Upping the ante

Move aside money and card, or gift voucher, it's the thought that counts! Thoughtful gifts are more remembered, and seem so much more... special. Well, large sums of money will never be forgotten =P but when does that happen? It's worth a shot trying to make/give a witty gift. The reactions can be quite hilarious. Now, when it comes to stopping a blood nose, and I get them quite a lot, I tend to stick some rolled up cotton wool up the nostrils. So go and guess what John gives me as a joke- a box of tampons. Wrong orrifice, but damn funny. A little box gave a group of us about half an hour of laughter, hehehe. And Cynthia, she made a comic book, much like what Anna gave Seth for Chrismukkah in The OC. I'm not saying there was any copying of other sources, but it's so... (can't think of nice words)! I don't think I can top that.

the impossible

I can happily say that for my birthday, I get to see the words "English Comptency: Met" on my TEE results. Well, I do know that I am competent in the English language, but thanks to evil teachers, scaling down, and a stupid 50% requirement, it didn't seem too good.

Now I am perfectly happy with my 55% for the exam, but not very happy with that in comparison to the school mark and scaling. Now, the teachers have been stressing that they will go hard on us- give us impossible questions, crappy obscure texts, negligible spoon feeding of information -in an attempt to get our marks scaled up insanely for the TEE. Now, this goes in favour for almost everyone. I've noticed a few people getting scaled up by 10%, from 81% to 91% (not that they needed it). I get average for class work- good in orals, average to bad in essays. And I get shit for exams. This all equates to a score around 50%. Now if my exam marks for literature are always around 50% or below, how the hell am I going to get scaled up? Stupid teachers, this kind of "Let's make things impossible so that students get impossibly high scaling ups" thinking does not work for people who really need the scaling up. Think of those who are right on the cut off line for the English Comptency requirements. Imagine how they would feel if they got scaled down.

My actual score... nice and averagely high. I'm not going to say any numbers, except its above 90. Good enough for commerce at Curtin. And not bad considering I was playing Gunbound, Halo, and Fallout Tactics during the TEE, and Guildwars the week before.

tis the season to be jolly

Merry Christmas everyone.

Nothing much to say. Just keep in mind the true meaning of Christmas- the birth of Christ. And while you're at it, the bonuses that come with it- family, togetherness, happiness, selfless acts, generousity etc.

charsiewfan

If you are in a restaurant/hawker cafe and have no idea what to order, hainanese chicken rice, bbq pork rice aka charsiewfan, and perhaps fried noodles aka horfun or charkuayteow are guaranteed to taste good and feed you well. Bbq pork and wonton noodles is also a good bet. Now what amazes me is that in Han's Cafe, nobody orders charsiewfan. They would rather go for the fried rice or ask for sweet n sour pork (which is not on the menu). Actually, its usually chicken or beef curries. Fools! Han's Cafe's bbq pork rice is one of the most wholesome of those that I have encountered. Most places just give you a hell of a lot of rice, about 10 slices of charsiew and some cucumber slices. Han's Cafe gives you the rice, the charsiew, and stirfried vegetables!! Sure, a direct translation of charsiewfan is bbq pork rice, that is pork that has been barbecued and steamed rice. But fan also means a dish or meal, and that should include vegetables, not just slices of cucumber.

Charsiewfan has no hot gravy that goes right up to the edge of the plate/bowl. By ordering it, it makes it easier on the waiter as there is no need to carefully balance it so that no gravy is spilt, and also fingers do not get scalded. Please order it, it's tasty. Some unknown guy says its "fully sick". =P

Another thing I noticed, a number of white people who come in cannot eat a bowl of rice. What's so hard? It's just a medium sized bowl of rice, and the dish they are eating is about 1.5 times larger. so in actual fact, the ratio of dish to rice they eat is something like 3:1. I tend to believe in a 1:1 ratio. Even then, some of them do not order rice at all!

Shopping

I like shopping for electronic stuff. That is the stuff in the audio visual department and the computers/videogaming department in stores. I don't care if I can't afford any of it, call it a goal for splurging money on. Anyway, we went to Megamart today looking for a DVD player and widescreen TV. Yep, up until now, we never had a DVD player, my Xbox and computer served that purpose. Anyway, advice to shoppers, Megamart is an expensive place. I'm sure their stuff is competitively priced, but you can find cheaper stuff elsewhere if you take the effort to look. However, the Creative Muvo2 FM is available there! It's pretty good value.

In my opinion, the Muvo2 FM is better than the iPod Mini. Why? Let's see...
They both cost the same
The Muvo2 FM has 1 GB more HD space, has a built in FM radio, can record FM (I think) and voice, USB mass storage (no need for stupid software to transfer stuff), and has a removeable/replaceable battery. It also switches off, unlike the Mini which goes into sleep mode, slowly draining the battery such that it's flat the next day.
So for $399, kill Apple's market share! What I find stupid is that the 1.5GB Muvo2 also costs $399, and 256MB Flash players cost up to $300.

Back to the TV and DVD player search. We went to some discount place in Vic Park. Friendly salesman there, named Keith I think. He showed us this Samsung package- HD ready widescreen 76cm TV, stand, DVD player and set top box -for $1999. The actual label was all that plus a PS2 for $2499. Good thing he removed the evil Sony console, slashing the price by $500! Bwahahahaha. So we got that, and a Pioneer DVD recorder. And there goes Dad's xmas bonus.

Anybody willing to get me the "Band of Brothers" DVD box set, or "Seinfeld" box set to break in our new system?

zoom zoom!

Had my first driving lesson today. Steering, signaling and accelerating/braking are stressed as the essential components to driving. So is taking the learning process one step at a time. See, if you are overwhelmed with a large amount of variables to control, the chances of disaster is very high. Now if you are a learner and you were to crash your car, imagine your emotional state. You would have lost your confidence and you would be badly shaken up. The reactions to my "Nightmares" post on multiply means that I will have to point out that this can be linked to it. Metaphorically, I crashed my essay, every time, no matter how much help I get. I'm sure you can apply your own context and other reading crap to it to make sense out of it.

Oh, and if you feel like ruining the action movie experience for some fellow audience members, try pointing out inaccuracies in weapons and such. WWII movies for example, not all the American soldiers carried Thompsons. I am pretty sure that they were expensive to manufacture and were mostly used by the sergeants. Characters often fire off more rounds than their gun holds. They also like to chamber rounds unnecessarily. Cars exploding real easily has definitely got to be a big inaccuracy. I guess pointing out how the main character seems to possess Reflexes +20 can't hurt.

phonetics

I learnt about the phonetic alphabet in Operation Flashpoint. Phrases like "All move to Delta Foxtrot Six Seven!" got me interested. After looking around on the net, which didn't take long, I found the alphabet.

A	Alpha	N	November
B	Bravo	O	Oscar
C	Charlie	P	Papa
D	Delta	Q	Quebec
E	Echo	R	Romeo
F	Foxtrot	S	Sierra
G	Golf	T	Tango
H	Hotel	U	Uniform
I	India	V	Victor
J	Juliet	W	Whiskey
K	Kilo	X	X-ray
L	Lima	Y	Yankee
M	Mike	Z	Zulu

However, when watching the excellent miniseries, Band of Brothers, a while back, I was a little confused why they referred to the companies as Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, and Fox companies. I thought it was Alpha company, Bravo company etc. Well, now I know. The WWII phonetic system is different as what you see above is the NATO alphabet and is now universal.
WWII American Phonetic:
Able Baker Charlie Dog Easy Fox George How Item Jig King Love Mike Nan Oboe Peter Queen Roger Sugar Tare Uncle Victor William X-ray Yoke Zebra

Which one do you think is better?

Nightmares

Sometimes you can remember what you dreamt at night clearly. For me, it seems I remember the really whacky stuff that pop up out of my subconsciousness. I thought I put everything about English Literature behind me, but apparently not. I guess now would be a good time to put an end to it, forever.

OK, this is what I recall from my nightmare. Some stupid psychiatrist/psychologist person who somehow got hold of my lit records and transcripts of conversations with friends. (weird huh?) Asks me "Why are you aiming to just pass literature? Why are you not aiming to achieve more? You are doing so with everything else." That was when I woke up in cold sweat. But awake, I started thinking, and not sleeping (I need sleep), why is that the case? By the way, anything related to literature at this point in time, is a nightmare to me. The TV show, Joan of Arcadia, got scary at the point where they mentioned chaos > logic (similar to the motifs/themes present in the play, Arcadia).

This is why. And by expressing my thoughts, may whoever is reading this and going on to do something with similar circumstances, understand what I and others had to go through, and maybe learn from mistakes.

Aiming to just pass is a sign of a lack of motivation. What motivation did I receive when doing two years of literature? I don't think there was any. Let's see. We were given hard and obscure texts to study. Other schools got more mainstream literature texts to study. Next, we were give no real guidance. We were taught to learn independantly. I guess I had to do my homework and learn how to do all that background stuff myself, but how can you do that with little guidance? For a subject where "nothing is wrong", guidance is essential. Then we are assessed on questions that make you answer something obscure, after you decrypt it on the enigma machine, whilst juggling another totally different obscure subject, through the perspective of a third obscure thing. Basically, juggling red hot pointy sharp knives, whilst riding a uniwheel on a tightrope, whilst dodging burning arrows. O yeah... these questions are often unseen questions, or those that mean you are not allowed to prepare for. Finally, you are marked harshly. Really harshly. In year 11, Mr Horner(One of the best lit teachers) gave me a constant 65% for all my work. No matter how hard I prepared and wrote and all that other stuff. Of course, all my other subjects were nice and high in the high 80's. This is what he said, "In year 12, 65% is considered high". My thoughts, "But it's year 11! Give me year 11 marks then!". Sadly, when I reached year 12, everything i got ranged from 45% to 65% with the exception of 80% (I can't remember and I don't want to) for an oral which unfortunately is given an extremely low weighting. It eventually got to the extent that I celebrated when I got a measly 50%. Much to the weird looks received from all those who were doing well.

Let me sumarize that.
1- hard subject
2- no guidance
3- hard and difficult assessments. That's 2 lots of hard things to deal with.
4- harsh marking
5- as an aggregate, it does not make you too happy. Where's the motivation in that?

When you are constantly failing, or receiving results that are close to failing, no matter how much work you put in, what's the point of working harder? Well, obviously if you put in zero work you get next to zero. This is how I see literature study:
Zero work: 0-40%
Some work: 40-50%
A little more than some more: 40-55%
A lot more: 45-55%
A hell of a lot more: 50-65%
Insane amounts of work leaving you to get poor marks in your otherwise good subjects: 51%-65%+

I call it the law of diminishing returns. The more time you spend on studying the wonderful world of the within the text (I'm sure some lit teacher will grill me for that statement as they would probably say that is WRONG (I thought there is no wrong in lit)) the less marks you receive. Well, per unit time that is. Plus opportunity costs such as sanity, and grades in other subjects. There we go, another reason why you should not aim higher, but rather to just pass.

Lastly, about "nothing is wrong". That is a fucking lie. Sure, they say that you must provide proof, but that's not enough. You see, when a marker does not agree with you, they immediately start reacting negatively to your essay. Instant loss of marks. Write poorly or in a standard manner, and lose more marks. Try to write uniquely or creatively and you run the risk of missing out important elements. I tried that, writing a different approach. I left out all the important bits that are usually discussed in a generic essay, I failed. And the quoting? I destroy something each time I get an essay back where there's the writing of "please explain" or "quote needed" when there clearly is an explanation IMMEDIATELY AFTER the "please explain" or a quote just after the "quote needed". The damages bill is greater than the losses in the Iraq war.

And I guess, I need to get to the point again. I usually not get to the point as I'm scared I get it wrong. Yeah, that's right. Literature killed my confidence in myself. If you ask anything, my instant reaction is "I don't know" or "I don't think". Lit is supposed to awaken the opiniative side in you. It killed mine as whatever I do seems to face the wrath of some evil. So the killing of one's confidence and motivation to work is the reason why one should just aim to pass. It also means that your expectations are so freaking low, that you feel happy for a measly pass. Just don't hope for a pass all the time otherwise they may catch onto it and mark you for less than you deserve. Once I wrote like 4 pages of quality crap. I was rambling on how Iago was a bloody backstabbing son of a bitch, in a very passionate manner, and I was including bits about context, and social/political issues- the whole curiculum for fuck's sake. I was expecting a REALLY high mark in comparison to my shoddy work receiving 50%. Wow, I ended up with 55%. All that heart and soul, blood and sweat, and I get 5% more than what I usually get when I have no motivation and no confidence.

Now kiddies looking for advice. Put in some amount of time studying lit. Not the bare minimum, not massive amounts. Just a moderate amount. If you put too little, it attracts the concern of parents, who then force you to spend massive amounts of time on it, at the cost of everything else. Massive amounts of time is just wasted. TEE Literature is MUCH easier than RSHS Literature. Only problem, you are so used to juggling whilst on a tightrope whilst being fired upon. The questions ask you simply to analyse a text. That is enough to fry your brain and it's OS. After 2 years of hellish torture, your brain develops algorithms to approaching complex juggling sequences. Give it a simple question and it is considered foreign, causing you to freeze up. So much for an accurate representation of skill and knowledge. If I fail literature, those demonic tormentors have a lot to answer for.

work work

Whoa... work was hard. Well, obviously work IS hard, otherwise why the hell would you get paid? But really, the crowd that came in last night was large enough for 3 or 4 people working out the front. For $12.80 an hour, yeah that would be justifiable, but noo, I get $9.50 an hour for it. It's still good. Sure beats flipping burgers. No offence to anyone.

I now own all three of the Fallout games. That is, Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics. Fallout Tactics in my opinion is the more action packed game. After all, it is TACTICS, which means, get a squad of six soldiers and blast your way through the post apocalyptic wastelands. Fallout 1 and 2 on the other hand is just a romp through the wastelands where you are a chosen one seeking some device that will save your community. All three are full of gore, and humour too. Make an effort to track down these games in the used game pile in the shops. They're classics.

energy swords

Bhav, this link is for you. Beat the energy sword addiction. It will do good for you in the long run. =P

On a slightly different topic, I was reading in Hyper that once again, people are blaming violent actions in society on the loveable violent videogames. This is one of many things that sickens me- people making ignorant remarks that a violent videogame is the source of all evil. Apparently, in Sydney, a "Counter-Strike Shooting" took place where a man was shot by two young men dressed in camouflage outfits, and I quote from Hyper who is mocking the Crown Prosecutor, James Bennet, ""Obviously" inspired by the game Counter-Strike, as no military in the world has ever heard of fatigues or balaclavas before" This is fucking stupid. There are plenty of other reasons why a man could be shot by other people in army fatigues. Let's see... the killing could be inspired by a novel, tv show, news report, movie, or videogame. It could also be inspired by the fact that the victim had done something to the killers (is inspired an appropriate word?). Why did they wear army fatigues? Could it be that they are war junkies? Or perhaps they thought the camouflage would let them get to the victim undetected, or perhaps it would have made a good disguise- no one would recognise them out of their costume. And my final point, why the hell did that prosecutor blame it on CS? Actually, I'm happy that he's blaming that bloody game, but why is he blaming it on that specific game? There's plenty of other games that involve killing innocent people, and not so innocent people as well, as well as other games involving guns and army fatigues. Don't forget the other forms of media that also contain these elements. To be a little more personal, CS has made me do one negative thing- "STOP PLAYING BLOODY CS AND TRY SOMETHING ELSE!!!" *smashes fists on table*

If prosecutors are going to blame crimes on videogames, I dare someone to put on hmm... a tutu, and rob a bank, do a few shootings and commit other serious crimes. That means they'll have to say "Ballet has inspired this person to steal, kill, and cause massive amounts of damage to public property."

Actually, I don't think I made my point clear. Gripe number 1: Someone blamed a killing on a videogame. Gripe number 2: Counter-Strike was accused as the main culprit because army fatigues were used.
Reasoning for GN1: There are plenty of other reasons why someone kills someone else. Hence blaming it on videogames is stupid.
Reasoning for GN2: Think about it, it's such a stupid accusation. Even if we did consider CS as the source of inspiration for killing, why would they shoot an unarmed civillian? The CTs are not supposed to shoot the hostages, they are supposed to rescue them. The Ts on the other hand have to guard them til the end of the round. There's nothing in the game that says gun down an unarmed man. No one is unarmed in CS, except for the hostages, and they are not meant to be killed.
Conclusion: Don't blame crimes on videogames, unless the suspect pleads guilty that that is the cause, because it is silly. Blame crimes on angst originating from society's poor treatment towards the perpetrator.


On another note. Damn you Peiran! You just had to save yourself $80 and copy Halo 2. Pay for the bloody game dammit. Bungie's staff have families to feed you know. Not to mention the sales could help increase Xbox's market share, which means more and better games for you (to pirate =P).

no hell for me =P

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test

w00t! No hell for me.

another monday

After reminiscing about TinTin with Jo, I feel like going to the library and borrowing some of the comics. Hehehe... The Adventures of TinTin, funny. Unfortunately, I'm a little too lazy to make the effort to head out there. Till then, here's some web comics for any fool who stumbles across this humble blog and has a will weak enough to get addicted. Bwahahahahaha! Nah, these web comics are pretty funny. There's more in my bookmarks folder, but it's best not to overwhelm your minds, yet.

Code Ninjas
Applegeeks
Mac Hall
Counter Culture
Monkey Business
Anime Arcadia
Sore Thumbs

My shoulders and neck hurts. Either it's from the bike ride to Kings Park, or I am sleeping in a very uncomfortable way.

Got about another 1.5hrs til Knight Online finishes downloading. This server is apparently fully free. It's got PvP, clan system, an interesting way of selling items, and crappy quests. But its FREE! Can't complain when it's free.

stuff

I generally tend to prefer certain clothes and certain shops. If you're observant, you would notice I wear a lot of Giordano and other miscellaneous HK brands which I get in Singapore. Reason? They're cheap, nice, and most importantly, they actually fit me. Being skinny has its disadvantages. Unfortunately, shopping in Giordano is getting dangerous. The last time I went there, men's clothing was getting the slim fit treatment whilst the women's was either the same or getting baggier. Anyway, the gendered clothing is NOT divided by a distinguishable line, and since the all the clothing looks pretty much the same at a glance, you could in fact be looking at stuff that could label you as a cross dressing freak! Enter Roger David. Since there's no Giordano in Australia, I had to find another place for good cheap clothing, Roger David has become my new favourite. The outlet at Harbour Town has proven to be quite a bargain place, with nice discounts (at times). Fancy suede jackets and other kinds of jackets at $50 down from $150, leather at $99 down from some insane price I would never bother looking at. Plus their slim fit fits me. Haven't tried pants though- I still trust Giordano and the other chains in Singapore. O yeah, I got my suit from Roger David as well. I think it was $100, or $150, but it has served me well on several occassions, and will continue to serve.
By the way, I'm trying to ditch my ratty old plain tshirts and upgrade to smarter stuff.

I got a job! Yay! Take that all you employers who insist on employees needing previous experience! Hans Cafe Southlands. I dunno if there's any more casual positions, but they pay pretty good.