New ugly S’porean
THERE is a new breed of Ugly Singaporean more sinister than the ones who cut queues, pile up the buffet plate or rush onto the bus before other passengers can alight.

Those belonging to this new breed fancy themselves as keyboard warriors and deface Internet sites with postings that are plainly worrying.

Hiding behind the anonymity of the Net, they post comments that reek of prejudice, racism and envy.

For instance, it is virtually unavoidable these days to read anti-migrant comments online. These netizens flood message boards with anti-foreign worker vitriol that degenerates into childish name calling and personal attacks on those who are courageous enough to defend foreign workers.

These ugly warriors use labels like ‘traitor’ frequently. The irony is that these same anonymous posters say they want to leave Singapore because they feel they are being forced out by foreigners taking their jobs.

Another example: The Eric How controversy, in which an inflammatory Facebook diatribe by an unidentified individual who called himself Eric How and claimed to be a member of Young PAP triggered a witch hunt.

As a result, two other people named Eric How were caught in the crossfire of postings about the issue.

Those in this new breed of Ugly Singaporean worry me because they suggest a sense that beneath a placid exterior lurks a collective subconscious that is intolerant, mean and narrow-minded.

Keith Gerard Tan

I think the author has just came out of his shell or something. Where has he been living in the past few decades or so? I’m sure if you looked hard enough on the world wide web you would find negative comments to just about anything, so why be critical about netizens now? Even while reading through the controlled local propaganda publications do we have to distinguish right from wrong. Please do not tell me I have to take every word the local newspaper publishes as the Gospel and label everything I read online as nonsense. If the author does not have a mind of his own then I do not blame him for being critical of such online comments. However, if he indeed does not have a mind of his own, he really should not post such letters that show he cannot discern right from wrong and that he does not know how to embrace the new media.

Putting that aside, I have written a new application. It was written in C# yet again. I do most of programming at work in C++ but C# seems to be much friendlier and easier to code. I have no C# background but picking it using Visual C# Express was a breeze. Anyway, the program I have written is a application to solve Sudoku puzzles. I’m sure there are many such applications out there but coding it was rather fun. The link to the program can be found at the usual applications page.

Anyway, will be going down to Changi Exhibition Centre tomorrow for some familiarization with the Air Show 2010. Will be there on duty next Wed, Thurs and Sat so come say hello if you are coming!

Also, I added a new page for applications that I write in my free time. Most of the applications will be written to suit my needs, but maybe someone out there might be able to make use of it. I wrote the “Amos Reminder Application” in a few hours yesterday. If there are any bugs, then too bad, since it works on my side :P

Anyway, here are some photos I took during New Year’s Day 2010 countdown. We booked a hotel at Pan Pacific with a view of the fireworks, although the Marina Floating platform was blocked by Mandarin Oriental hotel. Taking photos seem fun enough, but my interests don’t seem to last long enough and thus I don’t think I should get a DSLR camera. And these interests include blogging, writing programs and taking photos coincidentally. Click continue to view the pictures…

Anyway, being the Economist that I am, I realise that people really do respond to incentives. Like duh! And sleep is one of the strongest motivators out there. I went to school early for lessons @ 9am. I was supposed to have lessons until 6, and then a project meeting at 630pm. However, the project meeting got cancelled, and so I was supposed to end at 6. Then I thought to myself, the tutorial at 5 to 6 can be skipped and I can go home at 4 to sleep since I have a break from 4 to 5. Further into my lessons I thought that the programming lab too could be skipped since I did not have much to do at the lab anyways so I could go home at 2! By the end of the lesson, I decided not to go for the Statistics lecture since the lecturer would put me to sleep anyway.  So here I am, through the rain and at home @ 12! For a day that was supposed to end at 7+ and which ended @ 12 I think that is really good!

On a side note, I got 34/40 for my Econs Mid Term MCQ test, so I guess last minute studying really does pay off!

Just a thought,  Li Lin did said in The Leap Years movie that “it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”. I wonder if I can synonymously say the same “it’s better to have studied and failed than never to have studied at all!”. Somehow, it just doesn’t have the same meaning when used in this context…

Anyway, went to school today after 1 week of “holidays”. Most of my friends were busy with projects and stuff for this so-called holidays, or recess week to be exact, except it didn’t seem much like a recess. Ok, it was not supposed to feel like a recess week for me too, since I had some assignments and projects to do, and also had to study for an Economics test I have this thursday. However, I made it more or less like a recess week by the fact that I procrastinated and did close to nothing for the whole week! So, now I have to rush a few assignments and also study for the test! And they say time flies when you’re having fun! I think time flies when you’re not working/studying! Unless you’re Kermit, then “time’s fun when you’re having flies!”.

So you see, now we know why you should not use a fan if one of it’s blades is broken! The explosion threw bits of the blades around my room, and I’m quite surprise I’m still alive to be typing this post here. The next time you see you should be thankful that I’m still able to spend time with you, and was not stabbed to death by flying blades of a fan. I will be thankful that I’m still able to be with you still, and not stabbed to death by flying blades of a fan. Jokes aside, my fan is resting in pieces, my aircon is leaking, life sucks for me. Go shopping for a new fan anyone?

Anyway, on my way home, there was a massive traffic jam on the CTE. I thought that it was due to people rushing home for their tuan yuan fan (reunion dinner), or maybe it was because certain roads around chinatown were closed, and so people were forced onto the CTE. It was highly unusual for a traffic jam on CTE at 4pm on normal days. However, when just before the PIE exit, I saw 5-6 cars along the shoulder of the expressway, and most of them weren’t in very good shape. I can only imagine there was a 5-6 chain accident, since most of the cars seem to have either their front or rear or both smashed. I guess that explains the accident. I wonder if the upcoming ERP gantries will prevent jams due to accidents and such. “85% of motorists will have a smoother ride”. “Road tax prices will be reduced”. “CEO prices will be reduced.” What they don’t tell you is ERP gantries will be come up by the dozens, so you should buy a car, pay instalments, and not drive it. One thing the Government is wrong about though, a car is not a luxury item, driving a car is. This podcast from Mr Brown more or less sums it up all.

Also, on my way home, I had to pump petrol, since my tank was already on the reserve fuel and anymore travelling without refueling would need me to get down and push my bike to the nearest petrol station. Going past the petrol stations, I saw many cars trying to turn into the stations, and I was wondering why. Then I realised most of them were turning in to get their car washed, and so promptly went ahead and zoomed into the petrol station to refuel my bike. I wonder why everyone needs to wash their car on the eve of CNY. Is it because of some unspoken tradition, or simply because of a “since everyone else is doing it, I must do it too” mentality. Who cares anyway? My bike is washed my nature, and I don’t really take the effort of washing it :P

Anyway day 1 of CNY was uninteresting. Went Bai Nian-ing at a few places, and proceeded home to sleep. I also tried learning how to play a guitar, since Joanne passed me her guitar. My fingers hurt now, and I’m trying to play Ronan Keating’s When You Say Nothing At All. Oh well, I can play up to the chorus now, but more practice is definitely needed. I don’t really like playing chords, since it seems like playing twister with my fingers, and my fingers are too fat! :( The 2nd day of CNY wasn’t all the interesting too, but after dinner at my cousin’s place, I got together with my cousins and talked for a few hours about stuff. We only see each other once a year, so the talk was definitely good for catching up and stuff. Anyway, after that we decided to go back to my uncle’s house, where it looked more like a makeshift gambling den. The younger generation (my cousins and I) proved we weren’t that lousy at gambling after all. At the end of the day, I won $40, Mei Ching won $115, and Kian Ann won $15. $40 wasn’t too bad for my 15 rounds of ban luck (chinese version of blackjack) after all…

The first suay story is about my boss. She related the story to me and I thought this kind of things only happens in TV/movies and the likes. Well, she was on the way to work on the MRT, and she was happily standing inside the MRT at a spot deemed fit for one person so stand. Ok, maybe not happily standing, but I like to exaggerate and make up things to add effect to the story, so sue me! After that, someone apparently came to squeeze into the spot, and she practically was smelling the person’s hair. As if that wasn’t bad enough, at one of the stops, someone was apparently in a rush to get down, and in the midst of that hurrying, her earphones got caught and got pulled out of her iPod. So there she was, thinking to herself what a bad day it was. Of course it didn’t end there, else why would I bother blogging about it? After she got down at City Hall MRT, her recently bought pair of shoes decided to break, and so she had to practically drag her feet to walk. So, she took a bus for one stop to a bus stop outside our workplace, but she was still stuck there, sitting at the bus stop not knowing what to do. “Aha!”, she thought to herself. “I’ll call Amos to bring my pair of slippers for me.” I guess the reason why she thought of me was because I am always earlier than her at work, and I really do mean always. Oh well, it isn’t her fault I go to work early to avoid some of the morning MRT traffic, and also to not rush myself. Anyways, she took out her handphone thinking how brilliant her plan was, but guess what? Well, her handphone battery was flat! Therefore, instead of dragging her feet to work, she decided to take off her shoes and walk in barefooted into the Supreme Court, making her way to our office on the cold unforgiving floor. Isn’t this Murphy’s Law at it’s finest? Well, after she related this to me, I told her she must have woken up at the wrong side of the bed, and told her to change the direction she wakes up from!

And now, on to story number 2, which isn’t quite as long and detailed, but definitely worth mentioning too. Huijing came back from the US, but apparently not everything followed her home. Firstly, on the second last day of her trip, which was for work, the car she and her colleagues used was broken into, and their laptops got stolen. She had just gotten a laptop upgrade from work recently, and seems to be quite contented with this new laptop. She even got a new mouse for it, which is a “Cute Pink Logitech Mouse”. But alas, it was not meant to be, and the laptop together with the mouse got stolen, together with 3 other laptops that they decide to leave in the car. This might not be the ultimate suayness, since it was their own doing for leaving the laptops in the car in the first place. Anyway, when she got back to Singapore, she heard her name being announced on the PA system. Apparently, her luggage did not follow her back, and it was still in the US since it did not “board” the plane with them. So there we have it, the shorter but definitely not less suay story.

So anyway, hopefully the Chinese New Year will chase everyone’s suayness away and bring luck onto everyone! It is afterall the year of the rat, and since I’m born in the year of the rat, whatever I say counts! Ok, not quite how it works, but who cares anyway? I wish everyone good luck in the year ahead and may you win big at the gambling table. Luckily for you all, I’m not really a big fan of gambling and so I’m willing to spare abit of my gambling luck, so to speak! Whether it’s luck or not, is up to you to decide anyway. Truth be told, I’m not really a big fan of CNY. I mean, it’s the same usual routine of bai nian-ing (visiting) and getting ang pows (red packets). It seems rather superficial to me, but hey, who am I to complain. At least we get to enjoy a super long weekend, and the break might help me get rid of my insomnia! I’ll probably do a few hours of bai nian-ing on the first few days, and spend the rest of the day at home. Sorry, but I’m not one who’s very enthusiastic about CNY and all.

I don’t give a flying fuck how messy my room is. Just don’t fucking touch my things, and especially don’t throw my stuff away. If it’s there, it’s there for a fucking reason.

Didn’t go to work yesterday, because my boss fired me for one day! She was on MC on Monday and didn’t have time to prepare work for me. How ironic is that? I mean, I thought by my going to work I should lessen the workload for them, but since they need to prepare work for me, I guess I’m causing them more work?! Maybe I should work slower in the future, and prevent these situations from surfacing again! Yea, I’m considerate this way, so don’t think I’m making excuses when I work slowly okay?!

And, last but not least, someone tried to kill me today! I was on my way to school, and was going a road when this car wanted to turn right out of NUH carpark. So he inched out, and stopped. It’s important to emphasize that he stopped, since if he carried on I would have been forewarned that an idiot was going to turn out without caring about oncoming traffic and I would slow down. However, he stopped, so I mistook that for him being not an idiot and that he stopped cause he saw the oncoming traffic. Apparently, he was only checking the left side for traffic, and didn’t care to look to the right. I mean, who the f*** turns right and not check for traffic from the right. So there I was, thinking that he was not the idiot I thought he would be, and almost knocked into his car and flew. Thankfully, SSDC did teach me well, and I applied an emergency brake and slowed down, and managed to avoid him. And I didn’t even horn that guy too. I think I underuse my horn too much, as I hardly horn other road users when it is blatantly clear they are in the wrong. Oh well, at least if I did fly I would have been just outside NUH?

One more random thing to add: Raw broccoli is not nice. Somethings are nice when eaten raw, whereas for broccoli, let’s just say they taste better when cooked. Raw broccolis just taste too… green.