Here I am at home enjoying whats left of my weekend.

Initially, tomorrow is supposed to be an off in-lieu in compensation of the burning of the upcoming weekend due to the army open house event. But it was taken away at the last minute, due to some AOH live firing issues on my company side. Tested is my new camera too which worked flawlessly to keep up with our ever hungry demands for photos. The eventual good news is that I would be getting an off in return for spending that sunday at work, well sometime in the days to come.

And so, stuff on the roadshow, it turned out to be quite a fun event, with kids, camo & crowds & stuffs, not to mention free pizza from our food sponsor, pizza hut.

Uploaded already are pictures of the event- The AOH Roadshow @ Toa Payoh HDB Hub!

*yawns* boy am I spent, well heres some stuff worth recapping…

First off came the rather pleasant news on sunday about the 5 day work week for both civil servants including schools & army camps. It official in my camp that the practice will start next month & working hours will be extended from 8am-5pm to 8am-6pm. Frankly those who get to lose are those who stay out everyday in camp, unlike most peeps like us, working to 8pm-9pm on occasions & staying-in camp everyday is the norm, however, booking out on friday night every week is an utmost welcome I say.

Started some serious woodwork on monday where me & my bunkmate, John stayed back at coyline building the plywood bionix waterpoint for the army half marathon, not an easy task, many would think otherwise, painting will start next week. The next following days were spent couped up in Armour HQ (aka head of AOH ops & shitwork) doing & *finally* finishing whats left of the Open house map & flash intro. Late week, thursday & friday were range days where I attained my marksman.

Mum & Dad dropped by the comdex 2004 suntec exhitbition & got me a creative SLiX barebone PC with audigy 2 soundcard for about $200, not a bad deal, a perfect combo for my new & upcoming Home theater PC (HTPC). Now all I have to do is to get an upgrade for my present workstation & transfer my old P4 2.53Ghz processor, 80GB harddrive & CD burner to the new HTPC.

Saturday (today) was very much spent at home, given an early bookout bonus for all markmans in the coy. It turned out (& expectedly) that karpal, my fellow AOH siakang warrior alliance member called up for some last minute flash movie add-ons & changes. Being slaves to endless fussy revisions & comments, our weekends are always literally spent (includng this only weekend afternoon I have for myself this week) doing AOH work. Finished it up around 6pm, delaying my dinner appointment with my parents, but they were understanding & weren’t as naggy as before. Tomorrow would be a day burnt on the AOH roadshow at Toa Payoh Hub, see you there if you may, I would be manning the darned info management counter , hope my OC would appreciate that & give me a very much needed off in return.

Had ATP-M (Advanced trainfire package maneuver) test yesterday, very much like the run-down type range test I’ve last month, only that instead of using the 5.56mm Carbine previously, my company’s using the Sar 21 5.56mm Bullpup rifle. Generally firing with the Sar 21 have its good & bad points, being heavier but compensated with its accuracy over long ranges, overall its a preferred weapon. is very much easier, esp at night with the integrated laser aiming device, don’t even need to use the included 1.5x optical scope. The rifle is very stable even firing up to 300m & I am sure it can do better further. To get a marksman you need a 32/40 score. Heres the result of my day shoot:

300m 6/6 (Random Fig 11, Fig 12)
200m 3/6 (Random Fig12, Fig 15)
100m 2/3 (Fig 11 moving target) & 2/3 (Fig 15)
50m 3/6 (Random Fig12, Fig 15)

I thought it was all over when I hit 16/24 in total for my day shoot, that means I needed 4 more to pass & 16 more to acheive a marksman. Yes a very pressuring & stressful situation I say. Heres the result for the night shoot:

100m 4/4 (Fig 12 shadowed)
100m 4/4 (Fig 12 flashing)
50m 4/4 (Fig 12 flashing)
200m 4/4 (Fig 11 lum)

Thats 16 folks, that means a total of 32/40, MARKSMAN! wheee! I am $200 richer now

Finally, the 2nd season of The Apprentice is now screening in the states. Lets see how much Donald Trumph & the fresh 18 candidates have to offer this time…;)

Back then, Alien was quite a good hit, so was Predator & its series, but what you get when you merge these two movies into one? Closely, a lame but not necessary cheap show without much of a plot unless if you are really a predator or alien fan, otherwise you did better spend money on better shows such as Fahrenheit 9/11, but for now lets say let the Alien vs predator flick be limited to comics & the rather popular PC game versions…

Cheers to Dominic, Qingrui & Alvin for the meet today, had lunch at lido orchard KFC after shopping around Wisma, Taka & Hereen. Changed my classic Singtel plan to the new iOne Plus plan for $25.90 a month with 100mins free outgoing talktime & free incoming all day. Not bad, so don’t expect me to call you, Call me! Oh yea!

Got a new Creative wireless desktop 6000 (mouse & keyboard) for my new home entertainment PC. Would be starting on a modding project to build a new computer case out of wood, exciting.. since I am involved with quite alot of woodwork for the week building & designing waterpoints for the Army Half Marathon, why not use some excess wood to make a case? we will see when the project is up & going…

For now, gotta book into camp soon…

And well, here am I back from a hard week of work.

I guess some achievements worth mentioning is my 2, 2 hour computers within the period of one month. Firstly with John’s $1500 computer which is up & running, allowing him to play Doom 3 & stuffs. Secondly is Adrain’s 2 hour $1000 computer all built with OS installed in record time, all up & running.. well after dropping by his house after book out to get it assembled today. Both are a basic P42.8GhzE comps with 513MB DDR400 ram, 80GB HD, reasonably feature loaded mobo, DVD-writer & 128MB radeon/nvidia graphics card. As a token of appreciation for the time spent, he even donated me his old PII 400Mhz. *grins* Now I’ve got an extra 32x CD-Rom drive, a PII 400Mhz processor with mobo, 2xbrandless PCI soundcards, a S3 virge 1MB video card, a 200W PSU & a HD of unknown capacity yet. Whee perfect parts for my upcoming family home theater PC, just love bringing life back into old condemned parts… Though they won’t fetch much in cash but maybe, I would try selling some of these stuffs off yahoo or ebay, or sell them to the SimLim cash converters some some pocket money.

Would be visiting granny’s & going out for dinner around the Eastcoast-Parkway area before calling it a saturday. Would be catching Alien vs Predator the movie with some friends for a lunch outing tomorrow afternoon, hope they get tickets already, cos its gonna be crowded!

Oh yea, feel free to check out the final Army Open House flash animation too.

Had some fun here & there with my new powershot digi-cam & hey! *SHOOTS* a new moblog pic too.. well, I guess its time I updated it too… Today is very much a day spent at home, resting, helping out mum with some chores, doing little webcoding, gaming, working out & my favorite, slacking. A typical sunday, family day. But *sighs*I just can’t wait for the time when I wake up on sunday morning without having the dreaded thoughts of booking into camp that very night, very demoralising at times. The problem with the army is that it takes out too much of our “youthful times” into doing things we have to force (& bluff) ourselves to like. We are supposed to be free & wild creatures, why the isolation? umm… with the exception of average pay, well too, I can’t really say life there suxs, it do have its ups & downs… But most importantly, the army is a place & job not much of a comparative advantage for me – I can do better elsewhere, fullfilling my wants & interests, therefore my remark.

Mmm, can’t stop playing, Outkast- Roses on winamp today, the songs drilled in my head, argh Kylie! why can’t you get this outta my head!

With Doom 3 taking the limelight now, lets not forget about Half-Life 2 man. Noticeably with the lip-syncing software which allows characters in the game to move their lips & talk realistically by just typing in the conversation as text into the speech maker software! Its so good that some mute & deaf organisations in the states are actually looking into it to aid the disabled. Cool!

And heres a 5.57MB video of the auto lip-syncing software at work, featuring the mysterious HL guy & pals singing OutKast’s roses, smells like boo-boo!

Aye matey, did quite some shopping today, namely. Personally it was quite a feat all done in 7 hours today too… Never’ve I been to so many stores, asked/haggle/enquire so many times in my life. 1st afternoon stop is off with me meeting John & Adrain at simlim to get his new computer built. Managed to get up a relatively good system for $1139, includes a P4 2.8E 800Mhz FSB prescott, MSI mobo, 512MB DDR400 ram, Leadtek Geforce FX5200, Maxtor 80GB HD, TDK 8x+/DVD-RW writer, casing & PSU. He would be giving me his old PII 400Mhz comp as a token for helping, hehe some scrapping ‘n’ stuffs to do!

Then I went around Simlim enquiring for my intend canon powershot A80 price, leading to one conclusion, the lowest price may not be the best bargain… I especially hate & very fad up with one particular camera store on the 1st floor, tended by some dishonest indian fat-ass offering inconsistent prices, rude & smokes in front of their customer (potentially me & nobody else inside), f*ck the $450-480 low (inconsistent) price tag, everything’s already very very bad. He even said this to me: “you go out & draw the $$ if you want to pay with cash, credit card I got to pay $$ to bank, you do then I bring box to you, if not you leave” Too bad I didn’t note the store name as I was too angry storming out of that shitty- ass store the next moment. Will tell ya the name if I visit SimLim again, its some 2nd store small store on the left placing the jade ship. BLACKLIST ‘EM! ….

Furthermore, all the stores in Simlim are retailing the China made version of the camera, shitty too! it just not a place as a general electronics hub, more of a computer hardware/software hub, now thats what I only like about SimLim!

Met up with Qingrui, Dominic & Byran for a short dinner meet at Breeks, marina after shopping around Raffles, Suntec, Millenia Walk, etc for more camera research, got some modelling cement from a Suntec hobby store (finally I can actually start on my comanche helicopter model), neato! Finally get to see better service around the vicinity, made my day definately better. As the shopping progressed, I was particularly impressed that Harley Norman actually stocks up the japan made models the Canon A80 camera, but it going at $649. There comes a question I (a customer) would ask: Price vs Service. & I can tell you I am one person who don’t mind paying $649 for the camera if you offer good service- & thats exactly what I’ve got at Harley Norman, Milliena Walk, from salesman by the name of Sofia. Very friendly, charming & very prompt in service, he even “jump queued” to tend to me, telling newer customers to hold. Very, very impressed, something I guess I couldn’t buy- good service. Included are 2 free 128MB CF cards & a cam pouch. Paid for the $649 camera without hesitation, & walked out with the camera & a very much happier person.

Took some test shots of the city skyline on my way home for dinner in my dad’s car, the camera’s seriously not bad, the reviews & homework are really paying off. The only low down is the weight of the camera, otherwise its perfect, no wonder its also Yahoo.com’s top digicam. Sightings of the day: Half of marina sqaure is under renovation, causing lots of inconvience to many around, even Mandrain Hotel is getting a major face lift.

So…. the seven seas in seven hours:
>> SimLim >> Parco Bugis Juntion >> Raffles City >> City/Raffles one Link >> Suntec City >> Millena walk >> Marina Square

Then home… end!