Need one of this

This T-shirt will be very useful especially since I frequently travel to non-English speaking countries.

Hitman movie

Watched "Hitman" the movie becoz I'm a fan of the cult computer game. There are subtle differences between the movie and the game. The narration in the movie mentions that orphans are taken in and trained into assassins but it is stated in the game that Agent 47 is actually a clone. I love having control over Agent 47 on my PC... watching a celluloid version of him on the silver screen is just not as satisfying. But the movie is decent effort nonetheless. Did I mention that there is nudity? Not just 0.5 secs of it but quite a lengthy few seconds... I'm surprised that it wasn't snipped by the censors.

Google password cracker

Someone creative come up with a new use for Google... MD5 hash matching... interesting.
Update: Who needs Google? Someone has hosted an app that does MD5 and SHA1 hash decoding.

Tough draw

We made it to the 3rd round for the first time but tough luck... we drew the Saudis, Uzbeks and Lebanese. Don't know about beating the Saudis and Uzbeks... we might be able to get 2 wins against the Lebanese maybe? See you guys at the National Stadium next year.
Update: Correction... we got it good... check out who China got drawn against? Australia, Iraq and Qatar!!! Good luck to them.

Upgrade

I just swopped my N70 for an N95 8GB model. Check out the pics I took with my new 5 mega pixel mobile. Yup... it's that time of the year again... Xmas!

I amaze myself sometimes...

and scare myself too!!! I predicted that England will flop if McClaren was hired. Well... they've missed out on Euro 2008 and Mcca sacked.

My dream

My dream is to live in a bungalow with a basketball court in the basement. This would go nicely with that space.

Singapore boleh!!!

Singapore makes history by making it into the third round of World Cup qualification. Like I said... Raddy is the man. He's the only one who can make the Singapore team perform. Well done but like Raddy says... there is more work to be done. He's got me dreaming.

Loogi

It was forecast that inflation will be at 5% in the first half of next year. My company gives out 3-5% increment annually to its executive employees. I got 4% this year... that means that my income will shrink next year and I actually suffer a "loss" of 1%!!! Just basically confirms my previous rant.

Another bundle of patches

Apple has released another package to fix some 40+ security vulnerabilities in its OS. What are you waiting for? Patch!!! Thank goodness I have a 10Mbps Internet connection.
Related news... Apple releases a fix for its Mac OS X 10.5.1 (aka Leopard) firewall.

Aptly put

"I think it's terrible... We all run around like headless chickens following these data breach headlines (but) organizations out there really don't care."
- David Litchfield in a PCWorld interview
His statement aptly describes how I feel at work everyday. I'm going to put this quote in my email signature. Haha.

National pastime?

Pastime as defined in the dictionary.
"An activity that occupies one's spare time pleasantly".
Not sure if I would consider queuing pleasant but it would definitely be considered an activity that occupies a bulk of Singaporeans' time. I'm queuing up for Nasi Lemak. Check out the long queue that snakes all the way to the opposite side. Nuts... hehehehe. But ok lah... the food is worth the effort.

Bo pian lah. Everything we do involves queuing... be it waiting to see the doctor, buying a new mobile phone, getting movie tickets, boarding a plane, etc. Even our other national pastime... watching the Singapore Football team at the National Stadium involves queuing.

Clear skies ahead?

With global warming wreaking havoc on the weather, I'm praying for clear skies just like the one in the pics. I mean I don't mind a little rain to keep the weather cool but only if it rains during office hours. I would appreciate clear skies when I'm not stuck in the office and weekends. Hehehe... greedy bugger I am.

How to survive like that?

GST went up another 2%... bus fares have gone up... cost of groceries too... even the Meiji milk I buy from my office canteen has been increased by 10 cents!!! That's a whopping 12% increase in price of the milk. Has my salary been increased in par with the increased cost of living? Eeeeeeeh... no!!! My salary was increased by 3% last year and 4% this year... that barely offsets the inflation... let alone be an actual "increment". I'm suffering losses in fact. More bad news... my company declared that they will be giving us this year's bonus next year. WTF!!! Smells like a scam if you ask me. So much for retiring at 40. *sigh*

Kids are amazing

The potential in kids is limitless. I think parents' role in unleashing that limitless potential is imperative. I was often discouraged from chasing my dreams when I was young and I believe that prevented me from thinking big.
I was watching "The Ellen Degeneres Show" and Ellen interviewed this amazing 5 year old who is blind in one eye but knows how to play Golf even though he's never had lessons. He learnt how to use a driver, iron and putter from watching the Golf channel on cable.
There's also this fascinating 4 year old Hong Kong girl I saw on Star News Asia who is going to have her own photography showcase. She was given her first camera at 2 years old and now she uses a manual camera to take fascinating photographs.
Parents... a word of advice... nothing is impossible. Encourage your kids to dream and don't discourage them.

Troubling

I'm extremely troubled! It's a public holiday and a friend of mine, who has a husband and daughter, is working instead of spending time with them. I told her to go spend time with them and put down her work but she replied that she can't.
I am very disturbed by her response... really. Yes yes yes... I know we all need $ to survive but it's a no brainer isn't it? I thought that it was straight forward that spending time with your loved ones is more important and rewarding than work. I don't know... I really don't understand Singaporeans even though I'm one. They are practically slaves to their work and don't know how to live life. Life isn't work people!!! I don't know how many times I have to stress this.
I feel depressed.

Word of mouth

Word of mouth can either make or break a business. I am posting this rant on behalf of my friend, Figo*, as part of my duty as a responsible Netizen.
"Is it me or has the service standard in S'pore gone south? Recently an ex-colleague put me in touch with someone he knows from Cafe Del Mar and who may be able to help with my wedding after-party. So the story goes that the Event Manager (EM) was cc-ed on the email who will be in touch with me. All's dandy and from the email, EM sounded excited with "Thanks again for your recommendations. Looking forward to hear from xx". I had sent out a separate email then to tell him of the requirements. A few days passed, no reply from EM albeit the misconstrued excitement signal from my end. I followed up with yet another email, still not even a beep - even after telling them we may be able to re-look at the budget. A few calls from me to his mobile left answered. After waiting for a couple of days, an email from another person came forwarding my enquiry to "Reservation"! Seriously, would it hurt for EM to just reply to me rather than just ignoring me & forwarding my query - and that to someone else and then to "Reservation". Does "Reservation" happen to have a name?! I know my budget probably seems pittance to them - but such arrogance! Are they so uninterested in future potential business? If our business seems so negligible to them, have the courtesy (or balls) to tell us nicely that they are not interested. Or even if you are not the contact person, SAY something. A one-liner that takes 3 sec of your time. And to think that they are in the service industry! What's wrong with these people?! What's with the superior mentality and at the wrong place/time taa. Boy - don't they know that word of mouth would go such a long way!"

* Not the footballer lah... pseudo name.

Ridiculous laws

Politicians waste so much precious time on ridiculous laws.

Opinionated?

Was having a chat with my close friend from poly... the topic drifted to whether we had changed since we first knew each other 12 years ago. She mentioned that I am now less stingy, "harder" thus not so easy to bully as before and opinionated. Yeah I totally agree with the first two observations but I can't really verify the opinionated factor. I mean I was always frank from young. It got me into trouble very often... I was an outcast in Pre-U and that was why I decided to keep my thoughts to myself when I got into Poly. I assume that's why she thought I was not opinionated back then. Opinionated... I'm not sure if I was always opinionated or I become thus after working. Could be from interacting with Ang Mohs frequently?

You can run but you can't hide

One of my former hostel flatmate attempted to vanish after graduation. She doesn't appear on MSN anymore, she doesn't reply to emails and she changed her mobile phone. For years, nobody heard any news of her until last Friday. I bumped into her at a boutique in Katong. She was just as surprised as I was when I saw her. To all those people who want to disappear, stay indoors!!! That's the only way to vanish in Singapore because Singapore is too bloody small and everyone is linked in some way.

Evening stroll

Was taking an evening stroll to buy my dinner before heading home. Had gorgeous scenery to accompany me.

What a pulsating match!!!

The first half was pretty dull as I expected because both teams were tentative about going one goal behind.... the second half was amazing and what a brilliant last minute equalizer. Arsenal demonstrates their "never say die" spirit again as they equalized in the last minute for the second match in a row. Hope that Blackburn demonstrates the same passion in their match against Liverpool later.
Update: I decided to take a nap between both matches and I missed the Rovers game! Haha. It ended in a draw but I read that Rovers had the upper hand.

Another acquisition

Acquisitions seem to be part of parcel of life now. Big companies are swallowing up smaller companies and getting fatter. Its not only happening in the Information Security arena but the Sports apparel industry as well. Nike has bought over Umbro.

Mac OS X trojan alert!

A trojan disguised as a Mac OS X video codec was detected on the Internet. Beware because it seems that more and more sites are distributing this malware. Wonder how successful this malware will be?
More Mac security news. A security researcher has given Mac OS X Leopard's firewall the thumbs down.