The Singapore national museum had changed quite a lot since I last visited the place a few years back. The front lobby area is still left largely intact, but though seemingly nothing much has changed on the exterior, the magic comes when you enter the building. The compound now spots an extended basement exhibition hall area, effectively increasing the exhibition floor area by a substantial amount.

Decked in modern-ish white and black it’s like the perfect showground for contemporary media- whether it’s the vast open spaces for large sculptures or the high walls to deck large paintings on. The two most interesting exhibits for the day are located in these two basement level exhibition halls, namely the Singapura 1960s exhibit and Cai Guo-Qiang’s controversial art.

The 1960s Singapore showcase
This exhibit “Singapore 1960″ celebrates a year on after 50 years of self-government. The display takes the form of a vibrant and colourful ‘live’ show set interjected with both noteworthy and quirky news articles throughout that year, all lined along the curved walls of time, separating the main exhibit partitions. Interesting to note are the news, advertisements and even comics shown on the papers then, some do really stood the change of time. The show features over 300 artifacts will be presented in the manner of art installations.

Interior of the museum

1960 Singapore exhibit

Clothing of the yesteryear

Featured too in the exhibit is a 100-year old Strohmenger grand piano which used used in the composing of the national anthem, sexy sarong kebayas, the Aw Boon Haw jade collection, fully sequinned Chinese opera costumes, hundreds of popular vinyl records and publications, two pairs of sweat-stained boxing gloves and a kitschy diorama; these were some of the icons that dotted post-WWII Singapore’s socio-cultural landscape.

The display is free for viewing and rather professionally done in my opinion. There are some cultural spaces familiar to Singaporeans then such as the eclectic Haw Par Villa and the defunct neon-lit ‘Worlds’ amusement parks. The whole display is rather small in my opinion and I believe could be expanded to show more of Singapore’s part than just that particular year, but that is just mostly it, would love to see more.

Passage through time

Niffy displays

Wall of vinyls

Commendably, in comparison to several museums I’ve been in London, particularly the Tate, British, Natural History and Science museums, which I can vouch for are world class museums, the Singapore national museum in my personal opinion not bad on that standard, with the exception of the smaller exhibition space.

I will touch on Cai Guo-Qiang’s gallery in a separate post.

Caught Avatar 3D yesterday afternoon at the Vue Cinema in Grafton shopping center. Yes I know it’s been a month since it was released and everyone had already watched it, let be some even 2 to 3 times, so this rant is not new. But I had not really been watching movies very often these days, let be even only major ones over the yesteryear. But when I saw the trailer to the show last year I told myself that it’s a show I will definitely have to watch.

And I did, and was blown away by the show. At the end of the show. I was lost for words, far beyond thinking ages since I’ve left a theater after a show feeling so captured, so memorized- I was torn beyond words to even describe how good the show was. Let be even forget about the high ticket price (despite it already heavily discounted at £6.95) I paid to watch the show in 3D. The experience the show provided was even worth more than the price. It was a show which I left the theater still overwhelmed, it’s just that fantastic.

One thing I like about adventure, sci-fi shows is that it immerses the viewer into a whole unique world given it’s rather bizarre ecosystem, told over a brilliant storyline and fantastic soundtrack (which I can’t stop listenng now) which amazes audiences at every corner of the planet Pandora. Well though as saying goes, sex sells, but I think the skimpy sexy Na’vis are just part of the main attraction in the show.

The show also blends in the world of nature, science and technology as an insight to a world as envisioned by James Cameron himself. All brought to life true a new frontier and setting a new benchmark for 3D and animated CG films (including human motion tracking film) since Final Fantasy, the spirits within wowed us almost a decade ago. And you need not to be an animator to enjoy the film by the polygon!

Avatar, though only 4 years in the making (since 2005) the story was actually written in 1995 over a period of 3 weeks, after James was done with the Titanic. It was set for a 1999 release, but CG and film technology was not mature enough to make the film as he envisioned it to be, until now. James is not done with Pandora just yet- A sequel is confirmed by himself and it’s rumored that the sequels could look at the interior of Pandora, possiblity introducing us more of the ecosystem as well as Pandora’s marine life. Apparently James Cameron has a whole underwater landscape mapped out. Sam Worthington (Jake Sully) and Zoe Saldana (Neytiri) have signed for a trilogy. With rumors of the return of RDA’s Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) and Secops’s Quaritch (Stephen Lang).

“Avatar” earned it’s place in the record books as the most successful and highest grossing Sci-Fi movie in history, I won’t be surprised if this show gets an award this year for Best picture and I believe they will, deservingly. For me, this masterpiece will get definitely get a place in my video collection when it releases on Blu-ray or DVD.

Being an avid fan of the battlemech universe, this installment to the mechwarrior franchise will sure to get any battletech fans jumping out for joy. The latest trailer released by Piranha Games shows the in game-graphics bringing out all the details of the battlemechs, far better than what I recall having entered the series in Mechwarrior 2, where there are like only 3 colours you can see on screen- the sky, ground and your HUD frame.

The trailer shows many interesting aspects of the game and HUD, particularly the all irritating cockpit voice. The core failure was spectacular too, and the cockpit features free-look just like in most modern cockpit simulators now. Not sure whether the HUD displays are live or just animated textures though. There are countless ways to destroy enemy mechs, so as how you as a pilot can to- I will be damned so see how an overheat meltdown gets to as well, if only there is the possibility to spam large lasers with your coolant flush depleted.

Nothing shown on my favorite mechs, the Timberwolf aka Madcat and the Vulture, but whatever your favorite is, I guess this new game will sure allow you to experience it the best any game can offer to date.

The trailer in High-Def on the click:

As part of the series of “Meet the cast” in the uber cool game, Team Fortress, which sadly had saw me playing for a good ol’ 10 years since 1999 with team fortress classic and now it’s sequel, team fortress 2. This latest installment is an early leaked version not released by VALVe yet, but it’s still cool as hell (no pun intended). As with this video, a keen eye may be needed to get a foothold or what to expect on future item updates for the game- other new in-game items can be seen in this video as well, such as the new “Saxton Hale’s croc-toothbelt” sniper hat and the heavy’s football helmet in the intel room which are new headgear entries for the respectively classes. Anything related to the scout’s mom, well that’s dealt in pure James Bond style.

With the game’s mature theme, expect gore to go with the video haha.

Ahem, now gentlemen, the video at the click:

Some how I still prefer the previous one in Meet the sniper.

Ahh, good ol’ Universal studios, and with a photo booth prank to boot as well. This one really made me laugh quite a bit, courtesy with footage on the tube from CNBC. I just wonder how cooperative people will get if we have this in Singapore, or will they simply just go off marching to the complains department, haha.

A good laugh for the day- the video of Doug Zongker’s “Chicken chicken chicken” lecture at the click:

The lecture slides in PDF for those who wish to zap them for the exams.

Check out this rather cool advertisement showing the change of time, over the new, fresh and modern over the dated and old- All in a rather interest video that is pure Audi, too bad we do not get such Commercials aired in Singapore (maybe Premium autos can take a hint of there) If you watch BBC’s topgear, I think Jeremy Clarkson really needs to rethink this remarks on Audi driver’s now, or maybe he is still too in the “stone-age” with this English Cottage house.

I like the part where the Mercedes C300 is swapped for the A4, it’s like so in-the-face for the Merc. Progress Is Beautiful, yea.

You can you view the full higher resolution video at the source on Audi America.

I’ve held this update till it’s officially released today worldwide. Today will mark the day where the 3rd line of class achievements are released. This time particularly for the Heavy class. As stated by Robin Walker in the official Team Fortress 2 blog, their main goal for the Heavy is to make the big guy be more effective even when there’s no medic around, so there is no pondering what type of weapons we can expect in this update.

The Sandvich, Natascha and the Killing Gloves of Boxing
The first of three unlockable weapons planned for the The Sandvich which is very much a standalone survival tool in place of the shotgun (which nobody ‘really’ uses if you are a heavy). Eating (activating it) heals 120 health. Eating a Sandvich in the heat of the battle will make a heavy stationary and completely vulnerable to attack during the four second eating process, even when his loud, happy sounds of vigorous chewing won’t draw enemies to him the least. The Heavy’s Sandvich supply is unlimited.

The Heavy’s second unlockable, Natascha, is a level 5 minigun with 100% chance to slows enemies with her bullets on hit, encouraging enemies to think twice when attacking him and find cover. Natascha is slightly weaker than the standard minigun ‘Sasha’ (25% lower daamge), so she takes longer to finish off a victim. Natascha have the same chance of criticals as the normal minigun.

Heavy’s Natascha Minigun

The heavy killing gloves of boxing

The heavy sandvich edible device

Heavy are Killing Gloves of Boxing (or K.G.B.), will replace the Heavy’s bare fists as his melee attack. The Heavy receives five full seconds of guaranteed critical hits to any of his weapons after killing any enemy with the gloves (i.,e you can switch to a shotgun and minigun with criticals for 5 seconds), the effect can be further extended (added on) with any additional foes he kills with the gloves. The gloves offer a slower swing speed than the Heavy’s uncovered fists, making use of the item somewhat riskier than the standard equipment roll-out.

The Heavy’s new weaponry will likely see a similar structure as the previously released Pyro update, which granted unlockable weapons at 10, 16, and 22 earned achievements.

Added Arena game mode 5 arenas: Lumberyard, Ravine, Well, Granary, Badlands
Arena features smaller maps that play out in shorter periods of time. The round ends once one team has no players left in the arena, or when the central capture point has unlocked and been captured. Rounds tend to be very fast and highly competitive, with an emphasis on your team’s class makeup and your plan to counter the opposing team’s class choices.

Arena mode is great for smaller matches of three vs. three players, while still comfortably supporting huge knockdown twelve-on-twelve brawls. Health pick-ups are limited in TF2 Arena (some levels don’t have any Health packs at all) so being careful is a good strategy for any class.

There is a new ad only on regular on Discovery now, ah, my favorite channel. And the same can be said for this Ad as well, it had been sometime since I’ve came across an Ad which will just make you go awww, thats so nice and fuzzy. I believe the ad will be more meaningful to those who actually watch discovery and know the people featured in the Ad- Mike in dirty jobs, Adam and Jamie in Mythbusters, let be the Deadliest catch and Storm chasers. Hey even Steven Hawking got some air time on it as well. Surprisingly OCC’s Paul Sr is not in the Ad, if not he would go: “I love my motorbike!” that would be rather ka boom! and iconic too.

I love the world and that is nice, with 1:07 of your time to appreciate it, on the click:

Here is an interesting find in the web wilderness. The following video was performed by Dr. Norihiko Ishikawa from the Department of Telesurgery and Geomedicine at the University of Kanazawa using the da Vinci robotic surgical system to well, fold origami cranes. Our intelligence findings showed that such occurrences can only have been performed in a Japanese environment, and we in the Occident can simply watch and learn. Wait till you see the size of that crane at the end of the video.

Hey here it is finally the Singapore Toy and Comic Convention 2008 was finally here. Held at the Suntec City convention center over the last weekend, the event is one of the few first public events to bring the whole toy and comic industry closer together in a series of annual cons and events held throughout the year and man was the place packed!

Here we are at Suntec for the SG Toy & Comic Con

View of the Singapore crowd wahhh!

The open stage

There is no entrance fee and you get a neat informational booklet with coupons upon entry, so any similar minded Singaporean will sure pop by to give a look. But don’t expect to find any goldmine of limited collectors editions comics from the dusty garage sale area or find trades for that all rare issue of superman missing from your collection- our comic fan base here is almost zero to nothing, so the only stuff we are getting here are not old 5c marvel comics dating to the ages, but rather reprints and rather commercialized bookstores simply selling their “goods”.

Few reputable companies were there as well, Imaginary Friends, the company which brought us the rather nice drawings and illustrations we can see in Capcom games (just to name afew) were there as well. Well not that the design scene in Singapore is appreciative of their work or many who know about them unless you are in the field. They have a life photoshop session on the projectors during showtime, where you can catch a few paint brush and spray tips here and there, but otherwise, for the average layman visitor there, all they can do is simply is stare in awe as the artists transforms a plain document into a nicely coloured illustration. Gary Erskine, who brought us lots of comics, notably even back from the old transformers era (no kids, it’s not that generation of transformers you see on TV now) was present at my visit and he was around to sign autographs as well as work on few on-the-spot commissions. Even old masterQ (lau fo zi) was there as well so that really added to the asian touch of the show, interesting.

Imaginary Friends studios double booth

Gary Erskine @ work

Some inedible bread anyone?

I was surprised to find an Singapore Polytechnic booth there as well, NUS was there too, specifically their comic club, but their presence was so small, I hardly even took notice. Otherwise for education institutions that very much about the attendance besides few private animation school offering courses of their own. I was surprised to find Mr Choy, one of my old lecturers who taught me in school back then who was the lecturer on duty at the SP booth that time. He proudly showed me his exhibits on display together with some background information and him being the coordinator chairperson of the event for the SP booth. Looks like they are intending to use the not only to showcase student’s works but largely to sell their design and animation courses as well.

Mr Choy at the SP booth

Some of the rather plain looking lego on display

Creepy dolls area getting photo raped

For the average visitor, this con is definitely an eye-opener for many, but if you’ve been to overseas comic enthusiasts conventions, things are really very much different, and they usually have one thing- focus and a very large fanbase, in fact it’s the people themselves there which makes it such a big hit, but it’s no evident here.

One reason why I find this local con rather disappointing is that besides it’s rather commercialized feel, there is no solid targeted crowd, with toys, dolls, game consoles, manga, animation, Japanese, Taiwan, Americian comics all thrown in one area. It’s like the organisers just want to hold the event to make a quick buck or two. You can’t put them all together and it dilutes the feel and authenticity of each genre. Coupled with a weak fan base here, it just makes this con here feel kind of aimless, not to mention pointless. There is no exclusivity as well especially with almost all “collectables and comics” sold can be brought from any common comic store on the streets. But hey I am in no position to talk about all this, so only things will change when our comic fanbase here becomes bigger.

On the forefront, we won’t be looking forward to the size of comic cons we see in the States such as those by Marvel or Dark horse fans, neither will we be seeing a Blizzard con or an E3 equivalent on our shores too soon too, but hey at least this is some baby steps forward into realizing that in in the future to come.

I had been always a fan of Lego, having grown up with them since I was a kid, even I do occasionally build some contraptions of my own especially with the Lego Mindstorm series. So what do you get when you bind them and the world largest commercial passenger jet? You get the world’s largest Lego airplane model.

This Lego A380 is the largest aircraft model on display in LEGOLAND and is built entirely of over 75,000 LEGO bricks in eight colours. Situated at its exclusive display at “MiniWorld” in the main LEGOLAND Park in West Denmark, the SIA A380 model spans 2.9m in length, has a wingspan of 3.2m and is 1m tall.

It weighs a total of 125 kg including 100 kg of LEGO bricks, where the rest are made out of mainly supports, binding glue as well as the motors and speakers which spins the turbine blades and create sound effects. The SIA A380 model required the skills of the entire team of professional LEGO model builders at LEGOLAND and took 600 hours to produce.

You can view a short video of it here.

Greetings from Mars and they come in peace! In the search for habitable regions on the Mars’ north pole region, the Phoenix lander had began digging into the area to sprout some interesting finds, clumps of white stuff. These were discovered in shallow trenches excavated by the lander’s backhoe-like robotic arm have turned up specks and at times even stripes of mysterious white material mixed in with the clumpy, reddish dirt. For the last three weeks scientists had been trying to find out what that mysterious substance is.

Led by the University of Arizona and managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Phoenix (built by Lockheed Martin Corp) landed in the Martian arctic plains on May 25 on a three-month, $420 million mission to study whether the polar environment could be favorable for primitive life to emerge. The lander’s main job is to dig into an ice layer believed to exist a few inches from the surface. It had merged two previously dug trenches over the weekend into a single pit measuring a little over a foot long and 3 inches deep. The new trench was excavated at the edge of a polygon-shaped pattern in the ground that may have been formed by the seasonal melting of underground ice.

It’s no surprise man looking to find ways to live out of his home planet, such bits of information are just the baby steps to conquering the outer regions of the universe. And we believe Sergey Brin’s 2011 space tourist flight had nothing to do to it.

Preliminary results from a bake-and-sniff experiment at low temperatures failed to turn up any trace of water or ice in the scoopful of soil that was delivered to the lander’s test oven last week. Scientists planned to heat the soil again this week to up to 1,800 degrees, said William Boynton of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Now get those vacuum Ph meters out already!

This is one of the few hot movies to be out this year, besides other favorites such as Ironman and Wall-E. There had been other similar movies of this concept to date, but none of them are as specular as this new movie coming out summer this year, predictably early-to-mid this August. The Death Race another rip at the idea of using criminals for entertainment fiasco, just like what we see in other movies such as the Running Man or games such as Road Wars or Unreal.

The concept is simple, convicted convicts on the deathroll, one race, 3 days and the winner across the line gets freedom. It’s cool how they mess up with all their cars, ranging from Chrysler 300C, Jaguars, to Porsche 911s and a Mustang, which the main character, Jason Statham drives.

The official trailer on the link:

More on all the vehicles in the race here.

Got to chomp onto some of these little Pandas over the last weekday, but didn’t get to talk about them or take a picture of them in their natural habitat after catching some of them at Breaktalk again yesterday. Interestingly, these little bread buns, priced at $2 each is part of a charity effort by Breadtalk themselves in aid of the China earthquake relief efforts, with 100% of the proceeds going to the relief fund itself, so grab one of these if you feel like it or around the neighborhood.

However, given the recent spade of the relief efforts towards Myanmar and China, please do have responsibility to check the authority any possible flag or fund raiser you meet on the streets, as everywhere in Singapore are all saturated with people asking for donations- many possibilities for exploitation. It’s wise to check whether the collectors are officially affiliated with established and registered charitable organization or registered with a valid collection permit.

Great Singapore sale, whee!
Yesterday too was very much shopping time, and whoa it’s the great Singapore sale right? Literally shopped all the way from Orchard all the way to Suntec. But got myself only a new black blazer suit from G2000 while I am at it, seems that the quality of G2000 blazers beats those I’ve found in Robinsons or even Topshop, with and 40% discount off it’s really a great buy! This would be perfect for prize presentations!

Last Thursday was Design & Media Graduation Show 2008 held in the evening at the NAFA Campus 1, Gallery 3. Showcased are various final year productions by the graduating cohort of NAFA in the multimedia course. As stated in their rather provocative invitation leaflet- “The graduation show aim to engage visitors to ponder and wonder over 200 visual delights re-defined by NAFA graduates from the Diploma in Multimedia and Diploma in Visual Communication programmes.”

My sister is one of them involved in this event as well, so thats the reason why we were more of less invited as well. The exhibits showcased there are built upon the “Think Things” concept which how students think and do things at the same time, as quoted from their info leaflet: “we make use of things to do things, think more than things.” so it very much a display of their dreams.

Visitors get to meet the creators (i.e the students) there as well who were all there for showcasing and networking- all armed with their portfolios at any given opportunity. The show area is split into 3 main areas, namely showcasing web (webpages), animation and video/film production, each having their own dedicated spaces littered all round the gallery to showcase their talents as well as a central min-cinema viewing area for visitors to watch all the project looped video clips besides them also being shown on the various plasma screens lined along the walls of the gallery.

There was a dinner reception as well, which more of less fed everyone there after the exhibition was opened. Sis brought us round the campus building tour, showing us the various labs and classrooms she always mugs in on top of visiting some other unexplored areas of the NAFA building which me myself do not know about (it was my first time there). We were also introduced to all her lectures as well, where they managed to catch sometime with my parents talking about how an asset and hardworking my sister is. Whoa! haha!

You can view the event microsite here

My next art visit will be my cousin Benpuah’s “SINGAPUAHRA”, held at the night & day bar+ gallery+ friends. He invited my family to go visit his gallery there as well.

Here is quite a cool dance by Mao Murakami an 11-year-old in “Polysics- I My Me Mine”. Apparently she is called Strong Machine 2 which her group generally call themselves as part of a Japanese dance group focused on robotic dances.

Shes good, especially doing the robot at 0:58, I think she can even trash many of us considering how we dance in our clubs (lol), even I can’t dance like that haha!

Posted just for the moment of zen after catching this on gizmodo, don’t ask…

OMG who do not know how an iPhone looks like? Oh yes, but hey we are in Singapore right? Anyway she mentioned that she’s gonna be kinda biased throughout, so oh well, at least the producers got what they wanted from here, haha.

It’s April fool’s day and man there is no other way to spend a day in the DSTA assessment center. It comprises of literally a half day line of events, 3 main ones to be exact which can be rather mentally taxing. But as most of the information there are largely confidential as told, there’s a limit to what I can share here.

The tests are more of a situational life skill test, so there is nothing you can prepare yourself beforehand on it. Actually spontaneous reactions are also one of the main gist of the test- your ability to think fast on your feet and handle anything they throw at you. I can just say that it was rather fun and you will just love or hate it. Come to think about it, what I got to do there was largely similar to what I usually do as part on my freelance design jobs, that (in my case) meant meeting clients, handling people and being your own boss at the same time. And ummm, role-playing with the staff there is damn fun as well, not to mention impromptu tasks to prepare for a very short notice.

I think I made it, only time will tell whether I get shortlisted for the 3rd and final interview. *Crosses fingers!*

Got a call from my SAA officer about the 2010 Youth Olympics dialogue session (held this Saturday) attire ready for collection, apparently the attire are shirts with printed alphabets on them, so when I line up with my friends in the group, I will make up the letter ‘S’ in the word Singapore, (or S for Shaun! so as the student officer there exclaimed). Made my way thereafter in the afternoon before slumping back at home for some well deserved rest, man it’s was a long day!

If ERP don’t seem to stop heavy traffic and clogging up our bus lanes, maybe this might work for Singapore, with rather dangerous yet very funny consequences on the click:

Well at least their airbags are working!

Well, I am not exactly a great fan of Britney, and not exactly my idea of controversy as opposed to Michael Jackson himself (not to mention his come back “Thriller” album), but sometimes I have to commend on some her songs. She is definitely one of the few artists I’ve grew up listening during my teen years. I’ve been listening to her latest “Blackout” album and “Break the ice” was one my favorites. Now there is a video up on it, all up in pure anime style, presumably an attempt at a stance away from the camera while she patch her life back together again.

I believe this viral video had been hitting the net latest, so why not share the love while we are at it, more at the bump:

Nice animation, reminds me much of the Animatrix styled animation as well. But the thing I find amidst is the relation between the video and the song.

Shown during 1987 to 1988, those who grew up in the 80s definitely is no stranger to this cartoon. I was a great fan of this show and I remembered always taping down my favorite shows on the VCR and not missing every episode when I was a kid, this one is no exception. It’s a story of 3 space commanders and their mission to serve and protect the good against the evil. Looking back and remembering all thse old shows you’ve grown up with makes you wonder of the long way you had came.

The thing is that most of my cartoon VHS collection is mostly moldy (after like 20 years?) and very much unwatchable till I get my VCR and tape cleaner in place. Then I stumbled upon a stray link once on youtube recently online and to my amazement they have a whole archive of videos of the whole series online as well. Then it’s like hey let junk that and watch it here!

Here is the intro of the show, to those who want a memory recall of the show:

O’ the nostalgia! Though the series was a short 13 episodes, it definitely felt like years back then being shown once a week.

Somehow it seems that kids born in the newer “90s” generation have no clue about this show who grew up mostly in the laughingly “head shaking” Power Rangers and teletubbies era. Even with dumb no brainer shows such as cow and chicken, it makes you wonder about the essence lost in modern cartoon these days, especially on the storyline part. Too bad they don’t make cool cartoons like this anymore.

The quality of the art for this 80s cartoon is still largely incredible, even in the current age of vivid art or the age of ga-zillion polygon rendered 3D shows. I have compiled some links on youtube for the first episode of the series if may: Episode 1 Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 you can access following episodes by checking the related videos section.

The Toys
Moreover, the toys of the series are still one of the best I’ve ever seen since I was a kid- with motorised battery less parts and modular designs with magnets, man those toys really rock and were the best it’s time man- These are the next best toys I’ve owned from a cartoon besides MASK vehicles, let be Lego!

I remembered having one of these Starcom Starmax bomber toys (below), together with a few more land vehicles and a HQ base playset almost 20 years ago, only that I think it’s somewhere in storage and possibilities missing quite a few parts, but their iconic Starcom magnetic figurines are rather lasting- I still have them stuck on my kitchen fridge for years and they are still in very good shape!

If I have the time, I will definitely find some time getting in check with these old cartoons. Somehow these cartoons have quite a kick in them- they are not exactly “childish” and actually have some terms which require some thinking. Re-watching the series now do really allow you to catch everything you all naively missed or didn’t catch as a kid back then, especially if all you do back then is go crazy about space shuttles and the toys.

Looking back here are some nice old cartoons worth catching up on, besides Ninja turtles and Transformers where most people (besides those who only heard of it for the first time only on the movies over the last few years) could have already watched it.
MASK
Attack of the killer tomatoes
Gravedale High
Mighty Max
Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors
Captain Planet

Singapore Toy and Comic Con is here! (STCC) will be the first of its kind in Southeast Asia. The convention, modelled after San Diego Comics Convention and the Tokyo Game Show, is organised by Play Imaginative – the people behind the conceived in Singapore urban vinyl series “Trexi“.

The three day event, from 27 to 28 June, will be held at Suntec Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre.

But don’t expect to find old historical issues of superman or the golden lantern here. Our previous fanbase here is still in an infant stages compared to established cons in the states.

More updates will be released when more details arrive.

Official website (still under construction)

Met up with few news friend at a workshop over the week, apparently it was doing one of my freelance jobs for an event and they were my alias as operators for that particular event I was covering. Apparently, as even operators they spend most of their time sitting outside the conference rooms while their main speaker is conducting the workshop, only having to tend to food, and technical problems if they arise, so it’s quite a minute man job with other most of the time sitting around.

We sat and chatted during one of those long boring breaks and interestingly, one of them is currently working and taking a part time diploma as taught by the ACP (ICG) in casino and hotel management, which is a rather new yet topic I am still still curious and would like to know more about. Here is what I roughly got about the “tick and tocks” of casinos which I can share.

Odds, statistics, mathematics and even Psychology brought together
He talked about the concepts of statistics, maths and probability in casinos (they have whole encyclopedia thick of related statistics just for casinos) to the sciences of and psychological greed. All these actually tells that if an average layman thinks that gambling in a casino is based on luck but an extensively calculated matrix and formulas to have the odds against you. It is so even up to the extent of the magnetism, face, pride and physiological pressure to keep users glued to the tables to surge more, just to name afew.

Play only what you prepared to lose
As the saying, the house always wins, but come to think about it, this is something not really something I did not know about, but now I definitely get a clearer picture of operations- But I never knew it’s so bad, especially the thought of you are kinda “doomed” to lose to the house from the start when you enter the casino is rather daunting too.

You lost $10,000 even if you’ve limited yourself to playing $1,000
Theres a theory of losing more than what you actually intended to spend on, say like losing $10,000 even despite having only bet $1,000 maximum. This is so given the addition and subtraction of possible wins and losses you might make you your intended $1,000, this is a good pressure factor to play more beyond your $1,000 limit to “earn it back”.

Eyes in the sky
Other notable facts most people should catch on the show “Las Vegas” is the rather intensive camera on casino floors (up to even 20 cameras per table), no corner in the casino is left unwatched.

Casinos are very honest operations
What is yours is your and what is mine is mine, casinos are very honest operations to the extent of even go up to your door to return any cash in chips that rightly fully belonging to you, unless you played them on the table that is! Then that will be a different story. Anyway, with gambling probabilities always on their side, casinos have nothing to lose

The coordinated floor
Casinos floor operations are rather complex- almost everything is coordinated. Table dealers work together to meet a common cutoff, quota or daily target. Putting their best dealers to deal with their client and gambler database. Blacklisted players can even be escorted out within minutes of entering the casinos. Key or experienced players will automatically be greeted by best dealers dispatched just like minute men.

Even each jackpot machine are designed to churn in a target of profit set and connected to an extensive computer network. Multiply that by the number of jackpot machines in the whole casino to multiply the profit. They are coordinated and programmed to release a jackpot only after a whole set of objectives, revenue, crowd popularity (e.g jackpotting crowded areas to arouse more interest and “spill over effects”in using the machines) and targets are set.

Huge salaries
He went on to even targets set by pit bosses for dealing tables and overall Casino turnover rates, which is realistically many many times that to even big banks. Pit bosses in the casino floor managing a few tables and dealers can earn easily a 5 digit salary per month, no wonder the industry in Singapore is so sought after, not to mention the amazing number of tens and thousands of jobs created when Las Vegas Sands moves in town within a few years time.

What I’ve covered here are simply just to tip of the iceberg, there is more than it meets the eye. Man will it be an interesting industry.

Well, apparently besides the happy Tibetans and villagers in Africa, Singapore is rated the happiest country in Asia! With strict rules, fines and regulations in place, strangely it’s so! Or are we all simply just brainwashed to say so when asked?

Even if not, well I guess we will definitely be even more happier if housing, cars and gas are much cheaper!

View the video report from 2020 in touch webcast.

Sorry for the unexpected redirection to a parked domain at some point of the day today. Laughingly, one of my site advertising agents, Advertlets.com has expired on 04-Jan-2008 and all site’s showing their ads will be forced redirected to a parked domain page which amusingly some body took and parked.

Lol. How can a company run a business and not forget to renew their domains? This completely show their dedication to their job, or maybe they didn’t expect the businesss to last more than one year, so why not save another $15 bucks on domain registration?

The problem on this site had been fixed by removing all their ads on the site. This is absurd, Advertlets should compensate those affected for the downtime and lost revenue caused on their site.

Christmas is hectic for all but particularly for Santa, who must live in Kyrgyzstan and make his rounds at lightning speed if he is to deliver gifts to all the world’s children on time, a Swedish consultancy has concluded.

Between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Santa Claus’s route around the planet includes stops at 2.5 billion homes, assuming that children of all religions receive a present from the jolly man in the red suit, Anders Larsson of the engineering consultancy Sweco told AFP.

“We estimated that there are 48 people per square kilometer (120 per square mile) on Earth, and 20 metres (66 feet) between each home. So if Santa leaves from Kyrgyzstan and travels against the Earth’s rotation he has 48 hours to deliver all the presents,” he said.

Father Christmas has long been believed to reside at the North Pole, although a number of northern towns, including Finnish Rovaniemi, claim to be his true home.

But Sweco’s report on Santa’s most efficient route — which takes into account factors like geographic density and the fewest detours — shows that he wouldn’t be able to make his round-the-world trip from there in time.

“He has 34 microseconds at each stop” to slide down the chimney, drop off the presents, nibble on his cookies and milk and hop back on his sleigh, Larsson said.

Santa’s reindeer must travel at a speed of 5,800 kilometers (3,604 miles) per second to make the trip on time.

Another report circulating on the Internet suggested however that Santa’s sleigh, weighed down with presents and travelling at supersonic speed, would encounter such massive air resistance that the entire contraption would burst into flames and be vaporised within 4.26 thousandths of a second.

Source – STOCKHOLM (AFP)

Hohoho!

Its not like skynet global which is impossible to surf in or Singnet@wireless for only singtel/net subscribers, apparently there had been few mobile internet stations roaming round Singapore- Boarded service 147 today and hey it’s wi-fi enabled! Got up on my phone and hooked up to my mail inbox and mobile MSN messenger for the trip. Though I had it with me during the trip, I did not use my laptop on board as I personally could not go for more than 100m meters on the bus without feeling dizzy when reading or working off-screen, so thats definately out for me.

The system is presumably hooked up to a 3.5G HSDPA and router within the bus itself with the antenna logically placed in the center of the bus (or the midspan of the 1st floor roof), you will notice the bus as a blue double decker (Volvo B9TL) with a Nokia 6110 advertisement on it, saying “Wi-fi hotspot bus”.

So if you spot one, yes there is really free fast internet, board it, stick near it when it stops by your bus stop or chase it in your car. You can access it without having the need to login at all, just open the splash page accept a few terms and you are off! Speeds average and feels like about a descent 512kps connection- plenty of bandwidth to play around for regular surfing or checking of email. Also considering the average Singaporean commuter not caring much of wi-fi on buses either you more or less (or I can say most of the time) have all the bus bandwidth to yourself, now wait till they have it on all our MRT trains like what they do in the MTR in Hong Kong. Will that rock!

:: Singapore Changi T3 Airport Report Page 3/3

Gate holding rooms
A380 aerobridges come ready with a third arm to facilitate boarding and disembarking of both levels of the jumbo craft a the same time. There are even paired gated hold rooms with mezzanine levels in some of them.

The passenger holding area, though vast, leads to 4 B independent gates in the transit hall we’ve visited (B1-B4), each capable to take on an A380 itself.

However, at full capacity, the holding area will be a very crowded place if 2 or more planes were to be boarded simulatenously, given the limited space in comparison to the large A380 passenger carrying capabilities. Given do, there are however ample sanitation facilities, nice views and entertainment to keep waiting travelers occupied.

Personally I’ve seen transit areas overseas much larger than this, despite being built for targeted planes smaller than the A380, it is a disappointment of what we lack to serve the jumbos. But I see this as a small stumbling block which encourages passengers to linger around more around the transit mall area and board the plane straightaway rather than waiting in the transit holding rooms.

Together with few major air carriers, SIA will be the main carrier and occupant of the new Terminal 3, taking only the best (like what they did from T1 to T2 and so on). Destinations of Terminal 3 will mainly include direct long haul flight to major cities around the world. Have a direct flight to London, Paris or Los Angeles ? Be expected to board your flight at Terminal 3.

Terminal 3 also offers many ways to pamper first class passengers. After checking in the First class check in-row (Row 1), you will be welcomed to the special dedicated first class lounges with so many facilities, you will be pampered to the core. It is situated at the far left of the terminal to only to those who feel they deserve the best.

Central Immigration/Welcome Hall
Terminal 3 takes every attention to detail in welcoming their visitors in the most breathtaking and spectacular way as possible. Exit your fight through the aerogates, make your way following the arrival signages and be greeted by the vast open immigration hall with more than 10 counters to boot.

Immigration Hall

Green wall & baggage collection area

Rapid baggage carousels

The Green Wall
The immigration hall is also the start of one end of the Terminal’s most prominent object – the 300m green wall. Complimentary and going hand-in-hand with the skylight system, this living vertical garden sits at 300m wide and 7 floors high and is home this is home to 25 different species of climbing plants draped in a neat, orderly and non-intrusive fashion, offering the best of greeny real estate in the most breathtaking and space conservative manner ever.

As mentioned, the wall runs whole length wise of the terminal, only terminating at the center departure entrance and continuing on for the remaining length of the terminal. This wall and can be mainly seen only at the departure area and the luggage collection area, where you are able to fully appreciate it.

Luggage collection system
Changi Airport prides itself as the world’s busiest airport, therefore the need of an highly efficient high-speed baggage system. Terminal 3 utilizes a computerised high speed baggage system handling system which is also networked and linked between the 2 existing terminals. This system is able to send luggage between terminals in less than 10mins, traveling on conveyors at a rate of 7 meter per second on average (25.2 km/h).

Sandstone art wall
Discreetly tucked under the green wall is the hand sculpted sandstone art wall, with elaborately crafted images of waves, animals and welcome messages written in various languages throughout. With this wall, there will definitely be no language barriers to welcome any traveler with open arms.

Arrival/Greeter’s Hall
The Arrival/Greeter’s Hall is situated on the ground floor of the terminal with many transport options for travelers to move on from the terminal. There are indoor air-conditioned taxi queues on top of a vast coach waiting area. Need specialized transport services? car rentals? city limos? no problem just make an inquiry at the transport booth situated right within the arrival hall itself.

Skytrain system
Last but not least, I will touch on the Changi Airport’s $173 inter terminal skytrain system. Built to replace the few decade old Bombardier CX-100 Cars, (previously jointly built by Westinghouse and Adtranz) with ending services few years ago in 2002. The new Mitsubishi Crystal Mover-based skytrains will serve the link between all 3 Terminals on top of dedicated gate for Aerogates A15-A21. A full list of stations serving between terminals are listed below:

Here is a video of the Skytrain ride from Terminal 3 to Terminal 2:

There are 16 dual-train cars in total for terminal service, each with a capacity for 97 passengers. On top of inter-terminal transit, the skytrains will also serve as an inter-terminal shuttle service within Terminal 3 to the A aerogates.

Mitsubishi Skytrain system

Trains serving T1 & T2

See you on Jan 9th 2008!

With that in hand, that is all I have about Terminal 3 given my short weekend visit, do note that despite the terminal itself being up and running already, there are still many facilities and locations still largely under construction, so the final experience might be different, but otherwise not far off from what to expect based of this report.

As a picture speaks a thousand words, I’ve compiled humorous a 202 photo album of shots taken during my stay there. Going through it will benefit you better and visualise more places not mentioned in this report, allowing you to grasp a better understanding of what to expect of the terminal when it opens come January 9th 2008.

Last but not least, I have largely the CAAS staff to thank for providing such a wonderful open house and guide around Singapore’s up and coming premier airport terminal.
Thank you!