yandao.com - Memoirs of a player wannabe

Oh, so you’ve probably heard the news that Yahoo! Photos is going to close down.

The problem is, loads of people LOVE Yahoo! Photos, with many, many good years of usage, and since they’re closing - these good folks would rather have their photos OUT of the system altogether, than moving to something they’re unfamiliar with, say - Flickr.

Now, being the very diplomatic company, Yahoo! Photos have replied in their Knowledge Base Article that “Unfortunately we do not technically support the ability to download more than one photo at a time, but for many of you it won’t take much time to download your favorites.”

(Hmmm. Bandwidth costs. *cough* - Like as if they aren’t rich enough)

Yep, I have to “agree” to a minimal extent. My girlfriend, Lafina, spent the half of last night downloading just a hundred out of almost six hundred photographs from Yahoo! Photos back to her computer - and it took so long because they made it increasingly difficult to download everything at once.

Hence, with quite alot of thought, and even more work, I came out with…

(Click HERE to download Yandao.com’s Yahoo! Photos Grabber)

Basically, to install, just upload it to any web server which supports PHP, and then visit the script in your browser, like http://mydomain.com/grab.php or something!

The instructions are inside the file itself too!

As for now, have fun! ..and leave me a comment on how it went!

Honestly, I’ve no an idea if that word above actually exists - “Hypocritical” - but if it were to be broken down into two parts, namely, “hypo” and “critical” / “critism”, no doubt that would sound like a conjuncture or rather, guess made at a critical point (or from an alternate context, critic). Unfortunately, (and someone what hypocritically), that is far from true.

I derived (or rather, conferred it) from the term, “Hypocrite”.

Wait, before I continue - I had a great day today, it’s just that there seems to be a need to for me to get thoughts penned down, and constructive arguments, or rather, CRITISM, before it actually manifests in other forms. Pfft.

From young, we were educated in a way, be it in our educational institutions (thankfully government-aided/supported) and our parents - that the world was a simple place - good people were people whom you know, and bad people had either been locked up, or had dragons tattooed all over them (not to mention, messy hair with slack-like walking styles) - Personally, I had been conditioned by the environment to stereotype in such a manner - and I’d be pretty sure more than a handful of you people have been too.

Since then, we gained knowledge, by our own trial and error, as to what was politically “correct” and wrong, and started putting less weight on the stereotypes in which we were instilled - some of us took sides, some of us started sites - and the majority of us followed our peers.

What nobody told us, was the unwritten matters in which we should know, and should stereotype, generalize and put ourselves up against. True, attempts have been made to bring out such hypocrites through analogies, folktales, and the works - but honestly, nobody ever pointed fingers, have they?

Such is the society we reside in - the moment we make an accusation, and voice it out loud - suppression, and a label of barbarism is almost certainly issued at that very action - because we probably did not do it constructively enough. Being a very law-abiding citizen, I’d naturally opt to be constructive, especially when it arises to the matter below - then again, I would consider this from another viewpoint as a bias in our local Singaporean society - or perhaps, Asian culture.

We’re known to be trusting people, good people, and people who cares for our neighbours. Now, let me thrown in an what-if. - What if, you’re doing good, and your neighbour stabs you silently? What if, your neighbour wasn’t even good in the first place?

Ohhhh, we slap the term hypocrite onto him/her then…

..but that’s the macro-environment - one that’s largely beyond our control, and no matter how much anyone does voice out - hey, it’s reality, you survive. In the micro-environment (an situation whereby one does get a certain extent of control), however, that’s different due to leverages present.

Now, let me quote this based on something true, happening in my very school - it’s going to sound “normal” to Western cultures, probably, but hell no, I’m disturbed when it occurs right infront of everyone - especially when he’s in contact to some close, good friends of mine, and taken attempts on my girlfriend, Lafina (fortunately, failed ones).

Here comes the blow-up *kaboom* - hopefully mild enough to avoid threats of intentional defamation (Singapore Penal Code Chapter 75), or bomb threats, placed under my.. doorstep or something:

Let’s introduce our beloved character - calling him by his surname - Ong. (Disclaimer: We’re *cough* presuming he’s called by a common surname *cough*)

Guys and gals, please say “Hello” to Ong. - a familiar face around the schools for the current 2nd Year students, one which probably is known to help out quite abit in whatever is within his ability, and gets himself involved socially everywhere. He works well with a camera, too, and never fails to impress. That smile on his face places him on a level of ever-so-friendliness - in fact, he’s friendly enough that I featured a snapshot somewhere back in Yandao.com.

High-yielding positions in various activity groups within the school helps to put a name on that credibility, too.
Adding to that, Ong is active spiritually, in a mainstream religion, one which like any other - has it’s own set of stringent rules at certain matters, yet again, flexibility and encouragement in peer socialization. In fact, I’m largely familiar enough with some mainstream rules myself to make comments.

Blessings are common from Ong, whom I believe sincerely wishes well to his peers. Bless you *cough*

In order for us to apply that term of “Hypocritical” to this profile, we’d have to switch almost everything around - wouldn’t we? Then again, writing such matters out, or rather, spelling them out, would be… impolite.

I’ll just use keywords - imagination is a powerful thing, my friend, and very often accurate:

east, SEND BACK, BREAKFAST, my place, AFTER MIDNIGHT, FRIENDS OF YOUR FRIEND, brute force, fell in love at first sight, NON-CONSENSUAL, came for you, PUSHED AWAY, PERSISTENCE, “Hello”, CONVINCING, false sense of security, “Bless”.

Sounds familiar? You’ve probably got the hint Now, all that’s left is for things to take it’s place - they say fear is a strong deterrent, or a strong motivator. Either ways, it’ll work out just right.

Pfffft. Thoughts aside -

SUSHI DAY! BWAHAHAHA LAFINA AND I MADE SUSHI TODAY! - real sushi - not puns nor metaphors which I used to use quite awhile back, heh. Yes yes, photos, complete with… descriptions (since recipes are probably ten times more advanced than that) will arrive tomorrow

*Runs around maniacally* - FINALLY, an update (or rather, a new post in which was written when Kelvin actually sits down, thinking of constructive critism, actually, comments, to type) - Oh, and yes - someone nice enough actually dug out my real, physical address from Yandao.com’s records and posted it. I would expect Fan-Mail in the physical mailbox from you since you actually took the effort to do that - thanks. You can see my address HERE.

Every now and then, we decide to go on spending sprees, buying close to everything (or rather, everything within our grapse) that we could afford, either for ourselves, or for that special someone.

Those who actually know me would have probably known by now that I’ve a tendency to spend close to everything I’ve ever earned. Hence - for those of you who didn’t know yet, here’s what I bought, on my.. recent.. budget *coughs* rather, spending spree, for a very lovely, yet special gal - my darling Lafina!

This was quite a while back - but I haven’t really got the chance to post it up - since that maniacal rush of project inflow, plus ideas OUTFLOW (meaning I’m being literally sucked devoid of ideas) does take a toll on me.

I’m averaging four hours of sleep daily - and that’s very, very little. Quite less than the recommended amount some government-funded sleep research agency would ever dare to print slap on the cover page of their publicity collateral…

..and TA-DAH. Behold - shiny.. diamonds!

No, they’re not those displayed at some window shelve with that sale tag on - I actually took the time to employ old-fashioned haggling at the shop, sacrificing several hours talking to commission-drawing auntie “managers” at the jewelers

Now, if they’re rich enough to hire aunties - surely can give bigger discount cut, right? *whips out a large, squarish calculator and randomly keys in loads of figures, digits, and mathematical operators* - no, YOU guess the price

Oh, can someone count the stones, please? =x

Of course, to go with diamonds, roses are a requirement - as noted by the owner of Yandao.com - since, courtesy of MediaCorp’s Channel 8’s 9pm Chinese TV-sequel once again publicized quite a bit of “reality” about the way things get done.

Talk about mainstream media influence, dang. Now I’ll have to write a follow-up article soon.

Hence, [Enter Roses]. (sorry, couldn’t resist - and stole that bracket-word-action-thingy from a skit-script I happened to chance across somewhere along the vast boundaries of the Internet).

The problem with giving flowers, UNlike giving anything else, mainly - is the timing. Allow me to justify that claim, before someone actually posts a rebuttal soon enough and starts throwing very famous local chicken pies from my uncle’s store, Don, at me.

Allow me, at this point, to express my sincere gratitude to Dennis Liu - a very, very capable guy from my girlfriend’s class, for helping to lure Lafina away while I prepared the set-up in her classroom. Yes, this set-up did cause quite abit of stunned faces, and.. well, shocks. But.. here’s how it went, I think:

Okay. Basically, follow out the paths on the red arrows - for those of you in Republic Polytechnic (RP), and you’ll understand how much effort it takes to run around for that trip - and for those who aren’t in RP, just know that I was sweating when the delivery went successfully.

The rough sketch would be something like… this;

1. 1. Get Dennis to bluff Lafina that there was some urgent meeting with some facilitator (the people whom grade us in RP)
2. 2. Take her out to some block far far away, namely W4, from her class at E2
3. 3. Stop her halfway and told her facilitator canceled the meeting
4. 4. [Insert Lafina's pissed reaction at a wasted trip here]
5. 5. Make Lafina walk back to class
6. 6. Lafina would meet ME, Kelvin, on the way to class
7. 7. I’d be outside her class when the effect of shock sinks in =X

Yes, yes, I know - that’s evil, but the phrase which really made it all worthwhile was her saying to her friends who were already staring at her - “Whose flowers are these? Yours, ar?” (and pointing to her classmate).

A BIG THANK YOU TO ALL THOSE WHO PLAYED A PART IN KEEPING THE SURPRISE INTACT =) I OWE YOU GUYS/GALS A BIG ONE!

Now, as with every major spending - Kelvin becomes poor. VERY, VERY POOR. Penniless, broke, hole-in-the pocket, bo lui (local hokkien slang), pokkai (another local slang), or…. Well - you get the idea. Hence, steamboat was lovingly suggested by my lovely gal - who wanted to get me to try the meat… balls.

Meatballs, I mean.

Please - no slanted ideas here. Thanks. =X

Basically, these hand-made meatballs (sorry muslim folks, non-halal) were super pricey - almost a dollar a piece - since each plate comes at $10 bucks RAW - uncooked, unsteamed, and un…eaten yet! (Not until we’ve taken a bite, right?)

..and.. guess what…

Yup, meatballs, dumplings, and beef slices - freshly handmade (or rather, handsliced - for the beef) right before we had our teeths sunk into it - after soaking them in boiling hot water in the steamboat pot - which largely consisted of fish head meat - meat.. from some fish’s head, basically (probably only us, Asians, eat these - the other people throws them away, right?)

..and then the funniest thing happened when Lafina tried to peel fishbones - debone the fish. BUT, because she’s a very lovely gal, I wouldn’t say it out here - ask me on MSN though, and I will. =X

For those of you looking for the shop - it’s around 200+ Outram Road - off Tiong Bahru, near Tiong Bahru Pau. Quite a wide selection, but rather pricey too, and no ATM machine in plain sight. Hence, bring more cash

Once again, the budget has been balanced, and Kelvin is poorer by a few bucks, (but gets to savour the meatballs lovingly cooked by his darling Lafina) - hence, a stretch of days (or day, or weeks, or something) well spent!