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In preperation for the new blogger which uses XML. Will squeeze in a post before I do another minor skin change to my blog. Stay tuned!

Damn the Haze

I will start this post with a picture of the sun I took through my handphone!

Don't ask me why there is a black spot in the middle. It is probably the fault of the camera. My friend get the same thing too when he took the sun using his handphone. Perhaps handphone cameras are not designed to take the sun. Haha.

What happen if you could actually take the sun using your handphone?

I took that when I was on my way to work at around 9 in the morning. Yup I am already late for work. More pictures will be put up later if you really want to know where I work. Not sunrise or sunset; it is 3 more hours to noon, and the sun is still so dim. Is this some bad omen? Is the heaven going to drop? Haha, I don't think so. The only practical reason I can think of is due to fog. Stupid fog. Now I cannot view sunspot or burn papers!

Back to the main point. Welcome to the new My Nameless Blog. The theme for this version 3 is Hani Hani: Operation Sanctuary. The full name is Tsuki ha Higashi ni Hi ha Nishi ni, which literally translate into The Moon is East, The Sun is West. It is from yet another eroge, or hentai game as most understand it as. Hentai stands for Pervert in japanese, and if you tell a Japanese that we want Hentai, when we actually want Adult material, you will be laughed at; I won't explain too much. If you don't know, you don't need to know. Just use the proper word. Play eroge. Haha. The storyline is not really appealing to me, but yes they have good graphics and character designs, and obviously good *ahem* scenes too, so it should be worth your buck if you are planning to invest in an eroge. An anime version has also been released for this game. Look up static-subs if you are interested in watching them. August soft, the creators of Hani Hani, will also be releasing another game-to-anime: Yoake Mae Yori Ruri Iro Na -Crescent Love-. If you like the character designs of Hani Hani, you should like this too. Wait. Why am I giving free advertisement for this company?

Revolutionary Anime

Still remember the time when you are very young, and you just started watching anime, or cartoon from Japan, which is broadcasted on local television? Pokemon, Digimon, Gundam, whatever. (Yes I mean those which you watch it first through the TV, not those which you download and watch) Anyway, every one of us has been through that stage. Most people outgrown that stage; they eventually stop watching anime (if they do watch, it will be on the very popular ones), and become realistic. The realistic I refer to will be watching dramas acted out by people, or even do something else other than watching TV, and lead a normal adult life, filled with their fun and laughter. This group of people is what we know as extrovert. (My friend believed that these types of people will eventually lead a boring life, where everyday is just a repeat of yesterday)

Digimon savers now focus more on teenagers who used to watch the older digimon series when they were young

A smaller group of people, however, went the other direction. They sink deeper into the hole, watching any anime broadcast on TV, and eventually turned to the internet to satisfy their hunger for fictional and drawn-out characters. The extremes of this will be buying merchandise of a lot of anime, not just a single one. These people are being condemned as anime otakus, or someone who has an obsession with anime, and being looked down by extroverts as no-life people. Anime otaku are one of the extremes an introvert can become. Yes, I know I am almost in this danger zone, and hopefully I will not enter it. Another extreme an introvert can go, which I have somewhat been to, is to be a Game otaku. Another extreme no-life, what a game otaku does is to trap himself at home, or at a LAN-shop, and play games from the moment he reach home from school (or the moment he wake up during the holidays), till sleep time, sometimes even skipping meals.

I am lucky not to be in this WoW craze

Ok. I won't be touching too much on game; I will concentrate more on the anime side. If you like anime, and you catch all the anime series shown on TV, but hav not went to the extend of downloading the latest one from the internet, my advise will be don't even Start. There was a period of time where Singapore free-to-air channels (Yes I am poor I don't have cable vision) don't show anime, or should I say they don't show new ones. (I am not referring to those never-ending series like Pokemon, One Piece, Detective conan, ...) It was also around the same time which I was exposed by my peers a few animes which are not shown outside Japan. I began to dig for more, mostly on my own and some on recommendation, and once the anime start coming it NEVER stop. Yes, I cannot control myself from download and getting from my friends all genres of anime, be it old school ones or the latest in town. It was only when my Hard Disk ran out of space which my downloading spree is being controlled. For Fall 2006 season I had brought a new 250GB HDD. Ha. Let's see how I die.

Gundam Series is broadcasted all over the world, probably making it one of the most popular anime around right now.

With that amount of anime comes a price. Firstly my burner has been working very hard, burning anime which I have already watched and don't really like into DVD-R. Those anime which I burn almost never got touch thereafter. Secondly both my Utopia KD and TR guild disbanded shortly after I starting picking up a series of anime, although I still play a part in helping people baby-sit their account on Utopia. (I was just being informed that the guild is back up in TR, and my KD mates are forming back in Utopia) With 2 major commitments gone, I freed up a lot of free time to do other stuff, like trying out new games, and watch anime! Even with that amount of free time, I still failed to finish my anime. It resulted in me having a lot of unwatched anime. I thus gain a new skill: filtering series that will appealed to me. Any series which looks unique will be on my priority list. If I cannot find unique ones, I will look out for series which took place mainly in school. Series which set their environment mainly in school usually talked about love, and Japanese are know to write love stories consist of many women but only one guy. After all, there is a significant amount of anime which is transformed from eroge. As someone who is deprived of love from females around my age, these anime filled with lots of virtual girls plays a big part in my life. Ok I am not as dirty as you imagined. Before your thinking run wild, I will introduce 2 recent anime which i find it unique.

The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi

This is one anime which went against the normal flow. Instead of focusing on one genre, this anime contains everything. Love, Supernatural, Detective work, School life, Rivalry, everything you can name it you can probably find it in there. Maybe not love, a tsundere relationship I would say. My friend considers this anime as a new genre. The episodes are also jumbled up on purpose, so those who watch it accordingly will find no link between some episodes. There was also little publicity done on this anime. No one talked about it before it was aired, and everyone is already hoping for a sequel even before it ends. Kyoto animation had earned my respect again for doing something unique and never screw up. If you see this anime as a trap for people to fall deeper into haruhi (or anime) craze, I will be willing to fall into it.

Welcome to NHK

A series which I won't even consider it as an anime, I will consider it as a current affairs show. Someone, who was a hikikomori for 4 years, met a girl who promised to treat his hikikomori illness 1 day. He also realised that his neighbour was his junior during high school, and this neighbour of his made him addicted to eroge. He re-established contacts with his senpai, who almost brought him to the brink of death. Through this storyline, it shows the various problems in Japan society today. To be exact, hikikomori problems exist everywhere. This show is only for guys because innocent girls won't understand. This show has yet to end, so there will be more funny nonsense and eroge making to come.

my After Elections Analysis

PM gets his strong mandate
S'poreans give him clear vote of confidence with 66.6% margin
The Sunday Times, May 7 2006

The Singapore General Election has been over for already 5 months. Discussions regarding this election have mostly died down. I would not repost all the results up again, since a lot of other website has done so. I will however still bring up some issues, and my opinions on those issues.

A bad mistake or a brillant move?

Opposition Winners
Low Thia Khiang, WP, Hougang (62.7%)
Chiam See Tong, SDA, Potong Pasir (55.8%)

These two Single Member Constituency ward is the so-called oppositions ground. Ever since these two opposition veterans won the seats, they have yet to lose it. During the last GE in 2001, these 2 SMC are almost lost to the ruling party PAP. This time round, Senior Minister Goh was sent to assist the PAP candidates there in winning the SMC back. SM Goh promised $180 million in total of upgrading funds for both SMC if they won the election. PAP again lost these two SMC to the oppositions, this time round with a bigger margin. The promised money is never brought out even after oppositions pressed for it. Throughout Singapore GE history the SM is not and never assigned to assist PAP candidates in winning back seats from the oppositions. You can argue that the ruling party has an impressive record in holding the majority of the seats in parliament, but I think otherwise. Does this move signal something? Is it a mistake sending a heavyweight to assist in taking back the opposition ward, or does it have some other deeper meaning? For this issue, I shall keep the opinion to myself. We shall see the result of this move by the next election.

Part of the Speech by Low Thia Khiang at WP Rally, Hougang

Where democracy does not need to be realised

SDP performance
Bukit Panjang SMC: PAP win, 77.2%
Sembawang GRC: PAP win, 76.7%

Among all the oppositions, SDP is probably the most useless one. They are the only opposition side which gets trounce by PAP by more than 70%. From what I see, they are an all-talk but no action party. The issues they argue on are things like making people realise their power in a democratic country. Yes, I know that that power is important. Singaporeans, however, cannot care much about that power they have. All Singaporeans care about is: a roof above their head, their security, their future, their pockets especially, and everything else which might pose danger to them directly (in a manner which they can see it clearly). Singaporeans are already trained not to be able to see things in the long run (other than must-go-to-university), since government will make everything smooth for them. If you cannot come out with plans to deal with what the voters really wanted, you could never win their support. Do what other oppositions did. Offer something more realistic (despite PAP using offers like HDB upgrading), and people will eventually support you.

PAP rally at Segar Road, 5th May 2006

Traditional Media against New Media

The influence of internet on our everyday life is something which cannot be overlooked at. The ratio of news of the ruling party PAP against the news of the oppositions is like 12 pages to 2 pages on newspapers. Yes a lot of people know that there are much more news on the oppositions which are not reported in the newspapers. They turned to the internet to find the news. The opposition party, too, began to slowly shift their news online instead of having it published in their papers. It was around that time that the government passed down a law that any blogs or website talking or discussing about political issues during the election has to register themselves. Although the registration is free (I presume) this law managed to stop a number of insignificant bloggers from posting about stuff related to politics during that period. Some just don't care and continued posting their views. 2 popular bloggers in Singapore started a podcast (remember prison got no broadband). One of their podcast got so popular that even minister praised it, although mrbrown got shot down by another ministry a few weeks later. There are even blogs which archive most of the videos and pictures from the election.

The photos above and below this paragraph are provided by netizens who attended the rally during the election. The above picture is took by Yawning Bread during the WP rally, the one below which is the PAP rally is taken by someone else a day after at the same spot. Do take note that the field is wet for the PAP rally. One would ask why these photos are not shown in the local newspapers. These pictures are taken from common corridors at the HDB flats, so it is not hard for reporters to take them. Why is information like these not reported in the newspapers? Is it true that local newspapers are hiding some information from us on purpose? I don't have answers to the questions above. It is for you to know, and for me to find out.

Back from work, What's next?

Post pictures from my workplace, it is obvious, isn't it? It is rare for me to stray from my original lifestyle for a long period of time, so I bet most will want to know how my workplace looks like. Haha.

Bother to imagine where this place is? Ha. I doubt you can even find it. By the time you saw that picture above the goods will be either relocated on other racks or shipped out to other places. I bet you can guess what my job is now. I work as a temporary store assistant in a warehouse in Changi. I cannot reveal the name because I neither want to give free advertisement nor want the competitors know how this company warehouse looks like. My primary job is just to restack goods when they just come in, and record down the relevant information which is to be recorded into the database. Someone else will place the goods on the racks. If you have no idea what that vehicle in the background is, it is a Stacker; A special type of forklift which can squeeze through narrow passageway and put things really high up.

This is what it looks like through one of the windows of the warehouse. Yes you can even see the reflection of the houses on the river. It is a beautiful sight. If you pay closer attention you can even spot a coffee shop. There's a prawn noodles stall, a chinese mixed vegetable rice stall, a nasi lemak stall, and last but not least a seafood stall. I hardly go that coffee shop, because there is a bigger one on the other side which contains more variety of food. Anyway the above photo should have given you a lot more clue on where my workplace is.

Over here, there is practically no work to be done until the container arrives at night time to store their goods in the warehouse. As store assistants, we need something to kill time. We can either hide in a corner and sleep, or we can play with the pallet jack. To most people the only purpose of this tool is that it can help you out in moving very heavy stuff around. We see this as a toy to kill time. Yes, I am referring to pallet jack racing. You select the course, you select the number of laps, and you will be taking on 3 other people at the same time because there are 4 pallet jacks in my workplace. The above pallet jack will be one of my favourite. It is smooth, quiet, and has a lower center of gravity, making it easier to balance when doing sharp turns or drifting. You can play around or do anything you want in a warehouse, but once there's accident...

You will be the one who lose all the fun if you are met with an accident in the warehouse. Remember; be careful even when you are having fun. There are always hidden dangers everywhere in the warehouse.

Did I mention that there are "attachments" for this company? This logistic company will sent you to another company's warehouse to collect goods. The other company warehouse is so freaking awesome. Imagine a warehouse 7 storey high, and half of it is controlled by computer. Just looking at the rack alone and you will be amazed by it

Tioman again, anyone?

Only a few of my friends knows about this. If you don't know, your observation skills are horrible. There was a period of 4 days which I never came online at all. If a geek stays offline for such a long time, there is obviously a problem (If you still cannot guess: 11th to 14th October 2006). Yes, I went to Mersing, later on Tioman, to see stars, together with the astronomy club. Yes, I am an amateur astronomer. Yes, I know your next question will be why astronomy club wanted to go overseas and not see stars (due to the Haze). Mersing is actually a hot spot for astronomers to do observations, and half a year back we never knew there will be a haze now. So what do we do there instead? Well it is obvious, enjoy ourselves!

This is a perfect photo for picture Composition or Oral exam.

I faced quite a number of problems on the first day of trip alone. My first problem came even before I managed to go into Malaysia. I forget to update the photo in my passport. That Singapore custom officer keeps comparing me with the photo inside my passport. I was forced to take out my IC to show them that I am ME myself. Bah. The second will be listening to jokes while I am eating a fish. We stopped by a restaurant to have our lunch before we continue to Mersing. My whole table is filled with 3 girls (ivy, yun ru, tour guide hazel) and the rest guys. Joe suddenly talked about prawns. Melvin adds on what baby prawns are illegal; they someone said he wanted cooked old prawns. The rest laugh along, except for the 3 women who don't know what we are talking about. David delivered the killer. He said this joke:

Teacher: Which part of your body reaches heaven first?
Student: Sir, Legs!
Teacher: Why is it so?
Student: One night I walked pass my parents bedroom. I saw my mother's feet in the air. I heard her saying: "Oh God, I am coming"

Everyone dining in the same table really went LOL. Someone almost ROFL. I was eating fish with fish bone halfway. I was lucky I never got choked back then. It should not take too long for you to discover that we are talking dirty jokes. The third problem would be "how do I play those lame ice-breaking games?" One of those games is like: Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Who Die? What kind of game is this? I have better things to do on my computer other than playing these games... wait. I never brought my laptop to the trip. zzzZZZ

The Keropok being dried under the sun at the Keropok factory. I never expected to see this scene before I arrived here.

Our lunch on the first day is in a chinese restaurant, and they served ~6-7 dishes. Even though my whole table is filled with pretty big sized people we cannot finish the food. The remaining meals are served buffet style. We had the following 2 meals at Seri Malaysia Mersing, and I was pretty amazed that they provided chinese food. I was expecting malay food since the cook is very likely a malay. It is the same thing when we go over to Genting Bayu Chalet. The food they served every meal is almost the same, but it taste as good every meal. There is even a BBQ (They barbeque for us to eat) on the 3rd night. There are prawns, crabs, and a lot others. Too bad a few, including me, are not feeling very well to eat the BBQ. The Ramly Burger they sold there is much better than those you eat in pasar malams in Singapore. I also brought some 豆沙饼 at Mersing before we come back, and they taste better than the ones I've eaten in Singapore. If I ever had the chance to go there I will buy them again, probably in bulk.

This is what it looks like outside my room in Seri Malaysia in the morning. You cannot see anything at night time.

Well I have complains about the trip as well. Firstly the facilities in the chalet in Tioman are horrible. The floor of my room B1 is filled with loads of ants. Me, Sheng Xuan and Melvin, who shared the same room 205 at Seri Malaysia, have to leave our bags on the bed. I just step into the room with my shoes on, I don't care. We ended up sleeping at some other people room instead of our ant-infested one. (Yes the shower system is sort-of spoilt) Second on the complain list is the shows shown on the ship during the trip to and fro Tioman. On the trip to Tioman they show Ong Bak, and I don't know who did the subbing for that movie. It is down right horrible. Imagine reading half broken English subtitles. I don't even freaking understand the movie with those subtitles. I don't even understand the movie in the first place. On the return trip back to Mersing they keep replaying Hari Raya karaoke. I will appreciate if they could play something else, like a Malay movie or something.

Do you think we can see the moutain more clearly if there is no haze?

The third issue will be on the stupid haze. That haze makes us bring our scopes for nothing. (The haze is so thick that we cannot even see the sun set very clearly) We brought 1 Celestron C-8, 1 Megrez and Gerald brought his own telescopes. We set up 3 scopes in total, all pointing towards the sky aimlessly. We even brought the astromaster but we cannot even use it. I ended up focusing the scope on a green light blinking at the sea. I was taught that green blinking lights at night are usually starboard beacons. That green light stayed there for quite some time, and then it started to MOVE. The fourth and last thing I want to complain is those sailors who stole light bulbs from beacons and used it on their own ships.

Well look what got exposed due to the low tides!

A lot of crazy-related also happen during the trip. The main ones will be those late night talks. I don't know since when our clique started massing in the girls' room. (To clarify doubts a bit, 31 people in total went for this trip. You cannot have everyone squeezing in 1 room, so everyone split themselves up into ~3 cliques, with a few random ones who turn in early at night) On the first night I don't know who started the ball rolling, but guys are the ones who did most of the talking (to be exact only yb and melvin talk, samuel and david add on at times.) I guess one of the reasons why girls cannot really butt in is the topics we talked about. They keep talking about science, supernatural stuff, etc. The other will be that there are only 3 girls: Ivy yr SP. Joe was there acting depressed because YR just yelled at everyone, him in particular, for not telling her the truth about the prawn joke. Everyone turn in early the second night but I turn in early during the third night. Right after the black magic white magic thingy I went off to sleep in Joe's room. I seriously cannot stand those games. I already know the trick behind the black magic white magic thingy already. I... won't tell you. Haha.

A view of the sea from Tioman Island while we are trekking.

The other crazy-related are adventure. The first is trekking from our chalet to another part of the island (on the map it is only a little further up). We saw quite a lot of crazy stuff, like a soccer field filled with mines (cow dung), volleyball court filled with bird shits. Ok enough of disgusting stuff. The main attraction is still the crystal clear waters and the nice beaches in Tioman. We got con into seeing a rapid while we actually want to see the waterfall. There are however some accidents which occurred during trekking. The guide tried to climb over the rocks back to our chalet; a few others followed and got cut by the rocks. I never got that far because I fell down along the way and almost wet my handphone. The 2nd will be snorkeling. Yes I never snorkel before so this is probably the once in the lifetime experience for me. Let me recall what happened back there: I thought I forgot how to swim (but it didn't happen), I saw fishes, I saw corals, I saw jellyfish, I forgot to bring my sun block out (which result in my whole skin peeling when i got back), I almost got cut by corals, and the last thing which happened is a joke. Elson got cut by corals and the only medic which happened to be near him is yb. They both climb up to the platform and yb stare at his bleeding feet for a while and later start nosebleeding. We can conclude that YB finds bleeding feet sexy. Hahaha.

Want a soccer game with the cows?

If you are interested about the lessons I learn during this trip, I would say I learn 2 main lessons. One will be that I get to know a lot more people in the club. For introverts like me, it is only during trips or camp which you will be able to find time to sort-of socialise with other people. I know quite a number of people during this trip (not all however), and yes I hope I can know more. =). The other will be a way for a geek to relax. Yes there is some other ways to relax ourselves other than staying at home and play games. Sadly I am back to that lifestyle. Wake up go to school come back home surf a little internet sleep.

There are things which money can't buy...

Gerald dancing with Clement. Gerald ran off in the end because he was forced to do too much forfeit! Haha

I don't know who's idea is it to have a morning coffee. Coffee cannot wake me up completely.

/me pouring water on Vivian

Well I have to give my Tioman photo supplier, Joe, some credit. Introducing Joe, the one in black, with YR who happen to sit beside him. DON'T LET YOUR MIND RUN WILD, AND DON'T ASK ME STUPID QUESTIONS kthnx.

Group photo while we are at Seri Malaysia.

Another group photo, this time while we were trekking.

There are some photos here which are taken thru my phone. I won't be uploading them due to the low resolution unless you really want me to.

If you think Singapore Public Transport is already very good, think again!

Transport Minister Raymond Lim Siang Keat announced on Monday, 23 Oct, on plans to develop "a new urban transport roadmap" in 10 to 15 years. One of his plans is to "aggressively" promote public transport in order to increase the morning peak period from 63 per cent in 2004 to at least 70 per cent over the next 10 to 15 years. He quoted a lot of examples from Japan, like what "In Tokyo, many senior executives take public transport to work. It takes a change in attitude..." You will only receive more swearing if you are going to make owning of cars here as expensive as owning one in Japan. Using my own experience and limited knowledge from SimCity I will point out where exactly went wrong.

I bet most have seen a poster of this on SBS buses during August

"Flag the Bus Early" and "Win Tickets to London, Paris"

Following the announcement from Transport Minister's plans, both SBS and SMRT are quick to react to the plans. SMRT come out of incentives to attract people. Win free holiday to London and Paris leh, how to win? Take MRT and TIBS buses! What is their aim in doing this? To attract more people to use public transport. nbccb. SMRT put up a poster a few months back saying "We bring 2 million people to work and play every day". If everyone stands a chance to win that prize, then one person chance will be * you can calculate yourself *. If you calculate the odds, striking 1st prize for 4D is even easier than taking your public transport. Who will still want to take your MRT/buses, just for the sake of winning the prizes?

SBS transit is worse. They started the 'Flag the Bus Early campaign', because subsequent investigations found that many commuters missed the bus because they often flagged too late. It is our fault, not their fault. How amazing. I flagged my bus the moment they turn round the corner. A lot of others did the same. Who are you trying to bluff? The Minister? The car drivers? This issue got brought up in forums, and most people agreed that the campaign name should be change to "Slow Down the Damn Bus When Approaching Bus Stop" campaign, "Cut down Bus Hikes" campaign, "Stop Wasting Money on Useless Campaigns" campaign, and a lot more. If public transport company and the government want us to change our attitude, they should change theirs first.

SBS Transit launches "Flag the Bus Early" campaign

SINGAPORE : The SBS Transit has placed signs at 100 selected bus stops across Singapore, encouraging passengers to flag the bus early.

This will help bus captains stop at a timely manner and to ensure a smoother and safer ride for those onboard.

The operator has launched the public education campaign after receiving complaints that bus captains drove off from bus stops without picking up passengers.

Its subsequent investigations found that many commuters missed the bus because they often flagged too late.

Commuters can also pick up brochures on safe bus stop practices at 16 bus interchanges. - CNA /ls

Your buses are always full! Adjust your Services!

Ever notice buses like 156A, 157A, 151A, 154A, oh and a new one: 985W. Since these bus services are very popular, they came out with these short trip services; they stop halfway and alight everyone and the driver will go eat snake. These short trip bus services are suppose to lighten the load of those full length buses (wasting only 30 minutes of fuel is better than wasting 90 minutes of fuel). Service 156 is usually fully packed before it even reach serangoon north area, and almost everyone alight at Bishan MRT, with only a few left on the bus along the way to clementi. 156A, however, starts at Serangoon Central, and ends at Bishan MRT. People living in Serangoon Central can rely on 53 to go to Bishan MRT / Interchange, so why 156A just for us? It will be better off if 156A can start at Sengkang, and the frequency is as fast as the normal 156 during peak hours. If SBS have done that, it will do me (and a lot of others) a favour for reduced waiting time. I think the minister and those public transport planners should stop driving and take buses and train for a period of time and observe, instead of thinking about how to earn more money.

Who don't know this place shall die!

Stop lying about commute time

Car is always faster than buses, which is one thing for sure. Stop lying to the general public that Public Transport is faster then our own private transports. We will first talk about buses. The buses are still using the bus lane, and if they hit a junction they have to wait for lights to turn green. Cars now can bypass some junctions through underpass or overhead bridge. By the time your bus clear the traffic light at this junction, my car has already reach the next one. For MRT, no matter how advance the network can be, there will be people who will be complaining about commute time. Let me ask you: Would you want to take MRT to travel from Sengkang to Tampines? I bet you will be better off taking bus or even drive there (more convinent). Do you think government will make a direct line from Sengkang to Tampines just for you? It will be very unlikely to drill more tunnels underground just to connect a few people from one place to the other via train. Likewise, it will be unrealistic to have a road strictly for buses only. One thing I learn from SimCity is that Public Transport only decreases the load (humans) on the Transport Network to accommodate more load for other things (more humans, or freight). That is the aim which Singapore transport department hopes to achieve in the long run. To achieve this aim, they did it at the cost of our commute time. Believe it or not, 10 years down the road, either we wait longer, or we pay more for public transport.

Guess where I film this place =P

Well yet another random picture:

It is pretty easy to guess who they are. If you can't, blame the haze.

What will you do if a girl is
- Very cute
- Has a habit of saying an extra phrase (uguu~!)
- Likes to eat Takiyaki
Not forgetting that
- she has a minor attitude problem, and lastly
- she remembers your name!

People can't live without memories.
But, they can't live on memories alone, either.
They have to wake up from their dreams.
Those dreams they don't wake up from will turn into sadness.

That's why I'm going to give her feather back.
I don't want to say goodbye, but I'm just a dream.
Stars have to disappear when the sun rises

-->> Michiru, are you...

I'm a fragment of a dream.
Beign here was just a dream.
But it was a really fun dream.
I was really happy.
Even though Michiru...
the real Michiru...
couldn't be born into this world...

Wee... New Skin

This is my first post this year. Hahaha. And to celebrate this "special" occasion I had a new skin for my blog. I did this skin myself. Yes, I really did this blog skin myself. I did not steal it from nowhere. I made this skin using pictures from a hentai game: Cafe Little Wish. You can try this link if you don't believe me. Rest assured that there is no naked, or anything near, pictures in my blog. My friend sent me a wallpaper one fine day, and months after it I transform that into the picture you see above. Yes I know my photoshop and HTML skills sux, but that is the best I can managed for now. Hey don't complain. I learn it myself without help from any manual. And I WILL KILL WHOEVER WHO THINK THIS BLOG BELONG TO A GAL. You may need to change your mind set if you still think that only girls like "anime" and pink colour. =P.

I also understand that my new blog skin may be very ugly compared to most of the other blogs. Yes, I can always hunt for a much nicer layout in blogskins.com, but my experience with skins from blogskins.com is not always a good one. Most of my friend get their new blog layout from that site, and a few ended up with lots of pop-ups and at times, even viruses. By doing everything on my own I can at least make sure that nothing is screw up. One of the main reason why my blogs loads so slowly (for the last post) is that I have too much pictures. Thus, I have decided to create an alternative blog for my anime screen shots. From now on you won't be able to find recent screen shots from this blog anymore. If you missed my blog's old skin, you can find it at that blog too. I will be adding a jukebox to my blog in the near future, so look forward to it.

 

Marching order sent after just four days of work

Today is one of the worst day in my life. After just four weekdays of work (16 - 21 march) my supervisor told me (and 2 others): Today will be the last day of your contract here in this warehouse. You don't need to come again tomorrow. Thank you for your help for the past four days. It is not that I expect it to happen, but it just came far too soon. A little background situation before I go on: after the Astro Outreach (which killed one week of my holiday) I decided to get a job to kill the remaining 6 weeks of my holiday and get some income (I have no idea where to spent that extra pocket money at the moment except for leaving it in bank to gain interest) at the same time. I happen to find this factory work which does packaging. I apply for it, and the agent called me the same night. He assign me to warehouse (in Tampines) of the same company instead.

This warehouse is at least four times bigger than the previous workplace one. The goods there were not as small as a diode though. Most of it are Cooler Master heat sinks packed in 600 per pallet, or 500 McAfee CD-roms for business servers in the pallet of the same size. There are almost the small amount of Polycom and Toshiba brochures (I think), and items locked inside a "bird cage" which they consider as very expensive, like McAfee Intrushield 4010. 600 heat sinks or 500 CD-roms are bulky, so they are stacked on racks 3 level high. Only specialized forklift can put these goods high up on the racks, or take them down during picking.

I am not the only new worker there on that day. There are 5 other people who came together with me for the first time, and all of us don't know how to use the forklift and other equipments, except for hand jack. That render us (the new workers) useless when it comes to picking items high up on the racks, or placing the new goods on the racks. Furthermore, the goods going in and out and not much. The usual truck-trailer only make 2 or 3 trips per day to collect not a lot of goods to factories, and new goods only arrived on fridays (as far as I know). That means that we have almost nothing to do, and we ended up walking around talking nonsense.

Look, no company will employ someone to walk around doing nothing, and they should have him transfer off to other departments. 2 were transferred off to another department at Ubi within the next hour after we first arrived. For us, however, we were told to inform our agent about it, and hope the agent will place us in another job (four working days later). If I am being posted to another job in the same company, I think there is a problem with Moduslink HR on temporary workers. My ex-workplace can transfer me to anywhere shorthanded for a few days attachment, but I need to go through my agent here. I think it's funny for a logistic company to have this problem.

 

Unreasonable school rules?

A girl from some school (not mentioned in newspaper) was caught wearing colour undergarments. Yes that whatever school it is had a school rule which states that students can only wear white undergarments. The school ordered her to take out her underwear and have it confiscated. That means for the rest of the day she have to walk around uncovered. How I wish I was in that school on that particular day. XD. Ask yourself (everyone, including guys), do you wear white undergarments everyday to school or campus? Majority will say no, and the main reason is not because to follow the trend or fashion; It is a little too hard to find white undergarments today (just try finding a white undergarment in shops today).

The hair is also another issue with a lot find it unreasonable. For someone like me who don't bother to keep long hair or have it dyed, I have no problems with the school rules. It is brought up in the old Peicai Care Forum that schools should allow students to leave long hair since it doesn't affect studies. A member in another forum state that by allowing students to dye their hair, it will be easier to identify which students have relations with gangsters outside school (I cannot agree with him after I come to polytechnic). Why is something which hardly affects studies had to be banned? To keep a good image of the school? In my opinion the only way to keep a good image of a school is to nurture students comparable with those from top institutions.

 

NYP porn video

So the story goes: Another girl from NYP lost her phone in campus, and inside that phone contains sex videos of her boyfriend and her. She was so unlucky that her phone was pick up by her "enemy", and those home-made sex video are being uploaded online (youtube or related sites). The same video also spreads via handphone. For one month that video spread like wildfire in Singapore, and it is like "one of the top videos for download". Newspaper even reported that the video is being sold in Malaysia and US. I personally don't know anything about it until the press reported it, and the press are always slow in reporting these kind of gossip.

I did managed to get the video from my friend a few days later. To make things clear before I continue: I NO LONGER HAVE THE FUCKING FILE WITH ME NOW. I deleted it off my computer and overwrite that filename 30 times. To be honest, I agree with my friends: That video is boring. One can always find much better quality porn online with just a few mouse click. Everyone makes a big fuss about it just because it is "Made in Singapore", probably because locals (including me) did not get to see too much local porn. XD. Maybe Singapore should just build up its porn industry a little and have a QC to make sure all "Made in Singapore" porn are not boring.

 

Astronomy club

I don't think I have introduce my Co-Cirriculm Activity in the last post. I do have a CCA in polytechnic. On the third week as a new student in Ngee Ann Polytechnic, one of my classmate said that there are a lot of pretty ladies inside astronomy club, and thus I was "being tricked" to join this club, along with 2 other classmates. Well there were really a lot of pretty ones at first, but most quitted after just half a year.

NP astronomy club have 4 Celestron C8 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes (all 16 years of age, 1 spoilt), 1 Celestron StarHopper (8 inch or 10 inch) Dobsonian (too bulky so it is normally left alone), 1 Takahashi (I don't know what model it is. Japanese like to make their unique mount for their telescopes. Since the mount for Takahashi is spoilt, the telescope also cannot be used.), and 1 Megrez 80 (Very small, portable and powerful, suitable for upskirt XD) by William-Optics. Compared against other 4 Polytechnics, we have the most number of telescopes. That's one plus point about our club. The other (to me) will be that Astronomy club is where I relax after school on friday, and where I get a third of my anime from now. I normally came early for the meetings every friday, and every friday a small group of us who came early will have a match or share anime before the actual thing starts around 1830.

I cannot think of any more good points at the moment, but I can list out a lot of places which needs improvement. The first will be the places in campus which can be used to view the night sky. Put it this way: in Singapore, the most you can see is what is directly above you, even if there is a clear sky. Everything from horizon to 50 degrees up will most likely be covered by city lights. That is one major drawback for sky watching anywhere in Singapore. The remaining minus points are not related to astronomy.

The first astronomy club camp i attend (Astronomical Network for institute of Education) is one of the worst camp I had. ANE camp is a camp cater for secondary school students to let them learn more about astronomy (lol duh). I am a logistic during the camp, and my job is to teach the participants about astronomy (which I almost did not help out at all), and show them how to roughly use a telescope. A few reason why I think it is a total flop:
- On the first night, the sky is so bad and our telescopes are so weak and thus we can only see the great orion nebula and Pleiades.
- There is too little time for too many events.
- The lunch and dinner for the second day are almost the same.
- There is one whole afternoon to play games but only 2 hours in the morning for lectures.
- The games are largely unrelated to astronomy.
- It is like "free for all" at night. There's no events scheduled for 1900 to midnight, events are only after midnight.
- The whole of morning on the third day was spend playing "make-up" or something.
- People say I sleep too much, which I never realized.
- To me, that camp is a fun camp. I was told in a debrief later on that it is a learning camp.

I feel that a lot of things are not right somewhere and I hope it can be corrected by the next camp:
- We probably have to find places which C8 can at least see something. It is no fun looking at only Pleiades and Orion Nebula (sometimes beehive and a few others) through all 5 telescopes. Maybe we have to blame the city lights for it.
- I hope to eat something else rather than chicken wing in the afternoon and again at night. Now I wonder where all the money the participants pay goes to.
- Scrap some events (to make space for emergency situations) or make the camp longer. The night walk on the first night is supposed to begin right after the night observation at 1am. It took them whole 2 hours to prepare, and the night walk started at 3am instead. It ended at 6am with me and my friends as the last batch. What's the fun left if you had night walk at 6am? Right after lecture (which started at 11am) on the second day (lunch time is in-between), they scheduled 3 hours of game time (2pm to 5pm) before shower and dinner. Due to an accident, and screw-ups in some stations, the games ended after 8pm instead. They have to cancel another lecture and disco night, which is supposed to be right after dinner at 7pm. If there is a little time allowance for situations like this, there won't be a need to delay or put off any events.
- If the main purpose of the camp is to have fun, I have no complains over that. BUT if the objective is that secondary school students have to learn something about astronomy, I will suggest scraping those useless games. I cannot find connections between astronomy and games like "meteor shower", "butterhill". Who says it is impossible to create a fun game related to astronomy? You just did not put on your thinking hat!
- I do not think it is a wise idea to conduct a lecturer 4 times. Both the audience and the lecturer will get tired over it. Book a single big lecture theater and let logistic do their presentation all in one shot.
- I still don't know why people say I sleep too much when they never wake me up in the middle of the night.
- INSTILL DISCLIPINE. We must first have ourselves disciplined before we even move on. If guy A is not willing to do his job and others have to cover for him, what is that guy A there for in the first place? We are actually not short of people to help out in the camp, we are short of people who are willing to help out at any time. If everyone plays their part, a lot of things can be accomplish at a shorter time.
I will think of more to add. hahaha.

To me, the ANE camp brought good and bad things to our batch. ANE had served an effective ice-breaker for our batch, for me especially. Before the camp, except for my classmates and his close friends, I know no one else of my batch in astronomy club. Right after ANE, I get to know a lot more people. ANE also had our batch split into 3 distinct group: the Logistic, the Group Leaders, and the neutrals. We signed up for our roles (logistics, group leaders, or helpers) before the ANE camp, and the GL ended up as the most popular choice among my batch. During the camp, these 3 groups "only cared about themselves". There is little interaction with each other (not even attempts to interact), even though everyone stayed in the same room. From that point on, we logistics started to do our own things and discussions first in the clubhouse, while the GL clique gather at canteen before they make their way up for the usual meeting every friday. A group of helpers, who is not happy with what happened for ANE, disappeared from astronomy club completely.

On the surface, we astronomy club looked pretty much united, but deep down, misunderstandings grew day by day. The upcoming Astronomy Fiesta camp had most major appointments taken by the GLs, and they began to make their own decisions within their own clique. From what I heard, they will be using the same programs and timetable used in ANE. I am pretty sure that there are a few others, not just me, who thinks that the timetable and some programs needs to be changed. The other problem will be the shortage of GL for AF, since most of the supposed-to-be-GL already had appointments for the camp. The first place they look for people to fill up the shortage is from the logistics side. There are only 7 logistics out of around 40 members, why did you want to grab people from logistics first? Logistics does play a big part during the camp, and we are barely coping with our little manpower. Why can't you just get those people who went missing after ANE? I seriously do not understand what they are thinking.

 

Normal-stream students vs Special-stream students

The general elections in Singapore is round the corner, and I can predict the outcome of the election: PAP (the dominating party) will win almost all the seats in the parliament. Worse come to worse PAP will not lose more than 5 seats. I will use a simple analogy to explain what I mean. I copied this analogy off Rockson's blog and modify it a little to suit the current situation. Sometime I think the Opposition party is like the lousy school those normal-stream student and the PAP is like the RI those special-stream student.

Is there any way for Normal-stream students to win those in Special-stream? My conclusion will be: No Way! Lets compare them in studies. If Normal-stream students can score 60 marks for the paper Special-stream students can score 100 marks. If Normal-stream students can score 100 marks for the paper Special-stream students can show you that they can get 110 marks for their paper. With all the best resources (best teachers, best equipments, ...) given to the Special-stream students, how can they lose?

Ok, lets compare in sports instead. Normal-stream students sent one sports champion to contest during sports day, while the Special-stream sent 5 representatives instead. It is announce later over the speakers: Sorry, this event only can 5-man team then you can join one. Your Normal-stream one-man show must go and fuck spider. Since no other Normal-stream students from other schools can produce a 5-man team, Special-stream students from RI get walkover... automatic win!

Never mind, there is always a sports day next time. For the next sports day, Normal-stream students sent a 5-man team (since all the one-man champions are sent for one-man events). The special-stream will sent... yes, also a 5-man team, but with 2 ace in it. A normal team against another team with 2 pros, excluding teamwork, you can see for yourself who will win.

Before you say that it is Normal-stream school problem that they cannot sent a group capable of winning, ask yourself: if you are good in studies (sometimes sports) will you choose to enter Special-stream school or Normal-stream school? Even if you want to go Normal-stream school, the Special-stream school will grab you in. How can Normal-stream school get people to beat you Special-stream school students? Wait, next time all the MP's in parliament will be taken by Special-stream school students anyway, Normal-stream students now lose also never mind.

There are other ways PAP used to secure their votes.
- GRC or multiple-member constituency, contested by a team of three to six candidates, at least one of whom must be a Malay, Indian or a person belonging to other minority communities. Implemented since the early days of Singapore independence, it also ensured that the "normally low in members" oppositions cannot have high chance of winning.
- Redrawing election boundaries. Everyone knows that the elections department has nothing to do with PAP, but the redrawn boundaries are always in favor of PAP.
- When people start getting a lot of money from country financial budget, it means either singapore economy is so horrible that government need to help out, or an election is round the corner. It is pretty obvious this time round what the financial budget is for.
- Vote PAP = your flat will get to upgrade (at a small cost). Don't vote PAP = your flat will not be upgraded. The same old method used to get voters in opposition wards to vote for them.
- Opening of facilities (Buangkok MRT station) which they considered unable to make much profit in the past. They did not open Buangkok MRT station initially because that area is not fully develop. Now, in the same area which has not develop for the past few years, they open the MRT station. SBS claimed the opening of MRT station had nothing to do with politics, but a lot think otherwise.

It is not that I hate PAP a lot; PAP had hold on to power since independence and had done a good job in changing Singapore into what we have today. Countries which keep having their government changed will not be able to progress much. The problem lies in that PAP had almost all the seats in the parliament. There is a need for more oppositions in the parliament to look at things and voice out problems seen from a different point of view.

 

I start writing this post on 21st March 2006. hahaha.