November 2002 Archives

Well folks, I'm leaving at dawn for Shanghai, China. The weather looks fine. I hear it's tolerably cool and very windy with some rain, which means it will be very much like Bristol.

I didn't have time to complete all my applications today so I will send the remaining documents when I get back in a week's time. I didn't have time to visit SITEX either, or even watch the new Harry Potter movie. I'm still packing my bags.

I'm going on a crash course with the Lonely Planet Guide to Shanghai, which I will read on the plane (assuming I don't nod off to sleep or watch a movie instead). And hopefully, three CompactFlash cards will be enough for my digital camera. Trigger happy li'l ol' me.

I really have to run now.

Every year, the Peranakan Association holds a dinner where everybody eats, drinks, dances and has a generally 'gala' time. The theme this year was Phoenixes and Flowers and comedian Victor Khoo was the MC. There was also a surprise performance by Dick Lee himself ('surprise' because he didn't expect it either :).

Our beloved ex-President of Singapore, Wee Kim Wee was also there, with his wife. And so were Peranakans from Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia (Malacca and Penang, true blue), and guests from Taiwan and even Germany.

After refusing to join me and my dad on the dance floor (mum fractured her toe so she couldn't 'gelek-gelek' with us), my sister was hauled up on stage for a youth competition. It was hilarious. Our table clapped and hooted for her, but she didn't win the loudest applause, which went to a cute little six year-old very appropriately called Vanessa.

Wonderful choice of name, said my mother afterwards. The parents had good taste, I told my mother.

Now there's a Channel News Asia report on how someone's been sending out fake SMS's (no, it wasn't me!) about the bomb found in Holland Village. Now, nobody is admitting there was a bomb at all.

I guess the only solution is to be vigilant. Don't laugh about the hoax (if it really is one), because you never know when someone's crying wolf, or really telling the truth. Just because there are lots of hoaxes, doesn't mean that nothing will happen for real, eventually.

I'm sure if you were happily partying away at a club in Bali and somebody came and told you there was a suspicious-looking vehicle parked right outside, you'd probably have laughed off the warning too.

... so says my friend's friend's dad, who was at Holland Village when he saw the place swarming with police cars. More details to follow as I interrogate him and trawl the local news websites.

Also, my colleague's sister, who works with the police, has confirmed that a bomb has been found. The other colleague who sent us this warning days ago, should be completely vindicated as it has proven to be more than a 'red herring'. (Thank you, Alison.)

And yet we have shopkeepers in Holland Village complaining about how the loss of car park lots has caused their takings to decline. Oh, what a small price to pay in return for saving their shops ... and their lives.

Here's some backdated news on how security has been stepped up, as of this week.

The American Embassy in Singapore is closed today for Thanksgiving. I guess today would have been a good day to strike terror in the hearts of many, wouldn't it? :-(

Well, nothing's happened here in Singapore. No bomb attacks. Sorry for the hue and cry, but the news came from someone who works at the Singapore American School, so it sounded serious enough.

In fact I have more to worry than most of you. I stay very near the US, UK and Chinese embassies, and the Tanglin Police Station is no longer in Tanglin (although they've strangely retained the name, just like Parkway Thai's in Centrepoint and Killiney Kopi Tiam is everywhere else). However, BG Lee still lives a block away from me so I'm sure there'll be protection... for his family at least.

And I'm pleased to report that the traffic police have been patrolling the road right outside my house more frequently. I nearly roared in approval when a police car pulled up right behind another car which was parked illegally near the sidewalk. So hopefully there won't be any car bombs. I know my house is due for renovation, but not in this way...

Within a couple of hours I received two warnings via email so I'll share the news with everyone.

The first warning (allegedly from the US Embassy) is to stay away from Holland Village today and tomorrow, because something is going to happen REAL soon. Hmm. What about people who are living there?

The second warning is more generic: Don't leave your mobile phone switched on when it's raining. A Singaporean was killed when he was struck by lightning via his phone, which got burnt.

Over and out.

I'm near the end of my university applications. I can't believe I've procrastinated for so long!

Tomorrow my Managing Director will be giving me the third and final letter of recommendation to send to USC.

And soon I will be tying up my personal statement cum academic discussion on communication theory. Next, I have to make copies of the articles I've written in a couple of national publications.

And oh yes, the fees. Argh. I'm leaving for Shanghai on 1 Dec so I'd better get my applications all wrapped up before then. Either that, or it's FedEx/UPS/DHL/ SpeedPost to the rescue!

I'm also in a position of occupational, financial, academic and psychological instability at the moment. Should I stay? Should I leave? Will I find a better future for myself without compromising my moral values (or what's left of them)? And why did my dad tell me today that I'd be the one to support him in his old age? He's said before that I might have to support my sister too.

I think I need to earn a LOT of money.

Sigh.

Yes, I'm leaving for Malacca in the early hours of Saturday morning to buy a pair of Nonya slippers so that I will look like a proper, fully-clad 'Kim Gek' on Peranakan Night, which is next week.

Of course the other women in the family (mum, aunt and grandma) are probably going to do much more than help choose slippers for me and my sis (who will be absent from this excursion as she gets car sick - and bored - easily).

If you want me to get anything from Malacca, please give my mobile phone a buzz. Preferably, no chewing gum or pirated CDs, please. Tut-tut.

I was at Mileu this evening with Joan, watching Norwegian jazz singer Silje Nergaard perform several songs from her two albums. She's big in Europe but little known in Asia. This was the band's first time in the region, in fact. Her voice is amazingly sweet (think Stacey Kent and Frente's lead singer) and her music varies from straight jazz to pensive bittersweet to funky-cool.

We were also treated to a newly written and yet-unrecorded song which was very upbeat, and for her deserved encore she gave us a rendition of a Norwegian lullaby which was haunting and beautiful.

Silje's band members are also highly talented. Her keyboardist/pianist Tord Gustavsen is worthy of mention as he straddled piano and keyboard with either hand and played like he was breathing in life from the music. I don't know else to describe it, but maybe I can mimic it to some of you one of these days.

After the show, we stayed on for a couple more drinks. As we were leaving, we noticed that the band was in one of the rooms near the stage. Since I had already bought her latest CD, At First Light, I decided to get it autographed.

I met the pianist who was hanging around outside the room, and couldn't resist complimenting him. Heh. I also got his autograph. Then Silje noticed me and Joan and after we spoke briefly, she autographed our CD sleeves and CDs! Hooray. We met her and her band on the way out, and she recognised us and shook our hands. What a nice lady!

Today, I checked my 'catch-all' email address (where emails sent to nonexistent email addresses at my domain are bounced to). And I had the shock of my life: a fellow churchgoer's username was supplanted onto my domain to form a fictitious email address, and countless emails were sent to other people. Many were strangers to me, but some were familiar names at church. The emails 'bounced back' to my server, thanks to corporate antivirus scanners which blocked them from being received by the individuals concerned.

But I was very alarmed because I thought that my mail server or PC was somehow infected with the virus, and I was responsible for infesting my church's network with it!

Then I re-read my original post on the Bugbear virus, and revisited the McAfee website to learn more about its modus operandi:

'This virus spreads via email and via network shares. It makes use of [a bug] in Microsoft Internet Explorer (v 5.01 or 5.5 without SP2). Simply opening or previewing an infected message in a vulnerable email reader can result in infection.

This virus can "spoof" the "from" field, by combining random elements to form a fake "from" address.'

A-ha! So that's what it did! I wasn't the originator of the virus, but my domain was used in its second stage attempt to propagate itself further.

Just to be safe, I called up Ricky from the church office to let him know what happened. I hope we can all be more vigilant in the future.

I haven't been posting much recently, because I've been frightfully busy at work. Staring at the office computer from 9+am to 10 pm isn't funny anymore. This happened on Tuesday, and today (Thursday). I made it a point to leave on time on Wednesday, because I didn't want to miss Alpha (God knows I need it!).

What was I up to? My ears. In what? A site for a new car, entirely in Flash, that was assigned to me at the end of last week, to be completed by today.

On Tuesday when I got home at 11+pm, my left hand was numb. It was pressing shortcut keys the whole day (cut, copy, paste, publish, etc) and I had difficulty typing the next morning! :-P

Anyway, the site launched today. I know it isn't perfect (yet), but if you want to see it, it's here. You need the Flash 6 player to view it, and it's not because I'm one of those designers who doesn't know how to publish to a lower version (or wants to show off that I use Flash MX). It's because there's video in it.

Let me know if you come across any bugs in the meantime, because I'll be fine-tuning it at work.

Certain animals are probably breathing a sigh (or snort?) of relief to hear that strong Viagra sales worldwide might lead to a decrease in demand for traditional anti-impotence cures. Uplifting news indeed.

I'be god a Cobe. A bery, bery nasty cobe. By dose is all runny and I sbent der whole day in de office wid a dissue sduffed ub by dostrils.

Den suddenly, I hatchoo. Hatchoo, hatchOO and HA-CHOO, oud op condrol. By body was shibering. Bud... I hab do do worg. Doday I worg'd in de obbice undil eid pee em! By deadline is Dursday and cliend is launshing nu lugshury gar galled der Bae-don. Is speld 'Phaeton' bud wid dissue stuffed ub by dose, how do dok proberly?

*phwarrrt* I blew by dose so many dimes doday, id's gedding bainful. Dwo backets of bocket dissues a'd halb a dissue box. Aby bore blowig ad by dose wil probaby rund aweh! Wib a whyde dissue stigging oud ob by red dose, I loog'd lige eider Sanda or Rudolb, tayg yor pig.

Loog ad der dime! Id is nearly midnide. I'b bedder go do sleeb soon. Maybe hab a hod shower birst.

Above: Albums I purchased today. Most were on sale.

Some warehouse in the UK closed down, and That CD Shop's buyer was quick to snap up a shelf full of dance and chillout titles - and pass on the discount to their customers. You know how much 'Import' CDs usually cost. Well, these titles are going from $4.90 to $12.90!

Anyway, I love That CD Shop. There's a guy who always recommends the best tracks for me (depending on my mood - jazz, groove, chillout ...). Sometimes he gives me background information behind each album. He also remembers which albums I've already bought, from previous visits. It's amazing.

Well folks, you're looking at the latest version of my website. I realised I was spending way too much time working on it, hence I decided to release it in beta stage and work out the minor kinks along the way.

The biggest difference is not a visual one. The code on MOST pages is now compliant with the Web Standards laid down by the W3C. I say most, because I'm sure there's a nasty little bug somewhere which I haven't spotted yet - apart from my Atomz search engine, which generates lots of hideous code on their server, beyond my control.

There are a few more things I'd like to tweak in my own time: putting in proper email spam protection for everyone who posts comments; figuring out how to work the photo thumbnail generator which is apparently installed on my server; retouching my CSS, and making everything more ... dynamic.

A big thank you to Vic Ho and Queenie for their comments on the new site.

Sleep...sleep...I need sleep....zz.

A novel solution for people who have trouble getting up in the morning (like yours truly): take a shower!

But not just any shower - with Shower Shock Caffeinated Soap™, you'll absorb about 200 mg of caffeine through your skin with every wash. Aaaahh.

This page was mentioned on actor Jeff Bridge's website (that's how he feels sometimes, he says), and it is SO cool. Try it and see.

I really don't care who introduced Multimedia Messaging (MMS) to Singapore first: Starhub or M1.

Most customers haven't upgraded their handsets to the latest phones which can capture photographs and videos, so they won't need the service which beams em' up to another phone - which must be able to display the media as well.

What's far more important is, as the service increases in popularity, whether it is reliable and fast, whether the price is reasonable, and whether it comes as an attractive package just like SMS does.

But I predict SingTel's financial report (due soon) will bring the emphasis back to more serious industry news.

I've been getting cheeky messages not via the usual mediums (email, icq, sms, comments) but via my search engine. Dear Shawn, I know I haven't written about you at all in my blog, so this post is dedicated to ya.

How have you been, and what have you been up to? Yours truly is still slogging as a web designer in a little-known company. The going isn't easy but I'm in new media and I should be happy that I'm doing what I like, because money isn't coming my way. I'm earning two-thirds the pay of the folks at A&G, and probably a third of the pay of a certain investment banker.

I don't get sent for training even though I'm expected to do a lot of things, but I'm learning on my own. Today I shall be attempting to edit videos even though we don't have proper software for it. I work sometimes with people who don't know what they're talking about but I have to pretend that they do.

That's my life at the moment, lots of hullabaloo.

We can live without Microsoft.
We can live without Microsoft.
We can live without Microsoft.
We can live without Microsoft.
We can live without Microsoft.

If we say it enough times, maybe we can live without Microsoft.

Nothing else we've tried (government-backed lawsuits, counterclaims, appeals, yadda yadda) seems to work. And no matter how many times we curse Windows for crashing on us just before we've saved our 10,000-word document, we still persist in using it.

Either we don't have the time to find alternative software, or we're plain chicken about it (I still am, but Linux looks increasingly attractive), and we worry about things like incompatibilities and the fact that everybody ELSE is still using Microsoft products.

Maybe we can live without Microsoft.

I know the Nikon Coolpix 990's been out for a couple of years, but wanted to see if it was any better than my Coolpix 880. Largely because dad's been bringing the 880 to work, saying that his company camera (the 990) isn't as sharp.

Well, here are some photos I took around the house. They look pretty decent to me. Ahem.

Ronaldinho rocks.

He completely fooled Marseilles' defenders by looking one way, then kicking in the opposite direction - accurately to a team-mate.

He shot a winner through the legs of at least five men who were scrambling in front of the goal. And he scored a penalty. Total: two goals in the first half.

However, the Marseilles fans who hurled smoky missiles down at him while he was taking a corner, did NOT rock. Hissss.

Oh, a warning: www.ronaldinho.com is actually a porn site. And www.ronaldinho.com.br goes to Ronaldo's site instead. This is really strange.

And I should go to bed.

My happiest Diwali celebration was not in Singapore (where it's called Deepavali) but in Bristol, three years ago. Can't believe it's been so long.

I did nothing about it this year.

At the Esplanade last night: Wynton Marsalis was goooood. He even made his trumpet bark like a dog and guffaw like an old man. We gave him a full house standing ovation, and he gave us two encores. I quite enjoyed listening to the other saxophonists and trumpeters, but for some reason I didn't like the trombone solos - although they still sound good in a big band.

Outside the Esplanade, there were ventriloquists, a rock band, a balancing act, and tall, painted stilt walkers (dressed in Venetian fashion) following people around.

Back home, the telly was on and I decided to watch Man U play Southampton at Old Trafford. Well the home team could've done better, but it was entertaining watching a crazy fan jump the barricades, run up and hug one of the players - Ryan Giggs I think? [correction: Ruud van Nistelrooy]. The loser was eventually pinned down by an officer.

And that wasn't all. When Diego Forlan scored the winner, he took off his shirt. Then he couldn't put it back on because it was turned inside-out. He proceeded to run around the pitch topless until someone ran over to turn it back the right way. Wa ha ha. At least he had abs.

I've successfully updated my weblog system with Movable Type 2.51.

And I see this site's jumped up to a '3' on the Google charts. Whoopee!

Another fashion house running into trouble? This time, Yves St Laurent is closing down. What will happen to their neat and understated Flash website?

Check out also their Haute Couture line - before everything closes (?).

This Nokia 6650 teaser is so funny. Well I do get the point, but the way it's done in Flash makes me want to laugh :-D Especially with the Aibo-like dog.

In brief, the features of the new phone are as follows:

• Triple band
• Camera
• Video capture and editing
• Talk and send messages at the same time

• thick pointy antenna, non-retractable
• kind of long: 132 mm.

Can't have it all, I guess.