The End is Near!

Did a little OT tonight. I guess now I've been conditioned to consider it "little". But I'm taking off this Wednesday and Friday. Probably play badminton on Wednesday with James. Sam ORD-ed today. Eugene already started NIE, says instructor is experienced and inspiring. That's wonderful to hear.

I should sleep soon. Tomorrow will be a long day. Probably will only be home close to midnight. Quite tired at work, wasn't very productive. Ate groundnuts at my desk. Groundnuts are peanuts, right? Shredded lots of paper. I can only hope it gets recycled. Showed Yinglan the Throw Vanish.

Tried to write a macro to automate the process of inserting a picture for each NRIC in MS Access, but quite hard to figure out the syntax. Still haven't quite found my way around the OOo syntax either, but I did find a hefty official guide online, guess that would give me a good foundation. It seems they're trying to make it robust and language independent, but for now I don't have any handle on it.

Brought my C++ book to office also, maybe I should learn it again. Well, I want to. But one thing really is that it's quite hard to code when there isn't the benefit of the internet. Takes longer, definitely, because there's a good chance someone else has done a similar thing and put it online.

Dr Lovey

My lovey has her PhD! She's awesome. And I'll see her soon, and she'll be back soon too!

Used my bicycle pump just now. Could only inflate the rear tire because the valve for the front tire is blocked by a spoke... but otherwise the pump works wonderfully.

Went to the driving range this morning with my parents. Whacked a few balls. Got a couple of blisters, even on the gloved left hand.

Played tennis twice yesterday, my favorite stroke is the forehand topspin volley, it's damn shiok to hit! Woke up aching all over today.

Jasper has successfully downgraded to PES C2! That's wonderful news. Will be going for modified BMT in October.

Borrowed more books from the library. I think my next goal at work is to port my MS Excel macros over to OpenOffice.org Calc, the equivalent spreadsheeting program.

Killed a caterpillar and a cockroach just now. Very gross.

Over Time

Wah, today was bad man. Stayed past 11pm. Felt so irritated and dyspeptic. One piece of good news is that this Saturday I'll have another tennis session in the evening, at 8pm. I hope gz is able to make it at that time.

Watched "Worst-case Scenario" on TV, it's pretty cool. They made this guy with a fear of flying land a small propeller plane after 6 hours of training!

Microsoft Madness

Stayed back in office until past eight today. Now that Eugene is gone, I am now the PA to my branch head. If I didn't already mention that. Quite tired. Need to return library books already, read roughly half of each of the two books. One tennis session confirmed for this Saturday morning, 10am at Yio Chu Kang.

Trying to get MS Outlook to automate the process of sending different emails to different people. Kinda stuck at the part of feeding it a database, but it won't bite. Fiddled around with MS Access also, but just simple query stuff.

Watched Mr & Mrs Smith on Monday night, expected it to be not that good, but it was actually not bad at all. Can't wait for the weekend to come...

Practical Magic

Jasper and James managed to come down to the 18th MINDEF PRIDE Day yesterday, though James arrived at about 9pm and we had closed shop already. Then we went to Jalan Kayu for roti prata. Then James bought prata for some person (having called and asked if and what he/she wanted), who he was going to meet, but refused to tell me who he/she is!!! Then I asked to see his handphone, if it was new or what, but he refused to show me also. He just came back from Bristol yesterday afternoon.

Then yesterday at the PRIDE Day got magician and balloon sculptor, the magician very good one. Then at the end my boss got him to come over and teach us some tricks. A magic gig pays quite well, if you can get one. At least, that's if you're as good as he is. My parents also popped by. I managed to go round to the other booths and get explanations of their projects, which was quite cool. There's one by ST Engineering, the technology is basically software processing of a video feed. Can "draw" a line on the screen to trigger an alert when something crosses it. Can calibrate and measure speed of tennis serve also, that's probably how it's done.

On the News there's a feature on how terrible high-heeled, unstable shoes are and how women should wear more sensible shoes. In Sinagpore, an average of 5 women a day go in for physiotherapy due to high-heeled shoes. Enough with the high heels, ok? Maybe got tennis this week, but still doesn't look good.

Long, Long Week

Stayed back at work till about 11pm last night. Will have so much to do on Monday, because I'll be the only NSF around. Will have to get used to this, because afterall when Yinglan comes back, it'll only be him and me in our branch. So yesterday Sam was giving me a crash course on how to do their work.

Going to Tampines Mall soon. Might play tennis with gz tomorrow. Seems like there was absolutely nobody at the MINDEF PRIDE exhibition yesterday at Ngee Ann Poly. Probably no one will be at Tampines Mall either. SAFTI MI was pretty bustling, though, because buses offload their cache of uniformed personnel every now and then.

Oh yes, Linux (on the desktop) might be making its way into MINDEF/SAF soon. It is probably used as server technology already.

Embedded Report

Quite a lot of people came to our exhibit and because the place is generally loud, my throat was dry after talking to each person. Most of them were interested in when they could get their hands on the program. In due time, I say. Tiring standing up the whole day, but not a bad experience.

Tomorrow I'll be there in the morning all by myself because we're in a seriously busy period and this thing is severely draining our manpower. Will go back to work in the afternoon. Everyone has been rushing work, I think they did OT last night. I hope no need to OT tomorrow.

Anyway, the Minister of Defence came by and my boss talked to him, and he asked who the programmer was, so then he talked to me a bit, asked me how long I took to write it (or was that someone else?). The photo that captured my interaction with him is pretty funny, I'm in a weird pose because I'm like leaning forward and smiling and it's all blur from the movement.

There was this "silent drill" performance, which isn't exactly silent because there's music with which they coordinate their movements. But they shouldn't twirl and throw rifles around, especially if there are attached bayonets. Someone dropped a rifle.

Also got these high-tech soldiers walking around wearing what look like sunglasses and a rearview mirror (which is probably some visual feed). It would have been nice to check out some of the other exhibits, but that wasn't really possible. Got some quite cool, high-tech ones.

So it was kinda ironic, the team next to us promoting the use of OpenOffice.org, and we showcasing macros written for MS Excel, which don't automatically port over to OpenOffice. The guy from that booth realized that this was one rather big factor they failed to consider, after someone asked about it. Anyway I said I'll look into it. The thing is that the language is just a different dialect, but the "objects" (or at least the organization of the objects) are quite different. He's a teaching scholar and is going to ORD end of this month, like Sam.

And I just learnt that there was yet another casualty from office on Wednesday, when I was at SAFTI for rehearsal. Freaky day, the 15th of June, 2005. The branch head from the other branch had his retina detached or something. Also, this is going to sound dumb, but it seems the doctors have decided that my granny has a urinary tract infection, not a lung infection.

Maybe can have tennis one of the weekday nights next week... I'm even considering going to a court myself this weekend and just practising my serve...

Saw on the news today that parts of a chopped up woman were found in two cardboard boxes, the first one found was washed up on the shore. The other was discovered upon searching the area. And seems some NS person drowned...

OpenOffice.org

When writing the title for my last post, which I just posted, I was reminded of the WITs project that is just next to ours. It advocates the use of OpenOffice.org and open source in general. MINDEF has thousands of Office97 licenses, but 1997 is like so long ago. Using OpenOffice.org instead of upgrading to Office 2003 will save about $15 million, in their projection.

OpenOffice.org is great: it's advanced, using an XML file format and allowing 1-click publishing in PDF format (an open file format), and it also has stuff like bibliography built in (though when I tried it this is still quite raw). The switch from MS Word to OpenOffice.org Writer is practically seamless, because typing up a document is relatively straightforward.

One thing I really like about OpenOffice.org Writer is that there's this "stylist", which greatly encourages and assists structural (rather than just purely cosmetic) markup. You just specify that this line of text is a "title", rather than making the font bigger, making bold, and centering. You get consistency and structure, something that is usually sorely lacking in a WYSIWYG interface. You can change the formatting style for a "heading" and all lines marked "heading" will change in tandem.

Have you made the switch yet? You're otherwise stuck between a rock and a hard place: pay hundreds of dollars for software (and tie yourself to a proprietary file format), or get an illegal, pirated version, which MS is pushing the government to crack down on, and I think if you report a copyright violation that's going on in a business you can collect a nice $20,000 if I remember correctly.

Out of Office

Left the house at 0600 hrs this morning. So sleepy, throughout the bus journey to MRT then the MRT journey to the western tip of Singapore, then a bus to SAFTI. Ended up spending the whole day there, they did 2 runs of the rehearsal. There was a squashed frog on the pavement. It rained really heavily, but thankfully only after I arrived and was safe in the exhibition hall.

Looks like there won't be any activity this Saturday, no tennis, no kayaking. Looks like I'll have to wake up before 0600 hrs tomorrow and the day after, and head to SAFTI. I cut my hair with a scissors behind my head last night, and got comments. I saw what it looked like just now when I used 2 mirrors. No wonder everyone notices immediately. My dad helped me tidy it up.

I needn't have bothered with the script actually, because can just explain the posters and the key points would be covered, then don't need to memorize also. It seems the project is going to go up to the Public Service level. And we can send 2 people to Korea for some thingy. And soon, when this ranking cycle is over, my boss will coordinate the dissemination of the project throughout the SAF, and I'll probably be holding training sessions.

Yinglan is in hospital, and will be there for a week or so. And secretary to the CO sprained her ankle and was at NUH. The office is going to be pretty empty the next couple of days. But I won't be in at all until next week. I can bring camera and take photos! See you guys on Saturday!

Preparations

Been so sleepy and tired, especially last night. Finished up some preparation for the MINDEF PRIDE Day today, basically prepared a script to present our project (within 2 minutes) to the Minister of Defence, who happened to be Minister of Education when he presented my teaching scholarship to me. Need to rehearse tonight, in preparation for the rehearsal tomorrow. I think I need to wake up super early, have to be at SAFTI MI by 7:45am.

Yesterday was even more flustered, I guess maybe that made me so tired. Was going to give a briefing in the morning, but that was cancelled last minute. Anyway, had to prepare the stuff for the PRIDE Day. I think there was some other work but I forget.

The Channel 5 show, "My Sassy Neighbor", is quite funny! Stupid but funny. My granny is in hospital now, it seems she had a seizure and is resting in hospital for a couple of weeks. Lung infection. Hope she gets better...

This is but a Taste of the Terror...

Muscles aching quite pervasively, very tired today. I bought wristbands and a vibration dampener for my tennis racquet, which is supposed to reduce the risk of tennis elbow. I fear that the peak of tennis playing for me has passed, because each week now there seems to less and less. But that could be ascribing a "trend" to a random fluctuation. This is but a taste of the terror...

This Saturday is the exhibition! There will be some prizes for people who play our game and win (though I don't know what the prizes are yet). Details:

18th June 2005
Tampines Mall, Open Plaza, level 4
4.00pm - 9.00pm

Actually it starts at 11.00am, but I will be taking the afternoon/night shift.

There should be at least one tennis session a week when gz gets to book out. Might not get to play at all this week. Eugene's now thinking of playing in the evenings instead of Saturday morning, because the sun's too bright. This is but a taste of the terror...

Karlovic just hit 3 aces in a row, and for the last point to win the game, Roddick couldn't return his second serve. Wonder why he can't serve this way on clay as well as on grass. Maybe he does. But if he does, how can he lose? I think surface probably doesn't matter that much for a service game. Second set, second tie break. I think this isn't actually Wimbledon, but it's at Wimbledon? Not sure lah.

Played tennis at the SAFRA Toa Payoh, it's quite a quiet court, it's right next to the Expressway (I think it's the PIE). A couple of balls flew out and seem to have been lost to the road. Went for lunch with Jasper and Aaron, then we walked around Junction 8. There's this sports shop that sells tents, quite cool, a 2-person pop-up tent folds into a circle not that big and not that small but not that heavy either. If I hold it standing with my arm straightened to the ground, it would almost touch the ground.

Sam says he has a friend who goes rock climbing, so might be able to hook me up with that. Aaron suggests going kayaking Saturday morning, but he's on call on Friday and only finishes at noon on Saturday, and ought to be sleep-deprived at that point.

Went to Seletar today and yesterday also, yesterday afternoon the swimming pool was filled with kids learning to swim. I went with Jasper for dinner at Ang Mo Kio, and went shopping in town. Then met Aaron again for supper at Jalan Kayu, the curry that comes with the prata is good stuff, and they're not stingy, they gave a big bowl (other places usually give a plate, as a result of which I also go back for a refill).

So got home pretty late, and fell asleep on the couch watching this expose on how pro-wrestlers improvise and coordinate their crazy stunts in the ring. Stuff like backbreaker and suplex and the most dangerous of all, the pile driver. Even though it's "fake", they can get seriously injured if they make just a slight mistake. They fall from so high, and if they don't tuck in their head enough or don't fall at the right angle, they're totally screwed.

Regained consciousness for a while and went up to my room to sleep. But I think I still left the light on. Anyway, went to the club again in the morning, went to the gym, to swim, and play Virtua Cop. Say Yang couldn't join us, because he was meeting some other friends. Then went for lunch in town, then went to Cafe Revive, where Jasper likes the cashier/waitress. She wasn't around, but someone "even better" was there. This is but a taste of the terror...

There was an episode on CSI on Star World just now, so that was good. Monday again, back to work... my boss says she has projects in mind for me, which sounds exciting. I think my work is inversely correlated with everyone else's: when they are busy, I'm not, and when they're not, then they have the luxury of thinking up things they want and I can try to realize those things.

One of these days I want to try to make some cornflake confectionery, make from cornflakes/cereal, plus honey, and hopefully, plus melted chocolate. I think it would be great, but I imagine it might be quite messy.

I cut my fingernails and put on an overgrip for my tennis racquet. I felt that the grip was kinda slippery, hence the wristband too. What I need to practise is eye-on-the-ball, take a full backswing, and whip the racquet with greater speed.

My lovey is about to graduate! Her parents are with her now. But I'm not... =(

Less Tennis This Week

My parents bought durians again, and they're again really good. Had some with Aaron, who came over for a while. Wimbledon is on TV now, the men's serves are so freaking fast. Ace after ace. I think this game between Hewitt and Karlovic they've played 16 games already and no one has broken serve. And this Karlovic guy is so tall, I think they say he's 6 foot 10. The top of Hewitt's head reaches his neck.

Cleaned out Eugene's table today, and also organized the "empty" table on my left. Playing tennis tomorrow. Meeting Jasper and Aaron for lunch.

On The Wire

Figured out the mystery of the packed 163 this morning. Luckily today it wasn't packed to the max, I could still squeeze onto the bus. Two stops after I got on, a whole lot of NCC kids got off, and there were seats for everyone after they de-bussed. Maybe they got some camp or something at Amoy Quee, I think it should be school holidays now, right?

I almost died today, and I'm still not sure why I didn't. Accidentally touched an exposed live wire. The rubber coating of an extension wire had worn off on the side away from me, so I didn't see that the copper was bare! It hurt where my finger contacted the wire, and I was able to withdraw after what seemed like two seconds. I think I almost died, but it wasn't a near-death experience.

Watching LOST on TV, it's a scary series about this plane that crashed on an island, with spooky huge creatures that attack humans. It's really quite scary.

Today was pretty much Eugene's last day at work. Last day in office and at his desk, at least. Soon Sam will also be gone, next week is pretty much his last week. Hopefully the tennis will go on.

The briefing today went well, just need to change a bit of stuff and write up some notes for it. I'm alive, so that's magnificent. Took a nap when I came home today. Perhaps I need another strategy for catching my transport tomorrow, because it's kinda risky depending on the 163 being not totally full...

Today

My lovey's mum is featured on Today newspaper, for setting up Singapore's first non-profit maid agency (though "housekeeper" is a preferred term). It charges the foreign workers about $300, which is 6 to 8 times less than what other agencies charge.

Word on the street seems to be that A*Star is no longer as attractive as it was a few months ago. Read from Molly's blog that Singapore has banned the "Nation.05" party this year, though it was allowed for several years now.

Anyway, that German Open I talked about was actually held before the French Open. So Justine Henin-Hardenne won both of them already.

It's exactly a month more before I fly to the US! Happened to see as I flipped the Today newspaper that I don't have to worry about getting a visa, because it's before October 2005, and I have a machine-readable passport. Singapore needs to issue biometric passports by October this year, I think, in order for the visa waiver to continue.

Giving a briefing tomorrow morning to the rest about the MINDEF PRIDE Day Exhibition. Monday is another briefing on the website thingy, which I haven't really touched for some time now.

Sucky Buses Suck

Public buses suck!! The 163 came late this morning, and when it came, it was so packed the bus didn't even stop for me. Usually it's only about half full. So I took a taxi to catch my transport. On the way home, the 163 that came is so terrible! The screech of its brakes are deafening to the max. A full 3 seconds of ear-splitting noise.

It's pouring viciously now. Henin-Hardenne is playing Sharapova on clay (Qatar Total German Open), and seems to be having a hard time getting points! I'm surprised. Just lost the first 2 sets, having won only 1 point so far. She's getting her game back, though, with 2 break points in the 3rd game. She's now trashing Sharapova, yay!

Wonder if I should watch Phua Chu Kang the musical, which is 50% off for SAF personnel on one of the Sunday matinees. But still not cheap. I've also been thinking of joining a tennis tournament one of these days, not that soon though, because I still suck.

My sister is back from Bintan, and bought me a T-shirt. Oh, and I think I haven't mentioned, probably because I haven't seen it for myself, but they've taken out my granny's feeding tube. She's able to be fed enough food by mouth now.

Nothing much exciting at work these days, but quite busy today just before it was time to go home. Good thing can do the rest tomorrow morning, so caught transport home. Next week is the MINDEF PRIDE Day, remind you all again, ok? Saturday 18th June at Tampines Mall. This Friday we'll be talking about the WITs project again at "Touch Time".

Blood on my Hands

Booked a tennis court at SAFRA Toa Payoh this Saturday from 9 to 11 am. Need to figure out how to go, might not be that near to the MRT station...

Got to hear a little French because of the French Open. Looked at tennis racquets today, look so nice! With tennis racquets, lightweight isn't the best, unlike with badminton racquets. Light racquets with big heads are good for beginners, but heavier racquets with smaller heads provide more control.

I think I'm quite lousy at shaving lor. I cut myself quite often, like I did last night. It will be a bloody disaster if I try to shave my head with my razor. Bought a bicycle pump just now. It's sleek and professional looking, hope it lasts a long time. Though I might not have much use for a bicycle in the future, if it gets too inconvenient...

Just had a nose bleed, damn...

French Closed

Justine Henin-Hardenne, the 2005 French Open Women's Singles Champion, plays amazing tennis! Totally outclassed Mary Pierce. Won 6-1, 6-1. She has a fantastic one-handed backhand. And her serves are killer. Seems she was World No. 1 then some serious illness and then injury took her out completely for a year or more.

Rafael Nadal is also amazing, he's 4th seed and probably going to win the finals. He's very good looking too. Won Federer in the semi-finals. There was a point Federer won by hitting 3 volleys in a row. As Federer pointed out after the match, Nadal being a leftie does indeed shake things up a bit. That certainly works in his favor.

Just watched Nadal beat Puerta in the Men's Singles. It was a really close match, Puerta put up a good fight. He won the first set but lost the next three. In the fourth set, he was actually up 5-4 and had 2 set points on his service game, but dropped both, then went up with the advantage, but dropped it and dropped the game. Nadal went on to win 7-5 after breaking Puerta in the following game. It was a wonderful match. Puerta is also left-handed.

I'm done with my tennis sessions for this week, and ball stocks are up one point at this week's close. Going to retire one ball that's quite bald and bounces too much. Tennis prospects in the coming week don't look promising. Eugene has something on, and gz will be unable to book out for 3 full weeks. I've re-marked my tennis balls, the letters faded really quickly after yesterday's tennis.

The Men's Doubles were on yesterday, but stopped by rain after the teams had one set each. The last set was played today. The USA team consists of identical twins, one an inch taller than the other, one a leftie and one a rightie. As an American Scientist article I recently read said, "DNA is never destiny". The identical (homozygous) twin of an alcoholic has only a 50% chance of being an alcoholic.

Doubles is much more complicated, and faster-paced. The many-body problem in action. The twins looked strong at the beginning but lost in the end. I think they only play best of three sets. I took a nap in the afternoon. Took a nap yesterday at NUS between tennis sessions. The half-court is pretty good for practice, gets you tired out very quickly.

Ate durians yesterday and just now, delicious. Met Say Yang and Jasper today, went to eat at this vegetarian restaurant in Serangoon. Greenland. It's the place we were going to go to celebrate my birthday, but my granny fell down and had a stroke... for what it's worth, the food was very good.

I feel motivated to train up at the gym so I can play better tennis. Observed the people playing on the next court at NUS yesterday, when they grip the racquet in the forehand position, the racquet face is horizontal. Then I began to notice how the pros grip their racquets at Roland Garros, and that's how they grip it too. Gives more topspin.

Fell asleep early last night, was too tired to complete this blog post. The following is a letter I intend to send in to the Straits Times.

Over the weekend, I had a horrendous experience at Sportslink. I had bought a tennis racquet that was on offer, just that it was not strung. When I brought it elsewhere to be strung (the Sportslink in Funan didn't have the equipment), I was told that the racquet frame was missing the bottom grommet: a little (but critical) rubber piece.

I went back to the Funan branch thinking they would give me a replacement. But it seems that rubber piece was not part of the deal, though I was not informed of this "defect" when the racquet was sold to me. I tried to get a refund or exchange, but an exchange was only possible if the goods are in "selling condition".

Apparently, the racquet was no longer in selling condition because I had taken off the plastic wrap around the handle. It is outrageous that the racquet is however deemed "in selling condition" even with a missing grommet strip. I am exceedingly frustrated and appalled.

A word about programming now. Programming is a lot like magic. Neither achieve the impossible, they just appear to. It's an illusion of intelligence in one, an illusion of reality in the other. It's not that the macros I write in VBA do what Excel can't do or what a human can't do, it's just that it makes it more convenient. Repetitive, procedural actions are activated by a mouse click, which activates a pre-programmed series of instructions.

It's not that Excel can't do this or that, it's a matter of optimization, stringing together an oft-required series of steps in a "macro" so you don't have to click here and there and type this and that each time. It simplifies a complicated procedure by sweeping the repetitive motions under the rug of code.

Updates

Our team won at the MPDIV Life Day, but the prize was pretty pathetic compared to what we are used to. A $60 Swensen's voucher, to be split more than 10 ways. It seems we might get more money from the WITs thingy, not cash, but for purchases. 1 GB of RAM for each computer would be cool!

I realized that there is a faster way to get home from Expo, which I took last night. Take MRT to Bedok (which is nearer to Expo than Paya Lebar), then 854 straight home. The bus only took about 45 minutes. The dinner was ok, the food passable, the company not too obnoxious, the entertainment rather lively so somewhat enjoyable. I took the opportunity to dress up.

The signs on the East-West line are very misleading for people going to Expo and Changi Airport. The signs suggest that for the East-bound track there are trains going to Pasir Ris and trains going to Changi Airport. So I waited, and each time the train came it said it was going to Pasir Ris, so I waited for the next train. I assumed maybe since more people would go to Pasir Ris, the ratio would be something like 2 is to 1 or similar. But after a third Pasir Ris train came, and given that I was running late, I took it anyway. When I got to Tanah Merah, I realized that I was hoodwinked!

The reality is that all trains go to Pasir Ris; to go to Expo and Changi Airport, you have to get off at Tanah Merah and switch to the train on the middle track! Imagine the disaster if someone was going to the airport and waited for the Changi Airport train in vain! The signs need to be changed, to say that the East-West train goes to Pasir Ris/Changi Airport, instead of saying no. 1 goes to Pasir Ris and no. 3 goes to Changi Airport, except at Tanah Merah Station (where the signs make sense).

The tennis racquet Eugene bought was defective; it is missing some parts and thus cannot be strung! I think tomorrow I'll plan to stay out instead of coming home after tennis in the morning, since I'll be playing quite early in the afternoon again. A good exercise for the forearm is to bounce a tennis ball on the floor using a racquet. It takes some skill too.

Say Yang is free this Sunday and the next, he says. Went to the library just now on the way home. Borrowed two books, one on evolution (a very short introduction). I realize I know hardly anything about evolution, which is a terrible thing.

The poster for the MINDEF PRIDE Day exhibition is about to be printed, and we can view it before no more changes can be made. The exhibition is in 2 weeks' time. James might be back in time for it. The current CO is going to be gone really soon. There's a new NSF in the other branch, an understudy to Simon. He studied in Japan, and looks really old.

Cool, there are some advertisements in the Straits Times today for computers, there's a desktop system (sans monitor) for less than $400, and a military-strength laptop from $1,999. Both of them come with a Linux OS. I've applied for my Exit Permit already, by the way.

Financial Jokes

Why is it socially acceptable for a life-size image of a woman in underwear to be plastered repeatedly on the exterior of every carriage of an MRT train, while it is unacceptable for me to walk the streets in my underwear? There is that moving human statue along Orchard Road who is only in underwear, but he wears a full-body coat of gold paint.

There's a funny article on the front page of the Straits Times today, about how civil servants are getting $200 and a 0.4 month mid-year bonus. This $200 is supposed to narrow the income gap between high-income and lower-income servants. Do you not see that "In percentage terms, it amounts to a larger payout for [low-income employees] than employees who earn twice of three times more"?

So you give the exact same amount ($200) but it would benefit the lower-income more because it's a higher percentage of their salary? I don't suppose I'm getting that bonus. The bottom 20% of salary earners earn less than about $1000, which is more than twice what I'm earning. Anyway, $200 goes really fast. Handphone bills, internet connection bills, water and electricity bills...

Tonight's dinner costs $100. The GST on that would buy a decent dinner. As Molly has observed, the income gap would be considered as staying the same if percentage-wise the top earners' salary and the bottom earners' salary changed by the same amount. Say I earn $x, and you earn $5x. Our salaries both double in 5 years', so I earn $2x and you earn $10x. Salary gap has not widened.

Here is a photo of myself from yesterday, and a photo of Eugene, looking desolate and despondent.

Point and Shoot

Brought my camera with me today, so had a field day taking photos at Expo, at the conference, at MRT station, at Paya Lebar while walking to the bus stop to take bus 70 home. I think the best way is to take 70 from my house to Paya Lebar MRT then take MRT to Expo. I fell asleep on the bus ride home, and it was quite a long ride, seemed to be about an hour.

There was lots of food at the conference, I fell asleep during one of the first talks, wasn't much fun until lunch and after lunch. Lunch was good because there was quite good food. And we had lunch in one of the Exhibition Halls, in a small part of it; the other part of it is huge! It would be so shiok to play soccer or something in there.

The talks before lunch were in very general, "theoretical" terms about quality control and productivity and that kind of thing; after lunch there were "concurrent sessions" in adjoining rooms. In each room there's one group talking about their particular success with innovation and quality control. It was interesting because there were presenters from various Asian countries. Most of them had very distorted accents, the Thais add a melodic twang to English, the Indians speak at the speed of sound.

Seagate had a presentation about outgassing affecting hard disk heads and platters. Organic compounds that vaporize at high temperature, and cause problems in drive assemblies. It was very technical, without much time for the jargon to be explained, so it was just cool to listen and pretend to understand. Some of the presentations quite funny, especially the one by the team from India. Their powerpoint slides were filled with animated graphics, like that of a pointing finger, which is hilarious. The finger curls and unfurls continually.

Eugene is going to ORD really soon. He'll be going to NIE, and getting a much more decent income. It'll be more than a year before that happens to me...

June Bug

It's a new month, a pity I had to end the month doing OT. Worked till about 10pm. Doing crappy stuff, preparing files, "flagging" them with itsy bitsy pieces of cardboard. Missed CSI. Glad that I will be out of the office for the next 2 days. Will be seeing my lovey next month!

Jasper got his results, not bad, but quite like my 12:21 timing for my 2.4 in the IPPT. Speaking of which, I'll probably have to take again soon. Did a mail merge in MS Word for the first time today.