why is it everyone else can put pix on their blog without having them disappearing mysteriously one day but mine seems to be eternally plagued by this curse? if i ever find the wanton geek who's responsible for this, i'll stuff those .jpgs up his.... orifice. let's try this again and hope after a while the pix stay....

On a brighter note, Merlin sent me what our response should be to the baby crisis. Can someone send this to the sexually-deprived, chauvinistic old pig of a minister who said that giving birth was the patriotic duty of every citizen?

Cookies!

Sorry, not the confectionery kind.... Just a few bites of today's news.... the ones I liked anyway... :p

So... From the Straits Times, Mar 19:

Big hunt for robbers who fled to Tekong

Full ST article here

SAF personnel are now combing the island of Tekong, hunting down 3 armed robbers, who fled there from the nearby coast of Pengerang, Johor. Right now, they're focusing on the northern part of the island and they've got guardsmen, recon troops, Special Operations Command and Gurkhas, along with 12 search dogs.

Gee, that's a pretty huge party searching for 3 men.

Now comes the chips.

Firstly, I donno what the robbers were thinking when they decided to flee to Tekong of all places. [let's see, fear of capture, fear of death, fear of imprisonment... pretty much that] The conversation must have went like this:

[in Malay]
A: Ok, that veg stall owner was a bad idea, but hey!! We got RM8000 from the boat! Yahoo!
B: But now how?? Going into Singapore meh?
C: Better not ah! They cane people there one leh!
A: Eh, down there got island, got jungle some more, we can hide there first!
B: OK! Good idea!
C: Er, why got men hiding in the trees carrying guns ah?

So pretty much, they flee the Johor police force..... to end up on a Singaporean military camp where almost every man is armed. Granted the NS guys are probably untrained, but think about it. If you're scared shit, tired, and untrained, with a rifle in your hand, and the first thing you see jumping out of the forest is a guy with a gun pointing at your head...... [Argh!!! BANG! BANG! BANG!]

No wonder all NSmen were ordered to stay confined to barracks the whole time the search on the island was going on. Their nonchalance at the situation, however, belies the serious nature of it all. At the time the searchers were ploughing through the jungle and the rain, these guys were gleeful for having their road march cancelled and one battalion was having their battalion party as planned. Hello? We have armed brigands here? These are the defenders of my children?

Then the really BIG chocolate chips come up. If you read between the lines, you come up with the following chips:
1) The robbers are on a jungle island, with cash and jewellery.
2) They are believed to have fled to Tekong early yesterday morning.
3) The troops began searching at about 11am yesterday.

What does that tell you guys? C'mon, think about it!

Think hard!

Any clues?

None at all?

You're getting irritated at this?

Ok fine.
1) Cash and jewellery cannot be used in the jungle, and obviously not be pawned to the SAF on the island. Where is the next nearest place the robbers can use their loot, if the hunt for them in Johor is on?
2) + 3) The robbers fled there early yesterday morning, which could mean anywhere from 7 in the morning, to 11 when the search came on. Which means they could have had at least 4 hours to escape to somewhere else where they could use their loot.

Where is the next nearest place for them to cash in their loot? You got it..... Pulau Singapura itself......

These guys are now being chased hard, both in Johor and Tekong. Assuming I was one of them, it would seem to me that my next desperate course of action would be to make my way to Singapore somehow. I can't go back to Pengerang, because I'm being hunted there. I can't stay in Tekong, because the place is small, and crawling with armed personnel more armed than I am. If I had arrived in Tekong around 7-8am, that still gives me time to make my way to Singapore before they think to search for me in Tekong. And since Singapore is slightly bigger, if I move fast enough, I can maybe get into the island, hide in the crowd and then figure out my next move. And while I'm at it, hey, maybe I'll hock that nice gold necklace for some cash somewhere.

So, unless the robbers are more stupid or desperate than I think, the possibility of there being 3 scared, desperate armed men roaming the streets at this moment right now seems very, very real. Which, on the bright side, beats having bombs placed in messenger bags all along the MRT tracks.

Right now, not much is being mentioned about the robbers except for the article in the papers, so either there's no development on it, or they don' wan' us to panic about the prospect. [Argh! Shriek! Eek!] I'm just hoping that the thieves are either slower or more stupid than I gave them credit for, and that they find them fast, and not on the mainland. Gun violence in Singapore. Who'd've thunk?

Helping Tenderheart do some research for her thesis, and starting to remember what a total nightmare the whole process is. You log into the digital library, select a database, key in the stuff you're looking for and then......

The database unrolls a bunch of stuff in front of you that you never asked for, and you curse the blindly-thinking algorithms behind all this. Or worse, nothing comes out and you have to keep searching frantically trying every combination of words you can think of into the search engine.

*Sigh*

Anyway, to entertain you guys, [and to Candle, trying to brush up her English] here from the Back Page of 8 Days...

English Writing Rules to Drive You Mad

1. Never use a big word where a diminutive alternative would suffice.

2. Always avoid alliteration.

3. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

4. Avoid cliches like the plague - They're old hat.

5. Don't use commas, that, are not, necessary.

6. Don not use a foreignn word when there is an adequate English quid pro quo

7. One should never generalise.

8. Be more or less specific.

9. Use youre spell checker to avoid mispalling and to catch typograhpical errers.

10. Avoid, poofread carefully to see if you any words out

11. Don't use abbreviations, etc.

12. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.

13. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.

14. Contractions aren't necessary.

15. Who needs rhetorical questions?

More in next week's 8Days....

Was just surfing through the Xanga website. Those not in the know, it's another bloggin server, out there for you to create cool blogs. [when i write it that day, 'bloggin' now looks like an adjective rather than a verb..]

So anyway, not a bad website. There are a bunch of features that Blogger doesn't have, like the ability to put background images on your blog and profile pictures of yourself. Coolz. Unfortunately the code doesn't seem as manipulat-able [is there such a word at all??] as the Blogger code. Somehow all the xanga sites look pretty much the same as one another. [sorry kry5t4l. :p] So either the HTML is not accessible to the public, or the owners of the sites I've seen have not tried anything with it. :p

And somehow you can only link to other xanga sites? You can't seem to put external links on your blog, like I did with this one. Once again, matter of coding.... The Code is the secret language, known only to the few who are willing to learn. Very Jedi, but since we're talking about computer code, it kinda fits. In a way. [right, release your inner geek]

However, the good thing about it would be since you can't manipulate the code, you have to rely on your own writing to keep your readers interested and coming back. [that is, unless, like in this case, your readers are your friends who don't wanna hurt your feelings by saying they didn't read your blog. :p] No flashy animation, [not that much anyway] no long list of Links To Websites I Like, and no pictures. [none of the blogging servers allow picture upload anyway, unless you pay for it] Just good, ole' simple writing.

But isn't that the same for Blogger anyway? Wat the 'eck are you talkin' about?

er..... you know what? I don't know anymore.... :P :p :p

A CheckList of My Life

Well the mess on the trip is starting to kink out a bit thank God for that.

My ERS also finally came in, so my bank a/c has a positive cash balance again.

My long-awaited comics also came out, 3 at a go. Ergh. While I sorely missed my manga, it pains me when so many are released at the same time, and I have to fork out the cash for them all. Unfortunately, for me, manga comes under the category of 'Needs and Necessities' rather than 'Wants'. Necroz, your Tsubasa 4 is out, will lend it to you once I'm done with it and when we can meet up.

Starting 2 new students next week, this time in Bishan. Really hope I don't get fired from these again, cos I really need the cash right now. Please please please oh God.........

Considering
-selling stuff online to make more money
-making my own online comic. Already have some ideas, now need to kick myself to do it
-eating the baked potatoes Mother has put in the fridge
-making a sorta online portfolio and putting up some of my stuff on it. Once again I have to kick myself to do this.

Also need to create some English grammar worksheets for my adult students. Hope they don' fire me too soon either.

As entertainment, check out this toy I saw recently in Seiyu at J8. Something every army in the world needs....... The Amazing Bio-Scan
If I actually get enquiries about this I'd laugh till I die. Hey if people are willing to contribute thousands to help some Nigerian prince smuggle money out of the country......

BTW special regards to THE SLAYER who's only just discovered my blog. Yipee. *Pulls cracker and one measley piece of confetti comes floating out* heeheehee.... ;) She's starting a blog too, so I'll link her when she has more than 1 line on it....

Kry5t4l's starting a blog on relationships too. Will link it up soon too.

Ok that's it for now. I don' wanna spend too much time online cos I'll get stuck and never come out, or I'll begin another round of minesweeper. See you guys.

sore with guilt

Great, now after my last rant on my Europe trip ( see below if u haven't read it ) there's now a buncha people who think I'm upset with them or something. Turtle wrote me a email from Sweden telling me to chill and Bunnygirl freaked because I missed her phone calls [3 of them, actually] n called Juls frantically saying how upset I must be with her that I'm ignoring her phone calls and stuff. N of cos Juls tells her Aiyah She Always Like That One Lah...... which is the truth as most of you might know...... n then he tiredly calls me up to tell me what happened and that's when I find out about it.

This trip is starting to give me a whole lot more grief than I had bargained for. Bleah.

So screw it. I'm gonna write about something a bit more cheery now.

Captain's Ball at Church

It's been a long time since me and the IJers had touched a basketball now. In sec school, we used to spend all our recesses at the basketball court. Once the bell rang, me n Stingray would run down to the canteen, get our food and meet the rest of the girls. We'd usually buy the kind of food we could hold in our hands, like the hotdog popiah or the sandwiches, so that we could finish eating them fast. We'd then go to the basketball court to meet Doe, SaraJ, Jul, ( not the male one mentioned above ) n the rest and then sit in a group at the court, in the shade of a tree growing nearby. Once we finished our food, we'd grab the basketball someone had earlier hidden in a nearby grove of banana trees and start our game in earnest. Needless to say, we usually ended up going back to class hot, stinkin' and sweaty, and loving every minute of it.

After we graduated from sec sch, there was hardly any more time for us to indulge in basketball any longer. Our timetables were all radically different, some of us having gone to JC, some of us having gone to Poly. We were too caught up in school, tutorials, and projects to meet up anymore, even once a week, for a game or two. Not helping the situation was that we lived in opposing corners of Singapore. Me n SaraJ lived in central Singapore. Doe lived in Yishun, Stingray in Jurong, and Jul in Sengkang. The geography was against us. We met up once or twice to play but never managed to make it a regular thing between us.

Then last Saturday, a Captain's Ball competition was held at Stingray's church, and we formed a team of 5 to enter. Players were me, Stingray, Jul, Doe and Doe's bf. What fun.... *muses* We gave it our all against those young punks, and despite age, despite lack of practice, and years of a sedentary lifestyle, we prevailed over most of the other teams. Ok, so one of them was a bunch of er, primary school boys who were almost like, half our height. It seemed almost criminal to compete against those boys, but hey, all's fair... and besides, one of those young punks tried to intimidate me by yelling, "You watch out ah! We're going to get you!". This from a boy who's just higher than my waist level. It's almost funny, if not for the prospect that they could pull a David on our Goliath.

A huge advantage of cos was Doe's height. To those who've never seen her, Doe is almost 170, which effectively makes her almost as tall or even taller than most guys we know. And when you put her up on a bench to be our team's goalpost... Suffice to say, there was a large point in our favour. :p One of the teams we played against, a team of all boys, lost 11-6, because their defence wasn't high enough to reach her, so all we had to do was lob the ball to her and they were powerless to stop us. Legs not strong enough, guys... :p

Too bad that once we were against GoodMeat's team, we finally lost/drew. Well, Doe forgot to keep score so er, we weren't sure, although we were almost certain we won, even if by a margin. We were too tired at that point, I guess, and when it came for a rematch against that team, to decide on a victor, we decidedly lost. Thank goodness, because GoodMeat's team then had to play against the Dragonball team, [as we named it, because one of the players looked like the main character, with his hair gelled up in that style] and they were crushed as cockroaches. Owch.

But it was fun anyhow. Relived a lot of old memories for us, working in tandem to throw the ball into the net, or in this case, into the arms of the goalpost. For a moment there, we were suddenly 10 years younger once again, running up and down the court like cannonballs, crashing against the opposing teams like cannonballs, [indeed the church had this 'contact' thing, which was a foul that had occurred when someone banged against someone else too hard, and Jul was like, er, I'm fine, let's just go on... So funny, we had never played with that rule and suddenly...] getting hot, sweaty, stinky, feet aching from too much running, lungs gasping for breath, skin scraped off when we landed on our knees, [Stingray] bruised when we crashed against our opponents...... and loving every minute of it once again. :)

Funny thing isn't it? You'd think that having to go through all that exercise, with opponents probably 7-10 years younger than us, [in the case of the young boys, maybe 15 years would be a closer bet] would make us feel our age, and make us feel older, and for me, it just made me feel the opposite. I didn't even feel that tired after the game was over, and I didn't experience aching muscles the next morning. Just, for that moment, the thrill of the game, the adrenaline of the chase, and now... the memories of times past. *sigh*

Stressed On Holiday...

and that's even before I leave for it..

Yes, my much-awaited, much-talked-about, much-deliberated, much-delayed, long awaited trip to Europe is finally happening. And yes, unlike previous times I talked about it in front of you guys, it is definitely happening. I've booked my air ticket, my rooms, ( more or less ) and the only thing left is for me to fork out the cash and I'm on the way there.

Although at this rate, planning for the trip may stress me out so much that by the time I leave, I WILL be in dire need of a holiday.

*sigh* Planning issues, planning issues...... The last trip I planned for was a 3D trip to KL and that went fine...... All I had to do was go down to the travel agency, choose a hotel, choose a bus, and ta-dah, we were on our way to Malaysia... n there were just 5 of us all in Singapore.

Now I have to contend with:
travelling 6 different countries in 2 weeks,
worry about the financial status of my bank account,
worry that one of my students may fire me ( again ) after less than a month, rendering me unable to finance my trip,
hunting and searching for the cheapest places to stay and yet are strategically located near the city centres,
corresponding over email with Turtle, who's in Sweden as we speak, and who disagrees with some of the plans that I've made and wants to strike it out on his own with his gf

Argh!!! Eek!!! Funny that a holiday, a holiday, mind you, can actually be the cause of so much stress stress STRESS! I don recall getting this worked up over my projects n tutorials but over a holiday of all things, the one that's supposed to help me relax! What the freak is this logic?? Just last friday I had to spend 3 hours sitting in the damn agency office searching for rooms that'll accomodate the entire group within the time frame we wanted, ( Which has a whole host of problems with it that I don' wanna mention on the Net. Will tell u guys face to face if you ask ) and then now 2 members of the group are thinking of pulling out of the Lon/Par leg of the trip, AFTER i went through all the effort to get the rooms.

Shriek. Wail. Pull out hair.

Right... ok not that bad yet...

I'm just waiting for the day when I can just book and pay for everything and have everything set in stone ( or black ink on paper ) and no more changes can be made. Then I can relax. Then everything is certain to a certain degree and no one can pull any more funny stuff on me.

Incidentally if any of those involved in this trip are reading this blog, I'm just ranting k? This is not meant as a diss against you guys, and I'm not trying to accuse anyone of anything, but I'm really getting damned stressed and this is just an outlet for me to let out that stress.

But I still am going on this trip. In fact, after all this shit, I'm even MORE determined to go on this damned trip and have a good time, godamn it!! And if anyone or anything else tries to stop me as the time draws nearer, they're gonna have one hell of a hellcat to reckon with...

It'll be a long time before I plan such long-haul trips again I tell you.... My next destination will be Thailand and I'll just go to Chiangmai and Bangkok and I'll keep the group small. Ergh....