YSunday, March 25, 2007' 9:07 PM
My Country Garden
Top 10 signs that Week 13 (Hell week) is here again:
1. You start eating nutella by the spoons out of the jar
2. You finish half a can of Pringles in a single seating while churning out reports
3. Your long overdue mid-term test is two days away but you havent done a shit abt it
4. You dread logging into your email account because you know there's something in there that requires your action
5. Sleeping is equivalent to hibernation mode
6. You forget to watch Ugly Betty (i've got much to say abt this show, but that will come later!)
7. You forget to watch Desperate Housewives
8. You have charkwayteow, hokkien mee, fried carrot cake, orh lua and stingray for dinner more frequently. other times you crave for double portion tonkutsu ramen..
9. Exams are two weeks away but all you can think about are the trips and concerts that will follow and whether you'll land an internship this summer
10. You cant find anything else better to blog abt other than week 13!
Labels: life
YSaturday, March 24, 2007' 12:55 AM
My Country Garden
BEHOLD
My first Country Garden series.. Enjoy!
(p/s: i'm starting to like my samsung camera)
It's time to put some meaning to a name.
Country-garden is not a blog address conjured out of thin air.
It represents a dream.
The dream of owning a beautiful garden in the country side.
A dream inspired by, yes, an air freshener which i used to have in my toilet.
The spray can had a thomas kinkade-like picture on it, one that depicted a cosy cottage in the country side, and it was accompanied by the most beautiful garden one can ever hope to have! imagine sun beams gently carassing the flowers... and the grass swaying gently with the wind.. it was just. so. beautiful...
the scent of the air freshener was almost addictive.. (it smelled better than toilet anyway) and the name of the scent was... you guessed it - country garden
though country garden may be just a name of an air freshener, the name seemed to stick throughout the years, somehow.
obviously, my rather lame description does much injustice to the actual pic or the scent itself. you've got to see it for urself to feel inspired, but unfortunately, glade has since changed the design of the spray can.
nevertheless, if i've inspired you to want to rush out to the nearest supermarket to grab a country garden air freshener.. you may want to check out this site..
Labels: life
YMonday, March 19, 2007' 10:30 AM
My Country Garden
It's time to check out the picture quality of Samsung.
Overall, here are the major gripes i have with the camera:
1) Absence of OIS
2) Night shots with flash (subjects over exposed, background under exposed)
3) Exposure is adjusted in units of -/+ 0.5 stop, instead of 1/3
4) Lack of full manual control
Picasa does a lousy cropping of the pics, so here's one of the actual ones:
i think the colors come out quite nicely for day shots. it isnt quite as saturated as fuji's, but pleasant enough for the eye. good for travel photos!
Outing with the 6-2=4 gd frens! We were supposed to go on a grad trip together, but for some reason or another, everyone's making their own plans (cuz we all grad at diff times) so that plan fell through..
We found a new place for ramen at robertson quay. it's really good, and we like this better than miharu. the tonkutsu ramen had like.. a super powerful soup base.. and the noodle texture is just very different. the seafood curry rice was gd too..
Labels: life
YThursday, March 15, 2007' 11:21 PM
My Country Garden
"Forecasting is an art, not a science."
And this, was all my prof told me after a 3.5 hrs wait and a $10 on lunch @ cafe cartel while waiting for a consultation with him.
Sigh. I've created this monster (see above) which is really mean and evil and eats up all the braincells of every living organism that attempts to rationalize it. let's just say there is no rationale or sense in numbers that have been magicked up from thin air.
p/s: for those who have lost their drive or motivation to study, all u have to do is visit the SMU library just ONCE to gain ur drive back.
Labels: life
YMonday, March 12, 2007' 9:42 PM
My Country Garden
When I told friends of my S$300 budget for a new digicam, everyone said it was impossible budget. But as it turns out, anything is possible at the IT show.
The few of us headed down to the show on sat, and werent expecting to spend 5.5hrs at the fair, but we did. thank gdness it was a fruitful one; i managed to pick up a new cam under the given budget.
behold people - the samsung L700!
personally i felt that it was a gd buy because it comes with manual and movie functions, 2.5" LCD, 7.2 MP, and the ISO range from 50-1600. min shutter 15 sec and max 1/2000sec. multi and spot metering. it was also (quite) amazing that the camera allowed you to adjust the RGB balance. The L700 is a compact digcam that is a lot slimmer than my previous canon powershot. better yet, it came in black! and samsung gave away SD cards worth 5GB of memory.. all for only $299! quite unbelievable isn't it?
both deb and i were swayed from the panasonic camp to samsung. she ended up buying the NV10 instead, which costs $599, still cheaper than panasonic anyway.
i was rather annoyed with one of the canon promoter. when asked why the powershot A460 didnt come with manual function, he replied, "ma'am.. at such a price ($279) between higher resolution and functions, something's gotta give.." like wtf. the A460 was only a 5.0MP digicam can! well, apparently samsung proved that it is possible to have both higher resolution AND manual mode. suck on that, canon!
I also managed to get a 256RAM for my snail slow laptop at $41 and a 1GB Mp3 player (but no brand one lar) for $59. but still, it's 1GB worth of space! are electronics getting freaking cheap of what? but IT shows are evil nevertheless.. it makes you spend non stop. and if you've read today's news, the entire fair raked in a total of $48 million.. what economic slow-down?
Labels: shopping
YSaturday, March 10, 2007' 2:01 AM
My Country Garden
Cartel Night Out!!
Thought this would be a gd chance to commemorate this outing. Afterall, it is one of the LESS BIMBOTIC sessions we've ever had since there were tons of discussions abt LIFE. Nevertheless, the cam whoring still applies.
Cartel Gang, it's time to check out Cafe Cartel's 50 newly added items on the menu!
YTuesday, March 06, 2007' 11:58 PM
My Country Garden
For our project report, deb and i are supposed to 'predict' the possible developmental trajectories of Ind0nesia.
Like seriously.
how are we to do that without a crystalball.
but since we're supposed to come up with a "best case" and "worst case" scenario, i volunteered to do the latter considering it is Ind0nesia we're talking about - the country which is already very screwed up as it is. i thought that if the economy continues with whatever the hell they are currently doing, then realistically speaking, it should end up as the worst case scenario bah.
and just as i was starting on my report.. BEHOLD - an earthquake in sumatra today - the very day i am typing my report! it just cannot get any more happening than this, can it?
In essence, my predictions:-
the ABSOLUTELY Best Case Scenario:
Ind0nesia miraculously discovers overnight that she sits on an infinite supply of goldmines. Jackpot! (Who needs a good government now? Can those useless economic reforms proposals!)
the ABSOLUTELY Worst Case Scenario:
Terrorists continue blowing up themselves in the city, earthquakes continues shaking the country to no end, avian flu wipes out half the population.
Ridiculous as it sounds, the above can actually be true. They just need to be phrased in a more diplomatic way. >.<
(on a side note, predicting worst case scenario pretty much feels like predicting doomsday, which is totally my cup of tea given my rather pessimistic nature. Yea, maybe the world will end tomorrow.)
Like seriously.
how are we to do that without a crystalball.
but since we're supposed to come up with a "best case" and "worst case" scenario, i volunteered to do the latter considering it is Ind0nesia we're talking about - the country which is already very screwed up as it is. i thought that if the economy continues with whatever the hell they are currently doing, then realistically speaking, it should end up as the worst case scenario bah.
and just as i was starting on my report.. BEHOLD - an earthquake in sumatra today - the very day i am typing my report! it just cannot get any more happening than this, can it?
In essence, my predictions:-
the ABSOLUTELY Best Case Scenario:
Ind0nesia miraculously discovers overnight that she sits on an infinite supply of goldmines. Jackpot! (Who needs a good government now? Can those useless economic reforms proposals!)
the ABSOLUTELY Worst Case Scenario:
Terrorists continue blowing up themselves in the city, earthquakes continues shaking the country to no end, avian flu wipes out half the population.
Ridiculous as it sounds, the above can actually be true. They just need to be phrased in a more diplomatic way. >.<
(on a side note, predicting worst case scenario pretty much feels like predicting doomsday, which is totally my cup of tea given my rather pessimistic nature. Yea, maybe the world will end tomorrow.)
Labels: life
YSunday, March 04, 2007' 11:55 PM
My Country Garden
Suddenly I see
Suddenly I see
This is what I want to be
Suddenly I see
Why the hell it means so much to me
One of the songs featured in the Devil wears Prada movie.. fantabulous songgg (",)
YFriday, March 02, 2007' 6:11 PM
My Country Garden
After two weeks of extreme madness, we, the victims of our country's system of meritocracy are finally able to seek some solace and a much-deserved breather in wk9.
Say to say, none of the midterm exams have gone well. And this has got nothing to do with personal expectations. Shit is just shit. It is shit not because you expect it to be less shitty, but by virtue of its very nature is what makes shit shit.
The last minute mugging for monetary was nothing short of disastrous. it comprised of sitting down for 7 hours straight (from 3pm to 10pm, save for the 20mins break taken in between for meals) just writing equations after equations, and drawing graphs after graphs. i was completely stretched by 9pm, and although the budget constraints were blatantly staring at me right in the face, i just couldnt figure how to put them together.
Worst, none of these efforts seem to pay off simply because the prof tweaked the problems in a way most unexpected by mediocre students like us. As it turns out, the easiest way to 'kill' the students in an exam is ironically, to introduce a mysterious plague that wipes out half the current young and old in the population, and have us analyse what is the resulting effects on the monetary system. Now, who would have thought of that?
And indeed, Ms Scarlett has most regrettably been killed by such a plague.
Say to say, none of the midterm exams have gone well. And this has got nothing to do with personal expectations. Shit is just shit. It is shit not because you expect it to be less shitty, but by virtue of its very nature is what makes shit shit.
The last minute mugging for monetary was nothing short of disastrous. it comprised of sitting down for 7 hours straight (from 3pm to 10pm, save for the 20mins break taken in between for meals) just writing equations after equations, and drawing graphs after graphs. i was completely stretched by 9pm, and although the budget constraints were blatantly staring at me right in the face, i just couldnt figure how to put them together.
Worst, none of these efforts seem to pay off simply because the prof tweaked the problems in a way most unexpected by mediocre students like us. As it turns out, the easiest way to 'kill' the students in an exam is ironically, to introduce a mysterious plague that wipes out half the current young and old in the population, and have us analyse what is the resulting effects on the monetary system. Now, who would have thought of that?
And indeed, Ms Scarlett has most regrettably been killed by such a plague.
Labels: life
