Real Slim Shady

Tuesday, December 29, 2009 at 1:37 AM | Posted by Juwen
We are fast approaching the new year and it is amazing how fast time flies. One day it is Christmas and suddenly the next day feels like it's the Eve already. With so much things going on, it seems oxymoronic to say that there is nothing much to do. But in fact that is what has been happening the past week or so. Probably the only thing that worth mentioning is the meet up with a few A-levels classmates. In many respects I am far behind in terms of what they are doing (read: work) but it is also good to know that I am not alone in what I am going through. Good times.

Since I got back, there have been numerous comments that I've looked skinnier since the last time they saw me. And not only did I get this from my family but also from fellow friends as well. But strangely, all these comments of my lack of meat on my body all came from one day but not any other day. It was the day where I went to a friend's birthday lunch and my family's dinner. Despite the fact that I still remain the same weight as before, they still say I look skinnier. So I analysed everything that I have on me and I think I have figured out the secret for looking deceptively thinner while still maintaining your weight. It buys you time to actually lose the weight, not that it applied to me. It all boils down to the clothes. I'll demonstrate...

1) I wear black. Black is the universally known slimming colour.
2) The T-shirt fits-ish with a skeletal imprint. Gives the illusion that you're smaller in build than you actually are
3) Semi-grown shaved hair. Like you came out of the army. Or at least that's what they say.
4) Accessories: Apple headphones, Swatch Skin. All things "cool" and "small".

Follow these steps and it almost guarantees a few kilos off by perception and suggestion. Maybe.

I guess this is just going to be a filler post before the obligatory reflection on the year that is 2009 and of course what I think or predict for the coming 2010. Until then, time to unload the news.

20 million useless gifts for Christmas. I've got most of them. Meh.

Triple the alcohol intake. Yeah!

Effectively, they said that gamers are like on the same level as physicists, mathematicians etc to the lay people. Well put.

Two Apple related articles, one that sounds a bit like the cast of Genesis 3 and the other for a $1 salary take.

A blue moon is going to be the end of the year. Cool.

It is amazing what a roasted bird can do among people.

The least understood function in mathematics yet has profound effects on the environment. 8 part series and try to follow them. It is quite worth it.

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Musical Musings

Saturday, December 26, 2009 at 3:23 AM | Posted by Juwen
Merry Christmas to everyone!

Nothing much went on for Christmas day apart from the dinner at my aunty's place on the eve. Was pretty bored most of the time because nothing interesting ever happens at dinner here. Good thing I had my iPod company and my camera.

Went to SIB KL's Christmas musical production and the first thing I have to say about it even before all of it started is that the props and the background scenes were pretty epic. I don't think I've seen any church having props/background as epic as this. And they look pretty good too. But what about the substance of the musical? Surprisingly, it was actually not bad. The lyrics were pretty interesting and the singing were alright. The band was nearly epic in its style with the drums and bass really putting in the groove for most, if not, all the songs. The choreography of the dances with singing and all were pretty tight although there was really random dance-off about half way through the musical.

Now the rest of the criticisms. The main guy character's tone during his dialogue sounded very unnatural and at times didn't seem to fit in with the rest of scene. He did manage to pull it back together after some time but it could have been better. Most of the songs have like a million key changes which I thought was a bit unnecessary. Most of the songs were sung alright with a few off keys thrown into the bunch. Nothing too serious except for the last song. I think the parts were too high for all of those who were singing so it was pretty excruciating to hear that song. That song was pretty much butchered.

I think overall it was a pretty well produced musical with most of the songs being originals, maybe just a little too much for them to chew. Had they have another 2 weeks to refine everything, it would have been stellar. Either that or I should go back in time and prevent myself from not listening to the Wicked soundtrack because after listening to that, I cannot drop my level down to semi-pro level musicals.

Next few days I shall contemplate on the year that has gone by for myself and maybe some reflections of the coming year. But as a heads-up, it is not going to be good. Expect rantings, cynicism and the lot.

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Nostalgic Musings

Friday, December 25, 2009 at 4:49 AM | Posted by Juwen
So I didn't manage to get the pictures up on the blog but anyway they are up on Facebook. Though their compression has virtually killed the pictures.

So what has happened since I've been back home? Mostly nostalgia. Shopping in a supermarket to buy food stuff for the Christmas Eve dinner brought back some taken-for-granted memories. It feels like so much have changed but yet so little actually did. More drama from the family as my cousin's wedding on New Year's Day unfolds. This wedding is apparently going to be epic. I don't like where this is going. I really wish I can not go for the wedding. Anything else is better than mixing with cousins that you hardly know, uncles and aunties that tell really bad lame jokes. Oh, and I really wanted to go for my school's CF reunion on New Year's Day. I need an exit plan.

Christmas has been on a steady decline since I can't remember when. Christmas dinners or opening Christmas presents these days aren't the same anymore compared to the days of old. I feel more distant from family, much like the way that I feel about OCFers. But who are we kidding? Christmas is all about remembering that Jesus came to Earth as a man who will eventually deal with the problem of sin. I mean that is the more important thing for us Christians to remember. But everyone has their own cultural family traditions that we all remember and love as a result of this momentous occasion. Mine has left the building a long time ago.

Oh and as an aside, today we celebrated a friend's birthday. It was good to see a long-time-no-see friend and frankly one of the few people that I can talk to with ease regardless of the situation. There is no such thing as awkwardness or anything conflicting when we talk and I say that very few people can do that. I wish I had more friends who are like that. Anyway, everything was fine until she had to leave early and suddenly I feel like a stranger in the table. I retreated to my iPod, half listening to distract myself and half scanning the conversations for information that I can use if they were asking me a question. On a tangent, though on shuffle, the music seem to come a lot from Kelly Clarkson and Michelle Branch, two singers that I haven't heard in a long while. They are awesome.

Merry Christmas everyone.

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Wait for it...

Monday, December 21, 2009 at 5:20 PM | Posted by Juwen
With just two more days before I reach home, there were a lot of things for me to do. Most of which I should have done earlier, waaaaaay earlier. Anyway, the last batch of people graduating this year is about to commence later this afternoon so the graduations album should be out very soon. Good thing that I have post-processed the previous ones already. On the downside, I will no longer be able to post-process the photos with my beloved Lightroom when I get back. I will miss it dearly. But there is no big loss, I think, since that I am going to embark on a personal project later. More details to come.

For now, time to dump all the news tabs here...
I wonder how many times we are conscious of these behaviours, whether we do it to others or vice versa

The (asteroid) Rock Gods are in space! And they love heavy metal.

If this is an accurate representation of what guys want for Christmas, then it is good proof that I am more like a girl. Like a friend of mine described me.

Should we Christians be this picky about the Christmas season? Is it at all helpful?

If some mastermind were to disable the world's electronic system by unleashing EMP bombs everywhere, would we be able to survive?

How much power does Oprah really have? While she gives up the talk show but gains a television network aptly named OWN, how will this affect the rest of the American household? Or rather housewives? Beginnings of a cult?

Some of the year's business fails.

Would you sign up for a credit card with a 79.9% interest rate?

Some interesting and funny remarks about women by celebrity women

So the global financial crisis does have its upside

Us Melburnians are very much into the whole cofee/breakfast culture. I mean who wouldn't be drooling over perfectly poached eggs on sourdough bread with smoked salmon/trout with mushrooms with a nicely done latte in a very quaint cafe? But is it as healthy as we thought?

Apparently there is a number to the golden ratio for beauty. Please no use of rulers on the girls. Firstly, the number are averages. Secondly, it's so not cool. Third and probably the most important, you can say goodbye to whatever chance you have getting that girl.

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Conversation >> Food

Friday, December 18, 2009 at 3:59 AM | Posted by Juwen
Sometimes.

I've been having a string of events where I regularly trade typically my only meal of the day (aka. dinner) with good catching up or even intellectual topics. The most recent one is a 4.5 hour conversation over coffee and some little tidbits with 3 other people and I traded dinner for that. It's a good trade.

Like I've said last time, I would give up food for good conversations anytime (but obviously not all the time). Food you can always find yourself. Worst case scenario is you just cook albeit at 1 or 2 am but good heartfelt and thought provoking talk is harder to come by especially given the current circumstances.

But sometimes you will have the "Holy Grail" of conversations where you have those and food. Few things can beat that combination. Today I had the privilege of meeting up with Janice and we have a good time catching up + food + coffee and as a special mystery guest present for Tim's graduation. The sister, who is also a schoolmate of mine as well, was also pleasantly surprised by her arrival. Oddly enough, although they both stay in Singapore, they hardly meet each other. So this is the first time in a very long while that they met, on foreign soil. How ironic.

Oh how I can have a day like today everyday. Makes me feel complete. Whatever that means.
The second busiest photographer during graduations apart from Brandon. Me? I am but the wind.

YY

Possibly the one with the most contagious laughter

My guest for today

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Film Preview

Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 1:59 AM | Posted by Juwen
I got my Astia film processed today and I have to say I was quite relieved that everything turned out fine. It would be a huge pity for me to lose a $25 roll of film and not to mention my "client" would have strangled me to death. Although, the scans that came back seemed a bit odd to me. It looked like it was super sharpened till it's grainy looking. Not sure whether someone forgot to reset their scan settings or what but it does look a bit weird. Anyway, my "client" wanted prints but I didn't have time to do it since he is going back tomorrow. So, I gave him the processed film roll so that he can get some prints out back home. Hope people still know how to do prints off film back home.

There is probably going to be more graduation photos to come but I'll wait till everyone's done. Until then, something that came out of my "client's" graduation ceremony...

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FascinaTED

Monday, December 14, 2009 at 2:35 AM | Posted by Juwen
I was going to rant about something but didn't have the energy to write it all out. Maybe some other time. When I'm feeling rant-ish.

I came back home one day checking my usual items: E-mail, Facebook, Twitter etc and one thing led to another and before I knew it I've watched 5 hours of talks on TED (Technology Entertainment Design). Given that most of the talks on TED are about 20 minutes long, you can imagine how many I've actually watched. Topics vary from predictions of the future based on current technological advances in science and medicine to answering some of the most fundamental questions about the most fundamental elements of the universe to human behaviour on why we do the things we do. Very very highly interesting and I encourage all to watch some of these talks.

I'll skip introducing the physics-y side of talks because seriously it is pretty hardcore stuff even though the talks were meant for the general (not academic) audience but if you do know some physics then it is a very beautiful thing. But I'll just present to you stuff on human behaviour and psychology and I will let the talks to do talking and for you to let the information percolate in that brain of yours.

Behavioural economist Dan Ariely on why we cheat sometimes

Dan again on do we really have control over our decisions.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz on the paradox of choice.

Barry again on why we stopped being wise and suggestions on how to fix that.

How we sometimes get statistics wrong even for some academics which result in dire consequences.

Think the financial crisis was bad? There are bigger problems to come.

A response to Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life. Don't be too quick to write this guy off. There are some things that needs some thinking.

Interesting views from a comedian.

More news:
I smell a conspiracy theory...

Some surprising findings on casual sex and removing a band-aid.

Interesting discussion on colour to sexism.

We are getting more hungry for information that it's starting to get quite scary.

Painful truth on degrees these days.

Paper batteries. We have come so far since they days of AA batteries.

Given a really really really small space to live, it's amazing how people can adapt to it. And we live where we take space for granted.

Interesting idea for those who want to jump off the Facebook cruiseliner.

This. Is. Awesomesauce.

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Thoughtful

Friday, December 11, 2009 at 1:57 AM | Posted by Juwen
This is going was supposed to be a short entry to pen/type my thoughts out but failed. Ok, so only the first one is a real thoughtful thought. Use it as logs to keep the conversation fire going but not to start one. Too chunky to burn. The first one I mean. The rest is the brain going on auto-pilot mode.

Thought #1
We all make mistakes. No one can claim that they are without mistakes (and sin but that's a bit debatable to some groups of people) so there is some form of regret or similiar. So, what if we all had just one chance to rewind to an arbitrary period of time in our past and you can change the course of events from that moment onwards? We carry all the years of hindsight along with the ride but we can only use it once only. Basically, it's the same type of question as "What would you have done differently?" except a bit more general. Note that we not only can use it correct our most regrettable mistakes (thus far as we do not know of more regrettable mistakes later on when we make the decision to rewind) but we can also use it to relive the same moment in time because it was that memorable and would continue to be so even after having the years of hindsight carried along for the second time round.

Enough babbling already. Now the questions...
When would you rewind to, what would you do (if any) and why?
If you don't want to rewind, how would you know if you need to?
Or when do you draw the line and hit the rewind button?

Keep asking this question after several years. I'm sure answers change but it would be interesting to know. Also possible as an avenue for evangelism.

Thought #2a
I'd want to go back for Christmas to non-cliched Christmas music. Exposed to a lot of big band or funky arrangements of Christmas songs so that when I go back home I don't want to hear the pan flute Christmas compilation CD that my dad plays Every. Single. Year. It's not cool. Nor do I want to hear the same old arrangements on Christmas songs. It's been done a zillion times already on a zillion other albums with a zillion squared singers.

Thought #2b
Speaking of Christmas songs, I wonder how would we Asians feel like had we lived the American lifestyle and listening to these songs that only the Americans know so dearly. Being Asian and all, we don't really understand when we hear the lines "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nibbling at your nose..." or
Oh the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
And since we've no place to go
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it Snow!

We don't know the real spirit of Christmas (so to speak, without religious implications) that these songs tell about. All because of the weather. Mostly. Would we finally connect with these songs?

Thought #2c
Christmas like many other holidays are so universal in its observations but remarkably local about its original atmosphere. Or so the classics say. For example, the songs of Christmas don't change even for people who don't get snow at all. Is it possible to have Christmas songs that give the same atmosphere as it was originally composed yet something that locals in a radically different country can identify with?

Thought #3
Current music style liking, much to the "surprise" of people, math rock. It's like rock but with...math? Not to be confused with the similiar sounding "meth". And it seems like the Japanese are the best math rockers around.

Thought #4
Meh.

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Medicinal Treatment

Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at 2:02 PM | Posted by Juwen
It's been awhile since the last time I posted and as you can probably imagine, there isn't terribly much to do around here. Apart from the obvious.

On the plus side, I got back my results and I have to say I was a bit stunned at some of them. Just to give you an idea, all 4 of my subject marks have a range of 5% (that means, the difference between the lowest and the highest subject marks is 5%). I've never had marks with such a small spread before. Ever. The second and more amazing thing is that, for all 4 subjects, I lost a total of 25% only. The third thing is that the highest subject mark was a subject that I thought I screwed up the exam a bit. But I really praise God for the results because I could have dropped dead at any moment doing the crazy but fun assignments or just have a brain overload but He sustained me through. He has been merciful at times when I just felt like "Oh what the heck, let's paint the town red today" with 2-3 days left to submission. Not very smart on hindsight.

The next biggest thing to happen was that I got the chance to be the casual photographer for one of my medical friends who graduated a few days back. Another not smart move was that I've decided to take along my film camera and my digital and somehow most of the pictures were in the film. And I bought an Astia for the job. That's putting a lot of eggs in one basket. On the plus side, I feel special since during the "photo taking" time, every 1 in 2 people you see have a DSLR on their hands. I was the only one actively taking photos with this '75 film camera. On the negative side (hehe), it did give me unnecessary pressure in taking the shots which means that Murphy's Law might be creeping around the corner. Oh, and the other good thing was that I got to talk to one of the photographers who was with my friend's housemate (also medical student) all because she spotted my film camera. She's quite an interesting person. She reminds a lot of Lydia Lee, the missionary that OCF is supporting in Singapore but not as hyper. We both started checking each others equipment and chatted from there on albeit sporadically. She was an Olympus user with a Sigma lens. That's something you don't see everyday. And likewise from her now that she knows I'm using a Pentax. But she has apparently 9 rangefinders in her possession and she showed me one of hers, a Yashica model. Can't remember what was the focal length but it was cool. Not as heavy as a friend's Voigtlander. Anyway, yay for another film user. On a tangent, is it just me or are most of the film users Singaporean? I can only name one Malaysian who does film (when he can).

Spent the whole day with my friend's family, whom I've met most of his siblings already but it was an interesting experience meeting them in person. Not to mention some of the other medical students families as well. For one person, when I saw his mother I was at a loss for words. She has quite a good number of years to her name, grey haired and all. But she was like a textbook example of aging gracefully. Normally you wouldn't associate gracefulness or elegance of her age to a person who has probably gone through more than half a century of life experience but she really is the epitome of those qualities. It gives the impression that she has a wonderful character, one that I'm sure my friend's father would already know. It's something we, in our current society, fail to praise such women or even fail to see them. I knew of the story on how his parent's met and he couldn't understand how that could happen because he doesn't see his father doing or saying things to his future wife when they first met. Now I can probably understand how it all happened.

Also another interesting thing, now that this friend of mine just got a girlfriend, she was introduced to his mother and I was being a ninja behind a bush of people and I saw this impression/expression on the mother. It was faint, hardly noticeable to the everyday in passing person but there is no mistake about that when you do see it. It's something that I don't have a word to describe. Good thing there are several (hundred) words to describe it. There is a certain type of glow on her face as she talks to the girlfriend, although it was short in length, but there are many more things going on. For starters, it's the "She's a nice girl" but a bit more than that. It is probably closer to the look of "Future daughter-in-law?". I kid you not, if you were there with me you could have sworn you'd see it too. But there was something else to the impression/expression given her stature. It looked like she was reminded of herself when she was younger. I don't know how true is that but it certainly looked that way. Amazing isn't it how many words/thoughts/ideas can be passed on in an expression that lasts a split second?

And back to my friend's family. His parents were interesting, how they interact with each other, how they interact with us and so on. I've known most of his siblings except one who was quite a fair bit younger than the rest. She looked like a cross between a friend who recently got married and a friend from Adelaide. She's quite hyper but a bit of a slightly unconventional girl. She plays guitar, bass and drums but mostly on bass. The first I said to her when I heard that she played bass is "Keep playing more bass and drums! You're doing a huge favour to bassists everywhere and specifically female bassists". Quite an odd thing to say to a person I've relatively just met on hindsight actually. Despite her age, she does know quite a fair bit about bass which is a good thing. Gave her some pointers when we were chilling out in her brother's place. She's got potential and have it easier than me when I started on bass. First of all I started when I was 18, waaaay older than when she started. Second, I didn't have a person who taught me bass all the time unlike her. I had to figure a lot of stuff out on my own with little or no teaching and with lots of frustrating trial and error on tone-deaf ears. And thirdly, she would have the benefit of more experience by virtue of her age. Youth isn't always wasted on the young.

Went out for some drinks and then went back home to crash.

The following day, I missed church thanks to my sister waking me up early in the morning via noises and bumps downstairs. Basketball and captains ball soon followed but not without meeting up with Lydia and Brandon to do the long delayed physical wedding photo album. I'm clearly the least efficient of the lot but what matters is the final product. Dinner later with a bunch of friends and I was hooked on the specials menu they had because it sounded so good. Risotto with crab, garlic, chilli and saffron. *drools*. Unfortunately, the rice was a bit undercooked and there are no other flavours in the rice making it bland. Crab was cooked great but unfortunately that's the only good thing. So much drool potential on that dish but fails to deliver. Sigh. On the other hand, there was a good conversation going on although I think it was mainly between two people. Quite sad actually. But it was a really intellectually stimulating one but I guess no one either thought that far or would think about it at all. And then drinks at 1806 in conjunction with Yee Meng's birthday. They have really nice drinks there. Should go there more often. And after a few drinks, you really must have McDonalds fries. They are like the awesomest thing in the world.

Game update: 2/3 done with Supreme Commander.

News update:
The integration between man and machine is drawing ever so near.

Some people have no life, yet they are highly respected in their respectively communities for their feats or achievements.

Nice abstract.

Some bold claims on Singaporeans and Malaysians in the political scene in the aspect of news reading and reporting. And Rithmetic.

Interesting statistics on Malaysian citizenship. Or lack thereof.

Sounds like he was predicting his future when he penned that song.

MIT people completed a DARPA $40,000 challenge in 9 hours when it could have gone for 9 days. Talk about thinking light years ahead.

Who knew that wireless technology came from trying to answer a question about exploding black holes?

Something for Christians and non-Christians to think about.

I'm sort of jealous
I wish I had what they have
Mistakes do happen

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Gaming Experience

Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at 12:54 AM | Posted by Juwen
And so once again, I've finished Half Life 2: Episode 1 & 2. Story line is getting interesting and the pace has started to pick up in the past two episodes. It has been an interesting move for Valve to produce 3 episodes to continue the Half Life stories because Episode 1 and 2 have been criticized for being too short. These episodes can be completed in a slightly longer sitting than Portal but I mean you can't have everything. Valve has already made the choice to to three episodes more evenly spread out content than waiting for another 5-6 years to get another substantial run of content. The critics should cut them some slack. But anyways, I can't wait for Episode 3 to come out. Things should be very interesting from where we finish in Episode 2.

So where to now since I've completed the FPS games already? Time to move to RTS and there is plenty to keep me company. I've just recently bought the Command and Conquer compendium so that's another 12-13 games there already and not to mention Supreme Commander. So much to go through.

And now the news:
This shows that you don't have to be a fancy restaurant with rather exorbitant prices to earn a Michelin star. There is hope yet for the small cafes and restaurants. Hope my LolCafe would be good enough for the Michelin star. Ai gif u bes purrice wif yummeh noms n ai can haz star? Kthx.

Interesting idea but I've got counter arguments for that. My mother loves liver in here noodles etc and I hate it. And I'm pretty sure that she eats it when she was first pregnant. Oh and I don't really like coconut water and apparently she drank quite a lot of it then.

Spirit of Thanksgiving to lead into the Spirit of Christmas?

All by myself
I wanna be all by myself...
Eric Char Men

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