Prized Arowana dead

I came back from prayers today and got a rude shock. My dad’s prized Arowana was found in a small green bucket in the back toilet. It was all curled up and its eyes were protruding out.

It must have “jumped” out of my dad’s 4 feet tank. This is the forth time and this time it’s not lucky as before. Previously, it’s either one of my family member who would try to catch the heavy fish and put it back where it “rightfully belongs; in a tank.”

The “pet” of the house was 2 years old when it “left us”. It was my dad’s favourite fish of all in the tank. It grew from a size of my thumb to a size that is 1.5 times of my 14.1 inch laptop screen.

Goodbye prized Arowana. Peace out.

A feel of Vista in XP?

We do know that Windows Vista OS (Operating System) will be out early next year. We had to endure for almost 5 years for a new OS to replace Windows XP. Adding to that, the current Office 2003 will be replaced by Office 2007 with its new friendly GUI (Graphical User Interface) idea.

There are some bright students out there who had painstakingly devised a “pack” for Windows XP users to have a “feel” of Windows Vista in their PC or laptops. They had changed the GUI to a feel that is very close to the new OS. It’s amazing what these people can do!

VTP (Vista Transformation Pack) 6.0. That’s what these students have come up with. If you’d like a feel of Vista, you can download it here

I've downloaded an older version VTP 5.5 and I must say that I'm impressed with the work these people did. The Start, Log off, shutdown and many more other icons are changed.

Precaution: Download with care as this “pack” is not supported by Windows personal or have got anything to do with them. Read the instructions carefully before pressing “next” button.

Have fun!

My Vista GUI

Adblock Plus

I’ve found a neat add-on tool in Mozilla Firefox while watching some videos on youtube.com. It’s called “Adblock Plus”. A pretty handy tool if you hate those advertisements that keeps popping out everywhere in a page. It seems that every ad will blink and glitter using those nifty Flash software. It gives you a headache sometimes don’t you agree? Ever wonder how you could block all those nonsense?

Now there’s a way to block them! This “Adblock Plus” add-on tool will rid all of it without any extra cost! That’s not all! With all of these gone, your page will load faster than before; how wonderful is that?

We have to thank Firefox and the creator of this awesome add-on tool for their stupendous creation. We now have a say whether we want those ads or not.

I’ll give you a sneak peak into what’s in store for you!

Look at the dark-red squares that I’ve done. Have fun!

youtube.com (ads)

youtube.com (no-ads)

myspace.com (ads)

myspace.com (no-ads)

Photoshop CS2 - Tutorial 1

I decided to increase my Photoshop CS2 skills by reading up tutorials. I scoured the internet for the best sites to learn from. There were many sites to choose from and I was spoilt for choice. I landed on one awesome website that had thousands of tutorials.

I decided to learn on a particular interesting tutorial. It’s a tutorial turning normal scenic/overhead pictures into a model/toy-like picture.

Enough said. Enjoy this few pictures that I have “tweaked”

A train track

Toy train track

A(n) European House

My mini-European house

Photoshop CS2 is a powerful tool that can make things happen. It seems that I don’t have to be a professional photographer to learn a simple trick. A simple tweak here and there will make obvious changes to a picture.

There’s Photoshop CS3 coming up and I can’t wait what’s in store!

A fine day!

My schedule for today was packed. In the morning, I’m supposedly having a badminton game with Sebastian and the others. After lunch, I had a Java workshop to try and complete my CE points. Later at night, I’m going out cycling with a friend of mine around my neighborhood park; just to take a breather of fresh air.

In these events, 2 out 3 of it had to be cancelled. I had a miscommunication with Xueli about the timing for badminton. The time was pushed to 1pm instead of 11am. I couldn’t make it due to the workshop that I had to attend. The organizer, Sebastian pulled out of the game because he had other plans. He did that without telling me earlier. Sebastian! Luckily I didn’t go out of the house in the early morning. If not, I’ll be rotting for the time to pass me by.

After a quick grab of lunch, I went for the Java workshop. It was quite ok due to the fact that I had Sky by my side to help me. The IG helpers were there, but some of them don’t even know how to troubleshoot. It was also quite boring where you sit there and stare at codings and them telling you to “copy and paste”. It pissed me off. Then why you called this event a “workshop” I thought I’m supposed to learn something; but through “copy and paste” method? Well, maybe that’s how things work there. I guess I’m wrong to put them down. Bad Aidi.

In between lesson, I received a message from Glenn. I misread the message and I thought it was a joke. I thought he told me this; “I’m now in hospital” It made me think; so what? I read again and it read, “I’m hospitalized, Tan Tock Seng Hospital” I was taken aback a little. He had some injury to his brain. Oh my, it must be serious.

My night outing had to be cancelled as George and I decided to give Glenn a visit. Hey I shall tell you this, patients like him are bored, and we were there to make him feel happy. We took the MRT to Novena and headed to the hospital. We went inside the ward and before we could find Glenn; he found us! He waved at us frantically. We chatted for awhile before leaving the bed for awhile. Glenn had to take his “jab” This particular jab wasn’t an ordinary jab. He told me that it was a very long needle, poked at his spinal cord! Oh my! Imagine that being poked at you! Ironically after that “jab” he was back to normal! Laughing out loud as if nothing happened!

George and I left at about 7pm and we wished him to get well soon. We then headed to Novena Square and walked around for awhile before having our dinner. The both of us ended up in a fast food restaurant. We left for the MRT station after that and parted ways with each of us taking different train routes.

I had an exciting day!

The past 5 days!

The start of holidays was what I wanted. There’s no more waking up early nor missing that double Decker bus. Sleeping early is no more in my daily timetable too. This is a luxury that I must treasure for a month. There are so many things to do and lots of time to finish!

What a better way to start my holidays by having diarrhea! Yay! It’s Wednesday morning and I’ve already felt this “tingling” sensation in my stomach. A funny feeling that I knew wasn’t normal. Frequent “visits” to the toilet was my timely routine. It made me weak and I spent the whole day watching Starhub cable tv! It’s not the way I expected my first day of holidays to work out. At least I spent my day watching “Discovery, National Geographic, Animal Planet and etc” channels. Hey! At least I’m watching some educational television here! And of course, Nickelodean and Cartoon Networks included.

In the next day, I felt a little bit better. The “visits” drastically reduced. My bowels are emptied and I felt hungry all day long. I gobbled up all the available food in the house. In between meals, I had runny nose. Throughout my life, sneezing almost everyday is part and parcel of my life. I thought nothing of it; until the next day.

I woke up early in the morning to find myself sneezing non-stop. My head felt heavy and my nose was red. I used up all the tissues that was in the house! Again, I felt weak and I spent the day watching TV and did some room cleaning. It just made things worst. I sneezed all day long.

My weekends didn’t look bright. After my sneezing period died down, I felt hot all over my body. My eyes were bloody red and felt as if it’s going to “pop-out” The days were spent trying to get to sleep or either thinking of something light to do. Sitting in front of my computer just makes my eyes watery.

There goes my 5 days of holidays! The Sickness that wasn’t in my control. Things that I wanted to do have to be abandoned. I guess, my body just wants to purge out all the toxics inside! Hey, that’s not bad after all!

Dear Mr. Monday, I hope it’s going to be a great day for me tomorrow! I’m looking forward to that!

let it all out!

Jordan and Joo Tze had already mentioned last few weeks about eating out. There were a few places in mind to choose from but they stick to their decision. All of the classmates were invited, but some of them had other plans. We had our feast yesterday; it was awesome!

Coincidentally, there was an event in National Library Board (NLB) at Bugis area yesterday. I was there with 8 other girls to show our support for RP students! They showcased their international items at the event. I think the event was called “World On Wheels” They sold items such as Japanese Anime stuff toys, olden Chinese umbrella, malay congkak and many more! We saw Jordan’s “humongous” poster. He makes me jealous; I want a huge poster for myself too! Our dearest friends Yun Yann and Jingying were there and we gave our best moral support for them!

Tired of walking around the push carts, we then set off to have something to drink. We end up in a “posh” kopitiam. We ordered dessert and gobbled them up fast before we even notice! Winnie, Samantha and I got “high” after eating 3 different desserts! We couldn’t stop laughing and sometimes choked on the desserts. Oh yes before I forget, I’m sorry Amabel for finishing your dessert! That “Rainbow Ice” was irresistible!

Right after that, I followed the girls for some picture taking! We went to this shop where there are a lot of machines for you to go in and be pretty! As always, I like trying different kinds of things and I followed suit with them and did some “cute” poses!

It was already late afternoon by then and we rushed off to meet Wang Zhao. We ended up being early at the MRT station and waited for the others to come. There were about 9 of us and we walked to the eating place. It wasn’t the case though; there was a van specially “catered” for us.

We ordered food and had a jolly good time! We ate as if there’s no tomorrow! After the food, we ended up teasing Joo Tze and Winnie. It was fun poking fun at them. Hey, no hard feelings ok guys? It’s good plain entertainment.

Lastly, we played pool to finish up our day. Incidentally, I met Glenn and Wilson who were there also! I caught up with them and we chat as if we have never met. After the game, we decided to walk back to the MRT station. I thought it was a short walk, but it took us more than 30 minutes! We ended up singing, talking crap and beat boxing! I’m the best at that one!