A New World

As those close to me know, I recently underwent a “Left Big Toe Nail Avulsion”, to alleviate the pain of an Onychocryptosis, or Unguis incarnatus. This was what was written in that weird language those doctors and nurses use so that patients will find difficulty in understanding them. Luckily, I like reading up on these things, and I realise this simply meant that I would be undergoing surgery on my left big toe to remove the nail because of an ingrown toenail.

Anyway, this happened two weeks ago, and today I had to go back there for a checkup. I thought there would be a proper analysis of the toe, and maybe a written report on how the toe was doing. Instead, they led me to a room, with a thousand people inside, sat me on a bed, and examined my toe for about a minute, said there was nothing wrong with it, sent me back out and asked me to wait at the reception area. After half an hour, they called me and asked me to pay twenty-two dollars. For what?! Twenty-two dollars for a “Professional” to unwrap my gauze? No wonder these doctors earn so much while we peasants are suffering. These thieves are sucking us dry.

When they were done robbing me, I took a walk to the nearby Popular, and discovered a weird thing. In the picture above, ignore the games. Look at the three black cable ties. They are linked together, holding three USB Card readers together. At first, they were just hanging on some rack. I wanted to buy one, and all three of them came off. I suppose the cable ties are there to…… I don’t know, irritate people? Maybe they are there to prevent people from stealing the object. If so, that’s the dumbest security device in the world. It’s the same as locking a few bikes together so that people won’t steal it. If someone wanted to steal it, they would steal just one. Now, they are forced to steal all of it, since they are all linked together. How, then, does this help the company? So, in light of their dumbness, I decided not to buy the thing from them. The fact that I couldn’t find any “Friendly Popular Customer Service People” might also have something to do with me not buying. I wasn’t going to bring all three to the cashier, where some Chinese speaking old woman will not be able to understand that I only want to buy one, not three.

Lesson 1 : Hospitals are thieves.
Lesson 2 : Popular sucks when it comes to “Security”.
Lesson 3 : Get English speaking Cashiers.

As you can see, I didn’t know what to call my post. As such, I decided to leave it blank, and anyone reading can feel free to use any title they want. Of course, you need to imagine that you CAN actually change my title, since obviously, you can’t. Well. I understand that the above words have absolutely no meaning. I might as well have typed random random words, and arranged them so that they look like a proper paragraph.

Much like this : Chicken door shake time start into appendix compact button. Insecurity area timber, fan car location. Play aid gear prickly! Metal ingratitude nominal gateway! METAL INGRATITUDE NOMINAL GATEWAY!

Now, it’s harder than it seems to actually randomly type words. Your mind somehow links them, and you keep wanting to type something that makes sense. I guess that’s how the human mind works, always striving for sense and logic in any situation.

Well, on to more important issues. I have only two more tests coming up before I graduate. Two more tests and one final exam, that is. Now for some sentimental stuff.. I’ve been in ITE only 2 years, and it seems like I’ve been there forever. I think I’ve learned more in these 2 years than I have in any other time in my life. That’s what interest can do for you, I guess. Make a guy learn things which are irrelevant to everyday life, like Social Studies, Geography and History, and he won’t get anywhere, unless, of course, you are in JC, then these things will come in useful, since everyone coming out from there will be Geologists, Historians and SocialStudyists. :D

p.s. I found the car above on the internet. It’s a really nice car. It’s also horrendously expensive.

Vienna, of course, is Windows 7. To be more specific, Windows 7, Build 7000. I downloaded Windows 7 quite a while ago, a few days after the Beta was released to the public. I didn’t use it, until yesterday. I don’t know why. I think I forgot about it. Anyway, it looks good. It’s a bit laggy, but now, after a bit of tweaking in the registry, it’s working fine. I like the new taskbar. It gets rid of the Quick Launch bar in previous versions of Windows, and merges multiple instances of the application together, leaving only one icon of the said application left on the taskbar. Nice. Neat. Takes getting used to though.

Windows Media Player 12 comes with Windows 7. On the surface, it doesn’t look that different from WMP 11, aside from the fact that the buttons are in different places, and that there is a “Media Guide” thing in the bottom left, which doesn’t work in Singapore. I don’t know if this is because of my childishness at having a new OS to play with, but I feel that the sound quality is greatly improved when compared to Vista.

Windows 7 is also supposed to support multi-touch technology. Sadly, I don’t have anything I can use to take advantage of this feature.

Now, this is just a beta, and yet, when I check my System Properties, I see the word “Ultimate” next to “Windows 7”. Does this mean that when it finally goes into the market, there is going to be a whole lot of versions again? That sucks. If it’s going to be like Vista, where there is a Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate, then it is going to be bad. This is one of the reasons why Vista didn’t really sell as well as planned. You have to more for different features? Can’t they just sell Vista Ultimate? It works just as well on every computer. I have used both Ultimate AND Home Premium, and I dare say, Ultimate works better and faster. Does this mean Microsoft is deliberately slowing down systems so that people will buy Ultimate? That’s the world’s WORST business strategy. Imagine going to McDonald’s and buying a burger. Just the bread will cost you 50 cents. Want to add meat? Sure, another 50 cents. Cheese? 50 cents more. Ketchup? Why not? And the list goes on. If that happened, people would get pissed off, because the price gets higher and higher, and in the end, it wouldn’t be worth it. They might just walk out, and buy something simpler, like for example, an Apple.

That said, I think Windows 7 will be worth it, and if Microsoft can find more ways to tweak it to make it faster, it would be the BEST OS they have come up with, and it would be the first Windows OS to be faster than it’s predecessor. If you want to try W7, you can go to the Microsoft website. They are extending the Beta Download till 12th February 2009. After that date, it will be impossible to download it, unless you do so from torrents. Good torrent sites will be those like the Bay of Pirates, or a mini nuclear explosion. :D Try figuring those out! Haha. Also, Windows 7 comes with a new font, called Gabriola, and I shall use it here.

The intelligence of the Singaporean People in general is very high. They do well in terms of exam results, and Singapore is rated as one of the most literate countries in the world. I would be proud to belong here, if not for one fact. The people would make a Great White Shark look genteel. They will not open the door for you at shopping centers, but will rush to go in right before you did, just so that they will not have to open the door for other people. I swear, Singaporeans could be world class athletes if they wanted to. They behave as if opening the door was a great physical feat, and perhaps, if you were to get in first, there would be a grand prize. When you want to get into the lift, they will not wait. They will, instead, repeatedly hammer against the “Door Close” button. What good does that do, I wonder? It’s not like the door closes faster. I like watching these people do their best to attack the button. I just calmly press the button on the outside, and the door opens right back. After thanking them for opening the door, I walk into the lift with that dumb look of pure satisfaction on my face. I can’t help it. They look so dumb when they do that.

In the trains in Singapore, there are seats that say, “Please give this seat up to the needy.” Now, I’m not going to say that I am saintly and have never sat on these seats, but if you want to sit on it, and I don’t give it to you, you could ask. You don’t need to stare at me, and you sure as hell don’t need to scold me. What I see as “needy” is that you have a walking stick, and can’t stand straight. I do not see pregnant women, who can really move fast and with great agility in grocery stores, as needy, and I do not see children, who run around wherever they can just to irritate people, as needy. If I see an old person with a walking stick and a limp, I will give up the seat. There are times, however, when I am asleep, or when I am simply not paying attention. There is no need to glare at me. You could just ask. Ask, and you will receive. Yell, stare or glare, and you shall NOT receive. I have a right to sit on these chairs as much as anyone, and if I give it up, I give it up of my own free will. I’m not being an ass, I am just asking that you request for things civilly, and without thinking that I owe anyone this seat.

There, I’ve let it out. I feel much better. I hope people reading my blog will take note of this, and we can, a small part at a time, make Singapore that much nicer to live in. As a gesture of kindness, I shall share some nice pictures I found in my random searches.

Parkway Parade is the place where one goes on EoCNYEE, or any other date related to CNY when one wants to get seriously annoyed. If I was forced to make a choice between going there, and staying home and repeatedly hitting myself on the head with a stick at home, I would stay home. Seriously. It seems like half of Singapore is there to shop. The other half would be at Chinatown or some other weird place where people shop for CNY goodies.

The taxi fare nowadays is insane. Someone I know woke up late in the morning, and since his school is on the other side of the country, decided to take a cab there. For travelling about 80+KM, he paid SGD22.80. It sucks. Seriously. The fare goes by the meter and starts at SGD3.00, and every 100m or so, it goes up by 20 cents, and there is a surcharge of 35%. Which is supposed to  make paying for a taxi ride in Singapore more affordable. More affordable than what? Buying a car? Just looking at the meter can give you a heart attack. If that happens, of course, one needs to be admitted into a hospital, which, by the way, means you have to pay another insane amount of money. All the companies in Singapore are in cahoots, I tell you. The traffic lights change at the rate of the erosion of rocks, which means you have to pay more when you are in a taxi, and in the taxi, the meter is in such a place that it is difficult not to look at it, causing you to get a heart attack that would result in you being admitted to the hospital. I would also bet that there are a lot of fake accidents being created so that there will be traffic jams, further increasing the cost of taking a taxi. Of course, all of this is ignoring the fact that one would have to go through those dreaded Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) gantries, again further increasing the fare. There are 80 of those suckers in Singapore. Thus, if I were forced to take public transport, my best bet would be the MRT. If the destination is close by, take a bus. If it’s far away, take a train, then the bus. Do NOT, under any circumstances, take a cab. The weight of your wallet, and your mood for the day depends on it.

Now, my laptop is running out of battery, and I have to stop writing. I shall try to come up with more weird things to complain about.

I done some inward thinking, and I have realised something weird. I have two phobias. One of which I already know of, which is bees. Another is boredom. I have a rather irritating fear of boredom. Which is why I download and play with all the Linux distros. Boredom means I read all the weird flyers that come into the house. Boredom causes me want to read something every time I eat. Boredom makes me want to go out and buy random stuff, just so I can waste time looking at all the random stuff out there, and just so I can waste more time trying to bring it back.

The reason I watch anime is because I am bored, and the reason I like networking so much is because it stops me from being bored. During holidays, I read up on the next term’s lessons because I am bored and have nothing to do. I randomly search words and study them in Wikipedia because of this strange and irritating disease called boredom.

I also have a really short attention span. I get bored of things really easily. I play games to relieve boredom. When I get bored of it, like after one week, I stop. It is pointless for me to buy games, since I get bored of them really easily. I tend to not finish most of the games. I guess it might be because games always have a certain way of doing things, and when I grasp that concept, it gets boring, because there is nothing left to learn.

I guess perfection would be dumb. If one achieves perfection, then there is nothing left to learn. If there is nothing else to learn, then it gets boring. Which leads to my first paragraph. One should always be able to improve oneself.

I’m really bored. Hence the title. I’m playing Tony Hawk Project 8 on my PSP, but after a while, I get bored. I wonder why my attention span is so short. If I’m not really interested in something, I get bored of it really fast. Otherwise, the boredom is quite gradual, but happens anyway. Man…  Can’t I be one of those easily contented guys?

I need stuff to do, but …  I can’t really find anything fun. I can’t go bowling, since it would be really boring if I go myself, and I don’t have money anyway. I want to play tennis, but I can’t wear the shoe and run around, thanks to an ingrown toenail. This sucks. Totally.

I have installed a variant of Ubuntu on my laptop, and it's called Kubuntu. The main difference is that it utilizes the KDE (K Desktop Environment) as opposed to GNOME which is used by Ubuntu. I don't really know what GNOME stands for.

I like Kubuntu a lot, but I don't really find it very feasible, as, because it is still in it's early stages, it is laggy, and it, like all other Linux distros, is very bad when it comes to installing things. Installation is troublesome and slow. You need to use the Terminal or "Konsole" as it is called by Kubuntu. Also, many things require other programs, or pre-requisites to be installed, making installing a single program a long and ardous task.

On the other hand, Kubuntu has all the makings of a good operating system. Firstly, it looks good, and the way the desktop is organised is innovative. Secondly, many of the Windows programs we need have similar Linux equivalents.

So, unless you have a really bad computer, don't like experimentation, or want to play a lot of games, I recommend Kubuntu.