Merry Christmas 2012

Here I am sitting at the boarding gate at Hong Kong airport as I wait for my flight back to Singapore to close out yet another year.

Christmas Eve, this year, was a non-event for me as I worked through Chritsmas Eve, had a simple dinner then head back to the apartment to pack my luggage for the trip back to Singapore.

Christmas has started to lose its meaning to me. Perhaps, I will find another more meaningful time in December 2013 to come back.

StanChart Marathon for my RunForFunds project?

iPonder.

- Voxeros

- Voxeros

Erasing Hard Disk - JayWalk Style 2.0

It was only last February when I had to kill off an ailing hard disk.

Well, it seems that my HP laptop's hard disk (bought in Mar 2010) has decided to announce its retirement.

I was in for a shocker when I got a hard disk failure warning at boot up when I was 30,000 ft in the air over to Shanghai.

I have had these strange encounters of my hard disks dying in mid air.

Past experiences was that the moment I am back on the ground, the hard disks worked fine again.

Cabin pressure at work here?

Anyway, it appeared that I wasn't so lucky this time and I couldn't boot up the laptop even after I landed.

I do my weekly backups every Monday but it just so happened that I was flying on Monday itself and I thought heck lah, come back then back up.

Lo and behold, it died that very day. Murphy's Law much?

The bad news was that I lose up to two weeks' worth of new data. The good news was that I still had the backup albeit not very current.  A small consolation considering that fact that the loss was limited to just 2 weeks.

I brought it to the shop and had the errant hard disk hooked up to their PC.

As it turned out, the hard disk was still readable, just not bootable which is good news.

JayWalk says Dead HDD is still readable, just not bootable. ALL MA PRON ARE SAFE!!!!! - #htpadf via kwout

So I paid RMB 350 (SGD 70) for a 500 GB hard disk and got the computer guys to clone the old disk for me.

All was good and cherry by the afternoon as I proceeded to end this episode by terminating the life of the old hard disk.

Jay "Hard Disk Vampire Slayer" Walk drove the nail right into the platens, shattering them to bits and pieces.

- Voxeros

Happy End Of The World. Not.

Happy End Of The World!!!

Not.

Life goes on like any other day.

The Mayan never specifically said that 21 Dec 2012 is the end of the world. Their calendar just happened to run out on that particular day. It is our own vivid imaginary speculation, jumping into conclusion that the end is nigh.

It is my opinion that they:

• like the cartoon said, simply ran out of space on the calendar.
   
• got tired of doing the calendar as it is never ending.
  
• the baby is crying and they had to stop whatever they are doing to go change nappy and/or milk feed.

In any case, before anyone jumps for joy, the world will end one day as we depends on the sun for survival. The sun, however, will burn out one of these days and calls curtains on all life on Earth. Still, that should be billions and billions of years away and it's really too far for us to worry about.

Image Credit: http://www.memecenter.com

- Voxeros

Big Yellowfin Tuna

• The San Diego Union Tribune (10 Dec 2012) - Petruescu's Historic 445-Pound Yellowfin Was A Family Affair

At 445 pounds, that is a friggin huge tuna. So what if it can't go into the record book on a technicality that he had help reeling in the monster fish? The chap got the fish at the end of the day and it is all that mattered.



Image Credit: http://www.thestandard.com.hk

- Voxeros

Teacher's Hug Not Free

• ShanghaiDaily.com (12 Dec 2012) - Teacher's Hug Not Free

What? Must pay money so that the child gets 2 daily hugs from teacher?

AND that brings me back to our own Singapore.

How much did that RI boy pay for the teacher to have sex with him ah?

Things that make you go hmmm......

- Voxeros

Panda In Business Class

• The Standard (15 Dec 2012) - Panda Takes People On Flight Of Fancy

There was an internet hoax on the net with a Panda traveling on Ta1wan's China Airlines' Business Class.

While I am slightly amused by the stunt, something else hit me instead.

Looking at the picture of the panda seated in Business Class, man....... you call that business class??

Looking at the seat, that is one LOUSY business class. I think even Jetstar also have a better business class product.

- Voxeros

Cathay On Strike

Click Image To Enlarge

•  The Standard (14 Dec 2012) - Cathay Wants Union Voices Back At Table
  
• CNN (13 Dec 2012) - Cathay Cabin Crew Threaten No-Smile Service
  
• The Standard (17 Dec 2012) - Cathay Agrees To Union Talks

I am slated to fly home for Christmas and New Year and my heart sank when I initially heard of the news of cabin crew planning to go on strike.

I tried to changed to another airline but alas due to the last minute nature of my attempt, there were no seats available on other airlines for that period.

The news above was a couple of weeks later when the strike threat was averted and may just be reduced to a work-to-rule silent protest instead.

No alcohol. That one I can accept.

No smile? CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!

So anyway, the CNN update was saying that Christmas will be saved while the union may considering striking from New Year's Day.

Frankly, I don't care already for two reasons.

1. If strike from New Year's Day, I go back to work later lor! WOOTS!!!
   
2. My Chinese New Year home flight is on SQ and so bor wah eh tai jee liao loh.
   
   Dum dee dum dee dum....

- Voxeros

Motel In Shanghai

Take a close look and tell me what is wrong with this picture.

1. The door says "PULL", yet the handle bar is on the other side of the glass door. WUT?
2. Why is there another door handle bar at the hinge side of the door? WUT? WUT?

I was on a business trip to Shanghai early last week and was checked into this motel. I was truly baffled by the bathroom.

Next, I decided to open the curtains to check out the view outside.

 I was treated to an awesome view of the ..... WALL.

Great. A room with a Mas Selamat window. *facepalm*

I asked for a quiet room and was given this one located next to the hotel's restaurant. As I checked in around 11pm, the restaurant closed for the day was dead quiet.

Just the way I like it.

Until 6am the next morning where I was rudely awakened by the clangs of the pots and woks as the kitchen sprung to life preparing breakfast for the guests. To make matters worse, oil fumes from the kitchen, presumably, next door starting filling my room!

Arrrgghh!!!

I went down to the front desk and demanded a change of room.

The room for my subsequently nights was much better except for the fact that the shower cubicle door (also PULL/PUSH mix up), came right off when I pulled it.

The whole bladdy door handled had rusted through.

The consolation was the hot water was instantaneous as compared to my hotel back in the Capital.

So. Would I still stay there the next time I am back in Shanghai?

For RMB 177 (SGD 35.40) per night.

Yes.

- Voxeros

Broken RockRiver

This is my lazy casual walk-about shoes. Was.

I find it hard to go out in flip-flops as I find it too sloppy. Even sandals is a 50-50 for me. Something about open toes that I feel naked walking out in public.

Hence, the RockRiver shoes that offers both covered but well ventilated toes and no needing to wear socks.

Well, it was Sunday and for once, I managed to wake up early to head to the gym for the first time (in the morning that is).

However, when I reached the gym at 8am, it was closed. I did not know that my gym opens from 10am. Perhaps I took it for granted (from my Singapore gym days) that gym opens from 6am (some from 5am).

Nabeh.

So, in lieu of the 10k that I was planning to run, I decided to walk back to my apartment which is about 3km away.

Then the shoe died en route as I hobbled and dragged my way home.

Nabeh.

Goodbye RockRiver. It was short-lived as you survived for about a year. For RMB 130 (SGD 26), I didn't expect longevity from you. It was fun spending two whole days walking all over the Forbidden City with you.

Goodbye.

- Voxeros

Look At This Instagram

CollegeHumor's Favorite Funny Videos

Spotted this on CollegeHumor which I thought was awfully funny. I am guilty of some of the stuff mentioned myself and the Barflies would all know whose pair of "Vacation Feet" those belong to!

What I also discovered that this music video is available from iTunes for USD 0.99 which baffled me. Why pay money when you can simply goto CollegeHumor's website and watch it for free?

Really no logic.
- Voxeros

Water Balloon Pain

Watch how they try to smash water balloons into a person's face and FAIL REPEATEDLY!

OUCH! DA PAIN!!!

I especially love it when the first water balloon dropped directly from above (and still didn't break) wrapped around his head like a hat, making him look like a Super Mario Mushroom.

Haha.

- Voxeros

RunForFunds 2012 - December Update

It's the time of the year where we have the Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore 2012.

As per tradition, Adrian has an update on RunForFunds.

Read below:

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1. The Good News

RunForFunds, in its 9th year, celebrated our first fruits of success this year.

• Alfle Lim, an award recipient at the inaugural (Maximize Your Potential) MYP ceremony in 2004, scored 7A’s and 1B for his 2011 A-levels.
  
  He will be reading law @ NUS after he completes his NS.
  
   
• This year, Tan ZhiWei (now @ Hwa Chong), also from the inaugural batch of MYP, is taking his A levels.
  
  He is confident of doing well.
  
  I look forward to celebrating his success at next year's MYP award ceremony.

(You can find the new RunForFunds page on facebook. Picutres of MYP cermonies are posted. http://www.facebook.com/RunForFunds)


2.  The Bad News

Now for the bad news……….I’m not running this Sunday and probably not anytime soon.

I’ve been training since July for the army half marathon in Sept and this Sunday’s run.

Have been clocking respectable times too.

But I suffered a bad back strain 2 weeks ago that hasn’t gone away.

It’s the back nerve compression injury (that cause sharp pains down the leg) that I sustained several years ago.

Doctor says I should stop running and start swimming

So in essence, I will not be running for funds in the short term and will look to some of you to take over the running (and I co-ordinate).

Maybe I can do “SwimForFunds” next year.

The problem is...... I don't like swimming !!! :-)


3.  Extra $6,000 Needed To Keep MYP Going For Another 3 Years.

The MYP fund which we injected 3 years ago into GMSP has been depleted.

To keep MYP going for another 3 years, the teachers @ GMSP have budgeted $22,000.

The RunForFunds bank account as of 25th Nov 2012 is SGD 17,582.89.

So I hope to raise $6,000 this year for RunForFunds Fund to continue the good work for MYP (funds in excess of $22k will cover contingencies).

So folks, I look forward to your continued support for RunForFunds.

If you’d like to contribute to this cause, please email me and I will provide payment details.*

Thanks all for making a difference in the lives that we touch, one life at a time.

Blessings,

Adrian

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* Important Note:

We do not solicit funds from the public. If Adrian or I don't know you in person, we will not be able to accept your contribution. We will thank you from the bottom of our hearts but we cannot accept any contribution for legal reasons.

As for the rest of my family and friends, drop me a note in private if you are interested to help out.

Cheers.

- Voxeros