heypi bird-day, davis

celebrated his birthday by having dinner at plaza singapura's (ps) the manhattan fish market. originally wanted to get a wallet as a present for him, but didn't manage to find one because there wasn't one to be found in the first place. the variety of clothes in ps can be rich and fulfilling, but the lack of an accessories store for men (one that sells wallets, bags, etc.) can give one a headache if he/she decides to get such a gift impromptu.

anyway, let's move on the food, shall we? quantity and quality-wise, manhanttan fish market clearly wins fish&co. the meals were also value-for-money, and for $9.90++ you can get a fish n chips set similar to that of fish&co.'s which probably costs $13.90++ if i remember correctly. the platter i ordered was also delicious, especially the flaming prawns. well my friend who recommended us the restaurant said the meaning was supposed to be literal, but turns out, nothing came out. just the waiter bringing my platter to me, used some huge lighter or blow-torch thingy and flamed the prawns, and after several seconds it was handed to me; no fire or whatsoever (not like i was badly affected or anything). the sauce/gravy they used to "spice up" the flaming prawns was awesome. it was somewhat like tartar sauce mixed with cheese and a little bit of "white wine... eh, no, it's red wine... i mean white wine, yes white" wine (as said by my friend who's very particular about such fine little details). oh, and i had coke float ($4.90) as well, but to me the drinks were just normal.

total damage for 9 people: $200.80 including gst and service tax, which i honestly think is a decent price for such a delightful meal. definitely the choice to be when you're thinking of eating seafood that's bang for buck and won't tear that wallet of yours in two.

and i shan't mention what jiajian did back then in the restaurant, however it was very brave of him and everybody deserves a chance. you'll never know until you try. good one, jj.

soccer was definitely better today, even though the turnout still wasn't what i truely hoped for. man, still hoping for the day we can play 11-a-side with serious-mode switched on.
scored one or two today, but now i'm beginning to enjoy playmaking whenever i get the chance to.

tired, signing off.

131208

i hope field soccer tomorrow will yield me more goals. lol.

111208; the day the earth stood still

i'm not going to be too elaborative on this one. sitting on the very first row SUCKS big time though.

so, it was about some extra terrestrial objects (spheres to be exact) that crashed down into various spots on the earth, and the biggest one which eventually produced the main star (keanu reeves) and some huge robotic indestructible thingy (which, i must say, the artists really need to go back to the drawing room for this one). so keanu reeves, acting as the alien named "klatu", was on a mission - to save earth. note how he so cleverly disguised his actual intentions by saying "earth", NOT "earthlings" nor "humans" for that matter. of course, as a natural human reaction, everyone got a huge shock and things started to get a little rough for our foreign friend, with co-star jennifer connelly (acting as helen benson if i'm not wrong) helping him along and playing a rather big role in this movie as well.

so then, the american military finally devised a method to trap the huge robot and brought it to some military research facility. by then, the "process" had already started. the robot has the ability to disintegrate itself into (insert any huge number here) of metallic-looking grasshoppers that in turn, have the ability to turn any (and i mean ANY) material/object into its buddy (yes, imagine your television "corroding" into those bugs). now, away from all these destruction, klatu witnesses the other side of human beings - love, and how true feelings reveal themselves in times of adversity. what unrolls from the plot was something straight out of some anime, klatu's heart melted and he got touched by the sight of helen and her son hugging each other (with tears rolling from their eyes), so he changed his mind, and proceeded to save mankind then. how? just by touching that ball of swirling clouds and light. easy as abc, 123.

done with my mini-review. i missed out some parts, but gah, who cares.
oh before i forget, overall rating - 3/5

081208; of field soccer and shopping

had a field soccer session last saturday morning. or rather, early afternoon.
it wasn't satisfying. after playing on the courts for nearly a year, my touches on the field and everything about me was c-r-a-p-p-y. still managed to score one goal though, heh.

the day before soccer i went over to queensway with a couple of friends to buy my soccer boots. wanted to buy the nike total 90 laser ii but well, let's just say it wasn't my day. the shops which had my size don't even bother to listen to my bargains, and those which did, they don't have my size. which just plain sucks because i had set my sights on that pair since quite some time ago.so then, since i was kinda urgent to get my boots for soccer the next day, i settled on an adidas predator powerswerve:
so anyway, that's that. had ktv yesterday night, talked way into the wee hours of morning after it, took a cab home, slept til about 2pm today, then went to bugis for another shopping "spree".
bought an everlast sneaker for $35.90 from og, credits to quek.

in a rush, signing out.

291108; fuck terrorism

just yesterday, one of our fellow countrymen died at the hands of terrorists who raided the some hotel in mumbai, india.

RIP fellow singaporean, and my deepest condolences to the family, relatives and friends of the victim. the victim (a female) was held hostage at the hotel she was accommodating at when terrorists attacked the city a couple of days ago, lobbing hand grenades and firing their guns at people. she suffered a tragic death yesterday, and news came in sometime at night (i think).

i'm still not too sure about what really happened, because i was away enjoying myself at the kallang cage, but when i reached home and surfed sgclub, such shocking news greeted me. i was appalled. despite the singaporean government's desperate attempts to salvage the hostage situation (in such cases, the priority of getting your citizens safely out of the danger zone comes first), but to think the terrorists had actually went on to kill the woman, i was truly angered. those assholes deserve to be labelled as animals, and that is already humble enough. the act itself was absolutely inhumane. there was no ultimatum, nothing was said and poof, she's gone. perhaps much of the truth has been hidden from the scrutiny of the singaporean public by the government, but still, such cowardly tactics is uncalled and unjustified. an innocent bystander caught up in the tangles of extremism and insanity, so-called "correction for the good of the world"?

immature as my next line might be, but i hope these scums of the earth die a horrible death, and maybe a photograph of them dying in positions that suggest they were having anal sex with each other could provide some comical relief.

251108; i'm back

i hate catia. i seriously find it meaningless to assess us on catia when,

1. we don't have the program at home
2. the school cannot afford to provide us with the program because it costs over a thousand dollars
3. "download torrent one la". yes, anybody could have thought of that, but please, downloading that kinda stuff IS ILLEGAL, and i suppose teachers are smart enough to know that, RIGHT?
4. "FREEEEE access, go for it!" fuck, it's free access, but most of the time we cannot book the workstations because there are lessons going on! wonderful indeed.

next, i strongly believe it's time for sp to reconsider improving some of the facilities in campus. take the field near foodcourt 5 for example. it's not even fucking green anymore. there are brown mud patches all over. when it rains, these patches collect water and if you decide to play soccer there, i tell you, you would be better off swimming.

the wireless connectivity. p-a-t-h-e-t-i-c. it takes ever so long just to connect to the wireless network, and on top of that, the speed is downright SLOW. loading youtube's main page can take up to 3-5 minutes. buffering a youtube video? forget it, go play some games you have in your laptop better la.

speaking of laptop, i have no idea why they made the purchase of one compulsory. i seldom use it for school work or admin stuff. my laptop was never meant for gaming but i guess it's place and role in my school life had changed. it has brought me such entertainment and fun (yes, even during lessons). the games that used to lag like shit on my old desktop, i could now play them smoothly (or rather, quite smoothly) on the laptop. and fuck, why do hardware prices depreciate so quickly. it cost about a few hundreds less (~$1400) than the price of my laptop (~$1800) and the specs are sooo much better than the high-end model they offered in my enrolment year (fyi, my model is the low-end one, the high-end model cost ~$2100 iirc).

too much rants going on in my thoughts, now it feels good that i have let off abit of steam. lol.

151108; amazing-ness

seems like kelvin ong, our acc lecturer for the previous sem, wasn't just all-talk-no-action. he's actually pretty good in football. i actually have nothing but praises for his goalkeeping. he knows how to make himself appear big in front of goal and in 1-on-1 situations. he may not be a good lecturer, but he does know how to have fun. i was thinking he could have been better off being a teacher dedicated to one cca (soccer? hehe) instead of having to teach acc, LOL.

i have also learnt never ever to underestimate people again. I GOT OWNED BY PEOPLE NEARLY TWICE MY AGE OMGWTFLOL. but seriously, both the sp and tp staff were good. i am from sp, however as much as i wish to take the side of my school, i would have to admit tp was the better team of the match. perhaps they train regularly, and the amount of stamina they have, brilliant i would say. i was almost breathless ONLY AFTER 15-20 minutes of play, SUCKY SIOL.

i hope there's another match next week, i'm really eager to play.

131108; rain, rain and more rain, urgh

was wondering if i should get myself a camera so i can fill up my blog with some pictures, other than having to read walls of text (wot), which really gets boring after some time.

yes i feel your pain, my readers!

if i even had readers to begin with.

guess i should wait til 27th november for sitex at the singapore expo and purchase a decent digital camera (or maybe even a canon/nikon dslr?! screw yourself, alex). hmm, budget... perhaps, a range of $300-500 would be good enough? anyway it's not like i'm taking up photography; figured it would kinda be more meaningful to take down some candid or beautiful moments of my rather eventless life...

right after typing out this post, my mind is kinda half-decided on getting a camera already. beat down the impulse just yet, alex!

081108; symmetry!

rant 1
never got to playing soccer on friday, that event was... disappointing. it was 5v5 soccer but the area used was smaller than a street soccer court. i can't figure how 10 players can squeeze into the playing area and actually PLAY SOCCER IN IT. maybe that's the kinda standard you get since everything was free.

rant 2
WHERE IS MY EVENT TEE-SHIRT! :(

rant 3
the new mcspicy patty - one word - bullshit. at first glance you would have mistaken it for a mcchicken. seriously, what the hell is wrong with the people at macdonalds nowadays? the size of the burgers are forever decreasing; mcspicy double was taken off the menu; the mcspicy patty before it was changed to the current was made up of 90% oil, and the rest being the meat itself. and now, this change to the new patty. it's absolutely uncalled for. it was so dry (oh maybe they were starting to get health conscious too, the drastic decrease in oil literally dripping from the burger was noticeable); the meat was hard (breast meat instead of the thigh?); and it doesn't deserve to be called mcspicy, because it wasn't, not one bit.

therefore, imma boycotting macs from now on, unless i have little choice.

argh, i couldn't score a single goal today, fucking disappointed with myself.

021108; damn spurs

fuck.

just a few days after liverpool broke the record at stamford bridge, tottenham broke the reds' unbeaten record for the league. it was really disappointing, especially seeing liverpool hold for so long, but they gave away possession too easily in the second half. add on a couple of unlucky shots which hit the bar instead in the back of the net, it was just depressing man.

it may only be a loss, but it can be significant. especially after you have had a great start to this season, and then a loss to a team from the bottom of the table, a team involved in so much controversy, i'm really afraid liverpool might lose it's momentum and fumble. but, i'm still hoping they can pick themselves up, because afterall, spurs did have quite a fair bit of luck with them.

again, there was no soccer this week, and my legs... well let's just say they will forever be itching for soccer. sometimes it makes me wonder why i never really started playing soccer when i was really young. the paper chase culture in singapore... haiz.

301008

i feel disgusted. after seeing how someone's MSN nick has changed over the past couple of days, i really am. i don't know how to explain it. it feels like you're talking to some xiao mei mei (xmm) on the instant messaging service. like she's trying to act cute by typing in such a manner that may attract other guys but definitely not me. aiya, fuck, why am i even bothering.

our class just got awesome news that productivity-man won't be our mechanics 2 + class tutor! it's still gonna remain as kapotine (spell check?), so yes, same old, same old. you should have seen our reaction when we got the call from kapotine - epic and thoroughly emotional. lol.

so here's the long-but-still-quite-short story: kapotine called john a few days back, informing us that mr. productivity was gonna be our new mech 2 + class tutor. upon hearing the news, we were horrified. we were frustrated. we were... just feeling oh-so-shitty (shan't elaborate on the reasons). but just today, wonderful news came in! that the change was cancelled! we literally jumped for joy and screamed our hearts out. it was such a refresher, i thought i could have gone on and on for another several hours of CEM, LOL.

http://www.breathe.sg/gameforlife/
anybody wants to join me for some 5-on-5 soccer action?

26October2008; The day the Fortress fell.

LIVERPOOL HAS DONE IT! TODAY IS THE DAY THE HOME RECORD OF STAMFORD BRIDGE IS BROKEN!
Score at full-time: Liverpool 1 - 0 Chelsea

WOOOOTSSS!!! This is fucking solid proof to those naysayers who say Liverpool needs Torres to win. Blahblahblah. We may love the El Nino, but it doesn't necessarily mean we need him to win. Oh and did I forget to mention, we had more chances than Chelsea? Hahaha.
Okay, enough of celebrations, I thought Chelsea put up a great fight as well and Alonso's goal had a little bit of luck behind it. BUT WHO CARES LOL. The result is all that matters.

Okay after watching that exhilarating match, I REALLY feel like playing field soccer. Crappp.

191008

Didn't have the usual street soccer session in the morning, and I'm DYING to seriously kick some balls and score some goals.

Liverpool just made an absolutely thrilling comeback AGAIN earlier on against Wigan. The match nearly gave Liverpool's fans a heart-attack I swear, especially after watching Zaki take the lead for Wigan twice in that game. Great match really.

My legs are itching. In fact, they always do, after watching soccer matches. So yeah obviously they're itching for some action on the field. I wonder when's the next time I can kick on a pitch instead of on the court, but it's just too hard to make the numbers.
I'm also itching to play at NYP again. It's hockey pitch can be summed up with one word - shiok. But Imma try to bring my shoes the next time me and my friends do get to playing soccer there.

Watched "Max Payne" yesterday. Crappy movie. It was a waste of money and time. The plot had so many loopholes and several questions were left unanswered after the show finished. There were too many climaxes during the course of the movie, and any one of them could have qualified as an finale to the entire show itself, but then a twist occurs out of the blue, and I was thrown back into the story, confused.
Overall rating: 2/5 (a little credit for some amazing CG incorporated and a good setting)

161008

ohh ohh, i'm not dead yet. not really ready to give in to my reluctance to blog, lol.

first week of school... has been rather, interesting and funny. i can't really count the number of times my funny bone was tickled so far.
i shall not elaborate on how one of my lecturers mispronounced my friend's name so that it sounded like buttocks in hokkien - kah chng.

i just saw a thread in the backyard asking if singapore's standard of education is dropping or not. well looking and comparing between some really old past year papers from TYS books for both the 'O' and 'A' Levels and present papers, i would say yes, but only to the extent of the standard of the exam papers. however, it's not really a similar case when it concerns content.

sometimes i look back at myself during the secondary school years, and realised how carefree and relaxed i was back then. looking at my younger brother now, the differences are rather vast. the amount of information in the textbook (especially science subjects) is so much that i don't think i could have been able to meet expectations placed by my parents upon me. yes, papers may "seem" easier to do and score, but after being "forced" (unless you don't feel like scoring well for your exams :x) to memorise all the definitions, formula, explanations, etc., coping with the overwhelming content from textbooks, notes, and such can prove to be an uphill task.

shit la, my sentence structure in this post is all wrong and my choice of words is... horrible. Lol.

well just checked my results from mysas.

semester gpa: 3.192
cumulative gpa: 3.28
ALLOWED TO CONTINUE IN THE COURSE (huge sigh of relief there)

expected this kinda results, knowing how i messed up almost all my papers except for engineering materials 2 (hehe).
can't believe i actually got C+ for rwp, i mean the online plagiarism checker is like fucked up, they even highlighted my headings and sub-headings, saying i copied from another person's report. LIKE DUH. group members having the similar headings, how wrong can that be? that online checker is bullshit; i feel that i deserved at least a B for rwp la, kanasai!

tomorrow morning - CEM results. i just don't feel good about it. haiz.

090908; why do i always unknowingly blog on such beautiful dates?

first week of holidays have passed by. it was a bad and good week.
bad because fever and co. decided to pay me a visit. the sore throat has sort of subsided but i can still slightly feel the... sore-ness of it. the fever lasted for two or actually, three days. i went to the doctor, but the only medicine i finished were the sore throat lozenges. the fever tablets were damn effective, after taking it for a couple of times i was feeling better already. i never got to taking the cough syrup yet though, because cough is supposed follow up after sore throat, and my sore throat still hasn't given up on me yet! fuck it.

there's seriously nothing to do at home. goddammit why can't i work part-time just because i'm in a contract? arghh it's not like they have LOADS of stuff to do with me during the hols. fuck it, again.

ah one might start wondering if there's any positives in my life at all. DUH. what else but soccer? no doubt i feel joyous just kicking the soccer ball, but when you see your ball cross the goal line and hitting the back of the net, the feeling's... indescribable. even if you've scored a thousand goals in your lifetime, the 1001st goal still feels very much like the first goal you have ever scored.

sometimes i fear for the future, when everybody is gonna get old and busy with work and family. will soccer be "kicked" out of the picture? will me and my friends be able to do what we have always enjoyed since our secondary school days? i don't think i can bear to give it up. soccer was what brought the boys in class together, it was and holds something everyone had in common.
i can only hope that we will not forget the value of the sport and bonds that have developed through the many years.

280808; end of exams/start of holidays and the date is such a nice number

ah, what better way to end off the examinations than with a paper which i am confident of getting at least a B grade or better. how i wish life was always this good. three cheers and a glass of champagne for mr alan tham, your tips were the best, seriously. unlike some lecturers... (read: ACC)

the exam period (2 weeks) had been a hell of a time for me. almost every paper i had was out to kill me. i actually felt depressed doing the papers. especially engineering maths 3. that was total bullshit. the past year papers were so freaking easy, you'd think they were primary school practise worksheets. even without really paying attention in class, the formula booklet and a working brain would suffice for those papers. but during the actual thing, reality gave me a wake-up call. i was thrown off-guard. i was completely in the paper's mercy. one part of me just wanted to tear up the paper so bad, even the setter wouldn't be able to recognize it if he managed to piece the bits back together. but i couldn't. i couldn't bear the see my hopes dashed right infront of my very eyes, my brain being the mastermind and hands the accomplices.

the open window seemed ever so inviting that day, calling me, to ascend (or rather, to descend) upon the pathway to freedom.

procrastination. when will i ever be able to overcome this obstacle, standing in my way to success (and a higher GPA)? even though i know all too well the responsibility lies upon my shoulders, i couldn't care less about it. i neglected it, and let it overwhelm me, until i became the lazy and half-hearted asshole of a person whose revision philosophies and principles were "last minute revision sure can one lah, steady". i've wronged myself.

i need change. will it come? i can only stand by and await its arrival. and i hope it makes a grand entrance.

170808; screw the exams and it's another short post!

yes, fuck the exams. fuck the no-study-break-which-means-i-am-so-gonna-flunk-my-papers system now. fuck the new principal. give us longer mid semester break for fuck? that means we no longer have about one or two weeks worth of time to revise for our papers. what's more, we have to complete reports and all kinds of shit RIGHT before our exams. how smart of you.
sure was a mistake on my part to procrastinate, but still, FUCK YOU! :D

a preview of how i'm gonna my semester vacations: -

• swimming at least 2-3 times a week
• gym once a week
• no fucking idea right now

okay, let's do this.

050808; short post yarly

dang how i wished i had went for singfest. the atmosphere there was so crazy and high man! but i got put off by the really expensive ticket prices though... -sigh-

rwp to be in by tomorrow, i think i'm gonna be penalised very heavily for plagiarism. i mean there's like tonnes of technical terms and terminology in the info i researched on, how the hell am i supposed to rephrase those "chimology"?! gah, i'm so relieved it's gonna end soon.

like i promised, short post. heh.

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-Pops champagne and flings confetti over this blog-

It's my new blog! Three cheers! :D

Okay, I was seriously bored when I decided to do up a new blogspot blog, and I dunno what the hell made me do it. For those who wanna get to know a little bit more about the guy who's typing this post right now, do move your mouse over to the left hand side of your screen and click on that link named "Previous Blog" (yeah my old blog if you're that dumb LOL).

Sometimes you just gotta love the anonymity the Internet "empowers" us with. Me and my bastard (HAHA) classmates have been busy, over the past few days, spamming a tagboard of some random blog we found when we Google-image-searched "jxx jxx". Guess the name we used for the nick.

"Hardogay". Brilliant idea by John, wonderful implementation by John, yet again! He never fails to amuse me with his antics. Nevertheless, he's a selfless guy when it comes to class participation and studies. -Pours champagne into his glass-

And so yeah, you can pretty much guess what we spammed in the tagboard. Stuff like "WATASHI WA HARDOOOGAAAYYY WOOOOO!!!" Man, I had the best laughs in like months LOL. I don't really wanna continue with the story because, anonymity on the net has its limits too. But for those friends of mine, let's celebrate, HAHAHA.

Off to D2.