Sick

My little cold has just been upgraded to minor fever + sore throat. Crap...

To SU or not to SU?

After much pondering, I have decided not to exercise my SU since the difference is only 0.009 CAP. Also, I have decided not to do a review of paper. Why? Ehh, I have mistaken ESE3401 as the solid and hazardous waste module~ *faint*

Year 3 Semester 1 result

Hmm, another semester of CAP improvement, and that makes it the 5th semester on the rise? Well, overall I am glad that my CAP has continued to improve and it has just cross the 3rd class honours barrier, but still, it is a bit lower than what I expected. Well, I shall continue to work hard and hopefully, I can reached the 2nd lower honours by the time I graduate~

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Semester CAP: 3.5 / 3.625 (if I SU)

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Cheer up~ =)

4L BBQ

It was once the time of the year again, where the traditional 4L BBQ will take place at boss house. So the "made" event organiser for the year, Fabian, managed to summon a team of highly committed members to go down to Bedok NTUC to buy food and help to carry them back. Unfortunately, due to some technical reasons, I cannot be there to help out at the stipulated time. Nonetheless, I volunteer myself to do the hard work of starting the fire as a punishment~

. See.. Starting fire can be so fun!! However, there is one side effect: Aching arm the next day

Happily eating the BBQ food. The chicken wings are cut by both me and Fabian so as to facilitate the eating process later. Better thanks us lor~
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The personnel whom are present at the BBQ: PW, Fabian, me, ZH, XR, LH, KL, Edna and ZY, who will be arriving later. I guess this will make up more or less the people who will be coming for the upcoming BBQ in Chinese New Year (not really confirmed yet)? Normally, there will be a gift exchange session during the Christmas day BBQ, but for this year, due to the lack of time and lukewarm response, the exchange session was scraped. However, KL did not get the message and went ahead to get a gift. Hmm... how?? Nevermind, still can keep it for next year gift exchange right?? *lol*
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Got a little surprise from XR!! He brought me a box of chocolate cookie all the way from Japan!! Thanks bro!! Haha, don't know nice a not, I still haven't open the box yet. *opps*
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After we are sick of the food, we proceed to play the game Taboo. It is a long story how Taboo came to be the class game of the year. According to some witnesses, the origin is said to be at the Settlers Cafe one fine night, when the people went crazy over who will be the 老鼠屎！For us people who has been brainwashed by science, for a simple term such as sugar, we can used the complicated term C6H12O6 to described!! Power right?? It was fun, and we shouted all the way until... someone from the HDB opposite us started to shout at us to lower down our volume. *opps*
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Accompany *mds* to her church today. The pastor was very good, not like those dry preaching session experienced in my secondary days where it will just drove us students to sleep. Hope *mds* has a good dinner at Astons. Sleep well and sweet dreams, *mds*~ =)

Alvin and the chipmunks

Synopsis: Based on the 1980s cartoon series about a music group of chipmunks comprised of mischievous group leader Alvin (Ross Bagdasarian Jr.); the tall and quiet Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler); and chubby, impressionable Theodore (Jesse McCartney). The three chipmunk brothers are adopted by a songwriter named Dave (Jason Lee) and with his help, the Chipmunks skyrocket to musical fame. However, in comes scheming greedy agent Ian (David Cross). He tries to lure the Chipmunks away from their concerned father figure, Dave, with the promise of fun, fortune and fame. Will they fall for Ian's villainous plans or stay loyal to trusty Dave?

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I feel that this movie is just ok, definitely not the best I have seen this month. There are attempts by the movie producers to make the chipmunks cute, but I guess it quite of back fired on them. The plot wise is of the standard Hollywood template, nothing spectacular or twists in the end. For about 10 minutes in the middle of the movie, it lost my attention to continue on watching. There is something good about the movie though: The Christmas song sang by the chipmunks in the movie is very nice and catchy, and that push up my rating for this movie by one! So if you are looking for a nice plot of movie to watch and not a song lover, it is best to give this movie a skip.

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Rate: 3/5

2nd ICT Training (724 GDS)

I am just back from my 2nd ICT!! Yes finally, I see some form of civilisation at last. Though it was very tiring, nevertheless, let me recount what shit load of hell I have just gone through...

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Day 1

Nothing much of concern. In process, CO parade and then taking over the store. The facility in Jurong camp 2 is much much better than that eons years old Tanjong Gul Camp. New buildings, functioning toilets and new beds!! Administration and accommodation side was super impressive. Have the Army finally shade its old habits of ineffectiveness and "bo chap-ness" and decided to let NSmen live in better condition?? We shall see in the days to come....

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Day 2
Cannot stand my feet rotting in my boots any longer, so I decided to head down to the Medical Center to report sick to get some medicine to kill off those fungus growing on my skin. Well, army is still army. The medical center let me wait from 8am to 1pm just to see the Medical Officer, simply a waste of time!! Don't they know that I still have lots of store to prepare?? In the later part of the day, there is familiarisation of motorbikes and underslung training. Luckily for us, the rain stop us to do further damage to the bikes. Taking off the crash bar is easy, but fixing it back, is another story. Another slack day so far....

Day 3

Live underslung operation! Whenever bikers like us heard the word underslung, all of us will start to go crazy. Why? Because this means 2 hours to take off the crash bar, 0.5 hours to net up the bike, 0.5 hours to pray that nothing will be damage or dented when the bikes are lifted up and another 3-4 hours to mount the crash bar back, that is provided that we can mount it back to its original position, which 99.9% of the time, we can't! Heh heh, luckily, we escape the live task this time round, but we did see the motars and jeeps in action of being lifted up by the chinooks and super puma below!!

. Super Puma in action

Chinook doing air lift and drop

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Day 4

CCAC, another word that all scouts hate and fear to hear. Why? Because this will means that we have to start poking each other using the Yakut size needle to inject saline solution. If your buddy is a bo-bo shooter... all the best to you. Pray that you will not get a big "orh ceh" at the end of the ordeal...

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The IV setWith the super big needle .

Day 5
Preparing of store and mounting of TES set for the Company Mission Exercise. After 3 years of studying, my combat fitness drops to almost none. Plus they are using the old 10 kg 940 signal set instead of the newer 7 kg 940-A set, there is only one sentence I can say: "May the force be with me!!"

I don't know am I sway or what? For the 2 years of my NSF life, I have not encounter any snakes in the jungle before. But for this ICT, I encounter 3 snakes in fact!! The first time was at Lam Kiong Helicopter site where we see the live 2 hours animal planet of a frog battling a snake! In the end, the frog unethically won because of human intervention. The 2nd time was at the Company Mission Exercise in Marsiling area. As we were bashing through a track, we were stun to see a stick hang in the middle of an open patch. Upon closer inspection, it is actually a snake in a ready to strike position!! A close call in fact because I cannot foresee what will happen if we walk through the snake killing range...The 3rd will be in the BME mission, where one of my commander is bitten by a snake in the middle of the night. His whole hand is swollen but luckily no fatal injury happens to him.

Day 6
Book out and book in on the same day. Sian...

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Day 7 - 9

Battalion Mission Exercise. Weather forecast: raining for most area of Singapore. Result: wet uniform, wet boots, mud ground, no sleep, hungry mosquitoes. This is really testing us on survival of the fittest.

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Back from Hell

Yes!! I am finally back to civilisation after 10 days of touring in hell. I guess the best thing I need now is some rest and sleep!! Surviving 3 days with only 3 hours of sleep, living in pools of mud as our observation post, plus the never ending rain simply drives our morale down to the bottomless pit, not to forget, the LCK commando mosquitoes that are out to draw our blood. Oh well, next ICT will be in June 2008. Till then, we shall see each other again....

A little break

Book out :0830

Book in: 2230

Place: Jurong Camp 2 to Tampines.

Worth it?

Yes!! The main point is to get out of that camp asap! So tired after surviving the massive donation of blood in masiling.....

ICT

Away for In Camp Training from 10/12/07 to 19/12/07.
Stay tune for more updates soon.....

Happy Birthday to you

Happy belated birthday to YL! Went to Regent Heights yesterday for her small birthday celebration. The food was nice, particularly the bee hoon, the curry and the chocolate!! But, nice food finished fast, the chocolate was gone by the time I went for the 2nd round. *hmm* Hope you like the presents we give you. =) 2 more days to ICT.....

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Bukit Batok was indeed quite challenging to get to. Oh well... *lol*

Out of tune, out of touch

Went to K box Marina with mds, Jun Quan and Jenny yesterday. To my expectation, I am out of touch with the singing world and horribly out of tune when I sing. There are so many unfamiliar artists and songs on the list la, and the choice that I can picked is... limited. *lol* Sorry for having to bear with my horrible voice. *opps*

Enchanted

Synopsis: Featuring an all-star cast, the film follows the beautiful princess Giselle (Amy Adams) as she is banished by an evil queen (Susan Sarandon) from her magical, musical animated land and finds herself in the gritty reality of the streets of modern-day New York. Shocked by this strange new environment that doesn't operate on a 'happily ever after' basis, Giselle is now adrift in a chaotic world badly in need of enchantment. But when Giselle begins to fall in love with a charmingly flawed divorce lawyer (Patrick Dempsey) who has come to her aid - even though she is already promised to a perfect fairy tale prince (James Marsden) back home - she has to wonder: can a storybook view of romance survive in the real world?

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It is the season to be jolly, shalalalala.... *yay* mds finally has finished her last paper yesterday, so its time to relax our tired body and mind after spending the last two weeks preparing hard for exams. We went to catch the movie Enchanted, hoping to be enchanted by the movie and spent some quality time together since I will be locked up in Jurong Camp 2 later and will not be able to see her unless I decided to go AWOL. Haha kidding, I wouldn't dare do that to break the law.

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Ok, about the movie, I find that this must be one of the best movie I have seen so far for the last 6 months. Totally enjoyed every inch of it from the start to finish. Though not the typical movie you will find (Disney tried to mix animation and reality together in a nice blend), you will find joy in watching how the prince and princess act out in the real world, how they will sing, command the birds and little creatures and in the process, making a few laughing stock out of it. Oh, there was also the cute and adorable chipmunk too!!! Seeing how it tried to act out what it is trying to say since it can't speak in the real world, unlike in the cartoon. There was also the evil stepmother and witches to complete the whole movie. The ending was also particularly nice, but I shall not reveal too much, haha, a nice twist of Cinderella and sleeping beauty. :)

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Rate: 4.5/5

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Saw tweety bird and bugs bunny in Suntec

Have our lunch at NYDC
My 3 Amigos!! But mds don't like the garlic sauce in her baked rice. *opps* :P
I decided to become a friend of Eng Wah
Who says you can only find Time Square in New York?? Singapore also have one!!! *lol*

2nd year anniversary

Page Count: 19242 +10781

Year on year increase: +2320 +27.42%

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Happy birthday to Kangaroo's Corner!! It has been a busy year, with lots of activities. What have I done last year, lets do a little of recapping:

1. Seen a overall increase in my overall cap. *yay* I hope the runs continues this semester.
2. Work and travel in USA. (hopefully can get to travel more in the coming year)
3. Use of less vulgar language on blog.
4. Found *mds*.

I am glad that my blog is still well supported by my friends. Hope I have not bored you all with the stuffs I have written. *lol* Posted around 27% increase in viewership compared to last year, hopefully I can turn on my brain power to gives you viewers more entertainment. I hope that more people will continue to come to support my blog, and be entertained by me... haha, ok lah, target set next year: 5% increase?? hmmm...

Of bridges and bridges

Ever wonder why there is a overhead bridge building frenzy around Tampines since 3 months ago? Below are several possible reasons I have managed to come up:

1. The government have too much money and they decided to spend it so as to show that they are indeed doing something for the people.
2. To save on electricity bill since oil prices have been going up non-stop.
3. To appease the driving population who have been complaining of too much traffic lights in Singapore.
4. To force the population to do some work-out to cut the percentage of population overweight.
5. To make it to the Guinness world record for the most overhead bridges per square kilometer.

Why am I complaining? Because I have to carry a 5 kg stuff up and down the bridge today when they decided to tear down the traffic light crossing. *Argzz*

ESE 3101 Solid and Hazardous Waste Management

Hooray, finally, my last paper has ended. However there is no time to slack. High Key ICT coming on 10/12/07, sianz.... I felt quite ok for this paper, feel that it was doable, not that hard, but too bad I did not memorise the TCE degradation path well, guess 10 marks gone from here. Whatever... the paper is over!! Muhaha, time to get my mouldy army stuffs out and start preparing for the ICT~

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Prospective: B/B+

SC 1101E Making Sense of Society

Holiday!!! But wait.... I still got 1 more paper? No...!! For today's paper, I went into the examination hall with a nonchalant mind set. What may come will come, I will just deal with it!! haha~ Ok la, I just whack the paper with everything that come to my mind. Luckily, I still got 3 questions that are doable, out of the 7 given. Hopefully, everything will turn out fine. 1 last paper on Monday, but I feel like slacking now leh.....

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Prospective: B-/B

ESE 3301 Environmental Microbiology Principle

Yes!!! Finally, the module that gives me the most headache is over!!! After taking the paper, I find that if you want to score for this module, you have to eat up the whole textbook, plus 25++ presentation, plus another 6++ videos. So, as I am human and is prone to memory lapse, I could...not recall some of the stuffs, leaving about 15 marks undone. *Bleah* Its already over and I am glad. Next up, making sense of society at 9am and I still have yet to start preparing for it!! Oh no!!!!

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Prospective: B/B+

ESE 3201 Air Quality Management

I was expecting a disaster for this final paper since this is an open book exam (for NUS, open book = die as the book will most likely not be of use at all) and the questions asked during the CA test was quite difficult. However, I was proved wrong. On the contrary, four of the questions are doable, only that they are tedious. The fifth one was quite challenging, I guess this will be the question that differentiate the As and the Bs. I managed to come out with some answers though, hopefully, I am correct?

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Prospective: B+/A-

ESE 3401 Wastewater Engineering

Got off on a bad start this morning. Though I make sure that I was early to leave my house, this time round, it was the SBS bus 96 that cause me to be late for exam. Imagine being stuck in the early morning traffic, but the bus driver did not even know how to do overtaking!! In the end, I have the pleasure of seeing another bus 96 behind me zooming past my bus.... *Grr*

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The difficulty of the paper did not help me either. Miss out on a 14 marks question when I should know how to do it, but on a good side, I managed a 15 marks question that half the class did not even attempted. Hmm, hope this time, my little advantage will be able to propel me to a B. Q2....how I wish to strangle the lecturer for setting such a difficult question. How should I start to answer the question anyway??

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Prospective: B-/B

Nuffnang

Finally, after waiting for 18 days (I joined on 5/11/07), I finally receive this in my Email!! (The trial period is at least 7 - 14 days)

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Congratulations!

An advertiser has chosen to advertise on Kangaroo's Corner.

The advertisement details are as follows:

Campaign:

motolora Q SS week2

Week(s):25 Nov 2007 to 01 Dec 2007

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What is so special about Nuffnang? Well, it is a company who helps blogger like us generate some form of side income by looking for companies to advertise on our blog. The money generated is on a per impression of unique visitor basis. Basically, that means if a person view your blog with the advertisement on, it is accounted for and Nuffnang will pay you for it. No need to wait for someone to click on the advertisements like Google Adsense, so that means more easier to earn money!! *lol* I am not sure how much you will generate from the advertisement though, I shall see how it goes after the campaign finish. The citeria of enrolling in the program is not much. All you need is to ensure that your blog has at least 20 unique visitors a day, that's all. Registration is free, of course. A really good idea, I should say~

Irritated

Today, two Indians sitting next to my table where I have studying were happily talking about Economics in their heavily accented English....

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Strangely, don't they at least know how to keep their volume down?? I am trying to study R-strategist, capiotopes and Zynogenous, not Economics.....

Expectation

ESE 3401

Wastewater Engineering, the most chimmest module and the most equations that are taught in this semester. Oh well, I have done up the cheat sheet yesterday after finishing my revision. Not really confident for it, after looking through my CA grades. Lab report was ok, flunk the mini project, flunk the first quiz, but do well for the second, and the 4 graded assignments, I guess I am just a bit below mean. Prospective : B-/B

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ESE 3201

Air Quality Engineering. Interesting way to conduct the CA test having drawn inspirations from the Taiwan variety show?? After the ordeal, it leaves our brain dead for the day and hearts pounding hard against the chest. The assignments that she gave are killer questions, and if they come out for exmas..... :x *gasp* Ok, the group I was in the test performed average and I say that we did quite well for the project bidding part. As of now, I have revise through about 70% of module. Prospective: B/B+

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ESE 3301

Microbiology. The subject I hate the most after the trauma experienced from LSM 1401, which gave me a very good C+ *faint*, courtesy from the Chemical Engineering people, who are all god-like people. It just leaves normal peasants like me to be owned by them, right? Ok, haven't got back all the CA components yet, but the quiz I did after the term break was quite average. A potential killer paper as the area covered is very big. From 20++ presentations, 5++ video clips, 300++ pages of textbook to eat and the things he said during the lecture, how not to die for the exam? Hmm, I shall see how it goes from here. Prepared: 20% of module. Prospective: B/B+

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SC 1101E

Making sense of society, of which, I certainly don't make too many sense of the module after listening to its lecture for the whole semester. The tutorials was fun and I think I am going to spot topics for the finals since I most likely will not have the time to finish all the readings. (looking at the thick wack of papers, I suddenly feel like burning them off instead). Ok, I did pretty average for the test and the term paper. Prepared?? Nope, 0% revised so far. Prospective: B

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ESE 3101

Solid hazardous management. The lecturer was pretty fun and amusingly talkative, but I kept missing her lectures!! Why?? Who ask the school to put her lecture at 9am first thing in the morning? It sure does not seem attractive for a poor chap staying in the far far east. So far, I have no idea how I will fare for this module as there was no marks or whatever for me to gage in the first place. Well, since this paper will only be tested in the second week, I guess I will leave it till after my Sociology paper... Oh well... *lol* Prospective: B

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Hope this time round, I will not be seeing any Cs.....

Overdrive, I must

Just went back to school to receive my microbiology term paper yesterday. I have a feeling that I will just do ok, if not maybe a B- for I only wrote about 1650 words, which is 350 words off the required length. With trembling hands, I flipped through the entire stack for my paper, and only found it lying at the bottom of the stack. Looking at the grades, I got totally stunned and speechless. How did I get this kind of grades? Now, I must work doubly hard....

Move aside Pastamania, here comes Pasta Fusion!!

Went with *mds* to Bugis for shopping last Saturday. When we are looking around Bugis Junction for a place to eat our lunch, we chance upon this stall, Pasta Fusion, located in the Food Junction on Level 3. Seeing that its menu and the food it serve is appetizing, we decided to give the stall a try. Boy, oh boy, I really did not regret it. For the price we get, its standard is already much better than Pastamania, and not to forget, much cheaper too, for it did not include any 10% service charge. For a start, you should try its spicy chicken arrabiata, which cost only $6.80!! This is a sample of the food that we ordered:

. Spicy chicken on the left and Carbonara and ham on the right
The stall, highly recommended!

Latest Sunshine Empire news

Amazing, amazing, the signs are there, yet people still refuse to believe what has been reported. They still held a firm belief in Sunshine Empire. Here is a minimise newspaper clipping from The New Paper published on 19 November 2007:

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THE affairs of some companies linked to Sunshine Empire have come under the spotlight again, this time in Taiwan. An 'affiliated company' of Sunshine Empire, Empire Communications Technology (Emcom), has claimed on its website that it plans to invest more than $20million in a broadband project there. The company, whose registered office is at the Toa Payoh Hub, has 'invested heavily into Taiwan' to build 'a seamless wireless broadband that will cover more than 95 per cent of the city of Taichung'. It claimed that the project will be completed by the end of this year. However, a check with the Information Management Section of the Department of Planning of the Taichung City Government showed no evidence of this. Ms Huang Hui-Ming, chief of the section, told The New Paper on Sunday that Emcom does not have any partnership with the Taichung City government. She said the company had never contacted its department regarding the broadband project. Ms Huang noted that while it is true that the city's government plans to build a wireless Internet network, it is part of a project proposed by the Industrial Development Bureau of Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs. And this government-initiated project is being handled by Asia Pacific Telecom Group (APTG). Ms Huang said: 'After contacting APTG about Emcom, we understand that EmCom is not involved in the government-funded M-Taichung project. (So, what exactly is EmCom doing in Taiwan??)

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Empire Property Venture, is supposedly involved in, including a Malacca Empire Marine Theme Park and A Magic Kingdom theme park in Sabah. The authorities in Malacca and Sabah had earlier told The New Paper on Sunday that they have no information on the existence of these projects. When contacted, the Mayor of the Malacca City Council, Datuk Zaini Md Nor, said that to date, they had not received any proposals for such a theme park there. He added that he had received an application in August for the approval of a plan by Empire Property Venture to build a commercial and residential building of 510 units on 0.87 ha of land (slightly larger than a football field). But this project has not been approved. (No such projects have taken place, no showrooms available, and yet they are marketing it, all sold to their own members. Don't you find it fishy? For all you know, these are all just words said by Sunshine Empire?)

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She also said there were units available for a higher-end project in Kuala Lumpur called the Empire State Tower. However, a check with the City Hall of Kuala Lumpur revealed that no such project is in the works at present. A spokesman said: 'City Hall Kuala Lumpur has not received any application for a property to be developed at Jalan Tun Razak called the Empire State Tower.' (No application have been processed, and (if) they are already building it, its illegal.)

Mugging period

It has finally arrived at the time of the year, where the semester is coming to a close. No mood to indulged in the coming Christmas festive mood yet, for I have to think of a way to eat up 300++ pages of textbook and 100++ pages of readings in a time span of 7 days. And not to forget, get my formula sheet done. For once I am going to ignore the lecturer mass announcement in the IVLE, no one is going to check my formula sheet, so...... *grin*

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Time to hit the book!

Want to get paid for reading advertisment? EmailCashPro

All right guys, today I shall recommend another website / way that you can earn some more extra cash. *drum rolls* Introducing EmailCashPro!! Basically, this programme works by asking you what areas of advertisment will you be interested in, then when such advertisement are available, they will send a link to your email. You get paid by reading (or just letting the window stay open) for 30 seconds to let your account be credited and paid. Don't worry, they will not spam your email with advertisments. After giving the website 3 weeks of try-out period, they have only sent me like 12 advertisements, all targeted in the home business or investment area (hint). Each advertisment let you get paid with a minimum 0.006 cents, and the cash out minimum limit is set at $11 ($1 adminstrative charges).

You might be wondering: Wa, like that I need to read how many advertisments to cash out my $10? Don't worry, this website also have a referral scheme, where you also get to earn a partial amount of cash that your referral gets, up to 5 levels of referrals. So if you manage to refer to around 50 people, you just might be able to get $10 every month from them. I know this is not much but who will mind the extra cash? The company is based in Singapore and cheques are sent to the Malaysians and Singaporeans if they met the cash out limit. For Internationals, they can be paid via paypal. So if you are interested, click here to find out more.

Sunshine Empire 陽光大帝

Ok, since its raining heavily in Tampines now and I cannot get out of my house without the risk of getting wet, I shall sit down and do a little blog post of what I think of this company. Before I start off, I want to do a little disclaimer:

Below what I am about to say contains my personal viewpoint and it does not have any association in any way with Sunshine Empire Company. Readers should exercise their own judgement in believing what I have said.

If you have been reading the newspaper recently, or watching the news, Sunshine Empire should not be a term unfamiliar to you. It has been quite in the news recently over its business structure, which resembles the ponzi scheme. When I was first told about this company and how they operate, the first thought that came to my mind was: Well, looks like we got another MLM here. Although its director claim otherwise in the newspaper, but I still think they models after the MLM companies structure. Here is how they work. There are 2 kinds of plan offered by the company, which they termed it GP and SP. Of course, the higher the amount of money that you take out to invest, the higher the returns. Let us look at the most lucrative plan on offer here, which is the GP. By investing SGD$12000, you will be able to get back around SGD$1600 every month, and will continue to do so for the next seven years. In total, you will be able to claim back SGD$96000. In addition, you will also be getting roughly 2000 free minutes of talktime from their sub-company, Emcom. Sounds like a very good and tempting offer right? No, I don't agree with it, because in reality, no company on Earth will be able to sustain this kind of huge payout. Probe in deeper and you will question, so where is their money coming from? Here, I think is the crucial part. By buying their plan to invest, you will have the option to be a "merchant", a term they gave the people who are actively recruiting people to join the company and invest in their plan. Every time that you manage to recruit somebody in, you will be paid quite a substantial sum of money. So, by investing in this company, the company will in term use your money to act as payouts for the other people who has already invested in them. This will keep on continuing as long as there are people who keeps investing in the company scheme. Here, is where the normal ponzi scheme fails or crash, the most notably incident being the Swiss Cash Scheme. When people starts dwindling to a certain breakpoint and there is not enough income generated to fund all their investors, the company will declare bankrupt and leave the country, only to set up their shop in another place. Who is worse off in the end? They are the last line of investor who invest in the company. Who gains in the end? The people running the company and of course, those early birds who invest in the company and have receive all their potential payouts. Is Sunshine Empire running a ponzi scheme? No one knows for sure at this point. Singapore Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Malaysia have already blacklist this company on investor alert list, advising people to exercise caution in investing in the company's plan, and just yesterday, Singapore CAD (Commercial Affair Department) have began investigations into the company practices.

Boasting over 50000 members worldwide and a monthly turnover of USD$100 millions, the company talks about grand projects taking place in its company's recruitment talk. You can take a look at what the company is doing here. Based on these projects, the company projects an image that it has a huge amount of cash reserve and boast investors confidence in investing their money into this company as people usually think that big company will not con them and run away with their cash. Moreover, they assured the people that they will definitely get their money back because they have a sub-company in Taiwan that is generating huge amount of profits selling Internet broadband and line services. A newspaper check reveal that this source of information cannot be confirmed. A sub-company that just started and get to be awared such a big lucrative project? Something fishy is going on here. My gut instinct tells me that something doesn't seem right and more research should be done. A search on the Internet reveals that this company (Sunshine Empire) is just 1 year old and it has actively expanded its operation into 6 other countries, being Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea. This I find should ring a red alert button in your head. Charging into 6 overseas market in just 1 year? I don't think that any company on this Earth will dare to do this kind of activity as the risk involved is just too great. Even Singtel Telecoms, the biggest line operator in Asia (I think), only invest into overseas market one at a time, usually not more than 2 a year. People are already casting their doubts over its expanding scheme and profits just a few years ago when it bought over one of the Indonesia telecoms and Optus Australia within a short period of time. But Sunshine Empire, 6 countries in 1 year? I just don't know what to say.

Now, about their project that is taking place. A look on their website includes grand projects that may need at least a few billion dollars in total. Where is their money coming from, as they seems not to be dealing in any other activities that could generate a huge amount of profits? Best of all, when the newspaper contacted the Malaysian authorities over Sunshine Empire's latest water theme park in Malacca, they have no idea of it, except that they did indeed receive a proposal from a company that wants to buy the parcel of land from the site!!! The application is still in the process of looking through by the relevant authorities. This again cast doubts on what the company has said and should provide people with the instinct that something is not very right here. For the grand drawings and floor plans they have provided for the people to view, I think that they could easily employ one architect to do up the relevant drawings for them. People should not be wowed by these grand drawing and simply believe everything that Sunshine Empire tells them. Up till now, all is still hear say from the Sunshine Empire as they did not provide us concrete examples of what has indeed taken place.

Just recently, Sunshine Empire's 2 directors are about to receive two awards from the EGO for being the most promising entrepreneur award, a ceremony grace by our Prime Minister Lee. I supposed that this must be quite a prestigious award, as they are able to get our Prime minister to attend the ceremony and give a talk. The members in the Sunshine Empire are all rosy about this, saying that this was good news for the companies and make them credible after reports on Sunshine Empire's business structure came out in the newspaper. I, however, poured cold water, remarking that the awards will have a high chance of cancelling since I do not believe in the company's way of operation and after all the controversy reported in the newspaper. True enough, EGO held an emergency meeting after some days and the awards awarded to their two directors are called off.

Even in media, I have heard Sunshine Empire name being mentioned before, most notably in the fund rising event 癌过有晴天. Towards the end of the show, Mark Lee says: Thank you Sunshine Empire for their generous sponsor. I was then thinking: A way to calm the public after all the controversy in the newspaper, and why was their company logo not in the programme or subtitle later? Funny, isn't it? I find there is a lot of loopholes in this company and strongly do not believe in their way of operation. However, I have no idea why there are so many people who still strongly believed in this company and continue to be charmed by them. I guess it must be the lure of money that makes people blind.

Below is a short copy of the release of the president message to their members after an article came out in Straits Times of Sunshine Empire. This is what I copied from his fourth and fifth statements:

4. It is a positive thing that the public awareness is drawn to Sunshine Empire by the ST – this is free publicity. Now everyone will want to know what is this Company? – This is the best time to sell to them that Sunshine Empire is a responsible company and that the business model works!
5. It is a positive thing that the ST did not call Sunshine Empire a scam, or say it is illegal – it merely said that the public should "take care" and that the "business model looks like a pure financial investment scheme".

When I read what the president have written, I went: Please, stop trying to twist the fact. The underlying meaning in Strait Times is clear. There is something wrong about the investment structure of the company, as no company can offer and sustain this lucrative payout for 7 years. Although Straits Times do not say it, but after reading the newspaper article analysis, I will want to think twice before doing anymore investment with the company. What does the words "take care" and "business model looks like a pure financial investment scheme" mean to any commoner? Something negative? So what positive things are there?

I also came out with a theory on my own on how Sunshine Empire might pull away scot free with its investment scheme. Since all the projects they advertise need a huge amount of cash, and they need the capital in a short period of time, in order to draw people to willingly part away with their cash, the best way is to came out with a lucrative investment scheme. Say they need $2 billion capital after factoring in all the cost and payout, how many people did they need to find? Not much, only 200,000 people. $12,000 to start investing is not an unattainable amount to most people, and for a start, Singapore has already supplied it with 20,000 members. This shows that its scheme of drawing people can work, and that is why they start tapping into overseas market to find more people. However, they know that this scheme will crash on itself in the long run (as in the ponzi scheme), thus they need to gather the money within a limited period of time, say give it a period of 3 years. What happens after the required money has been gathered? I think they will then stop offering the investment scheme and start profiting in the property developments they have built, in the mean time, continuing to payout to its investors until all the contracts have been fulfilled. In this way, it will be able to turn around from a potential scheme company into one of the world's leading company.

you may ask why am I so concern about this? Well, I know quite a few people who are in it. Though I gave my analysis and reasoning to them, they still don't believe me. What more can I say? They are adults, and they make their own judgements. We will just have to wait and see the final outcome of this saga. Is this a scheme, or a potential?

Free day = Horrible day

Today is supposed to be my free day, where I should have time to do the things I like, such as taking some time off from the school work, go Orchard and watch some movie, chill out...... and if my budget allows, maybe eat some restaurant food to pamper myself and mds. That is how most of us would like to spend our free day right? Wait... Please rewind everything, because that was not how my free day was spent!! Why?? All thanks to our lab assistant, who give us an ultra large bomb, leaving us to clean up the mess. Take a look how I spent my FREE day:

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After 5.5 hours of sleep....

0830 - 1345 Spent doing my Air Report 1. Air Report 1 done.

1345 - 1430 Lunch

1430 - 1515 Stoning away, mind is a blank, wanting to stay away from my computer as far as possible.

1515 - 1630 Commencement of Air Report 2.

1630 - 1700 Cannot take it anymore, went for a short nap.

1700 - 1730 Went to buy my own dinner.

1730 - 1830 More on Air Report 2.

1830 - 1915 Dinner.

1915 - 2100 Air Report 2 done.

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Total time spent: 9H 15 M

Total time resting: 1H 15 M

Did I say I still got 1 more Microbiology Report and 1 more cutting edge write up to go??

I feel sooo tired.

Interesting , and Funny!!

Got this webpage from dear~ Must read!!!
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MM想嫁有钱人，金融家的回复令人拍案叫绝

色戒 R-21 version

Movie plot:Director Ang Lee's new film, following his Academy Award win for directing "Brokeback Mountain," is an espionage thriller set in WWII-era Shanghai. Asian cinema icon Tony Leung Chiu Wai ("Hero", "In The Mood For Love") stars as Mr. Yee, a powerful political figure in 1940's Shanghai. Tang Wei, a rising star in mainland China, makes her feature film debut as Wang Jiazhi, a young woman who gets swept up in a dangerous game of emotional intrigue with Mr. Yee. Joan Chen plays the wife of Mr. Yee but it is the role of Tang Wei as the student that will have a hand in trying to assassinate the intelligence chief of a Japanese-backed Chinese government.

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Surprisingly, I can understand the whole show, know what is going on and see how the characters fight each other out by words sarcastically in the movie, fearful of speaking or doing anything wrong for it will mean the end of their life. (Unlike the Brokeback, I have no idea what the movie is trying to say, except that there are 2 gays making out with each other =P) Now I understand why the 3 scenes should not be cut at all. For it shows the emotional pain the female lead has to endure, so that their assassination plan can proceed smoothly. It depicts the desire at that point in time that people are willing to pay any price in order to topple the Japanese iron grip rule. Sadly, the movie has an ending that I simply find illogical. Is the lure of a ring that great, given the hate that the female lead has?? hmm

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Rate: 3.5/5

ESE 3201 Bomb Activated!!!

Received 11/9/2007 7.48pm

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Dear Students,
Pls kindly submit your Lab Report within 2 weeks. (I prefer word format or pdf format)
There will be 11 groups.
I will send EXP1-DATA later.
Pls let me know if you need my help.
Thank you.

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Dragged half a semester then send us the result?? Now I got 4 reports to do in 2 weeks! Well done, NUS!!! No wonder your rank dropped 10++ places to No.33 in the world. But then, I have no idea why is it so high in the first place? I certainly don't feel that I am in one of the top university in the world! Welfare for students: 0!!

蜕变

在我出门前看到了这一幕：
当一只丑陋的虫子摇身一变，变成了美丽的蝴蝶。
我几时才可以破蛹而出呢？

Day of Deadline~

Sian.. 2 assignments and 1 presentation due tomorrow. How??? Presentation haven't rehearse, 1 assignment finished and 1 assignment 33% done. After seeing Pok's textbook example, I redo one of the question last night, going to bed only at 3am in the morning. Think I better consider not getting an engineer job in the future......

Day of mystery

What is in this box?
Where is this place?

What is inside this?

Hope you have a fun and fulfilling day~

Week long lab

To do a lab, first of all, we need the samples. Luckily, we do not need to collect them ourselves. We had our friendly lab assistant to do the run for us~ *heng ah* That day I remember rain like crazy leh~ poor assistant~ =)

. Drain water sample
Pond water sample
Seawater sample
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After getting the samples, its time to start growing bacterias and fungi!! Haha, you will be amazed by how polluted our NUS library is~ Think next time, I better minimise going into the library. Its full of microbes la!!

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Growing fungi and bacteria at 35 degree, their optimum temperature growth

Look at the dishes of microbes!! They are indeed interesting~ Some of them have weird growth, like the one below:

Blackish growth separated into 4 equal parts by 2 lines. They know mathematics?? How did they know to divide equally among themselves??

Some of them will grow into thread-like structures

And some of them just grow into mountains!!

The whole lab lasted one week. Basically, we went to the lab every single day to finish some parts of the experiments~! Well done!! 2 lab reports to complete. *faint*

Illegal downloaders, beware~

Just came across this news online~

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Odex pursues quest to book illegal anime downloaders

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Now also cannot safely download things at home already~ Now, its the anime, whats next? Movies and games??

One off SU exercise

ONE-OFF REVOCATION OF SATISFACTORY/UNSATISFACTORY OPTION

The above Online Revocation exercise will be held from 00:00 on 29 October 2007 to 23:59 on 2 November 2007. No grace period will be allowed after this deadline.To access the revocation website for S/U option, click here.

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People remember to go and check if there is anything to un-SU. Don't regret after the dateline is passed~
=)

Fancy some passive income? Google Adsense

If you have notice, there are some advertisments appearing in my blog about 2 months ago below some of my blog entry. Well, I am trying out a new program call Google Adsense where I get paid some minimal sum when people click on the advertisment link related to my blog entry if they want to find out more information of whatever I am blogging about. It was meant to be some sort of passive income, by helping companies to advertise their products related to my blog entry, so that if people wanted to find out more, they can click on the advertisment link. In the past 2 months, the income generated was quite ok, about USD$10, better than nothing, right? The payout was on a per hit basis, but if you are looking to make money out of it, beware, there is a term and condition in the program that says you are not allow to purposely click on the advertisment, or else you might faced termination of your account. The payout will start once your account accumulated USD$100, through standard delievery of cheques. The sign up is free but to access your account, you have to wait 1 week for Google to approve your account. I assume this is not a scam out to cheat people. Firstly, it is free of charge. Secondly, it is by a reputable company. Thirdly, there are generally no negative comments on the Internet since the programme was launch eons ago. If you are interested, you can click on the link on the right to find out more~ Just something that I find it worthwhile to share with my friends~

I can't wait for Kingdom Hearts 3!!!

Kingdom Hearts 2 ending secret trailer
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King Mickey is so cute~! Haha~

SC 1101E Making Sense of Society Term Paper

Sociology -> Culture -> Confucianism -> Filial Piety -> preference of son -> increase birth sex-ratio.....

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Just what am I writing for my term paper????

周杰倫-牛仔很忙

Jay Chou has changed his singing style~ Must watch!!

Only Study

2 am, and I am still researching.
Here I am, staring at the computer screen.
The information is making me so confused
I can't make up my mind
Is this meant to be
I am asking me.
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*faint*
I need sleep.....

Industrial Attachment

Ok, finally submitted my choice of companies. Hopefully, I can be selected to work in one of the company of my top 3 choices.....

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Tanjiong Pagar??

Loyang??

Or Clementi??

hmm...

SAF part 2

well, now I know why they deduct $32 from my pay. They auto renew my Safra Card membership. *faint* AUTO...... well done!!

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Anyway, Happy Hari Raya to all the malay folks~

cockroach (evil grin)

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something dark moving in the shadow. Looking down, one innocent bug was happily crawling across the clean marble floor. Not wanting to attract its attention, I quietly went to the cupboard and grab some old newspaper, quietly tiptoeing back to its resting position. Pausing a while in mid air, holding my breath, I go ...... WACK!!!!!!! Muhahaha!!! To make sure you pesky bug really RIP, I go grab another can of baygon and decided to decorate its body a little~

Stupid bug~ Muhahaha

Behhhhh... Times up!

Q: ..... parameters......CO emissions.....??

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Stunned...Nothing recalled....Times running down...anyhow whacked..."xxyyzz so aabbcc" (Behhhh...Times Up)....(Lots of Hand shooting up) Age of vehicles!!....Types of vehicles!!....type of fuel!!....

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Finally when everything settles, the brain's battered. Feeling drained. What kind of test is this??

Lab Report day

Kind of stuck at home doing this troublesome lab report that is due 15 October. Brain going to be fried by all the numbers and tables I have to come up, not including that I still have 2 tests to study by this weekend. This is just 1 page of my report. See the amount of tables?? I see stars instead. Oh man......*argh* Stupid engineering.
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Oh ya, there is still the microbiological questions on Monday, the air quality test on Monday, the Making Sense test on Wednesday, which up till now, I still don't make any sense of the module. Well done~
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Can someone burn NUS down now????

SAF

-$32.00 for magazine subscription
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Since when do they charge for the Safra magazine? I thought it is free?...........

A gasp of air

Finally, some salvation, a gasp of air. A tiny winny moment, some peace for my soul. Recharge and battle on, I shall~

Groups

No groups? Nevermind. 就看我们两个人怎么熬过去！
6 hours for Q1
Q2 here I come!!!

IPPT

This time cannot jump; cannot run

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But.. heng still pass~ phew...

Next 2 ICT no need to worry already~

:)

Beautiful Girls

Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls
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Very nice song!!
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[Chorus:]
You're way too beautiful girl
That's why it'll never work
You'll have me suicidal, suicidal
When you say it's over
Damn all these beautiful girls
They only wanna do you dirt
They'll have you suicidal, suicidal
When they say it's over

[Verse 1:]
See it started at the park
Used to chill after dark
Oh when you took my heart
That's when we fell apart
Cause we both thought
That love lasts forever (lasts forever)
They say we're too young
To get ourselves sprung
Oh we didn't care
We made it very clear
And they also said
That we couldn't last together (last together)

[Refrain:]
See it's very divine,you're one of a kind
But you mash up my mind
You have to get declined
Oh Lord...My baby is driving me crazy

[Repeat Chorus]

[Verse 2:]
It was back in '99
Watchin' movies all the time
Oh when I went away
For doin' my first crime
And I never thought
That we was gonna see each other (see each other)
And then I came out
Mami moved me down South
Oh I'm with my girl
Who I thought was my world
It came out to be
That she wasn't the girl for me (girl for me)

[Repeat Refrain and Chorus]

[Verse 3:]
Now we're fussin'
And now we're fightin'
Please tell me why
I'm feelin' slighted
And I don't know
How to make it better (make it better)
You're datin' other guys
You're tellin' me lies
Oh I can't believe
What I'm seein' with my eyes
I'm losin' my mind
And I don't think it's clever (think it's clever)
You're way too beautiful girl
That's why it'll never work
You'll have me suicidal, suicidal, suicidal...

881: The Papaya Sister

Movie plot: "The Papaya Sisters" tells the story of two childhood friends who grew up mesmerised by the glitz and glamour of 'Getai' and dream of one day performing on the 'Getai' stage. After being blessed by the Goddess of 'Getai', they become the most sought-after pair of 'Getai' singers ever. Unbeknownst to them, rival sister group The Durian Sisters have become intensely jealous of the Papayas' success, and are determined to trip them up by messing with their schedule. With the help of their gangster Godfather, the Durians succeed in shutting the Papayas out of many 'Getai' performances. Await the musical battle where both sides pull out all the stops to win over the audience!

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Went to watch this show with my family about a week ago. Frankly speaking, amidst all the hypes reported by the newspaper saying how good this show was, I decided to keep my expectation low when I entered the cinema. After going through 110 minutes of the show, I say that the whole movie is totally crap and not worth watching at all. Though it speaks mostly of Hokkien, and attempts to mimic Moulin Rouge style of filming, it totally lost at its plot. It got to the point that it just irritates me to continue watching. The only good point I find in this show is their massive usage of Getai songs. It kinds of reminds me when I am a child, listening to those Hokkien songs played by my parents. Well, what to do? 怀旧嘛。。。

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Rate: 1.5/5

Bad Day

Today is a bright and sunny day.
But I am coop up at home rushing my microbiology assignment.
Crap....

Evan Almighty

Movie plot: Newly-elected to Congress, Evan leaves the city of Buffalo and herds his family to suburban northern Virginia. Once there, his life turns upside-down when God appears and commands him to build an ark. However, his befuddled family just cannot decide whether Evan is having an extraordinary mid-life crisis or is truly onto something of Biblical proportions.

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Overall, the movie is not really impressive, but watchable. If you are finding one to have a good laugh at, I will recommend this to you. Besides being just a vehicle for Jim Carrey to make an ass of himself with his juvenile humour, it has a proper plot and a rather inspiring message about faith and trust in God. What really got me interested in this movie is the hiring of the huge amount of variety of animals for casting in this show, highly recommend at in Universal Studio, Los Angeles. Haha~

3/5

A little surprise

Dated 1/9/2007

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Thank you DQ~

CHESS D&D

Dated : 1/9/2007

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The hotel that Pok booked. 4 stars.. wow~~

The D&D menu

and some of its dishes~

our class, EVE Year 3

and the handsomes~

me and the old shanghai pok!