come some up a music...

Friday, April 22, 2005

6868 6888

I'm pretty sure that these numbers won't come out for this wkend's 4D. But if they do, please do not make me pay for your winnings if u did not buy them.

Mom got so feverish that day as she complained to me about the "stupid" NKF show.

"Wah i mistook the single call donation 1900-xxx-6868 for the 6888 which was for the many calls one!"

"All bcos of the stupid Cao Qi Tai (one of the emcee for the charity show) lah! He was so pitiful and begged the audience to make another call so as to reach the 1 million calls target!"

Mom said she was kinda sleepy that night while she dialed to make the donation. She swored that the tv kept chanting "6888, 6888, 6888" while she dialed and somehow or rather caused her to slip her fingers and punched in a few too many "8"s.

"$43.20", i told her after i made the calculations. 6888 attributes to 8 calls for a single dial.

1 call $5.40, so 8 calls x $5.40 = $43.20

Mom could not stop her ranting by blaming Cao Qi Tai for "conning" her to spend so much money on 1 call.

I wonder who would she blame if i try to calculate and tell her the amount of money she spends on toto, 4d, singapore sweep each week.


Cao Qi Tai is the most probable Number 1 public enemy on Mom's list this month.

empty promises


empty promises...

Just loved the title given to this photo.

The above photo was taken from John's photoblog, My Photo Essay.

Would like to say thanks again for lettin me use this picture. Really some nice pictures in your photoblog, keep up the good work!

Yet another amazing search for "casino" via technorati that got me to indirectly find this photo. The Inital thought was to read what the entire blogging community was talking about for the casino thingy before the gahmen made their decision public. But somehow, other interesting blogs took my notice. At least technorati is a new and fast way to read the latest news and instant opinions of people around the world through their blogs. Sort of "Mind Reading" with a click of the mouse.

The initial photoblog i saw via the "casino" search was Boboshooter's photoblog with a his "casino" photo. Hehe, somehow managed to link to John's blog. And John was saying that Boboshooter copied his idea for the photoblog thingy. But hey, both photoblogs are good ya, great work, i must say. At least you guys have a photoblog to call your own! :)

Another super nice photoblog that i have been constantly viewing since i started blogging. Can't really remember how i clicked to her page, maybe throught some hyperlink from someones blog. Someone with Singaporean heritage too.

let there be light

Maybe someday i'll eventually get a cam myself and madly shoot photos away... rather than ogle at photoblogs done by many creative people.

Hopefully this would not turn into an empty promise i make to myself.

Sunday, April 17, 2005

run...

Sometimes i wonder how come i like to go running.

What the "soong" feeling that brings means.

Maybe because i like the pain it brings, the suffering that gives the body, to yourself, you are so fed up abt urself, the things you do, the things that happens to you. You just want some pain, some self-inflicting pain, some punishment on yourself so that you can redeem yourself on the task u done, or to just have something to whack at, to relieve that build uped stress. Guess runnin is one good way to do just tat.

Quoting Lance Armstrong's words:

"Cycling is so hard, the suffering is so intense, that it's absolutely cleansing. The pain is so deep and strong that a curtain descends over your brain. . . . Once, someone asked me what pleasure I took in riding for so long. 'Pleasure?' I said. 'I don't understand the question.' I didn't do it for pleasure. I did it for pain."

Running for me sometimes could be like what cycling does to Lance.

I just like to go for endless run, hopeful of running to the end of the world unitl the body just gives up, beg for mercy, crying with sweat.

Sometimes after the run, the amazing thing is that all the bad things you give yourself just disappears, somehow you feel redeemed, somehow the run sort of consoles you. you feel great after the punishment you inflict upon yourself.

At least running is a healthy activity to inflict pain on oneself. Unlike smoking, drinking, or even drugs.

I so feel like running, this sux...

Saturday, April 16, 2005

Pikachu, i choose you!

"Pika, pika..."

Finding pains in looking for a suitable final year project. To look for a nice, friendly supervisor or to search for a interesting yet "do-able" project? Been looking for projects for the past few days while at work, and decided to focus on communication projects which are able to meet my requirements:

1) 90% programming, OUT
It really sucks to sit infront of the pc all day trying to write programs after programs and trying to debug debug and debug. After months of attachment doing programming, i could really tell from my personal experience. Its really boring sometimes to communicate with a machine, whatsmore it is so easy to grow a tummy from sitting all day right infront of a pc trying to "talk" to it.

2) Projects with lots of alogorithms, OUT
I never ever considered myself a maths whiz.

3) RF circuit design, OUT
And they said that industrial RF circuit designers could only bear daughters. Hmmm but then at least they have offsprings rite?

There weren't much projects to choose after the filtering.

Nevertheless, my partner and i still managed to send emails out to some profs to get some discussions done on the projects, and hopefully to secure one of our preferances.

Somehow i have this idea that fyp is supposed to be students choose projects and supervisors, and not the other way round where the projects and supervisors choose you. You showed interest in the project from the topic, the scope and the seeing possiblities of doing it well and trying to learn more knowledge and gain experience on certain areas of engineering. That is why we approach the professor, hopeful that he or she could guide us to achieve what we think we can achieve from or for this project.

But what i thought does not seems too true.

When we met with the project supervisor, it was more of a get to know you session, just a brief introduction on the projects. It was like an interview. You could secure the project by how well you can sell yourself, sell you confidence, sell your crap. Both of us weren't really up to it.

Project supervisors, do not try to remember your name but by your attachment company. The first question he popped was,

"So which company are you on attachment with?"

"Tan Ah Kow Technologies"

"Oh ya, They deal with semiconductors. So are they still designing them?"

~blah blah blah~

At least Tan Ah Kow Technologies is renown for its semiconductors, more crap to bark at. The prof even wrote our company name beside our names, stating that its easier to remember us. Win liaoz, brand us with our attachment companies.

Project supervisors do not judge you by your interest nor your enthusiasm. They just ask how many As you got? WTH, all the woo ha about your working attitudes, your character, your EQ which are more important these days, the hell with that. Some profs even ask for your transcript. We were not good at attempting to cover up our not so zai results. At least we showed our virtue of being honest.

Project supervisors are not always prepared to meet you. We met this prof who showed us his programs and talked until we were more blur than we thought this project was supposed to be. There were a couple of times there was silence in the room, where you watch me, i watch him, and with the program running on the screen. I couldn't help but peep our his shoulders to see his shelves of pills and medication, and wondered if he kept his appropriate dosage of drugs upon seeing his bloodshot eyes.

After half a day in school, the chance of securing a project, 20%

Felt so sianz. Wasted our time to go back ntu. If the profs wanted A grade students, they might as well state so in the projects description and prerequisite.

"I want A students only. 10As maybe, 20As stand a more chance, straight A students please forward me your matric no, and i will add you through my Stafflink right away, no questions asked!"

Guess one option is to act like Sunday Girls from the famous taiwanese variety show Super Sunday and shout "选我, 选我!" at the staff lobby. Maybe kawaii girls could stand a better chance than geeky guys without wonderful A results.



Pikachu says "选我, 选我!"

Thursday, April 14, 2005

FYP - Find Your Partner Part 2

EEE FYP requirement is to have 2 students per project. Since the pairing up of project mates could be done freely by the students, a frenzy craze of finding last minute partners to work together broke out the day FYP Selection became available online. SMSes and emails few across devices and even across borders from students on overseas attachments and immersions programmes.

I personally received a few SMSes on offers to be project partners, hey thanks dudes, me long "attached" liaoz haha. I even help "match-mated" my fren doing attachment in Shanghai with other fren here in Singapore. I felt so accomplished at times.

The FYP commitee even came up with this online site where students without project partners could leave their particulars, contacts and interest online so that other FYP students could search for "lonely singles" easily. Seems to me like an online dating site.

Some post on the site looks like this:

XXX: Intrested taking a project under the information engineering section. Pls give me a call or email me.

YYY: Hi, I am interested in Digital Signal Processing. I fell in love with this topic when doing my UROP project. If you share the same interest, please contact me and let us discuss together. =)

ZZZ: Hi pals..I am ZZZ. Currently I have not found a patner yet. Anybody who have not found ur patner yet ? give me a call please.

Ya of course u dun have a partner, why else post here?

My personal suggestion on the best way to get "hitched" on this site would be to post funky and in style. Hey we are engineers, think out of the box man! Post what other do not post, have fun and get the attention, haha!

Some post like:

"Hey i like to scold professor pigs and paint the town red at nite. Meet at zouk tonight and check me out k?"

"Yes you! Ya you, dun hide. You, the one right infront of the computer screen! Yeah, you with the pretty face."

Or write a love poem: Roses are red, Violets are blue, NOT, NOR, NAND, AND are gates, You are my date!

If you are totally out of ideas, you could post your friendster link or your blog site so people know you mah. Yo, any ideas out there do comment yah. Thanks, all for the fun of it.

Even before FYP starts, i have already turn bonkers. i wonder what happens when the new terms starts.

All the best to all "singles", do "FYP" soon!

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

FYP - Find Your Partner Part 1

FYP incidentally also stands for Final Year Project...

Actually in the first place it does means Final Year Project. But FYP being used as an acronynm for Find Your Partner came from this electronics lecturer during my first year in NTU. Yah its most probably electronics or circuits lecture, guess only NTU's EEE lecturers do so frequently like to give crappy jokes in lectures.

Find Your Partner literarily means finding a boyfriend or girlfriend in the university. Actually this is really a good idea, since most of our time is spent in the sch, its definitely an opportunity to find your better half. Whats more most of the students are within our age group, no generation gap. Unless theres 师生恋, hmmm unlikely in NTU bah, Prof G perhaps? haha... somehow through our project discussions, i find her a "me wan diamonds" person, and i'm refering to big diamonds, haha perhaps perhaps.

Still vividly remember HK crapping before we entered university, saying that freshmen year is the year to get hitched, as we have comfortable timing to go "pak tor", play and still get through to 2nd year. And if you are not attached after year 1, then hey hey, goodbye, no chance anymore, as you see the school work load pile up and squeeze you of your life juices. Being out of the army jungle for 2 plus years, we nodded regliously at the golden rule: Get hitched while a freshmen.

Somehow things didn't turn out as what i hoped. Ya i joined orientation, hall activities, made friends, but still nobody to make 爱心早餐 for. Err maybe there was, but i was too "hiam" then perhaps. Guess freshmen was the only year i "biah" hard for studies. Sort of had this inspiration to be a "zai" engineer after i graduate. Nah, now turns out to be bullshit these days.

And then... the freshmen year blew past with books, year 2 with much more fun with the hall kakis...

The result: 敲着木鱼,等待 double bachelors.

Maybe the golden rule was true.

Double bachelors refers to graduating with the actual Bachelor in Engineering and being the real bachelor in life. GR even wished me of not becoming one during last christmas. Somehow the coming of the selection for FYP deems my actual fate realising soon.