efficiency

honestly, i have never been more impressed by a government department's ruthless efficiency.

apparently, this particular department/agency/watever is so efficient that it takes them more than half a fricking year to tell me that the form that i sent in was incomplete. and this was only after we have been chasing them for the past few months questioning the status of the application.

and whenever i tell people this story, the first thing they would inevitably ask is: "if the form is incomplete, how come they allow you to submit it in the first place leh?" since it was done electronically - one would assume that there was basic error checking for cases like this. sigh.. the reason is simple lah: cos the program wasn't written by *me*. lol..

i really should stop saying bad things about them. who knows? they might come across this entry when processing my application again. ah, but the question would then be.. how long would it take them to find this? and how long would it take before i find out my application is rejected yet again? maybe one whole year this time? hm...



"the work i do is so secret, even i don't know what i'm doing." came across this line a few years back and i found it to be funny as hell. oh, how apt..

line of the week

and the best line of the week has to go to a certain president of the company group, who promptly launched into a 30-minute monologue after he was invited to just "say a few words" at the company's quarterly staff gathering.

it's amazing: i would never have imagined him to be the company group president from the way he speaks like an ah beng, even bringing out words like 'bullshit' and hokkien words like 'seh'. he even had to turn to his senior management for help when he had trouble translating chinese 'jing shen' into english (spirit). yet another fine example of how looks can be so deceiving.

so about the best line during his 30 minute impromptu national day rally: he was speaking about the need to dress properly and the rationale to impose a company dress code because dressing well is a sign of respect to yourself and how - and i quote - "if you dun show less-pect (respect) to yourself, how do you expect others to show less-pect for you??" it was like watching a live episode of PCK, i tell ya.. lol.. dun you just love how ironic it is, coming from his own mouth.


on course for 3 days this coming week for some high-end hardware servers. only this time, there are only 4 of us in the class and lessons are conducted in the company's conference room. which means that there's no chance to sleep since we'll be in the trainer's full view. ah crap.. and there's no computer screen for us to hide behind this time.

but i feel quite sad for the guy lah. i mean, talking your mouth off for hours to 4 lifeless blocks of wood can't be very uplifting for your morale, can it? so i just kept nodding my head in agreement to stuff he said, and asked a few questions here and there. just playing my part as the model student lah - which i'm obviously not. gawd, i hate acting.. haha.

crazy week

it's been a pretty crazy week, a recap..


sunday

played 2 hours of badminton at safra tampines


monday

morning - hit the gym

evening - basketball with the rest of the guys in the office. first time playing against one of them who's like 1.9m tall. damn, it sure was tough.. height advantage is definitely something you can't ignore in a game like this.


tuesday

badminton with some of the 'uncles' in the office after work.

you know, i thought i was already pretty good in the sport, until i got my ass handed back to me on a silver platter by them. one of them was kind enough to point out my many weaknesses. after playing the game for so long, i tend to play and hit in a certain way that has become 2nd nature. having to make conscious adjustments to my game now is certainly hard. my right arm hasn't ached so much after a game of badminton in a long while. must be all thanks to all the training by my 'coach'.


wednesday

morning - gym again

evening - so the day which i've been kinda dreading rolls around. ya, it's the day when my friend introduces a couple of his single girl friends to me.

wat can i say? it was.. ok, i guess. a bit awkward at times when everyone's struggling to come up with conversation topics - didn't help that the 2 of them were pretty quiet. it got quite bad to a point when i had to throw out one of those lame pun jokes that my partner told me earlier in the day. and from there on, it just degenerated to the point where we were playing is-this-morning-or-night? and is-this-a-horse? games. sigh.. and you would have thought i was done with those lames jokes and silly games after i left CSS. but wat to do? better than awkward silence mah..


thursday

you know the election's definitely rolling around when they announce that - gasp! - the MP's coming to your block. on a weekday!

so my parents went to find out exactly what they have up their sleeves.. and guess wat? they've decided to install lifts in our block! but wait a minute.. my block's only 4 stories high! and i live on the 2nd floor somemore! my first thought of course was.. ^&#%&@! sibeh bo hua!

but thinking of it somemore, i think i'll still vote yes for it lah. thinking of how old my parents are getting, i think having a lift would be rather convenient for them if they lose strength in their legs next time.

and yet again, i am struck by how a few years ago, i wouldn't care two hoots about this since i won't be paying for the upgrading anyway. and now here i am, an adult with the power to vote, having to pay for the lift upgrading through my CPF, grabbing one of those information leaflets hanging on the bus for e-filing my income tax. ah.. the 'joys' of adulthood.

one thing i am slightly annoyed at though. a few years ago, they embarked on this whole estate upgrading programme which tore down the playgrounds, built a small amphitheatre and covered walkways between blocks. why the heck didn't they offer the Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP) then?? after finally getting some peace and quiet after the years of noise from construction, we have to go through it again! i can vaguely remember last time someone asked why we didn't have LUP then, and they gave some stupid excuse. and now election rolls about, they offer it? coincidence? rite....


evening - played another 2 hours of badminton in yishun after work. this makes it like 5 straight days of exercise and sports. can anyone spell overkill?


friday

morning - was thinking of hitting the gym again, but decided against it after playing badminton till 10 the previous nite.

evening - met up with P to pick up her laptop. she's been having problems with the computer lately and keeps getting BSODs even after getting her frens to reformat it a couple of times. got tired of hearing her whine and complain about it, so offered to reformat it and make sure everything runs properly. some things are better left to the professionals, i guess.. lol.

so anyway, i offered to meet her on the bus on her way home and pick up the laptop on the bus. turns out a few of her friends also happen to be taking the same bus and are quite the busybodies. so she SMSes me in advance to tell me to just walk past and she'll pass me the laptop after they alight. hm.. looks like all the secret agent training does come in useful sometimes.

but things dun always go according to plan, do they? thought i could just get on the bus and sit somewhere away from them until the friends got off the bus. the bus comes along and it turns out to be a single deck. fine.. so i won't be able to hide on a different deck. got on the bus, and it turns out i know all the 3 friends. and wat's worse: they know me as well. ah crap.

so i just pretended it was all a merry coincidence until they started asking me where i was going since the bus we were on won't be taking me home. uh oh.. so just made up some story about going to a friend's house to fix her computer, which wasn't too far from the truth. not too sure if it they bought the story, but oh well, at least i won't be the one putting up with the gossiping..

on the way, the bus suddenly jerked and a little bit later, we heard the bus driver arguing heatedly with one of the passengers who looked Malay or Indian. the bus driver stopped the bus and the passenger tried to hit the driver. looked like things were going out of control when the bus driver challenged the passenger to go to the police station and let them settle it. the passenger angrily got off the bus just before the driver closed the door and the 2 of them shouted vulgarities at each other through the bus door. luckily, nothing else happened and driver got back to driving the bus.

man, wat an episode. never saw that one before. was thinking whether i should go up and try to calm things but i was stuck at the middle of the bus where the exit was, blocked by other people who were standing along the aisle. but it's curious to see how everyone just content to stand there and watch the spectacle - even when it seemed like they were about to come to blows with each other. apathetic singaporeans? guess i'm one of them too lah. even though i was standing at the middle of the bus, i still could have made my way to the front to do something. lucky things didn't get more out of hand than it had. the rest of the bus journey i was rather nervous. afterall, we are at the mercy of one highly agitated guy at that time.



man, wat a packed week. gonna need every minute of the weekend to rest and recharge.

this week in brief...

sunday

it started innocently enough :
him : hey, you free on the xth of March?
me : uh.. sure, i guess.. wat's up?
him : oh, come out for dinner lor.

alarm bells start ringing. he never asks me out during weekdays, just out to swim and do sports on weekends - and out of the blue he's asking me if i'm free for dinner?

me : why leh? wat's the occasion?
him : uh.. my gf wants to intro a couple of her friends to you..

ok... and so it begins, people have started setting me up with their friends. i suddenly feel like one of those dudes in The Bachelor series..


monday

2nd time playing basketball with some guys from the office. bah.. been way too long since i last played any basketball. can't even dribble the ball properly or shoot it decently under the hoop anymore. haha.. definitely need more practice.

was jumping for a rebound when i mis-landed and ended up on my knees, scraping the left one. great.. haven't scraped my knees in years - almost forgotten how high you can get when you pour that damn 'qing chao you' (green grass oil) over raw flesh. ouch.


thursday

demo to the end users. months and months of work and today we finally show our product to the end-users.

you know how they always teach in school that you should consult your users as you're developing your application? the idea is that you try and understand how they work, you show them prototype user interfaces, see if they like it, blah blah blah... throw that all out the window baby! programmers are kings - too bad if you don't like the way we designed our programs, ha!

but there doesn't seem to be any complaints for the demo. they seemed to like what they saw. no need for any major code rewrites. phew.


friday

found a must-watch for programming geeks! presenting.. The Code Room - a reality program about, you guessed it - programming! woohoo~ so exciting, isn't it? wahaha... no doubt it's just a publicity vehicle for MS lah but man, wat will they think of next?