Went to Singapore Expo yestreday for the PC Show to check out the promotion they have on Canon A80 digital camera which I had lost (see 4 Apr 04 entry). I wanted to check it out because I had just bought another one on Monday at another promotion and they were being sold for $605 including a 128MB compact flash card. As this promotion only last till Monday, I had to weigh the option of getting it at the PC Show (price unknown) or get it immediately at $605. However, I did not realise that 3rd June is on Thursday instead of Wednesday. So when I was there, I found out that the PC Show has not even started!.

Luckily, there were other events at the Singapore Expo. First was the Metro Warehouse Sale which Lynn decide to skip and at another hall there was a Food Fair going on. We went to the Food Fair and tried on a lot of free samples which the vendors were handling out to customers to entice them to buy. Ate a bowl of fish maw soup which tasted yucky. Luckily, I also bought a bowl of abalone noodles soup wich tasted heavenly. Ate a few more items, before bidding farewell to Singapore Expo without knowing the price which Canon was offering for their digital camera.

Ivan and King Koon went down this afternoon (actual day) and checked out the promotion for me. Thanks goodness, I did not held up my purchase from the first promotion as Canon is offering the A80 at $699!

Monday: While surfing the net and chatting as usual, my pc shut down unexpectedly by itself. Fearing the worst, I rebooted my pc and ran a virus scan. To my horror, I was infected with the above 4 viruses. As I had never installed any anti-virus software. I immediately shut down my pc. Tuesday: Arriving in school, I seeked advice from my Technical Advisor, who gave me a anti-virus software. Upon installing and updating the latest definition files, I did another scan and luckily this time were able to delete away those pesky viruses.

My advice is to get a good anti-virus software due to the virulent and propagation of virus these days.

A friend of Lynn went for the annual Creative Technologies Sale so I asked her to help me buy a Creative Webcam Pro EX. Since it is a sale, it cost only $29, originally sold for $139. On the left is the first shot I took since I installed it. Now I need to find ways to use it sine I don't have much firends who communicate through video conferencing stlye.

Attended a IT briefing this afternoon in Teachers' Network which is near Orchard Road. Went to Takashimaya after the briefing to purchase a SIGG-600ml bottle which I had lost months ago. Alas, I could not find it in orange colour (my fav colour) and when I enquire from the sales staff, was told that they had sold out and would not be bringing in orange ones anymore. This is because SIGG releases new colours every year and do not produce old colours save for red colour. I walked to Isetan at Orchard and found that they have all the colours except orange, ARRGGGH! If any of you see a orange 600ml SIGG bottle sold somewhere, do tag me so I can go and get it. Thanks.

Today, I did something completely out of the ordinary after I came home from work. I iron a total of 10 T-shirts! Usually, Lynn does the ironing except when she is too tired. If it happens, I will just iron my own shirts and pants to last a week. Other than that, I do not iron any other clothes. If you have never iron before, it is hard work. It makes one perspire and uncomfortable. I think I better start helping Lynn with the ironing as the pile of clothes that needs ironing never seems to empty. I reckon just 5 pieces a day and I should finish at least all my own clothes.

After the above ironing, I went out for my dinner. Now to get to the coffeeshop near my place, I have to pass by one of my friend's house. I looked up as I was passing it and saw that my friend (Liang Yin) should be home from the lights from his house. I was thinking maybe I could visit him to while away an hour or two. So after dinner, I called him to invite myself to his place. Watched some serial on channel U before coming home to blog.

The Australian post office has issued a line of Harry Potter stamps. [Link]

Haven't been blogging for a long time because I have installed too many games in my computer. 1) Beyond Good & Evil, 2) Unreal II, 3) Frozen Throne, 4) Max Payne 2, 5) Brood War, 6) Reign of Chaos, 7)Mame, 8)Wzebra. Although these are the games installed, I have actually only played 'Beyond Good & Evil' and 'Reign of Chaos' mainly. Just in case you think I am missing or dead, I am still alive and well.

Great NYT feature on the dwindling importance of Mickey Mouse as a character, and the attempts of the Disney organization to reimagine Mickey as a relevant character today.

"I was around 6 when I first saw him," [Maurice Sendak] said. "It filled me with joy. I think it was those primary colors so vivid and pure, taken up with the most incredibly beautiful animation, reminding you of Fred Astaire. Oh! And his character was the kind I wished I'd had as a child: brave and sassy and nasty and crooked and thinking of ways to outdo people." The joy leached from Mr. Sendak's voice. "Not like the lifeless fat pig he is now."

Mr. Sendak is hardly alone in mourning the mouse's decline. "Boring," "embalmed," "neglected," "irrelevant," "deracinated" and, perhaps most damning, "over" are some of the adjectives that cropped up in recent interviews with people in the cartoon, movie and marketing businesses. [Link]

Premier magazine compiled a list of the 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time. Not actors, characters.

Here's the top 10:
1. Vito Corleone of The Godfather
2. Fred C. Dobbs of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
3. Scarlett O'Hara of Gone With the Wind
4. Norman Bates of Psycho
5. James Bond of Dr. No
6. Annie Hall of Annie Hall
7. Indiana Jones of Raiders of the Lost Ark
8. Ellen Ripley of Alien
9. Jeff Spicoli of Fast Times at Ridgemont High
10. Gollum of Lord of the Rings. [Link]

Somebody put a lot of work into this: "The COmic Book Periodic Table of the Elements". Click on an element to see a list of comic book pages involving that element. Click on a thumbnail on the list to see a full comic book page. [Link]

Why is this day the worst day of this year? Cos I lost my digital camera which I had bought less than 1 month ago. Arrgghhh! This is the second time I have lost something in a cab. Maybe I should swear off cab from now. That's $700 down the drain.

He's teamed up with Batman, Wonder Woman and The Flash to save the world, now Superman has teamed up with Jerry Seinfeld for an Internet based commercial project for American Express. The 'Webisodes' chronicle the daily exploits and unique friendship between comedian and Kryptonian. The four-minute piece, entitled "A Uniform Used to Mean Something," co-written by Seinfeld and directed by acclaimed film director Barry Levinson, is a humorous glimpse into a day-in-the-life of pop culture's latest "odd couple." [Link]

A gigantic photomontage created by Kodak scored an entry in the Guinness book of world records, and took home gold at the Effie Hellas 2004 Awards. The photomontage - titled "The Whole of Greece in One Smile" -- is comprised of 16,609 photos of Greek citizens, and covers a surface area of over 5,000 square feet. [Link]

An Elegant Gothic Lolita, EGL or Gothic Lolita for short, is a Japanese teen or young adult who dresses in amazingly elaborate Gothic looking babydoll costumes. On the weekends these women walk the streets of Tokyo and Osaka and fill Yoyogi Park and Harajuku neighborhood where they pose for tourist’s pictures and sit around looking pretty. They are beautiful, glamorous, doll-like manifestations of their favorite Visual Rock stars. [Link]

Uploaded a few photographs from a workshop I attended and the 2003 Singapore Open Othello Championship. Also added are 2 pic I taken during the NTU Inter-hall Othello Competition. [Link]

Take the smooth moves of Cary Grant. The cool style of James Dean. The witty imagination of two master animators. And what have you got? One of the coolest cartoon characters ever created...the Pink Panther. Part movie style idol and part mischief-maker, the Pink Panther went on to be one of the most famous animated characters of all time. [Link]

Another 14 days have passed. I am posting less and less. I read an article the other day about the proliferation of blogs, or rather the demise of it. The article informed me that blogs are not as rampant as most people think and many do not update their blogs. It goes on to say that blogs are not dead although the author has not updated for a while. Blogs need not be updated regularly.

Went to the IT Show on Thursday and walked around for 3 hours without buying a single item. Just compared a lot of digital cameras as I was looking at buying one. The Apple booth has a few G4 with broadband connection so I just used them to research digital cameras. The sales-person did gave me funny looks a few times though but they left me in peace once I told them I am doing some research on cameras. Lynn(wife) went back the next day and got a Canon A80 after finally comparing and discussing throughout the night.

I also started taking motor-cycle lessons. Theory lessons was on Monday and Tuesday and practical lessons will begin next Thursday. Will be buying a helmet and gloves this morning.

Cynicism seems to have become society's defining attitude, whether about politics, pop or celebrities. Take this test to see if you qualify as a cynic. Specially for a friend who was "born and raised as a young and cynical Singaporean girl". [Link]

The 47 Society is dedicated to exploring the phenomenon that is 47. In short, 47 appears to be the quintessential random number of the universe. In other words, when a number appears randomly, more often than not, that number is 47. [Link]

Again, it has been days since I update my web. Unlike students who seems to have lotsa time even though they complaint that they have too much homework, adults usually are busier!

Last week has been extremely hectic for me, besides the usual admin duties, I had to draw up the accounts for 2 meetings within a week. Note that I am now discussing my daily grind as readers of my web have been noticing that I do not talk about my life. I guess I would change my content a little to include some semblance of me in case they never come back. Hahahaha!

Plus I am certainly playing too much Warcraft instead of reading blog and surfing interesting sites. I just got the game in December (yes I know the game is 2 year old) and has been trying to win the multi-tasking computer opponent. Did not had much luck till a colleague showed me his replays. Went back home to try out some of the tactics I learned and am now proud to say that I am winning the computer 100% of the games. Saturday nights are now spent playing the game over Battle.net with 3 other colleagues and sometimes students who are lurking in the game rooms. Used to be reading blogs and surfing web on Saturday nights so this also explains why I am updating less often.

A little boy throws stones into a pond and discovers a principle that may explain how the whole universe comes to exist. For Maths, Science and Astronomy lovers. [Link]

A very unfriendly web site. [Link]

Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to demonstrate how emotional Russians can be. What you are going to see here is a collection of different states of emotion as usually experienced in Russia. [Link]

Follow the girls through all six seasons and all 94 episodes. For each episode, you can get a Story Highlight and view their Dating Diary, The Look, Girl Talk, their Address Book and the Inside Scoop. "Defining moments in dating, fashion, and girl talk.' [Link]

Gallery of Valentine's Day cards that are full of bitterness, exquisitely expressed. [Link]

Every once in a great while, the world is utterly captivated by an entertainer who has charm, grace, dignity, persistence in fulfilling his dreams. The #1 website dedicated to the Man, the Myth, the Singing and Dancing Legend--William Hung! [Link]

I haven't been posting for nearly a month now. Reasons and excuses are aplenty.
1)Chinese New Year preparations
2)Bought Warcraft III with a few colleagues and have been playing with them online at nights.
3)Been reading more blogs rather than surfing the internet.
4)Preparations for my NSmen Training aka Reservist (I am actually currently doing my NSmen training from 30 Jan to 5 Feb).
5)Took the clique advice of "go out to meet the world more"
6) And lastly, workload.
I am sure those of you who has ever maintain a blog or webpage have at least once run out of ideas and did not update or post anyhting for a period of time. Well, that's what happening to me right now.

New year new resolutions? Nah! more like new year same old resolutions.
1)Exercise more.
2)Pass my IPPT test
3)Learn something new.
Seems like I've always for the past 5 years, achieve only one of the above. Guess which one? It is actualy the 3rd resolution. 3 years ago, it was French lessons, though I have stopped going after 3 months. Still it is something new right. 2 years ago, I joined a non-profit organisation (Othello Association Singapore) and helped them in organising 2 National Competitions. I have just this year, resigned from the Association to work on my other projects. What projects? Dunno yet! Will inform once I know. Hahahaha! And last year, I went for a basic Weiqi lessons and learn Macromedia Flash MX in December.
This year, I have decided to take up a motor-cycle license, and would most probably begin lessons in March. I do already have a motor-vehicle license but a car is just too expensive in Singapore.

A publicity-shy Russian researcher who labors in near-seclusion may have solved one of mathematics' oldest and most abstruse problems, the Poincare Conjecture. Evidence has been mounting since November 2002 that Grigori "Grisha" Perelman has cracked the 100-year-old problem, which seeks to explain the geometry of three-dimensional space. [Link]

"Stop-Motion Studies" are a series of 5-or-6-frame flash documentaries that chronicle David Crawford interactions with people on public places (mostly subways) in cities around the world. The aim of the project is to create an international character study based on the aspects of identity that emerge. The movies are run-together stop-motion flickers shot with a digital camera, intended to illustrate the in-motion body language. [Link]

Aaron Swartz was invited by the New York Times to write an editorial explaining why he thinks that file-sharing is ethical, but before the piece ran, the Times edited it, because they "had decided not to tell kids to break the law." However he has published the whole piece on his blog. [Link]

Miss Digital World is the first ever virtual beauty contest, strictly for the most beautiful and intriguing virtual models made using the most advanced 3D graphics tools. The pageant is a beauty contest for digitally-rendered women, for example Ananova, Lara Croft and the above digital model courtesy by Beans Magic Co., ltd.. [Link]

This LiveJournal post explaining how to apologize and accepting apologies is a fine read. [Link]

Caterina Fake is sewing a dress entirely out of labels from other clothes, and she's soliciting raw materials for the project. [Link]

Magnus Karlsson is the man behind Dreamworld, a Dutch company that makes flash movies/films for the internet. You can see some of their works in the 'improv' and 'flash department' sections. My personal fav is the 'Budweiser Parody'. See the site intro here or skip the intro using the link. [Link]