This race gets my recommendation mainly for the price, charity part (not any commercial orientated run) and the very exceptional goodie bag items. There’s even an incentive for being the 1st 200 runners!

Without further ado, the details:

Entry Fee (Not including GST)
24 years and below as of 1st September 2008 - $25
25 years and above as of 1st September 2008 - $45

• Runners will receive a Nike Race tee with pre-printed number bib + other goodies
• Virtual runners can choose to buy a Nike Race tee with pre-printed number bib as well at S$35
• 7% GST applies in all prices listed.

Do note that with regards to road and marshaling capacities, places are limited, so do register early!

Registration (online only)

• Global registraion site (click on “Join Race” then select country, join race in this country).
• Alternatively, jump straight to the Singapore payment portal by DigiLab here.
• Check your registration confirmation here (Using your IC number).

All fees are paid through Visa, MasterCard or at our SISTIC authorized agents (Cash/Nets).

Race Event Excerpt:

Categories

• School Team Challenge Cat. A (Secondary + Junior Colleges)
• School Team Challenge Cat. B (ITE + Polytechnic + Universities)
• Men’s & Women’s Under 25
• Men’s & Women’s Open category

On top of these individual race categories, participants can also choose to select to represent their school in the School Team Challenge. The school in each category (School Team Challenge Cat. A or Cat. B) that has the most number of registered runners completing the Nike+ Human Race 10K under 90 minutes will win the School Team Challenge.

Group Registration
Please email nikeplushumanrace [at] nikeupdates.com.sg if you are interested to sign up, and you will get a reply within three working days.

*A minimum number of 25 people will be required
**Payment for group registration will be by cheque, payable to ‘Nike Singapore Pte Ltd’

Administration Contact Information
Registration Technical Enquiries (Singapore only)
Registration Partner:
DigiLab Singapore Pte Ltd
2 Soon Wing Road #08-14
Singapore 347893

Tel: +65 6291 2019 (9am to 5pm, Mon to Fri)
Email: humanrace [at] digilab.com.sg
Nike+ Human Race 10K Event Enquires (Singapore only)
Email: nikeplushumanrace [at] nikeupdates.com.sg

But of course that means having to strike a balance between my professional side/work and casual campaigning as well, and not like bugging anybody you know just as if your life depends on it, or even mentioning or hinting to people to vote for me, even in my 1000-odd convention talks, classes or even advertising for it over the various portals and websites I run, that will be stupid.

Unlike rebellious juveniles who will simply bug anybody without a care in the world, sometimes as a grown individual, you get to see the mature side of things than disturbing close friends or acquaintances for favors which kinda gives you the uncalmy feel of being indebted to even when they help you out, but I am glad everyone I approached so far was a great help!

But mind you, not that I don’t like feeling “indebted” but very much the respect I give to my friends, after all this is just a small blog competition and it boils down to what you value more and not risk going overboard. Sometimes I feel that a little reflection of your actions can go a long way. I won’t set my standards too high and the competition can be something which I am prepared to even lose, so anything else is just a bonus.

I don’t need a laptop, neither do I need a fancy phone when I win the award, so I will be considering selling or donating them to the salvation army or to my contacts in charge of the sharity gift box, but that is of course provide if I win, so I won’t count the chickens before they are hatched.

But I will be glad to be in the competition for the thrill, kick and challenge of it, as being a marathon runner, the other sporting side of me do not have a nature to give out so easily, so if you are my competitor you can be rest assured it won’t be an easy journey for you.

In all, the thing which matters most to me in this competition is winning the “best design” category will mark more than 10 years of my commitment and dedication in building and designing websites which means alot to me. The thing which amazes me is that I am glad this 5 year old, but still rather entrancing website design is still able to see me through so far.

With that, I will still bang on the bulk of my votes coming from people who visit my website, I think I might not go wrong with the traffic I get on my site. So I will leave it to unbiased people who think that I deserve the award for my contributions to blog design and development. With that, I will feel that my votes which (possibility) make me win more meaningful, not to mention deserving. I thank all my site visitors, friends and acquaintances who vote for me, your vote will be a very meaningful one and will go a long way into the competition.

Last but not least, yup here are the link, so do vote for me! You can vote once a day.
» Shaun’s Picture instructional guide on voting! (Click for instant image) » Vote NOW!

I was around back at school today after a short corporate meeting in the morning. There I managed to bump in a short one hour of gyming back at campus with my new alumni card before getting more work done in the day.

Alumni what card?
There, I was told by the gym auntie in-charge there that the alumni card I’ve got for this year’s batch is very different from the older cards issued previously- much lower in quality. This was so as I come to know after showing her how cheap and flimsy the cardboard-like laminated card I got in the mail last week (which is now peeling off at all the edges), even the photograph appears white-washed. My card which arrived in the “credit card” style holder in the letter already have it’s laminated coating damaged by simply removing it from the delivery holder, it’s that bad. For a lifetime membership thing, this card can’t even last 3 days!

New gym machines!
On a side note, the gym recently got a bump of new machines, such as a doubled number of treadmills to eight as well as the introduction of few new elliptical trainers as well as a new free weights and barbell training area, which sadly is always a hogging ground for dragon boat members. All these new additions are of course courtesy of the now dysfunct gym back at the old T14 block.

University university university
Our principal, Mr Tan was around on a tour with a few accompanying heads and directors to check out the new SP gym as well, thats where I got to chance upon him and we chatted for a while with regards to my application to the universities I am gunning for. He reassured me that I won’t go wrong and will have no problems entering the Imperial College, having not only studied there himself but also with the strong ties SP has with Imperial itself. He added that it will be a better choice as a technical college for engineering and research than Cambridge (which is ironically also one of the few Colleges I am gunning for in UK itself). He added that he will also be present at my scholarship prize presentation ceremony next week to witness all the selected SP students receiving the award as well.

Having done training, thereafter I was very much around my usual work W1115 area as a mentor helping out my juniors and undertaking project group members on some technical and software aspects of my gaming motion simulator (which they will be seeing through in their final year project). Few members were there to share their problems about group and management conflicts when forming their “ideal” teams, which I always emphasized is a very critical aspect for a team to be successful through their FYP and I was glad to be much of help in solving and giving advices which set them very much back in pace.

I did a fair bit of reflection thereafter with regards to my university choices, I mean I want to spend a significant amount of time doing research and development after I graduate, as I always want to bring something new and groundbreaking to the world, like the new age of you know!. That too, of course meaning having to do my PhD in the process as well. So the 4 year masters course in Imperial and Cambridge will be the most logical choice for a “fast track”.

I can’t deny that studying in US will be a very enjoyable experience too, with them being the preferred choice for engineering, but I felt I needed a more firm decision of choice myself rather than “going with the flow” or being so flicker minded- having never seen myself so open with so many choices at this crossroads period before. Later do I know that I got a tip off from one of my contacts who knew one of the Engineering Deans from MIT and they are interested in having us meet, whoa MIT, this will be very exciting!

Oh yes, for the record, I’ve got my NYAA Gold offer letter for interview today, double yay!

The voting period of the Omy Singapore Blog Awards 2008 are open! with each of the top 10 members of each category announced. So far is the competition is in it’s third and final stage with the floor now open to public voting, yes now it’s your turn to determine the winners by voting!

Overall, the winner in each category will be determined by 30% public votes and 70% scorings by our panel of professional judges - media industry veteran, Man Shu Sum; The Theatre Practice Co-Artistic Director, Kuo Jian Hong; and acclaimed movie director, Kelvin Tong.

This website will be gunning for the best design category, so I will be needing all your support, friends, relatives! etc please do vote for Shaun Chng.com. With that, I will let you in of what you can get by being a voter:

For winning blogger’s prizes, besides bloggy fame, we will be getting a laptop, an LG phone and a trophy designed by Tan Swie Hian. More details on the prizes here.

So act now and vote for Shaun Chng.com! we are listed as entry number 6 of the ten in the best design page. With that I’ve prepared few instructional goodies to get you up to speed on how to vote:

May the blog with the best design win!

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.

Here is an interesting read from Dupont automobile painters, especially if you are in the design scene where colour tells more than it being just a plain dab of hue. From their surveys, it seems that Blue (and their varying shades) will still always be a favorite colour among many. While its still interesting to know that black is still the colour of sophistication for modern professionals and executives, let be white being the new chosen “purist” colour for ultra luxurious cars such a Rolls Royce’s and Lamborghinis. Here are their findings in a rundown of the favorite colours over the regions.

Asia Pacific
Dark blue metallic is popular and is being fine-tuned for that region. Candy whites and tri-coat pearl finishes also are extremely popular, confirming the 2007 DuPont Global survey finding that white had overtaken silver as the most popular color in Asia and North America. Luxury car buyers prefer black and mid-tone metallic grays, while medium-size cars favored champagne is over light silver.

Europe
Blue is the most important chromatic color in Europe (12% of the market). Black, overtook silver in popularity in Europe last year. Preferences are highly influenced by ecological concepts, with demand growing for light, pure and sophisticated looks.

Latin America
Achromatic ranges, including white, silver, gray and black, dominates consumer preference as reported by Wolstano Marin, DuPont color designer for Venezuela. While Green led the chromatic colors for several years, Blue now seems to be the most popular in that family with personal preference, fashion and resale value seem to be the major factors contributing to car color choice in the region.

North America
Blue also plays a role in American tastes, says Nancy Lockhart, DuPont color designer for North America. She sees lighter blues emerging with a reddish accent representing a clean, fresh trend. Medium and dark shades of blue are more greenish, evoking a modern feel.

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.

It’s Thursday already and for a note, I’ve recently beat the game, Test Drive Unlimited by Atari/Eden last Thursday, its kinda fun earning your filled crown having to complete all the missions and discover all the road of the replica Hawaiian island, just sad that no one plays this game now, but as again, that was stuff one week ago, now it’s very much TF2 to spend the time now, the Pyro achievements are cool!

It’s also good finishing up those old games I’ve brought and left lying around with no time to play. So as part of the stress buster ‘ol gaming traditions, together with beating Portal, C&C 3 Kanes wrath and getting all my achievements in Team Fortress 2, lets see what other game I have lying in my room with the box still unopened… Mmmm I have Tony hawk’s Underground 2, Armed and Dangerous, Rise of Nations, Halo, HL2 Episode 1/2, Gears of War, Hellgate london and Unreal Tournament 3. Mmmm choices choices…

It is official straight from Mr William Henry Gates III himself- on June 27th, Bill Gates will stop commuting to Microsoft’s Redmond campus on a daily basis, and begin full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where he plans to donate his fortune of approximately $40 billion towards charitable causes. Bill Gates will retire from his day job as chief software architect of Microsoft, the company he founded more than three decades ago.

Gates said he is leaving gradually in order to smooth the transition of his duties to the two men who will assume them–chief technical officers Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie, who have been named chief software architect and chief research and strategy officer, respectively, effective immediately. Steve Ballmer will still take the throne as the company’s key man, but Bill, despite his official announcement, Bill will still visit his Redmond office once per week, doing what Ballmer tells him to do.

There had been rather lots of speculation of what will become of Microsoft with the absence of their founder, and the problem is not just related to Microsoft as of yet- Apple is under speculation of a suitable successor as well, given the recent rumors of Steve Job’s progressive “thining-up” in all his press conferences together with his health problems.

Rather meaningful photo credit from Gizmodo

Speaking from my experiences, running is a indeed very good way to relieve work after a hard day, not to mention a good time to reflect on the day and prepare for the next. Nothing can beat a short 10km one after work and back home in time for Dinner. Well I guess it’s time people here discover the healthy way to end the work day as well.

Currently my runs planned for the year so far will be the New Balance Realrun 2008, Safra Sheares Bridge Run 2008 and nope me ain’t running the Wave run this year. I am sure there are quite a few runners out there I know who are planning on boycotting the wave run this year, and we saw that with the low attendance for this year’s Mt Faber run as well. But on the contrary, the recent Mt Faber run is a good one by VGO (so with the last), so we can take the Mt Faber and Wave run are independent events, despite being jointly organized by the same company. So do go ahead and participate in the Wave Run if you are intending to give them a second chance.

Been sticking to runs at most 12km for awhile, besides gym sessions. I will give the Singapore marathon this year a miss in preparation for next year’s London Marathon when I am up in the UK, thats where I will start bumping my my distances and hitting 1000km/year like what I did for 2007.

I will update all my site links for voting when the period opens, you won’t miss it then, so do check back and vote away!

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!

Yesterday (Saturday) night was our planned coach birthday celebrations and it was a secret very well kept in place for our “host” friend who faked her birthday so that we can deceive our coach into attending the party last night. Everybody knew that, except well… coach until last night haha.

Held in home premises at the Holland area, the gathering saw the reunion of new and old track and field members (about 30 of us) all either while serving army or working. It’s was a good time to meet up with everybody and keep ourselves updated as a whole. Got to know how many of our track mates are doing in the army now, especially those who are starting their Pro-term after completing their service term in OCS. So for the guys, it’s mostly army talk while it’s mostly university and plans for the girls.

Much of the early part of the day is spend lazying around by the house pool and garden swing with Ahlong and Elrick while waiting for the rest of the Alumni track team to finish training in SP and make their way to Holland Rise. No one wanted to swim, so our other variant of “pool” in the basement kept us occupied for most of the time.

A day by the pool, swings and durian trees

Some Pool to spend the time

And oh no our cake is discovered!

The girls did an excellent job on the cake as well as the presents all done up so nicely. Everyone chipped in a sum each for both the catered buffet dinner as well as the cake and presents as a whole. We got everyone in a room together with coach where we sang the birthday song to HIM, at first he didn’t know how did his name Robin came into the birthday song, till he later found out that the purpose of the whole celebration was for him! Man was he surprised! Cake was served together with dinner thereafter.

We present the cake for the night!

The cake is for me?

Birthday group shot!

The rest of the night was spent with games and slacking in the home cinema room. Alvin and Alec came as well, but not till later. Jonathan and Elrick was there with their fair share of army Commando experiences from their side, especially with their interesting topic of heli and air-borne operations.

Derrick was just, well being himself most of the time and did quite a good job in giving us the impression of technician work in the SAF being more prestigious than it really sounds.

Weijian is now studying in PSB and KC’s stories of police life in the ops room paints so much of how complaintive Singaporeans can be with our 999 hotline over the slightest things, let be the flux of dumber than dumb calls from the public on Mas Selamat.

Richard who lived nearby came as usual in his yellow Ferrari F430 convertible, making his usual loud entrance by the house gates and joined us for the cake cutting session and dinner before staying for some chats before promptly making his departure, he’s always a busy person.

Well wishes going out to Alex who cannot make it down for today’s celebrations as he’s recovering from a viral lung infection and was previously in ICU. We wish him all the best in speedy recovery.

Just like how Volkswagen came out with the W16 engine which took life in a Bugatti, this home is a showcase and challenge to be able to realize my dream of a self-sufficient home completely running renewable energy with zero dependence on wall outlets for electricity. I’ve seen such houses in Sweden before, with home idle currents and water usage the only costs factoring into the utility bills.

Generally the plan consists of 2 phases introduced gradually overtime with subsequent additions allowing for more self-sufficiency and power sustainability. Heres a little gist of the setup:

• Electricity generation day or night, rain or shine.
• Fully self-sufficient electric transport solution with zero emissions and gasoline cost with Fortwo electric and Segway
• Fully automatic night security lumination
• Enough efficiency and sustainability to run high demanding appliances such as electric dryers and ovens
• All small drain appliances such as phones, iPods, laptops all run off renewable charging sources.

There are few ideas of a compressed air vehicle and generator which I am planning to build with a friend in Australia, but ironically I can only do that out of Singapore as we are not allowed to do so here. I have few ideas I am researching and developing on my side which allows for electricity to be generated on everyday household usage, but I won’t be including them as of yet as to protect them as patents and from intellectual property thief.

It’s pleasing that such homes are becoming much of a reality now with solar panels very much cheaper than it was 10 years ago. There are however few things which have to be ironed out before such plans can take flight- There had been word from Daimler Chrysler and sadly, there are no plans to bring the smart series of city cars into Singapore, together with LTA and NEA’s red light for the Segway Human Transporter to be used on our walkways here. So realistically, I will give this home about 5-8 years down the road before this zero emissions transport and self-sufficiency concept can become real.

The Pyro achievement pack is out today, so got about over the night to play Pyro over my few favorite public servers such as the 32 player [300]Yen Japanese server, and got my Axtinguisher already!

It’s remarkable that most of the achievements for the Pyro are easily obtainable this time, contrary to the Medic pack which many are almost impossible to get on public servers, having the need to realistically grind them on closed server to get them. It’s also pleasing to know that Valve allows milestone 3 to be locked this time by simply getting 22 and not all of the 35 achievements. I will provide a rundown of the new achievements I’ve got so far in case you are wondering how to get them

Just as all the server full of Pyros now, no one will be an idiot to play a spy this time round. It’s also commendable that Valve has contributed much to the PC gaming platform than any PC developer has done in year, also with the recognize of community based contributions (which too made Counter-strike too) such as the introduction of maps CP_Fastlane and CTF_Turbine. Without further ado, lets talk about the new weapons.

The Flare Gun - Milestone 1
The first weapon to be unlocked at milestone 1, this is a single shot reloadable weapon with only 16 ammo store which replaces the shotgun, and no you can’t get fireworks or a light show firing this up in the air. Given it’s lightweight projectile, it’s trajectory is almost straight and allows the Pyro to only ignite an enemy at very long range. Damage is minimal and this weapon serves more of a distraction tool than one to kill, especially to messing up camping sprees of snipers and superflourous Engineer beehives, sending back for health. You will most of the time able to employ this weapon as assist tool, though the chances of you able to get a clean kill with this weapon largely low. You do need to aim it very carefully on your part, having test fire rounds on where it land before releasing you barrage on distant foes. It’s also good for retreat runs on corridors where the fire splash damage can catch and foe running up on you.

The Backburner - Milestone 2
The second Pyro unlockable, this flamethrower is Valve’s definition of what the original “left click only” flamethrower should be. Taking some hints of the spy’s critical back attacks, this weapon guarantees critical hits whenever it’s used on an opponent from behind, able to mow healing medics or even heavies from the back with ease. To aid in survivability, it grants the Pyro an extra fifty health from 175 to 225, which can be topped up to 150% it’s value with a medic. I can say this variant of the flamethrower is very much built for the thinking Pyro who knows every nick and cranny of the map at the back of hand and likes to ambush their opponents. The bad is that unless your foes are weakened, it’s not a recommended frontal assault weapon as there will be no critical damage on enemy frontal damage. There is also no compression blast capability (which I will touch on later) contrary to the old flamethrower.

The Axtinguisher - Milestone 3
The third and final Pyro unlockable is The Axtinguisher. This mighty axe guarantees critical hits on any enemy only when they are currently on fire, otherwise it’s just like any small meat tenderizer with fancy barded wire wrapping. There had been significant changes to this planned weapon- it was planned initially only be able to guarantee a single shot critical kill on a foe lighted by your flamethrower, but now you can get it to work as long as any enemy is on fire- a great combination with the another Pyro buddy riding alongside with you doing the igniting, or say coupled with a The Flare Gun and covering you from a distance. Now will the spies feel challenged!

My thoughts on the new weapons
Personally after using the Axtinguisher, I still feel that the old Axe is still up for the better job unless you are playing on a server full of Pyros on your side. And given most situations, you will most probably whip up your shotgun than your Axe to finish any foe. The Axtinguisher is also mostly useless on other Pyros as their flame retardant suit makes them impossible to ignite for long and changing an Axtinguisher kill on them, so in all yup unless you demand the bragging rights, I find the old Axe still a better choice with usual criticals.

The same applies for the flare gun as well. Usually in a team based map, we will leave the long distance attacks to team snipers or soldiers who are better at picking enemies from afar. Moreover, personally as a Pyro I find myself faced in more situations with a close to medium range foe where a shotgun will be more effective in finishing them off than whipping up a flare gun which only lights them up and my next other better choice being a melee weapon? The flare gun is impressive, but remove the all-roundedness of the Pyro to attacking Long and Very-close range only, given the big gap and lack of medium range attacks, I will choose the midrange shotgun anytime over the flare gun.

However, the backburner is a great weapon and the 100% guaranteed critical hits from the back will cut out most of the chance factor in your attacks, especially for those who prefer not to take a calculated chance on when your critical rounds are coming. The additional 50 health comes very much of a welcome as well and aided me in survival in many situations, to the extent of running back to spawn with only 1-5 health on few occasions, something I would never have done if I had 175 maximum health!

Compression power!
I have to give honorable mention to the Compression feature (right click) on the old flamethrower now. Valve mentioned about the long awaited series of balancing for the Pyro, with rumors ranging from assists points ignition to doubling flamethrower attack kills. Their answer to the balanced Pyro is the compression defense system. It takes 25 ammo of your 200 to initialise one and does a very good job in protecting yourself- only if you know how to use it. I was so amazed by this new feature that I got up on a “compression training server” with a group of friends where we perfected the art of compression- rockets, stickies, etc you name it all deflected. It was here where I accidentally got the “Hotshot” achievement as well as fully realizing the ricochet offensive capability and killing your foes with their own ammo!

Besides the defense power, it’s strong in offense as well- no more having to whip up a shotgun to clear sticky traps or clearing sticky ladened control points, one wisp and they are all gone! For flying projectiles, the key is to compress early the moment your enemy fires the rocket or you will miss it. An enemy coming too close to you with a melee? Backstabbing spy? Compress them! They will get pushed away and if you get them in the air, compress at their feet when they land to get them up again! It’s fun (to you) and frustrating (to them). Now try to whisp enemies into your team sentries, now thats cool!

In all, my recommendations for a balanced Pyro loadout will be either the Backburner/Old Flamethrower, shotgun and Fire axe.

Last but not least, here are all the Pyro achievements explained and tips to get them based on my experiences in getting them. I got most of them playing maps Dustbowl and Goldrush. There are few of them which I was unable to get and will post updates when I get them. (* denotes easily obtained on casual play).
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I read with great interest in today’s front page article on the Straits Time on poorly organised races in Singapore. With runner’s experiences and the bad of the runs exposed. While the OSIM triathlon and SCM taking the few “must run” and better organised events of the annual runner’s calender.

The interesting thing is the Passion run and City Duathlon took center stage with their respective longer and shorter distances (people just complain over anything right?), the best overal “winner” will have the 3 paragraphs about the failed Mizuno Wave run last year at Bedok reservoir, hahah eat that VGO!

With that, I hope that this will maintain a minimum standard in all races to come, as such races always all seem to be too commericialsed that it dulites the sporting spirit of the runs.

The article failed to give honorable mention to races such as the Safra Army Half Marathon and Swissotel Vertical Marathon usually held year end, which are also excellent races year after year from my experiences. In all, it’s the newer and smaller races which usually give runners the fits, either by worst organization year after year and unjustifiable higher registration costs, like the upcoming Mizuno Wave Run 2008.

Boycott the shitty races! After all you runners have the final say.

Look what I got unexpectedly in the mail- A thick blue plastic wrapped package which reads Imperial College London, whoa presents! cool!

Ripping out the contents revealed a full 140 odd full colour printed 2009 prospectus on yes you guessed it, on Imperial College itself. And hey it’s even more posh than the one Trinity of Cambridge sent me. For the record under the 2009 TIMES good university guide, the Imperial College is currently ranked 3rd in UK and 5th in the world, well if ranking matters to you. But studying in Imperial is going to be expensive, considering it being smacked right into the affluent areas of London itself, man will that be a pain in the pocket.

But hey wait a minute, I didn’t request for a prospectus, as I already knew what I wanted online! Mmmm I think they could have sent this out of courtesy from the details I’ve provided my emails with the engineering department. Good on their part.

Let be an isolated case, I was together with few current students there working on their final year project in the project area. Was told that they are working on a Segway pram project which involves modifying one together a speed regulation control as well with, yes you guessed it, with a baby pram attached. Knowing about the Segway, I told them about my concerns of it having children on board and the safety measures they can take on top of how it actually works and ride, together with the locking key for beginners and the unlock for maximum speed.

As fun and promising that project can be, actually half the battle of that project was already lost with our current Laws and Regulations in place- It’s also a fact that for the project to be successful, they have to get the green lights from the LTA and NEA for the Segway to be used on our sideways and parks, as laughingly worldwide, it is still not legal to ride a Segway human transporter in Singapore, go figure.

Their product can only see life within the confines of private parks and properties for now, even if their project is completely marketable, it will be a marketing nightmare to sell it here now. There seem to be more than it meets the eye, but it looks like they have to get the authorities to be aware of the Segway problem before moving any further in such developments.

In the meantime, we can always bring the ideas out of Singapore, after all, “foreign talent” can always take our places.

I was told from some teaching staff that getting into Cambridge with a Polytechnic background is going to be a worthwide challenge for me and would be something they would strongly see and help me through, especially in the name of SP. I am really appreciative of all their efforts in helping me out in contacts as well as supporting me with testimonials which I feel will help me greatly in my application.

It came to me though that many commented on the Imperial College being one who still have to “sell themselves” to get students in, contrary to Cambridge, so as claimed, it alway seems that getting into Imperial is actually not a problem as many from SP has done so before. A “welcome to apply” reply email from the Imperial college admissions to me reassures that remark as well. In all, good or bad, you still can’t deny that Imperial is one of the world’s top ranking institutions so we have to give credit on that, after all it might be a college I will be studying in.

Since we are on the topic of studies, oh yes, my scholarship provider had sent in the official prize presentation ceremony invitation card few days ago. It is a closed award ceremony for both the Defense Science and Technology Agency scholars held next month in Orchard with Mr Teo Chee Hean as the guest of honor. Looking forward to that!

Event Categories

Registration Details
Actual registration Fees to be confirmed, these are estimated values form last year’s run

Only at HomeTeamNS @ Bukit Batok and HomeTeamNS @ Balestier.
» S$18.00 - REAL Run Club Member
» S$20.00 - HomeTeamNS Member

Online Registration: www.REALRun.sg
» S$28.00 - Group (50pax or more)
» S$30.00 - Others
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Was ready the Sunday times lifestyle section about the new soya bean drinks. We had seen bubble tea bubble burst and the donut store fisaco ending soon, so what’s next? Coloured/favored Soya Bean Drinks? I love soya bean drinks and they are a good filling snack drink not to mention a good source of supplementary natural calcium and protein to your diet.

But personally I find it’s only good from only those offered homemade in hawker centers and not some franchised line store out there hoping to quickly catch the craze and ride the market before selling it at product maturity. This muddles the whole experience and authenticity, not to mention price.

And just we thought Mr Bean stands are just great for the market, now we have favored Soya bean stores riding not only on the trend but market it a health conscious drink? Uhoh trouble.

The Mizuno Mt Faber race was this morning, I did not run the event but based on feedback and word of mouth together with my own observations, the race went on very well and as satisfying as last year’s race, with few improvements here and there. There were very much fewer runners this year too, presumably form the boycott from last year’s Wave run- the roads are all relatively clear for all runners which brings about a rather nice “closed” run feel very much to that of smaller X-country runs like the Wings Athletics ones in Macritchie reservoir.

You also definitely can’t miss the call from the MC for all SGrunners to fall in for a photo taking at the end of the runs and look at the group! Will update more later.

Area’s for improvement for next year:

• Better goodie bag items for price
• Lower participant fees ($25-$30 max)
• New route through the Henderson Waves

Recommended run next year- Yes of course, don’t think of this race like the Wave run, it’s very different.

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:
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Thanks to coldfreeze from Hardware zone for putting them up!

I believe nobody is any stranger to Toyota, rightly or wrongly, can be is widely considered the greenest automaker. For automotive news, the company hopes to solidify its hold on the title and move beyond oil through a series of plans to produce cleaner, more efficient cars beginning with a plug-in hybrid which we can see rolling on our streets by 2010. Well so now goes my plans for a plug-on Smart Fortwo.

“Without focusing on measures to address global warming and energy issues, there can be no future for our auto business,” Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe told reporters in Tokyo, adding, “Our view is that oil production will peak in the near future. We need to develop power trains for alternative energy sources.”

Sometimes old habits are quite hard to kick- That’s not to say the oil wells will run dry anytime soon or the bulk of Toyota’s cars won’t rely upon internal combustion for many years to come. “People often ask us whether the vehicles of the future will be hybrid vehicles or clean diesel cars or electric vehicles,” Watanabe said. “Our answer is that it will not be one technology because energy situations vary from one market to another.” So don’t expect to drive pass laughing at people at the pumps for now…

On the forefront into developing better and more efficient hybrid technology, Toyota is joining longtime battery partner Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. in launching a program to develop batteries it says will outperform lithium-ion batteries. With these plans ahead, Toyota will introduce hybrid versions of every car in its line-up, in other words, having hybrid as a standard component in all Toyota vehicles, private commercial etc. We will only see that sometime between 2020 and 2029 as it is being progressively introduced.

My mum was home today doing the laundry with the washing machine when it’s spin dry cycle suddenly went awry, and started lots of rattling noises seemingly going to spin itself to oblivion, before turning it off. Then the whole wash area suddenly having this musty but otherwise strong mold smell, something similar you get if you burn a fungi-loaded moist log or visit an algae infested lake. What’s more some of the clothes inside the machine where like patched with stains of mold, oh crap!

Ok great so something had to be done, and I had to do something, besides getting the occasional hint from my mother on me being an overqualified handyman for the job or rather being the only engineer handyman in the house at that time, and so yes, I had to do something. So there I was face to face with that 10 year old Hitachi top load washing machine which always loyally worked everyday without fail and maintenance in the confines of our laundry area. Theres obviously alot of mold deposits overtime, so it’s about time some maintenance is done too. Then just like any crazy scientist- Lets find out out this bugger ticks by prying it apart! Later do I know, there is more than it meets the eye.

Just like any household tale comes with it’s own set of journeys and quests, and man do we have baddies like the tons of brown mold stuck by all the inner walls of the spinner drum which took quite a hitch getting rid, not to mention many encounters with our arachnid friends who packed and left home. And yes there was buried treasure as well, $4.90 in coins to be exactly all nicely collected in the machine’s internal sediment compartment which you have to pry open for access. That’s together with some sand and dirt my dad joking said possibly originating from Lim Chu Kang training area which I always come back soiled from training.

It goes to say how much treasure you can find in these things, not to mention those you can find thrown off your void decks! The washing machine motor is old, but still up for the job, so is the safety clutch and drainage. I was really wary of 240v appliances running with cold water after cleaning and fixing things up, so I was like test-pen happy when I got it all fired up on test runs.

Things are working quite fine now, with an exception of a quirk with the safety latch mechanism which came loose on disassembly and a missing screw somewhere, hey at least it’s working now! In all, I can simply just take it like another adventure and episode on Discovery Channel with Mike Rowe on Dirty Jobs, maybe they should have some episode on washing machine cleaning!

Maybe that can be a reliable alternative for our methane sources, not to mention replacing jet fuel for rocket satellite launches!

There are more videos from where that came from.

Source: animalssavetheplanet.com

You can view more of my Photostitches at my Photostitch gallery