Handicapped mouse

Ever used a mac and find yourself struggling with that one button mouse and felt awkward and handicapped, like something's missing?

Ever wonder why Apple chose to fit all their macs with single button mouse as default? (yes, plug in a 2-button mouse and it will work just fine)

Well, I did, and I just found out why, after reading this article.

For everything that happens, there must be a reason, right?

奇异世界

The only place where you can dream, living here is not what it seems.
Ship of white light in the sky, nobody there to reason why.
Here I am, I'm not really there, smiling faces ever so rare.
Let's walk in deepest space, living here just isn't the place.

Stalks of light come from the ground, when I cry there isn't a sound.
All my feelings cannot be held, I'm happy in my new strange world.
Shades of green grasses twine, girls drinking plasma wine.
A look at love, a dream unfolds, living here, you'll never grow old.

Don't you hear me call? Ooh

Iron Maiden - Strange World

JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge 2005

Date:	Wednesday 27 April 2005
Time:	6.00pm
Venue:	The Padang, Singapore
Type:	5.6km corporate run

Official website
Registration Info

This is an event you have to sign up as a minimum team of 4 men/women or 2 men/2 women. But, as what ct did last year, you can also sign up through your friends company.

Since I'll be registering myself and for ct too, if anyone out there wants to participate and don't mind running under the 'Chartered Semicon' banner, feel free to contact me. I'm sure my company captain Ron Dickinson would love to have more people to join us!

In preparation, I'll give my knees another week of rest. I'll probably then do some swimming and light jogging at the nearby Yishun Stadium track so there'll be less impact on my knees. Guess I'll have to learn to 'like' running round in circles, or ovals, if you will. I'll limit myself to 2.4km to 4.8km and build from there. Maybe faster shorts and slower longs.

If I want to be able to enjoy running even when I'm much older, got to learn to pace myself, got to learn to love my knees!

24hrs, 150km

the 24 hour run was a success. Many able bodied women and men joined TLR in various phases of the run.

We joined in for round 1 and stopped to put up a banner ct made near the Long Beach Seafood area for maximum exposure.

We then found the time to set up our tent and the bbq pit and went on to prepare the drinks and food. But around 2 plus or so in the morning(I lost track of time haha), when he decided it's time to eat, he asked for tapioca! Me and Pear were wondering where to find such things in the middle of early morning. I remembered seeing someone holding a cup of mashed potatoes when I was buying ice earlier in the night, so me and Pear went shopping at 7-11. But, alas, the machine churning out the stuff was all sold out and all we got was some miserable buns to go with the hot dog.

Philip ran his heart out and his knee started to give him problem. So I drove him back home to rest.

We then sent Pear and ct's niece back home in the morning and we took a shower and bought lunch for them. We told ourselves that we won't be running, but then we saw him quietly heading off for his 11th round on his own, we just couldn't tahan anymore, so ct and me started running after him, with the chicken rice still fresh in my tummy!

The great Peter Lim and the cool as cucumber German Chris soon joined us. Bravo to them, who already did so many rounds since morning but yet found the strength to run under the extremely hot noon sun. Thanks to people like them, TLR was never lonely throughout the run.

Too bad my knees was giving me too much pain to even jog properly, I did about 7km and simply couldn't go on anymore. But this 7km was one of the happiest 7km I've ever done.

Finally get to meet the faces behind the names like Chew, who ran with TLR even though he just pulled his back muscle the day before. 'Tahan', Pear, Philip, who made time out of their busy schedule to run with him. Peter, who kept going even when he's seeing stars and his special Titanium 'talisman' he lend to TLR. Carine, who ran in the night with a cardigan/sweater on! Chris, who, for an 'ang moh', is truly heroic to run even in the hottest part of the day. And many others, who's name I don't know.

TLR and FD's family, friends, and those who help made a difference (Husnah, Haris?, Zul & Co., Emily, the multi-lingual and smiley emcee whose name I didn't catch, the students of JJC and another school(?) who did all the dance and cheers.

For me, the most amazing thing is, TLR didn't sleep throughout this 24 hour (more if you consider the time he spent awake before and after the run). In fact, while I was driving him back to his place, he could barely keep his eyes open.

By the time he reached home, he could barely walk and keep his senses awake.

Very well done brother! Rest well now. You deserve it!

untitled

Ran for about half of the 1st round and put up CT's banner near the halfway point. Since i'm staying overnight, i think I'll reserve my knees for later when most of the brave runners running alongside him have to go. Some of them are working tomorrow! I'll run with him then, so he won't be running alone.

Here comes the PAIN

I offered to buy drinks for ct and Luqman just before the match started during the Tiger Cup finals 2nd Leg.

As I make my way down the stairs, I felt like I was hit by lightning.

The pain in both my knees almost caused me to black out. It took me like an eternity to walk down about 20 steps. I can see people staring at me, probably wondering why this joker here is taking one step at a time with pauses in between, like an old man in his 90's.

The moment I got out of sight from all the staring eyes, I started to descend the stairs backwards. Less pain this way. But by now, I know that I will not be able to join the shoving crowd and get those drinks back to my seat. I made my way back slowly to the seat.

My old enemy is back.

Have not felt this much pain in my knees since the army days. Only back then, it was just the left knee.

This morning, the doctor wanted to give me mc, but I declined. He then gave me some pain killers and muscle relaxant, and a referral letter for some physiotherapy at SGH.

He also told me that I should stop running the way I do and turn to low impact exercises like swimming.

Bah! Tell me something I don't know, doc.

If that's all you can tell me, why do we need doctors? My grandmother can tell me that!

So far in my life, of all the doctors and specialists I've seen, NONE of them had told me what is wrong with my knee. Is it the lateral or medial meniscus (my chief suspect), the collateral ligaments, or the anterior or posterior cruciate ligaments, or is it my ear-drum?!? None of them ever mentioned to me any of those words. None of them ever gave me OPTIONS other than what kind of painkillers or ointment I want. What is this nonsense? I've had physiotherapists who told me more.

I'm gonna take Mau's (who came in 4th in the SWIFT run) advice instead. Lay off for a few months, go for physio-treatment, then build up the strength with some weight training, and work on from there.

I'll be back.

Sore Loser

Witnessed for myself last night how the Lions completed the task of winning the 2nd Leg of the Tiger Cup Finals with a professional performance against the speedier and more skilful Indonesians.

I'm glad that they didn't 'park the bus' in front of the goal-posts. Instead, they made full use of the flanks and the speed of Indra Sahdan and Itimi Dickson.

And sure enough, ever the player for the big occasion, Indra scored in as early as the sixth minute. The whole stadium erupted. Haven't felt this kind of atmosphere since the Malaysia Cup days.

Just now, one of my colleagues, who's from a friendly neighbouring country, said to me,

"So how come Singapore never declare one day public holiday?"

Of course, I can sense sarcasm when I hear it.

"What for? It's not the first time we've won it. Your country won something also, can declare half day."

"Cannot la, must get some foreign players first..."

There you go, I knew he was waiting for the moment to say this.

"Oh, you mean like France? That's good what, learn from the best!"

"......."

Yeah, silence. I thought so, sore loser.

Yet another bloke who can't accept the fact that a 'tiny red dot' has the resolve and will to out-perform a much more populous nation. (Indonesia has over 200 million, the 4th most populated country in the world, while Singapore has less than 4.5 million. Their coach, Peter Withe, even mentioned in the post-match conference that they'll have to start scouting for new blood amongst the 5000 or so footballers in their country. Scary!!!)

Luckily, not all of his fellow countrymen are like him.

At least the Indonesians are gracious in defeat. Bravo.

Wrong Category

I am very happy. I achieved the goal that I set out to accomplish. That is, to finish the whole 10km of the SWIFT run without stopping or walking.

I was off to a bad start as my mp3 phone was getting funky with me. The headset connection coming loose and what not. I can see the Pear, Philip, and last guys disappearing in front of me while I walked and fixed the problem. I finally gave up trying to put the thing in the holster attached to my left upper arm and ended carrying it in my hand throughout the run.

I completed the run in about 70 minutes. This timing is about double the time it took for the men's veteran who finished 1st for his category. This long haired Indian guy passed me by like the wind close to the halfway point. Running like the he's walking on air, like he was gliding past everybody. And I had a 15 minutes headstart over him!

Soon after that, the boys (under 18 I think) were passing me by. At about 3 quarter of the 10km, I saw Philip running past me. I don't recall overtaking him in the first place, but he mentioned later that it was at one of the earlier upslopes. I tried to keep up with him, but my knees just wouldn't listen to me.

By now, I was running up slopes and skipping down slopes, allowing my right leg to take most of the impact. I tried to maintain my pace, so at least I won't finish last for the men's category. I felt like I belonged to the veteran's category, such was the slow pace which I was running at.

I was expecting at any one time that someone from the women's open category will overtake me soon. Luckily for me, it didn't happen.

I think I'll have to sort out my knee and build up it's strength before even thinking about the next 10km run in future, and to improve on my timing. I'll definitely make plans to run this very same route again and try again next year.

Next up, the Tiger Final 2nd leg!!! Yes!!!

Running for Help!

Click The Logo Above For More Details

Tomorrow morning is the Swift Northern challenge. I'm planning to run, for the very first time, with music plugged in to my ears. I hope the heavy metal music pumping out through it will give me the added adrenaline I'm gonna need.

And in the evening, it's the Tiger Cup Final 2nd Leg, Singapore vs Indonesia. I'm so looking forward to it. It's been a long time since the National Stadium has been packed to the max. Can't wait.

Last but not least, see the pic above? Click on it. Find out more. Come join us next Friday!

Ok, gotta catch some sleep now so I can wake up early for the run. Adios!

bz doing nuthin'

yesturdey vurz er bz dey fore mey.

accepted ct's invitation to join her in her bio lecture. she's been telling be lots about how girls these days dress up for school, that i gotta see for myself, so see for myself i did. well not that i didn't know seen enuff already, but here's an open invitation to get off my lazy butt n go out for a half-day of fun...why not?

well ya ct u were right, my eyes were bz, wide open n scannin', yeah, but then if they were not, how are they gonna see? yeah u were rite ct, young pple nowzadaze but hey, u don't call them young pple for nuthin' rite?

i remember my daze in da campus, where the wardens hunted me down like a dog. the very well endowed half-chinese zarinah T, instead of lookin' out for me like the rest of my frens would've, was busy lookin' at how i eat, next thing i heard zarinah gasp with her eyes wide open and b4 i knew it, i was already flanked by wardens 'long tall' and 'short bald'.

of course, they couldn't make me remove my cap. we talked, calmly and softly, like men do. the result was a nice little appointment to see the vp.

well, to make the long short, we talked about tennis, balls, and ways to hit them balls. and of course, the small matter of having to have my locks of strength shorn.

what the heck, they'll grow, again.

digress i did.

so u c ct. girls, women, they flirt, all the time. men, we just oogle. it's our own little way of paying u ladies a little compliment.

oh i hear ya, i know. they know when the guys are watching. and i wasn't born yesterday u know, i know when they know, and girls they are not stoopid too, they know that i know when they know i know they know they are being watched and that i know that u know i know u know i was watching too.

our strength is also our weakness. blame their parents and and law of natural selection for girls getting prettier and men getting more beast like. but please, don't blame God or Charles Darwin. u should know better. u study bio now, don't u?

it means somethin', but little. it can mean alot, too. it means that God, after having created man first, realized the flaws, and, base on the very same blueprint, created a newer, prettier, and superior version, of man.

and that version is, YOU.

recce in the dark

Ah...5 days break away from work.

In what was part of a preparation for Sunday's Swift Northern Challenge Run, my dear ct took me and Luq on a leisurely walk around the route we'll be running so we won't make a wrong turn on the day.

After collecting our dri-fit Tees with a big 'SWIFT' printed on it, we started walking the whole 12km or so of it. It was already 6:30pm when we started.

ct showed us the tricky roots, trunks, and rocky trails she ran over and over for the ultra, and I must say, I wouldn't have made it through if I had ran. Come Sunday, it's ONE round only, in the opposite direction.

We were having a good laugh and our spirits were high upon reaching the midpoint, the Golf Link. We were saying how it was like entering paradise after seeing hell. I was doing cartwheels and demonstrating how to fall in style in the event of a failed attempt at executing a somersault, a la Agu Cashmir. The sun was setting at that time, and the place was so tranquil and picturesque.

Then comes the supposedly endless boardwalk, according to ct according to Sukaimi, but it was over pretty quickly, where got endless? Must check with my bro next time I see him.

Then darkness descends upon us. We were in the thick of it, without the sunlight, and with the moon waxing crescent (11% illuminated on 12 Jan according to this), and with the trees blocking out that little bit of what's left, it was pretty damn dark. So, the 3 of us took out our mobile phones to help us see what we were walking on, with me walking in front of them both so they don't see the silly grin on my face.

Those 2 behind me were saying things like, "What's that noise?", "Did you hear that?", and "Is that someone singing?". I just said, "whatever's out there and the noises you hear, are because they are running away, afraid, cuz we are the intruders!". Of course, I'm talking about the monkeys, squirrels, lizards, and crocs, silly.

Took us almost an hour to get out of it. And we were saying, "Cars!", "HDB flats!", and "Lights!". Heh, it was fun.

Now all that's left ahead of me is the little task of repeating what we did at double the pace, half the time, on an early Sunday morning...hear that now, legs?

1st run 2005

Planned route and distance

Actual distance covered

Took the MRT all the way down to the Harbourfront near Sentosa. Wanted to run from there back home in Yishun. I wanted to see how far I can go running in the afternoon.

This time, I'm wearing my Adidas Climacool Adventure shoes, just to have a feel how well it can handle hard ground. Reached the start point, applied some 'Fastum' gel on my knees and calf, but I would later regret this cuz it seems like I'm allergic to it and till now, I'm itching all over and there's rashes everywhere on my body...

Anyway, off I go after applying the gel. This time, I started at quite a quick pace. Passing by Mount Faber and very soon, I hit Bukit Merah Road. From there on, it's all the way along the main road. In no time (about 45 minutes) I passed Queensway Shopping Center.

But from then on, the run took a turn for the worse.

There were construction works going on all along Queensway, and at one point, I had to clear a rather steep slope on the tarmac due the the cement pavement being cordoned off. It was quite dangerous with all the big trucks and buses and I kept looking back to check. By the time I reached the Queensway SCDF camp, I started to feel tired.

From the junction of Queensway Shopping Center all the way down to Adam Road were a few traffic lights which seem to take forever to turn green for me. For the up and down slopes, it was all run-walk run-walk. My pace was getting slower and slower.

Thought I could grab myself a Gatorade or Pocari Sweat at the BP petrol kiosk at Adam Park to replenish the lost salt in my body to prevent cramps, but it was under renovation since SPC has taken over.

By now, my left ankle is complaining non-stop. My running posture began to change as I'm not toeing off correctly, overworking my knee and hip. I tell myself that no matter what, I must at least reach the halfway point, McRitchie Reservoir.

So I run-walk run-walk again all the way to the MR carpark/toilet. Took me 1 hour 40 minutes, about 12km plus. Too slow. Did some cooling down and stretching before applying more of the FASTUM gel on my ankle and knees. And it was at this point in time that I realized my face has rashes appearing all over it.

After a long rest of about 45 minutes, I started brisk walking again for 5 minutes to warm up. I started running again, blocking out the pain of my joints from my mind when suddenly, my left thigh started to have cramps so bad that I had to stop to pop some painkillers/muscle relaxant.

I really wanted to finish what I planned, so I walked to a petrol kiosk opposite Thomson CC to get the Pocari Sweat. But by then, it was too late. Further attempts to start running again brought about spasms of cramps on both legs, the one on the left thigh being the most painful.

In my mind, I was thinking about the feat that ct achieved. The ultra. 52.5km over a period of 12 hours, over much tougher terrain, amazing. Respect!

I called it a day and took a bus home. This is 5km short of my previous run on Christmas morning. Must do better next time.

Gotta get myself some Glucosamine and Chondroitin Sulphate to help repair my joints...

1st movie 2005

Turns out, the very 1st movie I watched in 2005 is also the very last one I watched in 2004.

Went to catch Kung Fu Hustle again in City Square J.B. with Fox. Again cuz what I watched in Singapore was dubbed in Mandarin, and I really wanna hear them with their original voices. But I must admit after watching the Cantonese version that the quality of the dubbing was so well done that the differences were barely noticeable.

Even though I'm watching it for the 2nd time, I still laughed at the jokes and got thrilled by the action. It's really a very good movie.

Before the show, we were hunting high and low for Genki Sushi, and we actually went to Sushi King at the basement to ask the girl at the door where the hell is this Genki Sushi, muahahaha. Dumbfounded, she just looked at us and said she doesn't know. We managed to find it later at the 4th level and ended up stuffing ourselves with sushi, teriyaki chicken and the works till we can barely move.

Back at the island, met up with ct and stuff ourselves with some hot and spicy tom yam and beef noodles at Siam Kitchen. Not bad.

But now I know one thing. Tom yam, beef, salmon, and eel, they don't really get along that well. Since last night, my stomach has been complaining!

Outside, the weather is fine, cloudy, temperature around 27degrees celsius. I feel like going out for a run. But I'm also thinking about the beaches at Sentosa...

1st post 2005

A very sombre and numb way to kick off the new year. Cold, wet, grey...

Looking at this and this, one can understand why. My heart goes out to these poor folks, but I can only remember them in my prayers.

Planned to run from Yishun to Sentosa on New Year's Eve night, but aborted the idea due to the non-stop rain. My adrenaline was pumping and I was so ready just thinking about it... looks like I'll have to do it after the Swift 10km Northern Route Challenge.

The year 2004 really flew past like a blur for me... I can hardly recall what happened.
I thought I just watched Return of the King and the whole LOTR movie marathon in 2004, but ct reminded me that it was actually in 2003! So what did actually happen in 2004 for me?
Some highlights will be...

• JP Morgan Run (turning point for ct)
• The New Paper Big walk
• Sheares Bridge run
• Cookie attacking us and being caged and taken away (sad...)
  
• Meeting tlr for my 1st terawih prayer
• Trekking with tlr, fd, and ct from MR to Bukit Timah
• ct running the ultra!!!
  
• Running from Yishun to Orchard on Christmas morning
• oh, and both my sis got married and got jobs finally haha
  

So what can I expect for the year 2005? This is gonna be a busy year for me. And some of my personal hopes and plans are as follows...

• Going back to studying, to successfully juggle work and study
• Pushing myself further and faster in my own solo runs
• To fully recover from my injuries
• Participate in more official and professionally organized runs
• To finish at least one Marathon
• To run the next Ultra-Marathon
• To get back to SCUBA Diving again

I don't remember ever having any new year resolutions, but maybe it's good to have one this year, looking at the amount of 'firsts' I have in my plans.

And my new year resolution for the year 2005 is... "To be a better man...."

Happy New Year!