Chronicles of my life

Updates yet again.

 

Nokia N78. Yup, I've bought this phone, at $98 with Classic/iOne plan from Singtel. Usual price $238 with the same plan. Once the price was slashed, I moved in on it, but it wasn't as straightforward as that. I queued up at the hello! shop in AMK Hub for half an hour, only for the guy at the counter to tell me there's no more stock. He managed to reserve one set for me at hello! Golden Shoe Carpark, but I wasn't gonna go so far for the phone. At least that's what I thought. To my shock, all the Singtel retail shops in AMK and Bishan no longer sell the N78, leaving me with no choice but to visit the Golden Shoe shop. Although there were only around 5 sets left, there was nothing really wrong with the N78 and I currently quite enjoy using the phone! 3.2MP camera with autofocus and flash (the flash's really very flashy, pardon the pun!), stereo speakers (good for music), 2.4 inch screen (acceptable screen size for videos), 76MB internal memory plus free 2GB micro SD card, 3 months free GPS navigation. The reason why there was the discount is because of the release of N79, the successor of N78. But oh well, I'm satisfied with the N78 so it's a good buy overall.

 

Hong Kong. Overseas leave 10-23 Nov. Back to camp on 24 Nov.

 

Wisdom teeth. Gone for my check-ups at Tengah Medical Centre and Alexandra Hospital. Plucking scheduled on 27 Nov and 9 Dec. With MCs factored in, I should have less than 8 more days in camp, with no 24/7 duties forecasted =D

 

ORD. 14 Dec. Pink IC. Coming to a unit near you.

Wow, has it been 2 months since my last blog entry? Hmm, but there really isn't a lot to talk about these days. Well, I'm out of Tekong duties, the juniors due to take over my role as an Air Defence Weapons Operator have arrived and about to be fully trained, and I have to do guard duties until mid-October. I currently have 3 days of off and 3 days of leave to play around with in Oct and early Nov, before I go for overseas leave (to HK as usual, this time for my cousin's wedding) from 10 Nov to 23 Nov. Then, it's preparation for ORD, due on 14 Dec, this sacred date of mine and 4 other crewmen (Avin, KK, ML, Harv)!! Oh, but how could i have forgotten? There's still the small matter of Bersama Lima (outfield deployment T_T ) from 11 Oct to 24 Oct. Hope the juniors help out more and that us seniors don't need to stay out (as in outfield) for so many days =/

 

Not been doing anything constructive recently, except for checking out potential handphones to get, watching singing competitions on Youtube (超级星光大道, now into Season 4, which is insane because the 1st season started in the beginning of 2007) and playing Bridge on Viwawa (www.viwawa.com). Basically wasting my time away until I'm out of the military, after which would be an exciting period, I believe. There'll be time to do things I never had time (or maybe the perseverance) to do in my life. Things like working part-time (was too lazy to ever do it during school holidays) and travelling abroad. As I grow up, I'm beginning to develop an interest in travelling, especially to Europe. Strangely, I've no real interest in visiting America, perhaps because my dream is to visit every major football stadium in the world, and the huge majority of them are based in Europe (a couple being in South America, which I'd probably never travel to.. Is it even safe??).

 

Avin already has preliminary plans to go to England after ORD, so if everything is right I might just tag along. If not, I've been looking at some ads and 10-14D trips to France/Italy/Switzerland seem popular with travel agencies. Problem is, if I go along with their packaged tour, I most likely would not be able to visit the stadiums in Paris, Lyon, Milan and Rome whereas if I go `free and easy', the language would be a major barrier. Oh well, I guess this is supposed to be a pleasant headache.

There was so much hype about this movie before it was open in cinemas, reasons being: Christian Bale (actor) and Christopher Nolan (director)'s successful partnership in Batman Begins (2005), the introduction of Batman's biggest enemy, the Joker, and Heath Ledger's extremely impactful portrayal of the Joker as well as his subsequent death.

 

I'll keep this short. 5/5. Very good acting of Batman and Joker, very deep and dark storyline which details the history behind individual characters (how Two-Face became Two-Face, why the Joker has scars on his face, etc), nice special effects, and the movie poses a lot of interesting questions. The Joker does not commit crimes for money, but just for the fun of "seeing the whole world burn". Is this in reference to the terrorists in our reality? Two-Face was an upright District Attorney but did a heel turn after the death of a loved one. Does this mean everyone can turn evil upon ignition by a traumatic experience?

 

Also caught Lin You Jia and Liu Li Yang performing live at Bugis Junction. Video-ed it in my camera but each clip amounted to 300MB worth of a file!! Is this the usual size?? So huge!! Could it be because of the resolution?

 

Life is so fun if you learn to enjoy. Certainly there will be setbacks but after it, you become stronger. It sounds so cliched but it is so true! Just bide your time and the suffering will be over. In any case, good people do not suffer. They merely go through trials. And no, I do not have any religion. I'm a free-thinker.

Before You Don't Mess with the Zohan was shown, I caught the trailer of 21, a movie about a group of MIT students who attempt to beat Las Vegas casinos at the game of Blackjack. Very interesting, especially since the protagonist appears to be a mathematical genius. It was most likely a poorer cousin of Ocean's Eleven/Twelve but what the hell, I was still interested. The film is inspired by the true story of the MIT Blackjack Team and it draws from Bringing Down the House, the best-selling book by Ben Mezrich.

 

Indeed, it lived up to my expectation of it and I enjoyed it. However, I realise that it's been receiving poor reviews in America. Nonetheless, I feel it is a very cool story. There is also actually a lot of controversy and facts about this movie which you can read about here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_(2008_film)

 

Oh, you might also wanna read about Card counting , which is the method with which the team used to gain an advantage in the game of Blackjack.

 

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Movies aside, I also took part in an Inter-Flight Badminton competition in my unit last Friday. Each flight was to send a team comprising of 3 singles players and 2 pairs of doubles players. Edwin, Wayne and LTA Clinton (rank as of then) were the singles players, Edwin-Wayne were our best doubles, while me and Kian Tat were the other pair. Hope was high for Alpha flight.

 

Group stage opponents: Bravo and MT Line. MT Line were swept aside pretty easily (no offence) by both Alpha and Bravo. With qualification to the semis assured for both flights, the final match was a formality (besides determining who finished top of the group and faced the supposedly weaker team of the other group). Alpha won due to some brilliance by Edwin and Wayne, the latter who won his singles match as well as their doubles game. Fortunately too, because me and KT lost our match after 3 sets. Bleah.

 

Semis: Charlie. Pretty smooth match, because me and KT didn't even need to play as our singles players all won their games!

 

Final: Bravo, as expected. Edwin and Wayne inexplicably lost their singles games, although LTA Clinton won. This means if KT and me lost, Alpha would immediately concede the title to Bravo. What pressure which we certainly didn't want! But luckily, we actually won this time! This levelled the score at 2-2 and the entire championship laid on the outcome of the doubles match between Bravo's SSG Johin-2LT Ian and our representatives.

 

1st set: Bravo. 2nd set: Alpha. 3rd set: 20-20, into deuce. Quite a disappointment actually, as we were leading 19-17. But oh well, still in with a chance. However, it wasn't taken. Or maybe, couldn't be taken, because the opponents seemed very motivated and played with a certain kind of fierce desire to win. And win they did. Winners: Bravo. Runners-up: Alpha.

 

Getting a trophy for 2nd place was very satifactory for me already, considering a) I'm quite an average player actually as compared to the best in the tournament, b) I only took part in 2 matches and won only 1, c) I was actually running a slight fever that day, and I had to gulp down a bottle of Luo Han Guo before I played to cool my body down. But it must have been a major disappointment to Edwin, who is truly a very good badminton player (he was the 2nd best player in the nation during secondary school.. oops, 2nd place again??).

 

It seems that Alpha, or rather, our batch of crewmen, keep getting 2nd in sports competitions!! Last year when we were trainees at Delta, we ended up 2nd in soccer. We were 2nd in basketball earlier in the year, and now 2nd in badminton!! Oh, I remember we did WIN some SQN Family Day competition involving pool games (as in, swimming pool.. not billard/snooker pool), but it doesn't seem to compare. Inter-Flight soccer competition coming soon though. Let's try one more time (perhaps last time)!!

What a movie! 5/5 or at least 4.5. Serving up sexist and racist jokes and ridiculous nonsense (doing push-ups without using hands??), this movie succeeds in entertaining the viewer the whole time without him having to think too much. One of the rare movies that captured my attention throughout (I tend to drift off at times, u see).

 

By the way, the Great Singapore Sale is on! Good news for those who like to buy clothes, but not entirely fantastic news, since not that many shops are participating. What I've found out so far:

-Bugis Street stalls mostly no sale

-Topman no sale

-FOX 20% and 50% for selected items

-Levi's 20%

-Quiksilver (at Isetan Orchard) 50%

-Far East quite alot of shops with 50% sale

 

Lame post. Don't know what to write.