Just when I started tuning my guitar today & before I could get any tunes up on my favorite Good Charlotte song, my e string of my guitar broke.. argh!!

Dang I don’t have a spare anywhere, shouldda go easy on it. considering its the thinest string… but I think its time for a string change anyway. And there it was standing broken & unable to play a song.. though I could always do alway with the highs.. but arghh! disaster!

Then hope came, my parents planned dinner out so maybe I can drop by somewhere.. where I can get replacement strings fast.. & hey there I was next at parklane shopping mall, opposite peace centre.. the mini music heaven… got my strings changed at my favorite Parklane music novelty store at the basement. The old uncle there is always very kind, never fail to have to good chat & usually gives good discounts for stuffs there, you should check out his music store, I reco that with quite a selection of accessories guitars & amps.

However, I had never changed strings at that store before. Furthermore my guitar spots a Floyd Rose Tremolo system so I would like to heck the hassles of changing strings myself. So I asked whether he provides the service, “sure, no problem, that would be $2 per string, $10 for all 6″ he replies… ok reasonable.. but next I was kinda “dumbfounded” when he took out his modified power drill attached to a de-tuner winder attachment to unwind the strings & put on the new ones, quite hardcore but otherwise, very impressive, & I thought we peeps were limited to those “relatively good” manual tuner winders… but a drill attachment? whoa! But it gets the job done very professionally & in record time too, plus tuning… well at least now I know a good place for strings replacement service!

Had dinner at rex resturant, opposite the sunshine plaza, they didn’t have much food left as its near closing, so we only had chicken rice with veg, still hungry we left for paradigm center back across the road where I had a foot long subway meal while mum & dad had their complete dinner at the center’s foodcourt. Tuned the guitar the moment I got home, & just in time for my ATW, camp mate, wong to meet on mirc (though I was 1/2hr late) to transfer the AHM photos he took on his camera. Would be uploading them up soon.. the pics should be up tml then.

Dang I am so awake now, just woke up from 2x 10hrs sleep blocks fromt he last 48hrs. Oh well, since I am very much up myself… lets just recap some happenings yesterday.

Literally slept the whole morning-afternoon when I came back from AHM yesterday. Its a joint run together with the sheares bridge run held in the morning. Had only 1 1/2 hours of sleep the night before where we set up the waterpoints the moment we reached there saturday afternoon, only to start resting around 6pm then waiting till 1am where we can put up the overhead banners when the road closes. Set up a hammock between 2 coconut tress (no falling ones) & rested till 3am where we did finishing touches & most of the stores preps started when the ice supply truck arrived.

The run kicked off about 5.30am just in time when everything’s done. The first runner reached us around 6.15am- an African runner, all chasing the front LSV scout, they were literally sprinting- all 21km! Then came few of the relatively faster runners then the bulk of the 21km runners around 6.30am till 7am. Drink demand wasn’t so high then till about 7.30am. Most seriously competitive runners don’t drink, its only those leisure runners who drink lots- demand surged high around 7.45am & we can say that we were literally one & soaked with the Gatorade we were serving, given the frantic demands for it. Demand seem endless & theres even queues at our water point just the gatorade… dang. It was so bad I guess any longer, I guess my hands & the guys helping out at my waterpoint would have our hands “Gatorade” further (yes our hands were a yellow-oranage hue to it thereafter, due to the constant scoping/mixing/blending of Gatorade). Not to mention the danger of frost bites when where we have to mix the super chilled drinks at the peakl of demand. Litter was everywhere, & the road were very much a littered- green & white mess of paper & Styrofoam cups all tramped & meshed to a spread of green-white flakes being contrasted onto the road, a quite spectacular sight. Furthermore given the endless number of runners, we can’t even pick the litter off the road, they just keep coming, all 8000 of them! Thank goodness we had park cleaners who saved the day by helping us clean up after the event. No hesitation to offer them drinks for their service too.

We went out of Gatorade around 8.15am then & whats left were slightly yellow hued plain water with a very diluted Gatorade taste. Can’t help it! we were out… by around 8.30am all 4 waterpoints on our side were all serving ice water, which slowly turned to warm water when we start to run of of ice around 9am. At this time, mostly left are all the “sio gan” ones who literally only care about walking the whole 21km distance. We started packing up around 9.15am & loaded everything up our transport back to camp. it would be a 2 day off for us (mon & tues). Whew! thats all for the sunday. The results of the waterpoint competition are not up though, hope we would win!

Before the day started, woke up at 6.15am halfdead, ate breakfast.. do normal morning stuffs.. blah blah, next thing there I was walking up to chonggen’s house after dad dropped me off for work. Kinda slept (rested) there for a while. Got his uncle to drive us to the venue for the day thereafter, its 8am then. & yea, the coffee CG’s maid served did wake my morning up alittle, really needed that morning caffine boost anyway.

Today is ATC aniversary day & celebrations were held at Safra Yishun country club where we had watergames, rockclimbing, shooting & langames free for all to play. Very much spent the time after the opening ceromontion with most of the specs in the arcade lanning & playing arcadegames. Completed time crisis II with only $2.50 spent for continues.. hehe. Even Tanyi & darryl brought their own bowling balls to bowl there. Had lunch there before leaving the place at around 12noon.

Went to Jason’s house which was in the area for some slack while Jason got him self ready to go go for more Langames with us, which we already planned. & so the group comprised of CG, Jason, Tanyi, Janan & me who kinda got to appreciate how its like to be packed like sardines in a car. Got to parklane where we had about 4 hours of lanning with 3 matches of C&C generals & battlefield vietam (we had enough of Counter-Strike & warcraft in the morning lan). Sunshine plaza was the next venue where we intro-ed Tanyi to the place. all he could say was wow… As for me, I finally got the Patlabor whole TV series DVD set. Can say that each esiposde costs a dollar, as there are about 100++ esp in all. Everyone left after that, around 7pm. Went back to Parklane’s music nolverty store where I got a new guitar cool tunner with a large LCD display with a good bargain for $31 from #35, I like the store uncle there, very homyly & friendly. Dropped down to the basement arcade for some time crisis III (stopped halfway) before meeting up with my parents who picked me up thereafter. Had dinner at Golden Mile steam boat restaurant before heading home.

As the day passes with each going step, my driving test on the 8th next month draws closer too. Mmm, exciting… but I should be able to pass on this 3rd attempt. The 26th of this month, (which is this upcoming Sunday) is the army half Marathon day. I am am more of less in charge of the water point for my regiment, the project is finishing & is on schedule since 2 july, should go on well.

My computer is getting kinda corky & slow now, can’t wait to reformat my harddrive, but thats after I backup some stuff that is…

Some plans for next month: Get a New Harddrive, a new 256MB graphics card (maybe). Then I can finally throw my dinky old geforce 4 Ti4600 in my living room PC in place of it.

Hopefully my marksman pay will come in next month, then that would be a much welcomed spending boost!

On music, just download the Guitar Tabs for Good Charlotte, maybe I should start practising this rather good old song soon.

On the week to come, the prospects of nights of on wednesday may be quite high, so you can see me back on the light or so. Otherwise, this week would be the forst week my unit would be experiencing the 5 day week thingy, yes I would be booking out on friday evening that is.

Its finally up & ready! Check out the new computer related tutorials out on site at this URL.

One more Kit-modelling tutorial to go.

Well, its late now, time to get some much needed rest from a day of writing. Finished the HTPC & External Harddrive tutorial today, updated the old DIY PC tutorial with some niffy updates, freshened up the images & made them bigger & more pleasant to the eye. The DIY computer section will now spot an idependent tutorial sub-section featuring an index for all the computer related stuffs & an FAQ from quetions I have received over the months, thats alot of work man. As promised everything will be uploaded only once everything’s finished. Whats left is the kitmodel, CPU & GPU tutorials which I aim to finish by tomorrow, more typing to go… Which makes me think: dang! I should be paid for these contributions!

I’ve been working on a few tutorials which I hope to launch altogether into the site sometime this week or so, so is the addition of a FAQ & updated tutorial of the old popular “DIY computer” article once I finish them all.

-Kitmodel tutorial (finally!)
-Building a HTPC (home theather PC)
-Asembling a 3.5″ External Harddrive

Upgrading your computer
-Processor (CPU)
-Graphics Card (& changing, GPU fan)
-Adding Case fans

Stay tuned for them!

My mum & dad picked me up from Kranji camp where I attended the Army Open House Post function with the usual AOH creative team, Zhuang & Karpal (well its his camp). The spread was good, the highlight being the rice in squid thingy, it was of an international buffet setting with bar stools & tables to chomp on ya eats. There was the post AOH speech by CAO & commendation of the work the sponsors, exco & formations who helped & participated in the event, which wouldn’t be possible without.

On my way back home in the car, mum asked about my future study plans, well it came very much of a sudden I guess I was not really prepared for it (though I could see it coming sometime now). I asked for more time for me to think about it, well its quite a big commitment about what I am gonna take. Initially I my degree study options are limited to that in Australia, where most Singaporeans go, I could not secure a place in a local University, well maybe on a course which I really want to take, truely to my heart & not just do any degree program just for the stake of having one… Mum suggested studying in the UK, specifically Scottland. But man won’t it be very expensive? Not quite shes says, maybe the airfare, but its as affordable as studying in Australia, furthermore university rates downunder are not getting any cheaper too thesedays. Whhee, UK, scottland? sounds impressive, but I would definately have to be freaking independent for that! Not to mention the possible friends & possbile relations I would make there… *ponders*

Hello college life again!

yet to come!