PMS

That day, I was feeling kinda low. So decided to go for a spin. Drive drive drive drive, and found myself landed in the northern-east portion of Singapore.

Then I wondered if anyone fly kite at night at that area. Nah.. no one. If there's anyone flying, I would have joined in too. My kites are always ready in the car boot - the big sotong and 3x normal diamond kites.

On the way back, it's a killer. Imagine 3am driving at KPE and woke up at 8am earlier that morning, I tell you, it's no joke. I was in fact struggling to keep myself awake. But I'm still a safe driver, not like *cough*kzw*cough*.

That's just the start of my PMS. Sucks.

Today still no news of the 说好的幸福.

Work schedule is tight. (But I'm still slacking.)

More shit tasks dropped on me.

And my ever mind boggling issue is not getting any better, or maybe worse now.

When's a good time to stop? I don't know. Should I?

I know I got a lot of good friends. Lotsa advice and encouragement from you all. Thanks. But I reckon only I can decide for myself. ARGH!

I need a break.

Gmarket Orders [100504] [100509] [100510]

Too many Gmarket orders came in and no time to blog. So here's a quick one.

Photos of Order [100504]

Photos of Order [100509]

Photos of Order [100510]

Currently I'm still processing 2 orders. *stress*

This time I used EMS instead of DPD. The shipping is slightly more expensive, but delivery between Gmarket Shipping Centre to my house is significantly faster.

Order [100504] took 2 weeks to arrive. Some items were delivered to Gmarket Shipping Centre pretty slow. That caused some delay. Order [100509] took around 8-9 days. Pretty average.

Order [100510] took only 6-7 days. That's very fast.

Lemme just talk on my own items this time round. A quick one.

my 2 tees (XL size) - 10100won (sgd13.20)

Finally got the tee shirt size right. So I can wear either XL or XXL. Cheap and good. Going to get more.

my banc watch - 31900won (sgd41.40)

I love this watch! Coooooooooooooool watch! Banc apparently is some quite popular trendy brand. Pretty hot in Korea. The design is cute lah. Lego character.

my 2 rings (with free earphone) - 18100won(sgd 23.49)

I'm a sucker for rings. =) This time the blue is nice. Each time the gift never fail to impress me.

Anyone wanna join in for more Gmarket stuff? Drop a comment or a msg in the tagbox!

-edited-

Oh yeah. Found something useful for size measurement from Gmarket. Never saw it before. Click here!

Tips - Instantly Up Your Leave Days!

Actual conversation quoted between my colleague (SY) and me (SC).

SY says:

*from Jan till now, I've taken XX days leave + YY days MC...

SC says:

*fwah..

SY says:

*I still have ZZ days to clear before end 2010

SC says:

*i still got AA days to clear before end 2010

*i think

*and u play cheat! u got childcare and maternity leave!

SY says:

*remember to include labour day off-in-lieu

SC says:

*damn.. i go find a girl now..

SY says:

*wrong.. you should get a child now...

SC says:

*wa lao.. single parent.. the kid will have an imbalance childhood leh..

SY says:

*Then look for single mom...

*instantly add 6 days childcare leave...

SC says:

*lol

SY says:

*no need to wait for 10 mths.

SC says:

*im going to blog this down..

My First Gmarket Order!! [100419]

I was poisoned with this site (Gmarket) by my friend. Sucks. It's very poisonous. Highly contagious too. No known immunity discovered yet.

Lemme show you the loot first before I talk more about the site, its ordering system and stuff.


The box

A box to contain all the orders. I've an order of total 22 items.


The content

After unboxing it, the items inside were packed nicely in their own packaging too. I first opened my packages.


My rings from here. Price: SGD21.67 (KRW16530)

I ordered 3 rings. It came with 3 free girly rings. Need to find people to give them away to. Satisfied with the rings, and they fit nicely! I bought around size 22-23 as indicated on the page. Probably the only the blue one, which I was so looking forward to, was kinda disappointing. It was in a darker shade of blue, not the electric blue shown. =\


My tees from here. Price: SGD14.16 (KRW10800)

I tried ordered 2 tees to test for its quality and its size. I order size-L, and dang! Can't fit me. Ah bui too fat. I need to go 1-2 size bigger. Anyway, take note that each tee within the same shop might have different sizing. So double check, don't assume all tees share the same size. Exact measurement stated for size-L from that shop - Shoulder 43, Chest 97, Sleeves 18, Length 65. The shoulder was like a bit too small for me, and chest way too small. Anyway I got another model to wear it for me.


Front


Back

It's just nice for him, but a size bigger will be nicer. Thanks Steven for the free modeling. *applause*

End of my items. The rest I can't review much. Not my items and I can't possibly try them on.

Let's move on to Pam's stuff.


Pam's shoes from here. Price: SGD33.83 (KRW25800)

A pair of nude pink flats and a pair of black pointed heels. Glossy surface. Quality looks okay to me. Won't know until the owner tries them on. KIV.


Pam's dress from here. Price: SGD10.36 (KRW7900)

This dress is sweeeeet! And quality feels good to. *fondling with the material* No, just joking. I'm typing this in office, totally nowhere near the dress to play with it. -_-" But ya, good buy I'll say.

Now on to Anatoly's stuff. A short one.


Anatoly's dunno some kind of tights from here. Price: SGD64.38 (KRW49100) including domestic shipping.

Some dry-fit kinda tights, top and bottom. From deuters. Look good stuff. Didn't open it, scare I mess it up. He claims it's selling cheaper on Gmarket. Anyway, this shop doesn't have free domestic shipping, so you'll have to pay for it (an additional KRW2500).

Here comes the main buyer for this order, Daphne Kwan!


Dap's order #1 from here. Price: SGD12.85 (KRW9800)

She actually ordered 5 tees from here. But 3 items were cancelled. No reason was stated, though I think even if they state I also won't understand. They'll probably write in Korean. I'll just assume it's outta stock and they did refund me the money, so it's fine.


Dap's order #2 from here. Price: SGD16.65 (KRW12700)

I like the 2 grey ones, Charlie Chaplin and little red riding hood. The design is nice.


Dap's order #3 from here. Price: SGD37.24 (KRW28400)

The white one with the veil is nice too. The tutu skirt is cuteeeee. LOL! Wonder how is she going to match up for that skirt. Interesting. *pssssst* the other top was ordered wrongly by me. she said it's okay. but i still feel bad.... =(



Dap's order #4 from here . Price: SGD45.37 (KRW34600)

4x black skirts. When I took them out, I was like -_-". All of the same colour. Okay, not that bad. The 2 crumpled skirts look good. Material quality wise is pretty good too.

That's all for the loots. Shipping cost around SGD27.50 (KRW20900). Being all friend friend, and no one object, we split the shipping fee by per item. So end up each item cost around SGD1.25 for shipping. I'm surprised it's pretty cheap.

Since this is my first order, lemme share my experience, in case any of you interested in making the order yourself. Of course, you can go through me too. I should be doing an order, let's say... once a month? =\

Basic
Anyway... Basically it's like eBay. In fact, it's actually a subsidiary of eBay.
The concept is the same - sellers (shops) post up their items, you are the buyer.

It's a Korean site, so do expect lotsa Korean words. You can change to English from the top menu bar. BUT!! But... Most of the products are shown in picture files, and shop description also never translate. Your best friend while shopping there will be Google translator. Whenever I'm adding stuff to my cart, I'm practically doing figure recognition, matching the characters on the picture to the words in the list. And ya, I can recognise some of colours already, like white and black.

Price
Some shops put an extremely low price and that might be just a gimmick to bring you in. Because that price doesn't apply to all the items. That's just a base price. To calculate the right price of the item you want, you need to plus the additional cost indicated.
Look at the selected item from the list. It has a +5000 behind, so the actual price for that item is 4800 (base) + 5000 (additional). The shops usually have discounts. For the base price, take the discounted price stated. And wait! Sometimes the shops will have other special freebies or discounts stated in the picture between, which you and me couldn't understand. For me, I'll just let it be special bonus if there is. =D

Shopping cart and Checking out
Take note of this too. You can use browsers like Chrome and Firefox while looking through the shops. But when you want to add to shopping cart and check out, please use IE. Sadly, that site has problem with other browsers. Keep your purchase below 400bucks!! Heard that GST will be charged if they found out your purchase is above 400bucks.

International Shipping
When shopping, make sure that the shop does international shipping too.
Just check for the either of the 2 highlighted areas. This is the indication if they do international shipping or not. You can actually first filter for shops with international shipping when you looking for shops.

After you check out, you'll be prompted to fill in forms for the shipping. For shipping to Singapore, there are 2 services to choose from - EMS and DPD service. For this order, I tried DPD. It's slightly cheaper. The parcel left Gmarket central warehouse on 24th April, touched down in Singapore on 25th April, reach my house on 28th April. Maybe I should try EMS the next time, see if there's any improvement on the delivery time.

Payment
Payment can be made through Paypal or credit cards. But to use credit cards, I think there are some admin process to go through first. This is what I've gathered, not too sure how accurate is it. You have to scan your credit card and send it to Gmarket for verification first. Once they have verified and approved, you may start to use that card for payment. It's an one-time process, you'll only need to do it once. But since I already have a Paypal account, so I'll just use it.

But I realised I was charged as USD instead of KRW. Wondering if I could choose KRW instead or not. I felt like I lost some money through 2x conversion - KRW -> USD -> SGD. I'll figure that out again during my next purchase. Never mind for now.

That's about all. I might be conducting another order next week I think. Someone is pestering me to do it ASAP already. =|

Mayday Concert Aftermath Part 1

Last Saturday I just went for Mayday Concert. It's my first paid-concert that I've attended. Interesting and fun I would have to say. Though I was seated far far away from the stage, man, the concert was still pretty high.

Anyway, let's hit some Mayday songs, dude!

五月天 笑忘歌 MV


五月天 我心中尚未崩坏的地方 MV


五月天 突然好想你 MV


五月天 春天的吶喊 MV

All along I thought I heard a certain part of the lyrics wrongly. Until just now when I went to check the lyrics then I realized they were really trying to put vulgarity in. LOL! "看羚羊草枝摆"


Enjoy!

Reading...

Recently I'm back to reading books. I've been wanting to read the Percy Jackson series ever since I've watched Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief



The show might be a bit lousy. But why I like it so much? IT'S GREEK MYTHOLOGY! I'm a total sucker for that. Actually I prefer Percy Jackson to Clash of the Titans. Clash of the Titans is based on the classic and rewrite. Percy Jackson is a new story with ideas based on the classic. See the difference?

Anyway, ya, the story book is better than the show. The show was kinda shallow in the plot, but better in the story book.



It's a 5-books series - Lightning Thief, Sea of Monsters, Titan's Curse, Battle of Labyrinth and Last Olympian. It's books for teenager anyway. You'll probably finish 1 book in a couple of hours or so. I think Hairy Potty books are thicker.

Having finished that series, I thought I might try another story book series. So I tried Twilight last night. Regrets man, I tell you. It's like a girly kind of story. I think my tolerance lasted only until the part Edward took Bella out for hiking, then confession here confession there. It's as if the entire chapter is about them talking about love and nothing else. Yucks! Definitely not my type of story.

Now I need to look for another story book to read. Anyone has any recommendation?

Love: Sci-Fi (non-futuristic type, think Michael Crichton), Fantasy, Comedy, Mystery, Thriller.
Hate: Too much romance, Sci-Fi (futuristic, think Star Trek), Classics.

A PhD Taxi Driver

Was doing some random surfing just now and chanced upon this blog of a taxi driver. Apparently he's some researcher with PhD but got laid off and ended up being a taxi driver. He blogged down interesting happenings from his daily rides. Yup, worth reading if you can spare some time.

http://taxidiary.blogspot.com
"Probably the only taxi driver in this world with a PhD from Stanford and a proven track record of scientific accomplishments, I have been forced out of my research job at the height of my scientific career, and unable to find another one, for reasons I can only describe as something "uniquely Singapore". As a result, I am driving taxi to make a living and writing these real life stories just to make the dull job a little more interesting. I hope that these stories are interesting to you too."

My Uncle

My uncle just passed away last Monday. Thanks everyone for being with me. I'm pretty alright now. Really.

It's scary to think that the people, who are with you for so many years, can just disappear.. just like that. During that cremation day, while on the bus back, I was trying hard to accept the fact that I will never be able to see my uncle anymore. You know so many years, almost for as long as I've been conscious of my life, if I just go down my block during mid-noon timing, he will definitely be there caring for his plants and stuff. However, during that day, I realized that that will never happen anymore. Sometimes, you just take things for granted, assuming they will be around all the time.

Damn. Shouldn't be writing this kind of emo post in office. Could have gone home first then proceed with writing this. Luckily now in office, only few people left behind nia.

On the 出殡 day, there was a live band playing. The first song was already an atmosphere-damping song - 父子情深. My sisters and I clearly remembered that this song was often played (from CD/cassette) by my uncle in his house. We actually got to know this song from him. That song has a nice and touching lyrics too. Yaaa... in fact, most of my interaction with hokkien songs were because of him. Another song that I remembered was 拢是为着你啦. Another favourite song that he would play too.






*breathe in* *breathe out* *calm down*

Anyway, ya... Cherish all that are around you now, before you realize you are losing them.

Driving on the Highway - Dilemma

Imagine.. you are driving along a long long long looooooong highway. You wanna get to your destination pretty much badly.

You have no idea when and where will it end, will your petrol last, if there's any petrol kiosk along the way.

Basically you have just started out on your first leg of the journey. Will you turn back before you get stranded in the middle of the highway? Or just try to make your way there, hoping the journey will be short, your petrol is sufficient and/or there's petrol kiosk?

I don't know if I'm game enough to be gamble on it.. shucks....

Frustration...

When you realised you are at a 进退两难 and 左右为难 situation, what can you do? I'm actually starting to feel frustrated being stuck there now. 有口难言...

Time to just 走一步看一步...

Btw, work sucks too. ARGH!

And mum just updated me on my uncle's status. Doctor say he'll still be able to make it through for another 2-3 weeks. Everyone's already making preparation for the worst.

Epic Fail - Haw Flakes

Got people say haw flakes is can be used to lose weight. So I went to do a Google search. As usual, Wikipedia will appear in the search results. And this is what I saw.

-_-" Should be some previous cached entry before the Wiki article got edited. But ya... niceee.....

Crossroads and Deserts

Heard of the theory of parallel worlds? A mirror world is created whenever you have to make a decision - 1 world with you choosing A, and another world with you choosing B. This thing actually has been showed in many movies like "Butterfly Effect". But will thing eventually end up in the same spot like in "Sliding Doors"? Anyway, this has no link with my main topic. LOL!

Bumping into crossroads in life is pretty common. You come from 1 direction, you can choose to move in any of the other directions or even choose to turn back and turn to retrace back to the previous crossroad. At least @ a crossroad, you know where you are and you know there are directions for you to choose from. It's just a matter of do you know where you wanna go and is that a right route.

But currently, I think I'm like in the midst of a desert. In all directions you don't see anything in sight. And you don't know where to go next. Sucks... How did I even get ended up here in the first place? Where should I go?

I don't know.... The dynamic of my life is getting slightly messed up recently. Shucks...

Guava

When you eat guava, do you dip/soak it with the sour plum powder?

For me, I don't. Guava actually taste sweet and nice without the powder, unless it's not ripe yet. Furthermore, the powder contains sugar and salt. No no no...

In fact, I'm chewing on it now. =D I'm being random here.... While chewing, I start to wonder why many people say guava is good for health. So I went to google on it a bit. Found out it has a lot of many benefits! One of such is that guava actually has more vitamin C than orange! Well, that is if you eat it with the skin. The guava skin contains a lot of vitamin C. It has also other benefits to stuff like prolong menses, obesity, constipation, etc.

Anyway, I'll just do some copy pasting here.

Adopted from http://lifestyle.iloveindia.com/lounge/benefits-of-guava-1612.html

Nutritional Value of Guava
Given below is the amount of nutrients present in 1 cup (165 gm) of Guava, apart from Iron and Folic Acid:

• Calcium - 50 mg
• Carbohydrates - 19.6 gm
• Fiber - 8.9 gm
• Niacin - 2 mg.
• Phosphorus - 48 mg
• Protein - 1.35 gm
• Total Fat - 0.9 gm
• Vitamin A - 412 IU
• Vitamin B - 1.15 mg
• Vitamin C - 498 mg
• Calories - 84

Health & Nutrition Benefits of Eating Guava

• Guava is a very good source of vitamins, fibers as well as minerals.
• Being rich in Vitamin C; guava is effective in treating male infertility caused by sperm clumping, adhesion and other abnormalities.
• Guava has been associated with healing of wounds, when applied externally.
• Guava has general haemostatic properties and can be used for treating bleeding nose, gums and minor internal hemorrhaging.
• Guava helps cure dysentery, by inhibiting microbial growth and removing extra mucus from the intestines.
• Guava helps the body in combating free radicals produced during metabolism and aids in preventing age-related chronic diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, cataract and rheumatoid arthritis.
• Guava is one of the richest sources of dietary fiber and thus, is good for those suffering from constipation.
• Guava strengthens and tones up the digestive system and even disinfects the same.
• Guava, having high content of roughage, no cholesterol & less digestible carbohydrates, is good for those trying to lose weight.
• Guavas can improve the texture of skin and help avoid skin problems. For the purpose, you can either eat it raw or make wash your skin with a decoction of its immature fruits and leaves.
• Juice of raw and immature guavas or decoction of guava-leaves is known to bring relief in cough and cold.
• Researches have shown that guava is pretty effective in preventing cancer and even heart diseases in people.
• The presence of complex carbohydrates and dietary fibers in guava makes it effective in lowering cholesterol and blood sugar levels.
• The presence of Vitamin C and other phytonutrients, such as caretenoids, isoffavonoids and polyphenols, in guava has led to it being an effective antioxidant.

Guava has been found to be beneficial for people suffering from the following ailments:

• Acidosis
• Asthma
• Bacterial Infections
• Catarrh
• Congestion of the Lungs
• Convulsions
• Epilepsy
• High Blood Pressure
• Obesity
• Oral Ulcers
• Poor Circulation
• Prolonged Menstruation
• Scurvy
• Swollen Gums
• Toothache

LX3 vs S90

Panasonic Lumix LX3

Canon Powershot S90

Have been wanting to get a camera. My decision seems to be lingering between this 2 models. Each has its own pros and cons. Seems quite hard to decide.

Those who know about these 2 camera, which one will you choose and why?

DX ordering again! 20100302

Hey people! I'm going for another round of DealExtreme ordering again. If you are lazy to do the ordering yourself, can go through me. I've been wondering why am I doing this, when I'm not gaining anything outta it. Maybe I should start to earn some commission.........

To kick start..

Ultra-Mini 1000mA USB Power Adapter/Charger (100~240V/EU Plug)
Price: $3.04

I'm getting this. Currently still thinking whether to get some other items or not. Msg me if you wanna add items to the list.

Some Cheapo Trying To Act Rich

Some cheapo person trying to act rich and throw money at pple...

*some cheapo*:

then I DUN WAN

think i dun have money is it????

pui. ahahahhahahahaa

*throw money into sc's face*

*some cheapo*:

muHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA........

*some cheapo*:

*pick up all the thrown money... and keep them*

KL Work Trip 23-25 Feb 2010

Last week went for a KL work trip. It was a last minute thingy. Well, work here is dynamic. Not the first time like that already, informing just the day before flying. Used to it. Monday morning informed me flying the next day, and next morning off to KL.

I refused to bring office laptop, so I brought my own laptop. And guess what? That morning when waiting for the boarding gate to open, I tried powering up my laptop. It's not working anymore! SPOILT!!! I brought a big and heavy paperweight to KL. Nice.....

Details of my work cannot be discussed. If I tell you, I'll have to kill you!

As usual again, during normal operation time, I had little things to do. Then evening came and as I waiting for them to prepare some stuff for me, I decided to do something "constructive".


I name this The Pyramid of Staples!

Not bad.. Work ends at 8+pm. It's a good sign. While walking out, I saw this office @ the entrance. That's Pam's company! Okay, nothing else.


DKSH

I've been telling my colleague I wanna have A&W for dinner since Monday. And there we have it! A&W


Hot Dog + Curly Fries + Root Beer Float!

The service there quite slow. The counters not very efficient. Not their fault, it's the flow of operation. Sucks.

Breakfast @ the cafe just @ the ground floor of the office building, T-Break. Their pie is very nice, but they didn't have it that morning. Don't know why. So I had their special-dunno-what-omelette. It's nice too.


Special-Dunno-What-Omelette

Lunch and Dinner had normal stuff.

Next morning! Mamak stall!


Roti Canai + Roti Telor + Teh Tarik

Luckily Friday is Malaysia public holiday. So die die Thursday I'll have to go home. So no extension of stay no matter what. When checking in at the airport, we found out our flight got delayed. Delayed by 1 hour. -_-" The flight time is only 35-45min btw.


Delayed Flight

Dinner @ Burger King

Touch down Singapore @ around 830pm.
-The End-

Revenge is Sweet

Some girl was trying to say I'm fat, say I won't be able to see my own shoes when I stand up. Well, I know I am fat, but I thought of a funny way to retaliate.

(A Girl):
stand up, wear ur shoes
and look down

Sicong:
can see lah!

(A Girl):
maybe u'll see ur tummy. HAHAHHAHA

Sicong:
my tummy not that big can

(A Girl):
sure anot?"????

Sicong:
lemme try..

(A Girl):
ok, see half of ur shoes?

Sicong:
u stand up and look down
u sure can see ur shoes

(A Girl):
YES!
in full view!

Sicong:
aeroplane runway

(A Girl):
bird's eye view with no blockage!

Sicong:
HAHAHAHAHA!!!

(A Girl):
WTF!

Tiring Saturday

I just had a chalet with my JC mates this week. Nice to have such stuff, haven't been really interacting with them much. It was a nice opportunity. But this kind of stuff, hai.... We old liao. 27 this year, do less better. Bad for health. Heng only once a year. *phew*

Saturday during chalet, we cooked, Wii-ed, fly kites and BBQ. Now still suffering from the Wii playing aftermath - sore shoulders and arms. I FINALLY GET TO PLAY MY KITES!


Nice? Good wind good weather that day. Winding back the string is the tiring part. Letting it up was easy. Need to get a better reel. =\

After my chalet BBQ, I immediately went for my next activity with another group of friends. I called it the Sunday Weekly. Basically we were like going out every Sunday NIGHT. 1st time was West Coast Mac, 2nd time was Udders Ice Creams. Well, it was still considered as Sunday this time. Sunday 1am? Ya.. It's still a Sunday. LOL

This time we went prawning @ Sin Ming there. Just beside the golf course there. Not a bad place. But we noob lah. We rented 2x rods, and only managed to get 9 (2 were donated) prawns after 3 hours. But it was fun! I wanna go prawning again! Anyone?

After everything, reached back home @ 6am. Nice..... Went out on Friday night 8pm, reach back home on Sunday 6am. In between only slept 4 hours. I'm soooooooooooooooo tired..... but happy nevertheless. I finally got the chance to do 2 things that I've been wanting to do for this month - fly kite and prawning. =)

How Does It Feel...

To know that you might be leaving everyone soon? I don't think I'll understand the kind of feeling he has now. =\