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Finally on leave…

I’m really quite thankful for the CNY that I had this year. Went to see my mum’s parents, and they were really happy to see everyone gather. I must say we’re probably one of the healthier families amongst the rest. My cousins and uncles actually went down to play basketball in our new year clothes, and it was just great fun as my uncles were quite sporting together with my younger cousins. Pretty unconventional for a CNY gathering, but I really look forward to CNY now that we’ve been doing it for 3 years straight. We even played american football on the 2nd day when we went to my aunt’s place. Caught up with my handsome looking cousin who came back from New York, its been a really long time since we caught up with each other. He also invited me to go over to New York sometime in June and show me around. I must say… I’ve always wanted to go to the US… I’d probably feel at home there since I’m the ang mo pai. This year’s CNY was one of the better ones I had. Ang pow collection was also more than usual… not to mention went to EK’s place to play Blackjack, and won $24. *grin* After all the mahjong games I lost before CNY….

Also finally met up with E again since after we went to have yong tau foo at Tanjong Katong. We went to have pomfret “steamboat” (forget the correct name) which I thought was a bit pricey at $38, but nevertheless tantalizing.

The fish was really fresh, to the point I was wondering if it was swimming seconds before it arrived on the plate. Another thing that was very obvious, was how skillfully the fish was deboned and sliced cleanly and proportionately. It was really the most proper presentation I’ve ever witnessed. E claimed that once the fish passes by a day, they will fry it and use it for the soup base instead. The soup is darn good. For a carnivorous dude like me, I was impressed at how nice fish soup can be if done really well. But my fav dish of the night was the self-made tofu braised with brocolli, mushroom and dried scallops… my eyes just lit up followed by the sensationalized expression of “its… so… damn… nice…”

This is like the definite must order dish next time I’m there. Aside from the food, E’s company was good too. At times I also forget how nice it is to spend time with her. Tried to meet up before CNY but its either too tired or too busy… but its normal being Singaporean and leading a stressful work life. Nevertheless, treasure those precious moments and don’t take them forgranted.

Bought English Cumberland sausages on Mon night after meeting RN for supper… sharing about how some customers can be stupid yet smart, and working with an over-generous head chef (makes me wanna go there…) anyway, she asked if the sausages were nice… I think not too bad. Really tastes quite “English”… whatever that means…

really have to make sure they’re properly cooked through… there was some rawness in the centre after my first try at pan frying it. I’m still stomped at how hotels have such creamy and fluffy scramble eggs… My craving for American breakfast buffet hasn’t stopped since last year. First of all because no one really wants to wake up that early on a weekend, 2) they think its expensive which is true, 3) they don’t really have the craving like I do.

While I’m on leave, I also stumbled upon some funny looking stuff online…

These are the ang mo cosplays emulating Naruto. boy do they look freakish compared to these pros below…

Kakashi looks so damn cool can………. and Sasuke looks pretty correct here too. And I went ecstatic when I stumbled upon this…

Even Optimus Prime is an Arsenal fan!!! ARSENAL FTW!!!

Despite painting such a colorful CNY… Microsoft stabbed me at the back when I installed the latest nvidia graphics drivers… Vista simply refused to boot into windows, and I didn’t have any proper restore point saved… thus Vista couldn’t repair the problem… leading me to format my entire hard disk and reinstall all the damn softwares and drivers again. Lucky G came down to help a bit. If that wasn’t troublesome enough, Vista prompted me to install new updates which in the end, didn’t shut down properly and caused me to reboot from DVD multiple times to restore it to the previous working state… Its really the disappointment of 2007. I really should’ve gotten XP 64 bit instead. Screw MS Vista… for now. My advice to everyone out there is to get XP now… I think Vista’s gonna need another few years before it really gets stabilized.

Now my Call of Duty 4 saved games all gone…. nooooo…. after all the weapon and ability upgrades…

On the bright side… I had to reinstall my Creative Fatal1ty sound card, and realized I’ve been under-utilizing it from the day I installed it. Now that I’ve reinstalled with all the stuff… the sound is just gawking, amazingly great quality. Watch the Transformers DVD and it was almost as if I was in a theatre. Crysis is also running quite smoothly now at High modes with very high sound settings. In some way, the Vista screw up was also sort of a blessing in disguise… though it bloody better not happen the 2nd time. Need to backup stuff… might need another HDD in the near future.

Still have 1 more day of leave to go… ^_^

Think you had a bad CNY? These guys were locked up during Chinese New Year.

Excerpt from TodayOnline: http://www.todayonline.com/articles/237087.asp

Posted a thread on the bar. I got damn emotional after reading the whole thing on the actual paper. That’s just me… cos freedom of rights are there for a reason and its what defines our humanity and our existence. Locking up someone and sending people meals is nothing short of treating people like animals.

Additional facts from the printed version:

… meals were seen hanging on a hook outside the gate, which the workers inside could reach through a gap…

… Under the Penal Code, wrongful confinement involves wrongfully restraining any person in such a manner as to prevent that person from proceeding beyond certain circumscribing limits.

If convicted, one could be jailed up to three years, or fined $1000, or both, depending on the length of the confinement.

Fined S$1k??? I suppose that can’t be the maximum fine… how can that be sufficient penalty? Assuming if he is guilty, $1k isn’t even a mosquito bite. And just what was the boss doing in HK? working? seriously… HK people are also having CNY celebrations. As for the father of this boss… I’m sure he felt damn stressed out while being interviewed by the press.

I admit that I am overreacting to this issue, who knows it might be another conspiracy theory. Notice that there’s no info from the boss, no expressed intention to commit the offence, and simply taking countermeasures to prevent theft. Workers backstabbing the boss? Nevertheless, let justice be served accordingly.

The Newpaper… close to rubbish?

Yes my blog has quite a bit of rubbish, yet really couldn’t help but notice… but before I carry on this rant.. I admit that my standard of English is going downhill meaning I don’t really have good basis to criticise the newpaper. And as defaming as this post may sound… its merely a personal opinion and should not be taken as hard facts. Nevertheless The Newpaper does pose some entertainment value. I also won’t jump to the conclusion of it being shoddy work since the editors would know better… I don’t read it often anyway. Had to wait over an hour for G to knock off for dinner and thus needed sometime to help pass time.

But I couldn’t help notice the small print out of nowhere…

Anyway I googled the names and here’s the info on Tan Siew Sin courtesy of Wikipedia :

“… later Malaysia’s) first Minister of Commerce and Industry, Finance Minister for 15 years, and president of the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA, later Malaysian Chinese Association).”

It does seem like Tan Siew Sin was the first finance minister… but then this link proved otherwise…

http://www.mca-selangor.org.my/en/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=2

Don’t get me wrong here, people make mistakes and screw up just about everyday. It’s just a matter of how big the screw up is. It just caught the eye because the correction came out of nowhere… “huh?? is this related to the picture?”

I also think I’m pretty WOLS… I’m sure that quite a few people already gave up on reading the Newpaper, not just because of petty errors, but the structure and content as well… RN still reads it though… which is reasonable because you can’t always look at things at a single dimension. RN looks at things in just about every dimension possible and makes the best out of it… including newpaper… makes me feel shallow. *grin* Also personally, the choice of articles are just…. “Is this Taiwan?” not really, but close?

Though this was quite the profound…

“……………………………………………………..”

Ok so… try looking from the intellectual social standpoint. Its all about the target audience, and the kind of feeling that editors want to give to readers… (yah rite…) On the other hand quite frankly, it does qualify for a pretty good blog post. My question is… how on earth did this make an entire page of a newspaper!? On a more positive note, thankfully the editors had enough pride not to put this one as the headlines on the front page.

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not complaining about the standard. I hate the part of being an adult and being bored, anal and just complaining about anything one can complain about. This article just seems quite amusing and am just exploring greater depths with my limited knowledge of how the world works.

But what is news fundamentally? Its text and information… its discourse meant for the public. In layman terms, news is one huge plethora of discourses lumped together to tell everyone what’s happening. So does an article about a man not getting his box with his $625 Montblanc qualify as news? Well… then begs the question of definition and qualification… and of course… what’s the point? Where’s the box for the Montblanc? I seriously, still don’t get it. Because even after reading the long article, it merely stated that it was a mistake by the salesperson. Ok so does Montblanc’s service suck? No, despite a pathetic attempt to hint it.. I mean… its so bloody out of context. An article about the art and value of Montblanc pens would have been so much more interesting, and probably have side notes to tell people not to buy a Montblanc without a box… Unless the guy just wants to be known as a person with Montblanc who almost didn’t get a box… uurrgghh… Which led me to conclude…

One whole page about nothing! haha! duh…

Nevertheless, thank you Newpaper for giving me something to blog about when I’m seriously bored… I wonder if there’s more…

3, 2, 1… ladies and gentlemen, we have lift off… The Asus Silent Knight II

If anything, I have to be in the geekiest mood to write this… perhaps most ladies will take a detour out of this entry… nevertheless… I’ve got something pretty “cool” to rave about and here it is…

The Asus Silent Knight II. Probably be thinking “what a cheesy name…” but I find the name to be quite creatively appropriate. Its one of the quietest CPU coolers in the market emitting no more than 26 decibels. Yet… its so friggin huge…

Its surprising that this beast weighs just 610g, which is great because its so much easier to handle when you install it. There are some beefed up coolers that are just too heavy to the point that mounting it on the motherboard seems like it’ll just make the PCB snap. For those who are really lost reading this post, the Asus Silent Knight II is a CPU heatsink which is dedicated to ensure sufficient cooling on the processor chip in your PC. Processor chips (for e.g. Intel Core 2 Duo) run at extremely fast speeds which in turn generates a lot of heat. Without the heatsink to conduct heat away from the chip, its fry baby fry… I mainly decided to get this because since I’m planning to overclock my processor, its gonna need a very good cooler to preserve the lifespan of my $400+ chip.

Just look at it… its like some jet turbine engine out of an F-15… its got a little fan in between to suck in the cool air and expel the heat dissipated through the copper fins… this thing looks insane and yet it’s just a CPU heatsink.

However, I will also add, that I have never attempted to physically dismantle a PC before. But I finally got the chance to meddle around dismantling it in order to install the new heatsink.

Here’s what the inside of my PC looks like originally:

So I had to take out the side panel…

So its time to remove the original heatsink. Disconnect all the peripherals/cables and switch off the power… Just took a screwdriver to release the clipped heatsink on top of the processor chip… and then take out the old heatsink.

(above: taking off the heatsink revealing the heart of the system. Grey stain is actually thermal paste (acts to conduct heat between the chip and heatsink)

Up till this point it seemed pretty easy. Followed by taking out the processor,

(above: removing the processor. You must not touch the bottom of it… and hold it along the edges…)

I wiped off the old thermal paste with tissue and applied a fresh layer of it (using toothpick below)

And then remount it back onto the motherboard securely.

I felt pretty good at this point because it was the very first time I had physically handled a processor chip. Next thing was to disconnect all the cabling/video/audio cards and remove the whole motherboard from the PC casing… which was tricky as I had to remember where cables and connectors belonged to when I reassemble everything again after installing the heatsink (the Asus Q connectors helped a ton). Followed the instruction manual which was easy to use and understand, and managed to install the Silent Knight onto the board…

Now to get this whole thing back into the casing. Just look at how big the Silent Knight is… looks like some turbo afterburner that’s gonna make the motherboard lift off…

Now to reconnect back all the cables/screws/graphics/sound cards…

It was easier than I expected thankfully. Hence I tilted back the PC casing upright normally and moved on to connect the keyboards/mice etc… Powered on… vuala! It works!

The blue LED fan looks really cool and the airflow in the casing has also improved…

It was quite an interesting experience. Looking forward to overclock soon… =)