Pure Joy

With all the things that have happened (and are happening) I could so easily be like this:

But James 1:2-4 says:

2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

Consider it “Pure joy”: Not easy huh?

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Magnificent Night

Yes I was working until 0130 but it was what happened after work that was so refreshing. The drive in the quiet night. With a peace and calmness that you don’t get to see during the day or even at night with people busy running their own rat race. I took a nice leisurely drive in the midst of the first day of the week that more or less started off with an expectation of a busy week, anticipating the work that needs to be done. And this was/is camp work, not even office work which woke me up in the morning via an innocently ringing phone. Data population was to be resumed after a long hiatus: people have finally given me data to populate! (the enthusiasm more for the feeling of relief that finally get to make a few more steps towards finishing the project, rather than the happiness of getting work to do). But enough about work and just enjoy the beautiful world that we have before us. Got my supper at the pasar at church and felt like taking a nice long walk in the cold of the early morning. I guess the feeling of relief after a long day of work and the opportunity just to relish in the morning was so satisfying that I just drove around for an hour. Just me and God and His magnificence. Church camp coming up this weekend and 3 weeks until YDM youth camp and I’m sure He’s stirring up something special. Brace yourselves. It’s going to be awesome (yes I had to resist the ‘ooosome’ ;-> =P)

USB Batteries

From missile launchers to massage balls and I find USB batteries.

  • Recharges via USB (5 hours) or NiMH charger (7 hours for 250mA NiMH charger)
  • AA
  • 1.2V
  • 1300mAh
  • $15 @ Chong Hock Kiulap

batteries in packaging
batteries being charged
I just found them unique and gadget guy in me couldn’t resist. Too bad it’s only 1300mAh which is pretty dismal when they have batteries of double that capacity. But anyway it’ll help me de-clutter the area with out the need for a wall charger.

Not so subtly

podcasts

  • $6 for photo print (8″ by 12″ I believe) at Hua Ho Kiulap
  • $2.50 for plastic envelope
  • ‘Free’ – 2 strips of double sided tape from my stationery stash

I guess the idea came from Leah Culver and her laser-etched Macbook Pro but I’m just giving free advertising to great free content on the web. My DIY fixture hides any laptop branding and is interchangeable when the time comes. Yay! Couldn’t use stickers or anything big like that though, since it is the laptop work ‘loaned’ to me to, well errrr… work =P

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Of Mice and Men

No I’m not talking about John Steinbeck’s novella that my secondary school teacher made us read, but I’m talking about the quest for the mouse. I guess it all stared back in the days of my youth when I started playing Counter-Strike during my A-levels year. Being a student with little money I opted for an A4Tech USB laptop ball mouse for a cost of about $19. Optical mice didn’t really cut it back then and/or were too expensive for me. I remember the days of taking the ball out and cleaning the mouse. Oh how simple life was back then. I did hear of Razer back then when a friend of mine told me about his Razer Boomslang that he got overseas for $150+ I believe. $150+ AND overseas: that was just too far out there. And as my gaming progressed and I moved to NUS I thought of just playing a few games now and then with bots. But to my surprised I found people joining in my games and it was then I decided that I had to get a proper mouse. I went from Sim Lim Square to Funan DigitalLife Mall to SuntecCity and finally settled on a Logitech MX310 for $59 from TheSoftwareBoutique in Funan.
MX310 specifications:

  • 800 DPI
  • 5 buttons + scroll wheel (2 extra buttons: 1 on each side of the mouse where thumb and pinkie)
  • USB interface
  • Symmetric – thus can be used by both lefties and righties

I was happy with the mouse but little did I know that in my final year I would get see quite a bit of the Razer Diamondback in my future.
Diamondback specifications:

  • 1600 DPI
  • 7 buttons + scroll wheel (4 extra buttons: 2 on each side)
  • USB interface
  • Symmetric – thus can be used by both lefties and righties
  • Lower vertical profile compared to the MX310
  • Much lighter compared to the MX310

I got the original Diamondback as a birthday present from the guys. Thanks again guys! =D (I’m pretty sure it was more of Zhenyang’s idea though) It came bundled with the Razer eXactMat so it was a nice deal. While playing in a Counter-Strike Source competition ended up winning a Diamondback Plasma edition (nice blue glow with an invisible laser compared to the red glow of the visible LED). Winning was mostly due to our great leader Ultima of Xtreame ChaotiX. The Diamondbacks are nice and light but the 1600 DPI takes quite a bit of getting used to and with retail prices of over $60 they were not the kind of mice you would want to get for every desktop / laptop you use. And this leads me back to the quest for the mouse: a an affordable mouse with decent specifications that can be used by even gamers. And as I was strollilng Hua Ho Yayasan I found it.

Enter the Logitech Optical Mouse USB
Logitech's Optical Mouse USB full
Logitech's Optical Mouse USB front
Logitech's Optical Mouse USB tilt wheel
Not an eye catching name at all; heck it was pretty hard for me to find the exact name, I thought it was just a description of the product not the actual name!

  • 1000 DPI
  • Scroll with a tilt wheel (i.e. left and right tilts)
  • USB interface
  • Symmetric – thus can be used by both lefties and righties
  • Lighter than the diamond back with similar height profiles

The tilt wheel can be rocked left / right and these 2 buttons can be customized from zooming to scrolling to simulating a keypress (or even a combination of keypresses). Tested it with Battlefield 1942 and the performance of the mouse was flawless: perfect tracking without any skipping or the ‘why-am-I-facing-the-ground/sky’ problem when you move the mouse too quickly and the hardware just can’t keep up with it. And to top it all off the mouse cost $16.90. $16.90!! Yeah it’s more than those el-cheapo $10 mice but add the extra $6.90 and you will not regret getting this mouse: unless of course you need a small compact mice (or any other reason that this mouse won’t find your requirements) but for everything else I would recommend this mouse for everybody. Period.

The Logitech Optical Mouse USB: Functionality, simplicity all at a great cost (but not a great name)
— TheWheat

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Noooooooo

Hello Timothy,

Thanks for your interest! We’re not able to ship to Brunei at the moment, unfortunately. However, we’re working on updating the list of countries to which we can ship, so hopefully we’ll be able to do this in the future.

Thanks,

Mike S.
Ask A Ninja Customer Service

www.askaninja.com

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Consistency

Photos taken from a Shell petrol station near the Berakas roundabout:
sign top
So I went to fill the car up with some petrol and I was thinking to myself “okay, I’m going to get Premium Ron 97 (the one with the green handled pumps / green colour)” but when I saw that first sign, I was taken aback and was left wondering. Until I saw the following and was relieved to find out my brain isn’t deteriorating faster than I think it was/is.
sign ground
Why Consistency is Critical.

So the ‘correct’ colour petrol grades are as follows:

Green Premium Ron 97
Red Super Ron 92
Black Diesel

I think….

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