Category Archives: Life

I’m generally not a fan of anime but I’ll take exception to Redline. It’s a movie that’s best described as visual orgasm and I’m not being vague. In fact, I can’t really make sense of the story either but it’s cyberpunk and is set around a race that the protagonist, JP, wants to win. JP has some semblance of a car that he refuses to mod for an upcoming race that’s on a planet that they’re not supposed to race on. The rulers of the planet, Roboworld hears about this and seeks to destroy them with a mega-powerful, all-comsuming (literally) biological weapon (literally too), creatively called Funky Boy (where do they get their names???). When unleashed, the hideous radioactive monster wrecks havoc and the only way to put him down is to initiate nuclear meltdown. Which they do.

As the planet counts down to doomsday, the race heats up and cumulates in a neck-to-neck finish with his nemesis, Machine Head where the both of them then utilize some special metal-stripping, bone-breaking, face-melting Nitro boost – JP on his car and Machine Head, uhm, he just swallows the Nitro pill. Then of course, all hell breaks loose. Watch the trailer.

Now get this. The trailer actually looks like the movie makes sense and it’s actually kind of boring when you compare it to the movie experience. Redline is produced by Madhouse, the studio responsible for Deathnote (didn’t watch that) and Cardcaptor Sakura (it’s bizarre too) and features voice talents like Takuya Kimura who I know from the Gatsby commercials (he’s more famous than that, yes).

Redline is like an illegitimate love child between a Lady Gaga MTV and Speed Racer who’s been smoking crack his whole life. It will cause epilepsy but it’s like watching a train wreck – you don’t know what to make of it but it’s so entertaining and captivating.

Oh yea, I think there’s a love story somewhere too although that doesn’t quite make sense either. But then again, love isn’t rational right?

After upgrading my Mac OS to Snow Leopard, I discovered that UOB Bank’s eBanking page doesn’t work anymore. It displays the error message “Applet not loaded properly. Please reload the page again.” and regardless of how many Java updates I’ve installed and reinstalled, the page is still dead.

It fails to work on all browsers I’ve tried for the new Mac OSes – Firefox, Opera, Chrome – and doesn’t run either on my MacBook Air which runs on Lion OR my office computer which runs on bland old Windows 7 (Firefox, IE, Chrome ).

I finally got off my ass today to figure out what’s wrong apart from the obvious which is that less people using eBanking means less work for UOB. I found a pretty simple way not to solve the problem but to bypass it.

1. Using the included Safari browser on your Mac, click on Safari > Preferences on your menu bar.
2. Select the Advanced icon and check Show Develop menu in menu bar. What this does is to unlock a menu that allows developers to select different browser options.
3. Click on Develop>User Agent > Safari iPad

iPhone or iPod Touch works too but I prefer iPad just because the screen size is most similar to a monitor’s.

Now reload the page and it works.

I really doubt that no one’s complained to UOB about this and if it works with a bypass, I really doubt if it’s that hard an issue to resolve.

If you know anyone who’s been frustrated by the same issue, send them to this post.

Ok ok ok, trivia time! Guess who?

Hitler.

In a bid to be extra productive despite being pretty much crippled (will revert on the story), I spent the day cleaning out my server space of malware and installing and customizing Team-Uni’s shopfront.

<ADVERT BREAK>

When I was younger, I remember adults talking about how hard it is to keep up with the kids. As an adult, I know for a fact that it’s one thing to keep up with 11-year-olds, it’s another to keep up with 11-year-olds on unicycles.

This is how I’ve been spending – and will be spending – some of my Saturdays.

We’ve always talked about learning freestyle unicycling but our teachers have been limited to YouTube and the void deck cement – pain is a good teacher. We were acquainted very recently with some teachers from the Japanese school who introduced us to their Saturday morning sessions.

Our instructor is this sensible and very skilled primary school student who drills us in various basics. While the local primary schools are deathly afraid that their students would suffer the odd bruise, we’ve noticed that the Japanese seem to forgo kneeguards for increased agility on their unicycles. Tumbles are common but any seasoned unicyclist can tell you that sometimes, it’s precisely your guards that inhibit movement and cause some of the dumbest falls.

My aim eventually is to do this with ease. One of the girls tell us that it took her almost a year to perfect this and another to get to the point where she can pull out a leg in a yoga-esque pose. Naturally, they were all too fast to capture with a phone camera.

We Singaporeans have learnt most of our tricks from YouTube and haven’t much of a foundation to build upon. That’s why drills kill. Each session begins with a few rounds around the hall – forward, backwards, spins, variations of one-foot riding, then sprints. Each session lasts between 2 to 4 hours depending on how long you can go and I find myself struggling through the drills.

Progress comes fast though. Some of the kids whom I’ve seen riding wobbly a month ago are now comfortably riding backwards. I feel that my spins are more regular and controlled but nausea still sets in after a minute (think spinning yourself in a circle for 3. That’s the standard drill).

I should focus on learning to ride backwards properly. Then I’d learn skills in a Switch position (ie. with the other foot as master). Maybe after that I’d be able to get out from the sidelines.

For now though, I’m content with the dull ache in both calves every Sunday.

Over dinner, I overheard (and saw) a dumb incident. At the next table sat this quiet unassuming guy minding his own business and looking at the menu when this overenthusiastic dude came by with his girlfriend.

Overenthusiastic Dude (OD): HEY ARE YOU JAY?

Jay: Ya

OD: HI! I”M JOEL! (Shakes hands)

Jay: Uh hi.

At this point we started to take notice because we don’t like insurance agents. I’d also like to point out that Joel is pronounced “Joe-l”, not “Jo-well” so he’s got a dumb name.

Joel: Can I take a picture with you?

Jay: Uh sure.

Joel: Do you want to do it outside or here?

We were in a restaurant by the way so this comes across as being rude, stupid and – wait- he’s not an insurance agent?

Jay: (in the most unenthusiastic voice ever) Here.

They take a picture.

Joel: Thank you! I saw you in the news!

Jay: Uh yea.

They left and I mused aloud that that was most random and rude. Then we had our dinner and walked out and were talking about how rude and intrusive that was regardless of who that guy is. It went like this -

Me: You wouldn’t even do that to a celebrity and wtf is with the news???

Friend: That guy looks completely regular, how would you even recognize him even if he were somebody?

Me: That guy’s nice at least, I’d have told him to fuck off. It’s a restaurant.

Friend: What important news could it be and why would anyone take note of the news so much?

Me: That’s not important right? In any case it’s stupid.

Friend: No, I mean what kind of news would….. OH.

That’s the kind of blunt “OH” that you’d utter when you finally find out that Peter Parker is Spiderman.

This is the poor guy in question.

I think that it’s a sadder existence being a train otaku otaku.

The toilet at my workplace.

Remember the story of stone soup? This ended up being exactly that.

My old trials unicycle needed a tyre change and I thought I’d change the frame on that as well so I bought a tyre and a new frame. After changing the tyre, I found that I didn’t have a clamp for the frame so I had to look around for a double-bolt one which shops don’t stock. Meanwhile, the cranks on my old uni started to break and I couldn’t ride it anymore.

So I bought a new hubset and I figured since I had to build a wheel, I might as well get the rim changed. And I bought a rim. Of course, as things go, I then realise the tyre I bought to begin with didn’t fit the new rim. So I had to get a new tyre. And after getting the rim painted, I realised next that my hub isn’t the same specs as my rim.

After figuring everything out, I now have a new unicycle and hey, it’s no longer a trials unicycle.