The last time I been to a tutor's house is 2 years ago. I went to Mrs. Yeo's place. I have to, since my mother paid her good money to teach me English. Today, I went to my class tutor - Mrs. Koh's place. She lives in the same condominium as my uncle. What a coincidence. She lives in the same apartment number as my uncle too. What a coincidence. Did I mention she knows my uncle too?
The class met at Bukit Batok MRT Station at 11, well, supposedly. Blame it on the cursed alarm clock perhaps? The self-appointed chairperson decided the meeting time to be 11 and announced the 10 minutes grace period. I believe everyone reset the meeting times to the new time slot - 10 minutes after 11. You can't change it, it's in our heritage.
The self-appointed great one looks at around and asked we should leave. I looked around and told her we ought to wait a little while more. Her highness looked back with a smile. Not a Mona Lisa smile, it's a Monica Lewinsky smile, a smile that seems to be suggesting, "I'll get you good".
I am seldom late and since I live with walking distance to the MRT Station, I better not be. The late-comers did arrive in the end. Percillus, may God bless the Queen, moved off promptly. We reached Mrs. Koh's place and surrendered our Mandarin oranges to secure an entry ticket to her rather-small apartment.
Mee Siam, something like "spicy vermicelli", was served for lunch. Mrs. Koh makes a good host, treating us with Roti Prata after Roti Prata. ["Roti Prata" is crispy Indian bread, ideally served hot.] Soon, I was full. I mean, after eating 3 Roti Pratas plus Mee Siam, plus Mee Siam serving 2, who can't be full. To make matters worse, Mrs. Koh then took out 2 cans of Coke. Shawn, otherwise known as the spokesperson of Coca Cola, took one and Yong Liang passed me the other can.
I think it's a good trip, it's been a while since I last gone out on Saturdays. Saturday is my stay-home-and-use-computer day. Just to digress, I'm going to change my life style. Adding more flavor to it, adding more studying to it too. You see I haven't been studying. Oh, I reached my preferred post length, no need to digress back already. Ciao.

[In case you're confused: "self-appointed chairperson", "great one", "Her Highness" and "the Queen" all refers to the one and the same person - Percillus - our beloved chairperson.]

Every time I post something, I always want to put a title for my post. Most of the time, the title is determined before I start typing. However, there are exceptional cases. Either way, it works. A title is given just to identify the post. Obviously, it should do well suggesting the content of the post.

The same thing for songs I guess. A title well chosen is just as important as producing a good track. Judy and Mary released their 11th single in 1997 titled "Kujira 12 Gou" which means "Whale #12". It's a nice song, with a strange title. I read the translated lyrics and still have no idea why's it called "Whale #12". In fact, "kujira" (whale) is only mentioned twice. There's no mention of the number 12 too.
Well, at least there's mention of dolphins. I can't say it's positive though.
Now to think of it, Judy and Mary is a name of a band that has 3 guys and a girl.
I have encoded 1min 40sec sample in WMA file proprietary (Windows Media Audio 9; 20 kbps, 16 kHz, stereo 2-pass CBR) for you people.
Download the sample from here (260 KB). [In Internet Explorer, right click on the link and choose the option "Save Target As...". Download it quick, as I'll remove it on February 09.]

I do not see the link in the lyrics. One moment it says "I'll save my lover who was abducted to the demon's castle", then it's followed by "hold(ing) me while I try to touch the twinkling stars".
My favorite part of the lyrics - I want to kick like a dolphin until I'm numb. At first glance, I thought it's "I want to kick a dolphin until I'm numb", which is rather amusing.
This is a feel good song, I listened to it, I felt good. A peep at the translations once again verify the fact that a good song doesn't need smart lyrics. Doesn't need smart song titles too.

It's Thursday again, four and a half hours of consecutive breaks. I don't hate breaks, but I can't love that four and a half hours break too. Originally, the plan for today is to watch Tom Cruise in the cinemas doing some killing (from film - Last Samurai). That didn't happen. Instead, we went to Zhi Yuan's house and watch Zhi Yuan in his room doing some killing in Tekken 4 with his game console.
The plan was nearly perfect, asides for playing Poker, Dai Dee, Blackjack, Playstation 2 games, FHM (For Him Magazine) and watching Ben over-reacting while playing games. Anyway to summarize, we went to his house for Poker, Dai Dee, Blackjack and Playstation 2. I don't get this Poker game actually. Neither Blackjack too. I just don't see the fun in it at all. As for Dai Dee, well, it's alright I guess. I'm not into card-based games.
So I ended up playing console games. Zhi Yuan popped in Tekken 4 and initiate a competition with me. What's Tekken 4? I am clueless before playing, it's some fighting game that is like Dead or Alive 3 and Soul Caliber 2.
The game started - Zhi Yuan vs. Me. Wait, let me recall when's the last time I held a game controller. 5 months ago perhaps? Oh, it's a Playstation 2 controller, I never touch it before. I touched the XBOX one at a gaming store 5 months ago. My virgin try on the Playstation 2 controller.
I gripped the controller tightly. Zhi Yuan gave me some advices. The others stop playing games and start watching the game. [All has never play this game before.] I tested the buttons out. Okay, so this is kick and this is punch and this is kick and this is also kick and this is also kick. Now how the hell am I going to play?
I slide my thumb across all the buttons of the right. My character jumped, kicked and punched. Wow. I start pressing buttons at random. I wasn't even looking at the screen all the time, I was talking to Yong Liang.
Zhi Yuan's character seemed to be badly injured after subsequent blows from me. I don't even know what I pressed! Soon, he's dead. He can't believe he lost!
Round 2. I did the same method as before - pressing buttons randomly. Our character's lives are depleted very quickly. Zhi Yuan made the deciding move in the end and my character is lying on the ground motionless. Final scenes are replayed. Zhi Yuan was overjoyed.
Round 3. I looked at the screen carefully, still determined to use the random pressing method. We exchanged heavy blows. The K.O. (Knock-out) sign flashed on the screen, ending the game. The others laughed and cheered. Zhi Yuan can't believe his luck. Neither could I believe mine.

Lectures can't be any more boring with Miss Ho teaching. Think about it: the first time I ever fallen asleep in a class. I do have to admit it's just 4 minutes according to Zhi Yuan's timepiece. I don't fall asleep in class, with a simple reason - I simply can't.
With the lecturer talking and talking, I really wonder how folks like Feng Li and Shawn can just drop dead on the table. Well, I guess when there's a will, there's a way. The other problem is the lecturer's watching that awakes me. I can't sleep when this lecturer is surveying the classroom. Miss Ho's lecture has only 16 people, and out of 16, only 14 turned up.
Miss Ho speaks very clearly. With an accent. I can't really tell but it sounded American. To be exact, it sounded like Days of our Lives. She speaks melodiously. In Singapore, I am very used to monotone lecturers hence she's quite unique in a way.
She reminds me of my past English tutor - Mrs. Yeo. Mrs. Yeo does speak like her in a certain sense. I find Mrs. Yeo's speech captivating. It keeps me awake. [Plus Mrs. Yeo is quite funny herself.] I won't fall asleep in her class.
I guess slight differences do matter. Miss Ho's class is boring, even with her voice. Zhi Yuan complained that her accent is "very fake". I can't really agree or deny with him. Miss Ho probably studied overseas before and imported that way of speech.
My eyes surveyed the class. Shawn seemed to have drifted into dreamland. Another down. Just how do these people sleep?
I looked at Zhi Yuan's time piece again, the lesson has only past 30 minutes and it seems like an hour already. My eyes grew weary monitoring the digital watch refreshing every second. I feel my strength is departing me. I rest my head on my arms, shut my eyes slowly.
I slept.. [..although only for 4 minutes.]

There's a 2 hour break from 12 to 2 in the afternoon. Ben, James, Shawn, Yong Liang and I headed to Jurong Point for our lunches. We returned to school late. The 2 hour break is simply not enough to go out for lunch, because lunch is not just lunch. Lunch is lunch plus Initial D Arcade Stage 3 and Out Run 2.
I left for Jurong Point with them hoping last week's history won't be brought forward. We were late last week too. We went to Jurong Point too. I watched them play Initial D and Out Run too. History is sure good at repeating itself.
Unlike eating at the Kopitiam on the third floor last week, we went to eat at the Banquet on the basement instead. We placed our bags on our respective seats and left to walk around to look through the variety of food available.
I don't feel good when my bag is not monitored by myself or at least someone whom I trust. What if it gets stolen. It is unlikely that bags would get stolen in the food court, however the possibility is still there. It's a trend to find the seat, then look for food in Singapore.
We need something there to book our seats, can't be taking our bags away. The trend in schools is usually to leave our bags on the seat. But any wise man will point out the dangers of theft. Schools are generally quite safe places, so if your bags disappear, you'll be first to suspect your close ones playing a prank on you.
There's a strange trend in Raffles Place too. I called it "tissue booking system", TBS for short. The key in TBS is tissue. You need to bring packets of tissue paper. I used to work at Raffles Place area so I've seen lots of it.
When you find your seats, presumably with your colleagues since Raffles Place is more of a business district, put a packet of tissue paper on your seat. Your colleagues should really do the same. It's a sign that this seat has been taken. No bags are left there. [Most don't carry bags out of their offices during lunch breaks, that might explain.]
Raffles people sure have their interesting habits. If I were a visitor to Singapore, I would have thought the food court has such good service to offer me tissue paper on the seats. I'll just take the tissue paper and the seat.
I supposed the TBS still have some flaws. It's recognized by working people in Raffles, I don't think it'll work if I do it at Jurong Point. However, it's still better than putting bags on the seat, inviting glances from thieves. I rather my seat and tissue than my bag taken.

I realized some terms will be unfamiliar to non-Singaporeans so I give a brief guide. Jurong Point is a local mall in western Singapore. Raffles Place is a place in central Singapore. Initial D Arcade Stage 3 is a Japanese import arcade game that's quite popular with car lovers. Out Run 2 is, well, another car arcade game. I don't play those. Kopitiam is the name of Jurong Point's food court, "Kopitiam" is literally translated to "coffee shop", translated from Hokkien dialect. Banquet is a Halal food court. "Halal" means "lawful" in Arabic, so it supposed to be a Muslim friendly place to dine at.

Fifth day of Lunar New Year. Rainy. Highs and lows at 29 and 23 degree Celsius respectively. And a school day for me.
Lunar New Year is a rather long event. It lasts 15 days in total. China have holidays during the 15 days. Sadly we only have 2 days. I was happy that Saturday and Sunday were positioned in such a way where I can stay away from school 4 consecutive days.
But still, Monday comes. My mother woke me up at fifteen minutes to seven. I uttered some nonsense to her while half awake and took an extra few minutes of nap.
I looked at my time table. Great. 2 hours of Metabolic Biology lecture followed by an hour of Molecular Biology lecture. I don't like these subjects. The word "biology" is turning me off right now.
It wasn't long [three weeks to be exact] when I realized I'm behind the class. I simply don't understand both lectures. Metabolic Biology isn't that bad, it's just plain boring. I watched Triple M cracked some jokes. She's a very stiff person. Her jokes aren't so funny. Many a times I just sit at the last row of the crowd finding meaning in her jokes. She can be quite a corny lecturer by the way.
Our class tutor happens to be teaching us Molecular Biology. I really have to be careful of words that comes out of my mouth. Zhi Yuan made a joke about getting red packets during Lunar New Year from her. She took it seriously and we somehow ended being instructed to organized a class outing to her place. [It is Chinese culture to go to friend's house to exchange Mandarin oranges and well wishes. A red packets is often returned as a token of appreciation kinda thing.]
We planned to go to her house of Wednesday actually. Unfortunately, things don't work out as she has to give a talk to the Year 1 Diploma of Biotechnology and Medical Technology students. So Ernest jokingly offer help, presumably that she will end earlier with his help. She took the offer seriously and offered 5 minutes of talk time to Ernest. Obviously, Ernest turned it down, I'm glad he did. I can imagine him trying to tell not-so-funny jokes to freshmen.
School then ended with Visual Basic Programming lessons. That's Zhi Yuan's favorite class. I thought it's okay. I am currently a step ahead of the class, finally more one module. Phew. That's just because I do occasional Flash ActionScript programming. And they have some similarities, except for the fact that Visual Basic is much harder. I never have to declare that "x" is a Boolean, string, short, long, single, double before hand in Flash. So I think it's a bother basically.
It's a bother basically in Visual Basic. Haha. Basically in Visual Basic, get it? Haha. You don't? It's such a basic joke. Haha. A basic joke basically. Haha. A Visual Basic basic joke basically. Hahaha.

So one of my favorite Japanese artists sang an English song. However, I'm not too eager to support him. He is known as Gackt, full name [so he claims..] is Camui M. S. Gackt (神威 楽斗, Kamui Gakuto). He claims his birthday to be July 4, 1540, that makes him over 400 years old. He must be thinking that I'm a 3-year-ld to believe him.
Gackt was part of Malice Mizer before he went solo. His shoe size is 25.5 cm, 10 inches or size 8. [What the hell am I thinking to give shoe sizes..] So anyway, Gackt sang an English song. In Engrish to be exact.
Japanese pronounces English with much difficult, so speaking in English is quite a problem for them and now Gackt sang the entire song in English, correction, Engrish. Pronunciation problems are arose from different stress in vowels etc.
I included a portion of Gackt's song "To feel the Fire" and the lyrics for that portion. "To feel the Fire" is a song written by Stevie Wonder for a Kirin beverage commercial called "Fire". [Okay, "Fire" supposed to be some coffee brand..]
The lyric part with the italicized squared parenthesis [like this] is the actual lyrics. Those without are just lyric that sounded like what Gackt is singing.
I have encoded 1min 30sec sample in WMA file proprietary (Windows Media Audio 9; 32 kbps, 32 kHz, stereo 2-pass CBR) for you people. This is the highest quality I encoded so far, it's 32 kHz too! [Previously was 16]
Download the sample from here (374 KB). [Download it quick, as I'll remove it on February 02.]
Just take a listen to the song and you'll realize that Gackt's lyrics sounds more like The Japanese Flannel's version.
My favorite lines include "I get butt-sore every night", "I come with stuff that rhymes with 'C'" and "You can make a bunny hop if you don't ride the goose". Now I know what to do.. Since I don't ride a goose, I'll make a bunny hop. Gackt sure gives good advices.
 

There won't be a new layout this month. There are some reasons for it. Firstly, I have no idea what to feature. Also, it's Lunar New Year so I'm rather busy with eating those new year goodies. Lastly, I really like the current layout.
I don't force ideas to come out of my head. Every time I tried to do that, things don't work well. I do have a rather interesting way of generating ideas for my layout.
I do not plan my layout then start looking for the image. It happens the other way round. Often, I find myself browsing through galleries and galleries until I find a picture that I really like. I tend to look for images that I can fit in my side bar.
With the image, I start to imagine how a layout will look like on my bed. The bed is an excellent spot to think in my opinion. Just don't fall asleep on course. After much planning of layout in my brains, I'll attempt to construct the layout with Photoshop.
I always start with erasing the background, you can try using the Background Eraser for it. But for inexperience users, just stick with the Eraser, it gives you more control. Frankly, I sucked at using the Background Eraser.
Usually, the images I obtained from galleries are of good quality already, so I don't usually do sharpening and stuff. But if you were to face with that kind of trouble, er.. just pick another picture okay?
The key thing about making a layout is how to slice your images so that you can make it into a HTML document. That can be rather difficult for starters, all I can say is that practice makes perfect [almost perfect, no one is perfect]. You'll soon figure slicing images does require some brains, don't slice images without planning the tables before hand.
I recommend everyone to use a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, it's a must nowadays, it speeds things up so much. Please don't listen to those ignorant old fashion fools who preach to you that the real way of coding HTML is by typing in a notepad. That fellow needs to be awaken. WYSIWYG editors like Dreamweaver and FrontPage allows users to code HTML too. Oh, and don't listen to those people who slam either Dreamweaver or FrontPage. Truth is, those people only used either one of the products more than the other, it's not a fair comparison. Dreamweaver MX 2004 [released in 2003 actually] and FrontPage 2003 (as part of Office family) is available in the market.
I'm happy to help people with Photoshop. I used to code with Dreamweaver, but I'm using FrontPage right now. I can only help with FrontPage, my Dreamweaver can't launch. I do a bit of Flash too, but I think I'm in the below-intermediate level, only ask me if you're a beginner.
Lastly, some of these programs aren't easy to start with, especially Flash which looks totally revolting to start with. FrontPage 2003 has the Office 2003 interface so it may be easier to use than Dreamweaver MX 2004. As for Photoshop, well.. there's a reason why it's my favorite program you know.

I am in school for 4 hours today. 1 hour is spent for Mrs. Mak's Basic Immunology class and another hour is spent on Miss Ho's Database Management Systems class. Attendances of our class are 6 and 4 respectively, our class have a total of 16 people by the way. Such miserable attendance sure disappoint the lecturers, but there're classes as usual.
School ends at 1, and we strolled slowly to meet Hua Ming and Jin Yao at Outram Park MRT Station.
Most countries have a Chinatown so Singapore has one too. I'm really tired when I reach there and got pulled up to a clothes store and watch them buy clothes. There's a totally boring period, I almost slept there. I began to wonder if I am going to spend my entire day watching a couple of guys going in and out of different clothes.
Thankfully, I wasn't. We proceeded to Chinatown soon after. It's quite crowd in the afternoon already. Some shopkeepers are shouting to promote their lunar new year items.
They're shouting things like, "yo, bun roller bun roller bun roller". Nope, they aren't selling bun rollers, they are just calling for "one dollar". I thought these people are really amazing. I mean, if I were to shout like that, I'll last for an hour only. All I can say in typical Singaporean language is, "Wah, their voice very solid sia". [Translated to be - "<Exclamation!> Their voices are very strong".]
I bought some lunar new year foods, those cookies and stuff. I am not good at choosing those things, I don't think they look nice at all. I bought 4 boxes of Chinese goodies, small boxes though, but they're quite cheap, at 50 cents each.
A huge black video camera is approaching us steadily. Yong Liang and Jin Yao quickly walked away. A sweaty reporter popped out of nowhere hold a microphone with a familiar Channel U logo. [Channel U is a television channel operated by Mediaworks.]
So the reporter turned to Hua Ming and start questioning him. I walked away promptly. The camera man aimed the video and shot Hua Ming. The reporter begins her question. Hua Ming gave some rather lame and useless answers. He is very nervous too by the way. I watch from afar guiltily.
At 10 in the evening, I turned on the television to Channel U News. I see a familiar guy, a small-framed guy, looked nervous, and quite funny, wearing red. He looks so familiar, lol.

So the global browser statistics are out (again). OneStat.com conducted a survey on the global browser market. The winner is not of any surprise, with Microsoft Internet Explorer conquering 94.8% of the market.
The current leading browser is Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, seeing their percentages increased by 1.8% from 66.3% of July 2003 to 68.1% of January 2004.
Newcomer Apple Safari has seen a slight increase of 0.23% from 0.25% of July 2003 to 0.48% of January 2004. Soon it'll be displacing Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 with a 0.7% share of the market.
Mozilla has also seen some growth, with lots of technology geeks showing support for their Firebird browser. With 1.8% of the browser share, they have got lots of catching up to do, but these things take time. Individual statistics of Mozilla software, like Netscape, Firebird, Thunderbird and other possibly birds, are not provided.
You've seen it, Microsoft Internet Explorer is still number one. As for the moment, no browser can substitute Internet Explorer. It is still the browser to generate most codes correctly, just simply because most webmasters test their pages on Internet Explorer only. It's the thought of why should I waste my time to test on other browsers.
There are a few reason Microsoft won this game. First of all, Internet Explorer become free years ago, causing Netscape to suffer loses. [Netscape used not to be a free browser.] Then Microsoft bundle it with Windows, and claimed Internet Explorer is Windows, so they can't remove the browser when the operating system. Plus, Netscape killed themselves by not ironing the bugs in Netscape 4.0 before it is released. Microsoft added lots of additions into Internet Explorer which is not supported by other browsers.
By the way, Internet Explorer is the most non-standard browser I ever seen. I see many web sites with semi-transparent layers and colored scrollbars. I just want to let you people know that I can't see those stuff with Firebird (Mozilla).
Anyway, Internet Explorer 6.0 Service Pack 2 will be out soon, with an in-built pop up stopper, I think they are the last to adopt that feature. Microsoft has finally awoken..

The people are complaining again! You see, local newspapers has increased their pricings by 20 cents on news stands and 10 cents on subscription based papers.
Local press - Singapore Press Holdings - announced such bold moves a week ago and it has gone onto effect already. The increment of newspaper cost is the worst thing to welcome the lunar new year with. And Singaporeans, being Singaporeans, voiced their opinions out rather critically.
Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) has seen their profits increased last year, so the price increment is basically made to earn more cash. SPH also operates the money-losing television station - Mediaworks. SPH's top-selling paper is The Straits Times.
The clear rival for SPH is MediaCorp which does television as well. MediaCorp also has a newspaper called TODAY. TODAY is a free daily newspaper, it's a joint venture by 3 companies I think. I think it's MediaCorp, Singapore Mass Rapid Transit and Singapore Telecommunications.
So everybody who is angry about the price hikes posted their opinions into forums. Into TODAY's forums in particular. TODAY is so pleased about these complaints that they place the reader's opinions on the top of their forum pages, sometimes even highlighted. Topic headlines like "Read TODAY instead of The Straits Times" can be seen.
TODAY happily ran articles against The Straits Times and SPH. I have to admit that it's always nice to read their articles, lol.
SPH is trying to get newspaper readers to turn to subscriptions by offering a 10 cents incentive to the cost of each paper when you do a monthly subscription. Apparently SPH wanted to secure their subscription customer base. For what then?
About 2 years ago, MediaCorp has obtained a licensed to do newspapers, they rolled out of their free paper - TODAY. It's a better of time that MediaCorp goes into paid daily publications. [MediaCorp does have a paid newspaper but it's a weekly paper.]
Both companies aren't doing very well in the television competition. It is seen as impossible for 2 television companies to co-exist in Singapore. It's probable one of the companies will end up buying over the television assets of the other. [I am not speculating this possible merger or buy over, the Senior Minister or some big shot commented on this.] If that's the case, I believe MediaCorp to end up buying over Mediaworks.
Now that I completed my post, I'm wondering what spurred me to write this..

I was flipping through my folders and double-clicked on "Hitoribocchi no Haburashi.wma". It's the song from a Japanese drama called "Mukodono" (ムコ殿) [Fuji Television, 2001], roughly translated to "Son-in-law". This romantic drama stars Tomoya Nagase, the front man of band, TOKIO, as Yuuichirou Sakuraba (桜庭裕一郎)and Yuko Takeuchi as Arai Sakura.
It is about a popular star, Yuuichirou Sakuraba (sometimes spelt as "Yuichiro Sakuraba"), who is known for his cool personality. But he is not as cool as his fans thought when he marries into the family of his love interest, Arai Sakura. [Japanese traditions state that women marry into men's family, so the other way round is considered somewhat a disgrace.] He has to juggle with releasing of his upcoming single - "Hitoribocchi no Haburashi", and his new and rather eccentric family.
[NOTE: All names are formated as such - First name, Last name]
In 2001, Tomoya Nagase released a single with the song "Hitoribocchi no Haburashi" through the name "Yuuichirou Sakuraba", his on-screen role. A photo book soon followed up, under the name "Yuuichirou Sakuraba" too. "Mukodono 2003" (ムコ殿２００３) [Fuji Television, 2003] is released in 2003 [of course] with Tomoya Nagase back as "Yuuichirou Sakuraba" and a totally new crew. Noriko Sakai plays Minami Ishihara, Sakuraba's love interest. It's a parallel plot, the drama lacks chemistry. The only other person that is back is Tsunku as Takuro Komine. Tsunku [just Tsunku only] is the brains behind Hello Project which includes MiniMoni, Morning Musume and PucchiMoni.
"Hitoribocchi no Haburashi" means "Lonely Toothbrush". "Ha" means "tooth" and "burashi" is the katakana-ized version of "brush".
I have encoded 1min 48sec sample in WMA file proprietary (Windows Media Audio 9
20 kbps, 16 kHz, stereo 2-pass CBR) for you people. Stereo is back, I encoded in mono the previous time, hehee.
Download the sample from here (281 KB). [Download it quick, as I'll remove it on January 26.]
I really liked this song. I normally take less than an hour to compile these lyrics and blog them, but this time I took 2 hours. And why's that so? I was singing along with the tune.
3 days ago, I was struggling to find some lyrics to display for my Friday slot. I can't find any that time. This afternoon, I filtered Windows Media Player for Japanese song and random them. This song is the first one I heard. So, once again, I really liked this song. So I decided to go check out what Nagase is singing about.
About a lonely toothbrush?
It's very creative to sing about toothbrushes nevertheless. I guess this isn't the perfect love song to sing for a girl.
I'll continue to sing this song, see ya. [haburashi wa itsu mo no you ni..]
 

I will be posting music//roku on Saturday, that is tomorrow instead. I'll be going to my cousin's house to play badminton.
Apparently, he ended up joining the healthy club to decrease his weight. In Singapore, this special club is called the 'Trim and Fit Club', basically it's TAF Club for short. If you invert the letters, it kinda turned out to be "FAT Club" isn't it.
Seeya tomorrow then. I'm staying over in his place too. Updating tomorrow. :)

Zhi Yuan told our class tutor that guys doesn't need make up lessons. Well, guys certainly don't. Actually, let's retract the previous statement. Men are splashing more money into make up nowadays. Fashion design Jean-Paul Gaultier launched a men's line of make up products last year named "Tout Beau Tout Propre", which includes powders, lipsticks, eyeliners, concealers and many others. Loreal [L'Oréal looks nicer though] said that 21% of men used skin-care products against 4% in 1990. Figures are expected to fire 50% next year. [Source: TODAY, MediaCorp Press Ltd]
Believe it or not, I just spent a paragraph introducing men's make up and it's not exactly with much connection with my post. The make up lessons Zhi Yuan is referring to are classes that cannot occur due to a holiday hence it's brought forward or something.
You see, the Chinese Lunar New Year is coming, it's coming next Thursday and Friday. It's a bigger new year than the New Year on January 1st in Singapore. As I say, it's on Thursday and Friday so a number of classes will be affected.
In particularly, Database Management Systems.
You're probably wondering what the hell is that. It is hell, I tell you. It's some module to teach students how to manage a database system. Oh, not clear enough? It's about managing a database systematically. Okay, think about a company that needs to keep a record of all their workers. Just think Walmart okay, since they have so many employees, they ought to keep a record of their people all over the states. They can't possibly be storing employee information in the respective supermarkets only. It's neater and more accessible that way. We use Microsoft SQL Server, one of the database managing software.
We had make up lessons for this module today. 1.5 hours to be exact. This module is taught by a 45-year old teacher. I'm just guessing her age to be 45 by the way. She speaks in this very strange accent that sounded American, at the same time, not American. [I am guessing her accent, I am not good in differentiating Americans from British as now both sounded more and more similar.] She speaks like she's singing, that's not something I usually hear in Singapore. [I'll blog about Singapore English soon.]
I was most awake in her class, but not listening to her. You see, Ernest and I were talking about some games and graphic cards advancement thing. We aren't exactly listening to her of course. It's good to see Yu Zheng actively questioning the teacher while Ernest and I discussed the prospects of Longhorn (codename for Windows XP's successor).
Now to think of it, I might as well not attend her make up lessons. I wonder is Jean-Paul Gaultier conducts make up lessons.. It would probably have been more interesting.

My class was welcomed into this semester with lots of breaks. We hired Tailor Neilson Sofres to conduct a survey on the popular activities to perform during such break times. The results are surprisingly not so surprising.
Dai Dee tops the survey for being my class' most popular card game. A Chinese card game where 4 could play, Dai Dee is a competition of wit that requires a standard set of poker cards. The introduction of Magic: The Gathering to my class by pioneers Yong Liang and Shawn has failed to threaten the survival of the well-loved card game. New players in the field include Initial D card games. Although these Initial D cards failed to ignite much excitement from the class in the beginning, pioneers James and Zhi Yuan continued to do much promotion by performing public game demonstrations. Will Dai Dee's position finally be toppled? Analysts do believe strongly that Dai Dee is ruling for at least another 10 years.
Food Court 1 manages to top the charts despite the renovation of Food Court 3. Food Court 3 undergone major re-branding efforts by adding better selections of local food to student. Food Court 1 seems to be underestimating the current competition. Analyst conclude that the only factor that cause Food Court 1 to be the undisputable winner in this category is its location. Located at the very end of Singapore Polytechnic, students with shorter limbs would certainly prefer a nearer choice.
Badminton see its popularity dips on the fourth quarter of 2003 but made a successful comeback in first month of 2004. Revived by Feng Li and I just yesterday, badminton once again reclaim its title as the Official sport of my class. With the entire class population playing badminton at least once, one can deny not that the Official sport has indeed lived up to its name. Various sports, such as tennis, has attempted to surpass badminton's mark on the surveys, however novelty to such sports died down within weeks.
Much for the analysis, a few other worthy mentions though. The ridiculous break conditions has force the class to sought other method of entertainment. It has been popular for my classmates to dine outside despite the ever-glooming local economy. There's much hype on Initial D 2 arcade machines from some boys in the class recently. A newly introduced arcade machine called "Out Run 2" is popular too.
Finally, due to the clear unpopularity, the school library is not included in the nomination list.

Note: This post is not written to mock the surveying skills of market giant - Taylor Nelson Sofres - I think they're a fine and pink company. Very pink logo.

This news caught my attention. I didn't know Adobe Photoshop CS has such interesting technologies in their applications.
I don't think Adobe and the others have the right to include such technologies without telling the public about it first. Plus the legislation hasn't been in action yet I believe. Damn, now I've got to find other software to print currencies. Opps.

Xinni sent me a joke a week ago, I thought it's quite funny. I'm into this type of jokes nowadays.
I love political jokes. If you're wondering who is Nelson Mandela, he is the South African President [don't know if he is still], won the Noble Prize for Peace. He's probably the record holder of President who is arrested the most times, lol.
Huh? You don't know who's Bush? You must be kidding, get out of here.

On a side note, for the aftermath of midnight//ring, SingNet called me at 10:26, telling me they have solved the problem some time ago. Er, yeah, I noticed.. That's quite some time ago.

You know, Singapore is being featured in episode 24 (titled "Hard Luck Woman") of Cowboy Bebop. There is no mentioning of Singapore in that episode though. I recognize the Merlion is the Faye Valentine's video tape. If she were to ask me where's this "water sploosh", I'll gladly tell her the "water sploosh" is in Singapore, I'll offer her a tour around the island too. [pketh, I have finally finished watching Cowboy Bebop, it's an excellent anime, the good things are indeed at the back. Now the problem is, where do I get the movie, lol.]
Let's dumb Singapore aside, there's something more interesting in episode 24. A song. Very soothing song that unfortunately, have less than a minute of air time. The song is sang by Aoi Tada, who voices for a character named Ed (a girl). By the way, Ed's full name is Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV.
This song is titled "Wo Qui Non Coin", composed by Yoko Kanno. I have encoded 3min 26sec sample in WMA file proprietary (Windows Media Audio 9, 10 kbps, 16 kHz, mono 2-pass CBR) for you people.
Download the sample from here (275 KB). [Download it quick, as I'll remove it on January 19.]
The first time I heard this song, I thought it sounded like a sad love song. Ed must have really love the dog, Ein. Ein (Welsh Corgi) is a data dog developed at an illegal research laboratory.
This song doesn't sound like Ed singing too. As you can see, this song is quite meaningless. And if you have noticed, only the Japanese lyrics have been translated. What's the other language then?
French. Well, not exactly. It suppose to be French with all the "j'eu" which means "I have" and "j'eu suis" would be "I have am". It meant to sound like French, but anyone who understands French won't get what Ed is singing about, thanks to pseudo language song writer - Yoko Kanno.
Kanno composed many of the songs in Cowboy Bebop and she probably decide to write a French song but stumble to her biggest problem - she doesn't know French.
Basically, the reason why I chose this song is not because of the Japanese lyrics, but the French lyrics. I mean, the supposed-to-be-French lyrics.
 

Just a while before midnight, I picked up my phone and start dialing a number. It has been quite some time since I last called before midnight, I wonder if it is actually alright. And then I heard a lady's voice. In a deep and husky voice she spoke, demanding my absolute attention. I listened obediently to her somewhat robotic voice.
"..for general enquiries on products and services, please call.." she commanded, "..for broadband technical enquiries, please press 1..".
I have been using SingNet as my internet service provider (ISP) for 6 years and I believe that I have made at least 1 call to their technical services every year. I am always kinda embarrass when they ask me for my username because I understand that a crosscheck with their systems would also reveal the number of times I called. I wonder if I were the record holder in SingNet 's technical support line.
SingNet 's a good ISP, they have answered my question well, especially when my first question is so vague that it goes like, "Why has my internet got no connection?". Most of the time it's a hardware problem, so I should have actually called Compaq which is my previous PC's brand. But you know, Compaq has shitty customer services, they just want to get their computers sold.
Blog*Spot is causing problems for me. Basically, I can't access any sites hosted by Blog*Spot. The worse part is that that includes mine. It didn't take me long to suspect it's not my computer's problem because most of my friends using SingNet can't view the damn domain.
So I gave SingNet a ring at half past eleven, they have phone support till midnight. Like most phone support numbers, I got a recorded message to navigate me around their services.
I do know a thing or two about these recorded messages. Firstly, it's all powered by robotic women. Yes, not just human, must be a woman. Not just a woman, she has got to have one of those BBC robotic newscaster voice. These recorded messages are used to divert attention and make people give up in calling technical support.
Take my favorite ISP as an example, the lady requested in the pre-recorded message for me to "try rebooting my computer first as I am waiting for the technical officer as it usually solves the problem". It didn't, Blog*Spot is having problems for days.
Then I got diverted to the menu. The lady commanded me to call different sets of numbers for specific technical supports. Finally the actual main menu comes as she tells me to press <1> for broadband technical support. Yes, that's what I want!
So the technical guy answered. The good thing about SingNet is that they have enough technical people and I never waited for long, unlike that dreadful Compaq and put me into the 20 minutes queue. SingNet is smart to waste 2 minutes of my time by putting me on a recorded message. I would have screamed "Why the f*** can I not access Blog*Spot?". Er, f*** means "fish", you know those that swim. Oh, you don't get me? Of course you don't, there're so many different species of fish, there's puffer fish, clown fish, selfish and well.. puffer fish. There're so many types of fish, you probably don't know what I'm referring. I'm actually say "Why the puffer fish can I not access Blog*Spot?"
So he checked and he can miraculously access it. Then reconfirmed that I can't. He put me on hold with some stupid classical music for 10 minutes, I am sure it's ten minutes! He's probably at the loo with his favorite computer magazine or gathering with his colleagues at the coffee corner discussing about their boss's bad hair days.
He finally came back and provided me with a solution which is to access through their proxy server. Okay, that worked. He also assured me that the problems will be fixed as soon as possible and I should not be using their proxy servers necessarily.
Today, I checked my blog. It worked, this time without me having to insert a proxy. Damn, am I in good mood or what.
As for what really happened, Blog*Spot is never down, but on December 31, they updated some DNS stuff (they call it DNS snafu or something, not sure). I think that caused a problem when SingNet didn't refresh their servers or something. This is only affecting SingNet users who are not accessing through a proxy server. So basically, if you're using dial up, you're safe. [SingNet Broadband does away with the proxy thingy.]
This, I believe, is the post that contains the most number of words.

I remember.. Oh God, so it's one of these "I remember" postings again. Please forgive me, at least until I figured a better way of starting my post. Now to think of it, I could have used "I recall.." too. Anyway, I recall.. All right, what am I suppose to recall?
Isn't a brain such a magnificent device. It has seemingly unlimited memory space but information tends to leak out of it. Information just get deleted without warning! There isn't a conformation dialog box to say "Are you sure you want to send 'I need to hand in my Chinese homework today' to the Recycle Bin ?". It just went straight into the Recycle Bin ! Then when your Chinese teacher mentions about the homework, your brain checks the Recycle Bin and said, "Chee.. I didn't know it's here!".
So normally, I keep another copy of such important information on a piece of paper. It's back up you know, just in case my files went into the Recycle Bin without my knowledge again. It does help to a certain extend, until..
The brain chunked "Locations of my to-do list papers" into the Recycle Bin as well. So my brain didn't know where my back up copy is found.
So I went to school forgetting what I'm supposed to remember. And since the back up copy is gone too, I forget what I forgot. It is until my classmates or teacher mentioned about the work that everything flows back from the Recycle Bin.
Now, I have a new problem. I simply can't trust myself on the details I remember. I daren't call my old classmates' name simply because I am not confident enough about getting their names right. I just say "hey" and "yo" to start a conversation, praying hard they won't quiz me for their names.
But names aren't that bad, I am terrible at remembering numbers. If I were to be told to meet at school at half-past-two, I'll be wondering if it's two or half-past-two. After a while, I'll start wondering if it's fifteen-minutes-past-two instead. And just simply because I don't trust my memory about going at half-past-two, I most probably end up at meeting at two. It beats being late. [Unfortunately, it usually turns out that my friends are 5 to 10 minutes late, so I always waited longer.]
My only solution, currently, is to jot down the location and time immediately after I planned the meeting. This method works very well, until..
The brain chunked "Locations of my to-do list papers" into the Recycle Bin once again.

First day of my semester is today. [The reason I am not phrasing my sentence like "Today is the first day of my semester" is because I am avoiding starting my posts with the word "Today".] New Year Day is never like a new year day as I start my semesters on July. I don't feel like my year is starting over again. It's more like, I am in the middle of it. It's rather confusing, I can't phrase it very well too, hope you'll get what I mean, lol.
I had my first lesson with Mah Mun Moey or Mah Moey Mun, something like that. She's Benedict's father's friend's wife, hence it makes Benedict her husband's friend's son. Crap. Let's just called her Triple M, inspired by the wrestler with a similar name - Triple H.
So Triple M went on to introduce herself and by the way, she took so long to take the attendance. I don't think she, like most lecturers, is aware of the invention of the microphone too.
But she's such a nice person and let us of an hour and a half earlier. Before I can be anymore excited than Arnold Schwarzenegger winning the Californian elections, I was reminded of the fact that I have another 2 hours of break. Henceforth, totaling up the 1.5 hours break with the given 2 hour break, it is apparent that I have a cumulative 3.5 hours of break. Which is nothing to be excited about.
We left at around 8:45 and headed to Food Court 1. So we settled down. And we stood up. Before we know it, we settled our lunches too.
It's good to see my classmates again. It seems that nothing much has changed. Xiao Juan has volunteered to be the chairperson. I don't like people volunteering for these positions. I'm not jealous that she gotten the position. I don't want to be the chairperson anyway, I don't mind treasury jobs though, not that I'm going to embezzle funds and get myself into trouble. WorldCom? Martha Steward? Enron? Well, these aren't really about company embezzlement.
I am studying Visual Basic this semester. I am quite excited about it actually, although I pretend not to. I mean, I am not really excited about the language, I know nuts about it, I am excited that I can manage a web site after a year. I always wanted to manage my own web site at my own domain and manage content with server pages. Since I am studying Visual Basic .Net, I guess I can only do ASP or ASP .NET.
One thing, I still don't quite get the link between programming and biology.
By the way, I can't view my blog through.

I can do postings with Blogger, but I can't view my blog through Blog*Spot. But there's temporary solution for it. You can access my page from my mirror front page at:
http://web.singnet.com.sg/~tengkw/beconfused.htm
or through http://beconfused.blogspot.com/?noCache=2004013115
so Serene's site would be http://www.serenetsubasa.blogspot.com/?noCache=2004013115
and xia's site would be http://xia-fantasy.blogspot.com/?noCache=2004013115
I found this method when I miraculously get to open my page through the Blogger preview pane and I immediately copy down my address. Seems to work for other's Blog*spot blogs too. This method works for me, I don't know if it works for you guys. It seems that there's some problem with server refreshes with my Internet Service Provider. It use SingNet by the way. Can't say more than that. Hopefully the "ordeal" will end.

I have a black coffee table that my father used as a television stand. I know it's really stupid, but my father does these strange things quite often. I mean he works in shifts, quite free at home, need some sort of entertainment, although I do have to admit my mother doesn't quite approve of his entertainment techniques.
I looked at the table again, and realize some features in it. It has a slot on the bottom to chunk newspapers and stuff. But I saw a different use for it. I thought it's a brilliant place to slot in my feet to do sit ups. And since the television is on the table, there's a certain weight to it hence the table doesn't go moving around.
So I anchored my ankle? Okay, I anchored my feet to the table and start doing sit ups.
"One."
"Two."
..
"Seventeen."
Okay, I wasn't feeling very well after only 17 sit ups. "I'll do till 20 then," I tell myself.
"Eigh.. no.. wait.. Was it sixteen or seventeen before? Seventeen? Sixteen? Okay, I'll continue from seventeen. Seventeen."
"Eigh..teen"
"Nine....teen"
"Twen......ty"
So I did it, I did 20 sit ups and I am feeling this pain around the stomach muscles. This pain that I feel when I bend my body. It's so bad that my stomach muscles felt the pain for 2 days!
Morals? I have a few. Firstly, don't do sit ups too fast, especially after the fact that you know you haven't been doing sit ups for the past 2 years. Secondly, if you can't continue, don't continue, there's no need to aim for a figure that is a multiple of 5. Last but not least, count properly, don't do extra sit ups, it's not worth it, at least in my case.
Some people says singing helps to ease pain. But you know, these stuff are totally crap anyway.
"Go away, pain; go away, pain.."

[I can do postings with Blogger, but I can't view my blog through Blog*Spot. It is very irritating, maybe there is something wrong with server refreshes for my ISP (Internet Service Provider). Use the tag-board if you have urgent matters, that's the only thing I can view. ]

So it's Friday again. As usual, I post some Japanese lyrics. It's from an anime again, they just simply have very strange lyrics. This one has a catchy and fun tune. This song is by Funta, titled "Wake up Angel". It is also the opening theme for Pita-ten, an anime.
Funta is a two-person group, the female , UCO, does the vocals and the male, HIDE [I think] does the rest I suppose. Unfortunately, there aren't much sites for Funta, not even Japanese one, let alone English. You can find their official website in Japanese only here. I see lots of Qoo [beverage marketed by The Coca-Cola Company] stuff there though.
The lyric translation is not full, just the part that appear in the anime's opening theme. I cannot find any translations from the internet that I have to get the translation of the lyrics from the anime itself; I look at the screen and type the lyrics out! I got the translations from fan-subbed copy of Pita-ten by the good people of #Anime-Keep and #Animehaven from irc.enterthegame.com.
I have encoded 1min 21sec sample in WMA file proprietary (Windows Media Audio 9, 16 kbps, 16 kHz, stereo 2-pass CBR) for you people.
Download the sample from here (172 KB). [Download it quick, as I'll remove it on January 12.]
It's really worth listening, plus it's a cute song too. I mean which other song starts with "Even if my cooking's really bad, I can still buy at a convenience store"! I can't cook so I have to pay heed to Funta's advice. I encoded 1min 21sec unlikely previously, just 38sec too.
It has nonsensical lyrics, "zenbu wakaranai" [I don't understand anything]. I don't understand why she's wishing "Hello, Wake up Angel", "Hello, I say 'I love you'" and "Hello! Merci chao I love you!!". And what's "Merci chao"? I am quite sure it's not a character name.
It's from the anime Pita-ten, which is about an elementary school boy whose life is being invaded by his new junior school female neighbor, Misha. It isn't long after that he dreamt flying above Tokyo city with Misha. But is it just a dream?
What better an opening theme than a crazy one for an equally crazy anime. It's comedy su~. [Misha likes to suffix her sentences with "su".]
I found this link through Hailey's blog. It's about common words being used in year 2003. Comes with top ten charts too, lol. Check it out, interesting stuff.

NOTES: If you can't find #Anime-Keep and #Animehaven from irc.enterthegame.com, try #Anime-Keep from irc.MircX.com and #animehaven from irc.bakanet.org. These are IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels, you would need additional software to access.