30/3/15

Growing up in Singapore one will probably drink 3 kinds of coffee in his or her life. One happens to be the coffee served in open air coffee shops or hawker centres. Another is instant coffee. The one you make by pouring hot water into a cup containing the powder. The last is the kind the barista at Starbucks hands to you.

The one served to you at coffee shops comes in a small cup, usually on top of a saucer and accompanied by a small spoon for you to stir it with. It tastes rather sweet, due to the condensed milk in it. It's almost cloying. However if you don't like it you can have it without sugar or milk. Such black coffee tastes a lot different from an espresso shot, mostly because this coffee is made by pouring water through a filter (usually a long cloth cone) containing coffee grounds, while an espresso shot is made by blasting water at high pressure through a filter containing coffee grounds. In my opinion black coffee has always tasted like hot water mixed with something. It's almost medicinal. Espresso shots taste like they're an individual fluid, not one fluid mixed with another poorly. But that doesn't mean I prefer espresso shots over black coffee. Truth to be told, I prefer neither.

Instant coffee is the one I usually drink, because it's easily available and easy to make. There are many options on the market, ranging from low sugar to low creamer ones. I usually go for the regular. Instant coffee tastes a lot like coffee shop coffee, except perhaps a little less sweeter. There's not much special about it. It just tastes like coffee mixed with milk and sugar. Manufacturers have to make sure their product can be enjoyed by the largest amount of people, after all.

Finally we come to Starbucks coffee. I usually order cappuccinos. I add some sugar syrup into the cup before I take one of those long thin sticks at the table and stir it into the coffee. I like cappuccinos because they have a lovely layer of foam. I never stir the foam into the coffee. I have no idea if that's appropriate, but whatever. After the coffee is finished there is usually quite a bit of foam left in the cup, so I scoop it out using the stick, if I haven't thrown it away. Starbucks coffee is the most expensive, thus I tend to only have it once or twice a month. Do I feel it's worth the money? Maybe. I can't tell good coffee from bad coffee. As long as it stops me from falling asleep, I'm happy.

Why Apple's plans to make a car are going to fail

Let's face it, you probably didn't know Apple was planning to make a car. The news only popped up for a bit and then the whole dress thing flared up. But in case you were wondering if Apple could actually build a car, they could but you wouldn't buy it. Why? Considering that their phones sell a lot every year and they always come up with newer versions that are either glossy or matte. And bigger. Here are some of my reasons. Which might make sense. Or maybe not.

1. It's easier to just team up with a car company and add some touchscreens to it. But would you buy an Audi with touchscreens? Granted the TouchID would be kind of cool when it comes to unlocking the doors but that's about it. It's essentially a big iPhone with wheels. And you still need an iPhone because you can't bring it to meetings. Don't ask me why Apple would team up with Audi to make a car, I just thought they'd be the only company that would do that. Can you imagine the iFerrari? I can't.

2. It's a big iPhone with wheels. Which means it'll have to look like an iPhone or noone's going to buy it. In short it'll have lots of angles and no curved surfaces at all. And everything will be covered in a thin layer of glass to make it super shiny and cool to look at. Unfortunately it's covered in a thin layer of glass. Meaning knocking into anything will ruin your car. And because it's from Apple replacement parts are unavailable and you will need to have it shipped back to HQ to fix it. Which is expensive.

3. It will be battery powered. Because Apple can't make it a petrol engine. Don't even think about the diesel version. And we all know battery powered vehicles are kind of boring. And tiny.

4. It will only be available in white and gold. Which means everyone's going to point at it and say that it's blue and black. And your life will suck from there onwards.

5. Apple will deny this, but the car will detect that you are using an Android device and lock you out. Until you leave it behind and get into the car. At which point you will request to be driven to your destination, Siri will say "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that." and blow up the car.

This could have been a lot funnier, but I haven't written something like this for quite a while. Sorry.

5/1/15

Hello here. Sorry about not posting for such a long time. Quite a bit has happened since the last post. Exams came and went. I did alright for them, my grades stayed the same so I guess I'm good. During the December holidays I went to Japan on a tour. It was rather nice. There was real snow there. We stayed in different hotels every night, which I found was kind of cool. We visited a volcano. There was an awful lot of sulphur. I forgot to mention, during November we had OSAP and went to Australia. The skies there were very good. We had astrophotography lessons there and we took quite a few good pictures. We also went sightseeing and the places we went to were quite lovely.There was a honey farm and a chocolate factory. I bought some souvenirs.

Anyway, now I live in hostel. I've turned year 5. So far it's been extremely boring. I hope that when lessons start I won't be so bored because I will have homework to do. I can't find anything to interest me. I lose interest very quickly.

I have a new class now. i don't really recognise the people in it. So it'll be a bit difficult for in the beginning, but I hope to at least make some friends. All my other friends have gone to other classes.

I didn't make any New Year's Resolutions. Sorry about that.

16/9/14

Nothing much happened today, besides the haze coming back. A bit.

I did alright for my physics test, although I thought I was going to do worse because I didn't quite study much for it. Also, friend of mine gave me a Starbucks card for my birthday, which is rather nice.
It also had $80 on it. Which was even nicer.
Borrowed some books from the library today. More crime novels.

I have quite a lot of projects due this week.

6/9/14

Had an overnight session on Thursday. It was quite nice, the sky was clear for quite a while so we could see a lot of stuff. The mosquitoes were bloody annoying though. I didn't know they could fly so high. Took some good photos with the CCD.

I like how no one has nominated me for any bucket challenge yet.

3/9/14

Teacher's Day is tomorrow. So we're having a shorter school day tomorrow as well. We had sports day today, but it consisted of mostly running, which got boring rather quickly.

Finally managed to find Police. You have no idea how long I've been waiting for it to be available in the library. Also borrowed the mammoth book of crime fiction, which seems interesting. I don't quite know why I like reading this genre but it's pretty cool especially when they get to the part where they kill people. Hiding the bodies is also interesting.

I think we're having some kind of breakfast tomorrow, but since we have a $40 budget we can't really buy anything nice.

Sharks can't laugh because they lack funny bones. Or any bones, for that matter.

I AM NOT LAUGHING, I AM SIMPLY VOICING MY DISPLEASURE WITH YOUR COMMENT.

Also went for a haircut today. My hair was getting too long.
SHIROKUMA CAFE IS THE BEST ANIME EVER!

The Ultimate Pet Catting Guide

So, you have a pet eh? Neat. But pets are rather boring, aren't they? Take fish for example. They swim around. They swim up to the surface of the water whenever you feed them, then they swim back down, chase their tails, and when they feel like it they find some corner in your tank and die.

THAT'S OFFENSIVE. TAKE BACK YOUR STATEMENT OR I'LL EAT YOU.

Since when did you learn proper English? Anyway, hamsters are quite adorable, although according to a friend of mine the mothers do tend to eat their children when stressed.

And humans, on very rare occasions.

Then you have birds, which tweet, hop around, fly a bit and eat seeds from your hand and sit in your hand and are generally very cuddly if a bit hard to hold. Owls are the best. Although owl babies look quite frankly like sacks of s***. Not that I have a thing against owl babies, they do look quite funny, especially when there's people holding them and they go into the "IF I STAY VERY STILL AND ACT DEAD HE'LL PUT ME DOWN" state.

The way he's squeezing me, I'll be dead anyway.

But I've never really heard of anyone keeping owls in Singapore, and there don't seem to be any owls in Singapore for that matter.

Onto dogs. They're not my favorite animal. I'm sorry to say that, but I don't find dogs very appealing. I think it's got something to do with their faces. Or maybe I'm weird and a massive douchebag (THAT'S TOTALLY YOUR OPINION AND NOT MINE).

Anyway onto the main point of this post, which is called pet catting. Essentially this post will show you how to turn your pet into a cat-like creature. Hopefully. I don't have a pet, so I'm asking you people to test the methods shown below. Constructive comments would be greatly appreciated. Any damage to animals is totally not my fault. (insert more disclaimers here, blah blah blah, each sold separately, batteries not included, do not feed to children over 18, machine wash only)

Method 1: Make it look like a cat. This will involve the use of string to make artificial whiskers, as well as cat ears and a marker. Simply hot glue the strings to the face of your pet. If the cat ears don't stay on then use glue as well. The marker is for adding additional whiskers and the obligatory cat face, :3

Method 2: Make it act like a cat. This one's simple. Simply allow your pet to be the biggest arse ever. Then let it control your life. Done.

Method 3: Make it smell like a cat? I don't know what cats smell like. I'd assume kittens smell like sunshine and rainbows but as they get older hints of death and destruction start to appear, with an aftertaste of Hell.

Method 4: Convert it into a cat. Unlike the above 3 methods this one is a bit more complicated. First, sacrifice something. (The time you've spent reading this is not an appropriate sacrifice). Then offer it to the Devil. Hang on maybe you should offer it to the Devil first before sacrificing it? Eh, just try both ways. If the Devil appears, ask him to turn your pet into a cat. If he looks extremely confused by the request then just point at your pet and meow.

29/8/14

We're nearing the end of August already. My birthday's next month, can you believe that? Had PE yesterday. It was pretty nice. Played Frisbee and I didn't suck. Whoopee.

I have a biology test today that I haven't quite studied for. I wouldn't be worrying about it so much, but I slept through quite a few lessons so I might be a bit screwed. No CCA tomorrow so I should be getting home early.

Singapore junior physics olympiad is this Saturday. I should probably start studying for it,  the past year papers looked quite hard.

Anyway, good night. Don't stay up too late.

27/8/14

School has been alright. Had a math quiz today, I think it was easy. Integration by parts. Not too difficult if you know how to do it.

Borrowed some books today, just finished one.

It'd be kind of cool being a cat wouldn't it? You'd just sit there all day being the hugest arse in the world and no one would blame you for that because you're bloody adorable and you get away with everything that you do. And then you get old and die and then you respawn because you're a cat and you have 9 lives and since you're a cat you're not limited to respawning as house cats you could become a tiger or a lion and that would be pretty cool, wouldn't it? You could finally eat people. Or just be lazy all the time.

20/8/14

Had a holiday today, because the principal declared one since we won a lot of trophies :D Anyway we had E-learning yesterday so that's 2 days without school.

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge isn't a bad thing, since it's raised a substantial amount of money for ALS research and all that, but I couldn't help but feel the Ice Bucket part is a bit silly. For starters, how does pouring a bucket of ice water over your head in any way make you or the people watching more aware of ALS? Seriously, I went and looked up ALS and none of the symptoms vaguely resemble having a bucket of cold water being poured over you. If you want to experience the symptoms of ALS try strapping yourself to a wheelchair, or not moving your limbs or being unable to speak properly. Then try to survive a day and have people video it. Then have pillows tied around all your limbs with tight rubber bands so you can hardly move around properly. Then have someone try to strangle you so you have difficulty breathing. That's ALS. The ice bucket thing is just a way of getting people to watch and to participate because it would appear people really like pouring cold water over themselves.

And anyway, you've already donated the required $100, why drench yourself? What happens if the wind starts blowing? Do you have any idea what real cold is?
I don't either, but still.
Also, why hasn't Stephen Hawking said anything about this? I'm actually a bit worried he might have done the ice bucket challenge himself, which is terrifying.

Peer pressure is a terrifying thing. Don't go nominating people to do the ice bucket challenge as well, sometimes they really don't want to. But they can donate the $100, which is nice, I guess. Do it if you want to, but don't drag other people into this unless they agree.

A Guide to Identifying Owls

As the title says, this essentially tells you how to tell apart your owls. Even though there really aren't any in Singapore. At least I haven't seen any.

1. Is it looking at you angrily? Probably a short eared owl. Those things always look angry.

YOU LOOKING AT ME? WANT A FIGHT?

2. Does it look a bit like Totoro? Probably a long eared owl. Another way of telling it apart is if it looks like it has ears, although that's not as effective due to the large amount of owls that look like they have ears.

Why are you asking me if I have an umbrella? Just go inside when it rains, dummy.

3. Does it look like a grey mop head? It's a great grey owl then. It's great, it's grey, there's nothing much else to add. Other than it makes the traditional owl noise, which is "Hoo hoo."

How long do I have to stay here? Damn photographer's taking his time, isn't he?

4. Does it have disproportionately long legs? It's a burrowing owl. You can tell, since they often hang out on the ground instead of up in trees. And live in burrows.

Why does this picture remind me so much of Napoleon? I don't know.

5. Does it look like a burrowing owl, but is hanging out in a tree? It's a little owl. Also distinguishable from other owls by being little. Or maybe it's a burrowing owl that likes hanging out in trees, go figure.

I can't come up with a caption for this. Sorry.

6. Does it look like a miniaturized short eared owl? It's a saw whet owl. Also easily distinguished by looking extremely adorable. And having really huge pupils.

TAKE A PHOTO? OF ME? AW MAN I NEARLY FELL OFF THIS BRANCH!

7. Is it white? Or is it white with a couple of black feathers in between? It's a snowy owl. It looks snowy.

Check out my feet mittens. Cool, eh? Darn fluffy as well.

8. Does it look like a barn owl? I can't quite describe how a barn owl looks like, so if it fits your idea of a barn owl it probably is a barn owl.

I couldn't think of a caption for this either.

There are obviously way more owl species than mentioned in this post, however I do not have the required words for describing their looks, and you're probably far better off consulting a trained ornithologist than using this post. Seriously.

On a side note, owl babies are the ugliest things ever. But they're ugly to the point where it's funny. It's a bit hard to believe they'll grow up into the magnificent creatures up above, but hey, there's hope for everybody!

STOP SQUEEZING ME DAMMIT.

Oh, hey. I just woke up. And I'm hungry.

Links to pictures below:

http://theanimals.pics/short-eared-owl/6/wednesday-wings-short-eared-owls/

http://dansphotos.servehttp.com/birds/v/Owls/Long-eared+Owl/Long-eared+Owl+eyes.jpg.html

http://ibc.lynxeds.com/photo/great-grey-owl-strix-nebulosa/young-adult-probably-second-year-bird

http://www.markhancoxbirdphotography.co.uk/pages/galleries/owls.php?gall_id=29

http://www.stephenoachs.com/gallery-saw-whet-owl.php

http://duhallow.blogspot.sg/2012/05/long-eared-owl-chicks.html

All other images from wikipedia or arkive.

Hope you enjoyed!

10/8/14

Had some friends over at my house today to do homework. It was alright I guess. Didn't really talk much until a few hours in, but we talked quite a bit about our schools and how they're all weird. I find that our school seems to be quite lenient when it comes to late homework, compared to the other schools. Oh well. I actually did quite a bit of homework, so I guess I should do this more often? I don't know, I really want to though, it's pretty fun and enjoyable even if it was rather awkward at first.

28/7/14

Feeling a bit sleepy right now.
Bloody hell, tumblr can be a bit depressing at times. I have friends all over it complimenting each other, and I always feel so left out. Although I suppose it's mostly my fault, since I rarely ever talk to them. Or maybe because I'm a bit too weird for their liking. I have no idea. It seems they're a lot more expressive than I am. Or maybe it's because I keep everything inside? I have the most overactive imaginations at times. And I really don't like it because I've never put it to good use. Book writing attempts fizzle out after the first few chapters. And I'm not in a relationship, which does occasionally make me a bit jealous of other people.
Just did half of my chinese composition. I'll probably do the other half tomorrow, I really can't be bothered right now.
Do you have any idea how bloody infuriating it is to be shipped with the guy sitting next to you? I know you're all just teasing, but bloody fucking hell it gets so annoying at times I actually get angry. And then I keep it all in. Which in most cases is probably very unhealthy. I'll manage. My time with Nicholas taught me a few things about anger management. It's not nice. I'm not homophobic, but Chong Wen doesn't like it either. Neither do I. I could probably do something very nasty the next time that happens, but I usually just scream loudly. And look pissed. The fact that you're all girls doesn't make it any simpler either, because bloody fucking hell there are a lot of rules around when it comes to dealing with you people. Not that I hate you or anything, but I really wish you'd stop that.
I really hope I finished whatever's due tomorrow.
I don't really have a good friend to talk to. I know most other people in my class do, they're the ones with better social circles and all that. I actually do have someone I communicate with a lot, and I rather like it. Gives me something to look forward to. Even if the messages are a bit sporadic and we talk about the oddest things at times.

28/7/14

Relatives are visiting. They're staying in my house at the moment, so I'm sleeping in the master bedroom with my parents. It's a bit cramped. Anyway today was Glen's birthday party. We had chocolate cake, chocolate ice cream and some coffee. It was quite nice. Quite a few people came.If you're reading this Glen I'll give you your present later this week.

Ugh my eyes are hurting again. Good night.

26/7/14

It was yesterday a few seconds ago. Welp.

Anyway, the astronomy dinner was awesome! Met quite a lot of nice people, we talked a lot about the astronomy stuff in Singapore, and how we could improve it and things like that. And the food there was rather nice as well. They had fried rice, mango juice and some other tasty things. And we played some games as well and we started laughing a whole lot, and I realised I haven't laughed like that for quite a while. I laughed a lot. There was this game where you had to whisper in someone's ear a message and everyone kept laughing at the funny bits and we couldn't remember anything XD

Also took a group photo which I don't look really retarded in :P

Anyway that's about it. I need to go to sleep now. Good night.

23/7/14

We have PE tomorrow. Our PE teacher is quite nice. We're playing floorball tomorrow probably. It's like Canadian soccer.

There are Japanese people visiting our school. Some of them came over for chemistry lesson. I don't know what they thought about it.

There really aren't any blogs around, are there? Seriously noone from this school has a blog that regularly updates. Except mine. And probably some others, but I'm not in the mood to search for them, because I feel like a stalker occasionally.
Not to mention they almost always make their blogs private soon after I've found them. It's not my fault.

22/7/14

Had economics remedial today. I'm not very good at economics.
My friend has 2 tumblr blogs. That's bloody amazing.
Anyway I don't think anything interesting happened today.

You should probably take a look at this website if you rather like cooking. Or watching other people cook. It's people like these that make me wish Google Nose was a real thing. http://www.byrontalbott.com/

21/7/14

Had a public speaking thing for assembly today. It was rather interesting how all the speakers didn't quite answer the question, which was "Who are you and what are you going to be?". Most of them ended up telling us how we should go about finding out what we should become.
Frankly speaking if this was an English comprehension test they'd all have failed.
Aside from that nothing much happened today. Aside from Wayne bringing the most adorable stuffed toy ever to astronomy training. Also having prize presentation this Friday, we won a lot of stuff in June and before that.
Congratulations Mrs. Fernandez on becoming pregnant. Wish your baby grows up to be a nice child!
I have no idea what else I'm supposed to put here.

Oh yes, we have an English oral presentation and we're supposed to present on the topic of poverty in Singapore. When I Googled "poor in Singapore" most of the results were quite depressing. Not to mention there were too many Anton Casey articles.

I should probably go to sleep now. Good night.

20/7/14

Eh, well sorry about not posting for over a month. Quite a bit happened then. We won Astrochallenge (both junior and senior (TAKE THAT RI!)) and then there were the holidays where I also went on an astronomy trip to Port Dickson, which was quite nice. The food was great. Especially the omelettes. We stayed at a resort building thing.
Malaysia: Pretty beaches. Too bad the same can't be said about the infrastructure.
They even had an observatory at the resort, which was kind of cool, except at that time the sky wasn't that bad and they only ever pointed it at the Moon.

But still, kind of cool.

DID I MENTION THEY HAD KITTIES THERE?

SO F***ING ADORABLE :D

Anyway aside from that we also brought along a couple of telescopes and every night we set them up in the carpark and looked at stuff. The skies there were much better than in Singapore. You could see a lot more. I brought my binoculars along and managed to see some globular clusters with them.

We also walked around on the beach a bit. There was a lot of interesting stuff.

Some kind of clay deposit.

And that's a fiddler crab.

7/6/14

We won Astrochallenge. Not too shabby. About time too, I was getting tired of always coming behind RI.