I@n | 
07 21st, 2008| 
Sigh.. There goes my lunch time swim…
Jun
6
Originally uploaded by I@n.
Woke up to a surprise find of 3 kittens supposedly abandoned by their mother under our living room couch.. Don’t ask me how they got there… Fed them and put them to bed before we decide on what to do next.. Headache..
UPDATE:
The mother came back for the kittens but strangly only for 2 of them. She left the black striped one… Hope she comes back for him tomorrow…
May
12
I starting to see taxi drivers running up to a certain speed and changing their gears to neutral and letting their taxis glide until the speed slows down to a certain level before engaging the gear and stepping on the gas again… Would this really save fuel?
Apr
24
Due to my company’s office lease expiring, I’ve been doing some research on the rental rates over the last few months and the I’ve come to realise that the rental rates here are really not making any sense anymore.
My own office’s rental is going up by 80%, while I fret over the rate of the increase I’ve found that what I’m facing is still not as bad as others. A 100% increase seems to be a common thing and 400%-800% is also happening. One foreign bank with a local office is rumoured to be paying around a million dollars of rental every month.
Some retail stores are going at $40 per square feet. And some offices going at $18-$24 per square feet. All these numbers are really not making sense to me anymore. Even run down warehouses are going at $1.60 to more than $2 per square feet at asking. I believe there’s some provision for bargaining in these prices but I’ve never seen such prices before, really crazy.
I wonder how long will prices hold in this range? But with prices already up at this range, I wonder how far down will it go even when it falls?
Apr
16
Bombers fled prison via toilet tunnel
Read the above news article this morning.
I’m starting to think that somewhere in the terrorist handbook or basic training that there’s a module on how to escape capture using the toilet. First the Mas Selamat toilet fiasco, now this. Crap.
Apr
15
Again the weather and events seemed to have collaborated in an attempt to foul up my quest for a lunchtime swim.
As I was leaving for my swim during lunch, my landlord called and asked for a viewing. Thinking that I could still go for laps after the viewing, I decided to go back to office to wait for her. It was an hour or so before we decided that the agent wasn’t coming and I should just not waste anymore time. So off I went… Right smack into pouring rain…
Yes. The sky decided to open itself pissing onto the good old earth as I was about to head out again to the pool. Based on the recent weather patterns, I took a gamble that the rain wasn’t going to last and decided that I was not to be stopped by rain since I’m going to in a large pool of water anyway.
So off I go… Yet again…
When I reached the pool, I was surprised to find the area warm and humid but still dry… Glad that I was going to get some swimming done, I changed and just as I plunged into the pool and surfaced, I felt the familiar sensation of cold water droplets on my head and shoulders. Not a good sign. Looking up, I was determined to do my laps no matter what and so I started my routine ignoring the rain… Right until the 8th lap… When the heavens decided that they should issue me an ultimatum of thunder and lightning. That’s when I concluded that I’ve pushed my luck as far as I could have and got out of the pool.
Well, only 8 laps, not as much as I would like to and there wasn’t any sun to bask myself in but it’s still something. Maybe the weather will hold out for me next time… Maybe… Maybe…
Apr
15
Trying to go for a swim during lunch is proving to be a considerable challenge. First is the location of the pool. It’s not close to my place and it does take a bit of motivation to bring myself to go there. But that aside, there is the weather.
Sun in the morning, sun in the afternoon but somehow it’s been rain during lunch for the days where I could make it for the swim. So I’ve been doing my swims either late afternoon or during the evenings. Nothing wrong with that, I still get a good workout from those swims, just that I was hoping to catch some sun besides the swim. 
Anyway, let’s hope for some good lunchtime weather when I can make it for the swims soon…
Apr
14
Empty bowl..
Originally uploaded by I@n.
Today is one of those days where the bowl seems to be empty even when it’s full..
Apr
14
Couldn’t really remember what it was all about but mustache and monsters were involved… It was along the line of me growing a mustache and going after a monster… Weird…
Apr
13
Those of you who use facebook as often as me should realise that there’s been connection reset problem that’s happening quite often these days. Not sure if that problem has been resolved yet but now I’ve encountered layout problem as well. My homepage is now skewed due to some layout problem, think a table cell was wrongly placed or some table code wasn’t closed properly. Well… Let’s hope this is not a start of some snowball…
UPDATE: It’s fixed! Yeah!
Apr
13
So it is confirmed that my Macbook’s sudden shutdown at around 50 minutes left of power is due to the battery. I got myself a new one yesterday and I charged it up to full and let it run till it was flat. This time round it didn’t just shutdown but went to the usual sleep mode. So I guess I’ll have to find a way to dispose of the older battery.
Apr
8
Still feeling some level of tightness around the shoulder blade area. Think the muscles and nerves are healing well but it’s still not as good as it used to be. I should start working out on that part more to start strengthening it.
Apr
8
My camera.
It’s been a while since I last went for a proper photo shoot. It’s been shooting for work work work and I really need to do some recreation shoot before I loose the feel for it. My recent fiddling with iphoto coupled with coming across some nice online galleries has sort of made my trigger finger itchy again. Maybe I should carry my compact camera with me more so that I could at least do some simple shooting…
Apr
6
Read from the papers that cable TV subscribers are going to have to PAY MORE for their subscriptions AGAIN just to watch their soccer matches. While it is understandable that they need to increase their prices due to increasing costs but how about those who have contracts with the TV providers?
As a contract subscriber, you are bounded by the contract and CANNOT unsubscribe from their service. But as the providers, there is no vice-versa provision, they are allowed to change the pricing as and when they see fit. What is to prevent them from changing it to an amount that is astronomical? NOTHING. The consumer has no protection with regards to this.
I think if the provider changes the price in the contract, they are effectively BREAKING THE CONTRACT, which means that the subscriber can and should be allowed to make a choice of whether or not their should continue subscribing to the service without any penalty.
I am surprised that they are going to do the same thing again and I guess it has got something to do with the sudden silence of the same issue the last time it happened. I remembered a flurry of emails and letters to the forum about this but suddenly there was no mention of anything at all.
Well, conspiracy theory aside, for the fairness of both consumers and providers, something should and must be done soon about this time round.
Apr
4
Recently the Straitstimes Interactive started adding ads in their pages that are very irritating. I understand the need to bring in ADDITIONAL income despite the fact that they’re already making people pay for subscriptions. But I think a lot is left to be desired for their usability.
Here are some suggestions.
- DO NOT BLOCK OUR VIEW!!! It is very irritating to have the page you’re trying to view blocked out by the ads that you have to either click a “not so easily seen” icon to close it or wait for it to finish its run.
- STOP MOVING THINGS AROUND!!! Having banner ads are fine but could they not do it without moving the pages around when it resizes? First I scroll to the article and start reading, then the page starts moving around and scrolls up when the stinking banner ad shrinks after its run. I get confused and irritated because the article I was reading has been moved out of my view.
I can only say that the way they’ve managed their ads on their site has definitely cost their advertisers to lose more of their reach because I don’t even read those ads because they irritate me, second, the advertisers are getting pissed off customers like me who might, and I say might, know who they are now but would definitely, and I say DEFINITELY, think twice about buying crap that is related to a pissed off experience they had.
Apr
4
According to the person at the service center, MacBooks are prone to hard disk failure. Which means I essentially have a lap top that should not be moved around too much. -_-”
Apr
3
Ahh! Finally! After the major clean up I did a couple of weeks ago, I’m now in the mood to continue the session… Guess it’s also because of all the stuff that I’ve potentially got to bring home and the deadline’s coming real soon… Ok… Time to get ready… ;P