This is an iPod, currently the world's most popular portable music player. It debuted back in 2001 and has been dominating the portable music player industry ever since.





This is the Microsoft Zune, Bill Gates' answer to the iPod. An answer which got retorted almost immediately. The Zune drifted in and out of the portable music player market between 2006 - 2008 and then disappeared entriely after that. In 2010, Microsoft says Zune has been incorporated into their Windows 7 Phone OS. In other words, they cannot sell a standalone portable music player. Which also means, they cannot rival Apple's dominance in the industry.





This is a hide-a-pod casing for iPods. The case has been delibrately made to look like a Microsoft Zune so as to trick people that you are using a Zune from far. That way, snatch thieves wouldn't give a rat's ass about robbing your pathetic Zune player from you, because it sucks. Oh wait, but you are actually using an iPod. Cloaked in the disguise of a Zune. Inception.





This is an iRiver H10. That is all.





This is my gramaphone, a device which have been invented in 1877 and has brought the joy of music to the world since then.

It is not an iPod.

It is not a Zune.

It is definitely not an iRiver H10.

Actually, it should be the iPod, Zune and iRiver can never be a good, old classic gramophone. The music produced by this chic beauty is pure and enchanting, without the intoxicating bass which have been commercialized in music nowadays. Here is a video of my gramaphone playing a vinyl record.



Nice tune ain't it?





These are some of my vinyl record collection.





Circa 1977. Actually, it is from 1977.





Oh, I see someone familiar.





Its 东方不败 in her younger days!





A CD and a vinyl recording.





In case you don't know, the sound quality on a vinyl record trumps that on a CD/DVD/Blu-Ray anytime.

I love my gramophone.

I find it neccessary to share this piece of news with my readers; local readers can get a feel of how things will progress in our country in future while international readers can, well, be shocked at our local automobile market and go WTF!?

When COE inflates, your ride deflates?

The rise of prices of the Certificates of Entitlement (COE) defies logic. The results are astonishing, considering that the COE price of a single Category A could have bought you a second car three years ago. But are Singaporeans making blind purchases during these unpredictable times?

I have often encountered people breaking the ice with me with the question: "How's the car market now?" Of course, there are questions to be answered, but the issue is not about when the COE market will dip. It's about what this situation is going to bring us in the next five years.

The manufacturing cost of an average Japanese sedan is an average S$20,000, and the COE that you have just paid for ($72,501 for cars above 1,600cc) is about three bags "fool" of it. It is an enormously inflated figure, which some have justified by saying that hacking away at the Quota allocation tree is fundamental in slowing down the rise in the vehicle population in Singapore. Naturally, not one of us likes this arrangement at all. Or do we?

It seems that, over time, we are getting used to this inflation. We are gradually accepting the practice of paying more for the entitlement to own a car locally, rather than paying for the symbolic value of the car itself. Sales of brand new cars are slackening, while the pre-owned market is booming. Vehicle financing institutions are showing more support than ever in raising their valuation of the market prices of vehicles and granting higher loan facilities to the consumers. How then does this judgment help in administrating a healthy control on the vehicle population in Singapore?

Buy a Japanese hatchback now and finance it on a 10-year loan tenure, and you will possibly find yourself embroiled in a $60,000 debt five years later. The glitch is, would your ride be worth $60,000 on the open market five years down the road?

My answer is likely to be "No", because one of my personal friends bought a five-year-old unit at a reasonable price of $36,000 only recently. So you see, there is little logic to the market right now.

So there it is. This is the kind of price Singaporeans have to pay to buy a car. And no, its not a luxury sedan like BMW, Mercedes, Audi or Jaguar. Its a basic Japanese sedan. Which can cost up to $150,000. Impressive isn't it? Even a shitty Chinese car from the shitty land of China can cost up to $150,000 as well.

WTF seriously.

The original article can be found here.

Remember the law of conservation of momentum we learnt in secondary school physics? Here it is in action.



When two or more objects collide elastically, the one with the least mass will be deflected the furthest away.

Physics... how amazingly beautiful!

How do you conquer your fears when you don't know when it is real?



Social worker Emily Jenkins saved a girl, Lilith Sullivan, from being roasted alive by her parents. She then volunteered to look after the girl while Child Services finds a temporary foster home for her. Emily thought Lilith's parents were crazy, until she realizes that there is something evil hiding beneath the quiet, innocent facade of Lilith Sullivan. A demon. Emily soon finds herself in the shoes of the Sullivans, trying to kill Lilith.

But how could she kill something that can manipulate her mind, creating illusions in her head that depicts the worst fears which she has hidden away in the deepest, darkest corners of her heart. Well, she found a way. And that is to "not be afraid", for if you are "not afraid", then there is nothing the demon can hold over you.

Right. It makes sense. But as with all philosophical solutions, difficult to apply.

How exactly do you conquer your fears when you don't know when it is real?

Let's assume you have dysmorphophobia. Playing on this weakness of yours, the demon makes you see that you have scars and bruises and wounds and lacerations on your body. You may know that you don't have those physical defects in the first place. Or you may not (which essentially means you are screwed). But you have that phobia to begin with. So how do you counter that?

Sure, you can tell yourself these are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real. These are not real.



But that is still a very abstract solution. Not everyone has a strong mind to pull themselves back to reality. In other words, most of us are pretty much screwed. Oh, you can probably pinch or, even better, stab yourself and let the pain pull you back. But that also depends on knowing when you are in an illusion and when you are not. Which brings us back to square one.



The Mangekyo Sharingan is probably then only thing that can counter the demon's illusion. Only the Uchiha Clan has this special eye power. Which means only a small percentage of Japanese people will be able to survive a mental battle with the demons.



They got Jodelle Ferland, the same girl who acted as Alessa Gillespie in Silent Hill, to act as the Lilith Sullivan. She couldn't had been a better choice. Just watch her in action. Her creepiness when she is all silent and the cold stare she gives, as is staring right into your soul. Perfect attributes for portraying something from the dark side, in both films. The even better part is she can become a cute, harmless, innocent and mommy's little girl in an instant!

She is so going to be the next Audrey Hepburn. You go girl. I am rooting for you.

Imagine if you were brutally raped by 5 strangers and somehow survived the ordeal, what would you do? Call the police? Commit suicide? How about exacting vengeance upon those filthy beasts who defiled your life?

That is the premise of I Spit on Your Grave.



Now I believe some of you guys might have guessed what the hedge clipper will be used for. Is it some kind of natural instinct for us men to think that way whenever we see a woman with some cutting device? Maybe.

To cut the long story short, aspiring novelist Jennifer Hills rented a cabin in the countryside to stay for a couple of months so that she can focus on her new novel with nobody to disturb her. Unfortunately, she offended some local guys and they decided to rape her as punishment. 5 men took turns to violate her in the worst manner possible and attempted to kill her after the dastardly deed. However, she managed to escape and evade them. After that, she hunted each and every single one of them down and treat them the way they treated her, except a million times worst. The film ends when she finally killed the last one of the men, with a smirk on her face.

This film is a remake of the film with the same name in 1978. It was a very controversial film then and still is now because of the extended scenes of gang rape and sexual violence against a woman. In fact, critics argue that the rape scenes are much more likely to occur to a woman in real life than the revenge of Jennifer Hills, which was depicted in a "cartoonish horror-flick impossibilities". I agree. But then again, its just a movie. And I feel that the crux of the film is the idea of taking revenge on the bad guys. Make them suffer utterly for the things they did to you. VENGEANCE.

The film had a budget of $2 million but it only brought in $572, 809 worth of revenue, meaning it sucked so much that it couldn't even get enough viewers to break even. That would mean the film only had a small following. And I am part of that small following. Which means I am not in the mainstream group of viewers. Hmmm. Whatever that means.




Fish hooks.


Eyes wide open.

Smear some fish guts on.


Wait for the crows to come.


And then you know.


Take a bottle of lye.


Empty it into the tub.


Wait for his abs to give way.


See his dissolved tongue.


Dissolved face.


And something like that.


Surprise.


No.


NOOOOOOOOOO!


NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!


You know this is gonna happen.


A shotgun.


Up his ass! (Guess why.)


A string on the trigger.


A hole in your face.


Like a boss.

As much as I hate China for their relentless copying of other people's products such as the
Nokla, Dongfeng MPV (BMW), BlueBerry and HiPhone (don't be mistaken, this is not the end, the list goes on forever) and passing it off as their own product, at least they didn't copy someone else's idea for their national day celebration.



Even if you really, really must copy, at least choose a more suitable song to copy. Bad Romance is not exactly a patriotic song. Unless of course, we are suppose to treat the independence of our nation as a, well, bad romance. And that's not all, the organizing committee didn't know they had to apply for permission to change the lyrics of the song, which might land them in trouble with copyright laws. Instead of "didn't know", I believe its more "can't be bothered to check thoroughly".

Sigh. Do we really have no talent to compose a proper song? No doubt this Fun Pack Song is not the theme song for this year's NDP but still, its part of the performance to celebrate our independence. Some national pride is in order.

But WAIT! That's not all!

The Taiwanese media has picked up on this juicy news and criticized the NDP organizing committee for coming up with such a stupid song. I don't blame them for it. Because we really deserve it for doing stupid things.

This makes me wonder, will the Colonel who planned this year's NDP get promoted after August 9th?

The whole world is against me. I shouldn't put myself in harm's way again.

Have I lost the courage? Or is the pain such an excruciating one, from which you can never recover fully?

I don't know.

What a bother. To be human, that is.

I decided to change the template of my blog again to fit in a comment section instead of using the tagbox, which has been taken over by retarded drones of late. As usual, I went to blogskins.com to browse through their list of templates but the site has degenerated into something akin to a bot web; there were dummy links everywhere leading to nowhere. Their search function isn't working and I can't browse manually without being interrupted by their "Our site can't retrieve what you are searching for, please try so and so method"-ish messages.

Then I realized Blogger itself has refreshed its own set of templates and not only that, the templates are fully customizable now! So this is what I ended up after doodling around with all the settings, for now.

I gotta go collect my blender now. Whoooo~