Its a sick world out there!

Seriously… I’m not talking about the moral dimension… but since saturday, I’ve met about 5 people who are all sick, not sparing 3 of my office colleagues, boss included. All caught the freakin flu. The result is the development of an itchy throat after having a cup of kopi-o. Gurgled listerine hoping to eliminate as much germs as possible and popped 2000 mgs of vitamin c… dammit… i hate being sick. Drinking as much water as humanly possible.

In spite of the flu bug, life has not fallen short of surprises… One of my closer ex colleagues, S, is getting a divorce… and is thinking about getting her marriage annulled even. On a brighter note, another friend might be getting married soon. My office has turned from female dominated to possibly male dominated. I sold my custom cue (the biggest surprise). Saw a black Ferrari F430 spyder parked at the basement of the office today… *drool…

Also, another good pal, quit his job to pursue classical music as a career. However, he contracted a medical condition at a very bad time, and needs to pay over 300 bucks for medication per month. One word. Shiong. Frankly I wondered why he made such a huge sacrifice to pursue a dream that has no guarantee of materializing… but of course, I shouldn’t be entitled to such judgement. It’s someone’s desire and passion we’re talking about here and not some sort of impulse no matter how much it looks like one. Although I did question him on how he was going to survive through with his financial liabilities just to be sure he didn’t go wacko. In my mind I was thinking… without money, u can’t really realize any dream here. Really hope when he succeeds to enter MOE, the rest will eventually be taken care of.

Work has gotten a little more hectic since the temp asst left. More paperwork and filing to be done. Got a new guy but haven’t got enough time to train yet. My colleague who just switched roles to my dept hasn’t been fully trained yet… still need to find some time to teach her other facets of her new role. Its like a whole new office now compared to a year ago. Lots of colleagues left, and new faces appear. Sad thing is that finance dept is gonna lose one more key person… not to mention they just recruited new contract staff.

Been reading up on PC technology… still pondering if its wise to get a new PC at the end of the year or just wait till there’s some stability in the market. Which seems to be asking for a lot cos tech advancements never do stop. The recent release of nvidia 8800GT cards are all sold out, to the point that retailers in Sim Lim Square are jacking up prices on the new cards. Some go up as high as 10-20% of the original SRP. Caveat emptor (let the buyer beware). Release of the ATI HD3870 is also in very high demand but insufficient supply… same jacking up going around. I’m waiting for the release of the new nvidia 8800GTS G92 gfx card… which is going to be fastest card in the market… yeah rite… for like 3 mths? I just wanna play Crysis. The newest and most gorgeous looking FPS game in the market today. However, even the hardest hardcore enthusiast now can’t even play the game in its highest detail settings due to the lack of driver optimisation of the graphics engine in the game. Heard that LP is downloading Crysis for free… =p bro if u can even run the game i salute you.

Finally take a break…

My home laptop has gotten extremely laggy for the past year. After doing some research online, I realized how much technology has moved ahead. From a single chip going past 1.6 Ghz, to having a quad processor running at 2.0Ghz. From a generous 1 Gb ram, moving on to 2 Gb just to run the horrendous Windows Vista (takes up entire 2 Gb of ram just to operate). Now I’m using the latest Internet Explorer from MS which has tabbed browsing… which I thought was nice at the beginning, but became a nuisance when it caused other apps a lot longer to load. I’ve also not been able to run the latest windows update from MS due to a bug that I have no idea how to solve. Add to that, the ATI graphics card inside just gets extremely hot and it becomes quite uncomfortable to use it after a while. But at least… it still works.

However I’ve resorted to using my work laptop, which is a lot faster with the new Core 2 Duo processor, but not able to install MSN messenger and other apps that I feel might be useful for home use like games etc. Yeap… I really smell a new desktop PC coming up. In fact, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time reading up on parts i.e. motherboards, graphic cards… the stuff that geeks seem to immerse themselves in. There’s a ton of great games out there in the PC market now… including Gears of War for the PC, which had been further improved since the release for the Xbox 360. Hellgate London was just released, and Crysis is about to be released this holiday season.

Its not easy to get a “self built” PC from Sim Lim square. People who run a business in that sort of environment really have their wits about them. It can be nice haven for value, yet turn into a slaughterhouse if you don’t know what you’re dealing with. Yet, the leading PC brands are also reputable for using cheap parts (part supplies are outsourced afterall). Thus, might as well determine your own fate. Build it yourself.

Not so easy. I was only familiar with 2 or 3 previous generations of technology, and skipped all the stuff in-between into the present. Apparently now, going into the Windows Vista generation… requires some real beefing up of hardware. Windows Vista requires a min of 2 Gb RAM to run, which to me is just a ridiculous requirement because the jump from the all hailed 1 Gb memory to become less than a minimum requirement was tough to swallow. Coupled with the fact that almost everyone hated Windows Vista and wanted to switch back to Windows XP.

After reading up on PC stuff, and it just seems as if software technology keeps surpassing hardware technology. There’re games out there in the market that probably massacre the best GFX card in the market with an overload of processes. In short… technological advances never do end. Its just like Singapore… keep pushing past boundaries leaving benchmarks.

My mum actually asked me whether I plan to get married perhaps in the near future. I replied “Maybe”… and she went “huh…  you mean you’re not sure?” And I replied “Hopefully lah”. After which a random thought came up. Should someone ask “Do I love someone?” or “Can I love someone?”. Both questions don’t mean the same thing, but address the same subject of love.  ”Do you love me?” or “Can you love me?”.

If a person “does” love, should mean that love is already in the works. But if a person “can” love, just means that love hasn’t come to work yet. People in general can love… but whether we do love is a different thing.

Anyway… as of this moment. I do love my friends. But none of them in that special way.