April's Fool

1. Placed a pair of pants and shoes inside the only toilet stall in a men's room to make it appear someone was using the stall. It sat there for hours until someone called security to check if the person had died.

2. Sent a fake love note to a co-worker from another co-worker.

3. All the women in office individually spoke to the president, confiding that she is pregnant. By noon, he 'knew' that all of his female workers were pregnant and he could not tell anyone because each asked for confidentially.

4. Called the electric company, used a co-worker's name and told them he was moving so the electricity got turned off at the co-worker's house.

5. Filled the vending soda machine with cans of beer.

6. Rigged the boss' chair to drop suddenly during a staff meeting.

7. Placed a sign on the restroom door that read, "The company ran out of toilet tissue; please use your own resources."

8. Paged a co-worker over the loud speaker claiming the CEO was looking for him. The worker went into the CEOs office and the CEO didn't know who he was or why he was there.

9. Shrink-wrapped everything in a co-worker's cubicle.

10. Put a 'house for sale' ad in the newspaper regarding a co-worker's home.

The Mayonnaise Jar and 2 Cups of Coffee

When things in your lives seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded t o fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box o f pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything els e. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous 'yes.'

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

'Now,' said the professor as the laughter subsided, 'I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things--your family, your children, your health, your
friends and your favorite passions--and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.

The sand is everything else--the small stuff. 'If you put the sand into the jar first,' he continued, 'there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time
and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

'Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to
clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first--the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.'

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled. 'I'm glad you asked.

It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.'

Please share this with someone you care about and I just did! (:

Friends Forever

FAKE FRIENDS: Never ask for food.
REAL FRIENDS: are the reason you have no food.
FAKE FRIENDS: Call your parents Mr/Mrs
REAL FRIENDS: Call your parents DAD/MOM
FAKE FRIENDS: never seen you cry.
REAL FRIENDS: cry with you
FAKE FRIENDS: Borrow your stuff for a few days then give it back.
REAL FRIENDS: keep your shirt so long they forget its yours.
FAKE FRIENDS: know a few things about you.
REAL FRIENDS: Could write a book about you with direct quotes from you.
FAKE FRIENDS: Will leave you behind if that is what the crowd is doing.
REAL FRIENDS: Will kick the whole crowds that left you.
FAKE FRIENDS: Would knock on your front door.
REAL FRIENDS: Walk right in and say & IM HOME!
FAKE FRIENDS: Are for a while.
REAL FRIENDS: Are for life.

True Horoscopes

Do we believe in Horoscopes?

No.

Horoscopes, for the most part, are for weird hippy women who own twenty plus cats and have weird, smelly herb gardens. Whether this is because they took too many drugs, or have congenital brain damage is something for science to figure out.

Meanwhile, the fact that anyone believes this hocus-pocus proves that people are, on the whole - stupid.

With that said, the Horoscopes presented below are 100% accurate.

HOROSCOPES

CAPRICORN

You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You are basically chicken shit. There has never been a Capricorn of any importance. You should kill yourself.

---

AQUARIUS

You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. You lie a great deal. On the other hand you are inclined to be careless and impractical Everyone thinks you are a fucking jerk .

---

PISCES

You have a vivid imagination and often think you are being followed by the FBI or CIA. You have minor influence over your friends and people resent you for flaunting your power. You lack confidence and are generally a coward. Pisces people screw small animals and pick their noses.

---

ARIES

You are the pioneer type and hold most people in contempt. You are quick tempered, impatient, and scornful of advice . You are a prick.

---

TAURUS

You are practical and persistent. You have dogged determination and work like hell. Most people think you are stubborn and bullheaded. You are nothing but a goddamn communist.

---

GEMINI

You are quick and intelligent, and a thinker. People like you because you are bisexual. However you are also a cheap bastard. Gemini's are liars, notoriously lousy lovers and thrive on incest.

---

CANCER

You are sympathetic and understanding to other peoples problems. They think you are a sucker. You are always putting things off. That is why you will always be on welfare and won't be worth a shit.

---

LEO

You-consider yourself a born leader. Others think you are pushy. Most Leo's are bullies. You are vain and cannot tolerate honest criticism. Your arrogance is disgusting. Leo people are thieving bastards and kiss mirrors a lot.

---

VIRGO

You are the logical type and hate disorder. This shit-picking is sickening to your friends. You are cold and unemotional and often fall asleep while screwing. Virgo's make good bus drivers and pimps.

---

LIBRA

You are the artistic type and have a difficult time with reality. If you are a male, you are probably queer. Chances for employment and monetary gain are excellent. Most Libra women are whores. All Libras die of venereal disease.

---

SCORPIO

You are shrewd in business and cannot be trusted. You shall achieve the pinnacle of success because of your total lack of ethics. You are a perfect son-of-a-bitch. Most Scorpio people are murderers.

---

SAGITTARIUS

You are optimistic and overly enthusiastic You have a reckless tendency to rely on luck because you have no talent. The majority of Sagittarians are drunks and potheads. People laugh at you lot because you are always getting fucked.

Full of Hope: It's 2008!

Well, it's been long time since I last blogged. Welcome back guys and yeah, it's the beginning of the new year.

Thrown a little party at my house; gathered with closest and dearest friends, pouring Moët & Chandon (thanks William, we missed you) and let them abuse my DJ software. Must post the photos later.

There are so many things I wanted to write about; just that I don't have time to come here/login and start writing. I have my THEC (Teaching in Higher Education Certificate) essay to finish, tons of other craps to do but hey, it's new year, so why not give myself a little break today eh?

Meanwhile, I found really funny (and not so funny for kids though) names (probably for pornstars).

Males:
Ben Dover (the winner)
Dick Nasty(!)
Max Hardcore
Erik Everhard (mmmfff... hihi)

Females:
Boo D. Licious
Veronica Castro(!)
Pochahontas ("rumble in the jungle")

So what’s next “O’sana Been Laiddown” or “So'damn Hu'insane”?

Homer Simpson: - “Homer Simp... ehm... Max Power.”
Trent Steele: "Well, hey great name!"
Homer Simpson: - “Yep, I found it on the hairdryer.”

I was touched

Dear Mr Mike

Min ga lar bar! I just would like to say thank you very much for being such a cool lecturer and so far I understand what you taught. I am not sure if I passed the mini test you gave last week. To be honest, I know nothing at all about computers and ironically I do not know why I applied for IT in the first place. In fact, I struggled doing the CARC Case Study project and had quite a hard time doing my part for the project. Thankfully, I have great team members! That said, after learning CARC, I find PCs kind of interesting and I applied what I learnt to everyday life. Well, that is all I have to say. Once again, thanks!

Yours truly


Well, my students have made my day. Greeted me in my mother language too; burmese and "Mingalarbar" means "Hello". I was quite worried that my feedback would not be over 90% (which our diploma goal is 95%; I didn't fulfill last semester).

CARC has been one of the toughest subjects I've taught so far as it's all basics about computers and we assume no prior knowledge of computers for the students. I have been harshed on them; given them a lot of work to do; case studies and quizzes to build up the foundation. Without IT, life would be a mistake, wouldn't it?

Our school renaming towards Informatics & IT also plays a major role on my passion to start relating computers with what we interact everyday; our life. Look around... you will see more and more gadgets intruding into your personal space.

Nevertheless, I was touched by my students; they have made an effort to write to me and made my day. I am truly rejuvenated again. Thank you all and wish you guys all the best on the Term Test.

APCS Crew

Photo (from Left to Right): [Backrow] Shima Rayej, Irving Stern, Martha, Marko Stankic, Diana Seymour, Mike Anderson, Sam Junge, Adam Hiatt, Anil Shrestha [Frontrow] Sarah, Meredith Liu, Chris Echave.

I dug out some photos and found my old APCS (Advanced Placement Computer Science) crew photo. Check out Mr. Stern (Einstein looking guy). Wonder where he is now.

Five Worst Things

Here are five meeting offenses that will not only drive your co-workers crazy, but will also damage your reputation within the workplace.

1. Show up late - Occasionally there is an emergency that crops up that forces you to go into a meeting a few minutes late. But usually the culprit is poor time management. Consistently arriving late implies to your manager and your co-worker that you are either extremely disorganized or don’t really respect the rules that everyone else follows.
2. Bring your cell phone - Again, there could be special circumstances that would require having a cell phone in a meeting, such as a call from a doctor or your child’s school. But if your cell goes off at every meeting and it’s just your spouse needing to know if you’ll pick up some Pudding Pops after work, shame on you. This behavior shows a lack of respect as well as a lack of commitment to your job.
3. Have a side conversation - Nothing rankles a meeting leader more than two people having a whispered conversation separate from the topic at hand.
4. Don’t focus - Believe it or not, I’ve been in meetings when attendees have leafed through clothing catalogs or balanced their checkbook while the leader is talking. Trying to multi-task in a somewhat dull meeting might be tempting, but it’s very rude. And don’t think people don’t notice.
5. Talk just to hear yourself speak - It may be your way of raising your office profile, but hogging much of the meeting spotlight with philosophical ramblings will not do it. Be brief and succinct. Meetings are for communication; they are not your personal stage.

Cited from Tech Republic Blog. Sadly, we all see this in our meetings, especially in Singapore.

Read Exam Answers

Real Exam Answers - no kidding folks.

Question 1: What is high level format?

Answer:















Question 2: What is Parallel Processing?

Answer:















Now you want to blame me for failing them???

Panoramic Shots

Just shooting around my school with my W810i Sony Ericsson Walkman phone. Really need to get a DSLR soon.

(Across from the school)
(Bedok Reservoir as seen from top of the TP's 9 storey library)

(Horseshoe Plaza)

Feasty Mikey

Okay, for those of you who have seen me outside would comment, "so skinny sia". Yep, they're right. I'm standing 179cm with only 68kg on top which is considered underweight (supposed to be 75kg at least). But do not mistaken my looks with my eating habits. Ask my friends around, they'd say I'm like a beast; particularly addicted to rice (high carbo, I know). Anyway, for the past month I've been eating out a lot here and there and I can't seem to stop eating at home either. I make nice cheese and egg pratas at home (with onion flava!) which goes very well with Iced Cafe Mocha, of course, also homemade. So here are the updates on what has been happening to Mike's lunches and dinners (sorry I'm not a morning person, I usually skip breakfast on weekends, believe it or not).

(Cherry, Natasha, Hanyoung, Sean, Me at Villa Bali)

(After the first round -- believe it or not -- damn good butter chicken!)

(So full! Yum Yum!!!)
(Another indian cuisine again. This time was at Holland V with Mark, Therese and Amanda. I had 3 pots of biryani rice!)

Patterns

I'm so obsessed with patterns. Here are some I've taken in the past month.



















Another one
















The first one was taken at Tampines Mall, the decorations on the lift doors. The second one was at the restaurant at the cineleisure.

10 Signs You're a True Blue Singaporean

1. You order chilli with everything
2. You'll find somewhere to shop, even if you're in the middle of a desert
3. You queue for hours (even days!) for a big sale
4. You'd rather enrol in a slimming centre than work out to lose weight
5. You say "lah" a lot ... and you're not even singing
6. You have to be the first in the line at a buffet
7. You know that "Want to buy a house together?" is boyfriend-speak for "Will you marry me?"
8. You say something's "not bad" when it's actually quite good
9. You let your man carry your handbag
10. You "chope" a table at the hawker centre with a packet of tissue paper

Exam matters

My paper had the finals on Wednesday last week. Within two days, we had to finish marking the nearly 200 scripts AND come up with all the statistics AND ERRORS are NOT tolerated whatsoever. What are they thinking? We're robots? I propose an online exam, fully computer based multiple choice questions. What? The "credibility of the knowledge tested on multiple choice exams"? Oh please. Even vendors like Cisco, Microsoft, ISC2 and others are using MCQ as their choice for the "Professional" level exams and they're not cheap; ranging from S$200 to over one grand in some cases (such as CISSP, RHCE, MCSE). And you can't go and say, "Dude, your CISSP is crap". I mean seriously, you're not that dumb to do that right? It's the pain in the ars* to mark, error check, manually enter in the results and generating the results manually. Aren't we supposed to automate all these since we are the school of information technology. Use of IT ease the lives of people but excluding lecturers?

"iROBOT"

"Taking a break, I need a vacation!"

Oh and you haven't seen the amount of paper we had to waste to generate the reports. Why not we do everything online (it's more environmental friendly anyway) and NEA (National Environmental Agency) would appreciate it greatly =)

Usual weekend

Friday evening, called up Kyle and met up around 11 to have dinner. Kyle also roaming around Paragon hoping that the stores will give him 90% late night discount :P Anyway, I end up eating twice; once at Pasta Mania and again at a Macau Restaurant at Cineleisure. The Cream of Chicken pasta was horrific; worst I've eaten in years so I chose to eat the garlic bread and soup only. Kyle said he hasn't seen a horror show in years so we decided to watch 1408 which is supposedly scary. Since we got there late, and it's Friday night, no surprise that 1408 sold out. Have left with no options, we took whatever it had, Dead Silence it is. I think the movie is not scary; just a bunch of sounds and eerie dolls. Half the theater is screaming though when Mary Saw (ghost in the storyline) chasing people and biting off their tongues (ouch!)

"The Iced Coffee was nice"

"Left: Me, Right: Kyle"

Saturday was a trip down to meet up with my friends to do some work (rather playing around though). I was testing out two software for NMS (Network Management System: www.zabbix.com) and Security Monitoring (OSSIM - www.ossim.net) both are free. Alan decided to try out Ubuntu Linux instead of the RedHat clone CentOS 5 so there are a lot of dependency issues for the packages I need to install, such as httpd/apache, mysql, net-snmp, etc. Since I'm so used to "yum" -- an updater on CentOS -- it took me a while to get used to "sudo" and "apt-get" commands (apt-cache to look for specific package names).

"Four Sexy Laptops ;)"

Later we went down to eat dinner. All the hawkers near Bugis have delicious food with a very inexpensive price.

"Sky View from a high rise HDB in Bugis (you can see the DHL balloon)"

"Two Thumbs UP"
"Fried Tofu"

Drool the "Fried Tofu" with very nice Thai Style Sauce. Yum Yum!

Count on me (him) Singapore

He has a vision for tomorrow
We must believe in PM Lee
He has a dream for Singapore
He will succeed
He’s PM Lee
Anything
He wants, he’ll get
If not he’ll give you
One tight slap
Because you see, his father’s you know who
Not Lee Kuan Me
But Lee Kuan (point to the audience...)

Count on him Singapore
Count on him Singapore
Count on him to do his best and more
Together him and minister mentorrr
And don’t go to Taiwan anymoreee...!!!

Don't you love Dick Lee?

Weekend

To continue with my endless food pursuit, went to Penninsula the day after I ate my buffet lunch (Friday evening). Couldn't eat much since all my friends finished eating by the time I got there (yeah I know I'm unfashionably late). After dinner, Phil wanted to go to some live band and listen music (*roll eyes*) and the rest wanted to see movie. Mrs. Phil wanted to escape home but we managed to secure her from doing so :P


So after roaming around the CBD area, we finally decided to go to Cineleisure (yeah make a guess) and got ourselves tickets to Rush Hour 3... ahem. Not to our surprise, we've got the second row from front so that we can see 9 meters tall Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. As you might have guessed, the movie is hilarious. Will spare the details because I don't want to spoil the plot for those of you who haven't seen it.


On Saturday, we cooked at William's place to sing Karaoke and have some home cooked meal. Wunna, Phil and I have to fight for the microphone as usual! I'll upload the video of Vanessa getting drunk with wine and laughing nonstop! *evil*


On Sunday, I met with a friend at the airport to have some ice cream and coffee. Took some photos at the Airport, guess where they were taken?

Weekends burn so quick that before I know it, it's Monday again. *sigh*

Minutes to Midnight

1. "Wake" – 1:40
2. "Given Up" – 3:09
3. "Leave Out All The Rest" – 3:29
4. "Bleed It Out" – 2:44
5. "Shadow of The Day" – 4:49
6. "What I've Done" – 3:25
7. "Hands Held High" – 3:53
8. "No More Sorrow" – 3:41
9. "Valentine's Day" – 3:16
10. "In Between" – 3:16
11. "In Pieces" – 3:38
12. "The Little Things Give You Away" – 6:23

Birthday Update

It's been over a month since my birthday and now I'm officially 25.1 years old! My other Leo babe Claire also turned 23 on the 18th of August which she celebrated at the Burmese Buddhist Temple in Toa Payoh. Poor Claire accidentally "wet" her phone the next day and got herself into series of troubles; but as you know, we lucky Leos have someone who will always be there for us so her best mate Rach lended her the V3x. Cool! I'll think about dropping my phone in the rain also and see who'll help moi :P Talking about rain, it's been nonstop since about a week ago and I'm too lazy to get up early in the morning; dragging my feet to the shower everyday :(



Anyway, I've gotta thank my friends who celebrated my special "25th" birthday together with me. I've got gifts and presents of all sorts (if I forgot please condemn me!)

1. Asics Casual Shoe
2. Boss Selection 90ml Perfume
3. Bvulgari Extreme 90ml Perfume
4. Tommy Hilfiger Polo Shirt
5. GAP Polo Shirt
6. Celio Polo Shirt
7. Body Shop Gift Set for Men
8. cK Calvin Klein briefs
9. CISSP and CAP Prep Guide
10. iSetan Vouchers
11. A small miniature guitar
12. Two cakes!
13. 2 bottles of Vodka
14. Microwave Oven with Grill Function

Thank you all for your presents! I meant it from the bottom of my heart.

Our reporter Ms. Rebecca Henry (aka Becky) got the full story here on her blog.

Crush

Lately I'm having a crush on ... eh ... a song (haha, not a girl, doh!) by Paul van Dyk which is now my second most favorite song of PvD (short for Paul van Dyk) next to his early hit "For An Angel" in 1998. Ironically, the title of the song itself is Crush.

Just like all other trance songs, this one comes with a huge and stunning break in between tossing and pulling your mind out of your body. The impact is sort of like a shot of some drug (not that I have tried .. okay, bad analogy). Also, just like "For An Angel", "Crush" is mainly composed of instrumental but it has bits and pieces of vocal here and there ... "tell me you want me" "you can't escape me... I wont just disappear" "I know you want me". The highest momentum should be where there is a bridge between... simply blowing your mind away.

Greetings goes to one of my best friends, Tartee, who shared his early trance collections with me when we were building kick-ass high end gaming machines at his house during the summer of 2001. "Mate, you have to try dosing yourself with Trance, I guarantee that you'll addicted to it." Dude, you're right! I just found the song from my music backup CD (my 160GB external HDD just died a couple of weeks ago) and been having a real crush to it again since then.

The MV of Crush is available on YouTube :D