Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Voting for the cutest baby

Hi, if you have some time. Please vote for the cutest baby/toddler.

If you happen to like my cute friend Prawnkid, please vote for his nephew - contest #12 Davy
http://www.kidscentral.sg/ssi/contest/K242850606.ssi

-2H1U

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Winding down 2/2

[edited on 27-Aug-2006, 10:40am]

[Background]
I was stressed for the last two weeks, rushing for a deadline on Friday. I completed the coding and testing on Thursday and was told that the vendor pushed back the launch date.

[Saturday/Today]
Woke up to a sleepy day and played DOTA right in the morning. Then I played again with Gaga when he came online. We tried the two new heroes and just pretty happy exploring the differences.

I went to a Chinese doctor for further torture but the queue moved at a glacier pace. I gave up and went ahead with my appointment with Gaga. A cabby was dropping off a passenger so I took it instead of crossing over to the other side of the road. We travelled straight towards town area for a distance before he declared that he was going to take a U-turn. Now? Why not like 2 junctions back? I was still early so I was agreeable. He took a turn and entered the highway. He had deactivated the voice readout on his satellite linked device so it was beeping like a pager and he responded by pressing buttons for each message. I thought it unsafe but traffic conditions were good. Finally, we popped out into Orchard Road beside Meriden Hotel.
"You're going to the Oredian theatre?", he asked.
"No...", I repeated, "I'm going to the old Cathay. The newly re-opened one".
"Oh okay", he said, once again. "Can I drop you off inside?", he asked, meaning the taxi stand at Carrefour.
I agreed, since it can be good for his business. "Sorry ah, I picked up a call here so I have to drop you off here."
Suddenly, everything clicked. I still thanked him but I felt a little disgusted.

We watched "The devil wears Prada". We rather liked it. The audience laughed at every minor thing, even those that appeared in the trailers. I thought that was rather fake of them. However, I'm not complaining. Rather posers than having people who converse loudly. Or irritate others with the light from their mobile phones throughout the movie.

Dinner was sausages, well appreciated, and followed by shopping. Thanks to Gaga, I bought over a hundred dollars in clothes, my single largest fashion purchase ever. Think he felt outraged that the 70% discount I had prevented him from emptying my wallet. Ty...

-5H1U

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Winding down 1/2

[Background]
I was stressed for the last two weeks, rushing for a deadline on Friday. I completed the coding and testing on Thursday and was told that the vendor pushed back the launch date.

[Friday]
After reaching my first milestone, I had no mood to work. Not that I was angry or tired. In fact, I was in a relatively good mood. I tutored our new hire; I helped another colleague with his debugging work; I simply did everything but my own work.
When the sunlight starts to come through the windows at a slanted angle, I started doing investigations seriously. I found more potential problems for project. This will be remedied on Monday.

Our room was to be renovated over the weekend and we gathered and 6pm and started moving things. Some selfish members left for home after they moved their own stuffs. Everyone else (who stayed) was game and co-operative. "It felt like a second ORD!", I declared. I even brought my little friend home for the weekend =)

Night came and I was looking forward to it. We met up with Faith and had dinner together. We talked about job opportunities and mutual friends(the industry is small). Kieran and Belle left us and we proceeded to Loof. The ambience looks nice but the drinks list does not suit me as it consisted mainly of cocktails and wines. The beer list had an impressive selection of 1 type of beer. They even have light and dark versions. Wohoo! As a side note, they mentioned they also have Tiger beer, Corona and something else. I guess they taste terrible since they did not even occupy a proper line in the menu.

When Joseph arrived, Faith made him re-enact his calling of Tommy "You stupid!" - Upon learning that the latter signed a bond with the company. "No, no! You must say it with passion!", cried Derek, which made me chuckle inside. The talk turned quickly about our frustration with work and I was surprised to learn that I was not the only one. Some in turn were shocked to learn of my points of disagreements with my work. To them, I was the most tolerant but those who knew me laughed their heads off. I was pretty surprised too. How did they know? I thought I hid things pretty well. It couldn't have been my attempt to drive my bosses crazy with my constant nagging for more IDs. Or me walking out of the room when boss tried to explain about the ID situation?

No, seriously, I'm surprised they read more that I cared to show. On one hand, I should watch myself. On the other, I don't think I really care.

-7H2U

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Can't get any work done

[work]
There's so much interruptions to my work for the last two days. Other than being chased for existing work, I have to answer queries from colleagues on program logic. I'm not getting anything down.

[social]
Anyway, we got to meet Joseph this afternoon. Tony also contacted me out of the blue. Too bad I didn't have much time.
Btw, happy birthday Bee.

-4H2U

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Public stand; Private stand

[social]
An informal survey by JW.
Subject: How un-touchable is someone in a relationship?
Lady friends generally open to choosing another guy if a "better" one comes along. Guy friends have little qualms about wooing someone who is attached.
Or so they say.

We claim we believe one thing, but would do another when the situation arrives. I thought I was open to gays, but I retreated when someone made an advance.

When the time comes, would you stand for what you said?

-2H1U

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

16 Aug 2006: 5 things

[work]
Without good analytical skills, it means every fault in the program is Joran's fault. Bzzt...

[grace]
People in green uniform disgust me again. They gather; drink; leave their rubbish behind and they break the plastic chairs. For what? Contest of strength?

[social]
Got to know some people better.

[grudge]
I didn't order lunch for boss's boss yesterday. Is she angry with me? I don't think I really care. Not informing me before 10.30am + Me in a bad mood == Me not caring If you had placed your orders.

[food]
We had Waruku in Katong. Nice!

-4H3U

Monday, August 14, 2006

Hey! How are you doing?

When I was finally nudged into blogging by friends, I was naturally eager to share it with others. Getting an audience wasn't easy.

My primary targets weren't interested; no excitement; no drama; some complained of lack of content; some say there's too much. One of the stronger attacks - not updated daily.
Everday? Fine. So I did (see my posts during Feb 2006 and Mar 2006). What was the criticism next? Too many complaints. Not exactly a fair one. Be your own judge. There is no pleasing everyone.

"Hey! How are you doing?"
"Oh fine", most would reply. Or, "Busy". I wonder if I buck the trend by saying, "Not good". Like, what else can we say? Our mood swings from day to day. It doesn't fall for eternity in the Wold; neither does it rise constantly like our bus fares. Take it as an update, sharing or cry for help. I'm not exactly sure either. But rather than get a lame answer from a lame question, why not just check the numbers at the bottom of my posts? It was meant to be an Easter egg but too many know the secret now. It'll change very soon.

-1H3U

Sunday, August 13, 2006

OT on Sunday

I wanted to clear away the miscellaneous stuff I had so that I could concentrate on my main task. So I decided to return to office on a Sunday.
It rained on me when I went out. There was no bus service. The gate was locked. I should have checked...

-1H2U

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Next target

Gaga is back from his own trip to Kota Kinabalu. We plan to revisit it one day but for now we are setting our sights on...

Source: our classmate's "photo blog"
More reading: 24 views of Mount Fuju

-3H1U

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Interview: unhappiness

You don't believe what I tell you verbally. You don't like what you read. Then why bother calling me up for an interview??

-3H1U

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Kota Kinabalu: Index page

Okay, it's finally written up.

Here are the links:
Climbing again??
Kota Kinabalu: D-2 Flight plans
Kota Kinabalu: D-1 Manukan island
Kota Kinabalu: D-Day
Kota Kinabalu: D+1 The struggle, part 1
Kota Kinabalu: D+1 The struggle, part 2
Kota Kinabalu: D+2 Rest and recreation


The full set of photos are available. Please visit my Friendster profile to retrieve the URL.

-1H1U

Dim sum and Majong

Ding Dang has returned for good. Yesterday, we met him with Chloe, Norman and Kat for dim sum at Hong Xing resturant. It wasn't bad but after re-evaluating it with the things I ate, it isn't in my top spot anymore.
Norman and Kat left us for their personal shopping and we left for the residence of Gina and Terry. It was a 10 hour session of Majong that seen some changes in fates. The final winner was Chloe. Oh well.

-4H2U

Friday, August 04, 2006

Comment Spam

This site is being targetted by comment spam. Bots search out blogs and add comments to them, advertising their own sites. Regrettfully, I'm adding spam protection to my comments feature.
Please don't let this stop you from comment though.

-4H4U

Thursday, August 03, 2006

A "constructive" and "productive" day

[Job]
The morning started with a constructive meeting. We cried foul about the lack of resources while boss took the role of the bad guy by defending the bad guys. He went further by asking why we can't solve the production issues during working hours and work on our programming requirements after our users have gone home. Nobody gave an answer to this.
After the meeting, we broke into a race for the hotly contested IDs and PCs. I got there first despite my ankle, probably because no one bothered to run. I did some good work finally with full access to an ID, a workstation, a phone and an email account. Wohoo!
Nuts...
I was in a relatively good mood and return to my personal PC to catch up on my programming. A colleague asked me about syntax, another asked me about SAP and I was caught being a busybody when Mdm Foo came into the room. Mdm Foo was one of our key users and she understands the flow of this project like a blood cell knows the body. Somehow, our company struck an undeserving windfall of fortune by pulling her over as an IT consultant. As if disciplining a misbehaving puppy, she called me out of the room for having multiple outstanding issues. Meekly, I followed her back to the production room. In no time, the list was cleared. If left to me alone, I might not have finished it by week's end.

Things look set to get worse for this project but just for today, things look a shade brighter.

-4H3U

Tuesday, August 01, 2006