Well, there always comes a time when, well happiness ends? lol nah I was just referring to the end of the very much needed block leave which too, ended today. Passing by orchard road in the afternoon, the subaru impreza challenge at nee ang city seems to be heating up too, starting yesterday with more cars, more people, most of the spectators staying there watching people suffering in the afternoon sun/rain while they stay in comfort/shelter.. ohhh people. Lol wonder will they have am international queuing endurance competition, bet us singaporeans are pros at that. Marina square is still under renovation (thx lest for the intel), but their cinema area is more or less completed. Took a bus to suntec, almost forgotten with nichol highway closed, buses 14 & 196 are all diverted to raffles hotel-beach road so I have to walk from the shaw tower to suntec for some “pre-meet shopping” Enquired about the dell axim x50v at the suntec dell “try-it” kiosk, the sales rep weren’t very well informed about the upcoming product either, neither about the retail price, but they do know that its coming up around this dec. Met up with lester, david & desmond at city link mall thereafter & headed back to suntec kenny rogers ribs & steak for lunch. The bill went up to about $75 for 4 of us, thanks going to David for treating us to such a wonderful meal, well as usual he’s the one eating the most of it too. Guess army talk is very much the topic now for everyone, as most of us 1984 batch are more of less enlisted/enlisting into the army now. Education wise, desmond is still studying, lester grad from poly with a dip & like most of us are miserably serving the nation. David would be going some china university to study chinese, amazingly I always heard him talkin bout that, & I always thought that it was a joke! For me, hope I can able to get entry to a university with either australia or scottland to do computer based engineering, as local Us are so limited in choices, not to mention I hate the evident textbook style of learning here.

7 more months to ORD! & need for speed underground 2 would be out in SG 7th nov, check out for that!

Its another sunny sunday (thankfully) similar to that of yesterday morning. Its 10.30am & yea its sunday. Recapping some notable happenings of the weekend: Had steamboat dinner on Friday at Golden Mile complex & later dropped by to Geylang Serai for the festival shops & deco. They had lots of things, such as malay traditional sweets, dessert & finger food. Not to mention clothing & handiwork, quite interesting. The streets were all lighted blue/green orchard road style to the malay theming & the crowds there are humongous. Sheena got a handphone new handphone cover for her 7250i while mum got some sleveless & dad, some yummies & malay flour cakes. Drove everyone home thereafter had a fuel topup at commonwealth SPC gas station before heading home. I longed to have my own car, come to think about it, why can’t singapore be something like the states or maybe japan for instance where cars are cheap & what we youths can do are work parttime after school in some hangout or so. Instead oif being so coped up with tution, CCAs, homework & stuffs. Earn some cash so we can get some secondhand cars at dirt cheap prices (like $200-$2000, NO Farking COEs! ) from a 2nd hand or scarpyard dealer & souping it up every month bit by bit from our monthly pay, pampering it till it’s… WHOA!

Went for a swim on saturday morning, cos I said it was nice & sunny right? Anyway spent the rest of the sat at home coding, debugging the site & finally uploaded all the new stuffs, whats more? finally completing need for speed underground (70/111) & finally touched c&c generals zero hero with a few USA campaigns after almost 1/2 year+ the DVD box is all dusty now.

Well payday would be in 10 days time. Would be looking forward to my Geforce FX6800 purchase next month. Hopefully I can get only within my budget. Would be dropping by suntec later around 1pm, to do some shopping & check out the newly renovated marina square (its is completed that is) before meeting up with David & gang for his farewell lunch. Would be bringing my camera.

Ok, as promised the new site design would be up for all by tonight. You can check it out here.

DO NOTE that the new template is not fully up yet. Therefore there might be some visual problems/inconsistencies between pages. But they should all be fised by saturday.

The site would be usergoing a makeover starting today afternoon, during this period there may be some mismatch of colours, images due to the new css styles. But the site would still be upotherwise. Would see everything up by well, tonight. In the meantime why not check out these cool sites I came about:

Bunny music video: Everyone’s having more sex with me

Some chick on her bike to the Ghost Town- Chernobyl “dead zone”. Includes some very creepy footage of the immediate area around ground zero.

Mum finally succumbed to my constant bragging of going for runs & exercising. & mind you I don’t take excuses such as a long day at work or “look its 8pm & I just came back from work” When health is concerned. My parents are starting kinda starting to get out of shape now, so I guess me as their ‘personal trainer’ would see to that. & so, we (dad & mum) ran to tiong baru park for some laps & static workout at the park. While I did a 5 round run round the park, totalling about 3.5km I guess, nothing compared to what I run at camp though.. The training ended around 9pm with us heading to brickworks hawker center for some loh mee, porridge (literally they ate back all the calories!) I would see to a healthier lifestyle now. Dragging either them or better, both of them out for a run whenever I am free & at home home for at least once a week.

& so..

Site updates: Lots of debugging going on now, everything is at least 50% done. With some coding & template customization to do. I am including a few nice eye candies which can be handled on IE browsers, yet to test the scripts on Netscape though. Come toNetscape always gives me lots of headaches when it comes to compatibility, with so many features unsupported, wonder why do people still use it with mozilla & opera.

& hey, this is news there would be an inital-D movie coming out afterall, in 2005 to be exalt. With Jay Chao as Takumi… mmm

Just came back from a visit to granny’s. Went to abc market for supper thereafter, had chicken cutlet while the rest of my family had a more muslim type meal with satay & mee siam.

The more I drive, the more some habits start to show, such a “dishwashing the wheel”, not keeping left & coasting on neutral to a stop. Actually the coasting part is very much something dad wanted me to do, so as not to wear out the clutch linings so soon. Such freewheeling is particularly good esp when coasting to a stop, just gain enough speed then shift to N & coast to a stop at the red light. I wonder why don’t they teach that at school, well because it dangerous?

D12 is making great progress now (not one the new site project will be known as D12.V1.0: design type 12, version 1.0), I try not to be so coupled up or being much of a slave to the computer now, doing all my work bit by bit everyday & try to spend lesser time in front of the computer working, considering it being off days for me. The pr0ject is roughly 30% done with most of the graphical elements created awaiting upload, this time we should be able to see a much larger space devoted to the shoutbox, not to mention finally a working & functional poll. The tough part would be updating the css & converting the current colour scheme to suit the new orangy theme (yea orange is back!). Would see more updates on that tomorrow.

Just came back from my WITS leader course at Toh Payoh, HDB hub, its a 9am-5pm workshop held today & tomorrow teaching mainly on skills & knowledge about being a wits team leader. Very much looked forward too are the 2 tea breaks at 11am & 3pm, not to mention the 1 hour lunch break from 12pm-1pm where, maocheng & me had lunch at a nearby foodcourt, fat ben met & caught up with us (as he had some chores to do) at the entertainment center’s arcade for a few round of nameco’s time crisis III. Brought a new PC game, Robot Wars Arena of destruction at a bargain of $25 at popular bookstore before heading to the Hub’s taxi stand where my dad was waiting. As usual, dad just wants me to drive. The traffic was ok, considering it around the end of work peak period timing. Was not used to driving with my Nike ACG trekking trainers as I couldn’t feel those pedals at all, settled that & drove back with feet on pedals in the end. Vertical parked at my home carpark for the first time since I got my license, parking was a little off center but otherwise still in the lot. Back home, dinner was great had been once in a while since dad prepared some very nice dinner, had steamed fish with salted vege & ginger together with celery, rice, sunday setup egg & mixed fishball, lettlute & beancurd soup, very healthy yet tasty, very yummy.

Would be working on a new site deign (v12) over the next week week block leave, we should be able to see it up around mid week or so.

wee ho hay! its time of the umm year? again where I just can’t stop bitchin’ bout holidays ahead. Yup you got that right its gonna be a short week ahead of me with work days monday, tueday & wednesday. Thursday & friday aren’t exactly free days but stay out days, as I have a wits leader course to attend during this period at toa toyoh HDB hub, working office hours in civilian. Then after that would be one ONE WEEK block leave. Though ain’t much of an “off or so” but its one week which I can spend on the world around me & not coped up in camp. *Yea!*

Furthermore next week would be (comparatively) quite a relaxing week operation flashpoint week where we spend all our time whole day in front of computers training using the SAF modification of the codemaster’s game.

And so what else did I do today? Sent an email to dell enquiring about the price & availability of the dell axim x50v, I estimate it going for about $800SGD considering its recent launch on the US site, going for $499USD. Furthermore one thing I like bout buying from dell are their ridiculously good rebates you get when you order online. For example is an offer on a current brand new dell Axim X30 624Mhz going for $628SGD after a $100 rebate. Would look forward to that on my x50v!

Specs of the x50v:
- 624 MHz Intel Xscale PXA270 processor
- 128 MB Flash ROM and 64 MB SDRAM memory with XMB
- Intel 2700G multimedia accelerator with 16 MB video RAM (Supports openGL games)
- Integrated 802.11b Wi-Fi & Bluetooth
- 16-bit VGA 640×480 res TFT LCD touch screen
- SDIO & Compact flash Type II slots

HP was boosting about the ATI video chip performance when they ran quake II on their hx4700 in an expo. Lets see what they have to say when Dell ran quake III on theirs!

Ok gotta book into camp early now, as I am the DI. See ya on wed night!

Its sunday morning! family day & what better than driving my family out for the morning. With my dad as my “navigator” (well I am sitting on his usual throne!) mum & sis as passengers behind. Fetched my sis for her tution class in good old jurong west & went to visit my grannys at nearby clementi thereafter. Did my first parking there. Went back to jurong & did my second vertical parking for the day where dad had a lunch snack, brought some fruits where mum went to a hardware store to get some items changed & got some yongtauhoo for lunch. The highlight was mainly my driving what I can say is.. not bad, especially my parking- all straight & centered on the lot. Luckily for me its a rather clear morning & the carparks are relatively empty, so I more or less had all the time I had. Stalled once at a filter near JJC on my virgin drive to my first destination. I recovered immediately & didn’t caused any inconvience to anybody though, just makes me wonder bout owning an auto car. During lunchtime dad highlighted on my driving tendency for high speed turning, not to mention wide turning, otherwise I am fine & needed more experience on the road. I shoulda work on that! Finally got the hang of the car’s clutch biting point & braking level “effectiveness” by the second journey. The main thrill was hitting 90km/h on the highway, considering I’ve never went up to the 5th gear before in bukit batok. With the exception of a gear shift stick which don’t really stand vertical when centered/neutral (why I didn’t notice that before!), unlike the new VTI honda civics I’ve used in the driving school. I was all used to my dad’s car by the time. The trip ended with me (guess I am fast becoming everyone’s driver now) driving everybody back home around noon.

With that done, spent some time at home helping my sis with some scoring hints & tips on her “O”level prac exams on tomorrow. Namely on strategies & precaution points she can add into her report for bonues, the rest is up to her. Wish her all the best for the exam tomorrow.

Me having second thoughts of installing kazaa on my fresh comp, it slowed down my first. No wonder, check out this read.

Oh yea before I forget too, new artwork, “bullettime” up on the art gallery.

Dell had released their new series of Axims, the x50 range. I ‘ve always been looking for a good vga PDA, with the $1199 hp ipaq hx4700 currently in mind, but with the similarly loaded $800 Axim x50v I think its reconsidering time…

Some reviews I dug on the net regarding the x50v:
Axim Site
Geek.com
BargainPDA
PDA buyer guide
Cnet review | Cnet video review

Spotting an Intel 2700G multimedia accelerator with 16mb dedicated video memory, hey its even better than the hp in terms of multimedia performance. What the dell lacks is a touchpad & larger battery the hp has. All in hand, the Dell is smaller, lighter though spotting a screen of the similar vga res.

Well, guess this is not the very of latest news. But hey I finally managed to complete Warcraft III Frozen Throne today, well after (counts fingers) 7 months or so. Guess my time in the army really takes away lots of your gaming time at home. Now lemme see, now I have C&C generals zero hour, Commanche 4, IGI 2, No one lives forever, Diablo II LOD, NFS Underground, WWIII Black Gold, Submarine Titans, JP op genesis left to complete.

Got an invitation for a gmail account. With 1GB of storage space, how can I resist? haha. You can reach me on my new account shaunchng@gmail.com.

The week ended quite ok with me as DI on the last day (fri) started the week with a much needed slow start with wos duty, allowing me to recover from my fever last sunday. I’ve got an ATTB status for 3 days till wednesday which I never used and I was more or less choinging out for the platoon’s armour phase “revisited” throughout the week. Stopped my dosage of fever & flu med by thrus & finished the antibiotics by today. Feelin’ much better now.

& so, the Armour phase ended this week with prac for the usual prep for ops, casualty evac, vc’s vp, sandtablin’, camo, bridge & mine clearing. With me as the new OVM OIC, guess the new implemented way of doing things now is very much more fast, accountable & efficient than what the previous OVM IC, Michael did. It involves the whole vehicle section at work & co-op into accounting all stores with a storelist (printed for both the vehicle commands & drivers) at the end of training. A new idea & something which raised eyebrows & commendation recieved generally from PC as well. Well… what he didn’t know is me behind the idea, thats nothing much for fame though..I was just doing my job! Sadly, the troopers have to end the week booking out late at 9pm with angcheck recovering some skeletons in their closet during area inspection, very much burnt eddy up. oh well…

My wits idea for an E-armskote had been positively accepted by DY ATC, & he eagerly wants a prototype out. The idea is very much implementing a cookhouse like digital card scanner where the soldier’s 11Bs are scanned, followed by their rifle’s barcode, engraved on the weapon itself. Then the machine will automatically compile the soldier’s name, rank NRIC with the weapon, type, butt & serial no from its archive, together with the time & date drawn out. This allows fast drawing & sending of large number of weapons at a go without compromising security. Moreover records of arms movement for the day can be stored digital of printed to be filed as a hard copy. A novel idea? mmm the problem now is how to come out with the program for it.

Looking forward, it would be an interesting weekend. Furthermore my photocard driving license was mailed in yesterday too.. heh heh…