the lastsplash

Oh my gosh. I finally finished the book I picked up more than four months ago. Reading a book is something which I usually do only on my trip to and back from work. And this book isn't exactly the size which I would wanna put in my bag, so I left it at home to collect dust after a couple of days. I picked it up yesterday only becuz I wanted to buy a new book, and had to finish this first. Once I did that, like the experience of reading other Gaiman's books, I was unable to put it down and promptly finished the two hundred odd pages left today. Anansi Boys was the fifth Neil Gaiman novel I read (excluding the Sandman Series and other related graphic novels). I like reading Gaiman's stories because of the world he created in his stories. The world where the Gods and the Deads walk among the Livings. Gods from long ago who would eventually be forgotten. If you have read American Gods, you'll probably be familiar with the world he created in Anansi Boys . I don't know ...

Not me. The highest-earner of my cohort is working there tho'. I don't dream of working there, but hope I'll at least get a chance to work on something big someday. Something with many users. Of cuz, there'll be some who will love it, and some who will hate it. So what is it really like to be working in such a big company which many hate and love? A Microsoft programmer analyses and gives his structured perspective on working in Microsoft, a very programmer-thingy to do. =) Who dares to speak so openly about their company? There are certainly somethings I hope to see in my working environment as well. Read it from the insider here .

I was very honoured to be invited to write a line or two last week, to be featured during the Tea Reception for SCE applicants and on the Alumni Website. The main aim was to inspire and guide the freshmen on education at NTU SCE, and to recount my memorable experience in SCE. A difficult task at first, it turned out that a couple of lines were not enough for me. Below is a preview to my lil' contribution. Hopefully it'll be useful to potential NTU SCE freshmen who will not be able to make it for the Tea Reception. =) During my Convocation last July, the guest speaker, Mr Chan Yeng Kit, CEO of IDA Singapore, reminded us of our decision to place the bets of our future in the IT industry shortly after the bust of the dot-com bubble. He portrayed us as brave souls, passionate about IT. And he painted the future of us as future professionals in the dynamic and exciting industry, where we can make a difference across the society. He also presented past statistics that half of the IT-...

It was the first week of April when the flowers bloomed. The petals pink and white covered the long stretch of the road back home. For the moment, I was brought a scene from the Japanese animation, where they enjoyed scent and sight of beautiful cherry blossoms in the Spring. That moment was perfect, if only I had a camera to capture it down and share with everyone. Two weeks later the beautiful sight of bougainvillea was replace by tropical torrential rain. Spring was over. Next year I'll be ready when April comes.

I finally got to watch the " Why My Vote Matters - A Dialogue with the Minister Mentor " on the re-telecast tonight and understand the reasons for some of the comments on Today . Some after thoughts from watching the show... At times, I wondered why some of the young journalists did not have the basic courtesy of letting MM Lee finish what he wanted to say. There were numerous times when I heard MM Lee said, "Let me finish it." If you ask a question, listen to the answer, then ask another question. I am not sure why some of these young journalists do not know that it is rude to interupt someone speaking. I think it is more important to learn to listen, and speak at the right thing at the right moment. As professionals in the media, I think they should be more responsible in what they say. One of the participant said, "There are friends in university who don't know who the PM is, who don't know who you are..." Shame on her friends. Please don'...

I seem to be in the mood to write. This is my third entry for the day. =) It is a common sight to see students selling flags on Saturdays. Almost every Saturday of is a Flag Day. Although it feels like every Saturday. If you understand the rationale of Flag Days, you'll agree that it is a very good idea. I think that other than raising funds for the VWOs (Voluntary Welfare Organisation), it is also to spread the awareness of these organisations and their causes, and to involve students in some community work. I am sure almost everyone of this young generation has participated in at least one Flag Day during their secondary school days. Regardless of much is raised, Flag Days help VWOs in some way. Other than funds from the government, most VWOs have to raise their own funds to run their facilities and programmes. It is no easy task to canvas for funds. Contrary to what many think, there are actually many VWOs out there which need our help, besides NKF, Cancer Foundation, etc, which...

The change to the NTU Points Award Scheme (PAS) did not come as a surprise to me. The enrollment has increased steadily with the opening of the new schools (Humanities, Physical Science, Design and Media). The demand for hostels will definitely go up as well. Therefore a revamp of the system is needed, especially to cater for students who live far from the campus. However, I feel the abolishment of points system completely in the new Hall Allocation Scheme (HAS) is not very good move. Of cuz, the new scheme has its advantages (you can read about it here ). The best thing about the new scheme is that students who are staying far from school will worry less about getting up early and travelling so far to campus (unlike SMU or NUS, NTU is situated at this far corner of Singapore!). Students who never have got a chance at hostel life will do so now too. Student leaders will also be rewarded. Locals will also get more chance to stay with international students in the new scheme. Although th...

Dear friends, Please forgive me if I start seeing less of you for the next few months or years. Perhaps I'll be too busy at work, but I suspect the real reason is because I can't afford to eat at a fancy restaurant with you anymore. Or let me put it this way, we can still meet for hawker food, or dinner at coffee shop, but much less often from now on. Let me share with you my story, and you'll know why. I am a typical Singaporean living in the rat race, and I choose not to stay like this forever. In the rat race means, despite working my ass off, money is still never enough. Some might say, "Hey, you have a good job leh, earning so much, where got not enough?" To begin, I don't really earn much, and a very large portion of it is for paying off my liabilities. Every month, it comes down to the minimum last $500 in the bank account. And sometimes, I have to squeeze over the last few dollars before that minimum. No house, no car, you may ask, "What kinda lia...

I was not aware the National Library Board had joined the bandwagon of organisations with blogs till I saw a post on tomorrow.sg today. The NLB book blog, "High Browse Online" , has been around since October 2005. I think they are doing a great job to adopt a book blog format. Book blogs make reading book reviews easier and more fun. The blog-style makes navigation systematic and easier, as well as maintainence really simple too. I applaud organisations which are able to embrace technology the right way. An economical way to encourage the sharing of information. Below are some tech blogs of different organisations which I read: 1. O'Reilly Developers Weblogs - discussions and articles on wide range of topics. 2. Inside FireFox - A firefox developer's blog on the incredible web browser. 3. IE Blog - The project blog of the rival! Updated glimpse into the IE development and new features. 4. Borland Developer Network - blogs of Borland projects and developers. 5. J...

...And a dot dot here, dot dot there, here dot, there dot, where is dot NET? Good news for Java programmers! Once again, Java is the most popular language according to the statistics from www.tiobe.com . Check out their websites for their definition of popular language and ranking of the rest of the languages.

Recently there were some discussion about desire on Sunshine's blog. And since my birthday is not too far from now *hinthint*, I started thinking about what are my desires... I stopped before the list got too long. I guess desires in the form of material ones are mostly things we don't really need. Such as this really super duper cool Ro Tuck laptop bag and classy Knomo Frinton 17" below!!! *more hints* hah hah. Ok la, just kidding. *take back all the hints* Take a look at the rest of the Top 10 Coolest Laptop Cases here .

Last night, some guys from the resident committee and the town council informed us that depending on the outcome of the voting, a new lift will be built at the corridor just outside our flat. It is part of the lift upgrading for our area. As our flat is along the lift landing level, it was just for info and we will not be voting. We were informed about the lift upgrading earlier by letter, and I did not expect that they were actually planning to build a new lift! Our block is relatively small compared to the other blocks in the area, with a total number of households of 50. The new lift will stop at every level, which means that other than the serving even levels as the existing lift, it will also serve the two corner units at the odd levels, and 8 units at level two. The existing lift is at the other end of the block now, where there are no units at odd levels, therefore to serve the odd levels units, the new lift has to be built at our end of the block. I am not very supportive of th...

The headline read ,"Thaksin sobs, will step aside". This news came as a surprise to me as despite winning the snap polls, he is resigning to fate. His words brought about a tinge of sympathy for him, "I beg all Thais to reunite. I beg all Thais to sacrifice for the king. I apologise to my 15 million supporters that I cannot take the post of Prime Minister...". Regardless of whether it is like what the opposition suspects (merely appointing a seat-warmer and waiting for political storm to blow over before returning to power), I believe Mr Thaksin will stand by his words, unless it is a request from the King. Is democracy about staging protests and boycotting the election? I am sure the whole world can tell that the opposition merely used the sale of Shin Corp to Temasek Holdings to stir up the nationalism feelings in the Thai citizens, as a platform to launch attack on Mr Thaksin. A case of commercial move used as an excuse for a political cause. I think it will not ...

Do not watch!!!

I wonder if anyone noticed, Mediacorp had been using lotsa Franz Ferdinand songs for their shows' intro clips these days. For example they used "The Fallen" for the DH2 clip. I bet either all these clips were done by someone who is a Franz Ferdinand fan or they were paid alot to do so. I think the former is more likely. And that person sure have good taste. Btw, you can find some nice photos of them here from their " No Encore " concert back in Feb. Courtesy of Aloysius Lim. Thanks dude, your photos are really incredible. Today was a usual day, with two passengers on the bus who preferred to let their NTUC plastic bags "sit", then giving up those seats to two poor ladies with high heels, whose hands were really full. It is interesting to note that one of the passenger was sitting behind the other. One was a 40+ auntie, the other was a 30+ man. Totally normal, balanced demographic, and occurrence, of inconsiderate people on the public transport. At wor...

Found this interesting poem on a tag with the pair of ZO jeans I bought from Thailand. It also says "est. in 1047" duh!!! So big hole! There you'll find a place filled with poetry A place where everything and everyone has a new shape. Where the universe is upside down and inside out. Where colours have sex and you can suddenly do that dance move you always wanted to do. Naked. A place where friends fly, members breathe, donkeys explode, stars scream, peace lives, and disasters happen in reverse. A place where you're licking shaved cats one minute and wrestling tornados the next. What kinda place is that?!!! The poet must be really high or something when he/she wrote that... "friends fly" and "colours having sex?!"... and "Naked." Woah. Everything seems peaceful, till the donkeys start to explode... Give the man a tiger! He wrestles with tornados! So what is that "dance move"... funky chicken dance? Yeah, the poem sounds abit li...