I've been trying to find something out, and there isn't a shred of scientific data about it anywhere on the accessible internet. Why do people feel tired after they have overslept?

Turns out that no one actually knows. And that it differs for a lot of people. Some people, like me, feel lethargic and unable to do anything after sleeping for too long. Other people feel great when they get an extra few hours.

Some people say that it depends on whether you were sleep deprived, or not, when you went to sleep. A sleep deprived person supposedly feels good after a longer nap. Someone who hasn't been sleep deprived would have disrupted is circadian cycle unnecessarily. And so stuff happens.

But what about people who have insomnia. It's not exactly their fault that their circadian cycle is totally messed up. Sometimes even if I'm tired, I lie awake for hours thinking "okay, I have 6 hours left to sleep... Right, 5 hours. Four and a half..." and then I oversleep and wake up at noon or so.

Even though I have gotten about eight hours of sleep, more or less, I still feel horrible when I wake up in the afternoon. Maybe it's waking up to the midday heat. Maybe it's just that I look at the clock and go, agh, morning wasted. Whatever it is, it sucks.

So yeah. Why do I feel more tired after oversleeping, than before I slept? I'd love to take to an awesome pseudoscientific explanation and say that my mind is constantly working when I am asleep. (Hell, I'm sure that happens anyway) But I'm was leaning more toward the development of psychic powers and such...

Anyway, it's just been blazing for three days straight. This morning, the gods themselves were taunting me by producing a light shower. I thought it was going to get heavier and cloud the sky, bringing back the grey storms that I love so very much. But it didn't. Instead, it made me hurt my eyes and sweat more as I squinted out of the window to make sure it was really raining. Mind you, I can't remember the sun ever being so bright. It was like there was a solar flare directly in line with Singapore.

Also I've just been informed by my mother that I have some churchsy thing to attend on Thursday. That sucks, since I'm supposed to be doing stuff on that day. Doing stuff. STUFF. Stuff is important.

I don't have the energy to go into a "why religion is bull" right now. Gandalf.

Okay. I don't really have the energy to do anything else. So here's a .gif for everyone to amuse themselves with.

Watching people brain themselves, intentional or not, is always entertaining.

-Joe

Okay. Righty. Hands off ctrl+p from now on.

As it turns out, when I last said that "that was the last time I would ever be wearing my uniform again", I was wrong. I totally forgot that they would make me go back to school early in the morning on a Saturday, to (hopefully) collect Kinokuniya vouchers which I could use to replace the my lost pencil case.

And yeah, they called us back to get our awards. At 7.30 in the morning... When the event was actually scheduled to start a 9. Awesome, yeah? So we sat there for an hour and a half waiting. Then we sat for another hour or so waiting. Then we got our awards, and I spent another hour waiting. The entire time I was just whining "Can't they just give us our bloody vouchers and let us go already?" No, they felt the need to make us sit through some speeches which I didn't listen to, some performances which were painful to listen to, slightly boring, and irrelevant, respectively. I ended up taking out my notebook to scribble and doodle on.


Yes, I did draw a similar one during one of my classes back at AJ. I just couldn't think of anything else at that point of time.

In the end, they didn't give my Kinokuniya vouchers. I got twenty dollars for Popular Bookstore and thirty for some clothesy places that I don't really know the names of. Other than Adidas and maybe that one with the little crocodile on it... Also the certificate, while slightly fancier than my O' Level cert, wasn't nearly as satisfying as I hoped it would be.

Meh.

After lunch at Pizza Hut(where there was this total cheese orgy going on somewhere...) the class was walking around aimlessly and I figured that people could sell their semen for cash. I mean, why not?

Okay I won't go into that. Probably not a good idea on a public board.

So anyway I went home and invaded planet Earth again. After which I had a discussion with part of the KI circle about next Thursday. And for what was supposed to be a group of intelligent, focused individuals, we took quite a while to come to any sort of consensus. I mean somehow, we sidetracked... A lot. Also eventually we began trying to fit ourselves into the Fellowship of the Ring again. So after about two and a half hours of blabber we eventually settled on donuts.

It's 'cause they're round and all.

Oh, and it's just really, really hot today. Don't give me any "Sunday" puns. About four of them have already spontaneously sprang forth in my brain, and I am not too happy about them.

On the bright side, my family bought some ice cream today. Which meant that I got to play with dry ice. I also learned that none of my family members actually knew what dry ice was. My dad seemed to have this impression that it was actually carbon monoxide rather than carbon dioxide. Which was odd. He works in the petrochemical department. I'd have thought that he would have gleaned some general knowledge about what they put in the ice cream bag so it won't slosh all over when you bring it home.

I tried freezing the toilet water, but there just wasn't enough ice.

AAaaand so. It's back to... Doing stuff. I'm going to print out the rest of the tutorials that I haven't done yet. And all the other junk for that camp that I'll be attending this weekend.

About that camp I'll be attending this weekend. There's going to be a telematch. Telematches are the most redundant events at any camp. They usually involve physical activity that splits people into to categories. One, people who are physically apt and enjoy the sport, and two, the people who think it's a total waste of time and wouldn't even bother trying, because those who do enjoy it simply take up all the space.

I'd rather have three hours of... Not doing anything. Sitting around together with other people is a much better way to get used to not talking to other people. Trains you to ignore the silence.



-Joe

Hokay.

BUGGER.

I just got a call from the Astronomy Club, and it turns out that they're having some kind of orientation camp.

Okay, seriously. Why do we need a frickin' orientation camp for something like ASTRONOMY? The very logic of it just escapes me. Okay people, ask yourselves... Astronomy. Club. What does astronomy mean? As Dictionary.com puts it, astronomy is the science what is outside the earth's atmosphere. Or more accurately by Wikipedia, is the scientific study of celestial objects (such as stars, planets, comets, and galaxies) and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere (such as the cosmic background radiation). It is concerned with the evolution, physics, chemistry, meteorology, and motion of celestial objects, as well as the formation and development of the universe.

And club. A club is an association of people with a common goal, and is often devoted to hobbies and general topics of interest.

Hobbies, people, hobbies.

So for some reason, people who decide that they enjoy the night sky as a hobby, suddenly need to go for an orientation camp.

They don't even discuss astrophysics, for crying out loud! Come on, what kind of an astronomy club is that? Horoscopes and constellations? Dudes, that's astrology. You need to be a bloody idiot to take mix up the two.

Honestly, if I go there and find that they're not actually an astronomy club, I'm just... Not going anymore.

Why do you even need to have a bloody camp anyway. I haven't even got any details about this thing yet and I'm already bursting with swear words. Believe me, it's taking a lot of effort on my part to keep using the more "obscure" swear words here. Ugh. The entire idea of "orientation" plus "camp" just makes me want to consider not going.

I don't do well in orientations. I don't need orientations. Orientations are nothing but bloody time wasters. They're just wasted hours where I follow a group around wearily hoping that the apocalypse would hurry up and just be here already. I stand around feeling awkward and out of place, while people do meaningless things and pretend to "bond" with one another. Also I get vivid images of a certain someone shooting everyone else at point blank range with a very deadly bow and arrow.

Yeah so what can I expect at this next orientation? Probably more of the same bullshit. Hey, what's your name? Oh, you're ____? Cool, I don't give a shit. Unless of course you're willing to discuss the hydrostatic equilibrium with me. If you have no clue what that is, nor any inclination to find out, we'll never be friends. Give me your number so that I can use you to help me pass messages around.

... CLASS is where I find people. WORK is where I find people. Because that's where I see a point in talking to people. Why would I bother talking to anyone in an "orientation" setting? No one is going to bother to listen. No one wants to know more things during orientation periods.

And I just don't want to be there.

Yeah and I'm not optimistic about this either. The last time I got optimistic about meeting new people, I was overwhelmingly...Underwhelmed. ie- They were a bunch of idiots.

I can already see what I'm going to do. I'm going to go there, take one look at the programme, and decide whether or not I belong there. But then I'll figure, "hell, it's just the orientation. They usually don't say much about the organisation anyway." So I'll sit through three days of what may or may not be a crummy time, go home and sleep, come for the next meeting, and then decide whether or not I belong there.

And right now I'm just being very negative. Can't help it. I'm just pissed.

I hate camps. Unless of course I get to loaf around with a superior air and do whatever the hell I want. Even so, they just come with... A lot of problems. For me, specifically.

One. I need to shower. I have sensitive skin. Sweat and dirt and not showering makes me itch like hell. Sometimes waking up sweaty in the morning is enough to make me so irritated that I would gladly take the chance to brutally murder a few cute hamsters. With a chainsaw. With little chainsaws on them. The only thing I can do to help myself is taking depressant pills. Which generally have the effect of making me feel nice and cozy until the effects wear off.

After which I'd have to deal with that horrible, sore feeling all over my neck and wherever else was affected.

So they'd better effin' let me shower.

Also let's not forget my food allergies. I can't eat a bunch of stuff. Namely shellfish and other various kinds of seafoods. Plus some random plants and sauces and whatever. In my previous camps, this wasn't too much of a problem because we could go out of the school to get food. If they're going to buy horrible, essence-of-plastic-esque bulk consumption material...

Well let's just say that I won't be very happy.

Also another part of camps that generally sucks is the lack of sleep. I'm not like other people, who can sleep for four hours and appear the next day looking amazing as ever. There are only two states that I ever feel good in: When I'm wide awake and fresh, or when I'm so tired that everything feels nice and warm and inviting to sleep in. Anything in between(like the kind of lethargy you get on a hot day) just sucks. A lot.

Also have I mentioned that how high up I am in the hierarchy contributes a lot to how much I can enjoy a camp? It's just bullshit when people make me do stuff that I don't want to. So when I'm in that position of power I let people do stuff that they want to. Unless of course they're idiots and the things they happen to be doing are worthy of a village idiot. At which I pull out my awesome trump card which is that "I'm better than you".

The awesome trump card that I no longer have. Awesome.

So anyway, rant. Rant rant rant.

This is just bullshit. I'm saying it here: If it turns out that it's actually astrology rather than astronomy, I'm just... Going through poly without a CCA. Serious.

Either that or I'll start my own club. And force them to rename their club.

And since I didn't post a picture last entry, here's a video:

-Joe

You know, I miss having a school uniform. When I still wore a school uniform, it was considered special when I got to wear... Not a uniform. It was special even when I wore something that was still considered a school garment, but not the common school uniform. Not wearing a uniform meant something. It meant a day of fun, relaxation. It meant that I wasn't about to sit at a very dirty desk and listen to a teacher talk.

Not that lessons were bad. I loved lessons back then. It's just that... Uniforms. They're cool and all, but they also have that air of formality about them. It was also interesting to observe people and the ways they tried to make their uniform... Not uniform. People actually had to try in order to look different and have something extra that can be identified with.

Not anymore, though. Not for me. Believe it or not, I'd rather wear a cardboard-grey JC uniform than jeans and a T-shirt every day. Monday. Jeans and T-shirt. Tuesday. Jeans and T-shirt. Wednesday. Jeans and T-shirt. Yeah, you get the picture. The shirt may change, but in the end, it's still a uniform. I still wear the same things every day.

But the thing about this new uniform, is that it doesn't come with the benefits that the old one did. During the PAE period, old uniforms were great for identifying people from afar. The distinctive green of Ang Mo Kio Secondary, the very-obvious pinafores from... Wherever. All that stuff. Also wearing my old uniform made me realise how much more I like it than any other school's uniform. I remember commenting rather crudely "Jeez, what kind of an idiot would make his students wear that?" And I actually still hold that opinion. White shirt and dark pants is the best combo ever.

So yeah. My new uniform. What am I going to wear on an outing? T-shirt and jeans? Wow. Awesome. It's exactly like wearing your school uniform to a movie, or to a dinner. I don't think I'm ready to spend any money on more...Formal clothing just yet.

On the other hand, lab coats are seriously the coolest things ever. They're way up there together with Neo's trenchcoat and a Darth Vader costume. And I quote from Zoidberg, "Just because I say I'm a doctor, it doesn't mean I'm a doctor. The fancy clothes do!" Yeah. Fancy clothes. Lab coats. They're awesome. I totally look forward to wearing them on a daily basis... Eventually.

Just sad that we only have practicals once a week. Oh well.

Hm and it turns out that I can't connect my laptop to my printer. Because it only works for XP and below. Have you heard about the thingy where people are petitioning for Microsoft to keep selling XP until 2010? Yeah their reasoning is basically that Vista sucks. And I actually agree with them. Vista is really just XP with a sleeker interface, more useless, resource-eating animations, and less compatability to today's(and yesterday's) software. Unless people start developing their software to be compatible with Vista in droves, Vista will remain as the fancy OS for people who hardly use their computers.

Also I should probably get back to my microbiology report. At least my lab partner volunteered to do something this time. I guess she didn't feel that good when I said "Hey, do this" last week.

Also, there's been this whole thing where the school has been trying to get me to take part in that NYAA thing. National Youth Achievement Award. Supposedly, I'm one of their students viable enough to win that Lee Kuan Yew award, but I need a good CCA record in order to be eligible for it. The entire concept of the NYAA is rather... Well, let's just say that it's not really my type of thing.

Community service. That's one of the big aspects of the programme. Even though I'm pretty much free to choose whatever type of service I want to do, I am still faced with an issue: I can't think of anything that I'd like to do, that would benefit the community. I would very much like to NEUTER all of them. That probably would benefit the community, but that probably won't go down very well with those people who'll be reviewing my journal.

"Today, I hunted people down with a morphine-filled dart gun and a pair of sharpened garden shears. I managed to get four people. I'm not sure if I stapled the third one up properly... There was still some bleeding when I left the site..."

Yeah. Brilliant.

I'm SURE they want to read that, and award me for "Effort in helping the human race".

Either way, I think the question for me is... Do I want that award badly enough? I mean, sure, it'd be cool to shake hands with the president at the end of these three years, but that would also mean that I'd have to do a bunch of extra stuff along the way. Most people who've known me for any more than a couple of years would know that I am not the type to go out of my way to help the community... Unless it involves something that I can take out my sadistic urges on. Also, I would have a bunch less time to play all those cool next-gen games coming out later this year and beyond.

Do you think that "hunting rabid bears" is a valid community service project?

"Day 24 of bear hunt:
Apparently, that "bear" that I captured and disposed of was not actually a hideously mutated member of the Ursidae family, but actually a childhood acquantaince whom I hated very much and would just have loved to kill painfully under the pretence that he was in fact, a bear."

Also, shit. Using my laptop PC. No picture.

-Joe

Rant. Rant rant rant rant rant.

So, today my family went for lunch at some place at Millennia Walk, that goes by the name of The Mushroom Pot. Fittingly, just about all of the dishes had that lovable fungi in them. Now, I'm not the biggest fan of eating large saprophytic organisms. Especially since they all have the texture of rubber.

Mushrooms are basically edible plastic. If you wiki "edible plastic" you'll get mushrooms. They could be edible rubber, since they're more rubbery and squishy than any kind of plastic that I've come across. So, anyway. Why mushrooms? I don't like them.

Mushrooms. Fine. I can tolerate those things. But why do the chicken, beef, and even fish feel exactly like rubber when I chew on them? The Mushroom Pot serves good mushrooms, apparently. Their mushrooms are so good, that their customers want the other foods to be as mushroomy as possible. So they get rubber-grade chicken slices, elastic beef-gum, and fish chews.

Fish chews.

The Japanese love fish, right? So maybe if someone were to create an actual fish-flavoured gum...

The best dish there is really the braised tofu. Because it didn't feel like rubber.

Okay. So then I got home, and did some final touching-up of my lab report. That went fine, I guess. But what did not go fine was the Course Management System online, totally not being co-operative. The damn thing kept booting me out under the pretext of "your session has expired" after I'd been logged in for a mere fifteen seconds. Sometimes, the moment the page loaded after the login, it displayed that infernal message.

Your session has expired. Please log in again.

Okay seriously. All I wanted to do was check if I had a self-directed lesson for Microbiology tomorrow. It turns out that I DO have one(after uh, twenty-four tries or so). And since it's self-directed, there's also an online quiz I need to take.

Which I could not, because my session kept expiring. Apparently.

So yeah. Bugger.

Also I was just browsing an internet forum(I don't even know why I still go to that one...) and I stumbled upon a very, very annoying topic. And seeing as that this topic was very annoying, I inevitably got annoyed.

It had a bunch to do about elephant hunting. Yadda yadda yadda. I can't be bothered to order a proper argument about this.

If you've been around me for a while, chances are that you'd have heard me talk about something related to animals becoming intelligent. I've always enjoyed entertaining the idea of chimpanzees learning to fashion throwing spears and perform trigonometry to bring down their target. Chimps are smart animals. They already show the ability to make tools for various purposes, and have been observed to use a kind of actual language(search up the scientific definition of a language).

So, being me, I would inevitably chance upon the topic of animals becoming smart enough to be another conscious, intelligent lifeform on this planet, along with human beings. Not that humans are that smart anyway. Would they be a threat to human society? Or will they be able to coexist peacefully with us?

Naturally, I looked at the first option. There would be a kind of war between species, which would probably end with us winning. Throwing spears versus that new automatic shotgun? Not a chance. But that's not the point. The point is that assuming that we can somehow speak to these monkeys, there will be some kind of negotiation going on. Yeah and they'll have all their reasons on why they're killing us and such.

Okay, here's a quote from the thread:

"Lol I had to laugh at keeping the elephant population in check. What if elephants obtained guns and the intelligence to use them, and they shot a huge amount of humans, and their reason was:

"What? The human population is over 6 billion! We need to keep their population in check!""

-Some idiot

If elephants really somehow did that, they would already be considered a threat to the human race, and would thus be exterminated without further question. Along with you and the rest of your tree-hugging vegan friends.

Brains, people. They're there for a reason. Someday I'll invent a machine that can extract the brains out of people who don't use them, and somehow integrate them into a kind of super brain. Then I would play chess against it.

-Joe

Helium.

Yes. So I was walking around today at the CCA carnival thing, and noticed that the symphonic band was giving out helium-filled balloons. Shaun(who seems to have developed some kind of balloon-fetish) had to go get one. So he did. Eventually, I got my hands on a stray balloon, too.

Okay, everyone knows what happens when you try to speak through helium, but have they actually seen it in person? No, not a lot of people have enough free time or easy access to helium. Now that I had a balloon full of helium, dangling from a string, I couldn't help but try it out myself.

So then, after German(Kinder Beuno is Italian?!?!), while waiting for the lift, I untied the knot on the balloon, and took a deep breath.

The effect wasn't quite what I'd imagined. It didn't make my voice go high or anything. Instead, I got a very short-lived, thin, nasal tone. My voice did become noticeably higher pitched, but it got to maybe the contra-alto range or so... No squeakiness for me.

That didn't stop it from being funny, though, as I tried to sing a note with helium in my lungs. I want to try it again sometime. It didn't last any longer than one breath, though. And it also seemed to be a much shorter breath than usual.

Oh, where will I find more helium.

Now, I think it's actually a little dangerous. When my lungs were full of helium, my fingers started becoming a little numb, and I got slightly dizzy. I would guess those were due to me having a lack of oxygen...

But the fact that helium is less dense than regular air also gave it the property of escaping my lungs naturally and easily. Shouldn't have to worry about suffocation. It's really the sulphur hexaflouride gas that I need to worry about. You know, anti-helium. It's dense and stays inside.

It's been at least 10 days since I've last had a good and proper gaming session. I haven't had a climatic battle on a tiberium infested earth, or blasted mutated splicers in the underwater city of Rapture. I need to spend some time sneaking around a Korean warship and stopping World War III.

And yeah, maybe the projects are the reason some people say that poly is as tough as JC. But seriously, these projects are... Slightly irrelevant? I mean, come on, a STORY? Could a chemistry project get any less... Chemicallish? Ugh.

Also, I had some people try to explain to me why evolution was absurd, as compared to religion. Normally, I probably would've coldly and forcefully explained the actual mechanics of natural selection, but I just didn't have the heart to bite their heads off. They were just so... You know, innocently believing and trusting. It's hard to be mean to people like that.

-Joe

And also, as the great A.Low once said, if you're bored or anything, just do some maths. Do some maths.

I'm halfway through tutorial 3.

It's only been 3 days in and I'm already looking forward to the weekend. You would, too, if you got homework on the first day, and were subsequently informed that you need to do another 3 projects or so, simultaneously.

Also, let's not forget how they all involve something totally unrelated to anything that I actually want to do. Such as creating a website. Or writing a story that includes some kind of chemical reaction. Seriously, what the hell? I thought I was here to become a scientist, not write boring, cliché stories about how one day, I discovered that nitrogen was actually a gas, and when cooled to a liquid form, could do really wicked things when sprayed at people. Preferably after the subject has accidentally pushed a button which sets off an elaborate domino system, cumulating in the tank of liquid nitrogen falling in front of him and starting to spray the icy cold substance all over him.

Also I'm feeling tired in the afternoon. Around 2pm, I'm already ready to have a nap. Urgh. I've been out of this for too long. It's unbelievable. I've already started to make lists of stuff I have to do.

Buy Communications Skills 1, because I the lady gave me Com Skills 2 instead.

Get a pen refill because I lost my pencil case, and the refill that was in it

Print fourteen tonnes of lecture notes(which I have already read through), tutorials(which I can easily complete even up to week 8 ones).

Complete an online maths quiz that keeps telling me that "my session has expired" 30 seconds into the test

Read microbiology notes, and find that there are what appear to be inconsistencies in microscopy information

Read physical chem lecture notes, and note how I need to replace the batteries of my calculator for this

Remember to email my mentor to correct a very significant mistake in my previous message

Start reading... Other people's lecture notes. What I have is simply not enough!

Review and edit my microbiology lab report, and fret about how it is simply not good enough, while wishing that my lab partner would participate more actively and not make me resort to simply making her do the sketches.

Am I putting too much pressure on myself? No, I think not. I'm going to need to get used to all this as soon as I can, so that I can perform at my optimum... Condition. Assuming that I don't give up halfway and say "F*** it!".

How awesome. Even Communications Skills has a project for me. I have to do a report on... Any topic I wish. It's likely going to be a kind of social survey. I've already got a couple of ideas down, and a sort of vague procedure forming in my head... But I don't know if my group members(I don't know which humans I will get yet) will be receptive of them. One of them has got to do with egalitarianism.

Also I had some really brilliant idea a while ago. I just forgot it.

-Joe

Oh, and cool. I finally managed to hit the "submit" button for the maths quiz without the window closing on me. Full marks. I would seriously kill something live and innocent if I found out that I can't do maths anymore.

Wow. It's difficult to realise how crummy a situation is until you experience something better. People in my class. I guess you can call it a normal class.

An average, uninteresting, borderline-3-digit-IQ class. That's what "normal" means. And naturally, a normal class consists of a bunch of normal people, who vary on a kind of normal scale, which is normally, very normal. It is so predictable, that I call myself a fool for not having thought of it before coming here.

There will always be a quiet ones. There will always be the antisocial ones. There will always be the overly enthusiastic ones. And there will also always be the idiots who just can't shut up.

This rant is directed mainly to the ones who are in serious need of some kind of crippling of their verbal apparatus. When a teacher writes an effin' SIMPLE function on the board, with an exceedingly simple input variable, you do not shout out the answer like it's the most amazing thing in the world. And you absolutely do not act like you've finally disproved Einstein's Theory of Relativity. It is NOT a great feat to add negative 15 and 7. The answer is negative 8. End of story. Move along.

When the chemistry lab teacher is talking about how to deal with chemical spills, you do not interject "NEUTRALISE!!!!!11111oneoneeleven" when he's referring to acid/alkali spills. It's not rocket science, people. There are nine year old kids out there who already understand the concept of neutralisation. Knowing it doesn't make you smart. Shouting it out retardedly doesn't make you look smart, either.

Or maybe it does, to... normal people.

Seriously. Shut up. Stop talking, and you'll do everyone a favour.

Light travels faster than sound, so most people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Honestly.

In any case, I shan't worry about them. I've got a report to do. And I am going to own it.
/sinister smile
-Joe

Alas, I have discovered the reason behind the donutless-ness of Breadtalk.

As it appears, they have acquired their own specialist donut franchise by the name of J.Co Coffee & Donuts. Coffee and donuts. I seem to remember using that phrase multiple times on one occasion some years ago.

Why it took me so long to discover this(the acquiring was done last year, December 17th), is probably very likely due to the fact that I hardly ever walk around that part of the city. Usually I just head straight for the Esplanade library or go hang out at Cathay or Borders.

So today, having had to go buy flowers for our Rachel, we had to walk... Somewhere. Somewhere that I can't even remember the name of. It wasn't an obscure place or anything, it's just that I don't think I've been there in the past couple of years. Anyway, as we set foot on the floor, off the inclined conveyor belt, I mean, escalator, I detected a lovely fragrance...

Detected would actually have been an understatement. More appropriately, I was hit right in the face by this sweet, delicious aroma of... You guessed it: Donuts. Naturally, I was inclined to believe that donuts still existed at Breadtalk(which was prominently displaying itself over to the right), so Hongjie and I abandoned the rest of them in search of donuts. After which, the helpful NPC at Breadtalk kindly informed us that donuts were now available at J.Co. Brilliant.

The queue was rather long, so we passed on donuts, deciding to come back after the concert. And so we did. And we decided to buy a good dozen. If I recall correctly... Three mint chocolate donuts, two chocolates, a double chocolate, a couple of tiramisus, two oreo thingies, and two chocolate donuts with coffee cream inside. We didn't bother with the sugar donuts. I didn't suggest them because like all other donut specialists, they used powdered sugar rather than granular sugar.

Curses.

But oh well. I guess I'll just have to accept that there will not be any more granular sugar donuts, ever. Even so, I think I'll have to simply forget about that. Because the other donuts are just awesome. Especially mint chocolate. And double chocolate. And chocolate. Chocolate....Mmm...

So I ate donuts for dinner. And I think I forgot to pay for my share. Whoops. Next time, guys, next time.

I think I've grown an addiction to chocolate. I'll be buying Milky Bars next.

The NJC choir concert itself... Well, let's just say that I'm sure it would have taken up the majority of this post if it weren't for those lovely ringed distractions.

The only other choir performance I've ever been to was one by Montfort Chorale. And there's just something about an only tenor & base choir that just doesn't cut it(sorry, guys). However, a full choir, made possible by girls not having too much of that cursed chemical, testosterone, produces a wide range of effects and harmonies which really do make a lot of difference. All in all, a nice performance. I enjoyed it. Voices are the other beautiful part of music that I have not explored much, having only played in instrumental... Organisations. I think I'm looking forward to AJ's chorale... Hopefully I'll be able to afford it by then.

Random picture.

-Joe

No!

Curse the third dimension! If the third dimension didn't exist, there would have been no way that I could have lost my pencil case today! If the third dimension didn't exist, my items wouldn't have to be in more than one place.

On the bright side, my favorite pen happened to be in my hand the whole time, so I still have it.

Also, Shaun has so kindly done a bit of reading for me and has now informed me that my new laptop does not in fact have a higher-grade video card than my desktop. Apparently, the 8000 series is simply called the 8000 series because it was made after the 7000 series. Instead of improving on current technology, nVidia made the 8000 series to be compatible with Direct X 10.0. So, while newer, the 8000 series is not actually any better than the 7000 series.

Which would explain a bloody lot.


And believe it or not, I already have homework. That's right. I have homework before I start school. The entire concept of e-learning seems to be just a way to get homework to students faster. Microbiology. Why. Why microbiology?

Microbiology, honestly, isn't one of my favourite topics. It's about bacteria(which are cool), viruses(which are also sorta cool), and fungi(which are only cool if they can release deadly spores) and all the uncool things about them. Such as how to produce them in large numbers. In big, metal tanks with many moving parts and a very industrial feel about them.

Why is penicillin even relevant today? Penicillin can't even treat the common cold anymore, thanks to the influenza virus's ability to mutate so quickly. The penicillin you get from your doctor(do they even use that anymore?) is very, very different from the penicillin that people used fifty years ago. Also, "penicillin" is a real bugger to type out.

Okay. Well, I seem to have run out of things to say. Other than that for no reason at all, I've been feeling tired all day, even when I get something like 12 hours of sleep. I've also been eating at odd hours, and then finding myself hungry at the wrong times.

Also I've been wishing for someone to make an instrumental composition/arrangement featuring the Sweeney Todd songs. I mean, it has to happen eventually! It may have taken a while for Phantom of the Opera to get turned into multiple orchestra scores, but it did happen. Also there were compositions for the individual songs, scores for pianos and string quartets. Is Andrew Lloyd Weber even still alive?

Oh, and I just realised something. The word "molestation" is really "mole" and "station".


-Joe

I have news.

I am currently posting from my new laptop PC, a dv6700 from HP. Not having used a laptop since I was twelve, this is feeling all rather strange. For one, the keyboard is smaller and the keys themselves feel much softer. The way they're packed closer to each other is something of an issue here, since I need to adjust my fingers slightly less now in order to touch-type. Also, I'm having some issues hitting the apostrophe key. I tend to move my hand a little too far and hit the enter key instead.

Also, the screen, unlike my desktop monitor, is a widescreen display. That means that everything I see is pretty much wider and flatter. No more tall windows on this computer. Plus, the screen sort of shines, which isn't the best thing in the world. It looks really cool and all when you can see your fingers reflected off the screen, but there's always that issue of glare. Thankfully, adjusting the brightness settings remedied this problem. Somewhat, anyway.

The good news is that I now have a laptop PC that has more RAM and a better video card than my desktop PC. The processor has a lower speed(2.4 =GHz to 3.0GHz), but that is to be expected from portable electronics. Also, it is worth noting that unlike my desktop PC, this laptop uses multi-core processing, so it can be said that the lower speed value is made up for by the increased efficiency and multi-tasking capabilities.

The bad news is that my parents are suggesting that I bring my desktop PC downstairs to replace the family computer. Apparently, their reasoning being that since I already have quite a high-end laptop, I don't need a desktop.

This is sad news for me. I don't want to let my desktop go. I like that computer, even though it gave me so much trouble in the past. I like the monitor, which is a classic squarish design(4:3) and thus is perfect for games. No one plays games in widescreen format. Ever. I like how my CPU has 5 USB ports in the back, and two in the front. That allowed me to connect multiple devices and not worry about not having enough slots.

But mainly I just don't want to see my monitor go to waste. How am I supposed to achieve world domination on this laptop screen? It's just wrong. I tried to come up with a solution for this, remembering what Shaun once did with his own laptop: He connected his desktop monitor to the laptop PC.

So I tried that. However, I was faced with two problems. The first one was that the widescreen display wouldn't show up properly on my desktop monitor. But that could have probably been easily remedied if I hadn't given up after realising the second problem.

I still had to use the keyboard on the laptop. That meant that I still needed the laptop to be open. And that meant that if I were to use my desktop monitor for my laptop PC, it would look like some kind of coked-out version of the Nintendo DS. The HP-Compaq DS. Okay I suppose there is a way to turn off the monitor display on my laptop(in fact, I'm pretty sure there is one), but it just doesn't feel right. The only way it's going to feel even remotely normal is if I can just replace my desktop CPU with the laptop's, and keep all other peripherals.

Maybe I will try that later. That is, if I can deal with the issue of having my laptop open while I use my old keyboard and such... Maybe I can set my laptop not to go into standby when I close its cover, connect up my keyboard, mouse, and monitor, then completely leave my old CPU alone.

But for now, I'm going to find out the extent of this laptop's abilities using the best methods known to man...

Video games.

Also, crud. All the pictures are on my desktop PC.

-Joe

EDIT: As it turns out, this laptop, is not capable of handling C&C3: Kane's Wrath, at maximum capacity. Looks like I can't play on this laptop unless I'm willing to see plain, untextured landscapes and unglowing tiberium fields. This is so very sad.

And it seems like it's all because of the processor. Even with a newer, more updated video card, and twice the RAM of my desktop PC, C&C3 still lags when I try to play on mid-high detail.

Gah.

People, I have come up with a master plan... To destroy the Earth! Again!

No, seriously. I've come up with a way to turn Earth into... Not Earth. When I am bored and idle, I am generally thinking of something that falls into one or more of these three categories: Video games, lightsaber battles, and the destruction of the human race. Ironic that this usually occurs when I'm in church.

Most methods of destroying a planet involve either 1) Hitting it very a very large object(like a rock) 2) Smashing it up(into little rocks). While these are all fine, workable(theoretically) ideas, there are several other more... Exotic...methods which one could use to eliminate this rock from the universe.

Do you think, perhaps, that one day we might be able to build a massive converging lens and place it in outer space? The entire point of this lens(which is going to measure roughly the diameter of the Earth itself) is to focus energy from the sun into a single point... Somewhere. For some reason.

Most probably destroying whatever the beam is focused on. Just like the Death Star from Star Wars, but without the weakness of a two metre wide exhaust shaft which a jedi could fire a couple of proton torpedos into.

When the sun's light is focused upon a planet(like Earth, for example), a few things will happen very quickly. Firstly, the area under the beam of light would instantly ignite. The soil would literally explode, melting and reacting to form compounds that would normally take billions of years to appear naturally. About one tenth of a second later, the air in the immediate region would be heated beyond imagination, and soon the entire atmosphere would ignite, turning the earth into a flaming ball of sheer awesome.

All life on the planet would be incinerated very quickly. The very mountains would melt, and the oceans would evaporate. If we're "lucky" we would still have an atmosphere. Of superheated plasma, that is. The earth would probably become rounder than it has ever been.

Okay, just think about it. Only about one billionth of the sun's energy reaches earth. If there was a way to tap into one percent of the sun's total output, we would never have to worry about energy shortages again.

Especially if that one percent was used to incinerate everyone on the planet.

Alternatively we could just blow the earth up. But that isn't as easy as it sounds. Because the earth is something like 6000000000000000000000000 kilograms of rock and other stuff. Even if we put our entire nuclear arsenal into the centre of the earth and blew them up all at once, nothing would happen. Even if we somehow inserted a nuclear warhead in a lattice pattern throughout the earth, using all the nuclear warheads on this planet, we wouldn't do anything other than create a mild instability.

This earth has survived much, much more than what humans have thrown at it. Think about it: This planet has been abused by countless meteors and asteroids the size of Africa being thrown at its surface. It has endured about that many solar flares and magnetic pole swaps, and whatever else goes on in planetary bodies.

More likely, we're going to need to use a more innovative method of destroying the planet. There's been talk of self-replicating nanobots being able to eat up just about anything, and turn them into more nanobots. True, you could possibly turn the entire planet into a mass of nanobots, but what then? You've still got an entire planet, of nanobots! Unless you give them some sort of mechanism to eject into space after the entire process is done, you've still got a big object with sufficient mass to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium(become round due to its own gravity), is in orbit around the sun, and doesn't have anything blocking it in its orbit. Thus, it is still a planet. It is still earth, just that it's grey and gooey and converts anything that steps onto it into more of its mass...

Sounds like some kind of devouring planet from a book that I read a long time ago...

So here's the plan. We somehow manufacture a large amount of antimatter. We don't need the entire earth's mass of antimatter. Rather, we just need a small fraction. Enough so that annihilation with the earth's mass would produce a blast about 5000 times stronger(just an estimate) than all the bombs that ever existed on earth. Given that antimatter annihilation is something like the most efficient conversion of matter into energy known to man, the actual number would be tiny in comparison to the mass of the earth.

But would still take an ass-long time to create, and it would be a real hassle to keep all your antimatter floating in a massive cannister, never touching the air, the floor, or anything that isn't antimatter, for that matter. Pun intended.

Also, there would be the trouble, as always, of watching the earth turn into our solar system's second asteroid belt. Generally you die when your planet blows up.



The reason why that's funny lies in the wording. Of hitting something.
-Joe

Well. That was it. My ten days of not having my parents around. They're about to end in an hour or two.

Pity. I was rather enjoying myself. It's really cool, to be able to sit in the living room and have a cup of iced milo without anyone around to bother me. Also, I would get to occupy just about anywhere in the house. And I didn't have to check my hair in the mirror after my showers. Also I could stretch out on the couch and not worry about taking up space that other people might want to use. Plus I could read the papers at my own leisure, lounge around and be as messy as I liked, and make those awesome domino thingies all over the place!

Okay I only tried to do that last one. I wasn't very patient, so it didn't go very far. Also I didn't have enough dominos to create any real effect.

I must buy more dominos. In fact, everyone go buy a bunch of dominos. Then we can have a great domino party one day, somewhere. I'm already drawing up a mental sketch of what it's going to look like...


Anyway, life as I know it will be different. I visited Breadtalk again today, and they were still void of donuts. It was as if the god of donuts himself took a vacation. Gah. This is sad.

Aaaanyway, I'm going to wake up tomorrow and find my parents at home. Or I'm going to meet them soon before I go to sleep. Hm.

Also I seem to be having writer's block again. So I'll just give everyone another Greek myth.

The Story of Oedipus

Laius, the King of Thebes, is distressed over his lack of a

child. He consults the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, which informs

him that any child born to his wife, Jocaste, shall become his

murderer.

Nevertheless, a boy is born to the couple. Laius takes the

baby, pierces his feet and binds them together, and exposes him

on a mountainside. A shepherd finds the baby, names him

Oedipus (“swollen-foot”), and takes him to Corinth and King

Polybus and Queen Merope who, childless themselves, adopt

the infant as their own.

As a young man, Oedipus is taunted for not looking like

his parents (Polybus and Merope). Unsatisfied by their

assurances, he goes to Delphi to find the truth. “Away from this

holy place, you wretch!” cries the priestess. “You will kill your

father and marry your mother!”

To avoid this horrible fate, Oedipus leaves immediately in

the opposite direction from Corinth. On the way he meets a

man in a chariot on a narrow road. They argue, and Oedipus

kills the man. Approaching Thebes, Oedipus meets the Sphinx:

a monster with a woman’s head, a lion’s body, a serpent’s tail,

and an eagle’s wings. The Sphinx is plaguing Thebes at the

request of Hera, in revenge for a crime of Laius’s. She asks any

passer-by her riddle, and a wrong answer means the unlucky

passer-by becomes lunch. Her riddle: “What being, with only

one voice, has sometimes two feet, sometimes three, sometimes

four, and is weakest when it has the most?” Oedipus answers

correctly; the Sphinx throws herself off a cliff. The Thebans

gratefully proclaim Oedipus king; he marries Jocaste, and rules

happily for many years, raising a family of four children.

A plague descends on Thebes. Asked for advice, the

Delphic oracle says, “Expel the murderer of Laius!” Oedipus

pronounces a curse on the murderer, and promises to banish

him as soon as he is found. From the prophet Tiresias and

others he soon finds the truth. Jocaste hangs herself; Oedipus

puts his eyes out and is sent into exile.

-Joe

Previously, I have ranted about people using powdered sugar(frosting sugar) for sugar donuts. I basically said that the powdery sugar might as well be flour, because it's basically tasteless and horrible. It melts in your mouth so quickly, and you can't get that lovely crunch out of it, like from granular sugar.

Breadtalk gave their sugar donuts sprinklings of granular sugar, which I loved so very much. They only cost a dollar, and they had a much nicer sweetness than any donut with powdered sugar. Basically, Breadtalk donuts were the king of all sugar donuts.

While irrelevant to the point of granular versus powdered sugar, Breadtalk white chocolate and regular chocolate donuts were also simply sublime. I would usually get a sugar donut together with a white chocolate twisted donut.

Today, however, I visited the Breadtalk at AMK hub, looking for some nice donuts. However, there were none! Like what? I checked both outlets in the building, and neither one had those lovely rings of bread. Why? WHY.

Could it simply be that they have yet to fry the donuts for the day? No! It was past eleven in the morning. Surely their donuts would be ready by now! There were a few empty trays with the labels on them, but I seriously doubt that they were donut trays. There were... Fragments... Of other types of bread. There were no sugar granules scattered around, or chips of sweet, sweet chocolate anywhere.

I could only come to one conclusion... The Breadtalks at AMK hub have stopped selling donuts. And in a worst case scenario, Breadtalk in general has stopped selling donuts. That would mean the apocalypse! It's blasphemy! I refuse to accept that Breadtalk has stopped selling donuts until I visit every last one in Singapore. They must have donuts.

DONUTS.

I refuse to go to other donut outlets! These so called "specialist" donut shops, in fact, SUCK. They ALL use powdered sugar for their sugar donuts. It's only sugar donuts, there are still other types, you say. But what good is a donut shop when the first, most awesome donut, the genesis and protos of all donuts, sucks?

Also, these "specialist" donut shops all sell their donuts for amazingly large prices, and for smaller rings! I don't care if their dough is denser. It makes the donuts feel horrible and sludgy in the mouth. I don't want to feel dehydrated every time I take a bite out of a donut. I want those nice, clean, simple sugar donuts from Breadtalk.

GAH.

Donuts. What would the world be without them? Donuts, hamster balls, aerosol cans and the rest of them... I really hope I'm overreacting here. Because if not, I'm going to really have to learn how to make my own donuts. And use granular sugar.

Also they'd better still be making the white chocolate twisted donuts. Those are simply amazing.

Anyway, donut troubles aside, I did a variety of other things these few days. Some of which involved steeling myself to face those people next Monday. Also trying not to think about it at other moments by distracting myself with various activities. Such as collecting my O' Level certificate. Honestly, though, that thing is quite a disappointment.

It looks bland and square. It's basically my result slip, on a bigger piece of paper. With a huge text at the bottom saying "CLB is not an O' Level subject". Yeah, I know. Don't have to rub it in. Not that I care that much, I guess...

Still, it doesn't seem very nice. I figured that it would have my name on it saying that I passed a national exam with alright grades. In some nice, curly font, perhaps. Oh well. I guess it's not very efficient to print nice fonts for everyone in Singapore.

Also I've been thinking of getting a T-shirt that exemplifies my cubing enthusiasm.

In any case, tomorrow, the 7th of April, turns out to be the only actual day that I have the house to myself. Finally, I get to be at home, alone, without my brother or my parents around. Also, it's good that I happen not to have anywhere to go to(which happened the last few days I got the house to myself). Unfortunately, it's also the only day that I'll get this... Well, in what seems to be a very long time.

Oh well. I'll celebrate with frozen pizza. Who doesn't love frozen pizza?

Okay, putting this picture up because I said I would a few days earlier... Because seriously, the French were conquered I think, twice?


Although we still love them for their artsy-ness and such.

Random picture?




-Joe

I am disappointed, bored, and ticked off all at once.

Orientation was overwhelmingly underwhelming. They might as well have just done without it and started lessons immediately. It was just so slow moving and the activities were those done to death types. I even had time to cube. Seriously.

Also, the people don't make up for the lack of stuff... Most of the people in my class are really just not great thinkers. Their knowledge isn't very impressive, and they seem to lack simple logic.

Here, I'll give you an example. One of the activities involved answering a series of "riddles". One of the "riddles" went something like this:

There is a photo that I am looking at. The father of the person in the photo, is the son of my father. Who is the person in the photo? Also, I don't have any brothers or sisters.

Now, take a couple of minutes to imagine that. Draw a simple diagram out in your mind, or on paper. Whichever.

And the answer is... Obviously, your own child! Seriously. It's not hard at all. And yet people(expectedly) answered "yourself" without thinking it through at all. Dimwits.

Also, during a rather impromptu performance that each class was supposed to set up, my genius class chose someone who had horrible speaking skills to narrate. And so he went up there and stuttered his way through the... Commentary. It was just, so painful.

I am not happy. I am not optimistic. I'm afraid that I will never really click with anyone in my class. They're all a bunch of simple, ordinary people. People who could never hold a discussion about why we should implement a eugenics program. People who don't have a clue what String Theory has anything to do with. People who can't appreciate the complexity and beauty of the human mind.

No. They don't see anything beyond their own lives, their own work. More than half of them wouldn't even be able to tell me the letters used to represent nucleotides. The ones that could would feel really good about themselves, as if it were a very difficult task which they completed.

This is just wrong. People who study GENES and CELLS need real logic and intellect. I thought that when I got into this course, I would meet a bunch of other enthusiastic students with their own eugenics programs and expansive knowledge about cell biology and genetics. I mean, the course is called "molecular biotechnology". When I thought of this, I envisioned pristine labs, white lab coats, and the brightest minds conducting experiments on cells. Or at least, discussing the implications of genetic engineering and the dangers and benefits of mutation.

But no. I was a fool to have even entertained this thought. Apparently, any idiot can get into Molecular Biotechnology. People who don't even want to become scientists can make their way into this course, no problem at all. I thought people who went to polytechnics were the ones who were clear about what they wanted to do. I thought they would be ambitious, and looking forward to being able to specialise in their favourite field. Again, I was getting my hopes up too high.

So, now I'm here. Three years. Awesome.

Also, for no apparent reason, the system for selecting my elective module opens at 12 midnight. Tonight. Or tomorrow. Whichever. Anyway, the point is that it works on a first come, first serve basis, and there are limited slots. If I want to get into German I'm going to have to stay up tonight just for that.

The thought just thrills me. /Sarcasm.

Disappointed. That describes how I feel pretty well.

Oh, and also...


...

It's only an April Fool's joke. Which is sad, because when I saw that I was like "Damn, I'm totally going to get this soundtrack." The Zelda theme is brilliant.

Sigh.

Twiddle.

-Joe

I really have to stop doing this. I just spent 90 bucks.

89.90, if you want to get technical, but whatever. Omfg. I thus conclude that I am a total sucker for any game in the C&C franchise and also really cool gaming mice. They were selling Kane's Wrath together with an special-edition Razer DeathAdder mouse, in a nice, hot red and a cool glowing look to it. Plus, it comes with a beta key for Red Alert 3. Which I am also, so definitely going to buy.

My new mouse feels great... And you can ramp the sensitivity up so high that your hand barely moves a centimetre in any direction. But that gets a little annoying, so I'm not really using the maximum sensitivity settings on this thing. Though that's not really important when playing RTS. The great thing about this mouse is the way there are two extra buttons at the side, right where your thumb is. You can basically configure them to do just about anything, even perform complicated macros. For now, I'm just using them to go back/forwards on my internet browser.

The other part of the package, Kane's Wrath, is also pretty sweet. Now there are NINE playable factions, comprising of the three original factions, and 2 highly specialised subfactions for each of them. I've already found a personal favourite, the Scrin's Traveller-59. They're basically aliens that own, with speed and manipulation.

The other factions are pretty cool, too. The Black Hand's upgraded blue-flamed flamethrowers are the... Hottest(you can't use "cool" here)... Things. Ever. In the previous C&C games, you could only appreciate the inferno from a bird's eye view. In C&C3, you can zoom all the way in and watch your enemies getting fried. And it's even better now with blue flames!

Also, the return of the cyborgs from C&C2 was a great idea. Only now they seem to be a tad overpowered against GDI tanks, with their EMP cannons and all. And of course, not forgetting the Juggernaut and the Wolverine making a comeback in the Steel Talons faction. Although they look... Fatter and clunkier now, for some reason. Thankfully, their EMP-resistant armour wasn't as gay as I thought it would be. Because the awesome powers of mindcontrol can penetrate even the toughest shells...

Another thing making a comeback is part of the original C&C soundtrack! If anyone hasn't played the very first Tiberium game, you wouldn't understand. It's just something that's really cool for anyone who has followed the series from the beginning.

The loading times seem to be more than twice as long for Kane's Wrath as compared to the original game. I'm not sure why this happens, but it's not much a problem. Though I hope they can shorten the loading times somehow. I don't want to start trying to solve a cube in the time it takes to load again(Like in Hellgate: London and Bioshock).

In any case, it's awesome. I have yet to try out the campaign and the Global Conquest mode, so I'll probably do that later today. After which I'll have to get ready for tomorrow, first day of orientation at NYP. I... Don't really know what to expect. But I'll bring my taser and shurikens just in case.

...Which means my cube is coming along with me. Hah.

I shall unleash my psychic powers upon the masses, turning them into my minions. My army of... Not darkness. More like, procrastination.

In any case, I'll finally be alone tomorrow. My brother will have gone back to camp thingy, which leaves me to do whatever the hell I want.

And you would probably have noticed that my paragraphs are getting shorter and shorter. This, does in fact have something to do with me getting distracted and wanting to play C&C.

-Joe