As mentioned in the previous blog entry, I have a glass display case in my bedroom room in which I keep thing I have collected from places I have been to. Here’s the most significant stuffs of the lot: 1) A wooden block with my name and two other of my classmates name written on it. This piece of artifact was something I picked up in secondary school. The year was 1991. It was left on the table after one of the boys was done clearing his table after his woodcraft class. I remember...

One of my colleagues has just returned from Thailand and she has bought worms for us to eat. That's right -- worms. Not those wonderfully tangy green mangos, not those crispy Thai pork floss crackers, not those tasty fried pork jerky thins...but fried worms in a clear plastic box. "Would you like to try some?" Everyone looked at each other with disgust but egged each other on in Fear Factor fashion. "Oh it tastes nutty." "Weird." She turned to me. I was like, "Er... no...?" ...

I've been playing the game all last week. Mostly I've been experimenting with the body shop and the building mode. I really like building houses with diablolical layouts with this thing. Only on Saturday (two days ago) did I really sit down and play Sims 2 as most people would play it. I created myself and bought a two floor, one bedroom house. It didn't allow me to have a lot of stuff in it. I bought a sofa and a small table for the living room, then I installed a telephone. For th...

Little Jack was crossing the bridge the other day and there was a troll under it. He noticed the sign said, “Don’t feed the Troll” by the side of the road and thought to himself, now who would do something foolish like that? As trolls are, the nasty dirty horrible troll under the bridge spotted him and called out to the boy, “Hey you! You with the ugly face! Where you get that shirt? Did your mummy got it for you at the little’s girl’s shop? I got your mother!” and he laughed loudly. Li...

It takes almost a day of flying to get from Singapore to Washington. It should be alright if one is flying by business class, Elite class or First Class, but they are always trying to save and all we got is Economy. To get from here to there, takes three transitions, from Singapore to Tokyo (6-7 hours), from Toyko to Minneapolis (10 hours) or Detroit (12 hours) and then from there to Washington (2 to 3 hours). Leg room is very important to me. It was still cramp. I guess one could get up ...

Is it just me or do Americans like Grill a lot? There seems to be grill restuarants around every corner in the town centre of Silver Spring and around Washington DC. Of course, there are other stuff like italian and mexican, but there's like grill in every menu or so. A little too greasy to my liking. I stuck to eating salads and sandwiches most of the time. May I ask if Americans eat grill regularly or some other stuff? What's the regular staple food that you eat, may I ask the Amer...

Recently I was in Silver Spring for a work attachments for a duration of about ten days. During the Saturday and Sunday, we visited Washington DC and all the historical monuments and memorials there. I had a really great time. It's easy to get from Silver Spring to any part of DC, just take the Metro red line. I found the train system to be very similar to that of Singapore's mass rapid transit (MRT). We took Tourmobile to get around DC and visit all the monuments and memorials. It's $...

I haven't played chess with anyone for years. I was walking around in the pc game store when I saw the Chessmaster 10th Edition as out. I bought it, thinking I could have some chess fun with this thing. Installed it and loaded it up. It's not bad value for money if you like chess. It comes with lots of options and chess board customisations. Some of them are really nice. You can pick the kind of game you want to play: touney, ranked play, chess puzzles or just training. The in-game voice ...

One of my all time favorite horror movies is Carrie, based on Stephen King's horror novel about a girl with telekinetic powers who wreck vengeance on those who have tormented her in school. The latest remake of that 1976 movie follows pretty closely to the original with a few changes that sort of mild down the chaos and the horror. The 1976 original is still the best. I think Sissy Spacek was brilliant as the weirdo girl in school that people point at and make fun of. (Check out the link be...

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Bored with nothing to write about, I took to looking through a neglected drawer just next to my bed. I found an old plastic "junkbox". It's contents: An old student transport pass for bus and train rides - this was back when I was studying in polytechnic. I remember I had to wake up really early to get to school. It took about one and half hours to get there. I don't know how I managed to do that for three years. The trains were always horribly crowded and so were the buses, and I r...

It seems to me that in internet forums, people with thousands of posts seem to be able to get away with anything, yet a newbie who brings up even an innocent topic could get flamed to bits. It never fails to urk me when I see a new person joined up only to be bullied by so called "highly respected long time regulars / members". Sometimes, a newbie can't ask a simple question without being severely flamed for not using the search function or being told, "I'm sick of all you newbies p...

Came across this article while doing some literature searches at work. Cognitive scientists have figured out what's the difference between Chessmasters and Chess novices. Great article for any strategy game enthusiast.