Recently in Lessons Learnt Category

The bunch of us, uni classmates, had agreed beforehand to join the Nike Human Race 2009 on 241009. There were about 8 of us. However, before we could even act, registration was full. So we aborted the plan.

A few days ago, William told us about the extended registration which Nike will be organizing outside Wisma Atria. Only 500 slots were available and registration would start at 11 a.m.

This is the first time in my entire life I have ever queued up more than 30 minutes for something.

We skipped class today, had breakfast at Wisma Atria, before joining the snaking long queue outside the Nike store @ Wisma Atria. By the time we had arrived at 10:10 a.m., there were already 267 people ahead of us. The remaining slots were snapped up very quickly. We were issued coloured stickers bearing our queue number, which we had to paste on our t-shirts. Let's fast forward this damn story. It was almost 3:25 p.m. when we had completed the registration. 5 hours and 15 minutes worth of standing in line. When we finally reached the registration counter, we were ushered to one of the ten pathetic laptops on the table to fill in our details and complete the payment.

We were really tired from standing all day long, sweating like crazy, out in the open. Of course there were arguments amongst the registrants. One particular guy, who had were behind us from the start, kicked up a big fuss at the registration counter. He argued with the volunteers, kicked the queue pole, before dragging his girlfriend away. Apparently, this jackass assumed that he and his girlfriend could share a queue sticker. He was a local guy, which made him look even more retarded.

We were wondering to ourselves why Nike refused to adopt an online registration, and set a cap of 500 slots. It was actually a marketing strategy for their watch...

While we were queueing up, the organizers kept on announcing that if we bought the watch from them for $99, we would automatically be granted a place in the race and we need not queue up. Throughout the entire registration, they paced up and down a few times and repeated the announcements. Too bad Nike failed to understand the psychographic profiles (attitudes) of the targeted consumers. We, Singaporeans, will most likely queue through sun and rain. Maybe this strategy could have worked better somewhere else. Very few or even none took up the offer. Some left (but didn't buy the watch) because they couldn't wait any longer while the rest continued to stand in line.

Nike, thank you very much for the offer. You can keep your watch.

Honestly, I didn't expect to wait this long, so I parked at Lucky Plaza, which was nearby. The total parking cost when I left at 4:40 p.m. was $18.25. I should have taken a cab instead.

On the brighter side, I met some friends (Jun Ying, his girlfriend and Leonard) who were queueing up as well. Even though they left because they had something on in the afternoon, Jun Ying gave up his queue sticker to my friend, Phonsak, who wasn't in time to get one. It was because of him that Phonsak could join us for the race.

Overall, it was a horrible experience queueing up. No, I will never do it again unless I absolutely need to.

I have oily skin and I'm well aware of it. Exercising just adds a lot more oil to my face.

So I thought that by washing my face with hand soap first, then using facial foam, I could keep my face dry and clean. True enough, my face felt extremely dry. But it became very oily (even worse than before) within the next 2 hours.

I continued this for two weeks or so, satisfied that I have washed my face thoroughly.

One morning, I woke up to an eruption of cystic acne and whiteheads all over my face. It was so bad that I didn't dare to look at myself in the mirror.

I stopped using hand soap to wash my face and the acne subsided. Nightly applications of pure lemon juice (stings like crazy) all over the face managed to dry out the remaining acne. I'll probably give it another few more days to clear up.

I'll never ever use hand soap on my face again.

Involving a taxi.

Smashed signal light, dented bonnet and bumper.

Front left bumper.

My first accident in almost 5 years of driving. I was at Bukit Merah Central when I had a minor front-to-rear collision with taxi. The taxi in front of me at the junction braked very hard at the junction to avoid a speeding car. I was looking out for traffic coming from the right, didn't notice the stationary taxi and ended up accelerating into it.

I was furious (which was very unreasonable of me) when I got out of the car.

Me : Huh?! Why did you jam brake?!
Taxi driver : If I didn't brake, I would have hit the car already.

Then I realized that there was nothing much to discuss about. The fault was mine. I apologized and exchanged particulars with the driver. Apparently there were only minor scratches on his bumper, while the front left part of my car was in a mess. The taxi driver checked if his boot was working, then told me that he wasn't going to claim anything. Just to be safe, I filed a report the next morning.

[ Update : 291009 ]

Taxi's bumper.

I have made a report and submitted the photos of the taxi's bumper, of which only the bumper sensor was slightly cracked.

The taxi driver assured me that he would not file any claims since the damage was very minor. Guess what? I received a letter yesterday.

Claims Letter 291009.

I'm not paying $1,440 for a cracked bumper sensor and I'm contesting those claims. Luckily, Jessie's mum has tons of experience with car insurance companies and offered her help.

I made a very big mistake by taking his words for granted. I should have written it down (black and white) and got the both of us to sign.

I have heard a lot of stories about overinflated and double claims in accidents involving taxis, but have never expected something of this nature to occur to me.

[ Update : 110210 ]

The $1,440 claim for his taxi reverse sensors got through, together with other loss-of-use claims. One would expect the incident to end there.

No. The cunning taxi driver decided to push things further.

Almost 7 months after the accident, the taxi driver filed a bodily injury claim against me.

Bodily Injury Claim.

If you scroll up and look through the pictures, you too, would find it very suspicious that the taxi driver has suffered any form of bodily injury.

The pot.

I left 3 eggs to boil in a pot of water on the stove and went into the room to do my work.

3 hours later, I heard very loud popping noises coming from the dining room and went out to check. There were fragments of egg whites, yolks and shells scattered everywhere. My two dogs were hiding under the chairs. I rushed into the kitchen and turned off the stove. The explosion sent egg fragments flying out to as far as 3 metres away from the stove, into my dining room.

The dining room and the kitchen are in a huge mess right now.

I'll never leave my cooking unattended again.

When I'm smashed up and passed out, I will have a horrible hangover the next morning. None of the remedies work for me, and I know I'm in deep deep shit for the whole day.

While most people are able to nurse a hangover, I can't. The only thing that works for me is prevention. Prevention, to me, does not mean severely limiting the amount of alcohol I consume. I still drink like a king (not to the point of passing out), but I do a few things before I sleep :

1. I sit out the high, constantly downing 500ml of water every 15 minutes. I make sure I pee at least three times before I go to sleep. This will usually halve the kick within 1 to 1.5 hours. Smoking does help me to sober up. Then I go to bed.

2. Or, if I don't have the time, I flush two or three Panadols (if I do a lot of liquor, I take three, just to be safe) down my throat with 500ml of water, before going to bed. I've read that this method is very damaging to the liver and kidneys, but it works for me every time.

Say goodbye to hangovers!

I was searching for a way to download original photos from flickr in a batch mode. I tried several programs like Flickr Backup and Flickr Downloadr, but neither of both suit me.

Continued at...
Source : Vikingo's Pub.

I spent months looking for the perfect backup utility for Flickr. None of the backup utilities worked well (either crashed on long title names or downloaded the sets partially) for a huge collection like mine.

Using Juan Pablo's method, I was able to backup all 5,623 images (6.69gb) without a single error. All images were of original resolution.

So if you have a lot of photos to backup on your Flickr Pro account, forget about all the backup software. Just read the above mentioned article. You'll be damn glad you did!

The New Paper article 210209.

Drink driving, driving without licence, driving without insurance coverage, and driving whilst under disqualification are considered serious violation cases. Hence, if a motorist suspects that the other party in the traffic accident has committed one of these offences, he/she should call Police immediately to report the matter.
Source : Singapore Police Force.

This is the real reason why I'll never lend anyone my car. Neither would I drive anyone's car.

One night, I stepped into Long John Silver's, after almost a year.

Long John Silver's Golden Deals menu, taken from their website.

I ordered Golden Deal 3 and this is what I got...

The chicken pieces were slightly longer and thicker than my finger.

That's a lot of difference. For $7, I can get food TWO times more filling than this, at McDonalds, KFC or Subway. What a fucking ripoff! Not to mention, horrible and slow service at their Commonwealth branch.

I'm saying goodbye to Long John Silver's... for good! You've got to be crazy to spend so much money on crappy food!

I keep a stopwatch on my computer table now. I start timing the moment I launch Mozilla and Thunderbird. The sole purpose of this stopwatch is to keep track of how long I take altogether to...

1) Check and reply my emails
2) Briefly view the few forums I'm a member of
3) Check the university blackboard for any new course material
4) Reply emails
5) Blog, as well as run through my blogroll
6) BBC and CNA news
7) Friendster and Facebook for any new requests (not cupcake and all that crap requests). Send and reply messages if I need to.

Altogether, I took 20 minutes (without publishing long entries with pictures on Orangeous). Without the stopwatch I would have spent almost an hour doing the accomplishing the same tasks.

The stopwatch ticking away, made me subconsciously aware of my time constraints, and as a result, I refrained from the time-consuming habit of surfing around, browsing through random stuff on Wikipedia, Youtube and stuff like that.

If you have a habit of surfing around aimlessly and wish to cut down, I hope this stopwatch method works for you.

Before I got wasted.

If you drink occasionally and are the kind who laughs a lot when you're drunk, I believe you're on the safe side. If you're able to handle the alcohol, you're fine. And if you're like me, a fucking monster, then you should stop.

My dear Orangeous friends, I have a confession to make. Something which will change the way you see me, something which will seriously tarnish my image. This is something which I want to be able to talk about years down the road and confidently tell you : Oh! That was a long long time ago! It was really foolish of me! And I expect you to praise me. Heh!

Yesterday Night

What happened last night during Razlan's birthday was totally unexpected. I got wasted, big time, on the verge of blacking out. My anger overcame me somehow and for no apparent fucking reason, I punched the walls at the void deck. I smashed the ground so hard, my right hand hurts so much right now that I can't even straighten my fingers.

Worse case, I kept screaming and threatening to kill Jessie, the one whom I loved dearly. I tried to punch her and I had to be restrained by Pang and Elgene. Even the tight slaps delivered by Bernadette across my face failed to subdue the wild animal I was. I was trashing around, yelling, screaming. I insulted the people around me. I insulted their parents even. I have said the worst things I could ever have imagined. Eventually, everybody had to send me home. Michelle had to come downstairs in the middle of the night with a bottle of ice water. She too, was terrified.

I woke up this morning, with a bad hangover, and I don't even remember anything at all. I have absolutely NO FUCKING IDEA why I did that.

My Confession

So it's now time for me to stand up, say sorry to everybody I've hurt, and admit that yes...

My name is Chris. And I am a FUCKING alcoholic. I want and need to stop.

I have been lying to everyone around me! Everyone including Jessie. I have been discreetly drinking away most of the nights since March this year. I tell Jessie that I'm going to bed, but in fact I have a unopened can of beer sitting on my table. I have never admitted this to anyone and I will do so now.

My usual drinks are one long can of Knock Out beer, mixed with one long can of Baron. $9.80. Or I'll get two ABC stout bottles and one bottle of Baron. One full bottle of Jack Daniels and half-full Absolut Vanilla vodka, all gone within 4 days after Jessie's chalet. I downed them all in shots. I was so thirsty I couldn't even be bothered to mix them.

And here's what NOBODY KNOWS. When I'm high on the alcohol, I have a fucking bad habit of bringing it up another level. I have risked my life in a reckless and unnecessary manner.

1. I frequently down 4 tablets of Panadol Flu / Piriton with the alcohol to get an extra kick.

2. When there is no more Panadol Flu left, I have been chugging down cough mixture containing codeine. This, done after taking lots of alcohol, gives me a very strange, but soothing and high feeling. I like the feeling a lot, but the next day I will be so hungover and thirsty, I don't even want to get out of bed. One night, my heart beat so fast after gulping the mixture, I wasn't able to get up, and I lay down on the kitchen floor for half an hour. I thought I was going to die. Go ask Pang, Elgene and Waikian, I've ever called them years ago claiming to be floating and kissing the ceiling.

3. I crush Panadol tablets and snort them. It gives me a sudden high. I'm not always careful when I'm drunk, I don't grind the thing well and sometimes my nose bleeds.

And the vicious cycle repeats itself, for few days straight. My excuse to Jessie for sneaking out in the middle of the night, wearing nothing but my pyjamas to buy beer, is...

If I don't drink, I can't sleep. I have to wake up early tomorrow.

And what happens? I wake up close to noon the next day. Down a few more shots to ease the hangover. And I repeat the cycle all over again. I am constant-fucking-ly high.

If you don't believe me, go check your blogs. Check the comments I've posted! 2am?! 3am?! 4am?! I was totally wasted and high from the alcohol-drug combo. And I don't even remember commenting on your blogs until I happened to read them the next day. I hope I haven't said anything offensive. I apologize.

Other Incidents

1. An Angel Came To My Aid - 4 JUN 07
2. Stark Naked - 13 OCT 06
3. Broken Key 2005 - 7 JAN 06
4. Drunk Students Pt 2 - 09 DEC 04

I can't seem to find a post which was published a long time ago. I think the readers who have been following Orangeous for a long time recall that in that post, I wrote about sleeping outside the house, covered in vomit. My belongings were all scattered along the corridor. The newspaper guy spotted me when he arrived in the morning, and asked if I needed an ambulance. Everybody around me, including my parents still remember that particular incident.

I have been drink driving during my poly days. So wasted that I needed to stop my car at the side of the road just to vomit. I have even pissed in my pants while I was driving. There was once I collapsed at the round tables at the void deck of Pang's flat in Seng Kang. My car was illegally parked near the table and my car keys were on the table. Unbelievably, nothing went missing when both of us dozed off for half an hour. Everytime I came home late at night, I was wasted. The basement carpark was usually empty, so I didn't really need to park.

I actually vomited on my dad once, while he was driving me to work. He made a U-turn and everything just exploded from my mouth. The dashboard, steering wheel and his arms were all covered in vomit.

Wasted.

Few days back some representative from a bank called. I just woke up, feeling a bit irritated to see a private number flashing on my phone.

Lady : Hi Mr Sukianto!

*instantly I knew it was from a bank because I've being using this name for every single bank account*

Me : Yes? What is it?
Lady : There's this package, whereby for $29.95/month, you can insure yourself up to $500 per day you're hospitalized. There is also this...
Me : Not interested, sorry.
Lady : Sir, with this package you will also...

This Indian lady sounded pretty desperate. I might as well finish listening to her, then turn her down politely. I closed my eyes, placed the phone on loudspeaker, and let her finish up.

Then...

Lady : You will receive a bill...
Me : What bill?!
Lady : For the plan, we can activate it now by phone for you.
Me : Hello miss! I didn't agree to anything ok! Don't make the decisions for me, and don't pressurize me to make one ok?
Lady : Sir..we..
Me : I DO NOT want to sign up for your package! Do not call me back! Bye!

I screamed into the phone because I was so furious that she was trying to twist the whole deal upside down to make a quick buck. Next time I'll just go with not-interested-thank-you-goodbye-hang-up.

I chanced upon this fantastic site, while searching for How To Clean Your Keyboard.

http://www.coudal.com/keywasher.php

Go watch the video. It shows a keyboard being placed in a dishwasher. Then I realized that my keyboard had not been cleaned for almost 2 years. I ripped out all the keys...

Time to clean the keyboard.

Tossed everything into a bucket, started to wash them in soapy water.

Washed them thoroughly.

Sprayed the keyboard with water.

Left them to dry for over 48 hours.

Satisfied that the keyboard was dry enough, I plugged it into the computer.

Nothing worked. I pounded on the keys, mashed them up, but not even a single button worked. I guess my keyboard just drowned. I rushed down to Sim Lim Square to buy a black Logitech keyboard for $16.

I'll still wash my keyboard again. But ONLY the keys. I think only some keyboards are meant to be washed. So do that only if you have a spare keyboard sitting around.

I was on my way home after dinner when my mum called. Her good friend's husband had passed away 4 hours ago, and she badly needed a lift to her place. So I picked her up from the hospital and we both went over. Mum told me what had just happened, during the journey there :

Mum received a call late afternoon from her friend. Her husband had a heart attack, collapsed at home, after complaining of chest pains. She called my mum who was at work. Crying over the phone, she wasn't sure what to do. Mum told her to get an ambulance. By the time they had arrived at the hospital, it was too late.

It was 11pm when I arrived. The lights in the house were still on. And I was greeted by a lady and her three children. All of them had swollen, puffy eyes after a huge bout of crying. I felt depressed seeing them. I didn't know what to say, except for I'm really sorry to hear about what happened, and I sat there on the sofa, silently observing everything that was going on around me.

Her husband's wallet was lying on the table. I recognized the typical huge bulgy worn-out black leather wallet my Dad always carries around. His handphone was switched off.

Mum and her friend, with her other friends, were in a room, discussing about casket services, insurance and autopsy procedures. He had his own business, so they were also discussing on issues relating to company accounts. Mum assured her that she would talk to the coroner. They picked out a suit for the deceased to wear, during the funeral.

I leaned back on the sofa, and thought of how sad it would be for me to lose my dad all of a sudden. I spoke to her daughter. And this was what she told me :

I had just finished my test. The results were instantly displayed on the computer and I had gotten full marks. I was so happy and I wanted to go home to share the news with everyone. Then my mum called and told me to come down to the hospital immediately. I rushed out of the lab. One of my friends accompanied me to the hospital, while the rest helped me pack up my belongings.

I felt so sad after hearing those words, and the only thing that came out of my mouth was :

You have really good friends.

I wished I could have said something which sounded better.

It was midnight when mum finished consoling her friend, who looked distraught and weak, we headed back home. Mum was hungry, so we stopped by the roadside for some prata. And we had a short conversation about the whole incident.

Me : Do you think anything could have been done after he collapsed?
Mum : CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation). But she was crying and in a shock.
Me : Could it have saved him?
Mum : Yes.
Me : How sure are you on that?
Mum : I'm a CPR trainer. What do you mean I don't know? It's been proven many many times.
Me : Then what if you're not sure on how to do that.
Mum : Just keep pumping away. Four-second interval. Now they are debating over whether it is possible to keep pumping away at the chest, without the need to blow into the mouth.
Me : So if auntie administered CPR, would he have had a second chance?
Mum : Yes, most likely.

If you're unsure of how to perform CPR, I suggest you learn it today.

http://globalcrisis.info/cpr.html

CPR might just make the difference between life and death, and one day, you might need to use it.

If you're skeptical about this, I'd suggest you jolly-fucking-well listen up. Don't ask me to touch-some-fucking-wood or any of those superstitious crap. Shit happens all the time, and when you would least expect it. It's how you deal with it that makes the difference.

Fines for overdue books.

26 bucks! I thought library fines were usually less than two dollars!

I've finally learnt to return my books on time!

I was down with a runny nose yesterday night, so I took one tablet of Rinafort (a prescribed flu medication) before heading to bed. I slept well because I was drowsy after that.

When I woke up to run this morning, I was hit by extreme thirst halfway through. My throat and mouth felt extremely dry and I was gagging instead of breathing normally.

I learnt from Mum (to put it in layman terms), that flu medication actually dehydrates the body thus preventing excessive mucus from forming.

I think I'll bear with the runny nose next time.

The white lines are a fucking pain-in-the-ass to remove

The wax built up in the car crevices for almost a year. Every waxing session thickened the white lines. Paste wax (which I enjoyed using because all the hardcore rubbing made me feel like I'm doing some real work) was the main culprit behind these lines.

Until one fine day, which happened to be today, I decided that the lines were becoming too much of a fucking eyesore. Four hours and two used toothbrushes later, I managed to get most of the wax out of the crevices. The amount of brushing and scrubbing was hardcore.

I'm never ever, ever, ever going to touch paste wax ever again! Not without letting the professionals do the job. And most importantly, because I SUCK AT IT! Heh!

I have had a bad habit.

I've been biting my nails for the past 22 years. As such, my nails have never been long enough to clean my nose / ear in one single scrape. Sometimes, I'm so good at biting, that they bleed because the nail bed is exposed.

My primary school English teacher, Mdm Lim, got so sick and tired of my incessant chewing that she threatened to make me wear a glove if she caught me again. But of course, I continued, behind her back. Jessie would sometimes snap at me, because of the noise. Nothing deterred me from the good-old-chewing. I would start from the edge, then slowly work my way round the nail.

A couple of weeks back, Jessie helped me apply a layer of clear varnish over my nails. The pungent freshly-varnished odor did turn me off for the first day or so when I raised my finger to my lips. After the odor went away, I brought it back up again, this time, and chewed off a tiny edge of the nail. It tasted weird, and chewing that tiny bit brought out a small amount of the odor, again. I spat out that tiny nail bit, and somehow stopped chewing for the entire week.

After a while, the old habit just died.