Johann Low

日曜日, 3月 28, 2004

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I cant believe i got nothing from the lucky draw last night at the company's Dinner n Dance. My department table had 7 people winning something I happened to be in the unlucky 30% who won nothing ! WTF ?! Well, I got the miserable door gift which is a calendar / alarm clock kinda thing. The built quality is very bad.

Went out early this morning for tombsweeping, well not that there are any tombs left. The place at Tze Toh Ann was overpacked with people,cars and incense smoke. The smoke is so thick that its like standing in a smoke chamber. My eyes were tearing and my nose was running. I certainly never enjoy a single moment i was there. Not to mention I never like crowds. People were vying for empty tables for their offerings.There was quite a unhappy event when the table my mum was eyeing was simply juz taken way by some peasant bitch with more family members. She even told my mum off when my mum told her we saw the table 1st. I had the impulse to overturn " her" table at that moment. Well sterotypical uncultured peasants.

I really loathed that place with those people pushing n shuffling + those incense. AND of cos the fcuking hot n humid weather.

I am still deciding on what ipod case to get. A member from a local mac forum is selling this case Nice hor ????

Arrggh...i need to get a better headphone for my ipod !! The ear phone which comes with the ipod suck. Here's my target list

Grado SR60 which is their lowest end model at $120. Their flagship model the RS-1 is abt a month of my salary. $1200++++ and yes there is a headphone amplifier for it. $1200 for a headphone !!!!!!

The RS 1 i only for the true blue audio maniac.

elow at 1:24 午後 | (0) comments

水曜日, 3月 24, 2004

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Im broke becos i bought my 1st mac product - The ipod 15GB model. Well it was quite a deal considering im getting it at $420 which is much much lower than any shop u can find in SLS or Funan. Dun mention the Apple corners, they oways sell at retail price of $548. This is a $128 different. 23+% off the usual price.

I called up e shop which offered that unbelievably low price. There were still 3 15GB models left in the morning, then in the afternoon at a local mac user forum, someone mentioned there were 2 left. I called and confirmed it, not wanting to miss this opportunity, i reserved one for myself. I spent abt $454 in total including a stupid Dock connector to USB 2.0 + Firewall which costed me $34. No discount !!!!

The sales person who challenged me for a free ipod skin was not around when i bought my ipod !!!!! Damm !! Now i can only protect my ipod wif a thin plastic cover which came in the box.

When i opened up the box, i was quite delighted by the intrigue package design. The whole box is a cube but the inside is 2 boxes being stick together to form a cube. 1 box contained the earphones n cds n stuff while e other one contained the elegant white ipod lying in its ivory glory. Below it was e firewire cable for connecting to power adaptor. While i cant charge my ipod thru my USB cos it was not designed for it. The ipod can be only charged thru fire wire.

Ripping my CDs to AAC format using itunes was fast n sound quality is good n small in file size. I will recommend anyone to download itunes for ripping their cds. Its prob e BEST music software n its free download from apple website.

Tokking abt digital music players from unknown brand like aigo (China), and some other brands like iRiver, iPio. They might win in prices n sizes but they cant beat e ipod in terms of perfect soft n hardware compatibility, not to say design, packaging. For Apple products, u r paying for the effort for creativity n usability from e initial stage to the end product. E thing wif Macs is hardly any afforable s/w support...and its dam expensive.

thots. - " What will u say if u can sms to God "

elow at 1:29 午前 | (0) comments

月曜日, 3月 22, 2004

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The tempation of getting myself a digital music player is still strong. Just went to sls this afternoon to check out if i can really get a 15gb ipod for $420 but alas !!! the shop which quoted me that price is closed !!! Anyway cuteball and i went ard sls trying to look for prices at that range. To my surprise, prices were not wat i expected!!! All prices were at least $500++ !!! There is even one shop who challenged me that if i can show them a reciept of that $420 ipod they will give me a free ipod skin !

Now that i hve ipod on my mind, i been observing people who sport white earphones. Indeed i saw a few this evening. Anyway, nothing is lost n i even get to sample n test out a ipod for the 1st time. Its quite light for its capacity and not to say e ipod oooozzzzes a superior feel of quality. Its like seeing a PowerMac G5 or a iMac. Its simply very tempting eyecandy n its an expensive one. Sound quality is good.

Really hope i can get a good price. Then i canat least listen to some music o the train w/o bringing my cd player, cds ard..tats one of the reason why i DUN bring my cd player nowadays. A discman is HUGE n cumblesome in today's minitaure standard. A ipod will be enuff. hwhahahahahaha

And wat's wif those kids nowadays wearing those shoes wif wheels at the back of the soles ? Dun their parents find it very dangerous ? I see so mny children wearing those performing brakes n stunts at mrt stations...what will happen if they nv stop in time n roll off onto the tracks and one train juz happen to come in ? I think most Singaporean children r throughly spoilt n over pampered. They r weak emotionally n physically. Some recent cases of this 15 YO teenager commiting suicide over what his teacher told him is one classic case.

15 YO and u r thinkin of commiting suicide ? Depression ? What nonsense is this ? His mother apparently had spoilt him too much when she actually allowed him to quit sch so that he can be wif his gf. What ?! At 15 YO ?! Then again in one of the local TV variety prgms, these 2 overpampered kids cant stand living in a old kampong type house with no aircon, slightly deteoriated typically those old kampong types u can find in malaysia. Thus when their parents told them they will be staying overnight that day, they run away n hide.

Honestly i dun believe in bringing up a child w/o using a cane. What is this " Ai de jiao yu " Educating ur children with love, no physical punishment but only explaining n reasoning with them wat is right wat is wrong.

This is utterly NONSENSE.

elow at 1:35 午前 | (0) comments

金曜日, 3月 19, 2004

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I dunno what's with some or rather MOST Indians and their fucked up attitudes. To me 8 outta 10 are with serious attitude problems, reeks of goat n onions n sweat stench, drunk, hairy and stuck up. Is it becos they r a minority race thus they feel oppressed ? Well im not being a racist jerk here but the truth is simply like this. After calling one pundei B.Arts students this evening quadruple confirmed this. Back in NS, there are also a few pundei clerks who think they r the COs there. What's with their attitudes ? Does it gotta do with their amount of body hair and BO ? Fuck man, they r juz a bunch of black shit, same color as their fucking skin.

Of cos not to forget there were 2 drivers who liked to play punk, make trouble. Why do such people exist in the face place ?! Oh I almost forgot Shankar the fucking cb pundei bastard belongs to the same race. They prob think they r the heros in BollyWood films. They think they r expatriates like the Americans n British esp those so called IT experts here. If they r soo bloody damm good, they will be working in MNCs like Microsoft in the States. They think they can get gals easily. This is really believable.

There is one shop in SLS selling ipod 15GB at $420 !!!!!!! This is a $128 diff in shops from Funan !!! Is this a good time to onvest in one ? I simply find it to troublesome to lug my discman around with my CDs.

elow at 1:33 午前 | (0) comments

火曜日, 3月 16, 2004

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I got a hundred and one things to buy. Recently I been eyeing the ipod. Yeah the ipod 15GB model...but it is costing a price of $509 at the lowest price i can find in Funan and of cos not to forget I still need to purchase a USB connector at $34 becos im using a PC with no firewire ports.

The ipod is small, hve great sound, has prob the best digital music software (itunes),great capacity for all ur cds. I jus wondering how the fcuk can someone rip up to 40gb or 10,000 mp3 or AAC files...and of cos what r u gonna do with 10,000 songs in ur pocket ? The ipod mini will be released in Asia in April but the price dun seem to be of any much difference from its bigger brother, however what is attractive is its size as its name suggested. Its abt the size of a credit card and it can house 4GB of music files which is abt 1000 songs - abt 100cds ? I dun even have so much cds in my collection.

Apple products are luxury items...something for the upmarket. For example, hifi systems from Bang n Olufsen are outta reach from commoners like me. Their normal stereo is like 10 times my salary. Look at the G5 series of powerhouses...fantastic performance which is way way faster than any desktop. The G5 processsor is essentially a supercomputer itself with twin precision floating point calculation capibilities and good memory bandwidth and I/O design. Virginia Tech in the US just used $5.2 million for 10 teraflops of pure computing power with just 1100 dual G5 processor G5s. Yeah they jus interconnect the G5s u see in the Apple shops with some high end connections and there u go. The top supercomputer, the Earth Simulator from NEC Japan costed a eye popping price of $350 million and its abt 3 times as fast but costed abt 70 times as much.

Oke too technie there..anyway the only affordable Apple product now is the ipod. Dun u juz love Apple product design ? BTW, my BD is coming soon, someone sponsor me a ipod please? I only ask for the cheapest ipod model...of cos I wun turn down a better model with more capacity HAHAHAHAHAs :P

elow at 1:17 午前 | (0) comments

日曜日, 3月 14, 2004

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What a hectic week-was bounded by more responsibilties. Another colleague quitted, not to my surprise entirely but her departure was rather sudden, leaving her poor partner fending for himself. And the thing is, he is rather new too. Lessons had started and things are messy. Those lazy students are still coming in to collect their txtbooks when the majority of the books have oredi "moved" into our office, making it even messier.

Since book collection I had 200 over emails to clear. And i could not clear them becos I was working at the stupid computer at the recep area. I need to juggle phonecalls, walk-ins and emailing. The new part-timer is not too helpful either, she literally chased me away from the pc everytime she comes in at 2.30pm cos she will need it to do some printouts. The 2 "new" PCs which came in like 3 weeks ago finally got someone to set up properly, when one of them was found w/o a mouse.

Working wif the "new" pc is great. PIII 866MHZ with 128MB RAM LEH !!!!!! It might sound prehistoric but its the fastest PC now in the office. I finally got a decent PC to work wif, everything is set up nicely, no way wil i let anyone take it.

There will be a company restructuring at the end of the month, where some colleagues will be doing sales mainly n some will be on the admin side. Really have no idea how this will impact my area of work.

Bought a new Epson printer at the IT 2004 show. IT WAS C.R.O.W.D.E.D and lugging my printer ( which wasn't too small ) wif the free trolley was not quite a good option. Oh btw i met my ex director for the British Council as they were having a UK Educational fair there. Besides the babes at the show there was nothing much. HHWHWHAHAHAHA and i forgot to bring my cam along..hahahahha...i cant cos my gf was wif me..HWHWHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA...

I seemingly hve endless things to buy. After getting my PC, I got myself a printer to do ocassional printing for resumes n application forms and oso fotos from my digicam. The 4R glossy foto paper was quite a deal at the IT show. 30 pcs for $5.90 when e normal rate will be 20 pcs for $7.90. Recently I am quite tempted by the ipod mini. The ipod really looks n sounds good but having a $500+++ 15/20GB hdd spining inside my pocket seem extravagant. I was expecting the ipod mini to be cheaper but according to the sales lady, prices are not much of a diff. I think a 4GB ipod mini shld suffice.

Noooooooooooooo...i shld start to save....haha :P

elow at 1:45 午前 | (0) comments

月曜日, 3月 08, 2004

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Not suprisingly I did not make it for the position of information analyst.

Just went thru half of my 6 months contract with my present company. During these 3 months, I got myself a new hifi, a new PC. Somehow or rather, I seem to be getting a tad bit worried abt my future. I was nv successful on any decent design position, for admin work, only for 2 was i being selected, previously was British Council. Thots of securing a better job creeped unknowingly. I noe I cant be doing a admin post for long. I was worrying abt my future ! which is something I dun or rather I rather not think abt it last year. I want a more secure job with a better prospect--tat's e reason I apply for the IA position, just my luck that I could not get it.

Something went wrong with the time table again, causing a major upset in our students' schdule. For me n another AE, we have to make urgent calls to the affected students of which some are totally uncontactable. Some are plain lazy, dun bother to check for latest annoucements on the blackboard. All these thanks to peasant bosses who are trying to save a few grand on a software.

There is no point in getting a design or creativity related job in Singapore. U will prob be slogging ur guts out for our local peasant bosses whose main aim is to wringe dry his/her subordinates, produce crappy commericals like Sunpage, crappy low class movies like HomeRun, I NOT stupid , Money no enuff... ( just look at the titles, is this proper English at all ? Its so "bengish" ) I think his next work will be " I no time to fcuk", "Fcuk no enuff", "Fcuk and Run", "Fcuking not stupid, its damm song", No time to fcuk", "Singaporeans no time to fcuk", based on the recent local topic on fcuking and making more babies. This is also a good idea to lick the boots of PM Goh and DPM Lee, so that on this year or the next National Day Rally, Jacky Neo will be praised again.

One of my old pals who is now studying in LaSalle SIA has almost the same sentiments as me.

I think I better go learn Flash or something...I still dunno Flash and hardly 3D Max. Perphaps my little flame in making Gundam models can ignite a better future for me, at least in the design related field.

elow at 12:39 午前 | (0) comments

金曜日, 3月 05, 2004

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OH YES !!! OUR MOST TALENTED JACKY NEO IS BACK WITH A VENGANCE---he will be making a new movie on betting n gambling. Yet again, his world revolves ard Ah Beng Mark Lee and possibly Ah Lian Pat Mok. Honestly I think Pat Mok has far more acting potential then anyone in his pathetic cast as all can see from her acting in Holland V.

Here are some sterotypical peasants' comment on his new shit as from Channelnewsasia homepage " He's great, I really like him. Singapore should be proud," one fan said.---yeah he is great at copying n creating cheapskate shit

"Some films are educational, others are really funny," another said.---not funny, but trying to be funny

"I like watching his films. They're very meaningful. I've bought the VCD before," said a third fan.---peasant and only no class peasants will BUY his VCDs, not to mention buy, its a total waste of bandwidth if one tries to download it.

No, its not I dun support local "talents". I certainly do, someone like Stephanie Sun, Kit Chan,Li Wei Song, Li Si Song and Abigail Sin. But to support low class nonsense like Jacky Neo's works is an insult to my and most people's intelligence. Anyway, he is not in my list of "talents". He is someone who is trying to be one, tats all.

elow at 12:22 午前 | (0) comments

火曜日, 3月 02, 2004

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Interview Round 1

As usual, me who have a poor sense of direction got problem finding the place. PLUS the fact it was drizzling, the suffocating unusually thick coat of humidity in the air and the conciousness detrimental heat oozing from the ground made me feel as if im in a rainforest. In the end, i took a cab there and i still almost was late becos the taxi driver dunno where e hell is princess house !!!!

I was interrograted by 2 managers of whom one i happened to meet (unknowingly of cos) when i was waitinf outside the office at the 7th floor and one HR personnel. I was nervous and I screwed the interview up. Anyway I was simply tokking crap.

After it ended, i was told by the HR lady that if, and I shall greatly emphasis IF im selected, I have to go thru aother interview where I will be tested with a polygraph--a lie detector. Yeah a LIE DETECTOR, for a job. There was some forms to be filled and that is for if im selected for the 2nd round. Yeah, IF.

Of cos before this, I rushed off from office. Luckily I was not late and I even get to have my lunch. In office this morning, I was doing a feat called hyper-multi-thread-tasking(HMTT- Intel anyone ? ), my (teraflop capable) brain was seperated into listening n directing phonecalls, word n spreadsheet processing, acting as a guide for students to collect their textbooks, balancing stress by shutting off my ears at times,keeping my eyes to the 15 inch flickering screen and keeping my heart n lungs pumping.

Tired.....

elow at 8:15 午後 | (0) comments