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Lukey's SBA2013 Journey: #JBLsingapore Part 5: Flipping to be Broadcaster

2013-06-20T03:02:00.000+08:00

When I first received the JBL Flip and heard about the microphone capability together with the speaker, my first reaction was like:

After all, the uses suggested during the briefing such recording music or sound effects didn't really apply to me, as I was no music composer or producer so I thought the microphone would be the function that I would use the least out of the three speakers that I was given. However, as luck would have it, I had the chance to discover the uses of the microphone without realizing it.

You see, I am currently trying my hand at gaming broadcasting, which means you're basically trying to be something like a sports commentator, except for that the "sport" that you're trying to commentate isn't really a sport as the only part of your body that you'll be moving a lot is only your fingers (somehow that sounded wrong). Nevertheless, I was interested to take it up because it involves two of my greatest love in life, gaming and sitting in front of the computer with the chance of getting famous.

mr tobi aka tobiwan, one of the dota2 broadcasters who made it big and also one of my idols

Of course, when it comes to video game broadcasting, having the correct set up is everything and that includes having a mic that is able to stream your voice perfectly without having it distorted with the surrounding noise such as the humming of your air conditioner or the sound of passing cars.

As for me, before JBL Flip appeared, I have been using the default microphone that came with my laptop and as I'm using my laptop like a desktop, because I'm using an external monitor, the sound quality can be quite bad sometimes as the laptop is positioned quite far away, thus not being able to pick up my voice efficiently. Here's a picture to illustrate:

my usual set up, which is why i often end up with poor voice

Anyway, back to the story. As I was saying, as luck would have it, tragedy struck my laptop one fine night when I was trying to broadcast a game in Twitch.tv. For some strange reason, my microphone refused to start that night and as I was fumbling around, I suddenly remembered that I have a JBL Flip lying in front of my computer, a result of my earlier blog post, if you remember.

the JBL flip which was conveniently in front of my computer that time

Out of curiosity, I decided to hit up the microphone function and recorded a game with it. Turns out the voice quality was not bad, my voice was audible and clear as I streamed the game, plus the mic did not pick up as many background noise as my laptop's mic did last time. Was delightfully surprised at the results and the overall quality of the mic itself. Who knew a wireless speaker could double as a wireless mic too?

Added with the sleek design, one could also easily move it around until you get the optimal position to record your voice. The absence of the cables also reduces the messy set up issue. If you're looking for a speaker to double up as a portable mic for your computer or for your phone, JBL Flip is a worth investment. If you want to see the results for yourself, you can go to http://www.twitch.tv/doriyakiz to check it out. I think either the third or fourth video is recorded using Flip. Of course, you must be a fan of video gaming first to be able to appreciate it, but I was able to stream games using Flip as my mic without any problem.

dont underestimate this baby! source: www.engadget.com

To know more of JBP wireless speakers and their variety of products, do visit

www.imssg.com

Also, you can check out their Facebook page at

https://www.facebook.com/JBL

Last but not least, don't forget to vote for mua for the Singapore Blog Awards 2013 at

http://sgblogawards.omy.sg/2013/category/?cat=music

Lelaki Keluli, Man of Steel Review

2013-06-17T11:39:00.001+08:00

Leave it to Zack Snyder, the director behind The 300 and Watchmen, and Christopher Nolan to make Superman awesome again on screen.

they even helped him to ditch the red underpants on the outside too

After much delay and anticipation, I finally had the chance to catch the new Superman movie that was released just recently. I've been wanting to watch this movie ever since I saw the trailer and I was really eager to see how Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan will reboot the entire series.

Wanting to watch a newly released movie in Ipoh wasn't easy though. There's only so many 3 established cinemas in town, one GSC and two TGVs and they were full to the brim. So we decided to go with the unconventional, visiting a relatively unknown cinema which is not located in any shopping malls. Ipohreans (what do you call people coming from Ipoh anyway) would know this cinema as the Lotus Five Star cinema, located in a small and unimpressive building near House, Padang Ipoh and Yik Foong.

outside of the place, together with my two buddies and their respective dates. and yes i was the light bulb

It was the first time that I was stepping into the cinema though, despite passing it numerous times and hearing about it from friends, because I was never too sure of what to expect from it and I never had the need to visit it. Only during yesterday when we were truly desperate that we decided to patronize the cinema and to be honest, I was quite impressed with the overall quality of the cinema, just that you need to remember to bring your jackets.Or some winter clothing.

inside of the cinema. it's actually quite nice!

Okay, back to the main topic of the day, the movie itself.

I think right from the start many people were wondering how Zack Snyder is going to pull off this reboot of the movie because after all, it is not easy to make a Superman movie. The previous one was fulled with criticisms and 2 out of 3 Superman movies done by Christopher Reeves, the iconic Superman whom we all knew, did not achieve as much success as the first one. Superman's powers itself makes it difficult to keep the movie realistic and yet epic at the same time.

Amazingly, Man of Steel was able to deliver a movie which is balanced and yet enjoyable at the same time. While it is nowhere near the dark and serious tone of Nolan's Dark Knight trilogies, it manages to explore the human side of Superman without sacrificing too much of his Krypton side. I love how Snyder focuses on the familial themes in this movie, choosing to use flashbacks to string together a past for Clark Kent and to provide a sufficient back story for him without dragging it for too long.

It also doesn't linger too long on the soapy sad stories surrounding Superman's past, choosing to immediately jump into action once the premise has been established. The action sequences itself were enjoyable to watch although the movie may have overplayed it a little on the scale of the battles because it's Superman and is nowhere as gory as Snyder's previous movies, namely 300 and Watchmen, perhaps because they need to tone it down for the general audience but I felt it is not as realistic as it should have been. Because when you're shattering buildings and destroying landscapes, it's kinda funny if all the passerbys emerge unscathed from the battle.

But nevertheless, I liked the overall tone of the movie. It sets the tone of Superman's background at the start of the movie, brings you along the path of self-discovery of Superman and his conflict of identity as he's growing up, throws you into the heart of conflict as soon as you say, "Ah, now I understand" and lays the foundation of his future life at the end of the movie. There's no one dull moment in the movie as it is able to portray the different settings adequately and to be honest, I just love Snyder's cinematography.

Not only that, I also loved how the film tries to focus on the struggles of the normal people around Superman too, while not going in depth into their character development, it was able to let the audience know enough of their motives and personality for us to feel them and to identify with them. This film is as much a Superman film as it is a humanity coming to terms with a superhero amongst them, showing how instead of letting Superman do all the job, it was both the humans and Superman's fight and the film managed to juggle it convincingly.

The films does has minor flaws in the details here and there but in overall, it's one of the best Superman films I have ever seen, choosing to focus on the qualities that is distinctively Superman's. A definite must watch.

At the Edge

2013-06-16T01:40:00.001+08:00

When I was young, I thought about changing the world. As absurd as it sounds (in fact my friends used to laugh at me for this, and I eventually got too embarrassed to tell anyone), at the tender age of 14, I was already having this grand ambition along the lines of making the world a better place, leaving my mark here and contributing my part to the world. I didn't want my life to be just any routine life, I wanted it to be meaningful, to be different than others, I wanted it to shine. I have no specifics of what I want though, I just knew it had to be big.

It was this dream of mine that drove me towards two of my greatest decisions in life: To take up blogging and to pursue a degree in Psychology. Blogging because I thought it is the best way to reach the most people using the least resources and time and Psychology because I had this preconception that it was a job where you need to offer people hope in their life, which turned out to be terribly wrong once you step into it.

Fast forward 4 years later, I am not a Singapore Psychology graduate and doing okay in blogging but in a way, I am nowhere near my initial dream that propelled me towards this path.

Coming back this time, standing at the edge of my next stage in life has made me rethink a lot on what I used to want, what I hoped to achieve last time and looking at what I have now, I realized that life is not always a drawn out straight path for you. The dream that I had 4 years ago seemed idealistic at best, even naive.

I used to think that as long as you're doing something that you love, money shouldn't matter but after talking with my friends and looking at their life, I have come to conclude that the fella who said that money doesn't matter must have been a rich person after all. Because no matter what we do in life, money takes the center stage. Without it, we can forget about meeting the daily necessities in life such as owning a home, having car and living a comfortable life, much less settle down.

Looking at how some of my friends are struggling to meet ends meet to pay their loans and to take care of their family, I can't help but worry for myself in the future. My parents wouldn't be here forever and sooner or later, I would have no one to depend on but myself and with the added responsibility of being the eldest son, finding enough money is important. And that s not even taking into account of me starting a family.

So when my first job offer came as a Psychology Associate at a child intervention center, I can't help but wonder if this is indeed the path that I would want to continue on. True, the job does indeed makes a difference and is related what I have wanted to do a long time ago, but I cannot help but to think how practical it is going to be in the long run. Because to be honest, if you're involved in voluntary organizations and charity work, you are not going to have a life of climbing the corporate ladder and making it big in business, which in my mind considered to be the definition of success in life. Hech, I'm not even sure whether I could survive in a voluntary based work now.

I guess this is a good time as any to rethink what I really want in life. Whether I want a job where I can drive a nice car, wear G2000 suits, own a condo and party every weekend, or whether I want a work where I go to everyday trying to make other's life better and bringing a smile to them. Both directions have their good and bad, but I can't help but to want to be in the first choice given how it is more practical and that is how success is generally more defined. Saying that you're a manager at a multi national company is definitely going to amaze people more as compared to saying that you're a social worker, at least that is the case for us guys.

I don't know. As much as I want to do good, I cannot help but wonder what good it will do for me in return. Once upon a time ago, I was convinced that God wanted me to give back to society and to be the "light", in a certain way, but after graduation, I can't help but wonder how would I survive if I cannot earn enough to make ends meet. Money couldn't but happiness, that I know, but it certainly could make life a lot easier to live in.

Perhaps I am worrying too much and have been trying to take control of my life too much instead of just letting it go to a higher power like I have always done. Perhaps it is time to step back and let God take the way, as much as I would doubt the effectiveness of it. Perhaps it's time to take a leap of faith.

Lukey's SBA2013 Journey: #Qoo10SBA Part 4: A Gift for My Dear Girlfriend

2013-06-15T13:53:00.002+08:00

My dear phone aka my girlfriend, since I spend so much time with it, has been begging me for a new set of clothes (phone cover) for quite some time now, as she has been wearing the same set of clothes that I bought her a year ago and the cover is already in quite a bad shape.

my dear girlfriend whom has been following me for a year now

Not only that, being the caring and hardworking girlfriend that it is, my phone has to work tirelessly throughout the day, juggling between functions like Wi-Fi, GPS, Mobile Data and tons of apps running at the same time and she has complained to me more than one time that she needs something to recharge her now and then. I understand her feelings though, if I was forced to do so many things for the entire day, I would most likely faint too.

pity my phone for having to work constantly to keep the bf enetertained

It's gonna be our one year anniversary soon, and because of her hard work and dedication, I planned to buy my phone a cover to replace the ugly old one and to buy her a portable charger to keep her on the go without feeling tired and exhausted at the middle of the day.

However, being the dumb and blur boyfriend that I am, I have very little idea of where to buy the best gift for her as I have zero experience shopping outside before. I want to get the best deal for her but what I usually do when shopping is to go a shop and grab the first thing that I see directly without first browsing through other shops, because I just hate walking around and having a sales assistant hawk over me waiting to swoop in and eat me. Besides, what if I end up buying a totally bad gift?

Which is why instead of trying to buy it from the outside, I decided to buy it from online from Qoo10.sg instead, one of Singapore's most popular online shopping sites!

le Qoo10 website!

One thing about shopping online is that you can view a lot of different choices just from the screen of your computer, so instead of going to different shops to find out what products they have to offer, you have the shops coming to you to show you the products, making it easier for you to compare the specs and prices of the different products without having to walk up and down. The customers review section can help you in choosing a better shop too.

After browsing tons of choices on the website, I finally settled on a brand new black handphone cover and a new external charger.

le new flip cover!

Sadly for my girlfriend though, I was in the midst of moving into my new home during the purchase and I had to go back to my hometown in Malaysia so I was not able to get the gifts in time to present to my phone until I go back to Singapore, which is like in July.

However, I was quite impressed with the quality of service delivered by some of the vendors at Qoo10. Like I said, I was in the midst of moving home so I filled up my old address for the delivery address without realizing it so when the vendor wanted to deliver the portable charger over, I was already in Malaysia so I was not at my old place.

Fortunately for me, the vendor was very kind to arrange for a re-delivery to my new place without much question nor complaints, which surprised me because I was expecting quite a nasty email after making them go to my old place aimlessly. Who said all online shopping vendors are evil?

le email to show you I'm not cheating

So I guess I can only wait until go back to Singapore to collect my items. As for le girlfriend, she's very excited to finally receive her one year anniversary gift!

Qoo10

To see for yourself Qoo10's website, do visit
http://www.qoo10.sg/?jaehuid=2000135045

And to keep yourself updated with Qoo10's deals through Facebook, you can visit
https://www.facebook.com/Qoo10Singapore

If you enjoyed reading this post, do remember to vote for me for the Singapore Blog Awards 2013 at

http://sgblogawards.omy.sg/2013/category/?cat=shopping

Lukey's SBA2013 Journey: #JBLsingapore Part 4: Music Therapy

2013-06-13T01:17:00.000+08:00

One thing awesome about having a JBL Micro Wireless is that you can have your laptop playing music at one side (say on your desk)...

that's windows media player btw, not the blue screen of death

And still be able to enjoy listening to your favorite music somewhere else (for example on your bed)...

plus looking retarded at the same time

With its small size, something like your mandarin orange, bringing the JBL Micro Wireless around and fitting it to different places is definitely not a problem. I usually put it in that position for example, and end falling asleep listening to music. With its sharp sound clarity too, my phone is nowhere near the sound quality produced by the JBL Micro Wireless, you can still enjoy listening to various music and still rest assured that the quality of your music is not sacrificed.

I have never heard the sound quality of other speakers before to give an objective comparison, but I consider any portable speaker that is able to distinguish the different instruments played in the music and doesn't face the buzzing sound problem as good.

I normally use the JBL Micro Wireless for my late night music therapy sessions, you know the moments when you're feeling down and all you want to do is to lay down on your bed and listen to emotional songs that sings out your sentiments just to help you deal with the stress or sadness that you're facing better.

I used to rely on headphones though, because that's the only piece of equipment that is able to produce music that are good enough in terms of quality. However, you can't really turn a lot or risk entangling the wires or squashing the headphones in between your ears and your pillow. Troublesome. The Micro Wireless helps you to eliminate this problem as it runs on Bluetooth and is small enough to put anywhere.

If you're someone who loves to fall asleep to music playing in the background, JBL Micro Wireless is definitely a good speaker candidate.

JBL Micro Wireless: Now helping you with your music therapy session

To know more of JBP wireless speakers and their variety of products, do visit

www.imssg.com

Also, you can check out their Facebook page at

https://www.facebook.com/JBL

Last but not least, don't forget to vote for mua for the Singapore Blog Awards 2013 at

http://sgblogawards.omy.sg/2013/category/?cat=music

Hunting Down Penang Street Art

2013-06-12T04:03:00.002+08:00

I have seen the various street art before in Facebook and Twitter, but little did I realize that the those wall paintings are located in Penang, until today when my buddy's colleague's friend (yes the link is that far away) brought us there while we were visiting Penang today.

we were conversing in Chinese, what I pictured in my mind was a wall with loads of paintings for us to take picture of and only when we arrive at the locations did I realize that the "wall paintings" that my buddy's colleague's friend was referring to is in fact the street art that I have always seen online, and I secretly squealed in excitement when I finally came face to face with the first street art of the day.

Hi there, little kid

Located near the World Heritage sites in Penang, the street art aims to capture the life and culture that once belonged to Penang. There are quite a few paintings scattered around the historical sites in Penang, and from what I learned online, they were done by a Lithuanian artist called Ernest Zacharevic.

We initially thought that the artwork would be concentrated in one area, but from asking the locals we learned that we actually need to hunt them down around Penang to see them. Luckily for us, I managed to snap a picture of a map from a nearby tourist shop to serve as our rough guide for our short visit.

le map with 10 different artwork for us to hunt down

I personally enjoyed the trip though, because the routes along the different artwork are quite scenic with the old buildings and stuff but as our time was short, we didn't have enough time to hunt down all the 10 artwork listed on the map. In addition to that, the different artworks are not exactly very near so you might want to consider hiring a trishaw or preparing adequately before setting out, for example bringing enough water and sun lotion.

As you can see, the artworks that we visited are around the Lebuh Armenian and Lebuh Canton area and although we didn't go for all, the paintings that we visited sure made plenty of photo opportunities.

wait for me!

I wonder what's down there

a different natured painting

lukey and the buddies!!

As you can see, most of the props are built in together into the wall with their painting, which is quite an interesting concept. There are also other artworks that are not paintings in particular but more like sculptures around the area with messages on them. They are more numerous though but somehow not as attractive as the wall paintings.

most of them gives a historical perspective

portrays a different feeling than the paintings

If you have the time and if you're more of the exploratory + historical type, trying to hunt down all the artwork on foot would be a great way to spend your time in Penang as it takes you across the different alleys and places that depicts the historical Penang. Becki says that there are 30 artworks to track down, so you could spend a day just finding all of them. I saw some Korean tourists enlisting the help of tour guides to drive them around to the different paintings but of course, it's not as exciting as searching for them yourself but that is according to your preference.

My only regret is that I don't have enough time to pose at each and everyone one of the street art, coupled with the fact that I forgot to bring my DSLR. Maybe next time!

Lukey's SBA2013 Journey: #Qoo10SBA Part 3: It's the Experience That Counts

2013-06-11T01:05:00.000+08:00

They say that people who spend their money on new experiences (holidays, getaways) would be happier than those who purchase physical products (cars, bags, house etc), which was why the moment I found out that I was one of the finalists for Qoo10's Best Online Shopping Blog category, I already have half a mind to spend it on some E-Ticket discounts as part of an outing with friends.

P/s: If you're not aware of this, Psychology research has shown that spending your money on material gains would not buy as much happiness as experiences, due to our tendency to habituate, which is why going on that holiday together with your family would be a better choice than buying that new family sedan. Source: http://psychcentral.com/news/2012/01/27/buying-new-experiences-not-things-tied-to-happiness/34167.html

Happiness is best shared :D

So I was very lucky when the first thing that I saw when I open the Qoo10.sg website was a friendly clock telling me that there's a time sale going on with special offers for buffet E-tickets. If you don't know, Qoo10 regularly offers products at a discounted prices for a limited time through the time sale section, which lasts about six hours each for each session, meaning you can check into the website occasionally to see if there's any products that you like which are on sale.

the mr clock that tells you there's a sale going!

The items that are on sale will change periodically every 6 hours, with products ranging from clothes to electrical products to e-ticket discounts, and I managed to get a discount for a restaurant offering a laksa steamboat buffet at Outram Park. The normal price was around 15 SGD but I managed to get it for around 13 SGD due to the time sale. I bought 3 tickets in total for me and my friends, so it was around 6 dollars saving in total. Quite a neat offer, I think, because steamboat buffets are normally around 15+ SGD.

saving about 2 dollars per ticket during the time discount

After finalizing your purchase and paying, the next thing that you need to do is to make a reservation at the place you're going and to print out the tickets one day before you go, just to be sure. Of course, you should read the reviews of the place too before making a purchase so that you would not end up with a place that you will regret later and to make a better decision. After calling my friends and confirming with them the date and place, I went back to doing my own things and to wait for the date to arrive.

Chuang Feng Le, the restaurant that we're going to for the night

When the day finally arrived, I was kinda nervous about bringing my friends to the place because after all I have never been there before and was worried that the place might not turn out to be as good as expected, but thankfully, the reviews of the website was generally trustworthy, giving good tips such as the restaurant was generally Chinese speaking so I made my reservation and orders in Chinese, and we had quite a fun experience dining there and catching up with each other over a steaming hot pot.

hanging out with my friends shu hui and xian you for the night

The food in general was not bad, we all thought that it was a really good offer because we got an endless supply of meat just for 13+ SGD, which we managed to eat until we're bloated, but what I thought was the best takeaway from the whole experience was how you can use these type of e-ticket discounts to explore different places around Singapore that you've never been before together with your friends.

I don't know about you guys, but I often find that if you visit a place too often together with your friends, you'll inevitably get bored with it after a while, especially if the place happens to be a eating place. I mean, who wouldn't feel a little sick after eating the same chicken rice from the same stall for a few weeks straight?

Coupled with my eagerness to explore and to try out new places, I would often try and find new eating places around Singapore to hang out with friends and to try new food, but often face problems such as not knowing where to start and having too many choices to choose from. Eventually I would give up on the idea as I will get too lazy to comb through all the information and end up feeling pretty frustrated.

Buying an e-ticket from Qoo10 essentially eliminates this problem as it kinda pushes you towards a set direction while letting you try new things at the same time. Besides, if you're worried about stepping into an entirely new place, there's also the reviews section that will help guide you in making a better choice while letting you explore new places that you don't know even existed. In our case for example, the restaurant was located at the basement floor at a plaza near the edge of Chinatown, a place that we will most probably never step in if there's no reason to.

enjoying le sumptuous meal. just look at the soup!

Xian You in particular liked the endless supply of meat and their efficiency in delivering the food, while I enjoyed the soup and the variety of food choices. My only complain was that they don't have an endless supply of water though, we were only offered a free can of soft drink and there's refillable water, but in overall, we were all satisfied with the experience there. It was definitely a good deal for the food that we're getting and we had fun talking to each other and catching up. The dinner was just there to give us a reason hang out with each other.

Like they say, it's the experience that counts. If you're looking for something new to do with your friends or if you're bored with the eatery that you have been going to day in and day out and is looking for something new, hunting for e-ticket deals at online shopping sites such as Qoo10 is definitely a good place to start.

le faces of happy customers :)

And yep, I will definitely be dong this again.

Qoo10

To see for yourself Qoo10's website, do visit
http://www.qoo10.sg/?jaehuid=2000135045

And to keep yourself updated with Qoo10's deals through Facebook, you can visit
https://www.facebook.com/Qoo10Singapore

If you enjoyed reading this post, do remember to vote for me for the Singapore Blog Awards 2013 at

http://sgblogawards.omy.sg/2013/category/?cat=shopping

I Haz A Dream #omySBA2013

2013-06-10T03:19:00.001+08:00

The 1960s saw about some of the most interesting developments in our modern human civilization that would continue to affect the rest of the world for the rest of the decades to come. It was a period of social revolution, with the civil rights movement in America and the cultural revolution in China, coupled with the ongoing tensions of the Cold War that indirectly led to other developments, such as the space race (culminating with Armstrong's moon landing in 1969), Vietnam War, Cuban Missile Crisis and the hippies movement in America.

It was a period of soul searching, you could say, where the human population in general struggled to find a direction and guiding principle in the time after the wars, with numerous breakthroughs in science, society and even entertainment in an effort to grapple with the question of who we are in a whole. The Star Trek series, for example, was shot during this period, along with advancement in science such as the creation of Arpanet (which would become today's internet), the ability to use satellite broadcast and not forgetting the increasingly significance of the everyday computer.

However, out of the countless developments that were happening during the sixties, there's one particular person who inspired me a lot from that period of time, and he is none other than Martin Luther King, known for his fight for racial equality in the US in the Civil Rights movement that changed the fate of the African Americans there.

I have read a lot about him from my textbooks and readings when I was still studying Social Psychology and out of the many people that I came across during the course of that module, I find him particularly inspiring because unlike many people with great power out there, he chose to use the power and influence that he had fighting a good cause for the betterment of human civilization.

More often than not, when we are faced with an unfair system or injustice, we would either complain but do nothing about it, ignore it, flee it or fight it back with violence because that is our general tendency when reacting to perceived threats or injustice. It is very rare that someone is able to stand up and rally for change, more so using a non-violent but confrontational tactic.

Like many great leaders out there, King faced numerous detractors to his effort. There are those who criticized his belief in non-violent approach, believing that the only way you can send a message across is to use force but then again there are those who think that a confrontational tactic is too risky, preferring instead to let thing run their course and wait for a more suitable time instead to make demands. King, on the other hand, saw the bigger picture, opting to chose the middle path solution that combined both of the beliefs together, a non-violent but confrontational tactic.

the action of sitting in together with Whites in a cafe is considered illegal back in those days

Martin Luther King gave his life for the cause that he believed in but the legacy that he left behind remains until today. The Civil Rights Act was passed soon after his death and it paved way for the African Americans to be recognized as equal to White Americans. It also inspired many more fights for equality to come and often groups fighting against discrimination will look at the Civil Rights Movement as an example and for inspiration, in which Martin Luther King played a prominent role in.

His actions are inspirational in that it teaches me the value of not giving up despite having the odds stacked heavily against your favor, even when he has the FBI wiretapping his phone conversations and keeping him monitored 24/7. Like a boss, right? If I was him, you would have seen me running away at the first sign of trouble.

But of course, in the spirit of the Best WTH Category for the Singapore Blog Awards, I am going to include another person from the 60s who inspired me because we the finalists just love to do stuff out of the ordinary that makes people go WTH, like adding another inspirational person when you just have to do one. Or maybe it's just because I have too much time on my hands.

The next person whom I find inspirational from the 60s happens to be a famous explorer, known for his superb thinking ability and logic, who also happens to be one of Sheldon Cooper's idol. Yes, he is none other than Mr Spock, the first officer of the starship Enterprise in the original series of Star Trek that came out in the 60s.

there's zachary quinto now as spock, but leonard nimroy in the 60s brings another type of feeling to the character

While I may admire Spock for different reasons from Sheldon's, he's one of the awesome characters that I love from the 60s because of how he always manages to keep his cool under the most intense of situations, always sticking to his principle of logic and analysis. His observation skills are also incredible and I always admire how he is able to see things from different perspective when analyzing things, a quality that I like very much because he's choosing to see the bigger picture rather than just sticking to one.

But beneath his cool and serious exterior, he pretty much has the emotions of a normal human being too, just that he chooses not to show it because to him emotions only will hinder him. I still remember his line from the latest movie, which was inspired by a similar line back in the early series, saying that just because he chooses not to show it doesn't mean that he doesn't experience pain, but he chooses to hide it because he is scared of the feeling. That line made me drool.

Not only that, I also love how Spock seems to bring the coolness into science. I'm sure that before him, people who are interested in science are usually associated with nerds and geeks, a rather derogatory term, and his appearance seem to have shaken the stereotype and show that you can be cool and awesome too even though you're very much a scientific person. In addition to that, he packs a deadly Vulcan neck pinch too. How awesome is that?

Besides, don't you think that pointy ears and eyebrows make him look incredibly sexy along with his intellect? No wonder Uhura fell for him instead of Kirk.

And to end off my themed challenge for the Singapore Blog Awards 2013, allow me to do an impersonation of my two favorite characters from the 60s, Lukey style.

"History is a vision of God's creation on the move."
- Arnold J. Toynbee

Vote for me for the Singapore Blog Awards 2013 at
http://sgblogawards.omy.sg/2013/category/?cat=wth

Lukey's SBA2013 Journey: #JBLsingapore Part 3: Traveling with JBL

2013-06-07T16:31:00.000+08:00

Achievement unlocked: Bringing the JBL Charge to accompany me when I was bathing.

i was thinking of posing with the speakers with the showerhead, but I thought it would be good to spare you all the anguish so I didn't do it

For the past few days, I've been bringing my JBL Charge with me as I traveled from Singapore to Ipoh, Ipoh to KL and KL back to Ipoh again. The whole experience was a great one though, because other than being able to play your favorite music from your phone, JBL Charge is also extremely easy to carry and it's also able to function as a portable charger when the situation calls for it.

Not only that, I also find that JBL Charge really lives up to its name. It lasted me for a good whole day, one overnight charge of the speakers enabled me to charge my phone to full once and it still have some juice left to play some music for about an hour or so before I slept at night. And still it did not went flat. Only if my phone's battery can last that long.

charging my phone when I was in KLCC

The size of the Charge itself enables it to fit in nicely to whatever bags that you're carrying, making it more convenient for you to carry it on the go. In the photo above for example, I managed to fit it in into my camera bag, which some water bottles can't even fit in.

All in all, JBL Charge can be a great traveling companion if you're constantly on the move and needs a 2-in-1 speakers and charger at the same time. Easy, convenient and totally awesome!

JBL Charge: The awesome travel companion!

To know more of JBP wireless speakers and their variety of products, do visit

www.imssg.com

Also, you can check out their Facebook page at

https://www.facebook.com/JBL

Last but not least, don't forget to vote for mua for the Singapore Blog Awards 2013 at

http://sgblogawards.omy.sg/2013/category/?cat=music

My 2 Cents Thoughts about World Ventures

2013-06-05T02:46:00.001+08:00

I am one of the few people that thinks that everyone should be entitled to their own beliefs, even though those beliefs may differ from yours. Which means that although I may not subscribe to your belief, I would not judge you for having them and neither would I try to change it. It's when your try to impose your beliefs unto others, or try to use a certain kind of deception to get others to adopt your beliefs. And one of those people are the ones from the MLM companies.

Throughout my time in Ipoh, I've been approached by tons of people trying to pull me down as their downline before. From Amway to Sunrider to Island Red Cafe, I've seen it all. Each of them tries to offer different products under different marketing scheme and cover story but the core of the whole thing never runs far, you have to recruit people (most people end up recruiting friends) and the people you recruit have to pay a certain amount of money in order for you to make money. Be it health products, household items or even shares in a restaurant, the mechanics never change. In order for you to make money, you have to attract people to be your downline.

I thought the days where people try to covertly invite me to some "inspirational" talk would be long over when I came to Singapore. Never have I been so wrong.

I've started to hear about an organization called World Ventures recently from a friend of mine, who was complaining to me about how her housemates are constantly trying to sell her a membership and trying to invite her to their talks. Initially I did not pay much attention to the company because I thought as long as nobody bothers me I shouldn't care about it, and it's other people anyway, but when me and my friends were invited to an "event" held at this place called Majestic at Chinatown recently, it did a very good job in getting me interested in the company and getting me motivated to write about it.

Before I start to talk about the company though, what it does and the legitimacy of it, I would first share the experience from my own perspective. I was invited over to dinner on one night by a friend, who said that there was something that I need to see. It was very mysterious at first, and being curious, I agreed. Up until the night itself, I have no idea what the dinner was. Only when I arrived at the venue that I found out that it was not only me who was invited to the event, but 8 other friends were also there, all having no idea why we were there.

Only when I walked in to the building did I start to smell something fishy and when I saw my friend holding the World Ventures file on her hands, I immediately knew something was wrong. Thank God that my mother chose to call me at the right moment so I bolted with an excuse. I have been to too many of these talks to know what they are going to talk about.

team leaders, captains, etc, it's all the same thing

I met up with my other friends who sat through the talk later and they confirmed what I already expected. There's a speaker who tries to convince you to join their club, organization or group or whatever you choose to call it, using the good ol' speech that he wants you to succeed, you can be successful through their company, you can gain benefits through it and using a lot of videos of successful people as a backup.

From what I heard, they used a testimonial video from Gurmit Singh to try to convince the people there, including my friends, about how he's a part of the "team", how he managed to get 2000 people in 5 months and how World Ventures is like durian, just because people like me don't like it, it doesn't mean that the product is bad. The scarier thing is how my friends describe how the existing members would clap at the same time as if it was cued and how sad it was to see a friend clapping together.

Going back to Gurmit Singh, it's really a classic advertising technique, using a famous celebrity to endorse your product in order to increase its value. But just because David Beckham uses Nike shoes, that doesn't mean you can play like David Beckham when you use Nike shoes right? Besides, there's a reason why Gurmit Singh is able to earn so much success in the first place. He is a celebrity for goodness sake. Even if his story holds true, sure, he only need to convince 7 people in order for him to get 2000, but that doesn't mean you'll get 2000 if you convince 7 too, just because the friends he know is not the friends you know. Being a celebrity of course means that his friends might hold a certain type of influence and unless you can get your CEO or famous friends to be your downline, there's a high chance you wouldn't even go anywhere near Gurmit's success.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnQyNVYkhSI

Okay, now to what World Ventures do. From my understanding, they are a group that sells travel packages in a very cheap fee because they buy in bulk (a friend of mine kindly pointed out that's what Groupon does too) and as a member you'll get to enjoy the benefits of cheap travels and going to awesome places around the world. They use a lot of pictures of happy members with the banner "You should be here" and stories of successful members, how Mr A has been able to earn 30k per month, retire at the age at 30 and now travelling the world, for example, to entice people to join. Of course, should you want to join, there's a membership fee to pay and also a monthly maintenance fee, which will be waived if you manage to get 4 members to sign under you.

the signature pictures with blue banners

While I don't deny the fact that some people do find success through schemes like this, I wish to point out that the same applies to whatever career field that you're looking at. The only problem here is that more often than not, it's only the successful people that you get to see in presentations, not the ones who are struggling with it.

To use football as an analogy. Lets say I want to market the career of a footballer to you. I would tell you how awesome a footballer's life is, how you can make tons of money and fame just by playing football and I would then proceed to give you examples of how Ronaldo, Beckham and Messi are living the dream for example, having big houses and such just by being a footballer. All you need to do, of course, is sign a membership fee to join our football club and to sign up 4 other people in order to get your dream started.

What I fail to mention to you, however, is that there are thousands of others struggling footballers in smaller clubs who can't make enough to feed their family through footballing and need to rely on other petty jobs to fill in the gap. But the success stories of the top footballers itself is more than enough to attract you so you willingly part with the membership fee without knowing of the rest of other members who are not making as big. The same story goes to organization like these.

pepsi for example, can get people to join their football club just through using these big names

To be honest, it would be interesting to conduct a simple statistical survey across groups like World Ventures. Sum up the total earnings of all the members and divide it among the total number of members. If the average earning of a member is significantly higher than the average of the population, then yes, being a World Ventures member would indeed increase your money. The thing is, while the top members are earning a lot in World Ventures, you have the bottom ranked members (who are much more in numbers) who are paying the membership fees every month (in essence their net gain is negative) so I would predict those two to cancel each other out and the average earnings of a World Ventures member to not be significantly different from a non-member. Simple as that.

Or you could simply take the number of successful people and compare it with the rest to see what the percentage of successful members is like. Using Gurmit Singh's example, I would take him and his immediate 7 people as successful members, while the rest of the 1992 as not (a very rough gauge) and you would have a 0.4% of being successful when you join World Ventures. Of course, the number could be higher depending on how you measure success (say the earnings per month) but the percentage itself shows that joining World Ventures is not a definite guarantee of success. You still need chance and a lot of hard work to succeed, which is no different from any other thing you do in real life.

like they say, there's no free lunch in this world

Perhaps the thing that I dislike most about companies like this is how dependent it is on finding downlines in order to ensure your success. To be honest, I could never get myself to ask friends to be my downline, pay a sum of money for me and to work their asses off to find other members in order for me to be successful. In a way, you're abusing the friendship to gain something for yourself and inconvenience the friend at the same time in order for you to reap the benefits, which is very selfish from how I see it.

If you want to convince strangers that is totally fine with me because that's how sales work, but trying to get the friends part is just cheap. More often than not, you'll see people trying to use deception (like how the whole purpose of this event was hushed up) and you'll see friendships break because of this because your friend could not earn as much and have trouble finding downlines. I mean come on, how could something that is supposed to be good can break up friendships?

The even sadder thing is how a friend who has joined MLM schemes such as this become more and more attached to it, willing to defend it from any criticisms and would turn hostile if anyone dare mention the negative effects of the company in front of him/her. It's mainly, cognitive dissonance, to be honest, where someone would form a strong identity towards something that they have worked hard for in order to protect their self-esteem. Besides, if a friend disagree with you over this, the friendship would naturally break or strain, causing you to gravitate more towards those who share the same thinking as you (which is World Ventures is awesome) and naturally your views would become more polarized and extreme as all your friends share the same view as you.

Of course, if I am allowed to go on, I could continue to list down why you should think twice before joining World Ventures but as my prof in university puts it, you should never believe in a thing too quickly and must always spend time to seek out the correct information. What I present are views that are entirely of my own but I believe that as much as people in World Ventures are allowed to tell people how awesome their company are, we should also be allowed to present the opposing side of the story.

Just a simple Google search of World Ventures scam would return you numerous results, and the articles there are much more informative than what I have to offer. Just look at the following websites to see for yourself the other side of the story:

1. http://isworldventuresascam.blogspot.sg/

2. http://observer.com/2012/08/do-the-hustle-can-worldventures-use-pyramid-power-to-become-the-new-amway/4/

3. http://www.shouldibuyatravelclub.com/2012/03/world-ventures-travel-club-scam/

4. http://natewienert.com/dreamtrips-aka-worldventures-pyramid-scheme-scam

There are many other posts in forums, which I think is not that hard to find if you have a working internet connection, so take time to research thoroughly about this company before committing to it, should a friend ask you to.

To be honest, I can't help but feel sad or disappointed every time I see one of my friends getting involved in schemes like this. I don't blame them though, I just blame the evil minds behind such schemes who enjoys sucking the money out of honest people. I just wish Singapore and Malaysia could instill a law like the one in China, where it's illegal to do multi-level marketing or network marketing and anyone caught trying to do it will be put in jail. And yes, you know something is wrong when the job you're doing is illegal in some countries.

Disclaimer: Views posted on this website is entirely of my own and does not represent World Ventures in a whole.

a beautiful sadness

2013-06-04T04:20:00.002+08:00

Butters: *crying*

Goths: You can join us if you want. We're gonna go to the graveyard and write poems about death and how pointless life is.

Butters: Ah no thanks. I love life.

Stan: Huh? But you just got dumped.

Butters: Yeah and I am sad. But at the same time I'm really happy that something can make me feel that sad. It makes me feel alive ya know? It makes me feel human. The only way I could feel this sad now is if I felt something really good before. I have to take the bad with the good. So I guess what I'm feeling is a beautiful sadness.. I guess that sounds stupid..

Goths: Yeah..

Stan: No. No Butters, that doesn't sound stupid at all.

one of the most profound moment in south park. source: http://imgur.com/NVLpd

I've been watching South Park faithfully for months now ever since coming across it during a gathering in a friend's house and even after 7 seasons worth of episodes, Trey Parker and Matt Stone never fails to impress me with their witty humor and sarcastic take on life. While I do enjoy most of their light hearted episodes where they poke fun on everything from Christians to anti-smokers, it's episodes like this that sometimes strike a chord in my life.

In this episode, both Stan and Butters were dumped by their girlfriends, someone whom they loved a lot. When Stan first found out about it, he couldn't come to grips with reality. Faced with the immense pain of having to live his days differently now, he chose to blame life instead, wondering why it would play such a cruel joke on him, eventually becoming a goth kid like what you see above. He chose to hate life for the experience, thinking that life itself is nothing but misery and pain.

In a way, Stan represents a lot of us when we are dealt a hard blow in life. We often curse and swear at God or life, depending on whether you're religious, and wondered why we have to deal with such a hardship. We become more pessimistic, giving up hope somewhere along the way and viewing life in a much more negative manner. Afraid of experiencing the pain again, we shut our hearts in and prefer not to venture out anymore. We begin to hate life and lose the optimism that we once had for it. Like Stan, we would come to think that because of that one bad experience, life is nothing but pain. Just because we fell down once, we allow it to affect our entire outlook of life.

What we often do not realize that pain, sorrow and disappointment, all the negative emotions that we dread to face, are part and parcel of life. Like what Butters said, we are able to feel pain because we once felt joy and it is our ability to be hurt that is what makes us human. Sure, the experience itself might hurt a lot and it's not one bit enjoyable but it is through that painful experience that you learn to grow and appreciate all the other things in life. It is a part of life, where you have to "take the bad and the good" together.

So don't be sad just because you're feeling so much pain right now. Instead, be thankful too that you're able to feel it because it proves that you're still very much a human inside. Like a beautiful sadness, so to say.

Time to start loving life rather than hating it, even though it may mean accepting the painful side of it too. Not to question it or to deny it, but to merely accept it as a part of life.

Moving Out

2013-06-03T14:42:00.000+08:00

After 4 years of calling NUS Eusoff Hall my home and myself as a NUS student, I have finally arrived at the next phase of life, transitioning into a working adult life. I have dreaded this moment ever since I realized that I'm in my 4th year of study because with it comes the added responsibilities that students will never know, such as loans, taxes and insurance. Funny how I used to think how fun an adult life would be when I was young. Guess you'll never know how something feels like until you get to experience it for yourself.

at some point in life we'll all face the peter pan syndrome, the refusal to grow up

As much as I would like to forever remain as a carefree teenage student, I guess I can't escape the inevitable clutches of reality, though I admit I am coming to terms with it really really slowly. Just to savour the last moments of freedom before I am forever lost in the currents of work. This is, after all, one of the last three months vacation period that I can get in a very long time, unless I get fired or retire in the future, of course. And yes, it does sound quite depressing when you put it that way.

Anyway, I finally went to check out my new place today, a three room HDB flat that will be my new home for the next one year, and honestly, I think I might have been leading a really spoilt life until now. I grew up in a landed house back in Malaysia, thought it's a terrace house it's still incredibly comfortable and subsequently moved to Eusoff Hall, which has one of the biggest rooms among the residences in NUS. I would need time getting myself used to my new environment, that's for sure but then again, I'm the type of person who needs a lot of time to get used to new environments. I remember not being able to sleep for the first month when I was in Eusoff Hall because I am not used to sleeping alone.

Nevertheless, as much as I dislike moving into a new environment or even getting a new job for example, I guess this is all a part of growing up. Am not really looking forward to the early morning rush hour that I would be facing in the near future, but I guess the whole point is to not lose sight of who I wanted to be last time and not to be sucked into the rat race and the mundaness of routine. Lets see how that goes.

On a happier note though, my new house is just within walking distance away from a shopping center and a MRT station, which is extremely convenient, and I foresee myself turning into a shopaholic in the near future once I get settled down at the new place. Best of all, there's a cinema in the shopping center itself, which means that I could go watch a late night movie whenever I want without having to worry about how to go back.

le view outside of the house

Besides, it's a new life after all, one that is filled with uncertainties but at the same time with unknown opportunities too, and you'll never know until you take the dive. I guess only time will tell what lies ahead. As for me, I will remain hopeful for what's to come. Chiong ah!

lukey's SBA2013 journey: #JBLsingapore part 2: bringing the charge out

2013-06-03T02:25:00.003+08:00

I was very lucky in that the day when I received the JBL Charge speaker from JBL Singapore and Omy.sg was also the day my friends from the JCRC (Junior Common Room Committee) decided that we should hang out together as sort of like a celebration to end our term in hall.

I thought it would be a great idea to test out my new speakers by being the entertainment officer for the night. Like they say, having music at a gathering could help improve the mood greatly. So chargeeeeeee!!!

Pun intended

I never had a portable wireless speaker before, in fact my last experience with portable speakers was very much a love hate relationship, on one point I appreciated the ability to play music at a louder volume from my phone whenever I needed it, but I disliked the static or crackling noise that it produces when I try go louder and the cables tend to get tangled in a very interesting fashion wherever I put it so I was really looking forward to my new friendship with JBL's Charge and seeing how the speakers will perform.

my new friend Charge sitting in the meeting room while waiting for the gathering to start

As for the nights itinerary, we planned to spend the whole night just chilling out all the way until morning, since it's like one of our few last outings together. After settling down with supper, we ordered delivery from McDonald's and I was too busy filling out my stomach to take any pictures, we decided to play board games! Turns out that we were very lucky as the room was filled with a variety of board games.

In the end we settled down with the board game called Life, because some of us are graduating and we thought it would help to prepare us for what's to come, and because we had no idea how to play the other board games, which had instruction manuals as thick as my textbook.

having a fun time with board games after a satisfying supper. if you look closely you'll be able to see my new friend, JBL Charge somewhere

i decided to drive a tank for the game when everyone else is using a car (minus the scumbag soldier, of course)

To be honest, I seem to have forgotten how fun the good ol' board games are. We had lots of fun "winning" Noble prizes, "curing" cancer and "having" kids in the game and it was amazing how a simple game could manage to bring out so many laughs and funny moments. The whole point of the game was to collect the most money though, which totally reinforces the notion that to be successful in life you need to have tons of money, and although I was driving a tank, that did not help me one bit in earning more money.

Maybe I should have shot the other players away to eliminate all competition (computer gamer's mindset).

i thought I had loads of money. never have I been so wrong

Of course, we also played other games like Pictionary and Ugly after experiencing Life, and for the sake of not making this post too long about all my miserable attempts at board games, I shall refocus it back to my new friend Charge.

Throughout the night, Charge was faithfully playing music in the background to keep the environment light hearted and jovial. I actually loaded an entire new playlist of songs into my phone before the night, and I was actually surprised at how long the speaker lasted throughout our board game session. We started around 12am and even after 4 hours, the speaker was still going with extra battery power to spare.

le charge during pictionary

We certainly had a lot of fun during that night and having JBL Charge there was an added enjoyment. The mood would have been slightly different though without music in the background and I was certainly glad that I brought the speakers with me. The wireless feature of it also makes it easier to set up without having me to look for power supply or to constantly connect it to my phone, and I'm definitely going to bring it together with me again the next time I am going for any group outing, be it a picnic or a day out at the beach.

JBL Charge: Now compatible with board games!

To know more of JBP wireless speakers and their variety of products, do visit
www.imssg.com
Also, you can check out their Facebook page at
https://www.facebook.com/JBL
Last but not least, don't forget to vote for mua for the Singapore Blog Awards 2013 at
http://sgblogawards.omy.sg/2013/category/?cat=music

lukey's SBA2013 journey: #Qoo10SBA part 2: it's shopping time

2013-06-02T00:16:00.004+08:00

This was my reaction when I saw the Qoo10 website for the first time:

Which is true, because from clothes to electronic products to even groceries, Qoo10 is like a shopping mall with everything that you can possibly find, with the only exception that that this shopping mall is online and they will deliver whatever that you bought to you. Which means there's no petrol fees, transport fees, crowds or traffic jams to worry about. Best of all, whenever you feel the urge to shop, say like at 3 or 4am in the morning, you can just click away without having to wait for the shops to open.

the wide range of products that you can get from Qoo10

Not only that, Qoo10 also offers various discounts and offers too to help shoppers save, for example they have daily deals and also time sale, and for my maiden purchase from Qoo10, I bought two items that I have always wanted and were coincidentally on the daily sale, a portable phone charger and also a phone cover, because my phone always run out of juice in the most important moments and the cover that I'm using now think it's a snake, because it keeps shedding its skin.

the kind shopping angel has decided to help me too!

Of course, being a first time online shopper and an over-worrier, I naturally would feel a little nervous when buying stuff online. Questions like, "What if the products are not good?" or "What if they cheat my feelings" would naturally pop up into my mind. After all you are doing transaction with someone that you cannot see face to face.

Thankfully, Qoo10 has this awesome feature where shoppers are actually rewarded for submitting reviews for the products that they have bought from the site, thus making it easier for people like me to actually determine whether it's safe to buy products from a particular company rather than just having to guess and hope for the best. Naturally, when there's a review system in place, companies would strive to be accountable in order to keep their business, which is a win-win situation to us buyers.

Not only that, should have a any question pertaining to your product, for example I wanted to know whether the phone charger that I'm buying is compatible with my phone, can be addressed directly to the seller itself. Which is a nifty feature as it allows you to clear any doubts that you have and it allows for the seller to build a relationship with the customers too.

the review and QnA section

I had a lot of fun with my first experience shopping online to be honest, because it's fast, easy and simple. You can browse at your own pace without having a shop assistant hovering over you asking you what you want to buy or eyeing you in a way as if you're gonna steal their products like that.

And now that I'm done, I guess all I have to do is to just sit and wait for my products to arrive. Definitely can't wait for it, to be honest.

the colour effects are intended

Also do remember to vote for me for the Singapore Blog Awards 2013 at

http://sgblogawards.omy.sg/2013/category/?cat=shopping

Arigatou!

I shot for the sky, I thought I could fly

2013-06-01T22:15:00.002+08:00

"So why did you chose to take up this responsibility when you are have trouble committing to it now?" - A random friend

I recently found a song by Jason Walker called Down, and it was one of the songs where every single word in the lyrics seems to resonate with your life, like something that makes you ago, "Aha!", and you end up listening to it over and over again for the rest of the day. Below is the video and lyrics:

Lyrics

I don't know where I'm at
I'm standing at the back
and I'm tired of waiting

Waiting here in line
hoping that I'll find
what I've been chasing

I shot for the sky
I'm stuck on the ground
so why do I try
I know I'm gonna fall down
I thought I could fly
so why did I drown
I'll never know why it's coming down down down

Not ready to let go
Cause then I'd never know
What I could be missing

But I'm missing way to much
so when do I give up
what I've been wishing for

I shot for the sky
I'm stuck on the ground
so why do I try
I know I'm gonna fall down
I thought I could fly
so why did I drown
I'll never know why it's coming down down down

Oh I am going down down down
Can't find another way around
and I don't wanna hear the sound
of losing what I never found

I shot for the sky
I'm stuck on the ground
so why do I try
I know I'm gonna fall down
I thought I could fly
so why did I drown
I'll never know why it's coming down down down

I shot for the sky
I'm stuck on the ground
so why do I try
I know I'm gonna fall down
I thought I could fly
so why did I drown
Oh it's coming down down down

They say as you grow older, you gradually become more pessimistic with life, jaded in a way, where the optimism and energy of your youth is gradually replaced with routine and normalcy. I cannot help but to agree wholeheartedly with this observation. Everywhere we look, we cannot help but see kids who want to do so much in their life finding out that as they grow older, life is no fairy tale. From our dreams to be a singer, an actor or a president for example, we learn that life is never so simple, that we are often limited by our own personality, society and circumstances.

The past year itself has truly been a humbling journey. Just like the song says, I shot for the sky, I thought I could fly but it turns out that reality was never as simple as one would imagine it to be. Halfway through my journey, I had to face the ugly truth that I am not who I think I was. Far from my ideals, I ended up becoming the person that I never knew I was, not the superman that I had imagined but rather an average normal person, just like everyone else.

I'm not saying that being like everyone else is bad, it's just that in our lives, we always strive to be different from others in a good way, to find our identity in this world, which is why we often do things we do. To be the most popular singer, to be the fastest runner, to be the best gamer, all of this are done in our search for an identity and often, we have to come face to face with the truth that not everyone can reach their dreams. For every person who succeeds, there would be 9 other who failed. It's not that the 9 did not put effort into chasing their dreams or whatsoever, but more often than not, life does not simply allow for all the 10 to succeed and reach their dreams. It's the system. Ultimately, the world needs followers and peasants to keep it functioning, because after all, it's simply not logical to have 10 leaders and no one to lead.

The sad truth is that while most of us would want to be at the top, ultimately most of us will end up at either the middle or bottom. Because that is life. And life is never fair.

Miss Universe Singapore: Complaining about the candidates

2013-06-01T08:38:00.001+08:00

About a week ago, Yahoo Entertainment Singapore unveiled the faces of the candidates vying for the title of Miss Universe Singapore this year. And a week after that, I came to know of this competition a friend shared it on Facebook, saying that he had a good laugh reading the comments section. Curious, I decided to take a look at the faces of potential Miss Universe Singapore this year, along with the comments.

the 15/16 candidates for miss universe singapore this year. taken from Yahoo Singapore

From the looks of it, the contestants for this year's Miss Universe Singapore do not seem to have the support from Singaporeans themselves, judging from the comments received on the Yahoo page so far. From the downright rude comments to sarcastic ones, a lot of users are expressing doubt over the choice of girls for this year's pageants. Even the better ones seem to say that the girls might have a tough time fighting against representatives from other countries.

I've included some excerpts of the not-so-nice comments below:

Comments #1: the first page of comments on the main article

Comments #2: more comments

Comments #3: from the funny ones to the downright lost ones

Comments #4: majority of comments look like this

Of course, there are good comments but they are too few and far between. I only managed to find one or two from the heaps of comments directed at the competition.

one of the very few encouraging ones

To be honest, from my personal perspective, while none of the girls are ugly or really below average in particular, I wouldn't say that they are necessarily eye catchers too. I know Miss Universe isn't exactly about looks but when guys like me hears about Miss Universe contestants, we expect to see a girl that would catch our attention when we pass by them in the public for example, or at least eye pleasing to look at. Just take Gal Gadot for example, who acted in Fast and Furious 6 and who is also an ex-Miss Universe contestant.

I mean if a girl like her walks past us guys in real life, we would be like "Wow" and stunned for at least a few seconds. It's like you have seen an angel walk past you or something like that. Of course I'm not saying that the girls chosen for Miss Universe Singapore are ugly or what, I'm seriously not, but it's just that when it comes to something as prestigious as Miss Universe, we would naturally expect more. It's like how you cannot send a skinny guy to a Mr Singapore competition. Naturally you would expect someone out of the ordinary, someone who is really muscular and bulky and not those average normal guy. The same applies to Miss Universe I guess.

in competitions like this for example, you can't expect the normal muscular guys to enter right? source: fabodylous.com

Besides, it's not that I have not walked past Singaporean girls who are really pretty before. There are countless incidents where I remember finding myself rooted in one area because I've just walked pass a pretty girl either in NUS or in a shopping center before.

I do agree with some of the comments wondering whether the selection committee has really put any effort in to finding the prefect candidate to represent Singapore as the crème de la crème of Singaporean girls. I mean I didn't even hear about the selection until someone poked fun about it in Facebook, maybe I am too much of a frog under the coconut shell, but I can't help but wonder if the whole selection process has been done hastily just for the sake of doing it. No big publicity, campaigns, auditions or whatsoever, which might have been the reason why there's so much negative reaction towards the results announced in Yahoo News (and only Yahoo News). Because we didn't even got to know about the competition or the candidates in the first place. Budget constraints, perhaps?

But then again, going through the profiles of the candidates, some of them really have an impressive background and not to mention diverse interests too. From a relationship manager to a DeeJay to a trainee lawyer to a business executive and with interests such as Muay Thai, extreme sports and salsa, perhaps it's the personality that is the winning factor. I mean what's the good in having extremely good looks when your vocabulary is filled with words like, "Boomz", "Yah" and "Studying... Steel".

Okay, I'm being a bastard here, my English is not that good either, but that's what I roughly think about the entire reaction to the incident itself. I can be proven wrong, to be honest, because after all, those are just photos and we have never seen them in real life too. But out of curiosity, I decided to check out the their counterparts from across the causeway, Miss Universe Malaysia 2013.

i just picked the few that i think were prettiest

I can't comment much because I'm kinda like in the middle, being a Malaysian living in Singapore at the same time, but I think the Malaysian side puts in a lot more effort in terms of their publicity and candidate search. A Google search for Miss Universe Malaysia 2013 returned a dedicated website for the competition for example (http://www.missuniversemalaysia.com.my/), while a similar search for Miss Universe Singapore 2013 only returned the Yahoo page (http://sg.entertainment.yahoo.com/photos/miss-universe-singapore-2013-finalists-slideshow/).

comparison of the search results side by side

Miss Universe Singapore does have a Facebook page though at https://www.facebook.com/MissUniverseSingapore, where they have been answering concerns and questions in a professional manner, in addition to having much better photos, but at 964 likes (while a normal blog like mine has 354, a third out of that?), I can't help but wonder isn't that a bit too little? There have been a constant stream of updates on the page too, which often could translate to likes, thus not justifying the 964 likes alone. Maybe the page is new, I guess.

But then again, I am no expert to judge. I may talk like I know a lot but ultimately I'm just an outsider and a keyboard warrior. I admit that there has been a lot of effort put in to the Miss Universe Singapore Chapter judging from their Facebook posts and perhaps there's other factors that I'm not aware about. At the end of the day, I just find the reaction to the whole event interesting on itself. No event's perfect so I think it's pretty awesome already for the committee to have came out with so many activities so far.

Anyway, I can't help but wonder which country will win this year. Or which planet, in fact, since they call it Miss Universe (meaning every alien from outer space can take part) instead of Miss Earth or Miss Solar System or something.

Do you want fries with that?

2013-05-31T04:31:00.001+08:00

I've been posting a lot about the Singapore Blog Awards 2013 recently, I think it's because I'm still excited by the whole thing but I think it would be great to take a break every now and then to avoid a topic from becoming stale, so today's post is gonna be about random stuff and a collection of updates here and there.

If you've visited my blog before, you would have noticed that the layout and the design of the blog has changed quite a bit from the previous one. Instead of a handsome Luke greeting you with a gun as you load the page, you now have a smaller Luke at the side of the welcome banner. Still handsome as always though.

Am not gonna comment about why the change happened, but the blog switched from the classic template to the default blogger template now, which is good in a way as it allows easier customization of widgets and add ons. The entire design also looks simpler now, which may be good or bad depending on your preference. While the previous design had more features in it in a way, I think this one looks neater and I feel more secure with what I have now as the entire blog is once again under my own control.

The blog design is gonna stay like this for the time being, unless I gain some designing talents through some miraculous means, until I find the time to see what I can add to the entire design. But at least the blog is still readable, so I'm not complaining.

sometimes I just wished I had more creative cells in me when I was born

Anyway, I've been busy with job search for the past few weeks actually, aside from getting myself involved in the Singapore Blog Awards and I sort of realized that stepping into the working world is a totally a different thing that what I am used to. As a student, I used to have the liberty of trying out different things that I'm interested in, even though I may not have the experience doing it. I've done a lot of things in the name of fun and for the sake of experience but I realized that when it comes to work, there's no such thing as "trying out" or experiencing.

Whenever you're going to any job interview, the first question that interviewers will ask will undoubtedly be the amount of experience you had, the more the better. Not many interviewers would enjoy hearing that you're merely trying out for an answer and not many companies would want to spend time and resources in training. And once you get started on a career path, how far you go in the career is based on how long you spend in it.

Changing careers halfway, at least to one that is of complete different field, for example switching from a doctor to an accountant, would sort of like reset your progress in your career path as your skills in handling the job requirements ultimately depends on the amount of experience in it. Meaning that if you get bored of a job and decide for a total career switch, there's a high probability that you have to start all over again from the bottom, which translates if you want to succeed, you should probably stick to a path once you've made your choice.

often there's no turning back

Which is exactly my dilemma right now.

You see, I am going to graduate with a Psychology major degree. However, for the past four years, I have been dabbling in all sort of stuff except Psychology related ones. So when it comes to searching for job, if I am searching for a Psychology related job for example, I have zero experience in it (meaning that I might have to relearn everything again on the job) but if I'm searching for a social media related job, my degree is not of the relevant field such as Marketing nor Advertising, which also means I might have to learn a lot of new concepts while on the job. So in essence, no matter which field I'm looking at, I'm definitely gonna miss out on something, like a core required component.

I think I'll just go and flip burgers at fast food restaurants.

lukey's SBA2013 journey: #JBLsingapore part 1: setting up ma flip!

2013-05-30T05:05:00.000+08:00

You might have not heard of the brand JBL before, but there is a high chance that you have heard music, voice commentary or sound effects coming from a product of JBL before. Founded in 1945, JBL has a rich history in producing audio equipment in the industry, being one of the top suppliers for speakers in the concert, cinema and even automobile industry. Meaning that you might have probably listened to a JBL produced speaker before without really knowing its brand.

Fortunately for me, I was selected as one of finalists for JBL's Best Pop/Music Blog Award, one of the special categories under the Singapore Blog Awards this year. Along with that I was given 600 SGD worth of JBL products to review that included a JBL Charge, a JBL Flip and a JBL Micro Wireless. All three are portable bluetooth wireless speakers that you can bring with you wherever you go and honestly, I didn't know such speakers existed until seeing them for myself.

the JBL charge

and JBL flip

last but not least, the JBL micro wireless

To be honest, the prospect of owning wireless speakers excites me. I am very fond of blasting my favorite songs whenever I'm using my computer, be it when I'm gaming or blogging, but due to the fact that I've been moving around a lot for the past few weeks, I didn't really have the chance to set up my old speakers whenever I could get my computer down because it's just too troublesome. I have to bring out the speakers from the box, plug in all the wires, set it up, find a power source and stuff like that and before I know it, I have to move again and I have to unplug everything, which is a real hassle. So now my old speakers is kinda sitting in a box chilling.

The arrival of the three JBL speakers is a blessing actually, as now I can still blast music out from a speaker without having to face the hassle of setting it up. While the speakers are extremely easy to use with your phone, setting it up with your computer can be quite tricky at the start though. But after a quick search through forums and experimenting myself, I've found out a quick way to set up your Bluetooth speakers with your computer.

I am using a laptop running on Windows 7, with Bluetooth function and of course, the first thing you want to do is to add the Bluetooth device, in this case the speakers, to your computer by searching for it through your computer's Bluetooth function. Easily done by typing Bluetooth in the start menu.

step 1

Make sure your device is discoverable, in my case the Flip speakers should be flashing red and blue indicating that it's searching for a connection and if everything is working out fine, your device should appear in the "Add a device" window. Just double click on the device you want to install, JBL Flip or JBL Charger depending on what you want and the computer will automatically help you install whatever that is needed.

the speaker's name should appear in this window, i've already added my JBL flip which is why you're seeing nothing

The next part is the tricky part. Once you've added in the speakers, Windows automatically assumes that you know where to find them if you need them. Turns out it was not the case as your laptop speakers are the default playback device and you need to actually sort of activate the Bluetooth. speakers to be able to play sounds through it. To do so, in my case, I simply had to right click the Bluetooth icon on my notification bar on the bottom right corner and click the Bring Out Bluetooth devices option there.

this should be the bottom right corner of the screen, right click on bluetooth devices

this should pop up after your right click, then click show bluetooth devices

After that, you should be able to view the available devices on the next window. Simply double click on the device you want and voila, the magical window pops up. From there all you have to do is to click the "Listen to music" link and you'll be able to play music or anything from the Bluetooth speakers without problem.

choose your speakers and then click listen to music

And once you get past the tricky part, you can now enjoy the awesome music coming through your speakers (you'll need to disable your default speakers first before being able to use the speakers).

The sound quality is surprisingly good for a speaker so small, with it being able to catch all the finer details like the bass beats and tunes of Kurt Schneider's music videos, which I absolutely love it. If you don't know about it, Kurt Schneider is an awesome music composer/producer and the tunes, melodies and effects he inserts into his songs are just breathtaking. And thankfully the JBL Flip was able to pick it all up.

Best of all, I could put move the speakers around wherever I wanted due to its small size without losing any sound quality.

Which included me juggling the speakers on my head. That was for fun, but hey, it still sounded great from there! But jokes aside, I am really amazed the potential of these cute but powerful speakers from JBL. Don't underestimate their looks as they definitely pack a punch. The possibilities are endless too. With such mobility, it would seem like you can just bring them anywhere. I have already a few places in mind, but you'll have to wait til the next post to check it out!

And oh, not forgetting the customary vote-for-me-please call after each post. As this is part of the Singapore Blog Awards 2013 post, if you find the post funny, informative, enjoyable or if you find me handsome in anyway, do vote for me at http://sgblogawards.omy.sg/2013/category/?cat=music. I am contestant JBL08, here writing at your pleasure :)

To know more of JBL products please visit:
www.imssg.com
You can also like their Facebook page at
https://www.facebook.com/JBL

lukey's SBA2013 journey: #Qoo10SBA part 1: intro to shopping online!

2013-05-28T23:19:00.002+08:00

I have two problems when it comes to buying things that I need or shopping in general. One, I hate travelling. And by that I mean stepping anywhere outside of the comfort of my room. Two, I have no idea of where I should buy the stuff that I need. Most of the time, I will end up travelling to loads of shops before actually finding a place that sells the thing I'm looking for. I guess the second problem is most probably due to the first. The point is, I hate going out to shop.

Thanks to me being chosen as one of the finalists for Qoo10's Best Online Shopping Blog category in Singapore Blog Awards 2013, I was introduced to the awesome world of online shopping, where one can buy practically anything they want without having to step out of their own room. A perfect find for a lazy shopper like me.

It's not that I have never heard of online shopping before, it's just that I have never had the courage to venture in it because of the sheer complexity of it. The fact that I am a debt ridden student doesn't seem to help the case too. Besides, the only two online shopping site that I know about before Qoo10, Taobao and Ebay, are based overseas and one is in Chinese, which is my biggest weakness. So having one which is locally based with a good track record (Qoo10 is affiliated with Ebay btw) is definitely going to make life easier. Not only that, from my first look at the website, Qoo10 has practically everything that I would need and they have an impressive price range too, ideal for someone on a tight budget like me.

So follow me as I take a step into the world of online shopping, as a newbie who have no idea what online shopping is and see what online shopping has to offer! Many thanks to Qoo10 and Singapore Blog Awards 2013 for giving a newbie like me a chance in this category :p

I have a long list of items to buy actually, but never had the time to do so. Time for some shopping! Oh and not forgetting, do remember to vote for me at http://sgblogawards.omy.sg/2013/category/?cat=shopping. Am only one of the two guys in the category so must support to show that we guys can shop too (despite how wrong that sounded).

Like Qoo10's Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Qoo10Singapore

Visit Qoo10's page through this link: Qoo10
Tags: Singapore Blog Awards 2013, #Qoo10, #Qoo10SBA

3 is a very nice number #omySBA2013

2013-05-28T05:46:00.000+08:00

A little angel came by to drop me a pleasant surprise today.

It turns out that the angel was actually sent by Omy.sg, here to deliver the great news to the finalists of the Singapore Blog Awards, notifying them that they have made the nomination cut and are now in the running to snag the title of becoming the best blogger in Singapore according to their respective categories.

As for me, it's my third year joining the Singapore Blog Awards, and as they say, third time's the charm. Which might explain why there were three angels in total that appeared today.

Okay, I have to admit that I got a little carried away during the nomination phase, where I practically nominated myself for all the categories that I think my blog could fit in, in the true spirit of narcissism, and little did I expect that I would actually end up as a finalist in three categories, which is: The Best WTH Blog, JBL's Best Pop/Music Blog and also Qoo10 Best Online Shopping Blog.

Yes, not only did Lukey managed to live up to the standard of giving you your daily dose of "I think this guy needs help" blog posts and rantings, he has also successfully ventured to new grounds too, where he is now also expected to deliver a steady stream of music/entertainment and online shopping related news. Jack of all trades, it would seem. I just the hope the master of none part would not apply here, because that would most probably translate to me not winning anything.

But then again, third's the charm. Third year joining, three categories and who knows, three victories!

Of course, it's not the destination that matters, but rather the journey, as cliche as that may sound, so I am going to make the best out of this one month to do my best and to see how far I can go. It's just that winning at least once in Singapore Blog Awards is one of the items in my bucket list that I was I so close to crossing it off in the past two years. It's just a little bit annoying when you're so close but yet so far in fulfilling one of the things that you have wanted to achieve for very long.

Nevertheless, with lukeyishandsome(dot)com being listed in three categories, it is definitely going to be an exciting journey for sure, not matter what's the outcome.

Do stay tuned for Singapore Blog Awards related updates in the next few weeks, in fact the blog is going to be full of it, and in the meantime, I think I will need a lot of help in the votes, as voting constitutes 30% of the overall judging criteria in the whole competition. All you need to do is to sign up for an account at http://sgblogawards.omy.sg/2013/register/ and go to HERE (Best WTH) | H3re (Best Shopping) | here (Best Music) in order to vote for me. Just click the yellow vote button next to my handsome picture and you're all done. You can vote once per day so do make sure to set a reminder in your phone or computer everyday at 12am so you can immediately vote for me when your timer expires.

Just kidding. I'm not sure even I can do that. Besides, I never believed in pestering people to vote for you, IMHO I think that if you're honestly good people would naturally want to vote for you, so I am just gonna put a reminder here and there and leave the voting up to you. Not saying that I am good though, it's just that I do get annoyed when random people asks me to vote for them in random competitions, so naturally I would not expect others to do the same too or it will be called double standards.

But then again, I do appreciate any votes, in fact, I would be absolutely indebted if someone votes for me so if it's not much of a trouble, say if you're terribly bored with nothing to do or is waiting for a Youtube video to load, do vote for me and help me cross that item off my bucket list! Thankriu veli veli muchie!

Tags: Singapore Blog Awards 2013, #omySBA2013

tom clancy's ghost recon online: first look

2013-05-26T04:53:00.003+08:00

Despite calling myself a seasoned gamer, and wanting to be one of the first popular gamer blogger + broadcaster in Singapore, I have to admit that there are a lot of popular classic games that I did not touch before. Games like Final Fantasy or Zelda for example, because I did not have the time nor money back then to be able to experience these games. Another one of the classic games that I didn't get a chance to try was Tom Clancy's FPS series, mainly because I used to think that it was not really great back then.

I heard that Ghost Recon was a great game, and despite missing it out when it was first released, I had the chance to experience it today when a friend told me that they are releasing a free online multiplayer version of the game for open beta. Since I'm a fan of FPS games and since the trailer looked great too, I decided to download it and give it a try to see how the game is like.

First thing first. I have no idea how the original single player version of the game looked like, but from my first 50 minutes in the game, what I can say is that at its core, the game is no different from the free shooter games that I've played before like Blackshot or Sudden Attack, where you search for matches once you're in game and basically you need to use cash in order to use better guns or armor in game. That's the core of the game. If you have the cash, you'll have an easier time owning, which means that while you're still using the default gun given by the game, you'll have someone already wielding a crazy gun just because they can buy it.

With that being said however, the game does try to balance it by adding level restrictions to the guns being used, which I think it's a good effort to not make us non-cash paying players be like cow fodder and ultimately, they have to make money too so I'm not blaming them.

the hated equipment shop of every shooter games where you're reminded that there are players out there who can kick your ass better merely because they can buy better guns than you

Cash mechanics aside, the game does try to add its own flavor to the MMO shooter genre through a few different features. For starters, there's three different classes (Assault, Recon and Specialist) for you to choose from when in game. Each class comes with their own unique abilities (one active and one passive) and look, which you can choose depending on your play style. The active powers kinda reminds me of Borderlands, because you have to tap F to use them, and for each job, there's 2 active power for you to choose from, making it 6 active powers in total. The same applies to the passive abilities.

While the different abilities are aimed to provide a more tactical approach to the game rather than just merely shooting, I find that the immensely long cooldown time for powers (maybe it's just only at low levels) kinda defeats the purpose. Not to forget that in staying true to the core of the game, more powerful variants of your power can be unlocked at higher levels using cash.

aegis, one of the specialist power in action

heat, one of assault's active power that burns your enemies

However, the concept of class system itself is not entirely new though. In Planetside 2 itself you have tons of classes to choose from in game so this feature isn't entirely groundbreaking. It's just how you incorporate the abilities in game that is interesting, as they can be paired up with various tactics in game to change the dynamics of the entire gameplay itself.

Perhaps the attractive feature in the game itself, in my opinion, is how you cannot blindly rush into a battle with guns blazing or risk getting creamed like no tomorrow, true to Tom Clancy's style of gameplay. One has to duck from cover to cover and progress slowly to the objective or try to flank any enemies in order to gain advantage in match. It's one of the rare few games where you see players actually going to prone in game because that's the only way you would not get killed in less than 5 seconds.

one of the central features in game, actually hiding behind a cover

The game is in a third shooter perspective though, which is needed in order for the taking cover mechanics to work (like in Mass Effect 2 and 3), and you'll only switch to first person view while aiming down your sights.

right click and you'll aim down the sight + coming out of cover

All in all, I wouldn't say that the game is revolutionary in a way, because you can find games with similar gameplay out there and it's very cash based so non-cash players might find it a little bit frustrating at the start of the game. That being said however, the game still offers quite a decent amount of fun with the class system skills, the high amount of tactics needed and also the ability to customize your loadout (weapons upgrades + skills), provided you're not the impulsive type of gamer who loves to rush headlong into conflict.

this is what you get if you shift and run into everything

Definitely worth trying out, because it's free after all and it's from Tom Clancy's series, but just don't put too much hope in it. I made a video from my first 50 minutes of gameplay in Twitch, so if you want to see how the game is like before downloading it you can head to http://www.twitch.tv/doriyakiz/c/2330285 just to see how's the gameplay is like.

friends, not the sitcom

2013-05-25T03:57:00.000+08:00

All of our life, we are told important how friends are. Shows, books, life stories and nuggets of wisdom all seem to tell us that no matter how different we are from others, we can always find true friends who will accept us for who we are and with our true friends, no matter how tough life gets, friends will always pull us through. It's a common theme shared across stories of fiction and non-fiction alike. It would seem that as long as you have friends, no problem in life is too big to handle and you'll survive as long as you have the support from your friends.

Not only that, science itself seems to suggest that people with more friends tend to do better in life. Be it in general life outcome and even progress after being diagnosed with an illness, people who had social support tend to do better than those who do not. If we are socially excluded even for a while, our body quickly responds in a negative way. We humans are made to be social creatures and without social contact in our life, we just tend to fare a lot worse than those who have a better social network.

Which brings me to the next question. What happens then if a person is so broken in a way that it's impossible for that person to have a friend? Would it be easier to just give up on life then, since it is almost impossible to thrive without social support? I mean what happens if you find out that you just can't seem to make any true friends despite how hard you try? Do you press on until you eventually find one or do you accept the fact that you're probably not going to find a true friend anyway and try to live life as independently as you can, no matter what the consequences are?

I've come to question the concept of friends a lot for the past few months. It would seem that the definition of friendship to many is where a relationship where you can benefit both in a tangible (opportunities, cash, car rides) and intangible manner (emotional support, rant pillar). To be someone's friend, you must first have something to offer, something that will benefit the other party in any way possible. After all, not many wants a friendship where one has to constantly give and receive nothing in return, which means that when you have nothing to give, you'll often find that not many would be eager to be your friend. Which is why people of a higher status, wealth and fame always have an easier time finding friends than those who are not.

It's funny how life made it so important for us to have friends but yet at the same time made it so difficult to find a true friendship. Maybe it's just me but I find it funny that even after 4 years here, I still have trouble finding someone whom I can really trust, and who trust me back in the same way. But by saying that though, I am also guilty of expecting an equal amount of return when investing in friendships. Perhaps I am expecting too much, or perhaps my personality is so different in a way that it prevents me from ever having a true friend (like those who have personality disorders, for example) but I guess after what's happened over the past few months, I guess it's a high time to once again throw in the towel and just don't care.

After all, I did tried once to step out and to just mix around but it would seem that while some can just form friendships easily, some have a more awkward time doing it and in some cases, even having an all out meltdown in public. Sometimes, things are just not meant to be. I give up. I work better with my computer anyway.

I miss my buddies back at my hometown.

jack of all trades, master of none

2013-05-23T21:30:00.002+08:00

I have always thought that in order to live life to the fullest, one must experience as many things as possible. So in my 4 short years here in Singapore, I've tried out as many things as I can, with short stints in dance, leadership, event organization, media, voluntary work, blogging and so much more, while juggling my studies at the same time.

While having a diverse range of experiences is good, the job interviews that I've had for the past few days thought me that in order to succeed in your working life, it's not having a wide range of experiences that matters but rather specializing in one and only one field. You can suck at everything else but as long as you have a particular skull that you're extremely good at or if you're an expert in one field, it's more than enough to succeed because after all in the job scene, your job function only centralizes around one main responsibility and your pay is in direct proportion to your level of skill in a particular field.

and here's mr jack

So kids, while it's fun to have a wide range of experience, be sure to be damn good at one particular skill. Or you'll be like me when attending job interviews: "You are good, but just not competent enough". And repeat that for all the interviews I go to.

Haiz.

journeying to the new mysterious island, sentosa 4d adventureland

2013-05-23T01:58:00.003+08:00

It's always fun to see The Rock aka Dwayne Johnson act in movies. He has this certain aura on him that you cannot seem to ignore whenever he's on screen. To be honest, ever since he made his debut as the Scorpion King in movies, I have always enjoyed seeing him on screen, be it in a tough role such as Luke Hobbs in Fast and Furious 5 or a not so tough role as the tooth fairy, he brings out a unique side to a movie that makes it enjoyable to watch.

Come 22nd May 2013, not only will you be able to see The Rock in action once again in another Jules Verne inspired voyage, you will also be able to journey with him in the adventure, complete with all the sights, sounds and effects, in the new 4D Magix Movie ride just recently launched in Sentosa. In addition to that, the new movie would also feature an all star Hollywood cast together with Dwayne Johnson. We have Michael Caine (Alfred from Nolan's Batman trilogy), Vanessa Hudgens (from High School Musical) and Josh Hutcherson (from The Hunger Games) all starring together with the Rock. Where else can you find a movie with such a star studded cast?

Of course, with it being a 4D experience, you would also be able to experience the thrills and excitement of the adventure itself, such as the heart pounding moments when they are chased by monsters or when their helicopter are caught in the storm. The ride comes with the full range of experience such as having bubbles floating in the theatre, wind blowing in your face and not to mention a nasty surprise to your back.

I had the privilege of being one of the first few to experience the ride and I must say I pretty enjoyed seeing all the star studded cast trying to survive together on a forgotten island. And the narration by Michael Caine is just heavenly. Not to forget seeing Vanessa Hudgens too :p

before we can see dwayne johnson though, we had to queue up in the jungle of safety briefing

The effects of the ride itself was an added benefit, depending on your preferences you might or might not like them, but I myself find some of it very funny to experience. I would not spoil it for you guys though, because you have to sit through it yourself but what I can say is that you will definitely be caught off guard by it.

That's not the end to the story though.

The other two rides that are in close proximity to the 4D Magix Movie itself, the Extreme Log Ride and the Desperados, will be marketed together with the Journey 2 ride as one collective attraction called the 4D Adventureland, where visitors can now enjoy the three different attractions all in one pass. So not only you can be part of the Rock's adventure dream team, you can also undergo the experience of being a log (literally) and try out as a deputy sheriff hunting down wanted criminals.

the extreme log ride where you learn to be a log literally. photo courtesy of Sentosa Island, Singapore

shooting the bad guys as part of your duty in the desperados. photo courtesy of Sentosa Island, Singapore

me chilling with my newfound friends from himalazon, i think. and the girl awkwardly trying to avoid the camera behind me

Of course, having fun in those rides was not the only thing we got to do for the night. We also had Private Ismail from Ah Boys to Men, or also known by his real name Ridhwan, gracing the launch event. He even sang Justin Bieber's Baby and had a ping pong ball swinging challenge as part of the night's itinerary to entertain us bloggers. There's even a fan girl group following him *jealous*.

the try to get the ping pong ball out from the box hanging around your waist challenge

All in all, I had fun tonight enjoying all the different rides in the 4D Adventureland. It was a privilege for me to be there and I would like to thank the people at Sentosa Island for inviting me over!

Journey 2: Mysterious Islands and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and New Line Productions, Inc. and Walden media, LLC.

when science wins, the new logitech g series

2013-05-22T04:12:00.000+08:00

In their continuous effort to improve their line of products and to cater to a more diverse range of customers, Logitech has recently announced the release of 8 new products in their Logitech G series lineup, a range of products ranging from mice, keyboards and headsets specially tailored to the most hardcore of computer users, the gamer population.

Thanks to the folks at Logitech, I had the opportunity to attend the media launch event for all the 8 new products today at the Garena stadium at Bugis+, which is an incredible honour considering the fact that most of the people who attended the event with me were either professional gamers or writers for established publications. Kinda feel out of place, to be honest.

the setup of the event today, photo credits to SPRG and Logitech Singapore (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sprg_photos/)

A total of 8 new products were released today, 4 gaming mice, 2 gaming keyboards and 2 headsets, and our group was one of the first few who were given the chance to witness the launch of the new products. The new gaming mice includes the model G100s, G400s, G500s and the G700s, while the keyboard models are G510s and G19s, and last but not least the G230 and G430 are the new gaming headset models to be released together in this lineup.

There's a lot of new features in this new line of products, for example in the gaming mice itself features such as hydrophobic coating and a delta zero sensor technology are added to ensure that the mouse performs to the standard required by gamers during serious gameplay, one that is not affected by sweaty palms and delivers high speed response rate and accuracy needed to make the winning move. From the entry G100s mouse all the way to the more serious G700s mouse, there's just one that is suitable for your gaming needs, be it casual gaming or professional gaming. The prices itself are tailored to what you're looking for to, ranging from an affordable SGD 35 all the way to SGD 135.

i particularly like the g400s though, for reasons you'll know later. photo credits to SPRG and Logitech Singapore (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sprg_photos/)

The two keyboards itself also feature a lot of nifty functions, such as having an additional LCD display to help give you the extra information to help give you the extra advantage in game (this is the first time I'm seeing an extra LCD display on a keyboard) and it also comes with up to 18 programmable extra keys on the left on the keyboard for those who needs to have macro functions in game. With so many functions available on just one keyboard, I'm sure serious gamers would love it for its ability to do almost anything. Of course, the keyboards also come with adjustable colours just for your taste.

the g19s for the most hardcore of players. photo credits to SPRG and Logitech Singapore (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sprg_photos/)

Last but not least, the gaming headsets which features surround sound system, an ultra lightweight design for long hour gaming purposes, noise cancelling mic and even removable cloth earcups that you can wash for hygiene purposes. The gaming headsets designed in such a way to allow you the most accurate sound detection in game (such as which direction the footsteps are coming from) and to allow seamless communication between you and your team members during a team game.

le gaming headset. photo credits to SPRG and Logitech Singapore (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sprg_photos/)

What I've said about the functions are but a rough overview of all of the features of the products themselves to give you a general idea of what the product aims to achieve. Perhaps the best benefit of all the features available is that all of the products themselves come with a 3 year warranty. And yes, that means that no matter what you buy, if there's a defect that you find in the product or any problems that you face, you have a 3 years warranty to look after your gaming gear, which is quite a long period if you ask me, because even I don't use a particular equipment for more than 3 years.

And of course, if you want more info on the features of the products itself, you can always go to Logitechs website (http://gaming.logitech.com/en-sg) to check out more on each product and to compare them with each other. In addition to that, you'll also be able to see what are the latest products and also their price range. With all the available information. it's quite convenient for you to look through when you're deciding.

And now as promised, why I like the new G400S mouse in particular. Well, because I won one you see.

yep, a brand new gaming mouse for me

I think lady luck was with me today, because when we were split into a team for the friendly League of Legends competition during the event with the mouse as the prize for the winning team, I had three tournament players in my team. So all I had to do was to stand behind and let me teammates do their job. And that's the story behind how I won the easiest prize so far in my blogging career.

team precision, we were called. photo credits to SPRG and Logitech Singapore (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sprg_photos/)

We also had the opportunity to try out the gaming devices during our match, but because it was only a five minute match and due to the fact I was nervous the whole time as I have never played League of Legends before, I didn't really get a good feel to accurately judge the gaming devices that I was using, except that they felt different, except for the headset though.

When it comes to headset, because I'm wearing glasses, normal headsets (the ones you wear over your ears) would cause a slight discomfort on my head as they pressed down on my ears, my glasses and my head together. With the headset that we were using though, the pressure was not really apparent and I could play without really noticing that I was in fact wearing a headset. Which was quite amazing considering I always had problems finding a suitable headset that doesn't conflict with my glasses.

Other than that, I'll be looking forward to testing my new G400S mouse with some serious FPS shooting in the next couple of days and perhaps post a review about it. That is, if I manage to move all my stuff by then as I'm in the midst of room shifting. But other than that, it was a great event by Logitech and hopefully there will be more coming up! Stay tuned!