post a picture of it for you all to judge.

Yeah, other than these gripes, singapore's ok.

Confusing C

This post is dedicated to my JC classmate, C. She says she doesn't mind this bit of fame (given my readership, heh, her fame is really limited).

She's one hell of a puzzle. My first impression when I saw her about 8 years ago was : Chao-Ah-Lian. And I don't think it was just me. Apparently the teachers also had the same bias. Long knee length socks, short skirt (ok, maybe it was her long legs), longish hair, I dunno, the general feel of her was just that, CAL. Three months later, I learnt she was one of the top students in Singapore, scoring twice as many A1s as I. erm.. to be exact, she scored more than twice as many as I.

Yet she gave me the impression that she was dumb. This was a girl who copied during a general knowledge test, and yet get 40 (out of 100). She thought that Macau was in Malaysia. There are more instances demonstrating her general lack of general knowledge, but I don't remember. I just remember that while I'm terrible at GK, she was just... atrocious.

And she's confusing because sometimes she gives me the feeling that she's very witty and sharp. I played dai dee with her once (and two other friends), and I remember we lost to her quite terribly, more than a few times.

I don't keep track of these things, but just yesterday she demonstrated her blurness again. It was drizzling. She complained that it was drizzling. FL, with her usual bluntness said,

"Eh, you have umbrella what, open it la!"

"Oh yah hor."

Me: "..."

And on our way back home, she was telling me about this TV show Greys Anatomy, which was full of witty humour. Then she started describing this particularly funny bit. Uh huh, I listened, full of expectation.

"So there was this guy with some kind of gun, K--..." (i forgot the name of the gun) ... I was still listening ... "So then he had a bomb in his chest. He got into an ambulance and the medic was pressing her hand against the wound, unknowing that he had the bomb in the chest... " ... then somehow he got to the hospital, i gathered... "... and then they realised there was a bomb. luckily it hadn't gone off yet, because around them were all the oxygen tanks, if it goes off the whole hospital would be destroyed. So they called the bomb squad ..."

"uh huh", i was still listening intently for the joke

she slowed down, and i thought she was going to deliver the punchline, "and the bomb squad removed the bomb and carried it outside... and then the bomb went off, killing the bomb squad".

"uh huh", yeah man, come on it has to come now.

"..." she didn't go on.

"so. what's the joke?"

"thats it. you didn't find it funny? i knew it was going to end like this when I didn't see you laughing midway."

I was silent for a while.

Wow.

And then I burst out laughing at her. She really blew me away. Her joke wasn't funny. But she was. I never expected that from her.

She then said, "Luckily you weren't Cindy. I'd have died if it was her."

Yeah. I'm kind. Less caustic than I was. And I'll probably never understand her.

Troubleshooting a faulty computer

I helped L's mum fix her faulty computer. Took a bit of time and imagination but I'm very satisfied I managed to fix it. Here's a walkthrough of the thought/ troubleshooting process.

When a computer doesn't power up, what could be wrong?

1. Power supply faulty. Check power supply unit. Remove cover from the computer case, remove power supply, and inspect for any burnt/black/melted components. The power unit in L's computer, without much doubt, had melted down. Could see a couple of components which looked more like goo than electrical components.

So I happily deduced the power supply was faulty. Went down to Sim Lim the next day and bought a new power supply unit. After installing the unit correctly, the computer still doesn't power up.

What else could be wrong?

2. Never on power switches. Duh.. Of course I checked before step one. But I checked them again this time. Nope, all switches are on.

3. Faulty power cable. Unfortunately at L's place, they only had one computer power cable, and only one component using it (the computer). Bo bian, cannot check (unless I stick two metal objects into the cable with my hands and seeing if I get an electric shock)

4. Blown fuse in the cable. The fuse showed traces of brown, might have blown. Replaced fuse with another one, and the computer still didn't start.

What else could be wrong?
At this point I nearly gave up. Decided to bring in an old computer to check another time...

The old computer could start. Switched the cable to L's com. Hmm. Didn't start. Given the power supply was new, and the cable obviously works, I can only deduce one other fault...

5. The power switch on the computer case was not working. It felt kinda "soft" to be honest, and didn't have the "click" when you press it. I decided to dismantle the switch from the case. Which involved 4 screws, a lot of prying and some guts to potentially crack/ damage the case. I didn't have a lot of the latter, so I thought I'd shift all the components from L's computer into the old case I brought.

After some time unassembling the components, I realised that the components from L's computer didn't fit into the old case! It wasn't compatible because of the power/reset/hd light connections.

Seeing no other way out, I decided to gather some guts and pry the switch out of the case. After I did that, I was more convinced the switch was the problem, because the switch had lost its ability to spring back out once it was depressed. I reconnected all the components and tested the switch, this time by pulling the switch back out instead of pressing it in. And it worked!

Once I had identified the problem, things became simpler. I pressed and pulled on the switch like 1000 times to loosen it, added some veggie oil as lubricant so it will spring back out, and fixed it back into the case. Computer fixed =)

Its such an innocuous component, the stupid switch... I wish I had identified that it was the problem sooner.

* update: it seems the computer has failed again. This time I think there's something wrong with either the graphics card or the graphics port. *

** update 2: I think I've fixed it again. At least, I'm using it now. I was wrong, there's nothing wrong with the graphics card/port. Apparently there's something wrong with the sound card, because once I unplugged the sound card it works fine. I've re-installed some drivers for the on-board sound to work. **

Good old times

Met with a couple more friends over the past two days. One group was my sec school classmates. man, we really go wayyyyy back. some people I haven't seen in like 10 years. it was really cool to meet up. everybody around the table, except the docs, probably haven't seen each other in years. The last gathering we remembered was sometime in 2002, when we met in Pizza Hut at Wisma Atria and proceeded to play CS at far east shopping center.

Everyone looked very much the same. Surprisingly. You would expect someone to change a lot in 10 years. But things had changed. Invariably, we were distant. Yet we were comfortable with each other. One guy was told us he broke up with his gf of 7 years. That, you usually don't say to distant friends. Another guy was confiding about his relationship with his gf. Even I found myself opening up and talking about things I usually keep to myself. It was fun.

The next day I met with a group of JC classmates. There should have been more people, but one is uncontactable (perhaps sailing), and another is in Bahrain. One more had a private birthday celebration with her husband (!) and another was on call (doctor duty). But there were still 7 people, thanks to one who brought her hubby (!) and another who brought her potential hubby (Mr GD!)

Ok before I go on, lets explain the exclaimation marks. See, to me its still kind of foreign. I haven't yet quite swallowed the fact that more than a handful of my friends are married. Its so weird because I still get checked for my ID when I go to pubs, or when I go cut my hair I always get the question, "studying or working?" (yeah student got discount).

I'm so happy to have finally met Mr. GD. Its not like I'm really concerned for that friend of mine, or wonder if Mr GD is the guy (snicker) for her. Its more like I had to see for myself if Mr GD knows what he has signed up for... and thats all. =)

Soon after I went to TJ's house to watch soccer (thanks TJ!). That was very enjoyable. We made jokes about this Andorra player who looked like he was a coffeeshop "uncle" (waiter). He had a thin lanky frame, sunken eyes, longish hair, and wrinkles on his face that made him look like 40... Then we critised Peter Crouch for being clumsy, and felt that he didn't deserve to score 2 goals. We exclaimed at Hargreave's two shots hitting the post. And we also had a good eyeful of "Miss Teen USA" which was also showing on another channel. Poor Ms Wyoming who looked really sweet and cute, got knocked out at the very first stage.

Oh oh oh! Gotta jot this down because its classic. One of the girls, who really looks like she belongs in a porn movie, got asked this question by the legendary Carl Lewis,

"How would you define 'Integrity'"

"Oh, Integrity is someone (!!!) who's determined (!!!) to succeed. He's passionate about his goals and will not give up along the way to achieve the things he wants."

Hahaha. TJ and I were laughing like mad after the answer. First of all integrity isn't someone. it isn't somebody. and she obviously didn't know what integrity means. Its ok if you have your own definition right, but come on, at least get the gist of the meaning la. Its not like people ask you what's honesty and you tell them oh it means that person is capable and intelligent. wtf!

anyway after her answer (last round already) we decided that she won't EVER get the title.

the surprising thing was that she did win the crown.

and my conclusion is that the judges didn't know what integrity meant either.

Thoughts while in Sunny Singapore

1. Rude drivers ...
Never fail to impress me. On one occasion I wanted to filter to the right. I signalled my intention early, and I was preparing to go in right after the car just beside me has passed. To my disgust, the car just behind the car next to me sped up and closed the gap. Fine, I thought, petty man, I'll go after you. As soon as I changed lane to the right, the car behind me flashed his lights at me! WTF! As though he couldn't see me. As though he couldn't see my intention. As though I obstructed him. He'll be like what, 2seconds slower? If it was me I'd have let the poor guy come into the lane. I've driven in the US and the UK, and in all honesty, even though the drivers in Singapore are without a doubt more highly skilled, they are undeniably more rude and inconsiderate.

2. Tiffany
never fails to amuse me. She remembers my name. She exclaims "w- kor kor come back already! But L- biu je and H- kor kor did not come back!". She throws a towel sized piece of cloth over her back and pretends to be a fairy. And flys around. Then she poses as prettily as she could in front of L's father. He gives her a shocked and disgusted look and she laughs and runs forward to "hit" him for mocking her.

3. Friends
Looked through my old cards that I received from friends on past Christmas/New Year/Birthdays. Cards from friends I haven't met in a while. Friends I used to be really close to, but got distant thru the years. Friends I wish I didn't neglect. Eh, I even got a Birthday card from a super slack JC classmate. nope you won't be able to guess - you'd never expect someone like him to send a card. Looking at all these cards made me think - how did an ordinary guy like me end up with such amazing friends.

4. Fire Alarm while opening accnt.
I was in a bank, opening an account. On the 30th storey. The lady was very professional and sorted out all the application forms. Halfway through, the fire alarm rang. You know normally its just a freak accident, or some form of vandalism that caused the alarm. Thats what I thought it was and brushed it off. All the while she was trying to explain something to me. And had to pause many times because of the alarm ringing and a guy shouting over the PA system, "Ladies and Gentlemen. May I have your attention please. The fire alarm has been activated. We are currently investigating it. Please remain at your desks and keep calm." Then in 30 seconds, "Ladies and gentlemen, there is an incident on the 18th storey. Will people from the 18th storey please head down to the plaza via the staircase. Please do not use the lift." Hmm.. the lady in front of me was determined to get it processed asap. And so was I. I wasn't prepared to make another trip. I nodded and nodded while she went through all the details, pausing as and when the guy over the PA interrupted. Towards the end, he was speaking almost all the time (very loudly), so the lady was forced to shout even louder to get her points across to me. Finally we settled everything, I got my stuff, went to the toilet first, before I climbed 30 storeys down the building.

So many things happened this week.

1. Cornwall trip. Went down with a couple of friends. Oh man, the scenery was really awesome. Never imagined that a part of England could be so beautiful. Helps that the weather was good. I'll post some pictures soon... or maybe not.. scroll down to see why.

2. At work yesterday, I stood up for myself in a small way. But I felt proud of that. Because usually I'm so acquiescent. Its a long story, but basically somebody decided unilaterally that the presentation should be postponed because the other guys had already taken too much time - and I asked to be given just 5 minutes to present, instead of postponing my 5 min presentation to sometime (who knows when) next week. Eventually I got my way, and I'm happy I did.

3. I had fun at football on Tuesday.

4. I'm going back to Singapore! Tomorrow! That means that I won't be updating the blog (because I don't think I'll have access to the internet. I live in a Kampung hut without a telephone line, not to mention cable/broadband.) for two weeks. Dear friends in Singapore: call me! you know my number!

5. I lost my keys. Its sad.

Security level has been downgraded to severe.

Just to let you know... Nothing bad has happened yet.

Played football just now. with real good players. Its always more fun to play in a team with good players. Reason being
- higher chance of winning so you feel better already
- more passes get to you
- you anyhow kick your teammates also get the ball
- less defending because they don't lose the ball so easily
- more attacking because there's less defending
- you look good when they score with a pass you made
- you look good when you score with a pass they made

going for a "team dinner" tomorrow night. Will update when i feel like it. =)

Security level: Critical.

Folks, if you haven't heard/read, police in the UK has apparently thwarted an attempted plane bombing. The current security level is "critical", which apparently means an attack is "imminent". Security has been stepped up in all UK airports. Yeah you can read it up on BBC if you haven't read about it.

I thought something was wrong this morning when I got off the tube at liverpool st. First you hear announcements like "Customers are advised that because of hightened security, delays may be occuring on all undergound lines". Then you see like twice the number of policemen standing around crowded areas. Then in the office my colleage mentioned something about the airports being closed. Hmm..

I'm supposed to say "don't worry, i'll be fine." But I know you're not worried anyway. hah.

by the way, I finally found my contact lens that I dropped on the toilet floor. I was feeling constipated one day and sat down on the toilet seat just, you know, relaxing and looking around when I saw it sticking to the side (the outer side) of the bathtub. Quite surprised that nobody else saw it, nobody brushed it off, it didn't drop back down to the floor, the cleaner didn't clean it away... that it was left there since 2 weeks ago.

It must have been flung 1.5 meters away when the case fell to the ground. So weird. You know after I spent ages looking for the lens, I actually filled the contact lens case with water and "simulated" as exactly as I could the way the case dropped, just to see how far the water would be flung out. The result of that experiment was that it was at most 20cm. Hmm. Now I know at least by how much I must widen the search scope.

A day in the life of a typical corporate finance analyst.

Yesterday, yes SUNDAY, I spent 12 hours at work. From 1pm to 1am.

Its a long story, but basically there was some work that I had to do by Monday morning.

It started off pretty cool actually. Lazed about in the morning, had a nice chat with my gf over the webcam, then headed off to work in a casual outfit by cab. Boss came in about 15mins later with a banana-caramel frappucino in his hand. Soon after I went out to get myself a strawberries and cream frappucino.

The work was challenging. I had to simulate the performance of a quite complicated product. It involved correlation, Cholesky decomposition, geometric brownian motion, and a lot of skill with Excel. So challenging indeed I spent the next 6 hours glued to the computer. (Boss left at about 5pm).

Dinner time came, but we were nowhere near completion. I decided to order some chinese takeout - to be claimed from the company of course. The food wasn't nice at all, given its price, but it was fun eating in the largest meeting room with two of my closest colleagues.

As time wore on, it didn't seem anywhere as cool as before. I started feeling like the time I'm spending in the office won't be noticed.

Finally, we neared completion. Not as ideal as I would have liked but it was 12.30am Monday morning already and I really had to go home otherwise I wouldn't be able to make it back to office 7 hours later.

So I took a cab back home, and promptly fell asleep in bed, groggy from the whole day's work.

I guess this is the life XP is living everyday. I can do this once a month, but no more than that.

Anyway, the next morning I woke up at 7.15 for my usual chat with my gf.

Her first question was "What time did you get back last night?"

(sleepily) "... 1 a.m...."

"Go back to sleep, quick" she said.

mmm.. I said goodbye and crawled back to bed for another satisfying 45mins of sleep.

I have a wonderful gf, I know.

Achievement this year: Solved Rubic's Cube

Three of my colleagues were given Rubic's Cubes as a toy/collectible/marketing widget. You now like pens, highlighters, post-its, stress-balls...

I was bored one day and picked up one of them and attempted to solve it.

And I did it in 11.75 seconds.

Just joking. I didn't do it at all. 11.75 seconds is the world record for solving the cube. I tried solving it and gave up after 10 minutes -> I had only solved one face.

I had played with the cube before, but never managed to solve it. And I wasn't happy that I couldn't solve it.

So I looked online. Trusty wikipedia... Actually had a page on "How to solve the Rubic's Cube"! Did a bit of reading and found out that its really not difficult. There are algorithms to swap pieces, say, or to "turn" a piece such that its rotated the right way etc. And there are clear steps to take to solve it.

Following instructions, I've managed to solve it in 30 minutes. Subsequently, with practice and memorising some algorithms that I otherwise wouldn't have known, I can solve the cube in 15 minutes.

If people ask me right now, what's my proudest achievement... I think I'll tell them I can solve the Rubic's cube. *victory sign*

Football again!

I played football again on Tuesday, and I've re-affirmed my hopelessness at being a goal-keeper.

You know in street-soccer (or court soccer, or indoor soccer) where the field is small and there are lacking goalkeepers (keepers are always lacking - you won't EVER find 3 of them in a court) we usually take turns to keep the goal (haha that sounds weird).

When I played in SG in the past, we usually rotate when a goal is scored/conceived. Over here its not so obvious... People just "volunteer" as and when they think they should be keeper.

So anyway I had played for about 20mins already, had to catch my breath a bit. And the poor guy was keeper for quite some time, so I volunteered.

Soon after, I conceived a goal. And then another. and another. and another. and finally one more, before one of the players decided that I was crap, and took over as keeper. All that happened in a span of maybe 5 minutes. Just to clarify, I wasn't intentionally trying to get substituted.

But that suits me just fine. =)

And I'm happy that I've used my new boots three times this year.

Luckily we have 5 weekdays...

"Luckily we have 5 weekdays ... ", my colleague was saying. In my mind I was already completing the sentence, "... instead of 6 in certain countries."

But no, what he continued saying I would never guess.

"... to rest from the 2 days of weekend."

Haha seriously that is damn funny. In case you didn't know, recently it has got really quiet. Not quiet as in not noisy quiet - its more like there was seriously nothing to do.

But still I'd never expect my colleague to say that. Everyone who was within earshot (only me and another guy) burst out laughing.

Ideal job heh?