stupid internet

so annoying!!

ok so after 24 grueling hours of COS duty i finally reach home on Sunday morning .. only to find that the internet wasn't working!! my brother tried fiddling with everything but couldn't fix it.. so dammit!!! no internet on the ONLY day that i come home the whole week!!!

so i was just.. randomly clicking and trying Internet Explorer every 30 minutes hoping for some miracle which never happened. in the end just ended up trying to get chris' hard disks to work and after fixing and unfixing the USB cables 12390812 times i finally got them to work!
so now i have 4 new games on my PSP, 20++ songs (ok maybe more. but.. i just picked the songs that looked nice. lol yes, LOOKED nice. by the title/artiste) and 'Step Up' which i've already watched but i just uploaded it anyway so that i could do SOMETHING with the com.

i tell you ah, without my trusty PSP, my life would be miserable and i would be severely depressed now since Internet wasn't working.

Walao! i'm really damn reliant on internet. everything i do with the com is INternet related. chat on MSN (i realised that i talk to about 5% of my contact list. what's the use of having so many people added when i dont chat with them? hmm. ) , play warcraft 3, dl new games for my psp, dl new movies for my.. erm, psp too.. (omg am i gonna get arrested)
apply for uni.. research on stuff.. check up on movies.. show timings.. check up on random info..

OMG ALL INTERNET RELATED. seriously i tell you the whole world is going to collapse and go into depression if one day some brilliant hacker comes up with a bug that kills the Internet. all even cause a temporary blackout. then even those who want to commit suicide want to google 'how to overcome suicidal thoughts' also cannot google. kinda ironic isnt it. the internet dies causing people to be suicidal and they want to google how to be not suicidal but cant.

ha ok fine maybe i exaggerated. but think about it! how much of your daily lives involves the internet? by reading this you're already using the internet. doing project work? yes internet. blogging? yes internet.

We are SO reliant on the internet.


and mine better get fixed.

uncertainty

here i am, stuck in camp as i have COS duty on a Saturday. zz. i'll only get to book out tmr morning. but it's alright, i have my trusty PSP loaded with OTH episodes.. and i must say the latest season is quite good!


With some new additions to the cast includes hailey and nathan's little son, jamie... WHO IS THE CUTEST THING EVER!




( ok i think it appears a little pixelated cos i resized it. link here http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ac/Othjamie.jpg/250px-Othjamie.jpg)
Isn't he cute!! he has the squeaky cute voice and facial expressions are hilarious. He also has excellent funny lines. And you know those really good actors who can express emotion using slight facial twitches? He can do that!! he can look really sad, really happy, disappointed, etc just by using facial twitches. talented l'l kid.



it's still done in the classic OTH style, with lucas/whoever's voiceover in the beginning at the end sounding all philosophical and all. Which also made me feel the same way.. in the mooood.

One thing about me is that.. i'm not one of big emotion. when i am happy, i dont exclaim out loud and go all jumpy and cheery. when i'm sad i dont' bawl. when i'm in pain i dont yell and holler. somehow, all the emotion is just capped.

as a result, sometimes i dont express my gratitute and joy enough when i receive gifts, or someone does something to make me really happy and/or touched. Offhand, i can just randomly remember 2 such incidents.

One was when danchoo got together some ppl and bought me a bball, after i casually mentioned i wanted a bball when chatting with him on ICQ (yes, back when MSN wasn't popular yet and ICQ was the craze. remember the 'UH OH' sound? :) )

Another was when my best fren came all the way to boonkeng mrt during my A levels and brought me a 'exam survival package'(as she called it) which is basically this box which was stuffed with snacks and some drinks and a pen to basically.. keep me going.

I was truly touched by both these gestures but i never like.. exclaim 'WOW THANKS!!' or like.. jump up and down for joy or anything.


well, this week i accomplished something which should have made me jump and down for joy.. if i wasn't so dead tired that i was gonna faint. I passed my SOC!! with a timing of 9.48 =)
Ok firstly, that timing isn't very good, passing timing is 10 minutes. but i'm telling you it's difficult as hell . for me at least. it was really a total physical and mental struggle to finish it.

And when i finished it, i was SO tired that when i went to get a cup of water, i placed the cup under the dispenser and filled it up. When i picked up the cup - i didn't have enough strength to lift it and it toppled! i'm not exaggerating ok! it was so freaky. i couldnt even lift a cup of water.

but yay, i passed and that means after i clear my IPPT next week (which i should.. i think), i more or less passed this course. just have to survive through grandslam and taiwan :S


And after which, the title of this post comes in. Uncertainty.
Where am i going to go?
Seriously, this has bugged me since 6 weeks ago. and will probably still beg me for another 6 weeks. i wish i could get some definitive answers. or that God will finally answer one of my prayers about this and allow me to have a pleasant life.

ok, another 16 hours for this duty to be over. i can't wait to go home .. and enjoy my short 10 hour weekend -_-

(on a side note, i realised my entries have been extremely wordy lately. well, army makes you think. and .. i express myself best in writing, like one of my teachers once said. and only being able to access the com during the weekends.. the expression just kinda flows out yknow? i could probably blog a 128047891 word long post if i didn't limit myself. i could go on and on . :P )

going

In about 5 minutes, or after i finish this blog entry, i'm going to leave my house to book in to camp. :( stupid army, have to go in at 8pm today. zzz

Anyway, i'm glad _ 's not angry. at least now i go back with an ease of mind.

i'm not going to church next week :( have COS duty (sit in office and answer phone call) from sat morning to sunday morning. so... :( grr. i wanna play drums

talking about drums, i screwed up during worship today!! ughhhh. missed about 80% of my fills for the first 2 songs.. dunno why but dont have the fee--ling. nervous? a little. never play so long already ma, confidence level not high. hope to improve back to my original average level :/

alvin chow is back! he's so nice. he came up to me and said he liked my playing and complimented me although i screwed up so much. I mean, he is a drummer himself, he would definitely have heard the screwups. but he somehow phrased what he said to make it as un-patronizing and nice as he could.
I think he said something like.. 'i like your feel. like the sound u make' or something like that. that is not like 'you played well!!' which is bullshit cos i screwed up so much.

And i think lincoln is a really good speaker! his analogies are SO relevant, or at least he caters it for the youths. he infuses a tinge of humour here and there to keep people awake, and uses relevant modern examples for us to draw parallels to. The prison break example was ownage la.

okok i really gtg otherwise i'm gonna be late BYE PEOPLE.

L.P.Zone

ooh yea bluetooth is working.

ok erm, recently in the recent months (ahh bad english ) i discovered a wonderful new brand of apparel which is both reasonably cheap and stylish. Stumbled upon it while randomly walking in vivo..

L.P. Zone!!


A simple looking yet nice cardigan that i bought from there. It's so nice! i love it alot. 2 more pictures of me camwhoring with it:



You can wear it unzipped with any Tshirt you want inside like this...




Or zipped up like that!
Lol i totally suck at the staring-into-blank-space look that models always do.

The sweater (or cardigan, whatever you call it) is really comfy! soft and nice and slightly elastic at places so it should be a fit-all size. The texture is nice to touch, and it's the ideal kinda sweater which you can just hug yourself when you're cold and feel very comfortable
I love it alot!!

LP Zone also has some nice shoes which i somehow didn't buy (i think i was committment-phobic at that point) and some nice t shirts too (which i already have quite a few and i'm saving money remember) I'm so gonna splurge on the shop after ASLC.. after the circumstances and situation passes.

There are branches all over Singapore, so just go find one and browse around! you won't regret it!

wishlist

i wanted to blog something else but my stupid phone's bluetooth isn't working so i cant upload pictures, so that'll have to be postponed.

anyway, i just felt like making up a wishlist of items that i wanted. i should eventually buy them, but due to.. circumstances, i need to save up. more of that in the future (by in the future i mean like, 2-3 months time)


HOLY SHIT I JUST DROPPED MY PSP!! the cable was kinda taut in front of me with my psp on my com table.. i rolled my chair back a bit and it pulled the psp off!! the battery cover and battery fell off!! zomgzomg.
it's still working.. or so it seems :/ hope nothing happens to it.

ok sorry bout that, back to the wishlist.

1) a new computer
Seriously! my com is lagging and it lags badly sometimes when windowswitching or i have too many windows up (by too many i mean just 4-5 ). Takes ages to start too. I need more RAM!
and more hard disk space too!! it's annoying to keep having to delete stuff. ugh.

2) a new phone
i want a better cam phone, (3-4 MP?) which has functions like wifi and stuff? iphone seems pretty darn cool. one of my sergeants showed me last week. it's not available in singapore yet but he bought from US.

3) More clothes!
seriously, i can never get enough of clothes! i keep wanting to buy more polo tees and more t shirts though i already bought like quite alot in the first half of the year (it just struck me that we're moving into the second half of the year already :o )
shoes shoes! bought 2 new pairs but both were the cheapo type so not say very nice. i want a nice stylish converse kind! or maybe some limited-ed one. ugh. but that'll be quite an investment. and i needa save as mentioned above.

4) a new wallet
i love my current one alot (a present from joelquek and abel) , very stylish and all. but the coin compartment is spoilt! like torn. as a result coins i put in fall through to the card compartment resulting in a very messy wallet.
it's still useable i guess, but.. a new wallet will always be nice :p

5) A new cap
i'm so sad that my Arsenal cap has a white stain on the front ! came from the calamol lotion i bought for my heat rash last time. cannot wash off leh! :(
anyway, i would like some other cap to wear instead of always wearing this. maybe some brown one? but i'm really reluctant to spend like 10 -20 bucks on a cap. ugh.


yes yes, all very superficial material stuff. but hey, when you're in army, you indulge in such luxuries to keep your morale up. it's your only form of.. indulgence.

Alright there's probably more stuff but i'm suffering a mental block due to the fact that i'm feeling v sleepy but i refuse to sleep! cos tonight must bookin damn early (8pm -_- ) as we have live firing tmr. so i must utilize every second out here.
chowz!

yesterday

Yesterday,
all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday

This song just echoed in my head as i remain troubled, since thursday. or rather.. since wednesday morning. at 1am. since that long 1-2 hour talk with vincent widjaja. he just had to put that idea of ___ __ ______ in my mind.
which bugged me for 3 days. till today, when i decided not to go through with it.
Till after the course perhaps.

And then little miss _______ has to put another trouble on my mind by being all ... unhappy with me and all. already msged her to try to resolve things with her. sigh.

i'm so glad i have a best friend to whine and complain and just dump all my problems on. thank god for christabel . she is a good best friend =)

zz needa reach church at 740am tmr for worship prac. we never settled the songs completely today, needa prac abit more tmr. hope i dont screw up.

cryptic on octagons.

Over, under, through.
On fridays cats overflow ubiquitiously, rapidly.
Scan explicitly.

If this works out, i'll be the happiest boy in the world. if it doesn't, i'm gonna need time again to undergo a paradigm shift.

my mind is heavy and my nose is growing and my thoughts are swirling and my gears are turning.

i need this to go through well, and all the rocks in my head will be thrown out. all the swirling will settle down. i need to refine my ______ ______ if i'm going to go through with this. it's gonna be so tough :/

if it doesnt, heavy rocks will just pile up. and i'll slink into depression.

cryptic post ftw.

deceiving ads ftw

just saw this in the papers today.. it's an ad for Kung Fu Panda:



Straight away, when i saw the headlines of : "Singapore's #1 All Time Biggest Opening Film!"

i thought: 'YA RIGHT'.
I'm sure some cartoon (which doesnt even seem that attractive. why is it so popular. i'd think.. finding nemo or something else would be a bigger hit. or lion king? ) is the biggest opening of all time.

And of course, there was a catch. i spotted a tiny asterisk next to that line (not captured in photo).. and when i looked at the fine print below the ad with the * it said: "For an animation film"
CHEY. biggest opening film for an animation film. say la.

But still, it's so popular meh? hmm.

Anyway, the line below it also made me ponder. "guaranteed to warm the ... heart and tickle both young and old"
Note the '...' ? Means that there's missing text. the original quote may be:
"Guaranteed to warm the whole cinema as everyone will be yawning and expelling hot air. Not good for the heart and tickle both young and old"

lol.

and of course the quote below it may actually be:
"This is NOT ultra satisfying entertainment. Total waste of time!"

ok book in time.

an emo post?

i haven't posted any emo sounding post in a long time eh. well that's because i haven't been feeling emo or anything. ok let's not use the word 'emo' it's so... passe. i haven't been feeling.. wow there isn't a better word.
Well, yknow, the feeling where your brain jumps on a million thoughts at once, and your stomach feels a little uneasy, and you find it hard to focus. And you can't seem to smile no matter how you force yourself.

The feeling where you can stare into blank space for an entire minute without even realising you're staring into blank space. The feeling when you start to ponder and your thoughts border onto slightly sad thoughts and your throat almost immediately feels a lump.

I got this feeling after reading through someone's blog..which had many emo entries recently. You know they say a smile is contagious? well being emo is too apparently.
Maybe it's because i'm feeling tired, so the emo-ness sets in rapidly. Or maybe it's because my TV-streaming isn't loading fast enough and tmr is bookin day so my low spirits lead to rapid emo-ness.


There are so many things that are potentially 'make-me-sad' material:

- There is the dreadful 32km route march this wednesday (what if i collapse after 1km? or 10? remember, most cardiac arrest victims show no visible signs pre-attack.)

- i have to book in tmr

- my scalp is rotting. ok not rotting but.. i dunno how to describe it.. like small parts of it is peeling off like scab and it hurts. i have no idea why

- i have infections on my legs and they're both gonna get amputated. lol no i'm just kidding. but there ARE 2 disgusting patches on either leg. They look like scrapes, but they could also be infections after field camp (when i discovered it) If they start mutating i'm gonna go see doctor. Maybe i'll go tomorrow. hmm.

- i wasted 700+ dollars on a specialist which gave me nothing but a lousy medical 'report' which just summarised everything i told him without recommending me to be excused from any training or whatsoever. Dr A.B John at Mount E. rude receptionist, and apparently he's rude too. He has this air of arrogance which just annoys me. :o am i gonna get sued? defamation? how about feedback. -_- see, another point to emo about.

- my psp memory card is too small and i have to constantly delete stuff to replace them with new ones. I can only keep 3 -4 games + 1 show. zz.

- i can't find a totallyawesomeomgthisgamerocks game for my psp. current favourite is Winning Eleven 08, but i may get bored of it soon. playing a bit of FF:CC, but as i said it's freaking boring.


man i can just go on and on.

ah yes, i miss being in love. it's a nice feeling, really. after watching Chuck and other shows with romance in it, it just makes you remininsce about personal experiences and hope for similar romances. Oh yes, when i'm in love i can also write cryptically like 'i miss a certain someone. i wish she will reply my msg'. i can also hide secret texts by writing them in white. Yup, many of my posts in the past (think late november-december 07) had hidden text. =) go find if you're really bored.

So fun! those were the days.

But now in army ahx. no time to pah tor one. so no time to look for girl also. but nvm hor, god will plan and ill meet someone eventually.
omg why did my english suddenly become so broken.
Speaking about english, army really degrades my language, especially the place where i'm in currently where a large majority speak Chinese predominantly and many speak bad english. as a result i get lazy and use bad grammar, etc. This cannot happen! i must maintain my standard of English. rawr.

Ok, enough emoing for now. it's getting late and i need to sleep. playing for worship tmr. with danchoo leading woot. i must say i enjoy playing for him/kel. fun. go figure.

no physical training.. NOT.

From The Straits Times, Friday 13 June 2008 :

"The Singapore Armed Forces yesterday called an unprecendented three-day halt to all physical and endurance training ... Until Saturday, the entire force of 300,000 active personnel and national servicemen will not be on obstacle courses, route marches or doing any fitness tests. Physically demanding field training is also out."


YA RIGHT. So what is climbing up a steep slippery slope for 70+ metres with a 45-50 degree incline? Oh, it is SO not physically demanding. It is nothing! It is just.. a walk in the park! very relaxing!
Huh? what? everyone was breathing heavily as we were reaching the top? No no, they were just trying to breathe faster to enjoy the fresh jungle air.

what? the instructors were all barking and shouting and swearing at the trainees to hurry up and run up the slope even faster to overexert themselves? No no, they were just being motivating and encouraging the trainees.

what ? There was still a fire and movement which involved dashing from point to point? No no.. it was just a short distance sprint which is very invigorating and helpful to strengthen the heart and avoid exhaustion or cardiac arrest.

what? the sun was scorching and draining everyone of energy but the exercise still went on? no no, there was excellent vitamin D supply and so it was deemed healthy and good for the trainees to stay in the sun to get the necessary vitamins.

GG.

Comfort is Comfortable

Woot, booked out today (friday). after some crazy field camp. imagine carrying 20kg of load and running. CAN DIE AH.

then when i come back on thurs from field camp i learn about all the army-related deaths.. i'm just .. sad. i mean, what the hell la. these kids are so young (lol i'm talking like i'm some old uncle) and because of something they were forced to go through (NS BAH. )they .. die.

but it's really very scary la, seeing how people are so susceptible to cardiac arrest and heat exhaustion (got quite a few cases but i think they cover up =X oops did i leak a secret. ok la not they cover up, just that it never leaked out.) , there are SO many times in army when you just literally feel like dying.

Like today, climbing up some steep hill to do some firing from the top, and all the sergeants were like 'HURRY UP )!@*(#!(*JSD" when it was obviously not possible to try to hurry any faster as the ground was slippery and climbing up wasn't easy. I was just waiting for someone to collapse of exhaustion.. then the sergeants will get into trouble. rawr.

Anyway, i just wanted to comment that the Comfort taxi booking service is quite good. i don't know if it was the M1 tracker or their tracker, but when i called just now they actually knew where i was (the answering machine) . And i think they keep records of repeat callers, cos i didn't give my name but the taxi uncle knew my name.


To end, i dont know who the hell 'passerby' is or why he is so interested in my blog (i banned his IP but he used some other com to access), if the arguments continue i'll just delete all msgs, but his recent comment was freaking funny:
"aruging on the internet is like running in the special olympics. Even if you win, you are still retarded."
HAHAHHA.

conclusions

i came to many conclusions today.

Firstly, i conclude that specialists are super money suckers. They earn money quicker than you can blink. Before you can say the amount which they have earned, they've already earned more than that. Try it. say 'Two - hun- dred"
Too late. They've already earned three hundred.

i just went for my 2nd spec visit at Mount E, did a skin test and a short 5 minute talk with the doctor. Guess how much that cost? $210. + the report which costs $150.
?!?!
that equates to about 500 dollars an hour (ignoring the cost of the report)
what kinda ridiculous nonsense!

Well, apparently i'm allergic to dust and some other stuff. They poke me 11 times with some tiny thing on my forearm.. and some areas had swelling, etc. So.. the doctor's gonna write a report to my army doctor. and i'll most likely carry on with the course cos everything is too minor for the army doctor to downpes me. :(
sigh.


Second conclusion i made - one 4gb memory card is not enough for a PSP.
Come on, one game is already around 600-1gb. Let's take the average of 800mb. That only fits 5 games! Add on the fact that you will have songs and videos you want, sometimes movies that you want to store.
I'm seriously struggling with the tiny piece of space. Now it only fits Winning eleven, crisiscore(which i'm seriously considering deleting but it seems like a waste), tonyhawk (which i havent touched in a long time. cant clear mission), bomberman.
Left 400mb which fits nothing. besides maybe an episode of prison break.
I NEED A NEW MEMORY CARD
but guess what, one measly 4gb mem card costs about 70 dollars.
!!!

(i'm trying to draw wings on the dollar but am failing badly)

thirdly, i'm really lousy at warcraft now.
played about 6 games today, lost 4 only won 2. The games that i lost were highly frustrating too. They were not against players of better skill or considerably better. Just.. i played BAD.
So it was highly frustrating. Hence i stopped playing and am here blogging.
Well, i'm also converting Vantage Point to PSP-playable format so i can watch it in camp tmr. haha.

Lastly, amanda is really really bad at bomberman.

word.

Game Review: Crisis Core

So, after playing this game for 2-3 odd weeks , let me just do a short review on it.




The gameplay is entirely different from the normal Final Fantasy gameplay, in case you didn't already know. Rather, it's more of an RPG style format.. if you can even call it RPG.
OK let me touch on the good points first.

The graphics are , well, up to expectations. Detailed and impressive cinematics are part and parcel of the game.
Ok, good points over.

Gameplay is ridiculously simple, with much of it being quite possible to just play with one hand and pressing 'X'. The game creators try to throw in some variety with several minigames along the way.. but they're just too few and rare.
Storyline is a little draggy, and the animation by each character is extremely fixed. For instance, Zack has a folding arm animation which he does in every other cinematics.

The interaction with the environment is absolutely terrible. For instance.. there are invisible boundaries set.. so if you just press forward towards a seemingly open grass area, if that area has a boundary, you'll just move sideways when you hit the boundary.
There is not much you can do besides run in a more or less straight path. (i.e. you can't get lost) You can't jump, you can't walk off a cliff.

Monster spawn points can be highly irritating. There are some points on the map which are fixed monster points.. meaning when you walk into it you will enter combat mode and fight them. But if you just step slightly out and step back into the monster spawn point, they'll spawn again and you have to fight them again even though you just fought them.
This makes it highly irritating where sometimes you move out to open a chest and when you carry on you have to fight again.

The missions in the game are totally unrelated from the storyline and have a paradoxical effect - they're probably there to break the monotony of the game, but they are SO DAMN boring that they make it extremely monotonous to complete all the missions.
Well the 'aim' of each mission is different with a different story(or reason) for each mission.. but they ALL involve just running through a level(mini area) and killing all the monsters. Once you do that.. mission accomplished. -_-
furthermore, the level is extremely small, hence making it very easy to complete. The difficulty level only varies in the difficulty of the monsters present.

All in all, i would say.. it's not a very good game to play, unless you're into FF storylines and just want to watch the cinematics. Poor and boring gameplay, draggy storyline, low environmental interaction = 3/10