extravagance.

I feel guilty. Quite guilty. But this guilt also feels real good. Very good.

Today, I went with my fren to get some upgrades for my computer. This comp is about 1.5 yrs old, and I thot it would be nice to add some new stuff to it. So the changes are:

RAM: 512MB DDR2 to 2GB DDR2
MOUSE: Microsoft Wireless Optical Mouse to Razer Laser Gaming Mouse
GRAPHICS CARD: ATI X300, 128MB card to NVIDIA PCX7600GT, 256MB card

I can now play games at HIGHEST graphics settings! Shiok. So shiok.

I tried a little but of WoW just now and the graphics & ram upgrade was... nothing short of wonderful.

Firstly (and most importabtly), very little/no lag in graphics! Now, when I go to places like Ironforge, there is practically no lag! I always thought it might have been the network, but now, it's obvious that my old graphics card was the reason.

Secondly, there is a definite difference in the effects like shading and the sharpness of the graphics. I can actually see the individual patches/blades of grass! So sweet!

As for the mouse, well, I don't really know the real impact. But together with the Rantopad mousepad, it's really quite a joy to use. And the Razer is really very sensitive.

Oh well... all this to have a better WoW experience.... heh...

Sucky Service

I was in quite a normal happy mood today until I met with three incidents of really lousy service in the evening. Kinda put me in a bit of a crappy mood.

First incident: I was at J8 BEST DENKI and decided to ask about the price of LCD TVs. The salesguy was quite nice about it and told me I should consider plasma instead coz I was thinking about 40 inch TV. So we brought me to a few models, demoed them, explained their features, and I was quite pleased. But I wasn't gonna buy yet so I thanked him and told him I will think about it. Then I said I needed an alarm clock. The fella then simply said,"Oh we don't have. Only radio alarm." and walked away. I walked to the radio alarm clocks barely 15 metres away and the fella didn't bother serving me. It was quite a put off. Big ticket item, shows me interest. Buy alarm clock, not interested.

Second incident: I then went to the SONY store at J8 to get the alarm clock. They also had a whole range of their BRAVIA LCD TVs on display. So I purchased the alarm clock and then asked the salesguy what was the difference between the V and S series. The fella looked at me and simply said, "V is better than S". And that was it. I mean... come on lar. It wouldn't kill you to explain seriously to me right? And worse still, this is suppose to be an official Sony store lah. Buay Tahan!

Third incident: The icing on the cake. I then went to Kim San Leng Food centre (the one near the old bishan NTUC) to buy chicken rice home for dinner. I've bought rice from there frequently coz I think it's not bad. Usually buy for family and students as well. And I usually ask for a packet of their black sauce coz I dun like chili and their black sauce is the 'good' kind (the thick, gooey, not too salty kind). So, this time, after they packed my rice, I asked for a packet of black sauce. The shop guy looked at me with this disgusted look and said (in dialect),"one packet only, no black sauce. must buy at least two packets." WAH LAU EH. I mean, this is a packet of sauce lar. I mean, you can't even give some black sauce! Some more give me attitude. I mean, you can even say, 10 cents one packet, and I would have gladly paid for it lar (after all, sushi shops sell the miniscule packet of light soy sauce for 5 cents!). I think this is a real stupid decision by the stall. I've pretty much decided not to eat there anymore.

So there we have it, three incidents of lousy service in one night.

Singapore sure has a long way to go if they want shops to give good service.

Inside Man

I watched Inside Man on Friday late morning.

Thought it would be a pretty good show since it had powerhouse actors like Jodie Foster and Denzel Washington. I really like Jodie Foster. She's an excellent actress.

The show was ok lar. Nothing very fantastic but I liked how they planned the entire bank robbery.

But I HATED one thing. For some reason, the censors decided to silence off all the coarse language in the film! It was really really irritating. They even censored words like 'b***h' and 'a**h***'.

I'm not saying those words are fine. But frankly, there are much more provacative scenes in many other PG movies. I don't even see the point of just silencing those words.

OK lar, at least the cinema was honest enough to display a sign at the ticket counter to warn customers that the words have been silenced. In future, I don't think I'm gonna waste money on such censored films.

This last two days have been totally spent on World of Warcraft. I've been quite sick of staying in the lvl 20s region and decided it was time to push for at least a lvl 30. So, with the long weekend, I made up my mind that I will work at it. At first, I was thinking of getting twinked by a friend who was at lvl 60. But in the end, I am pleased to say that I managed to go from lvl 28 to 31 in two days. LOLZ! I am quite proud of myself. It wasn't easy. I think all in, I played for about 24 hours in total. 24 hours of WoW out of 48. heh. Sinful.

This will most certainly not be the norm. Don't think I can take such intense gaming too often.

Now for lvl 40!

Home

It's nice to be home. Bed just feels..better.

Last night I had two dreams. I got up at about 6am with one dream... went back to sleep and woke again with a different dream. But both dreams were similar. To keep a long story short, both dreams had me running away from something. I just kept running and running away, trying to escape but in both dreams, I kinda end up in the same place where I first started running.

The implications might be obvious, but I really dunno. Maybe it's just a dream.

Vietnam Day 14 - Ho Chi Minh & Homeward Bound

It's about 2pm on Saturday afternoon here in Ho Chi Minh City(HCMC). The last few days haven't been too bad. I think it's coz there was some time in the evenings to do some walking and shopping and the day for our flight home was getting closer and closer.

Don't get me wrong. I do like Vietnam. It's just that I would very much prefer it for fun rather than work. In fact, I'm seriously planning a return trip to visit some of the more exotic places like Halong Bay and Phang Na caves.

Shopping has been not too bad in HCMC. Managed to buy a few interesting things, like a DIY paper model of Himeji castle and some interesting tealight cups. Will post some pics when I get back to Singapore.

Three more hours to my flight back to Singapore. My next post will probably be back home.

Vietnam Day 10 - Ho Chi Minh

Finally got to post my Day 9 thoughts. Had problems connecting to blogger from the hotel in Hue. Well, I'm into Day 10 of my trip. It's Tuesday night and I'm finally due back on Saturday night. That means 4 more days and nights. It's not that i don't like Vietnam but two weeks away from home due to work is kinda sad.

I've been to Ho Chi Minh about 7 or 8 years ago so I'm not really new to the place. We have many candidates here so it's gonna be quite a bit of marking and interviewing over the next few days.

The hotel's not bad. Only thing is internet is only available at the lobby. Sigh. Can't surf in the comfort of my room.

Vietnam Day 9 - Hue

Second last day in Hue.

We managed to finish work a little faster and so I finally had an afternoon off! My first real off-time since coming to Vietnam. So, I took the opportunity to visit two emperor tombs and the citadel, kinda like Vietnam's version of China's Forbidden City.

The first one I visited was Emperor Khai Dinh's tomb. Not very big site. Just a few buildings. But the tomb was quite grand, had cermaic and glass tiles all over the main burial building. However, Khai Dinh was supposed to be a little 'off' in that he tried to mix western and vietnamese culture together. So the tomb is supposed to be a bit of a joke... not pure.

Next was Emperor Tu Duc's tomb. This place is much larger, also contained his first wife's and one of his foster son's tomb. According to my guide, Tu Duc was a good man, but a poor leader. Under him, he apparently gave away 6 provinces to the French. He also didn't have any sons (despite having over 100 wives!) so his foster children took over after his death.

After the two tombs, I visited the Citadel. Huge place but sadly left to ruin. The government is trying to restore it, but it's a huge task which I don't think they will be able to accomplish (not in my lifetime at least). Some really beautiful buildings inside. Of worthy mention is the temple where they placed pictures and tablets of the nine emperors of the 'Mui' dynasty. Really awesome. There were these nine huge urns, one for each of the emperors.

Pictures can be seen in my album. Please click on the left for the link if you are interested.

We'll be flying off to Ho Chi Minh tomorrow evening for the last leg of the trip. Looking forward to home sweet home!

OMG... just saw this advertised in a website. What a fantastic idea!

Had dinner with some parents in Hue. Dinner was ok but the thing which I want to blog about is this fruit which we had for dessert. It's a really sweet fruit, with quite alot of milky sap. Guess what's the name of this fruit? 'Breast Milk' fruit! heh. According to the locals, if you look at how the fruit looks in the pic... it kinda looks like the front view of the breast of a woman... porno rite! haha...

After dinner, the others wanted to go for vietnamese coffee but I decided to walk around a little. I chanced upon a roadside shop which had 4 bottles of medicinal wines displayed. Here are two bottles... with the cobra, crow, and dunno how many different snakes! I was really grossed out.. those in Singapore usually have maybe one or two snakes. These were packed with all kinds of snakes.


Here are the other two bottles with a cobra artistically placed in each of them. I have no idea how anyone can drink these...

After checking in, we went for dinner by the Huong River. Spanning the river is the Truong Tien bridge which changes colours every few seconds.. simple but really beautiful. Here's a shot.

I'm staying at the Hotel Saigon Morin. Wow.. nice hotel. Not very expensive, but the room is very nice and BIG. Here's a pic of my room.

Vietnam Day 7 - Hue

Done with Hanoi so we made our way to Hue. Hue is supposed to be like a historical place coz it's the place where the Vietnamese emperors were buried. While I would really like to visit the tombs, I know I probably won't get a chance. Anyway, we were greeted with our first gloomy, rainy, overcast day in Vietnam when we arrived at Hue.


Can't believe that I've already been in Vietnam for a week.

Tomorrow's Sunday.. still must work. Sianz.