My Blog

Bike Me!

Last Month, before my trip to Penang, I was taking MRT just like any other days. Cramped with all those crowds. Then, the thought came to me. Perhaps, if I cant afford a car, I should get a bike. The cool factor is there!

During the Penang trip, I talked to my parents about the idea of biking. Like any parents, they rejected the idea casually, stating the dangers of riding bike. But, hard-headed as I am, I enrolled myself for Class 2B Bike License course. And, here's my progress:
Practical Lesson 1 = 2x Red Number Tag
Practical Lesson 2 = 1x Yellow Number Tag
Practical Lesson 3 = 1x Green Number Tag
Practical Lesson 4 = 2x Blue Number Tag (Failed first time cos I made silly immediate failure mistakes.)

Practical Lesson 5 = 1x Orange Number Tag

Theory Trial Test = Passed.
Riding Theory Test = Passed in 14 mins.

Practical Lesson 6 Part I = 1x Pink Number Tag with Luminous Stripe

Practical Lesson 6 Part II = 20 Aug Night.

Practical Lesson 7 = TBD

After getting my license, what bike should I get? Certainly a 2nd hand SPORTS bike :D
Here are the options:
1) Honda NSR 150 SP -> Caught my eyes on the first time I googled for a sports bike.

Disadvantage: It is no longer in production and is a very common bike on the road.
Advantage: Looks cool and deemed by forumers to have better handling when cornering the bike.

2) Kawasaki KRR Kips -> an alternative to Honda NSR, similar cool looking factor.

Disadvantage: Smaller wheel compared to Honda NSR, thus needs slower cornering.
Advantage: the in-trend for class 2B

3) Aprilia RS 125

Advantage : COOL LOOK!!!
Disadvantage: High pillion seat? Costlier and lower cc

Well, perhaps, I should just concentrate on getting my license first before focussing on the actual bike.

Meanwhile, any readers may wanna drop a comment on your vote. Bike 1, Bike 2 or Bike 3!!! Poll is now OPEN.

An Update on My Life

Few weeks ago, Marlene chatted with me and asked me to stop blogging on Stocks only. So, Here I am back on daily lifestyle blogging.

I am now in Cleveland, US for a 2 weeks biz trip [7th - 21st Mar]. Weather is FREEZING. What can I expect from winter?

Did plenty of shopping for myself as well as for colleagues and friends and above all, my family. Look at these 2 pics of clothes from Osh Kosh(They are so damn cute!!). One for my youngest niece and youngest nephew.

I got a 4Gb Sandisk microcruiser for my brother. I did shop for 2 pairs of shoes (casual and tennis), a racquet, a 500Gb External Harddisk, few books and lots of clothings for myself.

Feels glad to spend lots of money. :P

Voila! Update again next time.

Cheers,
Erwin Liong

I am Moving....

I have decided to forgo Friendster blog to go along with blogspot.
Here is the link:
http://the-intelligent-investors.blogspot.com/

Stardust and its OST

Thank God It's Friday (TGIF)... What shall I do for the weekend? I have wanted to catch a movie. But, who should I ask? Glad that Jingyang emailed everybody for a movie in the morning. However, response wasn't that great 'cos i suppose ppl have better things to do on Friday night.

Eventually, 3 of us went for movie (Jingyang, Wang Jiao and I). Took the company shuttle bus at 5:55pm and rush down to Jurong Entertainment Center to buy 3 tix for Stardust.

What's for dinner? Jingyang wanted Ramli Burger. We topped it up with sugar cane juice. Jingyang and Wang Jiao had chinese sausages and chicken wings to go with the burger.

The movie is PG-rated. No bloody scene. Even the prince blood is royal blue in color. Out of the movie, I loved the quote "No star can shine with a broken heart". The movie is filled with lots of comedy, a bit of romantic and plenty of fantasy.
A 3.5* ratings out of 5!

At nite, Jingyang sent me one of the OST for the movie.  I rate the OST 4* out of 5!!
"Rule The World" by Take That.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW0HouUCZHg

Here is the lyrics:

[quote]
You light the skies, up above me
A star, so bright, you blind me, yeah
Don’t close your eyes
Don’t fade away, don’t fade away-

Oh

Yeah you and me we can ride on a star
If you stay with me girl
We can rule the world-
Yeah you and me we can light up the sky
If you stay by my side
We can rule the world-

If walls break down, I will comfort you
If angels cry, oh I’ll be there for you
You've saved my soul
Don’t leave me now, don’t leave me now

Oh

Yeah you and me we can ride on a star
If you stay with me girl
We can rule the world
Yeah you and me, we can light up the sky
If you stay by my side
We can rule the world-

Ooooooooh

All the stars are coming out tonight
They're lighting up the sky tonight
For you, for you
All the stars are coming out tonight
They’re lighting up the sky tonight
For you, for you-

Ooooooooh

Yeah you and me we can ride on a star
If you stay with me girl
We can rule the world
Yeah you and me, we can light up the sky
If you stay by my side
We can rule the world

All the stars are coming out tonight (oooooooh)
They’re lighting up the sky tonight
For you, for you-
All the stars are coming out tonight
They're lighting up the sky tonight
For you,for you-

All the stars, are coming out tonight
They're lighting up the sky tonight
For you, for you-
All the stars, are coming out tonight
They're lighting up the sky tonight
For you,for you-
[end quote]

The Pencil - from 93.8FM A Slice Of Life

The Pencil Maker took the pencil aside, just before putting him into the box.

"There are 5 things you need to know", he told the pencil, "before I send you out into the world. Always remember them and you will become the best pencil you can be?

ONE: You will be able to do many great things, but only if you allow yourself to be held in Someone's hand.

TWO: You will experience a painful sharpening from time to time, but you'll need it to become a better pencil.

THREE: You will be able to correct any mistakes you might make.

FOUR: The most important part of you will always be what's inside.

AND FIVE: On every surface you are used on, you must leave your mark. No matter what the condition, you must continue to write.

The pencil understood and promised to remember, and went into the box with purpose in its heart. The parable of the pencil imparts great wisdom in the way we human beings live our lives as well.

Allow this parable on the pencil to encourage you to know that you are a special person and only you can fulfill the purpose to which you were born to accomplish.

Never allow yourself to get discouraged and think that your life is insignificant and cannot make a change.

We are just like the pencil, who can make a difference in our lives and in the lives of the people around us. Don't ever underestimate what you have the power to do!

My dental trip

Today is Friday, 12th of October. RA is closed for today. Any plan for today, Erwin? Nope! Boring day....

Before I start drifting away with my complaints, I should start talking about my dental trip. Chin Yong, my colleague told me about the dental benefits that we as employees are entitled to few days ago. So, I decided to go down to the dentist near my block to "use up" my benefit entitlement for this year.

Chin Yong told me that his dentist is "very pretty, can?". Well, mine is pretty, too. [What in the world is happening!? Why be dentist??]. She is in her mid to late 20s. Tall and wear braces.

My dentist gave my teeth some polishing (cost $50), 2 fillings ($50 each) and some "concentrated fluoride" gel ($20). This amounts to $170 ($20 short of my entitlement).

Polishing was okay.
For Fillings, Dentist: "this is a little sensitive, okay?". Erwin thinking "urm, it hurts! well, not much lar...."

For Flouride gel, Dentist: "rinse ur mouth well and u need to wait 1 hour before u can brush ur teeth or eat anything. If there is any excess, u can either spit it out or swallow it." I was then sent out to wait. Feel very uncomfortable with the sweet gelly in my mouth.... Starts swallowing a little and feel more uncomfortable. Then, I walked over to the sink and spit it all out. What a waste of my $20...

But, well... at least I did something on my holiday. Though, it is not something fancy. What a boring long weekend.

Long time no see....

I was chatting with a friend on msn last week (you know who) and got a request for me to update my blog. So, here I am, trying to do some justice to my long lost blog.

A little update on myself. I am now back in Singapore after a year of training in US. How I miss those memorable times I have spent in US. I wish I can freeze the time and be there forever.

But, life is a reality, whatever goes away has to come back [am i sure? may be not]. For my case, I am back in Singapore; done with training and started with project. Try to keep myself as busy as ever. Hope that I can forget about how much I miss US and focus on my career development.

Good thing about being back in Singapore is being able to meet friends. I suppose I have lost touch with a lot of my friends. Many friends do come and go [here, i just mean there are friends who i see less often now cos we have our own things to do]. Yet, I am glad that I still do have many friends. Hope I can get to see you guys soon and more often.

cheers,
Erwin Liong
- Friendship is just plain beautiful -

Sexy Post or Narcism?

Kok Song, my colleague asked me to give his camera my sexiest pose. So, this is what he snapped.

Narcism is what narcissist does (similar to Forest Gump's Stupid is what stupid does)

First Post in Year 2007 (Winter Activities)

When the cold gets in the way, there is only one thing you can do is to get out into the cold and be on your way to.... WINTER ACTIVITIES!!!!

1. SKI <- nicknamed myself skier17 from the age of 17 but only manage to experience the real thing at the age of 23. BooYaaahhhh....See what you can do with ski... Dog-peeing style (or is it Peeing-Dog style) skier. This is what an amateur like me will do.

2. Snowboarding. Never hide behind the board. Man up, be on it and get down a good slope.

This is a group picture of a team showcasing our swords (i mean snowboards)

What could make yourself a better narcissist than a pose by yourself?

3. Ice-skating
This doesn't stand a chance to be called winter sport cause it is freely available in tropic countries too. BUT, certainly an open ice skating should deserve some credit.

4. Watching "Air Competition". Skiers and/or snowboarders compete in doing jumps on steep slope.

5. Photography. Pictures with many whites are certainly great things to see. It makes my day just to see the peaceful snows falling gracefully. (from inside a heated building). But, I hate the cold and dryness, though. And also, the fact of having to brush snow off my car).

The carpark below our apartment, all covered in snow, with car tracks.

Cold yet the EVERGREENs are still GREENs. Duh, what do you expect?
(Picture stolen from Puji)

6. Tobaggon. Riding a snow sledge down a slope. Totally missed this during my CNY visit to Medan. Colleagues went for it without me *sob sob*

7. Travelling. Detroit for this Sat? Eastern and Western trips with my parents come April till June.

8. *Geek* Programming work, of course. This is where the source of income is! Wont elaborate much cos i wouldnt want to bore anyone.

Anyway, this should be a good place to end this posting. No one reads my blog anyway. Prove me wrong.

Let's get TECHNICAL!!

Quoted from http://visualcpp.net/index.php?qID=16

• Using initialization list you can init non-static class members before constructor is called.

• Order of class members initialization is the same as the order of their declaration. Order of members in initialisation list has no effect.

• Prefer initialization list for assignment in the class constructor.

• Never declare class members as a public. Use member functions to access members, that gives more flexibility, more control. Less headache.

• If member function does not change class members, declare it as a const.

• Using the inheritance do not forget about virtual destructor.

• You can use static variable inside of function call. It will be initialized once (with your init value or with zero(s) by default) the function is called first time and the line of code of that value initalization is reached. For class variable a constructor will be called at this point. The value will not be reassigned each time the function is being called.

• There is no guaranteed order of initialization of global variables.

• Using std::map template be aware: doing a lookup with [] operator is not safe. If the key does not exist, a new entry for the key will be created with a mapped value by default for mapped type. No exception will be thrown. Use find() instead to handle such a case properly.