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.