the lastsplash

While the world whines about slow connections and inaccessibility of their favourite websites, let's show more concern to those affected by the quake? Reading the headlines on the front page of our national builder, they probably think otherwise.

I am a big fan of George Orwell after reading nineteen eighty-four . This guy is a genius. Someone out there is slowly realising the world he created in the novel. Well from the progress of events in the turn of this century, this should be of no surprise. Fight fire with fire. Survelliance and police. One of the straight forward method to cope with chaos of the world is to systematically track everything and try to react before it happens. But what if it does not happen as they thought it will be? We have all seen the consequences. One or two innocent victims (probably many more behind cover-ups) is not going to stop them from continuing to do so. The statistics is amazing: "About 4.2 million spy cameras film each citizen 300 times a day". Talk about human rights, privacy and freedom. The only consolation for us is that it is not happening in Singapore yet. Slowly but surely, with the increasing surveillance cameras in town, and who-knows where else hidden, I will not be sur...

I am convinced women can really fake it. Watch this clip , from Fox Reality's new show, My Bare Lady. Btw, you may wanna lower your volume abit first before you view the clip. =p

Do you like Christmas? I like Christmas. I don't celebrate it as a religious holiday, but more for the commercial reason of it. Not to make a pile of $ out of it, but to do what all vendors like us to do - buy gifts for your family and friends. Gift is one of the many representation of sharing and it is a fabulous one! Although you can buy gifts for anyone on any day, and everyday can be Christmas. However, on this occasion, it seems to be the perfect excuse to do so without getting awkward and mushy. You can put in extra effort to buy that special gift for that someone you have crush on, and it'll be great if he or she get that hint - so romantic! If not, you can say "hey its Christmas! We are good friends!". And bosses can also sincerely show appreciation by buying gifts for their subordinates who had been working hard for them all year. It is also good opportunity to drop a Christmas greeting to your friends who you have not been keeping touch, to let them know you...

阿发 came back from his Taiwan trip last week. He told me that not only are the Taiwanese KTV rooms big, they also have personal toilets for each room. Unlike those in Singapore where not everyone get to sit properly facing the front, sometimes you'll get rooms which are small and have to sit on the floor. Anyway, interestingly, I heard this story on a late night radio show on 93.3FM about the Taiwanese KTVs as well. Thought it'll be nice to recycle the story and share with you.. heh heh. Okay, the story goes like this... Taiwanese KTVs are famous for the personal toilets (which I did not know until I heard 阿发 mentioned). A group of friends were singing at one of these rooms when someone came knocking on the door. It was a waiter. He asked if anyone had pressed the bell for service. Apparently not. So they went on singing. After a while, there was another knock on the door. Another waiter came in. He asked if anyone had pressed the bell for service. Apparently not too. So they...

In the beginning of the year, I made some New Year resolutions . Now its time to do a review of them. =) Here's the list: 1. Strike lottery for a trip to Europe and China. Bought 4D and TOTO a few times, but no luck yet. Who says winning lottery will be easy? heh. And the only overseas place I could afford and been to this year was Bangkok. That's why I need resolution #8 lah. 2. Complete the two unfinished entries of blog from 2005. What two entries? Forget it. So often I jot down my thoughts while I travel to work and home. And when I get home, they all seem so mundane or silly to be blogged down. 3. Spend more time with family. F ather and M other I L ove Y ou. I do. But I still did not spend enough time with them. Mainly due to fulfilling r esolution #5 and #6 . Anyway, at least we finally have a family photo hanging on our wall. Probably this'll be one of my resolutions for next year as well. 4. Treat my girlfriend better. I am not sure whether I did that. She...

"Its something like Lord of the Rings..." ??? Really? I thought it was more like another " Dungeons & Dragons ". Coincidentally, oh perhaps not so, Jeremy Irons acted in both shows. Instead of many Red Dragons, there was only one. A blue dragon with a sexy voice, like the one in Shrek! Anyway, the strange thing is that I thought D&D movie was so bad, nobody will ever make another movie about dragons. But guess I was wrong. To be fair, the CG was not bad. The dragon rider, Eragon (Edward Speleers) interacted seamlessly with the dragon, Saphira (voice of Rachel Weisz - yes, the sexy Princess Nefertiri and Ms "Indiana Jones" in "The Mummy Returns"). But these days, which fantasy movie doesn't have great special effects. And tho' the CG might be good, the battle scenes was a far cry from the grand showdowns in LOTR. I supposed it is very unfair to compare any fantasy movies with LOTR. The movie was adapted from a book. I have not read...

Shopping is therapeutic. Buying something for someone you care or someone you love, is a joyous way to feel better. PageOne at Vivocity is a great place to do that. The bookshop with slanted bookshelves has many hidden treasures. Thinking how happy the person receiving those treasures will be cheers me up. I just can not resist buying them. Even when there are no obvious reasons or occasions for doing so. My mood gets better. Buying things for myself helps too. But I prefer not to as I tend to be very generous with the things I get for myself. Perhaps that explains why I seldom buy new clothes or get anything for myself. And when I do so, there are usually at the range of hundreds of dollars. Luckily, the latest shopping therapy cost me less than fifteen dollars. =p

Have you heard of the story of the boy who entered college at nine, and graduated at eleven? He could speak Japanese, do engineering Mathematics, and solve great mysteries. He helped the police department to solve crimes and deciphered difficult codes. His knowledge grew but his emotions and body never did. He would forever look and feel like a nine-year-old. From time to time, he would experience a reset in his mind, where all memories go back to when he was nine. I had dreamt of this story. Have you seen the best mapping application? I panned the world and saw it moving in real-time. The images were very detailed, like someone holding a video camera, walking around the world to capture everything on the surface of the planet. I saw the sea, algae and pebbles, a frog and a dead fish. Mostly, I saw an ugly world. I saw this in my dreams.

Java SE 6 , formerly known as Mustang, is out, with source codes, developed with the open source community. I am still using 1.4.2_08 lorh . The expectations , the results .

I have compiled a list of Japanese Animes that I collect. It is purely meant for me to keep track and not for any form of online distribution. I will be updating it regularly, so please check the link on the sidebar again if you are interested in knowing what I am watching and keen to have a discussion with me about them. For quick information on each series, I have painstakingly added links to Anime News Network . Personal Ratings for Recommended Series: * - Definitely worth procrastinating your work to watch it. ** - Highly recommended. You havta watch it! *** - Forget about eating and sleeping. You MUST finish the whole series at ONE GO! A Avenger B Bleach * Blood+ * Bakuretsu Tenshi C Capeta Chobits * Chrono Crusade * D Da Capo Dear Boys Death Note ** Detective Academy Q * ** D.N. Angel * E Ergo Proxy * F Fullmetal Alchemist *** Full Metal Panic! ** Full Metal Panic? - Fumoffu * Full Metal Panic! - The Second Raid *** G Gantz ** Getbackers *** Ghost in the Shell - ...

I could not stand the black yucky scum in the middle of the basin anymore. At 6.15 a.m., I took a brush and started scrubbing the sink. Now, its nice and shiny!

Three weeks of exam and study leave, deployment support, has finally come to an end. Although I don't like exams, it was a nice break from work and the support shifts. Hopefully I will not regret come 27 Dec when the results will be out. Aiyar , its first semester, not in study mood yet mah , abit rusty too, so if don't do so well also understandable bah ? ha ha. Anyway Christmas is round the corner, next few weeks will be in holiday mood lo! Heh heh , it is also the time of the year when I feel I have the time to do some catch up with my friends. So don't be surprised if I give you a call or ask you out for dinner. Give face okay? ;op In the meantime, as the clock tick tick tick, I can feel the Monday blues slowly creeping in...

I had been busy adding feeds into my new RSS reader, BlogBridge . Swing 神 Romain Guy had recommended it on his blog . The user interface is clean and there are some nice features: 1) Highly customizable. The LAF of the application can be changed according to user preferences. 2) New articles. Feeds can be grouped into "Guides" with their own icon on the side bar. The are bar charts on the feeds bar to display the number of articles for each feed in the past week. There are indicators that display the number of unread articles for each guide and feed on their respective bars. Thus at one look, I will know which feed to read, without the need to expanding folders or selecting each feed. 3) Readability. Embedded objects, such as pictures and video can be displayed on the reader itself. I can also choose to display the articles on the default system browser. 4) Subscribing new feeds. It will be good if there is some sort of Firefox plugin to add the feeds or import current...

It was no man in black cape and mask. It was the real thing. A bat flew into my house just now. How often do we, suaku urban HDB flat dwellers get to see a bat flying in our house? I suppose its a good sign as there's a Chinese saying that goes, “福到” or "Arrival of Good Luck". "Bat" sounds like "(Good) Luck" in Chinese. Normally in traditional Chinese furnitures, such as rosewood furnitures, there are carvings of bats hanging upside down, as "Upside down" sounds like "Arrive" in Chinese. However, it really frightened my mum and sister. Below is a picture of the bat hanging on the wooden blind in the kitchen,

China won the Gold and Silver medals in the 10m Women's Air Rifle event. Even though the third highest score went to China's Wu Liuxi , the Bronze medal went to Kazakhstan's Olga Dovgun as the Games rules state that a country can only be awarded a maximum of two medals in any event. This rule is unbelievable. Even in sports, there exist such rules, an artificial barrier, to protect the weaker. Shouldn't sports, of all types of competitions, be totally based on meritocracy? If you ain't good enough to beat the big guys, you gotta work harder. The fourth was really good, in fact with a difference of merely 0.7 points from the third. Just not as good to deserve a medal yet. There are other smaller games, such as the SEA Games, that build up the strengths of athletics and celebrate their abilities, without the threats of powerhouses like China and Japan. And in big games like the Asian Games and the Olympics, it is the chance for them to prove themselves against the bi...

I think the reason why I like programming is that unlike other forms of writings, there is no such thing as plagiarism. In fact programmers are openly encouraged to reuse good design and codes. Reusability is the key feature of programming. In programming, when people use your codes, it is definitely a form of flattery. " Good programmers write good code; Great programmers steal great code." However, looking for good code snippets is not an easy task. And not everything can be used out of the box. You got to be able to understand the codes, and know what to use. In fact, the easiest way to learn programming is through actual coding with sample codes. Having said all that, programming is also about creativity and logical reasoning skills. On the topic of programming, have you ever wonder how programming languages can be described as different types of women? Well someone just did that . I am not sure whether such women exist, but they definitely fit some of the characteristic...