Pakistan's Bhutto assassinated

Considered a big new today, Pakistan's opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a suicide attack. That ends the life of a very influential female. I still remember reading about her in newspaper when I was younger. She was one of the female figure that frequently featured in political news.

I think that is not an unusual ending for a politician. Compared to her, some politicians are considered lucky

More news:

Pakistan's Bhutto killed in attack - Yahoo! News


Benazir Bhutto killed in attack

Slacking...

If someone were to ask me what I have been doing lately, I will say that I've been "slacking". Yeah, not really lazy, just to put my work behind and relax for a while. I think it is a good thing that I have been very busy lately. At least it shows that I won't get fired :). On the other hand, since my job scope changed slightly now, means I have lots of things to learn, that I consider another good thing.

Nevertheless, the busier I am, the more I have to remind myself to stay relax. I have to force myself not to work on weekends, not even think about anything related to work. I want to relax, and slack a bit. I may work on some other thing, but strictly on those thing that is interesting to me which I don't have the time during the weekdays.

Yes, I think slacking is one of the life goodies.

Coming back.... after a month

Checked my blog today. Apparently I have been away for a month. Life has been busy because of a job that requires my full attention. A lot of things happens, mostly unhappy things which I don't think they fit into this blog so I think I should keep it to myself. Anyway, as the job has been completed, I hope that my life can resume as it was before.

Hope in Myanmar?

Myanmar leader willing to meet opponent - Yahoo! News

It seems like that the leader of Myanmar's military junta is willing to meet with the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Nothing is for sure yet, but at least we can see some hope to end the riots over there. I am not really optimistic about this, as it might be that the situation has been under control that the junta is comfortable to meet the opposition party.

Let's pray that there will be no more killing and serious negotiation instead.

Deaths in Myanmar Crackdown

This is not a right post for this blog, but I have to post it anyway as I believe it is important for more people to know about this.

Buddhist monks in Myanmar has led a protest against the government, and the latest news is that there were clashes and the first death has occurred. As much as we hope that the fight for democracy doesn't claim any lives, it seems that no war can be won without sacrifices. And the monks being the conscience of the country are doing their part to speak on behalf of the people in the country. They are very vulnerable because their are taking a non-violent approach.

On the other hand, Burma's blogger are using the Internet to tell the world what is happening in the country. It is a very powerful tools to raise the awareness of the issue among those outside of the country. I suggest that you visit Ko Htike's blog to keep track of the updates if you are interested. (Due to high volume of visitors on the blog, do expect glitches during access).

Let's pray that all the sacrifices will bear fruits.

Japan got a new PM

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Fukuda installed as Japanese PM

As I had covered the news on Abe's resignation as Japanese PM, I think it is only fair that I cover this: Yasuo Fukuda has won majority votes to be the new Japanese PM. Fukuda at the age of 71 is Japanese oldest PM since 1990s.

My concern is, given the age, will Fukuda end up like Abe?

World's Top 10 Polluted Places

The Blacksmith Institute has voted the World's Top 10 Polluted Places. Out of the 10, China, India and Russia each have 2 places voted. The rest of the 4 are located in Azerbaijan, Peru, Ukraine and Zambia. The site comes with Google maps showing a small description of the place.

To many, it may be a good thing that the worst polluted place is not somewhere they live, but bear in mind that if we don't stop abusing our resource, one day our world will become those places. It is just a matter of time.

Chewing gum for Singaporean?

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | 'Virtually non-stick' gum created

Well, it seems like there is a new kind of chewing gum created. It is supposed to be non-sticky and degrade much faster. It is a very good thing as every year, cleaning up chewing gums that costs a lot of money to the government, and those embarrassing moments caused to individuals having chewing gums sticked on their shoes, clothes or even hair.

Currently it is waiting to pass the EU heath and safety tests. If everything goes well, it can be on the market as early as next year.

It may be a very good news to Singaporean, who knows?

A guy's experience of the Indonesia earthquake

I found this interesting video on how he shows the aftershock of Indonesia earthquake. Basically those staying in Singapore and Malaysia are not affected, but only feel the aftershock of the earthquake itself.

Well, I didn't feel anything when it happened.

Abe admitted to hospital

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Japanese PM admitted to hospital


A days after he announced his resignation, the Japanese Prime Minister was admitted to hospital for a stomach complaint. This may be caused by extreme stressed as he had been under pressure ever since his party lost the upper house elections in July.

His condition is unknown at the moment. He is supposed to continue his duties until end of September, but with him admitted to the hospital, the situation may not be that clear at the moment.

Abe quits while Estrada gets life

Something that caught my attention for today is the latest fate of two Asian politicians: Shinzo Abe resigns as Japan prime minister while Joseph Estrada, the former Philippine president has been sentenced for life for corruptions.

Most of the time, we just feel how great it is to be someone important, like the leader of a country. However we almost certainly oversee the challenges coming. There are great resistance on things that you want to push through and temptations everywhere to lure you in.

Of course, it takes a great man to accomplish something big. For normal people like me, the most suitable lifestyle might be finish the work of the day, sit back and read some news about the highfliers. I might be earning peanuts compared to them, but I can do away with all those nonsense and have a good night sleep at least(?).

Imsonia

Well, I am not really sure about this, but I have not been able to sleep until 2 a.m. recently. I do hope that I am just messed up with my biological clock somehow and it is nothing serious. That doesn't really affect my daily life, frankly, I just need to make sure that I have a cup of coffee before I start to work. I have been trying to reduce the "dosage" though, replacing more and more coffee with chocolate.

Some people says it might be caused by pressure. As much as I want to deny it, it is true to a certain extend. There are things in life which I hope I have already done but keep procrastinating due to timing, money, priority............ I am not really sure. I just keep pushing them aside whenever I have the chance.

Sometimes I wonder, should I just left everything behind and move to country side and start things over again. But then, I am so attached to the Internet... =(

Refinancing?

I have been thinking: should I refinance my housing loan?

Well, definitely I will be saving a few hundred bucks, but what is holding me back is the hassle. I have to shop around, talk to a lot of bank officers, compare all packages and offers, etc. Worst of all, I have to read, and reread all small prints to make sure that I didn't overlook anything before I commit for at least a few years.

Besides that, I have to consider the quality of service each banks are providing. It might not be worth the savings if the service is not good. Some might say that all you need to do is to pay every month, so there is no need for any services. However, I know from past experience that I _do_ need the bank's help some times. So far, my bank has been keeping me happy. That's another reason why I am quite reluctant to switch to another bank.

Is there any good way to evaluate housing load offer?

When you can't think, you just can't

I have been sitting, or rather, struggling in front of my computer for more than 2 hours. I am suppose to prepare for a presentation. However, no matter how hard I try, there is nothing in my head. I was looking high and low, flipping through my books, searched through the Internet and ended up nothing, period. Yes, it has bits over here and there, however, I just can't link all of them together. My mind is not blank, but it just feel like the ideas are flying like snowflakes in my mind and I just can't link them up and create something solid.

There is only one solution: put it aside and come back later. Of course, it might never come (and I have to crank something out for tomorrow's presentation), but I think I should stop wasting my time whining about it.

OK, back to work......

Stop using antibacterial soap

I came across this article that says that plain soap as effective as antibacterial but without the risk. In short, the main active ingredient in many antibacterial soaps, triclosan, when used within the range of concentration commonly used in the community setting is no more effective than their plain counterparts. In fact, according to the article,

Because of the way the main active ingredient---triclosan---in many antibacterial soaps reacts in the cells, it may cause some bacteria to become resistant to commonly used drugs such as amoxicillin, the researchers say. These changes have not been detected at the population level, but e-coli bacteria bugs adapted in lab experiments showed resistance when exposed to as much as 0.1 percent wt/vol triclosan soap.

Further reading the comments, some suggested using alcohol based hand sanitizers as a more effective way to clean your hand. I haven't try that, but I think I'll stop using antibacterial soap from now on.

I have fat fingers

I seldom thought that I have fat fingers until recently. I have been using computers for a long, long time, and I believe I can touch type quite well. However, beyond that, it seems that I can't do anything delicate. I keep dropping pills whenever I take them out of the bottle, I can't get hold of my glasses, I even dropped my towel when I took it to the bathroom (No, I was not wearing it =) ).

Now, I am considering a new mobile phone, and my fat fingers really bothers me. Nowadays mobile phones are getting smaller and smaller, so do their keypads. I don't know about others, but so often I am amazed by the speed people around send messages using the tiny keypads on their phones. So I was thinking, maybe I should just find one will an almost full keyboard to beat them sending mobile messages (I feel so stupid when I received a second message from a friend before I managed to reply his first one).

I am thinking of getting a Nokia E61i, but then, maybe I should research more on it.

Getting busy again

Well, I have been quite busy lately. Got another part-time job offer and I have to do a little bit of homework. On the other hand, life has been getting busier too. Well, that's because I have put aside quite some important-but-not-urgent things when I was busy at work. So, got to start juggling life a little bit again.

If there is anything good which I want to share about is that I managed to catch up with some friends. Funny thing is that nowadays getting in touch with friends and having a good cup of coffee seems to be such a complicated things. Agreeing on the available time is just a start, there are other ad-hoc things that would just make us keep postponing our gathering. However, once we sat down and start talking, the moment is just precious.

Anyway, since I'll be busy with my part-time job, I think having coffee with friends just became a little bit harder, for now.

How to change password in Scribefire?

OK, my friend borrowed my Firefox browser and he cleared my cached. Now I have problems publishing from Scribefire because I keyed in the wrong password when it prompted me. How am I suppose to change/update the password if there is no options/settings for me to change the password?

Well, what I'll do is to create a new post, and try to publish to blogger again, hopefully it will prompt me for password again. If this post is published, then everything is solved. If it is not, then I have a big problem because I am so lazy to setup everything again.

Fingers crossed.

__________________________________

So it doesn't work. I ended up have to clear my cookies in order for it to work again by clicking Tools - Clear Private Data... - Cookies. But glad that it is working again.

What's the use of Function Keys

Came across this blog asking for the functions of the Function Keys. For those who don't know, Function Keys are the set of keys labeled with an 'F' followed by a number (1 to 12), normally located at top row of the keyboard. Well, most of the time we don't use them, so they are usually ignored. However, F1 is used mostly to bring up the help page, what about the rest?

I'll share those I can think off my head now:

F1 - Help
F2 - Rename (select a file in Windows, hit F2 and you can rename the file)
F3 - Search (for some applications)
Alt-F4 - Close an application
F5 - Review, refresh, reload (Windows Explorer and generally browsers)

What are the rest? Do share with me!

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Comments enabled, and it is not that scary

Today I decided to enable comments on the blog. Why? Because I came across some posts which I would like to share with the author, and I find comment is a great way to leave my opinion on the spot. But why didn't I enable comment previously? Well because I don't want to let spammers spam my blogs. After considering both pros and cons, I decided to take some time to moderate my comments everyday rather than not letting my readers share their thoughts with me.

So for those who wants to enable comments on their blog, this is my settings with the reasons behind. You are free to follow, or even better, comment if I've done something wrong.

Who Can Comment? Anyone (I don't want to discriminate anyone).
Comments Default for Posts: New Posts Have Comments (not sure what it is, but no harm)
Backlinks: Show (might as well)
Backlinks Default for Posts (again, don't know what it is, try)
Show comments in a popup window? Yes (navigating away from my blog is more annoying than a popup window)
Enable comment moderation? Yes (I hate spams)
Show word verification for comments? Yes (One way to hinder spammers)

I am not sure how well it works, just keep my fingers crossed.

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Discounts in the uncommon place

I have to get some presents wrapped. I admit that I have the clumsiest fingers in my neighborhood. So I went to a gift shop after I purchased my presents. I asked whether they can help me to wrap the present if I buy a wrapping paper from them. The sales girl told me that it was chargeable, and the fee was much higher than the wrapping paper alone. She advised me that the best way is to buy the wrapping paper and wrap the present myself.

While I was busy searching for a cheaper wrapping service, I saw a Christian bookstore. I thought to myself,"OK, if I were to let someone earn the money, it might as well with this Christian bookstore". I went in and asked if they mind helping me to wrap my presents. The lady said she can only do simple wrapping. Fine with me. I bought a nice wrapping paper, and handed everything to her. Within minutes it was done, and she didn't charge a single cent!

Happily, I went home with a nicely wrapped present.

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I am so dead

Yes, I've told you that I have ate too much recently and I'm supposed to eat less and work out. Guess what, I just did the opposite as a matter of fact. I ate more, and did literally NO exercise. Well, my excuse is that my work has given me quite a lot of pressure lately, and it was the perfect reason to eat more. As the week is coming to an end, it is a good time to start my diet plan and exercise again.

Finger crossed, I can execute the plan.

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Human Tetris in Japanese Game Show

My friend pointed me to this YouTube video which is just funny. I must admit that it is very creative for them to come out with this idea. It also need good contestants to make the show a funny one. These guys are just hilarious.

Also, while you are having fun watching them taking the challenges, you may want to try figuring out how to take those challenges if you were playing the game.

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I think I ate too much

Well, I think I just ate too much recently. I haven't have the courage to step on the weight machine, but I know that I am having a great time eating all the nice stuffs. Now I'm feeling very guilty, not to mention that I have a uncomfortable stomach. Since my part-time work is coming to an end, I think I should start making an exercise plan just to keep myself a little bit healthy.

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Helping others is just...

We all have experiences where we helped somebody, we got blamed or taken for granted instead of being appreciated. We heard news about people who offer help became victims of robbery, or being cheated, or any other thing except a thank you.I think that's the main reason why me and people around me tend to avoid those who need help.



So when I saw this lady who just met with a minor accident try to start her bike in the middle of the road, I intended to drive on. It was a minor accident, she was the only one involved. She seemed OK, so was her bike. I believe that within minutes she will be fine. However, there was this voice in my mind that reminded me that her situation was still risky. She was try to start her bike in the middle of the road, and it was just right after a left turn that other motorist might not be able to see her. So I pull over and asked her to stay away and I pushed her bike to the side of the road. Then I helped her to start her bike again and make sure she is OK.



She didn't say much except "Thank you". However, to me, that two words really made my day as I move on to start my day of work. Helping others is just... priceless.

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Looking for a part-time job, soon

My part-time job is going to end this month. As much as I like the current job, I think I have to start looking for another part-time job. The reason being that even if there is another contract offered to me, I will only be informed at the very last minute. So, I think it is better for me to build another "safety net" just in case there is no more job for me.



Come to think about it, time really flies when you are busy. I was feeling very lazy to start my week and without me knowing it is the middle of the week already. I think that is one of the good thing about having a part-time is that I can divert my focus on the part-time job whenever life gets a bit bumpy. I keep reminding myself that there are things to do and I really don't have time to feel down, frustrated, upset and whatever. The extra income is one thing, but it forces me to be more focus, productive and efficient, and I am glad that I can manage between my full-time job and part-time job, while trying to have a life.



Well, time to do a little bit of scouting.

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Scribefire - convenient blogging

Scribefire is the Firefox plugin which I find handy for me to blog. It puts a handly icon at the bottom right of the browser, and whenever I feel like writing a blog, or I come across with something interesting, I'll just bring it up and I can start writing. Once I am done, with a click of a button my post will be published. No need to surf to Blogger, no need to log in.



After downloading the plugin, it needs some setting up. However, the procedures are not very hard if you are using common blog services like Blogger or Wordpress. Once everything is set up, you can start to organize your posts. You can save them as notes, which is a very useful feature to me. Every now and then, there are topics which I would like to write about but just don't have the time to do so. I just create an empty note with the title of the topic I want to write and save it until I find the time to write about it.



There are other features like integration with Del.Icio.Us and Technorati, but since I haven't have the time to explore more about it, I think I'll just stick to the editor for the moment

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Live like you have no tomorrow

"Live like you have no tomorrow" is one of my friends' instant messenger tag line. It has been his tag line for quite some time, but I have to admit that it was indifferent to me. Honestly, my life has been quite occupied recently that I hardly care about its quality. To me, this is a quote for those who has free time and therefore afford to seek for quality lives.



Then, things changed a bit when we received the news that one of our friends' father has passed away. It was quite a shocking news as no one has expected it. He was ill for some time, but last time we heard is that he was recovering so we thought everything is fine for him. Then, without any warning, he left this world just like that.



Suddenly, the simple quote means so much. It reminds us that life is so uncertain that we shouldn't take anything for granted. Today we might be having fun, or busy working for a better life but who knows, we may be gone tomorrow. What we have is only today, and we should make the best and most out of it.



Hopefully, this is a lesson which everyone of us can learn.

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Sometimes, we don't really have to buy

Our church inherited two guitars, one electric and another one a bass guitar. As a startup, our church has limited fund and not many members, so it is fine for us if it is not the best and the nicest looking guitars. However, after a few months, we started to have problems with the electric guitar. First it was some noises, then the connection of the jack became loose causing it to be mute every now and then. The same goes with the bass, firsrt it is OK, then one day it just refused to work.



Enough is enough. One day we were having a bad day and the guitar just giving us a lot of problems (we had left the bass aside for good since it refuses to work). So we were seriously discussing to replace those guitars with new ones. We have been saving some funds to buy a set of drums, but since the guitar is causing more trouble, we were considering of replacing them first.



However, it is such a waste to me that we buy new one just because the two having some problems. I decided to give it a shot by finding someone to repair them.



First I brought them to a shop selling musical instrument. I told them my problems (guitar not working, our church has limited fund, bla bla...). After hearing my stories and did some checking on the guitars, the shop owner recommended me to bring it to a freelancer. According to him, it is much cheaper than to get it fixed in his shop.



Seeing there is hope for the two, I called up the freelancer and schedule a time to pass the guitars to him. I repeated my story to him. I told him to do whatever necessary to make them good. I told him my budget, and asked him to give me a call if the cost to fix them is higher than that.



A couple weeks later, we met again and both the guitars were good as new. The cost is much lesser than buying a new one, leaving us more fund to replace the drum set. I am glad that we did the right thing by fixing rather than throwing the guitars away. We are not only saving cost but also helping the world by not creating two more pieces of junk.

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No need to buy in bulk... at least in the hypermarket

I believe in the saying of,"cheaper by the dozen". Most of the time, buying in bulk will be cheaper. That's true because most of the time, the seller is willing to sell at a lower price, as long as there is more money to make in that transaction.



I think the same rule applies to hypermarket as well. Or so I thought.



I drink quite a lot of soft drinks lately. Blame it on the weather, busy lifestyle, and whatever. When I went to the hypermarket shopping for some groceries, I noticed they have different pricing for bulk packs soft drinks too. I figure that since there are different pricing for bulk pack and individual cans, the former one should be cheaper per item. I was about to take the 24 cans of soft drink when my friend suggested we should calculate the actual price per can for the bulk pack. It turn out that for 24 cans of soft drink, I will save 24 cents.



24 cents for 24 cans of soft drinks, that saves me 1 cent per can. And for this 24 cents, I lose the option of buying different flavour and have to carry more weight. Having this new finding, I check on the pricing for another brand of soft drink which has 6 packs packaging. The result? The price is the same as you buying 6 individual can. The only reason to buy the 6 packs is that it is easier to carry with the cardboard than with 6 individual cans.



Then I go on to check with cup noodles. There are those selling 6 in a pack, and the price is the same with you buying 6 different flavours of individual cup. Of course, it is easier to carry 6 cups in a nicely packed plastic bag, but you don't get to eat different flavour.So, I figure that the pros and the cons are almost equal as far as the hyper market is concerned, therefore there is no price difference for the two.



Anyway, the lesson for the day: before you decide to buy anything in bulk, spend some time to do some calculation to make sure that it is really worth it.

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Steamboat, Porridge and Pumpkin

It's been quite some time since I last has a good meal. Life has been busy as usual. So, when my friend suggested that we go to eat steamboat, I quickly call up a few other friends too. Steamboat is kind of funny, it's just like the old saying,"the more the merrier". So, rule of thumb: get as many people as your car can take. Of course, if you are walking your way to the restaurant, call the whole village and everyone you met along the way.



So, we were at this restaurant which is famous for its porridge(aka congee)-base steamboat. Porridge-based steamboat means using porridge to replace the broth for the steamboat. Then you just put whatever food you like into it to cook. Usually it is nice enough if you do it that way. However, what is special about this restaurant is that they provide pumpkin to go along with the steamboat.



Basically, you just put the pumpkin into the porridge, but instead of eating it straight away, you let it melt into the porridge. Of course it takes time, but you can eat other stuffs first. After a while the porridge will turning into yellowish, then you'll find that the porridge tastes much nicer with the fragrance of the pumpkin.



One good thing about the porridge-based steamboat is that you can order less food. In fact, you should order less food if you are taking porridge-based streamboat because at the end of the meal, you can take the porridge, and the taste is very good. If you order it right, then there is no wastage like what we did, we finished off everything, including the porridge at the end of the meal.

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Don't buy from a handphone stall, if you want an original phone

A mine of mine bought a handphone from a handphone stall in a plaza.He requested for an original phone which he is willing to pay the price. However, when he wentback home, he found that it was an AP set (i.e. not original). Of course he was very upset because he paid the price of an original set. So, he went back to argue with the stall owner.



You should have know the result: the owner denied that he told my friend that it was an original set. And obviously my friend can't get anything more than an extended warranty, from the stall itself instead of the authorised dealer. That means, if anytime the stall went out of business, my friend might have some problem to get his handphone fixed if it has any problems.



He asked for my advice over the phone, and the only thing I can say is that: learn the lesson.



In my opinion, if you want an original set, by all means buy from a reputable shop (and not a stall). If you want something cheap, then settle on an AP set (with a lower price), and hope that the stall is still around when you need it. Other than that, if you have a friend who buys lot of phones, get him/her to recommend  a reputable stall, although I don't see any reason why you want to do that. For me, the money saved does not justify the risk that you are taking. And always sign the warranty card on the spot, making sure that it was from the authorised distributor.



Well, just my two cents.

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Be careful, no matter what

The weather was good, there is no rain. So was the traffic: there weren't a lot of cars. Everything is just fine for a normal day. In the middle of the highway however, a car has crashed and flipped over, all wheels facing upward. It was not a sport car, just a normal car, much like the ones which you and I own. A lot of people slowed down their cars to take a closer look. And as usual, this causes a small traffic jam.



I am not sure about the driver, I hope that he/she is fine. I didn't see any fire brigade coming here, and there wasn't any blood stain, so I hope that no one was hurt. Losing a car is a small thing, compare to losing one's life. Come to think about that, I wouldn't mind the time that I was stuck in the traffic, as long as the person(s) involved in the accident is not badly hurt.



Yes, even under very fine situation, accidents can happen. So the tip for today is: be careful on the road, no matter how fine the weather, the road condition, the traffic. And most of all, don't drink and drive!

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Let's talk about saving

Saving is like flossing: everyone knows we should do it, but almost nobody does it. And just like almost no one will talk about flossing in a casual conversation, we seldom talk about saving among friends too.



Just like the rest of the people around me, I know the importance of saving. Being an emergy fund, saving for my retirement, or just for the fun of it. But I was quite shocked when I check my bank balance and found that I almost save nothing for the past couple of years. And an even more shocking fact is that I don't know where did all those money gone!



I remember I used to save together with a friend. Every month we will find a Saturday and go to the bank together. We make sure each other deposit the agreed amount of money to our (separate) bank accounts, before going for a cup of coffee, and visualize what we can do with the money. However, as this friend of mine left town on business trip, the habit just stop (well, at least for me).



Of course, finding that there isn't much money left in my bank account is an inconvenient truth, but I'm glad that I found it out early. Before I face an emergency where I need some money, I will start saving again.



For a start, maybe a 10 percent of what I get every month, yeah.

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Working with a friend is fun

I was told to check on the speakers for the coming charity fair when I drop by my church to check things out. Apparently nothing much has been done on it: the cables are not ready, and the speakers, they are still sitting nicely in the boxes. Since I won't be handling the PA system on the actual day, I called up my friend to remind him of things to be done.



"Well, I can come over if you want." He told me over the phone. That is very helpful of him, and I sure want some company. Knowing that he doesn't have his own transport, I asked him how he is suppose to come.



"I'll get my mom to send me over."



However I don't really want to trouble his mother, so I told him that I'll go and pick him up.



"Sure."



15 minutes later, we were fixing the cables. None of us are familiar with the new jacks for the speakers, so we spent some time to figure it out. Then we unpacked the speakers and setup the whole PA system to make sure everything is working fine. Things are going quite well, so we take our time to test the sound quality, playing a nice song over and over again.



After making sure everything is working, we packed the speakers back to the boxes, ready to be moved to the venue on Saturday. Since it was kind of late, we didn't go for a drink. However, it has been quite some time since I enjoy working with someone. Most of the time, people don't want to contribute and just blame one another for everything that fails. I am glad that I have a friend whom I can work with, knowing that we did whatever we can to accomplish our goal.

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Unlimited Storage from Yahoo

Remember when everyone is happy with 100MB of mail storage? Then thing starts to get interesting when someone broke the 1GB benchmark. After that Google came out with a 2GB mail storage, with more storage adding to it every minute (still counting as of now). Although later on there were some 100GB email accounts offer, things are more or less settled down, until just now.

I was quite surprised when I checked my Yahoo! mail: the usual quota bar has gone. This is what I see in the main page telling me that now I have unlimited storage.



Although I have no idea on how to use up all these storage, it feels quite good not having to worry about quota anymore. Maybe I should start backing up all my data in my Yahoo! mail account.

Brainteaser

I was shown this brainteaser which reportedly has been writtern by Albert Einstein. Basically it is just testing your logic: 5 people of different nationalities living in 5 different colour houses, drink different kind of beverages, smoke different brand of cigars and keep 5 different pets. Given 15 clues, could you find out who is the one who keep fish as pet?



This puzzle seems quite easy at first, but after a few clues, I start to get confused, and almost at one point doubt that whether it is possible to solve the puzzle at all. Of course, once solved, the puzzle will give you possibly the satisfaction of the day, or weeks, or months, maybe.



Well, if you have a couple hours to kill, try to solve this puzzle. If there is any advice, I would say try it with a few friends and have fun solving it together.

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Wild hogs........... yeah

Friends has been recommending this movie called Wild Hogs to me, saying that it is very funny. Me having to like bikes quite a lot of course took the chance to watch it over the weekend. The plot is quite interesting: four guys each facing their own mid-life crisis decided to take a road trip to run away from those problems they are facing, only to find that life has a lot more for them to experience.



The focus is fairly well distributed, even to those supporting actors: the highway patrol officer, the singer, the sheriff and his deputies; even the bad guys. Each of them has something that you can laugh at, and enjoy. The script is tightly written, which makes me almost laughing all the way from the beginning to the end. Bike lovers, especially those Harley-Davidson fans, will catch a glimpse of some really cool bikes; but be ready to feel some heart aches seeing some 'mistreatment' to the bikes.



Overall, it is a very entertaining movie, and I would recommend it to those who need to break away from their routine lives but don't have the nice bikes and the highway.

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All the best guys - in your exam!

Just a quick not for those who are having exams on Monday onwards:



All the best!

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Got a new bike... sort of

One of my friends is going for overseas, so he lends me his bike for a few days. It is really a big help, cause my bike is having some minor problems which needs a few days to fix. I went to his house, he showed me a few things which I need to take care of (besides crashing his bike),I took it for a spin in his neighbourhood and start to drove it home.



His bike is a Kawasaki ZZR 250, which is much bigger than mine, and thus needs some getting used to. The sitting position, the torque and the way to shift the gears. It is also more powerful, so I have to take extra care, and keep reminding myself not to be carried away and speed too fast. Nevertheless, the way back home is really fun and exciting.



Everything is great except the weight of this baby. I had a hard time pushing it into my car porch and park it in a nice place since the car porch is quite narrow. Luckily no one was watching, cause I look like an idiot pushing the bike bit by bit to fit into the narrow space. By the time I got it placed nicely, I was sweating and start wondering whether it is a good idea at all to accept my friend's offer.



OK, I didn't regret, the ride was just fantastic.

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Study Group, Anyone?

Well, today we started to have a small study group. The youths call it a tuition, but I think it was more like a study group to me. They regard me as the teacher, but it's been such a long time since I first last touch all those topics back in my school that I have to go through it for a while before I can "teach" them.



I'm not sure about the youths, but it was real fun to me. Revising those maths questions which I had long forgot, I found it interesting to study without the pressure. However explaining the formulas and making sure your "students" understand is much harder than to understand it yourself, so it is not surprising that I was sweating all the time trying to explain those formulas while I try to understand them myself. Nevertheless, it is really encouraging when I see the look on their faces when they got the ideas, and the reward is really priceless.



The session was only for one and a half hour, but this is only for a start. Hopefully we have more people joining and have more qualified teachers than I am. Anyway, meantime, I'll be the one running the show.

Passover Celebration at Church

Yesterday my church has a celebration on Passover. The highlight, of course, were the two roast lambs. There aren't a lot of occasion where you can see a whole roast lamb, moreover there were two. At first I thought that it was too much and expect to have lots of leftover, but the response was overwhelming that some of those coming late have to sit outside of the church.

Once we got everyone sitted on the floor, the Seder was started. While a lot of us didn't have any idea of what is going on, and what's the meaning behind it, everyone just follow along. No one has any problem until eating the bitter herb, and some cried out when we were told to take the second one. Things got a little bit messy when some couldn't stand the bitterness and drank the wine (which should be drunk later). Since some of us was attending the Seder for the very first time, I think it is OK to give them the benefit of doubt of not following exactly.

Anyway, everyone was happy when we get to eat. We had a wonderful moment: sharing food, serving one another, talking and having fun. It really took us a while until everyone finished their meal and continue the rest of the Seder.

The celebration finished at around ten, but since it was raining heavily, most of us just stayed back and help cleaning up.

Overpaid parking fees

What happens when you overpaid your parking fees and there is not enough change in the Autopay station?



This is a question that crossed my mind, and my conclusion is that the machine will just reject your notes and insists on exact amount when it run out of coins. Apparently things can be done in a different way. I was paying for my parking on Sunday when I noticed that the Autopay machine took so much longer to process my ticket after I put in my note. Since there is no response from the machine, no message, nothing, I was getting a bit worried when the machine prompted me to get my 'change'. Funny things was, there is no coin; just a slip. I picked that up and it reads that I had overpaid and I should collect my change in the parking service booth.



Although it took me a while to find the parking service booth, I managed to get my change back. I might want to find out more about the system, but when I recall that paid tickets will be invalid in 15 minutes, I made a wise decision to finding my way to the nearest exit instead.

SandboxIE - Another way to avoid spyware and malware

Sandboxie uses another approach to protect you from spyware and malware: fooling the browser, and those nasty applications that hijacks your browser that changes has been written on the disk while there are not.



To quote from its FAQ section, What is Sandboxie:

Think of your PC as a piece of paper. Every program you run writes on
the paper. When you run your browser, it writes on the paper about
every site you visited. And any malware you come across will usually
try to write itself into the paper.

Traditional privacy and anti-malware software try to locate and
erase any writings they think you wouldn't want on the paper. Most of
the times they get it right. But first the makers of these solutions
must teach the solution what to look for on the paper, and also how to
erase it safely.

On the other hand, the Sandboxie sandbox works like a transparency
layer placed over the paper. Programs write on the transparency layer
and to them it looks like the real paper. When you delete the sandbox,
it's like removing the transparency layer, the unchanged, real paper is
revealed.

I like it quite much, as it adds another sense of security to me. The only issue is that I have to remind myself to move the files I downloaded into the "sandboxed" environment to my real environment every now and then. Of course I won't throw away my anti-spyware applications, but with Sandboxie I feel a little bit safer.

Classic Shoot'em up - Kobo Deluxe

I've been playing with this open source space shooter called Kobo Deluxe and believe me, it is insanely addictive. I have been playing it for the past two weeks and I just found myself stealing every possible chance to play this game.



The game play is simple: shoot everything and avoid everything. To pass a level, you have to destroy all the alien fortresses. Every fortresses has a core, which if you destroy it, the rest of the fortress will just collapse. Of course, typical cannon and alien spaceships are there to stop you. As you proceed through the 50 levels (what I heard, I am still stuck at level 44), the game is getting tougher and almost impossible.



The graphics and sounds are simple and nice. Besides being free, it can be played on various platforms such as Windows (95 to XP), Mac OS, Linux, Xbox, Palm and PocketPC, just to name a few. You can visit their download page to download of check it out whether your operating system is supported or not.



As for me, this is just the perfect game to kill a few minutes.

I am going to have a holiday!! All though most of the time I'll just let time passed by just like that, I am still looking forward to a holiday where I can really rest. What I am going to do doesn't really matters. At least I can forget about work for a few days.

Enjoy!!