tiffy; happenstance.

As usual, I’m crawling the web again. I think this has become part of me, what I do as job; and just me being a geek.

I came across this new search engine which looks similar to like Google, it calls itself - WolframAlpha. What do I mean looks like? They both have a common layout - clean, and that is what appeals to users. And of course, a text field for you to key in your query. When you tell someone, it’s a search engine and immediately people will link it to Google. I beg to differ. I did a few tries on Wolfra and realized the difference immediately.

Google gives you search results of your keywords, just like a typical search you’d performed in your Word document. Type “Best club in Singapore” and it’ll return gazillion results of strings that has the word in it. You’ll definitely get something by simply just input a word and hit the search button on Google. Unlike Wolfra, you don’t always get result. No it’s not broken. Wolfra is meant to ‘answer’ your query, and not looking up the indexes.  I input “best club in Singapore” on Google and I get more than 17,000 hits. While on Wolfra, it sounded like a broken record; repeating “Wolfram|Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your input” to me. Perhaps the computer engine behind Wolfra hasn’t gone out of its box to hit the clubs in town, it wasn’t sure about what I’m looking for. Not convinced enough, I did another search on “what is H1N1″ on both engine. Wolfra gave me the answer almost immediately, indicating “Assuming “h1n1″ is a disease | Use “h1″ as referring to math instead” with a few references and infected cases below the descriptions. How nice! I do not have to click on any external links to look up for the details.

While I don’t see Wolfra as Google’s rival, since they are in a different reign. I do think there will be a significant number of users swinging over to Wolfra for direct answers. Well, still early to tell now.

My body can feel the strain already.

It’s been a week since we moved to the new office. I stay in the east and my office is in the west now. Traveling time has been doubled. I used to get up at 7AM and got out by 8:15AM but now I am waking up at 5:50AM! Terrible! I am not sure how soon my body will get tuned to this new habit (hey hang in there)!

I am car pooling with my colleague and manager to office now, so that actually save the hassle of commuting. It is kinda fun, to go to work together with your peers. We will hop onto the car by 7:30AM every morning, go up to AYE and head all the way down to Portsdown while bitching/moaning on the car. Ha! I’m describing it as moaning. What a joke. You know I get excited about something new that is going to happen the next day. So I wasn’t able to sleep on the first 2 days of the week. I crashed on the 3rd day, Wednesday onwards, as usual.

Aww the food. Fusionopolis has bad food. I tried the Korean restaurant on the 2nd floor. It was horrible! Please stay away from it. Next is the food court, I tired the Japanese and mini wok and I didn’t like them. They are tasteless. We had no choice but to explore the areas around Fusionopolis in search of ‘good food’. We took a shuttle bus which will route around Biopolis and Holland Village. Stopped at Holland Village and spotted a small market, we had 2 bowls of terribly-miserable small serving of prawn mee and 1 tasty chicken chop. We also found a nice eating place opposite of Fusionopolis, near JTC building. This small market packs with decent food! I tried the Malay food and it’s great! That explains why everyone was queueing for it.

The only good thing I like about the location? Fitness First is right above my office. I could go for my gym lessons during lunch. (I will have to sacrifices my lunch.. NOOOOOOOO!)

Oh no. Sleep bugs are attacking me again.

……. ……… …..zz zzz

Gym then grocery shopping. Go home. Rest. Sleep.

I got a call this morning from my colleague, telling me that my manager has requested to the director to bring me back to the force. Though abruptly, but I am happy to be able to work with the team again. They are the best colleagues I have ever had. I won’t complain about not having any benefits but I seriously hope that they would consider to convert me to perm staff. I understand the needs of business to reduce headcount, so we shall see what happens next.

Back to work tomorrow

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Listening: Crush by David Archuleta [Download]

There isn’t much going on lately. I am officially not working now and looking out for new opportunity.

It is a mixed feeling for me. I am happy to get a break but I am also worried at the same time given the bad market situation. I guess it is the same everywhere. I am trying to stay positive and optimistic towards things. I am not going to rush into a decision but I am in a situation where having a long break would damage my career progression. So I would say, take one step at a time. We’ll see.

Before I ended my employment, we had a career fair at NUS. It was pretty cool but really tiring I would say. Talking, talking and talking. My throat hurts! I met a guy from Romania, he is a iMBA exchange student in Singapore. I was surprised that he could speak Mandarin!! We had a short exchange and I went on to others as there were many people around our booth. I did not give my namecard since I was going to leave the company soon. I got home that night, and found out that he had sent me an invite on Linkedin. I was shocked. I had a deep impression of him since I seldom come across ‘ang moh’ who could speak Mandarin so well. So yeah, he invited out for coffee and we also had a dinner together. Fun.

After a tiring 2 days effort for the fair, my colleagues and myself went to a cool place to chill out a little before heading home.

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Listening: Poker Face by Lady Gaga [Download]

I have been listening to Lady Gaga’s music lately. I really love the beats to bits!!! They played it at my gym too! It’s so catchy how can you not love it!!

I went to Singapore Flyer this afternoon. Took some picture and posted on my deviantart.

Feeling artsy now heh

I am celebrating Do As Infinity’s coming back! They are also my favourite Japanese Band other than Hikki.

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Listening:　遠来 (Enrai) by D.A.I [Download]

Stumbled across some random news online and noticed Utada Hikaru’s news. She is getting famous producers to collaborate for her upcoming 2nd English album. I think her first English album was bad. Being her fan since her first album, I didn’t enjoy the first English album. I love all her Japanese albums though. Not sure what to expect from this album. I previewed the new single from this upcoming album, I got a ‘Mariah Carey’ feeling. (Laughs)

Take a peek below.

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Come Back to Me by Utada Hikaru [Download]

I admit that I am a fan of Brad Pitt (and Angelina Jolie too). Wooo gosh, his charm!

Lately I saw the press conference for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and was wondering when will it hit on our shores. It came to my surprise that it is going to be released to the cinema in Feb right after Chinese New Year! Oh how great? Is this prepared for Valentine’s Day? I hope not, haha. (Though I know they always have a liking towards putting up big celeb’s show during this special day) And hey, it’s a Warner Bros. Picture show! I am a BIG BIG FAN of Warner Bros.!!! They make excellent shows. Great atmosphere, great OST, great captures, all-everything! There are so many to say but I would say from the perspective of camera angle and it’s simply best for Filmotography! Not sure if I use the word correctly, but what I meant was film photography. Photography shoot on the set of the flim. Speaking of my dream job now. (Giggles)

On the film.

“Tells the story of Benjamin Button, a man who starts aging backwards with bizarre consequences.”

“On the day that Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans, elderly Daisy Williams nee Fuller is on her deathbed in a New Orleans hospital. At her side is her adult daughter, Caroline. Daisy asks Caroline to read to her aloud the diary of Daisy’s lifelong friend, Benjamin Button. Benjamin’s diary recounts his entire extraordinary life, the primary unusual aspect of which was his aging backwards, being born an old man who was diagnosed with several aged diseases at birth and thus given little chance of survival, but who does survive and gets younger with time. Abandoned by his biological father, Thomas Button, after Benjamin’s biological mother died in childbirth, Benjamin was raised by Queenie, a black woman and caregiver at a seniors home. Daisy’s grandmother was a resident at that home, which is where she first met Benjamin. Although separated through the years, Daisy and Benjamin remain in contact throughout their lives, reconnecting in their forties when in age they finally match up. Some of the revelations in Benjamin’s diary are difficult for Caroline to read, especially as it relates to the time past this reconnection between Benjamin and Daisy, when Daisy gets older and Benjamin grows younger into his childhood years.”

Best tagline: Life isn’t measured in minutes, but in moment.

Screencaps from trailer:

This is probably his teen age.

Young adulthood.

Maybe mid 20s.

Somewhat 30s?

Sexy at 40s? How scary!

Young and cute at 50s? This reminds me of his Meet Joe Black (1998)!!!

And then probably when he is 60s or 70s with his lover. If you take a look at it, you’d probably think it’s a granny kissing her grand children. But not in this case. Touchy. (Laugh)

Movie site intro music [Download]

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I know this is not right, and not healthy. I shouldn’t be doing anything at this hours and I should be in bed now. I know!

But why am I getting this pain feeling from my stomach lately? Strange. The other day I woke up in the morning with a pain in my stomach. It was like a gastric-pain-alike kind of feeling but I don’t have any gastric history. So that might be just a false alarm. Just a moment back, in fact right now, I am feeling a slight pain from the front right side of my stomach. Is my health falling apart? (Shrugs) Perhaps it is just my regular ‘weird’ symptoms or maybe I am just over-thinking. (I hope so!)

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Listening: You’ve Got A Friend by Ono Lisa [Download]

Has anyone feel the weather is getting cooler at night these days?

Like… right now? I am actually.

Bump.

Random: I saw Zhang Ziyi’s bikini paparazzi shots. I don’t understand why she has to do yoga at a beach with a blue goggles. That was such a joke!

I’m off to bed now! It’s a mellow mellow night..

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Listening: We Are One by Kelly Sweet [Download]