Tired + Random sights

Tiring sia these few days. So many events and things to do...

Choinged finish a coding assignment (or should I call it "work" since I'm supposedly paid =\) before leaving the house for my uncle's/grandpa's house today to pray to ancestors. Have a look at my "grown-up" cousin. Psst... she plays maple =O

New way to recycle used/worn-out T-shirts:

It's never too old to bask:

Cool sia. Oldest person I seen that can play a guitar, an electric somemore!

Better start choinging the 2nd coding assignment ba.. Going into army soon =\

Oh btw, I'm no longer wearing the jacket I bought.. My dad insists I wear the jacket he wore during wedding >.<

First TOC Report.

Went with WQ to Hong Lim Park (Speaker's corner) yesterday to report for TOC on Mr. Tan Kin Lian's 6th speech. Get the full report + videos and pictures taken here:

http://theonlinecitizen.com/2008/11/“this-thing-cannot-just-die…”/

It was quite interesting actually.. I've never seen Singaporean's so vocal before. Not just the speakers, even the audience. There was around 200 odd people and we even met Wei Cheng's parents =\

After that we went shopping for my prom stuff lol.. Bought a pair of shoes for $35.90 and got some $5 voucher. Then went to OG and tried looking for a jacket. Holy crap, the normal formal jacket costs $229 or smth. Crazy... Then when we were about to turn and leave, we saw another jacket, a cross-breed between a formal jacket and a cold-weather jacket. From far it looks like a formal jacket, and it doubles up as a normal jacket as well. Since I lost my black IP Zone jacket a while back, months ago, I decided to check out the price. Woah nice.. $59.90 $29 . ROFL! Ok. Buy. Wanna know how it looks like? I'm not uploading. Can't be bothered. Just find me on Prom Night =)

The Top 5 Myths about H2 Computing

Went to Sitex at Expo today with my dad. After roaming around for a 2.5" HDD 250GB external hard drive and comparing prices etc, we decided to buy the Toshiba brand one. The close competitors were (excluding random brands selling way above $100):

- Maxtor: $79, no freebies (if i didnt remember wrongly cos we didn't really consider this partly due to poor service etc lol)

- WD: $99, free pouch, 3-yr warranty

- Toshiba: $109, free pouch, 3-yr warranty

My dad said Toshiba more reliable and he could try to bargain lol.. The Toshiba pouch was also better. The WD pouch can't even fit the hard drive properly and totally no space for the cable. Not to mention the WD hard drive has horrible design, if it had any lol.. Oh well, anyway, here's a pic of the one I bought.

After coming home, I realised over the 2 years, I was bombarded by random computer-related requests after people knew I studied H2 Computing in JC. Well, just to clarify stuff and provide info for people deciding whether to take it as a subject in JC1... I've come up with a list of "The Top 5 Myths about H2 Computing". Enjoy!

The Top 5 Myths about H2 Computing

Myth #5:

FAQ: "Hey hey, can you tell me about the new ___ and how it works?"

Truth: New stuff are NOT taught. We are taught old stuff. Those years ago. Want to learn up-to-date stuff? Wait till Uni.

Myth #4:

FAQ: "Can teach me how to fix my computer?" or "Can tell me how to upgrade my RAM?"

Truth: Assembling your own PC is NOT taught. Not to mention other hardware stuff, like how RAMs works (in detail), which type of processor is good for what, etc.

Myth #3:

FAQ: "Are you going to make a program/game?"

Truth: Well, all you ever gonna learn if you take H2 Computing is how to make SIMPLISTIC programs that run in MS DOS. Everything else you have to learn yourself. You won't learn how to make any user interface programs.

Myth #2:

FAQ: "Do you know Flash, Dreamweaver, CSS, Video editing, Graphic design, etc etc?"

Truth: Although I know some, they are not taught in school but self-learnt. After taking the subject, you WILL NOT know every single thing related to computers and the Internet, contrary to popular belief.

Myth #1:

FAQ: "OMG!! Teach me how to hackzors!! I want to hack ___, blah blah blah"

Truth: Hacking is NOT taught. If you think you can take H2 Computing and turn into a hacking genius overnight (or over 2yrs), you can forget it.

Nice.

Went to my grandma's yesterday night to stayover because I got to go pray with my grandma at a nearby temple the next morning (today). After that I went to school to collect testimonial. Oh man, its always "Davin WAS an intelligent student... Davin WAS hardworking.. blah blah". So I guess I'm no longer all those haha. Quite a routine day today bah.. Nth much interesting, except a few sights through the day...

Just when you think the record for "The most number of people you can fit in a lorry" has been decided by the Cambodians.. Here comes Singapore's entry.

Nice. I'm sure this gantry will make car drivers smile.

Free parking anyone?

TOC

TOC.

NO! Not "Terms Of Conditions" or "Theory Of Constraints" or "Table Of Contents"...

Its "The Online Citizen". Yeah..

http://theonlinecitizen.com/

Lets bring the story a bit back in time.. *piew piew piew*

Few days ago (i think on friday), WenQuan and Joaee decided to join TOC as reporters and they sent an email. They got a reply fairly quick and it was something like this (from my memory..):

Hi, glad that you want to join us. Do you have technical skills...

(blah blah blah, the rest is quite routine and formal, u know.. what else do u expect from a reply. this is the only part you needa know so you can understand the following parts of this entry)

So yesterday (saturday) at WQ's house, together with Joaee and Justin, he told me that he and Joaee were going to meet this TOC guy called Andrew today (sunday) and he asked me I wanna go along since they needed some techie and he knows I'm bored without plans anyway. So I agreed.

So.. lets timewarp back to the present.. *piew piew piew*

Today, we went to Suntec Starbucks. Waited for 15~30minutes.

Guess what, Andrew says there's TWO starbucks.

Guess what description he gave abt where he was? "Opposite Cheers"

Great. So we went to ask the Starbucks person at our current branch where the other one is.

Guess what he said? 'There's FOUR branches here."

WTF!!! Nice place to choose to meet. And the Starbucks guy gave us directions to the wrong Starbucks branch, which was not "Opposite Cheers".

Ok, enough of "guess what's", after we found them, it was like... 1hr after the proposed meeting time. Andrew was with another girl around our age called Rachel (TOC's graphic designer). According to Joaee and his description of Andrew over the phone, Andrew seems to have this perma-smile on his face and perma-cheerful. And we were guessing he's 30+ or so.. Apparently, he looks 40+, has a rugged look and I have never seen someone thinner than me before (until I saw him). Rachel on the other hand.. Okay, just apply the average teen (i'm guessing 16~early 20s) look.

We were supposed to meet at 4.30pm, but we met at 5.22pm or so. And Andrew chatted (Rachel hardly spoke, but when she did, her tone was very strong =\) till like 7.30pm? Mostly it was him talking and the 3 of us nodding/shaking our heads and throwing in some opinions here and there.. Basically he told us what TOC is about, what they do, why they do it, and filling us in about TOC info.. And I'm supposed to help out with the revamping of their website cos ppl complain its too messy (and I agree lol).. And WQ has been selling me off too much that I'm not even confident that I might be able to reach the standard which he set for me cos I'm rusty in all my applied computing skills (screw the outdated theory we learn in JC).

At first, WQ told me TOC is a neutral website that publishes/reports things not in the newspapers, which was quite cool. But throughout the talk, the more I listen, the more I'm convinced both Andrew and Rachel are strongly anti-government (PAP to be exact). Not to say that there's anything wrong (I mean look, there's opposition parties), but it was the first time in my life that I met such strong anti-government people face-to-face and conversed with them. Especially Rachel, when she spoke, her tone and eyes.. wah seh, tell u, if LKY or his son were here, they'll be shot dead or smth. Seriously..

Anyway, we didn't expect it to last so long (WQ convinced Joaee and me that it was because Andrew didn't know what to talk about so he dragged on and on). After that, we decided to check out the Anime Convention (3rd floor) which caught our interest when we saw a few cosplay ppl around Suntec earlier. Apparently you have to buy tickets meh... $5, and its ending soon. So we decided to go to the Book Fair upstairs (6th floor).

Roamed around the place and came to a conclusion about book fairs. Book fairs = Fairs selling books that no one wants to buy. LOL. They were selling things like freaking old DVDs, books, things that no one will think of buying.. Okay, there were nice books there but half of it were ancient. While roaming, I saw a shelf of puzzle books and I bought a word puzzle book for my sister since she's been looking for one since she played a word puzzle game on her PSP.

After that we went dinner at Marina Square foodcourt, saw Chin's GF with her friends (we presumed) and I got ripped off by a stupid $4.50 Laksa with nothing in it. Oh well, life's like that I suppose. You get ripped off once a while.

Guess today was quite an eventful day. And I found something to occupy myself with for now I guess, to pick up/polish my computing skills.. And one more thing...

I GOD DAMN HATE ADOBE AND THEIR UNDOWNLOADABLE 30-DAY TRIALS. SCREW YOU ADOBE. YOU WASTED HALF MY DAY (a few hours in total to be exact since friday, not really 12hrs though) TRYING TO DOWNLOAD.

Guess I'll start with XHTML first then. Flash and Dreamweaver can go die thanks to Adobe.

Its over.

Whee.. A lvls over.. Okay maybe this is a bit late.. It was over 2 days ago on Friday 5pm.

Though it was over, somehow I don't feel any kind of elation within me.. It's like "oh ok, its over" instead of "OMG ITS FINALLY FREAKING OVER!! WOOOT!! WHEE!! WOW!!! YAY!!!" or smth.. You know.. Maybe I'm just wierd.. Bleh.

Been spamming gaming, reading manga and going out with friends the past 2 days.. Slept at like 3am~4am almost everyday  and waking up at 8~10am due to habit (sheesh. if this continues i gonna die from tiredness).. I guess I need a life. Lol.

Oh speaking of real life, time to apply for scholarships and hope to get one ^^

Sights and Sounds over the past few weeks.

"A" Level's almost over. Left 2 more papers next week - Physics MCQ and Computing Paper 2. Thats why I was able to convince my parents to let me come home to use the computer XD

Anyway, I played till 3.30am lol.. Alright, now to share some stuff I saw..

Now you know what's in Newater! Its pee!

Nah jk, its just ginseng thingy my grandma made for me

Now this is called a pillow fight.

At pillow's hse (thats the nickname of the guy on the right)

What's with the lights?

How's this refreshing? Its 37degrees HOT!

Ever wanted to own a cool kick-ass vehicle like that? I do.

You see that greenish thingy at the center of the picture, at the ledge?

That's a man suiciding, I saw it on the way back to my grandma's..

According to the newspaper the next day, its a 33yr old drunkard. His mum scolded him for drinking at a funeral then he go ledge want suicide. While on ledge, he even asked the police for cigarette. Wth. Anyway he got arrested 1hr later.

See what happens if you don't have common sense.

You put the concrete over before u remove your scaffold.

This lorry is truly imba.

He triple laned on a 2-lane road, then he started driving off when its still red light for his lane.

That's all for now I suppose.. Gonna be invisible online for a while again till "A" levels really finishes. Ta ta.