The Moley Prophet

Just finished with a wonderful meeting. There was fun and there was laughter. Ryan was an energetic and interesting TME today trying to take me off the Word of the Evening Spammers Charts. But oh well, he didn't.

The most interesting part of today's speech was of course Bernard's speech. It never fails to entertain or freak us out. Anyway, for those who were not there today, he commented about how China was the rising dragon preparing to conquer the world. It is not that I am not impressed by the ingenuity of the Chinese, but there are still inflexible and not at all good organizers to be leaders of the world. Besides that, it is important to note that, India, at a point of time, and until now, a third world country just like many parts of China, was able to create a city - Dubai, into a city filled with happenings and luxury.

But thats not the main objective and point of his speech. Instead, it was just to throw some insults at me, which I would gracefully accept. It is sad to know that buffalo-wards like him would insult a gentlemen who keeps his hands to himself. Today he may have got away scot-free but one day, if he were to do that to an uncivilized being, he may not be so lucky.

For those who were not there to listen to his amazing speech, I will give you a rough summary of what he said. It was of course about me and my blog. Although he did not mention my name, it was obvious that he was talking about me as he said the guy in the yellow shirt and I'm the only one in yellow. He was saying that I whine and cock and bull on my blog but did not have the guts to stage protests and try to be funny in front of the parliament house. Errr… Come on man. Do I look like I'm stupid? Do you think that I am as stupid as Chee Soon Juan - not to insult his intelligence as he is a Doctorate, but I think that it is unwise to fight the absolute power knowing that you will not win unless you have accumulated enough power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, so why fight corrupted power now and fall into their trap? The law does not allow demonstration and even a gathering of more than 5 is already illegal, so why do it stupidly?

Another thing I would like to point out is that, since all of you can read this blog, it means, anyone from the government can read it as well. I'm not sure about the popularity here but, rest assured, I do get audiences from out of my social circle. This blog is linked to Technorati and I have occasional strangers commenting. Coming out here to talk about all this is not a coward act like speaking in a concealed room. 

Finally got hold of the much hyped and controversy plagued M1 Broadband by Vodafone plan. Wonder why a company would want to provide services "by" some overseas competing operator. The plan I was signed on to for this test was the 3.6Mbps using 3.5G or HSDPA technology. At just $68 per month for "unlimited" access it seems pretty affordable. However, the "Fair usage policy" which M1 termed to protect itself meant that you could only used 5GB of bandwidth per month for free.

So anyway, I got hold of the USB Modem made by Hua Wei. I still think its stupid for M1 to have the Vodafone printed on the modem at extra costs, at the underside of the mode, it still prints, Hua Wei. And I'm not impressed by the Vodafone name. Besides that, the USB modem is on loan from M1 if you were to take on the plan, so charges for lost/damage are as follows: $350 for the modem, $20 for the USB cables, $10 for replacement.

Besides the rubbish "Fair usage policy", the 3.6Mbps is also not available outside Central Business District areas. The maximum bandwidth is only 1.8Mbps. But despite that, you won't be reaching the top speeds. I have tried downloading a video from a local server, and the results are definitely disappointing. At home on my MaxOnline 6000, I managed to download the file at 700KB/s, in my office, running on 512kbps ADSL connection from Singnet, the download speed is about 50KB/s, on the 1.8Mbps network, the download speed is 21KB/s after several attempts, the first few attempts produced only speeds of 1-2KB/s. Also, the software from Vodafone showed fluctuating speeds of 100Kbps to 500Kbps, while the actual download speed hardly changes.

Loading a web page is extremely slow as well. It took 20.403 seconds to load The Moley Prophet on M1 Broadband, while it takes only 0.948 seconds on the Singnet ADSL 512Kbps.

However, there are merits for the service as well. The installation of the modem was easy. I just had to plug in the modem, with several available USB cables. The installation program which I supposed was loaded onto the modem starts up with and starts installing by itself. At the end of the installation a Vodafone program is installed. The program tracks bandwidth usage and the speeds which I mentioned about. It seems that the program wasn't able to work harmoniously with my ThinkVantage Access Connections. After I was connected to the Hua Wei modem, I was still connected to my router as well. So I had to manually disable the connection for Access Connections. Connection wise, I was able to connect to the network in my office though the reception was low. The connection was also stable.

Not a wise decision to sign on the plan now as technology is still unstable. It would be best to wait for sometime when competitors come up with their own plans. I heard from the salesman that they are planning to upgrade the speed to 4Mbps. 

Hole 9 of the Masters Course

Nick Dougherty at Hole 9

Liang W.C. at hole 9

Dougherty on Hole 17, the final hole

Prize giving ceremony 

You will see in the video how cunning a reporter can be. 

Many things happened over the weekend and I just had the time to blog about it - a break from studying. Met Nat, Lilian, Desmond, Esther and Nat's family on Friday. I was just going for my dinner when Nat came out from the cafe. And the first thing he said was, "Eh Bro, you loss weight ah?" Weird. Every time I meet people after a few months of not seeing them, they always say I lost weight. Sometimes, they say, "How come you lost so much weight?" And my first reaction was, huh? I thought I just gained weight. I'm so in need of losing weight. Anyway, after dinner with my Dad, I went to finish the banner with Nat and some touching up at the stall, he left after that for a movie. Just when he left, his parents and bro came. We did more touching up and left for a drink.

Robin - Nat's dad - began telling us about his dieting and abs building program over some Shandy and a Cai Tao Kuey which he refuses to eat. I really admire this guy. About the same age as my Dad - I'm thinking, about 55 - he is training up to get the abs that he had lost when he became older and had been trying to achieve. My Dad, if you know him is currently lazing around with his big paunch looking like a typical Tow Kay as one of my friend commented. Yet, there is this man, whose passion to achieve those abs. His passion is different from that of Bernard. Being a martial artist, he is already fit. He does not go around boasting about what he has or question people about their weight. Instead, he encourages others, to do the same and stay fit (What Bernard does is just show off). And his goal to achieve those abs came from wanting to become more agile. And I think wanting to blend in better with his children. You will never know how old is this guy. He is just so bloody hip. During one of the Project Superstar performances, he wore this belt with LED words playing something like 'Sexy', the producer then came over to talk to him asking him about his image. I'm just jealous that Nat has such great parents, although mine weren't too bad.

After our drinks and talk, Robin and I went to join Jessie and his other son for Karaoke. I swear I suck at it. And Robin kept saying how bad he croaked. Haha. Jessie sang damn well though. Which is why, Nat could sing as well. After the K session, we went for pool and I watched them play till my Dad came.

Saturday morning was spent at the fun fair we had prepared. Although I spent lots of time under the sun, I still remain untanned - my hands just got slightly darker, which Jenny was quite amazed of. While I'm jealous that others get tanned easily, they are jealous that I just don't get tanned.

Due to the lack of sleep over the past few days, I dropped into a deep sleep as soon as I got to IMM. Of course, it was not after writing of some notes.

This morning, my Dad and I went to watch Singapore Masters at Laguna. Haha, just before exams and I'm happily watching golf. Of course I had brought notes and books to study! Think I haven't learn my lesson during Law? Jas thought I was bonkers and KJ thought, what the heck am I doing in such a weather. I wanted to get out there under the Sun actually, but StarHub had opted for a cozy and smaller tent away from the Sun. Damn! This year's Singapore Masters was quite rubbish though. Sponsored by some company called Clariden Leu and Group Exklusiv. I hate that name. It just reminds me of the Chinese car, Geely. It was also the first year that a Chinese company had sponsored the event - Hua Wei, I suppose it was together with StarHub. And just a coincidence, a Chinese golfer won the game. I'm quite disappointed that Dougherty didn't win though.