An Unwanted Holiday

*Warning* Long and blabbering post ahead

5 March
After my boss told me he had something new and urgent for me this week, my family told me that I had to be on stand-by to go Ipoh as my maternal grandmother's condition was not too optimistic. My mum had already gone ahead first. I informed my boss that I might need to disappear for about 5 days anytime, hinting that he should not assign me any urgent task. (Meaning no work for me since everything is probably urgent). Anyway, I still had some old tasks left at hand.

I really don't fancy going to Ipoh. The journey is long, there's nothing there, I dread my relatives. In short, spending money and not enjoying myself. The only good thing is that I would be away from work.

6 March
I finished my old tasks. As expected, no new work! The evil sotong slacked.

7 March
I started to feel uneasy slacking. What if nothing happened within this week, or worse, drags on? Would I be slacking indefinitely? Wait my boss think I bluff him, how? Cannot ley... I decided to ask my boss for less urgent and simple tasks after lunch. Why not immediately? Procrastination lor.

As luck would have it, before lunch, I received news that the unfortunate has happened and we would be leaving the next morning. Wa heng I never act hardworking man! I read up on the HR policy. Compassionate leave is 3 consecutive working days, starting on the day of death or the day after. Requires death certificate as proof. So I can start from Thursday, then Friday, weekend! And then Monday. 5 days! Cool! Even though today is Day 1 of 3 of the funeral, I wouldn't be so silly to not consume all the free leave available. If I return with the necessary document, that is. I doubt the efficiency of country M.

I applied for leave, wrapped up my work, told my team that I would be on leave and left on the dot. A colleague told me to enjoy my holiday. No offence taken, since I didn't say what kind of leave I was taking and my grandmother is no more than a stranger with blood relations.

The night was spent packing and preparing enough entertainment to last 5 days.

8 March
My family left for Ipoh at noon. It was the first time in 3 yrs 9 mths that I left Singapore. Pathetic right? No money mah. The weirdo country M customs officer stamped my passport in the middle of nowhere instead of using the next blank page. I know I can never finish the pages, but no need to do that mah...

We picked up 2 cousins in JB and had lunch first. No lunch for me, saving my appetite for something later hehehe. Just had a few sips of super sweet teh-peng.

The North-South Highway is probably the smoothest road in country M.

I got a call from work. Sigh why still got people disturb me... I hope it wasn't some 烂摊子 of mine. Hope he realised I'm in country M from the change in ringtone and not call me again.

I think we reached this gem-in-the-desert pitstop at about 3pm. A&W!! Yeah! A reminiscent of my childhood. It used to cost an air ticket at home, but now it's totally extinct. Double-scoop rootbeer float, double-scoop ice-cream waffle and curly fries :D~~

We resumed the journey. Long and boring. Road works, hazy mountains, palm trees and more palm trees. My sister saw 2 horses. We saw some cows (not sure got males or not, but let's just call them cows because I can't think of a word encompassing both genders). Birds were a rare sight. Traffic was congested at some sections. Zzz... The most beautiful part was KL city. A true blue city dweller I am.

In the evening, my mum called to tell us to have vegetarian food when we arrive. But oh~ we wouldn't be able to put up with hunger till our projected arrival of 10pm, especially the older adults, who would probably collapse from lack of rice and meat. The solution? Pit-stop again! The older adults went to look for hawker fare while the younger generation looked for more happening food. Sad to say, the KFC sucks. Tasteless, dry chicken breast meat. The thigh wasn't any better. Mock fish fingers and nuggets which I took only 1 bite (they filled it with too much flour instead of 100% meat). Bland whipped potato. Yucks. The Baskin Robbins dessert was much better. It's yet another food establishment extinct at home. The ice-cream pales in comparison to the other premium brands I eat, but it's cheap, still tasty, allows sampling and tastes better than KFC! The uncle with us said country M's KFC tastes different at different outlets and Holiday Plaza's is the best. Ok...

When we reached Ipoh, it was past the shops' closing time. The place looked the same as all the other times I had seen it - asleep and boring. Hopefully it would be different on a non-CNY daytime. The city looked like Chinatown. No tall, spanking new buildings. While getting lost cruising around, I looked around for hotels. Spotted a nice-looking Heritage Hotel, but it should be far from the wake since we encountered it soon after exiting the highway. Spotted Excelsior Hotel from afar. The rest are old shophouses or sleazy-looking, you know, those with KTV and has Christmas lights running all over.

Reached my uncle's house. The moment the lights in the van came on, I spotted 2 cockroaches!! Can't believe we were sitting among cockroaches. But it's the small kind found on SBS buses lah, not so gross.

It was a Buddhist wake. Not noisy and unpleasant. No gambling. Vegetarian food.

There were many relatives that either I have forgotten or I have never met before. Afterall, I haven't met most of them for 9 years. The commonest question encountered was if I work. Well of course I do! Why shouldn't I be? It would have been better if they had asked my occupation instead. But I found it weird that they did not ask my salary, which I felt is a natural follow-up question. Just as well, saved me a lie on my part.

I observed that nobody was obviously sad. Instead, there was plenty of chatter and laughter. It could have passed off as a gathering. My lifespan probably shrank by a few hours for that night. Cigarettes everywhere. Don't know why those people like to smoke so much. So rich, give me your money lah.

Cactus mineral water was served. Just poke the plastic cover with a straw and drink, like bubble tea. The slogan was "Live on with Cactus". O well... :|

The dinner waiting for us was fried beehoon and buns. I'm glad we sinned before coming.

My mum said we would be staying at her relative's hotel. It better be a decent one.

Good news! Today is Day 2 and tomorrow is the last day.
Bad news! Our driver isn't free this weekend, so we must return to Singapore by Friday. There goes the KL jalan-jalan plan.

The hotel my mum told was about is Hotel Ipoh City. 6 storeys high, not lok kok, only RM150 for a family suite, not bad. But the moment we entered the room, at least 3 cockroaches (same type as the van's) greeted us. WTH! First thing was to catch cockroaches lor! Got clean the room one or not... tsk tsk. But acceptable lah, RM150 only. Can only get a small room over at Heritage lor.

I nearly froze while bathing. I can't tahan when there's aircon flowing in lah. I was freezing in bed too, despite wearing long pants and a jacket. Covered my face with my blanket. Still didn't work. Coupled with 2 men's snoring, I barely slept *_*

9 March
I was looking at that tall and skinny funeral worker. He had an ugly tie strung around his neck. Just loose and hanging. His collar wasn't even buttoned. For goodness sake, if you want to wear a tie, wear it properly, or don't wear lor. Seriously, I doubt anybody will notice that it's missing if he didn't wear one. But a messy tie is just screaming for attention.

After the rites at my uncle's house, it's 三宝洞 for the cremation. The "furnace" (don't know the proper name) is a concrete pavilion-shaped structure with airholes at the roof. One of the furnace was burning and spewing smoke (and probably the deceased's ashes as well) up the mountain. I looked at the haze blanketing the area :-O

My grandmother's furnace was lighted. We took turns to throw a wooden stick into it and to step over a fire and wash our hands in pomelo leaf water. I was at the end of the queue to avoid holding up the rest.

-_- #1: My mum wanted me to go over the fire. Siao! The fire so big lor, wait I become like the furnace, how?
-_- #2: MY MUM WASHED MY FACE WITH THAT POMELO WATER, AFTER A ZILLION PEOPLE HAVE WASHED THEIR HANDS, ARMS AND FACES IN IT!!! ARGHHH!!! I wiped my face furiously after that. Fuck lah I'm not like 10yrs ago, roll in mud also no pimples one lor!

Next on the programme was a sodium-laden vegetarian meal at the canteen. It's effects were to linger for the afternoon.

We returned to my uncle's house for the final rites. Again we had to wash our hands in pomelo leaf water. I washed just my finger tips. The water is yucky, remember?

-_- #3: MY DAD WASHED MY FACE WITH THAT POMELO WATER, AFTER A ZILLION PEOPLE HAVE WASHED THEIR HANDS, ARMS AND FACES IN IT!!!
Why! Why!! WHY!!! Again, I wiped my face furiously after that.

The death certificate and requested copies were delivered to the doorstep. Not bad eh! Now I can confirm... not go to work on Monday :D

My siblings and I roasted at the porch waiting for the final rites to complete.
Na + H2O + heat --> bloated stomach X|
Finally we went under a tree. And came a packet of coke. Shiok!

And then my mother told us actually everything was over some time ago and we could leave already. ¬_¬" She stayed behind to see to other matters.

We had just driven onto the main road when my teen cousin realized her 宝贝 bolsters were left behind and promptly WAILED. Reminded of my sister when she was younger. We turned back to retrieve without delay. But I can understand her anxiety. If she had found out any later, they would probably be forwarded to KL and she would be getting another from Giant instead.

Saw the same things on the highway again. Banana chips, roller coaster and Dunkin Donuts saved the day. I don't eat bananas because they are dry and have a weird feel on the tongue, but I eat banana chips that are even drier?? I think it's the first time I'm having DD. Nice!

At KL, we encountered a storm which was so heavy that the vehicle in front had all but disappeared. I was impressed that I didn't see any accident. In Singapore, confirm got pileup.

I didn't know the highway is FOC for motorcycles.

We stopped by Seremban for seafood dinner. Our driver took us to a restaurant he often brought his tourists to. He told the boss/waiter/whoever (let's just call him waiter) that we are his friends not tourists. Did that mean we wouldn't get chopped? The waiter asked what we would like to have... without giving us the menu. So we asked for the menu, but upon laying our hands on it, we realized why it wasn't given to us - it was pathetic. No 铁板豆腐. Gave up reading it. We asked the waiter. He said don't have. My aunt asked how a seafood restaurant can not serve this dish. On hearing this, the waiter said they have that dish. He's good at 看风使舵 huh. We ordered steam crab, must have meat one. He said ok sure of course. The 咕噜肉 would be made with chicken, no pork in the restaurant. Waa HALAL seafood restaurant wor! We also ordered steam fish, kailan in oil and oat prawns.

While waiting for the dishes to be served, I noticed that those patrons around us were mostly Malays.

The dishes:

• Steam fish - Not bad
• 铁板豆腐 - They forgot the egg. How could they! FAIL! But it's still better than a restaurant in JB that uses the cheapo square tofu from markets.
• 咕噜肉 - Came in a fried beehoon bowl, how special. Weird with chicken, but it's alright
• kailan in oil - Ok. If you can go wrong with that dish, I think can close down liao. Even my sister can cook that.
• oat prawns - Don't think can go wrong with this dish too. The oats were great, until I saw salt crystals in them
• steam crab - A HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT. The crabs didn't taste sweet. Neither were they salty. Tasteless lah. A consolation was that they were not undercooked or overcooked. There was a surprise for my sister.
  
  A crab with muscular dystrophy!

It probably was kept in the tank for too long. The waiter insisted that it just came from the market this morning. O yeah? I wonder if A*STAR would like to investigate this. It can perhaps improve the yield of crabs. GM crabs, anyone? The dinner was quite cheap though. Wonder if we got discount for the MD crab. Probably not.

It was already night. Stars in the sky! Too bad no star map with me. Actually have also no use, I can't read it! Haha!

Reached JB at 12 midnight. Went to my aunt's house for a while before continuing. First time I went through the bus lane without having to get down like the rest of my family. I was probably declared as goods. I'm just a strip of sotong afterall.

Home sweet home at nearly 3am.

11 March
I did not miss the Science Centre exhibition! I thought I would, due to work. Had Sakura for dinner. Very salty, filling and sinful.

12 March
I skipped work as planned. So happy! Waa shiok.

When I returned to work, I found that the team worked over the weekend, from the numerous emails sent. I could have come... but... :)

Had a 5-day break right? I think I should scrap the plan to slack for 1 week when my current contract ends. Boohoohoo. Why am I so cruel?

Guess Where He Gets His Haircut From?

"And yes, he gets his hair cut at Passion, celebrity hairstylist David Gan's salon-to-the stars, though not by the man himself."

O_O

Work! Work!

Finally, I have time to finish relaxing and type this.

This probably happens to most people in my line once every few weeks, whereas I took 2yrs to kena... :D May get boo-ed by others, but still, I must complain!

After the extra long CNY weekend, as if it's payback time for all the slacking, for the first time in my worklife, I had to work over BOTH Saturday and Sunday, till 2am and 11pm respectively!

24 and 25 Feb. Sotong, remember this.

On the Friday preceding that weekend, I was asked to join a meeting, where I was informed that I was needed on Saturday to stand-by for the testers by creating data for them when requested. No problem with that, since everybody has been doing weekends and it will be the first time for me.

Don't know who negotiated the project delivery dates, making the team rush like this. Must be some cost cutting measure.

I reached office on Saturday at 2pm. I have a program to complete, albeit with insufficient information on the requirements. It's funny that the whole project is going to UAT the following week, yet my program was still left hanging and nobody set a deadline for it. So I worked on it at a relaxing pace, peppered with internet-surfing. Actually I do this all the time lah.

At 7pm, the testers were not going to be done soon yet. No idea when I could go home. Shit. I think my outing tomorrow 泡汤 lor. Sianz.

At 9pm, the testers began testing a module that I have a share in, partnered with another guy, A. A's part had some bugs which he had to fix before I could test my portion o_O. Which meant I wouldn't be going home soon. Dinner was Mc, prosperity burger. If only it really brings prosperity :|

At midnight, the module was ready for testing again. It worked, and revealed problems on my part. Well I have never had the time to test with A, you see. But still it's my bad, because it's due to sotongness and I should have discovered it myself. Easily fixed, no problem.

At 2am, a tester's pc blacked out in protest. So most people went home in frustration, resigned to the fact that we all have to return the next day. I still wasn't feeling sleepy despite having only a dose of coke. Sotong in overdrive. Took a depressant to help me sleep.

It's only irish cream lah.

On Sunday, I reached office at noon. Things were pretty much the same, ad hoc data creation, programming slowly and surfing net a lot. Nothing much to do.

I don't know why all shit must happen after evening.

I had a task to write a batch job to insert data into the database (which I completed a few weeks ago). Another person, B coded the screen to display the data. Throughout the whole development process, whenever B needed data for debugging, I would create for him. And so on Sunday, B went home after finishing his work. And of course I did not have this luxury because I must wait for the testers to test it.

I pumped in the data, and they did not show up on the screen.

I was the only person around who is related to that screen. The leader (L) asked me why. I checked the database. The data was there. But I did not know how the underlying code in the screen works. So I said I didn't know because I did not do the screen.

L: Didn't you test the module with B?
Me: Yes, I created data for B. He will then verify himself.
L: I mean, you did not verify the screen with him?
Me: No.
L: Why didn't you do so?
Me: My work is to create the data. I don't know how he coded the screen.
L: Why didn't you ask him? How do you know your part is correct if it doesn't show on the screen?
Me: If it's in the database, it is correct.
L: But now it is not on the screen. How can it be correct?
Me: .....

**
L: You should have tested with him. Why didn't you do so?
Me: (felt no point replying) .....
L: Why?
Me: ..... (boiling)

Repeat ** a few times.

But when I announced that my batch job was done, I mean the batch job ONLY! Not the batch job + screen! I admit, I should have made sure everything was working myself because to people like L, they look from a modular point of view, and not component-wise like programmers. But seriously, I feel verifying the screen is NOT my job. And worse, getting the arrows because B was not around.

L called B to bug him about the issue. L didn't bug me anymore that night. I hope it's because she realised it's not my fault, not because she didn't want to talk to me. L is quite scary when she's stressed sia.

Still not sleepy when I got home at 11+pm despite having 0 caffeine that day. Depressant needed again.

Then still have to go to work earlier on Monday because they wanted to deploy my stuff before 9am. *grumbles*

The suayness did not just stop on Monday morning. I got a call asking why the program I was taking my own sweet time at, wasn't completed. Huh! Nobody said anything what! Sigh ok lor, my fault also, never ask. Faster do! Went home around 8pm.

On Tuesday, I realised the program was far more complicated that I had expected. It's really unfair when the users just throw a sample file at me and say I had to "just insert it into the database", when they really expected updates to database as well. Fuck. And I know if I protest, they will say I should have asked.

OT everyday from Tuesday to Thursday till at least 9pm everyday lor. Go home only because I couldn't think anymore and unconstructive to stay on. Dinner, bathe, continue programming without a compiler at home. I thought it was inevitable to come back again on the weekend...

On Friday evening, the development database was synced with the SIT database. To my horror/pleasure, there was a change in the database that will DEEPLY impact my work. It will uncomplicate my task if the change were to stay. My previous efforts would be unnecessary, but at the same time, I would not need to continue testing the parts I have not finished testing because they wouldn't be needed anymore.

Since it's evening, those users sure go home liao, cannot confirm with them. I was done at 8pm, the earliest for the week. I scrapped my weekend plan.

Wonder how this new week would be like...

Nice Song

I don't know why I feel it's nice. Just that it managed to captivate me among all the others in the album. I don't know if the mtv is nice too though. I didn't watch it. I'm just making use of the audio available.

Grooming the Future of The World

Haven't been to Toys 'R' Us for a few years. Guess what I found!

Inedible Yummy McDonald's Deluxe Mealtime Set!

The 6-2353535 Pizza Hut Deluxe Play Food Set which implicitly teaches kids to play with their food!

Fast food galore!

The ultimate target for our future of the world.

We all know that children have amazing learning abilities. Of course fast food corporations know that too. Now fast food colonization has its arms even in a toy store. Or just that I didn't notice it before.

Having grown up with fast food in my life, I'm a living testimony that early exposure works wonders.

I know Pizza Hut's delivery hotline by heart after it was drummed into my head with a catchy jingle but I still cannot remember McDonald's hotline. Maybe I will know it after doing more OT.


This didn't work. I still haven't sworn off McDonald's after hearing a doctor in the movie say that one should never eat fast food at all.

I remember watching a video clip off the internet about how cows and chicken suffered in the farms. Of course I am still eating beef and chicken. Didn't work at all.

O actually I only eat McDonald's a few times a year. Not that bad lah. Doesn't include the times I ate Pizza Hut, Mos Burger, KFC...

Next on the scare-myself list:

Thanks to my sister for modelling for those pictures. Not sure if she wanted her face plastered over the internet though.

A short complaint:
IMDB is making it hard for me to copy images from that silly slideshow. Why did I have to do a View Source? Just give it to me lah!

Today Then I Know...

Polyclinic got express queue one... *hehehe*

Sheng Siong's Irony

Promotion: Get 1 lucky draw coupon for every $30 spent!

Condition: Each coupon must be attached with a receipt.

Sotong Looks Into The Crystal Ball...

And predicts that she will be on MC next Monday!

Long weekend!

Next week is CNY!

2 long weekends in a row!! Yippee!

First (free) Laptop

No free lunch? Yeah kind of. They take away the drumstick from your meal set.
Find out more

Sad, Sad Drinks Near Office

No coke, only pepsi. And it costs $1.20 (if I remember correctly). Maybe it's normal to people working in town, but it's 5 times more expensive than my previous workplace. I know my previous workplace is abnormal, but used to it lah. It's alright, I'll use this as an excuse to stay off soft drinks.

Papaya milk, diluted. Sigh. Disgusting. I'll rather they give me 1/2 a cup.

Teh-c, unfresh milk. Got that funny smell when you keep the milk for more than 1 week. Bleah.

STI Has No Spellcheck?

An excerpt from an article in STI:
----------------------------------
Jan 23, 2007, 2.20 pm (Singapore time)
Youth Challenge under fire for irregularities, chief resigns

Mr Lam, who was the founder of the teen group, quit amid revelations of irregularities, poor governance and mismanagement, as well as a lack of transparency and misleading information on renumeration.

...

Fat Ass SCL8798E

A rainy evening again. My father and I were travelling along Lornie Road, towards that super busy junction at MacRitchie, occupying the whole lane. This driver who has no idea that he's driving a car with a fat ass, sped up from behind and came up on our right. Maybe he has a bursting confidence about his driving skills and my father's, but that's so not funny. Maybe he's 赶着去投胎， but if anything happens, the people going to 投胎 will not be him.

Impressions of 2 Movies (Again)

Babel

Not funny, scary or exciting. Brad Pitt is not handsome here. But it makes you want to finish the whole thing. 4 different stories told non-linearly, but did not confuse a low-IQ sotong.

Verdict: Thumbs up!

Snakes on a Plane

HAHAHA!

Verdict: I don't know what to say.

My Crazy PC

My PC at work. The one that hangs 4 times a day when it acts up.
Ghost icon


It's everywhere...


I still have a sound clip of it making ghostly noises, but nowhere to put it.

Food! Food!

Maybe I should blog about what I have eaten so that... whatever.

Hawaiian BBQ (2006/11/19)
It's at Turf City, beside 7-11. They only open at night. Went there for my father's birthday. He was having a bad stomach but didn't tell us -_-

The shop looked very dark. I thought it looked closed, but the tables and chairs outside were a tell-tale. The shop is their kitchen. No aircon, but got fan.

It's a buffet but the different thing is they bbq the food and bring to you in platters. If you like certain food, you can order more of it.

Food (that i can remember) All food are bbq-ed, except the obvious like soup:
- Chips (fish and chips that kind of chips), fried breaded fish fingers. The fish fingers is GOOD.
- Garlic bread, Mushroom soup with mushroom in it. It's not the salty starchy cheapo kind. Of coz not high class like Marche lah, but I grade it above average.
- Pasta. Scared will be too full so I din eat. I think the noodle looked like linguine, don't really fancy it.
- Lamb chop (tastes a bit like satay)
- Hot dogs. Although it's the canned kind, they still bbq till VERY NICE! Must be the bbq sauce
- Chicken. They only served thigh and wings, suit my taste perfectly. The meat is very well marinated. This is the best dish IMO.
- Dory (yummy!), squid, prawns
- Corn, mushroom, onion, caspicum
- Bbq Banana with melted cheese. I don't eat bananas but I ate it!!!
- Bbq apples
- Iced pineapple tea, refillable. There's a huge slice of pineapple at the tall glass which made it very holiday-like. Maybe the pineapple juice was supposed to diffuse into the tea.

4 people ate, after all the +++ and 1-for-1 promotion, it was about $89. Very worth it! The good thing is that it's not crowded at all, good for a bunch of friends to meet and pig out, provided you can be bothered to get your ass there. But the bad thing is that it means business is not optimistic and I won't expect it to be around for too long.

Photos? What photos? *busy attacking food*

Verdict: Can repeat visit.

Ramen Ramen (2007/01/05)
I heard about their cheese ramen and I was sort of craving for ramen, so I went to the branch at Atrium@Orchard with W and J.

My evil colleague told me that I have a deadline on the following Monday and it was advisable not to miss it, so I left office 30min later than planned. Not that I've finished my work. It's Friday and I don't care.

I ordered mushroom ramen with cheese. It came with the corner of a slice of cheddar cheese peeking out of the soup. A bit disappointed since I was expecting something really cheesy :| Aiyoh! If I had known, I would have brought my own cheese instead of paying $1 for it. I stirred the soup to melt the cheese, which disappeared into the already-milky soup. Couldn't really taste it liao. But the soup was good, much better than Ajisen's sodium-laden version. I could have drunk all of it. The noodle neither melted in the soup nor stuck to my teeth. So is that considered good? Don't know how to comment on springyness.

Nah, photo!


Only remembered to take after I finished the ramen. This is my 2nd cup of green tea...


Bill for 3, affordable I must say.


Their free ramen card. So blur lor, never print the phone number! And when they have to use red, of all colors, to fill it in. Surely blue or black are more common?

Verdict: Can repeat visit.

Misc
BK cappucino. Like that lor. I took the 3 sticks of trans-fat-full creamer home.

You've Got Visitors

This morning, I heard lion dance coming from downstairs. My guess is the Mama Call Centre, but I couldn't think of a reason why. Grand opening? But it's been open for like... I dunno how long lah haha.

At lunch time, familiar figures walked into my office. My (ex)colleagues! Ya they were my ex-colleagues from my previous company, but now no longer ex since my previous company has become a department under my current company. So many came to visit me! So honoured! They even knew which office and which seat! Must have done their homework first. But dunno which boss they asked ley. I don't think the bosses bigger than my PM knows me. The lion dance confirm is for the Mama Call Centre then.

Sure got buffet downstairs right? Nice or not? :D~~~

I can only think while waiting for my mixed vege rice comes to me. Boohoohoo. I hate mixed vege rice.

Botak Jones @ Clementi

Birthday dinner for S at a... coffeeshop! Turn up was small, 6, including 1 unexpected but welcomed guest, S's boyfriend. Finally got to see his 庐山真面目. Small attendance -> small table -> can see and hear everyone, good!

The difference between Clementi and AMK is that practically everybody was eating BJ at Clementi!! At least there were still a few tables eating the tze char at AMK, which I heard is good too. As a result, the Clementi's coffeeshop was packed. Full-house. No thanks to the long waiting time. I was late but luckily I thought of getting others to buy first.

There was a very enthu auntie helper from the drinks stall who kept pestering us to get drinks although we said we would get later since we were waiting for friends and could perhaps help her save a trip. When she served the drinks, Q paid with a $10 note. The auntie grabbed a bunch of 50cent coins from a plastic bag and looked like she was going to give it to her o_O Luckily she didn't. If she did, I think we would pay BJ with them.

When everybody had gathered at the table, we couldn't attract the attention of any drink stall helpers. Even that enthu auntie bo hiu us! What to do, forced us to bully the baby of the group to buy.

The estimated waiting time for our food was 1hr. Didn't time them, but the cajun chickens came way much faster than the fish and chips. I don't know how long it takes to fry the fish. I hope they didn't marinate it only upon ordering. But it's worth the wait, because it's easily one of the best fish and chips I've ever had. Big lump of coleslaw, chips spilling out of my plate... stuffed! The chips were paler than AMK's. Dehhh.

S and Q said the cajun chicken was too spicy. Ok I don't dare to order liao. Actually I wanted to have that today ley.

The BJ helper gave us our change of 50cents when we have all but forgotten about it.

It was really nice catching up, although we just met 2 weeks ago. Considering that the last last time and last time was like 4mths apart?? Q had her braces removed for MONTHS and has turned into a 女中豪杰 on a va-va-vroom MOTORBIKE wor!

If you are thinking that I'm going around visiting all the BJs, no, I'm not.

Waiting for this

Although I'm not sure about the plot yet.

Do you see why the plot is secondary?

Old Team

As mentioned previously, I was assigned to another team barely 1 month into my new job. Initially, I felt I was dumped, but from the current situation, I was glad it happened.

When I was still in my old team, the last task in progress was an enhancement to a function. We are going to receive a new kind of data from Not Competent Solutions. My task was to create new tables to hold the data and new screens to display them, and to add Update and Invalidate functions for old data. It is urgent with a tight deadline, only 1 month, inclusive of non-working days. But it shouldn't be difficult since it's just mostly displaying. I was allowed to put my tasks at hand aside.

The person in charge, R, briefed me. Currently, the function is a popup. The title of the new data will display on this popup. To see the summary of the new data, click on the title to open a popup. To see the details of the new data, click a button to open yet another popup. So fond of popups! It sounded like a horrible design, so I suggested redesigning it. But R said the users wanted it.

Huh... I thought R should talk the users out of it, but o well... *shrugs*

Without any knowledge of the purpose of each of the fields of the new data, I found it hard to decide what to display. What does the user need to see? I also didn't want to entrap myself in case the field to display actually needed much processing beforehand and its presence unimportant. Who wants to go through a lot of unnecessary trouble to display something optional, just because I proposed it?

R's advice was to display "everything". More is better than less. This means displaying the code name AND display name of the item, for instance, when surely, only the display name will make sense to the user. Do you need to know that your Ricola herb flavour, large size, is called RIHL in the inventory?

By the way, I do not understand Not Competent Solutions' rationale for sending code and display name together. Shouldn't they just send the code name, maintain a separate list of code and display names and map the 2 tables? By doing it their way, when there is a change in, say, display name, they have to sift through all the data to update. More work instead of less. If it were done the proper way, they would only need to update 1 row what. Obviously they don't need a sotong to teach them something as basic as this, so I'm really curious about why they still chose this stupid way. Maybe want to charge more effort when the time comes.

The users approved the screens. I bet they did not even spend a minute to think about whether the information is useful or makes sense. I bet they didn't even really know what they wanted to see on the screens. It doesn't bode well.

Due to my lousy computer that hangs up to 4 times a day, my unfamiliarity with the IDE and not-so-up-to-standard programming skills, I ran into scheduling problems. I caught up by sacrificing a Saturday and ignoring potential problems regarding the update. Get the basics up first, fine tune later.

Because of the Invalidate function, it would make sense not to display invalidated data in the Current list, yet still display in the History list. I reflected to R and he agreed. No mention of any time extension. The other in charge, M, will surely say such a "small" change, 1hr can finish, time is tight, cannot extend. Although the documentation said this enhancement does not include anything not mentioned. The programmer shall slog for the flawed impact analysis.

There were still many things unconfirmed. Many new dropdown menus are added, but there was no mention of where the items were coming from. R and M didn't know if Not Competent Solutions was going to send that. I have only like 1 week left, but they still haven't discussed that.

Then there is this label, "Update Reason", which could either be filled in by selecting from the dropdown menu or typing in the textbox. But in the database table, there's only 1 column for Update Reason, instead of 1 for dropdown and 1 for textbox. So with the data from the database, how do I know where it belongs? If the user makes changes, I can't possibly merge data from 2 fields into 1 column? Computer is stupid one lor, I need an indicator or a set of rules! Whatever the case, it's additional work.

The time came for me to leave the team. There were still things I didn't have time to think over. There must still be undiscovered problems. Not mine anymore.

1 month has elapsed long ago, but I still see the poor guy, B, who took over my shit coming to ask R and M what to do about this field and that field. Or R and M telling B that there are changes. This is really shitty man, why did they rush into things and still let the user anyhow change? If the deadline remains, the buffer is... wow. Really weird way of doing things.

I just confirmed that the leader really does nothing at holding the team together. He was on leave on Friday. We all didn't know he was leaving the company until the new, enthusiastic leader came to start taking over the project's documents and the soon-to-be-ex leader's desk although he has not officially taken over yet.

Everyday, my old team is the last to go for lunch and the first to return from lunch. They rarely chit chat. I'm happy I'm not with them anymore. But sadly, I'm still sitting with them.

To be fair, I must give them credit for still helping me to buy lunch. And the rare chit chat.

Botak Jones @ AMK

"IT'S official - this is the wettest December in 137 years of recorded history."

On Boxing Day, W, J and I braved the relentless rain, bone-pricking wind and slippery floor to try the highly-raved Botak Jones western food during dinner. I reached before them and picked a dry and warm table. W and J were going to wait for a bus at YCK, so it's gonna be a wait.

This stall is powerful ley! There are so many helpers, in uniform somemore! Even got cash register neh :O Didn't see the angmoh girl. I heard there usually is a queue, but there was only 2 people queueing ley. Maybe it's the rain. They were looping the music on their homepage. I pitied the poor people working in the coffeeshop for being subjected to it for as long as they work.

Moments later, the dinner crowd arrived. 3 tables of people came and the queue started snaking towards my table!! Alamak! I quickly called W and J to get them to sms me their orders so they wouldn't have to wait too long for the food later. Of course I was not going to risk my life and table to queue up to place orders like everybody. I signaled to one of the helpers and he was understanding. Not like some stupid 汤圆 stall at Ghim Moh market, rather stare into space and let my 汤圆 turn cold in his face. Condemn!

O by the way, I got to skip the queue because he brought my order directly to the kitchen :X The sotong preyed on people's kindness again. I hope he didn't think I was going to eat everything by myself.

I turned to look at the tv. There was a short interview of Botak Jones on the variety show, Heartland Getaways! So 准! The helpers cheered and clapped. So Botak Jones is really botak...

The food started being served but W and J were not here yet. First was my Botak Burger with cheese and Stuffed Jalapenos. Don't need to label the photos lah, quite obvious which is which hor?


Should I wait for W and J? The stuffed jalapenos looked very cute and yummy. Not nice when it's cold. The melted cheese must be eaten hot.

I reached for the stuffed jalapenos but they were too hot to be handled. Therefore I must eat my burger before the cheese solidify (excuses). I knifed my burger before recalling that I wanted to take a photo. This explains why the burger is pacman-shaped.

Soon, W and J arrived. I ordered a cup of hot horlicks. Coupled with the cheese, it's a healthy high-calcium diet. But W and J's iced lemon tea looked nice *regret* Their fish and chips came within minutes. Good timing!

It was disappointingly small, too puny to be shared between 2 people.

I learned that the jalapeno is a very spicy chilli. I tried 1/2 of it and couldn't tahan. Wa heng I never eat it just now!

My beef patty is thick, juicy and tender, good! Except for a portion with ligaments. My chilli fries are delicious! Don't know why the fish and chips came with plain fries. The website showed chilli fries ley. Kena cheated. I shared my fries with them since I couldn't finish anyway.

The fish tastes good, but too thin lah.

We looked around and saw all the fish came in pairs. Hey how come we only have 1 slice? I thought it might be because the helper gave me 1 less to help prevent me from overeating. But actually it's because we ordered regular, only large has 2 slices lah.

W and J were not satisfied, so they got a Giant Chicken Hot Dog. They thought we were taking away, so they gave us in a styrofoam box. But when they realised we were eating it right now (must be surprised at the big stomachs of 3 ladies), they served it in a proper plate. Or maybe they wanted to save a styrofoam box.

The hotdog was deliberately sliced halfway and the knife left on the plate for aesthetic purposes.

Not bad, very chewy. Too bad no cheese.

Verdict: Very filling. Tastes good and is cheap. Can go back. But not very accessible though.

Check out the website

Interesting points

• Nobody from the drinks stall asked me if I wanted a drink, unlike most coffeeshops.


• The helpers very blur one. Keep asking repeatedly if our orders have been served, whether we have paid and whether they have given the change. Different people asking the same questions. Maybe that's why they need so many helpers.

MS SQL

If you have no programming background, I suggest you skip this entry.

Having used Oracle-related tools like Toad and SQL Plus for 2 years 3 mths, I had the opportunity to learn MS SQL due to my new project, AiFalm. Syntax-wise, Oracle and MS SQL are very similar, so no problem with that. I'm a programmer who is only trying to 混口饭吃, so I cannot comment on the geeky performance issues. My only gripe is how the client tools, Enterprise Manager (EM) and Query Analyzer (QA), get on my nerves. I use the Enterprise Manager most of the time, so everything that follows regarding MS SQL is based on that.

Over the years with Oracle with Toad, I have formed a habit of putting multiple SQL statements on the same query window, then selecting the statement I want and executing it. I can even run all the statements as a script.

But this convenience is not unavailable on EM. There can only be 1 SQL statement in 1 query window, the implication being that I will have to open 10 query windows for 10 SQL statements. Perhaps MS is only trying to highlight the flagship feature, windows. Changing window vs selecting the statement. The winner is obvious. I choose to open a text file and put all my SQL statements needed for the session and copy and paste into the tools.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EM has a auto-formatting feature. Although the syntax for SQL is not case-sensitive, it is a convention to type the keywords like SELECT, FROM, WHERE, VALUES, in upper case. When I type my statement in lower case and click on execute, voila! Everything looks neater and more conventional.

Original
select * from tableA a where title='Alice in Wonderland'

Formatted
SELECT *
FROM tableA a
WHERE title = 'Alice in Wonderland'

However, when the help that you have never asked for and can live without, causes your statement to fail, it become geh kiang.

Original
select *
from tableA a with (nolock) where title='Alice in Wonderland'

After I executed it, EM popped an error window, complete with the "doot" sound. It claimed that there's an error with the statement near "a". I examined the newly-formatted statement. Notice the rearrangement.

Formatted
SELECT *
FROM tableA WITH (NOLOCK) a
WHERE title = 'Alice in Wonderland'

Thanks a lot, EM. How I wish I can turn off this "feature".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
While looking through AiFalm's codes, I figured that there was a trigger somewhere, so I went about looking for it. From 1 of the tables affected by the trigger, I found out the trigger's name. But all I have was the name, no link to the code at that point.

In Toad, it is very convenient with all the triggers listed neatly in an accessible way. However, I practically turned EM and QA upside down and I could find no such list.

I googled. So there isn't such a function at all. However, I could query the system table for the code if I have the trigger's name. I copied and pasted the super chim-looking SQL statement provided, got only a code snippet because the column length can't possibly be large enough to hold an infinitely long code, but was good enough for me.

CREATE TRIGGER tg_updateA
ON tableA

I looked up the properties for tableA and sure enough, I found the complete trigger code. So the complete code can only be accessed from the owner of the trigger. Logical, but how many times do programmers know exactly which table is the owner?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We have come to the end of the complain session. If you have no programming background and has managed to come this far, I kowtow to you.

Impressions of 2 Movies

Just my impressions after watching, not a review.

The Departed

A remake of 无间道, I applaud the successful efforts made to condense 3 movies into 1 without spoiling the broth.

The Mafia Boss

The Departed

无间道

Jack Nicholson sure looks more like a mafia boss than 曾志伟. 曾志伟 looks (and sounds) more like a clown. I don't understand why he always gets to play the mafia boss, or somebody with more power than pawns.

The Girls

无间道: The baddie undercover's girl	无间道: The psychologist
The Departed: The baddie's girl cum psychologist

Money all spent on the male leads, so have to settle on an all-in-one for the female lead? And not as pretty somemore...

To make the thugs sound like, well, thugs, and make stressed police sound like they were really stressed out, saying the movie is "peppered" with expletives is an understatement. It is marinated in fuck and its variations with "fuck" as the root word. Don't think this will ever be shown on tv. It's either getting ear damage from the ceaseless "por! por!" or having to dub the movie all over again.

Aiyah I think too much liao, why would Mediacorp even want to buy a new movie? That would be against the plot to make us pay for tv, right?

I still prefer 无间道.

Jackass 2

I don't know what to say about this movie. The poster says it best: skull fracture, crutches, missing tooth. It's better than any Jackie Chan stunt. Will Jackie Chan roast his privates with a hair-dryer or stick pubic hair (with lice) onto his face? Bet not.

I'm curious if any of them became impotent, lost 100 points of IQ, e.t.c. It's a wonder none of the people in it died.

Dangerous Taxi Driver on the Loose!

SHA5853Y, travelling along PIE towards Changi Airport, around the Upper Bukit Timah section, thinks that motorcycles have no right to take up a lane on the road. He drove at the same speed as the motorcycle, side by side on the same lane, like want to overtake don't want to overtake. In the end he "overtook" because the motorcycle decelerated. All these under a pouring sky.

Hop onto his taxi if you want to be involved in a road accident.

Shopping Spree!

Yeah, all these (except the bag behind) purchased today from Johnson and Johnson warehouse sale. Still have a box of masks, face wash and shampoo not in the picture, and smaller items hidden in the bags. 8 bottles of shower cream!!! How many years will my family take to finish them?

My brother said soap is part of a survival kit.

Free Ice-cream!

* To qualify for your free pint of Gelare ice cream and a chance to win air tickets, simply send an SMS to 9184 2000 in the following format: HSBCGELARE16-digit credit card numberAmount spent. To redeem, present the return SMS and charge slip to any Gelare outlet within seven days from the date of purchase. Valid from 10 November to 31 December 2006. Limited to oneredemption per cardholder per day.

Wa ice-cream ley! (Not interested in the air ticket at all)

Upon seeing this exciting promotion, I asked my father to pay for the new washing machine with his supp card (I haven't decided if I wanna pay for the machine hee). When he returned with the receipt last night after 9pm, I wanted to send the SMS immediately, knowing how I love to procrastinate. But well ya, I ended up procrastinating again.

This morning, I finally decided to send the SMS. I only have 7 days to do so! What if Gelare is only giving out a limited number of redemptions? Now now now! I can think about when and where I wanna collect the ice-cream later.

I got a reply within 2s of sending out the SMS. Impressive eh...

"Use the code GJEWDH for your pint of ice cream at Gelare. Pls present your charge slip and this SMS. Valid today (11 December 2006) only. Ts & Cs apply."

Wh...What?

"Use the code GJEWDH for your pint of ice cream at Gelare. Pls present your charge slip and this SMS. Valid today (11 December 2006) only. Ts & Cs apply."

Huh the SMS is valid for today only!!! Not 7 days meh??? Walau the fineprint never say lor! Today die die must go after work already! Heng no plans for tonight man!

In hindsight, luckily I procrastinated. I can't imagine what would happen if I hadn't. The only outlets still open at 10pm are Siglap and Changi Airport and I wouldn't go out specially for that lor. So 奸! Long live procrastination!

Choosing the outlet was a no-brainer - the one nearest my home of course, we are talking about ice-cream. Don't want to say here, coz I don't wanna get hoot by ah bengs (coming up below). If you know where I live, it's obvious where I went lah. I think the ride from my work there took almost 1hr, my butt damn pain sia. All for free ice-cream, dunno worth it or not also :(

I waited at the carpark while my father went up to redeem the ice-cream. A few minutes later, he returned empty-handed. He came back for his wallet because he must show the credit card as proof, something the fineprint never say :\

At this time, a black, ah-beng car pulled up beside me.

Got lights below one lor! Below the headlights also have! ILLEGAL MODIFICATION! I still remember the number plate! It's SGM 8XXXM. Haha don't dare to say out lah. Anyway the XXX are all the same digit. But don't understand come housing estate to haolian for what? It's a place where overweight aunties wear spaghetti strap tops (sorry, I saw a few within the few minutes waiting). Not driving to ZoukOut what.

Those 2 pairs of butts in the picture belong to the driver and passenger of that car. They don't look beng lah, it's just the car, and the fact that they stepped out to SMOKE, and the wind was blowing the smoke into my face. It always happens, I'm a smoke magnet, dunno why. So I must revenge by posting this picture! Maybe they realised that it's uncool to switch on those lights here, so they switched it off before driving off.

My father returned with the ice-cream. Apparently the promotion is very popular as there were quite a few people redeeming too. We went home. My poor butt... oww...

Haven't eat the ice-cream yet, haven't even seen or asked what flavour. Shall surprise myself tomorrow. Better not be banana.

Chinese Disco Nearby...

Right at this moment. Scared people dunno they are having prayers. I think holding it at this hour will negate all their efforts.

Or maybe they are offering countless people's sleep as a sacrifice?

Promoting Bad Chinese

This ad promoting the Malaysia Sale has been blasting on 933 for quite some time. The portion about their street performers caught my attention:

"...将浑身解数为您热情演出..."

OMG who wrote that ad? Or did that fellow reading it slip up? Why no QA? Playing on Singapore radio somemore, tsk tsk tsk.

The Easily-hurt Man

A man riding a bicycle got pushed gently off his bicycle by a vehicle but seemed ok apart from some abrasions. As luck would have it, there was a passing police car. He insisted on making a police report, calling the ambulance and lied to the paramedic about having fainted before, despite being engaged in a conversation with the police officer all the while. The paramedic whispered that she detested trouble-makers like him the most. Fearing for his life, he boarded the ambulance and went to hospital.

2 years 7 mths later, his lawyer sent a letter claiming compensation. He sustained the following injuries from the accident, claiming $2000 for each of the 3 points.

• Abrasions over left parietal region and the right elbow and right ankle


• Small hematoma over the right parietal region


• Bruises and abrasions over right hip

The poor guy is also claiming for:

• medical expenses that are still ongoing (OMG his bruises are still around after almost 3 years!!)


• bicycle repair ($25 only, probably proportionate to the extent of his injuries)


• medical report fees


• transportation fees (2 x $30 = $60. So ex! Wonder if he took limo taxi. Don't think he can take ambulance twice)


• and some other stuff

All these added up to over $10,000.

Now the professionals from the insurance will take over from here. I pity him. Not only will he not get a single cent, he will waste his lawyer's fees, money spent to put together this claim, the trouble he went through etc, as well as missing out on the free brand-new bicycle and perhaps some cash if he had opted for the on-the-spot settlement.

Unconstructive Week

On 8th November. I was informed by my PM that I will be switching to another team with immediate effect, to help develop a portion of the AiFalm application because they are seriously shorthanded. It didn't sound like I have a choice, so ok lor.

The AiFalm PM came to talk to me. It's a VB6 project, using MSSQL, and I'm not familiar with both of them. They asked if I'm ok with it and I expressed my concerns, although I knew it wouldn't change anything. Because he must have discussed and decided with my ex-project's PM. So kinda of no point asking me huh? They also warned me that this project involves a lot of OT as well as weekends, but off-days will be given.

My task was to write an interface to process messages sent by the hospital. I was given documentation of other hospitals (that have already been done) to read up as mine will be similar. A senior promised to help me install Visual Studio, check out the codes and explain them to me the next day.

The next day came but he didn't come. Funny, take 1 cd take so long meh? I didn't remind him as I thought it wasn't very nice to remind him and imply that I thought he wasn't coming. Anyway I had documentation to read and figure out, as well as intermittent internet surfing.

In the afternoon, he came to ask what time I would be leaving. That must be answered with caution because I know they OT till at least 8.45pm (my own record to date) everyday. So I answered between 6.30-7pm. I can't possibly stay back just to install a program right? What if I stayed back and he didn't install?

I left at 6 sharp because I didn't want to wait another 30min to see if he might be available. Seemed like I wouldn't be coming back this weekend for the same purpose too.

The next Monday, nothing happened too. I tried to stuff the dry, chim documentation down my throat, but I was too bored dead to go on any further, and I thought he should have found the installation cd by now even if it were hidden at the innermost corner of the cabinet, so at 3pm, I emailed that person to remind him to do whatever he promised to, when available (so as not to sound demanding when I'm actually demanding). Sure enough, he came within the next 10min. Yay!

He tried to check out the source codes, but couldn't connect to VSS. He said he would find out how to, and walked away.

I thought he would come back in a few minutes, but he didn't. The day passed.

The next day (Tuesday), I really DIDN'T WANT to read the documentation anymore and I was getting worried about the deadline, which I didn't know when yet. I must try to connect to VSS on my own since he didn't seem to be trying to help me. Wait for him? Hah! I had seen my colleague do something similar for me on my first day, so using my photographic memory (actually I think I don't have such a skill), I overcame my lack of skills in connectivity (I'm back at connecting wires, networks, how to link different modules in an application etc) to repeat the steps and TADA! I did it! See? Faster than waiting for him!

I happily emailed him to announce my success. It took me 1hr to realise my mistake.

I did not ask him to come and help me do whatever he's supposed to do.

So I had to do the demanding again. He replied ok.

At 3pm, he came to help me check out the codes, but he realised I couldn't open them because I needed to install Visual Studio. Duh! The installation has been in his to-do package all along what! He told me to ask the System Admin for the installation.

*Faint* So another guy is holding the installation, not him? Then say so earlier mah!

I emailed the System Admin (and cc the senior) for the installation. The System Admin replied that there was no more license. I expected a response from the senior, but there was none after 45min. From what has happened since Friday, I concluded that he wasn't going to do anything about it, although that was the whole point of me cc-ing him. No installation, no work. Surely it would take someone more than a junior to overcome a licensing issue?

I emailed to the senior, "Any alternative?". And within minutes, he replied that he would help me find a way. So I was right about him having read the email and doing nothing about it.

I bumped into the PM later and told him about the problem. He told the System Admin "don't care" and the licensing issue was a no more.

At last! I got my codes and program. Only the explanation was outstanding. But nevermind! I read myself first so I wouldn't sound like an idiot when asking questions.

The next day (Wednesday) was spent understanding that chim lump of confusing code.

The next day (Thursday), I emailed the leader to ask for his time to explain the codes to me. As expected, nothing happened for the whole day. Only at the end of the day as I was leaving, he stopped me to say that he isn't an expert at that and suggested that I ask another person, Ad.

I don't understand why he took 1 whole day to tell me that he doesn't know.

Ad wasn't in on Friday. In fact, I think he was in only for 1/2 day for that week. Nothing much done again.

When the real action starts, I'll be so, so, so dead.

Seen Outside My Window

Someone is playing golf on the grass patch beside the longkang (which cannot be seen in this picture. It's along the length of the left side)! He was seen yesterday around 6pm and he's here again today at the same time. This person really know how to choose huh! The grass has been freshly mowed and the longkang acts as the fake pond found in many golf courses.

But he spent more time looking for his ball than whacking the ball.

Overheard At My Desk

(His handphone rang)
Him: Hello? Yes I'm on my way now! Hey I can't talk now, I'm driving. Call you later!

And he continued sitting at his desk for the next 15min.

Sotong the Lazy Tree-saver

Now that my handphone bills are not claimable in her new company, I wanted to save a few trees by opting to receive electronic bills instead of hardcopy ones. With a few clicks in the Singtel portal, I found a hyperlink to vpost. O looks easy! I signed up with vpost and found the link to request to stop my hardcopy bills. Done!

The next day, vpost emailed me to say that they were unable to process my request because my account is vpostUSA/vpostJapan enabled.

WTH! The Singtel portal bluff me! I believe I can assume that I will be forwarded to a Singaporean registration page right? Why is my account everywhere-enabled, except Singapore?

The vpost email was helpful enough to give 3 suggestions.
1) Apply for our Giro-On-Demand. Giro-On-Demand (GOOD) is a flexible
payment mode by vPOST that lets you control how much and when you want
to pay.

2) Bring your NRIC to any Post Offices to verify your vPOST Account.
Our customer service officers will assist you with your request.

3) *Email/Fax/Mail a copy of your NRIC/FIN (front and back) to
enquiries@vpost.com.sg, 68413982 or 10 Eunos Road 8 #07-33 Singapore
Post Centre Singapore 408600.

(1) looks the easiest, so I went looking for the GOOD. I found the good_form.pdf (haha funny name) easily.

But what I'm not happy with is that it's not an electronic form. It's a physical form that I had to print out, fill in, and mail out.

...

Nevermind, more trees can die while I gather enough motivation to print out, then fill in, and finally mail out the form.

If You Like South Park or WoW

I'm Right...

... about the data for Buyer being blank. (See Sotong's Assignments)

The party that sends the data over, indeed did not check if a valid Buyer is entered.

See? See? SEE?

Which Superhero Do You Need In This Case?

Hazy Monday

The average PSI for Monday was 77 for the west. The yellow-yellow must have been my lousy handphone.

The Chronic Leg-crosser

While I was on the road, I spotted a man riding his scooter with his legs crossed like a lady. I wonder how he's gonna keep his balance when he stopped.

I had the opportunity to see for myself in the next few seconds when we came to a stop at a traffic light. When his scooter has stopped completely, he uncrossed his leg gracefully (I wonder how it's possible).

When the lights turned green, he crossed his leg gracefully and scooted off.

Sotong's Assignments

It's week 2, and time to give sotong a share of the action. Yesterday, I was given 2 PRs to solve.

PR #1 - The Mystery
I was presented with the following error - ORA-01722: invalid number. In layman's terms, this probably meant that a word is being passed off as a number, causing the program to fail.

I tested it out in the testing environment, but it was working fine. Thus I suspected that the codes in testing and those that are in use by the customer are different, but my colleague said it couldn't be.

Then how? I dunno liao. Lapses do happen. I wonder if I should show that I doubt my colleague by insisting on verifying the code versions.

Interestingly, while working on this problem, I found something that could either be a bug or redundant requirement.

Let's say we have the following table:

Fruit	Buyer
Orange	Mum
Apple	Dad
Pear	Dad
Strawberry	Sis

Usual query: Select all fruits and buyers.
Result: The above table would be returned.

If you specify that you want the fruits bought by a particular person only, there is an option to sort the result by buyers.
E.g.: Select all fruits bought by Dad, order by buyer.
Result:

Fruit	Buyer
Apple	Dad
Pear	Dad

See what's wrong?

There's no need to sort by buyer, since there will only be 1 buyer in the result.
However, it would make more sense to allow sorting regardless of whether buyer is chosen. In this case, it would be a bug.

I shall pretend I didn't see this.

PR #2 - New Place, New Way of Doing Things
A query is not returning the expected results. Let's say we have this table:

Fruit	Buyer	Year
Orange	Mum	2005
Apple	Dad	2006
Pear	Dad	2006
Strawberry	Sis	2006

Query: Select all fruits bought by Dad after year 2001.
Expected result: Apple, Pear
Actual result: No result

I tested the query in the testing environment, and got Apple and Pear. This means that the query is correct and the problem probably lies with the data. I thought it was possible that the Buyers for Apple and Pear are not Dad.

Me: I cannot replicate the problem. think there might be a problem with the data. The Buyer might be blank. Can I ask for the actual data to verify?
Colleague: No we can't. It's confidential data. They can't give us. And the data must be correct because it has been checked before sending over to us. Can you modify the query such that you can get the same problem?
Me: (Confused. She's so dead sure that the data is correct?) The query is correct, isn't it? Is there some unhandled special case? Or can you tell me the rules, so that I can double-check the correctness of the query.
Colleague: The query is correct. Now we don't know where the problem is.
Me: But you said the query is correct, why should I modify it to create the problem?
Colleague: You can remove conditions one by one, like remove the Year first, put back, remove the Buyer, and so forth.
Me: (Still unconvinced) Ok...

Make something that's correct, wrong, so that I can replicate the error?? That's something new. If it's correct, it means something else is wrong what! This is like telling me that a bulb is not lighting up. I tested with a replica of the circuit and found that mine is working even with several types of bulbs, so I suspect that perhaps the customer's bulb has blown. Now I have to cut my wires, change my bulb, change my switch to plastic, etc to make my bulb not light up. There's so many zillion things I can do to make my bulb not light up, how would I know which the actual reason is? Wouldn't it be so much easier to just SHOW ME THEIR F**KING BULB?

This is like working in the dark, anyhow feeling around for the exit.

Dunno how lah...

PSI: Is It Accurate?

Between 10-11am, the Clementi flats in the distant slowly turned Silent Hill.

The PSI readings for the corresponding period fell from 88 to 84.

I was pretty sure they meant 184.

First Day of Work

A table next to the window and far from the aircon vent :)

Surrounded by 2 China guys :(

No personal telephone and dustbin.

A pc that looks older than the ages of my 3 pcs combined, that runs Windows 2000 (I wonder why...), big fat 17" CRT monitor, no D:, only C:, has only 7GB left when I laid my hands on it, no USB and earphone ports in front. Don't know if there's any USB port behind in the first place.

I was given a walkthrough of the application. Looks chim man. Congrats to myself for not falling asleep while listening. I merely yawned for the last 30min.

Next was a meeting to discuss the PRs. It doesn't look good when there's a whole list of outstanding PRs on my first day, but it seemed most of them were just solved but unclosed, or people already know what to do with them.

There were 10 people at the meeting. 2 China guys, 1 India Indian lady, 2 young-looking girls and the rest middle-age-looking men. At least the PM (I think he's the PM) still can look.

During the meeting, there was a power trip which spared only the lights and the aircon, so I guessed it's someone in our office. Since the projector was dead, we couldn't go on, so the PM let us off for an early lunch.

It's 12 anyway, early meh...

Anyway, the people dispersed for their own lunches. Looks like the team is not very gum one. Sianz.

My choy fun cost a freaking $3.50! It's a 75% increase from the past!!!

After I received a reminder email not to install pirated software, a senior came to help me install MyEclipse, requiring the use of a generator to generate you-know-what.

The power tripped again for a split second while I was installing weblogic. Balek install... It killed the PSU of a server.

I suspect it can't play music when I heard the pc speaker tooting away and the volume control function invalid.

After I was done installing for the day, I think there was like 2GB left. 2GB of music is definitely not enough. How depressing.

The pc froze twice today for no reason. I had to restart it each time. While using Eclipse, it ran out of memory.

CMI!!

End of Break

My 9 days of stoning are ending in a few minutes. Quite happy to just relax at home, although the weather is very hot.

Maybe I shall do it again in 6 month's time, at the end of my contract.

Early in the Morning at... 2.43am

CallerAlert: 65566683 tried to call you while you were not reachable. This service is brought to you free by Singtel Mobile.

My my, this fella tried calling me at this unearthly hour. Fortunately I have a habit of switching off my hp before sleeping. What's so important that he/she/it must speak to a sotong so late? If anybody would like to know, please call this number and let me know. I did not call back.

Souvenirs

At the start of June, before an ex-colleague went on long leave, he cleared his table and moved some of his stuff to my table. None of them were useful to me.

• 1 Garfield movie poster, riddled with fold lines (I'm not a poster person)


• 2 plastic Singapore flag from NDP2005 (1 his, 1 left behind by another ex-colleague. I've already thrown away mine *oops*)


• 1 high-density stone that was supposed to ward off bad things (But I don't believe in such things...)


• 2 toy tortoises (Cutesy stuff don't appeal to me)


• 1 doggie stuffed toy still in plastic wrapper (Cutesy stuff don't appeal to me)


• 1 HK10 note (He said whenever we travel to a place, we should bring back a note from that place to keep. So why is he giving it to me when I've never been to HK? He just said he wanted to give it to me.)


• 1 picture of a bulldog-like dog, printed using B&W laser printer (For what?)


• 1 picture of some dharma message, printed using B&W laser printer (I'm no Buddhist)


• 1 Ginvera face wash (Steered clear of Ginvera after it peeled my nose bad and left scars)


• 1 1/4 eaten container of vegetarian meat floss (I DETEST mock meat. He made me sample some to prove that it's nice. It's TOO SALTY)

He tried to give me the Chinese tea left behind by another ex-colleague but I absolutely refused to accept it because I'm a pantry on my own.

All these in addition to an ornament of a Chinese couple getting married left behind by the previous occupant of my table. I was happy to let it rot in my cabinet, but he insisted on displaying it in the open to complement the items he gave me.

My barren table suddenly became livlier.

Well I had no problem with his stuff taking up my space because I'm not like the important people who always have things to file, the stuff were not getting in the way, they did not look annoying and he is still considered a nice guy. I agreed to rent the space to him. He would have to take the stuff back when/if he returns.

What I didn't like was that I felt like a dumping ground for things he didn't want to throw away himself. Some of the stuff are left behind by another person somemore! Those thing don't qualify as 传家之宝 lor! I told him I would throw them away if they got in the way and he replied that it's up to me, because they were mine. WTF! Now I had to waste my strength when he could have just put them into the waste basket instead of moving them to my table?

Of course I didn't want to strain myself. Neither did I want to ask for help to remove them to avoid being seen as heartless. For the days those things were there, I neither touched nor played with them. Only passers-by did so, intentionally or unintentionally (knocked them over).

On my last week of work, I started clearing my table. At first, I planned to ask around if anybody wanted those things, but perhaps I shouldn't do the same thing to the others... I threw out the things within reach and that nobody would want for sure - the face wash and meat floss.

On my last day of work, when I announced that I was done packing, people asked why I wasn't bringing those things back as souvenirs. I told them I had no space for them at home. Sounds incredible to most people, but my table is only big enough for my keyboard and I have absolutely ZERO ornaments belonging to me on display. If there is any, I wasn't the one who wanted to display them.

Display them at my new table? Eh that means still need to bring home right? That stone so f***ing heavy you know? I wanna go out for dinner ley, cannot bring so many bulky items along lah!

I've never considered them mine.

I know he gave them to me. I made it clear that I'm not bringing them with me. My home cannot hold anymore things. I could give everything to them if they wanted. They could take whatever they fancy. Maybe the HK10 if they wanna go HK.

Nobody took anything of course. See, I'm not being heartless at all.

I have no obligation to keep everything people give me. OMG I didn't even take the money.

I asked my neighbour to ask the cleaner auntie to help clear my table on the next working day.

No More Transcab

After a positive experience with Transcab last Friday, I wanted to give them some business again last night. But it seems like they weren't interested in me anymore.

In an effort to keep to good programming practices, I shall not reinvent the wheel and instead, reuse code wherever possible.

Tale of the Liar Cabby and Liar Operator

One bad experience is enough to negate it all. I don't have to give them another chance, not when there are so many other choices around.

But I will consider Transcab again if all other companies failed me. They just have to wait for their turn.

Scamming a Sotong

On Monday, 8.34am, while I was trying to sleep through the banging outside my house, I got a call which only rang for 1s.

No prizes for guessing who called.

I confirmed my suspicion by forcing open my eyelids to look at the missed call.

+8613713487219

What an idiot! Went back to sleep.

Operation Job Hunt Completed

So, I still have not joined the public sector.

While people are at school or stuck in office, I'm slacking at home! :D I have given myself 1 week to rest and relax. Afterall, my longest continuous break to date is 4 days since I started working. It was 2 days of weekend + 1 public holiday + 1 MC. See, I don't even want to burn my leave.

Now I wished I had asked for 2 weeks.

Guess I won't be going anywhere. I can't do anything in neighbouring countries. Don't wanna fight with horrible people from country C in Taiwan/Hongkong since it's their golden week. But most importantly, no time to plan and no money. Sianz. I think my first proper tour in my life will be at least another 5 years away. But maybe by then, I will not be interested in tours anymore. So... I should continue accumulating money till I have so much that I can go to a place alhough I'm not remotely interested in visiting it. This scenario might happen a few decades later.

Some statistics
17 companies (at least)
7 interview invitations
5 interviews attended
2 offers
1 week's compensation and 1 week of holiday. Net gain: $0.00

Some awards
Most Stupid Application Form: Am Want
It has a cool feature that calculates your age as you enter your year of birth. Unfortunately, it doesn't work on firefox properly, insisting that I'm -76 years old and doesn't allow manual change.

So I decided to use IE instead, but unfortunately (again), the page forwarding for that position was malfunctioning. Instead of showing me the application form when I clicked on Apply Online, it told me, "Please use Main Am Want Career Site". Cannot apply using IE, not working properly on firefox, how? I chose the lesser of 2 evils and sent in an application stating my age as -76.

Needless to say, there is no reply from Am Want. They wouldn't want to employ someone living in the past.

Company With the Tightest Purse string: Aquaria
2.6k as their best offer, 1 year contract with no guarantees for what happens after that. I understand their reasons, considering their size. Luckily I did not give in to desperation.

Most Insulting Company: Ass See Ass
For subjecting me to a technical test when a fresh graduate didn't have to do one.

The Bone Devourer: Ass See Ass
For offering me $100 more than what they offered a fresh graduate and having the cheek to tell me it's competitive.

Slowest Company: Am Oh Ee
This is not a private company, but perhaps this is why it has the qualities to win this award. Assuming they did not backdate the letter they sent me, they took 3 working days to send out that letter, and 6 working days to reach me.
For goodness' sake, if you are going to be so slow, might as well be like the rest, don't reply!

Most 不可貌相 Company: Aitee Too One
The look and feel of its website is unmistakenly from 10 years ago. There was no evidence that the information I required was up-to-date. I even spotted some out-of-date information. I had mentally prepared myself for my email application to end up as a wake-up call to them that they their website is in neglect. What a surprise that the position is still open!

Most Irritating Application Form: Hedge Pee
I gave up after writing a crappy cover letter. Must fill in so many things about myself and to por the company when I have only heard horror stories about there. Forget it.

Ok should stop awarding now, or else will be like 分猪肉 like the Star Awards.

I'm Taken!

28 September, The Lie
The HR was damn difficult to get. Phone forever busy.

I finally got through in the afternoon. She told me that the management was ok with 2.7, but I still had to tell her about my imaginary offer of 2.9 and asking how much they can match, since I understand that it might be a bit high. She helped me analyze my offers, like location (yours sucks!), people (similar), job scope (similar)... anyway I tried to make it sound like the difference was $200 more for a better job location, so they should offer me more to make it sensible to take up.

At about 4pm, I got good news. But I still tried to play hard to get, saying it's a difference of $100 and job location.

At 5pm, I finally decided that I should still go for the SutarHarp interview since it would be easier to stick to plans than to change them. Anyway 5pm already, dunno if it'll be too late to fly plane. Wait I get blacklisted, how?

At 6pm, it suddenly struck me that I did not want to go out of the house specially to sign the contract next Monday when I'll could do it tomorrow. Immediately, I called the HR to accept the offer verbally.


29 September, The End Came, And a New Beginning Inked
In the morning, I went to SutarHarp.

When I was talking about my past experience, I was surprised when I got asked how many people were retrenched. I thought they wanted to know if it's because I was inapt, so I said it was inconvenient for me to reveal because all I knew was hearsay.

Next they asked if it's true that my company is going to be acquired.

IS IT??? First time I heard about it ley! It dawned upon me that they were fishing for information from me. I said I did not have official news.

I was totally uninterested in that position. I admit I was half-hearted, but the job scope was not my cup of tea either. First of all, the job scope sounds like that of a system analyst's and it's a contract position. The kind that has no guarantee of extension or conversion at the end. Sounds sucky. I told the interviewers straight that it was not suitable for me.

I went to my farewell lunch. Sakura oysters are quite edible, surprisingly. I was happy that I had something to say when my colleagues asked where I was going. I guess I would sound too pathetic if I hadn't managed to secure a new job. Ass See Ass is really timely, I must say. I confirmed with my colleagues about the acquisation. Indeed, the GM has revealed during the meeting that I wasn't allowed to go, that some companies are looking at it, but nothing is confirmed yet. The future is really bleak with no major tenders coming up.

The rest of the afternoon was spent packing files (electronic, not physical), writing farewell email and going over to sign my life to my new company.

After I had signed, I received 2 invitations to interview from Estee Ee and Geh Geh Hospital. Too late!

Followed by a yummy dinner!

The conclusion is that I'm happy to be retrenched. I think I'm lucky to be chosen. Although I don't know the criteria and nobody else seems to know.