We bought a Asus F8Sg laptop from South Asia Computer at Funan for my dad.

At the moment, he is using his friend’s laptop to Skype with us and hence he is constrain by the timing and duration of each Skype call. Since there is wireless Internet in his apartment and even better still the wireless access point is installed in his room. We think it would be better to have his own laptop and hence we got 1 for him.

The original price is SGD$1,899.90 and since we are paying by cash, we manage to bargain till SGD$1,850. The free gift is one black 160GB Western Digital Passport Portable Hard Disk Drive worth about SGD$120.

Brief Specifications:

• Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 (2.1GHz)
• 3GB of DDR2 RAM
• 250GB Hard Disk Drive
• NVIDIA GeForce9300M G with Ext 256MB VRAM
• 14.1 WXGA Screen (1280×800)
• 1.3M high-resolution Swivel webcam
• Built-in WLAN 802.11 a/g/n with Bluetooth 2.0 EDR
• Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium

Had a short trip to Kukup, Malaysia with my 9 of my polytechnic friends, Li Xiang, Laily, Suqin, Wayne, Robert, Kee Yong, Serene, Terry, Wenxin.

This is my second time to Kukup, the first time was 11 years back, in 1997.

About Kukup:

Kukup Laut, a very unique and a century old fishing village built entirely on stilts on the sea surrounded by water, is the southernmost village found at the southwest tip of the Peninsular of West Malaysia, and suppose to be the southernmost village found in the Continental of Asia. Located about 70 kilometers away from Johor Bahru, and 20 kilometers from Pontian, Kukup Laut has only one road to access by land. It may be reached by sea boarding ferry leaving World Trade Center in Singapore daily. The entire village is linked by jetty also built on stilts on sea. This place is famous of its seafood. It’s geographically and ideally shadowed by one of the world’s largest mangrove swamp island - Kukup Island along which numerous fish-farms bob up and down on the surface of the Kukup Sea.

Google Map: Kukup
Source: Kukupnet

We paid SGD$70.00 per person for a 2 day 1 night stay there including transport to-and-fro from Singapore and 4 meals (Lunch and Dinner, Breakfast and Lunch for the next day) The pickup point can be either Jurong East MRT station or Kranji MRT station as both of these stations are near to Woodlands Checkpoint.

We met at 9am at Jurong East MRT, Wayne was late a little and Wenxin forgotten to bring her passport. So we told the female driver to go to Woodlands Checkpoint first while Terry accompany Wenxin home to take her passport. There was a huge jam (as usual) at Woodlands Checkpoint, we cleared the custom eventually and waited a while before Terry and Wenxin cleared the customs. While waiting, the female driver keep coming to tell us are we ready or not but we keep pushing her away saying 10 more minutes. Seriously she got a fucked up working attitude problem right from the start when she picked us up at Jurong East.

When we got into the mini-van, Terry apologized to us and the female driver mumbled something in Malay which we don’t understand.

Anyway, it takes about 3 hours drive to reach Kukup and we reached Kukup about 1pm. Our “water house” was quite deep in, so it took us about 10 minutes to walk in.

Our first impression of the house was, it was huge. The house has 4 rooms and can easily sleep up to 20 people and contain at least 30 to 40 people. And since there are only 10 of us, it was a good thing as we have a lot of space.

While waiting for the late lunch at 3pm, some of us played Mahjong while the rest played Saboteur. Lunch was fried beehoon and chicken curry and the desert is green bean with sweet potato soup.

After the late lunch, we went to take a walk outside (the place we alighted earlier on) as there are some shops and an under construction new jetty. Bought some drinks, snacks and ice cream.

Dinner was BBQ seafood and it is served at 7pm. Dinner consist of stingrays, prawns, satay, otah, fishballs and chicken wings. The chicken wing there is very nice.

After dinner some of them went to sing Karaoke which either the pirated discs are spoiled or the player is lousy as the song skips and some of them are out of tune.

Eventually we went to put firecrackers which we bought earlier on. We spent like RM$108 on the firecrackers. It is illegal to sell or put firecrackers in Malaysia and Singapore but I think since this attract people from Singapore to go over to Malaysia just to put it, the government of Malaysia are not really bothered about it as it helps them boost the tourism.

We watched Lord of The Rings: Return of the King on Channel 5 and after that Guess Guess Guess on Channel U. Some of us concuss while watching Guess Guess Guess while the remainder went to sleep after that.

Woke up at 9am on the next day while we have Nasi Lemak and Roti Prata for breakfast. After breakfast, we went to pack our things and gathered in a room for chitchat and to calculate the expenses we spent.

Left the house at 12.30pm for lunch at the seafood restaurant. I am curious why there are so many Singaporeans who drive all the way there to eat seafood as there are a lot of Singapore registered cars parking around it. Personally, I think the seafood there sucks or perhaps we are not used to it. Long Beach in Singapore can beat it anytime.

The lady boss told us that we still got a boat trip perhaps to the fishing farm but we told her that if there is time we will go as the mini-van is coming to pick us up at 2pm. In the end, we did not go.

On our way out of the restaurant, we saw our neighbours whom just stay beside our water house. We started a conversation and realize that they are only paying RM$70.00 which is like half of what we are paying. But then, they are Malaysians and they drive there so no transport is provided for them.

The driver this time was a young male Chinese driver and he is the exact opposite of the female driver that we had yesterday. His service was excellent and he even brought us to eat durians at the road side and no he is not earning any commission for bringing us there.

The traffic was ok when going back to Singapore except there is an accident along a highway in Malaysia that makes us stuck in the jam for 30 minutes.

We reached Singapore at about 5pm. We asked the driver to drop us at Causeway Point was we wanted to watch Hancock. The movie starts at 7.45pm but lasted only about 85 minutes. The movie was not bad and the visual effect is fantastic.

From now onwards, I shall bring my ez-link card and at least 1 credit card as it felt terrible when I got only about SGD$20 with me, somehow I don’t feel “safe” at all.

If you asked me will I visit Kukup again, I would say perhaps 10 years later as once you are there, there is nothing much for you to do and maybe that is the reason why all the package are only 2 days 1 night.

Check out the photos taken from my camera:

Just thought of blogging this last night before I went to bed.

Did you all actually count how many monitors, televisions and computers are there in your household?

Here is a breakdown of mine for a family of 4 living in a HDB 4-room flat.

My Room:

• 1x LCD Television
• 2x LCD Computer Monitors
• 1x Desktop Computer
• 1x Laptop Computer

Brother’s Room:

• 1x CRT Television
• 2x LCD Computer Monitors
• 1x Desktop Computer
• 1x Laptop Computer

Parents’ Room:

• N/A

Living Room:

• 1x LCD Television
• 1x LCD Computer Monitor
• 1x CRT Computer Monitor
• 2x Desktop Computers
• 1x Laptop Computer

Kitchen:

• 1x CRT Television

Total:

• 2x LCD Televisions
• 2x CRT Televisions
• 5x LCD Computer Monitors
• 1x CRT Computer Monitor
• 4x Desktop Computers
• 3x Laptop Computers

I have been using Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit for more than a month and I must say I am pretty comfortable with it. Even though not much changes from Windows XP besides the GUI, it supports DirectX 10 which is a must have for all gamers.

Till now, I have gotten only 1 Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) when I am upgrading to the Windows Vista 64-bit service pack 1. Since then, I have not gotten a single crash *TOUCH WOOD*.

Most of the applications out there that works for 32-bit WILL WORK WELL with 64-bit. The only exception I can think of is anti-virus software like NOD32 where it specifically requires a 64-bit version of it.

As for games, the only complain I have is with Steam. Regardless whether I do a proper exit or an improper one for any Steam games, once the game exits, Windows Vista will gave me the stopped working message, “hl2.exe has stopped working”. Apparently after doing some Googling, it is a known problem and there is a fix for it. I am still waiting for Valve to resolve this issue.

The only thing you need to take note is peripherals drivers. If you are using 64-bit OS, you NEED to be using a 64-bit version of your peripheral driver and not a 32-bit one. If your peripheral don’t support 64-bit OS, I think it is time for you to dump it and get a new one.

Somehow I feel safer when using Windows Vista 64-Bit as compared to Windows XP 32-bit as I know there are lesser viruses for Windows Vista and even lesser for the Windows Vista 64-bit as compared to Windows XP. I am keeping my fingers cross.

PS: I am NOT paid by Microsoft to promote Windows Vista, what have been mentioned are my personal views.

Caught Wanted last night at GV VivoCity. It was a 109 minutes show. The show is pretty good especially the visual effects. Lots of bullet time and lots of slow motion which I like personally.

There is a twist towards the end which I think was pretty good. I would call it a “different perspective” rather than a actual twist.

I think they focus a lot on Angelina Jolie (Fox) rather than the main character of the movie who is James McAvoy (Wesley Gibson) in terms of advertising and promoting the film.

I just love it when they “Curl The Bullet” whether it is the action of saying the 3 words.

I think I remember this sentence by Morgan Freeman (Sloan) in the movie, “if people didn’t tell you that bullet flew straight, would you think it is possible to curl the bullet?” Somewhere along those lines.

For those who like the show, Wanted 2 is already in development.

After 1 month of weekends into my Mystery Shopper part time job, time for me to blog/rant about it so that I can share it with you all.

Mystery shopper may sound like a nice, interesting and perhaps a unique job. I would have to agree on that at the beginning and totally disagree on that after just 1 day of being a mystery shopper as it is becoming a chore instead.

As I am busy on weekdays, I am only available to do the mystery shopper job on the weekends. Somewhere inside me makes me regret that decision, I should say I am only available for Saturday so that I can have a good rest of Sunday to prepare for Monday.

We started on the first weekend of June, it was rather a new experience and interesting job for the first few shops we visited and we are quite enthusiasm about it. After visiting almost 10 stores for that day, we got really sick and tired of it. It was really tiring walking the whole day and perspiring all over your body as Singapore is fucking hot during this period.

On the average, our working hours range from 11am to 11pm depending on the time they allocate to us. And yes there is a time limit. So for example they give you 5 stores to visit during a time frame from 1pm to 3pm, you MUST visit it ONLY within this time period. You NEED to also purchase something within the store so as to obtain the receipt as an evidence that you have to BEEN to that store at this particular time and day.

So if your planner does not know Singapore well enough (you will be amazed at road names that you didn’t know existed), he or she for example will plan you 1pm to 3pm at Boon Lay, 3pm to 5pm at Bukit Panjang and perhaps 5pm to 7pm at Jurong at then 7pm to 9pm at Choa Chu Kang. Notice the merry go round?

Worst still if your planner does not know that we have to wait for bus and mrt, he or she will plan you from 2pm to 5pm to visit 4 stores, 1 store at Chinatown, 1 store at Bugis and 2 stores at the opposite end of Orchard Road. This scenario pisses me off more than anything else.

Here comes the worst part, we are underpaid, to be precise SGD$8.00 per shop we visited and we can’t claim transport unless the time assigned to us is after 11pm. Only if we wrote in the form that we have car, then there will assign us this time slot. The amount we can claim is SGD$0.30 per kilometer traveled.

We are also “given” a maximum of SGD$1.50 to spend in each store, the receipt will act as evidence of the amount we spend as well. But if we bought something less than SGD$1.50, then we can only claim up to the the price of the item we bought and not SGD$1.50.

We need to observe a lot of thing like the cleanliness of the store, the service as well as the items displayed in the store. Normally we get assigned a total of 12 stores each day which is about 6 stores per person and we have to write it down immediately after we leave the store if not we definitely cannot remember as our memory tend to overlap one store with another.

When we have reached home, we have to type what we have scribbled on a piece of paper into Microsoft Word and THIS IS THE PART I HATE MOST! The questionnaire has a rating scare as well as an additional comments field for EACH question and it is COMPULSORY for us to fill in the additional comment field and we CANNOT repeat the same comment twice. The should just renamed the additional comments to compulsory comments instead.

All this work for only SGD$8.00 per shop, but before we applied, we are told that we cannot earn much from being a mystery shopper. So in another words, we shoot our own foot.

But anyway, since we are not earning much, I have been driving around to complete my chore rather than taking bus or MRT. So minus off SGD$2.00 for parking and SGD$2.00 for petrol for each store, we are only earning SGD$4.00 per shop.

My heart feel for Li Xiang as from Monday to Friday she got a full time job and weekends she do not even have enough rest, so normally immediately after we ended our mystery shopper job, she will KO immediately and worst still if it is a Sunday, she will KO and have to wake up at 7.30am on the next day for her full time job.

So think twice before becoming a mystery shopper.

My mom just bought a new refrigerator for the house. It is a Samsung RT58EAMT Refrigerator and it cost about SGD$915. The gross capacity of the fridge is 580 litres which is much bigger than my previous Sanyo SR-37ZB refrigerator. There is no one refrigerator big enough for my mom to put all her baking stuffs and hence my house always have 2 refrigerators ever since my mom picked up baking.

This new refrigerator is kinda cool, it will display the temperature of both the freezer and the refrigerator on the door. Now if only it has WIFI capability and we can monitor it directly from our browser, not just the temperature but also the groceries within the refrigerator.

Better still, since refrigerator are never turned off and it is very cool inside (Freezer: -19°C, Refrigerator: 2°C), it maybe a good thing to have a built in web server within it.

Old Sanyo SR-37ZB Refrigerator

New Samsung RT58EAMT Refrigerator

Temperature Indicator

I would like to thank WOM World for sending me my very own first poster which contains my nickname “gamerz”. They have sent it all the way from UK by DHL.

This shall be my very first poster that I am going to frame and hang it in my room.

My Very Own Poster (Click on the image to enlarge it)

THANK YOU to the whole team behind WOM World.

*UPDATE* I bought a poster frame (Width: 50cm x Height:70cm) from Ikea for SGD$19 frame it up and hanged it in my room just above my television.

Poster Framed And Hanged

I was invited to Nokia Connection 2008 which is an annual event. It is normally held just before Communicasia. This year it was held on the 16th and 17th June 2008. The first day was held at the Singapore Recreation Club while the second day was held at Mandarin Oriental. This year Nokia Connection saw the launch of two new products, the Nokia E66 and the Nokia E71 and the introduction of Share on Ovi.

My Lanyard

Read More (1,282 More Words, 15 More Images, 2 More Videos)

Razer Lycosa
Li Xiang and I was doing our Mystery Shopper job at Lot 1 Shopping Center and I come across 1 PC shop and 1 Game shop. I got myself an old Xbox game, Capcom Fighting Evolution from the game shop thinking that it should be backward compatible with my Xbox 360. When I reached home and to my horror it is not compatible with my Xbox 360. Just wasted $19.90! I think I shall pass the game to my uncle because he is holding on to my brother Xbox.

I saw a few Razer mouses and I was looking around for Razer keyboards. I saw the Razer Lycosa and when I looked at the price, I got a shocked. They are selling for $119 which is the cheapest according to Hardware Zone forums. Even at the PC Show 2008, they are selling it for $120 with no free gifts.

The Box

The Box When Opened

The Razer Lycosa

Razer Lycosa, Razer DeathAdder, Razer Mantis Control

Kung Fu Panda
It was a last minute decision to watch Kung Fu Panda and apparently the decision is a good one. The show is funny and I love the jokes they crack inside. However, Li Xiang fell asleep 1/2 way through the show, I guess she is tired.

Caught the trailer for Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa before the show and I am so going to watch Madagascar 2. The penguins are back and this time they are driving the plane. I just love this part of the conversation, the penguin said “I have got good news and bad news. The good news is that we are landing now, the bad news is that we are crash landing.” LOL

Here is the trailer for those who did not catch it: