In Life There Are No Happy Endings 6:15 PM

I finished Call of Duty 4 a few days ago. IT WAS AWESOME!!!! :D It’s a bit short, wish it was longer. But everything else took my breath away :) The story-line and plot development is incredible. Its so real, so in-your-face. This isn’t the villains die and heroes live forever kind of story. The ending is so sad. I wanted to cry.

That’s how good the story-line was.

The soundtrack is of no compare, visually it is out of this world.

And the Mac port is faultless without a single bug (opposite of EA games). Kudos to Aspyr, Infinity Ward and Activision :) COD6 is launching November 10 and I can’t wait..... :)

In the meantime, I’m gonna play COD4 all over again from the start :) Really :) Its that good :)
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The next section is extremely bitter and angry. Uhh..... so if you’re happy right now you should cease to read right here, if not you will become emofied.

This is about A* National Science Challenge, Swapnil and Dean.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate NSC or our team. Jeremy and Daryl are awesome :) I just have no idea what is with Dean and Swapnil. From what is looks like, you both are purposely disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing, just because you weren’t the one who suggested the idea.

To Dean + Swapnil: I HAVE LOST WHATEVER LITTLE RESPECT I HAD LEFT FOR BOTH OF YOU.

Lets go back all the way to the start, the outfit design for NSC. Basically we had the whole holiday to think of a design. The whole holiday nothing from Dean or Swapnil, so me and Jem and Daryl thought up a design. And when I came to school on the first day of term, Dean and Swapnil were absolutely un-constructive.

If you don’t like a something, the absolute minimum you should have is a credible alternative. You don’t just criticize without the faintest idea of where to go next. In effect what you wanted was for our well thought out plan to be replaced by one thought up in approx. 2 nanoseconds simply because you didn’t have a say in the first idea.

If you wanted to put something of yours in, it should have been done well in advance, not 3 days before studio imaging. You essentially want me to get the team through the studio imaging betting on an idea formulated in the same time it take for a photon to transverse the classroom. You were hoping to get through on luck just because you didn’t have an idea and you didn’t want us to use an idea which you did not make.

And when it came to the studio imaging day, I made it clear earlier that I would bear in mind your comments on the first design and we should make some edits here and there. Yet instead of being constructive and brainstorming for ideas when they told us that the outfit was too formal and they needed to make a few MINOR edits, you immediately say that you were completely against the design in the first place and say its completely my fault. In front of the entire TV crew from Mediacorp.

YOU WERE DISUNITED, INDECOROUS, ABSOLUTELY WITHOUT SHAME, AND COMPLETELY UNPROFESSIONAL.

Then comes the time for prop design (yesterday). We all meet together at the same time to design our props. All five of us. While we were thinking of the props, you were utterly distracted playing this Mousehunt nonsense on Facebook. You refused to plan anything and took a cursory glance at our prop design and that was all.

When we get to spotlight at plaza singapura to get materials, you suddenly disagree to the entire set of props, whine about every single last detail not being as you would like, be totally uncompromising in every sense of the word, and try to formulate your own idea on the spot. Once again you refuse to utilize an idea simply because it was not thought up by you.

ONCE AGAIN YOU CREATE A SCENE AT THE MOST INAPPROPRIATE OF SITUATIONS, AND ACT WITH PATENT DISREGARD TO THE FEELINGS OF OTHERS

MAKE NO MISTAKE. I AM EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED WITH YOUR ACTIONS.

I’ve said my fair share.
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To realize that you had lied to yourself and deceived yourself into thinking that the world had only good people. To be torn to ribbons by people you trusted. To have your trust treated like some kind of joke. To have believed in a friendship that was never real.

For me to have believed that just because we are still in school, that that could somehow make us exempt form the kind of internal politics that cretins create.

Wonder if anyone knows how that feels like.

Lint-Free Paper 7:12 AM

Went to A* Institute of Materials Research ad Engineering, as part of National Science Challenge

We went in two taxis, and Jem, Dean and Swapnil got los in the NUS campus. Then when we finally found them, Swapnil had left his wallet in the cab, so we had to call the cab back.

Then the NSC people wanted to take an extremely cheesy scene of our entering the IMRE building for the TV show. When we finally started, the presenter was terrible, and the presentation was awful. The presenter was not confident, and the slides were not visually appealing.

Getting into the lab was extremely troublesome. Basically you need to gown up until all you can see are your eyes, and even that has goggles put over it. Then you have to get blasted with air to dislodge dust particles, and walk over a sticky floor that removes dirt from your lab shoes.

And you can’t use normal paper to write inside the lab, you have to use lint-free wax paper. They are so obsessed about particle contamination.

And no photos, because your camera might have dust particles on it :(

We were having a tour about solid state lighting and next generation LED technology. Apparently LEDs are manufactured using a vapor deposition process. When it got to the part about nanoscale etching of the p-n junction, they use a vacummized plasma chamber.

And the vacuumized plasma chamber is impossible tiny. And there are windows to look inside.

The cost of one vapor deposition device exceeds 2 million US dollars :)

Had fun laughing at Jem and the glass door :) Well lets just say there was a rather large sign that said “PULL” :P

Ok actually there was also a button for a magnetic lock XD

Pho-tos 8:40 PM

Here are the PHOtos of the stuff we do during Lang Arts B :D

We drew this for Ms Ho before she came in :D Its the most realistic Pho24 drawing we have done so far :) When she wanted to erase it we all started squealing XD Then we told her we spent the whole morning doing it because it was for Language Arts A :P

This one is apparently a picture of me. By Jon Tang :)

There's supposed to be 2 deer in this picture only, but we made a joke out of it by saying we could see a penguin and Ms Ho's face XD Daryl is outlining more non-existent stuff in the picture :P

Lang Arts B is so totally the opposite of Lang Arts A. B is fun and exciting, A is boring and stupid.

A Mathematical formula to quantify the amount of boredom that precipitates in Lang Arts A lessons.

Fiona Ho's the (wo)Man 9:54 PM

Someone did something so damn nice for me today :) .....

I was getting on the train with a friend and my bro. My bro didn’t get in in time, so he was left on the platform while I was in the departing train. Naturally I called his phone and told him I’ll get off at the next stop, and meet him on the next train. So the train arrived at the next stop. I said my goodbye to that friend and headed for the door. And guess what? Four words. “I’ll wait with you.”

Its quite something to be able to drop everything else to help a friend. Its quite something to be able to sacrifice time for a friend without second thoughts. Maybe to other people all it is was 6 minutes. To me it means a lot more than that :)

Thanks a million Joel Toi :)
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Apparently some people have made recording’s of Language Arts B’s classic moments :D Which mean’s it might appear in our class book at the end of next year :) Unfortunately, due to licensing agreements with the lead actress, i.e. Ms Fiona Ho, we are unable to deliver this production over the web. We are currently negotiating :)

Anyway, it was super funny cos half the class was behind Jem’s computer screen during contact time, and Ms Ho was doing the classic “What is going on?” Then the whole class said we were doing project XD And Ms Ho was like “Which project need so many people one?” And we told her it was a documentary on language. Which was in a way the truth XD. And the first thing she said after that was “And is it making fun of anyone?” with the classic angry face and folded arms XD

And we played it on the projector for the whole class to see :D It was richard trying to explain the poem “The Sheltered Garden” and making a complete joke out of the whole affair. And halfway through, Ms Ho was like “If this is IOP, sure fail. All the wrong interpretations.” XD And when it came to the part where she appeared in the video, “What am I doing inside?” XD

And then Language Arts B lesson later was totally awesome :D We said a lot of hilarious stuff XD

Ms Ho asks where Daryl is. Jem - “Um, he’s in the library emoing.”

Someone peeks through the door. Ms Ho asks who it was. Daryl Chen says “Your momma”

She wears purple today. First thing I said when she came in, “Oh my god. Purple is now so totally my favorite color.” Her reply? “Allister!?” XD

We said a lot of other stupid things XD Then later everyone started throwing paper planes. Then she made us stay back for 5 minutes afterschool XD

And the best one. She was explaining something about the poem “The Man in the Bowler Hat” when suddenly she said loudly for emphasis, one particular line in the poem. “I am the Man”. We all burst out laughing XD
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Lucas says to stop playing Call of Duty 4. He says its not like me. He gave me a funny look when I said I like to play with the most detailed settings for blood. Uhh..... so now you kinda have an idea how much I hide behind that scripted smile.

I’ve just played the mission featured in the opening sequence of the COD4 trailer. It was totally AWESOME :D

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is launching 10 November. If you play computer games, and you haven’t watched the MW2 preview video at E3, you owe it to yourself to go watch it. Its totally unbelievable.....

If it takes more than a few weeks for the Mac release, it may be just the reason that I’ll install Windows on my Mac.

The suspense is killing me.

The Domesticity of Boredom 7:06 AM

It’s quite awful how life can be so terribly busy and yet so absolutely boring at the same time.....

I finally actually managed to have a weekend where I actually could relax. I think I shall make it a point to sleep more. It does wonders.

Designing the outfit for A* National Science Challenge has been an absolute rush, because the studio imaging is almost immediately after June holiday’s ended. It was quite messy trying to arrange it with other people, and it was pretty obvious that some parents were beginning to lose their tempers. So I did what Nicholas would probably suggest, that is take a break. So I went to sleep. And it seems that I woke up with a solution. How nice :)

Art is gonna be another crazy rush. We have about 11 weeks to complete 2 graded pieces. Oh dear. Adi has decided not to appear for art because he thinks that is a boring waste of time.

Call of Duty 4 is very fun :)

Crazy 10:07 PM

Okay, the first few days of school have been absolutely crazy. Too many things happening at the same time.

Moot Parliament is the most stressed ISO. Rushing like crazy.

Then there is also the stupid Chemistry creative assignment due this friday. Basically, its writing a poem, short story, comic or song about any chemistry topic. Its quite awful to try and communicate uncreative content in a creative media. What’s worse is that this is our term 3 project work marks. Rohan Shah said something on Facebook like “Rohan Shah has just written a poem about chemistry and is waiting for the Gods of Artsy to smite him.” This chemistry creative assignment is blasphemous.

I am almost very sure that Mr Peter Tan set the project. I mean, who else would use words like “interestingness” in the printout guide.

Actually everything this week is rushing like crazy. I’m like trying to do at least 5 things at the same time, all day long. And working on the MRT train using 3G internet and my laptop. And this multi-tasking either makes me say things without thinking if people talk to me while I’m doing stuff, or it makes me extremely short tempered.

A huge sorry to Joel Ong, cos I think the way I replied to your question after school sounded extremely rude. Sorry :( Wasn’t thinking what I said, my mind was elsewhere.

It doesn’t help that there has been a very recent distraction. Here’s something you don’t know about Ali. He likes first-person shooter games.

I just started playing Battlefield 2142 by EA. Found out about it because it was featured on the Apple website...

Which reminds me, I think EA is going to be the second on my list of brands whose products I boycott. Honestly, why can’t they ever do anything properly. Software bugs all over the place. And not just in 2142, Spore also had a silly amount of problems. It seems that no matter how hard the game developers work, EA always finds a way to screw things up. BTW the first on the list is Microsoft, although I have recently made an exception for Messenger (if you wanna add me its allisterlow@me.com) because people asked.

I’ve just managed to get my hands on Call of Duty 4, another first-person shooter. Will install it when I am actually free.

Transformers 2 1:27 PM

Today I watched Transformers 2 with my mum, bro and grandparents.

It was totally AWESOME! :D As good as Angels & Demons. It was fantastically exciting. The CGI is the most beautiful, most detailed that I have ever seen. Ever. The graphics are of no compare. The CGI is just amazing, one billion times better than anything else on earth. Its got a good cast, and great acting. The soundtracks are so nice. I duno how to describe the movie, cos words don’t do it justice. Its just so AWESOME..... so cool..... so amazing.....

I’m so gonna get the Blu-ray. Then I’m gonna watch it a million times more :)

Then the rest of the day was like my healthcare treatment day.

First the dentist. Teeth polishing.

Then the NUH Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Clinic. No, I didn’t do anything drastic. Just a full-face laser peel. Zapping away the outermost layer of skin, which is dead skin.

One of the next few weeks will have a visit to the Orthodontist. To decide between braces or a jaw surgery.