You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Uncategorized' category.
4 years gone in a flash. More next time. For now, flank speed!
The ubiquitous Ah Beng totting pirated VCDs on his makeshift table with a red tablecloth may be long gone, but last night’s jaunt into the heartlands told me that old-school piracy is still well and alive in Singapore.
Going by the size of the crowd in that small shop, it seems that nobody truly gives a damn about being HIP.
The pirates, or rather, the fall guys seemed to have tightened their security too. I could spot three lookouts watching for any enforcers that might want to stop their cash register from ringing.
I went in to check out the prices, and lo and behold, it looks like the pirates also followed the GST hike. A single disc now costs $11, and an installation DVD at $25. Or is it a case of demand greater than supply? I don’t know, and I don’t care.
Now, before you accuse me of abetting piracy, let me tell you that I didn’t buy anything – I’ve stopped trusting those discs in their transparent plastic bags.
It’s easy to understand the allure of these imitation discs – a genuine copy of Windows Vista Ultimate would set you back by $712, whereas the pirates sell it at $25. That’s 3.5% of the price. Cheap like hell. Even GST’s more expensive at 7%.
The moral of the story: Money talks and people listen.
Anyway, the shop will probably disappear in 7 days. That’s the number of days I counted for a shop in TP last year to open and get raided. I think they’re rather idiotic renting a shop at that location – it’s a stone’s throw from the NPC opposite the library.
The green tie and badge can be a dreadful curse if you got caught in your attempt to indulge in some skulduggery. A ___ caught by ___ on patrol! How awful is that? Sure, your friend and you can run like the wind, but if we’ve already seen you, you’re already cornered. (That’s why we operate in pairs.)
I’ve never understood the rationale of hiding on top of the hill. The scenery sucks. Alright, you might get a peep at the girls’ school next door, but other than that, there’s nothing of note. Okay, I understand if you want to “keep your record clean” or “not serve detention”. But hey, do something more novel will you? I’ve lost track of the number of people flushed out from the top of the hill, at Esso, at the bus-stop and even in the frickin’ phone booth.
Please! Recognise the futility of what you’re doing or at least find somewhere new to hide! Go hide at the _____ or the _____. It’s damn tiring running up the hill you know. So don’t be surprised if some of us are pissed off by the time we bring you to the teachers.
This cat and mouse, police and thief game will continue long after we graduate from the school (I’m glad to say we’re the pioneering batch to do such checks though). The game will only end when one side gives up, and I’ll bet my bottom dollar it’s not our side.
Ms Chia told Francis, Roth, Jared and I today that the newspaper we created last year got stolen during the Open House two weeks ago. It was put on exhibition in the library, but was then snitched by someone. There’s only one CCTV camera in the library and the exhibit was out of its range, so The Daily Bugger’s more or less gone for good.
She’s rather upset, but the four of us didn’t really give a damn because the project didn’t exactly hold much sentimental value in our hearts. It was a last-minute, rushed assignment that somehow impressed her so much. According to Ms Chia, the theft was a “testament to the standard of our work”.
Oh well, the 4 $10 movie vouchers as a reward were a kind gesture from her, but we didn’t use it at all.
That pissed her off because it was her $40. Haha.
Anyway, I think we’ll put together another hard copy after the O’s for her so that she can flaunt it again, but meanwhile, here’s the soft copy: The Daily Bugger (w/o Francis’ Sports Supplement)
It doesn’t look very impressive on the monitor, but on a hard copy in a newspaper layout, it’s rather pretty. As for those “suggestive” images and advertisements, I take full responsibility. I mean, that’s the only way to make people notice, and besides I got scolded for it last year. And then praised this year. Haha.
*Head swells*
And to the bugger who stole The Daily Bugger:
We know it’s a very impressive piece of work, but you know, if you had asked nicely, we would have given you a soft copy and a hard copy. There’s no need to steal! We’ll even autograph the hard copy for you.
Because by stealing it, I think you should go to hell and rot for eternity.
PS: Hahahaha, if you look carefully, there’s a “TSC Publication” and something about some CEO moving again. Good memories of the old scandals! And speaking of scandals, Sharidan reignited the whole powder keg during recess today. Funky discussion. Some names just keep popping up.
I conclude that fine western dining has more style over substance. As the facilitator put it, it’s “more about the presentation, so don’t be surprised if the plate’s very big and the portion’s very small”.
Anyway, the fine western dining that we went through at SHA Villa in the afternoon was rather useful, although I suspect that by the time the O’s are over, most of us would have forgotten the many rules and manners that were taught to us.
I mean, not many of us put much stock into sitting with our back perpendicular to the ground, slowly bringing that carefully sliced piece of fillet into the mouth and then munching it slowly.
Hello! Time is money/for mugging!
Okay, I digress. Of course, the main highlight of the course was the practical component where we had lots of fun, and good food to boot.
Me: “Eh, she not looking right?”
JS: “No.”
*Stabs vegetable savagely and stuffs it into mouth*
I did that plainly because I thought it was rather retarded to slice a leaf up.
Of course, being in an all boys’ school means that food isn’t always the main focus.
JS: “Their skirts so short very vulgar leh”
Me: “Woah, you’re complaining meh?”
PX: “Yah lor, you this kind complain one meh?”
JS: “Wah lao, I’m not that kind of person okay”
*He puts on an act of angelic innocence*
Of course, he’s hardly innocent because we caught him oogling at the waitress that served us our desserts. We were laughing away when she suddenly came with the plates. He froze and his eyes were suddenly tracking her. I don’t know how to describe it, but his eyes were obviously moving around in their sockets like a weapons laser that had acquired a target.
After she left.
Me: “Why you beo until like that?”
JS: “Huh where got?!?” *Denial!*
Me: “Hello, you were staring at her can.”
JS: “She’s not bad whaaaatt.”
Me: “She’s the one with the stiletto heels right? What’s her name?”
JS: “Celine”
To his disappointment, she moved over to the other side of the restaurant. So for the rest of the meal he was looking and wishing aloud for her to come over. To give her credit, most of us agreed that her eyes were rather enchanting.
“Nice eyes,” JS said.
“What, you’re going to tell her that her father stole the stars from the skies and put it in her eyes ah?”
“No no, she’ll probably slap me lor”
*Shrugs*
After that he was reporting her movements through bearings and the clock positions.
The next waitress who came was a team leader, and I sort of noticed her name tag when she was asking us if we wanted coffee or tea.
It read: “Hoai Thu”. One and a half years spent with Vietnamese scholars meant that I could instantly recognize a Vietnamese name. So after she left, I leaned back to talk to Le Vu.
“Oi Le Vu, that waitress there with the team leader tag is Vietnamese ah?”
“Huh? Which one? How you know?”
“There that one with the two tags. You go see the name tag. It’s H-O-A-I –T-H-U”
Speak of the devil, she came.
He was staring at the name tag with his eyes so close she clearly felt uncomfortable. But after that, Phuc, him and her became rather good friends because she was then stationed there permanently and they were speaking animatedly in rapid-fire Viet to each other.
Which was rather interesting…
We held a mini-concert in the restaurant later by rubbing the wine glasses with wet fingers and making the glasses “sing”. They pretended not to notice, but after a while, it became a little unbearable because the drone was extremely loud.
A waitress took away JS’ glasses, and then ours, which led to us protesting because we weren’t doing anything.
Me: “Wah lao, you confiscate for what, I still want to drink one leh”
PX: “Yeah, we weren’t playing”
Sarah: “You all play play play. You know the kitchen also can hear. Very noisy.”
Me: “But I still want my water”
Sarah: “I’ll get you another cup”
Me: “Why don’t you just give me the glass?”
Sarah: “Very noisy lah.”
Me: “You should be proud that we’re able to make the glass resonate at the right pitch and frequency you know.”
*I was bullshiting, but she didn’t call my bluff”
Sarah: “Later break how?”
Me: “It won’t break one lah. Modern glass…”
Sarah: “It’s crystal you know. Why don’t I give you another glass you go outside and practice?”
Me: “No need, at home a lot.”
Sarah: “Got people break before you know.”
*She makes some lengthy speech about someone dropping the glass or whatever, which completely misses the point*
*I can’t remember what I said later, but the conversation swerved towards singing.”
Me: “You know, it’s nearly impossible for a person to sing until the glass breaks? He must sing at so pure a note and at the right frequency…”
Sarah: “You go home try lor, then tell me”
Me: “No need, I can try here.”
Sarah: “Wah, I better run away.”
Which was a relief because if I had tried, I would have broken the glass, wrecked ear drums and most importantly, destroyed the sanity of others.
Yup, so after that, she went around collecting glasses from most of us. Our teacher wasn’t discouraging us, so we got bolder.
“This is resonance. The less water, the louder, etc etc etc etc…”
I tried it again with Andre’s glass. She suddenly apparated in front of me, arms akimbo.
“Oops”
I smiled and disappeared.
I think we more or less demolished the whole idea of fine western dining, but we had lots of fun.
Describe.
Some spoilers ahead.
“If you notice this notice then you’d probably notice that this notice is noticeably not worth noticing.” Gabriel Woon
My sister took the book. I’m left with the cover.
Since when did Singaporeans become avid book readers? Or were they just jumping on the Harry Potter bandwagon?
I went with my sister to the J8 Popular at an unearthly hour of 7.10am, and the queue was staggering. I expected long queues only overseas, not here, especially in the middle of the heartlands. After all, I didn’t even have to queue for HBP two years ago.
Muggles can’t accio Deathly Hallows.
Maybe it’s the last book. Or maybe they have all been imperiused by the wizards and witches of Bloomsbury and Scholastic. Anyhow, we have suddenly become a nation of readers because the scene at McDonald’s later was frightening. Nearly everyone I saw had that orange bag with Grindelwald’s/Deathly Hallows symbol on it.
I felt a pang of distaste for that woman on my right – she opened the book and started reading the back. It isn’t exactly very nice knowing that Harry married Ginny, Ron married Hermione when you begin reading the first chapter, where Voldemort plots about bringing about the downfall of the Ministry.
Truth to be told, I finished the book two days ago. Yes, the version where that guy with the Canon dSLR photographed all the pages. He had better grab an invisibility cloak and disapparate somewhere though – he forgot to wipe clean his EXIF data from his photographs. The whole world now knows the serial number of his camera.
Awww. Professional pirates wouldn’t have made that mistake.
Hohoho.
Anyway, DH is quite okay. It’s rather dark, but as usual, good triumphs over evil (yawn). The Battle of Hogwarts at the end will definitely make a good special effects extravaganza. Teachers, students, thestrals, centaurs, house elves, giant spiders, statues etc battling with the Death Eaters in a frenzied siege. It reminds me of Helm’s Deep in LOTR.
The whole Deathly Hallows idea was even quite, errrrr. Attain immortality when you unite the three items of the Deathly Hallows? That sounds a little out in Harry Potter. I can take philosopher’s stones, talking snakes and goblin-run banks, but that idea of having three items and then being immortal tinges with familiarity. It seems that every fantasy writer must write about that before they qualify as fantasy writers.
Oh well. Goodbye Potter!
Hello Albus Severus!
Let’s wait for Albus Severus and The Moon Stone.
All right! So HP7 was indeed leaked online.
Scholastic has refused to confirm whether those photographs online are genuine, but it has already “taken legal action against book distributor Levy Home Entertainment and DeepDiscount.com for breaching an embargo preventing the seventh Harry Potter book from being sold in America before 12:01 a.m./0401 GMT on Saturday. The publisher said Levy delivered the books to the online retailer.”
Apparently, some people received their copies early.
Oh well, so much for the much vaunted security cloak around the whole Potter printing process. It looks like they really need some magic to keep it under wraps.
But then again, can magic keep technology at bay? I doubt so, by the look of reports from the internet – 1 copy of the book was downloaded every second. There were mixed reactions in school – some were determined to find out more about the Deathly Hallows, while some were insistent on sticking their fingers into their ears (muffiliato’s better) so that they could enjoy the magic moment when the book arrives.
I don’t understand why though. Book 6 was scanned, proofread and posted online within 24 hours so that people could read them on the go, i.e. on their PDAs. It was converted to German even before the official German translation came out. The long queues for the books are common – and for the release of every book, there are people who will get the book, walk down the queue and tell everyone the ending.
Secrecy?
I think not. The New York Times and Baltimore Sun have all reviewed Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows – before the release date. You can read the reviews below in the links section.
Rowling isn’t exactly very happy about it, but it’s a little hard to sympathize with a multi-millionaire.
For spoilers, Google’s your friend. If you can’t find, try searching Dumbledore with Elder Wand.
Links:
U.S. publisher takes action over Harry Potter leak
The Potter leak: Winners and losers (no spoilers)
New York Times Review
Baltimore Sun Review
JK Rowling rails against spoilers: BBC
NEW YORK TIMES
Frustrating perhaps the most elaborately orchestrated marketing machine ever mobilized for a book, photographs of what appeared to be every single page of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the breathlessly awaited seventh and final installment in the series by J. K. Rowling, were circulating on the Web yesterday.
To the publishers of Harry Potter, there is no time or date more sacred than what they are calling “midnight magic,” 12:01 a.m. on Saturday. Then, and only then, can readers buy their copies of “Deathly Hallows.” Both Bloomsbury, the British publisher, and Scholastic, the publisher in the United States, have gone to great lengths to safeguard the book’s content and release date, ordering booksellers not to sell a single book a minute earlier than the official time.
But those less mindful of the publishers’ wishes could go onto various file-sharing Web sites yesterday to look at amateur-seeming photographs of what appeared to be each pair of facing pages of a copy of the book. The pictures, which could be downloaded through sites like the Pirate Bay and MediaFire, showed the book laid out on a green-and-red-flecked beige looped carpet, with fingers holding the pages open. Some of the photos made the text difficult to read, but the fiercely protected ending was definitely legible.
Lisa Holton, president of Scholastic’s trade and book fairs division, said the company was asking various Web site hosts to take the photos down. “We’re not confirming if anything is real,” she said. “But in the spirit of getting to midnight magic without a lot of hoo-ha, can you just take some of this stuff down.”
The company’s lawyers were also pursuing the identity of the person who posted the pictures.
On Monday, the company issued a subpoena to Gaia Online, a social networking and gaming site, ordering it to take down a link to some photos purporting to be “Deathly Hallows” pages posted by a user. Bill Danon, a Gaia spokesman, said that within hours of the subpoena, Gaia removed the photos and banned the user for 14 days.
Some fans were convinced that the images posted around the Web were authentic. Emerson Spartz, the founder and Web master of MuggleNet.com, one of the biggest Harry Potter fan sites, said he thought the photos were the real deal.
“I read enough of it to where I could tell,” he said. Although he did not read to the end, he said: “I’m not even really hopeful that it won’t get spoiled for me. I’m just expecting it anytime I log on to check e-mail.”
Doris Herrmann, an English teacher in Clear Lake, Tex., who is also a project coordinator for the Leaky Cauldron (leakynews.com), another big fan site, said: “I hate to say it, but it really does look authentic.” She said that while it was possible to work wonders with Photoshop or other programs, it would be difficult to write a whole manuscript, typeset it like the originals and then photograph the whole thing.
Tens of thousands of people downloaded the files yesterday, according to BigChampagne, a research firm that tracks file-sharing. By midday, many of the Web links were no longer working.
On the link-sharing site Digg yesterday, a person using the name TocsinFilms appeared to take credit for uploading the images, then said he was simply “one of the first” to do so. He wrote on Digg in May that he had obtained a copy of the book from “someone who works for a Scholastic Distributing company for Waldenbooks” and had posted photos of its pages online. Those photos have since been taken down. This person did not respond to e-mail or telephone inquiries.
Some who say they have copies of the book or knowledge of the plot have been posting snippets and scans of supposed manuscript pages for weeks. Ms. Holton acknowledged that some of the photos looked genuine. But, she added, “it’s a bunch of people who are going to extraordinary lengths to make it look like they have the authentic book.”
There were also six photos posted on Flickr, the picture-sharing site, by a user named hermionepotter77, a reference to one of Harry’s best friends. Over the caption “Here ya go kids, the Deathly Hallows ending!” one appeared to show the first page of the final chapter; others showed the table of contents and more pages. This material was almost entirely different from what appeared in the images of the full book, meaning one or both had to be fake.
“This happens with every book, and there are a lot of them out there, and we appeal to everybody not to put them up,” said Sarah Beal, a spokeswoman for Bloomsbury in London. “It’s amazing how creative people can be. It may look real, but it doesn’t mean they are.”
Hype and frenzy have been building for weeks as readers anticipate the release of this final Harry Potter book. Ms. Rowling has hinted that two or more characters are likely to die, leading to speculation from many fans that Harry may not survive his own series. Fans have been hypothesizing about other important plot points, too, like who will end up with whom and whether Prof. Severus Snape, a character whose moral character has been in question, is genuinely evil.
Despite the possible leak, bookstores across the country continued to gear up for festivities on Friday night, expecting long lines of readers at midnight. Scholastic is publishing a record 12 million copies, and Ms. Holton said the company had no plans to move up the release date.
“If in fact the book is posted online or the ending is revealed prior to midnight on Friday, it will not result in us selling a single less copy of the book,” said Steve Riggio, chief executive of Barnes & Noble, which has 1.3 million orders for “Deathly Hallows.” As far as Mr. Riggio is concerned, the press coverage generated by potential spoilers just increases advance orders.
Judy Bulow, children’s book buyer for the three Tattered Cover bookstores in Denver, said she doubted that Web spoilers would deter readers from buying the book or attending the midnight parties.
“I think kids are still wanting the great big book,” she said. Tattered Cover is planning parties at two locations and will raffle off the chance to be first in line to buy a copy.
David F. Gallagher contributed reporting.
I looked through all the photographs of the pages online, and they look truly genuine and authentic. That guy must have plenty of spare time and hand muscle though. Holding a Canon 300D and photographing every page isn’t very easy.
You can search for them online yourself.
As for spoilers, I shan’t post them here since I’ve already pissed someone else off for typing it on messenger.
