Back to XP...

Well... I've switched back to Windows XP professional and curbed Windows Vista for the time being, so I can get back to business!!!

I was soooo close to switching over to Linux or purchasing a MAC.. no, really, I was pissed. Don't get me wrong, Vista as an OS is superior to XP in that it offers alot more, has a fancier User Interface, and nifty little widgets, higher security, blah blah blah.... and I'm sure it runs like butter when you install any Microsoft Product with it... BUT... ALMOST NO THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE IS OFFICIALLY SUPPORTED!!! :@

I was almost willing to just stick it out and bear with it... but I NEED those applications to do my stuff. Something as simple as Winamp is not supported. What did that mean for me? That meant that I was not able to setup my shoutcast server. I didn't even bother to see if there was a hack solution to that problem. I didn't want to messy up my Vista install with bs hackjob solutions. I tried to install Alcohol 120% as well... just so I could make images and burn them for my co-worker... oh, and so I could make a couple of virtual drives... but nooooooooooo... I couldn't install that either.


My solution was to install Windows XP and create a dual-boot system. Easy enough, right? What a crock of shit... apparently Windows Vista and XP don't play nice... If you don't use the Vista boot disc to prepare your HD for an XP install and just decide to use the XP CD... it fracks your bootloader / partition table / don't know what else. :@


I'm no tech guru, but I have enough experience to know how to research extensively and implement my findings. Plus, it's not like I haven't built a dual boot system before... not to mention, I DID graduate from Tech College :)


So anyways, I put in the Vista Boot DVD and then realized that I hadn't partitioned my primary drive... actually, I did, but for some reason it didn't show the secondary partition. Instead of following the instructions that I found online and deallocating some space, I decided to pop in the XP CD and go from there... wow... not a good idea. Even XP couldn't see the other partition. When I tried to boot into Vista to free up some space it would do the POST.. but then just sit there, cursor blinking... fak.


When I used the Vista DVD to boot again, my primary drive wasn't showing up AT ALL!!! I was pissed... now when I used the XP CD... it DIDN'T show up!!!

After fiddling back-and-forth between the two I connected my backup drive to see if it would recognize that. Yes, it did... then when I put in the XP CD... it fracked it again... Either way I couldn't boot into my OS... And when I tried to run Vista Recovery it didn't do anything... there was no drive showing up thus no OS to install...


By this time I was irate.. and pretty anxious because my backup drive contains at least 3 years worth of data filling roughly 120 GB... about 15-20GB just music and a whole smackload of photos from over the years. Yes, I'm a pack rat :p

I remembered that a co-worker of mine had an external HD housing that I could put my SATA drives in so I drove back to my workplace at 9:30pm just so I could swap out my drives and check to see if the data was intact still. I was soooo prepared to pay a data recovery specialist some big bucks if I wasn't able to see the data on the drives... one thing that I was also upset about is that I couldn't remember if I had xferred my parents' vacation photos to my primary drive or my backup drive... that would have been 600+ photos down the drain.


After placing my drive in the housing I plugged it into my laptop and let out a sigh of relief. Everything was intact!... however, when I plugged in my primary drive, it said that it was not formatted, so ya... XP trashed the partition table!


I ended up formatting the drive and reinstalling XP... no more Vista for me, not until a Service Pack or I find out that the majority of 3rd party companies have announced Vista support. Then I'll go and purchase a new tower and build a new Vista PC. Oh yea, I had the same problem with Windows Media Center on the Final release of Vista Ultimate as I did with RC2. Even after installing the Vista Codec Pack and ensuring that my media would play on WMP 11 I fired up WMC, when I went to play the media... it told me that it couldn't find the required codecs. Screw you MS :@

If I didn't only have 1 tower, I would already be playing with Linux... and if MACs didn't cost so much... then I'd consider one of those too!!! If not just because of their awesome commercials :p

PCs are great! :)

Singapore: Day 3...

People were telling me that I was very fortunate when I was over in Asia. It seems that during this time of the year (CNY) it's usually drought season... Strange thing is parts of JB were under water, and there were times in the day when the rain was coming down REALLY hard. This, of course, led to milder temperatures... which I obviously won't complain about :)

M was going to the market again today... a different one this time! We went to Ghim Moh market at Commonwealth so she could pick up her ground pork and so I could experience some more hawker food :P It looks like they take their markets, and 'marketing' pretty seriously... alot of the people have mics around their necks and are hooked up to stereos or bullhorns. There was even a guy in Chinatown who was losing his voice, regardless of the fact that he had a microphone. wth.

While M went to pick out her pork and then waited for the butcher to grind it, we all went to the food stalls. There are too many different foods to choose from. Actually, to more accurately put it, there are too many hawker stands to explore. Many of them offer the same items and choosing one or the other is a matter of personal preference. I'm told that if a stall bears the mark of actor Adrian Pang and the show 'Makan King' then Singaporeans do what many of them do best... begin queuing up!

Anyway, after walking around looking at all the different stalls (and being as wishywashy as I am) I let Jacq choose my meal for me :) I had the Lor Mee & Grass Jelly Drink while Jacq had Fried Sliced Fish Mee Hoon. That hit the spot... I was still a little bit worried because my grass jelly drink came with ice. Even though I know Singapore has very high sanitation standards I can't help but feel reluctant to put a piece of ice in my mouth, especially when I'm in a market eating hawker food. The last time I had hawker ice (in Malaysia) I ended up bed-ridden for 4-5 days and having to eat charcoal pills to purge everything from my system... that sucked arse.

Another interesting thing that I forgot to mention in my other post is... parking coupons. I have to say, the S'porean gov't is brilliant. Here everywhere we go, we have to get out and slot coins into meters, grab a ticket from a box and place on our dash, or slot a card or something when we park. It's a system that we've been using forever and it's probably going to stay that way for awhile. In S'pore, almost ALL parking is prepaid! If it's not coupons that you punch out, then it's the prepaid cards that are mounted on your windshield. Granted, I can see why some people would not want to put those on their car. Apparently, they drill through the glass to get that little electronic box mounted on there. BUT... for that little inconvenience you can go to many underground parking lots and just drive slowly through as you hear a little beep. The drawback to this is... you never really realize how much money is going into parking because you never see anything leave your hands... and that's the genius of it all. The government sees all the money before the citizens get the benefits!


Onward... Jacq decided to take me to Chinatown that day :) Chinatown over there is alot nicer than Chinatown in Vancouver. Our Chinatown covers an area of about 5 blocks by 5 blocks... I'm not even 100% sure about that... the area between Keefer & Union, Gore & Jackson are like thte Chinese Projects. Some people will argue that but I knew someone who lived in there.. and trust me, it's like the projects. Just west of that the 4 blocks between Hastings & Union, Main & Gore is the main Market area of our Chinatown... there are, of course, more restaurants and other storefronts even further west for the next couple of blocks, but it trickles off.

Singapore's Chinatown kicked arse... they even had a FOOD STREET!!! wth :D Unfortunately, during the time that we were there we didn't go down that way. I briefly stopped to take a shot of the street. The only one place that Jacq wanted me to try (in Chinatown) was a place that served Frog Congee... *sigh* it wasn't open when we went so I didn't get to try it. While we were ther, however, I saw one of the crazy long queues that I'd heard so much about. During CNY people like to give out BAKKWA it's a sort of overrated (hope I'm not offending anyone :P) beef jerky that's given out as a gift. Sure, some of them ARE pretty good.. but it's still not worth queuing up for like this...


And it's all because of places like this...


I'm thinking that the closest thing that we have to Bakkwa here is the Soo Jerkey that we can buy here... but then again, I haven't gone looking for it here, soooo.. don't take my word for it ;)

Aside from all the beautiful red decor there were stores that made it blatantly obvious that it was CNY...


Towards the end of one of the streets there was a stall setup where you could go to get your name put on a Chinese Name Seal. There were two of them... it was obvious that one of them was the Master and the other one was the Prodege. Anyways, I took some footage of the guy when he was making my seal. I requested that he do it in the traditional (old style) characters... It's very impressive because they don't use any clamps, and they only use one tool throughout the whole process...

Just a heads-up the video is over 18 minutes long... enjoy...


Here's some footage of the Master doing a carving, how could I tell? well, first of all he's not leaning on the table. Secondly... it took him a fraction of the time carve the name.. and he did it freehand!

[oops... haven't recompressed the vid yet :(]

Just around the corner from the carver stand was Sri Mariamman Temple, the designs were elaborate and statues of cows and a lion looked on from atop the ledge. Towards the entrance was a tower of platforms held up by statues. I'm told it is a Tamil temple. Apparently my sister tried to take pictures of the temple when she was there last year... they allow photos from the outside, but when it comes to photos from the inside, you have to pay. I didn't bother trying to find that out for myself so we crossed the street and took photos from there :)


Round and round Chinatown we walked, it was much of the same thing... nick knacks here-and-there... immitation brands everywhere... we got tired from walking in and out of stores and then found the foodcourt area, right across from the Chinatown Heritage Centre, a storefront with a museum in the back. The man that served us was an older man, he reminded me of my grandfather. Jacq and I ordered some popia and some sort of kway, it wasn't bad, the old man gave us a special price :)


While we were eating then deciding where to go next it began to piss down rain... I hadn't seen a heavy rain like that in ages. People here complains when it rains hard but they don't know what HEAVY RAIN is. Not until you've experienced Tropical Torrential downpours. We had to yell at each other just to hear what each other were saying :P See for yourself...


When the rain finally stopped we took the MRT over to VIVO CITY, the newest shopping mall in Singapore. Vivo City is linked to Harbour Front and from there you can take the new Mnorail over to Sentosa Island. Something that wasn't there when I was visiting last year. While walking around we found my favorite store... only to be disappointed when I stepped in, it was womens only! :@ Yes, I was upset.. I was hoping to be able to get some cheap Mexx clothing :( While exploring kids' stores and looking for gifts for people we ran into Toys 'R' Us and this sight...


Wow... we don't have those over here!

Oh yeah.. before I forget, we saw this creepy sight in Chinatown too...


Time for me to get some rest, I'm sure we did something that evening as well... I think it was dinner with Mary, but I don't have those photos prepared atm, so I'll see if I can add them later.. ciao for now!

No Pok...

Sound only but funny as hell :P

Poor B.C. Place Stadium...

In case you haven't already heard... BC Place Stadium, one of the most recognized structures in the Vancouver cityscape, has had a tear in panel which has brought down her inflatible roof :(

The tear occurred in the first week of January during the wind/rain/snow storm that we had, but they're uncertain of the exact cause of the deflation.

Since then I've had conversations with different people and everyone says something different. One of the more interesting explanations is... when snow starts to settle on the roof, the keepers at BC Place will over-inflate the roof such that the snow will crack and slide off. It appears, however, that was not the case.

Below is some footage of the roof deflating...

If you would like to learn more about BC Place... click here!

Song Of The Week: My Chemical Romance - Welcome To The Black Parade...

It's not often that I come across a non-hip hop/r&b song that catches my attention. Disregarding its political message this song is pretty impressive... I've been listening to it for the past week :p

Vid Of The Day :: Kris Kross - The Way Of The Rhyme...

They don't make music like this anymore... enjoy.

Golfing With Apples :P...

My dad has been talking about taking golf lessons lately and last week I had the urge to go out into the backyard and whack a few apples around :D

If you're ever bored and happen to have an apple tree in the yard then you should give this it a shot ;) Apple trees like to drop apples all over the place after they have ripened. Alot of the time the apples are over ripe or end up really bruised so you can't pick them up to eat them anyway... what to do? Grab a driver and whack away!

In the back of our house there is a medical building across the alley. If I were whacking golf balls I'd probably have the cops and/or a lawyer banging on my door :P Fortunately, apples just explode when you hit them :D weeeeeeeeee! Enjoy!

McDonald's Memories :D...

The other day Jacq and I were talking about McDonald's and the different menus that they have all around the world... It reminded me of that REALLY old commercial from when I was in elementary school :p I did a search on YouTube and someone actually posted it :D

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that the Canadian version had some minor differences, but hehe, it doesn't matter :p it's such a great song :D

Big Mac,
Mc DLT,
a Quarter-Pounder with some cheese,
Filet-O-Fish,
a hamburger,
a cheeseburger,
a Happy Meal.
McNuggets,
tasty golden french fries,
regular or larger size,
and salads: chef salad or garden,
or a chicken salad oriental.
Big Big Breakfast,
Egg McMuffin,
hot hot cakes,
and sausage.
Maybe biscuits,
bacon, egg and cheese,
a sausage,
danish,
hash browns too.
And for dessert
hot apple pies,
and sundaes
three varieties,
a soft-serve cone,
three kinds of shakes,
and chocolatey chip cookies.
And to drink a Coca-Cola,
Diet Coke, and orange drink,
A Sprite and coffee, decaf too,
A lowfat milk, also an orange juice.
I love McDonald's, good time great taste,
and I get this all at one place...

Video of the Day: Kris Kross (Warm It Up)

I'm really not sure what posessed me to look this video up, but here it is. Maybe it was the reminiscing of those days... back in the early 90s when life was so much simpler. We had great hits like Run DMC - Down With the King, Naughty By Nature - Uptown Anthem, Public Enemy - 911's a joke... the list goes on.

I remember going out to the video store with my cousins... we had all our clothes backwards and wacked out hair as well... we put a little balloon hat on our baby cousin :D good stuff :P. I also remember having my hair in braids at one point... wth, eh? This coming froma Chinaman O.o

Enjoy...

X vs MMX : 8-Ball...

X decided that he wanted to play pool w/ me today :) yeee haw! For those of you who don't know, I used to work @ Starlite Billiards recently reopened as Cue Club.

I've been playing pool since I was about 8 yrs old, but only began playing seriously in my late teens. When I was on top of my game I was playing on average 5 hrs a day, about 5 days a week. That was when I could run roughly 5/9 racks. Now, I'm not so good :p I have some good days, and some not-so-good days :)

X and I decided to film some footage, here's our final game :P the sound seems to be out of synch... and ignore our commenets ^o)

That horrendous noise in the background is the huge fan that was blowing beside us :(

Collecting Garbage...

On Saturday we spent 5 hours clearing out the garbage in my Grampa / Grama's old house. Aunt Sally just sold it and has moved over to the Brentwood area. The new family has already come in and started renovating the home. While our family was cleaning out the house we found stashes of money all over the house... it appears that Grampa liked to hide cash just-in-case. I believe that after the cleaning was done, all the cash amounted to over $20k! :o ya... crazy eh? Who knows what you have hidden around your OWN house :p

We had rented one of those small(er) sized disposal bins so we could throw out all the stuff in the garage, I believe the dimensions were 14ft long x 8ft wide x 5 ft deep.

I didn't know what I had gotten myself into. I ended up having to climb up into the rafters in the garage. That was pretty nasty stuff... I couldn't stand up, or sit up for that matter, because the single nails were sticking through. I really didn't feel like getting poked with a rusty nail -_-; On top of that, there were mouse/rat droppings all over the place again... this time I wasn't prepared and was not wearing a mask... big mistake. When I blew my nose later... everything was brown... yuck.

We also found a couple of items that Grampa had made to make life easier... he was a jack-of-all-trades.

left: dustpan and brush. right: fish mallet and scaler.
Five hours and alot of climbing, breaking, arguing, throwing, carrying, arranging later... we had our finished 'product'. Since we didn't meet the 3 O'clock deadline for that day we had to wait until Monday until we could call the company up and have them remove the bin. Hopefully, before then, no one comes and dumps stuff in there :@ As you can see the dumpster is full, right to the top.

When all was said and done, my uncle and I decided to use the Driver that we found to whack a few apples down the alley :D I remember my cousin used to do this in our backyard years back :P This time I ended up with a piece of apple in my eye O_O hehe... it was well worth the explosion and the laughs :) below is my Uncle taking a whack at it ;)


Oh ya... I went home and had a look at myself in the mirror... wth, filthy!

It's Not Fair...

*sigh* it's not fair :'(... My sister and my brother-in-law are going back to S'pore / M'sia for 6 weeks. I wish I could go back with them too... I'll just crawl into the corner, curl into a little ball and wet my cheeks O.o

WoW - The Internet Is For Pr0n...

On a light note ;) and this is in good taste btw... just some suggestive language.