Common Courtesy and Decency

Today's society is rotten. 

It is a debatable issue and i welcome thoughts and opinions on it. But this is my take on it so far. I'm not going to embark on a long and philosophical post, nor am i going to start being a hobo and ranting about money eroding the nobility in us humans.

I am however going to talk about the lack of common courtesy and decency in today's society , the urban one to be more specific. 

More specifically its 2 incidents that spawned this thought.

I was coming back late night a month or so ago  after going home for Diwali. So my bro and I hired a cab to take us to the nearest MRT station. And since it was not 6 yet, we decided to wait an hour in the hotel where the bus dropped us off to avoid the 50% taxi surcharge. So, whilst my brother snored , i decided to people watch.

And boy was i disgusted.

I saw this chap in a cheap suit (i know its cheap cos its pinstriped and the lines on the shoulders don't match with the pinstripes on the front and the arms....my advice...get a black suit...it ALWAYS looks good).

And so this chap hailed a cab. The taxi driver stopped and this chap pulled open the door and barked some directions. Cabbie nodded and popped the boot to store the suitcases.

The said chap-with-the-cheap-suit then lit up a cigarette and lounged on the railing at the taxi stand in a very cool style (legs crossed and paper in hand) while the cabbie loaded the luggage.

Now this is what pissed me off.

Cabbie looked 60. Chap was half his age..maybe late 30 at most. The bastard (excuse the language) jus stood there whilst grandpops struggled with his idiotic 30 plus kilo luggage alone , smoking and puffing away beneath a sigh that clearly said "no smoking".

I don't know how many of you guys have chatted up a late night cabbie , but these chaps drive from 6pm all the way until 5 am. 11 hours on the road and that chap was 60. And you have 

bastards who don't give a damn. 

You may argue he's getting paid 50% more cos its after 12am. But come on.....would you act the same way if it was your father loading the car? Would it hurt you to extend a little care?

Something similar happened last night when i was out. A waitress this time. Beautiful filipino i should think. And so, being stoned and bored , i kept watching her serve drinks to the patrons and noticed how she kept running about, always walking in those heels , carrying trays of drinks and food, and always smiling and asking how the patrons were.

And then i wondered...how long does she do it? And so i waited to get her attentiona and then i placed an order. When she delivered , we had this convo:

Me  : Evening miss. Noticed you don't wear the same uniform as the other waiters and waitresses.

Her : I'm a host you see. Have to be a bit presentable.

Me  : How long are you on your feet usually?

Her : I start at about 6pm and end at 2am on weekdays and on 4 on weekends.

Me  : 8 to 10 freaking hours? Don't you sit and rest at any point?

Her : Hardly. Its very tiring , but i need the job. 

And i thought i had a rough semester. It really makes you think. I honestly do not think drunk patrons at 2 am are decent. 

And so, it pisses me off now whenever anyone treats a waitress or waiter like a subservient service person. Especially in KL when i saw this chap yelling down an A&W once when the waiter gave him a root beer without the ice cream.

Society is rotten.

Matrix

Its a secret so don't keep bugging me about it.

I keep secrets well. Even from from my besties.

And when certain secrets are let slip by someone in the know as well , and if you happen to hear it , DO NOT come to me for more of it. It is futile even if your my own mother and openly KNOW there is a secret of some sort and actively try to pry it from me. You'll have to bludger me and drown me in alcohol to extract it.

This semester especially i had to guard to lot of secrects , more of others than my own (probably cause i say whatever i have on my mind or am feeling to my besties...even the deepest ones...that i have none left to call my own).

I'm saying this out cos parties not in the know about certain issues assume i will crack easily cause:

1) They have known me for years

2) They are my besties

3) The emotional game works on me

Sorry mates and girls , the overused "You call yourself my pal and not tell me??" bores me.

I still love you folks , but please understand one thing that i do very very well. If someone trusts me with a secret, then they can safely go to sleep knowing my  mouth will be locked up tighter than Fort Knox about it.

And i expect the same thing in return. Whatever comes out of my mouth is meant for your ears and your ears only. Would appreciate it if you did not go about pouring my personal stuff down the ears of others. 

Ho ho

EXAMS ARE OVER!

*at least for the next 6 months*

I ended the exams with a bang though..... sort of. My last paper was Fluid Mechanics , and the paper was the toughest anyone had ever seen in the last 4 years. 

The girl next to me , first zooming through the first question happily was reduced to a hair tearing , table hitting , sobbing wreck within an hour into the paper.

The chap in front of me kept clicking his tongue and making inhuman noises.

Oh well, at least it was not a boring paper. The bell curve should save us all.

BBQ IS TODAY (am blogging at 4.30am singapore time)!!!!! And i am going to cycle for the third time in Singapore....or roller blade depending on who turns up and what the majority wants to do.....

Oh, by the way, i spent the whole night tweaking my comp to run faster and a friend's blog recommended this utility software (freeware) and i in turn totally recommend it!

Jus download it here

Advanced SystemCare V3

I lied.....

The Toyota Land Cruiser

The japs have been making this model for like 30 or 40 years already and they just keep getting better. If you are an avid off roader and need a car that can get through even a hail of sniper fire and RPGs (rocket propelled grenades for people who have not watched a war movie)

I was not joking. These cars do get through a hail of sniper rounds with no problems on a regular basis.

UN peace keepers and journalists use them in Iraq and they featured heavily in Somalia and other Middle eastern and African troubled spots. The reason being their engineering is soo basic and ruggecd you can throw anything at it and it would still move.

Think of them as an army of T2000s:

They just don't freaking DIE!!!!

Truth be told , the new Land Cruisers are not cheap. The 2008 model is a quantum leap forward from the old 98 one. Its got an onboard computer which monitors your driving terrain and adjusts the ratio of power sent to the wheels.

This has been a feature for quite some time on upmarket SUVs such as the Range Rover and the Porsche Cayenne , now available on the Toyota , just making it better....



It is the 4 wheeled version of Adriana Lima in a power suit.....

ooooh la la...

There lies the problem though. You cannot treat a RM 600K SUV like a......well....a Toyota. Thrash it about and you'll have to pick up the expensive bills. Try taking Adriana Lima on a rough cross country run and you'll be facing an expensive divorce.

Take HER (look at pic) though , and she'll love you more for it.

In a nutshell, the land cruiser is like a beautiful sporty, outdoorsy woman as compared to hot adriana limas in power suits (Range Rover). One you can have fun WITH , as compared to one you have to have fun with WHILE adhereing to the strict guidelines which include:

1) No insects.
2) No sweating
3) No injuries form trekking
4) Not too much sun



Cheers from the,

Matrix

PS: Check out the Land Cruiser vid below:

I do wonder why we have exams?

"Exams are a poor gauge of just how good you are"

Says this chap. My lecturer for Kinematics and Dynamics of Machinery , and my future systems integration for Robotics lecturer (He's Taiwanese and is very critical of the Singaporean way of doing things...but that os another post altogether).

And i could not agree more mate

Allow me to rant on a module that is completely irrelevant to you (unless you happen to be a first year mechatronics student , in which case prepare yourself for the most boring exam ever.

Cause if there is something i hate , its a no brainer exam which insults you further by making you go through pointless calculations which even a monkey can do by holding the pen in its nose and while scratching its arse.

In basic terms , Kinematics and Dynamics of Machinery is all about mechanisms such as multi-jointed links which are the core of any moving mechanism.

For instance , your weight machines. You know the one where you pull a handle or something and a weight is moved somewhere? Ever wondered how you design a mechanism for that? We have theories that govern how links and joints are connected to make the machine.




Your basic 4 bar mechanism. Ok , in a nutshell , by using geometry and some obscure theory we can govern how this mechanism behaves simply by varying the ratio of the lengths of the links with each other. Which is very very interesting.

But the part i hate is this. There are no practicals.

I mean, i would love it if we were given a challenge to build some form of mechanism for a practical real life application using whatever we learnt , and that plus a few more projects would count towards like 60 or 70 % of our final grade.


Noooo....

What they do is, give you a paper with redundant questions which do not test your mental capabiulities , but test how much you can write down and draw in 2 hours 30 mins.

Ok, i admit, i could not finish 25% of one question. There. I said it.

I'm so pissed i could not, cause I really knew how to do it. But ran out of time.


WHY???


Cause i had to sit down and draw 4 stupid diagrams which ate up 90 minutes, diagrams i could perfect and color and render in 3D for the examiners if the had given me access to SolidWorks and an IBM laptop.

That being said. I want practicals. I want to dabble in REAL engineering. Not write some paper which dwells on redundant technology and contains questions like:

"Please calculate all the forces at the joints of the given mechanism , given that every link experiences an acceleration at its centre of gravity at and angle of 230 degrees (20 marks)"

Sounds difficult , but trust me, its not. Its just TEDIOUS. And a complete waste of time. Cause if i were a REAL engineer, i would place pressure gauges in every joint,hook it up to a laptop and show a realtime variation in the forces as the mechanism works.

Having said that, thank god i'm done with it and will be moving on to some real stuff next semester.



Cheers from the,

Matrix

Not the usual kind of post.....

This one's about cars. My posts normally range from childish ranting to intellectual (at least i think) views on matters ranging from politics to ethics and morals.

And sometimes i just like to blast something in the most irrational way ever , cos the thing i blast is stupid, nonsensical and involves ideas conceived by people with IQ levels of a brain dead roach.


I will come out directly now and admit , my taste in cars is not that of the average jock's. I would never buy a Ferari , nor a Lamborghini. That's weird enough as it is.

Having said that , i will admit though , my taste is parallel with the norm when it comes to certain cars.

Like all sane people , i do think the 2 year old Aston Marin DB9 is a thing of beauty:


......but the new Aston Martin DBS is a senseless buy..


it costs much much more , looks the same as the DB9 and though its performance is much much better , it is much more uncomfortable than the DB9.

Now , i do not drive , nor do i have a licence. But the uncomfy bit is not too hard to gauge when the DBS has a stiffer suspension than the DB9.

But then again , this post is not going to dwell on the technical jargon most car reviews drool on. Its about cars i like , and as such its going to be touch and go.....

if i could not afford the Aston's price , hows about the new XF form Jaguar?


Cheaper , looks very very sexy. I bet if it could talk it'd say this:

"Ho ho! Out of way mini cooper or i'd hump you , rip your british flag painted on roof and stuff it down that pathetic excuse for a tail pipe and then eat your owner...all while driving in circles around you"

I bet it would squeak

I guess you can tell i don't like the new Cooper S. Its ugly. If i were to buy a Mini , i'd buy this little chap:

1973 Mini Cooper S

A proper car, unlike the new poser version they call the Cooper S.


The Germans

The Germans lack soul. the stuff they make .......its got no love in it , no passion. Unlike Feraris and Lamborghinis and Pagani Zondas , built by craftsmen in small towns , the Germans who were more sane than these people , used proper engineers and poured complex mathematics and physics and materials and electronics knowledge to create this:

Mercedes Benz CLK AMG Black Series

Its a mad mad car , faster and more powerful than most Feraris , yet civilized enough to be driven every day , needing no service once driven every 70 yards. But i won't buy it , cos my idea of mercs are still stuck on this:

the image of the family car

Sorry , cause if i wanted a family car , i'd go out and buy this:

New Toyota Land Cruiser

So , my heart won't bleed when my daughter drips ice cream on the seats and also i can go about squashing Mini Coopers without the japanese engine dying on me.



NOW........

the german performace car i would buy would be this:

the extremely cliched Porsche 911 Turbo

Its not as pricey as the merc , the service bills won't kill you like a Ferari's , and it can be driven to work and outstation comfortably. Though i would prefer the Aston DB9 for trips across Europe :P


The Japanese

Any Toyota or Honda.....i'd buy em, no questions asked. My dad's Corolla lasted 20 plus years before it died. Nuff said.

Performance? I'd get the cliched ones below:

Mitsubishi Evo 10



Nissan Skyline GTR

Right , this would be my last car post for sometime.

Cheers from the,

Matrix

Quantum of Solace review

Quantum of Solace was awesome.

But its not a movie everyone will enjoy watching. That's cos its not a Bond movie. Its a supercharged Jason Bourne , not 007 kicking baddie ass throughout the 106 minutes it ran.

Its a large step away from the typical bond movie formula (as roomie eloquently put)

Typical 007 formula

50% Bond
30% baddies
10% sex and Bond girls
10 % gadgets
Quantum of Solace formula

80% Bond
10% baddies
9% bond girl
1% sex and gadgets


Gone are the slick moves with a Walter PPK in hand and this line was non-existant:

"The name's Bond, James Bond"

The Aston Martin was thrashed in the opening scene , Bond had no weapons 75% of the time and was dealing out haymakers like Bourne. The fight scenes were not stylised but were out there in a very brutal realism style...Bourne again.

But what really struck a chord with me was the mayhem Bond always left in his wake. The brutality with which he treats baddies and his fallen comrades. The instinctive and uncouth way he goes about his business.

A far cry from the suaveness of this chap:

But this is where everyone gets it wrong. We're looking at a young Bond. A few months into his 00 status. The movie picked up a few hours after Bond captured Mr White.

Being new to the 00 game , he would naturally lack the maturity and class his older versions portray in other movies , yet the raw arrogance remains , unchecked by the lack of suaveness and composure.

Craig brought that out perfectly with the new Bond.

There were a lot of changes from the typical Bond movies......

Even the opening music and the classic opening scene (this one) :

......paled in comparison to the really cool camera angle motion at the start.

And the whole movie was almost devoid of the Bond theme and instead we had indie music playing most of the time.

And gone was the mainstream feel of the opening music. We had heavy bass guitar work + indie rock by Jack White from The White Stripes.

Its definitely not a movie everyone would enjoy. I did though.

Enjoy the vid underneath!!

"Another Way to Die" by Jack White and Alicia Keys