These few days, I have been nodding off in the afternoon; and it isn’t like any normal nap. First, my back starts feeling tired, then the eyelids start to weigh a ton. The kicker in the form of a tired leg makes me get up and lie down on my bed. Within seconds of closing my eyes, the hours sneakily fly by, and before I know it: Welcome to 4pm!
In my opinion, 2 hours is a crazy amount of nap to take. Especially when I had a total of 9 hours of sleep the day before, and absolutely no caffeine addiction to ruin my body clock. Yet I feel absolutely at home in the sweltering heat of… 34 degrees celcius (that’s what my clock tells me) right on my bed, with the fans set on full blast in my face. A nice long bath before flopping down settles me in quickly.
(Oh, and you didn’t read that wrong. My clock has the special ability to tell temperature!)
I get very disturbed when I get up at 4pm, because that is almost the whole of the afternoon spent hiding from the heat. 2 hours of good daytime that I could have used to do some cycling, swimming, or just clearing the backlog of newspaper articles, doing my assignment or just meditating.
Somehow this bad habit started when the monsoon winds started blowing the drier weather from the south-west. I am positive that the earth has something to do with it too. And global warming. Though the drowsiness I feel isn’t as frighteningly deep like those induced by medicine, I was a bit wary when drinking more water did nothing to dispel the grogginess.
My schedule would have to change for now. With the evenings as warm as the peak during mid-day (32.6 in my room right now), I would have to seriously start considering exercising in the early mornings instead. There is no use wasting precious motivation to overcome an additional obstacle, when there is the effort needed to do the run itself.
Or I could try running with an air-conditioner strapped to my back. Wait, where would I hold the compressor?
[tags]hot, sweltering heat, singapore, global warming[/tags]
I don’t like the taste of beer, especially when they are bitter and gassy. If given a chance, I might prefer to add sugar into the yellow concoction before passing it into my mouth. You could convince me to grab a can from the fridge, but I’ll sip it so slowly, it would take the better part of the night to finish just that can.
Well, here’s a guy who spares no effort to make sure that his beer reaches him… cold.
Geek tirade time: here’s one nerdy thing Wordpress authors can use to write their latest expose without logging in to their blogs. Heck, you can even do it straight from your email program!
The good news is, not only can Wordpress do this, Blogger writers can do it too!
Wordpress:
It is a little more complicated for Wordpress users, since you have to do some initial configuration for your blog. In addition to that, you need to have a completely empty and private email address with POP3 access. Chances are, if you have an email address that you check via Outlook, Thunderbird or some other mail application, your email has POP3 access.
Check with your provider to see if he/they can provide you with another account with access. (It may cost you a little bit of money for certain providers) If they can’t, you can search the web for the many free POP3 email providers. I found BlueBottle via a directory, but I can’t vouch for that service since I have not used it before.
When signing up for that new email account, make sure you choose a very obscure alias, like “randomefullofnothing892734234@sgblogging.com” or something like that. This is to make the address hard to guess so that you reduce the chance of having Viagra emails published on your reputable blog. Once you have chosen the address, keep it very secret, and never give it out to anybody else.
Once your POP3 enabled email address is set up, go in to your Wordpress installation, and select “Options” > “Writing”.
Under the header “Post via e-mail”, you can see a few blanks listed:
Enter your POP3 account details into the fields shown, and then select “Update Options”.
Once this is done, Wordpress will start checking that email address every few minutes for any new email that is sent to your email address. Once finds an email, it will take the contents of that email, and paste it right into your blog. All you need to write your new entry, is to enter it into the body of your email, and enter a subject (which will be used for your new post subject), and send it to that email address (randomefullofnothing892734234@sgblogging.com if we follow the example above).
Simple?
Blogger
Blogger is more popular with bloggers. That is why Blogger has a similar feature. The good news is that the entire process is a whole lot simpler.
You just need to pick out a random word/phrase to complete the email address listed above. The completed address will be your secret email address that Blogger will check every few minutes for new email to post to your blog.
From there, send an email from any email address to the completed secret email address. Within a few minutes, your new email is posted onto your blog!
To use it
If your mobile phone contains an email application, you might be able to use it to compose an email. Otherwise, for most newer phones (introduced after 2005), if it has MMS capabilities, you can blog your pictures and sounds by sending the MMS to the secret email address that you have created above. Otherwise, you can also use a Blackberry to send a plain email, or hit the computer terminals at the Internet cafe (we call them LAN shops in Singapore) to send your email from there.
Stuff to look out for
Spammers are always looking out for email address to spam. Be very careful to keep your secret email address private (do not use it to sign up for all kinds of promotions, etc.) to prevent spam emails from being posted onto your blog. You don’t want some organ enlargement advertisements to appear on your blog, do you?
With the ability to write from anywhere (even Blackberries can blog now!) you need to be aware that whatever you write will be published immediately. This is not like in your blogging system where you get to save your rants as draft, and delete them as soon as the anger fit is over. In Singapore, you can get sued senseless (and penniless) if you are not careful. So, think very carefully if you really want to post that angry post.
Otherwise, you are good to go! Enjoy blogging on the go!
The thermometer is threatening to burst from the heat - I have not been that sweaty from a night’s sleep ever since September last year, and all that changed so quickly: the sun beats unbearably down through the windows. The blinds reflect most of the radiation away, but enough heat gets trapped that the fans circulate warm air around the room.
Sometimes it gets a little bit frustrating that I wish for an air-conditioner in the room. Though not a very pleasant way to start a morning, I have to get up, so I reach for my toothbrush that is next to the computer monitor (don’t ask why I put it there!), and grimaced when my neck ached painfully. I reached back to the affected area, and felt a bump on the back of my head behind my ear.
While gonococcus might freak out after discovering that he had chest pains in the middle of the night, I wasn’t even sure what to think about that. Tumour? A nasty knock to my head? Or an alien taking up a free Home-stay vacation in my head?
It still hurt when I touched it while bathing, but since it didn’t hurt when I cranked my neck all-around, so I’ll put it down as an x-file, probably until my next visit to the doctor’s.
The Internet connection is getting from bad to worse. Badaunt’s photographs were loading so slow, it reminded me of my old 56k modem. I was about to slap the modem (I used to do that with my old 56k whenever it decided to throw me a 26k connection) when I remembered that it was StarHub acting up. The modem narrowly escaped a beating.
Frustration was piling up really quickly, so I decided to drop everything, and hit the television set. Where usually Singaporean-produced junk cluttered the airways on weekday primetime, weekends are the best time to sample the best of foreign programmes, and I specially like Taiwanese variety shows. The food shows tingle me the most, especially when the celebrities looked like they were on Ecstacy after tasting the marvellous dishes whipped up by Taiwanese chefs. Their food is that good; in terms of quality and quantity, Singapore falls short of their galatical delicacies. Their food culture isn’t about eating; it is about gastronomical aphrodisiacs!
I cuddled up on my parent’s bed, in front of the LCD television (that I won back in 2005, remember?) with my favourite bolster. It was really good to have the standing fan blow into my face while the celebrities salivated at the food in front of them (and me!).
What a way to spend a weekend! With no Monday blues to worry about, no school admission paperwork to fret over, and a flaky Internet connection that I’ll soon drop for another ISP, things look very good!
I didn’t have much thoughts this week, which caused me to start writing about the stuff I do once I wake up. Then, I decided that it looked rather silly, so it got scrapped.
That is not to say that it isn’t an interesting week; I got my diploma enrollment package on Monday, which asked that I complete by Friday: a reckless deadline. I rushed to filled out the forms, chatted with Dad and Mum on the financial stuff (it costs $20,000 a year for a polytechnic education if there is no tuition grant!), and had to make a trip down to the polytechnic’s bank to make a payment because my Internet banking limit was placed at $200 to prevent fradulent usage. Probably a prudent arrangement on the part of the bank, but I groused at having to go down to Selegie, carrying over SGD$2,000 cash freshly drawn from my own bank.
I didn’t want the notes to fly away, so I asked the very cute young bank teller at the counter to get me an envelope to stuff the big notes in. My, it is my first time seeing a $1,000 note in person, and it is really BIG. My wallet could hardly hold it, and it would still protrude at the top!
There is also the medical checkup that we had to go through, which meant spending 1 hour waiting for the doctor to come in, another hour to wait for those doing the checkup before my turn, and 3 minutes to consult the doctor. Then it is to the radiologist’s for the x-ray, where there is an even bigger crowd. There were around 40 people there, though I doubt that only about half of them were actually there for the chest exposure. Worried parents took up most of the available seating capacity, so I leaned against the wall, while sending SMSes to my friends to keep my mind off the time. It literally crawled, and by the time it was my turn, I had warmed the marble wall so comfortably, the next person leaning on my wall jumped in surprise.
For the chest-baring moment, I stripped in front of the radiologist, and popped my own ego when I saw the stomach bulging. I swore that I could see her hide an evil smirk when she left the room to radiate my chest onto the black film. She must have gossiped with her colleagues, because when I came out, they were all looking at me funny. I tried not to look too much into it, and scurried away as fast as my tired legs would carry me.
This got me right where it had me… though I won’t admit to peeing in the shower (it stinks), scratching the lower region (I am hygiene-oriented), missing the mat, and shaking sausages. I use conditioner, and I scrub my face till it is red with my facial wash. Hmmm, I guess that makes me a lady.
Hi hunks, it was a mistake for me to enlist for National Service.
(Normal posting will resume when pkchukiss gets his/her/its sexual orientation correct.)
Well, I have absolutely no idea who Rachmaninov was (is?), but it seems that he has/had bigger hands compared to Richard (the one playing)! Hilarity ensues.
Riverdancing
Who ever said that classical music was boring has never watched those two perform. They plan to do a world tour soon, so hopefully they will land in Singapore!
Choose any server location to test from (I use Seattle, WA for consistency)
Take a close look at your connection’s test results
Initially, StarHub’s helpdesk dismissed my concerns as a bottleneck at the end server; something proven wrong quickly with a test using an alternate Internet Service Provider. The problem is very pronounced during the local peak hours: from 7pm onwards during weekdays, and 11am on weekends.
While it is true that StarHub has the biggest, fattest pipe in Singapore - it is just what it is: confined to Singapore. Once you step out of Singapore, the majority of the websites that you visit hit a transfer rate of 30 kB/s, which is insufficient for even basic video streaming.
I’ve tried to work with their helpdesk numerous times, and they have always given me the same answer: that international bandwidth is beyond their control.
I find this a really bad joke. I wonder how they are allowed to advertise their broadband plans as 12,000 kbps when they can barely hit 256 kbps for 95% of websites in the world? StarHub simply refuses to improve their international reach despite being proven that they have the poorest bandwidth for international traffic.
I remember just 2 years back, their bandwidth for overseas websites hung around 700 kbps, which wasn’t exactly phenomenal, but was sufficient for most videos on sites such as YouTube. Now, the service is in such a sorry state that they are not able to sustain sufficient service for most of the websites in the world.
Therefore, I strongly urge any potential customers of the Fat Green Pipe to reconsider in the light of this myth, at least until concrete steps are taken to improve their service. That is, unless you don’t mind watching graphics load at a pace reminiscent of the dial-up era.
