Already?! It’s 2009, and I still haven’t updated my blog design. Three cheers for procrastination… hip hip, later then say lah. Back to work … Bluetooth tinkering, French pronouncing, and Facebook wrestling. Among other things.
Gotta get ready for the Chinese New Year too… this year it’s far earlier than before. Ah well. Updates to come.
I’m sure I wrote some stuff here… the draft got eaten, I think. Anyways, tonight (local time) is when Germany plays Turkey for a place in the final of Euro 2008! Is there anything bigger? Probably not since the landing of that asteroid which killed off the dinosaurs!
… No, really. When Germany and Turkey won their respective quarterfinal (say Viertelfinale, fear-tle-phi-na-ler) matches, the surrounding celebrations rocked Munich! You’d be forgiven for thinking there was no other sport in the world.
I and a host of other friends will be watching the live telecast at the impressive Olympic Stadium (say Olympiastadion, oh-loom-pia-shta-deon) and I hope the atmosphere will be every bit as awesome as it’s claimed to be! Now, if only Singaporeans celebrated our Tiger Cup wins with half as much fervour…
On a side note, believe it or not, I think I’ve become more tanned in Munich than I ever would have been back home. The amount of direct sunlight here is crazy, I think maybe grilled sausages (say Bratwurst, b-h-art-vu-hst) are so popular because the locals are reminded of themselves in the summer…
Regardless of the result, tonight’s match will be an enjoyable one, whether it be because of the on-field action or the fans in the stadium (I hope both), and for the sake of better vibes around town, I hope Germany enters the finals! (Sorry Türkiye, 3rd place again for you!)
Alles Gute! (one last one, ah-less goo-ter)
So the weather didn’t cooperate after all, and instead of a hike in the mountains at Rosenheim, I will be going with another group (slightly larger) to Prague for the weekend! Should be a good visit. Wonder what the food there is like - heard good things about it, but I’ll see for myself.
Time to get some rest, perhaps? Or not…
Finally, I’m back and bored enough to blog! I haven’t been doing much on the travelling front, but it’s not purely for monetary reasons - it’s also because the courses here are getting more interesting and more involved - and as I’ve mentioned, one of my main objectives here is to experience the local education system. (Not take photos of the campus, etc, though that will probably come in time. :P)
This weekend will be a busy one, though - after all, there’ll be the last of the public holidays for a while on Thursday - which means my weekend starts on Wednesday, after the Multimedia Communications tutorial. I am taking far too many modules for my own good, I think, but at least I can choose not to take the exam at the end (though knowing myself I would try to get everything!)
So Wednesday night is reserved for Man Utd vs Chelsea, and hopefully celebrations of a “League and Cup double” of a different kind - then Thursday is time for the StuStaCulum, an annual music festival held at Studentenstadt, one of the major student residences in Munich. That lasts till Saturday, but I will not be attending all of it: Saturday and Sunday will see me travelling to Rosenheim with a small group of friends (who are tagging on to a huge group) to trek in some mountains… and I hope the weather will be on my side this time. Rest assured, Rovers people, I have learned some lessons from the Kinabalu experience. 
By the time we get back, it would be just enough time to rest before school starts on Monday… and sometime in between, I will be attempting (the fate of my digestive system is at stake!) to produce passable cai tau kueh and/or chicken rice. We’ll see how that goes, eh?
Till next time… enjoy yourselves wherever you are! FYP is only a few months away 
The weather here is nothing like in Singapore 
I mean, if it were raining back home, it would be nice for football. Out here? If you can stop shivering long enough, it might be nice weather, too
While the bulk of the admin stuff is done, and it seems I can concentrate on burning my rice and attending my lectures, suddenly a letter comes from the Studentenwerk HQ - the hostel administration - saying they couldn’t deduct the required rent amount from my account, and could I transfer the amount required to their bank account below in 10 days please? Thank you. Which is fine, if I could be sure which number was the bank account number… I’ll have a bit of running about to do tomorrow.
I’ll also need to buy lecture notes, hunt textbooks, and catch up… there’s lots of stuff that needs to be learned which they assume we already knew, since we’re taking Masters level courses. And the courses in German so far aren’t so bad, but I need to do some reading to make sure I don’t get too lost when the advanced stuff starts.
I’m quite amused that the notes shop is only open for an hour a week - that’s 12.30 - 1pm, Tuesday and Thursday. Want to make special arrangements? Service charge is - get this - a six pack of Augustiner Beer. (About 3.50 Euro according to my flatmate.) The sign on the door even tells you where the nearest place to buy beer is! And from what I’ve seen, I really don’t think they’re joking about it
In between all this rubbish, I’ve been down to Salzburg and up to Berlin, a half day each time, and I’ll be going on a 3-day trip to Vienna this weekend (+Bad Voslau) to watch wrestling, among other things. That pretty much spells the end of April, and with it probably the last of my bank account. I think I’ve been spending quite justifiably so far, other than the travelling - it seems the bulk of my money is spent on food and textbooks. Then there’s the beer, which is not really cheaper than water, as I’d thought. (That’s also helped me limit my alcohol intake, for those of you wondering.)
So, I’d best be off to watch my rice or I’ll spend another year scraping carbon! Seeya all!
Figuratively.
Love you Mich!
I’ve settled in quite a bit from all the moving and stuff, and most of the admin is done, so all that’s left is to unpack my luggage into the cupboard. I took some time last night after coming back from a smoky Spring Festival, smelling like a chain smoker myself, to prepare me some dinner.
(And for those of you who can’t read, no, I don’t smoke. Never did, never will.)
As with a lot of hostel dinners, this one was made with everything that might work in the fridge, and it actually turned out quite OK. Didn’t take a photo of it, though. I’ll try it again next week and put up a photo if I can.
Here is the recipe 
Gotta be fast here! Already overstayed my estimated half hour on the computer, doubling the cost I was prepared to pay (cheapo!) … Well. I’m hanging out in Dublin at the moment, exploring a little bit before I have to get back to the airport for my flight to Munich. I’ve got 4 hours to kill! 
I’ll work on getting photos up as soon as I find out what sort of photo gallery I can install on my wordpress site, and where I can put all the photos, blah blah, admin issues. No photos from Dublin for now though, I forgot to charge my camera after wrestling the night before, and cleverly checked my spare battery in, so my photos will be taken from phone cam only
Just posting to let you all (yeah, Mich, Hui Min and whoever else reads this.) know I’m all right, if a bit on the freezy side
Got a day pass for the bus services here in Dublin which cost me €6! Probably gonna look for a post office to send some stuff though. Didn’t have time to do it in Orlando.
Next time I post will be after settling down in Munich, I believe, so see you all online then!
Hey! Flew over from Kansas to Orlando after I finished the whirlwind three-day mini-tour there with Ola & Co. I’m now back in somewhat more familiar weather, and I’ll need to do some exploring before I can get those tickets to Wrestlemania, so wish me luck!
Chinese Buffet yesterday wasn’t so bad, actually, except they cleared my plate a bit too early because I was the only one there and they thought I’d left Ate a bit too much, though, was feeling bloated on the way back. I’m feeling much better now, so I’m off to look for more food. Incidentally, it’s about 11, so it would be brunch, I guess.
I’ll find a way to upload photos of Kansas sometime soon :)
Love you my Mich! Miss you so much!
Everyone back home take care of yourselves OK?
Dearest Mich,
Our time together today was quite random-ed, but I had a great time and I hope you did too From our crazy little lunch at Cartel PS (which I don’t know if I’ll ever repeat - maybe other branches would be a better idea :P) to the super romantic super cool local movie which we barely managed to catch (I wonder if they’ll run it again in 4 years’ time?!) to the bits of poking around we did at Daiso to the spur-of-the-moment mid-air excursion, everything was crazy but fun and I wouldn’t mind doing it again
Can I fold you up and put you in the photocopier please? Then I would bring one copy to Germany, and leave one copy with the rest of the world to do whatever else you need I know you’ll be fine in Singapore, but I want to bring you along with me to share all I’m experiencing.
Mich: I don’t care who reads this, as long as you do.
You worry that I might have a change of heart,
And find someone else when we’re apart;
I hope there’s some way that I can find,
To reassure you and ease your mind;
You’re the one I want, my love,
An angel from above.
I want the wwworld to see
We’re still in love,
Actually.
Yaitya Iwa, KH.
It’s quite dusty here huh? Been some time since I last posted… always putting off coming back here to post because I wanted to redesign the site, lol. I’ll be leaving soon, for a short(?!) stint in AngMohLand. SEP to Munich, Germany, plus bits of travelling to almost random places like Lawrence, Kansas; Orlando, Florida; Regensburg, Munich; Zurich, Switzerland; usw. usw. (und so weiter = et cetera in German.)
Still gonna have to tidy up this corner of the WWW so that I can upload stuff, but for now, at least I managed to overcome inertia enough to put something new online!
It’s 2 years and counting, dear! Thank you for bearing with me for so long! Let’s hope we have many more years together I’ll love you always. I’m glad you enjoyed our little outing today :)
You know what the nick is referring to? It refers to a little miscalculation. No matter that Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day is around the corner. There was simply no excuse for the amount of red we saw today… ladies and gentlemen, try to plan your meals around the movie more carefully if you intend to watch Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
Sure, it’s a musical. Sure, it has Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. There’s even Alan Rickman of Slytherin fame. It was NOT Harry Potter meets Pirates of the Caribbean, though, nor was it Corpse Bride. It was kind of… well, the star of the show was the blood. Rather, the red thing they use in place of real blood in movies. I hope it wasn’t real, anyway… *shudder* There are movies I’d watch again, but this isn’t one of them.
What followed after that was a long lunch at Ajisen Ramen, then a winding journey through the aisles at John Little and Daiso, looking at things, trying things on, and enjoying each others’ company, something we hadn’t had the chance to do in quite a while.
I don’t cover this stuff in all its goryjuicy detail. After all, I don’t have to :P Because… The only two people who need to know what went on already do! And that’s all there should be to it, don’t you think? ^_^ Right Mich?
For my love:
If you ever feel cold in the dark lonely night
When there’s doubt in your mind, or you ever take fright
Look in your heart because that’s where I’ll be
Physical distance is nothing, you see
I’ll be where you are, and you’ll be with me
As long as we’re alive, we’re in L-O-V-E.
Our journey together has only begun
Two years to the day is hardly a long run
I hope that I’ll say this again and again
I’ll give you my joy if you give me your pain
Life is a road that we wanna keep going
Love’s two-man canoe, we both must keep rowing.
I love you dear.
So I had the last of my reviews yesterday - it was quickly over and would have cost me $8.40 less if I hadn’t woken up just before the appointment and taken a cab down to NUH Thereafter it was another rush down to Harbourfront to get an MRT transfer to Dhoby Ghaut and the Picturehouse where I caught Vexille with another bunch of Aarders - Ami, Houndoom, Enthyme and Meow (Hide, Zhengkang, Maria and … Mao :P)
By the way, it was a lucky choice I made to go on the MRT… because I ran into Michie on the train! We took a few slightly blurry photos, which will be uploaded maybe later Hehe it’s such a coincidence isn’t it dear?
After the movie, we had no idea what to do, so we bummed around for a while until we eventually drifted (by MRT, no less!) to City Hall and the KTV at Marina Square. Meow and Hound (those animals!) had severe misgivings about KTV but they eventually warmed up to it, as people who find themselves having to pay $20 usually do -srun- So they had a sort of good time, I think?
We eventually decided not to go to Yuki and Yaki, the innovative barbecue buffet place I was eyeing before the KTV session So we wound up in the middle of Marina Square’s Food Loft where we finished dinner perfunctorily. (Well, my herbal chicken took a while longer.) Then it was a bit more of wandering about before going home.
Managed to fill up my day with other things than sitting and levelling at home, so it’s a reasonable success. I will be spending a bit less over the next few days, though
It’s been considerably more relaxing the past few days, but I’m still working on a Flash project… will someone tell me how to generate an array of m by n empty movie clips and load pictures into them? I’m not that good at ActionScript, and it might take a while longer than I have to figure this stuff out.
So I tried going to the BookFest at Suntec on Wednesday, for it’d been some time since I and Mich got to spend any kind of time together, let alone quality time We caught a movie first, then headed down to the convention centre where apparently the BookFest was still not open to the public. OOPS!
At least the Golden Compass wasn’t too bad. I wonder why people are so incensed about the Church being portrayed in a bad light, etc… maybe it’s a guilty conscience? (Incidentally the guy they chose as the smarmy Priest looked a little like Hitler without the moustache. I wonder if it was intentional.) The movie had interesting bits of action, but the way it was filmed left no doubt that it was part of a trilogy - nothing was sewn up and much time was spent introducing characters.
Mich and I then went for a spot of shopping, but I couldn’t find anything I wanted to buy. On the other hand, Mich managed to emerge victorious with a trophy haul of one plastic box and a belt, plus a pair of Neckermann sandals from nOda. So I had to try harder to look for something to even up the score (OK, well, I felt like buying something, I just didn’t know what it was.) When we stopped for a snack at Marina Square, there it was! The 881 DVD that I’d been putting off buying from Sembawang Music. Only TS Movies had a soundtrack thrown in, as well. So yay me, I found something to buy!
And we spent some time browsing through Mango, wondering why the heck people flock to the shop and it manages to draw a healthy crowd throughout the day when there seems to be nothing much too special about it. Can any Mango fans enlighten me? I think it’s only because there are low(er) prices there, so people go to TRY to find a bargain.
Eventually fatigue got the better of us and we decided to go home. After all, the Flash MX puzzle I have is still unsolved… I do hope to settle it soon. Yesterday’s briefing for Europe SEP students didn’t help much either, though I did try poking away at it to no avail. Guess it will take a little more time.
Thanks Mich for introducing me to the Asian Kitchen.. the lunch was fantastic, if not entirely “Asian”. I could only find one dish that didn’t seem to be Chinese, unless you take the idea of red beans in tea as Japanese (in line with the “azuki” thing tcc has.) We both ordered steaming hot bowls of ramen (she had Dan Dan and I had Zha Jiang), three xiao long bao (pork pork pork!) each and some ”Village Tofu” … wonder whose village it would have come from
It’s a great place to go for lunch (they open at 11.30 sharpish. Not a minute earlier or later, so get your clock set right :P) and maybe dessert, though we didn’t actually get to try any yesterday.
So I and Mich headed to Suntec for our second IT fair this year. This time, it was COMEX 2007, which is supposedly the biggest one in Singapore. I managed to buy a laptop cooling pad (3 USB-powered fans!) and Mich wanted to buy another thumbdrive or external HDD… but nothing too big. Nothing did it for her, though - so we’ll have to try again next time.
Hopefully this cooling pad will be able to save my laptop after it’s been fixed. I might upgrade it a bit when it comes back, maybe sometime next week. In the meantime, however, more work will have to be done on paper…
Had the welcome tea just yesterday evening, and it was a great success! Many came to listen (26! Wow!) and almost everyone left with free Ubuntu CDs. More importantly, people expressed interest in signing up with us as members. This means we will be growing!
And then there was what happened after. Deciding to settle the printing issue once and for all, Lu Feng, Ruiwen and I added a printer from the comfy seats at Burger King. This after all my tinkering had failed for the past few weeks… and constant headbanging with Kerberos didn’t produce any more than a double login prompt.
It turns out I just forgot to configure samba correctly… *bish* And we did it again at the Computer Centre too! There was lots of fun and plenty of photos taken. I’ll have to wait till they pop out of Ruiwen’s phone, though.
Then again, they’ll probably be thrown onto http://linuxnus.org soon enough.. next week it’s “my” event! An “Intro to Linux” talk… hmm… I still don’t know what should go in it.
In the meantime, it’s back to the tons of projects on my plate… a technological innovation for EE3001, a review of engineering ethics for EG2401, an embedded systems research paper for CS2271 and a game proposal for EE3702. Not to mention the assembly programming bits for EE2007 which I haven’t had much time to explore..
Work work
So I didn’t manage to get as many friends along as I’d hoped, and went alone for the second time in a row This time was a value seat - quite a bit farther from the ring but near the aisle so I could come out and take videos and photos as and when I pleased.
The lineup would have been a lot better if Benoit were around… or CM Punk… or MVP… or Matt Hardy.. but as it was Finlay made a solid double appearance, as did Kane. Khali and Batista was not the most technical of matches but it certainly had a reaction
Match summary:
Ric Flair def. Chris Masters by Figure Four
Deuce and Domino def. Major Brothers by double team to retain
Michelle McCool def. Victoria by some spinning side slam thing
Elijah Burke def. Steven Richards by Feet On The Ropes
– intermission –
John Morrison def. Tommy Dreamer by, damn I missed it. to retain
Kane def. Finlay by The Choke Slam
Rey Mysterio Jr. def. Chavo Guerrero Jr. by the 619 + Top Rope Splash
Batista def. Khali by disqualification, Finlay run-in.. Kane made the save and..
Batista and Kane def. Finlay and Khali by a Batista Bomb on Finlay to end the night.
An entertaining card from top to bottom, and I caught a glimpse of an elbow in the dressing room downstairs near the Coke machine.. might have been Kane’s or Batista’s
I didn’t feel like buying the $25 match programme, the Rated R T-shirt was sold out, and I couldn’t find my Benoit shirt to wear to the event. Possibly someone in Kuok Foundation has it now…
For those of you who haven’t tried the Porridge Buffet at Joaquim’s in Suntec City, you’re missing out on some great eats.
It’s really affordable and there’s a wide range of dishes for every palate. The staple, porridge, comes in three different types - plain, peanut and sweet potato - and for those who want a more solid meal, there’s also fried kuay teow and rice you can order.
Sides include pig intestines (”fen chang”), pork belly slices, braised duck in soy sauce, fried fish, vegetables (pickled or salted), preserved cai xin, sauteed greens and a host of other mouthwatering Chinese delicacies - well forgive me if I ate more than I could recall.
I simply loved it - there’s no way to thank Mich enough for introducing it to me It’s not for the light eaters, despite it being porridge based. We had to walk it off with a jaunt in Marina Square next door because we, ok -I- had quite a bit to eat.
Thanks dear for the huge Elmo pillow and handy Puma bag, they’re lovely!
This does mean, though, that I’m into my 23rd year and counting… >_< A fact which I celebrated with my family the next day at Tung Lok Seafood Group - the food was nice, but it’s prohibitively expensive for those of us not on a corporate meetings budget. And it’s tucked out of the way in Ulu-land… facing SAFTI.
It was a fabulous evening at Costa Sands Downtown East when we celebrated Mich and Hui Min’s birthday on the 13th of July, never mind the supposed inauspiciousness of the date
When I got there at 7.10, the food had already arrived and so had the cake delivery guy from Pat n Felcor’s… so I had to run off and pick it up. Thank goodness it survived the speedy delivery and the agonising wait outside the fridge
The only approved caterers for Downtown East, Oh’s Farm Catering, did a pretty good job of satisfying our hunger and appeasing the organisers (that’s us, by the way - did I mention there was only ONE choice of caterer?) so it was time for the cake to provide a sweet finish to the night’s meal And score it did. (For those interested, check out PNFWeb for more details on Pat n Felcor… their Hazelnut Truffle was fantastic!)
That night was dominated by an endless session of mahjong (whee!) - I didn’t do too well for the games I was in, though I did manage to pull off a small win :D While Xuan Chun, Siew Geok+Kenneth, Weijun, Chee Hian and Eddie slaved away at the tiles, I, Mich and Hui Min decided to try a little blackmail instead (thanks Lester.)
That ended, however, when I took a break to grab some food (leftovers from the buffet earlier) and everyone else stopped for a bite, too - Mich and Min (even Rina woke up to join them) started peeling all the prawns for everybody, heh. Even the mahjong kakis found some time to snack on the leftovers before resuming their ‘thon.
The rest of us decided to take a break instead, but I made some funny noises that kept poor Mich awake for quite some time - wonder if it does run in the family? :D The next day was dominated by a short trip to Escape (not a good return to the go-kart circuit, I made a poor turn coming off the big slope.) because there really wasn’t much worth taking. The Inverter came off as the best ride of the day, though, if only because we didn’t go for the go-karts any more
We caught the last episode of 神鵰俠侶 on channel U and a special episode of 周日8点党 .. the Jacky Wu show where the guest victims were FIR (it’s not very special really but I like FIR so it doesn’t matter.) Brilliant evening of vegging out in front of the TV
So yesterday we checked out about as soon as we woke up - and headed back home for some proper sleep, ending my first chalet experience in a LONG while. (Really a big contrast from the secondary school students next door, or at least I thought they were.) Maybe it’s just the age showing, though
It was a grand night to celebrate the history of the grandest stadium in all of Singapore. Ok, so she was only 34 years old and had nothing on the Jalan Besar Stadium. But the National Stadium at Kallang, built in 1973, had seen more than just football on its hallowed grounds, and was very much an icon of Singapore.
Two football matches were played - the first was a respectful encounter between Singapore and Malaysia’s former national team players, featuring such legends as R. Suria Murthi, Robert Sim, Dollah Kassim and Quah Kim Song of Singapore against Malaysia’s Dollah Salleh and Santokh Singh. The match, witnessed by about 30,000 fans, ended 1-1 as a brilliant first-half goal by Suria was cancelled out by a Dollah Salleh penalty - all square in a reunion of former foes, and the fans were duly pleased. Football 1, Fans 1.
The second match, however, had an ominous beginning: the biggest cheer from the crowd came when Australia’s No. 9, Mark Viduka, and No. 10, Harry Kewell, were introduced by Jean Danker. I started to wonder whether we were still in Singapore, but dismissed it for the moment - after all, he was an idol to some, to be fair. The Singapore team, in contrast, never won the fans over that much, although Lionel Lewis, Indra Sahdan and Khairul Amri did get quite a warm welcome. Fans 2, Football 1.
The Lions ran off to a good start, and held their own against the larger Australians for most of the first half, missing a couple of chances to go ahead. But for Mark Schwarzer and the crossbar, there might have been goals in the first 45 minutes. Australia, on the other hand, produced slightly fewer chances at goal, not troubling Lionel Lewis much. Fans 2, Football 2.
The second half was different, though. Singapore’s dominance continued for the first seven minutes or so, but Australia countered a Singapore corner, racing through the vacated midfield to construct a goal for Mark Viduka - his header off the post was enough, despite desperate efforts to clear the ball off the line - 1-0 to Australia.
Harry Kewell scored a second, and Viduka finished off the home side with a third later on, but the scoreline was a flattering one. It was not deserved, for the Lions had put in a match-winning performance but were physically unable to cope with the Australians. Khairul Amri and Mustafic Fahrudin had to be stretchered off.
Overall, it was a commendable performance by the Singapore Lions, but I hope they didn’t hear the cheers for the opposition coming from many fans dressed in red. Idols remain idols, but to cheer for another team who’s scored against your own is a travesty which many “Singapore fans” are guilty of. Fans 3, Football 2.
On any other day, at any other occasion, cheering for players like Brett Emerton, Mark Viduka and Harry Kewell is acceptable, but to do so at our own National Stadium’s closing ceremony is far too disrespectful to the national team and to the stadium, in my opinion.
After the matches, there was a short video presentation on the history of the stadium, followed by a parade of a Team Singapore contingent including shot put/discus thrower James Wong, Olympic weight-lifting silver medallist Tan Howe Liang (he won it at Rome in 1960) and former 50m free-style world record holder Ang Peng Siong, among other sporting legends. Arguably Singapore’s most famous foreign export, Fandi Ahmad (he played several matches for Kuala Lumpur, Pahang, and had stints in Holland with FC Groningen and Japan with Nagoya Grampus Eight), was unable to make it for either. What a pity.
Then there was a celebration of the history of the National Stadium, recalling several momentous occasions: Glory Barnabas’ come-from-behind win in the 1973 SEAP Games 200m finals, V. Sundramoorthy’s bicycle kick goal against Brunei in 1993, Indra Sahdan’s Tiger Cup final volley in 2005 and Lionel Lewis’s penalty save which brought Singapore to the finals of the Asean Football Championships in 2007, which we once again won. All in all, it was a captivating look back for those who could and bothered to remember - minus the bunch of retards a few rows in front of me who chanted “Boring” during the video presentation.
It was a night I won’t soon forget, thanks in part to the disloyal Singapore fans who were more interested in watching big-name stars than in watching their own team. I would hope that this happens only in Singapore and nowhere else.
To the National Stadium, it is a fond farewell (unless the plans to host a couple more matches there come through.) and thanks for all the memories.
To the Singapore team, keep trying, and we’ll get there, even with those doubters and gamblers around. Thanks for never giving up.
To the Singapore fans, I hope you will be there when your team needs you.