Category: Diary

Received a text message from Canon Service Center that my Canon S1 IS is ready for collection. This digital camera refused to function when I reached Hong Kong – black screen with no picture – and it has passed the warranty period. Despite the heavy rain, I have decided to pay a visit to Keppel Bay Tower near Harbourfront. Texted my friend VY if the tower is anywhere near her workplace and if she was interested in joining me for lunch. Surprise, surprise, she works in the same building.

Thanks to the heavy rain, the service center was empty. No queue! I got my camera back from a very pretty assistance and guess what? The servicing was free! I am once again a satisfied Canon customer. On top of that, I have received a free lens cleaning clothes. Canon really knows how to keep their loyal customers.

… I guess the timing is just right. I will be flying back to Hong Kong this Thursday and home is where we return when we wish to get in touch with our roots and to do some serious reflection. … I guess the timing is just right. I will be flying back to Hong Kong this Thursday and home is where we return when we wish to get in touch with our roots and to do some serious reflection.

WoW server shutdown early today at 9pm instead of 10pm. My curious mind prompted me to uninstall Norton programs to see if that would improve the stability of my computer. Duh … Windows registry corruption.

Three hours I have spent installing the Operating System, patched up the various drivers, and most time was spent to download the latest OS patch from Microsoft. Duh …

Determined to try recording again – actually the inability to record previously from my computer prompted my curiosity of uninstalling Norton in the first place – good gracious, everything seems to work fine! (Without the installation of Norton)

I have recorded 15 songs at one go and I felt so good. Back before I indulged in WoW, I spent each and every night recording songs and finding ways to improve. Indeed I am happy to observe the improvement I have made. Perhaps a break from recording is good for me.

Passion always drives me to the extreme. Time always brings me back to balance.

I so tried to stay sane with my computer but yet again I seem to be drawn into this neverending journey of re-installation. How nice if I could pinpoint what the problems are but I cannot. I am fixing everything from hardware to software back to hardware to software and this infinite loop begins to drive me insane. All these mishaps must lead to somewhere right? Non-computer experts are given computers that never break; computer experts like me are given computers that never work. Irony in life indeed.

All these hardships begin to drive me insane, really insane.

But on the other hands, I am getting numb on the whole thing.

I so tried not to play World of Warcraft. In fact, I so wanted not to. Wierd as it may sound, today is the day I wish my wife was in town so we could go out for movie or something … but she is overseas right now. In the afternoon, I messaged TK asking if he was free for dinner and movie. At first TK said yes and I was so prepared to go out and have some fun. In the end, TK needed to work so the evening was cancelled.

And first time for a long time, I resumed the recording of my music and guess what? My computer just refused to work. Damn it! I have tried for 2 hours and could just record one song.

What is wrong today? So I ended up playing World of Warcraft … I so tried …

Yesterday, one of my good friends BD popped me an online message saying that yesterday was her birthday. Wow, so many good friends of mine have birthday in March (hang on … have I missed my mother’s birthday … damn!)

After talking with BD online, I have realised that for the past six months or so, I have not been keeping in touch with my overseas friends and that is bad! I have my passion on my band, on writing music, and on playing online game. And ever since I have “digitalised” myself into a website address, I have seldom sent any personal emails to my friends.

And that is bad.

For quite a while, I have not been having lunch with my friends. Either I have an early afternoon meeting or I am having lunch with my colleagues. Yesterday, realised that my calendar was empty during lunch hour, I called up ML – a good friend of mine whom I see him more often online than in real life – for a lunch date. Here was how the conversation went.

Me: Yo buddy, free for lunch today?
ML: Hmmm … [sounded very relunctant] … got work …
Me: You need to eat right?

When I picked him up asking him what he wanted to eat, he led me to this hawker center. Just when I was about to put in parking coupon, he turned around and told me that it was his birthday today.

What??

Hard to imagine how to celebrate birthday in a hot and noisy hawker center, I took him to Holand Village and had Japanese food for lunch. Kind of happy that I was there to celebrate his birthday. I should start to keep track of my friends’ birthdays.

Trying to watch the Oscar and playing World of Warcraft (WoW) was proven to be impossible. The only thing I recalled was that Natalie did not get the Oscar. So sad. I have “watched” the entire 3 hours of telecast and did not recall a single scene.

Being drunk (okay, I was more tipsy than drunk) playing WoW was interesting. Since I took up a warrior character, all I needed to do was to hack monsters and that worked pretty well. I hardly recall the details of grouping with people. I just keep on hacking and levelling my character. The flip side was that I was so not myself that I kept wasting money and in the end when my group members logged off, I ended up on a boat that took me to God-knows-where. Thought it was pretty funny because being tipsy in real life can affect the character you are playing as well!

The movie “Closer” is fantastic. I am so loving it and I am surprised that Hollywood is capable to make such an artistic film. That is why I watch a fair bit of foreign films. Not going to reveal too much details here but for someone who has experienced a few heartaches and gone through a few breakups, I can certain relate many scenes in the movie. When the credits came out, my wife pointed out that almost the entire movie is played by 4 characters (like “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset” that are played by only 2 characters).

Driving to watch the show, I observed the driving behaviour on the road and I have got to say that Singapore Traffic Police (together with the media of course) has been very effective in asking all the motorists to keep to the speed limits. After publishing a list of roads that may potentially deploy the new speed lasar guns on their website – and the list, by the way, certainly covers the majority of Singapore – I hardly see any car goes beyond the speed limit.

Before the show, I have been listening to the 5 songs that I have written and I must have listened to them many times but still I cannot memorise the melody. The feeling is as though I pick up a new record and though I may like it a lot, it will take time for me to memorise the songs. Wierd. Never happens to me before.

This is going to be the last blog of this Chinese New Year special and since I have six more photographs to share, let’s make it worthwhile.

It’s been a while since I have slept more than six hours. Weeks, perhaps. No wonder I was so exhausted. My colleague once told me that I looked so tired with eye bags and all. The nine hours of sleep surely did me good.

Thought I would spent New Year on my own but my friend TK called me up for movie. Not only that, he wanted to visit me some more! Lucky I have some oranges in my frig. It is a custom in Singapore that the visitors during Chinese New Year bring along two oranges and the host will then give out two of his oranges in return. Something like passing the gold around.

Next, my friend and I headed off to Orchard to watch Bayside Shakedown 2 – a Japanese movie supposed to be a big hit back in Japan. The scene in Orchard? Full of couples and young girls – don’t they need to do the Chinese tradition and spend time with relatives? Interesting scene – so full of youngsters.

The movie Bayside Shakedown is interesting. I thought it would be some kind of mindless action film that is for the lighthearted. Not so. Although I have to say that when the Japanese police force refer to US Army best practice on the two organization – hierarchy and flat – it sounded more like a terrorist organization structure to me. Rely on the individual intuition and need not to obey order.

My friend an I celebrated New Year at Lawry’s. Spent S$90 each but it was worth it. The steak was so good. It was not the first time I dined at Lawry’s and it won’t be the last. During dinner, I was convinced by my friend to test drive new cars. Bad friend I have.

How then to end this New Year celebration without Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC). This time round the group was fun. I am moving to World of Warcraft (another MMORPG) soon and I am sure I will miss DAoC and all the friends I have made.

Tomorrow my wife will be back and my life will be back to normal. Tomorrow …