Right up your alley

Paranoid Android #2

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:31:00 +0000

Paranoid Android

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 07:04:00 +0000

A little doodle done on the iPad with the App Adobe Ideas, and a cheap stylus bought off DealExtreme, that has nothing to do with the classic Radiohead song with the same title.

In the midst of doodling, I was sipping a Baileys Irish Cream Milkshake and trying not to think of the large amounts of calories that was.

Service standards

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 17:28:00 +0000

Previous week. I was waiting for my turn at a popular clinic in the same shopping center (Beauty World Centre) that had 20+ people ahead of me, and thought I could waste some time at McDonald's.

The service was lackluster. The queue growing behind me, and all they had was a one young cashier with a face you'll wish to slap, and a manager who was multitasking so badly and slowly, the cup of coke she had tried to fill with the auto-dispenser overflowed. It was also a delivery point, so there were delivery men hunched over their iphones, seated at the corners.

I walked off, pissed.

I went back to the clinic and waited another hour. The old doctor was worth waiting for. You know how good he is, when there are at least 5 different clinics nearby, but people were flooding his clinic instead. I'm just wondering why his clinic assistants are so under dressed and snappish. Overworked, perhaps.

These damn song lyrics...

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:06:00 +0000

I guess it's good to turn to love songs because they are comforting, but, please ah, we live in the real world lah, lyricists.

Here are two examples of song with lyrics I found that were not practical in the real world.

Sean Paul, in Temperature:

Video Link

Lyrics:"...and gal I got the right tactics to turn you on, and girl I Wanna be the Papa, you can be the Mom, oh oh!"

Dey, brother. Children are heavy responsibilities lah, dey!! There's really nothing wrong with just proposing to have sex when by the end of the day, you just want sex. Don't need to bullshit, just go straight to the point.

You really don't want to be the ass who had to tell the girl that you can't really be the Papa and she had to be the Ma on her own terms, when the day comes when she tells you that Little Sean Paul is on the way.

Bruno Mars, in Grenade:

Lyric: "I'd catch a grenade for you, throw my head on a blade for you"

Oh Bruno Mars, please don't go and over promise, and later on go and under deliver, can? Any sensible project-lead or boss will advice against that.

Why you go and play your best cards so early early?

If you never made all these promises, the girl may be far more impressed when the day comes and your hand(s) turn into smithereens after catching an incoming explosive device that was headed at her. She'll be thinking "Wah. This guy really love me and protect me, ah!" rather than "That time he already tell the whole world that he'll do this for me mah."

Then this guy also go and promise the following things in the same song:

-I'd jump in front of a train for ya
-Take a bullet straight through my brain

Don't know which insurance company will want to cover for this guy, siah.

You spammers.

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:20:00 +0000

To a particular Kevin21 that has been putting spam on my blog comments, I have something to say, and let's put it in the most elegant way possible.

Fornicate off!

And can you find a new job other than posting these links for whatever SEO Company you working for? Write some real content for fornicating sake.

Come to Mama.

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 05:59:00 +0000

Yeah, I just placed an order for one of this. ~~$$$~~. It'll be my very first Apple Product! Yeah, I'm a little late in the game.

Singapore SIRI!

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:06:00 +0000

SIRI, with a Singlish Pack will be such a comforting digital friend to speak to, or argue with :P .

Of course, Mr Brown has already came up with S.I.M.I way before I drew the above.

My terrible relationship with library books

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:44:00 +0000

Public libraries. There are so many of them in Singapore.I live near one that's located in the neighborhood shopping mall. It's a place where you can find retired old men flipping through newspapers, students with laptops plugged in, and the occasional person who'll fall asleep in the free air-con.

My trip to libraries are usually unplanned. I may just happen to be helping my mom return the books that she borrowed, or require a free place to hang out at while waiting for the rain to stop. But of course, I do pop by intentionally with the purpose of finding a book I need lah.

Here's the usual scenario whenever I pop by the library.

Firstly, while browsing, something interesting will get my attention.
Soon, I'll get bored of reading in the library. I'll max out my library card, lugging 4 books home, promising myself that I'll finish them when I get home. Plus, I get to pretend to be an intellectual while lugging so many books home.

Reached home. Books will end up on desk.

Books will continue to be abandoned on desk, while I spend most free time I have doing this...

3 weeks will pass.

I have forgotten about the library books. But the friendly library would remind me of them. And then I'll lug the same books back to the library...

Return them at the book drop.

And since I'm at the library already, why not drop in for some browsing?
The cycle repeats.

Are you sure you are Apple (Singapore) ?

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 06:31:00 +0000

No way would Apple allow such hideous colors and fonts to be used with their branding!

Dey, let me drive lah.

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 17:15:00 +0000

My friend Nitya recently obtained her driving license, and has been making full use of it, picking me up from work, and driving me around. It has been enjoyable: being chauffeured around, headbanging together to Prodigy's Firestarter and criticizing Sean Paul's music.

One wouldn't believe that she's on a P Plate, because she's pretty darn good at it (except the parking part..)

I failed my Basic Theory Test twice this year, chickened out on the third attempt, and haven't progressed in the driving world ever since. She'll keep ask me "Oi, so are you planning to continue to learn to drive" and I'll be like "not now, too stressed at work".

I must say, I am envious of her new ability. So one night, after another one of the "Are you going to continue to learn to drive" questions, I said:

Working with what I have

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 00:51:00 +0000

jQuery, HTML5, Ajax, Webfonts, CSS3.....etc. JAYZUS.

There appears to be a million new methods and techniques for us to present web content, but oh god there are just too many things to learn. I don't even know where the heck to start.

Everytime I surf the net, I see something new and exciting, and it always made me think: "Oh how the heck do they do that?"

But there is only so much I know. Sure, I've attempted installing the very popular jQuery lightBox plugin , and tried writing a few lines of jQuery, but because I'm not a big fan of javascript in the first place, it turned out to be quite a pain in the arse.

At work, whenever I'm thrown a new assignment, I'll be far too ambitious with it. I'll be like "OH I WANT TO USE AJAX FOR THIS SO IT CAN AUTO-LOAD ITSELF" while not even knowing how to write AJAX. And then, I'll attempt to read up a little on it, realized it's too hard to learn within a few days, and abandon the project for awhile. When I'm closer to the deadline, I'll be in like "OH MY GOD PANIC MODE" and put together the project with whatever knowledge I have. And still, I end up still not knowing how to write AJAX.

I'm not surrounded by colleagues who are excited about these new technologies, because , good and bad, our work environment just requires the forms and applications we build to work. Never mind if the usability police arrests us. Never mind if the colors used is damn salah . Never mind if the fonts used makes me want to scream. It just needs to work. And so, I don't really learn anything new.

This catching up game is exhausting.

Some of my opinons on writing a story.

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 20:51:00 +0000

A good friend of mine recently got into film school. She sometimes consults me on her writing assignments and vet her scripts, which is a process I enjoy because I hardly do anything creative these days.

She told me to read a short story a few days ago, and I gave her my honest opinion about what I felt about a lot of things about her writings so far.

I've paraphrased some of what I told her. I thought it's good to share. Don't mind me. I'm not the most focus person when I talk. Feel free to disagree with me.

I don't like you peppering your language with so many cheem words. Okay, maybe that's just me, because I'm very impatient, don't like flowerly language, and I enjoy my airport novels. I took 1-2 minutes trying to understand this short paragraph you wrote... of this guy waking up and just walking to the door. It's a short story. You'll want to establish your characters quickly.

Write about something you know. You're Singaporean,you know. You're not a white guy, so why are you writing about a white guy living and working in London? You've never even been there! Perhaps you're basing his character on the books you've been reading. But have you done your research properly? Why is he on Facebook? Your character's a guy that works as a kitchen staff in a Indian Curry house... what if subscription for the Internet is actually very expensive in London? How could he have afforded that?

Write about something you know. People want to read about Singapore. Life in Singapore. Your life as a Singaporean girl. Even if it's the most mundane part about you taking the MRT or Bus to work. Don't be shy. Your writing always make me feel like you're afraid of expressing yourself. I bet you have some classmates trying too hard to impress as well, but never mind, it's a learning process.

Look at the writers we know. R.K. Narayan gave us a window to life in India. Kevin Smith was writing about his himself working as a convenience store clerk in Clerks. Alfian Sa'at wrote short stories of different people living in HDB in Corridors. Marian Keyes was working in London, that's why she was able to write about London, lah! See, the beatnik guy you like... that guy who wrote Post Office. He also wrote about himself, what!

...Marian Keyes is clinically depressed, and was an alcoholic. But you see that some of her characters are actually her.

When I wrote my script last time, I first started to write about a friend who worked in New York. I haven't even been to New York before! Then my friend Fadhil said that I should just write about something I know, so I scrapped my whole script. That's why my script was about something happening around me.

I don't know what inspired J.K. Rowling to write her Harry Potter series, but perhaps that's because I haven't read any of her works. But I'm sure she herself is somewhere there in her works.

You're not writing an autobiography lah, but if you do you got to do your research well. Look at that lady who wrote Rape of Nanking. She killed herself after awhile because she probably couldn't tahan after relating some other people's tragic stories on their behalf. Quite sad ah, the life of some writers. Her job literally killed her.

Don't be ashamed of who you are. Don't be afraid of revealing yourself in your works. Just. Let. Go.

What's Craig David doing now?

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 03:33:00 +0000

10 to 11 years ago, the radio introduced us to the handsome Craig David, who was 19, oh-so-handsome, and sang about his dating prowess in the song "Seven Days" on him meeting a girl on Monday, taking her for a drink on Tuesday, and managed to make love with her by Wednesday, and on the Thursday and Friday and Saturday...

Nitya and I used to laugh, saying "Wah lao, have sex 4 days in a row. Not tired meh?

Fast forward to 10 years later. We were in her husband's car when "Seven Days" came on the radio. We both wondered what happened to Craig David, as we haven't heard anything new from him these days.

"Maybe he's no longer in the music scene" I said. "Maybe he's stuck in some lousy desk job."

"I know what he's doing!" she said.

And when the chorus came on, we sang:

He went to work on Monday
Then he went to work again on Tuesday
He will still be working on Wednesday
And on the Thursday And Friday And Saturday
And did OT on Sunday

On a separate note, I love the music video. It's following the style of Groundhog Day.

Jaywalker!

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 02:55:00 +0000

Spotted this while playing around with Google Street Maps. Now who is that, jaywalking in Jurong East?

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 06:40:00 +0000

We don't mix
Okay maybe we do
We blend
You blend us
In this mixing bowl
But sometimes
The batter end up
God
Awful

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 18:22:00 +0000

Dear programming languages of any kind,

No matter how complex you may get sometimes, I guess you're easier to handle than human emotions. Some more, most of the time the solutions are Google-able.

dim life
dim lifespan
life = 0

while life = 0 to lifespan
sub remedy(hurtsomebody)
next

Use your barcode scanner to scan this!

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 18:04:00 +0000

SG Elections in GIF!

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 16:28:00 +0000

Having a withdrawal after the Singapore Elections 2011.

I have a crush on Pritam Singh, one of the newly elected MP in the Aljunied GRC. Made a little GIF of him saying "Dey, Go Away!" in tamil, in one of his rally speeches.

Also made a little GIF of the unexpected hero Returning Officer, Mr Yam Ah Mee.

Keeping up with the times

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:33:00 +0000

I'm pleasantly surprised that the CPF Website has a little icon for login for iPad users. That's showing that our stat-boards are making the effort to keep up with the times.

I supposed they're if they are taking a portion of our salary monthly, they'll want to provide us the best service as they can. :P

Though I have a few concerns:

1) Well, not all of us have an iPad
I haven't attempt to access through the iPad login. I don't suppose it's an iPhone Application, but just a website accessible by the web browser.

There are so many different form of tablets and smart phones for us to access the internet. If they're already accommodating a website to the iPad, I suppose they can take one step further by providing for the iPhones and other smart phones as well.

2) Do we really need a separate website for the CPF website?
I only login to the CPF Website once in 3-4 months. Unless we're talking about employers / people in the finance department submitting your CPF Contributions, I don't see anyone else requiring to use the website as often. (Correct me if I'm wrong: Those using their CPF to pay for their HDB loan: do you monitor the transactions closely via CPF website as well? )

It's not like iBanking where some of us will need frequent access. Or some stock exchange feed where we would like updated information as quickly as possible. I suppose if a service is not going to be regularly used, there shouldn't be a need to build a separate site for it.

I'm not just referring to the CPF website: I guess it's something we should take note of when we're doing anything: Don't do it for the sake of doing it. Or rather, don't do it because it's cool.

Do it because it enhances the services you are providing.

Updates on 9th June 2011
I logged in via the iPad (colleague's). It looks the same as the website leh.

It is different from your pain, but

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 11:11:00 +0000

I haven't cried for the longest time.

Maybe because I haven't been pushed to my limits for the longest time.

Layers

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:55:00 +0000

Take my time

To know the many layers

of you

Your past

The painter with his strokes covered up

The video editor with his hidden tracks

The writer and his shredded drafts

The science student with his dead lab rat

It is okay

To have a past

Filtered

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Tue, 10 May 2011 02:33:00 +0000

Colleague: Wah, there are a lot of people posting their unhappiness of Tin Pei Ling on the Facebook wall of the PAP website! I wonder if they will listen to what they have to say.

Me: They should just email Lee Hsien Loong instead.

Colleague: Got his email address?

Me: Yeah, it's available to the public. But it'll probably be filtered by his secretary...

-pause-

Me: Who happens to be Tin Pei Ling's husband.

Count on me, Singapore

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Sun, 08 May 2011 18:29:00 +0000

Sometime after the Election Results, my friend Harlina was tweeting the opening lines of a particular song. We were made to sing that song when we were children, usually in preparation for a mass singing session on a particular day in August. Was on the way to get breakfast this morning when I started singing the song, filling it with part of the lyrics I remembered, and I felt a twinge of sadness. I didn't remember feeling this way when I sang it as a kid

I'm attended a couple of rallies, watched some speeches on video, talked to more politically-informed people, and tried to read as many non-bias articles as possible. It felt very much like cramming for last-minute for exams, really, because I was never really interested earlier.

From my observations of these individuals trying to run for office: they were the mixed-bag of the eloquent, yeller, dead-panned, and the nervous ones that tripped over their words. But all of them had a common vision: to make our lives better as fellow Singaporeans.

And it lead me to ask myself: have I done anything to help as well my fellow Singaporeans as well? Do I have the same form of courage as them?

Here's to all the fighters who have fought for a voice for us in a particularly difficult battle, the ruling party for finally trying to listen, and also, fellow Singaporeans who wants to make this a better place.

___________

COUNT ON ME SINGAPORE

We have a vision for tomorrow, just believe, just believe

We have a goal for Singapore, we can achieve, we can achieve

You and me, we'll do our part, stand together, heart to heart

We're going to show the world what Singapore can be

We can achieve, we can achieve

There is something down the road that we can strive for

We are told no dream's too bold that we can't try for

There's a spirit in the air, it's a feeling we all share

We're going to build a better life, for you and me

We can achieve, we can achieve

Count on me Singapore, count on me to give my best and more

You and me, we'll do our part, stand together, heart to heart

We're going to show the world what Singapore can be

We can achieve, we can achieve

Chorus:

Count on me Singapore, Count on me Singapore

Count on me to give my best and more, count on me Singapore

( Repeat Chorus )

Together Singapore Singapore ( X 2 )

Hi there, I'm clueless. Can you care to enlighten me somehow?

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 18:03:00 +0000

Yeah, I admit, I'm close to being apathetic when it comes to political issues in Singapore. Oh, screw it, I'm apathetic when it comes to political issues around the world! I just think that politics are really dirty and difficult, and (let me admit it) I had chosen to be ignorant.

But it's getting harder and harder to ignore the issues when my social media networks (facebook, twitter) have constant feeds on what's going on, mostly angry sentiments of the ruling party, but the occasional ones that appears to say "good job, PAP". It's also getting really hard to ignore the issues when I may have to pick up a pen and make a choice between two people who I don't know about. (Yeah, I'm living in an SMC)

I'm a Gen-Y kid. I'm "Struck by Lightning", a kid born after the year 1965, and only saw the "lightning" political party in ruling all these years. My father was working in a government-linked company for 25+ years before they retrenched him 8 years ago, so you could say we were living comfortably because he had an iron-rice bowl job. My tietiary education was paid first with my father's CPF money (I am paying him back), and my last minor surgery was paid with my Medisave account.

I'm grateful for these "forced savings". Grateful for our libraries. Grateful for safe streets to walk on. Well grateful for a lot of other things also lah, but this blog entry / facebook note is not going to be about that.

This entry is about how clueless I am about how the political scene works in Singapore, and some questions I wish to ask on how it all works:

1. What happens when a member of a political party (either PAP or another political party) gets a seat in the parliament? Do they have to quit their day jobs?

They're going to be given a large portfolio to handle, so I'm guessing, with my logic, that it's going to be a full-time job.But I see one or two members from the opposition parties being owners of businesses. Do they have to give up their business because they have a new job?

2. Is PAP = Government?

After all these years of being "Struck by lightning", it's very hard to understand the following: PAP = Government?

Can there be a scenario such as this: there are 100 seats in the parliament. The PAP got 50, and the opposition got 50. Can there be two political parties deciding on policies and taking care of the country? Is that the way the government of other countries are being run?

____________

Okay, I'll continue asking questions when more questions come up in my head. But drafting the above entry already cleared some of my questions I had wanted to ask.

Julia Child is funneh

noreply@blogger.com (JY) — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 15:56:00 +0000

David Letterman: Have you ever cooked something, Julia, that turns out awful?

Julia Child: Yes.. (incomprehensible)

David Letterman: What do you do then?

Julia Child: I give it to my husband. (laughs)

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