Resident Evil 3: Extinction

Caught that with Ad just now, we knew it stank real bad, so we caught it at hime, which was cheaper (1.50$ cheaper!)

There was only 1 word in my mind when I watched it. Why.

Why is this happening?
Why are they doing this?
Why do they have to do this this way?
Why am I watching this show?

Well I suppose I can answer the last question ... Since I watched 1 and 2, might as well finish it off with 3...

*Warning: Spoilers abound*

The movie starts off (well missed the first 5 mins) with the blurb about the world being taken over by the T virus and evil zombie things. And Alice is riding around alone (cos it's safer!) in some desert place (the whole world has conveniently been converted to desert land due to the (amazing) virus.

So she pulls up in front of this building where there's this radio message (She has this receiver thing that .. well receives radio messages) about Omg help us! We need help! etc

So she goes in, with her revolver and walks around and finds this fat chick with her back facing her. She approaches, with her gun covering fat chick.

Me: Why? Why not just stand where you are and ask her to ID herself? Why walk to melee range?

Fat chick: *turns to look at Alice* Won't you save my baby! *holds thing swathed in cloth*

Alice: *takes thing* *finds it's a doll*

Evil dudes appear pointing guns at her.

Me: Wth? Why?

Well Alice kills 1 dude and somehow gets knocked out (don't ask me .. she just .. was) and finds herself in this basement place with the evil dudes looking up at her from a big hole).

So bad dudes release zombie dogs (from RE:1) and they run around chasing her.

Me: Why? Why bother? If you just want to rob her, should have killed her already. Why keep dangerous dog things in your basement? They were in cages! How do you put them back afterwards? Why?? .. And why do all zombie dogs have to look like Doberman dogs? Are all zombie dogs Doberman? Or do they turn into Doberman on becoming zombie dogs? God forbid a zombie chihuahua.

Naturally she escapes and causes the ceiling to fall down so she can jump up and escape while the zombie dogs follow and pwn the bad dudes.

So she rides off and reaches some petrol station, kills off the resident zombie, and somehow discovers this book talking about going to Alaska. Interestingly the author decided to hang himself.

At the same time there's this convoy of dudes who are riding around (cos you know it's dangerous to stay in one place, cos you know zombies will somehow smell them from a mile (and many miles) away and come find them, cos you know they'll keep coming... maybe the ones in China will swim over and find them too!)

So they stop over at this motel to resupply, and send 2 dudes to go in and check out the place. Of course, they split up in the motel, you take left, I take right.

Me: Why 2 dudes? Why not more? Why not a buddy system? Why go alone?

Naturally 1 dude (naturally the black dude who's not the hero) gets jumped by zombies and gets kinda bitten on the chest. He almost got creamed if not for the hero (Carlo! I know his name!) and saves him.

So anyway place sanitised, they kinda drive their convoy (2 jeep things, 1 oil truck, 1 school bus + maybe 1 more) and bed down, somehow they manage to have an offroader around and the dude plants camera things on the ground to establish a perimeter.

The next morning, random chick (she's gotta be important cos she sleeps in the same jeep as the heroine (Clair!)) wakes up from a sound and finds that they are surrounded by zombie crows.

They try to jet it but of course the school bus gets stuck and crashes into a pole, so they have to evacuate it (actually it didn't look that badly injured..). Tonnes of zombie crows wheel about.

Alice however is around the vicinity, having heard their radio messages. (Don't forget she has telekinesis powers, watch the show!) And uses her powers(!) to burn all the crows (more details, watch the show!).

So apparently she knows Carlo (remember RE:1? Don't think anyone does). Anyways she brings this information about Alaska(!) to them and Clair tables a vote.

Alaska? Or go around as usual?

Amazingly (2 dimensionally, I might add), everyone votes for Alaska. Important note: Carlos mentions that they started with 50, and now have ~30 people.

Me: Amazing! Everyone's of 1 mind! There's NO one who's thinking, hey! I know this place, it's safe here! Rather than go to Alaska which is far (they are near LV) and it's cold and you don't know for sure if it's really untouched.
Directors of RE please watch something like ... Dawn of the dead.

Anyways somewhere in the show we're presented with the main bad guys (cos you know, zombies are not the only bad things around), and of course it's Umbrella Corp, which has a N American base in a desert place (conveniently close!). On the surface it's this compound with 1 sorry flimsy fence, and there's tonnes of zombies milling about, slapping the fence halfheartedly. Come on fellows! Show more spirit! It's not even electrified!

2 Umbrella peons wearing the Intel space suit thing come up, carrying a dead clone of Alice, they throw the body into a ditch, where there are more Alice clones(!) And they are ALL wearing the same dress (the red one from RE1).

Ad: Buy in bulk! Cheep!

Me: omfg. Why aren't they rotting? Can you imagine the psychological strain the staff will have? Surrounded by zombies, protected by a thin (not even military grade) fence. Even living underground, where the tunnels are narrow and claustrophobic. They must have good shrinks.

So anyway they decide to drop by LV to refuel so they can make the trip to Alaska.

In the meantime, evil scientist from Umbrella finds out where Alice is.

They want Alice because apparently her blood is the antidote to the T virus (and hence the clones).

So he details a squad to trap them in LV.

The convoy reaches this .. place....... there's a container blocking them. And apparently it's blocking the way to a gas station.

Ad: Where? How?

Me: Just drive past! Or find another way!

Ad: There are NO roads!

Me: What exactly is this container blocking again..?

Container was in this .. totally random position.

Alice stands at the door thing of the container and listens to it .. then she yells back! And jumps back, conveniently the door thing falls open. It just falls down, Fumph! like that, no hinges, no lock .. nadda.. Did it get pasted on using tape or what.

And zombies(!!) pour out. But it's not normal zombies! It's well formed mutated (Freddy like) zombies wearing (same!) blueish overalls.

(Sidenote: Evil Doctor (Isaacs) managed to develop this .. serum thing that makes zombies .. domesticated for like 5mins and permanently aggressive).

Nene: How did they pack like 100 zombies inside!?

So anyway pew pew! People die, zombies get smashed, more nameless people die. Isaacs tries to shut Alice down but she fries(!) (remotely!) the satellite chip trying to shut her down.

So she somehow knows where the tent is and goes up to it and kills all the guards there (! where's the bullet proof vests.. you mean those armour stuff are ornamental?)

Almost kills Isaac but he gets away, not before getting bitten by a zombie.

She doesn't shoot down the helicopter, saying that it'll be good if they can hijack it to Alaska, rather than driving.

So somehow they manage to track the helicopter back to the base. I suppose.. with the clear skies and wide field of vision ... And find the base, you know, the one with the flimsy gate surrounded by (more!) zombies milling around, pawing halfheartedly at the fence.

Carlos decides to sacrifice himself, as he got bitten during the fight. The plan was to drive the oil tanker towards the base, blow up stuff, so they can follow behind and grab the helo.

Me: .. Does ANYONE see the tonnes of things that can go wrong with this plan? 1, zombies overrun them before it happens, 2, fence is tougher than it is (hey it better be adamantite, with all the zombies pressing against it), 3, is the helo fueled!? They just landed the thing! How are you sure it has enough fuel for Alaska?! As established earlier, the convoy had 30ish people left, well .. are you telling me that the LV ambush killed like 20?? Cos that helo definitely CANNOT carry > 10 people ... Actually 10 is kinda stretching it. I'd say like 6 .. maybe .. 8.. Also who can fly a helo! (Well it turns out that Claire conveniently can fly a helo. How? Why? She's military? Even so .. not every military dude knows how to fly a helo..)

Well apparently everyone likes living dangerously so they enact the plan.

Carlos drives his oil tanker into the zombies and somehow it gets thrown to the side.

Me: How? Why? It's heavy... the ground's flat... it's in motion, the zombies aren't at one side pushing ... Well it COULD have ran over too many zombies and fell on its side..... but ... urgh. So he lights his dynamite (!! How did they have dynamite!?) and blows a hole.

Claire, Alice and nameless people floor it (in 1(!!) jeep) and go through the explosion and race to the helo. They all get in, save for Alice of course, who has unfinished business with Isaacs.

Me: So everyone save for like .. 1jeep worth of people survived LV.

In the meantime, underground, Isaacs has pumped himself full of antidote things and somehow mutates into a thing somewhat like Nemesis (a crappier version). So he pwns everyone in the complex. Well of course we don't see it.. just see blood and dead bodies .. and of course, the flickering lights.

So the helo takes off (I don't know how helos work, but apparently someone left the key in the ignition, so to speak) and Alice goes into the wooden house in the centre of the compound.

Meanwhile, the zombies are politely standing around outside the gate, apparently not noticing the big hole.

She goes into the house and reaches the table, which conveniently opens up and this elevator comes up. How nice.

So she goes down and sees the flickering lights, goes through some lab thing and meets the computer, which is represented by a holographic girl, ala RE1.

Computer tells Alice that her blood is the antidote, and the doctor has been mutated. She cannot contain him so Alice must go pwn him.

So Alice goes to this area where the computer says he is.

Me: What..? Did the computer draw some blood from her? What if Alice dies? Then no more antidote?

So anyway she walks around, sees dead people, nicely skewered (Isaacs has been pretty free I guess) and sees a clone of herself in this bubble thing.

Ad: Why do all the clones have their hands crossed over their

Me: flat

Ad: chests? Is that a natural position? *crosses arms*

Me: *crosses arms*

So anywhere Isaacs comes and she chucks her machete at him, and he flees (what a wuss). Bubble thing is broken and clone slides out, arms over chest.

Clone: *gasps* *lies still*

Alice: *covers clone in jacket*

Isaacs in the meantime has run into a corridor and we see him throwing the machete to the ground, and the wound healing itself. Healing factor!

Alice comes by and chases after him..

They fight, she swipes at him and he grabs her arm and tosses her away

Me: Why..? Tossing would just give her mobility... since you have her.. just break the arm or something

Ad: Maybe he wants her whole

Me: For what? better to squish?

He uses his 1 tentacled arm and grabs her, she cuts them off with machete, she uses her Force(!) powers and flings him away, he crashes through some (thin) walls, he comes back and roars and things + her fly through some (thin walls), helpfully, into the computer's room.

Remember RE1? There was this room where the guards were sliced by the lasers which were moving in patterns.

He slaps her around a bit more and she lies on the ground.

Isaac: I used to think you were the future, but I was wrong.. I am the future!! RAWR! *advance*

Alice: *starts laughing*

Isaac: *pause and looks quizzically*

Me: So ..... I learnt today... If facing certain death before evil villain, always remember to laugh. This will confuse the bad guy so you can have those spare seconds to 1, kill yourself, 2, bring up some secret weapon, 3, wait for help.

Alice: You're just another asshole.

Me: Witty comeback! You go girl!

Alice: We're dying here together!

Lasers appear in their criss cut patter and slices through Isaac. They stop a hair from Alice, and we cut back to the clone, who apparently has learnt to breath in air and has stopped the lasers.

Me: How?! How do you know that? Anyways the computer could have done it... You know, it'd be funny if Isaacs repaired that injury and became many Isaacs...

So we cut to Japan where you see business suited Japanese zombies on the streets (of course, everyone in Japan wears a suit!) and down below where the execs are having a meeting.

Lost contact with N America base... blah blah ....

Alice: *zaps in holographically* I'm coming for you! And I'm bringing my friends! *end transmission*

*cut to Alice standing beside Alice 2*

*camera pans to what they are looking at*

Many many many bubbles with Alice inside. All with arms helpfully crossed over (flat) chests.

End movie.


=_=

Omfg it's so bad on so many counts I don't know what to say. Well save for a Why!?

Why are they doing this?! Why did they do this? How come no one offered a counterproposal? Why's everything so fine and dandy?

What was the pointless first scene for? To show us those zombie dogs? Why? Where did all the OTHER people in the convoy go?! How can that helo make it to Alaska from ~~ LV? They didn't pack food! How?! Why!? What!? Why do all the zombies look so uniform now? The ones which are modified even have uniforms (blue overalls).

Umbrella Corp! We take care of you! Even if you're a zombie!

Also, it's cool and stuff, but it doesn't make economic sense to build deep underground facilities.. 1 maybe, but all your bases...? What's the psychological state of the peons in Umbrella? Can you continue with your work knowing what's going around in the world? What about your family? Parents? Kids? Relatives?

What's all those Alice clones for? Is making them survive fighting against zombies prove that they have the 'correct' blood? Also all the main characters have immaculately drawn eyebrows, nicely washed hair, neat clothes. It certainly is heartening to see people having the time to groom themselves even at the edge of apocalypse.

Sigh.

What makes a good zombie flick? To me there are two kinds. One is the ulta action packed fast and furious type, zombies flying everywhere, people dying every second, and there's the more cerebral one, where zombies are slow, seemingly easy to escape from.

1st is the action .. action's good!

2nd is the plot, about how humans react to danger, in hopeless situations. You see all kinds. In the original Dawn of the Dead, the 2 security guards are 'lords' of the shopping mall. They knew they were in charge and controlled stuff. When the people were deciding to go, there were people who argued not to.. why leave the safe haven and venture outside where it was unknown? And this dude trying to hide his pregnant zombie wife cos he loved them.. The human spirit!

Sadly, for RE:3, both points weren't there. Hardly any action, well not enough at least, and not entertaining at the very least. Plot? lolz.

I've always wondered about a zombie ecostructure, been of the mind that it cannot be stable. How and when do zombies multiply?

1, they eat their prey. 2, their prey become zombies too.

How and when will a human become a zombie? When it's bitten, but not eaten? When will a zombie stop eating a human? After eating the choice bits?

Don't seem to see any zombies with bits missing from them...

In Dawn of the Dead, the zombies stopped eating once the victim rose.

...

What was memorable about RE:1 was the zombies... They looked MORE like zombies rather than these.. these look like extras in latex makeup. No broken necks.. broken arms.. armless zombies.. etc.

I still remember the scraping sound this zombie made in RE:1. It had a broken neck, and was walking on a broken ankle, and was dragging a hatchet. THAT'S a zombie.

And of course RE:1 had a clearer aim, the troops were to shut down that computer. In RE:3.. what's the aim? I know.. it's to survive... hide from zombies.. live.. but ........ it just wasn't really there.

Read Z War.

Cat thing!

It's a cat thing!

[11:32 ] did u peer at myroom closely?
[11:32 ]
[11:33 ] notice wats on the carpet?
[11:33 ] <暗闇の天使> i saw zombies
[11:33 ] <暗闇の天使> a cat thing
[11:33 ] 2 zombies non?
[11:33 ] <暗闇の天使> uhuh ..
[11:33 ] there's SOMETHING at the edge of the carpet
[11:33 ] hehehehhe
[11:33 ] <暗闇の天使> a cat thing?
[11:33 ] nope
[11:33 ] <暗闇の天使> car?
[11:34 ] .. and?
[11:34 ] <暗闇の天使> a mummy..?
[11:34 ] =_=
[11:34 ] j00 cant see wats next to car!?
[11:35 ] <暗闇の天使> cat thing/
[11:35 ] HAMSTER.
[11:35 ] <暗闇の天使> i said it was a cat thing! many times!
[11:35 ] its not a cat la!
[11:35 ] bah!
[11:35 ] <暗闇の天使> it's a cat thing!
[11:36 ] ...
[11:36 ] <暗闇の天使> it's small! it's a cat thing
[11:37 ] hamster la!
[11:37 ] <暗闇の天使> well .. i didn't say it was a cat..
it's a cat thing!

Urgh

It's been a while... That time went cable skiing remember? ..Well somehow I injured my arms.. the nerves I think, and it's been hurting... still ><><

Urgh

Also.. urgh about the other thing... it's still going! .. >< Dun really know what to do about it.. Must remember to eat more froots... always forget... will try and remember to buy a watermelon everyday (a cup!)

She's gone out! But as usual never bring phone. How the heck do I know when she'll be back!? Got phone still no bring... GRRR!

Long awaited

Maybe only by me :-P, been meaning to post for a long time but was too lazy to do it. So figured I should do it when I'm out of reach of a computer. So do it on Snooks... Somehow his t9 got reset ... Weird. Anyways...

Well, the last post had me rather sad ne? Well at the very nadir, when even EOV (Eternally Optimistic Voice) failed... Twas a truly sad time. Usually eov manages to work... I managed to summon my dearest DA, and ...well it works out easier in the head than in words... But the sad feelings and such just poofed. Dunno what to say about it... One moment, was in the train feeling really bad, next moment it was gone... Even tried experimenting with some known sad thoughts but either they got clamped down or... Just nothing... No feeling. Was really odd. But guess I owe DA one for that...

Much appreciated. Would be in a really bad spot without his help.

Shortly after that, eov kicked in -_-

Sigh skipping yoga today... Shoulder joints pain. The dude said my joints are loose... What does that mean? Urgh doesn't sound good... Hopefully will feel better soon. Will try swimming tomorrow if still bad then guess no go cable skiing... Sigh.

Been looking at new Snooks too... So far nokia 61i seems good... Would prefer se's p1i but it doesn't have wireless g... The upcoming black berry curve seems good too, but oddly there's no 3g... Doh. Iphone at the moment is out too... No mp3 for ringtone, can't mod ... What's the point of buying such a powerful device but can't do anything with it?

Some commentor was still saying... Apple is like an over protective mother while we consumers are naughty children (paraphrased from memory) ... Duh... An over protective mother? Dude you have issues. If you don't have $ you think Apple will care a whit for you? Sigh all these fanboys.

Well reaching home liao. Hope this post gets to where it's supposed to go :-P

@Home: Had some problems posting this, guess maybe text too long and somehow overloaded something, just couldn't reacquire the network.. Was in dismay (no way am I going to type this whole chunk out again! It doesn't look long .. but it's still substantial!), but thankfully the email portion in Snooks' firmware could handle long text, so saved it, rebooted and loaded up Opera again and managed to save it into drafts before using Resurrection to edit.

Opera's a kick ass browser, only problem is it seems to be identifying as a non mobile browser, so it loads up the whole page .. but then they load up fast! Super streamlined! :D

失くしたものすべて 愛したものすべて この手に抱きしめて 現在は何処を彷徨い行くの

Looking at everything that I've lost
And almost everything that I've loved
I'll hold them all tightly in my arms
Wondering where I am, so please tell me where to go

This stanza has always struck deep. Why, I do not know. But these days it seems to be pretty close.

Where do I wander off to now, holding in my arms all I've lost and loved?

Sometimes, don't you, well I don't know about you, but I do, wish .. Why can't I be a tad more popular? A tad more sophisticated? Have fifty billion friends in my Facebook? If person A can be so popular, why can't I be?

But of course, you know, deep down, that you're not that kind of person. Not the kind to maintain tonnes of friends, to say hi to everyone ... etc.

There is a Fortress of Solitude (not Superman's!), constructed long ago, during the Dark Times™, it has been years. Cracks are showing.

Too tired sometimes to think of walking alone. But we all do. Those who say they have friends, god etc are merely deluding themselves. At the end of it all, we are alone.

掌上明珠，去了哪儿?

It has gone, first, curled up in a corner, sad, as what Lu Ru Ping said (in the TV series), let me hide in a corner to lick my wounds, like an animal (well something like that). But now it has died.

Poor little sad thing, it'll never come to pass.

The Fort is failing, and there precious Angel who'd come has stayed away.

Can't keep like this for long.

XP.. BAH!

More of my angst filled posts..

Just when I clicked publish post, Resurrection BSOD-ed. WTH? Seriously.. What's WRONG with @*&%@$). My office Mac has been running forever (needing periodic reboots of course) but no kernel panics at all (except for once or twice but that was when I was writing my own nubby driver).

Stupid windows...

WTB more stable OS.

LOTRO and how not to do software

Well needless to say I'm hardly the definitive source for application design and stuff like that, but after using tonnes of applications, I think I'm qualified to say something.

.Net sucks. Simple.
The code looks quite interesting but somehow the framework does crazy things to your system.

Case in point, LOTRO. When it was released as a trial, I thought, hey! Finally the LOTRO trial! Now I can try it out and see if I should bother plonking down the cash for it or stick to WoW and wait for WAR.

Upon installing...

Hmm... it needs .Net..? Well sure I guess.

*installed* .. etc .. rebooted

*presented with login screen*

WTH? I thought I had Resurrection configured to log in automatically...? .. No matter... *updated the registry to allow auto login, rebooted. Ah that's fine..

Well, it's NOT fine now, auto login has kinda become a random flag which is CLEARED by some mysterious process or whatnot =_=

And it's all thanks to LOTRO (well, granted it's probably the .Net framework, but it was the main cause as to why .Net got to my system in the first place).

Speaking of LOTRO... It just smacks of unfinished. I can see UNFINISHED! UNFINISHED! screaming around. Granted, I didn't spend a lot of time at it, for the simple fact that it wasn't engaging at all.

1. Characters - ugly, the facial expressions are a hoot though
2. Camera - weird sluggish feel
3. Movement - buggy..? I set up auto run to target (or click to move, whatever it's called), basically my character was supposed to run to the target I clicked on and start swiping it. However, it didn't do that.. I'd click on my target, watch my toon run to it... and overshoot... I had to click again to get him back to whack the target. And it wasn't as if my target moved a fair bit during the time it needed for my character to get there. What gives?
4. Movement - weird jumping animation, for some strange reason, the animation sequence looks really weird, clipped when your character is jumping. The arm flailing just kinda .. skips to the next frame, like a badly drawn cartoon, and when you jump in a jump (ie press jump while in the air), the animation gets slightly weird.

Bah

That's it for LOTRO then.

Tried out WAR during GC-Asia, looks, feels good. High hopes for it!

Of broken dreams...

So there I was, wandering around bugs during lunch, when I went by the kiddie section, which was selling little girl dresses... You know, those princess like ones with the frills.

And I couldn't help but think, how many little girls wore those dresses, looking all innocent and wholesome, with hopes pinned upon by proud parents, and how many of these dreams were broken.

Kinda morose huh.

Then I wandered past the toy section and peeked in.

A Pokeball on sale. Supposedly you're supposed to (somehow) open the plastic ball and a little stuffed pokemon will appear. The pokemon had a rabbit like face, and looked kinda sad.

Next up were Power Ranger SPD toys. This time their intelligence levels had gone even lower; their uniforms had huge numbers on their chests, in case they forgot their designations I guess.

Why do they make such totally insipid toys?

I remember reading a long time ago, that some kids, mostly from western stories, have this little chest at the foot of their beds, a hope chest of such.

I made one too, put in all the stuff I didn't want to remember and tossed it into the sea, never wanting to see them again. From time to time though, it rises, like a rotten corpse, bloated from the sea, floating, never truly wanting to be put down.

Oh well, such is life I guess.

MSN

Well after a harrowing 2 weeks+ of counting packets and parsing bytes .. finally managed to fix my stupid 04 packet error. Now display pictures and emotes can be downloaded perfectly! woot.

MSN's a pretty well designed protocol imo, each client maintains 2+ connections. 1 main one is to the notification server which will send msgs when ppl invite you to sessions, change nicks, add you, etc. While the other one is for chatting. So if you ever tested and wondered why your initial message to someone is always slower, well that's cos both clients are negotiating with a session server for a session!

Heh.

Wanted to blog about other stuff one .. but mysteriously all is forgotten as I sit here.. So I shall just blog the last thought I had before opening this tab...

I have a friend .. well someone who's on my MSN list but I don't talk to at all... she prob doesn't even know who I am now. Anyways, she has a nick "Everytime I look up at the sky at night, I wonder if it's the same stars we're seeing"

Just feel like msging her and say, well, if you're looking at the same position at the same time every night, you're seeing the same stars. However, as the year passes by, the stars will slowly shift, so the same stars you see in Jan - June will be different from July - Dec. Somewhat like how you see Orion in the beginning of the year and Scorpio in the end of the year.

But I guess it doesn't sound as 'romantic' as the message huh.

Come to think of it, her nick reminds me of those rubbish you see in cheap bags/T-shirts which say something like "Time is memory" or some crap like that.. Sounds deep but actually doesn't make sense.

Maybe she took it from there =p

Blogs and blogs

It's back to the "Season" again! Currently setting up a website for my guild ^^ KRP!

Wordpress looks pretty good.. thinking of moving this blog over to Wordpress.. But it means I (somehow) need to port the data over and such .. But the wordpress themes look so yummy.. /tempted.

Chinese software... pui!

So, I've been looking at QQ these few days, for the uninitiated, QQ is a China made IM which apparently is taking China by storm.

Looking at the application... you can really see the differences in design methodology by the East and West. Western design ie Apple, go for the minimalistic approach. Things are described in as few words as possible. More emphasis is on presentation rather than features.

Eastern design is completely opposite. It's features features and more features. Just a visit into QQ's website, or any other Chinese websites and you'll know. It's text upon text upon text upon text. Just a look at it and you'll go @_@, unless you're China Chinese I guess.

The application itself borders on spyware. Upon installation, I suddenly had many 'extra' programs like news, firewall, doctor something or other .. Weird things were popping on my system tray. Alerts I didn't need.

Clicking on the system tray icon yields a pseudo Windows start menu (they designed as thus) with even more menu entries than your Windows start menu.. Clicking on those yield MORE menus..

Urgh.

You can't even do offline messaging (it seems). Every other feature seems to be a paid service. I tried to use one of my own pictures as an avatar and it told me, Sorry! You must be a QQ user (ie paying, non leech) to have your own avatars. wth? In the meantime I'm stuck with funky heads as my avatar.

And the QQ number thing is SOOOO ICQ era. Guess China Chinese can remember numbers better than us... They are pretty smart too, letting you buy special QQ numbers, like birthdays and such. Enterprising.

Convoluted and ugly. The only saving grace is possibly the penguin mascot.

Oops I did it again..

..

Yes in a span of 2 days, I've snapped .. 2 .. erm .. straps. I just reach over .. lean over, bend over... and hear this sickening piak sound, and -_-... bah.

So many things to think about these days

The Product™
The Product's™ Table
$$
and some other stuff
/zzz

Well checked my std account, had more $ than I thought there was, which is good.. although it's still too little =\

Need to save/earn more!!

And so..

So today, I (finally) audit (so to speak), the server logs. The Boss™ charged me to pull out pictures from The Product™ so after doing it, I was just looking through the server logs.

And discovered an oddity.

The timestamps were wrong. -_-;

I was going zomfg?! And did a quick check. As expected, it was logging everything under CST. /sigh.

So I call over CK, erm oei, you know your program logging the date and time wrongly or not?

Then he said he just follow server time. Which is a fair assumption, after all, if a program can't depend on OS time, then how? But hah! He didn't check! Even though I set the server time to SGT already, for some reason Java does not inherit it (not all the time) and will run at CST, which was the server's original configuration.

So, since astartes, the logs have been going under CST time .. urgh. Grr, did you not try and see? Urgh.

So well, if who's going to fix it in the end? .. most likely me. Cos I can apparently write scripts /eye roll

.....

Also I found out that his migration was incomplete -_- Logged images weren't completely copied over from the old directories to the new ones.

Looks like I'll have to do that too -_-

/sigh

What is a programmer?

programmer, n:
       A red eyed, mumbling mammal capable of conversing with
inanimate monsters.

....

Grr..

Told bvo about it before, about this dude, we'll call him CK, who has been rather .. irritating. -_- There was once, where I was doing work, and up he rolls, and asks me some question.

I go.. .. erm .. Well, definitely there's a way to solve this problem, but I'm not sure how .. er .. *click on FF* *google abit* errm...

He sits there for abit, and then rolls back to his place without saying anything. Leaving me to go wtf?

He also has this bad habit of coming up to my place and just stand there and stare at my screen. Leaving me to go .. erm .. yes? Wth are you doing staring at my screen? I don't stare at yours, don't stare at mine. Got pretty thing there izzit? Usually I just endeavour to ignore him.

So today, I'm reading stuff and thinking about stuff, and he suddenly IMs me. Where is XYZ (where XYZ is an object (programming stuff lah))? I'm :@ immediately. I mean... the source code is THERE. The API is THERE. Not that obvious, but it's THERE. And you have CTRL+F or even better, import the whole thing into an IDE and it'll probably hot link the definition to the declaration. Or just install grep, windows version and look for it yourself. WTH are you doing asking me a question wherein you can easily find the answer yourself!?

I hate answering questions like that.

But .. well I just answer it, and I get silence back. Not even a word of thanks.

Are CKs all like that? So annoying. Want very much to just /ignore the person, but not possible lah.

GRRR.

Edit: Yes.. I know, information sharing and stuff. But this is not even a hard question. You're a programmer. I'm sure you have tools, or at least know how to LOOK. It's not difficult. Even windows search can search for words in text files. So stupid. Grr. Next time maybe I should just reply with www.google.com, or best, "Dunno".

The Penguin

The Penguin

by Rob Flynn
and
Jeramey Crawford


Once upon a term'nal dreary, while I hack'ed, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten code--
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a beeping,
As of some one gently feeping, feeping using damn talk mode.
"'Tis some hacker," I muttered, "beeping using damn talk mode--
Only this. I hate talk mode."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak semester,
And college life wrought its terror as the school year became a bore.
Eagerly I wished for privledges;--higher access I sought to borrow
For my term'nal, unceasing sorrow--sorrow for a file called core--
For the rare and radiant files of .c the coders call the core--
Access Denied. Chown me more.

"Open Source," did all mutter, when, with very little flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Penguin of the saintly days of yore.
Quite a bit obese was he; having eaten lots of fish had he,
But, by deign of Finnish programmer, he sat in the middle of my floor--
Looking upon my dusty term'nal in the middle of my floor--
Came, and sat, and nothing more.

Then the tubby bird beguiling my sad code into shining,
By the free and open decorum of the message that it bore,
"Though thy term'nal be dusty and slow," he said, "Linux be not craven!"
And thus I installed a new OS far from the proprietary shore--
The kernel code open but documentation lacking on this shore.
Quoth the Penguin, "pipe grep more!"

Much I marvelled this rotund fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help believing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird in the middle of his floor--
Bird or beast sitting in the middle of his cluttered floor,
With such instructions as "pipe grep more."

But the Penguin, sitting lonely in that cluttered floor, spoke only
Those words, as if its soul in that instruction he did outpour.
Nothing more did he need utter; understood did I among that clutter--
Understood his command as I could scarcely do a few moments before--
I typed as furious as was willed me, understanding just a minute before.
Again the bird said "pipe grep more!"

"Amazing!" said I, "Penguin we will conquor the world if you will!
By the Network that interconnects us--by that Finn we both adore--
We'll take this very world by storm!" For now grasped I what he'd meant,
The thing I do while searching /usr/doc/* for that wond'rous lore--
Those compendiums of plaintext documentation and descriptive lore.
Quoth the Penguin, "pipe grep more!"

And the Penguin, never waddling, still is sitting, still is sitting
In the middle of my room and still very cluttered floor;
And his eyes have all the seeming of the free beer I am drinking
And the term'nal-light o'er him glowing throws his shadows on the floor;
And this OS from out the shadows that is pow'ring my term'nal on the floor
Shall be dominating--"Pipe grep more!"

It's been a while..

...since I last posted. Yeah I know been feeling lazy =p

Anyways uploaded my Vietnam pictures into my Flickr (finally). Tagged them and such, and jUploadr crashed -_- So did it again and it's uploading now. Huzzah!

Too lazy to talk about the trip, except it was fun! Fun! and FUN! And I'd go again.

And also, instead of being 'typical' tourists and buying all the touristy stuff (like bargain items (for SGians)), we bought lots of .. toiletries.. hehe.

Anyway feeling poet-y today, so here's 2

Popped into my head in the toilet (cough cough)
Is this poetry?
May it be two verses or three,
As long as it will rhyme,
And stand the test of time.


And another one for R's picture:
Sought by many, found by few,
He waits in his lair, feathered wings coated in morning dew,
Spawned from the blood of creature most hideous,
He stands, tall and strong, regal form so beauteous,
Pegasus, who arose from Medusa's blood,
Shall aid Kratos and turn Zeus' tears into a flood.

For his cloud pic

Somehow the haiku mood is gone, and the general ABAB poems that I usually write. Never really wrote the AABB type before.. Heh.

Must learn to write better poems and haikus. So far most of my haikus suck =p

Vietnam!

Leafing house in 40mins! lalalal~!

Quotes

"They muddy the water, to make it seem deep."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Love is something you do, not something you feel."
- Gordon Atkinson

"The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat."
--Confucius

(too cheem)

"The only thing high-definition television will do is provide sharper pictures of the garbage."
- George Carlin

(too true)

"Science is everything we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else."
- Donald Knuth

"Education is not the filling of a pail, it's the lighting of a fire."
- Yeats

"Being a graduate student is like becoming all of the Seven Dwarves. In the beginning you're Dopey and Bashful. In the middle, you are usually sick (Sneezy), tired (Sleepy), and irritable (Grumpy). But at the end, they call you Doc, and then you're Happy."
- Ronald T. Azuma

"That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers."
- Larry Niven

"Who needs horror movies when we have Microsoft?"
-Christine Comaford (PC Week, 9/27/95)

Toma!

My precious Toma .. in shwup while playing "We all go down together"
Quite a nice song.. doesn't quite make sense (to me) but it's still nice =p

No umbrellas this time though! Just トーマ ... sigh .. *goo*