Bike is back!!!

I left my bike with Winson since Dec. Thats a long time I have not been riding especially after trying so hard to start cycling again. He has been too busy at the shop, hence the long delay. Its finally ready and it was worth the long wait. I sent the bike to him for an overhaul, my brakes were not bleeded since 2003.

Front and rear tires were changed, shifters and derailleurs removed, added single speed cog, 74 kingz chain tensioner, new chain, rebuild my rear wheel. My favourite part of this overhaul has to be my brakes. Back in the days, we were using Magura's then version of mineral oil called "olive oil". Winson told me the oil is too dirty after years of abuse and replaced it with Magura Royal Blood. I just like the name of it.

Vince jio-ed me to ride on Thur but I have to open shop. Then I told him I don't mind riding in the morning before I open the shop and he said ok! I am gonna fall a lot after being so rusty.

Didn't realise how much I missed my bike till I rode it back from Tampines. Its just the feeling..

Huh?

I was looking through my ext hdd today and came across this folder with a really weird name, "Frombob colurre". How did that come about?! I changed to the list view to see when was this created and it reflected that morning when I stayed till 4.30am in the shop. I must be so stoned that I typed nonsense. I remember instances that night where I was just pressing the keyboard and don't know what am I supposed to do.

"Frombob colurre" is the most original name I ever came with and it makes completely no sense at all.

Icon view


List view

Yo-yo How 2 (Day 2)

Today was the 2nd and last shoot for the instructional video. The weather was terribly hot! My black t-shirt and tight jeans were not the smartest idea but I had not choice. We ended the 2nd episode halfway last Sunday so I need to wear the exact same clothes for the shoot to continue.

Had to speak quite a bit this time and I messed up so much after lunch. Full stomach plus scorching heat and insufficient sleep caused me a lot of NG takes. It really helped to wear gloves this time. I can't really remember why I didn't wear last week but I think it was because I don't want to give viewers the impression that a new spinner needs to wear glove right from the start.

I am happy with Amanda's improvement, it was her 3rd day playing yo-yo and she can do trapeze and braintwister fairly well. Should get her to join classic division for SYYC, the only thing she can't do is loops. I don't have time to teach that because it was not scripted in the shoot.

The shoot were quite long considering they are basic tricks. For all the tricks, they needed several angles such as frontal, side, point of view, etc. For each angle, there are bound to be NGs. Sometimes the tricks may be right but we will mess up our lines. In between they need to adjust their camera angle and focus. A simple trick can easily take 1 or 2 hours to shoot!

I am dead beat by the end of the shoot and so were the guys. Amanda went off first and the rest of us went for dinner. Except for the weather, it was a really fun and good experience with Jon and his crew. Learnt quite a few things about instructional video production. Its really not as easy as I thought!

Wish Jon and his crew all the best for their remaining "How 2" shoots!

Left: Eric (videographer), Alex (videographer), Jon (director), Colin (botakyo)


Can't remember what was I doing this photo. Think I was just fooling around while waiting for their camera set up.

Ext hdd dying..

Boring 0.5.. This is one of my slightly older ext hdd, think it was bought in 2006. Regretted that I didn't backup the data earlier when I could before it started to produce croaking noise.

RC Roadshow

Got home really late last night and it was 5.30am when I was ready to sleep. Calculated what time I needed to wake up and ideally I should wake up at 6.15am because it is a long trip to Yio Chu Kang.

Not getting any younger and I can't do with that little sleep. I just slept past my hp and woke up at 7.15 instead! Had to take another cab down. I can't wait for this month to end cos it has broke my record for transport expenses!

The roadshow as the grassroots club turned out much better than expected. I wasn't too excited about it thinking it will be outdoors, in small tents, muddy grass patches and humid weather. The event was actually in a multi function purpose hall, with air con, proper tables and power points. There is even a backdrop for mounting photos and posters but I didn't prepare any of those. At least the flyers I prepared last night came in handy and the edited videos too.


After the roadshow, I was a walking zombie. Went to see a client in the afternoon who needed assistance with some photoshop work.

Then back to the shop to settle some team issues.

Next to iShop for the weekend class, tonight's lesson was just.....

Back to the shop again for dinner, saw Andrew v.s. "the bubbling red soup noodles".

Came back home to rest. Can't sleep that long either, gotta wake up early tmw morning for the last shoot of the yo-yo instructional video.

Thank god Hakim was able to help me out at the roadshow, Andrew and Hans were helping out at the shop.

Need to hit the bed now.

Leaving now!

2.44am. Still in the shop.

It is 12.23am and I am still at the shop. Just finished preparing the flyer for tomorrow morning's RC roadshow at Grassroots' Club. Gotta be there (Yio Chu Kang) by 8am.

Now I just remembered that I need to edit a video to loop on the laptop for the roadshow. Really need all the processing power I can get now but I left my 2x2Gb ram at home! Have not replaced this one yet!

Hope to catch at least 3 hours of sleep tonight!

=)

What should I do to marry a rich guy?

I usually just glance at those forwarded emails from friends but this particular one from Hanwei caught my attention. I came across it while clearing my emails. It is one of the funniest I've seen!

Title: Young and pretty lady wishes to marry a rich guy. Fantastic reply from a financial person

A young and pretty lady posted this on a popular forum:
Title: What should I do to marry a rich guy?

I'm going to be honest of what I'm going to say here. I'm 25 this year. I'm very pretty, have style and good taste. I wish to marry a guy with $500k annual salary or above. You might say that I'm greedy, but an annual salary of $1M is considered only as middle class in New York. My requirement is not high. Is there anyone in this forum who has an income of $500k annual salary? Are you all married? I wanted to ask: what should I do to marry rich persons like you? Among those I've dated, the richest is $250k annual income, and it seems that this is my upper limit. If someone is going to move into high cost residential area on the west of New York City Garden (?), $250k annual income is not enough.

I'm here humbly to ask a few questions:
1) Where do most rich bachelors hang out? (Please list down the names and addresses of bars, restaurant, gym)
2) Which age group should I target?
3) Why most wives of the riches is only average-looking? I've met a few girls who doesn't have looks and are not interesting, but they are able to marry rich guys
4) How do you decide who can be your wife, and who can only be your girlfriend? (my target now is to get married)

//

Ms. Pretty

Here's a reply from a Wall Street Financial guy:

Dear Ms. Pretty,

I have read your post with great interest. Guess there are lots of girls out there who have similar questions like yours. Please allow me to analyze your situation as a professional investor. My annual income is more than $500k, which meets your requirement, so I hope everyone believes that I'm not wasting time here.

From the standpoint of a business person, it is a bad decision to marry you. The answer is very simple, so let me explain. Put the details aside, what you're trying to do is an exchange of "beauty" and "money": Person A provides beauty, and Person B pays for it, fair and square. However, there's a deadly problem here, your beauty will fade, but my money will not be gone without any good reason. The fact is, my income might increase from year to year, but you can't be prettier year after year. Hence from the viewpoint of economics, I am an appreciation asset, and you are a depreciation asset. It's not just normal depreciation, but exponential depreciation. If that is your only asset, your value will be much worried 10 years later.

By the terms we use in Wall Street, every trading has a position, dating with you is also a "trading position". If the trade value dropped we will sell it and it is not a good idea to keep it for long term - same goes with the marriage that you wanted. It might be cruel to say this, but in order to make a wiser decision any assets with great depreciation value will be sold or "leased". Anyone with over $500k annual income is not a fool; we would only date you, but will not marry you. I would advice that you forget looking for any clues to marry a rich guy. And by the way, you could make yourself to become a rich person with $500k annual income. This has better chance than finding a rich fool.

Hope this reply helps. If you are interested in "leasing" services, do contact me ..
Signed, J.P. Morgan

How many versions do you really need?

Our life is already complicated enough and computers are there to help make our lives easier. Not the other way around where we spend more time trying to solve its problem.

I was helping a client to port her emails over and apparently different versions of outlook have different data formats, making it a real pain to export. Her email data were in .pst format which I believed was from Outlook 2003. Tried to import it to a newer version of outlook express but it was not supported.

On Windows, these are the different versions of its default mail application:
- Outlook 97
- Outlook 98
- Outlook 2000
- Outlook 2002
- Office Outlook 2003
- Office Outlok 2007
- Outlook Express 5.0
- Outlook Express 5.5
- Outlook Express 6.0

Note that I have excluded the older versions of Outlook. It is just an email app, do they have to make it so complicated?

Imagine if I were to go to Carls Junior one day to order a simple cheeseburger but it will be available in different versions like:
- Cheeseburger normal
- Cheeseburger with beef from black cow
- Cheeseburger with beef from brown cow
- Cheeseburger with beef from white cow
- Cheeseburger with beef from white cow with black patches
- Cheeseburger with beef from cow who thinks it is an elephant
- Cheeseburger with beef from cow who likes diving into its dung

On a Mac, there is only one main application for emails:
Mail.

Yes, Mail may have different versions like ver 1, 2, 3.2 but I still consider it as one because its data files can be easily found, imported, exported and transported across macs. There are no legacy format problems or at least the workarounds are much more straight forward. There are other good clients like Thunderbird, Eudora, etc but I am comfortable with the default Mail app. As far as possible, I try to install minimal 3rd party apps.

After trying different methods, I managed to transfer her emails over. I am so glad for her that she has finally decided to switch.

Truly Madly Deeply in Simple Love 2008 Remix by DJan

Last year, I posted a link to DJan (Janrius)'s website where you can download his cool remixes. One of his most downloaded remix was a mash up of Savage Garden's Truly Madly Deeply and Jay Chou's simple love. Jan wasn't too satisfied with that remix so he remastered it again to a 2008 version. This time, he even edited a MTV for it! It is really quite well done. Check out the youtube video below.

Click on this link to visit his blog post where you can download the high resolution video or the mp3 files to this new remix.



Please forward the link to your friends if you like the new remix!

If you really want to know, the track was edited using Ableton Live and the MTV was edited with Final Cut Pro.

How I like to swim in the bushes, shrugging off ants and fishes.

Gorgeous you might say? I win.

Whatever that makes you happy.

Artichoke served on table water.

Friendly external hard drive icon is way less threatening to tech zero types.

How 2

I am too pampered by the air-con in Suntec. Didn't open the shop today because I was involved in a TV programme called "How 2". It is a series of instructional videos commissioned by MDA and Singtel. I am supposed to teach Amanda (the host) the basics of spinning. Don't think I can reveal much but the tricks are pretty basic. We only have 2 days to shoot so there is a limit to what she can learn within these short period but she is picking up quite fast for a beginner. She could do a a trapeze today. I didn't mod her FHZ, stock setup with yellow slick string. Tried to put konkave in her FHZ but removed it in the end because she is not ready for an unresponsive yo-yo yet. =p

The shoot was fine at first till the heat started to build up. It was bad, really bad. Hot and humid weather is one of the worst conditions for playing yo-yo. We changed our strings quite often and the friction pads were wearing out quite fast. I would prefer to use dif but it doesn't look right to bind the yo-yos for a basic instructional video, that is cheating.

I think I messed up quite a few lines on camera. I am not trained on this to begin with but Jon (the director) was quite forgiving. We filmed for 8 hours and ended at 6.40pm. I almost wanted to find a replacement to take over my class at the evening but there isn't anyone. No choice, had to bear with it so I just acted fresh and enthusiastic during the evening lesson.

After class, I wished I can go back home to concuss but I had to attend a meeting in Suntec.

On my way to Suntec, I felt something dropped onto my shirt.. Its BIRD SHIT. WTH! and I got a double hit combo... one on the front of my tshirt, and the other at my back. Can I get any luckier than that? I am not a 4D person but is there a formula to buy numbers for occurrence like this? My head must be reflecting a lot light at night and the birds must be ecstatic about a roaming toilet bowl.

Reached Suntec earlier than the meeting time so I went upstairs to have a quick bath first. Luckily I brought an extra T-shirt. I knew I needed to change because my first shirt will stink after a full day's shoot but I wasn't expecting not one but two bird droppings.

Good things come in pairs isn't it?

Kyan is going to help me close this weekend with a happy note because he just came back from NY with my AppleTV and iTunes gift card! Going downstairs to pick up the stuff from him in a while.

Left: The yo-yos I brought along for the shoot.
Right: The crew - Amanda, Eric, Jon, Alex

Left: Jon (Director)
Right: Amanda (Host)


2 bird droppings at the same time. Can you beat that?

Zelene and her biscuit

Planned to wake up early this morning to clear some work but woke up with gastric instead. Went to concuss again and only woke up at 12.30. Looks like it will take much longer for the inner linings of my stomach to build up.

Zelene was here again for the weekend. Took some shots of her eating baby biscuit.

Singlehood.

Taking a cab back after a day's work and emails. Staring out watching the lamp posts go by. There is no one to miss, think or dream about. The sky remains still. The moment is empty but calm. It is the start of a good rest needed for the next day. Listening to sweet flight closes the night.

Toilet Roll Marketing

How do one derive from my previous post that I think a mac is the best in the whole wide world? I went to read my post again and I didn't mention much about the mac. Just to set things right, I love the mac because it can do the things I need to do within the shortest time possible. The mac may not be the ultimate but It suits me best and I don't think other operating systems can help me in the same way.

Together with Andrew (World 3rd, not the big Andrew) and Hans, we came up a with marketing plan for toilet rolls. We figured that if Lenovo sells toilet paper, their brochure may something like this.

We use toilet paper almost everyday to wipe everything but I have not properly thought about the features it provides. We tend to overlook the small and simple things in life.

I was reading wiki about toilet rolls and there was this part that talks about some countries who cannot afford toilet paper so they have to use other substitutes like the usual leaves, other types of paper, etc.... but what caught my attention was corn cobs! Next time I buy corn cob from pasar malam, I will ask for an "ass brush".

Innovative Laptop

Almost everyone around me knows I am a mac freak. Do I hate PCs? Yes I did but that was years ago. Over the years, I have realised that PCs are vital for our economy so I am cool with them as long I don't have to use one myself. However, this is not the main point of this post.

I have pretty much lost touch with the PC world. Even during PC shows, I will ignore all the PC booths because there is really nothing for me to look at. I am not interested and I don't think I will ever buy another one. So I have not seriously looked through a PC brochure for a long time. At most, I would just have a glance to see the main specs and the price.

Today, I received an email from Mae, it contained a Lenovo brochure which contains some laptop models that she was initially considering for her daughter. Since the brochure was already in my inbox, out of curiosity, I opened the file and it sure made my day.

The introduction mentioned phrases like "distinctive innovations", "help enchance user experience, boost producivity" and "Here's a rundown of the reasons everyone's next PC should be a ThinkPad." It got me excited to look down further to see what it has to offer..

Then I was really amused by how hard they try to sell their product. I was particular interested in their innovative features like:
- Blue Button (wow its Blue!)
- Access Connections (which current laptop doesn't have it?)
- Dual Latches (double the secure latch?)
- Presentation Director (nice try for an alternative name to LCD display...)
- Picture Frame (this has to be my favourite feature!)
- Options Commonality (cool!)
- Stainless Steel hinges (awesome!)

Seriously, do people actually get convinced by such ads? With IBM's huge R&D budget, can't they produce something better or at least have a more professional marketing campaign?

I don't mean to poke fun at Lenovo users. I am just poking at the way they try to convince new users. Nice try though.

Donation for Takeshi

Was sad to read about Takeshi's father's health condition. The write up below was written by Hans and I have put up a small poster on my shop front. If anyone wishes to help, you may drop by to donate. This is a reminder that life is fragile and we shouldn't take things for granted. We may not aways see the person we love the next day.

//

Each and every player in the yo-yo scene today should be familiar when the name Takeshi is mentioned. Assuming one does not know who Takeshi is, here is a little background information about him.

Takeshi Kamisato, known as Mitch to some, or plainly Takeshi, is a member of the Duncan Crew and DXL Crew. He is well known for many of his creative and astounding yo-yo modifications, namely the 'recess mod' which has grown in popularity over the years; his unique and highly entertaining yo-yo clip videos and DVD, which he released not too long ago and his friendly and generous personality. Needless to say, there are numerous players and people out there who can attest to Takeshi's kindness.

Now, some of you may have read that recently, Takeshi has not been very active in the community. This is due to the fact that his father has developed lung cancer and the cancer is spreading fast. The only thing they can do is buy him some time through treatment. They have estimated that he will have 5-7 months before the cancer takes him.Those of you who have been in a family situation such as this will understand that its not easy on all fronts, physically, mentally, financially and emotionally.

Takeshi himself did not ask us to do this. However, over the years, if you can recall, Takeshi has sponsored some of his own stuff as prizes for our local competitions, as well as supporting and promoting yo-yos in every way possible. Here, we are calling out to anyone who would like to help out a dear friend of ours and donate a small sum of money. Once again, no one is being forced to donate.

If you would like to donate, do drop by the Spinworkx store where a donation box will be placed. We plan to have this small donation drive until 27 Apr 08 (Sunday), after which all donations collected will be sent directly to Takeshi.

To care, to share, is to love.

a black spin top wrapped with binding wires

spinning and drilling into the tarmac

splitting the ground and driving down

Move on

Just heard some updates.

I can move on now.

I've been attached for too long to remember the process of courtship. Andrew gives me the impression that friendster and facebook is the norm now but its weird how such matters has evolved to.

Zing suggested that I go for a speed dating session. Thats like asking me to sing or dance, which is a big no for me. Sidetrack a little - imagine myself asking the girl during the musical chairs segment "Can you accept a guy who uses pink for his blog?".

GB

Yesterday.

Was informed by Jan few days back that I have to do garageband demo today for a DJ bootcamp class held at House at Dempsey. I was bored 0.5. Would love to do any demo anytime but garageband is a strain because I can't play music for nuts. I know the software well but I don't feel comfortable because I almost never use it. Although thats what garageband does, it allows people like me to use it to create music. Doesn't matter if it sounds shitty, its my creation after all.

This is not my first time so I do have some idea of what to talk about. Just needed to remember the loops and the positions of the tracks I composed previously. It was like memorizing for exams and it was stressful. I only sleep 3 hours the night before so I am not processing things with full capacity. A mac troubleshooting session in the morning with a macenrich client drained more brain juice away.

When we arrived at Dempsey, it took us a little while to find House. The whole area looks impressive with many chic joints. Clearly a place for yuppies. After we found the place, we were late but they are also running behind schedule so that gave me more time to prepare. I was too tired to memorise the loops sequence and it was intimidating to see a class of about 10 girls, all there for the DJ bootcamp - i.e. they should have more music knowledge than me. I was intimidated but not bothered about it. Took out my yoyo to play while waiting for my turn to present. It is the number 1 time killer.

It was my turn and I planned to finish it within 15mins because I don't think that I have that much to talk about. I wasn't paying attention to the time either. By the time I was done, Jan told me I took almost 45mins! Think I was half asleep and the other half of me just took over and go on and on. It doesn't matter, the organisers were happy with the workshop and all was well. Thats all that matters.

"Analog girl", a local music artiste was supposed to be there but couldn't make it in the end.



Before we left Dempsey, we went to Ben & Jerrys for ice cream. It is the biggest B&J store I've seen so far. Settled for a cone and headed to iShop to prepare for my next class.


Dempsey

@ iShop

Didn't expect it to be a full class at iShop! There were probably about 18 people. I knew that he already knew most of the basics. I don't know exactly what I did different in this lesson but its one of the very few times where people actually walked up to me to thank me for the lesson and asked for my namecard. Last weekend was the worst. On Sat, maybe I went too slow and the class was looking bored and distracted. On Sun, I went a little faster and a guy commented that I went too fast. I was initially upset but I have to come to terms that I can't please everyone. There will be different types of people with different levels of computer knowledge and learning speed every week. There is simply no way I can accommodate to everyone even if I want to.

There was one expat guy who left a particularly strong impression on me, he had this stern look and was paying full attention. He seems to be scrutinizing my presentation. Anyway, he was one of those who walked up to thank me and shook my hand. It felt great to know they appreciated the lesson. I am never satisfied about the introduction lesson because I can barely cover anything at all within 1 hour. Too bad, its a directive by iShop.

Today I received an email from that same guy and it made my day. His first few lines:
"I attended your workshop last night and I just wanted to say how good it was, I learned a few very useful things that will help me get more from my mac. Your presentation was both friendly and practical.

I am a secondary school teacher of English and Drama (across the road from the apple21 shop at Chatsworth International) and want my kids to experience the powerful creative tools, that I am just beginning to explore with my 17" Mac Book Pro, and for them to become digital natives and creative communicators"

Seems that I am getting better at smoking my way through. Not too bad for an engineer who isn't born or trained to give presentations.

//

Today (Sun).
Had a macenrich lesson with a new client this morning. I wasn't sure who she was and what her company does till I arrived at the small building. The signboard says "TBWA" and "TEQULIA\". I knew I either read or heard about it somewhere before but I can't recall at that moment. The reception table at the entrance uses Aeron chairs so it gave me a pretty good idea of their profile. After I met her and asked her about it, I felt embarrassed. Then I remembered reading about them in the papers when they secured SIA as their client. The interior of the building was funky and I love their toilet signs. Despite her position (director), she is incredibly humble.

Its inspiring to meet so many new people from different areas everytime because there will be so much that I can pick up and learn from them with regards to life, business or other aspects.


The building and the interior.


The toliet signs.

Packed Friday

It was another super packed Friday. Woke up by Royston, asking me a rather technical video editing question. He was asking how to key off a person's background. Problem is the subject was not shot on a blue or green screen so its gonna be tricky. Of course the long way is to edit frame by frame and that will quite insane. 5 mins of video = 300 seconds. PAL format has 25 frames per second so it will amount to 7500 frames to edit in photoshop. He will probably every crew on his ship to help out.

Washed up and setup my in house 'cheong' photography studio to take close up shots of a new of yoyojams and the black star case that just arrived the day before.

While transferring the photos into my mac, went through my mails. Found a letter from my insurance company containing a cheque! It wasn't much, only $250 and it is meant as some kind of compensation for my 3 days of vacation in the hospital. This is on top of the bill that they will already be covering.

Opened another letter from the CPF board. They have been sending me reminder letters for months to start repaying my loan from my Dad's CPF for my school fees (both Poly and Uni). This letter says it is a final reminder. I called them up to check what will happened after the final reminder and they said they will take enforcement action on me. Better not play a fool. Called my Dad up to help me waive off the fees. I rather transfer the money to him by cash then to deposit into his CPF which will be difficult to withdraw.

Headed to Suntec, finally had ayam panggang (Indonesian grilled chicken) for lunch. It was the first time since I was discharged from the hospital. Used to eat it almost everyday before that but I dare not touch it till I am sure I am feeling much better. Doctor said curry isn't very stomach friendly.

Was on my up to the shop and received an sms from Cyndi, who was the lucky girl to buy the iPhone. I was this close to buying it myself. I had to pass it because I am bent on getting my AppleTV this month. Have asked Kyan to help me get a 40Gb set from his flight to New York. Besides, my iPod touch is still new and my SE phone is still usable. At first I didn't recognise who Cyndi was, still she told me she was from CEE in NTU. Took me a while to remember that I have seen her around in sch. It will be a fun test if we are given a chance to look through the mug shots of all NTU students during our years of undergraduates, then see how many faces can we remember seeing in campus. The numbers will be big but how big?

After the deal, I went to the convention centre for the retail solutions convention but it was closed by the time I got there. I thought it was from 10.30 to 5.30 but didn't note that it closes at 3.30 on Friday.

Went back to the shop and helped out with store packing. This time it was clearing Art Outreach's stuff to make space for my boxes. I like packing. Think it is therapeutic but I am not a fan of dust. When packing was done, "Brother Muffin" came! He is this soft Philippine dude who goes around the shops selling his handmade muffins. Usually, he comes around the 4th of 5th of the month. Thought he was caught and deported back, being charged for sale of illegal muffins. Hans has been waiting all month to see him but now he gotta wait for another month again.

Adrian came to discuss about Spinworkx matters.

Halfway through, Jon and Amanda came for the rehearsal. Jon is the director for a "How to" tv program. It is a mda project to showcase sports instructional videos. There will be an episode on yo-yoing! Amanda is the host and she needed a crash course on spinning. The practice took a few hours but I am quite glad with her progress. We are only scheduled for a 2 days shoot later this month so its gonna be a challenge.

After the rehearsal, went for a dinner which is already way past my scheduled dinner time. Thank god there was no gastric attacks. After dinner, finished up the credits in the video of Jan's event - iPod Roadshow. Glad to get this project out of the way, took me 7 hours and after dividing by the hours, its not worth my time to take up such projects. Will have to outsource it in future. By the time it was done exporting and compressing in a final mp4 file.

Took the last train home again.

Got home and received a call from Jeff, he needed some help with his Mac. Think it is the 2nd or 3rd time of this year where I spoke the most chinese in a conversation! Bet he must be amused at my degree of chinese.

Kyan came online and confirmed my order of an AppleTV and 2 x $50 GB iTunes credits. 2 x $50 GB? That was what I really sent to Kyan though what I meant was 2 x $50USD credits. I must be really tired.

Bathed and started this post. Multi tasking with watch the last episode (13) of prison break season 3 on my secondary monitor. Is episode 13 really the last episode???

It was a good day. Time for bed. Got only 2 hours to sleep, need to wake up at 7 to prepare for an appt.

Btw, Andrew and Hans, we need to start a speak chinese campaign in the shop. If we donate 50 cents every time we laugh at ourselves, the funds should cover for our dinner at Astons.

The Blue Bee

I can't remember if I have blogged about the blue bee in my previous blog. It is real and not photoshop work. I have seen it on two occasions but I am quite sure they are different bees because the shade of blue is different. Both were seen outside my room when I was living in Hall 15 (NTU). Woke up in the morning, was on my way to the toilet and spotted the blue insect. Took a while to convince myself that it is a bee. It was very photo friendly, staying very still for me to take close up shots. Maybe it was afraid of me.

Why is it blue? That is why I am still wondering why and how is it doing now.

It has always intrigued me. Who says Bees must only be in yellow and black?

Life needs to be more random otherwise we will be slaves following everyone else in motion.

WTH is the happening with me. For the first time, I didn't wake up because of my alarm clock. Gastric woke me up.

Think it was the late dinner last night.

Big Thank You

I finished writing 3 parts of my hospital experience but I forgot to mention the important people who help me through it. When I was ill with all that nonsense, I can't run the shop and rightly I should close it. Shinta, Yoshie and especially Hans and Andrew, they have selflessly helped to make sure the shop stays open.

What would I do without them?

Thank you. I owe you big time.

Not to forget my cheezepie friends who dropped by to visit me despite their busy working schedule.

Hospital Part 3 (Last)

Continued from Part 2.

Day 7 (Thur) - Cont'
I settled down rather quickly and was about to go to the main lobby to use the wifi. Had some urgent emails to send out. Then I realised there was a wireless base station in the ceiling of my ward! Awesome. The connection was very fast considering it is wireless@sg. Then again, how many patients will actually be working in the hospital on a weekend?

Later that evening, friends from cheezepie and spinworkx came to visit. Hanwei brought me a magazine (First). I can't remember when was the last time I read a magazine! The yo-yo guys (Hans, Andrew, Qingwen and Yosh) brought me my favourite sauce from carrefour. They knew I love ketchup and they bought all the brands available. My mum was really amused by what they bought.


It was really great to see them and catch up. I have been so busy with work that I hardly got the time to catch up with friends. Good thing that I was in a private ward otherwise they will be chased out as it was past visiting hours.

Day 8 (Good Friday)
Could have done the ultrasound scan on this day but it was a public holiday. By this way, my condition was improving but still get 'acid eruptions' at times but it was less intense. I tried not to think of work as much as possible and practically watched "24" (Season 5) the whole day.

Day 9 (Discharge)
It was the Sat morning and I was scheduled for an ultrasound scan. Didn't know it is the same system for scanning foetus. The doctor was trying to scan my stomach to see if there are any gall stones. I was worried but was feeling quite confident cos another doctor told me that usually only older men get gall stones.

The scanning went quite alright but it feels weird spreading the gel all over my stomach. Reminded me of the first doctor who applied gel onto his rubber glove on my first night.

After the scan, went back to the ward and started packing my stuff. The doctor came and told me that the scan showed I was alright. My case was a severe inflammation of my intestines, in layman terms - gastric.

I knew that we should not skip meals but I didn't know the consequences of eating at irregular times. Since the shop was opened, work just started to pile up. Sometimes I will have my lunch at dinner time and dinner at midnight when I reach home. When I am working, I don't like to leave jobs half done so I rather finish the current task before I can eat in piece. I was feeling fine all the time but seems that my body was deteriorating all this while.

Thank goodness I bought that insurance policy. I was reluctant to buy it when my advisor was trying to convince me. I can't imagine myself being hospitalised because I have never been before. I thought I was superman and I was trained to believe in mind over body. The mind can take it but doesn't mean the body can. Its time to pay more attention to health.

Important lesson learnt - like it or not, eat at proper meal times. I try not to eat at proper meal time because everywhere will be crowded. Now that is no longer a valid excuse. You may not be hungry but your body has a schedule to release stomach acid at specified time of the day. If there isn't any food there, the acid will start to attack the protective lining of your intestines. It is not a funny matter and the next level up will be stomach ulcers. I heard that will take several months to recover. It also won't give any warning and come as a surprise 'gift' to you.

This incident reminded me how fragile life can be. There are so many possibilities that can go wrong with our health. I was that close to getting it and I am glad that I was given another chance.

These are photos of my other meals in the A ward. I just have to show them, the food is better than what I usually have.

Brand new iPhone (16Gb) for sale

Its not mine. Helping a friend to post. He imported 2 sets and only keeping one for himself.

Asking for $800. He can help you to crack and install all software updates if you need, including ability to forward smses. The initial software doesn't allow you to do that.

Do note that there is no warranty for it in Singapore but so far I haven't heard of much cases with faulty iphones.

Contact me at 90295682 if you are interested.

*Update*
8 Apr
9.45pm - iPhone is reserved.

Back to work

My flu is gone.

Cleared 2 appointments in the morning

1 meeting in the afternoon and yes, AP08 is confirmed - 20, 21, 22, 23 November 2008 at Suntec City.

Gave up on the ghost pads that came stock with Hspin's PYRO Light, replaced both pads to thin Dif Pads and now they play the way I expected it to be.

Sent 35 emails and cleared 100 backlog emails.

Settled my iFast account.

Swam to burn calories. The water was cold at night but thats good cos it keeps me swimming. Need to get a new pair of goggles, not sure what is wrong with mine, keeps leaking.

Took the last train home and back to work again.


Hspin PYRO Light.

Taxi Driver

It was a morning of either sleep or taxi again and I chose the latter.

Got into a cab across my block and the driver's back view reminded me of someone - Kim Jong-il. Of course it can't be him but it was a funny thought to think of 'him' driving me to work.

I have almost recovered from my flu. My nose is unblocked now and it feels great. It was difficult to fight it during these few days as I have to spend long hours in an air-con environment. Thanks to Fergus and Addy's recommendation of Vitamin C overdose. The recommended dosage for adults is 1 tablet a day (1000mg). Ferg warned me not to go over 5000mg. When I asked what will the consequences be and he wasn't sure and guessed at most it will be diarrhoea. I was desperate to recover asap and just overdosed myself, the max I had spread out in a day was 6000mg.

Also.. I managed to confirmed Ferg's guessing of the consequence for vitamin c overdose. To be safe in future, try to keep it within 4000mg.

What are the chances?

Have been using BluePhoneElite as my bluetooth sms application with my mac for the past few years. Was just browsing around to see if there are any new better alternatives.

The first result in google brought me to SMS Mac and it was such a coincidence to see both mine and Hans name on their demo screen shot. Even the "Colin" has the same spelling as mine. Most of the other Collins I know have a double "L" in it.

Think Hans has been spending too much time at the shop.

Store Packing Day

Spent almost 2 days to repack the stocks in the shop. Today was super unproductive because I was sleep walking most of the time due to lack of sleep last night. To add on, I took the extra strong flu medicine which will cause drowsiness. I was dreamy and high half the time today at work. If not for Hans and Andrew's help, the packing and the new shelf display arrangement will drag almost forever.

I really like the new arrangement and especially the extra cubicle of innovative nonsense that we added. Below is just a photo of the glass showcase. My camera wasn't too friendly in taking pictures of our main display shelf. Check it out if you are in the area someday.


Also rebonded Brufus hair today. He is gonna be disintegrated soon for our next secret art installation project.

Lotsa Food

I am glad that I am more or less recovered and I can resume eating properly. Still can't eat fast or eat too much for now. Maybe its just an age thing.

Had a mini cheezepie supper few nights back. Introduced them to Casuarina Prata. We were not in top form so we thought of ordering a large murtabak to share... The thing is we didn't expect large to be really that large! It was served on a tray and we were stunned to see it. With cheezepians around, we never need to worry about left over food.


Here is a goodie bag of snacks as my 'discharged from hospital' gift. No reason to have gastric again. Courtesy of Mae.


Went to Mae's place last night to zhng her iMac. With OS X Leopard overhaul, its gonna take a while so her mum prepared dinner. Her culinary skills is unbelievable! What impressed me was that she had the same thai rice dish in a restaurant and she managed to reverse engineer to reproduce the same dish again. I once tried to reverse engineer sweet and sour pork dish which ended up tasting like fried fats in diluted tomato flavour sauce.

The Thai fried rice that taste and looks nothing like its prepared in a home kitchen.

Had lunch with Art Outreach's staff today at Swiss Culture (Suntec Sky Garden). The food never fails to disappoint me. Great service and reasonably priced.

Chicken Wings, Clams in Garlic White Wine Sauce, Sirloin Steak

This is not food of course. It contains balls of tissue full of mucus. I filled it up on my first day of combating the flu when my nose was running non stop. It is gross and the box ought to be incinerated. Imagine the amount of germs in it.


Gotta concuss soon. The iMac overhaul and the migration of emails took up so much time and I left at 3.30am. When I came back and by the time I was done with my stuff, I only have less than 2 hours to sleep to trouble a client's Apple TV this morning. I am excited about it because I am gonna get Kyan to buy one back for me. It is a big thing for me because it will be my biggest purchase in a long while.