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Entries by Joel
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28 Mar 2006 - Pregnancy Press Release
Ahem. Ladies and Gentlemen, your attention please.
Recently, there have been word getting around that Lydia is expecting.
From congratulatory SMSes from Lydia's mum and sisters, to Minh's
"Joel's wife is pregnant.", to Lohman's "Are you
expecting?" to Chee Seng's "pregnant already still can
play badminton?"
We categorically deny any truth to any such allegations or rumours.
We emphatically state that there are no basis to these falsification:
Lydia can't play badminton whether pregnant or not.
27 Mar 2006 - Back From Australia!
What a wonderful 10-day holiday trip to Australia! It was my first
time there and we had a really great time taking in the sights
while staying with Lydia's relatives (Auntie Lian & Uncle
Allan) at Cronulla, Sydney. We travelled mostly by train and car,
as well as taking the ferry to the beaches and bays. I clocked
up almost 1000km, at one point reaching a maximum speed of 140km/hr
as we drove to Canberra and Blue Mountains. Oops, don't tell the
Australian Police that... :D
Ok, here's my "Top 10 Things I Got to Know About Australia":
1) A VISA is required to enter for Singaporeans!?? Thank God it
can be issued at Changi Airport!!
2) Food and wood are stringently checked at their immigration
customs.
3) The weather is so much cooler than Singapore, but just as unpredictable
also.
4) Expect howling winds at night, especially along the coastal
area.
5) Australians are a friendly bunch of people.
6) Australian sea gulls are a friendly bunch of birds. They gather
around you at lunch!
7) Speed cameras are a plenty along the road.
8) Australian old folks are a plenty, especially on the train.
9) Fish & Chips are excellent! I had them 4 times! One time
with sea gulls and a pelican for company.
10) BYO (Bring Your Own) wine at restaurants is common practice.
I'll try to upload the photos as soon as it is possible. Have
taken 815 photos, with quite a many bird photos, heehee. My dear
wife warned that she'll kick up a fuss if there are more bird
photos than her photos. Thankfully (and with great relief) she
won by a large margin over the birds:
Number of bird photos: 105
Number of Lydia's photos: 210+
16 Mar 2006 - Long Lost JC Friend & Dad's Birthday!
Panjanin!! This crazy Thai classmate of mine disappeared without
a trace since we graduated from AJC in 1994. It has been almost
12 years since I last saw him and outta the blue, he called Boon
Teck when he was in Singapore yesterday.
For this dear friend of mine, I left the home at 11pm yesterday
(after the dinner appointment at home) and took a cab all the
way to Jalan Tua Kong (off Siglap Road) to meet up with him and
my other JC friends at a pub. Boon Teck, Boon Chong, Andrew and
Yeow Wei (& wife) were there too.
Panjanin still looks quite the same! It was really great to see
him again and catch up with him and all these crazy JC friends.
It was absolutely hilarious recalling the fun and nonsensical
things we did in our younger days: Sentosa haunted house walk,
Panjanin and the blanket, tree pole-ing Andrew on his birthday,
Boon Chong and his infamous CP, Yeow Wei and Boon Teck's carom
sessions, hanging out at AJC canteen. Oh boy, without these people,
life would never be the same.
We drank and chatted till 1.30am! By the time i got home, it was
almost 2am!! Lydia hit the roof cos I said I'd be back by 12.30am.
:P
After sleeping like 3 1/2 hours, it was time to wake up and get
ready for work. Fortunately, work was enjoyable today even though
I was on duty. Very strange indeed. Must be the feel-good effect
of the gathering. Or was it the beer effect? :D
Anyway, today is the actual day of my Dad's birthday. Went back
to my parent's home and had dinner with them at the nearby coffeeshop.
It was nice to see the coffeeshop uncle again. Ever since we got
married, we haven't got the chance to come here. Told the nice
uncle we got married already and now lived in Bukit Merah.
Drove my dad's car home as we'll be going for holiday to Australia
tomorrow evening!! Lydia's still mad with me about coming home
late. I decided to soften her "mad-ness" by promising
to buy her something from LV. Wah. Her eyes lighted up immediately
and she squealed in delight and told me she had already shortlisted
what to buy. I think I've been conned...
15 Mar 2006 - Victor & Janice (The Joker)
It's another round of house-warming dinner and this time it is
with our church friends, Victor and Janice. So glad they loved
the grilled-style dinner! :)
As usual, chocolate fondue was served for desserts. Amazingly,
these jokers (Janice especially!) don't go for strawberries and
kiwis! At least Victor loved the banana and mashmallow. Miss Janice
Fong almost puked while eating the chocolate-dipped strawberry,
banana and mashmallow!??? The caramel Baileys also evoked the
same expression out of this girl. And she also hates vegetables.
Victor... may the Force be with you.
11 Mar 2006 - JC Friends & Family House-warming
We had a quick catch-up with my JC friends (The Arts class people,
not the other soccer and computer maniac JC dudes..) over lunch
at Pepper Lunch. It was excellent, the food. I had always wanted
to eat at Pepper Lunch at Ngee Ann City. Oh, my friends were excellent
too, haha. Cindy's grumbling about her kid, Victor seems to be
having a good time in a creative teaching job, and Christina's
7 months pregnant! Well, after the initial shock and reality of
seeing Cindy with her big tummy many years back, I was more expectant
of the expectant mother.
And in the evening, my parents, Jason and Fenny dropped by over
for a sizzling hot-grilled dinner of black pepper beef, chicken,
pork and fish! All prepared by Lydia. :D The greatest satisfaction
was hearing that they loved the food, especially my dad! Thankfully
too, my mum thought it was a healthy way of eating. Otherwise,
she will launch into her sermons: BBQ food are bad, fried food
are bad, don't eat outside so often, don't eat too much meat,
eat more fish, eat more vegetables.....
We wrapped up the day with the chocolate fondue, a Strawberry
Shortcake (celebrating my dad's birthday in advanced), gifts to
good old dad, and a live telecast of the match between Chelsea
and Tottenham.
10 Mar 2006 - Absolute Freedom to Explore
For the first time in history, as far back as I could remember,
I spent almost 3 hours exploring the jam-filled halls at IT Show
2006 at Suntec! I could dwell as long as I wanted at each stall,
fiddle as long as I wanted with a product, push my way through
crowds so packed that sardines will squeal, and all without a
care less. It was pure computer-heaven. Cos my sweet wife was
busy with her makeup course. :)
Here's what I bought fromthe IT Show:
Creative TravelSound 250 - $79 (For Lydia to listen to her CDs)
Sennheiser PC150 Gaming headset - $139 (For Lydia to use Skype
to call home..)
Planex BT-03HS Bluetooth mini headset plus - $39 (For Lydia's
o2 Atom)
o2 leather casing - $39 (For Lydia's o2 Atom)
So actually everything I bought are for Lydia! Ain't I a good
husband?
7 Mar 2006 - When is a Wedding Anniversary?
Singaporean chinese guys can be quite poor thing.
Even though you are legally married in the eyes of the law when
you go through the Registry of Marriages (ROM), you aren't really
considered married until you throw a wedding dinner and undergo
the traditional chinese wedding ceremony (CWC). So during this
lag time (from ROM till CWC), you're in limbo. Two legs in the
boat, but the passenger won't let you sail anywhere and do what
you want. And you can't get off the boat either. Not that I had
wanted to get off the boat. :P
Today is our 3rd year ROM anniversary. We ROM on 7 Mar 2003. It's
a good thing I had the date engraved on the inner side of my wedding
ring so that in case i forget the date (especially the year!),
I can always refer to it. :D
So are we married for 3 years (based on ROM calculation), or 123
days (based on CWC calculation)? Whatever it is, it is another
date for the poor guy's brain to remember, and calls for another
dinner celebration. Thankfully we had combined the present for
Valentine's Day and today.
Now I have to remember the following dates (in chronological order):
Valentine's Day, ROM wedding anniversary, First-time-we-met anniversary,
Lydia's birthday, First-time-we-got-together anniversary, CWC
wedding anniversary. Next time got kids how? Need to remember
their birthdays also? Can delegate to the wife to remember or
not?
5 Mar 2006 - The Fellowship of the PMC Ring
5 months have slipped by since the PMC Ring was formed. Of the
10 valiant men and women who had bravely chose to relinguish their
freedom and joined the fellowship, only 4 remains unslained and
defiant. Will these 4 souls one day succumbed to the force of
the ring? And be joined in holy wedding matrimony?
That's right! Only Victor & Nicole, and Lester & Freda
are still not married since the Pre-Marital Class (PMC) was formed
last year in September. :)
We decided to throw an afternoon house-warming party at our humble
home for these bunch of people (including the 2 married couples
Francis & ChoonHwa and Adrian & Ruth). Through the classes,
we have unknowingly and amusingly heard how these couples tick
and what makes them creak. All in the porcess of understanding
your partner better (and to hear other people's exciting tales,
heehee)
This is the first time we had chocolate fondue for 10 people!
600g of chocolates! The fondue pot was almost filled to the brim!
Well, I'm glad they found our home cosy and nice even though it
packs in at 64 square metres only! Our home is like an Ikea showroom
cos almost everything is from Ikea! It's pretty neat (I think!)
how $2K can furnish the whole place, from living/dining room,
2 bedrooms, kitchen and to the toilet/bathroom.
2 Mar 2006 - The Lizards' Convention
Today, daddy lizard decided to pop over. Yep, the whole family
has visited our house now. We were peacefully watching TV when
Lydia spotted him at the top of the entrance door. Before I could
do anything, he decided to do a bungee jump without strings and
landed on the floor. Then he scurried up the wall, across our
living room, and was heading towards our bedroom (to meet mummy
lizard?) when it made a turn for the kitchen (Lydia's home-made
chocolate pudding must be too irresistable).
Bad choice (the lizard I mean, not Lydia's cooking...). I soon
have him cornered and in my hands. This time round, a mug
shot of the perpetrator was taken (amidst more screaming from
Lydia) before he was escorted to the 11th floor and released.
By the way. Did you know? The Lizards' Convention is actually
the name of a Singapore band in the early 90s or something. I
quite liked their songs actually, especially Wooden Heart and
Pleasant Song. Here's the link to the only official website I could find, though it looks like
it's been abandoned. Pleasant Song is available as a MP3 download
but with the website being hosted on Geocities, it quickly exceeds
the allowed bandwidth limit. So try your luck!
1 Mar 2006 - Uninvited Visitors in our House
No, I don't mean our wedding Bridesmaids that we had invited over
last Saturday. :D
Despite staying on the 10th floor, other "visitors"
are coming to our house as well. The most thick-skinned ones are
the lizards. Even after I tossed them out into the corridor (they're
too cute! Can't bear to kill them!), they keep coming back! Initially
only the baby lizards come and visit. Today, mummy lizard was
spotted in our bedroom but she quickly ran and hid behind the
wardrobe before I could catch her. Looks like we'll have to sleep
together with mummy lizard tonite.
Did we post a "Open House' sign or something? A baby praying
mantis flew in through the living room window later while we were
watching TV. Initially I thought it was cool to have a cute, green,
baby praying mantis in our home. But how if it decides to nibble
on my ear while I'm asleep? So I caught it and... would you believe
it.... took the lift, escorted it to the ground floor and released
it in the greenery. Funny how I'm too lazy to go downstairs to
buy a loaf of bread but will go the distance for this kinda thing.
Oops, I can imagine Lydia saying "You'll do it for a praying
mantis but not for me???"
27 Feb 2006 - The All Powerful Bob
Bob sure is something. 3 days after I had a close encounter with
met him, I'm still totally red-faced and in pain. It's much better
now actually. Yesterday, it hurts even to frown and the slightest
touch on my arms leaves behind fiery white impressions, especially
on the wrist area.
All I wanted to do was to watch the flying airshow and take pictures
of the cool combat jets at the Asian Aerospace 2006. But Bob had
to dampen the spirit.
Bob ah Bob... you Big Orange Ball in the sky. Do you know that
I now look like a blushing panda? My face is all red except for
the area around my eyes cos I was wearing my Oakley sunglasses.
See what you have done lah!
22 Feb 2006 - What's the Lifespan of a PDA stylus
pen?
When I bought my o2 Atom some weeks back, it came with an extra
piece of stylus
pen. Why in the world would they need to provide a spare pen,
I thought? Who can break it? Or maybe the tip gets worn out after
a while and needs replacing?
Well... I broke mine yesterday. Yep. Broken into two parts, no
less. Hey, it's not my fault that the back part is made of plastic
and the front part is made of aluminium (?). And these pens are
so tiny you'd think it is for a Smurf to use or something. The
plastic part just broke off after too much pressure from my palm.
Which is why I sometimes just use my finger instead. Easily accessible,
no need to slide out of the storage slot, will not break, interchangeable,
and with replaceable and trimable tips.
18 Feb 2006 - Road Trip to Johor Bahru
On this lazy Saturday morning, Kian Pang, Eric, Lydia and I headed
over the causeway to do some shopping, and eating. Holiday Plaza
was our first stop (I heard the clothes range there is good, that's
why...), followed by dinner at House of Sudanese at City Plaza.
The food was really worth the money. The price is roughly the
same in Singapore, just that it is in Ringgit here while it is
in Sing dollars over in Singapore. That's like 50% discount! :)
If you ever think that travelling by bus across the causeway is
troublesome (I used to think so!), it is so not true! We left
Malaysia customs after 5pm and were happily on the MRT at Kranji
before we knew it! Go try it! Just remember to ask the price of
a taxi ride in Malaysia first before boarding, cos it works by
flat fee, instead of by meter.
14 Feb 2006 - Happy Valentine's Day!
The price of flowers shoots up dramatically every year on Valentine's
Day, but those silly (or romantic?) guys still buy them. I ordered
a bouquet of 12 roses to be sent to Lydia's office. Well, this
is our first Valentine's Day celebrating together after our wedding
and I thought might as well make it more memorable and special.
So besides the flowers and her early Valentine's Day present of
an o2 Atom, we went to Gyu-Kaku Japanese restaurant at Chijmes.
The BBQ concept food and service was excellent. The price was
even more "excellent" too. $169+++!!! Ok, now we can
say, "Being there, tried that." At the end of the dinner,
we were given a survey form. I gave high marks for most of the
categories, but a "poor" for pricing, heehee!
That's the round up of Valentine's Day for us! Aza aza fighting!!
(whatever that means! Lydia asked me to say it after watching
Full House)
13 Feb 2006 - Yes, Sergeant!!
Today is Day 1 of my 5-Day Sergeant training course at the old
Police Academy. Oh, I'm still a Corporal since passing out in
1997. Anyway, we reservists do not get more pay out of the government
whatever rank we are. Only peanuts allowance for meals. And please
do not confuse these peanuts with Durai's NKF peanuts. My peanuts
were probably not washed in gold taps, that's why so little.
How was the training? If I tell you, I'll have to kill you...
Ha! No lah, I don't want the Internal Security Department to come
knocking on my door, so "sky chicken cannot be revealed".
12 Feb 2006 - DIY Hotstone Lunch & Chocolate
Fondue!
George and Corrine hold the privilege of being our first house
guests, as well as guinea pigs! Lunch is served on the grill,
with DIY hotstone-style chicken, pork, fish and cheese sausage,
with thousand island salad for appetizer. Yummy!
And the highlight of the day is the DIY chocolate fondue! The
fondue set was purchased in Switzerland, home of the fondue craze!
Here's what the final product looks like. Looks good eh? Overall, it was fun, but have to improve
on keeping the fondue pot and chocolate hot.
What's a CNY gathering without card games and some drinks? Creme Caramel Baileys is the
featured house pour, served chilled with a cube of ice in our
cute wedding cups! Cheers!
11 Feb 2006 - CNY Gathering at Lina's Place
It's the 2nd last day of Chinese New Year and this time we paid
a visit to Lina's place for a gathering of mahjong, yu sheng,
movies, dinner, X-box and kids-watching. Lots of little kids around,
so this means lots of ang paos to dish out too! Some of them are
too young to understand the "value" of an ang pao and
are not interested. Michael's twin sons actually didn't want the
ang paos and would rather hold on to their sweets, haha!
Here's the ang pao final tally for 2006 (No more visiting tomorrow)
Distributed - 40
Collected - 0
What's the moral of the story? Get a baby to recoup your loses!
:P
8 Feb 2006 - Full House!
No, I don't mean to say that there were a lot of guests today,
or that I was lucky in card games. It's the Korean drama princess
Lydia getting her hands on another set of DVDs for the series,
Full House. After watching half of episode 1 with her, I forced
myself to pull away from the TV. Must not get myself addicted!
But it must be quite funny though, cos I can hear her bursting
into giggles and laughter every now and then. No! Must... not...
fall... into.... the... dark... side....
But you're welcome to read the review and join her club. :)
31 Jan 2006 - Day 3 of Chinese New Year
Woke up at almost 12 noon today after sleeping late yesterday.
If you sleep too little, you feel sleepy. But if you sleep too
much, you also feel sleepy. How come like that?
Yesterday was another round of visitings to my mom's relatives
and Lydia's 'guardian' homes. My efforts to 'recoup' my ang pao
losses through card games (Black Jack & In-between) with my
cousins turned out to be more damaging to my financial health
instead! Perhaps my charity spirit of past-CNYs has not been aware
of my new marital status?
Here is Day Two ang pao count:
Distributed - 16 (31 in total)
Collected - 0 (0 in total also)
Welcome to the reality series of married life in Singapore. :)
29 Jan 2006 - Happy Chinese New Year!
Happy Chinese New Year! Though it is the first day of the new
year, it is also a Sunday. So still must faithfully go to church
in the morning. :) Today's visits were for my dad's relatives.
At the end of Day One, here is the ang pao count so far:
Distributed - 15 (including 7 pre-delivered to Indonesia)
Collected - 0 (zero, kosong, ling, zitch...)
28 Jan 2006 - The Big Clean
Up
Thank goodness there is only one Chinese New Year Eve a year.
Why? Cos it also means the Big Clean Up of the home time. I woke
up at 10am this morning and had a good workout till 4 plus in
the evening. From window panels to toilet bowl.
After all the cleaning, we headed to my parent's home for reunion
dinner. Lydia commented that the Steamboat dinner will have much
more dishes than the usual 2 dishes that she cooks. Well, I always
diligently and happily finish everything she cooks. Even though
the dou miao for lunch today was rather bitter. :)
Took my dad's car home and getting ready for the countdown now!
Must prepare ang pao and eat bird nest. But most importantly of
all...... cannot do any work on the stroke of midnight! Last time
it was my mum nagging at me. Now it's Lydia, heehee!
27 Jan 2006 - Sim Lim Square and George & Corrine
I can't even remember when was the last time I was in Sim Lim
Square (SLS). On this lovely off-day that we were there, my patient
wife gave me a whole 10 minutes to do my shopping. For all the
guys out there, you know you can almost do nothing in SLS in 10
minutes. Taking the escalator to the computer floors already takes
some time. Squeezing through the flyers distributors stationed
at the escalator landing takes up some more time (though I must
say you feel like some "VIP" making your way past people
reaching out their hands to you). No time to window shop, no time
to look at price list, just grab and go. The good thing is, Lydia
said she'll happily come with me again to SLS. Well, at least
I have the precious flyers to go home and look through, at my
own leisurely time.
Yesterday we met up with George and Corrine, whom we got to know
from our honeymoon trip. Somehow, we just clicked with these two
eskimos. It was really fun catching up with them to celebrate
George's belated birthday. Poor guy, he works in Changi and lives
in Jurong West! I really admire his patience and determination
to travel so far everyday. For me, a 5 minutes walk to the Tiong
Bahru market for dinner is a tad too far a distance. Corinne...
she bought a Nikon D50 digital camera for her hubby's birthday.
All by herself! Wows. 1st wow is for her expensive gift for her
hubby *is my wife reading this?* :) The next wow is for her bravery
to buy the camera alone in a camera shop. I think that's like
equivalent to a guy entering alone into a lingerie shop or a jewellery
shop. Guys are just more suited in DIY shops or electronics shops.
I hope the day will never come when Lydia asks, "Dear, can
you pop over to Triumph and get me a xxx?"
Ok, here's a picture from yesterday with George and Corrine at TTC, City Link.
24 Jan 2006 - Chinese New Year is Coming
This coming weekend is Chinese New Year! Our company is nice enough
to give us Friday off too (actually cos there was no half-day
on Christmas Eve...), so that means a really nice and long weekend
to look forward to.
Or is it? This will be the first time I'm giving out ang paos!
Yikes! Hmm... now I understand why so many people leave the country
during Chinese New Year, haha!
No lah, just kidding. Of course we'll still be around to cheerfully
give money away. God loves a cheerful giver! :D It is better to
give than to receive... :P
Have changed the wallpaper to suit the Chinese New Year theme.
23 Jan 2006 - A Great Start to the New Year!
It's not about money. It's not about promotion. It's about Blackburn
Rovers! My favorite soccer club. :)
Since the last defeat on 17 Dec 2005, Blackburn is undefeated
in 8 matches! 6 victories and 2 draws (including one against Manchester
United!), with the latest victory away to Newcastle United last
Saturday.
How sweet can it get? Oh.. it gets much better: Arsenal losing
to Everton (Yay! Though I start to pity them a little now), Chelsea
drawing with Charlton at home (I'm sure Chelsea will win the Premier
League anyway) and Manchester United beating Liverpool deep in
injury time!
You know, there was a time when Lydia would sit by my side and
watch soccer with me on the TV. That was 4 years ago. Now? She's
more interested in her nails than waiting 90 minutes for a possible
goal. If I shout "Goaaaal!" She would say, "Not
so loud. The neighbours will hear."
21 Jan 2006 - Lydia's Singapore IC
Lydia has finally gotten her hands on her pinky IC! The ceremony
for about 200 new Singaporean citizens was held at ITE MacPherson
multi-function hall at 10am in the morning.
Ok, so what did these new citizens learn about Singapore?
1) Queueing: Before they could get their hands on the IC, they
have to endure a snaking queue of almost 20 minutes to register
themselves. Me being a good hubby (or a blur one?), I accompanied
Lydia in the queue instead of sitting by the benches facing the
lush, green soccer field.
2) Waiting: The VIP was late by only 10 minutes! I think it's
a marked improvement. Seriously!
3) National Anthem: Maybe it was in Malay so most of them did
not know how to sing it? Me? I always have the problem with "Bersatu"
and "Bersaru'. "tu" and "ru" sounds almost
the same mah! How to know when to "tu" and when to "ru"?
All in all, I would say the organisers have done a good job. The
video clips and national songs were inspiring and suddenly makes
me feel very patriotic! Of course I recited the pledge and sang
the National Anthem.
Click here to listen to the National Anthem in MP3 format, Orchestral mix.
Remember to stand at attention hor! It says so in these guidelines!
17 Jan 2006 - Addicted to TV!
It used to be that I would spend more time at home in front of
the computer than the TV, but all that has drastically changed!
All because of two shows:
What started of as a casual viewing of the drama series, 24 (Season
2), has got me hooked to the screen every weekday from 7pm to
8pm. It is a highly thrilling and action-packed drama that unfolds
over 24 hours (1 hour real-time each per episode), where Jack
Bauer (Counter Terrorist Unit) has to use all his wits and resources
to prevent a catastrophic disaster/crisis. This drama is guaranteed
to keep you glued to your seat! Catch it on AXN (Channel 19),
or read the full story here.
Season 3 just started today. I'm just glad it doesn't clash with
my weekend soccer match live matches. :)
But the main culprit is due to Lydia's love for Korean drama series.
I'm addicted to the show, Jewel In The Palace! Ever since she
bought the DVD, we've been watching hours of it everyday. It is
episode 52 now... Can't believe she got me hooked. You can find
out more about the show yourself here.
Now let me go back and watch episode 53.. ciao!
12 Jan 2006 - Welcome to Rainy Singapore
In my entire life (or as far as I could remember), I've never
seen such continuous rain before. Ever since Lydia's parents left
for Indonesia on 4 Jan, it has been raining everyday! Wow, they
are really lucky!
Gloomy grey sky have now replaced the clear blue sky where once
upon a time the sun shines brightly. Sounds like I'm complaining?
I'm not, haha! I love the cool weather! Instead of sweating under
the smothering tropical heat, everything is cool... and "Europe-like".
There's one thing though. It will never snow in Singapore. I'm
still waiting for the opportunity to see snow falling from the
sky. And having snow fights with Lydia, building snowman, sliding
through the fluffy snow... Ok, before a baby pops out, I must
have this dream fulfilled! :)
10 Jan 2006 - Wedding Day Pix Uploaded!
Finally! More than 2 months after the wedding, heehee. :P
The photos are now available at the Wedding
Photo Gallery. Feel free to browse through! If you'd like
a larger resolution of some of the photos, just drop us a mail
at [email protected] and we'll gladly email them to you.
Oh it was Francis and Choon Hwa's wedding on 7 Jan! Congrats to
the two of them! Welcome to the club!
6 Jan 2006 - How to Totally Screw Up Your Computer
This is a true story of Lydia's amazing hubby's techie adventure...
Did you know that WinXP has a "Offer Remote Assistance"
feature? It's a feature that allows the "Expert" to
initiate remote assistance (so as to see a remote computer's screen)
without the "Novice" requesting for it. Anyway, it all
sounds pretty cool.... except that I can't get it to work.
Then I found a possible solution on the Internet which involves
making changes to group policy for:
DCOM: Machine Access Restriction in Security Descriptor Definition
Language
DCOM: Machine Launch Restrictions in Security Descriptor Definition
Language
Wah. Sounds very powerful. Maybe can work. So I try... Hey, it
works!
But I wanted to understand what makes it work or was it a coincidence?
So I removed every user access entries in there and click OK.
The very next moment, the computer became unstable. No worries.
A reboot will fix it. Unfortunately not!
I learnt very soon that I had actually removed ALL access to execute
COM+ services and applications on my computer! Meaning a whole
lot of applications will not run. And strange things were happening,
like the taskbar disappearing, cannot do copy and paste, group
policy not responding, errors here and errors there.
This can't be happening! What have I done? I was going to work
on the actual day photos leh!
Fortunately! After 2 hours of meddling around and scouring the
Internet for solutions and ideas, amazingly (I think so!) managed
to fix it! By making use of Security Configuration and Analysis.
What I had studied few weeks ago was indeed very useful!
Moral of the story:
1) Don't be a hero and make funny changes to computer settings.
2) Whenever I want to work on the actual day photos, something
will happen to take my time away! eg. Computer problem, or like
watching hours of Jewel in the Palace DVD with Lydia...
3) You can always count on me to do amazing things (meaning stupid
things). But I will still be able to fix it! :D
3 Jan 2006 - New Year Resolutions
I never make New Year resolutions. Why? Cos either I forget what
they are, or they never get fulfilled. Hmm, maybe that's why they
are conveniently forgotten after a while.. :)
Anyway, if I have to make one, here they are:
1) Lose weight and exercise more.
With the new revised BMI (Body Mass Index) standard, I must weigh
like 72kg, just to make it into the acceptable range.
72kg? I'll be skinny like a bamboo!
2) Procastinate less
Er, maybe I'll do this next year. :P
3) Finish up the wedding website
Actual Day photos, videos and etc not done yet. But I figure once
I start on point 2 above, point 3 will naturally be fulfilled.
:)
4) Be nicer to Lydia
I'm already nice! Like letting her cook since she likes cooking.
Or letting her buy whatever Korean drama VCD/DVDs she wants. But
it is always good to aim to be nicer. So in case you miss the
target, one level down is still nice!
1 Jan 2006 - Happy New Year!!
It's 2006 already! Happy New Year to you all!
New Year Eve started off with a haircut at Reds. Now, what's the
benefit of having short hair? 1) Takes less time to shampoo. 2)
Takes less time to style. 3) Few wipes of the towel and it's dry!
In the evening, we had to attend the wedding of Suti and Lim Yi.
Yep, a New Year Eve wedding. Oh well, friendship will have to
take precedence over parties. Nonetheless, we headed down to Esplanade
for the countdown after the wedding. Boy it was super crowded!
The whole Esplanade Bridge was jam-packed with people. At 11.30pm
the street lights were turned off. At the stroke of 12, the sky
was illuminated with spontaneous bursts of fireworks. It was really
awesome to see a fireworks display live and up close.
We headed home right after that. A super huge traffic jam was
already in full swing along Fullerton Road, caught in the home-bound
crowd. Oh those poor cars!
My New Year present to Lydia: Stepping on her foot and giving
her a painful blister! :P
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