Come Here For Free Brain Haemorrhage

I know it technically wasn't 1 April yet.


But this was the only chance I had to play such a silly prank.


In case you're really, really curious to know what was on the second page, this is it. (Click to view the original unedited picture at full size)

害人101招术成功咯!

http://www.nusartsclub.org/blogfest/2006/03/winners.html

The Winners!

After two months, the winners of Blogfest 2006 are finally out!

They are................... Drum Roll..............

Best NUS Blog:

No Recess @ http://aishahhamza.livejournal.com

Most Creative Blog:

"Lord can you tell me... How far is Heaven?" @ http://sparklette.net

Funniest Blog:

Alcoholic Inspirations @ http://-intoxicated-.blogspot.com

Congratulations to the winners above!

Winners will be notified via email about the collection of prizes.

A word of Congratulations to ALL THE FINALISTS as they are a winner [sic] by sticking till the end! Thank You for staying with Blogfest!

A word of thanks to all Voters who took part in the voting period. Hope all voters had an enjoyable time reading through the finalists' blogs during the 4-week voting period.

Lastly, a BIG Thank You to all who have helped in this event in one way or another!

*******

So it has all come to a close. Weeks of campaigning (well, sort of), slamming and praising the blogs of fellow competitors, while at the same time trying to get my lazy friends to vote. There have been ups and downs, and despite those times when I felt quite despondent due to a lack of votes, on the whole it has been a positive experience. After all, through this competition, I have discovered several other wonderful blogs written by fellow NUS students; people like Aishah, Xiang, Aristocrat and Al are among those whom I've added to my bookmarks, and I have become friends and acquaintances with a few of them.

This competition has also provided lots of fodder for this blog, what with my outright criticism of a certain fellow competitor, leading to her friends becoming trolls both here and over at jkaiser's blog. Then there was the Blogfest write-up that misspelled my surname, and the Funkygrad article that mistakenly put my name as the owner of Chronicles of a Teenage Drama Queen (Very, very ironic and funny, on hindsight). And of course, after months of dragging my feet, it was my involvement in this competition that finally provided the impetus for me to finally overhaul my template and make some changes here and there.

It's at this point in time that I have to be honest and admit that I was one of those people whose actions led to the reset of the votes in the middle of the contest. After all, when it was obvious that a certain someone was leading the rest by a wide margin, I decided to resort to unscrupulous means to boost my own votes as well as those of some of my fellow competitors (actually, mostly Aishah ). When I first discovered the loophole that enabled me to vote multiple times in one day, I was about to report it, but then decided to keep quiet and see if I could exploit this to my own benefit. And exploit it I did, although if you had been keeping track of the votes before the reset, there was never a point in time when I took advantage and decided to surge ahead of everyone else; no, all I did was pad my own numbers a little here and there. And there were probably times when I lost track of whether 24 hours had passed between the times I logged on, so those probably counted towards the multiple voting as well.

I apologise to Jackson, Mandy, and the rest of the Blogfest committee for this lapse of judgement and ethics on my part, but hey, at least after the reset, the contest was a much closer fight than before.

But I'm still very gek sim that I lost to Castle In The Clouds for 4th place by just a single vote.

I'd like to thank the Blogfest committee for all the hard work and effort that they've put in behind the scenes. It certainly isn't easy organising such an event, and while I feel the publicity and hype could have been improved upon, on the whole you guys have done a commendable job, especially considering that this is the first time a blogging contest has been held in NUS.

Finally, I'd like to state that now that the competition is over, I still harbour no real malice or ill will towards a certain other blogger who has been the recipient of some catty remarks from me (though I have to say that I am not alone in harbouring such sentiments). It is after all your own blog, and you are free to do as you wish with it. Still, trying to read your blog, compressed as it is inside that tiny box when there is so much empty space on the screen, annoys the Hell out of me. No hard feelings, ok? And oh yah, Arts Club rocks, Bizad sucks. (Low blow! )

Listening to: Inner Smile by Texas

Petit Basset Griffon Vendéen

Labels: Every day has its dog

Less than an hour left till the inaugural NUS Blogfest is officially over.

The young ones
Darling, we're the young ones
And the young ones
Shouldn't be afraid
To live, love
While the flame is strong
For we may not be
The young ones very long

The past couple of days, the Arts Club Room has become a very different place to me.

Most of the time, it has been occupied by the latest batch of freshmen, people whose faces I recognise but whose names I still do not know, people whom I cannot really call friends at this point in time. Although old-timers like me do still spend lots of time in the Club Room, it has increasingly and overwhelmingly become a place dominated by the freshmen.

But yesterday and today, for some strange reason, I stepped inside the Club Room, and it felt just like I'd been transported back in time to last year, to a time when the 25th MC was still in office, when the air-conditioning was on 24/7 and there was a PS2, Dynasty Warriors and Winning Eleven to help us pass the time.

All the same old familiar faces are back: it's been quite a while since so many third-year students were in the Club Room. The familiar laughter, screams and wails of anguish are strangely comforting, as the Club Room suddenly becomes a makeshift gambling den for Bridge and Big2 players. As Chonghan mentioned earlier on, THIS is what a Club Room should be like.

It's a vibrant side of campus life which I've grown extremely fond of, a place where friends can hang out and have a good time and escape the drudgery of schoolwork and deadlines for hours. Not that the freshmen are all sombre and stone-faced; they are crazy and funny at times too, but it's the familiarity of having the Club Room filled with seniors that makes such a scene so appealing to me.

And it's at this point in time that I've come to realise another fact. That less than a month from now, such scenes will sadly be no more. The familiar faces will have moved on, and the Club Room will no longer be our second home, our refuge. Some of us may remain, while others will have left to seek their destinies outside. The days of seeing all the third-years gathered together in the Club Room, indulging in a few hours of fun and games and laughter are numbered indeed.

Pei Pei, Iban, Sining, June, Tim, Kevin, Yaozhong, Steven, Chonghan, Clement, Yuimin and Giang are all people I've known over the past 2 years of hanging around in the Club Room, and whose companionship I've come to treasure greatly. Even Hock these days seems to have cast off his presidential woes and burdens, and for a moment, you can almost bluff yourself that you're looking at Hock the 25th Sports Cell Director once again. It almost feels as if I'm still in second year, and we're all still fretting about grades and projects, and planning for FOP and Arts Camp, not worrying about job prospects and interviews as we are right now. Yet we're all aware that this is just a temporary lull, a calm before the storm, in the precious few weeks after all the project deadlines have been cleared and before the final exams commence. For once the exams arrive upon us, the grave and quiet chill shall descend us once more, and for some, it will be the final one before they are in a sense, finally liberated.

And all that remains after that will be mere memories, a poignant nostalgia, and the stark realisation that when the day comes that we step out of the Club Room for the last time as undergraduates, such carefree halcyon days will be no more.

I'll really miss these good times.

Tomorrow
Why wait until tomorrow
'Cause tomorrow
Sometimes never comes
So love me
There's a song to be sung
And the best time
Is to sing it while we're young

Just as I predicted earlier, other bloggers have come out to give their comments on the forum, and if you missed the forum, you can read what others have to say at the following links:

Rojak or the melting pot
Singapore Ink

"In compensation, the Blogfest06 committee have [sic] decided to extend the voting period. The voting period will thus end on 30 March 2006, instead of 27 March 2006."

Then why am I seeing this?


They've been closed since Tuesday, FYI. (not FYU )

And why are all my friends unable to vote, even those who are voting for the first time?

*scratches head*

So much for the idea of making all my friends log in and vote for me in the final few hours and boost my rankings. Bah.

Listening to: Club Bizarre by Brooklyn Bounce

Hungarian Vizsla

Labels: Every day has its dog

Remember the baby colugo that was rescued last week, which I blogged about in this post?

It's gone.

Dear students,

You are invited to a FORUM ON THE SINGAPORE GENERAL ELECTION:-

DATE: WED 29 MARCH 2006

TIME: 5 PM

VENUE:LT 11

SPEAKERS LINE-UP:

Ms INDRANEE RAJAH (MP, People’s Action Party)

Mr CHIAM SEE TONG (MP, Singapore Democratic Alliance)

Mr CHIA TI LIK (Workers' Party)

Ms CHERIE LIM (PRIVATE SECTOR)

OPEN ONLY TO NUS STAFF AND STUDENTS, THERE ARE 300 SEATS RESERVED FOR YOU.

So exciting! I'm sitting in LT11 right now, and the forum has just begun. I really hope this will be a fruitful experience and that some serious issues will be brought out into the open and discussed. But I won't be giving any in-depth analysis and commentary, the same way I covered the dialogue sessions over the NUS fee hike; I believe that politics on the national scale is best left to seasoned pundits and other fellow bloggers more experienced at critically analysing the local political scene.

I see lots of familiar faces here, a lot of fellow third-year students are in the LT. Perhaps we're all taking advantage of one of the last opportunities we'll have to attend an event held solely for people affiliated with NUS, or perhaps we're showing some concern with regards to our future, at this point in our lives when we're on the verge of venturing out into the working world.

Besides, this is the first time most of us are eligible to vote in the General Elections.

The coming elections should prove to be very interesting indeed, now that media coverage of such an event has taken on a new twist, with the advent of blogging. I wonder what shall transpire over the next few months.

Listening to: Ms Indranee Rajah's introduction

Shiloh Shepherd

Labels: Every day has its dog

31.25 %

My weblog owns 31.25 % of me.
Does your weblog own you?

It's late, and I'm still working on a bajillion blog posts, but I feel that I should put something up so that you all know that I've yet to try my new innovative way of bungee-jumping by tying the cord around my neck.

So many blog posts in the works, and so little time to finish them.

Anyway, here's a quick summary of what's been going on in my life lately:

- Apparently, I'm eligible to receive $700 from the gahmen. Yay!

- I went to Sentosa on Saturday, planning to have a fun and enjoyable day with some of my friends. But alas, just when I'd reached Siloso Beach at the insane hour of 9.15 in the morning and started swimming, I received the message that the beach outing had been cancelled. What the NNB!

So I spent most of my Saturday alone, suntanning and swimming and watching marine life. It's quite surprising just how many fish, snails, crabs and whatnot you can find in the lagoons at Siloso Beach.

And oh yes, I found a stonefish. At Siloso Beach. A small one, but a stonefish all the same. Y'know, that fish that looks just like a piece of rock or coral, so that you can't see it until you accidentally step on it. And it has venomous spines on its dorsal fin that it deploys in self-defense; the venom causes great pain and in rare cases, paralysis and even death.

OMFG NNBCCB a stonefish at Sentosa!

- I've just discovered the most entertaining way to waste my time: watching old episodes of Whose Line Is It Anyway? uploaded on Youtube.

- It's a pity that I won't be able to make it for the Blogfest gathering this Friday evening, since I will be attending the St. Hilda's Secondary alumni band concert. My sister's playing in the concert, and my entire family is attending, so it is imperative that I show up and support my sister.

Apologies go out to all the rest of the people I won't get to meet in the flesh; my wonderful rivals and competitors and fellow bloggers, the Blogfest committee, who have worked so hard, and the publicity people, who have made this such a widely-known event (misspellings of my surname notwithstanding ). Although, as I said in a tongue-in-cheek reply to the invitation, what if a certain competitor takes the chance to get back at the things I have said, and gather her friends to ambush and hantam me?

- Speaking of Blogfest, oei! Where's all the votes?! Last 3 days for voting in Blogfest already, and I'm in 5th place! NNB, I expect a better placing than this, at least 3rd or 4th, considering that the blog in 4th place is just 1 vote ahead of mine, and 3rd place is just 10 votes ahead. Bloody Hell, I know a whole bunch of you read my blog but never bother to comment and worse still, never bother to vote at all! Still can happily go and call me 'Ivan Kwang' when you see me, still can happily laugh at something funny I wrote, but don't have the balls to go and vote. -_- And what's worse is when some people dislike a particular finalist, but see the idea of bringing that blog's rankings down and boosting my own as mutually exclusive. -_-|||

- My participation in Blogfest has led to me getting called up by Communications and New Media students, seeking to interview me on my views. Of course, you won't get any diva fits from me, and I am more than willing to take the time to answer your queries and questions, but still, it does get a little distracting when you're having an impromptu interview conducted over the phone in the midst of a game of DotA. Sorry Andrea, if the shouting and the noise made it hard to hear what I was saying on Friday evening.

- So much for quitting DotA; some of the others are still indulging in sessions that last into the wee hours of the morning, although thankfully we do seem to be playing less often on a weekly basis. At least I managed to hold off playing DotA for 11 days, and truth be told, I didn't really suffer from any withdrawal symptoms at all. My skills with Rotund'jere the Necrolyte appear to be improving, while I am starting to get the hang of Rhasta the Shadow Shaman. Now, if only I can stop getting the hotkeys mixed up and stop casting Forked Lightning when I mean to use Voodoo or Shackle...

- Never, ever piss Xiao Bai off when you're playing a game of DotA. Because I was distracted in the midst of the game due to the abovementioned phone interview, I was unable to assist him in killing or saving him, which annoyed him greatly. But at least my crime wasn't as severe as that of the stranger who joined our game, using Leoric the Skeleton King, then quit after a group of us ganged up on him and finished him off.

Na bei. We'd specifically mentioned the unspoken rule about not leaving the game.

I remember how it was like, when the moment the message flashed on the screen that the stranger had left, Xiao Bai gave a loud "Fuck", and then almost instantaneously, he whirled around and headed straight for the guy, who was probably unaware that we knew which computer terminal he was using.

(Note: If a stranger joins you and your friends for a game, it's easy to pick him out of the 50 or so other computers. Just look out for the computer that has the same loading screen as yours)

Luckily only harsh words were exchanged. And I think "I need to leave already" is a darn lame excuse. If you needed to leave so early, shouldn't have joined the game in the first place.

- I've discovered the fun of some of the other custom WarCraft 3 maps, such as Elements, Moo Moo and Run Kitty Kitty Run. Some of them are really very different from the gameplay of DotA and even 'normal' WarCraft strategy, and I really salute all those people who took the time to develop such creative and fun games for us to enjoy when we're taking a little break from all the killing in DotA.

- I've managed to clear most of my projects and assignments, though I still have a GE2225 Methods and Practices in Geography project to finish. For now, I just feel like letting go completely and just have some fun. But then I recall that the exams are less than a month away. Aargh......

- Something is wrong with me. I'm at the stage where my day doesn't seem complete until I've followed some of my friends who smoke to the back and talked cock with them as they puffed their lives (and my own life) away. But hey, I'm a non-smoker who carries a lighter around all the time. I'm weird.

- Everyone in the Arts Club Room is getting caught up with anime of some sort. Sigh... first it was Clement with Initial D and Naruto, then it was Tim and Kevin with Bleach, and now even Gerri has hopped onto the bandwagon with all those discs of Full Metal Panic and Fumofu. Sigh...... suddenly developing an addiction for anime is one thing, but disturbing me and trying to commandeer my laptop when I'm trying to do my essay and prepare for my presentation is another.

Speaking of anime, anyone got the original Love Hina anime series to lend to me? It'd be the perfect way to complement my own complete collection of the Love Hina manga (minus all the Japanese special editions that only my Japanese speaking bunkmate bought and could decipher).

- And in other news, I've just become a millionaire!

Pity it's not in the real world. I just made my first million meat in Kingdom of Loathing. Yes, in this game, meat is the currency, not gold.


Finally... all those days spent slaughtering Yetis at the Icy Peak, and trading items with fellow players for gold meat have finally paid off. *starts weeping*

By the way, if you're keen on playing an MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) that isn't very addictive (considering that you have a limited number of adventures per day), is whacky and fun-filled and full of humourous digs at modern pop culture, is constantly being updated with new items and events, and best of all, is entirely free, perhaps you might like to try out Kingdom of Loathing. Presently I'm a Level 16 Turtle Tamer, and I'm just spending time earning cash meat and levelling up before I go off and fight the Naughty Sorceress.

Oh shit. Now then I realise I have exactly 28 days to my first exam paper. And this semester I have the misfortune (or rather, the stupidity) of having 2 days in which I have 2 papers falling on the same day. That's right. Which makes it 4 papers in 2 days. At least it's not 4 papers over 2 consecutive days.

At least my last paper is on a Tuesday; still can go Mambo to celebrate.

Listening to: Don't Tell Me by Madonna

Weimaraner

Labels: Every day has its dog

What the bloody fuck is a person like you doing in Arts??!

Seriously. A third-year Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences student who cannot give a presentation to save his life?

Granted, an Economics major doesn't really have to talk and present as much as students from other majors. But still, given that you're in your third year, and that you're Singaporean and English is by right your first language, we were really expecting something better than that.

I know it's only natural to be nervous. We understand that most of us can't really maintain a calm and collected front during presentations, but then again, we were expecting a certain standard, since we had assumed that this was something all of us had done before, if not in university then at least in junior college. I distinctly told you to keep it short before it was your turn to speak, and you went on to stutter and stammer and totally mangle the presentation, reading everything that was on the slide plus whatever notes you had scribbled. Then you dragged the presentation beyond our allocated time limit, leaving us no time to present our more important final few slides and conclusion, and at the same time making the grammar and pronunciation Nazi in me scream in agony. I dare say some of the others in our group were getting quite irritated as well.

On hindsight, it really is quite funny considering that when I first met you, I thought you were a foreign student from China, considering the way you spoke English and your tendency to lapse into Mandarin while presenting during tutorials. But then again, I have met foreign students who take English as a second or third language who speak the language so much more eloquently and fluently than you, you who was born and raised here all your life.

Give me a break. If I knew this was going to happen, I'd have delegated you to the role of just clicking the mouse to change the slides. *facepalms*

Still, I think our project presentation went pretty well, despite the setbacks we faced. I hope our GE2206 Population Analysis lecturer felt the same way too. *crosses fingers*

*Think kind and compassionate thoughts. Think kind and compassionate thoughts*

Thank goodness it's all over. I had a pleasurable time working with everyone else in the project group except for you. I still have to credit you for the hard work and research you put into our project, but still, considering that our project was based entirely on our presentation and the summary of our project (that's right, no report), the way you so royally screwed it up just overwrites all the favourable impressions I had of you before.

*fumes*

Listening to: In The End by Linkin Park

There's a time for us to let go
There's a time for holding on
A time to speak, a time to listen
There's a time for us to grow

There's a time for laying low down
There's a time for getting high
A time for peace, a time for fighting
A time to live, a time to die

A time to scream, a time for silence
A time for truth against the lie
A time for faith, a time for science
There's a time for us to shine

There is a time for explaining
There's a time to understand
A time for hurt, a time for healing
A time to run, to make a stand

Oh this is the time of our lives...

- Time of our Lives by Paul van Dyk

Labels: Musical Mondays

Toy Manchester Terrier

Labels: Every day has its dog

Michi Yoshikawa

Labels: sexy sundays

South Russian Ovcharka

Labels: Every day has its dog

Just as I got off the bus and was about to walk to my block, who should I see but this little guy:



Familiar? Perhaps this post should refresh your memory.

So after a week of being missing in action, the cat was now back, albeit he was now a stray. It was highly unlikely that this was a cat lost by a resident living in this block; this was probably more a case of abandonment, or in a best-case scenario, just a case of an owner who left the door open and allowed him to wander as he pleased.

Anyhow, he still seemed to be doing fine. His blue Liverpool collar and purple bell were gone, although I have no idea why anyone would remove it. Perhaps they thought it would have interfered with his hunting?

The cat was friendly as ever, running up to me and rubbing against my legs, rolling over and allowing me to stroke and scratch his belly. He thirstily lapped at the water that I poured out of my water bottle; he must not have had a drink of clean water for quite some time already.










If you look closely, you'll see the marks on the neck that remained after the collar was removed.

Incidentally enough, the other two long-time resident strays were in the area, and the newcomer was understandably very wary of them. But the two other strays were probably more interested in each other and also at the same time wary of me.

I decided to take some photos of these other two cats:


First there is this white female with a brown tail and head. She likes to sleep beside the drains or on the metal bus-stop seats.



She was also quite friendly, allowing me to stroke and pet her, but she still remained very tense and cautious.


And then there is this very wary and elusive brownish-black tomcat who kept his distance; this was the closest shot I could get before he ran away. Judging from his size and his hefty build, this must be the dominant male in the area.




No chance of even trying to pet this guy on the head. Just a step closer and off he goes...



Among the three cats, the female is the most agile and athletic I've seen; she manages jump to the top of the mailboxes with ease. While the orange tomcat can easily leap onto the stone chairs and tables, so far I've never seen the big male attempt to jump or climb anything.


I swear, there's got to be a photo of a puma on top of a cliff in the exact same pose somewhere. And don't ask me why the cat looks as if it hasn't got any eyes in this photo.



Seeing how these two cats were spending so much time in close proximity, I have the funny suspicion that I was intruding upon a private moment. And looking at how the big male was so curious about the female and kept approaching and sniffing her, I suspect he must be testing whether she is in estrus and ready for some action.



Perhaps this explains all the caterwauling I've been hearing at night lately. I hope at least one of these cats has been sterilised already; I doubt any kittens would survive for long, what with the busy roads and the general lack of cat-loving folk in these parts.

Now that I know the orange tomcat has become another stray, and was not just some temporarily lost and wandering cat waiting for his owner to come search for him, I am even more concerned for his well-being and safety, as well as that of the other two strays. I dread the day the AVA comes and rounds these cats up, or the day they fall victim to a sadistic person who would think nothing of abusing a fellow living creature. I wonder about their food and drink and shelter, whether there is anyone living in my area who feeds and takes care of their basic needs.

There was this teenaged girl who was playing with the orange cat when I had done messing around with the other stray cats and was finally going to go upstairs. Last I saw, the orange cat was meowing loudly as he trotted over to her. I wanted to ask her a few questions, but decided to let her enjoy some privacy with the cat, just as all the other passers-by had not disturbed me when I was busy playing and taking photos of the cat earlier on. Is she the original owner, forced to let her pet loose but still taking care of him, or just a fellow kind soul who might, with luck, just take him in?

And now that Ivy has expressed interest in adopting him, a new twist is added to the story. Given that I don't see the cats around all the time, I cannot guarantee that he will be there should she make the journey down to Tampines to pick him up. Unless of course, I bring him upstairs and confine him near my house. But that opens a whole new can of worms.

Regardless of whether this cat is eventually adopted or remains a wandering stray, I hope he's okay somehow, surviving as a stray in and around my block. Somehow I suddenly feel like volunteering for the Cat Welfare Society.

Rhodesian Ridgeback

Labels: Every day has its dog

Given that there's just a few days left to the end of voting for NUS Blogfest, I decided to just take this time to drag up some pretty old stuff I've been meaning to comment upon.

First up is this comment made by a fellow competitor in NUS Blogfest.

"My parents and brother went to Malaysia for shopping today. they brought back so many VCDS. we watched one of them tonight, Fearless by Jet Li. And the show sucked. I am serious. Its full of violence and aimless fighting. Not much storyline. Just loads of kungfu and men in pigtails. I doze off after a while.zZzZ"

Oh well, whatever floats your boat. All I know is that I have a lot of friends who watched the show, loved it, and who will take great offence at the above statement.



The second was a comment made on the original post where I slammed a certain competitor in Blogfest, presumably a friend of the blogger in question. While I brush off negative comments like these very easily, sometimes they just gnaw at you, knowing very full well that the person who made such a comment doesn't know what he's talking about and is in dire need of someone to show him the error of his ways.

The original comment:

Quote and reiterate, "I do not have anything against you as a person." If you think that other blog(s) should not be considered for this competition, I don't see anything special about yours either, though you should stand a high chance of winning the Best Science Centre's blog or something. Oh yeah, your template is at best, ordinary. You sounded as though you had an admirable template to be "wowed" about. Of course, just my two cents. Cheers. =)
Ivan | 03.06.06 - 7:34 pm |

Tsk tsk. The world has too many people named Ivan these days.

From one Ivan to another:

If you think that other blog(s) should not be considered for this competition, I don't see anything special about yours either, though you should stand a high chance of winning the Best Science Centre's blog or something.

I'm guessing that you're insinuating that my blog itself doesn't really stand out as a finalist for Best NUS Blog, and instead would be more suited to a Best Science Blog category or something like that. Pray tell, why would a so-called Best Science Centre's blog not qualify for Best Blog at the same time? (And what does the Science Centre have to do with anything in the first place, or is this just some silly moniker thought up by you?)

And besides, I don't see why my blog is THAT scientific to you. Sure, I do talk a lot about animals, but I'm sure most of my regular readers don't find that it takes up the majority of this blog. Besides, what's so bad about that anyway? Why? Science too dense for you? Most of the time, I write in a manner that's easily readable by laymen, or does the very idea of reading anything remotely related to Science put you off? Pictures of cute fluffy dogs too scary and you instantly compartmentalise it all as Science stuff?

(Just occurred to me that I don't see why blogging about animals necessarily equates to blogging about Science. After all, Science is a very wide and diverse field... *scratches head*)

In fact, I was afraid I was blogging too much about DotA. It seems my fears were unfounded.

Besides, even if my blog doesn't stand out as Best NUS Blog, I'm still qualified to criticise other blogs. After all, you don't need to be a singer to judge people's singing. (Jesus Christ. You're making me sound like Xiaxue )

Oh yeah, your template is at best, ordinary.

So it is. THAT IS WHY I'M NOT IN THE MOST CREATIVE CATEGORY. True, maybe I initiated the nitpicking about the templates, but after all, I'm not the one whose blog is crammed into one third of the area of the screen.

Besides, my template was built up from HTML and pure blood, sweat and tears, not lifted off Blogskins and lightly modified from some Lindsay Lohan movie. So there.

You sounded as though you had an admirable template to be "wowed" about.

Oh, is that so? Why, sorry for unintentionally misleading you, but you're really looking at the wrong category. After all, this is the Best NUS Blog, not the Most Creative Template category (which a certain blog would never win in any case but let's not venture any further). Perhaps you'd be more "wowed" by "Lord can you tell me... How far is Heaven?"

Oh, and my blog content isn't crammed into two-thirds of the screen area. Nanny nanny boo boo... (What to do? Someone commented before "dun flame here there v childish" so must live up to their expectations mah)

Of course, just my two cents.

No, you keep the two cents. Otherwise you'll be bankrupt.

Of course, I must stress that this is all in good humour.

Having seen goodness knows how many flame wars, and having fought in a couple myself, I was thinking of the perfect picture to illustrate this post. Would it be one of the following?

















(OOH! Lots of animal pictures! Who says this isn't Science??!)

Then I thought about it, and realised that based on this farce of a "flame war" that we're having (and which I am trying to stoke but to no success), it would be more apt to have instead one of the following pictures to illustrate this post:


Because the main protagonists are all real cock-sters.


Because it's more funny than dangerous.


Because it's really tiny and minuscule compared to the real action you see elsewhere on the Net.

Oh well, I myself am sick and tired of dealing with these people and their antics. So unless they provide me with more fodder, I suppose this shall be my last post on this matter. And I thought things would be a lot more heated than this. This is like a bunch of 80-year-old grannies trying to play contact rugby.

To end off, I think I can say one thing about being a guy in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences: I can be very bitchy when I want to.

Listening to: Mortal Kombat by The Immortals

Rafeiro do Alentejo

Labels: Every day has its dog

Happy Birthday Luke!

Want me to send you the video of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2005 as a birthday gift?

11.15 p.m., Kent Ridge Terminus.


It's at times like these that I wish I lived on campus. Or that my mum would allow me to stay over in school once in a while.


It's going to be a long road home.

Listening to: Long Way Home by ATB

Saarlooswolfhund

Labels: Every day has its dog

The bastards.

Damn you! Damn you all to hell!

Our wildlife is already threatened gravely threatened by loss of habitat; our nature reserves protect but a fraction of what once grew here. The forests are becoming increasingly isolated as the golf courses and condominiums creep up on their borders, as the roads start to run through them and split them into tiny little islands, each little forest and its wildlife separated from each other by miles of sterile asphalt that brings a swift and bloody death to those who dare cross it. And although the local colugo population is still pretty stable, who knows? Maybe these assholes would have callously gone after a pangolin, or mousedeer, or the last of the giant squirrels or banded leaf monkeys all the same. The last thing we need is a bunch of malicious individuals armed with slingshots.

Flying lemur and baby shot down at MacRitchie

Three men seen using slingshots; mum injured and put to sleep, baby unharmed

By Radha Basu
March 22, 2006
The Straits Times

A FEMALE flying lemur and its baby were shot down by slingshot-wielding miscreants in the MacRitchie Nature Reserve on Sunday, in an incident that has shocked nature lovers here.

While the baby was found unharmed by park rangers, the mother was seriously injured and had to be put to sleep later, a spokesman for the National Parks Board (NParks) said last night.

The culprits, believed to be three men aged between 40 and 50, are still at large, so the motive for the poaching is unclear. It is also unknown whether they were professional poachers or cruel mischief-makers bent on animal abuse.

NParks is in touch with the police on the case, believed to be the first incident of flying lemurs being poached here.

While poaching is rare in Singapore, there have been a few cases of animal abuse of late, including a recent one in which a man was slapped with a three-month jail term for torturing a kitten which had to be put to sleep for its injuries.

Flying lemurs, also known as colugos, are gentle, large-eyed mammals about the size of giant squirrels. The adult can weigh up to 2kg. Native to South-east Asian forests, these tree-dwellers are becoming increasingly rare in countries like Malaysia and the Philippines, possibly because of poaching and logging, said National University of Singapore researcher Norman Lim, who has studied the animals as part of a university research project.

In a 2003 study, he estimated that there were 2,000 to 3,000 such creatures left in the wild in Singapore, mainly in the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve and the Central Catchment Reserve. These quiet creatures are not known to fetch big bucks in the wildlife trade market, but they are sometimes killed for their meat overseas, he added.

'Whatever the motive, what's really shocking is that it happened in a protected nature reserve,' Mr Lim said.

Park-goers like Aaron Leung, 38, agreed. The amateur nature photographer was just wrapping up a photography session at MacRitchie at around 11.30am on Sunday when he was alerted by a passer-by that a 'flying lemon' had been injured nearby.

By the time he got to the site, a crowd had already gathered around the injured mother. The animal had broken its limbs and appeared to be bleeding, he said.

The mother and baby were later handed over to a park ranger’s care.

A fellow park-goer said that she had seen some men hitting the animal with a slingshot.

'Since poaching is rare here, I was quite shocked to learn that this was no accident,' said Mr Leung.

In an e-mail circulated to nature reserve volunteers on Monday, an NParks official described the event as 'terrible and sad'.

The e-mail also said that according to witnesses, the three men had come prepared for what seemed like a 'hunting trip', armed with slingshots and plastic bags. They spoke in Hokkien and 'behaved aggressively'.

It is a crime to hunt or injure any animal in a nature reserve here. Under the National Parks Act, poaching is punishable with a fine of up to $10,000 or imprisonment, or both.

畜生!

P.S. For more information on the colugo or flying lemur (which actually doesn't fly, nor is it a lemur), visit the following links:

Wild Singapore
Ecologyasia

Galgo Español

Labels: Every day has its dog

Over the weekend, I wanted to kill somebody.

It all began when I received a copy of the NUS Blogfest write-up that was sent out to Youth.sg and Funkygrad and various other websites. It was all very fine and dandy, until I noticed a glaring error:


NNBCCB.

Spotted the error? My surname is KWAN, not KWANG.



I've had my surname misspelled in a whole variety of ways. Some people keep spelling it as Kuan, while others have used Guan, the hanyu pinyin spelling. But this is the first time I have become Ivan Kwang!



To Reico's credit, (Reico is the person who has been working so hard to publicise Blogfest), she did apologise, and the error was changed the moment I notified her, and I can still live with being known as 'Ivan Kwang' on all the other websites that had already published the article before the mistake was spotted.

But the second error was so much more... glaring.

At first, when jkaiser and Aishah told me on MSN they didn't know I had two blogs, I assumed they were referring to Science on Saturday. But then, when they showed me the Funkygrad website, my eyes nearly popped out.

This is what I saw:



WHAT THE KNNBCCB??!

*pengz*

I've made it very clear that I feel certain blogs did not qualify to be in the running for Best NUS Blog. Why on Earth would I bloody friggin' slam myself, if I was the so-called writer of Chronicles of a Teenage Drama Queen??! The very idea is quite ludicrous.

Actually, it's about time I confessed and told you all the truth. You see, I AM the writer of Chronicles of a Teenage Drama Queen. But things are not as they seem.

You see, it's actually my evil clone Navi, who also goes by the nickname of Hai~Ren. But the difference is that while my nickname in Chinese is 害人, his is 海人. (old joke; almost everyone always initially mistakes my nickname to be the latter rather than the former) Anyway, a year ago, I felt that he posed a signficant threat to my life and safety, so I launched a pre-emptive strike. I had him kidnapped and sent to a secret facility where he was operated on and his sex was changed, and then his memory was wiped out and implanted with a new false recollection of his past. Then I got my secret operatives from the Illuminati and New World Order to alter the memories of some people in NUS so that when I planted my surgically altered evil clone in their midst, they would mistakenly recognise my clone as an old friend.

My experiment has seemed a bit too successful. I had no idea my evil clone would go on to create a blog of his her own and then unknowingly try to challenge me in NUS Blogfest. The cheek!


Wah lan eh, put my name on the wrong blog not enough, still have to give me a B- grade.

To be honest, given how proud I am of my blog, how much effort I've put into updating it everyday, and how seriously I'm taking this competition (although it's more to make things more exciting and stir up trouble), I am more than a little miffed that I got the same grade as a couple of blogs I did not have a very good impression of. And they left out all the other good blogs like ALcoholic Inspirations, Whispers of a Blue Moon and Those Flowers!

Only a small handful like No Recess and "Lord can you tell me... How far is Heaven?" got B. Besides, how does one judge blogs like that anyway? What criteria did they use? It is interesting though that an excerpt from my January post about the Department of Biology's refusal to let me take LSM1103 Biodiversity was used, rather than something more recent.

P.S. Don't believe everything you read here. After all, The Shitty Straits Times, in its ongoing campaign to smear blogs, had as its title for an article: Believe those blogs? Only 1 per cent find them credible . (Or as Jeff Yen said, "The title of this article shouldn't be about bloggers; it should really be: Almost Half Of This Newspaper's Readers Don't Find It Credible!")

Anyway, when Aishah and jkaiser informed me, I don't know if I sounded pissed or not, but I jokingly said, "I am so going to kill Reico Wong." Later that night, Reico actually emailed me, pleading her innocence. Hahaha...

So the mistake has been rectified, and to my relief (and probably that of the writer of Chronicles of a Teenage Drama Queen, provided she was aware of this mix-up), the name has been changed to reflect the true owner of the blog in question. But I've been scarred for life... Where can I seek redress and compensation?

(P.S. I wonder why Funkygrad suddenly shortened the write-up and chopped out the paragraph that quoted me)

When jkaiser wrote a blog post about this mix-up, he used a photo from Chronicles of a Teenage Drama Queen. Apparently, one of her friends then made a whole lot of noise about him putting up pictures without permission, ending off with "not happy come and find me". Seriously, er... WTF?!

This is the evidence:



You know, I've always associated people saying "not happy come and find me" with ah bengs swaggering and trying to act tough. *snigger*

Jkaiser wrote a reply of sorts, and the new troll responded, although I don't know whether to laugh at the brainlessness or cry, since I assume the troll is a fellow student in NUS.



I ask you, that line "pls grow up la.. spend ur time to study more and try to get caps 5.0 k?", kiam pak (欠打) or not??!

I don't know which unit you came from, but in my 2 years and 4 months of slaving serving the country, never have I come across such a phrase like "For Your Understand". Besides, I never knew you placed so much emphasis on NS lingo, although a great deal of it would get you failed if you dared to use it in a professional report or thesis; even "For your understanding" is a grammatically incorrect phrase. Besides, isn't NS the time when people lose their brains?

And I wouldn't want to hazard a guess as to who your friend is, but if he/she thinks we're being despicably mean, hey, I have nothing to say. We're just poking fun at a mistake made by Funkygrad, and we really harbour no malice at all. And let me get this straight: This is an ONLINE contest. Have you ever heard of flame wars? For goodness' sake, if you think the flaming that is taking place on this contest is extreme, you have not seen what lies out there on the Internet. Please, despite my best efforts at stirring up some action and making things a little bit more exciting, this 'flame war' (if you want to call it a flame war) is more like a flickering candle flame under an air-conditioner at full blast. You dare tell me that we're supposed to be all friendly and shaking hands and hugging and singing "We Are The World"??! Gee... how delusional are you?

And who's the one who went all ballistic on jkaiser's blog in such a confrontational and threatening manner in the first place? Who then is the childish one?

*crackle* Pot to kettle, pot to kettle, do you read me over *crackle*
*crackle* Kettle to pot, I read you loud and clear over *crackle*
*crackle* Pot to kettle, message over *crackle*
*crackle* Kettle to pot, send over *crackle*
*crackle* Pot to kettle, you are black *crackle*
*crackle* Kettle to pot, so are you *crackle*
*crackle* Pot to kettle, acknowledged. Roger that, out *crackle*

But I was tickled by jkaiser's retort:

"hmm thats something new, for your understand. I always thought that it's for your understandING."

Hahahahahahahaha...

Sometimes, the most entertaining thing you can ever encounter is seeing someone open a can of whoop-ass on a troll and handing its own ass back to it.

OWNED!

So don't forget to vote for me in NUS Blogfest, and I promise you that I'll try my best to make this competition a truly exciting one.

P.S. What do you think are the odds that this particular troll will discover this post, and then come here to stir up trouble?


"Not happy come and find me!"

Listening to: Feel The Fire by Masterboy

Happy birthday to Giang!

Er... right... you've probably just described about half the male population of NUS...

And seriously, I wouldn't be surprised at a peeping tom in the Ladies, but a peeping tom in the Gents? Or has someone's brain gotten fried by all the projects and essays?

I hate it when they do fogging in my neighbourhood; sure, it's supposed to get rid of the mosquitoes (who then return in full force a day later), but then I also have to deal with all the refugees:




I don't know why, but every time fogging is done, for the next hour or so my house gets besieged by droves of fleeing cockroach nymphs, ranging from hatchlings to larger juveniles in their final few moults before adulthood. Maybe it's because I live on the 3rd storey.

And yes, in case you're wondering, that is the inside of my toilet bowl. I figured this was the only place I could take some photos of all the half-dead cockroach nymphs in one spot without the more lively ones running all over the place. Besides, can't have all these cockroaches running all over the place when my dog is around. Wouldn't want my dog to end up getting poisoned by eating pesticide-laden cockroach nymphs, you know.

Listening to: Time 2 Wonder by DJ's @ Work

Pont-Audemer Spaniel

Labels: Every day has its dog

(Taken from donaq, because I haven't mentioned him in a friggin' long time. Hope your FYP is going fine)

Here goes.

1. Eating good food

I love to eat, and although I'm not fussy at all about what I eat, I truly appreciate those times when I eat food that is truly marvellous. And more often than not, I find great pleasure in simple hawker fare rather than fancy restaurant cuisine. There have been all the times that I gorged myself silly on Macpherson fishball kuay teow, or Beach Road Big Prawn Noodle and Ngoh Hiang, or that oh-so-lovely Orh Luak from Glutton's Square (haven't had that in a freaking long time). And I still get a kick out of eating Maggie Goreng and Cheese Prata at Fong Seng once in a while. That very first time I went to Fong Seng as a freshman and took a bite out of that legendary cheese prata, I was hooked.

Or my very first Ramly Burger, when I bit into it and the juices flowed out, I swear, I could have just moaned in orgasmic pleasure on the spot.

One of my little goals in life is to eat a hearty meal of pasar malaam food. Sampling bits of everything, from Ramly Burger to Taiwan Chicken Cutlet to Taiwan Lap Cheong to the Muah Chee I used to eat so often, and tea egg and then wash it all down with a nice cold glass of sugar cane juice. Of course, it might shave a few years off my lifespan, but hey, better to eat and be merry, rather than starve and die and then come back as a hungry ghost.

2. Dancing

I've never had any formal dance training, but I've always been attracted to the idea of dance, of moving your body to music and using it as a form of expression. Though I'm not about to join the SDT anytime soon, since my passion is in dancing in the club.

Few things are as exhilarating as the point in time when you muster up the courage to clamber onto the podium, the crowd beneath you, and as the DJ puts on your favourite song and the crowd begins to whistle and cheer, you work up that fire within you, and as the song reaches its climax, you burst into a frenzy of movement, letting your body take control, letting it flow to the music. And here at the top, your head above the cigarette smoke, where you are lord of the dancefloor and you have all the space and freedom to move, you know you just don't want to stop; you just want to dance all your cares and worries away like there was no tomorrow. For now, you cast aside your identity, and do up a new set of priorities: lasting the entire night without stopping. And when that pretty and sexy girl in that white tube top on the podium opposite yours gives you that naughty wink and a smile, you know you're doing something right...

3. Listening to techno and trance music

This is tied in with the above. Lots of people have said that I'm a closet beng, based mostly on my musical tastes. While I do listen to a lot of other genres, I'm quite an anomaly among my peers in that I'm one of the few who listens to what most would dismiss as ah beng music. I, on the other hand, disdain most hip-hop and R & B, as I find it boring and doesn't quite give me that high I get form dancing to techno.

I still remember the very first dance song that got me into this hobby. It was Heart of Asia by Watergate. Oh yes, I remember how catchy it was, just how the song just got itself stuck in my head. And of course, inadvertently, I discovered more and more great music, spanning the early 90s all the way until now.

The beautiful thing about techno music is that if you listen carefully, you can hear how all the different sounds are combined together to produce what I dare call a work of art. And at 2 a.m. in the morning, when I'm working off that alcohol buzz and I'm just hoping for a song to lift me up, there's nothing like a good old eurodance classic to get me moving just like when the party had started. I swear, when I'm at a techno party, you'll almost never see me stop. Friends of mine who go Mambo or who have watched me at university bashes ain't seen nothing yet.

And what is so wonderful about trance and eurodance is that the song doesn't have to make any sense. It's all down to the bare basics: the bass, the beats, and the melody. When you feel the beats reverberating through the very core of your soul, when you're bobbing your head in synnc with the melody, you don't care how beng you look or whether people look down on you because of your preference in ah beng music. And you can play any eurodance song, old or new, whether it was #1 last week or last decade, as long as it is or was a big hit, the crowd will lap it all up. Even better if you can string in a whole chain of classics to get everyone moving.

True, some of the techno out there is utter crap (*cough*Crazy Frog*cough*), but hey, which genre of music doesn't have such black sheep?

Oh, and even if you hate that chanting you see at local techno parties, you really have to experience one where the whole club is chanting away to understand just how fun it is.

4. Watching nature documentaries

I still hold it against Arts Central for cancelling Earthvisions after so many years. Even though I guess they were losing revenue and viewers to Starhub, that still didn't give them any excuse to deprive people like me of nature documentaries, not when I was still going cold turkey after my parents cancelled our Starhub Cable TV subscription and I no longer had Animal Planet, Discovery Channel and National Geographic Channel to keep me company *whimpers*

And I don't go for that Steve Irwin/Jeff Corwin/Brady Barr stuff either. For me, the ideal nature documentary is one that has as few people in it as possible. Where you are transported to a time and place unspoiled by the mark of man, a time before the idea of endangered species was ever conceived, a time when the wildebeest blackened the plains and the jungles stretched as far as the eye could see. I miss the old BBC documentaries sometimes, those narrated by Sir David Attenborough, when the focus was on the wonderful diversity of Nature itself, not some know-it-all guy in khaki shorts and boots diving into the bushes or into the river catching snakes or wrestling alligators.

I don't know why I've like animals so much. Maybe it's just something I've retained since young, when I was doodling and colouring and more than half the time, my subject would be an animal of some sort. Perhaps it's just this affinity I have, of another living, breathing creature, so similar and yet so different, and you wonder just what is going on in their heads.

Maybe it's the fascination, seeing the wonderful diversity and dazzling array of forms and shapes, from fish that live in the deepest coldest depths of the sea, to wild sheep that live their entire lives on the slopes of sheer cliffs, to tiny little mites that eke out a meagre existence underneath the Antarctic ice. Then there's the realisation of how wonderful evolution is, shaping each and every creature, honing it to near-perfection, allowing it to claim its niche in the world.

Or maybe it's brutality and the excitement, watching the thrill of the kill, of taking another life with bare fangs and claws, of the violence, of the reminder that Nature is red in tooth and claw. As a viper strikes at a mouse, as a crocodile pulls a zebra beneath the raging river, as a lion crushes the neck of a gazelle, as a falcon strikes a bird out of the sky, I am reminded of this age-old race that all living things have run over the eons, from the time of the primordial ooze, to the time when fish were taking their first tentative steps on land, all the way to the time when our ancestors discovered the joys and wonders of tool use and fire.

It also serves as a brutal reminder that not too long ago, people were part of this world as well, though every once in a while, a snake, a swarm of bees, a shark, or a crocodile remind us that although we may live apart from this cruel, violent world, we are not yet completely divorced from it either. Humans are still part of Nature, whether we like it or not.

5. Watching wildlife

This last one I hold especially dear to my heart, because even though lately I've lacked the time to actually go do some hiking through Bukit Timah or Sungei Buloh, Nature always comes to me, when I least expect it.

What wildlife, you ask? If you keep your eyes open, and learn to look past all the introduced House Crows and Javan Mynahs, the feral Pigeons and Common Mynahs and Tree Sparrows, you'll discover the wonderful fauna that still survives in built-up Singapore.

There's nothing more refreshing than seeing a trio of Black-naped Orioles fly across the road early in the morning. Or walking through campus on a busy day, and seeing a pair of male Olive-backed Sunbirds engaged in a little territorial spat, or watching the tiny little Common Tailorbirds supervise their pair of newly-fledged young as they make their first few tentative flights as the lunchtime crowd rushes by, oblivious to the wonders that take place all around us.

Sometimes I wonder whether people are too caught up with their daily lives to notice the little Oriental Magpie-robin that just hopped out of the bushes beside the AS1 walkway, or that telltale flash of blue that signals the flight of a passing Collared Kingfisher. Or the raucous screeches of the Yellow-crested Cockatoo, an introduced species here, but still a bird that adds so much vibrance and an exotic look to the campus. Or to stop and listen to the now common whistling cry of the Asian Koel, a bird heard everywhere but less often seen. Have they paused to watch the male Garden Lizards in breeding season, their heads flushed a brilliant shade of vermillion, energetically doing vertical push-ups on tree trunks to attract the dowdy females? Did anyone else notice that time a Javan Mynah caught and ate a tiny little Garden Supple Skink right there in the Central Forum?

Looking at how people rush everywhere without bothering to watch what's going on around them, I wonder if people have bothered to notice the ever-increasing numbers of Cattle Egrets, birds that were once so rare, but have now settled in such large numbers that now I hardly bat an eyelid when the busy turns into campus and I am greeted by half a dozen of these white birds stalking the flowerbeds and hillsides.

I still get that rush of adrenaline when a Plantain Squirrel suddenly appears on one of those many trees that grow on campus. Or those occasions when I'm still in school after dusk and for a brief moment, I catch a glimpse of a Yellow House Bat as it swoops and zips across my field of vision, in hot pursuit of unseen insects. And I cannot forget that rare moment when a huge black bird flew into a tree, and I was face to face with the uncommon Large-billed Crow, looking so much like a raven straight out of Edgar Allen Poe.

What I miss most about my old house is the open patch of wasteland just beside, where the frogs and toads would gather after the rain and I would go to sleep as they sang their mating chorus. I still remember that little rush of excitement, when among the familiar croaks of the Common Asian Toads and Field Frogs and Banded Bullfrogs, I could just barely hear the call of the Four-lined Tree Frog.

I remember the old oil palm trees that stood outside my classroom in Secondary 4; from time to time I'd watch the birds that visited the tree to feast on the bright red fruits. Most common were the flocks of Asian Glossy Starlings, so similar to the all-too common mynahs, but so much more beautiful and mesmerising as the glossy green feathers of the adults caught the light and shimmered in the colours of the rainbow.

And one of the best memories that I'll ever have of National Service was the time I was in a Landrover that drove to the top of a knoll, and everything below me was nothing but miles upon miles of green vegetation, crisscrossed by the occasional vehicle track or two. Adding a background to this was a section of one of the western reservoirs, the waters sparkling a brilliant blue in the sunlight. Not a single sign of human habitation to be seen, and if I just peered at the horizon, I could just make out the sea, and then beyond that, a speck of what I assumed to be Johor. And to complete this magnificent breathtaking sight that seemed so unlike the frantic and hurried, claustrophobic Singapore we're so used to, a Brahminy Kite soared into view and spent the next ten minutes or so circling the knoll below us, then gradually flying further and further away until it was just a mere speck in the sky. It's times like these that I wish we had the technology to take instant mental snapshots of whatever we see and preserve them for all eternity.

How could I forget that time when I peered into the old trees just outside LT11, and then I saw a large shape silently swoop down towards the ground, then fly up into the trees again? I had spotted my first owl, and judging from the calls that emanate from that grove of trees lately, probably a Brown Hawk Owl.

I still get a thrill whenever I spot a species of reptile or bird or mammal that's new to me, and I add it to my mental checklist which can never be completely exhausted. And when I just want to unwind, few things can be as relaxing as watching the stately and majestic Grey Heron proudly walking through the shallows, or the Fiddler Crabs and Mudskippers from the Sungei Buloh boardwalk, or watching the Carpet Anemones on the Chek Jawa mudflats. Then there are the huge Water Monitor Lizards at Sungei Buloh, going about their daily lives unhurriedly, lazily basking in the sun and not caring about the gawking and pointing visitors.

Few things have been as entertaining as watching a local troop of Long-tailed Macaques deep in the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, and you watch the little baby monkeys, still so small they could fit into your cupped hands, just barely 2 metres away from you.

And then, when at the end of a day of trekking through forest, after having fed countless mosquitoes, and after having had your shoes filled with water and sand, is there anything to match the sight of a pair of White-bellied Sea Eagles and their solitary juvenile offspring soaring above you as the sky turns a brilliant red? And you just gaze up into the sky, breathe in the fresh salty air, clear and unpolluted by the poisons of industry and machinery, and you ask yourself, am I really in Singapore?

And I've only just covered a mere fraction of what lies out there, waiting for the intrepid naturalist.

Singapore still holds many surprises. You just have to open your eyes and your ears.

I swear, it's all my sister's fault. She's addicted to reality tv shows, and I'm not talking about the lousy local superstar/superhost/idol/band/ contests they have.

Because my sister watches TV in my room, she has made me a fan of America's Next Top Model, Project Runway, The Apprentice and American Idol. I can't help but watch with her whenever she pops into my room and switches on the TV.

But tonight, regardless of whether my sister's watching it or not, there's a new reality TV show that I have to watch.



I've always been fascinated with dance. People who go clubbing with me know that I go not to drink but to dance, and it has been through years of showing off my moves on the dancefloor that has apparently made me the best male dancer in my immediate social circle. Most of my clubbing kakis know that all it takes are a couple of drinks, good music, and a nice crowd, and I'll be up there on the podium, assuming my place as lord of the dancefloor. And my stamina is supposedly very good too; some of my friends have remarked how incredible it is that I'm able to keep dancing almost non-stop, working myself into such a frenzy, and still last for hours on end.

I do wonder from time to time, whether things might have been different if I had received formal dance training, or had actually listened to that nagging little voice inside and joined Dance Ensemble or Dance Blast! I gained my dancing skills through clubbing, not through any formal dance classes or any dance-based CCA. And without proper training, my skills have hit a plateau of sorts. After all, dancing while in the club is a very different matter from dancing in the studio.

For now though, I'm just content to see others take the stage and strut their stuff. I want to see just how good these professionally trained dancers really are.

Oh, and another draw of this show? Nothing turns me on more than a hot girl who can dance.

I can think of a couple of other people who would be very interested in watching this show... Right, Val?

Listening to: We Rule The Danza by Prezioso feat.Marvin

I'm on the verge of clearing a whole truckload of assignments and commitments, so I'll be able to fill in my backlog of posts that I've been meaning to do for the past few days. So be patient, folks.

Oh, and don't forget to vote for me in NUS Blogfest. One week left only!

Listening to: 4 o'clock in the Morning (DJ's @ Work Remix) by Lazard

Leave behind your fears
Please believe
You will not falter
There's no danger here
You can breathe
In clear blue water

- Clear Blue Water by Oceanlab

Labels: Musical Mondays

YAY!!!

Now I don't have to feel guilty about skipping this lecture, since everyone else won't be attending this lecture anyway.

Spinone Italiano

Labels: Every day has its dog

Jun Natsukawa

Labels: sexy sundays

American Eskimo Dog

Labels: Every day has its dog

Curly Coated Retriever

Labels: Every day has its dog

"Still I am the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to me."

- Rudyard Kipling

It all began when I opened my door at 6.20 a.m. as I prepared to make my way to school and work on my essays and projects. The moment I opened the door, I noticed the orange cat standing in the corridor outside my neighbour's place.



It gave a plaintive meow as I stepped outside, and as I walked past, it playfully followed me.

This was obviously no stray. I knew a couple of the strays that loitered around the void deck and slept at the bus stop from time to time. They were wary creatures, always keeping their distance and running off whenever you got too close. This wasn't one of those strays; it was too well-groomed, too well-fed, too friendly, and the little blue Liverpool collar and the bell made it plainly clear that this was someone's pet. I couldn't bear to leave him to fend for himself (I could tell it was a male for erm, obvious reasons), although I knew at the same time I couldn't keep him. There was my dog to think of, the very idea of leaving a strange cat with my dog unsupervised for half the day when everyone is out of the house unsettled me, plus the fact that both my parents hate cats, meant that taking him in was out of the question. As I squatted down, he rubbed himself against my legs, even rolling over onto his back so that I could stroke and scratch his belly. It was enough to melt my heart. I even resolved to just spend the next hour or so keeping the cat company. I could always go to school and start on my essay later anyway.



I went back to my apartment and opened the door, intending to pour some milk and grab a few dog treats for the cat to snack on. (I know, the idea of feeding dog treats to a cat is weird. But hey, I suppose they're all made of the same stuff anyway) Leaving the door open was a big mistake, for the moment I turned my back, the cat was inside the house. My dog, upon hearing me open the container for her treats, came trotting out of the bedroom to investigate. She saw the cat, stared at him, looked at me, and then, when I hissed at her and pointed to the master bedroom and gestured for her to go back inside, she gave a snort and went back to the room to sleep. I thought I could handle this on my own without my dog barking and waking everyone up.

I shooed the cat outside, grabbed the treats and milk, and brought all the food outside, making sure that I closed the door behind me.



I watched as the cat ate and drank some of the milk. Either the cat liked the taste and smell of dog treats, or he was quite hungry, as he found the dog treats to be most agreeable. I had an idea to use the the milk and dog treats to lure the cat to the lift lobby, since if his owner went looking for him, he would have been more visible. If not, then the Malay families who lived at the other end of the corridor could hopefully take it in. Besides, I hoped he would stop loitering outside our houses; the families residing on my side of the corridor are all Chinese and not really cat lovers. I know my family would never abuse animals, but I could not say the same about my neighbours. I noticed that all my neighbours had closed their windows. Presumably they had to deal with the cat attempting to break in and enter the night before. But every time the cat was just about to reach the lift lobby, one of my neighbours would leave their homes and then frighten him into running back to my doorstep.

I tried to carry the cat like I used to with those tiny little kittens my classmates in secondary school adopted from time to time, but he resisted my efforts, turning around and giving me playful little nips to warn me. At least this cat was nice and refrained from actually biting me, and when he swatted my hands away, at least his claws remained retracted.



I had brought out only 4 or 5 dog treats, and I needed more if I was going to lure the cat away from my house. I turned back and opened the door to my house.

Big mistake. The minute I opened the door, the cat dashed inside.

Oh shit. The rest of my family was soundly asleep, and the last thing I needed was a strange cat from outside jumping onto them. Or worse, my dog running out and getting into a fight with the cat. Or the dog coming out, going into a barking frenzy and then waking the whole neighbourhood.

The cat sauntered in as if this was his own house, as if he had lived here his whole life, and he had finally come home after a long journey outside.

It seemed like an hour trying to shoo the cat outside, but not before he took a tour of the living room, and the guest bedroom, and would have gone into the master bedroom if I hadn't closed the door in time. I should have tried to carry him out instead of comically chasing him around, but I didn't want to wake everyone up, and besides, I think the cat disliked my efforts at trying to carry him. A quick little nip on my finger that was hard enough to hurt but not hard enough to break the skin made it very clear that trying to carry him out was out of the question.

So, more out of sheer luck and perseverence than intimidation, I finally managed to chase the cat outside, and closed the door. Once again I attempted to lure him towards the lift lobby, but to no avail. I ran out of dog treats, and thought of finally leaving the cat on his own and going off to school. But I decided that I should at least give him more food so that he wouldn't wander off and get into a fight with one of the resident strays.



I opened the door, and made sure that I gave the cat no space to squeeze between my legs or between the grilles of the gate. But alas, one thing I'd forgotten about cats, is how flexible they are. I don't know how the cat did it, but one moment he was outside, the next he was behind me, inside the house.

SHIT.

This time, the cat took refuge under the sofa, and no amount of prodding would dislodge him. I decided it was time to call for reinforcements. I shook my sister awake and whispered, "There's a cat in the house." Somehow my mum was alert enough to hear (my sister sleeps in the master bedroom), and told me to use a bamboo pole. So I got out a bamboo pole and poked and prodded at him, but it only seemed to piss the cat off. Then I tried one of those spray bottles filled with water, but after a while the cat just stayed put under the sofa and refused to budge.



Dammit. This was wasting my time. My mum woke up soon after, and for close to half an hour or so, the both of us, armed with a mop and broom, tried our best to push the cat out from underneath the sofa. We pushed the sofa around, we poked and pushed him, the cat only got more pissed off and hissed and spat at us, but finally, finally, after I was now thoroughly soaked with sweat, the cat had bolted out and ran back under the sofa at least half a dozen times, and we were at our wits' end, the cat inexplicably ran out from underneath the sofa, hid among the legs of the dining table, and then, when I waved a mop meancingly, he turned and bolted out of the door. I closed the door with a sigh of relief.

At that point in time, I was thinking that maybe my dog barking at the cat could have helped. But then again, the cat might have retaliated and attacked my dog as well. *shrugs*

Chasing a cat around the house certainly wasn't my idea of early morning exercise.

When I'd rested and decided that finally, it was about time I got to school, I saw the cat lazing around on top of the old shoe cabinet outside our house, just beneath our neighbours' window, which was thankfully tightly shut. He looked at me and gave me a friendly meow. Oh well, no hard feelings, little fella. I pushed him off with some old newspapers, and he jumped off and landed on the floor noiselessly. Given that my dog is largely restricted to horizontal movement, having to deal with an animal that jumps and leaps around so effortlessly was a little startling. When I scratched his head, he rubbed against my legs once again, as if pleading with me to take pity on this poor homeless little cat. It tore me from within, having to walk away, while the cat sat outside my house and meowed.



I hope his owner finds him soon, or that one of the other families around adopts him.

Postscript: According to my mum, the cat was still around when she left the house at 8.15 that morning, and in her own words, "It meowed like it was greeting me." Later still, when my dad opened the door, the cat came in again, but my dad, being the no-nonsense anti-cat person, used the broom to hit him lightly and chased him out. I hope he was gentle about it, and that all the times we'd scolded him whenever he hit the dog and bullied stray cats with Super-Soakers had finally worked; the last thing we needed was an injured AND pissed-off cat hanging around. The cat was nowhere to be seen when I got home later that night, but according to my dad, who returned after 1 in the morning, he was still outside. After a while, my dad came to my room and told us that he'd solved the problem; he had taken a container of water and splashed it at the cat, driving him to the other end of the corridor. I berated my dad, and I secretly hoped that the cat would be back the next day; at least I could call in the Cat Welfare Society. But he didn't return. I hope he found a new loving home to stay in; it sometimes irritates me to no end how biased my parents are against cats. "Cats are evil you know!" "Cats are dirtier than dogs!" My concerns were more practical, like whether introducing the cat to our household would bring trouble for my dog, or whether the cat clambering everywhere with lots of small fragile items on shelves was a potential hazard. Plus the fact that the cat was most probably not toilet-trained.



Wherever he is right now, I just hope he's alright. I only hope he didn't get into a fight with the resident strays or wander onto the busy road and got turned into roadkill, or that the AVA didn't come and pick him up and send him to the big litterbox in the sky. And what with all the news lately about people doing most wretched and horrible things to cats, I only hope he was lucky and found someone willing to adopt him. Now I know how those volunteers who spend their time feeding strays feel whenever one of 'their' cats is lost; hey, I spent less than 3 hours with the cat, and I ended up feeling concerned for him, even though half that time was spent being slightly annoyed at him for refusing to leave the house. And most probably because he was most likely somebody's pet cat; I know how wretched his owner must feel, that is, if his owner actually cares about him and didn't abandon him at our corridor.



Wherever you are, I hope you're fine.

Has anyone lost a cat lately? It's a young adult orange tomcat with white paws, wearing a blue collar with the words 'Liverpool' printed on it, and with a purple bell attached as well.

I discovered it meowing pitifully outside my house this morning, it managed to dash into my house, and took me close to an hour to chase it out from under the sofa.

Anyway, if your missing cat fits the description, please go to the 3rd storey of Block 449 Tampines Street 42 NOW. If all goes well, it should still be hanging around somewhere along the corridor. The cat is obviously someone's pet, and I'd hate to see it end up a stray.

American Foxhound

Labels: Every day has its dog

I don't know whether it's due to lack of sleep, stress, abnormally high caffeine consumption, or a combination of the above, but my neck has started twitching uncontrollably again. Sigh... Just when I thought I'd more or less gotten this problem under control, I have to suffer from a relapse.

I wonder if I should start saving money to go and seek neurosurgery.

Of course, perhaps the guillotine might be the best short-term cure; you can't possibly have a problem with a twitching neck when the nerves from your brain are disconnected from those in your neck. Of course, death is the most obvious side-effect, but maybe one day we can work around that. (Maybe I can be Nearly-Headless Ivan, roaming the corridors of NUS after dark hahaha)

Busy doing an essay which I was supposed to hand in today, but I suppose I'll just have to submit it tomorrow morning. Maybe I should catch some shut-eye on the train ride home later, since I will need to stay awake and focused for the rest of the night. If only I could turn off my desire to sleep as and when I wished.

Listening to: Everytime You Leave (Age Pee Remix) by Karma

Thai Bangkaew

Labels: Every day has its dog

I saw a Javan mynah (Acridotheres javanicus) attack and eat a garden supple skink (Riopa bowringii) yesterday, at the Central Forum. At first, I thought it was a worm or a centipede, but then I saw the telltale wriggling of the detached tail, and four little legs on the little creature that the mynah held in its beak. Intriguing, since this is the first time I've seen a mynah go after vertebrate prey.

For some strange reason, garden supple skinks seem very common in the Central Forum.

And it seems the yellow-crested cockatoos (Cacatua sulphurea) are spreading to this part of campus. I remember how common they were in the vicinity of the Rag House. Perhaps they've been breeding and dispersing further and further; I certainly don't recall the cockatoos being this common in previous years. Now I've got a cockatoo that's been spooked by something and is screeching its head off like a banshee at 10 p.m. at night. And anyone who has spent some time with parrots should know how noisy and raucuous these birds can be.

My goodness. I'm alright with the squabbling mynahs, the persistent cawing of the house crows (Corvus splendens), and even the incessant calls of the common koel (Eudynamys scolopacea), but adding yellow-crested cockatoos into the mix is really pushing it a little.

Listening to: Yellow-crested cockatoo shrieking

I'm very busy right now, rushing to finish a whole load of projects and essays, so I haven't got time to do a proper blog post.

Some of the others have gone down to DotA, and although I would love to join them, I need to maintain my self-discipline. After all, I do have a Sociology of Deviance Project plus a Population Analysis essay due on Friday, and next up there's my Geography of Social Life group project.

Anyway, check this out. Wah... so honoured to have my blog appear there even if it was for just a moment.

I'm hungry. And sleepy. And I just wonder why time seems to be flying past at breakneck speed lately; you hardly notice that the minutes have gone by until you realise just how little you've managed to accomplish.

Listening to: Hurricane by Alex Megane

Sapsaree

Labels: Every day has its dog

I hate stupid people. And somehow, there seem to be many of these around. What scares me is this:

They're breeding. And some of them actually manage to make it into university.

A couple of weeks ago, I was printing notes at the Central Library, to do some last-minute mugging before my mid-term test. The girl in front of me was choosing which printer to use; the good thing about the system in the Central Library is that it indicates which printers are idle or currently under use. From where I was, standing behind her, I could see very clearly that the indicators for all 3 printers were green, meaning that all of them were idle.

Our girl, however, stood there for a full 10 seconds, as if she was mulling over which printer to choose.

JUST FREAKING CHOOSE ANY OF THEM ALREADY!



"Hmm... Should I choose H1? I prefer the paper from H2, although H0 also not bad. The ink from H0 is darker, but the paper from H1 isn't so hot and doesn't give me second-degree burns. And 1 is my favourite number. How huh? SO hard to choose..."

*smacks forehead* No, I don't think she actually cared so much about which printer she liked best. But you know, when there's a queue forming behind you, when all 3 available printers are idle, you don't have to make everyone waste their precious time while you move the mouse around trying to decide which printer you want to use to print your measly single-page document.

Then there was this incident a few days back. The train had finally arrived at Tampines, and everybody was eager to get off the train and go home. On the escalator, I ended up standing behind this middle-aged woman, who had to be so special, she insisted on standing on the right side of the escalator, inadvertently posing an obstacle to people who wanted to save time by walking down. I said, "Excuse me," hoping that she'd move aside and allow me to pass. What did she do? Oh, she moved alright, instead of shifting to the left, she moved down by two steps.

That's right. Two freaking steps.

Now I couldn't even try to squeeze past her, because she now stood shoulder to shoulder with another person, completely sealing off our route of escape. WHAT THE FUCK. Luckily I wasn't in a rush that day.

Because of one idiot, everyone's time gets wasted.

I get very riled up by stupid people on public transport. Like those who cannot control their little brats (although given that most of these children are hideous, I am inclined to think that they might be demonspawn instead). Or men whose balls are so big and heavy they have to spread their knees wide apart at right angles. Or stupid people who absolutely refuse to give way even as you are frantically saying "Excuse me" as you dash towards the bus, knowing fully well that if you miss this bus, it'll be a 15-minute wait and you'll end up late for class.

Or the couples who insist on blocking my way when I am rushing to catch the train. Hello, would it kill you if you stood in front of or behind your significant other just for the short duration of a ride up the escalator? Do you have to stare and scowl when I apologise for making you shift as I try to dash up the steps, while the train rumbles into the station? And when I say "Excuse me," instead of moving up or down and shifting to the left, do you really have to insist on pressing against your boyfriend and expect that I squeeze through that miniscule gap? Hey, maybe your boyfriend enjoys that, but I don't care, especially when you're going to make me waste 7 minutes waiting for the next train.

But if you really want to see how human intelligence has sunk to an absolute new low, I recommend that you check out Museum of Twits. Absolutely hilarious, yet sad at the same time. Makes you really want to bludgeon pPl hU tYpE lYk dIs to death.

P.S. Thanks to Val for telling me about this blog. I'd known about Retard Patrol before, but Museum of Twits was a new thing to me. And it really is quite hilarious, yet sad at the same time. At least I know that I can never be a teacher; if I were one, I probably would have strangled the twits a long time ago.

Listening to: 恋爱ing by 五月天

I just dropped my laptop.

It still works fine, but because my mouse was practically ripped from its port, one of my USB ports has now been rendered useless.

SIGH......

My blog posts on Arena 2006 are finally up, and can be found here, here and here.

Wirehaired Pointing Griffon

Labels: Every day has its dog

Talk to me
What are you doing
What are you thinking right now
Set me free
I'm just a prisoner to you
And time goes by
I'm still waiting forever and a day but
I thought I saw you yesterday
I thought those words
I heard you say

When I look at the sunrise
Sunlight melts my fears away
When you're living this feeling
Don't ever let it go (ever let it go)
When I'm under the starlight
It feels right
The thought is on my mind
I'll set you free (I'll set you free)
I'll set you free

Look at me
What are you thinking
Tell me what you're seeing
Let me go
If there's nothing you believe
And time goes by
I'm still waiting forever
and a day but
I thought I saw you yesterday
I thought those words
I heard you say

When I look at the sunrise
Sunlight melts my fears away
When you're living this feeling
Don't ever let it go (ever let it go)
When I'm under the starlight
It feels right
The thought is on my mind
I'll set you free (I'll set you free)
I'll set you free

When I look at the sunrise
Sunlight melts my fears away
When you're living this feeling
Don't ever let it go
When I'm under the starlight
It feels right
The thought is on my mind
I'll set you free (I'll set you free)
I'll set you free

When I look at the sunrise
Sunlight melts my fears away
When you're living this feeling
Don't ever let it go (ever let it go)
When I'm under the starlight
It feels right
The thought is on my mind
I'll set you free (I'll set you free)
I'll set you free

- Sunrise by Angel City

Labels: Musical Mondays

Na bei. I should be doing my projects, and working on some of my other blog posts. But oh well, since I set out to do this, might as well post it up here.

Oh yes, as promised, here's my own tabulation of the heroes that were used most often during Arena. I also did an analysis on the heroes that had the overall highest percentage of winning. In fact, I could go really in-depth into all this, but I think it's best that I stop before I get too carried away. Yes... if only I was this hardworking where my studies were concerned. As almost everyone said to me today as I was doing my own tabulation, I am extremely bo liao. Steven said it best when he asked, "You're going to put this on your blog, right?"

In total, 20 games were played in the preliminary rounds, 2 games of semi-finals were played, as well as 2 finals. 1 game was held to determine the second runner-up, and another was a friendly match between the second runner-up and the invitational team. Hence there was a total of 26 games. Maybe I shouldn't have counted the invitational, but it's too late to do it all over again. By right, 23 games should have been played in the preliminaries, but 3 of them were walkovers, due to one of the teams not showing up at all for Arena, and one of the other teams vanishing after losing one game.

I could start breaking it all down and start analysing according to the most commonly used heroes in the preliminaries and then the semis, and then do calculations and see which heroes were more successful at winning in the semi-finals onwards, and also to combine both the frequency of appearance and the frequency of winning and then derive another chart, but I think I'm already spending a bit too much time on all this.

Heroes that appeared in 20 or more games



Heroes that appeared in 10-19 of all games




Heroes that appeared in 5-9 of all games



Heroes that appeared only thrice



Heroes that appeared only twice



Heroes that appeared only once




Apart from calculating how often a hero was used, I also calculated how successful a hero was at winning in a game. Of course, this one is highly subjective, since it depends entirely on the player, and not to mention is also affected by the composition of one's team.

Note that heroes with very high rate of winning in actual fact did not appear very often at all throughout the tournament. Conversely, there were heroes that popped up regularly but did not win a lot of games. So things are somewhat skewed.

Heroes that won 75-100% of the games they were in



Heroes that won 50-75% of the games they were in




Heroes that won 25-50% of the games they were in




Heroes that lost all the games they were in




Quite an astonishing number, really. But then again, the majority of those heroes that did not win at all appeared just once or twice. And the interesting thing is that the heroes that appeared the most often occupied the middle range of the cline, with the heroes that appeared just a handful of occasions taking up both ends. It really follows one of those standard normal distribution curves...

If you're really as bo liao as I am, and want to study the data that I've collected from Arena, you can choose to download the following files:

http://rapidshare.de/files/15437724/Arena_frequency.xls.html
http://rapidshare.de/files/15437753/Arena_winning.xls.html

And now, back to the books... If only I was this hardworking where my projects were concerned...

Teddy Roosevelt Terrier

Labels: Every day has its dog

Congratulations to DSD DotA for becoming the grand champions for Arena. They were my personal favourites, and I did referee a couple of their games during the preliminaries, so I knew just how well they could play. They were tied with TAC for leader of their group, but when DSD DotA proceeded to resoundingly trash TAC in the tie-breaker, I knew that we were looking at a whole new level of DotA gaming.

Besides, DSD DotA was also the same team that trashed Xiao Bai and Bartho's team 77-1. Yep. Just got to rub it in.

Just 4 games were played today, one semi-final match between DSD Dota and We Cook Grass, and then the finals between DSD Dota and Team Darkness, who had won the semi-final match the day before.

The finals were swiftly concluded in just 2 games, when DSD Dota beat Team Darkness after what I have to say were two extremely enjoyable matches.

But perhaps the most entertaining part of the day was when as part of the programme, we had some supposedly very skilled team from one of the local clans come down to have a friendly match with We Cook Grass, our second runner-up. This invitational team arrived looking and acting like real professionals, and apparently had even protested about playing against the second runner-up. They wanted to challenge our champions, I guess. But because our finals were being held concurrently, they had to settle for We Cook Grass. And what happened next was a most humbling experience. Not for us, not for We Cook Grass, but for the invitational team.

We Cook Grass trashed the invitational team (who shall remain nameless to save them from further embarrassment and humiliation). Perhaps trash is not the best word to use. Obliterated is better. Because at the end of the game, We Cook Grass won 108 to 6.

Yes. The invitational team, which was supposedly so highly skilled, and who had wanted so badly to challenge our champions, killed our second runner up 6 times, but got killed 108 times.

Near the end of the game, the players of We Cook Grass actually wanted to hit a hundred kills, and so instead of trying to destroy the base, they set out to try and rack up as many hero kills as possible. I do kind of pity the invitational team, but oh well, they can take comfort in the fact that there were only a handful of people watching.

But the most exciting part of the invitational match was when someone from the invitational team, who was using Mogul Kahn the Axe, managed to kill Roshan at level 1. Apparently, Berserker's Call, which forces all nearby enemy units to automatically attack Axe (regardless of whether they want to or not) also works on Roshan, and our dear friend led Roshan all the way back to his own base, where the firebush made short work of Roshan. Wah...

So that concludes the one project I've committed myself to for this year. It has been a project of many ups and downs, but through this, I have realised that I do have some skill where it comes to designing and creating posters and publicity materials, and that organising a little LAN game tournament may seem easy, but in truth it can be one of the most physically and mentally challenging projects to get involved in ever.

After the tournament ended, we went off to have lunch, and then after having watched people play so many games of DotA, we decided to finally play some DotA ourselves. But there was a tiwst: we had to restrict outselves to heroes that had been used during the tournament.

I tried Krobelus the Death Prophet, and my side lost in the end, partly because the team configuration was slightly imbalanced. For the second game, I wanted to use my old-time favourite, Kardel Sharpeye the Dwarven Sniper, but Kevin Wee beat me to him. So instead, I decided to be a little adventurous, and use a hero I had never used before: Rhasta the Shadow Shaman.

Rhasta is quite fun to use. I love casting Voodoo and Shackles, and Forked Lightning does help one kill entire creep waves. Mass Serpent Ward is good for bringing down towers, something that I did a lot of times during this particular game. But the main drawback is that my HP is pretty low, and there is also the fact that the hotkeys for all of Rhasta's skills are crammed together; Voodoo is D, Mass Serpent Ward is W, Shackles is E, and Forked Lightning is R. I lost count of the number of times I meant to cast Shackles to prevent an enemy from escaping, and instead released Forked Lightning. Luckily I managed to earn enough to get a Dagon, so in the later stages of the game I managed to get a couple of kills anyway.

Like I've said, Rhasta is a very fun hero, especially when gangbanging opponents. But he's weak in 1v1 situations, and trying to go against a hero that can Blink and Poison like Akasha the Queen of Pain can really be a bummer. Not to mention getting Mana Leak cast on you by Ezalor the Keeper of the Light can be really painful. What the Hell... I cast one spell and then I don't even have the mana to teleport, heal myself with Mekansm, or cast any more spells.

We made sure that we played just 2 games, since many of us were quite overcome with fatigue. We seem to be playing less DotA these days; to me it is a good thing, since there are far better ways to spend our time, and personally I feel that going to play once a week or so is just fine for me.

I need to sleep.

Miwako Yano

Labels: sexy sundays

Tosa

Labels: Every day has its dog

So the first day of Arena has passed, and what a tiring day it was.

There were quite a number of screw-ups and delays, but overall, in the end, I think things have gone on pretty alright.

This is the first time I've set foot inside E2Max, and I have to say that I am quite impressed by the size and grandeur of the whole place. They really didn't spare any expenses; while most LAN shops would appear dark, small and cramped, E2Max is actually rather spacious. I didn't count the number of computers inside, but I am very sure that there are more than 60 computer terminals.

E2Max wins all the other LAN shops I've been to in two aspects: the comfort of its chairs, and the space. You might not know it, but chairs are very important in gaming. Lanlab chairs, for example, threaten to tip over if you lean too far back. HQ Cybercafe chairs are more stable and quite comfy, but to lean back and take a short break means that you'll end up with an aching neck for the rest of the day. E2Max chairs are sturdy and comfortable. If you're tired, you can just lean back and take a nap. I can testify to the comfort they provide; there were a couple of times when I was refereeing a game and I would just suddenly lose consciousness for a few seconds or even a couple of minutes.

And the place is really spacious; the computer monitors are big, there's ample space for you to play without accidentally hitting your neighbour.

Initially, there were a lot of delays, and things got a little messy. We started late, and then there were problems with drafting of teams, allocation of computers, plus a lack of referees to supervise the games. There were a few times when games got disrupted because a player or two suddenly got disconnected. Tensions were high, and tempers were flaring, especially later in the afternoon, when a small issue regarding the rules and regulations was heatedly debated and discussed by some of the teams.

But in the end, things eventually settled down, and we managed to find some time to take a breather, and just stand back and watch the games.

Justin came by in the afternoon, and went on to talk on and on about DotA and how it is played competitively. He also gave us some feedback on the way the event was being run, advice which made a lot of sense. See lah Justin, you should have joined the Arena committee long time ago. Thought you wanted to play so I didn't pull you in, in the end you also never join. Na bei...

I've realised just how different competitive gaming is from recreational gaming. Among my Arts Club friends, we play entirely for the sake of recreation, and we almost always play among ourselves. The participants who came down for Arena, on the other hand, play a whole lot more aggressively. I noticed that for almost all the games that were played today, only a small handful of heroes were utilised. These heroes are noted mostly for their ability to spam spells and their pushing ability. No late-game heroes to be seen around here, and very few melee heroes at that. Mostly heroes such as Akasha the Queen of Pain, Chen the Holy Knight, Lesale Deathbringer the Venomancer, Kardel Sharpeye the Dwarven Sniper, Raigor Stonehoof the Earthshaker and Kel'thuzad the Lich making an appearance in almost every game, and with other heroes such as Crixalis the Sand King, Nevermore the Shadow Fiend, Sven the Rogueknight, Ezalor the Keeper of the Light and Rhasta the Shadow Shaman appearing quite often as well.

I have this urge to do some tabulation regarding the heroes used most often in this tournament, and break down my analysis into the preliminary rounds, the semi-finals, and the finals. Probably even include the match to decide third placing, and the invitational match where one of our competing teams goes against some supposedly professional team.

The stunning speed and aggression with which the competitors fight it out made us realise that where it comes to playing DotA competitively, it's not so much about slowly farming and getting your recipe items, it's about pushing your lanes as quickly as possible. And while we play largely to destroy our opponents' base, for the competitors the emphasis is to rack up hero kills. Most of the games were decided in about an hour or less, and for a great deal of players, the game ended when they were all still in level 10 or 11. Wow...

I can't really recall any notable or memorable games, since I spent most of my time flitting from team to team, checking to make sure that no rules were being flouted, that things were running smoothly, and that the participants had no complaints to lodge against their opponents. But no matter which computer I was watching, no matter which team was playing, I was largely impressed by the skill and proficiency with which the games were played.

I have to say that I am extremely impressed by how some of these competitors play. Everything on the screen is a blur, and you barely even notice the presence of an opposing hero until you suddenly see the announcement that so-and-so has been killed, and then the verbal acknowledgement "Unstoppable" is heard.

I still have problems with coordinating my hero to always get the last hit on the creeps, as well as killing my own creeps to deny XP and gold; for the competitors it seems just like second nature to them. Oh, and they also practise teamkilling, where you kill your allied heroes to prevent your opponents from gaining XP and gold. Wah......

We did have some of our own friends in the competition; Xiao Bai and Bartho, as they call themselves when we play DotA, had a team of their own. The 2 of them are among the best players in our little group, but today's games just showed everyone what a professional DotA player really is.

Their team was up against DSD Dota, some team which is supposedly from some local clan, and apparently, Xiao Bai, Bartho and co. got owned like mad. The score at the end? 77-1. Yes. Xiao Bai's team had a single kill. Never before have I seen such a wide disparity in the number of kills. (I shudder to think of how much more skewed the score would be if some of our more n00b players had competed against them).

There was quite a number of female gamers around, plus a couple of girls whom I think were there to support their boyfriends and watch them play. The aforementioned girl gamer, who had come to the Arts Club Room and approached me to submit her registration form and fees, still recognised me and remembered my name. Yay...

Tim and I agreed on something this evening: that we don't feel like playing DotA for a very long time. I suppose it's fatigue, that has come with watching people play DotA for close to 6 hours non-stop, as well as the realisation that even though many of us are capable of playing rather well, where it comes to playing competitively, we are still n00bs.

Here are a couple of photos; pardon the low quality of these pictures, which were taken with my handphone; I hope Leon took some nice high-quality photos, especially photos of the girl gamers.


Xiao Bai and Bartho in the midst of the action.


I did say we had cute girl gamers, didn't we?

The day ended slightly later than expected, but at least the bulk of the matches have been played. The preliminary rounds have been cleared, as well as one semi-final match. Now we only have to wait for tomorrow, so that we can clear one more semi-final match, and then go on to the finals.

I need sleep.

I'll be busy over the next couple of days. If you're free, and want to catch some exciting DotA-Allstars action, take note:



Have I mentioned before that I love my Photoshop skills?

Not only can you see some sweet DotA action and laugh at n00bs, there are also bonuses in the form of cute girl gamers. I can personally testify to that; one of them came to the Arts Club Room a few days ago to hand in her team's registration form and fees.

For my other Arena publicity materials, this post has some of the older poster designs I came up with.

Listening to: Arrival At Kalimdor by Tracy W. Bush (Taken from WarCraft 3: Reign of Chaos Soundtrack)

Warlton, my colleague and best buddy at my workplace, is enlisting today. All the best, my friend, and hopefully the next 2 years does something to that gut of yours.

Training to be soldiers
Fight for our land
Once in our lives
Two years of our time
Have you ever wondered
Why must we serve
Because we love our land
And we want it to be free
To be free...

Listening to Be Cool by Paffendorf

After close to 3 years of almost daily use, my mouse wheel has finally given way.

Now I can't use it to scroll down the page; a minor inconvenience, yes, but I wish it didn't have to happen.

This little mouse of mine has served me well; it has been used to the point that the front part of the bottom has been worn completely smooth. When it was brand new, the front part had this little groove with a small translucent arc of plastic attached. I suppose that the years of wear and tear first removed the plastic, and then ground away the grooves until all you have now is a smooth area.

Oh well, c'est la vie. Time to get a new mouse...

Listening to: Victory by Bond

Seppala Siberian Sled Dog

Labels: Every day has its dog

Finally, after months of stress, preparation, meetings, countless hours spent planning and designing posters, the big day is finally here.

Went to collect sponsor goods at PAYM with Tim, Ivan Chen, Kevin and Jensen, and indulged in some really great small talk, cracking silly jokes and doing silly stunts, like driving off with Ivan Chen's car when he went to collect some stuff from the printing shop, and parking it elsewhere. I came up with the idea of waiting for him to call one of us, and then distorting our voices like they always do in the movies or on TV, pretending to be kidnappers. And while one of us would demand ransom and order him not to call the police, the others would sound like they had been bound and gagged.

Sad to say, our plan failed. Damn.

As I type this, we're busy making calls to the team captains, ensuring that they come down tomorrow and help make this event a success. It's the first time the NUS Students' Arts and Social Sciences Club is organising a DotA-Allstars tournament, and dammit, given all that we've put into it, it'd better turn out good.

Listening to: Sorry by Madonna

Portuguese Podengo

Labels: Every day has its dog

"Dear Finalists and readers of the Finalist blogs, due to a technical error in the processing of the polls, the number of votes have been reset. There have been instances of cheating by some voters due to a security loophole in the voting system. The Blogfest Committee will continue to find a solution to this problem, but for the moment, voting has been limited to ONE vote per account."

害人101招术成功咯!

So, if you haven't voted, what are you waiting for?

心动不如行动! 我们的痛苦是不如肾脏/心脏病/癌症/可直立官能不良病人的痛苦!

请播打1900-112...

OOPS Sorry got a little too carried away.

*Literal translation for the benefit of my non-Chinese and kentang readers:

Heart moved is not as great as action! Our suffering is not as great as the suffering of kidney/heart disease/cancer/erectile dysfunction patients!

Please dial-

Anyway, please vote! Vote as I use a unicycle to cross a tightrope, while my unicycle is placed on a rocking chair, which is on a beach ball, which is on a metal spike, while I juggle chainsaws, flaming torches, and lit Molotov cocktails with my arms in chains some more!



(Yes, I know NKF jokes are stale by now. But I couldn't resist. And yes, erectile dysfunction in Chinese is 可直立官能不良. Literally means "Potential ability to erect not good". But hey, next time any of you got certain problems to reveal to your China wife or mistress, you know what to say. 可直立官能不良. Of course, if you want, you can smoke your non-Chinese or ang moh friends and tell them that it means that you have lots of stamina in bed. Watch and roll in mirth when they brazenly boast to those hot China babes in Beijing and Shanghai that they suffer from 可直立官能不良. )

******

Today's post is one where I point out a few other blogs that are also in NUS Blogfest, and link to a few other interesting posts. If you feel these other blogs are good and deserving of more votes, do vote for them as well. I also give my own views on how Blogfest can be improved in subsequent years.

Here are some extracts of my answers to some questions that were asked:

What do you expect from those who made it into the finals actually? Criteria? Quality of the writing? Topics...what other things should be included in Best NUS Blog?

My personal take is that first and foremost, a finalist for Best Blog should have interesting content. Not just content that one's friends or family will be interested in, but stuff that will compel a complete stranger to say, "Wow, that's interesting," or "Hey that's funny!" and then add the URL to his or her bookmarks.

For me, a good blog should possess at least one of the following traits:

• Funny


• Thought-provoking


• Personable


• Provides an avenue for discussion and/or debate


• Takes note of things that people might tend to overlook or not notice


• Good grammar and spelling, of course


• And finally, a good blog can be technical at times, but at the same time it should never completely exclude people outside of your immediate social circle.

This is how most of the biggest blogs started becoming famous, both in the local context and globally. mr brown, Xiaxue, Balderdash and so many other blogs had humble beginnings, but their content made people sit up and take notice. True, they talk a lot about personal experiences, but they do it in such a manner that readers who do not belong in their circle of friends don't feel excluded. The readers can identify with their experiences and their thoughts; they don't need any background knowledge or to know the bloggers intimately in order to share in the fun, sadness, anxiety or anger.

My emphasis has always been on writing. While photos add aesthetic value and can be used to illustrate certain points more strongly, I feel that photos should never overshadow one's writing.

Have you developed any friendships with the bloggers? Or have flaming wars been waged?

"Friendships"... well, I'm not sure if that term could be used; but I can say that I am on pleasant and cordial terms with some of the other bloggers like Aishah, Aristocrat and Xiang.

Flame wars... I haven't seen any flame wars per se, although I do notice a certain amount of disparaging comments made regarding other finalists' blogs. But overall, everyone is largely neutral about each other; I haven't seen any real bitter enmity around, just criticisms and questions as to whether so-and-so blogger really deserves to be among the finalists. After all, who knows if you'll end up doing a project with the person you just flamed next semester? =P

What can be improved upon?

I feel that perhaps judging a blog based solely on vote count might not be very fair, especially for those who have more friends who are willing to vote. For example, I know of blogs that are very widely read, but where it comes to voting, few of the readers bother to participate. It's probably more a problem with the readers themselves than with the organisers of the contest, but maybe there could be a system where we have a panel of judges, like say, some of the Tomorrow.sg editors, who give their thoughts and opinions on each of the contestants' blogs.

Also, the very idea of having to register and log in to Livewire does put some people off, especially non-FASS readers. If future competitions use voting, it might be advisable to avoid this system.

Perhaps more categories as well?

For example, the Koufax Awards (an American blogging competition) has various categories such as:

Best Blog (judged as the best overall, the most indispensable must-read of all)
Best Writing
Best Post (the blog itself might not be the best, but there might be one particular post that is especially exceptional)
Most Humorous Blog
Most Humorous Post
Most Deserving of Wider Recognition
Best New Blog

Most Creative Blog could preferably be defined further into Best Layout or Best Design. And the criteria should preferably be restricted to blogs whose templates are largely original and not lifted off Blogskins. =)

******

Best NUS Blog

My favourite: No Recess

I've already talked about Aishah's blog in an earlier post, but here are some gems that I feel are really quite nice to read.

Ha-fucking-Ha
Serve The Servants
TRAVESTY!
Someone said Headphones ain't too good.
Jim Morrison

Oh, and now that the debacle that so preoccupied her blog seems to have largely blown over, I think we are seeing a crazier, more whimsical side of her. Or is it just the relief from all the essays, Aishah?

Other blogs I've added to my own bookmarks are That & This, Korchagin's Universe, and A Prudent Bitch. These blogs are really worth a read from time to time.

Most Creative Blog

My favourite: Whispers of A Blue Moon

Creativity is a really subjective term. How do you define creativity? Is it the layout and template? The frills and aesthetic appeal? Or the content?

I personally hope that in future, the guidelines can be laid out more clearly, and that this category be renamed to Blog with Best Layout, Best Designed Blog, or Most Creative Content.

This is the one category where I feel that by and large, most of the finalists are qualified to be in this category. Nice templates, great layout, and really creative forms of expression and content. After all, we have one blog devoted to poetry, and another which is more of a photo exhibition than a blog per se.

At present, the two strongest contenders for the title are Whispers of A Blue Moon and Lord can you tell me how far is Heaven?. The latter blog is currently leading, and although I cast my vote for Whispers of A Blue Moon, I have to admit that the leading blog does have aesthetic appeal.

Aristocrat, who writes Whispers of A Blue Moon, is a poet, and does write some pretty good poetry. But then again, I'm no Lit student, so if any Lit students wish to take me to task for that statement, hey, I claim ignorance as my defence.

Those Flowers is the photoblog which I've mentioned above, and the photos are captivating and well-taken.

Funniest Blog

My favourite: ALcoholic Inspirations

Well, what can I say? Humour is a very subjective thing. There are some blogs in this category who really made me laugh uncontrollably, some that made me give a chuckle, and some that made me go, "THAT was funny? " And then make me wish that I had been thick-skinned enough to nominate myself for Funniest Blog; maybe some of my weird quips could stand a chance against some of these so-called Funniest Blog finalists.

My favourite among them all is Al, who writes ALcoholic Inspirations. His brand of humour is really great, if you're the sort who goes for talk-cock humour interspersed with Hokkien expletives here and there. You know, the sort of stuff you'd laugh about over a few beers and smokes, or while hanging out with your army buddies. Al can be considered the Rockson of NUS, though he hasn't been making boasts about the size of his schlong and his sexual prowess. Yet.

Nothing satirical or high-brow, but hey, this sort of humour does appeal to almost everyone. Rockson is big for a reason. And I'm not referring to his horse, you bodoh.

Other pretty funny blogs include The Flea Is In Your Hair and An Easy Kind Of Happy, but seriously, if you're the sort who appreciates Talking Cock and Rockson, Al is the guy for you.

******

So there you have it. My own personal favourites, plus a few other noteworthy blogs you really ought to check out.

Oh, but how could I forget about my fallen ally, jkaiser? He who had such high hopes of sparring with me in Blogfest but who didn't get finalised? (Yes I just want to suan him some more) He has had some interesting things to write about lately.

Happy reading! And don't forget to vote!

Listening to: Everytime You Leave by Karma

Yes, Freddie Ljungberg, you can smile for now. And so can Arsenal fans all over the world.

I haven't been watching a lot of football lately, given that I no longer subscribe to Starhub Cable TV, but it was worth staying up this morning in order to catch the match between Real Madrid and Arsenal.

Not since the previous season's UEFA Champion's League final have I watched such an exciting match.

Despite the game ending in a goalless draw, and with Arsenal going through to the next round based on aggregate, it proved to be an extremely tense and exciting game, with both sides ruthlessly launching strikes against each other.

The tension was palpable; every time one side lost possession of the ball, you had this feeling that the other side would then suddenly come streaking in across the field and take a shot at goal. Given that I am an Arsenal fan, I was pleased to see how Arsenal never quite gave up on trying to widen the score difference. But Arsenal themselves were pretty lucky too, what with a couple of great saves from Jens Lehmann.

As most know, Arsenal have been in a sorry state of late, and they haven't been playing their best. But this morning, I saw the same old burning fire, that so attracted me so many years ago. The players might be new, but this was the same ol' Arsenal I've come to love.

Thierry Henry was exceptional. The number of times he just blazed past the Real Madrid players, and even found the chance to shoot on target despite the narrowest of gaps, shows just how talented he is, and just how indispensable he has become to Arsenal. Of course, just like Patrick Viera, if and when Thierry Henry leaves, Arsenal might be in big trouble. But let's not worry about that, and savour the moment. And even though most of the defence was new to me, they did manage to hold off Real Madrid for 180 minutes.

Some of the priceless moments include the point where Raul Bravo felled Aleksander Hleb, and then almost immediately tried to haul the poor guy to his feet. Would have been funny, except that Hleb was grimacing and wincing in pain. And how Philippe Senderos just nearly earned the wrath of every Arsenal fan by nearly scoring an own goal.

Or that point where Casillas ran up to join the fray, and Pires just almost scored a goal. If only Roberto Carlos had just been a wee bit slower... that would have been the most embarrassing goal of the season.

Truly, this was one of those few absolutely breathtaking and captivating goalless draws. Definitely worth staying up for. I've always found Arsenal matches more exciting than Chelsea matches anyway.

*Takes cheap snipe at Chelsea and Chelsea supporters*

Phalène

Labels: Every day has its dog

Munich is a great movie.

It beautifully captures the tragedy and sorrow of what happened in 1972. You feel the fury and anger, the thirst for revenge. Yet, as the movie progresses, you also get a feel of just how senseless this entire fight seems, when in your thirst to stamp out your enemies and achieve peace, you lose your peace of mind and your humanity. But be prepared if you're the squeamish sort: there's quite a bit of blood and gore, and some nudity as well.

As the movie synopsis goes:

"In September 1972 an unprecedented terrorist attack unfolded live before 900 million television viewers across the globe and ushered in a brave new world of unpredictable violence.

It was the second week of the Summer Olympics, and in Munich, West Germany, the games that had been dubbed the "the Olympics of Peace and Joy" were off to a rousing start with swimmer Mark Spitz and gymnast Olga Korbut wowing the crowds. Suddenly, without warning, a Palestinian group known as Black September invaded the Olympic Village, killing two members of the Israeli Olympic team and capturing nine as hostages. The tense stand-off and tragic massacre that ensued played out with stunning immediacy on television before an international populace and ended 21 hours later when anchorman Jim McKay spoke the haunting words, "They're all gone." While the Munich terror was seen and felt around the world, the intensely secret aftermath of the event has remained largely unknown. Now, from director STEVEN SPIELBERG comes Munich, a gripping thriller based on the events of Munich 1972 and the highly charged mission of retribution that followed - by the covert hit squad known to Israeli intelligence as "Operation Wrath of God," one of the boldest and most aggressive assassination plots in modern history.

At the center of the story is the young Israeli patriot and intelligence officer Avner (Eric Bana). Still mourning the Munich massacre and infuriated by its savagery, Avner is approached by a Mossad officer named Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush) who presents him with an unprecedented mission in Israeli history. He asks Avner to leave behind his pregnant wife, relinquish his identity and go completely underground on a mission to hunt down and kill the 11 men accused by Israeli intelligence of masterminding the murders at Munich.

Despite his youth and inexperience, Avner soon becomes the leader of a team of four very diverse yet highly skilled recruits: the brash, tough, South African-born getaway driver, Steve (Daniel Craig); the German Jew Hans (Hanns Zischler), who has a flair for forging documents; the Belgian toymaker-turned-explosives-expert, Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz); and the quiet, methodical Carl (Ciaran Hinds), whose job is to "clean up" after the others.

From Geneva to Frankfurt, Rome, Paris, Cyprus, London and Beirut, Avner and his team circle the globe under a cloak of extreme secrecy, tracking down each man on a closely guarded list of targets and carrying out intricately plotted assassinations, one by one."

It's not really a show about the good guys versus the bad guys. Sure, you do get a sense of celebration when yet another evil terrorist mastermind gets blown up or gets shot, but you always feel this lingering sadness, when you realise that these people themselves have families. And there were all the close shaves in which innocent lives could have been lost. Anyone remember the little girl and the telephone?

And you also start to realise that the world of military intelligence also overlaps with the world of criminal intelligence. There are scenes that really look as if they were lifted out of The Godfather.

Other parts reminded me a lot of Alias, what with all the shady dealings and the use of some really stealthy techniques to follow and kill people.

As the movie progressed, I drew parallels with modern American and British foreign policy with regards to stamping out Islamic terrorism. As has been mentioned so many times before, is it worth fighting, when you stoop to the same level as the people you call animals? Should one carry on fighting, cutting them down one by one, when as one falls, another rises to take his place? Do the ends justify the means? Is it worth sacrificing the well-being of the individual for the good of the nation?

Thought-provoking stuff. Islamic terrorism is not a recent phenomenon, and I doubt we'll see the end of it anytime soon. *shrugs*

It's one of those must-watch movies. Although it does feel a little draggy near the end, it still manages to captivate the audience. I give it 4 stars out of 5.

http://www.munichmovie.com/

P.S. Remind me to check the underside of my mattress for any bombs tonight.

P.S. Aristocrat reviews the movie for Funkygrad. Read his review here.

******

Doonesbury hits the nail on the head with a comic that so accurately describes the rampant anti-intellectualism that appears to be ravaging America these days. When proper science and research is abandoned for the sake of pandering to ideological beliefs and skewed 'research' that supports the industries and corporations who pay you and your cronies favours, what are you left with?

Situational Science.


Sad, but true. Sad but true. We live in frightening times now.

******

做兵
Zò Pēng

Jacen Tan, the young talented director of Tak Giu, has come up with another wonderful gem that so accurately captures a slice of Singaporean life. It's 15 minutes long, and takes a while for the video to load, so you might want to go off and do something else as you wait.

The twist in gender roles is a very novel thing, especially in the context of National Service. I like how the conversation is just so real... I can almost imagine me and my old platoon mates hanging around, talking cock like that over a few drinks and smokes. Plus the fact that if you look carefully at the credits, you see people being credited for jobs like Sai Gang Party, Area Cleaning, MT Line, Mess Boy/Beer, and Song I.C... LOL.

Watch Zo Peng at this link: hosaywood.com

(By the way, if you love football and have never watched Tak Giu before, where the bloody fuck have you been? You can watch Tak Giu at this link)

******

And coming up... more crazy videos!

Someone made a live-action version of The Simpsons opening sequence...



Car lovers will love this next video. Singaporean version of Initial D?



I have only one thing to say about the next video: OUCH.



And some guys pay for girls to do THIS to them??!


OUCH.

(insert shameless plug here)
Don't forget to vote for me in NUS Blogfest!

Next up: My favourite blogs from NUS Blogfest, and who I personally feel should win.

Listening to: At The End by Iio

Papillon

Labels: Every day has its dog

"Ivan ah, can you go down help dad carry his stuff up?"
"OK..."
"He had an accident"
"Wait a- HE WHAT??!"




People know that I'm not exactly the most devout Christian around. Even when good things happen and people praise Him, I tend to shrug it off as coincidence, good fortune, or personal skill or capability.

But what happened yesterday evening has given me food for thought. Perhaps, God really does watch over us after all.

During those seconds that could have changed the lives of my family forever, the taxi smashed through a wire fence, flipped over a few times, and then slammed into a tree.

The taxi was totalled.

My dad, on the other hand, emerged bruised, slightly scratched, with a couple of twisted tendons, but otherwise unscathed and still very much alive.

God, thank you so much.

Swedish Vallhund

Labels: Every day has its dog

I felt something on Friday evening, in those nerve-wracking moments when I finally printed my essay, and then ran all the way to the Department of Geography to hand it in, 3 hours past the submission deadline.

At times like these, I'm reminded that I'm capable of sensations like fear, anxiety, exhaustion, relief, and joy, simply because I'm alive.

Have you seen a mother
Kiss her son goodbye
Have you seen a dark cloud
Fight the silver line
I have seen a loved one
Tell a million lies
Karma's like a boomerang
Whirling deep inside

May not know a thing about you
You don't know a thing about me
Mayy not know a thing about you
But if we're really free

We're alive
Take a breath
We're alive
Take a deep breath
We're alive
Take a breath
We're alive
Take a deep breath
We're alive

Put me on an aeroplane
Let's fly up to the sky
Help me laugh with angels
Who just wanna get me high
Let's drive down this highway
Leave our fears at home
Let this twistin' winding road
Decide which way we go

You don't know a thing about me
I don't know a thing about you
You don't know a thing about me
But let's enjoy the view

We're alive
Take a breath
We're alive
Take a deep breath
We're alive
Take a breath
We're alive
Take a deep breath

Don't take yourself too seriously
Don't lie for the mystery

We may wear different clothes
Pray to God in different robes
But we're not alone

We're alive
Take a breath
We're alive
Take a deep breath
We're alive
We're alive
We're alive yeah
We're alive
We're alive
We're alive

Take a deep breath

Take a deep breath

Take a deep breath

Take a deep breath

- We Are Alive by Paul van Dyk

Labels: Musical Mondays

Pumi

Labels: Every day has its dog

There are times when I get really pissed at myself. Saturday morning was one of those times.

I was supposed to meet up with a few of my friends and spend the day at Sentosa. But as luck would have it, I overslept again.

By the time I joined Giang, Tim, Ivan Chen and Luke at Sunset Bay, it was 3.30 in the afternoon.

Sad to say, I had missed the beach pageant, which according to many of my friends, wasn't really mind-blowing, but still better than last year's, nonetheless. DAMN. I did catch glimpses of several hot bikini-clad babes though; there would be moments when we were engaged in discussion and suddenly Luke and I would shift our gaze elsewhere. "Huh, what did you say? Sorry, I got distracted."

And the few hours I spent napping on the beach and swimming in the murky waters feeling for coral debris with my toes weren't enough to get me even the slightest bit tanned. Sigh...

I demonstrated my supreme ability to ruin the atmosphere with my sick twisted thoughts. We were sitting on the beach, looking at the Saturday crowd, the wind in our hair, the sun on our faces, and what did I say?

"You know what would really totally spoil the mood? You suddenly see a floating corpse... and the sort that has been out at sea for a week or so, all bloated and the eyeballs have been eaten by fish already..."

Yes. Sometimes I deserve to get smacked in the mouth. But it's something that I seem to have inherited from my parents.

Ivan Chen, Giang and I took a nap on the beach, while Tim and Luke entertained themselves playing a bit of volleyball with 3 pretty cute-looking babes. (I didn't bring my glasses, so don't question my judgement if I turn out to be mistaken)

Tim, Luke and I spent some time walking around, and I swear, I have a new-found fascination for babes who play beach volleyball. I mean, just take a look at how tight their butts are. And those long legs that go on for miles. Ooh......

Sad to say, those 3 hours or so spent under the Sentosa sun did not result in any tan. AARGH... Tim, Ivan Chen, Giang and Luke all had healthy bronzed glows, since they'd been out in the sun for probably two or even three times as long as I had. Though they were all preparing for the days of pain that would follow due to all the sunburn.

At some point in time, I realised that I had forgotten to pack an extra pair of shorts. Although I had hoped that the sun and the hand-dryer in the toilet would dry my shorts, they proved to be inadequate. Thank goodness Tim had an extra pair of shorts in his bag.

The four of us guys agreed that after today, it was time to hit the gym. Talk about getting absolutely demoralised, the moment you take off your singlet and you compare yourself with all the other guys walking around topless.

We left Sentosa, and decided to have dinner at Marina Square, and then settled on Carl's Jr.

I swear, I have a new-found love for Carl's Jr. burgers. They're so freaking huge, by the time I had finished my Super Star, my stomach was hurting. Who cares about the McDonald's Big Mac or BK Whopper? Carl's Jr. makes sure you won't need to have any supper later.

Carl's Jr. burgers can be used as weapons, I think. I believe if you dropped them from a great height, it qualifies as killer litter. Or as Tim said, "If you drop it from the third floor onto a car, the car will get smashed".

Given how much CSI I've been watching lately, I'm just waiting for the day a Carl's Jr. burger is implicated as a murder weapon.

I made a lame remark while we were enjoying our huge burgers. "A Carl's Jr. burger is a Big Mac that had a Black King Bar and activated Avatar." Yes, I have to bring DotA-Allstars into the picture, even when we're eating.


Only a DotA player will understand this equation.

And while we were munching away on our burgers, we mimicked the announcement from Pudge the Butcher when Dismember is activated. "Ah... Fresh meat!" But while Dismember in the game lasts for just 6 seconds, our own real-life Dismember took an eternity. Like we said after we finally finished our burgers, eons later: "终于 dismember 完了..." And I quipped, "Yah. We were using Dismember on Strength Morphling with 4800 HP"

Of course, with all our talk of DotA during our meal, our plans for after-dinner entertainment unsurprisingly drifted over to spending time at HQ Cyber Cafe. And despite so many of us saying, "I don't want to play DotA today," where did we find ourselves after that?

So much for quitting DotA.

Ai Takahashi

Labels: sexy sundays

I used to think that a game of DotA-Allstars that lasted for 100 minutes was long enough.

Never did I ever guess that I'd end up playing a game of DotA-Allstars that lasted for close to 120 minutes.

That's right. 2 freaking hours on a single game.

And we ended the game not because our Frozen Throne had been destroyed; we conceded defeat after we decided it was pointless to let it drag on any longer.

You know the game has probably gone on for too long when almost everyone has an Aegis of the Immortal. And not to mention a whole slew of other high-level items like Agahnim's Scepter, Refresher Orb, Butterfly, Buriza-do-Kyanon, and even a Divine Rapier.

So far, I've used Viper the Netherdrake twice, and both times, the game has gone on for more than 90 minutes. Could this be a trend?

This particular game also demonstrated how much I hate having Bone Clinkz the Bone Fletcher as one of my opponents. Bone Fletcher with Linken's Sphere AND Refresher Orb, in the hands of one of our most hardcore DotA players, and you just feel like throwing your hands up in despair and wish you hadn't joined the opposing team.

Or perhaps make you wish you had been unscrupulous and utilised a maphack.

And so much for quitting DotA. -_-

Komondor

Labels: Every day has its dog

(This is a new feature where I go into my Animal Planet mode)

I shall begin this series with a post on some news that many of us might have read or heard about in January.

Paedocypris progenetica, the world's smallest fish



Read More...

Caucasian Ovcharka

Labels: Every day has its dog

If any of the other NUS Blogfest finalists for the Best NUS Blog category are reading this, note that although I may criticise the content or aesthetic appeal of your blog, in no way is this to be construed as a personal attack or an assault on your character or your value as a person. I am judging the quality of your blog based solely on your blog alone, and in reality have no interest in the kind of person you are in real life. And do feel free to give your own criticisms of my blog.

At present, most of the other NUS Blogfest finalists have started plugging their own blogs and asking for their friends and readers to vote for them. The competition is heating up too; although many of us were lagging behind at the beginning of the week, as time has gone by and word has gotten around, the number of votes has started to pick up as well.

But a competition gets boring if it lacks any bitching and backstabbing, or any real attempt to assert one's dominance over one's rivals and competitors. Up until now, everyone else is still pretty much blogging about their own adventures and escapades, with nary a thought paid to the other 8 finalists competing for Best NUS Blog (one of the contestants withdrew from the competition).

And I suppose that since I am the habitual troublemaker (my NS platoon mates don't call me 害人 for nothing, which also explains my nickname), well, it's time I started to make things a little more interesting by stirring up some shit.

I remain largely neutral towards most of the competition. Truth be told, although there are some of us whose blogs appear quite interesting and unique in their own right, by and large we are all very similar; we talk about our daily lives, perhaps complain and bitch and whine a little, put up a pretty picture or two, and if we're in the mood, remind people that the competition is on and encourage our readers to vote.

Yet there are two blogs I'd like to talk about in further detail, one because I like the blog a lot and think it should win the competition. The other blog, on the other hand, I have... less positive remarks to make about it. But you'll see when you get there.

The first blogger I'll be talking about is Aishah Hamza, writer of No Recess.

When I first checked out her blog, my interest was piqued. Perhaps it was the post where she ranted about the NUS fee hike, or her attitude towards celebrating Valentine's Day. But perhaps her most famous post is the one where she experiences a case of perceived discrimination. Not only has it been posted up on Tomorrow.sg, she has also received plenty of comments, both positive and negative.

The plot has thickened recently, especially regarding more recent developments in the saga. I just hope the matter ends quickly though. But it can't be denied that this incident has garnered her a lot of attention, and ultimately, votes. Quite ironic, considering that she's never really publicised the fact that she's in Blogfest, or requested that people vote for her.

Anyway, I can't quite explain why out of 8 other finalists, I like reading her blog the most. Perhaps it's the way she writes not so much about her daily life, but more about her thoughts and feelings on a particular subject. Or her incisive opinions and engaging manner of writing. And it really doesn't hurt that she updates often and replies to most of the comments.

Perhaps what makes her blog so compelling to read is that you do not need to know her in person to identify with what she writes. It's a trap many of us fall victim to, myself included. We write about what we do with our friends, or something funny that our friends say, but end up excluding people who do not have the benefit of being part of this inner circle. In her recent posts so far, Aishah's writing still remains readable by just about anyone and everyone, from her own friends to total strangers.

For a period of time, when she was steadily rising in terms of vote count, and yet still played second fiddle to someone else who was at the top of the ranking (undeservedly if I may say so, but more on that later), and when my own vote count was still appallingly low, I did contemplate completely giving up on boosting my own votes, and using my votes instead to vote for Aishah, if only because I would rather have her win Best NUS Blog rather than the other blogger (who I shall talk about in more detail below). And yes, that was a very long and unwieldy sentence.

But in any case, she has since risen to the top, and her position seems secure for the moment. If this carries on for the rest of the competition, she is most assured of the title of Best NUS Blog. A most worthy opponent indeed; it was a pleasure to have discovered your blog.

And now, for something else a little more... negative. Funny how I find it so difficult to come up with words to praise people and portray them in a positive light, but where it comes to criticising people or pointing out flaws, there is no shortage to the venom and vitriol that simply oozes out.

Anyway, I'd rather not mention the blogger in question, but some of you would know who I am referring to (especially Aishah and jkaiser). And if you're one of my Arts Club friends, you might have heard me complain about this particular blogger in recent days. But let's cut straight to the chase:

I think this blogger doesn't have the quality to be a finalist in NUS Blogfest, let alone win Best NUS Blog.

For starters, I'd just like to say that I don't like blog templates that waste space, and compress your blog post (and pictures) all into one tiny window. I detest blogskins that sacrifice user-friendliness and functionality for aesthetic value.

Sure, go for nice pictures and background images and themes, but what's the big deal about using javascript to separate and partition your blog such that you have to click one button in order to access your profile, another one to read your post, another one to access your archives, and yet another one to leave a comment on your tagboard? This is actually partially directed at all the other bloggers who utilise such blogskins as well. Granted, there are blog templates that work this way but don't waste a lot of space, but they are rather rarely used.

Do the people who create and use such templates do so because they want to give the illusion of a blog that has multiple pages? Personally, I don't see why the usual format of putting all your links, archives, profile and whatnot together on the same page as your own blog posts should be changed.

Secondly, and I feel that this is a more serious criticism, I don't see what's so great about your content that makes it special enough to be nominated.

To put things simply, a chronicle of your daily adventures, with hardly any really deep thought, or particularly funny or witty comments, is hardly what I would call a potential winner for Best NUS Blog. It's mundane at best, and not at all interesting at its worst.

I've seen a thousand other blogs like these. Their owners range from primary school kids to students in junior college, and yes, university students as well. While they are all nice and pleasant and all that, very rarely do I ever encounter anything that compels me to consider adding that particular blog to my daily reading list.

And if you want further evidence to show that secondary school kids can and do write far more interesting and engaging blogs than some university students, just look at Hejin and Darth Sid.

I have nothing against you treating your blog more as a photo diary of sorts to be shared largely with your own friends. But when your blog gets entered in a competition and gets nominated for Best NUS Blog, this is where I get riled up. Because frankly, your blog is just exactly like all those thousands of other blogs out there. There is nothing to motivate me to return and read what you have to write, let alone motivate me to vote for you as Best NUS Blog. Unless I'm the sort who gets easily bribed by mere pictures of you hanging out with your friends doing silly stuff and photos of your hostel room, that is.

Of course, a picture speaks a thousand words, so they say, and your gazillion photos do add some aesthetic value, but personally, I feel that what really makes a blog stand out are the words. And truth be told, what you write isn't very interesting to read at all.

Oh, and it wouldn't hurt to update a little more frequently.

Sure, your friends may find your blog interesting, even funny, but to be honest, if I were a stranger just randomly passing through or someone else recommended your blog to me, I would skim through it once, and never come back again. And I feel that perhaps the best way to know that your blog is of a certain calibre is when you have complete strangers who choose to read your blog regularly and leave comments, although the both of you are strangers in real life. After all, strangers don't have any real vested interests in finding out where you had supper or what new scandal is brewing among your friends; what matters to them is whether your content is able to reach out to those who do not know you at all. Your content may be funny, provocative, or interesting, but only if you are able to capture strangers and garner a much wider regular readership beyond your own circle of friends, then perhaps it can be said that your blog has "made it".

Just look at our famous local bloggers, such as Mr Miyagi, mr brown, or Xiaxue. They write a lot about their daily lives, and take lots of photos, but at the same time, they inject some humour or write about it in a way that any random stranger passing through who reads it can identify with it, and is then motivated to bookmark the URL and come back again the next day. To me, that is the true mark of a good blogger; not judged by popularity contests, but by one's capability in reaching out far beyond his circle of friends and family, even when he or she is writing about personal experiences.

And to be honest, when initially you were far ahead of the rest of us in terms of the number of votes, I was greatly demoralised. *THIS* is considered Best NUS Blog? And although you have now slipped to second place, and I still remain pretty far behind in the rankings, I'd much rather let the title be won by someone else whom I feel deserves the award more than you.

You can accuse me of jealousy. Sure, maybe my own judgement is clouded by the fact that I have a stake in putting you down, but IMHO I do not see what's the big deal about your blog that makes you qualified to get nominated. And maybe I am making a helluva big fuss over a mere contest that is more a test of how many friends you have who are willing to register and then log in every day to vote, but I believe it is fair to say that I expect finalists for Best NUS Blog to meet certain unwritten standards. This isn't really to do with you per se, but more with the judging committee; in any case, my personal take is that while I have no problems with your blog's existence, it is the idea that your blog can get nominated for Best NUS Blog that ruffles my feathers.

Context can be a real bitch, huh?

But remember: I may not like your blog, but that does not mean that I dislike you as a person. Before you or your own fans comment and flame me or resort to personal attacks and write, "Your own blog suxx!", do take note of this very important distinction. And if you do also want to counter-criticise and point out flaws in my own blog, I hope that you are able to point out just exactly what it is that you dislike.

So that's my personal take on my fellow competitors in NUS Blogfest. I am still a little miffed that jkaiser, who would have made a most worthy opponent, did not get into the final 10. Alas, it would have been fun with a little mock rivalry, with us taking cheap snipes at each other, all in the name of fun and enjoyment. Would probably have made this competition just that bit more exciting, especially if the sarcasm got lost on some blur souls who then start a flame war on our behalf.

Oh well, I hope I've just added a little spice to the competition. Now that I've started the ball rolling, perhaps some of the other finalists will contribute their two cents' worth and make things more interesting.


Let the feathers fly!

Peace out.

(Note: If you want to flame anybody, please remember to be nice, and no ad hominem attacks. The anonymity of the Internet does not equate to the abandonment of common decency and manners)

Listening to: Firestarter by Prodigy

http://nusartsclub.org/beachfiesta06/

Time for me to get some sunshine and work on my non-existent tan.

The rest of the guys are over at Ginza right now, engaging in our favourite activity. And I can't believe it, but Chong Han is with them, getting his introduction to the wonderfully addictive world of DotA-Allstars.

While I sit here, afflicted with a serious case of writer's block. 50 minutes left until my essay is due, and I only have a quote and an introduction.

SIGH......

Listening to: Clear Blue Water by Oceanlab

I have an essay due at 5 p.m. later. I haven't started writing it yet.

I'm tired, stressed, functioning almost entirely on caffeine.

And I think I'm hallucinating.

Korean Jindo

Labels: Every day has its dog

I was at the Citylink HMV last week, and decided to take a few photos of CD albums I felt very compelled to purchase, except that a lack of finances prevented me from supporting the music industry.

This is a very strong illustration as to why I don't buy CDs very often, and would still rather download mp3s off the Net:


EQ Dance Club 2006 - $19.95


Best 2005 - $20.95


Ministry of Sound The Annual 2006 - $22.95


Best 2006 - $19.95


Basement Jaxx: The Singles - $20.95


ATB: No Silence - $28.00


ATB: Seven Years - $34.00


DJ Lhasa: Technologia - $26.00


Masterboy: Greatest Hits of the 90's & Beyond! - $18.95

Note that this is just a short list of CDs which I would buy provided I had the cash. It does not include albums which I just couldn't find in the store that day, nor does it include a few other albums which had just one or two songs that I liked.

But let's do the math, shall we:

19.95 + 20.95 + 22.95 + 19.95 + 20.95 + 28.00 + 34.00 + 26.00 + 18.95 = 211.7

Two hundred dollars and seventy cents.

With all that money, I could:

i) Pay for hybrid public transport concession for 2 months
ii) Eat 92 set meals from the Arts Canteen western food stall
iii) Order 47 McDonald's Extra Value Meals from the McDonald's at Engineering
iv) Played at least 70 hours' worth of DotA-Allstars at HQ Cybercafe
v) Comfortably factor in the 3% fee hike that I'll have to pay if I remain for Honours next year

On the flipside, in order to earn $211.70, I would have to work at least 32 and a half hours at my part-time job, and that's if I work only on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, since we're paid $6/hour from Monday to Thursday, and $6.50/hour for the rest of the week.

Provided my dance music CD collection has not depreciated over the years (in fact, I wonder if some of my older and more rare albums have in fact become more valuable, although I doubt anyone would really pay that much for techno music), I could conceivably earn a fortune selling all my CDs off at their original selling price. But that's not the point I'm trying to make here.

The point is, buying original is a very expensive habit.

You really don't expect your poor student to spend so much all the time so that he can listen to his favourite music. And true, Soundbuzz is rising in popularity, but I'm going to wait until they put trance and eurodance music on their site, then we'll see whether I'll patronise them or not.

(As a sidenote, Soundbuzz apparently doesn't work on Firefox. What the Hell... discriminating against those who've ditched Internet Exploder for far better web browsers)

Coming up next: Let's get bitchy! I give my honest and personal take on my fellow competitors in NUS Blogfest.

Listening to: Cool Vogue (Club Mix) by Paffendorf vs. Madonna

I hate domestic disputes.

Havanese

Labels: Every day has its dog

Happy birthday Sining! Although technically she doesn't have a birthday this year; that's what happens when you're born on 29 February. Which means that Sining is actually just 5 and a half years old this year.

And once again, we threw a surprise for her. We are very sneaky people indeed.

Classic moment:

Ivan Chen: "Eh, this table put where?" (while we were all hiding behind with the cake and lighting the candles)

******

Coffee and Coca Cola are good study companions.

So this is how it feels like, to not sleep the entire night and spend most of the day busy studying and printing readings, stopping only for a half hour power nap, and then going for your midterm test.

Oh well. Hope I managed to smoke my way through.

******

Remember my post a couple of weeks ago, when I wrote that I lost my balls? My laptop speedballs, to be exact.

Well, there was a twist. I found a different pair of balls in the Club Room, and then adopted them as my own.

And it turned out later that they were Steven's balls.

And Steven, in the meantime, has been using my balls.

And now that we found out that we were holding onto each other's balls, we decided to exchange balls permanently.

That sounds so Brokeback Mountain.

******

Tired. There's quite a lot of stuff I want to blog about, but maybe I shall just stone here for a while, play some Kingdom of Loathing, and see if there are any loopholes I can exploit to increase my NUS Blogfest votes.

Listening to: 认错 by 优客李林

Azawakh

Labels: Every day has its dog