much updates

once again i'm feeling constipated after many days of not blogging here. Let's see.... what did i do these days?

CS3214 project
the module is heating up everyone even as this is only Week 1. CH briefed the whole lecture group on Tue, and i was busy settling the admin matters for the group. Such as drawing up a unified (Kelvin likes this word) timetable, then arranging with CH on the days we are available for consultation. Due to tight constraints and we were trying hard not to come sch at 9am every Monday, CH worked out a plan where he would be our advisor and created another timeslot just for us. Many thanks to him for that.

we have to meet him next week, and clarify the business domain. The project specification is 35 pages long, and there are 10 modules. We took 3 hours just to discuss 2 modules (!).... bong.

that's not all, week 3 will require us to deliver the use case diagram and descriptions, gantt chart, etc.

i think i try to settle my admin matters first. IVLE8's community is still not up, really bad. Have to turn to Google Groups for project coord instead.


Server disaster
i bought a Aopen motherboard from naro at VR-zone, hoping to migrate to the built-in VGA card and DDR2 RAMs that i've been keeping as spare.

This is the board. $120!

The screw-on heatsink fan for the CPU. Interesting..

after 2-3 hrs spent on taking out my old Asus workhorse and putting the replacement in, the rude shock came - my Promise Ultra66 RAID is causing the board to hang, and my Pentium M just cannot be overclocked to 133*16=2.13GHz, which Asus did without a fuss.

luckily another kind soul was looking for the Aopen, and was willing to purchase from me at the bidded price plus the price i offered for Celeron M 350 ($20). Again i was full of gratitude for that, because without his offer i'll have to bear a resale loss.

the real disaster was the Turbo setting in the Asus BIOS to enhance the overall performance. I didn't realise the DDR RAM was overclocked beyond the maximum latencies, thus creating memory errors and then broke my RAID 1 setup twice. Nearly lost my data.... *sweat*

time to examine a backup solution. Maybe a mobile drive to do backups every month.


Citibank disaster
i feel compelled to agree with many people's remarks that Citibank = Shittybank.

they gave me a card PIN for use at their ATM and iBanking. I subscribed to e statements, so i was hoping to go online and retrieve my spending and the payment due date (to me this was important - don't want to pay any interest).

first problem was they didn't register my hp number for the compulsory OTP (One time PIN). Which meant i couldn't access every damn thing online.

second problem came after the first was solved; the View Statement feature returned a blank page. It was like this until the 13th, when the feature came on fine (now i know 13th is the generation date).

a third problem is not really Citibank's fault, but i couldn't add a Citibank payment shortcut to AXS's eAssistant. How dismal is that when they are supposed to work hand in hand... otherwise put them together under Citibank's booth for what?!

now, they sent me a paper statement. So did they remember i said no to paper statements (and their $1 charge)?

RAHHHHH!


Dinner and fireworks

let the pictures say everything!

Yes, the desserts were worth dying for...

The sake offering

Handrolls, but i doubted many came for this

Ala carte - kinda ex

I'm going back to try this

What does Shabu Shabu mean?

YUMMY. Too bad we had our desserts in open air... melted fast

Swensens? Hmm.

Hot soba with fried chicken - my order

Jiahao's order - Salmon sabu... note the boiling water on the top left

HK's order - Seafood toji

My Macha Kurian and Strawberry Kakigori (HK)

JH's Macha Kakigori

That was the syrup

Cheers~

The crowd started building up to watch the fireworks across Raffles Ave

We beat the crowds by choosing a strategic place. lol

after the buzz ended, we headed to toilet before going to take buses home.

i saw that a cubicle door was ajar, so went to open. Then saw a guy looking back at me, shocked as though i just robbed or raped him. So i apologised, since i thought it was my fault.

then he still gave that 欠打 look. Almost wanted to ask him whether there's a prob not. Nevermind, waited him to come out, i went in, remarked 'close the door la' and slammed the door shut.

when i went out he still had the 欠打 look. Knn, is he a wussy or simply unhappy someone just outraged his modesty? Crap.