Had a $12 “ma la” steamboat buffet on Friday night with Soph and Jbb due to one of Soph’s spontaneous cravings. Not that I like steamboat for that matter cos everything just taste boiled.
What happened resulted was being sick on Sunday morning. Soph and Jbb had it worst with fever mainly cos they gobbled down the most food. Hahaha.

Anyway as Haojian will later say, “Not all $12 buffets can eat one you know“, I don’t think it was fully the restaurant’s fault.

Sure it looked dirty, but if it is the cause then everyone there will be down with food poisoning and NEA will be down on them in no time.

Thus my guess would be unhealthy steamboat practices. So here’s are some good steamboat practices that you should follow:

• Do not mix raw and cooked food together. Putting raw food and cooked food together on different sides of a plate counts too.
• Do not use the same chopsticks to throw raw food into the pot, and eat with them.
• Do not use tongs which people used to pick raw food from the buffet table to pick up the fruits.
• Do not throw uncooked food into the pot when fishing out the cooked stuff.
• Do not quick dip your beef slices and have them rare.
• Fish out cooked food only when the soup has boiled.

No prizes for guessing which weren’t followed. Haha.

I’ve a feeling we’ll be avoiding steamboats for some time now.

Carecell (aka Cell Group aka Care Group aka “Bible Study”) has been changed from Fridays to Tuesdays, starting from today.

And it seems surprising that at least 4 people asked me for directions on how to get there. Well it’s not like it’s the first time we’re having cell there or the second or the third. We have been meeting at that location for like a few months!

I just wonder how all these months have they been appearing at cell without so much as to know how to get there. Maybe the change is cell day is the cause. Perhaps it’s only on a Friday then something triggers in their brain and instinctively know the way.

Ok lah not to suan my cellie folks, here’s the directions once and for all:

Green Lodge - Where we have our cell

From school: Take either 74 or 151 to Dunearn Road, just opposite King Albert’s Park (or Emjie’s place). Then cross the overhead bridge and take 66, 77, 157 or 174, of which only 77 stops right in front of Green Lodge. The rest alight before the C.C. and walk.

From home (Tampines/Simei): Take a train to Kallang MRT and take 985 on the same side of the road. Alight before the C.C. and walk.

From Clementi: Take 173 and alight just opposite Green Lodge.

So now that you know how to get there, you’re free to join our cell anytime. (=

—

And this is specially dedicated to Sophia…

SHORYUKEN (昇龍拳) !!!

Had a bad bout of comment spam some time ago which even fooled WP Hashcash which I have been using then. Unwilling to make everyone fill in some unreadable Captcha image, I installed Spam Karma 2.

And all was well… until now.

My shoutbox just got spammed with 300+ entries! And that’s after passing it through the normal WP filters, which admittedly isn’t very stong.

So what’s a programmer to do?

Simple. Just recode the shoutbox to tap into Spam Karma’s rather efficient anti-spam system. But that is not without first looking (for my first time) at how Spam Karma actually works. It is a really neat design but doesn’t really have the API to just ‘tap’ into it, so I did the next best thing: Enter each shout entry as a new comment, let Spam Karma do its job, then take out the comment and put it into the shoutbox. With that it should work for most anti-spam plugin that works off the WP comment posting process.

As much as I know, this is the only shoutbox which integrates with your WP anti-spam plugin. =)

So no more spam! The same spammer tried again when I was testing the new version and it works perfectly. But if you’re somehow unable to tag, just drop a comment and I’ll look to it.

Oh and thanks Kerwee for notifying me so soon.

If you have this

and this

then you will need this:

Just don’t try to get it from here as you are required to make a “donation” to get it. Last time I checked donation implied voluntarily.

Of course iTunes will not work on Windows 98 but there are other free and better alternatives you can find on the internet, like YamiPod and EphPod.

So after spending over two hours searching for and downloading the drivers, trying to install and replace the existing USB drivers by trial and error, and we all know how “plug and play” Windows 98 is, the two devices could finally communicate. But what was fun was seeing how the once completely unresponsive iPod when plugged in slowly became more connected in stages.

At first we couldn’t even get the iPod to charge. Rewiring the USB connections and installing some other drivers got enough power to get the iPod to its charging state with the battery icon. More driver replacing brought it to the “Do not disconnect” state with Windows detecting a new hardware but refusing to install the iPod drivers. Manual intervention was required to replace the existing driver.

Finally “Apple iPod” and “USB Mass Storage Device” appeared on the Device Manager and all is well. Why must they make something so simple so hard?

Been so tired for the past week, having to wake up before 12 everyday. Not that it’s really that early but the main problem being that I can’t seem to sleep early enough to get sufficient rest. Somehow I’ll just stay up into the night even though I’ve been really really tired through the day.

So late nights and early morning translates to a zombie in the day, which means greater unproductivity (yes i know there’s no such word) in the day. So end up not doing anything at all. Which is bad cos now I only have like 3 weeks more till my HYP report is due and I haven’t really gotten down to writing yet.

I just don’t want to do it. Which is weird cos I liked doing research, or at least I enjoyed it previously. Now I just want it to go away and not have to touch it, which is going to be a problem if I am going to continue with post-graduate studies. For now I’ll just dismiss it as having chosen a bad topic.

Then there’s the shoot. For those who have done it before you’ll know how physically exhausting is, especially when nobody else has any experience. Having to be the director, the DoP and camera operator is bad enough, on top of having to deal with very tried actors and an ambitious script and a very tight schedule. An entire day spent on shooting is just too tiring to do back to back.

Not that making a flim isn’t fun, but the stress comes from being the only person in the group to know how to. Not that it’s their fault but on hindsight we shouldn’t have been too ambitious with such a long narrative.

That said I don’t think I know what to do anymore. Things which I liked are becoming very painful. I don’t want to do anything anymore. Such a torture.

Checked my email this afternoon and found an email from CORS with the subject ” Tutorial Allocation Results” informing me that I was not allocated any of the tutorial slots I chosed, which made perfect sense because the round is not closed for balloting yet!

For a moment there I did consider being so suay as to not even get my first choice, which I wouldn’t know what to do now given that I only put down one choice. A quick check at the CORS website does again confirm that the tutorial balloting will take place on Tuesday.

Just when I thought that this time CORS would go smoothly without a glitch. ;P

Went down to see the admin officer personally. Main intention was not to fight against the wrong information we were given (to which I have attained a piece of incriminating evidence) but more so to gain through discussion a better idea of how the system works. And also to ensure that I can graduate given all the disclaimers on the official confirmation.

So for now we can consider my case settled, and I should be able to FFG hopefully without needing to resort to a drastic showdown.

But the piece of evidence will still be brought up for discussion at the undergrad meeting, not so for fighting any cause but to highlight this problem in the administration and to prevent future disputes.

There are people who wonder why I bother, as this will no longer affect me when I graduate. But you see that’s where all the problem lies. If everybody thinks only of themselves and nobody is willing to inconvenience themselves for the sake of others, the world will then truly be a sad place.

This is turning into an amazing tale.

It all began a little more than 2 years ago when we were deciding to take GEM2503 Thinking Science on Computers and was wondering if we could use it to fulfill our ULR Breath requirements. So we sent to following email to our school’s administrator:

Hi,

the following quote is from the ULR circular from the Registrar’s Office dated 16 Dec 2003.

“*The University recognises that some students may encounter in fulfilling the University Level Requirements for Breadth modules. To help students, the University has agreed to allow General Education Modules (GEMs) to be counted for Breadth requirements. Students must, however, seek the advice of the Dean’s Office of their respective Faculties/Schools with regard to the GEMs that can count towards the Breadth requirements.”

With respect to the quote, I would like to ask which GEMs can count towards the Breadth requirements.

to which the reply was

Hi,

Yes, extra GEMs outside SoC taken in sem 2, 2002-3 and after can be used

On another occasion, we enquired again and got a reply that it’s acceptable as long as the module is not offered by SoC and that we are not precluded from it. We regret not keeping that email conversation so cannot quote their exact response.

Now after failing to file for graduation (ffg), a reply to my enquiry is that “GEM2503 and GEK1531 are modules related to Computing that cannot fit into the breadth definition.” Ok so now I have been screwed over by the school admin. But this is not all. My attempts to request for a list of such GEM modules and avenue for appeal have so far been ignored with the reply to”Please change your module selection this semester so that you have a breadth module to meet ULR.”

Like I would obediently conform to their request. What we’re suspecting is that there isn’t even an official list or stand that the school is taking, and we intend to find out who’s in charge of the decision. By right it should be the curriculum committee but as of now I cannot seem to get a hold of any official statement or circular on this matter. It seems that all we can trust are emails from the admin staff.

Right now we’re just waiting for their final reply on Monday when the office opens before marching down to the deanery’s office and see what they got to say about this. It’s not so much of not being able to use a module which I have chosen. If I feel the reason is valid and justified, then by all means I’ll choose another, after all Breath does means something outside the focus of our major.

The issue at hand now is the inconsistency and lack of an official standing of the school. And also we want to know how and a more detailed reason than “related to Computing”. Like who and what determines how related is related? In addition, the FFG system and any “official” site we got are filled with disclaimers. So how are we to ensure that we’re not going to be screwed up later in the semester when we cannot change our modules?

You can be sure this issue will be brought up at the Undergrad meeting scheduled sometime soon. Meanwhile I’ll be trying for another module which I feel should be easier and more fun, but that doesn’t mean I’ll drop this issue. It’s a matter of principle after all and something has to be done else it will just happen again.