Fahmy's BLOG: March 2006

Owning a motorcycle for transportation is great!

09:30 pm Today I had a lot of things done. The day started very early, as usual, its Thursday and tomorrow’s Friday. I dread Thursdays and Fridays, you can read the earlier blog entry. However, I had done :
1) Remake my driving licence at Paya Lebar (TP HQ)
2) Paid my Singtel, Power Supply, and SCV bills
3) Bought myself 2 pirated CD/DVD, “Need for Speed most Wanted”, and “Guitar Pro 5”, an excellent software similar but far superior that the famous Powertab.
4) Transferred money to Shila
5) Gave my Little Tim Tim’s grandma some $$$, who faithfully and caringly looked after him everyday in the weekdays.
6) Gave my own mom too, so that my conscience can be clear.

All this won’t be possible if my good brother had not lent me his motorcycle, the Honda WAVE 125. Small in size, yet so useful to me today. I guess size of a motor is not an issue for me anymore. Glamour bikes are not that important to me. Why? If you had suffered without having a transport for almost 2 f**king years, you’ll appreciate this kind of thing very much. Form 10 am, I had completed item no.1 to no.2 by 11:20 am.
I then did the rest of items 4-6 easily and returned Sayuthi’s bike by 2:00 pm. I took the bus no.16 to Somerset MRT, and head back to Marsiling.

Then, the magnetic field turned on at 5 pm, and like a black hole, I was pulled into its force. I reached Yew Tee by 5:45 pm, and it was a little drizzling. We bought some things from NTUC and went home. Before 07:30 pm.

Words of wisdom

Nothing much to blog, but let this words of wisdom cheer you up...

My electromagnetic life

0801am It's the morning of Wednesday, and its PAY DAY. Which also means BILLS to pay for the next few days. Arggh... Nothing much to blog about today except that again, for 3 times in a row, and for 3 nights of working, they down for me yet another one 2MT713-5 for full wet clean. As its in my personal policy, 2nd time to 3rd time down in a row, I will hand it to them "follow up to install bellow" or less.. That should delay those stingy bastards, and lazy fuckers. Let them sweat and worry a bit for today. I took a cab to work last night, and phew,... it feels like quite a long time I had not done this. I think its around 2 weeks or so (that I'be been cycling to work)...

Pay Day, and yet , I have no plans for today, but maybe tomorrow, its likely that I might be borrowing my brother, Sayuthi's bike. For 2 reasons,
1) to remake my lost driving licence at Traffic Police HQ in Payar Lebar,
2) and also take the ionamine & phentermine pills from our Bishan clinic (so as not to inconvenience Shila & Little Tim-Tim the trip to Bishan).
3) pay some stupid bills, (the reason why we adults have to go to work) ...

Thereafter, I don't know yet what will happen. See if I can get the time to roam around a little bit, a little taste of freedom before 5:00 pm arrives. My life's now like a very big electromagnetic field : On non working days, every 5:30 am, the electromagnetic force will force me to wake up like jolt of electricity, and do the list of things I don't wanna mention here. Then, every 5:00 pm, again the electromagnetic force will somehow pull me toward Yew Tee and I cannot escape.... I hope you are reading this mommy (i.e you Shila, my wife...) Life is like a 12 hour circle. No I don't hate you, no, you don't ruin my life (nor did Little Tim Tim), but you two now RUN my life that's all ... hehehe. I'm the happiest man when I'm with the both of you (Shila & Little Tim Tim), ... just want you all to know that.

Endurance vs tiredness

0749am It's the morning of Tuesday. Again, those fuckers downed for me another chamber for full wet clean. This time its 2MT712-5. As usual, I managed to finish'em up until handsoff check for passdown.
Yesterday, i.e, Monday, and like another Mondays, were big hustles and rush. I met Shila at that same'ol Causewaypoint/Woodlands MRT at 6.00 pm. Little Tim-Tim was quite edgy that evening, and it would probably due to he might

have had a slight flu . His nose was running , and showed quite rising body temperature when his mommy checked on him. After a meal at Mac,

we walked home from there and reached home by around 7:35 pm. When I touched down at home, there was not a minute to waste, but hustle and rush myself to prepare to go to work and I managed to leave by 8:40 pm and, luckily, I did not fall off my bicycle this time around.
Speaking about that, my damn left knee is start to feel some pain, esp, at the knee cap area.

Today, my frustration is mainly at 2 things:

First is the fact that I had to take 3 serviced cold traps from the store. Fine, I had to push the damn heavy things into the storage place inside the Fab. A collegue, a moron & asshole FT, let's just call him SV. I had asked to lend me a hand to push just only one trolley, and he simply give his 1001 excuses of being a lazy ass that he is, and would not even come out to the 10K corridor to help me. And the best part was, when I asked him for that help, he said "ok,ok, I'm coming...". But the asshole never came at all. I saw through the transparent cleanroom doors that he pretended to act blur (like he always did), and walk to other areas. Nevermind, you shithead useless moron, I remember this one, I'll GET EVEN with you ONE DAY, you bastard :
As spoken by the wise Steven Tyler of Aerosmith "Don't Get Mad, Get Even!"

Secondly, I had not only broke my AC adaptor wire for my mini Phillips speaker yesterday, but now, I also dropped it and lost 2/6 batteries. Now I must go and buy that 2 missing batteries, urghh... I guess it's just headphones for now.

Last message & phone call I got from Shila around 0715 am is that little Tim-Tim is safe his Grandma (I must becareful not to use the word caretaker from now on). I hope my son is alright and not sick with flu. I hope he can sleep well and rest as mommy had earlier complained that he was awake since 02:00 am !! Hope everything's alright....

I fell off my bicycle ...

It's a very early Monday morning. I had just finished my present task of the day, which was a full trap change (as usual) of 2MT711-5. However, for this one, I was told only to complete the bottom flange and change out PV50 diaphragm valve. All done up till 5:00 am which led me to think of writing this blog.

I want to write about what had happened last Saturday and Sunday (before I go to work). In the end, both me, Shila and little Tim-Tim did not go out to Suntec City as we originally planned (i.e, on Saturday). We just went to Shing Siong (I'm just gonna use SS from now on) to get some "fresh air" out of our home. We did some small groceries shopping only. Yesterday, (Sunday), we went to same

ol'Causewaypoint and bought some stuff as usual. Shila wanted to buy some clothes for herself cause she thinks that she is lacking in that area for a long, long time. Ah, nevermind, I like to see her happy and smile, and she's very good and detail when it comes to beautifying herself. Besides, a husband should be proud if his wife is pretty, and knows how to maintain herself.

I left for work last night and cycled. I was an idiot last night. I cycled too fast while I was heading to the lift on my 10th floor corridor. As I reached the corner, I pressed the rear brakes to hard, and I flew off my bike. I bumped my left knee cap real hard on the freaking cement floor while falling. First thing I thought of was, "Shit, did anybody saw that??" Luckily no one did. Maybe the stupid Indian neighbour heard a 'thud' sound, but what's most important is that no one saw me falling off. Hehehe, especially Shila, she will sure have a good laugh if she saw it. Well, TOO BAD, you(Shila) did not see it, HAHAHA!!!

I was thinking of yet another sub project that i wanted to do. The cassette-to-mp3 conversion project was quite a success with a few more (actually plenty) cassettes to go. I was thinking of quite sometime to do a live recording of me playing the guitars on certain songs that I've learned and mastered. The problem is how to get the sound into the video cleanly, as if it was miked properly with a boom or something. This is because normal video camera direct mic would sound unclear due to the distance from the subject, and that kind of issues. Maybe I'll incorporate Adobe Audition and do a track, by track editing of sound files, against the original sound files.

The next problem is, can I find the time to start all these projects right now?? ...

Would you like to give blood or sweat??

16:51 Today is such a cloudy, and grey looking day. It fees very hot, humid and warm at home. I sweat a lot, as usual. Last night I have also completed my e-filing for this year’s income tax. Nothing much to do, but yet I feel so lazy to go out this evening. Look at the damn clock, … it’s already almost 5 pm. Getting son, and his mommy ready and all that, is gonna take yet another one hour plus. Traveling will take yet another 2 hours on the stupid MRT!
All because, yes, I have no car. Is that a problem? Spend another freaking 1/3 to ½ your monthly salary to experience convenience, even more for some people. Bottom line is, either way, you’re a loser. Living in Singapore :

You got car, you’re a loser, because you’re paying much, much more than what people in other country are paying, and you think you’re in their ranks in terms of the convenience, car ownership status, phfff... please, think again. C.O.E, cash card usage, high fuel cost, car park, insurance, road tax, 10 year monthly installments, high cost maintenance, … yeah, go ahead suck my blood, drain my money. Car ownership in Singapore all have one thing in common, whip you dry out of cash. The banks and government have got everything to gain, and you got everything to lose ...

You got NO car, guess what, you’re also loser too, because you’re at the mercy of the public transport system. MRT is good, but overcrowded in peak periods, too much standing, and only good if you’re traveling at places near to its stations. Bus is good, but for long distances, it maybe too slow because it had to travel on routes that are unnecessary in your journey. Taxi's the best? Quite expensive, and sometimes when you need them urgently, they are unavailable, and you had to call them. In the long run, booking fees and peak period surcharges are not cheap too. Yeah, public transportation, go ahead break my sweat, and drain my energy...

Either way you lose.

People with babies and strollers to carry like me are the victim of these two systems. We are the casualties. How to have a good time, when the traveling alone can wear you out, or the lack of money could spoil the fun. Such is a drop of what life can taste like without transportation, or a car, to be specific. And sad to say, I’ve been in both worlds …

Loudness's Music

Yet another on going thing, I'm still learning and practising Loudness songs. I'm a big fan Akira Takasaki 's music. I think he is a very great rock guitarist, and should be in the rankings among other great rock guitarist. He's underrated bacause of too much emphasis on 'white' guitarist like Jimmy Page, Yngwie, Steve Vai, and so on in the rock guitar world. I've already learnt 'Twenty Five Days' and learning 'Red Light Shooter' from the "Soldier of Fortune" album.

Who says cassette tapes are useless are IDIOTS!

My current project right now is to convert all my 'analogue' music cassette tapes to mp3 files. Dump it into my Sony Vaio mp3 player, consolidate all the mp3 files on my HP computer hard disk and then burn/back up on a DVR-R or CD-R. Phew, that sounds like easy... Well, not really...

A visit we haven't done in a long time ...

Today we (my wife & baby), went to my mother's place at MacPherson. My son, as usual hated to go there maybe because of the of the noisy PIE expressway in front, or my mother's loud nature that could have frightened him. After a long time, and countless tries to calm him down, he managed to settle his feelings. It sure takes a while.
It's hard, although not impossible, for him to get acquainted to my mother, sister and my brother. My brother (or his uncle) seems to be the most excited one to see him. It showed that Sayuthi really loved his one and only niece very much. Well, its in his nature I guess.
Before we left, my wife and I pretended to scare our little one that we are gonna leave him behind. It freaked him out very badly, and I've never seen him yelling and crying like that in quite a long, long time. Only when I reassured him, carried him in my arms, he smiled a little bit, feeling relieved that he's with his mommy and daddy whom he loved and loved him very much.

We grabbed a cab from MacPherson and it cost us $14.70 (no surcharges, thank God), and both little Tim-Tim and mommy were 'dead' tired and fell asleep. I cleaned up all those annoying bottles that awaited for me the whole day (which I pretend to ignore) and ended the day.

I dread Thursdays

10:15 .... Yes I hate Thursdays. I'm scared of Thursdays and Fridays. All the damn house chores are stacking, piling and waiting for me to 'entertain' them. I cannot escape, cannot run away. After I sent my wife to work & son to the care taker, this is what I had to battle with.
With $20 in my hands, I bought some stuff from NTUC for my 2-day survival at home. It cost $15.50. I reached home, made instant noodles for myself, and wrote this. I wanna sleep first, wake up later, and settle these burden later ....

My Wedding Anniversay

It's been about a year since I last posted anything into this blog. And today, 18th March, also a Saturday, I was wedded to my wife, Shila. Today would be our 6th wedding anniversarry.
Tommorrow would be the day we "bersanding", that means the official marriage procession which happened coincidentally on her birthday. Tomorrow, she would be 29 years old, and 6 years married to me ...