- Just splurged close to US$90 on a couple of DVDs I’ve wanted for months: 즐거운 인생 First Press Limited Edition DVD and 한성별곡 Director’s Cut DVD. Shucks. Where the hell is my self-restraint?! Jannah, you still want that iPhone / iPod Touch, do you?
- Speaking of which, iPhone 3G is landing in exactly 8 days! Oh gosh, if I end up getting one, please let there not be long queues.
- I really need to book a hotel room for the HK trip, soon.
- Why are IM clients on Windows so damn ugly???
- Going Turkish for team dinner tonight & Italian tomorrow with TKGians, woot!
- I swear, replying emails take up more energy than coding. X_x
- StreetDirectory.com has their maps back, yay!
- Am totally craaaaaving the cheese baked rice at Eighteen Chefs right now. Gosh, the TORTURE of PMS-induced food cravings!
- It’s been ages since I bought a damn good movie on DVD because it’s been ages since a damn good movie came out of Korea.
- Business law started out surprisingly interesting despite its dry nature. I think it has everything to do with my captivating seminar leader. He actually explains law terms in English!
- Wanted: a high-quality, roomy black tote bag to last me for years. Maybe I should just try to live without one until my Hong Kong shopping trip in November.
- Firefox 3 on Mac looks uncannily like Safari. O.o
- I now have a pet dog. He’s a basset hound and almost as big as me! Any name suggestions?
I’m supposed to be writing a 2500-word report for my Open Source Development Tools course ECA, but I just cannot get into the flow of writing today! *knocks head against wall* The words won’t come out. It’s frustrating! Gaaahhh. I feel like I just wasted the entire day sitting in front of my laptop NOT writing anything. Which is closer to the truth than I’d like to acknowledge. SIGH.
The assignment’s due on Friday @ 1900 hours. I had the foresight to take leave on Friday, so I have a couple of days to concentrate on the report. I doubt I can get much done on the other weeknights after work. (It’s another week of standby support duty at my unfavouritest client’s office.)
The other component of the assignment is actually a shopping cart application written in PHP, which of course I pounced on first with the eagerness of a true-blue programming geek. Ask me to write a report – I’ll take DAYS to get into the groove. But show me some code, and I’ll be like YAY GIVE IT TO ME!
Yeah, I’m a geek beyond redemption.
I should never say I’m “just popping by” Sim Lim Square. Every time I step into that place, I usually end up spending more time there than planned. The other day I promised Papa I was gonna run in to get a spindle of blank DVD-Rs & run right back out. I came out an hour later with a Logitech Mini Optical Mouse Plus (for my new notebook), a USB-powered fan & a microphone (for VoIP-ing home while I’m in HK next week) on top of the DVD-Rs. Read the rest of this entry »
I was trying to remember how to minimise the Outlook 2003 window to the taskbar and get rid of it from the desktop (as opposed to minimising it but still having it taking up space on my crowded desktop). Googling led me to guides on how to alter the Windows registry to enable this feature, but I knew that I only needed to check some option somewhere in Outlook. Many clicks later, I finally found out. You’re supposed to right-click on the orange ‘Microsoft Office Outlook’ icon on the taskbar (which will appear after you minimise the Outlook window) & check Hide When Minimized. I’m not sure if this feature exists in versions of Outlook older than 2003. But there you go. In case anybody was wondering.
The past couple of days I brought my lunch all the way to Merlion Park. (Yes, I – who hates to walk to get to places – actually walked the half-kilometre distance there. Y.B. would be proud.) I couldn’t stand the freezing office, so I wanted to work up a sweat before I had to go back. It felt good. The weather was really hot, but it wasn’t humid. I just parked myself on a bench, kicked off my shoes & started eating my lunch sitting cross-legged, amongst some snap-happy (and red-faced) tourists.
Maybe I should do that whenever I bring lunch. Hmmm.
Today I was reminded why I like programming so much. It has been such an integral, almost-daily thing in my life for the past few years, that I forgot for a while why I even chose to do it for a living. It feels good to remember. 
I’m hunting for a copy of Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, which was first published in 1966. I wonder if there’s a recent reprint I can find in local bookstores. It’ll be cheaper than buying from Amazon or some online retailer.
My sudden interest in the book could be credited to 안녕하세요 하느님! (Hello God), a new KBS drama currently airing in Korea, which is based on Daniel Keyes’ novel. I haven’t started watching the series as there are no subtitles yet, but the story intrigues me so.
I think I’m finally rediscovering reading as a hobby again. For a long time I didn’t read anything else besides magazines & technical material. I guess that’s a side-effect of working full-time in the IT sector. Instead of having my nose buried in a book, I have my face stuck in front of a monitor.
I just tried logging in to my work email inbox, and I got this:
error ‘8000ffff’
Catastrophic failure
Duh. Catastrophic failure? What kind of error message is that? Microsoft Outlook Web Access is nuts.
I couldn’t believe I forgot how to use Ant. But then I recalled the last time I used it & realised it was more than a year ago! How time bloody flies. I remember using Ant often & knowing it so well, but today I was struggling to recall the command-line options & such. My long-term memory must be getting weaker. Oh no!
Today I learnt how to use WebLogic Server Actually, I didn’t even learn; I just played around with it & hoped for the best. 
It’s similar to Sun Java System Application Server so the learning curve wasn’t steep or anything. But still! Many companies use WebLogic, so I’m quite satisfied at being able to state in my resume that I know WebLogic.