Monthly Archives: December 2009

Johor Bahru Trip with Brother

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Yesterday, I woke up early to go to Johor Bahru with my younger brother and his two buddies. It was a last minute notice given by him just the night before.

We took bus 75 to change into bus 170 at Bukit Timah area and alighted at Woodlands Centre Road to shop around since his friends were late. After that, we took a long walk towards the checkpoint. Our first mission was to grab some movie tickets. Each of us paid $7.50 ringgits for the show Avatar, but the problem was that there was no 3D available.

We went for brunch and I had a plate of chicken rice. All of them, except me, was kissed by the mosquitoes, and that was probably why the chicken rice was sold at only $3 ringgits. We went to shop before the movie started and were late for it since we were waiting inside an optical shop.

Avatar was a good movie. The plot and effects were nice, however, the sound system of the threatre gave some problems.

After the nearly three hours show, we continued with a little shopping before having our dinner at Merry Brown. Then, we purchased the train tickets and did another round of shopping.

It was a better day for there was fewer people around to display the human beings’ disgusting acts such as squeezing, pushing and dashing like mad dogs. We waited for very long for the train to leave for the Woodlands checkpoint. Some old people screwed up the queue and the customer officer was very sarcastic to them.

We waited very long again for the train to leave again. It took us almost two hours for the journey, more of waiting. After arriving at the Tanjong Pagar railway station, my brother and I walked an old lady to the MRT station before turning home.

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

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Housekeeping Days – Windows 7

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On Monday, the first day of my off days, I started packing my cupboard. Since my elder brother had gone to Malaysia for holidays with his colleagues and girlfriend, I was able to squeeze some spaces to open the cupboard and unload the stuffs.

I looked through the old lecture notes from my poly days and realised I had actually studied many things, which I had totally forgotten and not having a slight impression of them. Since the notes from UOW was all printed from softcopy, I threw them abandoned the hardcopies as well.

Due to my back problem, it took me long time to do my work with the intervals of rest. I even dozed off for long hours in the late afternoon and woke up feeling more tired than ever. Eventually, I finished three quarters of the packing and had to give up.

Day two was another busy day. I started configuring my younger brother’s laptop. It was my virgin try on Windows 7. Installing the software and transferring the remaining of the files on the office’s laptop lasted me for many hours.

My new baby was running on Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, T9400 at 2.53GHz with 4GB of memory. It was the lightest model since a year ago for 17’ inches laptops.

There were, however, many disadvantages. The graphic card could not even support Counterstrike Condition Zero well, let alone L4D which I was reluctant to try. The screen was dim and the sound was obviously not fantastic. I could feel the heat even after placing it on top of the fanning system. It had only three USB ports and all of them were at the right side. My brother had also warned me that the battery life could barely last over three hours.

At least, it was better than my office’s office in terms of RAM and weight (especially). The faulty HP laptop with auto adjustment of volume, refusing “alt” + “tab”, was more than a nuisance to work with. The BIOs problems forcing the draining of battery even when the system was off, killed my entire good impression for HP laptops.

Windows 7 was half an alien to me but I could see the great improvements. I was able to drag the folder upwards to the edge and it would maximum the window other than having to double click the window. The taskbar was neatly organised with all the similar items grouped together, displaying using rectangular icons instead of long bars; on mouse over, each individual icon would pop out nicely. The “quick launch” buttons were merged into the taskbar as well and I soon got used to it. For all the special folders such as “my document” and “my music”, I could see that they were classified under “library”, such that different folders could be added inside, but of course there was a default folder to be assigned.

I had problem with the installation of Photoshop CS3 due to the AVG antivirus. Following was the installation of PHP, which required the web server – either IIS or Apache. I was not confident at all since PHP did not seem to work well with Windows Vista. The other essential software are Microsoft Office 2007, MSN Live Messenger, Notepad++, Flash Renamer etc. I also set up the games.

In no time, I would be ready to strive all the way for my websites without worrying for the transferring and backing up of data files.

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

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Family Day at Jurong East Swimming Complex

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Sunday was family day again. My auntie came over in the morning and the whole family went to Jurong East Swimming Complex for a swim. We had fun. It was supposed to be a heavenly place for couples though.

The place was dark as expected with some China people. I only managed to see a couple of babes from far. The best thing was that all the visitors and lifesavers were all friendly.

We rented two floats and I was proud of my own judgement. We went for a few rounds of the lazy pool and eventually started trying on the slides. My face almost went pale when my younger brother pressed my mum to try the top slide and she actually gave it a go given her timid character. It was great to see her coming down without any problem.

It started raining after my mum went to wash up while we were waiting for the waves at the waves pool. It was an empty threat though. My brothers and I enjoyed the waves for almost fifteen minutes before we went to wash up. After that, it started pouring and we crossed over to the market for lunch.

My elder brother left us for his girlfriend. The nasi lemak I bought was a letdown. However, we had cheap fruit juices. After that, we went shopping at the provision shops nearby, almost finishing the last few dollar notes of my wallet.

My younger brother insisted to take bus again since he was using concession pass but he did not realise that we actually paid more overall for transiting instead of taking the train directly. The worst thing was to waste uncountable time in our exhausted bodies.

At night, we called for delivery, and luckily I had enough coins to foot the bill.

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

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Assistance Required to Resolve Inconsiderate HDB Corridor Smoking

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Will the Media or Government sector or MP reply, first?

reach@reach.gov.sg
frontline@mediacorpnews.com
HPB_Quit4Life@hpb.gov.sg
Contact_NEA@nea.gov.sg
ykbaey@gmail.com

Dear Sir/Mdm,

I reside at Blk 3, TG Pagar Plaza #16-* S081003. My neighbour, staying a storey above me at #17-26, has been lighting his cigarette at the corridor everyday. Since it is very near to my house, the smoke is being blown into my house every time.

The smoke has affected my entire family’s health badly, causing breathing difficulties and cough. It is very unfair to my family. Correct me if I’m wrong but I understand that no organisation nor the government will pay for our medication bill due to such inconsiderate act.

I have approached the man politely on 29th Dec 2009 at around 5.30pm when he was smoking at the corridor in the presence of his wife. He claimed that there was no law prohibiting smoking at the corridor and that he could not control the wind. I walked off in his arrogant tone.

I do realise the sad fact that there is no law against smoking at the corridor. However, since my family’s health is at stake, I hope you can kindly help to resolve the problem before there are greater health issues or disputes arise in future.

Thanks and Regards,
Chan Kai Lun

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

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Shop with Brother and NP Gathering

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Last Saturday afternoon, I went to Marina Square with my younger brother for shopping spree. Both Topman and Fox had discounts and since my brother owned both Citibank and UOB cards, we had more to gain. I got myself a top from each of the shops. There was a cute Malay staff at Topman, while Fox’s staff was ultimately helpful. Both shops were great.

After walking around the Japanese Muzi shop to laugh over the over priced stuffs, we went to level 3 to look at furniture to sigh over our messy house. On the way to Cityhall MRT, I met Zhengfang.

I caught up with Lynn, Ziying and Jason at Commonwealth MRT. Wenchang joined us and we proceeded to the famous Two Chefs Eating Place where we waited for Huiwen and her hubby, Eric, to arrive. The place was packed and we were offered tables again and again but to end up having to give up to others since our headcount was not completed yet.

After dinner, we made our way to Holland Village’s Coffee Bean. Right at the non-air-conditioned place, there were a few sweet girls. It was a nice catching up even though we missed many ex classmates.

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

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Christmas 2009

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At the first hour of Christmas, I was with my buddies at Vivocity, catching the movie “Guards and Assassins”. I had not been to the cinema with them for very long. It was an unusual outing since the guys had their girlfriends along, except for Weitat and me. We split into two groups of four each, on the same row, but separated by around three to four persons.

It was a story about people trying to protect the father of Republic of China, Sun Zhong Shan aka Sunwen. Some people thought that we had to really understand the story so that we could understand the movie, I thought differently. The story was simple, but the plot was definitely good enough to link up all the characters. Fighting scenes were nice. It was one of the nicest Chinese movies ever.

At the start of the movie, someone nearby started snoozing. In the midst of it, Weitat joined in the fun, then I realised the sleepy person could have watched the movie before like Weitat.

After the movie, we proceeded to Ruo Chun at Geylang for dim sum. I reached home at around 5am and the rest of them were definitely later.

In the afternoon, Mingfa came over to fetch me to East Coast Park. We rented bikes and cycled to the beach volleyball court. The sand was lousy but the poles were firm. None of them wanted to dive and I was the only fearless yet stupid one. I played better on sand than indoor court most of the time.

After the short volleyball game, we went further after the Outward bound campus before going back to the bicycle kiosk. We decided to end the day then. Jingkun sent me home and in the midst of the journey, just as I was admiring the dark clouds seemed like dropping, it started pouring very heavily.

It was evening and I started dozing off again.

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

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Second Visit to Sarah Home

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Thursday was a full day holiday for me, and thus there was no pay.

After getting home late from Carl’s Junior, I did not sleep immediately as usual. I managed to wake up at 8am to visit the Chinese physician and she knew it easily that I had little sleep just by looking at my throat.

I left for Sarah Home before 10am and felt lost because the old batch of students were all absent. Weiming was still at IMM to do the shopping. The event was delayed since the person who planned it was not around and the few of them, being freshies, seemed lost.

After Weiming arrived with Mdm Seet in Mr Baey’s car, we started unloading the food and packing them. I could feel the pressure from the old people staying nearby; they approached to ask for the food which we had prepared for the forty elderly that the Interact Club was taking care of.

It was raining heavily and I made my way home before 1pm. Soon, I dozed off as expected from the extreme lack of sleep.

My family had gifts exchange before 10pm and I left my house at around 11.30pm to meet my buddies at Vivocity.

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

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