Monday, November 30, 2009 . 8:58 PM

It's true, I've reiterated the point time and time again. In life, anything that can go wrong, will sure as hell f**king go wrong in the worst possible manner.

It's not so much about hoping for the best but preparing for the worst, it's more about preparing for the worst because that's the amount of shit you'll have to deal with. For real.

My God. Everyday is like a struggle. Every single bloody freakin' thing that will go wrong, will INDEED go wrong. I can almost predict the damn future!

Seriously. I need a break. I need to get away from all this.


Ask the question.

Sunday, November 29, 2009 . 7:41 PM

I was wrong about the earlier mission in Modern Warfare 2. There's an EVEN harder one "Contingency". My God, the Task Force 141 Missions are really a bitch.

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel

Saturday, November 28, 2009 . 11:13 PM

Just finished that smokescreen level on the "The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday" mission on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, on Veteran difficulty. I tell you, that part of the level is a real bitch, for several irritating reasons.

1. You encounter smokescreen. Which means to see the enemy, you must use thermal optic scopes on your rifle to be able to see them. To use these scopes, you must make the lengthy transition of putting your eye onto the scope in the game, which is akin to using a sniper rifle. Using the scope is not an option as you can't see nuts but your enemy can see you, even though they're not looking down their bloody sights and they're IN the smoke. Using the scope severely decreases your peripheral vision, which means enemies coming at you from the side get easy kills. Moving with the scope is not an option, as you move really slow-ass with it on, making you an easy target. The conclusion? The scope, which is a necessity, severely impedes your movement and sight, and gets you killed more than anything.

2. There is no bloody cover from the sides. On the map, enemies can attack you from the front, left or right. It is up to the team of 3 to cover all 3 directions, no? No. The AI is so idiotic that they don't cover their respective directions, letting enemies run PAST them to shoot you down. Sure, my teammates are invulnerable for the purpose of the story, but I'M not.

3. For some reason the enemy ALWAYS shoots you. Even though Captain MacTavish and Ghost are nearer them, they will ALWAYS target you first. On Veteran difficulty, you can only take about 3-4 shots before dying. So you can imagine, without cover or support from your idiotic AI, what a bitch this level really is.

4. Call of Duty is notorious for having limitless spawning of enemies until you move to a certain area or reach a checkpoint. You can't just stay in your safe, covered position (relatively) and shoot enemies as they look for you, no... You have to kill as many as possible, clearing a relatively safe path yourself, while chancing it and running to the next available cover AS THE ENEMY IS SPAWNING. Naturally, as they are spawning in the smoke, and given your AI partners' ineptitude at covering you, and given that you can't move fast AND scope at the same time, you're more screwed than ever if you try to chance it.

5. You can't bloody look around corners to shoot! To shoot, you have to inch your whole body round the edge of something just to get a sight. My God. More often than not, you will suffer a few shots before you can even aim, forcing you to get behind cover again or die. Call of Duty can certainly take some tips from Call of Juarez, where the AI is so much smarter and helpful and you can look round corners to shoot.

YEEEEARRGGGGGGHHHHHH

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel

Friday, November 27, 2009 . 11:37 PM

What a shitty last few days these have been, and when you think things can't get any worse, life comes to prove you wrong again and again. No wonder they say that there's nothing like kicking a man when he's down. Someone up there sure loves to do it to me.

Thanks to those who showed support. I'm so sorry you had to see my venting but it was definitely not directed at you guys :)

What good is a performer without his audience? Why should I even have bothered to advertise for it anyway, it was unlikely that anyone would've turned up.

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel

Wednesday, November 25, 2009 . 12:21 AM

Psychiatry posting has been interesting and rather cool despite the fact that this has been my first day at SGH for this posting...

Spoke to a patient today with Asperger Syndrome and I really enjoyed the session, one for that fact that I hadn't been in the wards speaking to patients for 4 weeks at least - 6+ if you count the weeks where there was clerking with added stress of major exams, which totally ruins the experience - and two, that I could relate to this patient somewhat.

Contrary to popular belief, not all psychiatric patients are crazy or stupid, far from it. This guy was brilliant. He understood everything posed to him, and when he wasn't sure, he wasn't afraid to clarify things clearer. It showed a very deep sense of thinking that belied his age. But the poor guy had problems that I cannot disclose in this blog, but I could really relate to.

The most rewarding moment for me during the clerking was when he opened up to me and that we managed to strike an understanding and some sort of short-lived arbitration of a bond. I was rather amazed that I had actually attained some sort of level of trust with this patient, a feeling that I will not soon forget.

I've definitely missed clerking and talking to patients in the wards. Thank goodness I met this patient today.

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel

Tuesday, November 24, 2009 . 12:10 AM

Don't know if you know the frat boy culture in USA, but this is incredibly heavily stereotyped, so much that it's hilarious.

I can totally picture Jon Teo turning into something like that during his years of education in the US hahaha...

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel

Thursday, November 19, 2009 . 12:43 AM

Ohhhh my god I thought I'd seen everything in Whose Line until I saw this episode just now...

There's something hilariously funny about 3 guys trying to muck up song lyrics on the spot while singing in unison, with Colin's facial expressions during the song to boot. They should've played this game more!

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 . 8:24 PM

I just spent the last 2 hours on a fruitless trip around Singapore.

I was supposed to go for Celeste's birthday party tonight, which was being held at Aranda Country Club, which is like the other side of the island from where I live =\ so going there was always gonna be tough. Naturally I went to consult gothere.sg for directions and I memorized them as best I could before setting out.

The website told me it'd take 36 mins to get there, so I thought if I'd leave at 1800 I'd reach there well before 1900 even if there was a jam on the PIE. Well I thought wrong, there was a "MASSIVE JAM UP TO BEDOK" and I was literally traveling at a snail's pace along the PIE. Spent 1.5 hours sitting in the damn car waiting to go from time to time.

So I thought I could be smart. When I saw a turnoff that led to the TPE I took it, knowing that eventually I had to end up there anyway. Turning into the CTE, I was incredibly relieved that I could finally travel at decent expressway speeds. From the CTE I managed to hit the TPE and was pleased that I was on course.

I was on track until I saw the turnoff to KPE. Remembering that there was a component in the original directions that I should take the KPE at some point, I happily took that route.

So after going through that long long tunnel which is the KPE, I ended up at a turnoff between ECP (City) or ECP (Changi), which totally didn't make sense according to the original directions. Incredibly frustrated by that time, and counting that fact I was going to leave the party early at around 2030 anyway (it was 1950 by the time I reached that ECP fork) cos I have a huge backlog of work to clear, I decided to hell with it and just took the ECP (City) home.

I just consulted the directory and I realized that once I hit the TPE from CTE I was in the right direction all along. The wrong part was when I turned into the KPE, hence going in a circle back towards the AYE and back from where I came. Dammit. In the original directions from gothere.sg I was supposed to take the KPE BEFORE the TPE then I would've reached.

Well, at least I know how the CTE and KPE work now. Hopefully I won't get lost when I use these two expressways next time.

Bananas.

I owe you Celeste! Heh. Will make it up to you if we ever have your coffeetalk in the future (and if I can find what I'm intending to make it up to you with).

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel

Monday, November 16, 2009 . 11:53 PM

Must we all have a niche in life? Must we all be that terribly good at something that people can categorize us? "X the mugger", "Y the photographer", "Z the guitar-player".

It seems that most of my life I have been trying to find a niche for myself. I used to be good at badminton, until I hit the badminton teacher by accident with a shuttlecock during trials in Primary 4 before she told me to serve and that was the end of my trial (lasted only a serve). I thought football was my thing until I found that my fitness (and discipline in fitness) levels were not up to it. I thought photography was my thing in Secondary 3 and clung on to it until recently.

It's not that I don't like photography anymore. I still do. Taking photos, and demanding perfection in my photos, used to be and will always be fun for me. It's just that one of the reasons I took it up in Sec 3 was that it was special, and unique. Back then we used old film SLRs and we developed our own photographs in a dark room. As the years went and we welcomed DSLRs into our lives, photography became more accessible to the general public. I'm not lamenting or whinging about how everybody left right and centre can take up photography as easy as one can take up reading, in fact, it's great that more and more people are interested in the art. I was just lost for a while, as photography used to be special to me, that I was one of the few people who could do this reasonably well, and now it has lost its uniqueness.

I was never really a pure student at photography. People around me have been more dedicated and more hardworking at the art than I have, and naturally have surpassed me as photographers. Yes, this has put me down a little, but I learn at my own pace. I know I don't have to answer to anyone about my skills (or lack thereof), but somehow I can't help the feeling that I've disappointed people (or made them happy to discover that I am more noob than they are) when they find I'm not as good as they think I am.

But it's hard to shake off the tag. People used to label me a photographer, but I have nothing to show for it now. When I tell people I'm not so much into photography now, I think they actually lose their interest in me, as if there has been some loss in value to them.

Is that what we are reduced to now? Being labels? Being "of worth" to other people? That I'm not your friend, despite all that I've tried to be one to you, because I don't have this talent? That when I revealed that this label does not suit me anymore, I have lost my worth in this community?

Seems like it.

So now I'm stuck in limbo. I have no label. I'm not "X the marathon runner", "Y the smart guy", "Z the lanner". I'm just "X". I don't have a niche. I'm not the best at anything.

And that makes me worthless to some people.

Should I be bothered by that? Probably not.

But I am.

So if you noticed recently I ditched the fanboy Liverpool blogskin and replaced it with a simple skin and if you read the splat at the top carefully you'll notice it's got some lyrics from a British alternative band... Maybe singing will be my niche.

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel

P.S. Now I'm having second thoughts about not auditioning for Blue Intentions. Seems like everyone in Resonance is moving up to semi-pro groups. Wei Lee in Equivox, Zheng Yu in After 6 and Joshua in Blue Intentions. Where will I be after I finish Resonance? Will there be another offer from a semi-pro group? I really don't know. Seems like I'm going to be left behind. Maybe I'm just not worthy.

Maybe I should just quit. Medicine will be my only thing in life from now on.

Saturday, November 14, 2009 . 7:22 PM

Was playing GTA 4: The Ballad of Gay Tony today, and was driving around in a car in a mission, when this song played on the in-game radio that was really familiar. Usually I switch the radio stations in the game to rock, so this was like the first time I heard this music, if not I'd have noticed it earlier.

So naturally I went to YouTube to suss out my suspicion and lo and behold, I HAD heard that music somewhere before, it was featured in Watchmen. I'm probably not the first person to find out this interesting fact... If you're as much of a comic book and video game junkie as me, you'd find this cool. If not, then forget it.


Oh the song at the last bit at the end of the Watchmen trailer was done by Muse, damn I really gotta follow up their music they're really good stuff.

The song featured in both trailers is Pruit Igoe, done by Philip Glass initially for the film Koyaanisqatsi. It was remade into Pruit Igoe & Prophecies for Watchmen. Here's the full song:

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 . 9:21 PM

Watched this film for palliative care medicine today... This was, in my opinion, the best scene throughout. It was all I could do to keep myself from crying out loud during the movie in class...

The resemblance of the character was uncanny... Terribly uncanny.

Beautiful. Very poignant.

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel

Thursday, November 05, 2009 . 1:23 AM

For those of you who don't watch the show, it's about improvisational comedy, and this is one of the games that can be played on the show, called "Three Headed Broadway Star". What happens is that 3 of the players have to create and sing a song on the spot based on the title given to them by the audience, and each head can only sing one word at a time.