Singapore 2010 Logo Launch Mechanism - Behind backstage!

Memories =D ...................

Finally, a direction!

I've been a tad bit lost for the past few months in terms of knowing what i want to do upon graduation. The initial plan was the graduate with a BEng (Mech) and apply for a job in Singapore as a project engineer, but after a mind numbing, excruciating internship, i've come to grips with one fact about myself :

I CANNOT DO THAT FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE

It started out well, new things, having a learning curve, and then came the excruciating boredom. The lack of a thought process in what i was doing for the past 6 months, the daily grind of doing the same thing. Perhaps research would have been more exciting but i'm not the type of person to slave away at a single project for months without seeing some personal gain in it for myself. Call me selfish, but its how i operate.

Then i decided to go start the process of applying to do and MBA, it being one of those exceedingly versatile degrees, widely applicable in any industry which deals with strategic thinking, people and how to conduct business. And then i hit yet another problem. I had no idea what i wanted to do once i got an MBA. Work for a bank? (Ugh, good money but its not for me), high flying CEO job? (too little time left over for personal hobbies when i have shareholders to consider, please correct me if my perception of this is wrong if you happen to be a CEO reading this).

And then i started reading up articles on consulting companies, oil trading, energy management and chancing across companies like Boston Consulting Group (BCG), McKinsey and British Petroleum, all offering MBA holders with engineering backgrounds company fellowships and work which require thinking on day to day basis. An oil trader for BP comes in every morning, pores over notes and news for the day and then strategises his trading for the day to maximise profit. 

A BCG  consultant for example goes over a clients business practice, down to even the positioning of sales counters in a particular store (assuming client is in retail) and uses human behavioral science and relations between sales figures and payment counter locations to maximise profit for the client.

 I find these very interesting, and if an MBA opens those door for me even wider, hell, i'm going for it. 

Now's the time my real education begins.

Cheers from the,

Matrix

Appeal to fellow foodies!

Sin Huat Eating House's Crab Bee Hoon

I have been dying to try out this place in Geylang, Singapore. Pity about the 5 star prices of :

SGD 72 - Crab Bee Hoon

SGD42 - 6 steamed Tiger Prans, yes ONLY 6!!!

SGD25/kilo - Gong Gongs with an awesome chili dipping sauce the towkay takes a day to prepare, even closing his restaurant to concentrate on it.

I mean, come on, this place seems to ring all the right bells. 

I now humbly appeal to food lovers out there to help me enjoy a meal at this place. Dissipation of cost or sponsorship is most welcome. 

Cheers from the,

Matrix

People, Work and the Quality of Life

I love talking to people and finding out more about them. Their views on issues, their backgrounds, their lives, their family and most important of all, their quality of life.

My favourite people to chat up are usually cab drivers. Being locked in a metal box for 30mins does not permit escape from me and my sometimes rather inquisitive tongue ( I do not mean it in THAT way, if you know what i mean ).

A cabbie's life in Singapore is pretty much standard. He/She usually shares a cab with another driver, usually a younger one who does the night driving. Its to offset the SGD86 per day rental for those old toyota cabs and SGD120+ for the faster and more powerful Hyundai Sonatas. Have not chatted up a Merc or a Chrysler cabbie.

I took a cab back last night from a bar and I had the most interesting chat with an old malay cabbie. He surprised me with exceptionally well polished manners and style of speaking. His voice was uber smooth and he spoke with an air of a person with very high self esteem, someone who has achieved something and is proud of it.

I talked to him and learnt he has 4 kids, all above 25, very well educated and successful. The oldest was offered a seat in the NUS medical school and currently works at NUH. The second is a trained electronics engineer working as a senior product engineer at Accenture, one of the world's largest tech consultation company. The third is doing a PhD in the US and the youngest daughter is a lawyer.

The conversation became awkward when i asked him why none of his kids were taking care of him. He was a really small man with wrinkles and white whisps of hair on his head. He shrugged and the car turned silent for the remainder of the journey.

It disgusted me. For all i care, his kids were not successful as he thinks they are, their failure at expressing gratitude and love for a person who had worked so hard, and is still working hard to raise them is inexcusable.

What is society coming to when morals and the value of family is overlooked in the pursuit of personal agendas and happiness?



Matrix

Playtime's Over, lets get serious

Another teary goodbye...

I'm getting pretty serious about cycling now. Was out with Sher Han on an unplanned 70km ride yesterday and the limitations of my much loved Trek was apparent on the steep slope of Mt Faber and the sluggish feeling of the frame on the sprints along LCK and in Mandai.

High time i got myself something lighter and stiffer, yet comfy enough for long rides and it musn't be all carbon fibre. Most important of all, the scrooge in me demanded an awesome bike for below SGD800. 

Behold :

2009 Fuji Roubaix RC

I located the frame going for SGD500 on the second hand market. Knocked the price down to SGD450 after weeks of thinking and trying to look for something better after which purchasing would leave my bank account at a healthy balance. The Cervelo S1 was my initial target, but with framesets going for SGD1000 second hand, it was a tad bit too rich for my taste. And besides, as I had planned to transfer the old yet reliable Shimano 105 gruppo from the Trek, the Cervelo wasn't my choice in the end. A frame like that deserves better components and future Yuva will see to that.

The weight weenie bug bit me when i went down to inspect the frame. Settled on getting a new aluminium seat post and handlebar to replace the steel bits i had on the Trek. Though a far cry from the carbon fibre stuff, u can't complain about something picked up for less than SGD35 each.

Got new blinkers too, wanted to replace the bashed up stuff on the Trek. Requested the mechanic to do a thorough degreasing and polishing of the gruppo before assembly and one of his buddies offered to do a proper bike fit for me.

As a cherry on the cake, I got matching red Panaracers. Slick ones in hopes of me going faster, though with the limitation of not being to ride in the rain. Not that I should too anyway.

Looking forward to an awesome summer of racing, riding, studying and starting my FYP!

Its awesome when you have goals to work towards.

Cheers from the,

Matrix

Its been a while.....

This blogs taken a back burner to pretty much everything else for the past month or two.

Its been quite a roller coaster of a month, what with upping my cycling frequency and juggling 2 projects, my IA Final Report  (80 done!)  at work. Just completed one awesomely long and complicated C program that's been sent over to be used in a gas power plant in Bangkok and if it weren't for this whole Red Shirt fiasco, i'd be flying to Thailand before the end of my internship. The program's a beauty. It estimates the performance of  the power plant in real time, with a 2 minute cycle in between computations. And i also included a sweet graphical user interface to make it user friendly :

where the plant operators enter manual values for different plant operating conditions.

Damn.....

I have come to realise one thing during my internship.

I HATE WORKING FOR AND ANSWERING TO SOMEONE.

Seriously, working for someone sucks. You don't have the luxury to fiddle and really think out a problem when someone is always breathing down your neck, pushing you to set unrealistic deadlines and constantly checking up on you everyday.

I may be an intern, but come on, when i say once that i know what i am doing, please just trust me and leave me alone until I deliver. Crucify me later if i fail, but don't come breathing down my neck every damn day.

On that note, I have decided to apply to Harvard's and MIT's business schools. Both have very good MBA programs which include a 6 month internship and loads of networking opportunities. MIT has an awesome dual degree program which combines engineering and management.

I'll be honest here, all I ever want is just a good balance in my everyday life. I want time to enjoy my hobbies, cycling being the major one. And i can't get that sort of time in a 9-5 job which requires me to rush projects constantly.

I have done 32 hours of OT this month alone, and i'm not the hardest working intern at my work place. I am so going to be pissed if i don't get an A for my IA.

I mean, whats the point of working if you don't get to enjoy life? I enjoy kicking back with a beer and a good book or melting my legs on an all out bicycle sprint with friends on a weeknight after work.

I was toying with the idea of applying for the various graduate fellowships NTU keeps emailing me about, but research has never been my passion. I don't enjoy researching something that probably won't earn make it to the industry any time soon. Perhaps pharmaceuticals is a hot research area with rapid product movement form lab to marketplace, but not robotics.


Cheers from the,


Matrix

RIP Ben Mok

For one who truly knew why we do what we do. 

RIP Ben Mok

I get bewildered stares from my mates as they try to decipher the money and time spent on the sport. All for the pain, the risk for what seems like a futile effort at reducing emissions. For all you hippies, its not what its all about. We ride for the joy, the satisfaction after overcoming pain and lactic acid to keep up with the pack, scale a mountain, pushing when mere mortals would simply give up and fall back.

Noone will ever understand cycling except the men and women who burn rubber on the tarmac, the dirt, the mud and the pavement. Don't even try to.

I never knew Ben Mok. Nor will I pretend i heard of his name before this tragedy. I'm not a vengeful person, but for that drunk driver who mowed him down, may the rest of your life be one filled with misery and regret.

I once again sound out a plea to drivers. Give us quarter. Cause if you don't, you'll probably have our blood on your hands.

Link to the memorial website

balancing 15 books on my head, reciting pi to the 100th digit, and solving a rubik's cube.

Check out awesomely, fantablulous, rocks my world to the core, melts titanium with pure awesome-ness, melts my brains, eats candy bars, then vomits out even better candy bars, 007 coolness, sports red farrari boots, GIRL!

Woman, i am in love with you.

Scrooge Mc-Yuva's take on the Shimano 105

I bought a totally beat up 2 year old 105 complete groupset from Amreet a few months back and have clocked almost 1000km on the setup already.

Shifting wise, rear shifting is fast, smooth and precise. However i still do not enjoy the upshifting using the big throwbacks on the big levers. It jumps waaay to  many gears at once and it takes some control to shiftup one gear at a time. Downshifting is v good though.

Crankset shifting is not good. I'll be honest. My old Sora's crankset shifting was more responsive. I takes two throws to shift completely to the smaller chain ring, and even then the throwing isn't uber smooth. I'm not sure if the age of the gruppo is a factor.

Weight isn't an issue. I mean, the Trek's already sporting steel bits and pieces, so the 105 was defintely an upgrade.

I have had the pleasure of test riding an Ultegra 6700 and a Dura Ace 7800 bike and obviously they kick 105's all the way to the moon. However, DA and Ultegra? No noticeable difference, unless you count weight savings. Am not pro enough to comment on stiffness and power transfer though i feel the Ultegra crank is slightly more balanced than the 105's.

Price wise, if you're buying a complete bike, and its your first, I recommend the new Tiagra gruppo. If you want a 10 speeder, go for the 105.

If you're custom building a serious racer, do not even look at the 105. Pay a few hundred more and get the Ultegra. Better resale value too. I would not pay more than 350 for a second hand 105 groupset (not including chain and BB).

Bottom line. If you want the thrills of a 10speeder and you're not going to race, 105 all the way.

Aight, that's enough bike talk.

Full Damage Breakdown :


Gruppo : SGD280
105 pedals : SGD80
105 chain : SGD40
Buildup with new BB and bartape : SGD70
Frame and old Ultegra + Sora : SGD400
Time RXT shoes : SGD130
Misc : SGD50 
Jamis sold for : - SGD300


GRAND TOTAL INVESTED : SGD 750 for 1000km of thrills




So totally worth it




Cheers from the,


Matrix

Scrooge Mc-Yuva

S-Works Specialized Shiv. I want one so bad my tooth hurts

I've decided not to participate in next week's 36km Time Trial along Changi Coastal. Right, some background for readers not familiar with cycling.

Time Trialling is kind of like a solo race against the clock. Fastest between 2 points of about 40km wins. Quite naturally you need special equipment for it. A Time Trial or a TT bike. It differs from a tradition road bike in 2 senses. The geometry puts the rider in a lower and more forward position. Your back is almost horizontal when you ride a TT bike. And its more aerodynamic than a road bike (though now the difference is becoming increasingly blurred).

The result is , you ride about 2kph faster, more if you're a really good rider. And that's a lot of time saving. The bike is highly unstable though, try riding with your arms tucked into your shoulders at 35kph and you'll know what i'm talking about. I've only ever tried a TT bike once, and its a crap ride. Painful, scarily unstable, BUT OH MY GOD ITS FAST ON THE STRAIGHTS!

You need to go on to the drops on a roadie and come out of your saddle to sprint, and you don't last. On a TT bike, you sprint more slowly but you can maintain a higer speed for an extended period.

Aight, enough bike-talk.

The point is, the race costs 40 bucks and well i don't get much fun out of it apart from a goody bag, and a sense of accomplishment. That works for quite a number of people, but i really want more bang for my buck.

I am a scrooge what.

And so i'm going to be going for the Sprint Challenge. 500 m drag race between 2 racers. I will almost def be bombed out, but oh my, its going to be more fun than the TT race.

On an off note, life is just awesome now. True true, i have an anal boss who pretty much makes my job which is really interesting kind of stressful, but it rocks to come back and just do what you like after work. Group of solo rides, dinner outside after, movies, weekend plans, its awesome.


OH, on another note, i'm finding it really easy to talk to women now. I don't mean my friends, but random people. The formula is simple:

1) Smile and don't look like you're about to eat her

2) Confidence. Once you're at a stage where you don't care what she think about this random chap talking to her, its pretty much smooth sailing.

3) Say bye once you've run out of conversation topics even if its after a couple of seconds. If she's interested, she'll try to keep you around. No loss if you strike out, plenty more fish out there.



Cheers from the,


Matrix

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass - Rube Goldberg Machine version - Official

FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!

Gorillaz - Stylo (Full Version HD Music Video Clip) - Works in All Countries

good stuff

Keane - Somewhere Only We Know (US Edition)

This song is stuck in my head. Enjoy =)

Matrix

Its going to be an interesting day...

I'm sitting at a Starbucks near gate C3 (freeloading actually on the wifi and seats without buying anything) waiting for my flight out to Singapore from KL. Being back, even if it was for only 2 days was awesome. Good food, taking care of sister (its not bad at all, we watched a movie and all) and air conditioned room comforts.

I will be at work within the next 3 hours, to meet a deadline for this power plant optimisation software set by my boss. Plant's up and running in Vietnam and i really hope to be able to go on site (i think i will actually seeing noone else apart from my partner and me know how to handle anything in this project).

Today will end with an awesome thigh burning workout on the mongrel bike around NTU before dinner to whip myself into shape for a ride to Faber and to burn the calories i've been packing in since i got home 2 days ago.


Cheers from the,


Matrix

Controversy

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AIDS

Yeah, you just read it here. I recently chanced across an advertisement for a programme debunking AIDS. I ran a google search and came up with this:

The Big Lie About Aids

Of course, the fact that this article was published in a 1994 softporn magazine (Penthouse) didn't help much in its credibility. But i was still very interested. So i dug somemore and i came up with this:

HIV Is Not The Cause Of AIDS

This particular article is from an Orgone Biophysical Research Lab. Now i googled this lab to see if it is in fact a recognised facility. It didn't help that the website looked like something from the 10th century Internet and that this was a "non-profit" facility.

I was by this point losing interest in establishing credibility of my source and proceeded to keep googling for this controversy. 

In short i can sum it up in one sentence:

HIV and AIDS allegedly do not go hand in hand. HIV is not the cause of AIDS and AIDS is merely a name given to old diseases such as pneumonia which HIV positive people happen to have.

The following equation simplifies this:

no HIV+pneumonia = pneumonia

HIV+pneumonia = AIDS

I think this warrants further digging up eh?

 Anti-evolution activists in the US, who have for years been trying to ban Darwin's teachings in the classroom have launched a new offensive. You see, the US constitution clearly states that the Church and State is seperate, however, these chaps are now tyring to play the "freedom of academia" card.

Now I won't say that evolution is 100% correct. However, it is the most highly likely theory behind the big question of how we came to be. Natural Selection is supported by established biologists whom had to face scrutiny, cross examination and years of research.

The Church on the other hand plies its trade via a book written by man which claims the Earth was created by divine intervention and Intelligent Design. 

Given these 2 theories to choose, i'd choose the one that had to undergo the most scrutiny, unless of course the big man/woman him/herself came down and knocked in my head with a hammer made of lightning and burnt Darwin books. Then i'll kneel and say, "Amen".

I then started thinking of running with the herd. Is it always such a bad thing? I mean, yeah, you can get yourself a Blackberry just to acting like everyone else and buying and iPhone. But truth be told, an iPhone is by far the best interfaced gizmo i've used in years. Its really that good.

This has been rather a random post eh?

Cheers from the,

Matrix

In this onslaught of Feminish, Real Men are quickly becoming a dying specie

Real Men are not scruffy, untidy, beer guzzling louths who have total disrespect for society, rules , women and overindulge in blatant and reckless macho-ness.

Real Men exude class, integrity and above all, they aren't pussies. Real men are not feminists, nor support feminism. Real men do not indulge women and their games of cat and mouse with men over sexism and chauvinism. Real men know how to lead and take charge. Real men are confident.

Feminism is highly over rated and Oprah Winfrey needs to just roll over and die (i'm speaking about her show, not her soul).

For years women have been "making up for lost opportunity and inequality" caused by men and society of yester-years with this concept of feminism. It was all good, what with the whole "strong confident woman" and "equal opportunites as men" and with an uprise in Women's Rights over the past 3 decades to the point i can safely say a woman in today's world is no different from a man, except that part about physical strength and a penis which only comes with testosterone and that's something we can't be fair about.

Back in the Nineties, emboldened by the successes of feminism, women sought to slay the dragon of patriarchy by turning men into ridiculous cissies who would cry with them through chick-flicks and then cook up a decent lasagne.

Suddenly, women wanted to drive home their newfound equality by moulding men to be more like them.

This velvet revolution was reflected in a series of broader cultural changes. After decades of uncompromising movie heroes like Marlon Brando and Clint Eastwood, we were asked to fall for stuttering, floppy-haired fops like Hugh Grant; touchy-feely and hopelessly embarrassed around women.

These are cardboard cut-out men who gush with empathy whenever their wives and girlfriends need to dump their professional stresses and female angst on them: weak and soulless men who haven't the guts to make a mark themselves, who take the passenger seat in their women's juggernaut journey to post-feminist Nirvana.

Men are now generally terrified of women. They hold their tongues for fear of being misinterpreted as sexist; they constantly attempt to secondguess their partner in order to avoid giving offence.

They preen themselves with groaning shelves full of beauty products so they won't incur derision and scorn. They suppress their masculinity and present themselves as cuddly Mr Nice Guys, and won't project self- confidence in case it's regarded as unreconstructed machismo.

This backfiring feminist conspiracy has, of course, developed hand in hand with the march of raging political correctness all over the world. The two have combined like some potent chemical reaction to explode in the faces of a generation of women who thought that a 'moulded' man would make for a desirable one.

In recent years, men have been trained like circus seals to be inoffensive to women, and no longer know how to entice them and turn them on.

Women THINK they know what they want. A moulded man. But in reality, a man with a swagger, great confidence and has genuine respect for her without being a total doormat pussy who'd do anything for her is what a woman needs.

Real men don't pretend or even try to understand women. They simply love them for being the mysterious, capricious creatures that they are. And they don't take them too seriously, either. They know the vicissitudes of the female mind, its constant insecurities and the fluctuations in mood.

Rather than pander to them, they simply watch them drift by like so many clouds on the horizon.

They don't get entangled in a woman's feelings and listen to her prattling on and on until she's talked herself out. Such strong and stoic men are exactly what women need to anchor themselves amid the chaos of their emotions.

Don't get me wrong, I know all a woman needs is a listening ear, some emotional dump she can use to make herself feel better. I have been on the receiving end of many long monologues on the hopelessness of a relationship , on boyfriends who seem to not make the cut and i do it because i'm a friend, and a friend will do anything to make someone he/she is close to feel better even in truth, deep down inside, he/she doesn't give a damn.

I will continue on this path. A path of honesty and integrity and not pretentious air and metrosexual vibes generated for the benefit of women craving for the New Male. I tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to, and if you don't like it, find that New Male of yours who'll sit with you and emphatise and not provide a solution to your woes.

Quite frankly, i've been labeled a sexist and a Male Chauvinistic Pig (MCP) in recent months and i just don't feel offended. I used to be a caring, sensitive, New Male wannabe who would have probably become of those chaps walking with a lady's handbag swinging from an arm, but not anymore.

Meet the new me. The dying breed of uber-male who will cut you down with words if you cross a line. The male who will give you what you need, but not what you want.

Cheers from the,

Matrix

The Engine matters the most

Did 5 laps of NTU with my friends from the jurong area. All of them ride aluminium and titanium frames and its bloody good stuff to ride uphill on a heavy bike.

Went for an extra lap after they left to burn off whateve remaining will-power and energy left and came across this chap on my fave bike, a Trek Madone.

I decided to be cheeky and overtook him on my mongrel el-cheapo Trek, fully expecting him to blast past me later on. And so he did, until the SBS slope.

If there's one thing i've learnt from cycling this past year, no matter what people tell you, better equipment won't make u better, its the reason i'm not upgrading my wheels and attempting to add carbon fibre bits to the bike.

It makes you strong to ride something heavy and boy it felt good to make a SGD5000 dollar bike eat my SGD800 version's dust up that hill. Nice start to the weekend =)

Cheers from the gloating ,

Matrix

Being selfish

I am selfish.

There I said it, happy now? I value my own plans, my own future above anything else apart from my immediate family.

I had a chat with a friend the other day and she asked me why i've had no gf ever. It kind of irritated me (she asked me this on V-day). I told her blankly i cannot commit myself at the moment. She asked why. I said relationships are all about give and take. You go into one with 100% commitment if you want it to work and that's something i cannot give when i'm only 22 and have yet to settle down and fulfill whatever it is i have planned for myself.

And then she said : "You are selfish aren't you?"

I cannot multitask. I have tried and failed. I am sure i will not be able to work on my own plans and make time for someone and factor her into my plans. Its not possible. I want to pursue a postgrad course, I want to travel and work, i do not want to be burdened with planning a future that includes someone else.

I have been severely tempted to commit myself, to admit to someone(s) over the years, only to hold back when i start thinking of the complications to my immediate future. That's selfish, but i am not going to apologise for it. For if i'm not willing to do what's necessary for myself, who else is going to?

Of course, this will change if i meet a like minded person, whoever she might be who'll drop by and rock my world with her similar mindset. Till then, this person is going to keep at what he's been doing for the past 10 years, work at trying to be SOMEBODY.

Cheers from the,

Matrix

Its a question of Ethics isn't it?

The supermarkets

Like every other person, my roomie and I frequent NTUC Fairprice (a supermarket along the lines of Carrefour and Tesco). We do it cos its convenient, everything is in one place, neatly catalogued and well priced as they buy in bulk.

I live in Singapore.

A small island off the coast of Malaysia. Its a typical asian society. Well, not that typical. Singaporeans are very westernised though everyone speaks mandarin which i feel is their only connection to their asian chinese roots. I can't say much for myself in the department too. I'm an ethnic indian, though i do speak tamil, i like everyone else in Singapore, am westernised to a good extent. But this is another story.....

That being said, lets get straight to the point shall we?

The large super stores kill the small businesses nearby. Those small sundry shops that have been around for eons just close up the minute a large chain store open next door.

But the consumer wins. We get to enjoy low prices, and give no thought to the person who just lost his livelihood and possibly his ability to support a family. Which begs the question:

If the consumer always wins, is something unethical justified? Does enjoying lower prices for a carton of milk and a few oranges justify killing someone's livelihood?

Cheers from the,

Matrix

Blog Revival....

Been too long since i posted anything.

I've started working, well interning actually. For a duration of 22 weeks since Jan 11th. And for the record, if you've been hearing stories of all the wonderful time and how much fun interns have on a one semester break from exams and earning moolah monthly, mine's not really a stroll in the park.

I've signed up with a boss who expects (during peak periods) upto 72 hours of overtime per month from his interns (according to a senior), expects us to handle optimization and automation software for multi-million dollar power plants around Asia Pacific and even go on site (the previous batch were sent to a power plant in Shanghai).

A boss who wants a daily report in his email inbox before the next day. A boss who adds you on msn, takes your handphone number and expects you to answer calls as late as 1 or 2 am regarding work the following day.

Not to mention a boss who appears to be on msn ALL the time.

I won't lie and say its all lovely and i love the pressure, yada, yada, yada. But i've got to admit. 6 months from now, come June, i'm going to come out pretty seasoned from a tough working environment and that's enough. Going into year 4, knowing i've handled work seasoned engineers do, not small jobs interns normally get. I mean, how many graduating students can actually say they've handled projects in Pakistan and Indonesia from a computer terminal all the way in Singapore under a gruff boss?

yes, there is a guy named that where i work.

work area. Cabinets of processors and input/ouput modules and rows of connected computer terminals.

You all probably already know i'm slightly obsessed with cycling.


So, no surprises for the following few upgrades *HUGE GRIN*.

beautiful rare TIME cycling shoes. I'm the only one in the team to wear TIME shoes =). A tad bit pricey but absolutely worth it. Stiff soles, good power transfer to the wheels and now i'm zipping about at 32kph, and hit an all time high of 55kph. All i now need is full carbon bike and i'd hit 60kph easy =)

second hand Shimano 105 groupset. I made the huge leap from a cheap 7 speed set to this 10 speed one. Big big investment, but its going to pay off. The way i ride the old mongrel bike, its not going to last unless i did this upgrade.


see what i mean? notice the missing gear mechanism that's supposed to be attached to the gears. It snapped off while i was shifting to ride faster uphill.


bike in a bus.

I went home to KL for a month, flew back in fact, something i regret doing with a bicycle. The airline took one look at the box, asked what was in it, and the classified the bike as a sports equipment and charged an additional 30 bucks for it. Not to mention the MRT staff who didn't allow my bike which was packed neatly into a box, so i had to splurge on a cab to the airport.

Took a bus back, and it went as planned with no extra surcharge.



PS : On an entirely unrelated note, i'm getting good at talking to random women and not making them feel uncomfortable. Probably cos Y tells i have an uber good guy face (whatever that means). I liked that intelligent malay girl i chatted to at the MRT station. She was promoting a charity thing for the local cancer society and her mature opinions on how pragmatic and materialistic Singaporeans are , and how local stagnant politics will be this country's undoing in future were kind of sexy.

I'm frankly getting tired of talking to immature 21 year old girls who's world is limited to bags, shoes, relationships and painted nails. I need a girl that can spew politics and has strong opinions or i'd probably go crazy and tired of playing gentleman to a useless bum.


And cheers to you too!!


Matrix

Save Gas, Go Green, Get Fit.

I hope this will be a common sight in offices of the future

High time everyone started taking bicycle commuting seriously. The US is and most european cities are starting bicycling programs to encourage more drivers to ditch their cars.

The US federal bailout has set aside billions in tax benefits for bicycle commuters and employers who encourage bicycle commuting at work. I think its the way to go. Give em monetary benefits and people will respond.

I find most asian cities very cyclist un-friendly. Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, even Singapore is not cycle friendly. I get treated like garbage on the road. Taxis honk, busses side swipe me, and once a driver side swiped me and when i caught upto him at a traffic light to confront the dude, the chap challenged me to a fight and shouted i had no right to be on the road.

I mean, wtf?

We aren't allowed by law to ride on pavements, and so the road is our only option. True, there maybe laws about road use that do protect cyclists, but what good are they when we're already dead, run over by some ignorant driver?

What needs to be done, is not a slew of laws to keep drivers in check, but a massive awareness program with monetary benefits to really attract attention in asian cities. Up the profile of cyclists, make helmets compulsory by law for us as well as blinkers, give tax cuts for bicycle purchasing, give tax benefits per person for bicycle commuting.

Make space on trains for bicycle storing. British Railways and Amtrak have bicycle carriages, so why not the MRT, KTM and LRT systems?

Have more bicycle parking facilities and up their security to deter bicycle theft. I mean, carparks have security no? Why not bicycles? They aren't second rate transportation for the poor! Bicycles deserve dignity, and giving them the same treatment as cars is essential to improve the asian perception that bicycling is for the poor.

Start a bicycle registration program. Equal to that of car registration. This is another step towards bicycle security.

If all these are in place, people will start to take out their old dusty bicycles, refurbish them and start cycling. One thing i;ve learnt over the 21 years i've been on this earth is, once a trend starts, it will grow, and bicycling is a trend waiting to be started. You just have to make it convenient enough.

It will not come cheap , making cities bicycle friendly. But it will reap benefits in future, i promise you.

Cheers from the

Matrix

New Year!

Right, time for another annual review of my life. Its been eventful, 2009 that is.

Sports :

I picked up road cycling and i've stuck with it and have come to love it. Its improved my fitness, made me new friends and is starting to drain me of my money. Still, i'd rather spend on something that will keep me healthy rather than on something pointless like an iPhone or a new bag.

Tennis and badminton is officially over for me...for at least another year. My right arm really cannot take the stress anymore. On the downside, i won't be able to enjoy the challenge BC, Vee and Whei Yeap give me on the court for some time, not that it matters anymore seeing the latter 2 are away for 6 months in moose-land.

Projects :

Started off the year with a mega one involving a giant rube goldberg machine for the 2010 Youth Olympic Games. It was by far the most challenging project ever , stressful and bloody rewarding.

EID success , finishing as champions for the Safety and Security category and as champions of the mechatronics robot building competition. Am awfully thankful and honored to have had awesome people to work with on all 3 projects.

Year 3 however was rather quiet. Overloaded with 24 AUs and was studying and cycling most of the time. Pretty dull if you ask me and i would have lost my mind with the regime were it not for a bicycle.

Exams and Disappointments :

I applied for an overseas internship in Japan with the Ford Motor Company. It really was a sweet deal. All expenses paid travel and lodging in Japan, plus the prestige of interning at the huge auto company.

I was shortlisted twice, ending up going head to head with a 3rd year student from Aerospace Engineering, and i lost to her in the end. Painful defeat and i do admit i hate losing. Its an ego thing and its not bad. It keeps me on my toes, always wanting something better.

Speaking of ego bashing.....my examination results weren't good, let alone to awesomeness i was thinking it would be.

I got a freaking C+ in an exam i actually finished an hour early, checked twice and walked out 30 minutes before time. I am truly baffled, perhaps it was soo easy that everyone in the cohort scored bloody well, pushing the graph up and leaving me in the C zone. Or perhaps in my blazing overconfidence, i overlooked several important things and ended up crashing and burning.

Not to mention the B- i got in a ridiculously simple programming paper. I did score 2 marks less for the practical CA than almost every other super genius in mechatronics, but the paper itself was easy. Overconfidence and carelessness again i suspect.

Anyway, i did finish with 4 A-'s in subjects i thought i had bombed in becos i did not finish the papers and solved some questions after making some assumption because the questions were vague. Hur hur. I seem to do well in papers that are tough.

No matter, i can walk out of this knowing i know the subjects well and did not go into the exam hall unprepared, and that it was just a exam cock up. Pity everyone else is going to judge my knowledge based on the 2 hours plus papers. Damn.

On the upside, i did get my first choice internship and Emerson Process Management. Working on a power plant control software for the Fortune 500 American company is a pretty sweet deal and i'm looking forward to that.

Love life :

Non-existant as per norm and quite frankly after listening to 1 semester's worth of breakups and relationship fiascos and cock ups, i'm pretty glad i've been spared the misery.

21st Birthday :

It was special.

I almost never celebrate my own birthday(though i wouldn't say no if a few buddies turn up with a bottle and lots of ice) and it was awfully nice to be surprised at the door by my closest friends and a simple dinner the next day with Garen and Richelle. Best birthday ever.

My bicycles :

Bear with me will you. I know i've been absolutely nutty about bicycles for the past 1 year. Some of my best memories this year were on a bicycle, and the old Jamis and the new trekki deserve some mention in this annual post.

The Jamis. A 450 dollar investment that cost me an arm (literally) and left me with fond memories of it.

Trekkie. The second hand 400 dollar energy draining 40 km/h plus speed demon which introduced me to long distance cycling, sprinting, climbing and riding in large groups with riders from all over singapore. Met new similar minded people on it and improved my fitness on it.

And so, here's to a new year!

Cheers from the,

Matrix