Cars And Stickers

Lately there seems to be a growing trend of modified cars the streets, all sounding very much like the cars you see in the movie Initial D (about car racing).

There also seems to be a very weird trend of sticking up the car with stickers of the car owner's name and his girlfriend's name, with their blood type, for instance:

TAN AH BENG A+
CHOW AH LIAN O+

What's the fad? Sounds pretty stupid to me though. Given that those flashy MUGEN car stickers or RALLIART are already sort of overdoing it, what's the practicality of putting up these kind of stickers?

1. If you break up with the girl, you have to replace the sticker, and custom-print a new one. As if the break-up wasn't bad enough already (if you're the one who got dumped).

2. If you are the one dumping, that's even more lame. You'll be actually looking for things to spend money on (by needing to replace the sticker).

3. Attention-seekers? Or, more appropriately, attention-whores? Go on, tell the whole world who's your girl, man. Be my guest. Seriously, NOBODY gives you a flying shit as to who your partner is. Unless your sticker says (just an example, no historical accuracies whatsoever):

TOM CRUISE A+
NICOLE KIDMAN A-

or

BRAD PITT A+
JENNIFER ANISTON A-

THEN maybe I would hang around for a few hours waiting to see the real deal.

Otherwise, I simply won't give a f*** about what your sticker says. The most I would do, is to use your car as a support when that chewing gum gets stuck on the soles of my shoe.

So, given that NOBODY would give a shat about what your sticker says, why do you need it there for?

1. Are you suffering from amnesia? You forget who your spouse is most of the time, and need the sticker to remind you? You really should spend the money on a good doctor to cure your amnesia, for it might be an indication of Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, you understand? Stop wasting money on those lame stickers and GET A GOOD DOCTOR!

2. Are you trying to tell other girls to get outta there, and stop trying to pick you up because you already have a girlfriend? Oh come on, you can't be serious right? Sounds like you got an inflated ego.

3. You've run out of RALLIART and MUGEN stickers to paste, and thought up of this idea? Yeah it's such a good idea that it turns me off. Why didn't you stick your name with your family tree? Then it can cover both sides of the rear passenger door windows as well? That's an even better idea right?

This is such a weird world.

Just Another Day In School... #6

At a certain spot in school, a study area, there are a bunch of clowns who are happily chatting away, fooling around, catching up on the latest gossip, sleeping all over the tables and chairs, playing games with each other via MSN on their laptops, watching videos on their laptops.

In short, making a hell lotta noise.

All the while, with me and some other students who are trying to do some work at the study area.

Did I hear you say "Some people are just like that, they like to waste their time away in-between lessons. Just go find some other quieter spot lor..."?

It was a Saturday in school, for goodness' sake.

What is WRONG with all these people?

Have You Ever Wondered Why?

Why is it that when you have a gigantic piece of dirt stuck in your nostrils (pee sai), and you manage to remove it (either using your fingers or whatever), you will start sneezing after a while?

5 Nasty Things You Can Do To Your Friend-Turned-Enemy

1. The School Bag Trick:

One of the most evil thoughts ever to be materialised, this involves taking from your enemy, his/her school bag (if you're in the corporate world, briefcase then).

You might want to do this when he's away (very easy to do since you probably still know his/her way of life; when he/she will not be around his/her belongings).

Take the bag, and go to the nearest bus stop. Flag the first bus you see, get onto it, and sit somewhere at the back of the bus (so that nobody else sees you). Then just leave his/her bag there, and drop off at the next bus stop.

Walk back to where you came from. Feign innocence (How To Survive In The Real World, Rule #4 & #5) if he/she asks you what happened. He/she may get back the contents of the bag if there was some form of identity inside there, but since you would be clever enough to remove all forms of identification inside the bag, it will be as good as lost.

This is one of the worst tricks ever to perform on somebody. If you have never understood the Chinese saying of "ants on a hot pot", this will be your chance to witness it.

Missing wallet/PDA/Laptop/whatever: $10 upwards
Missing Documents/Tutorials/Lecture Notes: $10 upwards (based on photocopying costs)
Agonised look on your enemy's face: Priceless

Rating: * * * * * (5 stars)

Comments: Just don't get caught for an attempt to "leave your belongings unattended". You'll be in sh*tload of trouble if you're suspected as being a terrorist.

2. The Handphone Trick:

This is not as bad as Trick 1., but as equally devastating as well.

Take your chance and borrow his/her handphone to just "take a look". But before doing so, you must make sure you have seen some handphone joke/stories advertisements either from TV or the papers.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's those advertisements that go "SMS 'JOKE' to 76xxx". And then the fineprint says $2 (or higher) per SMS.

The catch with these company conspiracies is that they will NOT STOP sending jokes to you. You will continue to receive the jokes until you unsubscribe from it! And each SMS sent to you costs $2. If you know at least 5 or more of these services (and can key them in faster than your friend can notice), your friend will probably be in for a bad shock when his bill comes.

And the worst thing is, to unsubscribe, you have to SMS the "keyword" (be it UNSUBSCRIBE/CANCEL/whatever) to another number (sometimes it's the same, sometimes it's not).

If your friend doesn't know which number and what keyword to use to unsubscribe, you probably have won this round already.

Rating: * * (2 stars)

Comments: The level of damage done will be in terms of monetary losses, anything from $10 upwards. Easily countered if the service has the way to unsubscribe contained in the SMS.

3. The Computer Trick

This trick may require a you to be a little tech savvy. We all know that whether it's for work or play, we will come into contact with a PC or laptop. This goes the same whether you're still studying (student) or you're working (corporate).

Simply put, just go up to your enemy's computer, and attempt to delete the files he/she has on her computer.

If the computer has only one "drive" (using the term loosely) C:, then just highlight the folders in Windows Explorer, and press SHIFT-DEL. Answer "Yes to All" when prompted, and you're done.

If the computer has more than one "drive", be it C: D: E: etcetra, just highlight the D or E drive, and right-click the mouse and choose FORMAT. Do a quick format (since he'll be back anytime), and click yes, and then close all the windows.

A quick format of any drive can be done in a matter of seconds, and even though it only erases the indexes pointing to your files (meaning the files are still there physically), recovering the lost data can take at least anything from 6 to 48 hours up.

Rating: * * * * (4 stars)

Comments: Get the hell outta there once you click that OK button.

4. The Kamikaze Trick (Non-Corporate Situations Only)

This is an idea taken from the kamikaze pilots during WWII. You must be mentally prepared to execute such a manoeuvre. After doing this trick, you can never beg for forgiveness ever again, so be prepared to declare war on your enemy from then onwards.

This trick only applies if you are still studying with your friend-turned-enemy. Borrow his term paper, saying you only need it as a reference, and assure him you are actually doing a different topic, and that you will only be wanting to see the format/layout of the paper. If you don't have a term paper, do it with a lab experiment or something. The work must be a piece of graded work.

Now once you've managed to borrow his/her work, copy his work and pass it off as your own. Then hand it up to your teacher. Now, assuming your teacher is sharp enough to notice the difference, both of you will probably be invited for a chit-chat session one fine afternoon.

From then onwards, how you manage to take it from there, be it to accuse your enemy of copying yours (and not the other way round), or whether admitting to copying, is not of concern anymore, since both of you will probably be given a F grade for that assignment.

Rating: * * * (3 stars)

Comments: You have to be mentally prepared to do such an extreme trick, for it may cause you to get an overall F grade (or even expelled) if the work takes anything from 30-50% of your final CA. And that is why this trick only earned 3 stars and not anything higher.

5. The Spammer's Trick

Nah, you don't need to be a spammer to do this. Just get hold of your friend's email account that he uses for work (or school), NOT those @hotmail or @yahoo or @cheapomail.com maill accounts. Something used for more serious stuff like @(school).edu.xx or @(company name).com.

Now, go and surf over to your *favourite*... erm... sorry... just some pornography websites (now don't get distracted by any of those), and look for that "SEND ME PICS!" box. Type in your fri-enemy's email address, and click that SUBSCRIBE button!

Do it for maybe 10 or 20 different sites, and you can ensure that he/she will surely be pissed like nothing before.

The email address will go into the spammer's mailing lists forever, circulating round and round all the spammers across countries as they sell their mailing lists off to one another in a never-ending cycle.

That means your fri-enemy will be doomed forever to receive those pills, stocks, bank fraud emails, mixed in with all the serious work mails. *sniggers*

Rating: * * * * * (5 stars)

Comments: Utterly devastating. Even the most high-tech spam filters cannot ensure 100% blockout-rate.

Just Another Day In School... #5

The only sanctuary in school nowadays are the below locations:

1. A SBS Bus
2. Any class that requires essay-writing for a term paper.
3. School of Law

I will post more locations of such sanctuaries should I find them.

How I Nearly Failed A Module...

First off, I am not being sour grapes here just because I didn't get a good grade. It was a number of factors that led me to this demise. In fact, thinking back, I am surprised that I managed to barely scrape past this module.

It was an unexpected chain of events which combined together to give an utterly devastating killing blow:

1. There was a presentation for this module. I did my best, speaking fluently and knowlegeably about the topic. I used cue cards, and I did not even take a single glance at the projector screen during the presentation. I got a B.

There was this bitch in another presenting group who laughed her head off and grinned at all the questions posed to her, giving answers like "...probably..." and "...maybe...". She read off her presentation from the projector screen. She got the same grade as me.

Note: I am not being a sore loser here. The point is, if one has to make somebody a benchmark, all others should be aligned accordingly to this benchmark.

There is no sense in giving a good student and a bad student the same grade, because it indicates their abilities are the same.

You can give me a C, or a D, I am fine with that. But at the very least, have students who obviously did worst, an E or an F, not the same grade!

2. There was a Term Test conducted. I was stupid enough to sit at the second row at the test venue. When the lecturer came to collect my test paper, I turned around to look at the remaining 10-20 rows of students behind me.

They were all still writing furiously.

There was even a non-local student sitting at the first row in front of me. Below is a transcript (as accurately as I could remember) of their conversation:

Lecturer: *Grabs onto student's paper* Hello, time's up. Please hand in your paper to me now.
Student: *Holds back onto paper, continues writing in a last-ditch attempt*
Lecturer: Hey, time's up already, Hand in your paper to me now.
Student: *Holds up one hand and gestures at the lecturer* NO NO WAIT!
Lecturer: *Looks around nervously*

At this point of time, there are 3 hands on that particular student's script. 1 from the lecturer, 2 from the student's. This lasted for around half a minute or so, before the student reluctantly allowed the lecturer to collect his script.

Needless to say, the student's script was not torn apart. Neither was he branded as cheating.

3. There was this other bitch in the class. Everytime she attended the class (she didn't come all the time), she would pose awkward and difficult questions to the presenting group.

I got backstabbed by her on my first presentation mentioned in 1.) above.

4. There was a project required in this module, comprising of either 4 or 5 members. My group members weren't so "spontaneous" at all. I initiated the project, I dished out the orders, I set the deadline, I compiled the final report.

Not because I liked it of course. There are finer details, but I shall keep it simple.

5. The tutor suffers from recency bias.

While I must say that I wasn't that active in class participation to the extent of being an attention-whore, I spoke when nobody else could, and the tutor acknowledged my answers as what she was looking for. I got a B for my ocassional, qualitative participation.

The same bitch in 1.) started "suddenly" being very active in class during the last two tutorials, talking plenty of nonsensical things which weren't related nor answered the question at hand. Giving answers which she was unsure of, marked by words such as "I think...", "Probably...", "Maybe..." "I guess...", she got an A.