yandao.com - Memoirs of a player wannabe

…of Kelvin and Lafina.

Wow, that was fast, though sometimes I find that time crawls, strangely. Ahh, I've a feeling that we'll probably hit 1188 months in just a while, but, I'll be looking forward to that. (yes, take out your calculators – what's 1188 months in years, ah?)

Still, woohoo, 3 sweet months of us together, with loads of VERY sweet moments, some REALLY sweet ones, a little sourish ones (*cough*), and a tinge of hiccups which probably got smoothened out almost as soon as they surfaced And, I'm very confident the smoothening-hiccups part will somewhat improve, to almost zero hiccups! It's amazing how a single smooch sorts that out. Yes, the sweet ones were very predominant, I must admit.

Actually, I had big, big ideas for yesterday, but then, due to time constraints, and probably also our Indonesian neighbours motivation to manually clear the trees, we had to postpone a very nice boat ride down Clarke Quay in the evening.

Staircases with a great view of the whole area from Marina Square somewhat made up for that, I hoped =X

This was one of the times whereby I, as a photograph addict (cam-opposite-of-whore) actually took less than 10 shots in total. I must admit that Lafina was being extremely attractive and sweet, and therefore, I probably neglected my digital camera, and left it dangling somewhere. Oops.

Okay. So we started off with a movie, Rob B Hood , yes, the Jackie Chan film, but consisting of *really* cute babies, and really touching scenes – without compromising on the stunts and actions. If you don't trust my taste of "cute", right, can go ask Lafina also. I'm pretty sure she will describe very vividly in excitement…

I feel the need to downplay Eng Wah Cinema 's booking system, though: No choice of exact seats, areas you can't book online, crappy booking time limit (Those which say: "If you don't pay within 5 minutes, go back to start and fill in our 10 page form again"), and expensive tidbits – but then again, getting to feed your sweetheart Nachos dipped in Cheese is indeed very fun. =X

Then we went for a very late lunch at Ichiban Boshi , somewhere around the basement of Suntec City. Yes, Suntec City is a shopping centre – not just a place where our Foreign Talents go to have their business meetings with some other Foreign Talents. In fact, I think the shopping centre towers has more people than the convention halls.

We ordered loads, but the food (and darling) was too tempting to keep me snapping…

Actually, we ordered complete sets, really huge sets with sashimi, chawanmushi – japanese egg omelette, miso soup, and loads of SUSHI! – for mine, at least… Lafina's was the set whereby you had to put in the ingredients yourself.

Mmm… I feel lucky getting to taste my darling's "cooked" food – since most of the ingredients were raw before the fire did its work. Heh.

Of course, a photo of us, that's, er, needless to state. (This pic was before my hair and clothes got *really* messy. Yea?) 

Mmmm. The rest of the evening was spent enjoying each other's company, and yes, at this point of time, Kelvin shall cut the details, before those of you who visited KelvinAndLafina.com started feeling mushy goosebumps =X

Oh, check that website somewhere soon, I'm going to insist on editing/adding new content with dar TOGETHER. As in, side-by-side clicking! Should be much more meaningful then MSN-to-MSN editing, you know!  

Possible upcoming CE Activity (for RP students): 

Should be a 45-minutes lunchtime talk with RJ question.
Topics covered should be revolving around viruses/spyware removal and propogation methods.

Interested helpers/speakers, please MSN me at hot_wired13 [at] hotmail.com

Now, what say you?

---

Oh, I've been hearing things about the dangers of an EXE file, and yes, I agree. Some people probably choose to believe kids who's given you nothing so far. Ah well, I'm not against them, just trying to take a defensive stand. Still…

FirewallTweak Source Code:
Thus, for those of you who want the source codes for the EXE file, here, make 2 buttons inside your VB project, namely enableFW and disableFW. Then, copy and paste this whole chunk of code into it (remembering the respective button actions).

Private Sub enableFW_Click()
Shell "sc config SharedAccess start= auto"
Shell "sc start SharedAccess"
End Sub

Private Sub disableFW_Click()
Shell "sc config SharedAccess start= disabled"
Shell "sc stop SharedAccess"
End Sub

For those who still can't figure this out, well. Ask me

And for those who complained about giving out your password, even if its to the school server, at the RP Photo Database, I've uploaded all 6000+ photos to my server already, so now, no need to login anymore! Check it out here: http://yandao.com/photo/

Remember that movie where the telephone lines went dead when the killer stepped into the room?

Or maybe the other one where the female lead somehow couldn't shout out to the guy next door?

How frustrated were you during those scenes? Perhaps even to a point wondering to yourself something along these lines: "Nah, that's bullshit. How possible is it for the phone lines to go dead so zhun? Cannot be, lah. This is just a movie." 

Well, frankly, I thought so too. Until today.

Our story begins around 8am, when I, as usual, took the time to catch a bus to the train station to meet up with Lafina – even though my house was less than 10 blocks (perhaps?) away from the school, and I could very well walk there under 5 minutes. Yes, if you're going to comment that I'm a silly bugger because it was a waste of time, I'm telling you – NO. It's a waste of time only if you DON'T walk your girlfriend to school when its within your capabilities.

At this point, I must admit something – Morning kisses by your loved ones are really gooood. They brighten up your whole day and ensure that there is hope for every situation of the day! Real kisses, though, SMS or electronic ones could have a somewhat similar (if not less) effect.

As a self-confessed geek, I opted to take the real kisses, and the electronic ones, too. Both. Yes. I know I'm greedy. =X

Then, I sent Lafina this wink on MSN which I "created" the night before!

For those who're interested, you can make your own too, for FREE (for now..) at http://www1.cae.mypersonalexpression.com/ (or click on the above pic). Yes, can add photo inside also. Go play with it if you're bored in class!

Now, we had to do our own work as usual, and time soon passed. Fast forward to lunch.

I tried messaging Lafina beforehand on MSN Messenger to confirm with her our lunch meeting, but, 10 minutes later, our favourite message pops up:

"Your message could not be delivered to [insert name here]" – Beautiful, isn't it? Glad to know it's the school's network overloading =X

Fine. So, delayed messages, and loads of others lost. So, at some point of this very sweet morning, we probably thought we were ignoring each other on purpose. Just great.

Then, the Internet connection dies, just when I was about to copy/paste research. Takes 30 minutes to get back up – 30 minutes might sound pathetic, but, in 30 mins, personally, I can pump out 15 powerpoint slides, complete with photos, pictures, and text. All in English, not Greek or Spanish. (Read: Simple language)… and, should this 30 minutes have been more productive, rather than waiting for the "The page cannot be displayed" page, I would have enough time for lunch with Lafina.

Ahh. Probably bad luck.

Enter almost-after-school time, just when the digital clock on the bottom right corner of my screen reading around 3:57 PM. 

I was supposed to be busy after 4 today, but somehow, I managed to squeeze some time out of the schedule, to spend with Lafina, to make it up for the cancelled lunch. The process looks something like this:

I type and send message.
..She receives and replies message.
I reply back, with witty comment.
..She replies back with a loving e-kiss.
I return the favour.
..Status: Lafina has gone offline.

What the hell? Whosoever said communication lines were reliable? SHEESH. 3 minutes after this, almost everyone gets kicked out halfway. Half the class starts bitching about their Reflection Journal not being saved, and Internet dying. The other half are probably the less outspoken half. I can assure you I'm very outspoken.

I think we're all liking the school more and more each moment. Yea? 

Next, 10 minutes later, I try calling her, and get the voicemail. Just then, it hit me that not all parts of the school even has a cellular phone signal/access point. Meaning: Reception. At times, I find it absolutely ridiculous that an organization which can spend loads of funds on Foreign Cleaning Talent to wipe glass panels, cannot spend funds to pull any major Telco provider to install something more… practical.

I ask you, your expensive N-series handphone suddenly no reception when you walk around, you like it, meh?

They say, lightning never hits the same spot twice. I beg to differ: Ok, I went off to get to my schedule, and came back to the school around 7pm – since dar stayed back for drama. Placed another call to Lafina…

*Phone rings, rings*
*Still ringing, ringing and ringing*
[Play voicemail message.]

Somehow or another, her phone didn't get a single ring. That means, no miss calls. Sent an SMS, waited awhile, and called again. Worst. No reception again.

Look at it from another point of view:

If I didn't know the phone had no reception, would it be entirely possible that:

1. 1. I was being ignored because of not meeting for lunch
2. 2. Possible un-sincere-enough SMS'es
3. 3. Lafina thinking I did not reply, or disconnect, on purpose from MSN Messenger, giving an unsure answer

Well, think about it.

Now, think about how many times that guy or gal you were interested in suddenly stopped replying your messages, be it on MSN or SMS or other channels of communication? Would it very possible that the whole message didn't get through in the first place?

I know people who get all upset when they think someone ignored them on purpose. They break down, refuse to talk to their really good friends, who were always there for them; when they needed help, to give them words of encouragement, and to buy them lunch!

Yes, miscommunication sucks. But what can we do about it?

(Uh, but, don't keep messaging that guy/gal that you put right at the top of your contact list leh. It's scary to keep seeing "Hey!"'s every few minutes.) 

Oh, have fun with everything else! Webcams and Photo Database!  

Once again, this is going to be an IT-related post, ladies, please forgive me if it reads like Greek, okay? Sorry! (yes, lafina darling, that includes you. i know you hate codes and stuff )

Okay. So RP's IT crew decided to ignore the slightly more proficient and decided to take things in their own hands – by enabling automatic updates, and forcing firewall. Let me tell you, its NOT going to help sovle RavMonE.exe or any other "thumbdrive viruses". ActiveX BHO plugins hook on Internet Explorer… Sooo. If you wanna block Internet Explorer… Mmmh

Now, let me, a slightly more advanced user, list down the implications of what you've just done:

1. 1.  Crashed everyone who was using a decent firewall, since that firewall tries to disable Windows Firewall, but it wouldn't bulge. Here comes exception errors, and et, viola. Crash.
2. 2.  Made life difficult for around 10% of the males in RP, who probably wants to play their games on something you have a "chim" name for, but we just call "Ad-Hoc" Wireless Gaming. Why? Windows Firewall doesn't like Ad-Hoc, nor games.
3. 3.  Forced, (is this the correct word?) upon our laptops, OUR laptops, which WE paid MONEY for, fixes. Can't you at least ASK first? Please. Respect us users/students!

Fine. I rest my case. But I present to you, gamers, technological elites, and everyone else who needs it to play MapleStory or maybe connect to something… FirewallTweak! – written by ME, Kelvin!

This tool disables the Windows Firewall & ICS service – that means that you'll NOT be able to see if the firewall is stopped or not through the panel. But its stopped!  

Grab it NOW, at: 

http://yandao.com/files/FirewallTweak.zip

Feel like voicing out in RP forums? Here:

http://forum.rp.sg/viewtopic.php?t=1476

Edit #1: Hmm. Learning objective for the day! -
Hey man.. y need a program. just get the people to go disable the sevice in the control panel–>administrator tools–> services–> then the Firewall service. it just disables the firwall service. AW COME ON… a bit of a teaching would do good la. - nameless dude