Cloudy

Warm day. It was nice to have clouds in the morning and evening.

Foam fun

It would be fun to snap pictures of flying foam. Is it be difficult to clean dried foam from expensive DSLR lenses? This is NOT an endorsement of Sony products btw... Sony is on my personal list of brands that I boycott.

Whitewash

Arsenal thrashes Sheffield United 6-0 in the League Cup. Arsene names a team with an average age of 19 and Jack Wilshere scores his first senior goal in this rout. Amazing stuff.

Zoom!!!

Firefox has a "Zoom" function for "blind" people like me. Useful for viewing small fonts or in situations where you want to scrutinize something.

The Spirit

The long awaited sequel to Sin City.

Hysteria

The recent debacle over tainted milk has me amused. No offense to my smoker friends but don't you sense a tinge of irony when people are hysterical over the deaths of 4 babies and numerous kidney stones... whilst thousands die from smoking-related diseases every year?
People are frantic over products with milk in them but still puffing away furiously. 4 infant deaths is 4 too many but we have to put it into context against other misfortunes.

M.A.S.K

I used to run home from school just to watch M.A.S.K. I love the 80s.
Episode - "The Death Stone" part I

Episode - "The Death Stone" part II

Supper

Sumptuous Egg Prata. Poetry in motion. Hari Raya lighting.

iPhone recall

More evidence that Apple products are inferior.

Hawker fare

Money is tight so I'm tightening my belt... hopefully that would help reduce my gut too! Had the McDonald's McValue Lunch last week. Ordered a Filet-O-Fish aka "Asian burger". Another budget meal in the form of Katong Laksa. Couldn't resist the temptation and succumbed to the call of Chocolate and cheese cake from "Miss Clarity Cafe". Their staff can't spell properly. Shared the Fried Jalapeño stuffed with cheese with CC at Botak Jones. Mmmmmmmm.

Miscellaneous pics.

Fingers crossed

Couldn't resolve my Macbook issue. Brought it down to Sim Lim to see if it could be fixed. In the end, I invested in a new hard drive. While I was there, I upgraded my RAM to a grand total of 2GB. Keeping my fingers crossed, my new hard drive is under warranty for the next 3 years... hope it doesn't come down to it.

The power of the Dark side

How do you resist such power? Seductive... the dark side is.

Privacy breach

Why the hell does Apple program their iPhone to take screenshots of your screen periodically (without your knowledge) and stores them??? For fuck??? Good question... I want to hear their "excuse". They can call it whatever they want... market research... blah blah blah... I constitute it as spying. Another black mark on their record.

Jumping on the bandwagon

Mozilla announces their plan to have privacy browsing capability in Firefox 3.1 joining pioneers Apple and Google who already have this feature built into their browsers. Competition is good and users come out smelling of roses.

Youngest league appearance

Jack Wilshere... remember the name. He makes his league debut as an 81st minute sub against Blackburn last week and became Arsenal's youngest ever league debutante in their history. He breaks the record previously held by Cesc Fabregas. Cesc still owns the overall record for being the youngest player to represent the Gunners by playing in the League Cup aged 16 years 177 days.

Moron

What moron thinks he can buy the original "The Thinker" statue for S$1.4 million?

Forgotten

Pictures that were forgotten and neglected. Selection of cloud pics, giant lanterns and Renault's F1 car.

We have liftoff!!!

Last week it was "Houston, we have a problem!" but the crisis has since been resolved. Internet access at home is up and "The Hedonistic One" is online once again. Rejoice!!!
Thanks to Linksys... I now have a spanking new WAG200G router at home. My previous model is no longer in production so they gave me this brand new model for FREE. The RMA procedure is simple with minimal fuss and the Linksys staff replaced my faulty device with no questions asked. Linksys is a decent company that knows how to take care of its customers. That is rare in this day and age... I'm definitely a customer of theirs for life! Unlike some scum organisations.
The WAG200G is similar to my previous WAG354G with the exception of the external antenna. The antenna seems to have improved signal strength as I now have excellent reception within my home. The firmware also supports WPA2 which is a bonus.
I love Linksys!!!

Mid-Autumn festival

Visited Queensway in the afternoon. Greenery everywhere.

Fixtures in the vicinity.

Afternoon delights.

Evening fun on Mount Faber.

Supper... cheese prata!!!

Full fledged advocate

I am now a committed full-time anti-Apple advocate after recent issues with my Macbook. It started acting up last Thursday and attempts to remediate it last Saturday came to no avail. I spent the whole day trying everything I could think of. I zeroed the hard drive... I wiped it with 7 passes... I partitioned the drive into 2... I tried Dban but it wouldn't run because of "kernel panic"... I tried verifying and repairing the drive... I attempted to install Windows XP... I used both Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard install DVDs... I prayed... I threatened... I cleaned the DVDs... I practiced patience by letting the install run overnight... but the damn Macbook refused to cooperate!
Who the hell in the world sells laptops with a 1 year warranty??? Even all my hard drives* at home come with 5 year warranties! My Linksys router failed at the same time but at least they are replacing it for me FOC... thanks to their 3 year warranty. Ridiculous considering that the Linksys router costs S$129 and the laptop S$1800+. Linksys offers free 24x7 telephone and online support for my S$129 investment. Apple? They won't entertain my call because my 1 year warranty for my S$1800+ product has expired. In fact, they wanted to charge me A$49 to troubleshoot my product over the phone.
Apple products are designed to look good but not meant for practical everyday use. My iPod Shuffle earphones didn't work after weeks of usage. Not months... not years... but WEEKS!!! Noticed how people have to buy tons of accessories to protect Apple products? You have to buy iPod covers... laptop covers... keyboard protectors... LCD films... laptop coolers... "accessory bombs" I call them (ie. Apple products). Apple is good at marketing and hype... I have to hand that to them.
I own an iPod Shuffle and Macbook... it's definitely the last items that I buy from Apple. ~!@#$%^&* expensive piece of crap**. I suggest you do the same. With inflation at a high, there are better ways of spending your hard earned $.

* Seagate is the only hard drive manufacturer to offer 5 year warranty. The competitors offer 3.
** I got it as part of a bundle. I'm still paying for something that doesn't work on a monthly basis and I have a year of payments to go.

Cringe

I cringe every single time this commercial is aired. No way in hell am I drinking Allswell beverages.

Blessed or suay?

My router died yesterday. Attempts to revive it failed and it was declared KIA. The "good" news is that it is still under warranty so I have to make the trip down to the Linksys office to get it replaced. Xian.
Coincidentally, my Macbook started acting up just after my router was confirmed non-functional. Apps kept crashing and I couldn't get anything done. Guess its time to reinstall the OS... talk about good timing... I originally planned to upgrade the OS from Tiger to Leopard anyways.

7-Zip

WinZip is a popular compression software for Windows. What a lot of people are not aware of is that it is not free. 7-Zip is an open source file archiver that can pack and unpack Zip archives. It had one limitation previously because it did not support AES 256 bit encryption but that is no longer an issue as the latest version (v4.57) supports this industry recommended encryption standard.
So... what are you waiting for? A simple alternative to asymmetric encryption for ad hoc file exchanges.

Mixed message

I occasionally come across this NYP student on the way to work in the morning. She takes my bus for one stop to switch to bus 72 and she is always decked in sports attire because she's a "Sports Wellness" diploma student. What's the problem you ask? She is studying to promote sports wellness but she's too lazy to walk the short distance of one bus stop. Sense the irony here?

Contrast

Watched 2 animated films recently... Star Wars: The Clone Wars and WALL.E. The 2 animated features could not be more contrasting. One has a weak storyline with fast paced action for die-hard fans whilst the other has a slower pace in the initial 30 minutes of the movie but has a strong message to convey. Guess which is which?

Fraud

I read about fraud all the time in the news, be it online or in print, but its surreal when my friend told me that she was a victim of credit card fraud. The bank called her asking if she was in Russia as they had detected transactions made with her credit card number there. She messaged me asking how the hacker managed to get her number. Its either a) malware on her PC, b) bank lost her number, c) an E-commerce retailer (whom she bought something from) got compromised or d) an unscrupulous service provider (eg. waitress) who took down her number while swiping her card to process payment.

How do you avoid falling victim to credit card fraud? Don't own a credit card. Seriously, credit cards are convenient but not foolproof. 

Lazy Sunday afternoon

On the way out. Nice sunny day. Look... there's a tiny plant sprouting out of the roof.

Eagerly waiting to wolf down sumptuous Turtle Soup. Going... going... gone! Utensils, condiments and sauces. 

Afternoon stroll after lunch. Church with glass facade. Construction site. 

Flowers.

Pile of colourful buckets. More construction. Freshly baked loaves of bread. Yummy. Bananas.