Bidding farewell

It’s a rainy, gloomy day as we bid farewell to Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. 

Went to CCK community tribute centre on Friday.

It’s… disappointing and at the same time hilarious to see how the number of Western media reports on chewing gum. It’s a long bygone issue here. It’s not as if all candies are banned anyway. Chewing gum is a novelty for us when we go overseas… but one that I’m more than happy to do without. Clean drinking water? Great economy? Clean and green garden city? Safe and secure nation? Those are much, much more important to me. Who cares about gum in the light of all these greater things? Will you die without gum? You can die from armed robberies though, or shootings. Or get sick from drinking unclean water. Or get injured in street riots and protest… and have your daily life inconvenienced by strikes. They pick on all the nitty gritty little things because they are ignorant, jealous even, of all the things that we do have, that we enjoy and they don’t. 

It’s… a sad occasion indeed. May you rest in peace Mr. Lee. 

Food porn!

Some random photos of food. Ate out with my family a few times recently and this is the result… 

Dry laksa from Curry Times. 

And curry chicken from the same shop. 

And this was from yesterday. We ate at Grandma’s kitchen. 

Almond soya bean glass jelly VS normal glass jelly drink. Syrup given separately for the glass jelly so you can make is as sweet or unsweet as you want. 

Cantonese hor fun. This one is really worth it. All  the main dishes we had were 5.80… but I think this was the nicest. 

The Char Kway Teow is nice too. Love those two. 

Some duck this… it’s nice but kinda pricy. It’s sour and sweet… and tastes like the nonya dumplings (ok, this IS a nonya food restaurant)

Darn blurred photos. Another expensive one… it’s tasty but look at how small the portion is! Both this and the duck dishes at around 10 bucks? More expensive than the main dishes! (ok they have pricey main dishes too, but a few which are cheaper to attract the lunch crowds I guess) Anyway… there’s petai beans, long beans, lady fingers and brinjal. You can’t even see the brinjal in the photo right? Because there’s only a freaking four small pieces! 

The last main dish we ordered. Hokkien noodles… using udon noodles sheesh! It just sucked. The taste was ok but the noodles was bad. WRONG noodles. It’s not even that they shouldn’t be using udon noodles anymore…. it’s that the noodles are just hard and yucky. It was a torture eating this one. 

Durian chendol. This was nice. The chendol was thick and fragrant. A nice desert to end off the meal. 

Loot!

So I went to the IT Show last week… and I’ve finally gotten around to talking all the photos and sharing. Went on both days… and mum got a Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 inch (What a long name!) on Sunday too. No photos of that though hahaha. I only took photos of my own loots. 

Still have not finished ‘setting up’ all my loots. Well basically the USB fan and the new table lamp. Because my old table lamp is still working! And because my computer table is way too messy to set up the other fan… 

Loads of photos coming up!

MY NEW BAG PACK! Apart from the HD I think this would be the loot that i’m most happy with. It’ll also be my most used loot I guess. How much was this? Like 90 bucks or something… it’s really solid so I think it’ll be able to stand up to years of abuse. It’s a little sad that I couldn’t really find an absolute perfect one… There was another (and cheaper) bag pack also by Targus that I really liked… but the material isn’t as solid… and the zippers aren’t double zippers. Which I hate… this one has double zippers BUT it’s the their compartment type. The main compartment is divided into two. Great for putting documents, but for things like jackets… it’s not as good because the compartments are smaller. At least the laptop compartment is removable so if I’m not bringing my lappy out I can free up some space by taking out the laptop compartment (Targus is a brand specialising in laptop bags). Just started transferring some stuff from my old bag to this one today. I’ll be using the new bag pack next week yay! The old one was sorta dying… the side pocket for water bottle had broken, and the strap was broken too… you know these bag pack the straps isn’t just a single layer? The top layer of the right strap was broken. Cos I’ve been carrying too much stuff in my bag pack I guess… and esp when I carry it on a single strap at times… (always the right strap that’s why only the right side was broken). Already got my mum to help me sew it back last time but it broke again so… The compartments inside broke too :(

But yay for new bag packs! I hope this one lasts longer than the previous! The previous one only lasted like… maybe… 2 years? Or 3? Really short! I really like the build. And it has quite a lot of compartments for me to put all my little stuff (pens and what not!). Oh and…. the bag pack model name is really cool too. KING COBRA. Hoohohoho. I’m born in the year of the snake. Perfect. 

Hard disk covers! In bright neon colors! Well I hardly carry my HD out these days… but this size pouches are great. I can put other stuff in them, not just hard disks. It’s pretty and the neoprene material is nice too. (And it’s cheap)

HOHOHO! The single most expensive purchase we made on the first day. Mum’s tab won the honour later on. 

They charge what? A ridiculous 40 bucks more for the metal versions. Nah. This will do. $159…. Pretty eh? They call the color Titanium. I call it SPACE GREY. LOLOLOL.

The same pouches. With the laptop chill pad (aka cooling fan) from Targus. A free gift for buying that bag pack. 

Oh? What’s that? 

It’s a blue tooth keyboard! Full sized too. More for fun than anything else because I don’t have an iPad? If I want to do some serious typing I’ll be using my lappy…. but well I’ll definitely try playing around with this. The cover doubles up as a tablet/handphone stand too. And there’s actually this little tab that you can pull out from the bottom so you can erm… put in a tablet AND a mobile at the same time? Lol. That’s my Xiaomi by the way! XD (Oh got a cover and screen protector for the Xiaomi too, now it's not so slippery ha!)

USB hubs. A USB 3.0 hub and a 2.0 hub with 7 slots and a direct AC adapter… for us in charging phones, or running USB powered stuff (Like USB fan…) I’ve yet to set this up >< 

Multi card reader… well I only need it for the microSD card slot, since my lappy has an SD card slot built in already. Because my lappy can’t read my xiaomi phone… but on hindsight… it’s really troublesome to open the back cover and take out the microSD card… I’ll probably just do whatever that needs doing at work with the PC. Oh wells. This was really cheap anyways. 

My table lamp! Which I still have not set up! See it’s still nicely boxed up! I got the grey color one. So no blue stripes… just grey. Identical to the one my sis is using hahaha. It’s pretty cool. The on off button is touch sensor! And you can adjust the dimness XD 

USB desk fan! Which I’ve not set up. There’s a really cool USD powered humidifier on sale too which we got for my sis. I wanted one too but on second thoughts… I was already having trouble with all my stuff going moody cos it’s so humid here! In any case… my mum wanted one to use around the house so we got another for her on the second day… I can just ‘steal’ that if I really want it… (she hasn’t even started using it yet). Like if I feel like having a mint scent room or something and I can use that and add essential oils to the water… but well… looking at my table now. I don’t even have space for it. LOLOLOL.

Ok. That’s all the loot from the IT show. No BIG items like lappys because we’ve all switched to using macs (all authorised dealers here, so no price discounts at the IT fair). Save for the tablet. Next BIG item will be my mac later this year I guess. 

History

It’s crazy.

The queue to pay respects to Mr. Lee Kuan Yew has stretched so long...

An update at 5pm says that the expected waiting time for the queues is 8 hours… so much so that they have advised the public not to join in the queues anymore. 

Tribute centers and the lying in state will be opened 24 hours to the public… because there was just too many people going to pay their respects. 

Trains and buses will run all night today too.

It’s crazy...

But at the same time...

If you just think about it…

Like what Lenin, Stalin was to the Soviet Union… or Mao Zedong was to China...

Lee Kuan Yew is that same legend to Singapore. 

 

I remember watching old footage showing kilometres of people queuing to pay their respects to Lenin. Years from now… people will be looking at footage of the Lying in State now and commemorating the founder of Singapore. 

Listen

Listen.
The silence of the night
Listen.
The fan whirling
Listen.
The cars in the distance
Listen.
A child's cry
Listen,
To the sounds of the night.

RIP Mr. Lee Kuan Yew

A nation marks the passing of it's founder.

Mr. Lee was truly a remarkable leader. Building our tiny nation, with no natural resources into the world renown metropolitan city that it is today. From third world, to first world. In just one single generation.

All the things that I enjoy... good education, housing, multi-racial society, good public transport... infrastructure... even the broadband that I'm using to post this entry. It is highly likely, almost certain that all these would not be possible if he hadn't been at the helm of the nation.

He created a nation that fought to survive, and it's people are hardworking and always striving for the best.

I was a little surprised earlier though, when the news went to interview students from my JC because he was an alumnus... not that I didn't know, I did, we all did... but see the RI he attended was the secondary school. Not the JC... but alas now that the JC arm has merged in name with the secondary school segment, I guess it only make it right to say that I am most privileged to have him as my alumni. It's been years since the name change occurred but well... old habits die hard. It's still RJC to me, it was when I studied there, and it probably forever will be.

Singapore will be hard pressed to find another leader who is as insightful, as charismatic.

May you rest in peace.

Of internets and routers

So. The internet cabling in my house is a little complicated. No idea why my house is like this… but between rooms the wifi signal drops drastically! Just literally 10 metres away from the router, blocked only by 1 wall and 1 cabinet, and I can really poor, or just no signal! 

Previously the router was in my room, and using the phone cable point… then when fibre broadband came, the fibre optics point was installed in the living room and we ran a really long cable all the way from the living room to my room. Then my dad brought TV boxes and stuff, and we signed up for a new Internet brand and they gave a new router - the exact same one as what we already had at home actually… but together with the TV boxes and co, my dad set up the router in the living room… well actually the corridor, that’s RIGHT OUTSIDE my room, and then things just went terribly from there. Internet was really  slow, and I can’t even receive any signal on my bed when using my phone. More often than not it was using 4G. Finally, pissed off, and with that super long ethernet cable still running to my room, I plugged that ethernet cable to my lappy and enjoyed really zippy internet. And since my lappy was on cabled internet, I turned the wifi into a wifi hotspot so that I can connect my phone to it.

Great, right? Except that I had to keep my computer on if I wanted to play on my phone after lights out… and keeping my lappy on and charging the whole night wasn’t the best battery care. And then the problems with the wifi printer started. The printer is situated right at the end of my room, furthest away from the router… and it just won’t print many a times. And dad was getting extremely pissed… cursing the printer and what not every time he wanted to print something. In the end everyone just went back to using the USB port. Even my lappy was unable to connect to the wifi printer. And it’s just like… 3 meters away? I told my dad it was the wifi signal problem but he didn’t believe me. 

So that was till CNY came and while spring cleaning I found the old router that I had kept earlier. I’ve been wanting to set up a second router for a while now but was just too lazy. (Plus, I already had fast internet :P ) So it was only till like… last week? Or the week before that I finally set it up. Everyone was rejoicing because the printer finally works now, when connected to that second wifi network that is. Esp my sis since she has loads of school notes to print. Previously it would like stop in the middle of printer her notes! And that really sucks. 

But of course… it’s not that good a news for me because I have to go back to using wifi. And suddenly my internet download speed dropped by a TON! Episodes that would finish downloading in less than 10 minutes suddenly took forever. From at least 1 MB download speed in mega, I was getting what? 100 kbps? 

So I finally went to buy an ethernet cable the day before, and set it up a while ago. Best 15 bucks I’ve spent! Did some speed tests and you can see the results.

This was using the wifi from router 1 (aka the router in the corridor). Very normal internet speeds… which should NOT be the case because we are paying for a fibre broadband plan! Also, the wifi signal from router 1 is weak. 

Router 2 wifi. Aka the router in my room. I was using this to download stuff from mega… because the signal from this wifi is much better. BUT GOSH IT’S SO SLOW! No wonder my downloads were taking FOREVER to finish! 

Now, the internet speed when using the ethernet cable from router 2. That’s much better. 

I ran a test with the ethernet cable from router 1 too just to see if there’s any difference. Not much it seems. In fact what the upload speed is slower?

I ran the test with cable from router 2 again… the ping is much higher this time, but the download and upload speeds are still as decent. Yay! I guess there’s not much deterioration with the addition of a second router when using ethernet cable. The wifi though performs a lot worst. Wifi 2 is more for the printer though… but my mobile phones will be on wifi 2 too. It’s been alright so fast though. My game (Heroes of Order and Chaos) runs just fine, and much better on wifi 2 than wifi 1. With wifi 1 the signal often gets cut off halfway. My sis’s room though… it’s quite bad… the signal is bad too, and the speed is really slow. And her room is further and not as convenient to  cable too… since the cable either has to go across the main corridor - bad bad bad! or go past the master bedroom door - also bad! Unless you go from the top/ceiling of course, in which case is really troublesome too, and you need even longer length of cable. At least in my case the cables just stick to the side of the walls and stuff, and didn’t have to go across any corridors (except when I was using it for my lappy, and I totally destroy the cable casing… recently just taped it up >< ). But at least that was the corridor in my room, not the house! (and already the damage to the cable was that bad… it’ll be worst if it’s the outside corridor… and people might trip!) 

For that short distance between where I put my lappy, and the router… it’s just a distance of like… 2m or something? No less! I can touch them both if i stretch my hands out! I bought a freaking 10m long cable for it. 10m?!?!??! Are you kidding? 

Nope. Not at all. I decided to do it nicely this time. Running the cable along the walls, behind my desk and all, so that I won’t trip over the cable and/or destroy the casing again. End result? I’m left with less than 0.5m of excess wire… and it’s always good to have just a little excess in case I need to shift things around in the future. Not bad at all. My lappy desk is a mess of wires though. Have to like… pack my table and sort out the mess of wires some day. There’s like the ethernet cable, the lappy power cable, the USB wire for the portable hard disk… and a USB wire for the non-portable hard disk… and with that non-portable hard disk, it needs a power source, so that’s another long cable. and then the lappy is connected to a USB hub, which is connect to my mouse, my cooler fan (for laptop), my USB fan (for my, but I hardly use it cos it’s so noisy, plus there already is a big fan blowing the lappy), charging wires for the bluetooth keyboard and speaker… Gosh what a mouthful.

As if that’s not enough, I also have a USB cable to my iPhone lying on my table, and of course, my earphones. Passed all my lightning cables to my sis already or there’ll be more!

And on the other desk with the router + printer, I have a microUSB cable for my portable charger… and also I have my iPhone and xiaomi chargers plugged in. Decided to throw out the lightning cable that died. If anything I can just buy a new cable in the future since I can claim that from my work place benefits… well it won’t even be enough to buy me a new iPhone though. Oh wells. 

All the complicated set up… and mess of wires. But at least i have fast internet again now! Wahahaha!

 

Stickers!

Just love these stickers. So cute!

Cycling! Gosh! It’s been so long since I last got to cycle. I bought this for my dad actually. He loves cycling… not sure what he can possibly use this sticker for though? ><

Most people are just normal. Then there are those blazing successes. And incredulous failures. Sometimes, it’s just a small line between success and failure. Other times… the difference is so great I can’t even comprehend. 

Try me… Really. It’s not being egoistic as much as it is just striving to be the best. Because that’s what we have to do. To give it our all, put in all the best efforts. 

It’s a matter of beliefs and values. Work ethics maybe? If something matters to me then I’ll give it the very best I got. 

English!

This post. Is just so hilarious. Totally made my day. No. 19 in particular is just such a gem. 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/annaneyman/will-will-smith-smith?bffb&utm_term=4ldqpgp#.jf11k8RMQM