What the $%^&???

It was 3am in the still of the night.

Suddenly, a car alarm sounded downstairs of my flat in the carpark.

Looking out of the window, a tow truck was towing away a car that had its car alarm triggered. The tow car had it's lights and everything flashing, and the alarm sounding.

A dark sedan followed behind the tow truck and the towed car.

On The Bus... #16

Late afternoon, on the bus to school.

Bus driver looked to be in his early 50s. He was chugging the bus along the roads, slowly and surely.

After about 30 mins of slow chugging along the roads, a man in his late 40s or early 50s, ranted at the bus driver as he pulled out from the bus bay:

Man (in dialect): "HURRY UP! Quickly! Don't waste time already. Drive so slow... $%$#%#"

Driver (in dialect): "....if you are so good at it, get off from the bus and walk lah!"

And then the man kept quiet. They both looked damned pissed.

But frankly, the bus driver was driving along too slowly. All other vehicles on the road were overtaking the bus.

What happened thereafter, you ask? Well, the driver was so pissed he chugged the bus along even slower. The man had a sullen face and kept quiet in his seat.

Just Another Day In School...#13

A certain module required students to sign an attendance sheet during lecture, so that students can be graded for their attendance.

A non-local student signs the sheet, and immediately leaves via the back of the hall.

Just Another Day In School... #12

At a certain tutorial class, students were supposed to present at least two questions in order to obtain a participation grade. There were a limited number of questions for the semester, and the commodity of questions was highly valuable in classes that were large.

A non-local student finishes explaining his answer written on the board.

Lecturer: "So what's your name?" (so that he could mark down his name for participation)

Student: *Pretends to look at the class list, but couldn't find his name* "I'm not from this class."

Lecturer: *Surprised, and stops for a moment to think* "Can you send me an email later for this?"

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So what now? Bastard student can skip his class, and attend another class, MY class, and snatch a question for presentation?

In that case, I may as well go join *every single damned class* and snatch all their questions up. Then nobody else will have the chance to present, and obtain a grade.

Just Another Day In School... #11

At a lecture, the lecturer taught for a few short minutes, and then posed a question to the class.

The class kept quiet, so he pointed at a student sitting behind his laptop screen at the far end of the lecture hall, instructing him to answer his question.

The student kept quiet, and didn't answer.

Lecturer: "Are you listening to me behind your laptop?"

This time, the student spoke up, with a heavy Indian accent, "Yes I am. I didn't hear your question."

Lecturer: "Why don't you move foward to these few seats here so that you can hear me?" *and he points to the first 5 rows*

Student: "I am comfortable here."

Lecturer: "What did you say? Why don't you move forward since you can't hear me?"

Student: "I am very comfortable sitting here."

Lecturer: "..."

Just Another Day In School... #10

Another day in school, another lecture.

An empty row is available. I take a seat. My bag is placed on the neighbouring seat. Some other fellas fill in the row from the opposite end, right up to before my bag.

There are plenty of other seats available in the lecture hall.

Girl comes in halfway into the lecture, late. She walks to the row where I'm at, and saunters around up and down the row, her friends pointing this way and that way at empty seats at the other end.

She lingers in front of me, and I look up at her. I give in and remove my bag.

The girl sits down, and begins chattering away like a M2 .50 calibre machine gun.

Kind enough to offer a seat (I was not obliged; there were plenty other seats around), yet not kind enough to keep the bloody trap shut.

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The next time somebody asks me to remove my bag, I will ask "ARE YOU JUST SITTING DOWN, OR ARE YOU GOING TO CHAT WITH YOUR FRIEND THERE?"

No prizes for guessing what my response will be.

On The Bus... #15

There seems to be a growing trend of passengers who likes to press the bell just as the bus is 30m away from reaching the next stop.

There also seems to be a growing trend of passengers who have trigger-happy fingers, pressing the bell just as the bus is pulling out from the current stop. They intend to press the bell for the next stop.

For the first type of passengers, they are the ones whom you can tell a joke on Monday, and they'll laugh at it on that coming Wednesday.

For the second type of passengers, they are the ones who are already laughing when you are just about to tell a joke.

Sony Discman, Well, The D-FJ787

Yeah I own one of those sad pieces of crap ever devised by Sony.

It comes with a remote tuner with FM capabilities. What's the problem with it now? Well, in a nutshell:

- Pressing the buttons on the remote gives no response.
- Sometimes when there is a response, the RADIO button starts to playback my CD.
- Sometimes when there is a response, the CD button starts to playback my RADIO.
- Sometimes when there is a response, pressing the STOP button doesn't stop playback nor the radio.

So, with the warranty over, and scared off by Sony's $40 service charge + $15 cleaning fees (I bought this for $259), I went to dismantle the remote for the Sony CD Walkman D-FJ787...

Here's a picture of the front of the remote:

Opening up the inside of the remote, reveals a huge piece of copper film that covers nearly 90% of the PCB.

Closer inspection reveals that this copper film is used to connect some buttons across and over the PCB, without the need for wires and/or circuits on the PCB.

Given that the copper film is so huge, it seems that little thought was given to the design of the circuitry lay out. Mind you, I am only a typical layman with no knowledge of circuity design. But this, this is just so wrong...

Here's another picture of the second part of the remote. Wait... SECOND PART? Yes! It's a second piece, connected via the white connector to the first part you see in the picture above.

Again, it doesn't take a genius to comprehend that using a PCB-PCB connector gives a window of opportunity for the connector to become loose in the long run, leading to inherent problems.

This is again obviously a design fault.

Now look closely at this picture of the back of the second part of the remote, and compare it with the previous picture (the front of the second part). See that bit of shiny reflection in the picture?

Yes, you are correct, no prizes given, Sorry. That IS a piece of plastic that is wrapped around the WHOLE piece of the remote.

You: "What is that plastic for?"

Me: "I have no idea.... wait.. hmm... OH! It seems like the plastic wrapping is there to prevent the second part of the remote from shorting with the first part of the remote! Remember? The SUPER BIG piece of copper film?"

Again, another obvious design fault.

And here is a picture of the remote with its cover off, showing how the remote looks like when pieced together:


Upon closer inspection of the remote, I see a sneakily familiar logo on the PCB:

Yes... yes... that looks like the Wearnes Logo!

If you didn't know, Wearnes made CD-ROM optical drives for the PC market about 10 years ago. Their drives weren't the best out there, and in fact, they were the best in the worst rankings.

I had thought they went bust after they disappeared from the optical drives markey all of a sudden without reason. But I wasn't surprised when they did the Houdini act.

Now they've made their appearance again, and in a Sony product.

That explains it all. No more Sony for me, and never Wearnes.

Sony D-FJ787. Damned-Fucked-up Job Number 787.

Just Another Day In School... #9

30th January (Monday) was a holiday. The lecturer instructed all students from Monday's lab class to attend either Thursday or Friday's lab classes.

I went to my original class on Thursday.

Upon entering the laboratory, I realised that two other fellas and me (that makes for three of us), did not have seats in the labs because for some "strange reason", the laboratory class was full.

The tutor remembered the lecturer's instructions, and asked "Who is not from today's (Thursday) class?"

One sneaky-looking non-local fella had been sitting there quite comfortably for quite some time, behaving just like anybody else, raised his hand.

The tutor then asked him, "You are from Monday's class?"

Sneaky-pants says, "No. I'm from Friday's class."

No sense of shame, no sense of common sense.

What is WRONG with you? You bloody moron! Do you think that you have the right of way just because you are what you are?