Based on the blog entry at my other blog
on the 19th July 2006

Screw blogdrive! I've moved!!

I'm using blogger now!



yes, i'm using blogger now. Don't be shocked. haha. Does this 'shocked' face look more pleasant than the one on the new blog? hahaha. that one looks super spooky i know. The lighting was bad so it gave that white glare-y look. And my expression was classic ^_^

Ok. the new URL is
http://alanz-.blogspot.com


To find out my reasons for switching, just check out the first post in that blog. but be prepared for a very spooky picture. haha :)


Bye blogdrive.

good riddance ~ ^_^
i wonder if they will delete my account for this.

ok, i remember some time ago someone mentioned something about he/she not liking people shortening 'christmas' to 'xmas'.  He/she said that it was wasn't good as it took away the true meaning of CHRISTmas, that is, to commemorate the birth of Christ.

Then after watching a show on channel8, i went to do some research, and realised that it was shortened NOT purely because of convenience sake, and not because 'x' looks like a cross so you can shorten it or whatever. There's a proper legitimate reason!


This short article is taken from "http://www.crivoice.org/cyxmas.html"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Origin of "Xmas"

The abbreviation of "Xmas" for Christmas, long reviled by many conservative and Low Church Christians, is not nearly as blasphemous as many contend. Rather than a sacrilegious removal of "Christ" from Christmas and replacing him with an unknown, as some claim, the "Xmas" abbreviation has a long history in the church. In Greek, the language in which the New Testament was first written, "chi" (c or C), which is almost identical to the Roman alphabet "X," is the first letter of the word "Christ" (cristoV, or as it would be written in older manuscripts, CRISTOS). In fact, the symbol of the fish in the early church came from using the first letter of several titles used for Jesus (Jesus Christ Son of God Savior) that when combined spelled the Greek word for fish (icquV, ichthus).

(Ok, if that's too chim to understand, i'll try to paraphrase it. in other words, X is almost like the first letter of the word Christ in Greek. So it was shortened not to 'devalue' the word to a symbol, but because it was originally the first letter of Christ anyway, so it was shortened for convenience. )

In the early days of printing when typesetting was done by hand and was very tedious and expensive, abbreviations were common. The church began to use the abbreviation C for the word "Christ" in religious publications. From there, the abbreviation moved into general use in newspapers and other publications, and "Xmas" became an accepted way of printing "Christmas."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another article can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas

photoblog again :)

Went to parkway parade Nokia Service Center.. it's quite cool man!


(reduced the size of the pic as it was screwing up the viewing of the rest of the blog)


And that's just the front part. Then there's this 'information counter' on the right side
which is actually the receptionist. but it was a guy there, so maybe it sounds quite
gay to call him a receptionist, so they call it 'information counter'. haha.
Anyway, BEHIND the info counter, there's like this big waiting area also, with waiting
numbers and service counters, like the passportmakingplace at lavender! Quite cool.

And the person who attended to me was nice and polite and friendly! woohoo. 3
cheers to Nokia service staff. :) hip hip hoorayy
Anyway, the problem was with my charger, it was spoilt. So she just replaced it with a
new one =) yay


After that, i went to meet my secondaryschool/jc friends to play pool . alwyn and
jeremy. Lost my very first match :( but won the rest. =)



Walao my friend is a lousy cameraman la. i took the first 2 shots then at least can
see the rest of the balls then look nicer (although the 1st one is blurry, will explain
later). Then i ask my friend take for me, then he take just me hitting the white ball.
Not nice!

heh. then after that, i went to church to meet joanne to study. she has some bio pract
tmr or something, so she asked me pei her study. Her school ended at 2pm, and
when i reached church it was only about 1? yea i think so. Then the (cute)
kindergarten kids were there playing! i snapped a few shots

They have this system of playing with the vehicles - first the girls go, then the guys
go, then the girls go , then the guys go.  Because not enough vehicles for all to go at
once. and guys more rough? haha i dunno.
(some photos are blurry because i had to zoom in all the way. some are blurry for
another reason that will be explained)


The girls play first! not fair!


The guys waiting eagerly...


They are fighting over the only car among the vehicles. heh. the teacher runs over
to mediate.


play play


Ok, the next few pictures are just me trying to get a good picture of ANY of those
cute kids but failing!! Because i found out that my camera phone camera LAGS.
So when i press 'take picture' , it doesn't take the picture immediately, but waits
about 1.5s before taking. :/ So i can never get a perfect shot :/ ugh.
So some i try to estimate, then click. Some i try to move with the person. but it all
turned out blurry :(


this boy is DAMN cute.but blurry :(



and they're off...

So cute >.< hha. They call this lining-up-with-hands-onshoulders thing 'choo choo
train'. So the teacher was like 'ok boys and girls, choo choo train now!!' . hahaha it
just sounded quite funny.


Then joanne came soon after, so we started studying. She's taking Nursing in Poly,
and.. wow. the things she studies are DAMN cheeeeem.  all the names of the various
parts of our arms / skull/ etc.

So chim >.<

Ok then after a loooong time, i finally got her to take a break. She wasn't absorbing
la, she like try to pia everything at one shot then i tell her take break she say she can
absorb. Then when i test her she also forgot.


So... time for pictures =)

failll. my hand shook i think, the picture was blurry. Quite wasted i think my
smile was best in this picture. haha.



faill... joanne not smiling!! Take again!! joanne smile leh!!



Eee. my smile looks so weird. oh well.


funny face!!

ok then i realised my funny face was always the same one, stick out tongue, so
boring. So i decided to try a new one. Then joanne didn't know how to do other funny
faces. Then she was like 'er.. i do act cute one la'
me: "ok steady !"





~~~~~


That's all folks! =) Oh btw, i like my hairstyle today. haha. i tried to take a picture of it
but cannot see very clearly :/ I'm basically trying to comb a left to right (your view)
(right to left for my own orientation) fringe and the back part spike. heh.

okkk. byee~

Goalllll. Zidane scored the only goal of the match, a penalty, in the 33rd minute, to send France into the World Cup Finals :) woohooo


Picture and full story at http://soccernet.espn.go.com/report?id=191979&cc=4716

Want to hone your driving skills? Want to live dangerously? Want to learn how to jaywalk with skill?

Watch this.
<br>
This is insane man. If you can keep a look out for the tiny pedestrians crossing the road.. they have no fear!! And at about 1:30 look at the top centre of the screen, a white car actually goes against traffic to get to the intersection =X

dAng. i supported germany. actually i support france and germany. before last night they had a chance to meet in the finals =X

But the way i support teams quite weird. i just support teams that have players from arsenal. haha. so i supported germany because of lehmann, and france cos of pires/henry .


Lehmann: WHY WE LOSE?
(picture taken from http://soccernet.espn.go.com/report?id=191978&cc=4716)

Go France =)

yo. this will be a boring recount-style blog entryy. so if you don't like those kind of stuff you can stop reading. y'know i'm thinking of colour coding my blog entries. e.g.  journal type - grey / photo blog - red , / discussion - green , etc. Then i'll just put a big _ _ _ square at the start of every post, then you can look at the colour code to know what type of blog entry it is.


Anyway. i had chem paper today, which i felt was quite simple, A shouldn't be that hard, the worse B. i hope. unless i screw up somehow.

Then. oh yea, my new phone is having problems already :( i can't charge it. I plug in the charger and switch it on, nothing happens. i take out the battery and sim card and put back in and take out memory card everything, did all the permutations and combinations but still cannot charge. :/

So after my chem paper i went back to the shop that i bought my phone from.. then the shuai salesperson i bought from wasn't there, but this older managerial-looking guy was there. After i explained my problem, he immediately replied 'Oh, go to nokia service shop, causeway point blablabla'
"So you can't do anything about it?"
'no, no. When that guy sold you the phone did he let you test it?'
"Well.. yes, but i didn't test the charger"
'er.. nono but still you bring your warranty card, then you go to a nokia service centre'

Stupid unhelpful fellow. at least help me check what's the problem right -_- useless hp salesman. ugh.


Anyway... yea then i went back home, played computer a bit, then went to school for A level Chinese Oral :) so fast. haha.

It was quite ok, one of the examiners quite chio :) then she was the one who asked me all the questions! so even easier ^_^ hahahaha. The question was damn chicken feed also :

'you yi xie ren zai gong gong chang shuo yong shou ti dian hua shi, jiang hua jiang de hen da shen. ni dui zhe jian shi you se me kan fa?"
Translation:"Some people talk very loudly when they use their mobile phones in public. What are your views on this?"
So chicken! i just say the person no manners, no civic-mindedness, blabla. say he disturb people.. very bad. 

next question:
"ni ren wei ta men wei she me hui zhe yang ne?"
Translation: "Why do you think they are like that?"
Then i wanted to talk about those rude uncles who talk damn loudly at coffeeshops. Then i started, and somehow accidentally said "you yi xie lao ren.." ( some old people), oops wrong already. So i faster improvise and continue about old people
"you yi xie lao ren.. ta men yi wei yong shou ji dian hua xu yao jiang dao hen da shen , dui fang cai neng ting dao... etcetc"
(Some old people, they think they have to talk very loudly into the phone for the other party to hear them)
Then for some reason, the examiners both laughed at this!! Hahaha. ownage. Then the chio teacher laugh then even choier so i felt more confident and kep talking.

Then the chio teacher try to counter me:
"dan shi ye yo yi xie shao nian yong dian hua shi jiang hua hen da shen"
Translation: "but there are also some youths who are like that"
Then i kena stunned for a few seconds.. like personal attack lidat. hahaa. but cos she is chio so i forgive her and quickly recover to say that the youths were not brought up properly, not taught manners, etc.

Then FINISH. !!! I was quite surprised when the teacher suddenly say 'xie xie, ni ke yi zhou le'. It felt damn short. anyway, should be a distinction or a merit la. i think.


ok that's a wrap folks. if i can get my phone fixed tmr , like immediately , on the spot (very unlikely) then i can take photos of me and my friends playing pool :) yup meeting them to play. i've no school tmr and friday ^_^
bye peeps~

ok this is so dumb, but i just kept playing with it until i got a logical one. Ok it's not really logical actually



I very much love my cousin Ross. On weekends he is quite cool, but today he just uninterested me... I could really use his support talking to someone about literature in the Dark Ages, and he was all:

"Wow! I am so sick of hearing about  the Dark Ages all the time!"

At first I started bitching "WOW!" then the next day I just suddenly got this dangerous look in my eyes. After all, he *is* my cousin and he kinda loves me...

Link of the day: All Your Oil... | Randomly generated by Flooble Instant Blog Post Generator

Lame. -_-

woo. i've been playing with my phone .. it's really nice la. i like it alot. and the 1.3megapixel camera isn't THAT bad after all, the pictures are quite ok. just that if you take in lousy light conditions, the picture turns out quite lousy also.

hmm, i went to simlim today, to buy a bluetooth adapter so i can send/receive files to/from my phone, as well as a 256MB micro SD card (basically a memory card) to store more things. Cos the phone's own memory is a measly 11MB, can hold like, erm, 2-3 songs.

I scouted a few stores first, then most of them didn't have the SD Card which can work with my phone.  Then finally found one.

 (see this picture was taken in dim light, then damn grainy n louya)

$20 (next to #05-02, no not 01 or 03)

 

Sim Lim Square #05-02
Only $16!! Everywhere else like costs $20-30

The stall owner of this SDCardstore was this .. iraqi-looking guy. Then i stood at the counter and looked at him, trying to catch his eye so i can ask him if he sold MicroSDCard.
Then he like kept ignoring me and talking to his iraqi friend, who was putting boxes into a box. It was just electronic parts in a package i think, but the meticulous way he was doing it looked like he was packing drugs or something. =X
Then that store owner got a phone call and started talking into his Bluetooth headset.

I got impatient and leaned on the counter, then suddenly i coughed. (I didn't intend to cough!! not like the 'er hem' type, just a natural sickness cough). But he still dao me.

Then just as i was about to leave, he turned to me, and said 'yes boy?'
Then he got me a MicroSD card from his rack, and i asked him if i could test. 'Ya ok come over here boy'. So i stepped closer to the counter and passed him my phone. 'Extra testing fee ten dollars" he joked.

I blinked a few times.. he said it in such a businesslike-nonchalant tone, without breaking a smile even. After about 30 seconds i decided he was joking, and he already fitted the memory card in.
'So boyy... what do you press'

Then blabla. Transaction. But he was quite funny la. Probably a computer pro and know all the computer stuff and memory card stuff, but knows so litttle about mobile phone usage? haha. he seemed quite blur when i was operating my phone. maybe acting? -shrugs-


Ok... then after that i went down to church to meet raylia to studdy.  wasn't very productive but mostly because i really no mood to study already. You know the feeling when you study alot already and you think you have covered everything? yup, that feeling.

But raylia was so hardworking. Look at her look of intense concentration.. nothing could distract her. ^_^




After some time we finally took a break. Then it took some persuasion, but i managed to get her to take pictures. :)


Ok this next picture is quite bad, my smile is abit weird and i think because of the angle or sth, dunno what, but her cheeks look super chubby!! hahaha




Alan: ok let's do a funny face now
raylia: how to do funny face?
alan: just any funny face la.
raylia: ok




Alan: oi i ask you do funny face why you never do?
raylia: got!! i stick out my tongue!
-the tongue is really not visible on the hp display, unless you zoom in-
alan: don't have! eh take again. do funny face leh!
raylia: but i dont know how to do funny face!
alan: anyhow la
raylia: okok.



hahahahha. she's not bad. hahahah


Ok that's all i have for you now. I'll end off with a picture of what raylia gave me . You remember that adidas wristband? here it is:


:) bye